Less is More: On having short hair

In December, I lopped off my long, luscious locks in favor of a layered bob.

How I looked before my last major cut

How I looked shortly after it.

Now this is certainly not the first time I've gone for a dramatic chop—it's actually the fifth, which means I've been following an extended grow-cut cycle for pretty much my entire life, and I've got it down to a science. But strangers don't know that, which might explain why everyone in the salon watched in shock and awe as my lengthy tendrils hit the floor, and the stylist asked me if I was sure what I was doing. And this was actually the shortest my hair has ever been before a major cut! I remember the last time I did this, I also got major backlash from those who preferred my hair long.

People seem to take great stock in long hair, as though its loss is an affront not just to its owner but to the entire world. As though you're a traitor to womanhood if you don't have a waterfall of keratin cascading down your shoulders at all times.

There seems to be a downright stigma against short hair. Sure, there is something to be said about the labor of love that is long hair. A person who spends hours a week caring for her tresses is a person who cares about her appearance. A person whose hairstyle is by nature low-maintenance could be interpreted to be a person who's just lazy.

But the ironic thing is that I think I look prettier with short hair. It has natural body and bounce, which it lacks when I wear it long. With my short hair, I wash it (don't even bother to use conditioner), towel it dry, brush it, and then ignore it while it air dries. Periodically I might fluff it with my fingers if I think about it. I spend all of five minutes a day on my short hair, but it generates compliments like it was created by an entire team of stylists for a Vogue photo shoot! I never heard a peep about my hair back when I was blow-drying it for 30 minutes a day. No one ever had anything nice to say about the elaborate updos that are the one thing I miss about having long hair. There was a time in my life when ridiculously long hair was a source of immense personal pride. But those days are long past, and short hair apparently suits me.

How my hair basically looks now.

Once the dust settles from my big move and I'm ready to focus on my style again, I plan to try out an even shorter hairdo. And then after that ... ? Will I ever grow my hair out again? Do I have anything to gain by dangling a foot or more of easily-tangled tresses from my cranium? Would I be better off sticking with the style that not only requires almost no work to maintain, but also seems to meet with the most critical acclaim?

My last dramatic chop was my fifth, but could it be my last? [Insert stirring music here.] Only time will tell.

Crimes against language—what you can do to help

We live in a violent society—people are murdering the English language on a daily basis. Sometimes the pressure of witnessing it all gets too much to bear. But there are things you can do to help. Things that you can do to turn this trend around. Even one person can make a difference, and today, I'm going to show you three little ways you can try!

Use some discretion

This is mostly a spelling issue, but an issue in which a different spelling denotes an entirely different meaning! If you do not know the difference between discreet and discrete, I urge you to just use the words "subtle" and "separate" instead.

Don't use the third wheel

"Third wheel," is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot without anyone considering what it really means. I myself am guilty of using this phrase, to refer to the odd one out in a group of three people. From the way the term is used colloquially, one would assume a third wheel on any sort of vehicle is not only unnecessary but downright detrimental—which is, of course, a fallacious assumption! A bicycle, the quintessential two-wheeled vehicle, certainly functions quite adequately on two wheels, but the addition of a third wheel would certainly add stability. And a car with only two wheels would be in sorry shape indeed, but with three wheels it might even be able to get around. So why is a third wheel approached so negatively?

Misplaced decimal points

This problematic usage of syntax transcends languages and sticks its dirty toes into the pool of mathematics. 

I have lately been overwhelmed by the number of shopping stories I read on the Internet describing prices as something like ".50 cents." While there is a chance that someone purchased a dress for 50/100ths of a cent, it seems a lot more likely that the price was actually "50 cents" or ".50$" (Lest you wonder why I have committed a syntactical sin in this very rant, please see more on my unconventional placement of the dollar sign). Let's make it perfectly clear. A decimal point indicates a fraction and should be pronounced if it is written. So unless you actually bought something for "point fifty cents" you should leave the dot out of the equation. 

By the way, one of the most useful tricks I ever learned in writing was the Windows shortcut for the cent character: Hold down ALT while typing the numbers 0162 on your numeric keypad. Tada! Magic cent! I also use these shortcuts for the em dash (— ALT+0151) and en dash (– ALT+0150) – which litter my writing – on the regular.

While I was waiting

As you might recall (from way back in November, ugh!), when my original plan to buy a house last July backfired the following month, I signed a 3-month lease at an apartment. Obviously my three-month estimate was way too optimistic, because – even though I'm a homeowner as of June 10 – that's the same apartment I'm living in now. In the 9 months that I've (begrudgingly) called this place home, I've renewed my lease twice, but every time, I always thought I wouldn't be here much longer. And that's resulted in some interesting living situations.

I refused to update my address. Though many of the companies that send me mail got my forwarding order and proactively changed it themselves, many others still think I live on 49th Ave. This proved to be quite confusing when it actually came time to fill out my loan, since I had different addresses on different documents and no one was actually sure where I lived.

My apartment came with a standard-issue manual thermostat. But you can't save on your heating bill when your furnace is constantly running even when no one's home! So I purchased a programmable one, intending to take with me when I moved out...which was going to be sometime soon. However, the original thermostat was basically painted onto the wall, and I didn't want to risk damaging the paint job for just a month or two of programmable climate control. So I just let the old thermostat stay there, while the new one dangled from its wiring for 9 months.

 

In a similar vein, I didn't want to get billed for repairing a bunch of holes in the wall if I was only going to be a short-term tenant. So when it came to hanging things, I relied on lots of Command adhesive and a couple of existing nails. Resulting in interesting decor such as this one-nail bulletin board.

 

In the epitome of bad timing, only a couple weeks before my original landlord gave me notice, I had bought a lawn mower. Any other lawn mower, I probably would have just sold and tried to replace whenever I moved into a real house again. But this was brand-spanking new and 400 dollars! So I did what any obnoxious person would do: I enlisted a friend with a house of his own to store my lawn mower for the (undoubtedly brief) time I would be living without a yard. And since he was already storing my mower, why not have him store all the other contents of my shed? I put it all in the box the mower had come in and entrusted it to his care. For a couple months that turned into 9. Surely, I owe this friend a home-cooked meal for his trouble, but since he never reads this blog, he's not going to know about that!

While I was living in an apartment, I turned into a box-hoarding packing-rat, because someday soon, I was going to be moving out. Whenever I got a shipment of multiple shoes (oftener than I should have), I would save the big outer box and stash it away, empty, somewhere in my apartment, to use as a moving box. When our office flooded a few months ago, a mold restoration company came to clean up and had us pack everything in big cardboard boxes. When the restoration company left, I kept the boxes, storing a few choice things inside so no one would be tempted to throw them away. Everywhere you look, I have boxes within boxes within boxes. Boy, it will feel good to be getting rid of them!

Except now I'm moving. I won't be getting rid of my boxes, I'll just be storing them in a different location! I see ahead of me, several more weeks of living with my boxes. But they will finally be full of the stuff they were intended for!

And you may ask yourself, "How did I get here?"

One year and 3 months ago, I began shopping for houses, and I am infinitely relieved to say I finally bought one. Yes, the predominant emotion that I feel as I prepare to move into my new home is relief. I can't say I'm excited – there's still too much work ahead of me for that – but I am so happy I no longer have to live in suspense any more!

