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Dec

30

2011

Photo Friday: Going Postal

I’d say we have the worst mail carrier ever, except:

a.) we don’t actually have a mail carrier (the one time we actually complained to the person who delivered our mail, he said that no one was officially responsible for our route. He was just filling in, which of course explains why none of the carriers servicing our route can read)

and

2.) every time I think something can’t be worse, I find out how much worse it can be, so I’m going to play it safe and assume there are worse mail carriers.

We routinely get mail addressed to our neighbors one street over with the same house number. At least a couple of days a week, we receive their junk mail, catalogs, bills, and in early December, two of their packages.

Sometimes we deliver the mail ourselves, sometimes I actually re-mail it. One time I dropped an envelope addressed to our neighbors back into a nearby USPS mailbox, only to find it re-delivered to us a couple of days later. I shit you not. If you love something, set it free…

I was so pissed about the second package, I left it on the hood of the mail truck when I noticed it still parked near my house.

But the best errant delivery was yet to come. The problems run deep at the USPS. We apparently now get all mail involving our house number…

Come on, this shit is international. Even if I could get past the overlooked airmail stamp and decide they misread WI to mean Wisconsin rather than West Indies, I live in Virginia.

Dec

23

2011

Photo Friday: Christmas Card 2011

Last week, I shared our previous Christmas card photos. This year, I wanted:

an easy statue for Santa hat purposes (so our runner-up will have to wait until a year I feel like packing a gopher grabber and a step stool),
a short commute (so the perfect statue in Erie was out of the question),
not to get mugged or worse (actually, I want this every year. Sorry Baltimore, but “Homicide: Life on the Street” was set there for a reason–when the first page of Google results about our statue of interest in Baltimore includes an article about a stabbing in broad daylight nearby, that means no).

So we went back to the scene of 2008. Across the street from Winston Churchill is the Kahlil Gibran Memorial Garden. The statue is a bust so it was easily accessible for the hat. He also has some special meaning for us…sort of. We had planned to use “On Marriage” from The Prophet at our wedding. We thought we liked the message (which seemed to be about avoiding the fate of the Beautiful South song “We Are Each Other.”) We thought the officiant would bring it and he thought we would bring it. Wedding FAIL. I wonder if Gibran wrote something “On Stupidity.”

It was probably just as well, as a more recent read made me giggle like a 12-year-old:

“Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup.”

This is good advice, I hate sharing.

“Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.”

Now this just seems inefficient and wasteful, a married couple should easily be able to share a single loaf of bread.

“Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute played by Sting irritate Tracy.”

OK I made that part about Sting up. It’s actually “Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.”

“Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.”

Huh. I would have thought only the heart containers in the Legend of Zelda can contain your hearts.

    “And stand together yet not too near together:
    For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
    And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

And the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw!

My apologies to Mr. Gibran. His words on marriage are still lovely, but I’m done berating myself for not thinking to bring them to our wedding.

Hopefully he will forgive me for poking fun and for placing a Santa hat on his bust at his Memorial Garden. Various of his quotes are engraved at the Memorial site and my favorite was:

“That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.”

Whoa, I think he understood Einstein’s theory of time considerably better than I did.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM TRACY, DAVE, CHUCK,

AND KAHLIL GIBRAN!!!!!!

Dec

16

2011

Photo Friday: Christmas Card Retrospective

It’s the holiday season (so whoop-dee-doo and hickory dock) which means I’m down to one blog post a week. I haven’t run since Saturday either. Merry Christmas!

Our annual Christmas card photo shoot is a wrap, but it seems a little early to post it. So this week, I thought I’d share the history of our little tradition. Are you ready for 11 years of Christmas card photos?

Living in the D.C. metro area, there are shitloads of cool statues and I suggested we include a picture of us with a different statue in our Christmas cards each year. Dave suggested putting a Santa hat on the statue’s head. Brilliant. Let’s do this thing!

