Now I kind of want a flaming piano...

This is either really awesome, really insane, or both. I can't decide.

I think my favorite part is OMG he did that IN THE HOUSE.

Oh, and I will be going to New York this weekend with Christi, so I will probably have gushy things to say about musicals when I get back. :)

TV news!

So, it appears James Marsters is starring in another SciFi - excuse me, SyFy - series called Three Inches. It remains to be seen whether the quality will be BSG-esque SyFy or bad B-movie-esque SyFy.

I am also still plugging away at my TV-watching project. I finished season 2 of Six Feet Under this weekend, and I kind of remembered why I didn't get through this season the first time. I mean, I still think it's a great show, but it is definitely not up to season 1's standard. I think part of it is that, although the Fisher family is as fantastic as always, I find a lot of the supporting characters to be terribly grating, especially Brenda, Lisa, Nikolai, Rico's family, and Keith's niece Taylor. I did get a huge kick out of seeing Glenn Fitzgerald as the cancer patient who forms a relationship of sorts with Nate, since he and Peter Krause played half-brothers later on in Dirty Sexy Money, and Brian was one of my absolute favorite characters on that show.

Anyway, I love Nate's fascination with and fear of death, and his desperate need to figure out the nature of life after death brought on by his medical condition. I also loved seeing Claire discovering her talent and her passion for art and Ruth being so happy to be a grandmother. As much as my enjoyment of this show comes from how fucked up the Fishers are, I really just want good things to happen to them, lol.

Since I immediately followed SFU by starting Dexter season 4, I was of course completely blown away by Michael C. Hall (again, in reverse). It's weird how he seems so much older on SFU, I guess because David is so uptight and clueless and proper and Dexter's all scruffy and, you know, a serial killer.

I'm also glad to see the end of Kroehner. I honestly felt like that subplot was played out by the end of season 1. Exchanging Gilardi for Mitzi made it more fun, but I'm tired of Fisher & Sons constantly being under siege.

Kitty Picspam

Well, Chelsea seems to be eating a bit, but still won't go near medicine, no matter how I try to disguise it as people food. Needless to say, I am feeling rather pissed/frustrated/annoyed/sadface at my kitty right now, so I thought a little picspam would remind me how cute she is when she's not spitting medicine at me. :)


Responsible kitty pays the bills.


Giving me the evil eye. Kitty doesn't like getting her picture taken.


"Note to self: Find better hiding spot."


Pillow: You're doing it wrong.


"What? It's comfortable."


The fearsome watch-cat guarding my front door.


Close-up!


Thwarting photography efforts by attacking the camera.


"No more meds or I'm staying under here!"


Well, where do you store your spare kitty?

The saga of medicating my cat

My darling little furball started sneezing on Monday, and when it hadn't gone away by Thursday, I took her to the vet. Turns out she most likely has feline herpes, and now we are going through the usual song and dance routine to get her to take her meds. I have learned from past mistakes and opted NOT for drugs in pill form when the vet gave me the options. One of them (Lysine) comes as treats, which started out okay. I put a few in her dish Thursday night and she gobbled them right up. But she's refused to eat anymore since then despite coating them in cream cheese (I dunno, it was the vet's advice), soaking them in milk, or mixing them with tuna.

Medicine number two (antibiotic), on the other hand... oy. It's a liquid that I'm supposed to feed her via dropper. The first dose wasn't so bad, once I'd bribed her with catnip so she'd even come close to me (she knows when something's up), chased her around the apartment a few times, finally tackled her and squished her between my legs while trying to pry her mouth open, and only spilled a little bit on my carpet. :\ Friday morning... well, I sort of squirted it in her face by accident (OMG NOT MY FAULT SHE WOULDN'T STOP WRIGGLING!), which makes it highly unlikely she'll ever let me try THAT again. I tried mixing this one with tuna, too, but no dice. Wouldn't even go near it. She spent most of yesterday hiding under the bed, and pretty much runs away every time I come close to her, so I'm thinking there will be no more medicating until she's less traumatized.

Meanwhile, I have been nursing a cold of my own. The sore throat started last weekend and progressed into full-on nasal congestion over the course of the week. I have gone through an obscene amount of tissues. And I'm only a little ashamed to admit that when Chelsea started sneezing, I thought, "Is it possible for cats to get human colds?" Our new nicknames are Sneezy and Sniffles.

However, I did get a new camera recently (actually, it's a hand-me-down from my parents, and my mother took the liberty of taking pictures of herself and Patches before she gave it to me. "I knew you'd want them," she said), and have been taking pictures of Chelsea being adorable, so expect another kitty picspam soon.

