Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Phile

The Edmonton weather can't decide what it is today, and it is kind of sunny with crunchy fall air, but the clouds are low and the air pressure is wrong, making it feel like a fat guy is sitting on my head. Or maybe it is just that I listened to this first thing when I got to work:

I like this record's bleakness, not the oppressive downer type, but rather like the whistful ghost that you KNOW haunts your creaky old workplace (I mean it, the Armoury is fucking spooktown) is singing her brittle feelings too close to your ear.

Classy move: their record is available for pay-what-you-want download here.

Speaking of brittle music, Doug thought it would be really funny to bash out a super quick and dirty song in his studio last night. No vocals yet, we're working up to it, in fact not really even verse/chorus structure in there yet, but I played drums, which was totally difficult for two main reasons:
1) I don't know how to play drums.
2) From what I can tell, playing drums is really hard.
We did it anyway, and the resulting song ("Fish Griwkowsky Panty Raid") is here if you care to listen to it. I still like you if you don't care to listen to it. We are just dicking around.

So there is this fashion blog called Oracle Fox that I was introduced to by Miss Genevieve Savard. Some of the narrative voices in it are a little pointy (I can't actually tell if it is a she or a they), but looking at fashion makes me want to make art for whatever reason (probably because I am too chubby and Edmontonian to actually be invested in fashion in any  way other than aesthetic appreciation) and the fashion featured here is almost always my favorite. Anyway, they posted photos from the White Fairytale Ball and the decor is so DREAMY. It makes me want to throw a fabulous winter party for grown-ups where we all look nice and the food is just right and the music is nice and there are thoughtfully designed cocktails. Cufflinks. I want to see my friends wearing cufflinks. Anyway, here are the photos. If you feel equally inspired and want to co-pilot a winter ball please let me know asap.

(Sorry about the photos not fitting in the little middle colour bar. If I make them smaller you can't see the details)

Sigh.


Anyway, back to dirt-crusted real life. 

Remember how I said that I was doing that hand-drawn animation and it was taking forfuckingever? Look at this one, done totally with markers on paper. Holy shit, animating the movement of water!?! Talentboner. I wish there was more colour, but still, talentboner. ***MAJOR WARNING BEFORE YOU WATCH THIS: The song that goes with it was so irritating that I was very tempted to stab  through my eardrums with scissors. I very very strongly suggest you watch this with the sound off. If you ignore this warning, don't come crying to me when you have gagged to death from a twee overdose and have ended up trapped for eternity in a prison made of crystallized sugarfeelings.
Ok, here it is:
Kijek/Adamski Pirate's Life - via BOOOOOOOM!

Ok. This has to be a short one, I guess. Time to do some real grown up job work. Here, why don't you call up a friend and dance all dirty:


As for today's recipe, I am kind of tired of eating after Thanksgiving. I don't know about you. Instead let me give you a secret eye make-up remover tip. Look in the pharmacy section of your drugstore or grocery store for rosewater and glycerine. It comes already blended: handy! It is usually in the section where they have Calamine lotion, mineral oil and other old-timey multi-purpose remedies. Save-On usually prices it at about 4 dollars for the generic brand. It works like a dream and isn't full of poisonous crap that you probably shouldn't be soaking your eyeballs in (seriously, when I read the ingredients labels in some of the stuff I put on my face I can feel myself getting wrinkly cancer).  (Don't put it all over your face though, glycerine is pretty serious business in terms of moisturizing and might end up giving you zits if you're prone. Eye zone only!)

xo!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Barely even anything at all.

Absentee! Sorry. Everything got sort of stressful for a little bit there. It has all worked out though because...

Big news!! I got a job. Not a temp job and not a mostly volunteer job and not a soul-suckingly shitty job. A real nice permanent normal person job, related to my college degree. Not embarrassing to disclose, I don't have to say "but I am also a (whatever) on the side". Great, right? I can go to the dentist without having to take out a bank loan. I get paid holidays. It's not expensive to catch a cold. All those shitty temp jobs finally paid off. I have a cubicle of my very own to decorate now.

I gotta watch it though, this job is making me fat already and I only just got here. There are a lot of delicious snacks floating around this office, no Sunterra salad bar, and the gym is far away now, as opposed to being right downstairs like at my last gig... I have already started to notice the flabalanche threatening to cascade over the edge of my waistband and I have only been here for 6 weeks. I am going to have to ask some of the other office ladies if they are up for lunchtime workout club.

I have also quit smoking since I last posted, which made me every single different kind of crazy (see bitchy last post, it only got worse from there. My sincere apologies to everyone I have spoken to in the last month.) That is also contributing to my new flab. I am not very good at being fat, despite the fact that every couple of years I have a bizarro weight fluctuation and have therefore had PLENTY of practice. Some people find their sass and seem better for it, but not me. It makes me antisocial and meaner than usual. So I haven't been doing anything much lately except for starting a bunch of projects that will hopefully keep me occupied until at least the middle of winter so there is not a repeat of last year's frozen despair. (It wasn't really that bad. I just got crabby and lazy and bored, along with everyone else.)

We'll make it through this one. I am determined.

Check out these ladies. It took a couple of listens before I was sure, but now I really like them. I have to admit, the fact that they play shows with John Maus (swoon) helped make up my mind. The fact that they are babes and sisters didn't hurt either. Fun fact #1 - They are singing in a made-up language! What a couple of nuts! Fun fact #2 - These sisterbabes were raised Hare Krishna, which explains a thing or two about their music.:



I also like this guy quite a lot:



Also, I like this!