2000 – Fala

Fala is my all-time favorite presidential pet. He’s probably in my top five favorite dogs ever. Love him. When the FDR Memorial opened, I visited with a friend who kept going on about FDR and his four terms and bandying about phrases like “our greatest president,” and I was all, “Look! Doggy!” Sorry, Mr. President, but your dog is the best part of your memorial.

Santa hat difficulty: easy

2001 – Albert Einstein

This statue, outside the National Academy of Sciences, is awesome. And you are supposed to climb all over it. Also great because Dave’s a physicist and because as we all know, Einstein was never wrong. This was the first time I remember creating a little scene with our photo shoot (think this was the year some bystanders asked to us to borrow our hat so they could take a picture with Einstein-Santa too).

Santa hat difficulty: slightly challenging

2002 – Party Animals

This was the only year we did the photo shoot during summer. And since we were traipsing all over the city taking pictures of this public art project anyway (there were 100 elephants and 100 donkeys), we decided to take and use multiple shots. Here are a couple of favorites.

Santa hat difficulty: easy

2003 – Kermit

This statue was our first outside D.C. Kermit is actually part of the Jim Henson Memorial at the University of Maryland in College Park. We took many shots with us and the whole statue, but the best, by far, were of us and Kermit. Sorry, Jim. This year is my favorite.

Santa hat difficulty: easy

2004 – George Mason

Who’s a fluffy muffin? This was our first Christmas with Chuck. Chuck is the prettiest member of our family, but he’s not always the most cooperative model. This year also marked our switch from film to digital. I had never heard of George Mason before moving to Virginia. But down here, everything is named after him (if it isn’t named after Lee).

Santa hat difficulty: easy

2005 – Screw Propeller Guy (John Ericsson)

Dave started pitching the “Screw Propeller Guy” as an option right after Fala. I held Dave off as long as possible, because a.) who the hell was going to care about Screw Propeller Guy and b.) I wasn’t sure we could do it. I couldn’t come up with a better idea in 2005, so Screw Propeller Guy it was! Getting up to his level was interesting. We learned Chuck doesn’t like to be picked up.

Santa hat difficulty: challenging

2006 – Teddy Roosevelt

We had Teddy on our radar for years and actually visited his island several times to practice. He’s pretty fucking big. Had to Photoshop the hat and it was so painful I vowed never to do that again. Decree: all future statue heads must be theoretically reachable by tall husband, possibly with gopher grabbing device and step stool assistance. This was our depth of field masterpiece. Getting statue and us all in focus would be a nightmare every year after.

Santa hat difficulty: impossible

2007 – The Awakening

We took this mere months before this statue was moved from Hains Point in D.C. to National Harbor in Maryland, which might as well be the moon given how inconveniently located it is. So I’m glad we fit this in while the statue was still in the city. I hated all of the shots of us with the head. I loved the hand shot, but that didn’t convey the statue. So this was the only year we printed a double-photo card.

Santa hat difficulty: easy

2008 – Winston Churchill

Mr. Churchill stands astride the boundary between U.S. property and the British Embassy. So I felt reasonably assured the British wouldn’t come running out with guns when we stuck a Santa hat on Mr. Churchill’s head. Of the many photos we took, Dave, Chuck, and I were in focus in exactly none of them. I took the best shot and did my best to sharpen us in Photoshop.

Santa hat difficulty: moderately challenging

2009 – Charles Buls

Our first international entry! We took the Santa hat and a mini tripod (explaining the awkward angle for this one) on our trip to Belgium. The only bummer is that Chuck couldn’t be in it. Buls was a former mayor of Brussels and there is a dog with him but it’s very hard to tell from this weird angle and once you see the dog it sort of looks like he’s humping the mayor’s leg. Oops.

Santa hat difficulty: technically easy, but pretty embarrassing (some older Belgian ladies seemed amused by us)

2010 – George Washington

We took this while visiting my family last Thanksgiving. The statue is next to the Eagle Hotel in Waterford, PA. I had always thought this was the only statue of Washington wearing a British uniform but I just found something arguing he’s actually in the militia uniform of Virginia. Whatever, he’s carrying out a British order, so there.

