My brain’s halfway on vacation already, and I’m assuming that it’s the same for many of you, even though for most of us, “vacation” just means having off on Friday.  So why not a little randomness?

A. I just started reading a book called “Wrack and Ruin,” because a friend of mine at Norton told me that it was the literary equivalent of the show “Weeds.”  Also, it’s about a guy who grows Brussels Sprouts, and that’s the one vegetable that is still growing in my garden so I figured I could relate.  In the first page of the book, there’s mention of a person who wreaks havoc.  And it got me thinking, does anyone ever wreak anything other than havoc?  I can’t think of another use of the word, and that thought completely distracted me from the book.  Can ya’ll think of anything?

Segundo. I found a way to bike faster: Impending rain.  And a way to bike even faster than that: Thunder and lightning on the horizon.  Similarly, I found a way to swim faster: I want to get away from the guy in my lane who makes inappropriate comments.  Therefore, I paced myself to keep up with lane 3.

III. I’m going to SisterAlyson’s for the fourth of July, which means super sweet Lola time and a stellar view of the fireworks from her apartment, which faces the East River.  Also, my parents will be there, which means free food and love.  But not “free love” in the hippie way, you sickos.

4. I saw the movie “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” last night.  I can’t remember why it was in my queue, but it probably had something to do with me being on a Cillian Murphy kick, which is also why I rented the super-freaky “Sunshine” a few months ago.  It was a rather depressing tale of the I.R.A. in 1920’s County Cork, Ireland.  And here I thought it was going to be an upbeat light comedy about the I.R.A. in 1920’s County Cork, Ireland.

Epilogue. The cats.  I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.  Micki is not doing well at establishing her role as alpha cat.  I opened the door to the living room where Lucy was sequestered, and Micki walks up to the doorway and growls and hisses and runs away.  Meanwhile, Lucy just sits on the couch and shrugs.  I let Lucy walk around the cottage freely, but she keeps going back to the living room, where she likes to sit on her blanket and look out the window.  I tried to get them in close contact by bringing Micki into the living room.  She didn’t attack Lucy like I was afraid she would, but she growled and hissed and then hid under the furniture.  Lucy just sort of looked at her like she was being silly.  So did I.  While I’m away from the house for the day, I keep Lucy in the living room with the door closed, just in case one of them wants to try something.  But when I’m home, they seem to stick to the living room / rest of the house arrangement, where Lucy is all warm and snuggly and adorable, and Micki represses any memory of another cat being around.  That is, until she encounters Lucy’s brush, and hisses at it.

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS, HILARIOUS SPOILERS…

Last night a group of us went to see WALL-E, and adorable story about humans who messed up planet earth and then get saved the robots who serve them. It inspired me to write a detailed post comparing an contrasting this newest Pixar movie with my favorite SciFi drama, Battlestar Galactica, an intriguing story of humans who messed up 12 planets and then get killed by the robots who serve them.

I know there are not enough of you who are yet completely enamored with BSG, and not everyone’s seen WALL-E, so apologies to everyone but the three of you who’ll know what I’m talking about. Because of that, and because it already feels like we should be on vacation, I’ll just do a summary of some differences and similarities that I noticed.

DIFFERENCES:

• The basics: WALL-E is a cartoon, BSG is live action
• Your bone structure is failing: WALL-E features people who have gotten fat from inactivity, BSG features people who box, but get fat anyway. And then get thin again over the course of a week or two.
• You have no sense of “go”: In WALL-E, humanity is forced to live on a space ship, with a seemingly unending supply of fuel. In BSG, they risk life and limb to find more fuel for the space ships on which they live.
• “Sucks” to be in the airlock, don’t it?: The moment of crisis in WALL-E involves the good guys having a brush with death via airlock. BSG has Laura Roslin, who’ll airlock you in a second if you look at her cross-eyed.