I started out last February of last year, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, believing I had all the time in the world to find the perfect home at the perfect price. I spent a year and some change progressively lowering my standards while increasing my price limit, and in the end, I was so exhausted by the whole process that I ended up buying pretty much the most expensive house in the whole neighborhood, even though it had many issues ranging from mold, failing appliances, antiquated electricity, and deteriorating plumbing, just because I was tired for looking for something better.

I regularly question my decision to make this purchase. I am, after all, Mrs. Thrifty (no one calls me that, but they should!), and here I just blew my life savings on an arguably overpriced home. I have talked to people who, unreasuringly, give me looks of shock when I tell them how much I paid (I will tell you a little bit later, in an entire post dedicated to the financial side of this escapade). I justify the expense with my insider knowledge of just how competitive the market in my target neighborhood is. Let's have a look at my seven purchase attempts (of course, I toured many more houses, but rejected them outright for a number of reasons).

The first 4 offers I made were detailed in a past blog post, but I'll briefly summarize them again:

• July 2015 - The house in Hyattsville - my first offer, remains probably the best value on this list, in the best condition for the most reasonable price (and the only one with a completely separate and ready-to-live-in basement apartment), but I felt like I was getting cheated, and I had a strong incentive (in the form of a 15,000$ forgivable loan) to buy in College Park.
• August-October 2015 - The short sale - In retrospect, this was one of the best-priced houses out there, and I should have snapped it up when I could have bought it for 220,000. But I was being greedy (and perhaps still a little ignorant of the highly competitive market) and tried a bit too hard to negotiate the price down, losing my chance to purchase it when the sellers decided to start paying their mortgage again (I console myself by saying that that would have happened even if I had accepted their counter-offer).
• October 2015 - The fakeout - When talking with my boyfriend, I call this one "The One with the Collapsing Basement." Having a dangerously flawed foundation is kind of a dealbreaker, but even knowing that, I spent many months thinking fondly of how perfect that house was in all other respects.
• November 2015 - The Last Resort - The last house I blogged about, I think of it now as "The One with the Orange Kitchen." Let's face it; even though I claimed to be so desperate I'd take it even though it wasn't quite what I wanted, when I learned I couldn't get any heat to come into the basement bedroom (my anticipated rental cash cow), I had to let it go.

After this point, I vowed to not blog any more about my dismal housing search, because the public admissions of failure were really starting to get me down. I kept silent when I heard the disappointing results of my next two offers:

• February 2016 - The One Next to REI - This house was so cute! It was nicely landscaped, it had a basement with a couple of (not-legal) bedrooms and a mini kitchen. It had two bay windows (not a trifling matter to someone who loves both sun and houseplants). Alas, I still hadn't learned my lesson about the competitive market, and I made a too-low offer. Someone outbid me by offering the asking price (which I totally would have paid if I had been given the opportunity to increase my offer!) This one was a heartbreaker.
• April 2016 - The One with the Blue Room - It didn't have a basement, it didn't have an upstairs. The only thing it had was a nice secluded bedroom with a bath, and a refrigerator in the laundry room, so I thought I might rent that part of the house out. I wasn't really crazy about this house, but I was desperate. My offer (equal to the asking price after you take into account my request for closing cost assistance) was rejected, and I was disappointed, but I think I would have been more disappointed if I'd actually ended up owning the place.

And that brings us to May of 2016. By this time, I had saved 19 houses on Zillow and seriously considered buying all of them. I was a house-shopping expert. But I was losing hope. I had previously promised myself that if I hadn't found a place by the beginning of May, I'd apply for one of the cheaper apartment buildings in the area. Still, I was procrastinating. More houses were finally being listed. Maybe I really would find something. I would make my rental application at the end of the month.

And it's a good thing I waited, because on May 1, I put in the offer on the house that I would end up owning. This time, I decided to pull out all the stops. I offered the asking price AND threw in an escalation clause that would increase my offer by 10,000 dollars if there were other offers. And there were. Six others. But somehow mine was the one that made the final cut.

The next few weeks were a poorly timed whirlwind. I actually received the phone call telling me my offer was countered while I was in New Orleans—a trip which, as you know, was followed almost immediately by trips to Richmond and Hawaii. The majority of the negotiations happened while I was on vacation. Can you imagine trying to make sound business decisions while shouting into your cell phone over the sound of hundreds of revelers dancing through the streets? Or trying to shop around for the best possible deals using crappy hotel wi-fi? I am sure that if I had had more time to myself between making my offer and my astonishingly early closing date, I would have been able to save a buck here and there. But because I didn't get enough opportunity to do a lot of extensive research, I basically just had to accept whatever was offered to me as far as my mortgage, my pest inspection, my title company, my title insurance, and essentially all things you are technically allowed to choose for yourself as a home buyer.

I also almost missed my opportunity to apply for that 15,000$ forgivable loan I mentioned, because I was so busy surfing and attending weddings that I neglected to read the deadline information. There were a lot of money matters that didn't go exactly as my usual stingy self would have liked. In fact, to this day, I don't know what monetary value the other offers were, and I wonder if the sellers were able to just milk me for all I had because they knew I would be willing to pay it...Well, I can go around with myself forever about whether I got the best deal possible, but in the end, I paid an amount that I could afford, and after 9 months of struggling, I guess that's all I could hope for.

Besides, there's something to be said for just not caring. Because I wasn't able to take control over the little details of my purchase, I was able to cultivate an almost Zen-like attitude (at least as Zen-like as the constraints of my admittedly high-strung personality would allow) about the whole deal. Matters were mostly out of my hands; I just had to let go and let God, as they say. Because of this, the weeks preceding my closing were actually surprisingly low-stress—you'd never guess it from the way I talked, but complaining is my middle name. I was actually getting plenty of sleep, finding plenty of time for fun, and basically going on with life, as opposed to frantically scrambling to make this the best real estate transaction that had ever occurred.

Now that the dust has settled (and more is probably being kicked up as I write this; I had mold remediators come in yesterday to begin treatment of the basement and attic), I am able to sit down and write a nice long epic about the last year-and-a-third in my housing life. It's not the most chipper way to begin my next chapter, but it is something I need to get off my chest. In the future, I'm sure you can look forward to many more posts about my home.

Here's a sneak peek:

Somehow I got suckered into dog sitting the inimitable Bubalou on the day of my closing!

Bon Apetit Deep Dish Chocolate Chip cookie

There's nothing like long-haul air travel to mess up your eating schedule. On the way home from Hawaii a few weeks ago, we stopped in Phoenix for a couple hours. I was hungry, but not hungry enough to eat a whole meal (nor pay through the nose for airport food), so I decided on a meal of Giant Cookie!

I photographed it dutifully and gobbled it down in the terminal while waiting for our connecting flight to begin boarding, and I took a few notes as I did so.

As for the taste, I found it: "underwhelming, a little too sweet, not salty enough."

And the texture: " soft but very crumbly around the edges. The middle was pretty good."

That is all I wrote, and considering that I ate it several weeks ago, under the influence of sleep deprivation, I don't really remember more than that. I do recall that it had the shape of a muffin top—that is, it looked like it had actually been baked in a round flat mold, and the parts that had overflowed the mold were the ones that were too crumbly, while the inside was quite acceptable.

Probably the most notable thing about this cookie was that it actually called itself a "Giant Cookie" on the back, which most Giant Cookies don't do.

