Post talk

Luis and I had a long talk last night about some hypothetical situations to work out some feelings. He really surprised me in the way he actually seemed in charge of his own thoughts and being able to articulate them. It's like the original Sleeping Beauty story of the thick wall of rose thorns surrounding the castle opening for the prince after 100 year. Scary, but exciting at the same time. I finally felt like I was speaking with another human being.

Anyway, during the discussion, I realized that I love posing hypothetical questions because they can be as realistic or unrealistic as I want them to be. Like scientific experiments, I can change one variable while holding all others constant to test out hypotheses.

Afterwards, I feel more motivated for studying my MCAT as well. I am tired of the way things are. I am really ready to move on. I am tired of living in fear. Fear of diminishing potential. It's time to gather up what I have and just run with it. Now is not too late.

Self-flagellation.

During my break today, I broke off a chipped piece of my hand lotion container. As I was playing with it, I had the most natural but crazy idea that I should eat that thing. No health insurance, no perforated intestine.

Speaking of health insurance, I was looking at our crazy health insurance plan at work. If I wanted to buy insurance for myself, health + vision + dental = $25 and some odd cents/pay period. Family plan will be about $400-$500/pay period. Flexible health spending accounts (or my pre-tax money designated for health spendings) will expire each year if I don't use them, covers vasectomies, but not reverse vasectomies. I don't understand why my pre-tax money from my wages will expire if I don't use it. Why can't I save up for the eventuality that I will use them in the future when I'm fucking old, or some pre-existing condition decided to stage a coup d'etat on my body, or cancer showing up and I need more money than I can save up in one year (not possible btw, the not having enough for co-pays, because bb's gonna be rich enough to not have to worry about that, or marry military or ex-)? If I don't use them, then I should have the option of taking the money out of the account taxed the same way IRAs are taxed, or something similar.

But, no matter what, once you decide to tie your tubes, you can't go back. Or rather, you can, but we won't pay for it. Ha ha.

Crepuscular. Such an unromantic sounding word for such a magical time of day. What the hell is wrong with it?

There are tadpoles swimming in the seasonal ponds in back of dog park. Luis and I wanted to catch some and see what they become.

Finally got our bed (mattress and frame) today. Strange/weird as it may make me, I am rather sad at its presence in the apartment. Perhaps I am so traumatized by the last bed that I am wary of any bed. I prefer sleeping on the floor where the "mattress" will never be bent out of shape and neither will I. Plus, it motivates me to vacuum the apartment at least once every two weeks.

Day whatever the hell it is for gardening & photography

The tomatoes are finally about 2in tall. After work today, I spent about an hour and 20 min repotting the little ones. All together, I had 49 plants. Each now in their own little pot. The next few days will be a test for them while their roots adjust to the new environment. Then I can't wait for them to take off again. I plan on selling the extra plants for $1 each. All I want is to break even for what I spent on seeds, pots, and soil. Working on acquiring more soil for free or close to free.

Weather: gales and showers. Puts people in a bad mood methinks. That and plus it's Monday. Happy to be home.

Found a great photographer: Roni River, an Israeli photographer. I didn't really read any of her writings since they were in all caps. But the photos...so evocative. I think she's gorgeous. It makes me sad when she posted a picture of herself commenting that it's taken her a long time to gather enough courage to post it. Honestly, her reluctance is a feeling every women/girl can share, unfortunately. I look at my body and I feel unhappy about it. Scars without a great accompanying pirate story. Just there because I was lucky enough to be in the middle of the Venn diagram between the circles of "the 11 year old with shingles (which happens to be a mostly old person's disease and those who are immunocompromised, of which I am neither)" and "Asian with skin prone to form keloids." I'm not stupid. I know what they are, though I don't talk about them to others. In high school when I was in XC, I didn't think I was skinny enough though my best friend who struggled with her own body image problems, told me she wishes she was my size. Instead, I looked enviously at others who didn't store body in the belly area. Always wanted to be five pounds lighter. Now at 27 years old, I look enviously at that girl in high school and wondered why she didn't see something that made her happy? Of course I can't think that without turning my spotlight on myself now. It's a struggle when I constantly see the clash of the body image society holds as ideal and reality failing that ideal. Even though Luis tells me at every opportunity how beautiful I am and never gets tired of reaffirming it whenever I ask, I never truly believe him. Fifteen pounds less...

...all why I love her photography. She puts such a playful spin on the image of her body. Sexy, beautiful, gorgeous, fun. I love that she puts her body out there. It makes me want to take up photography so I can show myself my body through my eyes.

