Just write something, anything

I have been a bit stuck and unwilling to post to my blog, although I have written several posts in my head. Sadly, thinking about writing is not the same as writing. Otherwise I would be the author of several bestsellers and award-winning films.

I wish I could turn my brain off, but most of the time I am not only writing my autobiography, I am figuring out the soundtrack as well, and wondering who should play my character. And as the days progress, I am almost wishing someone would pick a fight or push me over the edge because it would make such a great story. (Go ahead, just splash me with your car so I'm wet from head to toe. Make my day. I'll put your license number in my blog.) This all makes it hard to carry on a conversation sometimes.


But let's start with my most comfortable topic, what I'm making right now, and if other topics make it in here today, so be it. I am quite pleased with my newest doll-in-progress, which came about because of a class with Barbara Schoenfeld. I liked her for a couple of reasons. 1) She is talented; 2) She had an asymetrical haircut; 2) She livened things up by posing a question to the group (on the second day, after she got to know us) along the lines of, "If you had a free pass from your husband, who would you sleep with?"

Now, I am one of the youngest in the group here, and let's just say not everyone was onboard with this "Red Tent" talk. So for that reason alone it was fascinating to watch the group's reaction. Meanwhile, I was scrabbling to find something to write with because there seemed to be so many possibilities I had not even heard of. After Hugh Jackman and the new James Bond guy, I was stumped. Not these girls! And this demonstrates, I think, a telling difference between dollmakers and say, quilters. Woo hoo!

Which brings up a short aside - the homework for this class was to have the body parts sewed and stuffed, and running short of time as I always am, I decided to bring the body parts to my daughter's football game and get them stuffed while I watched the game. Genius! Play with dolls and be perfect attentive mom too!


So the leg in question is pictured here. Halfway through the game, Jessica comes bounding up the stadium stairs, in her microscopic cheerleading outfit and a furrowed brow, demanding to know what I'm doing. "Three people have asked me what the heck my mom is doing in the stands." She even said that the cheerleading sponsor said her husband was no longer watching the game because he couldn't keep his eyes off of what I might be doing.


For the record, I was STUFFING a damn leg with a stuffing fork. I don't know what he thinks I was doing. As I think back, I am wondering what I was thinking. I remember my husband making a couple of rude remarks suggesting I put the thing away, but heck, I don't ever think his idea of reasonable behavior is trustworthy when this is a guy who pees off the backporch at home.

I think I thought it was like being in my car, where everyone knows you are invisible. In looking at the leg, I considered that it might be misconstrued, but I thought, aw, people will surely understand this is a very shapely man's leg, I have a doll class tomorrow, and give me the benefit of the doubt and besides, I really need to get this done. It strikes me now that I understand why the couple sitting nearby (whom we have known for years) did not even say TWO WORDS to us the entire time.

So I can't WAIT for the next football game tomorrow night. Apparently half the spectators on the Waltrip side will be waiting to see what I'll pull out of my bag. The very idea. p.s. Patrick Swayze and Shelley Long both graduated from Waltrip. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.


Anyway. So I like this doll because it's the first time I made a guy, and I like that he's rather fat (even if does look a bit like a headless chicken or turkey right now), and I like that there's a lot of pattern and layers to his costume. I actually planned the color palette before I started on him, because I am less and less inclined to be comfortable just winging it. I want things to look like they belong together, not like I cast blindly into my stash and came out with a fistful of possibilities (which is my usual approach).

I love his little moustache, (which he DEMANDED I add) and I think he's Italian. For now, anyway, I am toying with the name Mauricio. Barbara's version is much more stately. My darling little children think he looks like a baker.

So tomorrow, my goal is to finish his vests and jacket and maybe attach his head. But none of this will happen at the football game. They'll think I'm doing something weird with a turkey. Sickos.

Love & kisses, m

Sue Sylvester: my new Chuck Norris

I know, I know - where does the time go? School started is what happened. If it's not a history fair, it's an algebra problem I can't solve or a lunch to pack. Thank God my kids learned to forge my signature so I don't have to sign their agendas and permission slips anymore.