I paid 2.74$ for this 113-gram cookie, putting it at a slightly-above-average 2.42¢ per gram. Not bad for an airport purchase. Now if I only just had enjoyed it more.

The Bottom Line

Taste:
Texture:
Price:

I like it, I love it

Most of my blog consists of me talking about things I either like or hate, in some way or another. But once every year or thereabouts, I get real lazy, think up a whole bunch of things I either like or hate, and put them in a list. This time, this list is just about loves, which just goes to show you that I am nothing if not a bucket of sunshine!

1. Hills in a Forest

   As a sometimes nature lover, one of the things that thrills my easy-to-please heart is a combination of two great things: a hill, and a bunch of trees. The hill adds an air of mystery (what's over that rise? It could be a golden city of magic! Or even...another hill!) while the trees add the texture (let's face it—a hill covered with trees is a little more interesting to look at than a hill covered with grass, though they both have their appeal). Because of the configuration of the hill (if you're looking at it from the bottom), you can see more trees than you would if they were all on the level, which just makes everything even better.
2.  

   Moss

   Since we're on the topic of forests, one of my favorite things to be found within them is a soft lush mat of green moss growing all over a boulder. How it sparks my imagination! These are the places where fairies play!
   
   Here is a watercolor close-up of moss I created for my student teaching. Since I love moss a lot more than I love being a teacher, I might as well share it here, because it certainly won't ever be seen in a classroom!

3. The sound of old recordings

   Once in a list like this one, I explained how much I enjoy the sound of music played from a long distance away. This sound is a similar one (muffled, scratchy, not the crisp clean sound you'd get from a modern recording or a close-by performance), but different in its own tantalizing way. While music from afar seems to trigger my own memories, music from the past makes me imagine a time beyond my own. When I hear old music (or really any type of recording including jst , it's almost as good as a time machine—at least for my imagination!

4. Organizing

   In case you hadn't picked up on it, this post has so far seemed to follow a theme of imagination. But one thing I enjoy that is decidedly unimaginative is organizing. I get really excited about this activity. Like, once, I had this cardboard box. Cheesecake came in it. When I took out the cheesecake, I saw that the box hadn't been stained or damaged in any way. And I was like, "I could use this box in my sock drawer!" I couldn't wait to finish eating my cheesecake, so I could try out my new organizer box. I was legit more excited about organizing my sock drawer than I was about consuming my favorite food.

5. New anything

   Everyone likes new things. But I've never mentioned it in my Like posts, so I might as well mention it now. The thrill of having something clean and unused! The thrill of trying something you've never tried before! The delight of possessions! I love new things so much, I even get excited about starting a new bar of shower soap. This might explain why I keep accumulating free T-shirts even though I never wear them.

6. Getting a pickle with my sandwich

   Sometimes when you order a sandwich, you get a free side of fries or chips. Sometimes you get nothing. But sometimes, you get a pickle. And then choirs of angels sing in the background while you eat that delicious excessively salted briny vegetable...or more likely, hoard it for later!

7. The place where a river ends

   To end this list, we're going to talk about endings, which are also, conveniently, where we started: in nature. Just as it's exciting to see the place where a hill meets the sky, it's exciting to see a place where a river meets a larger body. I still remember the first time I experienced this singular sight: I was 11 years old, maybe 12. I was tubing down the Platte River  when all of a sudden the whole of Lake Michigan opened up before me! It was fantastical to see the buildup of sand that formed the river's last-ditch (or last-rampart?) effort to remain an independent body of water. Since then, I've been able to visit many more river mouths, but I never get tired of seeing them and wading the border between river and sea.
   
   

I saw this particular end-of-the-river while driving along Oahu's North Shore
and made a special trek down to the beach to meet it in person.

You can just barely see it in the background of this splendid selfie!

How to make strawberry shortcake and cookie bars from leftover wedding cake

By the title of this post, I bet you are reasonably certain that this is an Adventure in Cooking!

You are correct, but this particular adventure has a backstory. It begins with wedding cake. I never thought anyone actually likes wedding cake (in fact, I think the custom of making the bride and groom eat more of it, after it has been sitting in the freezer for a year, is a pretty strong argument against ever getting married). But apparently both my brother and his new wife not only tolerate wedding cake, but actually like it! They were so excited about being able to eat wedding cake that the only thing they asked their baker to do was bake them wedding cake. No decorations, nothing, just the cake and the white buttercream frosting.

Sadly, they and everyone else at the wedding were let down by the baker's poor excuse for a wedding cake. The cake itself was actually nicely dense and rich. Normally I only eat cake for the icing, but I actually thought this cake was pretty good—good for me, but not good for someone who wanted your traditional dry and boring wedding cake. The buttercream frosting, we all agreed, was terrible. Though it tasted sweet enough, the texture was like it was all butter and no cream. It was almost flaky, which is not how you want cake frosting to be.

So when all was said and done, the disappointed bride and groom didn't want to have anything to do with their wedding cake (year-old frozen cake tradition be darned!). I didn't either, but in thinking about how buttery the frosting was, I realized I could probably use it as a base for cookie dough! So I became the proud owner of part of a wedding cake. And this is where the Adventures in Cooking begin!

Phase 1: Separate the cake from the icing

You will need:

• 1/3 of a terrible wedding cake with weird frosting
• A knife
• Miscellaneous food storage containers

Keep the cake in the refrigerator until you are ready to begin. This will ensure that the frosting retains its rigidity for easy removal. Use the knife to pry the frosting off the cake. If you have succeeded in finding the right weird cake, the frosting will just separate from the cake in big sheets.

Press the icing into plastic food storage containers, and place the now naked slices of cake back into a 9-inch cake pan. Tada! It looks practically like you just baked it!

Phase 2: Bake cookies with the icing

For this phase, you're going to loosely follow the Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe, which you can get off any bag of Tollhouse chocolate chips, or you can use this handy recipe card that I am too lazy to transcribe for you.

 Make the following alterations to the recipe.

1. Since you're not sure if it's actually going to taste good, only use half the recipe.
2. Instead of 1/2 c. margarine, 3/8 c. white sugar, and 3/8 c. brown sugar, use 1/2 c. + a-little-extra weird icing, no white sugar, and 1/4 + approximately 1/2-of-1/4 c. brown sugar.
3. Don't bother mixing the dry ingredients separately. This is an Adventure in Cooking, and you're lazy, and who wants to dirty two bowls anyway?
4. Forget the vanilla.
5. Add a handful of crushed walnuts.
6. Don't bother measuring the chocolate chips. Accidentally add a little too many, but that's OK because anyone who likes chocolate chips wants more chocolate chips!
7. Instead of dropping the dough onto a cookie sheet by rounded teaspoon (which is not exactly clear in the recipe, because you're the one who wrote it on the recipe card, and you make so many cookies that you don't need a lot of verbose instructions to get it right), spread it into an 8x8-inch square pan.
8. Since you're still not sure if this is going to taste all right, you need to distract people from the actual cookie with lots of delicious candy. Top the dough with generous handfuls of butterscotch chips and white chocolate chips.
9. Don't bake it 8-10 minutes at 375°. Instead, bake it at the classic 350° for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool before cutting into bars.

Hmmm...it might taste terrible, but at least it looks pretty!

