Sum-sum-summertime

According to Wikipedia the meteorological beginning of Summer is June 1. However, it's been summer in DC for a couple of weeks already. How do I know? There are a couple of glaring indicators.

1. Actual Meteorological Evidence (deal, Wikipedia): DC has two seasons only--Rainy-suck and Hot-suck. There are short transition periods of about two weeks between these in October and May known as "Spring" and "Fall." Those collective four weeks are the most amazing weeks in DC. Everything is breezy, mild and pleasant. If you blink, you will miss them. The May transition period ("Spring") ended about five days ago ((*blink*)). We have now entered Hot-suck--if you walk outside, expect to sweat immediately and forever.

2. All sort of awesome (if sweaty) summer events have started: Screen on the Green (movies on the national mall on a giant inflatable screen!), Jazz in the Sculpture Garden (exactly what it sounds like), pools are opening, everyone on earth is having a yard sale (no, I don't want your shower curtain!)!

3. The Capital Hillbillies showed up in Lincoln park yesterday. That means a man was playing a piano under a tree. 'Nuff said. (Sorry this is an awful picture.)

4. We saw Eleanor Holmes Norton shopping in our CVS. That in itself is not really an indicator of summer, but she was wearing a pink sundress. The woman is nothing if not an important barometer of the state of affairs (and seasonal changes) in DC.

5. As I said on Facebook, I've had "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies stuck in my head for days. This really has nothing to do with summer in DC in particular, but it happens every year when summer comes. Everything about BNL makes me think of summer. Sue me.

6. Tourists. Not the regular small, family groups of tourists that are always present, but tourists with matching t-shirts, have started to arrive and stand in the doorways of things: museums, metros, coffee shops, chain restaurants. Any doorway they can find, they will happily congregate in it--loosely enough to take up space, but tightly enough that you cannot penetrate their force-field of confusion. This weekend there were thousands and thousands of bikers in black leather on the Mall. Sweating. In their leather. Looking around for doorways to congregate in.

7. Slugs have started squeezing under our back door so that they can infiltrate our trashcan. This experience is unique to DC. Luckily/Blessedly they don't seem to have figured out that the trashcan is in a kitchen full of all sorts of other amazing non-garbage things to eat. They pretty much just go for the trashcan. If that horrifies you and makes you not want to come to my house... I have to ask, were you planning on eating out of my trashcan? I put down a barrier of salt so don't worry about it. They should stay outside. And so should vampires. Or witches. Or something, I can't remember what salt barriers are supposed to keep out.

Anyway, there are all sorts of other indicators. Like the air on capital hill smells like grilled meat, it's almost my birthday, H&M is selling nothing but sundresses, I want to eat every meal outside, the sun doesn't go down until 9:00, I'm taking a summerclass, and we can hear the fireworks from the ballpark at our house. SUMMER.

Fail Waffles

I normally don't do this, but I was reading through some of my old posts and came across this one: Failure is Imminent. I have no idea what the result might have been because Google doesn't use this feature anymore (I'm guessing it had something to do with George Bush), but this is what you get when you search "failure" now (click for larger image).


For the record, according to the googles, "Fail Waffles" are not a thing. But they should be.

Update: Wikipedia is incredibly helpful. Still you've got to love how very non sequitur and... Belgian this is.

Macaroni and Cheese 4-Ever

Some darling friends come over the other day to play through the entire Beatles Rockband catalog with me, and in order to build up our strength for that herculean task we ate (besides a heaping bowl of guacamole*) a ridiculous amount of homemade macaroni and cheese. I love homemade macaroni and cheese and it's easy to make, so I thought I'd share the recipe. I modified Pioneer Woman's recipe, which is unique in that she uses and egg to bind the sauce. I totally understand if you just go over there and read hers... I mean, she has pictures. However...

...Mine differs from hers mainly in the seasonings, the addition of cream, and the strange mixture of cheeses, which is a result of my cheese whims. Cheese whims: it's a real thing. Let your cheese whims be your guide. You can use whatever you want but be mindful of texture. I wouldn't use a pound of brie or a pound of goat cheese for this.

I'm not trying to compete (Never!). Just stating the facts, ma'am.

Macaroni and Cheese!

