Half of our pond is frozen over and no one has come to rescue Mr. Swan. He can't fly, guys. He's gonna freeze to death and die. And then we might as well find out what deep-fried swan tastes like.


Now for some gratuitous food pictures. Ben's revered blueberry cheesecake, unprepped.


And fully garnished.


A whole lot of Swiss chard...


..when cooked down...


...makes a tiny pile of mush. (Also, it doesn't smell fabulous.)


Pumpkin soup with buttery cinnamon croutons. Main ingredient: Pumpkin Heavy cream.


Steak with fingerling potatoes, Swiss chard death casserole, and a puddle of egg yolks and butter. I forgot to take a picture before I started eating so, oops, sloppy food photography.


Casserole. Now, I don't know a whole lot about cooking, but I think you should always be wary of recipes that say "kills six to eight people."


Finale to Creamy Thanksgiving.

My apologies for the lack of recent photos. It's difficult to get a decent shot of the beautiful Ohio scenery when you can't escape the shadows of 25,000 McCain/Palin lawn signs.

Here's a nice picture of Ben and me at the company holiday party, taking a malicious-gossip break.


Ben's mom has been helping him out financially for the last month or so, giving him money for things like rent, loan payments, and LEGOS. Yeah, I think it's offensive to retarded children when he makes that face, too.




(Not as cool as the Island of Takalupia.)

After the power went out for fifteen hours and ruined everything in the freezer, I realized that the way to keep your over-eating under control is to simply not have any food. I just bought those popsicles. :( Anyway, earlier in the week there were muffins. Only eighteen, thank the Good Lord above us.






Here's the hideous bright orange shirt I had to wear that afternoon for Day One of Moving. Traffic cone couture.


And here's a bonus shot of the old store being eaten, as taken by my disappointingly shitty camera phone.

Doing my best slouchy, awkward Top Model pose to show off my new winter coat. You know, should anyone get the itch to knit me a long, cuddly black/black-and-white(?) scarf. (As always, click to enlarge to see the finer details.)

Ben started pointing and giggling at the people in costumes and I was like, "Look, you forfeit all right to laugh at people by being here yourself."




Seven out of ten males cannot smile properly for pictures.


This glass blowing guy looked a little like Orlando Bloom if Orlando Bloom had disappeared off the face of the earth for a few years and maybe only bathed every fourth day. Come to think of it, has anyone see or heard from old Orlando lately?


Crystal glass musician.


Ben tearing into the Italian sausage that would haunt him the rest of the night.


Check out these chicken fingers and fries, ok? Have you ever seen such a spectacular display of grease? It's like they stuck a ladle into the deep frier and dumped the contents, oil and all, into the paper basket.


I left my gross, ratty hair down so that I could have it done in a fancy-schmancy braid, but the wait at the braiding booth was, no joke, two hours long. NO THANKS.


Instead I bought a gaudy ring. It's still less hideous that 80% of the stuff at work, plus it didn't require any financing.

This is downtown Dayton. As suspected, there's not much there.




Except this nice park.










Donny Osmond was hanging out by this statue too, but he declined to be photographed.

Something is wrong with these birds. Look at the ducks, guys. Seriously. ZOMBIES.


Tony approaches with caution.


Swan likes the menfolk.


Then Tony and I played a rousing game of Scrabble.


Which I won. 8D

Ben and I took one of our periodic excursions into the depths of Ohio to visit this crazy six-acre food mart.


I wish I could share some pictures of the interior of this monstrosity of a grocery store, but Ben told me that if I started acting like a Japanese tourist he would leave me there. Even though we took my car.


And then I saw the best church ever.


I'm seriously thinking of joining. I hear they have an Olympic-size swimming pool.