a couch. i has one.

It's back to home dec updates, peeps. Today I finally got to pick up the couch and chair cushions I ordered in April:





I used my Chirp dishes for the first time the other night. The rims of the plates match the walls of my dining nook. It is pretty cool.



This is a pasta dish I made up, involving tomatoes, mushrooms, baby spinach, and a secret ingredient that rhymes with, um...whoregonzola.

for the love of ambien

My "day" today--it is now Saturday approaching midnight in San Francisco--started at 11:00 p.m. yesterday in Bombay (i.e., 10:30 a.m. Friday California time), when George came to pick me up and take me to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, or as they say in airport code, BOM. My flight on Korean Air was not departing till 3:30 a.m. (I'm sorry, did I say "3:30 a.m.?" I meant THREE THIRTY FUCKING A.M.), but I felt bad making someone hang out later than 11:00 just to come and drive me to the airport. Not bad enough, mind you, to actually volunteer to go find a regular cab in the middle of the night, but bad enough not to insist on being picked up at a more reasonable hour, given the circumstances.

So I hung out for four hours in the understated luxury of BOM, then headed to Seoul, then got on a flight to San Francisco. I must say I prefer going over Asia rather than over Europe. It's shorter, for one thing, and also shorter. Plus it does not take as long, and the distance is not as far. (Someone please slap me for thinking that 25 hours total travel time is "not all that long.")

Did y'all know that the flight attendants for Korean Air are an army of spindly identical toothpicks in pale khaki and light seagreen-blue, down to the freakin' EYE SHADOW? This is not Jackass American over here thinking all Asian women look alike (although I am tempted to say that just to piss off Dan, who is a jerk). This is Jackass American saying that dude, SRSLY, all Korean Air flight attendants look alike. So much so that midway during the Seoul-SFO leg, under the influence of white wine and Ambien, I was for at least 30 seconds convinced that what was, in fact, a severe case of double vision was just two flight attendants going through very similar motions at the same time in the same area.

I was just now looking for an example of the Korean Air flight attendant uniform to show you when I came across an ad I saw in the in-flight magazine that at the time made me think "WTfuckingF?!?" but that I had in the meantime already forgotten to tell you about (see reference to wine and Ambien above). And I am pleased, in my very Western "Um, is this just me?" sort of way, to note that the ad was being discussed on a Korean guy's blog and the point of his commentary was also "WTfuckingF?!":


Please note the caption: "...only dignified service for our dignified guests." Ah, the comments just write themselves. Also, hello. Just about the last place I want to imagine a person hanging out before handing me comestibles is the floor of an airplane.

Anyhoooooo, back to California, which is where I am. Here are some tips for you, dearest readers. First, find yourself a friend who is a member of a snazzy wine club, like maybe Cakebread Cellars. It is helpful if your friend is gorgeous and possibly named Claudia. The most important part, however, is to make sure the friend doesn't really care for white wine, because that means you will regularly receive hostess gifts consisting of ass-kicking bottles of ivory-colored alcoholic goodness, which will then still be waiting for you in your fridge when you get back from, say, India.

Another tip: there is a time to cast on (that's knitting talk) for a brand new pashmina lace wrap, and that time is decidedly NOT at 10:30 p.m. when your day began over 36 hours previously and has involved white wine of varying degrees of quality, three (sub)continents, and multiple doses of Ambien. I will be casting on ::cough:: again tomorrow (the Luna Moth Shawl, for those interested).

shut up dan

Dan has been harassing me on a daily basis about how I have a responsibility to my readers (a group comprised of Dan and myself, I'm pretty sure) to post more often, so this entry is devoted to his naggy ass.

I don't have a lot to offer today. I got a new haircut and hair color--shorter and darker than ever before. Misti says I look like a rocker. She is a sweet young thing, isn't she? Here I am just now, trying to look like a badass rocker:



Yeah, that worked.

