Alizarine

Late Spring Update

This spring has been crazy. International travel, one-person show, looming medical test, backbreaking commission, exciting deck project--no wonder I've neglected my blog! So in an attempt to catch up and maybe not have to write a hundred thousand words in doing so, here's a little photo essay. While you read and look at the photos, I urge you to listen to Steal Away by Robbie Dupree, a song that has been on a constant loop in my head for two weeks, no foolin'.

 

(I can't get on board with the illustration here. I just can't. I don't like the way nearly all Japanese manga illustrators draw faces.)

Anyway, that song's been driving me up the wall, and I'm sorry if it's in your head too, now. There's no getting it out, like those Star Trek bugs.

 

GAH I CAN'T EVEN WATCH THAT!

Off to a bad start, sorry. Here's my update. Bun will make it better.

Last month, completely out of nowhere, a tornado warning hit while Jeff was taking a nap and I was reading. Jeff has a new app on his phone that alerts us to severe weather with a variety of sounds, a different one for every type of warning. The phone was making some noise, but sleeping Jeff and I ignored it because honestly Jeff has about 15 other phone alarms that indicate who-knows-what every afternoon (various calendar reminders and work stuff).

We eventually decided to see what was going on--the weather gave us no indication of impending doom, just some clouds, but indeed a tornado warning had been issued. Jeff scooped up Bun, I grabbed Pache and Q, and we headed to the bathroom. During the scooping process, my phone rang, and it was Melissa calling to tell us about the storm. She was in Champaign, some ten miles west of our house, and apparently actual funnel clouds were happening and headed our way. Here's one of the many photos I saw on Facebook almost immediately, most of them taken by former students who probably should not have been out chasing storms.

We rode out the brief storm with our big-eyed cats. It didn't last long and, as usual, seemed to skip right over us.

I keep meaning to write about my show in Jacksonville! I displayed my wares at the David Strawn Art Gallery during the month of April. This involved three long, 266-mile round trips in the Mazda: one to deliver the paintings, one for the opening, and one to take the paintings home. On the day of my opening, Jeff and I were up before sunrise and drove to the gallery. I gave a 6-hour workshop (watercolor still life) in the Strawn's basement classroom. I changed and put on my makeup in a gas station bathroom, and then we had an early supper with Mom, Dad, Poof, and Tyler before my two-hour opening. After it was over, we drove all the way back home, so that made for a very long but ultimately enjoyable Saturday. I've never had so many people attend one of my art shows and even managed to sell a fair number of paintings. Who knew that Jacksonville was such an artsy town?

Thanks to all of my friends and family who came to see the show. I was thrilled to see Kendra, Rob, Melinda, Kate, Mabel, Lars, Michelle, Grace, Jay & TA, and even Karen Icenogle, my high school art teacher! I hadn't seen her in a very long time, and she looked at me and said, "I love you." It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears.

In other art news, I've finally begun work on a commissioned painting that's going to take a couple of months to complete at least. It's a wedding present from a top secret groom to his top secret bride. The wedding is in September, so I won't be able to show it to you until then, which is a shame because this painting is, in a word, bonkers. I can tell you that it includes eleven people and eleven statues, and it takes place in a gold and red art deco theater lobby. The painting is huge at nearly three feet by three feet. That was too big for my studio table, so I've moved my whole production downstairs to our bedroom where we have a large desk. I blurred the reference image on my computer there, but I think I can show you a five-inch chunk that is in fact .8 percent of the final picture.

So it's mostly that kind of thing.

Bun loves the new setup because while I work she gets to sleep on the bed and do cute things like this.

Glass Gems 3 is currently on display in Dixon, IL, at The Next Picture Show gallery as part of the Illinois Watercolor Society's national exhibition.

I've been in IWS's last three national shows. That means I'm a signature member of the Illinois Watercolor Society and can now add "IWS" to my signature on future paintings!

Jeff, who appears to be throwing down a gang sign, and my parents came to the show with me and made the day very special.

Artist and judge Donna Jill Witty presented a terrific and dramatic watercolor demonstration during the show. I am the giant black shape on the left that seems to be absorbing all light in the room--I am almost as dark as those aliens from Attack the Block.

That was such a good movie.

In case you've never seen our house, here's what it looks like. It's a American Craftsman house with big boxes added to each end and is delighfully weird. The steps in the center lead to a massive, 760 square-foot deck that we never use and is a bit warped and dated. You can see a corner of it here.

About a month and a half ago, we began taking the deck out. Parts of it were so rotten and poorly constructed that it was almost a simply-lift-with-hands-to-remove kind of situation. Soon it was gone, and now we're dealing with the fun part: figuring out what to do with all of that new space.

We're going to have a table and chairs sitting atop flagstones on the right, a fire pit on the left, dark rock filling in, and a line of lighter rock dividing the space horizontally.

Here's a shot of the Adirondack chairs and fire pit (which I spotted at Menard's, majorly on sale). We put a ring of bricks around the pit and love the way it looks.

Below that will be a rock garden that mimics a dry stream with a bird bath.

Jeff arranged a lot of that on Sunday afternoon as I was taking a shower, and when I looked at it from the living room it instantly reminded me of a brain, which was unintentionally awesome.

We'll have some black mulch and new plants down there, including a rose-of-sharon and a dwarf burning bush, along with vines, grasses, and other flowers.

Here's what it looks like so far (sorry about the bleached-out lighting situation). You can kind of see the flagstones under the table.

Jeff and I often find ourselves staring out the window at this scene multiple times per day, contemplating our next move.

I'm nuts about moss roses and have been planting lots of them. Hopefully no woodland creatures plan to eat them, such as...

Two years ago, we hosted a family of woodchucks. Last year we had foxes. This year our house has become a chipmunk sanctuary. I like to put seeds out for them, and as many as four chipmunks are eating seeds at any given time. The cats enjoy watching these little guys, especially Quixote, who gets incredibly worked up.

We also have some adorable juvie Canadian geese in the neighborhood!

On the food front, I've been trying various experiments in low-cal food that are pretty good but not great enough to merit blogging, such as:

and

And oh, my colposcopy? I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. To amuse myself during the procedure, which is essentially a super-pap, I altered Paul Simon's Kodachrome and sang it to myself with altered lyrics as Kolposcope.

 

Kolposco-o-ope! It gives us those nice bright colors, it gives us the--

You get the idea.

It was essentially no big thing and took maybe five minutes. My area of concern was miniscule, and my doctor told me everything that was happening as I looked up at the ceiling, silently humming my tune. I didn't even faint, and evidently they get a lot of fainters. The doctor told me that based on what she saw, I had nothing to worry about. Unfortunately I was instructed to have zero marital fun with Jeff for ten days afterward so I could heal properly, so that was was a complete drag.

After a few tense days, I called for my results and it turns out I'm basically in the clear. But anyone who gets any kind of abnormal pap test and has a colposcopy/biopsy at my hospital is sentenced to three additional paps during the next year, so I've got that to look forward to. But I have been assured that my test results look very good. The paps are just a precaution, and the hospital presumably has lots of big shiny equipment and snazzy waiting room furniture they need to pay for.

