DangerChicks

Hello, world. Anyone there? Yeh, I thought not,

Jules off to China to collect her daughter and I am entertaining myself with a somewhat less life-changing project. Interested readers will find that we have moved our project to a different host, and obtained a domain name, and all kinds of things geeky and overwhelming.

You can now find us here.

For somebody who's getting on a plane to China in a few days, I'm feeling unusually placid. I think it's because I have accomplished the crucial tasks, meaning I've been arranging for us to have money while we're there.

Regarding reaching one's bottom (ew! not like that!): I'm familiar with 12-step recovery ideas and the Low-Bottom-Drunk/Addict/Whatever is the most mysterious, in the way that some people resist the plain evidence that Something Is Very Wrong Here to astonishing extremes. (I had a friend whose mother systematically drank herself to death in her early 50s; according to my friend, she was hospitalized with serious drinking-related problems and on the verge of admitting that she had a problem when her doctor came breezing in and said, oh no, dear, you just have too much stress. And that was enough: she was a drunk until she died within a couple of years.)

Whoa, dark. Moving on then...

So, just to pick a trivial topic, how are you feeling about the state of reality TV these days? I'm enjoying TAR and am peeved that we'll be out of the country for the finale. I've got it queued up on the TiFaux, but I still have to beg: dood, can you tape it for me? Just in case? Because missing it would suck bigtime.

And, you had questions!
1. Ok, time for a confession: I rarely cook brisket. Mostly because any big honkin' piece of meat around here usually gets smoked and that's Eliot's department. Also, before we got the smoker I usually just picked up pre-smoked brisket from a barbecue joint, which brings up the oddity that I almost never eat brisket that wasn't smoked. Hm. Not sure why. Though my mom does an oven-roasted brisket that tends to be tasty enough but kind of boring, probably because she religiously trims off all the fat before she cooks it; most brisket is fatty enough not to get too dry when she does that, but it lacks a certain fat-a-liciousness.

2. Flank steak? Stir-fried, mostly. I haven't made fajitas in ages, because it's so cheap and easy to get pre-fajitaed around here.

Gawd, if I'm not careful, I'm going to turn into Sandra Lee: no actual cooking occurs in the kitchen. In my defense, it is usually summertime when I'm craving fajitas. Oh, and I have to confess: I've never boiled beef. Those New England Boiled Dinner recipes have always horrified me, as if someone suggested that I boil the Thanksgiving turkey. But for vaca frita? I'd boil beef, fer sure.

3. Latest good book? Maria Tatar's Annotated Classic Fairy Tales has been interesting, though not exactly kid-friendly. As is the Rough Guide to China. And did you know that Christopher Isherwood wrote a children's book? It's a bunch of dark and funny poems about animals.

4. Your next vacation? Austin! Ok, I get it, your next exotic vacation... how about that Iceland? If for no other reason that to be able to say, I'm taking an island vacation and then scoff at people who start babbling about the tropics.

My turn:

1. Are you taking an interest in the new season of Survivor? I'm not sure, because the last season was so disappointing in so many ways. The ads show a lot of pretty people looking very unhappy, which is kind of meh.

2. What's your favorite Chinese food? I love all things Dim Sum, with the lone exception of chicken feet, which are a poor ratio of meat to bone. Of course, I should try to remember that in China, it's just food.

3. Have you ever cooked mutton? I don't think I've ever eaten mutton, and had hardly tasted lamb before I lived in NC. Beef, it's what's for dinner. [in Amarillo. And Lubbock.] I wonder if mutton could be smoked... and I'm pondering expanding my culinary horizons, meatwise.

4. Speaking of one's horizons... what's your limit, foodwise? I have two limits that I can think of offhand: I don't think I can eat any creature that I've gotten to know (note: one doesn't get to know lobsters, and don't even talk to me about clams; it's not about if they were alive in my presence, it's whether they had a personality that I'd been aware of). I had an uncle who was a rancher and there was an ugly family scene when the wife and kids became aware that when "Blackie" disappeared, he ended up in the freezer.

The other limit I can think of is any vegie that smells/tastes/has-the-mouthfeel-of dirt. Grit in the spinach, parsnips, inadequately scrubbed potatoes, all make me shudder and I canNOT soldier on with the dish--it's a dealbreaker.

I have a feeling I may learn more about my food limits on this trip; those two things are the only ones I can think of at the moment that will stop me cold. I'll even eat liver on occasion (depending on preparation, that sort of thing), so I think I'm fairly broadminded.

