Having been on Hec's tour, I can say that there will be a lot of happy LA folk out there today.

It was fun! And well received. I got to talk to a woman who saw the rare production of Waits' Alice at BAM, which she said was a transformative experience for her. Cool!

Less cool, driving to LA yesterday and driving back today. So bleary on I-5 at the 3/4 mark, but then pulled over for gas and to pop in a new Harry Potter disc and was able grind it out.

Six hours on the road just makes my hips so sore, though.

But I'm home again and Matilda waited up for me.

Oof, that is a lot of driving, but sounds like an excellent trip overall!

Did we know about this tumblr? [link]

That tumblr could have been made for me.

E.L. Konigsburg died today. So sad.

Aw man, that is sad. I loved pretty much everything I ever read by her.

Hec, I'm glad the tour went well! And glad you're home again.

We did yard work yesterday! I'm unreasonably excited about this. I've never done any yard work or gardening anywhere I've lived, but I'm really happy to finally have a chance to pretty up our yard here. We weeded and mulched for an hour and a half, and Rosie played in the yard and possibly ate a wee bit of dirt (it's good for her, right?) and got to touch an earthworm. We also bought a few flowers and herb plants but didn't get to plant them -- that will happen later today. It's just a tiny strip in front of our little front porch/patio thing, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks and how well the plants do. We're having a bunch of family in town for Rose's birthday later this week, so I'm especially glad to have this done before they arrive.

Yes! Come down and we'll all pretend to get educated but mostly make heart-eyes while also getting educated.

Ooooh! Possibly. We are going to Utah for a bike ride on June 1. If I survive that...

Meringue update! I made some with way less artificial ("natural") sweetener and some raspberry puree, and I think they are OK. At least I'm not embarrassed to have my family eat them. Still, I cannot with the flavor of these sweeteners in actual food (I tried before when I was on Atkins), which surprises me, given how much I like diet beverages.

Not sure why you are making those , but I can't eat foods with artificial sweetener in them, they taste wrong to me. I just eat less sugar and use less when the recipe allows

My mother's at the beginning of South Beach, and it's her birthday. So I'm trying to help!

I don't mind splenda or even aspartame, but I can't stand the taste of stevia. Glad you managed acceptable meringues! The addition of raspberry sounds so good.

I've decided to try to eat up some of the stuff that's been hanging around my pantry/freezer for way too long, so I've got baked beans in the oven, heavy on the salt pork, light on the beans (because I had 3/4 lb of salt pork in the freezer and only 5 oz of dried beans in the pantry and using things up means using things up), and full of tomatoes both sun-dried and in paste form. I'm interested to see how it turns out.

I've hated splenda desserts before, so thought I'd give the stevia a shot. To me, they are about the same. Anyway, the bulk of the thing will be the strawberries and sugar-free cool whip, which seems OK.

Ooh, those beans sound good.