darkitysnark

(Translation: busy work. Snarky has no idea why she suddenly went German.) (Huzzah! for making it back onto page one, by the way.) Snarky had the realization at the end of last week that she had turned into an internet taker, rather than a giver. She was reading blogs and posts and doing the general surfing about she could squeeze into her new schedule, but she wasn't making any contributions. Selfish Snarky! Needless to say, the thing that is worse than de-Garboing oneself is regaining any sense of flow and light-footedness in one's prose. Referring to oneself in the third person definitely sandbags that whole "light-footed" effort. Still! Snarky shoulders on. Work is fantastic. Well. Today it isn't. But that's not too horribly bad considering Snarky has been here for sixty days (she should know, her 60 day review is this Friday). Today has been diminished in fantasticness simply because Snarky is a problem solver and her problem was not. Getting. Solved already! Her addiction is more to the sense of accomplishment rather than the journey, and this particular journey was starting to feel like an endless turn on a traffic circle rather than the euphoric A to B that usually measures her day. "Big Ben!" "Parliament!" "Big Ben!" ... you get the picture. On top of the slightly stuck feeling Snarky is having today, she's also slightly sick. The atmospheric controls for her office don't, so she and her co-workers have been running between the extremes. Some days they keep their jackets on and wrap scarves around their faces. On these days Snarky looks like a technicolor urchin with her turqoise and rainbow arm warmers and slightly haunted expression. Other days the office becomes a sort of greenhouse/sauna. Heavy, humid air hot enough to warrant short-sleeved t-shirts (yesterday one of the supervisors was wearing what amounted to a nice tank top. In November!). All this wishy-washy weather (interior and exterior) has caused the quick dissemination of Seasonal Crud that runs the gamut from tickling cough to full on phlegm attacks. Snarky has yet to succumb, but today she feels the closest to "unwell" that she has felt since starting work here. Ah, but the fantastic stuff! It truly is fantastic. Snarky is surrounded by passionate, funny, educated people. The industry is very different from The Cracker Factory. Snarky gets to work with manufacturing types and artistic types and IT types and sales/marketing types. She gets to type really, really fast, and is apparently the heir apparent to the new CRM system they are trying to implement. What does CRM stand for? Hold on... Snarky needs to look it up. Customer Relationship Management Of course! Anyways.. what Snarky knows of the CRM is that she is trying to merge four different databases into the one thing... and also train herself up on the new system in order to train everyone else up on the new system... and also customizing and reporting and data crunching and... um... yeah. Just a little bit of everything. If Snarky was the Office Monkey before, she's more like the Office Gorilla now. Along with all the newness of being in a different work environment working in a completely different industry, Snarky has the added bonus of tests! Product Recognition Tests, that is. She finally managed to pass Test One (correctly identifying 82 samples) after two tries. Next up: Test Two, which requires the mere memorization of about sixty-some-odd pieces. No big whoop. Test Three (and this is the final test) Snarky hopes is under re-configuration... as most of the test is over soon-to-be-discontinued product. Snarky realized, after failing her first go at Test One, that the last written test she had taken prior was for her driver's license. This definitely felt like a return to the days when one's value hinged on the passing of a test (though to be fair, Snarky would not have been fired had she failed the test again... she would have just been stuck in test limbo, having to re-take the test every two weeks until she got it right). Beside the failing her first test ever part of this experience, Snarky is really enjoying this whole "learn the product" process. She is starting to feel a bit nervous about her performance review on Friday because it has been so long since she geniunely cared about her job that she just might cock it up. (Snarky has been dying to use that term all week. Sorry if it abruptly offended/shocked anyone. Snarky seems to be good about cocking up the flow of things today. Hee!) (From where did that term come anyway? Is it gun related? Or just more blatantly phallic?) Snarky hopes things go well and that she can remain the resident office monkey gorilla. Bananas are good.

Danke! (There she goes again with the German.) Snarky forgot to tell you that the potential hair cut looks devine, btw. inkdarkmoon's enviable locks would thrive shorn in such a manner. Snarky herself got her locks... trimmed by a heavily tattooed fellow that tried really, really, REALLY hard to convince her that a stacked bob was the way to go. Snarky thinks he only pushed so hard because she was in agreement. The things a girl does for her man!

