Dainty dancing little fishies

On Books

2011-09-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

Starting things is not hard, finishing is. I have a ton of things I would like to do, I start them, but the follow through is unglamorous and boring. However, I do hope that the rule of 21 takes over and things become a little bit easier. Like training for marathon and reading more Chinese. Or maybe I'm just super tired today and my lack of energy is dragging my mood down.

Anyway, two items:
1. This is hilarious. A list of recommended science fiction/fantasy books as voted for by NPR listeners.

2. Read that Kindle is coming out with Kindle Fire (features? Who cares?). Is anyone else bothered by where Amazon is going with the name of this piece of technology that's supposed to be the next step in publishing? I am. Kindle, as defined by their screen saver (don't make me go through all the dead authors to define it), I can nervously chuckle and let pass. But Kindle Fire? Fahrenheit 451 anyone? Color me disturbed.

This post is probably TMI

2011-09-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

If you ever want to explore the limit and shape of your uterus, stick something in there. (Disclaimer: don't do it without your doctor.)

And this is how internal organs are supposed to work: you are not supposed to notice them at all.

Today, I got my Mirena IUD. Used misoprostol 7 hours before and took 600mg of ibuprofen about 2 hours before my appointment.

Procedure: speculum (not bad), cervical dilator (pinch! and pain. I felt blood rushing somewhere. Felt like fainting), iodine swabs (cool. Kills those germs iodine!). Some kind of measurement of the uterus (when is the cervical dilator coming off? That shit is uncomfortable). IUD insertion. That was when I felt something pushing against the top and sides of the uterus.

I shook afterward. The literature and NP warned me about cramps, but my menstrual cramps never felt this strong. It's more than discomfort. It's pain. If the uterus had a voice, I'm sure it was screaming, "Get this shit out of me now you bastard!"

I cried. Couldn't help it. Tears just rolled down my face. I thought of yoga. I thought of breathing. My shaking stopped. For awhile at least. Enough to get dressed and walk out of there.

Got to the parking lot. Had to sit down and put my head between my knees at one point because I felt my peripheral vision going. That happened a few times between the hospital and home. I thought of cops and being pulled over because I didn't put my seatbelt on. If they dared to do that, I'd yell at them. Or maybe I'll just make my point by throwing up on them.

Home. Curled up in my blanket and tried to ignore my silently screaming uterus. I questioned whether this was worth it. How I am such chickenshit that I'd rather die than continue experiencing this. Balm of sleep.

Hours later, cramps now dulled to less than normal. I can even roll out of bed and sit up without a blanket around me.

In other news, languages. I know Mandarin, English, Shanghainese, a little bit of French, Spanish, and Japanese. I've decided that since I'm going back to China, I'll need to brush up on my Chinese. Found a Chinese bookstore at the back of 99 Ranch, full of educational materials. Apparently they've been there for six years. The prices are great. I picked out a fourth grade Chinese book that kids would use in school as well as a book with Chinese idioms and their stories for $11. The latter suits my needs quite well. I can learn idioms, the original classical Chinese source, modern Chinese translation as well as English translation. My goal is to be able to reader better and faster in Chinese, close to my reading speed in English. And I found an awesome Chinese-English dictionary. It allows you to look up characters by writing, pinyin, and shows you keystrokes as well. Maybe now I can go back to my Fifty-two weeks of Zhuangzi.

The epic saga of trying to mail my cousin her f'ing wedding present

2011-09-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

Characters: on my dad's side, let's randomly assign my grandmother's generation as the P generation. My father's generation as F1 generation and my generation as F2. In the P generation, my grandmother married three times. Her first husband died of something when my dad was still young. She had three kids with him: my dad, my uncle, and my aunt. She then married an abusive man and had one son with him. Divorced him and married another one who died just this year. F1: my father, my uncle, my aunt, and the half-brother. F2 (this is going to be easy because of the one-child policy) from oldest to youngest: My uncle's daughter, Xiaxia, my aunt's daughter, Weiwei, yours truly, and the daughter from the half-brother (I don't even know her name).

Xiaxia recently got married in May. Due to some craziness in my life, I didn't get her wedding present to her in time. No matter, I am bad at giving people presents anyway, I buy them, but don't give them. Anyway, so I finally got her her present, a pair of Kris bears from Swarovski.

Super cute (right?), fitting, name-brand, which Xiaxia values, and decently within my budget. Got her a pretty card from Papyrus. All I need is an address. Anyone would think the hard part is over right? If it was that easy, this post would not exist.

I email Weiwei because she's the only one whom I remotely keep in touch with. By keeping in touch with, I mean that I write her emails maybe twice every 2-3 years. Honestly I don't even like her that much because she was pretty mean to me when I was little. I only communicate with her because she is the only one familiar with English. Tangent. Back to saga. I ask Weiwei for Xiaxia's physical address. She replies saying that it's better if I directly communicate with my oldest cousin, giving me the phone number and mentioning that she passed on my message and gave Xiaxia my email.

Thinking she might not have understood what physical address meant, I wrote another email to her around a month later (because I really couldn't think of anything else to write, that's a whole other story), elaborating and rephrasing my original request. This time, no reply from Weiwei, but the next day I get an email from Xiaxia in Chinese. Roughly translated: "I heard that you want to send me something, you don't really need to. I'll be happy with an electronic post card or an email. Hug hug kiss kiss. Best! blah blah..." The cuteness, whether genuine or disingenuous kills me. Makes me want to strangle a kitten.

Ok. I already bought the fucking present. What the fuck does it mean I don't need to send it?

Went home to LA to enlist the help of the parents, who promptly im's Weiwei. Facepalm. Who replies that no one short of Xiaxia's parents and Xiaxia apparently knows where she lives. Wtf. I just want to point out that this is fairly unusual because my aunt and uncle are pretty close. Plus, there's my grandma. None of whom knows the address. Meaning that since Xiaxia got married in May, no one has visited? Very strange.

Then from my mother, I learned that Xiaxia is mad at grandma because she had asked grandma to give her the apartment that grandma was living in (there is another apartment that grandma can live in). Grandma said no, because she wants to pass it on to John, since he's the only grandson. Xiaxia is unhappy about it and hasn't called/talked to grandma since the wedding. *insert exasperated swearing*

As it stands, I am fairly tempted to write our eldest that I don't give a shit about her physical address. Just give me any fucking address where she will be able to pick up her damn wedding present. I'd like to wash my hands of the whole thing already.

(Final note of clarification: I am not angry, though I might sound like it. Just amused as the ridiculousness of the whole situation. I'm sure cultural differences have something to do with it. This became a running joke between my brother and me the entire weekend.)

Post talk

2011-03-28T23:53:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-13T23:25:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-13T03:26:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-11T22:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-09T00:21:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-08T23:52:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-03T23:23:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-02T22:35:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-01T00:46:00.000-08:00

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.

Weekend of crepes and drinking and impromptu dancing

2011-02-28T01:16:00.000-08:00

Whenever Luis and I go to LA or Calexico for the whole weekend, I never feel very rested at all. There's something about home here in SD that really relaxes me that other homes do not.

Anyway, this weekend, we went to have crepe brunch with the Alpha Cats and played a rather contentious game of Word on the Street. The game rules weren't very clear, so we had to duke things out. Things with buttons: keyboards (belly button count?), type of bed: tempurpedic. It's like finding pants in the sky.

In the evening, went to Peter D's, got drunk and skipped to PB for a last hour at Tremors. Lauren and I both had the right idea in wearing black tops and jeans. Could be dressy, could be casual. Gave me a great excuse to put on a shit ton of makeup that I normally wouldn't wear for daytime. Seriously, need contact lenses. Seriously, need health insurance.

For whatever reason, whenever Lauren and I get buzzed or drunk, we just want to go dancing. Peter D's was not providing the right type of music so we took off to Tremors. It's been too long since I've felt music with my body. It's like giving up to the music and let the rhythm control my movements. Sometimes I can feel the bass coursing through my muscle cells and blood vessels. Biology major, or the alcohol.

The great thing was that I didn't have a hangover. The same cannot be said for Luis however. I fell asleep to him vomiting into the toilet.

We spent Sunday mostly at home. I cooked, cleaned, and made more mess to clean. Hovered over my plants, my dog, the former because apparently on some subconscious level I think they grow faster if I look at them. Hey, a watched pot and all right? The dog, well, because he's just the cutest.

Resolution: floss more. Apparently it contributes to heart health.

Day 5 of planting

2011-02-27T19:48:00.000-08:00

Oh my god things sprouted!

Thyme in the foreground and oregano:

Closeup of the thyme: Aren't they adorable with the little leaflets?

Not a very good picture, but closeup of the oregano. You can see the little seeds sprinkled on top. I originally planted those about 1/8 of an inch, but then the detailed directions told me to just sprinkle on top. So I sprinkled more on top. I don't know if you can see it, but the seeds have cracked their skins and sent out roots. I'm sure in the next few days I'll be able to see leafs and such.

The tarragon. You can see one little leaflet in the picture, but there are others coming up.

Also, I know my tomatoes are sprouting too. I can see their stems trying to clear the soil. Couldn't really get a good picture.

As for the other plants that I have, nothing has died yet, so that's good. Everything been nice and wet because of the rain. I'm just a little worried about the temperature because it has been pretty cold for the past month or so, with the strange exception of a few warm days. I made little green houses for the plants with clear cellophane from flower bouquets. Once the seedlings grow bigger, I'll have to scavenge for some two litter soda bottles to put over the pots for a mini greenhouse.

First hurdle cleared. Next one is coaxing them to actually feed for themselves. I usually have a bit of problem with that stage as it seems like growth just stops with maybe two sets of leaves. We'll see when we get there.

In other news, I checked on the worms and they are acclimating it seems. I lifted the top bucket with the castings and without even stirring, found quite a few worms moving around in their new home. Meanwhile, I've been chopping up kitchen scraps and saving them in a trashcan along with the extra newspaper and leave cuttings so they can get started with composting before I feed everything to the worms.

The imperfections of women

2011-02-26T00:17:00.000-08:00

I pick up the San Diego Reader and many of the pages are dominated by adds for plastic surgery. To me, they scream out, "Here's what's wrong with you! Let us fix it!"

Examples:
Have hair again: You look ugly without a full head of hair!
Laser hair removal: lip/chin -> you are hairy, both underarms -> you are hairy, brazilian -> why do you have hair down there?, basic bikini lines -> trim them!
Wrinkle treatments -> hag
Skin rejuvenation treatments: melanage for pigmentation -> because being a uniformly colored blank canvas is natural and good looking, skin toning & firming -> don't look old!
Latisse: who the fuck came up with the idea that having less lashes is a fucking medical condition? Oh right. The pharmaceutical industry. Like having a bush right above your eye is beautiful.
Here's one that comes out and just says it, "unsightly veins."
And my personal favorite: labiaplasty, vaginoplasty. What? Really? So whose idea of beauty of these body parts are we conforming to?
Unwanted body fat! Get your belly toned tucked & tightened! Brazilian butt lift, liposculpture, cellulite, loose skin, dental implants.
Breast augmentation is so pedestrian that it doesn't even jump out at me anymore.

Looking at all of that really makes my blood boil. Don't get me wrong, if someone really has a true need for a cosmetic procedure, the plastic surgeons have my full support. If my labia is so long/large that it's constantly draping out of my panties, ok, maybe, or maybe just don't wear underwear. I can't imagine what vaginoplasty does. I also can't imagine a man turning down sex because a woman's vagina or labia isn't pretty enough. I mean to me, a pretty vagina is a disease free one. The prettiest vagina (whatever that means) with warts is not not all that great.

Why do we want a butt that's not too big or small? Why do we need to lose 15 pounds, constantly? Why are we always searching for straight hair for girls with curly hair and curls for girls with straight hair? Why are we trying to be whiter when we have dark skin and tanner when we are white? Why do we want a profusion of hair on our lashes and head but wish death upon hair anywhere else? Why? So much criticism and unhappiness with what we have. Life happens. Take care of yourself and maybe we can look like Helen Mirren when we are older instead of Joan Rivers.

Just needed to get that off my chest.

And with that, I am so appreciative of Luis for always supporting me and telling me that he loves me no matter what I look like, even if I have sagging boobs and wrinkles. I would love to be a beautiful grandmother whose home smells like awesome food all the time.

Worms!

2011-02-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

I have asked for red wrigglers for composting for two years now from Luis (we are not very good at giving each other presents) and now I finally have them! Not in the quantity that I wanted, but it's a start.

The whole thing has three buckets all together. Two 5-gallons (in the foreground, stacked on top of each other) and a shorter three-gallon (covered with a red veil/sash).

The 3-gallon is the top one composed of delicious worm casting, perfect for vegetables.

It sits on top of this next one which contains the bedding of shredded newspaper, leaves, and stems. Mixed in their is their first feeding of molded blackberries, wilted flowers, pear parings, and butternut squash. (It just occurred to me that my dog would probably eat all of that as well...disturbing.) Now I'm going to leave it alone for about a week before I open it up again and check on it. I can't wait! It's like controlling myself to not open Christmas presents.

And the last bucket to catch the yummy worm tea. Yes. That's what it's called. It's very good for plants. The worms naturally produce this.

Isn't it awesome? I'm super excited. I hope the worms don't die.

Some other ideas for the planters:
Potting mix: I told Luis that one of these days we will go to go to the little known Miramar Greenery to pick up some free compost and mix that in with free dirt that I can find on CL.

DIY tomato cage: find some free bamboo stakes on CL and wrap that together with garden twine/galvanized wire that I bought at Home Depot.

In other news, I'm trying to teach Butters to kiss on command, turn which he mostly got, and to go and stay on his sleeping mat. Here's the cutie being a sentry:

Preparations for spring

2011-02-22T23:54:00.000-08:00

After a 3-day visit to my parents' place, it really got me thinking about gardening again. Two of their chickens started laying eggs now, though still inconsistently. The lighter colored one is the youngest. It's the one out of 20 that my parents bought in Chinatown that survived chick-hood.

This and the one in the background I bought for my parents at City Farmer's Nursery. Full-grown now. One's a bully and the other shy. The shy one is the more consistent egg-layer. The big one squawks when she lays.

Anyway, I thought the inconsistent egg-laying might have something to do with the lack of protein in their diet. Since it rained, Luis and I went down our street and picked up earthworms by the curb. We got a good handful. The worms were going to die anyway, so they might as well die for a good cause right? The chickens loved them. The handful of worms lasted all of 10 seconds. In other news, my roses are doing beautifully. My favorite one though still hasn't sent out any long shoots like it did two years ago. I wonder if I didn't prune it enough. Sad. Anyway, this got me thinking about everything I can do this year in my patio on a budget here in San Diego.

First, vermiculture! I love composting. It's something that makes absolute sense to me. Why should I have to spend money to buy back fertilizer when all it is garbage that I throw away? I have tried composting on and off several times since I learned it in 5th grade (2nd thing besides duck and cover that I took away from elementary school), all with really good results. Whether it smells or not doesn't matter. Even if you ignore it, sooner or later, kitchen scraps will turn into awesome dirt. Seriously, how cool is that? I remember two years ago, my mom and I opened up a garbage can worth of compost (which by the way, does not make a very good container as I had no idea dirt can be so heavy), and it smelled so fresh and earthy. It felt good to dump it all onto our vegetable patches.

Anyway, I spent a good part of yesterday evening googling a DIY worm bin. I was all set to go beg/barter for a few nursery trays, or scavenge at thrift stores for some storage bins, when I remembered that awhile back Luis' friend, Laura, wanted to give me her worms. So I traded a bottle of my homemade vanilla extract for her system, with a bottle of homemade red wine vinegar too. The worms weren't all dead, though I still would've taken it even if it smelled or had no worms. It simply meant I didn't have to buy containers. Anyway, turns out that it still had some worms and a ton of casting. Perfect for my new garden.

On the way home, we picked up some free newspaper to make bedding for the worms. I also scooped up some leaves around the apartment complex. Now they are all set, nice and comfy in their new home and will eat and reproduce. Hopefully.

For the garden, Luis is creating two planters for me out of wood from shipping pallets. That will be a work in progress for the next few days, which hopefully won't turn into weeks.

Meanwhile, I am planning how and what I'm going to plant in the planters. Ultimately, I would like to take advantage of the size of our patio to have summer dinners and not just have bare walls and concrete to stare at.

In the first planter, I wanted to plant shade plants, predominantly, a maidenhair fern (which I'm probably going to harvest some rhizomes from my now four-year old plant back in LA), periwinkle (maybe) and something else. Again, in progress. It'll be a delicate looking planter reminiscent of something out of a forest. Or at least what my imagination thinks of as a forest where A Midnight Summer's Dream took place.

