liz’s recent facebook post on the feather duster alluding to possible rape in “beauty and the beast” made me have the bright idea to spend november blogging about disney movies and what’s inappropriate and not.
then i realized that would require me to watch all these disney movies, and i’m not sure i want to spend 2.5 hours every day for 21 days in november prepping and writing these posts. hmmm. so maybe i’m back to the drawing board on kablpomo.
i went to my first haunted house in a long time last night. last time i went i was pretty young – under 10 – and it was at the austin nature center. i don’t remember a lot about it, and it might not have been an actual scary walk through the woods. either way, it was time to step it up.
former rctc buddy jenee has been going to haunted houses for years (decades, in fact!), all over the state. she decided to go to molitor’s haunted acres this year, which is my backyard, comparatively. so she and her haunted buddies drove up last night from roch (omg what a drive) and we went on a haunted hay ride and then through a haunted house, sewer, mineshaft, etc.
i’m not a huge fan of scary movies – jumping is not my favorite thing in the world! so i went in to this experience with the mindset of “IT’S NOT REAL, THEY CAN’T HURT YOU, YOU’LL LIVE.”
i probably didn’t jump and scream as much as the actors wanted me to. :/
but it was fun and sorta scary and pretty creepy and overall a good time! but ultimately, i think it’d be fun to work at one of those and do the scaring. those people were really good at their jobs and you could tell they were having fun, too.
the main thing is to go with other people. no way would i do that alone! it’s great to just laugh your way through it with someone else.
my blogging game has been really off this year, and i apologize. blame moving, job changes, whatever; it’s really no excuse.
as such, i am needing a theme for KABLPOMO – it might be one idea and i’ll blog about it all month, like i did last year for charlie.
(as an aside, the second week in november, i will be in california and blogging a crapton about that!!!)
SO…ideas??
MAKE YOUR OWN PUMPKIN PUREE!
i know it’s easier to just go buy a can of festal and use that for all your pumpkin baking needs, but let me tell you: making your own pumpkin puree to use in bars, breads, PIES, is probably the best thing you can do for your baked goods. want to actually taste PUMPKIN instead of all the spices? make fresh pumpkin puree.
firs off, plant some pie pumpkins in the spring. have a bumper crop due to all the rain. if that doesn’t work, your local food vendor should sell pie pumpkins.
cut them in half, scoop out the seeds, put them in a pan (glass or a jelly roll pan works – something with edgess), and bake them at 350 for an hour-hour and a half or so. until you poke a fork in them and it slides in easily.
look at that carmelization! anyway, let these cool for a bit, then scoop out the insides into a food processor and whip it up. scoop that mess into a colandar/sieve/strainer lined with a dishtowel.
let this sit overnight at least and drain all the liquid out. i am saving my pumpkin juice to make a festive drink!
put these in whatever container and stick them in the fridge for soon use and the freezer for use down the road (like in a month for thanksgiving).
bernie sanders was the progressive i’d been waiting for. everything he stood for, i stood for.
but the cartoon above is right. liz and i went to see him early in his campaign on his first stop in rochester. the best part of his entire speech was at the end when he finished with “i can’t do this alone. if you want to change to happen, you will need to stand up and effect that change with me.” he was HONEST about it. none of this “i’m going to do this for you and this for you and this.” it was a “we” all along.
after DT’s comments on women, i had hit the last straw with my dilly dallying over who to vote for. i finished off my absentee ballot by filling in the circle next to clinton/kaine. i didn’t feel good about it. i didn’t seal the envelope, just in case. i felt kind of dirty.
*****
this weekend, jane and i went to nerdcon, where we sat in at a live recording of “unattended consequences,” a podcast by author pat rothfuss and cards against humanity creator max temkin. they talked for an hour, and limited their political talk to three points each (otherwise, they said, they would talk about politics the entire hour).
at this point, i’m still not feeling 100% about my vote for hillary – maybe 75% ok with it. but they talked about hillary, and what they said really made me come around for HC.
in comparing DT to hillary, pat said that he wants a president who can make a deal. who can compromise and make stuff happen. hillary is that person – moreso that bernie even, i believe. (absolutely moreso than DT) she’s the most qualified person to run for president in a long time (martin van buren was apparently pretty well qualified).
then, in example, max laid out all hillary had done to secure the nomination, things that i’d considered shady: she paid for services from companies who would print campaign items, even if they never printed a shirt, so that the competition couldn’t. she was the first to get to certain sponsors, clinching them so no one else could. ultimately, that’s good politics and securing a deal before anyone else could get to it.
considering the above, it’s absolutely FANTASTIC how well bernie did in primaries. i’m really sad he lost, but looking at how hillary secured everything she needed to become the democratic nominee, i’d say that’s a pretty well-prepared person. and would know how to do that sort of thing when she’s president and representing the US.
after that, i jumped from 75% ok with hillary to about 95%. i will never be at 100% because of bernie. his hopefulness for the future and for the country will always be there, hanging on to that 5%.
or maybe it’s my 5%. thank you, bernie.
*and still maintains that your third-party vote is not a throw away. IT IS NOT A THROW AWAY VOTE. it is yours; you do with it what you will. don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
i’ve got to admit, for a self-proclaimed writer, i haven’t been doing a lot of writing lately.
nerdcon: stories is this weekend, which should hopefully get me fired up to do some sort of writing, whether it’s just kablpomo or actually attempting nanowrimo. last year’s nerdcon was great, so this year’s should be equally as fun. they got better spaces, too, so there shouldn’t be any problems with getting a seat at some of the sessions.
in the meantime, the temperature has dropped and fall has jumped on us full swing. goodbye summer: i barely knew you (for real – what a dumb summer). october is generally my scary movie month, and i’ve only watched two movies and two episodes of ash vs. evil dead. that’s pretty pathetic for being halfway through the month. it doesn’t bode well for christmas movie month!
it’s pretty quiet at my job. i’ve got to say, my coworkers at roch were top notch, and i miss being in that environment every day 🙁
well, that’s the sort of update.
YES.
yes. yes. yes. THIS is why i came back up here. visiting the st. john’s woods during the fall season is one of my top central minnesota activities.
here’s a politiblog break! (i am ready to be done with this election, but i am also REALLY looking forward to the next debate OMG)