:Wakes from deep dark hibernation: snuffle snuffle WHAAAA? :runs off to write a quick PM:

Congratulations! Now begins the daily pilgrimages to Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

I gimp from my unbelievably generous Switch Witch Diana . And like whoa. I applied this as I apply most of my BPAL... I might have even been a bit heavy handed as some of the Lunacies seem to go poof on me after a while. That was a mistake. Because this sucker has serious throw, waft, what-have-you. I was a blaring announcement of honey and resin and crushed flowers for most of the day. It was just too much! But at the end of the day what was left was great. Sweet to the point of being a bit corrupted. I just need to have a much, much lighter hand when applying in future.

Dawndie beat me to the comparison! I keep imagining Valentina idly stirrng up a roux, mind drifting off... face taking on a sort of flushed expression... cross-cut to a bowl chock-full of gumboey goodness and your friend suddenly resisting the urge to dig his Snake Oiled shirt out of the hamper.

I got an imp of Hunter Moon from my Autumn Switch Witch Diana! It's been a looong time since I've reviewed any BPAL (at least if feels that way), and is seems like my nose have become uneducated during my time away. Please bear with my vagueness. Wine is a very hit-or-miss note on me. It teeters on the edge of being the same kind of cloyingly annoying fruitiness that I get from currants and berries, or it goes to a nice, dark, somewhat smoky place. The wine in Hunter Moon is very strictly on the fence between these two extremes. I think the base lunar blend might be what holds it back from going too fruity, but it is also what keeps it from going darker. Strangely, the smoke part comes across as an aftertaste of graphite pencil shavings in the back of my throat. This note comes out at first, and comes back again hours later. I have to agree - this is an autumnal blend, but a cold one.

Oh, abso-friggin'-lutely! (TBS edit)

"Tittered". Snerk. I am a twelve year old boy. And good on you for taking care of your body! I think part of being fully immersed in the "here and now" is also letting your body be the best it can be. Though I agree, lunges are of the devil. (Your post inspired me to do thirty lunges around the tight circular path from the kitchen to the hallway, through the living room and dining room, and back again to the kitchen. Eegads!)

Ah, Fall! What an evocative name for the season. Snarky thinks of dying trees and the inevitability of gravity, time, entropy, age. Such a beautiful time of the year. The French probably have a perfect word to describe this rather gothic appreciation of the last gasp of life. Also the Cantonese. Snarky has been learning some rather ribald Chinese sayings from her parents used to describe the universal truths of life. Darned if she can remember any of them right now, though. The Snarks are Big Fans of this time of year. This month they will be celebrating their sixth (!) anniversary, in fact. They got married in an autumnal blaze of glory. Fall of ought-ought turned out to be one of the best years for color in recent history for the Western North Carolina mountains. And what else besides the crisp charge in the air heralds the arrival of this most beloved time of year? Why, produce, of course! Honeycrisp apples at the Beaverton Farmer's Market Brussel Tree! Sometimes the Snarks forget that these don't actually grow in little mesh plastic bags. The Snarks are surrounded by artichoke farms (well, OK, just the one outside of Tillamook) but this was the first time since moving Out West that they partook. Cha cha cha! Out with the pesto pizza, in with the roasted portabella pizza! Perfect fall days start with a trip to Kruger's Farm Market on Sauvie Island. The Snarks are preparing for an anniversary weekend in a treehouse, in which they will be working dilligently to build up their winter coats. The Mister is already researching recipes for their time in the woods. (A sure sign that the Snarks were meant for eachother if there ever was one.) There will be roasted root vegetables and cobblers and at some point a Butterfinger pie (sixth anniversary = gifts of candy or iron, and Snarky hasn't been near a welding torch in almost a decade). The nose might be directly linked up to the deepest parts of memory in the brain, but Snarky's heart is hard-wired to her stomach.

Thank you! The Snarks can't believe that six years have already whooshed by. You'll notice that Snarky's cute factor ratchets up a few points just because The Mister has to point the camera so far down to capture her shorty short short self. She's like a hobbit next to him, she is. And now Snarky will clean up the drool she just, er, drooled thinking about baked acorn squash. Mmmmm.

The Mister is King of Vacation Planning. The Snarks went to Powell's yesterday () and got the Washington state Gazetteer so they can map out some hikin' trails. He has already located a hard cider brewery and a place that makes broasted chicken. Snarky is falling in love all over again. Also, hungry! Snarky just likes saying "Tillamook". The word makes her happy (as does the fond rememberance of squeaky cheese). Yes, Snarky is also reflecting the flashbulb.

