four things and i'll be leaving then

For your Friday reading enjoyment, another installment of FOUR! Fridays. I'm off to the Windy City for the weekend for some shopping, some gallery hopping, some musical theatre and far too much fun and trouble (frouble) with our cousins Kelly and Rick. And so, I will leave you with some disturbing thoughts:

Compulsive organizer. Mentioned before. Cannot be over-emphasized. Have been known to disorganize things in order to re-organize. An illness, really.

I talk too fast and don't finish sentences when I am upset.

I talk too loudly and use big words when I'm angry. I break out the "vocabulary". Not bad words, but multi-syllable, confusing words for those who don't read very much.

I take photographs in stores and then I go home and make what I saw myself. I've been asked to leave anthropologie for bringing out my digital camera. Seriously, did you really think I would pay twenty-seven dollars for a tree ornament?

Cheesecake. All manners and types of it. Baked and unbaked. Several specialties, including the brownie-based swirl and the rum-and-eggnog.

Cinnamon buns. I use the recipe in the Clueless Baker. No need to fear any type of baking if you are armed with a decent cookbook.

Chocolate Chip Cookies. Poor Mrs. Fields. She tries.

Lemon Loaf. So lemony. So sugary. So delicious. I'd share the recipe, but well, then you'd be able to make it, wouldn't you?

The Office. We watch it with the kids. It's a can't miss social-experiment gone mad and a cautionary tale for anyone under the age of eighteen. Don't be like that guy.

The Tudors. Also known around here as "soft porn geek TV". Once you get past the sometimes graphic nature, this is hands-down the best show on television. I mean, seriously. Snoop Dogg loves it. How cool is that? It's like I'm all up in the grill of Henry the Eighth, you dig?

The Gilmore Girls. Not on the air anymore but still devoured in syndication. Dialogue parsed and put to memory.

Heroes. We watch it with the kids, and I must say, it certainly has enough twists and turns. Too bad the writers' strike will keep us from knowing what's going to happen next. At least with The Tudors and GG, you know how it's going to end.

Fame. The version I saw could not have been worse. It was the national tour a couple of years back and seriously - the last thing I'd wanna do is live forever after seeing that monstrosity.

Mamma Mia. Veto and I saw this on our honeymoon. Loved, loved, loved it. What's not to like? The jukebox musical genre is fan-tas-tic.

Rent. I think I may be missing something here, but I for one didn't care for it. Maybe it's because I got hornshwaggled into a date with a weirdo guy who then took me to see it and lo and behold his sister and her husband sat down in the seats next to us... apparently it was a double date and I wasn't told. I'll tell you the rest of the story another time, this isn't the forum.

Wicked the Musical. Saw it with Loopy in the summer of '06. You can't get much better than this one. Popular!

I sprayed scented room spray around my son's bedroom when he was a child and told him it was "ghostie repellant". I peeled the label right off the Watkin's bottle and put Halloween stickers onto it for greater effect.

When cooking for the family, I sprinkle Benefibre into sauces and fillings. I add wheat germ to my famous chocolate cookies and I've started adding ground hemp to spaghetti sauce and meatloaf. I am a fibre nut. They are, too, they just don't know it. Happily, we are all basking in each other's regularity.

This one may make you rethink reading my blog. It is not one of my prouder moments. I was shopping at one of my favourite discount stores and there sat the most beautiful 12 x 10' wool rug. I am talking Restoration Hardware beautiful. And we are all aware how I feel about Restoration Hardware. I fell asleep in one of their stores once. Anyway, the rug was on SALE. A scandalous price. And on HOLD. For some gal named Wanda. What did I do? I did what any red-blooded, dishonest, Restoration Hardware-loving shopaholic would do. I marched myself right up to the customer service desk and boldly announced that "I was Wanda and was here to pickup the rug I had on hold". A chill went up my spine as I handed over my debit card, hoping the cashier in her slackness wouldn't read the name on the front of the card. But the chill turned to thrill when she handed me my receipt, I rolled that bad boy out of the store and managed (somehow) to push it into the back of my little black car. Wearing heels. At that moment I understood the adrenaline rush that shoplifters get.

Lastly, I use a mix to make brownies. You'll notice that I didn't list brownies as one of my fine baked goods. And yes, the brownie base for the cheesecake is a mix too, but the cheese part is from scratch so I'm okay. And also, to add to the shock value, I use a generic brownie mix from Safeway. It's better than Duncan Hines or Little Betty by a mile.