My brain on music

Anna at twelve22 recommended Daniel J. Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music, about how we hear music in neurological terms. It's riveting. My only problem is that I need to be by myself when I'm reading it, since I'm compelled to read chunks out to whoever's around at the time.

I'm only about 50 pages in, but I can see that it's the kind of book that a Colby music prof would assign as an extra-credit project. I'm actually enjoying reading it just to read it, rather than reading it knowing that I need to write a paper on it or answer questions on it on my next midterm.

(This is a random picture of a clock from one of the church towers we visited last weekend)

In other music news, I seem to have come out from under my rock to find Owl City (warning: music auto-plays). I normally find auto-tune stuff to be really irritating, but for some reason I think it's really catchy. Embarrassingly, I didn't find out about them (him?) on the radio like a normal person. No, I heard about it because someone at work asked if we would be buying in the matching folio. In case you're wondering, the answer is yes.

When's my movie?

So I'm no longer the only person on the planet who hasn't seen Julie & Julia. It's finally out on DVD in the UK and we rented it this afternoon. And I LOVED it. I was Julie...I was Julia...I was Julie again, then back to Julia. 

::sigh:: 

There was a lot of criticism that the movie was overly schmaltzy and that Amy Adams was wooden, but I thought she was the perfect combination of neurotic, repellent, and endearing. And of course Meryl was fabulous. John thought her Julia Child accent was annoying, but I thought she nailed it (and I forgot about it after 5 minutes).

And then we saw Frances Sternhagen (who of course stole the scene she was in) and John had his first "HEY that's Frannie and I know her and she's in that movie and she came to our wedding and she's great and isn't that cool??!" moment. I've been having them for years, and yes, it's cool.

Continuing the New Yawk foodie theme, John picked up some Italian spicy sausages at Waitrose last week, so we had penne with sausage, fennel and tomato sauce. It was exceedingly tasty and very New York Italian-tasting. I just needed the glass tumbler of parmesan with the metal lid and the experience would have been complet.

I spent yesterday with the Ladies' Guild (Eastern District) for the annual district meeting and four bell towers. We all thought his spindly rope holder was really cool, and I'm glad this picture came out as well as it did.

This was taken a few minutes before, during the ringing.

So when are the publishers and Hollywood-types coming to make a movie of my blog? Huh?

The BBC

This week, on the BBC (cue dramatic music): Lambwatch, LIVE! Five, one-hour, (mostly) live programs, direct from a lamb shed in Wales. Honestly. No, really, I'm not kidding.

Where will YOU be at 8pm?

More Ginger Ale

I wasn't feeling well at all on Friday. Achy, a v. unhappy stomach, and general ickyness. We left work a little bit early, and the ickyness continued. So much so that on Saturday, John brought home a Mr. Men thermometer and some flowers, along with some ginger ale. Which, obviously, made me feel much better.

 Yellow chrystanthemumbles. Very nice. And rather springy.

I finally found our Easter decorations, too. My favorite is this little chap. I mean, c'mon. A bunny, riding on a carrot, with a purple egg for company? What's not to like? Now I just need to snaffle a spring-y twig/stick thing for the front hall table so I can hang all of the decorations on it. Yes, there are more.

In honor of spring, and the fact that I was feeling better, and the glorious sunshine we had today, we went to visit the lambs at Baylham House farm. I always feel a little weird going there without a small child, but nobody seemed to notice. The lambs are several weeks old, so rather than being in the lambing shed, they were out in the fields, springing! Ok, not this guy, but what a face!

James managed to catch this action shot - the little guy in the center of the picture has all four feet in the air. SPRING lamb! I could have stood there for hours, but the boys were getting cold, so we walked back to the car. Which has now been washed and vacuumed. Spring, indeed.

Winter, followed by Spring

I finished Her Fearful Symmetry on Tuesday night. I really loved it and am rather sad that it seems to take A.N. forever to write books - it's going to be years before the next one!

I also finished knitting my hat, while watching men's and women's Ski Cross on iPlayer. The commentary was somewhat inane - the same commentator kept repeating phrases in the same places on the course. I know they're paid to fill the air with patter, and that the skiers all race down the same course a zillion times, but change it up, dude. I eventually had to put it on mute - I'd heard one too many times that the skiers in the start gate had "adrenaline coursing through their veins."

