It has been an emotionally and physically exhausting week, so this may or may not be coherent. Cathy's mom was diagnosed Monday with Stage IV lung cancer, just two days after Tim's (Cathy's significant other's) 50th birthday party, the original reason I was down in LA this weekend. I ended up staying an extra day to help out with random things and drive people to and from the hospital. Cathy is an only child, which makes me appreciate Ben and Chris all the more. They're giving Shirley about two months, and she's being released tomorrow. She'll be moving in with Cathy and Tim for the foreseeable future.

Cathy's aunt Barbara gave me a very cute clutch handbag this weekend... without even knowing about my obsession! Photos and explanation some other time, as it's a long story. Suffice it to say, very Audrey Hepburn!

It's also a million billion degrees all over California, so last night I whipped up a pesto pea soup from Gourmet's website that mostly used things I had on hand since I did not want to do major grocery shopping, and sounded like it would be good warm or cold. It turned out ok but not great hot, warm, or cold. For the last of it tonight I added a dollop more pesto and some greek yogurt and that perked it up. If I ever make it again, I'd double the pesto.

I'm trying to reverse engineer the recipe for Sconehenge English Muffins, which are not at all English muffins in the traditional sense but very yummy nonetheless. The exceedingly unhelpful ingredient label just says "all purpose flour, buttermilk, yeast." I have to figure out proportions and if there are any ingredients that don't need to be listed on the label. Grumble, grumble.

The cast iron skillet reseasoning project should be back on this weekend as it's supposed to cool down significantly tonight. Weekend before last I left both skillets in the oven for a three hour self-cleaning cycle and then went over them with steel wool to remove the rust. I'd really like to get on with the next step, but seasoning cast iron when it's over 90 outside just ain't gonna happen. The same goes for bread baking, or vigorous movement of any sort. I've been battling a horrible sinus infection for probably two weeks now, but couldn't get in to see the doctor until tomorrow.

On TV, I finished the second season of Project Runway, and am well into season three. Such a great show: exactly like Top Chef, but with fabric instead of foodstuffs, and with the amazingly adorable and insightful Tim Gunn. Where Tom just looks worried. Tim actually cares--he's not a judge so he can get more involved with each contestant and really act as a mentor. I'm ambivalent about Hell's Kitchen. Lost is backing up 'cuz I haven't been in the mood. Other shows have not been especially comment-worthy. Running in Heels ended, but I'm not quite in the frame of mind to gather my thoughts on that one just yet. Fionla Hughes was a co-producer, something I did not notice until about halfway through the run.

The last few weeks have been insanely busy, and the next few weeks will also be insanely busy. I'm kind of in the eye of the storm this weekend, the quiet part where you scramble around to get a bunch of things done before the chaos starts up again.

I've tried to not shop very much this week and eat what I can out of the freezer and pantry, especially since it's been so hard to plan ahead amidst all the activity. Tonight's dinner was a pantry type meal, "drunken pasta" from the Serious Eats blog. I used less liquid than it calls for to cook the linguine--I usually cook my pasta in less water than normal people do anyway--using a $3 bottle of perfectly reasonable merlot I found last night at Big Lots while I was picking up $1/pouch tuna for the cats. It turned out well; a nice switch from the usual pasta-with-butter-and-cheese-and-maybe-some-herbs-or-lemon. It'd likely work well with rice, too. In fact, it was somewhat similar to the rice starter/risotto I had at my friends' dinner party a few months ago.

The main reason we're so busy at work is that we're about to launch a search for someone to be the next Duke Nukem, an initiative companies with normal budgets would hire production companies to handle. That's not the case here. We had an extremely successful GDC, so I guess all the sleepless nights and constant level of near nervous breakdown was worth it, but we're only halfway done with this nutty plan. At GDC I got to do a few things I've never done before, including scouting good places near the Moscone Convention Center to drop urinal screens, and serving up Popeyes chicken and biscuits to well over 100 people at our client's party (arranging the chicken was a lot more work than the company website would indicate, but that's a long, boring story for another time; let's just say the crew at the Fillmore Popeyes deserve a medal). This is why I got a Master's degree, folks.

When I have a quiet moment or two, I've been reading Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning (twice!) novel Midnight's Children, which is fantastic. It never would have occurred to me to read it, except that I heard Rushdie on City Arts & Lectures a few months ago while I was puttering around town, and he's absolutely hilarious (he was also going through a bitter divorce from our Padma when she started hosting Top Chef). New blog reading includes yet another look at trying to live frugally by W. Hodding Carter on (of all places) the Gourmet magazine website.

