Susan neglected to tell you about the most amazing part of her trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens yesterday.

The parking spot.

It was on the street directly across from the entrance.
Right across from the entrance!

It required that Susan make an aggressive U-turn on Flatbush Avenue, zoom up to the car exiting her prospective spot and sit there while being cursed at by all the inner city drivers she beat out.

Susan went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens to see the cherry blossoms but they bloomed a month early & blew away last week. 


Instead she saw Japanese folk dancers and Samuari sword fighters and bonsai, tulips, bluebells, wisteria, koi, water lilies and peonies then stood in a grove of lilacs until she was woozy from their fragrance. It was a nice day.

Susan saw a sign outside a farm stand advertising cukes, she doesn't like when the names of vegetables are abbreviated. Shrooms drives her crazy, don't say that around her. She also hates when people tell you their baby is an old soul. What is that anyway? Susan assumes they're saying we're a**holes. Same with follow your heart. How can Susan take you seriously when you say that? She can't, that's how.
There's so many phrases that Susan hates but she's tired now & will write them down later.

Susan really hates the thankful list, each day it gets more laborious. She sits for an hour wracking her brain for 5 stupid things. F*ck being thankful, she's pulling the plug.

Let's talk about John Edwards.

Susan can't wait to rip open the newspaper every day and catch up on the lies, the money, the crazy baby-mama,the aliases, the laser like accuracy of the deceased wife, the immune aide, the dopey socialite and the former ambulance chaser who got too big for his britches.

Susan prays there'll be a made for TV movie. 

Susan is taking the day off from being grateful to share this article, make sure you look at all the pictures.

Today Susan is thankful for:

• John Edwards
• Things sauteed in butter
• Susan's new Philadelphia Museum of Art membership cards
• 2 tablespoons of brownie mix + 1 tablespoon of yogurt + 45 seconds in a microwave
• Having the foresight to keep a pair of slippers at work

Today Susan is grateful for:

• New York Post
• People doing what they're supposed to
• Hamburger Helper
• A bit of chocolate squirreled away
• 30 Rock reruns at bedtime

Today Susan is grateful for:

• Staying in bed to catch up on Jeff Lewis' Interior Therapy
• The Sunday papers
• All the wonderfulness contained in a cup of coffee
• Watching the rain
• Having her absent Brother In Law in town

Susan attended a seminar during the week and was manipulated by the speaker to make a rash commitment in front of his audience. Susan's good with addressing a room full of people, but she doesn't like when she's got to pull something out of her ass to fulfill a requirement she does not value.

The seminar started out to be very promising, the speaker was energetic, Susan liked her table mates and she was very excited about having a day away from the responsibilities of Acme Sweatshop. It soon became clear that content of the seminar was not what she thought it would be. Nonetheless, she would participate and learn then be out the door by 3:30pm. Not bad.

After the lunch break Susan's attention span really dropped off and she found herself daydreaming just like she was back in fifth grade. When the seminar preacher made everybody stand and answer a simple question Susan was unprepared.

What was Susan willing to commit to doing differently?

She had honestly answered a similar question before lunch and now she had to come up with something else. As she listened to the other participants give their commitments she reviewed her sparse notes. Nothing.

Now it was Susan's turn and she blurted out the least likely thing she would ever do;

Each day I will write down 5 things that I am grateful for.

OMG. Who is she now, Oprah? Susan felt sick inside. She had lied about maintaining an attitude of gratitude to a room full of strangers whom she would never see again. 

When she got home she was troubled by what she had done. She lied.

Susan used to be a liar. She used to lie to everyone except the person she would ultimately marry. Through a Herculean effort and self discipline she made herself become a truthful person. She might not tell you the whole truth, just what you need to know and she won't tell you that you look good in something when you don't. Neither will she differentiate between little white lies because they have just as much impact as big ones.

She does, however, reserve the right to lie about matters of opinion like saying that your party was fun or that your expensive kitchen remodel is beautiful.

So, for the next week Susan is going to post 5 things she is grateful for starting with:

• The spring breeze coming through an open window
• Her new Kitchen Aid mixer
• Having her children in the house
• Mangoes
• Being employed

Till tomorrow.

Susan came home with the most wonderful hand me down gift from the husband's daughter last week.

