The Desert Mermaid

Dang, my hands are getting a bit ripped up lately. It's a sign of a lot of entertaining myself, though.

Causes of hand-rip-uppery:

-CAUSE #1: This here bird. Lucy's friendly and cheerful and loves hanging out with me, but sometimes she does take bites out of my fingers. I've managed to convince her not to do it as much, but she still does in certain situations.

The annoying thing is that the best way to break them of the habit is to not snatch your fingers away, because that's what the bird wants. Instead you're supposed to hold your finger there or even push into it, which will throw the bird off-balance both physically and mentally. And that takes some damn willpower when that hooked bill is pinching with nutcracking force.

But we're having a good time other than that. I have also taught her not to be afraid of cardboard paper towel rolls because they contain treats. And she had a nice bath in a dish last weekend, but since then she's been less interested in the bath dish but keeps bathing in her water dish. So she's keeping clean.

She likes NPR. She will be an erudite bird.


-CAUSE #2: Been cooking a lot. I'm eating quite well (Lucy likes lasagna, too), and most of the dishes I've made are pretty good. However, we will not speak of the attempt to make corn dogs ever again. Turns out hot oil is hot.


-CAUSE #3: Kittens who still don't know how to retract their claws. I probably won't even feel completely at ease having a bird and I'm going to bring a pair of tiny kitties into my life. I am an idiot.

But we did have a nice day where the neighbors took the kittens out so they could romp on the lawn. Which was rather hilarious when our party attracted a whole bunch of neighbor kids. The poor kittens had started out exploring the concept of grass, but ended up exploring the concept of getting constantly picked up and juggled by six kids aged 4-11.


-CAUSE #4: Trimming grapevines. We shoulda done this months ago, but there was this whole MOVING thing going on. So I had to do it myself, though one of Dad's former patients, who works at a vineyard, came to show me how. (He got a pretty alarmed look on his face when he saw the 45-degree angle at which the vines are set up. Life on a mountainside has its disadvantages. But I enjoyed the trimming--it's kind of meditative.

Also, it turns out I am a wizard. I trimmed half of them, and then later that day it suddenly got cold and snowed. A few days later, it was springy again! So I trimmed the rest, and then THREE FUCKING FEET of snow promptly crashed into my house.

So apparently I have the power to summon snowstorms by trimming grapevines. Sure, it's very specific, but still. I AM ELSA. BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!


-CAUSE #5: Eczema.

No, seriously, that's it. Eczema is a plague upon me. Such is my life.


In conclusion, yes, I am having a good time, except for the eczema. All I have to do is buy some Band-Aids.

Like most of my contemporary third-grade literati, I was a big fan of Brian Jacques' Redwall books, epic tales of the high adventures of mousies and their fellow woodland critters. They were an entirely new kind of fantasy for my narrow little brain in that they were almost completely devoid of magic--only a little bit of possibly mystical reincarnation, if that--but by god they were full of humor, swashbuckly swordfighting, heroic stunts, dastardly villains, colorful allies, and vivid settings.

And of course there was the food porn.

Oh, GOD, the food porn. I remember reading that Brian Jacques grew up in England during World War II, and if he wasn't exactly starving, there was never quite enough food, and what there was had an uninspiring quality to it. So he took to reading cookbooks like they were porn, and always lingered on feast scenes in the stories he was reading. And when he wrote his own stories, there was always at least one feast, with loving attention paid to describing every single dish on the menu. Holy shit when Mom read those books aloud to us we would get SO DAMN HUNGRY.

And the centerpiece of the food, for me, was always the moles' signature dish, the Turnip'n'Tater'n'Beetroot Deeper'n'Ever Pie. God DAMN that thing sounded good. In those days there was no Redwall Cookbook, and there MIGHT have been Redwall.net but the internet wasn't A Thing yet, so we just had to make up our own recipe. Mom tried many variations, but it wasn't till I came across a different book, Maggie Black's Medieval Cookbook, that it all came together. I combined her recipe for mushroom pasties with my own Deeper'n'Ever Pie recipe and voila! THE GREATEST FOOD EVER.

