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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
These are the wonders of winter land. There's even an icicle on the back bumper. I didn't have the heart to knock it off. Besides digging out the car and all the yellow snow it was really beautiful and quiet.
Michelle looks so sad yet so pretty in this picture -- that's what happens when you go off to a far away land. I stole this picture from Michelle's "flat mate" -- that's also what happens when you go off to a far away land, you get flat mates instead of room mates. All in all, I do love this picture. Jason enjoyed it very much as well, for obvious emo-reasons.
Michelle, you're too cool for us. We miss you.
I actually want to look like michelle williams (or I should say cecil mills). The hair cut I mean. We watched The Baxter the other night and I couldn't stop staring at her. I don't know what it is. Maybe the bangs. These pictures don't do it justice but it's the best I could find. I love that they make fun of it on this postcard. I'm not sure I could pull it off though.
The movie in general (by the same makers of Wet Hot American Summer) was ok. It had it'
s moments but wasn't as great as the previous mentioned. Worth renting for it's quotes. On their website you can take the baxter quiz.
This weekend I walked in on Jason surveying my Blog for the first time. Considering It's been almost two months since I defiantly spoke of him, it's not so bad. What was bad was his opinion on blogging in general. It was almost to the point of showing utter disgust by reading our entries and comments in a mocking high pitch voice. All our witt and worry out the window. He was also a bit insulted by the computer phobia comment; I guess the truth hurts.
Oh, Jason. You take life too seriously sometimes. And I love you for it....
These are a few things that on their own don't merit a blog entry but are worthy of noting:
So the tables have turned and everyone is having a hissy fit. For the past couple of years girls are outperforming and outsmarting boys in school, especially in standardized tests. Boys are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a learning disorder, twice as likely to be in a special ed program, more likely to repeat a grade and more prone to drop out of school. Newsweek and the Today show both stated their growing concern for the poor boys getting left behind. Some of the reasons they attribute this trend to are: being fatherless, living in poverty, slower brain development, lack of good role models, and traditional learning techniques which are not compatible for the boy brain (such as sitting down and learning). Boys are active creatures that need a physical task in order to learn. How they've survived through such hardships for so long is unexplained. Brain development is beyond their control but being fatherless and living in poverty affects girls just as much. Beyond the aging Gloria Steinem, girls aren't particularly blessed with a bounty of good role models either. So maybe there is something else. Maybe it's that for the past 30 years the educational opportunities for girls have changed. Maybe it's that when girls are given equal footing they prove to be more apt for the learning environment. It's not that boys are getting dumber than girls, it's just that now girls have equal access and are being instilled to value what for boys has always been there.
