Visit me wouldja?

I might mention the shop is still open. Chandeluse.etsy.com. I have loaded it with home made (hand made) valentine jewelry and boxes.  Still working on cards.  I never print them out correctly so it's difficult, and for a woman who hopes to become a writer, I am surprisingly bad at greeting cards.

Remark

Sorry I have been MIA.  I have to type at the library and I have 9 minutes left so i gotta keep this short.
I was talking with the hub and he said :
Fast food always has cheese in it somewhere.  Whether you order a milk shake or a salad there's cheese in there somewhere.

I hope it makes you laugh too.

Holy Cow

At the thrift shop the Cristmas music was playing.  Not my favorite tune but it kept building and building until it took my mind off the search for designer presents and I thought... that woman is singing her guts out here, and she is darned good!  Just as I was thinking that, one of the workers passed behind me in mid sentence  " So's I told them to go to Sears and Robot"..
Yes SHe Did!
Celine Dion finished O holy night, and we got on with our day.

A very Merry to any of you who are left.  There's no computer in the house, so my midnight rambles are turned to library nocturnes.

Which Hand?

Nory went to see her friend in Brooklyn.  It took a lot of effort because she did not like to drive far, or to places where she had never been before, or not driven to before.

They wandered around the streets, stopping for snacks, and watching the beautifully costumed children trick or treat from store to store.

As they crossed one street, Nory noticed something sparkling on the asphalt. She scooped up a crystal drop earring.  Scanning the street for possibly the other earring, she found a steel nut that had come loose from something or other.

Jon was waiting on the other side of the street, looking quizzical.  What's going on? he asked.

Putting out two fists, Nory said choose one hand, and Jon picked one.  It was the nut.  So he took the nut, still looking at Nory like; what gives?

Nory opened her other hand, showing him the jewel inside.

You found that on the street?  he asked, And I got the nut?

You chose the nut, Nory told him while pocketing the earring, and taking his arm in hers, they continued down the street.

CSI Home: The Case of the Missing Redhead

Waiting for an important call, I realized I had ignored the state of the house for about 6 weeks.  I decided to get with it.

While swabbing the kitchen floor, I decided to break at the oven and spray it with cleaner.  That should take about 2-3 hours to eat through to enamel. (for more on this see: Accidents in the home).

Climbing the stairs, I noticed: they were disgusting.  All manner of dirt dust and hair remained on the treads.  Wearing my trusty Platex Living Gloves, (I think they actually might call them that although outside of the bubble boy I don't know who would call that living..) I climb one stair at a time rubbing furiously at the back edge and then sides and middle.

The resulting debris resembled a hairy bowling ball.  There was soooo much hair!  Obviously I had been there at least once.

This put me in mind of all those detective shows.  Come on, they find one hair on the victim, and it's crime solved?  I had enough evidence to convict myself a billion times over.  I had hair there from when I was a redhead.

Wait a second.... I've never BEEN a redhead! 

Case open pending further investigation.

Soup's On!

Let me just run this one by you:
Rotisserie chicken soup.thrifty or pathetic?
Discuss amongst yourselves.

Recipe:
One mostly denuded chicken carcass
4-6 cups of water
large carrot cut up
stalk of celery with leaves on
half an onin large hunks
salt, pepper
parsley whole
include that dark jelly stuff on th bottom of the plastic chicken garage thing, that's the flavor package

Boil till it smells like grandma's house,( 2-3 hours) taste.  If it's too weak cook it down some more.  Eventually it should taste good.  Then you can add:
leftover chicken
more smaller carrot and celery and onion pieces, sweated,
lentils (handful)
rice (some)
whatever...
maybe kale or spinach
maybe little pale meatballs
red bell pepper, if your stomach can take it
cumin, curry or Chinese 5 spice powder
you can take it from here,
I'm just waiting for the broth to cool.
And that's che sera cooking for today. enjoy!

Sexy Costumes

I was tooling about the web the other day, when I saw a link for interesting Halloween Costumes.  I am interested in costumes because they allow us, for a limited time only, to wear the stuff that would be ridiculous, outre', or just plain unappropriate most of the time.

