So I Tried Some…

Part Two of Recommendations

Again thanks so much for reading and responding! I had some pretty good recommendations on my blog and in person.  I have added links to Goodreads, IMDB and Youtube videos if any of the following media interests you.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley  (book)
More steampunk from the 1880s in this historical fiction. It has mystery, a mysterious pocket watch, and even more mysterious characters. The blurb seems oblique which likely means there are too many twists, turns and mysteries to summarize properly. My sister in law had just started reading it when we went on vacation together and I never got to hear how she liked it, but I am looking forward to trying it myself.

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changes America by Eric Larson (book)
The blurb reads like fiction. Everything seemed to happen at these world fairs. One of my favorite fun facts about the 1893 World’s Fair is that is where Pabst Blue Ribbon beer won its blue ribbon. Although the title seems all inclusive let me share that the book mainly follows the architect for all the amazing buildings that spring from ground and another serial killer that must be drawn to the masses of easy prey. Now I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy. 

Max Headroom (TV series)
I came around after the swell and ebb of fascination with sassy, glitchy music VJs. This was another show that was recommended to me and I got to view it right after. I was coached beforehand that this series was created when there were computers, but there was no Internet. I do remember before my family had Internet. And then we exited that musty old cave. Anywho, the show is futuristic (specifically 20 minutes in the future) and the most important difference in this Blade Runner type world is that televisions have no off-switch and they are two way. The show focuses on wordplay and human emotion so despite the sometimes (VERY) silly sounding tech talk this show is still entertaining. Carter, Max and a team of misfits uncover some treachery in the way things are run in their world by broadcasting the facts.  

Mokoomba (band) and specifically the song “Masangango“
I gotta say, this is not my normal style of music, but I loved it! My friend really sold it when he recommended it to me by saying, 

Mokoomba is an exciting, Afro-fusion band from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
Their sound has elements of Afro-pop, hard reggae, and rock. Vocalist Mathias Muzaza’s powerful singing is matched by the incredible musicality of the band. This particular song is a masterpiece. The melodic intro with haunting vocals and subtle blues licks on guitar soon lead to a happier rhythm, punctuated by the traditional African mbira thumb piano. The song builds from there, yielding the fierce and powerful vocals for which Muzaza is famous!…The listener may not know the meaning of the lyrics, but that fact will not diminish the power of song or the enjoyment of it.

Thanks for sharing, Thor! Catch more snark and tune recommendations from Thor on Twitter @RadioThor. The song has an awesome blues/reggae vibe that sits just right and I’m following Mokoomba on Spotify. I suggest you check out more of their music as well.

Naked in Death by JD Robb (book)
Futuristic lady detective who gets involved with one of her suspects. There are quite a few books in the In Death series penned by Nora Roberts under her pen name. I don’t believe I can get through 30+ books, but I will definitely look into the first few books soon.

 

Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (books)
I can’t tell you how many times I have been told to read this series. Young boy is charged with babysitting a magical pig. It’s a very famous fantasy series with adorable cartoon that doesn’t hold at all true to the books. Maybe I will give this another go. I haven’t ever really given this book a chance.

Pink Panther (movies)
I know I have seen bits and pieces from the Peter Sellers and the Steve Martin versions of these films. Of course, Sellers is the classic. I need to go through and watch the movies again. Good old physical comedy from the way back whens.

Eggnog Cookies {Recipe Revealed!!}

I didn’t immediately realize that this photo I posted on my blog about Supper Plans was pretty hard to read. This is the taped together, darling little recipe card from my husband’s Aunt. As I mentioned before, it is a fairly easy recipe to find and she likely got it from a magazine considering it is small, typed and easy to attach to a tiny index card. You may note that the typed recipe below reflects Aunt’s change of 3/4 cups of eggnog instead of 1/2. When I made these cookies the other night I followed the original recipe, plus tons more nutmeg and cinnamon in the batter, and minus the nutmeg topping per cookie.

When I tried this recipe last night, I failed to leave out the stick and a half of butter so it could soften. While I waiting for the butter to get more pliable, I made myself a drink. What else was I gonna do with all that extra eggnog!? Now I understand why people add rum to their ‘nog. I added just a tiny bit of rum, filled the rest with eggnog, swirled it around and topped it with nutmeg in a martini glass. I don’t drink martinis, so in my world this is a perfectly acceptable use of the glass.

Here is the recipe typed out:

Eggnog Cookies

1 1/4 cups white sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup eggnog
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg in a small bowl.
3. Cream sugar and butter until light in a medium/large bowl. Add eggnog, vanilla and egg yolks; beat at medium speed until smooth. Add flour mixture and beat at low speed until just combined. Do not over mix. (I mixed all of this by hand)
4. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg. Bake 20-23 minutes until bottoms turn light brown.

