Three-picture Thursday: 5/31/2012

Good morning all! I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I have several lovely photos to share with you and my writing creative juices have been dried up for a while, anyway.

First up: the bounty of a Florida garden!

I’ve got one Husky Cherry Tomato plant and three Grape Tomato plants. Both Mike and his father commented that the grape tomatoes are spheres rather than grape-like oblongs, but the sweetness and size makes them clearly different from the Cherries.

(BTW I haven’t trimmed the tomato plants, so they’re awfully tall and gangly and draping over each other’s cages. I couldn’t bear to cut off tomato flowers and little green globes … Also, the taller the plant, the easier it is to examine for caterpillar monsters.)

Next up is a dessert plate from the Memorial Day dinner with Mike’s folks:

I think the pound cake was a bit overcooked … The outside wasn’t BURNED, per say, and didn’t taste burned, but it was a far deeper brown than I had anticipated. So I used a cookie cutter to make stars of the slices before piling them with homemade whipped cream, strawberries and blueberries. Oh, and that’s a black-and-white creme brulee. Two tips: 1) lay down a layer of chocolate ganache before you spoon in the pudding; 2) despite what the recipe said, brown sugar was NOT good for torching on top. Use white sugar, the finer the better.

And finally, nothing caps a post like a ridiculous looking Rajah lounging on Mike’s lap:

We’re gonna report him to the cat union one of these days. I swear.

Happy Almost-Friday, everyone!

Three-picture Thursday: 3/26/09

Good morning all! Thanks for the votes on the last post, and try not to worry; the Ace-strapping-a-cat to sneak him onto an airplane actually came from a book I read recently. I didn’t cite the book because it would be a plot-spoiler; I adamantly declared to Mike mid-book that “if they kill the cat, I am NEVER reading anything by this guy ever again!!!”  They don’t kill the cat, they smuggle him into Mexico.  The End.   🙂

But let’s stick with the theme of flesh-shredding for just a moment longer, shall we?  I too took a picture of The Knife Buffet at the Hilltop, though mine will differ slightly from Jay G’s; namely, by the big honkin’ possessive red circle:

FYI – no, I do not print like a blindfolded five-year-old, but the text box print was too tiny and I couldn’t embiggen it.  It’s hard writing with a mouse!  (On the other hand, my cursive DOES look rather like that of a blindfolded five-year-old.  It’s sad, really.)

While we’re on the subject of the Bloggermeet — I had described the following FAIL to my tablemates, and I offer it now for all y’all’s viewing pleasure:

Just . . . just, NO.  NO NO NO.  How could someone put that up, on purpose OR accidentally?  I’m hardly race-obsessed, but, DUDE.  BAD.

Finally, I offer up the following Photoshop Disaster.  I’m pretty sure I should be outraged — “That’s why women have body issues!  Even a perfectly respectable beautiful model gets Photoshopped!  Come and see the sexism inherent in the system!” — but really I just laugh at the horrific Photoshop-FAIL.

(“Call that a woman?  This  is a woman . . . “)

Almost Friday!!

Three-pic Thursday: 3/19/09

Good morning all!  Somewhere along the way I lost my tradition of dumping photos every Thursday.  Since I’m in the grips of a strange fatigue and apathy — I’m just TIRED lately, for no particular reason —  this seems as good a time as any to revive the tradition.

First up, a shot of our lovely Mia, Resident Princess at the Lissaville Animal Shelter:

Doesn’t anyone want to adopt a nice purry white kitty?  She’s lovely-tempered, soft and sweet, and the poor thing shares her cage with the most vicious feline b*tch this side of the Mississippi.  (We all hate her cage-mate, Victoria.  That thing is wicked.)

As an update to my pasta puttanesca post — I really do love my Rachel Ray cookbook!  True, some of her recipes are kind of complicated — to me, anything that requires more than seven ingredients is complicated — but once the basic recipe is mastered, it’s easy to crank out the variations.  Take out the capers and olives, add in crabmeat, mussels and basil, and voila — Frutti di Mare!

And finally . . .  I was walking to Downtown Crossing, enjoying a rare sunny afternoon, when I turned a corner and stopped dead.  Even for a non-religious, Biblically-ignorant young person like myself, a sight like this makes one take notice:

Happy Thursday!

Three-picture Thursday: 11/13/08

Good morning!  The first picture in our roundup I was going do as its own separate post, but I don’t really have much to say except DUDE.  WOW.

You may have seen that before, here.  It’s an IMAO photoshop that I find funny and Obama-fans probably find insulting, and it got used in an actual news piece in ABCLive.in.  I still think it’s funny but, really, aren’t serious news organizations supposed to use actual stock photos?  In fairness, I’d be peeved if it were my candidate; so, bad journalist!!  (Oh and also they ripped it off IMAO without credit and photoshopped the watermark out.  Super-bad journalist!!)

Next up in our collection, I would like to introduce this delectable vision of tulle and organza.  Truly, for a bride who wishes to give the appearance of having heartlessly massacred an entire flock of ostriches and then stapled their ravaged carcasses to her butt, you could do no better:

It looks about eighteen thousand times worse on an actual person rather than a photoshopped anorexic* model.  I know because there was a poor, misguided, deluded soul trying one on in the David’s Bridal this weekend.  Even better, it was an non-petite Asian woman wearing it in Ivory, a shade beautifully calculated to bring out all the yellow undertones in her skin.  I think she’d have been better off just full-on contracting Avian Flu.

And finally, since it’s a cold, rainy, miserable day in Boston, let’s have a random blast of the Caribbean:

That would be lovely Haiti.  For those who need a dose of sunshine and occasional towel-animals, try the Caribbean tags in the tag cloud.  Yes, I spelled it both ways.  Eventually I will reorganize this whole site and turn tags to categories and erase all misspellings, but first I need to drink a lot of coffee.  Happy Thursday!

*P.S.  I’m not trying to disparage women who are naturally thin.  It’s just that I’m pretty sure the union rules for models make it a firing offense to eat anything more nutritious or interesting than iceberg lettuce, and I can’t approve of that.

Three-picture Thursday: 11/06/08

I’m really not a fan of time changes, y’all.  I mean, sure, it’s lovely to have an extra hour of sleep on a random fall evening, but then you pay for it in the spring and it’s like you didn’t gain anything.  Plus, now that I volunteer Sundays at the Lissaville (Home of the Evil Conservatives) Animal Shelter, I can’t bank that hour until Monday morning when it would actually be helpful.

But my true disappointment this year stemmed from abruptly losing my evening scenery.  See, the train I take into Boston goes across a tidal basin (um, lake?  bay?  marsh?) and I’ve gotten into the habit of watching it morning and evening.  I’m fascinated by the low-tide-high-tide changes and, while I’ve not yet worked out the actual tidal schedule, I have high hopes that one day I will do so.  However, it will have to wait till spring, as there are not sufficient lights to see anything but a dark, glimmering mass during my evening commutes.  It went from a glorious sunset-reflecting wildlife-attracting piece of eye candy to . . . shiny black.  Boo!  Ah well, this is what I still get to see in the morning:  (If you click to embiggen, check the right side and you can see it’s not high tide.)

Breda, I hope you won’t be offended that this made me think of you, but look, everyone — you may be missing a body part but SO WHAT, you can achieve your dreams!  We would hope that dream is to marry a nice Mike and be a librarian, but, hey, if it’s to be an anorexic junkie-looking fashion model — yes, you can!  Of course, you’d need to have a magical levitation system so you don’t fall over . . .

I would seriously shriek in fright and run away crying (and feeling for weapons) if this ever came towards me.  Wouldn’t you?  (Whereas Breda — I’d invite her over for fresh-baked bread and some IPA.  In fact — consider the invitation issued, and open-ended.)

Finally, to provide some nice mind-bleach as relief to the scary woman above, yet another beloved member of my shoe collection:

Yes, they have some scuff marks.  You know what?  I BET YOU’VE GOT SOME SCUFF MARKS TOO, BUDDY, SO JUDGE NOT AND STEP OFF.

EDIT: You know, the more I look at that fashion model the more I shake my head.  It’s not even the bungled Photoshop, although that’s entertaining.  How on earth did unrealistic plastic painfully skinny women become a beauty ideal?  Look at that woman’s calf — you could snap it by whacking it with a feather duster!  Give me Kim’s women, any day.

Three-picture Thursday: 10/23/08

These boots are made for walking.  Or strutting.  Or simply lounging about.

In honor of the massive shoe-fetish-indulgence the media’s been putting on Palin . . .

 . . . I would like to share some of my nearest-and-dearest with y’all.

These are my usual commuter boots; classy-but-sturdy, comfortable for walking and standing and occasionally running across the street:

Whereas the next set?  Totally impractical.  Boots to wear out to a dinner, NOT to tackle the cobblestones outside Faneuil Hall:

And finally, my SUPER-practical black boots.  They’re actually wonderful snow-shoveling boots because they’ve knee-high and have awesome traction.  They’re also terrific crotch-kicking boots, but, well, you knew that without being told.  (Click to embiggen.  Really.  Do it.)

Awwwww yeah, baby.  Lara Croft meets Catherine Banning.  You know you want them 🙂

(h/t Acefor the Palin-shoes)

P.S. I’ve actually got one more pair of knee-high black boots.  Maybe next week?