One of my fall/winter survival projects: I was commissioned to make a kimono-style dressing gown for a friend, which has been fun. I made a pattern from a kimono that I own (I am using the work kimono loosely, it is TOTALLY not traditional at all, made out of obnoxious red satin covered with palm trees) and donated my first attempt to the silent-auction fundraiser for The High Level Bridge's jaunt to the Sundance Festival. I kind of thought it would go for like, you know, twenty bucks or something, but someone actually forked out a nice chunk for it.

In true Amelia fashion, the fabric sat on my sewing table untouched for a week while I procrastinated:


I don't know if you can tell, but she picked out this beautiful dark green fabric. She's got dark hair and eyes and this is going to look beautiful on her.
I got this hot tip about cutting delicate fabric. If you trap it between layers of paper, it doesn't slide around and you don't end up with gnarly edges. It's true! It works!

I will post photos of the finished product once I have put all the trim and everything on it. So far so good though!

I am also working on a stop animation project. I am pretty excited about it. Despite the best of intentions, I haven't done any animation since the Rice Rocket video that Doug and I made in like, 2008 or something, so a follow up is well overdue.  (Here's Rice Rocket, in case you didn't see it when I bragged all over Facebook about it back then:)

This one is going to be on paper, which, based on how it is going I think will take approximately 200 years to complete, but I am scoping out some technology to hopefully make the process a little quicker. It is going to be very cute, featuring hobos and bunnies, with soundtrack by The Elf.

Hey, check out how awesome this is. This person bought a vintage camera online and it came with undeveloped film in it from the 1940s:

http://riowang.blogspot.com/2011/09/hiroshima-souvenir.html
What an amazing find. I have score envy. Those photos are so beautiful, even that camera on its own is a great score. Those photos make me want to visit both Hiroshima and the 1940s.

So I went to Mr.'s parents' place for Thanksgiving and when I asked what I could bring, his dad had the most bizarrely specific request: Orange peel biscotti... Weird, right? Is that even a thing? Is that something that people crave?

Anyway, I was not about to disappoint my prospective pops-in-law so I did a little research and apparently it actually IS a thing, and even weirder, there are people out there who actually do things like candy orange peel themselves. And now I am one of those people. New job, new life. New cooking skills that will probably be used a total of once in my entire life.

Anyway, the recipe isn't terribly difficult and even though orange peel biscotti is not something that I would ever think of making on my own, they were actually pretty delicious. The orange peel/syrup in the batter gave them kind of a floral flavour in addition to the obvious citrus. Here is the recipe in case you want to play along (I lifted this from a blog called Brownie Points. I get slightly weird about anyone who identifies as a capital G Good Girl right off the hop, but I can't argue with those recipes.):

*Put on a frilly vintage apron for this, and some nice red lipstick. If we are doing this Betty Crocker shit, we'd better look the part.

Candied Orange Peel Biscotti

In a saucepan combine:
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup water
  • julienned orange peel from two oranges- no white stuff attached
  •  
    It is also important to pour yourself a wine spritzer at this point. This recipe is a bit of a time commitment (at least compared to most things that I make, being a lazy and hurried cook), important to stay hydrated.
     Also, maybe not a terrible idea to put on some goggles (extra points if they match your apron), as I discovered that removing the outer peel from an orange involves squirting a bunch of orange oil in your eyes, which is pretty uncomfortable. The upside is that your eyes will smell delightfully citrus zesty.
    Please use the leftover HUMILIATED oranges for something nice. They look so sad. Sorry, guys.

     One hundred years of chopping.



    Stir to help begin dissolving the sugar, then cover with a lid and let the heat do the rest of the work.
    Bring the mixture to a boil and gently simmer for 20 minutes.


    Let cool 10 minutes in the pan and spoon the orange zest into a strainer (chopsticks work very well too). Let the orange flavored sugar syrup drip back into the pan (save this for the biscotti batter), and move the strainer of zest to hover over a piece of wax paper. Spoon granulated sugar over the syrupy zest while fluffing the zest with chopsticks. Continue to sugar and fluff till the zest bits are adequately coated and not too clumped up. Spread out on a cutting board and chop into small pieces.
    Preheat oven to 350F.
    In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients:
    • 1 1/2 cup of flour
    • 1/4 tsp baking soda
    • 1/4 tsp salt
    Set this aside and combine:
    • 1/2 cup of brown sugar
    • 2 Tbs of softened butter
    • the syrup from candying the orange peel
    Mix till the butter sugar combination is well incorporated. Then add while mixing:
    • one whole egg
    • one egg white
    • 1 Tbs vanilla
    • the chopped candied orange peel
    Scoop in the dry ingredients a bit at a time, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides and bottom once.
    Using a spatula, scoop the batter out onto a cookie sheet that is either covered with parchment or lightly sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Form the dough into a log using a spatula and lightly flour dusted fingers, and squish down to about 3/4 inch tall..
    Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet half way through.

    While you are waiting, why not snuggle a puggle?


    I had no photos of the last part of the recipe. I got really stressed out about the consistency of the batter (which turned out to be correct, so don't freak out) and forgot to record the process.

    While the biscotti is cooking, twirl around the kitchen, make your man a dry martini, smoke a Lucky Strike and give yourself a Lysol douche. Justkiddingjustkiddingjustkidding! Don't do that last thing.

    Remove and let cool. Using a serrated knife, slice 1/2 inch slices from the loaf, on a diagonal to ensure nice long slices. Lay the sliced cookies out on the cookie sheet and bake again at 200F for 30 minutes total (flip cookies over after 15 minutes) if hard cookies suitable for coffee dunking are desired.

    Also, for extra cuteness, I drizzled some dark chocolate on them. They were yummy!