Bargain book of the week

Spotted three copies of this gem on the shelf in the bargain books section at work this morning. It covers everything from macrame to sand candles, leather ponytail holders to tie dye. It's worth the $4.99 price for the "hippie lingo" glossary alone:

RIGHT ON: Used as an exclamation of agreement. Example: "You're moving to 'Frisco? Right on!"

UPTIGHT. Not open to new ideas.

I gotta tell you, the "Light My Fire Ice Candle" brings back memories.

Unhappy lesson of the week

I don't got a right to sing the blues.

Ella does, though.

Down, but looking up

I've been feeling pretty down the last couple of days, due mostly, I'm sure, to lack of sleep. My insomnia and my occasional low moods seem to coincide and feed off each other; trying to function on about nine hours of sleep since Saturday morning makes me feel achy and sad. About the only thing keeping me upright this evening is Sean's cheerful disposition -- even when he has slept poorly (as he did last night, too), he remains upbeat and energetic and funny. Sitting and eating dinner with him while listening to Curtis on the radio earlier tonight gave me a real boost. What I really need, however, is a good night's sleep... times six to twelve months.

To cheer myself up I started thinking earlier today about the 2007 Cavalcade of Filmic Horrors. It's the annual slate of movies I dream up every year to watch between August and the end of October to get me in the mood for Halloween; my friend Norman, an even bigger fan of horror films than I, has been my viewing companion for the last couple of years. I really ought to start watching stuff this week, seeing as August hits in a couple of days, but I'm woefully behind in my planning. I like a nice mix of old and new; DVD and theatrical releases; dead serious, scary fare and the odd campy flick. So far this is all I've come up with:

1408
The Howling
The Vampire Lovers (it was on last year's schedule but we never got to it)
The Invasion

I'm sure Norman will soon chime in with some good choices, but for now I'm feeling stumped. Any scary movie suggestions for this year's CoFH?

Salty goodness, or, a special post devoted to all things bacon

Everything should taste like bacon

The legend of the bacon bookmark

Crocheted bacon wrap

Bacon grease cookies

Bacon air freshener

Bacon bandages

Bacon candy bar

Bacon 'n' eggs pajamas

Save your bacon grease

Blue devils

Bacon tempura

The Bacon Show

Push button. Receive bacon.

Bacon mints (scroll down to see the bacon-flavored toothpicks)

Bacon art

Mothra

When I got home from work yesterday, I finally did something I've been putting off for weeks: I cleaned out our kitchen pantry in hopes of curtailing Moth Invasion 2007.

Pantry moths are both icky and annoying. They're icky because they and their larvae end up in both open and sealed food packages. (How they manage to worm their way into an unopened canister of oatmeal is beyond me, but I've seen first-hand that they can do it.) There's little that's more disgusting than scooping up a cup of white rice to toss in the rice cooker and realizing that some of the grains are moving, that they're actually moth larvae. Blecchhh! And they're annoying because they fly everywhere and land on everything, and when you smash them they leave a greasy, dusty smear that can be tough to wipe off. (By the way, in case you are unfamiliar with these creatures, that photo is greatly enlarged; they're only about a centimeter long.)

I'd never encountered pantry moths until a few years ago, shortly after Sean and I bought our house. We probably bought something that was infested with the things, and the little buggers spread to other opened items in our pantry. I've cleaned out the pantry a couple of times in the past few years to rid ourselves of the things, but they always return and this summer the moth population seems to have exploded. They love grain products: things like flour, cornmeal, cereal, crackers, and rice are where we always find them. They flit all over the house, but the kitchen pantry is definitely their headquarters (hence the name "pantry moth," I suppose), so I knew where my first line of attack should be.

It took about two hours to take everything out of the pantry, sort through what could be kept and what should be tossed, then scrub the inside of the cupboard clean. Moths were not the pantry's only denizens -- I also found a bevy of daddy long legs and two black widows. The spiders, especially the daddy long legs, looked plump and well-fed; I guess they'd been feasting on the moths, though not fast enough, in my opinion. Anyway, anything insectoid or arachnoid had to go, so there were many little deaths at my house last night. Before we put anything back in the pantry, Sean and I went to Target and bought a bunch of airtight containers to store open food in. We're also thinking about buying some food-safe moth traps. We'll see if those measures ultimately defeat the little monsters.

The big problem is, now the pantry is so nice and clean that I feel the entire kitchen needs a thorough scrubbing. And once I'm done with the kitchen, I'm sure I'll want to move on to the rest of the house. I regard this as a problem because I loathe housework, yet every now and then I take a good look at my surroundings and realize I'm living in near-squalor. I always use my dust allergy as an excuse not to clean on a regular basis, but the sad truth is that I have a pretty high tolerance for filth and just can't be bothered most of the time. Now, though, I feel the dreaded periodic urge to purge stealing over me and fear that I will shortly be spending a great deal of my free time tidying my house and perhaps even -- gasp! -- the yard as well.

