Happy Thanksgiving weekend, all! Hope everyone had safe travels and lots of pie.


I'm feeling kind of a general sense of listlessness and ennui at the mo. Now that I think about it, I guess it's just the post-Daylight Saving Time blahs setting in. But it's nothing a little bit of curating digital ephemera can't fix!





( Grey Gardens, Julie & Julia, Gabby Sidibe, Beth Ditto, Crystal Renn )

What's say we check on the monkeys?



I've had to wrestle with a dilemma recently, namely deciding whether or not to let Bean and Pix become puppy parents. My calender and eyeballs had me convinced that the time was nigh, so when Pixie got her shots I asked the vet for confirmation that it was okay, because she's such a tiny little Pixel. He said it was up to her, so I knew it was on. Being as she's pretty much as shameless as Blanche Devereaux and all.



I have pretty much always planned on allowing Bean to breed, though I flinch with guilt whenever I hear Sarah McLachlan warbling. But, I feel like there has to be room in the world for responsible breeding too, and Bean and Pixie both have their AKC papers. Plus, how could you not want to multiply this cuteness?





Pix's a total sweetheart, as opposed to Bean who is a bit of a land shark.



If you look closely you can see how she earned her nickname of "Dubba Toofs", the double set of canine teeth that she had going on. I had to help pop most of those buggers out myself when they were finally ready. That and the bills I been dropping on my own teeth lately have me convinced that in another life I could totally have been a rich DDS.





Beaner dog!



Bean's big adventure recently was getting the hell stung out of his face, which promptly exploded:



After an emergency shot and some Kid's Benadryl, he was recuperating. I had to baby him all day:



And speaking of adventure, during the course of writing this entry, Escape Cat aka Skitzo managed to make another escape, only to eventually return. Sneakaskitz.



Back to B&P, Beaner was more than aware that Pixie was fair game, because he was a dog possessed. He wouldn't let her out of his sight, and he was downright evil in his enforcement.



Did his persistence pay off? Not to be too crass, but I think this face speaks for itself:



So after a few days of that, suddenly it was like a light switch. I had been worried that Bean was going to be newly evil for the rest of his life, but suddenly one day I looked down and the little momma's boy was curled up next to me like a cuddlebug. Nice to have him back.



As far as whether I will soon fulfill my destiny of being an Italian grandmother (to some puppies), the jury is out. Pixie has definitely gained weight, but the vet wasn't able to confirm for sure whether she's preggers. He is "highly suspicious", however, and thinks he heard two baby heartbeats on the ultrasound!!! So the outlook is good for Christmas Puppies. Wish us luck!

Moar picspams yay!


So as you've possibly gathered, I have embraced my inner camwhore as late. Here's what I rocked for Halloween. I was going to do a gothed out Dorothy, but it wasn't coming together so I went for a 60's femme fatale vibe. I did my hair myself Friday night (which would be the full-length pic) but went to the beauty school to get it did up proper for Saturday (above). Not for the first time, I found myself wishing I'd been alive in 1964.

As far as festivities, we had a potluck at work, where I made a crudités platter that I plied upon the next couple of parties I went to. I picked up that cute ceramic bat dish at Michael's for a buck, and the Mickey pumpkin is from guess where:


Friday night was a birthday party at sulphuroxide, which despite my being a boring loser and spending a nice portion of the evening reading an awesomely pulpy paperback of his, I had a grand time at:



After another party on Saturday (iknorite?), E and I struck out on Sunday in search of Dia de los Muertos festivities. I've gone out to a festival at a museum in Ventura for a few years, but the museum's apparently moved locations and they cut way back on the party. Fortunately we picked up a weekly and found out about another fete back closer to home. It was a gorgeous day so it was a nice drive, and I always love to see the ocean:



Eventually we wound our way to the cemetery where things were going on and could see evidence of it from the time we crossed the gates:



Like I said, it was a beautiful day. The grounds were lovely, overlooking a field of corn that was glowing in the sun, and surrounded by the mountains on the other sides.



I overheard the guy from this car club talking about how this was the first time they'd come out (this was only the second time this event was thrown) and how they'd be coming out next year. It's hard to see in my shot, but that lowrider's bumpin:



And speaking of cars, this is one of my favorite Dia de los Muertos traditions. I take it this truck previously belonged to a Mr. Gomez (see the driver's side door):





Now for the most important bit, the ofrendas! These are the shrines dedicated to people who've gone before. There are a lot of different ways of doing it, but some of the traditions include three tiers draped in white, photos, representations of the dead's favorite things, marigolds, copal incense and of course, skeletons!







I just adore all the creativity and love you can see reflected. That's Cesar Chavez above, and you can't forget about MJ:



All in all it's a very celebratory atmosphere. Note the playful kids on the way back from what must have been a nearby pumpkin patch:



Also check the mariachis!





The masked mariachi's forehead read "Tú y Yo" or "You and I".



Eventually people began gathering for a parade over the cemetery grounds, including Aztec dancers and people carrying big skeleton puppets.







I've been looking for a good Day of the Dead celebration somewhat closer to home and this was aces. It was a great time, and I will definitely plan to go again next year.

And speaking of closer to home, here's my own ofrenda!



I usually set something up every year, but thanks to the X-Entertainment Die-O-Rama Contest I had some extra fun with the project.



Basically the challenge was to create a spooky diorama within the confines of a shoebox, which I made into a little shrine to my grandparents. I'm fortunate enough to have only lost relatively few loved ones so far in my life, so I try to have some representation of everyone, though.



The Die-O-Rama was created out of a Coach shoebox, a set of Halloween lights, another couple of recycled boxes and an old t-shirt for the tiers, faux flowers and scrapbook supplies that I had on hand, some more that I bought and other keepsakes I had around. The photos, and the Frank Sinatra tape, came from Moms having finally recently given in to sorting through the belongings we inherited when my Grandma DeeDee died (made copies of the pics, of course).



I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely it came out, if I may say so. Got to bust out the hot glue got AND the power drill, so I was feeling pretty snazzy. It's particularly nice when it's lit up:



Thanks for looking. Love ya!