The concept of tardiness: the adult edition

Everyone knows the concept of punctuality. Some of us are better at it than others. It is definitely something that I've struggled with since I started caring about it in college when I had to balance the strength of my memory and giving myself ample time to study for a midterm. Post-college, I have gotten better in some aspects of timeliness, such as not showing up to work late, but in the process, uncovered a wholly different side that I've never thought of before. Thus, here is "tardiness": the adult edition.

When you are a kid, there are very few things that you "have" to do compared to an adult. The fact that most kids don't need to run errands contributes the lack of things they "have" to do. Adults, on the other hand, tends to have tasks in a day already lined up with a little bit of flexibility as to their timing, always trying to squeeze in a bit extra if we could. I've been finding more and more cases where I am not late yet, but I know I am going to be late hours, days, or months ahead of time. For example, yesterday for Lauren's birthday bash, I knew I was going to be late when I learned the meeting time was at 6. Breakdown: wake up and start working for Brian at 9. That's when the stores open and I really would not like to be at his home any earlier. So 9am. Takes me about 30 min, including driving time to get the mail. Around an 1 1/2 hours-2 hours at his place doing billing and recording deposit and plan errands. 2-3 hours for errands. 1/2 hour to put everything away. Always add about 1-1 1/2 hours for extra time, like waiting in line, extra shopping etc. That puts my finishing time to around 2ish. Actual finish time: 3. I did start later at 10:30. For the party, I knew it was going to take at least 2 hours to get ready. 1 hour or more for the hair. 45 min for makeup. Drive there: 1/2hr. Actual times: ate when I finished work, took shower, started getting ready at 5, finished at 7. Late already. Illustrating my concept that I knew I was going to be late when I went to sleep on Thursday.

Months late: I am studying my MCATs. Based on my rate of study I know I won't be finished in time for testing in the 2nd week of May.

Fucking depressing isn't it?

Religion at work

I've been with the CU since September and this week was my first time at the Kearny branch. And I must say, love the people there.

The manager used to work with the humane society. The full-time teller loves history and science. Today was my second time there and the MSR is really less shy than I initially thought he was. And the lead loves to cook. The only one whom I am unsure about is the temp. The teller and I were talking about something in the morning and she started talking about the bible. Unsettling. Obviously that conversation was short.

Speaking of cooking, the MSR at CV gave me her recipe for her Spanish rice and enchilada sauce, will definitely have to try it sometime. Meanwhile, Luis' cooking is getting better all the time. I think the only barrier to cooking is getting that feel, or instinct almost, of knowing what goes well with what. Everything after that is experimentation!

Rachel the other teller at CV gave me a magazine called Mother Earth News. Her bf bought it for her because the stuff in there is what he wants her to do. She lend it to me because she thought I'd be interested in it...and I read every single article. It talks about vegetables that grows in shade, types of chickens to raise, DIY compost tea, and on their website, there's an article on pickling! Can you say love?? I forgot the magazine in the breakroom yesterday so Rachel interbranched it to me today at Kearny. I placed it next to my window and I actually had a member ask if I read it too? We started talking about gardening and he discussed his erosion problems on his one acre land. To summarize, it's a lot of manual labor, and men at Home Depot are apparently not a cheap source of labor. Can't buy them off with pizza and beer.

Anyway, two magazines totally worth subscribing to: Cook's Illustrated and Mother Earth News. Cook's Illustrated doesn't actually have a lot of colorful photos, which if you know me, I absolutely require in a cook book, but the information and tips are scientific in a way I trust. Plus, everything that I've made from their Cooking for Two has worked out great. Both of these comes out every two months.

Lazy Sunday

Woke up rather late due to the time change. Found out yesterday that there's a one-stop clinic for vaccines at the County Shelter today, so I dragged Luis to go with me to get Butters' shot and licensing out of the way.

When we got there, there were a surprisingly large number of people and dogs. It took us about an hour an a half for a 5-6 minute process. Time mostly taken up by paperwork. During the wait, I figured out another trick that I can teach the dog. "Look" to get him to focus solely on me. We'll have to start small and build it up. Overall, he did a satisfactory job waiting in line. He's not as excited as a few of the other dogs, but he was excited enough to not being able to sit and stay. I admit, there were a lot of dogs in a small area.

Afterwards, we took him to the dog beach. He ran around as usual and separated himself from us. I watched as he ran up and down the stretch of beach we were walking on looking for us. It must have been 5-10 minutes before I finally called to him and he came running happily back looking very much relieved. From then on, he was done, walking closely beside me and constantly checking to see that I'm still there.

