Sigh...a kitchen goddess I am not

I love to think I can cook and bake. And really, most of the time, things do turn out just fine. But the moment I say I'll cook or bake something for someone else, something inevitably goes wrong.

Luckily, frosting hides all kinds of problems, like the fact I had to piece the brownie cake back together when it broke in pieces while I was changing it between pans so I could frost it. Let's hope it at least tastes good.

Sigh. I am a thwarted kitchen goddess. 

Update: never mind, frosting just highlights the issues once it settles. The cake looks like there are random caverns in the middle...Bother. Oh well...Happy birthday to my boss...

Where does time go?

I missed yesterday's blog post because I was out "late" at a Dickinson Young Professionals social event, Girls' Night Out. Last night's theme was recipes so I shared a favorite autumn recipe, Sausage and Apple Pie along with the recipes for Mom's Christmas cookies.

Tonight, I am taking a break from Kate Mosse's Labyrinth (only so much medieval France a girl can take in one day and I read it for three hours while waiting for my car to be finished at the dealership earlier) and I am diving into my ARC of Million Little Mistakes that just arrived today. Only my second win on Goodreads giveaways, and I do love a Choose Your Own Adventure book, so I have high hopes for this adult version of one. Will update you tomorrow!

Minor Crisis

I have a fish. It’s the only pet my apartment complex will let you have as far as I can tell. So, when my closest friend in the area came to visit me after I’d just moved to the middle of nowhere last winter, she insisted on buying me a betta fish. And Jumba has kept me company, and someone to talk to so I don’t feel like I’m going completely daffy. However, when I first got him, funds were low and so I bought the cheapest tank I could find at Wal-Mart. It lasted until yesterday.

Yesterday, in the middle of cleaning my apartment when I had things strewn everywhere and music blasting, I noticed a puddle of water surrounding Jumba’s tank. Not too much luckily so I got him out and looked at the problem. There was a small hole in the bottom of the tank for draining water. I thought the cover had simply come loose so I changed everything over, pounded the cover back in place and put Jumba back in his tank. I watched it all night and everything seemed right as rain so I assumed the crisis had passed.

I got up this morning, gave Jumba his breakfast, all was still well. About three hours later I looked over and there was water everywhere, much worse than the day before and Jumba was swimming in about half a tank, maybe less, of water. I may have slightly panicked. I know a fish isn’t much but he’s currently all I’ve got so I rushed to save my poor Betta. Once he was safely secured in a non-leaking home for the moment, I hoped Wal-Mart would be open on the holiday. I’m never sure around here when things will be open or closed especially on a holiday but luckily; the store was open and crowded. I made my way back to the aquarium corner and upgraded Jumba to a new home; it even has a LED light. But since his tank resides next to my lamp, that wasn’t really a new feature for him. The only thing that makes me slightly nervous is the lack of a top of the tank. Luckily, Jumba does not seem to be a fan of Amélie so all is well for the moment.

In the meantime, marvel at Jumba’s new home and I hope you all had a lovely holiday weekend!

Jumba's new home!

What do you do when a book betrays you?

I know I usually post later at night but I am planning a thorough cleaning of my apartment and will collapse into a heap on my couch with for a movie fest later today. Not too mention, I finished this book this morning and need to share.

Has this ever happened to you? You’re reading a book, everything is going along swimmingly, and you know where you stand, where the book belongs. You’re reading along and then the author drops a bomb and changes the game. You don’t know where you stand anymore. What you thought was a harmless fluffy quick read suddenly becomes serious, overwhelming, slightly tragic. You get up, you wander the apartment for a moment trying to convince your brain that it needs to refocus, that it can no longer flit off as you read and enjoy the laugh out loud moments because suddenly, inexplicably, real life has invaded what you thought was a nice, quiet, safe fictional world that would give you the expected, predictable happy ending.

This is what Jane Green’s Bookends did to me. A book that was so firmly set in the chick lit, romantic comedy genre that when it switched suddenly, it blind-sided me. I found Jane Green back high school with Jemima J. Her other books I had to grow into. Somehow, the problems of 30-somethings didn’t matter to my 17-year-old self but as I’ve gotten older, her books have become more relevant.

Bookends follows the lives of Catherine, Simon, Josh and Lucy, 30-something Londoners who are dealing with a rut. Cath and Lucy open a new bookstore café called Bookends, Simon meets the new love of his life and Josh has a big deal going down that starts to strain his and Lucy’s marriage. Enter into all of this Portia, the glamorous friend that Cath, Simon and Josh left behind at university. From the moment Portia walks into Bookends, things are never the same for the group again.

