i've started and failed to finish a whole series of posts about my new home (lots of spiders, deer in the front yard at twilight) and new town (people are so small-town quirky and friendly, it's like i live in the west coast version of that town the Girlmore Girls live in, only everyone here is all tanned and into mountain biking after work).

i'll get to some of that, but the past few evenings, given the complete lack of nightlife/social life here in the MV, back aching from shoving boxes to and fro all day, i've curled up in my arm chair in the front room and read or re-read all the scripts of the plays we are producing this season*. and they are great. all of them. it's good to have a reminder of why i did all this: why i put myself through all the work of itemizing and evaluating and selling or donating or packing and unpacking and sorting every one of my belongings, the administrative detritus of closing and reopening utilities and bank accounts and registrations and addresses, through the dismantling of my personal life and all the doubts and regrets and heartache i've incurred on that front. when i start work tomorrow, it will be such a relief to finally be spending my days thinking about something besides moving. and to start doing what i am good at (what i will hopefully continue be good at): making good theatre. it's definitely not going to be easy, not this first year, or probably the years after that, but i believe in these plays. it always, in the end, comes back to the text -- i learned that working in a company that produced classic works and now that i'm back to doing new work, it resonates even more clearly. i want to make theatre that has some teeth to it, some truth to it. it's okay with me if it's messy around the edges. but if there is a moment of truth, if there is a moment of perfect beauty -- i live for that, i will turn my life upside down and move across the country for that. and each of these scripts strikes some chord in me somewhere. now, let's see if i can realize them in a way that strikes a chord in the audiences and artists that come in my doors. when, tomorrow, they become my doors.

* which are, for the record: My Name is Asher Lev, by Aaron Posner (adapted from the novel by Chaim Potok); Boom, by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb; Sunlight, by Sharr White; Equivocation, by Bill Cain; and Woody Guthrie's American Song, by Peter Glazer

Labels: theatre, waxing poetic, work

the Third Coast to West Coast photoset is finished and up on flickr, and the live road trip twitter feed is complete.

Labels: photos, project exit chicago, travel

i invented this recipe while cooking brunch for my family today. since it's father's day, i decided that's what i'll name the muffin recipe. not very original, but...whatever. when i bake them i'll think of family, and that's nice. the key to this recipe is the little bit of rosemary and thyme* that offsets the sweetness, and thenthe lemon just sort of perfumes and binds it all together. but go easy on the herbs, or the muffins will get a am-i-a-sweet-or-savory-food? sort of confusion about them. oh, and don't waste time with frozen blueberries. they just lose all their flavor when you process them. better to wait and make this recipe when you can get fresh berries.

mix dry ingredients:
2 c wheat flour
1.5 c white wheat flour or unbleached white flour
1/2 c white sugar or whatever more natural granulated sugar product you prefer
5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
fresh or dried rosemary to taste
fresh or dried thyme to taste
zest of one lemon

mix wet ingredients:
1/2 c butter, melted and cooled slightly (so it doesn't cook the eggs on contact)

2 eggs
1 c milk

gently mix wet and dry ingredients until just blended, then fold in:
1 c fresh blueberries

cut together with pasty cutter or food processor the crumble topping:
1/2 c flour
1/2 c plain oats
1/2 c brown sugar
1/4 c butter (cut into chunks kept very cold until use)

place batter into muffin cups (lined with paper if desired) and top with crumble topping
bake at 400 degrees for 25-25 min
makes 18-24 muffins




oh, credit where credit is due: the addition of rosemary is an idea i got from www.101cookbooks.com.

Labels: baking, recipes

second photoset is up.

live road trip twitter feed.

Labels: photos, project exit chicago, travel

first photoset is up. and live twitter feed continues.

Labels: photos, project exit chicago, travel

road trip live twitter feed.


excuse the typos and 140-character limit, but i'm mostly blogging via iPhone on this trip.

Labels: travel

goodbye apartments: my beloved two-flat on winona with trees at every window, the apartment on belmont with the noisy garbage trucks in the alley and vomit-stained sidewalks and tranny hookers out at 4am, the tiny studio on belden that was so small i could reach out of bed and touch the oven door where we sat on the floor and ate pasta and read the classifieds looking for jobs ~ goodbye running on the shores of lake michigan at sunrise, hot summer days and cool crisp fall mornings ~ bye to the many colors and moods of the lake, as many variations as there are days of the year: silvery like a fish and other days deep bluey-green, summer days navy blue and dotted with white sailboats, stormy muddy brown, waves breaking on the icy january rocks, glassy and reflective, clouds heavy with rain piled on the horizon, or the last time i saw it: 5am, sun rising, a red disc leaving a streak of red across the water's surface, glassy but always in motion, a moment of stillness in a month of chaos. goodbye thanksgiving dinners at the keenans' house full of laughter and love and warmth ~ the scent of incense at the dojo and the way the low evening light streams in the windows ~ the searing pain of a broken heart and life plans gone awry, the regina spektor album i listened to that first, excruciating winter on my own. goodbye to finding common ground bitching about the CTA and the never-ending winters and corrupt politicians and potholes the size of tiger traps ~ the smell of cobalt blue grease paint ~ the redeye crossword ~ the banana french toast at Over Easy ~ the day each spring when the leaves burst forth in hyde park, a canopy of green after months of barreness ~ grant park the night obama won the election ~ waking to the soothing tones of chicago public radio every morning. so long, lawn chairs saving dug-out parking spaces in the snowy streets ~ the unpleasant grind of evening traffic on lake shore drive ~ playing ultimate frisbee in 8" of fresh snow ~ intelligentsia coffee ~ my first marathon ~ the way a fresh snowfall blankets the city in a profound quiet ~ the first time i saw a firefly ~ drinking beer on the porch on warm summer nights ~ the lurking gargoyles atop harold washington library. bye to putting up plays in bars and alleys ~ the view of the chicago skyline driving up LSD from the south side at night ~ that moment when late night becomes early morning, steeped in terrible coffee at the Golden Nugget ~ Jefferson Park el station and the city planners who clearly hate people ~ the smell of chocolate on the breeze drifting over downtown ~ nerd nights with the boys playing Battle Star Galactica the board game (oh yes, i did just own up to that). goodbye to the city where i grew up: i arrived here still a kid and somewhere in the last six years i grew up.

a dear and wise friend reminded me yesterday that i wasn't leaving any of chicago behind; it's all still here if and when i want to come back to it, and in the mean time, it's all still in my heart. i'm just making my life bigger. i'm expanding it to include the adventures that lay ahead in california. my love of symmetry begs for a complementary list of things i'm going forward to in califronia, but that list doesn't really exist yet. i don't know what i'll find out there. so tonight i'm looking back. tomorrow forward.

love you, chi-town.

Labels: project exit chicago

i might have taken it a little personally, or have been put out by the fact that i waited in line for 20 minutes only to have the buyer at Buffalo Exchange refuse to purchase a single articles of clothing*, were it not for the fact that, with all the time i had to gaze around the store, i realized that i have no desire to look anything any of the ridiculous hipster kids slinking around the store. is this a sign that i'm officially old and cranky? i'm pretty sure yes. another sign of becoming old and cranky is that you no longer care that the hipster kids turn their noses up at my cast-off b-rep clothing. also, i am indifferent to clothing labels and lines, and so i don't get much fancier when it comes to labels than things like b-rep and j.crew. apparently used clothing boutiques are all about snatching up designer labels.

now i will send my formal dresses to the Glass Slipper Project, and the rest of the clothing to the Brown Elephant, and score better karma than if I'd received $50 for all that junk anyway.

