doezieland

100 percent awesome, squared

2011-08-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a while to blog about this, the most awesome of birthday packages ever and throughout all time and in the future, because I'm totally intimidated to try to put into words just how great it was and what it meant to me. Any attempts will be meager. And, I've forgotten how to write in general, I thinks.

BUT-- I cannot -- CANNOT -- leave this Package of Awesomeness un-homaged. Nor my incredible friend Sam, who designed, created, and sent it to me. Best birthday package ever, Sam. THANK YOU!!

So... let me try to describe it with the most powerful of words: images. :)

It started with a box. Derr. I would've included a picture of the label on the box, because even that was great, but then I'd have to blur out the addresses and that would have just ruined the design. But suffice it to say-- even the LABEL was designed to match the theme of the package! Sam had told me pre-delivery that the bday package had a theme (I was so excited :) -she is TALENTED, after all) --and which I was about to learn when I opened the box to this greeting...

... and found out that the theme was "all things graphically minded"...!

Here's how cute it was even all organized, within the box... SO excited to discover everything... Behold...

The entire package started with a jar. Sam knows I love jars and bottles, and she has a knack

for finding cool ones... and when she found THIS one, she created an entire theme around it!

The cool jar had a square/graph design on it... and the next thing she found was a
locally-made, "graphically simple" lotion... that happened to fit perfectly inside the jar!

...and of course she included a pump for the lotion. And of course I had to
photograph it individually on a graph-type fabric.

... Next, I pulled out a series of books and a little glassine package...

This one, Sam made HERSELF.

A little booklet of graph paper, bound with red ribbon and entitled "Brilliant Ideas"

(soooo appropriate for me :)

(...and so cute!)

Next was a group of three little notebooks with awesome graph-ey designs on them, and a sleeve/label

which read, "Too Many Notebooks? Never!"

My sentiments exactly :) (Sam knows me well...)

...and the little glassine pack held a cool section of graphic ribbon...

she knows how much I looooove ribbon :)

AND-- also in the box-- a Ritter Sport!! Ritter Sports already have "meaning" with us,

but it was more than that-- as evidenced by the little sticker that said, "What? It's a Square!"

Finally, after ALL THAT-- I also found a little bottle of Essie nail polish, in 'Vanity Fairest'

Why, you may ask? Why is nail polish included in a graphic/square-themed package?

I love it.

Thank you so much, Sam!! You truly made my birthday. And I am, as ever, sooo lucky to have you for my friend-- and not just because you're so creative sometimes it makes me want to puke. And that is a heartfelt sentiment. Love you tons--

Be afraid. Be very afraid. And if I was cheesy, I'd write "bee" instead of "be".

2011-08-05T00:31:00.000-07:00

Did you know that bees have tongues? I did not.

I did know that I don't particularly like bees, delicious honey and pollinate-the-earth-so-I-can-eat-fruits-and-veggies notwithstanding; and especially not bees and swimming pools-- because once when I was nine and swimming in a neighbor's pool, I put my hand on the edge of the pool (to halt a particularly fast swim from one side to the other, I'm sure) and there was a bee there and it stung me. Didn't like being pressed under my hand for some reason, but whatever, that's no need for bitter revenge. (Joke's on you though, bee, because YOU DIED for that revenge. Kamikaze death.)

Anyway, that was the last time a bee had the misfortune to sting me, until just a couple of years ago at my own pool... The bees in my neighborhood think it's a great place to get a little drink, and they like to fly around and light on the surface, not realizing it's a pretty high-risk maneuver just for a little pure chlorinated water-- usually they get watered down in the wings, and never make it back out of the pool. As a pre-drink aphrodisiac, they also like to come around and take a sniff of my Coppertone SPF8 as I'm floating around, which I can't really blame them for. And that may seem all tame and commune-with-nature-y, but I have a healthy fear of these bees because I see them attempting subversive attacks, either with sneaky oh-hey-you-smell-great-so-let-me-get-closer flybys, or under the guise of using my floating lounger as a personal liferaft to dry off their sodden wings (if they can paddle close enough to get on). When this happens, I usually splash water in retaliatory attack and then flop/shriek straight off my lounger and go underwater, breathing through reeds until the bee leaves.

Well, this one time I was watching a bee flounder in the water in my pool, and I started feeling less dubious and more gentle and Mother-Nature-esque, and thought maybe I should save him. So, I got the skimmer thingy and used it as a rescue pole, fished him out of the water, and set the net down gently on the side of the pool so he could crawl off. I watched with a proud-mother closed-lip grin on my face as he shook the water off his wings and took a tentative jump into the air, and flew off into the bright blue sky. Then he promptly circled back around and stung me on my inner thigh.

And-- OUCH. (the poison coursing through my entire leg, that is, not my emotion and betrayed pride-- who cares about THAT...) And-- again... really, bee? You know you're going to die after stinging, right--? Was it worth it? Senseless death.

SO--

Today, I was sitting on the edge of a friend's pool, writing letters with my feet in the water, when I noticed a bee was sharing my towel with me. I didn't have any reeds handy and was kind of too relaxed to jump into the water as it was, so I just watched him for a while and figured I'd whack him into the pool if he started getting frisky or doing anything fishy. He was pretty preoccupied with grooming himself anyway, so I didn't feel there was imminent danger... and it was pretty cool to observe (and I felt very National Geographic). He seemed to be stroking his goatee a lot with his hands, and then would use his hind legs to scrape the top and bottom of his... bottom. I congratulated myself both on my keen observations and my knowledgable bee-body-part vocabulary, and thought maybe I should take some field notes. Then I realized... heeeyyyy, bees don't have goatees! and looked closer (with my supersonic eyes, not by leaning closer, I don't have a death wish) and watched more carefully, and... GROSS! It was a long TONGUE that was coming out of there, and he'd wipe his hands on it and then smooth back the hair on his head. Di- sgu- sting. Sure, kittens do it too, but kittens are SUPPOSED to, and everyone knows kittens aren't doing it out of male vanity, which is worse. Anyway, that tongue was GROSS. Long and thin and tapered at the end into a slight curl, which is even grosser. It was longer than the length of the bee's head, even. And pink. Dark pink with a blackish tip. Gross gross gross. The site of it made me rethink french kissing, that's for sure.

Anyway, I quietly got up to get my iPhone to try to capture it in a photograph (I may have been grossed out, but I was still National Geographic), and first successfully snapped the non-action photo of the bee you see at the top of this post, but then couldn't see its movements if I was looking at the screen, so I held my phone at what I thought was the correct angle and would hit the capture button every time that tongue came out. Here is the award-winning shot I got of the bee and its tongue by doing that:

but since that didn't really work and he got bored and flew away before I could try again, here is a photo I found via the Google-net of a bee with its tongue out:

so you can be sufficiently grossed out by it as well. (Here, by the way, is the link to this exceptional photo--I don't know to whom to give the photo cred, so you can go look for yourself.)

Anyway. You learn something new every day, I guess.

(... And thus, I return to blogging :)

Fame! I'm gonna live forever...

2010-12-05T11:44:00.000-08:00

... Or at least for the duration of the Winter 2010 edition of Latter-Day Woman magazine, because I am IN it! Which clearly means that I am now famous! Baby remember my name. (Remember. Remember. Remember. Remember...)

I know I just went on a small tirade a few blogposts back about my loathing of fake fame and those who seek it, but... I'm going to have to take that all back. Fame ROCKS, whether short-lived or long, fame-ish or famous. Andy Warhol knew what he was doing, in his quest for it. (and look how good he turned out--)

I myself was first introduced to the sweet nectar of fame by the musical, Fame. There I was, 12 years old, in my first mature stage production-- playing the part of Marianne, with 14 speaking lines and a position as Lead Dancer-- ...ahh, I can still remember the choreography we did to the title song. (Some of you have been lucky enough to see a re-en-dancement of it, in recent years.) It brought the house down then, and I'm pretty sure it would do the same now. I at least love viewing the VHS recording of the performance and marveling not only at my triangle-shaped perm and pre-teen body, clad in an eighties' leotard, tights and legwarmers, but also at the impressive ad-libbed "warm-up" moves I did to the opening bars of the song. Man I was good. I did make it to heaven, I did light up the sky like a flame. Fame! And today, people would see me and cry.

Since then I've had tastes of fame here and there, like that one time I reached 1,000 views on LDSLinkup during the early days of the site and got in the "Stars" column for a day or so. That was big. Then there was the time I went to an open casting call for Martha Stewart "Apprentice", and was interviewed by the San Diego NBC news when I tried to sweet-talk the authorities into letting me cut to the front of the line. That video clip was online for a while, along with a few quotes by me in an article ("All my friends said I should try out for this. Because I AM Martha Stewart"), but is gone now. Weird-- I'm sure they get a lot of demands for it to be put back up, but whatever.

Most recently, I thought I'd reached real fame by gunning my way into the Top Five of scores on Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters at Disneyland, but that only lasted maybe a few hours before I was bumped off the winner's platform. And not enough people around me realized they were in the company of true sharpshooting genius.

Man... Stacy did HORRIBLY that day. It's still a sore point between us.

But this time--I'm in (digital) print! And it will last not only for a month, but live forever in the archives of the Information Superhighway (thanks, Al Gore, for inventing the Interweb!) And while Fame and Martha Stewart and Buzz Lightyear all sound like worthy causes for self-recognition, this one actually is a nice thing to be a part of.

A writer for Latter-Day Woman magazine, doing an article on Rising Star Outreach, found my India blog linked to the RSO website and contacted me with some questions and a request for photos. I was only too happy to oblige, since I love Rising Star and am passionate about what the organization does, and always want to help get the word out.

So-- here I am! More importantly, here is an article about volunteering with Rising Star, in a section of the magazine called "Choose to Give". What a lovely way of putting it.

Table of Contents page-- the photo in the "40" box is one of my special favorites
from the summer, because one of my favorite ladies is not only actually SMILING
for a photo (usually they remain austere), but she was laughing at that moment.
We were communicating without speaking the same language, and it was great :)

Two-page spread for the actual article. I love the main photo they chose, of my good friend Dani and one of the artists at the Bindu Art School of the Bharathapuram (leprosy) Colony. Once again, there's a language barrier, but smiles abound :)

To see and read the actual article, rather than my ghetto yes-I-took-pictures-of-my-computer-screen images, click HERE

You can also read it in post format on the main website, HERE

and then do two things: go to Facebook and "like" Latter-Day Woman magazine (it's really a great publication!), and then go to the Rising Star website and learn MORE about what you can do to help the leprosy-affected of India! Oh-- that reminds me-- I appear to be actually even MORE famous, because I'm on that website, too... there's a photo of me, as well as a photo I took, on the volunteer page... and I had nothing to do with those (they were put up without me knowing), but-- man. All this fame could go to my head.

If, in fact, I really cared. I actually don't. Fame is fleeting. Mock-pretend-fame (what I've got :) even more so. But what you do for others, is lasting-- THAT lives forever. I don't know about you, but it's the people who go about quietly giving to others, never for the fame of the world-- those are the people I look up to, those are the ones I want to be like, not those whose faces and trivial lives grace the pages of popular culture. So to echo the words of the magazine, CHOOSE TO GIVE.

Thanks, Latter-Day Woman, for helping to get the word out about Rising Star! :)

there are no small cameras, only large blogposts.

2010-12-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

I'm in Not-My-Party Hell right now. My roommates are hosting a fantastic Christmas soiree with a ton of their friends, and it sounds like a lot of fun out there, but I am 1) tired, and 2) tired. Didn't get a lot of sleep while sick this week (being sick is not restful), so after getting home at a reasonable nine pm tonight after my own Friday night activities, I'm holed up in my room for the remainder of the evening. Unfortunately, I am hiding in here to the ironic tune of Of Course I Can't Actually Sleep. TOO - LOUD.

So, figuring I have a few hours to kill before I have to get up at 6:30 am tomorrow (argh), I first watched some episodes of LOST, then decided to go through and document all the coins I have from around the world (riveting) (actually, it was-- I'm sure I'll blog about it at some point), and then I turned on my phone to check messages and decided to look through my camera roll, and...

decided. It's time to take a scroll down iPhone memory lane, with me, again. Welcome (for the second time) to an intimate look at my life, in terms of what I deem so important or interesting or visually cool that it's a dang good thing I have some sort of camera on my person at all times, thanks to the iPhone, so I can take a picture of it. And now, apparently, I think it is so important or interesting or cool that I have to share it WITH THE WORLD. :)

And so, the rest of Year One with my iPhone camera, begins with:

MARCH

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Someone pantsed (pants'd? pants-ed?) the mannequin! Which I am not offended by, because I really hate those Old Navy commercials with the supermodel mannequins. This one had it coming.

APRIL

Spring Break Cruise 2010! Day One! Someday I'll blog about the rest!

(plus I get much more tan as the week progresses...)

My favorite place in Los Angeles :). I usually breathe a sigh of relief when I finally

get to this intersection, because the traffic trek is pretty much over. Then I have to catch

my breath, because the sheer enormity of the temple and grounds are breathtaking.

Reason enough to go to Disneyland: The Captain EO Tribute. It's just as good as you remember.

And even cheesier than you remember, if that's even possible.

MAY

Creating a space in the 60-year-old garage so I could park my car in it while in India for the summer. A few of you will appreciate what a considerable undertaking this was. And how very very spidery.

Glen Ivy Spa does not disappoint in its lunch selections (portabella sandwich, YUM). It does,

however, disappoint in the sulfur-pool-realm. How, exactly, does smelling like rotten eggs soothe you?

JUNE

Guitar Hero on the big screen in my classroom during Finals. I think this could have gotten me voted

Teacher of the Year, except it was the last day of the school year and voting ended a month earlier.

Later that same day, I relaxed in front of another big screen (it swiveled out!) on my way to India, on the best plane ride OF MY LIFE. I wanted to build a fort in my personal compartment and live there for at least a week. Lie-flat beds, you know.

happy happy happy

* * * * *

I rarely didn't have at least one "real" camera with me at all times while in India, but

the trusty iPhone still came in handy in times of photo emergency...

As we came up behind this bus, I noticed it was listing strongly to one side. As we passed it, I saw why... the bus was crammed so full, about ten men had to hang out the doors and off that side in order to get their ride. Not going to lie, I was pretty envious-- if you didn't fall off or get hit by passing vehicles, think how fun it would be! And those are probably the high-cost "seats" because it's much more airy than inside the over-crowded bus.

JULY

Opening Day of ECLIPSE in India! July 30, 2010. We thought the theater was pretty fancy

and awesome until we got inside and the screen was about 6 x 10 feet.

-And except for our group of five American girls, the entire theater was filled with Indian men. Strange. Until we figured out it was because there was kissing in the movie, which is VERBOTEN in Bollywood. So really it was a theater full of a bunch of pervs.

