Let's Celebrate!

I bought another pair of $20 pants! That were originally $80! Oh holiday sales, you're so great.

Other than that, not much has happened. A couple trips to the dentist (stupid inferior J-filling fell out), and some small errands.

Sometime this week I let go all the stress of Figuring Shit Out and just let myself float again. It's nice. Soon I'll feel that halfway terror of floating untethered, and I'll buckle down again. But I just might wait until after New Year's.

Happy Holidays, eat lots for me.

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Dinner at a Japanese Restaurant

Tonight we went out to a Japanese restaurant in town. Nothing fancy. I went there a few months ago with my dad. Here are my thoughts.

Points in their favor:
When we walked in, three asian people, they ask in Japanese how many people. Real Japanese people with a real Japanese kid (exclaiming about the scary goldfish) were eating there. Kirin on tap. Shichimi brought out when necessary. Pretty decent nigiri sushi. They even have natto. Edamame comes with the beer. An actual sushi bar, with the sushi guys making it in front of you.

Points for authenticity, while not in their favor:
They still play American pop music. Acceptable ramen. Japanese menu that I'm afraid to ask for, because I know I won't be able to read it all. The edamame was crap.

Points against them:
Poor ass udon. Lumpy California roll. Dragon roll on the menu. Disappointing gyoza.

I could go on, but in summary, good, but not good enough. Authentic, but the cooking is average. I could take (non-Japan) friends here, kind of order izakaya-style, and have a good time. They can order teriyaki chicken or fried rice.

But during dinner, this lovely topic came up. Here's a (poorly quoted, abridged) snippet of conversation concerning G's hair. I mentioned that it was longer before. My mother doesn't think so, but she never saw his hair in those first few months. Neither has my dad, but he had this to say:

"Yeah, he looks like Mick Jagger."

(Me:) "What? David Bowie, I'll give you that, but Jagger?"

"Yeah, like Mick Jagger" he says.

"Because he's skinny and it looks like he does drugs? Which he doesn't, by the way." I counter.

"He looks English. Is he?"

"His dad is from Seattle, his mom is from Montana!"

"He looks like Mick Jagger."

This whole exchange was hilarious. I even googled to see what Mick Jagger looked like when he was younger. Surprise, he still looks like Mick Jagger. If you squint, he looks like Matt Damon. But his head is still freakishly long. G has a small head! And that's かっこいい！(Really awesome supercool great, according to Japanese people.)

But the only way this photo resembles G is if you put your finger on the face. The hair actually matches, but why my father would know what Mick Jagger looked like in his high school basketball uniform, I don't know.

So thank you, passable Japanese restaurant, for provoking this conversation. Here's your parting shot, decide for yourself.

Can David Bowie even do that with his lips?
Does he even have lips?

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Look at me look at me look at me *TALK* to me.

Oh yeah, and comments are totally okay. The usual rule, no full names. (My name is on some random blog because some other girl asked if that blogger knew me. Good thing it's a clean blog.)

And Happy 1 Year to this blog! Yay! 1 year, two days, 102 posts!

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Rice Post!

My brain is stuck on research mode. After researching apartments and jobs and traffic and weather, my brain just can't let go. I try to distract it with other internet distractions (boingboing! zefrank! gofugyourself!), but it just keeps plunging ahead. I think I started with clothes, and then ended up on food. And the net is full of interesting things about food. For example, someone took the time to explain why fried rice needs to be made with leftover rice. And they even stuck in a few big words. It just struck me as funny, that it needed to be explained. (For once, we hit a topic that I comprehend--fried rice. I guess it's because I've grown up with it. Well, if you tried it, you'd probably consider it bastardized, but it's the way I like.)

On the other hand, I had to look up the difference between salted and unsalted butter, and learned that it all just comes down to control. I'm pretty sure I've looked this up before, back when I loved baking the same cookie recipe over and over and over again. (I'm still certain that recipe was terrible, even though I got requests for it. I guess I'll have to try and replicate it for L some day. She'd tell me if they were horrible, I'm sure.)

The goal for this week? Make molasses cookies. I think I've wanted to make them for a number of years, but I've always been too lazy to figure out what kind of molasses I needed. (Molasses=foreign to me. Back then, I wasn't even sure grocery stores in the suburbs sold it.) Well, thanks to research brain, I'm ready to go. This recipe requires freshly grated ginger and pepper. Awesome. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bonus rice fact! (from the first link)

Apparently, science says rice should be refrigerated an hour after it's cooked! (Or kept above 140F/60C.) One, I don't think my rice cooker kept rice that warm. And two, let's all pause to think of the long journey kyuushoku rice often has to make. No, thank you Mr. Scientist.

And one last thought: I had a Rubio's fish taco combo tonight, and the sodium is killing me. Swollen feet. What the hell? I'm not that old!

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Bake me a cake.*

On relocation: It's really quite baffling to have so much information available to me. Like just now, I wanted to know where the Costco in Seattle was. And two seconds later, I knew. Two seconds! Not 30 minutes of googling and translating and digging through broken Japanese websites. Yes, it'd probably go faster if I were more proficient in the language, but that doesn't help a broken or outdated website.

