Fairly sparkly

Halloween for me this year was a veritable orgy of organza and sparkles.












Did I mention the sparkles? Did I mention that, for the first time since I was five, it was OK to color all over my arms, chest and face with a crayon.


My partner in crime went more for the riding crop look.

















The result: sort of a good fairy/bad fairy effect. We terrorized the town for several hours before retiring our wings for another year.



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Saucy science

A note to any of you who may be contemplating adding a bit of fish to your homemade alfredo sauce (because we all contemplate such things periodically, no?): Proceed with caution. Repeat after me: Add cheese first, then add the fish.

Apparently, parmesan cheese has a stronger chemical or physical attraction to salmon than it does to noodles. I put the fish in with the milk and butter and then added the noodles. The result: glob-o-cheesy-salmon and watery, milk-flavored "sauce" that necessitated a bit of corn starch to make it palatable. A smooth, creamy alfredo sauce was noticeably absent.

My culinary heartbreak aside, I do wonder: Is it physics or chemistry that makes the cheese cling to the salmon like a groupie to a glam rocker? And more importantly, do you think I could find some way to turn that into a master's thesis?

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Insta-suck

Overheard:
"When are they going to get instant lipo? I'm uncomfortable."

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Of purple spruce trees

I had the strangest experience today at a meeting. Several people were telling me something that simply isn't and then looking at me like I was highly offensive and slightly crazy for pointing that out. And then they asked me to justify what I would do to make the thing that isn't right with the world. It was like some alternate universe or something:

Setting - In the woods, next to a towering spruce tree
Cast - Me, Person 1, Person 2

Me: Wow. That's an amazing tree.
Person 1: Yes, that purple spruce tree is just gorgeous.
Person 2: (with emphasis) I am just blown away by the beautiful purple color of that spruce tree.
Me: (laughing at their joke) Yeah! That spruce tree's just the perfect grape color. (winks and elbows Person 2.)
Person 2: (glaring) What's so funny? I really do think it's a pretty purple spruce tree.
Person 1: Yeah, why are you laughing? It really is a lovely shade of purple.
Me: (brows furrowed in a puzzled way) Umm. Yeah, but the tree is green. It's a spruce tree. They are green.
Person 1: No, it is NOT green. It's purple.
Me: But ... But ... (points to tree) It's green. Can't you see it? It's a perfectly lovely, perfectly green, spruce tree.
Person 2: (shakes head) Why do you have to be so negative?
Person 1: (shakes head and walks away with Person 2) Yeah. You just don't know anything about spruce trees. Why do you always have to argue about these things. We know that spruce trees are purple.
Me: (softly and looking at the tree with a baffled expression) I don't understand. The tree is green.

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