Almost the ides of November

So, what have I been up to lately … had a friend visit two weeks ago, who writes the Buffy trading cards (which keep selling, although the show’s been off the air for a few years now). She’s friends with Amber Benson (Tara) but doesn’t really know the rest of the cast … Also had a college friend visit. He’s been to SF plenty of times and didn’t really care about sightseeing, so instead we spent the weekend playing Destroy All Monsters 2 on the Playstation. Since it’s set in a mythical San Francisco, it was almost like sightseeing, but without the need to put on shoes or get the car out … This past weekend, we visited a friend in Sacramento, who took us up to the Sierra foothills to Apple Hill, for an afternoon of apple cider doughnuts, apple cider, apples, apple pie, fall colors, etc. It was so much like being in Vermont that Jack was overcome with emotion and nostalgia for the autumn apple-picking of his youth. Plus, living here in the Bay area, where the weather is temperate all year, we find it comforting to partake of activities that create a connection to specific seasons. Otherwise … who knows where the time goes?

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After watching Top Chef last week, I dreamed about a reality show somewhat like Project Runway, but geared toward theatrical costume design. Called Costume Party, the show took aspiring costume designers (for stage, screen, whatever) and pitted them against one another, with the usual elimination challenges.

The part that seemed very vivid and that I remember now, almost a week later: The show’s contestants viewed a black and white recreation of a vintage movie scene, wherein two women conversed about a third woman, not yet seen, implying that the third woman was haughty and sarcastic. The scene ended with the door flying open and the third woman about to walk into the room, deliver some bitchy line, and slap both women. The challenge was to design an outfit that would fit that third character. After the contestants created their outfits, an actress wore their creations and was shot in black and white finishing the scene (multiple times, once for each outfit), which was then dropped into the original footage. The judges viewed only the footage, not the actual, physical dress, so it was all about how well the outfits fit the character and came across on film, not how the outfits looked in person.

A few days later I dreamed of another reality show, American Breast, wherein stacked women competed to show off their racks in various ways. (It’s only a matter of time before FOX does this show.) One of the elimination challenges, for example, made the contestants choose among various bathing suits, and the woman who picked a suit that failed to best show off her ta-tas would be eliminated.

So I’m telling this to qbear while we’re still lying in bed, and he says, “But she’d still win a prize.”

“Would she?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, seeing an obvious punchline that my dream had failed to mention. “The booby prize!”

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Last night, in preparation for the need to have an emptier refrigerator to hold Thanksgiving food, Jack made a cheesy, eggy, bready, bacony strata that puffed up and came out of the oven a glorious golden yellow color:



Perfect comfort food for a rainy autumn evening. The whole house smelled like a bacon cheeseburger.