MonsterVision

In stunning Technicolor™!

The Monster came to live with me just before Easter.% We spent a happy day playing with my new camera† and these are the results.




We started with a glamour shot‡ by the train yard.




A train came by. And the conductor *waved* at us. It may be the single greatest moment in Monster history.




LoDo§ from the wrong side of the tracks.




There was some construction we watched for awhile. They were assembling a crane.




Like this. O hai! Crane!




We headed west past the skate park¶ to stand on the bridge over the South Platte.




A nice bicyclist thought I looked awkward holding The Monster at arm's length# to get a good river picture, so he stopped to help. Not a lot of monsters wave at train conductors and make new friends all in one day.††




It was time to get down to some serious art.‡‡ Like Common Ground, the picturesque stairway to nowhere.




We started on one side of the stairway.




Took in some rays.




Used all our America's Next Top Model training to work with our surroundings.




Played with camera angles.

Climbed the stairs, crested the summit and found a bunch of irritated, stoned emo kids hiding from the cold, cruel world there. Stepped over them and went down the other side.




Kiss the ground, we made it.




Took a moment in the shade.




"I win!"




Oh, no! MONSTER JAIL!




Braved trespass charges§§ to sit on someone's front steps.




The Monster would like to conclude with a little Public Service Announcement.¶¶ Remember kids: the more you know...


%FOOTNOTE (percented): A gift from someone who knows I am fully capable of stuffed monster wrangling as an art form.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Canon G12, for those of you scoring at home.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Flowers make everything more glamourous.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Lower Downtown. Used to be a scary industrial area. Now the hub of tragic hipness and kids you want to throw off your lawn.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Which we decided to skip. You know how hard it is to get pot smoke residue out of a monster?

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Poor, sweet man; he didn't realise that "awkward" is just my natural state of being.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I can say this, as am now expert on monsters.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): No art is as serious as art you can climb on.

§§FOOTNOTE (boggle): Seriously - I opened a gate and went in for that shot. Totally worth it since I didn't get caught.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (magic wands): Let's just consider that proactive community service to balance out our prior trespassing on private property. Kharma!

Using Cranes for Good

Headline: Prada Transformer Is Four Buildings In One, Thanks to Massive Cranes

{via Gizmodo}


Prada. Prada and *cranes*. It's a good day.

Sticks 'n' Stitches 'n' Nephews 'n' Bitches

It was a busy weekend, what with angsting over missing mail and all.†

[SUMMARY: Got your bitches right here.]

Mostly, you're getting pictures. I shot my blabber wad‡ on bitching about the USPS. And, as always, 1 picture = 1000 words.§

Saturday, I played the role of sole volunteer to Mya's Queen of this year's Sticks 'n' Stitches.¶

Sylvia# and her two boys came...




...Brother and Dr. Doom each brought a friend††...




...and people knit.‡‡




[SUMMARY: Still a knitblog!]

Oh, yeah. There was hockey too...




...and quite a bit of it,§§ but the Avs didn't win.¶¶

Hey! You know what else is in the greater downtown area?






How long has it been since we had a good, old-fashioned crane slurp?##

Tomorrow: What I did on Super Bowl Sunday (abridged)†††


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): If your yarn was missing, you'd angst too.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): *giggle* Blabber wad. It's fun to say and it sounds funny. Blabber wad.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Over 6000 words today alone. That's dedication to the cause.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Next year, I will be in charge.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Knitting related.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I didn't get pictures of their friends.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): And I took blurry photos of them.

§§FOOTNOTE (double toe loop!): Seven goals between the two teams.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (club footed hockey players): Damned Ducks have always had our number. And by "our," I mean, "the Avalanche's"

##FOOTNOTE (like girder frames soaring high): Too long, far too long.

†††FOOTNOTE (holy...): For the sake of the children and several political careers.

Shiny!

TTHFCIF

When Hurricane Ike hit,% it wreaked havoc on some of the offshore rigs operated by the company for which I am currently working. At our monthly departmental meeting,† we learned about the clean-up process and just how arduous and expensive it is.‡

This is all sad.§

But I learned about the most marvelous creature, and I can't help but feel optimistic:




As long as there are crane barges¶ in the world, it can't be all bad.


%FOOTNOTE (percented): I probably shouldn't make jokes, since I'm about to tell you how sad it is that rigs were harmed in the making of this storm, but I caught the giggles in the meeting because they ran down the storms that have affected offshore ops, and it went, "Katrina, Rita, Ike..." and I thought, "It's like the ouija board of the gods. They're trying to spell something out for us." My guess is it has something to do with Krispy Kremes. I know, I know, but I crack me up.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Which I have been asked to attend even though I am not an employee and they mostly talk about employee stuff like annual bonuses and why everybody's stock options suck like Paris Hilton right now.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Not to mention the loss of production and equipment. For those of you scoring at home, my client leaked a total of six gallons of petroleum products through the entire storm season this year. Y'know -- in defense of medium oil.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Not puppy-kicking sad or children starving in Africa sad, but havoc is havoc, even if it does happen to the mildly evil oil not-quite-congomerate.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Ocean-going cranes, my friends. And only 48 shopping days 'til Christmas.

