purpleglitter and I went to Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square on our way to Haveli (in Inman Square) last night. purpleglitter had a lucky cupcake (a cupcake with a fortune) and I had a very rummy mojito. All I can say is: delicious! Paddington gobbled up the catnip and cheese cupcake we got for her when we got home — and promptly passed out in a drugged haze. She hopes to find more of those magic cupcakes lying about.

Paddington's cupcake even had an unsearchable goldfish cracker on top of hers.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. merryperseis came over to join purpleglitter and I in the livingroom. She had never seen our new place before and she arrived with perfect timing – just 10 minutes before dinner

I cooked portobello and artichoke stuffing, corn on the cob, baked homemade macaroni and cheese, edamame, and a pumpkin and carrot pie that turned out to be more of a pumpkin and carrot pudding — but still quite good, if I do say so myself. We all stuffed ourselves silly and had a good and mellow evening. Good company and too much food is how Thanksgiving is meant to be.

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I made taro fries last night and they were good. Simple to make: just cut up a taro root; toss with olive oil, garlic powder, and pepper; place on a cookie sheet; and throw in the oven at 450°F (230°C, 510 K) until crisp.

I haven't made them since I moved out of the house_of_clocks, mostly because I don't make it down to the Super 88 very often since I moved here. That probably won't change, as I cook mainly for purpleglitter now and she doesn't like the food from the Super 88 except Pocky, taro and a very few other items. We only ended up getting the taro because we went with invalid_userid to pick up food for her stay.

Project Three Meals went completely off today. I got no healthy snack, got no exercise, and went on a junk food binge. Don't worry, I am not following that binge up with a purge, those days are very long gone and I'm not going back.

I did get in my three meals, though, if that matters. For breakfast I had egg and swiss on an everything bagel, for lunch I had linguine in a tomatoed alfredo sauce, for dinner I had pizza. Oh well, tomorrow's another day.

Success! For breakfast I had macaroni and cheese laced with broccoli bits, for lunch I had samosa chole chat; for dinner I had linguine in a tomatoed alfredo sauce; for my healthy snack I had 3 mandarins. I got plenty of exercise walking home from merryperseis's place. No junk food.

For breakfast I had angel hair pasta in a garlic butter sauce; for lunch I had mutter paneer on rice; for dinner I had pizza, and for my healthy snack I had three mandarins. However, I didn't get any exercise and ate quite a bit of the left over Halloween candy. We only got two groups of trick or treaters, so there was a lot left over. Tomorrow is another day, perhaps the day I make this attempt work.

For breakfast I had creamy parmesan noodles, for lunch I had eggs and hashbrowns, for my healthy snack I had a mandarin and a sugar-free popsicle. I got in well over an hour of exercise walking from my place to merryperseis's place and back.

I would have made, except that my dinner wasn't exactly reasonable. I went to Rudy's with purpleglitter, zarthon, and Jeff. I ended up eating chili con queso, a jalapeño poppers, and a bean & cheese burrito. The popper and burrito would have been fine &ndash but the chips and chili con queso were not only too much, it's hard not to categorize them as junk food.

From the The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know (1884):

Things to try. — Try popcorn for nausea.    Try cranberries for malaria.    Try a sun-bath for rheumatism.    Try ginger ale for stomach cramps.    Try clam broth for a weak stomach.    Try cranberry poultice for erysipelas.    Try a wet towel to the back of the neck when sleepless.    Try swallowing saliva when troubled with sour stomach.    Try eating fresh radishes and yellow turnips for gravel.    Try eating onions and horseradish to relieve dropsical swellings.    Try buttermilk for removal of freckles, tan, and butternut stains.    Try taking your cod liver oil in tomato catsup, if you want to make it palatable.    Try hard cider -- a wine-glass three times a day -- for ague and rheumatism.    Try taking a nap in the afternoon if you are going to be out late in the evening.    Try breathing the fumes of turpentine or carbolic acid to remove whooping cough.    Try a cloth wrung out from cold water put about the neck at night for sore throat.    Try snuffing powdered borax up the nostrils for catarrhal "cold in the head."    Try walking with your hands behind you if you find yourself becoming bent forward.    Try a silk handkerchief over the face when obliged to go against a cold piercing wind.    Try planting sunflowers in your garden if compelled to live in a malarial district.

Tomorrow, I'm going to start Project Three Meals up again. The same as it's always been: three reasonable meals and one healthy snack – no more, no less. 30 minutes of exercise a day, minimum. Absolutely no junk food. Sounds simple, should be simple, isn't.

This of course means I won't be raiding the after-halloween candy sales this year.

I've been on the side of the police in the recent bomb scare incidents in Boston. The police were unfairly blamed for doing their jobs and doing their jobs well in those instances. That does not mean, however, that I believe the police can do no wrong.

In fact, there are many recent incidents that show there are real and significant problems with the police, including (but far from limited to) the Jena Six, the tasering of the student at John Kerry's speech, campus police breaking a high school student's wrists over crumbs, racial profiling, overuse of heavily armed SWAT teams for what used to be considered relatively minor drug offences, and police outright threatening to make up crimes.

We have secret prisons and the right to habeas corpus has been revoked. The police believe they can behave with impunity, because much like the soldiers responsible for the massacre at Haditha or the Blackwater employees slaughtering civilians in Iraq, the police within the United States are generally allowed to act with impunity when dealing with those outside the power structure &mdash they know they will not be held accountable for their actions.

That is why I get so upset about the whining that occurs in Boston whenever the police do what they are actually supposed to be doing — it draws too much attention away from the real problems.

From the The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know (1884):

Household Hints. — Do not deposit wood ashes in a wooden vessel or upon a wooden floor.    Never use a light in examining a gas-meter.    Never take a light into a closet.    Never read in bed by candle or lamp light.    Never put kindling wood on top of the stove to dry.    Never leave clothes near a grate or fire-place to dry.    Be careful in making fire with shavings, and never user any kind of oil to kindle a fire.    Keep all lights as far from curtains as possible.    Always fill and trim your lamps by daylight, and never near a fire.    Good nice pie-crust can be made by always observing the following rule. One-quarter of a cup of shortening to every cup of flour used; to be mixed as dry as possible with cold water, and mixed only with a knife.    Take sweet butter only for baking purposes, and never fail to thoroughly beat together your butter and sugar, if you would be sure of good results in cake baking.    Have metal or earthen vessels for matches, and keep them out of reach of children. Wax matches are not safe.    Ground mustard mixing with a little water is an excellent agent for cleansing the hands after handling odorous substances.    Cut hot bread or cake with a hot knife, and it will not be clammy.    Salt extracts the juices of meat in cooking. Steaks ought therefore not be salted until they have been broiled.    In boiling dumplings of any kind, put them in the water one at a time. If they are put in together they will mix with each other.    Do not cut lamp-wicks, but trim them by wiping off with a scrap of paper.    Never boil vegetables with soup stock, for if you do it will certainly become sour in a short time.    Boil your cream for coffee, and see if the coffee will not taste better, as well as keep hot longer.    Pin-cushion covers made of cheese cloth embroidered and trimmed with lace, wear well and keep their looks.    Some one says that leaves of parsley, eaten with a little vinegar, will destroy the odor of breath tainted by onions.    Hot liquid lye is recommended for removing obstructions in waste pipes. Or let the potash dissolve over night in the pipes.    To wipe dust from papered walls, take a clean, soft piece of flannel. Of course it must not be damp, but the dry flannel will remove the dust.    Varnish the soles of your shoes, and it will render them impervious to dampness, and will also make them last longer. This is a good plan.    Clean the mica in stove doors with vinegar. Take clinkers out of stoves by putting a few oyster shells into the grate, when they will become loosened, and may be removed without injuring the lining.    Save the droppings from spermaceti candles, tie them in a cloth, and keep to smooth rough flat-irons.    Never starch napkins.    An old black bunting or cashmere dress may be made to serve a further period of usefulness by being made into a petticoat.    Between two evils choose neither.    Writing a will does not shorten life, and yet many men fear it will.    Save old suspender rings, and sew them on the corners of kitchen holders to hang them by. It will be easy then to flip them on to a nail, and they will not be so likely to get lost.    Powdered borax with a little sugar, blown into the cracks and crevices with a small bellows, will drive away house-ants.    Have a high stool in the kitchen to sit on when tired, to continue your work if necessary. Perched on its top you can wash dishes or iron with ease. A low stool placed on a wooden chair forms a substitute, but a poor one. A soft sheep-skin mat is restful to stand upon.    There is nothing better for cleaning brass or copper than coal ashes. They are also good to scour knives and forks with. For tin, whiting or fine sand is best.    To cleanse jars or jugs or any earthen vessel slaked lime is good, or warmed lye.    To keep a stove smooth, take a coarse and pretty large piece of flannel, roll it hard, and dip it in fine sand. Proceed to rub your stove whenever you are through cooking. Almost any stove will look better for being done the same way occasionally. Boiled starch is also very good to keep a stove looking well; put it on where it will not burn off — around the back and sides where it doesn't get very hot.

stolen from purpleglitter

Prince Henry's test results came back yesterday, and he got a clean bill of health. He got to fly with everyone else for the first time. Sir Dubbins freaked out and had to go back to his cage, but the budgies didn't seem mind him much. None of the budgies approached him too closely, but it was evident Skye wanted to. We're not going to have Prince Henry and Sir Dubbins out at the same time until they get a little more used to the idea of each other.

I went to a equinox dinner yesterday at lady_babalon's and sophiaserpentia's. I must say that sophiaserpentia makes the most excellent apple crisps. I was happy to see that x_bluerose_x was there to. We sat around the table and discussed what we viewed as our "harvests" this year, however I'm more planning for the spring then harvesting now. Of course, there were other topics, but that was the planned topic. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I had fun while I was there.

After leaving the equinox dinner, I went over to merryperseis's place, where I ate again. I knew that we would be having roasted cauliflower, so I intentionally ate sparingly at the early dinner. I brought her my serpent staff. I've known that my bird staff is what I'm meant to use at this point, and merryperseis told me she needed something that symbolized a serpent: so the transfer seemed right. I wanted to do it on the equinox for balance. There wasn't really any ceremony about the transfer, it was just done.

I had a swell time at the x_bluerose_x's party last night. I very much liked the banana chocolate goodness of Sex in the TARDIS as well as the strange Liqor 43 brontosproximo brought. I got a little more sloshed than I intended, and while I was not falling down drunk (which I haven't been in many years), I still managed to achieve stupid drunk (which I haven't been in quite a while either).

The crowd was jolly, and the floor show at the end was... well... interesting.