BEER

So here's what I'm thinking: multi-course Fall meal + beer pairings = delicious/sophisticated/drool.
Am I right? Tell me I'm right.
So, potential menu:
Salad of baby greens and pears with warm chevre toasts -- A light, yeasty wheat beer to start things off
Sweet potato gnocchi with fried sage, chestnuts, and browned butter -- Something slightly hoppy, like a pilsner or pale ale, to cut the richness of the butter and chestnuts.
Seared halibut with oyster mushrooms and leeks -- A darker wheat beer to go with the meatiness of the halibut, especially since I'm searing it (poaching or grilling would be a diff story)
Apple butter tart with a gingerbread crust -- A sweet, dark, toasty dark lager or bock. Or maybe just espresso? Any thoughts or feelings either way?

Also, suggestions for particular kinds of the above beers would be great. I am totally clueless in that regard. Choosing the beers might prove slightly uncomfortable, as I feel like a delinquent even walking down the alcohol aisle, so the more of an idea I have about what I'm looking for ahead of time, the better.
Hurra! Bier!

Hi! It's me!

Please don't think I've forgotten you, all three or four of you who read this (or did until I started slacking) because obviously I haven't. Seriously. Would I be saying this to you if I had? No.
Anyhoo, the latest:
Today on the WCC campus there was a little info table set up outside the student center. Usually if there is a table it's the Campus Christian Alliance handing out candy and wearing Praise 106.6 fm shirts, which as far as I know is pretty benign, though I can't say for sure as I have yet to approach that table. Today, though, it wasn't the CCA (Christian Candy Armadillos). Instead it was two guys behind a table covered in enormous posters of President Obama with a superimposed Hitler mustache.
I saw the table on my way to the parking lot, was offended, and kept walking. I was almost to my car when surprised myself by stopping, turning around, and walking back toward the table. I must have temporarily forgotten all of the arguments I have had with my politics-major older brother, Will, and how I always lose, no matter how strong my convictions or airtight my arguments (they never are, they just sound that way in my head). They all end in tears (me) and extreme frustration (him), because I am the emotional equivalent of a dandelion and Will is a logical weedwhacker.
Anyway, I forgot all of that and went to take a stand for Birkenstock-wearing, latte sipping, arugula-munching Democrats everywhere.
I approached the table.
"Hi," I said. 4 guys looked at me. I blazed ahead.
"Hi, I think it's great that you're exercising your first amendment rights and have a table and everything, and I know that your posters are just to stir a little shit, but I think they're a little much." Whew.
guy behind the table: "They're not to stir shit."
me: "Really? You don't think Obama with a Hitler mustache isn't going to get a couple people riled?"
guy: "No, people come over because they are curious and interested, and because it's the truth."
me, starting to get a little upset and voice-quavery: "President Obama is Hitler?"
guy: "He is pushing policies that are exactly like Hitlers."
my left brain: "Bullhunky! You are an insensitive fibbing fibber!"
my right brain: "Weak, don't say that-- only give hard facts that you would stake your life on. Don't say anything that you didn't read in the New York Times or the BBC!"
LB: "But they are wrong! So so SO WRONG!"
RB: "Stop talking."
At this point, another guy came up behind me and said "Well, why couldn't you just have used a regular picture of Obama, instead of that one?" I think he thought he was helping.
I took a deep breath and tried to keep from crying. "Have a nice day," I said, and went and bawled to my mom on the phone in the parking lot.

I didn't understand what those guys meant by the posters and the mustache. For a minute I thought it might be about genocide in Africa or some ethnic cleansing thing along the lines of 'people are dying and it's not Obamas first priority-- Obama = Hitler!'
But that didn't make a ton of sense.
Now I know that it is about healthcare, and it makes even less sense.

Humans can be such jerks.
Insensitive, illogical, fact-twisting, propagandizing oh and not to mention WRONG jerks.

But I love you all.

