Remember Die Hard 3 and the sandwich board? It's the dress version.

I was checking out some vintage clothes online the other day.

"Oh, that dress looks like it has a pretty neckline." *click*

OMG.

I'd be more scandalized if it had sold.

Skinny jeans and popped collars

Someone wrote a 28 page treatise entitled "On Douchebags." Really.

Open Thread

What's up?

Drug Tests for Clerkships?

This is just weird:

I want to clerk for a Federal circuit court judge when I graduate and then work for the State Department. Chances are I won't be able to do either because I won't be able to pass a drug test.

Since when do federal judicial clerks have to take drug tests? I never had to do so. (Not that it would have turned up anything, because I am boring.)

Just my impression.

Resolved: That Mary Cassatt is the Anne Geddes of the 19th c.

Thank goodness?

I guess I don't have to worry about swine flu if I die of heat exhaustion while trying to cut my grass with a push mower.

Mel Gibson has daughters, right?

I found this comment sort of interesting:

Overheard in the neighborhood chocolate shop/cafe today:

Her: I don’t drink because I do terrible things when I’m drunk. Once this guy was hitting on me, and I pushed him through a plate glass window, head first. Nothing happened though. And I say all these racist things! Only when I’m drunk. But when I get drunk I just…say anything. Is that part of me? I don’t want to be a racist, so I don’t drink.

Is the decision not to drink accomplishing much here? Does the individual have a moral obligation to do more?

Remembrance of things past

I normally find Caitlin Flanagan off-putting, if only because she's obviously very intelligent and insightful and yet manages, through either selective blindness or malevolence, to get nearly everything wrong. (Sometimes just a smidge. A tweak toward wrongness. It's infuriating. But mostly she's lots wrong.) But the juxtaposition of her review of Alec Baldwin's book on divorce and Hugo Schwyzer's reposting of the need for kindness and desire in marriage really struck me. She's got something there. I don't agree with where she takes it, but there's something.

Schwyzer:

While chemistry may wane and lust may fluctuate, I do believe that in order for a relationship to be successful, there must at the least be an initial period of extraordinary desire. In times of low desire and little sexual activity, memories of "how it used to be" can serve as a reminder that the two people in a given relationship really did once passionately long for each other. What one once had and then lost can be found again. What one never had in the first place is a lot harder to create from scratch.

Flanagan:

[T]he spark that had gotten it all started, turning one Flanagan into four and making a certain red-shingle house in North Berkeley an unparalleled trove of talked-out Chatty Cathy dolls and years-long quarrels, Julia Child soufflés and weekend benders—was a consuming passion. The fact that a long time ago, a young man had gone to a cocktail party in Greenwich Village with a Navy buddy, caught sight of a beautiful young woman, and said to the friend, “Introduce me.”

Or words to that effect. I wasn’t there! All I know is that for all of their quarreling and bellyaching, they had begun in romance and they gestured back to that romance a hundred times a year. It was in the gifts they gave one another, the notes they sent when they were apart, the fact that whenever she was combing my father’s fringe of white hair before a party, she would say, “You look so handsome, Tom”—and you realized that she wasn’t exactly seeing something; she was remembering it.

Aren't the happiest couples are the ones that see each other as the people each fell in love with, even years down the line?

Customer Service

At the sushi restaurant:

Me: I'd like to get some takeout.
Hostess: Oh, we don't do takeout.
Me: Can I eat at the bar?
Hostess: Yes, there's a seat at the bar available.
Me: If I order more than I can eat, can I take it home in a box?
Hostess: .... No.

Coinage

Having one best friend at a time: monogamie?

But Snape wouldn't like it.

Requiring a stay-at-home puppy mom is fairly common in animal rescues these days, from what I saw during my ultimately unsuccessful dog search. Also, discrimination against renters.

Recipe: Spicy Shrimp & Soba Noodles

This is nicely spicy, and you could probably sub extra-firm tofu for the shrimp or cook additional veggies at that stage.

Shrimp:
8-12 raw medium shrimp
3 cloves minced garlic
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Toss shrimp in marinade until well coated. Let sit while preparing rest of recipe.

Sauce:
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice
2 tsp hot red pepper flakes

Cook the sugar and water until sugar is dissolved, stirring frequently. Let cool for 5 minutes, then add other ingredients. Keep on low heat.

2-3 servings dried soba noodles
1-2 cups thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Cook noodles as directed, drain, and toss with half the sauce. Cook shrimp and mushrooms in a dab of oil for 3 minutes, then add them to noodles. Add cilantro. Serve with more sauce if desired.

Having a baa-d day?

For your enjoyment: Lambcam.

ETA: And Japanese hot-tubbing monkey-cam. (I went there!)

Business in front, business in the back.

So my bloggy friend was asking me why I didn't go to [Trendy Blog]'s happy hour and I replied that I am not cool. To which she responded, "Oh, you could have gone. They are not cool."

Is it my fate to be a suit (not that I dislike suits. on guys.)? I need the weather to warm up so I can do things that are more youthful. Ideas for DC weekend fun? Remember, I don't ride a bike.

I am also thinking I might want to go to Yosemite sometime but that is solely based on pretty pictures from Flickr. Thoughts from people who have camped more recently than Girl-Scout-age welcome.

Amber sans fards

Every time I go to work without makeup and don't hide in my office with the door shut, someone asks me if I'm sick. That's because I don't look like this.

Grr

Fell down my stairs this morning. Landed hard on my bottom, but somehow injured my neck in doing so. And now my head hurts.

Weekend Bake: Festive Cheese Enchiladas

I have tried to make some good Tex-Mex at home before, but was a little unsatisfied with the results. This cheese enchilada recipe was much tastier and not as messy to prepare.

Chili Gravy:
1/4 cup Crisco
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried Mexican oregano
2 T chili powder
2 cups water
3 cloves pressed garlic

Enchiladas:
7 corn tortillas
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
One medium onion, diced
2 cups chili gravy

Preheat oven to 450.
Melt the Crisco in a medium non-stick pan. Add flour and make a roux (cook 5 minutes or until caramel brown). Stir constantly.
Add dry ingredients and cook for one minute, while continuing to stir.
Add water and garlic. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Gravy should be thickened but not pasty.

Heat the tortillas one at a time on your stove's gas burners, flipping every ten seconds or so. Keep them wrapped in a cloth until all are heated.
Pour enough chili gravy to cover the bottom in a non-stick baking pan.
Roll 1/4 cup of cheese and 1 tablespoon of onion inside a tortilla and roll it.
Place rolled tortilla in pan, seam side down.
Repeat with remaining tortillas. (We fit 7 in a 9x9 pan.)
Take remaining chili gravy and pour over the top.
Sprinkle remaining cheese and onions on top of that.
Bake for 10 minutes or until sauce is bubbly and cheese is melted. EAT.

Female Timothy Treadwell?

A woman entered a polar bear habitat at the Berlin Zoo. During feeding time. Bad idea.

Blurgh.

Two jobs last year. Two W-2s. Two ... copies of the same W-2.

I'm sure that my old workplace can pull the form and email it to me Monday, but ... #*&%^%^@*!!!

Two Hour Benetton Ad With Screeching

Finally saw Rachel Getting Married. White people with Indian-themed weddings: the apogee of lameness?