Workin' on my NIGHT CHEESE.

I suspect most of you know all about night cheese.  And for those of you who don't, it's a wonderful thing and should be practiced regularly.  Here, watch this:

If you were too lazy to watch that 17 second clip (I don't blame you, staring at a video is hard work), basically what happens is Tina has a late-night cheesy snack attack and then plays it off like she was sleeping when Jack knocks on her door.  Classic.

Cheese is the most major craving I've had since giving up dairy.  I've been deprived of my night cheese and DAMMIT, I wanted it back!  Until-- dun dun duuuun-- my dad came home from the grocery store today with a bag of THIS: 

That's right, folks, soy-based shredded cheese made with vegetables.  YUUUMMMM....?  I worked on my night cheese around 1am, prime snackin' time.  Everything tastes better late at night, but this stuff was actually more appetizing than it sounds.  Has a bit of a different aftertaste, but I ate it by itself so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge.

--BUT WAIT.  After stuffing my face with night cheese for a little while, I finally came up for air and glanced at the nutrition facts, where I thought my eyes deceived me.  For there, the second ingredient on the list, was casein-- a dried skim milk thingy.  This stuff contains milk!  GWARGH.  My happy night cheese quickly went awry.   

So here I am, 1:45am, cautiously awaiting any unpleasant dairy symptoms.  Fuck you, night cheese-- I give you endless praise and all I get in return is a stomach ache.  

Cozy Fingies.

The day started off on an unusually exciting note when I checked facebook (first thing in the morning because c'mon, who doesn't love some pre-breakfast stalking) and saw that the Donomar Inn was having a yard sale.  I LOVE the Donomar Inn (it's currently owned by my high school AP English teacher and her partner, but they're now trying to sell it.  On the off-chance that anyone reading this is looking to buy the cutest little B&B that you ever did see, check it out).  In high school, my class went on a little congratulations-you-survived-AP-English outing to the Inn and I immediately fell in luuuurve.  It's a beautiful old Victorian filled with sunshine and knick knacks and vintage furniture and themed rooms and OH MY GOSH I wish I could buy it.

So anyway.  Due to my love for both the Inn and its owners, I was pretty wicked excited and was all set to hop in my car and roll on over when I realized that I already had plans and wouldn't be able to make it.   Ohhh, the disappointment!  Ohhh, the despair!  I wallowed for a while and then watched the first 15 minutes of Cheetah Girls to cheer me up (let's be real here, nothin' cheers me up more than a bunch of tweens decked out in fake fur with nasally singing voices).

And then, by some great stroke of luck, my mother ended up in the general vicinity of the Inn and she needed very little convincing (ahem, begging) to go check out the yard sale.  So check it out, she did and ended up coming home with patio furniture, decorating ideas, and a couple of wonderful accessories picked out just for me by Ms. Donovan herself.  (Side note: Ms. Donovan, if you're reading this, I know you'd want us to call you Moira now, but I just don't think that'll ever happen).

After a long day of play rehearsal and then a ridiculously long shift at work, I came home to these fantastic new additions to my dress-up box.  The first is a beautiful hand-crocheted scarf.  Tres grandma-chic.  I haven't taken it off yet.

The second is a pair of royal blue velvet gloves with sequin embroidery.  I just about died when I saw them.  There was a split second where I wished I could go back to that black hole of a high school experience and redo the prom thang to wear these babies. (High school wasn't really a black hole (that was middle school, fo realz), but I would never want to relive it.  Shudder).  As soon as I put them on, I felt infinitely more elegant and instantly became the most sophisticated-looking person in the room.  Granted, the only other one in the room was Callie, our limpy dog, but hey.  I'll take it.

To summarize:

1) Next time you see me, I'll probably be wearing blue gloves.

2) Go check out the Donomar Inn's yard sale!  It'll be going on for a few weekends.  I'll probably be going.  Hollaaa if ya wanna carpool.

3) THANK YOU MUCHO, MS. DONOVAN!

That one time I drank rusty pond water.

Ya know what's great? Healthy eating.  Ya know what's not so great?  Drinking brown, foamy vegetables.

 

My mom's been really into juicing things recently.  She pretty much just throws a buncha random shit in a glorified blender and hopes it tastes (and looks!) good-- and usually it does!  Today's was a combination of carrots, apples, and kale, I think.  But I can't be sure because my mom randomly shoved a glass of it at my face and I obliged, not yet noticing the barfy color.

And then I drank it.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I ingested that foamy drink that resembles rusty pond water.  ...And it wasn't that bad.  I had to close my eyes to keep from gagging at the sight of it, but taste-wise it really wasn't as repulsive as it looks.

Cape, cakes, and pancakies!

It's been quite a day over here.  At the top of my to-do list was to make a cape.  And so make a cape, I did!  The good news: It didn't turn out looking shitty.  It looks like an actual cape, which is a miracle in itself.  The bad news: I'm an idiot and used a pattern for toddlers.  The cape goes down to my waist, as opposed to my ankles where it should be.  And I didn't even make it for me-- I made it for someone who's over 6 feet tall... Awkward.

Next on the list was drunk kitchen.  We didn't end up doing the drinking part of drunk kitchen because it wasn't even afternoon yet, so we ended up just doing the kitchen part.  Whatever, it was still a blast and a half.  How can you not have fun making POTATO PANCAKES?!  I picked up the mix at school during Passover because all that Jewish food looked new and intriguing.  I hadn't used it yet, so why not today!?  

They were harder to cook than we expected...mostly my fault.  I used about a cup and a half more oil in the pan than I should have and I might not've even read the directions on the package.  I had Linnea do most of the flipping because she's a more capable human being than I.

