dominicalito

On Friday we surfed at Dominicalito. It was rocky and the waves were big. But the rip current wasn't as bad as Playa Hermosa and Hermosa had 12 foot waves so there was no way we were surfing there.

I was supposed to turn on the waves because they closed out so fast but, like that dude in zoolander, I can only turn left

the beach at sunset

By Thursday the instructors had basically left me alone to do my own thing, which was fine. Except that I still hadn't quite got the hang of knowing which waves to catch. I would sit outside the wave and count and then try to ride the last wave of the set. Sometimes it was 4 feet. But sometimes it was 8 feet. I would paddle into a wave and hear one of the instructors yell "NO!!! FRANKI NO!!!" and then I would drop down the face of a big wave. The first time I did that I slid off my board (I blame the new wax that I wasn't allergic to) about two seconds after I stood up on my board. The wave broke right on top of me and I swear my body bent completely backward. As I rolled along in the washing machine I think my toes touched the back of my head. It kind of sucked but was fun at the same time.

Another time I caught a big wave but then failed to turn. One second I was on the face of the wave and the next second I was free falling. Somehow I landed on my board again. The wave broke on the back of my board so I moved to the front of the board to keep it balanced and then popped out of the white water, caught the secondary wave, and rode into shore. They better fucking upload that video or I will be pissed. A group of surfers who were not part of my group cheered for me. It was the coolest moment I've had surfing.

By friday I was able to get outside the wave without getting beat all to shit. I even found the channel on Dominicalito. Ez was not so lucky. She got hit by her surf board trying to get out and ended up with a huge knot on the back of her head (but was not concussed). And while outside the wave,  I drifted, without realizing it, and was distracted talking to one of the surf instructors who was showing me a cool wave formation on one of the rocks. Suddenly a big wave broke on us. I grabbed the rails and tried to do a turtle roll (I'm pretty proficient now at the turtle roll) but I grabbed the rails too far forward and the board smacked me in the face, taking off all the skin on my nose and parts of my chin.

Pretty.

We all swore we were going to bed by 10 o'clock friday since we all had to get up at 6 am. Instead I helped Ez pack (I didn't have much to pack but she brought half her wardrobe) and then we stayed up until 1 am talking.

the party starts right now

I meant to update my blog but the internet (and power) went to shit Thursday night and I couldn't get online even sitting right next to the router. This blog post is about a huge party we had and you can skip the wave science and just jump to paragraph 6.

So Wednesday night was a rest day, and then Thursday we all had a big day at the beach. I caught tons of waves and finally have my stance down. In addition I read a book (in my "spare" time) called the science of waves. I learned all kinds of cool things about how to read waves on a beach. For example, the beach we normally surf at is long and has a sand bar. This causes "defocusing waves" (a fancy way to say of the set of 7 waves they all close out except the last, largest wave). I also learned that when you are outside the wave (meaning you're behind it and it's breaking in front of you) you move up and down but your position doesn't change. The book called this "Drake's displacement" or something like that that I have been unable to find in a google search (I wrote it down but my paper got wet).

White water is caused by gravity and wind. The wind blows and causes a wave. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. The north and south poles heat up at different temperatures. The earth wants everything to be even so packets of hot and cool air start moving around in an attempt to even temperatures. That's the coriolis effect. Then the wind caused by the coriolis effect blows on the water and causes a wave. A wave gets momentum and rises up but then gravity is like "uh uh, get back here buster!" and pulls the wave down (this is when the wave crashes back down into the ocean). But the wind is still trying to push the wave so the top of the wave turns white because all the wind can blow is the water at the top of the wave that is not as influenced by gravity.

One of my goals for the week was to be able to go to a beach and figure out what the waves are doing and where to surf. I also wanted to learn to read a surf report. I successfully did both and every time the instructors challenged me to tell them what time it was I was able to do so because I could see what the waves were doing (if the surf report, for example, said the waves would be 9 ft with a 17 second periodicity at 4 o'clock I could look out at the ocean and be like well, the waves are 9 ft and the periodicity is close to 17 seconds so it must be 4 o'clock)

I would note here that the owner of the surf camp saw me reading the science of waves one day and said "we've had that book since we opened and you are the first person to read it". Also, as a side note, one of the guys on the trip, JP, said "you are the only woman I've ever met who brings more books that clothes on a vacation".

Anyway, Thursday night we were all ready to blow off some steam (what little steam we had left, the day was grueling with high tide at 10 feet and a bad rip current). JP had gone into town to buy a case of "decent" (expensive) red wine. We started drinking that and then Ezra suggested everyone (not me) shot gun a beer and it turns out each country has its own way to shot gun beers. First they did it the american way (hole in the bottom of the can, pop the top) then the argentinian way (pour the beer in a glass and drink it sideways) then the polish way (I am not making fun of polish people but their way caused a lot of beer to get spilled on the floor).

american shot gun

argentinian shot gun

 Then Ez and JP called the guard and had him unlock the cabinet that had a bottle of rum ($50). Everyone started taking shots (except for me). Ez, who is a great dancer, started dancing on the table. Soon everyone (except me) joined in. Shit, like glasses, started breaking. We were all playing our favorite songs on the stereo. Suddenly the night guards showed up and started trying to clean up all the broken glass. We were also advised to turn down the music A LOT but we pretended we didn't understand.

guards in the back ground cleaning up broken glass

rum shots

At that point I thought it would be a great idea if we all jumped into the pool (it was fucking hot). LT was supposed to take a picture of us jumping in the pool but he kept fucking it up and after the third jump the guards were like "I think it is a very bad idea to be in the pool. You are all drunk."

