Be a star and fall down somewhere next to me/And make it past your color TV/This time will pass and with it will me/And all these pretty things

Is it wrong to celebrate beauty? I was perusing the Myspace pages of my niece Heidi and my great-niece Kyrie and I was just so taken with what beautiful women they've grown into. It seems so recent that teeny tiny Heidi was born two months prematurely; and could it really have been 18 years ago that Kyrie attended that Nine Inch Nails show with me, albeit in her mother's belly?

These two are so much more than pretty pictures and I expect great things in their future, but I just wanted to share these exquisite images. I can only hope they don't get mad at Aunt Cat for doing it. :)




When did that cute little kid get the perfect hair, makeup and bone structure?



We used to call Kyrie the alien baby with her giant eyes and pale pale skin and hair. And now she looks already famous.

Cut beneath the surface screen of what we say and what we seem/Is a trick to be seen

I'm sitting here, putting off doing any real work (like crafty things, business things or putting together my radio show) and instead listening to Guy Garvey's Finest Hour on BBC 6. I suppose one could call this research of sorts, since I've generally been stealing at least one of Guy's selections for my own show each week. Guy is, of course, the lead singer of one of my favorite bands ever, Elbow. (Keep your fingers crossed for a US tour soon.) Honestly, though, I don't always like his musical choices much; our tastes don't always mesh. He is unfailingly, however, a lovely lovely man, giddily enthusiastic about the music he loves. He gushes over his weekly interviewees and confesses to often being star struck even though he's quite the star himself these days. And his Mancunian accent is dreamy. Let's have a photo, shall we?



It's been an interesting weekend. On Friday night it turned out I would be on my own as all my people had plans. For some reason I decided to, for only the second time in my life, go to a movie on my own. I chose La Fille Coupee en Deux, directed by Claude Chabrol. I enjoyed it; it made me think about some of my own motivations and desires and it put me in a melancholy mood, which was not necessarily a bad thing.

Saturday was a day of grocery shopping, cooking, planning, and delirious chatting. The hours flew by and before I knew, it was time to get ready to go out and meet Steve, Roy and Dana at Pi for drinks and pizza. I still have garlic on my breath, which is a good thing. It was a lovely evening full of talking and laughing and pinot grigio. See? I was having so much fun I couldn't be captured by a mere mobile camera. It appears as if I'm telling Dana something dubious, but I don't remember what it could have been.



Today I woke up before 6am to the sounds of grackles chittering, chattering and fussing non-stop in the backyard. I could tell I wasn't going back to sleep so I got up and took my coffee, the laptop and my Iain Banks novel (The Wasp Factory) out to the deck to enjoy the cool, sunny morning. The birds never shut up and it turns out they were battling with three squirrels over the bowl of dog food on the deck next door. I took this photo as the sun finally made it over the tall building at the end of the block. By happy coincidence, my Scottish Correspondent was also sitting outside, reading, laptop at the ready and we got to have a chat.



And now it's time to do some real work for my show and then get to making dinner: chicken breasts; and sauteed onions, tomatoes and squash over polenta.

And if I haver yeah I know I'm gonna be/I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you

Today was all about birdies and bridies. Today I was finally inspired to get out the wool and start needlefelting again. Actually, I wasn't inspired so much as goaded into being productive rather than just lazing another day away. While I think I still deserve some resting time, not everyone agrees with that. Perhaps I needed a fire lit under my ass.

I also came up with a new business idea, prompted by a conversation with my Scottish Correspondent. I'm not going to talk about that yet, though.

So birdies: I've sold every needlefelted bird I've ever made so I figured I would start with making some of them again. Actually, today I started with a multi-petal flower brooch, but I'm not really that happy with how it turned out. It's not how I envisioned it; I'll keep experimenting with that one. I'm happy, however, with the birds.



While looking up Scottish recipes, I came across something called Forfar Bridies. I wanted to make Forfar Bridies before I even know what a Forfar Bridie was. Thank goodness a bridie is nothing like, say, haggis (which also seemed a possibility until I actually read a recipe and found out it's made with beef heart -- no thank you -- I'd eat it, but I'm not cooking a beef heart), but is really just a fairly simply little meat turnover. I had also come across a recipe for champ, a name which doesn't really evoke anything, particularly not the fact that champ is basically mashed potatoes with onions in them. Traditionally I think it's supposed to be green onions, but I caramelized a vidalia and also added some regular and garlic chives to give it that nice green color accent. I used store bought pastry for the bridies but despite that they turned out really well. And they tasted amazing and looked really good.



These turned out a trifle more rustic looking than I'd like, but I'm generally happy.

Stayed tuned!

But I won't give you up/I won't let you down/and I won't leave you falling /if the moment ever comes

Today was my shot at seeing what Emotional Rescue could do during the fall membership drive. The results weren't very good. I made less than half my goal. Boo.

This afternoon, Steve made a trip to Ted Drewes and brought home concretes for both of us. Mine was hot fudge with extra malt; Steve went for peanut butter cup. Even though it's open nearly year round, an October trip to Ted's makes it definitely seem like an official end to summer.

Having had ice cream, basically, for lunch, I opted for salad for dinner. I tossed spinach, chopped apple, water chestnuts and croutons with poppyseed dressing then topped each with tuna and sliced hard-boiled eggs. A bottle of pinot grigio rounded things off. Or took the edge off. Or something like that.

I'll never let you go/If you promise not to fade away/Never fade away

Well, the first week of unemployment is done, under my belt. If we don't count the weekend, by day three I was an emotional wreck. OK, so the last days coincided with my PMS schedule and the first day of non-work coincided with my cycle. I have to take it into consideration that my moods could have been ruled by my hormones, at least partly. All I know is that I had a fabulous day on Monday. My show went smoothly; I thought it was great and somehow the most cohesive so far. The rest of the day was fantastic, with great conversations and affectionate chats with the people I care most about. I felt connected and energized and relieved to have the time to myself away from work.

On Tuesday, things seemed to change a little. I felt a little more anxious and suddenly no one was available to communicate with me. Perhaps I have child-like expectations, but if I have a great day, full of something wonderful, well then I want that something wonderful the next day too. And maybe the day after that. Of course, the world doesn't work that way and I immediately go into full-on self-pity, I-was-wrong-about-everything, everybody-hates-me mode. I'm not proud, but I am willing to admit I do it. It's unreasonable, it places ridiculous expectations where they shouldn't be and I have no doubt it's incredibly annoying to anyone in the path. It's a bad place to be for everyone involved. Then, a glitch in technology really threw me for a loop. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it was a technological glitch and I fell headfirst down the rabbit hole of self pity.

This mess didn't really kick in full force until Wednesday. Suddenly it seemed like a lot of unfilled time loomed before me. And on top of everything, I had a bit of an existential crisis regarding what, exactly, I want to do with my life, going forward. Like I was going to decide that day. In retrospect, I see the ridiculousness of my panic and anxiety. Which makes it all the more dear that my friends didn't disregard but instead offered comfort and encouragement and patience. I'm not sure what I did to deserve such consideration, but I'm grateful.

God, when did I become such a handful? My apologies to everyone around me for my fits of paranoia, pity and anxiety. Yesterday Steve pointed out to me that "you've always been moody" when I was trying to place the blame of my "new" mood swings on impending hormonal changes. I wanted to argue; I tried to argue, but fuck, maybe he was right. He is right. It's probably stunningly obvious to anyone who knows me that this is true, but I was honestly gobsmacked by this revelation. I suppose I'm lucky that I have any friends or lovers. I'm a big pain in the ass. But on the flip side, my highs are pretty high (and, really, my moods fall on the positive side a high percentage of the time), I'm ridiculously passionate about those things and people whom I care about and I'm as obsessive about them as I want them to be about me. (Well, maybe everyone doesn't see that last as a positive, but I do.)

At any rate, the crisis was sorted by the end of the day Wednesday and I was feeling better about everything. Things seemed more...scheduled. Or something. I had lovely morning plans, I had afternoon plans to go shopping with Michael and a much brighter outlook overall. I still have no idea where I want to land, work-wise, but I'd rather not worry about that for the moment.

