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The algorithm sent me this ATK recipe (paywalled, but linked for posterity, and pretty easy to extrapolate the basic idea) for a peanut butter chocolate quesadilla yesterday, and my instant reaction as a Massachusetts expat: "But where's the Marshmallow Fluff?! How can it be a Fluffernutter quesadilla without the Fluff? This is all Jarrett Barrios' fault, isn't it!"

Though of course, out here on the West Coast, getting ahold of actual Fluff is more difficult; when supermarkets have jarred marshmallow product, it's usually Kraft's Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme, which is more liquidy. ... hold on, I can get a two-pack of Marshmallow Fluff from my local Cost Plus?! As in the same Cost Plus where my mom used to buy us Botan candy to keep us occupied while she looked at household decor? ROFL.

Of course I ended up down the merch wormhole with my search results; I'd rather have it as a long-sleeve tee, but I love the logo on this What the Fluff sweatshirt from the Fluff Festival. 20th annual this year! Pairs well with this Ice Cream Weather hoodie from Gracie's just across the square that I've been meaning to pick up for years now. As well as my What a Cluster! tee. And now I want Goo Goo Clusters and Marshmallow Fluff. At least Moon Pies have made their way to the Bay? I can get those at my local CVS sometimes now.

Cherry on top of all this internet wormholing: while trying to figure out if Fluff was sold in any grocery stores local to me (besides Walmart, ugh), I stumbled across their recipe section, and amusingly enough, one of their most popular recipes is Lynne's Cheesecake. I swear I didn't submit it - the recipe looks like a New York cheesecake recipe, and I strongly prefer my cheesecakes burnt Basque or Japanese cotton style. But now I'm thinking, maybe I should tackle a burnt Basque Fluff cheesecake. Though admittedly, on my cheesecake back burner, I also want to make a cheesecake with Poppy Bagels' truffle schmear, Wikipedia has just informed me of the existence of a smoked salmon cheesecake, and Kat Lieu just posted a SPAM Basque cheesecake. Time to reup our Lactaid stock!

And now, of course, I'm earwormed with the old-timey Fluffernutter jingle.

Watch on YouTube

(Yeah, I know, an original Fluffernutter has no chocolate, but sprinkling some chocolate chips on top of one side and melting before assembly is pretty standard. Though IME hagelslag or vlokken work better, and of course you can also get hagelslag at Cost Plus, 😂.)

Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: marshmallow fluff // and lots of peanut butter!

beanside

Todays subject line is from Umbra, the song that says "What if cowbell?" Also, what if keyboard solo AND guitar solo?

Watch on YouTube

Good morning everyone! It's Sunday and good lord, I am still tired from Saturday. It was an awesome day, and I'm so grateful we were able to do it, but by the end I was beat. I had invited a bunch of our D&D server, specifically the ones who are in the Strahd game out for brunch. We have people that live in Pennsyvania all the way down to Virginia. So what I did was rent a van and offer to meet people at the BWI Marc/Amtrak station and then go to the restaurant.

We left early via uber to pick up the van, which I'd rented on Turo. The pictures did not convey how Lorge this van was. It was tall and required a big step up. We immediately stopped at the dollar store and grabbed a stepstool to make life easier.

Then, it was off to BWI. I got used to driving it pretty quickly, it was very smooth, though I did not enjoy taking it through the tunnel. We picked up the early contingent and went to get coffee, which was necessary. After that, a quick bathroom break, and the later contingent arrived, and we were off to the restaurant. Traffic was really shitty, and we ended up taking a alternate route that got us there about 25 minutes early. We stopped at the Korean tea shop, and relaxed until the driving contingent arrived, and then went in.

We'd decided on Rodizio Grill, which was again excellent. The gauchos circulated with delicious cuts of meat, and we all had foofy drinks. (They're super good for non alcholic drinks, which I wholly appreciate.) Much fun was had, and many good conversations. We ended up being 9 people strong, so I'm sure we kept them hopping. (I tipped very well.) It was so nice to put people with voices, and to spend some time face to face with them. All in all A++, will definitely do again.

Next time, I'll get a standard mini van that's easier to get into, but aside from that, I wouldn't change a thing.

By the time we dropped the car off and came home, I was exhausted and my back was super sore. I went to bed very early and slept hard.