Let's end this on a cute note. Here's Hypatia, one of three cats who piled up on me after the colposcopy. I was recovering under the "wookiee blanket," and Pache showed a certain amount of bravery in climbing aboard, as she is afraid of the wookiee blanket.

Chicken Pot Pie

My friends, what is pie?

(Sidebar: one time I went to Germany to visit a friend, and while I was there I made a lemon meringue pie for a dinner party. One of the guests asked that same question: "What is pie?"

They don't know what pie is in Germany!

That will never cease to amaze me. I've mentioned it before.)

What is your mental image of a pie, those of you who know what one is? Close your eyes and imagine one. Dig, if you will, the picture.

Here's my idea of a pie: crust on top, some kind of filling, and crust on the bottom. Right? Right. Under no circumstances are the following two items pies:

On the left is a ramekin with filling and crust on top but not on the bottom. Probably delicious; not pie.

On the right is a baking dish with filling and let's say Grands!^® biscuits on top. Probably okay; not pie.

Call those two things something else, but stop calling them pies, please, especially if you plan to serve them to guests. Don't say, "Hey, come over! I'm making chicken pot pie!"...

 

...and present something that has no top and bottom crust. The second you mention C.P.P., people (well, me) will visualize a true pie and spend the day thinking about how great it's going to be, and when you deliver some casserole topped with a biscuit, a part of me will hate you, and I'm sorry. I just really love pie. 

Tuesday Melissa came out for supper, and I made a true chicken pot pie. I cut vent holes in the shape of an M on the top crust because who doesn't like a pie marked with their initial? All human beings who know about pie like that, but so few people ever receive a pie made in their honor. Bake a pie with a top crust and mark it with somebody's initial. Make one for yourself! HONOR PIES. It'll knock their socks off.

(Photo not available, but trust me, it was cute.)

So this pie is comfort food of the highest order. It's from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and I've already made it twice since Christmas at Jeff's request. I love it too, and after Melissa returned to her apartment, she Facebooked the following: Now I just want endless amounts of chicken pot pie...*sigh*

The Pioneer Woman's recipe is for a top-crust-only-pie-that-is-not-a-pie, and she made it in a pie pan/casserole dish that's bigger than mine. The recipe made more filling than my pie could hold, something like two cups, but that was no big deal. I just kept it warm while the pie baked and spooned it alongside each piece (see extras in the top photo).

It's not the easiest thing in the world to make, but pie never is. You will not be a fan of the time-consuming fine chopping that's involved. Once you start making this pie, people will demand that you keep making it. 

But come on. You've got to admit that my honor pie idea intrigues you.

(Unrelated: Bun is a stern taskmistress as she supervises the painting of Glass Gems 3.)

 

INGREDIENTS

• Top and bottom pie crust <-- However you want to make it: if you go with my recipe here (scroll down), use the version with the 3 cups of flour that I've written in blue pen.
• 3 celery stalks
• 3 medium carrots, peeled
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1 large onion
• 4 tbsp butter
• 2 cups chicken, cooked, diced or shredded <-- Lately I've been buying big packages of 8-9 bone-in chicken thighs, which taste chicken-ier than breasts and are cheaper. I remove the skin, top them with 1/4 cup olive oil, juice of one lemon, and salt/pepper, and roast I them in a glass baking dish at 400 for 45 minutes. We eat some and save the rest for stuff like this.
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 chicken bouillon cube (optional) <--used it
• 1/4 cup white wine (optional) <-- used it
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp ground thyme <--used regular non-ground thyme
• 1 tsp kosher salt or more to taste
• black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 400. I went with 425 as that's how I bake any pie that has my kind of crust.

 

Begin by finely dicing the fresh vegetables, celery, carrots and onions. Melt the butter in a large pot or dutch oven. Add the onion, carrots, celery and peas. Saute until the vegetables start to soften, a few minutes (mine always seem to take longer than that). Add the chicken and stir to combine. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the vegetables and chicken and stir to combine. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring gently.

 

 

Pour in the chicken broth, stirring constantly. Stir in the bouillon cube and wine, if using. The flour will combine with the chicken to create a delicious gravy. Pour in the cream and stir. Allow mixture to cook over low heat, thickening gradually, about 4 minutes. I went a few minutes longer to further thicken the sauce. Season with thyme, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. Be sure it's adequately salted!

 

 

Make and roll out your top and bottom crusts (see link above). Lay the bottom pie crust in the pan and load it with the filling until it's level. Do not heap on much more than that. Roll the top crust out to 1" larger then the pan. Place the crust on top of the chicken mixture. Press the crust gently into the sides of the dish to seal. Work as quickly as you can here. The heat of the filling will make the top crust kind of hard to deal with as you seal it to the bottom crust.

 

 

Cut small slits (I.E. MAKE AN HONOR PIE WITH DECORATIVE INITIAL) in the top with a knife. You might want to work the slits into bigger gaps. I've found that skinny slits will try to seal themselves back together while the pie is baking.

 

 

Cover the outside edge of the pie with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for about 12-15 more minutes, or until the pie has a little color on top. But not too much. We're looking for "healthy glow," not "tanorexic."

 

 

Let it cool for 10-15 minutes and serve with extra filling. Some filling will inevitably ooze out after you cut into the pie. I like to tip the pan at a slight angle to encourage the ooze to get back to where it once belonged as it cools with mild success.

 

 

 

 

Cover and refrigerate the leftover pie. Individual slices (with extra filling) will reheat nicely in the microwave.

 

PS It finally snowed! I made a celebratory crazy cake and, since I didn't have any powdered sugar, I made a quick mocha ganache topping:

• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped or in chip form
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
• 5 ounces heavy cream
• tiny sprinkle of fleur de sel (decoration)
• handful of white chocolate chips (decoration)

Put chocolate and espresso powder in a smallish bowl. Heat cream in a small saucepan until simmering (small bubbles will appear along the edge of the pan). Do not boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and wait for two minutes. Whisk the mixture until you have a thick, glossy ganache. I let mine cool and thicken for about ten minutes. Pour and smooth over your cake and decorate it (or not!).

Thanks to my sister in-law Shanna for my new cake stand. I love it so much!

Poof and The Wheatman

That chubby feller up there entered my world when I was a preteen giantess with a fondness for Mad magazine and Superman II. I was also one hell of a tap dancer.

Alex (full name: "Dixieland Pride's Alex" according to his papers) belonged to friends of the family who were moving, and they couldn't take their basset hound along. Dad offered Alex some top-notch basement accommodations and plenty of dog food--sometimes even the kind that made its own gravy--and two gleeful kids who would proceed to love him.

[TANGENT ALERT] A few months ago I wrote to Julie Klausner, hostess of How Was Your Week, my favorite podcast. Julie loves Michael Keaton, Bette Midler, and basset hounds, so I sent her links to the following important, rare videos that she awesomely had not seen.

Back when this first aired in 1985, Mom and I laughed our heads off at "Ya shave your legs today, six months later, ya gotta do it again. Why botha?"

 

And this is strictly for Keaton completists.

