Alien invasion

One of the more memorable events of my most recent trip home was witnessing an alien invasion.

Okay, maybe what I actually witnessed dragonfly hatch day 2010, but I swear they look like aliens. It was fascinating to watch them undergo metamorphosis. I may have possibly taken approximately 60,000 pictures of the event just to make sure I didn't miss anything. I only did it for you. I'm not obsessed. I swear.

The dragonfly larvae crawl out of the water and perch themselves on a surface. In my experience it is most often a vertical surface, for example the nice shingled siding of our boathouse. I'm not sure what signals them to make the water-to-land transition, but for whatever reason, this year they chose Memorial Day for the mass exodus from their larval prisons.

So they bust out of their skin and begin hanging upside-down, doing periodic hanging crunch-type things as their bodies move further out of the larvae. Then they do some serious acrobatics: They flip right-side-up and grab onto their old larval head and pull their body the rest of the way out.

If all that weren't crazy-impressive enough, they then pump fluid out of their fat bodies into their shriveled up wings, slowly inflating them.

They just keep pumping up their wings, and once they're done with that they hang around to let their wings dry up before they go flying off.

Isn't he (or she...I'm no expert in determining the sex of dragonflies) pretty? Isn't it crazy how those dinky little wings turn into those big glossy numbers?

*Disclaimer: I have no actual scientific knowledge of any of this stuff so don't go quoting me for your next science project.

Tonic Emergency

And thus ends my silence. I can't believe my poor blog has been so neglected. I blame NetNewsWire.

***

So I headed up to the Adirondacks on Friday night to spend the holiday weekend at my family's summer camp. Just to clarify, this is not a sleep-away camp for children. Up in the northern hinterlands of New York we call summer homes camps. I don't know why, we just do. To further clarify, we usually just call our camp "the island" as if it were the only island in existence. Now to continue, around 10 pm I was almost there, and I called up my parents to make sure they would have the boat on the mainland when I arrived and I had the following conversation:

me: Hi Dad! I'm in Tupper Lake.

Dad: Norah. Have you driven by Stewart's yet?

me: Um...no. I'm still in that place (yes, I actually said that as if that is a completely clear statement. "that place" is actually Faust, a neighborhood of Tupper Lake.)

Dad: Oh, well, we have a tonic emergency. We only have enough tonic to make one or two drinks.

So, dutiful daughter that I am, I stop and pick up tonic, thus averting a dire crisis on the island. After all, one cannot survive on the island with out ample G&Ts, V&Ts or R&Ts. Yes, my life is just that difficult.

FfNl: Corn Tortillas

One of my unofficial New Year's resolutions (official ones always seem to fail, so I'm going to go with unofficial this time out) is to try to use up the ridiculous amounts of food in my kitchen. I really have more food than any one person should have. I just like trying new things and like little challenges in the kitchen.

On to my story. Last night, after a longer-than-I-wanted day at work which was followed by a brief foray to the pottery studio to finish up the saki set I threw monday night, I peered into my fridge and grabbed things that needed to be used and threw together a mexican-type filling. One problem: I had no tortillas. However, I do have masa harina and a tortilla press that had never seen the light of day. Yes, I'm just that kind of person.

So I grabbed my trusty Rick Bayless Mexican cookbook and tried my hand at them.

Pretty, no? They were surprisingly easy. I may never buy corn tortillas again. Well at least until I make it through my current stock of masa harina. Seriously, you should give it a try. Well, you'll need a tortilla press, but for $12 you can have your very own.

Just think about it.

FfNl: A few of my favorite beers...

Okay, so this evening I went to my favorite grocery store for one simple thing: Ball jars. I am making a tasty treat involving pumpkin and maple syrup from a recent ISIE item (just in case there is any doubt, it is in item #3). Now if you are nice to me you might actually get some of this tasty treat- just something to keep in mind.

Anyway, I got my ball jars, but as I wandered around Wegmans, I came to the sad realization I drank my last beer Monday night. For some reason, recently I have a new-found appreciation for the post-work brew. Maybe it has something to do with 6+ years in grad school? Or perhaps it is the unique thirst-quenching properties of beer? Any guesses?

Now as I stood in the beer section, which incidentally had been expanded in the last year to make it entirely too tempting, I was struck with a horrible quandry. Do I buy the mixed pack of the rather fabulous Great Lakes Brewing's finest or my pet favorite beer, Magic Hat's Roxy Rolles? I have a newish infatuation with Great lakes, but I'll just say that last winter I hunted down all the Magic Hat's Feast of Fools (winter) mixed twelve packs I could find, just for the 3 Roxy Rolles. Most notably, I bought what might have been the last winter twelve pack Easter weekend along with the last stash of Cadbury mini-eggs in a gas station 3 hours from where I live. It was like hitting the jackpot!

Yes. I am crazy. As if there were any doubts.

So what do I pick? Both of course. There isn't anything wrong with storing beer in one's bedroom, is there? I mean, it isn't my fault my kitchen is the size of a bathtub.

What you should take away from this post: Feeling thirsty? Go get either (or both) of these- you won't be sorry. Just don't blame me if you develop a new obsession.

Dishes

Okay.

Yes, I fully admit it. I am a blog-slacker.

Well, actually I am a slacker at a lot of things. I probably shouldn't just limit myself to just blog-slacking. I'm more of your jack-of-all-slackers; you name it and I can put it off, shove it aside or bury it under a mound of excuses. But eventually, even I have to pay the price. In this case, the guilt and fondness for my little blog here have forced me to post again (hallelujah!). In the case of my seemingly always messy kitchen, I was eventually forced to create a mountain of dishes:

Yes, that is an entire sink piled with dishes, with a very flimsy dish rack that should have been retired 2 years ago. I'm fairly certain every spoon I owned was at the bottom of the pile and that the three flexible plastic cutting boards provided sound structural support to my creation. It is a work of slackerish-beauty. In fact, it was so nice I left it there in all its glory for 2 whole days. Yep, I told you I was a slacker.

I think this can safely be filed under random. What says you?

What I'll be doing tonight...

For the first time in quite a few nights (don't ask me how many because at this point it takes too much brain power) I have no plans to do anything. I am simply going home and staying there. This certainly doesn't mean I'll be doing nothing, but at least I'm just walking home. No pottery studio, no errands, no gym, nothing. Instead I can do any one of the following (0r all of them if I am content in not sleeping and skipping work tomorrow):

1. Make something (or multiple things) with the vegetables currently stuffed in my refrigerator. Any ideas for things to make with the celeriac, beets, turnips, onions, carrots, potatoes, peppers, eggplant and the herbs that have a stranglehold on my fridge?

2. Take the blueberry jam back out of its jars and cook it again in the hopes that it will set on the second go around.

3. Mend or hem about 6 pairs of pants.

4. Knit something.

5. Photograph some pottery.

6. Watch the Netflix movies currently burning a hole in my wallet.

7. Upholster.

That's just the short list. I think maybe I need help...

or maybe just a gin & tonic.

Hehehe....

(Did you think I'd fallen off the face of the planet? Well maybe I did for a bit- but I'm clawing my way back, so stay tuned in)

Okay so I read a lot of random blogs. Recently I've started reading some very entertaining blogs about the book industry in general. Did I mention I love reading? I can now say I love reading about the process of how writing becomes the stuff I read. Here are just a couple examples: Nathan Bransford, Bookends and last but certainly not least Pimp my Novel. The last line in today's PMN struck me as very funny:

Tomorrow: Dan Brown kills an entire forest!

Are planning on picking up one of those trees?

Also, you should definitely check this out (thanks Molly):