Well Read Hostesshttp://wellreadhostess.comQuick BlogSand In My Bathing Suithttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/16/sand-in-my-bathing-suit.aspxThe Facts of Life, Part II

If your packing list for a week at the beach looks like this:

seven days' worth of clothes for four people
every bathing suit you can lay hands on
beach towels
toiletries
...including root touch up kit because work starts the day after you get back, and, DAMN!
nail polish
sun screen
bug spray
tan in a can
large floppy sun hat
seventeen large novels
four cardboard boxes full of English 9 prep
computer
kids' books
kids' art supplies
cooler
bikes
bike trailer
exercise clothes
ipod
buckets
shovels
sand trucks
beach umbrella
paper plates
paper napkins
cutlery
cups
dish soap
laundry detergent
diet pepsi
juice boxes
beer
wine

Here's what you will have packed so far:

beer
wine
tan in a can

If your "to do before you leave town for the beach" list looks like this:

scale laundry mountain
take recycling to land o' recycling
remake beds
dismantle pirate ship made of dining room chairs and bedsheets that appeared miraculously yesterday while you were reading O Magazine thinking deep thoughts
clean bathrooms
sweep
vacuum
obliterate all plastic crap that belongs to children and is evidence of too many Happy Meals clean up toys
mail the packages that have been sitting by the door for a week
drop off copying at work so that you are ready for the school year to begin
go to the bank
have panic attack after viewing bank balance
recover from panic attack and vow to find new career as hedge fund manager
stop newspaper
clean out the  fridge
turn off icemaker
arrange for fish-feeding
locate missing hermit crab
pay bills
respond to shocking number of emails left unanswered
get driver's license renewed - 10 months AND COUNTING
empty trash
pack

Here's what you will have done:

"clean out" the fridge - eating, cleaning, what's the difference?
make lists
read article about Jon Stewart in today's NYTimes and plan your wedding to him that will occur AFTER your husband and his wife meet at the airport in Chicago and fall madly in love and leave you both despondent.
]]>Facts of LifeWRHWell Read Hostess2008-08-16T09:42:43ZThese Boots Are Made For Walkin'...oh yeah...and KICKIN' ASShttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/12/these-boots-are-made-for-walkinoh-yeahand-kickin-ass.aspxGold Medal Shmedal
Michael Phelps Shmelps

I've got THIS, courtesy of the lovely Pamela at The Dayton Time.



Kick Ass Blogger Award

And though following directions is not generally my strong suit, I'll put on my big girl pants and give it my best effort.

Ahem.

This award originated with MamaDawg, and came to me, as already noted, via The Dayton Time.

It is customary to reward five others with this Kick Ass Award, and so:

Even though she is on hiatus and not just because her children are insanely well behaved and charming- Simply Nutmeg.

Funny and very smart lady found here at The New Girl - the kind of person who is so funny and smart that if you hadn't met her you would be intimidated by her, but, having met her, I can attest to the fact that TNG = funny+smart+nice.

Brave enough to admit say what some of us think and insightful enough to make us want to read it, and I think I forgot to mention FREAKING HILARIOUS - The Bloggess.

Who's your daddy - find out at Family Clay (I'm sorry, Mrs. Family Clay...that sounds a little freaky, it's late.  I've got nothing else).

And, last but not least, she may call herself "Formerly Fun," but I guarantee you, this one is major current all the time fun, AND she has knowledge of things that the rest of us mere mortals can only wonder about.  I am fascinated.

Muchas smooches everybody

love,
wrh





]]>Mama LikeWRHWell Read Hostess2008-08-12T20:55:52ZThe Facts of Life, Part Ihttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/12/the-facts-of-life-part-i.aspxYou take the good,
You take the bad,
You take them both and there you have the facts of life.
The facts of life.

There's a time you gotta go and show
You're growin' now,
You know about the facts of life.
The facts of life.

When the world never seems,
To be living up to your dreams.
And suddenly you're finding out,
The facts of life are all about you.
All about you.
You-u-u-u,
A-ll about you.
It takes a lot to get em right,
But you're learnin the facts of life.
Learnin the facts of life.
Learnin the facts of life.
Learnin the facts of li-fe.

Warning:  Contents contain gratuitous Clooney



I have absolutely no idea what Cloris Leachman is doing in this photograph, nor can I explain the small blond boy (?) next to Le Clooney. 

Among the Facts of Life are these:

If you plan a party and borrow and arrange a lot of chairs and tables in your yard and invite lots of people and their kids to run around and play horseshoes and eat chicken cooked on the grill, it will rain.  And not just rain, but storm madly.  Also, count on a tornado warning and quarter-sized hail.

