well-stated in september

Quotations featured this month on what maisie knows:

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."
- Immanuel Kant

"You had bad luck today. You broke a plate. I had good luck. I found an eyelash on my nose, made a wish, and caught several leaves falling from the trees. I had a great day."
- Ian (from his mom's funny blog, here)

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."
- E. B. White


(cool drawing by freshfruit, on Flickr)

nikki's cake

Think about your favorite dress.* You know, the one about which you silently marvel, every time, "Yes. It does look as good as I remembered." The one that never needs ironing. That sleekly skims your figure despite those extra five pounds. That you wish you'd purchased five of. That you pick out of the closet when you need an extra dose of confidence. That you can wear to your high school friend's wedding, scant hours after arriving on a red eye on which you got zero sleep, only to have multiple people at the reception say you don't look a day older. The one, in short, that makes you look like a goddess.

If baked goods could transmute into clothing, this cake would be that dress. It's low fuss with high returns. It's easy enough for a beginning baker but doesn't look or taste like it. It requires only common ingredients, a single bowl, and no electric mixer [although I used one because I'm lazy]. It slips effortlessly out of the pan and doesn't shed crumbs to muck up your icing job. It's delicious and moist, slightly tangy and darkly chocolatey. People will rave and ask for the recipe; when I made it for Nikki's celebration, the pianist for our ballet class asked if by any chance I could recite the recipe from memory because she needed to bake it tomorrow. This cake will delight friends and acquaintances and make you look good.

Easy Devil's Food Cake with Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting

from Bon Appétit, via Epicurious

[Sorry, Eileen, that this recipe comes so much later than promised!]

Ingredients

Cake
1¼ cups sugar
1 cup buttermilk
⅔ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1¼ teaspoons baking soda

Frosting
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
⅔ cup sour cream

Preparation

Cake
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8-inch-diameter cake pans with 1½-inch-high sides. Whisk first 5 ingredients in large bowl to blend. Sift in flour, cocoa, and baking soda. Stir to combine.
2. Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
3. Cool in pans on racks 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto racks and cool completely. Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Wrap cakes separately in plastic wrap and store at room temperature.

Frosting
1. Melt unsalted butter and chocolate in heavy small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Transfer to large bowl. Whisk in cocoa powder and vanilla. Whisk in 1 cup sugar and ⅓ cup sour cream. Whisk in remaining 1 cup sugar. Gradually whisk in enough of remaining sour cream [I use it all] to form spreadable frosting.

The Moment You've Been Waiting For
1. Place 1 cake layer on plate. [Tuck strips of waxed or parchment paper underneath to keep the plate clean as you frost the cake.] Spread with ½ cup frosting. Top with second cake layer. Spread top and sides of cake with frosting. Can be prepared up to 8 hours ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature. [Does fine stored in the refrigerator for a day or two, as well.]
2. Enjoy the leftover frosting (you'll have some extra, another virtue of this recipe), but take it slow as the richness creeps up on you.

There. Now go be a domestic goddess.


* My dad is the only guy I know who regularly visits this blog . . . but for any other male readers out there, if you exist: Please substitute "shirt" for each mention of the word "dress" and "god" for "goddess" throughout this post. But by no means substitute any of the cake ingredients.

eleven

That, dear readers, has been my bedtime nearly everyday for the past two and a half weeks. For me, this is just shy of a miracle.

I've mentioned my night owl tendencies before and the attendant consequences. My bad habits end up forming a vicious cycle: too often, I stay up till 1 or 2, blearily drag myself out of bed at 6 or 7 to get to work by a reasonable hour, yawn at my desk or in meetings all day, crash after dinner for a one- or two-hour "nap," then find myself wide awake at 9 or 10 and stay up till 1 or 2 . . . .

At the beginning of the year, inspired by my friend, Grace, I resolved (not for the first time) to start going to sleep before midnight. I gave up (not for the first time) after a few days of utter failure. Since then I've intermittently made and broken the same resolution again oh, maybe 23 times.

So what changed this time? Mysteriously, I'm not exactly sure. On Saturday, September 11th (the sad anniversary was unrelated), I made my resolution again, but that day I actually succeeded. And the next day. And the day after that.

One new factor that has surely made a difference is this time, I began tracking my successful bedtimes with a Seinfeld chain. Have you heard of this concept? When asked for tips by a young comic, Seinfeld revealed that he motivates himself to write daily, leading to better jokes and ultimately better comedy, by putting up a big wall calendar and marking with a large red X each day that he writes. Day by the day, the chain of X's grows, and the longer it grows, the greater his desire not to break the chain.

