mmm good

I just had some great steak tacos! Home made by moi of course! :) After my CPR class ended this morning, I noticed my taco place was open, but I figured that 10:20 was a little early for tacos! I thought about it though. :) I've been on a serious red meat kick lately. I don't know what's causing it, but whenever I think about cooking a meal, red meat is all I can think of. It has taken over my mind! :)

I finally got to bake the chocolate chip cookies I've been craving last night. I am a wee disappointed in the outcome. They're much crispier than I prefer. Also they have a slightly odder taste than usual. Instead of just using only rice flour, like I usually do, I used half rice flour and half tapioca flour. I also added walnuts.

Here's a pic of my baby sister from the weekend she came out to visit. She's cute, no? We tried to take those pictures where one of us holds the camera at arms length while we huddle together. Didn't work so well. The 2 of me turned out so glaringly hideous that I dare not post them because seriously... magnified every flaw I have.

Flashes of age...

Every once in a while, I get these brief flashes that I'm old. (Yeah I know, 31 is not OLD old... but it is oldish) Today I had one of those brief flashes. I was watching Red Dawn, which is a movie I loved when I was in high school. I had it on tape and would watch it all the time. I like the whole underdog part and there's little romance AND things get blown up. How great is that?! Anyway, I was watching it this afternoon, and realized it was made in 1984. It was made 21 years ago! It made me cry inside a little. :)

Ring size?

Michelley and I were discussing ring sizes today and it got me thinking... Does she have extraordinarily thin fingers or do I just have really fat fingers? (I suspect it is actually a combination of the 2...) So here's the question. What's your ring size? Mine is (I believe, it's been awhile since I've been sized... the last ring I bought was at Nordstrom's Rack off one of those little displays) a 9. Damn the little fat fingers inherited from my German grandmother!

When Will I learn? :)

Today was an interesting work day. It was our Mission Day where all the faculty and staff got together and listened to some keynote speakers. At the table I was seated, were 4 HR folks and 3 physics professors. Here's what I learned from those folk... There is no God in Physics. One professor was fascinating to watch. He just squirmed and wiggled around the entire 4 hours. He was so uncomfortable. When we had our 2 rounds of table discussions, both times he was unhappy with the discussion. He had a very strong belief about what is rational and logical and spirituality did not fit into this. It was very interesting in the grand scheme of things.

I had a doctor's appointment at 3:00 downtown so at 2:15 (closer to 2:30) I booked out of the office and down the hill. Slightly mundane, I know.

I came home and changed immediately. I apparently can go for an entire 2 weeks without doing laundry, but the clothing I'm stuck in by day 12... not my favorite. The waistband of my pants has rubbed one of my sides raw.

Reheated some left overs, sat on my ass and then it was time for my other meeting of the evening. I headed down to Belltown for a meeting about the Seattle Paint Out. This is my 3rd year doing it. I decided this year I would participate in the planning instead of just showing up, so I am now the First Hill Lead. This may be quite a bit of work. AND there will be solicitation for donations, which is my least favorite thing ever. But it is good to challenge myself. Get out of the 'box.' (God I hate that damn corporate phrase!) We'll see how it all pans out over the summer. I told Matt that I will help him any way I can for his new job. That'll be my one gay project this year (usually I dodge volunteering for the gays). Between my paint out project, the various summer projects I do, my Sunday adventures et al... this should be a busy summer! :)

To upgrade or not to upgrade...

That is the question. I'm considering upgrading from dial-up to DSL or Cable Modem. I've done some vague research and discovered that I currently pay 16.99 to AT&T. If I wanted to upgrade to their DSL, I could do that for 29.99/month for the first year and then 39.99 after that. They would provide the modem for free. (Although a 19.99 shipping and handling). I checked out both my cable place and my phone company. For Qwest, they have one deal for 26.99/mo, but according to their site, it is only 4 times faster than regular dial up. A long time ago, AT&T provided me with their accellerator... which is 3.2 times faster so why bother with that plan. Their other option is 29.99/mo for 5 months then 42.99. AND I have to either buy their modem or pay a $5.00 rental fee every month. (Now after 11 months, is it mine? probably not bastards...) Comcast has a similar deal... but 19.99/mo but only for 2 months and then 39.99 after that. And the same 5.00 rental fee every month or purchase for 60 bucks. So logically I would go with AT&T. But the question really is, do I need to do this? I'm mostly fine with dial-up. The only time I get pissy about it is when I go to fancier flash sites and it takes forever. I don't know... why do I agonize over the wrong things? :)

