jar sauce.

duders,
two more is better than another one, right?
c'mon.
it's been so snowy!
like,
so snowy that every day has been deader'n dead in the whole entire
woodsly goodsly white mountainous wintertime wonderland.
the main roads are clear, but everywhere else is a sh!t-salad suckstorm,
and that's keeping everyone home.
that's not exactly a big deal, though, except that the tattbomb studio has had
some noteworthy absences on the schedule.
like,
whole days of school-style cancellations.
ugh.
that's gross.
but,
a snow day means anything can happen,
and that's good news for people who like unpredictability.
mostly, however, i like crappy paints, worse brushes, and biscuit boxes.
yeah.
i'm kind of a garbage artist, and that works on a literal and figurative level.
ha!
annnnnyway,
i made more little jarheads.
mmhmm.
daruma, again, and again.
check the red-sauce-beard-zen-type teleport:

awwwww.
he's a meditative motivational urn with a face!
and, again, check the teleport:

a grumpy ol' jar with a shroud on it?
...sure.
is this appropriate action during a lull in my more lucrative labors?
mayyyyybe.
of course,
i may be misusing time by practicing my poor craftsmanship,
since it's unlikely to become my secret passion.
but, while it's poor crafty crafting, with craft (not art) supplies,
i won't blame my poor tools for the results.
i'm just making myself utilize the mislaid skillset of my younger days.
i'm positive that's not a bad move on my part.
don't use it, lose it, find it, refurbish it, and it counts double in the end.
y'know?
yep.
so it's cardboard against boredom,
and tiny little studies in illustrative diversity.
neighbors,
they're the same thing, time after time,
but they're all different.
and that's good for you, and me, and everybody else,
i mean, that's probably a thing, right?
i hope so,
because if the weather stays crappy, and the days stay empty,
there will be more of all of this.
which is kinda cool, in it's own way, anyway,
because little red vase-faces are expert in my opinion,
which, is rarely relegated to opinion, and issued more as edicts.
so,
daruma is dope, because i like him,
and that's the decree, duders.
i make rules for myself.
the berserker barbarian battle-beast of savage raging stormswept
lightning-striking viking venom and gypsy hot fire lavaspit,
a.k.a. infinite nature,
needs a little structure
...or else it's just flippin' out all over the place, all the time,
with too much of everything wrong as the right amount,
and a lot less cookies and pies.
ew.
we wouldn't want that, now, would we?
no way.
so the rules are in place for safety's sake,
and cake's sake,
and for heaven's sake,
don't break 'em!
that's no joke;
never quiet, never soft.....

wishing.

wishing is a waste of time.
i think i'm fairly resigned to that being the case.
i mean, wishing is fine, in theory,
but working gets more results, by a landslide.
however,
i still make my wishes, since they don't cost anything,
and then i get busy doing stuff to make what i want a reality.
no sense in waiting around expecting magic treats to surround you
simply because you want them to.
yeah.
in that sense,
daruma is kind of an A*-hole.
y'know?
clearing your mind, and not wanting anything,
and sitting around for like, nine years, staring at a wall?
what the F*?
i can't hang out with that, at all.
i've got sh!t to do, neighbors.
right?
at least he looks cool,
and that counts for something in my book.
he can have my share of all the sitting around,
and while he's straight grillin' his see-balls at the walls,
i'll be plenty busy wishing a mutha-'ucker would try to halt my grind.
on the other hand,
the dolls symbolize perseverance,
and goal-oriented accomplishments.
oh, yeah, and good luck,
and all of that is pretty rad.
so,
i'm calling it even,
and i'm letting my daily daruma drawing jauns continue.
check the set-your-goals-type teleport:

awwwww.
he's just a little guy!!
it's like a jar of frowning bearded weirdie!!
and that's expert.
it's not wasting time if you're doing something.
maybe it's just practice for the bigger action, the bigger picture,
or the bigger, better version of your really real life...
or,
maybe this is actually all that there is.
either way,
it's all really happening,
and i'm doing plenty of my own stuff while it does.
y'all can mush in your rooms,
but i'll stay portabella.
there's a grind date to make, kids,
and i'm on it;
never quiet, never soft.....

