I’m going to a tapas party to ring in the New Year, which means I have to make something to bring. In my kitchen.

My friends all seem to have cooking skills; apparently, not everyone eats tubbed hummus or poached eggs for every meal. I feel I have something to prove, to myself most of all.

So I went to mom’s house today and worshipped at the wall of cookbooks, looking for a recipe that seemed both delicious and achievable. Somehow, I ended up with bleu cheese and walnut shortbread with chutney on top. (Jarred chutney, people, I’m remedial here.) Now, I like the pungent cheeses. I can handle me some stink. When I was a toddler, my mom kept bleu cheese crumbles in the fridge for me. I liked a handful to gnaw on, which must mean I have quite an advanced palate for one so incapable in the kitchen. But this is shortbread. There will be baking.

Every so often, I get inspired and throw a dinner party, splashing out for spendy ingredients and wading into choppy waters, culinarily speaking. Results so far have been mixed. I can OWN a good risotto, but I often get the timing wrong on everything else, particularly if there’s a keeping an eye on things component. Rice is not safe in my hands. I have ruined some beautiful meats (a double murder, if you will). And baking. Oh, my. So exacting, so scientific. I mean, I can handle an unlovely pie now and again, but anything less forgiving and, well, there’s no forgiving it.

Mom, though, she can cook. Food matters to both of us, but she can bring it to delicious life, while I am more of a talented eater (when not fending for myself with hummus and eggs).

I gathered all my ingredients earlier, then went to a matinee. But somewhere in the middle of the movie, I realized I was missing a critical implement. The shortbreads were so cute in the picture, little circles topped with cream cheese and chutney. But how the hell could I make mine round? I fretted about this for the rest of the movie, then finally decided to make them squares. Adapt or die, right?

So I came home and pulled the dough together. So far, so good. It’s chilling in the fridge, and I have loads of walnuts, so I can afford to burn a few in the roasting process.

Of course, there’s been some sampling along the way. My main problem thus far was the fact that I mistook a dried bit of dishwashing detergent for a bleu cheese crumble and, while the initial taste was not far off, the finish may have ruined bleu cheese for me, at least for tonight.

But the big story here, the reason I’m typing this onto the screen for you, what we call the epiphany in fiction, although I sense I’m overselling it, so will begin to back away slowly and just get to the point, which is this: While I was slamming through drawers, hunting for things I rarely use (the half-cup measure, a spatula), I had one of those moments when things slide into place, almost as if you’d scripted the click.

There, in the drawer by the sink, was a set of 3 nested cookie cutters.

Round.

Never used, of course. I probably got them ten years ago, and the only time I’ve touched them has been while packing or unpacking from a move.

But I would never have had them if not for The Subtle Mother, who believes in good tools, and lots of them. And she knew I might need them someday.

So thanks, mom. The circle—of making, of sharing—has been closed. May it be unbroken…

Have lovely evenings, people. Kiss someone pretty at midnight (even if that someone has four legs and hot diaper breath).

food city, mother and child

There’s the cold war:

And the hot war, from preemptive strike:

to full-on conflagration:

Quick, before I rush my restless bones out to a matinee with mom,* here’s a shot** of the laphounds, taken with my new big-girl camera. Did I mention I’m in love? With a Canon DSLR? It’s much smarter than I am, but I did discover it takes 6.3 frames per second, if you ask it real nice. That makes a very satisfying chk-chk-chk sound, or, as I like to think of it, sweet nothings from my expensive new lover.

PS: I did try for some clever wordplay with the title, but American Dogthic just wasn’t cutting it. Any better ideas? Funniest one gets a guestpost here, where you can share your story, tell a joke, reveal some secret, exalt the hostess, or post*** yet another dogshot, just like me.

*We’re taking in some women-of-a-certain-age porn; nothing too taxing for the ass-end of this effed-in-the-ass year. It’s off to the gym after that, then maybe I’ll take myself to the 4:30 showing of Sherlock Holmes. I’ve lost my vacation mojo; it must have been tossed out with the used wrapping paper after Christmas.

