01.28.07
Posted in arrrrgh, cats at 8:12 am by Hanne Blank
Qiao, the new kitten, is a little too smart for my own good. And possibly his.
The lesson he has evidently drawn from our usual schedule since he has become part of this household is that all monkeys need to be awake and out of the bed by the time it starts to get light out. If dawn has been permitted to advance too much and the monkey or monkeys are still sleeping, it is the duty of the kitten to make sure the monkeys don’t oversleep.
This is clearly best accomplished through a programme of stomping on their heads and chests, attempts to lick and chew on their fingers and forearms, and, should these prove ineffectual because the sleepy monkeys shove their appendages deep under the counterpane, climbing aboard and licking their lips with great vigor. Licking a monkey on the lips with your nasty scratchy little kitten tongue is pretty much un-ignorable and the monkey will wake up right smart. Especially since the monkeys know that for this particular kitten, thorough lickies are a prelude to chewing.
This is why I am now posting a blog entry whilst waiting for the kettle to boil so that I may caffeinate myself and continue the (highly entertaining from the half-grown boycat perspective) job of moving furnishings around the ground floor of the house preparatory to sweeping and mopping all the floors.
Did you know that our sofa is an incubator of cat toys? Apparently they go under there to breed. I am fairly certain I did not purchase this many. As I picked them up I stuffed them in the front pocket of my hoodie, and by the time I had gotten the last of them I had acquired an even more pronouncedly kangaroolike aspect than I normally have (kangaroovian? or, if one is to be Latinate, macropodal? that really doesn’t work, does it? sure they have big feet, but that’s not really the feature we mean to emphasize here, is it?).
I have relocated the jingley balls and fur mouses and such (all humanely) to the catnip bin so they can marinate prior to (re)consumption.
One begins to strongly consider the installation of VelcroTM wallpaper so that troublesome kittens may simply be applied to a convenient surface and kept out of mischief for long enough that one may gratify one’s need for a tiny bit of lie-in on a Sunday…
Permalink
01.20.07
Posted in art, good things, jewelrymaking, shiny at 9:10 pm by Hanne Blank
I’ve been working on a suite of items in advance of Valentine’s Day. The whole suite is, as an homage to Frank Zappa, called “Broken Hearts are for Assholes.”
These are two of the pieces I like best so far.
These are called “Rebound,” and are made of plastic (the hearts), bone (the skulls), and sterling silver (everything else).
This is a single earring (intended to be worn that way), which could also probably be converted to be a pendant if the wearer wanted. It’s called “Pirates Never Say Goodbye.” It’s made of plastic, bone, silver, peridot, cultured pearls, and jade.
Permalink
01.17.07
Posted in cats, cooking, domesticity at 7:31 am by Hanne Blank
Much of my night last night was spent frozen in one position by three opportunistic cats. One was sleeping on top of my hip, one was curled behind my knees, and the third was curled up under my chin and against my chest. While I am pleased that Kitty Detente has proceeded, after less than a week of them all being together in a currently-at-war Feline States can agree to put aside their differences long enough to live up to their reputation as body-heat leeches, one of these days I am going to be deeply enough asleep that I don’t know they’re there and I will roll over, whereupon I will be exsanguinated when my semiconscious carcass becomes the site of triple-threat kitty warfare caused by the undesired instantaneous collision of hostile forces due to shifting ground.
And now that I have done the needful and bolstered the Internet’s daily quota of cat-related content, I will fulfill the other of the Two True Purposes of the Internet by providing you a gratuitious bit of kitty porn in the form of Inspector Qiao’s spotty, stripey little sleepy belly:
Several tweaks to a basically standard molasses spice cookie last night have yielded a truly superior item. Try it, you’ll like it. If you like molasses spice cookies, that is.
Nearly Platonic Molasses Spice Cookies
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons ground Ceylon cinnamon
3 1/2 teaspoons ground dried ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 pound butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups molasses sugar (muscovado sugar would also work)
2 cups white sugar
generous 1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
2 large eggs
extra white sugar for rolling
Prepare pans by lining them with parchment paper or silicone baking sheets. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Sift together dry ingredients, set aside.
Cream butter and sugars until fluffy and uniform in color. Add molasses slowly while beating to incorporate evenly. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in 6 roughly equal portions, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Finished dough will be stiff but workable.
Roll dough into large-walnut-sized balls, roll balls in sugar, and place on pans, leaving ample space between them for spreading. Bake 18 minutes at 325, then remove promptly from oven and let cool completely on a cooling rack (about 10 minutes). Cookies will be exceedingly soft when removed from the pan, use of a thinbladed metal spatula is advised; they harden as they cool.
Make these at least 24 hours ahead of when you plan to serve them, and preferably even longer. Like many spice cookies their flavor improves given a few days’ time to bloom. The texture (crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside) should remain uncompromised for up to a week if they are stored in a dry box or tin with a little air circulation.
Makes about 4 dozen.
Permalink
01.12.07
Posted in Virgin book, publishing, squeeeee!, writing at 4:38 pm by Hanne Blank
Virgin just got a starred review in Publishers Weekly!
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6407200.html?nid=2286
Virgin: The Untouched History
Hanne Blank. Bloomsbury, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-59691-010-2
“By any material reckoning, virginity does not exist,” writes Blank in this informative, funny and provocative analysis of one of the most elusive—and prized—qualities of human sexuality. Blank, an independent scholar, has pieced together a history of how humans have constructed the idea of virginity (almost always female and heterosexual) and engineered its uses to suit cultural and political forces. Blank has no shortage of fascinating facts: since Western virginity was symbolized by the color white, missionaries viewed nonwhite peoples as sexually immoral; late medieval and Renaissance moralists thought they could detect whether a woman was a virgin by examining her urine (”a virgin’s urine was clear, sparkling, and thin”). Blank also has a pleasing, highly readable style that allows her to convey large amounts of information with wit and agility. But she becomes most animated, and political, when she probes contemporary ideas about virginity. Taking on a range of questions—why is virginity considered sexy? how does the idea of virginity fuel violence against women?—she makes the case that contemporary culture is as obsessed with, and benighted about, virginity, as those of the past. Thoroughly researched, carefully argued and written with a sly sense of humor, this is a bright addition to the popular literature of women’s and cultural studies. (Mar.)
Permalink
01.11.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:52 pm by Hanne Blank
![]()
I, for one, welcome our new feline overlord. He fell asleep in my lap earlier today, purring like an Evinrude 75 as his little eyes closed. The cuteness almost did me in.
His name, we have been reliably informed, is Inspector Qiao (pronounced very similarly to “chow”).
My Belovedary made a Quicktime movie of him, in case any of you need a dose of kittendorkiness… http://www.hanneblank.com/graphics/graykitty/qiaotoy.MOV
Permalink
« Previous entries