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I Wrote This Song About Your Beautiful Town

On Monday night I went with the always-delightful Leslie to see the Counting Crows with Augustana and Michael Franti & Spearhead. You guys. You GUYS. It was so good. I’d seen the Crows way back when, and frankly they were sort of disappointing–you know how Adam Duritz does that thing where he makes up entirely new melodies to all his songs, so you can’t sing along and the whole thing is kind of weird and alienating? Anyway, he did that and it was like three days before I first moved here for college and I think I basically cried the whole time, because that was what I did that entire summer. 

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ANYWAY (today is the day on which I overshare). Monday’s show was…not that. By which I mean, it was totally amazing. Instead of a traditional lineup (Band One, get up and pee and walk around, Band Two, get up and pee and walk around, Band Three), all three acts played together, trading off and singing each other’s songs and generally being fantastic and having a good time. There were a million people on stage (plus Emmy Rossum was randomly there? I couldn’t tell you why, but girl has a nice voice). We jumped. We danced. We sang “Mr. Jones” at the top of our lungs. Out of tune, obviously. The whole thing made me so happy. Live music always does. 

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Also: you know how there is no girl version of Seth Rogen? I don’t think there’s a girl version of Adam Duritz, either. Please discuss.

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Few More Geese Are Gone, Few More Leaves Turning Red

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Oh HEY it’s September, huh? How did THAT happen? I still have a tan to work on. I’ve hardly even been to the beach. But we’ve flipped the calendar and the air is changing and the pumpkin spice lattes are out at the ‘Bucks–I may have even had one before work yesterday. It tasted like fall. And also sugar. 

I love this time of year, when it’s finally cool enough to bake and wear cardigans and drink (lots of) hot coffee in the morning without wanting to die. Target is full of lunchboxes and school supplies, and even though I won’t be sitting in a classroom myself–a fact that always makes me ache a little–I’ve got a whole lot of learning to do. My reading list is a mile long. I’m going to teach myself to purl if it kills me. And then there is the writing.

Oh, child, the writing. 

Meanwhile, there’s still a scrap of summer to be had  here in Eastern Massachusetts. Tonight Tom and I are chasing it out to the Mendon Drive In for a picnic dinner and the new Quentin Tarentino. I’m gonna bring a blanket, and sit on the hood of the car.

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Run and Done

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When I was in twelfth grade all the chicks in AP English had eighth period gym, because a good way to encourage overachievement is to make you play dodgeball for forty-five minutes in the sweltering heat after all the other seniors have gone home for the day. ANYWAY, the point is that sometimes we’d have Run and Done, which was both the best and worst kind of gym, because you had to do laps for twelve minutes (which is a LONG TIME if you are spastic like me) but then you could leave.

I don’t know why I’m thinking about that right now. 

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Anyway. Tom’s been home in New York this week doing boy things. He bought me flowers before he left.

In his absence I’ve been doing some serious around-the-house puttering: laundry is folded, coupons are clipped, and by the time you read this the brand-new bedskirt will hopefully be on the bed. I grew up in a house with bedskirts, and not having one has made me feel like we live in a tenement. Is that anal? That’s probably really anal.

Moving on. I hit Target with my friend H, took the Tank for a long walk, and finally all my loose magazine-page recipes into a notebook. I finished my entry for the Real Simple essay contest.  I caught up on some Lost. We are moving along at a steady clip here behind the kitchen door, or if we are not we are tricking ourselves into believing it. 

The air is cooling off, chickens. Something is about to change.

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Gingery Sugar Cookies

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These are advertised on allrecipes as ginger cookies, which they definitely are not. They’re more like sugar cookies with a little bit of a ginger bite. They’re really cute and tasty, though, and perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. They’re very morning-friendly. I brought them to our neighbors so they’d love me. And so I wouldn’t eat them myself. 

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  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger root

  • 1. In a medium bowl, cream together the shortening and confectioners’ sugar. Stir in the egg. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, stir in the ginger. Cover the dough, and refrigerate for at least an hour–this dough is super sticky, and if it’s not cold it’s hard to roll.
  • 2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
  • 3. Dust a clean, dry surface with corn starch. Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness, and cut out cookies with the cutter of your choice. Place cookies 1 1/2 inches apart on unprepared cookie sheets.
  • 4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are slightly brown at the edges. Remove from baking sheets to cool on wire racks.

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Five Good Things: Hymn to Life Edition

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1. Tom’s parents are in town, and they are leaving his sister K in Boston to LIVE. I’m going to adopt her. Even though she is 22. At the very least I’m going to cook her dinner all the time. 

2. Two movies in the air conditioning on a hot, sticky night

3. The memory of crawling into bed next to my mom early in the morning when I was two or three

4. Women in white gloves and pillbox hats

5. I make the eggs, Tom gets the iced coffee. We meet in the kitchen for breakfast.

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Tom says I am one hell of a woman.

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I called Comcast and told them I had to cancel the landline because we’re too poor to pay for it, and they knocked twenty-five bucks off our bill, amped up our internet, and threw in HBO. 

See, that’s the kind of thing that money-saving websites always tell you to do, and I’m like, THAT WILL NEVER WORK, but lo and behold. I wonder who else I can call and threaten with defection. I wish I could do it to Dunkin’ Donuts.

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Ba dum bum.

Grasshopper walks into a bar. Bartender says, “Hey, we’ve got a drink named after you!”

 

Grasshopper says, “You’ve got a drink called Steve?”

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Monday Funday

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We have a standing Monday night double date with R & A, former roommates and bartenders extraordinaire. Sometimes we’ll head out for drinks or a movie, but in the summer we usually wind up on the roof, stuffing our faces and trying to outclimb the damp, nasty heat. Last night we did dinner for eight: a whole chicken on the grill (why yes I am awesome, thank you), three bean salad with tomatoes and corn, and peaches and goat cheese with candied walnuts over baby spinach.

The lovely L, who I’m only just getting to know, brought the prettiest tomato mozzarella salad ever, and we finished off with s’more pie which we ate too fast for me to photograph, which is a shame because the one on the website looks kind of twee. Anyway, it was good and easy and no-bake, and if you like s’mores and happiness and have some stale graham crackers lying around your kitchen, you should try it out.

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More Militerry Less Skools

Because we are lazy beyond comprehension and I hate us,  it took Tom and me until THE LAST POSSIBLE DAY to make it to the Shepard Fairey Show at the ICA.

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You know, the one I talked about going to back in February. At the museum that is within walking distance of our apartment.

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Anyway.  We got there. And I have to say, it was so worth the trip. It’s all cool and trendy to like Shepard Fairey right now if you live in Boston (or, I guess, if you live in the White House), but the whole business was just super cool and accessible and visually striking, stencils and bold colors and crazy re-imaginings of images you see every. Single. Day.

 

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Obey Giant.

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