thrilled to be in the same post code as you ...

this week i'm implementing the early steps in all sorts of outrageous life goals. but here is what i did last week:

HOW IT ALL STARTED IN THE KITCHEN


herb basted salmon: as i've said before, i rarely make meat. this is not some sort of grand statement, where i pull a covert ketchup maneuver all over your leather kicks. this is just one girl who doesn't trust herself to properly refrigerate, handwash, and read a meat thermometer.

[however, the oscar meyer cheesy turkey hot dogs i got this week certainly kicked ass and i totally touched those.]

so this was good, healthy, out of character, delicious.



asparagus soup: while good, this took a lot of doctoring to make it taste like anything: a lot of parmesean cheese, an entire salt lick. [silly vegetarians and their acceptance of bland]. but it was good. i did use a lighter milk than the cream it suggested. this is just blended asparagus stems, milk, onion, dried thyme, lemon juice and lemon rind.


BOOKS!
Pygmy by chuck palahniuk: Do I dare say that Chuck Palahniuk is back? I mean, not quite Fight Club back, or Choke back. But at least Diary back, and that was the novel that got me to join Team Palahniuk in the first place, so it’s a start. Especially after the grueling, repetitious, obsessive-compulsive, list-of-porn-movie-titles disaster that was Snuff [which I ranked among the Top 3 worst novels I read in 2008].

Pygmy is fantastic social satire: Portrait of suburban Americana, through the lens of a foreign exchange student, sent here with a teen-aged posse of other foreign exchange students to perform the opaque “Operation Havoc.” Pygmy settles in with a typical American family: chicken-faced mom, Viagra-breath dad, pig-dog brother and cat-like sister. They welcome his visit with the gift of a too-large Jesus T-shirt, a promise to fatten him up, and a grand claim:

“We’ll make an American out of you, or swear to our Lord almighty God, we’re gonna die trying.”

full review here.
A Good and Happy Child: A Novel by justin evans: A Good and Happy Child is the story of George Davies. A 30-something man who goes to his therapist because he is concerned about his inability to hold his newborn son. It’s causing a strain in his relationship with his wife. In his first session, George confesses that he was in therapy as a tween, and the doctor suggests he fill notebooks with the story of what happened 20 years ago — an era he has buried in his mind.

full review here.

MOVIES!
My Girl it had been a few decades since i had seen this movie, but i had to watch it again after i thought i got stung by a bee. oye. by the time it ended, my face looked like it had been mangled in a vicious incident involving a garbage disposal.


ON TV
"the hills": fannie has sworn off the show because the audrina and brody business makes her feel dirty. my threshold for crap > fannie's threshold for crap.

"90210" it has been awhile since i was a teenager, but this show leads me to believe that the current crop of teens:

*have pregnancy/marriage fantasies;
*have large barrel curling irons;
*have never been introduced to a wheel of gouda, which fits perfectly into most purses.

these theories are compounded by watching "one tree hill."