...who, apparently, were allowed to talk to each other and on their phones the entire movie, but during the Intermission (a halt at a very illogical point in the movie), I tried to take a photo and THAT was forbidden. So this was one surreptitiously taken in the dark. Never mind, by the way, that one could buy a pirated copy of the movie in the neighboring mall.

I love this shot. POURING rain, four girls crowded into the back of an auto-rickshaw, about

to get even more soaked barreling down the insane city streets of Chennai.

* * * * *

AUGUST

BACK IN THE U. S. of A... What better way to celebrate the democracy and frivolity

of America than to spend my first Saturday back at an amusement park? Not to mention enjoy

edited religious freedom... (Close, Magic Mountain. You were so close.)

If John really loved me, he'd win me that Rastafarian Banana. Any real man would.

(I can't believe how many people were actually carrying that thing around...)

I did it! I rode Tatsu! Best rollercoaster on earth! I would have enjoyed the face-down-flying

more if I wasn't worried the whole time that I couldn't get a decent

folded-arm-grip to hopefully keep me from falling out if my chest harness

was faulty or malfunctioned and/or happened to spring open.

I'm sorry, I know Colossus is old and low-tech... but it is really, REALLY scary.

That thing is made of WOOD! That looks like a cartoon character ramshackle-nailed-it-together at random.

Late late later that night, Stacy almost hit me while backing up her car.

Good thing it is a fancy new car with a backup camera.

* * * * *

SEPTEMBER

This photo doesn't make the pizza look larger, the pizza was actually larger than it

LOOKS. Man. Thanks, Kristie!

A friend made fun of the nine pillows I have on my bed. I protested. (Um-- necessary!!)

So he gathered the pillows from the guest room to add even more to my collection,

and created his own version of my "made" bed. In the form of Burning Man.

I was pretty impressed. :)

heeheeheehee

I asked, Did you write that on your arm to ask someone to Homecoming?

And he said no, but to make girls THINK he was asking them to Homecoming.

(And in the lamest way possible). - SO - GREAT ...

Sho the sushi chef. Landon gave him a vague general idea, and Sho came up

with an impressive and delicious culinary masterpiece. OH I love sushi! Then

I took this picture and Sho got mad at me. Then after I turned red, he started

laughing because he was kidding. OH I love Sho!

* * * * *

Another culinary masterpiece: FOOD TRUCKS. There were so many great ones at

the Los Angeles Outdoor Cinema Food Festival, that we had to eat from at least two.

And the movie...?

FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF! When was the last time YOU saw it on the big screen?

(and an INFLATABLE screen, at that--?)

* * * * *

Sometimes students make me happy, like when they make ascots out of screen fabric.

Other times, they don't follow directions and get untreated ink in the sink,

and make me mad. So I take photos of the crime scene, to bust them later.

And I'm afraid that, someday, I'm going to drop my iPhone when holding it

backwards out the window while driving 45 mph. But-- sunset!!

OCTOBER

Lab Fee Contest winners. (Aforementioned Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting...) I'm impressed that the kids liked them. Refined palates, those...

An even WORSE Ink-In-The-Sink offense. (low growl.) This kid got

the "I'm sounding overly patient but really I'm seething inside"-type-of lecture.

Running the Rose Bowl loop, I saw this sign for the first time. I was REALLY excited

that Stephen Colbert was running for Congress. And I was REALLY wrong about that.

This was a great moment. I confiscated this kid's phone for a class period because he was texting without permission. Joked around that I liked the phone, how did anyone know it was his, maybe I'd turn it into the Dean's office and say that it was mine and had been stolen... At the end of the period I gave it back to the kid, after having labeled it as mine... which the student DIDN'T SEE until two periods later in another class, when he was using it again without permission, and the teacher walked by and said, "Put your phone away... I mean, MISS DOEZIE's phone??" and almost sent him and the phone to the dean's office.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

(Here is where he came in to express his indignation. And laugh, of course. Totally got him. :)

After running the Rose Bowl loop on another rainy day, I encountered the Tea Party in the

parking lot after they drove by. And as I'm famously unaware of the goings-on in the world right now,

I was pretty clueless about the Party. But I DID learn that Colbert for Congress is NOT Stephen Colbert.

And that the US flags they were handing out at the rally weren't for free.

For Staff Development Day, we helped to "weed" the art section of the library.

There were a lot of treasures to (sadly) throw away. I got quickly attached to this

one. I TOTALLY judge books by their covers (literally), and this one got me both

on title AND on image. "Native Funk & Flash"! And the cover photo speaks for itself. Shrieks, really.

(...I'm sorry, but the hippie era was WACKY. Read below.)

Really? -- REALLY??

We (the Southern California Mormon Choir) were privileged to get to sing with a Baptist

choir in Los Angeles for a special community event. It - was - AWESOME!! Loved

the accompanying band, particularly when there was background organ/synthesizer music

during the prayers. Seriously so great.

Running along the Venice/Santa Monica beachfront at sunset.

Talk about soothing.

(that's not me)

this picture doesn't capture it, but the gulls were right overhead, going

just slightly faster than me and flying low, fat bellies tinged gently pink by

the setting sun... it was surreal.

* * * * *

While I appreciated the effort in color scheme, this shirt was so not quite right. I told him to keep

his jacket zipped up, and just let her peek out. It was a good compromise.

Granite Bay, NoCal... great place to run. And an even better place to visit my dear

friends, the Gallachers, who lived in Austria at the same time I was teaching in Salzburg, and who made

an AWESOME Austrian dinner for us when I came to NoCal to visit!

Rothkohl, Gruener Salat, Bauernschmauss, Spaetzle, Brot... ohhh yeah.

NOVEMBER

This abandoned sign says, HAVE ANY MONEY YOU DON'T WANT?

I almost picked it up and took it for myself. Seems like a pretty legit request, really.

* * * * *

There are many reasons I like Leesburg, Virginia. I especially appreciated being

there for Veteran's Day, where the kids actually celebrated the holiday by going to school,

and having an amazing Veteran's Day assembly! Patriotic songs and all. Okay, some

overly-cheesy, but the overall hour was a tearjerker. I love America.

On my way to Congress. To visit Stephen Colbert, of course.

Dulles airport. Pretty cool-looking.

* * * * *

Really? "NEW"-?

* * * * *

And finally...

Sometimes, even driving in downtown LA traffic is enjoyable. With a spectacular sunset

in my rearview mirror, the city ahead glowed pink against a backdrop of storm clouds,

and I experienced it all to the soundtrack of Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.

And cried, it was so beautiful.

I wonder what my iPhone will see next... hopefully not a picture of my face tomorrow, because even though the party is now long over, insomnia has set in. Argh. Three hours' sleep is enough, right?

Bake Friday

2010-11-26T15:20:00.001-08:00

So it's Black Friday, the greatest shopping day of the American year, and I'm home, laid-out-flat sick in bed. Am I crying about that? A little, because I get kind of weepy and vulnerable when I'm sick, especially when I'm alone with no one to make toast, soup, and chamomile tea for me. And because I am really, really sad that I can barely move right now, when I'd rather be in Orange County with my family today, especially those who have come in from out of state. Poor me. :(

Oh. Writing that paragraph sapped all my energy. I need to sleep for a few hours.

* * * * * *

Okay. I can sit up now.

Anyway, so I might be crying about being sick (if I had the energy to muster up some tears, which would probably just turn to steam on my fever-hot cheeks anyway), but I'm NOT crying about missing Black Friday. I am totally anti-Black Friday. I don't even like the name of it, it sounds negative and depressing to me-- even though I understand the symbolism, that being "in the black" is a good thing -- and I know I should be glad that our retail friends get to gain a little in their books in this recession era, but... I can't stand the over-consumerism of it. And I have a lot of bad associations with it, from eight years of working at Williams-Sonoma, where I had to go to into work first at midnight on Thanksgiving to change over the displays from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and then (as Black Friday REALLY gained steam), at 4am the day after Thanksgiving because the mall now opened at 5am. Ugh. Not that WS had any 'doorbusters', come on, but we had to deal with the frantic early-morning shoppers pounding at the door, anyway.

So. Instead of Black Friday, I think there should be a NEW tradition-- BAKE Friday. Make Thanksgiving a two-day holiday, spreading out the eating AND the prepping. Spreading out the joy. You know how it is-- you eat so much dinner on the Day of Thanks, that once dessert comes around, you don't really want it. And if your family is anything like my friend Sari's family, the dessert-- the PIE-- is the best part! ("One Pie Per Person". It's a great tradition they have!). Pie is better the second day anyway. Grabbing a pie, a can of whipped cream, and a couple of forks, and eating it together--straight out of the pan--as you watch sports or a movie or something, and on a slightly empty stomach after a leftover-turkey sandwich... awesome. Plus, there's so much stress on Thanksgiving Day to get all the food made, why not do the desserts the next day? All together, as a family? The family that bakes together... I don't know, I can't think of a rhyme for that. Probably gets fat together or something. BUT, at least one day a year should be okay. :)

So next year, I think I'm going to start this. Can't really start it this year. For starters, even though I went running yesterday morning in preparation for dinner later (and probably stupidly, because I could tell I was getting sick... it was just such a gorgeous, clear, chilly fall day...), I didn't eat much because I don't like feeling full. And, since I wasn't too full for dessert, I ate the pumpkin part of tiny slice of pumpkin pie. (Not pretending to be small, here-- I did pile it with whoop and I also ate two Trader Joe's chocolate-covered Peppermint Joe-Joe's... OH MY). Also, though I LOVE to bake, I don't bake for me, and I don't have anyone to give any creations to, today. Also, I'm sick and shouldn't be baking anything.

So in honor of the future of Bake Friday, here's a small snapshot of some of the particularly awesome baking I've done this past year. And what I will be happy to provide if you invite me to your own Bake Friday, next year.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting, S'mores Cupcakes, and then Red Velvet Cupcakes again (because I love them so much). These were class competition awards. Good thing, because if I didn't bake them for someone else, I'd want to eat them ALL-- the cinnamon-buttercream ones, that is. Whose recipe comes from this AWESOME cookbook:

As does a recipe for a Peanut-Butter Pie with Chocolate Crust. Oh man that was decadent.

I can't remember what the ganache was for. I think it was a layer between the crust and the whipping-cream/peanut-butter layer. Rich rich rich. It's a great cookbook.

Also for my classes, I make chocolate chip cookies. Which don't sound like much, but when you have to make them for 160 students, it requires quite a lot of dough.

Worth it, though. I hand out cookies with semester grades, to either Celebrate the Joy or Ease the Pain. And, every time, I'm surprised by the general reaction, to learn that so many kids DON'T have anyone baking from scratch, for them. Sad!

Also in the cookie realm--homemade Samoas. Totally a pain-and-a-half to construct. Delish, and you can't ever go back to the Girl Scout kind, but I don't know that I'll personally make them again. At least not in circle form; maybe in bars. Thanks Sam for the recipe!

Then last spring, needing something "citrus" for a recipe club night, I found this recipe for Chilled Lime-Coconut Pie with Macadamia-Coconut Crust. It was my favorite for a while (meaning I made it twice). Just so pretty... yummy too.

Also last spring came an adventure in Baked Alaska. It was my faaaaavorite dessert (of MANY) of last spring break's cruise (future blog subject), so I thought I'd try my hand at it. A lot of construction involved, and fortunately I actually owned the requisite 'bombe' pan TO construct it. I think it was on sale for three dollars or something at WS about six years ago. Figured I'd need it someday. Glad I could finally use it :)

It wasn't nearly as good as the Princess Cruises "Ice Cream Bombe 'Diplomat'", my meringue definitely needs work to become more silky, and the happy face sure wasn't necessary even if I did have extra meringue in my piping bag, but... kinda cool to bake ice cream in the oven and learn about the magic insulation properties of egg whites. Cool.

For Thanksgiving yesterday I baked my standard tied-knot rolls (no pictures, sadly... and MORE sadly, I thought I wouldn't want any today, so I gave away all the leftovers... ARGH), and these Gruyere-based Gougeres for an appetizer. Both are time-consuming, but worth it.

And... now that Christmas is coming up, I'll probably be making gingerbread boys (and girls, and stars, and trees). A roommate at college gave me the recipe 13 years ago, and I OD'd on them probably six years ago, and they're also totally a pain to make, but... I love them nonetheless :)

Way less effort are these Caramel-Chocolate-Oatmeal bars. These are my go-to cookies these days, as long as I have a bag of caramels on hand in my cupboard. (Which I usually do, so I'm always ready to make a quick treat when needed.) Also very necessary to give away, though, because these babies are NOT low-fat. I rue the day I learned the nutritional info for them. Ergh.

Finally... my new love.

BREAD. Bread bread bread.

A friend gave me a loaf of this homemade wheat bread one day and, the next day when I cut into it, it was springy and soft and OH SO DELICIOUS that I immediately asked for the recipe, and also immediately renamed it to Oh My Heavenly Bread. I'm not kidding, it's that good.

Easy to make, too, if you have a Bosch or a Kitchen-Aid, and if you pre-bag all the various dry ingredients (including 10-grain cracked cereal mix, oatmeal, stone-ground wheat flour, bread flour and vital wheat gluten) and make the effort to find dough enhancer/conditioner/improver, which is what makes a potentially-heavy-with-grains bread soooo light and springy... do all that, and you can whip up two loaves in about two hours, start to finish. I think I've made over twenty-four loaves in the past six weeks. Bread therapy. Let it rise, go out for a run, come back and bake it, and then give it away.

(Sometimes I have to keep a loaf for myself, though... not my fault, sometimes I have to cut into one just to make sure it's good :).

I wish every day could be Bake Friday.

TV or not TV

2010-11-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have very little patience for television. It started in India, when I didn't watch it for 2.5 months (except for DVDs of two seasons of Friday Night Lights, of course), -- no, wait -- no, it started with the end of LOST. Which, by the way, was aptly titled The End. But I can't really talk about that, or I'll start to tear up. Just .. so... painful. It's bad enough that I have the final movement from the LOST score (also aptly titled, "Moving On") on my iPod and every time I listen to it, I get a little teary thinking about Jack, and... that he DIED, and...

Anyway. I'm apathetic about TV because 1) there's not much I really care to watch now, and 2) I have little patience for it in general. Not much catches my attention without making me antsy.

But, you'd think that all would have changed with the advent of SKATING WITH THE STARS. I had heard about it in passing, in a radio ad (also little patience for radio, except KUSC and KOST... though I think the KOST only has 85 songs on its Christmas playlist, because I've heard each of them 35 times already in the past week), but thought... a skating reality show--?? Naaah. That's like a dream, come TRUE.