I was disgusted to find that most of the costumes for women consist of mainly undergarments.  It used to be that you would go to a party and everyone was a French Maid or wearing a catsuit, but now, everyone who dares, just puts on some underwear. 

Even if it's unusually pretty, I don't want to see you without clothing.  My friend Bob once went as Jesus Christ, but due to his stocky build, we all thought he was baby New Year.  That loincloth looked way too diaper for us. Plus, it was cold.

One year I went as the Bride of Frankenstein.  Too bad, I don't have a photo for you, but Mom was out of film or something.  As I was driving through the turnpike, lightning in my hair, eyebrows severely altered, black lips, and bandages hanging from my arms, the toll guy leaned out of the booth and remarked: you look really hot tonight.  He did not know me, and so he did not know how I looked every other night, and the party was about a week from Halloween.  I'm still not quite sure what that was about, but it's a good story, and it's true.

When I got to the party, there were a load of catsuits, but I had my choice of suitors, and eventually chose a gorilla with an oversized tie.  I thought the tie was an extra effort.  He turned out to be Mr. wrong, inviting me over by saying "why not come over and make me dinner?   I bought some kind of meat."

He was not sure what kind of meat he had bought, and from experience I knew he had not even salt and pepper with which to season said mystery meat.

I told him in no uncertain terms that it was not a good invitation.  "You say, come over I have a mink coat, and some kind of meat, or perhaps; I have roses, champagne and chocolates, and some kind of meat." I suggested.

He did not think I was funny, or even helpful, which I really was, and when, a couple years later, he was to marry a young woman, I wondered how he had managed to convince her.  It certainly was not his manner.
Maybe it was the gorilla suit.

Weather or Not

I was going to go out today, but the threat of near-flood conditions deters me.  In fact, I would probably just spend money, and I'd just as soon make money as spend it.  I should be listing my entire house on different sites, but as of now I only have a hundred or so listings split between Amazon, Etsy (chandeluse), Ebay and Craigslist.

It's kind of boring, listing things online, and yet, when someone buys your stuff, you get such a happy rush, it's instant confirmation either of your good taste and refinement, or of your canny observation of the market.  Either way, it makes you feel good to have a little cash come in when you have not worked yourself to the bone to earn it.

I could spend this time writing, listing, or making things to list.  So far, the making things to list has been the most useless, as my main site sells Vintage items, and evidently Etsiers prefer their home-made to be separated from their vintage.
  To go farther, it seems that they prefer their shops to sell only one item at a time, such as; soaps, party invitations, or portraits of Marie Antoinette.
  I'm not sure why Marie is so popular, other than, we kind of wish we could march around looking like an elegant parade float or custom cake, more than we wish to wear the type of boring, don't pay me any mind couture we generally have around the house.  It's kind of interesting, because most of us would rather be Marie Antoinette than Lady Gaga.  Think on that, for a while, and get back to me about it.

Pumpkin Carving 101

I tend to digress a lot here, so bear with me.  Probably I should have edited more generously, but frankly most of it amuses me, and so you can be the judge.

 Pumpkin Carving 101

The first thing you must do is find a suitable child. You might think that a pumpkin would be the first item on your list but you would be mistaken.

I don’t particularly recommend using children for many activities, but they are the most fun to carve pumpkins with.

My mother used to buy unusual shaped pumpkins and keep them around the house for indefinite periods of time. One year around January, I felt that this had gone far enough and enlisted my 6-year-old sister to help make the Jack-o-lantern. We had the very best time and the next day; no one at school would believe her story of pumpkin carving while there was snow on the ground. I got in trouble for destroying the squash. I still do not know for what purpose it was intended that we had to keep it for so long.

I do not recommend  borrowing a child without parental permission, it is just not done, but let’s say you have a kid, maybe you are related to one of an age that will still be captivated with an activity where knives are wielded at vegetables for no practical purpose, and you can go together to get a pumpkin. I am going to leave you to your own devices at this point, buy, grow, pick, steal, whatever, depending on how fast you can run towing a small child and one or more pumpkins.

