Cat on Refridgerator.

In the Kitchen...

Barbara... They're coming to get you, Barbara.

I have a creepy basement...
It's the sort of basement where zombies would take up residence during the Zombie Revolution. The boiler in there makes creepy gurgling noises. I've got a flickering bare lightbulb in the corner. Creepy. Whoever owned the house before me installed a working toilet down there.. right in the open. It's odd. I've never been in my own basement after 9pm.

So, I have a creepy basement, which is amusing. But this is the icing on my creepy basement cupcake....

My parents came up this weekend for a visit and also so my father could help me do some electrical work. When I say "help," I actually mean "do all the actual work while I hold a flashlight and wonder where we should go for lunch".. so anyway... We were in the basement looking at the fusebox when my father noticed a really old, blacked out window. I've seen it before and always assumed it led to nothing.

He went over and OPENED THE WINDOW. I don't know why it never occured to me to do this myself. The window opens to a whole room! A SECRET ROOM. How creepy. Dozens of dead bodies could fit in there. Uh, not that I would need to store a bunch of dead bodies, but I've been watching zombie movies all weekend, so the thought crossed my mind.

Dead bodies.
I suppose I could have said that "dozens of puppies could run around in there", but "dozens of dead bodies" really lets you visualize how much space I'm taking about here. eh?

About that Zombie Revolution... It could happen. I've heard things. ANNNND, when it does.. I'm renting out my creepy basement. Zombies are people too. Or at least, they used to be.

Viva La Revolution!

Everybody eats when they come to my house...

My friends and I started a Supper Club, where once a month one of us will cook a big meal and everyone shows up to eat. There are 10 of us in the Supper Club, so even though it's quite a large group to cook for, you only end up having to cook once every ten months or so. This month was my turn....

The main dish was a meatloaf cake frosted with mashed potatoes. I got the idea from someone on this here internet..I wrote about it a month or two ago and that post is somewhere in the Suburban Wonderland archive, if you're so inclined to see the original. I wasn't sure if I would be able to actually succeed with this, and admittedly, it's not as good-looking as the original meatloaf cake, but it tasted quite good...



Teeny Jello® molds...


Cherry and Orange Whip...


All in all, things went well. I had the phone number of the local pizza shop handy in case the meatloaf cake was a failure, but it wasn't needed. No one got food poisoning and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Hot damn, I'm glad I don't have to do this again for quite a while.. I just have to show up somewhere next month and eat!

I shed a tear for thee....

Oh Dear.

Union Products will be closing it's doors on November 1st. For those of you who don't know, Union Products are the geniuses behind the original Don Featherstone lawn flamingos.

This is horrible news, and is causing me to go into flamingo-hoarding mode. This past weekend I drove nearly two hours to snatch up a few pairs, and now I wish I had bought a few more.

Apparently, production of the birds halted in June.. so whatever stock is out there is all that will be. No more will be made before Union Products closes for good. I think I need a glass of water. I feel faint.

This truly is awful.

The Electric Slide

When I lived in apartments I never cared about leaving lights on. Even though I was responsible for the electric bill, If I left a light on all day, it didn't faze me. It never bothered me.

Since moving into my house, this has changed. I have now become really aware of lights being left on in my house. I don't know why. It's technically no different than if i left a light on in my old apartment.. I was responsible for the electric bill there, and I'm responsible for the electric bill now. But, for some reason I have this notion that it costs so much more to power a lightbulb in a house than in an apartment. Crazy. It's not even logical. Gah.

I'm turning into my mother. If I start physically unplugging the toaster oven and microwave when they aren't in use... I'm really in trouble.

Ahem.. this is important.

This Sunday, Bag Lunch will be participating in the 26th Annual MSPCA Walk for Animals on the Boston Common.

We've put together a donation page for our little walk team, and if you'd like to donate, please visit
www.walkforanimals.com/teambaglunch

Oh my! What a lovely yard you have...

The lawn flamingos are thriving in my front yard. Right now there are four pink plastic beauties out there and I'm going to slowly add to the flock until I run out of room or my neighbors become so disgusted with the tackiness of it all that they birdnap them. So I've been hunting around the internet for the original Don Featherstones. The ONLY flamingos in my yard are Featherstones. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just look up "Don Featherstone Flamingo" and you can read all about them. I do realize how insane it sounds to be a flamingo elitist, but really.. who wants inferior plastic birds? If you're aiming for suburban splendor, you have to go with the original.