Well.

Late Monday night, after I had gone running and then finished the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy (ADDICTED!), I was a little antsy because the book ended on a cliffhanger so I needed some new action/entertainment to keep me occupied, so--I flipped on the TV. And what came up but... the last fifteen minutes of Skating with the Stars! Just like Santa isn't (sorry kids), this show is REAL!

And, it turns out... just as annoying as every other reality show. I ended up only being able to watch it for about five minutes, because I can't stand false fame and canned judges'-table comments. I was unfortunate enough to watch this woman's training session and performance, because the whole time I didn't get why she was a 'star' (I've since found out, but don't care enough to give it due, here)

and then be annoyed because every judges' comment was about her amazing, or "sick" (as Johnny Weir put it) body , which is more how I feel about it-- sure it looked great for skating, but on its own appeared grotesquely anorexic to me with her head too big for her lower 7/8ths. I'm not saying this to put her down, but in being disturbed by the sick praise of it.

Oh okay and the other reason I decided I didn't like the show is because I am INSANELY jealous of those people who get to train intensely with real skating stars for partners, which partners hold them safely in death-spins and make the impossible, possible... I have GOT to acquire some fake-fame of my own, FAST, so I can be on the next season of this show!! Not that it's going to last beyond a season, I don't think, but just in case... PLUS they get to wear cool plush robes with their skateguards when saying goodbye for the night. Man I'm jealous.

After Reality Heaven was over, came the news. Yeah, I really have no patience for that, either. Monday's Headline News was: it was cold outside. It was journalistic genius. I listed to a reporter in the field interrogate a woman about her thoughts on the weather, and what she planned to do to stay warm ("Um.. it was cold today? ... I think I'll stay inside where it's warm, and then wear a coat when I go outside...?") for about two minutes. That was enough.

But then... I remembered that I had last week's episode of Community still to watch, recorded-- and then, I remembered why my cable bill is all worth it. Blanket forts and conspiracy theories (and Joel McHale, who is... HHHHHOT!!!), this show did not-- and does not ever-- disappoint.

And THEN... after Community was over and I flipped my TV input source back to cable, what did Destiny have waiting for me but The Colbert Report... WITH Martha Stewart. It was a Pre-Thanksgiving Miracle! Especially because he was showing her his OWN Thanksgiving hors d'oeuvres, one in the form of white bread spread with mayonnaise and sprinkled with powdered Kool-Aid. He is a GENIUS.

I think I love TV after all. :)

There are friends, and then there are FRIENDS.

2010-11-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

This is a FRIEND. Her name is Sam. And she's really, really pretty, but also willing to make faces/poses on command to appease my every photographic whim. Here she is being a T-Rex to a miniature Supreme Court. Awesome.

That's only one of her friend qualities, though. Where to begin, where to begin ... I should begin 16 years ago, because there are some pretty classic photos of the two of us in our EFY days, especially with me wearing a plaid jumper, but... those are joys for another day. Let's talk about what she means to me today.

I meet a lot of people, and I've been lucky to make a lot of friends over the years. Some of them come and go--they are important and close for a time, then distance separates us and the friendship lives on in fond memories only. That's okay, it's just the way it goes. Then there are those who remain close, no matter the distance or circumstance, no matter even how regular or irregular the friend-contact is. Like when you haven't talked or seen each other for a long time, but when you do, it's like no time has passed--the friendship is just as strong.

Sam is that kind of friend, and I'm so grateful to get to call her mine. I usually only see her every couple of years, and eight months ago, I had made reservations to visit her on the opposite side of the country for this past Veteran's Day weekend. Perfect timing. :) Because...she's true, she's loyal, I'd trust every feeling and confidence with her. She's unselfish. She's an example to me in innumerable ways, in her roles of mother and wife and daughter and sister and community member and in how incredibly creative she is. And she's dang funny.

So together, we laugh, we cry, we eat, we bake, we explore, we commiserate, we confide, we watch the final episode of LOST and cry again, and we take hundreds of pictures while sightseeing because sometimes that's more fun than sightseeing, we window-shop and don't buy things we don't need, we outlet-shop and find fantastic deals on things we DO need... (yay coat! :)

She gives her baby lemons to make me laugh. Then she only slightly makes fun of me for the many, semi-ugly laughs I have.

She share her best recipes AND introduces me to my new favorite cereal.

She lets me be a horrible guest and sleep in, she lets me sleep through New Moon even though she's more tired than me, she lets me ditch her on a Saturday night to rendezvous with someone else, she lets me talk about the same thing over and over, she lets me cry spontaneously, and she lets me be a part of her AMAZING family. She inspires me and shares her spirit with me. I love her dearly.

How blessed and lucky am I. :) Thank you, Sam!

(p.s. it's going to be the best Christmas EVER!!! :)

smart like a man

2010-11-09T23:01:00.000-08:00

I've screen-printed many a great shirt in my day. Or, at least, I've screen-printed many a shirt. Thousands for groups on campus, lots for class demos, and some just because I feel like it. I've got a couple Ikea wire basket "drawers" full of shirts I've printed, and some are my faves to wear... but the following are my most-faves EVER.

This "doezieland" (2nd Happiest Place on Earth) shirt was my first attempt at multi-color shirt printing, about five years ago. Wait, that's a lie-- my first attempt didn't turn out that well. Trial and error-- mostly due to the "awkward placement" of the design just a taaaad too low on the front-- so I redid it and this was the result. Pretty proud of it, I must say... AND it got me free parking at the Happiest Place on Earth one year, on my birthday, which (coincidentally? NOT coincidentally?) is the SAME DAY as Disneyland's birthday! Not same birth-year, though. I'm quite a bit younger.


(totally meant to look faded/distressed like that. Y'know, retro.)


prepping for a big night with plenty o' caffeine, in Santa Cruz

This next one (modeled by Stacy) was a class demo, showing how to use different kinds of textures and inks (a puffy ink, a foil transfer, and a blacklight ink)... the design isn't super-fab, but it's the symbolism behind the design that counts. (My friends are super-lucky because every time I have to do a shirt-printing demo, I make it something I can give away btw.) For this one, the HB stands for Huntington Beach, done in a spoof design of those ridiculous city stickers that are a spoof/copy themselves of the more legit country stickers in the EU... To the upper right of the "B" is a little 3 (done in red foil), to signify HB to the Third. In other words, to "celebrate" (argh) our third annual Huntington Beach Mid-Singles Conference. Argh. Under the oval, in blacklight ink (so it's not readily visible, except in a par-tay!) (said sarcastically, come on) it says, THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM. Oh and then, on the back, in strong white letters, it shouts RESIGNED IN '09. Yep. Those conferences have lovely themes like "hope", and "trust", and "never give up, there's still 50 years to go", and my brother once said to me, "Why don't they have real themes, like "Denial", "Apparently Alone Forever", or "Aw, crap. Again?". So, we made our own theme that year. (It was a close race between IT IS WHAT IT IS and RESIGNED IN '09.)

Oh yeah, and my students were totally baffled by the text on the shirt. I said, "Don't worry about it." I'm a great teacher.

Last March, I made this shirt just for fun, and more specifically for the line-dancing portion of KJ's Wild West (birthday) Weekend... cheaper than buying myself a snap-down plaid shirt, but still able to be tied up under my boobs in appropriate fashion for the line-dancing crowd. IF I happened to have awesome cowboy boots to wear with denim cut-off short-shorts, that is. SO sad that I had neither. Because my line-dancing skills sure weren't impressing the local Temecula cowboy crowd on their own.

I'll be honest, this picture doesn't really do it justice... because the horseshoe is done in a copper metallic foil, and the "cowboys" is printed as a blend of khaki, gold and bronze metallic ink. YeeHAW.

Shortly after my cowboy genius, it was time for spring's Tri-Textured-Tee demo, and fortunately that coincided with spring's Spring Break And Caribbean Cruise With Friends. Insta-gift!

I'm not going to lie, this shirt was GENIUS. Not only was it lovely and wave-y, and stated the obvious of "Crown Princess" on the front, (the name of the ship we were on, a mighty ship she was), BUT-- it utilized photochromic ink. Which is clear/barely visible when inside/out of the sunlight...

...BUT, when outside during the day, the ink turned to purple and shouted,

Because of course, if we were outside during the day, we were most likely wanting a fresh plate of delicious french fries from the poolside Grill. Pretty standard for us four. (And something we reeeeally look forward to, each cruise...)

Then on the back/bottom of the shirt, it gave a little more info about just what the shirt was commemorating...

Pretty standard. UNTIL you went inside, and started to turn off the lights to go to sleep, and suddenly realized you were hungry, and the shirt conveniently reminded you that you probably wanted a

Glow-in-the dark ink! Pretty awesome. And appropos. And hard to see unless it was dark. Hence the appropos-ness of it all.

A mere month later, my little bro Derek left for Missouri to serve a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and though he'd be dressing appropriately in suits, shirts-and-ties until May of 2012, I thought he'd need one more printed tee from me before he left anyway. Then I printed one for myself (and in a girlier fabric color) after he left, so we'd have that bond. If you're a Hot Rod fan, you'll totally get this... if not, you just won't. But if you are.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SO GREAT!

(Derek is a big Hot Rod fan. He had me send him a fake mustache to wear, even. I don't know if he's had chance to wear it in Missouri, yet...)

BUT AFTER ALL THESE GREAT SHIRTS...

My most recently-printed shirt has got to be my most FAVORITE one of ALL time. (So far. :)

Here's a close-up in case you can't quite tell what it says:

Yes. That's what it says. And it's SO TRUE.

That's black shimmer ink, by the way. Which I'm sure is exactly what you're thinking about as you look at this design. As far as the text... I can't even begin to explain, or do this quote justice. But it makes me happy, that's for sure :) And isn't that what a good screen-printed shirt is all about?

* * * * *

(p.s. if you have a really great shirt idea, I need one... I've got this fall's shirt-printing demo coming up in two weeks!)

gunpoint

2010-11-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

And then there were 3 policemen at my door, four cop cars barricading my driveway, one SWAT vehicle and one chopper on their way, and a plumber being held at gunpoint.

Pretty normal Saturday morning for me. I think I need to tell this story in full, some time.

loss

2010-11-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

(this photo has no real significance with this post, except that I took it a week ago on a four-mile run and it looks like "loss', to me...)

So, as I've mentioned in previous posts (but never gone into full detail about), every year on my birthday I make a list of things to do on that day, as many things as I am old. Because I am so old now, sometimes it's hard to think of enough awesome things, but I'm realistic and write down even the obvious like "eat Lucky Charms for breakfast" (just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's not special), so I can be sure and accomplish all of them, because a side-'thing' is to be able to finish the list. It's going to get really tricky when I start aging into triple-digits-- that's a LOT of things to do in one day, huhm. Especially as time goes faster, the older you get-- by the time I'm 100, what is a 24-hour-day to me right now will probably have shortened into about 16.3 hours. And 12 of those will be taken up by night-sleeping and day-dozing.

Someday I'll have to post one of those lists. They're pretty epic.

The other thing I do on my birthday, if I remember (read: if I put it on my to-do list), is write a list of GOALS for the coming year. Not necessarily as many as I am old, come on that's just ridiculous. But I do like to buck the system and write such on my birthday, instead of being a New Year's cliche... though, much like NYR's, I don't always reach the stars and achieve those dreams. In fact, every year, it seems, I have some recurring goals-- 1) learn the cello, 2) get married, d*#@ it--, 3) lose twenty pounds, and 4) avoid acquiring a litter of cats.

Worthy aspirations, all, but let's specifically look at number three of those four.

Doesn't every girl want to lose twenty pounds? At all times? Shouldn't writing it down as a birthday goal automatically make it happen, or at minimum as a Granted Birthday Wish in reward for blowing out all the candles? (and that's a LOT of candles-- I am very old, after all).

Well, here was the problem-- one day, a few years back, I turned 30. Here I am halfway through Thirty:

I know I look hunchbacked. I also know the date-stamp says " '89".
Both of these appearances are false.

Hot, yes? Yes. At least according to some random film photos I scanned for something else last week. Ahh, so young, so fresh-faced... so free from earthly worries... (it helped, of course, that I was working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean at the time, and had both a lot of sun and and an endless amount of Shirley Temples at my disposal.)

That (the apparent continuation of youth) was a trick, though. I hadn't yet realized that, not only had my skin suddenly started to lose elasticity around the eyes at the stroke of midnight on my first day of Thirty, but my metabolism was also secretly staging a coup which would turn to outright rebellion. In the form of a big yawn as it went to sleep, because, after all, it had been working moderately hard for 30 years already.

So, in return, every ensuing year a few pounds crept up and took residence. I fought and fought, but the old metabolism and I were no longer on the same page. Rebellion, remember. I tried a lot of different tactics, but to no lasting avail.

Then, about twenty months ago, after the loss of my grandfather and encouraged/inspired by a recently-newly-svelte friend, I put my foot down and went to work in earnest. And lost 12 pounds.

Then I went to India for three weeks in the summer and lost an additional 6 pounds. Hurrah!

Then, I became RSP and was stressed and busy all last year and maybe fluctuated 4 pounds or so in the course of nine months. Booo. But I knew I was going back to India for the summer, this time for 10 weeks, so I would automatically lose a ton of weight and come back really really skinny. Hurray!!

Then I went to India, and we had plenty of fruit to eat this summer, and as I kept getting sick from the campus food, I ate a lot of ramen, so-- I didn't lose the 20 more pounds I was hoping to. Boooo.

BUT-- I came home and it turned out I'd lost a few (the fun-house mirror in my room, plus the flowy tunics, had convinced me otherwise while there) and was at the exact same weight from a year earlier. Yay! And Boo. Not skeletal-skinny. But still good!

STILL, though-- the magic number 20 was eluding me. Since my return from India, I have been intent on eating little and exercising a lot, because I know myself and my idiot metabolism, but I wasn't going any lower. Couldn't get past 19.

*tangent*

So, I haven't blogged since I got back from India. I didn't blog very much during the summer, either, and that's because I just stopped caring-- all the stories I wanted to tell, I only really cared about a select few people (or one person) knowing. Same since I got back.

*return from tangent*

But now... I am at a loss. I no longer have that audience to listen to me, so back to the blog I go. And hand-in-hand with the sad loss of that audience has come the loss of appetite, plus an increase in the desire to run, which together happen to foster another (more desirable) kind of loss, so... there is a flip-side-bonus to all this, which is...

Goodbye, magic number 20. I've moved on to 21!! (and counting). Take that, Metab.

Gotta go run. :)

back from the future

2010-08-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

It's like time isn't a straight line, but one eternal round. Huh. Where have I heard that before...