Well, that took the edge right off my appetite.

Say, dood, just want to say, thanks for all your support while we've been preparing to make this trip. It means a lot. I can't wait for you to meet her! Y'all are gonna have SO much fun!

I had a very relaxing holiday, actually. I slept a lot, relaxed a bunch, and then slept some more. I might even be caught up with my sleep at this point. Of course, catching up took most of January.

It seems like the theme around me is alcoholism, even though I personally hardly drink at all. Between people deciding that they are possibly having a drinking problem and having dinner with someone celebrating 25 years of sobriety, the topic seems to be everywhere just now. I find myself thinking about the notion of "bottom" a lot.

In case you are not familiar with this idea, "bottom" is where an individual has to get before she is really ready to do something about her drinking. The idea is that different people have different bottoms. For one, getting so drunk that they miss a day of work might freak them right out, and cause them to re-evaluate their drinking habits. Other people have to lose a spouse, a house, and a career, and end up on the streets before it occurs to them that the cost of drinking might be too high. These latter people are called "low bottom drunks". (I assume one would call the other kind a "high bottom drunk", but I personally have never heard this phrase used.)

Anyway. I was also thinking that people in marriages have bottoms. For instance, some people leave the first time they get hit, while others stick around and try to work it out, taking beatings for years. And some of those beaten people leave the first time the spouse smacks the kid. Some people tolerate years of infidelity, while others have a zero-tolerance policy for that. What interests me is the set of people who have admittedly difficult marriages who just suddenly seem one day to hit their bottom. From the outside, it's just the same old, same old. You know, honey, that man has been boinking other people in your bed for years, and you've known about it and whined about it, but never left him, so why is this incident, which looks the same to everyone out here with our noses pushed up against the glass, so different?

Well, onto less depressing topics....

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You had questions, so let's see if I have answers....

1. How many variations of Monkey Bread do you figure we can come up with?Thousands. Yours sound good. How about chorizo and pepper jack cheese? Or caramelized onions and swiss cheese? Or cloves, orange rind, and mint? (I didn't say they would all taste good!)

2. What's your favorite emergency snack? Sliced pepperoni, microwaved for 30 desconds until it gets crispy. Fakes me into thinking it's real and warm. If there are hardboiled eggs in the place, it's not an emergency! I make devilled eggs out of them and snack away.

3. What's your favorite Christmas gift this year? I dunno. My mother got one of the authors of a book I wanted to autograph the thing with a quote from my "About You..." page at amazon (the thing about reading too much, thinking too much, and sleeping too little), which just tickled me pink. The book was pretty good, too.

4. What is it that disturbs you most about all the destruction from the tsunami? That it much of the loss of life was preventable, if only the early warning systems like we have on this continent had been in place.

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Now feel really obligated to think of something more cheerful to say. Well, now that you-know-who is gone from TAR, I have two excellent reality shows to watch: TAR (of course) and Project Runway. Also, I am over my previous TV-grrrl crush on Debbie Travis, who lost me forever when she said that a particular episode of her show proved that "men" cared about their houses less than "us girls". That's just all kind of wrong, starting with the fact that she's forty if she's a day, and the woman she was talking to was well into her thirties. I'm looking for a replacement, but haven't found her on HGTV, Perhaps I need to check out other channels.

And in the best TV news of the decade, that Elizabeth Rohm chick finally got kicked off L&O.

What? Me? Watch too much TV? Why? What makes you say that???

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And now it's my turn!!!

Not that I have a lot of creative ideas for questions, which is one reason I slacked off so long....

1. How do you cook brisket? I used the recipe in the recent Cook's Illustrated and it made the best (non-BBQ) brisket i ever had. It's sort of a pain in the butt, but totally worth it.

2. How do you cook flank steak? I usually make a stirfry of some kind. Right now, I am sort of craving oyster sauce beef, and that would be a good thing to make from it. When I have way too much time on my hands, and it's warm enough to open all the doors while the beef boils (because I loathe the smell of boiled beef), I make vaca frita. Yummy, amusingly named, and a whole lot of trouble to cook. On extremely rare occasions, I stuff it, roll it up, and grill it.

3. Read any good books lately? My favorite recently is What's the Matter with Kansas?

4. Where should I go on my next vacation? I was thinking of Nepal, but the place is under martial law right now and turning away flights. So what should I adopt as Plan B?
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How was your holiday? I liked my gifties, of course, and have been learning all about corpsy (or, if you prefer, cadavery) stuff. Not around mealtimes, though...

