Birthday madness begins!

Today is Melis’ birthday. I’m not going to say which birthday because if you’re a family member, you already know, and if you’re, like, one of her students or something, I’m not spilling the beans. Anyway, she looks many, many years younger than she is, so it matters not. Also, she sometimes acts like a twelve-year-old, like when she jumps out at me and causes me to shriek in horror like a little girl. Maturity!

So, when the Stombaugh girls have a birthday we get to choose a birthday meal; anything we want. (FYI, my standard is roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and white stuffing with onions. Next week, it will miraculously appear before me and I will be so happy. Jen pointed out that Uncle Jimmy and I are the only ones who eat stuffing with onions, which made Jimmy and I look at each other in wild-eyed delight in anticipation of how stuffed we’re going to be.) Melis’ birthday meal is happening tomorrow because she and Brian went to the fabulous seafood buffet at Seven Springs tonight. She chose lasagna for her meal tomorrow. I was kind of wishing/counting on her choosing grape leaves, but whatever, it’s not my birthday. In order to not impede Mom and Jen with the oven tomorrow, I made Melis’ cake tonight. Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting – everything made from scratch. Yum city. It’s kinda my signature cake. Take a look:

Mixing the batter:




Into the oven...


The frosting. It's called buttercream for a reason.




I will frost it tomorrow because we're watching a Thin Man movie tonight. Love!

Happy Birthday, Melis.

Teeny-tiny/Fabulous

I recently moved into a new, larger apartment, and just as I’ve been reveling in all this extra space, I stumble upon people making lovely living spaces in the tiniest of places. Apartment Therapy, the best substitute I’ve found since the heartbreaking folding of Domino magazine (please, I can't talk about it), hosts an annual contest for “Small Cool” places. There are four size categories: Little, Small, Tiny, and Teeny-Tiny. I’m loving the Teeny-Tiny places. Most of them are smaller than my bedroom alone, but they have sweet little kitchens and clever features like a Murphy bed that, when folded into the wall, is covered by two sliding bookcases. Just look:

Lovely bookcases.


Ta da! Bed!

Brilliant! Personally, I think the dude living in the 89 square-foot miniature house with a toilet-slash-shower is taking things to the extreme (my Barbie Dreamhouse was about that size), but most of these people are doing fabulous things with the space they've got, and I love that.

Kris, you should totally be in this contest!

Happy Easter, everyone.

Happy Easter to everyone in the family who isn't here celebrating with us. We miss you.

And Happy Easter to all my friends. Eat too much ham.

Who are they gonna bring in? Coy and Vance?

So, I think I have it figured out. ABC is the evil network and NBC is the stupid network. I do not watch Law & Order: SVU, but plenty of people do. At least for now. NBC has decided to see if they can’t drive away their remaining fan base by considering the elimination of Detectives Benson and Stabler from their lineup. Have we learned nothing from The Dukes of Hazzard? I love John Munch just as much as any girl, but I know who can carry which shows and who cannot. The network needs to just bite the bullet and give them the money. I’m not really sure what kind of leverage NBC thinks they have here.

Further, they continue in their efforts to submarine Kings, the only place I can currently get my much needed Ian McShane fix. Clearly they must be stopped!

Between this, the cancelling of Pushing Daisies, and the meddling Fox is doing with Dollhouse, I’m beginning to wonder why I bother with television at all. These executives are all lunatics. Lunatics, I say!

Sick, sick, sick.

I am currently being held together by a (hopefully non-lethal) cocktail of antibiotics, pseudoephedrine, and caffeine. I may have to take myself out of the line to hold Weston this weekend.

Blargh.

Well, that was unsettling.

Have you ever looking in your rearview mirror and thought to yourself, "Oh, that guy is definitely a serial killer."? I have. Just yesterday, in fact. I looked up and saw reflected in that rectangular piece of glass a man who looked like the biologically impossible love child of John Wayne Gacy and the Unabomber. Seventies-era car spray painted flat black, Stars and Bars hanging from his own rearview mirror, beard like Uncle Jesse (the Dukes’ uncle, not the Tanner’s uncle) had stuck his hand in a light socket, dark sunglasses even though the day was dreary and overcast, and a scowl that screamed, "I brake for knife shops." It’s a pretty chilling sight when you’re just out and about and on the way to Wendy’s for a spicy chicken sandwich.

Has anyone disappeared in the West End lately? If so, I just described your suspect.

I think the pressures of the recession have caused the Showtime advertising staff to start smoking crack.

Okay, so this is the poster for the new season of The Tudors. Can somone please explain to me why Jonathan Rhys Meyers appears to be sitting on a throne of naked people? That's ridiculous all on its own, but let's also remember that this is season three. The Jane Seymour season. Jane Seymour was rather conservative. Jane Seymour was so conservative that she limited the actual number of pearls her courtiers could wear on their persons. She didn't want people getting all flashy with the pearls. She was Tudor England's version of Martha Stewart, if Martha Stewart had shunned the decorative arts and entered a nunnery. Jane Seymour would have been mortified by this picture.

Seriously, ad people, why is he SITTING on a throne of naked bodies?