weekly update

A Week in the Life: March 21, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey
me, holding my covid-19 vaccination card in front of my mouth to show I got my first vaccine
halfway vaccinated!

The big news this week is that I got my first dose of the covid vaccine! On Monday, California started allowing people with risk factors for covid to get vaccinated, which means I was able to get mine! I was up early on Monday and found an appointment at Walgreens the next day. It took my health insurance company until Thursday to notify me that I was eligible to be vaccinated. Too slow! In a stroke of luck, Kirk also got vaccinated this week We are on our way to being a fully vaccinated household and this is exciting.

I got the pfizer shot and didn’t feel any adverse effects except for being a little tired. I was surprised that my arm didn’t even hurt. I’ll be curious to see how bad the second dose hits me.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

book cover on Kobo ereader: The Poppy War
The Poppy War

This week I read The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang. This is a military fantasy set in a country that resembles China. I liked it because it gave us fantasy from a different perspective (compared to most European-inspired sword and sorcery stuff). The magic is based on channeling the power of gods. It’s a very intense story and I’m looking forward to reading the next two books.

Meanwhile, on the internet:

TV and Music

I watched a movie called Unicorn Store and it brought me joy. Brie Larson plays an artist who loves rainbows and glitter. She gets kicked out of art school for not being the right kind of serious and moves back in with her parents. The movie is about trying to fit in as an adult and about being yourself. It was joyful and fun to watch.

Rampant Consumerism

I bought this delightful whisk that is also like a scraper. I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but it’s a genius concept. Now I can use just one utensil for a lot of things instead of two.

Making Things and Doing stuff

Here are some things I made and stuff I did.

Moving It

Getting my first covid vaccine has been like magic for me in terms of motivation for physical activity (and a little bit for everything). I haven’t wanted to exercise much in this pandemic year because it’s not as fun at home and it’s hard for me to want to if I’m not working towards anything. Soon I’ll be able to go outside and do things again so it’s much easier to want to move around. I’ve been trying to do mini workouts, like three sets of ten squats and as many rows, for example, to start getting my groove back. I’ve also been trying to stretch more since I have my dance performance coming up. I know I’m not back to “normal” and that’s fine but it feels really good to want to care about things again.

Kitchen Witchery

Last month, I sent “mystery ingredients” to my cookbook club for a bit of fun. One of them was wild Icelandic kelp. I don’t normally cook with kelp, but I had a decent amount left over so I have been finding ways to use it. I tried dusting a couple of pretzels with it and it was fine but the flavors didn’t really mesh. Next, I tried furikake chex mix. This is so good and so much better than I expected it to be. It’s a combination of cereals, chips, and pretzels coated in a sweet syrup and mixed with some seaweed and sesame seeds. It’s addictive. It’s also a huge recipe. I had to get out my roasting pan to bake it and it still wasn’t big enough—I had another casserole dish full of it. It seemed like a crazy large amount but I want to eat it all so maybe it’s right after all.

I tried a second round of madeleines with this chocolate madeleines recipe because I want to make sure I’m using that silly, single-use pan I bought. They came out quite good, but I think I like the non-chocolate kind better despite the fact that I really enjoy chocolate. The recipe instructed me to butter the pan and dust it with cocoa powder, then freeze it before baking. I don’t think this improved the cookies. I did all that for the first batch of cookies (shown in the top of the photo), but for the second (bottom of the photo), I just buttered the pan and that resulted in prettier cookies. Now I know.

Because I can’t go a week without making some kind of bread, this week I mad german-style pretzels. Pretzels always seem like a great idea until I’m halfway through rolling out my dough and my arms start to hurt. These were really good pretzels though. It was worth the pain. I was also able to put the malt powder I bought for bagels to use in a another recipe. I’m forever trying to use all the weird ingredients I buy for just one recipe.

  • a roasting pan full of furikake chex mix, which includes, chex, bugles, honeycomb, and pretzels flavored with kelp and sesame seed
    furikake chex mix
  • about 20 chocolate madeline cookies on a wire rack
    chocolate madeleines
  • homemade pretzels cooling on a wire rack
    pretzel time
  • pretzel close up
    behold: pretzel

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

  • Huey the cat hanging out on a colorful blanket, her front legs are crossed in front of her
    Huey chilling out
  • Huey the cat napping on the bed. It's dark and she is blending in with the black comforter, but her white feet are visible
    evening loaf
  • Huey the cat in the middle of the living room. She is sitting in the single patch of sunlight, her shawdow is visible beside her.
    in the spotlight

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: March 12, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey

I had very good intentions of writing last week until work got in the way of my whole existence. I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were working hard on a big proposal but management told us to stop. Well, management changed their damn minds and told us to start up again with just a week before the proposal was due. Neat. We have been understaffed, so I was doing 1.5 jobs last week. I worked late basically every day and worked all day last Saturday. Fortunately it is over and I’m now taking a four-day weekend.

In more exciting news, we closed on our mortgage refinance! Since this is pandemic life, the notary came to our house with all the paperwork. We all wore masks and she brought new pens for us to use that no one else had touched. I think notaries should always come to me. It’s much nicer than going to an office. In any case, the mortgage is official, and our house will be paid for in just 20 short years instead of 26 years from now as it would have been.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

Last week I finished Soulstar, the final book in C. L. Polk’s Kingston Cycle. This was another great read. It’s the most overtly political book of the three, which in a way takes me out of the fantasy but that’s on me as a reader, comparing it to real life, since this story is in a completely fictional world. I don’t want to give away what happens, so I will just say that you should read this series.

In non-fiction reads, I must recommend Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, although Oprah has already recommended this book and I don’t imagine I can add much to that, but here I am. Wilkerson takes a look at the status of Black people in the U.S. and concludes, based on quite a lot of research, that we’re actually living in a caste system, much like that of Germany during the Third Reich or India during forever. Even though I read a lot around race and history in this country, I still learned (and was horrified by) many new things. This is a well-researched argument rounded out by a journalist’s sense for when to weave in personal experiences from many different people. I think this is a really good book for anyone who thinks that they’re not racist or they shouldn’t have to feel bad about being white. I’m not saying this to disagree, but Caste gives a different way of framing this issue instead of racist/not racist.

  • book cover of Caste: the origins of our discontents. The cober shows a crowd of people, perhaps from the 1960s, in black and white
    Caste
  • book cover for Soulstar, shown in black and white on Kobo eReader. Cover shows the silhouette of two people ice skating together
    Soulstar

Meanwhile, on the internet:

  • The end of my line: It’s okay to embrace the ‘COVID baby bust’ via Religion Dispatches. I like this short essay on deciding to not have children. I, like the author, grew up thinking I’d have kids (thanks, Mormonism). As an adult, I’m content to do whatever I want. I’m doing things for myself instead of for children and I’m happy with that choice.
  • Stockton’s basic-income experiment pays off via The Atlantic. In a shocking twist, giving people money helps them to not be poor. I hope we start seeing more programs like this.
  • Toy stories via language: a feminist guide. I’m posting this a little bit late in the “gender-neutral Potato Head” discourse, but that’s okay. I liked the author’s take on this issue: that this was a PR move on the part of the manufacturer to get people talking and that kids probably won’t change their approach to playing with M. Potato Head.
  • These maps on Zillow seem to accidentally show the invisible legacy of “slum clearance” via Buzzfeed. This is an interesting geography lesson lurking in Zillow’s maps. From the article, “If a person zooms in on the highway, rendering the map in satellite imagery, white boxes will appear where no houses or buildings currently exist. The white boxes appear to mark where houses and buildings previously stood.”