 

To top off my message, I attached a photo of me cuddling with Alex.

Julie quickly wrote back:

I don't know where to begin. This is all mindblowing stuff. I can't thank you enough for sending this. The Keaton clip got me pregnant, the basset pic gave me diabetus, and Bette Midler is the only person who keeps me from staying in bed all day when I wake up in the morning. 

Then a few minutes later she asked:

Was Alex the best dog?

I dutifully shot back a list of reasons detailing why Alex was the best dog.

 

Why Alex Was the Best Dog

1. He was my first artistic muse! He would lay around the house all day, motionless, thus making him an excellent model. I created a comic strip based on him.
2. Highly tolerant of costumes.
3. An innocent: we tried to breed him with Maggie, a lady basset hound from up the road, but he didn't know what to do. I was in junior high at the time, and I remember dying of laughter and embarrassment for Alex as I watched Dad lift him onto Maggie's back. Alex just kind of stood there.
4. A gentleman: during the weekend that Maggie stayed with us, Alex gave her his bed.
5. A gourmand: on his first night in our house, Alex opened a bucket of lard we had in our basement and ate about a pound of it before getting sick.
6. A friend to creatures great and small: he had a pet toad.
7. Special: when my friends would visit me, we'd keep him in his room in the basement. He'd start barking, and his bark sounded like a teen boy impersonating a dog: WOOF. And so this made it seem like we were keeping a secret Eddington brother hidden away in our basement.

Julie responded:

Thank YOU so much for the single most wonderful and evocative list of traits I've ever read about such a great dog! And that photo? Too much. I wish I could have heard his bark!!!!! WOOF. Hahhaa Oh, you've made my day with this. Possibly my life. Much love and Lard-filled hugs. xo

See? Julie gets it. Alex was a very good boy!

Much like John the Baptist, Alex's presence in our house seemed to herald the arrival of something incredible: one Emily "Poof" Eddington.

My sister was born a few years later. She loved Alex, too, and gave him his greatest nickname. Highly verbal, baby Poof (seen above with me and our cousins Josie and Jason) learned how to speak before she could walk, and sometimes she had trouble pronouncing words. Adorably, she chirped a cheery "fuck!" every time she saw an American flag, she requested "kepshit on my ham-de-bur, " and she called Alex "Ag-owitz." Dad latched onto Ag-owitz and morphed it into "Go-Wheats" and later "Bobby Go-Wheats," finally settling on "The Wheatman," which I always thought was more distinguished, especially during his later years when I was in college.

Oh, sweet Wheatman. I miss you.

And now, some odds-and-ends photos of Poof and me.

Poof and I continued to bond even when my hair threatened to take over the western hemisphere. She never tired of hearing me read books like The Sneeches and Other Stories. We took to calling ourselves Team Eddington, and when strangers asked her if she was my daughter, we just played along.

I believe the birthday cake here was Poof's brainchild. I was home from grad school for winter break, but I had to return to the U of I a couple of weeks before my birthday, where I would probably not have a cake. Not on Poof's watch! She meticulously lined up marshmallows and sprinkles to read PUP 22. Along with Ryan and Dad, we appear to be a 20th Century version of Van Gogh's strife-ridden Potato Eaters, although I'm pretty sure we were having a bit more fun than that.

Spending time with Poof sustained me throughout grad school, which was a lonely and challenging time for me, and my first teaching job, which was a lonely and challenging time for me. She has brought me so much joy and laughter.

Above is the perfect example of little Poof at her greatest. She is sort of photobombing Mom, who has just finished sewing and stuffing twenty-plus stockings for a Christmas party for Poof's kindergarten class. Poof's obviously got something to say. Her eyes: slightly crazed. Her bangs: pulled off her forehead with a tight headband, a look that reminds me of one of Poof's top recurring comedy bits. Before a bath, Poof liked to pull her shirt, often a turtleneck, over her head without taking it competely off, creating a sort of wimple. Then she'd run around the living room like this yelling, hilariously,

"I'M A NUN, I'M A NUN, I'M A NUN-NUN-NUN!"

I'm a nun-nun-nun. Can you beat that?

Thus concludes my little tribute to Poof and The Wheatman.

Random Assortment of Old Photos

Mom gave me some old photos when Jeff and I visited at Christmas--boy was that a gift and food bonanza!--and I thought I'd share them here. My folks didn't take lots of photos of my brother and me. We were at our cutest in the 70s and are among the last generation of kids whose every waking moment was not covered with photojournalistic zeal by our parents. Mom's camera was kind of a fossil. Developing photos involved sending rolls of film in special envelopes to some faraway lab and then waiting weeks for the prints to arrive in the mail. It had to have been a pain in the ass for Mom and expensive to boot. The existing photos that do document our childhood have, by virture of their scarcity, become iconic visual aids in our family's folklore.

Case in point: the photo above. This is one of my earliest memories, and I probably remember it because Mom thought it was important enough to photograph. I was given the fun job of putting the cheese on the pizza, and I distinctly remember the pleasure of placing the cheese in the nooks and crannies created by the hamburger. (We were having Poverty Pizza, as I fondly refer to it now, which was made with a Chef Boyardee pizza kit consisting of dough mix, packet of Parm, and a tall skinny can of sauce. Hamburger sold separately.) As you can see, I'm using my left hand even though I'm right-handed. Mom was a lefty, and it looks like she set the bowl on the left because that's just the way a lefty would do it.

More culinary prep work: it's corn shuckin' time. I'm sitting on a stool that remains part of my parents' living room furniture. Note also the corrective shoes I'm wearing. Those were supposed to keep me from pointing my toes in when I walked. While they are not exactly doing anything helpful in this photo, they must have worked because I don't toe-in (as I called it) when I walk now. At least not as much. Also, wagons seemed to be key toys for children to have back then. We always had so many things to pull around!

Here's a sweaty three year-old me and my baby brother Ryan. I had just run into the house after playing outside with my cousins Scott and Jamie, and Ryan was standing up in his playpen. Baby Ryan was stupefyingly cute and happy. How could you not hug him, standing there with his little face? Mom said that people would sometimes say things like, "It's a shame to waste all that beauty on a boy" when they saw him.

My grandparents had Shetland ponies that grazed in the pasture behind our house--how's that for enchanting?--and when I was three, a palomino named Duchess had a colt. You can see the ponies in the background, and I'm about to give them some carrots. I've got to hand it to Mom--that is the perfect outfit for a little girl to be wearing out by the pony barn.

Soon enough, it was time for me to go to school. Can you find me in this class of squinting kindergarteners? I'm on the far right in the back row, wearing a blue and red gingham dress sewn by Mom. I was one of the tallest kids in the class, along with Jimmy, the blonde boy in the orange shirt. I am thoroughly convinced that my life would have been completely different had Jimmy not moved away when we were in second grade. Standing beside me is Michele--we would become co-valedictorians in 13 years. And check out our teacher Mrs. Engle on the left, a.k.a. the most beautiful woman any of us had ever seen.

At Christmas a few months later, my brother and I scored a giant cardboard box that contained some big kitchen appliance. That night Ryan and I hid in the box and popped out at random times, jack in the box-style, screaming with glee, while our toys languished beneath the Christmas tree.

