garden growing!!!

Looks like my plants are doing well!

I hope this is arugula although Jess was just over here and she said it kind of looks like clover...I tried to find some baby arugula pics and these plants kind of look like baby arugula but I'll have to wait and see

little cilantros are coming up on the bottom left and some chives are coming up on the top right!!!

more cliantros and chives!!!

when cleaning (almost) kills

I'm sure no one who knows me would be shocked if I died someday while cleaning. Then they would say "she died doing what she loved". I have had some close calls, mostly involving mattresses that I moved so I could clean them (somehow they always seem to fall on me - I once got wedged behind a queen size mattress and had to call a neighbor to help me).

Anyway, I bought a book about a month ago because I heard the author talking on NPR. Now, I should know better than to listen to 1 minute of a segment about a self professed "clean person" who was talking about her crazy cleaning habits to just go out and buy the book without doing research. But I did.

I hated the book. It was incredibly stupid. The one cleaning tip I picked up wasn't enough to justify buying the damn thing, and the author spent way too much time talking about how bodily fluids on sheets react with bleach (she's having sex when not cleaning, apparently - congrats!). There was a tip on removing poop stains from the sheets if you have a boyfriend with a leaky anus (she also provides a pseudo medical explanation of why men have a leaky anus) but the first time a guy got poop on my sheets would be the last time he ever saw me.

And I was forever annoyed with her "environmentally friendly" cleaning solution - mix vinegar and water. What kind of vinegar? Ratio of vinegar to water? How is that in any way helpful?

Anyway, besides vinegar, the author was obsessed with scrubbing bubbles and how great the product is. And I happened to be in home depot, and always have to go down the cleaning aisle to see what new things they might have, and happened to see scrubbing bubbles so I bought them. I figured I'd give them a try in my shower (which is not really dirty, since it's new, but I love trying new products).

I decided to spray the scrubbing bubbles and then watch an episode of an algebra class I'm taking (subject was moving back and forth between a parabola and a table of values to derive the graphed equation - very interesting). Then I rinsed the scrubbing bubbles (shower did not seem noticeably cleaner - my other product makes the tiles really shiny). I got a little blob of the scrubbing bubbles on my hand so I rinsed it off with water since I'm trying to use less soap since my hands are mangled from wearing gloves every evening to make the sandwich packets. I was kind of pissed that scrubbing bubbles didn't do a great job cleaning and further it smells horrible.

I went back downstairs and started the second algebra lesson. A few minutes into it I noticed that I was suddenly having some problems breathing. Then I looked down at both of my hands and they were swollen and red. So I went in the kitchen and turned on the light and saw I had patches of red all over my arms and that the patches were turning into blisters.

hand swollen, red patch on my wrist is where the blob landed

red patch that was literally spreading before my eyes, spots above are blisters

other arm, with spots and blisters - eventually had a big red patch on this arm too but my hands were too swollen to take another picture

alright, these are kind of shit pics but if you look at my arm compared to my hand, which is swelling, you can see how discolored my hand is - you can also see the red spreading from my hand down my wrist around my fitbit

Having been through the allergy rodeo before I took two benedryl and got into my contaminated shower and rinsed off twice with soap (and re-cleaned the shower the best I could since my hands were totally swollen). Within an hour my breathing was more or less normal and the red patches had started receding so I decided it was best to go to bed. This morning I'm more or less back to normal.

Fucking scrubbing bubbles and fucking book.

In other news, I did manage to finish all the sandwich packets (2,000 of them) so we're good to go for brewgrass tomorrow.

crushed it

and a cool story on the super predator shark killer

I love this shark blog (and not just because I love sharks) and there's a great post (linked at "shark blog") about the super predator shark that supposedly killed a 9 foot great white. And it turns out it was a shark that I might have seen on my trip (it better not have been Cuddles).

Suggested reading if you're one of those people who likes to dispel myths at happy hour or dinner parties (only to have your drunk friends look up questionable articles to refute you).

Just realized my great white shark trip isn't on my blog. Need to get that out...

denver, lebanese redux

My work colleague S was back in Denver on Monday for work so we met at my house with plans to go to dinner (I had to promise that where ever we went would be close so we wouldn't be walking for hours like last time).

The best laid plans...

He loved my new kitchen and said I should have been an interior designer (funny, on so many levels). We had a glass of wine and then got into his rental car so he could check in to the Curtis hotel. Actually, I asked if he was staying at the Curtis and he said "no, the doubletree". He had the address, and as we drove by I said "I think you are staying at the curtis" and he said "no, it's gotta be the double tree". We drove by it again and he saw a sign that said "hilton". The third time we drove by it we finally saw the double tree sign. The hotel is officially called "the Curtis, a double tree by hilton". Someone fire the marketing people.

By this time it was almost 8 o'clock. We had planned to eat at Hodson's but S wanted to check in first. Checking into a hotel is never easy when S is involved (every time we stayed at a hotel together some disaster happened). The poor young 20 something girl working at the check in desk had no idea how to respond when S said "you DID give me a room with a view of the ocean, didn't you?" and some other ridiculous things. She got so flustered that another staff member had to come over and help her. Then it turned out, shock and surprise, they didn't have a room for him but had to "unlock" a room so he'd have a place to stay that night.

I was like "great, unlock the room, we're going to eat". We walked to Hodson's and arrived 5 minutes after they had closed. Then I suggested a french bistro which was also closed. Sam's, also closed. I was about to faint from hunger and it was like the restaurant death march from the last time S visited all over again.

Finally we decided to eat at the office, in the Curtis. I ride my bike past the office all the time in the evening and it's always packed. On monday, there was one table with people. S asked to be seated near the ocean, again (he's from Florida), and the server had no idea what to do so I was like "we'll sit here".

