Attention All Haters: Billy Ocean Is A Badass

We're going camping (in a tent this time), and we'll be back Sunday night. Have a nice weekend, y'all!

Does Your Desk Drawer Look Like Mine?

Apartment Therapy's Fall Cure starts Wednesday, September 5. Read the book this weekend and join in.

I Have The Best Friends In The World

I had an AWESOME birthday! Pictured above is some of my haul: liquor, candy, flowers, sex toys, fake hair and cake. I'm the luckiest girl in the world! Thanks, everybody!

An Abecedary of ...

… ways you can celebrate this most auspicious occasion:
MY BIRTHDAY!

Avoid work
Buy yourself something nice
Cooooooookkkkiiiiiiieeeeeee
Don’t make your bed
Eat lunch with your mom
Food fight!
Gluttony
Holler back in the comments
Ice cream for dinner
Jump on the trampoline
Karaoke ;-)
Lust
Margaritas
Nudity
O – the big one
Parades
Quiet time
Read blogs all day
Sloth
wrap a house in T.p.
skip the Underwear
Voodoo
Wear your favorite shoes
don’t do anything hard, like think of a word that starts with X
harvest the blood of a Youngster
Zamboni races

Things Papi Chulo Is Never Allowed To Say To Me Again, Volume I

"So when you go out with your friends, you're the Bluto, right?"

What E&B are...

Reading

Watching (I'll see those four in Hell.)

Whining about tonight:
E -- the new, one-hour daily limit on video games. But that's all I like to do!
B -- not being fed a saucer of milk on the floor. But I'm a kitty cat!

First Day Picture

Big News

Okay, I'm through being sad. Here's the big big big big news: The El Orbits are going to play our Fall Festival! For free! This morning I met Tomás Escalante, lead singer of The El Orbits and owner of Sig's Lagoon (according to the Houston Press, the best record store in Houston). It turns out Tomás' kids go to school at Oak Forest, too. Can you believe how lucky we are?

Gotta stop hyperventilating.

*He drops his kids off at school in a tiki-themed Art Car. For reals.

La Rentrée

So today is Becca's first day of kindergarten, which means that they are both in school now. I thought I would be happy.

Be Prepared

Living on the Gulf Coast means living with the occasional threat of hurricanes. One way to deal with the possibility of losing electricity and running water is to stock the freezer with some essentials. Last week my grandad gave me his old freezer, which I was SO excited about. I have now put away the following items, in case of emergency:

bags of ice
pesto pinwheels
limoncello
peanut butter pie
white peach purée

and in the ice box:
two bottles of prosecco
homemade plum-ginger jam
11 kinds of mustard

So I think I've got all my bases covered.

10 Things I Didn't Know Last Week

1. Benjamin Franklin was in the crowd of spectators who watched the first humans in flight when the Montgolfier brothers launched their first manned hot air balloon.

2. Pompeii was a resort town.

Okay, that's it for this week.

Fun With Old Cookbooks

"There is not a better sauce for fresh vegetables than 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste." Cotton Country Collection: 1100 Collected Recipes from The Junior Charity League of Monroe, Louisiana.

GUH! Now, I know a lot of people who swear by this particular book. I think it probably does have some gems inside, but that quote just jumped out at me. Like Norman Bates in Psycho.

image from Lileks

The Rules of Cooking

1. I call bullshit on dried Italian seasoning.
2. If it has more than nine ingredients, I am not likely to make it.
3. I will not turn on my oven when the air conditioner is running.
4. Letitia is never wrong about food.
5. Bacon makes it better.

The Blogosphere's Long Nightmare Is Finally Over

I'm back, baby! New machine arrived this morning.

What E & B are ...

What Emmet is ...

Reading (out loud, by himself)

Playing

Sister returns tomorrow as a big five-year-old girl.

Say It Ain't So

Some people think Celebrity Jeopardy is rigged. Man, if you can't trust a cultural institution like the celebrity game show, what can you trust in this crazy world?

R.I.P.

So you know how I told you that Becca spilled milk on my laptop and destroyed it? Fortunately all was not lost: a quick-thinking Papi Chulo rescued the machine and saved the day.

Until yesterday when Emmet accidentally kicked my laptop off the bed.

It's really dead this time, and it's not coming back. The new one won't be here until the 22nd. I'll try to hold off on the emo bangs in the meantime, but I can't promise anything.

Happy Birthday, Alfred Hitchcock

To Catch a Thief is such a great movie; Rear Window would be perfect today, too. I'll have to plunder John's collection. Picture source

What mamacita is ...

Reading

Watching

Planning:
birthday party number two.
More cake for mamacita!

Okay, here's the deal with the purple:

1. It's supposed to be "big" for Fall.

2. I came across this image while browsing tonight. It makes purple seem like just the right thing -- so cool and dark -- for the dog days of Summer. A nice, deep eggplant color would be perfect.

Illnesses That Need a Name

I have a sudden, overwhelming need for more purple in my life.

UPDATE: I am not the only one. Synchronicity.

UPDATE 2: Purple in Paris.