I had a lot of fun at Mom's house for the holidays. Pretty low-key, though we had another big wacky gathering, you know, Mom's gentleman friend, his daughter, her boyfriend, his brother, his girlfriend, his mom, her husband, etc. It's always kind of fun when we get to put all the leaves in the table.

And since you asked...
1. My favorite semi-homemade treat? We had a couple at Christmas dinner: the classic green bean casserole (with canned green beans, canned mushroom soup, canned fried onions, yum! The dish barely made it around the table once.) and ambrosia, this time made with coconut, canned pineapples, canned mandarin orange sections, sour cream and handmade marshmallows. Bear in mind that I didn't make the marshmallows, I bought them at Whole Foods, but they were super-absorbent, so they soaked up lots of fruit juicy goodness.

That brings up my biggest problem with Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade Crap: she seems to go out of her way to use not just canned food but plastic food, like white chocolate and cool-whip, both of which are icky. Plus they're poor imitations of the real thing, namely real chocolate and whipped cream, neither of which is all that hard to work with.

Fun Christmas moment: I described the Semi-Homemade Yule Log to Mom (you know, take a grocery store jelly roll, slather with Cool-Whip, use a fork to make wood-grain markings, dust with cocoa powder) and she said "Ew! That sounds like what they feed the prisoners. You know, like at Huntsville."

2. Labor-intensive food that's totally worth it but only rarely actually made? I'd say Mexican sauces--there's a tomatillo sauce for chicken enchiladas that's totally awesome (but is also kind of a pain). Another item is homemade bread, which I don't make much because I tend to eat way too much of it hot out of the oven.

3. Death is not an option? Well, Twila is my obvious choice, just because I know (and like) women like her already. I have to confess I've had friends like Ami but it never lasted because eventually I'd flip out because of the domineering, passive-aggressive, knife-twisting bullshit and we'd have a huge falling-out, usually where I behaved like a screeching harpy and she and her friends would shake their heads going, whoa, bitch crazy.

Not that I'm bitter. I just like the Twilas and Scouts of this world a lot better.

4. Favorite street vendor food? Hot pretzels with mustard. I salivate at the thought of them. Sadly, the street vendors on the UT campus mostly suck, and some were arrested for fencing stolen property.

I ask you...
1. How many variations of Monkey Bread do you figure we can come up with? For instance, they could be baked in those oversized muffin cups and served out individually. Or they could be made with biscuits dipped in butter and layered with a brown-sugar-cinnamon mixture. There was also a version that used undiluted orange-juice concentrate and something else... and then there's chopped apples, or rasins...

2. What's your favorite emergency snack? I'll eat a hardboiled egg when I'm starving, standing over the sink and salting and peppering as I go. Eliot will eat a piece of cheese. Or, when there's not much else around, I'll drink milk straight out of the carton. (You know you're still transitioning to adulthood when you have to wipe lipstick off the milk carton.)

3. What's your favorite Christmas gift this year? I'm enjoying everything (especially the books) but was especially touched by both grandmas' gifts for the new baby: an asian baby doll from Judy and a completely adorable (and girly) baby outfit, featuring Baby's First Bluejeans (which are embroidered with teensy flowers, as is the matching ruffled shirt and jacket).

4. What is it that disturbs you most about all the destruction from the tsunami? It's all disturbing, but something about the on-the-scene footage taken of the actual waves really got to me: in some locations, it looked as though the usual ocean waves just kept coming. As in, you're at the beach, you watch the waves go out and come in, and then--the ocean just rolls across the land, the water gets higher and higher, across the beach and the grass and the roads. It's something I never could have imagined and it's unsettling.

And since there's so little else I can do, I'm putting these links here. Not that I don't know that you're already aware of these organizations.

https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://www.architectureforhumanity.org/
And here's a useful summary of the relief efforts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake

Take care, dood!

Those Zanotti heels are the BOMB!! Has Eliot seen them? The red rubber boots are sweet, too, but the heels? *Swoon*

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Your questions

1. Can you really get both knees replaced at the same time? I also always figured they did that one at a time. But it turns out not.

2. Speaking of reality TV, has this season's TAR made you revise your dream vacation list? Not really, because I have always wanted to go to Africa. However, as long as I am doing that, I might try to fit in Goree.

