Suburb of Heaven

So this has nothing to do with the rampant over-sharing I regularly do on here. In fact, this isn't really a problem, it's just a thing I'm thinking about in that vaguely-irritated-but-not-really sense.

So I buy old magazines, the 1960s and before. As you do. And I scan fun advertisements and share them on Flickr and post them to an LJ vintage ads group, and occasionally put them up on Tumblr, etc. As you do. I make no claims of copyright over them, because I don't have that right. And most people who see them and want to put them on a website do the polite thing and do the link back and yadda yadda. So it's annoying to see one of your own scans posted with a link back to somebody else's Flickr page, and follow that link to find a few other scans you did there in the same photostream (because they were kinda crappy scans to begin with and so easily identifiable) and then the other person has slapped a copyright symbol on them. Probably the default setting, but it gets on my nerves a little bit. Welcome to the internet, you must be new here, blah blah. Still ticked me off a tad.

So that's it, actually. A minor gripe about something that no doubt goes on all the time and this time I happened to see it. So thanks for listening, and have two Hostess ads, from 1928 and 1930.

( No wonder tea guests are frankly amazed to hear that cakes like these are bought at a grocers )

( Cake doesn't have to be homemade to be good, Mrs. Hale finds )

My birthday is tomorrow - looks like my gift from my mom is going to be a new tire. On Friday Bemo was dropping me off and a giant group of high school boys was trooping across campus and knocked over a normally-secured metal pylon. Cue loud yelps, clanging noises, and one big distraction, cue a slightly-too-hard curb check by Bemo, cue a flat tire showing up later that day and requiring a replacement. I am doing my best not to be really surly about yet another unexpected expense. I took out my irritation by cleaning the kitchen - at least all that energy can be harnessed for something worthwhile.

There's nothing that makes me realize how small the world has gotten than texting with my sister wile standing in the prep room unframing paintings, while she is on the other side of the world and about ready to go to bed. She's still on Mindanao, and aside from some mild annoyances with her classmates and some digestive issues and a sore throat, she's having a good time. She's prone to swollen tonsils, so fingers crossed that she shakes off the sore throat. She's already planted rice with a carabao, visited a shelter for young gang members trying to transition out of that life, and talked with a couple doing outreach through art.

Meanwhile, another friend is in Morocco and two coworkers are enjoying two weeks in Spain. I am in full-on travel yearning mode.

Also, continuing to love Legend of Korra, even if the dialogue was a little stilted this ep and I wish they had more time to spin out the story. Several characters are suffering a bit from the pace and the romantic strands of the story aren't being handled very well, but the action sequences are dynamite and I remain deeply in love with Lin Bei Fong.

Got a box in the mail from my mom. As usual, it includes things I wanted (a trashcan from Singapore that I had as a kid, featuring three flamingos, some Chiz Curls from a Filipino market because none of the markets here carry them), some things I didn't expect but were nice surprises (clothing from my sister - we've been swapping things) and some absolutely batshit stuff only my mom would think I want (a busted plastic knight's helmet, some clothing from mom that she knew I wouldn't fit into) and some things I wish she had not seen (A FAN LETTER TO RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON THAT WAS NOT MEANT TO BE READ BY ANY OTHER EYES). Oy.

Am currently watching some track and field events to get jazzed for the upcoming Olympics, which I unabashedly adore watching - not just track and field but a ton of events I otherwise do not follow at all. Am currently speculating that if I were a javelin thrower, I'd set up dummies and pretend to be attacking enemy troops. Meanwhile, a roast is filling the house with a very nice odor of steak and onions and potatoes, and I'm anticipating something delicious soon.