*admittedly, Crossroads went through my stuff and bought a few items first, so by the time I got to Buffalo Exchange anything young and hip had been picked over.

Labels: project exit chicago

The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present. Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with each good day as it came, and in every word and song.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Labels: quotations

the packing storm has begun. my apartment no longer looks like my home - i am greeted by empty bookshelves and bare walls when i come in the front door. i hate this part. nesting in my new home will be good, i look forward to that, but in the mean time there is this awkward month of transition. the bare bookshelves are my chicago roots being plucked out of the dirt, and it stings a little.

i am bad at goodbyes and flinch when well-meaning and much-beloved friends poke at the wound with kind gestures. i am unused to anyone makng a fuss over me, and going away parties and gifts and one-last-beers and goodbye dinners that no one will let me pay for make me feel loved and humbled. i cannot match the kindnesses shown me lately; i suppose all i can do, karmicly, is to pass it forward.

still: i made this choice. onward, upward.

Labels: moving

i'm endeavoring to leave the party at the right moment. you know when it's suddenly 2am, and you're still at the party, and now the train isn't running so you'll have to take the night bus and you're a little drunk and tired and wish that you'd left an hour earlier and that you were just home already? i hate that feeling, so much so that i try to manage the preemptive party exit whenever possible. but the timing is tricky - leave too early and you miss out on all the fun. stay too late and you have to see the party end.

chicago's like that. and now, well, right now i'm having the best possible time - music is rockin and all my friends are here and i've had just enough alcohol to be extra charming. i don't want to leave, but it's better to go now, on a high note, than wait till i've stayed too long. other people are leaving. lives are changing, moving ahead. people are going to grad school, or finishing grad school, having babies, getting married, moving away, taking new jobs. at the metaphorical party, other people are coordinating rides home. i didn't want to be left behind, so it was time to figure out where i'm going next, too.

but that's not to say that the party isn't totally kicking ass just now. spring just returned to chicago after a long long long cold winter. leaves are on the trees, al fresco dining has returned, it's all commuting to work by bike and cool nights drinking beer on the porch. but the goodbyes have begun. i'm making the rounds at the party, gathering my coat, kissing everyone on the cheek. i have mixed feelings of excitement and apprehension, but regardless, Project Exit Chicago is in full swing.

i'll try to spare the slithy tove too many self-indulgent posts about to-do lists and the trauma of itemizing and packing my home and fights with the utility companies. we've all moved, it sucks. so Project Exit Chicago is more of a best-of chicago review: things that either i needed to do one more time, or stuff i've always meant to do and haven't gotten around to it quite yet.

+ volunteer for a race
today my alarm went off at 4:15am. by the first light of dawn, i was on my bike and head down the lake front path to Soldier Field, where met my pal adan and we volunteered on the grounds crew for the Soldier Field 10 Mile race (checking off a 101 task in the process). i

+ watched the sun rise over lake Michigan as i biked in, a fiery red disk nestled in a bank of clouds over the horizon, the water glassy in the still air, shining white where the lightening sky passed over it, the reflection moving with me as i sped along the lake.

+ commute around chicago by bike on a beautiful sunny day
post-race, adam and i biked north past the aquarium, the water sparkling in the sunshine, white sailboats bobbing against the blue water. we went up michigan ave past the tourists and the new modern wing of the art institute, then crossed the loop and up past the chocolate factory in the west loop whose emissions give downtown that curiously wonderful cocoa smell on days when the wind blows just right. then we turned up milwaukee, rode past all the hipsters in their annoying wicker park en route to

+ Hot Doug's to eat duck fat fries. they were good, i have to admit. two-hours of line good? not at all. but two hours of waiting in line while hanging out with my pal adam in order to sample a chicago institution was certainly a good way to spend my afternoon. then home to finish assembling my apple pie*, quick stop to feed a friend's cat, and on to the

+ Keenans' place for a memorial day BBQ**.

other Exit Chicago tasks completed in the past few weeks:

+ running a half marathon in under 1:50

+ passing my 4th kyu test in aikido

+ grabbing a (veggie) burger at the excellent heavy metal-themed Kuma's Corner with my pal aaron, who was also working on his own Exit Chicago list. (i ordered a burger that came topped with, among other things, anger).

+ going away party for departing staff at work (i am one of five leaving this spring), held in the backyard of a board member's beautiful historic hyde park home, exactly the gracious sort of lawn party one could imagine a hyde park home is good for: beautifully laid out gardens that flow into one another gracefully (no need to fence out the neighbors when the garden so nicely), big shady trees, cold white wine on the first hot day, sundresses and gifts of signed/framed posters of past shows and little plates of summer fruit and cheese.

+ the annual fundraising gala for the theatre company that gave me my first job in chicago, a chance to say thanks to then-artistic director: someone who took a HUGE chance on me, hired me over the phone for an entry-level production management position before i'd even arrived in chicago, mentored me into that role, and set me on the career path that, 6 years later, has become a viable, actual career that i think i just might be really good at. while at the gala i posed for a photo with three other stage managers at that company (past and present) and i realized that at one time or another, i had hired all of them. for just a moment, i preened like a mother hen.

+ dinner at Hama Matsu, my neighbornhoody Japanese/Korean place, with my friend Jacqueline

+ dinner at (the excellent vegetarian/vegan-friendly***) Chicago Diner with Becky, one of the very first friends i met when i moved to chicago six years ago.



*my pursuit of perfect pastry crust is going well, though i still haven't finished tweaking the apple filling to be the way i wanted it. i was convinced that ginger (first candied, then fresh) was the secret, but i've decided tha it makes the filling sharp when i'd prefer it to be mellow.

**where said apple pie was baked and consumed, ala mode.

***this place changed my mind entirely about vegan baking and desserts.

Labels: project exit chicago

i arrive with my moving truck in tow, only to find out that the apartment i rented is not the one i thought i had rented. instead it is in a complex of dumpy, two-story buildings on a bleak, treeless street. it looks more like a small midwestern town than northern california: broad paved avenues, run down drive-thru hamburger joints, hardware stores, everything is bright and sunny, eerily quiet and profoundly flat, the horizon disappearing into a hazy horizon line. the complex's handyman hands me the keys and i am trying to figure out of it is too late for me to ask to switch to a second story apartment, i hate first floor apartments. the driver of my moving truck is napping in the unclipped lawn among the tulips.

