Tantalizing Tidbits is LEAVING BLOGGER!

Blogger has served me well for the past five plus years, but I’m done with it. Wait, what? Am I stopping Tantalizing Tidbits blog? NO!! No way! I’m merely taking it to the NEXT LEVEL! I’ve written a lot over the years, chronicled my life, what’s been going on, what I’m interested in, etc., and I was getting pretty nervous…all of this was owned by google…they could delete it whenever they liked, and I’d be left with NOTHING! Plus, it seems like most people are moving their blogs over to wordpress these days. I thought about it. A long time. Months. Longer? What if my blogs got lost in the transition? But I did it! I have a self hosted wordpress blog now! If you want to read more about that, you’ll have to go over there. Because this post is about the fact that there will be no more blogger blog. So quick, go check your feed, blogroll, bookmark, etc. If the address for Tantalizing Tidbits says blogspot in it, it’s going away. PLEASE UPDATE TO: www.tantalizingtidbits.com.  Many of you may already have this, since I’ve had the domain from day one. But some people found it easier to link to this blog as blogspot. And anyone who’s following via blogger, you’ll need to update your settings too. The feed is at www.tantalizingtidbits.com.  Now, that wordpress blog isn’t all ready yet, but it’s about to soft launch, because it’s taking forever and I have other things to post about. So please, STOP READING THIS IN BLOGGER! I’m gonna give you some time to make the transition before I take the blogger one away. But do it ASAP! Switch yourself! You don’t want to miss out on ANY Tidbits! If you have questions, let me know… hope to see you over there at www.tantalizingtidbits.com!!

The Baptism - I Become a Godmother

Baptism Bracelet & Dress & her Mommy's Wedding Ring

I’ve mentioned (a lot) how I was asked to be my niece Lana’s godmother, and I made the long trek over to NH for the ceremony. Well, it happened. I’m now an official godmother! Yay me! The day began early…6am NH time, 3am CA time. I woke up and asked my friend how the club was going, as it was still Saturday night there and everyone was out LOL. BUT this was the ONE morning I didn’t mind waking up so early, because it had a special purpose. I’d had a really hard time finding a proper dress to wear to the ceremony, and ended up wearing a jumper I’d gotten for work, but it looked ok. At least I was a bit more organized on the baby. I’d ordered a baptism dress from Etsy that my mother and sister picked out, and had it delivered to NH ahead of time. I also got Lana a monogrammed baptism bracelet from another shop on Etsy, and brought that with me to Nh to surprise her. When my parents, brother and I arrived at my sister’s house, no one was dressed and Lana was still asleep. AAH! My brother in law and sister (Robert and Beth) got dressed in record time, and we got Lana’s dress and bracelet on her, but didn’t get many good photos, oh well. My brother doug and I headed over to the church down the street, because we were the godparents! The church itself is on the town square of the small NH town my sister lives in, and is a great example of an old New England church. The pastor found us soon after we entered.  He was just a substitute, so I never met the real one. This was a little old man with not many teeth, who confessed that the last time he’d done a baptism had been when he first started years ago. Yikes! He told us to just read the responses when the time came as we stood up. Ok… Walking into the room, there weren’t many people there. This is a nice sized building, but the congregation itself is very small. There were more people there for the baptism than the actual every Sunday service. The front row was for just me, doug, beth, Robert and lana (the latter three who arrived just in time). This is kind of a bad combination, as none of us regularly attended church in childhood or adulthood. We had no one to watch for cues of what to do, and EVERYONE could see us the whole service. It began, and throughout, the four of us regularly scrambled to find songs in the books and peered over our shoulders to see when we were supposed to be sitting and standing. The most interesting part, besides the baptism itself, was communion. None of the four of us had ever done communion. There was a reading, then we all sang a song, which curiously sounded like a Disney song, the way the tune and even the lyrics were. I felt like I was in a cartoon.  I was intensely interested, yet super nervous. Would they make me eat that bread? What would happen? I’ve never done communion! I’ve never had a first communion! I can’t do it NOW! The pastor got a nice round fluffy bread and cut it in four quarters. It looked like very good bread. It was on a plate on a table they brought out. Then he poured wine into some glasses. A few people, dressed very scruffily, who had been helping out by lighting and putting out candles, took the wine glasses and some flat breads, leaving the one the minister had cut on the table. People came and lined up, and dipped their bread in the wine (juice?) then ate it. Some of them came and yanked my sister and brother in law over, telling them they had to do it. I couldn’t pay much attention to them, because another one was trying to get doug and I to. You can join us if you want they said. Um, no thank you? I’ll just sit here, I said. Luckily they let me, and they let doug sit it out too. Crisis averted! And then of course, the main thing, the baptism. Half way through the service, the five of us stood up with the pastor, and he read some passages, and asked the parents if they would agree to raise the baby in the eyes of god and they had to respond yes. Then he asked myself and my brother, and we had to respond yes. Then he asked the congregation as well. This man didn’t know how to hold a baby because he had Lana squished hanging half down, with her arm twisted behind him under his arm. She had been good the whole service but crushed like this, she began to cry. A random woman held up a piece of paper which he read from, and she kept patting Lana’s leg, like that would help. He put water on her head over her cries. It was pretty funny! But at the same time I was really touched, and had a hard time not crying in front of the whole room. I was getting a giant responsibility, a baby that I have to take care of for the rest of her life. After the service, doug and I had to sign a baptism certificate, and we got handbooks. It said silly obvious things like remember to say happy birthday and you might want to send her gifts, and also that in the event the parents die or something, we have to make sure she’s cared for. Yikes. Hopefully anyway my sister will lead a long, happy life.  The rest of the day was anticlimactic. Some relatives came over to my sister’s house and Robert and my uncle eric grilled. I wasn’t feeling well and spent the day lying reading in the backyard. But there we go, I’m a godmother!

