Of fishes and rice.

Last night, while I was laid up ill, "The Guys" went down to Uwajimaya because El Jefe was jonesing for some serious donburi action. Bear in mind that this is a man who used to mock me mercilessly for eating rice all the time. He was really really annoyed when I had the Turgoduccochiqua soup on a bed of rice.

"Woman, there are noodles in there already!"

Well, now we see who's getting all the use out of the rice cooker. I admit that donburi is different than eating rice on everything, but I wil say that it is the first step. Next on the list is Spam. Or any fried breakfast meat, for that matter.

In any case, I directly benefit from the donburi related goings-on. Because I'm the first one up in the morning, I got the dibs pick of delicious fish and pickles for breakfast. And furikake. Did I mention that the last time we went to Uwajimaya, Dragons bought every single kind of furikake they sold?

This time, I noticed that not only had they gone crazy with the types of pickles they got, but also in the quantities. People, there are pickles taking up an entire shelf in the refrigerator. I counted no less than five packages of a particular type of kyuuri chazuke. Not even a kappa needs that many cucumber pickles!

So I did my duty and ate some of it. Yes, it is a hard life being a lemur in this house.

My breakfast:



Clockwise from the top, you have flying fish roe (seasoned), ika, wakame, super fatty tuna, and the cucmber pickles. I decided to use the plain furikake for this dish.

In other news, my big creative project is due in a week and a half. Current status: on the verge.

I'm indefinitely

It's an Old 97's kind of evening. I think I finally recovered from nacho night.

Got a late Christmas package from my monkey sister Martha. It included some pictures of her own tiny monkey child. That baby is really cute. Except in the Christmas card, in which she looks like a very omniscient old being made out of pudding.

They look so happy/exhausted that you could tell they're new parents even if there wasn't the tip-off of the baby. Also, her hair still looks great, which I am incredibly jealous of.

. . .

It's less than two weeks to MacWorld SF. To say that I'm pretty excited about it is an understatement. I'm also a bit nervous, because of the planning of things. If it all falls apart it's totally my fault. We're talking about something that costs 3x as much as the wedding that I had 1/10th the time to plan. No wonder I am not sleeping well.

I am planning on having some quality sleep tonight. No work in the morning, so I can relax and luxuriate in the sleeping-in process. I'll be paying for it with the meeting and working until late in the night, however.

And when they called to see if I'd come in on Friday, I said OK?

One day I will learn my lesson.

That day is not today.

Cookie dough?

I feel sick.

One might expect that, really. I had an incredibly busy day at work, constantly running back and forth from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Literally. No, really. And then I came home and ate a bag of chocolate covered espresso beans.

I think that's really where I went wrong. Also, I had what is possibly the most disgusting tea I own and constantly forget is gross. Luckily, it was the last bag. I will never make that mistake again.

Unless I forget and buy some more.

Which seems pretty likely.

I mean, it sounds delicious. Who wouldn't want to drink vanilla chai? But here's the thing. Vanilla chai latte? Delicious. Vanilla chai water-based tea? Not so much.

Blech!

Merry Eep Christmas!

Just got up. Am waiting for Dragons to get out of the shower so we can do the present thing. I hope he likes the things I got him. I really like my early Christmas present (my rockin' banjo!).

Plus, you know, gifts from out most excellent relatives. I should make coffee and then see what kind of Christmas Dinner things Dragons got in the mad ten minute rush at the closing Safeway (all the other grocery stores were closed already!) last night. I heard something about kim chee?

Coffee time!

And Merry Christmas to all my delicious friends!

Everything old is new again

I did a bit of work today, though not as much as yesterday. Today was mostly cleaning up the panicking mess, and getting things prepped for the next big day o' things to do.

Also, saw Bill and released his new compu-friend to him. I think they will have a lot of good times together.

Lastly, my wonder of the day is that I have gone so long without knowing and reading Willrad. My favorite so far is the one with Wm. Shakespeare, but the bear is funny too. He says "I AM VERY CONCERNED ABOUT ANUS IDENTITY THEFT! AS YOU SHOULD BE TOO!"

Hee!

I promise to get lots of sleep tonight.

Die Bier Stube!

So as to avoid a trend (three in a row, as A.J. Jacobs informs us), I vow to make my next post sober.

Went to Die BierStube tonite;. Great wurst, great bier. Had the Sampler! 250 cc of each of 6 Biers. It translates to 1.5 liites of Bier. I copped out on 50 cc that I sent over to Dragons once I'd sampled it, but it was still a lot of bier. I will post without the drinking next time, even though that's when I feel very verbose.

I do have a lot going on these days. I am orchestrating a presence for a software company at MacWorld SF next month. I also transferred stores this month, which means I am up to my neck in new people.

Also, apparently Christmas is this week?! As soon as Dragons get their share of the Christmas cards written up, we'll get the last of the gifts sent out and we'll be done. Except for the ritual Christmas Day eating of ham, that is.

. . .

You know, I don't know how many of you know about the Christian backlash against "Happy Holidays", but here are my feelings on the subject:

1) I say "Happy Holidays" to people because, hey, maybe they're of another faith. Also, I am lazy. I say "Happy Holidays" so I don't have to change my greeting/goodbye between Christmas and New Years. And that's the kind of American spirit that we usually celebrate, no?

2) I'm actually not Christian. So, "Happy Holidays" doesn't violate my reason for the season because I was brought up in a secular environment and celebrate a secular Christmas, which means the reason for the season is lots of presents!

3) When Christmas came along, Christians were just co-opting and oppressing a pagan holiday that took place at about the same time that had to do with the length of the days reversing and moving toward spring. Since I've moved to the Northern part of the continental U.S. I am all about that celebrating the winter solstice.

The summer solstice is actually kind of sad for me. Not as sad as Daylight Savings day in October, but pretty sad.

4) The word "holiday" comes from a root which means "holy day" so if the nice little god boys wanted to be charitable (if they wanted to be Christian about it), they would assume I was talking about their highest holy day ever. . . Christmas.

So in other words, Happy Holidays from Lemurs and lemuridae.net. And Dragons say Merry Christmas and Happy New Yaar to you too. (They're feeling pirate-y!) In fact, they'll throw in Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Halloween retroactively too.

See you next not-drinky time!

fun fun fun

I've had a good go this week so far and it's not even Wednesday. I started working at the second store this week. I changed retail stores and so far it's pretty fun. Of course, I msis the guys I used to work with because they really really rocked, but we must always move forward, right? Plus, they promised they would be having monthly bowling nites, and I'm totally into going to those.

Also, I went to the Penny Arcade Child's Play charity nite tonite and it was pretty fun. I dropped dessert on my satin dress (again!) though and it will require more dry cleaning.

The dinner auction was really fun and I couldn't even begin to put a price tag on it, but ($50!), ok, I guess I would start at $50 as a price for it ($500!), ok, I guess $500 would be a good place to start, uh, um...anyway.

Anyway...as I was saying, it was a great nite, they raised over $80k for charity and they had tasty dessert. Well, I and my dress had tasty dessert anyway.

Also, there was a surprising number of hot girls at this "gamer" event. Unfortunately for the single guys, they all seemed to be taken. Also, girls who hang out with gamer guys are used to being considered twice as hot as society usually would consider them, so it's really hard to get in their pants.

I'm very sleepy and drinky so I'm going to go to bed. Mike and Wil are going to stay up with their milkshakes and see if they can get any more boys to the yard. I don't think they're going to get very far.

Does any of this make any sense?

Only time and sobriety will tell.

Fruitfracker 2k let the dogs out!

Woot! WOOt! WOot! Woot!

Wonder #1

Yesterday I discovered the wonder of sleeping in all day. And I mean all day. It was really quite horrifying.

I got out of bed at 2 p.m. And it was dark before I had eaten breakfast and left the house. Furthermore, we were expected to be somewhere at 6 p.m., so I could only run one small errand before heading over there. I really felt robbed of a day. This is no way to reclaim my time!

Today I am up earlier with some delectable coffee. It's quite good, this coffee, and I'm enjoying it a lot. After Dragons are done with their morning rituals, we'll be heading off to do the errands that need to be done for the day. I really wish that I could have taken my driving test already. Dumb ol' Washington state with a 6 month waiting period to get a driver's license. They practically hand you a gun when you cross the state border (on the Eastern side of the state, anyway), but make it next to impossible to do your everyday things.

But nevermind that. I have a day full of delightful things ahead of me. As long as they don't pass by while Dragons are on the toilet. Hmph.

Snow Day.

It snowed today for the first time this year. It snowed for hours and hours and hours. We only accumulated an inch or so because of the warmth of the day, but I am hopeful that the next few days will yield something that can be used to make snow sculptures or somesuch.

Today and the day that came before (a.k.a. yesterday) were days of getting things done. So many many things were done. I made a funny door stop that was like a cat noodle; we mailed off our 95% of our Christmas cards; we finally got a clothing rack large enough to accomodate all our clothes; the cats have started getting along well; and we're now in the process of making stock from the leftover Thanksgiving bird carcasses.

And today is December 1st. There's only one more month left in a year that has seemed to go by much more quickly than in years past. I once read somewhere that time seems to go slower when you're a kid because every experience is new and it you're aware of each second of absorbing it and that when you're an adult, so many things are done over and over by rote that you aren't really living so much as you are acting out a life a lot of the time.

For example, consider your commute. How many minutes is your commute each way every day? 20 minutes? 30? That's an hour of your day five days a week that you're missing out on. And you're only awake for 16 or so of those hours anyway. And how about the time when youre showering or pooping? That's easily another half an hour that 's you're not wringing the life out of. Or maybe you are. I'm not familiar with your pooing habits.

But see, here's the thing. I did SO MUCH new stuff this year. The bike riding learning. The car driving learning. The getting married. The other traveling. Changing jobs. Changing addresses. Out with the old. In with the new. And I'm still feeling like the year has passed by really quickly.

Maybe I'm just too old to be amazed by the wonder of new things.

That's a depressing thought.

All I can do is try to see the world through new eyes every day. I'm going to do my best not to let this last month slip right by. I will behold all the glory that I see. I will not let it sneak by under the glaze of the mundane.

I hope.