This 'n' That

[butterflydreaming]

If you don't keep me busy telling you why I love you, I'm just going to keep posting! (That's in a locked post, earlier. Log in, you!)

I love my days off, even when I hardly get out of the house. I just get so snuggly, with words, reading them or writing them, or both. Something lovely about not combing one's hair for hours after getting up.


You might cringe. I'm getting in touch with my inner pothead with these.

One of the things that I like most to do is to use up stuff that's been around for a while, especially if I can transform something less than pleasing into something really tasty. I doubt that I'll ever reach my mom's level, though, with her little pies that get consumed before they ever cool. She does stuff like turn a 1/4 cup of day-old tomato soup (why was that ever put in the fridge, really?) into an absolutely delicious sauce on an oven roasted chicken. The leftovers are gross, the end result -- alchemy.

So what am I using, you want to know, now that you've braced yourself? Old Easter Candy. Not from 2004, either! It's not my candy. (*cough*) And some Skippy brand peanut butter, which neither of us eat anymore. (Hydrogenated oils. We eat the real stuff, now.) That was in the back of the bottom shelf of the fridge; you know, that stuff never goes bad.

I have a very simple brownie recipe that I've used, with variations, many times. Usually, it's good-stuff-in, good-stuff-out, but this time, it's scraps. Still good butter, flour, and vanilla, but the eggs are store-bought. I would have used powdered sugar instead of granular, but I'm already pushing it with the stabilizers in the chocolate. I've done the powdered sugar thing, and the cornstarch doesn't do anything bad.

The batter tastes good. It's in the oven now... and there's no way I'm going to let these be eaten by only me & L. I'll make her take them to her co-workers. Hopefully, I didn't put too much PB. I figured that the chocolate was too grainy, and needed smoothing out, and it seemed to work. Besides, peanut butter and chocolate!

The stale milkyway and snickers on the top may be overkill.



Just before I headed out to the supermarket to get fixin's for dinner (macaroni fusilli & cheese), my musemuggers anthology arrived! It was sitting on my doorstep. Now, it took a bit to get to me. I didn't order it right away because I was in the midst of changing computers, and then when I did, I got... Cyber-something magazine, in a Musemuggers Anthology cover. I had to send that one back, "for investigation", and have them send me the right thing.

Funny enough, it doesn't have the grape-angel cover, but the same cover as the wrong one -- a kind of planet Jupiter look with swirling colors. I don't mind it, but I'm wondering. I'm glad that the shiny was off of the whole anthology deal for me, because otherwise this business would have been very frustrating and disappointing. But! Now that I have it... I love it! Not for my story; I can barely stand to look at it. But for the other stories, and the little bios at the end! Seeing them in print, on paper... well, I just feel all snuggly.

The Sonomi fic for violeteves's birthday present is done. (CCS fanfic, by the way, for those of you other than the CCS group.) I'm going to post that separately, but I thought I'd put my thoughts about it here:

I thought that integrating a poem would be nice, considering who it was for, and what came to mind was T.S.Elliot. I'm pretty sure that violeteves said at one point that he was one of her favorites. And cygna_hime had not long ago done a post on "The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock", which had the exact lines of which I had been thinking. I can see Sonomi in the boardroom, at yet another corporate meeting, thinking that her life was being measured out in coffee spoons. Coffee spoons, china cups, business proposals and take-overs.

And, ever since I found out that Sonomi can ride a motorcycle, I've been wanting to put her on one. Couple that with a favorite song of mine, "Coma Girl", and voila -- you get the last line. Does Tomoyo not have a Mona Lisa way of smiling?

So, I hope that you like it, violeteves. It kind of ended up with a life of it's own.

Oh, and dkellis -- I tried for a week to write something for your birthday, but it just wasn't working. I think I've got one now... you might get a belated songfic. {evil laugh}

Comments

[violeteves.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, I totally forgot to comment on the Elliot-ness. It's funny, because in my Mod. Poetry class we were discussing the Wasteland today and the women who "come and go, speaking of Michelangelo." The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock is definitely my favorite though, yes. It's so sweet of you to remember that.
In my life drawing class, we actually talked about the Mona Lisa. Did you know that someone broke into the museum and rubbed paint thinner on her coat, and they found color underneath? That's why it's in a top-notch glass thing way high up now where it can hardly be seen.
And again, that last line rocked. I wish I could capture it's strange irony into the rectangle of a bumper-sticker and have it follow me around wherever I go.

(P.S, she does have a Mona Lisa smile. Suck on that, Julia Roberts)

[leatherdykeuk.livejournal.com]

I think we all got the swirly planet cover on the anthology, and TSE's spirit became, in the H&J world, Stearns the genie.