Why can't I develop normal fixations like everyone else?

Harry Potter afterglow

Well, most people wouldn't regard the past few days of my life as anything exciting. It's not like my toenails have fallen off or I've been swept up in a New York panic attack, but I've enjoyed my little self-indulgence. I have been living the season premiere of Harry Potter: Sweeps Month Stunt! since Friday, and my raison d'etre for the entire past weekend was to get through HP7 without encountering any spoilers that would ruin my reading experience. Fortunately, my life is filled with people who either a) feel the same way, or b) have zero interest in Harry Potter, so by turning off the computer, radio, and TV, and rarely venturing from the safety of my armchair, I made it through the novel without anything being given away. Overall, I enjoyed the book quite a bit, though it probably ranks third for me in the series (after book 6 and tied-for-second books 3 and 5).

I'm aware that some of my reading audience may not have yet finished HP7, so you'll find no spoilers here. I will say that, in general, it was a satisfying read. J.K. Rowling could have ended the novel any of several ways; I approve of the choices she made in wrapping things up. She has said that she doesn't like the idea of another writer producing any further adventures of Harry Potter off in the distant future, and her conclusion of the series kind of sets any presumptuous hacks up to look cheesy if they try to do so.

Curtis and Norman kindly picked up my copy of the book at midnight on Friday. I tried and tried to stay awake, but I finally had to turn in. The last thing I heard before I conked out was the sound of Curtis' motorcycle taking off for the bookstore. I had arranged for the two of them to bypass the long line of customers -- about 600 strong -- and instead pick up Norman's and my books and Curtis' CDs in the VIP line, which was tucked away upstairs and only had about a dozen people in it.

Norman clutches the vouchers that he will shortly exchange for an all-encompassing weekend of magic and mayhem.

Oh, fer cryin' out loud!

Lucy called me this afternoon, laughing, to ask if I'd heard about Scholastic's screw-up. Since I have been enjoying a media-free weekend (and after this post will continue to do so, at least until I've finished HP7), I told her I didn't know what she was talking about.

She said Scholastic mailed HP7 directly to all of Amazon's customers, and at least some of those books arrived today, more than 12 hours before the official on-sale date. We know that because our friend, KB, is one of those people who got her book today. KB got a call from Amazon shortly after her package arrived; the discount behemoth asked her not to open the book until midnight, and in exchange they would offer her a $50 gift certificate (and presumably their undying gratitude). If I had been KB, I would have said, "No problem," accepted the gift certificate with thanks, and then gone back to my reading as soon as I hung up.

Scholastic filed a lawsuit against a wholesaler that shipped 1200 copies of HP7 to customers earlier this week. Then they go and screw up their own contractual requirements by mailing hundreds of thousands of copies early. I think everyone who didn't order a copy from Amazon should file a class action lawsuit against Scholastic on the grounds that we were deprived of hours of pleasure enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of other people.

And oh my god: what a TERRIBLE job! How would you like the thankless task of calling people and telling them not to read Harry Potter before midnight? It is to laugh... and shudder.

True-to-life

I just realized I have never posted a picture of myself on this blog, and my faithful readers must be dying to see what I look like. Well, here ya go:

Looks just like me, only skinnier.

Smiley face

While we were waiting in line to check out at the supermarket yesterday, I heard Sean mutter, "No wonder that kid looks so happy."

Unexpected

Yesterday morning, as I was walking from the living room to the kitchen, I paused in the doorway to the dining room because something was off. The dining room was dim, as it always is, but something caught my attention -- a slight movement, perhaps. I stood there, perfectly still, for a couple of seconds before I understood what I was seeing.

"There's a bird in here!" I called to Sean. As I watched it, this medium-sized brown bird with a rosy breast hopped from the dining room table to the back of one of the chairs. Sean walked up beside me and the bird flew into our bedroom, and Sean followed it. For some reason, I stayed rooted to the spot, my heart pounding. Sean followed the bird around the bedroom for a few seconds; then it made its way into the bathroom and out the open window that no doubt had provided its entrance into our house.

It took a few minutes for my heart to stop racing. I don't know why I reacted this way. I wasn't afraid; if anything, all I felt was mild annoyance at the potential hassle of trying to shoo the bird outside. Sometimes, however, I react slowly and unexpectedly to things that catch me off-guard.

