belatedly stolen from Kim

This pretty much keeps me at a solid level of Ecstatically Happy:



And then I found this tribute, linked from somewhere in the Summer Mix Series. It's kind of a tribute to a tribute, technically, and the video skipped sometimes when I watched it earlier on Vimeo, but maybe it won't with the embed:

phoenix - lisztomania *brooklyn pack mashup* from ian parker on Vimeo.

Yay. That's a song to listen to over and over, anyway.

why do I always do this?

Gah! I wait so long between posts and then there is too much to say. Let's do the bullet point version of an update:

• Wedding date: moved. Forward one week due to scheduling difficulties with the Bicentennial Mall. So now we're looking at May 22, which I'm told is going to guarantee us a long and happy marriage. So there.
  
• Seattle: gorgeous. We couldn't have had better weather or a more beautiful rental house. With a Viking range and subzero fridge, believe it. We bought stunning produce at Pike Place, cooked up a storm, played lots of cards, took over the jukebox at a bar in the tiny town of Manchester, and had an amazing meal of tapas at Black Bottle in Belltown. I got to catch the Jim Henson exhibit AND the Hatch exhibit at EMP; both were fantastic and the Hatch show made me miss my old friend Huey. Oh, and we spent a lot of time on ferry boats. I never thought I'd be on a boat.
  
• Alaska: awesome. I'm not really sure if I could live there, what with all their issues with day and night and the proper scheduling of each, but the scenery couldn't have been more beautiful. We saw a small black bear and were woken up by a 5.4 strength earthquake. The Great Wedding Adventure came off without a hitch and it was an absolute honor to be involved and to finally get to meet Agnes's big crazy family, especially Peter, who I feel like I've known for years.
  
• I will say this: air travel = sucks. I swear. It's never going to be any better. We had the most absurd amount of drama getting on a direct flight from Seattle into Anchorage (and avoid a scheduled 5-hour layover in Juneau). We also took a red-eye home from Anchorage to Chicago and, despite being heavily medicated, it was just terrible. Neither of us slept at all (thanks to some well-timed squalling infants); by the time we got home at 1 pm we collapsed in a four hour nap. I have written red-eye flights off of my list of possible travel solutions for the future. At least when flying coach.
  
• Bowling: rocks. We've been participating in the Emma bowling league, and a few weeks ago I bowled a career-high 156. How about that?! It almost feels like exercise. But in a fun way.
  
• ELO night: insert enthusiastic hyperbole here. How I Became the Bomb and Kindercastle joined up with a seven piece string section to perform Electric Light Orchestra's double album opus Out of the Blue, one night only at the Mercy Lounge. And these are both extremely talented bands in their own right, but if they decided to take this (daunting and time consuming) act on the road, they'd be INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTARS, I tell you. I kept looking around at the crowd and everyone was smiling the *whole* time. Tell me the last time you saw a rock show in Nashville where you could say the same...
• Fourth of July: vaguely apocalyptic. Casey and I sucked up an uncharacteristic bout of nerves and ventured back into Ashland City for a visit with our oldest friends that turned out to be simply delightful. Then we rode back into town ready to hit the baseball game and were subverted by absolutely ridiculous weather. Monsoonish rainstorms, thunder and lightning, the whole bit. I seriously can't remember ever being rained out of Fourth of July. We didn't see any fireworks, despite having planned to see both the downtown extravaganza and the Sounds blastoff. Weird and boo. The whole situation resulted in us reminiscing about happier Fourths of July in years past, particularly those spent out at the Paine Family Farm, and then I got really sad about missing Jenny and Patrick.
  
• Bridgey: escape artist. After the Epic Independence Day Fail, we arrived home to discover Bridgette, running around a neighbor's yard, soaked and completely freaked out. We assumed that the fireworks + storm had somehow worked her into such a frenzy that she jumped the fence without realizing what was happening. We dried her off, put her and the others to bed, and were most disappointed when she spent all of Sunday showing off her new fence-climbing skill. That's right. Bridgette, the GOOD one, the shy, well-behaved, slightly backwards brown dog has learned to scale chain-link like a monkey. We've temporarily curbed the efforts by wrapping a tarp over the top of the gate, therefore giving her nothing to claw onto, but our eventual (and hopeful) solution involves rabbit wire and hard labor this weekend. Good GRIEF.
• Hot Rod: ridiculous. Austin wakes up every morning and watches part of the Andy Samberg movie Hot Rod, about a quixotic pseudo-stuntman and his loony cast of surrounding characters. He just watches a bit and then stops it and picks it back up again the next morning, laughing like a little kid the whole time. I think it's his new Wet Hot American Summer, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
• MJ: just sad. I've had this whole defense of Michael Jackson's character and skewering of the media lined up in my head for a week now, but mostly it's been said and it's kind of past the point of relevancy. But Jenny made me smile when she said that her first instinct when she heard the news of his death was to call our cousin Josh and see how he was coping.
  

There, how was that for the Greatest Hits recap version? I think we're all caught up to speed now. I have got to spend more time blogging and less time on Facebook. Can that be a mid-New-year resolution?

never been better

Tonight I'm knocking around the house, solo for a little while. Austin's playing FIFA Soccer with JB. I had planned to spend the alone time working on the filing drawers in the desk in the office I excavated yesterday. Instead I poked around online, played a game, read some educational wedding-related articles. Then I straightened up the house, put away the remnants of our crackers-and-soda snack from this afternoon, and got out the ingredients for tonight's Mexican pineapple salad. And I realized, while I was moving around the house, going through mindless motions, I was smiling the whole time.

I don't talk about religion, on here or anywhere. I'm not a subscriber of any specific doctrine. We don't go to church, and we don't follow any scriptures. I don't have astral convictions, and I don't miss them. But the only word I can find to describe this feeling, this day, this place I'm at in my life, is blessed. I am saturated by blessings. It washes over me, so many times a day, and I wish there was a better way to express my gratitude.

I love our home. We cleaned it yesterday, got the office near to full function, and made some decorating progress. It is safe and warm and comfortable when it's filled with girls, sprawled on the couch with popcorn and ice cream, or when it's just us and our pets, on quiet tv afternoons, or when it's just me and my iTunes. There literally isn't a day that goes by that I don't think how utterly lucky we are that we found *this* house. It felt like an arduous search, and it turned out exactly right.

I love my job. One of the bigger wedding-related dilemmas I've faced (as with every bride in the history of the world, I know) has been the size of the guest list. And this is complicated by the fact that I have 70+ coworkers who are also friends who I can't imagine not celebrating with. It's probably not going to be realistic to invite every Emma staffer plus one, but right now I'm doing my best to find a way to include as many as we can. I think about the very best days at Hatch, when we all felt like a productive family full of friends, and that's how Emma is too. I love it when I make a breakthrough on a collaborative project, I love it when I've finished processing the daily check run, I love it when the power goes out and I wind up laying on the carpet of the second floor lounge doing half-assed pilates with Brooks and Rami and Rachael's puppy. I think I've said this before, but you don't realize how much of your self-esteem is caught up in the work week until you find a job that fulfills you.

I love our pets. We both do, equally, with an unreasonable fervor. We're those crazy pet people and aren't remotely ashamed. Digby is getting closer and closer to being a good dog, and Bridgette is such a sweet girl. We had a brushing session on the back patio last weekend (shedding time is definitely here) and they were both just inhaling the affection and attention. Mackenzie is completely back to her old self, running the house with her larger-than-life attitude and making sure she gets quality time with us before bed every night. Corvinius is, well, an oddball, but a loveable one, and spent a large portion of this afternoon rubbing his face on the corner of my computer screen over. and over. and over again. Oh buddy. And look, we don't like to play favorites with our pets. But every single day, Mischa and Charlie Murphy fill us up with love. Mischa got a new toy today, and she's currently sacked out on her spot at the end of the couch with this new red stuffy wrapped in her arms like a woobie. I just want to hold her so tight. Charlie Murphy loves weekends, particularly couch weekends like today, and the absolute peace and joy he spreads when he's sleeping leaned up against my lap... it's just the best.

I love my friends. Book club friends, work friends, people who don't fall in either category (there aren't many...), I can't get over the support network that surrounds me. I spent a lot of my adolescence thinking of myself as not a "girlfriend" kind of girl, and I'm so happy that I was totally wrong about that. We threw a surprise bachelorette party for Agnes last night, and the house was about to burst from all the girlie love. Lisa and Jenny were missed, but otherwise it couldn't have gone better and I was so glad we could all spend sweet time with Agnes before she takes off for the Great Alaskan Wedding Adventure.

I love my family. The reason I didn't think of myself as a "girlfriend" kind of girl was, obviously, because I have the best built-in girlfriends on the planet, my sisters. We talk every day and nothing feels complete unless it is shared with them. I'm so glad that we live close enough to my dad that we can just have low-key evenings of ceiling fan installation and (really good) chicken wings with him and Lynn. We're so lucky to have them both nearby. I miss my big crazy California family so badly, and one of my absolute favorite things to imagine about our wedding is having them all here together again. And I am just chomping at the bit to get to Seattle (next weekend!) and give my Mom one gigantic hug, followed by a series of smaller ones. It's been almost a year since we've seen her and I can't wait to spend a week on the lake with her and Kam (and Casey and Trent and a deck of cards!).

And of course you knew this was where I was going, but I love Austin. I'm not going to detail all the reasons that he's the man I'm going to marry (I've done that before and certainly will again) but the place where we are in our life together is just especially good right now. I am excited to see him EVERY DAY. How silly is that? I start to feel restless and shifty if it's been more than a couple of hours since I've checked in with him (thanks to IM and texting for completely spoiling me by having my fiance´ available to me at all times). We're on the same page about all these major decisions we've made in the past year and will be making in the next year. We're not exactly wealthy, but it's been a long while since we've had to look at anything and say, from a financial standpoint, "How are we going to make this work?" We carpool almost every day and talk about the stories we hear on NPR. If it sounds idyllic, it is. I can't think of an aspect of my life that isn't made better by just having him with me. We don't have to do everything together (see: FIFA Soccer) but when I'm walking around our house by myself, smiling, it's mostly because of him.

staycation

The truth is, I would rather be laying on this couch with my Boo, my kitty and my puppy (and all the other pets happily sleeping around the house) than on any beach in the world.

May has turned out to be pretty busy. The road trip to Atlanta was pretty hairy, we ran into some nightmarish weather and traffic and got to the wedding a half-hour late. The party was a blast, lots of fun and dancing and picture-taking. We stayed up late, ordered some delicious pizza, and had a great time partying with my hilarious coworkers. We got up the next morning, had delicious breakfast at West Egg, and braved our first Ikea. We were so overwhelmed we only ended up with a blue and white checked rug for the kitchen, some photo frames and a desk lamp for my (as yet nonexistent) sewing table.

We didn't make it home in time for the market house celebration at the Farmer's Market, but we had lunch there the next day and got snowballs... yum! We're still hopeful to get everything worked out to have our wedding reception there, but no news on that front yet. I kind of have my heart set on it at this point, and it's really going to throw me for a loop if we end up having to look elsewhere. Casey and I have been brainstorming some alternatives but nothing has clicked. Hopefully we can just nail down the details with the farmer's market, put our deposits down and move forward.

The rest of the month has been haze of birthday parties. I swear everyone is born in May. Roller derby was last weekend, that was a blast. Another big blowout for our girls, they're skating so well this year and playing really good defense. Lots of fun to watch.

I'm mostly just blogging to blog. To not go a whole month without writing again. Tonight Tracy and I are meeting at Mercy Lounge for the Long Players, who are performing Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. Should be a blast. I'm hoping to also make it to the end of the Alcohol Stunt Band show at the Basement as well.

Three day weekends are just a gift. We can be lazy today, productive tomorrow, then lazy again on Monday and it works out perfectly. We're hoping to spend some time (finally) in the garage tomorrow, and then grill out in the evening. Maybe some yard work too, although it's gotten hot here. Not as much fun for working outside.

Now I think it's naptime.

looking back

So I *almost* did it. I missed a single day blogging in April, but I nearly made up for it with two posts in one day a few weeks later. It was good practice, even if it didn't exactly mean I shared something scintillating every day. I will do my very best to NOT take a month off now. But I'll be glad that I can delete that 10 pm daily alarm that says, "BLOG!"