Labels: moving

it's still early spring in Wisconsin - the trees are a haze of green but still bare enough that you can see through them to the next ridge and beyond. ferns are just springing up, bright green pushing up between a carpet of grey-brown leaves, uncurling into the sunlight in the weeks before the white birch and maple trees unfurl their canopy of leaves and block the sun from the forest floor. at night i could hear owls calling to one another from opposite sides of the campsite, and when i woke in the morning it was to a cacophony of birdsong, tweets and warbles and three-note trills, bellied by harsh bass caw-caws from a crow.

this is the land that Korinji, the zen/martial arts foundation of which my aikido dojo is a part of, has purchased in order to found a rural zen monastery, meditation retreat and martial arts training center. it's 17 acres of steeply sloping and wooded ravines in the center of Wisconsin. this past weekend a group of aikidoka and zen students spent the weekend breaking trails, clearing trees from the building site, clearing rocks and debris and tree stumps from what will be the parking lot, and laying out the building foundation. it was backbreaking manual labor, shovels and sledge hammers and chainsaws and machetes, blistered hands in work gloves, muddy boots over wet feet, always the threat of rain but sunlight peeking between passing thunderclouds. that the zendo will be built entirely by the members' own hands, donated sweat and labor and talent and time, will make it something we all share a pride and sense of ownership in. when i come back to train here in the future, i'll know: i built that trail. i surveyed the building's foundation. i stacked fire wood and cleared rocks and brush. we built something with our own hands. in the cerebral world i live in, one in which writing is something i do not with a pen on paper, but with a keyboard and ones and zeros, where even the art i make is constructed mostly by email and spreadsheet and phone calls and meetings, this is something solid, that i can touch, that will last. it will shelter from deep snows in the winter and summer thunderstorms, it is concrete and lasting and real.

Labels: korinji

as of june 20, give or take a couple of days, i live here. oh yeah, i'm moving to california. i haven't officially blogged about the big move here yet, tho i'm pretty sure that most everyone who reads this already knows i'm going.

i was trying to figure out why i've been putting off blogging about something so obvious and significant, while making time to blog about the color of the lake on a morning's run, or what color Ira Glass's dreamy eyes were, or puns on swine flu. i think, in part, because i dislike it when i put up poorly-written "catch up on the last few weeks/months" posts, because i never really intended for slithy tove to be a news wire of my rather ordinary life (update! i had a cheese sandwich for lunch. update! it's raining. *yawn*). i've been thinking lately about what on earth slithy tove IS for. it's not the same thing that it was when i started, and i've thought about closing the doors a number of times, but i just don't quite want to. i love writing to the ether. of course, when i write some part of me is aware of and governed by my actual readers, made up of a few friends and family, mostly, but there's something lovely and poetic about writing to the universe, putting it out there for anyone or no one to read. my blog is a language sketchbook. a place for me play with words, and maybe, once in a while, the exercise of writing routinely leaves me with a turn of phrase here or there that i'm pleased with. in the mean time, i process, i learn from the act of writing and re-writing more about what's in my head than i would if just scribbled it down in a private journal and filed it away. which is why i dislike half-assed posts that are just announcements of what i did yesterday, with no attention to language or shape or texture.

but, putting that aside for a moment: I AM MOVING TO CALIFORNIA. there, announcement made.

i think the other reason i've putting off blogging this post is because i don't have a succinct way of writing about this change, because it's not a simple decision and my feelings about it are all scattered about on the floor. professionally, i'm moving to take a job, it's a good promotion with a good company, and i'm lucky to have it. i'm excited about finding work that challenges me again, work where i feel like my contribution truly determines the direction that the art takes. i was tired of feeling superfluous. and personally, i was feeling this profound sense of stasis. i love my life here. i love my friends, the arts community here, the sports i play, the way chicago blooms in may and comes to life in june, warm summer nights and sunrise over the lake. i love cheap falafel and cheering for the underdog cubbies as tho i actually care about pro sports and riding my bike to work and my aikido dojo and walking into a party and knowing that i'll know half the people there because i am an integral part of this arts community. but my life today is pretty much the same as it was three years ago. i'm better at the jobs i'm doing, i'm making a little more money, but basically, nothing was changing. and around me, the lives of my friends are changing in big dramatic ways, and rather than feeling secure in my stability, i was feeling stifled by it. i can't stop time, i can't cling to the things and the people that i love, so i need to move forward, boldly, gracefully*, instead.

so here i go. off the cliff. i tippy-toed around and whined about it for a good long time, but i finally made the plunge (and signed the contract and the lease, just to make it stick). it's time for the next chapter.

well, we strive for grace, anyway. it can be elusive.

Labels: big life decisions, california

last night i dreamed that i'd been hired to be the production manager at a well-known chicago theatre company. i hadn't officially started the job yet, but i was in the theatre building for some reason. one of the production staff took me aside. "there's something you need to see," she told me, and handed me a worn leather-bound journal. the journal turned out to be the secret diaries of the previous production manager. he'd had to write all these missives in secret, hidden in the closet or the basement or whatever, and they were all about how the theatre in question was a terrible place to work. after reading them i knew i had to get out, but how? i was trapped. it was all very harry potter.

it's nice when at least my dreams are transparent.

Labels: work

i continue to hold out hope that one day, ira glass will give it all up and run away into the sunset with me. sigh. in the mean time, i had to settle for seeing the live show in chicago. btw, i think that the show is going to run this weekend on the usual radio slots around the US on various NPR stations. so, impressions:

+ holy shit is dan savage ripped. that man has guns. what does he need arms like that for to be on the radio? oh...wait. yes, i see.

+ starlee kine....is kind of whiny. her story, while adorably illustrated in post-it-note art on a video screen behind her, was a pretty run-of-the-mill dysfunctional family piece. also, she is a wee lass. she tottered out on stage on these enormous turquoise blue platform shoes and, when everyone lined up for an awkward, not-rehearsed-or-discussed-before-the-show bow at the end, she was still dwarfed by the guys on either side of her.

+ joss whedon can sing! who knew?

+ the video short by david rakoff sort of made no sense to me. i'm pretty sure it worked better for the watchers of CSI who were in the audience.

+ ira glass hosted and mixed the show live, sitting at his correspondent's desk under a single source-4 spot, almost dj'ing it, punching buttons on several different decks to raise or lower or pause music and layer it over or under interview clips, and video clips, while doing his half of the narration live into a old-fashioned hanging microphone all in a beautifully synchronized sort of routine. i took, regrettably, no photos during the show because i was paranoid that my camera would insist on flashing in spite of me turning the flash off and then i'd be that jerk who flashed her camera right in the middle of the show when everyone else was clearly watching with rapt attention. not surprisingly, public radio listeners are a polite crowd. i don't think the cocktail waitresses were selling a lot of drinks that night.

+ ira glass and joss whedon in the same room is pretty much nerd heaven. how do they even know each other? if you're ira glass, maybe you can just call joss whedon up and ask him if he'd like to write a song and be on your live radio show. or maybe if you're joss whedon, you can call ira up and say, "hey, i've never played the piano in front of more than 8 people at one time before, but i wrote this song and so...can i be on your live radio show?"

Labels: chicago, radio

+ overheard: "after my palm reading last week i really had a come to jesus moment about my health."

+ actual pickup line used on me in a cafe: "so which Meyers-Briggs are you?" he then proceeded to guess my MB type based on my sandwich order.*

+ flyer left on my car: "free organic dry cleaning with purchase of a solar-power pizza!"

+ upon meeting a potential landlord: "o-m-g! i totally used to have, like, the exact same one!"** we weren't talking about shoes, here. we were talking about the $45,000 BMW M Roadster that, through happy kismet/the generosity of my brother, was mine to drive for the weekend. the car did, however, put me at a significant disadvantage when it came to negotiating rental terms: "$1300/month is really a lot for me," she says as she rolls back the top on the roadster, dons sunglasses and a headscarf, ala audrey hepburn, and roars off down hwy 1, pacific ocean glittering in the rear view mirror.

+ cat on a leash.


* goat cheese and avocado with celery, walnut pesto, and watercress on multigrain. gastronomically, if not culturally or economically, i have come home. though i am still unclear as to where my love for the chevre-avo combo places me on the Meyers-Briggs grid.

