the mermaid cafe

RIP Aretha Franklin. While I never got to see her sing, I did see her speak at the 92nd Street Y back in 2014 and she was amazing. I just got teary-eyed reading her obituary.

***

Here is a story about how I am a dumbass.

So my iPhone headphone jack converter thingy was supposed to arrive yesterday, but late in the day, I got an email saying it was delayed (i.e., a FedEx label had been created but the thing hadn't even been picked up yet). Since I had dinner plans in midtown on the west side, but not until 6:30/6:45-ish, I figured I'd go to the Apple store first to pick the thing up in person.

I make it to the Apple store in good time. I go down the most terrifying staircase known to man - spiral and plastic with open risers (I feel a little ill just thinking about it now) - and immediately find a thingy that will let me plug in headphones and charge at the same time! I am excite! I buy it! I find a quiet spot on the steps at Lincoln Center to hook it up and get some sweet sweet tunes in my ears.

You know where this is going.

It's made for headphones with a lightning connector not a regular jack. Woe! Woe is me! Alas and alack!

On my walk to the restaurant (about 16 blocks) I stop in at a couple of different Duane Reades, but while they have car chargers and USB cords, they don't have the damn headphone converter dongle. So I'm like, just kill me now.

Meanwhile, I'm texting angelgazing my sad tale of woe and she's like, "Didn't one come with the phone??"

And lo and behold, when I got home (after a most lovely dinner and then gelato for dessert), I checked and I had had the thing all along and didn't even know it. It was attached behind the terrible Apple headphones that I never took out of the box, because those headphones are the worst - they won't stay in my ears for love or money. Though they would have also fixed the problem if I hadn't erased their very existence from my mind.

So I just spent two whole commutes and two work days without music and I didn't have to. If only I had known! And I spent money I didn't need to spend!

And just to top the whole thing off, last night, I tested the iPod when I plugged in my phone and now it works again. Maybe it just needed a rest? I had it plugged in to charge all day Tuesday - the laptop didn't recognize it as a device and so I just used the phone charger plugged into the wall - and nothing worked Tuesday night. So I don't even know what's going on. Technology is not my friend. I love it but it doesn't love me. Sigh.

And in a final, completely unrelated but also terrible note, I just got my period. Bah.

***

I don't generally cry over celebrity deaths, but I came home and sobbed my face off about Carrie Fisher. She was an amazingly funny, talented, sharp woman who worked as an advocate for people with mental illness, who was a highly regarded script doctor, and very funny novelist and memoirist, but most of all, she was a princess and a general and a hero who loomed large in my imagination since I was seven years old. She was inspirational and aspirational - a fighter and a survivor both in fiction and in real life, and I'm devastated to have lost her just when we need all the bright, funny, brilliant women we can get.

RIP, Carrie Fisher. You meant more to me than I can possibly say, both when I was 7 and now that I'm a few months short of 47, and for all those long years in between.

*

December 2014 recs update:
9 Avengers and 1 Avengers/Brooklyn Nine-Nine crossover

To read while you're waiting for Yuletide to open. *g*

*

I now have three treats in progress, but we'll see if any of them actually get finished before I leave for my sister's on Wednesday morning, since I'll only have my iPad and I don't find it conducive to writing and it's unlikely I'll have the time anyway. *hands*

At least I did all the wrapping and packing of my little wheely cart yesterday. Did you know they make bubble wrap in a very festive red? So all the bottles are cushioned in cute little Santa suit bags. I still have to bake a cake for my dad, though. I'm planning to make this crumb cake, but with apples instead of pears. (Which, they don't specify what KIND of pears to use! Bosc? Bartlett? Anjou? I suppose Uncle Google could tell me.) I have some gorgeous honeycrisps that will be great in a crumb cake.

And I also have to pack a bag since I'm staying over a couple of nights. I'm going to use the new Steve/Bucky tote bag angelgazing sent me for Christmas. It's very roomy.

Regardless, with having to schlep all that stuff, getting to Penn Station on Wednesday will be interesting if I can't get a cab.

*

Today's December posting meme post:

December 22: falena asked for my top 5 female characters.

That is so broad I can't even begin to think about it without qualifying it somehow, so how about top 5 female characters that greatly influenced me as a young girl/woman?

