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Category: Frivolity

Fun posts

I’m on a Jane Austen email loop, and a few weeks ago someone posted this great JA quiz from BBC Mastermind. Since I know many Regency fans are also Janeites like myself, I thought this might be a fun way to celebrate Friday! I’ll post answers in a couple of days. (Note: I’m a dedicated Janeite, and couldn’t answer all of them)
1) Which is JA’s heroine’s had lived in the world for 21 years with little to distress or vex her?

2) Name Mr. Rushworth’s country house.

3) Which card game did Mrs. Jennings arrange for old friends while Marianne awaited word from Willoughby.

4) What was the maiden name of Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Price, and Lady Bertram?

5) Which bone did little Charles dislocate allowing Anne to avoid meeting Captain Wentworth?

6) Which manufacturer made the mysterious piano sent to Jane Fairfax?

7) What was the name of Col. Brandon’s ward over whose seduction he fought a duel with Willoughby?

8) Which of JA”s heroine’s prefers cricket to books, particularly books of information?

9) Which play does Tom Bertram 5 times propose to put on before agreeing to Lover’s Vows?

10) Which material does Mr. Tilney claim to be an authority on?

11) What does Edward Ferrars say he takes more pleasure in than a watchtower?

12) To what does Sir Walter Elliot attribute Anne’s improved compexion, claiming it has done away with Mrs. Clay’s freckles?

13) At the Box Hill picnic, which 2 letters of the alphabet did Mr. Weston claim were the most perfect?

14) In which town did Mrs. Bennet’s sister Mrs. Phillips live?

15) In which frigate, captained by Frederick Wentworth, had Richard Musgrove served?

16) In what capacity did Wickham’s father serve old Mr. Darcy?

As my own bonus question–which JA heroine do you think you most resemble? (A long time ago, I took a quiz on this topic, too. It was lots of fun, but alas now I can’t find it! The quiz said I’m most like Marianne Dashwood. So watch out if I take it into my head to give a dramatic reading at the Beau Monde soiree next summer!)

Just for fun and procrastination I googled ten basic plots and came up with some weird weird stuff as you might expect. So I thought I’d come up with my own. Please feel free to add your own:

  • Hero[ine] leaves home and becomes involved with 50′ high pink rabbit cult.
  • 50′ pink rabbit arrives in town.
  • H/H want each other but physical object such as 50′ pink rabbit prevent their union.
  • H/H both want the 50′  pink rabbit, possessed of title and immeasurable wealth, but not each other.
  • The 50′ pink rabbit runs a spy ring and recruits H/H who become fierce competitors.
  • The 50′ pink rabbit writes a book called A Lot of Shades of Pink that becomes an immediate bestseller despite a rabbit’s typically incompetent grasp of grammar or basic math.
  • The 50′ pink rabbit receives movie deals and product endorsements and H/H plot its downfall.
  • The 50′ pink rabbit inherits a charming but run down B&B in a small town and hires H/H’s respective remodeling/interior design companies (note: excellent for Hero/Hero books)
  • H/H start new job as assistant to the 50′ Billionaire Pink Rabbit who mercilessly sexually harasses them and chews through their power cords.
  • 50′ pink rabbit invites H/H to secret club where he/she/they are forced to wear rabbit costumes and eat carrots.
  • Renegade government agents H/H capture 50′ pink rabbit that is a threat to national security.
  • H/H rescue 50′ pink rabbit imprisoned by Pentagon for secret testing.
  • The 50′ pink rabbit secretly gives birth to a litter of 10 blind 6′ babies.

More, please!

Posted in Frivolity | Tagged | 4 Replies

Besides anxiety about Sandy, Halloween has obsessed me for much of this week.  This past weekend I helped to run a Halloween Party for my UU church, complete with a Haunted House put on by some of the older youth including one of my daughters, who played her role to creepy perfection.

While waiting for Sandy to hit, we finished carving our pumpkins in accordance with this year’s theme, Lord of the Rings.  (My daughters dressed up as Elven maidens in medieval-style gowns and their ever-useful Vulcan ears.)  Here’s my pumpkin, carved with the head of a Balrog, the fire demon that the wizard Gandalf battles in the mines of Moria.

Carving vegetables into scary shapes was already a custom during the Regency, although potatoes and turnips were often used.  If you want to learn more, check out my post about Jack-o-Lanterns from a few years ago.

We were fortunate enough not to lose power, so I was able to toast the pumpkin seeds the next day. This year, we experimented with a Mexican-inspired version. They were quite yummy. Those that I didn’t spill on the kitchen floor while transferring from pan to storage container, that is!

Here’s my recipe should you care to try it:

Ingredients: pumpkin seeds, olive oil, chili powder, cumin, salt.

  1. Rinse pumpkin seeds. Remove all pulp. Drain and spread on a cookie sheet to dry overnight.
  2. Preheat oven to 250F. Line baking sheet with foil.
  3. Toss pumpkin seeds in enough olive oil, salt, cumin and chili powder (about twice as much chili powder as the cumin) to lightly coat them.
  4. Bake for about 1 hour, tossing every 15 minutes, until golden brown.
  5. Cool. Store in airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 months.

Lastly, I was browsing around Youtube and found this clip of Northanger Abbey as if it really were a Gothic horror novel.


I hope you all enjoyed or will enjoy your Halloween, if you live in an area where it has been rescheduled. I think it’s important for the children (all of us, really) to maintain fun traditions even during scary, troubling times.

So what did you do for Halloween or what are you planning?

Elena
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I’m sorry I don’t have a Regency-relevant post for today. I’ve been fighting a nasty cold and just remembered it’s my day! So let me tell you about yesterday.

Given my cold, it turned out to be a very good thing that we weren’t going anywhere or hosting anyone for Thanksgiving this year. I was able to have just the kind of Thanksgiving I could enjoy.
I woke up at about 5:30AM, too congested to fall back asleep. So I got up to have some breakfast, tea and meds, and it turned out to be blessing, because I caught this gorgeous sunrise. The photo doesn’t even do it justice.
My daughters and I shared the cooking tasks, so I was able to spend a lot of time resting on the couch and watching the Finding Bigfoot marathon. Sasquatch fascinates me, as do the Loch Ness Monster, crop circles and anything else on the fringes of science and fantasy.
I was very proud of my daughters. My youngest made deviled eggs and the cranberry sauce (so much better than the stuff that comes out of a can).  My oldest baked honey apple pies, using a recipe from my grandmother’s Lithuanian church ladies’ cookbook.
We worked together on the rest of the feast: herb roasted turkey breast with cider gravy (a Rachael Ray recipe), stuffing muffins (also Rachael Ray) and sweet potato and apple casserole from The Best of the Finger Lakes cookbook. We washed it all down with Finger Lakes Riesling and sparkling cider. Yum.
I feel blessed to have had such a lovely day with family.
I hope you had a wonderful day, too.  Did you do anything special?
Elena
Posted in Frivolity | Tagged | 6 Replies