What Would Jane Austen Do?

I just posted this in a comment at Apartment Therapy, but I wanted to mention it to you, too: image via Amazon When Becca had her surgery in December, she came home with Steri-strips over the incision. After enough time had passed and the Steri-strips were starting to come off, we used Tea Tree Oil to get them completely off. I think it would also work to take Band-Aids off with less pain and yelling. [FYI: It's also really good for shaving and for cradle cap.] My friend Cayce told me the best thing of all about Tea Tree Oil: look for it in the black haircare section of the drugstore. It costs about half as much there as it does in the hippie section of the store.

Did you catch me in Tom Ford's runway show?  If not:

despite my best efforts. Highlights from Becca's recent Language Arts assignment, "How to Answer Questions in Complete Sentences": 1. My hero is... My hero is my gun shooting Granddaddy. 2. Why do you like to read? I do not like to read most books that arn't commics or short books. 3. Where did you get your new pair of shoes? My ant Pete. 4. Where can I find the library? in the Hights or in the city (tall buildings). 5. What is your favorite subject in school? Easy stuff is my favorite subject. 6. Who is the most important person in your life? I have a group of people: my famly, God, and, my pet monkey[?].

My friend Ben posted this on Facebook.  Watch some French schoolchildren try to identify outdated technology. "It's a bomb!"

Reading I'm not sure there was a plot here, but it was a very enjoyable read. Watching Great show! These two Canadian women pick a cookbook off the shelf -- sometimes a "classic" and sometimes a current one -- and make 6-8 recipes from it.  You watch them make the recipes, see their foibles, and hear their commentary.  At the end they have a local chef come by to taste their dishes.  Then they tell you the skill level required for the book's recipes and whether or not it's "a must-buy."  [So far they've only said that about one of the books, though, so their opinions are actually worthwhile.] I feel sure this show is going to be corrupted by being on the Oprah Winfrey Network.  Instead of cooking from popular and classic cookbooks, they're going to have to review shit like Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook.  On the other hand, I'm glad OWN picked it up, or I would have missed it altogether. Feel free to ask me anything about the OWN, by th...

After Christmas I usually feel (temporarily) flush from the gifts of cash.  I mean, Lord knows I should save it or something, but that's... not happening .  For the past couple of years I've used the money to buy art books that are generally expensive and not urgently necessary, and thus never quite make it to the top of my shopping list. Last year I bought Tibor Kalman, Perverse Optimist  and Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel , both of which made me so happy. This year I bought And the Pursuit of Happiness  (love) and 13 Words  (love less, but it's Maira Kalman, so...).  It was nice to get a package on my doorstep again; I got used to that happening everyday in December.  [I did not miss the overly-friendly FedEx dude.  We don't need to hug, sir .] Poking around on Apartment Therapy today I noticed that Phaidon is having a warehouse sale (online, even).  Unfortunately, I don't feel so very flush any more. 

avocado on toast , originally uploaded by houston mamacita . Avocado on Uncle John's homemade pan de mie (toasted). Delicious.

But then I found these awesome plates .  I'm not generally a fan of plain white plates, but these are very subtly asymmetrical, and I MUST HAVE THEM.  Oh, Lord, I have a problem with dishes. The fact that they're not available in the US, of course, only makes my desire stronger. I also need these papers .  I do not know what I will do with them, but they will make me complete.

I have been surprised by how much I enjoy everyone's year-end posts, even the most philosophical ones. Maybe they've just hit me in the right mood. Even though my stocking was far from empty this year (or ever -- how different could my life be from Joseph Brodsky's ?) my favorite today was this poem (below), posted at swoond . Isn't it funny how you can want to like poetry, and you can really enjoy a poem, but not be entirely sure what it means? I almost always expect there to be some "gotcha" from the poet, as in, "Ha-HA! You enjoyed that poem, which PROVES that you hate JESUS and DECADENT AMERICA!" So I just spent 45 minutes looking for a scholarly interpretation of this poem, so as to be sure I wasn't signing off on something awful.   The other scenario is liking a poem that turns out to be the literary equivalent of a Thomas Kincade painting. [Poor Joyce Kilmer ; I like trees, too, man .]  Anyway, I didn't find anything about the Brod...