The second and larger one will be a vegetable/herbs planter. Based on the size of the boards of of the pallet, this larger one will be 48"x20"x15". I wanted to plant two cherry/grape tomatoes since they are really productive plants and expensive in stores. My mom plants them and hates them because she can't be bothered to pick the fruits and they grow everywhere. Anyway, they'll be awesome for salads during summer! For herbs, I've decided this year I'm going to rotate my basil since they tend to mature fairly quickly. I'm going to keep planting new ones to keep up the production of usable leaves. Green onions because I never have them when I need them. Sucks having to go to the store just to get something that's 33cents, or being ripped off at two to three times that much at Vons. Same thing with cilantro and parsley. Other herbs: English thyme and Greek oregano. I'm going to grow most of these from seeds this year, see how that turns out. I bought a pot of rosemary because it's a perennial and it seems worth $2.99 for me to get productive sprigs without having to wait too long.

Other plants will be hanging baskets of periwinke (again, not sure), geraniums/pelargoniums (still can't tell the difference between the two), and pothos as well as another crack at a strawberry basket. Tall people beware, I am setting my traps. Mwahaha...

So! Without further ado! The new members of our little family:

The pots all contain seeds of the various herbs, my wisteria seeds from last year, and cuttings of strings of pearl and pothos I took from various other gardens/nurseries.

Next my geranium/pelargonium cuttings, again generously donated by my apartment complex and Home Depot. The one in the back should be pure deep red and the one in front a purple. Both should be sprawling.

Lastly, from the back, a purple calla lily (or some variation of), my stupid dendrobium orchid that I rescued from Costco two years ago, my new rosemary, and finally a phalenopsis that Luis rescued from the dumpster. It's my third free try at orchids. I think I'm going to repot my dendrobium and stick it outside. I'm tired of it not doing anything. It's not dying and it's not growing. So I'm going to try to force it to make a choice. It's either going to die or grow.

It's too dark to take a picture of the vermiculture bins, but I will put up more of the pictures tomorrow.

So that's it! Day 0 of planting. And we are ahead of the game for the most part this year if all goes according to plan!

Children: to have or not to have?

2010-09-26T20:13:00.000-07:00

Lately, marriage and children has been on the mind a bit. Unsure about the trigger event.

Before I begin, here's an little peek into my mental life: I constantly mull over conversations I've had with people or articles I've read. And they pop into my head randomly. This is what I do when I'm bored. Hence conversations are an integral fuel source for my mind.

Anyway, So sitting in the car with Luis and thoughts about children came up. There are two factors that will affect my decision to have biological children:
1. The almost universal cultural expectation for women to have children.
2. The need to pass on my genes.
Between the two, I think the first presents a bigger barrier to a decision to not have kids. By default, if a couple has children, people will accept and be happy for them. Eventually, the parents themselves, even if reluctant at first, will come to accept and be thankful for the child. Social expectations help with that and the fact that humans are quite adept at adapting. On the other hand, if a couple/woman chooses to not have children, if seems like they owe most people an explanation as to why. So much judgment.

The latter is easier to overcome. Yes, I'm intelligent, but there are others. Who am I amongst Earth's almost 7 billion people to really say I'm unique enough to warrant passing on my genes? Honestly, I don't care enough about that. Doppelgangers.

This doesn't mean I don't want to have kids. I would like to adopt kids with intelligence within normal range. Not international because I've heard that it can cost about $30K. It feels dirty, like I'm buying a child. Probably domestic. There are plenty of kids here who needs help, why go abroad? Suffering is the same no matter where one goes.

Dog beach

2010-09-25T00:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend saw a rise in temperature which made Saturday a mandatory beach day. Took Butters and met John, Lauren and Mona there. The dogs loved it. They chased each other around and round. And Butters learned to leap over water puddles.

So far, I've been to Fiesta Island and OB. Between the two, I love the latter so much more, even though parking can be such a bitch. I love the channel where water is calmer and clearer. In addition, during low tide, I never know what kind of wildlife I might find. Just today, Luis and I found quite a few schools of little fish (I wonder if they are baby fish. Wish we had a wildlife biologist with us to tell us what they are.), a crab, and three hermit crabs. The crab was 4-5 in wide. It had blue legs or whatever the appropriate name is for them and interestingly the back legs were covered by green algae. It waved its big claws at us above the water. Since it issued a challenge, I had to accept and baited it with my flip flops. I was hoping that it will clamp the sandal and I'll be able to lift it out of the water. Dinner perhaps? J/k. Only a little. The hermit crabs we found by following their trails underwater. It was like a little treasure hunt.

Anyway, each time, I'm incredibly thankful for Butters. Because of him, I go to the beach on average about once every two weeks. And I enjoy it. So wonderful and relaxing to be there seeing him happy and excited. He's always nice and tired afterwards as well.

Oh, and on the way to Luis' friends' home, we, as in Luis, Butters, and I, pulled off a family pack howling session in the car. It was awesome.

Wrangling a concession

2010-09-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

Day off.

Was listening to NPR around midday to a show about commonly confused words. Here's something I learned from that:

Wrangle/wangle

Wrangle: The cowboys wrangled with the goats to herd them into corrals. (oh you mean they herd steers?)
Wangle: Wangling concessions/agreement out of someone

I always thought one wrangles concessions out of someone. It sounds like hard work, getting a concession. But no, to "wangle" means "to achieve through manipulative and deceitful methods."

It was odd for me because I've honestly never heard of "wangle." Maybe it's because my eyes might see "wangle" and my brain reads "wrangle." Or, even if it registered, I might've seen it as a typo. Now I'm going to be on the lookout for it.

Getting lost

2010-09-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

I think the gene for orienting oneself according to the cardinal directions reside on the Y chromosome. I certainly can't (read can't) figure it out unless it's glaringly obvious like the sun rising or setting on east-west axis. Then, I can find East or West. Tell me North or South, I'll have to think about it.

All that to excuse myself for being 20 minutes late for getting to the Chula Vista branch for my 1st day there. I even gave myself 15 extra minutes leaving home. I got off the freeway and turned left instead of right. For some reason, I left that important detail off the directions I wrote down. It wasn't until things started looking pretty rural that I called Luis and asked him to look at the map for me.

I still would've been on time, if I found parking and the branch with no problem. Parking, had to drive beyond all the spaces marked with a three hour limit. Fine. It wasn't that hard. Then when I came out of the structure, I had no idea where things were. I walked out to the streets and couldn't find any recognizable landmarks (which is how I figure out where I am.) So I started walking. As I continued, it dawned upon me that this whole block is a shopping plaza. In the end, when I finally found the entrance to the CU, I realized that I started at the opposite end of the block! Think of the block as a rectangle with sides 1 and 2, 1 being the length and 2, the width. I started at the middle of 2, walked along 1, and ended at the other 2. I'm not even going to go into details about how I had to walk up and down stairs trying to find the actual entrance to the CU from where I entered from a side door on 1.

The whole time, I knew I was pretty late. I didn't even both looking at my cell phone for time. Such bad luck. I was late to the interview and late to my supposedly "home" branch. However, the manager was super nice. She figured that I couldn't find the place and had me clock in at 10:30 anyway despite my arrival at 10:51.

Lesson of it all? I need to get a Thomas Guide.

And no, I will not get a GPS.

Worried, worry, worrying (sounds like some sort of burrowing animal)

2010-09-21T00:14:00.000-07:00

Luis lost his job, for extremely trivial reasons. For once in his life, he got on someone who matters' bad side. The story has been told so many times that I will not retell it here and now.

He went in today after a five-day suspension to find out if he still has his job. When he didn't call at 1:10, I knew he was fired. Otherwise he would've gotten his badge and been on the floor and let me know that he's working.

The entire weekend was filled with uncertainty. What course of action do we take? What results do we want to see? When it finally happened, like most other things in life, it was rather anti-climatic.

He's filing for unemployment and will take the opportunity to work on his business. This, compared to other options seem to be the best. Who knows? Everything might work out well.

I wish I had more confidence in his ability to assess situations. I am an optimistic person, but can be harshly realistic when I need to be. I feel like he can't. He's extremely optimistic. When things don't happen according to plan, he doesn't know why nor has a backup. This is a huge worry for me. Yet, when I tried bringing it up, he said nothing, literally, leaving me not knowing if it registered with him at all. When I brought it up again, he spouted his plans for the next few days, but nothing to reassure me of the big picture. This doesn't help. I need evidence that he's thinking hard about it on how to make it work.

Maybe it's just me. I like having a safety net, which admittedly he will have in the form on unemployment. I play things safer than maybe what is necessary for a business to start and succeed or fail. The issue here is less about his plans than my needing reassurances that he's really thinking about it instead of going along with what he thinks everyone around him expects him to do.

Who knows if writing about this here will help or hurt?

1st day of in-branch training & Weekend

2010-09-20T22:47:00.000-07:00

Thank You for all the colorful people who gives us our daily entertainment.

A man who threatened to shoot the delivery man who might deliver fraudulently purchased items paid COD. Another whom I scared with a story of people unconsciously swallowing spiders during sleep. He had to leave and come back when he regained his composure. He's very nice though.

I think I'm going to like it there. I have time to make small talk with customers. Referrals doesn't seem to be that hard at all. And secretly, I think I count faster because I count in Chinese. I am going to make an awesome teller there.

Weekend:
Was so excited for the weekend on Friday, and then I woke up on Saturday. My week-long crick in the neck has turned in full-blown debilitating pain in the neck, literally. I did some minor errands and found shifting hurts, turning my neck to look in both of my blindspots hurt. I laid down in bed, and any action that required support from my head hurts. It's only when a part of the body is not working do we realize just how important it is. This muscle apparently is involved in lifting arm, any part of 360 degree rotation of head, any time my torso/body deviates from the vertical, it helps to support the head.

Got some Icy Hot which helped to numb the pain a bit. While I relaxed, Luis and I watched The Butterfly Effect. Didn't like the story much because a few key elements didn't feel natural. However, I understand the lesson they are trying to convey. You can control your own actions but not others.

On Sunday, Luis and I went to Orange to visit the Torreses. Baby Gaby looks like her father. Kacie is so awesome a mother. I really admire her patience and devotion. Had a wonderful dinner with their family. It's so great that everyone gets together to eat dinner on Sundays.

New place

2010-09-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

My hatred of moving escalates each time I move. How do we accumulate all this stuff in our lives? I never think it's all that much stuff, yet it always becomes truckload after truckload of just STUFF. Kitchen: fridge, pantry, utensils, dishes, pots and pans. Closets: stuff and clothes. Bedding. Books. Stuff on desks. How can I whittle STUFF down?

Anyway, the studio is finally starting to feel like home. Like it's mine. I remember the days after my brother and Grant left. With the apartment disfigured by the absence of Grant's stuff, and our things being packed, the quiet of just me, I felt homeless, alone. Home wasn't home. And the new place was not home. I worried that there won't be a "yet" after that last sentence.

Now our little family has settled in. Of course, there are still some persistent boxes that insists upon sitting there unpacked, but we've already entertained, meaning things are at least presentable.

And that makes me happy.

Day at shelter

2010-09-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

Had my orientation at the shelter the other week with a mentor. She introduced me and took me through most of the procedures. At the end of the day, we took two dogs out for a walk, chosen based on the number of days since their last walk. I picked two little white dogs that looked like Butters. I'll admit it, because of him, I'll always have a soft spot for dogs that look like him.

Both were very excited when we walked in, whining and barking in that little dog voice. The first one I walked was only interested in marking. Three feet, stretch leg up as high as it can go, mark. Walk two feet, mark. Walk, mark. When we sat down for a bit, he finally sat down next to me and calmed down.

One thing stuck in my mind after orientation was that sometimes these dogs really need quiet time more than anything else. The kennels are a high stress environment as the dogs don't pick their neighbors and people constantly walk through the rooms. They really don't have time to sleep, like most dogs do when owners aren't home.

It amazed me to see that in action. Even the second dog I walked did the exact same thing. I liked him from the start. As soon as he reached the end of the leash and felt it pull, he turned around, looked at me, and slowed down. The poor guy seems a bit wary of people and easily startled.

Next to the two poodle mixes was a pitbull whom I loved right away. While the terriers were creating an uproar in the ward, he did not bark at all. He simply sat wagging his tail happily, waiting. No barking, no jumping. Just unreserved happiness and hope (fine, the last part might be anthropomorphizing).

Being there made me very happy to be able to help them but also sadness. What were their stories? Will they find happy homes?

I've confessed in the past that I have an obsession with reading the pets section on CL. Today, after checking the shelter website to see whether Scout the wonderful pitbull is still there (he is), I just couldn't go through the pets section like I normally do, especially while with Butters sleeping with his back pressed up against me. Too many people giving away/rehoming/selling their pets. All these innocent animals who've already bonded with their humans only to be ripped away from them (even if they are going to a good home, they'll still feel the separation) without warning. Most of the time, it's not even their fault. Makes me sad and frustrated at the our irresponsibility.

Stress

2010-08-23T00:42:00.000-07:00

August has been a fairly stressful month, dominated for the most part by our search for a new place to live. Who would have thought under $1000 for one bedroom, close to freeways, around Mira Mesa with a 10 mile radius, dog-friendly seems to be impossible requirements to fulfill at one time.

I felt my brain was constantly trying to weigh all the factors and trying to find the best possible combination. Unfortunately, though I knew we weren't desperate, none of our fall back options were pretty. Live separately, give up the dog, live either up by San Marcos/Escondido, or down near Downtown, Hillcrest, Golden Hills (we didn't even give a thought to El Cajon and Chula Vista).

We finally decided to stay within our complex in a studio. Last time we had a one bedroom, we remarked on more than one occasion that the apt was rather lacking in furniture, though I refuse to buy more because I detest moving. So a studio hopefully will fulfill our needs better.

I realized after we came to a decision that a stressed out brain trying to make a decision while factoring in the weight of different criteria and options is very much like a computer stuck in a loop, working on a problem. Almost like not having enough RAM. I really had no mental room to spare for other considerations in life. I found myself slightly more paranoid, unable to care about others' needs, and less able to plan for the less essentials. Interesting experience. I like that now my brain is free to wander to think about other things. Like what others' mental life is like? I would like to have the ability to invisibly camp out in someone else's brain. That would be fun. =)

The Omnivore's Dilemma

2010-08-22T00:27:00.000-07:00

In an effort to entertain my brother, we went to B&N. There's something there for everyone.

I wanted to continue reading a book about birth that I picked up last time. The Birth Book did a very good job describing the various interventions used in modern hospitals. In addition to discussing how they work, it also attempted to ascertain their merits based on scientific studies. I got as far as pitocin and electronic fetal monitoring (surprisingly, unnecessary) before forced to leave the store. Unfortunately, when I attempted to find the book again, I couldn't. It was on hold for someone. I know I am selectively reading books that agree with my birth philosophy without giving the same consideration for the other side. However, I am loathe to try and find the opposing side. I will justify this with the excuse that I am trying to find out what average natural births are like.

Disappointed, I wandered around trying to find a book that piqued and held my interest. I chanced upon the much talked about Michael Pollan book The Omnivore's Dilemma (btw, who coined the term "foodie"? What does it even mean?). Perfect. I randomly flipped through some chapters and stopped at his journey in following a typical cow from birth to grill. After reading about the problems steers have with eating corn along with all its associated problems (the one I remember, acidosis, which incubated the much feared e. coli), I am horrified that I eat regular beef at all. Why am I not eating grass-fed beef? What is our diet supposed to be? Are we really supposed to consume so much meat? Obviously, because of corn subsidy and because we don't figure environmental costs in to our food prices, the true price of beef that we currently eat should be much higher. But if not this, then what? I know from experience that with the eating culture that I am familiar, if I don't eat protein during lunch, I will be hungry three hours later, which is a little ridiculous to me.

As I find myself trying more and more to come up with healthy and filling meals, it's quite a mental exercise to come up with variety, figure out cost of food and calculate preparation time. Healthy meals, at least for me, takes a lot of time and effort (which is why I really appreciate it when someone else cleans up afterwards). How do other people eat? How many people are succeeding at this balancing game?

Also, one more book I thought would be interesting to read, Genome, The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. The author was a science journalist. Hence the book seems to be fairly accessible to anyone without a biology degree. Yet, it seems to give a good sense of where genetics stand as the last 5-10 years. It doesn't claim to be comprehensive, that would be too much information. I thought the fun thing about the book was the his structure: 23 chromosomes, 1 gene selected from each chromosome, so 23 genes in 23 chapters.