3. And, again on the TAR subject: whose relationship has been the most appealing to you? I actually liked the relationships of all the teams eliminated so far. Kristy's extremely patient and loving support of her sister when she was looking for the hay clue: awesome! Don and MJ remind me a bit of my parents, the way they like each other so much, the way they persevere, and the way they will surprise you with a bit of adorable vulgarity when it's appropriate.

4. And what are you doing for Christmas? Going to spend time with the family? Sleeping and studying, dood.

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Whenever I watch Semi-Homemade, I think of the party at your house last winter, which had lots of food along the lines of what she *should* be doing. But no, she is just RUINING food for the heck of it. Because she can, I think. HGTV has a few shows I really like. Remember those houses we looked at several months ago, which were all in buildings converted from other purposes? Building Character, it's called and it is well worth watching. Also, my new TV girlfriend is on that channel.

Most of my MP3s are ripped from CDs, which I do so I can listen to music at work without hauling CDs around. Also, I can then easily make mix disks, like the one I am sending you. I found a cute little utility that puts my current music in my AIM status, too. So it's easy to see what I am listening to, pretty much whenever you contact me.

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My turn...

1. So what is your favorite Semi-Homemade treat? Not from the show, but in general. I'm torn between that monkey bread you made for the party and that casserole with the frozen potatoes, cheesy creamy sauce, and crushed Fritos on top. Of course, I am also a fan of stews that use a couple canned ingredients. (See the recipe for Estofada I put on here awhile back.)

2. And what do you not make very often because it's a lot of trouble, but every time you do make it, you think "Oh, this is good, I should make it more often!"? Homemade potstickers. Where by "homemade", I mean both the filling and the wrappers.

3. Death is Not an Option: You must develop a close friendship with one of the women who were on Survivor this season. Which one? It's going to have to be one of Scout or Twila. Pretty much hated all the rest. (Except Dolly, but she seems so vapid, who would want to be colse friends with her?)

4. What is your favorite street vendor food? It's a toss up between the Char Siu bao from one of the vendors by the Berkeley BART station, and htis insanely good chicken sandwich that you can buy from a vendor at the west edge of the UOregon campus.

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One thing I have decided about these on-line journals is that they are dangerous. What I mean is that some people who seem reasonably interesting in Real Life turn out to be vapid and not very interesting when they go online. I hope that is not true for us!

Can't get enough of it these days. I've had a nasty cold for the past few days so I've had very little extra energy, despite all the other excitement around here. Getting our baby photos is pretty thrilling, so if I wasn't all stuffed and logy I imagine I'd be bouncing off the walls. So perhaps it's just as well...

You were asking...
1. What shoes do I want for Christmas? Well, a pair of sexy Zanotti heels is always welcome, of course, though given the $560 price, I'm not exactly holding my breath: http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/prod.jhtml?cmCat=search&itemId=prod15210107

As a more practical matter, I could really go for some ankle-height rubber boots:
http://www.zappos.com/n/p/dp/2389657/c/7542.html

Also, those blue tennies are way cute.

2. The House and Garden channel? I hadn't actually looked. I have to confess I don't watch much in the way of how-to shows unless there's an Iron-Chef-style hook. By the way, I finally saw "Semi-Homemade Cooking with Scary Lee." Dude, that is some horrible stuff, and I say this as somebody who's capable of fairly low-brow food indulgences--but really, some of that was nasty. Naaasty.

3. Solo vacation? Tough question, because I've never actually vacationed alone. I think I'd enjoy any big city with a lot of museums, but Chicago especially would be great fun, because they have a fantastic art museum that I haven't seen since I was a kid. And the shopping is incredible, according to my mom, who would know.

4. I have almost no music squirreled away as MP3s. The reason being that I don't download much music, aside from a few singles. Which is why I don't get to use the "detect" function to fill in the "current music" category, I just fill in whatever I've had on the car CD player.

Oh, plus this:
http://www.archive.org/audio/audio-details-db.php?collection=comfort_stand&collectionid=csr049

All I'm saying is that I really really like a certain type of 70s-style guitar groove music.

So, tell me...
1. Can you really get both knees replaced at the same time? I always figured they did that one at a time, so you could recuperate after each one. And the taking-off-and-putting-back-on is creepy, but I think I'd get over it if I'd been in terrible pain and couldn't get around. Still, ick. Did you notice on the Survivor finale that Scout said that the docs had given her the wrong size knee? Yowza. I'd be pissed.

2. Speaking of reality TV, has this season's TAR made you revise your dream vacation list? I have to say not yet: I've been to Oslo (and that very ski-jump, as it happens, which was hard to find even with a local taking us there) and Stockholm, both of which I'd happily visit again. Going to the Viking village could be cool, but then I'm kind of a sap for all things Viking. Go figure.

3. And, again on the TAR subject: whose relationship has been the most appealing to you? I really love Gus and Hera, partly because I'm enjoying watching them getting used to interacting like teammates and travelers instead of whatever old patterns of father-and-daughter they'd established--I think they're learning to respect and appreciate each other in a new way. Also, I really enjoyed Don and Mary Jane, because even when they were frustrated and tired they would stop and apologize for snapping; plus they really obviously adore each other. And they were graceful losers, sniff!

I'm not even going to ask who has the most appalling relationship, because there's no doubt: Jonathan and Victoria are just awful, awful together and he's an abusive freak. Screaming, shrieking, blaming, it just goes on and on. Turkish prison? Absolutely.

4. And what are you doing for Christmas? Going to spend time with the family? We're going to Houston for a few days. I'm hoping to be over my cold before we go, though I'm not so sure I can pull it off, alas.

And to you and all our readers (assuming we have any): Merry Christmas! Happy Festivus! And, as a variation on Tiny Tim's plea, Lord Help Us All.

I am exhausted. I have no idea why. I have been getting a fairly normal amount of sleep, and when I felt absolutely hammered yesterday, I went to bed at 8-freaking-o'clock of the evening, and slept 12 1/2 hours. So how is it even possible that I feel quite tired today? Admittedly, it's not as bad as yesterday, when I was pinching myself in meetings to stay awake, but it's pretty bad.

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Questions from Jules....
1. Dude, you don't drink coffee?I almost never drink coffee. When I first started hanging out with Mark, who makes excellent coffee, my consumption shot up from one cup a day to about eight cups a day and I could see I was well on my way to a serious addiction. So I stopped. I occasionally drink a cup, but not very often.

2. Since you asked about alcohol, what's your favorite cold weather libation? Hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps.

3. Speaking of which, do you ever make seasonal alcohol-enriched desserts ( of the non-flamed variety)? I sometimes make myself a pan of really fudgy brownies, then poke holes all over it with a fork and dump a bunch of Kahlua. Then put some ganache on top of that. I used to sprinkle crushed espresso beans over the top of that until I made myself sick eating chocolate-covered espresso beans and went off them for life.

But my mother makes brandy balls (vanilla wafers, walnuts and brandy, near as I can tell) a few weeks before Halloween. They are okay, but I don't miss them when I don't have them.

4. And, because I'm running out of ideas, do you prefer twinkly lights on the Christmas tree or steady-burning? Clear or multi-colored? Twinkly and clear. Or else steady and colored. I'm shocked that you did not ask me if I like big ones or little ones while you were at it (little ones).

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The weather is quite odd here today. For example, it was 15F colder at my house than at my office this morning, and it's less than 20 miles from one to the other. Also, it can't decide if it's sunny, foggy, hazy, or rainy. Finally, it's been really dark all day long except for that too-bright sunshine in my front yard as I tried to see whether I was accurately scraping the ice off my car.

Do you think that once Eliot has a child to share Christmas with, that his attitude might change?

My mom had both knees replaced last week and is up and wandering around already. In fact, she was up and wandering around really fast after the surgery. It's such a weird operation. They cut your legs off and then stick them back on using fake-o parts. I mean, that's what it comes down to, and that freaks me out to think about. My brother came back from Central America in time for the operation, which I think my dad appreciated.

I'm glad you want to do the book. Maybe you could dig out the old draft book proposal and make some changes to it?

This week's episode of TAR was disturbing, although it was certainly beautifully edited. First, we see Gus waxing profound about the Middle Passage and the Berlin Wall, talking about how everywhere on earth are the artifacts of people's inhumanity towards other people. Then we get to watch that appalling man hit his wife, as if to say, and yeh, Gus, it's still going on. I'm a fan of Kris/Jon, Gus/Hera, and (to my surprise) the rasslers. But it won't kill me if the wife-hitter ends up in a turkish prison.

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My turn...

1. So, Jules, what shoes do you want for Christmas? I want these, in blue.

2. Does your cable company still withhold Home and Garden TV from you? The best thing about switching from analog to digital cable was adding that channel in.

3. Where would you go on a solo vacation? I am thinking of going to Singapore and taking the train to Bangkok, up through penninsular Malaysia and Thailand.

4. How much music do you have squirreled away as MP3s? It turns out that I have 4600 songs, which is 12 days of music, or about 18.9GB. I should probably admit that I had to delete about 6GB, because I was running out of disk space on my PowerBook.

By which I mean, what kind of person puts up a new artificial tree all by herself? Answer: an idiot with a husband who loathes all things festive and Christmas-related. I'm proud to announce, however, that I managed to get the thing up and lit without hurting myself too much. And even with a tree that came with the lights already on it, it was freakin hard. And I bought a fresh wreath so we get the piney smell, minus the nightmarish allergies. And, ironically, I'm just finishing with the lights and the arranging of branches when the Grinch comes home, squints at it, and allows as how it maybe doesn't look too bad.

I think that a big part of the appeal for him is that it's just a fake tree with lights: no ornaments, no tinsel, no garland, no star on the top, nada. (Rhetorical question:--which is why it's here--What kind of person is such an overbearing asshole to children while decorating the tree that the kids, when grown up, can't abide Christmas trees? Short answer: a drunk. But still.)

Also, I'm annoyed that you loaned Mark a vehicle without remembering to sabotage the brakes first. Ha--kidding! Like you'd damage your nifty little SUV.

Oh, right, questions...
1. Regular or decaf? Regular or Premium? Iced or hot tea? Chocolate or vanilla? Regular (until 5pm, then decaf). Regular gas, because Hank is a regular kinda guy. Iced. Chocolate, unless I can get fudge sauce, then vanilla.

2. You betcha we'll write this book. In fact, I've been looking forward to it, though I've realized that you're very busy. It's exactly the sort of project that I can fit in during naptime and stuff like that.

3. Chinese dessert...Have you ever made those little sesame seed balls? They're just a little sweet so they make a nice dessert with a cup of tea.

4. Hangover cure? Dude, have I got the advice for you: before you go to bed, take a long hot bath while drinking your half liter of water. If you don't want a bath, at least take a long hot shower. The hot water seems to help metabolize the alcohol so you don't go to sleep drunk, which is part of the morning-after fatigue since the bed spins just aren't restful.

I know this because I went to a lawyer's conference and drank unwisely: tequila, red wine, then more tequila. I know. But the bath and water, plus two aspirin meant that I made it to the next morning's sessions.

So, I ask you...
1. Dude, you don't drink coffee? That is, since you said "neither' to regular or decaf, unless there's a third option that the advanced-coffee-drinkers of Seattle have come up with.

A coffee-related story: the exterminator was here and, since I had a pot on, I offered her a cup of coffee. She sipped it thoughtfully, nodded and said, this is good coffee. Where do you get your coffee? Is this fresh ground? And I was thinking, who does this remind me of? Later I realized: Harvey Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction. (Good news, by the way: no termites, and the ants are dying in large numbers.)

2. Since you asked about alcohol, what's your favorite cold weather libation? I'm fond of hot chocolate with about half a shot of cognac, but it's not like I get to drink much of it.

3. Speaking of which, do you ever make seasonal alcohol-enriched desserts ( of the non-flamed variety)? By which, I refer to rum balls or bourbon balls or whatever. My parents used to make bourbon balls, which I disliked as a kid (of course) and never developed a taste for. Though I adore amaretto cookies. And then there's rum cakes and that whole thing, which I only like in tiny quantities.

I always suspected the bourbon balls were made so that they could have some Christmas candy that didn't get gobbled up by the kids.

4. And, because I'm running out of ideas, do you prefer twinkly lights on the Christmas tree or steady-burning? Clear or multi-colored? I'm liking twinkly white lights right now.

Weird days seem to be the theme of the month. You are not the only person I know who has had one lately.

Before I step off into the recital of the recent events in my life, I want to take a moment to record this quotation from Susan Saint James. Having resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other guy dies. Yes, indeed it is. I hope I can remember that at moments when resentment is threatening to bubble up and over.

