Thursday, March 31, 2005
Tonight I watched the dog and the kid fight over a jelly bean that had fallen on the floor. The kid won. (For what it's worth, I didn't let either of them eat it.)
# posted by Amanda at 10:14 PM |
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Wednesday, March 30, 2005
My Kingdom for an Asparagus with a Survival Instinct
ITguy: I think my favorite TV character of all time might be Anya from Buffy
ITguy: (as you can see I am getting MUCH work done)
Cheezmistress: yeeeeah, I can see that!
Cheezmistress: why is she your favorite? do I want to know?
ITguy: mostly because she says all the things that everyone wants to say...and she's hot
Cheezmistress: *laugh*
Cheezmistress: she's probably a lesbian in real life
Cheezmistress: like Tammy Michaels
ITguy: probably...oh and she's very involved in the animal rights movement so that's a big no
ITguy: animals have the right to be my dinner!
Cheezmistress: ha ha ha
Cheezmistress: "piggies are very tasty"
ITguy: I notice that most animals are...much better than vegetables
ITguy: probably due to the effort of having to run them down and cut them up...for all that they BETTER be worth it
Cheezmistress: it stands to reason that if a vegetable put up more of a fight, it would taste better
# posted by Amanda at 12:15 PM |
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Tuesday, March 29, 2005
When Sophie was about a month old, we debuted her in Baltimore to friends and family. One of my elderly relatives gave us a fistful of baby product coupons that she had been saving. While I was thanking her, I noticed one coupon that had to have been at least 30 years old. It entitled the bearer to receive six cents off Johnson & Johnson baby care products. My relative beamed and pointed out that since the coupon didn't have an expiration date, it was still valid. Then with total seriousness, she said, "Every little bit helps!"
I never could bring myself to actually use the coupon. Even if I was the type of person to get all coupon-happy and ha HA, greedy manufacturer of baby care products, that'll teach you to not put an expiration date on your coupons!, the six cents saved there wouldn't exactly cancel out my habit of routinely buying bucket-sized gourmet coffee drinks. Besides, the coupon is vintage, or antique, or however you prefer to say "old piece of paper that will be lost in yet another house for 30 more years." It just didn't seem right to use it.
The coupon has been floating around in my house for more than two years now. It just resurfaced again recently and became the basis for the latest masthead for this site. Many thanks to my lovely and multi-talented friend Hannah for the graphics assistance!
# posted by Amanda at 12:25 PM |
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Sunday, March 27, 2005
Easter on a Bed of Lettuce
1. They are pear halves that have been pimped out to look like bunnies.
2. No, I didn't. I made the bread, which did not meet the minimum photogenic standards to have a picture posted here.
# posted by Amanda at 9:43 PM |
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Thursday, March 24, 2005
Since at least two of the more observant visitors to this site have noticed the recent lack of new content and have demanded an update, here is what I have been doing with my time:
1. I bought a boat. It came with chicken nibblers and a choice of two sides. (If you haven't enjoyed this kind of fine dining recently, you really ought to splurge.)
2. I might have won a photography contest, or someone mailed me a first place ribbon as a cruel joke. Either way, NEENER NEENER! I have a blue ribbon AND YOU DON'T!
3. Company Y has been renamed Company Y [Is This Still An Issue?]. That is all I care to say on that topic.
4. In other career-related news, I have been appointed as Chief Googler here at Cheezleton Manor. I report directly to a two-year-old child who has discovered the joys of the internet but can't type her own desired search terms. Responsibilities include performing repeated websearches for "pictures of purple neigh-neighs" and other curiosities.
5. I made the first of this year's semi-annual pilgrimmages to the dry cleaners with a bunch of suit pieces and one very cute party dress. While I was attempting to talk official dry-cleaner-y business, the delicately boned boy at the front counter stuck out his little hand and PETTED MY DIRTY DRESS. Considering that he was practically salivating over it WHILE I WAS STILL STANDING THERE, he probably ran to try it on as soon as I left. Irritatingly enough, he had the absolute perfect hairstyle to go with the dress and it probably looked better on him than it does on me.
So, yeah, lots of excitement. Today I'm contemplating the differences between shrimp, crawfish and prawns and enjoying crustacea.net. It's for crustaceans of the world.
# posted by Amanda at 12:25 PM |
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Wednesday, March 16, 2005
I keep commenting to Sean that the house smells unusually good, and then I realize that the scent in question is poodle parfum wafting up from a freshly groomed Toby. It's like having a roving furry air freshener.
# posted by Amanda at 9:53 PM |
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Thursday, March 10, 2005
I just found out that Subaru has a new offering in the mid-size SUV class: the 7-passenger B9 Tribeca. Subaru has not historically been known for making attractive cars, but dang, this is a pretty sleek looking 'Ru. As a Forester owner, finding out about the Tribeca is like discovering that my decent, dependendable boyfriend has a much hotter brother with far more potential. DAMN SKIPPY I wanna trade up!