**This shot’s not actually as clear as many other ones, but it made me laugh. Don’t judge mi novio on this one, it’s all me and my jittery paws. A tripod is on my growing list of desired accessories, along with a speedlight and a boatload of good glass. (That’s lenses, for the unshutterbuggery types out there. See what a little internet learnin’ will teach you?)

***Stay tuned for round 2 later on…

Tra la, I’m off. See you at the movies…

It’s chilly out there, and not all the sidewalks have been shoveled, but I’m psyching myself up for a snowy plod across town to pick up my car. I won’t make it all five miles, but we’ll see where I end up before I call my dad for an assist.

Long johns and snow boots will be essential, along with my new ninja-skin performance undershirt (a welcome christmas gift from my sister, who is singlehandedly keeping the Eddie Bauer brand afloat). Also, I should try to remember my muffler; my face got chapped walking to the grocery store yesterday. That was a fun trek, though; lots of big banks to traverse, making it feel more mountain climb than street hike.

My body’s on strike after shoveling many meters of Saturday snow, but the compass in my head is pointed east, and I’m a slave to its insistent arrow.

Where are you headed today? Across town? As far as the coffee pot? Straight back to bed?

So much for my festive post of mirth and cheer.

Reader, I napped instead.

And now it’s not just blowy-snowy where I am, it’s also dark. Luckily, I have 3 discs left in my latest TV-DVD series, the title of which I am ashamed to share.*

Merry, merry, and all that noise. Hope you got good shit, ate good shit, and are now letting your bellies ripen by the fire. Tomorrow: the gym! (Or, as we Plains people like to say, the heart-attack waiting to happen in front of our houses.)

*Oh, alright, it’s the African Warlords Gonna Git You Sucka season of 24; you know, the Obama-era one where they address the show’s controversies by having feckless rule-followers decry torture. “That’s not what we believe in!,” says the cardboard Fibbie with quavery affront, just so Jack Bauer can spit back, “but that’s what keeps us safe.” As always, it’s pure war-porn for the 9/11-made-me-pee-my-pants crowd. Watching it feels like going out with a sorta-hot dude who still plays with his GI Joes. On meth.

So, anyway, I’ve got a date now with a hot bath and GI Jack; he’s gonna burst onto my 19-inch TeeVee screen, temporal-mandibular joint in overdrive, and save my socialistical ass from too much communal holidazing.

My ovaries were bored while my brain was editing high-tech press releases, so I got them all riled up with a video. It’s bedtime with Ford and his folks, sometime in the recent, pre-surgical past:

I’m particularly fond of the self-referential triangle between Ford, the camera lens on his left, and the mirror in front of him. He’s out to beguile them all, himself most definitely included.

What also strikes me is how young he looks here, how much less crackling with curiosity he seems at nine months versus ten (although he seemed ultrasonic back then, ungovernably abloom). Of course, he’s wearing seven league boots, developmentally speaking, so every day’s a new frontier to discover; he’s manifest destiny with diapers and drool. I can’t quite keep up with him; I’m the east coast, already mapped and settled, while Ford’s a tiny pioneer.

Head west, young man, and I’ll follow behind, marveling at your locomotion.

Vid from dad’s flickr page.

One of our nation’s many famous Brittanys died yesterday at the fetal age of 32. Cardiac arrest, they say, which sounds like code for cocaine-ain’t-yr-friend-girlie and also please-eat-a-cheeseburger-without-making-yrself-hork-it-back-up. Sad for her, sad for her family. Sad for anyone who remembers enjoying Clueless back in those well-scrubbed, innocent days of the Nineteen-Nineties. I remember being amazed/repelled by the way she transformed herself from the round-cheeked stoner-girl in that movie to the scoured-out, nervous-Titania she became later. I could always see the hint of pudge haloing her hollowed cheeks, though, in the same way that Anne Hathaway’s Princess Diaries frizz remains a notional nimbus around her glamorous puss for me. You can’t ever shake what made you junior high awkward, no matter how much fame, how many gowns, or how little food there is later on. It’s like erasing your pencil scribbles; there’s always a mark, however faint.

