Category Archives: Play

What I Did With The Bicycle Money

Wishlists, , ,

In which I shop online… for clothing. Oops. But it’s not like I don’t need clothes.

Etsy is crack. Do you know this? OMG a zillion things I could totally wear right now!

It turns out that since the mall in this town is half torn down, I doubt Macy’s is going to carry anything I want, and clothes-shopping at Walmart is foul and depressing, I’ve been buying many of my clothes online since I moved here.

Behold my local mall:

Blue Mountain Mall

Last week I somehow got distracted from bike shopping and ordered a fleece wrap and some bloomers to wear under skirts. Fall’s coming, you know, and a fleece wrap is totally gonna save my life. Yesterday I ordered a dress (because I live in the tube dresses I already have) and a long-sleeved cardigan/layering thing. And today? Today I ordered pants and a groovy top.

I already have a little remorse about the bloomers, because they’re not made out of knit fabric (and y’all know about my all-knit-all-the-time clothing obsession, right?) but I’ll probably end up wearing the hell out of them. At the very least, they’ll make lovely custom pyjama bottoms.

These items are a wee bit spendy, yes. But a few unique, hand-made pieces in one’s wardrobe go a looooong way (I wear the holy living hell out of the Etsy items I already have) and now I can buy staples like t-shirts and undies at Walmart and not feel like a fucking dork.

But! Since this is all Etsy stuff and therefore handmade I’ll have to wait awhile before I actually receive any of these goodies! Aaaiieee! (*taps toe*)

I’ll get a bike next month. Swear.

Taming of the Shrew

Photography

In which there was culture! But it was pretty redneck, so not really.

Saturday night, Left Coast Girlie and I went to see a play at Fort Walla Walla, which is an outdoor amphitheater near the local museum. The play was Taming of the Shrew, which I wanted to see because I played Kate in a high school production and I have always rather liked the show.

Shakespeare Uncork'ed

There was a nice full house.

Shakespeare Uncork'ed

When we got there, the set had a trailer on it. Oh goody, I thought. Another modernized interpretation. Ugh.

Shakespeare Uncork'ed

(I played Rosalind in As You Like It in cowboy boots and jeans once, and am of the opinion that dresses are better. I was a little sad to see the set.)

But it worked out! Baptista was a big-haired, mini-skirt wearing woman instead of a man, and they called her “Momma Baptista.” Bianca was a beauty pagent queen. Kate wore jeans and boots and rode a Harley. Petruchio was a cagey, skinny, beer-swilling redneck.

The show was hilarious. We had a really fantastic time!

~+~+~
The CurseTM arrived Friday, and The Dread has been lessening ever since. I was trying pretty hard to have an attack on Saturday (my nail tech even told me to relax when when she was doing my fill Saturday afternoon) but I managed not to completely freak out. Today I feel normal again for the first time since July 31st. Ten days of relentless panic and anxiety! WTF?

I hate hormones.

The arrhythmia is gone, and so is the panic, but I’m going to make an appointment with a GP this week and get a checkup. (That way if it gets this bad again I’ll have someone to call for drugs.)

~+~+~
Yesterday was Argus Day!

The Elder Brick

I shot maybe eight frames, but I’m carrying the camera today and hope to finish off the roll so I can get it developed.

I wound the last roll I shot (through my other Argus) off the spool, and now I can’t figure out what to do with it. There’s no easy way to get it back on the roll, so right now it’s just sitting in the camera. If I can’t figure out how to get it developed I might just throw it out.

Ah, the perils of old fully-manual cameras.

I totally need a Dutch oven.

Recipes, , ,

In which I might finally tackle the whole ‘learn to make decent bread’ thing this fall! Srsly!

Since bad bread isn’t even worth eating and good bread is expensive, I’ve been thinking for a looooooong time about maybe learning how to make my own bread. It’s not rocket surgery, so it can’t be that hard, right? Well, in preparation I’ve found the following items of interest on the Internet:

1. This recipe for Sicilian No-Knead Bread.

2. This article about baking your own bread.

3. This recipe, apparently from an issue of COOK’S (I found it as an image online and typed it out myself):

Almost No-Knead Bread

An enameled cast-iron Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid yields best results, but the recipe also works in a regular cast-iron Dutch oven or heavy stockpot. Use a mild-flavored lager, such as Budweiser. The bread is best eaten the day it is baked but can be wrapped in aluminum foil and stored in a cool, dry place for up to 2 days.