So anyway, I found a bunch of great links:

www.uptownflamingo.com
This site has a ton of great flamingo themed products. The odd thing, though, is that they don't sell the Don Featherstone Flamingos. They only carry cheap-o knock-offs. I'll overlook this fact because the other flamingo stuff that they carry is so great. This site is really worth a look if you're looking for things like flamingo tablecloths or nightlights.

www.thepinkflamingo.com
they carry a less varied inventory of flamingo related knick-knacks than uptownflamingo.com, BUT they carry Don Featherstone flamingos and also Don Featherstone Snowmingos! A Snowmingo is a white lawn flamingo, which is perfect for yards in the winter months. They are made from the same plastic mold as their pink cousins, so they have the Featherstone butt signature just like the pinky originals. I'm going to swap out the pinks in my yard for snowmingos on the first snowfall this year and then swap 'em back in the spring. The photo below is a good comparison between the two plastic species...


www.flaminomania.com
assorted flamingo themed goodies for purchase, and they carry Don Featherstones in the classic pink and snowmingo varieties.

www.getflocked.com
the flamingos on this site are a bit expensive... it's much easier to find them cheaper elsewhere. It's worth a mention though, because they sell spare flamingo legs which can come in quite handy, if you accidently bend or lose one.

www.mileskimball.com
this site is a treasure chest full of suburban tackiness. In addition to lawn flamingos, this site sells kitchen decor, barbeque trinkets, tablecloths and things like toilet paper cozies. I love this site. Below is a small sample of the great crap you can find at mileskimball.com...

How plastically cute!

And what about these....

...fantastic!

Hmmm...now, I'm more of a flamingo gal than a fan of lawn geese, but I think I may make an exception and find a place in my yard for these...

These geese combine two of my favorite things... midcentury rock 'n roll and tacky plastic lawn ornaments.

If I could only find tiny bowling shirts for my lawn flamingos, my life would be complete.

I am a sissy.

When I first graduated from college I moved into a very tiny apartment in Boston.

The apartment was directly above the boiler room for the entire apartment building. This caused the shoebox I was renting to remain VERY warm year round. The apartment was so warm that there wasn't a radiator in the unit.The heat from the boiler below was enough, even in January. In fact, I had to run the air conditioner 24 hours a day, for the entire time I lived there. This jacked up my electric bill substaintially. The landlord agreed to pay a portion of the electric bill each month after I made him sit in the apartment for 10 minutes without the air conditioner running. It was that warm.

The warmth of the apartment made it the perfect playground for mice. Apparently they LOVE really warm small apartments. The apartment became overrun with these rodents. It was horrifying. Normally mice will scurry away from people and generally only come out during the night. These mice were lounging around, with no regard for my presence. I would see them running around on my countertops and sitting around on the stovetop. Gross. It was so bad that I moved before my lease ran out. Since then I have been really terrified of mice. I hate them. I've trained Dolemite to be a stealth assasin, in case one of those little bastards gets into my house.

So.... last week my friend Myk, his girlfriend Allison and I took a small car trip. Halfway there Myk said: "Beck, a mouse!" and threw something at me which stuck to my arm. I began screaming and flailing my arms around, trying to get the thing off my arm. Tears were streaming down my face as I jumped around in the passenger seat, yelping and flailing.

It turned out to be one of those little sticky toys you can get for a quarter in machines outside of grocery stores.

There is no denying the genius of this...

I'm almost positive that I will marry anyone who will make this for me on a weekly basis:

A Meatloaf Cake!

I'm assuming you had a knee-jerk reaction that was something along the lines of "eeeew" or "that's disgusting."
But think about it.. it's simply a meatloaf in a different form than what you are used to. This is a classier meatloaf. A formal meatloaf. The sort of meatloaf that you could take along to a housewarming party *ahem... cough, cough*


Several things about this are fantastic....

The "frosting" is mashed potatoes, which goes well with a meatloaf. Also, you could tint the mashed potatoes with food coloring for a more colorful, festive cake.

It seems sort of easy to make. Even if the construction comes out lopsided or wonky, it's still going to taste good.

Food is funny when it's disguised as other food.

Meatloaf is delicious.


To read more about it, visit here: http://www.blackwidowbakery.com/demo/meatcake/
(this is also where the image I used came from)

hmm, and I understand that Martha Stewart made a meatloaf cake prior to this one, but who cares? This one has more charm, and a better story behind it.

This thing is a work of genius.

