Work was nuts today, especially since I was out on Friday and some of my cow-orkers apparently just waited around for me to come back instead of sending an email themselves. Plus I had 2 committee meetings (unusual - we try not to do that unless we absolutely can't avoid it) but luckily 1 only lasted 15 minutes, so I was able to knock out the minutes in about a similar amount of time. *g*

Yesterday I roasted some ears of corn, and ate 2 for lunch and then scraped the other 3 into a big bowl and the added some crumbled up bacon, 2 pints of really beautiful grape tomatoes, some little pearls of fresh mozzarella, a sliced vidalia onion, and some salt and pepper, oregano, basil, rosemary, and thyme, and dressed it all with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Delicious! I will make some orzo to add to it for lunch over the next couple of days and I am looking forward to it.

I also finally hit upon a good way to cook hotdogs without a grill - in the broiler. I don't eat them very often but a couple times during the summer I get a craving, so when they go on sale, I sometimes snag a pack and some soft, cheap buns to eat with them. Of course, since I have the palate of a 5-year-old, I still prefer ketchup on my hotdogs, but since I live alone, there's no one here to judge me. *g*

*The Dodgers, not the Mets. Sigh.

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I slept very poorly last night and woke up with a blinding headache and some serious nausea, so I called out of work and went back to bed for a couple of hours.

I keep meaning to post then forgetting what I want to say, since it's mostly just about work. I did get several amazing photos of Baby Miss L in a Spider-Gwen outfit with a hood (with a glittery pink mask on it), a cute blue spider on the torso (when I first saw it, I admit my initial response was "Khaji Da?" so it's more scarab than spider but also she's 2 and a half, so) and a skirt decorated with webbing. It's so cute and she apparently approved of it by saying "Spider-Man! Spider-Man!" in her specific toddler lingo. And the Superman dress finally arrived so I hope to see pictures of that soon, too! Also, she has taken to carrying her Easter basket over her shoulder like a purse and calling it her bag, so she is definitely getting a headstart on her fashionista personality.

In other news, I was reading some fic I was otherwise enjoying but I will never ever ever understand why in EVERY SINGLE FANDOM I have ever read fic in, there are some gobsmackingly awful non-canon nicknames that proliferate. Sometimes for characters who already have a canonical nickname, so why? I mean, I get that the use of a nickname can be intimacy marker (much like the switch from last name to first name, or full first name to canon nickname), but the fact is, none of the characters this is applied to would ever allow themselves to be called these names by ANYONE, not even an intimate partner. The worst is when Jason calls Talia "Tals." NO. WHO thinks TALIA AL GHUL, DAUGHTER OF THE DEMON, is going to let ANYONE call her "Tals." No, really, meet me in the parking lot, I just have some questions.

I also don't understand when people apologize for...well, anything really, in their author's notes, but especially when they say shit like, "Sorry this chapter is mostly dialogue! We'll get back to the introspection soon!" I mean, I guess some people don't like dialogue??? Obviously mileage varies. But it is frequently the best part of a story for me. If your story holds off on dialogue for too long in favor of maundering introspection, I will likely wander away and never come back (like, obviously if it's a 900-word plotless character ramble that's fine, but then you are not posting it in chapters, at least I'd hope not).

I guess if you're not confident in your character voices, dialogue can be difficult, but you're still going to need to get the character voice right in the narration/introspection, and some characters are not really going to be doing a lot of introspection at all, even in their own heads, so it's even harder to get them right. Which is probably when it's time to revisit canon. But I admit, dialogue is pretty much the easiest thing I find to write, so possibly it's just me.

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I slept through for a full 7 hours last night! right up until my alarm went off, actually, without waking up once!

I also got some fantastic videos of Baby Miss L going nuts about TATOES and BROCCOLI and also some mouse game she plays on my sister's tablet. She is such a character! <333

I haven't started the new season of Poker Face or Andor yet - I am still in HGTV mode. No emotional investment, and it satisfies both my nosiness about other people's houses and my need to be judgy about other people's aesthetic taste without hurting anyone's feelings.

Every time someone says they want to go BOLD with color and their palette is black and white I want to punch them. (I'm not saying black and white can't be a bold choice, just that it's not a bold COLOR choice.) Everyone wants POPS of COLOR but then the color turns out to be greige. I just...find it wearisome sometimes. I get it if you are doing a quick refresh in order to sell, since allegedly neutrals sell better? But these are people supposedly doing their "forever homes" or their "dream homes" so why not pick something interesting? At least a little bit? In the downstairs powder room??? I'm begging you, please!

Ahem.

If you asked me what my preferred home decor aesthetic is, I would say beachy with lots of blues and greens in various shades, and okay, a lot of white, a little gray, and some occasional wood or wicker accents. Definitely would want hardwood floors (or LVP that looked like hardwood). I'd want a large zero-access shower with a built-in bench with some fancy tile, and I wouldn't want to waste space on a tub (or double sinks, since I live alone), but I would like more linen/towel storage.

I would obviously want a large chef's kitchen, with FULL SIZE appliances and a big range - I don't go for that countertop stovetop and wall oven set up, I'd want a bigass stove with six burners - and I certainly wouldn't put it (or the sink) on an island. I'd like a large butcher block work surface and a breakfast nook with an eastern exposure, but don't need a formal dining room or a ginormous island. I do like white upper cabinets, probably with reeded glass doors, and then a color on the lower cabinets - a cobalt blue, maybe, or a deep teal.

The place I might go a little modern/industrial/maybe even avant garde would be in the light fixtures. I have seen some WILD chandeliers and lighting options on these shows and some of them are gorgeous.

Obviously I worked a lot of this out in the time between going into contract on my apartment and finally closing, so I was able to pick stuff out that all kind of went together, because I absolutely understand being a renter for years and not really being able to put your stamp on a place. (all the people who already live in their own houses who have no sense of their own style, though - they kind of baffle me, because didn't they paint/decorate their house? I get maybe not knowing what your architectural style is but these are mainly people in their 30s and older - they should have some sense of what they like, shouldn't they, even if they can't pin it to a specific style?)

Anyway, I don't need people to do their own homes in my preferred style, and some of these homes turn out to be gorgeous, but it would be nice if everyone wasn't doing the same things across several different home renovation shows. I guess HGTV has a bit of a house style? But if you've watched any of it, you can see why Keith and Evan from Bargain Block are my favorites - they actually do a lot of fun different things (or they used to, anyway), where even if it isn't something I'd choose, it still has a strong sense of style.

*

I'm so tired of people blowing their deadlines and making it my problem. But at the super last minute, it did finally come together so I was able to log off at 3 pm (it's the first Summer Friday of 2025, and we get to sign off at 2:30 until Labor Day).

My sister is having a birthday bbq tomorrow for my oldest and youngest nieces, who share a birthday, and one requested Smitten Kitchen confetti cookies (even though I told her I found them too sweet) and the other requested brownies (which is why I asked about brownie recipes yesterday - I don't make them often anymore so I don't have a go-to recipe). I couldn't lay hands on dutched cocoa for love or money today, but it turns out that the King Arthur "triple cocoa" or whatever it's called, works in recipes calling for dutched cocoa, and I have that. *hands* But like, nobody even has Hershey's special dark! I was surprised by that. Anyway I ended up making these King Arthur Fudge Brownies and they smell fantastic, though next time I will probably try the microwave to melt the butter instead of doing it on the stove - I did it in a pot on the stove and even on low heat, it got so hot that I had to wait like 30 minutes for it to cool to the temperature required by the recipe (110° - 120°F), so it took a lot longer than I planned for. Other than that, the recipe is really easy. I guess because you beat the cocoa into the eggs, you don't have to worry about the hot butter/sugar mixture scrambling them (you laugh, but that happened to me once with the old mascarpone brownies recipe when I added the melted butter!).

I hope they both enjoy them!

I also bought a banana squishmallow for Baby Miss L, because her response to them has been A++ hilarious every time.

Hopefully the weather tomorrow cooperates. It has rained here so much. Today it rained all morning and then the sun came out late in the afternoon, and then...it poured while the sun was out for a while, and the temperature has lingered in the low 60s. I mean, I'll take the cooler temps for sure, especially at night, but I'm really tired of the rain.

In other news, last night I fell asleep on the couch when I was trying to read, so when I woke up, I decided to just go to bed, and for once, couch sleepy did translate to bed sleepy and I ended up sleeping for almost 10 hours last night! It was glorious! But I don't think I can realistically make myself go to bed at 10:15 every night. *glances at clock* I mean...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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So it turns out that all that rain and wind last night was due to a nor'easter. In late May. What the actual fuck. But climate change is a hoax.

Anyway, hit me with your favorite brownie recipes! I myself prefer them fudgy instead of cakey, but I am open to variations.

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Today was chilly and rainy - it was hard to get out of bed, were I was so cozy and warm. Part of me was like, is it May 21st or March 21st? I like it being cooler at night, but I'm so tired of all the rain.

I was supposed to go into the office yesterday, but my meeting got moved to tomorrow on Zoom, so I didn't have to go in. Luckily, my boss understands that I'm much more productive at home, and doesn't demand my presence more than once a month or so (if that). It's just been stupidly busy with the search committee stuff, though she and I are getting ourselves through it by clinging to the idea that once the search firm is on board, there will be significantly less of that work on our plates. *fingers crossed*

Meanwhile, I read another book:

What I've just finished: Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano, the second book in the series. I enjoyed it, but I couldn't think too hard about any of it - just keep it light and breezy - because otherwise it's very hard to believe some of the things the characters choose to do.

What I'm reading now/next: Probably the next book in the series, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, since I don't want to lose momentum (okay, I did lose momentum between books 1 and 2 - I had 2 open in a tab for weeks before I actually settled into reading it; sometimes all I want is Batfamily, which is still my main interest in fic-reading these days, for whatever reason).

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