I'm behind on a lot of tv, but have pretty much stopped watching Hell's Kitchen, and am sustaining only slight interest in Survivor (although I am surprised about the last vote--99.9% of the time you can bank on men keeping the hottie around over the smart chick, but this time I was wrong... yes, me). Running in Heels continues to fascinate, but I watched the episode in which they mainly whinged about having to work a chaotic sample sale right after GDC was over, and it made me want to hunt these girls down and hang them up by their overglossed lips.

I still don't get where Fox finds the chefs on Hell's Kitchen. Anyone who knows anything about GR knows that he is psycho about chefs knowing where the food, especially the protein, comes from and being comfortable with butchering as well as cooking it. Anyone aspiring to be an elite chef, furthermore, ought to know that sweetbreads are considered delicacies and unless they're a vegetarian/vegan (in which case, why are you even on the show?) should welcome the opportunity to learn, even if it's not especially appetizing at first.

Speaking of not actually watching the show before you're on it, what's with Coach's all-black ensemble on Survivor? Is he insane? They always shoot in a hot climate. He's not only creepy but apparently an idiot to boot.

And what's up with the Subaru commercial in which the dad has enrolled his little boy in Brownies? Subaru Foresters are often considered lesbian cars, but this seems to portray some gender confusion on the part of small children or their parents. Bizarre.

I've been enjoying the first season of Mad Men so much that even though I'm watching the episodes on On Demand I'm still tempted to buy the DVD set just for the commentaries. By chance, The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine rose to the top of my Netflix queue just after I watched the MM season finale, which was perfect timing as it's set in the same year and revolves around office politics and affairs.

Could not have cared less about the finale of Hell's Kitchen. GR certainly likes perky blonds.

Knitting is mostly on hold lately because of persistent pain in my hands. The symptoms are neither classic carpal tunnel nor arthritis, so hopefully it'll go away soon with some rest. It's making yoga challenging, too.

E3 was this week and I doubt they'll hold another one next year. While losing the out-of-control megabooths and general show chaos was a good thing, the ESA's and IDG's disorganization meant a lot of press didn't come to the show and many of those that were there missed the Concourse pavilion booths entirely, thinking all the companies were up in meeting rooms. Some big companies even sent their demo'ers home Wednesday night, leaving their games unattended all day Thursday because the traffic in the pavilion was so light.

One of my clients did receive the distinction of having the Worst Trailer at E3 (maybe Ever) as decided by the trolls over at gametrailers.com, so that was something. Never mind that it wasn't exactly a trailer and had been thrown together in a couple of hours right before the show because the deal had just been signed and they wanted something to catch the attention of walk-bys. At least they're talking about the game.

The Mole is back! They're cutting down the field pretty quickly, but my top contenders right now are Clay and Victoria, though Kristen is keeping an awfully low profile and Craig suddenly became suspicious with the dry cleaning episode. Nicole and Paul--and to some extent Alex--are just too loud and obvious. According to the Mole's journal on the ABC website, the Mole was blindfolded in the luge challenge, which would include Clay, Victoria and Alex (can't recall Kristen's position), and Victoria was the one who talked and got their results tossed. Hmmm....

In other "reality" tv, what's with this trend of supermoms on all the cooking shows? Every one has to have the one contestant who's doing this all for her daughter and bases nearly every freaking recipe on something she cooks regularly for her daughter and is fine with being booted because she misses her daughter. On Top Chef it was Antonia, Hell's Kitchen it was (I think) Rosann, and now on TNFNS it's Jennifer. It's getting almost as overdone as the faux-hawk. Move on, food reality producers.

Gah! I finished the final three rows on my reversible bag last night... only to find that I'd knitted the last panel on the wrong side. Sigh.

Instead of fixing it I made a ball out of one of the skeins of yarn I bought yesterday while watching Hell's Kitchen from Tuesday. I hate everyone on that show.

Today I got to watch the food chain in action. I arose at 5.45 to release a bunch of ladybugs on my aphid-infested rose bush. A little while later I glanced out the window to find Isis. She was crouched in her kitty cave eyeing the male swallow, who was perched on the porch light eyeing the ladybugs, who were eyeing--or at least creeping toward--the aphids. Just like the Discovery Channel.

