Quebec to Maryland

It’s been a busy week:

The Killah Bees went to Montréal. We lost 84-18, alas. But the Riveters beat the Montréal all star team by 100 points, so the night ended well at least. There were fun shenanigans at the after party, and then at the after-after party. None of which shall be divulged here, to protect the not-so-innocent. The drive back to MA was long and arduous, especially considering I had only gotten 5 hours of sleep (total) all weekend. When I got home, I had a couple of hours to pack and get ready for the long trip down to Maryland. We left at 10pm, and JeT drove most of the way. We arrived in Baltimore around 6 am.

JeT and I sat on my friend’s house and cats for a week. Cats were cool, house was awesome. We spent most of our days lazing around the house, and the evenings at local bars. It was too hot and humid to think, so we rarely ventured outside in daylight hours. We did walk The Avenue in Hampden one day, but that was pretty much it. My love of Baltimore has more to do with the people who live there, rather than the place itself. And I have to say, I’ve had more Natty Boh this past week than I have my ENTIRE life. Even when at Max’s Taphouse I started with the good beer, but when my other friends joined us, they kept buying me Boh. It’s cheap and/or free, so I wasn’t complaining.

I’m spending the last week here down in The County visiting my folks. Mum’s still in Canada, but Dad’s here, and I’ll get to see one of my nieces, and hopefully my brothers and nephews. I suck at playing Cruise Director, but I’m trying to plan meet-ups with various friends in the area. I won’t be able to fit everyone in, unfortunately. Even though I have a week here, I just can’t do it all, and I’m trying to not stress out about any potential hurt feelings. Everyone just needs to be on vacation at the same time as me so we can all meet up. Is that too much to ask?

I didn’t take many photos in Baltimore, because my batteries ran out and I forgot my charger, and I kept forgetting to buy new batteries. (And because I’m lame and kept forgetting my camera when going out.) I’ll try to remedy that soon. I’ve gotten a few good ones, though. And since all I’ve been doing is hanging out, a few choice photos are good enough.

I uploaded the photos from my camera (the ones from my phone are forthcoming, as usual) of the trip thus far. (Oh, and there are some photos from Sarah’s BAP in July, too.) Summer 2009

Attention, s’il vous plait!

I shall be in Montreal, Quebec, Canada tomorrow through Sunday, then I’m immediately off to Baltimore, Maryland, USA. I shall be away for two weeks. I may or may not have internet my first week there, but I shall certainly be within reach of my cell phone and text messages. The second week, I shall be staying at my folks’ house and will most definitely have internet access. (Please do not phone or text this weekend, however, as the roaming charges for those things are far too expensive.)

I will do my best to remember to take photos. And maybe I’ll even remember to upload them to Flickr!

cake and pie and the fourth of july

In which I attempt to redeem my baking reputation.

The cookie pie incident of the previous week left me a little… shaken, I suppose. I decided to try my hand at these first. Cupcakes. I can handle that. And brownies. No problem. Though the construction requires a bit more effort than my usual cakes, they seemed simple enough. Despite a little problem of tinting my home made vegan buttercream, they came out looking rather nice, I think. BEHOLD!

This is how it all went down:

While watching the Sox game with the in-laws next door (which we lost, btdubs), and in between cocktails (grapefruit soda and vodka, if you’re curious), I ran home to check on the brownies periodically. I used a boxed mix. Shut up. I so do not lose any baker’s cred for that. I just can’t get my brownies to be gooey and fudgey like the boxed mix ones. I don’t remember which brand I used. Apart from being a little too sweet (and wicked oily), they were pretty decent.

The batter:

Out of the oven:

I used a cookie cutter to cut them in to discs for the patty portion of the cupcakes. I probably should have done this just after they cooled, instead of waiting until the next morning, because they were a little tricky to get out of the pan. I only broke a couple of them, so it wasn’t a complete disaster.