Once home in the kitchen, arm everyone involved with smocks or aprons. Count on getting everything sticky and messy.

On another occasion, ( I know, I TOLD you about the digressing) I had baked a large hubbard squash in the oven to use as pie filling. Lifting the pan proved slippery and the entire pan fell to the floor and splashed up to a spectacular height of seven feet. As I was slipping around the kitchen in orange goo, a telemarketer called, and like a fool, I answered the phone, thus applying gunk to one more surface. “I can’t talk now, I told the woman, I have pumpkin up to here.” She failed to believe me.  That's the problem with my life, too many true incidents that just seem like they must not have really happened.

Newspaper is the traditional covering for your table. It is plentiful in most homes and in addition to slime; you can get newsprint all over everything. This is part of the gestalt of the deal. Note: Papers were plentiful before the national newspapers went to hell, and also before the advent of recycling, but I know of a house that is standing mostly because of the newspapers amending the strength of the walls.

The next step, planning the decoration, is a good place to use the child. Give it a large marker, be specific that it can draw only on the pumpkin or the paper, and let it go. Try not to be picky. If you are not happy with their design, you can make your own as the pumpkin has continuous sides. I kind of like making 2 or 3 faces per pumpkin, and they cast more light that way.

Cut the top off of the squash in question. An irregular cut will make you look like less of an idiot trying to make it fit again. Any attempt to make it an even circular cut will result in you spinning it endlessly over the opening and dropping it back inside with some frequency. A zigzag somewhere along the edge will remedy your lid conundrums.  Also, try to cut at an angle with the widest part at the top and the smaller part towards the inside.

The next step is everyone’s favorite, and if it is not, you will thank me for advising you to invite a small person. Put all hands inside the hole in the top and wiggle your fingers and squish the seeds between your fingers, making jokes with your small person or not, as you wish. This part engenders merriment whether or not you have good comic material, and kids have their own ideas as to just what constitutes humor, and will let you know, whether you are interested or not.

You will probably have to scrape out the insides unless your child is particularly adept, as well they might be, knowing it is your child, who is, as we all know, smarter than ours.

All that is left is to cut out your pattern, and the powers that be are not holding us to faces anymore. You can make spooky trees, owls, ghosts or perhaps a replica of Mount Rushmore, as you please.

I would do this part myself, as handing tots cutlery is tantamount to mayhem and that parents frown on getting their child back with missing parts. During this boring (for them) interval, give them a bowl of the seeds to play with, that being the most delightful part of it anyway, and try not to be too hard on yourself if things are not perfect.

Put a candle inside, leave the lid off and turn off the lights and make spooky noises at each other. This should kill at least another one minute until your child lender comes to retrieve their progeny and berate you for overindulgence.

What a happy life! Rid yourself of the messy small persons, or rush them to the tub to clean off the excess squash. Pour yourself a drink and congratulate yourself on a job well done. You are now ready for Halloween. Or perhaps not, but you have made the attempt, and that is what matters.

The women are smarter

I was in the GYN office, not particularly wanting to be there, and feeling kind of tired.  I was resting my head on my arms which were crossed over one side of the chair arm, much akin to napping in school but to the side.

From somewhere in the middle of the line of chairs a woman reads aloud from a magazine; "A man does not know anything about a woman  until he gets married."

From my odd perspective both physical and mental,  not missing a beat, I reply "A man does not know anything about a woman  until he asks her."

A man's voice sounds from the far corner, "That's the smartest thing I heard all day".  Then a lively discussion ensued.

Glad to be of help, I said, just as my name was called.

Midnight Ramble

When you are alone in the house, you don't have to play by the rules.  You can get up, walk around, eat stuff you are not supposed to, blog all night, etc.  Frankly, my eating is off, and a good thing too, I am losing weight like crazy but my clothes still fit. (drat!)  Also, I am not eating like a hog, but I decided not to cook for a while.  You do not know what a relief that is! 

I picture myself just tossing out what's in the fridge, day by day, as if in a short film:
Monday: smell milk, if questionable, spill down sink, rinse jug and put in recycling container.  All of this is taken from a rear view as if the camera is behind me.