On the Whey

When you get four women together, you may have a hard time getting them to agree on anything.

We all agreed there would be excellent opportunity for many, many cheesemaking puns.

Actually, we didn't disagree on anything,† so it was a pretty good day.

eBeth, Annie, Tani and I convened in Tani's excellent group-cooking kitchen to make mozzarella. We decided ahead of time to each bring a gallon of milk and make four batches of cheese.

We used whole milk for the first batch and did it all by itself, figuring if we were going to screw something up, we should probably only screw up one batch.

[SUMMARY: We are smarter than some of us look.‡]

eBeth and Annie . . . Tani and Annie . . . eBeth and Tani




Indeed, the first batch didn't turn out all that great.§

No whey! Whey!



It tasted OK, but the texture left something to be desired. We took the troubleshooting notes to heart and launched into the next two batches.

Benjamin mused on.




The second and third batches came out very well, except that one was fat-free¶ and fat-free cheese just sucks even if you make it yourself.

[SUMMARY: This may only surprise me.]

The right one is whey bigger than the left. Sorry... that was just cheesy.



Applying all our skill and found wisdom, we launched into the last batch.

For those of you playing at home, you heat the milk with some citric acid. Once it gets to temperature, add the rennet and stir it and heat it.

Let it sit, then check to see if the whey has separated and the curd has formed.

Then you cut the cheese.#

It never o-curd to me I'd be on my whey to cutting the cheese.


Pedro sleeps on.




Once you cut the curds, you remove as much of the whey as possible, microwave it for a minute and *immediately* begin pulling it like taffy.††

Once it's smooth and shiny, you have cheese.‡‡




On the way home, there may be cranes. Exotic cranes in suburban locations.§§





And you get home and your Broncos play a weird but exciting game, ending in a win.%

Yeah, Sunday was a pretty good day.
*************

I fell short on my push ups last night. Something popped - not like I broke anything, more like I got a charlie horse in my trapezius - so I stopped. But I was only three short of the stated minimum, so I don't feel too bad.

*************

Corinna - Cobalt Blends (oil)

Marin says: *sigh*¶¶ You know what this reminds me of most? Erythromicin in a bubble gum-sweet suspension I had to take when I had ear infections as a kid. It is a very pink sweet with a slightly medicinal smell behind it.

As it spread out, the medicinal smell bubbled up and it smelled a little like chlorine. We're in the neighbourhood of kool-aid and bleach.

Surprisingly, an hour later, it smelled like a florist's shop - not flowers, per se, but that cold, wet, green smell of cuttings and freon with an embroidery of crushed petals.

Cobalt Blends says: In 16 BC, the Latin poet Ovid published a book called Amores, an erotic tribute to the elusive Corinna.## Centuries later, Corinna has been the subject of many versions of a traditional song. A sassy note of almond slides into a lingering blend dripping with honey††† and a honeycomb essence vanilla accord. Warm, womanly, very sexy.‡‡‡

Hans says: It's definitely something alcohol. Gin. Well, not gin, but pine. And some sort of cleaning supply.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): It just made such a good lead. Or "lede," as I've come to know it.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I'm not naming names.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Brainssssss!

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): The other was 2%, which was considerably better. We didn't test quite enough variables against quite enough control groups, but it appears the brand of milk may have made a difference. Tani's organic whole milk used in the first batch may also have been a victim of greater heating, which kills the bacteria needed to make cheese -- you can't use ultra-pasteurised, so it generally has to be local and not organic. Annie's fat free Royal Crest home-delivery milk exhibited symptoms not only of being fat free, but it did this weird marbling thing after it was dunked in ice water. The 2% and whole Lucerne batches were by far the best.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): You *knew* that was coming. You would have been terribly disappointed if it didn't.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): We think part of the problem with the first batch may also have been that we took it out of the microwave, donned gloves, read instructions, THEN pulled it.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I left out a couple of details in the name of keeping you from falling asleep on your keyboard and typing njnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn with your nose.

§§FOOTNOTE (cranes twisting in the breeze): Pulled over, stopped the car, made an effort. How long has it been since you saw a crane here?

%FOOTNOTE (percented): By "you," I mean, "I." Your cheesemaking experience may be different and may not involve the Broncos at all.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (bonk bonk): Mostly because I'm stuck in a perfume rut right now. With any luck, one of the randomly-chosen scents over the next few days will perk me up and make smelling worthwhile again.

##FOOTNOTE (let me pound this into your head): Apparently, Cobalt didn't read the same version of research on Amores we did, since Wiki says it's a parody of the erotic poetry of the day. Or maybe Cobalt got it right on, and this is an absurdist parody of sexy.