** please read with your best so-cal valley girl voice setting turned to FULL

Labels: california, lists, marin

H was kind enough to alert me to the fact that today is, per Mayor Daley and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, "Talk Like Shakespeare Day." I'm pretty sure that has the potential to be even more annoying than International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

And, regrettably, as H points out, whoever wrote the suggestions of how to talk like the Bard thinks that that "thee" is plural, not accusative. Alas. How will our children ever learn to use "thee" properly if we do not set a good example for them?

But 445th Happy Birthday to the Bard, anyway. I got my start working in Shakespeare, and I do love it in (most of) its many many (many) forms.

Labels: theatre

more stuff from the training log. i passed my 4th kyu test in aikido! this is something i've been working toward really for the entire past year, ever since testing for 5th kyu in april last year, but for the past two months i've been very focused on it and logging a lot of hours on the mat.

i passed! by the time i got to the end of the review week, i was no longer really worried about passing. i definitely didn't have a perfect test, by any means, but i felt good and focused throughout.

so the 5th kyu test was first, and i sat through all of that, trying to make sure my legs didn't falling asleep in seiza. when the 5th kyu test was ending i could feel my heart starting to pound, fight-or-flight instinct kicking in a surge of adrenaline, and i tried to summon calm and focus, breathing through it. then Sensei got that cheshire cat-like grin on his face and said, "we're going to try an experiment." what? as experiment? now? shit! he placed two sheets of paper in front of him, and said, "in xx other dojo..." and for a moment i thought what he was about to do was test me on some other dojo's test requirements. then he went on, "...they conduct different level tests simultaneously." so he called both me for 4th and tom for 3rd up at the same time, and conducted our tests simultaneously. which was chaotic at times, but otherwise worked just fine. a couple of times where the stages of our tests didn't line up, he'd call for one of us to sit down. which actually meant that i got a 3-4 minute rest twice during my test! which, though it was nice, i didn't really need. the endurance training i've been doing all spring came through for me, and though i was breathing hard and sweating, i never felt exhausted, never felt like my form and focus were suffering for exhaustion, something which i often see on other students' faces at the end of tests.

my weapons work was not great, nerves and a serious case of sweaty palms (it was at the end of the test, in a warm room and i was a sweat monster at that point) made the jo stick to my hand and not run smoothly, and it showed up my lack of basic training. also i had been working on getting the correct knee down during ura and omote sankyo pins, and on friday Enmei had showed me i was using the wrong knee in both cases, and once i tried to fix them both i got them so tangled in my head that i could no longer remember which was which. and it seemed like i did a LOT of sankyo. he called sankyo for practically every attack on the test requirements. the other thing that really tripped me up was in opening taisabaki, Sensei called for ai hanmi katatedori ushiro tenkan. what? ushiro tenkan? that was definitely not on the test requirements. so i struggled with that one, my brain trying to parse the japanese, backwards and turning, backwards and turning, and with some recommendations from sensei i fumbled through it and he assigned it to me as "homework." not the most brilliant start to the test, but i recovered. i f'd up the ura version of ushiro ryotedori ikkyo the first time, turning it into sankyo somehow, but the second time i got it right. and, most importantly, i didn't freeze up over kokyunage. i biffed one attack, but otherwise the kokyunage went pretty smoothly. and i did a pretty good job of remembering to show variations before i was asked. i'll get more specific feedback from the instructors and yudansha over the next week or so.

i'm most pleased with my endurance, and with my focus. i was almost completely unaware of the other students on the mat, it was just me, uke, and Sensei's voice barking commands or corrections.

and i really feel so much more competent having done the work for this test preparation. i've made more connections in my head between attack, taisabaki, and technique. i have a long way to go, but i can see the glimmer of those connections much better now than i could two months ago. i'm also really really sad about leaving this dojo community. i will certainly benefit from broadening my training into other dojos and styles, of course. but i heart the people here. funny, that i can write "i heart" with regards to people who routinely inflict pain, isn't it?

friday night i posted something on my facebook status page regarding the test, and someone commented, "you're a martial artist?" and it made me kind of feel awesome to be able to say, well, yeah. i am. i've accomplished something here. i am different than i was two and a half years ago. in many ways, of course, but this is one of the significant ones.

Labels: aikido

i walked into a UPS Store this morning. told the clerk i'd like to ship a package on a UPS account number.

"oh, we don't do that here!" she chirped.
"what?"
"we don't ship on account here. if the package is all labeled and ready to go you can drop it off, though."
blink, blink. "but you're The UPS Store."
"yes, but we don't make any money off of shipping on account, so we don't do that here. you can get a form from your UPS delivery guy, or from the UPS dropoff box located across the street. fill it out and then you can drop off the package here."
blink, blink. "are you aware that you're wearing no less than 6 UPS logos on your clothing right now?"

i considered continuing on to explain that the reason for the brand-association between UPS and what was formerly Mailboxes Etc and is now The UPS Store is so that customers like me will come in, fill out a UPS form, ship my package on account, and impulse-buy a dozen envelopes and some stamps while i'm at it. i mean, what the fuck? The UPS Store doesn't ship UPS packages? are they aware of the irony?

i went to Fed Ex* instead. am i trapped in some kind of commercial about small-business shipping-needs?

*That would be a Fed Ex Kinkos, to be exact. if one shipping company buys a copy shop, the rest of them have to, also.

Labels: rants

okay, so now that we've eaten The Cake, here's the rundown: over all, the icing and the coconut filling were awesome. the cake itself was dense and a little dry. some notes (bear with me, people, baking is Science and requires lab documentation as such):

- the most likely cause of the dense cake is that my baking soda and baking powder are old - i've heard you should replace those yearly, and i'm pretty sure i'm still on my first can of baking powder since...oh, i started cooking for myself. which would make it about 10 years old. they should sell that stuff in smaller quantities.

- never mind with slicing the cake rounds in half (creating four very thin layers). i'd just make the same quantity of filling and slather on a much thicker layer between the two cake layers, instead of thinner layers between 4 rounds of cake.

- the directions just tell you to spread the filling to the far edge of each layer, but i'd go in and pipe a line of icing around the edge. it'll keep the filling in and make it easier to ice the outside. i might go so far as to put a layer of icing between cake rounds in addition to the coconut filling, so that there's some direct frosting-on-filling action.

- i also wouldn't bother with the rum syrup. i couldn't tell what it added to the cake (maybe if i'd used more it would have make the cake less dry....?) the rum-and-chocolate combo is a wicked one, but i'd just work the rum into either the icing or, more likely the filling.

- but i'm not convinced that more experimentation, beyond baking soda, isn't necessary to get the ideal cake texture. this one was, as i mentioned, dry, and light in color. perhaps the flavor was intentionally mildly-chocolatey so as to contrast with the intense chocolate of the icing, but i'd rather just have good cake. so next stop is to experiment with different chocolate cake recipes.

overall i give myself a B+ for presentation (for my first from-scratch cake, it looked pretty damn good), and a B for flavor. good: using sharffen berger chocolate as the base chocolate. and the coconut/pecan/custard filling was holy-shit-that's-good. bad: after spending $10 on chocolate, cheaping out on replacing my baking soda was a dumb thing to do, and the resulting cake was dry and dense.

the verdict? i'll totally try this cake again (keeping in mind that it requires a very special occasion to spend SIX HOURS making a cake and that the ingredients were easily over $25). in the mean time, for my next dinner party i'd just as soon spend 1 hour making a kick ass fruit cobbler than spend six making this cake.

oh, but we're not finished on the subject of cake, internets. next stop: meatloaf cake.

Labels: baking

so, the task was just to bake a cake from scratch. a four-layer german chocolate cake was perhaps overkill for my first attempt, but, well, i had to run with the inspiration i had at hand. i'm having a dinner party tomorrow night, and it was a perfect excuse to make a cake that (according to the recipe) feeds 16. and i pretty much love dark chocolate and coconut so much that i want to marry it.

the verdict about how it tastes will be out tomorrow. right now i'm just pleased with myself that the icing all went on smoothly - i have memories of trying to ice cakes as a kid and it always turned into a big botched up mess of icing and cake crumbs. also, the baking of the cake layers made my apartment smell awesome.

the useful lesson to be learned here is that it's not enough to read the recipe for the ingredients - it's also necessary to read through and make sure i have all the required tools, too*. so, some improvisation was required, but it all worked out in the end. necessary substitutions included:

pastry brush = damp paper towel
flour sifter = a narrow-mesh pasta strainer, shaken gently
icing decorator tips and bag = ziplock baggie with one corner sliced off
parchment paper = butter and flour the pan the way i learned to bake from my mother
cake lid for overnight refrigeration = carefully tented tinfoil

start to finish (including cleaning up) took...five and a half hours. i may or may not have gotten chocolate in my hair, i'm not telling.

*not dissimilar to the time that i got all the way through making my own pie crust for, what turned out to be, the first time, only to discover that i didn't own a pie plate. emergency run to target ensued.

Labels: 101 in 1001, baking, food

i'm having a dinner party on sunday and don't have nearly enough plates or wine glasses for 14 people to eat off or drink from. no matter, i just trot up to hand prop storage and pick out a china pattern! instant loaner dishes.

Labels: reasons why working at a theatre is awesome

So Owl wrote . . . and this is what he wrote:

HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA
BTHUTHDY.

Pooh looked on admiringly.

"I'm just saying 'A Happy Birthday'," said Owl carelessly.
"It's a nice long one," said Pooh, very much impressed by it.
"Well, actually, of course, I'm saying 'A Very Happy Birthday with
love from Pooh.' Naturally it takes a good deal of pencil to say a
long thing like that."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.

Labels: birthday

maybe I'll feel nostalgic about this once I move to the land of milk and honey.

Labels: chicago, weather

(normally this stuff goes into the training log...continue only if you're actually interested in dorky running stuff)

woke up to 3" of new-fallen slush outside my window. it took me a good 20 minutes to decide i was really going to get up and run, but somehow i made it, on the basis that it would 1) be an adventure, and 2) i was relieved of the pressure to run a competitive time given the unfavorable conditions. have i mentioned how sick i am of running races in unfavorable conditions? the last three races have been: half marathon in the POURING rain, marathon in the (second) freakish october heat wave (in two years), and now this 8k in the snow.

some thoughts:

1) i can't believe race officials didn't plow the streets just before the race! we were running in ankle-deep slush the whole way, grey puddles that filled in and disguised potholes and made the bridges treacherously slippery.

2) for all the unpleasantness of the wet, it wasn't too terribly cold - right around 32, with no wind, so temp-wise it wasn't that bad. i discovered that i do, in fact, know how to dress to run in 30 degree weather.

3) post-race dry socks mean nothing if there are not also post-race dry shoes.

4) being in start corral B was AWESOME. i wasn't packed into the corral shoulder-to-shoulder like in the open corrals. there wasn't enough room to jog, which would have been helpful since they kept us penned in there for 15 minutes prior to the start of the race, but at least there was room to wiggle, jump up and down, and stretch, which i did to try and loosen my muscles up at least a little. then, when the race started, i realized that everyone around me was running the same pace as me! which means i wasn't wasting energy on weaving around those groups of people who, bless their hearts, have decided to participate in a "fun run" by linking arms with their 5 best girlfriends and then WALKING (i swear i'm not being a snob here - more power to you, running is an all-inclusive field...just for the love of god DON'T START IN FRONT OF ME IF YOU ARE GOING TO WALK!). so, two thumbs up for the start corral system.

5) i didn't get enough warm up time. i ran into my friend Kevin at gear check, and we jogged together over from the Congress Hotel to our start corrals, but that was *maybe* 1/4 mile. after that, standing still for 25 minutes before hitting that first mile at an 8' pace was hard on the legs. i need to figure out how to really get a full mile warm up before races, especially fast/short ones.

6) especially when i first started running i was lonely going to races by myself when i saw other people with their friends and running buddies. but i think i've gotten over that loneliness, and realized that it's sooo much better for me to race alone. when i can just get up, go to the race, be on my own time table, it's so much less stressful for me.

7) i don't like running short/fast races. it's too HARD. i really prefer the half marathon over all distances.

8) this was definitely a mind-over-matter race. for starters, even tho i'd given myself permission just to go out and jog, considering the weather, by the time i hit the starting line i knew i'd be chasing after the PR and time goal i'd set for myself. i always do this. i am not a participation-is-everything runner. i dont' care much how i stack up against other runners - i will always be middle-of-the-pack - but i *am* competitive against myself and against the clock. very much so.

9) i flagged a bit in mile 4, in my own head, if not in actual pace. mile 4 was when i just didn't want to go on, when all those fleeting thoughts of quitting start creeping in. so from 3 to 4 i made myself go on, saying that it'd be a PR alone just to do 4 sub-8' miles in a row, i've never done that. and i settled into that same miserable mindset that happens around mile 22 in the marathon, when you are no longer thinking, just putting one foot in front of the other, and then once i got to the 4 mile marker, it was just one more mile in to the finish, so i might as well do that. though, on the uphill on Roosevelt just before the finish line, i was making those deals with myself that if i could just finish this race strong, i could never run again if i didn't want to. come to think of it, i wonder how many times i've made those deals with myself while running up that exact same stretch of Roosevelt road (which is the last quarter mile before the finish line on almost all big chicago races).

10) it was a nice feeling to have finished, gathered my goodies, picked up my gear, changed into dry clothes, walked to starbucks (my racing bib was good for a free beer at the post-race party, but at 10:15 in the morning, who wants to stand around in 3" of slush and drink a michelob ultra?), and THEN cross the race course on my way to the el station and see that and there were still people racing.

11) stats:
time: 39'34" (goal was 40')
1811th out of 13,294 overall
330th out of 6550 women
64th out of 1324 division (women 30-34)

Labels: running

hi internets!

i've committed to throwing a dinner party for my birthday. i wanted to be all retro and grownup, or something. now i need help with the menu planning!

parameters:
+ somewhere between 6-16 guests (final numbers will impact somewhat what i can afford to do).
+ at least two fo' real veggies (no chicken stock, no gelatin)
+ at least two there'd-better-be-an-animal-for-dinner-or-else-it's-not-dinner-it's-a-snack carnivores.
+ i really really heart dessert, which means that i'm willing to go more all-out with the dessert than the rest of the menu.
+ a gas grill is at my disposal for the day. as is my boyfriend/sous chef.

i've dined well with a number of you. so...hit me with your bestest ace-in-the-hole recipes, will you*?

*and if no one responds, i'll take it as a sign that those recipe-exchange chain letters that i ignored and deleted really DID come back to bite me in the ass with bad karma.

