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I ate phall..
I ate phall. It wasn't hot enough even though Wayne told the waiter to make it 'Indian hot'. In case you haven't heard, it's supposedly the spiciest of the normal Indian curries. The food was hotter than the last time, when I complained about the Vindaloo (different restaurant), but it still isn't doing the job.. Although I think if I go back there and get the same waiter, it will be hot enough next time.. the place was awesome (Mayuri in Santa Clara). My hunger for spicy food can not yet be sated, it seems... forgot to bring camera, so no pics, sorry. :(

Current Mood: calm

Preacher Cookies
Preacher Cookies

* 2 cups sugar
* 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
* 1/2 cup milk
* 1/2 cup margarine (1 stick) or 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
* Dash salt
* 1/4 cup peanut butter
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2 cups rolled oats

First take out a nice 2-quart saucepan. In it combine the sugar, cocoa, milk and margarine. Cook and stir the mixture over medium heat until the margarine melts, and the sugar dissolves. Bring the pot to a boil, and reduce the heat slightly. Simmer the mixture for several minutes, until the chocolate forms a soft ball when dropped into a bowl of cold water. This is about 234° on a candy thermometer. Remove the pan from the heat when it reaches the soft ball stage. Add the salt, peanut butter and vanilla. Stir until the peanut butter is dissolved. Finally stir in the oatmeal. The mixture may seem a little runny, but will thicken up as it cools. Drop the mixture from a tablespoon onto a sheet of waxed paper. It should form medium sized cookies. Depending on the size of the cookie, you may end up with as few as 15 or as many as 24.

Me personally, it's usually hit or miss as to whether or not my cookies actually set. But if they don't, we just eat them with a spoon, lol. There's an old wives tale that they won't set if you make them when it's raining; you have to do it when the sun is shining. Idk, I've never paid attention, lol. Hmm, I wonder if we have the stuff to make these; I should totally do that tomorrow.

Finale
Fireworks in Montreal...

I forgot that I was taking video and not a picture, and I held the camera the wrong way. :/ This was the finale of the fireworks display the amusement park called La Ronde puts on weekly during the summers in Montreal...

It lasted about 45 minutes and was easily the most spectacular fireworks display I've seen in person. (The Statue of Liberty 100 year anniversary fireworks display back in the 80's was the all-time most spectacular, I think. I actually got bored watching it on the TV as a kid. It lasted well over an hour, I think.)

It was really a fun adventure that night. We took the Metro, along with many other Montrealers, to the eastern end of the center of town. When we exited, we had to backtrack to the entrance of the bridge that links the main part of the city with the island where La Ronde is located, the Ile Sainte-Helene. Police did cursory bag searches as we walked onto the bridge, closed to car traffic that night. We walked and walked until we found a spot we thought would be good for viewing the pyrotechnics. As we got settled, a loud, thundery mortar was launched at the 15 minute mark, counting down to the show. Down below, thousands were positioned on the side of the road along the riverbank. Street vendors sold glowey things, ice cream and other treats. Hare Krishnas danced around for a while, up and down the road, which had also been closed to traffic. Tony listened to Bloomberg podcasts while I peoplewatched. Then the spectacle began, and we were both rapt in wonder and awe throughout.

When it was all over, we walked back down the bridge with the hundreds and thousands of others who had made the effort to view the show from the sweetest free spot. As we approached the Metro, it was no surprise to see a mass of people swarming its entrance to go home. Since we had anticipated this would probably happen, we had been talking about taking Bixi Bikes back. This would be our first time using them. Bixi Bikes are rental bicycles available in stations throughout the central part of Montreal. You simply use your credit card at the station's kiosk, you punch in a given code to unlock the bike you select and remove it from the bike dock. Then, off you go. When you reach your destination, you dock it back at the closest Bixi station. There were three stations near our hotel. It's CDN $5 per 24 hours of rental (meaning you can check in and out a bike as many times as desired over the course of 24 hours for $5). They also have monthly and annual subscriptions. It is *so cool*. The bikes are extremely easy to ride. They have built-in blinkies: red in the back, and white headlights in the front, powered by the pedaling. The turning radius is broad to keep people from falling. They have 3 gears that shift extremely easily. There is a handlebar rack with a built-in bungie for holding things. The seats are also very adjustable for different heights.

