Currently stroking my new best friend…*

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! (that was a choir of angels, FYI)

Today, Guy and I went to Divertimenti, one of our fave kitchen stores, so that I could finally use my gift certificate that he bought me a year ago.  I had my heart set on a tube pan, so I could make angel food cake (because I had conveniently forgotten that I needed an electric mixer to whip the egg whites, or maybe I was just planning on buying a crappy hand mixer… yes I think that was the plan), and instead I found something called a Kugelhopf, which looked good enough and was surprisingly inexpensive.  That left me with some money on my card, so I also picked up a super awesome french press travel mug to help get me through the long nights of class without spending a bundle.

And I was all set, as far as I was concerned.  And then Guy dropped the bomb: despite our agreement that we would NOT buy each other gifts for V-day (ok, so I broke it first, but I got him a little thing!), he had made up his mind to get me my heart’s desire, a Kitchenaid Artisan Mixer, and since we happened to be there and his credit card was burning a hole in his wallet, he wanted to buy it RIGHT THEN AND THERE.  I seriously almost passed out.

Now, two things caused me to punch him in the arm when I regained my senses:

1. He’s always going over our pre-set budget for events and buying me expensive gifts, which makes me feel terrible when I buy him a book or even a nice pair of leather gloves that didn’t cost anywhere near what my beautiful earrings cost.  He knows it makes me uncomfortable (I’ve never been happy with people spending a lot of money on me, even my parents, although I let them get away with it), but he also knows how to buy things that I’ll love, which puts me in the awkward position of smiling while I punch him.  Also, he likes to buy me things IN MY PRESENCE, which leaves me in the awkward-as-ass position of loitering around the store while the assistant takes A YEAR to explain EVERY ATTACHMENT to Guy and I try to pretend that I’m unaware of the expensive transaction going down in my name AS WE LOITER.

2. I just posted a comment on Joy the Baker’s post on how to make bread at home, bemoaning my status as a poor student with no Kitchenaid mixer!  AND I got a lot of clicks on my link because of it.  AND a lovely woman from New Mexico replied, explaining how to adapt the recipe for hand-kneading!  Thanks, Guy, for helping me put my foot right into my mouth.

Those hesitations / reasons for violence aside, the mixer is perfect.  It’s beautiful, it’s powerful, and it fits on our counter (although it’s not currently displayed as prominently as I’d like).  So basically, as always, Guy did well.  Extremely well.  BUT BAD.  But yes, I love it.  And I’ve consoled myself with the extremely high resale value of used artisan mixers… And the fact that Guy really likes my baked goods.  And I’ve also consoled myself with cake.

You didn’t seriously think I hadn’t tried it yet?  Ok, truthiness: I was happy to leave the christening for another night, but Guy was having none of it.  So I busted out the ole Joy of Cooking (best present EVER, mom) and found a recipe that required an electric mixer: Sour Cream Cake.  And then I commenced to make everything that’s easy and tidy about the mixer completely useless.  But the point is: I got those egg whites beaten stiff!  And the cake, which I baked in the kugelhopf (I just call it my fancy bundt-y thing), is SO GOOD.  As in, so-delicious-I’ve-eaten-way-too-much-and-now-I-have-a-stomacheache-good.

Serious deliciousness. Sooooo moist.

Before we flipped it over, right out of the oven, with the crusty top.

That's one happy customer!

And who knows, maybe now I’ll actually get my shit together and make up that flyer offering my baking services in the building!  After all, I don’t really have an excuse anymore, do I?

Bask in the glow! BASK, I SAY!

Ok clearly I’ve lost it just a little.  I have had a lot of sugar and excitement today… Maybe it’s time for bed.

PS You can read about my first, not-as-easy-as-it-looks experience with my new baby (I’m taking name suggestions.  Eliza?  I’ve always liked that name…) by reading my most recent baking post, “Be careful what you wish for, or: how I managed to make a dish-/time-saving instrument take forever and use a million dishes.” But FYI, a lot of the early content is the same as what’s here.  Sorry, I plagiarized myself.  It’s been a long week, ok?  I didn’t want good material to go to waste!  But there are more photos over there at least.  And one delish recipe.

*Re the title, you have one of two options for my response to your initial reaction:

1. No, I didn’t get a puppy, I WISH.

2. Don’t be gross.

New Years Resolutions, a little bit late.

Given that the first month of 2010 is coming to a close, I thought it was about time to announce my New Years Resolutions, because it’s a proven fact that nothing motivates me like other people’s scrutiny, and these goals are pretty important to me.  Normally I feel like setting a NYR is just asking for failure, kind of like naming your daughter Chastity or Honor.  But in this case, I’d already been thinking about changes I want to make in my life when the year up and ended, and I figured this was a good way to be able to announce my plans without seeming like I just sit around and think about my life and its failures all day long… Anyway, here they are:

1. Write something every day.  When I first set myself this NYR, the sub-rule was that blog posts, journal entries, and school assignments didn’t count.  And during the first week of the new year, I wrote on 5 out of the 7 days.  Some halfway decent stuff, too.  But as the weeks wore on, I found myself cutting corners and spewing out nonsense just to get in under the dealine.  So now I’ve decided that blog posts count (which should also help me acheive my goal of being a more dedicated blogger and building up my platform), as do school assignments.  Journal entries not so much, but I so rarely write in my journal anyway.