†††FOOTNOTE (xxx): What's up with this? I love the smell of honey. I've had honey body wash and honey dust that were lovely. Perfumes that say they smell of honey... don't. In my vast experience, they smell of kool-aid.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (double-triple-x): Don't get me started on "sexy." I just participated in a blustering, incoherent way in a discussion on the term "sexy" being applied to everything from shoes (which can be sexy, but not all of them) to tires (which can't be sexy without the aid of a distinct fetish). I'm growing tired to the point of over-sensitive of sexy meaning any level mundane goodness rather than actually sexy. Cripes... it must be time for my meds.

DNC - Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

I took about 106 pictures.

This is a little less than half.† If you click on them, they'll get big.

They weave their way through the odd maintenance of the downtown fire hydrants‡ and the poorly-conceived parking lot price gouging.§

They tour the media blitz, the tourists and the fervent political pamphlet passers.¶

They skip across the political spectrum from scary to scary on the infrared and ultra-violet ends and a whole lot of in between.

We learned to look at motorcades as our daily due. We watched people hail taxis on street corners.# We watched the blossoming and fading of a whole new world of entrepreneurship.††

Pedicabs came from all over the country. Cops came from all over the state. Helicopters came from... well, presumably from hell and Channel 9.

Downtown was lousy with twinkle lights, bikes, bunting, celebrities,@ senators, balloons, buttons, hybrids, red carpets, pedicabs, riot gear, TiVi cameras, personal cameras, propaganda, flags, signs and just plain people.
























Despite all previous apprehension,‡‡ it was a fantastic experience.

My icy, cynical heart is all warm and gooey about the way my city handled this. I was amazed at how polite and cheerful and civilised everybody was.§§ I was grateful the disruptive rioters didn't put up much of a front.¶¶ I was delighted with the energy.##

As dumb as it is, the fact that our very own 'hood, the walking villa with the great restaurants and friendly bars, the mecca of boutique shopping, made national news at more than one outlet for being a "can't miss" slice of Denverana%... well, I'm proud.^

I wanna do it again.†††
*************

Fetish - Neil Morris (Vault) - (edp)

Marin says: This is another one that feels a little like I shouldn't like it -- maybe a little too head shop, maybe a little too amber-and-vanilla. But I *do* like it.

I get a strong undercurrent of patchouli (the dirty kind). The waft is pure amber/incense, but it gets more complex if you get closer. There's a lot going on... copper? Vanilla? Something astringent?

Ooooh, an hour in, there's a good, solid dry wood -- not as sharp and tangy as fresh-cut pine, but maybe a weathered pine log.

Neil Morris says: A warm blend of Myrrh,$ Ambergris, Rosewood, Musk, Oud, Leather,$ Benzoin$ and Patchouli.$

The Perfumed Court says: ...Fetish has notes of Carnation, Benzoin Absolute, Rosewood, Musk, Ambergris, Leather and is a great dark scent.

Hans says: I definitely get a whiff of baby powder, but there's something else. Like... air. Rain air.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): You're welcome.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): A few weeks ago, it was the new locking tops. Then on Monday, they opened them up then went out into the street to do something underground. I think it was very nice of them to test the system before the riots.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Usually $9 a day, the lot jumped to $25 a day. Nobody parked there except a couple of monthly parkers. It was $25 when Hans and I went to lunch. It was $25 when we came back from lunch. By the time we got up to our offices, it was down to $9 again. Lesson apparently learned.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I collected a LOT of pamphlets. I made a point of it. In fact, some of the pamphleteers were suspicious of my enthusiasm for their products.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): *Nobody* hails a cab in Denver. You call for cabs in Denver. It shocked the hell out of some of the cabbies. By the end of the week, they were responding like pros.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): And more Barack-rock puns than you can shake a donkey at.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): Alicia from the office was stalking celebrities. She had binoculars in the empty office that looks over to the Brown Palace. That's her celebrity sighting board in the pictures.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Read: bitching. Or, as we like to say, "Breezing."

§§FOOTNOTE (whirlwind political tour): People mostly watched where they were going, and when they didn't, they said, "Excuse me." I can't even get that at my local grocery store. It was totally impressive. I'm not a big fan of Obama, but I did feel a twinge of hope all my own.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (fists raised in triumph): More tear gas would have sucked.

##FOOTNOTE (Give us a pound! Make it 'splode!): Like NYC, only actively friendly. And sunny.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Pertaining to America = Americana. Pertaining to Denver = Denverana.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): The fact that it will probably boost housing values is just icing on the pride cake.

†††FOOTNOTE (not as cross as I look): Like a small child on her first merry-go-round ride: "Again! Do it again!"

$FOOTNOTE (on the money): I'm giving myself a lot of credit here. I'm saying the benzoin is the astringent part, the myrrh is a classic incense component and every time I think copper there's leather involved. So maybe two points -- a half for each note. But a full point for patchouli.

Speaking of patchouli, I got a big ol' patchouli roll-on from Secret Pal out of the mailbox this morning. Thanks, Secret Pal!