This simple but powerful idea has caught on enough in the productivity world that a few websites even exist for tracking one's chain(s) electronically. This time when I made my bedtime resolution, I decided to try Seinfeld's method and did a quick Google search to survey the available chain-keeping options. The one I picked, called Don't Break the Chain, is my favorite because of its fidelity to Seinfeld's concept. It features a clean interface and tries to do nothing more than help you build your chain and count the number of days you've maintained it.

Early on, my chain was definitely an important motivator, if for no other reason than to get Don't Break the Chain to say something less pathetic than "You've been getting things done for 2 days straight!"^ Now, I find Seinfeld is correct that I feel compelled to keep my chain going.

More importantly, however, I've discovered an intrinsic motivation to maintain my new bedtime. Within just a few days, I began noticing improvements in how I felt during the day. The changes aren't exactly what I'd envisioned when dreaming of life as a well-rested morning person, but they're definitely, on balance, very good. Some observations:

* I have not, in fact, transformed from night owl to lark. I still don't spring enthusiastically out of bed in the morning, eager to start the day. I still experience the same sinking "Oh, it's morning" feeling upon waking enough to identify the alarm clock's beeping.
* But getting up in the morning is less torturous than it used to be.
* I don't feel infused with boundless energy and optimism.
* But a full day of activities or list of tasks doesn't seem as daunting. I seem more able to just start working on something rather than endlessly procrastinating.
* I concentrate better.
* I don't feel an overwhelming need for a nap after lunch or dinner. Sadly, that's how I generally used to feel, and I always attributed it to freakishly strong parasympathetic responses (i.e., food coma). Turns out my postprandial grogginess was due to a possibly normal parasympathetic response combined with chronic sleep deprivation.
* Unfortunately, my suspicion that I need even more than seven hours of sleep per night is developing into a certainty. I feel more energetic by the end of the day when I've had closer to eight hours.

Of course, it's quite early in this natural experiment, but my data monitoring committee was so impressed with the results so far that a preliminary report seemed warranted. I'll keep you posted as I extend my chain and collect further observations . . . .


^ When you don't make the goal, Don't Break the Chain says, "You've been dropping the ball for 1 day straight!" Ouch.


(photo by jujuridl, on Flickr)

it's official

The hospital gardeners have declared the coming of autumn.

Orange and yellow mums have appeared in the planter in front of my building.

And Starbucks is offering pumpkin cream cheese muffins again!

weekend notes #30

This weekend I:

* Finished The Girl Who Played with Fire. As with the first book, once I was about a third of the way through, I was irresistibly drawn in. And talk about a huge cliffhanger! Now I can't wait to read the third novel and pestered my mom, who offered to give me her copy, into mailing it last Thursday via priority mail. It could arrive today . . . .

* Cleaned my apartment to Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes, well-suited to a gray Sunday. The album always brings back memories of college and a friend who likened the lyrics to poetry.

* Munched on mini macadamia shortbread cookies, included in a recent care package from my parents. You know you are loved when you've passed age thirty and still receive care packages.

* Caught up with Ellen by phone. We discussed, among other things, the hazards of chili ristras: poor Ellen discovered, upon witnessing the emergence of two tiny worms, that pantry moths apparently like dried chili peppers. She's my friend who shares a phobia against worms, but she handled the horrifying situation with aplomb.

P.S. An update I meant to include: Scratchy got adopted! At last, someone must have come along who appreciates a slightly grumpy, amply proportioned, strikingly colored kitty.

september bliss

Bliss equals . . .

1. early autumn (September 13)

2. just enough quarters left to dry another load of laundry. (September 26)

(photo by ThePaperButterfly, on Flickr)

friday felicitations #26

Happy Friday, my dears!

I've been immersed for the last few days in urinary tract infections. Not in having one myself, heavens be praised, but rather in learning about their diagnosis and management for the talk I agreed to give. I've been disconcerted to learn, as happens every time I delve deeply into the medical literature on a topic, that many things we do as a matter of course are based on unproven theories of how a disease works or small and inconclusive studies. It's not that science has been slipshod, either; sometimes, often, the research needed to best answer a question will never be done because it involves too rare a condition or outcome, or would be so expensive or take so long as to be infeasible, or would so challenge prevailing thought (even if that thought isn't based on evidence) that it would be considered unethical.

Certainly, new knowledge is discovered daily, and we (I mean the big collective society "we") chip away constantly at the huge unknown of health and the human body. But that unknown remains so vast that I quite admire medicine, actually, for marching on in the face of so much uncertainty. Medicine is really at its heart pragmatic. People are struck with illnesses and need help, and so medicine does the best it can with its patchy and imperfect understanding.

On a completely unrelated note, I've decided, after a grand run of eight weeks, to discontinue the Five Senses Friday series.

The Philosophical Reason: I've realized that the format doesn't fit me very well. I perceive the world by thinking about it, sometimes ad nauseam, rather than taking in its glorious sensory splendors. I'd say I'm about average in appreciating sights and sounds, but otherwise, I'm all about words, words, words. I kind of already knew that yet started the series hoping it might cause me literally to stop and smell the roses. But, no. (See the Practical Reason, below.)