Hey! Hope everybody had a great Halloween. I know I did, but if my blogging pace is indication, you won't see any evidence of it for seven hundred years. Figured I'd better post some pictures from the last couple of trips to Diz before Halloweentime is completely over and done!



On 10/04, I went along with my roomie, his girl, and his mom to celebrate a family birthday, and had a really fun time. I also discovered the true wonder of the Guest Assistance Card, I must admit.

Above is one of the mood spots on Indy. Below is the King Triton's Carousel in California Adventure, which has a bunch of awesome otters and all kinda things:



So the day we were visiting just so happened to fall in the middle of Gay Days weekend. If you don't know, during Gay Days people from all over the country visit the parks and wear red shirts for solidarity and pride, whether gay or straight. I didn't get a picture of any of the swaths of red, but you can kinda see the level of extra big crowds going on that day here....



So on the Halloweentime tip tip, the Nightmare Before Christmas remake of Haunted Mansion is gorgeous.



The Ghost Galaxy remake of Space Mountain is super awesome as well...he got my hand! Plus here's one last picture of me being twee:


I swear I don't really smoke! Disney can be stressful sometimes, so I had to chill out with one. If it's good enough for Obama...

Moving on to 10/18, my Moms needed a ride to Irvine for the day for a seminar so I had an excuse to hit up the parks again. Since I was coming from the opposite direction than usual, I ended up getting funneled to the distant-as-hayell Pumbaa parking lot, rather than the Mickey and Friends parking structure. This put a slight cramp on my style, but I made it work.



I was going to crop the picture on the right so you could see the plaid-tastic cast members better, but I just couldn't bring myself to cut out a hidden Mickey.

By the time I'd gone to City Hall for a card and picked up a locker and farted around Main Street a bit, I realized it was close to noon, which on Sundays is Micechat meetup time.



I haven't been to many meetups, but I have met a few nice people, including the two guys that basically run MiceChat (as I understand it). They are supes nice, of course.



After the typical dithering around where to get food that tends to come up, a group headed over to the CA Adventure area for a restaurant that I wasn't familiar with, that I definitely have to keep in mind in the future.



I had ended up with a GIANT bento, partially because Moms had forgotten her portion in the car, but I felt like getting some hot eats anyway. For about $8 for a cheeseburger and fries, this is about as good of a deal as you can get anywhere around DLR. I also had some delicious pears and grapes from my bento, which you can see in the upper right.

After lunch, we walked around the Grand Californian Hotel area for awhile to check developments out (they've got a balcony area for vacation property holders to watch the upcoming World of Color show) and then went in CA Adventure.



I kinda dogged CAA at first for being such a strange cartoonish version of California, but I have to admit they do a good job in some places of capturing a really natural environment that lets you forget you're in the middle of Anaheim.



Another nice thing about CAA, it's where they serve booze...I had lost my purse the day before (when I went to go pick up Moms' ticket for her thing!) so I couldn't get a glass of wine, but I was eager to check out the Blue Skye Cellar, which is sponsored by the winery (so they let you bring in the wine) and where they display the concept art for park developments.



Considering that it seems like half of CAA is blocked off with construction walls for the Little Mermaid dark ride and World of Color construction, it's nice to see a little bit of what to expect.

World of Color is the huge fountain and fireworks show, and apparently they're using all these cut paper pieces, after animating them digitally. Think South Park, but more three dimensional, and frankly pretty amazing looking. There's a little film that plays about the process as well, so between that and the booze this is a really good place to keep in mind as a sanity haven.





If only pictures could do justice to how great these pieces are. I love paper cuttings!

So, like at Disneyland, there's a tiny model of the park, this one illustrating how the park will look when the construction is complete. It's really a nice thing to see, considering how bad the park itself looks at times.



There's also some concept art for the Red Car they're apparently putting in. I am very excited about the prospect of trying to hitch a ride on the bumper and pretending to be Eddie Valiant.



So at this point, I decided to part ways with the Micechatters. Someone had picked up FastPasses for Tower of Terror for everyone, so I struck off to use it, since I realized I hadn't actually been on any rides so far. I got lost on my way, though, and ended up in a part of the park that was totally new to me, Flik's Fun Fair.




Does anybody else see a Dharma logo? Just me, then?



So I finally made it to Tower of Terror. That shiz is scary, y'all!



No, seriously, it is scary as shit. I mean, I thought it was gonna be Disney scary, but it was scurry scurry.



Of course, that might be a subjective statement. Notice the placidly smiling grandmotherly type behind me.

The Hollywood backlot portion of Adventure has all this props lying around, including this amazing relic from a bygone era...



The Nike of Samothrace is pretty cool too. Haha geddit because they got rid of all the payphones because we all have cell phones now??? Okay, moving on.

Disney's launched a pretty cool line of clothing that seems to be branded D55:



I'm kinda all about the red and grey this fall, so I'm into these. Now that I've stared at them awhile, they're totally going to be mine.

More Main Street business:



Try as I might, I could not get a good shot of Vampire Goofy here. He was all decked out, though, had a coffin and everything. Those phones in the coffee shop are party lines, so you can listen in and hear all kinds of scandalous drama.

It was getting near time to leave to pick up my Mom, so I decided to try and ride one more, Ghost Galaxy. I decided to rock my iPod on the ride so I kept myself occupied trying to pick out a good song...I went with Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk.



Highly recommended. Space Mountain plus peppy techno would be a winning combo no matter what, but on the Ghost Galaxy version? Forget about it, child.



So I managed to squeeze in a little bit of pin trading, with the four pins I had up for grabs. I accidentally picked up a Piglet pin that I already have, though, when it's actually a Pooh pin that my collection is missing, so I must retrade.



One thing I didn't detail was my Downtown Disney detour to Sephora, which has me looking extra adorable lately. Thought you might like to know.



I also finally caved and signed up for polyvore and made a little doohickie with those colors I'm digging for fall:

I own the fedora and cardigan, and I just picked up those purple Payless shoes...Pretty much everything pictured here is plus-sized or at least in-betweenie sized as well as wallet friendly, except for those Jill Sander mustard flats, which are a reasonable $525. If anybody's doing their Christmas shopping.