Phase 3: Make the cake into strawberry shortcake

This is definitely the easiest part of this Adventure in Cooking, because the cake is already in cake form. All you need to do is top it with sugared strawberries and whipped cream, and you'll be done! In fact, you can just bring all of the ingredients to a party and have the guests top it themselves! The ultimate in lazy cooking!

The strange phenomenon of Game of Thrones

A while back, I pondered (briefly) why most fantasy stories like the ones I read are considered the province of losers and geeks, while somehow Game of Thrones has seemingly taken over the world.

That was a year ago, and it's only grown bigger. 

My first experience with the series was sometime during its early life on HBO, when a friend who was avidly following it told me it would be right up my alley—since it involved princesses and dragons and stuff. Once or twice, I had the privilege of being present while it was playing on his television, and in that time I watched the grisly sight of a girl being forced to stare at her father's head on a stake. In another scene, I witnessed a woman being burned alive. At that point, I decided Game of Thrones was most definitely not right up my alley.

Nonetheless, the rest of the world seems to be enthralled with the show. The majority of my office-mates watch it, gathering regularly to discuss what's going on with the plot. Even the fashion publications I receive in my email regularly devote column space to the topic of GoT (sometimes they even abbreviate it that way, because everyone knows what it means). While the world around me endlessly discusses Game of Thrones, I try my hardest not to get involved—a challenging prospect when my own boyfriend is watching the show very loudly just 4 feet from me.

Yet in the recent past, I've gotten an even stronger incentive to avoid seeing the show that's all around me: spoilers. 

For Christmas, I received a 5-book set of the series that spawned the TV show. The name of the book series is "A Song of Ice and Fire," which I mention only because everyone knows the story as "Game of Thrones," but as a book nerd, I am compelled to represent it accurately. Knowing my opinions on the TV show, I was hesitant to start the book series, but I can't help but read everything that's put in front of me, and besides, while graphic depictions of violence literally make me feel ill, it's a lot easier to skim past violence when it's just words on a page.

So I began reading, and I'm glad I did! I could go into why it's such an excellent tale, but being a member of Goodreads has taught me that whatever I have to say, hundreds of other people have already said it and said it better. Instead, I'll just talk about how odd it is to be reading a story while, simultaneously, bits of its future plot are unfolding through popular culture all around you. 

Thanks to my early experiences with the show, when I began the first book, I knew enough not to get too attached to Ned Stark. As I continue to get exposed to people's opinions, I know enough not to get too attached to anyone. From conversations I've overheard, pictures I've seen, and things I've read, it looks like Jon Snow might not be long for this world, but at least he won't die a virgin. By happenstance, I've gleaned that eventually I might have to feel sorry for Cersei. Yesterday, though I couldn't tell what was happening from what I heard through the bedroom wall, I think I accidentally learned the meaning behind Hodor's name.

And so it goes.  I can't unhear what I've heard, and nor can I, in honesty, resist the temptation to sponge up all these little secrets as they are prematurely revealed to me...but still! Spoilers! I feel like I'm a time traveler. Or more like I'm able to see the future but not quite sure what it means. In the world of Ice and Fire (the book), the ubiquitous Game of Thrones (the show) would be like my own little version of greensight!

The nose doesn't know

In case you were concerned for my health after my lengthy bout of travelers' ailments, I am pleased to announce that it has improved greatly...in some respects.

For the past couple days, instead of hacking my lungs out every hour on the hour, I content myself with a little conservative wheezing at bedtime and a hearty amount of messy throat-clearing coughs when I get up. Then I'm more or less good for the rest of the day.

But if you thought I was in the clear, oh ho no! How naive!

The day I returned to Maryland from Hawaii, I felt my nose begin to get stuffed up. At this point, I'm pretty certain that late May in Maryland produces some kind of allergen that apparently only affects me. It seems like my worst stuffy noses always appear around this time. But most of the time, I'm either traveling or returning from travel, so I'm never quite sure if it's just the change of environment that sets it off.

In any case, this time, aggressive treatment with nasal steroids and antihistamines and decongestant pills kept my nose from ever getting completely blocked (thank heavens; usually I have to resort to the oxymetazoline spray, but I guess I got it early enough this time!), but I've been drug-dependent for almost a week now.

On Sunday night, the first day I felt confident enough to stop taking decongestants, I was eating my favorite food – cookie dough – when I noticed it tasted like nothing at all. I realized something unusual that has never happened to me before: while I could still breathe through my nose, I had lost my sense of smell!

Monday morning, upon waking, I still couldn't smell a blasted thing, so I reluctantly took another decongestant and soon was smelling the roses again (and the strawberries, and the flour, and all the other ingredients I put into my cookie batter that I was actually, for a change, going to cook!).

However, by evening, again sitting down to eat cookie dough, I found it utterly flavorless—again!

This morning, still experiencing the world in a state of olfactory blindness, I decided to try out my neti pot again (it's never seemed to help much with my congestion) and zapped my nose with a new bottle (not expired, as have been the last two I used) of fluticasone.

And then I could smell – sort of – for most of the day.

I bet you can guess what happened next—I couldn't smell anything again. And then I could. And then I couldn't. And then I could. I believe my sense of smell will eventually return to its pre-infection state of virtuosity (I've actually become quite proud of my sense of smell in recent times, since I spent my formative years with chronic congestion barely ever smelling anything), but in the meantime, I'm pretty excited whenever I get to smell anything. The scent of baking asphalt? Woohoo! A fart? That's great! Any terrible smell is better than being deprived of the most underrated of senses!

Trouble Traveling: The Exceptions and the Rules

Some of my friends call me Grumpy Cat because I can cop an attitude like you wouldn't believe (but underneath it all, I'm still adorable...right!???). Complaining about vacations is just one of the many services I offer, and with three vacations in the past 3 weeks (plus another one to Boston a couple weekends before that), I've had plenty of opportunity to complain...and also plenty of opportunity to be pleasantly surprised!

A good somebody-or-other admits when they're wrong, and I'm going to be that somebody-or-other and take back some of the nasty things about vacations I've said in the past, because on the whole, this series of holidays went relatively smoothly.

For instance: You might not know this, but if you're around me when I'm on vacation, you'll know that I am convinced I have the worst luck with respect to weather. One of my pet peeves is being cold, so naturally when I want to get away from it all, I want to go somewhere where it's warm. But whenever I travel, it always seems to be to a colder climate in the winter (Iceland, anyone?). Or to a warmer climate in the summer (Indonesia, I'm looking at you!). On those rare occasions when I travel to a warm clime while it's still cold in Maryland, it seems to inevitably suffer a cold snap right when I arrive. Or else my home area becomes unseasonably warm right after I leave. But my last two trips debunked this phenomenon—I left for New Orleans when Maryland was on something like its 15th straight day of rain, but the weather in New Orleans was delightful almost the whole time I was there. Meanwhile, the weather in Maryland barely topped "tolerable." The day I returned, the temperatures rose, seemingly just for my benefit, but stayed cloudy and chilly for about a week after that—just in time for my trip to Hawaii. The day I returned from Hawaii, however, the temperatures in Maryland rose into the 80's. Lesson learned: Traveling doesn't always mean the weather is going to suck.

Another thing I've come to expect as a general rule of thumb is that if you bring an umbrella, it won't rain. However, one day in New Orleans, I read the weather forecast for rain and put my umbrella into my bag. And voila! It rained! It actually poured somewhat torrentially. Just goes to show, one can never be too prepared.

