Browsed by
Month: November 2016

pffft stockholm syndrome

pffft stockholm syndrome

for my last day of kablpomo, i’m going to do the thing that i said i would do before this month started! commence….
1224576_1369926251642_full
beauty and the beast! i’m going to blog as i watch it because i’m running out of time!
we are watching for weird sexual references (like raping the feather duster) and analyzing stockholm syndrome.
mmm i love this beginning!
here’s the point of the story: the enchantress told him not to be deceived by appearances! beauty is found within!
she had seen there was no love in his heart! 
“if he could learn to love another and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell – the spell would be broken”
ENTER BELLE! (ps – you need to watch this on blu-ray; you can actually see the color from the sunrise!)
unneeded sexual reference #1 – buxom woman asking a drooling man how his wife is in the bonjour song, and said wife beating the guy on his head with a rolling pin? if said movie has an age range of the younger set, why is this needed? 
and what’s up with gaston? way to equate pretty with the best. also, his admirers are the US standard of beauty – tiny, top-heavy, blonde.
also, the whole town thinks belle’s a weirdo but her looks make up for it? because she reads books and has an inventor for a father? just wait til the transgenders start moving to town! what will happen then! 
off to the fair! i’m sorry, but philipe might be the smartest one in this movie. “no, let’s go this way!” philipe looks a little wary at the scary looking woods. “where have you taken us, philipe!” way to gaslight, maurice. philipe got out of the situation. good horse. 
so now we have maurice opening up cogsworth’s clock door, and messing around with his pendulum. WHAT ON EARTH is the pendulum supposed to represent???!?!?!? is maurice sexually assaulting cogsworth? good ol’ C did have to close the door on maurice’s finger.
the beast is angry. 10 years of being a beast and holed up in his castle has not done him well. weirdly, all his staff seems to have kept their sanity. but they probably weren’t mean and cold-hearted before they got turned into household objects.
meanwhile, gaston is preparing a wedding he hasn’t even gotten consent to have!! woohoo! gaston sure is coming on strong. keeps walking toward belle, she’s walking away from him. he ruins her book with his muddy boots and stinky feet. bleah. then he corners her at the bookshelf and again at the door, trying to kiss her? well, belle didn’t come outright and say “no”. but she did get him out before things escalated. 
philipe comes back! belle gets down to business and goes after her father. 
oh, cogsworth and lumiere are getting all riled up, expecting belle to be the one they want to break the spell. expectations set!
beast is pissed. maurice trespassed and is in jail. and belle offers to take maurice’s place. “you must promise to stay here forever.” and he shows himself, but she makes the deal. beast is not very compassionate at this point, BUT has he EVER been compassionate? NO. 
THIS IS THE TURNING POINT FOR MR BEAST. we see him show a little remorse when belle was crying over her not being able to saw goodbye. he shows a little less gruffness, but when belle asks what’s in the west wing, he gets all uptight. sounds like the beast might be bi-polar!
now we get to hear gaston’s very macho, very manly song about how he’s the best at everything, which can be a difficult thing for a dude to live up to. but, gaston turns out to be the bad guy, so does that mean the manly, macho man isn’t the best thing in the world? the pretty, weird girl won’t go for the best looking guy in the room if he’s a jerk? well, that’s something, i guess. if he had asked one if his blonde admirers to marry him, one of them would sure have said yes. “i’m especially good at expectorating!” (hey, at least we get to have a vocabulary lesson while we’re watching.) i wonder if gaston were to have a pinterest page, would it be all antler rooms?
enter maurice, raving like a lunatic. and instead of listening to him, they throw him out in the snow. then gaston decides to exploit him. what does that say about people believing other people? mob mentality?
meanwhile, mrs. potts has some words of advice – “don’t worry, my dear, everything will turn out ok in the end.”
OOOOH i want that nice fireplace. beast is loaded. then he loses his temper wondering where belle is, saying he’s thought belle might be the one. and we hear lumiere’s infantile theory on breaking the spell,” she falls in love with you, you fall in love with her, poof, we’ll be human again by midnight.” potts of course sets him straight.
mrs. potts’ more words of wisdom: “help her to see past all that” in response to beast implying he’s hideous. and potts and lumiere both address the, uh, beast in the room: “you must control your temper!” i think the beast’s temper is what his big downfall is. 
i think i see what the problem is here: none of the beast’s staff really never talk back to him. point 1 for belle, standing up to him. beast throws a temper tantrum, runs to the rose room, and sees belle in the mirror, who’s telling the wardrobe that she wants nothing to do with him.
“i’m just fooling myself. she’ll never see me as anything…but a monster.” WITH AN ATTITUDE LIKE THAT BEAST, OF COURSE SHE WON’T. big reveal of the day!! she sees him as a monster for the way he’s behaving, not for the way he looks!!!
OOOH we see some hanky panky between lumiere and the duster! (sad that she doesnt’ have a name.) “i’ve been burnt by you before” – ooh double meaning there hahaha.