Hey, it's time to post something! Thank god for microblogging, fatshionista and the seasonal renewal of X-Entertainment, is alls I can say.

Check-check out my goodies from this year's St. Rose book sale this summer:


Have I read any of it yet? No, but let's talk about them anyway! The Orson Scott Card and Dale Carnegie book were for my buddy, he also got a How to Survive Anything handbook from the next sale I hit. Everything else is mine, all mine! Muahahahaha!

Sorry, I've been generally declutterifying my life lately, but sometimes I need to indulge my hoardery tendencies. I supplement it with massive doses of Clean House, Hoarders and How Clean is Your House aversion therapy. But they'll get my books from they pry them from my cold, dead hands, after they find me under the pile that's toppled on top of me.

Back on topic! The food processor and Cooking with Claudine cookbooks are nods to my recent obsessions with my food processor and public television food shows, respectively. My nearest and dearest have had to accustom themeselves with my first name basis references to Julia, although I have yet to get around to seeing Julie and Julia. The House on Mango Street is really big in Chicano literature history; I bought the Pablo Neruda collection without even realizing the greatest part, which is that every poem is listed in the original text along with the English translation. Very cool. East of Eden filled the "classic I've never read" category, and I was super jazzed to find a pulp noirish paperback by Stephen King. I have a whole collection of genuinely old school paperbacks from the 2005 sale by John D. MacDonald. Haven't got around to reading those either, sadly.

So, this weekend I went all the way up to Santa Barbara to volunteer (and shop) at the annual Planned Parenthood book sale:


Apparently I should have made it to the beginning of the sale, they told me it was only 30% of what it once was by the day I made it there. Even still it was far bigger than the St. Rose sale. More varied selection too, so my selections might appear to skew somewhat towards the scandalous? Whatever. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which at just 175 pages I'm about 1/3 of the way through already, sold me on the jacket blurb: "If Flannery O'Connor and Rita Mae Brown has collaborated on the coming-out story of a young British girl in the 1960s, maybe they would have approached the quirky and subtle hilarity" etc etc. I've never read Rita Mae Brown but the Flannery O'Connor reference is certainly apt, with the dark humor and religious imagery threaded through everything. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers is a "history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America", which I got again because of my interest in pulp. Thanks Quentin Tarantino!

The Anne Rice and Gregory Maguire ones are similar in that they're both a take on fairy tales. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is the first in the series of Anne Rice's porny take on Sleeping Beauty. What I really had my eye out for was something in the Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, because half a dozen episodes of True Blood have been more than enough to convert me, but I didn't have any luck finding them so I settled for this. Mirror Mirror is a take on Snow White; I absolutely loved Wicked but I haven't read the sequels so I'm jazzed to read something else by Gregory Maguire.

Night Shift I got because of the cover art and because I can basically never leave one of these sales without a Stephen King book. Interesting (to me) to point out, the introduction is written by John D. MacDonald. Organizing for Dummies is self-explanatory, I hope, and finally we get to my coolest find: Choice Sometimes Chance: Recipes from the Kitchen of a Planned Parenthood Person. Circa 1980!

I love vintage cookbooks, especially this kind of self-published one, but if I bought every one I saw...I couldn't resist this one, though. It has the most amazing punny recipes:



From a Smorgasbord of Choice to Molding Public Opinion Salads and Mushrooming Support Soup! So awesome.

This whole health care reform debate has been befuddling, but having spent the morning going into hock at the dentist and having to decide between putting off either getting rid of the wisdom teeth that are paining me ferociously or doing other stuff that might prevent a root canal further down the line because there's not enough insurance to cover both, the cognitive dissonance is downright mind-boggling.

Or maybe that's just the painkillers kicking in. I've got 29 of 'em left to last me through the three weeks that I'll still have my wisdom teeth, so cheers for that. Plus, I have a whole tooth over on the one side now, instead of 2/3 of one! It feels weird at the moment but I imagine it will come in handy.

Unfortunately as a result I'm not exactly flush with cash, so I'm hesitant to shell out to renew my Flickr account until Friday. So rather than uploading the Comic-Con pitchurs...I'll take a little Vicodin nap for a couple of hours!

Two hours later

Okay, that wasn't exactly planned, but what are you gonna do. Now that I'm a little more lucid, I'm thinking it's going to be a long few weeks here. I'm thinking I might swear off soda, too, because this tooth decay shiz is for rubes. Or maybe just swear off soda in general and only indulge in the good stuff, like Pom 7Up. I had this amazing soda from monsieur marcel's at the LA Farmer's Market:



That was good. But I'm getting off topic here. I wanted to get into why I'm trying to get my teefs taken care of, both for the benefit of anybody that doesn't know, and because I'm a believer in self-fulfilling prophecies from experience, so I figure the more I talk it up the more it is likely to become a reality.

I'm going to NYC to go to the Columbia School of General Studies! Not this fall, but it's happening.

I still have my doubts and worries about the feasibility and whether it's the right thing to do, of course. Wouldn't it be smarter (and cheaper!) to go to an in-state school? I could go to UCLA and commute, for Pete's sake, or I could go to Berkeley...but for my chosen major, I still have a crapload of prerequisites to do, and am just so ready for a change.

A major change. I worry too whether I'm not just giving in to the old quarter-life crisis and want to escape my reality. Whether I'm not being seduced by the fancy Ivy name after being self-conscious over my less than stellar high school career and spending the better part of the decade in community college. On the other hand, I've done well enough for myself that I got in, and have a nice hefty number of credits to transfer, so who's to say it's not just my path?

Save the fact that I expect to leave the Bean back in Cali, at least to start with, I'm really thrilled at the whole prospect. Independence, one of the best-regarded schools around, the most exciting city I can think of...what's not to love?

Seriously, if anybody has a good idea about what's not to love, I'm open to hearing it. I'm about to write these fools a check.

I know Comic-Con pics would probably be more interesting, but I just can't bury these behind new uploads so let's get to it real quick. And then, oh, do I have some goodies to show off.


