I know I need to post fiction. I will, it's just that my brain's been consumed with the wrong fiction. And talking to kid #1 about drugs. We're painfully honest here when it comes to the difficult topics like booze, drugs, and sex. So, he asks a lot of questions in general. Tonight's were so specific I suspect he knows someone that is experimenting or at least talking about experimenting. Ran down all the reasons why trying things "just once" can end badly. Sooner or later he's going to ask why Mommy knows so much about it, but for now he's content to use me to weed out the myths from the facts. The discovery that drugs bought on the street could be fake or poisonous has left him boggled. Next up? Prescription drugs and all the ways medicine can be abused. I'd rather be an ostrich about this stuff, but he's 10 and I knew kids who were muling at his age so he gets all the facts. We've also been talking to him about gangs. Because modern parenting is a barrel of fun.

This is a very, very, very long shot. But I'm DISO Emilie Autumn's Mistress perfume oil in any amount if anyone happens to have any.

I've been visiting my parents for the past week. I like being here around this time of year for the oddest reason; my parents' backyard has large boulders with tones of critters hiding underneath. Usually The boulders are shelter to bugs, spiders, and slugs but occasionally I will find a Sharp Tailed Snake or an Alligator Lizard. Today I found a baby Alligator Lizard. It was so tiny and cute. I have seen adults and they're mean as Hell but this is the first time I've ever seen a young one.

It's probably some sort of Northern Californian Alligator Lizard, I'm not really sure what kind, but here are some photos of it.

( Read more... )

You know, if you're going to get all bent out of shape to the point of "wanting the dog's collar back on so it will hurt when I lift her" (as opposed to the harness my beagle is currently wearing) and insisting she either be on leash or crated in the house at all times because she got into the food cabinet and ate an entire bag of uncooked egg noodles --

you might want to consider moving the food to a cabinet *above* the counter.

I'm just sayin'.

And of course *your* beagles would *never* do such a thing.

Sigh.

If we could afford to move out of my mother's house, we would.

ETA: My dog is the "bad" one, my mother also has two beagles. Plus we have two other dogs. The economy caught up with us and we are living with my mother for at least another 6 months.

recipe behind the cut

1 cup flour (half sweet rice flour, half brown rice flour)
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp olive oil

mix them all in the food processor. i added the oil last, while it was going.

i put about half in a bag, maybe a little over half. it was just enough for 6 large leg/thigh combos. (the rest is jarred in the freezer now.)

preheat oven to 375. rinse chicken in cold water, do NOT pat dry, shake 1 at a time in bag and put on baking tray (i used a broiler pan with rack).

bake 40-50 minutes or until all juices run clear.

granted i haven't had real shake n bake in 10+ years, but this was WONDERFUL.

    Livejournal has notified us that dogsintraining is once again going to be featured in the Spotlight. Yay us!  It will begin January 10th and continue for a full week.  This has happened before and it was a relatively smooth process with little drama and some great new members.  

    However, as some members may recall, posting increased dramatically over that period of time. We expect this to be the case again. So this is your warning to be prepared. You may want to take the community off of your watch list for awhile, or put it on a filter, if you don't want to see upwards of 15 - 20 new posts a day.

   If you are looking for refuge, feel free to take it at dogtrainers . 

   As ever, your mod team (some of which switched around their vacation plans to make sure to be here that week because that's how much we love you) will be around to keep an eye on things. If there's a problem, you can always contact us through this post in the trainingmods community, or you can at least personally contact me via the LJ messaging system (please note: I'm only speaking for me, not the other mods).

 Carry on, and have a great day and weekend everyone.

#47: Jen Lin-Liu, Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China: After graduating from journalism school in the U.S., Lin-Liu moved to China to freelance for American newspapers and magazines. She became obsessed (her word) with Chinese food and decided to sign up for Chinese cooking school...and that's only the beginning of her journey, which takes her through cooking school, one-on-one lessons, apprenticeships in noodle stalls and dumpling houses, and finally an internship in a gourmet Shanghai restaurant.

The book is mostly (and deliciously) about food, but Lin-Liu also talks about the people she meets along her journey, providing a fascinating slice of contemporary Chinese life and of China's recent history. She writes humorously and honestly, and oh, the food descriptions just made me drool! And she even includes recipes -- I may not try many (though I marked a few), but I loved reading them.


