On fiction for adolescents

So I stayed home sick yesterday, and mostly I sat on the couch feeling crappy and read 600 pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This is my least favorite of the HP series, and if you don't care about YA fiction, this would be a good post to skip, as I plan to elucidate my reasons in a very convincing manner.

HP5 kind of sucks because Harry spends the entire book being a whiny prick.

I get that Harry is 15, and that's prime angst time, but come on. I worked with fifteen-year-olds and even was one once, and I can assure you that very few teenagers are that whiny, especially to their friends, that much of the time.

First Harry is pissed that he is stuck in Privet Drive while his friends hang out together. Then he's pissed that Dumbledore doesn't pay more attention to him.  He's pissed that Sirius is feeling the same way he is and he has to pretend it's okay. He hides from everyone after he has the snake-and-Mr.-Weasley dream, then gets mad for talking about him when he's not there. He spends huge sections of the book bickering with his best friends and Cho. It's irritating, and frankly it's just plain boring.

I know huge amounts of time in adolescence are spent agonizing over every miniscule detail of your life, but it doesn't make for interesting reading. Part of what I hated about the writing of Twilight (the writing, here, not the phenomenally shitty and misogynistic storyline) was that it was all from the perspective of a self-absorbed and rather boring teenage girl.

Fiction for teenagers doesn't have to be like this! Thankfully, Harry's angst disappears (mostly) after Order of the Phoenix, and there are terrific books like the Hunger Games trilogy that involve intelligent main characters. And of course there will always be The Giver, to reread a million times.

What adolescent fiction without whiny characters can you recommend?

Mother's Day Food Thing = Success!

Dudes, we had our parents over yesterday for a Mother's Day picnic-thing, and it was a resounding success. Possibly less-than-stellar moments: I drank four glasses of wine while sitting in the sun (then wisely switched to water!), I sat at such an angle that a large patch of my right boob got sunburned (but nowhere else got any sun at all), and I doubled what turned out to be an already-tripled frosting recipe, so now I have enough frosting for at least two more layer cakes. I made a lot of frosting, is what I'm saying.

I tried on bathing suits a little while ago and am now feeling self-critical in that special way that bathing-suit-trying-on can bring, so I'm going to eat some celery and then go for a bike ride.

The bike ride part is true, but the celery part isn't. We don't have any celery, and I'm hungry, so I think I'm going to have some scrambled eggs and marble rye toast. That's healthy, right? Lots of protein, and stuff?

And I'm giving the rest of the cake away to my neighbors, but that was part of the plan before the bathing suit thing.

How was your Mother's Day? Anyone else feeling spectacularly self-image-conscious, or just plain fat, this week?

Spring cleaning

Tomorrow we're hosting our Second Annual Mother's Day Food Thing! Last year we did brunch, but this year we're doing lunch, so I can't really give it a better name.

To get ready, I started cleaning my messy house. How do you all handle spring cleaning? Today I swept and washed the kitchen and bathroom floors, cleaned the bathroom, washed all the towels, and am going to vacuum and dust the living room after I eat some lunch. The house smells great, and it looks so much better already! I hate cleaning, but I really like having a clean house.

How do you handle division of labor? Andy and I basically take care of the things that bug us more. For example, I think he has cleaned the bathroom maybe four times since we moved in together three years ago, but I'm okay with that because I'm usually the one who thinks the bathroom is kind of getting gross and needs to be cleaned. I've mowed the lawn a comparable number of times, though I typically claim it's more, because I despise mowing the lawn and don't really notice that it needs it until a week after Andy does.

Basically, I know it's time for spring cleaning when I think my entire house is pretty gross. If possible, I get as much done on a weekend-day as I can, so I have an excuse to have people over. It works out pretty well.

Do you spring-clean? How do you tackle it?

