It Started with a Journal

worms, Sounders game, eating, and spoiled brats

2010-03-26T21:56:52Z

Bad news re: my garden. :/ I have worms! And not the good kind! ( The sad story. )

Yesterday my cousin B. arrived and we went to Paseo for lunch. For some reason, maybe because it was a weekday and it was gloomy, I didn't think it was going to be very busy. BOY WAS I WRONG. It was packed! Not as packed as I've seen it on the weekend, but throngs of people were there. I mean, yes, they have the best sandwiches in the world, but still. We didn't eat until 1pm (we lucked out and got a table -- there are like 5 tiny tables; it is the smallest place imaginable). Was worth it though; I asked B. how his sandwich was and he said one word: "Amazing." If you live in Seattle and have never had a sandwich from Paseo, you are missing out. The original location is in Fremont, but they recently opened one in Ballard that I've been meaning to try. I recommend the #2 roasted Cuban. So. good. They only take cash though, and go early because they sometimes run out of bread. Each sandwich runs about $7.50.

Since we ate a filling lunch so late we decided not to go to El Gaucho after all. The experience would just have been wasted on us. Instead, we went to the 35th Street Bistro as they're doing Dine Around Seattle. It was very good, but frankly not worth it for dinner. It wasn't actually much of a savings since they're not super pricey anyway.

After dinner we headed to Qwest Field (which, embarrassingly, I didn't even know that's where the Sounders played until Elle told me). ( The Sounders game. )

This weekend: I am not allowed to do anything but work on my D/G fic exchange story. Period!

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Yay for randomly winning things!

2010-03-23T22:53:19Z

So, totally random thing. Thursday is the opening game of the Seattle Sounders (our pro soccer team), and I got an email today from our VP's admin saying that our group got 2 tickets to give away and they had done a drawing to pick a name for who would win the tickets and it was ... me. LOL. So random. The cool thing is that my cousin is arriving in town that day for his PhD program interviews and we were going to have dinner, so now we're going to have dinner and watch a soccer game. It will certainly round out his trip here! Plus, I love winning things. If only Mega Millions would cooperate.

Tonight K. and I are going to Olivar for dinner. It's another one of those upscale restaurants we've been wanting to try. I love food of all kinds, and I've found that hole in the walls can have BETTER food than places where you pay 10x as much (you just have to find the right hole in the wall), but she definitely prefers upscale food/experiences.

I'm impatient and keep checking the starter pots and garden beds, wondering why they haven't sprouted yet. I'm also fatalistic and am convinced that none of them are going to, ever.

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I'm being bombarded by dogs.

2010-03-23T01:32:24Z

Okay, I've been a member of doggie_pix for many months now, and there have been maybe 5 posts total. Suddenly today there are like, dozens! Post after post of doggie pics! I'm glad the community is more active, but does everyone have to post all at once? I'm going to have to stop watching it if this continues.

The pest control guy has come and gone. ( If you really want to know about my pest problems. )

Also, the fic-writing situation is becoming dire. I've made a deal with myself; for every sentence I write of this journal entry, I have to write a sentence of fic.

Had a very good weekend. First was Saturday, which I've already written about. Next was Sunday, with the D/G gals! Yay! What a lovely bunch of ladies: adelagia, elle_blessing, lyndsiefenele, and slitherhither. <3 Y'all are fab. I hope you know that. Can't wait to get together again.

I woke up early, so made my way to Kirkland with the intention of checking out some of the consignment shops there before lunch. ( Boring shopping talk. )

Then was lunch w/ the D/G gals, and we managed to make it through almost the entire meal without mentioning fandom, but then of course we HAD to go there. I mean, it's what we have in common! It's why we were meeting up in the first place! I'm sure it sounded like total gibberish to anyone who might have overheard us, and that's perfectly okay. There was a tense moment when Draco/Hermione was mentioned and I wondered if there was going to be bloodshed, but we managed to make it through with all limbs intact.

It was such a nice day that when I went home, I actually did some gardening. I know, I'm as shocked as you are. Earlier that morning (I told you I got up early) I'd gone to buy some seed packets and soil. (I really don't understand all the different varieties of soil there are, or how to use them properly, but I hope that dirt is basically dirt and if I use potting soil outdoors it won't totally ruin everything. I mean, nature has somehow managed to propagate itself all these many years without the help of mankind, so surely if I don't use fertilizer correctly it won't backfire on me too much?) I 'planted' some of the seeds (depending on what it said on the back of the seed packet), including: zucchini, carrots, beets, chives, Swiss chard, and watermelon -- just for fun! Then, again due to packet instructions, I started some little indoor ones, such as 3 kinds of tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and cauliflower. I really, really want the tomatoes to do well. That's the only plant I really care about. The other ones will be fun to see if they do well, but if they don't, I won't be too sad about it. But man, I really want dozens and dozens of tomatoes. Also it'd be great if one or two of the basil plants did well. But that's all I'm really hoping for. The watermelon, especially, is totally pie in the sky. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of that.

