Kale

Wasn't I going to use this space to, like, write mind-blowing stories and discuss brainy matters and junk?  Hm...pfft.

So...dude.  I think I am starting to seriously O.D. on kale.  It was a wonder veggie for a couple of years there, for sure.  It had all the heartiness (read: fiber), vitamins, flavor, feel-healthy appeal.  For real! It still sort of does.  But I think I am getting to the breaking point with it (I mean, also, it helps that it's super cheap at the store and farmer's market).

But now, every time I think about it, I feel either total disdain or even a slight nausea.  We have kale for greens, make kale chips (I have totally O.D.'ed on those!), blend it into sauces, soups...We braise it, bake it, steam it.  Really, it's been our go-to veggie and now I think I am done.

I'm trying to think of when something like this has happened before and it might be the curry stew phase I went through a few years ago.

I made curry stew out of everything.  EVERYTHING! "What's left over in the fridge?  Oh? Some KFC, sweet potatoes, and Brussels sprouts from last week? Sounds great!" Then I fry up some onions and garlic, toss in the curry spice mixture (turmeric, cumin, ginger, curry, cinnamon powders), stir stir stir, add longest cooking (potatoes) and then the rest and let sit simmering for about an hour.  I usually added water too, so things wouldn't stick. 

When I say, "everything," I mean, everything.  "What's on sale at the store? Oh? blueberries, chicken breast and canned okra? Sounds like a curry stew night!" That one was my curry stew low point, admittedly.  Fortunately, my wifey wasn't at home for that and I only had to face my coworkers with my savory-scented blue glop the next day at lunch.  They actually scooted away from me at the lunch table...even when I tried to reassure them that it was curry! Really, just curry! "Curry and WHAT? Why's it blue?"  Sigh.  "That's cause of the blueberries skins, duh." Concerned looks.

Right, so, since then, I have sort of burned out on curry stew and I have repelled others with my creative ingredient choices for said stew.

I suppose that's where we are now with the kale.  Ew. Even thinking about it makes me feel bleh.

Of course, currently I am sort of getting obsessed again with sweet potatoes.  So hurray for sweet potatoes! They are great! Full of vitamins, roughage, minerals and flavor.  Yum!

(Maybe I can work them into some sort of curry....)

tharts

I just finished watching all the seasons (minus the TV movie) of Farscape television series.  Though some of the characters really, truly got on my nerves (to the point that I would fast forward their monologues) and some of the plot got sticky and stupid, I got that feeling I get when watching a series 2 or 3 episodes a day in a row...I missed them like buddies when the show ended and find myself wondering how they are doing.

I think the show got too mired down in being dark and broody, especially in the 4th season.  They also sort of took away the main female's strength and made her an emotional wreck that was not capable of living her life without the main guy in it...which is sad to see.

There was also a lot of physical violence against so called friends and allies that I don't really understand why it had to be a part of the show.  Like, why, to make a point, do you have to hit people in the head so much to knock them unconscious? Or, why, to get your ideas through to someone, do you have to grab them and drag them here and there or push them or kick them?  It seemed all rather barbaric, especially since the main character is supposed to be a rocket scientist, not an abusive meat head.

But all that aside, it was a rich tv show and had a lot of depth of emotion and character development and how people deal with constant stress and the need for community.

Right...so, to give some methadone to my Farscape addiction, once it ended, I jumped immediately on the next scifi series I had lined up in the queue...Lexx.  Yo...Lexx made me appreciate Farscape even more! I gave Lexx it's first season and half of the second, but it was so hollow and just obsessed with being demented that I decided it wasn't worth the time to watch it.  The plot lines were sketchy, the acting was pretty sad and the writing was uninspiring. 

I can understand what they were trying to go for there (especially in the first season) with future dystopia and playing off of 1950's/60's scifi literature and pulp.  I could even smell a bit of Buck Rogers, Farscape, and Blade Runner in there.

Unfortunately, it didn't hold my attention long enough with it's psycho sex obsession or gross out factors. 

So now I am hunting for a new Farscape.  I think I will soon start the Walking Dead, since everyone seems to say how awesome it is, and it's now on Netflix.

From spaceships to zombies.

Good times!

Regeneration

okay okay...it's been more than a month since my last post.  Boo! sloppy!  self-shaming complete and moving on..

So, I was thinking about regeneration the other day in that half-sleep thing in the early morning.  I was thinking about regeneration...not half-sleep or early mornings...er...anyway.

So! Regeneration.  It was, like, brilliant what I came up with while half-asleep.  The ideas and the arguments and the tangents and everything.  What I have salvaged from that brain storm are these thoughts:

1). Since they can now grow ears on mice, why can't they grow ears on people?  Like, ears on people missing ears?  Really. It hardly makes sense to grow the ear somewhere else and then attach it to the person.  Why not just get that thing started up and growing on the person in the first place?  I am no whatever-term-ologist that deals with growing replacement body parts on rodents and stitching them to live person-flesh; but I feel like there has to be an easier way than that. 

Is this like that whole pig valves and baboon hearts thing of the 80's and 90's?  Remember when that was a thing people talked about and did?  Putting pig heart valves into faulty rich white guy hearts?  I am pretty sure that was a thing, anyway.  I was a bit younger and more susceptible to mixing up movies and other fictional media with real news stories.  But I am pretty sure about the pig valve thing.  The baboon heart may just have been a Christian Slater movie, but I can't be sure.  Anyway!

The biggest issue I would have with this growing a body part on an animal or using a pre-existing animal body part for people is that I had no idea that animal and people blood types were compatible.  Do you have to find an A+ pig if you want to use the valves?  Or is it flesh-typing?  Can you get the right flesh-type for baboon hearts?  I can see that maybe...but the ear on the mouse thing, I totally don't see that happening.  Mouse blood types and people blood types can't be near the same, can they?

Grow a new ear! Grow a new nose! But maybe grow them yourself, however it is they grow them on rats in labs.

2). Now that there are 3-D printers, people are muttering about the possibilities for the future with printing body parts for transplant or creating food from dyes and such.  I have seen some of these print outs of 3-D things, but they use some sort of plastic to make the prints.  How would you print out a heart, anyway?  Wouldn't you need the right combo of proteins or something?  I mean, a viable heart.  Because I think printing out a perfectly shaped heart wouldn't be that hard to do.  You could program the machine with your protein glop and set it to print out your new heart and have it done in a couple of hours.  But I don't know if that would just be some sort of nasty gallery art piece, or an actual working heart.  What sad person would have to try that thing out as the first recipient of the printed out heart? 

3). If you could combine the mouse-ear thing and the print out thing, maybe you could actually regenerate something, like an ear or kidney.  Maybe you could grow your own tissue in the mouse (why is it always a rodent?  Wouldn't you get more pay-out off of a larger animal, able to produce more ears per square inch?) for the ear then take it to be finished off in the printer with the perfect little curls and whorls you need for your ear?

4). I feel like, at some point, people will unlock the gene buried deep down in our ancient DNA that regulates regeneration....like tadpoles! Or worms or something.  Maybe those salamanders that drop their tails and grow them back.  Anyway, at some point scientists are going to unlock that gene and then find a way to jump-start your body into regenerating that pinky you lost in wood shop.  Or the skin you lost on your calf from that nasty biking accident.  Or the kidney that failed you on your way to diabetes...and so on.

It would be cool to grow out your arm again, after losing it to the lawn mower.  I wonder how long it would take?  Would it take as long to grow an adult arm as it took to grow it in the first place?  I bet it would hurt like crazy with the growth spurts and the nerves and stretching and all.  Accelerated growth would probably hurt even more...But still, it would be pretty cool to see the transformation of the tiny finger nubs to a working hand and elbow and muscles.

At the very least, it would be a great conversation piece!  Much unlike animatedly discussing growing ears on mice and printing out human hearts from a protein slurry.  That...that doesn't seem to win anyone over in the conversation department.

Also, maybe a magical 'Arry Potta spell for regenerating! Crescere Aurem! Whoosh! Tah dah! Watch me wiggle this!

Happy Cat Day!

What?! You didn't know?  It's Happy Cat Day! Every December 27th, is the day to celebrate happy cats.

Today is that wonderfully ancient holiday of Happy Cat Day. Originating in pagan customs of cat worship and discount shopping, Happy Cat Day has become a time for family of all species to come together to eat, drink, shop, purr, and be merry.

Legend holds that 8,000 years ago, Bast, the cat god of the Egyptians, looked upon the people of the world and found them lacking according to kitty standards (but I'm sure cats do the same even today). Bast set a task upon humanity then, to create a religion that would spur the greatest excess of commercialism the world had ever seen. Xmas! With this awe-inspiring shopping holiday, the Western world spends 1/4 of the entire year cruising the malls, clicking on amazon and regifting dusty things from closets. Finally, Bast's vision has been fulfilled! And on this day, December 27th, tradition holds that we must honor Bast the cat god for this economic boon.

Go buy presents for your kitties and other loved ones at severely discounted prices! Eat candy that costs 1/10 of what it did two days ago! Make food (tuna?, salmon?, cheezburgers?), drink wine (tequila, cream?), visit friends (mew?) and shop shop shop (sleep sleep sleep?)!

Bast is purring and cleaning her whiskers for next year.

HAPPY CAT DAY!*

D'oh!

I was trying to make sure I had a post here at least once a month and here, by 7 minutes, I have let that goal slip.  Wherpsidoos.

I suppose I have had quite a bit to post about in my life, but nothing I actually want to put down in writing; if that makes sense.

I have seen funny movies and shows and crappy movies and shows.  My cats have done funny things and gross things and cute things.  My family has been alternately nutso (in a funny quirky way) and sweet and thoughtful. My travels have been exciting and complicated and eye opening...lots to write about, no desire to write about it.

Instead, I have been, for some reason, waiting for the "perfect" idea or story to come along for me to riff about.  Every so often, I will mark down physically or mentally a particularly intriguing thought or commentary I want to do, and then on further reflection, decide it's actually just sort of lame to write about something like that.

Like, my stories.  My stories always sound great in my head or while I am first writing them...but then I think on them weeks or months or years later and I see them as these weirdo little page-long blasts out of nowhere.  Like....no context, poor writing skills, not enough detail, not enough understanding of character or scenary.  I feel like they are just these clumsy attempts to capture a single mote and blow it out to a full-length description or, conversely; a grand idea that I try to concentrate in a tiny, flimsy story line....neither of these leaves me satisfied.  Perhaps if I blew out the mote to a book length thing filled with all that detail and observation.  Or, perhaps if I filled in all those empty shelves of a plotted story, plumping it up and giving it heft. hm.  But I seem only able to do one or the other.  Oh, and taken out of context because at the time I write them down, my mind is filled with those stories or vignettes for days or weeks before I put them down for real in writing (or did as with past journal entries). 

Yo.  I haven't much changed though.  I think in every diary or blog or journal or what-have-you I have ever had, I have this same complaint about myself.  It's not all that deep to rehash the same issue over and over in different venues.

bleh, enough of this soul-searching!

It still smells like turkey in our house, and for that, I am thankful.  Kitties are sleeping and it looks to be a funnish weekend. up and up.

I want some cookies (thank god I have pie).

self-defeatist dreams

I have had two dreams in two nights in a row that seemed rather like I have some sort of inferiority complex.

1). Dream one was the other night and I was in a Top Chef competition.  At first, I was proud of myself for having made it to compete with all these other talented chefs.  I was slicing and dicing and showing off my skill and sweating over saute pans and such.  I was talking s**t with the other chefs and stressing over menus and flavor profiles and so on.  At some point, I felt myself slipping back and falling into the weeds...getting behind and finding it tough to make up the difference.  Sweat was dripping off my nose and I was feeling the stress get to me with shaky hands and weird decision-making.  But I kept up, even if barely.

Then came the "talent round."  I was sitting there, planning out another dish and menu when I realized the talent round meant we actually had to show off our talent at something and do it as a group.  I think we divided ourselves up into the performers and the planners.  I got myself put on the planning side of things, as I know my own strengths and they certainly don't lie in public performance.  I had only a marginal part in this planning thing, like, writing out a couple words or something and not really part of putting together the big picture.  I wasn't even really sure what they would do.

The curtain rolled back on a stage and I was in the back of this gymnasium like auditorium somewhere (we'd been having our cook-offs there as well).  This totally involved musical play thing started up with intricate dancing and singing and acrobatics and artistically intriguing set design and costumes.  I was totally blown away and it was then that the horror of my situation set in.  I totally knew I was out of my depth.  I knew, absolutely, that I did not belong there with all these amazingly talented, creative, outgoing people.  I saw them doing this elaborate play/mime/interpretive dance and knew I could never have come up with anything that creative and I had no idea how it had been done.

As I stood there sort of inwardly crying for myself, the other shoe dropped and I was shocked to remember or realize that this was just the regionals for the show.  This wasn't even the actual Top Chef show!  This was just for the East Bay or something.  Even if I made it through this round, I would have to go up against more and more talented people from all over the country and the world.  I was terrified at the very magnitude of the situation and how insignificant and crappy my own skills were.  I had no idea, then, how I had even gotten in to this first group and that my skills and intellect were totally dwarfed by what I was witnessing.  It was pretty devastating and I woke up wondering really what my place in life was worth.

In thinking hard on this dream, I had the odd reflection that even though I felt completely overwhelmed by the creativity and talent of others...my brain had actually come up with the whole concept of this super awesome dance, play, musical, art thing...and...like, that kind of goes against the logic of me not having enough creativity to match these people...self-defeatist.  weirdo.

2). The second one was jumbled, but what I remember is that there was a summer camp (most of my dreams seem to occur in some sort of institution or group setting) with cabins.  I was pretty happy-go-lucky here, showing my camp-mates how to do little things (I guess they were new, and I had pretty much done this before) like start fires or make their beds.  Then I decided to show off my personal skill...that of flying.

I tend to fly a lot in dreams.  I love it.  Whenever I get the chance, I fly.  For some reason, it takes a lot of muscle control to fly in my dreams.  Like, I have to tense up every muscle in a certain way to lift off ground and to maneuver.  Most of the time, when I fly, it is at low altitudes and to get around whatever Victorian manor/girls academy or school or prisoners' work camp or what-have-you faster than others and to show off my skill.

This time flying, I was trying to show them what I could do and teach them how to do it too.  We went outside to a low hill between two of the cabins and I instructed them that they might want to get a running start to build up momentum and then fly off the hill, like a para glider, perhaps (though this hill was only, probably a couple of feet tall).  I went to show them, confident of my ability and ran off the hill, tensing my muscles and...Blam! I landed in a belly flop with my arms at my sides in the dust at the bottom of the hill.  I heard calls from the top of the hill as to whether or not I was ok and also some laughter.

Now, if this had been in the previous dream, I would have fallen to bits and told myself I was not good enough and gotten depressed and angry at myself for showing off or thinking I could do such an awesome thing.  I kind of knew that the hill-rise was too low to have given me enough lift really and instead, this time, I sort of started laughing to myself and built up enough energy to raise my body a couple inches off the ground and skim it as I continued flexing to build more momentum to get more altitude.  I thought it was hilarious that I was only flying a couple inches off the ground and must look so bizarre, face down, arms at my sides as I sped off over the field.  I woke up amused at the situation and my reaction to it.

Two self-defeatist dreams, two different reactions.  I am glad I was more comfortable with my own limitations and could see the humor in them by the second one...makes for a happier day awake, for sure.

adventures at the coffeeshop

Dude!

People watching at the coffee shop is awesome....well, more like listening in to other people's conversations is awesome.  I LOVE it.  While I am trying to a). not look homicidal b). look thinky c). do puzzles d). write more of our trip to London in '10; I have one ear out for any interesting chatter that might float my way.  Usually it is only interesting to me and...but, like, why do coffee shop people talk so loud anyway?

This deserves a new paragraph.  Anyway, why do they talk so loud?  The music that plays at these places is generally a bare decibel over being able to make out the song itself on the piped radio or Pandora station or whatever.  The rest of the place is pretty quiet except for the tippy tapping of keyboards and the nervous knee jiggling of the over-caffeinated.  The only real noise comes from whoever that a-hole is that just ordered ANOTHER cappuccino and that screeching milk steaming thing blows like a train whistle through my skull.  Actually, you should see my little London Trip journal.  You can totally see where someone got another cappuccino where my pen slips now and then...crack!  Anyway, people be talking loud and that is fine with me.  Even the pretentious people, who, in any other setting would set my nerves on end going on about themselves and their super important whatever b.s. they feel the need to shout about in public to someone who usually is some sort of devoted follower or just maybe not as douchey and generally more polite enough to let someone who thinks highly of themselves ramble on (like just now).

People at the coffee shop/(un)interesting conversations had:

1). Middle-aged lady sitting across from me with devoted follower or colleague ready to lick her boots.  She looks artsy and upper-middle class whitey.  I would suppose she has something to do with the university.  She gives this other mousier woman a lecture about writing class and drops a lot of hints about "my novel, you know?" and throws out some pretty funny buzzwords for writing class people 'in the know' (you know?).  Blocking; Arc-strength; Dead-ends; Pruning and then gives some examples of others in the class and the problems they are encountering and how the teacher was like Moses and leading them through the troubled waters of book-writing and the inferno-like hell of the plot-dragging desert.  Cute!  Other lady is taking some notes and nodding and looking all starry-eyed.  Makes me wonder if maybe artsy lady might actually be some writer or professor I should know...which is probably exactly why she is speaking so loudly about her novel, "you know?"

2). Laid-back couple sitting one table up from them.  Woman wearing basically yoga clothes and looking about 6-7 months pregnant.  Man is either with her or wants to be, the way he smiles at her and stares at her mouth when she is talking.  Awwww.  He has nice eyes, crinkles on the side when they say something together that gets both of them laughing and rocking in opposite directions away from the table and then swaying to meet each other's eyes in the middle again.  Pregnant lady is surrounded by plates of half-eaten food...how pregnant of her!  She looks like she is studying something complicated in paperback bound thick-ass booklets of spreadsheets marked through with red and yellow highlighter.  At some point, they both get up and leave all their stuff there; all the food, her sunglasses, booklets and so on.  My suspicions are that they either went to make-out somewhere, or that they went for more food, or a walk or all three.

3). Two people stand on the corner across the street (I was sitting against the window, how cool am I?), holding hands, both in collared shirts.  One (with short hair), wears a light-blue button-down, tucked in and dark pants.  The other is a woman with curly hair just below her ears.  They are both smiling.  Tuck-in turns three-quarters and I see she is a woman as well and seems very anxious to get as much hand-holding and kissy face time in with curly hair.  Curly wears a slight smile, Tuck-in wears an expression hovering between smile and gritting of teeth.  They walk at the light and here, it looks like, Curly must take her leave as she plans to enter the coffee shop.  Tuck-in manages to get a few good kisses and other PDA deals in on the street corner under the awning, and even lamely lets Curly drag her into the shop, through the door.  Tuck-in gets a couple more almost desperate kisses, and hugs in before leaving her lovely lady, Curly, and heading out the door and at a brisk pace striding down the sidewalk and away.  Her look is refocused, as she faces away from her woman, or maybe just not so needy and more strong but happy.  Curly goes to pick out a treat and order her coffee.



5). I got an amazing chocolate chunk sea salt cookie to go with my Earl Grey tea.  If someone else was taking surreptitious notes about the people and conversations at the coffee shop, I feel they may have noted in aside about this weird neurotic girl sitting in the corner writing on napkins, tapping her crocs together (to pop my knee back in...I don't know why, it just works), feverishly working (and cheating) on a book of NYTimes crossword puzzles and then exclaiming audibly about how "effing good this cookie is" and smiling that "spa" smile and sipping at her tea while pretending to look uninterested in everyone else's business.

also, I don't think I brushed my hair that day...I probably looked the nuttiest of the bunch, but it's Berkeley, so I figure I can get away with it.

I needs that cookie again.  It is my precious.