9/11 mosque controversy

2010-08-20T01:09:00.000-07:00

I had to drive John home to register for his Junior year classes. In the evening, we went out to dinner with the two kids rooming with the parents.

On the way over, I thought about the current controversy surrounding a plan to build a mosque close the Ground Zero. I brought that up with my brother (he being surprisingly well versed in current events and politics). In a good mood, I was determined to keep up the conversation at the dinner table so as to avoid awkward moments.

Anyway, though I don't think the plan is very tactful, I fully support their right to do so. If it's legal, then why should we prevent them from doing so? I think a benchmark test of the much touted Americans freedoms and rights is allowing people to do things despite of the repugnance that action elicits from within us.

My mom said that they absolutely should not be allowed to do so because it is insulting and not in good taste. I tried explaining to her that things considered in good taste changes with every generation. Miscegenation. Same-sex marriage. That's not a good standard to prevent people from doing something they want. In addition, just as the sins of the father may not be visited upon the son, we cannot hold everyone of one religion responsible for what their fringe group did.

"...then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-Martin Niemöller

Licensing and microchipping for Butters

2010-07-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

I finally went to the county's one stop clinic and licensed and microchipped Butters.

During most of my ownership of Butters (last year), I thought the county forcing people to license their pets is tantamount to extortion. I didn't see the purpose of it at all. I don't care to help offset their fees. Afterall, most of their funding already comes from other sources, why should I have to pay some more? The only argument that made sense to me is if Butters somehow got lost (which I can't really imagine), the shelters might be of help.

With that, I periodically get the perverse urge to browse through the pet section of CL. I know I can't adopt or foster any animal. Yet, I like reading about their stories and looking at their pictures. I think it helps me appreciate Butters and want to make his little life the best I can. The stories are a constant reminder to never be one of those people who gives up their pet due to moving, work, school, or other excuses. Humans are infinitely adaptable. I'm sure we can find ways to deal with the problem if we tried hard enough. I get the feeling that mostly people just don't see the dogs as a deserving member of the family. I can't imagine giving up a child just because it takes up too much time, so I don't see why we should give up pets because they've become a burden. If anything, any behavior problems are the human's fault with lack of training and/or exercise. However, with that said, I do want to leave people the benefit of the doubt as owners pass away or are sick and can longer fulfill their obligations towards their pets.

For the past few days, I've been glued to rescue, shelter and CL pet sites. I read one post on CL that has since been deleted (I can't find it again) from someone claiming to work as a manager at a shelter giving a behind the scenes look at what happens when people surrender their pet. S/he described the sadness of dogs left in kennels, some succumbing to illnesses. Comparatively speaking, very few are adopted, despite being purebred or not. S/he went through the process of euthanizing an animal and its disposal after. I don't know how much of this is true. However, it did make me feel that if nothing else, $14/year for licensing that goes towards helping to keep shelter animals alive even just a little bit longer is worth it.

So I took Butters to the Gaines St shelter (had the hardest darn time finding it because it was a tiny street right before the police department that looked like a drive way). The people were very nice, didn't give me any crap at all about why I'm licensing him now, almost four months after his rabies shot. They took Butters away for microchipping, so I don't know if he yelped. When he came out a few minutes later, he looked none the worse for the experience with just a little bit of blood at the injection site. The whole process was fairly quick despite quite a few other dogs there as well.

Since I was there, I filled out an application to volunteer with them, walking dogs, or whatever else they need. My main goal is to make the lives of the dogs/cats there better while they are there. With that, I have an orientation on August 25th. =D I'm quite excited.

Vitamins

2010-07-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know which nerves are crossed in my brain (a Chinese saying that I've translated because I love that it's so great at describing random impulses that we get on occasions), but I suddenly remembered my friend's advice when she was in med school telling me that women stop absorbing calcium at age 35, so we better start taking supplements because it's harder to build bone density when we really need to.

Went to Henry's and bought myself a bottle of Sun Harvest Calcium Citrate with Vit D3.

On the way to the calcium aisle, I browsed through the multi-vitamins, like one-a-day type of thing, just to explore my options. If I can take one with calcium and iron, then why not?

Here's the first thing about multi-vitamins that bothers me: why do I need 2000+% recommended daily value of thiamin? Why do I need more than 100% of any one vitamin? At its most benign, as Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory says, that makes for some expensive (and smelly) pee. At its worst, vitamin toxicity. So no thank you.

Same thing with the calcium aisle. I was surprised to find calcium supplements also sold together as cal-mag-zinc. I feel like they are selling fertilizer and that I'll be ingesting fertilizer (yummy steer manure anyone?). You know, the 10-20-10 or some other ratio of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium. Anyway, eventually I settled on one that had 63% daily value of Ca and 100% daily value of vitamin D3. Even though the instructions told me to take 2 tablets once or twice a day, I'm going to ignore that and take one a day with my dinner. I feel like that's safe enough.

Which leads me to the second thing about vitamins that bothers me: I opened the bottle and swallowed a pill, even with water, that was a tad difficult. Really, were it just a bit bigger, it might as well be a suppository. So what is up with the size of the pills? I might be able to understand multi-vitamins needing to be bigger because of the crap that they need to put in them, but Ca and Vit D3? There are fillers. How about less of that?

One cool thing though that I do like about my shiny new jar of suppositories...I mean pills is that it came in a brown glass jar. How cool is that?

Sexism

2010-07-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

I have been reading this incredibly long thread for the past few days on one of my favorite sites, MetaFilter (side link) about the prevalence of sexism in today's society. The blog it links to features real examples of sexism in women's lives. This led to a whole discussion in MF about whether the stories are real and also people sharing their own stories about how frustrating it is when treated differently for having a second X chromosome.

One topic discussed was being talked down to by doctors.

In college, I worked at Summit, one of the on-campus dining halls. After about a year or so of working there, I developed a pain on the bones in my hands. I went to see a doctor at Kaiser about it because my family has always liked them. Not really wanting to base a decision without knowing anything about the doctor, I was ok with the nurses assigning whomever was free to see me. Anyway, the doctor (male), did his exam, looking over my hand this way and that, asking me to move it in different ways. He then made his diagnosis which was a pretty long word. I couldn't catch any part of that word, so I asked him to repeat it. He again, said it at the same speed.Then looked at me. I again, had no idea what he said. He went on to tell me how to treat it and if it gets worse, that he'll have to give me an injection of corticosteroids to help with the pain.

To this day, I have no idea what I have/had (it only flares up occasionally when I've been repeatedly picking up/carrying heavy objects). And I regret not standing up for my needs by asking him to write it on a piece of paper or something. I know I'm not the fastest in comprehending auditory information, but I shouldn't have to feel bad about it.

I am not sharing this as an example of sexism because I don't know if it's just his way of interacting with female patients or if he does it to everyone. And most of the time, I don't really care to see the problem because it makes me depressed when I do. I'd rather just deal with these things on each individual basis and hopefully, I'll have enough self-confidence to know and help myself when something is glaringly not ok with me. Plus, I think a lot of times women use these attitudes from men to their advantage in getting what they want. I've certainly done it on numerous occasions.

Breaking bread in La Jolla

2010-07-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

Seems like the heat wave is finally on its way out.

Luis and I came home rather late because of Kathryn's birthday party last night. We woke up late to find a message from Butters' "grandma" (in quotes because I am not really comfortable with the dog park convention of calling owners moms and dads. Used here however because it helps more to convey her relationship as the owner of the bitch who gave birth to Butters.) saying that she won't be home, much to our relief. We both needed more sleep.

In the afternoon, we had a lunch/dinner date with Amanda and Syrus at his parents' place in La Jolla. She warned me that Butters might get lost in the yard since it's pretty big. I dismissed it because 1. I couldn't visualize in my mind just how big it is and 2. had no idea it was on a hillside with copious vegetation. I thought a little white dog, if I can find him in the dusk when all other colored dogs have disappeared into the night, then I can find him amongst the greenery.

The house is located on Mt. Soledad. In addition to a gorgeous view (why didn't I bring my camera again?) of the cove, the ocean, pier, and beaches, it had a sloped yard that could've been any child's dream with secret paths, trees, and secret places to play and run in. If a 70 lb black dog can disappear, I'm not even going to keep track of where Butters might go. I trust that he loves us enough to come when we call him.

The other thing she wasn't kidding about was the combination of the meal being lunch/dinner. The dining room, adjacent to the kitchen, presented the entire view the property has to offer. Throughout the whole dinner, the cool ocean breeze never let up through the balcony doors. I felt like I was vacationing in a private beach house, escaping the summer heat of Mira Mesa. When they invited us to sit down, I noticed the table was "informally" laid out with a plate, two glass bowls, two glasses, a knife, two spoons, and a fork. Yeah, don't ask me about the names about any of them. I just remember (was it in Titanic? Or some kind of movie.) to go from outside and work our way in. Plus, the table was so big and I was far away enough from Syrus' parents that I don't think they can see what utensil I was using. Not that they would care, I think.

Anyway, lunch/dinner. The table was laden with food before the main course even arrived. Five different cheeses. Bread, crackers. Many different vegetables. My stoplight salsa. Enough roughage to fill everyone up even before the main course. Syrus bbq'ed different sausages, asparagus, portobello mushrrooms, salmon burgers and corn. Amanda made potatoes with corn flakes, really flavorful.

The whole thing lasted from 2 to 6pm. We were eating the whole time and I loved it. Reminded me of dinner affairs in China. I wish we could have kept going.

At first, I was nervous being in Syrus' parents house, but they were such nice people. In the end, we were comfortable enough where there was even a bit of teasing.

Janet's visit

2010-07-15T22:32:00.000-07:00

Spent Thursday with my Precious Heart.

First order of business: dog beach with her, Butters and Mona. Seeing her in bathing suit, I'll have to ask Grant again what he was talking about with regards to her weight. I thought she looked great. She just have the body type where the lower body is rounder than other parts. Hourglass?

We didn't have enough time to drop off Mona and so took her with us to meet up with her friend for Thai food. Her friend is Thai and gave her stamp of approval to this place, Sab-E-Lee, that's almost literally a hole in the wall, that's how small it is. We had sticky rice with papaya salad, raw beef, fried beef jerky, and a ground pork dish. We also ate with our hands, which is awesome, because I love eating with my hands. I love the licking finger part. Precious juices that just won't adhere to metal utensils. Anyway, raw beef. It was seasoned wonderfully and I loved the precious first few bites when I didn't think about it as raw beef. Then my mind kept circling back to the fact that it's raw beef and the texture came through and I couldn't eat it anymore.

Afterwards we went beer tasting at Alesmith. Janet's friend works there as assistant manager, so we got a very educational tour of the place and barely managed to taste all the beers they listed. We were so buzzed that we had to take only sips of the last three. I am not a fan of beer, however, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the beers as well. I'm surprised that beers can be so different. I see more beer tasting in the future.

Overall, I had an awesome time with Janet and found some more great places to keep coming back to.

Good deed for today

2010-07-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

Took Butters to the dog park in the evening. He spent the entire time trying to hump a female dog. While he was doing that, I noticed a family come in their their tiny little maltese puppy. A frisky husky puppy was picking on it, the maltese got scared and the owner picked him up. I observed them some more and they really seemed like they didn't know what they were doing. So the next time she picked him up, I walked up to her and told her she's basically rewarding his fearful mindset. I told her to leave him on the ground and watch his tail. If his tail is in between his legs, then help him by blocking the bigger dogs but don't pick him up. Otherwise let him figure out how to interact with other dogs. By the time they left, the little one had his tail up and exploring and trying to sniff out other dogs, but came running back and hide between human legs if anything scared him. Yay! One less fearful dog for the future!

Book club: World War Z

2010-07-12T20:42:00.000-07:00

Discussed the book today over freshly made deli sandwiches (Luis) and creamy chicken and wild rice soup (me!).

Seems like most everyone who read it enjoyed it.

Before anything else, I don't really understand the popularity of zombies and vampires in today's culture. Ok well, maybe I can see the romanticism behind vampires ala Twilight which I don't think is so different from Anne Rice's vampires. But this thing with zombies baffle me.

As for the book, it definitely made me think about survival in the event of an apocalypse. We agreed it's probably best if we stay in San Diego since knowledge about our surroundings is important. Some sort of transportation that doesn't require fuel would be good too. Emergency food to get through the immediate crisis. If it lasts longer, then we'll definitely look at a more self-sustaining living style. I know from my mom's place that it takes significantly less than an acre to grow enough vegetables for seven people during summer. I don't know about winter though because vegetables tend to grow slower then and fewer things grown during that time. In southern California, finding water for the plants will be a problem.

I remember reading an article about someone's personal experience living in siege like conditions. As I recall, the author said that things s/he missed the most during that time was oil, salt, and others.

That got me thinking about how to prepare. Making my own vegetable oil. A bit of luxury: homemade olive oil. Store tons of salt, pepper. Seeds. Chickens. When I have my own place with a yard, I'm going to make it as self-sustaining as possible.

Tantrum

2010-07-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

I threw a few tantrums today. Not proud of it. But it speaks to just how frustrating not being able to do a simple thing is.

I worked out my arms last Wednesday with a trainer. I thought it was getting better yesterday. However, today I woke up, any my triceps are in a special kind of pain. I touch it gently and pain flares up. Luis finally convinced me to take some Advil, which eventually helped a few hours down the line. However, meanwhile, I can't touch the top of my head, much less reach around to the back of the neck...which means I can't tie a pony tail. Unfortunately, today was the day I was supposed to wash my hair because it's rather noticeably greasy and I knew by afternoon it'll be unbearably greasy.

Thus I asked Luis to tie the ponytail for me.

I now harbor a special sort of dislike for any guys preferring girls keeping their hair long without the accompanying appreciation of how much work goes into managing that long hair.

1. How to gather long hair together in a ponytail
2. Knowing the need to smooth/brush the hair so I don't look like a crazy person off my meds when I step outside the apt.
3. Brushing the hair. How?
4. Holding the hair while brushing it.
5. Using a hair tie. How to tie it? How to tie hair with it? Luis looked like Dr. Zoidberg trying to tie a pony tail. No joke.

The first try I stopped him after getting stuck at #2.

I asked him to try again because the hair kept tickling my face and scratching my face was a chore.

We skipped #3 and 4, and threw a tantrum after reaching #5. I showed him how to tie things with a hair tie using the said hair tie and his finger as an example. Apparently translating that act to tying up hair is a different matter entirely.

I feel sorry if he had to do that for any daughters we might have.

Washing hair. Need to use fingers to get to scalp! Otherwise I feel like he got the surface but down the roots, where it matters, it was still greasy.

Combing wet hair. Start from the bottom. There's a reason why combs have teeth. To reach the scalp and comb out everything.

Argh!!!

Who knew such basic knowledge as prevalent among girls as masturbation is among guys has such a massive gender divide?

Book club: My Lobotomy

2010-05-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

Our little club is chugging along, slowly but surely.

Yesterday, we met to discuss My Lobotomy by Howard Dully. As usual, the conversation went somewhere completely unrelated but highly charged. Somehow we talked about pedophilia, leading to the reading of a Republican candidate statement about the creation of a "self-supporting village" on Santa Rosa Island for pedophiles...leading to the benefits and the harm of legalizing all drugs.

It's scary to me that someone I dismissed completely off-handedly as an obvious lunatic based on his candidate statement actually draws serious comments like "yeah, I think they totally should." Pedophile on an island? With no expense to the taxpayers?

Also blowing my mind: the fact that independently, an attorney general candidate and Erin thinks that it's horrible that prisoners get better healthcare than non-prisoners. I mean, how dare the criminals? It pains me that instead of focusing on improving everyone else's healthcare, they want to lower them to ours. That's just so sad. They would rather suffer than see someone else enjoying something that we should get as well. Why lower the high bar to match the low bar? Why not raise the low one to meet the high one?

It's disturbing to me that there are people like that out there because I don't understand why they think that way. I feel like it's an extremely negative worldview, with little trust in mankind, society, legal system or anything. It all seems to be a system of thought where blatant contradiction exists and facts cannot change anyone's mind. Am I missing something here?

Death

2010-05-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

On the drive home today, I thought about my high school French teacher, Mrs. Carr. But that wasn't how she introduced herself the first time I walked into her class. It was something else, but for the life of me, I can't remember. I remember her wedding, her third. She wore a cream colored dress that tapered inwards, ending at the knees and matching hat. Looking back, I am surprised she invited three of her high school French students. I ate a raw oyster for the first time at her wedding reception. Didn't have the class to appreciate the delicacy and still don't. I remember sand, sliminess, and trying really hard to swallow it without spitting it out which I wanted to do. Everyone laughed and cheered when I finally did it and made a face.

