Fille du Regiment was fun, and it was great to see horitsu_kami again, but every time Marie started singing about how she was born on the battlefield or some such thing I kept having MGS flashbacks.
I also now have a couple of pet mice. This should be an interesting experience, because I've had hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs before, and my mom's kept rats, but mice are new to us. They're so tiny that in a weird way it's kind of intimidating. I don't want to accidentally squash them.

Which have come up and gone into our garden, and into our flower bed, and into our bean patch, and among our square crimson velvet peas, and between our broccoli, and through our anti-weed mulch, and among our lettuces, and yea, even a few where we actually planted them. (But none in our kneading-troughs yet. Just in heaps on the counter.)
Anybody want some?

The weather kami have been with us. The heat wave finally broke in early August, which was nice in its way (you could do things outdoors in the afternoon without a parasol and bottle of Gatorade), but also meant a return to default Western Washington weather patterns. A little rain isn't a bad thing, considering how dry it was in June and July, but we had Vacation Bible School this week (my mother got drafted as the Bible story lady, and I got drafted as her assistant), and keeping large groups of 3-5 year olds in a confined space for three hours with no breaks to run around is the sort of thing likely to end badly. But fortunately, however uninspiring the weather was the rest of the day, it always cleared up (or at least was not actively precipitating) for the preschool recess. This may very well have preserved the last vestiges of what passes for my sanity.
Preschoolers are a fun age group, but they are vastly easier to work with in small groups with a familiar routine. And even then, it can take it out of you.

Now that this is over, I'm free to sleep in again and spend my time pondering questions like "What is Chava's favorite philosophical school?" (I've currently decided on the Stoics, but that's mostly because I have the greatest familiarity with Classical philosophy, and she's too cranky to be an Epicurean and not mystical enough for Platonism) rather than "How likely is that kid to take a flying leap off of the piece of playground equipment she's currently climbing and fall on her face?"

I expected that home leg waxing was not for the faint of heart, but I also expected the darn stuff to work! I'm considering running off to a radical feminist commune or making sure that, in the future, nothing in my wardrobe has an above-the-knee hemline, just to keep from having to go through that again. (I think this is the reason why I only register as "soft androgyne" on the online butch-femme test despite my long hair and fondness for skirts. "Femme" proper, at least conventionally, tends to involve a bit more personal maintenance.)
On the bright side, my cake turned out well, and I got to go swimming today.

I spent the day so far looking at home leg-waxing kit reviews online and making the filling and frosting for homemade Lord and Lady Baltimore cakes. I feel like an anthropomorphic personification of women's magazines.
I haven't eaten any of the cake yet, except for scraps that were left in the pan when I unmolded the layers, but it should be tasty. As long as nobody winds up getting salmonella from the frosting or insulin shock from the whole production, we should be good.

After a cold winter and spring, the weather kami have heard the Pacific Northwest Coast's collective kvetching about how people in other parts of the world get *real* warm weather, and has obliged with a vengeance. At least the basil and tomatoes seem to like it.
Heat waves give you lots of incentive to try new recipes for cold drinks. The following recipe (inspired by something I've read in an Indian cookbook) is, I've found, good as a change from plain water or sweet stuff.
Mix up some tart plain yogurt with a little fresh lime juice and salt, and stir until the mixture is creamy and semiliquid. Mix in some chilled plain seltzer. Serve in a tall glass with a few ice cubes. This would probably be good with spicy food.

Things have been at sixes and sevens around here lately. My paternal grandfather died (which was not completely out of the blue, as he'd been having health issues for a while, but was still somewhat unexpected as he'd made it through much worse medical crises recently and recovered), and my parents are in charge of all the post-mortem arrangements. The living room's currently filled with his various personal documents and old furniture. It all feels a bit surreal, because a few weeks ago I was thinking things like "when he goes off that special diet he's on, I want to make him a cake."

My mother's assistant has the flu this week (she doesn't seem to be dangerously ill or anything, just feeling crummy) and so for the past couple of days (and probably tomorrow) I've been helping her. At least my mom had warning this time, so I didn't get dragged out of a sound sleep at seven AM after staying up until three goofing off on the internet.

I put in a job application this morning. A local bakery is hiring, and they said "no experience necessary - will train," which given my state of cultivated unemployability was rather encouraging. I had been kvetching about only having my immediate family and gaming friends to inflict my baking efforts on, so this seemed like a worthwhile option to pursue, even if it would involve getting up at 3:30 AM. At least I'd have my afternoons free.

Weather around here has been quirky but depressing, like some kind of pretentious slice-of-life graphic novel. Only with more sleet. A good day to sit around the house, read, and keep warm with large quantities of carbs, at least if you're me.

I spent a lot of this afternoon and evening messing with a recipe for baked yeast doughnuts that I found online. (Since I love pastries, but deep frying is kind of scary.) They didn't come out much like regular doughnuts (more like a slightly sweet breakfast bread than like a dessert), but they were very tasty in their way. The relative chewiness and denseness was probably amplified by the fact that I was trying to make them vegan and used mashed banana and canned low fat coconut milk instead of the eggs, milk, and melted butter.
Most of the stuff I bake is made with baking powder, so it was interesting to be yeast baking again. The issues are so different - yeast dough is more forgiving in many ways, but there's so much lag time involved.