So let's get back to what I'm been cooking this week. On Wednesday morning I went shopping at the international grocery store in Kirkwood, mostly on a mission to find Kinder Eggs, prompted by TRex's taunting about the ones he had just gotten direct from the Netherlands. I was unsuccessful in that search, but I did manage to buy the makings of a nice stir fry. So, feeling so much better about life in general, I cubed the fried tofu, chopped bok choy, onions and celery and prepared the snow peas. I also bought a tub of gorgeous crystallized ginger and I chopped a bit of that to throw into the wok for the sauce I concocted of soy, rice vinegar, sugar and sriracha. Since I had waited until the last minute, as usual, to cook (hey time zones are a bitch when your correspondents don't live in your own), I threw the brown rice in the pressure cooker. I love brown rice and hate to eat the white stuff, but who has an hour to cook rice? I rarely plan ahead that far. The pressure cooker is an absolutely ideal cooking implement for brown rice -- in 20 minutes you have fluffy, perfect brown rice. And pressure cookers are cheap and not at all scary to use, once you get used to the method. They are also ideal, by the way, for cooking dried beans. I mean, who remembers to soak beans overnight? Unfortunately, I neglected to take a photo of the stir-fry, but it was bright and pretty. The pre-fried tofu was delicious and soaked up just enough of the sauce without getting squishy. Sometimes I think I could go back to being vegetarian. Sometimes. It does seem hopeless when the next day found me drooling over a packet of thick, raw sirloin.

On Thursday morning I wanted to make myself some crumpets from scratch, having never had them before. The batter was simply a runny yeast dough and the final result was a batch of a sort of a firm, less sweet pancake. They were good, but I had tons of batter left over but I didn't feel like making and saving the remainder. I decided to simply add more flour and let it rise all day. I finally managed to shape it into a loaf and popped it in the oven just before dinner. The result was kind of cute:


I had also bought a package of lavash at the international grocery, thinking it might be ideal for making flatbread pizza, so that became the basis for Thursday night's dinner. The individual flatbreads were quite larger than I had thought, but perfect for making one big pizza. I spread on sauce, coarsely chopped up a couple of portabello mushrooms, a Vidalia onion and some raw spinach and, as a tribute to Britain, sprinkled the top with corn before topping with mozzarella. [To explain, Steve and I had pizza in London years ago. It was mostly like the pizza we were used to except it came with corn and we opted for the fried egg in the middle as well. I have recreated that version a couple times, but does one really need an egg on a pizza? I'm all for the deliciousness of runny yolk, but perhaps it's overkill with pizza.] The lavash worked perfectly for pizza and I can't wait to make a couple more with the remaining sheets of bread. However, the resulting photograph is quite terrible (seriously terrible and inept) and I apologize.


Yesterday we had an appointment for Steve to get a haircut as soon as he was done with his show and we headed for the Paul Mitchell academy. One of the students there had been a regular customer of mine and she seemed like a sweet, talented girl and Steve was clamoring for a cut. I imagined he was just wanting a trim and I blithely sent him off with Suzi. Not thinking that this was a training facility I didn't realize I'd be waiting over an hour and a half for their return. When they finally emerged I was already so tired of waiting that the sight of his very short hair clammed me up immediately. I was rather shocked at my own rudeness when Suzi asked if I liked it and I curtly replied, "No." I backpedaled a little, explaining that the cut was fine but that I was shocked at the length. She had styled it in an odd way too. When we were riding the elevator down another customer who had overheard us at the counter asked how long his hair had been and I told him it had been nearly shoulder length and that now he looked like Alfalfa. I messes around with it at home, added some product and I'm getting used to it. I know I could conjure a great emo boy look but Steve won't let me and he's probably wise. Anyway, judge for yourself:


Last night we were left to our own devices and I really wanted to get out for at least a drink or two. Steve suggested steak and drink and off we went. I wore silver shoes and I wanted to take a picture of them. I've had these for a while, but I haven't worn them much but I still adore them.


That's probably enough for now. I've navel gazed enough for today.

Dinner, Tuesday September 30, 2008

Today I've gone a little lowbrow with a variation on the slow cooker Italian beef that replicates the stuff you get at stands all over Chicago. I'm using pork and hot banana peppers instead of beef and pepperoncinis and I have a lovely loaf of pain beaucaire from Companion Bakery to go alongside. For a side I prepared a spinach salad with tomato; sea salt and pepper croutons; and honey dijon dressing. Circumstances weren't particularly conducive to taking photographic evidence.

