Like Hood Rich, But Better

I spent the entire day reading in bed. The light meandered from the golden of early morning to the that flat glare of midday until finally the last grapey rays of evening poked through the windows. Post graduate unemployment has it's perks, namely being time rich. R. and I jogged in what can be identified as an evening leaning towards fall. We had miso soup and a super crazy-tonsa veggies stir fry with an agave + chinese mustard sauce (like honey mustard, but sweeter/spicier) for dinz. Off to see if I can beat my Harry Potter record and finish 'The Poisonwood Bible' in less than twenty four hours ;}

Amanda Blake

Reminds me of tapestries.. I really enjoy her palette, and the landscapes in these pieces, as well as the ambiguous narrative present. Her website.

RAP

The Riverside Avondale Historic District and Riverside Avondale Preservation from Riverside Avondale Preservation on Vimeo.

I found this video on someone's Tumblr and thought I'd share it - a lot of history about the area. So happy that I finally get to live in such an amazing little niche of Jax :}

Friday

I should be filling out applications and printing more resumes, but I'm brain deep in 'The Jungle' by Upton Sinclair and can't find a good stopping point (is there ever such thing..?).

It's been deliciously overcast all day. Please rain please rain please rain, pleeeeeaase! I just want snuggles with my love and my gato and a book and maybe some tea or coffee set to the sound of a drizzle outside, does that not sound divine or what.

Tryin'

Aardvark Manifesto

Raphsodic Cooperative Company Bakery & Store

Okay, so today is blog-central since I haven't lately. I've been meaning to write about Saturday, when R. and I (on a whim) drove down to Orlando. Lazy weekend? Friends and their days off? Un petit roadtrip? Why not! We went firstly to Ikea (bananas on the weekend) and then to Christy and Jason's, awesome best friend/hair twin and photographer extraordinaire, respectively. We met the new familial pup, Frannie, saw Arthur's sister Amelia and the ever pudgy Ishmael-tiger. After the Loving Hut for dinner, we went to the Raphsodic Cooperative Company, a vegan co-op bakery.

While the art on display was so-so, the cupcakes were pretty fabulous. In a rare twist of events, I somehow lucked out and chose the best flavor of the night (usually I have order-envy after trying everything else). I picked the Lavender Cupcake, with Peach and Blueberry sauce drizzled on top. The vanilla frosting was fluffy and light. The peach jam inside kept the cake moist. The lavender taste wasn't overdone at all (I would venture to say delicately perfect..). Christy and R. both chose the Red Velvet Cupcake, which was good despite being a little hard and a tad dry. Jason chose a Lemon Poppyseed Cupcake I believe. It was a bit overwhelming, far too sweet, so much so that you could taste the agave used as a sweetener (not a good thing, despite how it sounds) and the icing was good but so incredibly rich! Maybe applied sparingly it would have been better. I am a dessert fiend and could only muster a single bite. Sadface. I like lots of bites.

A bit pricey for only one of four cupcakes fitting the label of 'delicious', especially since I could probably bake them myself, but I enjoyed the fun shop and more importantly, what they're about. Local business + lots of people working together + underlying message of compassion = awesome in my book. And I'm definitely game to go back and try their cookies, brownies, cakes and pies.

Furry Babies

(1. Arthur's new favorite place to nap, 2. Reaction to a cracker he insisted upon trying, 3. Not a cat but a boy, albeit one with similar behaviors to a cat - ornery yet affable when in the mood, prone to the extremes of being either very playful or very sleepy, serial snuggler - der neffe, baby Masey, at his first Tee Ball game of the season!)

Nibbles and Quibbles

I made a fake chicken (ficken?) casserole. 'Twas 'baller', one might say. The patties were from Gardein and I simmered them in white wine, lemon juice, basil and Earth Balance. I found a recipe for béchamel and veganized it (white sauce, sauce blanche, just the fancy pants Frenchie name) and mixed it with parsley, onions and diced fresh garlic over the pasta. Cut up the pieces of ficken, included those in the heavenly mix and put the whole shebang in the oven for half an hour. Serious yum-mage.

However, that was the only recent success. It would be unfair, unrealistic of me to post only kitchen wins. I was making a huge batch of sweet potatoe fries and burnt them all! ALL! Even R., eater of burned things and constant ego-booster could not stomache them (that's saying something, haha). Then I made gazpacho. It was not that it was bad, just boring. Excruciatingly so. I turned it into salsa instead by adding Texas Pete and a boatload of spices. Still, disappointing, since I never got around to finding and imbibing gazpacho while in Spain.

Anyhow, we had fresh/raw DIY burritos last night (because Yours Truly did not feel like doing dishes). I think the avocados were trying to say something :}

House Shapes

Musical Intrepidness (or Lack Thereof)

While listening to Thursday this morning I realized it may be time for new music.

Places and People I Am Missing In No Particular Order

To Make Christy Smile --

Workshops of Apparent, Forced Casualness

Be successful! Sell yourself! Get a degree! You're a winner! Benefits and Salary! Yes you can!

Jargon on par with trigonometry. I am wondering how (why) this all has come to be the norm.

A Visual Description of Things on My Mind

(1. Found leaf illustration, 2. Maira Kalman, 3. 'Washington D.C. Victory Gardening in the Northwest Section', Louise Rosskam)

We are all television screens away from horrific occurrences.