This evening I was at my gym, where they have one of those set-ups where you can plug your headphones into a doodad on the machines and listen to your choice of any one of the four or five TV shows playing on large screens. Usually I just listen to my iPod, but today I couldn't help but be drawn into what is possibly the most ludicrous piece of television broadcasting ever foisted upon humankind. I am speaking of the VH1 reality show Rock of Love. Imagine if you will a scenario where Bret Michaels (née Bret Michael Sychak, according to this helpful Wikipedia entry), the lead singer of the Glam Metal band Poison, gets to prance around as a middle-aged, creepily eye-linered, bandana-headed, collagen-lipped Lothario and choose a new girlfriend from among what can best be described as an army of skanky whores approximately half his age. And when I say skanky whores...people, for reals. One of the final two was a retarded stripper. Anyway, I ended up working out for an hour and a half because I became so engrossed in this magnificent trainwreck. Thank god he chose Ambre!!1!!1

putting the 'ho' in HOA

Oh boy, there's nothing quite like turning 40 and becoming the president of your homeowners' association all in the same week to make you feel like, well, a 40-year-old home owner. Or maybe like someone's mom, except for that little detail of having forgotten to have children.

I hosted our first TIC (that is kind of like a co-op, for you non-San Franciscans) HOA meeting at my apartment on Thursday night, in part to discuss the solution to an unfortunate plumbing mishap on the other side of the building that is likely to cost one unit's owner (who hadn't even moved in yet) around $15,000 in repair costs. Part of the joy of sharing equally in a 6-unit building is that anything that goes wrong with the common parts of the building immediately becomes 1/6th your problem. Then again, you only have to pay for 1/6th of a gardener, so there are also some perks.

I'm pleased to report that my neighbors all seem nice, and a couple even seem like people you'd want to hang out with. I'm a little less pleased to report that the couple upstairs is due to contribute a new infant to the world in approximately one month. An infant whose nursery will be directly above my bedroom. Luckily (?) I already invested in a pricey white noise generator to drown out the 24-hour churchy elevator music and gospel preacher tapes from the near-deaf old lady below me (who is a renter left over from before the house renovation/selling of the remaining units).

Speaking of Downstairs Church Lady, right when I moved in last December I'd often see a guy maybe around my age sitting in the common area on the first floor talking on his cellphone. He was clearly somehow related to Church Lady, and was quiet and polite and seemed harmless enough. I hadn't seen him since those first couple of weeks, but thanks to a discussion at the HOA meeting I know now that he was her nephew, and I also know this: shortly after I went to India in January, the guy in the other unit on my floor heard pounding on his door and men shouting "Open the door! FBI!" He thought it was his friends playing a hilarious prank, albeit with unusual enthusiasm. But no. It was the real live FBI, wanting to go through my neighbor's apartment to reach some other part of the building so they could continue their attempt to find Church Lady's nephew. BECAUSE HE WAS A WANTED SEX OFFENDER IN UTAH. They didn't find him that day, but we're told that in the meantime he's been arrested. Anyhoo, it just goes to show you that the mild-mannered guy with the churchy aunt who's sitting in the downstairs hallway every afternoon is maybe not someone you want to invite over to your weekly game of Scrabble or strip poker. Live and learn.

I'm way excited about having finally ordered cushions for my Danish living room set. My couch will have cushions covered in this "alfalfa" colored textured fabric:

And the matching chair will have cushions in this "peridot" colored pattern:
These are both green and definitely go together, even if they look yellow-y or beige-y and non-matchy on your crappy monitor (because they certainly do on mine).

perhaps sometimes violence IS the answer

Now, as you know, I don't judge. But the people who were staying at the bed & breakfast with us in Ashland last weekend were some of the most irritating, pretentious, idiotic, washed-up faux intellectual hippies I have ever encountered.

You know the type. E.g., the woman with long, loose gray hair, all flowing layered skirts and fringe and bracelets and brown velvet. The first morning we heard her and her table mates going on and on and ON about spirituality (a word I condone only if it is in reference to liquor) and new agey barf-inducing pop philosophy, and at some point she said, "Well you knowww, everything in the world is duality--right brain/left brain, yin and yang...." It was at that point James and I locked eyes and, knowing we were in danger of losing our breakfast if we remained to consume even one further morsel of it, went back to our room to roll our eyes and moan softly in intellective pain.

The next morning she arrived a little late, saw that her previous day's table cohort had no free spaces left, and rather than sitting next to a perfectly nice midwestern-y couple nearby she insisted on having a separate place set for her at a vacant table and declared for all to hear, "I think I'd better do some writing this morning." James murmured under his breath, "Wow, there's a frightening thought." And then she proceeded to "write" during breakfast by placing a small pad of paper next to her. Which she did not touch. She did do a lot of meaningful gazing into mid distance, however. I'm sure whatever she was thinking ("Which peasant skirts are back from the dry cleaners? How much turquoise can possibly fit on one necklace? Should I eat this bacon in front of people or pretend I am a compassionate, earth-loving vegetarian?") was exceptionally profound.