TV and Music

Kirk watches a lot of things on YouTube and sends me only the most entertaining videos (my personal algorithm, I suppose). This week, he sent me this video essay by Brutal Moose about Diet Coke’s new marketing campaign aimed at millennials. Yes, I did watch almost 18 minutes of media analysis about Diet Coke and I would do it again. Why is Gillian Jacob’s so dang mad?

I am still working my way through Golden Girls, by the way. I’m nearly done with season three. We’re also still working on Star Gate: SG-1 (and probably will be for the next year). I’ve been thinking about the fact that older TV shows contain so much TV. These days, we’re truly blessed if we get six seasons and a movie. Netflix cancels shows after two seasons because it maximizes profits. Thank goddess for the back catalog of television out there to get us through all this pandemic downtime.

Rampant Consumerism

In my now-regular schedule of succumbing to targeted ads, I ordered fudge from this fancy shop in San Francisco, Z. Cioccolato. It arrived today, so I haven’t sampled all the flavors yet, but I can say that it’s quite tasty. It’s very rich, which is good because hopefully it will slow me down and I won’t eat it all at once!

Making Things and Doing stuff

Moving It

My dance studio has announced it will be putting on a virtual recital this spring, which I am honestly excited about. I didn’t start taking classes with any hope of performing, but I am happy that we’ll be working towards something. We’ve already started learning some new things in anticipation for our performance. I’ll be sure to share the information about it once we get a little closer so all of you, my adoring fans, can attend.

Kitchen Witchery

I don’t have a lot of cooking to share because we spent the last crazy week split between Kirk making dinner, take out, and easy stuff like just-add-water soup. Last week before the chaos, I made spinach dip for our second annual spinach harvest. I paired it with some pita bread and other snacks. Yesterday I made a lasagna and what turned out to be the most perfect garlic bread I’ve ever made. I used some of that European butter and parsley from my gigantic parsley bush. Look upon it and rejoice.

  • a wooden board covered in pita bread, crackers, carrot sticks, salami, nuts and olives. A bowl of spinach dip is next to the board.
    snacks for dinner part infinity
  • several pieces of garlic bread on a cutting board. The bread is perfectly browned and flecked with pieces of parsley
    the platonic ideal of garlic bread

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Huey has not been afforded the opportunity to explore the outdoors in the last two weeks because I’ve been busy and it’s been a bit cold, but I do have one more picture of her luxuriating on the patio last weekend. She has decided that anytime I open a screen door is a time when she should dash out into the back yard. Fortunately, she is easy to apprehend. I want her to learn to come in the backyard and chill so she can hang out with me while I read in the hammock. We’ll have to see how that goes.

Huey has also started touching my face. She often lies on my torso but she’s recently started putting her little paw on my face—sometimes both paws—and kneading. What does it mean? Is she returning my affection? Trying to get my ass up? Getting even for all the times I wake her up? We just don’t know.

  • me, looking at the camera with a sort of "is this my life" skeptical face. Huey, whose head is seen from behind, has her white paw resting on my chin
    Communing with Huey
  • Huey the cat looking intensely at the camera. One ear is cocked to the side. Her front leg is outstretched (her paw is off camera, touching my face)
    my view
  • Huey the cat lying on the patio, her belly luxuriously exposed to the afternoon sun.
    Huey living her best life
  • Huey the cat lounging on a large pillow that is propped up against the armrest of a loveseat. She is giving the camera an imperious glare.
    Queen Huey
weekly update

A Week in the Life: February 28, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey

This week I’ve had a funny juxtaposition of activities. We’ve spent a lot of time playing Nintendo, but we’ve also gotten our taxes done and have moved forward with refinancing our mortgage. I’m relieved we don’t owe much this year! Last year we had to pay almost $4,000 (and the year prior was similar). This year, I adjusted my withholding so the IRS got an extra $500 per month and now we’re getting about $3,500 back. Unfortunately, we still owe the State about $1,500, so I haven’t quite mastered the art of tax withholding. Meanwhile, our mortgage refinance has now gone to underwriting, and all that’s left after that will be signing the documents and closing. With all this going on, you can probably understand why all I want to do is play video games.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

I read a lot this week, starting with The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama. This is not a novel I would have picked for myself (I got it as part of my Powell’s Indiespensable subscription), but I really liked it. It’s set in 1930s Hawai’i and the story focuses on a young man returning home after a decade away on the mainland where he studied to become a doctor. The story really revolves around the Hilo community as an extended family. I enjoyed the writing style a lot and liked the way Tsukiyama fleshed out all the characters. It felt very real.

I also read Witchmark and Stormsong by C. L. Polk, which are the first two (of three) books in her Kingston Cycle. The last book, Soulstar, published a couple of weeks ago and I decided to re-read the first two before reading the new one. I’m glad I did because the three books are one continuous story, with the action in the second and third books starting immediately where the previous books end. Each book is from the perspective of a different character. I’ve just started the third and I’m excited to see how the protagonist of this book sees things differently. I love these books a lot because it’s magic and a new world and people fighting against injustice. Plus, gay witches and fancy outfits. What’s not to love?

  • "The Color of Air" a hardback book held up to the sky, picture shows the book cover and a blue sky framed by the tops of pine trees behind it
    The Color of Air
  • book cover on kobo ereader: Witchmark by C.L. Polk
    Witchmark
  • book cover on kobo ereader: Stormsong by C.L. Polk
    Stormsong

Meanwhile, on the internet:

  • Autistic children may have trouble predicting movements via Spectrum News. Sometimes research comes out and I feel seen. Researchers have found that autistic kids struggle with catching a ball. This is something I was terrible at for a long time, until I learned how to juggle when I was 14. Even after that, I still struggled in sportsball scenarios.
  • New research shows California coronavirus variant is more transmissible via Washington Post. Guess who’s staying inside until she’s vaccinated? It’s me!
  • California to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to residents with severe health conditions, disabilities via Cap Radio. This is good and weird news for me. Being fat is a “severe health condition” here and fat people with a BMI over 40 will be eligible for the vaccination, which means I’ll be eligible in mid March. This is the first time BMI has ever done anything good for me, although—and I’m not the first fat person to comment on this—there are a lot of weird feelings and guilt like “do I deserve the vaccine when I don’t have a real health issue?” I fully plan to get vaccinated at soon as possible, but the emotions around it are fraught.
  • Why obese people should get COVID-19 vaccine priority via Slate. From the article: “Obesity in COVID patients is associated with higher death rates and higher rates of hospital admissions to the ICU. On balance, we know these patients tend to spend more time on ventilators than those with lower BMIs.” And: “By prioritizing patients with obesity in the line for COVID-19 vaccines, medicine is not only following the data but is also pursuing a form of equity that recognizes obesity as a disease, rather than a character flaw.”
  • Britney Spears was never in control via The Cut. I didn’t watch the new Britney Spears documentary, but I liked this response to it. It’s an interesting read about the intersection of youth, womanhood, celebrity, and agency.

TV and Music

I’m still playing Super Mario 3D world, which is fun but the music won’t get out of my brain. I’ve “beaten” the game, but I have to finish collecting all the special stuff in each level to unlock the last bit. Maybe next week I’ll have some more interesting TV or music thoughts for you.

