new swappy article

my new post is up at swapatorium. this month it's the ever popular eskimo pie, or as i call it, the meat igloo.



read more about it here if you'd like.

the rest of this weekend i spent reading and doing needlework until i thought my fingers would bleed. i should be finished with the damn thing by wednesday at the latest so i'll post photos then.

jesus, but i'm tired of looking at thread!

midnite simpsons movie

leff and i just got back from seeing "the simpsons" at the cinerama. they have nice chairs there.



and the curtains are purple and large.



oh, right, the movie. it was pretty good! (i'd see it again.) seattle has a small scene. although, i must admit to enjoying martin's bit part a a tiny smidge more.

now though, i need to hit the hay. a retro recipe awaits me tomorrow and i'll need all the extra strength i can muster to make it without barfing.

a bit of nothing

since monday, i've just been puttering and working. in other words, i didn't really leave the 15 block radius around my apt.

still, it's cherry season and that's cause for gorging on fruit.



i'm terrible. leff never knows that i buy cherries since i eat them all before he ever sees them in the fridge. oops.

we (me and leff, not the royal kind) did realize that we need to get out of the city soon. i know you're thinking "no wai!"



but, um, ya wai. we're thinking about olympic national park because of the rain forest. have any of you readers ever been there? and if so, do you have recommendations for lodgings nearby, etc? (thanks in advance if so!)

here's a photo of a fountain that serves no function except to transition to the next part of this post.



*whew* now that we have that awkward segue over, i can type about crafty stuff. like this new embroidery.



what will it be when it's finished? i'll post a photo in, hopefully, less than a week.

also there's this rough little owl and word balloon.



that's part of something that i might be able to upload a finished photo of sooner.

so with that, i'll get back to work. matthew porter is discussing his kid's book tonight at the ballard branch spl and i'd like to have finished something before i go.

the deathly hallows

i'm happy to say that the release of the seventh harry potter book happened on one of the crappiest weekends of the year so far in seattle. unlike pants who had nice weather, leff and i were reading while sheltering from torrential downpours. perfect weather for this sort of thing. esp if you enjoy feeling as if you were reading inside of an aquarium.

anyway, i'll try to write about the book in question



(yes, that one) without spoiling anything for those of you who haven't finished it yet. but just in case, POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD! STOP READING NOW!

the head count, while upsetting (esp death number two! (starts with "h") argh! i wasn't expecting that one!!) wasn't horribly painful until chapter 33.

freakin' hell! chapter 33 is still with me and it feels like a knife turning in the gut. to find out exactly how much my favorite character had suffered/sacrificed/etc was just miserable and fantastic at the same time. i reread the first harry potter book yesterday and, guess what? the last thing this character does in their life is also the first thing that they had done when they first met harry. argh!! the exquisite misery of it all!

okok, so i'll END MY SPOILER ALERT NOW!! yes, it's really safe to read again.

i think that deathly hallows is my favorite book of the series. for me, it was exactly what it needed to be.

that being said, i'm *really* glad that we preordered it. check out the waiting list at spl!



if you want to talk potter, i'd love to in comments. so, again, for anyone who hasn't finished yet (i'm looking at you, pip!) POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN COMMENTS if anyone decides to join me there.

tegan and sara

did i get tickets to see tegan and sara at the triple door? no, of course i didn't. don't be silly. but i did catch them at easy street yesterday.



no, seriously, they were there. i just got to the store late and they were sitting down when i took that photo. also? in rl? they aren't blurry.

anyway, i stuck around to hear both "where does the good go" and "monday, monday, monday" (which made me happy) before i had to get back to work.

so yeah, that's all i have for you today. i might be doing the wizstockrock thing tonight, i might not. so until monday, uh, happy weekend?

THANK YOU, CHOTDA!, fun with cat toys

thanks to chotda, i now have the most awesome harry potter confections to eat while i'm consuming the new hp book on saturday! but don't go looking for them in the continental u.s. (or hawaii or alaska either). nope. her awesome friend veronica sells them at her bakery in guam. seriously, check out the mandrake root cake that she made! INCREDIBLE!!

i want to start a cup and saucer/veronica fan club!

anyway, look at the scabber's fingers!!



eeeew!!! so gross!! so cool!!

here's the lovely hp cookie with golden snitch!!



also, trevor, crookshanks and hedwig!!



and some blood on a stick for good measure! although i hope i'm not eating it when hermoine?? ginny?? ron?? harry?? snape!?! (please not snape!) dies. that would suck. er, kinda like a sucker. *ba doom ching!*



also in the most awesome of awesome packages were two kick ass game shirts!!



and some hk pineapple marshmallows!!



AAAAAAH!!! such an incredible, wonderful surprise! thanks again SOOOOO much, chotda!! i triple heart you!!

and now for fun with cat toys. not nearly as exciting as the above items, but, um....yeah. what was i typing about? it got distracted by the scabber's fingers.

anyway, here's some sunlight on fuji's pink ball



and omg!! it's a cat toy rat king!



it just appeared like that!

really....

it did....