And I always celebrate Hobbit Day with one, because I think the hobbits and the moles would probably agree on what makes a damn fine savory pie, especially with the addition of mushrooms. So I'm gonna share my recipe with you, and if you want to celebrate a couple of great books with some great pie, be my guest!

Deeper'N'Ever Pie - Hobbit Variation

What You Need:

1-2 potatoes, peeled and small diced
1-2 carrots, peeled and small-diced
1-2 beets
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, chopped
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded (well, to taste. I like cheese)*
extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp. mustard powder
salt
pepper
2 pie crusts (I use Pillsbury because while I am good at some kitchen things, pie crusts are MYSTERIOUS ALCHEMY)

What You Do:

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Parboil the beets whole, until they are soft, in one saucepan. When they are done, peel them (they're easier to peel after they've been boiled) and small-dice them, then toss them in a big mixing bowl

While that's going on, parboil the chopped carrots and potatoes in another saucepan. Drain them and dump them into that same mixing bowl

Lightly saute the onions and mushrooms in olive oil. Add them to the bowl

Now toss the vegetables till they're good and mixed. Mix in 2-3 tablespoons olive oil, 1/2 tsp. mustard powder, and dashes of salt and pepper.

Mix in the shredded cheese.

Now put one of the pie crusts in your pie pan. Then dump the filling in!

Cover with the other pie crust. Pinch the crusts' edges together. Punch a few holes artistically in the top crust with a fork.

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Ta-da! You have an amazing Deeper'n'Ever Pie to share with your friends. Mom likes it with sour cream (Mom likes EVERYTHING with sour cream), but I like it plain. Maybe with an apple beer or some ginger ale, or some mulled ginger apple cider if you have it on hand. But no matter how you serve it, enjoy--and raise a glass of whatever you're drinking with it to Brian Jacques, who wrote some amazing books. Here's to you, Mr. Jacques.


*I have no idea where the moles got cheese. Only bad guys seem to eat meat in the Redwall universe; the good guys WILL eat fish when it's available, but they're mostly vegetarian. They're only vegan because they have to be, though--I think there's a passing mention of cattle in Redwall itself, but that was the first one published and the continuity got retconned so there is no good source of milk. But by god Jacques wants cheese and cream and butter, so he cheats with something called "greensap milk." I'm cheating right back with "actual milk" products.

What I Learned Since The Winter Solstice

• The Cooking Hypothesis suggests that the invention of cooking precipitated a rapid evolutionary change in humans, allowing them to more efficiently process nutrients and, of course, growing bigger brains. I always said cooking was an important part of humanity, dangit!


• Nancy Kerrigan was filmed right after being attacked sobbing and asking "Why? Why?"--and a lot of people thought she was being a wimp or a drama queen because she was only bruised. Dude, it still hurts, but quite apart from that, when you get attacked, it's probably TERRIFYING and it HURTS YOUR FEELINGS.


• The difference between triple axels, triple spins, triple lutzes, etc., has to do with where you push off from and what direction you're facing and okay fine I've already forgotten.


• Flavoring sodas is a lot like brewing tea. Really sugary tea.


• But brown sugar makes them taste rather bitter.


• Also, soda-brewing is similar to making beer, except you don't let the yeast go far enough to make alcohol.


• Furthermore, there is a lot of argument over just what the "cream" in "cream soda" refers to. Vanilla? Adding cream to the soda? Or cream of tartar? It's a HISTORY MYSTERY.


• In tangentially-related soda discoveries, SodaStream is a company fraught with political tensions and controversy.


• Cloth pads and panty liners are surprisingly expensive, but also surprisingly worth it.


• There is a constellation in the Southern Hemisphere called "The Poop." Yes, it refers to a ship's stern (poop deck), BUT STILL. HURRRR.


• There are, naturally, all sorts of recipes for Ent-Draught on the internet.