Tuesday: Attack the veg bin, look for leakage or soppy vegetables, put in compost pile, clean out drawer.

You get the general picture.  I can take all the canned stuff to the food bank at the church across the street.  For some reason they specialize in harboring immigrants.  Go figure people out, I sure don't understand it, but maybe they will love my old cans of chinese mushrooms and water chestnuts. (I like to be prepared for all contingencies).

So, the big deal is that I got a glass of ice water, and came up to write this.  I was asleep but a wrong number woke me at 12:30 and I spent some time switching back and forth between Jimmy Fallon and Craig Ferguson.  They were both pretty funny, but I hate the comercials.

I'm sleeping on half the bed.  It saves a lot of bed making time in the morning.  That's another rule you can break.  You can sleep any way you want, sideways, for instance, but I don't recommend it. Bad feng shui.

This is not as funny as I had envisioned it.  I had some deal in my head about making something with the "magic bullet blender" that you buy on paid for TV.  I forget what I was thinking of making now, so that's lame.  Those deals are so bizarre.  I can just see people at home thinking; yeah, that seems like such a great deal, and I can give the extra (fill in the blank here) to my sister... but of course, they are mostly crap, plastic crap, made in china and guaranteed to break very soon after opening and quizzling around with the chinese goofy translated instructions. (as if anyone ever reads instructions).
The Ikea instructions are goofy too, in that they are mostly pictograms, but odd.  Why should I put the dried cod in the sofa bed, you are wondering, looking at the booklet.  Where can I put all these stupid allen wrenches after the book case is together that I won't lose them?  They end up in the kitchen junk drawer, and eventually you find them and toss them because you forgot what they go to, and then the book case starts to wobble..... you know how that works.

The other night I went to the movies alone.  It's  little screening room, and I was the only one there.  I took a seat in a minimally uncomfortable tub chair with a table, arranged my water and gummy bears, and had a little show just for me.  How decadent, and indeed how wonderful.

I saw The Extra Man starring Kevin Kline (he was in A Fish Called Wanda).  This one  was kind of a strange movie.  He was a down on his luck ex-playwright who is a walker for old women in New York, and he rents part of his crappy apartment to a young man with a curiosity about women's undergarments.  Yeah, it got a bit wierd, but it was oddly uplifting, and had a happy ending.  I laughed, I cried, yada yada yada, I'm not so good with book reports or movie reviews, as you may have noticed.  Anyway, it was pretty stupendous.  And then I walked the 2 blocks back home where I could do anything I wanted, and didn't.

What do you do alone in the house?  Tell me a story.  I'm thinking of sending a prize to the winner.  It's a secret prize.  Might be on my Etsy Store.  http://chandeluse.etsy.com/  tell me what you might pick.

I fall Down

the garage

Well, I fell down the other day.  I wanted to tell people "I took a header" but no one knows what that means any more. 

I did not break a hip.  In fact, I don't think I broke anything larger than my humility, but I can feel a bruise high up on my chest.  I think I actually bruised a rib.I can't see anything though.

Oh yes, and my knees, you don't want to see that.

So now, I am just achy and scabby, like  a couple of cowpokes out on the prairie.  My sister asked if I went to the hospital, but I don't think that's where you go for skinned knees.

I'm not sure why I'm telling you this.  I should really tell you about the neclace and broken bracelet I bought at the yard sale right before this, but I have not taken a photo yet.

Man! this computer keyboard is really loud this morning!

So, I was at my neighbor's yard sale, she is in the friends of the animals, (no kidding) and was a professional estate sale type.  She's sort of retired, but cannot resist other people's stuff.  She always wants to get together for lunch but continues to forget that I do not know her last name or phone number, so when she called later to see if I was okay, I still did not have her phone number to call back.

I gotta walk over there.

I gotta walk a lot, because in the fall, I get so achy, I could die.  If you walk, it takes all the pains away, don't know why.  It's as if nature just sucks all the ache out of you.  Try it, won't you?  It could not hurt.  Just do a couple of blocks and build yourself up.  At one point I was doing about 4 miles each morning, if I can believe my pedometer.  I'm going to say it works, and that it was four whole or part miles I used to walk. 

Git along, lil' dogie, but don't fall down.

Better Living Through Chemistry.

It's definitely fall and I'm so relieved.  This summer has been a veritable hell, what with the weather and the health decline, etc.  I've had just the most terrible day, and yet, right near the finish line, I have sold an item, and that cheers me up again.

It was my grandfather's mortar and pestle.  He was a chemist, and being born in the 1800's, chemistry was tantamount to alchemy.  He loved everything natural that could be produced artificially.  It was new, exciting, and he had tons of ideas.

He was kind of old already when my Dad and his Brother were born, so he was not a ball player, or  anything like that, but he had his charms.

He looked like Teddy Roosevelt.  He made us bubble bath and a giant bubble wand to play with in the yard.
He grew hydroponic tomatoes in the 1940's in his basement.  Dad said they were as big as your head, but tasted like water.

 Also, he gave me a solar motor in the 1960's.  It was set up in a cigar box, and spun a striped circle so you would get dizzy watching it.  He also gave me a black light, and a bunch of metallic stones that glowed under it.  That was fun, sort of.

He also figured out how to blow artificial scents from the fronts of stores so that people would be lured in to buy coffee, or pastries, anything like that.  He left a formulary, which tells me how to make cosmetics out of chemicals, so backward, but for him so modern.

So, I'm a little sad about letting it go.  Aside from that I have a few tiny little chemistry pots and lenses, and that's about it.  I have the memories, and that is what I will keep.

Looks at Books

courtesy of Amazon.com

photo courtesy of Amazon.com

This week's favorite: Aimee Bender's the Particular Sadness of Lemon cake.

It's about a girl who can taste the emotions of the people who have made the food she eats.  It's  a terrible experience, but she follows it along, and makes peace with it eventually.  Her family is of course, disjointed and disaffected and do not believe what she is saying.

I loved the writing.  And needless to say, I was entranced by the story.  You might want to find this one.  It's very popular.

Summer Corn

Do me a favor.


Go to Johnson's farm. They have turned it into the kind of circus that will hurt your stomach, but you'll live.


In fact, I'd be surprised, if by the end of the day, you have not taken over.


Buy some corn, a couple of ears. Okay, maybe you have corn in the yard, maybe you don't eat it anyway.


Boil it for 6 minutes. If the stove is in the same shape as the truck, build a fire outside and boil it for 6 minutes.


Cut it off the cob. This goes against all reason, but since the braces went on, and even when they came off, I have done this, and the corn falls to the plate in little sections.

 I used to call them books of corn.


Eat them that way (use a fork). No butter, no salt, no anything else.


That's the way I'd do it.

A Little Night Music

Nory was not sleeping at all.  The air was cool but damp, and it was difficult to acchieve the right combination of warm and tired.

She was thinking about an ex of hers who was living in Cape Cod one winter.  He came down to get her and brought her back to a knotty pine house barely furnished but for a grand piano and a couch in the living room.

He had a bed, of course, and they would listen to the radio at night, falling asleep.  The radio had no knobs so they had to put a dime between the prongs to turn the dials. 

When she got there, she found a jazz station that played wonderful soft nightime music from the thirties.  Together, falling asleep they heard big bands play slow numbers and Billie sing the sad blues.

When Nory went home for a while, Kenneth called her to say he could not find the station anywhere.

It is as if it only plays when you are here by me, he said.

What happened to clock radios? Nory thought just before drifting into slumber.

Two great books

Both these books are wonderful!  I would love to write like either one.  The Contssa's New Machine is a twisted little fairy tale, but plausible story, beautifully written by Carey Wallace.                                        

How Did You Get This Number is stories and observations by Sloane Crosley who just kills me, you will love the way she thinks.  Also by Sloane is I Was Told There'd Be Cake. A similar book with different stories.   Happy Reading!   