Loving and loathing: springtime

Loving:

• Sunshine! But not too much!
• The smell of fresh-cut lawns coming through my car windows as I drive home.
•  It's getting warmer, but isn't yet unbearably hot and humid.
• I had my first-ever Pimm's cup recently, and I'm 100% sure it will become an important part of my summer routine.
• My tulips are blooming! They're pink! I haven't killed any plants in, like, months!
• Napping on the couch in the afternoon with the sun streaming through the window is like a present from the universe just for me. That's how much I love it.
• Summer food! Andy's family used their grill pretty much every single day all summer long, so he's an experienced grill master. I make a mean potato grill thing (complicated recipe: chuck some diced potatoes, a diced onion, minced garlic, a serious drizzle of olive oil and a knob or two of butter into some tinfoil; fold tinfoil into a packet; grill without flipping for like twenty minutes or until it smells amazing.) and some amazing crumbles and cobblers that will soon be reappearing on our menu.
• Drinking outdoors is seasonally appropriate! Is there anything more relaxing than an afternoon barbecue with some lovely grilled food and some beers (or maybe a Pimm's cup)?
• We've made plans for our first attempt at camping-I-won't-hate! It's back in the Thousand Islands, but the people we're going with have a Winnebago and are bringing some of their homebrewed beer, so I'm already feeling more optimistic.

Loathing:

• The groggy, stupid feeling I get from seasonal allergies, and that it takes me a few days to realize it's allergies and start taking Claritin.
• Yardwork. We have a lot of ambition, but I seriously despise yardwork more than any other chore. I'd rather clean forty toilets that mow the lawn. (Please note that I mean, like, household toilets used by me, and not any generic toilets. Or mall toilets. Or toilets at a homeless shelter or whatever. I'd rather clean, let's say, four or five of those than mow the lawn.)
• Same category, but I despise it equally, so it gets its own entry: weed eradication. Our yard is a botanist's dream, as I'm pretty sure we have some species of dandelion that don't exist anywhere else. And we have a super-enthusiastic growth of Japanese knotweed, a horribly invasive piece of shit that sends out a million shoots that require cutting two inches above the ground then an application of Roundup. And no, you can't get the generic, cheaper kind of weed killer, because only certain things kill that shit. 
• Driving with my windows open does crazy things to my mohawk, but I refuse to be one of those a-holes with the air conditioning on when it's 70° out.
• The town's Public Works department came through and did something crazy to the sewers on my street recently, and now it appears that one of them is plugged. Every time it rains, which happens a lot in upstate New York in the spring, there's a huge puddle across the road I have to take to get to work.
• Return of motorcycle season means the neighbor two houses down will once again spend four hours, three nights a week, fucking around with his motorcycle in the driveway (possibly in an attempt to make it louder, as this is the only effect I have been able to discern). The farthest he will ever drive it is around the block.

Conclusion: Hooray for spring, mostly! What are you loving and loathing lately?

How to make dinner: pro edition

Start on Wednesday night by swearing you're going to go to bed early. Forget to do this, and stay up until 11:30 reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the bazillionth time.

Thursday morning, wake up groggy and a little sore from sleeping weird. Shower and get dressed and all that, put up your mohawk, then realize you only have time to brush your teeth or put on makeup. Decide on teeth.

At work, spend time trying to figure out what to make for dinner, what with it being Cinco de Mayo and therefore an awesome excuse to make something themed. Look at approximately 16 fish taco recipes (because your husband likes fish tacos) before deciding you really don't like fish tacos that much and then look at seven beef taco recipes. Decide on this recipe. Text your husband to find out if you have any steak in the freezer (he'll respond, "Probably.") Make a store list on a Post-it. Rewrite it three times, first to make it neater, then to group things together by area of the store.

After work, stop at the store. Think about stopping at Aldi to see if they have cheap avocados, then remember the last time you did that they weren't that much cheaper and didn't have much taste. Go to Wegmans. Get everything on your list except cabbage (because they only have giant heads of it and you need, like, two cups for slaw), and also get some marshmallows and Hershey's bars and a Twix, because you have been dying for chocolate all day. Be outraged at how much avocados cost. Buy steak. Realize that the recipe calls for flank steak, but discover that the cheapest flank steak is $17. Get two strip steaks because they're reduced for quick sale to $11 and you don't really know the difference between cuts of steak anyway. Buy a six-pack of Tecate, which you've never heard of but which is Mexican and on sale and has to be better than Corona, right?

Devour the Twix on the drive home. When you get into the house, let the dogs out into the backyard. Pretend not to hear them barking at the mean dogs next door. Put the beer in the fridge wherever it'll fit. Do not bother to clean out any of the old, questionable food that is taking up so much damn space.