I wanted to introduce you to my new favorite character: the indomitable Sue Sylvester - a woman who is never wrong. Watch her yourself on Glee on Wednesday nights. Glee is a mostly hilarious musical comedy (if you can get past the lip synching).


Although no one can replace Chloe on 24 in my heart, I'm making room for Sue and her swell Adidas tracksuits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGtRO9MpGGo

July/August Book Report

To start, I think Eat, Pray, Love should maybe have stopped at Eat. It was pure joy to imagine going to Italy for months on end with the single-minded idea that your purpose is simply to enjoy the food, learn a beautiful language and take a nap every day. Plus, it looked like author Elizabeth Gilbert had a sense of humor and humility and so what if she was a little annoying from time to time. I mean, everyone gets on your nerves after a few days of travel, right?


When I mentioned to others that I was reading the book, though, I was unprepared for how many people h-a-t-e-d it. This was unusual. Especially for a book with "Pray" and "Love" in the title. How bad could it be? But K from college asked me if I was listening to it (nope, just reading it), and then said I would want to kill myself if I heard this woman's whining voice for just five minutes. "And when she goes to the ashram and she's scrubbing the floor, you'll just want to start screaming at your iPod."

"I couldn't believe how self-absorbed she was," said one woman I don't know very well (and who probably thinks I'm really self-absorbed because that hadn't even occurred to me at that point in the book). "I had to stop reading," said another. Man. I thought the author was funny, but then I was still in the "Eat" phase.

In "Pray," in India, I thought it was pretty cool to spend a lot of time in silence and have a guru and all, and I could actually envision myself doing this some day, although my 'monkey mind' would require a lot more training before I wouldn't feel like an absolute fraud. And truthfully, the idea of spending my days scrubbing the floor endlessly actually does appeal to me, as does folding laundry and moving boxes from here to there and back again. I need the mental r-e-s-t after all.

But then "Love" in Indonesia. Stop by on vacation a few years early, meet a medicine man and then tell him you'll be back in a couple of years. It could happen. But this was the most suspicious part - as she ended up f-a-l-l-i-n-g in love, and then come to find out, they got married and it's the subject of her next book. I dunno. Plus she seemed to give herself a ton of credit for not sleeping with anyone for a year (clap clap clap i guess). Clarification: she did not marry the medicine man, but another guy.

Anyway, I liked the way the book was organized, according to prayer beads in sections of three's and how it is all linked to the Catholic rosary. Good stuff, and I do love symmetry and order. But in the end, ** out of *****, and not just because I'm jealous that she got a friggin' book contract just for being whiny (and often funny) and goofing off for a year. How do I get that gig?


Now earlier I had said I was reading The Long Walk Home by Will North (because I liked the cover) but I didn't think I would finish it because it was a little too romance novel-y for me. Plus, it was written by a guy but from a woman's point of view, and um, I just can't take that seriously. (I'm sexist that way, especially when we're dealing with what a woman thinks is h-o-t.) But I DID finish it, mainly because I needed a counterpoint to Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & INcredibly Close book about a very interesting little kid whose dad died in 9/11. (More on that later.)

Now, clearly, the author of The Long Walk Home was a little more interested than I was in raising sheep. I mean, jeez, I think I could now deliver a lamb based on the details he provided, and clearly he is an American who wishes he was Welsh - I can almost feel his itchy sweater giving me hives from here. He gives all indications of being a Celtic wanna-bee. Which is somehow discouraging to me. All the same, when he introduces the daughter to the mix and how the mother has to navigate through her daughter's love life on top of her own "unexpected feelings" plus the DDT poisoning that has made an invalid out of her husband, I thought it was getting halfway interesting. The author does resolve everything satisfactorily and credibly.

But p.s. that is also a little too much detail about hypothermia, buddy, and just maybe, I woulda kicked the guy off the ledge just to get rid of him for good, poisoned or not. (** out of *****) p.p.s. this Will North is probably one of those guys who had a crush on you and you wished you loved him (cause he's so sensitive and you could always count on his endless love) but instead you dump him and go for the bad boy.


