Just a quick update to say that nothing interesting has happened, apart from Cameron having his wisdom teeth removed yesterday. We couldn't figure out why he was so uncomfortable when I had a perfectly easy time. And then Mom and I realized that I received two Valiums along with the general injection and anesthetic. No wonder I remember the procedure so fondly.

Cam is up and about today. Puffiness is pretty funny. He looked like a chipmunk this morning which is amusing in itself. Now he's lopsided and one half of his face looks like Marlon Brando in The Godfather

And yes I realize that I'm missing an opportunity by not sticking a quotation in the subject line.

Would someone like to tell me what I was doing last semester that didn't include looking for jobs. Did practicing for my GRE and paleography really take up that much of my time? And Twitter. I suppose we can blame that for a major loss in productivity.

The past couple of days have featured a whirlwind of activity in job searching plus trying to get some research accomplished. The private school that I was highly interested in filled its opening a few days ago. I figured that would be the case because I took so long, but I am still a wee bit dissapointed. On the upside they have my CV on file and there is always the 2010/11 school year to consider. Florida State College and St. Johns Community College have my application under review. It's only a matter of them contacting me for an interview. This morning I filled out applications for a historian's position in the park service as well as any ranger position in the Southeast. It's an interesting experience I can tell you although I'm still not sure how I'm coming across. "Hi, I have two advanced degrees in history plus experience in education and working with people. I am pretty sure I can explain a coquina fort to a class of third graders." I'm not trying to be glib because I know the job would require more than that, but on the whole I'm pretty sure I can handle it.

Internet, tonight I cooked and consumed the best potatoes in the entire world. I kid you not. I might try potato dishes for the rest of my life and will never happen upon something as wonderful as this. This beats McDonald's french fries back when they still fried them in beef tallow.*

Yeah. They're that good.

Crash Hot Potatoes

Just marvel over that name for a minute. The boldness of it. It alerts you to the fact that these are not just any mashed or soft potatoes covered in cheese. Not shredded and and then fried on hot oil. But something new and fresh. Not really much of a surprise that the recipe comes from Australia is it? However the above link goes to The Pioneer Woman not our Australian mastermind. But this is perfectly okay as PW not only gives you the recipe but walks you through the process. Also she seems pretty fabulous herself. I spent most of the afternoon and evening reading Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, her multi-entry narrative on how she met her current husband. Good reading to go along with the good eating.

Back to the eating. I only cooked four red potatoes for a dinner of three but they were more than enough. And rather than drizzling the pan generously, I just brushed the whole pan down to allow for as much crunchiness as possible. I only have experience boiling cut potatoes, not whole potatoes and even after almost 20 minutes, they still weren't soft enough. We also don't have a potato masher (Mashed potatoes are made with a hand mixer like the good General Electric intended.) so I acted on PW's observations and used a glass. Coupled with the fact that the potatoes weren't soft enough and that the glass has no traction, my potatoes didn't end up looking like the picture. I had to cut them apart with a knife and then attempted mashing with a whisk. On the plus side this did mean that smaller pieces of potato crisped up nicely in the excess oil. Tomorrow when I try this dish again with meatloaf, not only will I cook the potatoes longer but I'll also look for something in the kitchen to produce a more uniform "smash."

Shape aside, these are the most marvelous potatoes I have put in my mouth. Mom and I were talking after dinner (and consuming the last potato) that you just can't decide what part is your favorite. The crispy crunchy outside or the soft creamy inside highlighted by liberal amount of kosher salt. A delicious quandary.




* Julia Child has my back on this.

I went out for dinner with Jamye and Jennifer last night for our monthly bull session and then later we stopped by to visit Kim who is under the weather. Ended up watching . . . Help for Haiti? Yes. So we watched that with a mixture of humor and deference. I eamn, yes it's very good that celebreties who have a lot of media power among the public are encouraging donations, but:

• Did all the women get their false eyelashes out of the same Brand X box?

• What it attacking the men's faces? Although in Sparkles' case I give him a pass. Rock the hobo look for your self-preservation.

• Couldn't the writers do a better job tweaking the lyrics to Halo?

• Clearly Rihanna, Bono, and Jay-Z need to team up more often.

• Shakira your hips lied to me. I had no idea it was you until the end.

Many of these comments and more were uttered in the earshoot of Kim's 12 year old nephew who offered observances on Christina Agulara's choice in hair and then made up nicknames for the rest of us. I am now to be known as Grins and Giggles.

And in even more frivoulous news, my new boots arrived today!

Yesterday's Horoscope: You have to accept a slow morning -- but the good news is that things shift in a big way by midafternoon! You should make more progress than you would have believed possible in just a few hours.

