I made brownies tonight. I’m taking them with us to Pablo and Lisa’s tomorrow for a cookout.

Today I finished watching the first DVD of the Julia Child collection. The second half of the DVD’s episodes are in color, and from 1970, meaning Julia has aged nine years. Man she was just so wonderful. I love the way she explains everything and seems like such a friendly and sweet person. I love the way she measured almost everything with her hands. And the way that she still seemed to marvel at the idiosyncrasies of the food she was making. And how she never ever seemed pretentious or too polished or scripted. These are all the things that made her a star.

I feel bad somehow that only just now am I realizing what an amazing woman she was and discovering why so many millions of people loved her, only now after she has recently passed away. I don’t know why it makes me feel bad, maybe because I feel like if I had learned more about her a decade ago, she would still have something new to share with me? I don’t know.

On one of the shows today she made a boulliabaise — fish soup. She was ultimately fearless and not squeamish, hacking off fish heads and handling eels. Destroying stereotypes left and right.

I still feel intimidated by her recipes, but I will get over it soon I think.

Oh and in other news, ebay is an amazing place to buy very nice new bedding. I spent $140 (inc. shipping) on a set of bedding that includes fitted sheet, flat sheet, four pillowcases, and a duvet cover, all 400-thread-count cotton. At Macy’s, all of that retails for over $600. I’d had my eye on this set since I did my wedding registry, but it was one of the things we didn’t receive. Nice to have new sheets, since I really only had two very old sets before the wedding, one of which has holes in the hem.

Tomorrow is a day off. I really do not feel like celebrating my country’s birthday tomorrow — it’s too depressing thinking about how the ideas of peace and liberty and equality are losing more and more footing every day here — but I am willing to take a paid day off nonetheless.