America & the 1955 House Wife

A friend from work sent me this article as a joke. With the one year anniversary of the Katrina disaster around the corner and all the dredged up shit with Iraq (not to mention all the other issues we must try to convince our simple minds to understand/ignore) I can't help but think that politically our nation is a GOOD WIFE WHO ALWAYS KNOWS HER PLACE. How dare you America to question your master's judgement and his fair and truthful will?
I just finished watching acts I &II of Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts." Can you tell I'm upset?

What do you do with Carrot Argyle Socks from JCrew?

Make a sock monkey of course! What? You thought they should be worn?
I know he's missing a mouth but everytime I make him one he looks really silly (er).

Counting the days...God I hate it's Monday

I arrive at Logan Airport Terminal C on Friday at 10:30 am.
Then I have about an hour wait until Cassandra arrives.
Coffee anyone?
Man I sound desperate.

Next Week at this time...

I'll be getting on a plane to Boston and then heading down to Barney's Joy. Yay!
I need a vacation. It's sad Jason won't be coming, but I think I'll get over it :P
Cassandra and I were going to rent a car to get from and to the airport (mostly) but Peter offered to hire a limousine service for us...And so the vacation starts. I don't know if I'll be ready for the posh new England life but I'll give it a try. It can't be that hard. I've also been informed that we're spending all Monday at "The Vineyard".

Alia and Michelle, if you guys can manage (I don't know your shedules), I've asked and you're more than welcome to come down on Sunday to spend some time on the beach with us.
G&Ts anyone?

Drone Weeks

OK, I was doing well till now. I'm tired of coming home to things instead of people. This away rotation is some shit! I can't really really complain but I feel so blah when I get home and Jason isn't there. We have the phone, at least, but he's usually so tired we can no longer do the college-hours-upon-hours-on-the-phone thing. I guess I'm even more irritated since I don't even get a full weekend this time -- he's on call on Sunday.
What am I going to do when he's a resident and he'll have to be on call every fourth or even every third night? So far I've tried staying late at work but that's lame. I've also tried going out with some people from work, but that gets expensive. I guess I should just thank my lucky stars this is the only time he has to go away this year. Besides, there are only 2.5 weeks left. I know, I know, I'm being a codependent baby.

Corrections on Adam Rex...

I found the painting I was talking about (on the left, third one down -- chicken breast?). I could stare at it for hours. It just took a little more searching and I was tired and distracted last night. You should also check out the rest on this page. "Dawn" (at least that is the word written under it -- unfortunately, this site doesn't give too many specifics) is particularly beautiful.
I wonder why he picked chicken parts as a navigating tool?
Childhood pet?
Recent book character?
If I find out I'll let you know. Till then enjoy!

Best of Philly Tour...

So Josh and Alia came to visit us this weekend, finally, and we took them to a few spots they hadn't had the pleasure to experience yet. We didn't get a chance to go to Lee How Fook -- Best Chinese Ever-- but we made up with it with a few Philadelphia staples: A stroll in Clark Park, tea and coffee at Green Line, lunch at Ron's Ribs, shopping in Rittenhouse square, and brunch at Sabrina's Cafe.

Green Line is the Emoest/Indiest coffee house ever and when you go there you can't help but act as emo as humanly possible. At least that's the effect it always has on Jason. Right now they're exhibiting some of Adam Rex's art work. I really like this one painting of a man in peaceful slumber being cradled in the cavity of a robot. I couldn't find it on his web site but there's plenty there for you to get an idea.

Ron's Ribs is great for ribs, so I'm told, but I can swear by the soul food. The candied yams are my favorite and the collard greens and baked macaroni are so worth it. Sadly, we missed out on the corn bread...Hadn't been made yet.

Sabrina's brunch is city-renowned -- if the long line of people waiting to get the nod as if it were some posh night club isn't evidence enough I don't know what is. Luckily, our waiting time wasn't as bad and the atmosphere is far from stuffy. They even had a doggie bowl for Emerson. To top it all off we saw Questlove (aka Ahmir Thompson) from The Roots pass by. I'm told he frequents Sabrina's.

