Song Obsession of the Week

1) So You Think You Can Dance is BAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!! Here's hoping to a more exciting season this time around.

2) SYTYCD always provides me with amazing music. Case in point:



Ahh John Legend, you are grand.

An Ode to the Neighbors of 42nd Street

I live on 42nd Street
It is so very nice
We love our little house
And all the fun there is in Crown Heights.

We love to take walks at night
Or hang out at the Sip
Get some frozen yogurt, you ask?
It's oh so very hip.

But while we love our place a lot
I must go ahead and say
There are some weirdos on this block
And they get weirder every day.

There's Tony on the right
Who likes to rev his cars
He likes to kidnap our friends
And make them drive him to bars
(and stop for a whiskey coke at La Baguette and make them take him to pick up his whale steak).

There are the dudes down the way
Who like to party hard
They have a statue of a lion
And have parties with their bed in the yard.

There's Katharine and Thad on the left
They are our very good friends
We like to play Mario Kart a lot
And if you're playing Katharine, you're effed

Then there are the new ones
I don't even know their names
But they are bonafide crazytown
This isn't even a game

They like to sit on their porch
And they literally sit all day
Sometimes yelling, sometimes crying
Other times hitting people in the face

Sometimes they knock off a gas line
And they say it was because they were sweeping
But they are probably building a meth lab
And it will explode while we are sleeping

They pound on Katharine's wall all night
Screaming EFF YOU, EFF YOU, EFF YOU
They have large pitbulls who run around
And do not discriminate where they poo.

These lovely friends are leaving us
Tomorrow, or so they say
If they don't, their landlord will call the cops
And in jail for a while they will stay.

I love you, 42nd Street
Don't doubt it, I really do
But when will you stop throwing the crazy?
Hopefully very, very soon.

The End.

P.S. I know I should be the next poet laureate, you don't have to tell me.
P.P.S. IF YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO IS NOT A FELON AND IS LOOKING FOR A CUTE DUPLEX IN AN AWESOME NEIGHBORHOOD (seriously, it's great. super cute with sushi neko, VZD's, the wedge, etc very close), PLEEEEEASE SEND THEM OUR WAYYYY!

I Like...COOKIES

What happens when Ashley has a lot of reading to do, a husband who is on call, and a free Saturday morning? Ashley bakes! (Ashley is not sure why she is blogging in the third person, but it reminds her of a high school basketball coach slash teacher who used to go entire classes speaking in the third person and it was awesome).

So a SUPER classmate of mine decided to be incredibly kind and bring cookies to our afternoon class on Wednesday...and they were amazing. I don't have her exact recipe, but I found a very similar one on the Holy Grail of cooking, aka AllRecipes.com, and they turned out very yummy. They are called Dishpan Cookies, but I don't really get that. For serious though, these cookies have like 13094 delicious things in them, so every bite is like a SURPRISE! Whatcha gonna get?!?! I don't know!!!

(Have I had a lot of coffee and sugar and cookie dough this morning, you ask? NOOOO!!!!!!)

Whatever, here's the recipe:

(The recipe on the website says it makes 72 cookies...I like cookies but I don't need 72 of them, so I cut the recipe in half).

1 cup margarine (but I used butter because margarine is weird)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups cornflakes cereal
3/4 cup rolled oats
1 cup flaked coconut
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Then mix in the corn flakes cereal, rolled oats, coconut, and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are lightly browned. Cool on wire racks..

YUM!

Song Obsession of the Week

Despite the minor fact that I am not going through a devastating breakup at the moment, I LOVE this song, and India.Arie in general. Heart.



(Excuse the stupid video, it's the only one I could find). Side note: why do people on you tube think that EVERYONE wants to watch them sing "covers" of songs to their webcams? I don't get it.

BAD Blogger!

I disappeared. I know it's lame, but as soon as school started again, any desire I had to write (or really, THINK) anything more than absolutely necessary kind of flew out the window. Woops. Such is the life of a grad student, I suppose.

I turned on the television yesterday morning to watch a bit of 9/11 anniversary coverage, and was a little bit disturbed to find that MSNBC was playing their exact coverage from that morning, starting at 7:45a.m. I knew that watching this couldn't really bring about anything productive, but I found myself riveted and moved to tears again as I re

lived the fear and shock that we all experienced that day. If I felt that way, I can't even begin to fathom what it is like for New Yorkers, let alone survivors and family members of the victims, to have to relive that all the time. Having worked on a study of survivors, and having interviewed many family members of survivors, I know that for many, the wounds haven't healed.

