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I made chicken on Friday night. Is there anything as nice as the smell of roast chicken filling a house? When the light falls faster, and the cars on the freeway look like a string of holiday lights, and it’s crisp outside, and all you can think of is knitting in front of the TV, cats on your lap, dogs on your feet?

I can’t even really brag about my chicken-cooking abilities, since this is what I do: Roughly chop one lemon into big chunks, chop a head of garlic into big chunks (don’t even worry about peeling the cloves), scissor up a bunch of rosemary, shove all of it into the chicken (thanking that nice free-range kosher chicken and wishing it well in the next life), then stick it in the oven, an hour and a half at 350. Forget about it. Basting, what’s basting? Doesn’t need it.

However. I got cocky. (Get it? Cocky? Chicken? Heh.) While chicken and some frozen veggies are fine for me for dinner, sister Bethany was coming over and I decided to show off. Surely you could cook veggies with a chicken like people do with a roast, right? (Not like I’ve ever done that, but still. How hard could it be?) So I cut up some potatoes, added a bunch of carrots and mushrooms, then threw some chopped shallots on top. Left it all to cook next to Mr. Chicken.

Yeah. Perfect chicken. That part come guaranteed like that. But guess what happens if you cook veggies like that? Yes. You get little potato rocks and hard small carrots that are all wrinkly and pathetic. It was to weep. Only a few of the mushrooms made it, and only those that were sitting in the chicken juice actually had a chance.

So I cooked up some zucchini with shallots, added the mushrooms and pretended that’s what I meant to do. And garlic bread. That always fixes everything, doesn’t it?

Still haven’t seen Lala. She’s back tonight from being a rockstar, but I’ll be at work. We’ll be ships in the Oakland night until Wednesday, and then I leave on Thursday for the holiday. Bah. But she doesn’t like chicken, so it worked out well for Friday night, I suppose.

Also: Saw Good Night, Good Luck. I can certainly see why people liked it. It did take me forty-five minutes to realize that it was in black and white. I loved the aesthetic. And the hair. But dude, I fell asleep like four times, and so did another guy. I never do that. So I suppose that’s a less-than-glowing review. 

Okay. Off to work. Happy week, all. Oh! I finished a shawl thingie yesterday – remind me to show you!

The Whoreshoes are playing tonight in Santa Barbara! I should have told you sooner. But there you go. And tomorrow in LA. Go see their website for the details!

Which means Lala is gone again. I saw her last night. One night in more than three weeks is what I get with her. Grrrr. At least I have cute little dogs to cheer me up. And what does she have to cheer her up? Beer, loose women, the rock’n’roll lifestyle. It’s hard. (Actually, she has a cold, and she looked pretty miserable packing up her car….)

Darlings – oh, just TOO busy. New job is going great, but it leaves me with literally zero down time during the week. Plus, just because I like to make myself a little bit crazy, I’ve taken this lack of time as a sign that I really have to work harder to fit in the important stuff, so I’ve been sacrificing a little sleep to fit in regular writing and running sessions.

I’m proud of myself. Running AND writing make for a healthy, happy Rachael, since I’m never fully me when I’m not writing. The running just makes me healthier. I don’t have to enjoy it (although I kind of did today — sunny, warm run, new tunes on the iShuffle, didn’t trip or anything).

I haven’t even had time to read the things you wrote about Stupid Worries, and I can’t wait for my weekend (which starts tomorrow) so I can catch up on those!

So just this:

Took this shot this morning, and it confirmed to me that, yes, I still have a lazy eye when I’m tired. I liked how it looked as blurry as I felt. Now, to the bath, then to coffee shop for writing, then to the job for my Friday night! Yeehaw!

https://rachaelherron.com/darlings_oh_jus/

While I totally understand the need for it, I hate the verification box: those letters that you have to type to prove to a program that you’re not a spammer. Even yahoo mail has recently tossed some of them in.

The problem is that I always type too fast, make a mistake, and get that terrible split-second panicked feeling — Oh, god, I must be a spammer! Quick! Fix it! I’ll be spam forever! Aaaauuugh!

It’s akin to the feeling you get when your tags are current, and your tail-lights work, and you’re not drunk or high, and you have no weapons in your vehicle, and you’re obeying all laws of traffic, and there’s a cop on your ass. It’s Stupid Worry.

You know how it feels. What’s your Stupid Worry?