I seriously feel like I'm in a time warp. Not only that, I'm in a time warp AGAIN. Not per the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but in that I feel like I'm in a big deja vu, all over again. Which is like deja vu deja vu. Speaking of, I sure wish I knew how to type an 'e' with an accent mark over it, and an 'a' with the same but facing backwards. Maybe I'll learn how to do it by the next time I relive what I'm reliving right now.

So here's why the time warp:

1. About to deal with coming back and adjusting to being home after being in India... again. Third time in a year. I'm all confused.

2. Time stands still in India in many ways. Strange to be re-entering the modern world.

3. Right now I'm in Hong Kong, at this moment doing the same things I did 10 weeks ago when I was here on my way TO India. Including posting a photo of clouds on my blog, again, that I had taken out the airplane window right before landing, again.

4. The 80's are back. And yet they're not. It's like the time-space continuum is all wrong.

(I wish I could have had a Rubik's Cube t-shirt showing me how to solve it...

I never gained cool status in the 80's because I couldn't)

But MOST importantly-- not only is everything coming full-circle, but...

As I type this, it's 10:44 pm on Sunday evening. I will be leaving Hong Kong at 11:40pm Sunday, and arriving back home at 10:00pm Sunday. In other words, I will be traveling BACK IN TIME. The entire 13+ hours on that plane, I will every-so-slowly be regaining 100 minutes of my life. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS??

(new list)

1. I have found a much easier way to travel through time than purchasing plutonium from terrorists and dealing with quantity profusions like "gigawatts".

2. I can make all sorts of mistakes, and sin n' stuff, and it will have never really happened. I'll be re-doing those 100 minutes while on the plane, after all, and it's a pretty safe zone there-- I'm generally a good person while on a plane, so happy to be there that I'm not thinking mean thoughts or the like. At least when in business class, that is; in economy I'd probably want to punch the 10-year-old repeatedly kicking the seat and lowering and raising the tray table behind me, causing me to wake up from an over-tired sleep every two minutes. But tonight: business class = all things happy and light.

3. Can't wait to get off the plane and see how much younger I look! I should probably take before-and-after photos.

4. I am definitely going to have the upper hand on everybody, because I'll already know what's going to happen. At least for an hour-and-forty-minute window of time.

Don't be freaked out, I'm not going to suddenly be robotic or anything. But if you want to talk to someone from the future, you'd better be awake on "your" Sunday night. OH it's going to be so boring, having to re-live the same minutes again. I wish it could be some of the earlier minutes of my today, they were pretty great.

(case and point)

Well, I'm about to get on that plane and take the same journey as Lois Lane, Marty McFly, Phil of the Future and just about every other really cool person in history. I shall join them in the annals of time. So to speak.

I'm off!

see you soon! Again, so to speak. Back in the U S of A!!!

BIRTHDAY

2010-07-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

It is. Mine. I'm in INDIA. It pretty much rocks.

Every birthday (in recent years), I celebrate by making a list of things to do that day, as many things as I am old, and then try to DO them all. And well... as I get older, that list gets (obviously) exponentially longer, sooo... more things to try and do. Because of that, some of them are things like, "get out of bed." Pretty monumental. Another standard one is "make out." That doesn't usually happen.

TODAY, though-- easy! Because, as aforementioned, I'm in INDIA. Everything is special and cool. So I think I actually have more than (--) things (like I'm going to say how old I am, on here) on this year's list. "Make out" was left off, though, because... well, for so many reasons. Like, I could be put in jail.

But I don't have time to do a full blogpost about the list and my Very Special Birthday, because it's 11:15pm and I have more to do from said list tonight, but, ONE of the things on the list was "blog", sooo... here we are! And I can't put up photos from today because I didn't bring a card reader with me (oh yeah I'm at the Marriott in Chennai tonight! Best bday ever!), so here's a stock photo:

Sarah, Amy, and me... two of my partners in crime for our getaway (the third is Dani)... SO MUCH FUN. More to come.

oops gotta go-- being kicked out of the executive lounge--

midnight village hindu festival: [check]

2010-06-30T02:38:00.000-07:00

The blogpost for this video can be found HERE...

(don't have video options on my India blog. Wah, waaahhh)

.

everybody's working for the weekend

2010-06-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

So... you may or may not know that I am spending the summer in India. And by that, I mean the ENTIRE summer. Not summer as in July 21-Sept 22, but summer as in Summer Vacation-- because I think in School Years, not Gregorian. And by "entire", I mean that I left for India on the evening of the last day of school, and get back home the night (late night) before school starts again. (About 8 1/2 hours before, to be almost-exact). Not a day at home this entire summer. NOT - ONE.

But, of course, it's soooooo worth it. It's a lot of work over here, and I have a new admiration for the standard working-class folk (You all! Working all year without a 10-week summer break! What?!), and at SOME point I will actually explain what work I'm doing over here, but....

This post is all about what makes it all worth it. WEEKENDS.

Okay, no, really that's not true at all. What makes it all "worth it" is everything that happens during the week, the service and the kids and the people of the leprosy colonies, but... well yes a girl needs a break too. And since it doesn't feel quite right to talk about the frivolities of weekend play on my India blog, here we are! (Not that I've really done much blogging on that other one anyway, yet-- too busy WORKING.) (Yes I am making a point of that. As this is obviously a new concept for me, full-time summer work.)

But I think the weekends are noteworthy in themselves, so let's take a photo journey through the two I've had so far... both times it's been a trip to....

MAMALLAPURAM!!!

(Or you can also call it Mahabalipuram. Both count.) (It's India.)

About a 1.5-2 hour drive from Rising Star in Uthiramerur Taluk, Mamallapuram is a World Heritage Site of temples, caves, bas-reliefs and shrines situated by the beach (!) on the Bay of Bengal. It's pretty cool. And, it has good shopping :).

On my first Saturday there, after getting ourselves fitted for some tailored kurtas/chudidar tops, we went to the ever-popular Moonrakers restaurant for lunch-- because it's ever-popular, and because the sign outside advertised grilled lobster.

Dani checking to see that it's fresh/live. Yep.

It's a pretty cool-lookin' restaurant (as long as you're not looking at the flies on everything)...

Katie had a "lime soda"-- lemon or lime squeezed into a glass, and accompanied by a bottle of plain soda

(looks pretty cool as it fizzes up)

I chose a lime lassi-- because I love lassi and it was only 20 rupees! (less than 50 cents) but it was pretty tart. Had to add honey. And the next week, when I got the lime soda... same thing. TART

I didn't actually get the lobster because I was too cheap to pay the equivalent of 8 bucks for a live fresh lobster (India makes you cheap), but I had some DELISH prawns in a tomato-onion-garlic sauce. Dani appears pretty jealous.

Dani inspecting some skirts/Ali Baba pants at a store

-An example of one of the places where we get stuff custom-tailored. It's pretty fun to pick out some cloth, get your measurements taken, describe what you want, and (hopefully) have a beautiful top sewn in the outdoors and ready to go in a few hours, all for the price of about 8 1/2 dollars! (And we are probably getting a bit ripped-off, even with that price-- try to bargain more, and they keep insisting "hand-made cotton! hand-made cotton!" Whatever, I want to see the loom that made it, and then we'll see.)

The second Saturday, we went to the temples BEFORE lunch/shopping, because a new group of volunteers are here and it's always good times to see them. I already have a bunch of pictures of the temples from my last trip, last summer, but it was still good times :)

Inside the Panch Pandava Cave Temple. I think. It was pretty Indiana-Jonesy.

Rosalyn posing by an etching in the floor. It looks like a five-year-old did it. I'll bet the four older Panch brothers were soooooo mad that their youngest brother got ahold of a carving stone that night.

I don't think the Ganesha Ratha was meant for hard-core parkour. But this dude definitely has the legs for it.

Also was probably not meant for ancient human sacrifices, but Katie strikes an awesome pose.

To get to the Olakannatha Temple, you have to do a little stair climbing, a little bouldering, a little scrambling, and a little walking along high scary ridge ascents that are only 2 meters wide or so. Hey that's scary for me.

Going down from the Olakannatha etc, with the Ganesha Ratha at the upper right. It's a beautiful boulder-y landscape. Replete with wildlife, though no monkeys this time (got slightly attacked last time, because my water bottle just looked so delish or something)

The area is also replete with goats. And, sometimes, a lovely young Indian couple having a picnic, with a cute little goat.

And THEN, we get to...

KRISHNA'S BUTTER BALL

(I didn't name it)

It's a "natural boulder perched precariously on a slope", according to Eyewitness Travel: India. I've also read in a different travel guide that no one really know how (or why...) it came to be there, and even though it looks like it should tip over and roll, it sure doesn't-- they've even had ox teams try to move it. (Ox teams? try steam locomotive power, THAT'll do it.)

But it makes for great photos/poses, and since I'd already done the lie-underneath-it-like-it's-rolling-over-you pose (kinda creepy, what if TODAY is the day it suddenly decides to roll) as well as the Atlas Holding Up The World pose last year, I tried a few new ones.

In this one I am clearly trying to push the boulder onto the group of lively young men. They are clearly not worried.

Neither was this woman.

So instead I did a Christy-dance (this one's for you, Stanks!) across the front of it before scrambling back down the slope, and I think that turned out to be a treat. Just trying to spread the joy.

After all that templeing, we were pretty hot and sweaty (in India? weird) but fortunately, like at every good World Heritage site, you finish your tour on a street lined with souvenir carts selling Indian Jones-style hats and frozen treats of deliciousness. I opted for the pistachio ice cream, but there were also mini frozen-pizzas available. Odd. And tauntingly cruel.

Then it was on to... the shops!! Got myself fitted for two new chudidar tops (hey it's not that extravagant; they're $8.50 each and we are pretty hard on our clothes here),

and also bought... leather sandals! At a little cobbler's shop. Mine don't look like much, since I'm holding up my foot at an awkward forced angle, but I assure you they're AWESOME. And cost about six dollars. Kacy picked out some that didn't have soles yet, so he was making them right there for her. Pretty cool.

After another lunch at Moonrakers (I mean per the second Saturday, stop calling us fat), it was time to move from this kind of street and view...

to THIS--

Ahhh, the Ideal Beach Resort. Aptly named. For a 300-rupee entrance fee (highway robbery, it was 200, or 4 dollars, last year), you can submerge your body in this:

get a Naked Massage, and/or enjoy THIS:

a beautiful windswept beach on the Bay of Bengal.

The first week we didn't go in, because there was a red-flag warning (and I'd already body-surfed it anway), so Dani just contemplated the view...

(and I'm not sure what I'm doing here, maybe checking out my stomach after that lassi-and-prawn lunch?)

...but this dude had the right idea. At least for getting a tan or for posing for photos (which he was doing! :) Except he's facing the wrong way, if you want to stare at the ocean and watch the fishermen take their boats through the pounding surf of the incoming tide

then you should face the other way. Which I sure did. I can stare at the ocean for HOURS. Or, in this case, the 43 minutes until it was time to go.

(The next week, we did indeed do some playing in the surf... red-flag warning?? Whatevs.)

After an awesome day, it was time to head the 1.5-2 hours back to Rising Star. I love driving here (or being driven, I should say! -we don't drive, too dangerous!) because there are always great views,

like fields and bright green rice paddies

and monkeys hanging out and fireman-sliding down poles (check out the big one about to go down-- that is a newborn clinging to her chest!)

and Christian churches (I took this photo because of the two, HUGE, hornets' nests under that top eave-- GROSS)

and a Hindu temples high up on a hill in Thirukazhukundram (This is the Vedagiriswarar, or Eagle Temple, so named because of a legend etc. that is too long to write here)

(... and this is the entrance, down on the road level... there are a gazillion steps going up to it, reaching seven levels total, and Hindus can only go up to the highest level pertaining to their caste, FYI).

Then, as it got dark, it started raining. No, POURING.

I hadn't seen that much rain here yet, at least not when out in the streets, and it was CRAZY-- there's no drainage system, so it's pretty much immediate flooding on those cement roads. (And, I learned the next day, not something you want to be WALKING through-- because the cobras come out when it rains, and are caught in the floods... so you never know what's swirling around your legs, there...!)

The above picture does no justice to the sheets of rain that were swamping the windshield, and also not to the scariness of driving through it-- driving in India is heart-stopping anyway, but when it's pitch-black outside and pouring rain and your driver is passing a gigantic bus and you see the huge bright lights of a truck barreling straight towards you... well I turned my head and curled up in my seat and covered my eyes with my hand. Yeah, like that was going to help.

..and the fun was not over yet! We went to the town of Uthiramerur to hit the nightlife

or, really, to get some paratha for dinner, but every paratha place was "out" of it (random), so we stuck with this restaurant and had dosas instead

Biggest dosa I've ever seen (or even imagined), and YUM

They thought we were cuckoo because we didn't know how to eat them. Really we knew, it was just more fun to pose this way.

Or, to actually eat it like that, like Sarah did. Awesome. I don't think the owner/waiter was very happy.

It came with three sauces to dip in-- a coconut chutney (yum), a vegetable kurma (mmm yum) and some kind of sauce that was reminiscent of a chicken soup flavor (ohhhh yum). And you wouldn't think that one huge thin crispy crepe thing would fill you up, but wow it did. SOOO good!

Oh and the price for the meal? 15 rupees. No joke. Guess how much that is. No don't, your currency calculator might show a different rate today than it was then. So I'll tell you. 32 cents.

Afterwards we did a little alleyway shopping with our driver Vel to guide us and keep us safe. We'd been wanting to check out the mini-doughnut-looking things at the various Sweet Shops (Indians loooove sweet things. Spicy things, and sweet things) and yep-- they were pretty good. Made of a little daal (lentils) and a whole lot of oil, they were tasty and cheap (5 rupees) and just small enough that you wouldn't feel sick from eating so much oil. (Just a little sick). We also bought sparkly bindis (5 rupees per pack) and fresh jasmine strings for our Sunday hair (10 rupees per length-- break the bank!)

It was a great ending to the day, full of experience and adventure because the already-bustling streets of Indian towns come even more alive when it gets dark (glad Vel was with us-- I mean, we don't stick out at ALL, but still) and THEN, the rain abated and we arrived home to a full moon...

-I'm sorry, but isn't this shot AWESOME?? I am just going to brag for a sec. Because it took me a few mighty tries to get the craters of the moon to show, and I had it on self-timer because I wasn't using a tripod so I had to time the openings in the clouds just right... and if you zoom in (if you can), you will also see STARS. Frosting on the cake for a great day. (ohhh... cake sounds good. In spite of the prevalence of Sweet Shops here, we don't actually eat many sweets...)

THE END.

Or, not. Epilogue: SUNDAY. (Weekend's not over yet!)