Santa hat difficulty: challenging

2011 – ?????

——————————————–

Care to make a guess about this year’s Christmas card photo subject? Hints: he’s in D.C. and is very close to a previous subject.

I’d love to hear any suggestions for photos in the D.C. area or elsewhere (I’m still kicking myself that we didn’t do Jimi Hendrix while on vacation in Seattle). Tune in next Friday for our 2011 photo and holiday greeting.

Dec

9

2011

Photo Friday: Glitter Moose!

It rained all day Wednesday. I had to walk home from the metro with only my useless umbrella to protect me. I shouldn’t be alive.

The first time I ever used my umbrella a light breeze blew it inside out and snapped one of the spokes. I’ve been walking around with a 1/8 limp umbrella ever since.

Wednesday night, the zippier-than-usual wind flipped my useless umbrella every few feet. I spent more time trying to fix it than standing under its protection. My pants were soaked up to my hip, the wind blew my hair into my eyes, and I didn’t have enough hands for the umbrella and hair wrangling. I noticed the broken spoke hanging down in front of my face, ominously waiting to take my eye out so I turned the umbrella to get the spoke away from my eyes. At the next gust of wind, I felt a sharp pain on my scalp. Mother fucker punctured my brain.

I held the umbrella over my head like an axe and started slamming it into the pavement as hard as I could. Repeatedly. Umbrella had it coming. I arrived home drenched, dragging a flattened umbrella behind me.

I thought about taking a picture of my sad, smashed, useless umbrella, and using it for Photo Friday, but in lieu of therapy and/or anger management class, I’d like to lighten the mood by sharing a picture of my favorite Christmas tree ornament, Glitter Moose! I found him during college in one of those specialty shops (Natural Surroundings? Nature’s Elements?) selling useful things like stuffed birds that make authentic chirping noises when squeezed, gold-coated pine cones, and adorable Glitter Moose Christmas ornaments.

Worship Glitter Moose before he destroys you. Glitter Moose is awesome. Glitter Moose is plump. Glitter Moose was made in China. Glitter Moose is dead serious about helping you celebrate Christmas, look at those imploring eyes. Glitter Moose is the last thing to go on the tree and I always place him near the top center so I can easily spot him. Glitter Moose gets doubly wrapped in tissue paper and then bubble wrap and put away separately from the other ornaments.

Glitter Moose was on our custom-made Christmas card once:

Glitter Moose ages well. Still glittery, after all these years.

Several years ago Dave made my life complete by finding this member of the Glitter Moose family. I may have squealed when I opened mega Glitter Moose.

Do you have a favorite Christmas decoration? How about an umbrella recommendation? Anger management strategy?

I’m linking up with Mama Kat this week. The prompt I chose was to share a favorite Christmas ornament (the rage against my useless umbrella is a bonus!).

Dec

7

2011

Homemade Advent Calendar*

Preparing My Heart for Christ with Belgian Chocolate

I’m sure you’ve all been wondering how I spent my free time in November. I spent it making advent calendars for me and Dave. Heads up for the devout among you, this has nothing to do with preparing my heart for the coming of Christ and everything to do with preparing my mouth for a daily piece of delicious chocolate (sanctioned by Jesus!).

Because I’m a 5-year old trapped in a 38-year old body, I get a Neuhaus advent calendar every year (two because I don’t want to share with Dave). I love the designs on the front and the anticipation of opening the little paper door to reveal my surprise treat each day…until the day when I’m greeted by a piece of dark chocolate. Then my 5-year old palate wrinkles its nose.

In past years, I’ve toyed with the idea of making my own advent calendar so I can fill it with chocolates of my choosing. But I’m lazy and not even remotely crafty.

But early in November, my ADD took over and I searched the internet for homemade advent calendar ideas. Because that was the best use of my time. Oh how my to-do list suffers when I get one of these brilliant “project” ideas.

This homemade advent calendar idea resonated most with me. But I think I might have mentioned I’m lazy? So I thought about buying these pre-made tins on Etsy. But as lazy as I am, I’m also cheap and picky. Since I want to retire early and have super cute tins, I decided to make my own in my voluminous free time.

This is the part of the craft project blog post where I’m supposed to say how easy this project was. This was ~~a raging pain in the ass~~ so easy. I started this nonsense during the first week of November and I didn’t finish until December 1st, which is actually four days after advent started, but who’s counting. Advent calendars always start on December 1st, I don’t make the rules. I stopped counting the time this project took when it reached 12 hours.

Now is the time in the craft project blog post when I’m supposed to tell you how to ~~torture yourself~~ do this.

“High-Maintenance Homemade Advent Calendar” Steps:

1.) Buy shit: Having no crafting experience, this involved making a non-technical shopping list (i.e. paper cutter thingie, stuff to make paper stick to the tins, way to make numbers appear on the paper, etc…) and losing my Michael’s virginity. The only reason I didn’t leave in a huff when the cashier asked for $99 (seriously?!?) was that I’d already blown an hour and half wandering around the store in a stupor. I was by that point what I like to call committed.

2.) Design and cut (with fancy new circle cutter I can’t imagine ever using again as long as I live) two decorative paper circles for each tin. Curse each time the paper slipped and the cutter created a useless ellipse.

3.) Realize cutting circles out of the paper wastes a ton and return to Michael’s for two more packages.

4.) Tape (using special tape I had to order) smaller decorative paper circles onto larger background circles.

5.) Freak out about something happening to the paper given how much time steps 1-4 took. Research paper preservation products. Select acrylic sealer spray.

6.) Decide not to number the circles. Hope no one ever dares to question this decision. Thank you.

7.) Obsessively worry about my spraying competence and ruining my precious circles. Become frightened by how often the phrase “my precious circles” enters everyday conversation. Find YouTube spraying tutorial and consider hiring a professional spray person. Wonder if inhaling a toxin and the possible subsequent failure of my internal organs is a reasonable response to an aversion to dark chocolate.

8.) Choose the windiest fucking day since Hurricane Irene to spray toxic shit onto the circles. End up shellacking myself (three coats!).

9.) Wash tins. Dry tins. Be completely blown away when this takes two hours.

10.) Find Simon & Garfunkel limited engagement channel on Sirius. Finally learn Art’s harmony on “You Can Tell The World.” Sort of.

11.) Tape circles to tin lids.

12.) Stick magnets to bottom of tins.

13.) Obsessively arrange tins on magnet board. Take many mediocre photos.

14.) Buy chocolate. Feel the need to explain project to store clerk. Ignore her look.

15.) Use a random number generator to randomize the order of the chocolates. If you think I’m kidding, you don’t know me very well.

16.) Insert chocolates into tins.

17.) Eat delicious chocolate daily.

Enjoyable steps include: 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and portions of 1 and 2.

Cost Comparison

Now is the time when I smugly tell you how much money I saved by doing this myself.

–Two Neuhaus advent calendars = $60 plus tax

–Two sets of premade magnetic tins from Etsy plus a magnet board = ~$120

–“High-Maintenance Homemade Advent Calendars” = $222.57 ($139.01 without the chocolate)

Oops.

Results

So I spent a lot of time making homemade advent calendars that were more expensive than what I could have bought premade. But my calendars are super cute.

Here are my precious circles waiting to be shellacked. Each one is stuck to the paper-lined cardboard with painters’ tape.

Here are my 24 finished tins on the magnet board. I couldn’t get a good picture of all 48, so use the reflection to imagine Dave’s set too.

Close up of my favorite pattern.

The chocolate on the left is called Louise and is filled with milk chocolate (of course!) ganache. I think the confetti look is pretty. The chocolate on the right is called Sapho and it’s my favorite. It’s filled with almond praline.

The funky-looking chocolate below is called 1857 and is filled with praline studded with crushed spicy speculoos cookies.

Happy Advent! I hope your holiday preparations go smoothly. Do you do anything special to mark the days before Christmas?

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*I toyed with the idea of naming this post “Oh my God, that’s the crafty shit,” based on the Prodigy song “Funky Shit.” Because I want to, you know, build community with other apathetic agnostic, advent-calendar making, listeners of the Prodigy on the internet. But since I had to explain the reference even to Dave, I decided there aren’t any other apathetic agnostic, advent-calendar making, listeners of the Prodigy. So much for finding my tribe.

Dec

2

2011

Photo Friday: Buckeyes!

Praise all that is holy, this year’s buckeye making is complete.

Buckeye rolling movie: Crazy Stupid Love (I’d give it maybe 2.5 stars? It was good for what it was, silly entertainment to keep my mind off the monotony of rolling buckeyes.)

Yield: 170 (new record)

Elapsed Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes to roll. Almost 2 hours to dip and put away.

Exciting new complications: The dough was softer this year, I was almost able to mix all three pounds of powdered sugar using the mixer and then a wooden spoon. I threw in a little more sugar but it was still soft. I tried to avoid having non-buckeye-like holes in my finished product (see last picture here) by dipping them without skewering them. I used a dipping tool and it took awhile to master it, if I can say I mastered it at all. Many buckeyes dove into the chocolate like it was a swimming pool and they were on vacation (see sad tiny remaining speck of peanut butter filling on the buckeye second to bottom on the left of the photo). My inability to control the dipping process without a skewer and the softness of the dough yielded some freaky little misshapen buckeyes. I also must’ve got the chocolate too hot, because many buckeyes have annoying large “feet” this year. But they don’t have skewer holes in the filling, by god.

Number eaten: 1 as always. Even though they look a little funky and sad, they taste the same as always. They still taste like effort to me though, so the “making buckeyes as diet plan” concept is still effective.

Nov

25

2011

Photo Friday: National Family Pajama Night

Flipping through the Company Store catalog a few weeks ago, the picture below caught my eye, along with an explanation of “National Family Pajama Night.”

The text said, “The best memories are often the ones where your child reminds you of those special moments long after the original smiles and laughter. This fall, plan a special night for your family creating new memories on National Family Pajama Night. Saturday, November 19th, 2011.”

I don’t think we are the family the Company Store had in mind.

Yeah, special moments with your child, blah, blah, blah. Whatever, look at the cute golden retriever. Wearing PJs.

National Family Pajama Night was on! We were going to make some mother fucking memories up in here.

I briefly considered ordering a matching set of family PJs, as the Company Store clearly intended. However, Dave and I couldn’t agree on a style and Dave also gingerly reminded me of the incongruity of my wish to retire early and the purchase of new, matching PJs when we already own PJs. Well, except Chuck. So we ordered doggy PJs for Chuck. Besides the joy of dressing Chuck in PJs, why was I so excited about this event?

National Family Pajama Night would give me an excuse not just to stay at home and cocoon as is my preference (logy means sluggish, after all), but to celebrate it. We weren’t just going to stay in and lie on the couch watching TV, as usual. Oh no! We were going to rock the staying in: wearing comfy PJs, renting a movie, eating popcorn and homemade two-batter brownies. Slumber party, y’all!

I “liked” National Family Pajama Night on Facebook and checked out the daily “memory-maker” ideas. I briefly considered fort building, but then decided our couch is a perfectly good fort as is. We opted out of the homemade play-doh making and playful puppet show as well.

We started off with a photo session, documenting Chuck’s angst. I should probably feel guilty about this, but I giggled the entire time. What good is having a dog if you can’t use him for entertainment?

I needed to step in and stuff Chuck into those PJs. We followed the Company Store’s sizing chart, but they obviously didn’t account for Chuck’s generous circumference. He’s pretty busty, just like his Mama. He’s a brick house, as I like to sing to him. Chuck looked like an adorable sausage for the 3 minutes we made him wear the PJs.

