every day is thanksgiving in our house...

i do not like cats. my oldest sister is allergic to cats and cigarette smoke. when we were little and visited my granny trani's house (that had cats in it and uncles who smoked), my sister had to be rushed to the ER on more than one occasion. (why we continued to stay at my g'ma t.'s house after jennie's asthma attacks is beyond me, but i'm sure my parents had a very good reason...).

my parents warned me that if i ever smoked, they would cut off my right arm. they also promised to cut off my left arm if i dyed my hair. i think that was just a scare tactic though. when i did dye my hair blond it turned out so horrible (think school bus yellow) that they must have thought how i looked was punishment enough and they didn't get out their body dismemberer.

but, i never smoked. and i never liked cats. cats and smoke equalled jennie practically dying.

when i was in the peace corps, living in the island nation of kiribati, i discovered something i hated more than cats -- mosquitoes. and also: rats. i could get a cat if jennie was never planning on visiting me there, right? kiribati cats were not snugglers -- they were rat hunters. so i got one. a boy. and i named him sprinkles. "ten tiakurati tamaiti sprinkles suzanne jonathan" to be exact.. *see footnotes for full etymology lesson.

i really wanted to love sprinkles, but he didn't love me. he ended up hanging out at my neighbor's house more than at mine, and then he was brutally murdered by wild dogs. it was a common joke in kiribati to joke about someone's death. when the old lady next door told me that sprinkles was dead when i inquired about his whereabouts, i dismissed her as an old liar (it was perfectly fine to say that to someone's face). when my teacher friend told me later in the day that it was in fact true that sprinkles was dead, school was cancelled for the rest of the day so the boys could dig him a grave and give him a proper burial.

though my heart was bruised, mainly by the callous treatment of the topic of death, i still had the problem of rats. so i got another cat. hazel -- a girl this time. or so i thought. when those teeny little cat balls finally did descend, hazel was re-christened hazelnuts. he didn't like me either.

then i moved in with Mo and met the first cat i ever loved: FRANKLIN. he is the fattest cat with a belly that hangs low to the ground and he has mitten paws (the kind that hemingway loved with an extra toe...). sadly, ella, the 3-legged mini schnauzer does not like cats.

and then we moved (we being ella & i), and then we moved again, and then we had a boyfriend who had a cat and kept the cat litter in the bathroom -- yuck! that relationship never would have worked out for me & ella...

and then we moved again. into a house with two cats whom i have come to love. they are paul's "business partner" andrew's cats. long ago, a very fat calico cat made her way to andrew's doorstop and he began to feed her. she kept hanging around so he decided to keep her. he named her turkey because her markings reminded him of a wild turkey (and i think because he likes to drink bourbon and also because i think it was around thanksgiving time). needless to say, this story goes like many stories of fat cats: the fat cat had kittens. a whole litter of them who were named, fittingly, gravy, cranberry, stuffing, sweet potato, & mashed potato. andrew kept gravy -- a male orange tabby. andrew has since left the house that he and paul built. much to my chagrin (because i hate cats, remember?), he left those damn cats.

and i couldn't be happier. i've learned how to clean kitty litter (that is kept in the basement up high so ella can't eat it like she loves to do, thank you very much). i've learned how to deal with chipmunks, rabbits, birds, & mice in the house (because turkey & gravy like to show off what they've caught). i've frontlined them, & fitted them with the most stylish of collars (which gravy promptly lost). i've bought them catnip toys and i cuddle with them. i get up at 2:30 am when they claw at the sliding glass door wanting attention. and i love them (but shh, don't tell anyone).

and now that we are moving again (we being paul, & sierra, & ella, & i), we will also be taking turkey & gravy with us.

i'm still learning to love cats. my friend eva is helping me -- it's hard to resist her and her main man lex luthor. he's one fancy cat and i'm very thankful for that.

