Hot Banana

Well, I didn't manage to make hot cakes, but I did bring in some banana bread and despite it being my first shot, it went, well, like hot cakes--or maybe in this case, like stuffed peppers. There's just a better ring to hot cakes.

My apartment is clean! And it is staying that way! I am amazing! (Oh, Jesus, the ego has suddenly returned--it's actually just sheer amazement, but whatever). I added a little flair to my light switches and it is making me incredibly happy. I posted a picture of it. It's not meant to be the most professional-looking picture, so don't judge. (That goes for the rest of them--even if I do call them art. I realize that this is still a point and shoot digital whether it can go full manual or not... I am not proud of this fact, but it is my reality, so leave me in peace. I am probably the only one who cares, notices, etc., but still. It is my weakness. I am weak.) And the apology is officially longer than the substantive part. Congratulations.

Hot Cakes and Hot Cheeks

Hot Cakes:

On Wednesday night I got all excited about making stuffed peppers. So I made them. Lovely spicy black beans, jasmine rice, corn, some other secret spices... unfortunately I started late, so by the time they were done, I had already eaten enough snacks to fill me up. Plus, I made four of them which is much more than a toothpick can eat at once or even before they go bad. So I packed up my bag with the peppers and some chèvre and sent out an email to the office that I would be providing lunch to three lucky winners. I had 5 responses within 8 minutes for my little vegetarian cuisine. Next week I am thinking of bringing in Hot Cakes to see which is actually the better seller (to make sure my claim that "they went like hot cakes" was actually true).
(Thanks to Sam for the hot cake inspiration)

Hot Cheeks:

Today on the train I saw the most exquisite set of cheeks I've ever seen on a male specimen. Then I saw another guy with similarly fabulous cheeks admiring the same view. I believe I lost that contest.

Something's wrong with this thing

The "preview" of my page looks normal, but the real deal that the whole world sees is all messed up. Grrrrr!

----|TICK|--------|TICK|--------|TICK|--------|TICK|--------|TICK|----


Amazing what a little reload will do... try it at home! phew!

Furniture Karma Strikes Again

Last night as I was leaving the office around seven (I had a hard time setting my alarm the night before), I noticed some interesting garbage in our mail room. It was as if there were a heavenly light glowing over said item--an office chair--something I've been looking for but not willing to pay for since I moved to this apartment (September 2004). Office chairs are overpriced and anyone who knows me knows that I can't stand buying cheap stuff that is expensive, and that's often what they are. Anyway, so I decide to take the stained, torn up, heavy piece of junk home despite what my lawyer neighbors might thing of this hideous thing I'm rolling around. The only problem (only!) is that the ground is wet, icy, salted, sanded, a typical Boston February evening--whatever you want to call it, so I had to carry it outside. To do this, I turned it over and put the seat on my head and carried the back of it in front--and then made every effort not to make eye contact with people. In the train I sat in it (and held on for dear life for each stop--remember the wheels). Then I carried it on home and did something about its appearance. A little Mauritanian fabric, black duct tape, and old opaque tights did the trick.

10 Things I learned this weekend

1. The train to NYC is highly superior to the bus, if you don't mind paying for it. Because:
a) There's an electrical outlet for every set of 2 seats.
b) The restroom door doesn't open into someone's lap.
c) Can you say snack car?
d) It's not dependent on traffic so even at the end of a holiday weekend you can get back on time.
e) downside: it's about four times the price of the bus.

2. My dad is awesome (he bought the ticket--see above). (He is stuck in Dallas right now--what a trooper). By the way, I already knew he was awesome; I just thought he deserved the props here.

3. My dad has cool friends with cute kids.

4. My friend Jon has an awesome girlfriend who is an amazing hostess. (I got spa treatment and a chilled mint on my pillow). Jon's a good host too, but I think I know where he gets it.

5. The saffron colored gates are worth the trip.

6. Stiletto heels and snow make an interesting match. (built-in ice picks)

7. The route to JFK does not involve going anywhere near Penn Station when starting from Times Square.

8. It is possible to beat an MIT grad at backgammon, but you have to roll a lot of doubles.

9. The world is a small place. Remember my long-lost friend from a few posts back? Well I met someone on the train who went to his college--in Savannah, GA! How wild is that?

10. Albeit small, the world still has some interesting complexities. This was most recently evidenced to me by the fact that Moroccans do not know where Niger is, despite the fact that the only thing between the two countries is Algeria (and a little obstacle called the Sahara).

