Monsanto for dessert

Snore

I've been eating a spartan low-carbohydrate diet for about seven hundred weeks and let me tell you, I MISS REGULAR FOOD.    Except for Trader Joe's soy protein powder (which I add to my morning smoothie) which is by definition a highly processed product, I eat mostly single food items, like eggs.  Or meat.  Or yogurt.  No recipes.  Few ingredients.  One thousand calories.  I'm not starving, but not particularly excited by anything I eat.  I'm not sure how long I can keep this up as the weight loss is S...O...   D...A...R...N...   S...L...O...W...  Four pounds, that's it.  Ten more  to go.  This will take FOREVER.  First world problems, right?

Eggs for dinner.  Again.

So anyway, when Lillie decided that she wanted to take homemade cookies to her boyfriend's granny's for dinner, (that's where we get those lovely eggs), I was overjoyed to finally bake something.  Whee!  We only had an hour so we turned on the oven to preheat and started getting down the flour and sugar and all the things I haven't seen in weeks and weeks.  I got a quick whiff of something acrid, but remembered I had recently cleaned up some burned seitan (vegan-meat-substitute-concoction) Lillie had baked for her boyfriend.  I used baking soda and vinegar because I'm all green like that, so we had to be smelling the vegan mess treat remnants.  Suddenly we both started to choke and cough--I opened the oven to see WHAT THE HELL and there lay a smoking purple coil of MELTING TOOTHBRUSH which I must have forgotten to grab when I finished scrubbing the burned oven floor.  Billows of vicious chemical smoke filled the kitchen as we ran to open all the windows.  With watering eyes and long tongs, I fished out the liquefying toothbrush--it sagged like hot taffy--and dropped it in the trash.  I scraped up the last bit of purple drool with an old spatula and let the hot oven burn off the leftover film.

In a few minutes, though,  the nasty smoke had cleared and we had the first pan of cookies ready to slide into the oven.  Would poison toothbrush molecules be seared into our innocent and wholesome cookies?  How would we know?  They looked and smelled fine and to be honest, they tasted divine.

Chase just likes to be on the safe side.

So I ate six. (They were small, but yes, six.)   I had to make sure Lillie wouldn't poison the granny.  Because where else would I get all those happy backyard chicken eggs?

Does this look deadly to you?

***POST GAME:  After dinner at Granny's, everybody gobbled up the cookies within two minutes and by the time Lillie left, all were alive.  If I get investigated for trying to poison them, I guess this post will convict me.  And now you know about it too so we'll all be in prison together.***

Will you have to wear those prison stripes?

So then I unfriended Julian

We can't even

****A few possible spoiler-type words follow; better skip it if you're not all caught up****

Well, what a season!  I guess we were WAY too happy at the end of LAST season when Matthew and Mary finally got engaged.  Following that tearful-cheerful-tearful formula, since they were officially broken up AND England went to war at the end of Season One, then NEXT year should end happily, right?  RIGHT?

Nope not yet

What do YOU think will happen?  Maybe some background episodes about Cora and Robert?  My spies hint at a new suitor for the Widow Mary, Edith is deep in her impossible romance, Tom is a free agent, Bates is just FREE, plenty of single people downstairs...the hard part will be waiting for it to start.  Your intrepid reporters are so dedicated to bringing YOU recaps (we have to know what is going on!) that we are likely to peek across the pond at the new episodes in September.  Of course--no spoilers will appear here until after each episode airs on PBS in the US.  We understand the element of suspense (we're just not very good at it.)

When Lillie and I decided to double-team these recaps we had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how long each one would take.  HOURS AND HOURS!  When PBS would sneak in two episodes on Sunday night we were never ready.  We hope to get a jumpstart on next season.

SO once again, thank you for joining us each week (or so) for these recaps.  We've LOVED writing them and look forward to opportunities to collaborate again.  Here's the recap:

http://www.anybodycandoanything.com/2013/02/downton-abbey-i-hate-you-julian-fellowes.html

And now, back to our regularly scheduled (or more likely, totally random) blog posts!

Wait--WHAT?  It's over?  For how long?

You must remember this

This post contains NO spoilers, unless your fingers can't help but clicking the link to Lillie's blog.

Mister Carson and a whole mess of pretty eggs from some chicken pals of ours.  

So last week PBS pulled a fast one and aired TWO episodes of Downton Abbey. Which would be great, I'd watch them all back-to-back if given the chance, but Lillie and I had only written one recap.  (We write them ahead so they're ready to publish the night the episode airs, or the next day if we have to change anything).  Also last week was SUPER busy for Lillie and we didn't have much chance to work on it.  FINALLY, here is the recap for the NEXT TO THE LAST episode.  The "Christmas Special" ( for the UK, anyway) airs tonight and we may or may not be able to get the recap out to you as quickly as we'd like [because we haven't even started it yet].  And since it's the last episode until fall (or January for you law-abiding Americans!), we want to give it the attention it deserves.

One of my really old neighbors (it's that kind of neighborhood) had to move into a care home and Friday there was an estate sale at her house.  I had been looking for a basket to put afghans and yoga mats in to keep in the living room, and I found this one.

Lillie scored a perfect set of four original pink and white Pyrex nesting bowls.

Here's the basket after I vacuumed out all the dust and pine-cone crumbs.  Perfect!

I also found this little dresser and talked them down to $35 (including the basket)!  It's in quite good shape, only a few dings.  It's nice heavy solid wood with dovetailed joints.  At 33" high, it's ideal for a night stand on the far side of my bed--it's just a little taller  than the mattress.   I have an old cedar chest there (made FOR ME by a boyfriend when I was still a teenager) which, although I love it, is much too low and not convenient for storing things like clothes.  If I shift a few things (and have People of Progress come pick up the cruddy old loveseat and coffee table from the library) several items can relocate to new spaces.  I plan to live with this dresser in its current state while I decide how I want it to look.  My tentative plan is to paint it white (maybe staining the top dark like my taller dresser) and replace the federal style pulls with glass knobs.  At some point there may have been a single center knob on each drawer, which seems peculiar for a dresser this wide, but who knows? I still plan to drag the emigrated-from-Chicago head-and-footbard into my room, and they are handsome wood that I want to keep.  A kicky color would be fun but I already have that  bright pink nightstand on the other side, and also I can visualize this dresser moving out to the living area someday.  Anyway, when I do decide, I'll make a post with some "after" shots.

In the meantime, Lillie and I are hard at work [starting and] finishing the LAST recap of Downton Abbey Season Three.  We don't think we can get it up before Wednesday, but a little anticipation now is good practice for the YEAR you have to wait for next season.  Maybe we will get a better headstart on writing recaps for Season Four ahead of the US air dates!

We both hope you enjoy our latest recap and are looking forward to the last one.  Your enthusiasm has been the impetus that has made this project so much fun.  See you in a few days!

A kiss is just a kiss

Downton Abbey Season Three, Episode Seven:

The end of Season Three is closing in.  I know you all thought you couldn't wait for the funerals and jiltings and suspicious lumps to stop already, but those things definitely kept us on the edge of our seats, now, didn't they?  This episode has it's share of excitement--no doubt about it--but somehow it was harder to write about this one than the last few.

To think we all couldn't wait for everybody to start kissing again.  Hoo boy!

Click over to Lillian's blog and see how we did.

PBS got a wild hare and decided to air TWO episodes tonight, and we were SO not prepared with our recap.  I don't know how Lillian will ever graduate from college if this keeps happening.  Back to the drawing board--we'll try to get the next one up in a day or so!

If I can get over the assumption that there is an ANNUAL CRICKET MATCH between the town and Downton Abbey.  No one has paid closer attention to this story than I have and I can say without a shadow of a doubt, nobody has ever mentioned the game of cricket, let alone have a dozen men dressed head to toe in cream wool and played an annual cricket game.  It's almost as hard to swallow as when "Cousin Patrick" showed up with burn scars and bandages, back in Season Two.

Beside each believer stands an angel...

--Catholic Catechism 336

Downton Abbey Season Three, Episode Six

Your writing team frantically pushing the deadline...(or; gracious my coffee table is a mess.)

