the dream life

How I spent my fall vacation: day two

Last night we ate giant popcorn and watched Dracula, which made me think of this:

which made me think of this, the inspiration for my ankh-wearing of 1985-89.

This morning I threw away another couple of bags of stuff (still can't tell a difference in that room), did some dance club dancing in the privacy of my own home, and made the agave nectar vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

The afternoon held within it the most delicious adventure; I went with a friend  to a party at the home of a an artist I admire. Oh, it was good in that inspiring-remind-you-things-about-life-you-may-have-forgotten sort of way.

From there, we headed to marching band practice, and after that Tracy and I went to my parents' house to celebrate my brother's birthday (the reason for the cupcakes).

Vegan cupcakes

Chocolate cupcake recipe here. Frosting made the usual way with Earth Balance replacing the butter, soy milk replacing the cow's milk and vegan organic powdered sugar and sprinkles.

Cupcake tip

Caramanda's red velvet. If you live around these parts, you must go get some of these.

Dessert advice to local readers

I slipped back into sugar eating recently, as to appropriately celebrate Tracy’s birthday, and I made a couple of discoveries. The first was a chocolate torte from A.P. Roots that Tracy’s sister got for his party. It is rich and dense the way I like my chocolate to be, and I'm glad to know where it is should I need an emergency piece.
The other was Caramanda’s on Southland Drive. We have walked and driven by a thousand times, but I’d never been particularly compelled to go in because I generally don’t like bakery cakes (too dry). On Monday, however, we walked by Caramanda’s and glanced in at a case full of cupcakes that we couldn’t pass up. Tracy got the carrot cake and I got the red velvet. Both were delicious and the cake was actually moist. The red velvet cupcake also had edible glitter sprinkled on top, so they get extra points for that.

I’m staying on the sugar train through the weekend so that I can eat peanut butter eggs and Cadbury crème eggs and homemade carrot cake and other Easter delights, then I’ll try another bit of sugar denial.
This seems to be a workable plan for me and food—stretches of not eating something, then allowing myself to eat it again—then going back off. Of course the whole idea of “allowing” and “denying” food is, in and of itself, unhealthy, so let’s just say that I enjoy sugared and non-sugared passages of time.

Bruised, but happy

Several years ago, my brother got into my car (which had some glitter embedded in the grey upholstery, and a few other things going on) and said, “It looks like a fairy blew up in here.”
I thought of that this morning as I glanced around the house before leaving for work. Rose petals and chocolate and hearts and wrapping paper pieces were everywhere. Somebody really needs to clean all that up (and by “clean-up,” I do not mean “eat all the chocolate with reckless abandon,” which is probably what will happen since the somebody is me.)

My birthday weekend festivities wrapped up yesterday with a C.R.A.B.S. Extended pottery painting party.

I was so happy to see each and every person walk through the door (so happy, I can’t even tell you), but I must confess that I was so focused on painting my dang platter I hardly even got to talk to anyone. I hope everyone had as much fun painting as I did. I think there is something cool and almost magical – definitely something life giving – that happens when people are creative together, and I grooved on that energy yesterday.

Afterwards, I stole a few moments with Anessa by hitching a ride home with her, then promptly fell head-first out of her Jeep on to the sidewalk. Yes, it was very graceful. Tracy said I looked like a sack of potatoes hitting the ground. I didn’t actually hit my head, and I was happy that except for a little bruising and banging, I didn’t break anything or seriously hurt myself.
I did feel weird all day today, though. My vision isn’t blurry, but I'm a little out of focus in general. I don’t think you can get a concussion if you don’t hit your head – but if you can, then I might have one. The inside of my skull feels not-so-good, the way I imagine it might feel if a giant picked me up and shook me.
I know what you’re thinking – that I should be sharing this information with a medical professional. Well, I tried to call a nurse today, but she wasn’t in.
Besides, I did some reading about concussions (which I probably don't have, since I didn’t hit my head) and there’s really not much you can do about them except wait to feel better.
I actually do feel better compared with how I felt this morning, so I’m sure I’m on the mend.
I took a sweet orange and patchouli-scented shower and now I'm in the bed (in bed by 8 o'clock is my favorite thing) with the salt lamp on and the ylang-ylang burning.

