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Hey, it's 5 am!
• Saturday, July 30, 2005 • 6:41 AM
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It's 5 am and we're leaving for the bus stop! We're going on a bus trip to San Francisco with stops at some Dutch town (?), Yosemite, and Hearst Castle on the way. Yay! I really hope I don't get carsick. Hehe. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun carsick or not.
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The boyfriend was teasing me, it was really a Danish town. Sigh. I'm not gullible. At all.
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Sand Castle!
• Thursday, July 28, 2005 • 11:36 PM
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Today we went to the beach. We just lazed around on the beach; it was very relaxing. I built a sandcastle. I probably looked like a big dork with my tiny shovel and pail meant for small children. But I had lots of fun. After building my sand "masterpiece" (complete with moat) I went roller blading along the coast. There was a nice paved path all down the coast. It was very pleasant. When I was finished rollerblading, I soaked my feet in the ocean.
I've been doing a lot of rollerblading here. The day before yesterday I roller bladed for 8 miles on a path around a lake. It was beautiful. The path was fun, lots of twisty turns. After I finished rollerblading, we went to feed the ducks that hang out in the pond. We were feeding the ducks and we noticed there were huge catfish swimming around next to the docks. They wanted to be fed, too! We feed them, which attracted more giant catfish. There were also these tiny fuzzy duck-like birds that my boyfriend said are called "coots" (hahaha). Man, they were cute. I wish I had a picture of them. There was an even tinier baby one that was cute beyond belief.
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Tapir noses, starfish onomatopoeia
• 7:10 PM
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So far, we've been pretty busy having fun; last weekend we went to the zoo with my boyfriend's family. We went in the evening when it is cooler. Many of the animals were active, enjoying the weather like us. :) There was a very curious tapir who came up to the edge of his enclosure and was using his long funny tapir nose to smell us.
Earlier this week we went to the aquarium. There were a lot of starfish and jellyfish. There were other things, too, but I spent a disproportionate amount of time staring at the starfish and jellyfish. Hypnotic!
 
(left) Here's the tapir. He's pretty cute with his curious nose. (right) This starfish had plastered himself against the tank glass. I'm thinking of a lot of onomatopoeia words right now regarding the starfish. But for your sake, I won't type them. Ok, just one. Sssschweeelp.
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Pets!
• Monday, July 25, 2005 • 9:24 PM
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The pets page is up and working! Now you can read about all the crazy animals I live with. It's in the okra life section. There is a pets link from the life menu. There are cute pictures and some little descriptions of their personalities.
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Arrrrr!
• Wednesday, July 20, 2005 • 12:15 PM
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Well, I'm here in San Diego! YAY! The flight went well, even for me. Flying makes me a little nervous. But here I am! And with "pirate shoes". The lapse in entries meant that I was visiting my mom and dad. I went shopping with my mom, who bought me the coolest pair of shoes with jolly rogers on them. Haha, it was part of my going away for my trip present. Arr scurvy shoes they be. So anyway.... here's some pictures:
 
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Ahhh
• Saturday, July 16, 2005 • 5:29 PM
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Today has been a little more relaxed. We took some time to go to the arcade and play the Sopranos pinball game. Which is particularly funny because I've never watched an episode of the Sopranos. So the game makes no sense whatsoever, haha. The pinball game has tiny motorized pole dancers. And a pork store. And a talking fish. I'm not sure how this fits together. But apparently it does fit into a show. A tacky, tacky show. After the arcade, I came home and drank chocolate soy milk from the carton. And now, I'm thinking about dinner. I'm getting pretty hungry despite my soy milk drinking. Some friends are coming over and we are going to go out somewhere together.
Earlier today, I started putting together some recipes to take with me on the trip. My boyfriend's mom suggested that I cook for them a little while I'm there. She said that the food pictures on my site looked tasty and that she wanted to try some of my cooking! I'm really excited about cooking for her. Though, she's an expert cook, so I hope I can live up to expectations. While I'm waiting for our friends to get here, I'm going to work on my menu plans. Which might make me hungrier.
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Mao-tastic!
• Friday, July 15, 2005 • 8:11 PM
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Mao is still enjoying the newly cleaned rugs, etc. I snapped a few photos of her this morning. I've been busy today, finishing up things around the house in preparation for our trip. We are going to be going to San Diego to visit family and have a little vacation time soon! I'll make sure to keep you posted. Also, special thanks to our kitty sitters out there! Don't spoil them too much, hehe.
 
I suppose that it's kind of hard to see, but Mao has a big smile on her face in the second picture.
We've had quite a few tomatoes ripen this week. Yum! I haven't been doing a whole lot of cooking this week, though. So, some lucky friends will probably get them.
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All Clean
• 12:04 AM
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Mao was very satisfied today. She followed me around while I cleaned the house. She climbed inside of the drier, pounced on the clean sheets while I was folding them, and laid on the just dusted bookcase. She especially loves it when I clean her favorite rug, the living room rug. As soon as I was done vacuuming it, Mao ran in and started rolling around on it. She's asleep there now.
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Science Nerd!
• Wednesday, July 13, 2005 • 6:51 PM
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Today's post is particularly packed with science nerdism. Just so you know.
My blackberry lily is blooming. It was already planted in my garden when I moved here, but has become one of my favorites. I like the spots on it's delicate petals. It is very interesting, after the flowers finish blooming, the petals twist around each other. Although it is called blackberry lily, it is actually in the family Iridaceae, the Iris family, and not a lily at all. It's leaves look like Iris leaves.
 
In the background of the second picture, you can see the wilted petals twined around each other into things that look like spindles.
Today, my boyfriend discovered that our spider, that lives between the window and the storm pane, has expanded her operations. She has three egg sacs suspended from her web, one of which has burst with tiny little spiders! There are so many, they form a little cloud. They are fascinating!
Those tiny dots are the spider babies!
I also finally got around to taking some pictures of the new chicken linoleum! *Wow!* Now you can see how spoiled my chickens are.
 
The chicks like to peck at the "stones" printed on the linoleum. They were very interested in what I was doing and came inside to investigate.
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Poulet Chalet?
• Tuesday, July 12, 2005 • 2:16 AM
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Today started off great. I went running with a friend and it was a beautiful morning. It's nice that I actually got up at a reasonable time. I feel like I got a lot accomplished today.
And what did I accomplish? I installed the linoleum flooring in my chicken coop today! Yay, now the chickens are living in poultry luxury. I also finally put bedding down on the floor. They roost on their perch at night, but the bedding (pine shavings) keep everything clean and they are nice and soft to walk on. I also added straw to the nesting boxes. They aren't too interested in the nesting boxes yet; they probably won't start laying eggs for another two months. Though, Frieda has decided that the edge of the nesting box makes a nice perch for her to sleep on. The first night she did that I almost panicked, not seeing all three chickens on their perch, I thought only two chickens were inside. I'm a paranoid chicken mamma.
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Sweet Wedding
• Sunday, July 10, 2005 • 2:24 PM
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Yesterday we went to our friends' wedding. It was a very sweet wedding in a small chapel on the university campus. I'm very happy for both of them. The reception was a good time; lots of fun friends were there, the speeches were great, the food was good, and the cake was beautiful. And the best part, of course, was seeing them so happy together.
Also: I am relieved that their gifts survived our cats unscathed. The cats were very interested in the tissue paper and ribbons. Luca in particular was determined to get inside the room where the presents were locked. I kept having to chase her away. Ahh, soon I will be going to Spencer's wedding. Next month. And then, I will have no more gifts to safeguard from cats. The cats will be very disappointed.
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Ha ha, consumerism
• Saturday, July 09, 2005 • 1:17 AM
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Today was pretty uneventful. Which was good, really. It was nice (if not a little scary) not to have to go to work today. We went out to run some errands and I noticed that there were a lot of sales. Almost every store we passed at the mall had a sale going on. I looked at a few of them. For so many sales, there was nothing worth buying! Which is good. Because I'm broke. So yeah, take that, consumerism! But I guess I kinda broke the spell when I bought some Oxyclean and pink nail polish at Target.
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Bittersweet
• Thursday, July 07, 2005 • 3:40 PM
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The polenta thingies were a big hit. I got a lot of compliments! My coworkers even liked my tiny toothpick flags. I was kind of surprised, actually. I mean, it's not very mainstream type of food. I'm really glad it went over so well. I'm also relieved, but also a little sad, that my job is over. I will have more time to do things around the house now, but I will miss a lot of the people at work. There were a lot of really nice people there. They are all getting together tonight; I think I'll probably join them. I'm also a little worried about money now that I really don't have a job anymore. Hopefully I'll find a new one soon. I'm going to go spread my resume around a little tomorrow.
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Whew
• 1:37 AM
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I've been busy today! I worked most of the day at finishing up painting the chicken house. I had already painted most of the outside, but not the inside. So, I was all squished up inside the chicken house with my paint bucket. Sparky kept sticking her head in the door as if to say, "What are you doing? Can I eat it?". As soon as it dried the chickens all went inside right away. They don't usually go inside much during the day, so they must have liked it. :)
Last night we took a trip to Lowe's to get a piece of linoleum for the floor of the chicken house so that it will be easy to clean out. My friend (and neighbor when I was growing up) suggested the linoleum. A very nice clerk looked for remnants for us; they didn't have any. But, he did find a long strip in the trash. He couldn't just give it to us (Store policy, I think.) so he put a price tag of $2 on it! YAY! So, our chicken house will have a *fancy* linoleum floor for $2. I didn't get to the linoleum part today, but maybe Friday. The glue is scaring me. I'm imagining myself glued to the floor of the 3' by 3' chicken house...
Today was also a satisfying cooking day. We had some nice pasta for lunch. I added some herbs from my garden in with the sauce as well as some Bocca veggie ground beef. Dinner consisted of falafel; I threw some onions into the skillet as well. I combined the little falafels and onion in folded pita with tomatoes from the garden, baby spinach, and hummus. And as if that wasn't enough to satisfy me, I made some treats for work tomorrow. It is my last day at my temporary job helping new students at the university here register for their classes. All of the temporary staff are leaving, and so we are having a potluck lunch. I sliced some prepared polenta and topped it with sauteed sweet red pepper, toasted garlic, and calamata olives. Then I put them in the oven to bake for about 15 minutes. So easy. I feel like a cheater; it took less than half an hour and yet they look so nice. And taste good, too! I had to try one. For quality assurance.
 
I put each polenta on a rectangle of wax paper for easy grabbing. I also made a little toothpick sign denoting them as vegan. I'm more plain ol' vegetarian now, but I'm still a vegan sympathizer.
I also took a CD of digital pictures to be printed at the 1 hour photo lab. They came back great! I'm making a little album for my great grandma. Her birthday is next Saturday. She will be 97! I love the Walgreen's photo lab because they are open 24 hours. YES! I took them in at about 11pm and picked them up around midnight. Then I went for a rollerblade. The bf went with me, and he laughed at me dancing on my skates.
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Freedom + Cupcakes = Oh yeah.
• 2:49 PM
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Right now, I'm making cupcakes to share with my family tomorrow for the 4th. I just got a yellow cake mix from the store and then I chopped up some strawberries that Lissha gave me and dumped them in with the mix. YUM. If the cupcakes taste half as good as the batter, then they will be quite delicious. Oh man, the batter is good. And by good luck, I had a can of cream cheese frosting in the cupboard, an extra from a past project.
Tomorrow is working up to be great. Tomorrow morning I'm going to head for Kansas City with my festive cupcakes. Then my dad and I have plans to buy fireworks. Which reminds me, my dad submitted a column on what it means to be an American for the 4th of July, and it was selected to be printed in the paper! I'm so excited, he's saving me a copy so that I can read it, too. The rest of the day will be filled with lots of eating, firework blowing up, and large firework display watching. I love the 4th of July because I love America, but admittedly also because of picnicing and fireworks. Bwahahahaha!
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