Unlike these, which are somewhere between unappetizing and totally gross-looking. Still tasty, except for the something-like-an-eggs-benedict which I never ate because I turned out be feel under the weather that day and was not prepared for experimentation or cold Hollandaise.


This was fun! I've had these Hello Kitty rice molds for ages but I never use them. I'm also slowly mastering making rice after a lifetime of needing my sister to make her patently awesome recipe and ruing the day she moved away.


Berries are wonderfully in season right now, they are just amazing. To the right we have my famous green bean casserole, some broccoli, and some meatloaf.


The cherries aren't bad either. We've also got leftover meatloaf crumbled up for tacos, decorated with avocado cutouts.


I don't have all too much to say about this lunch, except that it reminds me of how, when I make the effort, this project has really helped me establish healthier eating patterns, as well as eating seasonally. Thank goodness for that.


That's raspberry coulis over the fruit, made possible thanks to the our latest kitchen addition, a decent strainer. Along with the food processor and the standing mixer, it's been getting a lot of use.


I had to send in an entry for a bento contest out of this batch, so I picked this one. It turned out to really be a breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast was fresh raspberries and Reynardo's rice pudding with a little extra cinnamon, lunch was the peanut butter and blackberry sandwich and I had the salad for dinner, the highlight of which was the balsamic vinaigrette I made in the food processor.


And now the evidence of standing mixer use, yet more trifle. I don't feel particularly bad, because it takes wonderful advantage of the freaking amazing fruit that's available right now, courtesy of farmers markets and trucks on the side of the road. There's strawberry/razz coulis mixed into the whipped cream, too, but it didn't really give it the bright pink cast I was hoping for. Still and all, you're looking at some major delicious right here.

A sartorial friend confessed to stealing one of my favorite Shia LaB pictures for his look book, which entertained me quite a bit, and got me perusing my own photo archives. For anybody with other things to worry about, a look book (or lookbook) can refer to a few different things but in my case is just a collection of influential fashion images. Now, when it comes to looking stylin' I can't claim much success, but I know what I like. I also recently discovered fatshionista, which has been at turns edifying and encouraging. Anyway, what I'm getting at here, is PICSPAMTIME!!!!1one

First though, it would feel weird going on with remarking on the death of MJ, but funnily enough I just happened across the a great retrospective of all of his styles over the years, so go check that out if you're so inclined. RIP, Michael. Shamon.

Now, on to the pretty pictures! ( audrey to zooey )

Moving to more recent projects, I got a little crazy with the Modge Podge...After knocking over a stack of empty shoeboxes I've been stepping around, I went off with an Exacto knife and a handful of old Vogue magazines. Now I have a bunch of fancy boxes that I'm stepping around!

#1: Fairies!!!


I think this is my least favorite one. It's okay, I guess. I wanted to use the Prada fairies ads I like so much, and I had a bunch of these little fairie wall decals...I put Helena Bonham Carter on the bottom because she's always seemed so ethereal and fits in with the gloomy aesthetic of the Prada ad. Eh. Moving on.

#2: The colors, Duke! The colors!


This one I like, it's cheery! And those bubblegum pink heels...to die for.

#3: In Bloom


My initial inspiration was Penelope Cruz, then Balenciaga, and that finally led to flowers. Whatever, it's magazines stuck to a box.

#4: The Gloved One



On this one I tried using stuff with interesting patterns and colors for a first layer, before adding more stuff on top. Came out okay.

#5: Drew!


I'm a little sappy about this one. Obviously, I'm a packrat of epic proportions, being that I hang onto magazines and shoeboxes and assorted ephemera. One such category is a file full of old pictures of Drew Barrymore, that were collected and/or used for a collage that occupied a couple of my walls way back in high school. After picking out the ones I wanted to use here, I was able to justify getting rid of the rest of it once and for all, along with a bunch of other junk, but I also get to repurpose all these pictures that I've had since way back in the day. I mean, look at those GUESS ads! Remember what I said about the matte lipstick? <3

#6: I can never think "Kate" without adding "We have to go baaaaaaaaaaaack" which has nothing to do with this:




This is from a stash of pics that I pulled from magazines right at the height of the whole Cocaine Kate thing. I don't know if she's still in as many ads lately, but she sure wasn't having trouble booking gigs then. Here I've got ads from Chloe, Versace, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Stella...and I can think of three other campaigns off the top of my head.

So! The next task is to organize crap INTO the boxes. It's either that or run the risk of being found trapped under a collapsed pile of magazines and knicknacks in a puddle of Modge Podge. Odds are probably about 50/50.

Thanks to another sinus infection I got some magical elixir from the doctor, plus cold meds loop me anyway, so I've spent some time today feeling about as psychedelic as the new Weird Al video.



It's kind of a bummer that the only reason I've finally managed to catch up on posting Lunchbox pictures is that I'm not packing lunches as often as I'd like. I'm still eating at home, but there's eating at home and there's having the energy to make it cute.


These are Argentinean sandwiches de miga and a beef empanada. The cafe I get them from refers to the egg-filled versions as "mixtos", which otherwise seems to refer most often to a completely different type of Cuban sandwich. There's also a ham and cheese one.


You can see just a bit of the red pepper in the mixtos sandwiches here. I hate mayonnaise with a fierceness, but it works for me in these sandwiches since they use just the slightest hint rather than globs of gelatinous slime. I know the paprika makes the eggs look kinda freaky, but they need a little something to punch up the taste.


I actually took this salad out into the world! I didn't end up opening the can of tuna, but the veg held up well and was right delicious hours later. I'm experimenting with working out my own dressing mixes. It's a process.

*******************************************************************************

Trying to mix it up a bit here, rather than taking a bunch of pictures and typing up a bunch of blah blah about it I made a couple of videos. You might remember my ultimate guide to green bean casserole...I haven't read it in awhile and I was interested to see how I make it differently now. I was just starting to use canned mushroom back then; now I'd rather probably rather use fresh ones or none at all over the canned ones, and I prefer to use fresh beans too.



Another thing I was interested to find? Is that I apparently make everything sound like a question? Which I didn't realize I was quite so guilty of?