Labels: birthday, food

stages of intoxication, as illustrated in 1949. moral of this story? hang on to your hat, folks.



does anyone have any idea how many drops of blood are in their bodies? no? well then how is drops of alcohol per 1000 drops of blood in any way a useful measurement? no wonder why everyone drank three martinis at lunch back then.

Labels: found objects

took my car in to see my mechanic yesterday, fully expecting to spend $$$ on new shocks. the guys greased some squeaky part and sent me out the door for $25. took my cat to the vet, my perfectly healthy cat, and paid $306 to be told that, guess what? my cat is perfectly healthy.

it doesn't even cost $306 for ME to go to the doctor and have her pronounce me healthy.

oh yeah, and when i got home from spending all that money, yesterday, i found a $100 parking ticket in my mailbox. back in october i got a $50 ticket for parking on a street cleaning day, and it totally wasn't posted so i contested the ticket. i heard nothing back for 6 months, so i pretty much forgot about it, until i got the final declaration back. the ticket still stands, only NOW i owe $100, not $50, because the ticket has been outstanding for 6 months and the penalties have doubled the cost. except that i didn't pay the ticket for 6 months becuase i was waiting for the results of the contestment*. so...i have to pay the penalties for the fact that the city chicago can't process paperwork in a timely fashion? yup. what a racket.

chicago, are you just trying to make me hate you, so that the breakup will be easier?

*is contestment a word? well it should be.

Labels: rants

so in the show we're producing right now, there's a scene where a character goes out into the hallway and breaks three light bulbs. the sound designer decided that a live bulb-breaking sound was better than the recorded version, which meant that i needed a source of light bulbs to break (about 25 per week). it seems ridiculously wasteful to break brand new light bulbs, so i called the facilities services on campus to see if they could hook me up with a source of burned out light bulbs. about 6 conversations and referrals later, i ended up in touch with a guy at the campus steam plant, apparently one of the only buildings on campus that still uses incandescent bulbs instead of recyclable fluorescent ones.

so i explained what i was looking for, and the next week i hiked out there and a nice guy about my age gave me the box of burned out bulbs he'd saved for me. as per my usual, when someone does me a favor like this, i told him we'd be happy to comp him a pair of tickets for the show, and gave him my business card.* we set up a standing appointment for me to drop by at 1pm on fridays to collect spent lamps for the rest of the run of the show. so today i stopped by, and my pal wasn't there but his manager was and when i explained what i was looking for he remembered what was up and had some other guy bring out the box of bulbs. it wasn't until i was bringing in the box later that i noticed the penned inscription on the side. tee hee. what i love about this is not that the steam plant guy was willing to save light bulbs for me because he thought i'm cute, but that his buddy went to the trouble to scratch out the phrase "cute theatre** chick" with a ballpoint pen before bringing the box out for me.

bets on whether anyone asks me out before the last light bulb pickup? or maybe the scratching out of "cute theatre chick" was an editorial on the part of the second guy.

*by coincidence, last friday was the first time in two weeks of tech that i didn't need to be dressed in grungy working-on-the-stage jeans and t-shirt, so i took advantage of that and the spell of warmish weather to wear a pretty new shirt. and actually wash and fix my hair, and put on some makeup. apparently it worked to my advantage. i don't think a lot of women hang around at the steam plant, is my guess.

**i give the steam plant guys props for spelling theatre with an "re"

Labels: feminine wile, theatre

Baltimore Opera Company: gone.

Labels: economy, theatre, theatre closings

my old pal Kevin (hi Kevin! how are you? where are you? how many beautiful kids do you have now?) reminded me that i left a major company off the list of regional theatres who have closed their doors in the past year - Buffalo's Studio Arena. which is silly that i left it off the list, given that i worked there for most of a season. so, yeah: add Studio Arena to the list.

Labels: economy, theatre, theatre closings

i'm only a month behind on photo blogging the ski trip gene and i took last month, but, well, it took that long for me to get around to downloading the photos. anyway, we spent valentine's weekend* at my parent's cabin in idaho, skied till the lifts closed every day, ate good food every night and then passed out cold about 10pm. ah, vacation.



i gave gene shit repeatedly about whether he was going to buy me this trashy pink plush unicorn that we kept seeing at the general store all weekend as my valentine's day gift, but alas, he did not. we did, however, spend the most hated of all holidays skiing, then checking out the ice sculptures in town left over from the previous week's winter carnival, then hiked out into the middle of the frozen-over lake at sunset, followed by dinner at a cozy wine bar. i gotta say, it ranked pretty high as valentine's days go: skiing, hiking, ice skating, wine-tasting. and wearing sweatpants all the while!

* with my parents! isn't that every young man's dream? to spend valentine's day with your new girlfriend and her parents? ha ha. gene was a good sport, my parents are pretty cool, and it was technically coincidence that we planned our trip around valentine's day. oh, and president's day.**

** this latter scheduling oversight presented a problem in that we were flying standby. standby on a holiday weekend doesn't work quite so well. we did make it to idaho and back, but not without mishap: i managed to misplace gene (well, technically, united airlines misplaced gene) in denver for three days. standby fliers, beware the monday holidays.

Labels: idaho, valentine's day

okay, in an effort to stop griping about the impending great depression for a moment, here's a fun little cultural tidbit for those of you who heart iceland:

Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called "hidden people"—or, to put it more plainly, elves—in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, "we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people."

(april 09 vanity fair)

Labels: elves, iceland

another one down: Madison Rep

Labels: economy, theatre, theatre closings

for a really excellent primer on what the hell happened to our banking system, check out this week's This American Life: Bad Bank. (podcast is available free, usually for a limited amount of time).

the upside is that it explains shit in a really clear simple manner. the downside is that it pretty much made me want to go get all my money and bury it in a jar in the back yard.

Labels: economy, radio

About Face Theatre
Magic Theatre
Theatre Jeune Lune
American Music Theatre of San Jose
Seaside Music Theatre
Milwaukee Shakespeare
Shakespeare Santa Cruz
House Theatre

of course, there are many many more theatres than what i listed up there, those are just companies that are large enough to be nationally recognized or else local to my own vital theatre scene in chicago.

i'm just wondering how many times theatres in financial crisis are going to be able to post an appeal to the tune of "give us xx dollars by next tuesday or we'll be forced to close our doors!" before the american public grows weary of these bailouts. or not weary, but just unwilling, unable, to give enough money. all of the theatres listed above tried that tactic in the past year, some met with success, some closed their doors for good. don't get me wrong. i'm all about funding the arts. it's my livelihood, for god's sake. i'm pro-government, -foundation and -individual sponsorship. there is no functional model where theatre can be produced here in american funded on ticket sales alone*. but i am skeptical that going "holy crap! we can't make payroll!" isn't going to meet with the same criticism coming from a not-for-profit arts organization as it is from a major national bank. because my own question is the same, regardless of the company: how did you not see this coming?

the answer is that many arts organizations have limped along with large debts and poor financial management practices for a long time. and in years of The Good Economy, many of those theatres were able to get a free pass. credit was extended and extended again. individuals and foundations were generous without asking hard questions about the company's bottom line. but the fact that arts organizations don't function on a dollars earned/dollars spent model doesn't mean that we are exempt from fiscal responsibility. it makes it about 100 MORE important. i look at companies who were skating along with $1,000,000 in debt that suddenly got their line of credit yoinked and say, "you MUST HAVE KNOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN SOMEDAY!" it drives me bonkers.