Our first choice of pre-movie cartoon warm-up (Charlie Brown Thanksgiving) was blocked on streaming video, but we made do with Aqua Teen Hunger Force on DVD. Then we watched Blue Valentine and ate brownies. I’d like to provide a deep, insightful review of the film, but I never really got over the first few minutes. Someone really should have warned me about the dog. Seriously, I didn’t give a shit what happened to anybody after that.

Recipe and pictures of the two batter/Twix-studded brownies coming soon.

Nov

21

2011

Cupcake Maker, Thy Name is Oven

The future of the corner bakery is at risk. The cupcake craze, in particular, has peaked. Baking at home will never be the same.

You may be curious how I know these things. Well, Sunday I saw this George Foreman cupcake grill at Wegmans and then I knew.

This is a game changer, people. Cupcake-making technology is now available to the home baker!

As you may know, I really enjoy a good cupcake. But who can be bothered to make cupcakes at home? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of time.

But now, we have a machine that easily molds batter into cupcake shape. Come on, we’ve all been there…you prepare your cupcake batter and painstakingly hand-mold it into a cupcake shape only to have the batter ooze all over your counter when you let go to form the next one. There had to be a better way!

I also never understood how the professionals got that baked consistency. No matter how long I let my cupcake batter sit, the cupcakes never had the freshly baked quality I love so much in a cupcake. Obviously the professionals knew something I didn’t.

Enter the innovative manufacturing company, Select Brands Inc.

They produce small appliances that allow us to “bring the corner bakery into our own kitchen.” Good news for us, bad news for the corner bakery.

I know what you’re thinking. “OK, so the cupcake maker solves my cupcake making needs. But what if I need to make 4 tiny pies?”

Oh yeah, baby.

Surely they can’t have figured out the pie pop?

Think again! Also, pie pop? Huh?

While Select Brands is working hard to solve all of the most difficult challenges faced by home bakers (one self-contained, kitchen-cluttering baked-good maker at a time), they are being left behind in one area. Are you interested in making eight, and only eight, pre-cut brownies, in a machine that does nothing else? Well, Select Brands can’t help you.

But Bella Cucina offers this problem-solving innovation…because pouring brownie batter in a 9×13 pan and then having to cut them into squares ourselves is beyond most of us.

I love the one Amazon review of this product so, so much. Kelli provides a thorough review of this little uni-tasking machine and concludes, “After trying this device, I could just as easily have turned on the oven & baked a full batch in a pan faster. Frosted them when cool & cut them.”

Whoa! What is this oven thing of which she writes?

Kelli also laments the difficulty of cleaning her brownie maker. Pshaw! As a happy customer rhapsodized in a review of the revolutionary whoopie pie maker, “Are you kidding? For the price this is fabulous.” At these prices ($29.99, but currently on sale at Amazon for $19.99!), why clean them? They’re practically disposable, just buy a new one for each batch!

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This post was inspired by this week’s Studio 30 Plus prompt:

“And then I knew…”

I made two batter, everything but the kitchen sink brownies (I threw Twix bars in them!) over the weekend for National Family Pajama Night. Recipe, photos, and review coming soon. If only I’d had the brownie maker (then I could have wasted over half of the batter! A picture of me, Dave, and (poor tortured) Chuck in our PJs will be this week’s Photo Friday.

Nov

18

2011

(Crappy) Photo Friday: Sting Back to Bass Concert

Possibly the Longest Intro to a Concert Review Ever

Sting is my Yoko Ono. He broke up my favorite band of all time. Unlike Yoko, Sting was actually in the band he broke up so I liked him as much as I hated him. I followed Sting’s solo career hoping it would sound something like the Police. It didn’t.

But I enjoyed his first three solo albums and was mostly with him through the fourth.

In the 80s, I read a Sting quote basically saying he wanted to stop before getting old; something about prancing around on stage as 50-year old being undignified. I remember being panicked at the thought of no more Sting music. Then Mercury Falling came out and I wish 30-year old Sting had convinced 45-year old Sting to stop before pouring that noise poison into my defenseless ears. I didn’t like a single song on that album. Verily, verily I cried unto Sting, “What did I do to deserve country music?”