The Practical Reason: I've plain run out of smells.

So instead, I give you my loose ramblings about the week and always, a heartfelt wish for a happy weekend.

happy birthday, little sister!

I remember so clearly the first night you came home. You cried and kept everyone up, and I remember worrying that we'd never get a full night's sleep again.

And then I remember when you wore braces and French braids and were still shorter than me.

Now you're all grown up and mom to rascally Aidan and sweet Kayleigh!

Have a wonderful birthday! I miss you and love you.


(photo suspected to be by my mom)

benevolent postcard studio: september

This month marks the final mailing of the Benevolent Postcard Society, the close of an entire year of postcards exchanged. For my last postcard, I decided to showcase the complete collection of cards I've received (minus the one - hooray! - that just arrived two days ago), thereby creating . . . a meta-postcard?

Seeing the postcards together highlights their varied styles and the multitude of places they represent. It also reminds me of the simple, tactile pleasure of real mail.

For the back, I chose Byron's excellent observation about the pleasures of letter writing. The postcard is making its way (later in the month than usual - sorry, John!) to the U.K.

Next, Lori, the inspired and hardworking force behind BPS, will be collecting postcards from us to scan for a book about the project. I'll definitely order a copy.

I've been thinking for a while now that I'd like to get into the habit of sending handwritten notes and cards to friends. I love receiving such mail myself, and I adore the accoutrements of letter writing: stylish stationery, fine pens, distinctive stamps. (I also adore the word accoutrements.) However, I tend to balk at starting personal letters because I feel compelled to write a lot given that it's usually been a while (years?) since my last missive. Participating in BPS has reminded me that even a brief note delivers considerable joy.

more to love

You may remember this kitty of generous size, featured in a post last month.

Here's a better photo, showing her striking white markings and luxurious white whiskers. If she were in an Alexander McCall Smith novel, he'd describe her as handsome and traditionally built. Her name is Scratchy.

Sadly, she is still up for adoption. Some of the animals spend quite a long time at the shelter before the right person walk ins and falls in love. My own Maisie was there for at least a month, which I find astonishing as she is remarkably smart, cute, and sweet.

One of the staff members has a friend who creates window paintings for Trader Joe's, and during the last few months, he's started offering his services for the shelter. He depicts a few animals at a time who've been waiting to be discovered. I was happy to see lately that he'd included Scratchy.

And I was pleased to see his portrayal was faithful to her true proportions!

weekend notes #29

Ah, what a blur these past few weeks have been! But this past weekend was good. It was mostly gray with the sun breaking through now and then, the temperatures comfortable during the day and cool at night. Such a great time of year.

I did a bit of work, got plenty of sleep, fit in some fluffy reading. I tried out a new ballet class on Sunday, and while some of it was over my head, I plan to go back. Ballet class, I find, is a good setting in which to practice not being self-conscious. The teacher is energetic and warm and explains concepts well; I laughed when she pulled out a penguin hand puppet to demonstrate a particular movement (it was effective!). Plus, there's a bakery next door, and the item I tried - they called it a maya pie, but it was basically a whoopie pie except not as sweet - was excellent. Is it wrong that one of my motivations to go to ballet class is to visit the bakery after?

I'm worried because my Izzy-girl's appetite has taken a nose dive lately, enough so that I think we'll need to see her vet if she doesn't turn around soon. She's still acting like herself but not eating enough to sustain a dormouse, much less a kitty. I hate it when she's not feeling well.

weekend notes #28: wellesley wedding edition

Congratulations to Linda and Rosa, two people perfect for each other!

friday felicitations #25

Happy Friday!

In the midst of moping about having so much work to do (refer to next post), I am cheered that autumn seems to have arrived in New England this week. I've been needing light covers at night and cardigans during the day. Bliss!

Have a great weekend! I will be attending the wedding of two friends (so happy for them!) and writing, writing, writing.

(wonderful photo by jaime m, on Flickr)

crunch goes the deadline

Oh, chickadees, life is grueling these days!

Even as I type that statement, I feel sheepish at its whiny exaggeration, so let me qualify: Life is grueling these days relative to usual for this reasonably comfortable middle-class person whose job does not involve manual labor.

You see, I have three deadlines all approaching with alarming rapidity, for a grant application, a manuscript resubmission, and a talk. There was probably a past decision or two I could have made differently to avoid the convergence of these deadlines, but at this point, I remind myself, regret or self-recrimination is pointless. The work must be done.

