tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66188400545406753322024-03-13T09:01:26.210-07:00forest housecreativity and musings through the seasonsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-62187262763224890572013-08-01T03:15:00.000-07:002013-08-01T03:16:41.051-07:00sometimes i write things<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-41c2cd33-395e-dfe0-aebf-514e352e2a6b" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">inspired by this piece: </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152841736410195&set=a.154781405194.239944.717790194&type=1&theater" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152841736410195&set=a.154781405194.239944.717790194&type=1&theater</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I have seen several things that encourage men to go for substance and women to be that kind of person. I haven’t seen any that encourage women to demand more and inspire men to be that more. This was my answer to that lack:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You should date an average boy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Date a boy who doesn't read. Find him in the sports bar down the street. Find him in your last college class. Find him at a friend’s party, an acquaintance for years. He’ll be surrounded by friends, all interchangeably alike. Remember how long it’s been since you got laid. Stare at him until he looks at you. Engage your practiced move of holding eye contact for a second, then smiling and looking away like he caught you out. Go wander to an empty area so he can come talk to you. Accept his pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Get a little bit more drunk than you meant to. Kiss him and inwardly blame it on the vodka. Go back to his apartment. Fuck him. Pretend it was fantastic. Congratulate yourself on being great in bed. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Stress out about the state of your relationship for months. Overanalyze every exchange and carefully keep this anxiety from him. Read dating articles until you’re convinced men are an alien species. Talk to your mother for some sensible advice. Tell her about him in glowing terms. Ignore the little things he says and does that make you cringe inside. She tells you he’s a nice boy, don’t be ungrateful, he’ll call. There’s nothing wrong with him. No reason not to date him. Ignore the wild best friend from your early 20’s who now only lives in your head. The one who got drunk every weekend and arrested once a year and tried to teach you what you were worth. Over the months, check off the boxes: has a job, doesn’t hate his mom, wouldn’t hit you, attractive, polite. His watching the game and playing xbox are proof of his ability to fit into society’s mould of a guy. He’s nice to the waitress and doesn’t object to your feminism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Start to wonder where your life is going. Take out your frustration by picking fights with him. Focus on improving your career. Complain to him about having no purpose. Drop hints that he should fix this for you. Pretend to be surprised when he proposes. Tearfully accept. If you have doubts just dismiss it as cold feet. Get married with all the trappings your parents can afford. Consult 10 websites and magazines about the best way to do this. Paste 400 generic pictures into an album. Tell everyone it was the happiest day of your life no matter how stressed or scared you were.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Have children because it’s expected of you. Constantly worry about being a good mother. Prioritise your children above your relationship until sex is a distant memory. Switch to only working part time. Tell yourself that raising children is more meaningful than anything else you could be doing. Try not to think about the hobbies and dreams you used to have. When the children leave home, sink into a deep depression. Mope around refusing to do anything to feel better until it becomes a massive fight with your husband. Go on vacation. Come back feeling much better about life. Within a month return to most of your old habits.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Get cancer. Battle it as long as you can. Come to terms with your life and all it’s encompassed. Try to be grateful for all the love and the lack of serious strife. Everyone has to go sometime. You could Have been born in a third world country where you would have been illiterate and married off at 12 to a stranger. Tell yourself you’re at peace and your life has been all you wanted it to be. Push away the thought that your husband is still a stranger or what else you could have done.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Tell yourself these things are what life is about. Do not hold out for a man who reads. That man will drag you on all his adventures and make your heart sing. He’ll waste your evenings reading Homer and Nietzsche and Rowling. Relating fantasy novels to psychology and the nature of our relationships. That rare man who reads thirsts for knowledge of himself and anything he doesn’t understand, including you. He will want to hear your story and how you think and what things feel like to you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Nothing is worse than a man who reads because he knows how to be quiet. and still. and next to you while you’re both in your own little worlds. He knows what it is to weep at the beauty of words and how they can paint a different picture for each person who reads them. He understands the artistry in the simple and the relatability in the awkward. He sees sharing your most personal secrets as an act of courage on par with fighting in a war. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Stay away from the literary man because he will crave adventure. Eventually the numerous stories will filter through his soul and demand action in the real world. He will make you travel and push your boundaries and try things that scare the shit out of you. So many authors have told him that never trying is worse than failing and the big wide world is a wonderful place.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> He has romantic notions about transient beauty and the impermanence of life. He doesn’t see any need to do things just because it’s expected of you. He will absolutely fuck up your mother’s plans to see you settled and give her grandchildren. He will ruin you for sex with any future man because he owns 4 instructional books on the subject but finds better inspiration in sonets and Henry Miller. His passion means you will fight regularly and be drawn back to him every time. You will defend this decision to your best friend and your mother more than once. You will never be able to rationally explain the way he feels like the other half of your soul. An addiction you don’t want to be free of. The most beautiful obsession of your life.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Date an average boy who doesn’t read because a man who reads will change you. He will challenge you to grow. To question what’s so wrong with conflict. To follow your own path and demand more. To trust that you will find your way back to each other, or at least where you’re supposed to be. He knows that there is a time to hold firm and a time to let go. He has absorbed the lessons of story and poem and instruction manual and blended them into something uniquely his own. He will put books and articles into your hands and want to discuss them when you’re done. But he may not decide that his story includes you and he happily ever after. Maybe this chapter is about a lesson. Maybe you’re a recurring character. Maybe this is to be continued and not the end. And you will reread those chapters in your mind the rest of your life. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> So be gone men who read! Take your Tolkin and your Shakespeare and walk into the sunset you’re going to take pictures of. Or stay, and change my life.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-81489851487358138982012-11-27T09:16:00.002-08:002012-11-27T09:16:49.047-08:00how to pull an all nighter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--_br6txcw4g/ULT1PmVmXVI/AAAAAAAAAXw/O0T8RMYfiNk/s1600/Types+of+Insomnia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--_br6txcw4g/ULT1PmVmXVI/AAAAAAAAAXw/O0T8RMYfiNk/s1600/Types+of+Insomnia.jpg" /></a></div>
i don't have a sleep schedule. i'm all over the place and always have been. this has gotten me into a great deal of trouble with jobs, social events etc. one of the ways to try to ensure you can get up early when you're not used to it is to just stay up the night before. i do this all the time but the pattern never seems to hold...<br />
there's lots of other reasons to stay up all night of course: to study, to work, to talk to that awesome new person you just met, or just because you're not tired but don't want to sleep through the whole next day.<br />
since i've done this entirely more often than i'd like to admit, i present to you some tips for doing this when you need or want to:<br />
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-sleep late the day before. ok, this might be the reason you're not tired now. that said, if you're planning this in advance, try to sleep as late as possible the previous day or take a few hours nap.<br />
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-do not lay down for a "power nap" at any point once the night of wakefulness has begun. you'll tell yourself you'll only sleep for 20 min. you wont. you'll sleep for 9 hours. and then wake up panicking<br />
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-if possible, get some exercise right around your normal bed time. not so much that you're tired, just enough to get the blood flowing. jog around the block. do a sun salutation. dance in your underwear. <br />
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-don't start the caffeine until you really really have to. once you start you will be dependant upon it until you go to bed, lest your caffeine high come crashing down and take you with it. wait until you're starting to drag and then spend 15 min making the perfect cup of coffee. savour it. have another. <br />
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-keep yourself occupied. if you're awake to work, then do so. if you're just resetting your pattern you can indulge your internet addiction, have a marathon of an exciting show that will keep you up, clean your house, talk to your friend in australia, cook something elaborate, write a blog post, you get the idea<br />
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-once you start with the caffeine, be sure to also monitor your water intake. dehydration will make you tired and counter the affect of all that lovely coffee. aim for at least the same amount of water as the caffeinated beverage, if not more. i said WATER, not juice or soda or anything else. just. water. yes this will make you have to pee every 30 min. that keeps you awake too.<br />
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-remember to eat something every few hours. not a heavy meal that will give you food coma. opt for slow burning carbs (apples, whole grains) and protein. your body needs fuel. you can deprive it of food or sleep but not both.<br />
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-crank up the music. silence is sleep-inducing. put on energetic music that makes you want to move<br />
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-cool off. go outside, have a cool shower, splash cold water on your face. cold tends to wake you up. if you're one of those strange people that get tired in the cold but can't sleep in heat then go put on 2 sweaters and another pair of socks<br />
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-once the sun rises, it's a new day. stop thinking about the night before or how long you've been awake. treat it like you just got up early. go about your normal morning routine and stop thinking about how you spent the night, unless you're mooning over the hot person you've been talking to. then go ahead and revel and plan the next talkathon.<br />
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-be patient with yourself for being moody. your brain needs rest to function properly and you're running it into the red zone. you're allowed to be grouchy, silly, stupid, slow, or all of the above. at some point i usually reach the stage where everything is irrationally funny. unfortunately that's generally followed pretty quickly by the stage where nothing is funny. ride the wave. tell people you're tired so they'll be patient with you. try to take it easy on yourself as much as possible.<br />
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-do not put on any quiet, thoughtful movies. do not crank the heat up. sleepy animals or children are very contagious. do not drink alcohol. do not read a book. do not rest your head on your arm on your desk just for a minnn.vcb,n ..................Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-54514285298985589172012-11-23T09:47:00.000-08:002012-11-23T09:47:03.183-08:00double standards and confusionkeeping with my apparent theme of dissecting dating, can we talk about double standards and weirdness?
first of all i'd like to say that i'm a little reluctant to publish this post because it will likely make me look like a slut or a crazy bitch. there's a lot wrong with that in itself. i should be able to write and publish anything i like without people thinking i'm talking about myself unless specified and i hate the term slut and all that it implies (see slut walk etc). what i'm saying here applies more or less to all genders and orientations but i think the difference is most pronounced when i'm trying to date men. stay with me here, it's not all bitching. to be clear, i do not hate males. i'm irritated with society as a whole, that includes me and you since we all participate in it. i'd like to see what we can do about fixing it. as ranty and unattractive as this article makes me look, i think it's important and i don't think i'm alone here.
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<b>mind games:</b> i'm a straightforward and honest person. i'm possibly too blunt but i expect people to take me at my word. i think it's a good thing. i also think that getting to know someone involves knowing their faults as well as their strengths and it's a fair part of choosing a partner.<br />
it makes me crazy that the official dating world seems to have all these insane rules about who calls first, how long you wait to contact someone, when you sleep with them, what it's ok to share and when, how you should look or hold yourself, how positive you should be, when you can consider it a "relationship", who you can ask for advice or support, etc ad nauseum. none of these rules make any kind of sense to me.<br />
i can understand that people are trying to protect themselves and have created rules as a way to manage risk. the problem is that none of these rule sets sync up and most of them defy common sense.<br />
if i could get away with bypassing this crap and just say "hey, this is how i feel about you and where i'd like us to go, what do you think?" it would be fine, but i can't. you know why? NO ONE takes me at my word. it's extremely rare for someone to refuse to play by the rules so it's assumed that even in saying that, i'm playing the game. i know quite a few people who run into exactly the same issue. the distrust runs so deep that even when someone is saying "i seriously have no double meaning here. i like you. i'd like to get to know you. that's all" people are having the reaction of "what do you really mean by that?" *suspicious glare*. does that sound totally crazy to anyone else?<br />
i shouldn't have to gauge how many days it's been since i last talked to someone and determine if that makes it appropriate for me to message them today. i shouldn't have to worry that my most straightforward and honest statements are going to be taken as "well if she's says THAT then what else is she NOT saying?"<br />
have you ever spoken to a paranoid schizophrenic who's off their meds? everything you say to them is taken as you being out to get them. even you saying you realize they're having problems with a mental illness and would like to help. that's how i feel when dealing with this kind of crap.
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<b>guys are liked for being confident, girls are liked for being...what, exactly?:</b> i realize it's hard for guys to be confident and assertive. no one's saying you have it easy, boys. you're often called upon to pay for everything (i call bullshit), initiate communication, make the first move, etc. all of that crap SUCKS. it doesn't make any sense for these pressures to fall on one partner simply because they have a dick.<br />
i have no problem with asking a guy out, calling first, making the first move, whatever. everywhere you go you'll hear that it's ok for girls to do so. the problem is that it labels me as "aggressive", no matter how gently i do so. if i was male my current dating style would probably be considered really meek and i'd be told to man up and grow a pair. because i was born with a vagina i usually feel like i'm barely walking the line of acceptable assertion without coming off as desperate. that annoys the fuck out of me.<br />
can we look at the definition of desperate for a moment? someone who is willing to be with ANYONE just to not be alone. to chase someone into the ground even if it's clear they're not interested, to compromise their own standards. someone who defines their own worth by having a partner and can't deal with being single. i see that behaviour more in 'player' type guys. the partners they want are only for a night or two but that doesn't make them any less desperate. is someone who's genuinely interested in one particular person and doing their best to get to know them and assess them as a potential mate in a respectful way meeting any of those criteria?<br />
the flip side, girls who are confident and sexual and go after what they want, may be liked initially since they take the unfair pressure off the guys, but how many of them are taken seriously as relationship material? that same confidence that makes them hot to sleep with tends to be taken as threatening or emasculating after a little while and girls don't generally end up with a healthy partnership that way. if you had to pick one trait that almost all girls would say is attractive in a guy(and mean it. and respond to it. and have it work long term), it would undoubtedly be confidence. you ask guys the same question and you'll probably get a similar (if less unified and enthusiastic) response, but it doesn't seem to actually work other than getting laid so i'm confused.
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<b>guys are players, women are gold digging sluts:</b> speaking of getting laid, are we not evolved enough as humans to dispense with the stereotype that women aren't supposed to like sex and men aren't supposed to like relationships? i don't think i have any male friends who are just looking to get laid. certainly there are guys who do that, just as there are women who do. there are shallow assholes or people just wanting to fulfil physical needs and not wanting an attachment in every group of humans. i tend to hang out primarily with men and they are all awesome guys. they would almost all prefer a healthier relationship to a one night stand.<br />
i also really like sex. i know very very few women who don't. not just for the lovey dovey connected feeling or as a way to keep a guy around (and certainly not to get him to buy me things, disgusting concept) but because sex is awesome! it feels great, it releases stress, it helps you sleep, it's good for you in a hundred ways. it can be an amazing spiritual love making connection with someone, or it can just be two people enjoying each other and having a great time! i think it's totally fine for women to safely seek out sex for whatever reason, with whomever they're comfortable with. i don't think they need to answer to anyone for that choice unless they're cheating on a partner.<br />
i also think that it's a bit sleazy to start counting your sex partners as if they were just conquests. considering there's a ton of different definitions of sex (see clerks, etc), it makes more sense to me to have a general estimate and a fluid concept of it. regardless of that number or estimate, you can't change what's already done anyways, nor does it mean you are in any way dirty or unsafe. i would rather sleep with someone who's had 50 partners and was safe and careful about it, than someone who's slept with 15 people but never used protection. they're a much higher risk and less responsible and respectful.<br />
sleeping with someone early in a relationship doesn't necessarily mean they aren't really into you as a person. even if it did, you were part of that decision, what does that say about you?<br />
on a semi-related note, expecting someone to buy you things just because you're sleeping with them means they are paying for sex and you are a prostitute. if you want to be in an adult relationship, act like an adult and pay for yourself. apply the same principals of sharing expenses that you do with your friends.
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<b>the shift from early "dating" to a relationship:</b> there's a host of conflicting and generally shitty advice out there for the initial dating stages, and the same amount of crap for established relationships. where exactly does one become the other? i would think it's when both parties talk about it and decide it is so, but that doesn't work for two reasons.<br />
the first being differing expectations before you have that conversation; some people think you should only ever be interested in or 'seeing' one person at a time. some people think you're free to see multiple people unless you've specifically said otherwise. same thing but more charged when it comes to who you're fucking.<br />
the second being the emotional shift after that conversation. if you're officially in a relationship there's the expectation that you're going to be more attached, rely on them more, etc. the problem is that all of these things take time. you can't just declare someone your bf/gf and suddenly you trust them with all your secrets and they are there for you whenever you need them and love you for evah and evah and evah (i think i'm getting cynical, i just flinched a bit at that).<br />
a conversation or an agreement is just that. it doesn't change your current relationship any more than you let it. there's a whole section of weirdness in that stage where a lot of couples fall apart that no one seems to really understand.<br />
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<b> the weirdness of the alt world:</b> the majority of rules just simply don't apply to us. this is a social world where men and women are close friends really frequently and lots of people are polyamourous, pansexual, trangendered, bi, queer, or all of the above. the lines get muddy really fast. the good part about that is that it necessitates somewhat better communication. the bad part is that the few stereotypes and double standards and hangups that remain become even harder to figure out. i'd like to think i have a little influence in my community so maybe my rant here will help?<br />
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<b>things i think could fix this nonsense:</b><br />
*say what you mean, take people at their word-starting a relationship with mistrust is a recipe for failure. if i say "i haven't made up my mind about you" it's not a polite way of saying no. if i say "i like you. lets hang out and see if we get along" it's not a marriage proposal. constantly looking for extra meanings where there are none is psychotic, and it makes everyone else involved psychotic too. suck it up and say what you really mean. make it known that you do so.<br />
*standardize-if we must apply rules to make this silliness manageable, they should apply to everyone across the board and everyone should understand them. having a dozen sets of rules that apply only to one gender or the other makes things more confusing, not less. ideas on rules that make sense?<br />
*stop policing other people's choices!-if two people choose to have a one night stand, that's their business. if someone had a crazy section of their youth where they slept with 50 people in a year, that doesn't mean it's still who they are. girls have as much right as guys to say yes or no to sharing their bodies with other people for any reason they like. judge someone by who they are as a person and how they treat you. not on how many people they've slept with in the past.<br />
*talk to your partner, for the love of god!-we all have different communication styles and there will always be some differences in the way men and women think. that said, we are all just people and have way more in common than not. we all have insecurities and hangups. we all get depressed and awkward and nervous. this is part of being human. it's not something that needs to be fixed. be easy with it. tell the person you're interested in how you're feeling. if they're someone you want to date they'll think it's endearing, not unattractive. if you're confused about what your partner said, ask for clarification before you jump to conclusions. if you want to call or text someone, just do so. life and love and relationships shouldn't have to be this <i>hard</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-35979662352951271212012-08-09T21:16:00.002-07:002012-08-09T22:02:59.653-07:00rape culture is not a part of alt culture!so a friend recently posted the following link on FB:
<a href="http://captainawkward.com/2012/08/07/322-323-my-friend-group-has-a-case-of-the-creepy-dude-how-do-we-clear-that-up/">http://captainawkward.com/2012/08/07/322-323-my-friend-group-has-a-case-of-the-creepy-dude-how-do-we-clear-that-up/</a> which i highly recommend, btw.
i've seen quite a lot of similar stuff popping up in recent years. i think it's important that we talk about this. i think it's fantastic that a lot of it is being posted by my male feminist friends. i think it's necessary to put into words what we all see simmering below the surface and don't talk about. the thing is that some of the statistics in these articles really shock me and a lot of the things they talk about (like "the pact"), while i certainly know what they're talking about, DOES NOT HAPPEN IN MY COMMUNITY! i'm not remotely saying that there's no need for us to talk about it, rather i think the fact that we do is one of the reasons the alt community seems to me to be stronger and healthier than the mainstream world.
we post articles like this, and then we talk about them. we consistently support each other and stand up for what we know to be right. we are politically active and fight for an end to bigotry and violence. i was recently writing about <a href="http://spiritussancto.blogspot.ca/2012/08/eeps-its-been-so-long-since-i-posted.html">the differences in dating in the alt world vs the "normal" world</a> and i think that has a lot to do with it. the community being small makes it easy to manage.
in the 13 years i've been in our community, i have only heard about 2 incidents of people acting unacceptably (in the ways that would be defended or accepted in mainstream society). in one i was there for the aftermath where a guy showed up to a birthday party and a girl immediately wanted to leave because he had raped her. he was immediately asked to leave, everyone's opinion of him as a person changed radically, and we all stood behind her as having done nothing wrong. the other someone was drugged at a party. her friends immediately realized that she was not ok and took care of her. the person responsible was called out for it and is no longer welcome at any of our events. this is the place i proudly call home.
i am surrounded by honourable men who do not put up with their friends preying upon women. i am surrounded by strong women who are not afraid to speak out and stand up for themselves. we do not find racist or homophobic or sexist jokes funny. we respect each-other as humans. if we are catty or dramatic, it is based on people's actions. stereotypes are not brought into it.
all of my friends know that i was sexually abused as a child and have been sexually assaulted as an adult. i have never had anyone react to that knowledge in a negative or unsupportive way. i am female and pansexual and i never get discriminated against for it. coming from that basis of support gives me the strength to deal with people out in the "normal" world who are not so enlightened. it gives me the baseline for what is actually normal and sensible so i never consider other opinions may be true. i'm not battered with hatred and objectification on a daily basis. i keep it out of my life so it can't infect me like the plague it is. and i'm not afraid to walk down the street alone at night. i'm not afraid to be in an elevator with a strange man or cross a nasty area of town alone. i'm healthy and strong and capable of defending myself. i have my head on straight about reasonable risk. failing all that i carry a large knife and the training to use it. living in a healthy community gives me the strength to deal with an unsafe one.
attending events and making friends here is a tacit agreement to abide by our rules. when we bring new people in we have a good idea that they are respectful and open minded. usually they share some interests but far more important is their attitude. i think that's why it's very common for people to come out to an event and immediately get the feeling "oh god, i'm home!". they are. this is what we were all looking for. the environment and the people where we fit.
i'm not sure how we can extend these social rules into the rest of the world. maybe this kind of strict control only works in a small group or maybe that's the only reason we're able to be so different. i'm told that in cities where the alt community is huge it's the same. maybe it's just that we're used to being different in our clothing and our music and our interests. we don't care if our social rules are also different. we have no problem saying "i don't care if that's acceptable where you come from, that shit doesn't fly here". maybe it's just that the world needs to stop wearing their wishbone where their backbone aught to be. it starts with one person influencing their social group. it starts with one company choosing to market things in a way that focuses on their product without demeaning any group of people. it starts with you. stop wringing your hands. the next time your buddy makes a crack about getting a girl really drunk so he can get laid, don't laugh. tell him that's not fucking cool. stop going along with things. stand up and say no. people will respect you for it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-72466908989724679092012-08-09T20:29:00.000-07:002012-08-09T20:30:15.801-07:00on social rules and dating in the alt worldeeps! it's been so long since i posted anything blogger has changed the whole layout. hopefully i'll be on here more in the near future. i wont bore you all silly with my news. if you care about such things i'm sure you've been kept informed on FB, etc. the point is that i finally have something new to say and the time to do so.
i've been attempting recently to date outside of the alt world. the community is small and eventually you have either dated or discounted everyone in it. hence my testing the waters of dating in the "normal" community and getting really confused.
i think i'm starting to understand why people do the modern formal dating ritual. it's a lack of trust thing. you meet in public to keep it safe. you don't trust the other person to like you so you dress up and spend too much money and act overly polite and bland. in the alt world we know and trust everyone to some extent so it's fine to hang out in private and it's fine to be ourselves. i think our way is better but it only works if all parties understand and agree to it.
the goth world in insular because we all started as outcasts. the freaks no one liked. if you've ever wondered what became of the strange kids who thought that leggings, scraps of fabric and string made a great outfit, or that a dead bird was beautiful, that would be us. we found family and support and friendship together and learned to trust again, forming our own community. the rest of the world is not included in that trust. new people are brought in carefully and vouched for as safe and like-minded before being accepted. it's a bit like the bro code but far more specific and strict. we enforce our rules ruthlessly and unacceptable behaviour will lose you the trust of the community. we all know each other and we hear everything that goes on. there are no big secrets and you don't get away with shit. you also can't have feuds. the tribe is too small to not learn to get along. we accept each other's differences and revel in our shared interests. many of us are huge geeks. there's a lot of crossover to the hippy and punk and metal communities. i'll be talking about all of this under the umbrella of "alt" but it applies most accurately to goths
as i'm examining our culture, i thought i would talk it out and provide some instruction for new people in the process. some differences:
talking about sex in mixed company, even with people you don't know, and in detail, is totally fine as long as you're talking in general, not about a specific person. this is not even considered flirting most of the time (unless you're clearly checking if you're compatible with someone and they're reciprocating).
talking about heavy emotional issues is fine as long as you know the person a little and often leads to closer friendships. it's not weird to lean on anyone from the community for support.
you never overtly hit on anyone. ever. it isn't done. if you're interested you flirt more until you're fairly sure they like you as well and then talk about it or arrange to hang out one-on-one (note, not a formal date) or you "make a move" in a respectful way (a kiss for example). no one really goes on formal dates and there's certainly no unspoken rules about sleeping with them on the 3rd date or such nonsense. we just hang out, either one on one or in a group, or invite them to events.
since you already know the person at least in passing, they have been vouched for by the group. we are REALLY big on sexual consent being freely given and never coerced, so this is perfectly safe. no one from the tribe is going to push you or put you in danger in any way.
sleeping with someone does not have rules about when you would then contact them or what that now makes the two of you. we are honest about what's just a fuck buddy and what is a relationship of various kinds. neither are shameful. lots of people are poly, gay, bi, or pan sexual and bigotry of any kind is not tolerated. we're far more likely to judge someone for having unsafe sex than to keep track of how many people they've been with. slut shaming is very rare.
your clothing does not say anything about you besides "i think this looks cool", or possibly "i like the band on my shirt". showing a lot of skin does not make you slutty, nor does it entitle anyone to touch you.
one the subject of touch, we're particular about personal space. we're often touchy-feely with friends, sharing hugs and massages and maybe drunken kisses. this does not apply to people we don't know, even people in the scene. if you don't know someone you would assume you have no permission to touch any part of them besides a handshake for any reason until they touch you first. the rule seems to be that the less assertive of two people should be the one to initiate contact but that isn't set in stone. you get a feel for it, its just watched a lot more closely then outside the alt world. touch someone inappropriately and you could even get injured, either by that person, their friends, or the bouncers. at the least you will get a whole lot of "WTF?" aimed at you, depending on how badly you just fucked up.
dancing with someone is sometimes flirting and sometimes just silly fun. it's all about what kind of dance. we are all very aware of the undercurrents in our encounters and we interpret them in a much more straightforward manner. we also talk about such things openly.
you can see that the lines between friends and relationships tend to blur. this is why the "friendzone" isn't so much of a thing. if someone says you're just friends it's either that they are not attracted to you, or you are such close friends they couldn't risk losing you (i'm sure you'd know if that were the case). there's no wavering or having someone put you in the friend box so even though they think you're hot and it wouldn't be devastating to lose the friendship they wont change their opinion. that shit doesn't happen. the community is too small (a few hundred people maybe, in vancouver). if you like someone as a person and are attracted to them you just start flirting and see what happens. relationships evolve organically and are usually not officially defined for several months, even though you're communicating about it.
i love our community and believe that all of this promotes safety and acceptance. we can be snobby and closed but we are fiercely loyal and supportive. lately i've been seeing the alt world growing as being geeky becomes more socially acceptable. on one hand i would love to see the group grow in numbers and there's certainly advantages to having our interests and way of seeing the world become more popular. on the other hand i worry that our being less selective about who we call our own will lead to a blending of morals and viewpoints with the "normal" world and we will lose some of what makes it unique and amazing. what do you guys think? what did i leave out?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-66379834157526229392012-02-23T18:06:00.007-08:002012-02-23T18:35:00.235-08:00guerrilla community garden<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I1kKCOnyoGU/T0b2o2jXoxI/AAAAAAAAATg/RDAlk3sj1hs/s1600/after%2Bgarden%2B1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I1kKCOnyoGU/T0b2o2jXoxI/AAAAAAAAATg/RDAlk3sj1hs/s320/after%2Bgarden%2B1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5712524359065117458" /></a><br /><br />the revolution is rising! we broke ground on an abandoned lot today. the place is about 1/4 acre of weeds and grass and rocks where the owner has just been dumping crap for years. we decided it needs better parents then that so we're adopting it. this is what the site looked like before we started:<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pkWtE1LCbUk/T0b2hsn3lnI/AAAAAAAAATU/lHFsQ7lvsY8/s1600/before%2Bgarden.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pkWtE1LCbUk/T0b2hsn3lnI/AAAAAAAAATU/lHFsQ7lvsY8/s320/before%2Bgarden.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5712524236140549746" /></a><br /><br />and this is an hour later (i don't know why this pic is so blue):<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3svfGKOr3g8/T0b2VakIefI/AAAAAAAAATI/phywaRVZ52g/s1600/after%2Bgarden%2B2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3svfGKOr3g8/T0b2VakIefI/AAAAAAAAATI/phywaRVZ52g/s320/after%2Bgarden%2B2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5712524025134610930" /></a><br /><br />right now it just has some wild flower seeds sprinkled on top. we'll add more useful things later in the season. we got the wood from the crap already on location and cleared out the weeds in a nice sunny spot with loose bare soil. <br />it was just me and a guy from the guerrilla gardening meetup group but it worked out fine. we're just testing the waters with this one little bed for now and we'll expand from there if no one freaks out. we spoke to a few neighbors who didn't seem to object and one lady from next door seemed really interested and is going to help us run a hose over the fence so we have a water source. i'm really excited. the worst that's going to happen is the owners tearing the whole thing out but i don't think it's that likely since the land has been unused for at least 10 years. because it's been untouched the soil is nice and rich and healthy, if a little rocky. if we take over the whole space we'll need to either pull out a lot of weeds and grass or dump a lot of topsoil on top to smother it. my vote is for pulling out the grass and composting it. we'll be putting a compost pile in a corner and we found a dog kennel that's going to be dismantled for plant supports. there's also 3 old tires that are going to become a potato stack. i may relocate and cultivate some of the native blackberries and snowdrops that are already thriving there.<br />eventually it would be great to cover the whole place with little beds tended by the community. seed the paths in between with hardy short wildflowers or lay down the broken tiles that are dumped there like paving stones. this is where we're going to plant the things i don't have room or enough sun for on the balcony, specifically things that are unlikely to be recognized as food and stolen. i know people think that no one would steal your tomatoes from the vine but it happens around here all the time. homeless people go into backyards and strip your harvest. if i do plant things that may be stolen i'm going to plant enough to share on purpose (those abundant cherry tomatoes!). it would be nice to put in some fruit trees as well. this is a huge undertaking but i'm hoping that others in the area will want to be a part of it.<br />we do not have permission from the owner to do this. we're doing it anyways on the principal that land should belong to those who care for it and are in it's care, especially when those who hold the property deed are neglecting it. lots of community gardens have started this way, with people just taking it over and it eventually gets sanctioned and protected. we're doing this openly and hoping to promote friendships among the community and make this neighborhood a safer and more pleasant place to live. can't you just see it?<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bfQQLftWkh4/T0b2HmHN4xI/AAAAAAAAAS8/MwZpIpF6J_I/s1600/after%2Bgarden%2Blong%2Bshot.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bfQQLftWkh4/T0b2HmHN4xI/AAAAAAAAAS8/MwZpIpF6J_I/s320/after%2Bgarden%2Blong%2Bshot.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5712523787716387602" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-91799092876524146582012-02-14T00:19:00.000-08:002012-02-14T22:24:39.995-08:00uncommon goods round upvalentine's is a time for indulgence and care of ourselves and our loved ones, is it not? it occurred to me how often i can be found hunting down interesting items that very few people know exist. i suppose i've become a bit of a connoisseur of the offbeat, interesting, and strange. i do a lot of DIYing so a lot of these hunts are for rare supplies or ingredients that non-crafty folk wouldn't have use for (bees wax pellets and e6000 glue, etc). i also frequent etsy, artisan indy stores, and markets for things i read about or that popped into my head and now i have to have them, hard to find or not. these often end up being among my favorite possessions, either for usefulness or beauty or both. i thought i'd share with you some little bits of affordable luxury. these are all things i either really want, am already waiting on my order, or have and use on a regular basis:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fnejz317a1c/TzrkvkXT99I/AAAAAAAAAPw/aQaSGZvUqB4/s1600/esmoke.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 271px; height: 186px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fnejz317a1c/TzrkvkXT99I/AAAAAAAAAPw/aQaSGZvUqB4/s320/esmoke.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709126983511963602" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.electroniccigarettecanada.ca/product_p/starterlite.htm">e-cigarettes</a>there's no long term studies on them yet and limited standardization for safety so be careful to do your research. these are becoming more and more popular either as an alternative to cigarettes or as a stop-smoking aid. it's a little metal cigarette that contains a rechargeable battery (usually usb charged), a little heating coil that atomizes the liquid, and a cartridge that holds your liquid and is your smoking tip. the liquid is a mix of glycerin, propylene glycol, nicotine, and flavourings (there's a whole world of recipes to mix your own blends too). i tried one of these the other night and it was really nice! not sure if it can replace smoking entirely for me but i'm sure it can reduce it quite a bit and more or less anything is healthier. since they only produce a water vapour you can "smoke" them anywhere and they're much cheaper and more eco-friendly than tobacco. the liquid also comes in tons of fun flavours. WANT<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kzNPudee5iY/Tzrl_Aia10I/AAAAAAAAAP8/Ty1alN18mD8/s1600/zomgsmells.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 104px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kzNPudee5iY/Tzrl_Aia10I/AAAAAAAAAP8/Ty1alN18mD8/s320/zomgsmells.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709128348284409666" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://zomgsmells.com/">zomg smells</a><br />is this great little website i found via offbeathome where they make wonderfully geeky perfumes with names like "the melancholy death of nikola tesla" and "brontosaurus loves triceratops". i've heard great things. shipping is very reasonable and they have little 1ml samples called squees for about $3 each. a 10 pack of squees works out to about $30 after taxes and shipping. they seem to take quite some time to put your order together, i've been waiting almost a month already. if i like these ones i already have a list of at least 13 more i want to try, i'm super excited.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4zGZPDVduYE/Tzro8uXZZ0I/AAAAAAAAAQI/8WaUDQ2rUYQ/s1600/gauged%2Bearring.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 191px; height: 216px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4zGZPDVduYE/Tzro8uXZZ0I/AAAAAAAAAQI/8WaUDQ2rUYQ/s320/gauged%2Bearring.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709131607581484866" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/78005565/1-pair-hand-cut-sono-wood-earrings">fake gauge earrings</a><br />oh i know, this is cheating and not very hardcore, especially by my usual go-hard-or-go-home standards, but it does give you the flexibility of big gauges when you want them and small ones when you don't. i think they look pretty good. i even found ones made with surgical steel posts so even my crazy sensitive skin can handle them. if you're not concerned about such things you have more options. etsy is a wonderful place. search "fake gauge earrings" for lots of options. most are made of wood, bone, or horn and most are hand carved.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L1yi0kluZ5I/TzrvhiDS0wI/AAAAAAAAAQU/vMTeYKhKEXk/s1600/metal%2Bbookmark.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 146px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L1yi0kluZ5I/TzrvhiDS0wI/AAAAAAAAAQU/vMTeYKhKEXk/s200/metal%2Bbookmark.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709138837000868610" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/77522621/beaded-metal-bookmark">metal or beaded bookmarks</a><br />i'm so sick of using scraps of trash in all my books. i love my books and i think they deserve nicer markers. i'm trying to amass a collection of ones i'm not ashamed of so there's always one around and i wont resort to gum wrappers and bus transfers. most of these are embarrassingly easy to make but if you really can't tell one end of a needle from another you can sometimes find these tucked in corners of bookshops and always on etsy. if all else fails a strip of pretty ribbon is better than trash<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pwodukk1S6c/TzrwCiYYvVI/AAAAAAAAAQg/0hTA10a5OJs/s1600/chameleon%2Bdress.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pwodukk1S6c/TzrwCiYYvVI/AAAAAAAAAQg/0hTA10a5OJs/s320/chameleon%2Bdress.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709139404025019730" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/76812918/the-chameleon-convertible-gown">chameleon dresses</a><br />i had one of these made to my measurements and dyed to my preference for under $200 after tax and shipping but it looks like prices and fabrics have changed since then. this is still totally worth it. i love it to pieces. it's my go-to formal dress that i can tie in lots of different ways and it flatters any body type. best part is that it feels like pajamas! (hint-your prom dress looks like a prom dress. it's not appropriate for formal functions if you've been out of high school for more than a year or two. you're an adult now. attend adult parties looking like one)<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pAY-kS2CHjM/TzryrrzYqpI/AAAAAAAAAQs/ngpUIPlqNTk/s1600/handkerchief.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 279px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pAY-kS2CHjM/TzryrrzYqpI/AAAAAAAAAQs/ngpUIPlqNTk/s320/handkerchief.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709142309952072338" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/25915303/happy-little-trees-and-houseseco">handkerchiefs</a><br />kleanex is made of cottonwood trees. it also sheds dust and fibers like nobody's business. large amounts of people are allergic to cottonwood and dust. does this seem like a cruel joke to you? it does to me. i love handkerchiefs. i wish i had a ton more. i learned that if i have white ones and am not used to them yet, i often forget myself and toss them like you would a tissue. i was wondering where all of mine were going and then caught myself doing it one day. since then i get coloured ones. obviously it's insanely easy to make your own out of an old pillow slip or bed sheet, or even a thin t-shirt and then you don't even have to hem. i like mine about 12"-14" square but suit yourself. seriously tho, get some. so much nicer to your nose and you'll never run out of tissues again. just throw them in your regular laundry.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1tPD--GSmVM/TztIkt1Y0rI/AAAAAAAAARE/-T0uC2hJ4RA/s1600/butterfly%2Bcake.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 157px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1tPD--GSmVM/TztIkt1Y0rI/AAAAAAAAARE/-T0uC2hJ4RA/s200/butterfly%2Bcake.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709236748238246578" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/92142086/the-original-edible-butterflies-large">edible paper cake toppers</a><br />ok so these are totally indulgent but aren't they PRETTY!? they also come in flowers and leaves and dragonflies. they're made of rice paper, printed with food colouring. some of them are done on super thin sheets of frosting but those are made to be laid flat on your cake and they melt in. that's how they put photos on cakes in the bakery. i want to make a summer cake for beltane iced in green with a rainbow of flowers and butterflies. i also think an orange cake with autumn leaves and bats would be great. worth doing for a special occasion <br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X7ZQORo_vFA/TztI8POYGTI/AAAAAAAAARQ/bfSvMXFZKqs/s1600/straws.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 211px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X7ZQORo_vFA/TztI8POYGTI/AAAAAAAAARQ/bfSvMXFZKqs/s320/straws.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709237152338417970" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/69460989/stainless-steel-straws-regular-style-4">stainless steel straws</a><br />i think this is a brilliant idea. you use steel forks and spoons, who says straws should be plastic and disposable? i expect a rinse in hot water would be fine if you've been drinking clear liquids. they're dishwasher safe if you've been sucking up milkshakes or similar. they come with a pipecleaner too. if you could find thin enough piping in a hardwear store you could just have them cut it to the lengths you want and file the edges smooth. also, hot liquids wont melt scary chemicals into your drink.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L11rEZt9UJk/TztJaX6sHUI/AAAAAAAAARc/wJqWnLEHhQ4/s1600/sandwich-bag.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L11rEZt9UJk/TztJaX6sHUI/AAAAAAAAARc/wJqWnLEHhQ4/s200/sandwich-bag.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709237670067838274" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/77533572/reusable-sandwich-bag-blustery-day">reusable sandwich bags</a><br />these come in zipper, fold-lock, and velcro closures, in all different colours and styles and sizes. obviously they wouldn't work for everything but you can still cut out a large chunk of disposibles with these. i fid that quality reusables are not just eco-friendly, but also much more pleasant to use, don't you? i often wonder how we were convinced to use throw-away items in the first place.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dBfrV1jI6MI/TztJw-lvLAI/AAAAAAAAARs/Jv6WwwpvyQA/s1600/fire%2Bbowl.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 245px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dBfrV1jI6MI/TztJw-lvLAI/AAAAAAAAARs/Jv6WwwpvyQA/s320/fire%2Bbowl.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709238058406063106" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.lagunawaterworks.com/awf_empire_stainless_steel_indoor_outdoor_fire_bowl.html">fire bowls</a><br />i'm currently putting one of these together but you can also buy them premade. it's a little personal fireplace! putting one on the balcony for chilly evenings and/or impromptu toasting of food on sticks. it's really just a nice heat-resistant bowl filled with sand or salt and rocks to somewhat hide the reservoir of chafing dish fuel. the bowl i bought was a touch too small for the standard cans of fuel but i do love it so i may just find a smaller reservoir. i was planning on refilling it from the bottles of liquid anyways. i'll try to put up a simple tutorial when mine's done. <br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zWXiUtzKP7s/TztKq-Qe3aI/AAAAAAAAAR0/2hFjQPst_aw/s1600/shawl.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 126px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zWXiUtzKP7s/TztKq-Qe3aI/AAAAAAAAAR0/2hFjQPst_aw/s200/shawl.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709239054749326754" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/72455920/shades-of-green-hand-knitted-socks">hand knit clothes or accessories</a><br />this is a pretty broad category, i know. most of us have only experienced hand knit in the form of ugly gramma sweaters, stay with me here. first, if you have a gramma who wants to knit you things you should totally take her up on the offer! tell her the colours and styles you like, if you prefer bulky fluffy yarn or slinky smooth stuff. let her take measurements. leaf through her patterns. she has the skills and wants to make you something you'll like, just give her direction. if you do not know anyone who knits, and don't want to take up the addiction yourself, i suggest you get acquainted with etsy. hand crafted knits are nothing like storebought. you can feel the quality and care woven into every fiber. they're fully customized by shape, size, colour, style, material, and everything else about them. it's hard to explain just how lovely they are. buy a nice pair of hand knit socks or something and you'll see what i mean. it's like comparing home made foccacia with wonderbread. they're both labeled bread, and there the similarity ends. you can often find these things at farmer's markets.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wqsyMzgoHcA/TztLVsbuXOI/AAAAAAAAASA/eGeyeokjirc/s1600/coat.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 185px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wqsyMzgoHcA/TztLVsbuXOI/AAAAAAAAASA/eGeyeokjirc/s200/coat.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709239788699016418" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/34370124/womens-handmade-patchwork-skirt-free">custom made clothing</a><br />make friends with your local tailors and seamstresses! if you're involved with theatre people or performers of any kind they probably have contacts you can use. so do those lovely people at the farmer's market who are selling knits. ask around on facebook. chances are you know someone who knows someone who sews. being able to get things that fit perfectly for a reasonable price is a wonderful thing. you can also use etsy's alchemy feature and have one of their artists pick up your request. my experience with it has been a bit hit and miss, to be honest, and i'd rather support my friends if i can't do something myself. once you know one person who crafts they can usually point you to others who do jewelry, makeup and hair art, will make you a webpage, or whatever else your heart desires. believe me, you want to have creative people in your life and support their endeavors.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9y8j5pdcb8g/Tzsm_pOJ78I/AAAAAAAAAQ4/sJY9QbGqphA/s1600/lizard%2Bbowl.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 279px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9y8j5pdcb8g/Tzsm_pOJ78I/AAAAAAAAAQ4/sJY9QbGqphA/s320/lizard%2Bbowl.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709199827461074882" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/47724085/set-of-3-leaf-nesting-dishes">pretty serving dishes</a><br />i don't know if i'll ever be able to afford a full set of hand thrown, custom painted, wood-kiln fired dishes. if i had them i might be scared to use them. i can afford to add little pretty pieces here and there that work together and with the rest of my stuff. olive platter made from a melted wine bottle? yes please! sugar bowl with a little frog for a handle? absolutely! i think we need little touches of fun and beauty in our homes. and for the love of god do not put them in a glass cabinet and never use them, what on earth good is that? use the good dishes! they were designed to be handled and loved. buying them online will run you a pretty penny in shipping cause them things are heavy. small art galleries and farmer's markets are a better bet<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7esPyOOdrw0/TztMAeKEF-I/AAAAAAAAASM/28LOM5p5zus/s1600/Leather%2Bjournal.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7esPyOOdrw0/TztMAeKEF-I/AAAAAAAAASM/28LOM5p5zus/s200/Leather%2Bjournal.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709240523601221602" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/40994258/ancient-egypt-leather-journal-notebook">nice journals and notebooks</a><br />do you keep a brain-in-a-book? i do. everything from to-do lists and budgets to drawings and journal entries. receipts and money and pamphlets get shoved in. i always have a nice pen. if it falls open it will explode. i try to buy or make nice ones. i should really invest more in them since i'm never seen without it. one of these days i'll learn to bind books myself and not worry about them being too pricey. in the mean time it's a nice indulgence. one of those little gifts to myself so that i can enjoy the things i handle and rely on daily. i've been meaning to get another cartridge fountain pen to go with a nice hand bound book. i love dip pens to pieces but they're not very portable.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UrOVY0Gbcvo/TztMwYeAC4I/AAAAAAAAASY/9JPQGfwJV_E/s1600/cloak.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 154px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UrOVY0Gbcvo/TztMwYeAC4I/AAAAAAAAASY/9JPQGfwJV_E/s200/cloak.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709241346707950466" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/86651662/fern-green-fleece-hooded-long-cloakcape">cloaks</a> <br />i've been trying to bring cloaks back into fashion for years. they're wonderfully multipurpose, as warm or cool as you like, go with everything, are super easy to make, what's not to like!? be careful not to get ripped off buying these. you should be mostly paying for fabric quality. it is a ton of fabric, but it only takes a few hours to put one together so don't let someone charge you $150 for labor or something (unless they hand-sewed the whole monster because fun fur wont fit in the machine, but i'm nuts like that). next one i make needs to have pockets on the inside. they're much more comfy with either several clasps or one big toggle-style one. the little pretty ones tend to slide backwards and choke you.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IUZ4Uo6qaEM/TztNggJ4yuI/AAAAAAAAASk/f0ABxR-BUqg/s1600/sandals.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IUZ4Uo6qaEM/TztNggJ4yuI/AAAAAAAAASk/f0ABxR-BUqg/s200/sandals.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709242173404793570" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/68645095/brown-gladiator-leather-sandals">gladiator sandals</a> <br />i'm still trying to break mine in but these are a great example of simple technology that needs no improvement. they last for ages, are really comfy once the leather is broken in, and can be tied many ways. unisex and functional, these go from hiking in the woods to a semi-formal wedding with no trouble. lets see your heels do that!<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4V5QB-To63I/TztN5P3hzcI/AAAAAAAAASw/D5Uzb7mBMbE/s1600/hair%2Bstick.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 159px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4V5QB-To63I/TztN5P3hzcI/AAAAAAAAASw/D5Uzb7mBMbE/s200/hair%2Bstick.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709242598529551810" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/91123589/wood-hair-stick-zebrawood">hair sticks and french combs</a><br />this is mostly for those with long hair. you can keep your bobby pins and elastics and claw clips. if you want a versatile hair accessory that is comfortable and simple, wont fall apart or wreck your hair, than look for really old school stuff. you need to get a feel for the physics involved. both use your hair's own resistance and you twist before pinning. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpKp-7MJB7Q">here</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLoRI4CPh6k">here</a> are good places to start. get the hang of it with cheepy ones from the dollar store and then invest in a few pretty pieces. the nice part about them being simple is they can be made of lots of different materials and be as ornate or simple as you like. i'm fond of pretty wood and/or copper.<br /><br />btw, none of these people are paying me in any way. i just like their stuff. so what interesting and hard to find stuff are you in love with? i think we all need a little affordable indulgence in our lives.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-10115046479069547382012-01-09T00:23:00.000-08:002012-01-09T00:42:27.583-08:00spanikopita stuffed foccacia bread<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W4vltiE9_lE/Twqn_LZl6QI/AAAAAAAAAPk/rD1kvsVuOu8/s1600/rolls.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 224px; height: 225px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W4vltiE9_lE/Twqn_LZl6QI/AAAAAAAAAPk/rD1kvsVuOu8/s320/rolls.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5695549382597142786" /></a><br />difficulty rating: <a href="http://www.theanticraft.com/difficulty.htm">bottle short of a six pack</a><br />kinda greek-italian fusion food. this premise holds true for any kind of stuffed bun. it's based on my usual focaccia and usual spanikopita but without the egg<br /><br />mix 1 cup warm water<br />1 rounded Tbs instant yeast<br />1 rounded Tbs sugar<br />let sit for 10 min or until foamy<br /><br />in the mean time mix 2 cups flour with<br />3/4 tsp each of dill, oregano, basil, garlic, pepper, and salt<br /><br />add the yeast mix to the flour along with 2-3 Tbs olive oil. stir until a soft dough forms. kneed until soft and elasticy but still slightly sticky. add more flour as needed. coat lightly in oil and cover. let rise in a warm place for 25 min or until doubled.<br /><br />in the mean time sauté 1/4 of a diced onion in a bit of olive oil<br />mix with 1 1/4 cups chopped cooked spinach (frozen is fine, drain it well)<br />1/2 tsp each of dill, basil, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper<br />1/4 tsp nutmeg<br />2-3 Tbs lemon juice<br />1 cup low-fat crumbled feta cheese<br />adjust seasonings as you see fit<br /><br />your dough should have risen by now, punch down and divide into 6 pieces. flatten each piece to about 1/2 an inch thick, put a blob of filling in the middle, bring all the sides together and squish to form a bun full of goodies. place them evenly on parchment paper on a baking sheet.<br /><br />let rise till doubled in size again, bake at 325-350 for 20 min until golden brown on top. turn the heat down if they're getting too dark. <br /><br />brush the tops with olive oil or butter, top with a bit of parmesan while still hot so it melts a bit. <br /><br />let the damn thing cool a bit or you'll burn your face off! add a salad. call it dinner. bring leftovers to work tomorrow. tell the little old greek lady spinning in her grave to fuck off cause it's tasty. <br /><br />done.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-5650358503330098292012-01-08T11:21:00.000-08:002012-01-08T15:13:16.520-08:00plans for the garden<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5N05ngO5VIQ/TwoUCIEejtI/AAAAAAAAAPY/1_p_K0NidP4/s1600/tomatoes.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 183px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5N05ngO5VIQ/TwoUCIEejtI/AAAAAAAAAPY/1_p_K0NidP4/s320/tomatoes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5695386705521970898" /></a><br />so there's lots of other stuff i was going to write about "when i have more time" and right now i can't remember any of it right now. oh well. it's jan in vancouver and i'm heartily sick of the rain and fog and general gloominess. we've have about 2 days of partial sun here in the last 3 or 4 weeks. i'm desperate for some vitamin D. i know, can't really expect anything different living in van but i never chose to live here, damnit. i'm loooonging for spring. i want cherry blossoms and crocuses and sunshine and daffodils. most of all I WANT TO PLANT THE GARDEN!!! our new place has a nice sized balcony and i fully intend to make us an edible jungle out there. this is what i'm planning:<br /><br />window boxes-all the way around the outside of the railing. this will give us lots of planting room without eating all the walking space. i'll try to find deep ones since the usual 6" depth is not ideal for veggies. it's fine for herbs and lettuce and edible flowers and i did grow tomatoes in them last year with limited success but i think everything would have done better with deeper roots. in these is going to go most of the herbs, lettuce, snow peas, cucumbers, zucchini, green onions, carrots, radishes, violets, and strawberries. anything that has to climb, has shallow roots, and/or needs lots of sun. our balcony faces north-east so we are going to have issues with not enough light, especially on the northern side. light hogs like tomatoes and eggplant have to go on the east side. i may also be getting cuttings of honeysuckle so i'll have to make room for a planter or two on the ground so they can wind their lovely smelling vines all around the balcony railings under the rest of the edible jungle.<br /><br />self watering containers-at least a couple in the corners for stuff that really needs to never dry out. i'll be trying my hand at making these out of the 3 gallon buckets they have at my local dollar store. should make a nice weekend project while i'm waiting for the weather to warm up and the sun to come back. in these is going to be cherry tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and brussel sprouts. i'm trying not to use up too much floor space with these so we'll tuck them in corners. the water hogs are also light hogs so we'll see about staggering things in hight over on the north side.<br /><br />compost-rule 1 of gardening, build your soil!!! first of all i'm determined to find a good source of ready-made compost to give my plants a nice head start. potting soil from a bag is sterile and dead. that's very bad for healthy plants. secondly, i'm determined to get a vermiculture bin to live on the balcony. we wont have anything finished from it for a few months but at least worms can eat our garbage rather than the landfill and we should have some great stuff by mid to late summer<br /><br />hanging baskets-to make use of vertical space. while we're at it i'll be running fishing line to the roof as trellis for climbing things like the peas. i think i'll have to glue little strips of wood to the stucco to have an anchor point to attach things to. time to see if gorilla glue is all it's cracked up to be. i think i have 1"x1"s around here somewhere but i'll have to wait for a dry day. anything that trails can go in the hanging baskets so probably the oregano and thyme and whatever other herbs i can get to behave in them. maybe some nasturtiums tumbling over the edge for colour.<br /><br />early and late crops-i wont really know if i have space problems until i have all the planters in place but since my plans are more ambitious than last year and my light isn't as good, there's a fair chance i'll be struggling to fit everything where it will do well. some of this issue i plan on managing by having a few crops that are happier with cooler weather and less light, such as snow peas, radishes, lettuce, and brussel sprouts; and others that either have long growing seasons or need the blazing heat of summer, such as carrots and peppers. the early crops can be pulled out when they're wrapping up and replaced with something that needs their space, than replanted later in the summer for a fall crop or just moved elsewhere.<br /><br />other pretty and useful things-mirrors are going to go in on the building side to reflect back what light we do get. i'll have to watch carefully in the summer that they don't burn the plants if the light gets too intense. if so i'll have to screen them somewhat with a piece of sheer fabric or something. a little triangular shelf is going to go in one corner to hold an ashtray, a little fountain, and your drink. i'm hoping this can take the place of the little table out there right now and free up a bit of floor space. i love fountains and have been missing them since both of mine broke. if i can find a cheep one i'll get two and put one in my bedroom as well. i'm hoping this will help attract birds and bees. if i have room i'll put in a small bird feeder as well just to enjoy their company a little closer up. we'll have to watch the cats carefully :) since we'll be creating a lovely little garden with living curtains, i was going to make it a tad more habitable with a fast drying mat or carpet. i might crochet a rag rug or something. i'll probably put in a couple of hurricane oil lamps as well that can be filled with citronella for summer evenings. the neighbours have a little BBQ which means we can get away with this too if we can find a place to put it... <br /><br />i just found out that there's a good garden store right by holdom skytrain, which means i can actually get at it! before the only one i knew of was over an hour by bus. initial setup will be a lot of stuff (planters, brackets, compost, soil) so i'm hoping to get a friend to drive me for that run and get everything set up by the end of feb at the latest. i want to start planting no later than early march, mid feb if i can manage it. last year i think i started too late. this year i'm so eager i'll be amazed if i can wait for the last frost to clear. i must go play in the plant store! and somehow avoid buying everything in sight. hmmm, maybe if i just price things out and buy some seeds to start with? wish me luck!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-27945928663165130362011-12-26T17:43:00.000-08:002011-12-26T18:04:14.708-08:00harry potter trivia game<span style="font-weight:bold;">the trivia game</span><br />ok, this is just for you geekiest of people out there. this is the trivia game i used for the harry potter party. fair warning it is HARD. i did that on purpose since most of the ones i found were pathetically too easy. this was printed out and pasted into the monster book of monsters. when people answered a question correctly they got a chocolate "galleon" as a prize and to keep track. the person with the most right answers per game got a weasley is our king badge. feel free to use this for your own party, please link back to here if you re-post it. i worked really hard on this. answers are mostly from the books, but some from the movies. if there's a difference it's stated. some answers are only found on hp lexicon and interviews from jk rowling. here we go!<br /><br />quidditch<br />where was the first golden snitch made?<br />goddric’s hollow<br /><br />storyline<br />kreacher gives harry a christmas present. what was it?<br />a box full of maggots<br /><br />universe<br />why are red caps dangerous?<br />they like to kill humans to dye their hats red with their blood<br /><br />universe<br />what is a puffskein?<br />a custard coloured furball that makes a pleasant purring sound. they have long tongues and are<br />often kept as pets. they eat anything from spiders to leftovers so they’re easy to care for. fred<br />and george breed miniature puffskeins in pink and purple called pygmy puffs.<br /><br />universe<br />What is the make and model of Mr. Weasley's flying car?<br /> Ford Anglia<br /><br />hogwarts<br />Who was the headmaster of Hogwarts before Dumbledore?<br /> Armando Dippet<br /><br />characters<br />What is the full name of Nearly Headless Nick?<br /> Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Porpington<br /><br />hogwarts<br />What is the Hogwarts school motto?<br /> Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus, the Latin translation for "Never tickle a sleeping dragon"<br /><br />characters<br />What is Albus Dumbledore’s mother’s name?<br /> Kendra Dumbledore<br /><br />characters<br />Who has a scar in the shape of a map of the London underground?<br /> Albus dumbledore<br /><br />universe<br />What type of cactus squirts stick sap as a defense? (also once used as a Griffendor password)<br /> Mimbulus mimbletonia<br /><br />universe<br />What sort of organism causes spattergroit?<br /> Fungus (very contagious)<br /><br />characters<br />Which character ends up with “sneak” written in pimples across their face?<br /> Marietta Edgecombe<br /><br />characters<br />What does molly weasley like arthur to call her when they are alone?<br /> Molly wobbles<br /><br />characters<br />Which Patil twin is a Ravenclaw?<br /> Padma<br /><br />characters<br />What is Dumbledore’s favorite flavor of jam?<br /> Raspberry “but if i was a death eater, i’m sure i would have researched my own jam<br />preferences”<br /><br />characters<br />What is Ron’s middle name?<br /> Bilius, named after his uncle who use to be the life of the party at weddings. he used to drink a<br />whole bottle of firewhiskey, bend over, pull up his robes and pull bunches of flowers out of<br />his...never mind. never married, for some reason.<br /><br />quidditch<br />What was used as the first snitch?<br /> A tiny bird, but rules changed over the years to prevent animal cruelty<br /><br />quidditch<br />In quidditch, what is bumphing?<br /> a foul that applies to beaters only, it is when a Beater is hitting a Bludger towards the crowd,<br />necessitating a halt of the game as the officials rush to protect bystanders. Sometimes used by<br />unscrupulous players to prevent an opposing Chaser from scoring<br /><br />quidditch<br />in quidditch, what is blagging?<br /> a foul that applies to all players, it is when a player seizes opponent's broom tail to slow or<br />hinder<br /><br />quidditch<br />in quidditch, what is blatching?<br /> a foul that applies to all players, it is when a person is flying with the intent to collide<br /><br />quidditch<br />what is the quaffle covered with?<br /> Red leather<br /><br />quidditch<br />Name a game besides quidditch that’s played on brooms:<br />-Aingingein (Ireland) - Played on broomsticks, using a ball called a Dom and a series of flaming<br />hoops.<br />-annual broom race of Sweden<br />-Creaothceann (Scotland) - Popular in the Middle Ages, probably the most dangerous of all<br />broom games. Involved trying to catch hundreds of falling rocks and bludgers in cauldrons<br />causing a huge number of fatalities, banned in 1762<br />-Quodpot (USA) - an American variant of Quidditch invented by Abraham Peasegood. Has<br />eleven players per side and an exploding ball called the Quod.<br />-Shuntbumps- popular in Devon, England. Similar to jousting, the goal to knock other players<br />from their brooms. (Survives only as a children's game)<br />-Stichstock (Germany) - Ancient game that used an inflated dragon's bladder atop a 20 foot high<br />pole.<br />-Swivenhodge - began in Herefordshire involves hitting an inflated pig's bladder backwards and<br />forwards across a hedge with brooms. Still played today.<br /><br />characters<br />What house does moaning myrtle belong to?<br /> Ravenclaw<br /><br />characters<br />What house was Tonks in?<br /> Hufflepuff<br /><br />universe<br />Where are Acromantula native to?<br /> Borneo, believed to be wizard-bred (an example of why there is a ban on experimental<br />breeding), they are considered a beast rather then a sentient creature (despite being capable of<br />speech and thought) due to their violent nature<br /><br />universe<br />What is the proper breed name for madame maxime’s winged horses?<br />Abraxans, they drink only single malt whiskey<br /><br />characters<br />What is Sirius Black's mother’s name?<br /> Walburga black. Orion is not only her husband but also her cousin<br /><br />characters<br />What is voldemort’s mother’s name?<br /> Merope Gaunt<br /><br />characters<br />Who is Dragomir Gorgovitch ?<br /> A quidditch player, a Chaser for the Chudley Cannons Quidditch team. He is also the record<br />holder for the amount of times he has dropped a Quaffle during Quidditch matches<br /><br />spells/potions<br />What does the spell “anapneo” do?<br /> Clears target’s airway, if blocked<br /><br />characters<br />What does professor Vector teach?<br /> Arithmancy<br /><br />quidditch<br />How many fouls are there in quidditch?<br />700<br /><br />characters<br />What was lee jordon’s handle on potterwatch?<br />River<br /><br />storyline<br />How many times was nearly headless nick struck in the neck?<br />45, for the crime of trying to straighten a lady’s teeth and accidentally giving her a tusk instead<br /><br />storyline<br />Which 2 defense against the dark arts teachers were followers of voldemort?<br />Quirrell and snape<br /><br />logic<br />Why don’t electronics work in Hogwarts?<br />All the magic creates too much interference<br /><br />storyline<br />Who was teasing moaning mytle about her glasses just before she died?<br />Olive hornby<br /><br />universe<br />What was hagrid’s dragon named?<br />Norbert<br /><br />hogwarts<br />What fruit did you have to tickle on the painting in order to enter into the hogwarts kitchens?<br />Pear. it giggles and then turns into a handle for the door<br /><br />characters<br />What school does dudley go to?<br />Smeltings<br /><br />characters<br />Which professor was a dueling champion when he was young?<br />Flitwick<br /><br />hogwarts<br />How many staircases are there at Hogwarts?<br />142 and they like to move<br /><br />characters<br />Why doesn’t dumbledore like every flavor beans?<br />He came across a vomit flavored one and lost his liking for them. This is not restored by trying<br />one of Harry's as it is ear wax flavored<br /><br />characters<br />What is the name of aunt marge’s favorite dog?<br />Ripper, she has 12 in total<br /><br />storyline<br />What charm did Hermione miss learning when she slept through charms class?<br />Cheering charms. When harry performs one on Ron during their exams he overdoes it and Ron<br />has to be led away to a quiet room for an hour to calm down<br /><br />storyline<br />Who was the first person to escape azkaban?<br />Bertemius crouch jr, but we don’t find that out until long after Sirius is hunted for doing so<br /><br />wand lore<br />What type of wood is draco’s wand?<br />Hawthorn<br /><br />characters<br />Who is Harry's oldest child?<br />James Potter jr<br /><br />storyline<br />How old was sirius when he bought his first house?<br />17. he got the money from his uncle alphard. Walburga blasted Alphard off the family tree<br />tapestry for it but it doesn’t much matter since he was never dependant on the rest of the family<br /><br />characters<br />Why didn’t dumbledore ever marry?<br />He’s gay. He was in love with grindelwald, which gives new meaning to their fateful duel<br /><br />storyline<br />How much money did the wealseys win in the daily prophet grand prize galleon draw?<br />700 galleons, which they used to take a trip to egypt<br /><br />universe<br />What number do you dial on the pay phone to enter the ministry of magic?<br />62442 (spells out “magic” on most phones)<br /><br />universe<br />How do dementors multiply?<br />They grow like a fungus, they are not alive and cannot breed<br /><br />universe<br />How many knuts are there to a sickle?<br />29. there are also 17 sickles to a galleon and a galleon is worth about 5 pounds in muggle<br />money<br /><br />characters<br />Who is mr. Tibbles?<br />One of mrs figg’s cats, quite possibly a kneazle<br /><br />characters<br />Who is tenebrus?<br />The first thestral to be born in the forbidden forest, hagrid’s favorite<br /><br />characters<br />Who is mosag?<br />Aragog’s wife<br /><br />storyline<br />When buckbeak became an outlaw, what was his name changed to?<br />Witherwings<br /><br />storyline<br />What did ginny tell people ron had a tattoo of?<br />A pigmy puff, but she didn’t say where<br /><br />universe<br />What are celestina warbeck’s backup singers?<br />A group of banshees<br /><br />storyline<br />What lines were missing from the merpeople’s song in the movie?<br />Come and seek us where our voices sound.<br />We cannot sing above the ground.<br />**And while you're searching, ponder this:**<br />**We've taken what you'll sorely miss.**<br />An hour long you'll have to look,<br />To recover what we took.<br />**But past an hour - the prospect's black.**<br />**Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.**<br /><br />spells/potions<br />What spell turns an object into a portkey?<br />“portus”<br /><br />hogwarts<br />Where is the entrance to the room of requirement?<br />7th floor of hogwarts, across from a painting of barnabus the barmy trying to teach trolls ballet<br /><br />storyline<br />*in the book* where did harry get gillyweed for the second task?<br />Dobby stole it from snape’s private storeroom (not Neville like in the movie)<br /><br />spells/potions<br />There are 12 uses for dragon’s blood, which dumbledore discovered, we only know two of them<br />for sure. What are they?<br />An oven cleaner and a spot remover (hagrid uses a dragon meat steak for it’s healing properties<br />but it’s never specified that the blood is what alleviates stinging)<br /><br />universe<br />What type of dragon is silvery blue and prized for it’s hide?<br />Swedish short snout<br /><br />universe<br />what does the writing on the frame of the mirror of erised say?<br />‘Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi’ Reversing the inscription and rearranging the<br />spaces produces: I show not your face but your heart's desire<br /><br />storyline<br />what specialized job does lupin do for the order of the phoenix?<br />spies on fenrir greyback and his gang of other werewolves, where he learns that far from being<br />unable to control himself, greyback purposely positions himself close to humans when he’s due<br />to transform in an effort to infect as many people as possible, particularly children.<br /><br />storyline<br />who raises teddy lupin (remus and tonk’s son)?<br />tonk’s parents, although he spends a great deal of time at harry and ginny’s house<br /><br />logic<br />what type of snake is nagini?<br />we’ve never been told but she is described as 15-20 feet long, green, with a diamond pattern at<br />least on her tail, with long poisonous fangs and a triangular head, making her most likely a very<br />large eastern green mamba. the only problem with this theory is that they are only found in<br />africa and voldemort is thought to have acquired her while hiding in albania. indeed, most fans<br />speculate that nagini was the last animal he possessed before wormtail helped him make the<br />rudimentary body he has during goblet of fire. it’s possible that jk rowling made up the breed or<br />that nagini has been altered by magic. this seems more likely since her venom is described as<br />preventing clotting, making it a hemotoxin. she may be a green pit viper or a common adder<br />that has been enlarged purposely or as a result of being possessed<br /><br />logic<br />if a witch or wizard has a child with a muggle, are their children more likely to be muggle or<br />magic?<br />magic. it is a resilient and dominant gene, which is why muggle born witches and wizards are so<br />much more common then squibs.<br /><br />storyline<br />who was the executioner who came for buckbeak?<br />the death eater macnair<br /><br />wand lore<br />what is the core of the elder wand made of?<br />a hair from a thestral, very tricky and powerful and can be mastered only by someone willing to<br />face death (hence part of voldemort's problems with it)<br /><br />universe<br />what type of owl is pigwidgeon?<br />scops<br /><br />characters<br />what is molly weasley's maiden name?<br />Prewett. she lost several close relatives to death eaters<br /><br />characters<br />what is fred and george's birthday?<br />april fool's day<br /><br />universe<br />crookshanks is unusually intelligent because he's only half cat. what is he cross-bred with?<br />a kneazle<br /><br />wand lore<br />what wood is hagrid's wand made of?<br />oak, which does not match his celtic tree month of birth but suits his personality better<br /><br />characters<br />what event made ron afraid of spiders?<br />fred turning his teddy bear into a large spider when he was three<br /><br />characters<br />what did dumbledore teach before he was headmaster?<br />transfiguration<br /><br />universe<br />how is a basalisk born?<br />from a chicken egg, hatched under a toad<br /><br />logic<br />which came first, the phoenix or the fire?<br />a circle has no beginning or ending<br /><br />storyline<br />who sent the howler to Petunia and what did it say?<br />dumbledore. “remember my last, petunia!” reminding her that by taking in harry, she had agreed<br />to a binding magical contract of protection<br /><br />storyline<br />when ron leaves harry and hermione during the search for horcruxes, where does he spend<br />christmas?<br />shell cottage with Bill and Fleur<br /><br />storyline<br />how were the death eaters able to track harry, hermione, and ron to the cafe after they left the<br />wedding?<br />hermione says “voldemort”, which has been tabooed and makes people traceable as well as<br />breaking protective enchantments<br /><br />logic<br />why and when does a bezoar make more sense then a properly made antidote?<br />antidotes take time to make, particularly if several poisons were used. if someone were already<br />poisoned you wouldn’t have time to brew one. on the other hand bezoars are not very common<br />so it would be a good idea to have one with you in any situation where you might be poisoned. if<br />you knew what poisons were likely to be used you could make the antidote ahead of time. alas,<br />bezoars do not work on everything<br /><br />characters<br />what is harry’s birthday?<br />july 31st<br /><br />storyline<br />what year did dumbledore defeat grindelwald?<br />1945, his rein of terror coincided with the second world war<br /><br />characters<br />where is the malfoy’s secret chamber hidden?<br />under the drawing room floor, through a trapdoor<br /><br />characters<br />what is dumbledore’s boggart?<br />the corpse of his sister ariana<br /><br />storyline<br />which bank vault in gringotts contained the philosopher’s stone?<br />713, which belongs to dumbledore.<br /><br />universe<br />what is the age requirement for an apparition license?<br />17<br /><br />wand lore<br />what wood is voldemort’s first wand made of?<br />yew, which represents death and resurrection and is often considered an unlucky tree<br />hogwarts<br /><br />what is the password to ravenclaw tower?<br />there isn’t one. you have to answer a question correctly or wait for someone else to come along<br />who can answer the question you couldn’t<br /><br />storyline<br />ginny dates 3 boys that we know of, who are they?<br />dean thomas, micheal corner, and harry potter<br /><br />spells/potions<br />what does the spell “colloportus” do?<br />seals a door, hermione uses it in the department of mysteries after a door melts harry’s knife<br /><br />storyline<br />why does ginny break up with micheal corner?<br />he was a bad loser after griffendor beat ravenclaw at quidditch<br /><br />characters<br />what is ginny’s pygmy puff named?<br />arnold<br /><br />storyline<br />who won the world cup?<br />ireland, even though krum caught the snitch for bulgaria. the Weasley twins had bet all their<br />savings on this outcome but bagman paid them in leprechaun gold, which vanished after a few<br />hours. they needed the money to start their joke shop so they tried to blackmail him into paying<br />up but it didn’t work. after the horrors of the last task in the triwizard tournament, harry didn’t want his prize money so he gave it to the twins as start-up funds.<br /><br />storyline<br />who cursed off george’s ear?<br />snape, with a sectumsempra curse during the battle of the 7 potters, but he was aiming at<br />another death eater’s hand<br /><br />storyline<br />where does Hermione take them when they flee from the wedding?<br />tottenham court road where she used to go to the movies with her parents<br /><br />hogwarts<br />why does the bloody baron wear chains?<br />to symbolize his repentance for killing helena ravenclaw in anger, the woman he loved who<br />spurned his advances. he killed himself when he saw what he’d done<br /><br />characters<br />who became minister for magic after voldemort’s death?<br />kingsley shacklebolt<br /><br />storyline<br />who kills bellatrix lestrange?<br />molly weasley, and it’s EPIC<br /><br />universe<br />where is the snake in the zoo from?<br />bred in captivity in the UK, in the book he’s going to Brazil, in the movie he’s Burmese<br /><br />storyline<br />who killed sirius black?<br />his cousin, bellatrix lestrange<br /><br />characters<br />before he was freed, what did dobby wear?<br />a dirty pillowcase. house elves who are happy tend to care for their garments, like the hogwarts<br />elves and their tea towels, which were always perfectly clean. those who are unhappy, such as<br />kreatcher are often found wearing filthy rags.<br /><br />characters<br />who was percy’s girlfriend?<br />penelope clearwater, a prefect from ravenclaw<br /><br />characters<br />what was lily evans’ patronus?<br />a doe, just like snape’s because he was in love with her but was stuck in the friend zone and<br />then became a death eater, earning her enmity. he loved her anyways and turned spy for her<br />sake<br /><br />storyline<br />what was the horcrux that voldemort made by accident?<br />harry himself. voldemort split his unstable soul by killing lily and james so when his curse<br />rebounded part of him latched onto the only living thing in that house. this is why harry is a<br />parselmouth and can see into voldemort’s thoughts<br /><br />storyline<br />who destroys helga hufflepuff’s cup?<br />hermione, in the chamber of secrets with a basalisk fang.<br /><br />spells/potions<br />what is the spell to make water pour out of your wand?<br />aguamenti<br /><br />spells/potions<br />what is the spell to hoist someone upside down by their ankle? and it’s counterspell?<br />leviticorpus, and libericorpus, both nonverbal. invented by snape while he was in school and<br />went by the name ‘the half blood prince’<br /><br />universe<br />who wrote ‘a history of magic’?<br />bathilda bagshot, noted magical historian, friend of the dumbledores and the potters, resident of<br />goddric’s hallow<br /><br />storyline<br />when does harry meet alister moody?<br />june of his 4th year at hogwarts, at the bottom of his own enchanted trunk. the professor he met<br />at the beginning of that year was barty crouch jr disguised as madeye with polyjuice potion<br /><br />storyline<br />who killed barty crouch sr?<br />his son, barty crouch jr, disguised as madeye moody. he transfigured his father’s body into a<br />bone and buried him in a patch of loose dirt close to hagrid’s cabin.<br /><br />characters<br />who is hermes?<br />percy’s owl that he got as a reward for becoming a prefect<br /><br />storyline<br />who was the secret keeper for the potter’s fidelius charm?<br />peter pettigrew. they were going to use sirius but switched at the last min since they thought he<br />would be too obvious of a choice and weren’t sure who was voldemort’s spy. unfortunately peter<br />was the spy and betrayed them.<br /><br />characters<br />what did sirius tell harry, ron and hermione to call him while he was in hiding?<br />snuffles<br /><br />storyline<br />who tells voldemort that harry is dead?<br />narcissa malfoy. she doesn’t care about winning anymore, she just wants to be able to rescue<br />her son so she lies and says he’s dead when she knows he isn’t. she knows she’ll only be<br />allowed to enter the castle as part of a victorious army.<br /><br />storyline<br />who gave pigwidgeon to ron?<br />sirius. “because it’s my fault he no longer has a rat”<br /><br />storyline<br />what happened to the rest of the time turners?<br />dumbledore’s army smashed them during the fight in the department of mysteries.<br /><br />hogwarts<br />name at least 3 magical creatures that live in the forbidden forest<br />acromantula, unicorns, bowtruckles, mr weasley’s car, thestrals, centars, rumor has it<br />werewolves (but that might have just been lupin)<br /><br />storyline<br />how was harry’s nimbus 2000 destroyed?<br />it blew into the whomping willow after harry fell off his broom<br /><br />storyline<br />who does dobby rescue from the malfoys cellar?<br />harry, ron, hermione, luna, griphook, olivander, and in the book, dean. he dies in the process but<br />gets them all to shell cottage<br /><br />storyline<br />who else was petrified at the same time as hermione?<br />penelope clearwater, percy’s girlfriend. this shakes him since he didn’t think anyone would dare<br />attack the prefects.<br /><br />universe<br />what colour are unicorn foals?<br />gold, and they do not have horns yet. they are also not as biased against men when they’re<br />young<br /><br />hogwarts<br />which ghost is very important in the books but never appears in the movies?<br />peeves. which is a shame since he would have been lots of fun!<br /><br />hogwarts<br />how many secret exits are there from hogwarts?<br />seven. 4 filch knows about, one is caved in, one is under the whomping willow, and one is<br />through the one-eyed witch’s hump<br /><br />characters<br />what are crabbe and goyle’s first names?<br />vincent and gregory<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">extras just for fun</span><br /><br />the potion puzzle:<br />Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,<br />Two of us will help you, which ever you would find,<br />One among us seven will let you move ahead,<br />Another will transport the drinker back instead,<br />Two among our number hold only nettle wine,<br />Three of us are killers, waiting bidden in line.<br />Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,<br />To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:<br />First, however slyly the poison tries to hide<br />You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;<br />Second, different are those who stand at either end,<br />But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;<br />Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,<br />Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;<br />Fourth, the second left and the second on the right<br />Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.