In no par­tic­u­lar order, those are my inter­ests. (Well, most of them.)

I went to see Maira Kalman speak last week. There were mini Snick­ers bars on every seat in the room. (Note to self: if I ever speak to a large crowd, make sure every­one gets a candy bar.) She has a show up at the Skir­ball Cen­ter that I’m pretty excited about. Here’s a piece of hers that makes me happy:

The museum has a bunch of Kalman-inspired work­shops run­ning through the dura­tion of the exhi­bi­tion. I read the descrip­tion for one called “Sit. Stay. Paint. Good Dog.” and thought, “I want to go to that!”

Pay­ing trib­ute to artist Maira Kalman, who has invented many a charm­ing dog for her beloved children’s books, paint por­traits of live pup­pies brought from the Pasadena Humane Soci­ety. Guided by artists from the pop­u­lar Santa Mon­ica art stu­dio Paint:Lab, painters of all ages will make one-of-a-kind works of art to take home or donate. Feel free to bring in snap­shots of your own pet to serve as your muse (but please leave pets at home!).

I’m in! But wait—Ages 4 and up; chil­dren must be accom­pa­nied by an adult.

Might need to find a child to borrow.

Am I vio­lat­ing Buy Noth­ing Day because I bought a loaf of chal­lah? Left­over turkey on chal­lah is one of my very favorite meals, and man, do we have left­overs. I thought we were going min­i­mal with our menu but we cooked a lot for just the two of us: Ryan’s dad’s stuff­ing, my mom’s mashed pota­toes, roasted cran­ber­ries with jalapenos, roasted brus­sels sprouts with bacon, a turkey breast and pump­kin cream pie.

Speak­ing of food, because I’m sure you haven’t thought about food in a while: I’m par­tic­i­pat­ing in another recipe exchange, this time for the hol­i­days. I’m not up for a few weeks, since I decided to save my recipe for my birth­day, but this week’s recipes looked pretty swell. Tor­rie made turkey gumbo—great for those of you who cooked a full bird. Michelle baked cran­berry bread, and I never need an excuse to buy more cran­ber­ries. Stephanie has a recipe for apple sausage dress­ing, which she sug­gests halv­ing and eat­ing on a non-holiday occa­sion. OK, if you insist. Hope you are hav­ing a lovely hol­i­day weekend.