Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Resolutions are for the Weak

So I'm thinking of 2008, as most people are doing this time of year. It was not an easy year for me, in fact, 2007 wasn't so great either, so I'm due for a great 2009, and, being the eternal optimist that I am, I have great hope for 2009. So what did I do this past year?

1. I ate escargot for the first time. It was good, but slap some mushrooms in a wine, garlic and butter sauce and I would be just as happy.
2. I shot a gun at a gun range, and I really liked it. I used to be scared of shooting, but now I want to practice more, since it turns out that I am a pretty good shot.
3. I went to the doctor and got a physical. I had been putting it off forever, but since I was feeling progressively more crappy, and kept gaining weight even though I mostly ate like a bird, it was necessary, and I was proud of myself for doing it.
4. I lost 30 pounds. Turned out that the reason I felt crappy and was gaining weight was because I had absolutely no metabolism, courtesy of my thyroid being a lazy bitch. So I now take a pill every day, and the weight is still coming off.
5. I jumped in a pool fully dressed. Okay so it was at a party, and I had some wine in me, and it was for a prize. But if you knew how reserved I am, and saw the surprised looks on my friends' faces, you would get how big a deal this was. So glad I was not wearing a white t-shirt.
6. I stepped up my volunteering at church. I now serve in three different areas of the church, and am so happy I did this. I now know so many more people, and am glad for the relationships.

There are certainly a lot more things I could put here, but those come to mind right now. I'm not going to make resolutions, because those are pure crap. Why put restrictions on your life in friggin January, one of the coldest and lamest months of the year? I am just going to say that next year I hope to be an improved version of me.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Toe socks and tomes

Oh hi hello neglected blog and my two whole blog readers. I am back....for now, until I get distracted by another creative pursuit, or just something shiny.

It takes that little apparently.

So what to say. My holidays were fun. I had too much to eat and too much to drink. I wrote a lot on my novel. I truly enjoyed fleshing out the book. It felt like I was breathing life into the nostrils of some characters....people....that I dig. All in all, I wrote about 55 pages of text. Of course that is not diddly squat for a novel, so there is much more writing to be done, but my book is in a happy place right now, and since my creative bend is now in a different direction, I'm gonna let the characters breathe on their own a little, and visit them sometime soon.

So for Christmas my sister got me skeins of fun yarns, so I have been all about knitting. I am currently knitting a shawl, and I love how the silky yarn feels in my fingers, and enjoy the tap tap tap of the knitting needles against each other. I will finish the shawl off with pom pom ties, because my wardrobe is severely deficient in the pom pom area, and they are damn fun.

It takes very little to make me merry. That is a good thing I am sure. The funnest thing I got for Christmas was.....drumroll please.......toe socks. OMG I love them so much. They are striped blue, green, cream and burgundy, and my toes are now swaddled in softness, as toes should be. I will take a picture when I next wear them, because they are just so lovely.

So here you have it. A few short paragraphs that sum up over a month of blog neglect. I would promise to do better, but yeahhhh I ain't gonna do that.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Chapter 4

I am back to writing my novel, and it feels pretty good. Here's an excerpt:

Chapter 4

Home. She loved her apartment. Josie lives in the front, right corner of a rambling old house on West End Avenue. Her neighbor and landlady is a dear friend, Frances Hartman-Merriweather. Frances was always perfectly dressed, coiffed and smells of Chanel No. 5. She had an age but never told it, because she often said “women should never divulge their age or number of lovers.” Frances is Tom’s aunt, and is a fountain of wonderful stories and adventures.

Josie heard a soft knock at the door, and then a sweet Southern voice that dripped of magnolia.

“Josie dear are you decent?”

“Frances you don’t have to knock.”

“Oh honey I will always knock just in case you are in the throes of passion with an amorous lover. It’s the appropriate thing to do sugar.”

“Ha nope no lovers tonight. Just me, you, Scooter and Thai food.”

“Mmmmm that pad thai smells decadent. Reminds me of a lovely summer I had on Kamala Bay with Prince Annan.”

“Prince Annan? Did Charles know about him?”

“Oh honey this was years before I met my dear departed husband, I was a teenager when my father was stationed in Thailand. Those steamy summer nights on the bay….I cried for weeks when we returned to the States. Then Prince Annan was just a lovely memory once I met my dear Charles.”

Charles Merriweather was a well-respected pediatrician in Nashville. He ran his practice out of his home, and Frances was his assistant. Frances and Charles never had children of their own, but they considered every patient they took care of family. Charles died shortly after their 42nd wedding anniversary. Alzheimers robbed him of his memories, but Frances posted all the patient pictures she could find on the walls of their bedroom when the end was near. Thousands of family members lined the walls of that bedroom when he passed.

“So Tom says he’s given you a project that has to do with Eldridge Hartman?”

“Yep I’m going to start on it tomorrow.”

