1) When I was midway through dying my hair today and I dropped the applicator bottle, it bounced once on the (open) toilet seat, fell onto its side on the (open) toilet seat, and spun halfway around the (open) toilet seat before I (eyes wide, heart pounding) caught it. I'm grateful that I wasn't left with the choice of either half-dyed hair or toilet-dyed hair. I'm also grateful to have been given the opportunity to once again reflect on Radio Lab's "Time" episode, and it's observations on the relativity of time.
2) I spent two hours weeding and pruning in our yard today, and ended up with a mosquito bite on my elbow and a nettle sting on my hand. As I was also doing laundry at the time (and was therefore wearing nothing but clogs and a knee-length dress), things could've been much worse. I'm grateful that they weren't.
3) While Brett was driving home from work today, he called me up to chat like he usually does. We talked for awhile and he was almost to our freeway exit when he said "Oh God! Ohmygod!"
The last time I'd heard him sound like that on the phone it was because someone had just hit him. It was a hit-and-run, and we still have the dent in the side of our car to prove it. :( THIS time however, his panic was due to the fact that someone had just hit the car directly BEHIND him. I am grateful that both husband and car made it home safe and sound today.
4) Last Sunday at the grocery store I was in a broccoli mood so I bought twice as much broccoli as we needed for this week's menu. The broccoli was for tonight's tofu and broccoli coconut curry over brown rice, and I figured we'd just use all the broccoli tonight and end up eating a crap-load of veg (pun INTENDED).
Brett is always the one who cooks on curry night (he's the curry *king*), and tonight he BURNED the broccoli. The bottom broccoli was inedible, but the rest was fine. And since I'd bought double, we still had plenty. I'm grateful that I got my veggies tonight.
5) I've been trying to listen to Netflix's advice lately, so I've been working my way through a list of my "recommended" films. I queued "V for Vendetta" blindly a few weeks ago, and we watched it tonight. At first I thought it was going to be another "Ultraviolet" BOMB (which they recommended and I did not like), and Brett even said at one point that he wouldn't object to turning it off, but we stuck it out and in the end it wasn't bad. Well, it sucked a little, but I liked the message. Stick it to the man!!! I'm grateful that we have Netflix, and that for the most part they're good at recommending films I appreciate watching.
6) I could go on mentioning how grateful I am for this and that...everything from my homemaker status to the mites on my eyelashes, but this is my blog, and I don't feel like it. Instead, I'll mention one last thing:
Today while eating lunch, I happened across a YouTube video of quite possibly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. If you're British (or more pop-savvy than me), you've probably already seen the clips I've posted below, but if you haven't seen them, you need to. The first clip made me cry. No joke. Real tears of joy. The second clip is just to confirm for you that the feeling you get from the first clip, that for that moment in time something truly and purely beautiful was occurring, was felt by the original television audience as well. I'm grateful for Paul Potts. :)
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Boo.
I wanted to spend this weekend doing yard work, but it's raining, and apparently it's going to rain all weekend, so instead we're cleaning the basement to make room for our new (to us, courtesy of Tony) piano. Woo!
Our big, open basement *should* be neatly organized into sections as a media area (tv, ps2, stereo), music area (keyboard, cello, music stand, clarinet, trumpet, and now piano), workout area (weight bench, treadmill, yoga ball, etc.), and art area (lots of art supplies), but right now it's all sort of mixed together in a messy, cluttered way, with my art area looking the worst, since right now it's more a landfill for holiday decorations than a real work space. I wouldn't paint my nails down there right now, let alone a large canvas. I have eleven canvases down there to paint right now, and three of them are about 3'x3'. If we actually get the place cleaned up this weekend, it'll be nice to start working on those, because they're *supposed to* go in our livingroom. That's why (in case you've seen and noticed) the walls are so bare up there.
Anyway, our trip to Bend this week was pretty nice, despite the fact that I was sick for most of it (maybe a stomach bug, maybe something I ate - we're still not sure), and despite the 16 or so hours we spent in the car. The drive was horrible, but the scenery was spectacular. I took pictures. I'll probably flickr them someday.
I thought that being in Bend this week would make me less excited about our trip to Sunriver in two weeks (since they're practically the same place), but I actually think it made me MORE excited. Bend was about staying in a swanky hotel at a swanky mall and shopping and eating out (and working, for Brett), and Sunriver will be a bunch of family (28 of us) staying in houses at the resort and golfing, fishing, rafting, spa-ing, etc. Very different. And it's fun to travel, especially when it's affordable. Well, these days pretty much ONLY if it's affordable.
Next spring, I think I want to go to California - to go to Maker Faire (in San Fran), visit Sam (in Sunnyvale), visit Shannon at Chapman (in Orange, if she decides to go), and go to my favorite "zoo" of all time: San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. It'd be a long drive, but we wouldn't do it all in one day, so it might not seem so bad. Besides, Seattle to San Francisco is a LOT cheaper than Seattle to...just about anywhere else.
Oh! Brett's home from work!!! :D
Our big, open basement *should* be neatly organized into sections as a media area (tv, ps2, stereo), music area (keyboard, cello, music stand, clarinet, trumpet, and now piano), workout area (weight bench, treadmill, yoga ball, etc.), and art area (lots of art supplies), but right now it's all sort of mixed together in a messy, cluttered way, with my art area looking the worst, since right now it's more a landfill for holiday decorations than a real work space. I wouldn't paint my nails down there right now, let alone a large canvas. I have eleven canvases down there to paint right now, and three of them are about 3'x3'. If we actually get the place cleaned up this weekend, it'll be nice to start working on those, because they're *supposed to* go in our livingroom. That's why (in case you've seen and noticed) the walls are so bare up there.
Anyway, our trip to Bend this week was pretty nice, despite the fact that I was sick for most of it (maybe a stomach bug, maybe something I ate - we're still not sure), and despite the 16 or so hours we spent in the car. The drive was horrible, but the scenery was spectacular. I took pictures. I'll probably flickr them someday.
I thought that being in Bend this week would make me less excited about our trip to Sunriver in two weeks (since they're practically the same place), but I actually think it made me MORE excited. Bend was about staying in a swanky hotel at a swanky mall and shopping and eating out (and working, for Brett), and Sunriver will be a bunch of family (28 of us) staying in houses at the resort and golfing, fishing, rafting, spa-ing, etc. Very different. And it's fun to travel, especially when it's affordable. Well, these days pretty much ONLY if it's affordable.
Next spring, I think I want to go to California - to go to Maker Faire (in San Fran), visit Sam (in Sunnyvale), visit Shannon at Chapman (in Orange, if she decides to go), and go to my favorite "zoo" of all time: San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. It'd be a long drive, but we wouldn't do it all in one day, so it might not seem so bad. Besides, Seattle to San Francisco is a LOT cheaper than Seattle to...just about anywhere else.
Oh! Brett's home from work!!! :D
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Quickly, quickly...
Do to some unexpected circumstances (Brett forgot to have his admin book a flight), I will be joining Brett on a road trip down to Bend tomorrow morning. We'll be gone for a few days and I really need to start some laundry so I can pack, but I wanted to put up a quick post before I shut my computer down.
I'm sleepy. Brett's sleeping. Today we picked up the rental car for our trip (it's a business trip, so we're not using our own car), did some painting (of pottery, at the new pottery place in town), some bubble tea drinking (at the place next to the new pottery place in town), some grocery shopping, some driving around, some yard work, and Brett got a haircut. I also picked a few dozen snails off our front walk - what's THAT about?
I went out there this morning and they were all over the place, so I tossed a bunch of them in a bucket and threw them...away...somewhere... Then we went out for awhile and when we came back there were somehow MORE than before. So I repeated the above process. It was gross. Snails are gross. I'm sure they're venturing onto the dry, covered walk to get out of the rain, but it's only been drizzling and I've NEVER EVER seen this many snails out. Usually we might have one or two after the rain, but I guess this is what we get for not killing the one or two that we saw. Blech.
That's all I can think of to say for now...I had something I wanted to write about, but now I've forgotten it. Brett's passed out in the chair next to me and he's snoring...it's cute. Anyway, I've uploaded some more photos to flickr this weekend. Just a few - a couple of me (with zombie makeup!) and some of a trip we took to Seaside and Portland in 2006. I'll upload more when I have time - maybe in Bend while Brett's working?
I'm growing out my fingernails right now, and it hurts to hit shift with my pinky finger nail; my finger gets tired. Any suggestions on how to avoid this? Anyone? So far I've found that I just curl my pinky and use my knuckle, but my finger still gets tired.
One last thing, and then I really have to go be productive: for those of you who might care but might not know, Apple has opened a new product through iTunes called iTunes U. I haven't explored it much yet, but so far it seems like a really cool idea, especially for those of us who love to learn but don't want to spend the time/money to take a class right now.
Okay, now I'm gonna go pack for reals.
I'm sleepy. Brett's sleeping. Today we picked up the rental car for our trip (it's a business trip, so we're not using our own car), did some painting (of pottery, at the new pottery place in town), some bubble tea drinking (at the place next to the new pottery place in town), some grocery shopping, some driving around, some yard work, and Brett got a haircut. I also picked a few dozen snails off our front walk - what's THAT about?
I went out there this morning and they were all over the place, so I tossed a bunch of them in a bucket and threw them...away...somewhere... Then we went out for awhile and when we came back there were somehow MORE than before. So I repeated the above process. It was gross. Snails are gross. I'm sure they're venturing onto the dry, covered walk to get out of the rain, but it's only been drizzling and I've NEVER EVER seen this many snails out. Usually we might have one or two after the rain, but I guess this is what we get for not killing the one or two that we saw. Blech.
That's all I can think of to say for now...I had something I wanted to write about, but now I've forgotten it. Brett's passed out in the chair next to me and he's snoring...it's cute. Anyway, I've uploaded some more photos to flickr this weekend. Just a few - a couple of me (with zombie makeup!) and some of a trip we took to Seaside and Portland in 2006. I'll upload more when I have time - maybe in Bend while Brett's working?
I'm growing out my fingernails right now, and it hurts to hit shift with my pinky finger nail; my finger gets tired. Any suggestions on how to avoid this? Anyone? So far I've found that I just curl my pinky and use my knuckle, but my finger still gets tired.
One last thing, and then I really have to go be productive: for those of you who might care but might not know, Apple has opened a new product through iTunes called iTunes U. I haven't explored it much yet, but so far it seems like a really cool idea, especially for those of us who love to learn but don't want to spend the time/money to take a class right now.
Okay, now I'm gonna go pack for reals.
Monday, June 04, 2007
The thing from Tony. (Part I)
Tony tagged me to answer some blogger questiony things, but I spent waaay too long "answering" the first one, so I'm leaving the second one for...tomorrow? But I'm not making any promises.
Question One: Why do you blog?
Urm...I think originally I did it for more/better site content. Let's take a look back...
When I built my first website back in 1996 (whoa! more than 10 years ago!), it was a piece of crap. An even bigger piece of crap than this one. I was hosted on Angelfire, and I had blinking text, a collection of animated gifs scavenged from other sites, an overly-complex background image (also stolen from another site), and a small library of plain-text jokes, stories, and surveys that I'd copied from my telnet and HoTMaiL (remember when they wrote it that way?) email accounts. I almost wish I still had that old steaming pile of a site, but I don't. I don't even remember what the url was - I tried guessing just now, but if it still exists, I can't find it.
I got tired of Angelfire always having problems with their shit, so I moved my site to Geocities in 1997. They sucked worse. Geocities was TERRIBLE. I thought it was stupid that I had to say my site was like, geocities/stupidcity/catcates or whatever the url was at the time (I really should've held on to that stuff, just for amusement's sake), and when they started using popup ads, I bailed.
I used my school account (originally wwu.edu/~u163597, then later wwu.edu/~cat) from the spring of 1997 until about spring of 2003. When I switched over from geocities I decided to make a fresh start, and create a site that looked attractive and cool, so I ditched all of the pirated and/or animated images, and spent HOURS (sometimes I was in the computer lab overnight) learning photoshop and html, practicing different tricks and techniques, and creating, refining, and changing new site designs.
What I ended up with was a blah website with graphics that used about 3,000 photoshop filters each. For awhile it was purple on black, then for a long time it was blue on black, then gray on black, then brick, cream, and black, then it was something weird and gross like ultra shiny 3-D looking royal blue graphics on periwinkle. Then I started messing around with the art department's scanners and doing weird found-object style graphics on white.
I was frustrated because I really wanted to have a cool website, but it just wasn't working out. So I did a lot of thinking and web surfing, and what I realized was this: my content was crap.
Most of my site designs had a splash page, a home page with a few lines of text, an email link, a resume, the occasional essay or image, and not much else. Inspired mainly by the now-defunct Anarchista.com, I decided to create categories on my site where I would focus on specific types of content - recipes, photos, art projects, an autobiography, and (drum roll please...) a JOURNAL.
That idea flopped. I couldn't cook, and had no recipes. Flickr hadn't been born yet, so I had to host my photos on my school account, and consequently there weren't very many. I was in art school, but hardly ever bothered to photograph any of my non-digital work, so I only had a few links to example websites, flash movies, and photoshop images. And I never really got around to creating a bio, but I DID create a journal.
Initially I tried keeping it up manually (by adding text into an html table that I then manually re-uploaded after every new entry - blech), and then I tried LiveJournal. As you can see, that didn't last long. Free LiveJournal is, as Sam and Brett would put it, pretty "G." In order to fully customize it, you had to pay. We were living on Top Ramen and stale baked goods at the time, so I wasn't about to PAY for my journal.
But eventually I HAD to create a good website, because I chose new media as my graphic design concentration within the art department. We had to have online portfolios to graduate. So I created an online portfolio, and ditched the journal idea. It's on a CD somewhere, but as I've already wasted enough of my time on this post, I'm not going to upload it. If you went to my website between 2001 and 2004, you may have seen it...I forget exactly when I took it off my site.
Initially I had a dope-ass splash page that I loved, but since I wasn't an illustration major (and I was therefore not patient enough to create a whole website in that theme), I scrapped that idea, got rid of the personal link completely (since I'd scrapped the journal and couldn't think of a good bio), and went with a strange, minimalist, photographic-squares-on-white theme for my portfolio instead.
I graduated from WWU Spring of 2002 and I knew eventually they'd do some housekeeping and delete my account, so I purchased catjackson.net in early 2003. Eventually I got bored with the idea of using it only to house my portfolio, and decided to go back to using it primarily as personal space. I didn't use LiveJournal for very long back in 2001, but I had really liked the concept of an online journal, so I decided to try that out again, as an easy way to create content.
At the time (as is evident in my first Blogger post), I thought "Blogging" was something you could only do through Blogger. I've never really been hip with the cool lingo. But I enjoyed "Blogging," and it quickly became the main content (and later the only content, despite my sporadic posts) of my site.
So now...here we are. Back to the reason I gave in the very first sentence of this ridiculously long answer: I wanted more/better site content. And though my blog only fits in the "better" category because it's better than nothing, it definitely helped me achieve the "more" goal.
And there you have it - an impromptu, completely unrequested, History of Cat's Online Existence.
Question One: Why do you blog?
Urm...I think originally I did it for more/better site content. Let's take a look back...
When I built my first website back in 1996 (whoa! more than 10 years ago!), it was a piece of crap. An even bigger piece of crap than this one. I was hosted on Angelfire, and I had blinking text, a collection of animated gifs scavenged from other sites, an overly-complex background image (also stolen from another site), and a small library of plain-text jokes, stories, and surveys that I'd copied from my telnet and HoTMaiL (remember when they wrote it that way?) email accounts. I almost wish I still had that old steaming pile of a site, but I don't. I don't even remember what the url was - I tried guessing just now, but if it still exists, I can't find it.
I got tired of Angelfire always having problems with their shit, so I moved my site to Geocities in 1997. They sucked worse. Geocities was TERRIBLE. I thought it was stupid that I had to say my site was like, geocities/stupidcity/catcates or whatever the url was at the time (I really should've held on to that stuff, just for amusement's sake), and when they started using popup ads, I bailed.
I used my school account (originally wwu.edu/~u163597, then later wwu.edu/~cat) from the spring of 1997 until about spring of 2003. When I switched over from geocities I decided to make a fresh start, and create a site that looked attractive and cool, so I ditched all of the pirated and/or animated images, and spent HOURS (sometimes I was in the computer lab overnight) learning photoshop and html, practicing different tricks and techniques, and creating, refining, and changing new site designs.
What I ended up with was a blah website with graphics that used about 3,000 photoshop filters each. For awhile it was purple on black, then for a long time it was blue on black, then gray on black, then brick, cream, and black, then it was something weird and gross like ultra shiny 3-D looking royal blue graphics on periwinkle. Then I started messing around with the art department's scanners and doing weird found-object style graphics on white.
I was frustrated because I really wanted to have a cool website, but it just wasn't working out. So I did a lot of thinking and web surfing, and what I realized was this: my content was crap.
Most of my site designs had a splash page, a home page with a few lines of text, an email link, a resume, the occasional essay or image, and not much else. Inspired mainly by the now-defunct Anarchista.com, I decided to create categories on my site where I would focus on specific types of content - recipes, photos, art projects, an autobiography, and (drum roll please...) a JOURNAL.
That idea flopped. I couldn't cook, and had no recipes. Flickr hadn't been born yet, so I had to host my photos on my school account, and consequently there weren't very many. I was in art school, but hardly ever bothered to photograph any of my non-digital work, so I only had a few links to example websites, flash movies, and photoshop images. And I never really got around to creating a bio, but I DID create a journal.
Initially I tried keeping it up manually (by adding text into an html table that I then manually re-uploaded after every new entry - blech), and then I tried LiveJournal. As you can see, that didn't last long. Free LiveJournal is, as Sam and Brett would put it, pretty "G." In order to fully customize it, you had to pay. We were living on Top Ramen and stale baked goods at the time, so I wasn't about to PAY for my journal.
But eventually I HAD to create a good website, because I chose new media as my graphic design concentration within the art department. We had to have online portfolios to graduate. So I created an online portfolio, and ditched the journal idea. It's on a CD somewhere, but as I've already wasted enough of my time on this post, I'm not going to upload it. If you went to my website between 2001 and 2004, you may have seen it...I forget exactly when I took it off my site.
Initially I had a dope-ass splash page that I loved, but since I wasn't an illustration major (and I was therefore not patient enough to create a whole website in that theme), I scrapped that idea, got rid of the personal link completely (since I'd scrapped the journal and couldn't think of a good bio), and went with a strange, minimalist, photographic-squares-on-white theme for my portfolio instead.
I graduated from WWU Spring of 2002 and I knew eventually they'd do some housekeeping and delete my account, so I purchased catjackson.net in early 2003. Eventually I got bored with the idea of using it only to house my portfolio, and decided to go back to using it primarily as personal space. I didn't use LiveJournal for very long back in 2001, but I had really liked the concept of an online journal, so I decided to try that out again, as an easy way to create content.
At the time (as is evident in my first Blogger post), I thought "Blogging" was something you could only do through Blogger. I've never really been hip with the cool lingo. But I enjoyed "Blogging," and it quickly became the main content (and later the only content, despite my sporadic posts) of my site.
So now...here we are. Back to the reason I gave in the very first sentence of this ridiculously long answer: I wanted more/better site content. And though my blog only fits in the "better" category because it's better than nothing, it definitely helped me achieve the "more" goal.
And there you have it - an impromptu, completely unrequested, History of Cat's Online Existence.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Il fait TROP CHAUD!
I feel like a slug. It's too hot, and I just don't have the energy to do...anything. Right now (at 11pm) all of our lights are off, most of our windows are open, I have one fan pointed directly at me, Brett has another fan pointed directly at him (we're in the same room, and these are large fans), and we're STILL uncomfortably hot.
We've been very busy lately, and I've spent hardly any time online in the past few weeks. Some things that have happened since my last post:
NAFY Fundraiser
Chris & Sarah, Maria & Indra, Jeff, All, Mike, Joe, Sam, and Brett & I (aka "the sibs") gathered in Portland a few weeks ago to show support for our parents and fork over some cash for New Avenues For Youth. John Oliver performed and was hilarious. Oma (my mom's mom) was there as well, and didn't find him as hilarious as us gd liberals did, so I made sure to laugh extra hard to make up for it.
Japanese & Chinese Gardens
The day after the NAFY event, Marindra, Brett, and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and spend some time in Portland's Japanese and Chinese gardens. They were beautiful, and I'll post pictures to flickr soon, I swear. I really need to update my flickr photos.
After the gardens we met up with Oma, mom, and Mike for some late dim sum, at which point I realized just how sunburned I'd gotten. I started the morning in a tank top and light sweater (with no intention of spending much time outside and therefore no intention of taking off my sweater), and we decided to go to the gardens on a whim while out at breakfast. I'd put sunscreen on my face, but not my arms, so when I took off my sweater while walking through the Japanese garden (it was so hot!), my arms got FRIED. Enough to make me sun sick when we got back to the hotel after dim sum. By dinner I looked like I had lobster arms, and by breakfast the next morning my shoulders were shiny and crisp. My bra straps cut little angry red cracks into them, and Brett kept forgetting how burnt I was and squeezing my shoulders affectionately, and I would make angry noises at him. It was horrible. By the end of the weekend they were peeling BADLY, and as I write this I STILL see peely bits all the way down to my forearms, even though I've been exfoliating and moisturizing obsessively. Boo.
Seaside
After Portland we went to Seaside, which was fabulously calm. Mom, Oma, Brian, and Brian's brother Steve were there (as well as Brett and I). We arranged and rearranged mom's new collection of glassybaby about a million times, chatted about random things, shopped, enjoyed the nice cool Seaside weather, beach combed, and slept in late. We basically did NOTHING all weekend, and it was very relaxing.
On the way home from Seaside we stopped at Custard King for the first time. In the past, I've been known to make fun of Custard King because frankly, I don't have much need for drive-in custard. But Brett had a hankerin', so we stopped by. He got custard and some sort of giant burger (I think it was a "King" burger or something), and I got fries and a chicken sammich. All items purchased were well worth the non-dollar-menu price. We will definitely go again, but I really wish they had dairy-free custard. :( Oh! Speaking of places that make dairy-free accommodations...
Cacao
Okay, so rewind back to our visit to Portland. While we were there, we stopped in a new shop down by Powell's called Cacao - Drink Chocolate. If ever there was an appropriate time to say OMG, it would be in describing this place. O. M. G. As I leave behind my youth (*sniffle, sniffle*), I find myself drawn less to chocolate-as-candy, and more to chocolate-as-...wine? gastronomic artform? cultural experience? I'm not sure how to describe it in words, but Cacao does an excellent job describing it in inventory.
They have beautiful chocolates from all over the world; some large bars, some medium, small, or even packs of tiny sample bars so you can try lots of flavors without ending up with way too much chocolate to eat. Brett and I came away with a full sized, 41% cacao "Naga" bar ("sweet Indian curry powder, coconut flakes, deep milk chocolate"), a set of eight tiny 52% cacao bars infused with cardamome, cumin, anis, and ginger (one spice per bar, two bars per spice), and a set of ten tiny 75% cacao bars titled "Des Pyramide Tropiques" because each bar is made with chocolate from a different locale (Papouasie, Indonesie, Sao Tome, Trinidad, Venezuela, Tanzanie, Ghana, Madagascar, Colombie, and Equateur).
We've since eaten the whole Naga bar (which was delicious and not at all strange), a cardamome bar (which was really comforting, almost like gingerbread), and a cumin bar (good - almost like the naga bar, but simpler, smoother, and less sweet). We've been too busy to sit down together and try the other bars, so they'll have to wait for now.
But I digress. My original intention in bringing up Cacao was to say that not only do they serve their popular "drinking chocolate" (melted chocolate mixed with cream, milk, and a variety of optional spices, served in an espresso glass), but they also have "hot chocolate" (less chocolate, no cream, optional soy milk instead of regular milk, and a larger mug). I had a sip of Brett's spicy drinking chocolate (he picked a mix of chilies and ginger), and almost a whole mug (it was huge and very rich) of soy hot chocolate. Brett's drinking chocolate was sophisticated, complex, and amazing - like chocolate's answer to good espresso. But the soy hot chocolate was the creamiest, richest, most heavenly hot chocolate I've ever had, and my stomach didn't complain at all.
Whenever we go to Ben & Jerry's I'm always left with my choice of fruit sorbet or fruit sorbet while everyone else gets sundaes made with delicious ice creams filled with chunks and swirls, and topped with gooey fudge. I hate going to Ben & Jerry's. Love their contributions to society; hate their lack of rice or soy ice creams. How hard would it be to have ONE frigging flavor of soy-based ice cream?!? Seriously?!? So you can imagine my delight at the thoughtfulness of Cacao's owners. :)
Anyway, moving on...
Birthday Shenanigans
After we got back from Seaside, it was my birthday. Well, Brett's dad's birthday first (May 23rd), and then mine (May 24th). So we went out for Thai food with Brett's parents and sister, and exchanged pressies. I got some gift certificates, and some gardening supplies (since I'm trying to learn to garden).
Another plug - we went to the new Thai restaurant in town...I forget what it's called, but it's two doors down from Noble Palace...if you live in M'ville you'll know where that is, if you don't, it probably doesn't matter. It's NOT Mai's. That place is grode. This new Thai place is great - we've eaten there three times now, and every time we've gone the service, atmosphere, and food have all been top notch. I highly recommend it. AND! They have Shirley Temples. I get one every time. ♥ :D
So the Thai food was on Brett's dad's b'day, not mine. My b'day was the next day, and I mostly just sat around watching tv by myself. All of my presents (awesome as they are) came either before or after my actual birthday, so the whole day kind of felt like Christmas afternoon. A couple of people called, I got a couple of cards, some emails, some myspace action, and Brett made dinner (spaghetti) when he got home from work.
I'd pooh-poohed the idea of a big party because I knew I'd be doing most of the work for it, but at the last minute I changed my mind and decided that I wanted more pomp and circumstance in my honor, so Brett threw an impromptu get together with Shannon, Dan, and the two of us. The theme of the party was a combination of sloth and gluttony (sluttony? that sounds bad...) where we ate tiny eclairs, chocolate cake, pizza, pop, and crackers, and sat around talking and watching a marathon of "What Not To Wear." It was perfect. And now I'm 29, which still feels strange and foreign.
The Camera
Mom & Brian, Brett, and my grandpa Joe all chipped in to get me my first digital SLR camera. Woo! Actually, it's my first SLR camera period. I've only ever used point & shoot cameras, but I love my new camera SO MUCH. I'm really ignorant when it comes to photographic lingo and technique and all that, so I was worried that I'd have trouble using it, but it's been easy as pie. Like taking candy from a baby. Or rather, like taking a picture of someone taking candy from a baby.
I knew this gift was coming in advance, so I had time to really research what I wanted. Because of my tiny hands (it has a small body), lack of skillz, and love of Nikon, I chose the Nikon D40. I did NOT go for the D40x because the ONLY difference is that it's 10 megapixels instead of 6. I have no need for a 10 megapixel camera. Imagine megapixels like...well, like the size of a johnson. You should really leave 10 for the professionals, because it may sound nice in theory, but ultimately it's more trouble than it's worth.
We ordered the camera in a special package from Wolf/Ritz Camera that came with a body, two lenses (18-55 & 55-200), a camera bag, some instructional DVDs, a lens hood, and all the normal caps, cables, and random accessories. We also ordered an extra battery (I think I suffer from some sort of battery charging impairment, because I always forget to charge my shit until it's either dead or dying) and a 2gb sandisk extreme III SD card.
I'd heard some bad stuff from several people about Nikon SLRs being abnormally confusing to use, but my point & shoot is a Nikon, and though this one is definitely more complicated, a lot of the basic symbols and functions are similar enough that it hasn't been a problem. Yay new camera!
Turkey
We ate almost an entire 20 lbs turkey this week. Not all at once, though. We're not THAT fat.
Brett's mom accidentally bought an extra turkey last Thanksgiving, and it's been in our freezer but was due to expire in June, so we thought we should eat it while we still could. Brett was going to grill it, but because we didn't think of it until the night before we wanted to make it, he didn't feel like he had time to properly educate himself on the art of rotisserie cooking. So he was going to grill it in our non-stick roasting pan that, according to the manufacturer, is oven safe up to 425 and is NOT broiler safe. Because the care information didn't mention that it wasn't GRILL safe Brett insisted he should be allowed to try it, but I argued that when left without confirmation we should err on the safe side and use the oven. If a roasting pan were grill safe, don't you think it would advertise itself as such? So I said no way. He grumbled, but agreed to oven roast it as long as we brined it first, which we did. And it was delicious.
I'm a little tired of turkey sandwiches now, but so far we've also had regular turkey dinner (twice - complete with cranberries and stuffing), turkey soup with wild rice, turkey stuffed quesadillas (it tasted like chicken), and turkey & broccoli coconut curry (it tasted like duck). I think we have about a pound and a half left, which is pretty good. And we spend about $50 on groceries last week, which is even better.
Um...
I can't think of much else to say...we went to Marindra's for a BBQ with some of the other sibs last night, it was very enjoyable...our brother Jeff was in town with his girlfriend Tara, who we'd never met. She is awesome, which is great.
Today we did some stuff around the house, then we got too hot to work, so we laid around in the living room for awhile not wanting to move. I did some research online for one of my brothers at my mom's request, I worked on some event planning stuff for our trip to Sunriver at the end of the month, I sent an evite out to my near-by sibs for a yard work party at our house next weekend (muahaha), Brett worked on some stuff for an OM reunion-type thing he's doing in August, we looked up some flight info for his business trip to Bend the week after next, we watched The Grudge II (it sucked)...and...that' all I can remember. Now Brett's asleep, and in a few minutes, I'll probably be asleep too. Good night! :)
We've been very busy lately, and I've spent hardly any time online in the past few weeks. Some things that have happened since my last post:
NAFY Fundraiser
Chris & Sarah, Maria & Indra, Jeff, All, Mike, Joe, Sam, and Brett & I (aka "the sibs") gathered in Portland a few weeks ago to show support for our parents and fork over some cash for New Avenues For Youth. John Oliver performed and was hilarious. Oma (my mom's mom) was there as well, and didn't find him as hilarious as us gd liberals did, so I made sure to laugh extra hard to make up for it.
Japanese & Chinese Gardens
The day after the NAFY event, Marindra, Brett, and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and spend some time in Portland's Japanese and Chinese gardens. They were beautiful, and I'll post pictures to flickr soon, I swear. I really need to update my flickr photos.
After the gardens we met up with Oma, mom, and Mike for some late dim sum, at which point I realized just how sunburned I'd gotten. I started the morning in a tank top and light sweater (with no intention of spending much time outside and therefore no intention of taking off my sweater), and we decided to go to the gardens on a whim while out at breakfast. I'd put sunscreen on my face, but not my arms, so when I took off my sweater while walking through the Japanese garden (it was so hot!), my arms got FRIED. Enough to make me sun sick when we got back to the hotel after dim sum. By dinner I looked like I had lobster arms, and by breakfast the next morning my shoulders were shiny and crisp. My bra straps cut little angry red cracks into them, and Brett kept forgetting how burnt I was and squeezing my shoulders affectionately, and I would make angry noises at him. It was horrible. By the end of the weekend they were peeling BADLY, and as I write this I STILL see peely bits all the way down to my forearms, even though I've been exfoliating and moisturizing obsessively. Boo.
Seaside
After Portland we went to Seaside, which was fabulously calm. Mom, Oma, Brian, and Brian's brother Steve were there (as well as Brett and I). We arranged and rearranged mom's new collection of glassybaby about a million times, chatted about random things, shopped, enjoyed the nice cool Seaside weather, beach combed, and slept in late. We basically did NOTHING all weekend, and it was very relaxing.
On the way home from Seaside we stopped at Custard King for the first time. In the past, I've been known to make fun of Custard King because frankly, I don't have much need for drive-in custard. But Brett had a hankerin', so we stopped by. He got custard and some sort of giant burger (I think it was a "King" burger or something), and I got fries and a chicken sammich. All items purchased were well worth the non-dollar-menu price. We will definitely go again, but I really wish they had dairy-free custard. :( Oh! Speaking of places that make dairy-free accommodations...
Cacao
Okay, so rewind back to our visit to Portland. While we were there, we stopped in a new shop down by Powell's called Cacao - Drink Chocolate. If ever there was an appropriate time to say OMG, it would be in describing this place. O. M. G. As I leave behind my youth (*sniffle, sniffle*), I find myself drawn less to chocolate-as-candy, and more to chocolate-as-...wine? gastronomic artform? cultural experience? I'm not sure how to describe it in words, but Cacao does an excellent job describing it in inventory.
They have beautiful chocolates from all over the world; some large bars, some medium, small, or even packs of tiny sample bars so you can try lots of flavors without ending up with way too much chocolate to eat. Brett and I came away with a full sized, 41% cacao "Naga" bar ("sweet Indian curry powder, coconut flakes, deep milk chocolate"), a set of eight tiny 52% cacao bars infused with cardamome, cumin, anis, and ginger (one spice per bar, two bars per spice), and a set of ten tiny 75% cacao bars titled "Des Pyramide Tropiques" because each bar is made with chocolate from a different locale (Papouasie, Indonesie, Sao Tome, Trinidad, Venezuela, Tanzanie, Ghana, Madagascar, Colombie, and Equateur).
We've since eaten the whole Naga bar (which was delicious and not at all strange), a cardamome bar (which was really comforting, almost like gingerbread), and a cumin bar (good - almost like the naga bar, but simpler, smoother, and less sweet). We've been too busy to sit down together and try the other bars, so they'll have to wait for now.
But I digress. My original intention in bringing up Cacao was to say that not only do they serve their popular "drinking chocolate" (melted chocolate mixed with cream, milk, and a variety of optional spices, served in an espresso glass), but they also have "hot chocolate" (less chocolate, no cream, optional soy milk instead of regular milk, and a larger mug). I had a sip of Brett's spicy drinking chocolate (he picked a mix of chilies and ginger), and almost a whole mug (it was huge and very rich) of soy hot chocolate. Brett's drinking chocolate was sophisticated, complex, and amazing - like chocolate's answer to good espresso. But the soy hot chocolate was the creamiest, richest, most heavenly hot chocolate I've ever had, and my stomach didn't complain at all.
Whenever we go to Ben & Jerry's I'm always left with my choice of fruit sorbet or fruit sorbet while everyone else gets sundaes made with delicious ice creams filled with chunks and swirls, and topped with gooey fudge. I hate going to Ben & Jerry's. Love their contributions to society; hate their lack of rice or soy ice creams. How hard would it be to have ONE frigging flavor of soy-based ice cream?!? Seriously?!? So you can imagine my delight at the thoughtfulness of Cacao's owners. :)
Anyway, moving on...
Birthday Shenanigans
After we got back from Seaside, it was my birthday. Well, Brett's dad's birthday first (May 23rd), and then mine (May 24th). So we went out for Thai food with Brett's parents and sister, and exchanged pressies. I got some gift certificates, and some gardening supplies (since I'm trying to learn to garden).
Another plug - we went to the new Thai restaurant in town...I forget what it's called, but it's two doors down from Noble Palace...if you live in M'ville you'll know where that is, if you don't, it probably doesn't matter. It's NOT Mai's. That place is grode. This new Thai place is great - we've eaten there three times now, and every time we've gone the service, atmosphere, and food have all been top notch. I highly recommend it. AND! They have Shirley Temples. I get one every time. ♥ :D
So the Thai food was on Brett's dad's b'day, not mine. My b'day was the next day, and I mostly just sat around watching tv by myself. All of my presents (awesome as they are) came either before or after my actual birthday, so the whole day kind of felt like Christmas afternoon. A couple of people called, I got a couple of cards, some emails, some myspace action, and Brett made dinner (spaghetti) when he got home from work.
I'd pooh-poohed the idea of a big party because I knew I'd be doing most of the work for it, but at the last minute I changed my mind and decided that I wanted more pomp and circumstance in my honor, so Brett threw an impromptu get together with Shannon, Dan, and the two of us. The theme of the party was a combination of sloth and gluttony (sluttony? that sounds bad...) where we ate tiny eclairs, chocolate cake, pizza, pop, and crackers, and sat around talking and watching a marathon of "What Not To Wear." It was perfect. And now I'm 29, which still feels strange and foreign.
The Camera
Mom & Brian, Brett, and my grandpa Joe all chipped in to get me my first digital SLR camera. Woo! Actually, it's my first SLR camera period. I've only ever used point & shoot cameras, but I love my new camera SO MUCH. I'm really ignorant when it comes to photographic lingo and technique and all that, so I was worried that I'd have trouble using it, but it's been easy as pie. Like taking candy from a baby. Or rather, like taking a picture of someone taking candy from a baby.
I knew this gift was coming in advance, so I had time to really research what I wanted. Because of my tiny hands (it has a small body), lack of skillz, and love of Nikon, I chose the Nikon D40. I did NOT go for the D40x because the ONLY difference is that it's 10 megapixels instead of 6. I have no need for a 10 megapixel camera. Imagine megapixels like...well, like the size of a johnson. You should really leave 10 for the professionals, because it may sound nice in theory, but ultimately it's more trouble than it's worth.
We ordered the camera in a special package from Wolf/Ritz Camera that came with a body, two lenses (18-55 & 55-200), a camera bag, some instructional DVDs, a lens hood, and all the normal caps, cables, and random accessories. We also ordered an extra battery (I think I suffer from some sort of battery charging impairment, because I always forget to charge my shit until it's either dead or dying) and a 2gb sandisk extreme III SD card.
I'd heard some bad stuff from several people about Nikon SLRs being abnormally confusing to use, but my point & shoot is a Nikon, and though this one is definitely more complicated, a lot of the basic symbols and functions are similar enough that it hasn't been a problem. Yay new camera!
Turkey
We ate almost an entire 20 lbs turkey this week. Not all at once, though. We're not THAT fat.
Brett's mom accidentally bought an extra turkey last Thanksgiving, and it's been in our freezer but was due to expire in June, so we thought we should eat it while we still could. Brett was going to grill it, but because we didn't think of it until the night before we wanted to make it, he didn't feel like he had time to properly educate himself on the art of rotisserie cooking. So he was going to grill it in our non-stick roasting pan that, according to the manufacturer, is oven safe up to 425 and is NOT broiler safe. Because the care information didn't mention that it wasn't GRILL safe Brett insisted he should be allowed to try it, but I argued that when left without confirmation we should err on the safe side and use the oven. If a roasting pan were grill safe, don't you think it would advertise itself as such? So I said no way. He grumbled, but agreed to oven roast it as long as we brined it first, which we did. And it was delicious.
I'm a little tired of turkey sandwiches now, but so far we've also had regular turkey dinner (twice - complete with cranberries and stuffing), turkey soup with wild rice, turkey stuffed quesadillas (it tasted like chicken), and turkey & broccoli coconut curry (it tasted like duck). I think we have about a pound and a half left, which is pretty good. And we spend about $50 on groceries last week, which is even better.
Um...
I can't think of much else to say...we went to Marindra's for a BBQ with some of the other sibs last night, it was very enjoyable...our brother Jeff was in town with his girlfriend Tara, who we'd never met. She is awesome, which is great.
Today we did some stuff around the house, then we got too hot to work, so we laid around in the living room for awhile not wanting to move. I did some research online for one of my brothers at my mom's request, I worked on some event planning stuff for our trip to Sunriver at the end of the month, I sent an evite out to my near-by sibs for a yard work party at our house next weekend (muahaha), Brett worked on some stuff for an OM reunion-type thing he's doing in August, we looked up some flight info for his business trip to Bend the week after next, we watched The Grudge II (it sucked)...and...that' all I can remember. Now Brett's asleep, and in a few minutes, I'll probably be asleep too. Good night! :)
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