The emotional reaction this day evokes in me is no different than that what I felt seeing it unfold large scale on a projector in my third period German class nine years ago. There was no Channel One, no morning announcement that day. I still have the page from my sketchbook -- the sky drawn so strangely still and cerulean, the cloud coming from the half broken building self contained and pencil lead gray. Orderly.

I find it interesting in retrospect that I did not depict what was clearly visible. The reds and oranges of fires and explosions. The black and dark dark gray of ash, of smoke. The falling bodies. The second plane. There is nothing orderly about chaos.

Today is September Eleventh, Two Thousand and Ten. Zealotry has no single religion. The calendar says we are forward but often I feel we must be going backwards.

For Mama

Because I know you will get all mushy inside watching the ending, and that you're off today probably canoodling around the interwebs! Love you :}

(Reblogged from these ladeez)

Things In My House

Nom Nom

I went to Beaver Street Market with Sarah on Friday. An abundance of fruit and veggies, including a whopping bag of fresh collard greens - ohmylanta, faaabulous. The peaches were (are) juicy, the pears were crisp and ginger root was super fresh. I've been cooking up a storm trying to use all the collards before they go. Ryan wanted veggie burgers for dinner one night, so I baked red and sweet potatoes after they had been tossed in olive oil with parsley, black pepper, sea salt and garlic powder. Pretty fabulous. And we strangely don't have normal condiments yet, so we had malt vinegar with the fries (just like at Ocean City, fave) and spicy chinese mustard and a mushroom-black bean spread I made on the veg patties. The next night I was feeling Southern. Why? I am not sure. Regardless, I used the rest of the sweet potatoes up, baked them soft and covered them with cinnamon, nutmeg, olive oil, Earth Balance, salt and pepper. What's up beta carotene! And then of course I had to do the collards up southern (salty and steamy), topped off with vegan Mac n' Cheese. The bomb dot com. I made this incredibly good (not pictured) ginger tea by boiling the diced and peeled ginger pieces in 5 cups of water for 15 minutes and then adding Agave and cinnamon before I took it off the stove top. I cut up a pear, a peach and an orange and poured the ginger concoction over it in a pitcher. Tonight I'm making Gardein fake chicken patties with white wine, lemon juice and onions on top of angel hair pasta in a veg white sauce made with almond milk. It miiiight be too sweet with the almond milk? Rice milk would probably be better, but we shall see. AND, I'm making this to use up that last bit of greens. I am happy to be putzing around a kitchen again after a summer of not cooking or eating well!

Obligatory Cat Post

Arthur got a bath yesterday. Oh, let me tell you how he loved it! (Clearly joking). I was going to take a photo of him because he looked so indignant and bedraggled, but decided against it. I would be embarrassed if anyone were to do such a thing to me, so I shan't do it to him. But, imagine me sitting in the tub wearing a bathing suit and long sleeved shirt (claws/ow), dousing him with tepid bathwater and apple cider vinegar, very confused as to why I could not find any fleas, flea dirt or eggs when combing him. Baffled! What is biting him?

Once he dried off, he was lovey dovey and quite sassy - I was expecting the silent treatment all day, what a nice surprise :} I especially like the second photo from the top, where he's caught mid goofy chirp. What a boo boo.

IIIIII

Am doodling around with the design of my blog today. Above is very clearly a Pokemon card depicting the one and only Jigglypuff. While I am rather fond of Jigglypuff, please know (that he is not of my creation and) that he is quite temporary until I get things fine and dandy.

Welcome to the Jungle

Just as I predicted in a Madame Ruby-esque way, A-Town Stay Down, Furriest Maximus, dancing cat extraordinaire has bites all about his lithe little frame. He's been scratching up a storm, poor fella. After a bout of internet searching last night, I rubbed some extra virgin coconut oil on his bites and his fur to temporarily quell the itching and repel jumping critters. I even took his dapper green collar off to make him more comfortable. Homeboy is maaaaad! Apparently, he likes his collar for aesthetic reasons and his insatiable grooming is not OCD like it was once believed, merely vanity.

The coconut oil decision may have been a bit rash (much like my fanny pack wearing on this morning's jog - what?? - am I thirty seven? - do keys jangling in my shorts really bother me so much that I stoop to wearing a fanny pack? - are my hands really that much freer and swing-able without holding my ipod? really?) but has seemed to help this skin (not his fur though, he looks like the Fonz).

It doesn't seem to be fleas, however, (no flat, flaky bites or flea dirt that would definitely be visible on his super fine, white fur) and I'm baffled - Mosquitoes? Spiders? Cockroaches? Ticks? Ants? Regardless - Raw Apple Cider Vinegar is what I'm headed for next. Fingers crossed? (That I don't lose an eye trying to bathe my ornery, itchy cat? That said ornery, itchy cat doesn't get sick from ingesting whatever nibbles him and need a vet visit in the midst of his Momma's joblessness and Poppa's wait for student loans to arrive?)

Yes, and Please

I wonder if Arthur would enjoy? HMMM. Top kitty looks quite sociable!

904

Because I love you so, River City --
(Via Jacksonville Public Library's online archives)

I Don't Want to Complain

But August was brutal with only one room unit of AC. I really really hope September brings cooler weather our way (or our landlord installs the living room unit..)

"Sleeping", Irving Penn