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Making sushi rolls
(I totally wish these were mine, but no, the picture came from this site) Maya’s history class is studying medieval cultures this year. Right now, they’re studying medieval Japanese culture, and they had ‘Japan Day’ today in class. The kids worked in stations, learning about Japanese brush painting, scroll making, origami, and sushi making. Since I’m out of work, I decided to volunteer, and I was assigned the sushi station. We went to a quick training session on Monday, where they showed us how to make the sushi rolls. They gave us a recipe for sushi rice, asked us to finely slice a million bits of carrot and cucumber, and…
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The Elegance of the Hedgehog
(cover found here) I LOVED this book. Really, really loved it. So charming and quirky and wonderful, I suspect I’ll be buying it as a gift for a few people, and recommending it to many others. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is the story of Paloma and Renée, two inhabitants of an elegant apartment building in Paris. Paloma is the youngest daughter of a wealthy couple who inhabit one of the apartments, and Renée is the building concierge. Both Paloma and Renée hide their true selves from the world around them, fearing the consequences if people find out their secrets. And their secrets are the same: they are both fiercely…
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He’s Just Not That Into You
A movie taken from a book taken from an episode of Sex and the City (remember when Burger is talking to Miranda about the guy she’s obsessing about, and he says, “He’s just not that into you”, to which Miranda is greatly relieved, because it means she doesn’t have to obsess and try to figure the guy out anymore) doesn’t seem too promising, does it? And yet, there’s a lot of talent lighting up the screen, and at some level, I found myself wondering why. I like all of the actors in the movie, but none of them came off very well. The premise that successful, beautiful women have nothing…
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On A More Cheerful Note…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrlSkU0TFLs[/youtube] This cracks me up, and if it only mentioned all of the memes on Facebook right now, it would be perfect. 🙂 Happy Saturday!
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People Suck
I just received a phone call from a tissue donation organization, wanting to know if I wanted to memorialize my mom because she donated tissue after she died. I said no, it’s too upsetting to think about, and hung up. But it brought that whole crappy conversation back, and made me realize, yet again, why people suck. My mom wanted to be an organ/tissue donor, so when, a few hours after she had died, I received a phone call from said organization, I said yes, that’s what she would want, I give consent. You would think that would be it, wouldn’t you? Hell no, in this era of litigiousness, when…
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Friday Randomness
This week was the first in which, for at least part of the week, I was home while Ted was at work and Maya was at school. I don’t think this has ever happened to me before, when I wasn’t working. It seems like it should be similar to while I was working, but nope, it isn’t. At least not yet. The biggest difference is the freedom that I feel. On Wednesday, instead of working, I cleaned, I went to the grocery store, I took out the recycling, I gathered our tax information together, and I went to a movie. I really enjoyed the whole day. And when I picked…
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These guys need a big bonus
And probably a Silkwood Shower, if you know what I mean. They’re working to stop raw and partially treated sewage from spewing into the San Francisco Bay. Way too gross. I cannot even imagine what a nasty, disgusting job that was. And they said the fix was temporary, so I don’t know if someone is going to have to go down into the filthy water again or not. Blech. How do you think they decided which one has to get his mouth and face down near that filth? Short straw? Flip a coin? RoShamBo?
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My First Bike
I remember the exact day that I received my first bicycle, a hand me down from my older brother. The training wheels were long since lost, which didn’t stop me from wanting to learn to ride it. I would practice every day in the courtyard of the church next door to our house. Eventually I did learn to ride, but not without many scrapes and bruises, the worst of which was when my finger was smashed between the handle bars and a railing in the courtyard. My mom iced it and that was it, until the next morning I woke up with it swollen like a sausage, and it had…
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Roasted Crab and Garlic Noodles, ala Thanh Long and Crustacean
If you’ve ever had Thanh Long/Crustacean roast crab and garlic noodles, you know that they are heaven on a plate, totally yummy, artery clogging, butter and garlic and crab deliciousness. Amazing. The problem is that the crab is upwards of $40, and the noodles another $10 or so, so dinner here isn’t cheap at the best of times. For Valentine’s day, we decided we would try to make some Thanh Long inspired crab and noodles at home. We found this recipe (also the source for the beautiful and drool inspiring photo, above) online. This is not the official restaurant recipe, but the recipe of someone trying to duplicate the ‘super…
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Blonde No More
I’ve been blonde most of my life. I was what is known as a tow head as a child, meaning I had that really light blonde hair, which got darker and darker over the years, until I was about 19 and started coloring it. I liked my blonde, as wasn’t ready to give it up. When Ted lost his job in June, I started thinking of ways to pinch a few pennies, and one expensive indulgence I have is the hair salon. I won’t even tell you how much it costs to go into a good salon and get your hair weaved with two or three shades of blonde. It’s…
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Happy Birthday, Galileo
(Galileo and the Pope, found here) Today is the birthday of Galileo Galilei, born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564. He is considered by many to be the father of modern science, and caused quite a rukus in the Catholic church with his claims that the Earth travels around the sun, contradicting the accepted belief that the Earth was stationary, and the heavens traveled around it. From wikipedia: In 1610 Galileo published an account of his telescopic observations of the moons of Jupiter, using this observation to argue in favor of the sun-centered, Copernican theory of the universe against the dominant earth-centered Ptolemaic and Aristotelian theories. The next year Galileo visited…
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The Member of The Wedding
“A last difference about that morning was the way her world seemed layered in three different parts, all the twelve years of the old Frankie, the present day itself, and the future ahead when the three of them would be together in all the many distant places.” Frankie Addams is the bored twelve-year-old protagonist of Carson McCullers’ novel, The Member of the Wedding. Frankie’s boredom comes from the invisible prison walls that she feels trap her in her mundane existence. Though World War II rages on in the world outside, there is no part in it for her. She cannot go overseas and fight, she cannot even donate blood in…
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Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Darwin & Abraham Lincoln
Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist who proved the theory of Evolution and Natural Selection. Perhaps the most clear and concise book that I’ve ever read on how Natural Selection works is Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution, by Steve Jenkins. That this is a children’s picture book is immaterial. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to understand Natural Selection, or especially to anyone wanting to explain it to a child. The SF Chronicle had a book review the other day for what looks to be another great book on Evolution, Why Evolution is True, by Jerry A Coyne. This book is for…
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So Far…
(album cover art found here) I know it’s soon to say, and I know I’ll change my mind in a few minutes, but right now? I don’t mind being unemployed in the least. I mean, I haven’t even started receiving Unemployment benefits yet. I don’t want it to go on too long, and with most of the people I know saying their companies have hiring freezes, it’s worrying. But still. Not a bit of urgency in me yet. I’m going to give myself a few days, in which I only work connections, email people I know, that sort of thing. I’ll start the grunt work later this week, the searching…
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Ebelskiver ~ Filled pancakes
(my final picture came out very blurry, so I took this one from the Williams-Sonoma website, here) One of our Christmas gifts was this cool ebelskiver pan from Williams-Sonoma (click the link and watch a video of how to make them!). Ebelskiver are light, fluffy, filled pancakes, originating in Denmark. I was a little bit afraid that they would be difficult, and they were more difficult than regular pancakes, but they were very good, and I’d like to try some different fillings to see what’s what. We used it for the first time this morning, using a Williams-Sonoma pancake mix, strawberry and raspberry jams, and powdered sugar. Mix your favorite…