Fortunately, you have easy going friends who will not only bring you flowers and wine and music and wonderful things to eat but will not comment on the slightly damp nature of the chicken and who are probably kind of psyched that their kids are running around your house and not their own during Tropical Storm WhatTheHell.

If you invite people to your house, you will probably get your act together enough to slap at least one coat of paint on a wall...maybe even more than one wall.  You might even hang the poster you've been threatening to.




If you, after excessive careful deliberation at the grocery store, decide that YES you will pay forty trillion dollars for the JUMBO ziploc bags because you will absolutely need them when you pack for the beach, you will walk into the kitchen shortly thereafter to find this:




Then, as you travel around the house, following the trail of JUMBO ziploc bags, you will find that they are being used as "egg sacs" for "dung beetles" who are carving inroads into a giant pile of "dung" otherwise known as "your bed," as featured here:



Still, and yet, forty trillion dollars and a trashed baggie and tinfoil drawer and oh yes BED are a small price to pay for the fact that your children actually visited a museum last week (have I mentioned how much I love my in-laws?) and absorbed some culture - albeit of the dung beetle variety.  My prayer to Isis must have worked.

So.

You take the good
You take the bad.
You take them both and there you have the facts of life.





Where do you take them???  I'll look into that.]]>Facts of LifeWRHKitchen Remodel 2008Well Read Hostess2008-08-12T13:17:01ZSix of Onehttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/11/six-of-one.aspxApparently, everyone agrees with me.

This is a great, non-biased, survey site that evaluates your beliefs and matches them with the candidates' beliefs.

If you're me, this doesn't help much.  Voting records help somewhat, but it's often hard if not impossible to parse out the politics of a vote on any given issue considering how convoluted and downright porky each bill in the Senate can get. 

You are all on your own.

Or, if that's too overwhelming for you, just do what I tell you to do. Vote for Obama.

That was easy, wasn't it?

]]>Politics as usualWell Read Hostess2008-08-11T19:55:45ZPrimo Uomohttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/11/primo-uomo.aspxRemember Howard Dean's cringeworthy victory yelp while he was running for President last time around?

Men are weird when they're all fired up. 

This looks like bathing suit opera to me.



 

La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'accento — e di pensiero.
Sempre un amabile,
Leggiadro viso,
In pianto o in riso, — è menzognero.
È sempre misero
Chi a lei s'affida,
Chi le confida — mal cauto il cuore!
Pur mai non sentesi
Felice appieno
Chi su quel seno — non liba amore! *










English Translation of "La donna e mobile"

Woman is flighty
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind.
Always sweet,
Pretty face,
In tears or in laughter, — she is always lying.
Always miserable
Is he who trusts her,
He who confides in her — his unwary heart!
Yet one never feels
Fully happy
Who on that bosom — does not drink love!
]]>WRHWell Read Hostess2008-08-11T14:21:55ZHere's Johnny!...And Here's Little Johnny, Too, Apparently.http://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/09/heres-johnnyand-heres-little-johnny-too-apparently.aspxJohn Edwards.

Really?  Oy.

Pretend, for a moment, that you find yourself in possession of a giant bucket full of lukewarm oatmeal.

Then, pretend that you turn that bucket of lukewarm oatmeal upside down so that the lukewarm oatmeal lands, say, on your driveway.

Imagine the sound of that lukewarm oatmeal hitting the asphalt.

If my emotional response to the news that John Edwards had an affair with a yoga instructor while his long-suffering wife recovered from cancer bout #1 had a soundtrack, it would be that lukewarm oatmeal hitting the asphalt.

]]>WRHPolitics as usualWell Read Hostess2008-08-09T21:32:00ZA Woman's Prerogativehttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/09/a-womans-prerogative.aspxI changed my mind about the Olympics.

Before I said that I couldn't get worked up about them (it?), but the opening ceremonies last night hooked me in.

I'm not sure that there are enough adjectives available for me to adequately describe what I saw, so, uh....wow. 

And like I do when I watch figure skating (which I don't really like so much, really) and when I listen to big, loud symphonic music, I got a lump in my throat when the Americans marched in.  That's the thing about the Olympics, maybe, they balance you between past and future.  Every Olympic games reminds you of the other Olympics you've watched and the stories you heard then and the "personal interest" miniseries the commentators subject you to every ten minutes as you try to watch the final heat of a swim race.  But, and especially true in this case since this is all happening in China at this moment in history, the symbolism of the spectacle points forward into the future. 

And Michael Phelps just set an Olympic record in a qualifying heat for the 400 IM. 


*If anyone would like to by an R, there seems to be an extra one up there in the title in the middle of the word "prerogative." 
]]>Mama LikeWRHWell Read Hostess2008-08-09T14:45:21ZThar She Blows!http://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/08/thar-she-blows.aspxA strong breeze is picking up and I've got a nice following sea.

