It was a great weekend–the patio is set up with new cushions, I grilled edible food and didn’t burn the house down, the mountains are clear of snow, and my mom made us all pancakes on Monday (not shown). More of this, please, Summer 2016
May 2016
Friday Links
1. Did you think I was going to play with an idea I blogged about for months and then decide not to do it? You underestimate the lure of AMERICA and FIRE. We went to Home Depot last night and got all the grilling things! We grill tomorrow!
2. Something to treasure, from The Toast: The Pitch Meeting for Animaniacs. I could pull any of the lines from it for a quote but yeah, this sums it up:
EXEC #1: How will kids feel when they watch this show?
THE ANIMATOR: Disconcerted. Unmoored. Hyper-stimulated. Amused to the point of terror.
3. “Amused to the point of terror” is probably also going to describe how grilling goes. Let’s enjoy the hell out of this long weekend.
Because America
Despite the fact that I stopped eating meat before I really learned to cook it, and that most veggie soysages go from OK to overcooked in about 3 seconds, and that I really have no experience with briquettes or ash disposal or anything else–I’ve been thinking about getting a little backyard grill this year.
Why? Because I could make grilled corn and grilled garlic bread, and because I think it would help up my camp cooking game, and because this is America, dammit, where we cook outside like cowboys and pioneers and you can get a folding grill for under $40 from your choice of home improvement stores on Memorial Day weekend.
And because Jake from Adventure Time uttered some wise words once (thanks for the reminder, Doc):
Charred veggies and hot ash are in my near future. America!
In Bloom
It’s been cooler and rainier than usual here for most of May, which means the flowers are really happy:
(Lavender from my yard, wild and tame roses from a walk around the neighborhood last night between storms.)
Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan
He is 75 today and one of my favorites, right up there with Bach. The Coachella people are trying to book a mega concert with him and other big 60s bands this fall and maybe I’d better try to see it–after Bowie and Prince dying this year, you just don’t know how long your heroes will be around.
Here’s a clip from No Direction Home that has a live performance of my favorite, “Visions of Johanna.”
It’s Monday
Maybe if we ignore it it’ll go away?
(Photo by Doc, who is seriously the best kitty photographer.)
Friday Links
1. Doc and I took my nephew for dinner and a playground outing last night, which was lots of fun for everyone except Toby, who threw up in protest.
2. With the new car payment, I’ve been on more of a budget–but I still think I could be saving more for short-term and long-term things. And I still think about money a lot. So I both related to a lot of this and simultaneously felt slightly better about myself: Many Middle-Class Americans Can’t Come Up with $400 In an Emergency.
3. Related, when I’m having trouble staying on my budget (aka looking at J. Crew), I remember this fantastic SNL skit from a while back:
Abundant Thinking
Here’s a longer read for your Thursday that combines hippy thoughts and new business speak with a side of brain science. It makes some good points about paying attention, feeling grateful, changing our thought processes:
“Abundance is really your ability to see more in your life: More options, more choices, more resources. And that starts with noticing more,” says Verresen. […] The problem is that we’re biologically wired NOT to notice things.
[…] The brain can only absorb so much. When you’re hyper-focused on a task or an idea, you miss things. “It’s just plain biology. You’re not crazy and other people aren’t stupid. It’s just that our brain is designed to see what it’s already looking for and believes. For example, if your belief is ‘it’s impossible’ or ‘I can’t do it,’ then anything that contradicts you will get thrown out.”
Dance Break
I was checking out playlists on Spotify yesterday and ended up at “The Rough Guide to African Disco,” which is fabulous and contains this astonishingly catchy number. I dare you not to wiggle when you listen to it–I was bouncing up and down on my exercise ball at work.
The whole album is on YouTube, too. Check out the Lijadu Sisters and the covers of Motown (!).
Rookie Mistake
I was working on my Liberty print Archer shirt last month when the carpet guy was here and made an over-confident error about two steps from the end: the bottom part of the sleeve was curved where it meets the cuff and I thought, “I know all about making shirts and I’ve never seen that. It has to be wrong! I’ll cut the curve off.” Guess what? the curve would have made my cuff ends line up, instead of being nearly an inch off.
[Sad trombone]
And of course I already topstitched everything because I was so confident–so I’d have to take out a lot of stitching to fix it. Even though the shirt only needs a hem and buttonholes to be done, it suddenly feels insurmountable, so it’s been in time out the last month. Along with my sewing mojo.