Stuck in the middle with you.

So the better half's family drove down from L.A. this afternoon so we could all celebrate his mom's birthday. Our adventures started out well enough: first we hit up the charming, dusty bookstore DG Wills, where nat's parents hit it off immensely with the owner (who was sitting outside drinking wine with friends when we arrived, !). You would be hard pressed to find a nicer fellow anywhere.
(Incidentally, when nat and i first moved down here, i went around applying at every bookstore i could find, and when i asked this man if the place was hiring, he chuckled and said, "nope... it's just me." Damn. There is exposed wood everywhere, and so much bric-a-brac!)
The place is filled to the gills with books: poetry anthologies, new literature, old kids' books, dictionaries, latin, greek, maritime, art, classics, and so on and so forth. Various antiquated metal objects are everywhere, even up in the rafters; a typewriter, an anchor, an old iron stove.
i snagged a Valentine postcard from 1911 Minnesota:



Dear Mrs. Doll How are you? We are all well We are having lovly weather It will soon be spring than I will expect you down. Mrs. Beebel (?)
[Check out the abbreviation for Cincinnati ("Cin'ti") and the postage square (i assume someone already pilfered the treasure that was the stamp): "United States and Possessions". Awesome.]



Also, a first edition of a late-discovered Wilhelm Grimm tale, Dear Mili, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. i am super excited about this one. It's in great condition, and i hope my kids will read it someday in the wintry light on the floor of their bedroom.

After that, we thoroughly discombobulated a young counterboy at the cafe next door (ugh, we were totally That Annoying Family Who Are Ordering Together But Not All Ready At Once. Sorry, dude.), and then raced to the shore to try and check out the seals. The light was fading too fast, but we managed to enjoy 15 minutes of seal silhouettes and intermittent barking. We then made the poor decision of taking nat's mom to the British pub we recently discovered. We couldn't sit inside because nearly half of the tables were "Reserved" (for a giant group of assholes on a pub crawl, we later discovered), and the space heater near our table outside wasn't working. Then nat's mom's chips were cold, as was her fish, AND her peas... The usual '80s alternative radio they play was, instead, atrocious contemporary light rock, and two of our meals came out ten minutes after the rest. It was tough to enjoy the evening, but then nat's mom called basketball "netball" and everything was well again. Also, we all ended up eating cake and watching Eddie Izzard at home afterward, so who's complainin'? i think a valuable lesson for me to learn, should i ever give in to it, is to quit convincing myself that everyone else is having a horrible time and just enjoy myself. Magnifying and lingering on the tiny problems is never a good idea, and even if i'm not the one doing it, i always manage to convince myself that it's my fault anyway. Good times!


Thank goodness the NyQuil dependency i've built up all week has finally (mostly) disappeared. Gotta get up nice and early tomorrow; my first day back at work after a week of being ill. Let me just say this: i am not excited, not even a little. Especially considering that we're having an employee meeting an hour after i open the shop, which is about the time i'm done opening in the first place. This means there will be no "settling in" period. Better make sure i bring an extra cup of coffee to work; my boss is the type of woman who thinks that saying "Ow! Charlie bit me" is (and ever was) hysterical, and told me that her costume for Halloween was "a Chinese lady".

i will need all the help i can get.

a green-eyed, yellow-bellied, silver-tongued dark horse.

t's been ages. What have you been up to? As for me:


~saw a black widow.
~accidentally vacuumed up a pair of underwear.
~won an orchid (Cattleya) at an orchid fair.
~finally procured a jar of artichoke hearts (note: waited waaaaay too long to discover this).
~bit my nails back down to stumps.
~found out what blue Curaçao tastes like. verdict? not so great.

and:

~currently experiencing some sort of (pre-?)midlife crisis.

That last one is probably due to the fact that i will soon be entering into my third decade of life on this zany, spinning marble and haven't got anything of substance to show for it. Nor, for that matter, a whole lot of prospects on the horizon. But i think it's because i have been way too busy hiding under a rock to see anything. Hope this can be helped.

In other news: don't you just love bright green trees against a gunmetal sky?

And don't you just hate putting pillowcases on pillows? Yeah. Me too.

Mayday, mayday!

So Nat had a birthday. on May the first. His mom and pop and sis drove down from L.A. and we all went out for Indian food. it somehow happened that i ended up paying, which caused a bit of a snafu. Turns out the 'rents wanted to buy their son's birthday dinner... who knew?!

They showed up around 8, at which time i was in the kitchen up to my elbows in raspberry filling, 4 layers of chocolate cake, almond/vanilla custard, and a huge bowl of frosting made from whipping cream and powdered sugar. There was no way i could assemble everything in time for us to eat dinner, so i stowed the cake half-finished. We got home rather late, 11:30 or so, and regaled Nat's dad with some Muay Thai fight scenes (from the movie Chocolate; i give it a 5 or 6 of 10) while Nat opened his last few presents. His total loot included a deluxe DVD of Labyrinth, a lavender tie, 2 books (one on physics and one on the search for El Dorado), a Jeff Buckley CD, and a Batman toy from Long's. What?! It was a joke. Besides, we're totally passing it on to a friend who turns the ripe old age of seven this month. At which point said Batman toy will become far from a joke- it will become The Most Important Thing in the Universe. At least for a little while ;)

Um, in any case, the family drove home, and i went back to The Cake. The modified Black Forest Cake, the one i bought fancy piping tips for and everything! Here's a tip for all of you new to the layer-cake thing: make sure you put the top parts of each cake round (the curved bit) upside-down as you stack. That way the filling won't just fall right off the sloped sides, the way mine did. Which, believe me, ain't no fun at one in the morning. Also, be sure said filling is thoroughly chilled, or else your kitchen will end up looking like the Raspberry Massacre took place in it. ::sigh:: Remember the cake-baking scene from Sleeping Beauty? Well if you don't, watch away:



Let's just say that i got in a little over my head, but i finally got it finished. At one-thirty a.m. We each ate a slice for breakfast ;) Totally worth it. And now that Nat's 34th is safely behind us, i can look forward to freaking out about my 30th. (ouch!) Not looking forward to it, i can tell you that much. But at least there will definitely be cake!

p.s.) here is the (finally) finished Cake. Fancy!

In other news...

Tomorrow is the ol' birthday. Yep. 29 years old i'll be. And easing in to the 30th. It's a strange feeling, really, realizing that you are aging. For the first twenty-odd years of your life, you hardly think about it, you know? At least i didn't. Then came 28, and it finally began to sink in. And now, twenty-nine, and believe me it's on my mind.

I think i'll make myself some banana pancakes tomorrow morning to celebrate. And maybe carve jack-'o-lanterns in the evening, because really, isn't it time? Halloween is nearly upon us. One can never be too careful.

Maybe something really exciting will happen tomorrow that i can write about- wouldn't that be a change! Har, har.

Off to watch some Jeopardy now. i used to think it was a way to learn things, but then last week i found out that Benjamin Franklin electrocuted an elephant to illustrate the dangers of alternating current, and it just made me sad. Why don't they teach us that reality in school? Ugh, it really bothers me. Then you just find out later and it's like- oh....... ouch.

Next time: Shameless plugging of my mom's art and items for sale. Hey, come on- it's almost the holidays! i've gotta get her name out there. Hm, perhaps i shouldn't have warned you all first... oops.