Today, I'm still a bit sore, and looking forward to our massage this morning to ease that up. I basically just want a gentle backrub out of it. Hot stones, lavendar oil, yes, please.

Then, I will do a little bit of vegging, then cook dinner. I need to order some bbq sauce for my short ribs and look up how to properly cook them.

Then, maybe nap again.

I hope everyone has the most awesome Sunday!

dine

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ysobel

Things what have been happening:

A. My mom is an epic stress demon -- this deserves its own post but teal dear (or I guess TL;DW since it's not written up yet) early stages of dementia plus physical complications plus denial plus verbal aggression ... on top of the normal "treating me like I'm a teenager" and "calling multiple times a day" -- and I'm kind of boiling alive because stress and uncertainty

B. Speaking of boiling, today was the third day over 100F. Even with air conditioning and fans and cooling towels, it's way too hot

C. I have no sense of time any more. Everything is somehow too fast and too slow.

D. My brain is perpetually convinced I'm forgetting shit. Occasionally I actually am. But I'm basically living in perpetual anxiety.

E. Also I'm training new aides, which always sucks even when they're good

F. Phoebe is still cute af. So is Loki. The two of them are the only things keeping me halfway sane. If I can remember tomorrow I'll upload pictures.

kaberett

Koalas have fingerprints; hairy-nose wombats do not.

Skin on fingers and toes wrinkle in water not because cells get saturated but as an autonomic nervous system function, which we have apparently known since at least 1935. An initial 2013 study found that people with wrinkled fingertips could pick up and move more wet marbles in a set time frame than people with dry skin; a 2014 study failed to replicate this, but there's more at the BBC including a 2020 replication. (The 2013 reference at least is buried in the BBC article.)

Holding a hot drink inclines us to view people as "emotionally warmer"; a heavier clipboard inclines us to believe the person whose CV it's displaying takes their work more seriously. Many other related fun facts over here.

(Book of the moment: Touch, David J. Linden.)

althea_valara

Someone - I forget who, sorry! - linked to this list of 15 questions for fanfic writers, put together by

maevedarcy. I do so love questionnaires and writing memes, even if I'm not that big of a writer (yet!).

( questions and answers under cut to spare your reading pages the length )

beanside

It's Strahd Meet up day!!! Whooohoo! I'm so excited to see everyone! My day will start roughly at 9am, when I will go to pick up the van that will be our chariot for the day. Until then, I have time to relax, and maybe put on fresh nail polish and some makeup. I will have to remember to put a little cortisone on when I take it off, so that maybe tomorrow my face won't be thoroughly broken out.

I'm debating between driving over to get the car vs ubering. We'll see what I decide.

Depending on track issues, people may be getting in super early, so I want to get down to the pickup point early, so they can sit in the cool car while we wait for everyone to show.

Work yesterday was busy. I called a lot of people and took a lot of calls, but I got everyone in the way they were supposed to be. Towards the end of the day, my boss messaged me because they were in a meeting with the head of Johns Hopkins Medical Imaging, who I met a couple of weeks ago at the orientation. Apparently she was impressed, and is going to be sending me a Kudo sheet. Not sure what I did to deserve it, but I'll take it.

I also caught an error before we scheduled it, so that was good. My coworker sent it as if it was a random MRI, but it was actually a presurgical Wand MRI. That's the kind where they place little stickers on the forehead and then use the MRI and the stickers to line up where to cut and where the tumor is exactly. It needs to be done right before surgery, or the stickers tend to fall off. The appointment I was told to offer was two days before surgery, which isn't going to fly, so I did some digging and found them a spot the day before. I was very proud of myself, and annoyed at my coworker.

I did make friends with another of my coworkers. She's another one who's higher up than me--I believe a specialist III to my II. I helped her out with the PET queue the day before, and I work it slightly differently, so we talked about that, and then we segued into other things, so that was cool. I'm slowly amassing a set of my leadership. lol

It's nice, gives me someone else to chat with during quiet days.

Tomorrow, we have massages, which should be fun. I'm looking forward to letting someone give me a good backrub. Hopefully the table isn't a problem like it was for my back scritches. My back has been pretty good, so probably not.

