» The nicest thing someone's ever done for me

So close!
and yet so far.

I can't have kids 'cause my heart is crap, and my sister has offered to play incubator if I ever decide my life requires a mini-me. Considering she'd be giving up both cigarettes and her five Cuban coffees a day habit to indulge me, I think that's pretty damn nice.
(Thu 2nd Oct 2008, 16:21, More)

» My Collection

Cookbooks
I collect several specific things, but nothing as passionately as cookbooks.

I have just under 800 cookbooks. My last count was 745 and that was a few months ago; with recent aquisitions, I'd put the current number at around 780.

The collection consists mainly of community cookbooks, vintage(pre-1975 only) and antique cookbooks, and handwritten recipe collections. The oldest positively-dated published book is from 1870, though there is a handwritten book that has a possible date of 1850.

The recipes themselves range from delightful to downright bizarre; among the latter are pork cake(spice cake with ground, cooked pork added), 'breakfast cookies'(like chocolate chip cookies with crumbled bacon instead of chocolate bits), acid phosphate whey('suitable for invalids') and numerous recipes for animals like squirrel, possum and raccoon.

I have cookbooks from Africa, Alaska, Australia, Lebanon, Italy, Tibet, the Netherlands, Japan, the former Yugoslavia and many other countries as well.

The pride of my collection is a recipe box whose contents span forty years in the life of one woman. Tucked inside were old cards, bits of newspaper, bills of sale and so many other things that I was able to put together a fairly detailed portrait of the woman who had created the collection. I'm tempted to make a book out of her recipes; each and every one has been a success.

The only room in our house without cookbooks is the bathroom, and if damage wasn't an issue I'd put up shelves in an instant. My husband doesn't object since I'll cook him any recipe he wants but he does admit that after I die, some research library will be getting a massive donation as he won't even begin to know what to do with them otherwise!

As to why I do it, I blame my love of history. They're a wealth of information and more often than not, a glimpse into the secret, everyday lives of women. Sometimes, recipe collections are the only evidence that these women ever existed at all, and preserving what I can of their lives is deeply important to me.

I inherited my grandmother's cookbook and recipe collection after she died, and I think part of it stems from that -- always having her with me in the recipes she wrote and the notes she made makes me want to salvage the voices of all the otherwise forgotten women in my books.
(Thu 11th Jan 2007, 20:59, More)

» Pet Stories

Clare the Wonder Cat
Our Clare is a tabby/Maine Coon mix; for those of you who don't know the breed, Maines get big. She weighs in at ninteen pounds and is the picture of health according to her vet, whose own Maine weighs 23 pounds.

She is spoiled to the point where she has her own pressed-glass punch cup on the nightstand to drink out of when she doesn't feel like getting up and going to the water bowl.

She thinks she's my child, it seems, but this is a good thing -- Clare once saved my life, you see.

In our old house, the bed was underneath a built-in bookcase that extended from the ceiling to a few feet above the bed. It was loaded with books and trinkets, including a heavy glass candleholder. This was, in retrospect, probably not the best location for the bed.

One morning, far too early, Clare jumped up on the bed and began meowing at me. I pushed her off only to have her jump up again and paw at me. I thought she wanted to be fed, so I pushed her off again; she got up a third time and began to scratch me! I sat up, ready to be angry with her and that's when the bookcase pulled free from the wall and hit the bed, most of it(heavy glass candleholder included) falling straight on my pillow.

Clare just sat there, purring and looking pleased with herself.

How she knew what was going to happen and realised it would be bad I don't know, but I'm awfully grateful.

She will also play fetch if you throw her toy mouse, but only when she feels like it; she'll bring you the mouse when it's playtime.

Behold the wonder:

(Fri 8th Jun 2007, 17:34, More)

» Stalked

Yes, but it was far better than what happened to a friend
There was this pasty, bespectacled English major who took a liking to me (I am also pasty and bespectacled, but in a 'sexy librarian' way, I'm told).

He managed to appear at social functions, restaurants and other places where I happened to be. I recognised him but, as he never spoke to me, thought nothing of it nor the evil looks my friends would give him.

Then the letter arrived. It was a long, detailed, and rather sad account of how he 'loved' me, 'knew we were meant to be together' and other similar ideas that bordered on the bizarre. It soon became clear as to why I had no idea of his self-proclaimed devotion -- he mentioned he'd made the mistake of telling a girlfriend of mine how he thought he felt and she threatened to beat the strange out of him if he came within hearing range of me.

Naturally, I showed the letter to her and all my other dear friends. That night, at an open poetry reading, a very drunk K read the letter on stage. Polite-stalker boy wasn't there, but a large number of people who knew him were, seeing as the event was sponsored by the English department.

To his credit, he later apologised for putting me in an uncomfortable situation. It ended up that he was more socially awkward than psycho and we ended up being friends.


Not so with a co-worker and friend of mine -- she got the psycho.

First started the anonymous letters, gifts and flower arrangements. Then came the frightening letters. Then came the death threats and kidnapping threats and pictures of her obviously taken without her knowledge out in public, some of which had been mutilated or covered in fake (we hoped) blood.

The police were contacted and they actually reacted quickly, saying it resembled other open stalking cases, including one where a girl was missing. Our boss told her to stay in the back at work. If anyone we didn't know personally came in to ask for her, we were to hide her in the office, lie and call security.

We shuffled her from one friend's place to the next every night; we'd take her from school or work in one person's car, meet somewhere and hand her off to another friend to take her to the night's destination. That may sound over the top, but after we found some of his letters at the first two places she stayed, we were taking no chances.

Then one day they caught the guy. Turns out he'd been stalking several women, all of whom he'd chosen at a church service. He was able to get their names and addresses from a member list and went on a little stalk-a-thon. In his house, they found plans to abduct and kill my friend, among other horrible things. I don't know if they ever connected him to the missing girl, but I do know he's not up for parole any time soon and a damned good thing that is, too.
(Thu 31st Jan 2008, 16:36, More)

» Hypocrisy

Ooh, that's an easy one.
Those dribbling, misogynist morons who claim to be pro-'life', then turn around and support the killing of millions through wars while voting against programs to help children and trying to take human rights away from women. So the 'sanctity of life' ends at birth or whenever they can't use it to treat a woman like a mobile incubator, it seems.

And then there's me, who prefers non-violence but would happily go after the aforementioned fuckers with a bat.
(Thu 19th Feb 2009, 22:52, More)