cricket has progeria

candace grace and compassion

H.C. Porter takes black and white photos, silkscreens the images onto canvas, then paints the canvas with acrylic. This is why I want more money - to buy this painting and also so I can maybe afford to shop at Whole Foods.

this rules

A couple of weeks ago, I got a catalog in the mail from DHC. The catalog came with four tiny free samples, including one for deep cleansing oil. The instructions on the sample tell me that I should slather this oil on my face and then rinse with water. The instructions promise that all of my makeup will come off with the oily water. This sounded highly implausible to me, but since I have never experienced the sensation of smearing oil all over my face, I go for it. Totally works. Eye makeup, foundation, everything comes off. What will they think of next? If any of you decide to visit the DHC site, maybe you will be able to explain to me why they also sell rice and soy sauce. Their brown rice is germinated, just like Megan's Ezekiel bread.

fun with self diagnosis

• Inability to discard items
• Acquiring unneeded or seemingly useless items
• Keeping stacks of newspapers, magazines or junk mail
• Cluttered living spaces
• Impairment of daily activities
• Procrastination
• Trouble making decisions
• Perfectionism
• Difficulty organizing items
• Forming attachments to possessions rather than people
• Restricting others from touching or borrowing possessions

Uh oh. According to the mayo clinic, I exhibit many of the classic signs and symptoms of hoarding. The clinic's website says that hoarders "often spend lots of time moving items in their home from one pile to another without actually discarding anything" or as I call it, "spring cleaning." So this weekend I am setting a completley unrealistic goal for myself: only have one of each thing. I don't mean clothes -- everyone knows that when you find a pair of jeans that fit you're required by law to purchase three pairs -- I mean crap like pots and pans and umbrellas and vacuums (yes, I have two vacuums; and yes, if you have ever seen my carpet you know how ironic that is. Oh wait, I have no carpet; even more ironic). Do you think that if I get rid of all my stuff I will no longer procrastinate or have trouble making decisions? God I hope so, because I've got lots of important decisions to make, like what to eat for dinner and whether I should bring a sweater to work because it sometimes gets drafty in the office.

Su Blackwell

Su Blackwell creates art from books.

the omnivore's real dilemma

So, in an effort to see whether I could actually "eat local," I went to a farmers' market last week in search of pastured meat. At the farmers' market, there are two local farmers who produce pastured beef, chicken, pork and eggs. Game on. This is going to be so easy -- all I have to do in order to eat local is go to the market instead of the grocery store. I want to test out Michael Pollan's claims that free range chickens are "more chickeny" than commercial chickens, so I go for a 3.5lb bird.

Anyway, being local apparently does not make my farmer's chicken immune to bacteria, so the chicken is frozen solid and takes three days to thaw. No biggie, this just gives me more time to plan a menu. After three days, I get my first good look at the bird. Hmm. What's that weird hot-dog-looking thing where the neck hole should be? Oh god. It's the neck. I've never seen a chicken with its neck attached before. Crap. It slowly dawns on me that "no neck hole" probably means that there is still stuff inside the bird -- slimy, smelly, slippery stuff. Gross. How badly do I want to do this experiment? Very badly. Luckily I'm Chinese, which means that there has to be a meat cleaver around here somewhere. Ah, here it is -- right next to the 25lb bag of rice. So. No excuses then.

If you're like me (and why would you be? because in retrospect this seems like such an odd thought for someone who's never actually seen a chicken neck before) you think to yourself, "This is probably pretty self-explanatory." If by contrast you're like Blaine (and thank god Blaine is like Blaine) you say out loud, "Hey! Why don't we hop on the internet and google "chicken butchering" so we don't accidentally eat a mouthful of chicken poop?" Good idea! Naturally, we find a great blog on how to butcher a chicken, which was creatively titled "how to butcher a chicken." This site takes you from whole chicken to cut up wings, breasts and thighs in 10 easy steps. If you visit this site for fun, I would not blame you for skipping the part about removing the head (Step 3) or the bit about pulling the heart out and scraping the lungs off (Step 8).