<br /><br />nearly headless nick's beheading song:<br />it was a mistake any wizard could make<br />who was tired and caught on the hop<br />one piffling error, and then, to my terror,<br />i found myself facing the chop.<br />alas for the eve when i met lady grieve<br />a-strolling the park in the dusk!<br />she was of the belief i could straighten her teeth<br />next moment she'd sprouted a tusk.<br />i cried through the night that i'd soon put her right<br />but the process of justice was lax;<br />they'd brought out the block, though they'd mislaid the rock<br />where they usually sharpened the axe.<br />next morning at dawn, with a face most forlorn,<br />the priest said try not to cry,<br />"you can come just like that, no, you won't need a hat,"<br />and i knew that my end must be nigh.<br />the man in the mask who would have the sad task<br />of cleaving my head from my neck,<br />said "nick, if you please, will you get to your knees,"<br />and i turned to a gibbering wreck.<br />"this may sting a bit" said the cack-handed twit<br />as he swung the axe up in the air,<br />but oh the blunt blade! no difference it made,<br />my head was still definitely there.<br />the axeman he hacked and he whacked and he thwacked,<br />"won't be too long," he assured me,<br />but quick it was not, and the bone-headed clot<br />took forty-five goes 'til he floored me.<br />and so i was dead, but my faithful old head<br />it never saw fit to desert me,<br />it still lingers on, that's the end of my song,<br />and now, please applaud, or you'll hurt me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-55159510788190703832011-11-24T14:18:00.000-08:002011-12-26T16:53:02.915-08:00harry potter food<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ix57j328QUw/TvkW253pMqI/AAAAAAAAAPM/SMnoAdi9j-8/s1600/harry%2Bpotter%2Bfeast.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 220px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ix57j328QUw/TvkW253pMqI/AAAAAAAAAPM/SMnoAdi9j-8/s320/harry%2Bpotter%2Bfeast.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690604736662287010" /></a><br /><br />gotta have food! i knew there would be lots of sugar and booze about so i wanted to make sure there was real food as well, just to keep people from vomiting. we were going to start with full english brunch but the first day no one could come until the evening and the second day it was just me and sarah for the first few hours but we did make ourselves a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, hashbrowns, sausages, and fruit. now you guys know what you missed out on by not coming earlier :P <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O3FDBl86Ngk/TvkWwXzR-EI/AAAAAAAAAPA/od1a0LUwtU4/s1600/cockaleekie%2Bsoup.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 259px; height: 194px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O3FDBl86Ngk/TvkWwXzR-EI/AAAAAAAAAPA/od1a0LUwtU4/s320/cockaleekie%2Bsoup.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690604624437966914" /></a><br />the first day dinner was <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/vegetarian-cock-a-leekie-soup-418018">cockaleekie soup</a> with barley instead of rice (to ensure it didn't get too soggy), kept warm in the crock pot, with yorkshire puddings of course. this didn't go over as well as i'd expected. maybe because everyone was scared of the name and maybe because soup is crappy party food. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kbst5_4GD2A/TvkWie4LcQI/AAAAAAAAAO0/_YaT6ngZZGE/s1600/yorkshire%2Bpudding.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kbst5_4GD2A/TvkWie4LcQI/AAAAAAAAAO0/_YaT6ngZZGE/s200/yorkshire%2Bpudding.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690604385819390210" /></a><br />the yorkie puddings went down a treat though. wish i'd made a double batch.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fjnv0KFxQEM/TvkWaYzomjI/AAAAAAAAAOo/Zu2KzpoT3wk/s1600/cornish%2Bpasties.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 283px; height: 178px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fjnv0KFxQEM/TvkWaYzomjI/AAAAAAAAAOo/Zu2KzpoT3wk/s320/cornish%2Bpasties.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690604246750763570" /></a><br />the other day's dinner was cornish meat pies (made ahead and frozen raw). which i just sorta throw together so i have no real measurements i'm afraid. i have this great <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/most-incredible-no-fail-pie-crust-28943">pie crust recipe</a> that you can't screw up without trying really hard. the filling would have been veggie steak strips but i couldn't find them anywhere and had to use ground "beef" instead. i think i just sautéed some onions and mushrooms, in butter, added flour to make a roux, added broth to make a sauce (not too soupy now!), stirred in the veggie meat and some ketchup, Worcestershire, and dijon for flavor. add some dill and garlic, salt and pepper. taste and adjust as you see fit. let cool and add some cubed cheddar. roll out the pastry to 1/4"-1/8", cut into 4" rounds (i used a small plate as a template), put a few spoonfuls on one side, wet the whole edge and fold over. press well to seal. if you want them to look all authentic, stand them up with the seam running along the top. try not to overfill of they'll explode. i think i baked at about 375 until they were brown, maybe 25 min? you're just trying to cook the crust so no stress.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bk5FNzfwzwI/TvkWL_uQtjI/AAAAAAAAAOc/k83LaH5aDdY/s1600/parchment%2Bscrolls.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 183px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bk5FNzfwzwI/TvkWL_uQtjI/AAAAAAAAAOc/k83LaH5aDdY/s320/parchment%2Bscrolls.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690603999499171378" /></a><br />i also made these fun little parchment scrolls filled with spinach and feta, tied with green onion with tatziki to dip (so adorable! this pic isn't mine but kinda resembles them, add a green onion tied around) really though, make these. just make my <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/spanikopita-pie-422002">spanikopita</a> recipe in a different shape. i cut my phyllo sheets into 3, lengthwise and rolled double layers. i also pre-cooked my filling but i don't think that was a good idea. they would have held together better if i hadn't and probably been less dry but they were gobbled up anyways.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ohEQY3DS_n4/TvkWBqYlnWI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/CHvB9bvC2Sw/s1600/pumpkin%2Bpasties.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ohEQY3DS_n4/TvkWBqYlnWI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/CHvB9bvC2Sw/s200/pumpkin%2Bpasties.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690603821972430178" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/pumpkin-tarts-333232">mini pumpkin pasties</a> (made ahead and frozen raw) were done with the same amazing <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/most-incredible-no-fail-pie-crust-28943">pie crust</a>. you have to pre-bake the filling so it will hold it's shape when you're filling your little circles of dough. obviously they cook for mush less time than a normal pie or tart.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j_aizwXCI3Q/TvkVfjSaUkI/AAAAAAAAAOE/G10DMbgBvsQ/s1600/candy.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j_aizwXCI3Q/TvkVfjSaUkI/AAAAAAAAAOE/G10DMbgBvsQ/s320/candy.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690603235951923778" /></a><br />the candy/snacks included liquorice wands with white chocolate/sprinkles handles (melt chocolate, dip liquorice, roll in sprinkles, lay on wax paper), chocolate frogs (melt chocolate, pour into molds), peppermint toads (melt white chocolate, add a bit of peppermint extract, pour into molds), fizzing wizzbies (fizzy center candies), and every flavour beans in mini cauldrons, and chips and popcorn in big candy bowl cauldrons. the frog mold was the only thing i had to specially order and it took FOREVER to arrive so be sure to order it well in advance.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-35lkna9LYUQ/TvkVW_XZsiI/AAAAAAAAAN4/5piBEPLpZ08/s1600/potion%2Btable.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-35lkna9LYUQ/TvkVW_XZsiI/AAAAAAAAAN4/5piBEPLpZ08/s320/potion%2Btable.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690603088870224418" /></a><br />i had tons of fun collecting interesting bottles for this. most of them came from dollar stores and michael's but a few were reused wine and other liquor bottles. i was expecting to have to add food colouring to more things but the majority was already an interesting blend of colours. i gave everything fun names from the books and made sure it was possible to make a few popular drinks like broken down golf carts and tequila sunrises, blue mondays, rum and cokes, whathaveyou. amusing bits included grated cucumber (gillyweed) to go into mojitos, whole nutmeg (bezoars) to be grated into butterbeer, and poprocks to make your drink crackle and fizz. fun with layering and mystery drinks ensued until ilet out the secret that the real names were printed on the backs of the fun labels so you could read them through the glass from the back<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DsfXwoNBF4w/TvkVNBa6VvI/AAAAAAAAANs/Sbq2DQANdo4/s1600/potion%2Bglass.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DsfXwoNBF4w/TvkVNBa6VvI/AAAAAAAAANs/Sbq2DQANdo4/s200/potion%2Bglass.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690602917623125746" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z44iAc1lFi0/TvkU-Fn6rRI/AAAAAAAAANg/DgLWA5SXbVQ/s1600/butterbeer.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 236px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z44iAc1lFi0/TvkU-Fn6rRI/AAAAAAAAANg/DgLWA5SXbVQ/s320/butterbeer.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690602661053377810" /></a><br />butterbeer went quite well. i used my usual <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/simple-hard-apple-cider-437520">hard cider</a>, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg in the fermentation stage, than warmed up and added butterscotch. we kept it simmering on the stove (and burned one batch, oops!) and ladled out, topping with whip cream and a cinnamon stick. the milk content from the butterscotch does curdle, unfortunately. next time i might use butter ripple schnapps to flavor it instead.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-45472861975624940432011-10-25T18:22:00.000-07:002011-12-26T16:03:11.711-08:00harry potter props and decorations<span style="font-weight:bold;">harry potter party props and decorations</span><br />quite late with these but yule, etc took over my life. these are some of the projects i put together for the party. info on activities and food to follow. no laughing at my messy house!<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2KwDBu2SAuI/TvkAbGBJz9I/AAAAAAAAAJY/Hl7VXBpS1m0/s1600/platform%2Band%2Bsign.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2KwDBu2SAuI/TvkAbGBJz9I/AAAAAAAAAJY/Hl7VXBpS1m0/s320/platform%2Band%2Bsign.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690580069631250386" /></a><br /><strong>platform 9 3/4</strong><br />this is fairly straightforward: take a brown(or tan, or grey, whatever colour you want your "mortar") twin size sheet, tape lines horizontally for the rows, than small pieces vertically to separate individual bricks. spray paint somewhat unevenly with dark red, than add a light, uneven dusting of dark brown for texture, remove tape, tack to ceiling/walls, slit up center with sharp scissors. you could also use a sponge or rag dipped in acrylic paints swirled together on a plate and dab it on instead of spraying. the sign is just painted posterboard safety pinned to the sheet<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IlvO6qDN8XM/TvkBQ8n17oI/AAAAAAAAAKI/R9NqD07_U_M/s1600/banner%2Bslitherin.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IlvO6qDN8XM/TvkBQ8n17oI/AAAAAAAAAKI/R9NqD07_U_M/s200/banner%2Bslitherin.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690580994822106754" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lwe1pz1sw4s/TvkBQkw7H_I/AAAAAAAAAJ4/QrhSSmOSFQI/s1600/banner%2Bravenclaw.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lwe1pz1sw4s/TvkBQkw7H_I/AAAAAAAAAJ4/QrhSSmOSFQI/s200/banner%2Bravenclaw.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690580988417744882" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rD-p1Ygh2wk/TvkBQVMWPXI/AAAAAAAAAJw/cufKJ2C60fI/s1600/banner%2Bhufflepuff.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rD-p1Ygh2wk/TvkBQVMWPXI/AAAAAAAAAJw/cufKJ2C60fI/s200/banner%2Bhufflepuff.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690580984237800818" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LQbJdLX55Zo/TvkBQET4w-I/AAAAAAAAAJk/-_VqhRgDe7o/s1600/banner%2Bgrifindor.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LQbJdLX55Zo/TvkBQET4w-I/AAAAAAAAAJk/-_VqhRgDe7o/s200/banner%2Bgrifindor.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690580979706020834" /></a><br /><strong>house banners</strong><br />these are just simple painted posterboard but they're good for big impact<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BrJyiSyQeOk/TvkBqEdBEsI/AAAAAAAAAKU/EhdKY4Fg2Bw/s1600/owls%2B2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BrJyiSyQeOk/TvkBqEdBEsI/AAAAAAAAAKU/EhdKY4Fg2Bw/s320/owls%2B2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690581426420912834" /></a><br /><strong>post owls</strong><br />i made a little stuffy errol and pigwidgeon out of spare yarn i had kicking around, a couple of googly eyes, and some scrap felt. instructions can be found <a href="http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/crafts/knitting/pigwidgeon">here</a> but you don't have to be terribly exact. fair warning, cutting the pom poms makes a mess no matter how careful you are so be prepared to get fluff everywhere.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W5LuMF_g8FI/TvkCD4yR58I/AAAAAAAAAKs/7cA0OGQ4nKQ/s1600/broom%2Bhandle.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W5LuMF_g8FI/TvkCD4yR58I/AAAAAAAAAKs/7cA0OGQ4nKQ/s320/broom%2Bhandle.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690581869965469634" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LAasT5Xatr4/TvkCDYjS_9I/AAAAAAAAAKg/mLcrABkLzm4/s1600/broom%2Bfull.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LAasT5Xatr4/TvkCDYjS_9I/AAAAAAAAAKg/mLcrABkLzm4/s320/broom%2Bfull.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690581861312692178" /></a><br /><strong>nimbus 2000</strong> <br />this one was really easy. i got a nice witch's broom from value village (although the handle could have been longer) and covered the wires that bound the tail twigs with wide ribbon, glued in place. i couldn't find nice gold ribbon, the closest i could get was yellow so i painted it with acrylic. i also painted "nimbus 2000" on the handle.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b-NDj6gCqww/TvkCi2M8lLI/AAAAAAAAAK4/LRieM-Q01UI/s1600/hat%2Bwith%2Bbadges.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b-NDj6gCqww/TvkCi2M8lLI/AAAAAAAAAK4/LRieM-Q01UI/s320/hat%2Bwith%2Bbadges.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690582401847956658" /></a><br /><strong>sorting hat</strong><br />this turned out beautiful but really small! sorry about the pic. they all turned out either too light or too dark to see the shading properly for some reason. if i make another one i'll have to start with a really big hat since the process shrinks the inside and i forgot to try this hat on before starting >.< i took safety pins and bunched the front of the hat together to form eyebrows and a mouth, pinning in place on the inside as i went. it didn't look much like a face at that point. my hat started out all patchy already but very light brown so i spray painted it dark brown, purposely uneven. that stiffened the whole thing nicely but it still only sorta looked like a face so i took acrylics to it and painted the hollows of the eyes and mouth black and highlighted the lips, eyebrows and nose in a slightly lighter brown. now he looks like a cranky old man :) when people were sorted they were given a house badge made of painted posterboard with a pin glued to the back<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cvi44lkK5vA/TvkDUc4dS9I/AAAAAAAAALE/CoKC4IPkRDE/s1600/book%2Bopen.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cvi44lkK5vA/TvkDUc4dS9I/AAAAAAAAALE/CoKC4IPkRDE/s320/book%2Bopen.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690583254044593106" /></a><br /><strong>monster book of monsters</strong> <br />this was fun and easy. i just cut out the shape from scrap fun fur i had around and glued it to a dollar store notebook along with some googly eyes and halloween monster teeth. instructions found <a href="http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/crafts/sewing/monsterbookjacket">here</a> but i did a bit different shape and left off the lettering since i thought it was quite cute without. i printed out the trivia game and glued it into the book, along with fun little things like nearly headless nick's beheading song. the person who did best in the trivia game each day recieved a prize of a 'weasley is our king' badge made of crayola air-dry clay:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wMJbG8G3RJs/TvkDlbkYL4I/AAAAAAAAALQ/QNpJ7MUkRUI/s1600/badges.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wMJbG8G3RJs/TvkDlbkYL4I/AAAAAAAAALQ/QNpJ7MUkRUI/s320/badges.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690583545749712770" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EG0FdexhjVU/TvkD3LMeE9I/AAAAAAAAALc/PBhBRnaMuGs/s1600/wand%2Bhand.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EG0FdexhjVU/TvkD3LMeE9I/AAAAAAAAALc/PBhBRnaMuGs/s320/wand%2Bhand.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690583850592113618" /></a><br /><strong>wands</strong> <br />these turned out beautiful if i do say so myself! i followed <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-awesome-Harry-Potter-wand-from-a-sheet-of-/">these</a> instructions but i used a bamboo skewer as a core for stability and wrapped the whole thing in masking tape to shape/stabilize before painting. the hot glue takes a bit of practice. the key is to be confident and smooth. you can create really neat textures once you get used to playing with the melty plastic. the metallic accents on the raised parts are much easier to do with your finger. the 'dilute the paint and wipe off to antique' thing doesn't work at all. just work in layers and mix your colours, blending on the wand.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dptpm2HCP_k/TvkFiUgCXuI/AAAAAAAAALo/tBZpaPfGEgA/s1600/dragon%2Beggs.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dptpm2HCP_k/TvkFiUgCXuI/AAAAAAAAALo/tBZpaPfGEgA/s200/dragon%2Beggs.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690585691336105698" /></a><br /><strong>dragon eggs</strong> <br />i forgot to get a pic of mine before we tore them apart, sorry! these were made by covering inflated (not water filled) water balloons in paper mache done with layers of tissue paper to make them easy to tear apart. i added a bit of white glue and black paint to my simple flour/water paste for texture and colour. one of them was painted gold and we had a little dragon statue standing guard over the nest in a cauldron. the eggs were filled with candy, confetti, and toys as party favours. these have to be made a few days before the party since they're fragile and likely to get damaged if done too early. when letting the air out of your balloon, poke a little hole close to the knot to let them deflate slowly. if you just pop them you sometimes damage the delicate shell. widen the hole just enough to stuff and then cover carefully with more paper mache. it helps to insert a little loops of string or fishing line as a handle to start the ripping open process (unless you're like my friend sophie who squealed and smashed it on the wall immediately, i love you sophie!). i found when drying them, it's easiest to get a box, lay it on it's side, and poke holes in the top so you can hand your eggs in a protected space and have a drip-catcher all in one. be sure to tie string to your balloons before starting with the paste.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w1y1KZy_bQc/TvkHAnkeNYI/AAAAAAAAAL0/3w_nAehoX4U/s1600/raddish%2Bearrings.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w1y1KZy_bQc/TvkHAnkeNYI/AAAAAAAAAL0/3w_nAehoX4U/s200/raddish%2Bearrings.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690587311362684290" /></a><br /><strong>radish earrings</strong><br />i had the clay out anyway so i couldn't resist making these. i just made quick eye head pins with scrap wire, than bent the tails of them into zig-zags to hold the clay better. i molded upside down tear drops over the pins, leaving the ring in the top free, attached two leaves to the top of each, let dry, and painted with acrylic. i just attached claw clasps to these to clip to my usual earrings but you could just as easily mold the wire into a hook to begin with or attach with a jump ring to a stud. i just have a metal allergy so i have to wear special earrings<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U4hLuHuCvS8/TvkHlwwjmeI/AAAAAAAAAMM/eG7LxyEn3kY/s1600/bats%2B1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U4hLuHuCvS8/TvkHlwwjmeI/AAAAAAAAAMM/eG7LxyEn3kY/s320/bats%2B1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690587949484448226" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o8TQB7eCYss/TvkHlkbvdlI/AAAAAAAAAMA/GP0-jcE_tqA/s1600/bats%2Band%2Bcandles.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o8TQB7eCYss/TvkHlkbvdlI/AAAAAAAAAMA/GP0-jcE_tqA/s320/bats%2Band%2Bcandles.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690587946175919698" /></a><br /><strong>paper bats and LED candles</strong><br />these bats are just cut out from cardstock. i have about a hundred. they're part of our usual fall/halloween decor. we cut these out by hand and then strung them with fishing line and tacked to the ceiling. fair warning, it takes FOREVER. if you had one of those nifty expensive crafter cutting machines like the silhouette i'm sure it would be much less annoying. good part is that they store flat for reuse with much less hassle the next year. we have them in a trail from platform 9 3/4, snaking through the house and out the balcony door. i actually only put up about 65 since i was very tired of stapling things above my head while balanced on a chair. put up a single line of bats every few feet to start with to get the basic line you want, than fill in. it looks more realistic if your fishing lines are all different lengths and you have a few different shapes of bat. they look really cool when they flutter in the breeze/air currents. kinda like they're a real cloud of bats that were petrified as they went out to hunt for the night.the LED candles i picked up from the dollar store for a buck each and drilled little holes for the fishing line in the plastic holders<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lNRq75SZKpQ/TvkI1a0C2YI/AAAAAAAAAMY/mTv8QRhFeuk/s1600/snitch%2Bhand.