The tomatoes are 1 3/4in tall. Just a quarter more inch to go before I can thin them out and repot them. Everything else is growing, albeit slowly, for my taste at least. At least they are still alive and not stagnating. Meanwhile, the weather is warming up beautifully. Almost like it is slowly building up a crescendo at summer solstice.

Tax returns stimulating the economy

It doesn't exist if I can't see it.

Pending my increase in income, I've finally opened an account with a credit union. My main accounts are still with BofA, because face it, my manager was right, when you have Bill Pay, online banking and multiple accounts at one place, it is damn hard to divorce that bank. Ever since I had to close the first account I've ever had at Wamu/Chase, I've been searching for another financial institution. Makes me antsy having accounts only at one place. That's probably because of my working for financial institutions. It's really hard to say fuck you to a bank only to go to another place and find my checks are going to be held for 7/9 fucking business days because it's a new account. Not that I get that many personal checks that could be held anyway, but that's not the point! The point is that I wanted an account where a small part of my direct deposit will go to so I don't see it. And voila! A few months later, I will have money I didn't know existed. It's all about the mind tricks.

Anyway, I chose USE Credit Union because I knew I wanted something that was part of the Shared Branch Network. So San Diego County CU along with a few other large CUs in SD are out. How am I suppose to access my money when I go on a trip? USE also have a pretty exciting Finance Works that's supposed to help with breaking down and keeping track of your finances. Plus, they have offices open on Saturdays till 4pm. I went in to open my account and to my dismay, they use XP as well for their financial platform. Dismayed because that was a major reason why I didn't want to open an account at Metropolitan. The system is incredibly primitive. And looking at the schedule of fees, there's a $2 fee for SBA cash withdrawals. Really? So what's the point of shared branching then? For now, I'll try them out and see how they work out. I can always move it and find some other place right? Also, apparently they had a branch right on-campus at UCSD. I was there for four years, I have absolute no impression of it. In banking terms, opportunity?

Luis then convinced me to get new tires while we were at Discount Tires. I had a pretty good idea what the price should be and I'm pretty sure it was lower than Costco. Actually, now that I thought about it, I should have asked for a comparison for the same product and then decide...I blame Luis. (Actually he checked ratings for me and they are pretty good.)

Economic stimulation!

Speaking of, now that I have a bit extra money, it's time to donate to charities. Someone has to offset the donations to churches. One member I helped donated about half of his state and federal taxes to his church. And here I was thinking tithes were a Medieval/Mormon concept. Really, I mean capital "M," for both. And yes I know tithes mean 10% or thereabouts. These are my churches:

1. Abortion rights/women's health-Planned Parenthood Federation of America. I've used their multiple services. I love that they are affordable, accessible, an incredibly professional. I see it as my paying them back for all the free services/products I got when I had no insurance. The only thing that irks me is the monthly mailings I receive for their fund raising efforts. What a waste of paper and postage. OTOH, I guess it helps keep post offices open. However, I much prefer that they don't send out letters to me. I'll donate when I have the money, especially since they are at the top of my list.

2. Public radio-KPBS. KPBS sucks for the fact that after 7, instead of broadcasting news loop like up in LA, we have classical music. Blah. I would even prefer some variety in classical music, like opera. Opera counts right? Otherwise, a few of my favorite podcasts come from public radio. I know they are not from KBPS, but I'll still go local first.

3. Animal rights-?. All thanks to Butters. I haven't decided which charity to donate to for that one yet since I have never donated anything to that cause, so I'll need to do my research.

4. Education-?. I don't want to suffer in this democracy because the majority of the voting population doesn't have critical thinking skills. No death/suffering by stupidity. I don't mind differences in opinion/values. However, when those who espouses these values are hypocritical or allow cognitive dissonance to rule their lives and actions, they lose my respect, which I wouldn't mind so much except they affect my life negatively, i.e. not having health insurance and threatening to defund public radio as well as PPFA. Choosedonors.org seems to be a good candidate right now.

I'm sure much later, I'd like to add some kind of legal counsel organization to the list.

Did you know happiness is a much better indicator of likelihood to donate than wealth?

And my blood type in Asian population occurs 27% of the time. Yay! I'm not that special...Cool bit of statistic though. Luis is B+, but we don't know if he's phenotypically homozygous for the B allele. I teased him that he should have some kids so we can test it. It's for a good cause, solving a medical mystery.

With that, I have cruised into daylight savings time or the end of, I can never keep track. Yay for earlier hours! I love daylight. Makes me depressed when I don't get enough of it, which means I'll just have to make sure that I don't live close to the poles. Relatively easily accomplished. Happiness for mission accomplished! And not in the ironic way that we now use the phrase post-Bush on aircraft carrier circa 2003.

