finally, a success in the kitchen

Today I had to go into the office for "healthy snacks day" (no, I'm not in kindergarten). I have been stressing for a week about what to bring. I decided to make oatmeal raspberry cookie bars because they are easy and usually are edible.

The VP brought sushi that was store bought. One male colleague brought nothing and the other male colleague brought these weird potato chips made by injecting the potato with air or some shit. Even dipping them in the hummus he brought could not correct the styrofoam taste.

My admin brought gingerbread that she had made in the microwave (chewy....beyond chewy).

I mention this to say, in the healthy snack competition, I didn't have a ton of competition.

In any case, after I got home I received the following email from the VP:

VP: Your pastry was awesome! You left before I tried them and then exclaimed "who made this?" Delicious! You have a food future as a pastry chef.

 (question: are cookie bars pastries? I honestly don't know)

Me: Thanks! I'm not sure about the future in food though. Those oatmeal bars are the first thing I've made this year that was edible. [My admin] is helping me with my cooking skills.

VP: Well...stick to pastry as you obviously have a knack for it. Thanks for bringing them in!

I will also mention that besides giving me the nicest gift bag (travel size sanitation wipes, a box of band aids, a freezable gel pack for my knee that can get through airport security, a small pen that fits in my back pack, and a stress ball) she also printed out the above email and put it in a little frame so I can hang it in my kitchen. 

if you're a moron, shop at amazon

After weeks of trying to figure out and research good presents to get for my family I was finally ready yesterday to get them ordered. I got all of my shopping done except for my mom's gifts, which I ordered today. I ordered a gift for my dad and my brother from amazon.

As I was ordering my mom's gifts today, however, I realized that I accidentally had my dad and brother's gifts sent to my house. For my dad's gift (spoiler alert), no big deal, it's the sopranos box set so I can easily ship it to him (I got him something else too). But my brother's gift is, without giving it away, heavy and not easy to ship (i.e. I couldn't take it to the local post office or even UPS, and reshipping would cost a lot of money). I was like FUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!

So I tried to change the address through amazon's web site. No luck, because the gift was already in shipping. I called them and spoke to someone in customer service. She tried to change the address but couldn't. She redirected my call to the retail department and there a very nice woman Janelle told me she also couldn't help me. I asked if I could have the number for the shipper in the hopes they could change the address but the gift had not been assigned to a shipper yet.

I must have sounded really sad, or maybe Janelle was bored by my sad tale of trying to get my baby brother something cool for his birthday/Christmas (and that his birthday is on christmas) and totally failing because she finally said "look, I'm going to keep an eye on this order, and as soon as it's assigned to a shipper I will call them and change the address". Right at that VERY MOMENT the shipper was assigned. Seriously! Good thing I kept talking to her...

Anyway, I gave Janelle the right address, she called the shipper and had them change it, and said she'd double check the order when the tracking number comes in (I will as well, obviously).

BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER. I've already sent a note of thanks to amazon for her help.

Anyway, if you're an idiot like me, shop there.

Speaking of shopping...

I was at safeway yesterday getting "groceries" and Ms. Catherine was at the check out so I went to her line because Ms. Catherine is the greatest. She laughed when she saw my groceries and said "you got more stuff there for cleaning than eating!" In my defense, they were having a big two for one sale on cleaning products. As I tried to justify myself she said "honey, you're in a BMZ!" and I was like "what's that" and she said "black mama zone!" Then she sent the girl bagging my "groceries" to produce to get me some bananas.

I froze the bananas and put half of one in my smoothie this morning. That didn't work out too well. Not sure what I did wrong but even after adding two cups of rice milk the smoothy was so thick I could hardly drink it with a straw...

sex and submission: the art show I went to last night

A few weeks ago a neighbor invited me to his gallery for an art show. I told him I would go because he lives in a cool building and I wanted to see the inside. He also said the show was for up and coming young artists. I was imagining an evening of crap wine but cool art.

Then, when I talked to him a few days ago to confirm I was still invited, he mentioned that there would be some "performance art". He wasn't kidding. Most of this blog will be pictures, because I'm guessing you won't believe what happened at the show.

First of all, my neighbor said the show was from 7 - 9. I figured I would show up at 7:20, hang out for 40 minutes, and be home in time to watch Shelter (the surf movie, not the other movie). But when I got there they were still setting up. I was embarrassed and apologized for being early and Errol said "don't worry, the night is evolving". No shit, as I soon discovered.

I helped this really cool Korean artist, who was running the show, get everything set up. That's when I started noticing that all the art had a bondage or bitter naked woman theme. One painting (for $1800) was a close up of a woman's ass, with a fart coming out of it that said "fuck you!"

Then one of the artists tried to hang some light thing he created on a metal beam going across the ceiling (he couldn't, in the end, get it to stay). I stood on a short ladder and watched as he pulled himself up to the beam. It was terrifying. Even worse was when he climbed down. The floor of the gallery is concrete and I was imagining something horrible happening. Unfortunately I got no pictures of that because I was spotting the artist as he was hanging from the beam.

you can see the rope still hanging from the beam and how high up it is - the artist that climbed up to the beam is on the left, standing on the stairs

Then the next "performance" piece started. A dominatrix from the red hand gallery wrapped her "slave" in plastic and then red duct tape and then put her on a massage table and, in turn, tickled her feet, pinched her toes hard, and tied a balloon to her.

"slave" bound up in plastic and duct tape - that's salsa chicha taking a picture - she was a very nice drag queen who hung out with me the first half of the show so she could explain what was going on - she also complimented my eyelashes

"slave" with a balloon tied to her

while this part of the performance art was going on many of the women in the group started donning "costumes", like this leather straight jacket the woman to the right of Salsa Chicha is putting on

Errol asked me what I made of the plastic wrap piece and I said I thought it was showing how women are bound in society and not able to be free. I had some theories about the red tape representing menstruation and how babies also trap women. The feet tickling and feet pinching I thought represented an abusive relationship. Finally I thought the balloon represented how women put emphasis on the wrong things in their lives (their looks, clothes, jewelry) and that makes them ridiculous.

But when I asked Star (the slave) what she thought, she said "I find it very liberating to be wrapped in plastic and duct tape".

Oh.

Then the next piece started. I'll just explain with picture captions.

the dominatrix put Star in a big balloon - she then added air to the balloon to make it bigger

here Star is popping her head out of the balloon asking others to join her - I was strongly encouraged to go into the balloon with Star, I suspect because I was one of the smaller people in the crowd - however, I had no desire to get into the balloon with a naked except for a thong Star

as people in the crowd (I am NOT making this up) started disrobing the korean running the show agreed to get into the balloon with Star - he wore his boxer shorts - the dominatrix is spanking him as he is trying to get into the balloon because he's letting all the air out - I would also mention here that I have a little crush on him because he's very attractive but I suspect too young for me - as a weird coincidence he teaches judo at the Buddhist center I was thinking to check out and he invited me to come by there some time and he would introduce me around

adding air to the balloon - you can see the korean's head and Star's head as the balloon is crushing them

reinflated - and there is a third person, outside of this picture because she's totally naked, about to get into the balloon

there are now 4 people inside the balloon - apparently the dominatrix has gotten as many as 14 people in a balloon - this one popped seconds after I took this picture - Errol was impressed because I suddenly said "let's not stand here anymore" and moved to the opposite wall, and seconds later the majority of the popped balloon hit the wall right where we were standing

At this point I decided to go outside because the gallery was getting uncomfortably crowded. It was 930 by then and people were showing up in droves (the balloon thing is very popular I guess because all of the new arrivals were in a hurry to get into the gallery to see it). I asked one of the guys standing outside how he had heard about the show and he said it was posted on something he called "fet place". I thought at first he said "pet place" but he corrected me and then said "it's like face book for fetishists". It turns out he's a furry and has two female slaves (one of the reasons I thought he said "pet place" was because he was wearing a biker style jacket, but where the biker gang theme would go he had a patch that had two stuffed animal puppies).

At that point I was pretty disgusted with the people in the gallery so I left. There wasn't a single male submissive at the gallery and all of the art work was derogatory toward women (women getting a come shot to the face, tortured women cursing men, woman on woman domination). And MOST OF THE ARTISTS WERE WOMEN. WHAT THE FUCK????????????????

Also, I found the women there annoying, bragging about being someone's slave and being led around in bondage gear. Errol said I was taking things to seriously but I don't think I am. That's why women in the middle east are held down. They have to walk around in fucking burkas. I would also say that Salsa Chicha agreed with me.

Anyway, I have some interesting neighbors...