#48: Hannah Crafts, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Bondwoman's Narrative: In 2001, scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. bought a previously unpublished manuscript from the 1850s, which he believed and it appears now is the first novel written by a fugitive slave. Gates provides a long and detailed introduction explaining the research he did into the manuscript's history, trying to find its author, and the introduction and notes are every bit as interesting as the novel itself.

The novel is told, in the first person, by a young slave who flees with her mistress when her mistress's terrible secret is discovered and who experiences a whole host of terrors before reaching safety in the North. Considered purely as a novel, it does leave something to be desired; it's structurally disorganized, and the plot is contrived and, like many Gothic novels, overly dependent on coincidence. Crafts borrows freely from a wide variety of sources, most notably Dickens' Bleak House, and it's interesting to see (using the extensive and useful notes) how she changes her borrowings in order to fit them in to her narrative. The Gothic bits (especially the cursed tree) are often very effective, and more than that, the viewpoint and opinions are fascinating. I found the book as a whole reasonably enjoyable on a narrative level and very interesting indeed as a historical document.


#49 & 50: Attia Hosain, Sunlight on a Broken Column, Phoenix Fled: Sunlight on a Broken Column tells the story of Laila, an orphaned girl growing up first in the orthodox home of her grandfather and her aunts, who keep purdah, and then in the less traditional home of her uncle and aunt. As her friends and cousins fight for their country's independence, Laila struggles for her own, especially when she falls in love with a man not approved by her family. Phoenix Fled is a collection of stories, each a short but vivid and rich bit of writing, with striking images and characters.

These are beautifully written, sensitive looks at Muslim life in India before and just after the 1947 partition of the country into Pakistan and India. Both books are deeply understanding of the conflict between Muslims and Hindus and between the old and new ways of life in India, and they made me wish Hosain had written more: as far as I can discover, these were her only two books.

Hello there,

I'm not sure about what notes are in cobwebs, and was wondering if anyone could tell me what is in it? Thanks ^_^

Is anyone planning or know about a decant circle for the new Good Judy scents? The endangered species blends look amazing, but I can't afford them unsniffed!

The ZOMG Smells January update is live and full of tropical wonders, relief for many of us drowning in the cold right now! The update can be found ~>HERE<~ The decant circle can be found ~>HERE<~ Thanks for looking folks!

Were I a summonable creature, what kind of ritual would you craft to summon me?

If you like very airy sweet scents, you should try Snow Babe before it's gone.  It is exactly as advertised.


It's feminine and sweet without being heavy, with kind of a candy-berry scent that has just the gentlest notes of sweet florals.  On me the scent is the same as it is in the vial, and it lasts, staying pretty consistent, all day and night until I shower it off.  The first few days I wore it, I kept getting gentle whiffs of it and wondering what that delicious smell was.  :) 

I don't usually make the effort to write reviews unless I'm obsessed with a scent, and this one fits that bill.  I usually avoid the sticky sweet scents because they feel way too young (pre-teen'ish) to me, but Snow Babe feels like the perfect balance of sweetness and the elegance that comes with confidence and maturity, without swinging too far either way.  It's a great pick-me-up on cold winter days.  I feel very much like a snow babe wearing it.

Had a bunch of emails from the Feds this morning. Got all excited. Yeah, not a one of them was about the positions I interviewed for in December. No, these were to set up interviews for other positions. If you need me I'll be over here glaring at things. What things? I don't know. Possibly the snow. Or my phone.

I've been invited to be in an anthology. My muse got so excited she decided on clockwork fairies and the Underground Railroad. Possibly that muse therapy isn't immediately necessary. Meanwhile tomorrow will bring a yeti's tale, and hopefully finishing another project. If she cooperates I might even write about demons. In other news for some reason we're watching Obsessed right now. When I think Beyonce is doing the best acting job in the movie? There is a problem. And when I find myself rooting for the villain to kill the male protagonist? The writers failed too. Before you ask, I have no idea why we're torturing ourselves this way. I suggest you avoid inflicting the same pain on yourself.