Here are my ingredients:

4 cups dry pasta shells
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cream
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder

(These are all approximate--I always go nuts at the end and decide I need more. More! MORE!)
1/2 pound New York Cheddar, grated
1/4 pound Muenster, grated
1/4 pound Parmesan, grated

My instructions owe everything to P-dubs:

You will need two large pots and a large baking dish for this recipe. If you only have one large pot, begin by boiling the pasta until it is firm, about 5-6 minutes. Drain the pasta and set it aside while you prepare the sauce. If you have two, can can boil the pasta while you are preparing the sauce.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or grease a large baking dish.

Beat the egg in a separate, heat-proof bowl.

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in the flour and continue cooking for about 5 minutes, whisking constantly.

Add the milk and cream and continue to cook until the sauce thickens, about 8-10 minutes.

To temper the egg, slowly pour about 1/2 cup of the sauce into the beaten egg while whisking it. (This raises the temperature of the egg without cooking it and forming clots.) Whisk until smooth, then stir the egg/sauce mixture into the pot.

Reserving 1/2 cup cheese for topping, add your grated cheeses to the pot. Over low heat, stir until cheeses are melted and smooth. Add mustard, paprika, salt, pepper, and garlic. Taste the sauce! Adjust seasoning accordingly.

Remove from heat and fold drained pasta into sauce. Pour into baking dish and top with remaining cheese. You can eat it this way or bake it, 20-25 minutes, until bubbly. Eat, eat, eat.


*I changed my Guacamole recipe! Not earth shattering news for you, probably, but a big deal for me. No more jalapeno, cayenne, or paprika, more tomato, and... cilantro. It's better now. The whole world is better.

What a day can be like...

This saturday was my first saturday without homework in oh... say... the same approximate amount of time that it takes a human to make a baby. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I could be overly dramatic and say that newly-found freedom was a great burden and a huge responsibility, but it really wasn't. Mostly it was really, really amazing to rediscover what 24 hours without the pressing crush of nagging obligation feels like. It. was. Incredible.


First, we slept in and upon waking up, my first thought was not "where's my book? What do I have to read?" but instead, "would it be out of line for me to eat everything in the house?" I made blueberry scones with lemon glaze for breakfast (don't be too impressed, they were frozen--and the glaze is just lemon juice and powdered sugar) and drank a big glass of milk and pondered the novelty of not having to write a poetry review or a film response. Not once! All day!

Then Tim decided he wanted to go for a walk to a nearby yard sale, which turned out to be rescheduled... fine. Fine because instead I discovered a new PO BOY STAND at Eastern Market. I discovered this because I could smell it from a block away. Po boys! The woman fried the shrimp in front of my face! And dowsed the bread in garlic butter before grilling it on an open grill! Lordamercy! Dressed with slaw and spicy mayo (alas, no cheese). Is this what I was missing while I was "educating" myself?

Then Tim and I loaded ourselves down with flowers from the farmers market and carried them home. He read about the Panama Canal while I got up to my elbows in dirt, which is really the only way I want to be. I neeeed a garden and now I feel so much better.

After all the planting and the Po Boy action we took a nap, because no Saturday is complete without one. We woke up, brushed our hair (that may not be true), walked to Tortilla Coast, and had a margarita drinking contest. It wasn't supposed to be a contest, but everything inevitably turns into a contest when Tim and I are near each other, and I won. Although, in all fairness, any time someone puts a pitcher of mango margaritas on your table, you win. Everyone wins.

Then (no! It's not even over! It keeps going!) we went to Chinatown and saw Bridesmaids. We had to sit in the second row, which is normally a misery-inducing torture-fest, but Kristin Wiig is so hilariously insane I might consider actually laying on the screen the next time I see the movie. Maybe.

The we rode the metro home and Tim found a million dollar bill, but it was just a "ticket to heaven" and who needs that when it can't buy you any real Po Boys here on earth? Walking through Lincoln Park it looked like a UFO had touched down in RFK stadium and lit up the whole sky. Lincoln looked very noble and it was easy to pretend that the statue is not as awful as it really is. I'm going to pretend he was, for the day, the great homework emancipator.

Post-Apocalyptic Reading List

I’m usually very strict about not reading anything “fun” while in school because the road to hell is paved with paperbacks I purchased in airport bookstores (no really). This semester, however, I took a film class and a poetry class with scary amounts of required writing but little enough required reading that I tricked myself into thinking I had “spare time.” So I actually read some books and can write a review on my first day out of the grad school grind! (Which sounds a mite dirty, no?)

The Hunger Games trilogy
By Suzanne Collins

Admittedly, this is the trilogy that broke the camel’s back. I couldn’t stand listening to Kacie and Jessica R. talk about it anymore so I broke my own rule about not having fun just so I wouldn’t feel left out. There, I said it.

