Art Exhibit

Hey, Friends.

Remember a little while back when I asked for your help choosing pictures for a staff art exhibit?  (If you need a refresher, you can find it here -- and read all about how I might be a "depressing little snowflake" at the same time.  Consider it an extra bonus!) Well, the time has come and the opening reception for the show was this afternoon.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to give me opinions. Thanks, Friends! Some of you told me in person, some commented on Facebook, and a few people took the time to go through my Instagram account.  I really appreciate the help and the time that you took to do that for me.  💓

I only made a brief appearance at the opening reception.  I was working, but I also didn't really want a reception.  Try not to be horrified by that, I've already heard it. I'll try to explain.

You see, Friends, this is just a hobby for me.  I was forced cajoled coerced into participating by several people who told me my pictures were really good and I should do it.  So I did.  I'm not an artist, not in my own opinion.  This isn't my life's work, or years of struggle while doing something else and waiting to be discovered or get a big break.  It's a hobby and something I do for fun.  I feel like a giant fraud standing there talking about my photos.

So when it came to preparations for the display, we were asked to give the names of the pieces, and if we want to sell them we had to give a price.  I don't have names for mine, and having never done anything like this before I didn't want to come off sounding pretentious or ridiculous.  I told them to just use numbers. Literally, just go 1-5.  Nothing fancy here, kids.  As for price?  I honestly can't believe anybody would want to pay money for a print of my pictures, but if we have the option then...$20 each?  I have no idea if that is expensive or entirely too cheap. We'll see what happens.

They put up the announcement for the show on the library's website, and used one of my pictures. Not going to lie, that was pretty sweet.

My picture is on the library's website announcing the staff art show! Pretty sweet. 😊 pic.twitter.com/K7afkZLZR6

— Tammy (@tammyshampoo) January 31, 2017

So, without further ado, here is my little part of the display, and the pictures you helped me choose.

My display, which my coworkers hung for me as I was at work at the other branch of the library.

1.  Taken at Locust Grove.

2. Taken at Staatsburgh State Historic Site (Mills Mansion).

3. Taken in my back yard.

4. The garden at Locust Grove.

5. Taken on the front steps of Adriance Memorial Library on my way in to work one rainy Sunday.

I think we made some good choices, Friends.  Give yourselves a treat for your hard work, something nice.

It's also worth mentioning that my little plan of avoiding the reception by working backfired spectacularly.  One of my book club members went to see the exhibit, and then came down to find me at work and talk to me about my pictures.  She is involved in the local art scene, and I think she was expecting a lot more in-depth answers to her questions. 

Take picture 3, for example.  She was asking all about how I captured it.  I'm like, "It was sheer dumb luck.  I saw the lightning, and went and stood in my back yard to try and get a picture."

Then she was asking if I had done a lot of studying, did I read about different methods and lighting, had I done a lot of research?  Nope.  Literally just a hobby.  I wander around and take pictures of things that capture my interest.  It's me and my iPhone.  It takes better quality pictures than my old digital camera.

She summed it up by saying, "Still waters run deep."  I think that might have been a little too kind, but I'm taking it as a compliment.  I felt like our entire conversation was more me trying not to be completely awkward while explaining that I literally have zero process or training of any kind.  

And that's the story of my first art exhibit experience.  Thanks again for your help, Friends.  I truly mean that.  

**If you should feel so inspired to actually want to buy one of these, feel free to hit me up or contact the library. I'm not expecting any takers, so no offer is going to be refused.**

Yeah. I Made That.

Hey there, Friends.

If you've been here for any amount of time, you are aware that I tend to make some strange culinary creations from time to time.  Having a momentary lapse in memory?  Just check out the posts about my book group (you can find them all here, I did the search for you), and that will give you an idea.

Yesterday I was talking to someone who asked what other oddities I had made, and did I have a favorite.  Not going to lie, I've made a lot of weird shit over the years. Let's take a moment to examine some of my fine creations, shall we?  Mind you -- this is just the tip of the iceberg, Friends. I picked out some of my best, special just for you.

Anything Friday the 13th is always fun!  These are brownies, decorated to have bad luck symbols on them made from edible items -- broken glass, open umbrellas to walk under, black cats, etc.

My one and only attempt to bake in ice cream cones.  They are supposed to look like ice cream, obviously.  A couple didn't work and turned into little clown type things.

Graveyard brownies are always fun for Halloween.

Stargate cupcakes by request for a friend's birthday.

Raining Blood Red Velvet Cupcakes, using Apocalypse Cakes recipe.  I don't recall why I made these, but there they are.

Hello Kitty cupcakes, also for a birthday.