My brain is tired, and I have an anecdote as proof. Yesterday, I decided to wear one of my favorite pairs of earrings to work. On my way home at the end of the day, I realized that I was wearing only one side and concluded that I probably lost the other when pulling my hospital badge, which I wear on a lanyard, over my head. Resigned that I'd never see it again, I thought sadly about the earring languishing on the ground somewhere; and the transience of material things, keenly felt when beloved; and the general fact of loss as a state of the human condition.

When I got home, I removed the remaining earring to put it away . . . and discovered its partner sitting nonchalantly on the little ceramic dish where I store the pair. Yes, I had only donned one earring that morning and failed to notice until the very end of the day. (I conclude that people who saw me didn't notice or were too tactful to say anything or that my ear was covered by my hair all day.)

The really pitiful fact is that when I noticed the earring was "missing," I thought back to the morning and was absolutely convinced that I'd put on both earrings and even seen both in my ears in the mirror. Yes, my brain has started creating alternate realities.

In any case, I was thrilled that I hadn't lost the earring and ended up happier that I'd lost and then not lost the earring than if I'd never thought I'd lost it at all.

back at the end of the week

Immersed in work at the moment. Sadly, it does not involve dancing.*


*Isn't this arabesque gorgeous?

(photo by maneeacc, on Flickr)

friday felicitations #24

Happy Friday!

For those of you in the States, enjoy the long weekend! We're supposed to have some pretty days here in the Northeast once Earl blows through.


(photo by Molly | Orangette, on Flickr)

five senses friday #8

seen

dusk, arriving earlier these days

heard

Joshua Bell's recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I've been doing a lot of writing at work and can't listen to songs with lyrics (because the words interfere with the words in my brain). The energy and contrasts of Vivaldi, however, make for excellent writing music.

smelled

the astringent aroma of lemons

tasted

this surprisingly good pizza. I especially like this variety, too. Can't comment on the other ones because sadly, my grocery store doesn't carry them. You can tell life is busy when I start eating frozen food frequently.

felt

heat rising from the pavement. After last week's cool days, the temperature soared back up into the mid-90s this week. I'm eagerly anticipating fall.

farewell, daisy

Last night, my mom let me know that our family dog, Daisy, had died over the weekend. She was an 11-year-old beagle mix and truly one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met (and I've met a lot of them now that I volunteer at an animal shelter).

Like many dogs, Daisy loved to eat. When she was getting hungry, she'd leave one of her beloved stuffed dog toys in her empty bowl as if offering up a trade. She had discriminating tastes, however. My parents introduced her to table scraps as a treat, and once she knew such manna existed, she refused to eat her dry dog food unless it included a morsel of something enticing on top. Despite her love of people food, she never acquired a liking for the day-old bagels that the local bagel shop gave away for dogs; she first regarded them with suspicion and then batted them around like toys.

Even more than food, Daisy loved our family. I remember once needing to keep her safe and out from under foot while some sort of work was being done on the house or yard (she was a strictly outdoor dog). I brought out a book and parked the two of us in a lawn chair out of harm's way, and she sat contentedly in my lap for hours.

When my parents recently moved from New Mexico to Hawaii, we were dismayed to discover, far too late, that Hawaii requires a blood test demonstrating response to the rabies vaccine no fewer than 120 days prior to a pet's entry into the state. The alternative is to place the pet in quarantine on arrival for up to 120 days in a state-maintained facility, at the owner's expense.

Mom and Dad decided to leave Daisy behind rather than uproot her and subject her to the quarantine. I was rather angry and disappointed at first, arguing that they should have the blood test performed, leave her with friends until the 120 days had elapsed, and then go back for her. (I know, not everyone is as crazy about their pets as I am.) In the end, however, in a wonderful twist of fate, Jeffrey, the guy who bought our house, offered to take Daisy with it. Not exactly a typical real estate transaction!

Jeffrey turned out to be a great big softie who, soon after moving in, felt sorry for Daisy's having to endure the desert summer heat and brought her inside - after first asking my parents if it was okay (even though the house was now his!). He sent periodic updates to my parents, describing how Daisy and he would sit in the living room and watch TV together. I am sad that none of us was with her at the end of her life, but I am really grateful that she spent her last days in her familiar home, in the company of a kind and loving person.


(photo by Stoltze, on Flickr)

benevolent postcard studio: august

For the August BPS mailing, I designed a blueberry lemon postcard.

I used my scallop scissors (because really, they should be employed at all possible opportunities) and sewed a bright lemony border to frame some Haymarket blueberries.

On the back, I printed a recipe for blueberry lemon bread. And since my postcard was headed to a metric-system-using country (in other words, someplace other than the U.S., Liberia, or Burma), I remembered this time to convert the units for the ingredients.

You should not be at all impressed by my unit-converting abilities. I discovered allrecipes.com offers an extremely handy U.S. to metric system converter.

Piret, the recipient, let me know that the postcard reached her in Estonia by leaving a lovely comment right here on this blog.