10 Things I Didn't Know Last Week

1. Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, advocated "a good gulp of hot whiskey at bedtime—it's not very scientific, but it helps." (He was Scottish)

2. Nigella Lawson's mother was an heir to the Lyons Company which owned, among other things, Wimpy Bars (past) and Dunkin' Donuts (present).

3. Eudora Welty was a photographer as well as an author.

4. I missed this before: Ryan Phillippe went out with Ashlee Simpson. But I guess we did already know that Ryan Phillippe has questionable taste.

5. Arthur Miller had a son with Down's Syndrome. (Vanity Fair, September 2007, print only)

6. Zener cards are used to determine if a person has ESP.

7. 826 Boston, another Dave Eggers project in the vein of 826 Valencia and 826 NYC, will be fronted by a cryptozoology shop.

8. The metal part of a paintbrush is called a ferrule.

9. This American Life is looking for a web manager.

10. You can get blueprints of the Brady Bunch house online.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Yesterday was the birthday of Helen Lyndon Goff, author of Mary Poppins (under the pen name P.L. Travers). I am TOTALLY making Becca watch the movie again today. I love the music in it, and I love the story of the horrible children who are reformed. A mother can dream.

Here is "A Spoonful of Sugar" for your Friday afternoon.




And check out this clip from the movie, where Mrs. Banks sports the very now gray-and-marigold color scheme:

Dammit, I'm Sorry

I haven't posted in two days! Things have been really busy around here. Unfortunately, this might be the pattern for a while. But I promise to post at least once a day, or your money back.

The United Countries of Baseball

I love this image (click to see it larger):



via Mr. Sexy (largely NSFW)

What E & B are...

What Becca is reading

What Becca is watching

Emmet is staying with Papi Chulo's parents this week. He and Mawmaw are doing some of these experiments.

The Astros Are ON MY LIST

So, WTF, Astros? They just announced that Saturday is "Faith and Family Night" at the ballpark (oh, just guess which faith -- I'll give you a hint, it's not Baha'i). If that weren't bad enough, there is a pregame concert featuring a "Christian Music artist" and "testimony" by Lance Berkman.

How 'bout you just try to win some fucking ballgames and leave the religion business to somebody else, eh, Astros?

I Wish I Could Quit You

The new issue of Martha Stewart Living came today; it was supposed to be my last. Every now and then I decide that I'm going to exercise a tiny little bit of restraint and cancel a subscription to a magazine (I am almost as bad with them as I am with blog subscriptions). So anyway, I was all set to quit Martha (though not Blueprint or Everyday Food -- let's not get drastic here). Anyway, long story short, Martha was all "Honey Walnut Cookies" and "White Cheddar Corn Chowder" and "oh yeah -- subscribe to MSL and Everyday Food both for one year for only $30." So we all know where this led.

Unfortunately, it gets worse. Martha is now publishing an ad-free newsletter all about her life, her ideas, her CALENDAR... Dammit, Martha.

If you want to share in my shame, you can subscribe here (scroll down; it's on the right, toward the bottom).

What mamacita is ...

Reading

Watching

Writing 100 times:
I will not double recipes.
I will not double recipes.
I will not double recipes....

Cheap Ass Food, via Gawker/Gridskipper.

More Nirvana, plus Foo Fighters

In case you've been singing "You're a Peach of a Savior/ You're the Apple of My Eye" all week, here is some more Nirvana, to help balance things out:



However, for those of you working real jobs, here is something more upbeat to start your weekend [I didn't realize Tenacious D was in there!]:

Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam

Letitia is the one responsible for getting that damn "Father Abraham" song stuck in my head, but at least she had the grace to send along the antidote:

News You Can Use

According to the Farmer's Almanac, this Friday and Saturday are the best days in August to cut hay. So get on that, okay?

An Abecedary of ...

Burgers. Just because, that’s why.

Avocado and bacon

Blue cheese

Cafeteria burgers (what the hell were those made of?)

Daniel Boulud’s foie gras burger

Emu

Fish burgers on Friday

Ground beef

Hawaiian-style (topped with fried egg)

In-and-Out

Carl’s Jr.

Krystal Burger

Lettuce and tomato

Mushroom and swiss

Ninja Burger

Onions

Patty melt

Dairy Queen

Royale with cheese

Short Stop (holla Cayce!)

“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”

Undercooked

Veggie

Warren

eXtra pickles

Roy Rogers

Heinz 57 sauce

Surprisingly Good

Now, I didn't say "great," just "good." Thoroughly edible. And certainly easy. I'm just passing this information along, in case you had wanted to try it but were skeptical.

Next time I think I'll try to make it with Guinness -- although such tinkering usually ends up a mess. Why not leave well enough alone? Because I just can't, that's why.

What Papi Chulo Is...

Reading

Playing [Why are games for adults rated "mature?" That's not the word I would use ;-)]

What E & B are...

Reading

Watching

Doing: Vacation Bible School. Sorry for the light posting this week; I'm kinda busy/tired with that stuff.

There is only one thing that can account for the catchiness of VBS tunes: they were actually created by Satan. I'm sure of it.