• Mainlining Atop The Fourth Wall has taught me something I always rather thought: I have terrible comic-reading comprehension. I do okay with some, mostly in comic strip form, but it takes me a long time to parse each page, way longer than it takes to read straight prose, so if I'm going to read a comic, I have to be committed. And even then I have trouble regarding them critically.*


• I did learn, however, that lots of people find it extremely difficult to keep comic continuity straight. Comic writers, for instance. Case in point: Donna Troy.


• The director of Tremors is Ron Underwood, who got his start in the film industry making educational shorts for Barr Films--such as one of my favorite Rifftrax-featured shorts, Library World.


• My mom, who watched very little TV as a kid, nevertheless has strong opinions about what Mr. Peabody's voice sounds like.


• Mork & Mindy was a spinoff of Happy Days.  Clearly, I never watched either of them.


• Getting feedback on your novel can be a mixed bag. You get excited that you can make it better, but frustrated when you can't tell if the feedback makes sense.


• Publishing a serial story online gets more difficult with each installment because there's a lot to keep track of. BUT DAMMIT IT'S STILL POSSIBLE.


• You can unclog standard drain clogs with the use of science fair volcano technology.


• After you turn into the left-turn-lane, it's legal to drive 500 freaking feet in that lane. Which is almost a whole block even here in Salt Lake City.


• The Beautiful Creatures movie might be adapted from a novel of the same name, but don't let that fool you. It is clearly a remake of The Touch of Satan.


• The first female-directed movie ever to gross more than $1 billion is Frozen. Which is awesome, but dang, it took a while to get there. Let's hope this is a good precedent!

*Interestingly, though, I read a lot of Archie comics as a kid. It fascinated me the same way 1950s Educational Shorts fascinate me--it shows some weird whitebread cultural ideal that somehow I can't look away from.

Mom was gone for the last two weeks, and you know what that means! Time for Adventures With Dad!

The first Adventure With Dad started while Mom was still around, the night before she left. The Fourth of July celebrations were marred, or enhanced if you’re like me, when some weather god left the Thunderstorm switch jammed on. So that night I went upstairs to make myself a snack, listening to the wind and the pouring rain and the thunder. Whoosh it went, and patapatapata, and CRACKA-BOOM!.

And then something on the roof went: WHUNKita-WHUNKita-WHUNKita-WHUNKA-WHUMPA THUD.

Well, shit, I thought. We’d just had the roof completely revamped, and here it sounded like Santa Claus’s drunken summer joyride had just gone horribly wrong all over it. I waited for the inevitable emerging of the other household members to inquire after that horrendous noise.

Nothing happened.

ME: Hey! Did anybody else hear a godawful noise just now?

DAD: *snore*

MOM: That’s just the thunder, honey. Go back to bed.

ME: Thunder makes a lot of noise, yes, but does not generally go “thud.”

Turns out the varmint caps Dad had installed a couple of years ago had been loosened by our roofing guy, and the wind had set a couple of them rolling merrily. We located one on the edge of the roof itself, but the other was nowhere to be found.

DAD: We should get out there and find it! And then put them back on! Right now! At 1:30 in the morning! In the pouring rain! With lightning and thunder around us!

ME: Dad, I am fairly sure no varmints are going to crawl into the chimney in the next 6 hours. Let’s wait until going on the roof doesn’t spell instant death, shall we?

We managed to convince him to go back to bed for a few hours. Fortunately the rain let up, and by the next morning it was clear enough that he could go out to track down the other cap (it was in the neighbors’ yard) while I took Mom to the airport.

When I got back, he was already on the roof.

ME: For crying out loud, you are a goddamn BRAIN AND SPINE doctor. Didn’t it occur to you that it was a basic safety precaution to have someone else around in case you fell ?

DAD: You were taking to long! THIS HAD TO BE DONE.

So the caps are back on, and Dad made it off the roof, and Mom made it to California.

DAD: *plaintive* Why do these disasters always happen when your mom leaves?