it sucks sucks sucks to have to program smaller projects, hire fewer actors, fewer artisans, to rely on lower-quality, cheaper labor, whatever. all of the companies i work for/with are doing that now and in their upcoming seasons. but you have to do the hard thing if you want the organization to survive. lop off the finger to save the hand (god that's a gross analogy - why did i just bring gangrene into this?). i write this knowing that i'm going to have to face those hard decisions many many times in the coming year - when i take over my new theatre position in July, it's knowing full well that i may have to make hard decisions about how much employment i can offer to talented professionals, how many resources i can make available to the creative team. i know full well that i'm taking a risk that i could be joining a company that could be a victim of the recession in a year (they tell me their books are solid but...you never know these things until you get there). but for all my bleeding heart liberal ways, i am as practical and proactive at heart as any one human being can be. what i can tell you is that, as much as i am able to control it, we won't be deficit spending on my watch.

and while i'm not getting all sunshiny about the Great Depression that is bearing down on us, i truly do believe that working against those constraints forces artists to make better, more creative work. does a bolt of $500/yard silk REALLY help us tell the story?


* don't get me wrong, plenty of small theatre companies function without significant sources of contributed income. but they don't make it on ticket sales alone, either. they make up for it by not being able to pay their employees. what you can't pay for in dollars, you can pay for in sweat equity. and this works, but only up to a point. there's a limit with what you can do when your reason for getting up every day doesn't pay the rent. there is finite amount of energy and time available to each of us.

Labels: economy, rants, theatre, theatre closings

proof that winter will, in fact, end. perhaps the sudden thaw in Hyde Park was due to Obama's visit to his hood this past weekend?

the, er, definitive list.

to date, i have read 78 of them. attempted and failed two*, and quit one in protest.** and seen an additional 21 in film or stage adaptations.

i have some concern that if i settled down to read the remaining 922 books, during that time there'd be a 1000 other books written that i'd need to read, and i'd be right back where i started.

*gravity's rainbow and satanic verses. in my defense, i was in college when i washed out on both of those books, and my brain was pretty full up before picking up Pynchon as bedtime reading.

**american gods, because, as unpopular as this will make me, i haaa-aaate neil gaiman.

Labels: books

a friend's gchat status message reads:

fantasy Jeopardy categories that will win me $157,000: Oscar Winners Since 1980, Indie Rock Band, Excel Functions, CTA Tips, Violet!, Punching Your Job in the Face, Potent Potables

okay, comment box. what are your seven fantasy Jeopardy categories?

my (evolving) list is:

stage blood (making, usage, cleaning up of, )
running physiology
recipes for macaroni and cheese
things my cat says (or, "my cat goes mrow")
alice in wonderland
organizing things with excel
ways to procrastinate going to bed at a reasonable hour

Labels: jeopardy, stuff i'm good at

a motivational speaker at a conference i went to last year repeated the mantra, "if you want something, talk about it" to us about a dozen times.

so, goal: lose 10 lbs.

i figure getting it out into the hands of the internets might help keep me honest. because the only thing more embarrassing than blogging about my diet is probably having to blog about failing to diet. or so i figure. the goal is to get to my goal weight (130) before i leave for california june 15th, which is 20 weeks from now.

what are you too embarrassed to blog about, comment box?

Labels: body image

this just became my new favorite 10-minute meal:

Quinoa and Black Bean Salad with Smoky Lime Dressing

1 cup quinoa, cooked according to package directions
4 green onions, thinly sliced
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon low-sodium teriyaki sauce or soy sauce
2 teaspoons sugar (optional, i prefer without)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (or more than 1 if you like some serious kick)
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped

Cook the quinoa according to package directions.

Stir in the green onions, black beans, and cilantro.

Puree the remaining ingredients together in a food processor; pour over
quinoa and stir to coat with dressing. Serve warm or at room
temperature.

Makes 4 - 6 servings.

ps - oh yeah, it paired beautifully with some crusty bread and goat cheese

pps - buyer beware: this keeps in the fridge beautifully, but the chipotle sauce got spicier once it had time to sit and contemplate its navel overnight.

Labels: recipes

those of us in the theatre industry rarely get those three-day weekend monday holiday things. if we're lucky enough to get a day off at all, it's usually on a monday, in which case the fact that banks and post offices are closed is just plain inconvenient.

which is why i'm stoked that my tech schedule is giving me sunday and possibly much of monday off this week. whoo! and then on tuesday i will be celebrating the day that everyone has been anxiously awaiting by attending a friend's inauguration brunch, aptly titled, "Ditch Work For Your New President". tuesday morning = pancakes + barak obama? yes, please.

in the mean time, obama has urged everyone to consider MLK Day to be a day of national service. so if you're lucky enough to have the day off, please consider volunteering for a community event. there are services events like helping out in shelters and food pantries, and also a lot of drop-off events, so if you don't have a lot of free time you can still help out by donating an old coat to a shelter or coat drive, give blood to a blood drive, food to a food drive (i'm starting to get a drive theme here...), etc.

so go on, thank your lucky stars for a three day weekend, and go find a service event in your hood.

Labels: politics, volunteerism

a little more photoblogging, then i'm done. i think (nearly*) all the handmade christmas gifts have been wrapped and shipped and received, so i can finally blog some finished objects here without spoiling anyone's surprise.

napkin rings i made for my sister-in-law. they are knitted from very thin wire with beads worked into the wire fabric, then sewn into tubes and curled into the doughnut shape. the pattern, Venezia, came from knitty.com.

lace scarf i knitted for my grandmother. this pattern is also from knitty.com. although it's a relatively easy lace pattern, as lace patterns go, it hasn't changed my opinion that knitting lace is a hateful, hateful activity. lace is something that i only knit for very special gifts for very special people.

the muffler i knit for my brother's girlfriend, Carrie. the pattern came from a user named "mintyfresh" on ravelry.com (i think you need an account in order to access it). i loved the idea of a muffler instead of a scarf, something that you can just loosen when you come inside instead of having to unwind, have it drag on the floor, etc. i used my favorite cotton yarn for this, made by Blue Sky. it's super soft and organically grown.

sweater and hat set for my new niece, Geneva. its about a 9 mo old size, so it'll be a while till she can wear it. i didn't love the wiggly texture of the yarn i used, but the color is pleasingly bold. and it's cotton, which i think is important for baby gifts - no itchy wool on sensitive baby's skin!

muffler for my roommate, Anne. i cribbed the design from a scarf i saw at anthropologie, and made up the pattern myself. the design is nice, though i'm not happy with the yarn i used (Lion Brand thick n quick wool ease). it was too stiff. the more i knit the more i realize how concerned i am with the drape of the yarn. i think about drape when it comes to fabric, but i realize that knitting is simply the process of creating fabric, and the drape of the finished product depends on the drape of the materials you start with.

next up? i'm making this hat for my mother (she did request a colorful hat!), another belated christmas that i can't write about here yet, and then maybe finally something for myself. of course, at the rate at which people i know are getting pregnant, i might just have to be a baby hat and bootie-knitting machine for the rest of time.

*well, come on, it wouldn't be christmas without at least one gift being delivered in february.