Huzzah! Congratulations! What an excellently positioned townhouse, too! And while I am also enamoured of your secluded woody view, I gotta say this townhouse won me over with the track lighting in the kitchen. (And glass top range... so easy to clean! I've just become my mother just at this very moment.) And nothing catalyzes the nesting instinct like actually looking forward to doing your laundry in machines of your own choosing. Have fun making that townhouse your home! Edited to add: whoops, I just read your captions (originally just did the slideshow). So... can you send that glasstop range to my mother? Some of my friends did their own kitchen up in all black appliances (including the microwave). Very slick looking!

Unfortunately, the Snarks did not keep a food journal during their five days on the boat. Perhaps it is better that way, as Snarky will not be tempted to calculate the calories consumed (and therefore realize that she will need to climb the equivalent of three Mount Hoods in order to bring her Calories In/Calories Out equation back to equilibrium). She can recall a few memorable standouts: foie gras souffle (served with fig preserves and a slice of candied citrus rind); deliciously spicy gazpacho that had more than a passing resemblance to a very good, chilled Bloody Mary; so many dishes that should have been served en flambe but weren't, but were still good nevertheless; schooling DarkityBro on the concept of a Baked Alaska (he was deeply shocked that he had not heard of such a thing in all his twenty seven years - this is surely the sign of a die-hard foodie); ordering the Chateaubriand and then annoying The Mister for the rest of the evening by slathering on a heavy, horribly fake French accent; and vienerschnitzel (Which, yes, was made out of veal. Snarky had a long conversation with DarkityBro about foie gras (a recently very hot topic in Chicago, where he lives) and veal. DB has come from a much more radical animal rights POV than the emotional topics of baby animals and force-fed ducks and geese, but organizations like PETA's overzealousness has caused him over the years to consider all sides of the many issues in this debate.) Oh.. kay. Snarky didn't mean to veer off like that. She'll just wrap up this tangent by saying spending some time with her brother and recently reading Heat by Bill Buford has really caused Snarky to think about just where her food comes from... and how she goes about consuming it. Having said all that, on to the food pics! The Orchestrated Big Food Event was the Midnight Buffet. It is such a big deal that they open it up half an hour early just so people can shuffle past and take pictures. Snarky did not stay up to partake (she had, afterall, just stuffed herself on a four course dinner only a few hours before) but DarkityMa reportedly threw down, later swearing that she would never eat that much ever again. Snarky apologizes for the poor quality of the Midnight Buffet pictures. She could have used a flash, but didn't want to blind the people on the other side of the table... ... such courtesy was not extended to the ship's staff, however, during the Galley Tour. Oh no, Snarky didn't mind at all shoving a camera practically up this poor guy's nose as he tried to carve up a similar melon for the next Midnight Buffet. DarkityBro, Snarky, and The Mister went to a little wine tasting seminar during the first Day at Sea. This was definitely more for fun (no spit buckets!) but was also educational. DarkityBro gave the Snarks all of his little pieces of cheese that were to accompany the selections. Bonus! (The Snarks still resolutely drink wine out of a box, but can now at least understand what the labels mean on those pretty pretty bottles... sort of.) The Mister's last dessert. Some sort of (non-animal cruelty) souffle. The woman hiding in the background was the eldest of the group of three women that were seated at the DarkityFam's table for all of our dinners. It was a daughter treating her mother and grandmother to a cruise (the first night was the grandmother's birthday -- we all got cake!) Grandmother is from Peru and speaks little to no English (and reminds Snarky of her own maternal grandmother), mother speaks Peruvian, Spanish, and English (with a heavy accent), and the daughter speaks unaccented English and translated for her mother and grandmother when needed. They were excellent company. Snarky's last dessert. Why do chefs insist on stacking food? This looked like a crime scene when Snarky was done with it. After the cruise, the DarkityFam stopped off at a Buddhist/vegetarian restaurant and had plates and plates (and plates) of analogous foods (Peking "Duck", "seafood" stew, roasted "pork", etc.). And since all those eleventeen dishes didn't fill up their newly stretched stomachs (Snarky wonders if her own liver will be ripe for harvesting soon) they also went to the best boba tea place in Houston. At least, according to that one chick they asked. It was pretty good! Snarky has more to post, but when the Snarks got back to Portland, they discovered another monster zucchini in the garden, so she need to go make about three loaves of chocolate zucchini bread right now.