One of my favorite things about Jane Green is her characters are unabashedly British. They drink gallons of tea, munch on Hobnobs and run off to the tube to head to SoHo for a night on the town. In fact, in Bookends, there is even a joke involving Mr. Kipling’s. My heart may have died and gone to heaven. Her books are always like mini getaways to England for me. In Jemima J, when she moves the action to Los Angeles, I feel homesickness for London along with the main character. Luckily, I had no separation anxiety in this book. Instead, seriousness invaded. In Jemima J, the element of the serious is so ridiculous that you laugh with the characters and move on. In Bookends, the element of serious is too serious to laugh off. It changes the entire dynamic of the book.

That said, I enjoyed the book. Green’s characters are always likable because of their flaws and their misguided attempts to make things right they themselves caused to go wrong. It makes me want to keep reading to find out if the character realizes she is being an idiot and then how she goes about fixing it. What I like about Green is there is no magical makeover of the person’s character. There is growth and change but it’s not unbelievable as sometimes changes like that can be. These characters simply evolve slowly and react realistically to the situations they find themselves in. All while looking fabulous in a bookstore I want to frequent on a daily basis.

I didn’t love it though because I could never quite forgive it for changing course from what I expected. Though it didn’t ruin the book for me; in fact, it did add an interesting element to the story but I couldn’t quite pardon the book for throwing me for a loop.

Lots of loose ends

So, I am in the middle of watching the second season of Chuck and enjoying crushing on yet another geeky character. I also am in the middle of Jane Green's Bookends. So look for reviews and updates coming soon. Enjoy your holiday weekend!

You broke the ship! You broke the bloody ship!

As you’ve probably figured out by now, I was raised with a healthy dose of science fiction television and movies in my life. I loved my summer marathons of Star Wars with buckets of popcorn and only getting up to change the VHS tape to the next movie. Wow, I just dated myself there. That’s right; I’m old enough to remember VHS tapes. Call me ancient. I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation religiously with Dad and had the required crush on Wesley Crusher. Then it was Deep Space Nine and Voyager. I didn’t get as excited about Babylon 5 but I watched enough of it. I was especially excited once I was old enough to go to the theater with Dad, Uncle Mitch and Jeff, my own personal peanut gallery for movies. I used to joke that it was like going to movies with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew. The first one I remember seeing with them was Starship Troopers. Not really a movie a 6th grader should have been going to. All I remember is sitting between Dad and Uncle Mitch and the two of them continuously speaking over my head, "That wasn't in the book..." with furtive looks down at me. Luckily, I emerged fairly unscathed and also became the cool girl who'd seen the movie in class the next week.

So, I’ve also always enjoyed the parodies the genre has inspired. Spaceballs being the notable one I remember from when I was a kid. I was introduced to Mel Brooks probably too young too but I loved all his movies. Not that I got all the jokes in Spaceballs the first time I watched it. After all, Rick Moranis to me was the guy who shrunk his kids. I appreciate it a lot more now that I’m older. I remember the first time I got the gag of the dancing alien. It was like I was finally old enough to be initiated into the cool kids' club. But, Galaxy Quest is the film I remember being old enough when it came out to really enjoy during the first viewing. The movie is ridiculous and yet highly enjoyable. A group of TV actors from a space program are taken to an actual spaceship where aliens believe the TV shows they’ve been watching are “historical documents.” You know only hilarity will ensue.

It has some great one-liners (including the title of this post) that I will pull out from time to time as needed. They never fail to crack me up. For a while, this was a go-to movie for me in the summer. It just fits the breezy, no responsibilities-so-I-can-watch-nonsense moods I get in the summer months when it's too hot to stir from the sofa and a pitcher of iced tea. Naturally then, when I saw this film in the $5 bin as summer was fading away last week, I had to revive the tradition I had let fall away since high school.

Color me crazy but it's not just the fun the movie provides. Because, despite the nutty premise and the fact the film is clearly poking fun at the genre inspiring it, it also creates memorable characters on the adventure of their lifetime. It is entertaining, funny and action-packed with decent special effects and a "plausible" storyline. Kind of like what all those shows that inspired them did at their best. To my mind, that makes it even better than a parody.

We will also mention in closing that before he was Mac or the on-again, off-again boyfriend of Drew Barrymore, and long before I fell in love with him again in Dodgeball or Accepted, Justin Long stole my 8th grade heart as the geeky fan that saves the day in this film. At least I knew how to pick ‘em young ;-)

I got distracted

I had every intention of finally writing up a review of Galaxy Quest this evening but I got sidetracked making brownies and enjoying Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Since we have a long weekend coming up, I'll be sure to finally get around to that review since it's been sitting on my desk for a week now. In the meantime, I'm off to enjoy my brownies (blast you School of Essential Ingredients for sending me on this baking kick, now I have a pan of brownies to either eat myself or give away somehow). I'll check in with you kids tomorrow!