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I guess I'm just not hip

2010-03-18T18:33:13Z

My latest confession: I hate social media. ( Rant under cut. )

So the big hush-hush thing at work yesterday was that my manager is leaving. Sigh. Better than me being fired, but still not great news. He's a really good manager, I like him both personally and professionally, and while I'm happy he's moving on to something he wants to do more, I'm also very wary of what this means for our team. More specifically, what sort of person they'll hire to replace him and how I will get along with this person personally/professionally (because as we all know, asshole/bad managers are the WORST), and more generally, are they going to try to use this opportunity to change our group composition?

This week seems to be crawling by. The last two days I kept thinking/hoping were Fridays. Sigh.

I think I know why I've been feeling particularly tired the last few days. Not only am I kind of an emotional wreck, but Talis has been getting up 2-3 times during the night to drink water. It wakes me up because I'm a light sleeper (and his slurping up water is loud), but what's really irritating is that I usually also have to lean/get out of bed in order to pull him back onto it, because it's too high for him to jump, and he just stands there and whines and whines until I do it. Interrupted sleep is the worst; it makes me feel like I haven't gotten any sleep at all.

While my cousin's here, I'm thinking of taking him to El Gaucho, Steelhead Diner, and Senor Moose. I know, I'm totally obsessed with SM. Maybe after going again on Saturday I'll get over it and won't want to go again so soon w/ my cousin... but I doubt it.

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the only bright spot: garlic

2010-03-17T23:12:43Z

So very tired today. I don't know why; I didn't get less sleep or anything. In fact, I might've gotten a bit more than I usually do with my new go-to-work-every-day schedule. Still don't feel 100% in terms of emotional health, but I just have to accept the fact that there is absolutely nothing I can do or could've done to make things better. This was just totally out of my hands, and while that in itself brings its own kind of hurt, the sooner I accept it the better I'll be. Of course, it's always been hard for me to trust people and now I imagine it will only be that much harder.

The handyman came this morning to check things out, but not much came of it. He's sure that the insulation in the yard is from the birds, but that doesn't discount other critters. His recommendation is to go with someone who can do the extermination (if any's needed) and the handywork at the same time, and he's going to put me in touch with someone. I don't even want to think about what all this is going to cost, especially if the critters have done any structural damage to the house. He and most people I've talked to about this have all assured me that this is really common stuff. I guess I've just been lucky in that the 5 years I've had the place there really hasn't been all that much work to do... now it's all falling apart! /dramatic He also suggests cleaning the moss off the roof come summer and powerwashing the deck.

Oh but I didn't note the most exciting thing about the yard... the garden! Okay, it's mostly all dead from winter frost and what looks like critters chewing on stuff, but guess what's growing! The garlic I planted! I am very excited about that. It was the crop I really wanted to do well, and which I planted that weren't from seedlings (not that it was hard). The shoots are several inches long now. I should have about 12 garlic bulbs once they're ready to harvest (need to recheck the timeframe, though I know they need to grow a lot more and dry out, that I remember). I'll probably save 3-4 of them for replanting in the fall. The best thing about garlic, other than being delicious, is that it keeps critters away; they don't want to eat it. I do need to get on top of planting other things though, otherwise the lovely garden romanticalgirl's hubby helped me build will go to waste, and it'll be the most expensive garlic ever. LOL. What I'd really love to plant are tomatoes and basil. Need to find out when to start planting those.

Did I mention that I finished "Eclipse"? Thank god it's over. I haven't started "Breaking Dawn" yet and probably won't until next month, after I've written my D/G Exchange fic (which I am behind on and am trying not to freak out about it) and after Esalen. There was a very short period in Eclipse -- about 5 pages -- that I kind of got into and thought, hey, maybe this will turn out to be OK. Nope. SM lost me soon after that. I bet I'm the last person in the world to read this book, but just in case, ( cut for spoilers. )

Hmm, have the sudden awful feeling I might be fired or something. My manager has requested two sudden, out of cycle meetings with two of my coworkers (the 'stars' of our little group) while me and an underperforming coworker did not get any such invite. Ugh, I hate this feeling. Though at this point it might even be a welcome catalyst for change.