Kicky orange bandana

Matty P & I hit coffee at Starbucks tonight. Because we could sit outside and play our cards in the beautiful sunshine. Except it was in the shade. And it got chilly. :) So we headed up to Charlies so MP could eat dinner. (I had eaten tacos before we left.) I was thinking of having a little more dinner. The waiter mentioned the soup of the day was tortilla soup. I'm not, in general, a soup fan, but for some reason the thought of tortilla soup sounded good... Poor waiter. The first two questions determined if there were beans in the soup and what type of tortillas. With the more obvious eliminators out for me (I don't eat beans and can't eat flour tortillas) I started asking more questions.... specifics about the ingredients, if it is too spicy, and finally if he likes it. I think all totaled, I asked about 10 questions regarding this soup. Once it was time to order it, I had to order it. I couldn't have put the guy through all that and then not ordered it. I'm glad I did. It was good! :) We left there and headed for Vivace, my favorite coffee place. I ordered the ginger spiced cider like usual. Unlike usual, there was a boy serving. He shouldn't make drinks. My ginger spiced cider tasted like warm apple juice. :( I was not pleased. We played some more cards and backgammon and that was about it. Not at all eventful. Except for the part where MP threatened revenge. And it was good to see him again. Our last hang out time was more than 2 weeks ago. And that one had been weird. I ended up leaving the place and we were both kind of pissy... me with him, him in general.

Sssllleeeeeeeepppppyyyy

I meant to go to bed at 10:00 last night. But when one finally STARTS cooking dinner at 8:00 PM, and doesn't eat until well into the 9:00 hour, going to sleep at 10:00 just isn't happening. Now I'm hurting. I may fall asleep at the desk. And yes, Ian, you told me so.

Inexplicable wrath...

Last night while I was watching something on TV, the damn Jack in the Box commercial came on. The one where room service brings in his breakfast and he whines that he wanted a sunrise pannido. Suddenly when he started whining I thought 'I just want to hit that guy with a bat.' It was kind of mean in my head. I was a little bit surprised at myself.

Also, there are movies that I've seen that make my heart hurt. Literally. The scene that causes Edward Norton's character to go to jail in American History X. (If you don't know it is awful and I'm not telling ya). The scene in the church in The Patriot where the people are boarded up inside and they set fire to it. I recall, when I first saw the movie, as it being a much more heart-hurt type of scene. They've edited most of it out for TNT (or TBS I forget which I was watching last night).

Interesting* things I learned from my sis...

1 - Apparently the reason I do not want another car is because I'm afraid of driving. This is according to my mother. It apparently has nothing to do with the $100.00 I'd spend just parking a car. The probably over $300.00 I'd pay in car payments because if I'm purchasing another car, I'm going hybrid. I used to pay $70.00 roughly in car insurance, so we'll pretend that'll be the rate (although used car that is financed we all know the cost would be much higher). And we'll just go with one tank of gas because I rarely need to drive anywhere so we have, roughly $505/month so that I could own my own car. Now we'll pretend like I drive 20 hours a month... although I'm fairly certain I wouldn't. That would be $25.00/hr in expenses. That's more than I make in an hour! So yeah, I'm sure my fear of driving post the brake failure incident is the REAL reason I don't own a car.

2 - My mother thinks I need a pull out sofa. If I had one they would have a place to sleep. And they could come visit. Let's pretend for a minute that my apartment is not the tiniest tiny that ever did tiny, and that three adults in this apartment wouldn't drive me to alcoholism... Oh wait I can't pretend that... I've told them they'd have to get a hotel. There is not enough space in this apartment for 3 grown (especially with 2 fat) adults. Hell, there'd be nowhere for me to hide. Plus all the quirks like the bedroom and bathroom doors that don't shut correctly.

3 - They're really worried about making things 'fair' for me and my sister. They help her out financially more than me. They visit her more than me. This causes them anxiety apparently. My dad more than my mom. I'm surprised by this, mostly because I actually don't feel slighted or that Amanda is the favorite. I mean she is my mom's favorite but I don't believe that based on their visitation of her or their fiscal contributions to her life. This is why every holiday we have to go through this 'big present' deal, which makes me crazy. I really would rather they donate money to a charity or something. Apparently, I'll be getting a gift card to a sofa store. Just what I need. I think I'm more surprised that my father is so anxious about the fairness. I think he fears that I'll be all bitter like she is when I'm older about how my sisters got everything. I'd much rather, though, they'd feign interest in my life rather than try to buy me. Plus, everytime my mother contributes money to something I have to hear about it later. When she gave me the money for my birthday to finish off buying Jakob, I heard about it for months after. It just costs too much, and makes it totally not worth it.

