on sabbatical until december

see you on monday the third!

nothing new

this weekend was gross. all rainy and vaguely pantsy, in that british slang kind of way. which means that leff and i did nothing except finally defeat the cold, compile a four page holiday "wish list" (for parents and friends who insist upon buying us things when we'd rather they didn't) and go out for mexican food in preparation for thanksgiving day nachos.

unfortunately, jalisco's (where we got the mexican food) was more reminiscent of a kindercare than a cantina due to the disney on ice "princess wishes" monstrosity that was at the key.

for the record, "princess wishes" is referred to as "ice princesses" at casa rakkaleff.

in other weekend news, the sun was out for, like, five minutes. here's photographic evidence.



lamest weekend ever.

no nigella, omg, tyra!

thanks for all the well wishing, my little lean pockets. i'm still on the mend but youse guys and fujiko all helped cheer me up.



(that's fuji looking at me through a pillow cave.)

thankfully, it's not been a very busy week in seattle town. although i did miss both ha jin (who i would've regretfully anyway) AND nigella lawson (who i wouldn't have seeing as how i had a signing ticket)



both of whom happened to be in town on the same night. (thanks again to c for getting the nigella stuff.)

what i DID do was use some of your recipe recommendations for all of the mushrooms that i bought. (pics of that later.)

i also knocked out this slightly modified embroidery. (original pattern here.)



other than that, it was all sleeping, drinking lot of fluids and reading werewolf books and wodehouse.

for reals.

sick leave

i've caught c's cold so i'm not going to be around here for a bit. check back on friday. by then i might've cranked up the white blood cell count sufficiently.

uqa trunk show, congrats, t!!! 5 lbs of mushrooms

you know, if i designed scrapbooking materials they would look a lot like this.



but since even mentioning the word "scrapbooking" makes me, the baby jebus and st francis cry,



i think i'll move on.

witness these exorcist stairs.



yes, you could spider walk down them but instead leff and i walked up them and looked at a spider.

we also passed this puppy.



why all of this walking? the queen anne trunk show.



there were a decent amount of crafters selling but we didn't purchase anything except for a brownie and a cupcake from the bake sale table which we ate in front of this pumpkin.



it really is a nice pumpkin.

the best part of this weekend, however, was hearing that t was offered a new job!!!! HOORAY!!! we went out celebrating at the two bells on saturday!



congrats, t!! we're all so glad that you'll be moving on to bigger and better things! you're awesome!!

i, however, am not awesome. at least not when it comes to using decimal points correctly. case in point? our five pounds of mushrooms.



(original here)

i forgot the decimal in front of the 5 when i ordered them.

i have a feeling that i'll be spending quite a bit of time today looking for mushroom recipes. if you have any that you'd like to share, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

dave eggers, ufos and leaves

things have been pretty low key lately. other than attending the dave eggers event with c at elliot bay, not much has happened since i last wrote.



i really heart dave eggers. don't you?

later that same thursday, leff and i watched as seattle was attacked by a ufo.



then we kicked leaves in the dark so we could make a video for shed.



like i said, low key.

anyway, i need to end this. i'm still on package duty and the granddaddy of them all is out for delivery as i type.

oot and aboot in seattletown

remember how i said i was gonna kick sad's ass with vitamin d supplements and leaving the snuggly warm confines of my apartment? so far it's working well, as long as i turn on many, many, many lights before the 4:30 pm darkness rolls in.

yes, they're all cfls. we've been using them for years.

anyway, these short excursions are proving beneficial. monday night leff and i caught clive barker at emp.



we later released him. we believe that's the humane way to treat authors that you're viewing for sport.

tuesday saw us at the jens lekman in store at the lqa easy street.



oh, you're so awesome, jens!

i also ate a cupcake which should come as no surprise to anyone.

and with that, i must leave you. it's shipping central at casa rakkaleff these days. the major event being the impending arrival of leff's new baby.

if you're still looking for something to do, perhaps you should watch shed walk through some leaves. i found it highly entertaining.

one of the best weekends ever

this weekend was a vertiable cornucopia (hah! i'm cracking out the thanksgiving vocab!) of goodness.

on the way to schmancy on saturday to pick up our softies from the plush you exhibit, we passed a supercar which, of course, made me think of this song.



any of the theme songs to gerry anderson's shows are fine by me. "supercar" just happens to be my favorite because it's so silly.

anyway, we picked up our plush and, since leff got a craving for some borscht, we made a stop at cafe yarmarka at the market. he had a hard time fighting off my squid! a little known fact? squid like borscht. (no, they don't. i'm lying.)



on the way home i finally bought some armwarmers since, you know, i want my arms to look like they belonged in "flashdance" but not my legs. in fact, i was wearing them while i was installing the new additions to our collection. (i was not, however, humming "what a feeling". i have some dignity.)

squid at home.



bubbo at home.



i love them so much!

sunday leff and i went walking again. this time only to top pot. did you know that the new wexley center for girls (WARNING!!!! MUSIC!!!! GAH!!) is on 5th ave? i didn't until i saw all of the chickens.



while at top pot, a bunny appeared in my coffee!



trust me, it was bunnier looking right before the photo was taken.

we also got to see the donut-go-round in action.



ok, so it was more like a baby cornucopia this weekend but my arms are warm. and that's all that really matters.

halloween leftovers, the pipettes

even though the fangs have been washed and put out to dry



i still have some leftover halloween images for you. two, to be precise.





and so ends the last enjoyable part of 2007. i can already feel myself trying to claw and bite my way out of a seasonal depression that isn't being helped by 1) the end of daylight savings 2) the onslaught of thanxmaskwanzikah that has already begun.

my battle plan this year? vitamin d supplements and forcing myself to get out of my apartment. last night i enjoyed my pill with the pipettes!



there's no way to be despondent around these ladies! watch this short clip from "your kisses are wasted on me" and you'll see.



if more mopey singer/songerwriter types would incorporate hand motions into their act a la the pipettes in their acoustic set, i might be able to get behind their assault upon the land.

nah, who am i kidding? all the synchronized movements in the world couldn't get me on that bandwagon. dylan plugged in for reason, kids. (haha! that's making me laugh *so hard!* get off my lawn!! *shaking fist*)