toffee-coffee

duders,
what even is toffee?
turns out, it feels like it should be buttery.
actually,
it feels like caramel glass,
but it's just sugar and butter, and high heat.
...and that's it.
y'know what, though?
it's pretty effin' delicious, too.
i have the ingredients,
and although vegan butter butts have way more water than
even the cheapest really good real-life butter,
i just drained the excess liquid,
simple enough, right?
yes.
because being vegan is only a problem if you're lazy, or stupid, or both.
and without the wet, the left-behind caramelized crystals
activated all the expected toffee-type dissolving and reconstitution.
yup.
that's real.
i poured a puddle of it, and it hardened up into that brown glassy goodness.
that's when it really got expert, guys.
uh-huh.
because i smashed the sh!t out of it, and made candy shrapnel
for baking up some more cookie hottness.
yeah!!!
neighbors,
i have coffee beans, and i ground 'em up;
i have instant-style coffee, and i creamed it into the butters and the sugars
that i mashed up and mixed together;
i even have coffee extract-
and i exacted a small spoon's worth, tempered with vanilla;
and what about when you get all of that in a big bowl?
well, yes.
it IS very coffee-ish.
but,
what i meant was-
what about taking it to eleven?
guys, c'mon!
it needs those toffee chips,
to activate the ultimate candy cookie crisp crunch.
jeez, obviously,
i went through all that toffee talk for a reason, man.
check the extra-buttery-sugar-bomb-type teleport:

mmmmmmmmmmmm.
of course, i leaned a lesson.
the oven gets hot,
and that turns that solid toffee into liquid toffee,
and that melts into small spots.
ugh.
so much spatula work went into freeing up those little flatties.
i mean it, between the extra butter in the dough,
and the butter in the toffee, they melted outwards, and adhered downwards.
but once they cooled off enough, they stayed chewy, but also so crawnchy.
that's complexity,
and that's rad.
*
cookies every day.
at least until,
until sunday, anyway.
then it's time for a whole 'nother 'nother thing,
thematically consistent, but varying in style,
for eight more deliciously dope days,
in a row.
that's no joke.
in the meantime,
the oven is preheated,
there's gluten-free 'tardation underway,
...and it's snowing.
anything can happen, again.
that's the rules.
nothing is scheduled, so, that's truer than ever.
whatever goes on today is gonna be better than the nothing that's planned.
sure.
secret universal stratagems are in place, i'm confident,
and all of this is just another crease in time and space.
it's all really happening,
whatever it is;
never quiet, never soft.....

skull-eyes.

skulls don't have eyes.

that's it.

i said it,

i meant it,

and that's just a thing that is.

think about it, neighbors-

what's the first thing your sh!tty pet cat is gonna eat the minute you die?

yep.

your eyeballs.

both of those squishy little marbles, right down the hatch.

they're the juiciest, wettest, most delicate windows to the soul,

and also the very first things to shrivel up, wither away, and fall off.

what i'm getting at it is-

skulls don't have eyes.

and there you have it.

however,

i might've F*ed up a little bit.
yup.
being all fired-up about my crappy paints,
and all the extra boxes in the recycling bin,
i got carried away with small art making mishcief,
and i made a bobotron bear-bot, with a skull face,
and he's got eyes.
damn.
he's trying to be so cute,
but he's got eyes.
i don't even know how i thought that was a thing.
ugh.
oh well,
he is cute, though.
check the pink-eye-type teleport:

awwwwwwwwwwwww, man.
i've got a lot or work to do,
because i've got a lot of energy to burn.
long days, longer nights, hard times, & harder styles.
i've got time that needs spanning,
and wrenches that need choosing.
this is it-
my life is consumed by cookies and characters and comedy,
laughing at all of it as it unfolds,
origami shuriken style,
spinning outwards, and revealing step-by-step instructions for self-destruction.
time takes time,
and the reward is that there's less of it less,
but it's filled with more.
i guess i'm treading spaces and dreading faces and leaving traces
with cheap brushes and cracker box clayboards....
it's all really happening,
and it only gets harder from here on out.
just like every day,
broad shoulders and thick skin are needed to carry the burdens,
and bear the brunt of the blunt and brutal bludgeoning that beats and bruises
every barbarian battle-beast worth his weight in salt.
y'know?
we have to endure.
that's the rules.
since forever, until forever.
it never gets easier,
but don't worry about it, friends-
there's plenty more where this came from;
never quiet, never soft.....

