The Snowpocalypse (version 2.0) has arrived, and I am very happy to have nowhere I need to be this afternoon. It started this morning, with just the lightest dusting, which was pleasant enough while running around and Getting Things Done on campus. The snowfall shifted into higher gear almost as soon as I hit my driveway (~prides self on timing~), and now that the wind has picked up...

~looks outside at snow blowing sideways~

Yeah. I'm staying in and hunkering down for the rest of the day, in the time honored Northern tradition. This calls for a fire, some cozy sweaters and wooly socks, kitteh snuggling and comfort cooking. ~inventories kitchen contents~ I'm thinking some kind of baked pasta, green salad with fresh vinagrette and some fresh bread. Mmmm. There will be reading, of the necessary sort. There will also be writing, of the fun sort. Maybe some passes in the vQ, the assembly and wrapping of Best Friend's shower gift...

I love snow days. :D

( Rambling about the Super Bowl and haircuts and identity and things )

Okay, enough rambling for now. Othello is arching up his back and giving me that plaintive meowy dialogue that means, "But I want you to love me RIGHT NOW, not later! PICK ME UP PICK ME UP PICK ME UP! HUGS TIME IS NOW!!!!1!" So I will have to indulge him and his kitteh kisses. (Such an onerous burden... *g*)

I hope that all of you who are also snowed in stay warm and safe!

1. I just got eight inches of hair chopped off! It was seriously overdue. My hair is still long, but no longer too long for my arms to braid. My head feels infinitely lighter, and I am deeply happy with this. It does look just a wee bit different, though. I unveiled it at Mom's house and got a (happy) gasp in response. :D

2. While at the salon, I had a nice and relaxing time chatting with my stylist, who is a wonderful woman and takes a maternal pride in my accomplishments. (She always greets me with "Have you published anything?" That's usually followed by, "Someday you'll hit it big with a bestseller, and I'll tell all my friends I knew you when." She's a one-woman cheering section!) As she was leaning over to wash my hair, she asked, "What smells so good?" I volunteered, cautiously, that I was wearing perfume. (I never know how people will react to the BPAL thing.) She then burst out with, "It smells like a rainbow! What is it, and how do I get some?" :D I gave her BPAL's website info and volunteered to bring her some imps next time. She has a good nose! (If you're curious, I was wearing Mlle Lilith, Fortune Teller.)

3. I finished all my baked goods for my help_haiti auction winners on Wednesday night, and I packed them up and sent them off to their new homes yesterday. I wanted to make an effort to make it particularly special, since the recipients spent so generously for them, and I was very happy with the way my attempt at cute packaging came out. If I ever chuck this academia business and open a bakery, I'll have some wicked packaging skills. ;-)

4. Free food! Mom and dad both hosted separate events last night and this morning that had lower than expected attendance, and the result is that I came away from their house loaded down with free bagels, free cream cheese, various cold salads of the free persuasion, free crackers, free grapes and a cheese tray that was--you guessed it--free. So that's a few meals taken care of. ;-) Yum!

5. Oh, and did I mention that I got my Exchange prompts? Yeah, I did. And they're excellent. Totally in my wheelhouse, very inspirational, and I am already ridiculously excited about this. Yay! This is going to be so much fun, squee! I can't wait to brainstorm. ~bounces~ Can't wait to read what others do with all those good prompts, too...

What was the #1 song the day you were born? Google the date and #1 song and then post on your LJ - preferably with a Youtube vid if you can find one!

Mine? Pretty hilarious, actually. Not a particularly fitting description of me (*g*), but the video is fun to watch, if only for all the very fit dancing men in tight clothes...

pokeystar and timestep and a few others asked for this one, so here it is. I made it last weekend, and it was a perfect sort of winter soup: warm and warming, savory with a touch of sweetness, creamy without being heavy or thick. I really, really enjoyed it, and it was as good in leftovers as it was the first time. It could probably also be easily altered for vegetarian tastes; just omit the sausage and chicken and sub in a good veggie stock for the chicken broth.