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional for dusting work surfaces
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1-1/2 teaspoon table salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons mild-flavored lager
1 tablespoon white vinegar

1. Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in large bowl. Add water, beer, and vinegar. Using rubber spatula, fold mixture, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until shaggy ball forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.
2. Lay 12- by 18-inch sheet of parchment paper inside 10-inch skillet and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges into middle. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment lined skillet and spray surface of dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with your finger, about 2 hours.
3. About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place 6- to 8-quart heavy-bottomed Dutch oven (with lid) on rack, and heat oven to 500 degrees. Lightly flour top of dough and, using razor blade or very sharp knife, make one 6-inch long, 1/2-inch deep slit along the top of the dough. Carefully remove pot from the oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by lifting parchment overhang and lower into pot (let any excess parchment hang over pot edge). Cover pot with lid and place in oven. Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 210 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.

The recipe also has an Olives, Rosemary, and Parmesan variation I might try.

I'm Baaaaaack!

Bentō, Travel, ,

In which Dallas rocked, Amma was wonderful, and I’m glad to be home.

There’s really nothing more kick-ass than coming home after a ‘net-free vacation–the hotel wanted $11 a day for wi-fi and I said screw that–to find one’s blog packed full of comments! I LOVE you bitches!

Bento ArticleI’m very excited about the new job, and it seems my new employers are excited about me too (they made some of those comments, God bless ’em). I can’t wait to start over there next week. It’ll be so nice to be back at a real ISP again.

My bento article took up 2/3 of the Food & Lifestyle section yesterday and looked really cute; I’d link it here but it doesn’t appear to have made it into the U-B’s online edition you can read it here.

Dallas was hot. We never made it downtown because transpo was hella expensive. The airport is gigantic and covered in concrete. The Tex-Mex was gooooooood.

Seeing Mother was restorative and reaffirming and all the impossibly powerful and necessary things it always is; coming home though makes me feel a little nostalgic for Fairfield. If I gave someone here prasad from Mother (I brought home a mango) they wouldn’t have any idea what the fuck I was talking about. I ain’t moving back to BFE, no, it’s just nice to live in a community that groks your vocabulary – that’s all I’m saying.

Click here for the vacation set:
Boarding

From Picture of Dorian Gray

Reading, ,

by Oscar Wilde

“My dear boy,” said Lord Henry, smiling, “anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why people who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized. Civilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being either, so they stagnate.”

Reading List

Reading

In which I’ve decided, in an effort to keep my mind from rotting in my head, to read, or in most cases re-read, the following works. This list is incomplete.

Shakespeare
Sonnets (in progress)

Oscar Wilde
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (done)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (done)
The Portrait of Mr. W.H. (done)
An Ideal Husband
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime (done)

Plato
The Republic

Xenophon
Anabasis
The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates

The awesome part about reading public domain works is that I can download them (using Stanza on my iThing) from Project Gutenberg for free!

Hump day: just an excuse to say "hump."

Spiritual, Travel, Work

In which I do go on about vacation and Amma and work.

I will go on vacation in nine days. NINE DAYS. I can’t remember the last time I needed a vacation so very badly.

I can’t wait to zip up my rolly case and go to the airport. I can’t wait to get on the plane and turn off my electronic devices. I can’t wait for my Salt Lake City layover.

I can’t wait to check in to the Hyatt Regency at DFW and check out the hotel room and the hotel bed and the hotel shower. I can’t wait to wake up in another town with four days of vacation ahead of me, and get dressed in my whites and brush my teeth in the shiny hotel sink and take the elevator down to the program hall.

I can’t wait see Mother. I can’t wait to meditate near Her. I can’t wait to get darshan. I can’t wait to eat Indian snacks like pakoras and idli & sambar. I can’t wait for Devi Bhava.

I can’t wait to eat genuine Tex-Mex like a total freakin’ tourist.

In short, I can’t wait to get the fuck out of town for a few days.

…
This afternoon my employer began the installation of a web cam in the office. It will hang from the ceiling, and is a model that can be swiveled remotely to view all areas. It has audio pickups.

There was a cam here when I started. It’s been moved into another room, and as far as I know has never been online during my employment.

I have no idea why a camera should need to be installed at all, since the office can already be remotely observed a variety of ways. Nonetheless, there it is, a camera which really can’t have any purpose other than to allow members of management to observe employees.

When I worked at LISCO there were web cams there, but they existed so that people could look at equipment, not the other way around. Why on earth would you want to look at people sitting at desks staring at monitors?

The whole thing’s just creepy.

…
The day before yesterday I clocked a very satisfying 6.25 hours on the phone, but my average phone time lately is hovering around four hours per day.