4 - This one I feel bad about. My father was disappointed and a little unhappy I didn't visit them at Christmas when I went to Michelle's instead. Of course, I had already bought the ticket to California when he suggested it. So I don't know what they wanted me to do.

*Interesting, or crazy. You can decide. :)

Tired....

Holy shit I'm tired. And yes, it really is 2:27 in the morning and we just got home. My feet may never forgive me. My knees may never forgive me, but damn we had a good time.

We started out the evening at Cayenne, a relatively new restaurant on the hill in a hotel. The food was actually pretty good. Then we headed over to RPlace for gay boys and alcoholic drinks that are worth their money. We played a few rounds of darts, which probably resulted in a tie between us, not a good sign since she's been playing for all of 1 day, and I've been playing for years. By this point it was around 9:30ish so we hopped into a cab and headed down to Pioneer Square. They have this deal on the weekends where 6 bars work together and you only pay one cover charge and can get into all 6. This was good since it let us check out many bars before sticking with one. We first went into Doc Maynards. Live music was playing. We went in for a few minutes, but it wasn't really our type of music, so we left. We tried several others, always begin slightly disappointed by the music, but cool enough, all of them had live music. Then we headed to Fenix Underground. Now at some point in the past, I may have gotten the wrong impression about Fenix Underground because I thought it was an entirely different type of club. I knew it was more alternative music, but for some reason I thought it was much more underground and (yeah I'll admit it) more scary than it was. More along the lines of lots of leather and spikes and all of that crap. It sooo was not. We had so much fun! I don't know why I'm not more into the live music scene here. (Ok I do know why, 100% why, I have no one to go with. The one person I used to drink with is not a big fan of live music, and more specifically isn't a big fan of the type of music I like.) But seriously, I've lived here almost 3 years now, I need to get out into this more! It was so much fun! There was a live band playing, Kry. They were so freakin' good! They played covers, but a nice variety of them - and all music I liked. We danced and danced and danced. I think we danced for about 3 hours. (No, maybe only 2ish). When we first got to the club, I left my sister to go use the restroom. When I came back there was this guy there chatting her up. Damn, I leave the girl alone for less than 10 minutes, and she's being hit on. The guy was weird and talking to him was hard and so we fled to the bathroom. Two other times she got hit on. One was by a youngish (not youngish 34 but looked youngish!) guy named Chris. He was sooo just looking to get laid. He started a tale of how he was divorced, only recently. And he was having some trouble with this girl. They played pool but he told her he wasn't looking for a serious relationship but she wouldn't stop calling him. Blah blah blah. Eventually the band started playing again and so I got all into it (because it was Linkin Park who I love!) and he wandered off. He may have also sensed the don't mess with my baby sister vibe I gave him. We danced and danced some more, and at the end of the night (1:30) went over to get some water. That's where 3rd guy hit on baby sister! He took her out dancing on the floor until she fled him. Then we headed for home. We walked. The walk home was only 1 mile. Unfortunately it was 1 mile completely UP HILL. And we did a little double backing because as we got towards the park, I realized walking through it at 2ish was a BAD idea... So it is now 3:12 AM and I'm done with this post.

Yay Visitor!

Today we will go to the Cherry Blossom Festival at the Seattle Center and shop shop shop. Oh and today is mani/pedi day. We will also go out drinking tonight. Yay for us! :)

Our first night...

I picked the kid up a few minutes after she was supposed to arrive. Except she actually had arrived like 30 min early. Stopped by the house and dropped off her bag. We went to dinner at this Mexican place, La Puerta. It was pretty good. I hadn't eaten there before, but we were both STARVING! We wandered down and paid a cover to get into the gay bar. They pour drinks better there than at straight bars. One (for her) and 2 (for me) drinks later we leave the gay bar and head out to the Garage. We played a couple games of pool and then headed home. She's climbed into bed. I'm thinking about going my own self, but I need to sober up a tiny bit first. :)

Visitation

Well, my sister is due here in 2 hours and 40 min. Is my apartment clean, not really. :( I worked on it some today, but most motivation was out the supremely sunny window. Mostly I just wanted to sit and read in the sun. Oh well, she's only here for 2 days. There're clean sheets on the bed, that's most important. :) I'm just not a neat person at heart, and I've let the apartment get way too messy in fits of supreme laziness.