Ez and I decided to go to bed around midnight but the music was still ridiculously loud. We asked them to turn it down twice but they didn't. So Ez and I snuck up to the room and she started fucking with the blue tooth stereo. A loud song would be playing and we would switch it to a slow country song (e.g. blue eyes crying in the rain). Everyone was so drunk it took a while for them to figure out it was us. I went to bed around 2 am and when I got up at 630 and went downstairs to the party room the cleaning woman was in there picking up beer cans and crying. The room was TOTALLY trashed.

All the surf instructors were talking about our party. They said in the 4 year history of kalon nothing like that had ever happened before. As we left to go to the beach they were still scrubbing blood (someone cut her foot on the broken glass on the floor) and wine off the stairs.

When we got home Friday night from surfing, around 7 pm, the stereo was gone, the wine was locked up, and there were only 12 beers in the fridge.

Hee. We spent a lot of Friday night debating whether we would ever be allowed to come back to the resort...

step into liquid bugs plus doctor drinks

I didn't get to write about this on tuesday, and perhaps you won't find it funny but...

On monday night I insisted that everyone at surf camp watch step into liquid because 1) only two people knew who Laird Hamilton is and 2) am I the only one who studied the materials sent to us before camp and watched all the videos?????? Apparently, yes.

The downstairs area where the tv is is an open space with sliding glass doors. Basically, every wall can be slid open so it's almost like you're in a house with no walls. That was ideal on monday night because it was fucking hot outside, and inside, since this place has no air conditioning (for the record I'm not complaining).

There are a lot of cicadas and other flying bugs here since we are in the middle of a jungle/mountain. Seriously, it is louder here than in my house in the city. I'll have to make a recording of the noise. We all settled in to watch the movie, 10 of us, and we had the ceiling fans going full blast to cool the place off, as well as having every sliding glass wall that could open, opened.

The flying bugs really liked the tv light, and after banging into the tv would head toward the ceiling, get sucked into the ceiling fans, and then, as they hit the blades of the fan, they would get shot in all directions. I got hit in the back of the head twice by bugs. As the bugs increased so did the bug bullets flying from the blades of the ceiling fan. All of the women left within a half hour. Then it was just D, myself, and D's dad. They finally got tired of getting pelted with bugs so they bid me good night, but not before D offered to cut up the ornamental aloe plant in front of the door to the tv area so I would have some fresh aloe to put on my face and spider bite.  I was like "I don't think that aloe plant is meant to be cut up" and he was like "but it's fucking aloe and it will grow back".

I'd mention that D wanted to finish watching step into liquid with me but his dad wouldn't leave the two of us alone even though I'm 13 years older than D. I guess he thought I was some kind of enchantress who would convince his son to leave his wife and 4 year old daughter. Because many guys I know leave a younger woman for an older woman with a huge rash on her face and a swollen foot (from the spider bite).

Anyway, today we had a day off and I had more time to talk to D's dad. It turns out he's a retired plastic surgeon. I told him about my 3-D printed jaw bone and suddenly we were the best of friends. We had conversations on and off all day about health care. Then at dinner I was trying to give the two single women (Ez and her 23 year old friend) advice about dating ("tell the guy you will not date him until he takes an IQ test, he must score at least a 128, and provides his medical records, particularly to prove he does not have an STD, and he has to do at least 10 pull ups"). D's dad, hereafter referred to as 'doc', said "well what if he wants to do chin ups instead of pull ups?" and I said "FAILS!" and doc turned to his son and said "I think she's cracked the code! We men are done!"

After dinner most everyone said around the table to talk (a rarity here - most people go to bed by 730 - serously!!!!). I sat next to doc and he even put his arm on the back of my chair which made me feel good, like he finally realized I'm not some crazy pot smoking asshole wanna be surfer. Doc and I polished off a bottle of wine, also a rarity here as no one really drinks (if you saw where we surfed you'd understand why - you lay in bed at night terrified what the next day will bring and no one wants to do anything that could cause them to not have their wits about them). We talked about the particle zoo, dark matter, the origins of malamuts, and how shitty child care is in the US.

Doc started musing about friends of his that he could set me up with. I mentioned that my last boyfriend sat with me through an hour long smithsonian documentary about dissecting a great white shark and then had a conversation about it and that that's what I would expect of a significant other (besides the pull ups requirement). He said he would think about people he knew and that he would get back to me. 

And his son suggested I start a blog because I'm the most interesting person he knows. Mm hmm...

forgot to mention, they did get my almost running over a family moment on film

Will have to wait until I'm state side to post the video though, the internet connection isn't that great here.

welcome to the jungle, pura vida

Today I had to take an unplanned surf break.

On Monday I thought I had gotten a bad sunburn, but weirdly it was just on my chin, the front of my legs, and around the edges of my back legs. Tuesday it got worse even though I was wearing a zinc suntan lotion that made me look like a member of KISS.

Today I woke up and my bottom lip looked like a botched celebrity lip job. And I had a rash all over my chin and the aforementioned areas of my legs. I cautiously went down to breakfast only to discover that my new friend Ezra had the same thing going on.

We finally figured out that we are both (yes, BOTH, not just me) allergic to the surf wax we've been using on the boards. It's pure blah blah bullshit what ever good for the environment "natural" wax. My reaction was a little worse than Ezra's but I'm a lot older than her...

So we stayed at the resort and got slathered in aloe every hour (is it helping? Ezra a little, me, not really) and the owner of this joint offered to bring us drinks all afternoon. Instead we did a jungle hike.

Ezra is sort of like me about 15 years ago and has a similar record of weirdly broken bones and food allergies. Also, she's clumsy. On Tuesday she was stung by a jelly fish (the only person in 4 years to be stung by a jelly fish on the beach where we surf) and she jumped off her board which somehow caused the board to shoot out and almost strike the 60 something year old guy in our group, G, in the face (missed him by centimeters).  Since we weren't allowed to go surfing today G said, at dinner, "I was so much better at surfing not having to worry about Ezra killing me with her surf board" (he was joking, he loves Ezra).