SIMILARITIES:

• Sexy Robots: BSG has number six, WALL-E has EVE.
• Oh my God, I was wrong / it was Earth all along: In BSG, we’re not exactly sure what happened to Earth yet, but it’s FUCKED. In WALL-E, the return to Earth still didn’t seem all that great. Who’s going to clean up those satellites?
• Feel art again: BSG has Kara Thrace and her special destiny: that nebulous painting she puts everywhere. WALL-E’s credits are like a crash course in art history and an epilogue.
• Gravity, like evolution is just a “theory”: The crew of BSG never seem to have trouble keeping their feet on the floor, despite spending the entire series in space. (Chalk that up to some amazing anti-gravity boots, even when they’re knocking boots?) At least the people in WALL-E float around on their fat behinds, as one would while living in space.

Any of the three of you think of anything else? As for the rest of you lot, I’ll be back with a more user-friendly post next time.

It’s just a few hours into sugar-free July, and I’m still managing okay. I already made one snafu, I accidentally bought vanilla flavored rice milk, because the box looks deceptively like the enriched rice milk that I usually get. I’ve never liked the vanilla stuff to begin with, it’s too sugary. Oh well, I guess I’ll make a couple of big bowls of oatmeal (without sugar, eek!) and use it up quick. For food today, I have cottage cheese as a snack, leftover pasta for lunch (see below) and a mango for dessert. Having finished up all the ice cream last night, there is no sugary temptation for me at home.

And for those of you who can’t believe it, I can probably give up ice cream for a month, as long as it’s not that preciously short month where the ice cream shops make pumpkin ice cream available. At that point, there’s no holding me back.

Last night I completed the first assignment for “Whip It Up,” an internet challenge to make a new recipe at least once a week, and post the results.

I just went over to RA’s Whip it Up page so I could speak intelligently about the topic, when I realized that I might have started the challenge a tad early. Does “the week of July 6″ mean starting on July 6 or ending on July 6? I’m not certain, but what’s done is done. I made pasta last night.

The challenge for me was finding a pasta dish that I hadn’t already made, since pasta is a two times or more a week affair in my cottage. I also decided that I’m going to make all my recipes vegan, since that’s the kind of diet to which I aspire. After going through a few of the cookbooks I’ve amassed, the best recipe came from (sigh) Skinny Bitch In the Kitch. While I don’t like the implications of going vegan to become a waif, they do have some good recipes in there. (And thanks again to The Grey Boy for making me the proud owner of this tome.)

RECIPE: Summer Pasta

Serves 1, four times

• 3 quarts water (or you know, just fill your pot.)
• 5 tsp. fine sea salt (this is an ingredient I usually skip, but I was glad I didn’t this time.)
• 8 ounces whole wheat or brown rice linguine or fettuccine (I used whole wheat rotini, and I should have just used the whole box.)
• 1/4 cup refined coconut oil (the skinny bitch girls have a theory that heating olive oil releases free radicals and should not be used in cooking. I have a theory that coconut oil is too damn expensive, and I therefore used olive oil, free radicals be damned.)
• 6 shallots, thinly sliced. (Bring a tissue, these puppies will bring tears to your eyes.)
• 1 zucchini, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
• 1 yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 pounds tomatoes - red, yellow, or a combo - seeded and cut into coarse 1/4 inch dice (I hate seeding tomatoes, but if you don’t everything gets totally watery.)
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves (One of the few things in my backyard not eaten by deer.)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano (Another thing the deer spared.)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 to 2 tbsp vegan Parmesan (optional) (I opted out, I can’t stand fake cheese.)

Man, I got to get a better camera.

METHOD:

(Cut the vegetables first, because it takes 30-40 minutes to do so.) In a 4-6 quart stockpot over high heat, combine the water with about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the salt. Bring the water to a boil, add the the pasta, and cook according to the package directions.

Meanwhile, heat the coconut (or whatever) oil in a 10-12 inch skillet over medium high heat. Add the shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Add the zucchini, squash, garlic, pepper and the reamaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, about 2 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and add the tomatoes, basil, and oregano, stirring until the tomatoes are heated through, about 2 minutes.

When the pasta is done, drain it. Transfer the pasta to plates or a platter and top with the tomato mixture. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with Parmesan, if using, and serve.

Compliments a Michelob Ultra (the official beer of the weekend warrior) or whatever else was on sale at Stop & Shop because you were too hot and/or lazy to make a special trip to the wine store.

UPDATE: Just had some leftovers for lunch, and it’s just as good cold as it was hot.  This one’s a keeper!  Also, I would think about adding some carrots to it next time.

Sometimes you don’t realize that it’s the end of the month, and get caught off guard by the AM radio DJ’s as happened to me this morning. It’s especially pronounced on these silly 30-day months, I think. Anyway, I hope your June was as enjoyable as mine was. Especially this past weekend.

On Saturday I went to a baseball game with a friend of mine from Sunday School days (who we call “Macy” around these parts). Her parents and her boyfriend and my sister also joined us. I don’t want to say too much about it, though, for the fears that I might incite a riot of jealousy and hatred among you lovely blog readers. That’s because 1) it was a Mets / Yankees game, 2) it was at Shea, which is not long for this world, 3) we sat EIGHT SEATS BEHIND HOME PLATE and 4) the tickets were free. Sister Alyson kept looking around with these big eyes smiling at the fact that her die-hard baseball loving boyfriend was stuck at home and we were sitting where we could see the tiny details on the players’ faces.

Anyway, thanks so much to Macy and her folks, especially her dad who works for a company that sponsors Major League Baseball and her mom who provided me with breakfast, dinner and organic cheese. (We took a trip to a dairy farm before the game, because why not?)

Speaking of cheese, as you may know, I’ve been doing the month-to-month elimination diet. March was a all-vegan month, April was no-pasta, no-Ramen, May was an attempt to be no-high fructose corn syrup, but when that proved to be too hard, turned into no-soda May. Today marks the last day of no-fried food June. It’s gone pretty well. There was one slip-up where I made stir fry (and then I wasn’t sure if that counted as fried food) and one day where I ate about 50 Doritos before I realized that they were fried and overeating on Doritios at the end of May was the reason I thought to do this month in the first place.

But other than that is wasn’t that hard. The biggest challenge was the night the swim team went to Denny’s after the meet. But thanks to the many Americans who are trying to eat healthy, they now offer a veggie burger with fruit on the side, buried among the rest of the golden fried menu. It wasn’t even that bad.

In July, I think I want to give myself more of a challenge than just not eating french fries. I’m not ready for a full-on Oprah (copied by Dooce and then scads of other women) detox. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to cut out all sugar, dairy, wheat, caffeine and alcohol, mostly because I don’t want to always be “that girl” abstaining from the birthday cake.

But I’ve decided that my challenge for July is to cut out sugar. I know this means ice cream. It also means cranapple juice, the aforementioned birthday cake, and chocolate bars. But July seems like a good time for cutting out sugar, because so many delicious fruits are in season, and they can stand in for dessert. I’m making an exception for the 4th of July, because I already bought the ingredients to make a cake. Also, I have one half-eaten pint of ice cream in the freezer that will go bad if I wait until August. But when that’s gone, it’s on!

Anyone want to join me? Anyone know (keeping in mind that I’m counting artificial sugar as sugar) any good sugar-free dessert recipes?  Also, I’ll be playing along with RA’s Whip it Up challenge, so they’ll be some new recipes around here this summer.

Well, it happened. I got a second cat.

Meet Lucy:

(Potential nickname change pending.)

She was my neighbor’s cat. Six or seven years ago, she was found as a kitten, curled up in the backseat of my neighbor’s friend’s car, having crawled through an open window. The friend had to give her up when she moved, so she gave her to my neighbor. But now my neighbor can’t take her to her new place, so we decided that moving her next door would be the least traumatic option for this transient kitty. Also, since I’m gone almost every weekend and during most of the day, it seemed like a good idea for Micki to have some company.

Not that Micki was really asking for that…

We’re currently in the slow introduction phase, where Lucy stays cloistered in the living room, so that she and Micki can hiss at each other through the door. In a week, Micki will stay in the living room while Lucy puts her scent all over the rest of the cottage. Then they switch again, and then we open the door and let them play like the best buddies they better be.