A thousand thundering thrills await me/Facing insurmountable odds gratefully/The female of the species is more deadly than the male

Ah, the life of leisure. I'm unexpectedly already feeling a little antsy because of my time off, all three and a half days of it. Now that I think about it, I haven't had four days off in a row since the end of May, 2007. Fuck, I haven't had three days off in a row since then. And maybe three times in that period I had two days off together. No wonder I don't know what to do with myself. Jesus, what kind of life was that? No wonder I was miserable. I should add that I had accumulated almost two weeks of vacation, but I had a manager who took it as a personal affront if any of her staff actually requested said vacation.

Even though I'm still relieved and happy to be away from that job, I had a moment in the grocery store today where I was suddenly struck with a burst of anxiety and my stomach flipped and I thought, "Oh shit! I don't have a fucking job." But I pushed through it. I'm counting on the universe to take care of me, as it always has.

Before the grocery store, I hit another thrift store in the quest for fodder for my latest idea. I was only mildly successful, but it's better than nothing. On the other hand, on my quest to own enough serving bowls and platters to last a year if suddenly I don't feel like washing them, I found another melmac confetti handled bowl (the other one is in the blog archives somewhere -- a lovely burnt orange color) for a ridiculously cheap price. Maybe because I'm so steeped in the look of mid-century design, these bowls seem timelessly beautiful to me. They would not look out of place in, say, a store like Design Within Reach (most absurdly untrue store name ever, by the way) with a price tag of $100+. My point is, how can anyone discard these things? Oh well, my gain. Today's Aztec melmac confetti bowl (again, made in St. Louis - a plus!):



I have a penchant for vintage men's coats and jackets. I'm not a delicate flower and often the best vintage women's coats and jackets are teeny with very narrow shoulders (that's not to say I don't have a fabulous collection of vintage women's outerwear that fits me, because I do), so I like to wear a man's coat or three. Particularly leather and suede ones. It's taken me a bit to come around to embracing the 70s style, but it's been looking better and better (I blame Swingtown) and today, I couldn't resist it. I think I've been pretty clear in the past that I'm a rather thrifty gal -- I've never spent extravagant amounts of money on clothing (except maybe the occasional pair of boots and even then my idea of extravagant isn't the same as most) or anything else, though I have recently splurged a little on my iPod and mobile, and maybe a teeny bit on upgrading my laptop. Anyway, my point is, I was willing to buy this jacket for a whole $16. I know that doesn't sound like much, but I dislike spending more than $5 per item at thrift stores. Anyway, unbeknownst to me, outerwear was half off and I got it for $8! Behold the shiny caramel leather goodness:



It's in perfect condition; no tears, or stains or threadbare seams. What's not showing is the zip out fuzzy plaid lining. Oooooh, I can't wait to wear it!

I'm going to start photographing dinners again, since I have time and the inclination to cook. Stay tuned.

I slept through the night got through to the dawn/I flipped a switch the light went on/I got out of bed I put some clothes on/Its a pretty good day

I woke up with another idea yesterday and the idea demanded a trip to the thrift store. Since we were in St. Charles to visit my mom, we stopped at a Goodwill out that way. Sadly, the store was sorely lacking in the product I was seeking but I did manage to find a couple of other things.

I adore the preppy vintage straw and leather handbags and this little beauty was too good and too cheap to pass up. It's about 10 inches wide and 6 inches high. Really adorable. It's too late in the season to use it now, but it'll be handy in the spring.



This bag isn't particularly adorable, but I need a bag for my laptop and ephemera and I thought I'd buy something at the thrift store and embellish, perhaps. Even as is, it's soft and roomy so it'll work. Any ideas on embellishments? Maybe I'll paint some designs on...



I can't get enough mid-century melmac and other kitchenware and even though I already have a similar one of these (in green) I could never turn down this, especially as it was one thin dollar. It would cost you about $20 or more to get one off of eBay. It's turquoise, it's melmac and it was manufactured in St. Louis.



And something I forgot to photograph a while ago is the Jack and Jill magazine from September 1957. Michael bought it for me while we were shopping at Red Lead for paper and other odds and ends. I really haven't even looked through it, but I'm sure there's some good collage fodder in there.



Another episode of Emotional Rescue on the books today, and I'm really happy with the result. I got a great call today. As I was playing the new James Bond theme by Jack White and Alicia Keyes, a woman called to ask what it was. Her response, "This is fucking AWESOME." It's fantastic to know you've played something that someone really, really enjoys. Earlier a man called to tell me my playing of an old Genesis song actually brought some tears to his eyes.

So, a good day thus far.