Space Booties for Maggie

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Originally uploaded by sloanwrite.

*Warning: This blogger is prone to rambling. Especially today.*

Hey Everybody,

It's been somewhat disorienting (not "disorientating") here in Sloandom lately so I've been spending time getting my feet back under me. Speaking of feet, I've included a pic of Maggie above, sporting the pink boots I gave her. I took the pic a couple months ago but so far haven't found a place to stick it so here it is. Isn't she adorable?? As you can see by her panic-stricken gnawing, she wasn't too fond of them. I'm hoping she'll warm up to them eventually. Even if she doesn't, the spectacle always amuses me and as we all know, that's what's most important.

Well, as you know, Yammapalooza has come and gone (and it was AWESOME!!), as has another Halloween (not nearly as awesome) and now we're on out way to "The Holidays" (dum, dum, DUUUUUM!). I'm trying really hard to get into the festive spirit of things. Last week, three of my favorite cousins came over, along with Nate and my sister and Craig, for a pigout/movie fest. We had lots of sugary, buttery, fatty things that were absolutely wonderful and watched Zoolander for the fiftieth time. Well, Samantha hadn't seen it, poor girl. But to get in the spirit of the holidays, I decorated and went all-out Martha Stewart on everybody with little pumpkins and acorns everywhere and even a little corny straw turkey. Wearing the obligatory pilgrim hat. It is Thanksgiving coming up after all and naturally, the Thanksgiving turkey would try to disguise himself as the folks who were going to try to eat him, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe this year, he'd be mistaken for just another gluttonous feast-goer and the feast would instead center around the Thanksgiving Gourd or something. The Thanksgiving Collard? In the South, maybe. We do love us some collards.
But anyway, my little makeshift party went off pretty darn well, if i do say so myself, and we wrapped up the evening with a couple of rousing games of Apples to Apples, a new favorite game among the Sloans and especially this Sloan since it's a "word" game. Yet I lost. Both games. I'm not ashamed. Nathan cheats.

My next step in preparation for the holiday festivities will be to cook and to do so with a passion that will put cute little Rachel Ray to shame. Only I won't be nearly as neat and my ingredients won't come pre-measured in little glass bowls, sadly. They used to do that on "The Frugal Gourmet". Anybody else remember that show? Makes me want to wear a striped apron and bid everybody "good health" at the wrap of every recipe. Something else I love about cooking shows and that I'll have one day in my hugetastic house will be a double oven. This is solely because I want to be able to put something in the top oven to bake and then immediately and magically pull the finished product out of the bottom oven. I don't know why all restaurants don't use this tactic. It'd make food preparation and service a whole lot faster.
Something else I don't know quite yet is what I'm going to cook but if I come up with something inspired, you guys will be the first to know. Yes, i do love you that much.

In the meantime, when i'm not scouring cookbooks and the foodnetwork.com, I'll be playing guitar in an effort to get my callouses back so I'll quit crying from the pain, dressing my dog up in people clothing, and taking a four-hour course on driving at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington. That's right, it's my pennance for a speeding ticket in the huge metropolis of Castle Hayne, NC. As anybody who's visited Castle Hayne knows, there's no castle. It's very deceptive. The closest you'll come is Castle Hayne Mini Storage and the Dungeon Gym and weight room....or something to that effect. Anyway, I was driving through one day and looking so hard for the elusive Castle Hayne castle that I lost track of one of the twelve-in-one-mile speed limit changes and found myself apparently going 61 in a 50 with flashing blue lights in my rearview. First ticket ever. Sigh. I think I was that particular cop's first ticket in over a month. I was a boredom ticket. It's color prejudice against red cars. Either way, i find myself feeling severely mistreated and ill-used but that doesn't matter because i'll be sitting for four hours in a driving class. Let my example be a lesson to all you travelers out there. Those Castle Hayne cops may be slow and old and mildly overweight, but when they strike, they strike with a vengeance!

A further warning, Trident Splash can in no way be good for your teeth. It's filled with sugary goo!