Speaking of being prepared, on every trip, there is inevitably something I need that I forgot. It becomes one of the things I hate most about traveling when I'm forced to fork over the big bucks to buy new what I already own...and this vacation, it was kind of a doozy. I forgot to pack any shorts. On a trip to Hawaii! Of all places! (At least I didn't forget my entire suitcase, as another of the wedding guests somehow managed to do). I did have to buy two new pairs of shorts at a sub-optimal price: 7$ and 8$ respectively, but I can't actually be too mad. They fit great, and both provide a somewhat needed addition to my wardrobe, enabling me to get rid of an older pair that I don't much love.

Although I dropped the fashion ball a few times in packing for New Orleans, by the time I got to Hawaii, I'd caught my stride (also having had time to sort through my newest summer clothes helped). Shorts shortage notwithstanding, I only twice regretted my choice of outfit—once when I wore my gym clothes all day in anticipation of a hike that never happened, forcing me to wear the same outfit the following day, and once when a new shirt I'd packed started fraying all over the place and I didn't have anything to cut it with because my pocket knife had bitten the dust the day before I left for New Orleans. Most of the time, I felt proud of what I was wearing, proving that living out of a bag doesn't have to mean looking like a bag lady.

Lastly, flying in an airplane (which I did 4 times over the past 3 weeks—more if you count each connecting flight) turned out to be less of a horrifying experience than I was anticipating. While turbulence still fills my heart with dread and my arteries with adrenaline, I never once felt the urge to shed tears out of terror, as is usually the case. On the way back from Hawaii, I even was able to sleep for most of the 6-hour flight, which is usually unheard-of. For that, I credit 3 weeks of inadequate sleep, plus the assistance of my ReLeaf neck pillow, which I recommend to any traveler who has trouble sleeping sitting up.

There was, however, one yucky thing about traveling that held as true as ever: I got sick. In fact, my body seemed to be so ready to get sick that it didn't even bother to wait until I'd started traveling—I got two illnesses back-to-back the week before I left. I like to think that was my body's way of facing the inevitable and getting it out of the way before it could be too much of an inconvenience—I recovered from both illnesses before I even got on a plane. But that wasn't enough to protect me from my curse. While in New Orleans, I contracted another infection that caused me great pain and forced me to spend my last day in the city alternately crying and visiting the CVS Minute Clinic for some antibiotics. I was going to give you the blow-by-blow of all the illnesses I suffered and all the symptoms, but I decided that might be too much information for polite company. Let it suffice to say that one of the illnesses came with a lost voice that plagued me throughout New Orleans, a sore throat that started in Hawaii, and a cough that followed me through all three trips (the second was Richmond, only a day) and still persists after three weeks—meaning that there was no point during my travels that I was not sick!

Vertebrae

When you do a lot of yoga, you hear a lot of anatomical terminology, some of which is scientific and some of which is far from it. For example, yoga instructors like to refer to your "sit bones," which I had never heard of before my first yoga class. A scientist would call these bones the ischial tuberosities, but I guess we can't all be scientists. If you want to use common language for an anatomical part, that doesn't bother me any.

What does bother me is when you use the wrong anatomical term for an anatomical part--the most frequent culprit being vertebrae. 

The vertebrae, collectively, are the bones that form the spinal column. Because the term comes from Latin, and latin plurals are wack, it should surprise no one to find out that vertebrae is a plural form of the word vertebra. Therefore, each individual bone in the spine is called a "vertebra."

So every time a yoga teacher tells you to rise from your forward fold "one vertebrae at a time," an ancient Roman grammarian rolls over in his grave. Probably most modern medical professionals would do so too, if they were not still alive.

So my advice to all those who, in their line of work, need to refer to the bones of the spinal column, is to either stop that and say something sensible like, "Rise to standing starting with your head and working your way down your back," or else get your Latin plurals straight. It's "one vertebra at a time!"

How to pronounce caramel

An anonymous commenter on my last language post made the insinuation that I incorrectly pronounce the word "caramel." An interesting allegation, since one of my friends constantly criticizes my pronunciation of that same word. Surely the commenter could not have been my friend! Surely a friend would own up to their identity when making such an outré claim! Right?

Regardless of who dropped the controversial comment, I think it's time to set the record straight. What is the right way to pronounce "caramel"?

Before I delve into the reference material, let us consider the two sides of this argument, which basically boils down to the pronunciation of the first A. Is it the A of a sigh of relief, such as in most of the Romance languages, the A of words like "car" and "far," (and represented by "a" in the International Phonetic Alphabet, which will come in handy as you read the rest of this post)—the way I've always pronounced it? Or is it the particularly English A of words like "ass" and "bad," (represented by æ in the IPA)—as my friend insists is the only right way?

To get a balanced perspective on the issue, I consulted one of my favorite reference tools: Onelook.com, which searches over a thousand dictionaries when you ask it for a definition.

When I perused several dictionary entries returned by my search for caramel, I found that every dictionary listed several alternative pronunciations. So one thing became immediately clear: there is no single "correct" pronunciation.

However, let's assume that any person who feels so strongly about the superiority of their pronunciation will, much like any fanatic in any other arena, rabidly attempt to create a conflict where there is none. So let's explore the issue further. 

Although all dictionaries surveyed allowed multiple varying pronunciations of the word caramel, every dictionary, by default, has a preferred pronunciation—whichever one is listed first. So I surveyed the results of my OneLook search to ascertain which pronunciation was more commonly preferred in the dictionaries.

After weeding out duplicate entries, links which went nowhere, and entries with no pronunciation listed, I found 13 entries. If the dictionary included a sound clip of the pronunciation, I used the first listed sound clip as their default; otherwise I chose the first phonetic pronunciation listed. The Oxford, Collins, Macmillan, Wikitionary, Wordsmyth, and Dictionary.com references ruled in favor of the "æ" sound; while the American Heritage, Vocabulary.com, Merriam-Webster's, YourDictionary, Infoplease, and Free Dictionary entries leaned toward the "a" sound. The Cambridge Dictionary stated that the "æ" version is a British pronunciation while the "a" one is American, but since the debate over whether American or British English is "better" is an anthill best left undisturbed, I'm leaving those results out of my survey. That leaves us with a six-to-six tie.

If that's not enough to unambiguously conclude that neither pronunciation is any more correct than the other, then I'll be a dirty bird...but, as it happens, I do have one other test that we might use to determine a clear winner. Let's consider the origin of the word!

Words and their pronunciations are constantly developing and changing, but whenever there is a conflict regarding how to pronounce one, I would defer to the earliest origin. For that, I refer to the Online Etymology Dictionary, which states that the word caramel is derived directly from the identical word in French. In French "caramel" is pronounced with a decidedly æ-like first vowel, which would seem to give the win to that pronunciation. However, the French word caramel came from the Spanish word caramel, which would be pronounced with the Spanish "a" sound, lending some heft to my side of the argument. But wait! Looking further, we see that the Spanish caramel derives from the Medieval Latin "cannamellis." At this point, I'm out of my league, not knowing the first thing about Medieval Latin pronunciations or where to look them up, and in fact, no one can know for sure how a language was pronounced in the distant past, so I think it's high time to give up this chase!

