Happy Halloween from the Mythbusters
This marks the third year I’ve gone in drag. I’m getting a little tired of having a beard! Next year I’ll have to go as something ultra-girly, I think.
Anyway, our 5th annual Halloween party was a smashing success. Pics will be up once we’ve finished putting the house back together…
Awesome. Way to go, ladies!
Someone on AskMeFi has asked whether those “deceptively delicious” recipes are a way for adult picky eaters to get more variety in their diets. The poster also mentions that they hate all vegetables in just about every form. A couple people trotted out the “Ooh, you could be a supertaster!” suggestion. Whatever. Instead I actually cheered at this comment:
“You are a food sissy. With every microwaved meal, with every bland bite, with every glob of pasteurized processed American cheese food product that you shovel down your insensate gullet, you become more of a food sissy. Stop it. Get over yourself. It doesn’t taste bad, it just tastes DIFFERENT. The only way to learn to like veggies is to EAT THEM CONSTANTLY until you like them.”
AMEN! It’s tough love, but it needed to be said. And I say that as a reformed food sissy myself. Ask my mother. The only vegetables I’d eat growing up were potatoes and sweet corn. Deciding to “get over myself” a few years ago was the best decision ever. I have no idea how people can survive (or enjoy life!) without fresh tomatoes, coriander, roast pumpkin, capsicum (peppers for the Yanks), basil, spinach, etc. You’re missing out on so much!
The Accidental
Last night I finished The Accidental by Ali Smith, which y’all recommended a few months ago. Unfortunately… I didn’t like it much. I feel like an absolute git for saying that, because it won all sorts of awards and every single review I can dig up is uniformly positive. Yet somehow it just didn’t grab me. I guess maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for big, plotty stories (whether in books or movies), and I’ve never gone in for inscrutable character or mood pieces very much. This book reminded me of an Art Film. Intellectually I can tell that the writing is excellent and I can see what people are praising about it, but I didn’t really find myself engaged on an emotional level. (I’m moving the rest of my thoughts inside, lest anyone get spoiled.)The one section I did connect with was Magnus’s first chapter (during his depressive phase). The way his thoughts kept cycling; the way he kept dwelling on the dead girl; the way he talked about the bullies. I couldn’t put the book down during this section… right up until the point he tried to hang himself, but then Amber found him and bathed him and everybody laughed. WTF? I think I actually groaned outloud when I read that. “Your son just tried to kill himself. ” Hilarious laughter. How is that realistic? Unfortunately I found Michael, Eve, and Astrid all a little bit boring. (Which is odd, because most of those reviews rave about Smith’s ability to write convincingly as a 12-year-old girl. I guess I find most 12-year-olds boring.) And Amber herself annoyed the crap out of me. I was with her up until the point she started shagging Magnus and tossing video cameras and behaving less like a person and more like a literary device. So all in all I’m not sorry I read it – Ali Smith is an excellent writer and certain passages have really stuck with me – but I wouldn’t say I found it very entertaining.
I’ve still got a few books left in my “To Read” pile. I think we’ll go with Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys next…
I’m happy to report some Finished Objects for October. First up are my Whitby Socks, which I started on the way home from knitting camp at the beginning of the month. I had to frog and restart once, as the number of stitches suggested just wasn’t working for me. (I actually went up to 67 from the 51 suggested.) It was an easily memorized pattern and the cables were fun without being bothersome. I also tried out an eye of partridge heel for the first time. The original pattern is from Knitting on the Road and the yarn is the last of my Colinette Jitterbug. I love the colours, but I don’t think I’ll be getting any more. (My Vinnlands are already starting to pill and felt from a single wear.) I knitted these at the same time on 2.75mm needles using the two-circulars method. I’ll be cross-posting these at the Southern Summer of Socks as well. I think a goal of one pair per month is pretty do-able…
The other fun things I’ve been making are these toys from Jean Greenhowe’s Jiffyknits. I bought the book a few years ago for the Halloween stuff but somehow never remembered to make them before our party. So far I’ve made two pumpkins, a scary ghost, and Frankenstein’s monster. The patterns themselves are *extremely* simple. It’s literally just garter stitch strips with no shaping whatsoever. (You don’t even have to know how to purl to make these toys.) Construction isn’t quite as fiddly as I feared, though sometimes you have to cut circles of cardboard to reinforce the round shapes. And I’m not sure the whole “knit a boulder and sew Frankenstein’s legs to it to prop him up” worked very well. He’s kinda wobbly. I do love joggle eyes though…
AND – I’m happy to report that by posting these toys to Ravelry, I’ve now jumped to #4 on the list of people with Halloween projects. (You can see it on the “People” tab.) Next year I’m aiming for #1!
Life in Chippendale
Did I mention that we’re moving into the new house NEXT WEEKEND? It’s exciting. I told the Snook the other night that I find myself a lot more interested in Chippendale issues now that we’re buying here. Which is silly, because we’ve been here for four years already. Somehow I guess I never really felt attached to the neighborhood before. When everybody was going nuts organising meetings about the CUB site redevelopment, we kinda just shrugged our shoulders, thinking, “We don’t have any property values to worry about. And we can always just leave.” I could count on one hand the number of “neighbors” I actually knew. Now I find myself stopping to say hello to people. We haven’t even moved into our building yet, and I’ve already introduced myself to half a dozen tenants. It’s fun. I mean, we could’ve gotten a lot more “house” for the money if we’d bought out in the suburbs, but being a part of this vibrant, connected community is the whole reason I wanted to stay in the city.
On a related note: I’ve just been invited to contribute to Life in Chippendale, a neighborhood blog I think I’ve mentioned a few times before. Steven assures me that even my mundane observations of life in the city will be welcome!
Knitted, felted olives. Those are adorable.
McDonald’s Pizza. I think that’s the best Frankenstein food I’ve seen yet! And yeah, I’d probably eat it. You would too.
What I will NOT be doing tomorrow: making homemade candy corn. That’s nuts! I’d sooner make homemade Peeps (and you know how I feel about those).
Wake Up Cat. Hahahahaha… This is exactly what Dr. Amy does in the morning. Actually she’s added something new to her repertoire as well: she tries to eat my bedside lamp. I don’t understand it. The Snook has the exact same lamp on his night table, except his is black and mine is blue. She apparently only likes the blue ones. So she sits there next to my head chewing on my lamp until I get up and toss her to the floor. Stupid cat.