During our jungle hike, Ezra was distracted by her new gopro and I was worried about snakes. The hike was through a very steep canyon and we were either heading way down or way up. At one point we ran across a section of the trail which was a giant rock face. I crossed it in my running shoes and almost ate shit and slid 200 feet down a snake infested (I'm sure) cliff. Then I recrossed it and helped Ezra across it. Later we were talking to one of the guides and he said "the trail went above the rock and was very easy to cross" and Ezra said "that's what I get for having a rock climber finding the trail" and I said "well you were supposed to go first to protect me from the snakes".

Anyway, Ezra now wants to move to Colorado and she wants to go rock climbing. And she has taken ballet for years and is teaching me to stand on pointe and she also taught me some basic ballet exercises so I can finally get off my ass and sign up for ballet classes.

Perhaps I shouldn't mention this, because really, I'm fine, but I was also bitten by a spider on Tuesday.

so much for that gelish "impossible to chip" pedicure (white part is where the spider bit me. right under my big toe)

Everyone kind of freaked out about the spider, but they don't bother me, even when they bite me. We were eating lunch and Ezra looked down at my foot and said "you dropped some of your sandwich on your foot, OH MY GOD THAT'S A SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!!" and then the spider bit me and then I picked it off my foot and threw it in the sand and was like "fuck" and no one wanted to walk in the sand anymore unless they had their shoes on.

I was talking to Roberto after video analysis today (he gave me exercises to do in the pool since I couldn't surf today) and he said how amazed he is at our group here at the camp this week. He said normally people don't talk to each other or hang out. We are a conglomerate of nationalities sharing languages (serbian, spanish, polish, swedish, and english) and stories and drinks.  Half the time I don't know what people are saying but we still manage to make each other laugh.

More tomorrow about watching step into liquid Tuesday night. Power seems to be going out again...

surf camp, day 1

Not to brag, but I totally kicked ass today. They had us do some exercises in the pool to see where we were with our skills and I already knew what they were teaching so I got my own personal instructor. The guy put me through the paces but I learned how to paddle correctly, improved my pop up, and my longest ride was around 10 seconds (that's good for surfing). I even learned to turn (though I have more work to do on that tomorrow). I am riding a much smaller board than I did in Mexico (by 3 feet - it's considered an experienced surfer's board) and I'm pretty happy I was able to get up on it the second try. I surfed for 2 hours and caught more waves than I did the entire time I was surfing in Mexico. It was like ride to the shore, sprint back out, and catch another wave.

The conditions here are a little crazy at the moment according to the instructors. Today the waves were very fast and it was hard to stay outside them so instead I would just paddle out as far as I could, turn my board around, and catch a wave even if it had already broken. Surfing white water is fun but I hope to be catching bigger waves by the end of the week.

I found it funny that the two guys on the trip were like "someone obviously has some experience surfing" like I was trying to show them up or something. Also, I almost ran over a family. They were standing right in the surf zone and I hadn't learned to turn the board yet. I was yelling at them "cuidado!" which means "danger" but they just stood there and smiled and waved at me. Finally I jumped off my board and it shot out and almost hit a woman in the face. They clapped for me and I have no idea what they said after but it sounded complimentary. So when I got back out I told my instructor, Roberto, "I need to learn how to turn" and he said "and you also need to stop looking at things you don't want to run into". Everyone on the beach was laughing at my almost disaster accident. I hope they got it on film (or, no, I hope they didn't).

So our group ended up being two women in their 20s, both single, A family (husband, wife, and young son), a married guy in his 60s and his friend, who is married, and I would guess in his 30s. Everyone is really nice. I was kind of shocked last night at dinner though when I was asked to sit at the head of the table because I was the oldest person at the table (how did that happen??????????). I would mention the guy in his 60s hadn't shown up yet. So he'll probably be at the other end of the table tonight.

This place is beautiful and I'm having fun and learning a lot, but not sure I would come to this camp again. But I do think by the time I leave here I will feel very confident renting a board to surf on vacation.

I tried to upload some photos of this place but the internet is crap (even the power goes out sporadically). Well, I can always upload them when I get home.

Off to pilates, then post surfing analysis meeting, then dinner.

kalon

Finally got to the surf camp around 4 pm today. We made a brief stop at this place called the crocodile bridge to see some crocodiles.

my bedroom

balcony

sitting area

bathroom

outside table

my room is the one at the far end, left

view from the infinity pool

Add caption

san jose

Made it to Costa Rica! Shockingly there were no kids on either flight!

A kind of funny thing happened...my neighbor took me to the airport and said he would pick me up when I fly home next Saturday. I told him I would take a taxi home because my flight doesn't get in until 11 PM. He said "that's fine, I don't have any plans" and I said "well I at least owe you a good bottle of wine" and, for whatever reason, I would mention he's never done anything like this before, as I was standing on the curb about to walk into the airport he said "you can just give me a blow job" and smacked me on the ass.

We have a joke about blow jobs because his friends call him DJ and one night I accidentally called him BJ and his male friends proceeded to tease him about giving guys blow jobs.

The best part of the story is his voice is pretty loud and the outside baggage guys heard what he said. Their expressions were priceless. I could not stop laughing when I was checking in on my flight.

Okay, rereading, the story loses something on the page. Imagine it as pranky and bratty, not sexist. It just occurred to me it was his tone of voice. Like a gay guy telling a woman she can give him a blow job.

Oh. Never mind.

The only kind of glitchy thing that's happened so far is I can't log into my yahoo account because it wants to confirm it's me by sending a text to my phone. Hopefully I can get my work phone on the internet tomorrow and clear that problem up.