A stroll down 9th St (the heart of Italian market) ended our pleasant day. Now our friends are back in DC waiting for our next visit.

Who needs Dead Presidents when you have Bunny Bucks?

Believe me, this is a real US dollar. I love how he's placidly eating the leaves. It took me a while to stop laughing and figure that it was a sticker strategically placed over Washington's face. It looks pretty real in person.
This is one dollar I'll be saving.

On this The One Month anniversary of My Last Blog Entry...

Don't worry, I haven't given up.
I blame it on being a robot for the last month. Automation is so overrated.
Pictured here is one of the things I was busy doing. This is a Passion Fruit Cheesecake (Nigella Larson) I made for Jason's birth day last week. I served it with a guava sauce (I made up) on the side. What you see on top are passion fruit seeds, not frog eggs as Jason may have you believe. As a gift I got him a Treo smart phone so he can start pretending to be a doctor in the hospital as he starts his rounds. Don't worry, I didn't pay full price for that thing. I'm not that much of an asshole! I actually got it for less than half it's retail value, if you can believe it. No, it wasn't ebay.

I was also very busy trying to finish a hat I started a couple of months ago. The pattern ( from Knitty, of course) turned out to be more fun than I would have thought.

Jason takes his boards on Monday (Yikes!) and he's been hogging the computer with "Q-bank" sessions so that's another reason why I haven't been writing. He was generous enough to share today -- I tease.
After his test I have three days off + a weekend to spend some much needed rest/quality time together. I was hoping to go to boston, cape cod (provincetown), martha's vineyard, and or nantucket but It seems those plans will fizzle. It's totally doable especially since we still have a gift certificate for bnbfinder.com that Derek gave us. I found a few really nice bnbs that actually still have rooms. But Jason seems to think he won't have a very good time there. Stuffiness aside, I'm just curious to go see what it's like. To see something new. Especially since it's so accessible now that we live in Philly. I'd like to think that it's as simple as him just being a creature of habit but I think it's more like he has to be convinced. Or even simpler, he just doesn't care that much. Boards are more important right now. God, how could I be so bad in trying to distract him with silly decisions. Maybe I should just book/plan a vacation and tell him to sit back and enjoy.

Because I don't love robots

We recently received a hand written letter (truly romantic, I know) from our dear friend Tommy and in it there was this quote:

Whoever works with machines does all his work like a machine.
He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine loses his simplicity...I am ashamed to use them.
-- Chuang-tzu

Posting this on my blog is beyond ironic, maybe even sacrilegious but it explains so much for me right now.

My new teddy

Isn't he cute? It seems everyone I know is preggers these days. I haven't decided who this one will go to but I have a few more to make. I got the pattern from knitty.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it...

So it turns out Josh and Alia aren't the only recently converted to emoism (just check out their blogs for evidence). Yesterday Jason admitted that he's joined the herd by default. He just recently discovered The Smiths in their full glory of the queen is dead. He likes them so much I think he listens to them every day now -- maybe it's just a phase. In my mind that doesn't make you emo and definitely not indie but what do I know. Anyway, I told him of Morissey's claims to celibacy and his remark was: "That's so emo". Knowing there was no way he could backpedal out of that one he said he thought that was cool and that maybe he should become celibate as well and emo by default.
Honestly, I think he's just using the celibate/emo card as a way into playing hard to get.

Spring at last, Spring at last...

Finally! There's nothing that says spring like the Cherry Blossom Festival.
I was getting kinda worried with Thursday's snow storm. We went to the festival in Fairmount Park with Kevin, Andrea, and Baby. The weather was beautiful and they had all things Japanese -- Ikebana, Origami, traditional dancing, tea ceremonies, sushi and so on. There were also some really beautiful magnolias To finish we went to the Japanese house to see the koi. See more pictures here.

