Jenny Can Bake, So Can You!

Before:

After:

Frosted ginger cookies. Recipe from December 2006 issue of Sunset Magazine.

This was the first time I attempted to bake cookies in my entire life! And it was a moderate success! I think I will start baking like a mad woman. And I don't even like eating cookies! (Just baking them, apparently.)

First good read this year

Just finished reading this novel (in two days) and believe it's the first good read for me this year (not that I've read that many books this year... although HP must count for three, right?)

The title of the book caught my attention, as certainly old, beat-up "Concise" Chinese-English dictionaries floated around my house as I was growing up.

The story is about a 23-year old girl who goes by Z (short for Zhuang) who leaves her rural China town to study English in London for one year. Loneliness drives her to move in and fall in love with a 44-year old Englishman, a bisexual vegetarian artist who has been a noncommittal drifter all his life.

The brief, 1-4 page chapters are written in first person, in "bad" English which gets progressively better, coinciding both with Z's acquisition of the English language as well as process of learning about love, heartache, independence, through cultural and language barriers.

Each chapter begins with a word and its dictionary definition, which also anchors and guides the story.

The jacket cover says that the author drew on her own experiences moving to London from China in 2002.

I laughed, I cried. Actually no, I chuckled, and felt sad. In a sense this is a classic coming-of-age tale, just with different circumstances. The characters feel very real, including the man, who she simply refers to as "you," as if she has been writing a long letter to him.

A bummer for me is that I actually thought of writing a novel in "bad" English years ago, and never got around to it. I think it makes for an interesting literary device. Of course it'd be much harder for me to make my "bad" English seem authentic... but perhaps I will still try...

On Buttons (Pack Ratting, Part II)

Last night I spent a good half hour sorting through piles of little zip baggies of miscellaneous buttons. You know, those extra buttons that some of your clothes come with, in case you need spare buttons in the rare instance that you actually wear your items long enough for the buttons to pop off. Sure, once in while, a button can get snagged in the wash, and it'll be either a button you critically need for either functional (i.e., pants button) or aesthetic (i.e., third button down your shirt) reasons. But really, how often do you need such buttons to justify having overgrown piles of spare buttons?

I was thinking about this last night, as I stared at the buttons and struggled to figure out which blouse or coat or pants they were for. It's not too hard figuring out a shiny silver button or a lime green one, but what about the endless supply of clear or white buttons? In some cases I was smart enough to include the clothing tag inside the baggy. Which helped, for the most part. And then came the sudden realization that perhaps some of these buttons have outlived the article of clothing they were intended for. Gasp!

9 & Company, Size 4, Clearance $25.98.
My mind drew a blank. ?

Even more perplexing, a plain envelope where I hand wrote: "white peasant blouse."

White peasant blouse? That didn't even ring a bell. I took the button out and inspected it and it didn't even look familiar. Then I went into my closet and flipped through articles of clothing (through what little budge room I could get in a jam-packed closet). Nothing closely resembled something that would complement the small round white satin button.

I racked my brain, when slowly, a vague memory starting seeping back.... of the 11th grade. National Honor Society. We had to buy all white outfits to stand guard for the 12th graders graduation. Yep, thirteen and a half years have gone by, the blouse long gone, long forgotten, yet the little button still remains.

I stuffed it with the rest of the buttons in a large ziplock bag and stuffed the whole thing in my closet.

All things 2007

2007 Albums I've Listened To, by release date

The Shins - Wincing the Night Away (01/23)
Elvis Perkins - Ash Wednesday (02/20)
Albert Hammond Jr. - Yours to Keep (03/06)
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (03/06)
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (03/13)
Bright Eyes - Cassadaga (04/10)
Patti Smith - Twelve (04/24)
Elliott Smith - New Moon (05/07)
Travis - The Boy With No Name (05/08)
Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars (05/15)
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky (05/15)
Interpol - Our Love to Admire (07/10)
Radiohead - In Rainwbows (10/10)
Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II (10/23)

2007 Ticketed Concerts I Attended, by date

My Morning Jacket @ The Wiltern (01/06)
Mountain Goats @ El Rey (03/11)
Joshua Radin @ El Rey (04/21)
Arcade Fire @ Greek (05/29)
Morrissey @ Hollywood Bowl (06/08)
The Decemberists @ Hollywood Bowl (07/07)
Peter Bjorn & John @ Henry Fonda (07/31)
Wilco @ Santa Barbara County Bowl (08/26)
Wilco @ Greek (08/29)
Arcade Fire @ Hollywood Bowl (09/20)
Air @ Greek (09/21)
Bright Eyes @ Hollywood Bowl (09/29)
Neil Young @ NOKIA (11/02)
Travis @ The Wiltern (11/21)**

2007 Movies I've Seen, by release date

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (05/25)
Knocked Up (06/01)
Ratatouille (06/29)
Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix (07/11)
The Simpsons Movie (07/27)
The Bourne Ultimatum (08/03)
Superbad (08/17)
The Darjeeling Limited (10/05)
No Country for Old Men (11/09)
Persepolis (12/25)


**have tickets to

Substance Abuse in the Workplace

This morning I went into the office kitchen and noticed an empty vodka bottle was tossed into the recycling bin. Vodka! As if someone was hitting the bottle at work, and then stopped to do the right thing by recycling the empty bottle!

