Julia London's Blog, page 53
November 21, 2011
Grave Expectations
Heaven knows, we need never be ashamed of our wolfish cravings. . . .
Bristly, sensitive, and meat-hungry Pip is a robust young whelp, an orphan born under a full moon. Between hunting escaped convicts alongside zombified soldiers, trying not to become one of the hunted himself, and hiding his hairy hands from the supernaturally beautiful and haughty Estella, whose devilish moods keep him chomping at the bit, Pip is sure he will die penniless or a convict like the rest of his commonly uncommon kind.
But then a mysterious benefactor sends him to London for the finest werewolf education money can buy. In the company of other furry young gentlemen, Pip tempers his violent transformations and devours the secrets of his dark world. When he discovers that his beloved Estella is a slayer of supernatural creatures, trained by the corpse-like vampire Miss Havisham, Pip's desire for her grows stronger than his midnight hunger for rare fresh beef. But can he risk his hide for a truth that will make Estella his forever—or will she drive one last silver stake through his heart?
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November 19, 2011
After 14 months, it's getting there.
We've been in this house for over a year now, and I have finally….finally! Organized the shelf in my office.
This is such a momentous occasion that I feel the need to share it with the world.
As you can see, it's one of those triple bookshelves. On the left, we have a bunch of hardback books that are either favorites or my TBR books (or really tall books that don't fit on the bookshelves upstairs.
In the middle, the top shelf is souvenirs (non-writing related), then favorite books, then TBR books and finally on the bottom shelf, some foreign editions of my books.
The books that are sideways on the second shelf from the bottom are for a giveaway I'm doing next week — A Christmas anthology arrived in the mail from Mills & Boon with a printed version of an online Christmas story I did ages ago. So I've got that, plus my new Christmas anthology with Vicki Lewis Thompson and Jill Shalvis. Details on the giveaway coming soon to a twitter feed near you! 
And then we have the right side of the shelf. Those are my books, along with a few of my book specific souvenirs, including if you look on the middle shelf, the cuuuuuuuuubbbbbbbeeeeee.
So there you go. One little corner of my house is organized. I feel great!
Isn't it amazing how accomplishing something that's been staring you in the face for forever can make you feel so good? What have you organized lately?
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November 18, 2011
The Week in Celebrity News
The Kutchers are divorcing. @MrsKutcher might want to change that Twitter name. He's apparently a serial cheater. Sad 
But good for her for moving on.
Divorced Jennifer Lopez has a younger new man who dislikes wearing shirts. You get it, girl![image error]
Amy Adams loves being a mom, and doesn't even mind that she now has a muffin top. Um, where?[image error]
Lisa Rinna demonstrates how you can use your old shag bathroom rug to revamp your wardrobe. Handy![image error]The next Twilight movie comes out today. It's a big deal for the Twihards, but I probably won't see it at the theater. I AM excited about Jasper's red velvet suit, though. George Costanza, eat your heart out!
Lindsay Lohan served five hours of a thirty day jail sentence for violating probation, between filming her Playboy spread. Now her dad is being sent to jail or rehab (not his first time) for beating his girlfriend (not his first time). And when the girlfriend name-dropped Lindsay in court, the judge did not know who she meant. Awesome![image error]
Bradley Cooper has been named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. I've heard him speak French, and I would have to agree. But apparently, Ryan Gosling fans are in an uproar. [image error]
Hear any good gossip lately? Or do you spend time reading the actual news? Have you been watching Two and a Half Men? Who is the Sexiest Man in your world?
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November 16, 2011
Life with a Cat
Just finished emptying the litter box (the entire thing) and learned some lessons:
1) A small grocery bag isn't big enough to dump litter in
2) A small grocery bag isn't strong enough to dump litter in
3) A little hole in a bag can spread a lot of litter
4) Vacuum cleaners don't clean litter they spray it.
5) Piles of litter fall into the cracks in the floor when you try to sweep them up
6) My cat pees in one place and it's GROSS to have to dig the rest off the side after emptying
7) The new box of litter is too heavy for me to pick up and refill cat's little box.
8) When back is spasming from lifting the box one should not go on to try and sweep up the fallen litter
9) Cold is good for the back. Cats are not.
How about you? Pets? Clean up?
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Kathleen Does the Grinch
This year, several stores will be opening early on Black Friday. Technically, several stores will be opening on Thanksgiving. Macy's will open at midnight (the absolute first second of Black Friday). Target will also be opening at midnight, although I read where the employees were protesting to decision. Imagine, Black Friday, a gazillion shoppers and no employees. A shoppers paradise or a violent descent into anarchy? You decide.