I have some more photos that were taken once Poof arrived on the scene, but I think I'll save them for a future blog. I hope those of you who celebrated Christmas had plenty of time to play in big cardboard boxes with your loved ones.

Early Christmas

Jeff's parents and Melissa came over today to celebrate Christmas a week early--my family's Christmas is on the 25th. It's just easier for everyone if we spread the two out. I found it hard to plan a cookie and dessert spectacular for only five people. You know? But it's Christmas. You can't just offer one kind of cookie, can you? People expect a variety, and by making partial batches of everything, I managed to provide four kinds of cookies and a Yule log. Lloyd, Norma, and Mel were more than happy to take home goodie bags of the leftovers.

I created a sort of woodland tableau with the the log and rocky road (recipe here) in our kitchen nook, which really isn't a nook, but I don't know what else to call it. Few things are more satisfying than arranging glitter pine cones on a cake and positioning toy animals on chunky fudge-stuff...and then dusting the whole shebang with powdered sugar. I found our tiny pine tree--still studded with tiny sparklies--and topped it with a favorite earring. Every once in a while I'll come across an item in the house that was undoubtedly part of Nicole's bellydancing paraphrenalia, and I think the diamond-looking garland that criss-crosses the tree was part of one of her costumes.

The dining room table held my usual three-tiered pie stand--I can't help it! I love it!--and two silly candy trees I put together one afternoon last week during a burst of madcap craftiness. You can find the easy instructions here. I used those green foam cones you can find in most floral departments and bought a big bag of cheap candy. A few hot glue sticks later, I had a couple of candy trees in less time than it took to listen to the She & Him Christmas album.

(Sorry so blurry! It looked good on my camera's screen!)

Treats included my usual iced sugar cookies, marbled ice box cookies (I'll blog about them soon), and peanut butter blossoms from Joy of Baking. This marked the first time that I've followed along with a video recipe as I made it, pausing as needed. The cookies are nothing out of the ordinary--so many people bake them this time of year--but the recipe is perfection. Give it a try right now!

 

Let's take another look at that Yule log (recipe here).

Chocolatey good times. Gluten-free, too! I think. (Does cocoa powder contain gluten?)

I took all of these photos before the party started. I wish we would have had Christmas during the evening instead of in broad daylight. The noonday sun, such as it is this time of year, poured in through our big windows, diminished the beauty of our pretty lights, and served only to show off dust and the occasional cat tumbleweed, as I like to call them. But that's showbiz, right Bun?

Bun made sure that she was in the kitchen at all times, ready to take advantage of any opportunity to scavenge carnitas, macaroni and cheese, and the rest of our lunch buffet. Last night a bored Jeff and I made a short film where we gave Bun an early Christmas present--a tiny parcel of the aforementioned carnitas--and taped it to the floor. Here it is for your enjoyment (contains a couple of Breaking Bad references).

 

Merry early Christmas!

Also this:

 

How Poof and I Got Our Nicknames

When my sister Emily posted her Thanksgiving video a couple of weeks ago, more than a few of her viewers wanted to know why we call each other Poof and Pup. I am pretty sure I've told this story on my blog before, but I can't remember exactly when that was, so here it is again.

Unfortunately it's not all that interesting!

Back when she was an adorable tot, my sister started calling herself Pooch around me. I'm not sure how that came to be--maybe she had seen a cartoon or storybook character with that name, or maybe she just enjoyed the sound of it. Little kids are a mystery sometimes--why do they like the majority of the things they do?

Since Pooch and I were as close as two sisters could be--nevermind the 15-year age difference--she decided that I needed a nickname to coordinate with hers, and she liked the sound of Pup.

We were Pooch and Pup until she was at least 8 years old, at which point she decided that she needed to make her name zippier and less dog-like, I'm guessing. And in the fine tradition of Eddington inexplicable nickname evolution, she became Poof, and she has stayed Poof for nearly 20 years. I had no problem remaining Pup. It sounds so cute when I hear her say it.

Even though I've lived hours away from my sister since she was eight, I've managed to be there for every major, sorta major, and even kinda minor event in her life. Since the day she was born, this has been my policy towards Poof:

 

And this is basically us when we see each other after a long time apart.

 

I love that girl as much as I would love any daughter, and when I see all she's accomplished in her young life, I like to think I had a bit of a hand in that.

 

Thanksgiving Part 1

For most of America, Thanksgiving is four days away, but for my family, Thanksgiving was last night. I'm sad it's over! Jeff and I hosted a nine-person dinner party and had a truly great time. My parents and sister Emily (a.k.a. Poof) and her husband Tyler stayed overnight and enjoyed a 24-hour nonstop food event, and Jeff's folks and Melissa came by for the big meal. My brother Ryan wanted to attend, but he was having an oven crisis at home--long story. I missed seeing him and Shanna and Ashley, but Christmas is just around the corner.

I spent yesterday in perpetual motion and was unable to take lots of photos, so I'm hoping that Dad and Poof will email me some family/food pictures within the next couple of days. In the meantime, I thought I'd share our recipes and existing photos with you in case you came here looking for some last-minute ideas. I've blogged about these recipes in the past, so what you'll get is lots of links (at the beginning of each section) along with some comments and tips.

Turkey Placecards! This year I decided to get a little crafty with the place settings for some reason. A while ago Mom gave me a stack of Martha Stewart Living magazines that were several years old, and I found a project for turkey placecards in the November 2007 issue. The part of me that could have been a grade school art teacher felt the need to make them. I didn't have the necessary brown and red card stock on hand, but I had plenty of scrap watercolor paper, so I painted my turkey pieces. To create the tail, I used some yarn we had around the house that Nicole bought years ago. (I think she planned to make a poncho with it, as I also found a "How to Make Ponchos" book while Jeff and I super-deep-cleaned the house last week. This place is SPARKLING.)

Anyway, I added my own creative touch to this: an eye. Martha didn't want me to make one, but make one I did. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.

 

Then I made the mistake of browsing through some of Martha's online collection of other Thanksgiving crafts, and happened upon a link for these...

Twig coasters. I don't know what got into me, but you've got to admit her photo is cute, and our yard is loaded with sticks and/or twigs. I went outside during last Tuesday's strange tornado watch/warning weather (75 degrees, really unstable air mass, windy, humid, rumbly) and gathered as many sticks as I could before a heavy downpour hit and kind of had a ball in doing so.

I made ten coasters, each of which consisted of 20-22 five-inch sticks. So that's a lot of measuring and cutting to say the least. Missing art supply for this craft: waxed twine. Who houses a constant supply of waxed twine, Martha? I'm going to have to embed this again.

 

My solution: dental floss. Ha! Our dentist gives us plenty of it! While not as rustic/authentic as Martha's waxed twine, our dental floss was free and in the house. I was able to make ten coasters using one package (roll?) of it, and I didn't come close to running out. If you like repetitive, mindless knot-tying, this is the craft for you. And the knots are just those easy, first-thing-you-do-when-you-tie-your-shoes knots. Each coaster took about 25 minutes to tie together. The first two are fun. The last eight are extremely tiresome. But I made them because we really needed coasters. In an attempt to make them waterproof and a bit sturdier, I hot glued each coaster to a square of the tough black plastic you can find on the cover of Mead's Five Star spiral notebooks (I threw out some of my notebooks while I cleaned out my studio.)