ME: It’s not so much that more disasters happen. It’s just that they feel disastrous because you and I are clueless goddamn morons when it comes to taking care of things.

DAD: You’re probably right. So, what shall we have for dinner tonight?

ME: Rice Krispies sounds great to me.

DAD: It’s going to be a long fortnight.

And it was. But it was a fun fortnight, too. Tune in next time for more Adventures, such as Cookin’ With Dad!

Hoo, busy weekend!

---

It turns out a pitched roof doesn't do much good if it connects to a flat awning over one's deck. The entire back half of the thing is sagging dangerously, and it's going to take money--a whole lotta spending money!--to fix it. In a stunning development, our homeowners' insurance is actualy going to pay for some of it. And as long as they're rebuilding anyway, they're going to throw in some skylights for free! Maybe the lighting in my house will actually improve!

---

Went to a Passover seder this weekend at Kate'n'Matt's. I had never been to a seder before. I am really not the sort you would normally invite to a seder unless you are exceptionally laid-back. Fortunately, Kate'n'Matt and their other Jewish buddy are exceptionally laid-back, so it was in the nature of a fun dinner party with some tradition tossed in. Also it was vegetarian, and Kate is a great vegetarian cook. Once we got to the part where we can actually eat, it was delicious.

---

Finally got some new soil worked into my garden and planted some beets and radishes and carrots, with the assistance of an enthusiastic three-ish-year-old neighbor who has been acting as local anecdotal evidence of the existence of Einstein Syndrome. Until a few months ago the little guy only communicated with squeaks and shrieks, when most two-to-three-year-olds are progressing from two-word telegraphic speech to full sentences. Then one day apparently his brain was all "Hey: WORDS!" and suddenly he went from little squeals to being full on motormouth. He narrated the whole time he scooped dirt and planted seeds and watered the garden and, I think, suggested mixing concrete in with the dirt to make a skyscraper. I ... I may have created a monster.

---

So, yes, it's lovely and summery out, and it is marred only by the fact that our next-door neighbors are AWFUL dog owners. They like to leave their stupid fucking pit bull* out on the back porch so that he can launch into a thousand years of barking every time something startles him, such as when a stiff breeze blows through the backyard or a moth lands on the side of the house. You would think this would be an easily solved problem--"Hey, your dog barks his fool head off whenever you're gone, here, I even printed out some tips on how to train him to not do that, thanks"--but these neighbors, like so many bad dog owners, are also terrible people, and a casual suggestion that maybe they should actually pay some attention to their dog results in DECLARATIONS OF WAR. Do not get me STARTED on the Saga Of This Goddamn Fool Dog. It's a tale retold many times in bad sitcoms. I wish it would stay in them.

---

But it is so NICE out! I may just head out and climb a tree. Maybe take along my notebook, get this stubborn installment of Scatterstone worked out (it's a great installment, so by god I gotta get it RIGHT!). Or maybe I'll just noodle around on my ocarina. If that dog's gonna bark, I might as well give him something to bark ABOUT.


*SPECIAL NOTE TO PIT BULL APOLOGISTS: I am sure there are lovely pit bulls in the world! I expect they have responsible owners and are themselves the very essence of dog urbanity! There are certainly pit bulls out there with intelligence and poise and the ability to not bark like incessant car alarms! THIS PIT BULL IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

What I Learned Since The Autumn Equinox:

• It's a bit painful to win the trust of a shy cat and then have to destroy it again when you have to give her eye medication every few hours.
• Those profoundly stupid-looking Breathe-Right strips you stick on your nose? They help ENORMOUSLY when you have swollen sinuses.
• Awesome animator Friz Freleng would concentrate so hard on animating a scene that you could literally set fire to his desk while he was at it and he would not notice. His friends discovered this through several practical experiments.
• Some gallbladders have really recognizable problems, like gallstones. Others just slowly croak over several years.
• Trunk or Treat is not reserved for just Utahns.
• Sharpie makes good pens that don't give me a headache now!
• Quenya has an extensive case system, but it's also kind of weirdly redundant. Seems Tolkien had trouble making up his mind about a lot of things.
• If your political party forcibly ejects anyone who demonstrates even an iota of rationality, it will not go well for your crazy-go-nuts party come Election Day.
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is known as the movie that invented the twist ending, but what I didn't know is that it was invented by accident because the studios thought the original untwisted ending was too macabre. Studio execs--messin' with your movies since 1920.
• It may be sad to leave your cross-town library job, but dang is it a relief not to have to drive that far all the time.
• When I observed a couple of years ago that Kevin Clash has gone mad with power, I was more right than I knew. (I was talking about the supersaturation of Elmo in everything! I didn't expect THIS! DAMN YOU, KEVIN CLASH)
• A single episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? on Youtube exactly equals one medium session of boring WiiFit Free Step. Time flies when everything is hilarious.
• There may be another unexpected upside to switching narrators in my Doctors! story: my former narrator gets back all the weird characeristics that got in the way when he was narrating! Why didn't I do this sooner?!
• That butter-and-flour mixture I've enjoyed making for years as the best part of soup-cooking is called a roux.*
• The ch in "chalcedony" is pronounced as a k.

*I know how to do a lot of things in the kitchen, but I don't know what to call a bunch of them. So years after I've learned something I'll find out there's a word for it. Clearly I need an authoritative 1950's narrator looking over my shoulder at all times.

A Pretty Good Sign That You Are Turning Into A Grownup

When asked what you want for your birthday, you reply "I could use some new underwear and pants!"

An Even Better Sign

You are really excited when you get them, too.

Why I Was Late For Work On Saturday:

DAD: Hey, Amelia!
ME: Aaaagh! Don't come in! I am in a state of undress.
DAD: Fine, I'll holler through the door. But I need an opinion.
ME: I believe that the Star Wars prequels detract from George Lucas's original commitment to mythicism and remove the mystique of Darth Vader, and therefore do not count.
DAD: I need an opinion on the window in our back door.
ME: I'm for it!
DAD: Just put on some pants or something and come see.

So I got dressed and went out to see what had Dad so darn puzzled.

ME: Huh.
DAD: See what I mean?
ME: It appears to be … shattering.
DAD: Yes.
ME: How long has this been going on?
DAD: I'm not sure. I just noticed it a few minutes ago.

The back door was, indeed, shattering. In the progressive aspect. As we watched, an ever-denser network of cracks was crazing its way through one of the full-size panes. It was making an ominous noise, too.

BACK DOOR: Kk … kkk-kk … kkk …
ME: This can't possibly end well.
DAD: Any suggestions?
ME: I'll check the internet. Hey, internet! What do I do about cracking windows?
INTERNET: So you want to hack your Microsoft operating system, eh?
ME: What? No! I'm talking about windows slowly bursting into a thousand shards!
INTERNET: Oh, you're looking for XXX Mac/PC slash fiction!
ME: GOD DAMMIT I AM TALKING ABOUT AN ACTUAL WINDOW THAT IS ACTUALLY BREAKING.
INTERNET: Well, I have some legal forums with advice on tenant/landlord disputes pertaining to broken windows.
ME: That's closer, anyway …
INTERNET: Or there's always XXX tenant/landlord slash fiction!
ME: … The internet is no good, Dad. We're on our own.
BACK DOOR: Kk-kkk! Kk …

The window was bowing slightly now, and tiny grains of glass were sprinkling onto the porch. We supposed we could let it shatter by itself, but there was always the danger it would explode and make an awful and unsafe mess--especially not good if a certain cat decided to bang on the door to come in. And neither of us wanted to spend the afternoon in the emergency room digging glass out of our eyeballs, as might happen if it blew up at us. So we decided to do the most logical thing: cover it with a tarp and smash it ourselves.

