almost summmmmmmmmmmer!!

[verbicide]

Anyone with a friend in the PNW knows that this weekend is the first real scorcher of the season. It's such a sharp contrast from the past weeks of rainy drizzle. As much as I hate extreme heat, even I have to embrace the beads of sweat forming even-now on my upper lip. *wipe* It's so nice to not feel so goddamn COLD all the time. It's also good motivation for me to change the sheets since I don't think flannel will feel very good in the upcoming days.

I'm going to Amy T's bbq tomorrow and have promised to bring a tres leche cake. Which of course requires me to turn on my oven tonight. Oops! Actually, I'm excited about it. It's a really light and refreshing cake; it's so easy and yet sort of disproportionately phenomenal. (Thank you, Alton.)

I worked from home today and was able to meet Jeff for lunch. We ran over to Whole Foods after and he bought me some ingredients for the cake, which I brilliantly left with him when I dropped him off. (A can each of evaporated and condensed milk.)

As it turned out, I needed to get a few more things, so I had a leisurely shopping trip at Greenwood Market this evening. As much as it was a reminder why you shouldn't go to a grocery store without a list or at least a plan, I ended up buying a lot of exciting things.

- ingredients for yogurt gelato which I have been craving, though crap I forgot vanilla bean
- flank steak, which I'm currently marinating ala Matt's dad's recipe
- chicken breasts which I'm going to grill today for lunch tomorrow
- broccoli, which I haven't had in ages and love
- fun girly things like noxema, exfoliating face wipes, shampoo and conditioner, and deodorant

Random aside: I hate, hate, hate Noexma in a pump. It's all thin and liquidy and useless. I was trying to be a brave soldier, suck it up, and just work my way through it, but I hate it so much, I'm going to overcome my traditional cheapness and toss it. It was so exciting to buy the squat jar kind again. Also, in other product hate, I accidentally bought some cheap single-ply toilet paper. (Not on purpose, I was running out of the store, remembered I needed it at the last minute, and grabbed it from the end-of-the aisle.) I hate it. But I can't toss away 11 rolls of toilet paper, so I'm going to endure the unpleasantness. I know, right. Could I be more of a princess?

Also I shaved my legs today and am sporting no less than three tiny bandaids since I bought cheap razors. Ouchie. Henry, who is staying with me while Sarah is in the midwest, was very bemused by my flamingo act in front of the sink. He had no idea what to make of that.

I got home from an appt and did some gardening in preparation for the surface-of-the-sun-like heat. I cut some flowers from my garden and I think next to the joy of harvesting my own food, cutting my own flowers to spread throughout the house (and not for $14.99 a bundle) is orgasmic. The two roses my dad bought me are thriving. And the house has sort of exploded in spring-y flower-y-ness because the flowers Sarah bought me last weekend are still blooming exquisitely.

I need to take some quick pictures for my dad so he can see how well the roses have bloomed!

Another mark of spring glory is that Jeff and I are finally, finally, FINALLY returning to the Farmer's Market.

That's it! Off to do Things!

Comments

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

Get thee a Venus razor! OMG - I am the girl who has managed to cut herself w/ an ELECTRIC razor, and not once has my Venus, in the like 5 years I've owned it (okay, I did get my second handle a month ago as I dropped and then STEPPED on the old one and broke it!), nicked me!

I also hate pump Noxema! HATE it. I love the feel of the jar kind! I need to get more myself!

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

I love the Venus, too --but they're SO FREAKING EXPENSIVE! So I bought some super cheapo razors for like $2.99 in a defiant fit.

It was one of those classic girl moments, where I'd toweled off the leg and thought it was fine, I put on my skirt and was about to walk out the door when I looked down and there was like blood streaming down both sides of my leg. It was grotesquely hilarious!

And yay for solidarity in Noxema-pump hatred!!

[mixed-up-media.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to try making a tres leches cake. I take it you like Alton Brown's recipe?

As far as I'm concerned, one-ply should be forever banned.

My absolute favorite razor in the whole wide world is Gillette Mach III. Yeah, it's a men's razor, and yeah, the cartridges are a little pricey,* but I can't remember the last time I nicked myself. It's that good.

*I think they're still cheaper than equivalent cartridges for women's razors, though I haven't price-checked them recently.

[lietya.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's my favorite, too! I don't care if it's not sickly Girl Pink (tm), it works well and I love it. So when I borrowed Shash's and liked it, I just bought my own, and to hell with the implied manliness. (Though now he has been recently tempted into switching to the Schick Quattro thanks to a VERY SNEAKY free sample they sent us... I keep teasing him that eventually they'll come out with a 345-blade razor, at the rate the blade-number arms race keeps increasing!) I don't shave my legs, obviously, so the blades do tend to last about three hundred years for me.

Anyway, Stop & Shop carries generic replacement blades that'll fit in the Mach III (and do say so on the package) and cost about half as much, btw.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

I wish we had a stop & shop. And do you just not hair-removal on your legs or do you not shave because you wax? (It's the 'obviously' that made me curious!)

[lietya.livejournal.com]

Sorry, it's obviously for her, but not for you, and I shouldn't have been so cryptic. :) I've mentioned to her before that I never got around to starting to shave my legs; the hair is very sparse (despite the Italian heritage!) and I am totally too lazy to spend that much time if I don't have to. Most people can't tell unless I mention it *and* let them get an inch away and inspect, so I don't bother.

(I shave my armpits, though, because of the hygiene issue. I don't like hairy armpits even on *men.* Fortunately, Shash agrees - yes, he shaves his armpits too. Yay.)

I'm sorry you don't have a Stop&Shop! It's weird for me to think of an area without one. It still might be worth checking the generics section of your local supermarkets, I guess.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

You know, people say that a lot of times for women shaving is what spawns the hairiness. I think of my upper arms and my upper legs which I don't shave and the hair is super sparse. So it makes sense to me and I'm totally jealous!

[mixed-up-media.livejournal.com]

Anyway, Stop & Shop carries generic replacement blades that'll fit in the Mach III (and do say so on the package) and cost about half as much, btw.

Thanks for the tip! We'll have to keep an eye out for them.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

I love the Alton Brown recipe, and I'm not always his biggest fan. The cake is absurdly easy to put together (if you have a kitchen scale and stand mixer) and it knocked everyone's socks off. I made it last summer when I was sick and weak and it still was a cinch.

For. Serious. Why do they even make one-ply??

I'll have to try that out --I just don't understand why refills are like $14 for three (for the Venus line or whatever). Makes me insane!

I'll totally check the prices on them. Though I usually get my legs waxed but I was super impatient yesterday!

[mixed-up-media.livejournal.com]

We definitely have both a kitchen scale and a stand mixer (a Kitchen Aid), so I could definitely do it.

The only explanation for one-ply that I can think of is that someone at the toilet paper companies had a sadistic streak. ;)

See lietya's comment about the razors--she gets cheaper Stop & Shop refills for them.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

I did see that!

And agree with your single-ply theory :)

[lietya.livejournal.com]

I tend to solve the one-ply problem by using twice as much... OK, usually more like three times. :) I know what you mean about the frugality and the not throwing out stuff that just sucks, though. I think *we* still have a container of moisturizer that I'm violently allergic to but can't bear to waste the $3!

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

I totally use 3x as much. So hopefully I'll just go through it quickly, because: HATE.

And it just is so wasteful to toss stuff, but sometimes there's a limit! (like with pump noxema!)