Thanks to the Five Star Friday folks for saying nice things about me. 

And also for giving me something to write about today. 

Ta da. 

That's it.

Five Star Friday ]]>Well Read Hostess2008-08-08T16:21:18ZBlow Mehttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/06/blow-me.aspxDoldrums:  a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

When sailing, the consequence of "being in the doldrums" is that you, and your boat, don't move much.  Your sails luff pathetically at best, and mostly you sit, rocked by the sleepy currents, waiting for some action to jolt you out of your stupor.

The other definitions of doldrums tend towards the "depressed, listless" variety, but the nautical definition sums up where I am at the moment pretty well.

I am in between vacations, summer camp is over, swimming lessons are finished, pool test passed (hallelujah),
w--k is still far enough off that I haven't begun to hyperventilate, and (although I did have my traditional July 31st first day of school anxiety nightmares - what fun) I don't really know what to do with myself.

I don't make lists of the things I want to accomplish during summer vacation anymore because my learning curve is not entirely flat.  If I had made a list of things to accomplish during summer vacation, however, it would look something like this:

spackle kitchen walls
sand kitchen walls
paint kitchen walls
paint kitchen ceiling
buy chairs for kitchen
buy light fixtures for kitchen
tile kitchen backsplash
hunt down floor guy to finish kitchen floor
organize attic
get rid of embarrassing quantity of plastic kid toys in playroom
get haircut
plan short story unit
organize curriculum materials
write weekly lesson schedules
take children to museums and cultural events
bury the two FROZEN DEAL FISH FROM FISHTANK currently taking up real estate in basement freezer
write every day
figure out how to get to Montana, Germany, and San Diego to see friend, friend, and grandma

Here's how I did:

sort of
sort of
primed one of them
no
no
no
no
no
no
no
yes!!!
no
not even close
dream on
does Kung Fu Panda count?
Am I not married??!!  Did I not extract promise upon promise from the adult male in the household that he, and not I, would be responsible for all things fishtank???!!!
HA!
Uh, no.  But I did buy some lottery tickets.

In the absence of a cool breeze to blow me in any particular direction, I can't even figure out what to have for breakfast these days.  Seriously!  This morning I ended up eating a chocolate cat cookie from Trader Joe's and a handful of walnuts.  Just because they were there.  That sounds as though I ate a cookie intended for a cat, but please take note that the cookie was merely shaped like a cat.  Which, come to think of it, may or may not be better.

Politics hold no appeal ("You stink."  "You stink."  "You stink more and you are a stupid head"), the news seems surreal (Constitution, what constitution?), and I am so freaked out by the schizophrenic and disjointed nation that is China that I can't even get too worked up about the Olympics (doping, pyrotechnics, Matt Lauer). 

My children, on the other hand, are so happy to have unstructured time that they haven't even noticed that I'm not letting them watch t.v. or eat anything including high fructose corn syrup (Ask me how much I love Dr. Oz.  Really.  Ask me.  Answer:  So, so much).  Because their mother is so apathetic, they managed to fill the entire bathtub with lukewarm water, grass, legos and torn up styrofoam "snow" yesterday before I'd noticed, and at the moment they are playing "animal rescue" which involves every stuffed animal they can find and lots of rope.  I'm pretty sure, also, that I just heard my 4 year old daughter tell her brother that she'd taken a picture of me while I was in the shower.  What?!

How did I miss that?

Remember the cutting edge, awesome television show Shazam and Isis?  If you don't, it means that you are much younger than I am, so please don't respond. 

Isis, the first female superhero, was better looking than Wonder Woman and had this ritual invocation of her superpower, "Oh zephyr winds which blow on high, lift me now so I can fly."  



I know what I need to do!

"Oh piles of work and unfinished kitchen, kick my ass so I'll stop bitchin'"

Uh oh, you know what this means?  The WRH needs to go find a good book to read, and it must be time to have a dinner party.





]]>WRHWell Read Hostess2008-08-06T13:42:44ZWake Me When It's Novemberhttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/03/wake-me-when-its-november.aspx can't keep track.  I can't keep up.  I don't even know what this is!  All I keep thinking is that I've fallen asleep and into some Kurt Vonnegut dream.  Major Major Major Major...can you hear me???  Please explain what this letter from Obama means!!! Can we just VOTE already?]]>WRHPolitics as usualWell Read Hostess2008-08-03T22:48:33ZNorth by Northeasthttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/08/03/north-by-northeast.aspxMartha Stewart names her houses.  At various times she's been the proud owner of Turkey Hill Farm in Connecticut, Cantitoe Corners in Bedford, and Lily Pond in the Hamptons.   Her house in Maine is called "Skylands,"  and it is, to be sure, stunning.*

Seeing as how I forgot to create a multimedia lifestyle empire then go to jail and resuscitate my career and maybe my reputation but the jury's still kind of out on that and thereby accumulate a massive fortune and a ton of real estate, I will tell myself that Skylands, pictured below, might be a little overwhelming to contemplate when I'm looking for a quiet week with the family.  I mean, who wants to vacuum all that?