Mayan Chocolate cupcakes, complete with my shitty attempt at making the glyphs.  I know exactly when I made these -- to mark the day the calendar said the world would end back in 2012.

Farmville-themed cupcakes, also for a birthday.  

Turkeys.  I'm sure you can guess the holiday.

Pigs...I think they were supposed to be Peppa Pig for a child's birthday.

Computer monitors for a friend's birthday. They were supposed to be laptops, but I couldn't get them to stay standing during transport.

And this -- this was a bitch!  Coworker wanted a Bento Box theme for his birthday.  Took forever to make that damn candy sushi.

Aren't they cool?  Maybe not, but I impress the hell out of myself sometimes.  Good job, me!

None of them are actually my favorite, however.  My all-time favorite would be the Ouija board brownies that my niece, Lili, helped me make a few years back.  I know I have a picture of it somewhere, but I cannot find the thing.  I literally just spent over an hour going through all of my photos on Instagram and Facebook looking for this shit.  It's kind of driving me a little nuts at this point.  

For the time being, here's a picture of a Ouija Board so those who aren't familiar know what I'm talking about:

Photo from: this article, which is an interesting read on it's own.

Friends, you might be wondering why the hell that would be my favorite creation.

1.  I made it with my niece, which is always a fun time.

2. It was a few years back, so I kind of had to explain to her what exactly a Ouija Board was, and that led to some good stories.

I think I was making it for a book group that I was in -- I wasn't running it at that point.  I can't remember now which book we were supposed to be discussing.  Yeah, supposed to be discussing. This is the group that eventually turned into "The Book Group That Doesn't Read Books", and now we do random shit like go to the movies, or dinner, or bowling.  Books are no longer involved.  I want to say it was for The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, but I might be very wrong about that.

Back to my point...

So I was trying to explain to Lil what the heck a Ouija Board is, and what it is supposed to do.  Quite naturally, she had asked if I had ever tried one, and did they actually work.

Of course I had tried one.  Is there anyone who hasn't messed around and tried one at some point, just to see if it works?  I think the Ouija Board was actually mine, or it might have been my childhood best friend's.  (We shall call her Betty, to keep it anonymous.)  Betty grew up next door to me and we shared everything.  We might each have had one of these things, I honestly don't remember at this point. I know it ended up staying in my parents' house with all of our board games, but we'll get to that later.

Betty and I were probably in like 7th or 8th grade at the time we tried using the Ouija Board.  I remember I was sleeping over at her house, and we thought it would be a brilliant thing to try in the middle of the night.

I remember being pretty bummed out at first because I apparently expected instantaneous results, and nothing was happening.  That little planchette just sat there. We tried different combinations of each putting both of our hands on it, just one hand each, a couple of fingers each.  Nothing.

Then, it started to slowly move around the board.  Holy shit, this thing actually worked?  I admit, I was a little freaked out at first.  Of course, being tween or teenage girls at the time, we quickly jumped to the very important questions -- like cute boys and did they like us, would we ever get married, would we ever meet fill-in-the-name-of-a-cute-celebrity-crush-here, etc.

At some point the thought did cross my mind that Betty might be pushing that thing around the board, rather than it being actual answers.  Why did I start to doubt it? She seemed to get a lot of good answers that she liked.  Mine always seemed to be a lot less positive or spelled out nonsense.  

At any rate, we weren't too thrilled with our venture into the paranormal, and I don't think we ever tried the thing more than like twice, with the same sort of results each time.

My brother, on the other hand, is a different story.

I know the Ouija Board ended up in my parents' house because he and a group of friends stumbled across it at one point and decided to try it out.  I think they were in high school at the time, maybe college.

I never got the full story and all of the details from him, and I doubt he remembers it all now, but it freaked them the fuck out.  I remember that they were absolutely convinced that they had contacted the spirit of a little boy.  They were talking to him for a while, and then bad things started to happen. I think the story was that the little boy wasn't alone -- there were bad spirits also, and they were  trying to come through.  Whatever it was, it freaked them all out to the point that they threw the Ouija Board out in the garbage.  They wanted it out of the house and away from them.  A couple days later, it was back in the house again.  They were convinced the spirits had returned it.  I think it was more likely that one of our parents went to take out the garbage, found it sitting in the can, and brought it back in the house.  My theory did not go over well.  One of his friends claimed they tried to get rid of it again, and it kept coming back.  I don't know if I buy that or not, as this person also likes to tell tall tales.

Whatever the case may be, those are my Ouija Board stories and why it is my favorite creation to date.  It wasn't so much about what we created as it was about sharing the stories with my niece.  