Oh, I just remembered, I found this great old Hallmark recipe file book that includes a couple of vintage recipes of it's own. No publishing date though...it's got a "green beans and mushrooms" recipe: Green beans, canned mushrooms and water chestnuts, flour, chopped onions, sour cream, Swiss cheese and crushed cornflakes. Honestly not too horrible, except for the use of Swiss cheese, which has such a strong flavor I can't imagine it meshing well with the other ingredients.


For my birthday, mom and I took a French Baking class at Sur La Table. Super fun. The tart made in class in on the left. One of the things I did in class was make the pasty cream you use as a base for the tart...I made it again at home for my own two, with the addition of a little bit of cajeta I had left in a tub. Oooh, you know what else would be good in there, is nutella! I copped out and didn't actually make a fancy pasty crust for mine, just a regular old graham cracker crust. I also used blackberry preserves rather than raspberry for the glaze, so that's why it looks...inky?

More birthday stuff, here are a few pictures from Disneyland:



One of my very best besties and I went down to Anaheim the night before so that we could get an early start on the parks the next day. We were able to get in early enough that we managed to ride Space Mountain without too much of a wait. Oh, speaking of not waiting in line, I was familiar with the wonderful secret known as "Indy Single Rider", but I never took better advantage of it that on this particular day. Seriously, waiting in the regular line for that ride is a total sucker's bet. We got on it twice in row inside of half an hour. Did you hear Shia was talking about Indy 5 this week??? Totally FTW. I can't wait for them to add a Mutt motorcycle sequence to the ride <3



You have to look pretty closely to see them, but over in California Adventure the roller coaster broke down ON TOP OF A HILL and the people had to walk down. They probably had the best view of the park anybody could imagine but it gave me the heebie jeebies just looking at it.



On the tram ride back to the car, there was a small child having a meltdown because quote I want that Mickey I wanted it I want that Mickey want Mickey I wanted it unquote. Later I decided that he was referring to one of the Mickey variations of these candy apples, and I was more sympathetic to his anguish. Granny smith dipped in caramel dipped in chocolate dipped in marshmallow rolled in sugar with marshmallow ears. On a stick. Epic.

Some of you might know that it was my birthday this Wednesday. Less likely would be you knowing that it was also someone else's birthday this past week, but if you've spent any extended amount of time talking to me, have read my angstier entries or have noticed the giant Kingdom of the Crystal Skull piñata dominating my livingroom, you would not be surprised to hear that I made note of it.

Of course, I'm talking about Shia LaBeouf, polarizing motherfucker that he is. I have my theories as to why so many people are haters (present company excluded, of course, surely you have irrefutable reasons). This is a kid that waltzed through adolescence in a way most of us can only dream, and on the end of it he's been seemingly anointed as The Next Big Thing without anybody having had any say in it. And besides, just look at the kid...

Listen, I can't fault anybody whose douchebag alarms start pinging when they see something like that. I get it.

Very easy to dismiss as nothing more than a pretty face...and great hair...And yet, I have a fascination with the lad that goes above and beyond the ability to rock the fuck out of business formal.

Apologia, or just an excuse to post more pictures? Is there a difference?

Easiest to explicate is the common trait of multiethnicity, which, for better or worse, I have always found to be a dominant factor in my worldview. Just like the Prez and our future Supreme Court Justice, I'm all about the identity politics. How could I ignore the kid with the funny French name that turned out looking like a nice Jewish boy?


And another SoCal native to boot And he even roots for the right team! (2009 NBA CHAMPIONS WHAT WHAT!)


And of course I can't discount the fact that despite having just turned at least a year past old enough to know better, I can't resist my fascination with people with bad habits and the sense to avoid them, but not the ability.


Call it the high-functioning dysfunctionals? The kind of people that can't keep from screwing themselves out of their license, but manage to get around on their Chevrolegs when that's what they've gotta do. I'm being metaphorical, here. I don't think it's working.


What it all comes down to, obviously, like with any celebrity obsession, is the empathy factor (LOL Supreme Court again). Imagining that sharing the circumstances of absentee dads that are addicts but generally okay dudes means some kind of ethereal connection. Reading quotes like "I have no idea where this insecurity comes from, but it's a God-sized hole. If I knew, I'd fill it, and I'd be on my way" and thinking about how you could have said it, or “I grew up with a bunch of hippies, and marijuana was always around” and thinking "gee, I wonder if he's got baby pictures like this?":



I hate to get all Electra complex, but looking at the pictures now, perhaps I need to reexamine whether I don't just have a weakness for dudes with the ability to sport a goofy mustache...

:{1

Can't believe another season is nearly over. Soon we return to that pallid time known as the world without new LOST.



Remember the blast doors? Once upon the time they got all blowed up, now they're just being built and eventually someone will paint a big question mark on them so they can get blown up again. Unless they get blown up first. God, I love LOST.

( Little did I know that I would find more than a sandwich when I decided to eat lunch! )

It's time for me to bring sexyback. I feel ready to be ready to be ready to maybe be ready to kick ass or fall on my face.

( meme )

Everybody uses the Cooliris Firefox plugin, right? Because that thing is awesome. Nothing is better for exploring Flickr, and I can't even stand to look through GIS results without using it. The iPhone app's decent, too. (edit: Right after I posted this, I downloaded an update to Cooliris, so far it seems even better then ever!)

It's funny, pandemic is actually one of my biggest paranoid fears but I have enough to stress about atm, I guess. I found some fascinating pictures from Mexico on Flickr that I had to share, though. I didn't want to hotlink so I uploaded them elsewhere, but you can find the original sources/photographers and a few other good ones under my Flickr favorites:


( más )

Before I can go any further, I have to note how sad I am to hear that Bea Arthur has passed away. One of the true greats, she had an amazing and long career but she'll still be missed. Eff off, cancer.

Moving on, what's say we check out the pics from San Francisco last weekend? As always, click the pictures for more detail.