(how many kids does mrs. potts have? chip’s in the cupboard with his brothers and sisters?)
ok, so if this is a “kid’s” movie, why is no one worried about the beer steins and champagne?
UH OH BELLE. she’s been poking around in the west wing, and the beast finds her, yelling, telling her to get out. then realizes what he’s done. he’s got to figure out what his bi-polar self is doing. 
and here come the wolves! i have to say, belle was doing pretty well there for a while, beating on the wolves and trying to get philipe unstuck. she has that going for her, taking care of herself! then the wolves are just too many, but the beast comes to save her! and she’s a little freaked out about it. after he collapses and she just stares of philipe’s saddle, you can see her mind shift.
OK, here’s a turning point, i think. the beast is flat down in the snow. philipe’s ready to go. the beast has been pretty awful til this point, and instead of turning tail and running away back to maurice and dumb gaston, belle decides to help the beast back to the castle. SHE COULD HAVE LEFT. he’d just blown up at her, and she knows he’s not a great person. but she decided to go back. i feel like from this point forward, she’s in the castle due to her either 1) deciding to see what happens iwth this beast or 2) she doesn’t want to go back to her provincial life (of some of each). i believe, at this point, it has nothing to do with her promise to the beast. he told her to get out. she had her window. she closed it.
and then belle stands up to the beast, which i think surprises the beast (and certainly his staff). this isn’t stockholm syndrome!! this is finding the person who’s willing to call you on your crap!!!
enter the scene where we see the beast start to transform into someone not so…beastly. is there something called reverse stockholm syndrome? the captor starts to sympathize with the captee? because i feel like that’s what we’re seeing here. the beast who’s pulling belle into the library is NOT the same beast who made her promise to stay in the castle forever. he’s OBVIOUSLY changing. 
(i would die for that library.)
“something there that wasn’t there before” is probably the anthem for stockholm syndrome theorists. *eyeroll*
anyway, the beast is getting ready, and do we all realize he’s naked? we see him in the bath, after the bath, all with no clothes on. come to think of it, we see everyone in the castle naked except belle! how disturbing!
after the dance, the beast asks if belle is happy there, and she says yes, but she wishes she could see her father again. i feel like that’s the only part of the movie that could be construed as any type of stockholm syndrome. the beast lets her go at this point, and she’s off to help her father. and he lets her go because he’s finally figured out how to love and get over his cold-heartedness. i think this says something about belle too at this point – she doesn’t seem eager to get back to her old life, per se, just her father. 
and now the mob’s come to get crazy maurice, and gaston can get her out of this if belle marries him. what a loser. and belle calls him out as the real monster, then gaston calls belle crazy too. that’s one of the real issues with this story – the moblike mentality of the townpeople is pretty disgusting. belle’s odd and weird, maurice is crazy. well, belle did want to get out of her provincial life. my guess is all those townspeeps would’ve voted for trump.
OK fight scene!
a guy just got eaten by a trunk. another got scalded. wardrobe landed on a dude, whose legs are there for the next few scenes. a guy got a makeover into a bikini, tutu, and beehive hairdo, which is somehow more horrifying to him than his two defeated buddies at his feet.
lumiere’s getting his wax melted, so cogsworth pokes lefou in the rear with a scissors. then we see feather duster getting her feathers pulled out, which liz thought alluded to rape. so i will paste what i posted on facebook on that thought: on the one hand, there isn’t a lot else you can do to damage a feather duster (i suppose you could break the handle in half). on the other, did the scene NEED to be included? on the third, did they just want a reason for lumiere to get so mad he’d to blow flames up a bad dude’s rear?
(i think it’s all about a butt joke.)
ugh, then we gaston being all ultra-manly with beast. what a loser. being kind a gentle are things men shouldn’t shy away from. everyone should be!
“did you honestly think she’d want you, when she could have someone like me.” oh gaston. i think the real message here is that if you don’t realize what a jerk you are and change your beastly ways, you will not be a worthwhile human being. or find love. or not. whatever floats your boat. 
oh! and to say “belle is miiiine” like you own her? get a life, gaston! belle can make her own decisions. 
and when the beast decides to not drop and kill gaston, we know that he’s a better man/beast/person. and he’s so surprised she came back! 
(i gotta say, belle has some super strength. not only did she pull beast back from falling over the railing to his doom a la gaston, but she managed to get him on philipe earlier in the movie. and kudos to philipe! beast was almost as big as he was! not sure how he managed that.)
oh, and then we get the happy ending! belle says i love you right as the petal drops, we get the fireworks and sparky stuff, she realizes it’s him, everyone changes, and we wonder why 70-yr-old mrs. potts has a five year old.
another inappropriate sexual reference: feather duster dusting lumiere at the end? needed? why is the maid sexy? why is lumiere a horndog?
THE END!!
 

AND scene.

AND scene.

tumblr_oevxkuh80n1qee12to1_r1_1280
you know what’s hard to believe about this prompt and tweet? this guy wrote that tweet in FEBRUARY. he had NO IDEA.
how would i finish off the season?
scene 1: white house. obama decides to throw the constitution and the amendments in the incoming administration’s faces. peaceful transition of power? think again.
scene 2: respective states. donald trump finally gets dethroned, as the electoral college realizes he’s not separating his interests from his position of power. the college votes in clinton instead.
scene 3: new york. hillary somehow has died of shock from this turnover. NOW WHAT.
scene 4: vermont. bernie sanders, never actually having CONCEDED to hillary in the primaries, ends up taking the presidency because tim kaine decided his DNC interests were too weird and sneaky to become president. 
scene 5: various news outlets all over this dumb country. the media finally decides to call a spade a spade: alt-right is a useless term, and they finally spew out what these people really are: white supremacists and neonazis.
scene 6: hollywood. bill murray does not die. betty white does not die. paul mccartney does not die. bob dylan does not die. stephen king does not die. jk rowling does not die. anyone awesome and famous who is inspiring to the general populace does not die.
scene 7: homes throughout the US. the general hatred of anything different dies down. people realize that just because someone doesn’t look or act like you doesn’t mean s/he’s worth less than you. this starts in the education system, which has engaged standardized curriculum and banished creationism to the religious history classroom. 
scene 8: snow gently falls in a serene forest clearing, one tree lit with white lights, and we close on december 31 with alan rickman voicing over: “it would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.”
 
ALTERNATE ENDING
scene 1. december 31. space. an asteroid finally breaks free from the belt and hurtles toward earth, ending life as we know it. earth sighs from relief.

sorry

sorry

yesterday i pulled my car out of my garage so i could move my treadmill indoors, which miraculously fixed my treadmill. apparently it  didn’t work well in 40ΒΊ garage air. now it’s sitting in my guest room instead of the garage.
so my car sat out all day, and i decided i needed to finally pull it back in the garage, and…
it wouldn’t start. arg!!!! it cranked and cranked but wouldn’t fire up. so i was annoyed and irritated and obsessed with how much it was going to cost to fix it last night.
and i forgot to blog. sorry πŸ™
which meant this morning i was in late to work so i could get my insurance squared away and my car sent off to the auto place down the road. did you know roadside assistance also includes in-your-driveway assistance? yes it does! so my insurance paid for my tow. woo! 
*****
all the snow is gone πŸ™ it rained for the past few days and got above 40ΒΊ, and here we’re sitting with some gross november wet weather. almost december! where did the month go. anyway, eventually it’s got to get cold and the snow has got to fall. 
i still don’t know what i’m going to do for christmas. i’m debating going to my parents without nate or just staying home and being here for christmas. it wouldn’t be horrible, i guess. another option is to go somewhere else, but i don’t have the cash to go somewhere else. we’ll see what happens. 
*****
my coworker’s last day is wednesday, which means i am by my lonesome in the marketing department for a while. there are two giant projects that are looming, and i’m hoping that they actually get done :/ ugh!
*****
it’s almost december, which means it’s almost christmas movie watching time!!!
i already watched die hard, so that’s out of the way. gotta go through the rest of my DVDs and see what i have so i can get started. 
*****
it’s only monday -_-

c-dogg

c-dogg

got some pics of craig yesterday! unfortunately, the christmas photo didn’t happen, so jane and i took craig and i got some 1-yr-old photos of him. talk about sir moves-a-lot! didn’t get many of him where he wasn’t a blur because he was moving around so much.
img_3107-001 img_3114 img_3116 img_3120 img_3121-001 img_3124 img_3128

first for a reason

first for a reason

our forefathers were pretty smart. they put the first amendment first for a reason: your right to free speech and to assemble, freedom of religion, press – it’s all first because they’re some of the most important tenants of this country. more important, i would say, than the right to bear arms.
but here’s the thing: you can’t pick and choose which cause is more important when you defend someone’s first amendment rights. 
the same amendment that gives anti-trumpsters the right to protest gives you the same rights to protest DAPL. and stand in front of abortion clinics with signs. and protest the war. and and support the war. and wave signs saying gays are going to hell. you don’t get to pick and choose who should be able to protest and who shouldn’t.
but make sure you’re protesting legally and peacefully and within the law. the moment things start to veer toward the illegal is the start of why people get fed up with protesters.
and if you’re fed up with protesters? well,  that same amendment? it gives you the right to look away from those protesters. it gives you the right to say they’re wrong and their cause is wrong. but don’t tell them they can’t or shouldn’t utilize their firet amedment right and do anything you can to dissuade or prevent the from doing so. once the government start suppressing others’ rights in the first amendment, yours are soon to follow. 

thanksgiving!

thanksgiving!

today is foodblog. sorry for the lack of words!

  1. bacon made that galette SO MUCH BETTER. any future squash spinach galettes will include bacon. 

bacon  galette jane
so i spatchcocked the bird again, which reduces cooking time significantly i’ve never been able to capture the seasoning process of the turkey before, but liz was able to get some pics of jane scooping in the seasoning while i shoved it under the skin. spatched squash
bird
mmm look at that bird! i think i forgot a step that would have flattened the breast out a little more, but that’s quite all right. it was pretty delicious as is! 

shiny

shiny


[i am not choosing the scary monster and animal, but i saw a combo that i wanted to write about.]
rudy roamed the woods on a regular basis, searching for something to eat. his thirst for blood never stopped; as soon as he stopped feeding, he felt sated for short amount of time, then it was off to look for new blood.
the days were short this time of year, which meant more time for hunting for rudy. he didn’t like being outside when the sun shone bright, and he spent most days curled in a cave, waiting for sunset. 
time to hunt.
rudy stretched out his legs and trotted out of his cave, sniffing the air to catch a scent of a rabbit, a raccoon; even a squirrel would do well about now. smelling nothing on the crisp air, he set out across the icy ground and started his daily ritual for food. 
it wasn’t too long until he found his first victim: a small, white rabbit hopped across the corner of his vision, and rudy was there in a flash, his fangs popping out and sinking into the quivering animal’s flesh. he felt warmth course down his throat, felt his stomach contract after feeding for the first time that night. after the rabbit was drained, it dropped from rudy’s mouth, and he pushed around the corpse, trying to get every last lick of blood off the fur. he had to find more.
he wove in and out of trees, shrubs, and across mounds of snow, stepping lightly across frozen streams and ponds. he found many squirrels, a couple raccoons, a few rabbits, and a fox who put up a fight. he saw a bear in the distance at one point, but he hadn’t tried to take down anything larger than he was, let alone something that big that could fight back, so he steered clear. that was a fight for another day. 
it was a good night so far: he had eaten enough that he didn’t feel stomach pains from hunger, and his rush to find more to eat had slowed.
he was about to turn around, when he caught a whiff of something on the air; something he hadn’t smelled before. it smelled of crispness, of fresh apples, of snow. it smelled alive. slowly, rudy followed the smell through the woods, wondering what this animal could be, and if he would be able to take it down. it smelled delicious.
the trees started to thin, finally giving way so all rudy could see was an expanse of snow.  just past the last few trees stood a tall pole. the smell was strong and seemed to be wafting from the pole, so rudy trotted over, his fangs popping out. he investigated the pole, wondering what the smell could be and where it was coming from. 
suddenly, a rush of air, the pole disappeared, and a group of deer appeared in its place. at first, rudy was confused, but the smell was overpowering, making him crazy with hunger. his instincts took over and he felt his own consciousness slipping away as he went from one deer to the next, first bringing them all down, then doubling back and draining the blood from their bodies, getting as much of the blood as possible into his mouth. 
when finished, he stepped back and looked at the bodies lying in the snow, blood specks surrounding them. his consciousness flooded back to him as he focused on what he had done. it was a lot, and finally, he was sated. whatever these deer were, they had done what he had been searching for since his change.
he heard a rustling behind him. he had smelled nothing on the air, which was odd. rudy whipped his head around to see what animal was there to witness his doings.
it was a man with a large, white beard in a leather jacket trimmed with fur, standing in the snow and pointing an uzi at him. 
“rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. we meet again.”
the last thing rudy saw were silver bullets coming his way. his reindeer games were over.

so it begins…

so it begins…

tonight i made real cranberry sauce from scratch! 
we never had cranberry from a can growing up; my uncle squire attended to the cranberry orange relish that was a staple on the thanksgiving table. and that relish* STAYED a staple for my entire 37 years…EXCEPT THIS YEAR. i’m changing it up.
sorry uncle squie πŸ™
i went searching for a reasonable recipe to make cranberry sauce, and it turns out they’re all pretty reasonable. cranberries, juice, sugar. alton brown’s and the pioneer woman’s recipes were pretty similar, and they eschewed the refined sugar and went the natural route: honey and maple syrup, respectfully. 
i went with the pioneer woman’s recipe as i like the taste of maple syrup over honey, and i doubled it. 
it’s so simple, i can still remember it:

  • bag of cranberries
  • 1 cup cranberry juice
  • 1 cup syrup
  • orange zest
  • 3 tblsp orange juice (i put a little more than that)

(i also threw in a pinch of salt.)
so what we’re doing here, effectively, is making a cranberry JAM. bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. i then poured it into jam jars, and now they’re all sitting in my garage waiting for thursday, when it will be served cold. 
i’m hoping the stuff holds their jar shapes so we can make them jiggle.
(also, i might add, my new kitchen is MUCH more conducive to good food photography.)
cranberries
cransjars
(except when i can’t focus, apparently.)
*relish: throw cranberries and a whole orange into a food processor. blend. throw in a bowl and mix with a boatload of sugar. taste. probably add more sugar. serve cold. 

RELIEF

RELIEF

was at work today, and wanted to check my blog to make sure my posts timed correctly yesterday, so on my break (…) i checked it out and there on the front page was a post form OCTOBER 14.
WHAT
WHT
WT
i nearly keeled over in my chair. checked with liz; she saw it too. all my california posts…gone….
i racked my brain; there was nothing i did that would’ve caused a complete breakdown of my blog. i hadn’t done any updates, i hadn’t changed any settings, i hadn’t even touched a plugin or theme setting anywhere. just two posts. WHAT WAS GOING ON.
so i calmed down a bit and contacted my host when i got home. 
apparently they had moved servers and expected their clients to update their nameservers for their domains. (i feel like that should just be an automatic update.)
so the tech help dude told me how to change it, then i had to wait a few hours, and NOW, thankfully, i have all my posts back. 
whew!
this kablpomo has turned into a real mess of things, hasn’t it. 

ATK's squash galette

ATK's squash galette

so i made this squash galette today from america’s test kitchen via lynne rosetto kasper (on twitter).

Copyright 2016 America's Test Kitchen (Daniel J. van Ackere)
Copyright 2016 America’s Test Kitchen (Daniel J. van Ackere)

and it was really time consuming. cubing squash is not my most favorite thing to do on the planet, that’s for sure.
but it was really yummy. and FILLING. omg. i don’t think it could ever replace just squash at a thanksgiving meal. it could be a nice appetizer, but the whole wheat crust really fills you up, and you’d have no room for dressing during t-day.
also, if you weren’t going vegetarian (this was vegetarian option for thanksgiving guests), this could definitely benefit from some pork product – sausage, bacon, something. 
i definitely would make this again, and i’m thinking about making just the filling for thanksgiving. throw some bacon in it, and it would be delish. or if there were a less filling way for it to get from table to mouth – a cracker, perhaps? i might make it for an appetizer. we’ll see what happens!