your guide to JULY summer fare, by pen

Continue watching:
1. Gossip Girl reruns, IF you can piece them together in order. Which I am having trouble doing, alas.
2. Celebrity Family Feud!
3. The Baby Borrowers, because it's funny.
4. Season 3 of Weeds, Netflixed.
5. Legally Blonde the Musical: Who will it be?? My money is on Southern Belle Bailey. But maybe Autumn, I love her, too. Actually, I sort of love them all, and the way they try to embody the "spirit of Elle Woods," even when they're not trying out for the role.
6. Last Comic Standing.
7. Old and new episodes of House Hunters. Because that's what you do in the summer, catch up.

New for July:
1. ProRun, July 16th! This is the last season the show will be on Bravo, which makes me scratch my head in puzzlement, but what can you do. It's moving over to Lifetime, and California. Hmmm.
2. Monk, July 18.
3. Psych. Ditto.
4. The Secret Life of the American Teenager, with Molly Ringwald! ABC Family, Tuesday night.
5. Extreme Living on HGTV. There are some super-badass-cool looking houses on there. Can't wait.

Please add your own lists/suggestions in the comments. I'm *slightly* out of the loop these days, and my taste doesn't include really include stuff like Burn Notice, although I admit I'm slightly intrigued, mainly because Jeffrey Donovan is so.darn.hot. Let me know if it's worth it. And stuff like Great American Dog? Do we dare?

July Fare, by M

my "darn" hot summer list for july:
*snarf*

netflixed: six feet under (s3) (rainn wilson makes an appearance, eee! and though morbid the character development on this show is awesome though occasionally soulless), nashville 1975 (robert altman 'masterpiece'), grizzly man (i guess?), persepolis, the bostonians, holes.

will not miss: deadliest catch s3 (i cannot get enough of these guys bcs they're all guyish and on a boat and though not attractive damned appealing). i fought this show for 2 years. i'm fully onboard now. i suspect mike rowe is lulling me into a must watch trance.

will catch them on the day or on a repeat: monk, psych, kathy griffin, project runway (but rest assured i will NOT miss a single episode. but USA and BRAVO are masters at repeat or die institutions. so i'm not afraid.

Today I

feel like i've stepped on a rollercoaster that's mostly smooth but has a few jarring moments. i wonder how long i've been here and when i can go home. i feel laden with carnival treats and not enough protein and miles to go before the gas is spent and i can collapse in the grass.

Today I

feel like a sunflower against a blue sky, made too hot by the sun but delighted by the bees at my belly and the breeze that teases my fine yellow petals. I droop with the heat but relish in my place and look forward to the cool night of sleep.

Today I.

feel like a black ball, shiny and glisteny wet from floating in a wide deep-red bucket. It's in shadows so sometimes the wide bucket looks a dark green and there are reflections of the blue sky and the clouds and trees on the dark water.

be brave. for your country.

Guys, you should totally make this cake! Print it out and put it in your recipe box for next Memorial Day or 4th of July. I had always seen the flag cake advertised in magazines, but admit I was totally intimidated by it. It looks kind of *involved.* But really, it's so easy, a 2-year-old could do it. And a 2-year-old did do it. K.Lo helped stir the Jell-o, and lay out the pound cake slices, and mix up the fruit into the Jell-o. I recommend completing steps one and two on the night prior to your extravaganza, and then putting in the fridge overnight. Then, when you wake up, finish it up. Easy, breezy.

And, may I say, it's one darn tasty cake. Happy 4th of July!

WAVE YOUR FLAG CAKE
Ingredients:
4 cups fresh strawberries, divided
1-1/2 cups boiling water
1 pkg. (8-serving size) or 2 pkg. (4-serving size each) JELL-O Brand Gelatin, any red flavor
ice cubes
1 cup cold water
1 pkg. (12 oz.) pound cake, cut into 10 slices
1-1/3 cups blueberries, divided
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed

SLICE 1 cup of the strawberries; cut remaining strawberries in half. Set aside.

STIR boiling water into dry gelatin mix in large bowl 2 min. until completely dissolved. Add enough ice cubes to cold water to measure 2 cups. Add to gelatin; stir until ice is melted. Refrigerate 5 min. or until slightly thickened (consistency of unbeaten egg whites). Meanwhile, line bottom of 13×9-inch dish with cake slices. Add sliced strawberries and 1 cup of the blueberries to thickened gelatin; stir gently. Spoon over cake slices.

REFRIGERATE 4 hours or until firm. Spread whipped topping over gelatin. Arrange strawberry halves on whipped topping for stripes of flag. Arrange remaining 1/3 cup blueberries on whipped topping for stars. Store in refrigerator.

source: Kraft.com

Where I'm Going

To rose colored hills
To the wheat colored mountain
Where a black tree had tried to rise against the blue sky
Cut down and disintegrated
My view unencumbered
But my nails black with paint
To the stream and the dappled light
Down to a faraway place
Out into the future

Animal Facts Wednesday

~Did you know cows can drink about 35 lbs of water a day?
~They also spend about 7-8 hours chewing their food-- you know ruminating... uh huh.
~There's evidence of their domestication going as far back as 6500 bc.
~There are over 800 breeds of cattle.