Baptism Bracelet

Happy Dad Holding His Daughter's Baptism Dress

The Church

Uncle/Godfather to Be & Grandmother Entering the Church

The Two Dads - Godfather and Father

My Godmother Manual

LOL The Instructions!

For more photos of the baptism party, go here. You can only see photos of the baby if you're my flickr friends and family though, per request of her daddy.

Deja Vu

The blog stalled while I was in NH, and trying to process all the photos from NH and get all the blogs I want to write fixed up and finished. I have so many started. While I’m waiting to get organized, I decided to post something I started. When I’m reading, sometimes I see passages in the books that resonate with me, and one day recently, I got the good idea to photograph them. Here is one from July, an excerpt from A Madman’s Tale by John Katzenbach. I called it déjà vu because it reminded me of something I’d say.



Deja Vu



Bananas for Dinner!

Recently, I'd been thinking about how bananas would taste good in dinner.  Roomie was out of state djing so i thought i'd try a new vegetarian dinner. Black-eyed Peas and Tomatoes with Sauteed Bananas! YAH! Apparently this is inspired by the traditional Ghana dish called Red-Red, which is served with plantains. This whole foods recipe comes out with a slight tang of spiciness and the tomato mixes with the cooked banana taste in a sweet hot way.  I think when I make it again, I'll increase the cayenne. If you're a meat eater, it would also go well with any meat thrown in there. Clicky to see the recipe! yum!