1. Princess Leia. It's not just my resurgent Star Wars feels talking here either. As I mentioned earlier in the month, I was 7 when Star Wars (A New Hope, if you must) came out, and it was mind-blowing. I could not stop thinking about it, quoting it, reading the tie-in novel etc. etc. and a large part of that was Princess Leia. She ran the show! She shot the bad guys! She had a ridiculous hairdo that was not even a little cool except that it was to a 7yo. Having rewatched the original trilogy last summer, I have to say, she still holds up as a great character, even if I wish she got more to do overall.

The thing is, though, watching her in that Death Star corridor in her cinnabon hairdo and her pristine white dress, only 18 and sharp as a razor (or lightsaber) - that was a REVELATION: taking over her own rescue because the two bumblers who came to get her had no idea what they were doing. They're good boys but not always good at plans. *hands* Leia, on the other hand, as both a Senator (even if the Imperial senate is basically a joke) and a leader in the Rebel Alliance, has had to be GREAT at plans and also great at improvising on the fly (seriously, she got the best of her parents, looking at it now; Luke got the whining and the seeing the best in people, some sweet farmboy-ness, and some rad piloting skills; Leia got the brains [strategic and tactical] and the ruthlessness and the charm). And also she's a princess, which was definitely a plus to 7 year old me.

2. Eowyn. Another princess, another lady with a sword. It wasn't until years later that I saw the downsides to Eowyn's behavior - I was 9 when I first read LotR - how she abandons her post and is basically on a suicide mission. I just loved that she was going out to fight because she didn't want to wait around for the fight to come to her, when all hope would be lost and it would be a million times worse.

I've mentioned it whenever I discuss the movies, but the Theoden/Eowyn storyline is to me the most brilliant and moving part of the trilogy, and I'm so glad that Jackson et al. decided to focus on it, because it humanizes both of them (and we have too few father-daughter stories in our epics - see above; I would pay cash money for Leia and Vader to meet with the full knowledge of their relationship, not least because the tongue-lashing she'd subject him to - if she deigned to speak to him at all - would be EPIC and BEAUTIFUL).

3. Tenar. Oh gosh, I love her so much. I also read Earthsea (well the first three books) when I was about 9, and while I enjoyed A Wizard of Earthsea quite a lot, it wasn't until I hit The Tombs of Atuan that I truly fell in love. I mean, some of it is LeGuin's amazingly clear and evocative prose, but most of it is Arha/Tenar, trying to find her place in her small world with her few friends, and having her entire worldview turned upside down when Ged shows up to banter with her in the dark. I love that she's brave enough to leave her entire world behind based on trust and friendship (and okay, yeah, I totally shipped it even then, though it took like thirty years for LeGuin to get back around to finally making them a couple in their middle-age).

4. Aravis. Man, I refuse to reread The Horse and His Boy because I know how racist it is, but it was always my favorite of the Narnia books, not just because of talking horses but because ARAVIS. And I guess Shasta, too. I enjoyed their relationship, but man, I loved her - escaping from her unwanted marriage! Going on the run with the stableboy! Being imperious and clever to hide how scared she was! So awesome! <333

5. Meg Murry O'Keefe. She was smart and awkward and she got into fights defending her weird little brother, and she also got to go on space adventures and save the universe, and date the cute popular boy who dug her just as she was, prickly and awkward and insecure and brilliant (I guess it helped that he was brilliant himself).

Honorable mentions to Jo March, Anne Shirley, Marion Ravenwood, and Sarah Connor. ♥♥♥♥♥

*

Sigh, I have two things I need to clear off my desk before the end of the year, and one I'm slowly working away at, but the other I can't do until someone else does their part, and of course, they haven't touched it yet. People! They are the worst!

*

More random crossovers for you - Alicia Florrick and Annalise Keating meet at some lawyers conference. Phryne Fisher and Billy Prior meet up during WWI. I still want the Code Name: Verity/Montmaray Journals crossover, possibly with Peggy Carter thrown in for good measure.

Crossovers! They're what's for dinner! Or something.

I didn't do the Wednesday reading meme, because I was still rereading Discworld: Thud! and I Shall Wear Midnight (♥TIFFANY♥ I wonder if she is eligible for yuletide) this time around, but then on my ride home last night I started Snuff, which I haven't read before so that is what I am reading now! I feel like there could be more first-time reading going forward. I certainly have a ton of books on the to be read pile/list. (I was going to say enough, but there are never enough books, are there? Nor enough time to read them all. Sigh.)