P.S. Note the tongue-in-cheek "lifestyle" references in the Car & Driver article. Quick, someone get Grumpypants the Author a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
# posted by Amanda at 8:25 AM |
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Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Sean's sister and brother-in-law (the Western Cheezletons) have a gentleman's farm, which means that they raise livestock as a hobby. They currently have some miniature horses, a small flock of sheep, several dozen chickens and a lone resident of the Cheezleton Home for Wayward Goats. Sounds like the starter kit for a petting zoo, right? Unfortunately, Sophie is absolutely convinced that the sheep and horses are vicious, man-eating beasts and has a full-body freakout if we get within 20 yards of the pastures. For now, we avoid the four-legged critters and just visit the chickens.
The chickens are various exotic breeds that lay eggs of the most beautiful, unusual colors. Every so often, we take home some of the surplus eggs. Not being an egg eater myself, I couldn't tell you how they taste. Probably a lot like storebought eggs, only fresher. I mean, it doesn't get any more fresh than straight from the chicken's butt. (Hey, if I have to think about it, so do you!) I do use the eggs for baking, but...I have a confession to make: Sean has to crack the eggs and peek inside first. Now, logically, I KNOW that the eggs were collected before the hens had the chance to brood, but logic is no match for a fertile imagination. I have cultivated a fear of finding a beak in an egg.
A few weeks ago, Sean's sister asked if we would be interested in borrowing a chicken to use in Sophie's spring portraits. Sure, I said, that would be very cute. Somehow, during the ensuing conversation, we decided that it would be very VERY cute if the chicken was wearing bunny ears during the photoshoot.
Yes, you read that correctly. BUNNY EARS. On a LIVE CHICKEN.
Naturally, there is not a lot of demand for bunny ear accessories for birds, so I wasn't able to find ready-made ones to buy. On to Plan B: making them myself. As I hunched over my kitchen table last Sunday morning, cutting out bunny ears of the approximate scale for a chicken and sewing them onto a twist-tie headband, I wondered if the chicken would be appreciative of the work going into this little project. Not that I expected the chicken to thank me profusely and promise to work the bunny ears into her vast wardrobe, just that a good-natured and cooperative chicken would please me ever so much more than a chicken who goes all kung fu on me when she figures out that the bunny ears are for HER head. The idea of having a beak - still attached to an angry chicken - firmly planted in my hand is even less appealling than finding a detached beak in an egg.
As it turned out, the chicken - a Silkie named Pearl - was a perfect model. She took the bunny ears home with her after the photoshoot. No word yet on whether she has been spotted wearing them on her travels around town.
# posted by Amanda at 12:11 PM |
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Friday, March 04, 2005
Dunno about you, but my kitchen can do without this. The avocado bowl kinda reminds me of the V lizard people that gave me nightmares when I was a kid. Dude, they ATE RATS!
Speaking of nightmares, Sophie woke up sobbing hysterically in the wee hours of the morning today. After she calmed down a bit, she said that she had dreamed about a plane falling on her. Poor thing. I dried her tears and assured her that she doesn't need to worry about that. She fell back asleep within a few minutes. Me, I flopped around in bed for a while, churning over my helplessness to do anything other than soothe her. Unfortunately, protecting her from her own imagination is beyond the scope of my parental abilities.
In general, Sean and I are not what I'd consider "protective" parents. I mean, sure, I still obsessively shuffle along all hunched over following Sophie as she walks, ready to grab her in case she trips. I'd pad and cushion the entire house if it were possible. But obsessively sheltering her from truth and the occasional minor disappointment? That's not realistic. I can't be the parent of the kid who has a psychological meltdown IN MIDDLE SCHOOL because of JUST finding out that there is no Santa Claus/Great Pumpkin/$50,000 from Bill Gates for forwarding an email to 10 friends.
Sophie likes to test our abilities to explain things. The endless asking of questions is her job as a two-year-old. We try to give basic - but honest and somewhat blunt - explanations to her questions. A couple of nights ago after having dinner at my parents' house, I asked Sophie what we had eaten. "Green beans! And mashed potatoes! And chicken!", she said.
"No, not chicken. It was pork," I corrected.
"Pork?" she asked, pausing for more explanation.
"Yep," I said, and then realized that Sophie was about to learn the lesson of Where Meat Comes From. We're not big mammal-eaters here at Cheezleton Manor, so although Sophie understands that chicken comes from the birds of the same name and fish comes from water-dwelling animals of the same name - how convenient is that, eh? - this was the first time that she'd be hearing that cute little farmyard critters are commonly cooked and eaten. Deciding that honesty was the best policy, even if drama resulted, I forged ahead: "Pork comes from pigs."
"Oh," she said quietly. I glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror. She was staring off into space, apparently processing the news. Did she make the association between pork and pigs, I wondered? Was she upset?
And then, she grinned and spoke: "Piggies are very tasty!"
# posted by Amanda at 7:36 AM |
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