My Clarisonic Face Scrubber

For a couple of years I’d had my eye on the clarisonic face scrubber. If not that long, then almost that long. I saw it on blogs and ads from sephora. I looked at it and imagined how clean my face would be if I could only have this piece of equipment…but it was expensive. It seemed like too much to waste on something to clean my face! Then, at the end of last year, I was finally doing ok with my money, and I decided to treat myself to some birthday/xmas presents (my birthday’s at the end of November). One of them was the Clarisonic. What is this product that costs over a hundred dollars, you might ask?   Well, the website explains that dirt and oil often becomes trapped in our pores, causing buildup, which doesn’t let your other skin products soak in to actually work. Pretty much you’re wasting your money on your soap, lotion, serums, toner, etc, and leaving your face dirty. This thing uses sonic frequency to clean the pores! So, that’s what they say. But does it work? When I bought it, they were doing a special breast cancer pink one promotion, which looks a bit girly in our bathroom, but oh well. It came with a face brush and a body brush, but I haven’t really used the body one, because I’m always in a rush in the shower. The device itself is like a toothbrush, and you let it charge in its cradle when you’re not using it. More than one person can have their own brush head (again like a toothbrush) and my roomie and I each have our own. You just twist it on, wet it, wet your face, put some face cleaner (whatever brand you like to use) on the brush head, and push the button. Start by moving it around on your forehead. After a few seconds it will beep (or, if you’re hard of hearing like me, give a really little pause in brushing) and you know it’s time to move to the next area, which is nose/chin/neck. Beep again and go to one cheek, beep again, go to the other cheek. Then it shuts off. You can also use it on your chest, because that area should be washed as gently as your face, though you have to go through the beep cycle again. It only takes 60 seconds to wash your face. And it works! My face is nice and smooth and clean, not rough or red or anything like that. Even when I’ve washed my makeup off, I can still see dirt and makeup on the brush before I rinse it. It’s definitely getting my pores clean! All I have to do is replace the brush every 3 months or so (I think the brush is $20 or $25) and keep cleaning. And yes, it does seem pricey, but I feel like it’s worth it to have clean skin, so that down the road, I’m not covered in wrinkles and peeling and grossness. Cleaning like this can also help keep away fine lines! And remember, it helps your other products work as well. I know there is an oil of olay product and possibly more that have sprung up now at the drugstores, at a VERY considerably less price. I’m not sure how it works…people seem to like it, and for $28 or so, it’s probably definitely worth it. They compare it to the Clarisonic, although I don’t see that they claim to use sonic frequencies. It definitely is better than just using a facecloth or your hand or something. All in all, I’m very happy with my Clarisonic, love it, and I recommend that everyone gets one, or if you don’t have the money, at least go out and get the knockoff cheaper brand one instead. Your skin will thank you! Do you have one of these face brushes? What do you think?

Will We Like Each Other?

I’ve been thinking a lot about my trip to NH next week for my niece’s baptism (although with my bad track record lately about actually publishing blogs, I might already be back home again lol) and taking my role as godmother seriously. I will definitely be blogging about that experience! I was pondering how this is a responsibility to watch over my sister’s child for the rest of her life. But then I was thinking as (I hope) most parents, aunts, uncles, godparents, etc might think about, what if I don’t like the baby? Obviously, as a few month old right now, there’s not much to like or dislike. But when she gets older. I would HOPE that as she gets a bit older, she grows into a child, and adult, a person that I like, just for her, not out of duty because I’m her godmother and aunt. I hope she is interesting and nice, but not in a goody goody too nice way. What do people do who don’t like the kids in their lives? That must happen… I doubt she’ll be the next Bad Seed or anything, but she could just be..annoying. Or even..what if SHE doesn’t like ME? A lot of people don’t… Obviously this is not something I NEED to worry about now. I swear, my mind just finds more and more things to worry about. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, but it was just something to think about…  It’s most likely she’ll be a great person anyway.  Have any of you known someone who this has happened to?