Rampant Consumerism

I bought some dryer balls, which are a reusable replacement for dryer sheets. I am finally almost out of dryer sheets and wanted to replace them with something non-disposable. These are made of wool and seem nice. They say they last for 1,000 trips through the dryer. My only complaint is I can hear them bouncing around (though the website claims they are quiet) when I’m in my office, which is next to the laundry room. Otherwise, I like them.

Making Things and Doing Stuff

head and shoulders of me in a blue and green hammock. I am wearing purple rimmed sunglasses and smiling at the camera
inaugurating the 2021 hammock season

I took Monday and Tuesday off work and was able to spend some afternoon time in my hammock! It’s finally warm and dry enough to get a little sun and read outside.

Related, I’m obsessed with this cat chilling in a hammock. His name is Cheddar Bob and I love him. The combination of the cat swaying and bobbing along with the Mr. Roger’s music in the background made me feel more peace than I’ve felt in months.

Moving It

Yesterday we learned how to “run” in the ballet style. I’ve been taking classes at home so I did my run as a lap from my computer, through the kitchen, past the living room and back. It’s kind of a goofy movement anyway, but there’s something really funny about running around my own house, as if the movement only makes sense in a certain context. You may even be able to see my goofy ballet run soon! My studio is going to do a virtual recital this spring, which sounds fun.

Kitchen Witchery

Last weekend I tried taking us on another culinary vacation, but it didn’t really go how I pictured it. I don’t know if my heart wasn’t in it or if I messed up the recipes and that brought down my enthusiasm. Regardless, here are the results. I made potatoes a la huacaína, which is a boiled potato with a cheesy sauce. These were good, but everything else was questionable. I made a casserole that was like a corn pudding with beef in the middle, which seemed good in theory but I didn’t like. I made a chicken and the flavor was good but I didn’t cook it well. Finally, we had chicha morada, which is a spiced drink made with purple corn, and I didn’t like that very much either. So, I don’t know. I tried.

  • a green plate with a pile of potatoes covered in a cheesey sauce and a watery-looking corn and beef casserole
    real talk: it looks unappetizing
  • a green plate with a large pile of potatoes covered in a cheesey sauce, some chicken breast. On the side, a small glass of chicha morada and a little bowl of spicy sauce for the chicken
    not a Peruvian “feast” but we tried
  • a small glass of chicha morada, a dark-purple colored beverage made out of corn
    chicha morada

In more successful food ventures, I’m back on my granola bullshit. In my Burlap and Barrel spice subscription last week, one of the recipes included for using the cardamom they sent was for granola. I’ve made granola plenty of times, but I liked that this recipe was pretty open ended, calling for seven cups of whatever combination of things you want. I had some for breakfast this morning and it came out great!

I also tried my hand at madeleines. I was a little skeptical because I’ve only had the kind you buy in the store, which are not very exciting. However, homemade madeleines are delicious. They are fluffy and tasty. This recipe had vanilla, maple, and lemon for flavor. I think I’m going to try a chocolate version next (now that I have a ridiculous single-use pan lol).

  • a batch of granola—oats, almonds, pistachios, coconut, and pumpkin seeds–in a rectangular container
    granola time
  • five freshly baked madeleine cookies on a small black plate
    first attempt at Madeleines

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. This week, I the spirit moved me to try taking Huey on a tour of the back yard. I bought some kitty harnesses and leashes last year when I was working on our emergency kits. I thought Huey might like to go outside and I like the idea of getting her used to the harness in case of emergency. Huey was definitely vibing, but I’ve already created a monster. We’ve gone out twice and now Huey has made it part of her routine to shout in front of the door so we can go outside. We can look forward to more adventures of Huey in the yard.

  • Huey the cat, wearing a harness, lying on her side in the sun and near a flower bush
    Huey enjoying the outdoors
  • Huey the cat, wearing her harness, standing at the edge of the patio concrete, looking out into the wilds of the pine-needle-covered yard
    Huey exploring
  • Huey the cat sitting on the bed, in a patch of sunlight. Shes bathing herself and has a hind leg stuck out front of her and is crouched over it
    sunbathing
weekly update

A Week in the Life: February 21, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey

I said last week that things were chaotic but this week did its best to top that. One of my coworkers was abruptly removed from the proposal we’re working on, which left her work redistributed to the few that remained and left me learning how to do new things on top of doing quite a lot of my normal stuff. Another coworker died of coronavirus this week, which is really sad. He’d been in the hospital for the last month. I feel for his family, but I did not know him that well. My boss and colleagues are torn up about it all and it seems like people expect me to be the same. It feels weird. I do feel sad for him, but I’m still grieving for Viola, I don’t have the emotional space to cry about someone I barely talked to. On top of all this human stuff, I was working late this week to get the proposal ready. On Friday morning, my boss told us to stop work on it because we’re not going to bid after all. This has been a lot of ruckus for nothing.

A squirrel sitting on top of the fence, a flower in its paws. The squirrel is facing the camera
forest friends and dirty windows

Amid all this work-related chaos, on Thursday a squirrel visited me. The fence around our house is a squirrel highway and I often see them cruising around. Sometimes they even stop to (it seems) look at me. On this day, a squirrel with a flower in its hands stopped right in front of me and sat there for at least a minute, as if showing me this flower. It was surreal and made me wonder if I’m becoming one with nature. After this display of what could, perhaps, be called affection, the squirrel started enthusiastically eating the flower. This is probably be a metaphor for something, but fuck if I know what.

an 8" by 10" watercolor art with a drawing of a cat. The cat has a speech bubble that says "Somewhere, in a parallel universe, it is always this moement and I am always in your arms." The print is framed and placed above a display of cards and a wodden box of Viola the cat's ashes
sad arts

In non-work topics, my sister bought me this beautiful artwork from an artist called Club Waaa. I won’t lie, I opened it up and immediately started crying. I love the sentiment but I still feel so raw about losing Viola. I have been trying to take comfort in the fact that time is an illusion and she still exists in the past. Sometimes I feel guilty for not doing enough for her in her short life but, since I started working from home about four years ago, she was in my face demanding constant attention. Perhaps we were able to concentrate a few more years of love and affection into that period. Maybe she knew she wasn’t well in the last year and that’s why she got so possessive of me. Thursday night I couldn’t fall asleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about her and I was crying. I sat on the couch in the dark and held her box of ashes and cried for an hour. It feels almost too personal to talk about this out here on the internet where everyone can read it, but it feels important to share.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

Other than work, this week I spent a lot of time reading. I’ve been making an effort to read the books I already have, which most recently meant reading Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys. I got this book in my Powell’s Indiespensable subscription last year. This was a hard read, thematically speaking. It told the story of two black teenagers sent to a “reform school” (aka prison for children) in the 1960s. As with most works that illuminate the shitty conditions this country has imposed on black people, I’m struck by how terrible it was (and still is in many ways) and how it really wasn’t that long ago.

Winter’s Orbit was my monthly purchase from an independent bookstore. This month I bought from a small shop called Books and Crannies (which wins the award for cutest bookstore name). This book was a lot of fun. I knew I was going to love it once I found out it was about gay princes in space—I have a tag in my LibraryThing for lesbians in space, so this is an adjacent genre. Winter’s Orbit is a slow-burn romance with an arranged marriage in which one half of the couple is recovering from an abusive relationship. It has good character development and a happy ending.