Well, for a change, an episode that didn't make us cry too much.
For the first time this season we got through the entire hour without a box of Kleenex.
For our latest recap and all the previous ones, GO HERE.

That darn PBS!  Well not really because they actually did things right, but this episode has almost ten minutes of extra lines and even whole scenes that the UK version cut.
If you're watching PBS, rest assured you're getting the real deal.
Now I'm mad because even if I buy the series from Amazon, I won't get those lost minutes...
 I'll just have to watch the PBS ones as long as they're available...(Bougie problems)


If you're worried about spoilers, STOP RIGHT NOW!

Remember the Mary Tyler Moore Show?  Mary sat next to Murray, whose wife was named Marie?  I always loved that the writers did that.  Anyway, that's all I can think about now when the other  Mary and Murray appear in the same scene. And sometimes, I'm sorry to say, I swear I think of Ted Baxter when Robert starts yapping about Catholics or whatever.  Oh, Robert, is this how far we have fallen?  I think between now and Season Four I'm going to have to watch all the MTM episodes again, if I can find them.

Not yet, but soon, you'll see!  Anna may get to wear that French garter after all.  They OWE me that. He's been in prison for, what, about ten years now?  Poor Mr Bates.  I've suffered too. We all have.

I've been enjoying watching poor Isobel as she waits for Ethel to to turn into a real cook.  Ethel finally calls in the big guns--she asks Mrs Patmore for some cooking advice. Nobody gets a bad meal on Mrs Patmore's watch.

It's nice to see these two being sweet again, but when they pledge to love each other until their last breath, I get a cold chill.  All these plot twists have made me really twitchy!

Oh man, only a few more episodes to go!  Go read our recap on Lillie's blog and I'll see you next week.

Whiskers

Today is my son's birthday.
He lives in Chicago and has a great job and a nice apartment and a new Jeep and a sweet girlfriend.
But once he was a funny little boy.
I'm sorry I'm too lazy to scan a half a dozen pictures that prove how adorable he was.

When Sam was almost two, we went to Vermont for Christmas.  I had two kids and two pairs of pink mittens.  We  spent one day sightseeing and walking everywhere while Sam fussed "ho-tey, ho-tey" and kept sitting down on the sidewalk.  He couldn't talk yet, and I clearly remember how heavy he was to carry.  At the end of the long cold day I pulled off his boot and out fell a Fisher-Price person--the cowboy one he called the horsey.  You'd think I'd have learned to check his shoes; when he first learned to walk he wore a cute pair of Air Jordans (from Grandma Rita) that he eventually outgrew, and I set them aside. At some point, I finally discovered, wedged deep inside one shoe and bearing the cramped imprint of five miserable little toes,  a solid wad of tissue paper, back from when the shoes were new.

I'm really sorry about that, Sam.  

Sam was a pirate for two Halloweens--he liked having whiskers drawn on.  I suppose I knew that he'd grow up and be hairy--the men on both sides of the family (and a few of the women) are pretty burly--but when he was little he was as silky and soft as a kitten. He was a black-haired baby that turned tow-headed, and then gradually got darker and hairier; I think he started shaving in the eighth grade. 

 I'm sorry you have a five o'clock shadow at noon, honey.

In the nineties, an awful lot of family portraits looked just like this.  Sam had a little tail of golden curls 

(which was his choice, I want to emphasize.)  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Again, I'm sorry Sam.

And now he's all grown up.  He's officially twenty-seven, but last year he found out he was really thirty, because once you're not in school any more and you aren't having fifth, or eighteenth, or twenty-first birthday celebrations, and have a big-boy career like a lot of other adults, you might as well be thirty.  I guess when he finally gets there it won't sting so much.

I'm sorry about that, too.

Happy birthday, Son.

The stork visits Downton Abbey

Season Three, Episode Five Recap

I was going to name this post "All of us hungry" but then you'd all be wondering what you missed in Sunday's episode.  Make no mistake, things might be tough over at the manse, but there is plenty to eat and lots of staff to carry the platters upstairs.  Lillian and I have been hard at work trying to cobble together a recap post.  It was no picnic this week, as you can imagine.

Just like last week, we noticed right away there were a few brief scenes on PBS that didn't appear in the UK version.  While none of them changed the story, they definitely added vital information.  

If you buy the series on Amazon or wherever, make sure you get the PBS version!

Nope

Picnics make me think of all the carb-y foods I'm avoiding lately; but somehow, it's working.  I'm down another pound this week.  (Yay me!)  At first I just counted carbs (I eat about seventy-five grams a day) but this week I went back to logging my food into LoseIt.com which keeps track of my calories (about twelve hundred), too.  I thought for sure that all-you-can-eat protein would translate into double the calories, but a lot of low-carb foods are low-cal, too.  Maybe the combination of low-calorie and low-carbohydrate eating will finally start to shift some of the blub I've accumulated while hiding from my responsibilities these last couple of years.  

But enough about me.  Go HERE to read this week's recap and remember next week can only be better.

OF COURSE, IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED EPISODE FIVE YET

AND WANT TO BE SURPRISED, 

 READ NO FURTHER!

Well, you KNEW she was going to have that baby sooner or later.

Meanwhile, back in the good old days of cross-your-fingers pregnancies, labors and deliveries, Sybil's baby arrived.  How was it that her hair was so sweaty and her silk nightgown was so dry? It's like it was staged or something.  Real mothers called BS on that one right away.

Of course, then something worse than damp pajamas happened, and we regretted making fun of Sybil's droopy maternity clothes.  

No, don't go!  We promise you can wear whatever you want!

But she went.

And then came the saddest scene ever filmed.  Seeing Violet and Carson (two old comrades who know how things really get done) in a such Herculean display of British bravery reminded me that I'm a soft American who can't distinguish fiction from fact.  Compared to Edith's wedding day disappointment (even though we woke up thinking she'll land on her feet), there is no good news to temper this bad news.  Lillie and I both wondered if we should just get back to Pinterest until the season ends; but after a hard-boiled egg and a Kleenex we were ready to type.  If Violet can Keep Calm and Carry On, who are we to give up?

Can we ever get our funny back?

How about this, then?

So, is that Sam's new Rock Lobster?

Nope, this is the new Rock Lobster right here.

Stay in school, kids.

All of us miserable

Season Three, Episode Four Recap

I'll get to work on the recap as soon as I find my glasses

Are you ready to read our review of Episode Four?  It's right here.  The links to the first three episodes are over there, too.

If you watched, you know that this episode was pretty grim.  We started late and typed back and forth  all weekend to come up with something.  Let me know what you think!  Lillian is back in school and busier now but we plan to start cooking on Episode Five starting tomorrow.

For those of you watching DA on PBS in the US--there is a pivotal scene that didn't appear  on the UK version.  Daisy travels up to Mr Mason's farm and asks him how he'd feel if she ever got married again.  He gave her his blessing and assured her that William would also have wanted her to be happy.  Didn't you wonder about that too?  I don't know why PBS included it and the UK didn't--but keep it in mind when you watch Episode Six!

I'm off to bed to dream about carbohydrates--this week I cut down to less than one hundred grams of carbohydrates per day, with as much protein as I can eat--I've lost a pound already and would love to drop at least ten more, if I can.  Aside from a mild transient headache (ketosis) and recurrent fantasies of chocolate and bread, it's not too bad!  It goes against conventional low-fat /high-vegetables wisdom, but I've been doing that with no success for a long time and the scale will not budge.  What do I have to lose except my spare tire? I'll post my progress, if there continues to be any.

See you next week!

All of us happy

Downton Abbey, Season Three, Episode Three Recap:

Not that Mr Carson, the other one

Lillian and I are back again (slightly earlier this week--we've been working on it since Thursday) with the recap for Season 3, Episode 3.  Here's a shot of your writing team in our deluxe office suite.  Chase is our food services grip, in charge of fetching the coffee, but frankly that's just an honorary title because as you can see he is asleep.