Family Food Cultures

This is not a food blog, by any means, but I think a lot about food, so especially lately, a lot of that has been showing up. I was thinking the other day about people’s personal food cultures. Most of the time, I’m just here, eating, not thinking about my choices one way or the other, but then when I start going on trips and visiting and staying with people, or having people visit me, and seeing what they eat, it kind of stands out. An almost unconscious choice for me can seem strange to someone else. Each person, and even each household, slowly gains their own food culture, but it’s interesting to see how those can branch and change. Take my family, for instance. Growing up, there was my parents, me, my brother and my sister. We all had our little likes and dislikes, but on the whole, we ate as a unit, and had our own way of eating that was pretty normal to all of us. And then we grew up, and split up. Each of we three children started our own households, and our own ways of eating. My parents were now a smaller unit of two, and their ways of eating also changed. It’s interesting to see how a few years can make such a difference. Here I am, eating no HFCS, not a lot of sugar, lots of organic or whole type foods, etc. There my sister is, a vegetarian who hates vegetables, and eats, by her own admission, mainly reheated frozen things such as vegetarian patties, with some chocolate thrown in for good measure. And who knows what my brother eats… I will be going to visit my family in NH very soon, and was thinking about how different my diet will be while I’m there. I’d much rather eat at my parents house, because they have actual real food vs reheated chemically junk, even if some of it happens to have a lot of sugar or whatever. I was lucky to grow up in a household where my mother cooked homecooked meals for us, and we ate home grown veggies, and hand picked fruits in the summer. We didn’t eat white bread, we had whole grain, and we had 1% or fat free milk, although we ate too much meat and not enough vegetable variety. Still, I doubt that many families could have eaten much healthier in new England towns in the 80s and 90s! I’m looking forward to spreading my food culture back onto my parents, and maybe even my super picky sister’s, when I go home. How has your food culture changed from your family unit’s when growing up? Do you think you’re re-influencing them now?

San Diego Pride 2011

Hanging with the Koalas at the Zoo!

San Diego was one of those vacations where I come home and I’m super sad that it’s over, grumbling over real life and wishing my life was always the way it was on vacation. But I guess life can’t be super awesome all of the time, otherwise even THAT would get boring. We need the long stretches of drudging along to make the special times seem more special, and really appreciate them. This fantastic vacation I am referring to was San Diego Pride. I went to SD Pride for the first time in 2010, and that was a lot of fun, but not even anything compared to the crazy time we had this year. This was a rock star vacation. It started out kinda eeh…  My best friend Tristan and I left SF on Thursday, with a delayed plane & a weird airport restaurant (which I didn’t even eat at), and we arrived much later to SD than anticipated. After our friend we were staying with, Cavin, picked us up, we discovered that Tristan had left his bag on the airport curb, with some very important things such as a laptop inside! After a frantic drive through rush hour traffic back, it was STILL THERE! Wow! Stressful but great! Costco and dinner, and it was too late to work out. But oh no, dinner must have had nuts in it, because although tasty, I got sick. My first day in SD ended with an early bed time and me in pain. Friday I woke up feeling skaky, and Tristan and I got lost on the way to find brunch. Once we got there, a GIANT blackberry cornmeal pancake that filled an entire plate, plus a side of eggs and sausage, with a giant iced coffee in a jar got me feeling better. I got woofed at by a homeless girl on the way to the gym, and we had a marathon workout session of probably at least 2 ½ hours (this is what happens when you work out with a muscley guy) before going back to chill in and by the pool. Awesome, relaxing day, now there’s a real start to a vacation! Our last fellow house guest Drake arrived that evening, and after dinner we had a nice little house party. 
Pride really started the next day. Saturday morning, friends came over, and by the time we made it out to see the parade, it was pretty much over. After stopping at Eden for a few minutes, we changed & were off to the Pool Party.  That was a nice, chill time, leading to a yummy ethiopian dinner then out for the nite at the Saturday night pride party. We stayed till almost the end, saving a bit of energy for the next day. Sunday was the longest day. After resting in the morning, we made it to the San Diego zoo in late afternoon. This was my third time at the zoo, but the first time that there was a party. They set off a dance floor outside on the side, but our party tickets include admission to the zoo itself, and we made full use of that! I had a lot of fun roaming through the zoo, especially when it got dark, before we went back to dance! San Diego zoo is my favorite zoo, with lots of animals in nice habitats, instead of sad small cages like some places. From the zoo party it was time for the afterparty. I was surprised at how well Pagano played upstairs, a totally different, but great, sound from when I heard him in San Francisco. I hope i get to hear him like that again! The afterparty ended too soon for us at 4, so we closed it out and went to the after after party at Spin. DJ Luis Perez was so awesome! What an amazing, intimate club with music that was just perfect, all my favorite songs and lots of fun people.  It was crazy!!  Best party for last!  We closed that club too and i was home by 9am, a great fun pride over. Monday brought some resting, and I got to see my friend Laura at dinner, who i didn't see the rest of the weekend, and it was time to head to the airport and home late, with work looming in the morning. Back to reality. Last year's pride was fun, but this year's pride was truly stellar. Friends, sun, music... Wish I could go back! Go here to see all the photos (yes, there's more)!