One note: the oil or butter listed at the beginning is optional, depending on the fat content of the sausage you're using. If you're using a lean sausage that will render little if any fat, then I recommend adding just a touch of oil/butter, in order to make the roux to come together later.

( Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes )

I was prepared for a nonsensical result, but considering what my undergrad degree is in and what I used to do for a living... well. This is strangely fitting. *g* The blurb probably fits, too. I value loyalty extremely highly, and I am most definitely a deliberative thinker. I don't do things on the spur of the moment or without taking the time to calculate the probabilities. I might sometimes seem to act on intuition, but my "intuition" is usually more like... ~grasps for explanation~ ...silent analysis of data and shuffling of ideas until the most likely outcomes present themselves. And then I act, often without bothering to explain that whole analysis thing to other people, because that just gets frustrating and sometimes takes much more time than the original analysis did!

But without the shuffling and the calculation and such? Nuh-uh. I don't decide things that way, and you can't make me. ;-) But really, I read this and think it says: "You are an INTJ." To which I say: Duh.

Fun concept... although I could have easily filled a lot more slots! I wish we weren't limited to five.

Just a reminder: the nominations for OWL Awards close this Sunday, so be sure to get yours in now! The actual nominating is as easy as can be, though selecting one nominee for each category may prove harder. *g* Best to start now, then, and not leave it to the last minute, right?

More information in this post, along with a listing of my eligible one-shots and drabble series.

Have fun, and happy nominating!

Once again, the severus_shorts community has posted the kind of story that I will want to revisit over and over again, the sort that transports you right into its world and leaves you rethinking canon from an entirely different angle. It's deep and mysterious as the ocean, yet full of emotion, no less intense for being understated. It's also written in heartbreakingly spare, gorgeous prose, with vivid, striking imagery.

The story is A Rowan in Winter (G), and it is entirely gen--but don't let the lack of romance or the mention of Lily put you off, please. In fact, the author does quite a brilliant job with Lily here, presenting her as a girl we really can imagine winning Severus' devotion, as well as providing very critical support, friendship and acceptance in the midst of a situation that no eleven-year-old boy ought to face. Severus himself will make your heart ache and ache. He is perfect, age-appropriate and strong because he has to be, but still a vulnerable little boy beneath the surface. Eileen and Tobias are brilliantly rendered as well, and I adore the way that the author presents their relationship, giving them a plausible reason to love one another and yet simultaneously be frustrated to the snapping point. (Tobias is particularly well done, IMHO; he's a three-dimensional man here instead of a drunken, caricatured villain, one whose violence springs from intense frustration instead of innate meanness.)

I really admired the author's ability to deal delicately with difficult issues--poverty, illness, shadowy pasts--as well as to capture the innate tragedy of the Snape family without anybody being made at fault. This story is beyond anything so simplistic. As always when things are thoughtfully written, the cruelty is in the situation and not the characters themselves.

There's so much that I want to tell you about this story, but I dare not go further, for fear of ruining the plot. Just go and read it, allow it to draw you in, let it linger in your mind for days and weeks afterward. Read it, savor it, and above all, tell the author who much you enjoyed it. It's a beautiful work and deserves pages of reviews. As I said with my previous rec from this fest: this is worth your time.

I am still answering comments on the Spread the Love Meme, but please be patient, as I am taking my time. I want to give you each a heartfelt response, and that takes a bit longer. I take this love-spreading business seriously. *g*

As I promised, however, here is the recap of Friday night's concert, featuring Hilary Hahn. It was a great night in many ways, and I left as an even bigger fan than I had been when I entered--but not just because of her talent, great as it is.

