MOOP!

Oh dang, today has been fantastic! After seven days of being low-key depressed and highly burnt out, I think I have finally gotten the hang of this vacation thing! Can't wait...to go back to work in like thirty-six hours. Fuck.

But today has been really good at least.

I am currently in Vermont for a few days, hanging with my Tuesday-love (and also my all-the-other-days-of-the-week love, haha she loves puns about her name like that) and having a jolly time. The house up here is absolutely lovely, cozy and warm and full of interesting things and good design and love. And two very charming cats, Meadow and Caiou!

Today was a ~no alarms~ day which is always a good thing and often a rare thing, and of late it has been especially rare that me _and_ the person I'm curled up in bed with have no alarms. (I mean, I'm not _mad_ that my partners have day jobs, but dangit!). So naturally we got up about nine, and ate breakfast and showered and puttered around for a while being snuggly and cute and close to each other.

Before lunch was reading some comics --I finished the second squirrel girl volume and I am on the third-- and then it was time for lunch and more Game Changer, which we've been enjoying watching together. (I have bought myself a Dropout subscription because it is not too terribly much money for a year's worth of Good Television and dangit, next time I visit mom I _really_ need to show her some of these, they scratch that Taskmaster itch real good).

Just after lunch we flipped through my new cookbook and picked out what we wanted to make, since Tuesday's birthday is tomorrow and she should have a nice cake. She picked the Cold Oven Cake, and we set aside the recipe for later.

First though was going outside for a bit, because we hadn't managed it the day before, when it was actually nicer than like nine degrees fahrenheit. c'est la vie. It was really really soul-soothing for me to go outside and get to tromp around in the snow a bit though! We saw cool ice crystals and beautiful vistas and I very much enjoyed a little bit of proper winter, since Boston has not done anything of the sort.

Back home, to warm up and snuggle on the couch and play our separate video games a bit --me finishing Hexcells plus (and I'm almost done the core of Infinite and then I can just play around in the actual infinite mode sometimes) and her working on Chants of Sennaar. Finally it was time to bake...the cake!

I am a nervous baker at best, so I was happy to let Tuesday take point. Still though, B. Dylan Hollis is a man who believes in everyone being able to cook, and his cookbook is written for a fairly basic skill level. We managed to get through the recipe with only two substitutions.

First, there both wasn't almond extract nor do either of us prefer it, so we subbed orange instead. This was a great choice, and adds a very nice bit of flavour to the cake.

Second, we didn't have bundt pan. So we Made Do:



It was my joke ("well what if we just put a cup in the middle of the round pan") and Tuesday's execution --the Pyrex was a good choice except that it didn't get the same amount hot, so the inside is quite pale --not gooey, mind, but pale. Tuesday points out that a thinner batter would possibly seep under the pyrex (and bubble it up, or burn), but luckily ours was fairly stiff and we avoided that problem.

Still though, the taste is amazing --it's surprisingly rich, slightly orangey, has caramelization around the edges that adds just a stellar textural note...what a success! I am buoyed and will have to try and make more cakes sometime (there's one that uses jello that I'm excited about...)

We also had dinner and more game changer and a bit of The Horne Section and now we've done (most of) the dishes and are back to cozy cozy together.

It's a really good vacation. Tomorrow I come home, and if she drives with me, we'll probably have a nice stop in the white mountains for just a bit of sightseeing. (if I'm on the bus, I will read Squirrel Girl comix until the motion sickness makes me stop.)

~Sor
MOOP!

You know what's the ups?
Gee Sor, no! What is the ups?
I've got a delightful houseguest at the moment, and he's got a not at all delightful migrainey thing. Neither of us has eaten dinner yet. And I own a pair of goddamn cat ears.

Let's.
Do.
THIS!



For those of you who don't remember those halycon days of 2012, back before I had a job (no really), I once came up with a totally brilliant idea for a side blog project, and then never put any work into it again. It's called Cooking with Cat Ears, and details how completely shite I am at cooking.

But the cat ears help.

( How exactly, is explained beneath the cut. (spoiler alert, not actually true.) )

And here we have it:



I have made a thing!
It's about damn time.

~Sor
MOOP!

So, I'm still alive.

Life has been...tough, lately. Not having a job is sort of this low-level stress thing that makes everything else harder to deal with in comparison. I'm applying to Dunkin Donuts, and gonna start looking at other retail stuff. It's not what I want to be doing, but ohlord, I need money more than I need satisfaction at the moment.

