This year’s dress was also inspired by a trip to NYC last December and a visit to Shareen Vintage. A girl has to start planning Prom way in advance. Post inspiration, was a trip to Osgoods for fabric and supplies and then the sewing began. Within a few weeks months the dress shaped into this: [I love that Jan got captured in the background. She was taking images as well.]
the back of the dress looks like this:
I lined the entire dress and created the straps by cutting and gluing vinyl strips together.
Way back in the days of Ziggy Stardust, I stood on the floor of the Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin awaiting David Bowie’s appearance on stage. As we all lingered, Mr. Bowie toyed with us by showing a short clip of the 1929 movie: Un Chien Andalou. I innocently watched this black and white film.
For this who don’t know the storyline, I highly recommend watching this short 40 second film and see Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s most famous scene. Spoiler alert, short as this is, it is NOT for the squeamish and these images could follow you for life. As a young Midwestern gal, I was completely unprepared for what Ziggy was sharing with us. The packed arena groaned at the end of this film. I guess I wasn’t the only one caught off guard.
Now, these many, many years later, Ziggy’s sense of humor [or whatever sensation Mr. Bowie was attempting to teach us] has changed to an aqueous one. For those uninitated to the schematics of our eyes, aqueous humor is basically the fluid that flows in our eyes and also in simple terms maintains the intraocular pressure and inflates the globes of our eyes amongst its many other functions. But how does aqueous humor impact me this week?
Well, it has to do with the narrow angles of my eyes. Without boring you, the space between my cornea and the iris of my eye has narrowed. This, in my Ophthalmologist’s world is called: Narrow Angles, Closed Angle or Angle-Closure Glaucoma and leads me to be at a high risk for glaucoma. Fun times [I’m being sarcastic, for those who don’t know me well]. Have a look for yourself, in the image below.
Which means, I’m having some surgery today, wherein the Ophthalmologist will be using a laser to blast a very fine hole into my eye…more precisely my iris. They tell me my eye will be numbed, a sort of contact lens inserted and the laser will blast into my eye.
The whole procedure will go something like this short video.
Being a visual designer I’m actually-as many of us I’m sure are- very in love with my vision, so having this type of procedure done to my eye has given me the very same hibbie-jeebies that David Bowie’s pre-concert flick gave me those-oh, so many years ago. Only this time, it’s happening to me. And adding to the drama, today’s procedure only involves my right eye. I get to enjoy the fun all over again, with my left eye, in two weeks.
Now maybe my Ophthalmologist didn’t want to freak me out, so he only told me the basics of this procedure. His nurse called me and gave me more details and when I signed consent papers she gave me a very basic handout describing the surgery. I went out and researched the above medical video, which brought up those crazy, eye-slitting images Ziggy Stardust embedded in my half-baked, pre-concert brain decades ago.
So, I’ll let the aqueous humor [hee, hee] help me deal with the fears I have leading up to today’s action plan. After my appointment, I’m planning on laying low, administering my steroid eyedrops and hoping for the best. Maybe I’ll even listen to Five Years from my favorite Glam Rocker as I psych up to do this all over again with my left eye. We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes…
My Right Eye Before: My Right Eye After: Upload to follow
Oh, and BTW that ‘little prick’ you’ll feel-as the Dr. explained-felt more like an industrial, automatic nail gun piercing thru my iris.
This is a shot early morning- working from my computer in Boston- where I am helping with a NOVA project called: Cracking the Genetic Code. This documentary airs March 28th. Can’t wait to see the final project.
The goal was to make a chocolate stout cake with butter cream frosting and chocolate ganache topping. My daughter started the process following Smitten Kitten’s recipe.
Ta-da…..here it is:
This is no ordinary cake. THIS, is an epic cake. It weighs 5+ pounds, it is 3 layers, each layer is smeared with butter cream frosting and the whole thing is laced with chocolate ganache. That’s right, I said 5+ pounds of cake here.
It began as these simple ingredients measured by the pounds. And this doesn’t show the 4 cups of four [that’s 2 pounds] and 4 cups of sugar [another 2 pounds] required to create such an epic cake. Are you getting the image of a serious pound cake slathered with buttery, cream chocolate frosting?
This image doesn’t not include the additional ingredients I purchased-see below
What really makes this cake epic, are several things.
First and foremost, our oven’s temperature isn’t working quite right. So, the cake was popped into the oven and after 10 minutes the cake started to crack. After multiple attempts to continue the internal cake baking process, I pulled the cakes from the oven and dashed to the nearby kitchen supply store to buy an oven thermometer. My daughter left for an appointment to work out at the gym and I watched the oven temperature rise and fall as I tried my best to get the oven to stay at an even 350 degrees. Once I reached that goal, I put the cakes back in to finish baking.
Second, I dropped the cake. That’s right, during the additional baking, I was pulling a cake layer out of the oven and it literally slipped out of my hands, hit the counter [which contained most of the shattered cake layer bits] and the rest splatted onto the floor. After much swearing, scrapping and clean up – buttery rich cake batter is a real b***ch to clean up.
Third, I ran out to the store to buy more ingredients: butter, chocolate, aluminum cake pans [as ours were partially full of half-baked cake #1], more beer and sour cream.
Fourth, I didn’t really read the recipe properly and accidentally added a little too much salt. I don’t know, someplace between the frantic dropping of the first round of cakes and trying to find the recipe [on my daughter’s computer]… I mis-read the quantity of salt and added a bit too much.
Fifth, we needed LOTs of friends to help us eat this cake. A single slice was easily divided by 3 people. I couldn’t even finish half a thin slice myself.
What have we learned from making this Epic Cake? Well, get the oven temperature to it’s proper degree. The thermometer helps. A newer oven would help even more. Have extra ingredients on hand and ALWAYS read and re-read the recipe.
Oh, and I kinda like that little salty hint mixed into my 5+ pounds of chocolate stout cake. While I’m not sure I would make this cake again, I am sure I will continue baking.
the back of the dress looks like this:
I lined the entire dress and created the straps by cutting and gluing vinyl strips together.
Even Brendan happened to be in town:
Xernay and Maggie:
And Mr Harp:
And Xernay’s friend:
A good time was had by all.