* ten is the kiribati word for boy and is added before a person's name for formality's sake, such as mister. the kiribati word for girl is nei. i was called nei suzanne, or nei miss by my students, which actually translates to "miss miss," go figure. tiakurati is the word for chocolate in kiribati. since the kiribati language has no Ss, "ti" is used for the "s" sound. now sound "tia-ku-ra-ti" out. doesn't it make much more sense? sprinkles was a black cat, so of course he was chocolate sprinkles. sprinkles was a tom cat -- hence the "tomaiti" (thomas, sound it out).  in kiribati, a person's father's first name was their last name, and their grandfather's first name was their next last name. i was suzanne jonathan milton. sprinkles got to be sprinkles suzanne jonathan. actually, if you want to get technical, tutien is the correct way to spell my name in kiribati. blah blah blah.

red carpet, grey couch, green sweatpants...

as always, the ladies of leisure wore our very own stylish pjs and walked our very own berber carpet for oscar's night. we satiated our hungry selves (since we'd been fasting for days to fit into our one-of-a-kind sweats) on leonardo's takeout, homemade chocolate cake, pretzels, chips, chocolate-covered raisins, candy & munchies galore. since we knew the award for best picture would be neck-and-neck between Avatar and The Hurt Locker, margot (an honorary lady of leisure) prepared us two drinks -- a blue avatar cocktail and a hurt locker cocktail. the brownish hurt locker cocktail was supposed to be set on fire, but we were already too buzzed to try something that dangerous -- we're not a bomb squad for pete's sake!

hooray for kathryn bigelow for beating out her philandering ex-husband james cameron. and hooray for the ladies of leisure for staying up past midnight!

                                                        commercial break:

tea anyone?

my mom is a pretty good knitter. (understatement).

one time i asked her to make me a felted bag. a month later: i had a beautiful felted bag and she had 3 more requests from my friends and sisters.

then i wanted a shawl to keep me warm.

another time i requested hand wristies to keep my fingers warm while i typed at work. she'd never made those before, but that didn't stop her. she even decided to try cable knit. don't think she'd done that before either. those wristies are keeping my hands warm right now as i type.

my next request was for cable knit pink leg warmers for my jazz of the '80s dance class. they were much coveted and pretty much stole the show of our fame performance (overstatement-- i'm not that good of a dancer, even if the leg warmers were stunning).

my mom likes a challenge and i like hot tea. my latest request was for a tea cozy to keep my ceramic tea pot steaming.

the best part about this tea cozy (besides the obvious that it keeps my tea warm and that my mom made it for me with love) is that it is made from bits of yarn leftover from all the projects mom's ever made for me. now that makes me and my tea feel pretty darn cozy.

thanks mom! love you!

pepper

our beloved pepper had to be put to sleep last night. she was over 14 years old. pepper came into our lives long before the dawn of the digital camera, but that didn't stop us from documenting her puppyhood. she was our everything. however cliche it sounds, she truthfully was our pride & joy. i couldn't wait to get home to see her, to walk her, to sing to her, to cuddle with her. 

i remember the day we picked her out. jules and i were playing volleyball with our high school team in gouverneur, NY. it was 1995 -- i was a junior and jules a freshman. i usually sat the bench and wished the game to be finished, and that day was no exception. this time i was eager for the game to end so that we could go see the litter of new mini schnauzer puppies.

we picked pepper out, and struggled with names. i believe chloe and snickers were top-runners, but derek came up with the name that fit her so well.

pepper liked to hide in our garden, stretch out with her long legs (we called her long dog), and take long, luxurious naps.

we posed with her with our prom dates, we dressed her up, we gave her nicknames -- champ (that was the time period that she wore a medal around her neck), shithead (that was the time period when she had a few accidents), pepperdini, pep.

she loved chewing on and ripping apart slippers. one christmas we bought her her very own pair of pink piggy slippers to destroy as she pleased. she was our baby to spoil and love, and we couldn't have been happier.

i'm sure you've all heard this story, but i have to retell it. after pepper was over a year old, mom & dad thought it would be superfun to breed her and have more mini-schnauzer puppies. i was horrified by the thought of my poor, innocent little pepper being molested and raped, and i cried and cried when we dropped her off at the breeders.

she came back a "woman," and she was indeed, "knocked up." i still claim that it changed her -- she was moody and grumpy and snappy, and not the same sweet innocent pepper puppy that she had been. but she was still our pepper.