Perplexed, I walked away. A couple hours later I went back to the kitchen and noticed that the bottle was gone. Gone! As if someone had decided it was perhaps not prudent to leave evidence of substance abuse in the office...

De-Pack Ratting

Today I'm suffering from massive allergies and a sinus headache, and I'm wondering if it's because I spent two and a half hours last night raising dust all over my apartment.

The slow, but sure process of de-pack ratting began last week when I found an abandoned Ikea shelf on the lawn (clean and practically brand new!). I finally had a chance to re-arrange my shelves, replacing an old collapsible plastic shelf with the newfound wooden Ikea one. Then I thought it'd be a good opportunity to consolidate books from other locations, re-organize, and at the same time, get rid of some books.

I used to save all the books I read as some sort of trophy of accomplishment. Like, these are the books I have read! Because I am well read! And look how smart I am for having read books like Crime and Punishment and Pride and Prejudice! Okay just kidding I kept those. But some books, you read them once, and you are never going to read them again. So get rid of them. Or books I've picked up used or were given to me by other people - some I'll never read. So why keep them?

The local library is getting picky. I had one tell me, "Sorry we have too many books right now" and another one tell me "We'll take them only if they are in mint condition." Harumph! I'll take the "mint condition" ones there and dump the old crusty ones in my office. Someone will likely take them....

De-pack ratting continues...

Dali Exhibit at LACMA

If you are in L.A., you might have heard about the new Dali: Painting and Film exhibit going on at LACMA until January 6.

Word of advice: Go on a weekday. Or wait a few more weeks. And go early in the morning. I went last weekend and it was jam packed with people. Not only was there a line trying to buy tickets, there was a line to get into the exhibit, and once inside the exhibit, you have to be in line just to move along the wall!

Tickets are $20 a person. The exhibit features a lot of his earlier works (pre-1950s), including perhaps the only really famous painting they had was the Persistence of Memory:

Much smaller than I expected! But nice to finally see the real thing after years of seeing imitations made for dorm walls.

Probably the best thing about the exhibit is all the films (or excerpts) showing. Including Destino, a 7-minute film 58 years in the making!

The Smoke Detector That Wouldn't Die

Smoke detectors beep when the battery is dying, so you know to change it. But does it really need to be that irritating? And, if you remove the battery, isn't it supposed to stop beeping?

So I was having a dream that the smoke detector was beeping. I was at some warped version of my parents' house when my dad asked me to change the battery. So I brought the smoke detector down and changed the battery. Except it was an unusual smoke detector. It was a smoke detector on one side, and then a clock on the other! The clock was tricky to re-install, and I ended up attaching the clock face backwards, and it was ticking counter-clockwise. I had to take it apart again to put the clock face on correctly. And then it beeped!

BEEP!

And I'm like, wait a minute, I just changed the battery. It shouldn't beep! So I kept fiddling with it and...

BEEP!

There it goes again! And it kept beeping and I started feeling annoyed. At this point I started hazily coming out of my dream, and I realized....that my smoke detector was beeping in real life!!!

It was only about 6 a.m., about an hour before I needed to get up. Of all the godforsaken times it needs to beep, it beeps when I am trying to get what little sleep I usually get!

I got up, turned on the light, grabbed my chair... all the while it beeped annoyingly and loudly, and pulled it off the wall. Tricky - it's one of those smoke detectors that is also attached electronically. It has an AC plus battery! (So what is powering what?!?)

I took out the battery and figured I might as well install a new one, but couldn't get the the AC plug back in, so gave up, took the new battery out and was ready to go back to bed. When it gave a ghostly, battery-less beep!

So then I took the whole device and left it out in the living room dining table, washed my hands of the dust, and crawled back into bed for what would be a precious 45 minutes of sleep.

BEEP!

Suddenly I became acutely aware of all the sounds surrounding me. The crows cawing outside my window. The dump trucks picking up garbage. The faucet where I just washed my hands dripping.

Drip. Drip. Drip. BEEP! Drip. Drip. Drip. BEEP!

So I got back up and turned the faucet really tight. Then I grabbed the smoke detector and chucked it out the window.

(Just kidding... I wish I did).

Needless to say, today, I feel one hour short on sleep....

Santa Barbara

[Trying to get back in the habit of blogging again...by starting fresh. Sort of.]

With the reddish gray skies and ash-filled winds, it seemed as if forces of nature were conspiring to keep us from having a perfect weekend.






But we still managed to have a lovely hiking trip, some wine tasting, and a fabulous meal at the Wine Cask - an absolute must if you ever go to Santa Barbara. I thought maybe to post about it on SoCalFoodies.com but feel as if I need to visit restaurants at least twice before posting about them... (an excuse to visit SB again!)





(Some of the most amazing food I've ever tasted!)

That's it for now...
Check out the rest of my pics here.

Snowing in Chicago!



I wish I had taken longer video clips....

Click here to view photos from my trip.


Enjoy!

Cabo!

Videos and pics from my long weekend in Cabo!


Yulin getting washed away (almost) by waves.



Parasailing (i.e., me freaking out).



Whale watching on the booze cruise.