Movin' on out:

http://gratuitousruffles.blogspot.com

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

And my body wants to me to barf, sleep, run a marathon, and never eat anything ever again. It is NOT nine-thirty PM. It is TWO-THIRTY PM. Must resist urge to sleep. Ughhhh...

Israel was fantastic. Wayyy too much effort to go into detail here, but it was truly amazing. Some highlights:

1. I finally get the whole importance-of-having-a-home-for-Jews thing. It wasn't until I got to Israel that I realized what a truly Christian country we live in, and how wonderful it is to be in a place where I am the ethnic majority (I don't say "religious" because there are a lot of secular Jews in Israel, and it really is a matter of culture, not faith). Except I did get a little tired of the whole kosher thing. Ham and cheese sandwich plz.

2. Jerusalem is gorgeous- the whole city is made of white stone, and built into the mountains. Tel Aviv is like NYC on the beach, and the Mediterranean is wonderful and puts the Jersey shore to shame (well, duh).

3. I met so many fascinating people: lots of soldiers (everyone has to join the army at 18, there were always a bunch of kids hanging around in green jumpsuits with M-16s slung on their backs), a wonderful family that was like the Israeli equivalent of my own, an old Hassidic war veteran who gave me a little book when I helped him send an email, a Bedouin man with two wives who lived in the desert in a tent.

4. Got lots of loot. But only spend 350 shekels (100 USD). Scorrrre.


And now I am home. My head is spinning and I haven't gone to the bathroom in 35 hours. I officially hate planes. But it is very nice to do nothing after getting up every day at 7am to get on a tour bus.

BACON TIME.

(cross-posted at bonbonsofsin.livejournal.com)

Bastille Day!

Spent the day in Philly, having a lot of very silly fun. I had a picnic in the park with Emilie, and then did a bit of shopping, during I FINALLY set foot in Anthropologie, and even bought something! Okay, so it was a four dollar crystal goblet, but in my defense, I am quite poor at the moment. Plus, it will look badass in my dorm.

The storming of the "Bastille" was really ridiculous, but there was no pretense of any historical accuracy whatsoever. They even let Marie off the hook!


I ended up sort of dressing up, mostly with accessories. After being in the 90 degree heat for about five hours, I wasn't sorry about my wardrobe choice.

Then we went to Old City Pizza for dinner, which I would highly recommend- super cheap, and reallly good pizza and cheese steaks (which I can attest to from the days before I eschewed beef).

Lots of fun activities for Philly folks to enjoy!

PS: Having picture formatting issues. I'll deal with that when I feel like it (i.e. never)

What I Did Today

1. Made red white & blue cupcakes, except I made them with lemon cake mix, so they turned out pink, yellow, and teal.

2. On the way out of the driveway to see Don, backed into my mom's car and left a dent that is going to cost 1,000 bucks to fix. The subsequent freakout caused me to miss Don's family before they left for his grandparents' house. Goodbye, trip to Mexico. Goodbye, one day I could have seen Don during this weekend that will be our second-to-last this summer.

3. Sulked in my room for approximately four hours while my family went to two different 4th of July picnics.

4. Woke up, stopped feeling sorry for myself, reread my book about Victorian prostitutes, made dinner.

5. Took a walk even though it was raining. Got huge blisters on my feet from my shoes. Decided to cancel order for second pair of said shoes in a different color.

6. Practiced earnestly for the first time in about a month. Faure, Handel, and Offenbach all sounding a bit iffy.

7. Painted my toenails.

8. Popped blisters on my feet and had a minor freakout from the pain.

All in all, not one of my better days.

Things I Like Today

1. The article in the Philly Inquirer about the splendid Lord Whimsy, whose bog and blog both fascinate me, and whose book has attracted the attentions of none other than Mr. Depp himself:
The article can be found at http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20080627_Lord_Whimsy_s_dandy_bog.html

His livejournal (livejournal!) can be found at
http://lord-whimsy.livejournal.com/

And if you are feeling particularly generous and wish to send me a copy of his book, you can purchase said tome at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596911417/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_3/103-4339222-7307063?n=283155


2. The spectacular art of James Jean (whose web site, I must admit, I discovered while perusing the Lord's journal). Especially notice his fairy-themed works, which are decidedly more Froudian than Brownian, just the way I like my fairy art to be (though I have no end of love for Amy Brown, considering that, were I ever to meet a fairy, I would decidedly prefer to meet the kind that inspired her). The paintings strike a perfect balance of wicked, weird, sweet, and saucy.

His work can be found at:
http://www.jamesjean.com/

3. Ghiradelli Double Chocolate Brownie Mix. We are in the midst of baking, arranging, decorating, landscaping, preparing, and general house over-turning for my sister's graduation party tomorrow. My mother recently presented me with several dozen brownies made from this mix to arrange attractively on a platter. Having sampled widely from the more unfortunate looking specimens (too ugly to serve to the guests, of course!), I can say with confidence that this is the most delicious, most succulent, most un-mixlike mix I have ever had the pleasure to taste.

A short list, indeed. But I have only been out of bed since 12:30 pm. Don't look at me like that! I've been up-and-at-'em at seven AM several days this week already. I need my beauty sleep if I am ever going to make up for the horrid picture in my last post. I promise I will soon provide a more acceptable portrait for those of you (if there are any) that have stumbled upon this blog without prior knowledge of its authoress.

