palace of winds

I’ve made a resolution to try making all of the things I so greatly want a Vita-Mix (or a K-tec [the Jamba machine, squee!]) for with the immersion blender I already have. So far I have produced: a delicious creamy soft serve banana concoction (which, consisting as it did of only a frozen banana and a splash of milk, sounds more complicated than it was) and hummus, which actually mixed together with astoundingly less time and fuss than I remembered. I will go out on a limb and say that it was easy, and pretty quick. Not as miraculously instantaneous as a machine twelve times the cost (and that number is arbitrary, since I have no clue how much my Thunderstick was — it was a gift), but quick enough, and today for lunch I’m going to have hummus on toast with spinach and cucumber and tomato, and that’s delightful indeed.

This weekend is for cleaning. I will say it again: This weekend is. for. cleaning. It is not for getting out the broom and putting it on the living room floor and then lying on the couch watching tv and occasionally glancing at the broom. It is not for dusting the computer screen for a better view of the Sims. It is not for washing dishes so that they can be used for something elaborate and unnecessary and then left, once again, in a dirty heap in the sink. And it is not, for god’s sake, for paging through every book before it can be put on the shelf.

It is for:

• scrubbing the bathtub
• scrubbing the toilet
• scrubbing the sinks – bathroom & kitchen
• wet-jetting the bathroom floor
• wet-jetting the kitchen floor
• putting away all books – yes, All. Books. Without first reading.
• arranging all action figures: on shelf or in box for long-term storage – Yes, All.
• deep breath now – cleaning up the desk. All of it. Including the boxes under it. Yes, all of them. ALL.
• dusting, which MUST be completed LAST – dusting is not allowed prior to any other task’s completion

Things that are not allowed before completion of all above tasks

(yes, ALL):

• email
• IM
• Sims
• let’s just call it anything to do with the computer that is not strictly related to causing cleaning-mood music (which does not include any downloading of new music or looking up of lyrics or any lyrics-inspired website redesigns)
• bike-riding
• walking to the store
• grocery shopping
• eating out
• elaborate meals in
• fleeing to parents’ to do laundry (and thus be taken to lunch and/or dinner, possibly a movie)
• movies, for that matter
• tv
• phone calls
• reading! yes, no reading allowed! NONE.
• using cleaning as excuse to skip exercising; exercising remains mandatory

Exceptions/allowances:

• dancing is allowed
• singing is allowed
• joy is mandatory
• for every hour of cleaning, one (ONE) seven-minute break; breaks are cumulative and are to be taken WITH TIMER RUNNING; all disallowed activities are allowed on breaks, but *must be completed within five seconds of timer going off*

I think that covers it. And lord, I need a lie-down just thinking about it.

Because it’s Friday I:

• am enjoying peach iced tea instead of just water
• splurged on breakfast with:
  • a slice of raisin rosemary rye bread with a smear of cream cheese
  • a banana pineapple frappe
    (blend: 1 banana, 1/2 c pineapple juice, 1.5 t honey, 1 T buttermilk; serve over ice & garnish with mint)
• am indulging in feeling persecuted at work
• am letting myself make all the lists I like

I also:

• baked last night (the aforementioned bread)
• am still dreaming of cats, and bicycles, and tiny houses, and hidden passageways
• want to go home

Browsing my library’s online catalog, I see they keep not one but five copies of the Pillow Book movie. Which shouldn’t surprise me as it’s all arty and what-not, but I was introduced to it from the ‘omg there’s nudity heehee!’ angle, so.

In addition to the many things it does have, my library does not have:

• Secrets of a Jewish Baker
• Season 2 of Cowboy Bebop

Interlibrary loan, however, can provide me the former. And probably the latter, come to think of it, but I haven’t yet checked.

These days I wake up — awake. As awake as you can expect to be six seconds after opening your eyes. Happy to be moving. Purposeful. Ready to act. And I step into this office and I can just feel it all shutting down, all the switches flicking off. Everything going dead and dull. And I’ve known it for a long time but still it makes me wistful, makes me sigh a little. It’s something my day never quite recovers from. I come home from the long dreadful boredom and want only to crawl into bed and sleep. Lifeless little sloth girl.