I don't know where the Ouija Board ended up.  It may still be at my parents' house, in the closet with all of the other board games.  There's also a fairly good chance that my mother sold it in a garage sale at some point over the years.  It might be out there somewhere right now, freaking out more people.

So, There's This Super Bowl Game Happening

Hi there, Friends.

I'm not really a big football fan, so this is kind of an odd topic to bring up.  Like you should be impressed and proud that I even know who is playing in the game.  I don't like watching it because I'm always afraid that someone is going to get hurt when they tackle each other.  I'm weird, I realize. Most of the country loves it and I'm always worried about seeing an injury.

This is why I need your expertise here, Friends.

I'm not quite sure if Super Bowl pools are actually legal or not, so let's just say it this way...

Hypothetically, there could be a Super Bowl pool in existence.  Probably many, all over the country. Let's say that I had 2 squares in a totally-hypothetical-and-not-at-all-real pool.  As mentioned above, I don't watch football that often, so I have no idea what would be "good" numbers to have ....you know, if the hypothetical pool actually existed.

Let's get a little more imaginative with our totally-not-at-all-real Super Bowl pool. Using our imaginations to pick totally random numbers out of the ether, let's say I wound up with the following in this totally-imaginary-and-fake situation:

Falcons 1 Patriots 5
Falcons 5 Patriots 2

If our imaginary pool were to exist, would those be good numbers to have?  I honestly have no idea. Do they come up very often in scores?  Or, in the context of our imaginary scenario, would I be totally screwed?

Thanks for your help, Friends!  (Please note: I will also have no clue if you even know what you are talking about.)

Oh, the Sweetness

Hey, Friends.

It's been a hot second since we last discussed my fab book group, and since we are meeting tonight I thought we could check in on it.  (You can find the last post about it over here.)

Tonight we will be discussing Sweetness #9 by Stephan Eirik Clark. Too lazy to click on the link to find out what the book is all about?  Fine.  I'll paste the blurb from Amazon here for you.

"It's 1973, and David Leveraux has landed his dream job as a Flavorist-in-Training, working in the secretive industry where chemists create the flavors for everything from the cherry in your can of soda to the butter on your popcorn.

While testing a new artificial sweetener--"Sweetness #9"--he notices unusual side-effects in the laboratory rats and monkeys: anxiety, obesity, mutism, and a generalized dissatisfaction with life. David tries to blow the whistle, but he swallows it instead.

Years later, Sweetness #9 is America's most popular sweetener--and David's family is changing. His wife is gaining weight, his son has stopped using verbs, and his daughter suffers from a generalized dissatisfaction with life. Is Sweetness #9 to blame, along with David's failure to stop it? Or are these just symptoms of the American condition?

David's search for an answer unfolds in this expansive novel that is at once a comic satire, a family story, and a profound exploration of our deepest cultural anxieties. Wickedly funny and wildly imaginative, Sweetness #9 questions whether what we eat truly makes us who we are."

Sounds interesting, right?  I was unaware when I picked it that it had also gotten the "Colbert Bump". No, that really is a thing. --> Colbert Bump

Now, how to decorate and make snacks for a book group centered around an artificial sweetener  that is pervading the food we eat?

This is the cover of the edition of the book that I read:

Bright pink sweetness.

I immediately had one idea of what to make for my book group, just from seeing the cover.  Friends, you might consider me to be a touch on the twisted side, or maybe the slightest bit evil when you see this. I like to think of it more as giving my book group a double dog dare.  

Strawberry cake with bright pink frosting, and pink sprinkles that look exactly like the picture of Sweetness #9 on the book cover.  

It had to be done, really.  I feel I would be remiss if I didn't try to freak them out a little bit by using something that looked just like the sweetener in the book.

Slight spoiler here, folks.

By the end of the book, our flavorist has moved to the West Coast and is living on a farm, raising organic produce and making small-batch organic sauerkraut that he sells.  Obviously, I had to do something that involved sauerkraut.  

Reuben Sliders

Table view

I decided to try to make the table look as much like the book cover as possible, so I went with baby blue to make that hot pink cake pop!

And no, I was not taking a swipe at Diet Coke by including it in tonight's festivities.  I always have it as an option at book group. Lemonade joined it tonight as the other option.

The decorations were a bit harder to come up.  I had a epiphany while wandering the dollar store this morning, getting the tablecloth and things.  Why not just decorate it with packets or artificial sweeteners?  That would be awesome!  And since the sweetener in the book was supposed to be this huge success that had invaded every aspect of America's food, why not some little party toppers?

Sugar-like substances

I also found some fun art that had been created for the book.

And related reading/viewing materials, of course.