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lNRq75SZKpQ/TvkI1a0C2YI/AAAAAAAAAMY/mTv8QRhFeuk/s320/snitch%2Bhand.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690589317983033730" /></a><br /><strong>golden snitch</strong> <br />this is just a ping pong ball i painted gold and made little wings for out of wire and aluminum foil. after i finished it, it occurred to me i could have used real feathers painted silver. oh well.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2m7D34-f6v4/TvkJIuCZktI/AAAAAAAAAMk/0EM6D9FV5rg/s1600/chamber%2Bwarning.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2m7D34-f6v4/TvkJIuCZktI/AAAAAAAAAMk/0EM6D9FV5rg/s320/chamber%2Bwarning.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690589649561031378" /></a><br /><strong>chamber of secrets warning</strong><br />this was just written in dry erase marker, cuz it's fun. and a clue to look for the entrance:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i4Ju0xY4YAg/TvkJSdhsxaI/AAAAAAAAAMw/JwHJZMoXvJs/s1600/snake%2Bmagnet.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i4Ju0xY4YAg/TvkJSdhsxaI/AAAAAAAAAMw/JwHJZMoXvJs/s200/snake%2Bmagnet.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690589816927602082" /></a><br /> <br />this was just a simple little clay sculpture with a magnet backing. just seeing if people are paying attention. the first person to find it got a potter stinks badge, also made of clay see pic with weasley is our king badges)<br /><br />while we're having fun with dry erase markers, i also couldn't resist doing this:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iFE7yzaac7k/TvkJoa-iXII/AAAAAAAAAM8/DtPS4FwpemU/s1600/ministry%2Bentrance.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iFE7yzaac7k/TvkJoa-iXII/AAAAAAAAAM8/DtPS4FwpemU/s200/ministry%2Bentrance.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690590194200370306" /></a><br /><br />which actually turned out to be one of the most popular of the decorations. funny considering i just threw it in last min.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-25kOQbmdJns/TvkKBGUqhWI/AAAAAAAAANI/mtXJA5Vw2zw/s1600/pygmy%2Bpuffs.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-25kOQbmdJns/TvkKBGUqhWI/AAAAAAAAANI/mtXJA5Vw2zw/s320/pygmy%2Bpuffs.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690590618152764770" /></a><br /><strong>pygmy puffs</strong><br />i got the idea for these from making the owls, they're just a big pom pom with googly eyes and long felt tongues. the yarn was from the dollar store<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8ASSN1S3oMY/TvkKRLibCxI/AAAAAAAAANU/X-3fKUPrCqk/s1600/dumbledores%2Barmy.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8ASSN1S3oMY/TvkKRLibCxI/AAAAAAAAANU/X-3fKUPrCqk/s320/dumbledores%2Barmy.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690590894430554898" /></a><br /><strong>dumbledore’s army sign up sheet</strong><br />i aged a piece of paper by soaking in strong tea and rubbing with some coffee grounds. blotted dry with paper towel and rolled up while it was still damp. i had a nice dip pen and ink around anyway so i just looked up the list of DA members and wrote them out, leaving space for guests to sign up as well. if i had more time i might have made a common room bulletin board with quidditch practice schedules, weasley's wizard wheezes ads, and offers to trade chocolate frog cards<br /><br />overall we had a lot of fun. i don't think anyone else was as hardcore of a geek as me and didn't get all the details and references but oh well. now on to the food and activities!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-35689759490545160872011-10-09T12:32:00.000-07:002011-10-09T13:19:10.109-07:00epic party plans in the works<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lJfZldCFAPk/TpIBEuSTK1I/AAAAAAAAAJQ/rL-qTBqfxvc/s1600/potter.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 318px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lJfZldCFAPk/TpIBEuSTK1I/AAAAAAAAAJQ/rL-qTBqfxvc/s320/potter.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661588862214024018" /></a><br />i plan parties on a fairly regular basis. holidays are usually held at our place which means that i decorate and cook and organize stuff every few months. my birthday is usually low-key. we go out for dinner and then have drinks at our place. some years are rowdier than others. this year i was bored with that. also, this year the last harry potter movie comes out on dvd just in time and we've been looking for an excuse to do a movie marathon. i was initially thinking we'd watch all the movies and make some british food. easy, right? then i looked it up and discovered that even the non-extended movies add up to over 20 hours. ok, so we'll do it over 2 days and people can drop in and out as they like. then i made the mistake of looking up harry potter parties. oh dear. enter the mad crafter/chef/geek. i've been quickly carried away with all kinds of ideas for decorations and food and activities and... yeeeaahhh. i'm having a little too much fun geeking out. it's a good distraction from the stress of house hunting and such. i'm just hoping none of my projects get broken/lost in the move at the end of the month. the party's in november. most of the ideas i found catered to kids so i've adapted them to be more fun. so far we have handmade stuffy owls, a monster book of monsters, several wands, a trivia game with almost 100 really hard questions, a nimbus 2000, and several other half done props. i've got all kinds of food and a few activities planned. i'll do a bigger post as we go with photos and links and recipes and such. there's going to be butterbeer based on my homebrewed cider, a potions table filled with booze, a sorting ceremony, i hope you guys like geeking out :)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-62081862987375225332011-09-27T16:50:00.000-07:002011-09-27T18:17:17.094-07:007 things every vegetarian should know how to cook<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e-ZSji6gwso/ToJ1b6mSvlI/AAAAAAAAAJI/6oA4Q-cpJEw/s1600/salad.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 195px; height: 133px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e-ZSji6gwso/ToJ1b6mSvlI/AAAAAAAAAJI/6oA4Q-cpJEw/s320/salad.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5657213204377550418" /></a><br />i've come across several lists recently of "10 things everyone should know how to make". while i agree with the concept here, that everyone should have basic cooking skills, i think these lists only apply to meat eaters (i'm not ashamed that i can't make steak or roast a chicken). when i google "things every vegetarian should know how to make", i get nothing of any use. since i haven't eaten meat in 15 years and i cook, any new vegetarians i know ask me for recipes or where to start. obviously you need to make friends with your local green grocer and start adding veggies to everything. you also need staples and basic skills. here's my own list, with reasoning and recipes scattered throughout:<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">whole grains</span> <br />from rice to quinoa to barley to amaranth, these are an important staple of any diet but most especially a vegetarian one. they're available in bulk for dirt cheep and are all made by combining with water in various ratios, bringing to a boil, and simmering until they soften. as silly as it sounds, considering all the other things i can make, i still struggle with basic rice when it's not added raw to a soup or filling. i still keep it in the house and try again every few times we need it. the rest of the time my roommate has to make it, while teasing me mercilessly. i have some amaranth i'm going to experiment with and i have a recent love of <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/simple-quinoa-tabbouleh-459859">quinoa</a>. barley isn't just for soup, guys! it can go anywhere rice can with more nutrition and better texture! one solid tip i've learned: if you want to add lemon juice or any other acid to grains, do so AFTER cooking unless you want the whole thing to turn into glue. that's how they make sushi rice stick together so be sure that's what you're going for.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">beans and legumes</span><br />again, available in bulk for cheep, and they'll keep more or less forever. in general you want to soak them overnight and then rinse, boil for an hour or until tender, then rinse again. the rinsing and soaking help make them less, ahem, windy. they're so terribly healthy you really should be able to make them into at least one dish you really like. make a big batch and use them all week just like you would for canned. i think the home cooked ones taste much better then canned. i make garbanzos into <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/tuna-salad-a-mock-one-35042">mock-tuna salad</a> and hummus. black beans do wonderfully in mexican and <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/baja-black-beans-corn-and-rice-55768">baja dishes</a> and you can sprout them or grow micro-greens or whole plants and have fresh beans! you can apparently also take cooked soy beans, blend with water, strain to make soy milk, and turn that soy milk into tofu (kinda like making cheese) if you so desire. i may try this sometime just to prove that i can and see if it's really any better then store bought. you can thank me when the zombies come :P<br />which brings us to <span style="font-weight:bold;">tofu</span><br />which is NOT to be used as a meat substitute unto itself other then in <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-tofu-fillet-sandwich-with-tartar-sauce-278991">very rare cases</a> because on it's own it tastes like a wet sponge. this is the controversial ingredient that gives vegetarians a bad name. it's honestly not as good a protein source as people think, but you also need less protein then people think. it does do well in stir fries and the desert stuff isn't bad as a snack (kinda like a pudding or custard) or in fruit smoothies. we don't eat a lot of it around here but if you don't eat meat you're kinda required to have an opinion on it and be able to make it edible.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">meat substitutes</span><br />are way more versatile and tasty then tofu and they're much higher in protein! they are more expensive as well, but not more then meat. we've come a long way even in the last 5 years from the crappy veggie burgers and tofu dogs which used to be the only things in this section. go have a look in the produce section, by the bagged salad and expensive dressings. there's a whole world of interesting new things. some are fantastic and some are awful but it really is worth experimenting. in BC, Yves is the biggest and best brand but there's a few others that are rising stars. i'm fond of the fake chicken and steak pieces and the "ground round" is really versatile and freezes well. the deli slices usually resemble the texture of bologna or pepperoni so don't expect anything like your thin shaved black forest ham from the good deli. also don't expect anything in this category to taste exactly like meat. you will be disappointed. it is it's own thing and should be treated like an exotic food you've never tried rather then a copy of something you know well. that being said, a lot of these do well pressed into service in lasagna, <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/vegetarian-chicken-potato-and-broccoli-casserole-413363">casseroles</a>, stir fries, <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/french-onion-and-barley-soup-457703">stews</a>, pizza, etc. you do need to take into account that they will not bind together like raw meat will, so treat them like pre-cooked meat and you're golden.<br />speaking of pizza, <span style="font-weight:bold;">bread</span><br />seems like something either totally unnecessary and <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/perfect-garlic-bread-from-scratch-449124">extravagant</a> to make at home, or something everyone should know how to do, depending on your perspective. i fall firmly in the second camp of thinking but i think it applies to us veg-heads even more since it's the basis for so many other wonderful things! things like <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/kidney-bean-veggie-burgers-444333">burgers</a>, pizza, calzones, and filled buns! it's 7pm and you don't want to go to the store for bread? got flour and yeast? do it yourself, you silly person! you'll have hot wonderful <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/greek-foccacia-bread-440911">fresh bread</a> to go with that soup that's taking too long to simmer and fantastic toast for the morning! freeze half your dough and have it on hand whenever you need it. learn the tricks of warm ovens for rising and instant yeast to speed up the process. look into the no-kneed types that hang out in your fridge all the time. play in the wonderful ancient world of sourdough. knock out a loaf of irish soda bread before your super fast soup is done. make gluten-free, multi-grain, high-protein, or fat-free bread for a tiny fraction of the store price! this is food at it's most elemental and basic. this is creation and transformation and one of the first uses for fire. this is a food that kickstarted civilization as we know it. it matters. every human should know how to make it. you can't call yourself a cook without it.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">soup</span> to go with that bread!<br />another of those really basic foods you can throw together with whatever is left in the house. got a couple of potatoes and some cream cheese? you have <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/paneras-cream-cheese-potato-soup-150863">soup</a>. got some frozen broccoli and a block of cheddar? you have <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/broccoli-cheese-soup-33573">soup</a>. nearly every culture has some variation on this theme because it works! it will fill you up, clean out the leftovers, tide you over till payday or be the <a href="http://www.food.com/recipe/vegetarian-cock-a-leekie-soup-418018">star of the show</a>. you should have at least 3 go-to recipes in your repertoire. <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">yogurt</span><br />seems an odd choice but i think it's important for a few reasons: it's super healthy and versatile, it's much cheaper when you make your own, and it is a great introduction to the world of probiotic foods, bacterial cultures, and biochemistry in cooking. that makes it sound scary, stay with me. take milk. heat to almost boiling. let sit till only warm, not hot. add a spoonful of yogurt. pour into now-empty yogurt tub. wrap in towel. set somewhere warm overnight. the end. i know it's scary to leave milk out overnight but i promise it's safe. take your newborn yogurt and make smoothies. or drain it to make greek yogurt. make tatziki. stir it into curry. use in place of sour cream. eat with cereal. now you have an idea of how fermented and cultured food works! go learn how to make kefir. go make booze! go learn more about how yeast works. save the last spoonful of your last batch to make your new batch.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-18377142338591795142011-08-23T22:34:00.000-07:002012-01-08T23:28:39.622-08:00perfect summer dinnerdifficulty rating: <a href="http://www.theanticraft.com/difficulty.htm">bottle short of a six pack</a><br />you know what's lovely on a summer night? a filling salad and a cooling grown up drink. without further ado i give you creamy greek "chicken" salad and cucumber mojitos:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eIP79bVf8KA/TlSOG1CfmaI/AAAAAAAAAI4/RHrjf_4V7pQ/s1600/greek%2Bsalad.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 259px; height: 194px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eIP79bVf8KA/TlSOG1CfmaI/AAAAAAAAAI4/RHrjf_4V7pQ/s320/greek%2Bsalad.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5644292480969972130" /></a><br /><br />ingredients:<br />1 cup kalimata olives, roughly chopped<br />1 cup feta cheese, crumbled (use low fat if you like)<br />1 cup cucumber, diced (about 1/2 a long english)<br />1 cup yellow pepper, diced (about 1 big pepper)<br />1/4-1/2 cup red or white onion, finely chopped<br />1 cup tomatoes, chopped (about 2 med)<br />1/2 cup tatziki sauce (store bought or make your own)<br />1 pkg veggie chicken pieces, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups, i use superstore brand or yves. you could use real chicken i suppose but i would suggest it be precooked)<br />1/4 cup lemon juice<br />1 veggie chicken broth cube<br />1/2 tsp garlic powder<br />1 tsp dill<br />salt and pepper to taste<br />1 tsp dried onion flakes<br />water, to cover<br /><br />mix "chicken" with spices and lemon juice in a small pot, add water to cover. bring to a boil and simmer on med <br />in the mean time chop all your veggies and mix with tatziki in a salad bowl.<br />taste the "chicken, see if it has some flavor yet. if not, mix a drink and go out for a cigarette while you let it stew some more.<br />drain the "chicken", save the broth if you like. it may need to be watered down somewhat to be drinkable on it's own but it would be great to cook grains in or use as the start for a soup. add the "chicken" to the salad and toss well. leftovers would be good in a wrap.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LMTvJjGcfCM/TlSRj6slipI/AAAAAAAAAJA/UZR4MtUqyw4/s1600/mojito.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 191px; height: 264px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LMTvJjGcfCM/TlSRj6slipI/AAAAAAAAAJA/UZR4MtUqyw4/s320/mojito.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5644296279239789202" /></a><br /><br />make a simple syrup by stirring half a cup of sugar and half a cup of water together, bring to a boil to dissolve, then cool. it only takes about 2 min, don't be so lazy. you can make a bigger batch to keep in the cupboard if you like. <br />throw a few ice cubes in a glass<br />add a couple sprigs of fresh mint. dried or extract or any other mint flavored thing will <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> do, it must be fresh.<br />squeeze in a couple lime slices. you can cheat a bit here and use the bottled stuff if you have to. if you use fresh lime, throw the squeezed fruit into the mix.<br />add a few slices of cucumber. you could also use whatever fruit you have on hand.<br />muddle this mess with a spoon. that means kinda mash and bruise it all up to release juice, oils, and flavors<br />add a couple of ounces white rum<br />top with soda water<br />sweeten to taste with simple syrup.<br />use a straw to avoid chewing leaves and things<br /><br />there! you just made a super easy, grown up meal and cocktail in about 20 min. packed full of vitamins and protein and flavor, and you can get most of it from the farmer's market this time of year. impress your friends by being all effortless iron chef. relax in the hammock with another mojito, you totally deserve it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-64365383312131950552011-08-21T20:47:00.001-07:002011-08-21T21:08:25.940-07:00argh with the flies!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xTBGsf790-A/TlHTp5VDJRI/AAAAAAAAAIw/JMGakcGKYC4/s1600/fruit%2Bflies.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 189px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xTBGsf790-A/TlHTp5VDJRI/AAAAAAAAAIw/JMGakcGKYC4/s320/fruit%2Bflies.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643524524789146898" /></a>
<br />so this is a little off-beat from my usual fare but have you ever noticed that bugs come in waves per year? one year it might be a mosquito year, then it might be a fly year, then a spider year, or a beetle year. this has been a fruit fly year. i'm not sure what causes it, probably a combination of life cycles of bugs and plants combined with weather, but i'm not the only one playing battle of the fruit flies right now. i thought at first it was just my sub-standard housekeeping skills, which undoubtedly contribute to the problem, but lots of people with cleaner houses then mine are having the same issues. i can't set a glass of wine or cider down around here for even so long as to go pee without coming back to find 4 fruit flies swimming in it. random note: have you ever found that after fishing out several fruit flies from your drink (carefully to avoid consuming bug bits but not have to pour out your drink every 2 min) that it takes on a sickly sweet smell? concerning... anyways. we're fighting around here by trying to get rid of all dirty dishes and garbage as quickly as possible and in the mean time setting out fly strips and traps. "traps?", you say?....yes traps. if you're fighting the same battle, i advise you to create a few of these and set them up wherever you see the most flies:
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UxmYVHXOkkI/TlHTHSDozlI/AAAAAAAAAIo/iW_Lvr5K64s/s1600/Super-EZ-fruit-fly-trap.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UxmYVHXOkkI/TlHTHSDozlI/AAAAAAAAAIo/iW_Lvr5K64s/s320/Super-EZ-fruit-fly-trap.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643523930131582546" /></a>
<br />it's just a container of some kind topped with a funnel made of a piece of paper and taped in place. you bait it with wine, cider, a piece of fruit, balsamic vinegar, or anything else they've been trying to steal in the bottom of the container. they fly in and are too stupid to find the exit so they drown or die of old age. i'm not usually one for murdering bugs en mass but this has truly gone too far. they are disturbing my quiet after-work drink and invading my cherished fruit and coming in clouds that are making me crazy. this means war! common sense rules still apply, keep your place as clean as possible, even if it's still messy (not the same thing) and don't leave anything out that they like. remember that they will live and breed on damp sponges and dish rags and that vinegar is just as good, if not better, than any toxic chemicals to get rid of that juice spill or counter crumbs. i never thought i'd be so looking forward to winter when they all die! fight bravely for your sanity, my friends, and stay strong! they only each live a week.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-69795122242839813512011-08-09T07:55:00.000-07:002011-08-09T17:02:59.951-07:00the delusion of time<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b0i9G-Qrbh4/TkF9E50TSKI/AAAAAAAAAIg/P11KA9iwwKU/s1600/time.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b0i9G-Qrbh4/TkF9E50TSKI/AAAAAAAAAIg/P11KA9iwwKU/s320/time.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5638925731637708962" /></a>
<br />we were recently talking about the silly concept of money and the value of physical objects. main conclusion: <a href="http://spiritussancto.blogspot.com/2011/06/story-of-imaginary-money.html">money doesn't exist.</a> while we're on the subject of crazy things we take for granted, let me tell you a little story about the delusion of time.