five grains.

neighbors,
i learned about triticale today.
yeah.
it's what happens when you make rye and wheat fit together in a lab.
huh?
yeah.
real mutant hybrid jauns.
i guess scotland has a thing about tough-as-nails groats,
and they wanted a monster of a hearty hardy grain to grow in their sh!tty soil.
so,
they made one.
that's cool with me, because it looks exactly like every other rolled seed
from a grassy stalky sheaf of leafy bladerunning.
uh-huh.
what's better than oatmeal cookies?
five grain cookies.
and if one of those high-fivin' stage-divin' guys happens to be triticale?
so much the better, really.
and anyway,
i already had some worthy wheat, righteous rye, burly barley, outstanding oats,
terrific triticale, and fantastic flax, on hand.
our buddy bob, and his red mill have prepared a big ol' bag
of rolled-out ready-to-go goodness,
chock full of all of that-
and i bought some just for cookie time magic making.
.......wait.
that's six things, not five.
word.
too much is the right amount.
anyway,
i had myself a satchel of flat gristy (but not grisly) grains,
and i soaked it in soy yogurt, vanilla-style,
with even more added vanilla,
for as long as it took me to drive around on my day off and do a few errands.
yup.
that softened it up enough for use in cookie-baking greatness.
that's the truth.
check the teleport:

how about that Folk Lively rustic activation, y'all?
c'mon.
and with chocolate chips, too?
obviously.
i mean, if there are already gonna be all sorts of tasty things in 'em,
there may as well be some of that super-elite baby chip jauns, as well.
yup.
and then,
just to take 'em up a 'nother level...
y'know, like, to eleven,
there's a blarpity bloppity drop of homemade vegan fudge creme
pressed into the center of each.
yeah!!
i do cookies correctly, kids.
and i'm reppin' cookies every dang day until february.
i mean,
why wouldn't i bring the cookie game molto strong, and molto hard,
right up until the stupid bowl demands i doo-doo a iottle special somethin'.
(i mean, besides not watch it, of course),
yep.
cookies every day until sunday,
which also happens to be the rabbit-rabbit rapture of february first?
word up, kids-
and you all already know what happens, right?
what?
when what happens?
oh, MAN!
i'm sayin',
you must know what happens when the first day of the month
pops off on a sunday, don't you?
no?
jeez.
well,
you're in for a treat, then.
or at least,
i'm in for a treat.
and i'll tell you all about it as it happens.
in the meantime,
i've got tons of cookies,
and more on the way.
reppin' that triticale, and all the rest of it, like a flour power crunchy,
that's real.
vegetarian monsters for vegetarian monsters.
hybrid vigor is what we've got;
never quiet, never soft.....

peanuts and butters.

peanut butter cookies are always trying to let you know what they are.
y'know what i'm talking about, neighbors?
yeah.
exactly,
those tic-tacky-toe-the-line crisscrossed forklines!
i don't hate them, since they're sort of an understood thing.
tacit symbolism of the type of treat you're gonna eat.
but, i just feel like we can freak it off a little and get the same results.
no?
maybe.
i gave it a shot, anyway.
here's my effort to make the magic happen without a fork.
check the flattop peanut-butter-type teleport:

boom.
i pressed 'em down with a clean thumbprint,
and they smoothed themselves out into clean tables of total hottness.
guys,
i love when that sort of stuff happens by accident.
now,
i used naturally delicious peanut butter,
but i wanted to have a little bit of that crawnchy raunchiness too.
so,
i pulverized some actual un-buttery peanuts,
and plastered the batter with magical shrapnel.
mmmmmmmmmmmm.
they add the good bite factor, y'all.
that's a thing.
brown sugar made 'em crisp up on their skin,
but they stayed soft as silk within, exempting those nuts for your butts.
friends,
i love cookies,
and i love peanut butter,
and i LOOOOVE peanut butter cookies.
however,
after looking at the cooled-on-a-rack stacks of circles,
i couldn't tell what they were.
awwwwwww, man.
they needed those lines, man!
and i knew just what to do.
what brings peanut butter up to eleven?
chocolate.
and what do we do to put chocolate on our peanut butter after the fact?
that's correct, buddy.
we drizzle that dark chocolate jauns all over 'em!
stylized gridlocks, of dark and delicious black gold?
c'mon.
you know that made 'em so much more expert.
because that's what we do in the kitchen over here.
we activate our inner expert, one batch, from scratch, at a time.
***********
i had a busy day, yesterday-
cookies, and art, and soup.
shoveling, and studying.
making big messes and tidying up just a little bit.
there's no point in relaxing, unless you're lazy.
there's work to be done,
and there's moves to be made.
we do as much as we can, and then, when we're finished,
we do some more.
it's all really happening,
and there's plenty left to be done;
never quiet, never soft.....

six years?

i can't really remember the last time i actually painted a picture of anything.
i'm thinking it was before i moved into the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
i mean,
i'm pretty sure once i packed up and moved all my stuff,
it sat in an organized drawer, waiting for me to get around to it.
well,
a snow day means anything can happen,
and the strangest thing did.
i picked up some of the old and busted cheap-o craft paints,
and found an even cheaper little bag-o'brushes,
and i busted apart a cereal box, and i got a little bit busy.
mmmhmmm.
neighbors,
check the teleport:

daruma.
yep.
our favorite little red bodhidharma doll of bobbleheaded zen buddhism.
now,
if only i could've made it look like it wasn't sent to the present from 2005.
ugh.
oh well, i guess that's what happens when you don't practice.
let that be a lesson to everybody.
y'gotta USE it, or else you'll eventually suck all the balls.
and that's not cool, man.
the thing is, i made another 'nother one, too.
the same subject matter, slightly different, a little fatter, a little ropey
...(it says rOpey, take it easy)...
but still so F*ing cartoony.
check the twice-as-nice-type teleport:

yep.
i dunno what's the matter, guys, but this is what's in there,
and this is the arthur-making weirdie sh!t that's coming out.
it's all really happening,
even when you're shooting for something that is undefinably NOT that.
damn, but that's the truth.
i'm not upset, nor discouraged, but i am surprised.
i though that this style of bubble-cheeked picture was all the way out of my head.
i guess there's still some remnants of original recipe albie rock imagery
still kicking around in the back room of my brain.
who knows?
maybe the materials dictated the depiction?
i've been drawing a daruma a day for a week or so,
but these were the first ones to be so cute.
awwwwwwwwww.
this is what happens when anything can.
-
dear snow day,
            thanks for the acrylic encouragement.
            ....kinda.
                                  love,
                                     xoxoxo,
                                          albie
-
anyway,
i think i'd better practice a whole lot more.
there are textures and techniques i may not ever know, though.
i'm serious.
i prefer sh!tty markers and crappier papers and garbage-type goods
for making bad things into better things, but barely.
i keep it coarse, and i keep it real,
and it keeps me from getting too cute for my own good.
i'm living in the past,
but only when we're talking about $0.50 paint pots.
i do what i do, even when it's doo-doo.
this is it,
and that's that;
never quiet, never soft.....  

slow.