The latest 2D color and design projects

assignment: paint over a section of a color photograph using grays, replicating the values of each color with values of gray. Sorry it's backwards.
assignment: cut up a picture of a sea creature into at least 12 pieces, fit them together so that they no longer resemble a sea creature, and paint each piece a different shade of gray. Simply put, an abstract 12-step grayscale (but since when is Floyd Blakely into simple assignments?)
It's a sponge coral.
assignment: 4 color grayscale painting

big kissing noise

hey dudes and dudettes!
Sorry I've been so neglectful, it's been a busy week/end (but a super good one!)
I will make up for it, I promise, but not now because I have to go to class.
mmwwAAAA! (big kissy sound)
talk soon, Franny

Home

I'm back in Bellingham after a pleasant 24 hours at home on Orcas! I saw the doggies and Pater and Mater, ran around Mountain Lake, painted things gray for color and design class (so far very little to do with color), and went to the animal shelter.
Orcas animal shelter = SO great seriously it's pretty new and super nice. If I were a cat I wouldn't want to leave. Who needs adoption when you have a carpeted jungle gym and a cat-sized yard (where there are even more furry jungle gyms)?
There are teensy kittens abound at the moment (like seriously tiny kittens, think softball sized) because the humane society in Kent is closing because it is situated under a dam that is going to blow any minute so lady who runs the Orcas shelter called and asked if she could take any animals off of their hands and the answer was yes! 18 cats and 2 dogs! Hence the sea of kittens (if I had to drown I would do it there).
Also, majorly EFFED UP: King County is cutting all funding for animal control. I didn't know that animal control was a disposable service. Hmm... OH WAIT THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S NOT. If any thought went into this decision I see no evidence of it. Humane society or none, animals are abandoned, lost, found, and surrendered all the livelong day. Since when does not having animal control and a humane society erase the need for one? Since never, that's when. King county is a big place. Mondo. Gargantuan. That's a lot of felines and canines with no home, no help, and about a bazillion fleas.
What is going on?
Anyhoo, this Canine is very glad to have a home-- TWO homes!-- where the beds are warm, the jokes are bad, and the kibble is vegetarian.
Goodnight, everybody (and you too, universe, consider yourself officially tucked in)
Love x's 3, Franny

YMCA super cool (Your Manly Carhartts Are super cool)

Today: Light blue chambray button-up shirt, dark indigo-y high-waisted skirt with brass buttons, and yellow leggings.
Nothing interesting to report, unfortunately. Spotted cute Carhartt-wearing boy who works at YMCA again yesterday, have yet to exchange 2 words with him. Not sure how to jumpstart the convo. Perhaps "nice pants you had on 3 days ago", or "the towels are super fresh today"?
I'm working on it.
And by working I mean thinking of ways I might go about working on it.
Now if you'll excuse me I have people to not talk to and cute boys to avoid.

AND...

These guys are really sweet. Sweet like cool and like candy. They are called Pomplamoose check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xycnv87N_BU

Delicieux

Today: Red + taupe stripey knit sweater under a yellow cotton dress with cotton lacey stuff on the hem, and white leggings. Minor issue with length of dress-- walking=potential skirt ride-up situation= opportunity for unwanted exposition of tushie region. I end up adjusting my skirt twice as often as usual which is saying something coming from a serial skirt adjuster.
I look okay standing still, though, so that's something. I guess.
Weird situation in French this morning: Madame George asked us to call out adjectives which she then wrote on the board in their masculine and feminine forms. One girl didn't know what an adjective was so a guy explained it to her as "a word that describes another word". Mme. George asked him to be more specific ("quel type de mot?"), and he said "a verb".
FALSE. Try noun, dummy.
But anyway, that's not the weird part (just the pathetic part). The weird part is that, after the usual "belle, amusante, intelligente, sportif, grand, petit, etc.", I said "Delicieux!" (I do encounter a great many nouns that are delicieux). Mme. George looked slightly taken aback at that, but recovered quickly and said "Delicieux? Un person?"
"Ooooh, hmmm, murmur murmer" went the class.
"Well, no, not a person", I said, "I was thinking more along the lines of foody nouns-"
But no one heard me because my throat got spontaneously scratchy and everyone was still oohing and murmuring. Mme. George looked right at me and said "Pas en classe, sil vous plait, pas en classe."
So now she (and everyone else) think that I am some kind of sex fiend that says super inappropriate things in class. If only they knew. I am really just a food fiend who says "delicieux!" in class-- "delicieux" being absolutely and indisputably an adjective, I think you will all agree. But that's not what matters. What matters is that I am a weirdo sex fiend in the eyes of my peers. Peers that wouldn't know an adjective if it landed in their dreadlocks. Or cream foundation.
Good. We're even.

