[witty title]

Alternative Title: Bomb-Ass Holiday Cookies

[[version 2019.01.21: am currently experimenting w 4 tbsp of molasses & larger amts of spices, wish me luck]]

The first thing you should know about me in the kitchen is that I am Lazy As Fuck.  Left to my own devices, I eat instant ramen and boxed macaroni-&-cheese out of the saucepan I make them in, so I don't have to wash dishes.  I don't use a colander because I'd have to clean that too, so instead I've taught myself how to drain the macaroni very carefully using a chopstick to hold it in place.  I hate extra work and I hate cleaning up.  Also I seesaw between freaking out over doing something wrong and going "fuck it, I don't even care anymore," so my approach to cooking is kind of...I don't cook much.

But I FUCKING LOVE CHRISTMAS COOKIES, and my mom is usually too wiped from the end-of-year overtime-work-and-cooking-holiday-dinner routine to do it herself, so I had to take over.  And the cutout sugar cookies with the colorful powdered-sugar-and-lime-juice icing are delicious and nostalgic and awesome, but when it's already after sundown on Christmas Day and I've been working all week and procrastinating my ass off...it's just easier to make a batch of these instead.

The first thing you should know about me in general is that I am incredibly judgemental, bad at keeping a lid on it, and enjoy editorializing far too much.  Expect annotations to get out of control as per usual.

* NOTE: this is adapted from this Whole Foods recipe, but I'm ignoring all the fussy bullshit & also what is wrong with these people that there's no molasses in their spice cookies? who the hell wants their gingerbread to be blond???

( equipment )
( ingredients )
DIRECTIONS:

QUICK RUNDOWN

• blend dry ingredients in one mixing bowl


• suck it up & get out the mixer


• cream butter & sugar in the other mixing bowl


• dump in the egg, vanilla, & molasses and mix that in


• dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients & mix well (but not too well)


• scrape dough into log-type-object, wrap in plastic wrap, & stick it in the freezer


• clean up the mess & twiddle your thumbs for 30-60 minutes


• break the dough into cookie-sized chunks, mold chunks into cookie shape, roll in sugar, and put on baking sheet


• bake for 15ish minutes until they're doneish


• enjoy ♥

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS (for people like me who angst over the directions on the back of the shampoo bottle)
( tl;dr )
If any Actual Cooks^TM wind up reading this, please feel free to correct any errors in my baking logic.  I may be doing this horribly wrong; all I really know is that the cookies turn out edible enough.

* (This is where the official recipe wants you to slice your "6-inch discs" of cookie dough into "24 equal wedges," roll them into "5-inch rope[s]," and twist them in pairs. If you're anything like me, that sentence made you want to start hyperventilating a little. What the hell do they expect you to do, use a protractor???)

because reasons.

disclaimer:  since this is my best guess of what she sings based on a single live youtube video, this is probably at least 20% bullshit; italics are for serious wobblies--'yo' versus 'wo', however the fuck she's conjugating/declining the verb at the end of the chorus, etc.  I did srs research with my ears, Denshi Jisho, and Google Translate!  you have been warned.

ELIZAVETA - 夢みる
(Yumemiru: the Japanese version/adaptation of her song "Dreamer," a single on the Beatrix Runs album)
( 夢みる )


the lyrics of the original english-language version for comparison:
( Dreamer )

Part II of "I can't find the lyrics to this moderately obscure song and it's pissing me off"!  Today's edition: Linda Yamamoto, 1974, "Kirikirimai".  I ran across this song back in '06 or '07 while looking for Orange Range's "Kirikirimai"; the contrast alone is hilarious, but the song itself is catchy, and Linda is adorable, and I needed someone to supplement The Peanuts in my pitiful repertoire of old-school J-pop.

( [/disclaimed] )

( totsuzen warui sasayaki kikoe... )

Uh.  So yeah.  This is just lyrics, not a translation; Google Translate is inconsistent at best, and I'm functionally incompetent.  (See, I've technically been studying Japanese for seven years now, only I'm really lazy and kind of an otaku, so it's all been through anime/manga and Japanese popular music.  It would be so easy to find one of those online tutorials in conjugation and grammar and syntax and verbs and adjectives and so on and so forth, but...well, let's just say that my default setting is Nara Shikamaru.)

[Error: unknown template qotd]

Since 2007, which means since before my spectacular nervous breakdown in my senior year of high school (accompanied by a sudden influx of bizarre medical problems: a medication side effect (from the only ADD med that ever worked for me, sadly) that killed my ability to feel hunger, causing severe weight loss; onset of a sinus thing, causing postnasal drip, runny nose, coughing, and headaches, that four years later is still pissing me off (paging Dr. House...); spraining and fracturing my foot trying to catch the bus on the first day of class, which the doctors never gave me crutches for, so it took me a whole semester to stop needing my elderly neighbor's cane; and my thyroid, of all organs, deciding to try and kill me--more weight loss, hair falling out, incredibly maddening hot flashes (menopausal women deserve fucking gold medals for putting up with that shit), and the medication to fix it suppressed my immune system, so the week before the 2008 presidential election I was in bed with nonstop fever and bright orange goo pouring out of my nose. Good times).