(That just reminded me of one of my favorite James mutterings ever. We were at a sushi restaurant next to a large party, and one woman was dominating the conversation in both volume and quantity of discourse--blathering on about her time living in Africa, and repeatedly referring to Johannesburg as "Joburg," and generally and loudly describing various scenarios that demonstrated just how much of a privileged white hosebag she truly was, breaking only for short digressions to discuss her preferred jewelers in Sausalito. At some point she excitedly declared, "Oh! Oh! I have the classic Africa story for you!" At which point James muttered, "Let's hope it ends with her being eaten.")


But where was I? Oh yes, about how I never judge. Really, it makes it easier to sleep at night. Y'all should try it.

birthday weekend, cont.

Our trip to Crater Lake having been thwarted by the small matter of TEN FEET OF SNOW, we opted instead for a trip to Grizzly Peak, until we noticed in our guidebook the small matter of its only being open between May and November on account of, you know...the snow. Non-local yokels such as we are, we thought that perhaps the 70-degree temps would have melted any remaining precipitate by this point, so we headed there anyway. All went well until we reached the gravel road we were supposed to turn onto and drive upon for 3 miles to reach the trail head. It looked a little something like this, except without the clear, paved bits:



So we ended up walking up and down the paved road we'd just driven. It was still nice, despite an abundance of shotgun shell casings and blown up bits of clay pigeons.

We do eventually learn, and the next day we went to a place called Applegate Lake, where there was no snow whatsoever. Here is James in Intrepid Explorer mode:


There were lots of interesting little flowers along our 14-mile hike:




For my birthday I purchased some Noro Silk Garden yarn from The Websters in Ashland and started making this scarf:


When we got home on Monday we painted my hallway yellow. I entertained James by repeatedly holding up my paint container and exclaiming enthusiastically "I has a bucket!" I also composed a little ditty that began "Oh my hallway is so yeller, it could be seen by Helen Keller!" Etc.



Stay tuned for a post about how the pretentious, washed-up, 50-something, idiotic, new-agey erstwhile hippies in Ashland nearly sent us on a murderous rampage.

Updated to add: I just was looking at the site with the scarf recipe and noticed he links to this site to show other examples of the same technique, and the first photo on that page is of a scarf I designed. Freak coincidence, or proof that way too many people have made that Stupid Fucking Scarf (as my knitting posse and I now refer to it)? I think we can all guess the answer to that one.

ashland follies

To celebrate (and I use the term loosely) my 40th birthday weekend, James and I are in Ashland, Oregon for four days. We are staying in a lovely B&B called the McCall house. One of the many period details left preserved for our enjoyment is the remote controlled fireplace:


The fireplace quite conveniently also serves as a white noise generator. And when I say "also," I mean in addition to...um...nothing at all useful. Except for the ambience, of course. Because nothing says "romance" like a projection of flames from a rolling tube onto a sheet of frosted glass, plus some glowy log and ember things.

That makes it sound like I don't like the place, which is actually not true. The house is awesome. Here is James examining a stereoscope that was in the parlor (note actual fireplace).


There is an ornate tub and cute wallpaper with pretty birds.

I totally would use this wallpaper, if I had the ambition or talent required to hang wallpaper.

On the way up we drove past Mt. Shasta:


Its snowiness was our first clue that maybe our plans to visit Crater Lake today were misguided. Somehow, back in India when I was first planning this excursion, I failed to realize that mid-April is still the height of winter at Crater Lake; yesterday we discovered via the park web site that there is still over 10 feet of snow on the ground in the park, and several of the roads are closed for the season. That put a major damper on our ideas for a brisk 10-mile hike, especially considering that I was planning to do it in trail running shoes.

So today we are going to go to the bookstore and pick up a book with local, snow-free hikes. I will assign James to plan an itinerary while I shop for cute clothes, shoes, and yarn, of which there is an abundance in this town.

kitchen: now with accoutrements

This message is for anyone out there who thought I was done posting pictures of my kitchen: I wasn't.



Also, after much toilsome effort searching for the perfect dishes, I completely accidentally stumbled upon the perfect dishes: "Chirp" from Lenox.


