tickets for the ferris wheel - rode the roller coaster

i did this! with bijoux. it turned out alright. we accidentally added too much almond extract, so it was a bit sweet. also, i think it needs more booze, though the queen says it works for him, so now i feel like a big lush. but i'm still going to add more booze to the next batch. and there will be a next batch, because homemade irish cream is surprisingly easy to make, and if you buy ingredients by the case, cheaper! solstice/christmas gifts - check.

we went to an equinox gathering put on by a crowd i "used to hang out with". except there were actually a high number of reasonably close friends there! i was pleased. everyone cooed over the dumpling, i was only annoyed several times by shit from this dictionary of mockery. if you've spent years going to ritualized festivals put on by people trying to reinvent community because they've been raised without it, and grown annoyed by all of the broken habits and manipulative bullshit that get(s) carried over unconsciously, you will laugh at that link. if you don't subscribe to "that hippie stuff" you might giggle occasionally but it won't be the same, sorry. and although i was annoyed, that's because i'm jaded. i was also pleased/impressed/amazed at the beautiful land and the efforts of those who worked to make it a great gathering. i'm very glad i went. i'm still jaded though. maybe more on that in another entry but probably not.

i finally got to the apples! i keep putting off gathering them, and then they rot on the ground and i put them in the compost. but i had gathered them all yesterday so today i harvested the droppings and actually picked some off the trees! first i blanched them, then i made some apple juice using this baby. it took a lot of work and made a small amount of delicious, cider-y juice. so i said "fuck this! carrying around a small brick and doing this in my spare time will give me bigger pipes than the queen!" i then cooked up a batch of apples, and the same throwback tin device made, relatively easily, a good batch of apple purée. so that's what we get. i also sliced up a bunch of blanched pommes and have them in the fridge, browning away, waiting for me to be motivated enough to make some kind of crisp/crumble/thing-in-a-pan.

why i am not motivated today: i've had days where i'm like "dumpling! that's a lot of poop!" and days where the poop gets places it shouldn't. but today i had my first poop nightmare. i left her on the diaper pad having some bare bum time while i took care of my own business. i thought i was safe because she had already done the deed today. but apparently she decided it was time to empty the reserves. and then kick in it. and then kick everywhere else. so that was an entire load of laundry. then, later, there was more. and this (the third batch) got off the diaper pad and onto several blankets i had set up behind her because her bare bum time can now be accomplished in a seated position (the blankets are for the rare occasion she topples straight backward). i just deleted a couple of sentences that gave way too much information about baby poop. anyway. off to drink wine now that the dumpling has been laid down and the queen is bottling his beer and a late supper is cooking.