At least I'm not a F**king Tagger

To think blogging seemed like a bad idea. I read a little blurb on the New Yorker last night making light on a new trend among, get this, post-modern kids today -- aka late 20 somethings that I guess Jason would call emo/indie with out the tattoos. The new trend being: having an RFID inserted in your body. Body modification a la 21st century. The purpose of this micro chip you ask? Amazingly, ubiquitous in everyday life, such as being the password to your computer, or the key to your house, or (as some trend setters in Spain may have it) as a pass into the VIP room of a club. Just wave your hand in the designated area and "You're In". Some VIPs those people must be.

Here comes another train wreck and nobody is saying anything.
Thanks to Walmart and all these jackasses that think they're being so avant-garde, RFIDs will be so common place you won't even hear a peep of objection. What happened to all those people who made such a big stink about United Colors of Benetton having RFIDs in their clothing to the point of scraping the whole project (or did they?)?
Forget the serial number or the barcode, RFIDs are so much cooler.

I know it's old news...

But I posted some of the pictures from Alia's B-day weekend. The cake is a Humming Bird Cake made with pineapple, banana, coconut, pecans, and a cream cheese/butter icing. I figured Alia was getting too skinny.
We went to NYC and didn't get lost thanks to the NFT guide. Unfortunately, my camera's battery died midway so there aren't that many pictures.

Remember when...

Secret was strong enough for a man, pH balanced for a woman?
Now, it's strong enough for a woman.
And, strong enough to give us cancer.
I love that the unhealthy marriage between marketing and psychology recorded such crap into my brain.
Thanks John B. Watson for selling out.

I kinda hate the world today

The "civilized" world that is.
Last night I watched The Constant Gardner and followed it with an hour of Project Runway.
Ridiculous.
Our Existence.
Absurd.

V-Day was great!

Better than I could have anticipated anyway. It kinda amazed me how even though I had heard most of the monologues they still had a noticeable impression on me. I laughed near tears in "My Angry Vagina" and the grand finally of "the Woman who loved to make Vaginas Happy". Moaning. Humans are such funny creatures. This year's Spotlight was Asia's Comfort Women -- women who were forced by the Japanese government into sexual slavery during WWII.
On a lighter note, greeting us into the auditorium was a giant vagina. It was a felt costume worn by some poor undergrad, his head was appropriately popping out where the clit would be, peddling chocolate vagina pops. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera (my description doesn't do it justice) or any money to bring back some chocolate vaginas for Jason, but Kevin and Andrea seemed to enjoy them very much.

Today is Kayla's 3rd B-day. She's growing up so fast. I hope she had a great one.

On a more positive note

I'm so happy! Today marks a week that we've had all vegetarian meals at home. We weren't even trying, but I managed to get all meals past Jason without protest. I'm not sure he's even noticed. Shh, don't tell him. Thanks falafel, chick peas, pigeon peas, and lentils.

I found the vegan lunch box on the Bloger homepage and it's the cutest thing I've seen in a long time.

If you actually bother to go to the links from yesterday's post the person is no longer anonymous. I noticed after I published the post. Oh well, no love lost.

Wednesday marked the beginning of Feminist Week at UPenn and today I'm going to see the Vagina Monologues at Irving Auditorium. Tickets are $5, which go in their entirety to Women Organized Against Rape. I saw this play years ago in Miami, maybe I'll get something different out of it this time.

It's 60 degrees outside. Snow one day, sunshine the next.

Now I'm floored

While waiting for Jason to pick me up from work I figuered I had some time to look through an aquaintance's, who'll remain unnamed, wedding registry. Maybe I would be able to get them something to help them start off on their newly wedded life. When I saw this I was just plain and simple pissed off. The nerve of some people! How the hell do you justify having a china coffe pot worth +$200? Or a single wine glass costing $45, much less eight of them? How do you live in a house where everything is so on the verge of costing me my next paycheck? To make matters worse She has another registry at another retailer with more stuff. In total she, I should say they but I know it's she, registered for 4 different place settings, each for 8 sets. How many fucking plates do two people need...and don't give me that it's for ever heirloom bullshit -- they're plates! I thought writting this would be cathartic but I'm just getting more and more frustrated that someone would... ah fuck it.