The patties are the bits on the right:

After several cocktails and a Red Sox loss, I decided I probably shouldn’t attempt the cakes before bed, so I waited ’til morning. I whipped up a batch of Golden Vanilla Cupcakes from VCTOTW for the buns. They came out a little flat, but that’s probably because I couldn’t find my measuring spoons and merely estimated the amounts of things. And about half way through I realized I had the oven on the wrong temperature. Oh, and I baked them naked in the pan (no liners) and I think I was a little over zealous with the cooking spray. They were a bit oily on the outside.

I had a little trouble with the fluffy vegan buttercream frosting this time around. I heated up the shortening to soften it (as I keep mine in the fridge) and I didn’t let it cool enough before adding the powdered sugar. The fat kept separating from the rest of the mixture. After alternating chilling and whipping (several times) I managed to get it to hold together well enough. I also had a little trouble with the color.

Adding the red:

No matter how much red I added, I couldn’t get it any darker than this lovely shade of pink. I didn’t want it to taste like vanilla flavored food coloring, so I gave up and decided that pink was now going to be a design feature rather than a failure.

Pink ketchup frosting:

Once the vanilla cakes were cooled, I sliced them in half, placed a brownie patty in between, piped on some pink ketchup frosting, and sprinkled some sesame seeds on top. JeT found these cute, plaid cupcake liners. I flattened them out a bit to hold each of the burger cupcakes.*

They were pretty tasty. Nom.

The cookie pie came out pretty well, too, though I still need to tweak the recipe and cooking time and temp. It was a little too doughy in the center. I was good and wrapped the edges with foil to keep them from burning, and I put it on a baking sheet this time. Once I get the recipe perfected, I shall post it along with some proper photos. Until then, here are a couple of teasers:

Batter up:

Looks better than it tastes:

We had a few friends over and played a little horseshoes, badminton, and sat around the fire chatting. It was a lovely, low-key evening. (Though I didn’t see any fireworks this year. I think I’ll have to remedy that soon.)

I hope you had a lovely Independence Day with plenty of food, friends, and family. And I hope you saw some spectacular fireworks.

*Did you ever see Good Will Hunting edited for TV? The scene where they get Kelly’s (I think) is edited beyond hilarity: Casey Affleck repeatedly says “gimme my fucking sandwich!” which is edited to “gimme my burger sandwich!” over and over and over. So now I have “gimme my burger cupcake!” in my head, with Casey Affleck’s voice. Which is awesome.

Only slightly last minute…

What are you doing next Saturday? You know, for the 4th of July? It sort of snuck up on me, what with the weather being in the 60s and rainy for the last month or so.

We’d love to have you over for a cookout. Bring your friends, your family, everyone who’s awesome is welcome (and that means you!) We’ll have the badminton net up, and horseshoes, and a firepit, and a grill… We just need you (and the tasty food you’re going to bring to share). You should totally come. It’s going to be fun.

Let’s say 3pm until whenever.

How does that sound? Good? Yes? So, you’ll be there? YAY!

RSVP via email, or comment here, or phone me, etc. Oh, and make sure you let us know what you’ll be bringing so we can keep track.

Thanks! And hope to see you next Saturday!

/hibernation

I have been extremely lax in my blogging these last several months. You know how it goes: Busy doing fun things. Not organized enough to put photos on Flickr. No photos = no writing about fun things. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I shall attempt to remedy that this weekend by doing a massive upload of photos. I’ll be doing them in installments, starting with last August.

It’s March. Pretty soon we will have ploughed through a quarter of the year. What have I been up to this year? What’s coming up? Hey, look! A list!