Bonus: 2nd AFW

Geese have serrated bills and make excellent watchdogs- I think they also eat ticks and snails so that's a plus.

Way more cowfacts from the magical internet:
>> # A cow stands up and sits down about 14 times a day.
>> # A cow that weighs 1000 pound can produce an average 10 tons of manure every year.
>> # A cow usually spends 6-7 hours in day eating cud and around 8 hours on chewing it.
>> # Almost all the cows chew at least 50 times per minute.
>> # An average cow has more than 40,000 jaw movements in a day.
>> # An average cow produces 30 lbs of urine and 65 lbs pounds of feces daily.
>> # Cows are venerated in the Hindu religion of India.
>> # Cows can drink up to 35 gallons of water a day.
>> # Cows do not bite grass; rather they curl their tongue around it.
>> # Cows have a single stomach, but four digestive compartments.
>> # Cows have almost total 360-degree panoramic vision.
>> # Cows have an acute sense of smell and can smell something up to 6 miles away.
>> # Cows produce around 90 percent of the milk in the world.
>> # Dairy cows can produce up to 125 lbs of saliva a day.
>> # The average body temperature of a cow is 101.5°F.

On a Given Saturday

Risen early. A leisured morning. I wore my darkblue sun dress, having lately reclaimed the color from my somber past. The compliments I received and the look of my warm complexion in it overrode the fleeting cringe. A couple months ago I bought the first yellow shirt I’d ever owned and I would have rather worn that. But the white skirt, coincidentally bought with the blue dress was stained- it was the first of that color for a skirt too, and the yellow and white made a pleasing pair. Daring I thought, in all my now 32 years.

I stood on the train platform glancing around to make sure I was where I was suppose to be, favoring my right knee and noting with a smile that though silver and slick, trains had lost none of their romance. My meager supplies wouldn’t carry me far but my trip down the coast to San Juan Capistrano carried me far enough out of my own mind and into the fabric of my heart- azure sea, old plastered walls…

I tested several seats and still found myself going backwards and windowless, but it seemed perfect to tuck my feet up and incline my large frame- read my book about an island and wished myself there as the train blurred the landscape. My brow, in unguarded moments contracted in dissatisfaction- Claudius would say to bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom contracted in a brow of woe… but I have no idea what this bearer mourns, and yet she does, unabated on two weeks.

I heard the clipped cadence of “tickets please” and with things for though contracted, a smile of amusement would play upon these lips, as this anachronistic man stopped short, hand extended, punch, punch, with his hat just so in all seriousness moved through the train.

I arrived and was not upswept in arms embraced. Neither a man, nor a lover, my friend was late. My feet brandished the concrete nature of here and now as I was carried into the orbit of my friends distress, her joys, her questions, and how she speaks to me as kindred, as an artist… and we landed after many turns on a quiet Café Mozart for lunch. I had chicken schnitzel and with each bite incongruously took me to Turkey. The Germans are everywhere I said. Elisa nodded in agreement. From one German to another it seemed to be so… I wished to be everywhere also. And we were the only diners at the restaurant.
As we talked I wondered how the place stayed in business and she said, parties. And like a magic word uttered the crew quietly set themselves up around us. One stack of white something or others moored themselves before my eyes and then tables with rapidity rolled by and built up like a break to the right and then the umbrellas around us flew off their ornamented tables and one by one they themselves disappeared in the wake. Until our table, lonely and the sea impatient, waited to consume it.

And finally when as we rose and wadded past the shops it seemed as if the structure of our lives was breaking up around us so that I was quiet and did not wonder where we would land but felt the sand, and noted the sun and we, racing toward I know not what. Until with luck and a late train I bounded to meet it.
But the arch of the evening came on and I found myself in Hollywood sitting on a curb waiting to be picked up and feeling the quiet of a side street about to give birth to a sprawling complex. It would never whisper as it did now- and over dinner and a chance encounter with other friends I found myself full and brimming. And Kerry said, here I bought you this. And out came this black workout outfit for $10. And in the parking lot by our cars I put on the pants and took off my dress and found myself garnered in the soft comfort of mourning colors. My red bra only exposed for a short time…

i do not like them, pen i am

TEXTURE issues, noticed as of late:
-Grapes with that weird grittiness on their skin, the kind of grit that doesn't come off when you wash them. Hate that chalk-on-chalkboard feel on my teeth.
-Dry  palms, like sandpaper. Didn't think I used the antibacterial hand stuff *that* much, but clearly I am amiss on this assessment.
-Great green gobs of greasy, grimy algae in the fish tank. I know. It needs a good scrubbing. But I dread it with every fiber of my being.