Nobody used them as coasters, of course, but the turkeys looked cute on them. Poof and I decided that they were turkey life rafts floating down a sea of gravy, symbolized by our brown tablecloth.

And now, some recipes!

Since my side of the family arrived six hours before supper, I felt the need to provide lots of snacks upon which they could graze throughout the afternoon. Such as...

Peanut butter hummus. This recipe makes a LOT, and I could've halved it and still had enough. I am crazy about his hummus, and it pairs nicely with carrots, celery, crackers, etc.

Li'l smokies. These made the kitchen smell fantastic and taste equally great hot and at room temperature. We picked at these all day and ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day.

Seasonally-spiced nuts. Sweet, salty, herby, and garam masala-y!

Roasted red pepper cheesecake. Put some of this on a cracker or toasted baguette slice and you've got The Perfect Bite. I love making this, even though it requires a 4-inch springform pan. Tip: use full-fat cream cheese and ricotta. I made yesterday's cheesecake with reduced fat products, and while delicious, it wasn't as firm and lost its shape as it set out in our warm kitchen nook.

The heavyset cheeseball. No family gathering is complete without it!

Spiced pumpkin cookies. I thought my appetizer buffet needed something sweet, and these were a smash. I made and froze the cookies ahead of time, uniced. Thanks to the pumpkin, these are so moist that they can stay uncovered for hours and still be fabulous.

Mom made her famous apple and cherry pies, which I placed on my trusty pie rack. I set it inside a Thanksgiving wreath, and this made an easy centerpiece alongside bowls of lemons and clementines.

Posole. Along with the appetizers, I gave my hungry, road-weary family bowls of posole (Mexican chicken soup) for lunch. My folks enjoyed the addition of hominy--an ingredient they remembered from their childhoods but hadn't eaten in years. Chickeny goodness!

So this was our menu, and Jeff put his turkey in the oven at around noon.

Jeff's Hollywood Turkey. A little more labor-intensive than your average turkey but extra-moist and beautiful to look at, Jeff's turkey was a hit with everybody. Follow the link for his step-by-step instructions and bonus commentary about It's A Wonderful Life.

While Jeff puttered around the kitchen, Poof, Dad, and I laughed our heads off while playing Angry Birds and telling stories in the living room. Poof has a hilarious llama story that you've got to read. I haven't seen Poof since our trip to New York, and while we never feel like we can spend enough time together, we try to have as much fun as possible when we do see each other. This weekend was no exception. At one point we were in the kitchen dancing stoopidly to Girl Talk and just plain having a blast. I love her so much.

Carrot cake mini-bundts. I like to give Poof fun cooking tasks that exploit her decorative flair when she comes over. Yesterday she iced these mini bundt cakes with cream cheese icing and leftover pumpkin cookie glaze. Some of the bundts contained walnuts, so she topped those with, you guessed it, walnuts.

Malted crisp tart. Poof also decorated the top of this blockbuster dessert with malted milk balls and caramelized rice crispies. I don't have a photo of her tart decoration yet, but video is coming soon! I will say this: she made those two things resemble owl faces and it was genius. I made the tart on Friday, and it's not as time-consuming as my recipe indicates. I've made it about four other times since that blog and have since become a lot more efficient. People loved this tart, and there were lots of "oh my god"s and looks of disbelief at its greatness. They were talking about it the next day, and I'm not even exaggerating.

Stuffing. With Italian sausage, apples, onions, cranberries, celery, and really good bread, this is my favorite stuffing and is a meal in and of itself. The recipe makes a truckload. Give it a try!

I also made Parmesan smashed potatoes by Ina Garten, peas and bacon by Tyler Florence, and orange cranberry sauce by Rachael Ray (I used the juice and zest of clementines instead). Hey thanks, Food Network! Sorry there are no photos, but I think you can imagine what those three might look like. We also had some nice Italian rolls.

Above: cell phone photo from Poof. You can see Jeff and me in the kitchen cooking up a storm. While I made most of the above recipes well ahead of time, I had to save the peas and potatoes for the last minute. And then it was time to eat!

Check out Tyler as he chows down on a turkey leg, Viking style. The meal was wonderful, and everybody sat around the table and told stories for what seemed like hours afterward. My side of the family stayed overnight, and it was like a big slumber party.

Apple dumplings. The next morning, I made everybody breakfast--I say apple dumplings qualify as breakfast. These received more raves than any other Thanksgiving item. Poof in particular went crazy for them. I was able to freeze/refrigerate each component days beforehand (glaze, dough, filling), so all I had to do this morning was peel and core four apples and assemble. I served them with leftover li'l smokies.

Hand pies. Finally, I popped some pre-frozen hand pies in the oven--two per person--and after they cooled a bit, I wrapped them in parchment paper. I put the cute little pies in paper bags and gave them to everybody as take-home treats to enjoy during the ride home. (Text from Poof later: Hand pies are awesome!!!!)

And then Jeff and I collapsed for several hours. We're making gentle dents in the leftovers. And this Thursday we're probably going to get some Chinese takeout.

My Sister's New York City Moment

Look at that little dynamo up there. Smart, beautiful, hilarious, humble, and sweet...my sister Emily. As some of you may know, her nickname for me is Pup, and my nickname for her is Poof. So I'll be referring to her as Poof, Em, and Emily in this blog if that's all right. Earlier this week we were in New York City for 20 hours, all expenses paid by....someone who wanted us to be there (I don't want to ruin the surprise).

I was thrilled to be Em's traveling companion. On Sunday night, I took a long train ride to her home in southern Illinois. It had been three years since Jeff and I were separated for more than a day, and I wished he could have come along. But he stayed home and took care of the cats--thank you, Jeff! We kept in touch via phone, email, and what seemed like a half-dozen social networks, but we missed each other a great deal. When I came home, I was touched to see the Kelly-shaped pillow-and-comforter configuration he had built on my side of the bed.

I arrived at around 10:00 p.m., but I was up again at 2:30 a.m. to go to work with Em. She's an anchorperson for WSIL-TV's morning news, and I had never seen the studio or watched the show from the wings before. A couple of hours of prep work goes into each broadcast. Here's Poof and her co-anchor Kevin working hard at 3:00 in the morning. The little sign taped to their desks says "Anchor Island."

News 3 This Morning runs from 5:30 to 7:00 each weekday, and while there's no way on earth I'd be able to read the news to its rather huge, predawn audience, Em and Kevin (along with weatherman Clint) manage to do a great job, day in and day out. Their small, close-knit crew is professional but laid-back and jokey. Everyone gets along, and Poof feels very much at home there.

After the show, Poof had a few hours of work to get through before we could leave. Again, this is the kind of job I would find difficult: calling complete strangers, setting up meeting times for future interviews, etc. But she took it all in stride while entertaining me and vibrating with excitement for our New York getaway.