Meanwhile, I vacuum like hell because Lucy is a long-haired cat and I’m now twice as allergic to my house as I was yesterday. But look at that face!

I’ll keep you updated while struggling to not 1) make this a completely kitty-centric blog and 2) not becoming the crazy cat lady.

UPDATE: I thought I should give my original flavor cat some face-time, too.  Literally:

I would have made a super secret agent if only I had thought to pursue International Espionage.

But for the fact that I get the giggles whenever I’m nervous or sneaking up on someone, that is.

I believe this to be true because I have noticed that people who have met me before don’t remember doing it, and people that have never met me are sure that we’ve met before.

In fact, one time I almost got into an altercation with a woman at a candle party who was so certain that she knew me, she implied that I was lying about my past. The only possible way she could have known me was if she saw me on episode 209 of Rescue Me where I get 1 second of screen time playing the girl on the website of an anti-depressant. (I got conned into that non-paying gig by the art department who came over to me at my desk and said that I was “the most attractive girl in the locations department.” I was also the only girl in the locations department at the time, but you all know that I have no problem with default.)

Speaking of the swim meet (and if I wasn’t clear on my last post, I was 100% happy with my times) there were two kids there, the sons of my creationist (YIKES!) teammate. They were cute as anything, despite the cruel home-schooling way they’re being raised, and they BOTH kept telling me that they knew me from somewhere. Every time I saw them it was like, “do you go to our church?” “were you at the picnic last summer?” “are you from Ohio?” One thing’s for sure, they didn’t see me in episode 209 of Rescue Me, because they only watch shows and movies that get 5 star ratings from the Family Council. (You should have seen the looks of shock on their little faces when they found out I saw Sex and The City, which got ZERO stars!)

Then last night, I went to a swing dance class at the local coffee shop. It’s the second time I’ve been there for the free lessons on the basic steps.

I got my coffee and was waiting for the class to start. The instructor came over and shook my hand saying, “so nice to meet you, I’m so-and-so, what’s your name?”

And I’m all, “Noelle, I was here two weeks ago. Also, I spoke to you at kickball last Thursday.” She just stared at me blankly like I was lying. There wasn’t even the slightest flicker of recognition on her face. So if I was a spy, I could have staked her out for weeks, and she never would have known.

It’s too bad that I really like my job with books, otherwise I’d be double-oh-Tannenbaum.

US Masters swim meets are scored by age groups, so instead of competing against the entire group of participants, you compete against people your age. Being in the 30-34 age group is kind of a bummer for a new swimmer like me. Most of the girls in that age group swam in high school or college, and they are way fast.  But at this meet, there were only a handful of girls in my age group, and they didn’t swim every event. Even though I came in last place in my age group every time I swam, sometimes last place was really second place, and that means a sweet red ribbon.

These were my results: (Just for fun and to keep anyone from saying “next stop, Bejing!”, I put the meet winner’s result in blue, and the Women’s Olympic record in red.)

• 400 Meter Free - 7:20.37 (30 seconds faster than I anticipated!) 5th place! (Out of 5!) 5:11.82, 4:05.54
• 100 Meter Breaststroke - DQ. This being my first time swimming breast stroke, I learned the hard way that you have to finish with two hands on the wall at the same time. But if I hadn’t gotten a pink slip, my time would have been 2:02.14; 1:27:86, 1:06.64
• 200 Meter Free - 3:26.82 3rd place! (Out of 3!) 2:32.40, 1:57.65
• 200 Meter Breaststroke - 4:14.91 (I signed up for this as a late entry to make up for the DQ debacle. As soon as I finished, everyone tried to make the “the official wants to talk to you” joke. But I touched the wall with two hands with authority.) 4th place! (Out of 4!) 3:12.07, 2:23.37
• 100 Meter Backstroke - 2:03.09. That was my only event that felt awful, I was really tired. But not a lot of people swim that race so… 2nd place! (Out of 2!) 1:19.89, 1:00.21
• 100 Meter Free - 1:31.08. I think this is my best event. I was totally happy with my time, which was good despite being wasted from all that above swimming. 4th place! (Out of 4…) 1:09.98, 53.83 (to put some perspective on it, Fanny Durack of Australia won the gold in 1922 with a time of 1:22.20.)