The office, according to our waiter, is "exotic comfort food". What ever the fuck that is. I ordered the nicoise salad. It sucked. S got some fusion vietnamese, brazilian, chinese rice bowl thing that had a fried egg on top. It was okay. Would not eat there again except for the hummus plate which was excellent.

S told me a funny story: he had been at a defense conference in DC that had the latest in weapons. He saw a booth with a company that had a weird name, turned out it was an Israeli company. He asked if he could take a USB thing that plugs into the car cigarette lighter, what ever those things are called, that the company was giving away. The guy was like "sure" and S was like "thanks, that's the only thing the Israelis have ever given me".

(because he's lebanese - never mind - and for the record he has nothing against Israelis, he just always has to fuck with people)

We talked a lot about the conflict in Syria and the shit going on in Iraq and how it's not safe for him to go home to Lebanon to see his family anymore (besides the usual reasons, he's christen, not muslim). He said it doesn't matter what anyone does, the rebels, when you ask them what they want, have no definitive answer. They're just a bunch of asshole fucks that are wrecking the middle east. You can't negotiate with people who don't know what they want.

Then he told the waiter it was my birthday and the waiter offered to bring me a dessert which I declined because I felt guilty that it wasn't actually my birthday. Then the waiter offered to bring me a free glass of wine, and I declined that too. When we finally got the bill the waiter said "since I offered you a free dessert or free glass of wine and you didn't want them I decided to comp the two glasses of wine you guys already had" (we both had a glass of wine with dinner). And S was like "great job getting both of us free wine!" even though his company paid for dinner...

...and then we went to the lobby, his room was ready, he drove me home (it was 11 pm and he was worried about me walking home by myself) and that was the end of that crazy evening. He may be in town next week on Monday, which would be fun because I'm working in the evening at a brasil street food event for the world cup at the british bulldog and he'll get to try acaraje and we won't have to worry about dinner.

bird houses - finally!

In January of 2011 I had to have surgery, and my mom came to visit and take care of me, and I bought some bird houses for us to paint since I couldn't do much in the way of activity and I can't sit still for more than 2 seconds.

I finally finished painting and polyurethaning the bird house in April 2011.

My initial intent was to mount them somehow on the garage wall, but that didn't work. I tried a few other things with no success.

So they sat in my garage until today...last night I had an idea to drill holes in the bottom of the bird houses and then mount them on bamboo sticks that I bought for my sunflowers (which all died). It seems to have worked, and I think they look cool.

I used a metal hanging thing that I found in my garage (propped against the wall to the left of the bird house - I thought it was for curtains but Edglas was like "that's for hanging plants!") to make the hole for the bamboo. Thought this house looked nice above the lavender.

orange house near the mock orange bush, which really does smell like oranges!

I put this tiny house next to my tiny rose bush so the could keep each other company

I put most of the houses back toward the garage wall since that was my original idea - the pagoda house may be too heavy for the bamboo, which is ironic

I think the houses add a splash of color to my back yard - they may not be completely stable but birds can't sue me! anyway, someone pointed out the holes for the bird houses were too small for birds...

Well, that about sums up everything that's happened this week. Now I'm going to check to see if the dinner I made for myself actually turned out (it involved searing meat, which I decided to practice for next weekend when I have to cook at brewgrass) and will hopefully finish making all the packets for brewgrass.

Forgot to mention, Jess' business was written up in the westword blog...not bad for a new business!!!

a weekend in photos - gifts gone wild

Give me a gift certificate to Home Depot and Amazon (thanks Bob!) and you can expect all hell to break loose.

I've had a number of non-critical things I wanted to do around my house. Also, I am helping Jess and Edglas at an event next Saturday, brewgrass,  so I had some prep things to do.

First, the amazon gift certificate. Besides buying 3 used movies (surfwise, battle royale, and cloud atlas) and 6 used books (Virginia Woolf collection, St. Aubry collection, Making a Killing, a book on clouds, a book about ocean waves, and the power of habits) I also bought two dollies we can use to haul stuff around and roll the coolers under and out from under the tables at the booth.

it has rubber on top so the coolers won't slip and it can hold 800 lbs!

I also bought a privacy screen for my deck and two strands of 100 lightbulb solar christmas lights. My deck looks very cool!

christmas lights up (I hadn't put the privacy screen up yet)

privacy screen, as seen from the deck - I love my staple gun

privacy screen from below, you can hardly see it when the sun is shining

And I spent Saturday night making little packets to put the acaraje in. I had to stuff one packet into another packet and then cut the right side. I'm almost through the whole box, hopefully will be done tonight.

making packets for acaraje! btw, you're SUPPOSED to wear gloves when handling the packets

I found a few other things we're going to need for brewgrass that we didn't have the last time - this mat will replace a big metal tray and the dishes will be used to rest the spoons on

I also went to HD yesterday with the gift certificate my parents gave me and bought some pots and plants.

these flowers all smell nice, and I had to move my other plants inside because they were getting burned by the sun - most of these plants will flower into the fall, hooray!

Then I went back to HD today because I finally figured out what to do about my creepy dirt floor crawl space (I'm going to cover the floor with a vapor barrier I ordered this morning and use drylock to seal the bricks / plaster). I also had a new painting project in mind.

the last of my HD gift certificate - drylock, rollers, gloves, a crap paint brush, scrubbing bubble (I can't resist cleaning products) and safety goggles...I had to get those respirator masks and the goggles for working in the crawl space

I took these two old tv tray tables (purchased in 1994!!!!)...

...and painted them this snazzy neon red which did not show up very well in this picture - I'll take another pic when they're done