Dog Park!

On Friday I went to the public library and got a good load of books. Then C. picked me up from the library and then we picked up Casper the dog and took a trip to the dog park.
The dog park is right next to/below a reservoir. Very pretty.



Casper ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran.

It was very muddy.

Casper, T. & C. In Repose

Hamburger Miracle Whip!

Anyone who remembers the commercial that the title of this post comes from is my hero. On Monday C. and I teamed up for burgers and fries. The fries were hand-cut by C. and lightly fried in about an inch of olive oil then kept warm in the oven while the burgers cooked.
I seasoned the burger meat and let it marinate a little with: chopped green olives, salt, pepper, 2 cloves garlic, soy sauce and worcestire sauce...I hate that word I can never spell it correctly.
Yesterday was Valentine's Day, I guess. I searched for the phrase "Valentine's Day" then just "valentine" within my blog and came up with nothing. So if it didn't matter too much in the past it didn't really matter too much yesterday. Except for the fact that I love that it didn't matter in the past.

So Soothing, Somehow

Wintry

Wintry weather seems to be here to stay. The night before yesterday it snowed/iced and then last night it did the same. I guess it's kind of pretty if you stay inside. I am tired of cold hands.
Last night C. reinvigorated the remaining soup broth (I had taken some of it and the remaining chicken and turned it into a questionable curry at some point last week) into a whole new soup chock full o' veggies and a little spicy kick.
Since I've been here this bulb has flown. Or bloomed. Pretty.

Pork, Potato and Greens

On Monday (it might have been Sunday?) we finished off the remaining pork (oh how long it lasts and how good it does). I also put some potatoes in the oven to bake and took care of the mustard greens in the refrigerator. The greens were flavored with garlic, ginger and Balsamic vinegar along with a middling amount of lemon juice and salt.

Come Back To Me!

T. sent me this and I say that.

Remember how great it used to be?

Andouille Omelette With Creole Sauce c/o Michael's Uptown Cafe

On Sunday T, C, and I went to Michael's Uptown Cafe for a late breakfast. Earlier in the week I had been perusing cursory Bloomington restaurant write-ups and this place caught my attention because it won somebody's best Bloomington breakfast award in 2003. A nice place, not too wide but long, with booths running along one wall then a fair amount of tables running parallel. There was a 20 minute wait so we went across the street to The Book Corner. They had a not so great selection of books but a pretty extensive collection of magazines. I was drawn to the Poets & Writers Magazine. Research for all sorts of jobs, contests, publications and fellowships live in between its covers. Now if only I can highlight all potential sources then google them before I turn 90. Eventually we did eat. I had the Andouille omelet with 'creole sauce'. In addition to the sausage there were mushrooms, cheese and green peppers. It wasn't bad but it wasn't extraordinary either. The creole sauce didn't have me feeling Creole and the egg was on the thin side.

If you go by Julia Child's definition of an omelette, then I'm right to take note of the thin eggness. If you don't then you probably would have been satisfied. Not all around bad, just not as good as one would hope for from a place that boasts best breakfasts. Though C's #2 (two eggs, choice of meat and hash browns) seemed to be exactly right. Basically I should go back to my old ways: 2 medium poached eggs, sausage links, wheat toast and hash browns if they have them included in the price.

If You Throw It, They Will Come

T. and C. threw a little party on Friday night. My contribution was some Edam and Goat Brie cheeses and cut vegetables.

Casper the dog did his 'look how I can sit on this thing and make you pet me' trick.

Smackers did his 'please, just let me sit in your lap' trick.

And I did my 'grrrr' trick.

What's The Box?

Upon my arrival in Indiana I quickly found myself a witness of a power struggle. A good natured power struggle over whether or not T. and C. needed Guitar Hero in their lives and whether it was in their budget. I will not bother telling you who had more reservations. I will say that I was all for Guitar Hero and within days of my appearance in the scene, well, a box arrived. Inside the box? You might think it was cheese. It was not. You might think it was a pair of boots or a winter coat (it is damn fucking cold awful here). It was not. In the box was Guitar Hero, complete with wireless guitar and game cd thingy. I was in the house alone when the box arrived. I did not open the box. I wasn't sure I was allowed to open the box. I had better things to do anyways, like getting depressed about my lack of prospects and then blogging about it. But, once I was given googlechat clearance, I opened the box.
And then after a while of playing I thought it would be a good idea to take a shower. This is what I found when I re-entered the living room/Guitar Hero den.
Rockin' it.

Where I Be

So I'm in Bloomington, Indiana. C. and T. have generously allowed me to live in their space. Above is the porch swing I sit on a fair amount while smoking a cigarette. Below is a series of photographs of an event that happens pretty much every time one of us go outside. Behold: Smackey/Smackers and his attempts at finding love and housing.



This cat is a sweetie with problems. Mainly that he used to live in C. and T's house but when the owners moved away they didn't take him with them. T. is allergic to cats and they have a dog. And though they don't feed him and don't pet him every time he comes over he still comes back, again and again. If you are a person in need of a good cat and with the finances to make sure he's in good health (he's been outside for a while and has a bit of a cough) you may want to consider this one. All he wants is to sit in your lap.

I Continue To Make Food To Appease The House and Job Gods

Actually I'm making food because I like to. I have been meaning to write a post about the strengthening of a feelings I have: I would very much like to be someone's housewife. Yes, I would be happy with a life that involved my making dinner, perhaps doing some laundry, walking a dog for someone else. In this day and age where, theoretically, I could be anything, accomplish everything! Is this wrong? Am I selling myself short? It may be, to use a phrase my parents use, the path of least resistance...and when I say housewife it doesn't really mean I want to marry some stranger just so I can do the above tasks...I just want those domestic activities to be my responsibility. I want to be paid $30-90,0000 a year, with health insurance, to do these things. I could structure my days as I wished. I would clean the toilet once a week. I wouldn't be a maid though, not all cleaning would be my responsibility. I would do dishes, vacuum rugs and sweep wood floors but I wouldn't clean bathtubs or, well, other things?
On whatever day it was I made pork shoulder and salad...very much the same as I did in New York except the pork shoulder was bigger and I didn't give it as much time to cook (I gave it 8 hours but because it was bigger I think it would have done well with another hour or two...it was fully cooked just not as tender fall of the bone delicious as I had hoped).

I Have Dreams in Which I Have Incredibly Honest Conversations With Strange Boys I Don't Know

I also have dreams that involve remembering a great site for job searches, reminding my dream self to remember it upon wakefulness and then being very frustrated when I can't remember it at all.

The boy dreams are far more interesting and compelling. Though equally annoying in the day time.

Chicken Two Ways

The second day of my stay in Bloomington involved job searching, blogging and then going to the grocery store with T. to buy, uh, groceries. Then I made a chicken for dinner and boiled potatoes that C. made into mashed potatoes. Gravy was made. It was quite good. The next day I made stock and then soup...because this is how I roll.

Well Heeled Hoosiers

Last Sunday I flew away from New York City and on to Indianapolis. There I was picked up by Mousehead and Rosterizer and driven back to their house in Bloomington, Indiana. We watched the Super Bowl and I was extremely disappointed in its result. Mousehead made a tasty chicken stir-fry which I ate while being disappointed.

Drinks c/o Loki Lounge & Bar Reis

On Saturday night L. and fat T. (my aboslutely awesome hostess and host) and I went to Loki Lounge where we met up with K. and M. respectively. There were others who had mentioned they'd stop by (college people etc) but in the end it was just us. So we stayed at Loki for a good amount of time to make sure everyone who was going to stop by had their chance. Not only because of that though, the bar was nice and big and had sofas and fireplace.
Then we went to Bar Reis...which wasn't overly crowded...this might be because it was late. Anyways we met G. who L. and T. had actually met a year before...she had his phone number in her phone and everything. G. and I became best buddies after bonding over Inspector Lynley (he's a Brit, don't you know) there was a fair amount of hugging and, on my part, bad billiards playing. This is the Inspector Lynley moment:

Over the 8 or so years I've known L. people have, on occasion, asked us if we're related, sisters perhaps? But we're not.
I forget what this dude was talking about but my face conveys how I felt about it.
Though I played the worst pool of my life G. was on my team so we did okay.
This is the best I can do with photoshop in terms of taking a photograph that's almost entirely black and lightening it so you can see what's going on. I'm not very good.
Painted whore!
There's so much of fat T. I thought I'd take a bite.
Ah yes, the desire for photographs when intoxicated. What can I say? That's how I roll.

Lunch and Paté on Saturday

On Saturday I arrived an hour late to a lunch date with one of the margarita party's hostesses. She is super duper smart and insanely busy in architectural school. So I felt like a pretty raging asshole to keep her waiting for an hour. We went to Old Town Pub, the name of which I forget, and I had a BLT. Thank you to the friend for buying me lunch. Thanks to all the friends who bought me anything...it made arriving in Indiana a little more pleasant...knowing I still had enough money to buy milk etc. Anywho, the sandwich was decent...the ginger ale was quite good and needed. The sandwich was not incredible and the fries were a bit disappointing.
After that I walked down to the West Village. I bought an issue of Interview Magazine and an issue of The Believer and had a coffee in a Starbucks while waiting for my next social appointment. In Interview two former photography professors' photographs were prominently featured (hello Stephen Shore and Larry Fink, why do you always pop up in my magazine material?). Then I met up with L. my high school friend (she was my junior year high school roommate). We attempted to sit at a number of cute brasserie-type places but it was a crowded Saturday afternoon. Eventually we ended up at a place, name unknown until L. gets back to me (she got back to me it's Cornelia Street Cafe), and had a little snack. I had the paté and she had a warmed goat cheese salad.
It was nice to see L. and C. back to back. Two very driven, busy ladies taking time to chat is very nice. Especially when I like chatting with them!