visual victuals

In no particular order, and only partly because you've been neglected (mostly because I don't feel like working right now) here are some views of our goings-on...

Clutter/knickknacks are carefully controlled chez nous. Of course you can guess why. Here's an example of a sanctioned trinket-safe spot...


Another sanctioned refuge of wacky little things that would rather not become cat toys is the whatnot that Dean made me years ago. Installing it is a little labor intensive so it's usually the last thing to go up anytime I move, and the one big box of crazy little mementos that normally live on it is always the last thing to be unpacked. Still, I don't normally take 1.5 years to get it all accomplished! But this time I did. So my bedroom finally has that last big chunk of Susan/home/me-ness in it now and the last box of stuff from the move was finally dug into. I think it turned out better than ever before...


And speaking of old favorite things, my poor old Clarks Maryjanes that I got the first fall back in Aub*rn (2002), have finally worn beyond repair. They look pretty good still from a distance... (Sam's feet look quite fun next to them as well)...


But closeup (excuse the blur) you can see an example of why they are now retired. The shoe guy in Anderson has fixed them twice but there is nothing to stitch or glue to anymore but what they come loose each time now. So sad... Still I can't bear to put them in the thrift store bag - I've put them in and taken them out twice now... Also there's the issue of their not really being wearable now so who could even use them? But I'm even more loathe just to toss them, so they keep being shuttled from spot to spot in the house for now...


Curry anyone? This was Sunday night, instead of grading and getting ready for the week. :) Turned out quite yummy!


And a couple of gangas on a weekend when I was down to just barely enough money to last til payday. Score!


I had just been lamenting the fact that two more old long-sleeved t-shirts had become too worn to be used for anything but bed... Stopped in to Rite-Aid Friday night before meeting the other FR girls for a glass of wine at Blue Heron and they had these cotton Hanes long-sleeved tees for $4/each! You can see the funness here at least tho the color is off and I didn't notice til now: the lefthand one is actually aqua, the right hand one is dusky blue, not purple at all. The middle one is true to actual color.



And the mini-antiquing I did Saturday... against my better judgment, but controlled myself admirably. Three bee-yew-tee-full linen hankies and an orange refrigerator dish in perfect condition (the un-chipped ones are quite the endangered species nowadays, especially if you need it to be affordable of course).


I also took phone pics of two furniture pieces I'm thinking about for my New Year's antique. Being good and only buying big stuff 2x a year, and still "big stuff" for me is nowhere near what it might be for those with larger homes or pocketbooks... anyway I'll have to link those for you later and you can help me ponder. I will wait a few paychecks at least to see what happens; let providence help the decision... One is a smallish buffet, oak, the other is a maple dresser that I would still use as a buffet... leaning towards the former. On verra...

Susan and the Kits, high on albuterol (Susan, not the kits)

• Good things about albuterol: ease of breathing and energy buzz.

• Bad things about albuterol: it makes my voice go into permanent baby voice register, makes me think I can talk even faster than normal while simultaneously dulling those same powers (makes for lots of garbled words and beginnings o' tangents), and wipes all vocab from my mind except the word "cute." Also occasionally makes me sound like a valley girl.

Cat wise these are just moderately fun (of course moderately fun with S&L beats crazy fun with pretty much anyone else tho) - you get to see the Lucy Boo much better for once, as well as a particularly fun regular Sam hygiene protocol, but mostly I just wanted to keep playing with the video and was totally wiredddddddddddddddddddddddddddd and yet slap happy from fatigue, too! Score!

You can decide whether morning cough ramblings or afternoon albuterol spazziness are the preferable Susan Vid Persona.

Experimental vid update from Bronchitis Central

Unedited ramblings à la Suzette, with periodic coughing for variety.

9/09 thanks

1^er.ix.09 - Olivia Ruiz

2.ix.09 - not having to wash my hair this morning

3.ix.09 - Emergen-C!!!!