Finally, I finished last month’s independent bookstore purchase Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe. This is a great book. Jaffe analyzes 10 professions, split into two groups—caring professions like teaching and “fun” jobs like making video games. For each job, she introduces us to a person in that job then discusses the history and how the myths of doing your job out of love or loving what you do help employers exploit workers. Consider teachers: when they strike, school boards might guilt them (“think of the students!”) into going back to work. The same logic applies in jobs where you do what you love. For example, professional athletes are led to believe they don’t deserve a fair wage since they enjoy what they do. This book gave me a lot to think about and it’s another excellent piece in understanding modern life.

  • hardback book: The Nickel Boys. Pictured atop a black comforter
    The Nickel Boys
  • hardback book: Winter's Orbit on top of a colorful quilt made of different cat patterns
    Winter’s Orbit
  • hardback book: Work Won't Love You Back. On the floor next to Huey the cat
    Work Won’t Love You Back

TV and Music

When I wasn’t reading this week, I was playing Nintendo. Kirk bought us a new game, Super Mario 3-D world, a game that asks “what if Mario was a cat for some reason?” and we’ve been playing that a lot. And yes, you literally do play as a cat for a lot of the game. I bought us Mario Kart as a Valentine’s gift and we’ve had fun playing that together too. It seemed a little indulgent to buy a Nintendo Switch last year when the pandemic started, but considering how long this has dragged on, I’m glad I did it.

Rampant Consumerism

Because cooking and eating are among my main hobbies these days, my purchases are food related. I’ve been getting a lot of facebook ads for chocolate companies, whether because they know too much or because it was Valentine’s day, I don’t know. In any case, one of the ads was for Compartes chocolate and I gave them a try. The bars come in wild flavors like peanut butter and jelly and they have really nice packaging. I like the ones I’ve tried so far! I saw that they also have a chocolate subscription and I have to admit I am tempted to sign up.

I discovered Burlap & Barrel spices recently when looking for unusual ingredients I could send to my cookbook club friends (among other things, the received some dried Icelandic kelp to work with). I found they have a spice subscription box and signed up because I love subscriptions. I got my first quarterly box this week. It came with multiple spices, plus a bar of soap (more Icelandic kelp! lol) and magnets. One thing I appreciate is that it included a sheet with some recipes so there’s somewhere to start if you don’t know how to use the spices. I’m looking forward to trying some new recipes.

  • five bars of Compartes chocolate. The packages are colorful and reflect their contents
    Compartes Chocolates
  • a box containing three Burlap and Barrel spices: salina crystal salt, cured sumac, and red tumeric. Also pictured: a jar of cloud forest cardamom seeds, a bar of kelp soap and two small pouches of tahini. All part of the Burlap and Barrel spice subsciprtion.
    new spice subscription!

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Without Viola to boss her around, Huey has been all up in my business. She has always loved to lounge on top of me, but I hadn’t realized she hadn’t been doing in much in the last year. Now she’s back at it, including, for some reason, sitting on me in the middle of the night and pushing my cheeks with her little peets. Why, Huey? Why wake me up in this way? Huey has finally decided it’s safe for her to hang in my office, which was one of Viola’s main haunts. She spent a lot of time in there with me the last few days; and a lot of time without me because Huey does what she fucking wants.

  • Huey the cat sitting on top of my stomach with her front legs stretched out over my chest
    modern sphinx
  • Huey the cat on top of a footrest thats draped with a blanket
    Huey: new office manager
weekly update

A Week in the Life: February 14, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey

Happy Valentine’s Day! We’re not in the habit of making a big deal of Valentine’s day in this house, but I do like it as a reminder to appreciate the people I care about and who care about me. This morning, I made biscuits and gravy for breakfast and then Kirk and I played Mario Kart 8, which was my Valentine’s gift to us. Kirk is going to make us dinner tonight. In non-pandemic years, we made it a custom to go out for dinner the day after Valentine’s day. It’s a good way to avoid crowds and high prices at restaurants. Going out on the 15th instead of the 14th doesn’t mean you love each other any less.

This week has been a little chaotic for me. We have a big proposal at work that we’re trying to finish and the writers keep blowing off their deadlines. I was scheduled to edit it this weekend since that was the only time remaining. Fortunately, the potential client extended the due date. Unfortunately, they published that announcement at midnight Saturday morning, so I still worked late on Friday and worked early on Saturday before finding out about it. I’m glad I got to keep three-quarters of my weekend, but all the stress wore me out. Having personal time is so important to me and enjoyable free time is the main benefit of having a job (aside from the paycheck!). So, when work cuts into my time, it really stresses me out. After being so keyed up over the threat of working all weekend, I was exhausted when it didn’t happen. Emotions are annoying that way.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

book cover of Mexican Gothic, shown on kobo ereader. Puffin stuffed animal peeking out behind the book
Mexican Gothic

This week I read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic. This is the second book of hers I’ve read and I had pretty high expectations because I loved Gods of Jade and Shadow. Mexican Gothic is a spooky novel set in 1950s Mexico. The protagonist, Noemí, gets a semi-incoherent letter from her cousin, who married a white man and moved to his fancy house in the middle of nowhere, and the family is concerned. Noemí is sent to investigate and horror ensues. I usually don’t like scary books (real life is enough, thanks), but I liked this one a lot even though I was scared. There is an interesting supernatural element, but the real horror comes from the forces of colonialism and patriarchy. I recommend this book if you’re looking for some chills from a different perspective.

Meanwhile on the internet:

TV and Music

I mentioned months ago that I had started watching the Golden Girls. I’m still slowly making my way through it—I’m now in season three. This show just gets better as it goes on. Since one of my other new pandemic activities has been ballet, when I hear the theme song, I keep thinking I should make a little ballet routine to perform to it to celebrate my pandemic pastimes. Perhaps I will do this to celebrate the end of the pandemic.

Rampant Consumerism

My old slippers were beat to shit and my feet have been hurting (I have a sit/stand desk for work and I like to stand when I can) so I decided to spring for some nice slippers that would hopefully improve that situation. I bought these lovely tiger print slippers from a brand called Vionic. They are pretty comfortable. They do feel more like a shoe than a fluffy slipper, but that’s what I wanted. So far, I like them.

After hearing me complain about how much I hate mint toothpaste (but continue to use it for lack of alternatives), Kirk did some research for me and found this Hello brand toothpaste. I bought strawberry and grape flavors, which are ostensibly for children, but they include fluoride so they are appropriate for adults. Brushing my teeth is now way more pleasant. Between this and the Cocofloss, I’m actually doing a really good job of taking care of my teeth!

  • my slipper-clad feet propped up on the side of a chair, showing off my new tiger-print slippers
    new slippers
  • two tubes of Hello toothpaste, one strawberry and one grape flavored
    new toothpaste

Making Things and Doing stuff

We’ve let our garden get a bit … feral this season. We planted things and have pretty much let the rain take care of the watering and left it at that. The lettuce shot up to start producing seeds before we got around to picking it. The broccoli starting flowering much sooner than expected (Kirk suspects the freezing temperatures we had confused the broccoli). The herbs are going crazy. If I’m smart, I will pick them and dry them out before they, too, begin flowering. Although, I have been using the fresh herbs quite often, I can’t keep up with this massive quantity.

  • lettuce that has shot up and two large herb plants
    lettuce and herbs
  • broccoli plants starting to flower
    flowering broccoli

Spanish

This week I finally started feeling the pull of being more serious about Spanish again. Part of the end-goal of learning Spanish—or any language—for me is being able to experience things in the language just like I would with English. This week I started reading the Spanish edition of Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang and I’m feeling a little success on this front. This is one of the first books I’ve read where I feel like I’m understanding it all and I just want to read it to read, not to “study Spanish.” It’s actually translated from Chinese, so why not read the Spanish translation and not the English? It’s a relatively long book and I expected it would take me a while to read, but I’m moving through it relatively quickly, which is satisfying.