1. Coming up on Friday, I have a phone interview for a Project Archivist position at an area library. The lovely folks at MIT have offered to do a mock interview with me on Thursday to help me prep. I’ve also expanded my job search to include positions back in the DC/Baltimore area.
2. I had a whirlwind trip to Maryland and Florida last week. I left Boston for Baltimore on the 20th, caught the Riveters/CCRG bout, spent several days among friends and family in Maryland (met the BFF’s girlfriend, she’s rad), left for Florida on the 24th, spent a few days on the Gulf Coast with my seester and JeT’s dad enjoying the 80 degree weather, caught a Red Sox spring training game, then landed in Boston just as the snow began to fall Sunday morning. It was a bit of a wild week: one morning I woke up to broken glasses and raw patches on my hands and face. I try to tell people that the raw skin was due to extremely dry skin, and the glasses were on their way out anyway. There are some, however, who refuse to believe this and assert that I must have been in a bar fight.
3. I now have new glasses. They are red. And shaped rather like my pair-before-last, slightly cat-eye. Did I mention they are red? And awesome? Yes.
4. PRD is gearing up for the 2009 season. Our last batch of newbies joined in January, and there are only a couple left who haven’t yet passed their assessments to claim their name. This is really exciting! It’s going to be a fantastic season! I shall be continuing as the Rookie Wrangler, and I’ll also be taking on the job of League Archivist. I’m also going to be playing in two away games. In Canada! Also, PRD is playing host to several travel teams this year. The first Riveters home bout is against Harrisburg Area Roller Derby (HARD) on April 11 at the RICC. The Killah Bees are hosting the Skate Free or Die girls at a scrimmage next weekend, and then we play them at a NH bout in April. I’m not going to be playing in that one, though, as I’ll be playing in Ottowa the following week. It’s going to be a derby-filled summer, indeed. (Check www.providencerollerderby.com regularly for the most recent updates.)
5. I haven’t been very crafty though. I did finally finish my SIL’s hat and scarf, delivered only two months late. The BFF has a birthday coming up and I’m working on something for him. I started a hyperbolic plane in blue and white cotton, which was supposed to be a bath pouf. I ran out of the white, half way through the last round. I might just knot it off and call it done, though, since the whole reason for making it was to do a bit of stash busting. I also have to make another Jayne hat for myself, since I lost the one I made last Fall. Once I actually get going on something, I’ll feel better.
6. I have severely neglected my pen pals these last several months. The end of the derby season in September ate up all my time, and then it was fall, and then winter, and now here it is nearly spring and some of them haven’t heard from me in ages. It’s not due to lack of caring, but rather to severe lack of organization. I just need to cart around my little notebook of writing supplies, then I can write while I commute, just like old times.
7. Saw They Might Be Giants a while ago. They were super great, as usual. They played so many songs! And many many were ones I’d never heard them play before, or hadn’t heard in a long while. We made some concert friends, which was fun.
8. We have a new car: a 2008 Kia Sportage, silvery grey. It’s awesome. We can accelerate. Uphill! And it’s big enough to fit my legs! And passengers!
9. Though I have been bringing my lunch to work nearly every day (thanks to JeT who actually prepares and packs the food), I miss bringing super fun bentos. I shall endeavor to remedy this. We’ve been making some new foods, though, so we’re slowly edging out of our food rut, which I’m very happy about. More new foods to come, and of course bento photos!
10. I’ve recently discovered Wild Turkey’s American Honey. If you’re a fan of whiskey or bourbon, you need to try this. Even if you normally hate the stuff, you need to try this. It’s golden awesomeness in a bottle. Highly recommended.
11. Speaking of imbibing, my librarian friends and I came up with a blog idea to help us broaden our beer horizons. We plan to sample a different kind of beer each month, and report our findings on the blog. We’re still thinking of a name, though. I was all ready to go in January, and then I sort of just forgot about it. This should be quite fun, once we get going!
12. I would like to go bowling. And ice skating. And just go out more often. Maybe stay in town for a bit on Fridays or something. I just need to get my act together and play cruise director, I think. I’ve just been so disorganized; I haven’t felt like myself for months and months. I think I’m finally coming out of my stupor, though. I think the sunshine did me some good. I’ll work on my schedule this weekend, and will start planning some outings. I wonder where my planner is… probably under the laundry somewhere.
13. First outing: This Friday, March 6th! Watchmen! Who’s in? JeT and I are going to see it in Boston (on the Common). We’re buying our tix tonight, if anyone’s interested.
14. And then there are a couple of concerts coming up: OK Go! and The Pogues! So excited!