We jump right in with Step 5: Remove the Neck. As I'm making my cuts to the bird's neck and twisting and pulling as instructed, I flip the bird over and a big flap of skin flops to the side revealing. . . THE HOLE!!! Thank god! The (empty!) cavity was just covered by a ginormous flap of skin that froze to the bird's legs, making it look un-butchered. It does cross my mind how karmically unfair it is for someone who knows so little about chicken to ask a chicken to give its life for her dinner, but what the hell -- I'm just so freaking glad I'm not going to be scraping any lungs tonight!

Dinner was a success; very chickeny indeed, but this week we're going for the pastured ground beef.

nobody puts baby in a corner

This morning:

• Blaine: I don't like that one guy at doggie day care.
• Me: Why?
• Blaine: I see him on the webcam and he hands Cricket.
• Me: (getting panicky) What do you mean? He's handsy with her? Does he manhandle her?
• Blaine: (gesturing) No, he gives her the hand. He tells her to talk to the hand.
• Me: Well, then let's pull her from daycare. Nobody puts baby in a corner!

dog haiku

How do I love thee?

The ways are numberless as

Your hairs on the couch

the old man in the club

This is the drake in Houston. I have never been to the drake. In fact, I have not been to any club club since roughly the mid-1990's, when everyone would rush the dance floor when the DJ played "This is how we do it." The fact that I have never been to the drake, and until recently would probably never have even contemplated going to the drake, does not stop me from reading the reviews of the drake posted on sites like Citysearch. I love reading reviews for clubs. It's like watching Flavor of Love 2 but more painful since the reviewers' dubious literacy is on full display.

To me, the most fascinating part of the reviews is that there is a raging debate going on about this club's door policy. Can you believe there are actual clubs with actual doormen who actually dictate which lucky souls get in and which ones don't make the cut -- in HOUSTON of all places? At any rate, the main question on the review boards seems to be: "Is this club racist?" The reviewers' answers tend to fall into one of four general categories:

1. "No, this club is not racist; I know this because I got in."
2. "Yes, this club is racist; I know this because I did not get in."
3. "Yes, this club is racist, but that is a good thing because it keeps people like you out." and
4. "No, this club is not racist; you didn't get in because you're tacky and they only let 'classy' people like me in." I LOVE it when people describe themselves as "classy."

So why is this all important? It isn't. But Blaine and I were invited to a going-away party at the drake next Saturday and I am psyched to be the old lady in the club. IF we get in. . .

please read this book

For the longest time, I resisted buying and reading this book by Michael Pollan. For some reason, I was under the impression that the book wanted me to stop eating meat or that it was authored by some granolier-than-thou Morgan Spurlock-type a-hole. I was so wrong. If anything, this book just wants me to be a little more conscious of whence my food comes. I guess I can take on that responsiblity; especially if I plan to continue eating animals, which I do. The real reason for this post is that I want people who know me to read the book so I can have someone to talk about it with -- someone who won't think I've gone all "I grow and puree my own organic baby food" on them (thank you, Megan).

maybe this blog is really about shoes?

I love these shoes. They are sooo cute -- not at all tweeny-bopperish as the photo might suggest; in fact, they more resemble the granny-with-her-slip-hanging-out look -- and they go great with jeans. I didn't buy them, though, because my left foot and my right foot were in complete disagreement over whether the shoes fit or not. The right foot was satisfied, but the left foot -- which is an entire half-size larger than the right -- protested. At this point, the sales lady offered to stretch the left shoe for me. I vaguely remember reading about these services, but I decline.

Don't you think shoes should be sold a la carte, the way two-piece swimsuits are sold? One 6.5R and one 7.0L, please. Think about it!

five-seven-five

For my birthday last year, my mother gave me (among other very nice things) a pair of pink camouflage Croc sandals. If you knew anything about me, you would know that this is wrong on so many levels. I kept them though, maybe because in the back of my mind I imagined that she'd drop by one day and want to see them, but also because who the hell would take a pair of pink camouflage Crocs off of my hands? The answer: my friend Nikki. I'm pretty sure she took them because I offered them with a straight face and she was too polite to call my bluff. She promised to find them a good home. Then I got this Haiku from her:

Camouflage my feet

Insulate me from the cold

They rock, these pink Crocs