I have discovered a new Friday-friendly, kid-approved dish:  Pasta alla Vodka!

( Text of the recipe, in case the original site dies or gets misplaced. )

It worked pretty much as written.  I used some kind of sweet yellow onion, instead of the standard kind, and an extra clove of garlic. I found I didn't need to reserve the cooking water because I substituted Coffe Mate, which is not as thick.  Heresy, I know, but it tasted okay.  Think of all those calories saved! 

Daughter LOVED it!  She ate it for dinner and then demanded leftovers for lunch and dinner the next day. She did have a point about the onions, though; I'll have to try to dice them more finely next time.

Daughter's new favorite movie is "Get Smart".  (We've seen it three times since the weekend.)   It was really, really good, actually, and did not at all deserve to be in the clearance bin at the grocery store.   Super funny straight-man humor and action and explosions and gadgets and stuff.  I did have to explain about the shoe phone, though.

We also made gnocci together this weekend, together with a somewhat angry meat sauce.  (It's amazing what half a teaspoon of chili flakes will do!)  I think we need another recipe for the gnocci, though, because they didn't want to hold their shape while waiting to be boiled. :(  We had a pile of them made,  then started cooking the ones from the top of the pile, when we found out that the earlier-made ones had glommed together.  D:  Frantic re-rolling, cutting, and forking between batches. D:D:  They tasted okay, though, even if they were ugly.  Daughter was amused that some of them looked like seafood; she found a fish and a prawn.

She could not say gnocci correctly, though.

NO-kee?

YAW-kee?

nuh-YAW-kee?

nuh-YO-kee?

:)

I didn't listen to it except for a short clip on the radio, which the dj immediately followed with this song:


I LOLed.

 . . . to skip enough desserts and second-helpings so that my torso does not look like bread rising out of a pan in my wedding dress.

No.    If I start getting too warm, I tend to stay overheated for a lot longer than anyone else.  With swollen hands and feet.  And feeling generally nauseous and icky.  Yuck.  So, apart from all the aches and pains, exercise tends to make me feel awful.

I also tend to stay cold if I get cold. :(   My "normal" temperature is a degree lower than everyone else's too.  Thus, I am inclined to be in an environment of 68 to 70 degrees, depending on activity level, with the option of a sweater.

Whatever bodily system is charge of temperature regulation, mine seems to be broken.

I did spend a winter learning to ice skate.  That was okay because the cold balanced everything out, so I got exercise without breaking a sweat, but I was still warm enough in just a sweater.

And from Bent Objects, here's one for expectare .

From CakeWrecks . . .  just what you need for your next party!

 Clearly, my unwritten New Year's resolution is to be sick *every single day* of the New Year.

So far, I'm five for five.   *cough*  Go, me. :P

It was Fiancé's* birthday, and I was puttering and fretting because I was going to see him in a few hours, but hadn't gotten him a present.  Mind, he insisted that he didn't want or need any presents; he does well enough for himself that I believe that it's absolutely true.  But I couldn't do nothing, could I?

So, I find myself in the local discount clothing store, and I find a dress that I'd seen in another location, but this time** it's in my size!  And then shoes to match!  Clearly, this is a sign, so I run home and get cleaned up, 'cause it's 2:30 and I'm supposed to meet him at 5, and I've got an hour-and- a-half drive ahead of me.

When he pulled up, he had to look twice. "Who is that lady?"  Instead of jeans, I'm wearing a dress of ruched black chiffon gathered over a gold underdress, floaty and romantic.   Instead of boots, I'm wearing black patent slingbacks with three-inch heels.  And curls.  And perfume.  And red, red lipstick.  Surprised was an understatement.

Then we went somewhere jazzy ("Rick's" in Marin, I think) for dinner, and I put my feet up on his lap 'cause those shoes hurt like hell after the first half-dozen steps.  But it was a good time, and he said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him. So, yay! :D


* Anyone know how to make a "é" without having to paste it in from Word?
** Last time, I managed to get into it and zip it up half-way, but then found myself stuck and had to call Daughter into the dressing room to let me out. :P

Believe it or not, this is a MARTHA STEWART wedding cake idea.
 
Let us place this firmly in the category of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."




Leaving aside jokes about the decorator being a 'fun guy'. . .  just  . . . oy.    D:

Someone complained in YouTube's comments that they *are* Irish. However, it makes a mash-up of Beatles songs set to the music of an Irish drinking song no less funny.

In other news, I may finally have mixed (actually, properly shaken) a decent Margarita in the traditional 3:2:1 proportions. Unfortunately, Hornitos tequila may be the weak link, but the bottle is finally empty and I am now free to seek a better one.

 

This guy actually built one! He also took plenty of process pics to show how it was done: the computer modeling, sculpting, framing, all amazing.

Teh geekitude!

I'm not a particular fan of Star Wars, but it seems I'm a fan of constructing interesting things from scratch, just because we can.

When Daughter was small, I re-watched Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  You know, the stop-motion animated ones from the seventies.  I remembered liking them back in the day, but after about a decade-and-a-half hiatus, all I could think was, "OMGWTFBBQ! These are MESSED UP!!11!"  D:

From over at the wtf_cute community:

I just had/made the most awesome Sidecar. :D

1 oz Korbel brandy (hey, I'm not on a cognac budget yet)
1 oz Cointreau
1/2 oz freshly-squeezed lemon juice
Shake with 5 ice cubes until about 3 of them are melted. Or you have about 2 cubes worth of ice left, however you want to look at it. Strain into something fancy if you have it.

I don't always get the shaking right because I get impatient. I'm looking forward to having a fridge that makes crushed ice so it doesn't take so long to shake to the proper dilution. (Sometimes I give up and leave a couple of ice chunks in and just wait for those suckers to melt.)

I went to Red's the other day and asked for a Sidecar. The oldest bartender, Jimmy, looked at me funny and said that he doesn't often hear an order for one of those, especially not from people my age. And then he made it weird.

As far as I can tell, he put Korbel, Cointreau (?), Rose's lime juice, sour mix, and ice together, and then threw it in the blender. IN THE BLENDER. D: It ended up being a kind of blended Margarita made with brandy instead of tequila. It didn't taste bad, but still . . . wrong. Avoiding the floaty snowball in the middle was annoying. I had a Sidecar moustache. :/

The young bartender, whose name I don't know, makes an acceptable Sidecar. I've never asked Forrest for one, but when he's on, my Gold Cadillac is never empty and my Gin and Tonic mysteriously refills. S'magic.

On the way to get lunch, I had to push my way through a horde of students marching and protesting fee increases and demanding smaller class sizes. (They were blocking the way to the sandwich shop.)

Now, their fees are *heavily* subsidized by the state, to the tune of maybe a quarter or a fifth of the going rate. Crazy Joe is practically *giving* education away. The state has a huge deficit due to this subsidization (among its other welfare programs) and the belief that everyone is college material and everyone has a "right" to go to college, as long as you are breathing and have a GPA of 2.5, or are willing to whine extensively to Admissions. Not only are the prices rock-bottom, but your admission WILL NOT BE REFUSED!

So, these 'I have a RIGHT to college' geniuses are demanding that the state not increase the fees and increase the services.

Geniuses: "You can't increase the fees and cut the classes available! And there's too many people in the classes I do have! I pay my fees and I demand this stuff!"

Voice of Reason: "But there is not enough money to have the services you want at the price you're willing to pay. Where is the money supposed to come from?"

Geniuses: "From the government!"

Fine. Somebody is going to nod their head sagely and not increase their fees because the *government* will take up the slack.

But wait! Where is the *government* going to get this money?

From YOU, genius. Taxes, baby, taxes. You could've just paid YOUR fees and got on with your life, but now, genius, you can pay EVERYBODY'S fees, for the rest of your stay in the lovely State of Welfare.

Yesterday, I went to Daughter's school because she got on the honor roll for third grade. :D

She got a certificate with her name spelled wrong, a patch for her shirt (not even a *whole* proverbial t-shirt), and a bumper sticker. :/ A few of the fourth and fifth graders got highest honors, so those kids also got a trophy like a two-handled shot glass. All the kids lined up beside the stage looking extremely bored, or like they were facing a firing squad, or both.

By the time it was winding up, the expressions on the kids' faces were 'just gimme my sticker and my shot glass so we can get out of here.'

Crap. I'm stil trying to find enough motivation to finish my step-dad's socks. Other than that, all I've got done is some hyperventilating.

I heard somewhere that Advent starts next week, too.

I think I'm in holiday season denial. D: