I am reading a cookie recipe that calls for a boiled egg yolk. I get all excited because if I were making those cookies right now, I'd get to eat the cooked egg white. Maybe I'm just craving eggs right now. Mmmm.
Read more...I will keep track of my Reubens here.
Current Favorite:
Three Girls Bakery - Pike Place Market
Giant sandwich, warm and consistent.
Great
Elysian Brewing Company - Tangletown
There's a caramelized sweetness that I couldn't identify after one bite. I need to try my own.
I have 3 and a half days to cook, eat, or freeze everything perishable in my fridge. Why? Yes, I'm leaving for 2 weeks, but it's also because I know no one will cook or eat leftovers while I'm gone. Depressing.
But on a better note: baking bacon, and then using the bacon grease to oil a roasted kabocha was the best idea EVER.
It's snowing! Not that exciting, but I don't remember it snowing this hard last year, ever. So, I'm excited. Here's your creepy night shot photo:
I can't wait for tomorrow!
I eat slowly, I cook slowly. Latest example: Lasagna.
3:45pm, start making sauce.
6:22pm, into the oven.
It's worth it because I know I'm not doing anything else tonight, and I don't like being rushed, but still. I need to speed things up a little.
He's stumbling through "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on his piano. It's 11:45pm. I wonder if he needs to learn it by tomorrow? I don't really mind, because I like listening, and his mistakes aren't that bad. (He also plays the violin.)
Read more...A few days ago, I was informed that for an upcoming get together, I was to provide 4-8 dozen cookies and a side dish. It's now been bumped up to 5-10 dozen cookies. (We're doing a cookie exchange, and 2 more people got invited.) At first I panicked, but then I realized that I had a quick broccoli dish I could make, and there are two cookie recipes I've been meaning to try. It's so nice having a (small) trusted recipe collection for situations like this. The recipes are below, just in case you're curious.
Garlicky Sesame-Cured Broccoli Salad (New York Times)
Brown Butter Brown Sugar Shorties (Smitten Kitchen)
Caramelized Matzoh Crunch with Chocolate (David Lebovitz)
Also, I've decided to follow David Lebovitz's twitter. Why? Because it contains gems like these:
I just found the other half of the banana I started eating for breakfast. It's now 2:34pm.Read more...
Peanut buttter, photographed with a Canon 430EX Speedlight, looks remarkably like dog food.
some bird took the hugest dump on my window last night & I'm procrastinating cleaning it up. can you blame me?
LOOK AT THIS AWESOME MEAT:
So. Awesome!
This is probably a little bit less than half. Straight from the pot, it was fantastic.
See, this is why I didn't originally include pictures. Gross.
You really can't tell with the steam and the terrible flash, but there was easily a 1/2 inch of oil and liquid fat kicking it on top. Wow.Track 10. You can here it at ruembarrassed.com if you hurry.
Now I just need to learn to play the trumpet.
I dreamed I was a shape-shifting Neil Patrick Harris, with an eye patch and big beefy arms. I robbed an ATM. I woke up in the dream, and I still had a paper bag of crisp $100 bills. (What ATM gives out $100 bills?) I spent the rest of the dream worrying about getting rid of the money and wondering if I could somehow launder it without being caught.
Practical dreams are so lame.
List of awesome things that happened today, with links!
John Roderick, Sean Nelson, and me!This is the first time I've changed my template in...two years! I'm not completely satisfied (it's quite...large and wide, I think I want to put the archive column on the right, but that means switching to the right-side template...), but it's progress. It's really easy to customize (lots of font colors you can define yourself, columns are pretty easy to add), and I recommend the site I got it from. The photo is a sunrise in my backyard from about 2 years ago, right after I got back from Japan and my sleep schedule was super messed up.
What do you think?
Holy crap, two posts in one day! I haven't done that in years. And the original goal was to blog once a week!
Anyway, back to the title--I can't drink Nestle's Hot Chocolate anymore. Well, it doesn't make me ill like some other foods, and I'd drink it if you served it to me, but I'll probably stop buying it. Lately I've been drinking hot cocoa using this "cocochino" mix from Market Spice, a bulk spice shop in the market (behind the fish throwers) and it's pretty awesome. I think it's a mix of cocoa powder, cinnamon, and almond powder, which might also contain sugar. I would sprinkle it on cereal, if I were into sweet breakfasts. It's that good.
