I never liked a girl well enough to give her 12 sharp knives.

I'm currently making Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake With Gingerbread Crust from Fine Cooking that Veloute sent me. She made it in Vermont and goddamn if it wasn't light and delectable. I hope I make it just like hers, as D will be expecting it to be just like that! Rob is also a huge pumpkin cheesecake fan, so the pressure's on.



You know what I learned this holiday season? Black Friday does not mean what I thought it meant. As an EX-RETAIL SLAVE, I really just sort of thought of it as a doomsday reference. Seriously. Probably even before I knew the hells of working retail. But it's called that because it's traditionally the day of the year the companies go into the black and out of the red, making a profit. So it's a good thing. Supposedly. (And really, after reading Wiki's definition, they seem to suggest I might have been more right than the voice on the radio.)

No matter how irritated I was to land the bitch shift at work and have to close the day after Thanksgiving, only to open the next morning, I did take a moment around 10pm to reflect on the fact that Express was just closing their doors--they were, at that moment, taking a look around at the wreck of a store before them as they fought back the tears. And I felt so much better. And I got paid more to be home at a decent hour.

Plus I was in there last weekend doing a little xmas shopping for the husband and god did their shit suck. Infact, my sister and dad and I were just mocking some of their mailers. The men in their ads looked almost more awkward and pained than the poor fucks who model the Thom Browne Collection (these are new ones, if you saw the old ones).

I did not find what I was looking for at that store. (Really warm bunchy in-the-house socks--so thick you couldn't wear them with shoes if you wanted. It occurred to me as I wandered the mall that no matter which store I chose, I would still be in Texas and would therefore still be in an unlikely place to find such a thing).

Also, for the record, Target has these bitchin' gold lights and I was thrilled to finally know what to do with the front of the house. Simple. Different. Elegant. And now suddenly both the stores in Addison and Arlington are totally out, no shelf talkers or anything--just a taunting display. It's clearly going to be The Thing To Do This Year and I totally called it first. So if you see a house decked out in simple gold lights, egg it for me won't you, as that's what Christmas is all about.

I went with Plan B, these cool icicle lights that fade from blue to clear. Even if the house down the street already does a mega-blue theme. We're not doing mega, for one thing.

My cream cheese may be workable finally.