Fun Food Facts:

"Latkes are of Jewish origin and are always eating during Hanukkah, when foods fried in oil commemorate the miracle of the oil in the synagogue burning eight nights instead of one, during the triumph of Maccabees over Antiochus of Syria, in the second century B.C."

I want to try one of these! "Cardoons, a member of the artichoke family, are eaten mostly in France, Italy, and Spain. Looking more like a broad, flat, bunch of gray-green celery, the cardoons are trimmed of their though, spiky outer ribs, then cooked in acidulated water (water to which a small amount of vinegar, lemon juice, or lime juice has been added), thus preventing discoloration of the vegetable. Like artichokes, they can be dipped in melted butter, fried or mashed, or sliced and served cold in a vinaigrette."

I came across this a few days ago: Onion and Potato. Almost as fun as A Softer World..

I'm finishing up my grad school application materials, which mostly means finishing my portfolio. It's been a lot of work, I had some ideas provided to me to make it a much better body of work, but it's also taking longer and costing more money to produce. Hopefully it will all be worth it in the end! Either way, I'm becoming much more familiar with grommets, eyelets, rivets-and the differences between them. I'll be around much more after that.

I told myself I was going to study all weekend for my math final on Tuesday, but so far that hasn't been true. I slept in, watched cartoons, watched 3 Discovery Channel specials about Egypt (it's like crack!), and finally started to get motivated to do homework. But then I received a few phone calls, and soon enough it was 1:00am and I was playing Pikmin with Bryant. Ross passed out for about 20 mins, heard Pikmin joy in the other room, and came to challenge us. I really like this 2-player option for Pikmin, it's lots of fun (and makes me crazy competitive). I must behave myself tomorrow & Monday, I'd really like to do well on my final. I also have that AutoCad project to finish, then I can concentrate on my portfolio....oh, I guess I'm just going to be busy for awhile.

I do have good news in that I managed to round up a bunch of really great people to write letters of recommendation for me. Yay for good contacts!! All of these I managed to get through what I like to call "natural networking", not that other form of networking that feels so artificial and manipulative. I hope the rest of you who are applying to school in any form are doing well with the process.

THE MAN is getting me down! On Saturday I received a letter from DSHS saying that my benefits had "ended". No reason, no reassurance, nothing to do about it-just that they had ended. I had a frustrating wait over the weekend, and now I'm on hold w/them to find out what the hell is going on. I searched ssa.gov to find out what the deal was, but it's just a constant loop. I think they hate me. I hope the phone doesn't prove to be a loop as well, because that means I'm going down to the office and chaining myself to a desk until someone helps me. Grrr... I swear, a few years ago dealing w/these agencies would nearly give me anxiety attacks, the language in their letters & publications is often very obtuse (ssa, ssi, ssdi...too many similar abbreviations) as well as conflicting information (owning a car may or may not count against you). Why do I have to list "household" income if the members of my household & I do not share finances? Sorry to complain, just wish me luck......

Some Canadian candy bars that are "king size" are labeled "grand format"
for the French-Canadian translation (shouldn't it be grande?). I like
that. I live my life grand format.

Tonight R$ & I went to see Raiders of the Lost Arc (midnight showing at the Majestic Bay). It's been so long since I've seen it, I had actually forgotten quite a bit. My dad really likes the Indiana Jones movies, so I've seen them all quite a few times.

All the news programs are going crazy with WINTER STORM WARNINGS (make those letters about 200x bigger, and add flashing text, lightning bolts, etc). It will probably snow in the mountains, and just rain here, nothing unusual. But they have to get into such a frenzy! I'm glad I get most of my news from papers, where it's a little easier to pick & choose what I watch, and avoid some of the propaganda.

And speaking of weatherpeople, I just read finished another good book! It's called Whirlwind. It's about a small-town weatherman who is caught up in a Level 5 Hurricane during a broadcast, and becomes a celebrity. I didn't like the handling very much after he gets a new job....it felt like time went by too fast, but he was longing for something....but the chapter describing the events of the hurricane was excellent. Over the holiday weekend I also read another book by Jaffe, Skateaway. Which was good by not quite as much....oh, and finally The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time which had been on all kinds of best seller and "highly recommended" lists. I did think that it was a skilled handling of an autistic mind, which can certainly be attributed to the fact that the author used to work with people with autism. It was a really quick read, but interesting.