Beyond my whacked-out idea of fun decorations and food, Friends, the book actually is a good read. I found the plot a little sluggish in the middle, and then the end seemed to wrap up really quickly.  It will definitely make you think twice about what the hell you are actually eating.  It also had writing that was really enjoyable. 

Three of my favorite passages from the book are:

"The physical and spiritual wonders of love.  It was all out there waiting for me, but it was also a fleeting fantasy."

"The questions that undermine our faith don't arrive through deep meditation and diligent study.  They pop up like soldiers from a foxhole, ready to shoot you down before you even have the time to realize you are dead."

"What do we do, David? We tell people, 'This is what a strawberry tastes like,' and eventually that's what they come to believe: this is what a strawberry tastes like."

It was a pretty successful night!  And in case you were wondering, Friends -- they totally ate some of the pink cake!  My book group s awesome.

Ice Ice Baby

Hey, Friends.

We got a little bit of an ice storm last night, right on the heels of a lovely weekend that felt more like Spring than Winter.  So many people told me that it was just going to be rain.  I didn't believe them. When it comes to to the weather I listen to Hudson Valley Weather as they tend to be a lot more accurate and specific to our area.  Their forecast said sleet and possibly snow, and they were right!

This was the very start or it last night, just in time for the drive home from work.

Perfect end to the day. #HappyMonday pic.twitter.com/HLnbMh39fc

— Tammy (@tammyshampoo) January 23, 2017

Last night, as the ice was falling, I decided I should wander around and take some pictures.  Luckily for me we have a delayed opening at work today, so I had extra time for more pictures this morning. Might as well make the best of it if everything is going to be an icy mess.

From last night.  Look how pretty the ice looks!

The hydrangea in my garden last night, coated with ice.

Same former flowers in daylight.

That's my back yard. No, that really is the whole thing. You can see my garage on the top left, my neighbors blue garage/shed on the right, and the bottom of the fence in the back.  It was so cruddy that even the deer don't appear to have been out galavanting in my yard, or raiding the bird feeder.

It actually got inside the lingering husks on my Rose of Sharon.

Already starting to melt a bit in the front of the house.  (That was my anise plant).

Neighbor's tree is a little weighed down.  Hopefully it melts before it breaks.

My car in its ice cocoon.

I could actually see and feel the individual little pellets while cleaning off the car.

Why yes, I did buy it just for the name.

It looks like I led a Smurf massacre on my front walkway.

The Highway Department seems to have done a pretty kick-ass job, so hopefully getting to work in a bit will be nice and easy.

That's what I've been up to for the last 12 hours or so, Friends.  Well...including sleeping, of course. I hope you have better weather wherever you are reading this! 

I'll leave you with this: shoveling ice is a bitch.  It's heavy as hell and that plow wake is no joke. 

I Need Some Fresh Air

Hey, Friends.

How are you?  No, seriously -- how are you doing?  The last couple of days have been kind of tumultuous.  I really want to know that you all are doing okay. Emotions have been running high on all sides.  People are saying horrible things to each other online, like there isn't another human being you are directing the words to.  I've seen mass waves of "unfriending" on Facebook.  Just because I might not share the same views as you when it comes to politics doesn't mean that I don't care about you as my friend.

Seeing as I have the day off, I decided to unplug for a bit and get away from it all for a while.  (Not too far though, as it looks like it might pour at any second.)  To that end, I decided to go on a short hike, and found myself at the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  They have some nice nature trails there, but I can't rule out my subconscious having directed me there as I had been thinking about his Four Freedoms earlier this morning.

Sculpture made from pieces of the Berlin Wall, taken earlier this summer.  It's under protective covers for the winter right now.

But this isn't meant to be a political post.  This is meant to be a break from it all. Let's just move along to enjoying nature, shall we?  Fantastic.

When it looks more like early Spring than late January

View of the lawn, looking toward the Hudson River

You can make anything look creepy if you try hard enough

View from the top of the waterfall

What waterfall?  This one.

Same waterfall from a little bit down the trail

Still doesn't look like Winter, but now it at least seems like Autumn.

Tidal marsh & Hudson River.  You can just barely see the Walkway Over the Hudson in the background.

That's how I spent my afternoon.  I highly recommend taking a moment for yourself and just getting away from it all for a bit.  Go outdoors.  Unplug.  Stop reading things that you know are just going to annoy you or piss you off.  Take a step back and remember that there are beautiful things all around you.  Feed your soul.

Fashion Statement

Hey, Friends.

Just a quick update on my lunch break.

Person: "Is your shirt a flag with skulls on it?"

Me: Yup.

Person: "Are you aware the Inauguration is today?"

Me: That's why I wore it.

Person: "I think I love you right now."

Making a statement without having to say a word.