Public nudity is something that always surprises me unpleasantly. I don't mean nudity at a nude beach variety; that might make me feel uncomfortable, but at least the lack of clothes is in context with the surroundings. I mean looking out a college library window one sunny Sunday morning and realizing, after staring blankly for half a minute, that the young woman sunbathing a floor below me in the courtyard was topless. I mean walking across a quad, dodging hackysack games and Frisbees, and almost being bowled over by a naked young guy tossing a boomerang; when he apologized for running into me, my reponse was something like, "Unhhhh..." as I stood there uncomprehendingly. It wasn't just that I was embarrassed (although in the latter case I was). In both instances, my brain wouldn't process what I was looking at so I could glance and think, "Naked guy in the quad. Huh," and get back to whatever I was doing.

Other times I become incredibly thick when on the receiving end of unexpected news. Sean called me at work one day to tell me that a favorite singer of mine, Kirsty MacColl, had died in a boating accident. I'd been a fan of hers for years and had all her albums, but my brain refused to grasp what Sean was saying. "Why is he telling me this?" I thought. "Who is this person?" It probably took a full minute before my brain caught up with my ears, and then I felt terrible.

I'm trying to decide if this is just lameness or a particularly unhelpful survival mechanism.

Harry Potter, plum jam, and a few movies

Things are pretty quiet around here these days, which is why I have maintained radio silence for the past week or so. All my time seems to be taken up with either Harry Potter -- both at home and at work -- or making plum jam. In both cases, there is an end in sight, but there's a shitload of stuff to wade through before I get there.

Last week I caught two classics on the big screen: Bridge on the River Kwai at the Egyptian and Forbidden Planet at the Alex. I mentioned to Lucy that I was going to see Bridge that evening, and she said, "Great, now I've got that goddamn whistling stuck in my head." Hee hee -- I couldn't remember the melody, so I was spared the misery of an endless music loop in my brain. If you've never seen it, Bridge on the River Kwai is a great film, with enough plot and well-developed characters for two or three movies made to today's standards. Actually, character-wise, it far surpasses any big action film you'd see these days. Alec Guinness is superb as the stiff upper lip British officer who insists on playing by the rules set forth by the Geneva Convention; he's very funny, too, in a low-key way. William Holden is pretty darn great, too, as the American seaman who becomes a hero despite his best efforts to avoid doing anything that might be construed as valiant. The Egyptian is my favorite of L.A.'s old theatres, and it's the perfect place to see a David Lean epic.

As we all know, Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet. So do Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon and Robby the Robot. Just so you know, this poster is a terrible lie: Robby the Robot only carries one person around in his arms, and it ain't Anne Francis. It's the guy playing the doctor, and the scene hasn't nearly the titillating robot-on-woman action suggested by the artwork. Overall, this movie is surprisingly delightful; not only was it shot in CinemaScope, but it also clearly had a big budget for special effects and a uniformly talented cast. I say it's surprising because it could far more easily have been shot as a cheapie B picture, and it pleases me that some powers that be chose to elevate it and make it into really good, A picture fare. (The fact that it's based on Shakespeare's The Tempest may have had something to do with it, now that I think about it.) Just don't believe the poster. The Alex is a wonderful refurbished theatre in Glendale whose only drawback is that their film society shows far too few films every year. Next year, though, they're planning to screen Lawrence of Arabia, so I'll finally get to see that on the big screen. The Alex is also a nice place to see a David Lean epic.

Also last week, Sean, Curtis, Norman and I took my 7-year-old niece Cameron to see Ratatouille at the Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena. If you've seen The Player or Scream II, you've seen the Rialto. Inside, it's dark and cavernous, with a creaky old balcony and uncomfortable seats that are probably stuffed with horsehair or something equally decrepit. Cameron had a hard time understanding why anyone would want to see a movie in a theatre so old; its charms were completely lost on her, particularly when I scared her by telling her the theatrical mask with glowing green eyes that hangs over the movie screen was a demon. C'mon, can't she take a little joke? Ratatouille was fine, although definitely not as wonderful as some of director Brad Bird's other films (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant).

All this movie talk, and no mention of Harry Potter or plum jam. Well, let me mention them. Right now I'm feverishly trying to finish rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix before I see the movie tomorrow, and with nearly 300 pages left to go, I'm thinking that ain't gonna happen. It's astonishing how much of the book I've forgotten, so it's practically like reading it for the first time. Plus I want to reread The Half-Blood Prince before HP7 is unleashed on the world a week from Saturday. Ten more days, people! Since I am employed by a bookstore, work has become all Harry, all the time and will remain so for the next couple of weeks. It's all about hanging signs everywhere and planning our big midnight celebration and moving merchandise to more prominent locations so nobody can overlook the fact that we're selling Gryffindor scarves and chocolate frogs and a startling array of magic wands. *Yawn* I love Harry, but all the hoopla is wearing me down. I'll be glad to settle into the big armchair with my book and some tasty snacks the weekend of the 21st, to emerge blinking in the glaring SoCal sunlight only when I've turned the last page.