After wiki'ing "fear of flying" the morning of the trip, I determined that at least as much of my avoidance of planes is plain old agoraphobia, as opposed to the outright fear of dying a claustrophobic death. This actually edifies things, since I'm perfectly aware of the fact that my willingness to drive on LA-area freeways is technically a riskier behavior than flying on a plane but that doesn't change the fact I haven't flown in at least a decade. Anyway, thanks to my mom picking a fight with the TSA agent over not being able to keep my 99¢ bottle of mousse, by the time we boarded the plane my adrenaline had basically peaked so I was pretty much able to deal. We had some turbulence, which was slightly horrifying, but it's literally only a 45 minute flight so I managed.

It suddenly occurs to me, perhaps that one time my mom called a flight attendant a bitch and got us stranded in Phoenix in the middle of summer might actually have more to do with all of this than I've realized. Hmmm. Moving on!



So the airport is in South San Francisco, which this elucidating hillside explains is "The Industrial City". If you got north along the coast of the bay, you'll end up in the Fisherman's Wharf area. You'll also see some nifty stuff along the way, like a giant sextant and bow and arrow.



We were staying near Pier 39, which is the epicenter of FW. We were pretty worn out by the time we made our room, but wasn't enough to prevent me from flipping out when I opened the curtains to check out the view. Alcatraz was RIGHT there!



After unwinding a little bit, we set out to explore and find some food. Thank the sweet baby Jesus for the iPhone Google Maps application, that lovely piece of software got us just about everywhere we needed to be. It was that and dumb luck that got us to Unicorn, where we finally had an amazing dinner. Speaking of the baby Jesus, since Lent's over and I hadn't really eaten all day out of nerves and was on vacation anyway, even though Unicorn had a great vegetarian menu I went ahead and cheated on my "no meat on Fridays" rule.

I have fond memories of roasted and noodled ducks from many wonderful places. Crispy honey duck from Toi in Hollywood, so savory it makes your eyes water. Duck noodle soup from Rich and Richer that makes your tummy feel like it's wearing a Christmas sweater. I swear, this was the best duck I've ever had in my life. Here's the menu description:
Five Spice Duck Mosaic
with Shang Hai Bok Choy and Orsis Mushroom
(Chao Zhou-style duck confit and duck prepared two ways in five spices with baby bok choy)
I know the picture's horrible but you'll just have to indulge me. On the left was sliced duck breast, layered between matching slices of mushrooms. On the right was a duck thigh, which was surrounded by the pieces of bok choy, and topped with what I think were strips of beets. It was either that or some kind of crispy noodle made with beets...this was the best dish in a weekend of good food, hands down.



We had a nice slow start on Saturday. I could start every morning with a sleep number bed and Spongebob episodes. I caught just a little bit of the new "Spongebob versus the Big One" special with Johnny Depp, good stuff.



Fisherman's Wharf's a bit of a tourist trap, at least as much as I was able to to see of it. Lots of tacky little theme shops (which I'm not saying is a bad thing) including a pirate one:



Do you see what the bootleggers have done to poor Captain Jack? Cut his face, knocked out one of his eyes, and most importantly given him an extra chin or three. Unforgivable.

At this point we headed out to what I expected to be the highlight of the trip, our visit to Japantown:



We checked out one of several farmer's market's we saw around the city, and then we crossed a big pedestrian bridge that leads to the Japantown mall. There was some cool Kim Jong Il street art stenciled on it:




It wasn't until we got over the bridge that we were really able to see just how much was going on...I had known that the Cherry Blossom Festival had been going on the week before, but it turned out to be a two week deal. Huge street festival! Check the crowds:



They had a whole row of stands where people could play games of chance, and get samples of various brands of snacks and drinks. I was most interested in these new Nestle treats in Mexi-fantastic flavors:



Fresas con crema, vainilla, coco, mango, arroz con leche, tres leches!!! Plus paletas! I only got to try to coco (aka coconut), but I will be looking for these flavors fo' sho. I love feeling like a catered-to demographic.



First thing I noticed was the bicycle, but as I got closer I realized I was looking at the coolest car ever, i.e. the Hello Kitty mobile. Definitely check the details on these. That matte black paint job! Be still my heart.



Japantown's a cool little place. The mall is three big buildings, and all around it are more shops. One of them is Nijiya Market, which had all kinds of funky stuff. It was overwhelming in it's awesomeness.



This is the plaza in between two of the mall buildings. The cherry trees were gorgeous! There was an equally amazing bonsai exhibit going on:



Some of the trees had cards that identified them as 100 years old or more. They were so cool!



One last little thing from Japantown...we were looking for snacks from the food vendors (ended up getting some grilled meat on a stick and green tea ice cream <3333) and these folks were drumming up some business for their booth:


I read on twitter that Mos Def was walking around the festival the next day. I think running into the Mighty Mos would have been the only thing that could have made this whole weekend cooler. BTW anybody else just start seeing trailers for the R-rated action comedy he's doing with Mike Epps and Donald Faison? Looks to have potential.

On to Haight Ashbury! All around there are beautiful Victorian houses with great details.





This one was my favorite:



Lots of funky, overpriced shops along Haight. I was intrigued by this bus illustrating how to comply with the cooking oil recycling program. Fun fact, I was throwing garbage into recyclables cans for like a day because the colors are different down here.



Kidrobot store, which made me think of Comic-Con...not sure how that's going to end up going down this year, we'll see!



We ended up at Mel's Diner for dinner. I've been past the one in Hollywood a million times but I've never actually eaten there. Had a great french dip sandwich, which my mom had to copy. I didn't mind, since I got to eat the leftover half cold for breakfast the next morning :9



Lord, the things I bought. This doesn't even include the parasol I bought despite smudging a different one in the rack with my ice cream cone (sorry parasol vendor!).





Top row: Hello Kitty Fisherman's Wharf gear and Pikachu spoon from overpriced magnet store, manga from Kinokuniya Bookstore, including Doraemon, Bleach and the first huge volume in an epic series about Buddha by the artist who created Astro Boy. A bento box and pencil bag from the Sanrio store.
Second row: Battle Royale Director's Cut DVD and Domokun bottle opener. Blind box toys from Kidrobot for my dogsitting buddy who's quitting smoking (and who also got the Bleach manga). Some cool finds from the Haight Ashbury Goodwill store, which we found after being disappointed by the insanely overpriced deals at the hipster consignment shops. Yeah, that was a great Steve Miller Band shirt, but $48?
Third row: Epic pillaging of Ichiban Kan. All the bento gear I could ever need. Plus those little doohickies that make it easier to use chopsticks, and a squeeze bottle to replace the big jar of simple syrup sitting in the fridge, and sweet potato chips...