Photos by Merredith Lloyd & Cavin Knight

Sunny San Diego

Kona the Cat...my new friend

When we missed the Pride Parade

Pool Party

More Pool Party

So Pretty, but I'm Scared of Water..

View from the Balcony of the Club Saturday Night

Aw we're so Cute in the Backseat!

Got Up Close & Personal with the Lion

Here's our Zoo Group!

You Know I Love to Read!

On Stage at the Zoo Party!

Books and Book Reviews June 2011

I review books on Goodreads.com. Every month, I'm listing the books here so that you can go over there and read the reviews if you want. Here are the books I read and reviewed in June 2011:
Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes in a New China by Rachel DeWoskin
Hemlock Bay FBI Thriller #6 by Catherine Coulter
Milkrun by Sarah Mlynowski
The Accidental Vampire by Lynsay Sands
Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui
I'm Not the New Me by Wendy McClure
On the Run by Iris Johansen
The Mercy Rule by Perri Klass
The Thief Taker A Novel by Janet Gleeson
Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta
Deerskin by Robin McKinley

I Made Sourdough Bread Starter!

Shh! My Starter is Resting!

Bread! When I was in college or so, I started making a lot of bread.  I was really proud when I made my first loaf of real yeast, and then I kept trying more recipies... I also made a cake a every day or two, and my family couldn't keep up! Years and years later, I bought a coupon for a Sour Flour sourdough bread starter class. Sourdough is very SF, although i used to eat it by the loaf as a child. Our class was held in the kitchen of a mexican bakery in the mission. I arrived and found a class full of strangers, ready to get our starters, along with our teacher Danny and his assistant. The very first thing we did was examine Sour Flour's starter. The starter is named Dulce, and is over 2 years old, and was started in Honduras, I think they said. What is starter? It's flour and water, and natural yeast just comes about. But more usually, starter is started from a piece of someone else's starter, and that's how we got ours. But first, we mixed a mound of flour, a bunch of water, some of Dulce the starter, and a dash of salt together, directly on the table, no bowl, no spoon, no recipe, no measurement, no nothing.  This became our dough for some flatbread, which we learned how to work and knead. My bread was the stickiest and least bread looking, oops. In between letting it rest, we got instruction about bread in general and how to feed and care for a starter. While the bread spent some time resting and rising, we each got a piece of Dulce with a little plastic home. We fed and watered our new starters, let them rest, learned to care for them. It's like having a pet! I learned that each day, I have to add in a bit of flour and water and knead it, then leave it to let it grow, to let the natural yeast in there to do its thing. Later, when I'm ready to make bread, I'll make extra starter by feeding it more, then use it in a recipe in place of the yeast you can buy in a packet. It's the natural and ancient way of doing things! I haven't made anything yet, but I'll report back when I do. At the end of the class, we shaped our our flatbread and baked it for a few minutes in 600 something oven, and when it came out, we had some with butter. I took the rest of mine home. We also had a more usual breadish there to try for comparison. It was made with the very same ingredients (flour, water, salt, starter) but left to rise for a day. I actually liked the ones we made ourselves better! Thanks to Sour Flour for a fun and interesting class, and I hope I can keep my starter alive in time to bake something with it!
Photos by Merredith Lloyd

The Oven We Baked The Bread In

The Back of a Bakery

We Didn't Use This Mixer, But it's Huge!

Flatbread We Made!

Left to Rise Longer, It Turns Into This!

I Made This!