Tonight I tried drinking hot cocoa using the Nestle's mix (must hoard last bits of cocochino), and it's really different. A little salty, and I can still feel the oil coating the insides of my mouth. I wasn't really surprised, considering the first ingredient is sugar, the second ingredient is corn syrup solids, and cocoa comes right before the "less than 2% of the following..." garbage. But it's still kind of a bummer. We always drank hot cocoa when we went camping, melting a giant handful of mini marshmallows was always thrilling, and my mother even packed me a small jar when I moved up here, just so I'd have something to put in my empty pantry. Yes I acknowledge it's silly to be attached to a processed drink mix that comes in 1.73 pound canisters, but it's still disappointing.
(Hey, can you tell I just finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma? It's funny, ever since I came back from Japan, I've kept an eye on the ingredients. Some foods just make me feel gross, almost ill, after not eating them for three years. But after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, not only do I feel ill after I eat severely processed foods, I feel guilty. Thanks Michael Pollan.)
And because I like lists, here are the things I can't eat anymore, but kind of miss in that foolish, nostalgic way:
Note to self: 3 cups of water is too much for 3/4c of steel cut oats when preparing it in a rice cooker. It turned out a little too creamy (goopy!), and it left a puddle of slime under the rice cooker that I didn't notice until much later. Like 12-14 hours later. Ew.
I give it a B, as it's still edible, and I'm very grateful nothing exploded or burned or gooped all over the carpeted kitchen floor.
So I went out for cupcakes and coffee with this girl from high school (and middle school and elementary school) who ended up in Seattle. It was nice chatting with someone new. We talked about food and shopping and her desire to visit a farm in Oregon run by dwarfs. Seriously.
Amusingly, her boyfriend is friends with the guy who got me my first temp job. This cracks me up. It would be hilarious if I got to meet him in real life.
I cannot look at photos of places I know in Japan for more than a few minutes. I think I've been like this since I got back. For awhile, I was homesick, sometimes jealous. Now, the memories are just too vivid, and I just miss things. I feel like I broke up with Japan, and that's kind of funny.
Read more...I just found out that the Disneyland monorail is longer than the Seattle monorail. That's just sad.
Read more...The other day we went to Costco, intending to pick up a four pack of toothpaste and a 4 pound bag of trail mix. We left with a cart full of stuff. I almost bought a six pack of SPAM, but G was disgusted, and I knew it would take a long time to make six cans worth of spam musubi, so with a sigh I put it back. Next time I guess.
Read more...I feel like Seattle people* take pride in their ability to ignore the rain. But somewhere after sporadic, moderate drizzle, the weather becomes terrible, and people start to comment on it.
Choice quote: "The current weather condition in the Pacific Northwest is unspeakable."
"Unspeakable" translates to a fairly heavy rain with a decent wind. Kind of like the foreboding rain right before the oh-shit-I-can't-bike-straight typhoon weather really kicks in. And while I stayed inside just like everyone else, I thought it was funny that some people have a breaking point when it comes to rain. Freaking out once it gets too cold, I understand. I guess it's supposed to be warmer and drier by now (It's June? Holy crap.), but I haven't gotten completely used to the weather up here, so I'm just grateful I can wear zori on most days again.
*And when I mean people, I mean bloggers, because things like this rarely come up in a normal conversations with the people I actually know.
For the first time in my 27 years on this planet, I forgot to add water to the rice before I cooked it. For shit's sake. G opens the rice cooker and dry rice spills over the side. (No clue why he tipped it in the first place.) Embarrassing. In defense of my error, I was finishing a roast chicken and cooking asparagus, and was waiting for the water to finish filtering. But still. I'm so glad I didn't do that around family. My sister would've blogged it.
Read more...After taking houseguest #4 to the airport today, I went to Ikea. I bought two drawer bottoms for 3 frickin' dollars each because mine warped during the winter and now one doesn't fit in the little grooves anymore. I know I could've gone to Home Depot and gotten something sturdier, but knowing me, it was worth ponying up the 6 bucks.
I also bought a plant stand, and sawed the legs off because it was too tall. (We have a saw! My dad bought it for me last year, and I thought it was funny. Now, I'm just grateful we had it.) Well, G did most of the sawing because...well, he had better control. This replaces the box I've been using for the past 11 months. (I'd been waiting to find something small enough!)
I also made a little desk shelf out of cabinet legs and a shelf piece from the As Is section. I didn't gain that much space, but now things are a little more spread out and less cluttered.
While we were gone, the landlady had a new toilet installed (smaller tank! shiny and new!) and re-caulked our sink.