Make the marinade in a Ziploc bag, because you're smart enough not to mix it in a bowl then transfer it to a bag. Duh. Double the amount of garlic, and think derogatory thoughts about anyone who doesn't automatically double the amount of garlic in any recipe she makes. Put the steaks in with the marinade, shake it enthusiastically while doing some weird pelvic-thrust-heavy dance. Stick the bag in the fridge, wherever you can fit it. Think, "Someone ought to clean this fridge out." Remember it was garbage day this morning, so you probably should have cleaned it yesterday.

Start the guacamole. Be relieved that the two overpriced avocados are perfect inside. Make the guacamole. Let the dogs back inside because they're barking again. Try the guacamole. Do a dance of joy about how fucking good it is. Eat three chips covered in the stuff. Get a phone call from your husband that he has to go out for a drink with everyone from work for his boss's birthday. Console yourself with a beer (decent!) and more chips and guacamole. Realize this guac is in the top five guacs you've ever made. Be smug.

Google search "fresh corn salsa" because your husband recently told you he really likes that stuff. Realize that most of them are a combination of tomatoes, red onion, and corn. While your computer is running, blog for a while. Use the second person, so you sound like a tool.

Put the guacamole in the fridge, on top of the marinating meat because you can't find anywhere else to stick it. Drink some more beer. Make the corn salsa by chopping the other half of the onion you used for the guac and a tomato and mixing that with the kernels you cut off of two ears of corn. Sprinkle liberally with salt and add a splash of lime juice. Watch an episode of Bones while knitting.

When your husband gets home, have him grill the steak because you've never grilled anything in your life (being a vegetarian through your formative grilling years will do that to you). Let it set for a minute, slice on an angle, put some chunks of meat in the stupid six-inch tortillas you had to get because that's the only size the corn ones came in. Add a hearty blob of guacamole. Add a good sprinkling of the corn salsa stuff. Squeeze on some fresh lime juice if you have it (you don't.). Devour.

There you have it! Easy-peasy! Did you guys make anything special for Cinco de Mayo?

Unfocused

I don't have a single coherent thing to write about, so here's this instead:

1. I need to get some of this dog hair out of my life. Might just be an urge to spring-clean, but it seems that there is white dog hair on every surface of this house, including me. Gross.

2. Andy is in charge of our Blockbuster-by-mail program thing. I don't even know our login information, for some reason. Luckily, the man usually has awesome taste. I don't understand, however, why we got Tommy Boy in the mail today.

3. I had a super awesome panini for lunch today, but it's giving me indigestion. Not cool.

4. Is it appropriate for my inaugural wearing of my new leather jacket to be while I take the dogs for a walk in the midafternoon?

5. I'm taking the dogs for a walk instead of going for a run because I'm lazy, but I'll probably walk them farther than I would have run anyway, because I'm lazy.

Bragging a little

So I just got back from a sweet little getaway with Andy! We spent two nights at Belhurst Castle in the Finger Lakes. It was terrific.We drank wine, and got a massage, and hung out in a hot tub, and generally just relaxed and did nothing for three days. We also went to the outlet mall and dropped some serious money, the kind that makes your stomach hurt for a minute, except we didn't buy anything unless it was 60% off retail price or more, so I guess that helps.

Our second night we stayed in the castle's vineyard property, White Springs Manor, which is pretty cool too. The only thing is, I'm a giant sissy and it's a huge old building with hardly any people in it (you check in at their main property two miles away, so you could conceivably be the only people in the building, including staff). There were (we think) two other couples staying when we were, but we only know that because there were two cars in the lot and we saw someone close the drapes in one of the rooms. Because the building is so old, it doesn't have those hotel flip-lock thingies you use to make sure no one can get in. That means, right before we fell asleep, my brain was all, "You know, anyone could make a copy of that key and get in here. Anyone." So I woke up, like, six times during the night to make sure no one had broken into our room and murdered us. Also, whatever asshole had the room before us set the room's alarm clock for 6 a.m. That was not my favorite.

Because of my extreme vigilance, I'm tired now, so I'm going to take a nap. Win!