This is a young adult trilogy, and because it’s three books, I should talk about all three separately. But because it’s YA, you can read all three in the time it takes to read one normal human book, so I’m not going to. That doesn’t make them any less amazing. I will say right out that I did not find the last book in the series as compelling as the first two, but again, that’s not a reason for you not to read them.

Here’s why you should read them: it’s the future and a war has occurred between the capitol (California-ish) and the rest of the country—now called “Panem.” Everyone in power looks and behaves like Lady Gaga (Why am I wearing a meat suit? BECAUSE I CAN.) and the rest of the country has been divided into districts according to their chief industry (fish, coal, glitter, etc.) [ok—I made the last one up.]. Each year, the capitol proves its supremacy by forcing the districts to send two children each into a massive Thunderdome-like arena where they fight to the death until only one remains:

“Two men enter, one man leaves”
x 12 districts
x The Triwizard Tournament
- Wands
+ Televised killing
_______________
The Hunger Games

The books are addictive for two reasons: Collins has created one of those alternate realities where you want to know all of the details. The rather gory, can’t-stop-looking, car crash premise where you want to know who dies next sucks you in, but the details keep you there. How do people live in this future? The second reason is Katniss, the protagonist, who is both a hot mess, and someone you admire. It’s good that she’s a hot mess, because A) she’s a teenager and B) who wouldn’t be under those circumstances? But she’s still pretty lovable. I admire Collins for giving Katniss flaws. I dare you not to root for her.

I would recommend this series to: Amber, Trina, Versha, and ugh, Tim. Okay?

1984
by George Orwell

I’m going to go ahead and pretend I’m the first person ever to have read this book and just say, holy crap! This book is insane! I mean, I guessed that it would be pretty good because it’s a “classic” but I mean… woah.

Ahem. Sorry. There are two things to say about 1984. First, I didn’t expect parts of it to be so beautiful and poetic. Sometimes it’s just so lyrical it could make you cry, for example:

All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.

...

—a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting—three hundred million people all with the same face.

Second, it is still frightening. Maybe it will always be frightening because you’ll always be able to apply it to whatever frightens you the most in the world. It’s eerie how good this book is and this is coming from someone who doesn’t like capitalism or communism.

I would recommend this book to: Tim and people who don’t like Glenn Beck.

Mama Day
By Gloria Naylor

Ok, technically, I read this for class, but I would be cheating you if I didn’t recommend it to you, depriving you of air and sunshine and food and water and chocolate. Mama Day is a book that does not mess around. It is full of folklore and lightening, history and passion. The story is told from three perspectives, and after 50 pages I was talking to Tim about the characters as though they were real people I had been living with. This is probably the book’s greatest strength: you don’t read it, you crawl inside it and live in it. You wallow around in it and don’t want to come out and you cry and cry. Does it even matter what it’s about? It’s MAGIC. Go read it.

I would recommend this book to: literally everyone on earth, but my mom, and grandmother specifically.

Shane
By Jack Schaefer

Again, I read this because I was writing a paper about the film for class—but it wasn’t specifically assigned so it doesn’t count. I was shocked to find that nearly everyone in my class hated the film (oh, Alan Ladd!), which people in my family always seem to be quoting. I was so pleasantly surprised to find that the book is un-put-down-able. It’s short, about 160 pages, and very beautifully written from the point of view of the little boy. It’s about moral ambiguity and the meaning of “progress”—who has the right to land and at whose expense? What does it mean to be a good person under harsh conditions? All of these questions still apply despite our posturing about how advanced we are “these days.” The nice thing about this critical edition is that includes short articles you might want to read even if you weren’t writing a paper—I only say that because I sat and read them all even though I didn’t use most of them; they were just interesting.

Jack Schaefer said later in life that he could never have written Shane again; he’d lost his innocence and didn’t feel that people were capable of whatever it is that Shane does—sacrifice, I suppose. And people think Westerns are one-dimensional!

I would recommend this book to: again, my mom and grandmother, and maybe Emily? Idk, people are touchy about Westerns but should read them. And this is a good place to start.

Here, have a poem.

Thank you.

when I die
            please
burn me up
            then
toss my ashes
over the hill
            I don’t need them
            & neither do you.
but, please
before you go
I would like to have
            candy-bright
balloons in every color
            drifting
up into the sky


©roxie smith 2011