They look a little lumpy butt because I didn’t use a wire rack to cool them on. If you have the time/space, I recommend allowing them to cool for 5 minutes or so until they harden. When they first come out of the oven they are a touch mushy. I didn’t care if I ended up with funky shaped cookies so I just stacked them all up on a plate.

The hubbster approved and so did our new roommate. I think these cookies are a win. They are awesome compared to regular sugar cookies and have a little bit of eggnog kick to them. Delicious!!! And they are pretty darn easy. If you need a quick holiday cookie then you should really give these a whirl.

The Shower Predicament

Call it unlucky, bad karma, or perhaps I’m just a bad person and am being punished by an omnipotent force….Your call.

Over the last week my roommate and I realized that the hot water in our shower didn’t last more than three minutes.
Now when you turn the water all the way up it is room temperature and just gets worse in five minutes.

We didn’t have this problem during the summer and we have our own water heater for our apartment, we don’t share with loads of other people. Neither of us take lengthy showers anyway. I take showers in the morning, she takes them at night and we’re never in there for longer than 15 minutes.

We called our apartment maintenance manager two days ago, Lillian got his Vmail and left him a message. He called her back when she couldn’t answer the phone….His message was not entirely helpful.

He explained that our water heater was heating both water (of course) and also was responsible for heating the house.
This is not the problem, we have our heat set on 70, that can’t be making showers impossible.

He also told us to turn up the dial on our water heater. Good advice, ours is on “VERY HOT”…..I doubt there is a higher setting.

I called him yesterday and got an answering machine again, but tried to explain more thoroughly the brevity of our showers and we’re not stupid blondes who stay in the shower for an hour and a half.

He called me back and I played my role.  He’s coming by tonight to try to figure out what is wrong…..Sighs*

That’s the first problem. Luckily, Lilian and I are managing fast and chilly showers to get by. Her hair although very thick, is a short mohawk.  Mine is shoulder length and thick as a forest.
I cannot wash my hair in our shower……We both look forward to going over to stay the night with our gentlemen friends so we can take hot steaming showers.

Well, there is issue number two. Let it be known that people have already coined the phrase….”Be careful what you wish for.”
I wished for a hot shower….I got one.

This morning I was already cranky because I had very little time to actually spend with Leo, and it’s also a pain in the ass that I am running around trying to find out when my final exam is today.

So I get my towel and have my nice morning pee. (very relaxing).
Turn on the hot water to get it warmed up….It’s steaming within seconds and that puts a smile on my face.

I stand in the shower, pull the stopper so the hot water goes through the spout….And then I begin to adjust the water….or so I thought.

As I turned the cold water knob—No more forcefully than any other day—It snapped off in my hand. I stared dumbly at it for a second, then like all primates, I tried to put it back on.

That did not work and under closer inspection the plastic that it had connected to was broken….damnit.

I turned the water off and got out of the tub, ready to get dressed and drive back to the apt….when I realized that the water was still running, I turned the hot water knob. That didn’t work.

Like the monkey I am I stuck my hand under the facet and, you guessed it, the water dribbling out was cold. Apparently before I she-hulked the knob off I had turned the cold water on just enough to waste it.

Of course I had left my wrench and other plumbing tools in my other towel. So I called Leo, who had already left for work, where his plumbing towel utility belt was.
He asked why…..*sighs*

Leo turned back around and came back home to turn off the damn water, and then wrench the broken pieces off of the pipes.

I got dressed and came to the apt. I is not showered, I is in a fowl mood.

7:53PM UPDATE—Our shower is fixed…The planets have aligned and the girl is, again, pleased which means the world has ended its unrest.

My first “fantasy” party

There will be some graphic descriptions of some toys in this blog, so if you’re offended by sexual toys you might wanna stop reading…right about now.

My co-worker recently invited me to a fantasy party, after we got over the hump of my misunderstanding her euphemism I agreed to come to the party.
I have never been to a sex toy party and although I have been to an adult bookstore I only walked in to tease a friend of mine and then we left. I never got to look around.

My curiosity and love of all things sexual made me agree to go to the party despite the shyness of my ignorance. I’m kinda glad I went because I learned a lot about different things without just wandering through a porn store and wondering what things do.

Two of the ladies I work with also work with my boyfriend, so it made for interesting comments. Because everything I said “wouldn’t that be fun” about, they had to think of me with their boss/co-worker.

Round one consisted of trying out creams in bottles, and jars. We had an arm/hand we used for edible and non-edible things. The ladies talked about pheromones and creams that either made him last longer or not feel a thing as you shoved something up his ass.

There was a cream that began to tingle your downstairs mixer when applied. Myself and my host tried this out. It was interesting, but I figured at my age and level of libido, I don’t need encouragement to get me on my back. There was a cream that was called something like “snug tuck,” which I hope I don’t have to use ever. And if I get to a point where I do have to use it, I’m too old to give a damn anyway.

I was surprised how a lot of the edibles tasted, the freakin’ Snozberry penis cream tasted like real snozberries! There were concoctions that tasted like vanilla cupcakes, chocolate and berries. There was even a wyld berry flavor for a powder that you could sprinkle across your body.

The next round was tickles for two, with weird penis collars that enhanced the experience, with dramatic names like “cloud nine.” There were of course the little fetish toys that were brought out.
There were the anal beads (in small and medium), which our party lady reminded us could be purchased along with the numbing cream to make that first time a little easier.
The classics came out, such as the handcuffs, feather on a stick and blindfold. I ask my readers, what is wrong with using some logging chains, a scarf and feathers from a sacrificed chicken?

After taking a pee break, for another shot and a walk around the room to stretch our legs we went into round three. This was where we got serious on personal stimulation for the woman.
It started out small with the ticklers. The most interesting thing about this section was the fact that every vibrator was shaped like a friendly animal. I chuckled at the name of the “prancing dolphin” until she passed it around and damn, if Flipper’s little nose was made to tickle your clit.
There were bunnies with ears and paws a-massagin’, turtles for two person fun, butterflies, and elephant’s to tickle your fancy.

Over time we progressed from the small ticklers up to the serious fuckyamama-dildos with all the bells and whistles, that were more goofy looking. There was a dildo that instead of looking more traditional it had a little man’s face near the head and it resembled a totem pole. This little, rubber man of pleasure also could dance. He usually made small rotational circles, but if he was bent over he made wide circles that to me didn’t look very comfortable.

Another one with a seemingly normal looking shaft and a bunny sitting near the base to get his tickle on had an distasteful attachment. With the press of button you can not only create something to make you giggle but also it can do the “giggling” for you. The audio feature exhibited a woman screaming in pleasure. I decided on the spot I would never have a toy like that, for two reasons: 1) I make enough noise and I don’t need a porno star doing it for me, and 2) I would be afraid that while using the toy I would get over excited and accidentally press the button ruining a good half hour of work trying to get there.

Those were the biggest highlights of all the toys and such. I forget some of the names, but they were pretty hysterical and if I think of any I’ll try to share them. Just thought that everyone would wanna know what I did last weekend.

Of course after talking about sex and toys for three hours my little ’89 Oldsmobile couldn’t make it home fast enough. But I promised my mom that I would show her if I found anything interesting.

She was intrigued at the Vanilla cupcake lubricant I found and was laughing at my description of all the fuzzy animal shaped toys. I told her I would try to find one of the catalogs online so I could tell her what I found. I told mom I share the flavorful lubes if she wanted to ever borrow them.
She had to tell my dad something other than what I had really been doing, so she told him I went to a lingerie party and wanted to show mom the pretty undies I had purchased instead of what I was really showing mom.

After seeing mom I rushed home and had a grand old time. And I slept really well, like a rock in fact. That’s one of the best ways to get a good night’s sleep, just get worn out beyond all your senses.

But I digress….I will try to keep this blog as focused as I can on the events that surround the Hill.

INCIDENT ON THE HILL

I don’t know how many of you read your news online, but on October 22nd, 2008 there was a complete lockdown of Western Kentucky University. If you don’t believe me just look it up.

The first ALERT text message I received from my school was right before my class started and it said “Armed Men have been reported on the South Campus. Please stay of the area.” I was at the very top of the Hill on the Main Campus about 2 miles away from the first warning so I wasn’t worried. By the time I got to my class everybody was buzzing about the text message.

Our professor came in and asked if everyone had received the first message. I felt like our comissioner had just entered the board room, asked if we’d read the packet and we will now be briefed on the incident. He had a really cool mood about everything, which gained him a greater respect from me, with his calm, he kept the entire class that much more calm.
He was bouncing between our class and a meeting about the expansion of students’ general ed requirements. Our TA tried to keep us focused on the classwork that was assigned to us and he made sure the class room door was locked.

The stereotypical Pink Girl opened up her pink laptop, white-girl flipped her hair back and started reading the updates through email that the Hill was sending to everybody. I don’t think she worked on a bit of her class assignment. Every few minutes there would be another non-substantial text message sent out that worried everyone even more.

Then the calls started to come through. Apparently, somebody had told the local news stations that there was a shooter on campus.  The aspiring Civil Engineer beside me started receiving about 10 text messages from friends and family about every five minutes. Everyone was jabbering on their cell phones to roommates, scared to death moms and people they hadn’t heard from in five years.

I stared down at my silent phone for a while, before I decided I had better try to call my people and see if they were okay. After spending five minutes trying to call out, I cursed AT&T Mobility’s lack of experience in handling large quantities of callers focused in one geographic point. I realized finally that even though I couldn’t call out I could text message.
I was pleased to find a voicemail pop up on my phone–No the call had not come through. My brother’s fiance had called me to find out if me and my bro were okay. All she knew is what her mom had told her and being all the way at Transy she couldn’t do anything. I sent her a text message saying that I knew for sure Tom was safe in a computer lab in the next building over, I couldn’t call out and I was safe in a geology lab. In hindsight we were pretty safe because I had some 10% pure hydrochloric acid in bottles in the lab, I could always use that as a weapon. She was relieved to hear we were safe.

AT&T finally was trying to keep up with the abundance of phone calls and I got through to my boyfriend who was at work. My old boss answered and asked me how I was doing, Kentucky curteousy told me to respond “Everything is going great!” She handed me to my beau and I told him that I wanted to talk to him before he heard the news. I told him the deal and said (many times) we were safe. I had forgotten that the husband of my boss worked on the Hill, so she quickly started calling him to make sure he was safe.

I continued organizing the strata in figure 9.19 and reconstructing the geologic timeline between strata A,B,C,Unconformity, D. Then I started feeling slightly more loved, my roommate and her sister called my phone, and my brother. My brother left a message saying “Yeah, I heard there were assassins on the Hill, just wanted to make sure you were avoiding that whole gun-fire thing.” I was the only one on their cell phone who started laughing, and I got a confused look from our slightly nervous TA.

The guy in the front row of our class started (jokingly) bemoaning the fact that his mother hadn’t called to check on him yet. So I made sure that my roommate called my parents and my brother because I was still having difficulty with AT&T.

I was informed that my roommate and her sister were at our apartment chillin’ out and eating lunch. Her sister began to cry out “We wanna be in lockdown too!!” I informed them that are classroom was way too warm to have the door closed. The Pink Girl was wailing about the fact that “Shots were fired near PFT” the dorm in which she was living. She claimed she was going to move out, but I doubt she followed through with this threat.

Our professor came back in periodically, at one point he informed us that they were talking about more cultural appreciation classes, and that interpretive dance should be on the list. He began piroeting and doing erabesques throughout the room and claimed he was Mount St Helen’s erupting. Again, I shall mention the great subtlety of our professor’s technique in calming the troops. At this point our classroom had relaxed so much that they opened the door and people began using the bathroom down the hall.

Allegedly the Hill police and the SWAT team was searching for 4 people wearing black. I told my brother later than when the SWAT team starts looking for 4 A-sexuals wearing rainbow short shorts, and cereal logo t-shirts with orange mohawks I will duck under my table. Because at that point I will know that these are not socially deprived, video-game fanatical, neo-nazi, emo spawn, these are real nutcases.

By the time my 2.5 hour class ended so did our lockdown and I got picked up at the top of the Hill by my roommate. As we drove by the scene of the incident I saw no CAUTION tape, no SWAT stragglers wandering about, it was really quite dull. Just like the movies the bell tower began playing triumphant music to let everyone know that the danger was ALL CLEAR, a nice fair ending to a warm and breezy day.

The students did not quickly forget the scare though, gossip flew like wildfire over campus. There were shooters on both of our campus’ and a 30 person brawl in front of the dorms. Somebody got shot too.

Truthfully:
–There were no guns found whatsoever
–There was a physical altercation (with no guns) in front of the dorm, this fight apparently started verbally at the South campus and migrated back to the dorms
–Nobody was shot or killed
–There were no hostages
–Somebody I know was really interviewed and it’s online.

This person was interviewed by WLKY. He’s a compulsive liar and a psychologist…Wonderful mix. If you listen to the sound bite you will hear him mention one of the rumors above twice. It is the last thing he says in the inteview, which plants the seed for rumors to begin. WLKY Carissa Lawson Interviews Joey Hudson

You can also check out the orginal page with the story text as well: http://www.wlky.com/cnn-news/17780051/detail.html

My roommate’s sister dressed up as the Western Shooter for Halloween, everyone was shocked and asked her why she wasn’t black. The weekend after the incident the Hill’s school paper published a photo with a SWAT Man pinning down a black girl and pointing a machine gun at her. The next edition to come out had a correction on the caption of that picture, clarifying that the girl was not being arrested but was being detained for not cooporating….Sure, now that the scare tactic results have worn off.

Thanks for reading :)