Kitchen Witchery

It turns out that I took no food photos this week, but I did make food (one must eat). I tried out this pasta e fagioli recipe from Rancho Gordo since I saw the recipe and had all the ingredients on hand. It was good but I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. I also made brown butter brownies so I could have something to stress eat while editing this weekend (now I don’t have to work so I’m just normal eating). I wanted to do my Peruvian kitchen trip this weekend, but I am going to have to save it for next week instead!

Cat Therapy

Finally, here is a cat photo for your nerves. Sometimes when I pet Huey wrong, she corrects me by putting her paw on top of my hand and making me stop.

Huey the cat looking at the camera, with her front paw on top of my hand
“please stop”
weekly update

A Week in the Life: February 7, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey

I’m going to change things up and start today by relaying some good news: we’re refinancing our mortgage! I feel like we’ve leveled up as functional adults by doing this and that I deserve a merit badge. We’re about 3.5 years into our current, 30-year mortgage, which has a 4.125% interest rate. Our new mortgage will be 20 years and a 2.85% interest rate. Our monthly payment is staying almost exactly the same but now we’re skipping almost seven years of payments. It seems like black magic but apparently this is how finances work? The “value” of our home has increased a lot since we bought it (somehow?) so we’re able to get rid of the PMI from our payments too. This is going to save us something like $160,000, which is nuts. It’s only by chance that the rates and home values have aligned by this and a bit of luck that a friend mentioned he was refinancing, so I started looking into it. It doesn’t seem like a matter of $160,000 should hinge on coincidence, but that’s 21st century America for you.

I know last week’s post was quite dramatic on the subject of Viola. I’m feeling better than I was, but I was, indeed, feeling big emotions last weekend. I’ve set her box of ashes in the living room with a feather toy and a little mouse. I wish I could do more. I miss her every day, but I haven’t cried this week. This is probably the last I’ll say about her for a while. We’ll focus on Huey living her best life instead.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

I read two novels this week: The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas and The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray. I liked both books quite a lot. The Psychology of Time Travel was great because it asks how time travel would fuck you up on existential and emotional levels and it looks at the kind of measures a corporation would take to stay in the time travel business. There’s also time traveling lesbian romance, which is the kind of content I’m here for you. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls is a non-fantastical story about a family, focusing on three sisters, trying to deal with their childhood trauma. Be warned that you shouldn’t read this if you don’t want to read about eating disorders or abuse. It’s not the main focus of the novel, but it is a theme.

  • book cover of The Psychology of Time Travel shown on kobo ereader
    The Psychology of Time Travel
  • hardcover book The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. Huey the cats feet visible next to the book
    The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls

Meanwhile on the internet:

TV and Music

I’ve now watched the first season of Orphan Black, a show about a woman who discovers she has a whole bunch of clones living different lives out in the world. I started watching this with Kirk, but after a few episodes he kept stalling on watching it. I finally learned that he didn’t want to continue with it and I was free to watch on my own. I’m liking it a lot so I finished up the first season pretty quick. I just got the first disc of season two in the mail so I’m looking forward to watching that this week.

Rampant Consumerism

a bundt pan and a madeleine pan, new and sitting on my counter
new pans in funny shapes

In anticipation of baking a babka this week, I bought a bundt pan from The Kitchen Table, a local shop that sells kitchen wares. I decided to buy a madeleine pan while I was at it because why not. I have resisted buying single-use pans but I realized I have the space to keep them and, frankly, what else am I doing these days? I was very pleased that Kitchen Table dropped my order off on my doorstep! I thought I would have to wait for it to come through the mail.

Making Things and Doing stuff

As an editor, I hate seeing a header directly follow another header, which is why I feel obligated to put something here. My only subheading here today is “kitchen witchery” because I don’t have much else to say about things and stuff. I’m plugging away at knitting and dance and Spanish, but I don’t have anything new to tell you. Let’s get on with what you really want: food photos.

Kitchen Witchery

Last weekend, we “went” to Morocco. I made a few more recipes from Feast of the Islamic World and listened to some Moroccan music. Recipes included North African layered flatbreads, Moroccan kefta (aka meatballs), “the chicken that flew” (a dish of chickpeas and sweet potatoes—the chicken flew away!) and rice pudding. I liked the flatbread and the chicken that flew quite a lot; I would make them again. I didn’t love the meatballs, I don’t know if they were too dry or if I don’t really like lamb. Kirk said they were good though and he told me he doesn’t like lamb, so who knows. The rice pudding was good too. I scaled down the amount of orange blossom water the recipe called for and it ended up just right.

  • a plate with moroccan flat bread, meatballs, and a chickpea nad sweet potato dish
    moroccan feast
  • a small bowl of rice pudding topped with sliced almonds
    moroccan rice pudding

I’ve been alternating weekend baking experiments with kitchen travels. Yesterday I made a chocolate babka! I’d never eaten a babka before, but I had heard about it and thought it sounded delightful. I made the recipe from The Baking Bible, which called for baking in a bundt pan. It was really good. I already want to make more.

  • a babka, turned out of its bundt pan, cooling on a wire rack and recently glazed with butter
    freshly baked and glazed babka
  • two slices of babka on a small plate, revealing the swirl pattern inside and chocolate filling
    babka cross section

As to normal weeknight cooking, I tried a recipe from Jubilee: Recipes from two Centuries of African American cooking. I’m always looking for new bean dishes because they are usually filling, cheap, and tasty. I liked this one a lot. It’s a one-pot dish in which you cook the beans and rice in chicken broth and coconunt milk. I also tried another round of bagels. This batch came out a little uglier than the last but they were just as good. I tried making onion bagels, but didn’t do a good job of making the onions stick, so they were basically plain. I think I’ll do a sesame or poppy seed bagel next time because seeds are easier to work with.

  • a large pot of red beans and rice sitting on the stove
    red beans and rice
  • a plate with a serving of red beans and rice, cornbread, and roasted broccoli
    a fine meal
  • five bagels cooling on a wire rack. the bagels are topped with minced onion
    “onion” bagels

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Huey came to hang out while I was in the middle of dance class this week. This was fine until she plopped down in the middle of my dance floor (such as it is) and started taking a bath. Thanks, Huey.

  • Huey in the middle of the room, bathing herself, computer monitor showing a dance class in the background
    Huey interrupting my dance lesson
  • Huey the cat sitting on the floor next to the bed. The sun is shining on her and makes her black fur look dark brown.
    Huey is the household expert on where to find sun
weekly update

A Week in the Life: January 30, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey
A framed photo collage featuring 7 photos of Viola the cat
Viola tribute collage

Last week I said I was feeling okay about Viola’s death and, after this week, I’ve realized that was a premature assessment. I ordered a photo collage of her and hung that on the wall this week. When the picture arrived, I had to spend some time howling and crying again. Then I had to adjust to seeing her on the wall when I walk by (which is good and bad, but I’m hoping the bad feelings will ease up over time). Today, Kirk and I drove to the vet to retrieve her ashes. This was also a highly emotional activity.