Susan had been admiring the impressively heavy workhorse on a shelf and the next thing she knew it was sailing through the air in a haze of fairy tale glitter right into the trunk of her car.

Susan put her f*cking awesome gift to use the morning after she got home by mixing together some softened cream cheese, cheddar cheese, bacon, cilantro, cumin, chipotle & lime, forming it into a ball then rolling it in roasted nuts and more bacon.

Heaven, thy name be cheese ball.

Hello everybody, Susan's back!
She was down in the areas of North Carolina with the highest concentration of former New Yorkers visiting the husband's daughters.

And his four grand kids;
a two, twin threes & a five.

Susan did things she doesn't normally like to do such as handle caterpillars, sit on the floor and play with blocks, come within kissing distance to a cow, eat her broccoli with enthusiasm, sing the Clean Up song from Barney, assist as necessary in the potty, run across the lawn like a zombie, bake a cake using imprecise measurements and exhaust herself by pushing a kid in a small car around a bumpy back yard.

She also avoided a hated environment by texting her way through an amusement park then sneaking off for a solitary margarita.

Susan was relieved to find only the tiniest amount of little kid bullsh*t in evidence. There was no overt manipulation, no whining, hysterics, tantrums or other unpleasant and childish behavior, just a week's worth of excited conversation from happy children.

Susan spent 48 terrific hours in Philly with her family. You may recall that the last time she was there she had a spontaneous claustrophobic episode, but she stayed away from that place and everything worked out fine.

This time she went over to South Street and stood on line for an hour  to eat a divine sandwich made by a fella wearing a hairnet over his beard. She wasn't even bothered when she saw his giant can of Cheese Whiz.

Afterward, Susan walked down the street to PAT where she found her *favorite book and bought it along with some other stuff including a horribly ugly metal thing that the daughter liked.

*Click HERE to read an excerpt.

She saw many wonderful things in the neighborhood, including but not limited to a confident young lady strolling in her black and gold cat suit with the strategic cut outs, entire buildings clad in intricate mosaics and mirrors, some neat graffiti and record stores.

Stores that sell records!

Philadelphia is crazy.

They took the long way back to their hotel and walked through Chinatown for bubble tea and all the other things they love about Chinatown like seeing entire pig heads in store windows.

The next day they went to see this exhibit and met up with the biggest afro outside of Sly Stone.

Before they left Susan found that Philadelphia has the most charming little cobblestone back streets, the best music blasting out of their car windows and the largest number of men dressed like women that she's encountered in one weekend.

A gentleman roughly the age of Susan's old man offered to massage her feet today when he learned that her shoes pinched.

It was a shame that she could not accept.

Verbatim conversation initiated by a person of suspicious cleanliness as he and Susan and her little sister all exited the NYC subway system.

Are you a rider?

Am I a rider?

Susan thought perhaps he was going to ask for directions and was getting ready to point him back toward the subway map.

Are you a writer?

Am I a writer?

Susan thought perhaps he was going to ask her how to write something down.

Are you a writer?

It was evident that he was getting aggitated with Susan but she still didn't understand what he was trying to communicate so she asked one more time for clarity;

Do I ride or do I write?

Are you a writer?

Yes, I can write.

Are you a WRITER?

The time limit for Susan's interest in continuing the conversation ran out.

No.

As they walked away Susan's little sister said quite cheekily maybe he recognized you from your BLAHg.

Remember back when Susan had her vegetable peeler epiphany?

Well, it took three months but Susan purchased herself a new vegetable peeler. She also purchased a bamboo drawer organizer allowing her to throw out the shoebox tops. Um, she means recycle the shoebox tops.

Last week while minding her own business in a store which sells such things, Susan ran across the loveliest l'orange Le Crueset.

Cast iron covered in two coats of enamel. Even at a discount it was as expensive as it was heavy so Susan went home and thought about it.

A few days later Susan introduced the daughter to her future heirloom and made a pot of chili in it.

Just in case you missed it last week:
click HERE.
Even teenaged houseguests drink it.

Susan could not foresee that an impulsive Friday night purchase of a pretty shower curtain would put her behind the toilet Saturday morning scrubbing grout with a toothbrush.

Susan yelled at the husband tonight.

She yelled and yelled and yelled, she yelled so much she foamed at the mouth a bit then she yelled some more. She threw silverware and said f*ck a bunch of times all followed by YOU!

