The Lemon Drop Dead special edition Jones Halloween soda is pretty tasty. Kind of like a Fanta Lemon Ice, which is sadly not available in the US.

It's actually chilly today! I had to put on socks last night!

Rachel Zoe has vertigo! She is also extremely passive aggressive, but that's a separate issue. Unlike vertigo episodes, her nausea seems to hit even without full-on spinning dizziness which has to be pretty difficult to deal with--is days of constant nausea worse than hours of constant vomiting? I'm not sure of the answer to that. They haven't determined yet what is causing the vertigo, but told her to cut back on the stress and rest.

I spent a lot of time driving this weekend, especially on Sunday when I headed out to Oakdale to pick up my dad's .44 pistol and back to American Canyon to deliver it to Abman/John in time for his deer hunting trip out to someplace where there have been a lot of mountain lion and black bear sightings recently. Good thing gas is really cheap right now.

The Kitchn blog is holding a contest for easy weeknight dinners, and I was very impressed with this recipe for spaghetti squash with avocado and parmesan. Tonight I made another "spaghetti" dish (but with actual pasta this time) from a Marion Cunningham recipe featured on the Less is Enough blog, which continues even though her experiment of eating healthy on a dollar a day is over. Good, but next time I'd use about half the bread crumbs.

The pond renovation is almost complete and they turned the fountain back on yesterday. Last night I had my first good night's sleep in weeks.

It occurred to me while watching this week's episode of Top Chef that this is possibly the most lackluster, dour group of cheftestants yet. Nobody is hilariously arrogant or charmingly goofy. The frontrunners, with the exception of Kevin, are kind of expressionless and robotic, especially the Voltaggio brothers, whom I can barely tell apart. The rest of them just come off as cranky.

I caught the tail end of today's All My Children tonight, and after only about five minutes I was reminded of why I got fed up and stopped watching even though I've followed this soap more or less since I was 12.

SCENE: Chandler Mansion, Living Room, where beloved Stuart was recently shot and killed and probably bled a lot.

(JR and Marissa are eating cheap frozen cheese pizza, even though Adam is a billionaire and could probably get Wolfgang Puck to come over and whip up some pizza for them.)

JR sighs and runs his hand though his already greasy hair.

Marissa: Am I wrong or did it suddenly get very uncomfortable there?

JR: Sigh mutter mutter sigh. I am mixing pizza grease with hair product.

Marissa: Was it something I said?

JR: No, it was the way you said it--completely without any inflection at all, like a cardboard cutout like you buy at a party store, except you are not a cool Star Wars character. You see, I was already pretend-married to one bad actress who I am supposed to pretend looks just like you, except you look nothing like her at all and it makes my forehead all wrinkly.

Marissa: Gasp. Um, whimper.

JR: I am just going to stare off into the distance now because I can't stand to hear you read lines off the teleprompter anymore.


SCENE: The Very Brightly Lit Bar

Fat Tad: Even though you look like Reba McEntyre, you are supposed to be Liza so I will pretend I know all about your schemes.

Reba McEntyre: Zack is hot in his purple suit. Have some brightly lit wheat grass!


SCENE: The Cheap Secret Room Set

Q-Tip: I am hiding in this stupid high school play set so I can be even more skeletal than I was before! I will defeat Reba McEntyre and keep Zack for myself so he no longer wears purple suits and blue shirts!

Roll credits.

ETA: My mom tells me they were at the fishing cabin, not at the mansion. Still.

Things are busy at work and pretty tense. I was in Las Vegas last week for a tradeshow and nobody was very upbeat. The Mandalay Bay casino was deserted; only Excalibur which had rooms going for as low as $30 a night had much activity. I lost $7 at video poker, freaked out and quit. I hate gambling.

Tonight I'm planning to roast another game hen. My first attempt was about 2 weeks ago and it didn't get cooked thoroughly even though the thermometer read 170°. Since it was supposed to be a cold meal, I'd wrapped the hen tightly in foil and popped her into the fridge right after taking her out of the oven so I didn't realize it wasn't cooked until I unwrapped the foil the next day and it was full of pink juice.

The quinoa salad I'd made to go with the hen was awesome, however. Very easy and filling, and you could probably use couscous just as easily as quinoa.