Anyway, my hat didn't turn out exactly right - I had a lot of trouble keeping the tension in the carried-over yarn and it's scrunched a bit. It's also too big at the top. And looks a lot like I'm wearing a tea cosy on my head. HOT. Yesterday was not a good day for my knitted things - I went to the library to drop off some books and somehow dropped my mittens in the road. They were there when I walked back the other way, but were v. mucky. They've now been washed and are recovering on the radiator in the bathroom.

The in-laws came over yesterday and brought with them some SPRING (also known as daffodils)!! I should really put them outside so they last longer but I'm enjoying them too much in the kitchen. I'll plant them out once they're done. It's pouring again today - I think it might have to be another iPlayer day. Maybe even soup for lunch.

The bulbs in the garden (daffs, some tulips, and various hyacinths) are all starting to poke up from the ground. They won't be flowering for a while, though. These will just have to tide me over.

Dear Book Character, I Miss You

At some point on her blog (and I can't find the post to link to it), author Kristin Cashore wrote about how some of her favorite books involve characters that she feels a physical sense of loss about at the end of the book. At least, I think it was Kristin. There's a possibility that it was Anna of twelve22, or maybe even Valancy-S. Hmm...I read lots of writer-people blogs...

In any case, I started reading the new Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry, yesterday. A character dies at the very beginning. As in, the first word of the book is her name, the second is "died." The book, unsurprisingly, continues. I found myself missing said dead character by the end of the first chapter, a grand total of two pages later. The book is filled with homesickness, an overwhelming sense of longing, and characters who don't ever seem to be able to connect with each other. (I'm only half way through - they may all resolve into happy little pairs at the end but something tells me it won't.)

It also features what I think may be my favorite literary ghost. Yes, even better than Bob The Skull from the Dresden Files.

I remember this same sense of longing from reading The Time Traveller's Wife - I desperately MISSED both of the protagonists as soon as I finished the last page. While Time Traveller felt to me like the whole book was permeated by an overwhelming sadness, Her Fearful Symmetry doesn't feel that way. There's a definite sense of missing the characters, and it takes place in a rather gloomy London, but there is an overwhelming hopeful sense about it.

I'm actually avoiding reading it at the moment - once I pick it up the pages disappear rather quickly and there's not all that much of it left.

Week 4 of the quilt-along - it's sandwich time! I had quite a bit of extra batting - they only had it in the wide width (and I've looked online and I was WAY overcharged for it). Grr. Anyway, barring that frustration, I've sandwiched the whole thing tother and pinned it.

I'm slightly worried about the quilting part - I might have to call the Sewing Machine Guru in Bury and see if there's a free-motion foot for my Silver or if I should (a) just suck it up and "stitch in the ditch" or (b) outsource it to a fellow Bury Bach Choir-er (and quilting pro), Jan Chandler.

John was in Waitrose and found this new Kleenex box design. He thought it was so funny he bought it and brought it home to show me. I'll have to ration the tissues - I think it's baaaaaarmy!

James and I made lemon & blueberry cake from the April BBC Good Food - it was pretty easy and is exceedingly yummy. It was perfectly moist with a fair bit of zing from the lemon curd and zest, cut by the sweetness of the sugar in the cake and the icing.

Mmmm...lemony blueberry-y icingy goodness.

No, really, it was good icing. See?

I Love Delia

I've been watching the "Decades of Delia" on iPlayer. We're up to the 90s, and it's riveting. My mom has all of the Delia seasons books, so it's funny seeing The Original versions of recipes that we've been eating for yonks.

Oh, and she lives in Suffolk. Not far from Stowmarket, apparently.

In other cooking news, this was my valentine's day breakfast on Sunday morning. Crassles, coffee, gj and tulips. AND the sun even came out.

GeekFest

After more of my usual madness during the week, yesterday I had time to get caught up on week three of the quilt-along.