One day, she wasn't in class. Absent again the next. By the third day, we wondered if anything happened because it wasn't like her to miss class like this. We should know. We've been with her for three long high school years.

When she finally came back, she looked gaunt and worn. Black blue crescents hung from the bottom of her eyes. Did she wear makeup to try and conceal it? Was it that bad?

In an off-handed way, she told us what happened.

She took her medication earlier, forgot and drank a glass of wine. The combination of alcohol and drugs knocked her unconscious. Her stepson found her lying on the floor. 911. At the hospital, stomach pumped, they put her on suicide watch, even though she insisted it was a simple matter of her forgetting the fact that she took medication and drank some wine.

I believed her. Though she wasn't as bubbly and happy as she was before.

Willis. The ultra liberal English teacher with whom I never interacted. Each time I picture her, a blond energetic and outspoken woman voicing her opinion on some topic comes to mind. My high school best friend was very close to her.

Did you hear? Ms. Willis died of something...What? I don't know...and they didn't find her till a week later when Mrs. Carr went to check on her to find out why she hasn't been coming to class. Oh, how sad. What a lonely life that must have been. The funeral's this Saturday. Are you going? I didn't know her that well. I will. Just to see her.

Dog park

2010-05-19T23:43:00.000-07:00

Finally decided to take Butters to the dog park after a long hiatus. In truth, I really don't like socializing with the people there. I just like watching my dog. I dreaded meeting the regulars.

When we got there, Butters took off to meet other dogs. In the process, a little black dog with a pug nose came barreling down on him and tried to get him to play. Misto! Amanda must be here. I was really happy to see her because she's probably the only one there I really like and enjoy talking to. Might have something to do with our dog philosophies. This is the first time seeing her since her hip surgery so I was happy to find that everything went pretty well. Seeing that she has a cane with her, I offered to take her dogs out walking around the lake. Again, I felt happy that she was okay with me talking Misto and Kuma. I've walked with Kuma before. He seems to like walking with his nose right behind my knee (I know because at the end of the walk, my knees would always be slightly moist from dog snot). Misto is a bit like Butters, meaning she likes to pull ahead. So we decided that I will be walking them on Sunday. Looking forward to it.

When feeling emotionally drained, seeing a well-liked friend that I haven't seen for awhile really lifted my spirits. Still brings a smile to my face when I think about it.

And I finally took Butters to be professionally groomed yesterday just to even things out and so that I have a template for when I cut him next time. He looks very clean. I love when the groomer did to his tail, ears, and paw. The face takes a bit getting used to. He looks like a different dog who answers to the name "Butters." It's quite a shock. Will post picture.

Accident and power outage

2010-05-11T22:03:00.000-07:00

Ever since meeting the crew twice a day at the Sorrento Mesa food court, I've been discovering quite a few delicious and delightful little shops. Thanks to my CL's recommendation, I tried Donut Touch. With G's name, I managed to get some fresh muffins as opposed to the ones sitting in the case. I also found some fresh Vietnamese sandwiches at a European bakery. It's owned by a Vietnamese family, though the wife told me that if I wanted an Asian cake, I'll have to describe it and they'll try to make it. Anyway, Luis and I also tried Knockout Pizza. It is so great! I think I'm a bit addicted. They serve NY style pizza and I just love the ones with no sauce or white sauce.

Anyway, so yesterday, I was in our afternoon meeting when all of a sudden a bunch of the workers/owners of the stores came out. Someone spoke in Vietnamese. I asked our Vietnamese speaker, "Are they fighting?" He laughed and said, "No. The power's out." Oh.

I left the meeting 15 minutes later and took my usual way home. Just when I managed to turn out of that plaza, I found myself stuck in traffic, also managing to discover the cause of power outage. A white SUV ran into a green electrical box thing (a transformer, I found out later, the function of which is still unknown to me). The crash was pretty bad. The front part of the SUV looked shortened by half, the windshield was blown, the green box itself looked like something bit a chunk out of it. Grey smoke rose from the contact of the two. The police, firefighters, and paramedics were on the scene.

Found out later on the news that the knocked out transformer killed power for close to 1200 residents. The driver either passed out or had a heart attack, or both. He didn't try to brake at all, crossing the medium and plowing headlong into the transformer. Thankfully, it's not a busy street for pedestrians and a mere box stopped him as opposed to something or someone else.

Luis and I had plans to hang out with the Perkins. In fact, he had already left to pick up John from work when I called him and told him what happened. So we decided to switch locations to the Perkins' place instead. Due to work on both sides, we haven't really talked for two weeks, so we had plenty to catch up on.

When Luis and I got home, power was still out. I thought the whole situation was a bit reminiscent of the earthquake, mostly the procurement of emergency supplies, i.e. light source. Anyway, the whole apartment complex was dark. It never occurred to me how many light sources we take for granted and never notice, such as parking lot lights, little path lights, lights shining through blinds. Without all that, the whole complex was eerily quiet and dark. As we walked back, our surroundings seemed to grow darker and I momentarily regretted living on the ground floor underneath a walkway. Both Luis and I talked rather loudly to stave off nervousness. It did not help that he said, "It seems like a perfect setting for a slasher film." I almost kicked him for that had I not been too busy walking, intent on going inside. My one comfort was Butters. I knew he would bark at whatever we can't see.

When we finally made it inside, we immediately lit a bunch of tea lights and candles. Luis debated whether or not to take a shower by candlelight since he can't see very well. I told him that I have to deal with that all the time because my eyes are bad and I can't see anything in the bathroom anyway since I have to take off my glasses before showering. Mostly it's by feel. At night, he didn't want to go to the bathroom to turn off a dripping faucet after we blew out all the candle light. I scoffed at him, proud that years of my pretending to be blind and walking around in the dark at night is finally paying off. It's mostly memorizing the layout of the room before going to sleep, looking for dark and light contrasts, not stubbing anything and fluttering fingertips lightly to figure out where things are. Blind pride.

Power came back on at 3am. And the whole drama over. Still, the night felt extra intimate without light pollution.

Guy code and...what code now?

2010-05-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

I was driving to work and heard the most repugnant phrase ever today.

93.3 interviewed Michelle McGee (who? Jesse James' (who? Sandra Bullock's husband) mistress). Someone called in, saying that as a mistress herself, she is indignant that Michelle broke the "mistress code." That's right. Honor among thieves.

At first I thought it was morally repugnant. On second thought, I don't want to qualify "repugnant." It's not just morally offensive, but any other way possible, including culinary. (j/k. I know "culinary" doesn't make sense in the sentence.)

I feel so strongly about this because during an affair, (let's assume that it's the male cheating in the relationship here since that's the majority of cases) at least one person at any one time is knowingly hurting one person. At any time when his partner learns of the existence and true state of the relationship and yet still chooses (yes, not ending it is a choice and action) to continue the affair, then two people conspire through either cowardice or selfishness to cause another hurt. Hence, affairs, morally speaking, are never a good thing (whereas having sexual intercourse with a dead chicken can be argued as a morally ambiguous).

So to say that there is a code while engaging in this type of behavior is to set in rulebook somewhere that the continuation of the harm of another person is ok. Honor amongst thieves. Perhaps even worse so since we can't put a monetary value on emotional betrayal and angst.

Week in summary and catching up

2010-04-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

Had a pretty tiring week last week. Worked all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Drove to LA the night of Wednesday. Woke up at 8:15 to take my mom to the LAX for her 3-week trip to China. Of course whenever my mom travels, the whole family (maybe with the exception of my brother) is nervous as hell because 1. my mom doesn't speak English 2. she panics in any deviations from norm. I got her through check-in and tried to make her security check as easy as I can so she doesn't lose anything by telling her to put her electronics/metals in a zip-lock bag at the entrance. As soon as I got the call that everything was ok and she's headed to the gate, I went home. Came back to SD late Thursday night after going grocery shopping with my brother and sharing a limon-lime Jaritos from Valu-Mart just like the old times. Worked almost 9 hours on Friday.

Things are going well as a personal assistant. As I learn more and more about his tastes, I am better able to make decisions on his behalf, something I am also getting good feedback on, which makes me extremely happy. I always feel very productive when I'm working with him. It's a good outlet for all my planning and detail obsessions so I don't have to stress so much about it at home. Interesting I even have that. Something new I learned about myself.

Saturday was Butters day since I didn't have time to take care of him all week. Took him to OB for 2 hours then a 5 mile hike around Miramar lake. The little guy is doing better and better on hikes. He wasn't too tired at all.

Sunday, L & I woke up at 7:15 to meet the Perkins in LA for a day trip. We spent most of the day in downtown exploring Chinatown (where I got some pretty good deals on household goods), the flower district (8th & Wall, between Alameda & Main, found cymbidiums for $11), and the fabric district (a totally awesome store that should be a first stop: LA Alex Inc. 416-418 East 9th St. Between Wall and Maple). Had Chinese food, danger dogs, and fruit box. Because of the traffic, decided to forgo other tourist plans and head to John's place in Orange. We had dinner at Zito's and walked home afterwards. It felt so good to take a leisure after-dinner walk while slowly savoring a chocolate truffle. Old town Orange is filled with quite a few quaint little shops that looked promising for future treasure hunts. The building structures are pleasing, as well as the yards. Most of them are landscaped and well maintained. Definitely a change from Mira Mesa yards.

Today was the first day of non-training. By non-training, I meant that we spent 7 hours filling out paperwork. So it was training, but not really. HQ rescheduled training to next week. Unfortunately, six out of 30 people did not get a call letting us know about the change. At least I'm flexible, so it doesn't affect me too much. Still, one imagines that with so many rules and people, information will at least be consistent. But that I guess that's the problem with bureaucracy. Everyone's overpaid for their narrow duties and no one checks on what's really happening. To give them the benefit of the doubt though, I suppose it is hard to hire and train so many temps and have them train more temps. Nobody really knows what's going on or why we have to do something, just that we have to do it this way. Hopefully, it fulfills someone's well-thought out vision somewhere.

Had a pretty good time meeting different people. Everyone was quite friendly and helpful. I actually got a round of applause during introductions because I told everyone that since naturalization as an American citizen, I wanted to be a part of the political process by at least taking my civic duty seriously. The Census is one way of doing that. I don't want Nebraska, Texas or Utah or another backwards red state to take even a seat from California. Ok, I didn't mention the last part. One of the work came by and told me that she was very proud of what I'm doing and that to her I am "the definition of a true American." I felt like I could fly during that moment. Looking forward to meeting the group again during real training next week.

Since training plans fell through, I suppose I will have a few days this week for rest and time with Butters. It's supposed to rain this week, but hopefully it either doesn't rain too much or it pours. I hate the medium type where it traps me at home, unsure of what to do.

What an awesome week. =)

Hiking at Miramar Lake

2010-04-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

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Went for a walk around Lake Miramar today with Butters in the afternoon. The weather was perfect, cool and cloudy. I am so proud of him for finishing the walk with his tail still waving tall and dignified.

I, on the other hand, almost passed out from low blood sugar. Everything was going beautifully before the half-way mark. Before that point, we walked briskly, Butters finally settled into a good pace. After a brief water break at 2.5 mile marker, I felt a bit light-headed. Hoping it will go away and knowing there was no point turning back, we kept going forward. I felt hungrier and hungrier. I began picturing all the food present anywhere in the fridge, pantry, and living room. Then I felt weak in the legs and arm and really light-headed. I regretted not bringing any food. Strawberry jam sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly. Roast beef. Yogurt covered pretzels. Anything. Can't think of anything. I only had water. I pictured me passing out on the trail. I looked around to see if anyone will stop and help. What if I stopped someone to ask for anything with sugar in it? Will they have it? Sports drink? Will they look at me crazy? At the 3.75 mile mark, I once again mentally went through all my backpack contents. Wait, I have dog treats! And the jerky is made ingredients that's all natural. One of them is cane juice. I quickly stopped and took out two small pieces and popped them in my mouth. Not too bad. Much like beef jerky with a sweet aftertaste. At the very least it mentally made me feel better. Needless to say and much to my relief, I made it back to the car and to the house, resisting the temptation to stop at any food place along the way to buy something to eat. Once at the house, I stuffed myself with anything I could find.

I wondered while I was worrying about passing out why we have two types of hunger? I remember going the whole day without eating. I felt hungry, but didn't feel like I would pass out. Then there's hunger that comes on really quickly and makes me feel like I'm going to die if I don't eat. Why the difference? I have fat. If my body lacked blood sugar, then goddamn it take some fat and convert that to sugar. I wonder what the mechanism is for the two?

Funny and stupid stories from IL poison control center

2010-04-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

Illinois poison control center updates a blog with stories to raise awareness of their importance in order to save their funding. There are some pretty interesting stories that happens to real people.

If any one party takes drugs, it can be passed on to the other partner through sexual contact with undesirable effects such as allergic reaction or hair in random places.

Coffee with extra kick. (#10)

Lube or toothpaste? (#1)

酸菜 (Chinese sauerkraut)

2010-04-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

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I'm not sure why, but recently I've been craving 酸菜. It is fermented Napa cabbage made in the northern China style. Cook it with green bean thread and pork in soup...yum! Anyway, I'm not much of an expert in different processes of fermenting cabbages to tell the difference between regional styles, but it is definitely not kimchee nor the Singapore or southern Chinese kind. The real stuff is really hard to find in America, so I thought I will try looking for the recipe on the internet to make it myself.

Here's the recipe I'm going to try (roughly translated, with my own notes added below):

Prepare a non-metallic container. (The acid released during the fermentation process will affect the metals.)
Get rid of the bruised leaves. When putting the Napa cabbages into the container, do your best to place them in such a way as to get rid of all the air bubbles. If you have a hard time putting them in, you may half or quarter them.
Add boiling water, add some salt. Place weight on top of the lid to keep cabbages from floating/exposed to air.
Place in an area 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit for more than 20 days. Try not to disturb it in the first few days.

Important note! The most important thing in making good 酸菜 is making sure there's no air in the container. The bacteria that ferments the cabbage are anaerobic bacteria. The ones that rots the cabbage are aerobic bacteria. Hence, we add boiling water to kill off bacteria and create an environment that only anaerobes can grow. The acid helps preserve the vegetable.

Here's a site explaining the general concepts of fermenting cabbages.

Law and order: capital punishment

2010-04-08T00:52:00.000-07:00

Though capital punishment, like abortion and gun control, seems to be one of those national hot issues, I've never thought enough to have an opinion on it.

I was watching Law & Order: SVU (I love the show. I can write a post on why I love the show.) and capital punishment is brought up a lot for the especially heinous crimes. During those shows, the various detectives argue about why it's a good or bad thing for society.

After thinking about it (maybe I'm still not done thinking about it), I still don't have an opinion on it. On one hand, it costs more to society, in a purely monetary sense, to incarcerate a prisoner for life. However, this way, supposedly, every single day that they are alive, they can think about this punishment of why they are there. Plus, this eliminates the chance of executing an innocent person.

On the other hand, if the convicted is truly a sociopath who doesn't care and won't repent, then it's better for society if we just kill him/her.

It then comes down to what is the nature of crimes? What are the statistics on different type of crimes, especially those that leads to execution? Are there more crimes of passion than premeditated murder? Are there more premeditated murders where the person is not likely to repeat the crime than serial killers? I wonder if those who work in the justice system, including law enforcement and prison guards, have different statistics than the general population on capital punishment?

Is it better to let 1000 criminals off than to kill 1 innocent man or woman?

I say no. Well. I lean towards no. Plus, ever since DNA testing, I find it hard to imagine mistakes of that magnitude making it through the justice system.

Competency for execution

Window farms

2010-04-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

I saw this really cool concept on NPR, called window farming.

It attempts to alleviate the problem of the lack of fresh food in cities using by growing plants using recycled bottles, air pump, tubing, and hydroponics. It looks like a pretty cool way to grow some small plants. Probably is not effective with bigger plants. I wonder how plants with extensive root systems do?

While we are on the subject of food, NutritionData is fairly comprehensive website on nutritional facts of a lot of foods, such as sunflower seeds (which I've been eating non-stop. Until I ran out. Sad.)

Cute picture of the day

2010-04-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

From A Cup of Jo. It looks like it's posing for picture day at school.

It is soooo cute. I don't know why I like giraffes. I never had a favorite animal before I got my Wild Animal Park pass. I think they look very graceful and serene. Did I mention I have a giraffe mug? It's also very cute. Also from Wild Animal Park.