Skylands it ain't, but we've got TWO houses in Maine.  Eat that Martha!  And by houses, of course, I mean a very old farmhouse with two bedrooms and cottage that only recently got electricity and has no plumbing still and not for the foreseeable future ever.  And by we of course, I mean not us at all, but our family who has foolishly told us where they leave the keys.  

Although words are flimsy and feeble tools when trying to describe paradise, we went on ahead and named our houses, too.  We spent our vacation at "Gravel Pit Perch" and "Daddy Long Legs Lodge."

Like Martha, we have expansive views.  Behold the view from Gravel Pit Perch, you can't even see the gravel pit from here or anywhere really, but you can sure hear it on a big-gravel-order morning!  Our barns are real, and real dirty, and full of real old stuff, unlike Martha's, which I'm sure are full of real nice stuff that looks real and real old and cost her a whole bunch of real money.



Should the day's heat (or incessant five day rain) become too much for us to bear, we can always head on out to Daddy Long Legs Lodge on the Lake.  Like Martha, we must contend with the hassle that accompanies the easy access the paparazzi or perhaps even the WRH from a motorboat circling endlessly to get the clear shot has to lurk and photograph the property.  Unlike at Martha's house, there is no indoor plumbing.  In fact, there is no outdoor plumbing.  Unless you consider a giant lake for bathing and a quaint and tidy and non-smelly, but, nevertheless it's ultimately just a hole in the ground outhouse, plumbing.




We even have our very own loon.  Or at least, a loon that hangs around enough so that child the elder can study its call and thus ensure his courageous and spot-on loon call at the annual loon calling contest.  Because the judges were old and quite deaf, he only came in 4th place.  They must also be forgetful because they forgot to announce that he came in 4th place and we had to work very hard to make sure that child the elder was aware of his impressive 4th place finish.  He really is a talented loon-caller. 



Like Martha, we prepare elegant and sumptuous feasts appropriate for our setting.



Unlike Martha, we also prepare a special plate of all orange food for those of our guests, I'm looking at you child the younger, who will only eat orange food from time to time. 



Like Martha, I will provide you with a recipe that you can try at home to try to capture the atmosphere of the place. Unlike Martha's recipes, mine will not require that you have four assistants, a coal-heated Viking Stove, and vanilla extract distilled in a yurt on a lemur reserve on the king's property in Madagascar or some other equally preposterous ingredient that nobody, save Martha Stewart and her four terrified assistants could procure.

Extra Special Ultimate Original Daddy Long Legs Lodge Blueberry Muffins

First, go out to your own blueberry bushes and pick as many blueberries as you can before your lower back and arms are tired and you have been bitten by no fewer than 37 marauding mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds.

If you don't have your own blueberry bushes then I am sad for you but will share mine this one time only.  Here.



I know, I know.  It doesn't look like much.  But this is what you get after about five minutes (and 37) mosquito bites.  I didn't even have to wait until my arms hurt. **



This is actually quite a big bowl, which you cannot tell from this photograph because I am not a photographer.  Right now, I am a muffin maker, and this is a ton of blueberries.  Trust me.

Mix 1 3/4 cup flour and, dear reader(s, she types, hopefully) you DON'T NEED TO SIFT! Sweet, sweet liberty.  Where was I?  Right.

Mix flour with 3/4 tsp. salt, 1/3 cup sugar, and 2 tsp. baking powder.

In another bowl, beat 2 eggs, add 1/4 cup melted butter and 3/4 cup milk. 

Mix wet stuff into dry stuff until dry stuff is no longer dry. 

First rule of muffins:  You do not talk about muffins.
Second rule of muffins:  You do not overmix.  Lumps are OK.

Fold in blueberries.  How many?  Well...how many did you get before your arms hurt and the mosquitoes bled you dry?  Minimum of 1 cup (wuss) up to about 1 3/4 cups if you are hardcore about your blueberries.

Bake for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven.  About five minutes before they come out, sprinkle sugar on top.






*If you need MORE Martha Stewart in your living, you can always by a KB manufactured tract house styled by Martha.  Oh my.

** Those of you who spend too much time studying agriculture and/or blueberries or who live in New Jersey might recognize that these blueberry bushes are, in fact, NOT Maine blueberry bushes at all but are, instead, New Jersey blueberry bushes.  I cannot explain this.  It's a reasonable assumption that Martha's blueberry bushes are entirely native to the very acre of fertile soil where they have been lovingly nurtured for generations.  Unlike Martha's blueberries, however, ours were here when we landed, and from time to time we chuck a net over them to keep the birds away.  Other than that, they're on their own.  So far so good.

]]>WRHWell Read Hostess2008-08-03T22:47:39ZWe Went To The Woods To Live Deliberatelyhttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/28/we-went-to-the-woods-to-live-deliberately.aspxWay back when, before I was securely tethered to desks, stoves, and family life, I lived in Montana.  I lived in some other places, wild and tame, as well.  And since I was a wee bairn, I've been camping.  Family car camping trips to Florida, backpacking trips in Baxter State Park in Maine, weekend excursions to Yosemite, cross country extravaganzas through National Parks, and so on.

TWGH began his Mountain Man training as a child, also, and has since done outdoorsy-type things that are the stuff of recurring nightmares for me - snow camping, ice climbing, jumping off and out of various stationary landmarks.  If it involves a lot of gear and lengthy periods of time without bathing, chances are he's done and it and loved it.

Our kids are not totally citified or sissified, but their experiences with tents have all occurred in our back yard. 

We decided it was time to remedy this situation, so, on the way from point A to point B, we detoured off in the direction of point C to camp for a night.

With no knowledge of where we were going and/or what we were getting into, we had to rely on the state park service website and good karma.   We weren't hoping for anything extreme, but we envisioned nature, quiet, simple, traditional family camping STUFF.  I asked for a wooded site, chose one far from other sites and buildings in the park, and crossed my fingers.

So we ended up here.



And we brought everything we were supposed to bring:





Even Noodlies a la Princessa:



And, of course:




But perspective is everything, isn't it?

If you make a quarter turn from THIS vantage point:



You end up looking at this:



Which is less "Family Wilderness Experience," than "Tent City in Refugee Camp," I think.

Also, my version of the woods doesn't often include this:



Um.  Wha??!!!

Next camping trip...Yosemite.  Oops.  Maybe not that either.

Separate but related, I'd advise NOT starting this amazing awesome wonderful fantastic thrilling beautiful fun exciting omigodilovejamesleeburkesomuch book that begins with a dude camping (particularly if the character is actually camping somewhere you have, in the past, camped) and then watched and harassed by some scary hombres as you are falling asleep near the woods and seven hundred people and their screaming children and drunken relatives all hopped up on Creamsicles and Rocket Pops.

]]>WRHParent of the YearWell Read Hostess2008-07-30T15:20:37ZC'est Magnifique, Mais Ce N'est Pas Le Guerrehttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/24/cest-magnifique-mais-ce-nest-pas-le-guerre-ou-peutetre-cest-le-guerre-bien-sur.aspx

Last week's question was: What does a WRH do when her son announces he'd like to have a beach party? (or something to that effect).  The reply:  Goes batshit crazy.

This week's question:  What does a WRH do when she has only 30 pages left in the book she has been reading for months on end and she can't decide if she's happy to be done with it or sad to wave adieu? 

The reply:  She paints a wall.  Seriously.  I just did.  I painted a wall.  It's 10:30 at night, I have forty million trillion gazillion things to do that are NOT wall-painting.  And yet.  I painted a wall.

Terry Darlington's Narrow Dog to Carcassonne is either an irreverent romp through the waterways of Europe, narrated with wit and intelligence.

OR

Terry Darlington's Narrow Dog to Carcassonne is the Bhutan Death March, with a few Cirque de Soleil pitstops along the way.

In order for you to decide (because, hell, I think it's pretty clear that I cannot be relied upon to make a choice), here are some excerpts:

"We held our ropes and waited and nothing happened but after a while the fields and hills below had been pushed away.  Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.  It was a blank experience, like the Channel Tunnel, like having a tooth out under gas, like Shakin' Stevens.  Far away the gate opened and we sailed out two hundred feet higher, on to the top of a hill, the body of the cockroach tower behind us.  Beneath the boat the water lay still dead."*

I'm not so much of a scrub that I can't appreciate that there is poetry and metaphor in here...but I am so much of a scrub that I don't know what to do with it.

"When we woke, Villeneuve-sur-Yonne had swept its stone quay and turned its pansies to the sun and picked up its litter and checked that its free electricity was pure sine wave, clean enough for our laptops, strong enough for our fan heater and kettle."

This is epic and deadly personification.  I think he probably had to apply for a permit to use it.

"A walk by the river.  Jim's first countryside, his first chance of a burn-up since we came back from England.  The path between the trees was bordered by new grass, with constellations of buttercups. Bird's-eyes looked at us and we were children again.  Once when I was ill, said Monica, I went for a walk and the bird's-eyes were out and I said to myself everything was fine when I was a little girl and it will be fine again."