I will say, it was entirely unlikely that you were going to hear from me today. It's 7:30 pm and I'm still in my nightgown, nursing a colossal hangover. Emma Talent Night was, of course, a total blowout, and I drank too many berry vodka drinks much too quickly. It was super, super, super fun, of course, and I've been told that I didn't *act* that drunk, so that's a relief. I appointment myself one of the official photographers for the evening, and got some pretty great shots that got progressively blurry as the night went on. I'm sure just technical problems with my camera, right? But the fun wore off when I woke up on our bathroom floor at 4:15 am. These are probably details I could have spared my parents. But it's possible that my mom was doing a little drunk texting of her own, as I received this at about 10:30 pm:

G p frkn good no tlk yet posl yr m

Thanks, Mom. She was at a Glen Phillips show. Obviously.

You will most likely NOT hear from me tomorrow, as we'll be out of town for the first time in over a year! We're Hotlanta bound in the a.m., cruising by the Holy Mecca (I mean IKEA) and then checking into our very posh hotel that we got for a song because they just opened yesterday! Woot! Then on to Emily and Neil's wedding of amazingness, and I'm just super excited. We'll be home Saturday afternoon, hopefully in time to catch the last of the Market Celebration at the Farmer's Mkt. That seems like good karma, right? Plus, Snowballs! Then Scott Miller at Mercy Lounge Saturday night, YAY. I'm looking forward to the brief road trip with my Boo, it's not an experience we share very often and I think we're both ready for a minibreak.

Happy Quite Nearly May!

about that frosting...

So Casey and Trent have the same birthday (wild, right?) and they alternate years getting to request a birthday cake. Casey is all about strawberries and whipped cream. This is Trent's year. He wanted CHOCOLATE. I set about tracking down the most chocolate chocolate cake I could find.

I found this cake on Epicurious (always my go-to when I want something that has already been road-tested). 1277 reviews and 91% of them would make it again? That's a hearty enough recommendation for me! I made the cake layers on Saturday with some hot Drew's Brews coffee from Sip. They came out absolutely gorgeous (I went with three 9" layers instead of the recommended 2 10"), dark and slightly sticky. I wrapped them up and managed to not alert Charlie Murphy the Chocoholic Cat to their hiding place.

Sunday morning I made a quick ganache for the frosting, according to the recipe, but I wasn't wild about the results. The cake itself was already so dark and moist and gooey, I thought a simple drapey ganache would be too homogenous. I stuck it in the fridge to chill and consulted Agnes when we popped by the Walden Market before lunch. We discussed the pros and cons of whipping a ganache or incorporating whipped cream. I thought I'd see how spreadable it was after the chill and play it by ear.

When we got back to the house (a mere two hours before the birthday party was scheduled to start, poor planning on my part...) that ganache was a solid unstirrable mass in the fridge. Oops. The spatula was sticking up at a perfect vertical angle. Hmm. Time to apply all of my dessert-making problem solving skills.

First I whipped the solid ganache with a hand mixer. This didn't go great. The bowl wasn't big enough for much movement, and the chocolate, while lightening significantly, clung to the beaters and was still not really spreadable. So I went WAY outside the realm of reason and popped that bowl in the microwave at half-power for a minute. It came out totally uneven and kind of lumpy, actually quite ugly. UGH.

So I went with my last resort and whipped up probably a cup and a half of whipping cream. I partially folded it in to the lumpy and runny ganache and then put the hand mixer back in there and whipped until everything was evenly mixed and fluffy. Gorgeous!



Now I'm off to Emma Talent Night! It's a shame I didn't manage to pull together a Baking Demonstration. Clearly, the skills!

the lies I tell to my diary

Sorry friends, you're looking at another half-ass post tonight. I'm in the throes of a battle of wills with my iPod and my poor decrepit iMac (aka The Jukebox). Why won't they talk to each other? Why won't they be friends? GAH.

I need my own personal Reggie for nights like these. Austin doesn't seem too concerned about my technical problems. I have important mix cds to make!