Update on the earthquake

2010-04-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

We found out on NPR that border crossing closed at 5pm that day. If we didn't cross at the time we did, we might not have been able to come back to this side without a lot of frustration and brainstorming. Trapped in Mexico. Scary thought.

Calexico Roadtrip Part II: the 7.2 earthquake

2010-04-05T01:36:00.000-07:00

The other three's perspectives:
John's
Lauren's
Luis'

After crossing the border, we picked up a few more items on Calexico's main street before heading home. By this time, most of the stores were closing anyway.

We were walking past the clothing store Benzene and Lauren asked John whether he wanted to go in and check it out. He thought about it and replied, "I do like their stuff...but no." We pondered on the decision as we strolled past the windows. My mind mulled on whether John's tone. Was he being sarcastic? Then, a rumbling and shaking broke me from my thoughts. The next all happened within 40 seconds even though it felt longer.

At first I dismissed it. Then I looked up and saw the two storeys worth of window panes shaking and bouncing light like they don't normally do. That was when my brain decided it was officially an earthquake and a strong one at that. My mind immediately flashed back to elementary school earthquake education to seek cover. No desk or anything to hide under. Fine. Doorway. Nope. Or arch. I see arch. Move sideways a foot or so. Now I'm under arch. Wait. Reservation. Why? Sheets of glass still shaking. Not good. Need to move somewhere else. I looked in the streets. Vision only a half step behind a still-forming mental checklist. No tall buildings. No tall trees. No power lines directly overhead. With the last check complete. (At this point, the brain no longer formed words. Concepts flashed one after another. It barely even bothered forming pictures.) I immediately moved to to the middle of the street. I hear Lauren behind me. I reached for her, grabbed her arm, jacket, hand, I don't know what, and took her with me.

The four of us stood in the streets, breathlessly waiting for the shaking to end. It felt like only the concrete beneath us was solid. Whatever was beneath the concrete behaved like a liquid and was strangely not holding still. I knew I was not moving, yet everything was else was. Alarms went off. People clustered. Glasses crashed. We waited.

When the shaking finally abated, I laughed in relief and bear-hugged Lauren, glad that everyone I cared about right then was okay. In that moment, L ran back in to Benzene to check everyone got out of the store. John followed. I hesitated before walking back and anxiously waited under that archway. He appeared a few seconds later with another man who thought his daughter was inside. He found her outside waiting and ran to hug her.

With everyone together again, I took stock of the scene around. People still gathered in the middle of the street. A few women cried. Many were still hugging their loved ones. Everyone seemed dazed and shaken up by the whole ordeal, including us.

The fateful store.

As we walked back to our car, we took a few pictures of the damages to the shops that lined the street.

JC Penny's

Our parking spot. Thankfully, nothing hit the car.

Luis' home.

His aunt was home alone. The gigantic TV moved. Paintings skewed. Mirrors fell. The thing lying diagonally is a picture wall. On the most left-hand side were pictures and figurines. Most pictures fell also, except for the one of me and Luis in the picture frame from Hawaii.

Even though the power was out and water leaked in the bathroom, the important thing was that everyone was alright.

Luis took off with John to check on his friend's grandmother. Lauren and I stayed with his aunt and rode out the ensuing aftershocks.

We tried checking for emergency supplies as far as El Centro, but everything closed, we weren't the only ones with the same idea.

After coming back from the fruitless trip, we decided to head back to SD with still an hour of sunlight left. Just in case the earthquake shook loose some rocks that blocked the freeway, we will have time to act accordingly.

Instead of taking the scenic 98, we just took the 8. On the way up to the mountains, we had to slow down. It turned out a ditch formed on a small bridge over a finger of Sunbeam Lake. Luis later found that a section of the 8 had to be closed because the bridge later collapsed.

A few things I learned from this whole experience:
1. As soon as possible, Luis and I are going to put together an emergency pack with 15 MRE's, 3 days worth of water, candles, matches, lighters, utility knife, flashlight. Just for starters.
2. Luis is crazy. I can't believe his good Samaritan instinct told him to run in to a store right after an earthquake. At this rate, he just might die before I do.

In laughing about the whole crazy experience, we came up with a theory of why females have a longer life span than males. During the earthquake, both Lauren and I thought about each others' safety and knew in the back of our minds that the boys will be able to take care of themselves. We grabbed each other and went to safety and didn't really think to check on the guys, assuming they followed us. While after the whole thing was over, Luis ran back in to a store, putting his own safety at risk.

Looking back, we were incredibly lucky. Yes, we chose this day to come to Calexico. However, we crossed the border about 10 mins before the earthquake hit. I don't know how long it would have taken us to come back if we just decided to keep walking a bit longer. We left and drove past the ditch on the 8 before it sank and that section had to be closed.

Everything turned out well. Quite a road trip and Easter Sunday.

And random Butters picture. I gave him a haircut last week. He had been playing with Mona the whole day, so excuse the unbrushed look.

Calexico Roadtrip Part I: the foods

2010-04-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

"So what's the cheapest way to have an adventure?" Lauren asked on Friday night.

In answer to that, we took a trip to Calexico because Luis has been itching for some time now to show the Perkins his hometown.

We left around 10 in the morning after dropping Butters off at their place. Since we didn't have any breakfast, we stopped by Los Compadres near El Cajon for some of their delicious pollo asado tacos.

Our first stop was at Luis' house to visit his aunt. Then we walked around downtown Calexico to peek in all the little shops with trinkets, baubles and other shiny objects. The boys found 99 cent airsoft handguns in an electronics shop while Lauren and I visited an accessories store. I then found some lucky bamboo (to replace the ones that I killed) at a big, general all-purpose store.

Off to Mexico. After walking through the two clanging rotating doors, we came up two stop lights and a new sign with the table on the left side. I tried to make out what the sign said, but to no avail. Luis told me to just keep walking. He explained later that the men sitting behind the table were actually Mexican border agents checking bags coming into Mexico. They seemed nowhere as stringent as their American counterparts.

After crossing, we immediately hit up the taco stands and ordered sixteen tacos among us. I love Mexican tacos because they are so simple and fresh. They give you the tortilla with meat and we decide what to put in them, guacamole, salsa, hot sauce, lime juice, etc. We payed 200 pesos (a bit less than $20) for the tacos and four drinks.

We continued our strolling along with streets just taking in the sights. Being Easter Sunday, quite a few shops were closed. It seems like whenever I'm in Mexicali, there has never been a time when the majority of the stores were open. However, little vendor carts still lined the sidewalk.

L and I next got some corn in a cup. I couldn't finish mine because of all the tacos. They didn't seem to be the best anyway. Right next to the corn vendor (who also sold cut cacti, fried pork rinds, potato chips, and drinks) was a man who sold freshly made churros and pineapple drinks (along with other flavors, but pineapple caught our eyes). We promised ourselves to come back to taste the two.

Further walking did not lead to novel discoveries, so we decided to start back. Lauren got the pineapple drink and a bag of churros. The man took the freshly fried dough, put them in a paper bag, spooned some of the cinnamon sugar mixture and carefully shook the bag. He then ladled the pineapple juice with the correct proportions of ice, juice and pineapple chunks into a big cup. The churros were sweet, warm and crunchy, with no dryness whatsoever. The juice was incredibly refreshing, not too sweet but tasted of genuine pineapple.

Luis also bought a mango ($1.50), skinned, cut into flower shape, and stuck on a stick. It was so sweet. I loved it. Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish it because on the way back across, the Dept. of Agriculture guy told Luis, who was holding it, that he must throw it away. Immediately. He didn't even get the chance to eat it!

Anyway, on our way back across the border, Luis found an old-fashioned raspado (shaved ice) cart. They had a 1 to 1 1/2 ft by 3 ft block of ice under two layers of cloth. The guy uncovered it and used a metal instrument to manually shave the ice (think planing wood). The ice is held in the metal container until he puts the ice bits into a cup. He then pours whatever flavor you choose on it. Though the texture of the ice is not as soft and flaky as the one on Oahu, I still liked it because it was like eating flavored ice chips. Totally refreshing on a hot day.

Me? Organized?

2010-04-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

In fifth grade I went through a phase rolling my eyes at anything that frustrated me which frustrated my teacher to no end so she brought it up during parent-teacher conference and somehow the parent and the teacher concluded that I need to be more organized. Ever since then, and with the birth of my brother, I am the disorganized one in the family. My mom sighs about it to this day.

I have been trying to get better at it. I even bought a book on housekeeping so I can get some tricks on cleaning faster.
(I found that I like using vinegar as a general counter cleaner and degreaser. I mix water and white distilled vinegar 50/50 in a spray bottle. It's easy to use and to wipe. Using bleach, I have to wipe three times before I'm satisfied the bleach is gone. Vinegar, I wipe once. The cleaned surface only smells faintly of vinegar if at all. It's cheaper and less harsh than fancy commercial cleaners at the store.

The only commercial cleaners that I do use are toilet bowl cleaners and Lysol for the toilet rim. I don't really need to state the reason for the latter.)

Anyway, when I came back from my shopping on Friday for B, he told me, "You are more organized than I am. And that's a compliment." I was extremely happy to hear that because I really don't consider myself organized. It's just one of those things that you say in interviews and put on your resumes because it looks good.

I thought about it on the drive home and realized I definitely spend a lot of time planning and trying to anticipate the future in every little thing. This actually keeps me awake in the mornings at times thinking about "What needs to be done? What I should have done? Why haven't I done this yet?" It's tiring because every little noise that wakes me up, neighbors walking upstairs, lawn mower outside, kids going to school...however brief or loud or not, my mind transitions from drowsiness to full tired consciousness running at full speed creating and organizing that list of things to do with all the accompanying details in my head. Yet, I'm too tired to really accomplish anything.

I shared this with G because he was talking about his occasional insomnia. He does the exact same thing except at night. Seriously, sign of mental problem?

I hope it'll disappear once I get my life on track.

Lady Gaga's Telepone parody by Key of Awesome

2010-04-03T20:12:00.001-07:00

This is hilarious and so well done.

From JM, I thought it was too good to not post.

Lasagna recipe

2010-04-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

This is the recipe I based the lasagna on with a few changes in the future.

For the meat sauce
In a big pot,
+ 1 lb ground beef
   1 lb sweet Italian sausage (may need to cook first before quartering & slicing)
   1/2 cup chopped onion (1/2 onion)
   2 cloves chopped garlic
Sweat the onions & garlic till soft. Brown the meats.

+ 28 oz crushed tomato
   16 oz tomato sauce
   12 oz tomato paste
   1/2 cup water
Stir together.

+ 2 Tbs white sugar
   1 tsp fennel seed
   2 tsp chopped fresh basil
   2 Tbs chopped fresh Italian parsley
   1 tsp salt
   1 tsp Italian seasoning
   1/2 tsp ground pepper
Cover & simmer on low for 1 1/2 hours.
Do a final seasoning.
Can be made the night before.

Ricotta mixture
   23 oz ricotta cheese
   1 container of cottage cheese
   1/2 tsp nutmeg
   1 egg
   2 Tbs chopped fresh Italian parsley
Mix with spoon.

Cook 11 lasagna noodles according to instruction.

Other ingredients
   1 lb shredded mozzarella
   1 cup grated Parmesan

Putting everything together
Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
In a 9 x 13in dish, layer (x2)
   2 cups of meat sauce
   layer of noodles (5-6)
   ricotta
   mozzarella
   Parmesan
Top with rest of meat sauce, rest of cheese.

Bake covered for 25 min.
Bake uncovered for 25 min.
Let rest 15 mins., before serving.

Serves 12 people.

My 1st book club night: Brave New World

2010-04-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

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For book club, I chose Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

The world created by Huxley has haunted me ever since I read it in high school. I can't help but be sucked in by the invitation to examine our basic values and norms.

What if freedom isn't all it's touted to be? How to maximize happiness in a general population?

This novel is obviously supposed to be a dystopian novel. However, if we all grew up conditioned to like our station in life, never desiring more than what's beyond our reach, with the magical soma as a backup if we feel even slightly unhappy, is that such a bad thing? No disease or aging either.

To be honest, that world does appeal to me. Freedom has its consequences. We can choose happiness but unwittingly choose our suffering as well because we don't know what's best for us (think relationships). In fact, half the time we don't even know our wants. What we hope to achieve in life are all values ingrained within us by society. You need to make lots of money. You need to follow your heart and realize your dreams. You need to take care of your parents, etc. In the book, the society tells the individuals that happiness is not desiring to be a part of the other castes, enjoy your work, enjoy the entertainment available to you, enjoy promiscuity, enjoy consuming, enjoy not worrying about the younger and the older, etc. One has choices, but they are limited. Without knowing what life could otherwise be like (for example, how can a person who's only used a chamber pot all their lives and have never seen a toilet desire a toilet?) I think it's very feasible to have a high percentage of happy people in this type of society. Afterall, what is gained by the freedom to choose?

The only good thing that might come from freedom is the range of existence available for humans to experience. The tragic, the heroic, the dramatic, the comedic. To use my high school English teacher's words, they bring out "the greatness of the human condition" (as he described Frodo in The Lord of the Rings) or the worst. Is this greatness of human condition worth seeing if it means all this suffering in the world?

I'm glad everyone read the book and is now in our common canon. The meeting helped me clarify some thoughts.

Oh and I also made my first lasagna. I'd post pictures, but most of it is gone. I'm happy to report that it was a success. I'll post the recipe with my modifications tomorrow.

Personalized toner: trial 1

2010-03-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

After a lot of reading on the internet. Here are the ingredient that I finally decided on:

Ingredients
4 tbsp (2 fl. oz.) rose water
4 tbsp (2 fl. oz.) apple cider vinegar
4 tbsp (2 fl. oz.) aloe vera juice
4 tbsp (2 fl. oz.) green tea
10 drops of jojoba oil

Proportions
This is the recipe I mostly based the proportions upon.

For the green tea portion, I am going to use the 1 cup green tea leaves/1qt of water. Probably not that much water and tea, as per this article.

Explanation of ingredients
To start off, I never even knew there was a difference between different toners and such. This is a pretty good overview of them.

This is customized to my skin which is a bit acne prone during certain times of the month, dry/combination, but tends to be a bit more oily during summer, I think.

I wanted to create a toner because I started wearing makeup again and it'll be nice to have something to help take everything off.

Rose water (found in ethnic section of grocery stores, I found mine in Ralph's. It was better than the ones I found in Henry's): I'm using rosewater as a base because it has mild astringent properties and does not contain alcohol. It's good for dry/sensitive skin. If my skin was a bit oilier, I'd probably use witch hazel hydrosol instead (which also does not contain alcohol, but I have no idea where to get it.)

Be sure to get the kind that says "distilled rose water" as opposed to "water, rose oil" or something to that effect. Distilling is really how one creates rose water. It's also why the one I found at Ralphs was better than the water/oil mixtures I found at Henry's. tsk tsk.

Apple cider vinegar: originally I wanted to use lemon juice. However, the latter is more perishable than vinegar. I wanted the acidic properties of either. Acid is not a good environment for bacteria to grow in. It also helps in exfoliating the skin.

Aloe vera juice: can be gel or juice. Using it just because everyone knows that aloe is good for skin. I'm using juice to make mixing easier. However, it seems to be quite perishable. So that's a drawback.

Green tea: anti-oxidant. Replaces vitamins E, C, and A apparently because it's that much stronger.

Jojoba oil: good for moisturizing and makeup removal since it's an oil. Fairly useful it seems.

Ultimately though, who knows if any of that is effective? Who knows whether some new properties will emerge when all of them are mixed together? Beneficial or detrimental? Perhaps it's all placebo effect. Ah well, it'll be fun.

1st ever beauty post! The hunt for a perfect toner

2010-03-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

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While I was home in LA for the weekend, I observed that my mom had awesome skin! I mean, she has her periods. There was one time when her skin looked pliant, radiant and taut and she told me she was using lemon juice diluted with water to rinse her face with every morning. I wanted to try it, but couldn't keep up the regiment. And this time, she told me she had been using Artistry, a beauty brand from Amway (for some reason though, I have an association of Amway with scam. I don't know quite where that came from.)

That and Clinique's bonus days this past weekend got me thinking about toners. With a simple question to google, "Is Clinique's clarifying lotion a toner?" I came upon several cool sites with my mind teeming with ideas for an ideal toner for myself.

First and foremost, Skin Deep, a cosmetic database that evaluates products based on the safety of their ingredients. It compiles a compendium of published research on different ingredients. I've been able to find a fair number of common products that I use on a daily basis. While I take its reviews with a tablespoon of salt (since many scientific studies feed rats a great amount of a particular chemical to amplify the biological effects), I find it useful when used as a relative safety guide.