Current freakout: I can't go back to grad school. I have no letters of recommendation, and no reason for any professors to remember me. I skated by with a letter from my boss that worked in the library. Can google help me there?


*This is post 100. Pardon me for not landmarking it.

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Small goal to tuck away for now

Dear Future Self,
Someday you will have a home that has a backyard, a place where you intend to stay for a goodly period of time, and then you can buy yourself a yuzu sapling so you can make yuzu tea, or a yuzu bath, or even get your act together and make a meal that requires ponzu sauce. If you don't kill it, you can get a sudachi tree too. Because thank goodness, you can buy them in the states. (Hey, if you can't import black pines, and some mikan species (so says my grandfather)...)

PS: Don't confuse yuzu (C. ichangensis x C. reticulata var. austera) with something trendy like a Meyer Lemon, whatever that is.

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Three Snippets

Moon Shadows
Last night was the full moon, and I went outside (in zori and a light jacket at 2am, eat your heart out) to experience moon shadows. It's been a long time since I've been outside in an unlit area for the full moon. Usually it's a look out the window sort of thing--"Hey, isn't it a full moon?" "Eh, sure."--but it was nice to just sit and look at shadows. And it was so quiet! The suburbs are nice like that. I didn't wander around the 'cho at night, I'm sure that was even quieter...except when the frogs were out.

Moving Crap
I've been trying to hash out moving to Seattle (get an apartment first, then a job), and was looking at uhaul rates. $900 for 6 days (it really takes 6 days? I was guessing 3.). Ouch. And then I walked through the house, and tried to figure out if that was enough space. Then I realized that all of my college furniture went to my sister, and the only thing left is my bunk bed frame and an alright set of table and chairs. Oh, and my father's college desk that I used in college. Maybe a small TV. The rest is clothes, books, and computer. Baffling, but such a relief. That does mean I'll have to get a lot of stuff delivered once I get up there, but I can get new things! And I can even justify $900 worth of new things!

Now Retro
Since I spend all of my time at home, my brain has become warped. My parents' dishes look different now. Before, they were just outdated dishes, with a band of olive green that had flowers on it. Olive green to match the avocado green shag carpets. Embarrassingly out of date. Now, I see the dishes through the eyes of those indie people who delight in everything retro, and they don't seem so bad. Inheritable even.

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Five Delicious Foods (+1)

I need to cheer up, or at least distract myself from how overwhelming this relocation/find a job process is. And I'm still on the research phase! To stop my thoughts from snowballing, here are five delicious foods that I like, in no order.

1. Tempura shrimp tails. They taste like popcorn. Sometimes restaurants cheat and hold the shrimp by the tail or something, and then it just tastes like dirty plastic. Sad.

2. Ferraro Rocher chocolates. You know, the ones wrapped in gold that crunch.

3. My grandmother's raspberry jam. Sometimes the proportions aren't right, and instead, we get raspberry syrup. Absolutely not a problem, that just means you have to be more careful with the sandwiches.

4. Perfect medium rare steaks. I had one in at some restaurant and it was beautiful. It was barely warm in the middle, with crusty pepper bits. It was so good I didn't care about the possibility of food poisoning.

5. Choco-peppermint smoothies. At the 50s diner downtown, they used to serve it in a tall fountain glass, along with a tumbler of what didn't fit. They don't do that anymore, which is a bummer.

Now I want a snack. And I feel much better. Goal accomplished!

(+1) Stuffed sole with whipped potatoes. Awesome. It's even good microwaved a few days later. On Friday, we went to some bar and grill on the Chula Vista Marina. (The South Bay Fish and Grill to be exact.) My dad ended up with something crap--mustard crusted salmon, which was a bland piece of salmon with a crust of mustard. With shitty white rice. Like someone decided to whip the rice to make it fluffy, and instead turned it into rice mush. It probably had butter in it. ::shudder:: But mine was good, and that's what counts.

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How's November Treating You?

Hey guys, how's it going? Today I actually managed to sit outside for a long period of time, instead of just popping out to check the mail or take the dog out. Here's the view from the backyard:

Just your typical late November day at home.

No clouds. At all! Not a single one:

I wish I could sleep in that color.

And I want to move where again? And it's snowing up there? What do you mean it's colder than Japan right now? Jeebus, I must be crazy.

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This is my America 2 [/]

And it's not haunted either.

My mother has a collection of Japanese dolls. She has...six of them. As I child I thought they were all a family (this was the mother). In middle school I used one as a model for a sketch I did. I think they're pretty neat, but as a child it never occurred to me that other people didn't have Japanese dolls in their living rooms.

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Fluffy hat I don't need! [/]

But it's so fluffy!

I went into Moohoop twice before I bought this hat, okay? They were having a sale. It wasn't on sale, but I've always wanted recently decided that I wanted a fluffy brownish hat. Does this qualify as a toque?