mornings have never been very much trouble for me.
the rise, and the shine,
the waking up and getting started and getting busier as the minutes pass...
all of that stuff is, and has always been, easy going for the woodsly goodsly
warrior spirit inside my head, hands, and heart.
i want to get into a fight with all the hours i can beat up,
before i finally succumb to slumber.
fitful and fleeting that sleepytime may indeed be,
but it gives me just enough recharge to attack a new day, first thing,
before the sun rises,
and well in advance of any sense of kinship with the waking world.
y'know?
ok,
hold on-
i was doing my thing, in the dark, by myself,
awoken by the howl of the wind,
knowing there was a storm of savage snowy winter weather
blustering about in the mountains, pushing ice and bending trees,
and doing whatever else it could to blowhard and bellow
about what a great big bad dire wolfen war warg of worry and woe it was.
now, i hate wind, super hard, because i seek my answers out on my own,
instead of waiting for them to waft in on the waiting breeze....
i'm pro-active, and i'm professionally activated,
and i'm telling you something else, too, kids-
i can't sit in bed doing nothing.
huh?
oh.
once the whipping frenzy of forceful cold air rocked the curtains
and the curtain walls of the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress with gusts
hard enough to stop my dreams from unfolding any further,
i got up and i got at 'em,
and i got my knife, and i got to work.
diced up onions,
discs of carrot,
shards of celery,
cloves and cloves of crushed garlic,
and patience....
patience?
yep.
duders,
the snowstorm that heralded the end of days or whatever?
ew!
it was a big fat letdown.
but,
i stayed inside all day anyway.
i mean,
if i'm getting a snow day,
i may as well make the most of it, right?
so,
i started a super-huge pot of soup for myself.
and i added stuff into it as the day progressed.
that's right.
add-ons and mix-ins and hook-ups and lentils.
ha.
by lunchtime,
i had a big ol' vat of turbo-elite hottness,
and i did it proper justice by barreling through bowl after bowl of it.
y'feel me?
i ate it allllllll day long, and i regret not one spoonful.
*
check the soup-is-good-for-your-face-type teleport:

mmmmmmmmm.
the simmering was a lengthy process,
albeit a relatively low effort situation-
i had a couple kinds of saucy red tomatoes,
a couple here, a couple there, sort of from all over the place,
diced and pureed, and dumped onto the red lentils.
whoa!
where did red lentils come from??
y'gotta bulk up your broth with some protein and fiber, guys.
c'mon.
don't be dumb.
and when it all gets seasoned...
with g.p.o.p.;
and black pepper;
and nootch;
and better-than-bouillon, which is a pretentious name, but also a true statement;
and white wine vinnegar;
and liquid smoke........
neighbors,
it starts shaping up to be an expert meal for your expert faces.
i also added a few fitsbump punches of green lentils.
yep.
double lentils for twice as much hearty stew-style bulk!
i gotta stay warm after all, y'all.
and spinach leaves  drifted into the juice, as well.
before too long,
i started thinking about grains.
that's right, grains.
who doesn't love a little seed or somethin' in their burly bowl
of barbarian-style one-pot indulgence?
word.
quinoa, brown rice, kaniwa, and millet.
hmm?
i used ALL of those.
i did.
tossed 'em right into the boiling cauldron.
this wasn't just soup, friends.
it was an experience.
too much is the right amount.
you know the rules.
*
and what do you soupy poopers even know about croutons?
yep.
all anyone needs to know is: croutons are dope!
junior-sized toast sprankles for my food!
so expert!
i cut myself some sourdough cubes of stale loafy density.
and when i had enough to decorate four or so servings of my stuff,
they all got shaken up inside an olive oily bag,
and then generously doused in herbs and spices.
dill, mustard seed, celery seed, rosemary, sage, nootch, and g.p.o.p.
yeah!!
that takes the whole shootin' match to eleven, man.
it's just water and stuff, plus heat, over time,
but i'll tell you what-
there's a lot of it, and it keeps getting better.
worse ways to start a day off are everywhere,
and that's no joke;
never quiet, never soft.....

the calm before the storm?