After being scared by Skin Deep blaring about the dangers of the various chemicals we are committing suicides with, I searched for a decent all natural toner, but I couldn't find one easily available on the market. In my search, I then stumbled upon care2 make a difference. I find some of the articles fairly useful and on the dot, such as using apple cider vinegar as a cleaning agent or a hair rinse, or using baking soda as a clarifying agent to get rid of residues from hair products. Anyway, by logical extension, since they are not crazy green people, their advice might be worth trying. I am particularly interested in making a sugar scrub (pictured, and I already have one as a gift which works totally well, but that's the allure/fun/pitfall of makeup and skin care, it's the novelty of it all), it seems super easy to make, add vinegar to Butters' water as a flea deterrent (from the apple cider vinegar article), apple cider vinegar toner, and a green tea toner.

That got me thinking about my own toner. Initially, someone recommended using just aloe vera juice. In wondering what other properties/goodness I can add to it, I thought about the more traditional witch hazel. So far, a witch hazel hydrosol (one without the standard 14% alcohol, using water instead) has been rather elusive. However, it might not even be necessary because according to this, for my skin, it's better to use a floral water as a base rather than witch hazel. I totally feel like a chemist, trying to navigate the creation of the toner btw. What is the purpose of glycerin in some of these recipes? What is the shelf life of this concoction? Will the different properties even counteract each other? Only time will tell...

Shopping for healthcare

2010-03-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my first experience calling doctors' offices for a price quote for a procedure (this is for B). It was predictably frustrating and tiring.

The first call was the worst because I didn't have my scripting down and was testing the waters to see what the standards are for the procedure. I reached a receptionist named Edward, told him about the lack of insurance and need for the procedure, ending with a simple request for a price range (emphasis, again, on range) that includes, office visit, consultation, lab work, procedure, and anything and everything else associated. His first line of defense, "Well, I can't really tell you that. You'll have to come in."

"Well, can you transfer me to someone who can give me an estimate?"

"The nurses assistant (I think that's what he said) would know, but they are all busy."

"Ok, is there anyone else you can transfer me to who can give me a number?"

"Hold on, let me ask." Wait for a few minutes with the nice elevator music. "It's really hard to say without a consultation. Can you come in so we can look at it?"

"I don't have insurance. I understand that a lot of places offer free consultation. Even then, you understand that it's not feasible for me to go around to every office for the free consultation in order to get a quote..."

"Yeah, I appreciate your situation...If you had insurance it would be much easier..." *sigh* Face-palm moment. If I, or anyone else had insurance, I wouldn't be calling you. I'd call my fucking doctor. Anyway. "Well, it'll be *blah blah blah* for the procedure. I urge you to go to a well-known place. It is your health we are talking about." And he went on about how good the practice is, by which time I zoned out.

"Yes, I understand. I picked you first actually because I heard good things about you." Lie. I found them on yelp.com. There were two good reviews.

And so it went on.

Apparently, I became rather well known in the office fairly quickly. When I called back, not five minutes later, a woman answered the phone. I barely started explaining the situation to her when she interrupted, "Oh! You were talking to Edward! Let me transfer you!" Oh! Thanks for your bubbly personality and your unwillingness to talk to me or even listen to my question! Poor Edward. He once again had to bug the doctors to get an answer to my question and once again lamented my lack of insurance and once again urged me to make an appointment.

To be honest, I really did appreciate everything he did for me. I've been on the other side with persistent customers with unusual requests. It's really good service when he left his station to get answers for me.

The rest of the calls went more or less smoothly. I changed my scripting to, "Hi my name is...., and I know this is a difficult question to answer, however, I don't have insurance and I'm looking for a quote for ____ procedure that includes, consultation, procedure and lab work." With that, I got a bit of a spiel of the dependence of the price on the type of procedure (it seems like quite a few people don't really understand the concept of range), but mostly I got the two numbers out of them.

I can't help but think that maybe part of what ails our healthcare is the lack of transparency of prices. Why shouldn't the doctors offices or hospitals know how much a procedure should be? Why shouldn't the patients be able to shop around for an estimate, kind of like car insurance? I can see the pitfalls, such as in an emergency situation, I might not have the time or be conscious enough to make a decision. However, for a majority of procedures, I'd bet that this will help bring down the cost of medical care.

I was listening to a podcast by The Economist talking about two opposing view points on the US health reform bill from two Britons. I can't tell you how refreshing it was to be able to respect the opposing view point. He brought up a good argument that the biggest problem is the cost, even Obama acknowledges this because he said that healthcare spendings is taking up 16-17% GDP. However, the present bill does not do enough to control cost. Based on my earlier experience that day, I thought that if we made the market more open and forced consumers to face the numbers of the procedures we are choosing, it'll put a downward pressure on the market prices.

Throughout my talks with various people about healthcare, I've been surprised to learn that my view of the insurance companies as evil was not shared by even a majority of people. In my group of friends, I've been able to learn other likely causes and has been persuaded to change my mind, even about universal healthcare from the federal government. I find it frustrating that we lack exactly this type of productive, educating, and enlightening dialogue furthering the knowledge of both parties at the national level. It's especially sad that the two major Parties cannot even talk to each other to form a compromise that takes the best of both idealogical standpoints, since to my knowledge, implementing one does not necessarily mean the exclusion of the other. That's why it was so surprising and satisfying to listen to these two English guys talking about healthcare, disagreeing with each other on certain points, but ceding others based on common goals, and having a civil debate. When can we move beyond "You lie!" and "Baby killer!" and reach that point in our national dialogue?

Household knowledge

2010-03-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

It struck me as I was running errands today in my job as a personal assistant that different households have different stores of knowledge that is, for the most part, not shared outside that household.

Let me first define household. It comprises of either a single person, or two people in a relationship, and any nuclear family that lives together. Thus, roommates or housemates don't count.

Stores of knowledge can be described as habits, places we frequent, things we learned from each other etc.

For example, I needed to go to Willy's Electronic Supply Store, but had no idea where it is. Upon googling, I realized that it's right next/behind/in close proximity to Aquatic Warehouse where L and I go all the time for our aquarium supplies. I don't know anything about the price or quality of things electronic, but I figured if B, the tech guy, patronizes this place, and he's a SD native, then there must be something about Willy's. I told L that we should check it out just so he can evaluate it to see if it's any good.

B goes to Lubrimart on Clairemont for basic car needs. L has his own place. Who's is better?

That's what I mean by unique household knowledge. We all go to different places for different things. We might totally go to this awesome place for Italian food for example (which we do, Gusto Trattoria), yet even our close friends might not even know about it. I can't help but think that we'd all benefit from these bits and pieces that we don't even consider significant enough to share.

Things almost impossible to do one handed

2010-03-25T01:03:00.000-07:00

My right hand is out of commission and I had to take a shower today to wash my hair. I tried putting it off, but I have to work tomorrow.

Inconveniences of one-handedness
1. Had to put up with a cold glob of face wash.
2. Really hard washing the right side of my head. I had to reach over to lather up the shampoo.
3. Almost impossible to soap the left arm. Actually, right before I discovered that little fact, I was feeling quite pleased with myself. Though everything was taking longer, I was managing quite well cleaning myself and keeping my right hand dry. When the time came to soap my left arm though, I stared at the soap in my left hand and realized the impossibility of the situation. I was quite amazed. I quickly ran through the options in my head. The easiest is having L help me.
4. Took me quite awhile to wrap the towel around head to dry my hair.

So now you know. Hormones control everything.

Honey experiment with evidence Part II

2010-03-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

Back in September of last year, I tried the honey experiment when I cut my finger with fairly good results.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to repeat it when I dropped a plate of frozen wontons and in the process of getting them off the plate, I once again cut myself. I sliced a pretty deep chunk off the tip of my index finger, two pieces, albeit smaller, from the middle joint of the middle finger, and another piece off of the knuckle on the ring finger. (This time, I think I'll spare you the pictures.) I thought about leaving one cut untreated as a control, but decided I couldn't take the pain.

I was googling the usage of honey as an antibacterial today and found an article online detailing the various properties for why honey makes a good topical antibacterial dressing. The one finding that makes the most sense to me is that honey contains glucose-oxidase. Meaning the enzyme is constantly turning sugar to small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, which we all know has antibacterial properties, at a level that does not damage healthy cells. This is better than the 3% solution typically available at drug stores because at this level and form, not only does it damage healthy cells, but its effectiveness is limited as exposure to light and heat causes it to decompose to water and oxygen. Another interesting fact is that honey somehow is effective against resistant bacterial strains while also promoting healing. Studies found it to be effective against MRSA, ulcers, and burns of various kinds where "traditional" (ironic since the use of honey is actually older than any modern antiseptic we have) antibiotics have failed to make improvements at all.

From personal experience, I find that it helped with pain too. I generally try not to use band-aids for wounds, but with the skin having to create new layers instead of just stitching itself together, I have to use it to keep the wound clean. However, I always worry about too much moisture creating a bacteria friendly environment when using band-aids, so using honey for me is a peace of mind.

Update 3/30/10: by the third day the cut no longer hurts if I don't press on it. By the fourth day, I was able to take the band-aids off. New skin seems to be growing vigorously on the deep cut. The others formed scabs once exposed to air. There was a bit of inflammation that developed on the 5th day on the shallower cuts that weren't really there when the honey was on.

Movie date

2010-03-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

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L had been wanting to watch Alice in Wonderland since it came out. I was indifferent but generally preferred to watch something after a week or two so there won't be so many people in the theater. He didn't care too much if it was in 3D or not, but come on! It's a fantasy movie! 3D has to be better right?

Overall, I liked it. Not quite like the book at all, but a refreshingly different story about self-discovery of inner strength and resolve on Alice's part. In the end, I even commiserated with the Red Queen. Perhaps due to a life-long comparison to her normal head sized-sister, who also happens to be beautiful, from parents, peers, and subjects that she chose power by fear as opposed to love. Despite my sympathy for her, the ending provided vindication for all involved (perhaps with the exception of the White Queen. What happened to her king? Who said she deserved the crown?), as the Red Queen and cohort are justly punished.

L thought it was a good movie too but said it wasn't worth buying. That and him buying Cloudy, with a Chance of Meatballs told me all I needed to know about his movie taste: unreliable. Jk. I agree with his choices around 80% of the time. I thought if anything, he would buy this movie. Afterall, he does have Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (which, between the two, I liked Alice better.) I guess I tend to like or dislike movies based on messages more than entertainment value and he decides based on the latter.

What happens with too much fresh chives

2010-03-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

Wontons is the answer. Lots and lots of them.

Went to 99 Ranch on Friday and found some incredibly fresh chives on sale. I couldn't resist so I bought some. But what to do with all that chives? I guess I'll have to make wontons! I've never made my own before, though I've had plenty of my mom's. So it's a challenge!

Sunday noon found G and I busy chopping, defrosting and mixing. Mostly chopping though. We added chives, pork, and shrimp. For binding and other flavorings: 2 eggs, rice wine, corn starch, white pepper, sesame oil, vegetable oil, garlic, ginger and soy sauce (生抽, it's less color for more saltiness). We saved the adjustment of salt level for last because neither one of us were experienced in using the particular soy sauce. We had to cook a little bit of the filling to taste whether it's salty enough. If there's one thing that ruins a good wonton, it's over salting the thing.

Then on to the wrapping!

(Paratroopers vs. militias!)

This is the wrapper I will be using the next time as well. All together, I used almost four packages for that much filling.

Remember the Panda brand!

I used a premade soup base I bought also at 99 Ranch. It comes with seaweed, flavor packet and a dehydrated packet of green onions and carrots. I used the first two, but prefer to use fresh green onions and cilantro.

With wontons:

Inside to make sure they are cooked:

They looked and tasted a bit more eggy than they should. Surprising, considering I only used two eggs. Maybe next time I should reduce that to one, or just use egg whites.

Anyway, they tasted really good. And now I have a whole bunch in the freezer. I'm quite proud of our accomplishment.

Making our displeasures known...

2010-03-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

I was merging on to the 15 along with everyone else in line at 4:15pm when a blue SUV zoomed, braked, and turned from a lane going straight and squeezed onto the on-ramp. Then I saw a white car do the same. All the way till I actually got on the freeway I fantasized about the logistics of an egg launcher. I visualized me aiming a mini-bazooka-like-thing at the assholes' cars and watching the lovely egg wash cover their clean exterior.

On the way home, I discussed this with L. I thought maybe instead of an egg-launcher, I could made a ketchup-packet launcher where the packets will pop on contact. These various launchers don't need that much range or accuracy. A car is a pretty big target. For the ones who cuts people off on the freeway or local streets or the ones who cut lines, I'd say 50ft is fair. L thought that eggs would make better projectiles since they have more weight. However, they are more delicate than ketchup packets. I suggested a modified version of a supersoaker. Again, the problem is the eggs breaking inside the barrel.

L then suggested modifying the front of the car where the bumper is with a row of paintball guns. The car in front won't even know what hit them till later. I think it goes too easy on the driving jerks since paintballs wash off too easily. Plus, I'd have to get behind them to do this.

I then thought of darts that carry messages. "Yes I saw what you did you asshole." Something along those lines. The problem there would be making sure they stick to the car so they'll get the message.

When we turned the last corner before hitting home, I realized I've spent way too much time fantasizing about it. In the end, I'll be more pissed when somebody uses my invention/idea on me injudiciously. Still, egg on car is a lovely thought.

Quantity vs quality

2010-03-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

I've been blogging daily for about a week, maybe a bit more. Now I'm wondering if in the process of trying to come up with something everyday, the quality of the blogs are suffering? Too mundane? Too much complaining? Too much information?

I guess this question was going to come up eventually.

I suppose if I cut back on the entries till I have something truly interesting to say, then I might actually miss a few posts because I won't have time to write them down.

In the end, it's a quality issue. New and awesome ideas do not materialize and flesh themselves out everyday. However, given the choice between daily entries or a few a month, I choose the former.

Strawberry update

2010-03-10T19:27:00.000-08:00

One plant died, but it was real little. I should have planted it in a different location and it might have had a better chance. Most of the others have sent out a third or fourth leaf. Basically a leaf that they didn't have when I bought them. It hurts to pinch off the flowers, but I feel so much better doing that now when I see the leaf growths making the plants look really strong and thriving. The rains recently has been great for them, too.

Dear journal

2010-03-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

I tentatively started my job as a personal assistant. I just realized that what I really am is basically someone's bitch. Doing work that they don't have time to do or don't want to do. Which I don't mind for now. It'll be an interesting side job.

I also ran 1.5 miles today. I spent an hour picking out my interview clothes and realized that I need to lose some weight to fit into my pants. Well, let today be the day that two new things are starting.

Do you remember someone ever giving you advice on keeping a list of your life's history so you can use it for applications, resumes, CVs and so on? Such good advice. I wish I took it.

Relationships in Glee

2010-03-08T19:24:00.000-08:00

We had a Glee marathon last night. We were one episode short of the entire first season. I love the music, but the same cannot be said of the storyline. Something about it bothers me. Other than Kurt, there's really no one else I can truly sympathize and relate to and cheer on. Rachel is too much of an overachiever. Finn is so dumb at times. I feel sorry for Quinn but she's also such a bitch. Just when I thought Puck was about to redeem himself, he disappoints by refusing to give up tail. The others are way too minor to comment on.

The way adult relationships are portrayed is bothersome as well. I have no real problem with the antagonism between Will and Sue. The protagonist needs an arch nemesis right? The one between Will and Ken is rather flimsy. He asked her to settle for him, why blame anything then on Will and her? The main problem I have are the relationships between Will and Terri, his wife, and Will and Emma. We don't really know what the real problem in the marriage is because they never talk about it. All we know is that Will and Terri were high school sweethearts. Terri is by no stretch of imagination a good wife as portrayed in the show. However, does Will do the mature thing and talk to work it out? No he doesn't. Sure he "does the right thing" by trying to please her the best he could, but they never talk about the root of the problem. Yet, in school, in order to try to escape problems at home and seeking approbation elsewhere, he builds an inappropriate relationship with Emma. The tension between the two is palpable. So much so that word reaches Terri and she gets a job at school to remind the two that Will is still her husband. Will shows great impatience at Terri's presence. Even that does not curb the sexual tension between him and Emma. Why am I laying the blame on Will? Because he's supposed to be the good guy. We already know that Terri is a dumb bitch. It disturbs me that the essential message this sends is that if you are a good guy and you find a decent woman, it's perfectly fine to find and flirt with someone already in another relationship (no matter how imperfect) and not work on your relationship with your wife of at least five years (no matter how much of a bitch she is).

