Monday Music Mambo: Football Day!

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  1. The quarterback is the most important player on a football team. He controls the action, and the responsibility for the team’s success is on his shoulders. Which musician is your choice for musical QB?
    It’s completely cheesy, and totally dates me, but I have to say Billy Joel. If you’ve never seen his episode of Inside the Actors Studio, you’ve missed a treat.
  2. What album scores a touchdown for you (i.e. it’s just the best)?
    One of my favorite albums EVER is Barenaked Ladies’ Stunt, but right now I’m really digging the newest offering from Mandy Moore.
  3. What song needs a game ejection?
    There are only two songs that I’ve had intense negative reactions to, and neither are terribly recent. The first was Uncle Kracker’s “Follow Me,” and the second is the Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow duet “I Put Your Picture Away.” It’s the lyrics I have an issue with, especially – the first actually has kind of a kicky melody.
  4. Football is about intense, bone-crushing excitement. What song or artist gives you that same feeling?
    All summer I’ve been listening to this ancient Eric Carmen song “Make Me Lose Control” – it just has that summer sun-sand-surf bonfire on the beach, retro chording sort of feeling. It’s exciting in a nostalgic sort of way. Otherwise, I’m kind of partial to Robbie Williams’s “Let Me Entertain You,” and have been ever since I heard it used in a skating show several years ago.

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Medicinal Chocolate

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I really shouldn’t be eating cookies, especially not based on the Ghirardelli recipe, which uses 2 stick of butter (for 4 dozen cookies), but after a week of stabbing brain pain, chocolate was the best headache treatment I could come up with.

I actually enjoy the process of baking as much as the end result, especially on days like today: there was a thunder storm outside, the light was soft, Fuzzy was sleeping off a late night of gaming, and the dogs were curled up on the couch. The movie Practical Magic, an old favorite of mine, was playing on cable, so I let it run for background noise, as I stirred (okay, well, as the mixer stirred and I scraped the sides of the bowl), and shaped, and watched the timer.

Ever the queen of multitasking, I was also blogging, and helping my mother tweak her blog, chatting on the phone with family, and doing a bit of writing of my own.

By the time the cookies were done (and you can see them if you scroll down a bit), the last traces of my headache were gone as well.

Chocolate really does cure everything.

Five Things You Don’t Learn In Cooking School*

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cookies

  1. Double the amount of vanilla in pretty much everything.
  2. For most recipes, dark brown sugar works as well as light brown.
  3. When your husband asks you what kind of cookies they are, tell him, “Chocolate chip with nuts.” If he isn’t told they’re pecans instead of walnuts, he’ll never realize it.
  4. Cutting the amount of sugar by a third usually works just fine.
  5. Cookies are incomplete unless served with hot coffee or cold milk.

*Or you might, actually, but I never went, so how would I know?

iDo Like iDrive

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When I used to do tech support for a certain computer company with a fetish for cow spots, one of the things I was often asked was “how do I share my data?” It’s something my husband, the network engineer, has to deal with on a daily basis. How do you safely share files, back up critical things, without resorting to less-than-great security, or easily misplaced flash drives? The other question was, “My computer crashed, how do I get my files,” to which our first response was always, “well, did you back up?” You’d be surprised at how many people said no.

An excellent solution for this is an online backup service, such as iDrive. For no money at all, you get access to 2 GB of space on their server. For $4.95 a month, or $49.95/year, you get unlimited storage space. It’s enough to back up all the data on the average PC (something most people don’t do, but which everyone ought), or share files with remote users in Rome, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Dallas, without allowing remote access to your own machine.

Even if you already have the contents of your hard drive backed up, iDrive is great as a backup solution. I’ve always been told that crucial data should be backed up multiple times, with at least one copy stored off-site. This is a great way to do that, without having to make periodic trips to dusty storage units, or remember which file cabinet in the office holds your disks. Also, since they have almost-instant backup of their own servers, your data is doubly secure.

Even if you don’t use iDrive, make sure you back up your data on a regular basis.

But if you travel, share files, or live in a place prone to electrical failure, consider iDrive. iDo.

(One thing: iDrive isn’t Mac-Friendly.)

Sunday Scribblings: The End

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According to the calendar, summer doesn’t end until the autumnal equinox about three weeks into September, but Labor Day Weekend always feels like the fiscal end of summer, even if I no longer measure the year according to school vacations, as I did when I was a child, and as many do who have children now.

In our neighborhood, the school children disappeared from the streets in mid-August, which seems unusually early, but they also get out in late May. I’m not sure why. All I know is that the beginning of their school year brought an end to the sound of laughter as they chased each other around the neighborhood on impossibly small bicycles, stopping to greet my dogs if we happened to walk down the block where they were congregating that day.

Soon, I know, other endings will come: the end of hot, sunny weather, the end of leafy green trees, the end of nearly infinite twilight, and the end of an undecorated park, because there are no holidays between Independence Day and Labor Day for the Homeowners’ Association to celebrate with kitschy ornaments and seasonally colored twinkle lights.

While summer may be over, however I don’t see fall as any kind of ending. I find renewal in the turning of the leaves, refreshment in the cooler weather, inspiration in the earlier nightfall, and comfort in cozy evening spent at home, dressed in pajamas and fluffy slippers, and sipping tea or hot cider, while a fire crackles, and soup simmers in the crockpot.