I did manage not to purchase anything while I was in B&N last night, killing time before meeting with innie_darling. I carried around The Gift of Southern Cooking, so I could feel like I was going to buy something, but then I put it back before I left. Because I do want to own it! (And half a dozen other cookbooks I will barely use!) But I didn't want to spend the money right now. Sigh. My life is the hardest.

Anyway, after a nice dinner, innie_darling and I went up to the 92nd Street Y to see the talk with Aretha Franklin and Clive Davis. I don't remember the seats there having so little leg room, but even though I am not a tall woman (there are some who would go so far as to say I am a short woman; I might even be one of them), my knees were pressed up against the back of the seat in front of me super uncomfortably.

That didn't detract from the glory of Aretha Franklin, though. She looked fantastic. The chatting was entertaining if not very enlightening, and they played us some songs off her new album, Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics. I have to say that while I didn't love a couple of her covers (I'm sorry, but nothing will ever top the Gladys Knight version of Midnight Train to Georgia; that is a TOP FIVE ALL TIME FAVORITE SONG for me), I thought the ones that contained mashups (Rolling in the Deep + Ain't No Mountain High Enough; I Will Survive + Survivor; I'm Every Woman + Respect) sent chills down my spine. So that was great, despite the knee pain.

Then I went home and fell into bed. Ugh, always so tired lately. A week of gray, rainy weather hasn't helped.

Oh, I don't think I mentioned this here, but I'm a notary public, and my commission expired back in August. I had sent in my renewal form and check on JULY 1, and they say that there is a huge backlog but as long as they cash your check, you are good to go. Except my check was never cashed. So I was like, you know, I am not going to keep notarizing on the off chance something bad happens (note: to me; afaik, documents notarized by a false notary don't rebound on the person who had the document notarized), which has meant more work for the two other notaries who work here. But lo and behold, yesterday while I was checking my account to make sure my asshole landlord didn't deduct extra money as threatened, I discovered that my check to the County Clerk's office was cashed on SEPTEMBER 30.

Now, I don't know about you, but I have NEVER had a government entity be so dilatory on the cashing of a check. On providing documentation or services in return, yes, but never on the check cashing part. So I am back to being a notary again. Whew.

***

Last night, I made chocolate yogurt cupcakes.

They're pretty easy and they came out well, though I might switch the coarse salt for regular salt next time.

This used a different method of putting things together - instead of creaming the butter and sugar, I mixed all the wet ingredients together, then poured them into the dry ingredients, and then added the melted chocolate. I did it all with a fork, though it'd probably be a little quicker with the mixer.

( pics )

They look great and they taste good, though the cake isn't as moist as I expected it to be. They're definitely not as dense as chocolate cake usually is, though, and I like the hint of almond that comes through from the almond extract.

***

I got a late start baking since I ended up on the phone with a former co-worker for 40 minutes, so I missed the beginning of The Good Wife - I could hear it but since I was in the kitchen, I couldn't see it. But oh man, what I did see made me laugh a lot.

( spoilers )

***

I know January is historically the time of Hollywood dumping stinker movies, but I can't help but be excited whenever the ad for Red Tails comes on. The Tuskegee Airmen! And look at that cast! Michael B. Jordan! Andre Royo! Tristan Wilds! Method Man! IT IS A BIG WIRE REUNION. Plus Terence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr. I hope it's good and that it does well.

I am also a little excited about that Queen Latifah-Dolly Parton movie, despite the fact that it looks kind of awful. QUEEN LATIFAH AND DOLLY PARTON! TOO MUCH CONCENTRATED AWESOME IN ONE PLACE OMG. Did you know Dolly is writing a musical of her life story? I can't help but be excited about that, too. ♥DOLLY♥

Also, did anyone watch the Basher Tarr/Veronica Mars, I mean Don Cheadle/Kristen Bell show on Showtime last night? Any good? Should I check it out? I still have so many other things to catch up on! Fringe is back on Friday, though, which is exciting.

***

The Last Airbender: The Legend of Korra teaser trailer!

(eta: Also here at Nicktoons if you're having trouble with the link above.)

OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS! LOOK AT HOW FIERCE SHE IS! ALSO LOOK AT THAT FUCKING GORGEOUS CITY!

IS IT KORRA TIME YET?

HOW ABOUT NOW?

...

NOW?

*