And one more thing, the other problem I have is between Quinn, Finn, and Puck. Since when has it been acceptable to pin paternity/fatherhood on someone who's not the father? Fine, she's pregnant, she's a teenager, she's confused. Then Mercedes tells Puck to back off because he's done enough to Quinn already? What's her excuse? She's a teenager too? Quinn is shallow, ruthless, a daddy's girl, and a bitch...I don't have a point. I just wanted to call her names.

What a stupid show. I want to skip all the drama and go to the numbers. Now that I've thought it through, watching it irks me.

Damn you Glee!

2010-03-07T03:12:00.000-08:00

I resisted watching Glee because it just seems like such a cliched high school drama. Yes, high school drama *eye roll*. However, I heard some of the songs the other night during game night and thought I'll see what other songs they have. I watched one episode on Hulu and I couldn't stop. This so far is one of my favorites:

So beautiful. I want the soundtrack.

Attraction and relationship

2010-03-05T19:57:00.000-08:00

I was driving on the freeway when I thought about the L4D2 game the other night when we let the computer sort the six of us into two different teams in versus. L told LP who were on the same team, "At least winning is making the girlfriend and husband happy." When he relayed this to me that night, I complimented him on how big-hearted L and LP are. As my thoughts wandered, I realized quite a few of my friends has elements of my personality that is quite similar to mine. Yet, I am dating someone who is completely different. And here, it struck me: there are two different attractions to people. One to people who are similar to us. The attraction there is pretty obvious. We understand them and we understand their motivations. The second is to people who are different from us, to the point where we are left scratching our heads going, "What the hell?...What are they thinking?...I don't get it." The reaction afterward can be laughing in amusement or tearing our hair out in frustration. (The third group is "wtf, you are crazy and I'm outta here.")

How this relates to relationships:
I am going to make a generalization (I think it works for me) that it's the second type of attraction that makes a better relationship. Reason being that it tends to round and balance out the relationship. The difference keeps things interesting. What we don't understand about each other both amuses us, makes the other person more endearing as well as drives us insane during moments of conflict. Hopefully, this results in a long conversation (assuming good communication skills) resolving the conflict and bringing the two people closer.

I say this because I am in the second type. It's only due to his incredible patience with me that we've lasted this long. His inscrutability (pronounce it. Yes you, L. Correctly.) makes me smile or yell depending on the situation. Yet, it keeps things interesting.

Star Wars review

2010-03-04T15:09:00.000-08:00

I just had to post this. I have not watched the entire Star Wars series. And I certainly didn't intend to watch the entire 50 minutes or so of the whole thing. This is the first of seven.

Coming back to Southern California

2010-03-03T02:30:00.000-08:00

L and I were discussing the other day that despite our desire to see the world and whatnot, we would like to eventually come back to southern California for its beautiful weather. For the house we want in the future and things we'd like to plant, California is awesome. Where else can we plant mangoes, citrus, avocado, peaches, roses, etc. etc.? We really don't have to worry about harsh winters here. I'm glad in a way that my winter clothes consists of a coat, a scarf, and a sweatshirt (this coming from a person who hates being cold). Not heavy duty long underwear or down coat, or whatever people wear in seriously cold weathers. It's nice to walk outside and look at the sun and blue sky and feel warm enough to take off a layer and end up in T-shirt and jeans.

Raised bed gardens/sq ft gardens

2010-03-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

Raised bed gardens are nothing new. They are a good way to bypass soil problems.

I recently learned of a new concept: square foot gardens. It's a basic raised bed garden divided into foot squares. One may plant a certain number of vegetables, herbs, or fruit in each square.

There's a good website to help gardeners plan and research their garden from Gardener's Supply Kitchen Garden Planner. For example:

It tells you how many of each plant one can fit in each square automatically. After this stage, it generates a page giving more details on how to plant each selection:

So cool.

Oh and the best thing ever: a salsa garden!

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One shop stop for delicious homemade fresh salsa during summer. =)

Current music obsession

2010-03-01T07:55:00.001-08:00

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I love Lady Gaga! In her style, both fashion and her work, there is only one Lady Gaga. I love how she's not afraid to dress up in her costumes. Her music is incredibly catchy. Her music videos are mesmerizing, and not with cliched dance moves. Because of her, I'm currently on a dance music kick. There should be an easy way to get that music into the iPod for when I'm exercising.

Speaking of fashion, I would love to get my hands on any copy of Asian fashion magazine where the stars are stars and stay in their film world and models fills the pages as they rightly should. The pages are so much more informative with the currently styles, accessories, makeup colors and how to's. Looking at them even helps me, who's never been into fashion, get a sense of what goes with what. This is incredibly sadly lacking in American magazines. We are too star and gossip focused.

BMI

2010-02-28T20:34:00.000-08:00

President Obama's BMI: 23.7 Upper range of normal.
Mine: 23.9 Even more upper range of normal than the president =(
L's: 25.1 In the overweight range.

I know I know BMI is not completely accurate. I discounted it when I was told during a physical while on the high school varsity cross country team that according to my BMI, I was a little heavy for my age and height. My response? Fuck you. I was running 20-30 miles per week and I'm "heavy"? What messed up test is that? The weakness of the BMI is that it does not differentiate between muscle's and fat's contribution to a person's weight. Thus, there are skinny people with normal BMI who are not healthy because they lack muscle mass.

Point is, I need to lose 15 pounds. *whining* But it's sooooo hard. To start exercising consistently I mean. I know it's a lot easier to do this if I do it together with someone. However, since XC, I'm really picky about my running partners. They have to have about the same pace as I do and be consistent in that pace, meaning not running fast then slowing down and running fast again. I guess it doesn't matter too much on the treadmill. Still, that is not the ideal place to run. I'm just being picky. I'd love to get to a point where I can go out on Saturdays and do a nice 10-12 mile run on the beautiful trails in San Diego while running 4-6 miles daily. It'll be relaxing.

I know I tried to start at the end of last year but the holidays totally ruined that. I'll start again tomorrow. And do it everyday. If not, what should the punishment be?

Strawberry post: the next day

2010-02-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

A bit more natural light. And it's raining beautifully, slowly saturating the soil. Nothing seems wilted, which means they are getting enough water. Can't wait till they start to grow and thrive, hopefully, in one week.

Strawberry project made

2010-02-26T22:53:00.000-08:00

Today I accomplished my task of collecting my cultivars: eversweet (I wasn't actually out to collect that one), Chandler, and Sequoia. I picked up the latter at the Walter Andersen with LP. The customer service there was nice enough to bring some out from the back for me because it wasn't out on the table in front. Pictures as promised:

The green basket holds my one Chandler, clockwise are the twelve Sequoia and bottom six are Eversweet.

Other materials:

A 14x14x10in pond basket for $8.89. I figured the more dirt it holds the better even though strawberries are supposed to have shallow roots. And lying on top is the thing I'm going to use to hang it for $1.59. Compared to making it myself, it was worth just buying it.

My work area for tonight (before it rains tomorrow):

(clockwise) The potting soil, Dr. Earth organic 5 (5-7-3), bucket with my homemade compost (which stunk to high heavens last year because it was too wet and is now totally perfectly normal looking and smelling), my basket with holes for the plants on the side, the strawberries, and the big pile of mixed soil + fertilizer (~1 cup). Not pictured, the coconut fiber.

The finished product:

I planted the strawberries in three layers. First I filled the bottom with potting soil up to the bottom of the first row of holes. Then I stuck the plants through the holes. After the second one, I realized that I need the coco fiber to prevent the soil from falling out. So I had to pad all the plants on top and bottom with the fiber. Same with the next layer. The top was the easiest. However, as soon as I was done, I realized that I should have put the fiber all around the basket to prevent soil particles from falling out. *sigh* Live and learn.

L helped me hang it up.

I mulched the top with some of the left over coco fiber and watered it the best I can. Depending on the amount of rain tomorrow, I might have to water more tomorrow. Hopefully all the plants will survive.

"wth" picture of the day, courtesy of L, titled "The Terror of Bettas"

Spring fever: strawberries

2010-02-25T22:38:00.000-08:00

It's all Home Depot's fault. Well, I suppose if I am going to blame it on Home Depot, my brother shares some of the blame too. He's the reason I stepped foot into Home Depot. And of course, being me, I had to check out the garden section. And of course, being almost spring, there were tons of plants there. I walked all around the store. No orchids dying of thirst that needs rescuing. Check. What's this? Strawberry plants in a bag? Interesting. And thereon after, I could not get the image and its possibilities out of my head. I have conquered maiden hair fern, thriving now in its third or fourth year, surviving a buzz cut after a pot upgrade. Now, a new challenge lies ahead: making a productive strawberry patch/basket. A worthy cause considering just how disappointing most store-bought strawberries are. They are the epitome of false advertising. Think lady in red from afar, only to find it diseased and puckery up close. I forgot just how sweet and delicious strawberries can be until I had some the size of quail eggs in China. It struck me that natural strawberries are not supposed to be the size of a ping-pong ball or bigger. The better quality to select is sweetness, sorely lacking in most commercial strawberries (the only place I can think of to get that quality are farmers markets, if not then organic).

...all to justify my current obsession with strawberries. =)

At least I learned a few things about them. The most surprising: they are perennials, being fairly productive up to 3-4 years. I thought they were annuals. They certainly looked like it.

They are divided into three, or for the purpose of awesome California, two strains: June bearing and ever bearing (the other name for ever bearing is day neutral). For June bearing berries, the plants produce one big crop in June, good for jams, preserves, etc. Ever bearing or day neutral (so called because fruit bearing is independent on day length) produces pretty much continuously from early summer till frost or October for CA.

50 plants will produce enough berries for a family of four.

Cultivars good for SoCal:
Chandler (June bearing): large, juicy, flavorful.
Sequoia (June bearing): long fruiting season, flavorful and productive.
Seascape (ever bearing): large, flavorful

Can be purchased by bundles. ~$8-10/25-30 plants. Buy in Nov-January.

Do not bury the crown.

Require consistent watering. Fertilize using 10-10-10 fertilizer. Once before flowering starts, once more after fruiting is over, or before overwintering. Organic material. Slightly acidic. Or use tomato fertilizer.

So my plan for this year: plant between 10-20 plants in a basket and see what comes for it. Currently, I'm collecting my plants. I have six Eversweets and one Chandler (shh...L doesn't know about the latter).

Also allow me to recommend a few nurseries that I love.
First and foremost: City Farmer's Nursery Owned by family who lives on the acre and a half of nursery. They are incredibly knowledgeable and experienced with which varieties work in local areas. They also support organic farming and hydroponics. The place itself is amazing. They have fish, rabbits, chickens, doves, llamas, horse, geese, bees. They have what I would like to have in the future. All on 1 1/2 acres. I feel peaceful just walking around. They are also happy to order things for you.

Walter Andersen: 2 locations in SD. Again, family owned, I think. Incredibly knowledgeable and helpful staff. Ask them anything. They have quality plants and gardening tools. Plus, visit the Poway location, and they have an awesome track of miniature trains. They also have a rewards program called Hedge Funds. A little bit like what REI has.

Armstrong: Better than Home Depot? I don't know too much about them to say the truth, but they do have a large variety of plants.

There will be more posts, pictures included, about my strawberry project.

Catching up

2010-02-23T17:33:00.000-08:00

On a meta note, February has not been a good month. For two weeks, my stomach was the pickiest organ. One little swallowed mouthful of raw pork because I was too lazy to get up and take one step to the trash to spit it out. One wrong food, the stomach will either reject it or give me heartburn for hours on end. I realized the best state for one's awareness of our innards is none. Just work. I don't care how, just be normal. Chinese New Year wasn't exactly great either. My dad's almost like another person. Scary. I feel bad for my brother for having to live in that environment. Hopefully, he'll be able to take something good away from it.

Yesterday, L and I went to play bingo with his mom at Viejas. I actually had lots of fun. These bingo players are scary in their intensity. The numbers show up on screen, the person calling it out gives everyone a few seconds and then officially calls it. One has to wait till she calls it before yelling bingo. The first round, I missed the third and fourth number simply because I couldn't keep up with the speed. L told me afterwards that I stressed his mom out because she didn't expect me to be so slow. =) What can I say? I'm not good at numbers. People are surprised by that, but I'm not. I have to say the number in my head. Plus, I'm too afraid of marking the wrong number because I can't erase it. So I take my time. It took a few rounds but I got the hang of it for the most part. I don't know how people do it with 24 squares since I'm barely keeping up with 12 and barely have any time in between to look for patterns.

During one round, I was one number away from blackout. 58. And of course, I didn't win. It was 24, then 59. Ah well. It was very exciting though waiting for the last number. I was not too disappointed. I saw it as $7 for about two and half hours of entertainment. Plus we got free food out of it. If I win something, great, if not, oh well, I had fun. There was this one jackpot game where if someone got blackout in 52 numbers or less, the prize money is $10K, 53 numbers or more, the money drops to $1000. Someone got bingo on the 53 number. We heard someone say something and people laughing at the 52nd number and figured out why when the 53rd number was officially called. It sucks for him, but funny too.

Alright. Anyway. February's almost over. I'm going to get back to a regular schedule of blogging because it's a whole new month.

L & Butters: who cleans a bowl better?

2010-01-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

It seemed like Butters has been a little picky about his food lately. He hasn't been eating as much or as quickly as he used to. Yesterday, I decided to give him something a little different. I mixed the rice and soup (that I made for L & me) with canned albacore. The soup has cauliflower, tomato sauce, chicken broth, peas, carrots, celery and onions. Butters ate it all up and cleaned up the bowl...unlike someone else who always leaves a pea or two and some grains of rice. Little thing that irks me. Is the last pea not good enough for you to eat? You have something against the last pieces of rice? I guess next time I'll let Butters do it.

3rd book club mtg

2010-01-16T01:13:00.001-08:00

It took awhile, but we finally had our 3rd book club meeting at the new apt.

The book was How I Became A Famous Novelist by Steve Hely.

Kathryn chose it because the author gave a really great and funny interview on NPR.

I didn't think it was as funny as it was purported to be. Perhaps it's me because I rarely laugh out loud while reading anyway. Failed on the humor front.

The moral of the story seemed to be sincerity sells books. When the protagonist was not sincere both in his writing and promotion of his book, the sales weren't doing too well. Yet, when he explained his real feelings on popular books, it generated controversy that helped his book sales. However, it came at a price as the controversy created and and lead to bad publicity. His memoir containing his sincere efforts to explain his life sold better that his fiction.

Overall I liked the story up to the point where the protagonist, Peter, began having a change of heart regarding his venture. The change of heart felt contrived, unnatural in the plot, as if it was only there to teach us that lesson. I would have liked it better if he achieved all of his goals listed in the beginning of the book.

Having said that, one issue raised during discussion was whether this was at all possible in real life. I think it's completely possible. Just look at all the different formulaic fiction out there. There are certain themes that lends itself very well to human fancy. Love affairs between gods and mortals, love affairs between vampires and humans (yes, that was a dig at Twilight).

On a related publishing issue, is it possible at all for contemporaries to spot a classic? With so many books published today, even awards are no guarantee which books will endure the generations. If someone writes a book that becomes a classic in the future, how can we know today? My book selections are generally from the classic canon 90% of the time. I've always wanted to figure out what made them endure? I am sad at the thought that I will miss out on good stories written during my lifetime.

It's not a book worth my $14 or even $1 were it on sale somewhere. However, I do appreciate it for making us think about quite a few issues despite the fact it's supposed to be light reading.

First hotpot party in apt

2010-01-12T00:35:00.000-08:00

The unpacking continues. We are one box away from done with the kitchen. Luis bought his desk and relinquished control of the dining room table. Closet is still undone. Everything is coming along.

Went to the dog park in the morning and found the weather to be quite warm. I decided that it was warm enough to make bread. The whole process did not take long at all, and in almost no time at all, we had delicious warm bread with thin crispy crust.

G then treated us to hotpot for dinner and it was soooo filling that all I want to do is close my eyes and sleep...

...until I was mesmerized by this from BakingMum. Everything looked incredibly delicious. It also comes with recipes for the more Chinese foods. Will have to make a list of things to try later. Sometime in the near future: SPONGE CAKE!

German Shepherd

2010-01-11T16:00:00.000-08:00

While I am happy that Butters is fairly well socialized with most things in life, at times, I wish he just wasn't so darn friendly. Sometimes in the dog park, he lays down next to another person or licks them when picked up or plays with them. Whenever he does that, I call him a little traitor, in jest, but not really.