I'm filling in for my mom's aid three mornings this week. It's rather tiring, violates my biological clock and interferes with anything else I might do in the morning (or late at night), but the kids are entertaining and at least I'm getting paid for it.
Being a preschool teacher's aid is really not that *hard,* although it can be rather energy-intensive. Mostly I'm there to be an Extra Adult (because little kids behave better if there's more supervision, even if the supervisors aren't doing much), hand out supplies and snacks, and keep the kids from trashing the place when my mom's occupied.

* Try two new vegetables and two new fruits
* Eat more protein and fresh produce
* Read at least one nonfiction book per month on a subject I don't know much about
* Get a job, or at least a volunteer position
* Write more
* Learn to knit something besides garter stitch rectangles
* Exercise more
* Finish House of Leaves

Had a job interview today. I could definitely have been better prepared for it, but I don't think I did anything too actively stupid, so I'm not going to beat myself up over it. Anyway, I showed up, I was polite, well-groomed, and sober, and now it's in the lap of management.

I'm also doing some more experimental baking. We had a whole bunch of homemade applesauce lying around the house (natural consequence of a family member giving us a bunch of windfall cooking apples), so I decided to make applesauce cake. It's cooling off as I write.
I used kind of a mutant experimental recipe. It started out as a basic white cake recipe I found in one of my mom's low-fat baking books, with the following modifications:
*Used about a third whole-wheat flour, instead of all white (it was never going to be spongecake anyway, so why not?)
*Used mashed banana instead of the egg (which I've done before, and it's turned out fine, although it makes the cake a bit fragile while it's still warm).
*Used homemade unsweetened applesauce instead of the fat-free buttermilk or thinned-down yogurt in the recipe. It turns out that our homemade applesauce has considerable body, so I had to add a little water to get everything to mix properly.
*Instead of vanilla extract, seasoned it with cinnamon, allspice, a little nutmeg and ginger, and a small blob of molasses (we're currently out of brown sugar.)
*For some reason, cakes made with mashed banana instead of eggs seem to take longer to set in the middle, so I had to bake it for a correspondingly longer time.

I made chiffon cake today, with vanilla and lemon flavoring. It was a bit of work, because I had to beat all the egg whites by hand (I think we have an electric mixer in theory, but I couldn't find it), but turned out very tasty - it's really light and has a crust like angel food cake, but the texture is softer and not as dry.
I've been experimenting lately with vintage dessert recipes. Some day when I can count on an uninterrupted stretch of free time, I want to make Lord and Lady Baltimore cakes.

I'm helping my mom with Vacation Bible School this week, and apparently the theme this year is "Mad Science for Jesus," or something like that. It's pretty cute. Anyway, all of the volunteers get labcoats as our volunteer uniform, so I am currently in possession of one, although I don't know if I'll have to give it back at the end of the week.
So, now that I have the outfit for it, I feel like I should start designing giant robots or flirting ineffectually with cute community activists at the laundromat.

I sent in an application for a job today. (Actually, I sent it last night, but due to computer issues had to do it again this afternoon.) Since I don't know how many other applicants there are and just what standards the library system holds its prospective pages to, I don't have my heart set on this particular position, but it feels good to have done something. And if I do get in, it'll be work in a field that actually interests me, the money looks pretty decent, and I'd be able to bus to work.

Also, courtesy of a shopping expedition to Seattle with the sister (who is savvier about these things) I have acquired some "professional" clothes. Mostly separates, and a pair of new shoes. I'm not one for yuppie tailoring *at all*, but it probably comes in handy in some situations to own a few outfits that don't look like their principal components came from funky little fair-trade Asian import shops.

So, final grades are in, and contrary to my paranoia, I did not do horribly in any of my classes, even the one I was most worried about. This is a source of considerable relief to me, since it would be so awkward to un-graduate, even if I wouldn't object to going back to Western sometime just for the sake of furthering my erudition. For the moment, though, I'm happy down here seeing everyone again.

Thank you very much for the virtual diploma!

I [edit: and horitsu_kami] seem to be the only one with "bizarrely adorable otps" as an interest. Maybe everyone else thinks that their OTPs are cute in perfectly rational and normal ways, or else they're into dark fic and "adorable" doesn't really apply whatever modifiers you apply to it.

Film Is Truth (the local independent video store) does have the first season of Torchwood on DVD for rent, and I've found an online source for the texts of the original Oz books. I'd rather have physical copies, but e-texts should do for now.
There's something rather liberating about a project that's *supposed* to be ridiculous, at least if you have my particular brand of perfectionism.

Also, first day of classes today. My Greek Mythology prof came in wearing a bedsheet toga over his regular clothes and carrying a scythe. It should be an interesting quarter.

I also bought a whole bunch of fresh fruit today. One of my health goals, such as they are, is to eat more produce, and fruit's easier to deal with than something like greens - all you have to do is wash it and maybe pare and cut it up. The health food store had cherimoyas for sale, so I bought a small one for experimental purposes.