Episode Three is a crackerjack, so have your box of Kleenex ready.  We had a hard time getting screenshots because we had to keep stopping to blow our noses (and we've watched it a dozen times.)
(Say, did anyone else think it was peculiar that they didn't invite Aunt Rosamund to either Mary's or Edith's weddings?  I know they'd have had to give some her scenes and they probably just ran out of screen time, but they might have at least mentioned she was traveling abroad or something.)

All of us happy
Except Mary I see your slip

Here's the link to the recap at AnybodyCanDoAnything.com

Here's the link to Episode One's recap:

Finally happy

and here's the link to Episode Two, in case you need to get caught up.

Still happy

Time to start on Episode Four!  No rest for the weary (that's why we do this in bed.)  Thanks for sharing and most important, thanks for joining us in the first place.  Lillian and I have (at least) one thing in common--we hope people think we are funny.  Is that weird?  It's certainly not the only thing we want, of course, but being funny is right up there.

Not happy

See you right here  in one week--or sooner if I find time to write about anything else.

Not now, we're watching Downton Abbey (again)

So there were Lillian and I hunched on opposite ends of the couch typing our reviews of Episode One.  We sat there dividing up our best lines and  finally admitted that we'd probably get the best result if we collaborated and just posted one.  It's not like there is any shortage of Downton Abbey reviews, right?  Also, the bulk of our readers are related to us by blood or by accident, and we both got a lot of pressure encouragement to write something together (Here's the recap for Episode Two).

We hope this will satisfy Lillian's need to be breezy and descriptive, and my need to be cohesive and grammatically correct.  It also gives us another ridiculous project to distract us from the realities of life like work and school.  If you missed the recap for Episode One, it's right here.

It is our intention to recap each episode after it airs on PBS.  I hope that we haven't gotten in over our heads--this took literally all day.  Fast, we are not.  I guess we can rest between February and September!

I'll ring for a servant to write that for you

While I was hemming and hawing over my version of the season premiere of Downton Abbey, my daughter Lillian whipped out her own blog post, complete with screenshots, which was so much better than mine all I can do is let you read it for yourself, with her permission.

I get all bogged down by spelling and grammar and punctuation and which word says it better, but decided that's my own hangup.   I hope you enjoy her post as much as I did.

Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals?

--Ogden Nash

In 2012 I managed to offend a few people, mostly by having humanistic social views.  One of the people who still likes me the way I am is my sweet grandson Brody.  I am unlikely to amend my personal constitution, having long ago determined that my moral compass is pointing me in the right direction, but if I've made a new year's resolution, that is to keep my more controversial feelings to myself.  My goal is a report card which displays "plays well with others" with a big checkmark next to it. 

I used to point out to my endlessly squabbling children that they were quite free to STOP ARGUING because of course, it is impossible for ONE person to argue.  As incentive, I was careful to emphasize that the first person to be quiet is essentially the winner.  Also, all parents hate listening to children argue almost as much as they hate listening to a baby cry at three in the morning.  I would have promised them anything.

It's important for everyone me to remember that arguing has never changed anyone's mind, no matter how sincerely we believe it's the only thing that will change anyone's mind.  

It's been four years since all the kids and I have taken a picture together, and it never gets any easier to pick one that we all like.  If I had known that they were all smiling and not hitting, I would have pulled in my stomach and tried to look more festive.  And yes, that is brown paper taped all over the carpet and walls; Annie's house was being painted over the holidays.

Mister Carson enjoyed decorating the tree, and also enjoyed undecorating it.  

The kitten (who continues to grow at an alarming rate) thinks I am perfect and agrees with me about almost everything, except pestering the other cats.

You remember the parable of the dog in the manger; all the cats wanted simultaneous access to the sink, but none of them wished to share or take turns.  Mister Carson is the pushiest and bulkiest, so he commandeered my [shamefully cluttered] bathroom counter while the other two hung around and complained and were grumpy.  This was just moments before someone took the first swat; ending the fragile cease-fire for the three hundredth time in the two months he's been here.

2013 has to be the year I get out of my own way and go back to work; it's either that or the whole house of cards comes down.  If I get a haircut, a new watch battery, and renew my CPR certification, I should be ready to go.  If it ends up being as easy as it looks on paper, you'll read about it here.  If it's much harder than that, though, I may keep it to myself.