Random observation: There are a lot of funky little bars/restaurants in San Francisco:



Sunday morning I had to get up be somewhere, which turned out to be right on the water. At one point I had a break and I went down to watch the boats and snack on some banana bread from the farmer's market. Afterwards we went back to Haight Ashbury because I really wanted to go to the Aardvark's thrift store, which had been closed the night before.



We found a couple of neat shops off the main drag, one called the Pink Lotus with lots of imported Buddhist/Hindu trinkets, and the Comix Experience, which had this cool if badly photographed Watchmen display in the window:



After that we had to get back to the Wharf for a restaurant we had a certificate for in time for our flight. Just outside the restaurant (Castagnola's) I saw a jelly fish! At dinner, like a dork, I ordered something called a Smirnoff Ice Pomegranate Fusion and actually expected some kind of mixed drink with Smirnoff Ice XD I admit that's dumb, but way to fail with your branding there, Smirnoff.



I had salmon with lobster brandy sauce, and it came with a lemon slice in a convenient and adorable little hairnet to keep seeds from slipping into your food. Usually I like to pretty well drench my fish in lemon but it made the great sauce start to break up so I had to limit it to the veggies and pilaf, which suffered from the blandness that you sometimes find in touristy places. Didn't find anything at Aardvark's that I loved, besides a great paisley silk scarf.



The spoils from Comix Experience. I'd heard about Cromartie High School but I was underprepared for it's hilarity. I picked up a Red Sonja one-shot, but later when I was reading the newsletter talking about upcoming runs, I found out there's apparently a Barack the Barbarian comic coming out where he battles a Red Sonja-esque Palin. That should be interesting.



This is a selection of the goodies from Nijiya. Unfortunately I think most of the stuff that could melt did so in transit, but it's all been decent so far. I inhaled that entire box of green tea sandwich cookies to my head yesterday, it was awesome.



Not pictured among the trinkets from the Pink Lotus is the little stone elephant I painstakingly picked out, because until I found him this morning I thought he'd disappeared. The other stuff is some incense I bought for my buddy, a necklace I suggested my mom get for someone, and a skirt, pashmina type shawl and a little purse for me. Initially I thought the image on the bag was related to the Dharma wheel but it seems to actually be a Ba Gua, which is a sort of feng shui map. I also got some beads, which I'm going to combine with some Tibetan skull beads I picked up at Wat Thai Temple a couple of years ago to make a kickass bracelet.

What a great weekend. It was definitely worthwhile, except maybe if you ask my bank account, but you only live once, right?

Two theme bentos in one week? Obviously I'm putting off studying for something.

So for LOST day, I decided to make the Lamp Post. I feel like this is just a retread of stuff I've done before, but as it was amazingly delicious I should just deal:




Figured that would be it for the week, but since I've been eating honeydew and strawberries for breakfast for days I wanted to punch things up a little bit for tomorrow. I thought about doing something Jesus-y but considering these are the downer days and I had Peanuts on the TV I took a slightly different approach:



It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown!

Please don't make fun of the fact that my Snoopy has no arms, because I am very happy with him and am looking forward to eating his adorable nose. Thanks.

My dearest momma nearly lost the dogs today! I would have been gutted, I tell you what. Fortunately they were both recovered, but not before I had a nice jumpstart on a panic attack in the middle of work.

All is well, though! It was Bean's birthday last Wednesday, by the way:


Aged four, a pup named Bean, frequently known as Beaner, Beanie, The Bean and Beanerton J. Dog, additional aliases Bear, Butters, Bubbles, Noodles, Boots, Bingo, Monkey Face, Batman, Buddy Boy, and Beanie Weenie :B

That's my dog right there! Don't get it twisted.

Went to Disneyland Saturday, spent absolutely way too much money upgrading my annual pass so that I could go any day I wanted for the rest of the year. So, uh, if anybody ever wants to go, hit me up.

I managed to remember extra batteries but not my camera, so I had to rely on the iPhone. Turns out the pictures actually come out half decent.

<- Of course, I still got completely lost on the way back to my car.


The "celebration" stuff is the big thing they're pushing this year. There's a tie-in parade; nothing special but it has some cute floats.

Oh, speaking of cute! I saw the sweetest thing: as I was walking down Main Street I noticed a barbershop quartet singing in a storefront. I have a love of barbershop music that goes beyond just my desire to give Seth MacFarlane the old screen door treatment, so I went for a closer look. I was jostled out of the way by an enthusiastic videographer but it turned out to be because a young guy was proposing to his gal to the strains of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart". Totally adorable.

Seriously though. Do you think he does the voices?


Ridiculously expensive pass aside, I was trying not to have too spendy of a day, so I brought some snacks. I refilled that water bottle all day, until I lost track of it somewhere in Tomorrowland.


There had been a meetup; I managed to find some kids that were with a youth group and we kicked it for the rest of the day. We went on Splash Mountain, which I would normally have never ridden alone. I tried to get a picture to represent how soaked I got...you can't really see that but it came out all MySpacey and emo so I liked it anyway.


I am a notoriously slow ice cream eater. I would have gone for the sorbet, being contained in a wrapper that would allow it to melt at will, but they were out. Mickey was, however, delicious.


We were heading out of Tomorrowland at this point when I noticed these guys getting set up. I was all, "Wait, they're gonna do some Stomp stuff!". And they did.


Found these amazing wonderments at World of Disney. Want want want want want want want.


First items I ever actually collected were bells. They should still be around somewhere, but I know a lot of them went down in the '94 earthquake. Anyway, the only reason I didn't buy the actually fairly reasonably priced Tink bell is because they don't seem to be in very short supply, and so it seemed a bit early for Christmas decorations. It will be mine, though.



Stopped at the Hearthstone Lounge in the Grand Californian for a chance to get some free D23 stuff and a $10 rum and coke. I ended up getting a Baloo pin and hitting the SNT, which is just about the coolest thing ever.