Happy Fourth

Our Fourth of July ended with a police officer shouting, “It’s the police!” as he descended our basement steps. It wasn’t as exciting as it sounds, but it was miles away from where my day started.
Early morning, I took my coffee to the backyard for a little bird watching. It was perfect and luscious out there, but I could hear the faint sounds of music downtown and because of a personality flaw that leads me always to believe there’s someplace better I should be, I got the idea that we should go downtown and walk around some before the parade.

As soon as we got downtown, I wished I was still sitting in the shade watching birds, but that’s the way it goes with me.
We did see a good band.

And we did stay for the parade. I was particularly taken with the BaHai Faith float

and the Unitarians brought me to tears, as always, with their giant white dove and soft singing of Give Peace a Chance.

We were completely pummeled with exhaustion by the time we got home. Tracy took to the bed and I headed back to the yard.

We arrived an hour late for my parents’ cookout and the storm that had threatened all day landed not long after we ate. It was impressive and I was a little concerned that Woody might be scared home alone. Just as the rain let up a bit, the phone rang and it was our security company.
It seems our alarm had gone off and the company had determined a second floor window was broken. We raced home, both of us thinking only of Woody whose crate is right next to a second floor window.
The police were already there when we arrived. Tracy stayed out to talk to them and I ran upstairs to the boy. He was fine. In fact, I quickly glanced around and saw no broken windows.
Back downstairs, the police were checking out the house and that was the first time that I realized they thought there might be an intruder inside. Somehow, this notion had completely escaped me. I just assumed the broken window was due to the storm.
It turns out one of the of the cables that holds a window on the sleeper porch broke and the window came crashing down - but the glass didn’t break.
Somehow, this brief event during which nothing actually happened completely wore me out.
So, that is how we celebrated the birth of our country. With a little bit of everything. (And angel food cupcakes.)

Goodness

My family is safely returned from Florida.
My mom brought me cupcake tealights.

Yesterday morning I saw a butterfly on one of my new flowers.
Last night, we put up storage shelves on the back porch.
These are good things.
I'm tired. It's Tuesday. My mind and body are swirling with everyday worries and concerns.
My head, as always, is in the future.
But I'm taking this moment to focus on goodness.

The boy's birthday

Woody's second birthday is Tuesday.
For his first birthday, you may recall, we had a quiet affair at home. This year, we thought it would be fun to invite his pug friends over to play. We weren't really sure how we could do that without a fenced in yard, but a few weeks ago, I got an e-mail about Dogtown, a new dog daycare here. It turns out, they rent party space on the weekends, and they were extremely accommodating.
We invited all the pugs (and one honorary pug) we know

and ordered a dog cake from For the Love of Dogs. I didn't know what it was going to look like until we picked it up, but I was very pleased.

I was hoping for pug-themed party supplies, but none could be found, so Tracy and I went to the party store to find paw print stuff with a back-up plan of a black and tan. When we turned to corner on the children's aisle, however, we spied Scooby Doo. "Scooby Doo is every dog's hero!" Tracy said.
So, I made Scooby Doo cupcakes

and Scooby treat bags for our guests.
Friends and family came, even without dogs, and so did Guido, Simon, Fribbles (and her son), Miss Piggy and Buddy, Spike and Yoda, Buster and all of their people. Woody was so honored. He got some great presents including a pig from his cousin Ava and bones from Miss Piggy and Buddy and delicious treats and a fabulous elephant from Guido.
We were so happy to see everyone and touched that they came, and Woody was thrilled.

The dogs liked the cake (it tasted like less sugary gingerbread. Yes. We tasted it.)

and Dogtown was the perfect place for a party with big room for running and a smaller room for cake-eating and an outdoor run for peeing. (It's also nice to know there's a daycare in town.)
A dog party is nothing but joy, and we were proud to honor our beloved boy. Not only did he and his friends get to run and play, we and the other humans in attendance got to stand there and soak up all that love and happiness.

My mom's observation was that pugs are the bumblebees of the dog world. Our little bumblebee is fast asleep (dreaming of treats.)

