curry!

I made curry. Now. this is not the accomplishment it might be because I bought a pint of vindaloo cooking sauce at the store and glopped it on. For whatever reason I have not been able to come up with edible Indian curry despite trying, despite shopping at a reputable Indian grocery, despite cookbooks and practice. But with the sauce, I'm astonishingly good.

The problem comes in that I used 2 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes, a Vidalia onion, 2 carrots, $10 in lamb stew meat, and $7 in sauce. I still had to make my own rice and there was no naan. It might actually be cheaper to order in.

I don't think this is what I'm supposed to be thinking about.

I took the afternoon off. Even though I need to be cleaning my bathroom (the ceiling needs bleaching, so this is a big endeavor).

I went outside. I tented a sheet over my two lawnchairs and put a rug down on the concrete patio. Then I read a lot of my book (currently Mercedes Lackey's The Snow Queen).

I ate some homemade rye crackers with butter on them. (When I made the crackers I had chevre cheese, but that's long gone.)

I'm still grouchy as hell.

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It's Father's Day. But that just irks me. Seems like all the people I know have shitty fathers but they feel obliged to interact with them. Whenever I hear those stories I'm reminded of the saying, "Don't throw good money after bad."

John Scalzi had a Father's Day post today which talked vaguely about his kid and praised the men who are not biological fathers but still serve that purpose (saving them from wolves and leprechauns). My reaction to that was, "Yeah, and what about all the assholes who think sperm is fatherhood? Where's the day of chiding? Why the FUCK do women get pregnant on purpose while those kinds of men still exist and no one beats them with rocks?"

I do understand that we still glorify the stoicism that typifies manhood, so fathers do not seem to get the appreciation they deserve when they are doing the right thing. So I get the point, but between all the people I know with horrible fathers, all the guys who act like children are women's work, all the guys who say there shouldn't be abortions because it's a life.... but somehow none of them are going to be right there when the child has diarrhea and the woman has a job that requires travel. No men clamor for male contraceptives, but somehow being pregnant always seems to be the woman's fault and her whole life should be destroyed for it.

It's just really hard to find a lot to honor in the average male's behavior.

If we really wanted to honor fathers, we'd have medically reversible sterilization of both sexes during infancy so absolutely only the people who honestly truly desperately wanted a child would ever have one.

Huckabee was on TDS last Thursday (I'm running a little behind on my news watching, so I've still got Friday's news. I watch the comedy versions after the regular news.) and he says a conceived embryo is a human life. Fine. That doesn't mean I should EVER be obliged to incubate it in my body and deal with the massive physiological trauma it causes (including permanent bone and organ damage, metabolism issues that persist for decades, and neurological changes---- and that's just for the women who live through it; pregnancy still kills even in America... one in ten thousand on average. Shirley Jackson lottery anyone? How fucking stupid do you have to be to buy a ticket to that?)

I don't know people who have great fathers. This is because I fulfill my part of the social contract wherein childless adults do not hang around places where children congregate. We have gone pretty far in codifying that into law, a few years ago there were libraries that banned adults from entering the children's sections without an accompanying child. This means if I see someone with a child, inherently this makes them less of a good parent. And honestly, people who have good parents don't talk about it much the same way I didn't tell you I called someone on my mobile phone last week and the call went through cleanly with no cut-outs and without issues.

But I would really like to see days honoring fathers used to shame those who completely suck at their responsibilities.

bowl of cherries

One of the writing prompts today is "joy". Feh.

I'm not sure I could write that convincingly on a good day. Today's efforts would likely be akin to "Casey At the Bat".

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When was the last time you had homemade cake?

I keep seeing all these cake decorating pictures. And I admit that I love looking at them--- read a fic recently where Harry Potter teases Ron Weasley about wanking to cookbooks instead of pornography, I'm not that bad, but a man making me a cake is a lot more likely to get me hot than just one posing naked in a picture.--- but I don't see the point.

I know this makes me Philistine (and yes, I did go in search of another word there, but "boor" isn't quite the same thing.) It's like looking at the famous Picasso sculpture in Chicago and thinking, "Yeah, whatever, but you couldn't hang laundry on it, the clothes would slide right off."

I like sheetcake just fine.

I actually like cakemix cake pretty well too.

But what really sounds amazing right now is a Black Forest cake. Or cherry cheesecake. Cherries are so ungodly expensive even at the best of times, then there is the pitting and stemming. It's not a surprise that I think of cherry pie as being a dessert for kings. It's not like peeling enough apples for a pie is especially fun either, but apples are less than a dollar per pound during their season. Cherries are usually $6/lb around here--- if you can get them.

*sigh*

There are curried potatoes, but some nights that's not enough.

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Also. My repurposed kitchen chair that I use at my desk... I looked at the chair pad this morning and it's covered in black speckles. I think it molded. Now my legs hurt because the chair's too tall but my back hurts because the chair's too short.

Mighty Casey has struck out.