Jam: I've made lots of it. It's hard to say how much, exactly, since I keep making it, then giving some away, then making more, but I'd guess I've put up around 45 jars or so. I gave Lucy a couple of jars on Sunday, and today I emailed her, asking if she and her folks had tried it yet. She wrote back, "Have we tried the jam?! Are you kidding? My dad has already mowed through one jar. He seems to think mom and I are helping but it's all him. It's my new favorite jam but I've been avoiding because I'm doing the whole core thing. HOWEVER, I think I've got a few points to splurge on some toast and jam tonight and some popcorn tomorrow. Mom is trying to be good as well so that empty jar is almost entirely Dad's doing. Last night I wandered in to the kitchen to pack up lunch for work, Dad was standing at the butcher block spreading your jam on a plain untoasted slice of bread and about swallowed it whole. Once he could speak again he asked 'When's Shandon teaching you how to make this?' I told him 'soon' but that it might be a dangerous hobby. He seemed willing to take that chance." I couldn't have asked for a better compliment! For the moment, though, I'm sick of making jam. Everything in the kitchen seems slightly sticky, and outside, the plums that have fallen from the tree are starting to rot. There's a faint, sickly sweet miasma of dying plums permeating the backyard, and I'm thinking the rest of the fruit needs to be preserved (either as jam or prunes) or gotten rid of by this weekend. Next kitchen project: making cheese!

Double-take

I heard this morning that author Salman Rushdie and his wife are divorcing. My question is, how did these two ever hook up in the first place? I've never read Rushdie or heard him converse, so I'll have to assume that he has assets that aren't apparent at first glance.


These two put me in mind of Rep. Dennis Kucinich and his fair spouse. At least Kucinich is cute in an elfin sort of way, as well as being a well-spoken and interesting man. And by all accounts he and his wife are still happily married. But still...!

TV or not TV...

When Sean and I bought a house in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains nearly eight years ago, we knew when we moved in that we'd need cable television if we wanted any kind of decent TV reception. (Plus I had developed a dependency on Law & Order reruns and HGTV that I wasn't giving up without a fight to the death.) We had no choice but to go with the company that held the cable monopoly in our neighborhood, a giant but far from great corporation we didn't exactly love: their lineup was not stellar, the onscreen schedule frequently was on the fritz and had to be rebooted, and they were expensive. Still, gotta have cable, so we signed up.

A couple of years later a small new company somehow got their foot in the local cable door and offered us high-speed internet access and digital cable for only a little more than we were paying the behemoth. We happily switched over, although it meant relearning all the station numbers and dealing with the creepy new cable box that was so large we had to set it up on edge to make it fit in our wall unit. (Why was it so much bigger than the old cable box? we wondered. We joked that Homeland Security had installed a camera and voice recorder in the box, and we used to address the box directly and say hi to John Ashcroft.) All was well, and we liked supporting a small, new, independent company. Then, a couple of years ago, a different, somewhat larger company bought the little company, which made us sad in theory -- that the little guy couldn't or wouldn't try to make it in the cutthroat world of home cable installation -- but in practical terms didn't affect us at all; I think maybe we lost free HGTV-on-Demand, but eh, what are you gonna do.

Now we've found out that the crappy behemoth company has bought our medium-sized company and once again holds the monopoly in our neck of the woods. Dammit! They're going to cost quite a bit more than we have been paying, and the station lineup is going to change, and I'm going to have to relearn all those station numbers again. For about a millisecond I thought of canceling cable completely and setting up rabbit ears on the roof, but my life would be so much sadder without Turner Classics and the Food Network. (Not to mention those omnipresent L&O reruns.) The one plus the behemoth has is that it is now offering digital video recording, which appeals to me as I am too cheap to pay for TiVo and too lame to consistently get our DVD recorder to work properly.

Well, nothing is going to change in our cable world during the next week, because this week is the Fourth of July and we all know what that means: marathons! TNT is all Law & Order all the time -- although tell me how that's different from any other day of the week. Oh! is featuring a mini-marathon of Snapped. Turner Classics has an odd combo of Neil Simon comedies followed by films set during the Revolutionary War (including the lame Mel Gibson "epic" The Patriot -- blecchhh, when did that become a classic?). Bravo's got Project Runway all day, and the Discovery Channel is featuring Mythbusters. Biography is airing a spate of City Confidentials. And over on the SciFi Channel we've got my beloved Twilight Zone marathon: two days of shows, and OF COURSE they manage to schedule the best episode ever, "Living Doll," during my work shift on Tuesday.

All I need is a pitcher of Cape Cods and a remote, and I'm set. God bless America.