There must be somebody ...

... who could rock this look.

Yes, that is, in fact, press-on zebra-striped (and camo!) eye shadow. Place on eyelid and peel back the plastic layer. Ideal for on-the-go professional ballroom dancers/strippers. Much less time consuming than painting on individual zebra stripes, certainly.

And just the idea of camouflaged eyelids is too cool for words.

But what's that third print supposed to be - the one on the bottom? Cheetah spots? Nami suggests "skummy pondwater as viewed under a microscope."

Two dogs, working on their tans.

It's official. I have the two cutest dogs on the face of the earth. And I've finally gotten someone other than Steve to acknowledge it. And Steve doesn't really count anyway, since I pretty much have to force it out of him under threat of long-term marital discord.



Omie says: "You can't get this bronzed goddess look from a bottle."

On the summer squash that is threatening to take over my entire back yard.

The jungle stands by, poised to take back civilization. You wake up one day, surprised to discover that the kudzu has swallowed up your front porch. That's the situation with summer squash in our garden right now. I say "summer squash" because I planted about five different varieties of the stuff. But almost all of it turned out to be regular green zucchini. Not sure what happened with that.

Anyway. As you can see, it is growing across the path. It's about ready to climb our fence and grow into our neighbor's yard. I expect to come home one of these days and find that my house looks like a Mayan ruin, barely visible and straining under a canopy of ginormous straight-necked green squash. And we're only three weeks into zucchini season. Be afraid.

So far I have made:

1. Steamed squash with rice. Blah.
   
2. Grilled squash. You just put a little oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper on whole baby squash, wrap them in foil, and grill them for twenty minutes or so.
   
3. Zucchini bread. (Thanks Paula Deen! Although anything would taste good with three cups of refined white sugar in it, let's face it.)
4. Fritatta with grated zucchini and carrot (based loosely on the zucchini fritatta recipe in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone).
   
5. Homemade pasta sauce with squash (make sauce; add squash).

I am planning to try:

1. Fried squash blossoms.
2. Baked overgrown giant zucchini stuffed with wild rice pilaf.
3. Summer squash pureed soup, per my mother's suggestion.

Also, if you want any squash, for heaven's sake, please speak up.

Nami, come back [to] San Francisco.

(I am egregiously misquoting the Magnetic Fields here.) Nami visited us from Japan a few weekends ago, and I just got my grubby paws on Steve's wonderful photos. Nami, it was so good to see your smiling face. Come back to California (we know we're annoying, but we love you).

Crouton's really done it this time.

Catching up on some of the events of the past couple weeks:


Yes. That's the Holy Bible, post Crouton. Huge sections of it are now missing - presumably because they ended up in Crouton's GI tract (Steve says, "He has really digested God's word."). Namely, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (the Law) as well as Revelation. I'm pretty sure that Leviticus forbids allowing your dog to eat your Bible (very unkosher!), but I can't say for sure, since he ate that book.

40s-style platforms - in the flesh!

I haven't been posting enough pictures lately. Blogs without pretty pictures are like ... um ... blogs without pretty pictures. So I thought I should mention that I have found a new obsession. Faryl Robin shoes. Especially when procured at a steep discount at the Loehman's Outlet (which happens to be disturbingly close to my place of work). I'm wearing these for the first time today (with a black pencil skirt, black short sleeved sweater, and fitted brown plaid vest, thanks for asking), and have almost fallen down only once in them so far. Not bad for platforms, which are notoriously unstable. They are so Casablanca. Too bad I'm so not Ingrid Bergman (at least, in terms of natural grace and poise - oh, yeah, and everything else). Sigh.

Humble pie.

I really shouldn't be so full of myself. Our housemate Rebecca has apparently read 30 books already this year. Yes, that's approximately five per month, folks. Whereas, by my calculations, not including picture books, cookbooks, and books I skipped major chunks of, I've only read 13. Well, she does work in a bookstore, one of those jobs I've always envied (where you can read books on the job). Yeah, I read on the job, but it's not the same. Trust me.

But do you want to know the real reason I don't read as much as Rebecca? I waste all of that valuable quiet time between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., ahem, sleeping. And periodically waking up to let the dogs out and noticing that Rebecca's light is still on.

Rebecca, you're an inspiration to me. So anyway, of the 13 books I've read this year, four really stand out as some of the best books I've read - maybe ever - as follows:

1) A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas.

2) Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

3) Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell

4) Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson

You can read my embarassingly gushing reviews of all of these on goodreads, if you are so inclined.

Here's to finding four more amazing books by the end of 2008!