On our ride back to the hotel, the buildings downtown were completely shrouded in gunpowder smoke. All the smoke had been blown the 3 miles or so west, along our route. It completely overwhelmed the tops of the high rises so that we could not see where they ended. The volume of fireworks that made up the show was all the more obvious by the thick haze.

After docking our Bixies, we made our way to our cozy chambre at the Sheraton, satisfied with our evening.

weekend update
Things About This Weekend:

1) Attempting to play racquetball, and hopefully I won't injure myself again. I've been jumping around to test the stability of my ass, and it seems okay? I'm hopefully. No hurting, so that's a good sign.

2) Gotta go to the library and pick up 'Wintergirls' and 'Identical'. I'm excited--I've heard amazing things about both of them, and I'm almost done rereading HBP so I need something new.

3)

musicboxgirl will be here on Wednesday!!! I need to clean. And put my clean laundry in my dresser, where it belongs, instead of in baskets on my floor. EEP. And I need to put the caps on Max's claws. Her brother is afraid of cats... which will be interesting, because Max is huuuuuuuge and he can be a little scary when he gets excited.

4) Gotta start my

stori_telling fic for real today. I'm doing way too much the next two weeks to work on it properly. I was going to work on it in Chicago, but I bought plane tickets/concert tickets for AI instead of a netbook, soooo. Need to write it this week! This is going to be the one where Kris has amnesia and Adam is a non-bitchy barista and I'm SO EXCITED OMG. I think it's going to be great. I will need a beta. Someone who knows AI and can tell me if I'm translating the characters into AU-land properly. \0/

a) musicboxgirl and her bother arrive on Wednesday. I think I'm going to take them to Polvos for dinner, if anyone else is in the mood for interior Mexican deliciousness.
b) Thursday I'm taking Kari to work. Kind of. She has an appointment on campus to talk to grad schools, so hopefully I will have time afterward to give her a tour and sell her on Austin. YAY! Grades are due, of course, which is going to be... ugh. But hopefully my professors will have their shit together and get them in on time and I won't need to worry.
c) Thursday after work, we're meeting jacksonite and possibly dazifudo for happy hour/free nacho bar at Chuy's. EEEEE!! I haven't been to Chuy's in sooo long. Then we are going to see Harry Potter and the MOTHERFUCKING HALF BLOOD PRINCE at the Drafthouse at 10:30pm and I am so excited I could VOMIT!! Should I wear my Tonks wig? I think yes.
d) Friday we are headed off to Dallas with misskittye to see NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK with wendy OMGOMGOMG!!! A childhood dream realized! I feel like Kathy Griffin's mom getting to meet Betty White. When I was 10 and soooo in love with Joey Mac, all my friends went to see them in Detroit and stayed in a hotel and everything, but my mom wouldn't let me go. Probably, we didn't have the money considering I was on the gymnastics team at a private gym AND in a dance company taking private lessons and blah blah. But still. NKOTB OMG! Also, Jabbawokeez are opening for them! I'm pretty excited about seeing Jabba!
e) And then less than a week later, I am off to Chicago to hang out with scottmpriz and eat my weight in Giordanos. And popmusicjunkie, you still want to hang out? I will email you and we can make firmer plans for a meet-up, yes?