We stopped by her house to say goodbye to Tyler, her husband of five years, and Cupcake, her kitty of one year. Cupcake looks a whole lot like Bun, but Bun doesn't have Cupcake's fluffy white patch. Poof improvised a song about the fluffy white patch, a little disco ditty called "Fluffy White Patch."

And then we were off to New York by way of the St. Louis airport, which was some two and a half hours away. Poof drove while I navigated with my phone's map program. We hit a bit of a snag around this bowl-of-spaghetti-looking tangle of interstates near the Mississippi River.

Luckily the phone figured out an alternate route in a hurry. Otherwise we had an absolute blast cracking each other up and enjoying extended conversations about Mad Men, snacks, Jesse Pinkman, top 40 songs, the fabulousness of going to New York on a Monday, and on and on.

Em had only been on an airplane a couple of times in her life and was nervous. Plus it was September 12, and we had each spent the day before watching 9/11 programming. But I helped her make her way through security and to the gate where our small plane was ready to go. We came up with a new tradition: during take-off, it's my job to distract Poof with the most random conversation topics I can think of, such as owls and hot fudge. I kept her laughing and gave her a hand to squeeze, and we arrived at Laguardia at around sunset easily and safely.

Our driver met us near baggage claim holding a sign with her name on it, and he led us to a sleek black town car. He reminded us of our brother and we enjoyed the ride tremendously.

We paused at a toll plaza, and I saw lots of police officers and other security types keeping an eye on things. They seemed beautiful and brave; their mere presence made us feel safe. New York sometimes seems like such an abstraction when you live in the Midwest, but when I spotted a billboard advertising the new 9/11 memorial I realized, Wow, we're really here.

Our hotel (the Sheraton Hotel and Towers) was near Times Square. The snazzy lobby made Poof make a face I've loved since she was little: her excuse me but this is pretty awesome expression.

We snagged a lovely room on the 47th floor, near the top. This was our view.

Exhausted but experiencing our fifth or sixth wind of the day, we decided to go to the pizzeria Jeff basically insisted we visit, John's, just off Times Square [Possibly the only decent pizza near Times Square, plus it's in a renovated church! --Jeff]. I had been there with Jeff a couple of years ago, and this was a great idea because look:

So good! We obliterated this pizza and talked and talked. I almost lost my voice on this trip!

Poof's big event was at 9:00 the next morning, so we got some sleep and woke up bright and early. We caught a cab to the Time Warner building by Columbus Circle. Here's a view from inside the building.

A high-end mall (and Adam and Eve sculptures by contemporary artist Fernando Botero) occupied the bottom floors.

We window shopped for a while and made sure the camera was ready to go.

Soon it was time for the event! Here's a teaser video Poof put together of the story thus far.

 

And here's why we were in NYC: to meet Mally Roncal, makeup artist to the stars. Such as Beyonce. Such as Jennifer Lopez. Mally, a celebrity in her own right in the world of beauty, has her own line of truly innovative cosmetics, and Poof has been a fan for a long time and knows Mally's products and story inside and out. Mally and her crew had put together a blogger's breakfast and invited beauty writers from Yahoo, MSN, and other big media outlets...and my sister. Em was the only YouTube personality there. Mally--who is beautiful, charismatic, funny, and truly kind--discussed her favorite products and introduced a couple of new ones as some 30 beauty bloggers, Poof, and I ate breakfast and listened from tables in a special events room of the Landmarc restaurant. At one point during her presentation, Mally paused, looked right at Emily, got excited, and exclaimed, "Oh my god you are so BEAUTIFUL!" Poof was in heaven.

About ten minutes into the presentation, Em was taken aside by one of Mally's crew; Mally wanted to demonstrate a "smoky eye" on her for the bloggers! Mally's right hand man Albee Franson removed Poof's painstakingly applied makeup and redid it, leaving the eyes for Mally to finish. (This marks the point in the video above where Poof mouths, "WOW.")

After a few minutes, Mally called Em up to her makeup chair. Adorably starstruck, she told Mally that this was the first time anyone had applied makeup on her, and Mally was like, No way! Pretty amazing that the first people to touch my sister's face with makeup also work on superstars. Excuse the poor photography below; I was videotaping all of this with my right hand while trying to take still photos with my left hand.

Mally demonstrated her products and techniques on three other women in the audience. Her talk went on for about an hour, and then she answered some questions and held an informal meet-and-greet. Mally's team had told Em in advance that she wanted to make a video with her after the event, so Poof hung back at the end of the photo-op line. And I will let this video speak for itself...here is the big meeting of the minds.

 

Seriously, how cute is that?

It was so wonderful to be able to witness this, one of the best days of my sister's life. I wrote to Albee the next day on Facebook:

Em and I are back home and still can't quite believe what just happened! You, Mally, and the whole team made her feel like a princess. That "little girl" means the world to me, and I am so thankful when people she admires treat her with love and respect and bring her joy. That's what you all did! Mally is such a heroine to Em. The mutual admiration the two have for each other was truly beautiful to witness, and I'm so glad I was there! You all gave her such profound validation for all of the hard work she's done over the past four years. She is inspired--refueled! And my goodness, the makeup you gave us was overwhelmingly generous. I am having a blast playing with it. It's honestly better than anything I have ever used, and so innovative. Congratulations to you, Albee, for being part of a very special organization!

After Em's one-on-one with Mally, which was filmed by Mally's people for we-don't-know-what-kind-of-future-use, the two put together a quick, impromptu video for Beauty Broadcast, and that will be posted early next week. Even though it was fashion week in New York and Mally had a QVC session later on, she seemed to have all the time in the world to talk with Em, as did her staff. The entire event was about two and a half hours long, from start to finish.

I was unprepared for how kind everyone was to us at this event. Fully expecting to deal with a bunch of jaded, so-over-it hipsters, I was delighted by how sweet and down to earth Mally and her team were. The compliments flowed like wine from them, including fun comments like, "Emily, we are obsessed with your ponytail." They didn't have to be so nice to the two of us, but they were. Expectations: exceeded and exploded.

After we said goodbye, Poof and I decompressed in Central Park with freaking exquisite macarons from Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery. Jeff messaged me before we left the event and basically said, Yeah, you need to go there. We people-watched and made gleeful phone calls to Mom and Jeff. Poof periodically stared into space, grinning and slowly shaking her head. The next couple of hours and the rest of the trip home were essentially the first section of this blog in reverse. Lots of laughs, lots of OMG THAT HAPPENED. Poof was giddy and so was I.

And finally, I'd like to wrap up this rather long blog with a few words about what it was like to walk around NYC with Em. She's got this undeniable star power that makes people want to look at her, and there's something sweetly childish about her face, especially when she pulls her hair back and especially when she's happy, that makes people want to be nice to her. Any number of people asked us if we were sisters because we share the same smile, and one sweet older gentleman at the airport told us, "No matter what happens to you in your life, ladies, never lose your smiles." Midwesterners are supposedly a lot friendlier than New Yorkers, but I truly can't remember the last time a complete stranger said something like that to me in Illinois.