This is a quick recap, but here's what my Sunday consists of:

1. Be ready to leave at 7:30am. 2-hour drive to church in Chennai.

(on this day, I took a laptop with me to pass the time... transcribing the LOST series finale for my little bro. Hard to not get distracted by everything going by on the road...)

2. Church is held in the basement of a business complex (so to speak). It's pretty great. They are also building an actual Church building/chapel etc. in Chennai, it's going to be huge and gorgeous and even more great!

A really wonderful branch. It was actually recently split, that's how good the membership growth is here! (there are 3 branches in Chennai now) And look at this-- church starts at 9:30am, many people travel from far away, and yet they are ON TIME (this is before the meeting started, and showing only 1/4 of the room). Take a lesson, you. I'm being a hypocrite by saying that because I'm usually pushing it for time, even at 1pm, but right now I can be all self-righteous :).

This is Kala, one of the Rising Star housemothers AND a teacher at the school. She is AWESOME. And she looked just like at angel in her beautiful sari that day. The over-exposure of the camera because the flash was off helped, too. Looks all heavenly. And I, as usual, look like a giant compared to these tiny Indian women. (Oh and yes, I am wearing PANTS. It's totally appropriate dress in India, to wear a kurta/chudidar top with pants. That or a sari, or of course Western church clothes. I'm going for authenticity here, just trying to fit in.... (it's awesome! Not going to lie! :)

There were two baptisms after church this last Sunday--

This regal and dignified gentleman with the SWEET 'stache and beard wings (seriously-- SO COOL) was baptizing his grandson...

and this father of a family was being baptized as well. What beautiful people, all of them.

Oh and this is the font. In the hallway, water's green, leaking from the bottom-- AWESOME. Seriously.

3. After that, it's a two-hour ride (nap) back to Rising Star, getting home between 2:30 and 3. A little lunch, a little rest, then dinner and a devotional. And then the week starts all over again.

Good thing. :)

Vertical Horizon

2010-06-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

So I learned two things about myself today:

1. I’m invincible.

2. Actually, turns out I’m not invincible.

I consider myself pretty travel-savvy, appropriately independent and dang street-smart (well, notwithstanding that time I apprehended two taggers on an LA side street and forced them to give me their markers… oops). I love the feeling of going somewhere alone and figuring out how to get around, I love exploring, whatever that means in terms of wherever I happen to be, and though I’m cautiously aware, I think I am also confident about my inherent safety to a fault.

In other words, I think I’m pretty hot stuff. And I gained a healthy respect for the Unknown out there when I traveled alone in India for a few days before my first tour of duty, last summer. It was tough, it was unnerving, I broke down in tears a couple of times, BUT—I did it! And India (after another minor setback, at Christmas) is now a breeze. And if I can conquer that? –chuh, I can handle anything.

Then today I found out just what a travel pansy I am.

Hong Kong—this year’s Unknown. I had a 17-hour layover on my way to India, so of COURSE I wanted to go into the city or onto the main island or whatever. And a couple of weeks ago I realized I should probably book a tour, even though I’m generally anti-tour, for that layover. That it probably wasn’t a good idea to just go out and find something to do and figure how to get around an unknown city armed with just my wit, a smile and a pop-up map, because of crucial time constraints (probably shouldn’t miss my plane to India because I didn’t realize how far it was to Macau and back) and also because I’ve seen the movie Taken (in the right lighting, I’m pretty sure I could be mistaken for a hot naïve 17-year-old).

So again—pretty hot stuff, this time for figuring out the best plan of attack. Researched and booked a tour, researched and booked an airport transfer to the hotel meeting point.

Then… the airport transfer fell through. Too early, they couldn’t take me.

Then… in the midst of my FANTASTIC business-class Cathay Pacific experience, my PowerBook suddenly died. Wouldn’t wake up from sleep. DNR. That started the downhill.

Then… I hiked back uphill when I started counting my blessings (if it was going to die, better now than in India—at least I could go to an Apple Store in Hong Kong and get repair or whatever)

Then… I found out there was no Apple Store in Hong Kong. What??

Then... I lost it. Sort of.

I arrived at 5:25am, went straight to the lounge to get me some internet, opened up my backup laptop since the PowerBook was still in a coma, found that that battery was almost dead, and that even though I’d Oh So Wisely brought along a Hong Kong plug adaptor in my carryon, it didn’t have a grounded slot for the laptop’s power cord. Argh.

Long story short, I was able to use the backup to video-call my dad and tiredly freak out to him about what had happened, and eventually we were able to get the Mac up and running after multiple bouts of troubleshooting. But THEN, after… I only had a few minutes to spare to make the trip to Kowloon for my tour. And I still had no idea how to get there. I mean, I figured there were taxis and shuttles and all that, but how? How?

I was suddenly rendered useless and incapable of doing anything for myself. A Cathay representative had to come and escort me through Immigration. (Well, that was policy—not because I didn’t know where to go). I was in tears by the time she arrived at the lounge to get me, because I had been waiting 20 minutes and was stressing. She fortunately walked as quickly as I do, and when we got to the immigration area, batted her eyes at an official so I could cut the huuuuuuge line that would have been the ultimate downfall, so THAT was good. She didn’t come through too—during our power-walk I had been pressing her with ridiculous questions like “but I don’t have any Hong Kong dollars-- how do I pay for a taxi or shuttle?” (seriously—it’s like I lost my brain completely), so I think she was not sad to pass me off at that point. I was suddenly alone and scared again.

But on her gentle advice, once I was through immigration, I went to a Thomas Cook desk to exchange money (Ah! so THAT’S what you do…), and the clerk sensed my frantic nervousness when he enquired about my transportation plans to Kowloon, and told me not take a shuttle or taxi, but to take the Airport EXPRESS. I balked. “But that just takes me to Kowloon—how will I get to the YMCA from there??”. And—. Really, Jennie? Never heard of a taxi? I’m pretty sure that’s what was going through his head, but probably with an unflattering idiom in place of my name.

All went well from there—made it to the train, and then by cab (who knew??) to the Salisbury Y with a few minutes to spare, and the rest is history. Well, to be told in the rest of this blogpost (via photos).

BUT—I felt like the biggest IDIOT. I know it looks like small beans, but what happened to me back there?? I totally choked. I became That Traveler, the one that looks around with constant confusion and talks too loudly and can’t read signs and stands too close to the conveyor belt when waiting for checked baggage so no one else can see theirs coming ‘round the carousel. (Ahem.) I would like to blame my temporary lapse on fatigue, but I’d had a nice 6 hours’ sleep or so in my private lay-flat bed on the plane. (Pause for pleasant longing memories.) I think, though, I can more realistically blame it on the fact, that, once we flew over the International Dateline en route to HK, I was simultaneously going both back and FORWARD, in time. Think about it. It was a day later than my life back in LA, and yet as we flew westward, we were at the same time going BACK in that day. TRIPPY. No wonder I was messed up. It was like I was in a LOST episode, jumping back and forth, lost in time—and for those people on the Island, that kind of movement caused their brains to hemorrhage. Hmm. Maybe I should be glad all I did was make an idiot of myself to airport staff and crew.

And, I must say, the rest of the day was JUST FINE. I was in my normal form once I got on the express train, and I quickly learned that Hong Kong IS a place I can get around alone (which I will, on my similar layover during my come-home in August). But I also learned this--while it’s a great feeling, getting around by yourself—empowering!—I have to add a disclaimer. Which is, I don’t WANT to be going around alone. I would much rather have someone who is there to take me to the airport, or travel with me, figure out where we’re going, etc. Wouldn’t that be nice. (Unless they annoy me or don’t like eating local food, in which case I will escape and wander off on my own J.)

So this is a really long post, and probably more info that anyone wanted, you just wanted pictures anyway. So here’s a TON of them—welcome to my trip so far!

Business class. Yes. Oh, yes. (if you know me, you'll know that I am extra-incredibly happy in this picture because that blanket I'm holding on my lap is a DUVET... sigh. Perfection.)

Dinner: Seared ahi tuna salad, beef-something with some kind of onion marmalade and string mushrooms, mini rock s&p shakers, mini goblets to drink out of, and a 15-inch flip-out screen to watch How To Train Your Dragon while eating...

view of the cabin and lie-flat beds

After a sleep (it was a 14-hour plane ride, after all), I watched Invictus-- LOVED it. Shed more than a few tears. Had to keep pausing it to take notes. Oh, and Matt Damon is hot.

Morning over Hong Kong (somewhere under those clouds)

On the Airport Express to Kowloon

Taxi to the YMCA. The taxis have auto-doors. Auto-doors! In other words, you can't get out until they want you to. Tricky if you're trying to commandeer a vehicle illegally.

My tour guide for the day, on The Land Between Tour (out to the New Territories, etc)

First stop on the tour: Yuen Yuen Institute. Home to three religions, or some'in. I don't know, I tired of listening to the narrative right quick and spent my 45 minutes of freedom wandering and taking photos.

Like of this dude-- we definitely need to bring this style to the States

And of the fish in the waterfall pond-- love the Koi, they look like they're constantly saying "duuuuude-"

Check out the catfish ready to attack in the upper corner. Unsuspecting turtles...

hee hee, turtles kill me. All stuck up n' stuff.

Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue poses. In turtle world. At least, that's what it looked like to me. Remember: time travel. I can't be blamed.

ohhh, turtles. I have many more shots if you'd like to see them. :)

moi in front of the koi pond. Can't even tell I'm in China. Oh well.

Really? OX?? Bummer. Tiger would be soooo much more cool. Better than pig, I guess.

Is it wrong to take a photo of someone worshipping? Just looked so cool...

Next stop: a Lookout point for the whole area, down into the HK harbor etc. But it was hazy so there was nothing to see. Except this cool sign letting us know that handicaps are welcome. Y'know, I've often thought that campfire sites were soooo anti-disability...

shooting from the hip as a monk? worships. Oops this one's out of order, goes with the Yuen Yuen above...

Fourth stop: Bride's Pool Falls. Definitely my fave, except we only had ten minutes so I and a Swedish kid booked it as far as we could along the hiking trail/steps and back within that time while everyone else looked at them from the park entrance. Wish I could have explored all day (and wasn't wearing a skirt)

best self-portrait I could do in 30 seconds once I reached the river/lower falls

Sixth stop: fishing village. Not really. Disappointment.

Back in Hong Kong... I went here. Not to eat, but because McDonald's is the best place when traveling... to find clean 'public' restrooms (and that's maybe my best travel tip). I always feel so typically American when I walk in, though...

I WAS tempted to get the Taro Pie, though... what's not appetizing about a Grimace-colored fried dessert?

Looking at Hong Kong Island from Kowloon side. Those skyscrapers really are huuuuge

Why I left HK at about 4pm to go back to the airport, even though my flight didn't leave until 10:45-- (those bags combined weigh about 35 pounds, maybe more)

The other reason to go back early-- SHOWERS!

And because I really wanted to spend as many hours as possible in the posh Cathay Business Class Lounge. Very, very happy there. Next time I'm bringing blankets and making a fort so I can claim land.

And so the adventures begin...

the LOST art of conversation

2010-05-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

MAN.

In the eternal (modified) words of Depeche Mode,
You know how hard it is for me, to shake, the di-zzy...

-that's what's running through my head today. Because

WIPED.

Completely.

I was exhausted this weekend to begin with, and have been suffering from gentle bouts of vertigo every time I move my corpse from a non-stationary position... Not my usual, once-every-two-years-or-so MEGA-vertigo, where the room starts spinning like I just got off the Teacups at D-land with an exceptionally strong boy at the unfortunately now-more-stiff-and-no-longer-turns-fast-without-superhuman-effort wheel, and which vertigo lasts for half an hour or more-- no, not that, but just a general heavy wave of dizziness that makes me almost fall down every time I move. Whoops.

And last night's epic finale for LOST didn't help-- it wasn't just long (not the show itself, but when packed with commercials EVERY 7 MINUTES, that was out of control! and then of course I had to watch the News' and Jimmy Kimmel's coverage of it, afterward), not only that, but it was so poignant, powerful and emotional that I am SPENT.

But that's not the point of this post-- maybe I'll get to my inner thoughts on LOST someday (too difficult right now-- might start crying, it's too soon-- TOO SOON!), can't promise anything though, seeing my recent track record with getting my posts completed, in the meantime you might want to read my friend Sam's moving take on it, -- nope, here's another reason why the finale was so great to me--

I didn't watch it alone! I thought I was going to have to--people I'd normally watch it with were all MIA, as my oldest brother is in Italy on vacay, second-oldest is in Utah, youngest is in the MTC, Sam's on the East Coast, and various other mega-fan friends were all out of town or had just gotten back into town and too tired, etc to view live. WHAT??? I was distraught all last week. How could I watch this, the biggest 2.5 hours of television finale and commercials of perhaps MY LIFE, alone?? It's not that I need company-- I get lost in LOST, har har-- but I needed to have someone to turn to, to freak out and say "WHAT?? WHAT WAS THAT! DID YOU SEE THAT?!" and also "Dude, totally called that." (Said smugly).

But, thanks to the Miracle of Facebook, my nephew (son of said oldest brother) Tanner found out that we were both in the same Boat of Aloneness (and Potential Distress), and on Sunday afternoon we decided to video-gchat it up during the finale. And I mean the WHOLE finale. And

was

AWESOME.

Go technology! I was lying on the couch with my PC laptop (not my Powerbook, it's too old to stream the new-fangled video very well) on a stool to the left of me, webcam trained on my face... Tanner had his underneath the TV... so we could see and wave to each other at any time. We'd just hit Mute during the show, and the second the commercials came on we'd un-mute and say "WHAT?? WHAT WAS THAT? DID YOU SEE THAT?" and of course I called a lot of it. Of course. Oh yeah, and we had puh-lenty of opportunities to discuss what was happening, because did I mention that the commercials came on every 7 minutes?? They did.

(awesome face by Tanner)

But sooo fun to watch it with my nephew like that-- his sister (seen far above) lasted for about five minutes, she's NOT a Mega-Fan-- so it was me and T-Bear the whole way. And when his dad called from Italy after it was over (did you know LOST was aired simultaneously in 59 countries?? He had to watch it at 6am-!), Tanner set the phone down by his computer and Allen and I could hear each other and talk (and review) that way! And Tanner and I could make faces at each other and pretend to pick our noses the whole while. Seriously, Technology? You are the Wind Beneath My Wings.

Oh, and also-- during the show, when I was feeling the extent of the garlic I'd put into the bruschetta I'd made that night, and decided I needed to eat some ice cream... Tanner and I had a little dessert together, too. And a little whooop.

Sigh.

the natural order of things

2010-04-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

I don't really like going into Los Angeles. Traffic is horrible, people are rude, cement and industry are a-plenty. But there are a few things that can entice me to make the trek, including friends, food and the aforementioned Hollywood Bowl, and -- more than anything-- THIS place:

and it always makes my day to go there, but last night was even more special...