So there’s still some improvement to be made…

I also swam in two relays with the other women on the team. The first day, I swam the backstroke portion of the medley relay, and the second day I swam anchor for the freestyle relay, which was interesting. We were the slowest seeded team, so by the time it was my turn to dive in and swim back and forth in the pool, all the other teams had finished their relays.  I had the place all to myself, which possibly could have been embarrassing if my face wasn’t in the water, obscuring all the spectators.

Overall, the meet was much fun.  I got to know my teammates better, which was enjoyable, because they’re all really cool, even the guy who home schools his kids to keep them from learning about science.  But that’s a story for another day.

The next meet is in July, and then no more meets until the fall, which will give me lots of practice so that I can become twice as fast.  Or at least figure out how to enter events that no one else in my age group swims.

I’ve always been a fan of deer. Deer hunters piss me off. How can you shoot such a majestic creature? The way they hop through the woods, so graceful. Sure, it’s a little scary when they dart across the road at dusk, but seriously, that’s our fault for building roads through their land.

That’s how I thought until last night, when I came home, high from how great the swim went.

These used to be my tomatoes:

And my lush beets and spinach: (Not pictured: plastic fence that has been trampled.)

Gone. Every last one. Gone. Eaten. Left untouched: radishes and Brussels Sprouts, vegetables I’m not interested in eating but planted just because I was told they were easy. I’m so pissed. I actually had trouble sleeping last night because I was so upset. My next door neighbor, who fed Micki for me over the weekend, talked to me this morning and told me she was sad because her cat died on Saturday. I empathized for a minute, and then I was all, “I know how you feel, because I lost my beets!”

If I see a deer anywhere near me for the rest of the summer, I’m going to shoot it between the eyes. I no longer have any sympathy for those jerks. All the respect I paid them over the years, and this is how they repay me. So I guess after work today, I’m going to have to bend over my sore back and shoulders and pick up the pieces. Anyone have any suggestions? Is it too late to plant anew?

One thing that helps is that I’m currently listening to “The Worst Hard Time” in my car. It gives me a little perspective. Compared to what the homesteaders lost in the dust bowl of the 1930’s, a few eaten greens is not going to kill me. Back then, families lost their entire gardens when they were burned by the static electricity in the dust storms. And that was all they had to eat. I’m still in the position where I can pick up some pre-washed spinach at Stop & Shop. But still, if I see those doe eyes looking at me, my face is going to be the last thing those doe eyes ever see.

I won’t be around the internet today or this weekend, because I’m on my way to Vermont for my second ever swim meet! Hooray! Finally, a way to quantify all my hard swimming work!

At my first meet in March, I swam in 3 whole races. This time, I’m swimming in five, and, as I’ve mentioned previously, in a long-course 50 meter pool.

These are the events I’ve signed up to do, and the seed times I made up for myself:

• 100 meter breast stroke, 2:10.95
• 400 meter freestyle, 7:51.09
• 200 meter freestyle, 3:25.61
• 100 meter backstroke, 1:52.74
• 100 meter freestyle, 1:31.25

Since I’ve never swam in a long-course race before, my seed times are made up based on the times of the slowest swimmer in my coach’s high school swim team.

Because there are only 8 lanes in a pool, only 8 swimmers can go at once. Hence, you have heats that usually go from slowest swimmers to fastest. Making a good seed time is important, because you want to be in a competitive heat, otherwise the timing of the meet gets all off. Although, having a slow seed time and beating the pants two sizes too small swimsuits off everyone in your heat does feel good.

(Many coaches encourage their swimmers to get suits that are two sizes too small, because it sucks in all that jiggly fat which can slow you down. But that doesn’t solve the problem of the excess fat squeezing out the sides. No wonder the host team of this meet call themselves “The Muffintops.”)

Recently, Mickey asked the burning question, “if freestyle is the fastest stroke, why would you swim anything else?” Good question, Mickey.