So... any Austinites who want to hang out with the coolest people you know, aka me and Kari, text/email/whatever me, and we will hook up. And now, breakfast.

in which i create a meme
For some reason lately I've been having a lot of conversations with people about fic; which fics of ours people like vs. which ones WE like, which ones get recc'd and commented on most, and how that corresponds with our own perception of our writing. And then the other day when I started working on my Idol recs list, I realized I could actually search for a URL and see how many people had tagged that URL and read their notes on it. COOL, right?

As some of you (*cough*

wendy*cough*) might know, there is one particular fic of mine that I wrote over two years ago that people STILL comment regularly on. Like, at least a couple times a month, but sometimes I'll get a whole rush of comments on this fic. So I decided to look up the URL, and sure enough, out of all my fics, that one has the most tags.

It's not the fic you think. It's the fucking Manny fic! OF COURSE IT IS. Not Chicagoland. Not any of my other J2 or popslash fics that are actually good pieces of writing with good characterizations. No, it's the ridiculous one about mannies and sex shops and the word 'dildo' a million times.

So, the meme! Your mission: using the delicious "search url" function, find/discuss the following:
1. Your fic with the most tags (easiest if you first do a search of your username to narrow it down)
2. Your fic with the least tags
3. Your favorite fic
4. The fic you wish you'd never posted
5. Best/worst "notes" that delicious people wrote on 3 & 4.

( Manny and the Beast, aka, the Curse of the Dildo Fic That Wouldn't Die. )

recs: american idol is awesome, your argument is invalid
recs: american idol is awesome, your argument is invalid

So, many of you know that I've been watching American Idol for several years now. I watched the first season kind of randomly... I was in college at the time so it was more like I caught some episodes and I watched Kelly win. I saw enough to wonder where the Guy Who Isn't Seacrest was when I started watching it again during grad school, which was (I think) S4. Whichever one was the Bo Bice year. I resisted, but my roommates at the time (

lecksee and

stellaface were determined to pull me out from under my pop-culture rock. And then I met Jacob while visiting

dazifudo in Austin that April, and that sort of forced me to watch it, so I could understand his recaps.

Anyway, blah blah, I've been watching for a while. And I've never really gotten that into it. I enjoy it. But I fast forward through the people I don't like and sometimes I leave the room during the judges' comments because they annoy me one way or another. I would say until this season, I was more of a casual watcher. I admit, I did consider going to Idols Live during the Ace/Daughtry/Bo/Constantine season because, I mean... ACE. But then I didn't, because even I am not that lame. Until, apparently, now.

Fucking Lambert. He ruined my cool. I'm even starting to like his version of 'No Boundaries.' Yeah, I'm doomed. With that in mind, have some recs, and share my fate.

Note: most of these are probably already on other recs lists. But I like to actually say something about why I liked a fic and what it's about when I rec something. And I think I can honestly say that most of you who read my fic or my journal regularly will really love these fics, even knowing next to nothing about American Idol.

( american idol 8 fic I think is good that you should read now so I have people to talk to about this. )

detroit rock city!
Okay so. SO! After last night, I decided that if I could go see the Idols Live tour, I needed to make that happen. And then I managed to find an actually cheap place ticket to Detroit. And then I managed to get the days off to go. So I am going to Detroit at the end of August and seeing the tour with my mom and her boyfriend and my sister, and I am SO FUCKING EXCITED I COULD PUKE!!!

At first my boss was kind of iffy about the idea of me going because that's the first week of classes and the end of the fiscal year. But I guess she decided she could do without me because she said yes. (And honestly, I don't do anything special the first week of classes, and the only special thing I'd do at the end of the fiscal year is order shit from Office Depot, which I can actually do from my mom's house so if they REALLY need me... Anyway, point being, she said yes!

So then, ahaha omg. So then I talked to my mom. And I didn't think she'd want to come to the concert (although she loves Adam) because both her and her boyfriend are handicapped and it's at the Palace of Auburn Hills and blah blah. But she really wanted to go! She had to call and order her tickets from the box office (handicapped tickets) which actually, she got really lucky because she has good seats at the medium price range because of the whole handicapped thing.

I bought my sister's and my tickets through TicketZone, which cost more but I got really good seats! And!! I'm just excited!!! I get to see my family AND I get to see ADAM FREAKING LAMBERT and it's going to be amazing. I was almost done paying off my credit card... OH WELL. And I had to give up the idea of getting a netbook, but you know. This is better. This will be an experience. I can buy a netbook in a few months (and by then they'll probably be even cheaper).

So, random post is random, but!! I'm excited!! I've never been this excited to go to Detroit before. Heeee. If anyone else will be in Detroit, let me know and maybe we can hook up. I think we'll have to get there early to accommodate my mom, so I'll have some time to kill. Possibly.

For your time, ( this is pretty much the reason I need to go. )

I really wish I could've saved you.
Sometimes, I find it hard to find things to appreciate in my life.

Other days, I'm guilt-stricken and feel like an idiot for not realizing how many good people are in some part of my experience, and for how little I think to reach out to them, because I'm so wrapped up in being independent, or trying to save someone probably not worth my time, or I'm not sure what to do and I freak out, or I'm just getting overwhelmed with everything I am and try to be and want to be at once.

I'm still not sure how to be everything I even NEED to be. What I do know, right now, is that for all the bullshit there is in the world, I am glad to know some good people.

And that's love enough to keep the spark, until I find the hearth of that place called home.
(Foolish optimism, I know. It still hurts, and it hurts even more to hope. But what else is there to do?)

listening to the Idols Tour cellcast is making me crazy...
...because I can't go to the Tour. Although. I've been looking at the tour dates. And the only place within reasonable driving distance that's also on a weekend that I could go to is St. Louis or Kansas City. St. Louis is 13 hours and Kansas City is 11, but St Louis is on a Saturday, which means if I had someplace to stop and crash between Austin and St Louis, I wouldn't have to drive it all at once OR miss any work.

So um. Does anyone live between Austin and St Louis like say: Dallas, Denton, Plano, eastern Oklahoma (does anyone live there??), Little Rock, Memphis, Springfield... or anywhere else that comes reasonably between Texas and Missouri, and would be willing to let me crash the night before and the night of the concert? Y/N?

...is there anyone who wants to go to St Louis with me and see Adam Lambert sing David freaking Bowie??

(Stop judging me. HUSHCATS.)

Craft Project - Book Safe!

As I love random projects, I bought a book from Goodwill and I used an exacto knife to cut out most of the pages. I then glued them together with regular craft glue. The result - a book safe! now I can hide all my cash and valuables in a innocent looking book on my bookshelf (title not shown in case you guys come over to my house and steal my stuff.. lol yeah, 'cause I have so much expensive stuff, ha ha..). Even so, I thought this was a fun if somewhat stupid crafty thing to do while watching tv. Hooray for crafts. :)

Current Mood: accomplished

i gush cuz we're so fresh together!
(Sorry guys, I've had too much caffeine and I'm making a CD of Adam's stuff for my mom because she demanded it and she's driving her poor boyfriend crazy playing 'Mad World' over and over again. Forgive my randomness in this post.)

1. So, I didn't realize that my comment notifications for

zebras4eva were going to my old email address. It took me two weeks to answer those comments, but if you left me a Dear Zebra comment over there, I did answer! I had to unscreen the comments to reply and so that you could read your replies... so please let me know if you want them re-screened after reading. There's a new post up right here so if you want advice, or just to write me a random Dear Zebra letter, go for it. Comments are screened, anon posting is on, ip tracking is off. And I will actually answer in a timely manner this time!