Funny Night

How is it that a night that starts out as "I think I'm going to stay home... I have an early train to catch" turn into an all-night-close-the-club event? Well, you can start with the fact that it's Boston where the clubs must close at 3 and often close earlier (2 in this case). Personally, however, I was having "a drink" with someone a 5 minute walk from my house. That somehow turned into a few drinks, a cab ride to a high scale hook up joint, someone kissing my hand and then my jaw, a girl opening the bathroom door on me and not closing it in a timely manner, sketchy guys dancing with me, and then finally retreating here. All in all, it was fun but certainly not planned, and I definitely am not packed for tomorrow's trip to NYC. I guess I'll just wake up early. If this is without typo/spelling error, it is by miracle.

Food

You know what's exciting? It is exciting when you've had a long day at work, you're categorically denied when organizing a happy hour outing, but then redemption comes in the form of friends calling to invite you over for dinner. They even catered to my new revised vegetarian diet.

Libyan?

Ok, the people in Niger told me I could pass as Libyan. Do I look Libyan to you? The profile photo was taken in 2003 when I was headed to the Grande Mosquée in Niamey, Niger and I had to have my head covered, so I'm sort of dressed the part. But I just realized that random people, who do tend to visit the site now, might actually think I am a good Muslim (then they read the posts and they know that's over, but still). Maybe all light skinned people look alike...

Photo Update

See the newest additions to my online gallery: There are 2 new links in the sidebar of ENVY.

Valentine's Day

In my family we have the fun tradition of embarassing each other with gifts of underwear for Valentine's Day. It's as if they were encouraging us to engage in activities which they verbally forbade. Interesting. Well this year took the cake for Valentine's Day gifts from my maternal units. I knew I was getting a package but I thought it would be a tax form, some underwear, and maybe a hand made card by my little sister (Olivia, the 5-year-old, not Amy, the college freshperson--being pc is so painful). Anyway, so I get home from a gruelling day at the office on Friday (was it? I don't remember) and there are not one, but two packages sitting below my mailbox. The top one, a large padded envelope, contained a pyjama kit, complete with pink slippers. The bottom one contained a coffee pot my sister donated (Amy), a store-bought, hand decorated card (from Olivia), cookie mix, hot chocolate, a tape of a church service which proceeded to break my tape deck (I don't know, maybe I forgot how to use it...), and last but not least, a drill with a drill bit kit.

The Jeff Foxworthy-esque joke of the story?

You know you have two mommies when...
you get pink pj's and a heavy duty drill for Valentine's Day. (Try the test, it works--did you get these gifts? If you did, you definitely have 2 mommies.)

Happy Valentine's Day!
Spread the Love

(see, even single people can remain un-bitter about the blessed holiday)

Death and Rebirth

No, I'm not talking about breathwork rebirthing simulations, I'm talking about hard drives and the data contained on them. About three weeks ago or so I was moving furniture (for those of you who know me and my living style well, this is normal, weekly behavior). I innocently and accidently unplugged my external hard drive which holds all of my photos from Niger plus some other somewhat important stuff like, say, my resume. (However, now that I'm a "lifer" at KLD and I will probably never get those databases to the point that my inner perfectionist requires, my resume probably isn't the most important document in my life.)

In any event, when I unplugged it, the whole world came crashing down, and when I plugged it back in, it started going "spin, click, spin, click, etc. etc." For those of you who don't know, this is a very bad sign. Very bad. It means that your machine can't access the data and therefore you have effectively lost it--unless you have a superduper lab in your basement or something. So anyway, for me this means at least one thing. I need data recovery. I am told this is very expensive.

Luckily, this has happened to me before, only last time it was my laptop and all my files were on my external (the external is/was 120GB and I think the laptop was something like 6, so they wouldn't fit anyway). So, in effect, I still had my files, plus I had all important docs backed up on an ftp site and my address book was on the network server at school. Thank the cosmos for that!

Ok, so boring technical stuff aside, this time I was lucky again--all of my Niger photos are on CDs (5 of them). And I even had my documents (including the most inane-or insane-college papers ever written) saved on one of the discs. I think I may have lost the papers I wrote in French, however, which is a shame because I probably couldn't understand them now or ever do it again. But who knows, maybe I'll move to Niger or France or something. Long story short, I got some of the most important data back and I only had to copy some files for a few hours. (For some reason there were errors on some files and I had to start over a little bit with some folders). So we can all be happy about this and take home an important message: BACK UP YOUR DATA. It's not worth the agony of losing it. (And if you're going to back it up on CDs, please keep them in a safe place where they won't get scratched.)

