Numeo tres - Cream cheese and chopsticks

There are many things in life in which I am quite competent. I can play ping pong, ice skate, roller blade, ski, paint my toe nails, fix a variety of toilet issues, caulk, and make a mean batch of funfetti cupcakes. But no matter how hard I try, my chopstick using ability is lacking....terribly.

T (K's husband), decided last night while playing a delightful game involving tiny plastic trains and a game board that I needed to try sushi. The thought of eating raw fish never really whet my appetite, and raw fish wrapped in white rice even less so. But i agreed, because T's pretty cool and peer pressure's a dangerous thing.

We sat down at the restaurant, and I realized that I had never actually been to a Japanese restaurant, for my palate normally prefers foods such as American, Italian, Mexican, and chocolate. I'm just not an exotic taste kind of girl. So I ordered chicken because I figured it would be pretty safe (which it was, and quite delicious once I figured out how to eat it with chopstick - there was more jabbing involved than the average Japanese person would most likely approve).

T ordered the Philadelphia and California rolls. First I tried the Philadelphia. It has cream cheese in it, and I'm a pretty big fan of cream cheese. Well, it was alright, though I think I'll stick with my cream cheese on simpler things like bagels. Then I tried the California. I admit, I may have almost lost it on that bite. The taste was fine. The texture...not so much. But a big gulp of Coke and I was good as gold.

Then went back to my chicken. Yum


oh, and I still have the heebie jeebies from walking through the foliage earlier today.

And tomorrow I'll try to take pictures. There were a lot of "oh man! I forgot the camera again!" moments today.

Chef Jen and stiff grass

California is pretty much awesome. If it wasn't so expensive, I might seriously consider living here. Because honestly, I'm not a fan of winter, and I love sun. And the beach. And things that are green (minus envy).

This morning K and I went to Beach Combers, a restaurant on the beach. It was super hazy, but the temperature was pretty much divine. The french toast was unlike any I'd ever had, and it ranked right up there with the french toast at the First light cafe in Cincinnati (which was pretty darn awesome).

I played some more Order Up - a game for the Wii that's hard to find, but was rated one of the top games of 08. I've officially worked at 5 different restaurants in 2 days, and the first 4 are 5 star restaurants. Now if only I enjoyed cooking that much in real life....

After K was done some stuff at work, we took the dog for a walk by the bay. We decided it would be a splendid idea to take the same trail as the super experienced looking person in front of us (super experienced meaning she was a runner, and looked like she knew where she was going). So we followed her.
Well, K is preggo, which (besides having a baby in a few months) pretty much means she's not as spry as she once was and hopefully will be again someday. The lady quickly was out of our sight, leaving us to venture into the wilderness on our own. And it was very wildernessy. We climbed down and down, up a little, down some more, and then saw some delightful white birds (which we declared in all our expertise to be egrits). Well, since said birds were so delightful, we wanted a closer look and found, to our disappointment, that the trail that led closest to them was very very very muddy. And K's dog is, well, half white. Before we realized just how muddy it was, K's dog was less white, though not terribly so.

Well, we took a different route. At this point, the path was very narrow, and lots of stiff grass lined both sides of it. I, in my ignorance of the terrain previous to departure from K's abode, wore shorts and flip flops. So as the path narrowed, we tried to take a detour up a few different paths. Unfortunately, earlier in the day, we had been discussing things like tarantulas and trap-door spiders and other various creepy crawlies. After testing a variety of paths, we decided on the one that took us slightly out of our way, but seemed the mostly candidate for the vermin-free award.

We succeeded.

And then we went to dinner.

Trip log entry numero uno

So, this week I've declared myself a spring break (I've found that those in the professional world don't normally have them - this is a tragedy) and I flew to California to visit my sister. My only other previous adventure to visit her in the great state of Cali was two years ago and I flew mostly at night and didn't have a window seat.

I've found that I was seriously missing out.

The beginning of my trip wasn't very exciting because it was cloudy. And not just clouds below the plane, but clouds above too. White all around - super boring. After landing in Minneapolis the weather cleared and I boarded a plane to the Santa Ana/Orange County/John Wayne Airport. Apparently one name isn't good enough for this particular airport. It needs 3. So anyway, the second leg of my journey was much more interesting. I discovered farmers in South Dakota (at least that's where I think we were at the time) use a circular pattern in the fields, and Minnesota really does have a gazillion and a half lakes.

And the Rocky Mountains - beeeautiful! Seriously, they're gorgeous, even in the middle of March when nothing is green. I think we flew over a little of the Grand Canyon too (according to the pilot, and I'm pretty sure he knew what he was talking about. It was hard to get a good look at all the colors, but it was still pretty awesome. Seeing God's creation from the bird's eye is super neat.

That's been my journey so far. I'm fairly exhausted, since my body thinks it's 2am. I promised a friend I'd keep her updated, so that's what I'm doing. Maybe tomorrow I'll even take some pictures!

Where you look, there you shall go

On my way to work this morning, I was driving behind a mid-sized, black SUV. I noticed a few minutes into driving that the SUV did a lot of unnecessary swerving - nothing drastic, but still a bit unsettling. And then I noticed the driver looked like she was putting on makeup.

Now, i realize that sometimes, makeup is necessary. I also realize that multitasking while driving is sometimes necessary (and I do that all the time), but I also think that if you can't put on makeup/multitask without making all the drivers around you nervous, you really should avoid it as much as possible. Which might just come in the form of fixing your face before leaving the house.