A few weeks ago when I battled insomnia, I ended up unplugging my alarm clock and tucking it in the closet. The brightness from the led lights and whatever moonlight was available made my room unpleasantly bright at night, and this was with the dimmer switch turned on the clock. I'm pretty sure that if I turned that on to full brightness I would divert planes away from the airport. Consequently without a clock in my room I've pretty much lost track of time altogether, not getting up until 8 or 9 in the morning, which isn't an ideal time for someone trying to enter the workforce. Solution? Program my cell phone alarm for 7am. Result? Somehow mangage to turn the alarm off and go back to sleep for another hour. Ooops. But in my defense I had to stick with that dream and figure out why the shapeshifting rhinoceros/alligator kept poking the hunter with a claw to hurt him when really the obvious was to gore/rip him to pieces. But that's animation for you, it never makes logical sense.

In spite of the slow morning I did manage to swing by JU to request my transcripts, pickup diploma and transcripts from UNF, do a bit of paleography, and get some good news regarding a position at a private school.

And in thoroughly frivolous news one of the blogs I read recommended clothing retailer eSkakti. Quite a few of their items remind me of the level of detailing found in Anthropologie but at a significantly lower price. Plus they do custom made tailoring for a small fee. Love this dress and I could get the skirt hemmed higher to compensate for my short legs.L

I knocked out two more readings for class on Wednesday, including the one where I have to give a mini-mini presentation which also happens to be a historian I dislike. Pretty sure I framed my talking notes in a way that displays criticism without being immature about it. I might not like her research but she does have a longer list of publications than I do.

Off to go window shopping.

So despite everyone getting flu shots, cold and flu season has desended upon the household. I'm fighting off a cold that started last Monday and Cameron just come down with a fever and chills.

I think it took me 20 minutes just to write that sentence. I actually look pretty good, but blowing my way through two boxes of tissues has left me a little on the slow side.

Off shopping with Mom this afternoon to top of the rest of my winter break and her long New Year's weekend. We just could not figure out why the Town Center was so packed that it resembed the day after Christmas rather than a normal Saturday afternoon. It took almost a dozen people wearing West Virginia garb before we realized that we were looking at Gator Bowl tourists. In Jacksonville you really don't notice the FSU logo after a while. Although it does make a nice contrast from the constant onslaught of orange and blue.

(Tomorrow I'll awaken to an egged house just for typing that.)

After tending to my own business I met up with Mom in Banana Republic. "Well I found the jeans," she said in greeting. "The Not Your Daughter's Jeans."

"So how did they do?"

One hundred and ninety-eight dollars she mouthed.

"So they really weren't your daughter's jeans," I laughed.

"Yeah I thought you'd get a kick out of that."

Written in Word 7 hours ago.

Great. I spent some time yesterday downloading documents from Pares to work on through the weekend, to make up for not doing a lick of work all month and just now realized that I downloaded the wrong size. It’s too small to be enlarged manually and I only saved about 13 pages so it’s not that big of a deal to redo it, if I had an internet connection. But for the next three hours I’ll be here at Grandmother’s until Cameron and I leave to go to church around the corner. Then home and all the nighttime rituals so essentially I’ve lost the entire day. And I already started the day in a foul mood. It’s rainy, I have my period, and all I wanted to do was stay home and be left alone but here I am, stuck in that awkward situation of being in a bad mood but not being able to tell anyone about it because heaven forbid you hurt their feelings by not doing whatever it is they want to do.
Damn hormones. I simultaneously want to slap myself for being such a whiny bitch and feel like I’m entitled to bitch. Maybe I should emulate Cameron and take a nap.

Happy New Year?

( Cut for a fricken huge picture )

As for tomorrow my plans include a little bit of working and then possible leaving the house for a few hours. I'm not big on New Year's Eve parties or resolutions. The former are never that enjoyable and the later just seem like an exercise in futility.

Santa placed a pedometer in my stocking this year that not lonly tracks my distance but how many calories I burn in an exercise segment. I walked 1.7 m (rather shorter than I thought this segment measured out to) and burned a grand total of 174.8 calories. So according to my mental calculations, I probably worked off, maybe, a third of my dinner. One third. Maybe one third. Maybe I only worked off one piece of bread.

I think I need to take up jogging.

95% of all Christmas preparation is completed. Cookies baked, ham purchased (apparently I picked up a pork roast the first time), presents wrapped, church attended, and some stockings hung from various places with very much care. We've never owned a fireplace so hanging stockings was always an act of creativity and an attempt to manipulate physics, ("Look we'll just lay everything against a section of sofa because we've overstuffed them all.") unless we spent Christmas Eve with the Grandparents Webb who owned a proper fire place and mantel. I'm currently stretched out in bed, banished from the living room until tomorrow morning.

Service was . . . interesting. Of course most of it was pretty formulaic, the Episcopal apple does not fall far from the Catholic tree, but I really like the beauty of the ritual. I can't say that I was a major fan of the sermon. I understood the message that the priest was trying to get across, but the way we got there and then the other implied messages just didn't work for me. She began by describing the Christmas of her childhood, spent in upstate New York in her grandmother's large house, the total Pottery Barn deal and her lack of fulfillment. The let down after the presents are opened, the uncomfortable feeling from a heavy dinner, and then just feeling cranky for the rest of the day because why does she feel so empty? And then she starts talking about the current Christmas story that she's reading her five year old son, about how Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are all happy and glowing with joy. Isn't it just this perfect fantasy?