As I listened to the announcers speculate over who may have done it, whether other planes were being hijacked and directed to other potential targets, and whether the death toll would be 200 or 500 people (little did we know it would reach 2500 or so), I couldn't stop thinking about how strange it was to watch as people tried to figure out the details of that day that we all know now has literally changed the course of our country, history, and the world. Did 9/11 shock me as much as it did the rest of America? Of course. Am I proud to be an American? Absolutely, and having lived in a country that is oppressive to its people in unthinkable ways, I know how much I take for granted sometimes. But do I wish that, perhaps, we had responded a bit differently to this attack? That we hadn't set off a chain reaction that prompted an endless war and a lot of hate for a people (or 99% of them) that just wants peace and a chance to live life as much as we do? Probably. It's sickening to think about the lives that could have been saved both here and around the world (i.e. Iraq, etc.) if we just could have had a tiny glimpse of what was to come, or if we had had the foresight to wait and get all of the facts before we shot back with our bombs and our guns (Cranberries reference, anyone? Zombieeeee). We say God Bless America, and I'm okay with that, but why can't we say God Bless the World, too?

But sadly, that's not how life works, and we have to do the best we can with what we've got. Not really sure where I'm going with this, but I do think it was important yesterday to reflect on that day and how different the world might look today if it hadn't occurred. And of course, we have to remember the people who risked their lives and lost them, and those who have answered what has been asked of them since then...I am thankful for them, and I'm not sure if I could be that brave.

The Episode of A Salad Gone Very, Very Bad (apparently)

Thursday night, we went to some friends' for a happy hour get together thingy, and then we went out to dinner afterwards (the place shall remain nameless because I have had otherwise great experiences there). Little did I know, the Wrath of Evil Effing Food Bacteria (that is the medical name, I found it in one of Scott's textbooks) was about to clench me in its terrible claws and keep me there for two days. Seriously, I have never been that sick. So sick that I was on the couch for 2 days and did not even want to play Rock Band. Yikes.

However, it was a very productive bout of food poisoning, as I cleaned out my DVR of all Sex and the City episodes (a.k.a. like 15 or something), watched the season premiere of Project Runway (yay, it's back!), finished The Time Traveler's Wife (I'm not sure it met my admittedly high expectations given all the hype, but it was a good read for sure), and became very well acquainted with the lovely to-go people at Panera (as soup in a bread bowl was the only thing that I could even think about eating). Yesterday, I felt human enough to venture out of the house, socialize, and yes, even play Rock Band.

So here I am, back from the depths of food poisoning, well-hydrated, and completely, 100%, totally sworn off salads.

Love ya bye.

I Like...Movies About Food

I am loving Scott's family medicine rotation because it equals stress-free weeknights and totally free Saturdays, yay (HINT, HINT, HUSBAND). Just kidddiiiing. Friday night, we went out for our friend's "birthday slash going away to Dallas for two months party," hitting up the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and Rococo for drinks afterwards (their crab cakes are for a whole different post, I promise). We had lunch with my parents in Norman on Saturday, at which point we decided it was time for an afternoon movie. The 'rents loved Julie & Julia, and being the foodies that we are, we decided that nothing is better for a shape-up diet plan than going to see a movie about butter, cheese, and souffles. Mmmm...

If you haven't seen the previews, the plot centers around Julie, who finds herself feeling quite aimless and unaccomplished on the verge of her 30th birthday. To remedy this situation, the obvious solution is to cook her way through Julia Child's cookbook in one year and start a blog about it. While Julie is doing this, we also get to see how Julia Child became Julia Child the Celebrity Chef, starting with her new life in post-war Paris as the bored but hilariously spunky wife of a diplomat. Being that I am of a younger generation than Julia's original audience (Scott and I were most definitely the only people in the theater under the age of 45, but what else can one expect at a 4:30 matinee about Julia Child?), I am not extremely familiar with Julia's show, but from what I have seen, Meryl Streep's portrayal is spot-on. Her goofy, self-deprecating humor is beyond funny, and I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a while (okay, maybe in the Hangover, but for different reasons).

If you like movies, laughing, or food, you must go see this. In the midst of "films" like 2012 and Sorority Row that look truly, truly, gut-wrenchingly awful (WHO on Earth would pay money to go see a movie about plane crashes and bombings and the end of the world right now? For serious, people!), this movie is exactly what movies are supposed to be: engaging, heart-warming, and able to take you to a place full of pies, Paris, and omelettes being tossed about. Warning: it will make you very, very hungry, and it will make you seriously consider a career change in favor of attending culinary school. Go get your $40 together or whatever it costs nowadays for a ticket and move your bum to the theater this second, because you'll love it.

Bon Appetit!