EDIT: James Jean is also the artist who created the fairies on the gorgeous Prada Fairy bags, as well as other art for the ad campaign. The ninjavspenguin blog has a nice post with pictures of the ads:
http://www.ninjavspenguin.com/blog/2008/04/01/james-jean-pradas-spring-collection/

I don't want to sound greedy, but my birthday is coming up, and if anyone has 2,000 dollars lying around, I think you now know how to put it to good use.

Baking!

Lately, I've been really into cake baking and decorating. I'm still far from creating anything particularly stunning, but I continue to hope that one day I will wake up and realize that I am an accomplished pastry chef and cake decorator. I'll be sure to let you know when that day comes. In the meantime, I've been making a few earnest attempts.

Don gave me a fantastic and adorable book about cupcake decorating that I highly recommend. The designs range from quite easy to super difficult, and I've managed to find a few I can pull off:
http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Cupcake-Irresistibly-Playful-Creations/dp/0618829253

My first foray into the cupcake-decorating world began a few weeks ago, while I was still up at school. Don and I were attending a Mozart-themed party (cue the "music dork" comments), and so we wanted to make something festive to bring along. Here was the result. Please excuse both my tired appearance and my low skill level:


(Thanks to S. Goldfeather for the photo.)
The most exciting part was probably dying the icing. We used white icing only, but it is amazing the results that you can get from only four tubes of food coloring. The noteheads are junior mints. If you can't tell, the two little guys in the bottom of Don's pan are Mozart and Salieri. You can tell by their very distinctive hair styles.

My second attempt was more successful. More on that soon.

summer continues...

hair is cut. it's definitely an improvement; i don't have to condition my hair twice every time i take a shower, and it doesn't get caught in jackets, underneath my arms, etc. plus, it looks pretty good if i do say so myself.

but enough about me. Tyler's bar mitzvah went exceptionally well... he was amazing. i didn't screw up my torah chant, the party was fun, it was nice to see family, etc. etc.

this is the reader's digest of my weekend, in case you hadn't noticed. i'm off to bed in a moment. not even spending the extra .0007 seconds it takes to use capitalization.

i started work this week- the kids are wonderful. i really shouldn't discuss details of work for confidentiality reasons; this doesn't matter much now, but i'm sure i'll be sad to miss out on recording a few of the better anecdotes that undoubtedly arise from working with kids.

in other news, i should not have had so much milk right before bed. probably something you didn't need to know.

and with that fantastic thought, i'm off to dreamland. goodnight, dear ones...

cutting off all my hair...

I'm really nervous about it actually.

To clarify: I am doing Locks of Love, so I'm getting at least 10 inches chopped off.

10 inches! It's a scary thought. My hair hasn't been less than shoulder length since.. well, before freshman year. Of high school. And back then, I couldn't do a thing with it. What's to say that I won't have the same out-of-control mess on my head once this is done?

And it isn't only that... I like having a huge curtain of hair that gets all over the place. I am endlessly amused by the idea that when I let down my hair, it covers more of my chest than a modest bathing suit would. I am constantly touching it, braiding it, twisting it, and so on.

Which is actually kind of gross, I guess.

But I'm exciting to try something new. And part of me doesn't give a shit if it looks awful because well, it's hair, and hair grows back. And goodness knows that I need to get rid of some of it.

So we'll see. My appointment is sandwiched in between a laundry list of Bar Mitzvah preparation activities and a drive into Mt. Airy for more work training. I am trying to give it as little focus as possible. What happens, happens.

(and if what happens sucks, you can bet you'll be hearing all about it in approximately 24 hours time)

Of course, I should be studying for my Harmony final....

There is really only so much time that one can spend analyzing the Tristan chord. In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether G#BD#F functions as a dominant V in A minor with two appoggiaturas or as a French sixth in the same key with only one appoggiatura. I mean, really... how much ink has been spilled to argue about four silly notes? If I slam my hand on a keyboard, decide that I like the sound it makes, and turn it into the first chord of an opera prelude, no one gives a shit. But Wagner does it, and music theorists all over the world wet their pants for the next 150 years writing articles and books (and probably blog entries) about it.

Oh Wagner, y u gotta b so *controversial*?

But enough pretending that my current limited musical analysis abilities are simply the result of my distaste for the plethora of literature on the Tristan chord. In truth, I am so over my head with this final that, despite garnering A after A on weekly assignments, I will probably end up with a somewhat diminished grade. Like, maybe a half-diminished grade, should we say.

Ha. ha. Harmony jokes. Ugh.

BUT. Only one more day of this, and then I return home. Home! Glorious home, with my glorious room and glorious bed and glorious bathtub and glorious fridge filled with glorious food and glorious Comcast Digital Cable with HBO and all of the episodes of John Adams just waiting... waiting... for me to gorge myself upon them.

Not that I will have so much time for wastin'. Tyler is getting Bar Mitzvah'd on Saturday, and I have yet to spend more than three consecutive minutes looking at the Torah portion that I will be chanting in front of the hordes of friends and family. Not to mention that I have to meet three clients this week for summer work, and begin training.

But as long as none of the above activities involve identifying the non-tonal major-third/minor-third ladder of the finale of Stravinksy's Firebird, I am totally cool with it.