“… and the waves keep rolling on the beach, and the years keep rolling over…”

Two thousand eight. Good stuff, not-so-good stuff. I think it was an even mix.

What shall we hope for in 2009? I think Neil put it better than I ever could:

“…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”

With sprinkles!!!

Feels rather like an ordinary, boring Thursday today. Wish I had gone to Maryland. Missing my family. But here’s some cheer!

Can I have a do-over?

It’s been a blur these last four weeks or so. Spent Thanksgiving with my family in Maryland, which was fun. Reconnected with a friend from way-back, which is awesome. I haven’t been very festive lately, though. Odd for me, since I really look forward to my Birthday and Christmas. I haven’t been grinchy or anything, just not festive. The house is still decorated for Halloween. And I guess the snow storm(s) canceling most of my birthday fun didn’t help. But really, I wasn’t especially anticipating it this year. And I haven’t shopped for gifts, even for the kids in the family. Everyone’s getting their stuff late from me. I haven’t sent cards. I’m such a slacker. I’ve been in denial and now here it is, Christmas Eve, and I haven’t done anything remotely Christmassy.

I think what I’ll do is just have my holiday fun in January. I’m still planning on having New Years’ Linner on Saturday the 3rd, at which time I hope to have some meager gifts for my friends. And perhaps I’ll send out some New Years’ cards. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

I didn’t mean to skip Christmas, it just sorta happened.

Spooooooooky times.

I hope everyone’s Halloween was fun and festive. Ours was super great! We had several events to attend this weekend, and we made it to about half of them. There were so many fun things to choose from, it was difficult to miss out on some of them.

Click through to see photos of various parties and what not. In addition to Halloween, there was Rachel’s 25th birthday party a couple of weeks ago and the Boston Vegetarian Festival this past Saturday.

With so many costume events this month, we decided to go with a single theme: Firefly/Serenity. We dressed as characters from the Fruity Oaty Bar commercial from Serenity for Rachel’s party, and then dressed as Kaylee and Jayne from Firefly (well, and Serenity, but the costumes were based on various outfits in the show). It was a lot of fun.

Country girl at heart

Hi! Remember me? That person who used to do fun stuff and then post about it? Yeah, well, I still do fun stuff (derby), but don’t really have much to say other than: fun. sore. derby. sore. fun. bruise. skates. sore. derby. fun. And that gets a bit redundant, yes? But wait! I did something else! I went to Colorado for Andrea and Bill’s wedding! It was so much fun!

And, wow, did I need a vacation. Even for only a few days. Mountain air. Hiking at 8,500 feet. Watching two awesome people be awesome together. Hanging out with GSLIS folks who have moved away (to Baltimore and Austin). It was a great time, indeed.

As soon as I came back (yesterday) I started looking at job options and living arrangements beyond the Boston area. Originally, I hadn’t been looking for anything outside of this area because of Jesse’s promotion, but then I got to thinking. If I still have to work part-time, temporary jobs in the interim, I can look for full-time stuff elsewhere, and make it a two-to-three year plan for getting out of the area. I need mountains. Or at least not paved-as-hell urban/suburban sprawl. I need air not completely tainted with smog. As Bilbo said “I want to see mountains, Gandalf, mountains!” Hell, I even pre-applied for Canadian permenant residence to keep my options wide open. I looked at the listings for Memorial University (in St. John’s Newfoundland), but nothing came up so far. They do have a several-person archival staff, so there may be hope getting in on the ground floor or something. But that’s a digression for another day. I’m still applying for stuff around here, because, well, I need to move beyond my essentially student-level jobs. But, a fire has been lit, and I’m keeping my options for the future WAY open.
We’re already planning out trip back to the Frying Pan River Valley area in a couple of years. As soon as we began the four hour drive from Denver into the mountains, we knew we had to come back to see more of it. They have a hot springs, too! And who doesn’t love an outdoor bath?

Anyway, all this is a rambly way to say, “I’m back from Colorado.” Photos and details of the trip forthcoming.