I do and don't feel like blogging. Hmm, despite feeling like I barely even bento lately I've still got a buttload of lunches to catch up on! What do you know!

Wow, some of these go back the entire year. I forgot I've only been posting the good ones. Let's see if we can spot when I start having to figure out the new camera.





I could have this for breakfast every day.







Sometimes I pack way too much food. I usually nosh on it later, or in the case of school nights I actually pack a whole extra snack:



Another weird thing I do that you may notice is chop food into small pieces. This is both because I find it convenient for microwaving, and because I'm crazy and just like eating things in segments.



Oh, and speaking of being crazy...this might be my favorite theme bento ever, just because of how it came about. As opposed to some belabored effort where I go out and buy some special ingredient and the whole thing comes out looking mediocre anyway, in this case I just so happened to observe that the salmon I was packing happened to look like a particular landmark from a particular movie from the formative years of a particular blogger. Next thing I know, I'm cutting a baboon butt out of fruit roll.



Awesome, right? C'mon! Here, let me log your memory. Nants ingonyama bagithi baba...


LOL. I'm sorry, you can't stand in the way of the muses, however silly they are.




I have got to learn how to make rice pudding as well as Reynaldo. BTW I mentioned I was going to try to do a meatless day, well since Lent has started I've done every Friday. I think that amazing potato garlic cheddar quesadilla was from Ash Wednesday (eta: I remembered, the Ajira Airways LOST/vegetarian bento was actually for Ash Wednesday LOST Day)...anyway I've still been eating a lot of fish on these days but if there has anything this entire project has taught me, is that it's all about baby steps. Tonight I went out and had the most epic tuna Niçoise salad...yum. Totally going to be trying that one at home.



I've tried a few cheeses now with that lovely French onion soup recipe, and I have to say the mozzarella has got to be my favorite single cheese for it. Mmm, now I'm craving it again.



Grilled cheese with avo = another tasty meatless wonder. Also, I effing love my whipped cream charger.



A perfect place to end, since this is the last picture I've downloaded from the camera. I forgot to take a picture of this admittedly uninteresting lunch the night before as I usually do, so I decided to haul it outside and represent it in it's natural environment, i.e. me trying to get the dogs to come in from wildin' out in the backyard. Look at Pixie, she's totally eyeballing my mac and chee!

Me and my infected sinuses are not completely loving life right now, but in honestly I'm somewhat relieved to find out that there's a possibility that something as simple as the magic of Amoxicillin might do something to improve my general outlook on the world. Did that make sense? Long story short, don't smoke, kids.

Don't get addicted to heroin and crash land on craphole islands, either.

I'm going to warn you right now, if you're hungry you might want to stop right now and grab a snack before you look at this, because I have to admit I went a little over the top here.


We're talking prep work, and foresight! Of course, all the dishes are still sitting in the sink :P

First we must start with the night before, or really a few weeks before but we can get back around to that bit later. I took my inspiration for this trifle from a magical dish know as "fresas con crema", or less lyrically, "strawberries with crema". One of the Mexican markets sells a magical confection of the stuff, just strawberries, crema, and a little whipped cream. They also do a pineapple/pecan one, which is great, but, you know, just not as. If you're not familiar with crema, it's something like crème fraîche, which is something like sour cream except for it's not gross.

There are all kinds of different brand varieties (my market has a couple behind the deli counter too) but I know I can always count on this one so I picked it up along with some ladyfingers and what is rapidly becoming a staple around here, heavy whipping cream. The only thing not pictured here is the Frangelico I decided to toss the ladyfingers in, otherwise I basically just threw everything together...



...at which point I insisted that it not be disturbed until the next day. Heartless, but I had my motivation too. I had a concern that the alcohol taste of the Frangelico would be too strong if it didn't sit overnight, and it's probably good that I did because there were a few complaints that it was even still too powerful. I thought it was just perfect, though, so different strokes. Next time I won't be too lazy to brew a pot of coffee and I'll use that instead, but you could just go without too.

So fast forward to the next day, I had a pile of onions just waiting for me to have a whole night to devote to dealing with them. I had noticed a lot of onions over the last few weeks at the farmer's market, so I went looking for a good recipe and I found this one for French Onion Soup on The Pioneer Woman Cooks. It is one of my absolute favorite dishes, and making it was half the reason I bought my awesome candy heart ramekins, so the matter was settled. I didn't find Gruyere cheese anywhere that I looked so I had to settle for mozzarella, but it was a happy compromise. This is seriously probably the best dish I have ever made from scratch. Don't tell me boxed stock doesn't count as from scratch, either.


The only problem was this all took way too long for a hungry weekday night, so I won't do that again. The reason I liked the Pioneer Woman recipe was this cool technique for caramelizing the onions. Rather than having to babysit them on the stove for ages, I only had to do that for a little while before throwing them into the oven to slow cook for an hour. I forgot to take a picture of how many onions I started with, but if you can see the scorch marks on the pot you can see how full it was.



So once the onions were finally ready, they went back on the stove with a cup of white wine. It smelled so good while it was reducing that I made it a very generous cup. I was generous with the garlic as well, of course.



While four cups each of beef and chicken stock and a few dashes of Lea & Perrins simmered, I made up the croutons and got someone to grate the cheese. Hell, I chopped all those onions myself, ain't no shame in my game. Finally finally finally the whole kit went under the broiler to get crispilicous.



Oh my heck, was it amazing. Using mozz made it taste almost like a pizza soup, and it was epic, epic win. Honestly, it was as good as any restaurant's version I've ever had. I can't wait to get some real Gruyere, and I am also betting that some Pecorino would be absolutely out of this world. This is most definitely getting made again some chilly weekend afternoon.

The trifle was lovely too:



Again, not everyone was crazy about the alcoholic taste of the ladyfingers, but I'm old and grizzled like Lou Grant so I was down with it. By the time I had the leftovers in the Watchmen bento I couldn't even taste it anymore.



It's like a ghetto tres leches! Hey, that gets me thinking, there's some condensed milk in the pantry, and I just got another beautiful batch of berries at the new farmer's market...