                                                                                                                                             

Breakfast of Champions

In which we find out that all new recipes need a trial run or three.
 At the farmer's market last week I found a free sample of peach- nectarine cobbler and the recipe printed nicely on heavy weight cardstock.  The cobbler was delicious if a bit too sweet so I took the recipe and bought a basket of nectarines, nice name, that.

No one really knows what nectar tastes like but the nectar you get in cans, surely must not be a food of the gods, should  it?

So yesterday I decided that I would make this dessert, even though I was a bit short of  the actual ingredients.

 This I have called Che Sera Cooking, which is kind of make do and usually does, but with caveats.  For more of this style see: oatmeal cookies.
Okay, so, it was supposed to be made with peaches and nectarines, but having way too many nectarines, I decided to go with them.  They tell you to use the largest pyrex pan and I was melting the butter in it so I would not have to wash another pot, and I notice there is only one cup of flour in the recipe.  That spelled disaster right there, so I pulled it out of the oven and transferred the half melted butter to the next size down, oblong baker.  I was talking on the phone to my sister while this dangerous exchange was going on, and holding the phone with my shoulder and giving her a blow by blow account of the proceedings.

Then, you are supposed to use whole milk, but I had buttermilk which needed to be used,  so I use that. With buttermilk, you should use baking SODA not Powder because of the acid thing, but I used  it anyway.  I used the full 1 T of Powder even though that seems to be a ludicrously large amount given the low ratio of flour.

Also, it's supposed to cook at 375 degrees but on my oven 375 is actually 400 but I forget and it cooks at, what, 350?

And it still is incredibly tasty.

I started this blog to write short stories, and there are some early on if you want to go back there, but now I am writing hair complaints and recipes, and I suppose that could get me more readers,which would be great, but it's not the glorious prose I had planned.  Please, feel free to send people to the recipe and the blog.

Here's the recipe:

Melt one stick (1/2 C of unsalted butter) in the smaller of the two pyrex rectangles, about 8x11.
Take two nectarines and two peaches and peel if you want, but I did not.
Slice thinly (not too thin) and put in a pot with 1/2C sugar and 1T lemon juice and boil lightly about 4 min  the fruit will be wilted and the juices will start to thicken.

Mix in a bowl: 1cup flour (it says one, but I think it might need more), 1/2 tsp salt, and 1T baking powder, and another 1/2to3/4C sugar and whisk to mix.

Add 1 cup of whole milk and stir to make a batter.  Really, use the milk.

Pour the batter into the butter in the pan, spread around (I did not quite do that right) and then add the fruit mixture on top, try to blob it all over instead of just in the center like I did, and put it into a 375 degree oven for 40-45 minutes until golden brown on top. put a cookie sheet underneath in case it boils over.  I don't know if it will rise more with the real milk.

There you go.  Foolproof, wouldn't you say?

The Farmer

I have a friend whom I have known for most of my life.
He has of late become a recluse, a rower, a musician, a hoarder, living in ever mounting levels of squalor and deshabille.

He is the smartest, most self reliant person I have ever met.
He is also quite manipulating.
And
He is barking mad.

It's a conundrum.

Tees

I have a pile of t shirts on the floor of my craft room.  I was supposed to be making skirts or something else useful out of them.

The fact is, I'm procrastinating.  The first skirt, though I wore it several times, was not quite right, with the picture showing right at crotch level. 

 I should have cut it out, and made it into a pocket or something, but I did not want to cut it into so many bits, and it was still to be proved that my sewing machine would work on t shirt fabric.

I did not realize, until I took that photo, quite what a mess my studio has turned into.

Everywhere are piles of things to be sold on the internet.  Maybe it's just under that one table that things have gone completely wrong.  I know a lot of people who live in piles of junk.

I am the one who organizes their stuff and makes them give up a lot of it to recycle, or donate or trash if they have to.  How is it that I have come to this junction?

I blame it on the people who are not buying the stuff I need to get out of here.

I could blame myself for not cleaning up.  I am something of a neatnik, but lately, I need to find things that have sold, that are found at the bottom of that pile.  Actually, they are in a box, or were until recently.

Fantasy being preferable to admitting slobbery, I'm going with that.