Soon I will be able to invite as many as three additional people over for dinner and they all will be able to eat off matching dishes that aren't even from IKEA. God damn I'm getting fancy.

A special shout-out to James for magically installing the kitchen cabinets and pot shelf while I was at work. I'll say it again--it rocks to have a personal engineer.

living in color

Today we got all ambitious and painted the kitchen and entryway. I have learned several things today:

1. If No One Will Ever See It, You Do Not Need To Paint It.

2. Do not tell yourself, "Oh, I don't need to mask that bit; I will just be very careful." Because you do, and you won't.

3. Do not assume that mango will easily cover sage green.

4. The time you save by loading a little extra paint on your brush will always be canceled out by the time it will take you to clean up the paint splatters on your baseboards or floor.

Kitchen before:

Kitchen after:
Very green entryway:

And also I rearranged my cookbooks again. Because I am super dorky.

golden gate...into old age and decrepitude

So, I thought I'd be all hot shit and racewalk a half marathon the week before I turned forty just to show the world that India has not totally kicked my ass and turned me into a lame, out-of-shape, depressed middle-aged lady. So I went this morning to the Golden Gate Headlands half marathon, only to discover that India has totally kicked my ass and turned me into a lame, out-of-shape, depressed middle-aged lady.

Here is the event-name-appropriate view on the way to the race:


Did I mention that maybe I should have paid attention to the fact that this was not an ordinary, flat-streets-of-a-city type race, but rather a steep, rocky trail run with 2,200 ft of elevation change?



The vistas were admittedly lovely, when you could see them through the tears of pain and despair:


I did finish and all, but it took 3 1/2 freakin' hours (about an hour longer than it took me to do the Seattle Half Marathon just four months ago).

Anyhoo. Not my finest moment, but I did use it to justify eating a burrito afterwards. Speaking of food, someone please tell me why I thought paying $10 for three pints of gorgeous organic strawberries at the farmer's market on Thursday was a good idea.
Because it turns out that when you pay $10 for three pints of strawberries, you later realize that OHMYGOD I HAVE TO COME UP WITH A WAY TO USE UP THREE PINTS OF STRAWBERRIES WITHIN TWO DAYS OR ELSE I HAVE WASTED $10 AND I HAVE A MORTGAGE NOW FOR CHRISSAKE WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING? So, I am in the process of making vegan strawberry ice cream and a strawberry banana cake based on this vegan muffin recipe. Because eating a boatload of ice cream and baked goods is sure to assist me on the road to an improved self-image.

In better news, I was uninvited to a meeting Monday morning that would have required arriving at work at 7:30 a.m. on a day where I have calls scheduled until 10:45 at night. Sometimes it's good not to be a big shot.

furnished

This here is an update for readers who are following the Saga of the Espresso Machine and the Adventures in Procuring a Teak Credenza (hi, you two!).

First, Silvia has arrived:


Second, here is an actual photo of my actual credenza in my actual apartment (as opposed to the actual photo of not my actual credenza on eBay):


So, there has been a little progress around here. Stay tuned for the Debate About What Color to Paint My Hallway, the Conundrum of How the Hell I am Going to Fit All My Crap in the Closets, and the Fairy Tale of the Dishdrawer That I Want to Force to Fit into My Stupid Non-Standard Kitchen Cabinetry.

And yes, I am quite aware that I could make much faster progress on all of those things if I would actually get out to the home supply store instead of parking my ass on a chair and knitting Ariann.

more from the geekytown files

OK, if you have not yet had a chance to experience Blu-ray Disc, you have not lived. I don't care if you have summited K-2, fought off Brazilian piranhas with your bare hands while simultaneously wrestling a jaguar, or sat through an entire half hour of Rachel Ray. You. Have. Not. Lived. Tonight I got to see a couple of episodes of the BBC series Planet Earth on Blu-ray disc, and it BLEW MY MIND. For serious, people. Not that photos can adequately capture the fabulousness, but here are a couple:



Those of you who are familiar with my Crazy Shark Phobia will understand how incredible it is that I insisted on having that last sequence played back numerous times. Seriously, this shit makes you gasp things like "OH NO WAY!!" and "THAT IS NOT EVEN REAL!" and "HOW DID THEY DO THAT?!" at approximately four-second intervals. Every water droplet, every striation in the snow on the side of a mountain, every feather on a lunatic bird from New Guinea...it is all there up in your grille like real life on steroids.