I think maybe my problem is that I had assumed, seeing as how the name on the cover of the book says "TERRY DARLINGTON" that "TERRY DARLINGTON" had written the book when, in fact, and quite clearly, James Joyce was a major contributor.  

"Notre-Dame strained on its stone ropes, longing to throw itself into the Seine and sail away.  The sun beat on its sides and tourists washed around like surf." 

I'll give him this.  This is quite beautiful and I actually understand it, as opposed to the other three passages- which, come to think of it, explains why I might be struggling with how to characterize this book.  I'm just not smart enough to understand chunks of it.  I couldn't tell you the difference between a sine wave and a hunk of Limburger cheese if my life depended on it;  though context indicates that "bird's eyes" are some sort of planty flowery item, I really don't know. 

Further proof that he's a good writer and I am an ungrateful wretch and should stick with what I know, namely In Touch magazine (which, by the way, used to be under 2 bucks and is now well over.  What gives???!!!)...

"I poured another glass of Chiroubles and picked up a lamb chop.  To get the taste of Chiroubles say the name twice slowly and roll your eyes and think of blackberries and rain, and if you are a bloke the taste of the mouth of the girl you kissed by the privet hedge when you were sixteen and you hoped her mother wasn't watching through the window."

Kind of makes me wish I were a bloke.  Or, at least, that I had a bottle of Chiroubles right here in front of me.

So, gentle reader.  At the end of this long ramble of my own, it has become clear to me that I do, truth be told, really like this book a great deal.  Terry Darlington is someone I'd like to meet and share some Chiroubles with, though it would be important for his wife Monica to be there because it seems like she might be able to translate for her husband when he whips out that personification permit and goes hogwild. 




*If paint fumes weren't getting to my head, I might sacrifice a moment or two to actually look at the site I have linked here to determine who or what in tarnation Shakin' Stevens is.  If I'm revealing some appalling degree of cultural illiteracy, I'm forlorn, but I can't spare the time for someone who thinks that the apostrophe might have been better advised than the letter "G" which so clearly belongs at the end of his name.]]>Mama LikeWRHOn the NightstandWell Read Hostess2008-07-24T22:41:38ZI Hate It When That Happenshttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/24/i-hate-it-when-that-happens.aspxMy mother maintains that one can become dependent on lip balm. 

All I know is, she's obviously never experienced the need for a product that will, "suck many kinds of natural nutrition protect wet composition."

Be warned:  if you click through, you will lose 45 minutes of your life before you can say, "Make good life love & and monky peaceful bland."]]>WRHWell Read Hostess2008-07-24T15:36:28ZWhoooosa Puppppyhttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/23/whoooosa-puppppy.aspxAs my brother said, on the cuteness scale of 1 to 10, it's probably an 11.




Posted on Kim Komando's video of the day.


Link to my Technorati Profile]]>WRHMama LikeWell Read Hostess2008-07-23T21:17:29ZYou're Welcome, I'm Sorry, and Really...There Is No Excuse For This, But Still.http://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/23/youre-welcome-im-sorry-and-reallythere-is-no-excuse-for-this-but-still.aspxFrom Adelle, who does not lie. 

The easiest and greatest summer salad ever.  Ever.
 
1 1/2 cups orzo (the greatest pasta ever.  Ever)
some sweet onion
red & green peppers--one of each
cucumber
some fresh basil
crumbled feta
lemon juice
Tspoon or two of olive oil
fresh pepper
salt
 
I have also substituted/included green beans and artichoke hearts

You're Welcome.


From Ina Garten in all her Barefoot Contessa'd Wonderment, this is the cupcake recipe from her cupcakes with peanut butter icing recipe (which do not sound appealling to me one bit) and the frosting recipe from a chocolate cake recipe.  Together.  As they were meant to be.

The Chocolate Cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 350.  Use paper cupcake liners.  Just because it keeps you from double fisting the cupcakes after they're made.  You have to slow down long enough to peel the paper away or you might choke.

Cream together 1 1/2 unsalted butter, 2/3 cup granulated sugar, and 2/3 cup light brown sugar (packed...as if it's ever NOT packed.  Brown sugar is SO predictable) until light and fluffy, approximately 5 minutes or 1 and a half like I did and they turned out great.

Lower the speed, proclaimeth Ina, and add 2 egg, one at a time.

Add 2 tsp vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 cup buttermilk (what do people DO with buttermilk other than bake?), 1/2 cup sour cream (I used light, which is kind of funny when you consider the big picture here), and 2 TB brewed coffee - which, if you are me, you will drain out of the morning's coffee cups still on the dining room table because making coffee for 2 TB seems like too much work.  Apparently, if you are like me, you are also hideously lazy.