On Top Chef this week it was pretty clear who was going home the second that annoying jerk started shooting off his mouth about how he had this challenge in the bag. Lisa's pretty calm over the past few weeks but then her rampant paranoia reared its ugly head. I have nothing to say about Hell's Kitchen because I can't stand any of them.

The current rounds of Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen have both been on for a while now, but I've been too busy to comment thus far. A few thoughts:

• WTF moment #1 - On TC, the guy who works at Le Cirque doesn't know that mayonnaise is oil and egg??? Even I know that and I can barely boil water. Why is he still on the show?


• WTF moment #2 - On HK, "I don't know percentages, but..." Thank God GR threw him off; the guy's too dangerous to be in a kitchen.


• And where the hell do they find these people on HK? I realize Fox wants GR to explode as much as possible, but come on.


• Extremely close tie for most annoying on TC: hat guy and crabby chick with eyebrow piercing.


• Elizabeth Berkeley must have watched a whole lot of Padma in action before she started on the dancing show.


• What is it with chefs and faux-hawks?

In other news, I've finally identified the birds nesting on my patio as barn swallows and will post a photo of them soon. I had to go buy a bottle of something called Poop-Off because they're making a huge mess on the concrete. I keep meaning to go get a cheap mat to put under the nest that I can just toss later on, but with everything else going on it hasn't happened yet.

New at Big Lots: Cheese Quesadilla Pringles and many, many Golden Compass toys.

New at Big Lots: Trivial Pursuit® branded Pop Tarts.

My computer at home is still a mess, but I can at least check email if I boot up in safe mode. Still unpacking, but the apartment is getting much better; it's possible to walk around without stepping over any boxes now, and I've labeled all the remaining boxes so I don't have to tear everything apart frantically looking for stuff. The problem now is that I've maxed out my storage space, both at home and at the storage unit, so I have to figure out how to arrange everything so it fits. Luckily I'm good at spatial reasoning puzzles.

Hell's Kitchen thankfully turned out the way it should have, with both Rock and Julia as winners (although Julia certainly didn't act much like a winner at the end). Kudos to Bravo for embracing the feud between Rocco and Tony Bourdain instead of pretending it doesn't exist, like most media companies would have.

Current reading: Creation Spirituality by Matthew Fox, The United States of Arugula by David Kamp, and The Coffeehouse Investor by Bill Schultheis.

I finally got to watch last Monday's Hell's Kitchen yesterday, and I'm really pissed off that Bonnie was chosen to stay over Jen. While Jen is probably not ready to run a kitchen on her own, Bonnie is a spoiled little brat who I seriously doubt could supervise a Burger King.

There's an interesting little blog fight going on over at Bravo's Top Chef site between Tony Bourdain and Rocco Dispirito. Rocco actually takes the edge in this one.

In a little burst of stress relieving compulsive shopping I've bought a bunch of games for my Nintendo DS: Puzzle Quest, Chocobo Tales, Trauma Center and an old Harvest Moon game. I also picked up Cooking Mama for the Wii (we're handling the mobile version, so it's research) and Exit for PSP (also research). I'm playing Puzzle Quest, and while I like the Bejeweled style of puzzle combat, it's getting a little repetitive and boring.

Last night's Hell's Kitchen was f-----' awesome. Bawling Bonnie needs to go pronto, followed closely by that one with all the hair all over the place like Cousin Itt. It's highly amusing that these two, who spent so much time putting down the Waffle House chef for her alleged lack of skills, are now getting to enjoy the full force of Ramsay wrath for their lack of skills. The way they keep flirting with GR is really nauseating, too. They seem fairly unclear on the concept of a restaurant; doesn't matter how cute you are if the food never gets to the customers. The entire competition seems to have come down to two people at this point: Julia and Rock, the only ones there who appear capable of running anything.

In other news, I can't find Koosh. When I got home last night she came out from under my bed where she'd apparently been sleeping all day after her ordeal at the vet. I tried to give her some tuna, which she refused(!) and she headed out into the backyard. That was the last I saw of her. Hopefully she's just freaked out and hiding under a bush somewhere. Complicating matters is this event in New York plus the ceiling scraping/painting project in the house. I'm supposed to take both Isis and Koosh to the boarding place tonight because I have to leave tomorrow morning. Life just doesn't get much more fun than this.