Skyr

I've been watching Bizarre Foods a lot lately...it's on Netflix on demand and roomie and i are almost all the way through the entire every seasons! One episode i watched was on Iceland, and we got to watch a woman making homemade skyr in her kitchen. They made it out of fat free milk and didn't look too hard to make. on the show, they ate it with sugar and cream, thereby taking away that natural healthiness. It looked like yogurt, but really is a soft cheese - yum! Soon after, when I was shopping at whole foods, i saw skyr for sale in different flavors, and brought it home. Yay for trying one of the 'bizarre' foods, although it's not really bizarre. It's so creamy and super rich, very protein filled, you would never even know there's no fat. it's sweetened with agave and fruit (we had pomegranite passion fruit) so there's no sugar. this decadent snack is perfect, especially since it has live cultures, which helps against lactose-induced tummy aches. Have you tried skyr? What do you think?

SF Pride 2011

View of the Castro Block Party Pink Party

I’ve been to SF Pride every year I’ve been here, but it’s never been a highlight. Some years have been more fun than others, but it’s never been a super fun weekend. Too many tourists, too many drunkies, too hectic…until this year. I wasn’t expecting it to be awesome, but I ended up having tons of fun! This year was my favorite SF Pride weekend ever! Some people started pride a bit earlier in the week, but I had an exhausting week at work and was even less inclined than usual to go out. On Thursday, I actually fell asleep right after dinner. EXHAUSTING. So I wasn’t totally looking forward to going out Friday to start out my weekend. I was kind of fantasizing about snuggling between the covers and zzzing. But I didn’t want to be boring, so as soon as my roomie and mine’s houseguest Cavin, who was visiting for the weekend, arrived after dinner, we set off for the Duro pride kickoff party. We met up there with Drake who was also visiting, and Sarah, who lived around the corner from the bar, and David, who was also visiting, and more friends joined as the night progressed. DJ Misha Skye opened, then a drag performance, then my best friend/roomie DJ Tristan Jaxx came on, and we all had a fun time dancing. It was a nice diverse crowd! This was followed by a funny walk around the city in the middle of the night, and watching my friends eat pancakes at 4am. The next morning, after such a late night following a long work week, I never made it to the park. There is a big pride thing in the park every Saturday of pride with lots of women, and guys too, and I’d told some people I’d go, but I was beat already, and it was windy and not that warm. In fact, it was the coldest I’ve ever seen pride weekend here. So, sorry to the park people. Soon it was time to head to dinner with Tristan, Cavin and Drake, then off to Locoya’s Pre Pink Pride Party at his house in Castro. There is a giant block party outside at this time, and my friend Carina joined me for lots of fun people watching, both out the window, and right inside the party. We learned that to a large amount of women, pride equals let’s wear too tall shoes and get way too drunk. Girls in stilettos were falling left and right. On top of each other, in the middle of the street, on the dance floor of the party, down stairs. It got so that we were a little afraid to walk, lest we be attacked by an overly drunk falling girl. Why do they do that to themselves? Well, whatever, it was of large entertainment value. I should have videoed some of them, I just wasn’t thinking! Seriously ladies, show some self control!! Besides the drunken girls, the party was fun, got to see more friends and hang out, and soon it was time to go change for the big party of the night, Colossus. We arrived late, and heard only the tail end of DJ Hector Fonseca’s set, but it sounded very good. That place was PACKED!!! And Sound Factory is a really large space, but it was STILL packed! Just walking down the hall was like being in a traffic jam! Wynter Gordon performed well and then DJ Paulo came on. He was AWESOME. This was probably the best I’ve ever heard him play. Loved it. He kept a nice high energy playing, instead of being too droney trancey. It was dark yet upbeat at the same time, which is the best. We closed out the club yet again, but instead of 2am like Friday night, this ended around 7 am. Great night! I NEVER make it to the pride parade on Sundays. Who can get there that early, unless they don’t sleep? I like sleep, so that’s what I did instead. By the time I was up and ready, it was almost time to go to dinner again. Yep, the night owl life for me!  We had reservations at Supperclub. I'd actually never been there for a meal. There are a few over the world, and you eat on beds and they do a show. Kind of what i do at home since we have no table lol. It was really trippy there... someone on stilts, pink and purple lighting, weird images on the screens... there were a series of shows such as acrobatics, singing and a human pretzel. The food was yummy, but very small and expensive. Each of the first two courses were only a couple bites each, more like appetizers. The last dish was dessert, and the waitress presented two of us the plates and said here are your nut allergy desserts. Further investigation, and sickness from my friend, proved that they were actually sweet peanut butter sandwiches that they'd removed the garnish nuts from the top of, not thinking that peanut butter contained nuts. THEY are nuts! We did end up getting a meal comped, but a friend was sick for hours :( I only tasted a lick so my mouth got itchy but i was ok. Hours later, after recovering, we set out for the last party of the weekend, Sanctuary. DJ Jamie Sanchez did a good job, and was nearing the end of his set again when we arrived. DJ Alexander took over, and got more energetic towards the end of the night, around quarter of four. Saturday night had been more hectic yet super fun, and Sunday night was more friend concentrated. Everyone was there. It was packed again, and we closed out the night again, with the last people on the dancefloor at a little after six am when it ended being mostly people i knew. It's always fun having your alarm go off for work when you're on your way home from the club! I fell asleep just as I would be almost to work, and slept Monday away, waking up for some yummy Patxis pizza and tv. Best SF Pride Ever!!! Thanks to all my friends who made it so great!  Now I can't wait for Pride part 2 in a couple weeks in San Diego, featuring most of the same people, plus a couple more friends! YAY! Stay tuned...