I watched two episodes of Glee and an episode of Hairy Bikers on Saturday morning, which resulted in this:

A little more sewing machine time this morning, and the top is finished. WOOT! Week four (quilt sandwich, according to the rumours on the interwebs) here we come!

John was clearing out some old files and came across a bunch of old pictures. Judging by the leaves on the trees, these were taken in Spring '05, right after we got engaged. Awww. We were both looking at this picture and decided that I look REALLY young.

I don't have any pictures of my own from about 2003-2006 - my old mac's hard drive gave up the ghost (and no, it wasn't backed up), so it was fun to find these. I love the one of Rrufus. Standard issue tennis ball, unphotographable black dog, standing in an odd place with a "play with me?!" expression.

Anyway, after the quilting (and finding the pictures), I went to Old Newton to ring a quarter peal. Lots of different methods, which caused the odd small panic (mostly me). We're getting there.

We then all came back to the house, where we had a veggie dinner (with no cheese for John and no mushrooms for Jo), followed by brownies, ice cream, and BOARD GAMES!

First, Carcassonne, which takes on a whole new dimension with 6 players. We didn't use any of the expansion packs, since John and I were the only ones who knew the game. More next time! Then we played Alison's 80's classic: Escape From Atlantis. It's on Board Game Geek, and it's old-school! Finally, we played about a million rounds of Harry Potter Uno, with Lesley's special house rules. They are a definite improvement, in my book.

1. If you play a 0, you can pick a person to switch cards with. Muahaha. 

2. If you have a card that's identical (number AND color) to the one that's just been played, you can ignore any other players and slam your identical card down. You then get a bonus turn and the people who were skipped just have to lump it. Again with the muahaha.

We all turned into pumpkins around midnight. Very entertaining and exceedingly geeky!

I cut my squares and rectangles for the OTRTS quilt along today. Since I had one extra fabric, the lime green has been re-allocated to my stash. I think there could definitely be a v. cute baby quilt to be had from the various leftovers. One of my work/book group buddies is due in July - I should be able to sort something out by then!

Here's a picture of the cut rectangles, along with the instructions on ihavetosay and my super-shiny MacBook Pro of Awesomeness. And my cutting mat which I have temporarily reclaimed from the boys, who have been using it so they don't get paint on the kitchen table when they're building things. Ahem.

It mostly went quite smoothly, except for the "how to get a straight edge" part. According to the instructions:

Make a small cut on one of the cut edges (a 1/4 inch cut about 1/2 inch into your fabric). Then start tearing. This sounds a bit scary, but it won't hurt anything.

I did get a straight line, but it also seemed to leave a wavy edge and some vaguely wonky fabric. Operator failure? Quilters: comments welcome. Anyway, the rectangles seem sufficiently rectangular and the white squares are also ready to go. Monday's instructions will involve actual sewing. Swoon.

BTW, for those of you who've noticed, the new banner is a photo that James took last spring at Snape Maltings.

The book over there is my new ringing book, The Method Ringer's Companion. It's pretty funny - it's written in a conversational style and Steve Coleman has a predictably dry and British sense of humor. John, for some reason, doesn't find it funny and is mysteriously irritated when I read passages out to him while giggling. Harumph.

I was thinking about it when I rang my first QP of Plain Bob Triples (inside!) at Stowmarket last Sunday. ::happy dance:: It was one of the most enjoyable QPs so far - all of the usual suspects in what is technically my home tower. Home is where the blankie is!

But there aren't any more?

I finished reading The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest last night. I spent most of the last book alternately enjoying it immensely and fretting about the fact that it is The Last One. And There Won't Be Any More. And The Author Is Dead. Apparently there is drama and there are bits of a fourth book which may or may not come out.

In any case, read the trilogy. AWESOME.

Oh, and an update, for those of you who are interested in such things: I have vanquished the leaking toilet. Watch out, world!

Kate, 0; Downstairs Toilet, 1.

I'm having a supremely lazy Sunday morning. Murray/Federer at the Australian Open, the couch, my pjs, the laptop, and a cup of coffee. Tough life.

I seem to be at an impasse with out downstairs toilet - it's leaking. And it's quite clearly leaking through a plug that's in the bottom of the cistern. I've tried replacing the plug, but it still leaks. I don't think there's anything wrong with either the plug or the cistern, it's more the awkward corner that the toilet is in.