Now, I liked this kid Oskar Schell in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close very much. He reminds me a bit of Owen Meany, John Irving's creation and one of my all-time favorite characters. Quirky doesn't begin to cover it. His use of "What The?", his letters to Stephen Hawking, his "quest" to find the lock to a key he's found, his forthright 'can I kiss you' to an attractive older woman - it's brilliant. I am also glad to see someone writing about 9/11 and including all the bits that I have thought and wondered to myself over the years. And also, in the end, I am glad to feel like Oskar Schell will be alright.


What ISN'T alright with me is the juxtaposition of the grandmother's story and the whole bombing of Dresden thing. How much tragedy and unbearable suffering can one book offer? The grandfather is struck dumb and can't speak. TRAGIC. He marries the grandmother because she is the sister of the woman he loved and lost in Dresden. EVEN WORSE. Holey moley. ENOUGH! I need a little more redemption in mankind.


Aside from that, I think the book should be required reading in high school. (**** out of *****) Along with The Kite Runner. I can see the syllabus now.

Which brings me to Bob Schieffer's This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV audiobook. I enjoyed this very much - as his career basically spans my lifetime and I recognize all the "players." Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, etc. The guy l-o-v-e-s politics, and that alone is interesting to me, as I thoroughly hate politics and can't imagine the fascination. But it was interesting to me in the same way Charlie Wilson's War was interesting to me, that is, public perception versus reality. How people are always looking to believe in something. How images are manipulated. Fascinating stuff.

I don't know why, but it's comforting to have people like old Bob around. I know, I know, he's kind of hokey and old-fashioned, but he seems trustworthy.

From a technical standpoint, I can't believe how quickly they pulled stories together - how fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants it all was/is. All Bob's experiences with the various presidents - I liked hearing all that stuff, and it confirms, as apolitical as I am, that Gerald Ford is my favorite underrated president. He pardoned Nixon and in effect doomed his own political career for an unpopular decision made for the good of the country. Plus I always loved Betty.

Bizarrely, I had no idea how many reporters were from Texas. This cracks me up, as Yankees generally think they invented the world.

Anyway, Bob starts with President Johnson and ends with 9/11. Well-told, good pace and interesting, although I didn't much care about CBS and network battles. Sounds too much like work. (*** out of *****)

At the same time, I was listening to A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. Obviously the author is gay, as any hot scene between gay people had fireworks out the kazoo, and any straight scene went something like this: "He kissed her. The next morning..."


60ish man is having a 'spot of bother' or going a little crackers, convinced that eczema is cancer and tries to cut it off with scissors. Meanwhile, his wife of 30 years is having an affair with his old officemate, and their daughter is getting remarried, this time to a guy they are all convinced is from the wrong side of the tracks, despite the fact that they are far from being on the right side of the tracks.

(The fiancee's accent is very northern England, which I guess is a bad thing if you are from southern England). The wildcard is the gay brother, who can't manage to tell his partner he loves him and subsequently loses him over a row about going to the sister's upcoming wedding.


It's all about love and families of course, and how you never quite get what you need from them all the time and how that is okay in the end. The bloke that the sister marries is great - the wedding scene is tremenously well done. This book is from the same guy who wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time...

Hope that wasn't too long. Up next: Do-over by Robin Hemley; When You Are Engulfed by Flames by David Sedaris; and What Are You Optimistic About by John Brockman. Over and out.

This was supposed to be a Book Report

I asked my pal Neva [ who is practically famous and if you don't believe me check out the 12, yes 12 pages in the current issue of Art Doll Quarterly ] on a girl date to see the movie Julie and Julia because it had chick-flick written all over it. Very fun, I give it A FOUR STAR (OUT OF FIVE) rating. And psychologically I am almost over the fact that someone wanted to make Julie Powell's blog into a book and then someone else like Nora Ephron wanted to make it into a movie. [Photo of the real Julie swiped from MSNBC]

Texas-born Julie Powell had a solid, swell idea. To make every single recipe in the Joy of Cooking and blog about it. I like these ideas where people make commitments like "one piece of art a day for a year" or "one art doll a month" no matter what and stick to it. It gives a girl structure and a deadline. I suspect these are the same people who make New Year's resolutions. I can never settle on a resolution that feels right for me. Just as I had difficulty naming my kids and figuring out a quote for my yearbook picture. I choke when I have to commit.