Snarky used the chocolate zucchini bread recipe from Salon dot com (once upon a time they had a recipe section that involved interesting anecdotes tied into favorite foods): 2 medium-large zucchini 2 eggs 1/2 C butter 2/3 C sugar 1 tsp vanilla 2/3 C flour 2/3 C unsweetened cocoa 1/4 tsp salt 2/3 tsp baking soda 1/3 tsp nutmeg 1/3 tsp cinnamon 2/3 C chocolate chips Steam medium-large zucchini until mushy. Puree in blender (i.e. do not strain using Foley food mill.) Cool to at least room temperature (cooling can be speeded up by placing puree in freezer for about 20 minutes, covered.) Set aside. Separate eggs: Beat whites until fluffy, yolks until lemoney. Set aside. Cream together butter with sugar. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla until very smooth. Set mixture aside. Sift together flour, unsweetened cocoa, salt, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Mix dry ingredients into butter mixture. Fold in cool zucchini puree. Stir in chocolate chips. Fold in egg whites. Bake in greased, floured loaf pan at 250 degrees for one hour, until bread stands away slightly from edges of pan. Incidentally, 1.33 ZillaZukes makes about 3x the recipe. Urp.

Crocs are the George Bush of footwear. They divide the comfortable shoe faction rather than uniting it. Having said that, I am an owner of red Danskos and red Crocs and I love them both for different reasons. The Crocs have been delegated to mostly garden wear, but they do make the odd appearance out. I mean, c'mon, wiffle shoes! Ah well, to each their own. I will concede to say that the charms are Wrong, Just Wrong. :covers ass diligently:

(sniff sniff) I smell foodie postings! Apples make me hungry too. We didn't realize it until this fall that we used to live in apple country (Western North Carolina mountains) and are now also in apple country, what with being the Mexico of Washington and all. The farmers' market is bursting with appley goodness. (Our current favorite are Honey Crisps, probably because of their evocative name.) I like apples with cheese (a nice, tart granny smith with a slice of sharp cheddar ) and apples with peanut butter (super-extra-crunchy, please!) but I also will go berzerk and dip into my jar of Nutella with apple slices sometimes (I prefer the milder, crisper Fujis for that, they're really just a carrier for hazelnutty goodness.) My favorite snackin' orange are Clementines. They are the perfect snack orange. So easy to peel by hand, and you can have just one for a little snack, or more like my usual three-Clementine-throw-down for Big Snacking. Filling, and like nibbling on packaged sunshine (which is essentially what they are). Mmm hm! The more I see and hear of Olmstead, the more I admire the guy. He landscaped the Biltmore Estate in Asheville! One of the best approaches I've ever experienced!

Snarky has been back for a week now, but she can't seem to get the floaty boat feeling out of her head. Add to that the continued "hit-the-ground-runningness" of her new job (which she is really starting to enjoy despite its ability to snatch the hours and days right from underneath her like a neat card room trick) and she just can't seem to find the time to re-establish her online persona. She's also been feeling a bit Garbo lately too. Still, she's going to make an effort to get back in to the swing of things. And where words might be slow in trickling back into the well for her, Snarky always has more pictures! First day out to sea. The Hitler Bangs are Dead. Long live the Bangs of Indeterminate Length and/or Direction! DarkityBro soaking up the sun (and being spied upon by his older sister). The DarkityRents are also cute whilst evading the pesky paparazzi. Many moons ago Snarky spent a semester studying ancient Mayan architecture. The Chichen Itza ruins include the main temple (El Castillo) which does a neat trick every Equinox. The Snarks where there a day early. Damn you Murphy, and your stupid Law! It was still an impressive site (and sight), even if the government no longer allows tourists to scramble at their own peril up the steep temple stairs. Mostly besides the sights and sounds, there was The Food. Oh sweet honey in the rock, was there Food. Snarky will need to make a whole separate post just to discuss the heirarchy and humongousness of The Food. But for now... she's slinking back into her cave to play with some sticks and string. It up and got all Autumnal before she even realized it. Perfect knitting weather!