she gave birth to 6 puppies -- 5 girls and 1 boy. jennie and derek got cocoa (whom they still have and who just ate a whole leftover turkey carcas by standing on the garbage pedal and stealthily removing the remains -- that cost her a night in the ER and jennie & derek an arm and a leg. but really, what wouldn't we do for our animals?). mom and dad kept wilbur, the runt, who pepper one day mistakenly crushed. mom and dad gave him mouth to snout resuscitation and he's been slightly braindead and always hungry ever since.

when i returned from the peace corps after two and a half years of being away, pepper greeted me with howls of happiness. we'd never heard her be so vocal before -- she yelped and yelped at me, as if she was telling me to never ever go away for so long ever again.

at one point, our family had 5 mini-schnauzers. we used to play the "guess the schnauzie" game. one could always tell it was pepper because she licked you immediately.

i said goodbye to pepper when i left malone after christmas a few weeks ago. i had a feeling it might be the last time i saw her. she gave me a lick and i gave her a kiss. she'll always be my best schnauzer girl with 4 legs. i feel sad for me, and i feel sad for wilbur, but most of all i feel sad for my mom and dad. they had her in their everyday lives the longest, and things won't be the same around 23 park street for a little while.

thank you mom and dad for letting pepper into our lives. she taught us how to love and how to care for someone other than ourselves. we will love and miss you forever pep!

i'm a star!

i've been getting a bit of video press lately all because of my very good friend eva sollberger and her amazing technical skillz. fun fun.

here's last week's NASA presentation: http://7d.blogs.com/stuckinvt/2009/12/welcome-home-hanna-157.html 

and FlynnArts' teen/adult dance showcase: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=206823993679&ref=mf (if you haven't joined facebook yet, what the heck are you waiting for?)

extra extra, read all about it!

for mom, dad, and the other non-facebookers out there: my side business, let them eat cake, was featured in last week's seven days! read all about it here: single serving.

an apple a day

what's better than finding half a worm in your apple?

finding a whole worm so you can photograph it and share with the world that you actually did once in your life have an apple with a worm in it.

because seriously, how many people has this truly happened to?

today, i consider myself lucky. also: consider this logic: because there was a worm in my apple i had to go get myself a peanutbutter chocolate chip cookie from the red onion. what else was i to eat for my 5 pm snack before dance class? surely there was not enough time to run to city market for another piece of potentially infested fruit!

how does our garden grow?

given that i've had this post in my head since, oh say, april, and that i've been taking photos of our garden all summer long, and that fall is upon us, i'm finally getting around to posting about our green thumb (thumbs?). truthfully, i've been stuck on the title -- i wanted something like mary, mary quite contrary, but paulie, paulie, quite the dolly, or suzie, suzie, quite the floozy, just weren't rolling off the tongue.

remember back in march when warm & sunny days were nowhere in sight and i posted about planting some seedlings and demanded spring to spring? well, here is how our garden grew:

first came the lettuce:

then came the sugar snap peas (my favorite):

then came the teeniest carrots and garlic and onions that you ever did see:

then came the tomatoes that seemed like they'd never turn to red, though they eventually did:

and then came the day when paul was tired of throwing out garbage that dripped & i was tired of not having a garbage disposal -- the very same day that we decided we might as well start preparing some soil for next year's garden.

martha stewart wannabe?

about a month ago when i was perusing the "internets" for lemon chiffon icing recipes, i came across a lovely blog called the tender crumb. she had amazing pictures of the delicious things she had baked as part of her membership in a club called "Tuesdays with Dorie." a visit to TWD introduced me to about 50 other sites and bloggers (mainly women) who have gorgeous blogs dedicated to baking. each week these women bake the same item from Dorie Greenspan's cookbook and share their insights, tweeks, mishaps, & ideas. they are baking their way through her cookbook! at first i thought these women were crazy -- who has time for this? but i was strangely intrigued and found myself checking their sites almost every day. paul was nervous. and then i watched julie & julia and was inspired. could i too follow my dream and become a baker and a blogger, and perhaps get my own book deal? i mean if jen of cakewrecks did it by posting ugly cake photos and adding snarky comments, then why can't suzanne "Q Monroe" lowell, of let them eat cake do it?

i caved. i joined one of those baking blog clubs! the one i joined is a bit more manageable for my crazy life. it's called the martha stewart cupcake club. in this club, we bake one recipe a month from martha stewart's new cupcake book (which is very cool). i'm already a bit behind though! i was supposed to bake zucchini spice cupcakes and post pictures and my baking tale by yesterday the 15th. i have a very good reason why i am behind though...

i am being hired for my very first wedding! i baked all day sunday -- 4 different recipes -- 2 different cakes -- 3 different types of frosting! that topic deserves a blog post of it's very own. which is coming soon. with pics.

but this post is just to apologize to my new blogworld friends -- i'm sorry i haven't posted or baked the zucchini spice cupcakes yet. please don't kick me out of the MSC club! i promise i will catch up.

for now, if you're interested, check out the MSC blogroll and visit all of these bakers' sites -- they are incredible.

knight island

our camping shopping list looked like this: "coffee, white gas, & macncheese." our remember to bring next time list looked like this: "spray-in conditioner, camping chairs, & coffee."

hurricane dan was hot on our heels, and it was windy and wet, but we made the most of it. it was a very lucky weekend indeed. i spotted a garden snake, paul caught two fish, & we didn't capsize (but check out the size of some of those whitecaps!).

this is our second year in a row at knight island. the island is a remote little spot east of north hero, up near st. albans. there are only 7 campsites, each with their own lean-to, picnic table, firepit, & composting toilet. we had a sweet little spot right on the water and the blustering winds held the bugs at bay. the sites are spread out over the 185 acres and it feels like you're the only one there. except of course for ranger steve (paul's new idol).

ella & sierra had a blast, though they weren't that keen on the cleaning up part.

deep in the heart

howdy m'darlins! i'm melting here in san antonio where it was almost 90 degrees at about 7 am for the 5K i ran in this morning. the news predicted the temperature would be 100 degrees by 5 pm. we go from air-conditioned building to air-conditioned car. apparently in texas, the colder your A/C is, the richer you are -- that goes for trucks too -- the bigger it is, the better you are. hm, interesting status symbols you have texas.

i'm here for a computer conference through my work, and am thoroughly enjoying staying in a fancy hotel right on the riverwalk with my colleague leigh. the flynn sent me to tucson two years ago for the annual tessitura conference, which helped me break the surface of understanding our intricate database system that we use to keep track of constituents. this time around, i feel like i've got a snorkel and mask, and can now see at least 20 ft down. i'm not a computer geek, i swear, though i'm sure most of the computer geeks here claim that too...

i came to san antonio back in 2003 when my friend sarah got married, but didn't have much time to explore with all of the wedding festivities. last night was "on your own in san antone" night (tessitura is all about the puns and catchy phrases), so leigh and i headed out to "el mercado," the mexican markets where brightly painted pottery, sombreros, & those wooden croaking frogs abound. we had a feast at mi tierra, the classy mexican restaurant pictured above. we sampled the requisite margaritas, and just barely managed to avoid eye contact with the men who were attempting to serenade any table that would listen.

next we hit the alamo. nothing notable to say about that because we all remember it, don't we? it's small. it's adobe like. there were horse drawn buggies hoping to snag the next willing tourist. the flag wouldn't quite cooperate for the picture because there is no breeze here.

we walked up & down the riverwalk hoping for some relief (quintessential photo below). leigh searched for hot sauce for her husband, while i searched for the perfect cowboy hat for myself. you can't see the many hats i donned because all of the stores had signs up that clearly read "no taking pictures with hats." i still haven't found the right one -- perhaps tonight, our last night on the town. i only wish i could afford a matching pair of cowboy boots with spurs.

it's nice (sortof) to visit (ok, not really), but truthfully, i would never ever in my right mind want to live here. don't tell texas that though, you know what they say about messing with it.

can't wait to get to my home sweet home vermont.

get ready...

after 3 months of paying two mortgages, paul & i are finally down to only one! which means we just might be able to handle another bill. which means that today we are getting cable & internet! just in time for baseball & the world series. just in time for me to finally write down all those stories and to showcase all the pictures i've been planning on sharing. hold on to your hats folks -- somethingsomething is a-coming!

tooting my horn

i have played the clarinet since i was in fifth grade. mrs. poupoure was kind of mean, but for some reason, she liked me, and though i hated practicing at times, i really have always loved playing, and i was actually kind of good at it. i played through high school and even played in the orchestra in college for a few semesters. i have anita kinsley's old clarinet that jen (her daughter & my best friend) played until she couldn't stand it anymore, because jen disliked mrs. poupore just about as much as mrs. poupore disliked jen). we had these practice sheets we had to fill out with the times & days of the week we'd practiced. we were expected to play for at least 30 minutes, 6 days a week, and we had to have our parents sign the sheet to prove we weren't just making it up. my mom would never sign it if i'd put in some fake practicing hours. luckily, my dad sometimes would.

anyway, the fact that i play the clarinet has escaped most people in my present life, simply because, i don't play the clarinet anymore. in fact, my boyfriend did not realize i played the clarinet until about a month ago -- though, he's not always one for details...

about 3 months ago, when my boss was putting together this year's FlynnArts' summer teen musical, "Once Upon A Mattress" (the most interesting tale of the Princess & the Pea you may ever hear), I piped up and volunteered to play in the orchestra. it was sort of like the double dog dare i have to give myself when i sign up for a race -- better start running or else. better start practicing or else...

I brought my clarinet to work, planning to pop upstairs to the music studio on free moments to start getting my chops back in shape & to familiarise myself with various scales and fingerings again. i should have had mrs. poupore's time sheet...

of course i did not start practicing until 3 weeks before the show. the music was difficult to say the least. 5 or 6 sharps in the key! and runs that my fingers and mouth could not keep up with! why why must they write D# when it's really an Eb? Someone who knows a little bit more about music theory could answer that question.

but the show went great -- it was hilarious, and the orchestra didn't sound half bad either (the flute covered the runs). i was happy to be a part of it and happy to be part of the flynnarts program. surprise, surprise, i have actually been liking my day job.

though, i still like my night job better -- i made this cake for the cast. i was really so impressed with their dedication and maturity. wish you could have seen the show!

for the most up-to-date photos of my cakes, check out let them eat cake's facebook page & become a fan...

what have we done to anger you so?

on friday i got my first black eye. my sister's boyfriend's dog, philo (like the dough and the mountain) jumped up to greet me and bonked me with his rather large nose. i held in the tears this time.

as were were heading to bed in the loft of my grandparents A-frame log cabin, i asked paul if he was sure he wanted to sleep on the inside. sleeping on the inside means that there are one and a half feet between you and the slanted roof. i reminded him that i'd been sleeping in the loft at star lake all my life and that i was very used to sleeping in an A-frame. he scoffed at me and assured me that he too had experience sleeping in an A-frame. Not 10 minutes later did one of the dogs bark, causing paul to sit straight up, bonking the bridge of his nose. the whole cabin shook.

with the egg on his forehead and the shiner on my face, one might question our domestic situation...

32! 32! 32! 32! 32!

when my very best friend colleenie turned 30, her mother-in-law cut out 100 colleen faces and stuck them on paint stirring sticks. when colleen walked into the room for her surprise party, she stared at a room full of herself wishing her a happy birthday.

i missed the party because my sister was supposed to be giving birth any second. but i saw colleen the very next weekend and was given a souvenir from the big bash.

i put it on my dresser and ella barked & growled at it. i had to put it in the corner behind the curtain. when josh was helping me move he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw it.

i can't throw colleen's face away. it's too funny. it's a conversation piece. and for the moment, it's in my bag of halloween costumes.

paul does not understand why we need to keep it. he also does not understand why i have to have a bag of halloween costumes, or why i have to keep a bag of gift boxes. i think my stuff might be overwhelming him just a little.

yesterday paul woke up and he was a 32 year old. a very grumpy 32 year old. i'm not sure if it was all my stuff cluttering his house, the fact that he was a year older, or that he was scared that he'd matched up with a packrat.

i did my best to make him happy. i think it worked.