Sitting here waiting for a sandwich. I haven't really eaten all day. So weird being back in Costa Rica after all these years (was last here in 1995 - A LOT has changed). The guy checking me in tonight said "I was 10 when you were last here". That made me feel old for some reason but then everyone in the lobby was talking about my pink highlights so that made me feel better. The hotel I'm in is beautiful but it still has that smoky smell of burned trash or what ever it is (not in a bad way, it just has a smoky smell). Brings back a lot of memories.

Tomorrow I head to Dominical. Surf's up!

off to the tropics...

I'm leaving tomorrow for Costa Rica! HOORAY!!!!!!

It's supposed to be rainy next week, but that's okay. I always thought it would be fun to surf in the rain.

Hopefully my flights are on time...

homeless, but will live in suitcase

Last night my friend Cam and I went to Chada Thai for soup. Actually, we were supposed to go to Tengu but it was closed last night for a maintenance issue. She looked at my broken toe, which has a weird thing on it, which might be a blood blister, and said I should tape it for surf camp.

WHICH STARTS IN A FEW DAYS!!!! HOORAY!!!!!

And yes, I am already packed. And have religiously followed my training plan. And I've been practicing my pop ups with my neighbor who learned to surf when he was 10.

In fact today I finished the last of my errands, which included getting enough books to read (from Tattered Cover, of course), getting a pedicure (which ended up being the worst pedicure I've had since Abu Dhabi), and digging out my beach hat which is made of recycled paper but which has survived 3 trips to the beach. My neighbor came over earlier this week to watch movies with me (as a break from pop up practice) and said "you are the only person I know that gets ready for surf camp by watching surf movies and shark attack documentaries."

my beach books - for the record, I've already started reading the senate intelligence committee report on torture and it's riveting

I've also, through my end unit neighbor, met a homeless guy name Darren that I might hire to fix my back fence which was damaged when my neighbor's tree fell on it. Darren's a friend of my end neighbor's cleaning lady. My end neighbor let Darren and her cleaning lady stay in her house while she was in Costa Rica last fall because Darren and the cleaning lady's house burned down and they were homeless (the house burning down is a long story).

Darren is still homeless but has a camper and he has devised a scheme to stay in an office park parking lot because he doesn't like camping out at the local wal-marts or trailer parks. He's a bit of a raconteur and has tons of crazy stories about his life (for example, he knew Buck Owens and a bunch of other singers because his mom made vests for all the country singers back in the day; he was once given $20,000 and some city award for stopping an armed robbery in a bank in downtown Denver - he tripped the robber).

He said he wants to introduce me to a friend of his who has an art gallery on 16th Street who has visions that come true. He said "the guy is such an amazing artist that his paintings look like pictures but he won't be able to draw you even if I paid him a million dollars." I was like "why wouldn't he be able to draw me?" and Darren said "because you know things and so all he would be able to do is draw you as a stick." Um, okay. There is a side story about this artist and a table he made which Darren bought before he knew the artist. The table was possessed and caused people to bump into it and hurt their shins so Darren took it into the woods and burned it. But then it turned out the artist had made a twin table and he offered it to Darren one day when Darren was visiting his studio years after he had burned the other table. Or something like that.

In any case I've foisted the details of the fence rebuild on my neighbor. And Darren asked me to write down his stories and maybe put some of them on my blog. Unfortunately most of his stories take 45 minutes to tell and involve detailed descriptions of cars (Darren was born in a '54 something or other car), tv references, and references to events that happened in Denver before I was born so they can be difficult to follow. Darren suggested I make a video of him telling his stories and then asked if I have any contacts with TV people who could give him his own show.

For the record, I do find him more entertaining than the things I've seen on TV.

Also, he asked if he could hide in my suitcase when I go to surf camp because he's never been to Costa Rica. I was like "even if my suitcase was big enough to hide you where would you stay?" and he said "I could live in your suitcase...if it was big enough."

For some reason I keep visualizing the steamer trunks in Joe vs The Volcano...

Soprano stuffed shells

Today I decided to make stuffed shells because it was snowing outside. I also wanted to test out some of the sauce tips I picked up from the Sopranos.

my neighbor suggested adding a carrot to the sauce so I did

throwing all the tomatoes and spices and shit in the slow cooker

added the sauted vegetables and some wine instead of water (just like Jesus would have done) and added two meatballs for flavor (also a trick I learned from watching the Sopranos)

the stuffing for the shellls

shells stuffed - it was surprisingly easy - I decided to put sauce on the bottom of the pan thing so the shells wouldn't stick

then I doused them in sauce

out of the oven - they're really good! I brought some over to my neighbor

dear grubhub - STOP

Grubhub is becoming a worse influence on my than my fitbit (how is that even possible).

So, grubhub, listen up, because I am being TOTALLY serious (even though I'm lying actually).

I don't need ANY MORE COUPONS FOR SUSHI.
I don't need to know about new sushi places that deliver to my house. Especially if they have a 4 star rating. And are trending a roll that's like a philadelphia roll but it's covered in tempura and has that stuff that looks like cheez whiz, but isn't, on top of it.
BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS FUCKING YUMMY.
And from order to delivery only takes 20 minutes. How is that even possible? Restaurants don't serve that fast.

it was like I had no control over my body and someone else ordered a bunch of sushi including that tempura philly roll with that orange stuff that I love on it

In short, grubhub, I HATE YOU. Which is to say I love you but you're no good for me. I can't eat sushi every night until that new sushi place opens that's only 5 blocks from my house and I'll have to walk there but that's okay because I love to walk as much as I love sushi.

Fucking technology.

so long Jake

I picked my friend Jess up at 4 o'clock today in my new car Major Jake. She was my first passenger in my new car.