I guess this blog is a grief diary now.

a small wood box containing the ashes of the late Viola the cat
Viola’s final resting place

It feels a little weird to write about some of this stuff. When I got home, I curled up on the bed with her box of ashes and cried for a long time. I currently have it next to me as I write. Viola used to position herself between my body and the keyboard when I was typing and I’ve got it in the same spot right now. I’m not planning to carry it around forever, but it is comforting me, in an odd way, to have it nearby for now. I know this sounds a little weird but I am sharing it because I think it’s important to talk about how we grieve.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

This week’s books are Big Dirty Money by Jennifer Taub and How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge by K. Eason. Big Dirty Money is a look into white-collar crime and how it is (rarely) punished in the U.S. It’s informative and it will probably piss you off. How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge is the sequel to How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse. It’s a space opera with cool aliens and character growth and it’s a lot of fun to read.

  • book cover of Big Dirty Money shown on Kobo ereader
    Big Dirty Money
  • hardback book: How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge
    How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge

Meanwhile on the internet:

  • Emotions on Strike via Dissent Magazine. More on work and burnout and their emotional impact. I was nodding along with this article and realized when I reached the end that I’d just ordered a book from the author.
  • What happened with GameStop via Markets Weekly. There have been many articles describing what’s going on with the stock market and the proletariat this week, but I like this one. It characterizes the situation not as a popular uprising (which is fun to imagine and maybe also partly true) but a game of hedge funds striking at each other.
  • The Art of the Cover Letter via The Paris Review. This is about cover letters but it’s not cover letter advice. Here’s a preview, “I’ll say this: what I have done to language in the service of cover letters haunts me. At worst, cover letters strain one’s faith that words convey meaning at all, let alone that sentences can shimmer, steal breath, or gird spines. I spend each day climbing mountains of junky paragraphs, scavenging for hunks of usable scrap—like so much copper wire—my senses deadened by the incessant clang of multipart adjectives.”

TV and Music

Kirk and I have started watching Star Gate: SG-1, not the least because it has, like, a million episodes. So far it’s entertaining despite the cheesy nineties-ness of it all. That’s okay though because I’m not in a deep-thinking mood when it comes to TV right now.

Rampant Consumerism

hardcover book; Work Won't Love You Back
Work Won’t Love You Back

One of my goals for this year is to support independent bookstores by buying a book every month from a different shop. This month I pre-ordered a book I have really been looking forward to, Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe, from Vroman’s Bookstore. Vroman’s is in Pasedena and has been in business for over 100 years. I heard about them from a social media post going around last summer encouraging people to support the store due to their history—during World War II, Vroman’s donated books to Japanese people in California’s internment camps. If you have other independent bookstores to recommend, let me know about them for future months!

Making Things and Doing stuff

My things and stuff energy has been a little low lately, but here’s a little bit.

Moving It

I’ve been doing ballet class for home the last few weeks given the state of the pandemic. I read that we should be doubling up on masks or upgrading to better masks and I said, you know what, I’ll just stay home, thanks. I’m enjoying class from home a lot more now that I’ve made my own barre. Being in the studio is still more fun, but at least I can do everything I need to from my living room and not stress about coronavirus. I’m also starting to feel like I’m “getting” ballet a little more. I joined the class with kind of a “well, why not” vibe but I’m enjoying it and starting to understand why this kind of movement is interesting.

Kitchen Witchery

I was hoping that I’d be able to share my next kitchen “vacation” today, but I’ll be making a Moroccan feast tomorrow and I wanted to get the blog up today. You’ll have something to look forward to next week (or tomorrow if you follow me on instagram). This week I did try a really good black bean soup recipe from the Cool Beans cookbook, which I bought myself for Christmas. The soup is topped with masa dumplings, pumpkin seeds, and feta, although I will probably replace the feta with a queso fresco next time I make this. It was really tasty and pretty easy to make! I also tried out a recipe for popcorn balls this week. Why? I don’t know, but I bookmarked it months ago and the spirit moved me to try it (Side note: I keep singing “popcorn balls” to the tune of Uptown Girl. Brains are weird). Because you can never have enough cookies, I also made a batch of chocolate chip and walnut cookies. These are the Levain-style chocolate chip, but I baked them in normal cookie size.

  • a green bowl filled with black bean soup, which is topped with masa dumplings, pumpkin seeds, feta, cilantro, and dried ancho chili
    black bean soup with masa dumplings
  • a sheet pan with 12 chocolate chip and walnut cookies on top
    chocolate chip walnut cookies
  • about 10 peanut butter popcorn balls on a piece of parchment paper
    peanut butter popcorn balls

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. As a special treat, I’m sharing a photo of Huey as a kitten to accompany this goofy picture of her taking a bath.

  • Huey the cat sitting on the bed with her back feet stretched in front of her. She is hunched over to lick her leg, resulting in belly rolls
    Huey taking a funny-looking bath
  • Huey the cat as a small kitten, looking alert
    a baby photo of Huey
weekly update

A Week in the Life: January 23, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey
five everything bagels cooling on a wire rack. The counter below is covered in a tea towel that says "bitch I am the secret ingredient"

The last week was emotionally turbulent, but I am starting to feel better. I spent the first few days after Viola’s untimely departure crying and howling that I couldn’t believe she was gone. I still feel haunted by her absence but my body and mind can only physically sustain so much sorrow. I’m not crying (much) anymore and I’m starting to feel normal again. I am, however, exhausted. Strong emotions are tiring. On top of everything, I had to get out of bed and go through the motions at work all week. What the heck.

I appreciate all my friends for being so kind and supportive. Many people have offered condolences and help, some people sent cards, and I even got a plant. I think our culture (or at least the part of our culture I inhabit) has come a long way in recognizing how important pets are and how real our emotions about them are. People have said to me that it’s hard to lose a member of the family. Pets aren’t human but they are important parts of our lives. Unlike people, they can’t really disappoint you or be an asshole, so it seems unfair when they die.

This is my first real grief—I haven’t lost any close family members or friends as an adult, which is fortunate (especially in these times). So, I have been thinking a lot about what we say when someone dies. Most of my life I have heard “may they rest in peace,” in the Christian tradition. “Rest in peace” is really about the dead more than the living. They’re dead. It would be hard to disturb them, I think. I’ve come to appreciate the Jewish version, “may their memory be a blessing.” It seems to better acknowledge that grief is about the living. Someone dear is gone but we hope that, one day, their memory will bring you joy and not pain. A few days ago, I could only imagine pain when thinking about Viola. Now I’m starting to see where her memory can be a blessing. I have a story highlight on my instagram of her pictures and videos. I’ve been paging through it every night when I get in bed as if it’s a set of prayer beads. Last night was the first time I relaxed while looking at it. In life, Viola always helped me feel calm. I’m relieved to know she lives on, in a way, in photos and video. (Of course, writing this has made me cry again, so there’s no winning).

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

It was a little hard to read this week because Viola was always my reading companion. Many times I sat down to read and started crying instead, but I did manage to finish some books I had started including When Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo and Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Talia Lavin.

I also finished up some reading on composting that I got from the library: Composting for a New Generation and Bob’s Basics: Composting. If you only have room for one composting book in your schedule, I recommend Composting for a New Generation. It is a good guide for beginners. It explains all the different ways you can compost and provides instructions for making your own composting containers. Composting is something I want to start doing this year and I feel like now I actually understand it enough to do it, which is exciting.