“To this day I will not buy The Tennessean. They printed such lies about poor old Great Uncle El.”

“Like what Frances?”

“Oh the paper claimed that Eldridge committed suicide by hanging himself in his office closet. Such fabrications. He had nothing to be unhappy about. His was a life filled with men’s pursuits and loose women. What man would hate that?”

“Ha you have a point there. He certainly was a man’s man.”

“And he was as rich as Roosevelt, but his fortune was never found. I think the gold was taken by corrupt police investigators. Eldridge was not one to trust banks. The safe in his office was empty when the police arrived, and none of his employees turned immediately rich after his demise. Hoooo I am still feeling the heat from the pad thai. Please excuse me whilst I dab some cold water on my neck.”

“Powder room is all yours.”

“Honey the cold water knob came right off. Why don’t you ask Dan to lend a hand?”

Yeah that’s probably because I loosened it earlier as an excuse to get Dan up here, Josie thought to herself. There are only so many times you can tamper with the floaty thing in the toilet before a hot handy man will get suspicious. So she changed up her routine, and then forgot.

“Oh um sure Frances, I’ll call him right now.”

Dan was up in Josie’s apartment in under a minute. Dan was gorgeous, but in a rugged I-don't-know-that-I-am-a-Greek-God sorta way. Josie watched as Dan bent over and reached for a wrench in his bag. His brown hair that really needed a haircut fell in his face, and he pushed it back. She wanted to offer to hold it back for him...with her teeth. She sighed, and looked over at Frances, who was staring at her with a wizened smirk on her face.

“Anything else you need?” Dan asked as he bent over again to return the wrench to his bag.”

“Damn.”

“What was that Josie?”

“Oh um nothing. I said done. Ahhh yeah nothing else. Thank you Dan.”

My bed could use some servicing came to her mind as quickly as she tried to stifle the thought.

“You’re welcome Josie. You know where I am if you need anything.”

“Hot….ha um thanks again Dan.” Josie closed the door and wondered how many brain cells just shot out of her mouth.

“Oh lord girl will you jump him already?”

“Frances!”

“Honey you are a lovely woman, and Dan, well he’s just gorgeous. If there was any more chemistry in this room there would be an explosion. I love a good drama, but every drama needs a romantic interlude.”

“I know Frances. I would love a romantic interlude. Life is just complicated right now.”

“Everyone has complicated lives. Complication and drama make life worth living. Without it we would just go through the motions of living, but never actually experience life.”

“True Frances, true.”

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Apple Treasure Cookie Quest

So the Husband just called to say that a lady from church requested my e-mail, so that she could send me an invite to a cookie party. Since it is not bridal or baby shower, which I always try to avoid, I will for certain go, especially since the theme involves cookies, and I fully support the cookie yo.

So then that got me to thinking....what sort of cookie should I make? I can make peanut butter cookies in a jiffy, and I'm sure there will be many iterations on the chocolate theme, so what to do?

Then that set my mind clock spinning into past cookie loves, which sent me to Pomona, New York. Every year, the family would go upstate to Pomona in the fall for apple picking. Along the way we always stopped at this specific store and got pies and cookies. Said cookie purchase always included a bag of "Apple Treasure Cookies." They were chewy but not tough, cake-like, a reddish sort of brown, and they had bits of apple, peanuts, perhaps raisins and probably a bit of elfin magic, because they were that awesome.

I'm sure no one else would think of making anything like the Apple Treasure Cookie, so now I am totally fixated on the idea.

So I googled "Apple Treasure Cookies" and alas nothing popped up that was right. I am still searching, but if any of my many 2 readers have any intersting apple cookie recipe, or even know about the Apple Treasure Cookie love, help a sistah out mmmmkay?

Monday, December 1, 2008

Fish Pedicure Anyone?

Y'all. This is some crazy shizzle. I have not seen this sort of pedicure offered in the spas of Nashville, but it is only a matter of time. Don't people see the danger in this?

The fish are going to overtake us an eat us, without a delicious wine and butter sauce.

Apparently, you can now go to some spas and get a fish pedicure, where you place your feet in warm water and fish, known as "doctor fish" yomp at the dead skin cells on your tootsies. You get to pay $35 for this treatment according to this article.

People that get this treatment describe the sensation of nibbling fish as "ticklish." Hell to the no. These fools are getting fish used to the idea of eating humans, which is so wrong on the carnivore food chain. We eat the fishes, not the other way around. These doctor fish probably have a collective intelligence with other species of fish. Soon goldfish and other supposedly friendly pets will leap from their bowls and feast on our flesh....leaving only our skeletons in their wake as testament to our foolish quest for smooth feet.
If you want smooth feet use a pumice stone. At least rocks don't have brains or any ability to move (except for gravity and merry throwing).
I can't look out for all of y'all forever. Be safe and don't tempt the fishes.