Massachussets people, who should I vote for? _

Moss, Martin, any other Android phone user blog reading friends: what did you do to merge your phone and gmail contacts for your phone? I spent something like 6 hours in gmail merging records and deleting things, and I still managed to have duplicate entries (Alexa and Lexi) and somehow to totally screw up at least one phone number (Julia). And now my mom is going to order an Android phone, and has far more contacts than I do. Help? _

This weekend, my sister and I ordered a cheap fancy necklace from Amazon for our step-niece for Christmas (low-quality rubies), and to round up to free shipping (this is how cheap the necklace was), I ordered Her Fearful Symmetry which Amazon had dropped in price from $24 to $7. (We still had to throw in a $1 order to make shipping free). Amazon has, for whatever reason, decided to ship the three things in seperate batches (I assume they originated from seperate ware-houses). A random delivery person, from some service I have never heard of, showed up at my door step this evening, past 7, with my book.

So, now, I have the book. I have been listening to it for about two weeks now, and I can't figure out if I should finish it at the maddeningly slow pace of the audio book, or read the paper. The inner voice reading the blog entry has morphed into the narrator from the audio book. _

Ar, double post. Sorry. I got an error and figured I had mistyped my password. _

So, I decided to get my brother custom playing cards with the logo for his beer site for Christmas. This was particularly after seeing a commercial for "get cards made with your pictures!" and I went "awesome!" Anyway, I went googling, to see if I can find a site where they do plastic cards rather than cardstock cards. I found myself attempting to read a white and yellow on black website thinking "who designs websites like this anymore?!" And then I got to the bottom and saw the copywrite 1997 and I said "ah, people like that!" And then I wondered what sort of commercial website doesn't update their website for 12 years, and decided to navigate away. _

So, I decided to get my brother custom playing cards with the logo for his beer site for Christmas. This was particularly after seeing a commercial for "get cards made with your pictures!" and I went "awesome!" Anyway, I went googling, to see if I can find a site where they do plastic cards rather than cardstock cards. I found myself attempting to read a white and yellow on black website thinking "who designs websites like this anymore?!" And then I got to the bottom and saw the copywrite 1997 and I said "ah, people like that!" And then I wondered what sort of commercial website doesn't update their website for 12 years, and decided to navigate away. _

I don't understand the people who get up at 2 in the morning or whatever to shop the day after Thanksgiving. I crashed around 10, and went to bed around 11, and I'm still all fuzzy and tired, and all I want to do is watch TV on my laptop and finish my idiotically simple sweater which takes no concentration at all. That, or look at jewelery on Etsy. _

Er...I used marshmallow sweet potato goo as an excuse to make marshmallows. Yummy yummy marshmallows. I didn't experiment with the unsweetened vegan gel stuff I found at Whole Foods, because I have no idea how to use it, and the internet was incredibly unhelpful on how to make vegan marshmallows without playing with agar agar. (I don't even know where to buy agar agar.) _

Today, I had no phone, and my grandmother was checked into Spaudling Rehab in Boston, because apparently while visiting us, she broke her sacrum (some bone in the spine) and at some point she cracked her pelvis. My mom sent me texts through g-chat suggesting I come by after work, and so I spent some time on Google Maps trying to figure out how to get there. Which I thought I did, but wound up sort of randomly walking around the West End. It felt so old-fashioned, I have gotten used to my fancy GPS enabled cell phone. I eventually wound up in the parking lot of my brother's old apartment complex, and the parking lot attendant gave me directions. And then, when I showed up, the information desk attendants were apparently on shift change, so I wandered around the lobby, and tried to find a different entrance. Eventually, I found a pay phone and remembered that I had quarters in my pocket, so I tried to call my mom, who didn't answer her cell phone. (My mom's is one of the few phone numbers that I still remember.) My iPod has my gmail contacts, so I called my uncle, who was still in the middle of a similar search of the West End in his car, and he had no idea. Then I found someone at information, and eventually wound up in my grandmother's room.

She is pretty incredibly confused, and she's not sure why she's there. She is fairly sure there is something wrong with her leg, and she can't remember that she's not supposed to get out of the bed. ((sigh)) _

I had been waiting for a new book by Jonathan Safran Foer since I finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I would have added him to my list of authors I buy in hardback, if he had written a novel. I'm not sure what I think about this new book about eating animals is suspect. And like those vegetarians who run around and sneer when you eat meat. (I am a vegetarian and have been for like 14 years.) _

Is it terribly wrong of me that I subscribed to a season pass of Masterpiece Contemporary because I have a crush on David Tennant's Doctor and he's the current host? _

I was going to blog about my red velvet cupcakes (which are very tasty), but I'm kind of burnt out. So, suffice it to say, Ben really enjoyed the leftover frosting from the piping bag.

From Food

Tomorrow, maybe, I will blog about my tasty cupcakes.

From Food

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Tomorrow is red velvet cupcakes, because I have been fascinated by red velvet cake recently, and it is my cousin's favorite, apparently, and we're having a house party/concert thing for our uncle (my uncle and hers) and she's coming (and, despite living in the same city, I still never see her). _

In last week's brief cold snap (it's 60 again, and I felt silly in my lightest weight jacket), while inhaling tea and hot chocolate to keep warm, I wanted gingersnaps. I wanted to make them, too, not just eat the crispy ones from a plastic tub from Trader Joe's (which are tasty, yes, but I grew up on chewy gingersnaps, and I like them chewy).

Last night, I was going to make them, and they wouldn't have been as good as they are since I waited until today, after trips to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. My stepdad insisted that we grind fresh ginger in, and I figured while we were at it, we might as well chop up some crystallized ginger.

The recipe, with my modifications added in, came from Joy the Baker. Her ginger cookies called for butter, and not shortening (our recipe as kids called for shortening), and one of my baking things is that I like to be shortening free. (This is probably why I fail at pie crusts. I am now armed for Thanksgiving with a pie crust protector and fancy pie crust cloths. The crust protector will probably keep me from throwing my potholders across the room swearing again, like the last time I was allowed to do pie.) I followed her recipe pretty precisely, except I added in about an inch of fresh grated ginger (er...that is the piece of root was about an inch long before we grated it), and about half a cup of chopped up crystallized ginger. Also, I wound up using more dried ginger and cinnamon than the recipe called for.

They are perfect. They are spicy when you bite into them, and then the spice sort of hits your palette and smolders. They would have been perfect in the last cold snap, but they were delicious tonight as well.

From Food

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Dear TV:

What is with breaking up my favorite dysfunctional relationships? If something happens to Jim and Pam, I give up. _

Today is picture day!

From Vanilla Extract

Here's a picture of the vanilla extract from this week. I've been forgetting to take pictures of it when I pull it out to shake it. And there's only one week left, before it will be done. It should finished the Friday before Thanksgiving. _

For the record, this is Sam today.

From Dog Pictures

I think he is now nearly 5. _

I went through my stepdad's Picasa albums last night, and I found this totally adorable one of baby Sam.

From Dog Pictures

I think he was about four months old in this picture. He was barely Sam. _

I went through my stepdad's Picasa albums last night, and I found this totally adorable one of baby Sam.

From Dog Pictures

I think he was about four months old in this picture. He was barely Sam. _

I am sitting here, shivering, with my hands wrapped around a mug of hot cider to keep them warm. I was thinking about walking to A.C. Moore for cheap machine washable chunky yarn to make sweaters for the dogs, but the idea of going out in the cold fills me with dread. Also, fairly sure that the bus that runs up there stops running at 3:30. _