Mad Men and a fun link

Mad Men is not a show I typically think of as funny. I mean, it has its moments (many involving Roger Sterling), but lawnmower antics aside, most of the humor is pretty dry. Not really laugh-out-loud funny, you know?

But sometimes it just hits it dead-on.

OH DEAR GOD Pete Campbell is going to be a father.

"What the world needs is another Campbell." Ken, honey, I ROFL'd. Literally. I didn't think that actually happened in real life. I thought it was just a funny internet expression.

Also making me LOL - Don pretending there's a fire to get off the phone with Lee Garner, Jr. and Peggy peering over the divider to see into Don's office.

Speaking of which, holy shit, Allison! Don so had that coming, but I was extra amused because I just watched the Six Feet Under episode where Claire's school counselor encourages her to throw stuff to release tension and she trashes his office. :) And again, I LOL'd at the replacement Joan found - an old lady that Don won't try to sleep with (...oh, God, I hope not. There's not enough "Oh, Don" in the world for THAT).

On a more serious note, I like how they are doing things with Pete and Peggy's relationship, but it's all very subtle. I've never had any desire to see them together (plus I love Trudy too much), but I enjoy the little ways in which they relate to each other.

Also, If Historical Events Had Facebook Statuses. HILARIOUS.

TV stuff

I'm free! For two weeks, at least, now that my class is done. And my boss is on vacation for most of next week, which means lots of TV watching. I finished The Office (UK), which I have to say, got harder and harder to watch. The special was just horribly unpleasant. Definitely, definitely voting for the US version as the superior Office.

I'm now watching Six Feet Under. I'd seen season 1 before, and rewatching it reminded me of how much I LOVED IT. I love every single one of the Fishers and their fucked-up lives so very, very much. Onto season 2 now, which I started long ago, but for some reason never finished. The funny thing about it is that originally I didn't have any impressions of the actors except for Peter Krause's role on Sports Night (which I loved), but this time around, nearly everyone is from some other show. Peter Krause's now on Parenthood, Michael C. Hall's on Dexter, Rachel Griffiths is on Brothers and Sisters, and Lauren Ambrose I need to watch more of because damn, she is awesome. I was impressed with MCH's range watching Dexter, when I knew him as David, and now it's happening again in reverse. Also, I don't hate Brenda as much as I did last time around, but I still find Sarah Walker to be infinitely more tolerable.

I've also started - dun dun dun - Lost. Thus far I've seen all of season 1 and am pretty much hooked. I am trying very hard not to think that anything means anything, because I know that way leads to madness, but I can really see why people got all fanatical about that kind of stuff. If I'd been watching it as it aired, without the benefit of knowing that it's complete and utter lunacy to try, I'd probably be writing essays about all kinds of thematic and symbolic shit.

I will say, though, that I am enjoying the story qua story. I like the way they are handling the flashbacks, and the character development seems to complement the tension from everyone keeping secrets and all the scary shit on the island (seriously, there sure are plenty of ways to die on that island, aren't there? It's a freakin' death trap).

Time for another book post!

Well, another class is nearing its end, which means I've got quite a few books to add to my "read this year" list. I'm gonna try to do these more frequently, so I don't end up with a ridiculously long list like last time, lol.

1. Prairie Tale: A Memoir, by Melissa Gilbert - This was kind of disappointing. See, when I was a kid, I wanted to be Laura Ingalls SO BAD OMG, so I thought it would be really cool to read about the real person behind the character and all the behind the scenes stuff. As it turns out, Little House is only a very small part of the book, and the rest deals with her celebrity life, abusive relationships, and addictions. And frankly, her life's pretty boring. I wasn't particularly looking for a sordid Hollywood tale, but if I was, there are much more sordid ones out there.

2. The Kommandant's Girl and The Diplomat's Wife, both by Pam Jenoff - This is the same author I recommended in my last post. She's an adjunct at the law school, so my mom knows her or something, and she's come to their book club. Apparently, there's a sequel to Almost Home coming out (or already out? I'm not sure) and she's working on a third in this series.

My mom liked these books better than Almost Home. I'm undecided. They're very different. Almost Home is modern, with intelligence/spy type intrigue, whereas this series is historical fiction starting in World War II. The Kommandant's Girl is about Emma, a Jewish girl disguised as a Gentile to avoid capture, working with the Polish resistance by getting close to a high-level Nazi official who's attracted to her.

3. The Diplomat's Wife centers around Marta, Emma's friend from the resistance, who has survived the war and fallen in love with the American soldier who rescued her from Dachau. She is devastated when his plane crashes on its way to England, and ends up marrying a British diplomat, only to find that her years with the Polish resistance may be useful with the Cold War beginning.