WOOOHOOOOO! Thanks for posting pics. You look beautiful! Is that a bit o' purple I spy in your bouquet? Me likey! Can't wait to see more. Now go rest up! (so you can post more !)

Danke. Snarky has a backlog of gifts she needs to make. One is a (INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK) for her Switch Witch, another is a set of sumthin' sumthin's for Miss Minilux. There's also a Knit-thulu for DeathRockBaby (as soon as Snarky can find the yarn she bought specifically for this project, which got mysteriously whisked away in preparation for the Darkity'Rents' visit). Oh and the cabled sweater coat Snarky always has on the back burner for herself. Fall is awesome knittin' weather. As for the food... oh dear sweet honey lemon Jesus. Snarky really tried to be a conscientious eater around her brother, but she completely lost it by about oh, say, Day Two. (Or maybe Day Three... whenever it was that she had the Foie Gras Souffle.) Snarky has a few pictures with actual faces in posey "We were here" type arrangements, but they don't interest her as much. Most of her architectural pics are pretty private too - they are all of details and small things that were of interest to her, and don't really provide much helpful narrative for the casual observer. Snarky didn't get nearly enough food photos taken, though... as she was too busy stuffing her face with it to be able to take any good shots. Also she was worried she'd make the head waiter nervous.

Exciting, yes, but also New! The Snarks are heading out to sea for the next week. Snarky hopes to catch y'all on the filp side. Her first week of new work was all sorts of exciting/boring/exciting again. She is really happy about her career change. Glub glub!

At least eBay Mom had rectangular piles. The brunt out shell of the MIL's house (she's an undiagnosed/medicated/therapied OCD hoarder) still haunts my dreams sometimes. I am tickled by Valentina's package narrative for your mother's latest love offering. My own mother gifted us with a mah jong set so that she could draw us in to her own peculiar obsession. She becomes a screeching mad woman when she plays! Again with the .

In the past, the Snarks' luck with garden has been rather spotty. One year all they grew was a ginormous basil patch (about 36 Genovese basil plants purchased from a guy who called himself the Basil King (though he isn't this Basil King - see August 14th entry which kinda distracted me from this post for about half an hour. Why do we no longer have the Black Mountain College?!)) and made pesto all summer long and had enough left over to freeze and enjoy all through winter. So they are quite pleasantly stunned to find that the mere seven basil plants, five tomato plants (gold nugget, an heirloom plant called "Dancing Bonnie", Early Girl, roma, and cherry tomatoes), and one each of eggplant (Japanese "Black Beauty"), cucumber (some sort of slicin' cuke) and zucchini are not only not dying, but bearing some fruit! Wee ickle first harvest! A recent photo of the garden, taken in the early evening. Due to the dry (whoda thunk it?) weather, we've had to water the garden. Here's the tomato/basil/eggplant patch. So far we've gotten two zucchini plants out of this monter. One was regular sized, and the other one we didn't get to until after returning from NC. Behold zuke-zilla!... We've used about 2% of this thing so far. The Snarks did end up having a good time with the Darkity'rents. Snarky starts her new job tomorrow (!!!) and the immediately after her first five days on the new job, they are flying out to TX to join up with the DarkityFam (including DarkityBro) to go on a five day cruise. (more !!!'s) At some point the Snarks will need a vacation to just sit at home and do absolutely nothing with nobody. Today the Snarks hit four different Goodwill stores in the area for state plates and other curiosities. She has so much to show y'all (including the cow head they got for the living room!) (Don't worry, no real living bovines were harmed in the making of this particular piece of kitsch.) (Oh, and the Donut Barn! But... that's for another post.) Until then, she will leave you this. Proof that Snarky comes from a cute short peoples. Darkity'Rents at Multnomah Falls. Check out DarkityMa's new curly hair!

The Snarks are still eating off of that zuke-zilla. Still. Snarky snagged a recipe for chocolate zucchini bread off of Salon.com years ago that does smart work of an overabundance of the green stuff. She'll have to list that along with some of Grandmother S's more bizarre concoctions. Four more days until DarkityFam 2006: Scourge (of Cuteness) of the High Seas!

I'll have to think a bit about an appropriate action for your harrassed co-workers that won't involve possible back-firing (she sounds like someone who won't react with any self-awareness when confronted with similar behavior from the men). In the meantime, I have Monty Python's "Sit on My Face (and Tell Me That You Love Me)" stuck in my head.