By my fingernails

I called my dad from the car today—both because my ridiculous new car makes it easy and because who has time for an actual phone call with words unless it’s en route to someplace?—and he told me that he is really enjoying the Nerd Night posts, and thinking about which desserts he would like me to make for him. “Oh yeah?” I said. “Which one piqued your interest?”

“I think maybe that fruit-covered cheesecake,” he said. “Only, when you make it for me, could you maybe not drop it on the floor?” Yea, verily, I was offended. I explained with multiple huffs that I DID NOT DROP IT ON THE FLOOR, I merely whacked it into the toaster oven AND THEN CAUGHT IT. Sheesh.

But we laughed, anyway, because what is more ME than baking a beautiful cheesecake and mangling it at the last minute? Probably nothing. It’s a pretty good life metaphor right now, and everything seems to be racing past me at breakneck speed, and here I am in the middle of it, peeling back tinfoil. Or something. I’ve been thinking about how I deal with everyone around me being so busy, and my solution is to slow down, for better or for worse. (That link will take you to read more on Alpha Mom, if you’re so inclined.)

I hung up with Dad and went where I was going and did what I needed to do and then headed home in some very ugly weather. Internally I was mumbling and grumbling about how gross it is outside, but then it occurred to me that maybe I’d see a rainbow. And you know what? I did. I pulled over and took a picture of it, even. Sometimes slowing down has its perks.

rainbow022416sm

Nerd Night: Snickerdoodle Bars

It was a long week, last week, and even kind of a long weekend, as Monkey ended up at an Academic Team competition that we knew would be “all day” but hadn’t entirely grokked would be an 8:30 – 6:30 kind of all day. (That is a long day even if you enjoy extended nerdery. I mean.)

Honestly I doubt either child would’ve bothered getting dressed at all on Sunday if not for the siren call of Nerd Night, complete with zombie-fighting hijinks and—of course—sugar.

For my part, I wasn’t up for anything complicated. I wanted something I could bake in very short order on Sunday morning so that I could go about my day and get some other things done (say, all the things I didn’t get done during the week while I was dealing with fun little distractions like having food poisoning). So: it had to be simple, it had to be fast, and it had to be GOOD.

It had to be… a snickerdoodle bar cookie.

snickerdoodle-bar-plate
(If you don’t like snickerdoodles, you probably kick puppies for fun, right?) read more…

I wrote you some things

Somehow I never linked you up to my Alpha Mom advice column last week, probably because I was busy dealing with non-writing things as if I actually have a life outside of the computer. HAHA. Anyway.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that today you get a twofer from me!

First, I’m answering a reader question about the value of labeling autism, and I think you know which side of that argument I come down on, but it’s hopefully worth a read, anyway.

Second, no one asked me, but because I know how to make sure your kids don’t have sex before they’re ready, I’m telling you. (Disclaimer: Results may vary. Do not come yell at me if your precious snowflake does something naughty. To parent is to accept that you can never really control another person EVEN IF you know better than they do, and probably that’s how it’s supposed to be.)

Third, there is no third. Just those other two. Go read those, please.

Nerd Night: White Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake

Soooo… last week was sort of A Week. By Friday—no joke—I was falling asleep with my eyes open on the couch at about 8:30. (We’re all fine. Our school district is in the middle of an enormous clusterfuck and as I am stupidly “involved” and “part of the solution” [geez, whose stupid idea was THAT??], it’s just been… a really long week.) On the bright side, it was just the kick in the pants I needed to sit down with Chickadee this weekend and order her graduation invitations. We may have high-fived over the notion of her being nearly finished with this particular circus.

At the same time, Otto’s youngest brother Wild Thing was here to visit, and Sunday was BOTH Valentine’s Day AND Nerd Night. Clearly, no matter my exhaustion, a special dessert was needed. Something… luscious. Silky. Something RED. I checked the pantry; yes, one can of cherry pie filling remained. Cheesecake with cherries was clearly the answer.

Say, something like this:

white-choc-cherry-cheesecake read more…

3 things about The Vagina Monologues

1) Although this year was my fourth time being part of my local production, everything was different this time because Chickadee was in it with me, too. We could not have picked a better way to come full circle from the first time I was in it, years ago. (And if you want to read more about her, head over to Alpha Mom. I don’t know if you know this, but I am awfully fond of that kid.)

2) I’m not sure how (lies, I know how; I am largely oblivious), but my ENTIRE FAMILY conspired with Kira and kept me completely in the dark until SHE APPEARED AT MY FRONT DOOR ON SATURDAY and I started screaming loudly enough for her to hear me outside. This is because Kira lives 2,000 miles away, and I had no idea she was coming, and in fact I hadn’t even asked her to try to get to the show this year because we’ve never been able to manage it before AND she went back to college this year and went from being insanely busy to actual, like, truth-is-less-believable-than-fiction levels of swamped. But she came all this way to see the show and spent less than a day with me because she is the best.

3) There is video. [Editing to add: NSFW video, obvs.] My husband set up shop the night he came to see the show and so if you missed it but are dying to see my piece (and if you are, I am both flattered and slightly uneasy, but that’s another matter…), you can. But Imma put it after the jump, here, because I don’t think we need it sitting right on the front page. If you don’t need video, you’re done. read more…

Nerd Night: S’mores Cake

Y’all. I am so tired. I am so tired I’m saying “y’all,” which I’m pretty sure is a felony for a yankee like me regardless of how long I’ve lived in the south. This past week was absolutely nuts and wonderful, and I am looking forward to telling you all about it… probably tomorrow or Wednesday, once I’ve gotten my head back on straight. Being in The Vagina Monologues is always simultaneously exhausting and exhilarating, and I don’t know if you know this, but I am not quite as young as I used to be. (Weird!) Anyway. All of the highlights about that are coming, I promise (complete with a tale of surprise my family sprung on me that made me shriek like a little girl). Please be patient with me.

In the meantime, Nerd Night waits for nothing, not even our final Sunday matinee, so yesterday morning I raced around like a crazywoman making this cake for my favorite nerds:

smores-cake-full

I’m glad it started out so pretty, because it did not stay that way. read more…

Just a heads up (w/ bonus embarrassment)

The fine folks who host my sites are doing a server migration this weekend, which means things will stop working for a day or two and maybe even appear to have vanished. Don’t panic! Everything will be back and fine in short order.

Assuming that you see this post before the site goes down, here’s a somewhat blurry picture one of the show’s directors sent to me for fun:

VM-triple-2016
You know, while I’m standing there in a leather corset, holding a whip, watching a fellow cast member demonstrate a triple orgasm. As one does. (Hey, if you’re local, we have three more shows, so come on out if you’re so inclined.)

This is a week (a week a week a week)

It’s one of those unwritten rules—similar to how bringing an umbrella with you keeps it from raining—that if you have Something Big happening, a million other things will have to happen at the same time, because it is not enough to deal with that ONE thing. Of course.

So: Our production of The Vagina Monologues opens tonight, which means Chickadee and I have been spending long hours at rehearsal, AND Otto has about a dozen extra things going at work, AND Monkey is under the weather AND every committee I am on for school needs something from me right now AND a great job opportunity fell in my lap (but from a Luddite organization which apparently needs a paper resume rather than just looking at my LinkedIn), AND it’s been raining so SOMEONE has been pooping on the floor rather than getting their paws wet (geez, Otto, get it together), AND AND AND AND.

And: I am tired. It’s gonna be a looooong charge through the weekend. (Hopefully a good one, but still.)

Last night was our final dress rehearsal, our first JUST KEEP GOING, THIS IS IT run, and when we do the show at UGA, we perform in the chapel, which is a lovely old building. There are TEENY wings for the chapel stage, and a small bathroom on only one side. If your assignment is to wait in the other wing and you have to pee? TOO BAD. But… last night my darling daughter decided to make a just-before-curtain bathroom run, and we’d just had a few words and I was worried she was mad at me, so I tapped on the door to try to talk to her and she told me to go away. “We’re about to START,” I said, finally, worried she was so pissed off she was going to miss her cue. In fact, she didn’t come out for her first cue, but then I had to go over to the other wing and just trust that she’d emerge in time for the next one. Time passed, and about twenty minutes later I got a text from her, asking where I was. Turns out, the very old door to the very old bathroom is having some issues, and she’d actually been trapped inside (without her phone). She hadn’t wanted to make a lot of noise because we were running the show, so she resorted to quiet tapping until another cast member noticed and was able to free her. She’d spent what I’m sure felt like a very long time in there convinced she was going to miss the whole show and maybe have to live in that crummy bathroom. So. Um. Everything is going to be perfect tonight, I’m sure, because the ridiculous awful thing has already happened! Hooray!!

In the meantime, Monkey and I are still figuring out what he needs when he’s sick, and you can read about that over at Alpha Mom, if you’re so inclined.

Nerd Night: Berries and Cream Cheese Chocolate Cake

I’m still trying to decide if baking decadent things I cannot eat is a healthy sublimation of my sweet tooth or just a giant, masochistic flaw in my reasoning process. Best not to think about it too much, I suspect.

The smoothie cleanse I mentioned last week? I’m going to tell you more about it, today, but after I tell you about dessert. So if you’re just here for dessert and don’t give a rat’s ass about my weird diet things, check out the cake and then be on your way. Here I was, having just come off 10 days on kale smoothies and eating… mostly veggies, still, and it seemed like a great idea to make a decadent chocolate cake. With a berry filling. And a cream cheese filling. And chocolate fondant. Why not?

choc-berry-wedge

It turns out that it’s kind of hard to get a good picture of a dark chocolate cake with a dark berry filling, but this is, in fact, a 4-layer cake with one layer of gooey cream-cheese-y filling and two layers of mixed berry compote. I’m told it was delicious. read more…

Now there is less of me to yell at

So I did this weird green smoothie cleanse and lost some weight. I never know if writing about that sort of thing is interesting or boring; I mean, it’s interesting to me, I guess? Maybe not to you? I might write about it next week. It was… an adventure. I’m glad I did it for a number of reasons, not the least among them that I appreciate being able to fit into my pants.

Anyway, during the first few days of the cleanse, especially, while I was dealing with caffeine withdrawal and general hopelessness (I’m the best advertisement for this cleanse EVER, clearly), I felt like I wasn’t thinking super clearly. I made a lot of dumb mistakes. More dumb mistakes than usual, that is. And then I sort of came out of that and felt clear! And ALIVE! And ENERGETIC! But I still caught myself sometimes not thinking entirely straight.

Then I wrote this piece for Alpha Mom about teens and disturbing texts, and my intrepid editor and I went back and forth on some issues of guilt by association and bullying-vs-just-generally-being-a-jerk, and I suspect some commenters are going to yell at me very soon. I still stand by what I said, I think, based on the information given to me, but it’s definitely a tricky issue.

And anyone who disagrees with me has to bring me a snack. I think that’s fair.

Things I Might Once Have Said

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