glossy vs. matte

Reason #34 why I'm a little weird:  I like a book more if it has a matte cover rather than a glossy cover (this applies to both hardcover and paperback books).

I read a lot of books from the library, and they're all in their protective plastic covers.  But you can always get a little feel of the actual dustjacket when you open the book, and I tend to lose a little respect for the book if it has a glossy cover.

I have no explainable justification for this prejudice.

Yes, I'm an odd duck.
(I'm also hoping someone randomly searches "glossy vs. matte" and finds this post thinking that it's going to be about lipstick...)

oh the places i've lived...

Here's a chronological list of all the places I've lived from birth until this moment:

• Hemlock, Michigan
• Kalamazoo, Michigan
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Antioch, Tennessee
• Lansing, Michigan
• Bath, Michigan
• Arlington Heights, Illinois
• Pittsford, New York
• Swannanoa, North Carolina
• Black Mountain, North Carolina
• Clifton Park, New York
• North Chili, New York
• La Quinta, California
• Rochester Hills, Michigan

It's so easy to think of memories from some of these places, but there are some others that feel like a mist creeping around my mind.  My goal is to pull out a memory for myself of each place.

Here's one moment I can remember from Antioch, Tennessee:  I was in first grade, and our neighbors took me (along with their kids) to pick strawberries.  They had an old VW Beetle which I thought was the coolest/strangest thing ever, and that is the only time in my life that I've ever ridden in one.

Another one (it's all coming back to me now, my little miss six-year-old self):  I had a pair of black gerbils who I named Becky and Cindy (no explanation whatsoever for the names).  They had this amazing plexiglass habitat that we got at a garage sale that had cool twisty places for the girls to crawl around.  One night we came back from dinner at Shoney's (I don't know why I remember the specific restaurant), and Becky (or Cindy) had chewed a hole in the plexi that was almost big enough for them to escape from.  I don't know if this was the last straw for my mom or what, but we drove them out to a field and my stepdad let them go (i.e. be free little gerbils!).  Now looking back on this with my 34-year-old brain--a bird probably got them if they didn't pass away from exposure.  Not cool.

old blog/new blog

So I had/have a blog on Typepad with the same name.  I don't have very many posts there, but I wanted them to be able to be accessed for the 6 weeks that I'll still have it (i.e. until I stop paying in December):  vegan spinster studio at Typepad.

I'm still trying on this whole blogging thing, so I feel as though my posts there are very stiff and I'm attempting to be more myself here.  Not sure how that's going to be honest...

vegan boy scout dinner = yummy!

It's getting to be the cold weather that longs for filling comfort food, so I decided to attempt a vegan version of a favorite childhood meal, the boy scout dinner.  The basis for this meal (also known as a hobo dinner according to my brother-in-law) is meat and veggies cooked in tinfoil over a fire.  My stepdad always made it for us with potatoes, onions, carrots, and polish sausage (a lot of online recipes call for ground beef) all mixed together in the tinfoil and cooked in the oven when we weren't camping.

So for my meal I chopped up some Yukon Gold potatoes, a small onion, and a couple of carrots and piled them on top of a Field Roast Smoke Apple Sage sausage (awesomely vegan).  I drizzled on a little olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and wrapped up the tinfoil into a pouch and threw it in the oven at 375.  After the potatoes were still pretty hard after 45 minutes, I called my mom and asked her what temp I should set the oven at and she recommended 400.  So they were at 375 for about 1 hr 15 minutes and then at 400 for another 20.  Next time I think I'll just start at 400 and try for a little over an hour.

But they turned out so yummy!  I ate them with some sauteed kale with garlic and feasted.  Such a comforting meal on a cold night which reminded me of being a kid.

Took this pic when I'd already started eating, so it's not the prettiest but the food was going fast!  I like the sausage dipped in a little dijon mustard, so that's what the smear on the top of the plate is.  I made two packets of this, so I'll have tasty leftovers for tomorrow.

i just want to talk about the book!

So I experienced my first book group the week before last.  I was so excited to be in the room with 8 other women who had read the same book as me.  Most of the time I don't even know 1 person who has read the same book as me. :)

This month's book for the group was Room by Emma Donoghue, which I'd been wanting to read since it came out but hadn't had the chance.  I was not disappointed as it was an amazing book.  I finished it in one long sitting and was so excited to talk about it.

Not to spoil the book (if you read the book back you'll get an idea of it), but it deals with a disturbing subject in an amazingly joyful way since it's told from a 5-year-old point of view.  But instead of talking about the book, this group of women kept going off on these weird tangents (random assortment including kids not getting picked up from marching band practice, children getting run over in China, and talking to teenage boys about statutory rape laws...) that had nothing to do with the book.

I was trapped on a couch for over 90 minutes, and the book was talked about for probably a grand total of 12 of those minutes!  So frustrating, but I hope that next month's book will be talked about instead of the tangents galore of this one.

hey smokers...

So I have a problem with some of you smokers out there.  I know you have an addiction, and I'll give a minor pass to those of you over forty who smoke because you probably started before you had any idea that it might kill you one day.  But for those of you who are under forty and grew up with surgeon general warnings and ad campaigns:  I think you're fucking idiots if you smoke.  I grew up with smokers; both my dad and stepdad smoked all the time (and cracking a window in a car doesn't do much for the small child sitting next to you by the way).  My father smoked up until the day before he passed away from throat cancer, so I can understand it's hard for you to quit (again I'm only speaking to the over-forty crowd here, for the others see the fucking idiot note above).

But smokers now you're beginning to piss me off.  Do you know what really attracts cigarette smoke?  Paper.  And paper is the basis for books, which are items that I like to borrow from the library.  What's not fun in borrowing certain books is that I get that smell of ash permeating the air when I'm trying to read and a lingering smell on my hands afterwards.  I refuse to purchase used books that are from smokers' homes, but unfortunately that can't happen with library books since usually I'm checking them out because I'm too broke to buy.  Now I've always wondered why some smokers smell like smoke and others don't; I think it must be some sort of body chemistry that I may never understand.  But no matter what smokers' stuff always smells like smoke, and it reeks.

So for those of you who smoke but also have a love of borrowed literature:  please quit smoking around the library books.  Or you know just quit smoking; that works too.

my vegan story, part 1

Every vegan has a story; except for those born vegan, no one actually wakes up one day and decides to become vegan for no reason.  As with a lot of my life, my story starts with a book:  PopCo by Scarlett Thomas.  I read a good review of it in the LA Times Sunday Book Review and checked it out at the library; I don't think I even knew there were vegetarians and vegans in it.

Along with all sorts of fun stuff like codes and pirates and anti-capitalism, the main character meets a guy who explains why he became vegan.  In the scene he's explaining that he saw some study where pigs can play video games and right then decided if they can play video games he's not going to eat them (it's much better in the book, trust me).

Well it's not as though I up and quit right then, but it got me thinking.  And when I start thinking I like to do research (I especially liked to do research at my job because back then I was a receptionist with a lot of time on my hands).  So off to the internets I went...

it's only change

Hey there!  I'm attempting an actual goal of posting with this blog (vs. having fewer than 10 posts in a year on a previous blog).  My loves are quilts and books, but I think I'll start with disassembling my name in order to introduce myself better.  So tomorrow's post:  my vegan story...