I've been to New York City a few times, but the people there seemed different on the day after the 10th anniversary of 9/11. More eye contact. Friendlier. Clearly in love with their city. It was as if everyone had spent all day Sunday crying and wanted to make a fresh start on Monday and Tuesday. Any apprehension Em and I may have felt about traveling to New York around the anniversary was replaced with gratefulness and admiration.

Thank you Mally, and thank you New York!

Art Show at Culver-Stockton College

"I'm not sure why, but I just don't want to blog about my show." -- me, every day since August 23.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable and borderline paranoid, and last night I finally figured out why: my paintings are on display and people are looking at them. 

Normally my paintings are safely tucked away in their owners' homes or occupying the nonjudgmental walls of our house. Until I recently framed them, eighteen of my watercolors were stored in a portfolio in my little studio, looked at by no one but me maybe once a month (to make sure they were okay).

But it's strange to know that 225 miles away, in the art gallery of a small liberal arts college, three dozen of my paintings are being seen by the eyes of strangers. Those people are reading my stories about the paintings on the title cards next to them. Most dauntingly, those people are talking about the paintings and judging them. That's just what people do. And it's going on now, and I don't get to listen to a word of it, which is undoubtedly for the best. Admittedly, I put my images up on the internet all the time and it's no big deal to me, but somehow this is different.

I don't have children, but I bet I'm going through the same emotions that parents must feel when they send their kids off to school for the first time.

Sprinkled on top of this: the nagging idea that I don't even deserve to have a show like this in the first place. Because who am I? I'm just some woman who quit her job so she could paint! Someone (I can't remember who! who was it??) recently said that having a one-person show was the art equivalent of having a book published. It's like people are reading the book that I've just started to write!

Hence the eerie silence on this blog over the past couple of weeks. Sorry about that. But now that I've been able to identify the simple problem--strangers are looking at my paintings and it's freaky--I think I can write again.

And did you see the photo up there? They put my name on the window with letter stickers and how cool is that?

Three weeks ago, Jeff and I packed 24 paintings into the trunk and back seat of the car (Jeff's 2004 Mazda 6) and took off for my parents' house, en route to Canton, Missouri. Each framed, plexiglassed watercolor was separated from its neighbors by cardboard and towels/blankets. We decided to take I-74--see the purple line on the map--instead of a more direct route to western Illinois because it was the smoothest road. I cringed whenever we hit an unavoidable bump. Would the paintings shift and scratch each other during this 300 mile odyssey?

Early in our trip west we passed this guy. I decided that his superhero name would be The Yellow Jacket.

One of my favorite landmarks on this most boring of drives is a giant DeKalb operation near Farmer CIty, which is the name of an actual town in Illinois.

That photo does not do it justice, but please know that this place is enormous. In my book, anyplace that is intimidatingly big and makes me wonder what goes on inside earns the distinction of CONCERN, as in, "We just passed the DeKalb concern." I actually look forward to seeing the DeKalb concern, and this should give you some idea of how uninteresting I-74 is.

We hit a nasty thunderstorm west of Peoria that forced us to pull over for a few minutes. Normally I love a good storm, but watercolors plus more water is a scary combination, and I imagined one of the frequent cloud-to-ground lightning strikes hitting our car, splitting the roof open, and rain pouring in and destroying my pictures. Also, we'd be electrocuted. I'm not buying the idea that cars are safe places to be in electrical storms.

After a side trip to Macomb to pick up the Mabel painting, which was being housed by her grandparents, we arrived at Mom and Dad's house at around noon. They were going to help us take some extra paintings down to Canton in their car. The weather was sunny and pleasant, and the drive was uneventful save for one hilarious carnival food idea Jeff and I had. It's too dirty to write about.

Once we found the art gallery on Culver-Stockton's very small campus, the Great Unloading began.  Gallery director Debbie Myers, a small crew of students, my pal and C-SC associate professor Terry Sherer, Jeff, my folks, and I made short work of getting the paintings into the gallery. The number of pictures emerging in a steady stream from our two-car caravan brought thoughts of clown cars to mind. Then we went right to work placing the paintings throughout the gallery, setting them on the floor. I had been given a floor plan of the space months in advance, so I was able to plan my show. I wanted to put my portraits downstairs and the florals, still lifes, and Burano pictures upstairs. Do I need to say that Jeff was amazing when it came to helping me make instant, Sophie's-level Choices when it came to my art? Because he was amazing.

Debbie and Co. then had 48 hours to hang the paintings. I didn't have to lift a finger, but I did give them a whole lot of cookies. Jeff and I were given a complimentary guest room on the building's second floor, a cute little place featuring the following print:

After looking at it for a while I Facebooked:

"We're in Culver-Stockton's complimentary guest room. The art on the wall totally says 'sex.'"

Jeff commented:

"However, the two twin beds provide a compelling counter-argument."

With two days to blow in a small town (pop. 2000) in the middle of nowhere, Jeff and I had to work to keep ourselves busy. Terry, whom you may remember from such paintings as...

...kept us amused. We love spending time with him.

Activities included:

• a side trip to Iowa City with Terry for sushi and a lecture about Haiti
• a side trip to Quincy with Terry for German food and a look at the city's beautiful homes, and
• a side trip to Nauvoo, Illinois, i.e. Mormon Jerusalem, sans Terry, who was teaching. Some photos!

Jeff looking iconic by the banks of the Mississippi River.

The rather beautiful Nauvoo temple.

Butterfly stalking.

But really, there was not much for us to do during the day, and I found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on my recreational reading because of the dreaded gallery talk I'd have to give on Thursday night. To make things easier, I had put together a PowerPoint presentation on my work and I had planned to give the talk in a nearby classroom. I spent all day Thursday memorizing what I was going to say to...the five people who would show up? None of my friends who might have wanted to see the show lived in the area, and anyway it was a school night, so I had no idea how that was going to go, either. A few hours before the show's opening, Jeff and I (mostly Jeff) hooked up my laptop to the existing system and dealt with the classroom's faulty projector.

Wondering how tired I must have looked, and instinctively knowing that no one would take photos of me during the show that I could later use to illustrate this blog, I snapped a quick self portrait in the semi-darkness.

Here's a better picture of me (taken by me in our house last month) with my apple blossoms. Hopefully I looked more like this on the night of my show.

The opening itself was wonderful, and I even managed to sell some work! Culver's president, its visual arts chairperson, and fine arts dean attended and had kind, generous things to say about my paintings. Art students and a smattering of local people were also there, along with a surprise appearance by my Uncle Ted and Aunt Terri.

I'm in no position to say whether I did a good job with my speech, but Terry told me, "You wowed them." He reported that one of the cute artsy girls said, "I want to be just like her." My parents, who had never seen me teach, were able to watch me talk about art and engage with young people for the first time, and they haven't stopped talking about it. The whole night whipped by in a lovely flash, and then it was over, and then I had to leave my paintings for a month. And then the aforementioned ennui set in.

Sidebar: I got the word "ennui" in a state Spelling Bee in 8th grade, and I spelled the heck out of it.