Today for my art class I drew a very cool skull. He's kind of pop art, all the shadows and crevices are done in odd colors. It was a mixed media experiment, I used: pen & ink, sumi brush & ink, oil pastels, and conte crayons. I needed a self-confidence boost w/the art, I'm also doing a still life (guitar, old fashioned sewing machine, striped fabrics, pinecones, bottles, bones....) that isn't going quite as well. We'll just say it's abstract. ;)

Do you shop at Amazon.com? I prefer Powells myself, but if they don't have the book I want, I head to Amazon. A does have a nice feature, they donate money to non-profits if you enter the page via a special route. A non-profit close to my heart (since I'm on the board of directors) is the Washington Coalition of Citizens w/Disabilities. So, if you shop at Amazon, please enter via http://www.wccd.org/. They need help! They provide services to PWD (people w/disabilities) so that they can live independently (i.e.-not in nursing homes). The link to Amazon is close to the top of the page, so it won't take much extra time for you. Thanks!

I just realized that the layout that I chose doesn't display subject titles. All this time spent creating witty little titles, and you don't even get to see them. Harrumph! I had posted a warning about the last entry being a "brain dump".

If I ever even suggest taking an evening class again, please remind me how much I do not enjoy returning to school in the evening and spending four hours there. Thank you.

Things that make me happy: Dagobar 59% dark chocolate bars, remembering to back up files both on my cruzer & a disk, hot black tea w/sugar, murg tikka, and vats of hand lotion at my disposal.

I'm taking the generic of Accutane, which is called "Amnesteem". Do you think it was named that because it provides amnesty for your self esteem (well, once it works, that is)? I'd like to know if you have other ideas behind that bizarre little name. I love drug names.

I got to meet my nephew for the first time over the holiday weekend as a "person". Prior to being 3 months old, babies are not really like people, in the sense that most people can recognize faces, have control over their expressions, and react emotionally (other than just scared & happy). I may not be explaining it well, I don't mean it in a cruel way, I guess I'm just saying you can really enjoy a baby after it's 3 months old. Easton is a sweet boy, his older sister was much more of a rascal when she was his age. He makes a little crunched up face, and apparently will do this if you ask him, "Where's Chucky?". He doesn't actually know about Chucky (tm) who spawned a series of horror movies, but with people always asking him that, it's become conditioned (yay! usin' that psych degree!). It is a cute little face, though. :) The bad thing about having cute nieces & nephews? You will spend too much money on them. You will also give them the last of your yogurt/ice cream/cake, and you will be only slightly jealous when your parents spend 4 times as much money on their birthday gift than they did on yours. Slightly, I tell you.

My parents house is still being constructed, so the whole gang of us (7 adults & 2 children) had to share one bathtub (no shower yet). There weren't any sinks in the bathroom, so my dad temporarily installed a laundry tub into the kitchen space. The benefits of having a laundry tub in your kitchen on Thanksgiving is that there is room for a lot of dishes, as well as it being too deep for someone in a wheelchair to do dishes from very ergonomically (my family won't force me to do something painful, so I got to slack off. Oh yeah!).

There is one negative aspect about the house (that won't be gone once they are done) --weird acoustics. Some of it will get better once they put in curtains & finish up the edges of the windows, stuff like that. But they are only installing granite tile floors, so the sounds are still going to bounce around a lot. We may be doing some ceiling tapestry hanging! They can't put throw rugs down because they have radiant heat floors (as well as being a pain for SIAW*).

My sister brought two of her dogs, and they had a little adventure....the night before everyone was leaving they decided to run off. My dad and my brother in law (Johnny) searched for hours, but no dogs could be found. We worried that they might freeze to death (they live in a warm climate normally), when we all went to bed it was 20 degrees, and getting colder. The next morning my dad went to visit the neighbors to see if anyone had seen them, and back at the house we were making "Lost Dog" signs (just before leaving). Just after we broke the news to Kaitlyn (niece) they came running down from the woods behind the house. Both were unbelievably cold to the touch, icy paws & noses, and so tired that they just came inside and collapsed on the floor (outside dogs usually are running around with all the running). I took some cute pictures of Easton crawling around on top of the doggy floor mat.

All-in-all, it was a pretty uneventful trip. Very nice to spend time with the family, and to not think about school or my porfolio for a few days. Now I'm working on getting motivated again. 1.5 weeks of school left, then finals, then I bust out a fantastic portfolio in 2 weeks. It's that time of year.... Anyhow, this is hopefully as boring as I'll ever get here. I'll try to post some pictures later, they brighten things up quite a bit! :)

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*Someone in a wheelchair (you can take this to mean whatever PC/non-PC phrase you like "wheelie" , "crip", "wheelchair bound", "roller", "person who uses a wheelchair"). Perhaps later we'll have a quiz on what's PC & what isn't. ;)