  • cover of the book When Tiger Came Down the Mountain shown on Kobo ereader. Huey the cat napping next to the book.
    When Tiger Came Down the Mountain
  • book Culture Warlords, which has a red cover and white text, next to Viola the cat
    Culture Warlords
  • two books. 1) Composting for a New Generation. 2) Bobs Basics Composting
    composting double feature

Meanwhile, on the internet:

  • The ignominious deceits of Congressman Cawthorn via The Nation. The new, 25-yaer-old, Trump-supporting representative from North Carolina has been lying about everything, including his education and business history. The article researches Cawthorn’s claims about training for the Paralympics and found that he’s not at all a serious person. The thing with some of these Trump-leaning conservatives that continues to baffle me is why lie? Why lie about this? Do you think your constituents are too stupid to care? Is the liar themselves too stupid to make a good lie? I can’t comprehend it.
  • The meaning of the mittens: Five possibilities via The Intercept. After sharing so many Bernie in his cozy mittens memes this week, of course I was interested in Naomi Klein’s analysis of the situation.
  • Do ‘elder Goths’ hold the secret to aging successfully? via The Washington Post. Most of our culture is youth-obsessed, but goths are all about the macabre past. From the article: “Bush argues that Goths’ success in aging has a lot to do with their ability to juggle opposing, seemingly paradoxical energies. Take Goths’ emotional intensity: While off-putting to some, Goths’ willingness to harness dark feelings such as despair, gloom and hopelessness, rather than repress them, can prove healthier in the long run, Bush says. Equally vital is Goths’ ability to find humor, irony and beauty in supposedly “ugly” sources, such as flowers that grow by a cemetery or the absurd frailties of the aging body. In a culture, for instance, that already treats older women as frightful, why not own that, and become the most fabulous grand dame of darkness the world has ever seen?”

TV and Music

We are living through a great time for RuPual’s Drag Race because we have season 13 airing right now and Drag Race UK season 2. I’m enjoying both, but the UK season has a certain je ne sais quoi and it’s hilarious. It’s really great to have something so fun to watch right now.

This week I started re-watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 because I wanted something that wouldn’t be too wild and something I’ve seen before. It’s fitting the bill but I did kind of make a mistake because I forgot that in the first episode we have to deal with Sisko losing his wife in a spaceship accident. That set me crying again but I’m okay now. I also had to yell at the TV when they had an episode with a pandemic spreading around the station. Have they even been a pandemic before? Total amateurs.

Rampant Consumerism

a pile of zotter chocolate bars on my countertop
zotter chocolate

For some reason, facebook has started showing me lots of ads for chocolate makers and I keep clicking on them because I guess they’ve got my number now. I mentioned previously that I am going to order a book from an independent bookstore every month. I ordered my book for this month (it’s not here yet!). I thought it would be fun to get a fancy snack to accompany my reading. The chocolate got here before the book this month and we’ve been sampling it. It’s really good! This is Zotter chocolate and they make bars that are like a bonbon but in bar form. This year I’m all about trying to make fun or interesting events for myself at home while I ride out the rest of this pandemic. If that means buying fancy chocolate, so be it.

Making Things and Doing stuff

A weekly pill organizer containing daily vitamins and medication, plus an M&M in each slot
tip: add candy to your pill organizer

This week I was inspired to add peanut M&Ms to my weekly pill lineup. Why? Because they fit perfectly. Plus it makes taking my anxiety meds every night a lot more fun. Literally no one can stop you from adding candy to your pill organizer.

Knitting and Crafts

details of a shawl in progress with a pattern that sort of looks like stained glass
mystery “knit-a-long” update

Now that I’ve had a little break from my Christmas gift knitting marathon, I’m getting back into my groove and working on this shawl. I don’t know what the finished pattern will look like since it’s from a “mystery knit-a-long” that my mom bought for me last Christmas. However, I’m super into this part of the pattern because it looks like stained glass. Knitting is cool as hell.

Kitchen Witchery

I’ve kept things simple in the kitchen this week, but I did do a little bit of baking. I made a batch of my favorite pumpkin rolls to give myself something to do (and eat) because I still had some pumpkin in the pantry. In an effort to use the large amount of carrots I accidentally ordered, I made carrot bread (recipe from The Bread Bible). The recipe calls for raisins, but I don’t hate myself so I substituted pecans. I really like making quick breads like this in the mini-loaf pans. It bakes faster and it’s easier to deal with.

  • three mini loaves of carrot bread, cooling on a wire rack
    carrot bread mini loaves
  • a slice of a small loaf of carrot bread to reveal the texture inside
    carrot bread cross section

I also made bagels for the first time! I’m alternating my “kitchen vacations” with baking techniques and this week it was baking time. The bagels weren’t too hard to make, just a little bit of effort at the end with getting all the bagels boiled and topped with the “everything” blend before baking. I’ll definitely make these again because they were delicious. I used the recipe from The Bread Bible, which has yet to let me down. I tried both methods of shaping a bagel: one where you make a ball and push a hole through it and another where you make a snake then close it up into a circle. The snake-dough versions didn’t quite hold together as well as the hole-poke ones. You can probably tell which is which in the photos. A valuable lesson for future bagel efforts.

  • five everything bagels on a baking sheet that has just been removed from the oven
    out of the oven!
  • five everything bagels cooling on a wire rack. The counter below is covered in a tea towel that says "bitch I am the secret ingredient"
    cooling bagels
  • bagel cut in half to show the interior texture, resting on a green plate
    bagel cross section
  • everything bagel cut in half with cream cheese spread on top
    ready to eat

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Huey seems to be enjoying her new status as the only cat in the house. She’s been cuddling with me a lot more and sleeping on the bed every night. This is great but it makes me feel like I was neglecting her before. Kirk says I wasn’t, it’s just that Viola always made herself the center of attention. Regardless, Huey is getting plenty of high-quality attention now.

  • Huey the cat standing in front of the screen door, looking into the back yard
    Huey getting some fresh air
  • Huey the cat lounging on the bed with her head up and front paws crossed in front of her
    Queen of the Bed
weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: January 18, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey
a single croissant on a small black plate

When I was thinking about what I wanted to write this weekend, I had some ideas about novelty and how the pandemic has made novelty a difficult proposition. Of course, then Viola died and that has provided me with a horrible type of novelty that no one asked for. I’m writing this on Sunday night, past when I normally quit the computer to go to bed. When I was retiring for the night, I used to call Viola and she would race past me down the hall the hang out in the bedroom with me. She was always next to me when I was reading in bed. Normally I love getting in bed at the end of the day but now I’m only dreading it.

I thought about not writing a blog this week, but I didn’t write last week and I have some things I want to share/not forget about. It might be a little jumbled but this website is free.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read or bought.

Books and Other Words

Essa Hansen’s Nophek Gloss is another book in one of my favorite motifs: found family. It’s a space opera, there’s a crew of misfit privateers, and people trying to work through their trauma. I liked the story in general, but one thing I thought it was particularly effective at was its portrayal of PTSD. So this is a good book for sci-fi fans and for people who like to see complicated characters dealing with their shit.

Lauren Beukes’ Afterland was really good. It’s set in the present day United States, but a terrible virus has killed almost all men. The novel rotates points of view between Cole, her son (Miles) and her sister (Billie). Miles survives the plague only to be scooped up by the government’s research apparatus. Cole just wants to get her son out and travel home to South Africa. What follows is a wild road trip novel of family drama. There’s even a cult! What’s not to love?