I had a hot dog and some canned baked beans for dinner, because I was trying to avoid eating cheese for dinner and just ended up being hungry and cranky. Now I feel kinda weird. Similar to the feeling I get when I eat poptarts or triscuits. Mmmm processed foods.
Now I'm catching up on blogs, but I'm really not in the mood to focus.
And that was my awesome day.
Someday, I'd like to make a graph of how many posts and words I've posted over the years, and compare that to a graph of my level of happiness over the years. When things are super shitty, I write a lot, but when I'm just drifting like I am now, there is very little worth saying. I guess I also post less when I'm super busy, but I'm usually not that focused on my happiness when I'm surging towards a deadline.
Read more...It's 4am, and there's a robin somewhere outside, very happy to be alive. I guess it's better than a mockingbird or a blue jay (I really don't see either one up here). And no I did not get up to tell you this, but I was thinking about going to bed...
Read more...Great tits cope well with warming
Not worth clicking the link unless y'know, you like great tits.
Today I bought The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Again. As I still do not have a job (some may say I am actively avoiding the search), this was an indulgence. Err, so was going out for Thai food and watching The Flight of the Red Balloon in an actual movie theater, but I've justified most of that already.
In January or February, I read a borrowed copy, and loved it. A few weeks ago, I actually went to a couple used book stores and bought a paperback version for myself.
Today I found the first edition second printing of the hardback sitting in the used section of the university book store, and decided that was much cooler than the paperback. (Okay fine, a second printing isn't nearly as cool, but having it in hardback is still kinda neat.) So now I have an extra copy. I'd offer to send it to you, but I'm really bad about going to the post office. Yep.
I like to think that I have no problem killing fish. But I've never snapped the head off of a live fish. Or clubbed one. Hmm. What's the best way to kill a live fish? When we'd go fishing, we'd let them suffocate, sitting in a bucket while we caught our quota. After a few hours of fishing and a few hours driving from Monterey to San Jose, everything was usually dead. Passive killing. The gutting was no problem.
I'm not so sure about killing something bigger and furrier, like a cow or a pig, but I think the gutting part would be okay if I had someone to walk me through it. I'd probably have issues raising a cute baby something and then slaughtering it myself, but I doubt that'll be an issue, unless I go farm-hippie, or the world goes to crap or something like that.
I tell you all this because contradictorily, the thought of steaming lobsters or clams alive weirds me out. I was reading an article about how to debeard a mussel (you pull on the beard and the mussel pulls back?), and that's creepy. Like hacking off an octopus leg. And I know, bivalves don't have brains, or if they do, they have wee tiny brains that would never be able to express pain like a delicious, gasping fishy; I just don't like the idea of interactive gutting.
In other news, the rest of the world is all about Twitter and twittering (140 character blogging), and while I kind of want to try the hep new thing (well, it's not that new), I rarely post as it is. But you might see a twitter mini-blog some day, because I often think of you guys--I just don't want to hammer out a good entry all the time. We'll see. What do you think? Will a steady stream of short blurbs replace the occasional long entry? Or will the twitters supplement the longer posts? Would you want to see some short thoughts? Do any of you twitter? Also, do any of you use RSS?
It's getting to the point now where I am bored of the internet and want to do Things That Cost Money. It used to be easier to ignore those urges, like the first time I looked at my bank account and realized I didn't have enough money for rent. (Damn that was scary.) But now I've got a fat tax rebate, some yen exchanged (the bank clerk asked if we had just come back from a trip. Har har.), and a few other checks deposited, and it's becoming more difficult. Technically, all that money should go into a savings account, maybe my retirement fund (I am very proud that I took the steps to do that), and I still haven't fixed my camera, but I just stare at my account balance and think about concerts and movies.
The weather's also getting nicer, which means I'm starting to feel guilty about sitting at home all day. At least I have my windows open.
Last night I dreamed I was sitting in a brightly lit bar (what a coincidence) and Tony Danza, drunk as anything, is lying on the bench beside me. Apparently this is a common occurrence because I said hello, patted him on the head and went back to my conversation. A few tables over is Judith Light (Angela from Who's the Boss/Claire Meade from Ugly Betty), who is unaware that her former cast mate is wasted a few feet away.
Tony Danza gets up and has a microphone. Some blurry, hazy dream minutes later, Judith Light storms out, offended, with the bar owner following her with apologies.
A few minutes later, my high school choir choreographer pops in, reaches between the seat cushions and pulls out two jars of pickles. Apparently the bar used to be her home and she came back for her pickles. Because, of course the bar owner didn't replace any of the furniture.