BIG STICK: *thunk*
ME: You hit the wall.
DAD: THAT WAS A PRACTICE SWING. You concentrate on holding up the tarp.
ME: You want I should paint a bull's-eye on it?
BIG STICK: *BAM*
BACK DOOR: *CRASH tinkle*
ME: All right! Quick! Grab as much loot as you can--oh, right, we live here.
DAD: Please tell me I only got the outer pane.
ME: Inner one's still holding strong!
DAD: The precision of a surgeon, that's what I have!
ME: But you're terrible at breaking and entering.

We looked at the pile that used to be our back window.

ME: S'pose we ought to clean this up.
DAD: "We"? You're already late for work. You get to the library. I'll clean up.
ME: Absolutely. I leave the glass-handling to you, the surgeon whose entire livelihood is based on uninjured hands!
DAD: As it should be.

We're still not sure what broke the window. My theory is that the wooden frame has been warping for years, and the glass has been under stress, so that when something hit it on Saturday it was the last straw. But the way it shattered in slow motion was unexpected. At least we have another pane, so that thieves and murderers, and more to the point raccoons, can't get in.

… Come to think of it, maybe it was the raccoons. Wouldn't put it past those little bastards.

Those of you who’ve been around for a while probably know a bit about my wild subconscious: I have super-intense and detailed dreams, highly augmented by the Fukitol pills I take. Normally they’re sweeping crazy epic journeys, or prolonged anxiety dreams,* but they do like to step outside the box once in a while.

For instance, I recently dreamed that I was making pumpkin soup with ginger, allspice, and coconut milk. And I woke up and was all, “That doesn’t sound half bad.”**

So today I figured what the hell and tried to make a soup. I embellished a little—added nutmeg, garlic, onion, salt, a tiiiiny bit of sugar, and chicken stock to the mix, since the Great Pumpkin Prophecy lacked some spice.

And y’know what, it actually turned out goddamn delicious. Never let it be said my subconscious doesn’t know its way around a kitchen. Even a nonEuclidean one.

(It tasted particularly good with goat cheese crumbled in it, and yes, I got that idea from the Soup Dungeon in Twilight Princess. Which also raised another question: if I knew anything about the internet, then I could bet my pants that there was already a recipe out there for Yeto’s Superb Soup. So I set out into the wide Googlelands. Guess what? I get to keep my pants.)


*Not so many Ancient Egyptian Algebra tests at the moment; my anxiety at this point seems better represented by the kind of dream where the plane leaves five minutes ago and holy fuck you still have three houses’ worth of stuff to pack and every time you think you’ve got it all done you discover another pile of stuff still waiting.

**When I was a kid I was always completely amazed when a grownup would describe the ingredients in a particular meal and another grownup would say “That sounds delicious!” It was impossible for me to conceptualize how flavors went together until I’d actually tasted the finished foodthing—and then I only understood it as a gestalt particular to that foodthing. Took me years to get a sense of flavor enough to be able to say “Dang, you’re right, that DOES sound good!”

Okay, I may have gone a little nuts in the garden store today. I couldn't help it! I have so much more ground to put plants in now! And Dad turned the soil for me today--I think he's as excited as I am.

... On the other hand, I am the one sitting around cataloging the seeds and plants I bought (OMG PEPPERS! COLORFUL BEANS! PUNKINS!) and charting where I'll be putting them, so maybe not. I want to plant them already, but there are things to be done first--I started digging up the dandelion roots today and severely traumatized some earthworms, and tomorrow I'll finish that and try get my nice new dirt laid out.

I normally like dandelions, but that's when they're not in my vegetable garden space. However, I gotta tell ya, there is nothing like yanking out roots to make you feel like the god damn king of everything. Soon I will demand you call me Captain Vegetable, but for now, I may have blown out my knees and shoulders hauling those bags of dirt down all those stairs and tiers,* and I think I need some Advil.

I bought more thyme, too. It will work, dammit!


*And if you don't think I sang "I've got a bag of dirt" like Captain Jack Sparrow did in the second PotC, or spoke to said bags specifically so that I could address them as "dirtbag," you don't know me.