There's a big reflecting pool in front of the temple, and when I was rushing by it in the afternoon on my way in, I noticed a Mallard duck just hanging out on the edge of the water. Perched on the cement rim right here, taking a look around as he sat in the shade of the tree. Probably just woke up from a little snooze.

That may not seem out of the ordinary, a "duck near water" isn't a revolutionary concept, but you have to understand-- while the temple grounds are the essence of tranquility and beautifully landscaped, they overlook THIS:

-A BUSTLING CITY. There is no wildlife-ridden Central Park nearby, and even our 'river' has been reduced to cement and a trickle. So how did this duck get here? WHY was he here? Where did he come from? Who tipped him off to the safe harbor of the awesome reflecting pool? (Where would he find food?)

I was enthralled and intrigued and not a just a little pepped up by the sight of a Mallard duck chilling by the pool, but since I had to get inside for my shift, I didn't stay to watch and see what he'd do next. Was therefore left to ponder these vital Life Questions on my own. And sad that we had to part-- figured he'd be gone soon, I mean come on-- there was no real food nearby except maybe some tiny frogs. I sure wouldn't stick around.

So, how great was it to come outside four hours later to see him stepping gingerly into the water just at that moment! and commence a lazy float-around.

And then, not thirty seconds later, as I was picking up speed so I could grab my camera from the car, I heard a loud QUACK and the ruffling of feathers-- and turned my head just in time to see a female hen Mallard come out of nowhere (the air) and land with a splash in the water, right next to the drake.

Dude. That drake has got it going ON, to be able to summon the ladies like that.

But then-- what happened next was priceless. The female may have followed/responded to the male's call,

but for the rest of the time that I watched, she was nonchalantly swimming around and he was agitatedly following her. AS IT SHOULD BE.

(and then they started grooming themselves, also appropriate :)

And then look at them here, swimming side by side, floating calmly in companionship, a union of two... don't think it escaped me that this was especially apropos, considering the setting. And don't think a little tear didn't escape my left eye. (It did).

Lucky.

rude awakening

2010-03-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

So this morning's 4:04am earthquake was a 4.4 on the Richter scale. Not a big deal. (Unless, of course, you're my friend Sari's dad, who has a fear of the number 4.) (Or Chinese, so the number 4 means "death" to you.) By the time I realized it wasn't a dream or my roommates fighting or a rumbling truck (oh-so-cliche) and had sufficiently roused myself from a REM-stupor to tumble off the side of my bed into a triangle-space safe position, I only had to semi-consciously ride out about 10 or 15 seconds of the almost-minute-long shake. All was well.

Yeah, or so I thought.

A couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself, "Hmmm... we are probably due for a quake one of these days." Call it a premonition, call it fear due to recent events, call it my inherent love of planning ahead, but I heeded that thought--and decided I'd better figure out what could be in danger of utter destruction from falling.

And promptly took my sand jars off their shelves :)

Some people collect souvenirs when traveling (waste), some collect magnets (understandable), some collect spoons (never understood the draw), some collect Christmas tree ornaments (sure wish I'd done that...). I personally like to buy inexpensive jewelry for the memory of the country, and if I'm on an island or a significant beach, I collect (take) SAND. And though it hasn't set me back financially more than a few dollars for the jars, the collection is Mastercard-commercial Priceless to me-- when am I ever going to Huahine or Rarotonga again--? so I really don't want to end up with broken glass and scattered grains all over my bathroom counter someday when the Big One strikes.

(love that black-sand Tahiti one, too...)

So, the jars (in the bathroom, I have many more in safer places) came down immediately, and I found some QuakeHold at OSH a week ago which I plan to use to secure them. The Hold has been sitting on my nightstand in this exact position the past four days, to remind me to actually complete the project. Oh, and the jars have been/are in the exact same position as seen above, and survived today's shakedown just fine. Yay!

But now... let's move on to a different story.

Here's another love of mine: goblets.

I don't like drinking out of plastic, hate drinking out of mugs (unless it's a hot drink), utterly loathe styrofoam, but really love a little OJ and mineral water, or even water (beverage of choice) in a goblet. And my favorite goblets of all-time are a set from Target, and these from Cost Plus.

If you look closely at the goblet pictured, you'll see a big crack in the bowl of the glass. Pro of these fave gobs: Only $1.99 each. Con: Since they are cheap, they are easily cracked. So a week ago, after this innocent vessel suffered an innocent roommate-inspired accident, I got fed up with them being broken and decided it was time to put them away for the time being (since I can't replace any of them-- the Cost Plus ones were a substitute for the Targets, and now neither are being sold and I can't find similar anywhere else). I removed them from the kitchen cupboard and put them on the buffet on the dining room, intending to box them up before I lost any more.

OOHHHH, THE IRONY.

Total, and utter destruction.

(almost)

In this morning's "thrust" earthquake (only one side of the fault line moves), not one thing in the entire house appeared to have shifted even one inch. Except for in the dining room, where one huge heavy mirror decided to hurl itself away from the wall it was leaning against and dive to the floor to take cover, and in the process take down three tiers of an iron plate stand and its contents, a crystal trifle bowl, and two porcelain serving bowls. Oh, yeah, and TEN BELOVED GOBLETS.

The trifle bowl bounced to safety. Four of the eight silver-rimmed dessert bowls were saved. The Apilco porcelain fruit bowl survived, but the smaller Apilco tulip serving bowl suffered an ignominious death. Three white dinner dishes are in splinters.

And of the goblets? Four remain. Three Targets, but only only one Cost Plus. Sniff.

Rest in Peace, my beloved material belongings.

Oh, and by the way? I hope not all my premonitions are going to be realized, because lately I've been having nightmares about nighttime intruders breaking into my room. (though if you're a potential intruder reading this, beware-- I've also now lately been sleeping with my emergency crowbar-hatchet, and I'm pretty sure I could inflict some bodily damage if startled). Also, a few weeks ago I dreamt that Kelsey Grammar and I were dating.

So... yeah. Maybe just the quake one.

bring on the water weight(s)

2010-03-02T14:16:00.000-08:00

I like to mix up my workout routine (well... "routine") every now and then, y'know, give my muscles a little surprise, so last night I pushed my limits in the high-paced and potentially dangerous sport of ...

AQUAROBICS.

(dramatization, not an actual photo)

SOME people might think Aquarobics isn't hard-core, but they are clearly wrong. I speak from experience, I've been twice now. And I can testify that, in addition to some good cardio and resistance training, it is pretty much a win-win- ( lose) -win form of exercise, all around!

WIN: 

Everyone knows that a swimming pool is the third-best place to feel skinny. The top place is, of course, among the masses at Disneyland, with the second being within 42 feet of a fried-Twinkie stand at any Middle America county fair. But in water, when you are magically defying heavy gravity and the liquid pressure serves to hold in your gut-fat, you feel super-thin, and compared to the standard population that participates in pool aerobics, you look tiny. And a one-piece doesn't create muffin tops, AND you can look super-strong as you maneuver those huge hand weights underwater as if they were made of styrofoam.

WIN:

Sometimes, in other gym-provided classes, I might feel under-par, either because I want to throw up after only 5 minutes of "boot camp" or because the 85-year-old woman next to me can stand on her head in yoga while taking a brief nap. But compared to the lady in the pink shower cap last night at Aquarobics, I EXCELLED. And my sprints-in-a-circle (knees high) were definitely the fastest in the whole pool, I think it's okay to brag here. And no, I don't think it's just because everyone else gets special discounts at movies and the Sizz', it really is my athletic prowess at this sport... BUT I will admit that it's not bad being the youngest in the group; for example, when a sideliner stopped the instructor to yell encouragingly "I'M A DOCTOR FOR OLD PEOPLE-- AND THIS IS THE BEST EXERCISE FOR OLD PEOPLE! GOOD JOB!", I could smugly not include myself in that group, and pat myself on the back for getting a head-start on my future.

(lose)...
As previously stated, I look HORRIBLE when wet. Even a marriage proposal in a jacuzzi does not prove/cannot convince me otherwise.

but, BUT, the biggest WIN! is that

old people + water = a good time

We know this because two of the three movies made about old people in the last 25 years-- "Cocoon" and "Cocoon: The Return"-- were based on just that. The directors would have you believe that it was the combined presence of Steve Guttenberg and alien pods in the water that revived the Quaker Oat dude's diving skills and virility (the power of the pods being secondary to Steve's loveable wackiness, of course) as well as giving his nursing-home buddy a reason to live (and dance) after losing everything on Wall Street to Eddie Murphy, but in truth those old guys would have been having fun a-plenty in the water on their own, and this even in the days before pool noodles were invented.

Unfortunately, the other movie out there about old people, "Titanic", is obviously not a good example of elderly aquatic frolicking. I'm pretty sure Old Rose never jumped back in the ocean to splash around for kicks, not even if there was an eternal-life-giving glowing-cocoon-pod ready to birth a translucent alien floating around, since she probably felt forever guilty for telling Jack that she'd "never let go" but hadn't bothered to offer him room on her life-saving floaty-door. Nope, and her final experience with water was to stupidly toss a priceless gem that could have made me a Lady of Leisure FOR LIFE into the darkest fathoms, never to resurface. I would not invite her to my pool parties, she'd probably ruin Marco Polo too.

The other old people of note, having exhausted the cinematic lineup, are of course TV's beloved Golden Girls. Sadly, we never got to see them whoopin' it up in the water (though we know they were because they lived in Florida) but that's because 25 minutes is only just long enough to review all of Blanche's exploits and Dorothy's sarcastic retorts and add a few seconds of laugh track to each, and back in those days only the Full House girls got to visit the Disneyworld beaches in hour-long episodes. But The Girls' witty repartee is all pretty much the equivalent of a beach scene with skirted floral one-pieces anyway, anything actual would just be gratuitous. Thank You for Being a (Clothed) Friend.

So last night was not just about pursuing a rock-hard bod, it was about hanging with some pretty fun elderlies. They sure know how to have a good time, splashing around there. And were unperturbed when the instructor admonished them to have a salad, that the cheesecake would go straight to their thighs, after one woman yelled out, "I'm gonna go home and eat LASAGNE... and MIXED GREENS... and WHITE BREAD... and CHEESECAKE with STRAWBERRY FILLING... and WHIPPED CREAM..." as she floated lazily in a circle during cool-down. Dude, you can't tell old people what to do. They know, and they don't care. They've got it going on.

Oh, and also great were the masses of on-lookers in the sauna. Just standing there at the window. Looking. Staring. Pervs. Something like this, minus the toucans, and encompassing a distinctly different ethnic majority.

(I sure wish I could take my waterproof camera in with me to REALLY show the whole experience)

Can't wait til next week.

cool.

2010-03-01T01:14:00.000-08:00

I love it when the moon does this.

(airplane not negative scratch)

I'm pretty sure the IOC had something to do with this, y'know like a soothing balm to our Post-Olympic-Depressed souls and as a reminder that we are all looking at the same moon and that somewhere out there, beneath the pale blue sky, someone's thinking of just how they too are going to make it to Sochi 2014.

goodbye, Olympics...

2010-02-28T23:59:00.000-08:00

Your flame may be extinguished, but it will live on in our hearts.

Just kidding, I'm not that cheesy. Yes I am.

I really am very sad to see you go.

Then again, I will be very very glad to finally get some sleep again.

(and the Olympics aren't really over for me, since my "temporary tattoo" doesn't seem to want to wash off.)

so excited I might pee my pants.

2010-02-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

TONIGHT IS THE MOST DRAMATIC ~~ROSE CEREMONY~~
EVENT OF THE OLYMPIC FORTNIGHT.

Or, at least the most anticipated and watched, according to Olympic broadcasters--

it's ladies' figure skating, free skate/long program, going for the podium.

And I have a special connection to the event:

(photo: Harry How, Getty Images, courtesy of TeamUSA.org)

MIRAI NAGASU!!

How?

1. Because she is a former student of Arcadia High. ("former" not because she was

expelled, but because she obviously had to start online school or whatever for the Olympics).

She never took MY class (boo), but I did sub in one of her classes once. She goofed off the whole

time and was eating Doritos. I'm sure that has nothing to do with her Olympic performance.

(totally kidding Mirai, don't be mad... actually your Olympic performance is GREAT, maybe

Doritos should catch whiff of that and sign you as an endorser??)

2. We both used to train at the Pasadena Ice Skate Center. Sure, she has gone further than me,

but both my 100-dollar and her 1,000-dollar boots/blades have touched THE SAME ICE. Probably

her butt more than mine, though, I've never fallen on it (just once on my knees.) Really I'm still

training there,just taking a break this year-- I figure I'll make it to the 2018 Olympics, because by

then I'll have gathered enough signatures for my petition demanding a Mature Ladies' division.

3. She would have been a junior here right now, and I am the Junior Class ADVISOR.

Seriously. The connections are FREAKY.

I will admit, though, that I can't do this:

(photo courtesy of LA Times)

I did try once... it was after skating class... I came home and, while opening the fridge to find

something to eat (because of course I had burned major calories perfecting my "bunny hop" move),

I started thinking about all those flexible little girls I had seen practicing their spins, and wondered

if I could even bend that far backwards when NOT on the ice. So I stretched/leaned back as far as

I could while holding onto the fridge door. And I ended up pulling something and my back hurt for

like three weeks. (Hopefully that element won't be required in the Mature Ladies' Competition.)

(Probably should get a secondary petition going.)

CONGRATS anyway, Mirai!! I love you almost as much as I love watching Ice Dancing. Please bring me back an official USA Olympic vest, I can't afford that Ralph Lauren crap. (Blogpost/rant about that, to come)

sometimes I don't have my camera with me.

2010-02-21T23:17:00.000-08:00

And that could potentially be tragic, because there are often exceptional moments in time which I would like to capture for all love and eternity, and not just in the recesses of my memory.

But... FORTUNATELY, I have entered the Modern World and have an iPhone. Which is of course superior to all other phones, in all aspects, including Camera capability. (maybe not really, but Apple will never sponsor my travel habits if I start bad-mouthing them now.)

So yesterday I was syncing my phone with my laptop (that's what we do, we iPhone/Powerbook owners) and it pulled off a multitude of random photos that I've taken in my first months of ownership. And so, since I obviously took them for good reasons, I figure they should not be hidden from the world any longer.

Welcome to an intimate look into my life.

__________________________________________

I get cold a lot. Especially in movie theaters, so I always bring a blanket.

Also to the live theater... and I'm not sure why the silver-haired contingency of this audience

(85% of it) looked at me strangely for that; aren't old people always cold?