"Did you know that more suicides occur on Christmas than any other day of the year?"

( Talk about a curve ball. )

On a slightly lighter note. Do they offer voice lessons in seminary? Because my God that woman could sing and chant in a lovely alto.

But nothing along the mad cap style of Thanksgiving. I've just finished the bathrooms and vacuming while Mom did the dusting. I'll do a quick run through on Thursday but other than that I'm pretty much done. The main difficulty when it comes to the house for Christmas is the tree, an item that has proven troublesome in the past and is the subject for the next entry. I would have talked about it last week when I decorated but there's something about this break that seems to be sucking brain cells out of me right and left. Maybe I should go easier on the hard cider.

Still waiting for one lone package but the rest of my shopping is complete. Mom and Dad spent the afternoon out as Dad can't concieve shopping for a gift more than a week beforehand. And of course there is the post-shopping tradition of teasing me with gift possibilities.

"I bought you a mink coat and boots," she said rooting around in the linen closet.

"Even though I'm against cruelty to animals?" I replied. Cruelty that does not include delicious delicious food.

"Colleen, they were suicidal mink. There's nothing you could have done."

The other day I had a dream featuring ninepointfivemm, a few other friends, and the cast of Night Court. We were on a cruise and everyone decided wouldn't it be fun to get dressed up in our ball gowns and fancy feather masks? I was a little reluctant to do so but once Dream Colleen saw her awesome scarlet mask she was a go. Night Court cast was pretty unenthusiastic and they faded away while the rest of decided that since we were all decked out and the night was young this would be a perfect time to go to Sawgrass and play golf.



And then I woke up so I can't tell you if we traded in our fancy shoes for golf shoes or not. But I thought this presented an interesting opportunity*, why not go play golf in a fancy ball gown? I mean when was the last time you wore a gown? Never/far too long ago? Exactly! And really it's a lot of work to get a ball organized so why can we just incorporate the gowns into other every day activities. Play golf in a gown! Go on a picnic in a gown! Jump in a public fountain in a gown! Obviously whatever you do needs to be an interesting outdoor activity. Going to the grocery store in a gown just isn't the same.



*To say nothing of the opportunity that did not present itself. Why was there no sexing by John Larroquette? Why?!

Shortly before Thanksgiving I went cold turkey off my anti-depressant because I'm an idiot. I am an idiot who convinced herself that she could skip a few days while she finished her semester and then hop back on. An idiot who didn't look at possible withdrawel symptoms. And an idiot who forgot just how intensely unhappy she was without the medication.

But a happier idiot with a four month supply.

A happier idiot who saw a YAK!

A YAK! In someone's front yard! Eating grass! A YAK! Living on a small cattle farm. I didn't know there was a cattle exchange program.

Paleography project is printed out and ready to be turned in. One document is awesome and the other is awful. I do not care. Okay I'm lying through my teeth because there is a little part of me that is very angry that I was not able to beat this thing into submission. But I am tired and simply cannot pull anything else out of this. I am just auditing the class. This is not a big deal.

Quiz tonight before I can finally kick back for the rest of the month. A month that will involve a little a bit of paleography, but only a very little bit.

It's December! I mean yes I know we just finished Thanksgiving and I went to Target for ornaments today but OMG! December!

PS NECA Jacob action figure was hanging out in the dollar bins. Clearly Team Edward had stormed the store. Sadly I couldn't find the display so I could ogle the Alice figure. She have a lot of fun with Blanche designing clothes and emailing Chaucer

Making myself put aside the paleography for the night so I can get some sleep. It'll still be there in the morning. Those little bolded and underlined notes taunting me in my transcriptions. "You don't know what we are. You don't know what we are."

Mom is puttering in the kitchen while I'm watching Food Network rand glances up at the current commercial. "I am not buying you a kindle this year."

"Well good because I don't want one."

"Really? .. she says surprised." Why not?"

"I like books."

"Are you making a statement?"

"No, I just like books."

"You like trees so much you want them on your bookshelves."

"Exactly."

"Have a forest in your house."

It's all fine and good to wear your loosest fitting pants on Thanksgiving, but your stomach will only expand so far and never far enough. Granted if it extended any farther I'd be on my third helping of dressing and gravy. I planned to be good and not have the second helping, but you can never plan on the turkey:dressing ratio to work out correctly.

We had a really simple lunch today with my paternal grandparents. Turkey, dressing, and three vegetable sidedishes with Nana bringing an apple pie. Although you wouldn't think we had planned such a simple get together from all the cleaning I've done this month. I doubt that anyone really inspected the grout to see just how well I scrubbed or how the wood floors gleamed. And I know for certain that no one removed cushions from the sofa to investigate my dusting of parts that don't show. So yeah, I probably went over board but at least the idea that there is hidden dust all over the house won't bother me until March.

There was sleep last night. Sleep! Glorious sleep that lasted until the nine o'clock hour this morning. Good thing all I needed to do today was sit down with paleography and do some laundry.

Now back to work and convincing Paige that is is really not supper time.