My eyes have been bugging me all day. One I rubbed much of last night so this morning to quell the irritation I put drops in both eyes so they felt kind of moist all day long.

Apparently all the flexcars on the hill and near me are on the reserve all day but only pay for 10 hours plan this month/week. All my favorite ones were booked well into the night and some into tomorrow. :(

We're camping!

Thanks to my mad skillz and a parent who suggested the place, the Brownies and I will be camping in June. Yay for us!

The Airplane

I know I've commented on this show before. I'm fairly fascinated by this show. The episode I'm watching right now has two situations... one of which is so freaking cool and the other so uncomfortable. On a flight (I came in midway through the show so I'm not sure why) there are 2 penguins. Just out. I'm sure that they have carriers but it was so cool to see them walking through the airplane and people were getting to pet them. I'm a little envious of those people. I've been fascinated with penguins since I was very little. Besides the visiting the Great Wall of China dream, I would like to go to the Galapagos Islands in South America and see the penguins. The uncomfortable situation deals with a man wearing a 'kilt' (doesn't look like any kilt I've ever seen and I've seen a few). Other passengers are complaining that he is going commando under the kilt and they've seen evidence of this. This poor supervisor had to talk with him about what he's wearing and then try to tell (surreptitiously) if this is the case. Now she has to track him down in the airport to tell him that he has to put on pants or something else. I may complain about my job, but damn... I've never had to tell a guy that he needs to be wearing panties if he wants to come into my office. :) Ok it got worse for the poor woman. She found the guy and he was wearing that 'I know I'm making a scene' grin and continued to make her uncomfortable. Then he went off on how he was being harrassed and his rights were being trampled on and threatened litigation. (Sigh, I hate how everyone sues everyone. As much of a flaming liberal as I am, I am such a proponent of tort reform.) Seriously, this was like a black miniskirt. When he first stood up I thought of how girls will wear the extra large t-shirts to bed that just barely cover our asses (ok and some girls who wear skirts like that now)... that's not a kilt. A kilt I could see taking slight umbrage over, but not a micro-mini.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Once upon a time, earlier this year, our service unit did not get an encampment date. I relay that info to the parents but say I can look into other options. But it becomes this idea of having a slumber party in a hotel. Do I love this idea, eh not so much. Am I willing to do it because this is what they want to do, yes. Today I find out that they've been talking and they really want to camp. I'm cool with the change. I like camping. However, it is now mid April. Time is running out to find a camp location. Encampments are full. If they'd decided this sooner it would've been easier to make this happen. They couldn't have told me sooner?? Espeically since they've been discussing this for awhile now.

Kiddos

I was walking home from work the other day and I got to this place by one of the hospitals where I take an escalator from one street level to the one below. On the escalator was this cute little blond boy in glasses playing. You know how it is when you're little and there's an escalator, you want to walk the wrong way on the stairs. He was doing that. He chatted with me a minute about it and showed off how fast he is. As I was walking away I was hit with such a feeling it took my breath away. I want kids. I want one of those funny little people who will want and need and demand. [At that moment, I actually wanted THAT kid, but since he had one of the new fancy Game Boys and he was dressed pretty well, I figured someone would miss him. Although obviously not the someone who failed to point out you shouldn't talk to strangers. Of course, he was also old enough to shout so kidnapping was out. :)] Anyway, the feeling was so intense and so shocking that it's actually caused me to stop and think about it. But I haven't really come up with an answer. Although, I think when my money situation eases up a bit and maybe in like 4 years I would like to look into fostering kids with the hope of adopting 1 or 2. If the doctors are correct, it will be extremely difficult for me to conceive. I'm kind of inclined to agree with Michelle on her views on infertility, and don't think I would consider that an option for myself. Of course I'm single and speaking in the abstract... But more than that, the do gooder in me thinks there are plenty of kids who need good families and that it would be selfish and somewhat irresponsible of me to go through all sorts of testing and whatnot just to have a kid with my genes.* And I don't especially like babies.