And my amazement was not even dampened by half a bottle of Rubicon Estate Captain's Reserve 2004 Chardonnay followed by a lychee martini.


(Which, after this photo, I am going to start calling a "fetus martini.")

The Planet Earth series has the added bonus of being narrated by David Attenborough. Having watched approximately 94 million hours of his earlier series such as Blue Planet, Life of Mammals, Life of Birds, Life in the Freezer, etc., I was able to shout out things such as "Say GLASS-yer! Say GLASS-yer!" when the topic turned to glaciers, and so on. Endless entertainment.

how to tell you are visiting a geek

I decided to come down to Casa de James in Los Angeles this weekend and I must say I'd forgotten just how geeky this man is.

Exhibit A:
Telescope that is bigger than 18 people's heads.

Exhibit B:
Room-cleaning robot.

Exhibit C:
Computer monitor that is bigger than 18 people's heads.

Exhibit D:
Espresso machine that is bigger than 18 people's heads.

Exhibit E:
Stacks of back issues of Science and Nature that are bigger than 18 people's heads.

Exhibit F:
Space jammies.

Also, here is a conversation that just happened:

Me: How many computers are in this house?
James: Um, let me go downstairs and check.
(Pause)
(Heard being mumbled from downstairs: Seven, eight...)
(James comes back to main floor, continues counting)
(James heads upstairs, more mumbled counting is heard)
(James comes back to main floor)
James: Looks like right now there are 18. But that's not counting specialty hardware for work and various...antique collectibles. Eighteen regular ones.
Me: Thank you.

Edited to add:
Not that there's anything wrong with all that. Now please excuse me while I enjoy my borosilicate mug of perfectly brewed soy cappuccino along with my lightning-fast, hacker-impenetrable wifi access.

mad knitting skillz

The MEOW fest was a big success, which is to say that many snacks were eaten, much booze was drunk, and much knitting took place. We also went to a rad yarn store in Portland called knit/purl, where I got some very pretty sock yarn with which I decided to make these mittens:


The pattern, such as it is, is "Lingonberry" from The Mitten Book by Gottfridsson & Gottfridsson, which is my kind of knitting book because it assumes you know what the hell you're doing and just gives you vague guidelines and some charts.

I have nothing else to report.

oh, meOW

I am in Troutdale, Oregon at my MEOW knitting retreat. Not everyone has arrived yet, but eventually we'll have 9 (out of 14) members here. As you can see, several of the attendees brought along their mascot kitties, so that we have an evil MEOW army to watch over us.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to check my work email at 7:00 a.m. while on vacation. Because I am a retard. And now I have a big fat headache and am extremely irritated. Is it cocktail hour yet? (At a MEOW retreat, this is the same as asking "Is it 10:00 a.m. yet?")

Every year we seem to end up with a MEOWfest catchword or phrase. This year it is "tent." Last year it was "Tom Wopat" (don't ask, because I can't tell). The first year it was "giant woofie." One year it was "I'm just a girl from a trailer park with a dream." And of course we can't forget the year of "Randy Beaver."

teak freak

Tonight James helped me put together the Danish teak 60's coffee table and chair I got from my parents. And when I say he helped me, I mean that I watched while he put them together, and I occasionally handed him a screwdriver (the tool kind, not the beverage kind, although I am sure he would have appreciated either).


I also have a couch that is just like the chair, except three seats wide and needing cushions to be made for it, which is why it seemed less urgent to get it set up for now.

Tomorrow I head out of town for the Fifth Annual MEOW Kitty Knitting Retreat. There will be much wine consumed and much catty gossip slung about. Oh, and there will also be knitting. Stay tuned for exciting yarn-filled updates.

color theory

Just in case any of you out there thought I wasn't dorky enough to color coordinate my cookbook shelf, I would like to prove you wrong:



My apartment is slowly coming together a bit. Here is the dining area. I'd originally planned to get a Saarinen pedestal table, but ended up getting this square thing at IKEA and saving...wait for it...$1369. Because that sucker was on sale for $39.99, people. THIRTY NINE NINETY NINE. And I can spill stuff on it without freaking out, because did I mention it cost THIRTY NINE NINETY NINE?


That red box is my microwave, by the way.

And now you should go out and buy the ingredients to make Caramelized Tofu, because damn that's good eatin'.

vegan sushi!

Tonight I made vegan sushi for dinner. That's all I have to report.