Ripley should have been subtitled The Staircases of Italy
We're going to be at something like 87% totality for the eclipse, but I don't think any of it's gonna be visible. It's been pouring all morning, and even though that kind of rain usually doesn't last all day here, it's probably still going to be too overcast. Oh well, I'm almost 50, I've seen eclipses before.
Saturday I made breakfast and did the pharmacy/gas station/carwash/grocery store round, and also went to Aromatic Infusions. I fried 4 pieces of bacon and saved the fat, for biscuits I wanted to make for Sunday breakfast, then took Penny for a walk. I finished The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher and decided I wanted to re-read Isaac's Storm for the hundredth time--Erik Larson is publishing another book this month, I forget the exact day but I think it's towards the end of April. It's about the Civil War, or about all the run-up to it, like starting with Lincoln's election in 1860. Something like that anyway; Larson is a writer I will read no matter what so honestly I didn't even pay that much attention to the description when I heard about it.
David made bulgogi, which in our weird shared mangled lexicon we usually call "Vincent Bugliosi", then I watched a couple more episodes of Ripley. It's so ridiculous! He should have been caught like a hundred different times while he was disposing of Freddie's body!!
Sunday I woke up to find David had eaten my bacon. Do I need to fucking label everything? Shouldn't it be obvious I'm saving that for something?? He texted me "I thought it was leftover from breakfast". Why the fuck would I make 4 pieces of bacon that no one was gonna eat??
So that was annoying, but at least the fat was still in the fridge; you use it for shortening and it has to be solid, which is why I did it ahead of time. So I fried another 4 pieces of bacon, and made Smitten Kitchen's maple bacon biscuits with cheesy scrambled eggs.
Between breakfast and showering I read for a while, because I'd been really tired the previous night and only read for about 20 minutes before I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I slept really hard and long all weekend actually, I guess I needed it.
In the afternoon I baked a cake, changed/washed the bed sheets, did a load of clothes, made some very nice turkey and bacon sandwiches for lunch, made a pizza dough, and took Penny for a walk. The pizza was my usual: pepperoni, fennel, red onion, olives.
I had to buy a giant tub of malted milk powder for my Easter cake and only needed 1/4 cup, so I've been looking for recipes that use it, and the first one I tried was a King Arthur Flour recipe for banana snacking cake with chocolate malt frosting. The frosting had equal parts cocoa powder and malted milk powder and it tasted just like the inside of a Whopper.
After supper I finished Ripley. Do Highsmith's books have that same element of farce, or does she play it straight? I mean that business of Tom putting on a wig and dimmer bulbs in the lamps and Ravini thinking he was talking to someone else was utterly ridiculous! I know this sounds like I hated it--and I know the light thing tied back with the Caravaggio thing, but it still seemed like a leap!--but actually I liked it a lot. I was just confused about what tone it was going for, or how we the viewer was supposed to interpret it. Like, I thought it was funny, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to find it funny? And it's not like Ravini is presented as some buffoon, I felt like we were meant to take him seriously.
I feel like now I have to read one of the Ripley books, if only to see for myself. I mean, I probably should anyway. They're classics that keep getting adapted and reinterpreted, so I assume they're good.
Saturday I made breakfast and did the pharmacy/gas station/carwash/grocery store round, and also went to Aromatic Infusions. I fried 4 pieces of bacon and saved the fat, for biscuits I wanted to make for Sunday breakfast, then took Penny for a walk. I finished The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher and decided I wanted to re-read Isaac's Storm for the hundredth time--Erik Larson is publishing another book this month, I forget the exact day but I think it's towards the end of April. It's about the Civil War, or about all the run-up to it, like starting with Lincoln's election in 1860. Something like that anyway; Larson is a writer I will read no matter what so honestly I didn't even pay that much attention to the description when I heard about it.
David made bulgogi, which in our weird shared mangled lexicon we usually call "Vincent Bugliosi", then I watched a couple more episodes of Ripley. It's so ridiculous! He should have been caught like a hundred different times while he was disposing of Freddie's body!!
Sunday I woke up to find David had eaten my bacon. Do I need to fucking label everything? Shouldn't it be obvious I'm saving that for something?? He texted me "I thought it was leftover from breakfast". Why the fuck would I make 4 pieces of bacon that no one was gonna eat??
So that was annoying, but at least the fat was still in the fridge; you use it for shortening and it has to be solid, which is why I did it ahead of time. So I fried another 4 pieces of bacon, and made Smitten Kitchen's maple bacon biscuits with cheesy scrambled eggs.
Between breakfast and showering I read for a while, because I'd been really tired the previous night and only read for about 20 minutes before I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I slept really hard and long all weekend actually, I guess I needed it.
In the afternoon I baked a cake, changed/washed the bed sheets, did a load of clothes, made some very nice turkey and bacon sandwiches for lunch, made a pizza dough, and took Penny for a walk. The pizza was my usual: pepperoni, fennel, red onion, olives.
I had to buy a giant tub of malted milk powder for my Easter cake and only needed 1/4 cup, so I've been looking for recipes that use it, and the first one I tried was a King Arthur Flour recipe for banana snacking cake with chocolate malt frosting. The frosting had equal parts cocoa powder and malted milk powder and it tasted just like the inside of a Whopper.
After supper I finished Ripley. Do Highsmith's books have that same element of farce, or does she play it straight? I mean that business of Tom putting on a wig and dimmer bulbs in the lamps and Ravini thinking he was talking to someone else was utterly ridiculous! I know this sounds like I hated it--and I know the light thing tied back with the Caravaggio thing, but it still seemed like a leap!--but actually I liked it a lot. I was just confused about what tone it was going for, or how we the viewer was supposed to interpret it. Like, I thought it was funny, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to find it funny? And it's not like Ravini is presented as some buffoon, I felt like we were meant to take him seriously.
I feel like now I have to read one of the Ripley books, if only to see for myself. I mean, I probably should anyway. They're classics that keep getting adapted and reinterpreted, so I assume they're good.