So yes, that's my exciting Saturday night. That and planning my meals from cookbooks. It's so exciting to eat when it's not just another burrito.

Anyone know a decently priced data recovery service?

Product FYI: The drive was a Western Digital with no power switch, and this was a known problem that they warn about in the set up guide. However, it was a stupid design. Really stupid. And I let them know that. Their newer models apparently have features that prevent this issue, but I was penalized for being ahead of my time, I guess. Happens to the best of us (and the worst).

Reunite!

Do these colors look bad with the photo? I can't tell. Tonight I reunited with a long lost friend who is setting up computers and networks for the likes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton--yes, he was forced to hold and pet Tinkerbell, the chihuahua--all while working on getting jobs doing graphic design (don't ask me for more detail than that) in major movie studios. Somehow this makes taking Access classes in Quincy less glamorous... : )

Where are the photos?

I moved them to "Envy" -- follow the link here or in the sidebar.

Lucky Me

I must be awfully lucky... I have FOUR postcards hanging on my wall from Japan, Morocco, Nicaragua, and Malta (which is surprisingly urban looking)... and that's from 2005 alone. I suppose there was a benefit to having my friends leave me. At least they're good about remembering that I still exist. You girls ROCK! Thanks for thinking of me.

Walk of Shame

Last night's exploits... ha! So this class I'm taking is in Quincy (which is over an hour train ride from my house--and that's with a little luck with trains and shuttles). Luckily, for dinner last night I was invited to a family friend's house in Hingham (about 15 minutes from here by car without getting lost). We had dinner and then they said, "why don't you just spend the night?"... so long story short, I did. So I am at my little class again, in the first row, and wearing exactly the same clothes as I wore yesterday and I haven't brushed my teeth since yesterday morning... also something I don't recommend (see previous posts for additional non-recommendations). My theory is that (a) people won't remember what I wore yesterday and (b) I don't really care since I in all likelihood will not see them again. My teeth do feel a little yucky, though.

The last thing you don't want to do is...

Let's say for arguments sakes that you want to pick and choose some data. Am I good?

I am in a class learning Access databases right now. Unfortunately, I've had a month of hands on training already and while some of the information is useful, much of it is followed up by "if you're having trouble with double clicking, here's another way to do it." Good to know multiple ways, good to know keyboard shortcuts, but not so helpful to have people in the class who don't know how to type... or use windows. It's supposed to be a prerequisite. Alas, people were not tested. So I've spent almost a whole day learning stuff I already know.

Parting words?... Dey Bellah Match

SWAT Team

What? You don't have a larger SWAT team than reveling student population on your street corner? Well, you must not be in Boston.

Junk Food

Shaw's Copley at about Game Time -1:00. Needless to say, they were out of buffalo tenders and we had to buy Fat Free Bleu Cheese. I do not recommend it.

Dreaming

A couple of nights ago when I was sleeping, I dreamt that I ran into three women who were singing a song from one of my favorite albums, A Ma Zone (Zap Mama). It was dark and in a grassy median where, for some reason, many people were gathered. I was in the middle of chasing someone who had stolen my back pack or something but they were so awesome that I stopped and sang along--but I sounded terrible! It was like I was listening to them through headphones and couldn't hear myself... that bad. I asked them if they were really Zap Mama, and they were kind of standoffish and rude and told me they were. I was all excited because who knows Zap Mama? And how would you run into them in such a random place. Long story short, I think I proceeded to embarass myself and then had to leave. There was the missing backpack issue, afterall.

Why So Envious?

Well, my friends, now I can keep up with you Mr. Jones, Madame Jones, etc etc.. I started this blog tonight because I am jealous. I envy my friends who are out trekking the world and chronicling their daily lives. I'm especially envious that they have something interesting to say every day, so I am going to try to do the same. Living in Boston always with camera in hand. Ready to text a message to my blog at a moment's notice. Life can be boring when you expect it to be, but when you're abroad, you expect excitement and everything seems exciting. People can write pages about ordering food at McDonald's (or macodonodono... or however you say it in Japanese). So maybe, just maybe, if I expect life to bring excitement even on my same-old-commute Thursday, a worthy story will come out. Am I waxing poetic -- or pathetically trying? Well that's what this is all about right? So anyway, until next time. ....by the way, sorry about stealing your template, Laura... I'm the lady in black and I just can't help it. Maybe I'll design a new one.