The answer is… Oh my God, what in the world is that on your ceiling?

Moving on.

Just kidding. Personally, I swim backstroke so I can understand what it feels like to be waterboarded, and I swim breast stroke because that whip kick feels so good on my bum knees. I’m not swimming butterfly yet, but when I do, it will be… Uh, actually, I don’t know why I would do that.

If you’re still with me here, and you’re dying to know how I do on my races on Saturday and Sunday, I’m going to update my results to Twitter. (You don’t need an account to view my site.) Or, if you’re really hard core or my mother, let me know, and I can send you text messages directly! Woo hoo. Ta!

Back in August of 2003, I got a job as an unpaid production assistant on an independent feature that was so bad, it will never see the light of day. A few weeks into pre-production, I met Birmingham, who was hired to be the film’s art director. During the month of production, he spent most of his time trying to get in the pants of the flighty 18-year-old production assistant until she left, and he started spending more time with me, even though I was repulsed by his egregious attempts on the barely legal girl.

But eventually he broke me down with free massages on the back of the art truck, and constant encouragement to just take a break and eat a twinkie. The day after the production wrapped, we went on a date at a restaurant and I learned he didn’t actually live in New York City, he was just staying with a friend for the sake of the production. The Hudson Valley was the place he called home. Despite that, and despite the fact that he put his arm around me on the walk back from the restaurant (which I thought was rather forward), we kept going on dates. Eventually, we were dating.

FUN FACT: Birmingham is not really his name. A year into our relationship, he bought an army jacket at a thrift store with the name “Birmingham” sewn into it. When you’re mad at him, you can shake your fist and yell “BIRMINGHAAAAAMMM” as if you are his drill sergeant.

By sheer coincidence, I got a great job opportunity in the Hudson Valley in 2005, and that’s when I moved to the farm. I didn’t move up here for him, but it helped that he was here, and I already knew my way around. Then, he got a job in the middle-of-nowhere town, and moved and hour away. That distance issue, among other things, is the reason that we broke up last December. But we missed talking, and we got back in touch a few months ago. We’re not officially together, but we do go out on occasional friend-dates, including last night, when we celebrated his 33rd birthday, which is today.

I told him we could go wherever he wanted, and he chose Thai Spice, MY favorite new restaurant. That’s the kind of guy he is. Thoughtful. Indecisive. Over dinner, I told him I wanted to write a post today about him for his birthday, partially to honor him and partially because I have nothing else to write about. He said, “cool,” so here it is. He also gave me permission to post pictures because he forgot that I have shots of him sleeping, one wearing a bathrobe in the Waldorf Astoria, one wearing a cape and standing like Superman, one standing around with a cantaloupe on his head, some of extreme close-ups of his nose hairs, and this one, where he stuck a mustard packet on his forehead:

I mean, other than the fact that he likes to clean surfaces until he sees his face shining in them, you can see why I like this guy, right? Some other things about Birmingham:

He’s a good art-guy. He went to college for art, but nowadays you might just find him working really hard with crayons (preferred medium) on trying to solve the maze! Also, he likes to make art while making art, hence the sculpture in the foreground.

Both his parents came here from Ireland in the 60’s. Hence, he knows his way around a beer, especially a really gigantic one. Sadly, he cannot perform an Irish accent on queue, like my next boyfriend will be able to do. (Or Scottish, I’m not that picky.)  EDITED TO ADD: He’s actually not that big of a drinker, which is nice.  I just think that photo is funny.

Dude looks good in a suit. This was from our summer of a million weddings.

But if I were asked to sum up our entire relationship in one photo, that’s easy, it’s this:

I’ll let you form your own opinions from this point forward, but I want to you know that I didn’t know he was doing that until after I saw the photo on the camera. Even with this obvious harassment, I like the dude, and I’m sad that it’s not working out happily ever after. But I do hope that we stay in touch, and I hope that If I have kids, he gets to know time. And for everything he’s done to annoy me in my life, my sincerest hope is that he has kids of his own. And that those kids are extremely attractive teenage girls.