Chocolate woes

I was distressed recently to learn that along with dairy, meat and caffeine, chocolate serves as a block to psychic awareness. The development of my intuitive skills (I believe we all have them) is something I’ve turned attention to off and on my whole life*, and have been focusing on in earnest here lately.
Dairy and meat I am more than willing to release, but chocolate. That just seems wrong. I’d envisioned myself as the sort of intuitive healer who might offer my clients a warm mug of coffee and homemade brownie before we got down to the business of clairvoyance.
It’s just as well, really. I’ve been on week one of Crystal Andrus’ Simply Woman plan for a month or so because I keep having to start over. The main goal for week one is to eliminate sugar and I seem to be able to do that for about three days. After three days, I find myself digging Halloween candy – from two Halloweens ago – out of the freezer or telling myself it’s perfectly okay to go get a chocolate chip muffin from the coffee shop because it’s snowing, and when it snows, all bets are off.
Today is day three of my latest attempt. I’m thinking if I can make it through the night, I’ll be past a mental hurdle of some kind.
Of course, Valentine’s Day and my birthday are on the horizon and those are both chocolate-filled holidays. That’s just the way it is. (I guess I’ll have to be the sort of psychic who doesn’t see clients in February.)
Last night we watched part of a show about the Ghirardelli chocolate festival in San Francisco. It looked pretty delicious, but my favorite part was the mention of the chocolate coffee combo. I love the chocolate coffee combo. I’ve been known to dip chocolate bars (Cadbury Dairy Milk is the best for this-Cadbury Crème Eggs also work well) into my coffee to get them warm and melty. I love that treat so much, it’s hard to believe it’s a psychic toxin. (Along those lines, check out this sweetness from Starbucks.

It’s the packaging that really gets me.)
Perhaps the show was to blame for the weird dream I went on to have about visiting a little shop where the proprietress was sort of nice to me but sort of not. There was a coffee bar in the shop and I asked for a coffee with chocolate syrup in it only to be scoffed at by the barista who told me, “No we don’t have that. You’re not really a coffee drinker if you put chocolate in it.”
I fumbled around for some sort of lame excuse and was served a coffee with two red candy coated chocolate balls floating on the top. (Not that they would float in real life, but in the dream, they did.)
So, anyway, my plan is to cut-back on sugar and thus, chocolate. (Cut-back I can do. Eliminate – not so much.) I’ll also gradually phase out dairy (excepting when I need it for baking. I like soy milk in my you-know-what). Red meat is easy for me to give up and I’ll slowly go at getting rid of the other meats again. Caffeine I drastically reduced by giving up the Diet Coke, so I’m keeping my morning cup of coffee with occasional afternoon teas when needed.
Maybe these cut-backs with continued chakra clearing and meditation will keep the fires of intuition stoked with the hopeful side effect of backside reduction and the reintroduction of my cute clothes and smaller pajamas. It feels like a good plan to me.

*This is not an exaggeration. From the time my brother and I were very young children my dad guided us through E.S.P. exercises.

'Tis the season of parties

Yesterday was the holiday lunch at the Carnegie Center. I could only stay for the first half since I had to get back to work, and I felt a little bit like an eater-and-runner, but it was such a spot of joy in my day. The people were great and in good spirits and the food was outstanding. Pot lucks are really the perfect way to eat, in my opinion.
I have two more holiday luncheons to look forward to next week and a party on Saturday night. All this merriment is drawing attention to the fact that I really don't have any holiday wear. I used to have a Christmas sweater - and it wasn't tacky either, it was nice. I haven't seen it for years. It went to that myserious black hole where many of my clothes seemed to find themselves.
I've investigated Christmas sweaters this year, but often I find that while they look cute on the hanger, they don't do so well on me.
I try to dress things up with Santa Claus earrings, reindeer pins, that sort of thing.
But I'd like to have some rockin' festive clothes.

Movie night

We had friends over to watch Halloween last night.
As it turned out, by the time we actually got around to putting the movie on, all but one guest had gone home (or off to a costume party.)
Initially, I felt badly. My inner dialogue started to spin something like this we invited people to see a movie and then we didn’t show a movie we are terrible hosts blah blah blah, but quickly I realized that what had actually happened was that our friends liked each other, and discovered things to talk about, and the sitting around eating and talking was what needed to happen in that moment. It was a lot of fun. At least, we had fun. I hope everyone else did too.
The friend who did stay to watch the movie with us had never seen Halloween before, so we had a great time watching it.
Even though horror is not my favorite film genre, I have great respect for the original Halloween movie. It’s a testament to what can be done with a low budget. It’s straightforward storytelling that gets the job done. There are a couple of visuals in Halloween that are just masterful, and the violence is very mild compared to today’s standards. There’s actually quite a bit of “psychological thriller” in Halloween.