Okay, time to go get pretty nails! Everyone have an amazing Saturday!

dine

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adrian_turtle

I know it's rude to talk to strangers, but I was provoked. I was waiting for a trolley this afternoon. Somebody near me was either recording a short video, or facetiming with a friend, while I maintained the polite fiction that I could not hear her. I've heard lots of people object to illegal immigrants or refugees, in these parlous times, but her objections were to tech workers with H1B visas. And once she got going, she objected to student visas. When somebody is on the phone, bystanders are supposed to pretend they can't hear...but it was pretty awful.

Then she turned to an Asian man on her other side. She asked where he was from, "I mean, were you born here? were your parents born here?" He pulled away, just a little, but said, no, he was only here for a few years. He had a child with him. She challenged him to justify what he was doing here. He sounded like he was treating this as a normal social interaction, politely answering her questions about his wife's academic work. I tried to get a word in edgewise. The bully found his answers satisfactory, and said people like them deserved to come here.

Maybe he didn't need my defense? He had successfully defended himself? I still told her not to go up to people and demand to know where they were from. This was my neighborhood, my community, and what matters is that people behave decently, not where their parents were born. I didn't think to ask if she was raised in a barn or what. I felt foolish and clumsy that I only called her out for rudeness but not bigotry. And that I didn't say anything sooner. But most of it was so undirected, with no handle, no excuse for an interruption. And then when it escalated it went fast and loud but not dangerous.

When the trolley came, the man and his kid went to the far end of the car and the bully went to the opposite end. A young person I hadn't seen before nodded at me in passing and said, "Fuckin' MAGA assholes." I said, "Yeah, what can you do?" and felt better.

(ETA: What the tall young person said on the trolley was, "Fuckin' MAGA assholes, eh?" I forgot to include that last detail, and it's worth remembering.)

ursamajor

I did not end up making a dessert for choir this week that magically used any portion of our eleven cups of plum jam in the fridge. I made chocolate chip cookies, and they disappeared like magic (the only empty container on the snack table when I went to clean up after break!) and I got multiple compliments on them *preens*.

It was my usual recipe, doubled because I used the oversized 20 oz Ghirardelli bag of semisweet chips, and then I went through my spice cabinet and pulled out baharat and rosewater. Though I've made a couple of adjustments over the years, and didn't actually write them down online, so here, have my ( go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. )

Ugh, I need a new chocolate icon, FJKR.

That being said, I went by Market Hall this morning since the internet said they were my local carrier for the See's Candy x McConnell's Ice Cream collab - they didn't have all the flavors, but they did have Coffee + Molasses Chips, so that got promptly plopped into my bike basket.

But while I was there, I also perused the other things they had available, and the regular old standard size 12 oz bag of Guittard semisweet chocolate chips was SIXTEEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS I HATE THIS TIMELINE.

Even checking online right now - Berkeley Bowl is claiming $12.39/bag, Guittard direct says $11.99/bag, and I am wondering how many bags of the semisweet I can order via my farmshare at $7.49/bag before they cut me off. Ghirardelli is still available at Berkeley Bowl for $8.79/bag, but I'm wondering for how much longer - before this summer, both of these were pretty close price matches, maybe 50c/bag difference and not always consistently in the same direction depending on what supermarket I was at? This feels like when vanilla prices exponentially spiked a few years ago and my $50 of vanilla backstock was suddenly worth $300.

... the farmshare website dropdown goes to 20 items. I'm not sure I want to be talked out of this. (I will probably buy at least 4, I am literally down to my last bag of chocolate chips and I usually have half a dozen bags on hand at any given time.)

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: this is the straw, final straw

kaberett

The nature of veg box is that Vegetables for which I have no Plan... accumulate. Today's dinner took a bunch of said accumulated veg and made them salad-shaped, and it worked out well enough that I want a record as a reminder for future self that one can just Do This.

( Read more... )

nilchance

our characters from the Curse of Strahd module are coming back tonight after an 8 month hiatus to continue in the Vecna: Eve of Ruin module. therefore, here's a song for my grave cleric Tali, and it seems appropriate for a depressed priest of the Raven Queen:

Watch on YouTube

beanside

Good Morrow! 'Tis Friday!