That said, I never really liked Julia Child. Frankly, I thought she was dowdy and dull, but I like Meryl Strep's Julia and I like Julia's husband and their supportive but not sickening marriage. Julia is endearing and mischievous. Heck, I might even buy Mastering the Art of French Cooking and make a holladaise sauce.


Don't want to spoil your own movie nirvana, but let me just say I was happy to see my professional idol Chloe O'Brian (from the show 24) aka Mary Lynn Rajskub cast as the best friend. Julie: "So am I a bitch?" Chloe: "Well, ye-ah. I mean, we all are."


SIDEBAR: I was a Graham Kerr/Galloping Gourmet fan. And in fact, my third grade teacher sent him a story I had written wherein I was a green pea on his show (when Graham Kerr ate a pea, it was like that Meg Ryan "I'll have what she's having" scene in Sleepless in Seattle - peas were that good. So it was in my story where some single pea was buttered and blissfully digested (uh huh). I remember receiving a personal response, which encouraged me to "slosh around in the kitchen" as soon as my mother would let me. God bless people who answer kids' letters. Turns out Graham Kerr is still cooking, but not "sloshing" the wine around anymore. He and his wife found Jesus and lost the wine, butter and cream. Amen.

A la carte - So offspring3 wakes up practically trembling from a nightmare. I'm all "it's over now, let's just flush that dream right down the toilet, mommy's here" but she insists on recounting the terrifying details.

Offspring3: "You were PREGNANT. It was DISGUSTING. And people KNEW you were pregnant."

Me: Yeah, that scares me too.

OS3: I never want another sibling, you KNOW that right? I NEVER want another little PERSON in the family [shudders violently].

Me: Well, um, yeah, well...

OS3: And I'm really mad about it, okay?

Me: [For a half a nanosecond I wish I was pregnant with twins.] I can see that.

OS3: Thank God you are soooo menopausal. And dad is fixed, right? TELL ME you got him fixed.

She b-a-c-k! From Budapest, no less!

See what Cordelia has been up to this summer!!!!! http://www.cordelias-adventures.blogspot.com
What, you don't know Cordelia? She's a real doll, just 16 inches tall, and she wants to see the world. Past visits: NYC, Paris, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and now Budapest and Vienna. Still to come: Savannah and London.

Lucky daze

You might remember that several weeks ago I tossed a bottle into the ocean [otherwise known as posting a message here] with this basic message: "I am lonely and blue. Please help." And damned if J didn't come winging in from Jacksonville!!!! And anyone who comes to Houston in July willingly is a FRIEND of all FRIENDS!

[Now I am thinking, hey, what if I write, "I want to go to Paris." Will someone take me there? I am clicking my heels three times right now: I WANT TO GO TO PARIS or anywhere else where there is no laundry or lawns to water.]

Besides herself, she brought me books! Extremely loud & incredibly close by Jonathan Safran Foer and City of Thieves by David Benioff [which will be covered in my July book report]. And She-Monkey, which I made for J last year, which she brought along all dressed-up.



I took her to the TAODA doll artist club meeting, I took her to the Heights (19th St.) for some of my favorite things: Jubilee and Crickets Creamery and Colina's for pizza. We almost went to Phantom of the Opera, but instead we bought gouda cheese and wine (Verget Macon Villages 2007 - $15 at Specs) and watched, I am ashamed to say, Ultimate Fight Club and Jackass 2 late into the night.



If anyone told me that me and my school chum (and Husband1, two offspring and dogs) would be watching a guy put a sock on his banana and stick it in a hole for a snake to bite, I woulda said, "I think we have better things to do, thank you very much" but it happened. Husband1 posing next to his Ultimate Fight Club hero.