Considering the overwhelming number of resources that claim my pronunciation is quite acceptable, I'm going to go right on calling a caramel a caramel (and pronouncing it the way I always have). Anyone who wants to tell me I'm wrong will have to produce a native speaker of Medieval Latin!

They hear we got swag

I work on a college campus and I go to a lot of conferences, so getting free stuff is a regular part of my life.

I am not sure how free gifts with corporate logos on them became known as "swag," but I do know that I've received quite a lot of them over the years, and I consider myself quite the authority on what makes them good or not. I'm here to share my opinions on some of the promotional gifts I've received over the years. I intended to include photographs with this post, since a picture is worth a thousand cheap pens, but since I am in Hawaii and have neither my collection of conference goodies with me nor a speedy internet connection, you will just have to settle for this large amount of text.

My least favorite conference swag includes stickers and temporary tattoos. These items are a cheap and easy way to promote your company, except no one wants them. I struggle to find places to stick my stickers. Usually I feel that they make any surface uglier, though I tend to use them to decorate the covers of my work-related notebooks. Temporary tattoos, though, are almost a complete waste. No one wants to walk around with someone else's logo affixed to their skin. The day I wear a corporate temporary tattoo is the day someone pays me to do so.

Pens are also a total let-down as far as free gifts go. When I used to work in retail, pens were always disappearing, and I would have been glad for a free conference pen or a dozen...but now that I work at a job where I actually get free pens on the regular, well, I've been using the same 2 pens since I started 4.5 years ago.

T-shirts are one of those gifts that you get really excited about until you actually own them...and then they sit in your closet taking up space for months while you reject them in favor of clothes that actually fit and are fun to wear. Finally you donate them, unused, hoping some poverty-stricken recipient will just be glad to have a shirt at all.

Somewhere in the middle ground are things like sunglasses. They were a cool novelty when I first started getting them for free, but now they are ubiquitous, and my Cheap Sunglasses collection is getting a little unmanageable! At least, though, when you go to a conference, you can usually count on getting some free eye protection if you ever need to step outside into the glaring light of day.

Gifts that I usually find useful are quality reusable water bottles. I'm not talking the cheap squeezable bottles with sport tops that always seem to leak, but good, durable bottles that go the extra mile. Somehow my water bottles are always going MIA, so it's nice to have a constant stream of replacements. My current favorite is a lightweight clear plastic, reasonably sized bottle with a wide opening and leak-proof screw-off lid. Steel bottles are another favorite, though they are not often dishwasher-safe.

Once upon a time, my life was so devoid of lip balm that when my lips got dry, I would put hand lotion on them (rather than buying a tube of balm, naturally!) Nowadays, I have so many promotional lip balms, I keep one in my purse, and one at my desk at work, and another next to the bed at home, and I still feel I will never run out! However, despite my excessive supply, lip balms are one of those conference gifts that I continue to appreciate. I think businesses could be on the right track if they just expanded their reach with other types of small personal care items that people constantly need to replace—things like sunscreen tubes, nail clippers and files, dental floss and toothbrushes. I'd add shampoo and lotion to this list as well, but people who go to a lot of conferences probably also go to a lot of hotels, which means a free neverending supply of those items!

Currently topping my list are the large spring-action clips. These usually have magnets on the back, so they are probably intended to hold reams of paper to your refrigerator or antiquated steel filing cabinets, but for me, they make perfect food-storage clips. Although I have a sizeable collection already, one can always use another clip to hold a bag shut! 

The winner for the best corporate swag ever is one that I haven't found yet: pocket knives! Perhaps we don't see these because they could be deemed dangerous, but a little one-inch pocket knife isn't going to kill anyone, and they're about as handy as tools come. You can get these for like a dollar (I know because I'm constantly having to replace the ones I lose or abandon at airport security!), and if you stuck a logo on one and gave it to me for free, I can guarantee it would rarely be out of my sight.

Why I hate to travel

If you haven't noticed yet, my boyfriend and I travel a lot. Probably 3 times a year, we're jetting to some far-off locale for a week or a weekend. The most common question I receive when small-talking with one of his friends is "So where are you heading next?" followed by "Are you excited?" Which always leads to an awkward spot in the conversation, because the only honest answer I can give is "No."

I hate traveling.

Don't get me wrong. I like adventuring. I enjoy exploring. I love seeing new places and sights. And I'm happy for every break from work and responsibilities I can arrange. But I hate the actual process of traveling. And since I can tell (from the puzzled expressions I get whenever I tell people how little I want to go on my next vacation) that no one understands, I am going to attempt to explain why.

I hate living out of a suitcase, not having all my stuff at my fingertips. At home, no matter what horrible thing may happen to me, I'm prepared. On a trip, no matter how much you prepare, something inevitably happens that you're not ready for. Every tiny forgotten supply causes a major ordeal, and usually the resolution is to purchase an expensive replacement that you'll never use again because you already have 3 backups at home. 

If that's not enough, I'm sure you can understand why living out of a suitcase is especially painful for someone who loves her extensive wardrobe as much as I do. Not only do I have to limit my packing in quantity, but I also have to limit it in practicality. Everything must be wrinkle-resistant, must be layerable in case of unexpected weather, must be comfortable for long walks and long trips in a vehicle, must frequently be conservative and plain so as not to mark me as a stranger in a strange land, and, if space is especially tight, must match everything else in the suitcase so I can re-wear them in different combinations. With all these restrictions, there are only a poor few garments that pass muster for travel, and consequently, I have to wear the same old things every time I go on a trip.

I also despise flying. I would hands-down prefer to drive 16 hours to get to my destination than spend 2 hours on an airplane, but sometimes, you are forced to fly. When I fly, I have to agonize over what to pack in my carry-on, beat up my conscience over the amount of fossil fuels I'm wasting, spend hours sitting in a germ-infested airplane cabin trying to avoid disturbing my seatmates, die of boredom going through security, die of boredom waiting for the flight, die of boredom waiting for layovers, and spend the first hour of every flight in a state of abject terror (seriously, the more I fly, the more I am convinced I'm going to die in a fiery crash).

I hate being the foreigner. Traveling within the U.S. is not so bad, but whenever I'm in another country, I know I stick out like a sore thumb. I'm looked down on for being American and preyed on for supposedly having money. I hate speaking another language badly, and I feel like a lazy snob when I default to English. Even something as simple as having to ask for directions to a landmark, or where I can find a supermarket, is terrifying. For someone with crippling anxiety even in relatively familiar social situations, being in a different country is enough to send me back home with a case of hypertension.

Traveling always makes me sick. Being around a slew of new people harboring a slew of new viruses is a sure recipe for infection. Almost every time I go somewhere new, I come back home with the worst kind of souvenir: a cold.

This Friday, we're off to New Orleans for a week, followed by a Saturday's rest, then I'm heading to Richmond for my brother's Monday wedding, then on Wednesday it's back into the air for a week-long trip to Hawaii for another wedding. If that's not too much travel for a travelphobe, I don't know what is! You could wish me a bon voyage, but I think it would be more appropriate to send me your condolences.

Li'l Language Lady again admits to being wrong.

Recently I boasted about the list of words that I, unlike the author of the article that inspired me, have always pronounced correctly. Not to make you think I'm some kind of linguistic egomaniac, I am now here to list some words that I have had the wrong idea about.