2. I did so much STUFF this weekend! I saw people. I left my house. It's kind of revolutionary for me. On Friday, I decided that I needed a breakfast taco, so I went to Magnolia with

arielchan,

puszysty, and

mitcharf. It was fun. I feel like I talked too much because I was the only person who knew all three of them, but those are three people I feel like would get along, so you know. I'm a uniter! And stuff. Then

arielchan and

irish_cocktail came over and we watched Hedwig and Velvet Goldmine. I love those movies so fucking much. They are both in my top 5. Eventually, Mitch came over and brought us booze, and we discussed the acidic properties of Brendon Urie's come. Good times.

3. Then yesterday, I went to a July 4th bbq. I swam, I socialized, I ate a popsicle. Brian and I went to Mighty Fine Burger, which was very yummy, and we watched Hung, which was okay. Then I went to Mitch's with

dazifudo and watched Tombstone, which is not in my top 5 but it's definitely in my top 10, and I really think there should be Doc Holliday/Johnny Ringo slash. I mean, COME ON. They speak Latin to each other. They would have the best hate sex ever.

4. So it was a busy weekend, and I got no writing done. Less than a month until

stori_telling is due, and I need to get started like a week ago. EEP. I blame Cheeks. He needs to stop distracting me by wanting to write about him instead.

5. And finally, because a lot of people are friending me and a lot of them come from bandom, I feel like ( I need to address the giant pink elephant of stage gay wank. )

I know, tl;dr. I just felt like I needed to say that. I don't want anyone to feel weird or afraid to friend me because of that stuff. There are a few people I've been wanting to friend again that I've been hesitant about because of the wank, but I think, you know, I'm just going to do it. I trust myself a lot more now not to offend them like I did last time, and it would be pretty cool if we could be friends again.

Adam Lambert has secret alien powers of awesomeness to bring people together in the common cause of worshiping his fierceness. TRUFAX.

Dear Zebra: I hate my job...
(answered publicly with permission!)

I hate my job. I'm getting divorced. What I want to do is pack up and move to another state, close to my favorite relative and start my own consulting company.

Logic and common sense tell me that during a recession is not the best time to be quitting an actual job in hand. And I don't know as starting my own business is such a great idea in general, since I suck at self-marketing (although my skills are excellent). And it's a bad time to be trying to sell the condo, as well.

But if I don't just quit and move, it will probably never happen, and I'll be stuck here where I don't want to be doing something I don't want to do forever.

Advice?

Dear I Hate My Job-

My advice is... there's nothing wrong with waiting. You're right--this is a terrible time to quit a job and it's an even worse time to try to sell property. You'll lose a lot of money trying to sell right now, but if you wait a few years, the housing market will turn around and you'll be in a much better position to start a new life.

I've picked up and moved many times. It's scary and exhilarating, but at the same time, I always did so with a plan in place. I've never moved without having a job lined up and a place to live waiting for me. I am not that brave! And in times like these, with no guarantee that you'll be able to find a new job elsewhere, or get a loan to start your own business (banks don't have capital right now! We're in a credit crunch and loans are hard to come by) or even that you can sell your condo and use the profits to get yourself started, it's safer to wait for the economy to recover.

There's no reason you can't just quit and move two years from now, when your plan has a much better chance of working! And in the meantime, start making a plan. Decide what, exactly, you want to do (ie starting your own company or finding a job elsewhere), where you want to go, all of that. Quitting and picking up and moving actually takes a lot longer than it sounds. By the time you finish creating a business plan and working out the details of what you want to do, maybe the housing market will have recovered and it'll be the right time to implement the plan.

Need advice? Zebra is here to help. Anonymous commenting is on, ip tracking is off, comments are screened until answered. Remember to track your comment thread if you want to be notified when I reply. Let me know if it's okay to publish your questions.