Today I:

Got up at 5:45.

Met Jo at Yum! for breakfast. It was gorgeous. The inside is really nice and filled with all sorts of delicious-looking things. We had a vegetable quiche that was creamy and delicious in this perfect flaky buttery crust, with fresh fruit (including pineapple, mmm), and an applesauce oatmeal scone, and a cinnamon pull-apart, which reminded me of the monkeybread Mrs. Bobzien used to make us some mornings, only Yum! has this gorgeous thick frosting on and I think Mrs. B did more of a glaze/icing thing.

Made cards. Giggled quite a lot.

Went to Ikea with my mom and sister and nephew. Tried the new chocolate bread pudding, which was surprisingly pretty good. Snagged a low tv stand in their as-is area; stand is now functioning as a pretty shoe rack in my front closet.

Bought birthday gifts for my little cousin. Lusted after the fantastic storybook-associated puppet sets which were, alas, about three times my price range.

Ran into my across-the-hall neighbor coming back from shopping and was unexpectedly gifted a gorgeous antique-looking chair. White with claw feet and an elaborate back and a white brocade cushion. Chatted with him (the neighbor, not the chair) about cycling and anime and the other neighbors. Found myself telling him something unexpected and having to bite my tongue to keep myself from asking him not to repeat it, as M— doesn’t know.

Read Indian cookbooks until I was dizzy. Ate an entire zucchini and, later, an orange. There is no pleasure like skinning a whole fruit and eating it raw.

Steph’s coming to visit meeee. ::wriggle::

So this entry is just an easy place for us to stick things we think of to do before we forget them. (Steph – feel free to edit the entry itself.)

Edit: And I’m going to keep changing the date so it remains the second post, so it’s easy to find.

Read the rest of this entry »

Things I do not like:

• oysters (salty salty salty & like chewing on a bit of slick pliable rubber)
• shrimp (cold shrimp, at least, has this sort of chewy, muscley, curdy texture that’s sorta revolting)
• having to cut things out of my holiday plans (like crocheted gift projects & gingerbread houses)
• the idea that I may not be able to justify the expense of the internet at home
• paper cuts & dry skin

Things I do like:

• my new apartment (I move 1/1!)
• my imminent raise (effective 1/1!)
• space heaters (currently toastifying my toes!)
• steal-cut oats (currently cuddlifying my tummy!)

Giles finally died sometime yesterday. I worry it might be because I didn’t feed him Friday or Saturday (and forgot to ask my fam to do it), and then made up for it a little on Sunday. Though he’s been looking old and droopy lately. Perhaps he’s another casualty of my over-stressed fall. (Salome too has been looking a little droopy and alarmingly crunchy. I am attempting to revive her, and hope there’s enough life left for her to come back around, because she’s only just started producing blossoms in the last year, and they were delightful — beautiful with a delicate, spicy scent. I would be quite sad to never see them again.)

I’m getting a headset for my phone at work. I got to pick out any one in the whole world, so I’m quite excited to find out tomorrow if it’s as nice as the price tag suggests it ought to be. Hopefully it’ll make the neverending phone trees at the annuity companies less irritating. I don’t so much mind sitting on hold so long as I’ve already made contact with a real person. Which…makes sense, since it’s the difference between waiting while someone sorts out your problem/question, and waiting to even get to tell it to someone.

Anyway. The apartment rocks. It’s in a small complex — just two buildings with five units each, built in the 40s. It’s full of charm, and the person before the current tenants painted it beautifully. The kitchen is yellow, the living room this lovely burgundy, the little hallway between the bedroom and the bathroom teal. I’m quite excited about the prospect of decorating — though less excited about the prospect of how much it’s going to cost to furnish the place, as I don’t have a couch or a dining set or — well, I’ve got hardly anything. A bed, a dresser, a desk, a bookshelf, an armchair. Ikea here I come.