4.ix.09 - Sudafed

5.ix.09 - perfect low-key getting-over-a-cold trail-scouting hike to Oconee Station Cove Falls

6.ix.09 - lazy morning with the purrboxes & the tremendous Clancy Brown

7.ix.09 - Mom holding my head when I had to upchuck when I was little

8.ix.09 - wit

9.ix.09 - 202003 is turning around :) + surprise extra time between classes

10.ix.09 - getting out early

11.ix.09 - audacity

12.ix.09 - pooping in the woods

13.ix.09 - deciding not to go to the office

14.ix.09 - Sam the Alarm Cat

15.ix.09 - Victoria Williams, & room to breathe at my desk

16.ix.09 - grape juice, fermented & otherwise

17.ix.09 - the great Stephen Lang

18.ix.09 - my fun pink Mission Thrift skirt & my fun bronze-colored ballet flats

19.ix.09 - Lily Tomlin

20.ix.09 - insane tortie sparklebug flippy tail tickle hellos

21.ix.09 - Margaret's new book release tomorrow!!!!!!!

22.ix.09 - fun new wallet

23.ix.09 - hope

24.ix.09 - mousewheels

25.ix.09 - teddy bear chollas

26.ix.09 - snuggle weather

27.ix.09 - Anna Maxwell Martin

28.ix.09 - Brodart

29.ix.09 - sugar free Juicy Fruit

30.ix.09 - fantastic students & fun beer at Nick's

quiche me, je suis française (in my head)

The much anticipated procrastination quiche I made yesterday while not grading papers:

Before...


After...

Broccoli and cheddar with homemade whole wheat crust... oh and an entire stick of butter, about a cup of crème fraîche, and 5 or 6 eggs... But bear in mind this made 8 pretty substantial servings, so per serving all the decadent stuff isn't that bad. Kee.

Guess what I'm having for lunch all week? I've almost decided quiche is the perfect lunch food. A moderate piece accompanied by an apple or a handful of carrots or some other fruit/veg type yummy keeps me satisfied all afternoon! Crazy. Protein is good. Eggs rock.

So happy my hot water butter crusts are coming out OK again - I lost my trusty recipe that Tiphaine had written out for me years ago so have been experimenting with the crusts. Finally got it right again. In fact I didn't even measure for this one.

Speaking of crusts... It's almost time for pies!

So there.

The best solutions are often the simplest, n'est-ce pas?

reminiscing

Fun that HOV has been in existence for nearly 4 (Count 'em!) years. To celebrate tonight I went to see what was happening in the farthest-away September postings (06). Pretty fun memories. Check it out. Thanks again Eric - I really need to find a choir here or get back to piano finally or voice... promised myself piano would be first... now just have to find time. Tee hee.

Camille

I happened upon this accidentally last spring; first view of Camille.


Or click here if that one is making your eyes water.

Still one of my faves of hers.

This is probably my favorite clip of "Ta Douleur" (the one from the crazy anti-knitting vid).

Or non-eyewatery version au cas où.

Separated at birth?

When fellow former Aub*rnite Lara posted this fun yoga article on FB last week I knew there was something about Neal Pollack...

The last few days as I grade at home I've been half-watching Netflix Instant Watch. I was delighted to find that two more seasons of "Wire in the Blood" had made it to DVD and have been immersed in Robson Green and his cohorts.

Holy Doppelgänger, Batman...*



Of course I'm partial to Robson (right), tho...

*nb: I have not the slightest inkling why a big space persists up there and I'm too pooped to play with the html anymore; it only appears after publishing, not in the preview [usually blogger weirdnesses happen vice versa] I hope it's just Mac funkiness - many posts have looked a little idiosyncratic on here even tho I'm using Firefox... Alas, 'tis a mystery for another day...

where the magic happens

As promised you get to see how I broadened my work horizons this week, literally.

First you can come in our office...

Only 6 of us in here now. We on the right hand side have the added Christophe-inspired benefit of quasi-closed cubicles. Mine is the first on the right (just past the green chairs).


This is why - OK well partly why - my head has been so muddled: 2 sq. feet of work space, anyone? This semester in particular things reached critical mass for some reason. Last week one night I was just sitting at my desk, frozen, because I literally did not have room to organize all the to-be-graded stuff, let alone actually work. That's when the decision to use my own laptop came in. Two officemates are already on that road and I've gazed in envy at their clean desktops... Now, at Aub*rn this kind of thing would never be a problem; one of the few things I miss besides my social life is how conscientious that university and its IT staff, and esp. the IT staff in the College of Liberal Arts, was about employees needing to have a functional and comfortable work environment, and the correct tools to enhance same. So it does burn me up a bit to have to use my own equipment at work but the payoff is pretty impressive so I've decided not to dwell on it.