The televised concerts I saw during the Brand New Day era were awful. He rearranged song after song to sound alike–S-L-O-W and stripped of all their energy. Sting is the artist and the music is his canvas and all that shit, so he can rearrange his own songs however he wants. But I am free to hate the crap out of it.

In his early solo phase, I called his penchant for rearranging “jazzification.” The jazzifying strained, but did not break, my patience. After hearing the “All This Time” re-interpretation of songs, I changed the term to “Stingification.” Because there was no jazziness, no sign of life at all, in these arrangements. Stingification is a term I’m trying to get into more common use. It simply refers to someone pissing all over something you love because they can. This makes me so sad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZdCN5MiAFs

Back to Bass Tour – DAR Constitution Hall – November 10, 2011

Last week, I gambled and went to my first solo Sting show since 1991. The tour was meant to celebrate 25 years of Sting, which implied a focus on his best stuff. I purposely didn’t investigate the set list or the new “best of” CD, because I wanted to keep hope alive.

First things first, Sting is an amazing-looking 60-year old. I was a little taken aback when he came out almost as bald as a cue ball, given the contrast from his recent Grizzly Adams phase. Maybe he just seemed small from my vantage point, but something about his head and how wee he looked made him appear almost elfin.

I didn’t really have any complaints about the five-piece band, you know, other than their not being the Police. The song arrangements were pretty tight and not overly slow. Sting also seemed to be singing more normally than he did during the Police reunion, without any of the annoying mumbling and “scat” vocalizing I got chastised by Sting fans for complaining about on the Police fan club forum (one of my fellow complainers totally nailed it with this, “It’s like the words are running down his chin!”).

The show started out very energetic and promising. But even though everyone sounded great, the energy ground to a halt for me pretty quickly because of the set list. Sting and I simply disagree on what his best work is.

Highlights

The energetic opening of “All This Time, “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic,” “Seven Days,” and “Demolition Man.” “Seven Days” was probably my favorite performance of the night. It was my favorite song from Ten Summoners’ Tales and it sounded like it should sound, which is so unlike Sting it made me smile.

“Fortress Around Your Heart” This is one of the only solo Sting songs I ever thought sounded Police-like so I’ve always loved it. While they played it, I was transported to Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, OH where I saw Sting for the first time with my big brother when I was in seventh grade.

“Message in a Bottle” Sting came back out alone at the end and did it sort of Secret Policeman’s Other Ball style, which made me all warm and fuzzy inside remembering how much I loved Sting in my youth. Look at how lovable Sting was in 1981:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEBbIq2atrw

Disappointments

I couldn’t get over the song selection. If Sting’s written a country song he didn’t play, I’m not aware of it. About half the songs were from Mercury Falling onward. Sting talked more than I’m used to between songs, mostly about song writing and the stories behind his songs. I really enjoyed that, and found it necessary since he played five songs I didn’t even fucking know. Four were from Sacred Love, which I naively never imagined he’d dip into that much because it sucks (and now I’ve just increased my possible human alienation count by as many as a million or so more people, assuming the million or so people who bought this album think it doesn’t suck…sorry, write your own review).

Sting clumped these low energy songs together, sometimes three to five at a time, which didn’t allow the show to build or sustain any momentum. I got bored during those stretches and if it weren’t for the backing vocalist screeching like her pubes were being pulled out on “Hounds of Winter” and the electric violin solos on a couple of songs, I might have fallen asleep.

The backing vocalist was very talented, but her performance on some of the songs got a little too theatrical for my taste. Every line seemed to have deep meaning for her.

As a Police fan, I also have no particular need to hear Sting and his back-up band play a lot of Police songs. He played six and while most sounded OK, I missed Andy on “Driven to Tears.” More importantly, note to Sting: PLEASE. STOP. PLAYING. NEXT TO YOU. LIKE. THAT. Thank you.