Thankfully Wayne did not eat her underwear or pee in her duffel bag. Harley was almost downright friendly and Sally was her usual wary self. And the girls weren't bad either.


Husband1 demonstrated his dog training methods. Here he is singing, "I Gotta Dog His Name is Blue," while Wayne floats alongside. In this way, he hopes to teach Wayne not to jump up on people.

We are now monogramming towels with J's initials and holding a spot at the kitchen table for her NEXT visit, which is bound to be very soon indeed.


After J left, I shipped She-Monkey off to Rhode Island as my stand-in for the real reunion. Hope they have fun but not that much fun.

Stay-cation!

I'm on a "stay-cation" this week. My mission is to chill out, enjoy the 100-degree days and get my laundry done. But oops, we had a little dryer mishap and I can't restart the dryer unless I want to barbecue the house. The appliance gods have been called.

So I am playing like I stay home all the time and Husband1 goes off to work, even though he works in an office 20 paces from the backdoor. The first three days of this staycation I barely managed to get dressed. But now, I think I can stay awake for more than four hours at a time.



Witness this dinner: spaghetti and meatballs from scratch (with a small romaine and avocado salad) and strawberry shortcake.

[Okay, so I lied. These are actually from two different days. The strawberry shortcake was dinner for the Fourth of July for color reasons, and the spaghetti was yesterday for no reason.]



On strawberry shortcake. The cake shouldn't be too sweet or cake-y, in contrast to the sweetness of the strawberries. Hence, the biscuit approach, which is from "The New Basics Cookbook," written by those SilverPalate gals Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins before Julee's father had a heart attack and she got religion and published A Fresh Start.

DISAPPOINTMENT. I am measuring flour for the slightly sweet biscuits and Husband1 says, "You know what would be really good? If we used Twinkies instead," and he is serious. Based on this alone, I don't think we will ever be featured on the eharmony.com commercial.

Anyway, I didn't go all out with the whipped cream from scratch because I didn't want the calories. I used reduced fat Cool Whip. But if you came over, I'd use the real stuff because food = love and I love using beaters anyway.

I did use half wheat/half white flour for these (the flour already comes this way), which I think makes them taste better but those same teensy weensy flecks of wheat that I love only make my family suspicious of anything I set in front of them. Oh, and shake up the baking powder. I read it on the can.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MEATBALLS. Meatballs are serious to an Italian girl, and I make them from a recipe {if you call it that} from my mom along with some tips from the Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook by Ina Garten. Ina is fat, so it makes sense to trust her with stuff that tastes good.



Things I have learned: I didn't realize that you only have to brown the meatballs; for years I thought they had to be cooked through at this stage. Nope, that's what the simmering all day is for, and a crockpot works well for this. Meatballs should not be the size of baseballs.
They should be smaller than pingpong balls but bigger than marbles. If you go half-sies with ground turkey and ground round, no one will know. If you use fresh breadcrumbs (couple of spins in the food processor), the meatballs are a lot fluffier and do not resemble small rocks or turds. When making the sauce, you might saute a little onion, right? Well, I sautee a little onion, celery and carrots in a little olive oil and garlic, and I do this because, you guessed it, I didn't have a damn onion, but I DID have one of the those frozen meal-starter veggie groupings, and it worked great. When everything was softened, I added a little merlot (or any red wine alcohol) and after it boiled off, I threw it all in the crockpot along with a 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes, some kosher salt, pepper and a smeck of nutmeg. I used some of that whole-wheat penne pasta and no one complained. Of course, by the time this was finished, there were only three people to eat it, one of whom shared that she didn't really feel like spaghetti and gave half to the dog. Still, I feel like a champ. And not just because I left a big mess for my offspring to clean up.

PS: {If you think I should include actual recipes here, tell me and I will, but I can't really believe someone would be that interested so I haven't done it.}

Today I might use the vacuum cleaner or take clothes to the cleaners. Then again, I could fold clothes and put them away. It's all so new!