snow.
snow.
snoooooow!!!!
uh-huh.
SNOW.
for those of us living and lovin' in new england,
the prophecies of powder and pain are being promoted
through the airwaves and electromagnetic currents on every available
form of publicly available broadcast, print, and social-tyle media.
imagine that.
...snow,
in the north,
in january.
i mean it, neighbors.
huh?
oh, yeah, for sure-
i'm as surprised as you are, kids.
really.
i mean who are we kidding, here?
snow?!
c'mon...
how completely seasonally site specific,
how apt,
how utterly, totally insanely expected.
yeah.
it occasionally snows in the woodsly goodness in winter.
that's just a thing.
of course,
most folks up here are psyched as sh!t,
since skiing and sledding and sliding and boarding are pastimes that
all these rubbery redneckers are all always all about.
ugh.
that just sounds like the coldest and windiest wet mess of a way
to ruin a day of cold wet white inevitability, anyway.
especially when it could be so much better.
like,
spent in front of a fire, or a stove,
or some other other hot spots where tasty treats
can be created and enjoyed and appreciated.
but then, what do i know about anything?
i know,
those things are tons of fun.
however,
i don't have time for fun.
i'm busy.
for reals, y'all.
i'm gonna shovel,
and sweat,
and do all the things that need doing,
because i'm a responsible homeowning adult,
and those are the rules.
incidentally,
we haven't seen a single flake.....yet.
i know it's coming,
and i know what is expected of us.
i avoided the grocery store.
i already have bread AND soymilk,
so my emergency sandwich and cereal situation is accounted for.
it always is, anyway.
it's coming though,
and it's gonna be just like winter.
i mean,
it IS winter.
so that's kind of the way it is supposed to be.
i get another extra day off from work,
which really means i'm working for free on things that need to be done,
that aren't fiscally lucrative,
but will have to be rewarding in their own right.
ok.
i'm on it,
but i'm not happy about it.
this is it,
and that's about all there is to say about it.
my gloves and boots are ready for action,
and my stove is just waiting for a big ol' pot of soup.
Folk Life & Liberty in the woodsly goodness is practically
made for snowy abominable blizzard wizardry,
and for that, i'm grateful.
i'm bundled up and hunkered down, and like every single person up here,
i'm waiting for the sky to sh!t a frozen salad of stormy weather on us;
never quiet, never soft.....

oh, say, can you coelacanth?

i did it, neighbors.
i finished carving out the opposite image
on the corky card i'm using to print some pictures.
yep.
it took longer than i planned,
mostly because i thought about it more than most things.
and sure,
a litany of limitations sprung up at the very last minute.
the ink i've been using has seen far better days,
so i had to do a little alchemical manipulation to make it work.
the paper was too thin, and soaked up all the moisture, curling it;
the other paper was too curly, so the rolled edges peeled away from the plate;
the other other paper was jussst right, texturally,
but just a wee bit too small to produce two pictures on one piece.
damn.
i maybe could've spent a little more time on the end-product materials.
what can i say?
i thought i had all the good stuff all already in place-
plus,
i was, and am still, always doing twenty other things at once.
yeah,
i doo-doo that multitasking-myriad-focus-ten-thousand-directions-style sh!t.
sometimes,
that means my paper products may be a little lacking,
but only because the treats are especially expert.
mmmhmmm.
on the real-
i can EAT the treats,
and that's better than the sexiest paper i've ever marked, marred, folded or torn.
however,
i'm not NOT gonna get as busy with my big action as i conceivably can,
using what i've got on hand to get it poppin' all the way to eleven.
y'know?
so,
once the difficulties and technicalities of a morning spent mixing up
insistently inconsistent fudgy blarpity blops of brayer-rolled black tar,
i got a few proofs pulled from the block.
jeeeez,
we sure took our time getting to the teleport today, huh?
ha.
check it:

COELACANTHS.
yuuuuuup.
the best. fish. ever.
they're my underwater dudes;
my shamanic spirits of proto-limbed infinite evolutionary memory;
my lost-and-found fossil-fueled furious bottom-dwellin' battle-beasts;
my favorite fomorian depth-chargers.....
....because all they do is just be dope.
i'm sayin',
for practically the whole entire time that everything has ever even happened,
nobody even noticed 'em, down at the bottom of the ocean,
just doing what they do, and doing it SO well,
they've managed to remain at the top of their game
for millions and millions (and millions) of years.
that's pretty impressive,
in my persona opinion,
they are by far the freshest looking fish in the sea,
by virtue of looking the least like fish from the last epoch or two-
that's word.
the stay ugly, stay dope jauns is no joke, jerks.
guys,
for longer than almost everything,
they've endured,
by just being all about what they're about.
and it works, apparently, as well as anyone could really hope.
imagine being so well-suited to your assigned tasks that you reach,
and maintain throughout the millennia,
a penultimate zenith of adaptation and activation so flawless,
you just do what you do the best it can be done,
forever.
ugh.
and i'm up here, in the mountains,
the actual opposite of their environment,
still just trying to figure out how to amend the ink situation,
before i buy more and start over.
awwwwwwww, MAN!
well,
i guess that's a long-term goal, then, no?
huh?
no.
the new ink is en route already.
that's attainable by tuesday.
i mean,
to be the best at being the ugliest and most well-adapted individual
to the area i abide in,
and then to do that as hard as i can until there's nothing left.
is that depressing, or inspiring?
i'm actually too old to tell the difference anymore!!
ha.
***********
there WILL be more prints made of this.
like,
for you to get from me.
pulling prints is on the menu for my next day off.
and when i get what i need,
you can get what i've got.
enduring whatever happens,
when you know all of it is really happening,
is a skill i admire, and one i emulate, every damned day.
take all that life throws at you,
survive it,
and then keep on doing what you do.
that's it;
never quiet, never soft.....