----
In real life news, last night I went to dinner with G, his mom, and some of their fencing friends. They're planning a trip to Vancouver. (We also went last year.) Following dinner, we went to a pottery workshop, where G's dad was playing the drums with his band at a memorial/party. There were dogs wandering around.
After that, we went to a low-key neighborhood bar, where we talked about strange food, listened to "Don't Stop Believing" (Journey) and "Let's Stay Together" (Al Green) three or four times because those were the jukebox autoplay songs, and discussed the pope's new deadly sins. I had an Irish Coffee that was mostly whiskey, topped with whipped cream, green creme de menthe, and a cherry. (Ew.) Then I asked for an amaretto sour, but the bartender had never heard of it. Neither had a few people at the table. (What?)
All in all, I can decide which was more surreal, my dream, or last night's happenings.
Right now, I'm boiling pinto beans, because they were in the pantry. I have no idea what I'm going to do with one pound of pinto beans besides make refried beans, but it sure beats tossing a 70-cent bag of beans, right?
I need to get a job.
I'm baking a chicken, whee. Nothing special this time, although I don't think I rubbed enough butter on it, so it won't turn that pretty brown color.
It seems like every time I bake a chicken, I have to check the internet for liver recipes. I toss the neck into the freezer for that special day I finally make stock (I swear I'll do it eventually), but I'm always left with the liver (and sometimes the heart), puzzled. Sometimes I flour and fry it, sometimes I half-assedly saute it. But I always check the internet first, because maybe I'll find something clever I can try that won't take too much effort. Meh. I sautéed this time. I think I also sauteed a gizzard, which turned out unnaturally crunchy. I couldn't eat it, even though I kept trying to convince myself that it was just like nankotsu karaage (fried crunchy chicken cartilage! I miss you.), but it was just too stringy looking. Any tips on what to do next time?
Also, in my internet search, I came across this lovely description of gutting chickens, written by a woman who can't stand raw meat. Fascinating.
http://ephelba.blogspot.com/2007/07/chicken-guts.html
Hope you're doing well. Cl's staying with her family while they're in town, so it's just me and G in this unnaturally clean apartment for a few days. Keep an eye out for rogue facebook tagging.
PS: G just cut himself. Opening the pepper mill. With a fork. (Fine, fine, it has a lid that's difficult to take off. But still! Stabbed with a fork!)
But on the street corner, there is a cheap-looking tall, black woman's boot with a broken heel lying in a pile of leaves. Someone either lost it on a drunken walk home, or chucked it out the window of their car. I like to pretend there wasn't a scuffle, because the heel's broken. And it doesn't look like it'd easily slip off.
I'll chuck it tomorrow, but I might take a picture and post it first. Gross.
Cl is in town! It's nice mixing things up. It's Day 3, and things will probably be pretty smooth. She's the only one that has to get up for work (G is taking his last final of the quarter, old J-literature, as I type), so there's no bathroom jam.
Last night I decided to make buttermilk biscuits because there's a quart of buttermilk in the fridge. (Ahem, purchased with the intent to make biscuits.) Mmmm. They're always a crowd pleaser. We each ate two, and that was after dinner, and after ice cream. Haha.
And have you heard? This is mostly directed at L, but the March issue of Saveur is all about butter:
Isn't that an awesome picture? I wish they had actually put butter on the cover, but I guess caramel sauce is more photogenic.
The well-lit, enticing magazine photo. Yep, they want you to do it by hand.
Smells like hotel potpourri (fake vanilla), all I can taste is 2% milk and sugar. Halfway through the cup, I can't smell the potpourri anymore, and there's this vague sensation of spiciness. And it's better that way. At the last job, they had tazo organic chai, which was vastly superior. Even if I put too much milk or sugar in, there was plenty of spice fighting its way through.
I know I should've seen this coming--it was a bonus addition to the earl grey I bought. (No objection to the earl grey.)
The show was funny. It opened with this NotFunny guy who was part comedian, part singer. He changed costumes a lot and had some cardboard props. His last sketch/song was about spicy noodle soup. His name is not worth mentioning.
Then there was this electronica band called the United States of Electronica. Happy electronic music. I couldn't see much, but one woman was in sequins, and the other seemed to be wearing a corset made of metal. The only guy I had a clear view of was wearing a rainbow-striped suit and primarily sang using a vocoder (you know, the robot voice!). He was spazztastic and fun.
As for the Presidents of the United States of America, or PUSA as they seem to be shortening it these days, it was nice seeing a band that I was familiar with. They played most of the songs I knew, and they even played Video Killed the Radio Star (their famous cover). There was confetti and balloons, and the guitarist's little son came out and played a little. It was adorable and not pretentious at all, although at that point, I couldn't see crap.
Unfortunately I'm old and cantankerous, and was at first annoyed by the cloying smell of lipsmackers and pushy moms pushing their insecure sons closer to the stage. Then the show started and there was some half-hearted moshing (shoving). And then there were these slutty caricatures of groupies that smelled like department store perfume. And then there were these two women who tried to barge up front, failed, and then had a little dance party where they were stopped, crushing the poor high school girls that just wanted to have a good time.
Probably the most interesting part of the show was watching security. At first I thought they were just being cautious--they were scanning the crowd like they were waiting for a fight to break out. And then they start pointing. A few seconds later, some sweaty bro is flashing the horns and shoving to get back into the crowd. Turns out security was managing the crowdsurfing. It was fascinating. Guy (or occasionally girl) goes up, security points him out, two more gloved security guys pull him over the rail once he gets to the front of the stage, and point him to the side of the stage. Where I was standing. At first it was annoying, having the potbellied security guy pointing his meaty finger in my face to guide the surfer back into the crowd. And then it was just funny. Some rubbed his belly, one guy started dancing with me. I wish I could've taken a picture of each one that shoved by.
So yeah, there's my show review. Glad I went, glad it was free.
I think I just won a pair of tickets to a Presidents of the United States of America concert. (Please see my reaction above.) Live music is cool, I like the Paramount Theater, but uhm, whoops. I only signed up because, hey, free is cool. Guess I'll go then. Haha.
Read more...The pot roast went well. It fell apart and I'm all meat-and-potatoed out. Awesome. No pictures because I tore into that thing. Totally worth the 6 hours (including prep). Example: when I carefully peeled the butcher's twine off, flakes (flakes!) of meat came off with it.
Only slightly related: a few days ago, when I asked the woman at the grocery store meat counter if they had butcher's twine, I had hoped she would point me to the correct aisle. Instead, she reached under the counter and rhythmically looped a few yards, cut it, folded it into fourths, and deftly twisted it into a piece of saran wrap. That's the closest I've felt to being in Japan in a very long time.
My dad is coming on a business trip this Thursday and Friday, maybe staying until Sunday to hang out.
On Monday, Cl (the one that's dating Mr. 'Cock) is coming to town for two weeks to work with the traveling production of Cabaret. Exciting! She'll be here for two weeks.
Three days later, R and N, the infamous Shodoshima duo, will be here for about five days for a teachers' job fair and to explore the PNW. Hmm, come to think of it, I think they're flying in on the day I need to go to SJ for my grandfather's 90th birthday party. Sheesh.
Anyway, the point is, holy shit, do I need to start cleaning.
In food news, bread loaf #2 came out underdone--gummy and denser than the first. I used a different pot and took it out too early. Sad. I'll try again later, but the damn thing takes about 20 hours to rise! Maybe I should try making real bread. More effort, a quarter (half?) of the time. Or maybe I'll try that other no-knead recipe that only takes 5 hours to rise. Hmm.
Also, G made a double batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies last night. A DOUBLE batch. I hope he intends to share some with people outside of this apartment.
We've also been on a massive carrot binge after I bought a five pound bag. Y'know, carrots taste really good. G thinks it's because we haven't had them in such a long time. Har har. So, lots of carrot sticks, and last night I made a carrot salad with my Japanese mandoline. You know what? It sucks. SO does G's. The little holder thing seems to be made for daikon, not small root vegetables that fall off after every slice. Grr. But the salad's good, so yay. And yay for eating more vegetables. (I also just found out that baby carrots are just ugly carrots pared down to pretty, uniform two inch segments. I don't know why this never occurred to me before.)
Tonight for dinner: pot roast. I need to start it right now (1:34pm), so it'll be done somewhat close to dinner time. Wish me luck!
Crazy dreams ensued. I remember snapping a claw off of a large crawdad that was somehow still alive after living in the freezer. I cracked it open and ate the meat. (Can you eat crawdads raw? Ew?) Then I realized that the poor critter was still alive and I felt horrible. I still had to shell the rest of it, so I smashed its head with a jar because I couldn't handle its weak attempts to get away. After I had cleaned it all, there was a long tentacle stuck in the drain. I felt like I was going to be sick.
Oh, and I think I did all this while sitting in a bathtub.
Blech.
About 24 hours after I baked it, it's almost gone. Tastes fantastic, has a pretty crust, and the insides are full of bready holes. If I were on any sort of diet, I'd be appalled at what I ate today:
Breakfast: bread and butter
Lunch: cereal bar, banana, bread and butter
Dinner: Greek chicken lemon rice soup, bread and butter, apple and cheese
Loaf #2 using the standard recipe with bread flour is sitting in the warm oven right now. I'll give it the full 18-hour rest, and make it tomorrow night. Mmmm bread. I've found myself a new recipe to obsess over.
From their health blog, called Well:
A One-Eyed Invader in the Bedroom
Hmm. They're actually talking about kids having TVs in their bedrooms. But still.
(PS: I'm currently trying to make a faster variation of the famous No-Knead Bread. Wish me luck.)
Today was my last day of work. I didn't completely lose my shit like I did last time. (Although I will admit that I did completely lose my shit when I first found out.) Maybe it's because I didn't go out for long lunches with this team like I did the last, maybe it's because I didn't tell anyone I was leaving. (I think they all knew, but were told by the manager not to acknowledge it, like I requested.)
I'm super bummed, because if I had been hired full time at this place, the benefits would've rocked my world, and I would've learned tons of awesome stuff. (Annnd I would've been safely employed for a good long while.) But at the same time, I feel this guilty freedom, like sleeping through church on Sunday, y'know back when things like that mattered. I guess deep down I'm relieved I'm done. I know that my reading and writing skills went to utter crap because of the work I did. Every sentence I write now feels clunky and overcalculated.
I made my super awesome molasses cookies as a farewell. The woman who waters our plants once a week came back for another one and claimed that they were the best she'd ever had, and she's 60 years old! (She actually said this.) Some guy I barely knew but often forwarded mail to came back for thirds. I allowed myself to enjoy one, even though I'm usually sick of the smell after baking them. They came out perfectly. Soft with a well-defined chewiness, with a sneaky, spicy glow from the pepper and the fresh ginger. I analyzed the flavor the way some people concentrate on wine, and was completely satisfied with it.
Now that I'm not writing all the time for work, hopefully I can craft you guys some quality posts before I descend into the job search (again).
I'm not usually a link blogger, but there's something good in here. I can't tell you specifically, as my brain has rotten from too much reading at work, but it's good. Good people anecdotes, good explanations of his process. Catch it before it disappears.
Read more...And I save all those Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons. They come in the mail, and they're hard to miss--giant 20% off written on blue. Because I'm crazy, I had about 20 of them, and finally went to BBB today with my old receipts to get some discounts. I used a coupon for everything I bought, even the 1.99 crap. Guess how much I got back?
$51.00. Hell yes. I'm never going to stop being a pack rat.
Man, two posts in a row about saving money. Sorry about that.
I know I know i know. But I'm not in the mood to blog. Work is good, soon I get to bug my manager about hiring me. He said I can start bugging him beginning in February. I don't hate work yet, either. I know I've worked myself a little too hard on some days, but I bounce back the next day, unlike in Japan where you just don't seem to recover until the weekend starts.
I broke my camera; I need to take it in somewhere to see if it's worth repairing. I broke it on December 31, when it slipped off a chair and bounced *just right* so it won't even turn on.
I've been obsessing over setting up a retirement fund (Roth IRA, for the record) and starting a high-interest savings account with Wamu. Wamu is being a little bitch and won't let me sign up, probably because my mailing address doesn't match my ID. Analyzing my budget is a lot more exciting now that I actually have money and can easily drop by the bank to figure out my options.
We've been cooking and hanging out at home. Drinking lots of tea. I'll send (any of) you some orange spice tea from the Pike Place Market if you're interested.
We had Italian food (Buca di Beppo, for the record) for dinner, because we received $10 gift cards in the mail--advertising--and no one else in the house claimed theirs. So we ordered separately, did a pick up, and got $20 off a $50 meal (we ordered the big portions...). We invited G's brother over, and made a night of it. We watched Paprika, which was a jolly little mind trip. Pretty, and probably my first anime movie that wasn't a Miyazaki film.
My door is molding from the inside out. I'm sure my landlady loves hearing from me.
It's cold, but it doesn't feel as cold as Japan. Neener Neener. Although it's going to hit -4C tomorrow. Laaaame.
I have Monday off! Hooray for Martin Luther King Jr.!
And that is all. I'm trying to spend less time on my computer, but it's not really working.
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