Roald Dahl it aint...

Last week in creative writing we wrote 101 word short stories, this is mine:

The trumpet rested on the floor of the dam, bell yawning into the ground where Ynez had abandoned it. It was Log Jam night at The Lodge and she was going with that Bucktooth boy. Bijou peeked out from the kitchen where she was garnishing a trout soufflé with cedar shavings. Her whiskers twitched with excitement at the lonely trumpet on the floor. Her parents at Jude’s first water polo game, her sister on a date, Bijou had waited for a moment such as this since the trumpet first arrived. Wiggling the valves, Bijou puffed her cheeks and tootled the blues.

ps- Bijou is obvi a beaver, not a cat as some like to think. I have yet to meet a cedar shaving-eating cat.

Benny and Joon, Mt. Rainier, and stripey sweaters

Ze palette du jour!
I just re-watched Benny and Joon and have been re-convinced that it is perhaps the loveliest movie of all time. The young Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson are so charming I giggled all the way through. If you are ever in the mood to be tickled beyond pink (think puce or maybe fuschia) I HIGHLY suggest watching Benny and Joon.
Also, read this article in today's New York Times. It is super spif because it is a) about backpacking in Washington, b) well-written, and c) a total kick in the pants:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/travel/04wonderland.html

Yesterday mumsters and I went shopping in an effort to kickstart my latest style revolution. My last style rev was last year when I decided that goofball socks pulled up over leggings were the cat's Pjammas. Admittedly they were very happening socks-- there were ones with tractors on them, periodic table ones, green dinosaur ones, and yellow ones that looked like a goldfish was swallowing your leg-- totally hip, but rather a step backward in the dressing like a grownup department.
So now I am going for slightly more refined-- still super colorful, just fewer of them at a time. Lots of stripey things-- sweaters and sweater-y shirts, mostly, and an excellent blue stripey pleated skirt. Also some opaque tights in goldenrod, inky blue, heather gray, and red cable knit.
JEEBUS I just said goldenrod and inky blue! Now you know what a name-dropping color snob I am.
Well, it is a bright and blustery Fall day outside so I am going to go out and toodle about in it!
Warm snuggies, Franny

Score one for the stripey sweater!

Cute boy (name: Tyson) who works at the Co-op told me "cool sweater!" and "it looks fantabulous!"
It think I'll wear this sweater everyday.

Du jour

Ze colors du jour: black and white striped cashmere sweater, bluey-grey cotton skirt, dark grey leggings, and yellow rainboots. I think maybe I am okey dokey so far on my quest to halt all visual offense to innocent passersby. Or maybe not all, depending on their sensitivity to yellow rainboots (I don't buy this argument in the least, as having an aversion to yellow rainboots is like not liking chocolate: you are either waiting to be enlightened or you are lying, and in either case we are probably not friends). Perhaps reducing visual offense is a better primary goal because the likelihood of my clothes not putting a strain on anyone's corneas for ever and always is teensymicrobaby at best.
Up up and away, sweet chiclets!

Laying Off the Plaid

I am a hobo. I am convinced. It is the only plausible explanation for my wardrobe. It would also explain why I spent part of my afternoon hunched under a parking garage overhang that smelled of pee. Granted, that was spontaneous and hopefully a one-time occurence, BUT totally hoboesque behavior, you must agree.
The wardrobe, on the other hand, NOT a one-time thing. The primary colored ensembles, the wacky contrasting leggings, and the 90% Exchange-powered getups are making me self-conscious for the first time in... forever? We know me, we know my style, we also know that if I am self-conscious then something is majorly amuck (probs the plaid-on-plaid thing I sometimes end up wearing-- always experimental, never entirely successful).
So, in attempt to remedy my once original now rapidly approaching tacky tacksville dressing habits, I ask you this favor: if you ever see me step out sporting more than 3 colors 2 or more spaces away from each other on the color wheel, please stop me, spin me back around, and give me a gentle nudge in the direction of my closet. Hopefully I will see sense and do a little switcharoodle into one of the following combos: