random assortments

co-worker: oh, oh wait, what's that?

me (emptying tea leaves into the trash): these? tea leaves. my dad gets lots of this really great loose oolong tea from china.

co-worker: is that your home?

me: ...(silent but for the sound of crickets)... umm, that's my dad's home... where he was born. i was born here, actually.

co-worker: ahhh.

(3 seconds later)

co-worker: so do you get to go to your home?

(argh!!)

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here's me & lisa at the hockey game:



we are glowing with beer and cotton candy happiness! my lips are not always that red. in this case, they were probably insanely chapped and then i picked them until they bled. you do not see lipstick in as much as you are seeing red blood cells. lipstick? pah. i need not lipstick. i am au naturale.

my first youtube attempt:



check it out around second 6.
we're talking total redneck in training.

faith in humanity -2.

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homage to meaghan:


she is truly a domestic goddess. her home is full of warmth and animals and knitting and even a little fetus named owen! check out that amazing wall, painted by her husband craig and inspired by amy butler.




the weather was absolutely gorgeous. erika and i laid outside for bit on the hammock while craig did some gardening and meaghan and rachel hung out in the kitchen barefoot.


it was really bright out there.


beautiful lucy - sex kitten


going north a couple of hours does *wonders* for the weather as well. a teeny bit of a chill = the best excuse for a fire!


erika fancies herself to have a little one!


but is saddened when she realizes it is not so. her belly is presently barren of zygotes.


even though we brought our sewing machines along with our good intentions to sew... it wasn't to be. the only thing sweating this gfss was our glasses of asti and morning mimosas! we gorged on delicious meaghan-food and tea and coffee. heavy whipping cream + espresso = liquid coffee ice cream heaven in a cup. we watched episode after episode of arrested development while knitting furiously!


check it out -- you can't even SEE rachel, she's moving so fast. she's like a knitting cyborg machine.


rachel's beautiful yarn. oh, hello mohair blend, i want to eat you.

or

the bad

• somewhat unfounded, but feeling stressed already about my research methods class (only the 2nd week!)
• rent went up $200, so we're highly thinking of moving if we can find a place
• missed gfss meeting this wednesday
• the wii makes my arms soso sore - enforcing the fact that i am out of shape
• my homemade gimchi is of subpar quality -- my korean ancestors weep with shame

the good

• went to a hockey game on monday with jacques & lisa; will post photos (and maybe even video!) soon
• anthony quit his crappy-crappy capital(ist) one collections job and has been interviewing for new jobs
• i have cute red patent leather shoes
• so stressed last night that anthony sang me cute/funny lullabies that let me relax and fall asleep w/in 5 minutes (he sings them to the tune of brahms lullaby)
• friday to sunday = girlfriend sweatshop citywide in gainesville (asti, crafting, shopping, relaxing, wedding planning, baby-belly rubbing)
• tuesday i have an interview for a library technical assistant position! if it doesn't pan out, thursday i move to a different dept at work (with a raise)
• i got to hear bits and pieces of the colbert/o'reilly talks on npr this morning!

honeydew

following jen, i stole her idea of making a "honeydew" list. i even drew a cute little melon!

because really, sometimes boys need .... a push. of sorts.


(hey, it beats yelling and nagging)


but of course, here's what i come home to:

gimchi

tonight i have made gimchi for the first time!

we'll see how it turns out in 3 days. : )


if i can't speak it, maybe i'll at least cook it.

4 am weekend goodness

it has been one long insane freakend, as christopher bate would say.

friday

anthony's band, red room cinema, has a show at crowbar in ybor. quite a good turnout and 5 bands playing. they are supposed to go on at 12:30 am. everyone runs late and they play at 2 am. the crowd has thinned, but there's a surprising number of people still hanging out. they end up playing a really really great show and by the time they pack up and i retrieve the car with jen's help, it's 3:20 am. after much traffic, we crash at 4 am like silent logs into our pillow-top bed. our cats keep sleepy watch while we slumber.

officially, ybor on 7th avenue blows large un-fragrant chunks. especially when it's 3 am and the drunken week-old leftovers of the night make their way into the street. the road is swarming with overbearing name-brand testosterone and skantily-skankily dressed women masquerading as whores and living, breathing bratz dolls. it's really incredible what one street over can do.
8th ave? nice. relaxed. un-skanked.
7th ave? meatmarket. hellhole. swill of the earth.

upon leaving, i had to get cash from the atm. a 30 yr old trying to relive his glory days grabs jen's butt, walks off 5 paces and says how she needs to "watch out, blah blah, blah, something unintelligible."
i point in the other direction and say, "you need to walk the fuck away. do NOT talk to us. get the fuck away."
really, i was rather calm and it was highly satisfying to be the brazen yotch.
he retorts, "oh, me so sorry" in an "asian" accent and stumbles off.
he is very lucky he was not closer -- jen and i were in no mood to play nice and share with others. we were running with scissors the entire walk to the parking garage.

thankfully, that was the only bad 10 minutes of the evening.

saturday

unable to sleep in because of a 9:30 am appointment, anthony and i drop my car off to be fixed. ($513!!) stupid cracked radiator. anthony blames saturn and my plastic car. then at 10:30 we have a meeting to tour the davis island garden club as a potential ceremony/reception site. it's looking pretty decided. breakfast at delicious greasy pach's place and 3 cups of coffee each. then birthday present shopping for MAt while going through the throes of realizing a) we did NOT get enough sleep, b) we are really tired, and c) we have had way too much coffee. once home, we play the wii a half-hour (oh, yes, we got a wii and wee love it! my arm is sore today from tennis) until i have to pick up my car.

nap from 3-5.30.

dinner is at 6, but due to circumstances beyond our control, it is pushed back til 7. yen and mike come up from sarasota and eat with me, ant, jen, rachel & lawrence. dessert is at the henry waugh dessert room at the twin-peaks-esque bern's. i was excited by my dessert choice -- s'mores stack! yes, i got a marshmallow dessert at bern's. and it. was. disgusting. who the hell makes a s'more with a peanut butter cookie and drizzles it with peanut butter sauce the consistency of baby poo? NO ONE. very disconcerting and disappointing. it was duly returned for "chocolate chocolate chocolate." jen returned hers for delicious bread pudding. and really, no mention of peanut butter on their menu at all! plus, on another dessert, they spelled "avocado" incorrectly. i hate that.

from dictionary.reference.com:
Word History: The history of avocado takes us back to the Aztecs and their language, Nahuatl, which contained the word ahuacatl meaning both "fruit of the avocado tree" and "testicle."

yen and i regaled the table with stories of our asian upbringing -- parents who cleaned our ears with ear scoops with furry ends, dads who ate eggs which contained unborn baby ducklings and uncles who ate baby mice/rats alive gently enfolded in lettuce leaves.

a late dinner made us unfortunately late for MAt's birthday party. :( we had a great time, though, until 4 am eating pretzels and funnel cake. dave introduced me to bordeaux wine. we lamented over the humidity, which caused the cotton candy to sink and implode upon itself in a sticky, crunchy mess of spun sugar. amy told me of the pain of 3rd degree burns caused by molten sugar. dug did his very special monkey dance, which is like a siren's song, but for females. and jess & sean scared me off of having a baby anytime soon by telling us how much sleep they get.

i can't believe i stayed up until 4 am two nights in a row! insanity. truly.

wmd

how cute is anthony that he calls me at work to excitedly tell me about this shirt?

as seen on tv

for some reason, my mom got my brother and anthony these humongous silicone oven mitts for christmas. they are immense. should the need arise, anthony can easily place his baby smooth hands in molten lava with these mitts. good thing, too -- vince actually utilized them by pulling cooked lobsters from boiling water that very evening.


street fighter style! double dragon!




anthony took this photo of me making crab rangoon (real king crab meat! cream cheese! mozzerella!). he needed to have "proof" that i have actually been in a kitchen and can actually cook. truly, i can make a mean wonton.

funny side note: though i like crab rangoon now, i used to think they were an abomination of chinese restaurants. i used to be proud that my parents never sold them at their establishment. i'm silly like that. because really, cheese? yea, the chinese just love their dairy.

onyx is "contemporary"

last night anthony splurged and got the scrabble onyx edition. we've been looking for a sturdy scrabble game for a long long time. the old school ones are really the best, but the hardest to find! previous "deluxe" editions have been made of cheap, barely embossed plastic that was supposed to hold the tiles. this latest edition, while not of the highest quality, is still the best one that is currently available.

so we played and ate cheesecake and anthony beat me by 100 points. *sigh* i love and curse his intelligence. probably doesn't help that he's played all his life while i've only just begun to play in the last few years. and that he got two scrabbles ("bingo" sounds idiotic). the hardest part for me is playing the board, if that makes sense. i get great words from my tiles, but on the board only amount to 9 points -- i'm not good at utilizing all those "double word" "triple letter" cells. alas!

i am seriously drooling.

so.... read this. doesn't this sound sofa king insane-delicious?

honey semifreddo:

"What this dessert lacks in temperate warmth, it makes up for in richness. Honey, cooked with the smoky Madagascar vanilla bean and rich egg yolks, is folded into softly whipped cream before being moved to the freezer. Because of the invert sugars in honey, the dessert never freezes completely. Always cold, but never frozen solid."

(from notmartha)

holy shite!

41 square miles isn't so bad, right?

right?!!


thanks tits. now i'm going to have nightmares.

*sigh* i hate when i put too much sugar in my coffee. it just ruins it.

florida's winters are getting milder and milder. i think it went into the 40s once this winter (so far, at least). this morning it was in the 60s and this afternoon will be in the 80s. it's so strange (and frustrating) to get mosquito bites during the winter. it's just wrong! not to mention a resurgence of love bugs. even still, it was beautiful outside walking from the parking garage to work. 60s with a light blue sky is perfect weather.

so, sometimes i feel i should read books or articles on how to "blog better." or how to make your blog "more interesting." but to be honest, i kind of don't care. for the record, this blog is not for anyone else (and not meant in a callous way). this blog is just for me. me me me. i am selfish like that. comments are always lovely, but it's not what i strive to get. i've never been one for popularity contests. i just ramble. or it's just a snapshot of what i've been doing. it helps me remember.

my blog has pretty much taken the place of my once paper & tangible journal. sometimes this makes me miss the tangible journal. from seeing bits of paper with lists of information scattered about my bag or craft room (that would nomally be written down in my journal) to the lack of immediacy that the journal provides, whether doing a quick sketch or painting the edges or using charcoal. i miss charcoal. i love getting my hands dirty. ...maybe i'll try carrying one around again and just take photos of it. (although, now, i type faster than i write, which is a plus on the side of the blog.)

yadda yadda yadda. i wish i had more value to give out to the world, but i don't. noet yet, and not in written form, at least. maybe in some artistic way, or so i hope. i feel as though i'm finally in a place where i can explore my art more. ... maybe i need to rework my craft room to make it more accessible for my charcoal... and why do i feel this need to be constantly moving my stuff around!! i'm never comfortable. ha!

what?! 2007 already?

under the sheets!

the new year came and went with friends and good food. :) erika and amanda came in on sunday and were thoroughly trounced by me and anthony in pictionary. then, with laura and dan, we all trooped to MAt & amy's sister's new year's party. amy's sister, liz, makes an insanely delicious, deceptively powerful punch. seconds, thirds? anyone?

it also really hit me that i was an adult! about time, i suppose. i went out into the perfectly lanscaped backyard and watched kids run around playing and holding flashlights and telling scary ghost stories and screaming about -- and it just really struck me that i wasn't a part of that anymore. i remember being at that point. running around with the screaming kids. but instead, i was hanging out inside with all the other adults near the food and the bar, talking! it was a strange feeling. kind of nostalgic. running around screaming was a lot of fun.

the next day was lazy. really really lazy. ravioli, guacamole and trivial pursuit w/ erika and amanda. when they had to leave, ant and i did a target run and got a $100 7.5ft christmas tree for 75% off! we also got a scanner darkly and watched it while eating ice cream. such a lovely way to end the day.

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new year's resolutions

• resdesign gfss and portfolio website
• draw more & incorporate drawings into fabrics and crafts
• exercise more
• send more letters and postcards to friends
• actively tackle wedding planning
• think about learning chinese (amended from the last 2 yrs of failed attempts to learn chinese.)
• organize negatives and 'pictures' folder on the computer
• bake more pies

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and i'm totally loving on my cats lately. thomas was so cute between the mattress and the fitted sheet! what you can't see is me on the other side of the camera sweating like a stuck pig.



look! their paws are touching!!