My Good Pepper Poppers

I got the recipe from the back of the bag of mini sweet peppers from Sam's Club, they were so good the first time I had to make them again. Jimmy helped!





And for Aunt Betty, I wanted to get a good shot of Jimmy's new Old Faithful shirt, but the model was more preoccupied with other stuff. Oh well, you get the idea...



And it sorta matches the peppers! We hope to see the ol' geyser ourselves someday. And the bison, and waterfalls, and all the rest of it. Thanks again!

Trick or Beets

Ok, maybe not beets, but I got a kick out of the tomatoes and spinach that Jimmy put into his trick-or-treat pumpkin this afternoon. If we can keep that momentum going we will be all set.

Other news, we wanted to thank Aunt Betty for sending fun Yellowstone and festive motorcycle t-shirts, and for introducing Jimmy to Pez (that was quite an afternoon. =) We love them, photos soon to come. Also, we learned today that my mother-in-law, Jimmy's grandmother was given 4-12 months to live, she has a lot of cancer and we will be making a trip to visit her soon. Any feel-good vibes sent to Vermont are appreciated, I'm sure.

AND tonight Liza Minnelli will be presented with a key to the city, and all that jazz!

Friday Night Movies

I didn't expect Jimmy to be as serious about this movie as he was, but the whole cuddling-on-the-couch-with -your-3-year-old-as-he-reaches-over-to-give-you-a-kiss thing really made me fall in love with Netflix Watch Instantly. The movie...I still think it kinda stunk, but that's o-kay!

Asn't Seen on Youtube

So far, 3 out of 3 visits to the Westbrook Shaw's resulted in the same prize item from the $0.25 (eff those 50 cent machines, who do they think I am???) gumball/exotic animal machine at the store's exit. All three times we got the same lion, the same squishy orange felis leo that throws Jimmy into a fit of rooooooarrrring all the time.

Mrrrrrroooooaaaarrrrmmmrrr

I mean, as you can see, the details and the size on this lion are pretty raw, and savage.





So today, exiting Shaw's Westgate, Jimmy was naturally drawn to the same (cheapo) machine, the one with the tiny wild vicious animals. I think we always hope to get the panda or something, but at THIS Shaw's the sign on the machine says:

Whaaaa--aaattt? Since when??? So, when I searched Youtube for "teeny tiny ferocious squishy shaw's twenty-five cent felis leo prize" I got:

...and I don't even know what to think.

Pivot Rivet

...is the less catchy name for a product I discovered 3 seconds after taking an underconditioned waltz past a utility mirror in Target today. It's the Goody Spin Pin and it arrived into my hands in the very same aisle (fate?) (marketing?) and the poor thing didn't even make it to the checkout before it was boldly ripped from its box and flung into a knot of my hair, and I love it for that. I even took photos!

No chagrin for the Spin Pin!

Also today, Jimmy gets into the parmesan cheese:



...and lots of other neat stuff happening this week, to be revealed soon!

Arrg, t'is th'day ye piratin' folks hath made, yarr!

The 19th Septemberrrr, arrrr, t'is'zzle tharst Internationalizin' Talk Like a Pirate Day. This piratin' lass, me 'earties, goes on preferrin' a-fashionin' tha Piratespeak akin ta the likes there aboardin' th'Black Pearl, ayyyyyye. An' maybe, ye bonny lasses and mateys, maybe e'en a touch o' th' Snoop-a-spizzle, arrrrizzle. Passin' on da rum, aayyy, Gizzle n' Juice bein' tha grog fo' me, yarrr.

Ok, sorry, that was giving me a headache, too. BUT, I still think it's a fun little holiday, Talk Like a Pirate Day. Even the pope celebrates!

Whoops, wrong holiday.

Theeeere he is. I know it's irreverent, but I think it's cute! Kyrie e-yarrr-son.

And speaking of the Lord, I also just found out it's Adam West's birthday!

Still sexy-wrong at 82

Alas, avast, an' da merry Tizzle Lizzle a Pizzle Dizzle, aaaayyy, frum de likes o'landlubbers Ashton an' da Snizzle Catt.

"Mizzle"

(Is it tomorrow yet?)

Bike Dislike

It's Fair Season in Maine and evidently today I had a thumbprint on my camera while we were at the Oxford County Fair, so pre-apologies for that. It was at The Big O! (naughty!) fair where Jimmy rode his first Merry-Go-Round,

which was not atop a horse, but a dog.


Later on we walked by some rusty antique stand that featured ornate old outdoor bench seating and curly-q table stands and beautiful old headboards, all of which I l.ove, but the place also showed weird old bikes, which I hate---and of course the bikes were the items that captured Jimmy and Wally's attention. Wonder where Jimmy gets it from!

(I really hate this bike.)

But Jimmy loved this trike!

We're hoping to have some good Oxford County Fair news by the end of the evening. Stay tuned! Or not...

Final Brigade

Tomorrow night is the Big Brother 12 Finale.

Sit on it, Lane!!!!

Can't wait! Technically I'm pulling for Hayden (blue shorts) to win it all because he's been winning competitions since Week 1 and remaining loyal to his alliance and is straight-up with people he cares about before they get evicted from the house. Enzo (wifebeater) was sort of useless, but good for comic relief and loyal to the alliance. Lane sucked at this game and treated his allies like shit (mostly) and has had everything handed to him his entire life, including cutesy diaryroom lines that never came off as authentic, and possibly $500,000 which makes me a little sick. Ultimately I think it's pretty cool that an alliance actually made it to the finals, but I'm definitely looking forward to an All Stars season in hopes that maaaaybe they'll cast some people who know how to play this game (and just because Dick Donato begged me to be his FB firend doesn't mean I need him back, please, no, enough.)

Some folks'll never eat a skunk, but then again some folks'll

I’m pretty sure I can pinpoint the moment I stopped judging other people’s use of language (so much), it was the day Jimmy came out. After that I had too many OTHER things to worry about but before then I used to really enjoy knowing when to use a ‘whom’ or an E before an I, and I admit, I sorta liked catching mistakes (except mine), it was like a game. But nowadays I gotta wonder--does convention really matter? Do we really need the language to stay stagnant? Cuz it won’t (<--proof) and it makes me wonder why grammarholics and my old self insist on policing the language, with such (ugh!) conservative verve. It makes me think of English’s very own pride-n-joy, Mr. William Shakespeare and his mastery of the language of his time, and whether proud Elizabethans would’ve been grammar bullies and created a “Presseth LIKE if thou knowest the difference betwixt Thy, Thine, and Thoust” group on Facebook. Hoonoze, but they might have also snickered at any modern-day Michael Bublé lyrics, which is why I’ve stopped caring whether my or someone else’s grammar is “wrong” or inaccurate, because it's always changing and some people might not be able to spell ‘your’ from ‘yore’ or ‘effit' but they probably do things like draw or ice skate or make omelets or hock loogies a heck of a lot better than I do. People should feel free to talk and write as they please, right, we all have the right to express our own thoughts and feelings no matter what BOX some freak-control grammarians try to force upon us. Miss Keeley, my 6^th grade “teacher” once told me (and the rest of the class) that I am not e. e. cummings, that I do not possess ‘poetic license’ and because of this I needed to stop writing in all-lowercase. I was pretty easy to shame in those days but on this topic I knew Miss Keeley was full of shit, that she was not in fact the lady who handed out artistic licenses. That privilege was already granted to me, individuals possess liberties over their own choices in communication, 6th grade me knew that, just like I knew any of us could make up words out of thin air, and like how I knew my husband was in for it when he corrected a double-negative I blurted out in the middle of a sentence last week. Whether double-negatives are unsound or socially acceptable made no difference, I pointed to the English degree on the wall and told him I could go forth on speaking in dong gone all th’double negahivs I wawnt! Because like it or not, double-negatives, mishandled contractions, web jargon, and run-on sentences are part of the lexicon and they have a formative place in our language. Dammit!


And then other days I watch movies like Mike Judge's Idiocracy and I know...we're all just ridin an ambulanche ta hayell.

I suppose I do have one unembarrassed passion. I do judge a speaker’s confidence in the misuse of the first-person singular in the objective case, or as the object of a preposition. “It was so gracious of Professor Julius to dedicate his memoirs to Preston and I.” NO! Would someone ever say “It was so gracious of Professor Julius to dedicate his memoirs to I.” Not likely. So stop!!! It’s as though an entire subset of otherwise intelligent people believe that they will be struck by a bolt of hillbilly if they dare verbally pair themselves up with another person by using the word “me.”

My theory is that it comes from the wee days of childhood, when the adult agenda set in, when it became a sin for elbows to be on the table, when we learned it was more important that a child be corrected for uttering a phrase like “I brang you a rose, Gramma!” than it was for any shipshape grandmother to respect the kind rosy gesture. From a time when an announcement like “Me and Greg are going to the store,” in front of the wrong people might make your mother cry from having to admit that she lives with such a rotten foul-mouthed hick kid. So people learned early that it was just easier to shun any elbow funnybusiness at mealtime, and that proper grammar is more important than offerings or feelings, and that the misassumption that “please accept this million dollar endowment from Larry + I” satisfies the socially discerning ear better than any childish “ME” ever did. It's bullshit.

New Reading Chair

Yesterday Jimmy got cozy in his book bucket.


Get your Thinking Tongue out!


Today I worked, but the fam played malletball at a Mallett Bros lobsterbake. (Photo courtesy of Facebook. :)


They came home with lobsters, thanks guys! (I tried to see if my camera's face recognition feature would work on this lobster's face, but it didn't.)

Saturday is nearly all done, my workweek is half over. Wheeeee! But also remembering the victims on September 11, 2001--that was a pretty messed up week.

Dinner Surprise

Jimmy and I wanted to make dinner but didn't really have a plan until we hit the cupboard. There we found a can of tuna, Ritz, and a box of Jiffy Pie Crust Mix (a crust not so much for vegetarians.) The fridge had mayonnaise, butter, goat and parmesan cheese, and away we went.

Our little unplanned flaky puffs were a fluky success, even when we overlooked the spontaneous Sriracha and Mayo sauce Daddy needed to whip up. Yay for Cupboard Dinner Surprise!

Tomato, Basil, and Goat Cheese Gelatin Salad

A few weeks ago my friend Kelly emailed (or facebooked?) me a link to a recipe by Barbara DeGroot at Modern Comfort Food, a fun twist to the caprese salad. Kelly said she thought of me when she saw it, which I took as a really nice compliment because it looked way better than any gelatinized or aspic'd dish I ever made.

I think we both also enjoyed the blog post that came with it, mainly the matter-of-fact allegiance to jello and the low-key Eff U to all the gelatin bullies out there. At last, an online ally, na na na boo boo!

And today, I made it! The Tomato, Basil, and Goat Cheese Gelatin Salad!

Actually, yesterday I made it and today I ate it.


The cross-section

I really appreciated some of the tips Barbara provided (you can use the freezer for establishing layers. And you can mold in paper cups, how easy!) and also adding the easy balsamic/olive oil dressing on the side, it really made this mold seem like a bonafide salad. Victory!

But I think we liked it best on a cracker.



It was so tasty with our garden tomatoes and garden basil. Mmmmm. Thanks for the tip, Kelly!

Salmon, Jammin', Computer Dealz Examinin'

It wasn't intentional, but I thought it was interesting when I realized that last year on Labor Day we ate salmon that was shaped like a fish and this year on Labor Day we ate salmon that was shaped like a sausage.



The salmon sausage was...ok. I guess.

And then today, Jimmy played the guitar.



And his school season is off to a great start, yay fall! I heart fall, summer stresses me out and summer 2010 really stressed me out. With any luck next year we'll have a laptop that works wirelessly, sad but true it would make such an impression to our happy home upon a major artery. If you were short on cash and needing a kitchen computer, would you buy this? Just wondrin', cuz I was thinking about it. Hope everyone enjoyed a happy Labor Day Weekend!

Pinkies Up

Friday afternoon Jimmy found his hands wrapped around a delicious red-flavored smoothie, compliments of the grand opening of Mike's (more on that later.)



Notice how spoutless this non-sippy cup is.



Waiting for the mess...



...thankful we're outside...



...and All Done!



Notice the delicious red mess all over Jimmy's shirt?



Me neither! Yaaaaay! Applause!