  • book: Nophek Gloss. A dark cover featuring a glossy spaceship and large white text
    Nophek Gloss
  • book: Afterland by LAuren Beukes. Cover design has a sky blue background with a few white clouds and a rose upside down in the foreground
    Afterland

Meanwhile, on the internet:

Rampant Consumerism

a bag of high-gluten flour and small jars of malt powder and "everything bagel topping" on my kitchen counter
preview of coming attractions

Something I’ve wanted to try baking for a while is bagels and I finally bought the ingredients I need. I looked into it last year, but this was during the rush on baking supplies when everyone was suddenly a baker. The thing I really needed was malt powder, but the high-gluten flour helps. The everything bagel topping is an added bonus. I’m hoping try this out next weekend.

Making Things and Doing stuff

Spanish

I am finally registered to take the DELE C1 exam! It’s November 13th in Seattle, which was the closest option for the testing date I wanted (I could have done Los Angeles in May but I am not that optimistic about the pandemic). I’ve been thinking about taking this test to validate my Spanish skills for years, but now I’m finally going to do it.

Kitchen Witchery

I’m trying to bring a little more excitement to my at-home pandemic experience so I’m making some new things in the kitchen. First, I’m tackling some new baking techniques. I made croissants a couple of weeks ago. It was fun and they came out amazing! It was my first time laminating dough, but it didn’t seem too complicated. It just required patience.

  • a close-up of croissants cooling on a wire rack
    croissant success
  • a single croissant on a small black plate
    very proud of these croissants

Second I am taking “trips” in the kitchen. On Friday, I went to Egypt with two recipes from Feast of the Islamic World: koshari and a semolina cake. I spent the day cooking and grooving to Egyptian music. It’s not the same as actually going somewhere, sure, but it was something fun and it broke up my routine. I shared the whole process on my instagram and took suggestions for where we should “go” next time. Popular suggestions include Cuba and Morocco, so that may be coming soon.

  • koshari!
  • a semolina cake topped with whole almonds, in an 8-inch cake pan
    Egyptian Semolina Cake
  • almond-topped semolina cake in the pan, covered with a large quantity of syrup to seep into the cake
    Semolina cake with syrup, which eventually soaked in

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

  • Huey the cat lying on her side, looking at a cell phone. The phone is propped up and playing a "cat TV" youtube video
    Huey watching TV
  • Huey the cat, lying on the floor with her belly up. She is framed by sun coming in from the window.
    When the sun hits your belly just right
  • one more Viola photo for the road
the world around us

Viola Halsell, 2008 – January 16, 2021

Posted on by Lindsey
Viola, stretching her front legs out

Viola died today. I did not expect that today would be the day she died. She had been lethargic all week. She spent a couple days curled in a ball on the bed. She rallied to eat some wet food earlier this week and I thought she was feeling better. Then she stopped eating and refused to acknowledge food. We put food in front of her and she would walk away from it. I thought she had a belly full of hairballs. This morning I put some hairball medicine on her paws and, rather than lick it off, she seemed to sigh and accept her sticky fate. That’s when I started calling around for a vet.

The vet today told me that Viola had a mass the size of a tangerine in her abdomen, she was dehydrated and sick. The vet said that it was likely cancer and, were it her cat, she would choose to euthanize her. The alternative was a battery of tests and a long weekend staying in the hospital, with no guarantee that she’d be able to recover. I did not want Viola to spend her last days scared and alone.

I adopted Viola in 2008 from the animal shelter in Seattle. I’d had Huey for a few months and thought she would like company (narrator: she would not). Viola was in kitty foster care with a brother, a fluffy white kitty named Chai. Viola was then named Viola Mae, but I’ve never once called her all that.

When I first brought her home, she was scared of everything and thin. But she always wanted to play and she warmed right up to me. She never slept on my bed until my then-boyfriend and I broke up. Once I moved, she was on the bed constantly.

Viola was a trooper who weathered several moves, including from Seattle to southern California, and from there to Sacramento. She was always by my side when I was home, either in my lap, purring next to me on the couch, or even sitting on the floor near my desk. She was a diva who wanted to be the only object of my attention. She sometimes harassed Huey by chasing her out of the bedroom and often tried to murder Kirk with her glare. She tried to be a bully, but the sound of the doorbell always sent her running to hide under the bed.

A eulogy

Viola, I love you so much and I will never be the same. You were my darling kitten. You were beautiful and fluffy and deserving of the best life. I hope your time on this Earth was cozy and worthwhile and that you felt loved and cared for. I wish I had known sooner that you were so sick. I wish I could have done more for you, played with you more, pet you more. I’m sorry you got cancer and you spent the last days of your life sick and tired. If there’s something after this life, I hope you’re getting the best of it. I love you so much and always will.

Here’s one last collection of Viola photos for your nerves.

Young Viola

  • Viola wide-eyed, looking over her shoulder at the camera
    earliest known Viola photo
  • Viola lounging belly-up in a chair
    Young Viola
  • Huey the cat lying in a round cat bed, Viola outside, grooming Hueys head
    one time, when they were young, we gave them catnip and they spent an hour grooming each other
  • Viola sitting in a suitcase, with her chin perched on the edge. looking at the camera
    an early Viola photo

Viola sitting on me

  • Viola sitting on my pillow with her tail curled around my head
    Forever sleeping on my head
  • Viola on my head part 2
    I was always trying to take a “good” picture of this
  • I am lying on the floor on my stomach and Viola is sitting atop my butt
    Viola sitting on my butt

General Viola appreciation

  • A close-up of Viola
    Viola is an intense cat
  • Viola the cat exposing her extremely fluffy underbelly
    Viola in her fluffy glory
  • Viola the cat with lying on the couch with her head tucked behind a cushion
    Viola the ostrich
  • Viola the cat lying next to me with her back leg tucked into my armpit
    Viola the cuddler
  • Viola the cat lying on the floor with her feet in the air
    Viola, relaxed
  • Viola the cat, looking on the middle distance
    Glamor shots with Viola
  • Viola napping in a desk chair
    this chair belongs to Viola and I get to borrow it sometimes
  • viola the cat lying on a comfy chair
    Viola is people
  • Viola from above
    Viola, guarding me
  • viola the cat lying on top of a comfy chair and looking at the camera
    Princess Viola
  • Viola lying on her back with her back feet propped up against the side of a desk
    Viola cooling her heels
  • Viola the cat hanging out in her carrier
    Viola embracing her carrier/fort
  • Viola the cat curled up to nap on a towel that is rolled up at the bottom of the front door
    Viola snoozing on our smoke-blocking towel
  • Viola the cat lying on the floor in the sun
    Viola, hanging out
  • Viola the cat, sitting on a pillow, reaching for a ball of yarn
    Viola trying to ruin my life
  • viola the cat, paws towards the camera
    Viola, being adorable
  • Viola the cat seated on a pillow on the sofa
    Viola in repose
  • Viola the cat, curled up and asleep on a pillow
    Viola is just glad I’m back
  • Viola curled in on herself to nap, on the couch
    Viola in ball form
  • Viola, stretching her front legs out
    Viola teleporting in on a burst of sunlight
  • Viola lounging on a shelf that holds several trophies
    Viola showing off
  • vioila lying on her side
    Viola the fluff beast
  • Viola in repose
  • Viola the cat on the floor, glaring at the camera
    Viola trying to convince us that she is evil

Last Days on Earth

  • Viola posing with a book
  • chilling on the couch
  • She always loved shoes
  • sheet washing day
  • stealing Kirk’s chair to the very end
  • on the way to the doctor
  • her last night