Of course, one also much consider personal safety. One wrong pothole and you'll have a mascara brush stuck through your eye. Yeah - that would be ugly. Very ugly - thus counteracting all the work that was previous done to accomplish a beautifully make-upped face. No matter how much coverup you use, you aren't going to be able to hide the mascara brush sticking out of your face.

Armaggedon Steak

I was having a perfectly delightful conversation with someone last night about the end of the world and it reminded me of another conversation I'd had with different person on the same topic.

We were discussing what would happen if you were caught in the middle of the end of the world and a giant meteor crashed into a field, hitting an innocent cow and thereby roasting it. Could you eat it? Would you eat it? Mind you, at this point, everyone else is running around panicking because they are pretty sure they are all going to die.

But if it's the end of the world, there's nothing you can do to stop it, right?

I'd eat the cow. Granted, I would not eat the entire thing. I simply cannot consume that much beef. But maybe in the midst of all the chaos, a fellow hater of panic would join me. And if the meat wasn't completely cooked through (since I'm not a fan of pink/red/bleeding meat), we could simply roast the not-entirely-done steaks over the meteor because meteors continue to burn (even if just a little) after plummeting into earth in all the movies - and movies never lie about important things like meteors. Over the course of history, there have been many great conversations over the roasting of meat over a nice fire. I see no reason why this would be different. I may even make a new friend.

All that being said, I've decided that I sincerely hope that if the end of the world comes during my life, that I seize the opportunity to take meteors and make meat - sort of like taking life's lemons and making them into lemonade.

"I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible"

Jane Austen said that. I somewhat disagree. Recently, I've acquired a couple more of her books. One being Mansfield Park. I've been reading for a little over 15 years now, and this was one of the harder books I've read. It has an incredible amount of dialogue, which enabled me to see that if I were to time-travel ever (which i don't really count on doing), traveling to early 19th century England would be extremely foolish for me. I would end up offending everyone I came into contact with. No joke. I would say something that I thought was completely innocent and be shunned by society because of it. I just know it!

That, and I would be entirely confused for most of the day, wondering what the heck everyone was talking about! They claim to be speaking English, but man! It's some seriously complex English.

Oh, and I got to one of the last chapters, and it started with "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery" which is, if you haven't noticed, on my header. It's a rare occasion that I quote something from a book I've actually read. Yay brainyquotes.com. I also have the habit of quoting movies I've never seen.

Punxsu-what? Post g-dog day musings

Groundhog Day. What a fantastic and highly useful holiday! It's a time to gather with friends and family to celebrate the emergence of the prognosticator of all prognosticators.

What?

I've always been a fan of Groundhog Day. Why? Because it's ridiculous. Now, I realize there are a number of people in Punxsutawney that are huge fans. It's ingrained in their culture, and I will try very hard not to belittle that. Try- that's all I can promise.

When one enters a college in Michigan, one may notice the lack of celebration of certain holidays that one is previously accustomed to celebrate. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Presidents Day, Columbus Day, and Groundhog Day. Of course, the celebration of most of these holidays merely meant a day off from school (because I'm not Jewish). Groundhog Day did not. HOWEVER! It was still mentioned. In grade school, there was often a nice picture of a groundhog to color. In high school, it was recognized, and people actually wondered whether Phil saw his shadow or not.

And then college happened. It was as if none of the aforementioned holidays existed. I realize I went to a Christian university, but there was very little mention of the Jewish holidays (which we need to be at least culturally aware of) and some didn't even know what they meant! As a South Jersey girl, this was quite the revelation! I was astonished. Disappointed. I could hardly believe my ears! And Presidents Day - the day where every kid loves because you don't have to go to school, and there really isn't anything else you HAVE to do that day! Hardly recognized in college. All those dead presidents probably feel snubbed.

So anyway, back to Groundhog Day. It was like it didn't even exist my freshman year. I exclaimed - HEY! It's FEBRUARY! GROUNDHOG DAY IS TOMORROW! (this was on the 1st of the month). I think my roommate said, "huh, so it is." That's it. So I devised a plan.

Phil was far away. I didn't own a groundhog. How could I possibly get people to care?

LIGHTBULB! I would make a groundhog! Now, I am not God, therefore I couldn't make a real live groundhog, so I went with brown paper. I stuff the little critter full of newspaper, drew some eyes, and badda-bing badda boom! Groundhog! But he needed a home. Hmm.

More brown paper, some staples, and a little bit of tape, and I had a highly accurate representation of a groundhog hole (and growing up on a farm, I know what those look like). I put fake Phil in the fake hole and strategically place him and his home in the middle of the hallway in our dorm. And I made a big sign that said "Happy Groundhog Day!"

Now, this may sound silly to you. In fact, it sounds silly to me! But there was no other way. An intervention was necessary. Universities should not be ignoring such a monumental occasion! How many other countries believe a Groundhog named Phil can predict the weather? One. Canada. And I bet their universities care.

You may argue against the necessity of such a holiday. After all, spring technically always starts 6 weeks after February 2nd. And there is this wonderful thing we call the Farmer's Almanac.

Granted. But everyone knows traditions need to be upheld for the sake of tradition. Without pointless holidays where would our country be? The very possibility frightens me.