The plug is a plastic bolt with a washer on one side, and a nut to tighten the whole thing together on the other side. The problem is that the cistern is fairly neatly boxed into a corner, with just enough room to get your hand in feel that there's a problem. However, there's no way to see what's going on without a mirror, and there's no way to get a wrench or anything else in there to tighten the whole mess.

Maybe a trip to B & Q to see if they have the right tool...although I can't imagine what shape it would have to be to not only fit into the space but also be able to turn. And I REALLY don't want to have to take the whole toilet apart and take it off the wall just to tighten something.

Gulp...a real quilt

OK, so I've made quilts before. Gabi has two of them: a big one and this stroller one. But every time I've made a quilt, it's been more of a "make it up as I go along" exercise than an actual quilt. And I've never bound a quilt before.

In a moment of insanity, I've joined Randi's On the Road To Spring quilt-along on her blog,i have to say.

So, yesterday I went to Bury (well, we all went to Bury) and I went to Mill House fabric to buy my 10 1/3-yard pieces. And the batting (which was SO expensive). I like my fabrics, although the selection wasn't great. They weren't busy, either. I definitely got the sense that pulling ALL the fabrics I was interested in off the shelf was NOT the done thing, from the employees and other customers. And that they were doing me a favor by letting me shop there. Sorry, guys - I'm dropping rather a large amount of money in your store - I can move the fabrics around if I want to. I'll put them all back, I promise. The whole thing made me wish that I still lived a subway-ride away from purlpatchwork in Soho (although it wasn't there when I lived there, and I didn't have a sewing machine then).

In any case, I started out with my off-white "background" color and two Liberty fabrics that I've been saving for something. Since I've been saving them for at least 2 years now, it's time to get moving. So they were my jumping-off point for the quilt. They're the florals on the left in both of the little pictures.

I think it's kind of neat that I found similar fabrics to both in the fabric store - I especially like the red/blue florals because the flowers are exactly the same.

Anyway, this is my "favorites" pile:

And then, at the bottom, is the whole enchilada. The creamy one right at the bottom is my "background" color. The light blue and creamy florals (same fabric, different colorway) are the backing and binding fabrics, respectively. I got enough so that I can chicken out on one or two of the other ones and use them on the front as well. I also like them enough that I'll definitely be able to think of other things to make with them. I'm a little nervous after looking at the other fabric choices in the flickr group - mine seems a little...er...scattered.

It's funny - I keep fretting randomly about each fabric in the pile (except the one on the top right and the two at the very bottom). But all of the other ones pick up colors in those, and they're all pretty much floral or floral-looking (ahem snowflakes and dragonflies - where did you come from?). And that orange-yellow is pretty intense, except then you realise that it's in the dragonflies and the center of all the flowers. See - I've been at it all day.

Onward!

Carcassonne

We have a new board game. It's called Carcassonne and is extremely entertaining. Basically, you build cities, roads, cloisters and farms, colonising them with little "meeples" along the way.


It seems to have a good mix of luck and skill, and after our initial "how does this work?" round, John and I were pretty psyched to play several more rounds. I think once James gets the hang of it, he'll enjoy it, too.


Look, meeples! (The one in the foreground isn't dead, he's a farmer. He actually turned out to be John's game-winning farmer. BAH.)

While I've been knitting muchly, John has built this little engine thingy. It needs to be painted and have a little more glue-time, but I think it's really cute.

By the way, most of my pictures are now being taken with the new Canon EOS 500D from John's brother. It's an AWESOME camera and is really fun to play with. I've found it a bit more intuitive than our older 20D, and all the pictures seem to be much sharper.

Not a paper cup

The coffee at work is legendary. And not in a good way. Since we have a really nice coffee maker at home, we make enough in the mornings for two travel mugs worth. It's SO nice to sit down at my desk and get started on my day with a cup of coffee. We have two Aladdin (discontinued) "I'm not a paper cup" travel mugs. They keep the coffee warm for about 2 hours, even with the sipping lid open. And they don't leak, which better than all the other travel mugs I've used. If you want to keep coffee hot for hours and hours, get a Thermos. If you just want it to be hot when you get to work (our commute is about 25 minutes), I'd recommend these.