<br />once upon a time (*smirk*) humans did not keep track of hours or minutes or years. we noticed the seasons as the length of day and night changed and grew warm and cold. we worked with those seasons to gather and store what we needed. if something got done today instead of tomorrow it was no matter. when hungry, eat. when tired, sleep. you're a baby until you can walk. you're a child until you reach puberty. you're an elder when you can no longer work as hard as the rest of the tribe but have wisdom to impart instead. seems fairly sensible, doesn't it? time is relative to what you're doing and measured by the movement of the sun and the beating of your heart.
<br />then we started noticing things like the patterns of the stars and started keeping track of years and noticing various cycles. in an effort to understand our world better, we started playing with math and star gazing and really neat theories. we figured out that each day is the same length even though there's more and less light in each depending on the time of year. we noticed the length of the cycle of the seasons and came to all kinds of fun ideas about how the universe was put together because of it. so far so good, these are all naturally occurring cycles, even if none of these are nice round numbers that would make for easy math.
<br />now we start to diverge a bit from the rational. at some point we decided that years and moon phases were not fitting nicely together, math-wise, and we wanted to divide up years and months differently. we also decided we want to divide up the day into more then morning, afternoon, evening, and night. this is where i think we went terribly wrong.
<br />humans have this strange and arrogant desire for control. we also have this notion that just because math makes sense to us as far as explaining things to each other (the whole point of it, btw), it must be a universal truth. because of this, we adjust either our notions of the world, or our systems, until we are sure we totally understand how everything works. if we understand and measure things we can control them, right? *smirk* and if we control them we can change them and we have, MWUAHAHA! ULTIMATE POWER!
<br />so for a system that can make sense in our brains (although the math is...interesting), we divided the year into 12 months for some reason. this is close to the lunar cycles we used to follow, but 13 moons don't fit nicely into a year. 12 doesn't actually fit either but it's a little closer. it used to be 10 but that really made no sense. since the math doesn't work, the months are different lengths. instead of naming the months things like the cold moon and the planting moon and other such things, we named many of them arbitrarily after some dudes who used to have lots of power and various gods. once you name something after someone it must BELONG to them, right? so August(us) wants more days then Jun(ius) and Februalia gets totally shafted, etc. since it still doesn't work we have leap years which <em>almost</em> makes sense. i once tried to create a lunar calender but it was such a headache i have no idea how it used to work. i think it was mostly just that we used to be a little less control freakish and didn't try to reconcile the phases of the moon with the seasons of the year. the sun and moon are two separate entities with separate cycles of their own. why should the math relate to each other from where we stand on earth? i'd actually like to see a round calender with an outer ring for the moon name, then one inside for moon phase, then one for seasons closest to the center. each ring would turn independently...anyways
<br />a bit of math that mostly makes sense is that 365 <em>almost</em> divides evenly into 7, so we have weeks. 4 weeks is almost a lunar cycle but doesn't relate mathematically to months which is why weeks start and stop more or less independently from them. perhaps they were doing this math before we came up with the decimal?
<br />now that we have a silly little system to divide up the year, we feel the need to have more precise control of the day. "i'll meet you at mid-day at the oak tree" is terribly inefficient, you see. in an era before clocks, you had to get good at looking at the sun to determine what point in the day it was. if it's THAT big a deal to wait for someone or something for a little while then we have to track better and have a system we can all relate to. a day is a rotation of the earth. it's a fixed natural amount. we arbitrarily decided that we would divide the day into 24 units (yay for more strange math). enter sun dials. they're easy for people to understand and reasonably precise. at some point we then decided we needed much more control then that. if it makes any sense to divide a day into 24 hours, it must make the same kind of sense to divide an hour in 60 min and a min into 60 seconds. kinda reminds me of the craziness of imperial vs metric measurements.
<br />besides being rather dumb math, the big problem with dividing this much, and making it such a part of our lives, is that we've become slaves to it. yes, it's useful for various science and explaining things to other people, but otherwise how important is it, really? if you have to wait for a friend who's ten min late, is it the end of the world? if you were ten min late to a job interview it would be considered a huge deal. in theory you're being disrespectful by making someone wait. in practice, we're really all being disrespectful to each-other by insisting that not only should every clock in the world be perfectly synchronized, but we should each be perfect at keeping to every bit of a schedule, with no room for real life to interfere.
<br />when was the last time you watched the clock while making love? while sitting on the beach? while dancing to your favorite song? time that keeps close track holds us to an impossible standard. it sucks the joy out of life. it leaves us no room to breathe and remember that we are alive. do you hold your pets to this kind of standard? your garden? your infant? why are we so harsh to each-other?
<br />once upon a time we woke up at dawn, regardless of what a clock would have said. we went to bed when we were tired. we ate when we were hungry. we planted when the ground thawed, we harvested when plants were full grown. we hunted when animals were plentiful or culled the herd when we needed meat for the winter more then we needed to feed all our animals during the cold months. we slept more in the winter because that is the time for renewal. you baked the bread until you could tell it was done. time should be measured by what is done in it.
<br />keeping close track of time has given us many insights and allowed us to share a lot of knowledge with one another. it has also caused us an awful lot of harm. use it when it is needed, but for gods' sake cut each-other some slack! hours and minutes are a human-constructed notion. the important things are those you cannot measure. the times that stand still or rush by. this is where our souls live. this is relativity.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-71604418097993972492011-07-10T03:12:00.000-07:002012-01-08T23:26:58.525-08:00savory french tarts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hb7_oOI33wY/Thl7m-WdgnI/AAAAAAAAAIY/JIt3uubX-Lw/s1600/french%2Btart.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 270px; height: 265px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hb7_oOI33wY/Thl7m-WdgnI/AAAAAAAAAIY/JIt3uubX-Lw/s320/french%2Btart.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627665118878597746" /></a><br /><br />difficulty rating: <a href="http://www.theanticraft.com/difficulty.htm">rolling in her grave</a><br />this is my new favorite throw-together dinner for the summer. it lends itself to whatever you have on hand and fairly bursts with rich flavor. <br /><br />decide on a crust-i like puff pastry but i've also used several layers of philo, pre-bought or homemade pie crusts, whatever you've got around that resembles pastry. depending on what it is and if you think it'll go soggy you may want to blind bake it for a few min before adding toppings. sometimes i do this in a pie plate and sometimes just on a cookie sheet depending on how many toppings i'm trying to corral.<br /><br />layer on some fresh veggies-i like good ripe tomatoes and fresh spinach but i've also used peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives, use whatever you've got that is colourful and tastes great. if you had cooked meats on hand you could add prosciutto or crumbled sausage or something.<br /><br />be heavy handed with the aromatics-raid the herb garden and throw on a good handful of whatever you have on hand. dill, basil, rosemary, oregano, sage, thyme, or all of the above. fresh is better then dried by a long shot. i don't usually use garlic but i see no reason why you couldn't. roasted would be especially nice. a good grinding of black pepper is nice too.<br /><br />find some cheese-good strong stuff like chevre or good parmesan or blue, you don't need a ton so use up that little chunk of good stuff left over from your last party. i sometimes add a bit of mozza or other mild cheese as well if i have any. <br /><br />if it looks really dry and falling apart i sometimes pour a beaten egg over the whole thing to hold it together<br /><br />layer it all in your crust in whatever order you think is pretty and bake at around 350-375 for some 25 min or until your crust is cooked and your cheese is melted<br /><br />serve with wine and salad or soup. now you know how to cook like a french peasant!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-84229856196493081142011-07-07T01:24:00.000-07:002011-07-07T02:44:34.901-07:00on strong women<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XaXQuy8thuU/ThV_uEeXMcI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/jjsea4zIUoI/s1600/woman%2Bhillside.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 162px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XaXQuy8thuU/ThV_uEeXMcI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/jjsea4zIUoI/s320/woman%2Bhillside.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626543738921103810" /></a><br />we all know i'm a fairly hardcore feminist. most people who know me would also describe me as a very strong personality. sometimes that's meant as a compliment, sometimes as an insult. our society tends to look down on strength as much as we used to revere it, and far moreso for women then men. when you say the word strength people tend to conjure images of muscles and emotional coldness. they also tend to think of men and not women. somewhere along the way we seem to have forgotten that the genders truly are equal, even as we are different. some of this is evolutionary and biological (women have a higher pain threshold because we have to deal with childbirth) and some of it is cultural (men are often expected for provide the incomes for their families). as we move more into equal rights truly being the norm, we're starting to reclaim the strengths of women that were once accepted, if never celebrated, that have been pushed to the background or frowned upon for the last few hundred years. so what does it mean to be a strong woman? being a child of the computer age, i turned to google for answers and inspiration and you know what i found? disappointment. google shows you the most popular responses. when you're swimming against the stream it often makes you really mad (try googling "courage to heal", the most groundbreaking book on healing from childhood sexual abuse in our lifetimes. nothing but abuse of the authors who have helped so many). <br />i never had strong female role models as a child but a few things did get set into my mind: just because something is traditionally done by males is no reason females shouldn't do it too; men aren't any better then women, just different; and if i wanted to be happy with who i am i would have to reinvent myself from the ground up. some of this was taught by positive example (my grandmother was one of the first female doctors in canada) and some by negative example (i sure as hell don't want to be like my mother so what shall i be instead?). skip forward a decade or two of struggle and change and personal evolution and we come to me: still very much a work in progress but someone who could never be called weak. interestingly, all of the things that i think define strong women are also the things that get me into trouble the most, how about you?:<br />intelligence-whether book smarts, intuition, street smarts, or physical intelligence, you'll never find a strong woman who doesn't have a deep cache of wisdom of some type.<br />passion-having the emotional drive to pursue your interests with enthusiasm is a very rare trait, to the extent that it tends to scare the hell out of people who lack it. nothing of any value was ever achieved without it. it's also the driving force behind loyalty.<br />honesty-it's often a lot harder then lying, it's also a large part of what makes someone an honorable person.<br />originality-anyone can go along with the crowd. it's important to know when the crowd is not where you want to be and do something completely different no matter the consequences.<br />endurance-this applies more to women then men because it's one of our differences. "the courage of women is different then men, deeper and more enduring." accepting the changes in a tribe, in a community, in the attitudes of acceptable behavior, and surviving anyways; a 48 hour long labor followed by a child who will be attached to your skirts for at least 5 or 6 years <span style="font-style:italic;">nonstop</span>; cooking and cleaning for many more people then yourself; the physical demands of our moon cycles; being the moral and emotional center of a family and leading joy by example. these things train endurance into us from a very young age and most men would be completely overwhelmed by them, just as a woman with no training would be completely overwhelmed on a battlefield or a hunting ground.<br />morality-it's one thing to know that it's bad to steal from your neighbor and kill for reasons other then sustenance. it's a different thing to make the judgment calls when the lines are gray and fuzzy, or when there are no good options at all. sometimes this is the big decisions like triage at a disaster site, sometimes it's the little decisions that keep the household running smoothly and everyone in it healthy and happy. it's how you spend your time, it's what you accept happening around you, it's your self discipline. <br />competence-look at the strong women around you. everything they do, they do it well, don't they? when they screw something up, they look to learn from the mistake. they're not afraid to try something new because they know they can practice enough to get good at it. they have a careless grace that is rooted in mastery. <br />i'll tell you an open secret: all grace is rooted in strength. all strength is paid for in pain. physical or emotional, we are tempered by experience. often those lessons are brutal. they make us who we are. the trick is to accept it, to let go. to be in and of the experience and allow it to forge and change your spirit. which brings us to the one we feminists don't like to acknowledge and society likes to believe is the only female virtue:<br />surrender and tenderness-you cannot be strong without also knowing the ways in which you are weak, and accepting them. you cannot be the master of yourself if you're afraid to be vulnerable with another person. strength is just as much about letting people in and being close and soft and gentle as it is about drawing a hard line and being passionate and smart. this is a spiritual mystery because it must be experienced to be understood. it's the feeling of getting lost in the eyes of the person you love most in the world. it's a mothers fierce protection for her child, and the connection she feels while breastfeeding for the first time. just as strength is paid for in pain, passion and aggression at their most intense, are fed by the tenderness we feel for the things we hold closest to our hearts, and our insistence that they never be taken away.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-18557790857724209182011-07-03T14:01:00.000-07:002012-01-08T22:41:39.258-08:00newspaper nails<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-snFu-7yncLA/ThDn6h7jiMI/AAAAAAAAAIE/qfVK4jDK22c/s1600/finishednail1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-snFu-7yncLA/ThDn6h7jiMI/AAAAAAAAAIE/qfVK4jDK22c/s320/finishednail1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625250927312341186" /></a><br />difficulty level: <a href="http://www.theanticraft.com/difficulty.htm">cut and paste</a><br />i don't often bother to do crazy nail art but the literary snob in me couldn't resist this. it's actually a lot easier to do then i thought it would be. impress your friends with your superior skills! boys could certainly get away with this too, you don't have to be limited to black you know. i painted my nails a flat white last night. any light colour works. this is crappy dollar store nail polish that was rather goopy and didn't want to go on evenly. it looked a lot like white-out actually but it turns out that this totally camouflages any streakiness. resist the urge to use actual white-out. it isn't good for you and probably wont work the same way. i wanted to make sure it was really dry before i started the second part of this so i gave it a good 8 or 10 hours. that probably wasn't necessary but i wanted to go to bed anyway.<br />get some rubbing alcohol or vodka or something with an alcohol content of 40% or higher. pour an ounce or so into a little cup of some kind. cut out little pieces of newspaper (or nice prints and pictures you find in ads. or comics! totally doing that next time) about an inch square or slightly bigger then your nails.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ac3je_zeYEg/ThDmD3UZjMI/AAAAAAAAAHc/Tiw16rqa-KA/s1600/soaknail.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ac3je_zeYEg/ThDmD3UZjMI/AAAAAAAAAHc/Tiw16rqa-KA/s320/soaknail.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625248888649256130" /></a><br />dip a nail in the alcohol for about 30 seconds to soften it slightly. try not to touch the edges of the cup.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9MbfuO5NbbM/ThDmbCKmbJI/AAAAAAAAAHk/WvlshHAJy8g/s1600/pressnail.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9MbfuO5NbbM/ThDmbCKmbJI/AAAAAAAAAHk/WvlshHAJy8g/s320/pressnail.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625249286697938066" /></a><br />press a piece of newspaper down hard onto the nail and hold it there for 30 seconds. don't move it around once it's pressed down and try to keep the pressure even so you don't end up with lighter and darker bits. don't hold down for too long or the paper will stick and leave fibers on your nail. doing this against a table is easiest. using two fingers to press down results in unevenness. it's kinda like when you played with silly putty as a kid.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ucJ-zWtG5Pk/ThDm1__vheI/AAAAAAAAAHs/yE0BzzCmmcM/s1600/unpaperednail.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ucJ-zWtG5Pk/ThDm1__vheI/AAAAAAAAAHs/yE0BzzCmmcM/s320/unpaperednail.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625249749971994082" /></a><br />peel off the paper gently and admire your work! it will be on your skin as well but that washes off easily. let it dry for a few min. repeat for the rest of your fingers. doing just one in a full colour comic and the rest in newsprint would be fun.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aZ1kmeE-THk/ThDnYf6mmlI/AAAAAAAAAH0/FyOmYd-0chk/s1600/coatnail.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aZ1kmeE-THk/ThDnYf6mmlI/AAAAAAAAAH0/FyOmYd-0chk/s320/coatnail.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625250342655924818" /></a><br />put on a thick-ish layer of clear coat. thick-ish because that way the brush wont streak the printing as much.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EK-ZVaaPw34/ThDnsEugsCI/AAAAAAAAAH8/UEJePCpELxU/s1600/finishednail3.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EK-ZVaaPw34/ThDnsEugsCI/AAAAAAAAAH8/UEJePCpELxU/s320/finishednail3.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625250678954831906" /></a><br />tah dah! looks kinda punk doesn't it? would look a little more girly if my nails were as long as usual but they were all ratty so i cut them off last night. now i wonder what other silly things i can do to my nails that doesn't require hours of breathing fumes and fidgeting with toothpicks...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-85341667817122879582011-06-30T15:01:00.001-07:002011-06-30T15:01:54.787-07:00cheesy pull apart herb bread<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3qeygAhtz_8/TgxIUgkcORI/AAAAAAAAAHU/vrbaMcoQfYc/s1600/cheese%2Bbread.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3qeygAhtz_8/TgxIUgkcORI/AAAAAAAAAHU/vrbaMcoQfYc/s320/cheese%2Bbread.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623949551856269586" /></a><br />this was tonight's tasty creation, made from whatever i had on hand, to be breakfast tomorrow. i'm kind of amazed i had all of this since tomorrow's payday and i haven't grocery shopped in two weeks. this is put together much like a cinnamon pull-apart bread i made a while back that was AMAZING. you roll out the dough, spread on the filling of your choice (much like making sticky buns) and then cut it into squares, stack them up, place vertically in a loaf pan and when it's done you'll have pre-sliced bread already spread with tasty stuff! you do have to have some kind of fat in the filling to keep the pieces separated but that's pretty easy to do. you can see here i'm mostly relying on the whole-fat cheese. i added the mayo mainly to make it more spreadable. i possibly could have used milk to keep the fat content down but i didn't think of it. this is a treat snack, not a healthy one. you could use whatever cheeses and herbs you have on hand. would work nicely with some minced olives, roasted garlic, sundried tomatoes or spinach in the filling. you can also go the sweet direction and use fruit and brown sugar and butter (remove the garlic powder or i'll laugh at you a lot for not having enough sense to be allowed in a kitchen)<br /><br />dough:<br />3/4 cup sourdough starter (or more warm water, i was just trying to use up the starter instead of throwing half out when i fed it)<br />1/4 cup warm water<br />1/2 Tbs instant yeast (could have upped to 3/4 Tbs)<br />1 tsp sugar<br />1 Tbs garlic powder<br />1 tsp salt<br />2 Tbs oil or butter<br />2 cups flour<br /><br />filling:<br />1 cup shredded cheese (i used half low-fat cheddar, half coriander gouda but whatever)<br />3 Tbs half-fat mayo<br />1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs (i used rosemary, thyme, dill, sage, oregano, and basil since that's what's available in the garden right now)<br />1 Tbs dijon mustard<br />1/3 cup cream cheese (i used mostly light plain and a bit of tomato-basil that was left over)<br />1/2 tsp chili pepper flakes<br /><br />mix the starter, water, yeast, and sugar. let sit for a few min to get all bubbly<br />add the salt, garlic, and oil, stir briefly, then mix in flour. i suggest starting with 1 1/2 cups and adding more as needed to make a soft dough that's not too sticky. warning: making it too dry when you used sourdough starter makes it take AGES to rise<br />while it's rising mix all ingredients for filling and adjust to taste, you may need to warm for 30 seconds in the microwave.