Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Usually I skill the sentimental year-in-review posts. I enjoy reading them from everyone else, but I don’t usually get so reflective myself.

This year, apparently I’m a sentimental fool. The changing of the year is still rather arbitrary in my mind and the biggest impact on my world is that I need to remember to date things “09″ instead of “08″ and change the various calendars hanging around the house. Sure, it’s an excellent excuse to party and hang out with friends too! But I just don’t feel any sort of annual cleansing of mind and spirit at midnight when the year turns. I think I tend to look at things as longer trends and dread the paperwork that comes with each new year. Yes, folks, it’s almost tax time.

Truthfully, I can probably sum up my year with, “Saw too many movies, read too few book and finally got married…”

The good:

• Oh hey! We got married!
• The end of work stress!
• 155 episodes of Monster Cat!
• Finally got around to taking a writing class with great results, including significantly improved pieces to add to my portfolio for my next grad school application.
• Two road trips to Maine, one complete with SNOW!
• Finally bought a new car.
• Stood in the cold with my tripod to photograph the moon.
• Sewed, cooked and baked more! I’m like domesticated or something.
• Raised my first round of hot peppers!

The bad:

• Some health crap that remains vague and unresolved.
• Work stress.
• Did not get into UBC’s MFA program, but my portfolio was totally not up to snuff so I can’t say I’m surprised.
• Unemployment paperwork and updating my résumé.
• Political advertising everywhere.

For the New Year I want to:

• Read more.
• Take another class.
• Cook, bake and sew more.
• Continue to write and improve my portfolio and apply to more grad programs.
• Go to the Zoo more.
• Do more photography stuff.
• Nanowrimo.
• Start the garden earlier in the spring!

The good stuff outnumbers the bad stuff so I really can’t complain. 2009 will be fun and productive.

2008, 2009, new year, wishes, year in review

Just in case you’re concerned, no, Tenny did not get into my drink. Falstaff though… Falstaff used to try to drink my drink… that lush.

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cats, comics, milk, monster cat, new year’s eve, silly, tennyson, new year’s eve

Many thanks to Mark, the emergency back-up thumb monkey, for keeping Tenny and Evil well-fed, loved and worshipped while we were gone. We are very grateful!

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cats, comics, feral, monster cat, silly, tennyson, travel

People in the Philly area are a “little touchy” and well-armed.
People in Philly are possibly the rudest people in theaters ever.
The result:
A 29 year old man asked the family in front of him to be quiet. They did not. He threw popcorn at the kid, came around the row and shot the father.
The lesson? Behave yourselves as appropriate for the venue you’re in and be careful to whom you’re rude or you might get shot.

We stopped going to the theater in this article because other members of the audience seemed unaware that movie theaters are for watching movies not for socializing with your friends and talking on your phone.

While I’m NOT condoning random acts of violence in movie theaters (and I am tempted to condemn the shooter for throwing precious popcorn), I am hopeful that this scares people in to realizing that they should learn to behave appropriately and be quiet in movie theaters. A whispered comment here and there is one thing, a full-length narrative of what’s going on on-screen or, worse, a conversation about your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriends son? Unacceptable.

*This is what I turned around and said to the (adult) family behind us one night at the movies who would not be quiet after an hour of shh-ing and glaring at them. It worked. No handgun or other acts of violence required.

movies, philadelphia, rude, theaters, violence

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blankets, cats, comics, monster cat, silly, tennyson, winter

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cats, christmas eve, comics, fireside, monster cat, santa, silly, tennyson

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cats, comics, memo, monster cat, santa, silly, tennyson

First, I gleefully reached the land of snow yesterday. It wasn’t hard as the snow isn’t far from Philadelphia at the moment. I was paranoid about checking the weather last night and it didn’t look good. I stepped outside about 20 minutes ago to a fine precipitation of snow and ice. Right. Not going to drive to NH in that! I stepped back in and went to send people e-mails that I’m going to be late. Since stepping inside, the snow has turned to sleet, back to fine ice balls, and now looks to be heavy and wet. No more fine mist, now it’s snowing steadily and properly as if the storm had been waiting for me to decide not to drive before opening up. From looking at the radar, there’s no way I could have avoided the storm unless I’d driven straight to NH yesterday… which I totally didn’t have the energy for. And while I should go back to sleep, I’m gleefully glued to the window. The plow guy came through earlier and zoomed along the parking lot letting sparks fly. The snow is just beautiful. And in just the time I’ve been typing this has changed again and appears to be trying to settle into that medium-sized, fast and steady flake that brings with it accumulation. I’m not fooled, I see the pink on the radar. Ice and rain are coming.

snow, weather, travel, road trips

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Marathon baking requires the proper footwear. So I put on my sneakers and started baking. On Sunday. It’s good that I wear my sneakers for this. I’m done now. I have slain many pounds of various sugars, flour and butter. And popcorn. For my next trick, I’ll go gift shopping. On second thought, can I just bake more? I really really really love marathon baking. It’s just totally fun. Being sick last week put me behind schedule, but I finished up tonight and everything’s all packed up ready for driving and shipping as the case may be. I have a couple tiny little burns on my fingers, and I did drop an entire cookie sheet of cookies (with the onset of tiny burn number 1), and I might have RSI in my shoulder from stirring so much boiling sugar…

But those minor incidents aside, I’ve had a very successful baking marathon! And I really have done very little else other than bake so far this week. Which wouldn’t be a problem if I hadn’t lost last week to a cold. Tomorrow I need to go do some strategic-strike gift shopping for family and wrap gifts. Friday, if all goes well with health and weather, I’ll leave for my traditional holiday road trip to the North with the hot little car. The Fop will join me Monday night in New Hampshire. Christmas in Maine then we’ll meander home again.

Monster Cat will be traumatized by our absence, I’m certain of it. He’s already terribly confused by me spending so much time in the kitchen. (Though he is comforted by cereal milk. Ahhh… to be a cat.)

baking, cooking, holidays, marathon baking, travel