Photos by Merredith Lloyd, David Wong & Richard Henry Thomas

Duro

Duro

Duro

Locoya's Pre Pink Party

Locoya's Pre Pink Party

Locoya's Pre Pink Party

Locoya's Pre Pink Party

Locoya's Pre-Pink Party

Locoya's Pre Pink Party

Feet Under the Table on the Bed at Supperclub

View of Supperclub

The Green Crayon

This morning I was walking through my neighborhood on my way to work and I saw a crayon. A new looking green crayola crayon was lying on the sidewalk in front of the house. It’s the last day of June, and it’s actually warm for once, something sometimes rare in San Francisco.  Looking at the crayon, I noticed the air. It smelled of summer. Not just summer, but sun warmed earth and growing plants.  I immediately wanted to just be able to lie down in a bunch of grass and plants and rest in the sunshine and roll around. I was transported back to my childhood. Not the horrible days at school, the loneliness of being around other children who never liked me, but the childhood of June 30^th way back when.  This was when time was always perfect. School had just let out, there were two whole months stretching before me. Two whole months of hotness, where I never had to feel cold. Two whole months of wandering around my yard and the woods, of taking walks and reading books, of cooking and spending time with my family. Two whole months ahead of perfection. That crayon even flashed me back farther…to before I moved to NH, when I was really young, and would spend time doing coloring projects at school, back when I had friends, or at home, making up stories about each of the crayon colors as if they were people. All of this thinking happened in an instant.  I barely paused as I passed, so as not to be late to work. But even now, later, I’m left with a feeling of sadness and longing for those days. A feeling of being really old, and loss for something that can’t be repeated. It’s not like good, happy moments don’t happen all the time (just the fact that I can walk on the way to work on a nice day, instead of being imprisoned in a car is a blessing), but I still miss those old perfect times.