Mister Magoo

My neighbors kitty-corner to my house have a Parrot. It sits on a perch in their screened in porch. I've been looking at this bird for weeks and commenting on how well behaved it is. All day the bird sits quietly on it's perch, never squaking or trying to fly out of the porch. I've been pointing this out to friends when they visit.

Last night I got a better look at it and realized... the parrot is fake. It's one of those fake stuffed birds that you see at tropical themed restaurants and bars in tourist locations.

Perhaps I should wear my glasses more often.

Finally.

Whew!

I've finally moved into the house. I'm currently unpacking. I'm amazing at how I crammed all this stuff into my tiny apartment now that I see it spread out throughout an entire house.

And, more importantly, Dolemite moved in too. He was freaked out at first and hid under a bed for 5 or 6 hours, then slowly emerged and crept around the edges of every room in the house. He's fine now and is back to his old, destructive self... He already managed to knock a chair into a door, thus cracking the wooden slates of said door. That cat is so lucky he's adorable.

To make it official, this weekend the pink lawn flamingos will be unpacked and will take up residence on the front lawn.

I can't believe what I've done.

Today I did something that I promised myself I would never do: I bought boxes.

I. bought. boxes.

Now, I buy a lot of boxes for shipping out Bag Lunch orders. That is not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about purchasing boxes for the sole purpose of carting one's own stuff from one place to another.

I have moved several times over the years and have never once bought moving boxes. I find it to be a stupid notion: purchasing moving boxes. Moving boxes aren't purchased. They are aquired. You find emtpy boxes around your home. Or friends give you empty appliance boxes that they haven't gotten around to tossing out yet. They are never bought.

Moving boxes should have things like "Maytag" and "Fridgedaire" emblazoned on the side in slightly worn off ink. Moving boxes should have to be reinforced with lots of packing tape, because they are old and have been used before.

My moving boxes say "Staples Large" on the side and need no reinforcement.

I am so ashamed.

The Day is Drawing Near

I am officially moving into Suburbia on July 30th. It's official because I've rented a big ol' truck for that day and the deposit is non-refundable.

I've got flooring tiles that aren't going to be delivered until thursday, and I'll be installing them on Saturday. This is cutting it close, but there's nothing I can do about it. It'll be nice to finally move into the house, as I've been spending countless hours working on things in it over the last 2 months.

My cat will be moving in on August 1st. I want things to be sort of settled and unpacked a bit before he moves in, that way he'll recognize things around the new place and possibly feel a bit at home right away. The last time I moved apartments he freaked out and hid under bed covers for 3 days. I had to bring food and water to him, for fear that he would starve to death under my bedspread. I want to make this move as less stressful for him as possible.

And yes, I realize that the last paragraph makes me sound like a loony cat lady.

Some unrelated rambling...

So, I'm feeling better...not great, but better. I'm taking it easy this week, because I've set a move in date for July 30th, and I want to be fully recovered by then. Moving House is the bane of my existence as it is, and I can only imagine how awful moving will be if I still feel under the weather.

I've been taking a car-load of junk to my house everyday, so that by July 30th, I'll only be moving furniture.
This is the plan anyway... It's amazing how much stuff I've accumulated over the years. I have a problem where I like to collect things. Things like interesting packaging, amusing images clipped from magazines, clothing that doesn't even fit anymore....
I'm hoping there is some sort of support group somewhere for pack-rats.

And now for something different...

The Genius behind www.needled.com has a great article posted on www.bmezine.com. You can read the article by visiting here... http://www.bmezine.com/news/edit/A60719/artwhati.html

In addition to being really well-written and amusing, I also find the article to be really accurate in the experiences it documents. Although I've noticed that I get less mouth-agape stares from people gawking at my artwork in recent years than I have, say five years ago, I still encounter similar situations to those mentioned in the article.

Uh, I'm rambling, but cut me some slack..
I'm under the weather.

That "Apple a day..." thing? It's a lie.

Bleh.

I am WAY behind on my "To Do" list for house-related things. I was hoping to be finished with all the painting by now, but I'm not. This is delaying everything. I can't actually move in until the kitchen floor is installed... and I can't install the kitchen floor until I finish painting.

And this is because I am sick. Really sick. This morning I coughed so hard that I threw up. IN MY HAND.
Everyday I wake up thinking.. "yeah.. I'm cured." Then I hack something up and that thought flies right out the window, along with some phlegm.