I expected many things from a Ghost concert, but one of those things wasn't to get choked up. In the song in the subject line, there's a line about "With these words at hand, the future is a foreign land so let us pray for more in 2024". And when I hear it, I'm wistful for the build up in Kamala's campaign, when for a few months, we had hope. But it doesn't make me cry. But then, during the concert, the lead singer changed it to "Let us pray for more in 2034." And I got teary, because, like a lot of their songs, it's all about hope. And sometimes, I need that.

Yesterday was pretty good. I did my job like a boss. But then, towards the end of the day, I got something from the head of radiology. Apparently, ealier in the week, I had called back a patient and to work them in for a sooner appt. And I knew that they were related to an employee, but that's all. The slot we had didn't work, but I worked with them to find something that did, and apparently, they called said employee, who sent a very nice kudo to the head of radiology, mentioning my name specifically. So she sent it to me and my managers, basically thanking us for making her look good. And immediately, my managers both chimed in about how awesome I was. It was very sweet, but yet again, I'm like "what are you planning?" Because it also felt like it was performative. Like they were going "yes, look how awesome she is. See, see!" Either way, it's always nice to get some praise and petting.

After that, I made some chicken spaghetti with rose sauce, which turned out pretty well. I was pleased at least.

Of course at the end of the evening, I got a message that my shoes had been delivered, but when I looked, they'd been delivered to the old house. I thought I'd take that address out, but apparently not. I'm going to go over and get them shortly. I just didn't have the energy last night.

Tonight, we shall play Vecna: Eve of Ruin for our first game of the new module. It should be interesting, seeing how the goth disasters from the Strahd group adapt to a new module.

Tomorrow, we have a meet up of the whole Strahd group. It'll be nine of us going to lunch, which should be fun. I'm looking forward to it. A touch nervous, because I'm renting a bus and picking up most of my DC/Virginia people from the train station, and I'm not sure how big the bus will be, but we shall deal.

Sunday, we have a couple's massage. Jess has been having some back pain, and we figured if we can ease that before the surgery, it would be good. We sprung for the relaxing hot stone massage, and I'll definitely be getting light pressure. I don't need my muscles beaten, just relaxed.

Okay, time for me to get pants on and go forth and get a box of shoes. Everyone have an excellent Friday!

dine

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archersangel

This week's questions were suggested by

canuckfetish .

1. Have you ever stayed in a hostel? If so, where? Did you like it? If you haven't stayed in a hostel, would you?
i've never been. i would not stay in one, i don't want to share a room with strangers. i don't even want to share with my brother (separate beds, of course), but we do to save money. besides, i'm too old to go to one now.

2. What is your favo(u)rite airport that you've been to? Why?
i've only been to 5 & i would not say i had a favorite among them. i will say that just before we went to atlanta for the first time i overheard this guy tell an older couple that hartsfield–jackson was the worst airport in the country. we thought it was OK, but i guess it's different if you have to spend hours there, or travel a lot.

3. What is the best museum you have visited on vacation?
i've only been to 2 the world of coke in atlanta (nothing special) & the los angeles county museum of natural history. not much there & what is there had bad lighting, so that's probably why it was $9 in 2009.

4. Have you ever made friends while traveling whom you keep in touch with on a regular basis?
no.

5. Have you ever had a conversation with a seatmate on a plane?
no. thankfully the 3 times i flew (6, with the round trips) i was with my brother and talking to him is not horrible.

other answers are over here.

Current Mood: blah

kaberett

In brief: book is the least I've been annoyed by any such book I have yet read, which is fairly impressive going, especially since the copy in the BL's collection is the first edition originally published in 2003 rather than the second edition updated in 2013; more notes possibly to follow (subject to reaching a decision about whether I want to hold out for getting my hands on a copy of the second edition before talking about it in public).

Entertainment: shortly after I finally settled myself down in my nice corner desk against a window with my back to the wall and a whole enclosed-in-glass booth between me and Any Other Readers... my watch buzzed to let me know that I'd just finished a Period Of High Stress. The high stress was, obviously, sitting quietly wedged into a corner on public transport while reading a relaxing book. I did know public transport was exhausting! I have been saying! I'm still kind of impressed at the watch Earnestly Informing Me, In Case I Didn't? Know? ~~and mildly regretting that I'm planning to do the same-ish again tomorrow, and also also I am reassessing A Lot of my wheelchair use in light of this...~~