Spanish Lessons

I like the spanish language. I saw a coupon a while back for foreign language lessons on livemocha.com and bought it. You get a whole month where you can take lessons whenever you want, at your own pace. My month started about a month ago probably, and I've been on there once. I think this coupon adventure is going to fail. In highschool, we had the choice of learning spanish or french. I'm not positive, but I think everyone had to take at least one year of another language. I WANTED to take it, at first, and I had to take it because my parents said I had to for college. I chose spanish because I'd taken french for part of a year in first grade, a class for kids who were bored with the whole alphabet learning to read stuff I already knew that they were teaching in the normal class. That lost funding, but I was never a french fan. Back to spanish. My spanish teacher was a bitch. She was. She hated me for some unknown reason, and I really didn't like her. I managed to not learn too much, but no one else did either. That was my first period and I actually hated it more than math. Fortunately, she didn't last. The next year, we had a new teacher. He was nicer, and at first more interesting. He told us the story of when he was teaching in Colombia (where he was from) and he took a class up on a volcano. But then he told the same thing over, and over and over. Once again, we learned nothing. I didn't dread this class everyday, but I knew it was a waste of time. Junior year, we had another new teacher. (Seriously, it was like the defense of dark arts teacher in harry potter! Before harry potter was written..). Fortunately, she was great, and fortunately, she stayed. In those 2 years, I learned spanish, got to write in a journal in spanish every day, learned from college books, with a grammar book, literature book and culture book. It was great! I loved it! By college, I tested out of the language requirement through my SAT2, but took spanish anyway. It was boring again. Bleh. Teachers really do count. After that semester, I never took it again, although I was able to read and use spanish written articles for my mesoamerica anthropology class, and understood everything the spanish guides said when I went to Mexico junior year. Which brings me to this online thing. I don't want to review my spanish skills by reading and listening to boring restaurant scenes. I don't care who ordered dessert first, how, and what they ordered. Does anyone ENJOY learning this way? I quit… Maybe sometime soon I'll take up a spanish novel and refresh that way.

I Went to the Chiropractor

I've always had back issues. When I was in middle school and high school i'd get SO stressed out that my whole back and neck would absolutely knot up, as well as migranes...i was forever begging my parents to rub my back for me, i was always in pain. It got better going into college then picked up again by senior year. Senior year even migrane pain OTC meds didn't do anything for me anymore. In the many years since then, my head got a billion times better and my back goes on and off. While in college, my mother told me a story of her friend's friend who got paralysed after seeing a chiropractor. I was scared. In the past year or two, i started seeing massage therapists to help with my back issues, but they always counsel me that maybe I should see a chiropractor. finally i was starting to think that maybe i should put aside my fears and go, when suddenly i hurt my lower back (possibly from lifting weights). I sucked it up and got a referral from my doctor and went. It was fine! One reason I'm posting this up is in case anyone else has trepedations about going. I was a little late to my first appointment, due to the whole public transportation system breaking down, but I finally got there, and everyone was friendly. I didn't even have to put on a johnnie, I just wore my regular clothes, and he felt my back, neck, head, spine. It turned out I had, just as I suspected, two issues - the new lower back problem, and the existing upper back thing. I started going in twice a week for almost 3 weeks, just tiny fifteen minute visits, right near work, on my insurance. He'd feel my back, crack have me breathe in then out and crack it, then have me position myself and then he'd sort of snap my body. On the 2nd or 3rd visit, as I was leaving, I suddenly felt so LIGHT. A lot of the knotted tension was gone, my vertebrae were not sticking together, things could move around in there. All that blood and spinal cord fluid moving around better left me dizzy and lightheaded for a few hours. My favorite part of the visits was at either the end or beginning, I'd get to go on the roller table for a few minutes. It's like a massage chair, but as a table, it just rolls up and down. So relaxing! It functions to just loosen things up. Finally, at the end of my treatments, the doctor had loosened things up as much as possible, and aligned my neck, spine, etc. I was kind of sad, because it really helped the tension I get every day. That tension still builds up, and I'd love him to crack my back every day and help it. I wasn't to 100% lower back wise yet, I'm almost there now…I've been lifting lower weights and being super careful, but I think it's a matter of the muscles and tendons healing too. I can feel that it's more freer to move around, in my dance and kickboxing classes, and in pilates too. There was no reason to have been scared and I'll definitely go back again if needed!

Snapshot Early Spring Edition

It's been a while since I did a Snapshots post, so here are some random fun photos for a Friday.  Photos from February, March and April that I don't think ever made it onto any other blogs.

Me and Rey on his Birthday in February

Me with Marques and Richard for Marques's Birthday in February

Me, Chris and Tristan at Industry MLK Weekend January

Me and Tristan at Industry in February

Tristan, Antonio, Me & Chris at Pound in April

I'm the Easter Bunny on Easter in April

Me and JR at Epic in April

Posing at Epic in April

 my new Pencil Skirt in March

Celebrating Earth Day in April

Photos by various people.. click on the photo to see credits, or go here.