Labels: knitting

happy new year, internets!

it's time for the catch-up post, photoblog style.

thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday. orphan thanksgiving, as hosted by the gracious Keenans is a wonderful, four-day turkey extravaganza, where guests and friends are welcome (and do) return for leftovers throughout the weekend. which is good, considering the quantity of food that we created this year. it included two turkeys (one smoked, one brined and then roasted), salads and green beans and Palmer Cheesy Beans (don't ask) and i think three kinds of stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and rolls, and of course booze of all kinds. my contribution is a vat of turkey gravy (why is the quasi-veggie in charge of making the meat sauce? i have no idea. but i'm good at it). oh, and don't forget the Ice Cream Freezer and the Pie Triumvirate. i heart my chicago family.


in december, my roommate, anne, and threw our annual holiday party, Fondukkah! the party in which we celebrate all things christmas, hanukkah, swedish, and cheese. why those four? it's the ideal recipe for the pan-cultural holiday party, something for everyone. we have a tree and gifts and cookies set out under the stockings (hung over the radiator with care) and the usual trappings of christmas, we have latkas and dreidels and hanukkah traditions, we make a swedish smorgasbord of glogg, meatballs, crepes with lingonberries, cured salmon, and, to top it all off, several pots of fondue. culturally, if not in practice, anne is jewish, i'm catholic, we're both from swedish families, and in case none of that resonates for ya, everyone likes cheese. admittedly, this was not a party where a vegan could nosh with abandon.


in my gradual quest to become a competent baker*, i have recently moved from cookies and quick breads into the realm of pastries. on christmas eve i made my second attempt at making pie crust (and an apple pie) from scratch, and was pretty pleased with the results. the process took about three hours, at least three hours, but, really, what else does one want to do on christmas eve morning than watch the snow fall and bake an apple pie? i've still got a ways to go when it comes to a blemish-free appearance, but the crust was delicious, light, flaky, fully cooked on the bottom and not at all chewy or tough (these are all improvements over my previous attempt). the recipe (thanks cyn!) came from Cook's Illustrated, and the secret ingredient is...vodka. for real. what's up, food science?** aside from vodka, the key to pastries is to keep your fat (butter or crisco (shudder) or whathaveyou) COLD at all times. it needs to be chilled between every step, or the room temp and your warm palms will emulsify the grease and then you don't get the desired flaky texture.


continuing on the theme of holiday sweets was our the modern art gingerbread house. the kit provided the pieces and instructions for making a gingerbread train, but how boring it is to just follow the directions. carrie, the art major in the family, deserves most of the design credit. i mostly just functioned as a backseat designer/peanut gallery. oh, the cat helped, too.


there was snow, and lots of it. and skiing! (though not nearly enough of that). but i got to finally break in my new birthday skis and boots. this is the first time i've had new gear since i was in high school, and the technology has definitely changed. up until last week i was still skiing on my pair of 185cm K2s, long skinny skis that were so cool when i bought them in, oh, 1994. while i've loved those skis and they've served me very well, i'm pretty happy to change my allegiance to my new nordicas. shaped skis, what a concept! the epiphany i had about shaped skis was realizing that half of what i need to do is simply get out of the way and let the skis do the work. if i just relax and stop working them so hard, they practically turn themselves. i can't say that about the old K2s.


and finally, some gems from travel, including the ipod vending machine (las vegas has everything), the handmade-quilts and guns store, and the some other things you only see in idaho:

oh, yeah, i'm writing this on january 9 and our christmas tree? still up. still lit. i feel a little guilty about it, but it's not still up out of pure laziness, but a combination of laziness and my continuing love for having a bright, shiny ornament in the living room. i've been taking special note of how many other apartments on my street have trees still glowing in their windows. apparently, i am not alone in my love for holiday decor lighting the dark days of january. it's better than the store windows full of spring fashion, yo. it isn't nice to taunt chicagoans with displays of sundresses and tank tops when there are 10" of fresh snow on the ground and the lake is frozen over for the foreseeable future.

how were your holidays, comment box?

*actually, it's really just that my favorite way to procrastinate is by baking.
**gluten, which forms when water and flour combine, can't form in the presence of ethanol. so the point of using vodka is that you can have liquid that makes the dough pliable and workable, but it doesn't count as water. clever, no?

Labels: baking, holidays, photos, skiing, travel

after 8 years of hogging space on the bed, eating, pooping, and incurring large vet bills, zeke finally started to earn his keep this month when he caught his first two mice.

he doesn't bring them to me like a loyal cat would, he generally just stores them underneath furniture and (luckily) alerts me to their presence.

i suppose i shouldn't be proud about the death of a creature, even a small one, in my dwelling, but it is the way of nature, and a much more appealing method of handling our mouse problem than traps or poison. plus, zeke has grown rather chunky this winter. maybe chasing mice will get him some much-needed exercise.

Labels: zeke

Geneva Christine* was born on Monday Nov 24 at 2:30am. Welcome, Geneva!

*okay that's not actually a link to her blog. she's only 24 hours old, after all. but it's her mom's blog and there are pictures!

Labels: family

i've been traveling a lot this fall. first it was idaho, and the bay area, then minneapolis, then southern california. so, here are some pictures of pretty things.



minneapolis. mpls, as it turns out, is a great city. i'd never been there and didn't know much about it, but architecturally i found it to be this incredibly aesthetically appealing combination of new and old, industrial and modern. i was there for a couple of nice, mild fall days: i went for runs along the river and walked around the city quite a bit. however, the architecture of the human habitrails make it clear that winter in MN is no joke.



long beach. what does long beach have going for it? well, as near as i can tell, it's not orange county. forgive me, my beloved OC'ers, but i had a pretty visceral reaction to the OC last weekend*. anyway, about the last thing i saw on the beach here was this shot, immediately afterward this weird mid-afternoon coastal fog rolled in and obscured everything. and made my hair curly. it was a lovely, 65 degree day, which meant that midwestern tourists like me went to the beach and the locals stayed home and wore polar fleece.



the gypsey den. so as not to totally malign the OC, i did get the opportunity to have a big hippy breakfast and the best chai i've ever had and what is probably the lovliest independent coffee house on the planet. i claim no credit for discovering it; it's a childhood haunt of lau's. and it is a goodly place.

*contemplating a move there for work. more details when i'm able to process them/share them/know them myself. tantalizing, i know!

Labels: architecture, food, travel

so i went to see the Swedish vampire flick Let The Right One In last night. i can't recommend it as a feel-good date movie of the year, to be sure, but it held up under my test of a good piece of art - which is to say that shreds of it were still haunting me the next morning.

it was a quirky (but not funny quirky) mixture of classic foreign art-house flick - lots of long, softly-focused up close shots of not-beautiful people, a profound emphasis on stillness, beautiful cinematography, a moody coming-of-age story about a lonely 12-year-old boy - layered over the top of a story about vampires, complete with classic vampire-movie-camp: demons bursting into flame, severed limbs, splatters of blood across the camera lens. what was troubling was that the mood and esthetic of the film was so solidly art-house foreign-drama that it never gave the audience permission (or a break) to scream at the bits of horror. really unsettling. i think my first words post film were, "great! now I'm grossed out AND depressed," tho i didn't dislike it as much as that makes it sound. it was really interesting. and the young heroine-vampire is styled beautifully, with big disney eyes and these strange little animal sounds that seem to resonate from her chest. shiver. overall, i'd recommend it, but not if you're looking for a holiday blockbuster feel-good sort of movie.

but then again, i hear the new James Bond flick is kind of a downer, too.

Labels: movies