..............

*ahem* since my fingers are starting to feel tingly and dead again, it's time for me to get off the computer.

more kwik e mart, harry potter 5

was i right about last week being exhausting? oh yes. am i expecting the same thing from this week as well? yes. do not want.

anyway, friday i didn't do the harry and the potters show at spl. i looked at leff, he looked at me and we watched "arrested development" instead.

saturday, however, went as planned. we met up with d and j at pacsci for harry potter in 3d. but since we'd gotten there an hour early, we ran to the qwik e mart before we got in line.





check out the trendy imax glasses that we got to use for the movie.



awwww yeah. that's smokin' hot.



hp 5? not bad. pretty much just a highlight reel of the book but that's fine. for the record, the 3d section was just as goofy as i'd imagined it was going to be.

the rest of saturday and a large chunk of sunday were devoted to consuming a place of execution. i took a short breather for lunch after a and leff got back from seeing "transformers", but that was pretty much it.

seriously, me and the book. that was the majority of my weekend.

okay. once again it's time for me to begin another loooong and exhausting week. see you wednesday.

diorama mama

"what's new in omletteville?" you might ask if that snl skit had been making you laugh for the past, oh, ten years or so.

anyway, most of the past few days i spent just crashing out a la clouseau.



but today i got my butt in gear and pulsed some basil in the blender.

why? i needed something that looked like moss for my pf flyers diorama, silly.



the bun, its scarf and the carrot are all polymer clay. the fire is nothing but leds and part of a cotton swab. everything else is what it looks like. here's a closeup.



aw, innit cute?

speaking of cute, i saw a show on animal planet about sitka deer.



isn't it adorable?!? (that's jewlie, btw.)

ok, i've got to get started on my harry potter weekend. tonight is harry and the potters at spl. then saturday is the imax dealie with d and the hp meetup group that i don't belong to. should be lots of fun!

it's kinda' warm

i know, it's weird to say that i'm liking the three days of summer that we're having in seattle. but, truthfully, i've been looking forward to them since early may.

leff, the cats and i have been keeping fairly cool. my favorite way? homemade lake effect, bitches!



don't laugh, it works.

of course, there's always frozen treats.



otter pops. yum.

i've also been sticking bags of frozen veggies under blankets for the cats to sleep near.

i know that this has been one scintillating post that's kept you on the edge of your seat, but i really need to give sleeping another shot. until then, remember that...

tivoli/viking days = trolls and a long walk for pancakes

have you heard that there's some movie about some kid named harry potter coming out this week?



sunday morning i woke up with one word looping through my brain--"pancakes". specifically swedish pancakes. (although that's two words.) you know the kind right? the ones with lingonberries that you can eat near some trolls?



so it was with high high hopes of even higher stacks that we made our way to tivoli/viking days at the nordic heritage museum. they have a huge pancake breakfast, you see.

unfortunately, it's a cash only event (which we should've realized) and, uhm, neither of us carries cash. like, ever.

since it would've been logistically improbable for us to make it to a cash machine and back by the time the pancake breakfast was over, i made an executive decision to head for the original pancake house. on the way, we saw two golden deer.



we also met two cats that, honestly, had to have been from the same litter even though they lived many blocks apart.





so, yes. the original pancake house



is amazing! i got my swedish pancakes which were delicious!



and when we left, there was an oily kind of rainbow in the sky.



next time i'm getting a dutch baby and maybe some aurora borealis.

for now, however, i have to begin what i'm sure will be one really, really long week.

best indep day ever, kwik e mart, paprika

i can tell you in two words what made this fourth particularly enjoyable: cool temperatures. well, cool for summer temps. when it's only in the lower 80's (20's in c) with blue, blue skies, it's hard NOT to get outside and enjoy it.

leff and i thought that wed would be as good a time as any to drop by the seattle qwik e mart on denny. on the way there, we caught a glimpse of the naturalization ceremony at the center.



i'll risk sounding corny, but this was actually a stirring sight. particularly with so many people being quietly respectful.

it was, therefore, quite a contrasting scene at the qwik e mart. it is, after all, hard to keep your cool when you're walking into a freakin' store that didn't exist in rl until now! can you smell the awesomeness? it smells like my cat's breath. i.e. like cat food.







leff and i each got squishees and we took a six pack of buzz cola home. (it tastes kinda' like over syruped rc cola.) we both have more photos, if you're interested.

i asked the guy at the counter how busy it had been since the movie tie-in started. he said that things hadn't slowed down since the store had been converted. he's also, understandably, really sick of the whole thing. poor guy.

back at home, leff and i devoured some chili dogs.