Anyway, this was the weekend of irony. For example, Mark has decided to go to the Oregon coast and see if he can get caught up on his thesis. Me, I told him he could take my car, since it really is more appropriate for that kind of driving. Of course, he left on Saturday, and then I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, "Hmm, what is that odd sound?" And then, "Oops! That is the sound of wet snow falling out of the sky and landing on the roof outside my window." So there I was, all Sunday, stuck at the top of a hill with a Honda Civic, which is not what you want to drive around in snow with, having let my 4WD baby out of my sight. Really, what was I thinking? I wish it had included, "Hey, wait a second! It's December, and that means snow, and you live at the top of a hill, you idiot." Oh well. At least we had a heat wave last night, and the 40F air melted all the damn snow.

Now that I think about it, that was more like "idiocy" than "irony".

I'm spending the week alone in the house with a bunch of cats who hate each other. I have decided to try to get Mozart back on a reasonable diet, which he hates. This makes him cranky, and then he starts being irritable with the other cats, who then take it out on each other. He also deals with the stress of Not Enough Food by licking parts of his body until first the fur comes off and then he starts to bleed. I think this is something like Kitty OCD. Do they have pills for that?

We're working on hiring developers, which is a pain, because whenever we do, the fanboys come out of the woodwork, and send us resumes about how they don't know how to program, but would really, really, REALLY like to learn, and they can't think of a better place to do that than here.

And school just feels like a major pain in the neck right now. I spent several hours on the phone with Micki yesterday (well, I couldn't go anywhere, after all!), and we redesigned the program to be less gendered and less annoying. She's looking for a PhD program in leadership and/or international studies. I think I might be looking for a PhD program in fixing broken things. Do they have one like that? Because I am sick of not knowing how to make things better.

So that's the report from Seattle today. I think I would like to see a blue sky for a few hours. And no more damn snow until I get my car back! (And yes, I do realize I did this to myself, but I still want to be snow-free until I get my car back.)

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Shockingly enough, you had questions! How surprising....

1. Do you ever get the urge to ask a bunch of pointless questions? Such as: soup or salad? Paper or plastic? Cup or cone? Fries or baked potato? Of course. Soup. Paper. Cone. Mashed, please.

2. So I'll resort to asking about food: Did your family eat a different meal for Christmas than Thanksgiving? It mostly depended on where we were eating said meals. Different people had different ideas about what one ought to eat on those days of the year. My mother has recently started serving a huge roast beef dinner on Christmas Eve, which is great, because then you can have the artery-clogging breakfast on the day itself, and content yourself with leftovers and soup that afternoon.

3. What about holiday desserts? Are you doctrinaire on the issue of Christmas cookies? I'm not. Lynne and I used to make Yule Logs, getting fancier each year. I think that the last one we made had meringue mushrooms and ganache leaves in various colors, and a spun-sugar cobweb with a carved-from-licorice spider. It was fun to make and very impressive.

4. And now, wild card question: Have you ever won anything by being the tenth (or whatever) caller to a radio station? Never.

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My turn...

1. Do you have answers for pointless questions, such as: Regular or decaf? Regular or Premium? Iced or hot tea? Chocolate or vanilla? (Neither, Premium, Iced if it has no lemon in it, and Vanilla most days.)

2. Do you think we are ever really going to write this book? I have to admit, doing so is one of the things I hold out as a reward for myself for finishing this degree. But I keep thinking that it's really going to be a burden to you over the next year, and I don't want that.

3. What is the right thing to eat for dessert with Chinese food? I ask because I have never figured that out. I have this great meal I can make for the purposes of a dinner party, but it has no dessert, and I don't much like tossing fortune cookies at people after a home-cooked meal. Ideas?

4. Best way to prevent a hangover, short of abstention? Four aspirin and half a liter of water before bed. Take a large gulp of water every time I wake up all night long. It turns out that whoever told me that a hangover was largely composed of dehydration was onto something.

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L8R, dood.

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Yesterday was a weird day, though I think with no lasting results. First, I had a disturbing dream before I got up. (More about that later.)

During breakfast I said, you know Eliot now that I'm finished with the book project I'm free to do Christmas stuff, is there anything you want? And he just gave me this evil glare. I blurted, ack, what's with that, and he's all, do I ever care about Christmas or find it anything besides a chore? So I said, jeez, I was just wondering if you wanted me to make fruitcake or cookies or something. I realize now that he wasn't exactly listening and only tuned in time to think I was on the verge of trying to get him up on the roof stringing lights or something. Ha! That'll be the day.