Three-picture Thursday: 8/16/08

Good morning!  Did any of y’all watch the debate last night?  I did, although I took the precaution of 1) taking Nyquil at the very beginning, 2) spending the whole debate folding and putting away clothes with the TV only in the background.  And yet STILL I was forced to run into the living room a few times, hands over my ears, screaming “AUUUUGGGGHHHH!  MIKE!  KILL ME!  I CAN’T LISTEN TO THIS ANYMORE! JOE THE PLUMBER! LOCKBOX!  AUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!”

Despite the horrific repetitiveness of the thing (Blah Blah Blah.  Rinse.  Repeat.) I actually did think it was better than the first two.  I suppose allowing the two candidates to ask questions directly to each other makes for a more interesting debate. (Duh.)  Nineteen days to go, and I can’t WAIT for this damn thing to be over . . .

On to the pix!  I was thinking of Breda when I took this shot; the perfect red of the tomatoes against the pure white of the mozzarella made me all warm and fuzzy.  However, my camera could not at all capture the prettiness, so instead I’ll just try and make y’all hungry.  (I know, I know, fresh basil would have been better, but the supermarket was out!  Maybe that means I should be growing my own?)

On other food topics . . . HEH.  Well, whether it’s “ur cheezburger is undrkuked and angry” or ” ‘make me cheezburgr’ i sez. Ha ha. So funneh l. . . I kno where yew sleeps” . . . we made the cat a cheezburger 🙂  (Click to embiggen!)

 Mike would like me assure you that no actual kittehs were harmed in the making of this photo.  Unless you count his dignity.  We’re pretty sure that’s seriously sprained.  He retreated to a homemade cave to sulk:

 Oh, and when we say “no kittehs were harmed,” we’re including the human kittehs too.  He’s pretty docile 🙂

Happy Thursday!

Three-picture Thursday: 10/9/08

Good morning all!  I’ve still got a bit of a headache but, for the first time in five days, my hearing is relatively normal, hooray!  Walking around feeling like you’re underwater is not fun.  Unless, of course, you are actually walking around underwater, like a hippo.  Hippopotami can walk across the bottom of rivers, you know; that’s one reason they’re so freaking cool.  See?

So, I woke up this morning and couldn’t figure out why my calves were wicked sore.  Then I remembered — I had a fire drill at Ye Olde Financial Firm yesterday and had to walk down sixteen double-flights of stairs.  Don’t worry though, I wasn’t wearing heels!  Ever since I read the 9/11 personal recaps, I’ve made sure to keep comfy commuter shoes nearby:

Finally, as I saw on the front cover of lots of Boston Metro’s this morning, apparently Barack Obama is predicted to win in a landslide.  I don’t know whether it’s people who are gleeful about such a prospect, or people who are resigned to it, but my 10 good things about a Barack Obama presidencycontinues to draw google hits.  Perhaps, then, y’all would interested in buying a commemorative coin?

It’s an old story but it seems more relevant nowadays 🙂  Happy Thursday!

Three-picture Thursday: Utah edition

Y’all thought I forgot, didn’t you? 🙂  (You can click to embiggen; the pix are really quite beautiful.)

We spent a weekend last November in Park City, Utah.  Naturally, we went on the last possible weekend BEFORE it snowed, so we did NOT get to experience that famous Rockie mountain skiing.  (Actually, I kind of hate skiing, whereas I do like hiking.  Therefore I was quite pleased how it worked out.)

That’s a shot from about halfway up Bald Mountain.  Not that I had the proper gear — I was wearing sneakers and a fleece, no gloves — but getting up wasn’t that hard.)  Take a good look at that big, snowy lake . . .

  . . . and see how tiny it is from farther up.  See, I THOUGHT that I’d lived around mountains all my life.  DAMN was I wrong.  I live around ant hills and termite mounds.  Whereas what you see above is a freaking MOUNTAIN.

Aaaaaaaallllllll the way to the top.  It was amazingly, mind-blowingly, fantastically beautiful and impressive.

And no, I did not die on the way down.  But next time, I’m dressing properly!

Three-picture Thursday: 9/25/08

Hey cool!  I placed in the annual photo contest at Ye Olde Financial Firm!  This little snap picked up second place in the Creative category:

(If you’re puzzled, it’s a drain at the Dunkin Donuts where I used to work part time; I noticed that if you poured coffee down the drain and dripped cream into it you got ghost trails.  There’s a better word for it — used for car custom paint jobs — but I absolutely can’t remember it right now.  The white block is the overhead light reflecting on the liquid.  Cool, huh?)

You know I have a cat, named Rajah, whom I love.  However, I think we’re changing his name.  To Doofus.  He obviously has no clue that cats are graceful, independent beings that walk alone.  But at least he DOES have the courtesy to use a Modesty Paw. [shaking head]  Sorry for the poor picture quality; we were just finishing dinner and all I had handy was my cell.

Finally, I spent last night lusting after these shoes and it’s all Breda‘s fault.  I salved my poor broken heart by taking an encore of my now-famous (snort) shoe-snap:

Happy Thursday!