white mountain white girl.

hey guys!
i made midsized cupcakes.
uh-huh.
no.
i didn't just get cheap with the batter,
and underfill regular-sized cupcake tins.
what?
NO!
i didn't cheat and overfill miniature muffin pans, either.
jeez.
take it easy.
i actually found some new hottness for my Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
in the form of stepped-up cups that split the difference
between mini and traditional.
yep.
midi-muffins.
two bites, compared to one for the smalls,
and four for the full-sizers.
neat-o.
anyway,
i had some mint sitting in the refrigerator,
and i had some chocolate chips,
and i needed to test-drive the new baking tools,
so i put all of that together,
and came up with some good stuff.
check the white-girls-from-north-conway-style teleport:

ha!
-
here's a little snippet from my daily conversational regiment-
when i'm at the studio,
tattzappin' whatever unpinteresting poop that the screen of
somebody's mobile phone has revealed to me as a mandatory fresh original idea,
i ask all the ladies what their favorite ice cream flavor is.
yup.
every. single. one.
i'm like that.
and more often than not,
and by that i mean, overwhelmingly so,
the answer is mint chocolate chip.
i guess that's just a thing up here.
it goes great with en masse college girl tastes.
(like zebras,
you're safer if you're indistinguishable from similarly patterned individuals,
thereby no longer being a single entity, but a collective non-mind,
governed only by the instinct to become overtly visible,
yet completely camouflaged by quantity)
ummm,
too much is the right amount?
yikes.
-
the thing is,
mint chocolate chip stuff is good, neighbors.
and therefore,
flying in the face of my anti-popular contrarian infinite anti-infinity symbol nature,
i activated that style of cool refreshment in lovey-dovey cakey cuties.
mint and chips and cake,
and ground chocolate and mint in the frosting,
and shaved chocolate sprankles,
and a sprig of nature on top,
for extra-special added leafy expertism.
it worked the way i wanted it to, too.
they are just-so wispy with illusory cold-to-the-tongue minty mystery,
and the precisely-right balanced blend of delicious chocolate in, on, and around
the slightly-crsip-topped soft crumb on the cuppy cake parts.
the flavors are complimentary,
not competitive-
and i really love it when that sort of sh!t starts dancing around inside my mouth.
***********
a cold winter saturday in the woodsly goodness?
that's it.
what else would there be?
seriously.
today is the day.
another 'nother one.
as time slips past us,
and january jets into the future,
i can't help wondering aloud where the big fun and fresh-to-death action is hiding?
i mean it.
it's not even that there's all work and no play.
play is lessened by the minute,
but there's not as much work, either.
more free time, and less accomplished?
whoever thought of that is probably an A*hole,
and they can't come over, kids.
i'm mostly solo inside my castle,
carving and cooking and being a fat weird hairy/not-hairy hermit.
it takes some getting used to, sure-
but it's been years already.
there's that time-ticking waste-away war-torn world-weary passage
to there, through here, from there, all over again.
more of it, and less of it, and none of it,
while all of it is really happening.
confusing?
a little,
but it's a true story, and that's all i ever have for you;
never quiet, never soft.....