Here's the finished product: dinky and cute.  Potato-y and pancake-y.

Aaaand then they sucked.  Well, I suppose they weren't that bad, but they were pretty soaked with oil and tasted like old McDonald's hash browns.  But really, I mean what was I actually expecting?  I should've guessed that this little $3 box of Passover potato stuff wasn't going to fulfill my dreams of the perfect pancakes.

At least Linnea looks cute with her "yuck" face.

And then, to make up for the crappy pancakkies, we made cake.  Actually, they were brownies, but for the sake of the cute rhyme-y title of this post, we'll call it cake.  Thankfully, we made it from a mix where all that was needed was an egg and a cup of water.  Even I can't mess that up. 

Again, please appreciate me looking weird and demon-like and then Linnea looking adorable.  Story of my life, y'all.

How is it possible for a girl and a brownie to look so damn good together?!  I don't normally suggest this, but I think maybe she should consider marrying that chunk of deliciousness.

Caney Demars: ruining hair since 2009.

Several times a year, upon request, I cut hair.  Usually my dad's or my brother's, but sometimes my friends' or my dog's or whoever's willing to let me go at them with a pair of skizzies.  You never really know how it's gonna turn out with me, so there have been some iiiiiinteresting haircuts.

This was my first haircut ever.  My dad turned out looking kind of like Moe from the Three Stooges. From then on, it was decided I would be the resident hair-cutter.  Caney Demars: ruining hair since 2009.

Today's haircut was pretty memorable.  My dad flaunted a poorly-formed mohawk for a while and wanted to keep it, but I, being the ever-so logical one, buzzed it off because he had a client coming to work with him.  Who wants to look like a pre-pubescent boy going through a punk phase when you're trying to look professional?  Oh right, that would be my dad.

 One time I left him a little rat tail and waited to see how long it took my mom to notice.  That tail lasted about .7 seconds.  We all agreed that it was cute, though.

 Another time, I left half of his head unshaved.  Such a good look for him.

 

My dad is pretty much the only one who trusts me completely with his hair.  You're probably wondering why that is.  Is it because I'm his loving daughter?  No.  Is it because I always do such a wonderful job?   That's definitely not it.  Is it because he's too cheap to go to the barber? YEP.  That, and the fact that his confidence is so sky high he doesn't give a flying fuck if there are a few bald patches now and then.  

Moral of the story? We should all learn from my dad and stop being so gosh darn self conscious.  ...Sometimes it's embarrassing how many fucks that man doesn't give, though.

That time I wiped out in public carrying 5,000 books.

Man, I've been seriously slacking on blogging.  Whooooopsiedoo.  Anyway.

Every year, Memorial Day is a huge event at the Demars household, but probably not for the reason you'd think...  Memorial Day marks the official beginning of yard-sale season.  And you know me-- I friggin' LOVE other people's old junk.  In previous years, we'd cruise around for hours stopping at sale after sale. One year, my stupid parents made other plans during the prime yard-saling hours and I remember sulking around being pissy and making life difficult because I was so upset about missing the beginning of the season.  Obviously, yard saling is not something to be joked about.  IT'S SERIOUS.  It's practically an art.

Unfortunately, this weekend was a bit different-- I had to work and didn't get around to doing the yard sale rounds.  Sad times in Caney land.  BUT, the one redeeming factor in missing the prime sales is finding the free piles the day after.  

I was taking a walk, lost in my own little world of sidewalks and dodging stray cats when all of a sudden I came across a HUMONGO blanket full of books.  A ton of them were of the crappy chick lit genre I'm so addicted to, but I did pick up quite a few others as well.  The pile was only about a quarter mile from my house, thank goodness, because there is NO WAY I could've carried that stack further.  I started on my way, only to wipe out and drop everything.  I don't think anyone saw it, but there were probably a bunch of elderly people peeking out from behind their curtains laughing.  That happened not once, but twice on the five minute walk back.  No shame.

It was worth it, though.  I'd fall down in public any day for a stack o' new reading material.

Bucket o' Seaweed

I feel like half of these blog posts are about seaweed salad.  (Wait, I'm gonna go count.)  There's THIS ONE and THIS ONE and... I guess that's it.  But still.  I bet you guys are getting bored with me and my seaweed salad obsession.  I DON'T KERRR, gonna write aboot it anywayz.

                                   

A few days after I found this wonderful stuff, my friend Jack told me about these buckets (HA, love that word) of seaweed salad sold at Costco.  We made plans to go, but never actually followed through.  Sadskies.

And then my friend Amy mentioned the same thing-- glorious buckets of seaweed salad at Costco.  We made plans-ish, but again, never followed through with them.  (Are you guys sensing a pattern here?  I'm a shitty keep-in-touch-er and I'm bad at making plans.  Sincerest apologies).

So last night, while I was raiding my friend Eliza's fridge (without consent because that's what best friends do-- nom the noms that don't belong to you), I came upon a bucket of seaweed salad.  And LO and BEHOLD it was from Costco.  (Just for the record, it's not really a bucket... more of a medium-sized tupperware container.  I think 'bucket' sounds better, but then I'm biased because that's pretty much my favorite word.  ANYWAY).  I did a little Junie B. Jones-esque gasp of delight aaaand then there were ocean plants in my mouth.  Mmm.

And then to my even greater delight (and bewilderment), Eliza's mom told me to take the container home with me because no one in the house liked it very much.  I was mucho grande skeptical.  Who the heck doesn't like slimy, fluorescent green marine vegetation?!  Weirdos.  So I accepted it calmly with grace and poise and then attacked it.  Guess who now has an empty seaweed bucket?  This gal.

I eat so much seaweed, I fully expect to
turn into a mermaid by next week.