First (of 6) viewing(s) of New Moon. At the EDWARDS theater, I might add.

Coincidence? -No, DESTINY.

ABSOLUTE DISTRESS. I am going to be in INDIA when the next one comes out!!

Fortunately I looked on the InterWeb and found out it will be showing on the Indian Subcontinent,

I might have to take a plane to get to a decent theater though.

My good buddies Kris and Brian produced this little Fox.

Like-father-like-son was classic, and OF COURSE, I didn't have my good camera

available to really capture it. Grrr.

"Security" in Indian airports-- women go to one side, men to the other.

Women go in a curtained area and get frisked by another woman.

Men stand out in the open and get the wand. Awesome.

Already stated-- Etihad airlines is crappy. BUT-- on their individual screens, you get to (are forced to) see the take-off and landing view, live, from the cockpit... which is cool, but also SUPER creepy--

what if, as you're landing, you are watching as the plane suddenly starts to veer off to the left, and miss the strip entirely and you know that a crash is imminent??

...or land too fast and plow right into the dude just trying to help out by waving his direction lights?

I think there's a clear reason why American carriers don't tout this little live-view trick: lawsuits.

This is a hideous picture of me (which is why it's staying small, no need to scare the kids)

but it's the only one I have of me on Arabian soil. Christmas day, 2009. Jared, thanks for

making sure I looked good when you took this. Harumph.

The Abu Dhabi airport. Cool.

The restrooms in the Abu Dhabi airport.

Just inside the gender-appropriate entrance, you find yourself facing three

ultimate destination options: toilets, an ablution area, and... a mosque.

I left my Christmas tree behind to go to India. So here was (part of) my Christmas: Chicago O'Hare airport, London Heathrow airport, and the Crowne Plaza in Rosemont, Illinois. Pretty great.

My brother Chad is hilarious.

This was his Christmas gift to me, and I think he's right-- it would

be totally appropriate to wear this when it's my turn to conduct Relief Society.

This is what we of course DIDN'T do on New Year's Eve.

Instead we went to an initially-horrifying-then-resolved-to-be-kinda-fun Mid Singles'

dance in Huntington Beach. Probably the kind of thing that is less painful for those

who ARE of the imbibing type.

Post-dance at the IHOP. Tired. Jazzed! Toasting in the New Year.

Pretty great (dreamy) mattress at a pretty schnazzy hotel in the HB. I took this picture

so I could remember what kind of mattress it was, so I could go home and buy

it since mine is crap and I sleep horribly. Then I found out it costs $5,000. Goodbye, sleep...

This photo is not from the 70's.

(but it was from Leslie's awesome 40th bday Disco party, where I was crowned limbo queen...)

This lady must get cold in movies too, because I had just come out

of one when I saw the Abominable Snow Beast in front of me, keeping her warm.

Dahi Puri or Pani Puri, found at the Samosa House in Culver City...

YOU MUST GO THERE!

Donny Osmond sighting!!! Some small (but delicious) fast Mexican food chain,

"Bajio's", Provo, Utah, January 2010. I am complete.

Went on BYU campus to meet up with Jared and new fiancee Nancy,

and while waiting outside the Wilk, discovered that I am STILL popular on campus,

even 10 years later. Totally ran into someone I knew! Or, actually, SHE saw ME, and

called out "--DOEZIE!" I am soooo popular! I should probably go back to BYU.

Dang Utah Valley's beautiful.

Me and KJ at Pee Wee Herman night, LA Live, downtown.

Not one small chance that I'm going to see this movie (though I would

personally like both a hot tub and a time machine of my own), but Derek posed anyway.

In the Vancouver airport, you are TOTALLY taken care of in the ladies' restrooms

(washrooms, if you're a Canuck) in event of an emergency. Coin-operated machines

offer Feminine needs, unmentionables, lip balm, and... TEMPORARY TATTOOS.

(Looney Tunes brand, at that.)

WHHAT???

and finally...

I pick window seats for a reason. SO THAT THERE IS A WINDOW TO LOOK OUT OF.

I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone where the creepy kid, that everyone's scared will send them out into the cornfield, does his wordless voodoo and makes his uncle's face turn into smooth skin where once there had been a mouth. Silent screams.

Phew. Glad to get all that out into the open. What things do you see, that make you want to take a photo?

I wholeheartedly concur.

2010-02-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

(photo courtesy of l.a. times blogs)

I had a friend who once revealed that he liked to buy-- and use-- girlie lotions from Bath and Body Works. In case you didn't catch the gender reference when I said "he", this is a guy I'm talking about. His rationale/justification/on-crack-delusion why this was a good thing? -- Because "girls like the smell, so I should smell like that, and girls will like me."

NO. NO NO NO.

Girls like men who smell like MEN! Ahhh, man-smell. Rugged and musky. And not to be confused with "boy-smell"-- that rank, mustily offensive malodor of Unwashed Boy that can commonly be found embedded in the walls of BYU off-campus male housing. No, the best man-smell is one of CLEAN--nothing better than fresh-laundry-smell on a man!--, with a slight woodsy musk coming from a not-too-pervasive man-perfume, preferably not identified as Drakkar Noir (that one is soooo over).

And, to be honest, the best smells I've ever whiffed from those men of my close acquaintance (close enough that I am allowed to sniff closely, and liberally) have actually been from not from cologne, but from... deodorant.

Which is why Old Spice definitely has something here. Deodorant, body wash, same diff.

But even if they had no platform for their claims, I would be sold on Old Spice purely by the genius of this commercial. -Wait, what am I saying? I AM sold. I am going to go out and buy it by the carton-full, to ensure that these commercials keep-a-comin'. I came home from the Olympics sad and depressed and lonely due to a moderate-to-severe case of PTD (Post-Trip-Depression), and whilst trying to fill that void by watching my recording of Tuesday night's LOST, I saw this spot for the first time and... I became whole.

SO - FUNNY!!

And it doesn't hurt that Isaiah Mustafa is hhhhhot. Hgggllrrrrrrr. On or off a horse.

But it does hurt that he's taken, SO sad, I was pretty sure I had a chance.

(photo of courtesy of l.a. times blogs)

For a great article about the commercial, and to even watch a "The Making Of...", click HERE.

Take a lesson, Men.

proud, happy and so excited

2010-02-17T22:50:00.000-08:00

Top News in doezieland...

Big brother Allen

arrives here tomorrow

(photos courtesy of Reuters)

to spend a week giving his vital plastic surgery skills, attention and love to those in need...

Little sister Kate

just announced that she is soon to be...

(photo courtesy of azuwish.com)

!!!!!!

and my little brother Derek

was called to serve to do THIS!!

(photo courtesy of lds.org)

in the Missouri St. Louis Mission, Spanish-speaking!

So much news... so much to be grateful for!

Allen--

The perfect big brother (and how lucky am I to have two perfect big brothers). So talented, so generous, you have no idea how much I look up to you...

Kate--

CONGRATULATIONS!! I'm so happy my little sister has found love and happiness!

and Derek--

I am going to miss you terribly, but you are going to be SUCH a great missionary. I am so proud of you!

Love, love, love. I am the luckiest sister, and absolutely claim these three. Photos are proof, after all. :)

Mekka Lekka Hai, Mekka Hiney Ho!

2010-02-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

My wish was granted, long live Jambi.

In honor of Black History Month, I (had) a dream. Or, let's call it a wish. Because it came true last night, when I became the Luckiest Girl in the World because I got to go see:

-Exclamation point exclamation point! Triple exclamation point!

It was soooo great! I am, was, and always will be a Pee Wee Herman fan-- I LOVED Pee Wee's Playhouse as a kid/teenager, owned the Pee Wee Herman pull-cord talking doll (MAN I wish I'd kept it-- eBay jackpot for sure!), practically had a scrapbook of Pee Wee magazine clips, and could (still can) recite just about all the lines of Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure. (Big Top Pee Wee, the sequel, however? Lame and crude. Waste of space. BTW.)

So how GREAT was it to go to a live version of the Playhouse? It was a riot, and brought back so many memories-- Ptery is still my fave, Conky still bugs, Randy is still bratty-- and with 4 of the 11 original actors, there was massive cheering going on every time a character came center stage, and Miss Yvonne for one had some pretty dark stage makeup slathered on her age-d waddle to try and give the illusion of a jawline to those in the audience who WEREN'T sporting a sweet pair of Nikon binocs. Even sans nocs, though, it was still super grody that the relatively-jailbait younger Cowboy Curtis supposedly had a thing for her. NOT Cougar-rific. Shudder.

The stage set was almost identical to the original set (as seen below)...

except, of course, we didn't get to see the cool exterior of the Playhouse

AND didn't get to see Pee Wee fly up into the sky on his scooter at the end of the show! Also conspicuously missing was the original theme to Pee Wee's playhouse, wasn't sure if that was because they were creating a whole new identity, or because there was some kind of rights issue.

BUT--

BUT BUT BUT

There WAS the integration of contemporary references, including a new puppet-- the ShamWow!-- and even a 30-second video spot of the BUMPIT!!! Miss Yvonne's dream come true. Not to mention the dreams of young Bumpit creators everywhere (Arizona and/or Utah) since they just hit the BIG time, making it all the way to a live Pee Wee show. Thank you again, Jambi and Black History Month!

I obviously can't share my whole experience or the whole show with you, but please enjoy this informative video on Lunchtime Manners that PW shared with us. (albeit in a slightly condensed version, this is the full one). It will change your life.

I really, really DON'T want to be a Mr. Bungles. And not just because I fear marionettes.

AND FINALLY...

Not to ruin the ending for you, but Pee Wee eventually gets his wish of being able to fly (thanks to Jambi, of course, and some of his smooth-talkin' Playhouse friends) and closes the show with this moving anthem...

(this is a recording from a performance years earlier... he is NOT 58 here! and in ours was 'wearing' his classic grey suit)

I know you are, but what am I.
Infinity.

blehhhhhhhh.

2010-01-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

I love grading!

[IT'S OPPOSITE DAY ]

If only everything in the piles of projects and even final exams looked like this,

I'd be a happier camper.

(just needed to add a little something in here to cheer me up)

I have met the enemy, and its name is Buttercream.

2010-01-20T22:22:00.000-08:00

According to the news around here, Southern California is UNDER SIEGE. By the weather.

Really, reporters, REALLY? "Under siege"?? Oh my. Draaaaama. Yeah, SoCal goes into mass hysteria and declares itself a State of Emergency whenever it rains, true that it hasn't rained this much since 4990 BC (depending on who's doing the chronology), and sure a small cypress-type tree might have uprooted itself in my backyard already, but we are not being attacked.

Then again, one of the local tv weathermen around here is named Dallas Raines, so by virtue of his incredibly apropos (and allegedly real) name alone, you'd think I'd believe everything he says, but... oh I just can't. Dallas Raines? --REALLY? It's simultaneously genius and prophetic. And always makes me giggle a little.

But the five consecutive days of rain we're getting is not my personal enemy. I love it and welcome it with wide open arms, and shed a little tear every time it wanes even just a moment. No... I, on the other and gravely more serious hand, am being attacked by a much more formidable adversary, and it's finding and wooing (and then destroying) my vulnerable stronghold. Curse you, fickle Willpower.

You are no match for Buttercream.

photo courtesy of marthastewart.com. I was too lazy to photograph the actual cupcakes I made.

First of all-- WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT BUTTERCREAM?? How have I gone all these years, baking and eating and baking (and eating), and yet been under such a gross misconception about this, the Robert Pattinson of frostings? I always thought buttercream was that disgusting thick grainy shortening-butter-sugar blend you find on grocery store cupcakes, and when Diane Keaton pleads with Mandy Moore that they should reconcile because "I made you the orange buttercream... I know how you love buttercream" in the horrific movie "Because I Said So" (yeah, I've seen it twice... I like the baking/catering bits), it gets me all confused because, GROSS. Who would want to lick a finger-full off of a cake of that, and why would anyone want to reconcile with Diane Keaton anyway, in any feature film besides Baby Boom?

So imagine my surprise (and joy) when I made my first buttercream last December, for a Red Velvet cake, simply because the recipe called for it. I trusted the recipe, because it came from this awesome book called Baked given to me by a trusted friend. (Great name, Baked-- no Dallas Raines, of course, but great nonetheless.)

It was a cinnamon buttercream frosting, and the recipe called for sugar, and flour, and milk, and heavy cream, and butter and vanilla and cinnamon... and you have to cook it first and then beat until cool, and add the butter etc... and it's a much longer process than just whipping up some butter and sugar together but OH MY GOODNESS, yum yum YUM. Plus cinnamon buttercream combined with red velvet is HEA-VEN-LY. Buttercream #1. I've made it twice now.

Last night I made Buttercream #2, this time per a Martha Stewart recipe for white cupcakes with monogrammed fondant hearts for a bridal shower (like the picture above, except my cakes were whiter, and the tines on my french star pastry tip, tighter) and a Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This buttercream heated egg whites and sugar and salt, whipped 'til cool, then blended in a heart-clogging amount of unsalted butter and a nominal amount of vanilla, but OH MY GOODNESS, I think I licked an extra two inches on my thighs' worth of buttercream off my fingers after frosting the cupcakes. Aaaand... might have downed an entire (test) cupcake, too.

It's a love-hate relationship, me and Buttercream. Hate to love it. But I do... oh how I do. Please let me bake for you.

Champion!! Eat your heart out, Todd.

2010-01-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

I am a girl of many talents.

I like to say "girl", not woman, because it makes me sound younger. Kinda like I hate being called a lady, as in "that lady over there sure is buying a lot of ugly clothes at Target from her decade of origin", gross, when it should be "man, that hottie is so young, it must be weird for her to be trying on retro 70's clothes".

(Though if it's the mid-60's and you're a dapper young man calling me a lady and standing up from the table when I enter and exit the room etc., that's cool.)

But still, many talents. And the most recently realized has also been major-ly recognized. For...

...last night, I was crowned (-slash-Trophied)

2010* DISCO ROLLER SKATE LIMBO

CHAMPION !!

(*of Jan. 16th, more specifically of Leslie's 40th Disco Skate Party, but no matter, still reigning champ)

Where: The Moonlight Rollerway, Glendale, California

What: Leslie Ragland's 40th Birthday Party, in which she pulled out ALL the stops-- first the Rollerway (rented out just to us!), then a raging-fun disco-themed party with karaoke at an awesome house in the Valley. Best party I've been to in a LONG time, probably because Leslie's a recent convert and hasn't learned yet that we are generally and notoriously cheap with our parties. And, she's awesome.

Costumes weren't REQUIRED, but definitely encouraged, and there were some GREAT ones there, including gold lame (insert accent mark over the 'e') jumpsuits and terrycloth short-shorts with sweatbands and knee socks (for the men), and some pretty sweet 'staches.

