I would rather do cartwheels

handsprings

triple toe loops and

quadruple axels

down a stretch of old asphalt

in the Arizona desert

in a bikini with

no sunscreen on this amazing

blindingly white

sun-resistant

Irish-Scottish-German-Cherokee-Sioux-Iroquois

already sunburned skin

in the scorching heat of

Mid-July

with no source of water nearby

with crowds of people watching

as the asphalt gives way to sharp gravel

and I end my

ill-advised gymnastic extravaganza

with a triple backflip-somersault-twist

and land in the splits

than clean one more thing in this house today.

I did try an interesting experiment this evening, prompted by the monthly challenge in the LJ bakebakebake community: being creative with a box of cake mix. I can’t tell you what I did else I’ll give it away, but I think I’ll nail it down on the next try. Meanwhile, the Bi-Monthly Menu of Doom for this half of the month consists entirely of recipes from Mark Bittman’s “How To Cook Everything” and while all three things thus far have been delicious – the matambre in particular, and I will, in fact, write that up tomorrow – I can’t help but feel that NO ONE CARES about my penne alla vodka from tonight because it contained 5 ingredients. Similarly, the brown jambalaya was terrific, but not only was it very simple it photographs very poorly. Let’s be honest, no one wants to see a bowl of raw chicken, or “chopped” raw sausage. It’s just not visually appealing.

So, that’s the scoop for now, my goal is to have the secret experiment solid by the end of next week and the website up by the end of this weekend (yeah, right). We’ll see how that works out.