May 2003 Archives
Pen iso 1-7, 307212 10 wkk old kitten, pfa, tested + for flk - will you
guys take? tortie pt. getting uri
One cryptic line of text with incredibly tragic implications. Click through for a full explanation and my own little soapbox -- but only if it won't make you cry.
31.75542% - Total Geek
Sick as a dog.
The good news is that I bought tickets last night to go to Romania for three weeks.
The bad news is... well... there is no bad news.
I'm going to Europe for three whole weeks! I can't wait. My travelling feet are so excited.
(I just realized that I bought the tickets while Mercury was in retrograde, which probably explains why I botched the return flight. If that's the worst that happens, I'll be thrilled.)
More info later. My home computer is still in the shop, so it's been tricky updating.
Jumpingfish doesn't like grackles. Neither do I, for the record, but it's funny how regional that perspective is.
Much of my family enjoys amateur birdwatching, so on vacations and holidays, we find ourselves on bird walks, usually in south Texas, looking for interesting birds -- that is, ones we don't see on a day-to-day basis. We went to a bird walk in Corpus Christi in March, and we met a woman from Pennsylvania who was commenting on what great birds they are. That's the part where we all mutter under our breath about how she's welcome to take them all back with her.
Similar experience: my family recounted a story of a bird expedition they attended in the Rio Grande Valley, where a woman from somewhere far far from here was ecstatic to see a great-tailed grackle because it was her life bird.
As for me, I haven't chosen a life bird yet, but I'm fairly sure it won't be a species that sits atop trees waiting to get a good aim on my car.
I never cease to be amazed at the beauty engendered by a simple sunset.
As summer approaches, the days are getting longer, and I was struck once again by the beauty of the central Texas countryside late Friday evening. The sun was beginning to dip low in the sky, but it cast a warm glow on the grasses that stretched endlessly toward the horizon. With little rain in the last couple of months, the vibrant verdure of the vegetation has become tinged with gold, which seemed to glow in the evening light. I couldn't take a picture of the sunset as it reflected on the ponds, but I can tell you that the water shone brilliantly at dusk, like liquid fire.
There is a raw beauty to this land I've grown up in. I like the simplicity of the geometric divisions of fields. I like the juxtaposition of rugged barbed wire with the delicate petals of wildflowers. I like the partial spectrum of colors that ranges from golden brown in the sun-touched fields to deep green along the creeks that cut through them.
It makes it hard to imagine living anywhere else.
This is me trying not to get snowed under.
Very sorry for the non-entry, but I've got a lot to do lately, and my home computer is in the shop. I'm hoping when I get it back in about a week, it will have shed its pink-and-blue problem and I'll be able to see the full spectrum of colors again. It makes it really hard to upload photographs when you don't actually know what they look like.
Have you decided to come to JournalCon yet?
This is the part where I start pimping JournalCon. It's going to be here in Austin this October, and I'm on the host committee. I designed the web site, so go admire it. :)
After a 24-hour reprieve, I find myself with a plate of tofu masquerading as turkey. The package arrived with the following:
One tofurkey, filled with stuffing
Four tempeh drumsticks
Soy giblets and gravy
Wishsticks made of tofurky jerky (which shall remain unbroken forever and ever, due to the inherent lack of fairness of an all-powerful wish granter being provided to only one person)
The first thing I tried was the soy gravy, which has the consistency of apple sauce. I put a tiny bit on my fork and ate a bite of mashed potatoes, but the gravy had a weird sweetness to it and a bad aftertaste. Yuck. I'm not a big fan of regular gravy either, so perhaps I'm not a good source of information on that topic.
I have two slices of tofurky sitting here. The first slice was the tofurky heel -- the smallest slice, made mostly of "skin." It's textured like corduroy. The second slice is filled with weird bubbly spaces. I guess real turkey has bubbles, too. At least, I'll keep telling myself that.
Claudia's afraid I'll taint the review by letting the tofurky get cold before I actually try it. I can only wish. Okay, here goes.
...
The texture of tofurky is fairly similar to turkey. It's somewhat chewier, but it doesn't have any of that distinctive turkey flavor. It's sweet -- in part because of the soy sauce, orange juice, and brown sugar it was basted with.
If I eat a bite, then eat two bites of plain mashed potatoes, I can probably make it through both pieces.
...
Okay, two more bites. I can taste the tofu now -- strangely reassuring in the context of mystery "meat," but I don't like the sweetness at all. If they'd just call it "tofu" and not try to make it act like turkey, I'd like it much better.
The corduroy "skin" creeps me out, though. I can't eat that. Sorry. I had to cut it off like a bread crust on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I'm very seven-years-old like that sometimes.
Me: "So are you going to break the wish sticks?"
Claudia: "No!"
Me: "Why not?"
Claudia: "Because it's stupid! The person who loses won't ever get whatever they wished for."
Me:
Claudia: "It's like one of those stupid e-mails. Once you open it, you have to send it, or else everything will be horrible. It's stupid!"
That Tofurky Jerky is going to petrify in our refrigerator -- I can see it now.
I had a 24-hour reprieve from the tofurky, but it looks as though the delay is over in 22 minutes.
It's a bit like an execution, except when they kill you, you get to choose your own last meal.
It's Claudia's birthday today. She's 27.
I've been giving her Birthday Choice all day.
For dinner, my goofy vegetarian roommate wanted to eat the tofurky, dressing, and gravy, which have been sitting in the freezer for weeks. I agreed (reluctantly), despite the fact that non-meat that tries to masquerade as meat frightens me greatly.
Yeah, I know. Scary stuff.
I'm not a vegetarian, mind you, but I don't eat beef or pork, which in Texas is practically vegan blasphemy. I'm on pretty friendly terms with tofu. I consider it to be kind of like mushrooms -- innocuous with a harmless texture, and able to absorb the flavors of the foods cooked with it. But when they start texturing it like chicken (or turkey) and adding meat flavors, I get really grossed out. Just give me a potato to bake, will you?
We talked about movies showing around town. Secretly, I was hoping something fabulous would be playing at the Drafthouse so we could eat dinner there, but there was nothing interesting showing.
So Claudia and I went to Central Market to buy potatoes for mashing and some cheap sparkling wine. Nothing goes better with fake turkey than sparkling wine, you know. As usual, the two of us spent close to $40 by the time we left the store. Shopping with Claudia is always an adventure, as she can't make up her mind and I'm easily distracted.
So we came home and Claudia took the tofurky from the freezer. Turns out, the instructions are far more complicated than for a regular turkey. You have to thaw this thing for 24 hours, then roast for several hours while basting the tofurky with soy sauce and orange juice. Needless to say, we didn't have tofurky for dinner tonight. Instead, we had cheese sandwiches, watermelon, and sparkling wine.
Anyway, the tofurky package deal came with tofurkey jerky wish sticks. You know those sentences where you understand each of the words individually, but when you string them together they lose all meaning? Yeah.
So these wish sticks are meant to take the place of the wishbone in the turkey tradition. I had to explain this very American concept to my Romanian roommate.
"Wait, so only the winner gets a wish?" she asked.
"Well, both people make a wish, and then the winner's wish is granted," I explain, as though it actually worked that way.
"But that's not fair!" she exclaimed, putting the wish sticks back into the refrigerator.
Um, yes. Socialism at work.