We had such a good time sharing it last night, we decided to begin hosting a monthly movie night at our house. We figure we can have an actual start time, just like in the theater, and make snacks related to each movie’s theme.
Having people over to eat food and watch TV is perfect for us because, well, it’s what we do.
Granted, it might be difficult at first to get people to show up to watch movies with us since they've already shown up for that only to not be shown a movie, but we're very excited about this idea.

Oreo cupcakes

Yum.

Purple cupcake

This is the sort of thing that's availabe to me on a daily basis. I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Favorite Things Saturday: Third Street

I love Third Street Coffee. I love all the bright colors and handpainted googaws. I love that there are always people huddled at the tables updating their ipods or doing their homework courtesy of the free wifi. I love the local artwork hanging on the walls and the “I love” journals on the counter where customers are invited to list their favorite things. I love the shop with it’s beads and fluffy necklaces and funny greeting cards and beautiful handbags. I love Third Street’s funky flair.

I’m also quite fond of the turtle brownie, the chai, the brie sandwich and the dark chocolate cupcakes with sparkle pink icing.

Third Street is a mere block from my office. Once this week, I went there for lunch and dinner.
Third Street is definitely not about the food, however. It's about the location, atmosphere and the ability to shop for gifts while grabbing lunch. It’s a great place to meet a friend or eat alone with a book or just hang out. Everybody’s nice and there’s plenty to look at.

Favorite Things Saturday

Father's Day recap

So yesterday we threw a little Father’s Day porch party at our house. We’d scheduled it for 5:00 then woke to grey skies and rumors of thunderstorms. I just have this thing about eating outside in the summer, though. I know it’s hot, I know it’s sticky, I know there are flying creatures,* but there are also paper lanterns

and tablecloth weights

and to me, summer eating is best done outside.
Around 3:00, I decided to risk it and I went ahead and put my decorations up and when my family arrived, things were still dry. The incoming rain actually brought an occasional breeze by, so even though the sun wasn’t dazzling, it turned out to be pleasant outside.
Unfortunately, Woody misplaced the card he was going to give Tracy

and my brother was not feeling well (although he came to the party because his daughter asked so sweetly, “Daddy aren’t you coming?”), so my dad was the only dad in attendance who truly basked in the Father’s Day glow. He loved the grill themed condiment server that we gave him.

Seriously - he loved this gift. He’s one of the hardest people on earth to buy for.
The menu included pasta salad, marinated carrots, veggie and meat hot dogs, broiled asparagus with curry dip, chips, raspberry lemonade,

carrot cupcakes

and banana pudding.

By far, the banana pudding was the biggest hit. You have to go make this right now. I’m not even a banana pudding fan and I loved it. Maybe it’s the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. This is good pudding, ya’ll.
We got in several good hours of eating and talking before the thunder rolled in. Everyone dispersed quickly and I pulled things inside as the rain started up. I actually love the feeling of standing on the porch during a rain storm - it makes me feel energized and alive, so it wasn’t a bad end to the party.
Later, Tracy and I went to see Cars. (There were about four other people in the theater.) We had to sit through a ridiculous amount of trailers for animated movies (And Pixar, because I know you read this I must ask you, when are you going to make a movie with a female lead?) but the movie was good.
It was sweet and very beautiful to look at and has a good soundtrack. I actually cried. Pixar movies always make me cry (except for The Incredibles) but I was shocked at my ability to cry over...um...talking cars. The highlight of Cars is a rusted out truck named ‘Mater. I’d go see a full-length feature that was nothing but ‘Mater. I love him.

We came home around midnight and The Gold Rush was on TV. Unfortunately, it was the annoying narrated version, so we just ate some more banana pudding (I’m telling you, go make it, then you’ll understand) and went to bed.

*Flies, oh how I hate thee. I hate you outside and I double hate you when you make your way into my house and buzz around like you belong here. Fly who landed in my hair yesterday...watch your back.