Dinner apple pie and reinterpreted chicken enchiladas

Yesterday I fed six people for about $15-$20. Got some chicken on sale at Albertson's for 67cents/LB, slow cooked them till the meat fell off the bones. Oh from that I learned that you can put a layer of onions on the bottom of the slow cooker, tie a satchel of spices and stick that in there, and add the chicken. No liquid needed. Most of the fat will be rendered out of the chicken and you will get the best ever chicken broth, so rich that it gels up. Save the bones for a second cooking for the broth though.

Soaked the black beans overnight then cooked them on the stove for about an hour with some stock and salt. They turned out really well.

So the chicken enchiladas consists of chicken, black beans, sauteed onions, and chopped pickled jalapenos on the inside, wrapped in a corn tortilla, roasted bell pepper soup as sauce and layer of cheese. Baked till cheese is bubbly. It was soooo good. Normally I don't like canned stuff, but I think the pickled jalapenos really work in this case. Adding the occasional kick and a pop in the taste of the thing.

For dessert, I made my first apple pie. Normally I am not an apple pie person, but even I liked the filling on this one. Perfect with some scoops of ice cream. I would like to still play around a bit with the crust though. I might need to double the recipe to make the crust thicker.

Big news of the day: Japan earthquake and tsunami. It's amazing when natural disasters strike and completely stops our (human) lives. We think our little lives are so important, then along come this wall of water, and a whole country stops.

I helped an 80-something year old member today at the CU and he commented on how horrible the earthquake was, along with the string of natural disasters we've been having. He said that nature is doing enough without men doing more damage to each other. I think he's talking about the uprising in Libya. He walked away quite frustrated, but trying to curb from delving more into the awful things we do to each other.

Then I read a story on Mefi about a guide dog in Britain who went blind and now follows another guide dog. One person commented, "They don't sit around missing what they don't have anymore, they just receive it as a new state of the world. We humans, on the other hand, are under the illusion that we have a lot more control than we really do over the world in which we live. When we lose part of that control, lose something for good, we're fully aware and it's hard to cope." There's a lesson in there somewhere...

which leads me to Butters. It's pretty hard to find a person who's undemanding and happy for the most part. It's refreshing with animals that they place really minimal demands on us. Please take me out to pee/poo so I don't pee/poo in our living space because you don't like it. Please feed me. Please give me treats! Please take me with you wherever you go! Please let me be with you. That's about the extent of his demands. Of course, I'm sure he'd be quite happy to not be groomed or get his nails clipped. He puts up with me giving him a haircut/bath. He doesn't really demand that of me. I've seen others of his kind not groomed and they are still quite happy. As I type here, he's sleeping peacefully on the floor beside my chair. I love him really in a way that I don't love another human being. And coming back full circle...I wonder if it's because I control him?

Butter's annual exam

Last week, Butters went to his annual exam at his vet's at Rose Canyon. He only needed his bordetella shot. Everything looked good. Dr. Bjorne told us not to worry too much about his rash on his belly. Rub him down when we come in from the outside. And brush his teeth more often. I tried that night and because he's such a small dog, I couldn't quite even get my finger in towards his back teeth with a finger brush. So I got him a new bone and he's been working on it ever since, taking it apart. I love seeing him work the little bone around in his jaws. Doing something that I couldn't do. Saves me work. =)

Pictures of my adorable little dog:

Yep. Adorable. And I love sleeping with him. He is absolutely the cutest.

After the vet, we took him to dog beach. He loves it there. Butters + beach = sandy car, but much doggy happiness and more importantly, tiredness.

Day 14 & Elephant art

Finally got the chance to thin out the oregano (bottom right). I took a pair of tweezers and picked the ones with the buds of a second pair of leaves and started clearing an inch radius around them. The whole time I was thinking of evolution. I see seeds that I scattered on the surface that are barely sending down roots into the soil. Those will be gone when they come up since they are too slow. The ones that are tall and spindly, I cleared those as well. I kept sprouts that had big leaves and second leaf buds. So for ten minutes while sitting out on the patio, I felt like a higher power to the powerless little oregano sprouts, rooting out the weak and making life better (hopefully) for the few, the chosen. Ha ha ha!...Anyway...as for the other plants, the thinned out thyme (bottom left) has grown much bigger.The basil (upper right) looks really cute with the big round leaves.

 The tomatoes are now 1 1/2 inches, with their second pair of serrated leaves showing on some of the sprouts. I can't wait till they are old enough for me to transplant them.