So here I am back at home. Bun continues to thrive--thanks everyone for asking about her. Saturday she wedged herself into a very small basket. Pardon my thumb; she wasn't in there for long.

After spending his birthday helping me schlep art all over the tri-state area, as opposed to having fun in Spain, my husband is happy to be home, too. Thank you very much for all you do for me, Jeff!

If you're in the Canton, MO, area for some reason, my show will be up until September 23. The gallery is open M-F, 9-5.

Popular Searches

Today I've decided to give the people what they want: search results. Listed below are items that people have tried to find on this blog recently but failed. Some of them make me feel guilty: I should have a carbonara recipe on here by now, damn it! Some of them are nobody's business. And some are just strange and random. Hopefully this post will answer some of your nagging questions about me.

1. Tampax. Somebody keeps searching--many, many times!--for information about Tampax on this blog. I have no idea why. To the best of my knowledge, I have never mentioned tampons at all on Alizarine...wait. One time Jeff and I did blogs about packing for a trip to Italy, and I complained about sacrificing valuable carry-on real estate for a week's-worth of tampons. What a pain in the ass, am I right, ladies? But I'm not some kind of spokeswoman for Tampax. If you want to know about Tampax, please go here.

EDIT: One of my friends has suggested that the post this Tampax person is looking for is I Was Girl X, where I discussed sex education and periods. I don't think I mentioned Tampax, though. It was now-extinct Modess pads.

2. Panda Cupcakes. People come here 30 times a week to read about panda cupcakes, which we made a year and a half ago. I assume they find my recipe and go away happy and/or disturbed, so this is not a failed-search item. I included it here because it's my #1 traffic source from search engines, and it blows my mind that people care so much about making panda cupcakes.

3. Expectation. I don't know what this search means. Expectation about what? If you are the one who keeps typing "expectation" in my search box over there -->, please leave a comment and tell me what you want! In the meantime, please enjoy this Gustave Klimt painting called The Tree of Life. The very cool triangle woman on the left is called Expectation, so hopefully this will help you in your search.

4. Carbonara. I made it for lunch a couple of months ago following this recipe from Giada di Laurentiis, except I substituted chorizo for the usual bacon/pancetta (was desperate). It was pretty good but not blog-worthy. I do want to make a proper spaghetti carbonara for Jeff in the future, though, in order to re-create the classic scene from the movie Heartburn where Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep eat spaghetti carbonara in bed (at around :44 below).

 

5. Wife. Um, yeah, I'm a wife now.

6. What color are Bono's eyes? Blue. With tiny light blue flavor crystals.

And now, here's the one you've all been waiting for, if my search box is to be believed...

7. Infertile. Months ago, one of you searched for this. When you type something in my search box, the searched-for word becomes a semi-permanent part of the list of other words people typed in. The more a word is searched for, the larger it appears in relation to the other words. For example, "cake" is my most popular search right now, so it's a lot bigger than the rest of the words. Here's what I think happened with "infertile." It's a juicy, juicy word, isn't it, even juicier than "cake." Other readers saw "infertile" with the rest of the searched-for words, clicked on it, and made it bigger each time. That caused more people to notice it, and they clicked on it some more. It got to the point where over on the right side of my blog you'd see my face, a few links to recent posts, and followed by a huge, screaming

INFERTILE.

Which is depressing! I'm a lot of things, but is "infertile" really chief among them, you guys? I hope not! I was so annoyed by looking at this giant word every day that I blocked "infertile" from appearing in my list of popular searches. You could still search for it, but it wouldn't appear on the list anymore. But every week without fail since then, at least one of you searches for "infertile" and its good buddy "infertility." And the reason you couldn't find any stories about it was because I didn't want to write about it.

But your whining has been heard. HERE'S THE STORY.

[deep breath]

Almost 20 years ago, Jeff had a vasectomy. Amy, his first wife, had health complications following the birth of their daughter Melissa, and in order to protect Amy from a potentially dangerous second pregnancy, Jeff had a vasectomy. They divorced when Melissa was in her early teens, Jeff married Nicole (who had three children of her own), she sadly died from cancer, and eventually Jeff married me.

I was almost 39 when I met Jeff, and I wanted to have a baby. Tick tock tick tock, went my uterus. After our wonderful first date, I was floating on air and beginning to imagine our bookish, brown-eyed, lushy-eyebrowed future child. Twenty-four hours later, Jeff called me and told me the vasectomy news, which he said was difficult for him to deliver, but he was serious about me and wanted me to know before things went any further. I thanked him for telling me something that would've been a dealbreaker to so many women my age.

After I hung up the phone, I cried on the couch for about an hour. I called two ex-boyfriends, and they calmed me down, especially Jeff's predecessor (and unlikely Jeff enthusiast) James. He said this about a woman he knew in a similar situation: "She just went ahead and had a genius baby." That is, she browsed through anonymous genius sperm donors, picked one, and nine months later: genius baby. That became a sort of Plan B mantra for me over the following months: "I can always have a genius baby." It would be just that easy.

IF Jeff and I were even going to work out, that is! I had about a week (the days surrounding Christmas) to think about how I felt before our second date. I kept coming back to the fact that we seemed to click in a way that felt absolutely right to me. I had spent years searching for this man. Even then, I knew he was The One.

We quickly fell in love. We quickly got engaged. We quickly got married. Marrying Jeff was the best decision I have ever made. It wasn't even much of a decision. It was utterly obvious, even with the vasectomy problem. Every once in a while during the first year that I knew Jeff, I would mourn the fact that I couldn't have his child. As our love grew, I decided that I didn't want to have a random genius child. I wanted Jeff's child, no exceptions. I dug deep and also realized that I didn't want to adopt, either. Right or wrong (and I know several adoptive mothers who disapprove of my decision, so join the club), I wanted Jeff's baby or no baby. I chose my husband over a child, basically after one date, and I have no regrets.

Sometimes I find myself reminising about The Woman I Could Have Been (watch this later; it's awesome).

 

That woman would not have been able to quit her job and devote all of her time to painting. That woman would not paint at all--at least not the kinds of pictures I feel the need to produce. That woman would spend her newlywed years stressing out over hormone injections, sitting in hospital waiting rooms, and obsessing over a theoretical being who is not Jeff. That woman's body would never be the same and her life would be turned upside down for good, and so would the life of the man she loves.

I didn't want to be that woman.

Also, what about the very real possibility that our dream baby might turn out to be an asshole? Or even worse, two assholes?

 

I love our life. Honestly, when we walk hand-in-hand beside the baseball diamond a block away, all I can think is, "I am so glad I don't have to sit with these parents watching those kids play ball." I love how quiet our house is. I love being able to read anytime I please. I love cooking whatever Jeff and I want and not having to cater to somebody's oddball allergy or childish preference. I love going to the movies and traveling with Jeff. I love painting all day and not having to teach everybody else's children how to do it anymore. If loving these things makes me a bad, selfish person, I guess I'm a bad, selfish person. But I am also a blissfully happy, bad, selfish person. And it's my choice.

So there's your information about infertility.

8. "my cookies crust is burnt but not baked entirely." [sic] Maybe you should turn your oven down to something more like 350 when you bake them next time.