I found both books to be really interesting and engaging. They're well-written and really evoke a sense of history. The only thing that bothered me is that Emma and Marta's character arcs are very similar. I can't really be more specific without giving stuff away, but I did at times feel like, "Oh, are we doing this again?"

The rest of them are books for class, so proceed with caution. :)

4. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, by John Kingdon - Painfully boring. Don't bother.

5. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, by Deborah Stone - This one was actually really fascinating. It probably helps if you're a political dork and interested in stuff like this, but there's a whole section that talks about "stories," and framing political arguments using literary devices and techniques like narratives, synecdoches, metaphors, and ambiguity (or polysemy). It was a cool intersection of my two interests. It's also a really great book if you like to debate, because it basically deconstructs an argument into its components, which is helpful to think about in structuring your own thoughts.

6. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, by Clay Shirky - This is another one I'd recommend for fun reading outside of class (sometimes homework CAN be fun!). It's all about the digital networking age and how the internet has made it possible for people to come together in new and unorthodox ways. He talks about things like the creation of Wikipedia (and why it's a success), the use of Twitter and Flickr in political contexts (e.g. as a way to get information out of a country with restrictive reporting), and social networking. It also raises the issue of the millenial generation's tendency to "live out loud" - how we've always had computers and that makes us more comfortable putting our entire lives out there for everyone to see.

7. The Congressional Experience, by David Price - Also really boring. Don't bother.

8. The President's Agenda, by Paul Light - Ditto.

9. Bureaucracy, by James Q. Wilson - Okay, I found this interesting, but unlike the other two, this is probably ONLY interesting to policy wonks and holds zero appeal for normal people. It's an exploration of how bureaucracies work (and why, more often than not, they don't) but its basic thesis is that no two bureaucracies are alike, and so it's a very big-picture approach with some intriguing real-life examples. But be warned - it is LONG, so skimming is definitely advised.

Food stuffs

I don't know why I decided to make pork chops. I hardly ever eat meat anymore, but I had them in the freezer and figured I ought to do something with them. I saw this marinade recipe on cooking, but I didn't write down who posted it. I'm pretty sure it was a family recipe or something.

Pork Chop Marinade

1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup cider vinegar
4 1/2 oz soy sauce
4 TB dark brown sugar
2 tsp dry mustard
1 TB oregano
1 TB thyme
2 tsp garlic

Mix it all together and let the pork marinate for around 24 hours, turning to cover it all every 2-4 hours. The recipe is for about 12 pork chops, so I ended up cutting it way down. I also didn't have any dry mustard, so I used regular mustard instead (1 tsp dry mustard = 1 TB prepared mustard, I looked it up!). I baked the pork chops in the oven, but you can cook them any way you like. The marinade was really tasty, tangy and sweet. I ended up freezing the leftovers, since I didn't want to eat meat too many days in a row. Hopefully it'll still taste good later!

Now that broccoli is an "only for special occasions" food, asparagus has become my new go-to green vegetable. I also, on a whim, bought goat cheese at the supermarket (they had free samples! Wave something in front of me and I will buy it!) and so I decided to make this Creamy Fettuccine with Asparagus recipe from my cookbook. It was pretty yummers. One thing I will say, though, is that one cup of pasta water was too much - I ended up draining it out because it was so soupy (and then of course I had to add more cheese and mustard because I'd drained most of that with the water).

Another thing I've really been wanting to try is risotto. I actually bought arborio rice a while ago, but didn't have any specific ideas to use it. On a whim (are you starting to see how I shop? lol) I'd bought some scallops and I decided they might go well together. Here's the recipe for the risotto, which was on the back of the rice container:

1 cup uncooked rice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt and pepper

1. Saute onion in oil and butter for 3 minutes.
2. Add rice, stirring for about 2 minutes.
3. Stir in 1 cup of broth. Continue cooking and stirring until liquid is absorbed.
4. Gradually stir in remaining broth 1 cup at a time, cooking and stirring until liquid is absorbed before adding the next cup.

Yields approximately 3 cups cooked rice.

Since this was all rather spur of the moment, I didn't have any onion, so I just threw the rice in with the butter and oil and went from there. Also, probably the ideal would've been to use fish stock with scallops, but since I didn't have any, I used half chicken and half beef stock (apparently, now that I don't really eat beef anymore, I can make do with beef-flavored rice, lol). I sauteed the scallops like I usually do, then deglazed the pan with a splash of white wine and added both scallops and wine to the risotto when it was just about done cooking. Mmmmm yummy in my tummy. Maybe next time, if I actually plan ahead, I might do something more adventurous with the risotto.