Did everyone enjoy the first day of Spring too?

Susan needs a new cell phone.
She is completely disinterested in having her cell phone do anything other than make a few phone calls and text. And maybe have a good ring tone like the Munster's theme song.

She is not a big fan of talking on the phone in general and definitely doesn't like holding a tiny cell phone up to her ear, it makes her arm hurt.

She likes to text. Her current phone has a rotary dial which is horrible for texting.

She doesn't care about taking pictures with her phone. She is often trapped standing around waiting for someone to scroll through a billion pictures on their phone till they get the one they want to show her. The best one. She doesn't need to be one of those people.

She doesn't want internet access. She can GTS at home.

GTS is a acronym that Susan's formerly recurring houseguest uses, it means Google That Shit. She likes to say GTS because only the houseguest and the husband know what it is.

Now you guys know too.

She doesn't like to have interactions with real people interrupted to look at something funny on You Tube. Even if it's totally f*cking hilarious it can wait till she's home.

The only other thing Susan does with her phone is use it to wake her up sometimes, like if she takes a nap in her car.

Susan is so disinterested in choosing a new phone that she has abdicated that responsibility to her daughter and provided her with the following criteria;
that it have a qwerty keyboard
be EASY to use
and have good consumer reviews

More on this as it develops.

It's been months since Susan spent money on anything other than a bill, or stuffing a wedding envelope, so she and the daughter celebrated the holiday of their heritage in Macy*s and Forever 21.

The first of Susan's goals was to make her daughter happy, which is not difficult because Susan raised her to be happy. The other goal was for Susan to increase her Plan B dress repertoire so she will always have a suitable fancy dress for such occasions when she needs to wear one.

Susan went back & forth into the dressing room with arm fulls of dresses and came out with one worth taking home. On sale even.

As always, Susan encountered other moms shopping with their daughters and took notice of how they attired themselves. There were all manner of horrible hair color on display and she's not talking about crazy teenage hair, she means the moms. Fried yellow hair with black roots seems to be popular as are matronly nips busting through the double layers of brassiere and tee shirt. Mercifully, Susan didn't see much evidence of mom jeans.

Sidebar: There is a wonderful photo on Cousin Lisa's fridge of Susan wearing mom jeans circa 1998.

While searching for the daughter's school sportswear Susan found a rack of stretchy pants, yoga pants to some, all at a nice discount. She grabbed everything in her size and found one pair that fit perfectly. She was all ready to purchase them in duplicate for home lounging when she noticed something a little off.
A snugness in the crotch area.
She readjusted the pants, bent down then stood up but it was still there.

Sadly, Susan left the camel toe stretchy pants on the dressing room rack.

Last stop was Trader Joe's for all the things Susan loves including, but not limited to;
Dark chocolate covered ginger
multiple bags of frozen dumplings, frozen pot stickers and frozen Creamy Polenta with Spinach and Carrots,
multiple jars of Spicy Smoky Peach Salsa,
and two new cheeses to try, Irish cheddar with Porter, and English Cheddar with wholegrain mustard and ale.
She apologizes to her countrymen for mixing the Irish and English in the same cart.

Susan hopes that everyone had a HAPPY Saint Patrick's Day.

Green Orange Julius Smoothie

Susan made this and everyone in the house liked it except for the daughter, but she's a food baby anyway.

Susan was wearing a shiny shirt the other day and noticed that it clung to her middle. She didn't like that.

Damned cookies.

The next morning as she was getting dressed for Acme Sweatshop the husband came over to give her a kiss then pressed in to give her a hug.

You have a tummy he said as if he were a scientist making a discovery.

Susan saw a line of yellow daffodils blooming this morning!

Susan took her spiked coffee and stood on the main street in her town to watch the local St. Paddy's Day parade.

There were bag pipers, cancer survivors, policemen on bicycles, green spray painted dogs, live bands on flatbeds, twirlers, girl scouts, boy scouts, teenagers with britches falling  beneath their bums, Irish dancers, multiple redheaded girls, firemen, zombies, a priest blessing the crowd, award winning cheerleaders, classic cars, youngsters driving tractors, a drunk guy who fell down and couldn't get back up and a town full of people happy to be out in the sun with their families.

Susan ran into her son and two of his friends travelling on their own and observed him to be just as well behaved on the street as he is at home.

While other folks were using their Friday night for recreational pursuits like meeting friends, going to the movies or having sex, Susan was removing the no longer edible food from her fridge.

She found the balance of the white rice from the other night and understood with intense clarity that she must turn it into rice pudding immediately.

The fact that she was tired and it was almost 11pm proved no match against her need to make rice pudding.

The rice was hard, like plastic pellets but she was undeterred.

Her recipe binder was under construction so there was no telling where her rice pudding recipes might be. She googled leftover rice pudding recipe and liked the first one she saw.

This one.

Susan stood at the stove and stirred the milk, rice and sugar with one hand while she rubbed her eyes with the other. She regretted not having any raisins on hand but the kitchen was warm, the vanilla was fragrant and she was completely enjoying watching it all thicken and become creamy until it was the perfect specimen of rice pudding.

She fantasized about eating the whole thing for breakfast.

Anyway, this is now her current fave recipe except that's she going to knock down the sugar to 1/3 cup.

Susan loves to chop up all her leftovers & make a big mess of fried rice. She seasons it with onions, lots of salt & pepper, soy sauce and maybe some other stuff. It's a very availability based composition.

She always includes a few eggs which she scrambles in the pan before she adds the rice.

The other day she forgot the eggs. Drats!

She quickly made some sunny side up, threw them on top, mixed them in and made the the most delicious thing in the universe.

Susan loves egg yolk.

Cousin Veronica's Photo Booth

While getting her family ready for cousin Veronica's wedding over the weekend Susan pitched a hysterical fit when she overhead her son ask his father if he knew where his solitary pair of dress pants were.

What do you mean you don't know where your pants are what the f*ck are you going to wear why didn't you make sure ahead of time they were clean and hung up and where's your father why wasn't he involved in getting this taken care of what's the matter with both of you we have to leave in an hour!

Susan relaxed once the son produced the wrinkled pair of pants from the depths of a drawer and set to work making them wearable. It was determined that he required a new belt so the boys took a quick trip to buy one while Susan took a hot shower.

All spit shined with newly shaved legs and armpits Susan emerged and began gathering the pieces of her outfit. She only had one viable dress because her new purple dress had been worn at the last family wedding and all the others required some manner of tailoring.

Hmmmm. The dress was not in her closet.

She walked down the hall to her son's closet where she keeps her modest clothing overflow stashed.

No dress.

She just wore it in December, she knew it was in the closet.
She checked again.

No dress.

OMG, the dress is in the drycleaner!

Susan has to leave in 35 minutes and her dress is in the drycleaner!

OMG, it's almost 6pm, what time does the drycleaner close?

Sometimes when life is hurtling toward a dismal conclusion and all hope is lost because you're going to have to wear the same purple dress twice in front of everyone, the universe reaches out and gently delivers you across the finish line.

Susan phoned the husband. He knew where the dress was. He had the drycleaning ticket in his wallet. The drycleaner was still in the store even though they normally close at 5:30.

Cousin Veronica got married and everyone had a wonderful time.

Susan's been maintaining a low profile lately. She's not returning phone calls, she didn't watch the Oscars, her sheets skipped a week being clean.

She was lured out of the house by a visit from her absent Brother In Law one day, and by a pal with some smoky pulled pork on another.

Susan's little sister used her time more recreationally, visiting the 911 Memorial with her family.

And getting a closer look at 1 WTC.

They also did a bunch of fun NYC stuff like eat and laugh and watch a play where they weren't allowed to sit. 

Anyway, Susan's planning on being out of her funk in time for Cousin Veronica's wedding this weekend.

Susan makes her own green cleaning cocktail for the bathroom with a combination of soap, vinegar, baking soda & tea tree oil. In a pinch, the daughter's exfoliating body wash is a very effective substitute for scrubbing the bathtub.

Susan's little sister still sends cards, isn't that charming?

Susan, her little sister and cousin Lisa were on their way to commemorate cousin Veronica's final days of single-ness when they saw something on the NYC skyline they had never before seen. 

'What is that building?'

And the answer thrilled them.

It was the new 1 World Trade Center , still under construction and all illuminated.

Stylishly Practical

Susan's not one for cruises, being trapped on the ocean would be a big issue for her since she's claustrophobic and can't swim. But, when her lovely pal, *Kate sent her this photo she almost reconsidered.

Susan loves safety orange and would be the envy of everyone bobbing around in the ocean as she paddled past them toward the Italian coastline.

Afterward she'd be all ready to go out dancing.

*Ph.D., professor, writer, mom, conversational user of words like covetousness and prolix.

Sweet Sixteen dancing with his cousins

HAPPY birthday

Sixteen years ago this most wonderful of boys was all rolled up inside his mother and hurt like a sonofab*tch coming out.

Happy Birthday. 

Susan spent a relaxing Sunday cleaning and reorganizing her pantry slash laundry room which is really just an alcove off the dining room.

Susan knows that a few might mistakenly assume that a dining room implies some sort of expansiveness to her home and she doesn't want that to happen here.

Having the washing machine and dryer so centrally located ensures convenience as well as the opportunity for Susan's dinner guests to see her dirty laundry anytime she has to get a new bottle of ketchup.

The pantry slash laundry alcove gets reorganized two to three times a year, and when it's not being reorganized it's a wreck. Sometimes the reorganization takes longer than it should because it sparks side projects like reading, taking long breaks or napping.

Peace, Love and Soul

OMG, would everybody please stop referring to California as Cali!
F*cking stop!

Susan's daughter responded to the question put forth by her mother of can't anyone in this house do some laundry? by getting up to do some laundry.

What a good girl.

She put dark clothes into the machine, filled the tub with water and took a plastic bottle down from the shelf.

Is this what I use, mom?

She was holding the bleach.

Susan clutched at her heart then traded it for the detergent.

Susan baked a tofu cheesecake using a recipe she's held onto for a few years. It was a pretty easy recipe, just honey, pineapple juice, lemon, unflavored gelatin and a brick of soybean curd.

She even made her own crust which she doesn't normally bother with.

Everything was humming along except that the batter tasted like tofu.
It's one of those flavors that you don't even realize exist until you taste it again, and then you remember.

Tofu.

Susan added a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract (rum and vanilla beans, go make your own), three tablespoons of sugar and felt she was in good shape. She poured it over the crust & stuck it in the fridge to set.

The next day Susan served the bean curd pie to her dinner guests without revealing the secret ingredient then requested their assessment. The flavor was lemony, they could taste the pineapple but the consistency was a little more congealed than they cared for. It reminded them of flan, which gave Susan an idea for individual honey drizzled tofu-custards.

Post script:
Frugal Vegan Mom provided Susan with this tofu based dessert recipe. Thanks, Kelly!

Susan now has a new standard for paper towels in her house. Gone are the days when she'd purchase the cheapest ones, also noted to be the scratchiest ones. She didn't pay attention to to paper towels because who really cares what one grabs to clean the evidence of a sick dog?
That was until Susan was felled by a thick soft thunderbolt called Viva.

How did she live so long not caring about paper towels?

Well, that's not entirely true, it's more accurate to say that she had no brand preference. She hates designs on her paper towels and she double hates that new choose a size where she's guaranteed to tear off less than she needs.

Happily, everything is her world is brand new now that she has found a home in the plush embrace of Viva paper towels.

Kirsty Scared of (Name redacted because she's a b*tch)

Susan's dog got beaned on the head with a can of clam sauce.

It happened when Susan opened the tall cabinet over the stove, ducked when the can came at her and watched it bounce off Lucy's head.

The can sustained a large dent but Lucy's cement hard pit bull head was undamaged. Thank goodness.

Susan made a minestrone soup for dinner using the final few vegetables wheezing in the back of her fridge.

She encouraged the family to pile on the Parmesan to distract them from noticing what she knew already, that dinner was doomed. The kids were fooled but the husband eyeballed her from across the table with a look that conveyed why are you feeding this to me?

Why not? she shrugged.

Susan was in an expensive grocery store looking in the gluten free aisle.

$7.99 for a 5.5 ounce bag of chocolate covered pretzels, really?

Nonetheless, she wasn't purchasing them for herself so she put them in the basket and took another ten minutes thoughtfully considering what else she would need then set off toward the sign which read Formaggio.

Susan walked past all manner of gorgeous packaged foods, fresh seafood laid out on tables, beautiful breads and baked goods, but she didn't have the time to stop. She had come directly from work & had a limited amount of time to run her errand then get home ahead of  her company.

The Formaggio sign lied, there was only yogurt & assorted dairy items. She started walking away in search of the cheese when she passed an employee in a white apron.

Where is the cheese? she asked and was directed back to where the cheese wasn't. She more specifically asked the employee if there was a cheese department?

Oh, I thought you wanted like, shredded cheese in a bag the employee said and pointed her toward the other end of the store.

So now Susan knows how she must appear as she walks through an upscale marketplace, like someone in search of bagged cheese.

Super.

Another January and Susan's going cold turkey with the sugar.
Well, not one hundred percent cold turkey, she'll still eat cereal, peanut butter and whatever she bakes, she just won't do it to excess. But, the dark chocolate has already been removed from her little office fridge and she's started telling people not to feed her sweets anymore.

Susan had an epiphany on the first day of the new year, if anyone can remember that far back.

Susan was in cousin Lisa's kitchen peeling turnips and squash for soup with a vegetable peeler so f*cking magnificent it was like a piece of surgical equipment.

The oversized soft grip handle provided excellent leverage and control and the peeler easily removed the hard skin of the rounded winter vegetables in a way that mesmerized Susan.

The vegetable peeler got into her brain and started a chain reaction of thoughts leading her to the conclusion that she was just as deserving of a beautiful vegetable peeler as anyone! Susan's own vegetable peeler is a decade old and of basic construction, it has never occurred to her to trade up.

Susan thought about a few of the lower end items in her kitchen such as the plastic mat on which she chops her vegetables and the utensil drawer organizer she made out of shoebox tops. It's very practical but looks like it was made out of shoebox tops.

Often Susan likes to make do with what she has on hand instead of spending money, particularly if it's very utilitarian. That's how she ended up with her dining room seating. But this vegetable peeler went to the core of her self worth. She peels vegetables on a regular basis and why shouldn't she have a f*cking magnificent peeler to aid her in that drudgery? Or a beautiful cutting board on which to chop her vegetables, which she does even more often? Or a bamboo drawer organizer for a drawer that she opens more often than she peels or chops vegetables?

She should have these things, and as soon as her current state of being broke ends she will!

It's almost HAPPY New Year, Everybody!

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

Click here


And here!
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Susan’s computer decided to work in one more F*ck you, Susan! before the end of the year.

OMG, Susan can’t wait till the husband gets paid and buys her a new laptop.

Can’t wait.

She’s going to throw that 1.5 year old m*therf*cker into the toilet then pee on it.

Until that magical time arrives, let Susan use an entirely different computer and catch you up on all she’s been doing through the holiday season.

Susan looked forward to watching each of her children perform in their school concert, although she had difficulty remembering which instrument her daughter played. Initially she told an interested party that it was the violin. Then she told a different interested party that it was the flute. However, the instrument that her daughter has been practicing and playing for two years is actually the clarinet.

It was much easier for Susan to remember that her son is in the chorus because she loves him more.

Twice that week Susan sat in the high school auditorium stuffed with wretchedly dressed parents. There were sweat pants, mens’ tee shirts, sweatshirts and ball caps a plenty…on the moms.
The women of Susan’s neighborhood now all dress as if they came directly from blacktopping the interstate.

On Christmas morning as is their custom, Susan’s family met at the local diner for breakfast with her little sister’s family, minus one brother in law. Susan lost count of the number of families who wore their pajamas out to eat eggs in public, including one college aged girl who wore fleece footie pajamas.

Alas, there is no longer a dress code in Susan’s neighborhood.

Later, Susan rolled out a twenty pound pan of butternut squash, carmelized onion and spinach lasagna using a recipe that she found in the November issue of Cooking Light. Her little sister and nieces, all good sports, excitedly exclaimed ‘I’ll try it!’

She sobbed real tears as she scraped the remaining 19.75 pounds into the garbage an hour later.

During Susan’s computer black-out period she also met a favorite girlfriend for dinner, smeared moldy chapstick on her lips, failed to reorganize her pantry, planted an amaryllis bulb and stayed home sick one day.

Thanks

Nick Holmes!

After Susan spent an hour on Sunday evening listening to the dreamy and wonderful Nigella, she fell asleep all warm and giddy imagining herself as one of Nigella's guests. Twinkly Christmas lights, bubbly prosecco & cranberry cocktails and impossibly rich gravy swirled through her head all night spinning her round and round until the alarm woke her up Monday morning.

Brrrr, it's cold in Susan's house.

She layed in bed long enough to put her behind schedule then resigned herself to the routine of her morning. She got ready for work, packed up the *brownies she made for the staff, and took her cup of coffee from the husband on the way out the door.

In the car she drove through the grey of her neighborhood, looking at the sky and the trees and the garbage cans and the kids waiting for the bus. She pressed all the buttons on the radio. She wasn't in the mood for music, she wanted to listen to people talking so she stopped at NPR.

At that precise moment Steve Inskeep was beginning an interview on Morning Edition and welcomed Nigella Lawson.
CLICK HERE!

*Susan made peanut butter and jelly brownies by swirling microwaved peanut butter and raspberry jelly through prepared brownie mix.

Lest anyone forget, Susan would like to remind you that she is
SMITTEN 
with 
NIGELLA!

Susan and her daughter enjoyed a lazy weekend by themselves. The daughter finished up her Advent calendar, folding and decoratively numbering 25 little construction paper boxes to be filled with candy. However, in the time it took her to complete this overdue Xmas craft the family had ransacked the candy leaving only a few dark chocolate kisses.

They made some pretty unspectacular gingerbread cookies causing Susan to reconsider going back to this recipe and just keep the lubricating ingredient a secret. Much better was Pam's big linzer cookie.  

Falafel dinner was provided by Kelly's blog. The daughter is now a falafel eater, even opting to use the yogurt sauce over ranch dressing while Susan was impressed with her own substitution of peanut butter for tahini.

Yes, it's obvious that there's nothing much going on at Susan's house, but she doesn't mind. She likes spending a weekend in her stretchy pants doing very little. She knows folks who are currently wrestling with terrible, awful losses, for whom the solace of a boring weekend is light years away.

Susan may even treat herself later on and bust out the ironing board.

Susan was in the midst of deep cleaning the bathroom when she took a break to have a bowl of cereal.

During this time the son came home, headed for the bathroom and called out 'What's wrong with the bathroom? It's all messed up!'

Obviously Susan's family is so used to the filthy bathroom that they can't recognize when it's being cleaned.

Susan grabbed this from Patti's blog, go over & say hello.

HAPPY December, everybody!

Now that Susan's free of the constraints of NaBloPoMo she'd like to jump right in and tell you about the gurgling misery that has become her stomach.

A week of takeout punctuated by wedding food at one end, bridal shower food at the other and Thanksgiving in the middle along with two batches of homemade pumpkin seed candy really f*cked her up. Seeds and nuts are like plutonium to Susan's digestive ability.

Get her some vegetables stat.

John Singer Sargent

Here is Sargent's El Jaleo which hangs in the wonderful Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The lovely Madame X hangs in Susan's tip top supreme all star favorite place in the world, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Chupa Chups

Susan's got a favorite lollipop; Chupa Chups.

She can't always find them, so she stocks up when she does. 

Susan favors the slow release of sugar that hard candy provides & keeps a stash of suckables in the bottom of her bag, in her car, on her desk and in a back up bag locked in her drawer. She's happy to share, so come on by & maybe you'll score some little espresso candies, or Werther's hard caramels (nothing sticky for Susan's delicate dental situation) or mints with chocolate in the middle.

She doesn't generally share the Chupa Chups.

Walking Dead

The last zombie killed on Sunday night looked eerily like Susan's daughter.

Chipotle Peppers

Behold the object of Susan's undying adoration!

Tiger Lily Cafe

Susan and the daughter like this little vegetarian cafe so much that they willingly overlook the unfriendly counter help whenever they eat there.

Footnote: Earlier this year Wild Bill's daughter declared Susan's carrot-ginger soup "better than Tiger Lily's".

Milk!

SUSAN LOVES MILK but didn't appreciate when her mother would mix it with powdered milk, warm it on the stove & dump it over her cereal.
OMG, yuk mom.

HAPPY Thanksgiving

Scary Sounds Machine

Susan loves her scary sounds machine, press a button and you might hear a woman screaming, a bloke being strangled, a creaky casket lid, crashing thunder, a laughing lunatic, the psycho knife, a howling ghost...

Fresca

Susan's heart leaps for joy whenever she sees this in a vending machine.
Grapefruit soda is muy fresca!

Slaughterhouse Five

'Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim,' said the loudspeaker.
'Any questions?'

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last:
'Why me?'

'That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?'

'Yes.' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it.

'Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.'

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is Susan's favorite surprisingly anticlimactic neolithic monument.

Twenty five years ago Susan and her little sister took a lovely side trip from London to visit Stonehenge.

They learned two interesting things that day; Stonehenge is set in the middle of rolling farmland and surrounded by sheep blueberries.

Thanks for coming and have a safe drive home!

Red Sweetie

Susan's palate leans toward cartoon penguins and twist off tops.

Unobstructed View of the Water

It's a real treat anytime Susan gets to go over the Robert Moses Bridge because for 2 miles she gets a clear view of the Great South Bay through every window.

There's also a set of black tire marks that she likes to look for which go from the left lane over to the right and bounce off the guard rail.

Stargazer

The Stargazer is Susan's favorite accessible six story sculpture which she's lucky enough to pass every time she goes out to visit Cousins Andy & Melissa.

Chili Cheese Dogs

Susan has no fear of eating a chili cheese dog purchased from a truck on the side of the road or from a carnival although hers never look this good.

Blood On The Tracks

Susan's been listening to this moody record since 1976.

This is Susan's newly discovered favorite silly painting by Roy Lichtenstein that was just auctioned for $43,202,500.

Isn't it fabulous?

Susan could absolutely imagine this hanging on her living room wall, making her smile every time she saw it. She'd set a line of chairs before it and invite friends over to sit and look. 

However, she thinks forty three million dollars is a bit much for a silly painting.

Susan would like to take a day off from her Nablopomo inspired favorites and catch up with her bloggy pals because she misses them, and she misses keeping them informed of the mundane minutiae of her life.

First, she'd like to send all her animal lovers over to Maggie's blog to read this post.

Next, she feels like she's on an ice floe floating toward the Department of Labor website. It appears that Susan's best is not cutting it at Acme Sweatshop.

Of late she has fantasized about being unemployed; greeting her medium-large sized children when they get home in the afternoon, working through all the recipes in her binder, throwing sticks in the yard for Lucy to fetch, reading a book, keeping the bathroom clean.

Anyway, she'll keep on keepin' on and see what happens.

Islip Art Museum

The Islip Art Museum is Susan's favorite little local, imaginative, always at the edge of being broke, hundred plus year old house which used to be an orphanage and is now a four room art museum.

Santa Clara Pottery

Susan fell in love with Santa Clara pottery while on her honeymoon.

The pottery is made from one long coil of clay which is wound into shape then smoothed over and carved. The designs are specific to the potter's family and reach back for generations. If Susan remembers correctly the clay starts out as red and turns black during the firing when the pot is placed in a pit and covered with dung.

Susan and the husband went to the Santa Clara pueblo in New Mexico and bought a pot from the person who made it. Afterwards they drove over to Abiquiu to see where Georgia O'Keeffe used to live but her house was surrounded by an adobe wall too high to even peek over. Instead, Susan settled for admiring the view that Miss O'Keeffe used to paint then left.

The BIG Duck

The Big Duck is Susan's favorite local example of novelty architecture.

Doctors Without Borders

One of Susan's favorite charities is Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It provides independent, impartial assistance in more than 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters. These folks go out to help the neediest of the needy and sometimes get kidnapped or killed.

Please consider sending Doctors Without Borders some cash because they'll send you a BIG map of the world so you can finally see where everything is.

The Onion

The Onion is Susan's fave fake newspaper, but she doesn't like to read it online, she prefers to fold one up and put in her bag for later. Susan tries to score it anytime she's in NYC, sometimes that means giving a homeless guy five bucks for his.

Burberry Rain Boots

Susan favorite utilitarian footwear are her Burberry rain boots. They may start the day as part of a stylish outfit and end up slogging through the backyard while Susan picks up dog sh*t.
And when they are left out on the front steps all summer Susan just hoses out the spiders and beetles and sets them upside down to dry.

Livingetc

Susan has already received the December issue of her favorite magazine. It's BIG, glossy, colorful and filled with all sorts of ideas that Susan can replicate on the cheap.
The magazine is so much better than the website & she never has to hunt down her magazine then chase away whichever family member is using it.

Cousin Lisa

Susan's current favorite picture of Cousin Lisa and the husband.

The Old North Church

Susan's family loves Boston and Susan really loves the Old North Church.