Since 2007, I have (a) gotten the highest first-attempt SAT score in the history of my school and then flunked all of my academic classes so fast I gave my teachers whiplash; (b) been hospitalised, which kind of actually made the problem worse, though I did stabilise my sleeping schedule and finish switching meds; (c) slept through my class's graduation, which I still haven't quite forgiven myself for; (d) gone to two semesters of night school to compensate for my grades, just barely passing the second one and graduating on the tenth of February 2009; (e) become a Marine Biology student at Salem State University, taking a dive in an inflatable obstacle course (yes, you read that right) my first day on campus and spending a semester on crutches; (f) missed my godson's second and third birthdays, because I am a fucking idiot.

Oh yeah, and I spent the summer of 2009 in Europe (mostly Norway). It was pretty awesome, even if they are all freaks for basing their public transportation on the honor system.

Time for breakfast. *feels accomplished for actually eating a breakfast meal more than once a week* *has really low standards for feeling accomplished*

http://metisket.livejournal.com/3124.html
RULES: copy list, bold what you've read, underline what you loved, italicise what you plan on reading.  Judy being Judy, there are now four more categories.

 -05-  :: UNDERLINED: love (all children's books, incidentally)

17ish :: RED: have actually read in original form
22ish :: BOLDED: have read have read part of and/or know enough about
 -24-  :: GREEN: recognise it
 -17-  :: BLUE: sounds sort of familiar (probably couldn't tell you what it's about, though)
 -23-  :: PLAIN: ...who?

 -12-  :: ITALICISED: intend to (re)read, for whatever reason

( top 100 or whatever )

So yeah, I am not so much with the classics.  Or pop culture in general.  17ish is nicely above the average (6, apparently?), but considering the average reader...hnnn.  It's just that most of these aren't my style, I was born into an SFF/YA/etc. mentality.  Why read "true-to-life" fiction when you can read about dragons and spaceships and grand adventures?  (Add in my fudges and we've got 39.  That's good, right?)

CHAPTER INDEX
CHAPTER 193
CHAPTER 194 (was not interesting enough to take notes on, apparently)
CHAPTER 195
CHAPTER 196
CHAPTER 197
CHAPTER 198
CHAPTER 199 (a.k.a. "the D.Gray-version of Naruto #347 and #386, combined")


200 - "SEED OF DESTRUCTION"  (that doesn't sound ominous at all)

( 01-13: back to the beginning )

( 14-21: those other characters no one cares about )

( 22-32: aaand lvellie loses his shit )

(Seriously, though, if that was Kanda's death scene, the only thing preventing me from cutting a bitch will be the fear of getting lumped in with all the scandalised Kanda/Yullen/etc. fangirls.  Ain't no fandom like shameful, guilt-tripping, self-hating fandom~)

CHAPTER INDEX
CHAPTER 193
CHAPTER 194 (was not interesting enough to take notes on, apparently)
CHAPTER 195
CHAPTER 196
CHAPTER 197
CHAPTER 199 (a.k.a. "the D.Gray-version of Naruto #347 and #386, combined")
CHAPTER 200


198 - "UNFRUITFUL TRUTH"

( 01-12: the fourteenth has himself a squee )

( 13-22: Mr. 14 also has ADD...or maybe that's just Allen )

( 23-31: the truthiness will out )

CHAPTER INDEX
CHAPTER 193
CHAPTER 194 (was not interesting enough to take notes on, apparently)
CHAPTER 195
CHAPTER 197
CHAPTER 198
CHAPTER 199 (a.k.a. "the D.Gray-version of Naruto #347 and #386, combined")
CHAPTER 200


196 - "GO!!"

( 01-15: overture )

( 16-27: pokeball go )

( 25-31: faito-- )

CHAPTER INDEX
CHAPTER 193
CHAPTER 194 (was not interesting enough to take notes on, apparently)
CHAPTER 196
CHAPTER 197
CHAPTER 198
CHAPTER 199 (a.k.a. "the D.Gray-version of Naruto #347 and #386, combined")
CHAPTER 200


[blah blah D.Gray-chapter 195 blah blah reactions and speculation blah blah shits and giggles blah bl--HELLO, LENALEE.  8DDD]

re: last chapter: Hoshino smoking waaay too much theology and failing at drawing her own protagonist's face, what else is new?  And Slinky!Kanda is now forever cemented into my brain, thank you very much Allegra.  Although I really would've loved to see what happened to Marie and Renny and how they survived that shit, and maybe something about the lotus mirages transferring to the waking world, and Mystery Woman, wtf with that staff she was holding when she first appeared, Innocence?  *sighs and crosses fingers for further explanatory flashbacks that likely will never come*

( 00-11: who died? )

( 12-20: animated inspiration (and liquid courage) )

( 21-31: *rant rant rant* )

*is ded*  On to chapter 196!...

So, so, askerian does this thing where she posts reviews/reactions to new chapters of Naruto, and I can't funnel all of my overanalysis and meta into conversations with poor dayadhvam_triad, and capslock_dgm isn't exactly the place for it, and I'm too lazy/antisocial to go near dgray_man or dgrayman sooo consider this a disclaimer for the mess of notes and speculation and theories I'm about to dump in this thing.

[[EDIT: but wait there's more.]]
CHAPTER 194 (was not interesting enough to take notes on, apparently)
CHAPTER 195
CHAPTER 196
CHAPTER 197
CHAPTER 198
CHAPTER 199 (a.k.a. "the D.Gray-version of Naruto #347 and #386, combined")
CHAPTER 200


CHAPTER 193: "FINALLY WE GET AROUND TO THE KILLING" "FRIEND"

( *scribble scribble* )


>>> *finds d.gray-kinkmeme comm*
>>> *both of them*
>>> YES PLEASE.  8DDD
>>> ...I'll be in my bunk.