Sujal has been complaining that I never post — and since my last post was December 4th, I think he may have a point. Things have been crazy with work, and I’ve developed a side obsession with the TV show Scrubs. I don’t know if these posts will be any good. The good news is that you don’t have to read them.
I have such a large international readership, that I have finally decided to abandon my socialist leanings and dive whole-heartedly into the capitalist regime by placing ads on my site. Now all I have to do is sit back and let the checks roll in. I think it’s time I resign from my job, because I think having two incomes might get a bit overwhelming.
Sujal, by the way, is not quite as optimistic about my capitalist venture as I am. I just say he’s a commie.
Hoo-boy! Seems marital bliss has left me with nothing to write about. I seem to have no need to blog, what with all the wifely duties. Okay, okay…got home from wedding, got lazy, school started. Now I am back.
Damn! Our house is a hotbed of brightness since we decided to go and get all new energy efficient fluorescent light bulbs. While the up front expense wasn’t pennies, we figure we won’t have to buy new light bulbs for at least 4-6 years. Hell, if we sell the house and move before then, well have to take our light bulbs with us!
We were motivated to switch all of them over by the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Granted, we’d started buying them before, but we thought it was time for the whole house overhaul. So far, so bright.
So my school seems to be a celebrity magnet lately. For the past few days, we have received an announcement that there would be a “surprise” assembly on Thursday, at a school with no shortage of assemblies (not at all like a public school). So we all piled into the auditorium just like any other Thursday, but instead of only hearing a few announcements, we also got filmclip. Finally David Strathairn stepped out onto the stage! Earlier in the school year, we took the entire upper school to see “Good Night, and Good Luck”. Strathairn plays Edward R. Murrow in that flic. It was very cool to have him come. He talked a bit abut doing film, staying true to a character, particularly when the character was once a real person. We also talked a bit about Murrow. When he first came out, he kept telling the kids just how lucky they are. He’s absolutely right. It was my exact thought as I realized who the guest must be. The students at my school are exposed to all sorts of great opportunities. I can’t say I was exposed to anywhere near as much great talent and art that they are. But I also have to add, as a faculty member there, I’m pretty lucky. I also was not exposed to this much talent teaching in the public system that I used to. That is not to say I didn’t enjoy the public school. I did, and very much. But I am lucky to be at this school, too — authors, artists, actors, researchers, former generals and presidential candidates, social theorists, etc. There are some pretty exciting things going on at my school. (Remind me of this the next time I am wildly stressed out grading 50,000 essays.) Privilege carries responsibilities indeed, but it is also something good to savor and appreciate.
It took me four hours to bake two batches of cookies. I have a burn on my right hand, and I had to throw away about 1/4 of the snickerdoodles, because they did not have enough flour/were undercooked. I have this knack for following a recipe and then just either messing up one part or deciding to stray from the recipe, usually with disastrous results. Instead of adding 2 cups of flour, I grabbed the wrong measuring cup and added 2 one-half cups of flour (so one cup total). OOPS! I tried to make up for that mistake later in the recipe, but it did not all go as smoothly as I’d planned.
When all is said and done, I anticipated having 6 different kinds of cookies. Now, I’m not so sure.
I took some recipes from The Joy of Cooking, the recipe book I consult most often. I also got recipes from various family members that I’ve collected in a haphazard way. Then I looked at this cookbook I got years ago as a gift — 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, the original Fanny Farmer Cookbook. When I say original, I mean it. Frankly, for someone like me, it is completely useless. I was looking at some of the cookie recipes, and one said to add 2 cups of floor and 2 tsps. of soda. I thought to myself, “Soda? Is that soda water or baking soda? Probably baking soda. Floor? What the hell is floor?” It wasn’t until I looked at the next recipe that called for flour that I realized it was a typo. No spellcheck back then, not that spellcheck would have caught that error anyhow. Then the directions say to bake for 20 minutes in a medium oven. What is a medium oven? How hot is that? I’m just not that intuitive when it comes to cooking and baking.
There were also recipes for forced meats, which I have no idea what those are. Lots of good recipes for sweetbreads and leftover fish parts. Oddly enough, the recipe for leftover fish parts did not call for feeding them to your cat. I suppose people were much less wasteful than we are today (yes, an understatement). I just don’t have much of an appetite for leftover fish parts, though depending on how it’s prepared…
I logged onto my computer at about 11AM to write a post about something I read in the West Hartford News, and I was immediately sidetracked by two gifts I was looking for online for two different friends of mine. It seems many people say online shopping is easy. Many — I think the exact opposite. I cannot say that I am the most decisive person, but it is EXTRA hard for me to make decisions about gifts for people online. You know how you want to find the right item for the person? It’s harder online. You can’t really see it, and you can’t feel it. Anyway, that is my diatribe about shopping online. Really, Amazon is only good for buying books and media.
So, I think I might be a bit too cheap to really build up my shoe collection. Amy and I went shopping today (I blame CT), and I realized that I don’t really like spending more than $30-40 a pair. Of course the excption is for Dansko clogs. And looking at their site, these are pretty cute, too. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Say no more.
I think I’m having some strong fashion leanings these days. After 3 decades of not caring too much about fashion, it’s time I start embracing capitalism. I recently bought the cutest pair of shoes. And I just found out about John Fluevog. Oh my God — I’ve found a new passion!
OMG, look what Connecticut is doing to me!!!!!!!!
Can I just say, and I know that this won’t come as a shock to those of you that know me — and then again, to those of you who don’t know me, you won’t give a flying poo — my desk is a mess! I can barely type on it. Ugh — and I’ve got cats’ asses in my face.
The Connecticutian 