In another bowl, sift the hell out of 1 3/4 cups flour, 1 cup good cocoa powder (No.  Nestle's Quik is not good cocoa powder.), 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp. kosher salt.  I don't know what would happen if you didn't use kosher salt, but I've read parts of the Old Testament, and I wouldn't tempt fate if I were you.

Alternate adding wet and dry ingredients to butter/sugar sludge bowl while mixing at low speed. 

Bake in cupcake pans for 20-25 minutes.  When I first typed that, I accidentally wrote "cupcake pants," which seems more festive, but in the interest of clarity, I changed it back.

The Frosting

Chop 6 oz good semisweet chocolate (but not chips says Ina and I'd listen to her if I were you, she looks like she could whup your ass if she felt like it), melt it in a double boiler (or a microwave but don't tell Ina I said so).

Set aside until cooled to room temperature.  Doesn't this drive you crazy?  Shouldn't writers of recipes tell you AHEAD of time that you're going to need to make time for chocolate the temperature of lava fresh out of Kilauea to cool?

Beat 2 sticks unsalted butter (it should be room temp first.  Again...same principle applies.  Who's to say that you might not want to make some chocolate frosting at 2 a.m. out of the clear blue???  Nobody has butter just hanging around warming to room temperature) until light yellow (??!!! As opposed to....?) and fluffy.

Add 1 egg yolk at room temperature (this is getting exhausting) and 1 tsp vanilla. 

Turn the mixer to low and add 1 1/4 cups sifted powdered sugar.  You absolutely must sift it.  This is non-negotiable.  You also must turn the mixer to low or you will look like you work in a cocaine lab or Lucille Ball in a baking episode.

Beat until smooth and creamy. 

Dissolve 1 TB instant coffee powder in 2 tsp of the hottest tap water you get wrangle out of your sink.  Add this and the chocolate to the blended goo and mix. 

"Don't Whip!" admonishes Ina.

Hide the spoons before you make this or there may be a little problem involving you and a bowl of frosting and an unhealthy afternoon.

I'm Sorry.


I realize that showing you this next product photograph reveals more about what is happening in certain areas Chez WRH, but I think the disclosure is worth it. 



Really...There Is No Excuse For This, But Still.
]]>WRHMama LikeWell Read Hostess2008-07-23T16:09:37ZJust A Little Crabbyhttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/20/just-a-little-crabby.aspxRecipe for great weekend

1) Start with crabs and beer



2) Mix with family, hot sun, lots of laughs. 

3) Let sit for a weekend, preferably in a swimming pool.

4) Enjoy.]]>Mama LikeWRHWell Read Hostess2008-07-20T22:09:08ZWipeouthttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/18/wipeout.aspxQuery:  What does a Well Read Hostess do when her six year old son announces that he'd like to have a backyard beach party?

Response:  She goes batshit.*

More specifically, she puts down her book (thank you Great Spirit in the Sky - damn boat and dog, stupid canals), she shops, she bakes, she decorates, she creates playlists with a heavy Jan and Dean and Ventures emphasis, and she hurls cash in the general direction of the snaggle-toothed semi-literate clerk in Le Ville de Fete.**

She invites the adorable wild things AKA her son's friends.

She borrows her father's light-up palm tree.  Her father actually drops off the wrong light up palm tree, causing her to remark that she hadn't considered the possibility that he might have MORE THAN ONE light up palm tree and would, therefore, need to be specific about which light up palm tree she wanted to borrow.

She inflates and fills a pool (Ok, that's a lie.  HE inflated and filled the pool, but she patched the hole in the pool so that HE could re-inflate and refill).

Oh yes.  One more thing.  She forgets to document most of it despite the fact that camera was in her hand the entire time.



Sunscreen Bar (must convince other parents that I am a responsible adult)



Tiki "lantern"



Party favors decoratively arranged on circa 1942 stove that has been sitting on my porch since March.  Want it?  It's yours.



Lonely remaining weird looking hot dog.  All hot dog friends gone.  Devoured by pack of ravenous children.













And this is where the photo of the cupcakes I made would go.  Had I taken a photo, that is.  You would have liked the photo.  You would have liked the cupcakes, too.  Two kinds.  Chocolate and coconut.  They were good.  Thanks Ina.



Lack of evidence aside, we all had a time.  And, who woulda thunk it, it felt a lot like SUMMER.


* Sorry, mom.