After breakfast, there's the ant problem: we've had ants here and there in the house but we've managed to chase them away without too much trouble. The other day there were a few in the shower and Eliot ran the hot water and rinsed them away, muttering something about calling an exterminator. Then yesterday there's a multitude of ants in there, running around in a hostile manner in the tub. And they appear to be fire ants, too. I went online to find an exterminator (by Googling, I managed to find a GLB-friendly exterminator, so that was good, except that she can't come by until next week.) Then I showered in the other room, so as to not be attacked by the swarm of ants, but first I scattered some ant bait in the tub because I fucking hate fire ants and the feeling is absolutely mutual. And then I'm sitting around looking at my email and realize that the house cleaners are coming today: I'm not dressed (bathrobe, hair towel and slippers), my hair is wet, plus the house looks like a small-but-crammed-with-books room vomited its contents all over the house and two or three pieces of luggage exploded (this would be the Thanksgiving luggage). And there's ant bait in the tub, plus a couple of million angry ants. On top of all that, it's 10:00, and our deal with the house cleaners is that they can arrive at any time after 9 am.

So I do the sensible thing: freak out completely. I turn on the hot shower in the tub and frantically try to rinse out the ants-and-bait mess. Leaving that on, I run into the other room so as to not be naked when the house cleaners arrive. I dress halfway, can't find a shirt that's warm enough for this weather, so I peer around the corner to see if the house cleaners are in the driveway. They're not. Dash to the laundry room, frantically put on a sweater and run shivering into the bathroom (because the laundry room AND the sweater were both damn cold) where it's nice and warm because the hot water's still running. I use a toilet brush to help rinse out the by-now-furious-ants and the bait. Then I briefly pondered whether to hang around and warn the cleaning people about the ants and bait and decide, screw that, they're professionals. Plus I checked the tub again and there's no bait and the few remaining ants are clinging irritably to the shower curtain. And then I flee, because I really do have errands to run, not just because I don't want to face angry ants or house cleaners.

Oh, and the dream: One of those annoying dreams where you think you got up but you're still in bed, dreaming. I'm walking through the living room and look down and see a little red light glowing deep in the carpet. I bend down and poke at it but it's planted deep, in the concrete slab, with the light barely visible through the pile of the carpet. I think oh God is that a bug? A camera? And I look for a knife to cut up the carpet so I can find that thing. Then I woke up.

And now, yer questions!
1. Sauna or hot tub? I'd go for the sauna if I could also have a cold plunge pool. Because, zowie. Otherwise, hot tub.

2. Post election web-reading? I like the sites you mentioned, but I've also been enjoying some shadenfreude: http://fuggingitup.blogspot.com/ and doing some shopping: http://www.enokiworld.com/frontpage.htm Have I mentioned that I haven't quite figured out how to do links? Politically, there's this one: http://www.democraticunderground.com/

3. Loft or 1920s flat? The flat, I'm thinking, because of the architectural details and because keeping all that brick dusted would be a pain. But mostly because architectural details from that era are so cool.

4. More annoying, the person who I like but who doesn't like me, or the person I loathe who likes me? Oh, the latter, absolutely, because there were so many of those people in law school (probably because so few of them were likeable at all).

So, tell me...
1. Do you ever get the urge to ask a bunch of pointless questions? Such as: soup or salad? Paper or plastic? Cup or cone? Fries or baked potato? (My usual answers: soup, paper, cone, fries. Depending.) Yeah, sometimes it's hard to come up with questions.

2. So I'll resort to asking about food: Did your family eat a different meal for Christmas than Thanksgiving? My family didn't, except when the holiday featured the Mom's Huge Family Buffet (her family is huge, thus the buffet is, too). On those occasions, there'd be a turkey AND a ham, plus all the side dishes and pies. Often a fruitcake, too, that somebody had hoped once and for all to get rid of--did you know fruitcake is much improved with a generous slathering of whipped cream? But then, what isn't?

3. What about holiday desserts? Are you doctrinaire on the issue of Christmas cookies? I have to admit that molasses-ginger cookies or butter cookies in holiday shapes seem more right for Christmas, but I won't turn down chocolate chip. Also, there's a Southern (ok, really, Redneck Fundamentalist) practice of baking a "Happy Birthday, Jesus" cake. Creepy, but I have no idea why.

4. And now, wild card question: Have you ever won anything by being the tenth (or whatever) caller to a radio station? I have, twice. I won a Kenny Rogers album and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I never opened the former, and my parents swiped the latter to practice dancing to during their disco phase.