KJ's disco threads were convincingly authentic, and I'm pretty sure the size of those sleeves had something to do with the oil crisis of 1973. It takes a lot of petroleum to create that much synthetic fiber.

Todd P. wore a sweet Disco Skate belt buckle (as seen above), and didn't need much else in the way of a costume, his roller-moves created enough of THAT picture. Any of you who know him know what I'm talking about. For those of you who don't... well, he takes his shirt off a lot, and this time he did it while doing graceful roller-arabesques. Pretty impressive.

As for me, my mom couldn't remember where her incredible zebra-print tie-waist bell-bottomed jumpsuit was stashed (SO sad), so I was forced to raid Target for viable 70's costume options. Horrifyingly, there were many to choose from (as well as a gross resurgence of 80's-style neon-color-paint-splash-illusion fabrics), so I came up with this somewhat-lame early-70's frock over flared-leg jeans. Yes, I know it's decade-borderline, but we were celebrating 1970 in specific, so it can look kinda late-60's. And also explains why I couldn't remember to point my hand in a disco move like KJ's pose, and instead am asserting my independence as a New 70's Woman of Equality.

But really it didn't matter what I was wearing (though the stretchy jeans helped my flexibility), because it was my incredible skills that skated me into becoming

THE LIMBO CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!

I'd like to say it was easy. It wasn't. I had a lot of things working against me, from the surplus of competing bendy little ladies in the limbo lineup, to the intangible lack of support from the sidelines, both friend and stranger (which I'll get to in a sec), to the fact that my organs/muscles got caught in my ribcage when I'd bend so drastically at the waist to scrunch my body down to a one-foot height. (Seriously. That last time, when I stood-rolled back up, I felt something flip back into place.)

And yet... I WON! I was surprised when no one beat me, but not as surprised as the rest of the crowd. As I took my victory lap around the rink, precious trophy raised in triumph, I think they were still waiting for the ACTUAL winner to be announced.

KJ: "Congrats!!! ...I'll be honest... my money wasn't on you."

Friend of Leslie's: "Hey, you're the Limbo Champ! ...Yeah... didn't see that one coming."

Roller Derby Employee Limbo Specialist: (no words, just a look of disbelief as he double-checked the height bar for malfunction)

No one was as upset as Todd, though. He was so jealous that he made a very inappropriate jealousy-gesture, much too jealous to be published on this blog.

You be the judge, though-- here's a re-enactment of my winning roller-crouch (trophy added, since the eyes-squeezed-shut-in-hope as I zoomed under the bar can't be seen in this photo). No, in Roller Limbo, you don't lean backwards (too many potential concussions, also impossible).

I kinda feel like I got even lower, maybe the velocity/speed really did streamline my body into the height of a large cat during the winning pass. But no matter, still pretty BREATHTAKING. It was, as KJ later conceded, "...like watching Michael Phelps win all that gold".

Seriously. 2010 is off to a great start.

Oh and by the way, this is the real reason why I won:

Indian squatters. Best training in the world!

(You'll never get my trophy, Todd Petersen!)

Russia's Got Talent

2010-01-05T23:04:00.000-08:00

If we were still engaged in the Cold War, such tactical weapons as these would SURELY cause us to lose.

But I don't know... after watching this video clip, I'm thinking the Soviet Union wouldn't be/wasn't such a bad thing after all. It produced hardworking premature world-class gymnasts and acrobats and figure skaters, never mind that they were often forced into it against their will for the glory of Mother Russia, and they in turn grew up and wanted the SAME work ethic for THEIR children! Nothing wrong with that!

And think about all that special intelligence and science they have ... I don't know what's in the borscht over there (I really don't-- never ate it during my time in Mother Russia, was too busy trying to find yummy blinis with caviar), but there's got to be something fishy (not caviar) added to it to give these kids such FREAKISH strength. Steroids, I'm thinking? Kryptonite? Cold fusion? The Secret, in liquid form?

Watch, and learn. And I dare you to try and not have a "Whhaaaahh--?" look on your face as you do so.

SEE??? Phenomenal. My only criticism is that I would have preferred it performed to Scorpion's "Winds of Change."

So... watching this has kind of shaken up my identity. As much as I love other countries, I've always been grateful that I was born in America... but now I'm not so sure. Did I miss out on reaching my own full potential of being able to balance my body parallel to the ground on one hand while supporting an additional body weight on the edge of my calves at the ripe age of three? I'm thinking YES, and I'm a little pissed. "Land of Opportunity", whatever. Big deal. That could have been MY proud mother watching in the wings, only slightly nervous that the KGB would rush us off if I dared falter on one of my moves. AND I could have had amazing cheekbones.

Dang.

(*oh hey! I just noticed! Upper left-hand corner of my blog banner... there I am, in

Red Square, Moscow. It's like I just barely missed my destiny...)

COUNTDOWN

2009-12-31T20:58:00.000-08:00

So on the morning of the last day of the decade, I looked at my blog and saw that I had only 42 blogposts for all of 2009. And I thought to myself, laaaame. And then thought to myself, wouldn't it be greater if there were 52, an average of one per week? And did a little more thinking to myself, and figured I could probably post 10 more that morning, so yeah! 52, done and done. But also knew (because I know myself) that I spend far too long on any posts that I do, and my time was better spent today getting that self of mine primped and psyched for my last-ditch effort at love for the decade at tonight's New Year's Eve dance. Yippee.

So... in lieu of ten more 'real' posts, and also not having enough time or energy to even think up a "top ten" of 2009... here are ten posts that I MEANT to blog about, this last year. And now will just mention in passing, of course. Maybe I'll get around to really explaining them in 2010.

#10 TAHOE -- New Year, 2009

Thanks to Melissa Ruggles, I got to ring in the New Year (and her birthday) with friends at her fantastic place in Lake Tahoe! Never mind that I almost got blown away by the wind, I also got to figure skate at an Olympic Pavilion, play lots of Guitar Hero, and spend a good amount of time making the best snowball EVER. I then took it home and kept in in my freezer for a couple of months. No, I didn't.

nine

2009-12-31T20:45:00.000-08:00

SPRING BREAK

My fellow-teacher-friend Stacy and I had the same week off for Spring Break (miracle!), so we spent a few days exploring the gorgeous Great Central Coast of California. Not to be confused with the Great Central Valley of California, which, while fascinating with its profusion of cattle and flat land and exciting cities such as Fresno-- FresYES!!--isn't quite as gorgeous. Might have something to do with the persistent odor of bovine defecation, a killer if you forget to put your air on the "recycle" setting when driving through.

But the central COAST... gorgeous. Wild and raw, and preserved thanks in part to the eccentric William Randolph Hearst. We stayed in San Luis Obispo, visited Hearst Castle, played in Morro Bay, and explored the Danish village of Solvang. Then spent a couple of days in Balboa, back down south, where the frigid cloudy beach weather tricked me and I got maybe the worst sunburn of my adult life. My forehead actually swelled like one huge blister-- better than Botox, though, it smoothed out ALL my wrinkles and made me look sixteen again. Until it un-swelled and the burn caused even more wrinkles, and I looked sixty. Dang.

eight

2009-12-31T20:00:00.000-08:00

CARIBBEAN CRUISE, TAKE 2

Last summer (2008) three friends and I cruised the Caribe in July. This year, three friends and I did it again. The exact same cruise, in fact. What, it was super-cheap. Plus, LAST year, we didn't make it to the Bermuda port because of an impending hurricane... so we had to go again. Only logical.

Embarkment on the Caribbean Princess in NYC, take two.

Frolicking in St. Thomas, take two.

San Juan old fortress, take two.

Getting special treatment from the Head Waiters simply because we're four single ladies, take two.

(It was so nice to see Franco again...)

seven

2009-12-31T19:00:00.000-08:00

i (birthday) new york

The cruise disembarked in NYC on none other than the anniversary of my entrance into this world.

Not a bad place to celebrate. Or to try and ignore, actually, the tragedy of turning a year older.

Luckily Times Square had painted a huge Twister board in my honor/for my enjoyment, the SoHotel upgraded our room, Sephora gave me some free lip gloss, GapBody wanted me to buy a new shirt, and Little Italy provided some AMAZING gnocchi, birthday kisses from dashing Italian waiters, and my first taste of delicious cannoli.

There was no question where that cannoli was going. Didn't matter, though. BIRTHDAY.

six

2009-12-31T18:30:00.000-08:00

singled out

Harumph. And then there were the Singles Conferences. A necessary evil (times 3).

The first.... Huntington Beach, April. Third year in a row. Good times. Whatever.

The second... Seattle, July. Started out as a disaster (I wrote the above obituary halfway through the first "activity"), then got awesome, then imploded on itself, then turned out great, then showed after-Conference promise, then... well, you'll have to ask me for the end of that story. It's a GREAT one :). I sure do get some good stories for my life.

Finished off the Singles Conference Circuit in Santa Cruz in September. What could be better than the Dream Inn on the beach during our down-time (or not-wanting-to-get-up-early-for-the-service-project-time)?? Nothing.

Except maybe a sweet* yellow Camaro in the church parking lot and fresh leis for the Luau (thanks, LA flower mart!)

*"sweet", in this case, = "douchey". We do have funny guy friends...

five

2009-12-31T18:00:00.000-08:00

i love U2

look how close our seats were!! Or, look how cool it is to take a photo of a huge connection of screens through my sweet 'nocs!

U2 in Pasadena... too big. Rose Bowl. U2 in Vegas... FABULOUS! Little bro Derek and I met up with big bro Chad and wife Lucy at UNLV (they came from Utah) because we are ultra-fans. Chad and I went to the 2004 concert together as well, and afterwards had Post-Concert-Depression.

"nervous child pose"

Derek and I also rocked it bead-style at the Best Western Mardi Gras. I would recommend it, but... no, I don't. Ick. But U2!! AWESOME. PCD once again.

four

2009-12-31T17:30:00.000-08:00

all hallow's eve

(n)

I'll admit, I was skeptical of a YSA/MSA combined Halloween activity/dance. But it turned out to be INCREDIBLE. Great spook alley, great theme rooms, great costumes, great friends...

The scariest part of all? That Todd SHAVED HIS HEAD for his costume.

Go big or go home? He went BIG.

three

2009-12-31T17:00:00.000-08:00

It's the most... wonderful baking... of the year

Seriously am coming back to revisit this one, I've got some good recipes to share. Patience, children.

two

2009-12-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

Christmas in India

complete with probably the best Christmas pageant EVER (even better than "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever", I'd say...)

Yep. Will be revisiting this one, too...

...and... ONE!

2009-12-31T15:00:00.000-08:00

You're welcome.

Katie, your Christmas wish/request has come true... I didn't take a picture of the first set of India-flight-resulting-cankles, but when I arrived at my Chicago hotel on my journey home and reached down to my ankles and realized they were swelling OVER my sneakers... yeah. The camera came out.

(disgusting)

(fortunately went away in one day, this time)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Goodbye 2009!!

*oh and by the way, I TOTALLY know I'm actually posting all these after December 31st has passed... good thing I can Change History with the "post options" blogger tool. It's like I'm Superman, racing around the world backwards to make it stop and then turn in the opposite direction to make everything reverse including time, VHS-style.

see jane act

2009-12-30T23:27:00.000-08:00

So, I watched New Moon yesterday for the sixth time. Just as good as the first five times, except that I was fighting sleep the whole two hours (curse you, Belated Jet Lag) and failed to bring a blanket into the theater as per my usual practice, so I was uncomfortably cold the whole time. Much like Bella probably is when snuggled up to an icy marble Edward chest. Except without any snuggling on my part. Sigh.

Once again, though, for the sixth time, I was blown away by Dakota Fanning's performance as Jane, the dangerously-talented youngest female vampire of the Volturri gang.

There is no doubt in my mind as to why Miss Fanning was part of the main publicity/talk show circuit cast for the New Moon debut, and also given what might seem to be disproportionately high billing. The way she delivered those 22 words... I know I couldn't have done it. I wonder if she memorized the lines, too.

Here they are, so you can re-live the drama...

"Enough."

"Aro sent me to see what was taking so long."

"Go ahead."

"For dessert."

"Pain."

"Master."

"This might hurt a little."

("Pain" is my personal favorite. Gives me chills every time!)

Seriously?? OSCAR-WORTHY. Especially when you consider that there were only 14 Jane-words to go off of, in the book... she really had to dig deep to establish that depth of character. Masterful. I think I shall have to go see it a seventh time.

Whew! Cankles.

2009-12-21T10:39:00.000-08:00

Never been so happy in my life to have cankles. I don't have them genetically and I've never been preggers, and I don't think any woman should be tortured by having them unless it IS for the good cause of having a little bun baking in the oven, but today-- TODAY-- I am stoked that I do.

Actually that's a lie-- today I am tired of having big swollen ankles and feet, it's just gross. But YESTERDAY, I was happy for all the cankles I could get because... the swelling was due to being so many hours on a plane! In other words, I MADE IT TO INDIA!!! It took a lot of close calls and a lot of me literally running back and forth through two different airports (and a lot of sweating) and some interesting encounters with Indian officials, but me AND my reunited bag (the bag with only 2 minutes to spare) were both able to fly to London and switch planes and arrive eventually in Chennai, about 2am local time on Sunday. It was about 3 miracles that got me here, including the weather staying good just long enough for me to get out of Chicago, and man am I grateful for them.

Because I'm BACK. And so many great things have happened so far, so many reasons to be so thankful to be here.

I've missed my girls! To be mobbed by them when they first saw me, to have them calling out "Jennie! Jennie Auntie!" and clamoring to hug me, is about the best thing ever.

Having the (extended) Patel family here to volunteer for this week, is also just about the best thing ever. They are AMAZING-- a total group of 39, from Orange County, CA who has come to spend this week giving and serving and loving. They are generous and open and willing and gracious and selfless and a whole lot of fun, and I have already told them that I would like them to adopt me, please.

Saw an old friend today, Ruhta, when I went with the medical van to Bethel Nagar. I met Rutha over the summer on a rainy day as Tom, Jared and I walked the little (but orderly) streets of the colony, and we had a nice chat as she shared the space of her outdoor rope bed with us. Today, when I saw her, I gave her three photos I had had printed of her with the three of us that rainy day... and in return, she went all the way to her little house and came back with a bag of fruit, for ME. So humbling. What an incredible gift.

And.. I got to meet this man, who was blind for 18 years but, due to the efforts and persistence of rising star, has, at 80 years old had an operation to restore his sight, and-- it worked! And he has not lost a moment since. He is a hoot and a half.

Isn't that a wonderful smile??

SO happy to be here. And that's not even all of it so far, and there is SO much more to come :)