We went to work + class for dinner (goat, lamb, salad, and believe it or not brussel sprouts - my friend Cam got me to eat some at Panzano's and now I like them) and Jess paid. Then we went to my house and I turned over all Jake's maintenance records, the car stereo manual, keys, and title.

It's going to be weird going out to the garage tomorrow morning to not see Jake there. And I hopefully don't forget when I get home from Costa Rica in a few weeks to look for my new car instead of Jake. Well, I might not take Major Jake to the airport. We'll see.

I feel oddly sad, not in a bad way, it's just strange after 14 years and all the adventures we had to have a different car. I spent more time with Jake than I did with all the guys I dated in that time frame combined. My favorite adventure was driving in a snow storm with my friend Joe after climbing at Hyalite. Joe made a video of the drive but I don't know what I did with it, otherwise I would post it here.

Luckily I will still get to see Jakey from time to time. Just got a text from Jess saying "it's so nice to be able to see out the front windshield!" (her other car has a pretty pitted windshield).

To my sled dog subaru Jake, thank you for the fun, and thanks for getting me out of trouble, you were always there when I needed you. Subaru loyal forever.

another stupid (or genius?) idea

Last night I watched the documentary Marwencol, about the artist Mark Hogancamp, who created an imaginary town with dolls and stuff he finds in his back yard. He lives a parallel "life" in the town. I highly recommend it.

And that got me to thinking about the croco-diamond book, and how fucking hard it is to draw pictures of made up animals when I have no artistic talent. And suddenly it occurred to me that maybe I could follow Mark's lead and just buy some toy animals and then decorate them to look like the animals in the book, and then I could stage scenes and take pictures for the book.

Yes, I had been drinking when I came up with that idea.

This morning when I woke up I was excited to go out and try to find stuff for my fake croco-diamond world. I figured I would go to a toy store, get the animals, and then go to goodwill to get some of the other props I would need, and then get to work on my fake town.

Here was my list of things I'd need for the town:

• crocodile, plastic, must have movable arms and legs, show teeth, and be able to stand
• kangaroo, stuffed (at least 1 inch shorter than the crocodile)
• giant man, plastic, must be dressable, must be twice the size of the crocodile
• chef doll, plastic (to be the italiani), must be smaller than the crocodile
• clay (to make stuff like cringle roots and termaters)
• paper dolls (to be the crowd at the market)
• baskets
• car to be the ticky tap tap
• child's skate (for the kangapult and zippy shoe skate)
• drink umbrellas (for the umbrellears)
• construction paper
• fedora for the kangawrong
• red socks for the giant man
• glitter
• glue
• fake jewels for the croco-diamond's spine

And that was just to do a few scenes.

Anyway, do you have any idea how fucking impossible it is to find a plastic crocodile? Or a stuffed kangaroo? I went to three different toy stores, nothing. Target, nothing. I couldn't even find tiny baby mittens for the whitey biteys. Pretty much the only things I managed to find were construction paper, glue, and some markers. Which gets me about nowhere unless I make everyone out of construction paper which could take the rest of my natural life.

Internet search you might suggest. Believe me, I've spent the past 3 hours looking at crocodile toys and stuffed kangaroos. Nothing has come up that will work for my vision of the characters, or the size requirements. How is it that a guy can buy a stuffed animal to have sex with and I can't find a cute stuffed kangaroo?

Then I also remembered that Mark was sort of an artist before he built his town, and he's pretty crafty. Me, I couldn't even make a hand turkey at thanksgiving. Every craft I've ever made has ended up glued to a table or worse.

So maybe I should stick to drawing for the moment...and maybe some other great idea will pop into my head to illustrate my book...

my new car - major jake

My new car was finally ready today. My neighbor gave me a ride to pick it up and I think she was more excited than I was when she saw it.

The car is about the same length and width as Jake, but it's a lot taller.

my new car at the dealership

inside interior - smells like leather!

my new car next to Jakey

this pic does not do the size difference justice...

Pretty excited about my new car!!! Can't wait to take it to the mountains to see how it does in the snow!

Area 51

I've been reading this cool book that my dad recommended called Area 51 (here's the interesting back story about the book). I'm only 80 pages in but have found out some crazy stuff...for example...

The crash in Roswell was real. But it wasn't an extraterrestrial space ship. It was a Russian craft and that's why it was covered up. The craft was flying in that area because there were a lot of sensitive military installations there.

Something else interesting...Russia was paying attention in the late 40s and early 50s when UFO mania was sweeping the US. Of course it was partly because they crashed their "UFO" (at Roswell) but they also were interested when the hysteria happened over the radio broadcastof war of the worlds (when people thought the US was really under UFO attack). 

In any case they started a campaign to encourage the UFO mania in the hopes that they could some day launch a real attack and get away with it because they thought the US gov was not taking UFO sightings seriously. The US, however, was taking them very seriously though they dismissed them in public. 

The reason the gov started secret programs like Project Blue Book to investigate UFOs was not because they thought they were extraterrestrial but because they thought they were Russian incursions in our air space. That was especially true after the Russians found out about the U2 flying over their airspace (US was worried about a retaliation). And the US was worried about public backlash if people found out the Russians were flying over the US and the US was doing nothing in response.

So how weird is that? Ufologists thought the US gov was covering up real UFOs and it turns out they were just worried about a Russian attack...haha!

It is noted in the book that there were some UFOish phenomena that could not be explained... 

luckily unlucky

I was supposed to go pick up my new car today. The side panels to protect the doors finally came in. But then...

...my sales guy called me around 2 PM today and said that while the side panels were being installed one of my doors got scratched. So my new car is now at a body shop getting the scratch fixed. I'm said that I'm not getting my new car today but for my inconvenience I'm now getting the side panels for free which just saved me $400.

All's well that ends well. Though my dad has me paranoid that the paint repair will be noticeable.

my 2015 new year's resolutions

1. I will quit being paranoid that every time I buy AA or AAA batteries at the store the check out person thinks the batteries are for a vibrator. For the record I do not own a single sex toy or any pornography.
2. I will stop picking up produce at the grocery store and pretending I'm trying to see if it's ripe or not because I honestly have no idea and no one in the produce department is watching me thinking "wow she must be a great cook because she's really checking out the produce to make sure it's ripe, I'm so impressed."
3. I will use my new rower at least 4 days a week to build up my arm muscles in the hopes that some day I may be able to carry it upstairs.
4. I will stop obsessing about my fitbit (caveat: I'm getting the one with the HR monitor as soon as it comes out so I might obsess about the new one for a week or two) and having my feelings hurt when it chides me to get in 500 (or how ever many) more steps. My fitbit is just a little computer and it actually doesn't care how much I work out. So stop taking it personally. And being obsessed with getting badges. It's stupid. No one cares if I got the India badge. Australia badge, though, that will be impressive. Did I just say that? Stop. With. The badges.
5. I will only order sushi delivery once a week. Or less. Did I mention a restaurant opened near me that delivers sushi? Have I died and gone to heaven? No. And if I really want to eat sushi three times a week I should walk to the restaurant except for once a week, or less, when they can bring it to me. Once a week sushi delivery isn't excessive is it?
6. I will learn to meditate without my mind immediately filling with that 1970s United Dairy Farmers radio commercial playing in my head. UDF. United Dairy Farmers. Your neighborhood food store. Fucking stop it already.
7. I will learn to harness the powers of my droid maxx because my brother Steve said my phone should be able to do almost anything for me (if my phone orders sushi delivery without my knowledge that's not my fault...is there an app for that? I hope not because I might install it by accident not knowing what it does).
8. I will complete my cooking class and my astronomy class by February.
9. I will eat 2 carrots a day and will eat asparagus at least 4 times per week instead of just eating arugula all the time. Anyway, the arugula sucks lately.
10. I will stick with my disgusting herb treatment until the end of March and will complete 3 more acupuncture treatments and will take it seriously and stop thinking "and after this I get to drink some toenail tea" when I'm supposed to be embracing positive energy and universal light and all that shit. For the record, the tea tastes awful.

So here goes 2015!

finally closer to 2015

This past week I've been very busy updating my stuff.

I finally got a "smart" phone (droid maxx) because 1) it was free and 2) my brother Steve got me addicted to freakonomics and other podcasts that I couldn't listen to on my blackberry. When I went into the Verizon store the guy who helped me said "we've been waiting since July of 2013 for you to come in." I asked why and he said I was their only customer that still had a blackberry. He insisted on checking to see if I could get any money for my blackberry (answer: $0).

Also, since I sold a bunch of stuff on craigslist and because they were on huge sale I bought a rowing machine. It was pretty easy to put together, but I'm not entirely sure where in my house it will end up. Right now it's in the kitchen. I can just hear my architect saying "why are you trying to turn your kitchen into a gym?" I just used it for 15 minutes (got to build up my arms for surf camp!!!!) and have a feeling I will not be able to lift them tomorrow.

On new years day my friend Cam and I went to see the movie Wild in a theater. I realized it has been about 10 years since I went to a movie theater. The movie was good. Maybe I should go to the movies more often. She also took me to dinner on Saturday and lunch (columbian place that just opened near her house) on Sunday. In exchange I helped her organize her garage which also involved cutting a bunch of carpeting up into pieces that we could put in her trash cans. And I got 8 really nice ceramic pots as a result of the garage cleaning (Cam didn't want them anymore). I'm going to use them for my herb garden this summer.

Finally, and this is the real shocker, I bought a new car. It's a xv cross trek. I had some extra things installed so I'm hoping I can pick the car up tomorrow or Wednesday. I bought the car on Friday, which ended up being a good thing because I was the only customer at the dealership. It's sapphire blue with a leather interior.

When I walked into the dealership I was immediately approached by a sales guy and I said "I haven't been in a car dealership since 1999 and my brothers were scaring me about how horrible it might be to buy a new car." Luckily the sales guy was nice and walked me through everything. He did seem a little terrified on our test drive because I kept driving through the slushiest, snowiest, iciest patches I could find on the road (survey is out on the stock tires for my new car, may just sell them and get Michelins which I have on Jake and love). Anyway, the car only has 3 miles on it (from my test drive).

I would also mention as I was leaving the dealership they said "see you in 14 years!" since I kept Jakey for 14 years...

urban herbs

Since it's new year's eve I decided to do some self maintenance so at noon I went to Urban Herbs for some acupuncture. I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. The place has real chinese herbs and has nothing to do with pot.

Anyway, Chloe gave me an assessment and then said I needed two acupuncture sessions. The first 15 minute session was to treat the "trauma" of fucking up my knee (that is actually typical of eastern medicine, they treat not just the physical injury but also the emotional injury). Trauma, in my case, was treated by having a bunch of needles stuck near my elbows and wrists, in my abdomen (I hate that) and above my knees.

While I was being punctured I was supposed to "breathe negativity out and inhale positivity". I was not sure exactly how to do that so every time I exhaled I said to myself "out with the old" and when I inhaled said "in with the new". Except that I kept saying "out with the old" when I was inhaling and vice versa. Even my thoughts are uncoordinated.

Also, Chloe threw a blanket over my feet to keep them warm and it was hitting the middle toe on my left foot which I broke last friday when I dropped my vacuum cleaner on my foot (don't ask, it was a freak accident). It's almost twice the size of my other toes and has an interesting grey black color to it. I would mention my Fashion Nails pedicure DID NOT chip. Thanks Vicki!!!!

Then came time for the energy enhancing treatment acupuncture thing. That was supposed to increase blood flow or some shit. I missed the explanation because as she started the explanation she was sticking 9 needles on the inside of my ear. That was pretty horrific. Also she put needles around my knee, in my face, in my ankles and feet, and in my wrists again.

After sitting there like a deranged pin cushion for another 15 minutes I was free to go. But not before being talked into buying some herbs. The concoction she made up has, among other things, peony tree bark, rehmannia root, alisma rhizome, sour jujube seed, zizyphus seeds, indian bread, and silktree bark. I've never heard of any of those things either. I'm guessing I'm allergic to all of them but we'll see.

The herbs come in a packet that you boil in water for a while. I think I boiled it wrong because there was supposed to be 8 cups of liquid and I had only 1 1/2. I added more water and am hoping for the best.

smells like a slow cooked shoe sole with some dog food thrown in - also, some items in the packet look suspiciously like toenails

I'm going to try it tomorrow, first thing in the morning, just in case it makes me puke.

getting rid of shit

This week I've been focusing on getting rid of things that I don't really need. I used craigslist to sell some things which kind of sucks because people are so fucking stupid and rude. I've yet to have someone turn up at the time they said they would come (if I was waiting 30 minutes, I understand - of 4 people who came by one was an hour late, two were over two hours late, and my fourth person is headed for the record at 3 hours late, if he shows up).

 I would add that as a person who isn't very big I feel much more comfortable with people coming by during the day than the evening. I am not too happy about strange guys wanting to come by my house at 830 or 9 o'clock at night. I've taken to carrying my mag flashlight into the garage (most of what I'm selling is in the garage) just in case.

And I get the dumbest questions. For skis listed as "women's volkl queen attiva blah blah skis" I received 5 emails (I'm not kidding) with the question "are these skis for women?" No, I just listed them as women's skis to fuck with you, and I guess "queen attiva" didn't clue you in that they are women's skis and apparently you've never heard of google so you could look them up and find out in case you doubted me.

I won't even mention the email from a person asking if my 22 foot ladder could be extended to 23 feet. Yeah I will, because that was the stupidest thing ever.

I will say though that once the people did show up they always had a good story about why they were buying something. Maybe made up, maybe not. The guy who bought my ladder needed it to fix a problem with his roof due to all the snow we've had and he just bought his house so he couldn't afford a new ladder (nod to that). The guy who bought my cruiser got it for his mom. He's worried she isn't exercising enough.

And the woman who bought a ski set I listed (it was my original skis, boots, and poles from when I first moved here - I listed the set for $20) got it because her daughter gets a  free ski pass through school and she wants to ski with her daughter. She works with the school system and her husband works with the homeless so they have no money (but 4 kids). She said my listing was a christmas miracle to her and she gave me a big hug after we closed the deal. I actually felt bad charging her so I told her she could have everything for free but she insisted on paying me. I am going to donate the money back to her school.

She brought her daughter Katie with her, who I would guess is around 8. Katie walked into my house and said "I love this house! This is what my house would look like!" so of course I liked her immediately. She asked me questions about my pictures and shark teeth and nesting doll while her mom tried on the ski boots. Then she buried her nose in a book while her mom and I talked about boring adult stuff. Kind of reminded me of myself...

Then today I took some jewelry in to get rid of it (wedding ring, wedding earrings, etc) and the guy at the jeweler's took a shine to me because I am, to quote him, the first woman to come into his store and show more interest in his crystals and fossils than the jewelry.

After we completed the transaction he brought me into the back of the store and showed me, among other treasures he's found, a femur from a huge dinosaur, a vertebrae from a huge dinosaur (he dropped it a year ago and showed me the inside, it was crystallized and looked like gemstones, very cool), a dinosaur tooth (I said I would guess the tooth belonged to a meat eater based on my knowledge of shark teeth and he said I was right), and a very cool square rock with an entire fish fossil in it. BTW, he talked to a guy at the museum of natural science (who's also a client) and he said to store fossils in tupperware with a cup of water and a towel over the fossils to keep them from decaying.

Then he said I should stop by the store any time so he could show me the new things he's found (I walk by his store almost every day). He and his wife just bought 40 acres of land in southern colorado and they are finding all kinds of things. Also, his kids just got him a state of the art drone so he will find even more stuff (we talked about search grids, it was fun).

Planning a few little adventures for new year's eve tomorrow...

I cook drinking game

My chef friends has been hanging out in my kitchen while I cook, I would presume because I give them alcohol and food. They invented a drinking game on Friday to help with my cooking skills. They had to take a drink if I did any of the following:

• Turned on the wrong burner
• Washed something (e.g. a measuring spoon) and put it in the dish washer and then had to take it out of the dishwasher to use it again (two drinks if I rewashed it after taking it out of the dishwasher)
• Said "oops, fuck!" while in the vicinity of the food I was cooking
• Ran the garbage disposal (one of my friends said I run the garbage disposal "excessively" - is running the garbage disposal 3 times in the space of thirty minutes excessive???)
• Sprayed disinfectant in the sink, then wiped down the sink with dish soap while in the middle of prepping food (two drinks if I then ran the garbage disposal - my friend who owns a restaurant said I am welcome in his kitchen anytime to clean)
• Vacuumed the floor in the middle of food prep
• Asked my CIA trained chef friend "is it supposed to look like that?" or "is it supposed to smell like that?"

Anyway, my technique is getting a lot better and I hopefully won't end up going broke buying alcohol for my friends.

more cooking, and a cleaning disaster

Yesterday I made green chili chicken in my slow cooker, partly from a recipe, and partly from shit I decided to throw in. It was really good.

Today I took the left over green chili chicken and am making chicken soup. It tastes really good, though I'm going to let it simmer for a few more hours.

my neighbor has already brought over a bowl - I promised to share the soup with him

I think I've got cooking down. I made food in my slow cooker, on the stove, and in the stove. I have 10 recipes that I managed to make without fucking them up. And for the first time in my life I can make a recipe based on stuff I already have in my kitchen instead of having to go to the grocery for the ingredients.

Of course, with the good comes the bad. There was a spot of some ick stuff on the bottom of my oven. I was going to clean it manually but my secretary suggested I use the self clean function and save myself the work.

I don't know how self clean normally works, but with my oven it was a disaster. The oven automatically locked after I turned on self clean and I couldn't shut it off. Minutes after I turned on self clean my house filled with the worst smell ever. My eyes started to water from the fumes and I felt sick. I turned on my hood fan as high as it would go, and that kind of helped. Then I went for a walk to get some fresh air.

After self clean shut itself off I turned my heat down and opened the back door. Three days later the house smells like it normally does (except for the cooking food smells, which are not normal). I'm just going to clean my oven manually from now on. Fucking self clean feature...

more food adventures...

I've been working with my chef neighbor on my cooking skills this week. I realized that maybe I can't learn to cook the way a normal person can, and I have learned more failing on recipes than succeeding. One of the things we did yesterday was to go through a recipe I made that failed (that horrible chicken) and figure out why the recipe failed (turned out I was right about the vinegar and red wine not being a great match for chicken, and the chicken smothering the vegetables so they didn't cook).

After going through one recipe I went through 20 more with her and tried to predict whether it would be a good recipe. I guessed right most of the time. So today I decided to make a recipe for enchilada orzo. It's vegetarian.

smells good at least! will know in 3 hours if it sucks

And I also decided to make a spinach quiche:

actually, it's two quiches - I didn't read the directions right and got normal crusts instead of deep dish crusts

There were a few disasters in the making. First, I didn't realize the frozen spinach was supposed to be defrosted. Then, because I was splitting the recipe into two quiches, I didn't have enough eggs so I had to add an egg to each quiche after I poured the original eggs in. Well, the new eggs didn't blend with the old eggs so I had to kind of whisk them in which is not easy to do in a already filled pie crust. I think it will be okay though.

they look good, and smell good, they have to cool for 10 minutes and then I'll see if they taste good

I also was worried the timing would be off because I used regular pie crusts instead of the deep dish one...

Well, just had a piece of quiche. It's fantastic! I think I'll bring one over to my chef neighbor's house tonight. She invited a bunch of us in the neighborhood over for a christmas turkey dinner.

dinner party, take 3

Yesterday I was looking at quiche recipes when I got a text from one of my neighbors who was supposed to come to my dinner party. He asked if he and his wife could come by and I was like "of course!" because I had meatballs and sauce that could feed an army. First, I would mention that they loved the spaghetti and meatballs (he had three helpings). Second, I would mention that the french bread was good right out of the oven but by the next day it was rock hard. My chef neighbor said it's not my fault, it's the dry climate, and maybe to add some gluten next time. Considering it took me 12 years to find tahini in the grocery, I doubt I will be able to find gluten.

Anyway, it turns out my neighbors blew off my dinner party to watch the broncos game (even though they were the ones who suggested we have the dinner party on Monday - ?????). I had gone to a new restaurant in the neighborhood, Dunbar's, with them on Sunday and the husband was trying to explain fantasy football to me. Apparently monday was the super bowl, but not the real super bowl, it was the fantasy super bowl, and there wasn't even a real game that was played. But there's an app that tracks the points you get when your fake team does things like catch the ball and that's the game, which is actually a bunch of games and then stats are collected for the fake game but only certain people can be in on your fake game because everybody who wants to play fantasy football would be too many people for one game. Or some shit like that.

On Sunday the husband's football team was winning but then, as he said, "it all fell apart" on Monday night because his defense got negative points which he said never happens and his quarterback only got one point. Don't ask me to explain. His wife thought he got bad luck because he blew off my party to watch football (or, fantasy football, that point was not clear to me). He lost $600.

Then my other friends who were supposed to come to the party showed up too. They said they were too tired after skiing yesterday to come by. When I was like "why didn't you text?" one said "we were on BPT" and I was like "what's that?" and he said "black people time" (after they had a few glasses of wine I found out they had fallen asleep at 5 pm and didn't want to admit it because they're almost 20 years younger than me and always teasing me for leaving dinner parties early to go to bed - I would add that was not a racist comment, they are both black). They liked the dinner too. And even though the recipe said it served 10 people I have only a little bit of sauce and one meat ball left.

Then we watched one of my favorite movies In The Loop.

dinner party, take two

I invited some friends for dinner this evening. I made homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs (recipe from the Jewish - Sicillian cookbook my dad gave me), plus a loaf of bread.

First, let me mention, it was not only edible but really good! I'm shocked.

gross - raw meat - the secret ingredient for these meatballs is to use wonder bread instead of bread crumbs

frying the meatballs - I only put a few in the pan at once to make sure I didn't burn them

I froze half the meatballs and put the rest in the sauce

spaghetti sauce - I added red wine because no Italian makes spaghetti sauce without wine

loaf of french bread, got the recipe from high altitude cooking blog - it is a "can't fuck it up" recipe

for the first time ever in my life a loaf of bread I made rose

I called my neighbor, who is a chef, to see if the loaf was cooked - it was!!! - and she brought me a huge piece of homemade coconut cake, made from a REAL coconut that she grated

The only problem with this great dinner? None of my guests have shown up yet. I know two of them went skiing today. Maybe the rest were scared off by stories of my last dinner disaster...

a collaborative christmas

My friend Jeffy sent me this picture, and my neighbor came up with a great caption for it and sent it to his friends as a christmas card:

it's hard to find out what Santa's bringing you for Christmas