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Seasonal Vegetables... [/]

Can you pickle something if it's already halfway preserved?

...should be eaten when in season. This is from one of my family friends/uncles. Apparently, his cucumber vine is still producing. Hmm.

(Pictures will be boring until I pull myself together and actually leave the house, just to warn you.)

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Central Valley Sunrise [/]

Just south of the spinach outbreak areas. (I assume.)

We started the drive back to SD at 4:30am. Around sunrise, I woke up to see my dad trying to take pictures while driving. It's good to know I'm not the only one that does that. Maybe I can even blame it on genetics.

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Frightful. [/]

The picture doesn't do it justice.

My grandparents teach ballroom dancing, and they have a lot of instructional videos. This is one of the most disturbing. I feel bad for the woman, because I'm sure she's trying very hard to keep smiling while being balanced on a bony old man hip, but still. ::cough::

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Trees with Rights

Way better than a row of palm trees. [/]

This oak tree is old. And in San Jose, old trees have rights. If the trunk is more than so many inches in diameter, you can't cut it down without permission. I think it's great, because I like giant trees, but my grandmother complains about how messy it is. It's got character--I've seen raccoons in that tree, and there are a couple rusty horseshoes nailed to the trunk. As a kid, I was disappointed that it didn't drop acorns (only oak galls--light white balls that are...caused by wasps? Well, thanks google.) but now I'm just happy that it's still there.

The house is a two story, super old farmhouse. I love the house too.

King of the neighborhood.

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Hello Turkey.

I slept through most of Thanksgiving, thanks to my cold and the jet lag. Apparently we had a 22-pound turkey, but I missed the carving party. Here's where I came in:

Turkey, you're so delicious. [/]

Nothing special happened at Thanksgiving. Just good eating. We don't seem to do drama anymore these days, thank goodness.

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This is my America.

My second day back was manual labor day. The persimmons needed to be harvested. No problem, right? That's what I thought, because I was thinking of the small, pruned trees I saw in my town. Well, my grandparents have a tree that's about 30 years old, and while it's pruned, it has definitely taken advantage of the elbow room.

And my dad did most of the work. Poor guy.

This is maybe a quarter of what needed to be picked.

Kaki butts! [/]

I can't decide if my family picks them later then the Japanese, or if this is just this particular variety. I just know that I like my kaki crunchy, not slimy. I guess I should find a recipe for overripe persimmons.

Remember that guy who invited A to go out picking persimmons at his house? Well, he did it to J too. I wonder how many friendly foreigners he's collected...

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Travel Tips.

Hey guys, when you leave for good, don't fly out of your home airport. It caught me by surprise, but I should've known. From that plane, I could see my apartment, my schools, my grocery store, the way to town...and then I started seeing everyone else's schools, and where they lived...It was too much. I'm used to a bus ride past anonymous scenery, and I like it that way. Seeing all those places from so far away was like saying goodbye again.

At least though, at my airport, I got to meet the father of a student. He checked my luggage, and introduced himself. And I got to buy a bunch of silly udon souvenirs that I wouldn't have looked at otherwise.

And you know what? The Narita Airport Sanuki udon shop isn't bad. I didn't get udon, but the soba was pretty good.

Eating that last meal alone sucked. But it was delicious. [/]

By the time I got on the last plane, I breathed a sigh of relief. That particular journey went taxi-bus-plane-bus-plane, and I was convinced that I would screw it up somehow. But I didn't. After some crazy turbulence, three movies, and some pretty bad airplane food (dude, ANA can do better than that), I arrived at SFO, slightly sick, a few days early for Thanksgiving.

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I got some culture too! [/]

By sheer luck, a ticket to the Yoshida Brothers concert opened up, and I snagged it! Originally I didn't want to go, because it was my last day in Japan, but I couldn't resist. It was pretty great. Shamisen rock. Once I figure out what albums have the songs I like, I'll start investing. I found myself distracted by the reverberating clacks made by the (uhm) plucking pick. Is that normal? Intended? Unavoidable? The backgrounds were pretty neat too. Culture Night productions made me really aware of what ends up on that back screen.

I ended up sitting next to two girls who were speaking in Spanish. (Or maybe Portuguese.) They were Asian, so it was unexpected, but it was interesting seeing what it look like when I'm chatting with L. People kept checking to see where the gaijin were. Fooled you suckas!

L and E. Swell people. I can even roadtrip with them!

Afterwards we went to Sea Dragon, which, as E pointed out, was a nice circular way to tie up my trip. (G surprised me with a group dinner there my first Saturday in town.) I had my karikari chicken, L lapped up the oily bits, and then we splurged on creme brulee. Now that's a great last dinner.

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Kids, Cones, and...uhm...Crooners.

Look out, the photos are back. Here's a small recap of my last Saturday in Japan. First we went to Meet the World. It was great, we played a game called Smother the Small Child.

That kid was really really cute. Too bad for you!
(Smother the Small Child is photo [/].)

I was assigned the kindergarten, first, AND second grade classes. WTF! All the other classes had like five foreigners each, and we had 5 between like 80 kids! Bah. It was still a lot of fun. Some people had never worked with kindergarten kids before, and it was a real treat for them. Me, I got to tie a towel to a kid's face. Three kids in fact. It was a blast.

Afterwards, I decided to go to the museums because I hadn't been in three years. The Benesse is the same, although I swear there are more plants in the weeds exhibit. We also went for a stroll in art house area. We saw a shrine with cat statues, and a lot of white cones. At the port, there were a whole bunch of cones, which looked totally normal until it got dark. Then they lit up. Brilliant. Sometimes they even ran patterns. I've never been so in love with a group of traffic cones.

And just out of sight, a new pumpkin! Weird. I thought one was enough.

The port's been spiffed up since I last visited a year ago. They even had an indoor waiting area, where the DS club played MarioKart and Japanese people watched them. No really, check out the woman behind them.

And later, I schooled them all at Tetris.
Because those are the only games I'm good at.
Aw.

Afterwards there was a musical meeting and then we went to dinner at Dear. I made it to Dear twice! That means TWO lasagnas! Hooray! And then a bunch of us celebrated Tree's birthday...by going to a different izakaya for drinks! No, we couldn't find people so we just went to a different bar to kill time...it was a pretty random group of people, but it was quality. Lots of good conversations. And I got to hang out with D four times! Every Single Weekend! That's how many times I see him in one year!

And then we went to karaoke, where we decided to get our own room, so we could actually sing songs. I mean seriously, that group was rockin it hard. Look at tamborine man. Look at the (real) welshie. I think the birthday girl was up dancing next to me. Apparently she had such a good time that she couldn't talk for a couple days. Now that's a good time.

The three tallest guys in the prefecture. J looks...normal sized. Wow.
And this is photo [/], because I took it after midnight, and was pleasantly hungover the next day.

And then we went home. I've been lucky that big events have coincided with my last weekends. I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen in ages. People I didn't even get to say goodbye to the first time around. The best goodbye? It's a one-two punch, poorly paraphrased:

"Oh don't be silly. You know you'll be be back next month."

Followed by:

"For the record, I don't think you'll be coming back." (To be fair, that wasn't the real goodbye.)

I love my friends.

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Readjustment Day 2

As I'm not wearing socks because I rarely wear socks in San Diego, I'd like to share what I'm doing right now:

Drinking red wine (only a little, and only because it's leftover from that bottle from last month, and because I've become a boredom drinker) and reading xkcd.com, that geeky web comic. I only don't get the really science-y ones.

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I have been home for 7 hours.

I have taken some things off of my bed, I have taken some laundry out of a suitcase. I've checked most of my blogs, I kind of ate a meal.

All of these back to back trips have left me disoriented.

It's now been 4 months since I've had a job? Really? Four?

Where can I unpack if all my past unpackings still haven't found a home yet?

Hey look, matzo.

I can still feign complete thoughts, sure. For example--today I had McDonald's for the first time...since...wow. At least last year. I know I've had Burger King less than a year ago, and I remember having a tsukimi burger in Tokyo with my sister in September of 2004, but in the past 3 years, I'm pretty sure I haven't had McDonald's more than 5 times, and even that's a generous estimate. But this morning, during the drive home, we stopped at McDonald's, where half the people were in their pajamas and everyone was comparing driving destinations. I wish I had taken a picture. And when we got back in the car, I had a sausage mcmuffin in my hand, and I despised it. I could smell the rubbery egg and felt the greasy warmth and I wrinkled my nose. But food's food, and we still had another 4 hours of driving to go. So I took a bite.

And it was delicious. Not udon delicious, or yakiniku delicious, but guilty pleasure delicious. Like eating mac n cheese for dinner. I even picked the orange bits of cheese from the wrapper. And all that guilt about eating bad fast food? I realized I was in the middle of Central Valley in California, and all the food in the area was probably on par with McDonald's. Goodbye guilt.

I probably won't start craving McDonald's, but now it's in my head that McDonald's still tastes good. Bah.

I need to start making plans and setting goals. No excuses now. The internet's back, the weather's warmer, I have a car, I don't have that pesky job thing to get in my way...all that's lacking is real motivation. Urgh.

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Answers.

I'm coming back. But only for a month. Because I'm crazy. See you soon.

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The Sparkling Red (3/365)

My house is like my apartment(s). Sorry.

Sunday, October 15, 7:48pm

This is a sparkling red wine, Riunite Lambrusco. You can get it from the grocery store. (Vons, specifically.) It has a screw top. And I love it.

A few weeks ago, I went to a funeral. I didn't know the man, it was the father of a girl I used to know. My mother left the obituary on the table for me to see.

I justified going by reassuring myself that I was kind of as a representative of the old crowd that knew the family. I went to elementary school with this girl, I went to dinner with her and her boyfriend before a 10th grade homecoming dance. Most of my friends were closer to her than I was, but they're scattered. (And working.) She's a bubbly, witty gal, and although we weren't ever close, I felt the need to pay my respects.

The clincher was that another friend (who is much closer) was going. And besides, it was like 2 miles from my house. Guilt got the better of me, and I ended up going to the reception too. Sorry about the freeloading, family of the departed.

The reception was really nice though. It was subdued, but casual. It was at a local Italian place that I haven't been to in almost 20 years. They played his favorite songs, and there were pictures on the walls of him through the years. I helped set up. We accidentally put a lint roller on display, because we didn't know any better. (Hey, there was a beaver golf club cover and a farting George Bush doll in the collection.)

The food was good, too. Humble, simple stuff. Salad, spaghetti, pizza. And the family wine, Lambrusco. I was skeptical at first, but I enjoyed it. And it was sweet and sparkling. I'm a sucker for those. I will be honest, I felt uncomfortable being there, but appreciated the send-off the guy got. Intimate and relaxed. It was nice seeing the daughter again. She still sparkles like she did in high school.

A few nights ago, I snuck a bottle of Lambrusco into the shopping cart, and my dad laughed at me. "You can make a sparkling red with 7-up," he said, but he recognized the name (apparently it's been around for 25 years, who knew). I now drink a glass of wine after dinner (like my father), mostly because I enjoy the stuff. We'll see what happens when I finish the bottle.

I like it when stuff has a story.

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Eggs, Unpretty. (2/365)

The colors make me sick.

Saturday, October 14, 12:14pm
The night before, I decided I would make an omelette for breakfast. Awesome. I like eggs. Well, this is what happened. 3 eggs, mushrooms, and cheese. Cooked in a small frying pan. For some reason, I just didn't feel like hauling out the bigger cast iron one, and ended up with a fluffy, mushroom topped brick. I should've put some salsa on it, just to break up the unsettling brown-yellow-offwhite combination. I know, I can't cook. But I'm trying.

Was it good? It was good enough. It needed vegetables. It was solid eating though. That was the only thing I ate until dinner. Next time I'll try harder, I promise.

And then for dinner, I had a carne asada burrito. Heaven. I wasn't hungry, but man, I wanted it. I went into a food coma about 3/4 the way through. It wasn't that big, but after living in Japan, I guess my stomach got used to smaller portions.

Poor choice of comparison item, I know. But that burrito is still a decent size.

The eggs picture is #2 in the picture a day challenge. I think the posts might get shorter, but I'll keep trying to take those pictures.

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The Rocketman (1/365)

"What are you taking a picture of?"

Friday, October 13, 2006, 2:00pm
Hello free lunch.

This is my dad. He's a rocket scientist. (It's so awesome to say that, although I suspect the job's not very exciting.) He drinks a glass of wine every day at dinner (definitely a kitchen drinker, but perhaps not to say, L's excess), likes garlic, and once said he likes Irish Car Bombs, although I've yet to test that one. In high school, my friends thought my parents were divorced because they never saw my dad. I could share a lot of unsavory stories about him from that angsty time period, but what matters now is that when he comes home early on Fridays (because he wants to? I have no idea), he asks if I want to go out for lunch. I can appreciate this.

We went to a homestyle Italian place, and it was good enough. There was a homey atmosphere, but it seemed very calculated. Y'know how Buca di Beppo just lays on the charm? Pictures crammed on the walls, a walk through the kitchen, stuff on the ceiling. Good stuff. Faked, all of it, but fun and charming. This place, it's the suburban version. Sports bar on the side, track lighting setting the mood. Pasta not very al dente. My dad talked about buying a condo for me to live in once I got a job, because it'd be "cheaper." Boring stuff like that.

This is picture #1 of the 365 picture experiment challenge. I'm gonna try and take a picture a day. I estimate I'll get sick of the program in 2-3 months. Eventually I'll upload them all to flickr. Eventually.

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Pretty things from the internet

Boingboing harvest. But hey, you probably didn't click those links anyway.


Somebody's wedding "cake" was 400 cake penguins. Penguins made of cake. Super awesome.



An artist on LSD. I couldn't resist. That's only the second of nine drawings.




Words made of wire. I'm totally going to teach myself to do this someday.



And finally, rainbow roses. Sure they could be tacky in real life, but just seeing them fills me with awe. I want to touch one.

Oh, and speaking of touching, I touched that makeup case, and it was a let down. Tacky in real life. I consoled myself by spending the equivalent to a decent pair of shoes on makeup brushes. I totally spent all that money I "saved" by not purchasing that case...more actually. But, uhm, I needed...uhm, well I needed a dress for the next wedding, and that dress was so cheap (after my makeup splurge) that I bought another dress...and then Clinique had bonus time...I swear I'm done spending like this for awhile. Please don't snowball further.

Oh wait. Plane tickets. And shoes for the dress. Hell. I'm afraid to look at my bank account.

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Brace Yourselves.

The wedding review is coming.
Along with about 30 more pictures of this awesome kid.

