makes me smile big time.
Thursday, October 28
things that go bump in the night, especially last night if you were sleeping in the basement and definitely heard something
The Bell Witch is one of my favorite scary stories.
Even if it's not true (though if you visit the website, the story is documented through annotations, biographies and historical facts!), it's a great scary story of a poltereist/witch hybrid that weaves American history and folklore together.
Even if it's not true (though if you visit the website, the story is documented through annotations, biographies and historical facts!), it's a great scary story of a poltereist/witch hybrid that weaves American history and folklore together.
The haunting starts with John Bell seeing an animal in his Tennessee cornfields with the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit. Honestly, all i can picture is a Koa/Waffles hybrid and I think we can all agree that would be adorable. But I guess it's pretty scary considering he couldn't shoot it or anything and later they heard it pawing at their log cabin.
You can read the legend for the rest of the story but highlights include the suspected suicide of John Bell Sr., a love triangle including Betsy Bell (pictured above) and the promise of a return. Spoooooooooooky.
One of the best things about the Bell Witch, she haunted Andrew Jackson! That's what you get for signing the Indian Removal Act, though admittedly that was after the haunting. When I took an American Indian Studies class in college, my professor who was a member of the Cherokee Tribe literally spit when he said Andrew Jackson's name.
Anyways, I thought sharing the story would be appropriate for the Halloween weekend and if you are interested in any more, then call Alli Heaney because she is obsessed with ghost stories and knows a ton of them. Definitely ready for Halloweekend this year.
Tuesday, October 26
two damn hours
some things are worth the time you put into them.
these aren't.they aren't even pretty.
i hope you enjoy them book club.
i hope you enjoy them book club.
oh and FYI, the top right apple is a poorly executed drizzle technique and not a chocolate avalanche like the others.
Thursday, October 21
m street northwest to m street southeast.
the navy yard and capitol hill
georgetown after the metro
20 minutes by metro. 50 if you include walking to the metro stations.
point a to point b and back again, these two neighborhoods are the alpha and omega of my day.
on 8th street in capitol hill you will find poverty-stricken people begging for change. you will find young people in black framed glasses walking to their renovated row houses. you will find marines sweeping the streets of fallen leaves with assault rifles strapped to their backs.
how funny to be in georgetown 20 minutes later.
point a to point b and back again, these two neighborhoods are the alpha and omega of my day.
on 8th street in capitol hill you will find poverty-stricken people begging for change. you will find young people in black framed glasses walking to their renovated row houses. you will find marines sweeping the streets of fallen leaves with assault rifles strapped to their backs.
how funny to be in georgetown 20 minutes later.
Tuesday, October 19
the apple festival.
syria, va
i love fall, obviously. but there's also a lot of anxiety that comes in october. every so often i get panicky that i'm not giving autumn the attention it deserves. i explain this and offer it as an excuse as to why i have a lot of mini pumpkins.
this weekend we went to an apple festival in the blue ridge mountains.
we made apple sage chutney and apple pie as we played cornhole under what may or may not be a maple tree.
i think this weekend calmed some of my seasonal anxiety. now i just need to start watching scary movies. i love scary movies like i love fireballs. they can be tough to get through at points, and sometimes you need to press pause and remind yourself that you're sitting in your parents livingroom in the middle of the day and later you're going to be eating lasagna.
but there are such things as ghosts.
thanks to drew for photoshopping apples. i can't wait until santa brings me my own photoshop because i gave a dollar to the hobo with the bright blue eyes yesterday.
Friday, October 15
The Killers of A. Lyons
the punishment one receives for fooling with my camera while i'm asleep.though i might point out that rob seems to be the better photographer.
Wednesday, October 13
monet's potatoes
every once in a while after using my cutting board, i notice the juice from the vegetables or whatever i'm cutting has left really neat patterns. same thing when i bake in the oven.
sometimes i'm too lazy to take a picture, but last night i took a third and thought that was enough to make into a blog post.
sometimes i'm too lazy to take a picture, but last night i took a third and thought that was enough to make into a blog post.
purple and yukon potatoes.
? looks like strawberries and raw chicken. 
butternut squash chip food stamps. oh, the photos are too dark?
deal with it. i took them on my iphone and uploaded them on a computer from 1998.