To fill up the unused time I’ve been given busy-work: something loosely identified as “market research” (involving visiting phone book web pages and counting the number of hotels in particular towns), and a list of roughly 250 dial-up customers I have to call and switch to different access numbers.

Why, yes, thank you for asking: I actually did have a real job once, with root on many servers, where I had to understand subnetting and do network troubleshooting and hang out in data centers and go to customer prems and often had plug ends and jumpers and screws and cool stuff in my pockets.

But now? Now I’m calling dial-up customers to wheedle them into letting me walk them through changing to a new access number.

…
Have I mentioned that I’m really looking forward to the renewal of my upcoming vacation?

Update: The webcam is mounted on a wall pointing at nothing, and it’s made by the same company that makes the rest of the inventory so it’s probably just a test model. Surveillance fail!

Swap Day!

Bentō, Photography

In which two packages arrive.

I’ve taken to doing Flickr swaps lately.

What this means is that I send stuff to people I don’t know in real life, and they send me stuff back. In the mail. On purpose.

It’s awesome.

A week or so ago I sent one of my three Argus C3 cameras, a 100mm telephoto lens, and two rolls of film to Florida. Yesterday I got this:

Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera Model 3

Two Argus lenses… and a Polaroid SX-70 Land camera! With a bright yellow skin! W00t!

And last week Left Coast Girlie and I sent a couple of baby loaves of Tillamook cheese, some smoked cheese, candy, and a couple boxes of crackers to Tokyo. And in response, we got this:

Swap from Skamegu!

Another explosion of Japanese bento goodness! I got a tamagoyaki pan!

Moral being that, in spite of having to pay for postage, swapping is hella fun. Because who doesn’t love getting presents in the mail?

When technology fails.

Travel

In which I’m seriously freaking out.

Friday, I ordered tickets at Delta.com for my upcoming trip to see Amma in Dallas with Teh BF. The website told me there had been a problem and asked me to call customer service, which I did.

I was told that there had been a problem with my credit card, probably due to a transaction size cap, and that I needed to call my credit card company to release the transactions.

I did so; my card rep told me she saw two transactions in the amount of $319.41 each from Delta and to call the airline back.

I called Delta back; the representative said he now saw the transactions and he released my tickets, which I could then see on the website. I printed out my itinerary.

Today I went to double-check on my tickets… and they were gone.

I contacted Delta via live chat and was told that my payment had failed. I logged into my card’s web site and could clearly see two transactions, but since Delta couldn’t find them I was advised to call my card company. And I was told that I’d have to book my flights again, since the reservation no longer exists.

I checked kayak.com and Priceline, and the flights I want no longer exist. They’re booked. Fucking great.

I called my debit card company, and they assured me that they do show two pending transactions in the amount of $319.41 each from DELTA ATLANTA GA US. The transaction numbers are 000638 and 000639 respectively, processed on 5/15/09 at 7:45 pm Central time.

Okay, well, Delta can’t see those. Can I have the funds released back into my account so that I can rebook my tickets, please?

Uh, no. Can’t release the funds back into the account without a statement on letterhead from the merchant who has attempted to process the funds. In fact, I need a “Request to release transaction” letter faxed to (512) 532-8323, Attn: Reference #9611641287, containing the transaction numbers above, and verbiage stating that the merchant authorizes release of the funds!

I do not have enough money to buy new tickets while I wait for the pending status to expire on the $668.82 that Delta somehow misplaced (probably through the agency of a failed connection that resulted in their system never receiving the ack from my credit card company). By the time I have my money back, I won’t be able to book flights to Dallas for anywhere near that price. We’ll end up flying out of Dallas at six in the morning and suffering four-hour layovers, and we’ll probably have to pay $500 each for the privilege.

If I can get Delta to fax the release (yeah, right), I’ll have my money back in 24-48 hours (which may still be too late to book at a decent price). If I can’t, I won’t have access to my money until the pending transactions expire… in a minimum of seven days, probably more. (I almost wish I had an actual credit card; if I did I’d just buy the tickets again and worry about it in a week or two when the original funds are released back into my account. But I don’t. So I’m just going to have to hope for the best when I can finally try again to book our flights.)

I understand that, with the vast amount of card transactions happening every instant, once in a great while there’s bound to be an error. But did it have to be a big ticket transaction? Couldn’t my last attempt to buy contact lens solution have failed instead?! I could totally have lived without $8.49 for a week or so.

Excuse me while my fucking head explodes.

Update: I called Delta last night, and they were very nice and agreed to fax the necessary letter. I still don’t have reservations, but I’ll have my money back Thursday.