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Birds in the Attic

2010-03-16T22:53:32Z

Okay, so there's definitely something in the crawl space, and it's either birds or rats. I suppose, could be both. Maybe they've got a time share going on. Anyway, so I've been hearing the scratching/scurrying noises in the morning as usual (sometimes I stand on my bed and pound on my ceiling, which stops it for awhile). However, the other day I actually ventured out into the backyard, and all over the ground were pieces of insulation. The fuckers have been tearing out my insulation to nest!! Arrgh. When I bought the house the inspector had warned me that the ventilation holes (located right below the roof) had been pecked at by birds, and that I would probably need to watch for that and replace them eventually. Today I noted that 3 of those holes have indeed been pecked out.

Two of my coworkers think it sounds like rats, as it's similar to what he experienced at their old house (the early morning noises, the scurrying). My cousin's husband and two other coworkers think it's birds. I was thinking the latter, too, because I could imagine them flying out of the little ventilation holes with the insulation and dropping it on the ground ... but why would rats make the effort to drop it out of the holes? If they were tearing it up to nest, wouldn't they just fling it aside in the crawl space, not actually tidy? But then maybe it's just that I'd rather it be birds than rats. Tomorrow a handyman is going to come check it out and give me an estimate for how much it's going to cost to repair the damage. I guess I'm also hoping it's birds because they'd be easier to vacate than rats... for the latter I'd also have to call on pest control.

I've been in a really bad place emotionally the last few days. It is really amazing how insensitive and hurtful people can be. Even more amazing considering they're doing it to people they claim to care about. I was raised the Chinese way. I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, and to eat my own bitterness. (from the Joy Luck Club) I guess I wasn't raised the Chinese way, because I'm TRYING to desire nothing and swallow my own bitterness so that it doesn't spew on everyone else, but it's not really working.

I'm hoping my fairly fun/busy schedule the next few weeks will help me reach a place of zen calm. This weekend is fun with corianderstem on Sat (and a repeat trip to Senor Moose, woot!) and the DG girls on Sun. On Thurs my cousin arrives for his PhD program interviews and I'll see him again the following Sun. Then that Friday I am flying down to LA. On Sunday my mom, aunt, and I will be driving to Esalen for our week of relaxation and posture/back classes (and meeting my cousin and her family there). I have put down my deposit so hopefully these plans will not fall through. Then I leave the following Monday back to Seattle. Hopefully as I'll have a couple of days free I'll get to see ropo and jade_okelani while I'm down there.

I tried out the New Yorker for a bit, but 4 issues later, I've canceled. It's just not very relevant to me nor fit what I was looking for. I wanted something newsy that wasn't pure, dry news, and with little to no celebrity fluff. It didn't quite hit the level of news I wanted, but was fine about the second. However, the fact that it comes every week is just too often for me, and I end up skipping the first half of it due to the same movie summaries that are in every issue, play summaries, and other NY-specific things that I don't care about. I mean, given the title of the magazine I'd expected that to a certain extent, but thought it might be tolerable. It's not, considering that there's really just 1 or 2 articles per issue, and sometimes they don't even strike any interest in me.

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A am a terrible kid watcher

2009-12-13T03:59:13Z

My cousin is hooked on A Song of Fire and Ice. Mwahahaha. She said to be sure I gave her the 4th book before I leave (on Tuesday!). She's in the middle of the 3rd book and was shocked -- SHOCKED!! -- when you-know-what happens.

Have you ever seen the movie Taken? It's one of those movies I was vaguely interested in when I saw the preview for it, even though the premise isn't very original. However Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, and Maggie Grace are in it and I like all those actors. Anyway, it didn't seem to make a big impression on anyone I knew so I totally forgot about it (though I guess it did well at the box office. But so do movies that are worthlessly inane, so...). But it was actually a really great action/suspense film! I would totally rec it. I mean, if you are OK with violence. The female roles are really, really lame though -- I have no idea why FJ and MG would agree to them. I mean, they're not A-list actresses or anything but they certainly can do better than typical-ex-wife and super-naive-teenage daughter. Also, MG was *so* miscast. I mean, she played a 20-something on Lost, and in this movie, which was made after Lost, she was supposed to be a really young 17 ... it was ridiculous. She was 25 when the movie was made. She did a lot of running in the movie and I don't know if that's just how MG runs or if she was trying to appear younger, but she seriously looked like Phoebe doing the crazy running on Friends.

Took S. to the airport super early this morning ... it was hours before sunrise (cry). Afterward went over to my cousin's to help with the kids. ( Of course, catastrophe ensued. )

I have to do my dishes and laundry, then pack. I'm procrastinating because there's so much crap I need to remember to bring and I just know I'm going to forget something, ugh. I'm going to be gone so long I'll have to remember to pay my bills. >< I still haven't decided if I want to pay the fee to check in a bag or not. The convenience of it makes me want to do it, but the part of me that chafes at giving the airlines even one red cent more than I have to doesn't. It's just not right that even the first one costs money.

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And that's not all she wrote....

2009-11-25T19:25:31Z

Happy day-before-U.S.-T-Day!

I am so tired. Up late last night and then had to wake up early, bleh. And why was I up late? Playing WoW. That's right, I've gone back to the dark side. S. is constantly raiding and they were looking for a healer and I still have friends in the guild, so why not? I'm just going to take it far less seriously this time and also accept no positions of responsibility. That's really what ruined it for me last time. Another thing that's kind of fun is that I'm a disc priest now. :D I've never healed with a full disc spec, usually I went holy or holy/disc. It's taking some getting used to, but I actually like it. It's not THAT different from holy, though disc is less useful as a direct raid healer (it's more of a damage mitigator). Very good single target healer though (so good for MT, though possibly not as good as a holy pally, damn their plate-wearing hides). The biggest thing I'll have to get used to is that meters mean exactly squat for me now. So much of my usefulness comes in the form of, as I said, mitigation, so until meters start counting absorption rates I'll always be lowest on the healing meters. I'm fine w/ that as long as the guild realizes that, but it seems unlikely. People are and always will be obsessed with meters. Still, I'm having to think about my gear very differently than I did before. I used to stack spirit like crazy and now I wouldn't spit on it if it were on fire.

When my mom was here visiting she mentioned that she thought my hair was too dry. I was like, really? I mean, it's not brittle or anything, but it certainly isn't all satiny and silky like those models in shampoo commercials. She was like, yes, sometimes what I'll do is put olive oil in my hair, leave it on for 15-20 minutes, then shampoo and rinse like normal. So last night I tried it, thinking my hair was going to be awesome. It wasn't. It was the opposite of awesome. It was greasy and disgusting, even after shampooing. I knew there was something wrong when I was blow drying it and it still looked wet even way after it would normally have been dry... and that's because it WAS dry, it was just greasy! Ugh. Luckily after washing it again this morning my hair's back to normal. Though that could be because I made sure to use Big (by Lush), which is really good about removing oily deposits. I should probably use that less than I do because using it constantly is probably very harsh on my hair, which is probably what made my mom make the remark about my hair being dry in the first place.

My car's still in the shop. With the Thanksgiving break coming up it's probably not going to be done until mid to late next week. Sigh. I really, really miss my car. It's even less now that I miss the luxuries as it is that I miss something that's MINE, that has all my little knick knack stuff in it, that I don't have to think of as temporary, etc. One good piece of news (though, only relatively -- it's not as good as, say, not having been rear ended in the first place)... early on, I insisted that I wanted brand-new OEM parts (as in, genuine Lexus parts. They hit a car that had that, and were not going to get away with replacing with generic parts). Everything was agreed to except the bumper, in which they wanted to use a reconditioned part (but which was a Lexus part) rather than a new one. After the whole nightmare with the rental (oh yeah, I need to share the letter I wrote), I really didn't want to have to fight with Farmers about the stupid bumper, and yet I felt aggrieved. I mean, the accident was their fault, the difference between a new bumper and the reconditioned one was $150, and on a $6,000+ repair you want to quibble about $150?! Screw you. The auto body shop (which has been great) said that what they could do was to order the reconditioned part, try to find something wrong with it, and then say that they couldn't use it because of XYZ reason. Since I was/am sick of dealing with all this crap I said that was fine, because a bumper is a bumper, not an engine. Anyway, apparently the reconditioned part came and there *was* something wrong with it, like the tabs didn't fit my car or something, so the auto body shop ordered a brand-new OEM one for me like I had originally wanted. So HA, stupid insurance company.

I finally had my blood tested again, and while my cholesterol wasn't good, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, either. Yay for that. I can't remember the specific numbers for each thing, but basically my LDL was a bit elevated, but my HDL was OK so that helped a bit. What's not so good is that apparently my thyroid was up again. This happened last year and when I got retested it was back down to normal... now it's up and I'm going to be tested again in 3 months and if it's still up my doctor's going to refer me to an endocrinologist. :/ Why is my body doing this to me, why. But speaking of my doctor, apparently she was selected by Seattle magazine as one of the 2009 doctors of the year! Coolness. Now I have to give a shout out to romanticalgirl for referring me to her. :D

I've been playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village on my DS. I loves me some puzzles! Some of them drive me inSANE though.

Going to have a very quiet Thanksgiving (as I do every year ... I hate flying so I can't imagine flying home for the holiday when I'm going to be going again in December). It's just going to be me, my cousin, and her 6-month-old baby. She didn't want to travel with him, so her husband/daughters are going to his family gathering w/o them. We're ordering one of those prepared meals from Whole Foods, which was (imho) hideously expensive, but neither of us could face the thought of cooking a big Tday meal just for the two of us.

Finally, I snagged a plane ticket for my December vacation for like, the best price ever. Seriously the best price I've ever paid to travel to SoCal -- $59/one way for a nonstop flight on Alaska. Usually it's more than double that. Of course, I'll have Talis with me so that's not all I'll have to pay. His flight in the cargo hold costs $100/one way, which is seriously highway robbery since it's not like he gets any special treatment and is basically treated like a piece of luggage. Grrrr airlines. Still, it's cheaper than boarding him or shipping him off separately.

Oh -- because I said I'd post this. The letter I wrote to Enterprise/the story of how they wronged me. It's really super long though, so if you're not interested in reading a bunch of ranting/complaining, do not click. ( Bad, Enterprise! Bad! )

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Catch up

2009-11-20T20:36:54Z

Still in the throes of post-accident stress and frustration. Still experiencing occasional soreness in my back, especially by my left shoulder blade. Had a really crappy rental experience with Enterprise -- until last year I had no problems with them whatsoever -- and am now with Hertz. I will be writing them a letter that I will share with all you fine folks so I don't have to write about the specifics multiple times. :D

I really, really, really miss my car. I didn't realize how accustomed I'd become to all the little amenities until they were gone, from big things like my in-dash navigation to little things like being able to raise and lower the passenger-side window with one click. I am considering replacing my car with a hybrid (though one with many of the amenities I've mentioned) and am planning to test drive a couple this weekend.

Had the best dinner with corianderstem the other night at the Dahlia Lounge. We were going for the 3-for-$30, but ended up doing something slightly different instead. My cousin had left me a voicemail that I got right before entering the restaurant to say that it's Dahlia's 20th Anniversary, so if you walk in and say, "Happy 20th anniversary, Dahlia!" the first 20 people get that day's prize free (they do something different every day, for a month). The day we went happened to be "Tom's favorite duck dinner free." (Tom being Tom Douglas, famous Seattle chef and owner of the Dahlia Lounge.) This was lucky because originally we were going to go on Thursday, and Thursday's prize was 50% off the wine tab, which would have been useless to me personally as I'm not a wine drinker. Anyway, the 5-spiced duck was FANTASTIC, so good. It was served over a bed of spicy chopped Brussels sprouts with acorn squash and pear. (My vegetarian friend J. had wanted to try Dahlia also, but I had already made plans with A., and it's probably a good thing since she wouldn't have eaten the duck!) We both started with their grilled bread salad, which was also out of this world. For dessert I had the famous triple-cream coconut pie (excellent but for the coconut shavings, which I'm not fond of in general) and A. had the creme caramel, which was also really good. As we were leaving they gave us a package of 2 big chocolate chip cookies for the road (probably left over from when the Dahlia Bakery, right next door, closed for the day) -- and the cookies were delish also!! I'm really fussy about cookies, so it's actually amazing to me how much I liked it. I ate half and gave the other half to S., who also isn't a big fan of chocolate chip cookies, but said, when he was done, "That cookie wasn't big enough."

Anyway, they're still doing giveaways for the month of November, as well as the 3-for-$30, so I would go back in a heartbeat! Only disappointing thing was that the Golden Ticket prize that night (brunch for 4 at Lola, Tom's mediterranean-themed restaurant) was not won by me or A. LOL. But after the great experience we had, getting to win that might have been too much.

Wow that the UC Regents are hiking tuition fees 35%. Not that I actually think it's a bad or unfair idea. But thank goodness when I went to UCLA it wasn't as high as that!

Edit: Oops, also meant to say -- A., you were right, Lady Gaga's vid for "Bad Romance" is awesome.

Also, music related ... I think "Backspacer" might be Pearl Jam's best album since "Ten." I loooooooooove "Just Breathe."

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