Summer is not soup weather.
Summer is for salads.

If fall is an end to anything, it is the end of the time when I happily choose salads over warmer, more substantial foods. Bring on the pot pies and meatloaf – I’m ready for meals that require two utensils, instead of merely one.

So, while this weekend may be the end of summer in some senses, it is not the end of summer clothing, iced espresso drinks, or pink hair. I drink iced espresso throughout the year, summer clothing and winter clothing overlap greatly in our climate, and the pink hair is here to stay for a while, because it also signifies an end, and a beginning.

The end of stagnation.
The beginning of creative freedom, and personal fulfillment.

The end of summer.
But not “The End.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sunday Scribblings was set up to provide inspiration and motivation for anyone who enjoys writing and would like a weekly challenge.

Alliterative Saturday: September, Sleep, Salon, Sugar, Shakespeare

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September:

The morrow was a bright September morn;
The earth was beautiful as if newborn;
There was nameless splendor everywhere,
That wild exhilaration in the air,
Which makes the passers in the city street
Congratulate each other as they meet.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sleep: I went to bed before midnight last night and, except for a brief time awake when Fuzzy came to bed around 3:30, slept through til eight, then stayed in bed til nine. My head feels less spinny, my brain more focused. I don’t feel like I was skimping on sleep this past week, but perhaps I just wasn’t sleeping well.

Salon: Today I go to get my har re-pinked, and the bangs cut, but I don’t think I’m going to have her trim any length from the rest, except perhaps to keep it healthy. I’m ready for long hair again, with fall coming.

Sugar: I meant to make chocolate chip cookies last night, then decided I was far too dizzy and disoriented to be dealing with measuring and hot ovens. Perhaps I’ll make some this morning. I wonder if we have any parchment. A piece of parchment on top of the cookie sheet keeps the bottoms from burning, while the tops are browning.

Shakespeare: I caught a bit of last year’s version of As You Like It on cable last night, and have the showing tomorrow morning set to record. I like the concept of using 19th century dress for it, but while I understand that Branagh probably had all the actors affect English accents so that the accents all “matched,” I really dislike it when Americans use fake British accents for Shakespeare. It’s silly. It’s also wrong, since Shakespearian English actually sounds more like certain pocket accents in the Appalachians than it does modern British pronunciation. Repeat after me, Bryce Dallas Howard: I do not have to be English to do Shakespeare. (I enjoyed, btw, the performance of David Oyelowo, who played Orlando. Also, he’s seriously nice eye-candy, as is Adrian Lester, who played Oliver.

Stage: I’m on stage at ComedySportz tonight. Likely to be my last show for a while, as September is a weird month for us. I wish I could say I’m looking forward to it, but right this moment, I’m really not. I’m sure that will change as the day progresses, however.

Spin!

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All day I’ve felt spacey and spinny, as if I’m sitting on Roller Coaster Furniture – the kind that feels like it’s undulating beneath you until you realize that no, the furniture is stable and it’s just a trick of your brain making you feel as though you’re cresting hills and rocketing into valleys, and then skating along a smooth surface.

I ate lunch, and I just had a snack, so I don’t think this is being caused by anything caloric or nutritional. I don’t even feel bad, exactly, as much as I feel odd. Disoriented. Disconnected. If my ears hurt I’d suspect that I had an inner ear infection, but they don’t, and I don’t have any discernible pressure anywhere in my head.

My eyes are heavy as though I needed sleep, however, and even though it’s 90 degrees outside, I’ve been freezing all day.

If I didn’t have things to do, I wouldn’t mind the spinning feeling, but since I do, it’s a bit frustrating.

Friday’s Feast – 0708.31

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Appetizer
Who is the easiest person for you to talk to?

It depends on the subject. Fuzzy, sometimes, my mother, others, specific friends for specific things.

Soup
If you could live in any ancient city during the height of the quality of its society and culture, which one would you choose?
Venice. Or Rome. I like the architecture, and Italy speaks to me almost as much as France does, but in different ways.

Salad
What is the most exciting event you’ve ever witnessed?
It really depends on the definition of “exciting.” I was less then fifteen feet away from a student who was gunned down on my high school campus when it happened, which was exciting in a bad way. I ran into Richard Lewis in a cafe in Greenwich Village once, and he invited me and the friend I was with to share his table (largely because we all got there at the same time, and there was no other space). I’ve stood in a doorway and watched plate-glass windows gently crumble one after another during an earthquake, and I’ve had a couple of people (authors, composers) comment on my blog.

Main Course
If you were a celebrity, what would you do for a publicity stunt?
Pink Creative Zen Stones with my website listed on them for everyone. Or I’d convince a busy Starbucks to let me pull shots for them for a few hours.

Dessert
What do you consider the ideal age to have a first child?
I’m 37 and have yet to have a child, so I’m not the best person to answer this. I think it’s not so much a matter of age as stability though. I think the ideal time to have a child is when you and your partner have had enough years in your relationship that you’ve worked through really grim times, and come out stronger, and are financially stable enough for one of you to take a significant amount of time from work, and when you’ve both decided you’re ready. And if you’re a single person wanting a child, you need to have worked out the grim times within yourself, and have some kind of support system, because you will need one.