Last night, however, my subconscious apparently is still piecing this all out. I had a dream where I was visiting an orphanage. I was playing with the kids, and then we settled down to watch a movie. A little 4 year oldish boy curled up in my lap and we just sat and watched the movie. After the movie was done, I got up to leave and he didn't want me to go without him. He was crying and begging me to take him with me and I kept crying and saying I couldn't because I wasn't financially where I should be to embark on this undertaking. I woke up crying (which I hate). I take the whole dream as a sign that adoption may be the correct choice for me.

*I feel compelled to comment here that my genes are crap. I have an autoimmune disorder. Autoimmune disorders beget autoimmune disorders so that if my kids don't get my specific one, they may luck out and get none or since it indicates a problem on the gene, the kid could get something worse. Lupus is an autoimmune disorder linked to the same gene my celiac disease is on. So having my genetic children are not necessarily a priority for me. If they are for you, dear reader, more power to you. I can't fault you for that. There is some argument for having your own kids and knowing where their genes come from and what potential problems may lie under the surface.

I may die...

Earlier this morning I had a nice little chat with workcrush. We were talking about the machine he's working on fixing. I have no skills in repair of anything, and wires and gadgets strangely enough still hold a fascination for me. Mostly because since I don't really get it, they are almost 'magical.' :) He mentioned he was tired and mentioned he was in a band... but I didn't get any more info because the person he was waiting on came up. Ok so that was nice. :)

Fastforward to lunch. Workcrush is sitting in a corner, and I sit with coworker and coworker's friends. I feel compelled to state that coworker and friend 1 are both still virgins at 25. I don't know if this is why they are weird about boys but I suspect it is. So he goes to leave and waves as he walks past the table. I wave back. Friend one (who is facing me so his back is to her) is making weird gestures and faces about workcrush. After he is gone I say something to her about being weird. She proceeds to say "What, he didn't see anything, he was already around the cor..." and then makes a sound like an audible gulp. And proceeds to put her head down and eat quickly. Yes boys and girls, workcrush came back around the corner, probably heard much of that exchange and if he hadn't, the fact that the table was suddenly silent after laughing definitely should have tipped him off. Seriously, kill me now. Or more accurately, anyone want to be my friend who isn't 12 years old? :)

This isn't my night... :(

I had initially decided I wanted to make brownies tonight. But I didn't have the requisite 4 eggs for the mix. So I thought I'd make chocolate chip cookies. I cream the brown sugar and white sugar and the shortening. I break open 1 egg, it's fine. I break open egg 2. It is green inside. It doesn't stink so I'm not sure if it is rotten or not. I should clarify it wasn't like forest green or really obnoxiously green, but the white was tinged kind of green like curry color - you know if you pour curry into a white bowl and it leaves this weird chartreuse color. So I'm not 100% convinced that the egg is bad. (Ok I really REALLY wanted chocolate chip cookies tonight). So I go online and can't find anything and decide to call my dad (he lived on a chicken farm a way back when). As I'm stepping away from the sofa, my toes get tangled in the phone cord attached to the laptop. Luckily, I didn't yank the laptop off the sofa, HOWEVER I did rip the phone cord completely out of the computer, leaving the end of the cord in the computer. Luckily I got it out with pliers and I'm using my phone cord from the phone to log in tonight. Anyway, my father confirms my fear... that even though it doesn't SMELL rotten, probably isn't a good idea to cook with it. Obviously it's a sign from somebody... Instead I'll have this nice pseudo healthy raspberry sorbet.

Take me on a ferry ride!

V & I went to brunch this morning and on a Ferry Ride to Bainbridge Island. We didn't hang around Bainbridge, instead turning around and coming back on the ferry.



Here's where we had lunch, Broadway Grill. I can only eat there for brunch, and I can only eat their buffet. Nothing I order there ever turns out the way I thought it would. So now it is ONLY for brunch buffet.


Here's the ferry we were on. Isn't it cool?


The Space Needle and the Aquarium.


Bainbridge Island houses. I would so live on the island. Aren't the houses cute?


More Bainbridge Island houses. Seriously, aren't they cute??


And home again home again jiggity jig. Downtown Seattle. The black building that is really tall on the right is the Bank of America tower where the firefighter stairclimb was.

As we were coming back to Seattle, I noticed the buildings all looked almost fake. Like they were from Mr. Roger's neighborhood. It was kind of cool to me.