Worst of all, Sting didn’t play a single song from my favorite album, Nothing Like the Sun. My two favorite solo songs are “The Lazarus Heart,” and “Be Still My Beating Heart,” and I realize “The Lazarus Heart” wasn’t a single, but “Be Still My Beating Heart” was a rather successful single. Why was it excluded from the show and the “best of” CD? It can’t be as petty as Andy having played on it, right?

Summary

If there’s one guy, just one guy
Who I’m not going to see live again, oh my…
It’s hard to say it
I hate to say it
But it’s probably Sting.

Crappy Photo

Because I still regret talking myself out of taking a camera when Dave and I had front row seats to see the Police in 2007, I now take a camera to every show even though concert pictures are always low-quality crap. Here is my obligatory, proving I was there, crappy picture of Sting and people’s heads. Elfin, no?

Nov

4

2011

Photo Friday (and Recipe!): Toblerone Shortbread

Are any of your family members living away from home? Do you imagine them lonely and longing for homemade treats?

Maybe you want to send them a care package, but don’t know what might ship well?

Perhaps you are lazy, but want to seem giving and skilled at baking?

Make Toblerone Shortbread!

I settled on this recipe for my oldest nephew’s first college care package last year. I figured shortbread would be sturdy and not subject to getting stale while in transit. And there are four Toblerone bars on top and I love Toblerone. In fact, I’m angry with myself for not thinking of adding Toblerone to a baked good myself.

I had my first Toblerone bar in Geneva during my college study abroad semester. I also left my roommate alone in a 40-year old man’s hotel room in Geneva. Alone in the hostel that night, sleep didn’t come easy (although it should have because I didn’t have to hear my roommate’s horse-like snoring) as I imagined what I’d say when calling her parents to inform them their daughter was missing. Or chopped up into bits, which would now, ironically, be an appropriate size for sprinkling on top of shortbread. Luckily she came back unscathed the next morning and I can focus my memories of Switzerland on what is really important–chocolate.

The hardest part of this recipe is getting the dough evenly spread in a 9- x 13-inch pan. I always give up and have thinner edges. These edges are unattractive and thus have to be cut off and eaten by the baker. It’s a rule.

As it turned out, my nephew had never had Toblerone before I sent him these bars last year and he loved them. So I made them for him again last weekend, because I’m giving and skilled at baking. And I’m childless and want visitors when I’m in the nursing home.

RECIPE

Candy Bar Shortbread from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

2/3 cup sugar

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

pinch salt

4 (3.52-ounce) Toblerone bars, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Ms. Goldman says to stack two baking sheets together and line the top sheet with parchment, but I don’t do that because it’s crazy. But you go ahead and do what you have to do.

2. In a mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add flour and salt and mix to make a stiff dough that does not quite hold together.

3. Pat dough into a 9- x 13-inch pan lined with parchment paper (I make the parchment paper into a sling that I can then use to pull the bars out of the pan for easier cutting). Curse when you are unable to spread the dough evenly across the whole pan.

4. Bake until lightly golden (get ready for the best part…), 25 to 40 minutes. Get annoyed that she gives you a FIFTEEN minute range in baking times and make a snide comment to your husband about recipe development.

5. Sprinkle chopped Toblerone on hot uncut shortbread.

6. Let set for about 5 minutes and then spread melted Toblerone over shortbread (I use a small offset spatula).

7. Cut into small squares (I usually get about two dozen, including the thin edges I eat myself).

8. Put cookies in the fridge or freezer to set up.

I always become alarmed at the way the Toblerone oozes off of the cut shortbread edges, so I use the parchment paper sling to slide the cut bars back into the pan before putting the whole pan into the fridge. Of course, then I sort of have to cut the bars again, because the Toblerone spackles the cut bars back together as it hardens.

Pack the cookies and a couple of extra Toblerone bars and send to your ungrateful nephew who’s having far too much fun at college to ever acknowledge the arrival of a package.

Forget to take a picture of the finished bars before you pack up all the good-looking ones. Share a picture of a homely edge piece.