Over on my baking blog, I’ve already set this resolution in motion.  After a brief moment of envy about all the better bloggers out there, I have resolved to better myself instead of wishing others would just hunch down and make me look taller already!  Ok, maybe I haven’t abandoned that wish, but in the absence of help from all the moral/financial/literary giraffes out there, I have taken on a more positive attitude about working with what I’ve got instead of lamenting what I lack.

Which brings me to NYR the second: Try to see the good in things.  Now, before you start sighing and thinking finally! (Mom), I’m not saying I’m going to stop seeing the negatives in life, or writing about them.  The unfortunate truth is that I’m much more articulate when I’m depressed/pissed off/frustrated than I am when I’m happy.  Those few of you who have read my poetry are aware of this fact.  And I refuse to sacrifice my writing voice, acerbic as it is, for a little happiness.  BLASPHEMY. Nor do I plan on rolling over and wishing my neighbors well when they do insensitive, heads-up-their-own-asses things like partying loudly with the door open until 6 am.  Sorry.  Can’t ignore that stuff.  Have to air grievances or I’ll explode.

That said, I do think that I waste too much time focusing on things that make me angry or upset in an inarticulate way.  And that’s just dumb.  Or things that chronically piss me off, like the hoards of self-involved twats that teem through the more populated area of this infernal city–  I mean, that is, the people I waste my time hating.  Deep breath. I don’t want to waste my energy on them anymore.

Instead, I want to focus on the good things.  The reasons people visit London.  I want to go to the Natural History Museum and walk along the Thames (when the weather notches itself up thirty degrees or so).  And it’s not just London I want to see in a better light (sun?  a little help?), it’s me too.  I’m so tired of learning new things about writing and publishing, only to twist them inwards as little barbs shaped like tourist signs that say you-can’t-do-it in wrought iron.  Seriously, every time I learn something new I become more convinced I won’t succeed.  And that’s dumb too.  Because I still want to succeed, the same way I still want a cat even though every time I come within 3 feet of one I swell up like Violet Beauregard.

So the new plan is to get cracking on writing more, and try to be more positive, so that maybe someday I can be published, and maybe even make enough money to afford a hypoallergenic cat, and then all will be as I’d hoped it would be, and I’ll have to find something else to make me feel defeated in life, and that’s a search I can get on board with.

PS I’d give you an update on being back in London, but I’d be breaking my second NYR, so instead I give you a photo of simpler times, when I didn’t have to look on the brightside because all sides were bright.  And scattered with wildebeast:

Tanzania, Christmas 2004

PPS How awesome is our president?  I was ‘hell yes’-ing through the whole State of the Union.

British people are sooooo polite.

To the point where, if one of them breaks the silence over a quiet neighborhood in N1 with loud dance music and repeated utterances of “like, you know? no no no, like, you know?!” by some vapid cokehead (because how else can you be so peppy at 5:30 in the morning?), everyone else is too reserved to CALL THE COPS.

If I knew the system better here I’d have called them myself, given that it’s 6am and this bullsh*t is still going on. But I was hoping one of my elder-and-wisers would do it; I’m afraid of disturbing the police, and besides how would they get into the apartment, buzz a neighbor at 6:30am and ask him to let them in? No, there’s nothing to be done, I guess, except get out of bed and write a cranky blog post about how this kind of situation is perfectly indicative of what I always say when Americans talk about how polite the English are: they’re polite, unless they’re not, in which case they’re totally unhinged (usually drunk). There’s no in-between.

For now, I’ll just thank Tylenol PM for getting me through most of it, and go back to bed with a pillow over my face. If I accidentally smother myself in trying to sleep, I want my eulogy to be performed by Otto, from A Fish Called Wanda (if you haven’t seen that movie, you MUST), because he gets it.

Who knew baby porcupines were so cute?

More bad cell phone pics:

She doesn't like being picked up, but how can we resist?

So little and cute!

Bearface close-up.

Like any girl, she loves purses...

But she prefers shoes!

CONQUERED!

Adorable, no?

In other news, I’m pretty focused right now on spending time with family, friends, and tivo (Big Love!), so blogging is kind of taking a backseat.  Sorry about that, but it’s unlikely to change much for the rest of the month; when I do get ahold of the determination to write something cohesive, I funnel it all into the work I need to do for class.  Or my one New Years Resolution, which is to write something every day, and which I’ve failed to fulfill three times already.  GAH.  What I have written, though, has been sufficiently interesting to keep me committed, and besides, I see this not as a diet, but as a lifestyle change– one bump in the road, or three, doesn’t mean I’ve failed.  Yet.

Anyway, enough rambling.  If I write anything particularly interesting I’ll post it here, and until then I’ll just keep falling back on piccies of cute animals to keep you entertained.

Happy Holidays!

Just a few poor-quality cell piccies from Christmas dinner.

The gingerbread is my job. The boys whip the cream.

And ham it up.

And make sure you got their good sides.

And call in reinforcements.

And eventually get bored and decide that "it tastes bad," just like everything else these days. Sigh.

In all, it was a low-key, enjoyable Christmas with the fam.  I hope yours was equally satisfying!