Second round of prompt claiming is open over at sshg_promptfest

The French election has made me feel rather better about things. Toutes nos félicitations et tout mon amour, all of y'all :)

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this amazing opportunity. Srsly :)

"The American Shakespeare Center, a regional theater company in Staunton, Virginia, is looking to stage new plays as companion pieces to William Shakespeare's classics -- all 38 of them.

'We're looking for remarkable playwrights from all walks of life. Do you have a great play that vibes off of Shakespeare's canon? Can you write a great play to be a companion piece to one of Shakespeare's plays? We want to see it.'"

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape this offer. Get thee to a keyboard!!

One of my goals this year was to get out of the usual menu items that we have in regular rotation and try some new things. The best so far have been sweet potato-green onion pancakes with eggs, ham and pepper jam and Smitten Kitchen's crispy broccoli with lemon and garlic. Tonight I thought I'd try roasting some carrots and parsnips tossed with olive oil, sea salt, fresh-ground pepper, and herbs. I was pretty sure I'd had parsnips at some point in my life, and how bad could a root vegetable be?

Nowhere did any of the recipes I consulted warn me that for the first ten minutes roasting parsnips smell like melting plastic. Ugh ugh ugh.

We soldiered on, however, and in the end they...weren't bad. They needed butter (which is unusual, in my experiene, for roasted veg; perhaps I went too light on the olive oil?) and more seasoning. I also grated a little manchego on top because cheese, you know? The first bite was meh but then they rather grew on me, though I admit that could have been the butter, salt and cheese.

So all I can say is that where parsnips are concerned, I remain uncommitted.

I have no idea what the time difference between here and there is (though I should know, because nursedarry lives there too), so I'm just going to go ahead and post this today.

For the talented and entertaining shiv5468, because blond with peacock. Happy birthday!!

(Edit: Please note, this isn't my own work [I only wish!!]. Click the image for more info about the artwork.)

We went out for dinner with some friends last night (mmmm, seared ahi tuna...) and while yakking about this and that, B. pointed out something I'd never noticed before. Not one of the Disney princesses has a mother. She said that that's why, in the new live-action Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson, they added a sort of "vision" of the past where Belle has a chance to see her mother and learn what happened to her.

Of course, given that the Disney princess stories generally draw on fairy tales, and girls don't often have mothers in the fairy tales either, perhaps it's not so weird. But even the non-fairy tale ones -- Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Pocahontas, Jasmine (Aladdin), Elsa and Anna (Frozen) -- don't have mothers.

The only two exceptions I could think of are Merida (the red-haired Irish Scottish girl who wins her own hand at the archery tournament) and Mulan (the Chinese girl who learns fighting from her father and goes off to war). So basically the only ones that have mothers are the ones who apparently don't need mothers because they're off doing "boy" things.

Isn't that weird?

Heartfelt thanks to you all for your kind and comforting comments on my last post. Mr Psmith and I are slowly getting used to the house without our beloved Demi; it's tough and it hurts, but she's always in our hearts so we feel like she's still close to us.

On a happier note, sshg_promptfest is open for claiming! There are some wonderful prompts this year, so go forth and stake your claim :)

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to a loving, faithful, sweet-natured companion. We are not good for much today, what with this big hole in our hearts. *snif*

"When the Man waked up he said, 'What is Wild Dog doing here?' And the Woman said, 'His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always.'" -- Rudyard Kipling

(click for more)

It's snowing again still. Argh.

Now accepting prompts, woo-hoo!