Updated to add:
Why didn’t I know I had such an attractive audience? Damned if you ALL aren’t lookers. I had NO idea it would be this much fun to see you all. I’ve long had this idea that the blogs we love the most are the ones with plenty of face shots — it’s part of knowing someone, the visual, the silly expressions, the posed ones. You know when you’ve been reading a blog a long time and then suddenly you see the writer for the first time, and it’s such a happy HELLO moment? That’s what I’m having over here on my end. Thanks.

I can’t resist this, seen at Mason-Dixon:

Wave At Me via Frappr!

Please? Won’t you post a picture of yourself? There’s really something about seeing the person you’ve corresponded with, that you’ve read, that lurks. I’d love to say hi to ya. As of this moment, WAY too late on Friday night, I’m waving to myself…..

Listening to:

Imogene Heap. If you’re anything like me, rather settled and happy to be home on Friday night with the clean dogs and sleepy cats, but there’s still a part of you that could freak OUT in the bathtub over Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights or anything with the slightest touch of electronica romanticism, go iTunes her album Speak for Yourself. At least sample it (especially "Hide and Seek"). Formerly of Frou Frou, she’s out on her own, and I heart her, hard. I think I’m crushing. Don’t tell La. (Lala! Get home and put yourself on my map! Please?)

Reading:

Page After Page. Oh, this is nice and real and human and a good kick in the ass for you, the writer.

Carter Beats the Devil. Just go buy it. It’s awesome. Em, you would love this, I think.

Thanks, y’all, for the iShuffle help. Although you didn’t help much, just told me what I didn’t want to hear — that’s it’s not my iShuffle, it’s all of them. Too bad. I’d almost talked myself into a Nano….

We just had the BEST time. If you’re not into dogs (?), then this post will bore you. But the rest of you, oh, I just have to tell you about the walk we just took.

Remember last year? When Lala was out of town being Buddhist-ey, and I took the dogs for part of the time while she was gone, and I found out how much FUN dogs are? There is nothing like the little tiny squeaks and squawks they make when you come home, is there? Those desperate "oh my god you were never coming home and we heard the sun was going to explode and what’s the point in living anymore and no one has ever loved us before this very minute but you’re home and the joy is too magnificent and I will have to bounce and squeak and cry and whimper with the delight that might make us lose our tiny little minds right NOW and oh god we love you we love you we love you."

Now, if you don’t have/like/know dogs, it sounds annoying, but it’s not. (The whimpering in the middle of the night for no reason, now THAT’S annoying.) Even on the bad days, their sheer elation can make you grin goofily, even if you’re foot-stompey and annoyed with yourself for smiling.

So today I came home from an all-day training, and I opened the door to dancing dogs. I grabbed the leash, and we took off for Mills College. (Note to the single girls/non-creepy guys – Mills is a great place to take a dog if you want to meet chicks. Not like I do. But the rest of you might like knowin’ it.)

This is right before the cop pulled us over and told Harriet to slow the hell down, that she was in a school zone.

Crisp autumn and the smell of pencils. We’re back to school! (Seriously, every time I walk/run at Mills, I’m reminded of my two years I spent there in grad school, the expensive ivory tower that I’ve never regretted. Oh, I loved going to school there. I’m a bent twig, as they say, as I followed my sister Christy there. It’s a family thing.)

Almost there now.

A wee dog, and a big hall.

The cafeteria has LOTS of nice chicken bones that Harriet would LOVE to get her teeth into. Not on my watch, baby.

Benches are good for short dogs.

My GOD, she’s happy.

See?

The little dog is running around now, being Much More Brave than we usually are:


Yes, she looks like a squirrel. She’s heard it before. (Mills squirrels are bigger than she is, actually…)

I believe it’s something about the fertilizer they use on the grass, but both of them went all Yarn-Harlot-in-a-bath-of-kidsilk-haze, rolling around. I shudder to think about them getting in bed with me tonight, but tomorrow is laundry day, and they’re getting a Let’s-Surprise-Lala-Grooming tomorrow, also. Dirty dogs tonight will be beautiful, soft, shiny dogs tomorrow.

Then we had the MOST fun of all. We met ole Bixby here, who made insta-best friends with Harriet. Miss Idaho, as usual, was less interested in the small dog who would of course be competition in the Cutest Wee Dog competition, and ignored ole Bixby. But Harriet and Bixby met, sniffed, and RAN.

And ran and ran and ran. It’s what we always want Harriet to do when we go to the dog park or the beach — get out there and play! Run! But most of the time she prefers our company. Today, she ran, and I almost fell over laughing.

There’s not much better on an overcast day than a walk with two cute dogs on a beautiful college campus in fall. And it’s even better if your girl phones you right after the running part, and you get to talk to her for a brief moment while the dogs romp. Excellent.