**She also enlists the invaluable assistance of TWGH who cannot resist a good Slip 'n Slide and who gamely tries to construct a wave/surfboard doohickey for kids to play on.  And who does not raise one eyebrow even a millimeter upon wife's purchase of tiki lantern strings.  Yay TWGH!]]>WRHParent of the YearWell Read Hostess2008-07-18T21:38:02ZDoh!http://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/18/doh.aspxWhy didn't I think of this?!!

Either:
 
1.  This woman will end up being the most satisfied, fulfilled, happy, productive, and stylish person on the planet (next to O herself).

2.  This woman will burn herself out trying to what O says we can be and will go screaming into the hills within a few weeks.

3.  I will spend all of my free??!! time reading her website.  And since Adelle sent this link to me, I'm going to assume that it will be sort of like she and I are actually spending time together.  That's right...it's SOCIAL time spent obsessing over la vida Oprah.

]]>WRHWell Read Hostess2008-07-18T12:36:38ZI Don't Think I'm Doing This Righthttp://wellreadhostess.com/2008/07/17/i-dont-think-im-doing-this-right.aspxLots of very successful bloggers have created these virtual events called "blog carnivals."  This one has "Ten Word Tuesday," another has created "Menu Plan Monday," here's "Wordless Wednesday," and this wonderful person created "Filch it Friday."

I thought that it might be fun to create my own carnival, and, as a bonus, possibly generate some new readers.  Tell me what you think!

Without further ado, I give you:  Throw Up Thursday.

Here are the rules.

Exercise in 90 degree weather while there's a Code Red air quality advisory, which, to the best of my knowledge, means that if you walk outside and take a deep breath, you will instantly burst into flame.

Develop a skull-splitting, throbbing sensation in the left side of your brain.  Assume that you are dehydrated, what with the 90 degree weather and all, and drink a lot of very cold water.  Also apply a bag of frozen peas from your mother's freezer to the back of your neck.  This won't help, but you'll feel good about being pro-active.  Plus, maybe proximity to a green vegetable counts as one of your servings for the day. 

Consider the possibility that the headache, which you now realize has turned into a migraine, could be the result of the icy grasp of a former high school teacher, with whom you shared a handshake on the way home from the track.  Why were you shaking hands with your teacher?  It's simple.  Despite the fact that you see her at least once a month, you must constantly re-introduce yourself to her because you were not interesting enough in high school for her to ever remember your name.  When she realizes that you are married to TWGH, she says, "Right!  TWGH's wife."  To which, your blessed and divine mother in law responds, "Yes, but she also has her own identity."  Have I mentioned how much I adore my mother in law?

With peas jammed between the headrest and your skull, retrieve one child from day camp.  Child is adorable and happy to see you, especially since you had promised her that you would take her out to lunch.  To the pizza place she loves, the one with the VW in it, and the Cartoon Network on full blast.  And the loud music.  And the smell of food.  As nausea is now building, this seems less like a good idea than it did at 7 this morning when you promised to take her to make up for the fact that her brother got to go on a zoo field trip and she didn't.

Get home.  Take migraine medicine.  Install child in front of Sprout with a cookie.  Decide you don't really care so much if cookie crumbs end up in your bed or, truth be told, in the clean laundry that is piled like a mountain on your bed. 

Throw up migraine medicine.  And some other stuff.  'Nuff said.

Try to convince daughter, who is periodically coming in the bathroom to investigate, and ask for more cookies, that all is well.

Take another dose of migraine medicine, with the same effect.

Rest head on cool and completely filthy bathroom tile and wish for quick death.  Realize that husband is out of town on business and not likely to be home until late tonight and daughter probably hasn't been properly taught to dial 911.  Revise wish for quick death.  Vow to properly teach daughter how to dial 911.

Hear strains of Caillou opening song coming from television.  Force yourself to get up off floor and hold onto anything left in your stomach.  Daughter must not watch Caillou...no matter what it takes.  Caillou is a whiny brat.  NO CAILLOU.

Daughter reminds you that you promised to take her out to pizza.

Return to bathroom.

Rally yourself, wash your face, brush your teeth, change your clothes, gather child and plastic bags in the event of spontaneous in-the-car vomiting and depart to retrieve other child from summer camp zoo field trip.

Drive to summer camp pick up location.  This is a very poor decision, by the way.  Clutch plastic bags in sweaty fist during entire drive.

Retrieve tired but lovely child. 

Stagger into local (no VW, but come on, I made an effort) pizza joint.  Pick up slices to go for children.  Clench teeth and try not to breathe through nose.  Pizza aroma, usually pleasing, not so much when battling crippling nausea.

Drop children off at in laws.  Have I mentioned how much I adore my in laws?

Return home. 

Eat lunch.  Pictured below.



Take to bed.

Wake inspired by desire to concoct creative and witty not-a-blog carnival. 


]]>WRHWell Read Hostess2008-07-17T18:06:49Z