This is the bohemoth monitor that was the main problem. I have asked about flat monitors and was told that there is a waiting list - in fact none of us have flat monitors even tho we have these smallish desktops... I measured the depth of the desk here where I stashed Gargantua (on left) and it is 14" deep - note that the monitor still sticks out the front even tho it is pushed back against the wall. Honestly even with the dearth of space on my desk I hadn't realized it was THAT big.

Ahhhh. Now THAT'S better, no? I've since rearranged things a bit more attractively but you get the idea space-wise I think. Eventually the Mac will be coming to school with me but I'm glad my refurb is still moderately healthy in the meantime.

Un panaché, s'il vous plaît...

To celebrate my first two ever accents typed on my Mac, let's make panachés, shall we?

Oops sorry, I jumped the gun a bit. After le Sous-Terrain Français tonight in Gville I was consumed by an urgent need to tidy up the house, its having reached critical mass a bit early this week, and this was perfect encouragement. Anyway, read on to catch up with me...

Ever audacious I refuse to do any online research about panachés. I am confident that whatever crazy faux-panachés you all might have found on the internet, they will pale (npi) next to the real deal.

You need...
Equal parts, cold:

• A nice blonde (...not THAT kind - this is a nice light lager; I almost exclusively use Stella Artois - no big if it's not an import, etc., but you don't want something with a very strong taste nor do you want something that tastes crappy [e.g. pretty much any American beer - Bud and the like] so don't go too cheap either)
• Some limonade (equally misleading perhaps - false cognate - French limonade is not lemonade. It is a soft drink like 7-Up or Sprite altho less lemony/sweet and slightly less fizzy.) Use the clear variety of Lorina French limonade if possible - available at World Market among other places (our BiLo actually carries it altho it is upwards of $2/bottle). Otherwise try for a generic 7-Up wannabe. Often I go ahead with 7-Up (I never use Sprite b/c it's considerably more lemony and you don't want it to be SUPER citrusy) but then I use a ratio of about 1:3 (1 part 7-Up to 3 parts beer) to compensate for the lemonyness.
• If you've found another limonade stand-in and you're not sure what kind of ratio to aim for, focus on the taste. The actual taste should be almost equal, beer and lemonyness. The perfect panaché gives you the satisfaction of beer's quench plus a lovely lightness with about 3 hints of lemonyness. From one instant to the next the taste should seem to go back and forth equally; you should taste beer, then limonade, then beer, so that your taste buds are almost confused - but delightedly quenched even in their ignorance.
  

It will fizz quite a bit so do the tipped-glass pour you learned when you were waitressing or bartending in college. Aside from reducing fizz you will impress the majority of those around with your ability to pour a beer with minimal foam.

Before you pour be sure to give me a heads-up so I can come over and enjoy it with you. I'm bound to be done with mine by then anyway. Alternatively we could fly to Paris so we can people watch as we sip. Or we could go cycling. Absolute best panachés are after 50km or so of road before heading to the campground...

Huge thanks to the Bill formerly known as Mystery Bill for this great blogpost idea. Might be my favorite recipe post yet.

and finally

the first blogpost via Mac. Well not really the first ever via Mac since I used to post from Andy's Mac on occasion, but the first from mine.

Yes this is the something that was coming. Obviously there are other things coming, there always are, but it's nice to have something fun and expected, beckoned even.

Having a glass of McManis cabernet organizing gdocs with gobs of leftover Paris notes. Good excuse to keep playing with the new pooter and trying to teach my fingers new keyboard tricks, esp. where word processing is concerned. Those are the ones that are almost completely subconscious for me.

Of course there's the whole issue of accents still but I'm not sure I have gumption tonight for learning Mac accent shortcuts; what self-respecting brain needs FOUR different accent-making systems inside it? On the other hand maybe giving my head a nice big bunch of memory re-working at 46 will help stave off senility that much longer.

lolololol omg as I was just typing that Sammers approached and he just noticed the backlit keyboard and freaked... he backed up a bit and gingerly stuck out a paw --you know, the way they do-- then kind of shook his head and jumped off the couch. I guess further study is required at a later date.

Lucy's more excited about the box than anything else.

keep forgetting to share this

Some of our more fragile-sensibility students were a bit taken aback by their Louvre card this summer - I finally remembered to purloin an image off the net for you. I was kind of jealous actually - not that I wanted bosoms on my Louvre card but mine was a quilt-effect des têtes de chef-d'oeuvres, all too small to really enjoy.