Malikaliki Maka, Everyone

I am currently reclining on my parents' big guest bed, wearing my mother's stirrup pants, drinking tea and listening to Merriweather Post Pavillion. Here in Omaha, the roads have been nigh impassible since yesterday morning, but we've kept busy at home by opening presents(kitchen table and a blender, yay!), shoveling the drive/building forts(my fingernails are so white and clean from digging in the snow), and cooking the pizzas and roast for dinner tonight(can't stop stealing baby carrots out of the crock pot). I hope you are happy and spending time with someone you love. Merry Christmas.

Fresh Faced Party People

This is my buddy Stew. I ran into him at a party last weekend and I was bored, so we had a little photoshoot.

Some facts about Stew:

- I have no idea what he studies.

- Sometimes he plays the guitar so hard that he bleeds.

- Bought a pair of tights and wears them because he thinks they're cool.

- Once worked at a Renaissance Fair.

- Dances like nobody's watching.

Here are my other friends, HeMan and George Dempsey.

HeMan plays the violin almost every day.

- He studies optics and stars.

- Spent half the summer in Borneo.

- Rides a motorbike.

- Looks like Noel Gallagher and Noel Fielding.

- I want to steal his cardigan.

George Dempsey owns a very fancy synthesizer.

- He wears a lady's coat and carries a briefcase.

- I first met him when he [kind of] randomly appeared at my Dance Pants Party.

- His mother's pug just had puppies, and I am going to steal them after I steal HeMan's cardigan.

Cookies!

Tonight I stayed in my nice warm apartamente and baked cookies while my roommate, Sammarino, finished her finals. I made peanut blossoms and snowman faces(totally cheated and used Otis Spunkmeyer pre-made dough - it cost SIXTEEN DOLLARS for a tub of it, but I am a good cousin and bought it from little Mikey for his school fundraiser). My mom found the snowmen in one of her "middle-aged lady" magazines and we both thought they were super cute, so I went out and bought bags of twizzlers, cinnamon melts, and candy corn - all candy I hate, woo hoo! I am too concerned with how cookies look, though. They can be slightly burnt and covered in icky candies, but as long as they're adorable, I'm OOOOOOK. Guess I'm shallow like that! Bwaha!

Ghetto Home Fabulous: Lucy Cats and Crunchy Pointy Things

Lately I've been all researchin' mah heritage and such. I'm mostly descended from Germans (technically those pesky "Germans from Russia") but my Grandma Bettie was Swedish[-American] and I like to rub that fact in people's faces a lot for some reason. Like, "Oh hey, your Grandma grew prize-winning rutabaga? Well, mine was descended from vikings. Booya."

Anywho, during mah researchin', I found this bangorang recipe for Scandinavian "Lussekatter" which, in my Swedish-Breezy dictionary means "Lucy Cats" - something having to do with Satan, I guess. Apparently he hates the color yellow because it's all bright and happy, and Lussekatters are chock full of saffron, a.k.a. the King of Spices. I trekked off to Grocery Mart to get myself a little package of the stuff and I was much dismayed to find that it was MORE EXPENSIVE THAN CRACK COCAINE. So the Lussekatters will have to wait until I have Christmas money to "blow"(I made a funny!) on spices that cost $14.62 for less than an ounce. Ugh. Until then, all you rich people can look at the recipe here and have your servants make some for you, and all you poor people can look at this photo and drool:

Alas, poor people - do not cry. I have a recipe for you, too, which may or may not be as tasty as Lucy Cats, but at least it is extremely cheap and easy to make. The main ingredient is a classy little something I like to call "Crunchy Potatoes in a Can", made by those same charming people who crank out "Crunchy Onions in a Can". All you need is equal amounts of butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, crunchy potato sticks, and salted nuts. Melt the chocolate, mix everything together, and plop it out in clumps on a sheet of wax paper. I think these are usually called "Haystacks", but I prefer the monniker "Pointy Melty Cookies". I plan on making a bunch of and hording them in the freezer for my post-New Year's Resolution sugar binges. Mm mm mmm. Healthy goodness!

The Almighty CatClock

I have so much Things That Look Like Other Things/Things You Should Buy Me material; I just know that it is going to take over this blog, and frankly -or as the French say, "franchement"- I'm OK with that. So I need a clever acronym for TTLLOT. Tot-a-lot? Tootlelot? Total Lot? Turtle Loot?!

Anyhow, STORYTIME: When I was a wee lass living in inner-city Omaha (s'where I get my street cred), my neighbors had one of these contraptions on their kitchen wall and I swore on all that was good and crafty that one day I would get my little paws on one and my life would be complete. Naturally, I forgot about this sacred oath until a few days ago when I saw THIS:

on this site

THEY ARE $59.99 AND THEY COME IN EIGHT COLORS AND THEY ARE ADORABLE. UUUUUUUUUUGH!

It's like I need one, but I don't. What a conundrum. So I did that thing that sons and daughters often do, where I went to my mother and said something like, "OH MOM THEY ARE SELLING CAT CLOCKS AGAIN...tooooooo baaaaaad it's too late to ask for one for Christmas." We'll see if that works. Probably not.

Things That Look Like Other Things(Read Aloud in a Singsong Voice)

I'm a big fan of compound nouns - maybe it's the German in me. They lend themselves quite well to things that look like other things. Here are a few compound nouns that I wouldn't mind finding under the tree/in my nonexistant driveway this Christmas:

The BEARDRESS: It's a bear...and a dress. And it's three hundred and sixty dollarrrrs.

The majestic WHALEMOBILE: Ask me if I care if it's street legal.

The BANANAPHONE: I actually already have one. They are great for making your co-workers think you're an immature weirdo.