Bethanie's Brain

Right, so a few months back, you'll recall that Grant Hell went digital , which didn't really help much and quite possibly made things much worse (at least, for me). Naturally, I should have been really happy with that, because you know what happens when you wish for stuff and you're not careful? Yeah. You end up with Coeus. What the bloody, freaking hell is Coeus? Well, well, well, funny you should ask. Do let me explain. Coeus, in Greek mythology, was the Titan of Intelligence. Some witty individual (at MIT, which might explain a few things) thought it would be a cute name for a database. No joke. Consequently, Coeus, in grant-hell-ology, is the Titan of database-based grant submissions. Now, I love databases. I do. I really, really do. But not when they're smarter than I am and not when they're so complicated that 3 days of training barely gets you off the ground. I mean, it's really great, it is, and it's going to be really, really cool in ab...

OK, honest to god, I am not trying to be sexy (I'm way past that, and I know it), but I can't even believe I did this. You see the red spot on my leg? The perfectly round one with the strangely familiar lines in the middle? Yeah, that one. Believe it or not, that was caused by a penny left on the seat of my car. My car that was sitting in the sun on a very hot-ass day almost a week ago. I actually saw the penny on the car seat just before I sat down, but the pain was so sudden and so acute that I thought I had been stung by a bee. It just didn't register what was causing the pain because, seriously -- who expects pain from a penny? Un. Real. I mean, if you look closely enough, you can actually make out the fucking Lincoln memorial and the words "ONE CENT" below it. And you thought this kind of body art was just for 20-somethings. Actually, so did I. I mean, sure, I could claim to have done it on purpose, but really, can you think of a single cool reason to br...

So. You'll recall the Roadkill Turkey Breast . (How could you forget, right?) Well, that night we only ate half the meat from the Unfortunate Beastie. Tonight, we ate the rest. On sticks. With cardamom! No, really, it was great. So great, I must share the recipe (and record it for next time -- next time I have turkey , sheesh...). Here 'tiz: INGREDIENTS a bunch of cardamom seeds (how many is up to you - how many do you feel like unpeeling? yes, you have to use the real stuff that comes in a pod. that pre-ground junk is worse than useless) a sprinkling of fenugreek (i'm not really sure if these are seeds or what) a smaller sprinkling of mustard seeds a couple of bay leaves, crumpled a few good splooshes of olive oil a splash or three of some kind of vinegar a wee bit o' soy sauce Meat, tofu or other marinade-friendly munchie (no, it doesn't have to be roadkill) WHAT TO DO WITH THE INGREDIENTS Take the first three ingredients and grind them into powder with a m...

On the back of a tow truck: Hooked on Harry Not a bumpah stickah, really, but amusing enough to share.

OK, I've been wanting to catalog my books for a while. And I did something on the old blog like what you'll see on the right side of the screen if you scroll down - a book, an author and some comments about the book (no fancy pictures, though). So the other day I was happily surfing along, dropped by 101 Reasons to Stop Writing (to see if there were any more reasons - there weren't), and BOOM! There it was: a link to Library Thing . "Interesting," thought I, and surfed along to check it out. Turned out to be interesting enough that I actually signed up even though I was pretty sure that I didn't need one more thing to do and would probably NEVER have time to actually put any books in. 'Course, me being me, I immediately grabbed a stack of books because I had to put SOMETHING in (can't have a naked library, how embarassing) and started firing off ISBN numbers. Next thing I knew - and it wasn't but 30 minutes later or so - I had over 80 books ad...

No time to explain how I got here, but this is just.... well, totally, wicked cool. My Library

So I sat down at ye ol' keyboard last night to write a brilliant blog post that had something to do with the safety of the food supply. This isn't it. No, that post has gone the way of so many others in this sleep-deprived state I call my life. Here's what happened: It was a wonderful, thundery evening. Just the occasional flash, the occasional far-off rumble, and a soft, relaxing rain. Perfect! thought I, I shall write! After we put the kids to bed. Ms. Baby was tired. Too tired. When Ms. Baby is too tired, she refuses to sleep. I don't know why but she just fights it and fights it and wants to sit in my lap in the rocking chair and look out the window, occasionally looking back up over her shoulder to make sure I'm still there (which, of course, I am, because where the hell else am I going to go). And before anyone starts in with the sleep advice, don't bother. We've tried everything, nothing works, and that isn't the point of this post anyway. No,...

...you ate roadkill for dinner. And I just did. Go ahead, make gross retching sounds. OK, gat that outta yer system? Good job. Now you wanna hear the story? 'Course you do. First, wipe your brain clean of the images of possums and raccoons and whatever-the-fuck-that-was's that you automatically assumed I ate (you know you did, admit it). T'weren't no possums nor raccoons on my table. Nosirree, sir - we're talkin' turkey. No, really, it was turkey. Turkey as in wild turkey. Turkey as in big, frikkin' bird native to North American woodlands. Turkey as in what The Husband was out hunting last weekend and didn't get. No, no, instead, he found one flapping helplessly and in obvious distress on the side of some road (he claims he didn't actually hit it himself). Broken leg, broken wing - obvious coyote fodder. Unable to watch it suffer he and his buddies - and I quote - "put it out of its misery". Then they "dressed" it and br...