***

NaNoWriMo is actually happening, or trying to. I've been averaging barely a thousand words a day, but today I've written 2500 words, and may very well write more. I'm feeling guilty though since I haven't gotten my room clean at all (like I wanted to), and I didn't get outside to do any hooping while it was still theoretically nice out. I feel like I should at least play some DDR or something, but I'll be biking to Squares in a couple hours, and doing that. Not that Squares is all that intense, physically, but the ride is nice.

***

I biked to Springstep for the first time last night. Turns out it's just over two miles from Dinosaur Sashay. I got lost both directions, but managed to sort myself out both times with a lot of "let's just fake it and go in the rightish direction and see what happens. Probably going to try that again, as long as the ground stays dry.

Still really need to get my brakes fixed, yes, I know I've been saying this for months. They'll be fixed before there's snow on the ground, I promise.

***

My WriMo novel is about Dante, ( and then I babble )

***

I've got a couple more ideas in mind for Cooking with Cat-Ears, which yes, is a thing in my world right now. ( Again, I babble )

***

That might be everything I have to talk about right now. My world is pathetically uninteresting, and yet I find myself still too busy to come make proper posts in here very often. Tis the life I lead, alas.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Cooking with people is a good and enjoyable thing though. Being in the kitchen while other people cook for me is lovely and I adore it. I am just not meant to be in charge in the kitchen.

2: Part of the necessity of this one is that I really like pumpkin, but most of it is that we bought a sugar pumpkin while out the other day, and it has to get used eventually. Yeah. There's gonna be a CwCE that involves me turning a pumpkin usable. It's going to be hilarious. I may drink heavily.

Hey beasts. It's cooking time. I am going to make some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that, if they turn out a third as good as Ria usually makes them, will knock you off their feet with how goddamn delicious they are.

I've got music, fuzzy socks, a recipe, and cat ears. Let's rock the hell out of this adventure!

( It gets long and there are pictures, so cut! )

Oh whoops, forgot to take a picture of all of them. Here instead is a picture of all the ones we have left:



They are delicious. They were gone halfway through Squares, and I brought sixty of them. I'm pretty much gonna go ahead and call this Cooking Adventure a success!

And now I eat dinner and write some WriMoNo².

And yeah. I can officially make cookies like a boss!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: OF COURSE it's from Homestuck. And I feel no guilt or shame in this fact whatsoever. And I am going to listen to other stuff.

2: I don't call it "NaNo", because that doesn't make any sense if you unabbreviate it. So I typically call the month "WriMo" for short. Obviously my WriMoNo is my Writing Month Novel! It has 1270 words so far. YAYYYY!

Pee-dot-ess-dot. Because the recipe just *happened* to have been lying around in Ria's tumblr...

Finally got around to uploading the last two months worth of photos. Which means it is time to make photoposts, yayyyyyy.

First photopost is about food, because ( yay food! )

~Sor
MOOP!


1: Because I get different things out of different relationships, is a lot of it.
2: And if Magus is reading this, you _still_ owe me pancakes that win friends and influence people. Dinosaur shaped or not.

I need very important advice, on two different concepts.

The first I will probably have people jumping to give --in Chicago, it has been declared that each of us kids will cook at least one dinner a week. I made some excellent pasta and cheese last week based on Magus's recipe, but I've slacked this week, and have no idea what to cook tomorrow night. Advice and recipes are needed!

( specifics )

The second I will poss...

...dude, I totally just solved the second problem. I need a historical fiction book to read for the library reading challenge thing (which mom is totally kicking my ass on, mostly because I keep reading things like KoDT comics, which are awesome, but I'm not willing to call them some of the eight novels I have to read) and it occurs to me that "Napoleonic era" is totally historical fiction.

And therefore Napoleonic era with dragons is also totally historical fiction, right? Wevs, it follows the rules for histfic I was setting for myself namely not boring, and ideally Regency. Sweet!

(Unrelatedly, Scott Pilgrim is an awesome first book, and I am so pissed that the rest of the series isn't going to make it back to the library until after we've left. I may have to figure out the fastest (biking?) route to a local library to fix this.)

~Sor
MOOP!

ETA: When it comes to recipes, things without many spices are preferred, due to the aforementioned woefully understocked kitchen. So yeah, that. Also, thank you all. <3

So, I apparently need to watch more Alton Brown, as it makes me feel quite clever and knowledgeable in the kitchen. I just made eggs that turned out brilliantly well and easy --quite a feat considering that it consisted of three eggs, some teriyaki sauce, and salt. It was just all the little things, like cracking the eggs on the flat counter rather than the edge of the bowl¹ or mixing the ingredients in a spare bowl first, *then* cooking, or heating the pan and then dumping the mixture in --the eggs cooked in an absolute snap, and Nik and I agreed that they were quite delicious.

That being said, there is little to eat in this house right now besides cereal. I used the last of the eggs, there is almost *no* pasta (though an abundance of sauce), and my original lunch plan of nachos was struck down when I realized there was no meat, lettuce, or satisfactory cheese².

(It should be noted as always that I do not cook, do not enjoy cooking, and indeed, have no concept of how food goes from its raw state in the kitchen to its delicious state in front of me. Any evidence to the contrary was faked, probably by the government, which quite wants me to stay at home and be a homemaker⁴

***

I am reading The Eyre Affair, after having it in my immediate possession for nigh on three years now --I think Keira recommended it, ages ago, before Marc and I were even dating maybe. It's quite good so far; I'm up to chapter seven.

Part of me feels I should read Jane Eyre to go with it, or at least find and watch the musical, but I honestly can't be arsed. Maybe later in the summer, if my general plan of actually reading real books goes well. It seems decent so far --yesterday and the day before I captured odd moments to reread "Spiderweb for Two", and Monday I tore through a copy of "The Vagina Monologues".

Allegations that I am just doing this because Book Club promised trinkets (like, say, gift cards to the local bookstore) are completely true. I do need to read more, however, and it entertains me to just work my way through all the books in my room. Perhaps I'll make a pile.

(Next up might be books 2-4 of the Enchanted Forest chronicles, but the knowledge that Patricia Wrede was part of the whole racefail '09 thing hampers my enjoyment a bit. We'll see. There's certainly other books scrambling for the queue first.)

***

I do not have any cavities. I do have wisdom teeth, but they only seem problematic on the bottom.

***

I can remember how to get to the mall once my memory is jogged --it involves driving to Blue's house, and then not turning to get onto his streets. Oh gods help me, I appear to have returned to Suburbia.

I have not yet walked out to the playground on the left, my playground, or the pool, or climbed my tree. I think this is all in part due to how *hot* it is.

***

I think it is time for me to play RockBand in a bit --Foreplay/Long Time was on in the car and it put me in the mood. Perhaps I'll force myself to get something done, first --cooking lunch⁵ and emptying the dishwasher just don't seem good enough, for whatever reason. Perhaps I should go put away luandry? Yes, that seems like quite the fair trade for being allowed to play DRUMS!. Ta!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Apparently to prevent driving fragments of shell into the yolk. It did seem to work --usually I have to fish a small piece or two out with a larger bit of shell (it works!) but I did not have that problem this time. Whether a fluke or due to more careful cracking remains to be seen, but I like this way.

2: We have tiny wedges of spreadable laughing cow swiss, and (*shudder*) slices of American cheese. The first is quite good, and I've eaten two already since getting back on Monday, but the second is suitable only for grilled cheese, maybe³.

3: ...and we haven't any bread. Ai, I am forcing my mother to go shopping today if it kills me.

4: I am a brilliant homemaker for the first week coming back from college. I'm honestly pretty decent the rest of the time in the Empty City as well --I enjoy doing laundry (not the least because it gives me an opportunity to take my clothes back from Alys), I keep the catbox clean (It's in the laundry room and I don't like walking across spilt litter), I put dishes in the dishwasher, and handwash whatever else lies around, I straighten books (sometimes --it's a formidible prospect, really), and occasionally I go manic and alphabetize the DVDs or organize the games closet or something.

Would I make a good long-term housewife for someone? Maybe. I am quite good with children, and don't even mind vacuuming or scrubbing things down occasionally. The problem is that I, like my mother, run a bit on my own schedule, which means that I get said cleaning done at, um, odd hours sometimes.

Plus, it's exponentially more fun to clean someone else's mess than my own. Just saying.

5: And cleaning the dishes of course. That's part of cooking in my world --I clean dishes outside of cooking, but I can't cook without doing dishes unless I am being a terrible person. Plus, _so much easier_ to wash frying pans clean of eggs if I do it while the pan is still hot.