Making the List, Checking it Twice
I scanned a few of the ads, and then shrugged. Meh. I'm eyeing the a K-cup machine, but I'm torn between the regular one or the brands that make cappucino. The nameless recipient of this coffee maker is a big fan of the cappucino's and I'm thinking it might be more appreciated. If you own one of these suckers, please weigh in the pros and cons.
I am dreading shopping this holiday season. Time is strapped, funds are strapped, my brain is strapped, and I'm lacking in holiday joy. I think a Charlie Brown Christmas marathon is in order. Or not.
I think part of my issue with the season is that it still feels like fall. The trees still have leaves, which means we still don't get NBC (when the leaves fall, and the weather gets really cold, the TV antenna starts receiving NBC). It just feels off. Now, it's very pretty outside. I was driving through the neighborhood yesterday, and the trees were this yellow/gold, and they were ALL that color, and all I could think of was "streets of gold" which made me think of heaven and death, and I decided that streets of gold weren't that exciting, and I needed to focus on holiday shopping, and also what to cook for Thanksgiving.
At Thanksgiving there is only four of us. I refuse to pay for four plane tickets to Texas and brave the maddening airport crowds, when it's just as easy to fly out in, say, August, or January (and it's a whole lot cheaper). I know there are people who fly every holiday, but I have never been one of them. We're not a family that is focused on the absolute calendar date of a holiday, which is why all the birthday celebrations are sort of loosey-goosey, including Thanksgiving. For the past few years, we have been buying poundage of Boston Market smoked turkey instead of baking a whole bird. We like turkey, but can never eat a whole bird before it starts turning that mint green color, and so we end up throwing a lot out. Now, there is a logic to buying a $20 pound bird and throwing out half, versus spending $40 on 4 pounds of smoked turkey and eating it all, but no one is happy about throwing away food, and so, yes, we spend twice as much money in order to NOT throw away food.
I've also been thinking about divinity. However, I've also been working very hard at the gym (not as hard as that mumblemumblemumble Julia London), but I have my "went home, ate lots of fast food because nobody could cook and didn't exercise until the end" five pounds to lose and I don't need to be thinking about divinity. Not when there's a whole basket of Halloween candy in the pantry because Halloween SUCKED this year, and we had about eight trick or treaters (for more information see prior HALLOWEEN SUCKED THIS YEAR blog).
All in all, I'm a very cranky, moody person this AM. Possibly because I'm about to head to the gym, and then closet myself in a corner and write and there is a snickers bar calling my name, as is the divinity and the heavenly streets of gold. And then there's Thanksgiving and holiday shopping and the annual Christmas card/letter/picture where I have to handcuff my kids together and make them look happy and well-behaved and angelic and then I have to write the STUPID letter….
Sigh…
Click here to view the embedded video.
Oh, yeah. Maybe I feel better after all.
How bout you? What gets you in the mood to handle the PITA of the holiday season? What are you doing for Turkey Day? Do you travel? Do you shop on Black Fridays? Are you happy today or feeling sucky?
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November 15, 2011
What's The Next Thing?
Sunday, I reached a goal. I decided earlier this year I was going to try and run a half-marathon, and I did it. I am really proud of myself because it was hard to train for and hard to do, especially when it turned out to be unusually warm and humid, and there was a big freaking hill in the last quarter of a mile. But I did it, and I will probably do it again (not any time soon).
I need a new horizon. I need something to work toward and conquer. I have a list of things I need to do, but what I really want is something I have to learn and challenge myself with. I will have to spend some time figuring out what that is, which is part of the fun.
What do you do after you reach a goal? Do you immediately start on a new goal? Do you have more than one goal working right now? Anything you want to share, big or small?
P.S. That's my sister and one of my brother-in-laws with me. We went and ate giant hamburgers and drank giant beers. It was fabulous.
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November 14, 2011
And they call these folks managers???????? What exactly are they managing except to annoy me???
I'm irritated. Thus the picture. (OK, technically my irritation has faded as it's been a couple of days, but it's on my mind again, so I thought I'd share).
Here's the deal:
My mom went into the hospital a couple of weeks ago. It was miserable and scary and generally unfun. (She's doing well now, thanks, and in fact is coming home today. Yay!). Anyhoo, after the initial OMG moment had passed and I realized she'd be in for a while, I decided that I wanted to do a top-to-bottom cleaning of my mom's apartment.
Since top to bottom includes the bottom, I asked the apartment managers if they could get her new carpet (hers was gross–and was pretty gross when she moved in a year ago). They said no, but I could do that. Um, no. But they did agree to have it cleaned. I figured that was a good start. I reminded them that she has a cat, and they said they'd have it done that Friday.
Saturday I went by the apartment and noticed that Friday's cat food hadn't been eaten. Hmmm.
Now the cat, Three (yes, really), doesn't like anyone but my mom. I think I've seen the cat three (haha) times in its life. It hears someone coming in, and it bolts. But I searched for the cat…and found nothing. Catherine and I were at the apartment together, and she went to the back door, which is sliding glass and looks out over the apartment complex's pool. And there's the cat.
Well, shit.
We try to get the cat in…to no avail.
The trouble is that my mom cracks the door, and the cat comes and goes at will. Often, mom tells me, Three doesn't come home until 2 or 3 in the morning.
Catherine and I pondered what to do, finally deciding to leave the sliding door cracked and go finish our shopping. We do, and we return. Still no cat.
Needless to say, I'm irritated with the apartment management and the carpet cleaners. I mean, HELLO!!!!!! there's cat food right by the door and a sand box in the bathroom and fuzzy mice cat toys all over the carpet that they were cleaning. It's impossible not to tell that a cat lives here, and since they know the tenant is in the hospital, why, why, why would you leave a door open so that the cat can get scared and run out? Do you figure it has a latch key and can let itself back in????
Now comes the big question: What should I do? I could stay in the apartment with the door open, but if the cat sees me, it'll just bolt before it even comes in. And since it once stayed out (probably having gotten lost and turned around) for over three weeks, that just wasn't acceptable.
So I left….and I left the door open.
I went home, planning to come back at about 5 in the morning to see if–hopefully–the cat had wandered in and was napping.
That plan, alas, went all awry when my husband commented that mom would be happy to have her cat…but unhappy about the TV that walked away.
Sigh.
So there I go, back to her apartment around 9pm, hoping that maybe, just maybe, el gato is inside.
And….drumroll….I got lucky.
And thank goodness! Because how horrible if my mom had come home from a week in the hospital and then 10 days in rehab only to find her kitty gone…all because the management and the cleaners didn't take more care. So today's gripe is brought to you by people who do sloppy jobs and just don't seem to care (or to think).
So …. how about y'all? Anything annoy you lately? Any pet stories to share?
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November 12, 2011
What are you reading?
For Book Saturday I decided to blog about WIRN, which is What I'm Reading Now. I recently finished Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and am about to begin book 2 of the trilogy, Catching Fire.
[image error]If not for my book club I never would have read Hunger Games–dystopia isn't really my cuppa. Plus, the premise of story–an arena of kids who have to fight to the death until there's only one left–was enough to make me run in the other direction. But my book club wanted to read it, and since everyone's talking about the book I decided to give it a try. And I'm very glad I did. I thought Ms. Collins's heroine, Katniss Everdeen, was a fascinating character, as were the others she created. Katniss is strong yet vulnerable, and I couldn't stop turning pages. I had to find out what happened next. I'm really looking forward to Catching Fire and after that, Mockingjay. The first movie based on the trilogy comes out in 2012 and I'll definitely be at the theatre.
What are you reading? What's in your TBR pile? What upcoming books are you most looking forward to? Hope you have a great weekend!
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November 11, 2011
Breakfast of the day
No picture because I snarfed this yummy breakfast down so fast that I didn't think of taking a picture. But today's post is brought to you by: OMG this is so delicious may I please have another one thank you. (Actually, I'll be making another one for the eldest child when she wakes, so I'll edit w/ a picture later.)
Here's what you do.
Buy some langostino lobster tails. As it says on this website, they're sweet little nuggets of love. I found a 2 pound bag at Costco and bought them on a whim, then had to figure out what to do with them. Made this using leftovers from a surf and turf dinner, and we all moaned in ecstasy.
Saute the tails in some butter, just enough to get them hot (ours were bought frozen and were still cold and icy after a day of defrosting).
Whip 3 or 4 eggs together with some heavy whipping cream.
Plop some butter or coconut oil into your omelette/sauce pan. Pour in the egg mix over low/med heat. Let it start to cook.
While it's cooking, cut up at least an ounce of cream cheese. More if you want to be decadent.
To make the omelette, I use a spatula to pull in the sides so the uncooked goo can get to the pan (yeah, I'll try to remember to post a pic later). Eventually, you have a flat pancake of egg. If the top is mushy, stick it under the broiler for a short bit (that's my trick for getting the omelette cooked w/o overbrowning the bottom).
To one half, add the cream cheese, then the lobster. You'll want to pull the lobster out with a slotted spoon or spatula, as you don't want the liquid.
Take out the omelette, flip the top over, and serve.
Slide into culinary heaven.
It. Is. So. Good.
What did you have for breakfast this morning? What's your favorite "invented" recipe?
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