Thursday, October 7
karma (and guests) pizza night
in an effort to make amends for the last karma dinner, which involved some questionable shrimp tacos and more US Open than well, you know-bonding, we decided to have a pizza night at my apartment.
we left the windows open and the cool air felt great after gathering around the heat of the oven waiting for the pizzas to cook. we lit candles and played the iron and vin station on pandora. alli unbuttoned her pants and megan made everyone leave early so they could get up early for bootcamp the next morning (suckers).
i got a pizza stone and we made a few different pizzas, drank lots of post road pumpkin beer, and had cupcakes norite brought from georgetown scoops.
there was a thin layer of flour that settled like dust on the table after we formed the pies. i eventually let megan take the lead in doing this after our first pizza was shaped like a pac-man.
we put acorn squash on one of the pizzas and had to scoop out the inside like a pumpkin. it smelled so fresh and was so so good after we roasted it.
we left the windows open and the cool air felt great after gathering around the heat of the oven waiting for the pizzas to cook. we lit candles and played the iron and vin station on pandora. alli unbuttoned her pants and megan made everyone leave early so they could get up early for bootcamp the next morning (suckers).
Tuesday, October 5
eatsing.
though i would love to leave everyone with the impression that i cook fabulously delicious meals every night in all my free time (i actually do have a lot of free time, i just make a point of wasting it), the fact is i had 1/3 a bag of frozen edamame and an oversized mug of hot chocolate for dinner.
eating out is expensive, yes. that much is obvious. sometimes i think about the money i've spent in restaurants recently and realize i could have bought a round-trip ticket to london.
but you know what can be even more expensive? cooking. on my walk home from trader joe's i calculated how much i spent to make soup, and it was more than i would ever pay for soup. i guess you can justify it because you're paying for 3 things. 1. the food 2. a sense of accomplishment 3. publicity: it's totally fine if you want to tell people i'm a good cook. it's not like you'd be lying, unless you were talking about anything other than pasta.
i've found teaching yourself to live on a budget is really hard, if not impossible. the way i've handled it so far is to cook and eat out every once and a while, and survive on <3 style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">fennel, anise, thai basil, terragon: they all have a licorice flavor, used in a lot of fish and egg dishes.
cumin, coriander, chili powder, turmeric: some people like to use them in a lot of middle eastern and indian dishes. i like to use them never.
nutmeg, ground cloves, ginger, cinnamon: the spices of baking and autumn
marjoram, thyme, sage, rosemary: chicken and beef spices.
another thing i've been trying to do is try and look at the farmer's market as a treat and NOT a regular grocery store. maybe one day when i become a stay-at-home owner and my dog godric is making the big bucks, i can buy all the grass-fed bison cutlets and apple butter i want. but for now the occasional produce splurge is all i can afford.
so look out acorn squash, because tomorrow marks the first foggy bottom market of october.
eating out is expensive, yes. that much is obvious. sometimes i think about the money i've spent in restaurants recently and realize i could have bought a round-trip ticket to london.
but you know what can be even more expensive? cooking. on my walk home from trader joe's i calculated how much i spent to make soup, and it was more than i would ever pay for soup. i guess you can justify it because you're paying for 3 things. 1. the food 2. a sense of accomplishment 3. publicity: it's totally fine if you want to tell people i'm a good cook. it's not like you'd be lying, unless you were talking about anything other than pasta.
i've found teaching yourself to live on a budget is really hard, if not impossible. the way i've handled it so far is to cook and eat out every once and a while, and survive on <3 style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">fennel, anise, thai basil, terragon: they all have a licorice flavor, used in a lot of fish and egg dishes.
cumin, coriander, chili powder, turmeric: some people like to use them in a lot of middle eastern and indian dishes. i like to use them never.
nutmeg, ground cloves, ginger, cinnamon: the spices of baking and autumn
marjoram, thyme, sage, rosemary: chicken and beef spices.
another thing i've been trying to do is try and look at the farmer's market as a treat and NOT a regular grocery store. maybe one day when i become a stay-at-home owner and my dog godric is making the big bucks, i can buy all the grass-fed bison cutlets and apple butter i want. but for now the occasional produce splurge is all i can afford.
so look out acorn squash, because tomorrow marks the first foggy bottom market of october.
Monday, October 4
Now, it's common knowledge that most towns of a certain size have a witch
because i wanted to make every random little muscle in my arms ache and because i remember the shortage last year, i decided to cram my grocery bag with cans of pumpkin.
earlier in the day i had made the journey from fairfax to southeast with a fairytale pumpkin in tow.
so not only do i have a freakishly strong extensor carpi radialis longus, but i'm super ready for october!
i'd like to make a lot of soup this fall. last fall it became achingly apparent that a life without a hokie passport and an abp means an unfulfilled autumnal dietary satisfaction.
my soup aspirations will warrant a larger food processor. and a lot of sherry.
happy october, month of beer and leaves sharing colors, of halloween and ghosts, of twitches, hocus pocus and rosemary's baby, and most of all, comma splices.
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