Quite a long while ago (long enough that I should have forgotten, but I didn't, because it was embarrassing!), I claimed quite adamantly that "informatory" was not a real word. After all, we already have "informative" and "informational"—why would we need yet another variation of the same adjective? But sure enough, according to Webster, "informatory" is legit. This reminds me of the time that I smugly (and wrongly) believed that "problematical" was a made-up word.

Now onto a topic that is only related in the sense that it's also a word I had no idea of the meaning of—crudités. I knew it's a food, because I read it in stories where fancy people are serving finger food. It sounds like a food that would be fried, or at least crispy, but not very tasty really, just a bland cracker-like thing. Turns out it's really raw vegetables. Bonus! It's always spelled in the plural, even when used with a singular verb! I only learned that last year.

 

And lastly, here is a word close to my heart. It has become so familiar to me that I hardly believe I was once so wrong about it's nature, but indeed I was—Serif. 

 

This word is used extensively throughout the design (and web development world) but I had been confused about it for a long time before I was finally set straight. While I was aware of which fonts were serif fonts (those like Times New Roman, for example, with the little crossbars at the tops and bottoms of vertical lines) and which were sans serif (those like Arial, without such ornamentation), I could not wrap my head around their names. Why would serif fonts — the ones that were all fancy and covered with extra fiddly bits – have such a simple name, while the simple ones have the longer, more complicated name? Finally, all was made clear to me: serif is the word for the extra fiddly bits, and "sans serif" means "without serif(s)." At this point in my life, I had yet to figure out that "sans" is the French word for "without." I don't remember when I learned this valuable tidbit, but I do remember that it was quite a revelation to me, since I'd been so confused for so long. And it doesn't stop there. At the same time that I learned the proper meaning of serif, I also learned I had been pronouncing it wrong in my head (fortunately I'd never had cause to pronounce it out loud) as "sir-EEF" when it's actually pronounced "SARE-if."

 

So there you have it. We all make mistakes, but when I learn I have made one, I'm probably going to share it on my blog so no one else can make the same one!

Bosty Tea Party Cookies

You didn't think that, when I went to Boston, I would content myself with cookies from just one establishment, did you? Oh, no! I found giant cookies at the café at the Boston Tea Party site, so naturally I had to give them a try!

Peanut Butter Cookie 

It was love at first sight when I laid eyes on this gem of a cookie. Just look at those huge chunks of Reese's cup strewn all over the top! Fortunately, the taste lived up to the hype, and I had a pleasant time eating this bit of candy-coated eye candy.

The texture was wonderfully soft and chewy, with the perfect amount of crispiness just around the edges!

Peanut butter cookies do tend to run on the cloyingly sweet side, and this one did as well, so I knock off one minor point for flavor.

And of course, the price, as with any truly wonderful product, was far from a bargain at 3.50$ a cookie or 2.92¢ per gram.

The Bottom Line

Taste:
Texture:
Price:

Chocolate Chip Cookie

Unlike the peanut butter cookie, this classic confection didn't blow you away with sweetness at first bite. Its taste was more subtle, bordering on dull even, as it tasted just about like any other chocolate chip cookie I've ever eaten.

It was a nice touch to include two different kinds of chocolate pieces (chunks and mini cups) for my intellectual pleasure, even if they all tasted the same.

As far as the texture, it was chewy in the middle like the peanut butter cookie, but the edges, rather than going crispy, just got even more chewy, to the point that they were almost too tough. This didn't combine well with the chocolate, which despite being recently removed from a refrigerator, were still too soft and almost melty.

On the whole, this was a perfectly acceptable chocolate chip cookie, even though it didn't quite blow my mind.

The Bottom Line

Taste:
Texture:
Price:

Cookie Monstah Cookies

I did not know this until I traveled to Boston a weekend ago, but people from Boston supposedly have an accent. I hardly heard anybody actually speak in this accent, but all the souvenirs were emblazoned with words that were spelled in ways that I suppose represent the accent. Apparently in Boston, the word monster would be pronounced "Monstah." Hence the name of the "Cookie Monstah" food truck that I ran across just outside of Boston Common.

I bought two cookies and carried them around with me very carefully in my purse all day, finally eating them a few days later at the office.

Sugar Cookie 

Oops, I forgot to photograph it before I started eating it!

On the simple side of things, I purchased a sugar cookie for 2$ and ate it a few days later at work. You would think, with my "more is more" mentality, I would find sugar cookies boring, but I actually usually enjoy them for their rich buttery flavor. This sugar cookie was no exception—it tasted delightful!

Despite crumbling a bit more than I prefer, it also possessed a decent texture that was chewy in the middle and a bit thin and crisper on the edges. The sugar crystals on top gave it that extra crunch  that I love, which means the rest of the cookie could have afforded to be a little less crunchy and a little more chewy, but I guess that's splitting hairs.

The worst thing about this cookie was the price. Barely qualifying as giant at only 75g, it was quite a costly purchase,  2.67¢/gram. I probably wouldn't buy it again unless I were desperate.

The Bottom Line

Taste:
Texture:
Price:

Stuffed Oreo cookie

Now here's a novel concept—a chocolate chip cookie with an Oreo cookie inside. I was sold on the idea alone, but sadly the actual experience was less of a treat than I had been expecting.
The chocolate chip portion of the cookie was too dry and crumbly, and the taste wasn't anything to write home about. It was strangely salty, and while I like salt in my sweets, this was too much even for me.

Costing 3$ but having slightly more mass than the sugar cookie, the stuffed Oreo cookie was a marginally better deal at 2.61¢/g. But marginal doesn't cut it, and this cookie was definitely not worth the price!

The Bottom Line

Taste:
Texture:
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In the dog house

For someone who never wanted a dog in the first place, I sure have a lot of dogs.

When I last brought up the issue, my attention was focused mainly on Bubalou, as he was a new addition to our family and so neurotic and needy, he was as much work as 3 dogs all rolled into one. Now, however, we actually have 3 dogs! We'd only had Bubalou for a few weeks before Jack Jack mysteriously reappeared at our apartment. And of course, my roommate has always had a dog. For the most part, I avoid the worst of dog ownership, but my boyfriend has left me home alone with the dogs for the entire weekend! Which is just serving to remind me of how crazy life is  when you have three dogs and one apartment.

On Barking

Imagine you have one dog who likes to bark. A lot. Now imagine you have two other impressionable dogs living with it. I'm not saying who's the instigator here (because they seem to have agreed to take turns), but once one starts, the others always have to follow suit. When one dog gets tired of barking, he'll stop for a second, but if another dog is still barking, he'll start right up again. Three dogs together bark exponentially more than three dogs separated. 

On Feeding

Bubalou is still on his special urinary diet, so he's not allowed to eat the same food as Jack Jack and vice versa. But both of them are spoiled little buggers from receiving too many table scraps, so when you feed them, they will just wait around, not eating, until someone gives them human food. They won't hesitate to starve themselves for their cause of a more  luxurious diet. Jack Jack hates his own food the worst, but, if driven to desperation, will eat Bubalou's. Bubalou will do the same with Jack Jack's. And that's of course exactly what they do when we're not around and we leave their food bowls out. Since their indulgent dad is out of town, I have put them on an eating schedule. They will get fed when I do (but not what I do). If they choose not to eat their assigned dog food, tough luck. They'll have another chance the next time mealtime comes around.