The green curry chicken dish came out really well, including the clumsy but ultimately successful dissection of the chicken into component parts to bubble away in the coconut milk. And the second chicken (what I had taken as a giant chicken turned out to be two more normal-sized ones, tucked side by side...clearly I should have been counting legs) has just been roasted last night and will be turned into sandwiches. And I made another batch of the veggie bacon pasta, which has turned into an old reliable dish. And in-between somewhere there, there was a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

One of my weird psychological quirks is a deep love in preparing food, and then a lot of indifference about whether or not I actually eat any of it (or go have a peanut butter sandwich later). Strangely, my sister shares this quirk, which crops up every once in a while unpredictably. (Certain dishes never trigger it, and the longer a dish is in my rotation the more apt I am to share a bowl of whatever it is on the spot). Neither of us can pinpoint any reason for this weird reason, unless my thesis research on nurture, the woman's role in feeding, and fasting as it relates to female mystic saints still carries over to modern times. Which, I suppose, it may, but I'm damned if I can see how.

So this is all a roundabout way to say that the green curry chicken was great, but I'll probably eat more of it next time when I've had more time to work out my relationship to it, but I've already eaten a bunch of the plain roast chicken because I make those all the darn time.

The good thing about a waffle maker - plenty of delicious waffles
The bad thing about a waffle maker - we're eating too many waffles

Grab the nearest book to you, turn to page 45, and read the first sentence. It will describe your sex life for 2012.
"Spade did not look at the pistol." - The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett.
Uh, let's hope that's not actually prophetic in any way.

Have made chicken chili and served it up with really good cornbread from a Trader Joe's mix (and I even got to use my cast-iron skillet for the purpose.) Pretty good for the day when the weather has turned from an unbelievably nice span of weather to windy and briskly chilly.

Have not yet gotten back in the going-to-the-gym groove. Why is it so hard? It used to be a routine part of our lives, but somehow going back after a long absence is like pulling teeth. We're on for Friday. Thursdays are aikido, and I may start volunteering for the children's class, although I'm not sure yet.

It's hard to type with two cats snuggled against you. I thought I had more to say, but then Fat Orange lay down on the keyboard, so I think that's it for tonight.

I wanted to buy one for myself for my upcoming birthday, but am dithering. Any opinions, people?

Hey, guess who here is stress eating like a mofo? Who just made cake (which was a disaster, but still tasted really good. So, a tasty, tasty, buttery, disaster)? Who is attempting to dive headfirst into a bag of Trader Joe's veggie chips? (Note: very little veggie involved.)

I'm determined to make Feb the month of Finally Losing the Goddamn Ten Pounds That Stand Between Me and a Sub-200 lb Weight. To that end, most of my grocery shopping today was for stuff that will help me regain some control over my eating. But, my friends, I seem to be waiting until midnight on the 31st to regain that control. Trill it with me - streeeesssss eeeeeeaaaating!

So, after Sayers falls out of copyright, how long will it be before someone writes Vampire! Peter Wimsey romancing prickly witch Harriet Vane?

And clearly, Bunter is a djinn.

Man, I should have requested this sort of crackfic for Yuletide.

I wondered why my Flickr stats had exploded recently - turns out the NY Times food blog linked to one of my scans of a Table Talk menu for January, 1912, and then the Redbook bobbing for apples bondage cover has just been launched onto Twitter. I will enjoy the pretty, pretty count totals before my images sink back into the great ocean of the internet and are mostly ignored once again, except for all those students looking for images of Michelangelo's Bacchus and the loyal cross-dressers who come to view my girdles.

Ratchet the cat has two methods for drinking water. Either he whines at the top of his formidable kitty lungs until I turn on the bathtub faucet - a carefully calculated trickle that results in his bonking us with his damp head minutes later - or he reclines by his waterbowl like Nero at an orgy, resting his chin on the edge of the bowl and lapping up the water in the same noisy way that an 80lb black lab would.

In other, non-cat news, I ran a little bit on the treadmill today for the first time, and I'm pretty pleased with how it went. I only did a few short bursts, keeping to a brisk walk for the rest of the time, and my knees remained happy and I got my heart rate up in a good way. So, y'know, woot and all that.