I fully admit that we look rather dorky carrying matching mugs in to the office in the mornings, but it's worth it. Oh, and woe betide you if you forget to bring your mug home at the end of the day. It has knock-on effects through the following morning. Ack.

My other most recent work-atmosphere improvement has been The Wailin Jennys. My dad found them while on his Kate Rusby Pandora channel, and they seem to me to be a cross between KR, the Indigo Girls, and the Sirens (a Colby acapella group). LOVE them.

I finished reading Megan Whalen Turner's first novel, "The Thief," this week. It was very much in the same style as Graceling, and I really liked the descriptions - she conveys the moods of the settings and the characters very well. I think I may have read it too close on the heels of Graceling and Eragon- I found myself overlapping characters a bit. Definitely worth a read if you like YA fantasy novels. I've put it on James' bedside table to see if we can bring him on a little bit from Darren Shan.

I've started my book club book which required some deep breathing after the first few sentences. It's The Angel's Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

A writer never forgets the fist time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story.

Panic set in. I. Hate. Books. About. Writers.

Write what you know, and all that, but don't write about writing, please. I did manage to regain my composure and I'm now about 20 pages in.

Chili

We made a delish dinner last night - it's from the most recent BBC Good Food, so it's not on their website. It was a Black Bean Chili from a feature on Mexican food by the American food writer Jennifer Joyce. It's funny - Mexican food is essentially its own food group in the US, and it's really not something that's particularly huge over here. When you think about it geographically, it makes sense, but I still miss my quesadillas.

Anyway, this recipe was SO easy and really tasty. My normal veggie chili recipe involves kidney beans (which I always think are a little dry and mealy) and bell peppers (which I'm not a huge fan of). This is MUCH better (and would be really tasty with some leftover chicken or ground beef, too).

The only thing we did differently was to use smoked paprika with a little chili powder instead of sweet pimenton, which made it rather fiery but very tasty. Oh, and I didn't have ground cumin so I used whole cumin and some ground coriander (and dumped some dried coriander leaf in towards the end). We served it with spring onions and sour cream, and I'm still thinking about how yummy it was.

We had a few apples in the fridge that were threatening to go brown, so I made this recipe for apple streusel bars again. Double the apples, halve the icing, leave everything else the same. Tastes somewhere between apple pie, Bakewell tart, and a meltaway. It can be used extremely effectively as a bribe.

Because we had leftover spring onions from last night's chili, John's breakfast consisted of fried eggs with sauteed mushrooms, green chillies, and spring onions. (James and I ate up some stale bread by making french toast). As much as I love french toast, I was jealous. He was nice enough to give me a bite, and it tasted fabulous.

I finished another book last night: Janice Y.K. Lee's The Piano Teacher. I don't remember where my recommendation came from - it might have been on one of my Waterstones Evernote binges. (I go to Waterstones, decide which books in the bestsellers look good, write them down on Evernote, and order them from the library. Before you howl in horror at not supporting bookstores, we buy lots of books for James and John there and I do occasionally cave and BUY a book. We don't have any good independents near us, so I don't feel bad for not supporting them.)

In any event, I should have been more wary. It was not only a "Richard and Judy Summer Read" (Run away! Far, far away!), but it was billed as "This year's Atonement" on the cover. I HATED Atonement. In fairness, I didn't hate The Piano Teacher as much as I hated Atonement. It's set in colonial Hong Kong in the 1950s, with flashbacks to the 1940s. I thought the setting was very interesting, and the interactions between the various colonial powers and the native population were well-described, but I didn't think that the book really went anywhere. Then, at the back, there was an interview with Lee, where she said that she didn't really know where the book was going to go when she was writing it. Really? Couldn't have guessed.

I'll just have to do some more reading, since it's snowing again!

Best Christmas Present Ever

My dad is hard to shop for. My mom is easy: I either ask her what she wants and she tells me, or I go into a store and think "I really LIKE that" and buy one for her. Works every time.

