summertime, and the living is easy

i've accepted the offer to work in oxford again this summer!

[when i was offered the job to read AP exams again this summer, i was temporarily swayed by the cash they were offering me...and then i went back and read my blog entries from those 7 long days in daytona beach and promptly declined.  that was NO FUN.  when i was offered this job in oxford, i read back over my entries from last summer, got extremely nostalgic, and of course accepted.  thank you, blog, for those memories.]

i can't wait for: reunions with friends, pubs, marks & spencer's sandwiches, long hours of daylight, exploring new places.  SUMMER.  i'm really really lucky to have made good friends through this job and really really happy that they've asked me back again this summer!

and: to make me the luckiest girl alive: other claire got a job in cambridge with the same company!  i'm giddy.  we won't be in the same city but we will be doing the same job, and i can't wait to share this experience with her.  and hang out with her on our days off!

ahead of schedule

i know it will get cold again.  my heart doesn't want to believe it, but my brain knows it is true.  it's february 27th.  it will get cold again.

but aren't i allowed to revel in this for now?  and for the next 10 days, assuming the weather forecast isn't horribly wrong?  the few flowering trees, the ambitious daffodils, the light blue sky, the sun.

i'm reveling.  you can't stop me.

72

degrees outside.

after yoga this morning i literally sat outside for twenty minutes with my face pointed to the sun.  soaking it in.

the 10 day forecast shows highs in the 60s or 70s every day.

you are welcome to hate me.

hello, spring.  i love you.

oops

recently i had been keeping track of the number of posts i've made on this blog in total, and i realized i was approaching 500.  ooh - a nice milestone to note!  and then i forgot about it and missed 500.  so here is an exciting note to commemorate my 508th posting!  so lame, i know.  but yeah: thanks for following along for some or all of those 508 entries.  i love to write (duh) and i've found it's more fun to write when people read it (also perhaps a duh moment).  if you read, know that it continues to mean a lot to me.

okay-boring-let's-move-on.

do you guys know about the radiolab podcast?  it's science-y/culture-y true stories, and each episode has a theme.  it's like a science-y this american life.  a couple weeks ago the episode's theme was "lost and found," and included this story, one of the most incredible i've ever heard on the show.  if you have 15 minutes, you will not regret listening to this: "finding emilie".

gay men draw butch things

when my friends and i go to the pizza place down the street from my house for trivia on tuesday nights, we have a good time.  regardless of whether we win, but obviously winning is more fun.  DUH.  at the end of the night there are usually leftovers to be transported home in white pizza boxes, and this blank surface has inspired a new game: gay men draw butch things.

here is how the game works.  a gay man (usually willis) is instructed by a straight man to draw something butch.  week 1: a tractor.  and a bass fish.  the tractor ended up with squiggly wheels and the bass fish had a frenchy hat and mustache.  not very butch.  but pretty funny.  week 2: willis is instructed to draw the delorean from back to the future.  it is tragic.  and thus HILARIOUS.  i kept meaning to get photos of these pizza boxes, but never got around to it before throwing them away once the pizza was eaten.  this week (week 3): willis is instructed draw a G6.  now, willis is relatively butch because he knew what a G6 was (a plane, apparently), but this is what he drew.  i made fun of him STEP BY STEP, particularly when what i thought was going to be the wings turned out to be the body of the plane.  that willis - he's tricky!

this is the weirdest plane ever.  it looks kind of like the oscar mayer weinermobile with oddly shaped wings.  and somehow the perspective is off...so we're looking at a plane from the side and from up above at the same time.

stay tuned for more iterations of this game that never fails to make me laugh.

yummmm

i made this for dinner last night: chicken enchiladas verdes, from real simple magazine.  except i obviously didn't make them with chicken.  i used black beans instead and only made a half recipe, and it was DELICIOUS.  you should FOR SURE try this recipe...i tend to use beans, corn, and flour tortillas only to make burritos or quesadillas (quicker recipes than this one), but this didn't take much time at all and was LOTS yummier.

if you're interested (and boy am i): countdown to spring break = 8.5 school days!

i have been sick.