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And I hope you're all there to witness it.

I told my dad about the wedding this past weekend, and I told him how the father of the bride made up a few facts in his speech. Nothing more than a few name mess-ups, but hey, we noticed. (To his credit, I was impressed how detailed he was.)

Yenniway, I told my dad this, and he said "Don't expect something like that from me." That's cool dad, I said, the father of the groom did a very simple heartfelt toast, that's good enough. I was getting weirded out by the conversation anyway. But my dad continued. "What I'd do, I'd do a powerpoint."

A powerpoint! Probably with little animated page turns.

Oh man. Can't you just see it? Remind me, when I get married, that the reception room can't have any electrical outlets. Or walls to project onto. How mortifying.

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Taming the rampant consumer in me.

Today I was coveting a makeup case that costs $135. One hundred and thirty-five dollars for faux-leather. It's a very nice bag, I'll even show it to you:

It even resembles those cute round backpacks
the (Japanese) elementary school boys have.

C'mon, I bet even the boys would agree that it's a very sharp-looking case. (Black! And Red! Darling, I know you'd approve.) It's from Sephora. Which I have a gift card for. But not that extravagant of a gift card. And so I coveted and coveted and even checked other stores to see if they had something similar. (Of course not.)

So instead of pouting because I don't want to spend money, and instead of ignoring it until I forgot about it, amazingly, I went in search of my old high school makeup case.

Even more amazingly, I found it, and it was mostly empty. Two tubes of red lipstick, some broken blue eye shadow, you know, the usual high school suspects. I even found a sequin repair kit. (Sorry non-HSers, inside joke--the high school show choir I was in had regulation makeup, and we wore sequined dresses.) So I lovingly cleaned it out.

This is what it looks like, except mine's a *much* better color ::cough:: :

They still sell them (in sassier colors), you know.
Except now they call them "retro."
Seriously.

And you know, I'm pretty satisfied with it. It's sturdy, and I didn't spend money! Who's gonna see my arsenal case? Nobody that would actually care about that sort of thing. And when's the next time I'm going to carry my arsenal case in a public place? Did people actually used to do that? Carry a suitcase and a purse and a makeup case? Do people still do that? Insane.

I'm so retro now. But still not retro enough for leg-warmers.

That black bag is still a beautiful bag, but at least now I can say I don't need it. It would just sit in my bathroom, making me happy every time I saw it. I'll go treat myself to some fluffy makeup brushes or that orgasm blush (really, that's what it's called) or something. Maybe I'll go visit the case in the store and I'll go lovingly caress it. Maybe. But what matters is that I didn't buy it today. Yay me.

PS: I'm totally going to splurge that $135 I didn't spend, just wait.

PPS: All of my packages, all 10 boxes and 2 m-bags, have arrived safely enough! I'll post about how they turned out later.

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Meme Fragment.

THE LAST FIVE THINGS YOU HAVE BOUGHT:
1. photo prints
2. makeup
3. gas
4. wine
5. more wine

My weekend ruled.

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But I don't want leg warmers.

Ew. Cute shoes though.

Check it out, I'm going to do a fashion rant.

I found an Urban Outfitters' Fall '06 catalogue, and noticed two things.

1. Subversive marketing.
You can even see it on their website, which I won't link to. I thought my sister had circled a bunch of things in the catalogue, but it turns out they're pre-printed. Sneaky. I should've known better, my sister doesn't seem like the type to get cable-knit fingerless gloves. Although you know I totally eyed them.

2. I saw all this stuff last month.
Or even last year. Some girl told me that the US tends to be about a year behind the fashion trends in the rest of the world. (She was referring to my awesome silver shoes that I have now worn THREE times, thank you very much.) I didn't really put much thought into it at the time. But now I look at catalogues. Apparently the Urban Outfitters' big thing is now *layering*! Great. That's all the non-waifs of the world need, three shirts and a lumpy jacket. Good for you L, you'll be set once if you come home, but for the rest of us (well, I'm not sure where I fall anymore), pain in the ass. I thought I got away from that. Even leggings are all trendy now. I'm not sure what I think about them yet. They look great on N (of directorial fame), but I also frequent a blog that considers them the devil. Oh well, I'll let my sister rock that fashion. She has better legs for it.

And bonus, number 3: That's my color dammit.
Fall fashion seems to have tapped my color obession of the year, and now I want everything I see in that color--shoes. scarves. arm-warmers. jacket-hoodies. I caved a few weeks ago and bought a bracelet, only because I had been keeping an eye out for something like it since April. If any of these things are still available when the sales fire up, I'll be first in line. Til then, you'll see me in the clothes I bought last year in Japan, probably still reeking of suitcases and hyaku-en (100yen) vacuum bags.

Number 4 for the road: I miss being a comfortable slob.
Man it was great living in Japan. Partially because Japan was a lot of fun, but also because I only hung out with people I knew. The likelihood of meeting new people (at parties or at work) was very very low. Which meant that my standards were equally low. Lots of jeans and the same jacket every day. I'm sure people noticed, but I didn't care. We already knew everyone, and everyone suffered through the same crap. If it's cold, there's no way I'm dressing up. I'll wear five layers, thanks. For some reason I feel like I have to try now. Maybe it's because I've been making lots of first impressions lately (weddings). I hope it wears off soon.

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Recovery Day

I kind of feel like the one all curled and dazed on the bottom.
(Link to real description at the end.)

[Afterthought and back story: My good friend, K from high school just got married. The high school group reassembled, and we partied in the hotel Friday night and after the wedding reception on Saturday. Fine for them, a bit of a challenge for the bridesmaids (me and V). It's now Monday and I need ochazuke *bad*. PS: Keep an eye out for new pictures in old posts as I get more organized. I just added some to the Ranch 99 post (Learning New Things!).]

The past three days have been a lush blur. I remember traffic, chocolate covered strawberries, good wine, bad wine, surprisingly uncomfortable shoes, new girlfriends, old girlfriends, and a margarita fountain.

Yesterday it was all over. I was struck how easily everyone said goodbye, considering this was the first time we had all been together in...ages. I'm tempted to say this was the first time we had all been together since high school graduation, although most of us have met up here and there over the years. I think Japan made me really get into goodbyes--probability says I won't be seeing these guys for a very long time. But unlike Japan, we all have our own separate lives now, which we interrupted for a quick weekend trip to revisit our high school lives.

I drove home in an exhausted stupor (no ipod music! stupid forgotten FM transmitter), and tried to catch up on the internets. My dad took me to dinner at a Japanese restaurant. It felt authentic enough, although the English menu was confusing. Disturbing, even. I'm not ballsy enough to ask for the Japanese menu though.

A dude was sitting on the far side of the counter talking with the sushi chef about some of the patrons. The udon wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. I made my father eat a natto sushi (it was a roll, like a small kappa maki, so tame by all standards). He ordered a dragon roll. Do those even exist in Japan? It was all avacado and anago/unagi on top. Seemed like overkill.

The girl at the front greeted us with an uninspired irrashaimase. I remember clowning on the high-pitched combini girls, but it's really sad hearing it like that. She had a back tattoo that you could see because her shirt looked kinda intentionally hiked up on the side. Weird seeing a Japanese girl as an American. I wonder what the opposite looks like to a Japanese person. (A nikkei dressed as a frilly, multi-layered J-girl.)

I even snuck some pictures, which was weird. I don't have excuses for that anymore. Random photos in a normal restaurant? I think I overheard the guy in the corner saying I was on vacation.

Today the internets (boingboing.net) told me some neat stuff. The titles say them all, but I'll provide the links for the people who want them:

Rare white moose? Let's shoot it, says Norwegians.
Mechanized, motorized rideable lion. (No fur. Very awesome.)

[edit: Oh, let's just make it animal links day:]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Wolves fly into glass. (art project)

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I am not a jet-setter.

You'll get an update eventually. But the wedding schtuff starts up Friday, and guess who got tapped to do the handwritten place cards? (Awesome funness!)

Here, whet your appetite:

I was in Santa Monica yesterday because I felt like going shopping. Two hours later, I still didn't have anything I really liked, so I went to the beach. I'm not sure if I can give this up, even though I rarely go...In other news, I barely know what day it is, and only know the date when I check my gas station receipt. Tomorrow is laundry day, and I'm kind of looking forward to it.

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Learning New Things!

Can you read that? It says "Cream Prune Drop".
Maybe next time I'll have the guts to buy a bag. Ugh.

Today I went to Ranch 99 Market! It's a (ghetto, depending who you talk to) local? Asian grocery store, complete with lots of live seafood in the back. The fish were a bit too closely packed in the tanks, but I tried not to think about that. Killing fish, I have no problems with, but packing them in a tank kinda makes me nauseous.

I always thought they only had Chinese foods (I'm referring to junk foods) but they also had the coveted kinako pocky and the Harvest sesame crackers that I like so much. I squealed and clapped my hands and amused my buddy S who took me there. I introduced him to ramune and sweet tomato juice. Good times.

We also had pho across the street. Good, but I've had better. Once I start making money, I'll start trolling around for a favorite pho place. It'll be exciting. It's so great having an English menu again!

Sorry no real update yet. Tuesday I went back to LB for a hair appointment, Wednesday I sat around and cleaned a necklace (now the pearls aren't the same color as the earrings, drat.) and then went to try makeup at Sephora. Good-ness. That place was great. Everything was available for trying on, everything was clearly priced. Comforting contrast from the intimidating department store places. Not going there again, bleh. K (the bride) settled on a blush called orgasm, a lipstick called flirt, and an eyeshadow called champagne. Great. I envied her. Someday I'll have a steady income again, and I can buy myself natural makeup that I can toss in a bag and not use. :-P

Speech contest is almost over guys! Gambatte!

On to pictures!

Apparently the questionable kodomo (kids') beer has made it to the states. I'm surprised some family group isn't all up in arms about it. Oh wait, those kinds of people don't go to Ranch 99...

Happiness! Naked baby mayonaise!
(Actually, it's pretty good--very smooth.)

Even better! Pretz! And Salad Pretz! And Toppo!
Sorry, for those that don't know--these are some of my favorites.
If you look closely, you can even see those choco-mushroom cap things.

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Exit Camino Capistrano...

There's this one part on the 5 where the ocean just looks different. It's always fuzzy on the horizon. I'll spare the poetics, but it always makes my breath catch when I hit that point. There's a scent in the air, and no one can tell me what it is. I'm hoping it's a bush or a flower, but for all I know, it's a landfill. I always put the windows down to enjoy it. Sometimes I turn my music down.

And this weekend, I got to spend the night in a condo with a view of that ocean. That particular part of the ocean. There were sailboats and a tall ship, and I could see white caps, but just barely. (Not a good day for a 6-person motorboat fishing trip.) I could've just stared out the window all day and been perfectly content. I don't need the beach with that view. The water's cold here, I forgot about that.







The weeklong trip ended up looking like this:
SD to LB to SJ to Berk to SF to Berk to SJ to LB to DP to home. All in 10 days. Tomorrow, I think I'll reward myself with a trip to my favorite beach (Coronado, by the Hotel Del, but closer to the naval base)

My life is full of organizational emails these days. It's nice to be busy, but I miss telling people about stuff. I type faster and faster, thinking that I'll be able to write someone a long conversational letter when I'm done, but then I remember to do something else. I send emails from both addresses, much to the confusion of the recipients. I'll route it all through gmail someday, I promise.

Pictures and that phone review later.

And I got invited to another wedding! Hooray! That one's gonna be a good one.

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Now Then...

Well, now that I've told people (all three of you), I'm gonna leave you. Ha!

Schedule for the following week:
Sat. Bachelorette party in SF (bride V) up north (with lunch and bridal shop plans attached)
Sun. recovery brunch and dinner in Berk with friends
Mon-Tues. hang out with grandparents (SJ)
Wed-Sun. back south (LB) hang out with bride K, be useful

Well, there goes my streak of not leaving the house. It's funny, I'm being all asocial, like D. I always thought I was a social person, but I guess it's a lot easier when you don't have to drive the entire length of Honshu (give or take) to seek it out.

Real quick, a moment of respect for the sakaiatrist, who should finally be done with school by Monday. One more paper, I think.

I'll leave you with a new BBC moment:

Don't forget to read the caption.

I'll try to take lots of photos, and I promise to keep my nose clean. :-D

Upcoming: new cell phone review!

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Hi, I'm Hungry.

I guess I should finally share this with you guys, now that I'm not around to tell you about stuff in person. Maybe this'll be my new(est) photo blog. We'll see.

Tonight I made cookies. Look at how much work I put into them:



Yep, frozen, pre-shaped cookies. Back in high school, I at least remember there being a tub we had to scoop the dough out of. The cookies turned out pretty good, but I was good and only ate one. (Eating late at night keeps me up, and I certainly don't need that.)

And while I'm here, I'd like to remind you Japan-folks what real grocery stores are like:
(If you want to do a lesson about stuff like this, I take requests.)

The lunchmeat section.

The orange juice section.

Community Art.

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I feel creepy.

So, been looking at moving stuff, and I found an easy to digest blog documenting this guy's move from the midwest to Seattle with his new wife and blah and blah and buy a condo and rennovate the condo and lose some weight and get a divorce.

I had to blink for a second on that last one. It's not a really private blog, but there it was, bam.

That's when I felt guilty about reading this guy's blog. I'm just skimming through his life, looking for something interesting or useful, and I learn about his pets and then I get too much information. Does anyone else ever feel like that?

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Where is your purse?

At the same hanging-out I referenced last time, there was this crazy friendly guy who made some comment that no purses were on the floor. Two of us pointed to our purses in a pile by our shoes. His reply? "Oh, it's cuz you're not Mexican." He turned to the third girl, who is Mexican. "Yours isn't though, right?" "Nope," she responded.

Mystery! What does it all mean?

I googled, and found out the floor represents hell, "the ultimate bad luck" and that "Women should never set their purses on the floor if they want their money to last." (link, scroll down to the bottom) I learned something new and cultural at home! How exciting!

Currently I'm googling for tips on moving North, and I'm encountering a lot of documentation about the "[City] Chill." Dammit. I wonder if (the collective we) hate transplants that much? I despise the houses that were built on the ranch on the opposite hill from us, but I haven't met the people yet. I wonder.

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Oh no the internets!

At least I can still count on the BBC. Something something crappy internet privacy software!


I like to imagine an actual company hunched around a computer like that. And some expert with a clipboard claiming "the application is not doing what it says it does." And then the poor worried guy starts to cry. dum Dum DUMMMMM. Thanks BBC, we needed that stock photo for added drama.

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