With my dad, though, it's different. If he sees something he wants or needs, generally he buys it for himself. If you ask him what he wants, he says "nothing". His birthday is 2 days after Christmas, and most of his hobbies are summer-related.

This means that every year, I have to think of not one, but two presents for him, to be delivered within 2 days of each other. It cannot be one present (there are laws against that). It cannot be something he already has.

It has to be something he didn't know he always wanted.

This year, I think I struck gold. His birthday present was the exciting but not off-the-charts Gorillapod (able to combine his love of photography, the self-timer on his camera, and riding his bike). However, his Christmas present is what I would consider to be an all-time-greatest-present.

His No. 1 [Note: I've just discovered that my otherwise entirely flawless and lovely MacBook Pro doesn't have a "number sign" or "hash key" button. You know, the little thing that looks like a tic-tac-toe board. WTF, Apple?]. Ahem.

His "number 1" favorite hobby is photography. His current favorite hobby is needlepoint. What to do? Combine the two!

Picture of a RI lighthouse, taken by Dad:

Lovely, you say. It's a lighthouse, you say.

Ahhh, but wait.

Many struggles with a shall-remain-nameless Rhode Island purveyor of needlepoint and things over a 3-week period pre-Christmas, helped along by my ever-heroic mom, followed by a powerpoint presentation to be "opened" on Christmas morning, followed by a few more transatlantic emails.

After all of that, you get this. That's right, a custom, hand-painted needlepoint pattern (including the color-matched yarn) of a picture that my dad took. I am awesome. And he's worth it.

Wait, didn't you get that from the library today?

After giving up on New York, I decided to treat myself to an Eva Ibbotson book that I noticed in the YA section of the library when James and I were looking for something for him to read last week. I read Journey To the River Sea after a recommendation from Mrs WJ a while ago, and really liked it. Spunky, adventurous heroines all 'round.

The book turned out to be The Dragonfly Pool, about a British girl during World War II who goes to boarding school. I, um, liked it so much I read it in one sitting. All 397 pages of it. James came downstairs after brushing his teeth, and said, "wait, isn't that the book that you picked up from the library this afternoon?"

Why, yes, it is. And I can take it back to the library in the morning!

Right, that's it. I've officially given up on Edward Rutherfurd's New York. I'm finding it about as forgettable as London, I don't really care what happens to the characters, I've read 450 pages, and I'm not even half way through. Back to the library! I think part of the problem is that it jumps around in time quite a bit - every time I feel like I'm getting to know a character (rather than their grandfather, with whom I've just spent the last 12 chapters), it jumps forward again. I'm also not very good at skimming books - I either have to read every word or just not bother.

We braved the sleet and went to Ipswich for dinner last night, to Kwan Thai. It was pretty tasty Thai food, although not quite as good as Nipa, in Bayswater (London). It was much closer, though!

Happy 2010!

We've started the new year with SNOW!! It's not as epic a snowfall as the one we had two weeks ago, but it'll do.

The sm. boy gave me the latest Hairy Bikers cookbook, from the series that John and I were completely addicted to. I'm definitely going to have to make their Suffolk pork recipe, and at least drool over some of the more complicated ones, if I don't end up making them.

In other book news, according to the New York Times, Scholastic are reviving The Baby-Sitters Club books and Ann M. Martin is writing a prequel. I was OBSESSED with the books as a kid - I started reading them when I was about 7 (at which point 12-year-olds were impossibly mature and fascinating), and read them until well into middle school. It was pretty much where all of my babysitting money went, at least for the first few years.

I always thought I was really cool because my collection included both the English and American editions of the books (not duplicates, but I filled in gaps in my collections with whichever edition I was closest to at the time). I think the books are still with my parents, in a box somewhere, or I may have given them away. They drove my parents a little bit crazy - I'd drop an hour or two's worth of babysitting money on a book, only to then read it in one three-hour sitting. I used to re-read the books constantly, too.

I think I might have to splurge on the new book, although I'm not sure I can bear to expand my BSC collection to include a hardcover book. I DID have The Baby-Sitters Club guide to babysitting, which I used to bring with me on all of my jobs. Just in case.