I discovered that I have quite a bit of BPAL I never use, so I thought I'd post it here and give y'all first shot at it before I send it to the BPAL or Ravelry forums.

First come, first serve, leave me a comment or email me @gmail.com and I'll update the post as necessary.

( TL;DR PerfumeryCollapse )

I do most of my driving these days in stop-and-go traffic. It irritates the hell out of me, especially since it's almost entirely caused by some idiot "tapping" his brakes because he saw his shadow^W^W^W didn't like road conditions.

( Hence, some Helpful Hints.Collapse )

Having not posted in forever, I shall meme. From utterlyjaded.

(Also, this morning, I managed to dump a pan of dirty water down the front of my dressing gown and all over my slippers, so any other sort of entry would probably involve lots of whinging about smelling like collard greens.)

( It's still a meme, even if it is text.Collapse )

It's Milton's birthday today.

I was trying to find a good copy of Paradise Lost to quote from, but I think this is as good as it's going to get.

I'm rather fond of Paradise Lost -- I read it in college, and it's mentioned in one of my favorite books (Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, which utterly spoiled me on what I thought college was going to be like).

It's very Christian, but the version I linked above is annotated, so if you're in the mood for Latinate sentences, give it a try.

I'm leaving for the week to go to CT for the holiday.

I'll be back on Friday.

No, this does not mean you can break into my house and steal my PS3 -- cadhla will be there to protect it, along with the lilbluekittans, who are mighty and fierce.

I'm not taking my computer, just my phone, so my pants may or may not be bankrupt when I get back. I will be checking email, though, if there's an emergency.

Have fun stuffing yourselves if you have a holiday, or a nice rest of the week if you don't.

Hey, is anyone driving up to Seattle any time soon? (For values of "soon" that mean "between now and Conflikt.")

I have a box of stuff for vixyish, but it doesn't close neatly, so I'm dubious as to its structural integrity in the mail.

Everything else has to go to Goodwill today (I'm about to go pack the car), but I thought I'd ask just in case. Failing that, I shall... be inventive.

Y'know, some things never change...

From the 1980's, we have this wonderful anthem for the car companies.

For the rest of us, there's always Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

I have no useful comments on the current financial crisis, beyond "well, yes, when you lend money to people who can't pay you back, bad things happen, why is this my problem" and "I suppose world-wide economic collapse has already been tried, let's not do that again."

Today, I cleaned the house, with some help from gdmusumeci.

And not just my normal "oh, it's the weekend, time to tidy" cleaning, either. No. This was "scrubbing the &*^@$%#^&@%$!! grout with a toothbrush" cleaning. (The grout looks marginally better, I suspect I may have to do that several times over the next few weeks to actually get rid of the gross.) Down on the floor with the scrub brush cleaning. (But oh, does my bathroom floor look better.)

More to the point of this entry, "cleaning my office." (Read: major dislocation of furniture, decluttering, and laundry.)

I am now left with an *enormous* pile of stuff in my front entryway. This is my plea to the locals to *please* come by and buy some of it off me. (Some of it I'm willing to give away, but I've got to pay for therapy somehow!) Books, clothes, a breadmaker, bags (lots of bags), your basic assortment of stuff.

If not, well, my Craigslist ad isn't doing much, but perhaps I shall repost it tomorrow and hope it helps. Everything not gone by next weekend will go to Goodwill, lest I kill myself tripping on things in the mornings trying to get out the door.

I'm glad Obama won. I think his acceptance speech was really good. (Take a bow, Toby and Sam. Or whoever you are.)

I am, however, shocked and appalled that the same half-million voters who decided that teenage girls had a right to control their own choices also decided that for some reason, not all marriages are equal.

I've been skimming the texts of Loving v. Virginia and Lawrence v. Texas, and I'm pretty much convinced that it's going to take another decision of that magnitude (probably drawing on these two cases as a basis for argument) to keep people from trying to "defend" marriage from evils of, well, other people getting married too.

I understand the idea that "marriage" as a religious ceremony shouldn't be extended to all people. Religion is, at least partly, a way of distinguishing "us" from "them," and no one should be forced to integrate "them" into "us." The fact of the matter is that "marriage" has also taken on this legal/civil meaning, and I honestly think that denying the second on the basis of the first is a violation of the First Amendment, much less the Fourteeth.

At least the Supreme Court openings are going to be filled with nominees from someone who isn't out to make the entire tax base of northern California flee the country.

Edited to add: It may be illegal for them to annul the marriages of all the people who are already married. See also ex post facto.

gdmusumeci has gone away for the weekend to be a responsible family member, so I have been left alone at home. Bwahaha.

Today? I cleaned. And ran errands. And spent time with lovely people for tea. And actually remembered to eat on my own. But most of all, I made pie.

Well, I should say "I am making pie," as the pie is still in the oven. But I figure I can report on the quality of the pie, as I am currently eating the sugar roses made of the left-over pie dough.

It's... not bad. I used the really basic Joy of Cooking recipe, the one that just has flour and shortening and salt and water. It's... okay. It probably would have been much improved by a) cleaning the cutting board before I put the dough down on it (well, I did wipe it down, but I didn't scrub) and b) not using the butter that we moved out of the butter holder in the fridge because that's where we keep the garlic and it was making everything taste funny.

I actually think the problem may be the distinct lack of sugar in the crust, although I doubt it'll need it with the filling in. (I probably should have used more cinnamon sugar on the roses.) Next time I might use the Pate Sucre'e recipe instead, although I'll have to see, since I've currently produced a pie with only 3/4 c. sugar for the entire thing, which has to be the healthiest dessert pie going.

On the up side, it's flaky as hell, which I suppose is a good thing. Now we just have to see how it survives the oven, and whether my theory that I can *totally* just sub out whatever spices we don't own for "pumpkin pie spice" in equal measure has any merit at all. (I rather fear I may be about to produce a swirl pie, since I scraped quite a bit of sugar and goop out of the bottom of the mixing bowl and just kind of dumped it in.)

I suspect my rather slapdash approach to cooking is where my "if you put all tasty things in and don't burn them, you get something tasty out" theory came from. Luckily for me, it really does mostly work that way. Also, cadhla is coming over tomorrow (I think), so I'll be able to handily dispose of the extra 13 oz. of pumpkin. Alternatively, I may go the store and buy nuts and chocolate chips and make this instead, although I'd be 2 oz. short on pumpkin. Bet I can make it up with a little cup-thing of applesauce, though, and I like those. (WTF is that about, anyway? Every pie recipe ever calls for 2 c., so why does pumpkin come in 15 and 29 oz. cans?)

This pie is a testament to the marketing people at my local Lucky store -- they put the pumpkin and the canned cranberries right next to the "cinnamon scented pine cones" and my hind brain is just dumb that way. Fortunately, I like pie and cranberries.