I saw her once, at the Banana Republic mothership, a massive workwear-valhalla on the corner of Grant and Sutter in downtown San Francisco. I’d entered from Grant Street and noticed that the store had done one of its occasional swaps, with the women’s clothing downstairs and men’s on the main floor. Although there’s a grand staircase leading down from the Sutter street entrance, the stairs off Grant are small and tucked in a corner, and that’s where I was headed when I saw a couple in front of me. The man was notice-me tall, his arm around a tiny, frail sprite, very butterflies-are-free. They were newly together, holding on to each other in that we-two-form-a-universe way, where other people are just props in the movie of the two of you. As they got closer to the stairs, she veered off and hopped down a couple of steps, headed to the women’s section. She must have called out then, because he turned to her, then three things happened, boom, boom, boom:

1. She pulled up her shirt, revealing two naked-pretty breasts.

2. He grinned down at her, wolfish, doting, delighted.

3. And just-like-that, I recognized him as Ashton Kutcher, and her as Brittany Murphy.

Although I try to cultivate an air of gracious disinterest around celebrities—no gawking, no autographs, no acknowledgment—there is that little hit of fame you get off them. Part adrenalin, part dislocation, it’s that quick internal “eeee!” you make when you recognize someone, when known collides with unknown. What I saw did not read as a Lohan-sized gesture, something a bambi-junkie party girl would pull for press coverage. Instead, it was small act of sass and sharing between two people, in that fresh flush of discovering each other’s edges. Since then, I’ve felt a little proprietary about them both, as though witnessing the private joke of a public couple gave me a small stake in their goings on.

Not in a follow-them-on-Twitter way, of course. It’s not like I maintain a Brittany Murphy fansite, or a FuckYeahAshtonKutcher tumblog. I just notice their names, in the same way I take note of Seal, who once ate dinner at the next table over at Delfina. His first son had just been born, and he was showing pictures on his phone to everyone at his table. He seemed like a lovely guy, you know? Regular, even in the midst of all that incandescence. My friend and sister did some pointing and squeeing, but me, I was cool.

Via

Ford is splint-free for xmas, after one of his casts fell off unexpectedly:

One rushed trip to Omaha later, and he’s now free to move his wrists and elbows. Pretty good present, eh? Full motion in four joints—yay! That’s Ford’s beloved Papou in the background. You know him as Quiver.

Two more casualties in the ongoing War of the Chihuahuas.

Pretty much every boyfriend I’ve had has been a musician; either that, or musically pretentious, collecting band facts like some dudes follow baseball stats. (This must have something to do with the male brain, a slightly autistic organ of data collection and single-track obsession.) Many guys I know are completists; they groove on the minutest detail and they like to collect all four, in box. Plus the rare Japanese reissues. And the 12-inch singles. And yeah, yeah, I’m lumpsumming the species, but its after long and tawdry acquaintance, so hear me out, then listen to The Left Banke sing their biggest, maybe even only-est hit.

Here’s some pretty-pretty for you on this waning day (and thank the good lord, she’s a friday):

This song takes me back to a couple different relationships where the boy came to me bearing a record album or CD (today it would be an mp3, most likely ganked off the internet and sent via email) and told me of his secret love for this band. There have been a million of these me-to-music introductions: Fred Neil, Nick Drake, Talk Talk. That’s how I find the coolest tunes, when it’s some guy’s musical heart path and he shows me the shortcut. Although the relationships are over, the music’s still there, unspooling in memory and as good as scents at taking me back.

What’s your remembering music? And who do you think of when you hear it?

PS: Now listen to this one: yeah. the one behind this link. Makes me want to pretend I’m the girl in the music box, twirling in a circle when you open me up.

PPS: That lead singer is quite the pocket popstar. He looks like a more knowing Scott Baio, or Bud Cort’s pussy-magnet cousin. Amirite?