Related entertainment: how much my hypervigilance kicked up when I returned from lunch to discover that neatly leaving my notebook and reading-book in a stack on my desk had not had sufficient inhibitory effect, and a Noisy Person had decided to sit diagonally across from me, in my Space, being Noisy. The amount I relaxed when they (temporarily) fucked off is another one for the "yep I can see how not leaving the house for over a year and then staying Hyper Local has added up to me looking much more functional" files...

fayanora

Just had a dream that some old, fat Vietnam vet named Bob was talking somewhere about his service, and Trump was there. Bob soon veered off into talking about Trump and how Trump was a disgusting orange disgrace, that his "fake tan' was actually just some weird oily, stinky, sticky goo that came out of an animal's anal glands, and that even though he (Bob) was old and fat, at least he wasn't a disgusting blob of gristle and stinking shit like Trump. He was soon being forced out of the room by security, at Trump's command. When Bob left, everyone left in the room started chanting "Encore! Encore! Encore!" and wouldn't stop, so Trump got frustrated and left, unable to make whatever speech he wanted to make.

azurelunatic

Visiting the out-laws with Belovedest. Last night we had dinner out at the Dirty Bird (chicken bar & grill) so this morning's breakfast is leftovers. Which I had in bed, due to the scarcity of tables in the hotel room, and my general unwillingness to get out of bed before nine.

Unfortunately, breakfast was crispy chicken Caesar salad, with buffalo sauce on the side. And after I finished that, I was dipping baby carrots in the sauce. And there was a spill.

I can't seem to face up to the facts
I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax
I can't sleep, 'cause my bed's on fire
Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire
Spicy pillow, qu'est-ce que c'est?
Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa, far better
Run-run, run-run-run away
Oh-oh-oh

Current Mood: silly
Current Location: far away
Current Music: The Talking Heads

beanside

It's creeping ever closer to the weekend! Yesterday was a little bit frustrating. My sister was off for her birthday, so the dog was a little riled up and barky, plus she was talky, plus the brother in law came over and was talking, too. It was a lot. It settled down in the afternoon, but the morning, I was a little bit overstimulated.

I had door dash coming all through the day-first groceries, then we had baloons, then fancy chocolates, then finally gourmet cupcakes. It was a lot. I couldn't think of anything to get my sister, because we usually get anything we need. So, chocolate and balloons. The balloons are enormous. It's a bunch of them, all the mylar kind. Some smaller round ones clustered around one huge one. (Seriously, it's like 3 feet across.)

The chocolate was from Kilwins, a place we discovered a year or so ago. They're super expensive, so we don't order often, but good lord they are good. Yesterday, I got some truffles, some vanilla buttercreams (SO good) a few buckeyes, a chocolate and caramel dipped marshmallow and some fudge.

Last was the cupcakes from a bakery I'd never heard of, Midnite Confections and Cupcakery. Holy shit, those were some good cupcakes. I had the plain old vanilla, and it was amazing. Jess had a lemon with lime frosting that they really liked, and my sister had a black bottom, which was very god. We got a 6 pack, so we have some left for today. I'm excited to try the birthday cake, which is an almond cake and icing. I took a taste of the icing, and it's delicious.

After dinner, which my sister requested hamburgers for, I relaxed for a while, and then went to bed, where I stayed up way late reading and finishing T. Kingfisher's Hemlock and Silver.

T. Kingfisher writes both horror and fantasy. This was the later, but even in those, you usually get something kind of horrifying. Not necessarily scary, just kind of wrong. In her last one, it was the goblin market with the tooth vendor. The heroine had a bad tooth, and was willing to trade it. So the stall proprietor had the tooth dance out ouf her mouth. It was just so vividly written that it gave me the proper heebs.

I'm not going to spoil this one, but I will say there were a few things that made me mouth "what the fuck" silently. Still when it was done, I clutched it to my bosom and made a happy little squeak. I really enjoyed it. As always, it featured a practical heroine who I loved, the animals all lived, and there was even a bit of romance. All in all, very satisfying.

Today, I'm going to try to find time to dye my hair. the grey is showing a lot, and I'd like to correct that before the Strahd players get together on Saturday.

I suppose I could do my hair now. I'd be done by about 7, and would have time to hop in the shower.

Maybe I'll do that. Everyone have a perfect Thursday!