And the tarragon. Not very exciting. Didn't seem to grow very much. I wonder if it's something to do with the deep pot.

So I stumbled across this the other day and thought it was quite amazing. It really made me want to visit some art museums and see some art pieces in person. I present to you...elephant art:

A painting by an elephant of an elephant:

Isn't that amazing? Their abilities and intelligence awe me.

Day 9 for the garden

A thorough update on the planties.

Overview of the herbs. Clockwise from the non-sprouting pot of wisteria: non-sprouting wisteria, oregano, thyme and basil.

 Close up of basil:

Close up of oregano:

Close up of thyme:

My tomatoes and tarragon (left and right respectively):

Close up of tomatoes: Aren't they awesome looking?

And of the tarragon:

The planter box that Luis built me:

Since we are on pictures, here's one of Butters sleeping with me on the couch after I had a dinner of avocados and Thomas English muffins. Sad I know. I was so hungry I couldn't wait for Luis to finish making abondigas soup. Anyway, I think at one point I rolled over and threw my leg on Butters. I looked at him to see if he would jump off, he raised his head to look at me, sighed and put his head back down, so we fell asleep again that way.

When I was driving home today from El Cajon, the weather went from nice and clear to a bit foggy at Clairemont to really foggy when I was getting off at Miramar/La Jolla. It made me remember when it was this foggy on campus at UCSD when I feel like I'm walking in a cloud. I love the image that fog creates where different gray tones denotes the distance an object is from me. It reminds me of classic Chinese brush paintings with trees in the mountains. In the fog, I can almost transpose that imagery on the landscape around me.

Another thing, I'm trying to study for the MCATS and the prospect of learning basic chemistry, o-chem, physics and biology is really daunting. Looking back at what I knew in high school with calculus and in college with biology, I really feel like I'm dumber now than before. I can't do calculus. I don't remember a whole bunch of crap I knew before. It's a really depressing realization, which does not help in my trying to relearn things. Why can't I understand it the way I did before??

Day 8 for the garden

Everything has sprouted. The tomatoes are growing especially quickly, now about 1in. tall. The basils have finally broken through the soil. I thinned the thyme a bit yesterday, much as it pained me to do so. The oregano dots the surface of the soil with bits of green. Now the next challenge is for them to grow their second set of leaves and be independent of their seed reserves.

I had a great idea to recuperate some cost for my garden. I'll thin out the plants and plant them in individual little pots then sell them for $1 each. Probably not much profit, but at least the seeds and pots and maybe even the potting soil will pay for themselves. 

On a different note, my crew leader from the Census called last month and it turned out to be a pyramid scheme. I don't know if it's common experience, but in my life time, I've sat through four or five of those. I'm always curious/amused to see what they are. For this one, it's a prepaid legal service. You pay $46/month and get the opportunity to make "residue income" (I'm not quite sure what the exact term was, I fell asleep during that portion and heard it while on the border of consciousness and unconsciousness.) Having just gone through sales training where we learned about the "benefits statement = benefit + product," this video should have been shown to demonstrate exactly how to connect with your audience (by relating personal anecdotes to show they are everyday people just like us) and sell the benefits that comes with the product.

And on that subject, I am really glad to have the experience from the other side of the sales table. I recognize what the process looks like. I know what a bad sales person is like. I know what a good sales person is like. They have the ability to make you feel excited and great about whatever you just got. You'll feel like they did you a huge favor by selling that product to you. If you strip away the veneer of words, a product is just an object/service, neutral and gray. It's when people add personalized fireworks to it that makes it shiny and interesting to others.

Day 6 of planting

Tomatoes sprouted today! And grew about an inch while they were at it.

Exciting! The package includes both red and yellow tomatoes, so now I don't know how I'm going to pick two to grow and cultivate?

The sprouting tarragon:

The one sprouting sweet basil. I think I might have planted the lot a bit too deep so it's taking them awhile to reach the top. But hope is in the soil!

Two views of oregano. Top:

Oregano side:

Two views of thyme. Top:

And side:

They are like little kids to me. I come home and I can't wait to see how much they've grown!

And Luis finished the planter for me today. He didn't take any pictures because he wanted to surprise me. I'll take some tomorrow and post them. It turned out so well that I'm asking him to make me another one.

We also dropped by Wal-Mart today and picked up a 15ft hose and a 50ft soaker hose. I plan on burying it in the soil and then mulch everything. That way water isn't lost = cheaper water bill. Win! This weekend, we'll probably go to the Miramar Greenery to pick up the compost and mulch. Just wanted to get everything set up so that the plants will be ready to go come late March.