On Bodily Functions

Taking the dogs to do their business (we tell them to "Go busy," which I think is a phrase unique to Al's family) is only slightly easier than herding cats. You have Ralph, who is basically a good boy who comes when called and stays close, but likes to pee multiple times on every vertical surface in sight. Then you have Jack Jack, who (being lazy and also very independent-minded), doesn't want to move until you're ready to go back inside, then he suddenly needs to find the absolute perfect spot to take a dump. Bubalou recently completed his obedience training...but none of it seemed to stick. When you take him outside, he immediately runs for the bushes and becomes selectively deaf. Only copious amounts of yelling and angry stomping will get him to even look at you, let alone come back to you. Technically, we're supposed to keep the dogs on leashes when we take them out, but handling three leashes attached to even one extremely excited dog (Bubalou) is a recipe for entanglement and getting nowhere fast.

On Walks

My boyfriend bravely lets the dogs go off leash when walking them, but for me, that turns a physical exercise into a purely vocal one, consisting mainly of shouting things like, "Bubalou! No! Bubalou! Come! Bubalou! Heel! Bubalou!" over and over again until you get hoarse. You could substitute Jack Jack's name for a little variety. So despite the perils of entanglement, I choose to walk the dogs on leashes. This means another kind of exercise in which we mimic a suspension bridge, with the Eager Beaver Bubalou prancing along at the front, the lazy Jack Jack trailing sluggishly behind, and their leashes rising up to the pillar in the center – me – who must stop every dozen steps or so to extricate a leash from under someone's leg.

On Abandonment

Neither Bubalou nor Jack Jack takes very kindly to being left home alone. Bubalou has improved somewhat from his early days in that he no longer succumbs to hysteria as long as you don't lock him in a small space, but he does still pee frequently and everywhere if unsupervised (even in another room), so he has to wear a diaper whenever we leave him. Jack Jack knocks over all the garbage cans and eats everything he can find (I still haven't decided whether he's just really that hungry, or if he's being vindictive about being left behind), so we have to put all the trash cans on tables whenever we go anywhere. Leaving the dogs at the house is such a huge pain that we tend to take them  with us wherever we go. Which is a hassle in itself, as I'll leave you to only imagine.

On the Value of a Pretty Face

As you might have gathered, life with a pack of dogs is not usually what I'd call a charmed one. But there is one thing about the dogs that makes me happy—looking at them. They are so obnoxiously cute that even though they are the most annoying creatures on the earth, I still like them. They are my favorite photographic subject and almost certainly the focus of most of my posts on Facebook. Here are some recent favorite pics I haven't shared anywhere yet.

One dog, two beds!

It's too late, Bubalou. I already ate it.

At least someone enjoyed the blizzard we had in January!

Yes, he's licking his dad's head.

The life of a dog is so hard...

But Bubalou thinks life on a lap is just fine!

For someone who never wanted a dog in the first place, I sure like these guys a lot.

...Just don't tell my boyfriend that!

Lazy-girl spinach quiche: an Adventure in Cooking!

Let the fanfare begin; it's time for the annual occasion on which Valerie makes food from scratch that isn't a dessert, and lives to tell about it! What is it? It's one of my famous Adventures in Cooking!

Ingredients:

• About a pint of cooked baby spinach that's been in your freezer since October 
• About a cup of pie crust dough that's been in your freezer since last March 
• 1 egg 
• A few handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese that's been in your freezer since summer 
• Don't forget the salt!

Prep time: 3 days

Oven temperature: 350° F

Cook time: 22 minutes - 6 minutes + 5 minutes + 5 minutes + 5 minutes

Serves: 1—no, 2, and possibly 1 more if that person subsists on cooked spinach

Begin by looking in your freezer and getting really tired of seeing that half-empty quart container of spinach taking up space in there. After the last time you used it to make the worst spinach cheese squares you ever ate, you've kind of lost interest in spinach, but you really have to get that container out of there and make room for some Ben & Jerry's!

Wonder what you can make with about a pint of frozen spinach...obviously not spinach cheese squares!

Notice that you also have about a half-pint of pie crust dough that's been sitting around for ages, and realize you have most of the makings of a fabulous quiche! Find a bag of mozzarella cheese that was left by one of your Airbnb guests back when you had Airbnb guests, look in the fridge for eggs, and realize you have all the makings of a fabulous quiche!

Prepare by putting the spinach and pie dough in the refrigerator to thaw, and wait two days. On the designated baking day, be so hungry at 4:00 from skipping lunch that you cannot possibly wait around for a spinach quiche to cook, so wait one more day.

On the second designated baking day, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Remember how stringy and gross the spinach was when you used it in a spinach-and-garbanzo dish, so decide to chop it into smaller pieces. Spoon the majority of the spinach into your blender's chopping cup. Don't use all of it, because that looks like it will be too much to fit into the mini pie plate that you'll be using.

Blend away! When the spinach looks evenly chopped, remove it from the chopping cup to find you have accidentally pureed it completely. Wow! What a blender!

Dump the pureed spinach into a small mixing bowl. Instantly regret it, realizing you could have just mixed your quiche filling inside the chopping cup and saved yourself one dish to wash. Oh, well. Can't hold onto the past!

Most quiches are egg-based, which would indicate the use of several eggs. Since you don't much like the texture of baked eggs and you prefer to get your cholesterol from cheese anyway, you will only be using one egg. Mix the egg into the spinach with a fork.

Next, add the cheese. Feel free to add as much as you want. Mix it in until there's a good bit of shredded cheese interspersed with the spinach. It probably would be a good idea to use all of the cheese remaining in the bag, but you're trying to eat somewhat healthy here, so I won't be surprised if you leave an insignificant amount to clutter up your freezer and cause you infinite distress for the next 6 months.

The filling done, it's time to turn your attentions to the crust.

A traditional pie crust would be rolled out on a floured board and placed neatly into the pie tin. But this is lazy-girl quiche, so you should just grab small hunks of the dough and press it into the pan at about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick, until the whole surface of the pan is covered.

Pour the filling into the crust. 

You definitely have more filling than will fit in this crust, but fortunately, you have extra crust! So prepare a second pan just like the first.

Realize you don't have quite enough filling to make a second full-size mini quiche, so line the bottom of the second crust with some of your leftover un-pureed spinach. Pour the remaining filling into the second crust, then top it off with some filling that you've skimmed off your first crust.

When the two pies look approximately equal in size, pop them in the preheated oven.

It is crucial to be very indecisive about the baking time. Start with 22 minutes, but then decide that most brownies cook in that amount of time, and they are cooked in much bigger pans, so surely you won't need quite as much time. Change the timer to 16 minutes. After the cook time is almost up, realize your quiches aren't even close to finished. Add 5 minutes. When the timer goes off, find your quiches to be still as watery as a swamp, and add another 5 minutes. Do this as many times as necessary until the edges look brown and the top looks dry.

Remove quiches from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes, then eat.

Guess what! You forgot the salt! Sprinkle salt onto the top of your quiche, making sure to overestimate the amount you need. When you have successfully converted your healthy dinner into hypertension on a plate, you are ready to consume it! You will find that the crust is still undercooked and there is not nearly enough cheese, but you won't mind, because you happen to be watching the pilot episode of Fringe, and that will surely help you work up a hearty appetite!

Enjoy your meal!