I can't really do much except for sit around overanalyzing symptoms. I hate that I can't do something because of some sickness-induced limitation. And I've been told not to do anything for fear of a relapse. This scares me. I don't want to relapse and be sick for twice as long. I feel lazy for just lying around, yet scared to over-exert myself and relapse.

And now for a purely infantile, childish complaint... My parents are in Bermuda, so I can't even call them to whine about how crappy I feel. Nothing helps recovery quite like calling your Mother and whining for hours about being ill. Because they have to listen. Because they are related to you and have to provide sympathy, whether genuine or not.

The other scary thing is that my cat has been sleeping next to me at night. He hardly does this during the Summer.
I'm pretty sure the only reason he's doing this is so that if I perish during the night, he'll be right there to immediatly start gnawing my face off.

He's that sort of feline.

cough cough.

Yep..Did that myself. That too. And that.

So, I'm doing all the stuff to my house myself, with help from family. Whenever this comes up in conversation, I always hear, "It must feel so satisfying to know that you're doing all of it yourself. Just think, when you're all done, you can look around your house and know that you acomplished all that yourself. It's going to be so satisfying and gratifying for you."

At the beginning of this house-rehab, I agreed with these people. It is sort of neat to be able to say, "Yeah, I painted that. Yeah, I ripped that paneling down. Yeah, that's when I sprained my wrist, installing that blah blah blah..."

Now I think it's crap. People say that crap to you to make you feel okay about not being able to afford contractors.

I now know why people hire people to do things. Because taking on this much is insane. I'm tired all the time and I keep finding paint in my hair. Wah. When is the last time you heard of some wealthy person throwing their back out painting a ceiling? Yeah, never.. Because they pay people to do these sorts of things.

Granted, my Father is taking on a lot of the work requiring actual knowledge of house construction, but I'm still doing a lot of the painting and sanding and non-potentially damaging to the structure type things.

It's all worth it, because I'm going to feel very satisfied when I'm done.

Apparently.

Drip

This weekend I hope to get a majority of what's left to do, finished.

On the "To Do" list for Saturday...

Paint a second coat of white on the kitchen walls and trim

Paint the color brick pattern on the brick wall in the kitchen (turquoise and black)

Paint the weird ceiling drop thing in the kitchen (turquoise)

Second coat of paint on the bottom trim in the bedroom (satisfyingly bright pink)

Paint the arms of the ceiling fan in the kitchen (turquoise)

Eat something (hey, all this painting is going to make me hungry)

Move some of my stuff into the newly floored office
(My parents installed a new floor in my office while I was at work..I love them)

Hopefully I can get all this done.

What the paint?

I'm painted all the walls in my house with high gloss paint. Everytime I mention this, someone says, "Oh dear, No.. You aren't supposed to do that. High-gloss is only for trim. Semi-gloss is for walls. Why would you do that?"

Other select responses to my apparent paint blunder:

"High-gloss on walls? That's interesting." (with "interesting" said in a tone of slight horror.)

"You'll need two coats on everything. Why are you using high-gloss, anyway?"

'Are you crazy?"

I don't understand what the big deal is. Who made these paint rules? Who cares that I'll need two coats? I'd probably need to apply two coats anyway, the colors I'm using are so bright.

Throughout my entire life I've been told I don't quite follow the crowd.
Apparently, this also applies to my choice in paint.

Doesn't matter... I'll be living happily in my double-coated, shiny house.

Someone Left the Cake Out In the Rain

This pan....


...makes these cupcakes.

(The above images are from the Williams-Sonoma website, where the pan is available for sale. To Purchase, for a house warming gift or something hint hint, visit www.williams-sonoma.com)

I've not really done a lot of baking in my life thus far, but that is going to change. Now that I'm the owner of a fairly good sized kitchen with ample counter space, I have no reason not to whip up a batch of novelty cupcakes. Or a bundt cake. I like the word "bundt," and if I bake one of 'em, I'll be able to say that word a bunch of times.

I've made a lot of excuses in the past as to why I don't utilize the kitchen, including, but not limited to....
"Apartment kitchens are too small to do any real cooking or baking in."
"I live with a chef... why would I step foot in his territory?"
"I haven't got any good pans."
"I have no cookbooks."
"Grocery store too far.... must continue to sit on couch."

Once I'm settled into my Suburban Wonderland (notice the call-back to the name of this blog... nice touch, eh?) none of these excuses will apply to me anymore.

And...
I will do some baking.
Frost my words.