We do more by 6 p.m. (heh) than some people do all day
Today we:

Harvested some of our Romaine lettuce and one of our broccoli bunches. Too bad Paloma gets horrible gas whenever I eat roasted broccoli, *sniff*.
Washed off all of the farmshare veggies so we'd be motivated to eat them -- not that we've had anything except radishes go to waste so far. More beets, plz!
Planted the surprise squashes and the summer squashes and the last of the basil, all in the front yard. Food not lawns?
Fed the baby, fed the baby, fed the baby.
Put together the Joovy Room2 and then took apart the Joovy Room2, just to see if it is truly easy. It is. Good design for the win!
Let Paloma have some naked time on the living room floor. She was definitely digging it.
Watched Paloma roll over, repeatedly. Today was the first time she rolled intentionally, and once she got the hang of it, she just wouldn't stop. Next stop, crawling?
Cooked a giant sauteed onion and American cheese omelet, yum.
Called all of Paloma's grandparents to talk about how she rolls (ha!), upcoming travel, the piano we're getting sometime in the next week or so, and what we've been up to lately.
Checked to see if all the secondhand toys have old batteries inside so we can make sure they're ready to store until Paloma is older.
Shelled peas. Old schoolicious!

We still plan to:

Fold laundry. (ALMOST CHECK)
Put together the Paloma-centric photo collage for the hallway wall. (CHECK)
Eat dinner! (CHECK)

Also, this:

Current Mood: accomplished

new fishy!
So, as I am on the 'adding livestock' mission.. I was looking around for something else to add to my tank this weekend and it turns out that one of the local 'nicer' reef/fish stores was having a 25% off sale on all fish.

So, I bought an 'exquisite fairy wrasse'. I got a great deal on him, he was only $32. After some consultation with the internets it seems that he prefers a slightly larger tank than what I've got (some say 30gal, some say 75gal (????)). However, I do have lots of space for him to hide and am not planning on getting many more fish (probably just one more, possibly two if they are small), so hopefully he doesn't feel too crowded. If I do end up getting a bigger tank at some point I will probably transfer him over, or if he seems to be too sad I will return him for store credit or something. He is so beautiful!! He is pictured below in my tank.

He's not too big, I would say about 3". He is full grown. A lot of people have posted saying that these fish are very difficult to acclimate and are given rather 'difficult to keep' ratings because of this. When I first got him home and started acclimating him to my water he seemed VERY grumpy. He huddled in the corner of the bucket and wasn't moving around. I wasn't sure if he was dying or what, I mean.. I just got the damn thing home! Anyway, after I had gotten to where most of the water in the bucket was my tank water, I scooped him up and dumped him in the tank. Immediately he started swimming around and acting happy. I fed him some brine shrimp and he ate it all up right away. So, I think he was just really cold in the bucket or just was scared in there or something.

The only bad thing that happened so far is that my poor little goby got really scared (they get scared a LOT) and hasn't come out of hiding. I'm not sure where he is.. my tank isn't very big but I can't find him anywhere! And, he couldn't have jumped out since the tank has a lid that is totally closed. I guess he might be hiding in the rockwork somewhere, but I can't see him. I hope he's okay and gets un-scared. The wrasse wasn't picking on him at all but was just exploring all the nooks and crannies and the goby bumped in to him a couple times and was freaking out. Poor goby. Wrasses are super peaceful and are usually the ones who get picked on, so I hope they can get along.

The other really weird thing that happened, is that I had turned out the lights on the tank and was taking a late night nap and then got up and turned on the tank lights for just a sec to see if I could find the goby.. and OMG the wrass was all wedged up in the corner back of the tank behind some rocks, semi on his side and with a bunch of snotty looking stuff all around him. I was like ARGH I just fed him, he was so happy, and now.. is he dying or dead or what?? Ha, it turns out that they do that - wedge themselves up against some rocks to sleep and also secrete a snot-like coccoon to help protect themselves from predators smelling them at night. Weird, huh? Once I turned the lights on today he woke up after a few minutes and was just as happy as before. So I guess he's fine. He eats a lot. I hear he will also eat the copepods floating around in my tank and also whaever other zooplankton he can find.

Current Mood: chipper

Diseased Pie Is Tasty

Current Mood: anxious