this is why i haven't blogged in a couple days.  sometimes i don't blog because fun! exciting! things are going on in my life and i'm too busy to write every day.  this is the less fun and less exciting reason to not blog: i felt like CRAP on friday, a little better on saturday, and a little better today.  needless to say, i watched a lot of movies this weekend (despicable me, the social network, the double hour, multiple episodes of 30 rock) and wore my pajamas for the majority of the time.  i slowed down, and it was much needed.

on friday, when i felt horrible, my main complaint was a really really sore throat.  i decided this was partially because of the dry winter air and the breathing in of heated air while sleeping.  my work friend vanessa, who is a mom (moms know about these things), suggested saline nose spray (an awesome invention that has helped so much) and confirmed my desire for a humidifier to make the air nicer to breathe.  so i bought one.  I AM MY MOTHER, EXAMPLE #4.  in my fever-y haze at target, i was pointed to the humidifier aisle (um, i mean shelf), where the only two humidifiers for sale were shaped like an elephant or shaped like a frog.  apparently humidifiers are common for children?  i bought the frog.

this MAY be the most ridiculous thing i own, but i breathed a lot easier after sleeping with this on, and my throat is almost back to normal.  i heart my humidifier.

make fun of me all you want.

i am my mother, example #3

i wanted to read some books really badly.  but i didn't want to buy them.  so i had the library reserve them for me.  THIS IS GENIUS.  my mom has done this all my life - she always has her name on the list at the library for lots of different books.  how am i just now figuring out that this is a good idea???

one book is really popular right now (it is a young adult book, so i won't embarrass myself by listing it here just yet), so i had to get on the waiting list.  i am #28 currently, but there are 39 copies "in the system" (my county had 15 library branches), so hopefully it won't take me long to get it.  and you can monitor where you are on the list by logging on to the library's website.  the other book lives at a library that isn't MY branch of the library, so my library will get it from the other library for me.  and then the books will be waiting for me.  GENIUS.

and the library is free.  i mean seriously, people.  TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!!

AND my library is right next door to a yummy frozen yogurt place.  can we say "frozen yogurt consumption is about to go up exponentially"?

today in chapel one of the seniors was speaking about black history month, and she gave me a shout out for what we've been talking about in our AP government class (we're finishing the unit on civil rights).  and she called me "young, inspiring, and beautiful."

then she said, "extra credit?"

it made my day either way.

worst way to start the day:

you wake up a little late and have to rush to get ready.
you have to proctor detention - both boring and earlier than you normally get to work.  leaving the house at 6:40am?  LAME.
nothing is on the radiooooooooo.
you want to turn right but the car in front of you at the intersection is turning left, so you have to wait a really long timeeeeeeee.
you are dreading a meeting you have at the end of the day...so you'll be dreading it all day.  awesome.

how to turn this day around:
you arrive at work and the meeting you've been dreading is cancelled.
woo hoo!
your hair does look pretty good today.
and you are wearing an outfit that makes you feel cute.
and you do have a fun lesson planned for your classes today.
maybe today won't suck after all.

gym class stereotypes

with short-sleeve season somewhat upon us, i've decided to go back to the weightlifting classes at the gym.  i really like these classes - weightlifting mixed up with squats and ab work, led by a russian-american lady with a big butt (this makes me feel good about myself - instructors who have perfect bodies piss me off) who plays great music.  using weights intimidated me before this class, but it makes me appreciate how good you can feel after concentrating on specific muscles.  i used to go to this class frequently but i've slacked off recently.  now i'm back!  mondays at 4:30pm.  hooray.  as i was waiting for the class to start i wrote this post in my head.

in every gym class the following stereotypes exist.  (yoga classes have different stereotypes, which i will discuss at a later date.)  let me introduce you to them.

stereotypical person [henceforth abbreviated SP] #1: the person who has no rhythm and does the steps exactly opposite from the rest of the class.  as the class steps left then right, she steps right then left.  left arm up?  she puts her right arm up.  it's as if she HAS rhythm, just can't get on the beat.  today SP#1 was combined with SP#2: the person who isn't wearing enough clothing for her body size.  a sports bra and skintight pants with some fat rolls spilling over?  not okay.  NOT OKAY ON A SKINNY PERSON, LET ALONE A LARGER PERSON.

SP#3: the old man in a class full of women.  i remember our old man from when i went to this class in the fall.  he looks exactly like mr. magoo, but with big glasses.  he is nonthreatening and entertaining to watch.

[from here]

SP#4: some really fit old ladies who can do the moves twelve times better than you.  infuriating.

SP#5: person who is so fit that the normal class isn't enough for her and her bulging leg muscles, so she attaches weights to her wrists and ankles.

what stereotypes am i missing??

things liz lemon has said that apply to my life, part 1

from season 2:
jack: "lemon, you're here early!"
liz lemon: "well, i gave up caffeine, so i've been going to bed at 5:30."

sometimes i have trouble staying up long enough to not make my bedtime embarrassing.  fortunately, this happens to my roommate, too.  we have a rule: you can't go to bed before 9pm.  any time before 9pm is embarrassing; any time after 9pm is acceptable.

note: we sometimes break this rule.

i did not think 30 rock was funny when it first came out.  i watched the premiere and was like "that sucked."  then every cool person thought it was a great show.  so i tried the premiere again (on netflix).  it still sucked.  then cool people continued to love it.  so i watched more than one episode and guess what?  it gets much better!  now i am fully on board and am slowly making my way through past seasons on netflix (thank god for netflix's "watch instantly" feature).  30 rock takes some getting used to (but i recall that the office did, too), but it is hilarious and i enjoy it very much.

the end.

"happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling."
--margaret lee runbeck

coooooooooookies

on january 15th i was introduced to the best cookies ever.

you should know that i'm not a cookie person.  i'm not really a sweets person, but if i'm going to eat something sweet it should be nice and squishy like a cupcake.

and then my friend sarah made the most incredible cookies ever and i changed my mind.  it starts with sugar cookies (this recipe makes cookies that are chewier and softer than most sugar cookies i've had before - perhaps why i fell so desperately in love).

then you make cookie sandwiches.  sarah put chocolate ganache and pistachio cream in the middle.  honestly, i couldn't taste the pistachio cream very much, but maybe it is a magic ingredient that makes everything else taste better.  when i got to whole foods, they didn't have pistachio cream, so i got chestnut cream instead.  i have no idea what chestnut cream is, but it tastes like sweet.  or, as my sister would say: it tastes like diabetes.

see what i mean - the chestnut cream just looks like sticky sweetness.  that's what it is.  plus chestnuts.  my chocolate ganache doesn't look like it's delicious, but don't worry: it is.

perfect little sandwich!

lots of perfect little sandwiches!  the recipe probably made 60 sugar cookies (i made them pretty small), so 30 sandwiches.  i brought about 10 to school to give to friends, took about 10 over to willis's house one night, and joey and i ate the other 10.  or: i ate about 7 of them and joey ate about 3.  oh, and this was round two of making them (they are so easy to make...plus i have this weird jar of chestnut cream just hanging out in my fridge...): round one ended with cookies going to abby and aaron, me and joey, and my the staff of favorite bar (the bartenders, musician, and bouncer dude at the door).  yes, i brought a ziploc bag of cookies to a bar.  what of it?

here's sarah's recipe (from america's test kitchen's "baker's illustrated" cookbook - she copied it down for me).  these cookies are so good that you will feel like a professional chef and all around you should/will regard you that way.  my roommate, for example, looked like he needed to sit down when he first tried them - that was how intense the look of happiness on his face was.


Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies:

2 c. flour (all purpose)
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2 sticks butter (16 tbs)
1 c sugar (plus more for rolling dough)
1 tbs light brown sugar
1 egg
1 ½ tsp vanilla

1. Preheat to 375. Adjust oven racks to upper and lower 1/3. Prepare 2 baking sheets (parchment, silpat, or just grease the pans)
2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt to combine.
3. In an electric mixer (or by hand) cream the butter with the sugars. Add the egg and the vanilla and beat on low until combined (30 seconds).
4. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and beat on low until just combined (30 seconds).
5. Put about ½ cup of sugar in a bowl. Fill another bowl with cold water. Dip your hands in the water and shake off any excess (to keep hands from sticking to the dough). Roll about a tablespoon of dough into a ball. Roll the ball in sugar, then place it on the pan. Repeat until you’re done with the dough, placing balls about 2 inches apart. You should get about 12 per sheet and make about 24. (For the sandwiches, I made them much smaller and there were about 40).
6. Get a drinking glass with a flat bottom. Grease the bottom of the glass and dip it in sugar to keep it from sticking. Flatten the dough balls until they’re about ¾ in thick. Don’t over flatted (I made that mistake. It doesn’t take much pressure to get it right. Don’t squish.) You’ll need to dip the glass back in sugar every 2-3 cookies.
7. Bake until cookies are golden brown around the edges and very lightly colored in the centers, 15-18 min [miss claire note: for my little ones i only cooked them for 9 minutes]. Cool on the pan for 10 min and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.

For sandwiches, make ganache:

¾ c heavy cream (or half and half)
2 tbs butter
6 oz chocolate (dark, bittersweet, or semisweet)
1 tbs cognac

Heat cream and butter in the microwave on high until bubbling, about 1.5 min (or bring to simmer on the stove). Chop up chocolate by hand or in food processor. Pour hot cream over chopped chocolate and let it sit for 5 min. With a whisk, mix until smooth. Let sit at room temp at least an hour or overnight to develop texture. Will keep in the fridge for weeks.

[obviously: spread one cookie with chestnut cream, one with ganache, and smush together.  repeat.  store in a tupperware on the counter - they are better after a day of sitting, i think - they soften up a bit.]

never graduate

i couldn't find the ad i wanted - from the late '90s (i think): two mice, injected with blood from a duke basketball player (wojo) and a unc basketball player, fight it out (does anyone remember this?  the internet is not being helpful), so this will have to do:



go duke!

go to hell, carolina, go to hell!

you know what i'll be doing tonight at 9pm: watching the duke-unc game at the local duke club bar.  actually, you might not have known that...since i am an old lady who doesn't like to leave her house to watch a game that starts that late.  i won't get home until 11:30 at the earliest, and that is an exhausting idea.  my old-lady-ness has been mocked, though, so i'm going to (wo)man up and go out to watch the game with my duke friends.  it'll be more fun, certainly, than watching it at home.  and i can always take a nap (if i set more than one alarm) beforehand.

rip 'em up, tear 'em up, give 'em hell DUKE!

bags

i keep meaning to show you the two cutest bags ever - both birthday presents from back in november.  becky bought me this clutch for when i go out in the evenings and don't need to carry a lot, but want a cute bag - it fits my phone and chapstick and ID and money:

I LOVE IT.  i actually bought this clutch for becky for HER birthday, but then perhaps coveted it a bit much and she got the hint.  my hints aren't usually very covert.  the floral print is a cherry red color, but that didn't show up as well in this picture.  i get huge compliments when i carry this.

jenny and veronica got me this bag for my birthday, and it has become my everyday bag for carrying around my wallet/phone/keys/alltheotherthingsineed.

here's the fabric up close:

the fabric is corduroy and it's perfect for fall and winter.  this was one of those presents where you know that the person who gave it to you really knows you.  this bag is so ME.  i'm already mourning for the day when spring is here and this won't feel seasonal anymore.  but you never know - i might just keep carrying it around.

let's put that on the list of things that are good about winter: corduroy, the fabric.  i can't think of anything else right now.  okay, i can: heavy comforters.  hot showers.  trader joe's sea salt caramels.  christmas.  christmas break.

that's about all i've got.

(both bags are from etsy.  obviously.)

new celebrity crush:

waldemar torenstra.

(photo from here)

what?  you're not up on your dutch film stars?  shocking.

for christmas dad got me a membership to a film club that screens foreign and independent movies two sundays a month in a movie theater in atlanta.  a film professor from emory picks the movies and leads a discussion/analysis afterward.  today was the first showing, and we saw bride flight which was WONDERFUL and i've decided that i'm going to marry waldemar torenstra.  the film is in both english and dutch, and he speaks pretty good english (with a new zealand accent) in parts of the movie, so don't worry: i think we'll be able to communicate.  as this is the only potential barrier to our love, expect the wedding invitations soon.

this is a three year old reciting one of my favorite poems.*  CUTENESS ABOUNDS!  shout out to joey for sending this to me!