( A dinner at the brasserie, a night at the symphony... and stuff happens, even if you're Hilary Hahn )

I will write a more extensive recap later, but suffice it to say that last night's DSO concert outing was wonderful in the extreme: dinner was good, the beer was good, the seats for the symphony were really good, and Hilary Hahn was... well, beyond my ability to describe. She is way up there on the OMG!Fangirl scale, and not just because of her talent. :D

Today has been somewhat less wonderful, as it is grey and drippy and the weather is giving me such raging sinus pressure and headache that it reverberates down into my teeth, out into my ears, and is actually making the bones of my face ache. I was also jolted awake at 5:30 AM for the second time in a week by the Leg Cramp from Hell, which was such a searing ball of agony in my calf that all I could do was whimper and massage it and pray for it to calm down. It's still tender and giving me warning twinges if I dare do anything close to pointing my toes. :-P

Despite that, I'm not in a bad mood, and (post-cramp) I've been productive so far today, including running most of the errands and picking up the things I need to prepare the goody boxes for my auction winners at help_haiti. Tomorrow will be an orgy of baking!

And today, it seems will be an orgy of goodwill and heartfelt appreciation. I nicked this meme from ariadne1, dickgloucester, sc010f and lady_rhian, amongst others, and I thought it was a wonderful idea. Just comment, and I will give you some love. I mean, I'd do it for all of you even if you didn't comment, but it's kind of hard without a comment to respond to. ;-)

I know that 2009 was pretty horrid for a lot of people, and to be honest, 2010 has been no great shakes so far. One way we might make the rest of 2010 a bit better is to spread some love around. So if you care to reply to this post I will give you a response of something I like about you.

If you like participating in these sorts of things and want to repost this in your LJ, that would be fun, too.

I give you cat pic spam. View it and be cheered by the concentrated power of cuteness!

( Like I said, cat pic spam. Don't say you weren't warned. )


See, doesn't that feel a tiny bit better? Hopefully?

No, that isn't the motto of Hufflepuff House. (Although it should be.) Those are words of wisdom from Sleep Talkin' Man. I saw him and his wife on the news this evening, and... well. Laughed a lot. And then had to look it up. And then combed through their blog and giggled over her transcriptions of his sometimes belligerent, often rude, frequently hilarious pronouncements while asleep. (Yes, it's real. I heard the recordings. And yes, he knows about the blog.)

I'm particularly fond of "You can't be a pirate if you haven't got a beard. I say so. MY boat, MY rules." Can you just imagine what this man's dreams must be like? :D

Happy birthday to the MVS (that's Most Valuable Slytherin)! You, o spinner of goat stories and Snape stories and author of so many thoughtful reviews, do so much for the fandom, especially for the Snape-loving portion of it, and we are very, very fortunate to have you. Thank you for putting up with us.

Here's hoping that your birthday has been filled with good coffee, good times... and everybody doing exactly what you say, without complaint. ;-)

Cheers! ~toasts you~

Had dinner with Mom and Dad and Younger Brother this evening (yum!), and Younger Brother was very eager to show off what he's learned so far in the first weeks of music school.

"You have to hear this! You're gonna love it," he tells me. So he drags me downstairs to the marimba, and I'm eager to listen, wondering what he's picked up so far. Corelli? Bach? Pachelbel? Joplin?

And then he picked up the mallets and started playing... wait for it... the Doctor Who theme. On the marimba.

This is what he's so proud of mastering. He's been noodling around in his own time. And it sounds good! He wants to arrange it for the percussion ensemble and get them to perform it.

I had to laugh and grin and applaud. Because really? It's awesome. It's so wonderfully nerdy. I come from a nerdy people, and I am proud of it!


In other, less funny news, I'm feeling not-so-wonderful this evening. Sort of hot and cold, which I might blame on the weather, but the throat is also feeling uncomfortably scratchy and maybe a touch raw, I am suddenly sneezing all over the place, and--worst of all--the brain is not sharp. It is fuzzy-ish. I really, really want to believe that this is just a temporary allergy flare, so I'm going to chug the vitamin C and try to get some extra sleep. I freely admit that I have been slacking in the sleep department lately, so possibly that is to blame. ~hopes~

Posted because Dicky asked for it, and I am always happy to oblige her. :D

This cake is part of the "Only Cook Good Things" phase that I'm lucky enough to be enjoying right now, and... oh, this is good. Really good. It was originally based on a Gale Gand recipe that I'd been planning to try for years, but I didn't like some of her choices and so altered it to suit my tastes, not to mention the contents of my cupboards. If you are in the part of the world that is currently enduring cold, grey, yucky weather at the moment, then you really can't do better than this sort of cold-weather cake, which is homespun, easy enough to throw together, not overly fussy and just plain delicious. The topping is much simpler than an icing, and it comes out just the right amount of chewy and crunchy and tender. It bears a certain resemblance to the caramel-coconut-pecan frosting associated with German chocolate cake, but it's decidedly less sweet and--for my money--more rustic and satisfying.

I realize that oatmeal sounds like an odd basis for a cake, but you will have to trust me when I say that the steeping in hot water gives the oats a moist and nearly silky texture that really, really works.

Oh, and when you bake this? Stake a claim to your serving early, because I only managed to get one piece of this one before everybody else demolished it. ;-)


( Date-Oatmeal Cake with Coconut and Walnuts )

Am now signed up for the SS/HG Exchange! I am having the usual wibble over whether my prompts will send the poor person assigned to them screaming for the hills, but I tried. They're right here, if you're interested.)

As usual, I am blown away by the creative and tempting prompts people have concocted, and I am already squeeing in anticipation! So very many good prompts, so many plot bunnies... and half the fun in looking over the prompts is imagining all the stories and art pieces that will grow out of them.

I can hardly wait for June! :D

1. Just about everything that has been posted for the Severus Big Bang and the severus_shorts community has been of a very high standard, but today in Severus Shorts, a story posted that is of the sort that most of us might get one chance in a lifetime to write, if we're lucky. It's THAT good. It takes an extremely rare pairing--Snape and Sprout--and makes it work so well that you'll wonder why it never occurred to you as a pairing before. It gives us a portrait of young Severus that's so acutely insightful and skillfully drawn that I could see his image and absolutely hear his voice speaking the words It also gives us a loving, respectful, real portrayal of Pomona Sprout--patient, compassionate, generous of soul but no less keen of mind for that--that demonstrates the very best of what Hufflepuff stands for. She's a credit to her house here, and I think it's the first time I've read a story that breathed such life into her character.

I can't say enough good things about the story. It's multilayered and sophisticated, yet entirely approachable. It will alternately make you want to weep and smile. It earns every emotional reaction it provokes, and it is deep and beautiful in the best of ways. The visual symbolism is especially stunning, but... well, just read it. READ IT NOW. Read it and be enchanted. It is worth your time. It's right here: The Janus Rose (G).

I hope I can write a story this beautiful one day. Truly, it's a masterpiece, and I take my hat off to the author.

( Another rec, some thanks, cooking babble and such )

5. Just a quick reminder, related to the cooking babble. Auctions for help_haiti are ongoing! Bidding closes on January 20, which is quickly approaching. If you'd like a chance to bid on a box of Bluey Baked Goodies, then go here or here to make your bid. Proceeds, of course, are going to an approved charity.

I've donated to the Red Cross, but I want to do more, so I'm participating in the fandom auction. I can't offer stories or art or crafts, I'm afraid, but I can bake, so I have two auctions up on help_haiti:

*An assortment of homemade cookies, with the winner's choice of a list of varieties, including my white chocolate raspberry bars, chocolate toffee bars, malted milk ball blondies and hermits (dark spice cookies) with crystallized ginger.

*A pair of from-scratch, homemade quick breads, with the winner's choice of any two of the following: brandied cherry-pecan loaves, pumpkin-chocolate chip bread, banana bread and caramel-glazed apple bread.


Shipping is on me, and hopefully those of you who have had a chance to try the goods will vouch for the quality. *g*

Check out my offerings, and stick around to check out the huge variety of other fantastic offers, from yarn to homemade granola to care packages to stories and art made to order. Bids are accepted from now until the auction's end on January 20th, and instead of paying me anything, you'll donate the amount of your bid to a charity such as the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam, UNICEF, etc., to go towards the relief efforts in Haiti. Here's a list of reputable aid agencies.