<br />let dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size, then stretch/roll out on a floured counter to about 1/8-1/4" thick. mine ended up being about 18" square, give or take.<br />spread the filling evenly on the dough, then cut into little 2-3" squares. they don't have to be perfect. <br />grease your loaf pan, then create little stacks of squares. i usually do about 4. hold the pan at an angle so you can put in the stacks without them falling over too much<br />let rise in a warm place again until doubled in size, then bake at 350 for about 25-30 min or until golden brown.<br />mine actually took overnight to rise but i think that's because the yeast i added was fighting with the yeast in my sourdough starter and both were inhibited by the fat in the filling. next time i may skip the starter or skip the yeast and plan better but this was still herby cheesy flavorful goodness!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-78485764930117643412011-06-29T17:41:00.000-07:002011-06-29T20:17:20.548-07:00the story of imaginary money<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oDSQMkhFDNQ/TgvqnJ8LppI/AAAAAAAAAHM/j785bdtQXRQ/s1600/money.bmp"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 93px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oDSQMkhFDNQ/TgvqnJ8LppI/AAAAAAAAAHM/j785bdtQXRQ/s200/money.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623846518106334866" /></a><br />i'm practicing my storytelling skills. can i tell you a story?<br />once upon a time people bartered for everything. if you needed an object you couldn't produce yourself, or needed help doing something you couldn't do alone, you had to not only find someone who had the skills or good you needed, but also arrange to trade them for something that they needed. there wasn't any money. if you raised chickens but didn't have enough land to grow grain, then you might trade some chickens or eggs to your neighbor who had more grain then he needed but no eggs or meat. large portions of the world still operate this way and there is a revival happening in our own society of trading goods and skills instead of money. <br />at some point, someone decided that this was a bit cumbersome so why don't we use items that are worth more but are smaller and easier to carry, store, protect, etc and have a standard that says about how much each item is "worth" in terms of, say, gold or silver. gold and silver have value of their own, of course. you can make things out of them and they have useful scientific traits such as conductivity, etc. they're also shiny and pretty and rare, so people like them. they're easy to carry around and can be standardized fairly easily. so far so good. you cannot eat gold and you're adding another step in the transaction process but you also don't have to carry chickens around and if the person with the grain doesn't want any more chickens, you have something else they will value. you can just go trade your chickens to someone else for gold and take your gold to the guy with the grain. <br />somewhere along the line people decided that gold was too inconvenient as well, so maybe we should store all that gold somewhere safe, and instead of carting it around, we'll get a little note from the guy who's holding onto it, saying how much we have. then we can trade the notes and whoever has the note can go to the guy who holds the gold and get it back anytime he likes, right? well, so far ok as long as the guy holding the gold can be trusted by everyone (uh...huh). people also decided that maybe that guy can just hold onto our notes and keep track of how much everyone has so they can't be stolen or lost or anything, right? we'll pay him a little percentage to take care of them for us.<br />we were using the notes for so long that we kinda forgot the gold existed, since no one had taken any out in so long. eventually the guys holding the gold, and the guys in charge of them, decided that there wasn't enough notes for everything they needed and that the gold wasn't really important anymore. the gold that represented the chickens and the grains, remember? they started printing more notes then there was gold to back it up. or chickens. or grains. so now the notes are representing, what exactly? if you said stupidity, you're correct! and not just a few more notes. a LOT more notes. and they didn't tell anyone. no one knew for a long time. by the time anyone found out they figured it didn't matter anymore.<br />moving on we enter the computer age! the guy holding the (not enough) gold doesn't have to keep paper records anymore of who has how much, he can just write it down on a computer and then it takes up less space and can bring up the info more easily. computers never have errors or anything, right? no more wondering if that is a number 7 or a number 9! everyone has perfect typing skills too, right? and they couldn't be affected by power outages or hackers or...hmmm, is this really a good idea, guys? now instead of chickens and grain, or an hour of skilled labor, we have a bunch of 1's and 0's on a computer somewhere. as you can imagine, that made it really easy to also create bigger numbers that have no physical things to back them up. a LOT bigger numbers.<br />while the banks are busily creating money that has nothing at all to back it up, they can now lend you some! if you promise to pay it back in a certain amount of time and give them a percentage more then what you borrowed, and give them rights to take something physical of yours if you don't pay them back their 1's and 0's that have nothing physical to back them up. wait a second....<br />now not just the banks want in on this lending of 1's and 0's for the exchange of more of them and possibly your physical stuff too. other people want to get in on that. guys like visa and mastercard. they're buddies with the banks and they back each-other up to try to sound like this is all totally normal and legit. they'll lend you smaller amounts of this pretend money, and usually you don't have to agree that they can take your house or whatever, but you have to pay them back a pretty large percentage more then what you borrowed. you can also only borrow from them if they can check with their buddies and make sure you usually pay things back. they like it when you do so really slowly so they get a bigger cut.<br />people are impatient. they like being able to buy things now instead of waiting to save up. it's considered the norm that you'll borrow at least some money, especially for big things like a house. let this go long enough and it all seems so normal and ok that now you have to check with all these guys in order to do lots of things, like rent an apartment (which you don't own), or get some jobs (that you need to pay those guys). if you've never borrowed anything from any of these guys, that's almost as bad as borrowing and not paying them back. if you've never worked with their... interesting... businesses, then they don't want anything to do with you. they're kinda like cliquey 14 year old girls shunning the new kid. <br />since the banks are the ones who lend the money for buying big things like land (why can you "own" land but you can't "own" air?), and it takes ages to pay them back, the banks are the ones who currently "own" most of the land, since it's their imaginary money that paid for your right to live on it, not the blood and sweat you put into it or the fact that it is your primary source of survival resources. and all land is "owned" by someone, right? <br />anyone else confused? really makes me long for something clean and real and honest. until i can "buy" some land of my own to care for and have it care for me, want to trade my fresh baked bread for an hour of swing dance lessons?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-68969873690515780932011-06-29T15:00:00.000-07:002011-06-29T15:34:24.073-07:00I caved!i couldn't do it anymore. after 3 months, i washed my hair. at the two month mark where i last posted about it, i was doing pretty well. since then it went steadily downhill until it was greasy and weighted down and felt rough and terrible. i haven't worn my hair down in at least two weeks. even if no one else could see the difference, it was driving me crazy! what is the point of having waist-length fiery red hair if you have it pulled up in a bun every day? i feel kinda bad that the experiment failed. part of this was testing what my body is capable of on it's own and it makes me a bit sad to know that i'm not at all happy with the results. i suppose that's a bit unreasonable since mammals never exist in a vacuum and we all need food and water and warmth to survive. in order to be happy and healthy we also need other things, like shampoo :P, or at least i do. lots of other people have done fine with this for years and years and i don't doubt that it works for them wonderfully. i'm glad that i tried this since i did learn some things and readjusted my attitudes and challenged myself. i'm also glad that i can go to lush tomorrow and buy minimally packaged, environmentally friendly, wonderful smelling shampoo. moving towards even more sustainablility, i'll be trying out making soap on friday and from there maybe solid hair care so look forward to a blog entry about that no matter how it turns out.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-12985279517345088662011-06-23T20:43:00.000-07:002011-06-23T20:46:31.686-07:00slut shaming starts earlyi was watching some dance clips on youtube the other day and came across 2 i found thought provoking. the first has 7 year olds dancing to "single ladies" in a very energetic and sexual manner:<br /><iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ir8BO4-7DkM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />the second group looks about 11-13 maybe and that had an even more visceral response for me since i found it both beautiful and attractive:<br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/q6en2xcCWD8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />while they are undoubtedly talented, several people immediately found it disturbing to see anything sexual done by girls this young and objected to both their costumes and their movements. i admit that initially it threw me a bit as well, but why should it? their dance is empowering and life affirming. if an adult finds it arousing, the fault is not with the 7 year old! somewhere along the way we seem to have forgotten that we are sexual creatures FROM BIRTH. finding something attractive does not mean you would ever abuse that child. finding their aesthetic and movements beautiful is not inappropriate. there seems to be a lot of blaming the parents and coaches for allowing free-thinking young girls to dress and act in a way they find positive. have we really started slut shaming this early? if you found those videos disturbing, i suggest taking off your society-approved-judgment hat for a moment, put on your artist-seeing-talent-and-beauty hat, and try again. i know i couldn't do what these girls are doing and i have 4 years of formal dance training. their costumes are appropriate to the number they're performing and allow you to see their body movements. if it helps, think of the 7 year olds as playing dress-up and the 11 year olds testing the waters of womanhood. then try to remember how you felt at those ages. if you were mentally and physically healthy, you were not dead from the waist down until puberty. children deserve credit to not only make their own decisions and stand by them, but to own their bodies, their sexuality, and their emotions as full humans taking on responsibilities as they are capable. we do them a disservice by insisting they be cut off from all sexuality until we arbitrarily decide they're ready for it (or decide as adults they WE'RE ready for them to be sexual). sexuality does not just mean having sex. it has to do with how we see ourselves in our bodies, our genders, how we react to other people, our personal power, and many other factors. if you've ever assumed that a baby wearing pink is a girl and wearing blue must be a boy, you have participated in this. wouldn't it be a lot healthier to answer sexual questions as they're asked, allow kids to test the waters of their actions, and blame pedophiles for child abuse instead of kids who like to dance, or the parents and coaches who encourage them?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6618840054540675332.post-11245306726994642202011-06-21T13:49:00.000-07:002011-06-21T16:01:28.231-07:00start a mini farm in your windows<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EqMysaaW14w/TgEFnmO-zwI/AAAAAAAAAHE/q6xVLzEdX70/s1600/peas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EqMysaaW14w/TgEFnmO-zwI/AAAAAAAAAHE/q6xVLzEdX70/s320/peas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620779987771510530" /></a><br />we harvested our first three snow peas last night! what a wonderful way to start the solstice! they were amazingly fast too, i planted those from seed on mother's day. i don't think there's anything more satisfying in life then enjoying the fruits of your own labors: the veggies you grew from seed, the sweater you knitted, the cider you brewed, the wonderful cat you raised from a baby, the relationship you nurtured and saw through hard times. anything you had a hand in creating from scratch fills you up in a way that nothing you buy or passively consume ever could. growing your own food is a revolutionary and primal act that sustains your basic needs without any outside interferance needed.<br />want to grow things but you live in an apartment with no balcony? i feel your pain. some cities have community gardens but mine doesn't. even if it does you would need to either visit every day to water in the warmer months or set up some kind of drip irrigation system on a timer. not all community gardens will allow that and it's a bit expensive and fiddly for a beginner. you could ask your landlord to use the roof but that's still a pain in the ass and lots of buildings wont allow it. you could pirate garden by adopting a piece of land close by that no one is loving and just plant there whether the owner likes it or not. i approve of this but haven't had the guts to try it yet and you need a water source close by. be sure to ask any friends who have yards if you can landscape it for them and share the harvest but in the absence of that we have windows. and boxes therefor.<br />our apartment is blessed with lots of south-west facing windows that get solid sun for a good 6 hours a day and then indirect sun for the later afternoon and evening. we also have two more west facing bedroom windows that get more like 4 hours a day and indirect for the rest of the time. it's important to take note of how much sun you get and at what times. this decides what you can grow. most veggies require at least 6 hours. if you get less then that you'll be better off with lettuce and other partial shade lovers. <br />assuming you get enough sun, you have to find plants that are compact unless you want your living room overrun with squash vines (which i also approve of, but it's not very practical) and if your windows don't open at the bottom your plants will have to put up with a fair amount more heat and dryness then they would on the outside sill (which you should do if possible, you can even skip watering when it rains). <br />i'm a believer that beginners should be set up to succeed. you can experiment more when you have a handle on the basics and won't assume you're just not a gardener if one of your plants doesn't do well. i suggest making the best use of your space that you can. all our windows have boxes and i also have a table acting as a plant stand at the same level as one box and i'll be transplanting into some hanging planters to go more virtical. don't overwhelm yourself, but don't only plant one thing either. three big boxes are a good start. make sure they are in places you see every day. our bedroom planters get neglected much more then the ones in the living room. get soil that retains a good amount of moisture since boxes dry out quickly, and if you can get or make compost, all the better. one of the most important things i've learned as a gardener is to stop fucking fiddling so much. these are living things. by definition, they will never be perfect. they don't have to be and they will still be wonderul. so your peas are curling around your zucchini plants a bit. is everyone still alive and happy and producing? then so what? so your thyme is overgrowing your mint more then you thought it would. eat more thyme and let it go. both these things are happening in my garden right now, btw, and it's still beautiful and healthy and productive.<br />here are a few easy plants that you shouldn't have much trouble with:<br /><br />*lettuce! start from seed and get a loose leaf variety instead of a tight head type and you can extend the harvest all spring, summer, and early fall by eating the outside leaves only of big plants and the whole thing of little plants your thinning out. i planted quite densely (way closer together then the pkg says) and have been trying to thin out as they get too crowded. in this way you "eat your way to equalibrium" until you just have a few full sized plants. we didn't keep on top of it very well to be honest and fairly soon i think i'll just harvest the last scrappy ones and plant fresh. lots of these varieties go from seed to table in 45 days or less so it's no trouble to replant if it's not going so well, even if that's in mid july. they will also put up with partial shade as they get a bit wilty in tons of sun. make sure they don't get too dry. homegrown lettuce actually has a distinct flavor instead of the water-filled heads you find wrapped in plastic at safeway, and it doesn't just decompose in the fridge since you pick right before you eat.<br /><br />*tomatoes! get little seedlings as soon as they appear in your stores. starting from seed is fiddly and you have to do it really early. this is the first year i'm trying it and it works, but it's not beginner material. make sure you get one that's labled "patio" or "bush" so it's a compact and well behaved little plant. i recommend cherry tomatoes since they produce an insane amount of fruit for the size of the plant and most will keep producing all summer as opposed to only having one harvest of big fruits. they like lots of sun and soil that will retain some moisture since they hate drying out completely. if you think you don't like tomatoes, try them anyways. the ones you grow yourself are a completely different creature from anything at the grocery store. they're sweet and rich and complex and juicy. they're my favorite vegetable to grow, hands down. don't get too fussed with the million tips and tricks and instructions online, none of that is really needed. only stake them up if they're falling over, give them plenty of sun and water and good soil, add a sprinkle of used coffee grounds if you like, and let them do their thing.<br /><br />*herbs! these are SO expensive if bought fresh but so much tastier and healthier! again, start with little seedlings for most things, make sure they get plenty of sun and water but some like to dry out a bit between soakings. herbs are often a little masochistic. they really like being harvested too, the more you pick, the more they bush out. most do best if you pinch off right above a pair of leaves, which will then each become new branches. i highly recommend basil, rosemary, oregano, mint, and thyme for being super easy and abundant but grow what you'll actually eat since you'll have a ton of it. towards the end of the season you can do one last big harvest and dry it for winter really easily. you can fit at least 3 types of herb in one good sized window box.<br /><br />*peas! i like snow peas but any type of bean or pea grows quickly and easily. start them from seed with good sun and soil that will hold moisture. they're very forgiving and can be trained to grow up the window if you get a vine type instead of a bush type. i strung fishing line back and forth across the window as a trellis and now we have a living curtain. if you pick the pods as soon as they're ready the plants will keep making more. stop harvesting and they'll assume they're done and stop producing. i'm going to let a few fully mature at the end of the season to save for next year's planting. they also have the advantage of putting nutrients back into the soil so the next thing you plant will do even better. you can plant a fair bit more densely then the package says, mine are only about 4 inches apart and doing fine. they'll grab anything close to them so if you want to be able to move around their neighbors then watch them closely.<br /><br />there's a whole world of other easy plants out there. be sure to plant things you'll actually eat, don't just go crazy with everything that will grow in your conditions. don't buy the cheepest soil you can find, you get what you pay for. if your area doesn't have a proper plant nursery (mine doesn't) then check hardware stores, florists, farmers markets, etc. the best places around here are two dollar stores who also sell flowers and a little neighborhood market that has a greenhouse out back. the best sources i've found for planters and soil are those dollar stores as well but our local rona is fairly pathetic. <br />i never feel like i get to take credit for my garden, to be honest. i didn't do an awful lot of work. it was the plant that grew the peas, not me. it's an everyday miracle that i can put seeds in soil, add water, and have food in under two months. it amazes me every time. i feel the same about the transformation from apple juice to alcohol with just the addition of sugar and yeast, the creation of clothing from yarn and sticks, the birth of mammals from the start of two cells. this is why creativity is good for your spirit. it fills you will the awe of life and connects you to the world around you. grow some greens and you will also nurture your own heart and soul with gratitude and joy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0