*note: i have a lot of favorite poems.  but most t.s. eliot and billy collins and sylvia plath poems make the list.

rainy friday

today: rainy, cold, friday.
me: sick, tired, wishing i was in my pajamas already.
tonight's plan: the couch, pajamas, lots of movies.

I PRETTY MUCH CAN'T WAIT.

you'll be happy to know that after my 6.5 hour nap on wednesday and then watching the duke game, i was able to fall back asleep for about 4 hours (aka until my alarm went off).  and yet i still feel like i've got a sleep deficiency. what am i, an 18 year old boy?

[side note: my parents' best friends have four kids who are 1, 3, 5, and 7 years older than me.  i remember when the oldest boy (barney) came home from college for the first time - i would have been 11ish and he would have been 18ish - and becky and i went over to their house to play with the kids who were closer to our age, as we often did.  and barney laid on the living room floor, face down, and slept for like the whole day.  while we played games around him.  he was the first college student i knew, and i couldn't believe a person could sleep that long or with that much noise.  vivid memory from my childhood.]

how to screw up your sleeping schedule, by miss claire

step 1: be a little bit sick.  sore throat.  yuckkkkkk.

step 2: decide to take a nap so you can stay awake for the duke basketball game that night.  get in bed at 5:30pm, but SET YOUR ALARM (professional move) for 6:30pm.

step 3: wake up at 12:05am, having somehow turned the alarm off in your sleep and thus made a one hour nap into a six and a half hour nap.

this takes talent, folks.  please be impressed.  i'll now be having dinner and watching the duke game while trying not to wake up my roommate (aka a normal human being on a normal sleep schedule) and then...going back to sleep???  i do have to, you know, GO TO WORK IN SEVEN HOURS.

january: 1 & 2

one of the bloggers i read mentioned a goal for herself: to read 50 books in 2011.  i am not that ambitious, mostly because i also like, you know, my friends and television and sleeping, and reading a book a week would cut down on those things.  but i like the premise.  so i've set an informal goal for myself of reading 25 books in 2011 (i read 15 in 2010).  i like reading, but sometimes i don't dedicate enough time to it...i read 10 pages a night before i go to bed and thus never really get into (or through) the book.  by going to bed half an hour earlier when possible i can get some good reading in and give myself a chance to really relax before falling asleep.

if you care to follow along, i'll be trying to read two books a month in order to reach my goal of 25 this year.

here is january - a successful two books read!


reading lolita in tehran, by azar nafisi (loved the descriptions of what life was/is like in iran...got tired of her literary analysis and criticism, especially when she talked about henry james, whom i've never read.  i skipped whole chapters.*  but honestly, i felt she over did the discussions nabokov and fitzgerald and austen, and i HAVE read them.  was glad i read this book, but was happy to be done with it, too.)

one day, by david nicholls (lindsey lent this to me, and i really enjoyed it - i read the last hundred pages all in one day [har har har - but it's true!], wanting to get to the end of the book.  the premise: you see the lives of two friends on one day only - july 15th - over the course of 20 years.  i liked that restriction - that we can learn about them only what we see and what they're thinking on that one day a year.  i would definitely recommend this one.  it's a little chick-lit-y, so those who are not interested in that should beware.)


*blog reader: "but miss claire, if you skipped whole chapters how does this book count towards your total?  you are a liar and a cheat."
miss claire: "i make the rules, damn it, and skipping perhaps 30 pages of a 350 page book is okay.  i got the gist of things."

roasted sweet potato salad with black beans and chile dressing

you should make this tonight - it's so so so good.

"we may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but i know how we treat one another is entirely up to us."
--president obama, in tucson

you and me

on friday night i saw blue valentine, a movie that was at times really really hard to watch, at times SO sweet, at times depressing.  it was an emotional rollercoaster for sure.  i really liked it, though, and found the story so compelling...and i have a new-found crush on ryan gosling.

big shout out to erica, who saw this movie before we did and played this song for us when we were in nashville.  for the first thirty seconds i was like, "what IS this song?" and now of course i've purchased it from itunes.



even more interesting is the story behind it - experts don't really know who wrote or performed the song. i love me a good mystery.