If you're able, I hope you'll consider participating, too, either as an offerer or a bidder. Let's pool our talents and summon some generosity for a really good cause, all right?

Dear Student Who Is Trying to Impress Me with Your Sophisticated Vocabulary,

You are much more likely to succeed in your endeavor if you actually make an effort to look up the meaning of the words before inserting them into your writing. Though I realize that this is an onerous task and grammatical precision is considered somewhat passe these days, I strongly suggest that you begin attempting it. This tactic will not only allow you to communicate clearly and effectively, but will also save you from making embarrassing usage errors, such as the following.

There is a difference between the words "palpable" and "palatable." A considerable one. One means "readily apparent or able to be perceived," or "able to be felt/touched." The other? Means that you like the taste of the object in question, in a real or metaphorical way, and perhaps want to put it in your mouth. That's where your palate is. So perhaps you can see how it could be problematic to switch these two around. (Consider the difference, for a moment, between a palpable erection and a palatable one.)

In closing: dictionaries and thesauri exist. Please learn how to use them. Someday, they may prevent you from making potentially fatal errors like mistaking "desist" and "deceased." They may also cut down on the unwanted side effect of people giggling at you from behind their hands.

Sincerely,

Not Yet Impressed




Though I am considering how the history of literature might have shifted if Shakespeare had accidentally written "A hit, a very palatable hit"...

Bad things:

1. I finally realized that I have been feeling much, much more exhausted than could be explained by returning to the normal semester schedule, so I went to the doctor this morning, and lo and behold, there is a sinus infection. Which is obvious in hindsight, though it never got truly icky and mutated into bronchitis, thank goodness. Still: exhaustion and headaches and stuffiness should have been a clue. Duh. I am now on antibiotics and I feel... rather icky and drained. Hopefully, tomorrow will see the end of this headache and the beginning of some improvement.

2. As Twelfth Night has come and gone, so have the remainder of the Christmas decorations. The room looks so bereft without the tree! I will miss its warm, glowing, warming glow. :-(

Good things:

1. Antibiotics and pain relievers. Yay! Functionality is within my grasp...

2. Snape's Birthday/Mom's birthday went beautifully. There was fresh, glittering white snow and lots of sunshine. Mom adored all her presents, including the Popcorn gift basket, and we all gorged ourselves on delicious food at Palm Palace. There is still baklava left over, and some of it is sitting in my refrigerator... but not for much longer. ;-) (Seriously, it's a work of art--golden and flaky and nutty and gooey and crunchy, drenched in the right combination of butter and honey and rose water. It's paradise.)

3. I have a student in Brit Lit who is really, really exceptional. She's discerning and intelligent and motivated, and she likes to unpack things. This is going to be a fun class.

4. Younger Brother is two days into his first semester in the music program and has already been recruited into the Wind Symphony, Brass Band, Percussion Ensemble and Pops Percussion Ensemble. He had thought that for his first semester, he might skate by in the non-audition Symphonic Band (because, I suspect, he was too nervous that he wouldn't make it anywhere else), but the professors who saw his audition for the program have been making an effort to call him, e-mail him, wine and dine him, etc., because they are confident he has the right stuff and are willing to place him without any further auditioning. Oh, and the Brass Band want to take him to Raleigh, for their competition.

I have never heard Younger Brother so flattered, so happy and so motivated. I'm so pleased for him! Good things are happening.

5. Everything at the severusbigbang that I've seen and read so far has been exceptional. People turned out really wonderful work, and it's a pleasure to review it. :D Severus deserves such lovely pressies.

6. I have also de-Christmas-ed the LJ and added a new layout. It seemed appropriate to the time of year, and I'm quite pleased with the results.


I believe that is the extent of my original thought for today. ( So here's that meme that's going around, too )