i don't think that i've had hot dogs on the 4th since i was, oooh, 13? that would've be the 4th when my brother got hit in the face with a baseball at a picnic and had to go to the hospital. (accidents happen when my family tries to do anything remotely by the book on holidays.)

i got to see the fireworks from the er/ae entrance but he wasn't so lucky what with the stitches and all.

but back to 2007. this year, i watched the fireworks on my own terms. and by that i mean with all the other childless people. i cannot stress how wonderful it is to watch 'splosions over buildings with no tiny people screaming, crying and my not having to worry about whether or not i say the word "fuck". bliss.





last night, n and m dropped by. we had dinner at mecca and then caught "paprika".



i'm not really going to be able to explain this movie very well to you. it's drop dead gorgeous and i WILL own it when it comes out on dvd. but, um, yes...the plot...uh, it has a lot to do with dreaming and shared consciousness. to tell you more would ruin the experience. so i'll say this: if you like animation, SEE PAPRIKA.

if you don't, uhm, you know, don't...

right. i have a diorama that's not going to make itself so i'll see you on monday!

my 1000th post

how has one person written so much about so little? in other words, happy 1000th post to me!

it's a very good thing that i agree with this button's sentiment



since i've been holed up inside unable to move unless i scuttled about like a 90 year old woman with horrible osteoporosis. in the past few days i've finished stephen king's cell, girl at sea by maureen johnson (who, some of you may recall, i love) a scrapped princess book (i'm also burning my way through the series. that and "arrested development".) and most of kelley armstrong's broken. (i'll admit to loving kelley armstrong as well. she's pulpy and fun.)

so, yeah. tv and books. what's new?

i need to mention this lovely painting that enamor sent me for photographing her papercraft owls. (pattern here)



isn't it awesome?!? thanks, enamor!!

and i forgot to mention the origami that the guy who works the ticket booth at the monorail gave me on saturday! here's the crane.



but he gave me a whole menagerie of animals. how cool is that?!

today i'm definitely doing the kwik-e-mart thing. leff says that there are squishie cups available in ballard (although the store is a plain 7-11) if we can't get one at the denny conversion.

seattle tourism 101 or almost two whole days with the family

you regular readers know that my father and step mom were (re)scheduled to arrive in seattle on friday. about 20 minutes after they checked into their hotel



leff and i met them in their room. (no, that's not their room. they didn't sleep in the pool, silly.)

after a brief reunion that included my receiving a box of goo goo cluster supremes (ca-ching!!) it was off to the locks. which is really all that we did the whole day.



my dad was really into the fish ladder. this is him taking a salmon's photo.



yes, we ate at the lockspot. you would pass that part of my "which cheap divey place should i eat at while visiting the locks?" quiz.



we also made quick stops at the ballard library so i could show them the green roof (also, i had some books to pick up. they loved the self checkout.) and epilogue where padre began his obsessive search for ruth rendel books. friday's tally? three.

after a parallel parking debacle where i almost (atomically) blew up after having a loaf of bread thrown at me through the car window (no, padre. it's not my fucking fault that there's only parallel parking. it IS a city.), ma famille surveyed my apartment. which, of course, they didn't get. but fine, whatever. i always hear that from them.

end day one.

begin day two.

saturday i tried to cram as much of downtown into one day as possible. which meant the monorail.






and the market. where i took photos of stickers



and the r2 box there.



after refueling at the crumpet shop (i got maple butter on mine in honor of canada day.), i gave padre the option of either taking the bus further downtown or walking.

he chose walking.

have i mentioned that my back wasn't entirely better yet? no? haha! well, it wasn't! it still isn't! hahaha!

anyway, after much window shopping, the mystery bookstore (rendell total 2), lunch at elliot bay and then book shopping upstairs (rendell total 4), we went to smith tower.

i'd never been to smith tower before. the view was awesome! here's one of leff's photos from the observation deck. (i spent most of my time in the china room because i'm afraid of heights.)



then it was a quick walk up to the main library



for valentine's amazing pigs



yes, pigs. in the library. i couldn't stop laughing but i think it might've been because of all the pain med that i'd taken by that point. no, i'm kidding. it was pretty entertaining and definitely weird to be watching pigs jump through hoops in a rem koolhaus designed building.

a quick monorail trip back to queen anne, a short stop at dick's to drop the family off so my step mom could meet up with her friend from the peace corps and i was done!

sunday was a lot more laid back than previous days since padre had to be in montana later that day. so breakfast at top pot,



a drive by the simpsons' quickie mart faced 7-11 on denny (i'll get photos later) and, after narrowly avoiding causing four accidents, a pit stop at kerry park.



thankfully, mt rainier was out because i'm sure it would've been my fault it it hadn't been. ha. haha.

what can i say? it was hectic and painful. i'm glad it's over. now though, i have to be bedridden again because of my fucking back. i'm really despising this invalid thing because there's a lot that i need to be doing. grrr!