This got me thinking about a dog that's loyal, not incredibly friendly, obedient, active but graceful, and intelligent but not stubborn. German shepherd. After going through pictures online, I want an-all black German shepherd.

(img from http://www.fouranfass-gsds.co.uk/)

Don't they look cool?

I want to teach it tracking, so I'll never get lost in the woods (I have a horrible sense of cardinal directions, or left and right if I'm unfamiliar with a place, such as the wilderness). I want to teach it to protect me.

Besides things I want to teach it, I also want to play fetch, go hiking, and jogging. I want it to be a reminder that life is not all about work. Do take time out to enjoy relaxation as well.

Don't get me wrong, Butters already does that. However, he's doesn't fetch outside the apartment and he can't keep up on hikes. =( I know he's not really the right breed for it and it's not his fault. I'll just have to wait till I'm more settled in my life to even think about getting another dog. I'll also have to find classes where I can teach it the stuff I want it to learn.

Life update: moving across the street

2010-01-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

So L and I moved from our 1bd to a 2 bd in the same complex with G on the 7th and the 8th. The moving only reinforced my hatred of moving. Each time, I want to throw away everything and walk over with my clothes and electronics. How do we accumulate so much crap in our lifetime? Thank goodness for friends who helped us move. Despite the help, I was still sore, tired, and cranky. We didn't finish till 11pm on the 8th.

I am trying to figure out how to make this whole ordeal easier, and the only things I can really come up with is to pack things way ahead of time. Don't organize. If things need to be organized, give yourself even more time. Get plenty of boxes. I cannot emphasize that enough. Get enough of them so everything can go in them. Get a dolly. It will save your arms. Live with some sacrifices, such as not cooking, or wearing the same selection of clothes. *sigh* I hate moving.

Saturday was recuperation. I took a long walk with Butters because the poor thing had been totally ignored and locked in our room while we were moving. He eventually gave up waiting for us and just sat against the wall.

Today, we cleared our bedroom and much of the living room. Tomorrow, we'll work on the closet and the rest of the boxes. I can't wait till it feels like home again.

In the afternoon, we also went to the dog beach. Mona and her humans joined us on this two hour trip. I am amazed that Butters actually really tired himself out. On the beach though, he sniffed as many dogs as he could and chased Mona wherever she went. As soon as he came home, he went to his kennel and laid down. He didn't even follow us around. It's wonderful to see him so tired from having such a great time.

We finally have internet again, and of course, entertainment. Something my generation cannot live without. Yay!

Wisteria bonsai

2010-01-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

Isn't that gorgeous?

I've always loved wisteria for the beautiful name, flowers, leaves, and delicate woody vines.

A few months ago, L and I went to Wild Animal Park. I saw the wisteria seedpods hanging in the water-wise garden. When I went back with G and her cousin, most of the pods were gone. My brother finally found one high up and jumped to get it for me.

I think I'm going to try to sprout the seeds, plant and train them into bonsai plants.

I read that it takes ten years for wisteria to flower. I think they are a good symbol for where my life is going. Hopefully, my efforts will come to fruition in ten years as well.

Secret Santa 2009

2010-01-04T23:18:00.000-08:00

A little late for true Christmas, but given everyone was busy for the holidays with families and friends, we exchanged gifts Monday after New Years when the spirit of the holidays still haven't flown away yet.

My secret Santa was LP and here are my Christmas presents:

A wooden box hand covered with a beautiful flower print cloth. Wait till you see the inside.

The cover contains a white meshwork. I'll probably put the Secret Santa photo with everyone in there. LP painted the edge of the box with gold paint which matches the deep blue of the cloth perfectly. I can hang my many earrings on the tacked red ribbons. To add to my earring collection, I also received a pair of dainty pink pearl earrings, again handmade by LP. (The three black objects are wisteria seeds. More in next post.)

On the back wall of the box sits a simple music maker, officially making this a wonderful little music box. My first.

I don't know what song it plays, but it sounds incredibly soothing. I especially like it when the spring winds down and the gears slow, like a last contented sigh before a beautiful thing ends.

Thank you LP, I'll also treasure this and it will hold wonderful memories starting with this year's super successful secret Santa.

Random Butters picture:

Avatar 3-D

2009-12-31T11:44:00.000-08:00

L, my brother and I had planned on watching the 3-D IMAX version, but everything sold out except the 1:15am show. Considering the length of the film, we decided to go for the 12:45 show instead.

Going into the theatre, I did not know the plot nor understood the buzz around the movie. Luis tried to explain that it showcased some new 3-D technology, but I know Edwards has been showing 3-D movies, including Up, for quite some time now. So what's the big deal?

During the movie, I shivered the whole time, either from anticipation, the awe-inspiring graphics, or the cold, I can't tell. I admit that the movie was exciting. However, on an intellectual level, the plot was just another rehash of the Pocahontas story, Disney style, replete with the Na'vi dressed in typical styles of "savages" and the huge technology imbalance along with all the right people dying at all the predictably right times.

The 3-D technology, while less nausea-inducing than Honey I Shrunk the Kids, was, practically-speaking, unnecessary to the overall story-telling. The only two places where it enhanced my movie watching experience were the control panels on ships where I instantly understood just how cool and futuristic they were, à la Vanilla Sky, or the main character walking through a field of falling ash where it made me feel like a part of his experience. Otherwise, the awesome graphics would have had the same effect on me had it been in 2-D.

On the plus side however, I applaud the imagination that went into creating Pandora. The truly beautiful and magical night visuals invoked a sense of child-like wonder and awe. As for the story and message, didn't the indigenous people and their nature-worshipping religion win? On 3-D technology, perhaps James Cameron or others will use it more fully to help the story telling as it develops.

New blog

2009-12-28T01:15:00.000-08:00

Fifty-two weeks of 庄子 (Zhuangzi). My favorite dead Chinese philosopher. Have I ever mentioned that I hate Confucius? Anyway, Zhuangzi's stories are funny, irreverent with a tad defiance. At least, the ones I've read, maybe I'll find out differently. There will be Chinese. However, there will also be English translations of the stories. Feel free to browse and learn about Zhuangzi with me.

Christmas 2009...

2009-12-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

was spent with some of my favorite people. Two friends of my parents whom I actually like, G and her cousin, my brother, and L.

My Christmas present. I really like it. It's shiny. =)

I helped my mom with some of the dinner preparations, but she mostly finished the dishes on her own while my brother, L and I pruned the roses for the year. We drove around the block the night before and checked a neighbor's yard who has a rose garden. They've pruned theirs so it's time to prune ours.

Dinner:

Potato salad (center), some white stick thing (top), mushroom medley, chicken, fish, stuffed jalapeno, slow-cooked meat, duck, fish. Later, mom cooked some spring rolls which she showed me how to make, that'll be another post.

Afterwards, we left the adults to go to AU79 for some boba.

Someone tried to get into the picture. I had a honey soy milk tea from their new menu. It was alright. The menu had fewer drinks and more snacks. I prefer the other way around.

Random event

2009-12-24T00:21:00.000-08:00

As Gloria and I drove to the post office in San Marcos, we stopped in the left turn lane for a red light. I had Butters in my arms as he looked out the window. An old couple pulled up next to us and asked me, "Is that a bichon?" They then proceeded to tell me that they have a 5-years old bichon girl back home and that they are just such wonderful dogs.

I couldn't agree more. Butters is so affectionate.

Butter's wardrobe

2009-12-21T23:55:00.000-08:00

Initially, I was indifferent to the idea of dressing Butters. I thought the only thing he needed was a big poofy pink bow because it would be a great joke on people since they already think of him as a girl.

As winter set in, I found him shivering when we are outside despite his fluffy coat. And thus his wardrobe.

It is just the cutest thing.

His collection:

a sweater, a coat, and a raincoat.

And now starring Butters in his first piece, the coat:

I made it myself. The main material is a piece of 1 ft x whatever width it is at JoAnn's reversible quilting material that was on sale for $8.99/yd. A package of green bias tape to close the edge. 2 ft of green ribbon. Velcro. And pattern cloth. I had to work it out by trial and error since I had a bit of trouble visualizing the 2-D shape of the coat. Will post pattern with adjustable measurements if I can figure out how. I have also yet to figure out how to make the coat reversible.

2nd piece: an indoor crocheted sweater. Indoor because Butters is so close to the ground his belly often gets dirty when he plays and walks around outside.

Crochet: chain enough links to easily slip over head. Note to self in the future, the top needs to the shortened while the bottom needs to be lengthened. Example: use single crochet on top while using double crochet on bottom. The chest area will need to be tightened as well about 4-6 chains.

And last but not least, his raincoat that I bought at Petco for $10. I was going to make one for him, and I think I still will, but this is a good starting point. I figured the cost of materials alone will be about or exceed $10.

Finally, just because he's an awesomely cute little dog that I love:

*sigh* He's so adorable.

The only thing that I will never make him wear are shoes. I don't think we've bred them to the point where they are so different from wolves that they need our help in walking attire. So no shoes for him.

Petco, Nutro and Orijen

2009-12-21T00:06:00.000-08:00

We ran out of Nature's Miracle Odor Eliminator so I went to Petco to get more.

In one of the bigger aisles, there was a table set up for Nutro brand food. A middle-aged hispanic lady wearing an apron with Nutro logo stood by it to hand out coupons. As I approached, she stepped into the middle of the aisle and asked, "Oh how cute! Is he a bichon? Poodle? What's his name?" Upon answering all her questions, she asked the question I've been anticipating, "What food do you have him on?"

Ever since the bank, I can spot a sales situation three quarters of a mile away.

"Orijen, it's been really good at clearing his tear staining."

"Oh really? How to you spell that? My puppy is a bichon-poodle mix and her staining is really bad."

"Yeah, a lot of food including Nutro has beet pulp or tomato pomace which contributes to their tear staining. See?" I pointed to the back of the package which listed beet pulp, even in the organic line.

"I've got to try that for her."

...I left feeling awesome that I took charge of the situation.

Running log

2009-12-19T00:57:00.000-08:00

I finally decided to start running again because of all the fast food I ate on the SF trip. We were on the road for roughly 4-5 meals, and I noticeably gained weight. It's kind of crazy actually. Anyway, so two days ago, I ran three miles at 6 mph. Yesterday, I was really sore and even though I can breathe ok during the run, my leg muscles just couldn't move any faster than 5 mph. I was really proud of myself however because even though it took forever, I still finished my three miles. And today, I felt pretty good again and did 3.5 miles. I figure my goal is to run about 5-6 miles each day. I really miss the figure I had in high school when I was in xc. I never quite appreciated that.

Summary: 3, 3, 3.5
Weight: 131.5 (my goal is to eat whatever the hell I want, sticks of butter included, and be at 120, without throwing up)

San Francisco trip 2009

2009-12-17T16:09:00.000-08:00

L and I went to SF to visit G and his girlfriend.

I left Friday at 4 to pick up L at work. Got there by 5 because of all the traffic. Had dinner. Left at 6 and got to SF by 2am. We would've gotten there sooner, but had to take a detour because of work on the Bay Bridge. 5, 605, 210, 5, 580W, 80W and right into the city.

The next day, we slept in, I finished Butters' sweater, then went to Chinatown. It was raining pretty much the whole day. Being in Chinatown just makes me smile. I love the little stalls. I love the bustle. I love the little trinkets.

We went home when the sun set and watched movies. Yarb.

On Sunday, it drizzled off and on. On our way to the Golden Gate Park, we stopped by Japan town and had ramen.

The noodles were handmade, but was not quite as al dente as I thought it would be. Still the soup was pretty good.

On the other hand, the okonomiyaki was extremely good. I think I only had it once before. It's a flour and egg batter with cabbage and a layer of crispy pork on top.

Just as I finished eating, a rainbow appeared and we had the perfect view.

We then went to the park and it was beautiful. Full of greenery. Away from the road that cuts across the park, there were dirt trails through an almost wilderness. It's almost like hiking but in the middle of the city. We walked around Stowe Lake where Butters made his acquaintance with squirrels and water fowls. He seemed more afraid of them than they were afraid of him. He also found a pit bull puppy to play with on the island.

(In the little triangular patch of white to the left of my head, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately, it doesn't show up in the picture.)

On our last day, I have been looking forward to hiking again on the trail that Dana showed us last time when we went up to Ukiah. So I googled fern and red woods. All the red woods were along the coast. Instead of asking for directions, I took a guess and chose the Van Damme State Park by Mendocino.

The drive was 3 1/2 hours there, 80, 580, 101, 128, 1. Way longer than I expected. On the other hand, the drive up was beautiful. As we got closer to Mendocino on the 128, we drove through beautiful red wood forests.

We pulled over to the side of the road and admired the view. The forest was so quiet and devoid of human and artificial noises. We also found clusters of gigantic mushrooms by the side of the road. They were bigger than my hand. G picked some in a plastic bag to show his girlfriend.

Onwards we go! As we left the forest and merged onto the 1, a lake appeared on my left side, catching me completely by surprise. When we looked on a map later, we found that it was with us the whole time.

A bit later we came to the state park. We parked in the beach parking lot and crossed the street to the trailhead.

This was posted by the parking booth.

L walking on a log. The wood was surprisingly spongy and soft. Must have been all the moisture.

In addition to the tons of mushrooms we found, we also found another creature. Can you guess what it is?

It totally camouflaged with the mushroom it was eating. It was a slug. L didn't even think it was a slug. At least now we know that mushroom is non-poisonous. Except maybe the slug was poisonous too and specifically eats poisonous mushrooms for its poison.

We also found another all yellow slug eating something that looks like spinach. I wonder how that taste.

Note to self for the future: Mendocino seems like a good place for a nice vacation. Coho salmons spawn up river. There are camping grounds in Van Damme state park. Tons of trails. Canoeing and kayaking. There are also sea caves to explore.

Tuesday, left at 8:30 got to LA at 1:30. Not too bad at all. Had a wonderful time there visiting.

DIY: Starter fail

2009-12-15T22:15:00.001-08:00

I guess it has just been too cold last week or so with all the rain for the starter to grow. It has a bit of bubbles and the right smell, but it just doesn't want to rise at all. =( I'll try again when it's warmer.

Crocheting again and vanilla beans

2009-12-04T01:41:00.000-08:00

A couple of projects that I'm working on:
Everyone's Christmas presents
A different Christmas present
Butters' coat
Two baby presents
...and food related projects that I've already started (I really hope the starter will be ready before I leave for SF)

I finally bought the fabric for Butters' coats. I found some quilting material at JoAnn's. They are reversible as well. Initially, I was going to buy a flannel/fleece middle piece, and two cotton squares at Wal-Mart and make a quilting material myself. However, this saves me a bit of work. Plus, they were on sale too! Now I just need to find matching colored ribbons and threads and Butters can go walking at night. Maybe, I'll add a raincoat in the future. It'll have to be red to match mine.

At the checkout, the price turned out to be not the sale price. The guy at the counter was really cool though, he just used a 50% off coupon. I mentioned that it was for my little dog, and he said that I probably treat the dog better than I treat L, who was with me at the time. And L agreed. What a butt. I just don't have the skills to make him clothes. If I can buy sheets and modify them a little bit and throw it over him and call them shirts, I would, but I can't.

Anyway, my vanilla beans from Beanilla Trading Company came today. Very exciting. I bet they smell delicious. I was surprised how fast that was. I must have ordered them, at most, three days ago.

I have been having the hardest time finding appropriate bottles for the extract. A small part of that is my horrible conception of volume, i.e., I have no idea how much 8 fl. oz. is. I don't know if that's good for what I need or not. I'm trying to decide between 8 and 10. Normally, I would just get 9 oz. However, these bottles are even rarer. Go figure.

I'm taking up crocheting again because I have some awesome ideas revolving around that. However, I can only find one of my six crochet hooks. I have no idea where the others are. I'm going to use my Michael's 40% off coupon to get them. Anyway, look what I made today!

According to the crochet book from the library, it's called an Irish Lace Flower. I can see an art project out of this. Imagine me, creative! Ha!

(I've noticed posts are always more interesting with pictures. Sometimes I have this fantasy of talking in pictures, where half of my post is illustrations, sprinkled in among the words.)

DIY: Starter 48hrs

2009-12-03T13:17:00.000-08:00

There are so many bubbles in there. Something exciting is going on!

It no longer smells like flour. Has a bit of a sour smell, but also a little stinky. It is also a lot more watery than it was. I think I might pour out the extra water next time.

(1st picture is pre-stir, and 2nd is post-stir.)

After stirring, got rid of 1 1/2 cup to 2 cups of mixture, and added 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour.