This isn't technically a book blog, and yet...

... be prepared for Life After Work to feature a lot more book reviews next year. After all, you *do* know books/reading are an important part of my life, in addition to the food and random navel-gazing that also gets featured here, right? LoL!

You may remember that I recently signed up for the 2011 Stephen King Challenge; while I had the time, I dropped by to visit the other participants, sometimes leaving a comment, often just lurking :)

During one of those visits, I stumbled across another reading challenge that I figured I might as well sign up for: Midnight Book Girl's 2011 Read Me, Baby, 1 More Time Challenge!


If you were paying attention, you'd know that the main reason I signed up for the Stephen King Challenge was because I was going to be rereading the Dark tower series anyway. Key word being REreading. Which is the focus of Midnight Book Girl's challenge. And having the same book cater to other challenges is fine, so wheee! :)

In 2011, I anticipate reading at least all 7 Dark Tower books, and Three talisman-related books: The Talisman, Black House, and The Eyes of the Dragon. That totals 10: already the Back to The Future level of the challenge! Whee! Count me in!

Sadly, these may be the only books I do read next year, or even for a long long time: come June 2011, it's going to be a busy time for me, what with hopefully getting fully licensed as a Massage Therapist *and* having a major life event anticipated to occur right about then too.

Fun times, fun times.

Stick around and cheer me on, k? :)

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feedor subscribing via email. I'm on Twitter too!

Merry Christmas!

Did you know?

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.

Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.

...shoulda known... ONLY women would be able to drag a fat-ass man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

And on that note: for those who celebrate, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Image credit: Happy Christmas Santa by Kurhan

2010 Book Round-up & The Stephen King Challenge 2011

I will be participating in The Stephen King Challenge 2011!! More about that at the end of this post. First, here's a round-up of books read in 2010:

Unfortunately, this year has NOT been much of a reading year for me. According to my entries on GoodReads, I have only read 28 books this year. Only. Last year I logged 35 (also a bad year); contrast that to 2006 where I consumed 80. I have a good reason though... starting that Massage Therapy certification program really sucked A LOT of my time and energy away from books (and no, I'm not going to log my text books here, although I guess that would add at least two more: Trail Guide to the Body Book and A Massage Therapist's Guide to Pathology)(but it doesn't explain the dry spell in the first half of the year either, shhhh!)

So here's my tally for 2010:

Many of this year's were re-reads:

1. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
2. Grave Peril - Jim Butcher (I was going to reread the entire Harry Dresden series, but kinda got bored here :p oops!)
   
3. The First Betrayal - Patricia Bray
4. The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (a "reread" b/c I listened to the audiobook version this time around, and had Kosh listen in too, during some long-distance driving.)
5. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

I had some serious, non-fiction books too:

6. NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children - Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
7. On Writing - Stephen King
8. Who Moved My Illusion?: Discover The Secrets Of The Mover, The Moved, And The Moving - David Cain
9. Energy Medicine for Women: Aligning Your Body's Energies to Boost Your Health and Vitality - Donna Eden
10. Energy Medicine: Balancing Your Body's Energies for Optimal Health, Joy, and Vitality - Donna Eden


And my usual fantasy fare mixed with some random regular fiction, Buffy graphic novels, and a horrendous foray into the realm of paranormal romance fantasy thingy (gag!):

11. The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 Vol. 1)
12. No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 Vol. 2)
13. Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 vol. 3)
14. The Testament of Gideon Mack - James Robertson
15. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
16. The Tower of Solitude - Valerio Massimo Manfredi
17. Nothing To Lose (Jack Reacher Series, #12) - Lee Child
18. The Book of Fathers - Miklós Vámos
19. Night Pleasures (Dark-Hunter, #1) - Sherrilyn Kenyon
20. The Colorado Kid - Stephen King
21. U R - Stephen King
22. Burn Me Deadly - Alex Bledsoe
23. Horizon (The Sharing Knife, #4) - Lois MacMaster Bujold
24. The Sword-Edged Blonde - Alex Bledsoe
25. The Girls with Games of Blood - Alex Bledsoe
26. Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson
27. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury (audiobook)
    
28. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen

Yes, I went through quite a few of Alex Bledsoe's works this year :)

As usual, you can find my ratings and reviews over at GoodReads, so click on over and enjoy! (I'm not sure, do you need to be my friend in order to easily access my reviews? if so, feel free to do so, just please drop me a line saying how you found me, k?)

.... and now, back to The Stephen King Challenge 2011 I started this post with


According to wikipedia, As of 2010, Stephen King has written and published 49 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, five non-fiction books, and nine collections of short stories: I count at least 37 that I have read.

I do not recall the first book of his that I read, but I do know the one that made the biggest impression: IT!! I still remember reading it back when I was in Form 3 (I had bought it for my brother's birthday but he wasn't to read it until he was done with his exams so I went ahead and read it first ... couldn't put it down,,, but my oh my, I was reading it in bed in the dead of night and I could have SWORN Pennywise was under my bed, ready to grab me if I dared dangle my feet over the side, if I wanted to go pee... I was terrified!

Loved The Stand (got the revised version as a gift in college), and remember laughing out loud at a short story where the protagonist realises "OMG I'm watching a vampire pee" :)

I remember squealing in joy when I discovered Wizard and Glass on the bookshelves, and proceeded to buy and consume all four (then available) Dark Tower books, so thirsty was I for Roland, his ka-tet, and the Man In Black.

My long-distance romance with Kosh featured the then-newly-released Wolves of the Calla.

When I was done with Book 7 of the Dark Tower series, I bitterly, grudgingly acknowledged that Mr King probably could not have "ended" it any other way. Kosh on the other hand felt angry and cheated: I totally understand!

In the meantime, I've been rather unimpressed with Mr King's more recent works. “Cell” was an insipid rehash of The Stand. Then there was Lisey's Story (thanks, Zuzu!) that I could barely get through. I picked up The Colorado Kid only because I wanted to know just how much of the book was reflected in the SyFy series (hardly). Under the Dome sounded like the plot of The Simpsons Movie. The title Full Dark, No Stars sounds interesting, but I've not bothered to find out what it's about.

And this brings us to the end of 2010. Just a few weeks ago I was telling Kosh that it's high time I reread the Dark Tower series. Just today I realise that I last read them through back when Book 7 came out, way back in 2005. That's over five years ago. Ummm, yeah, high time.

Then I find out from Sezin that there's this Stephen King Challenge 2011 organized by Book Chick City, where participants will read and review 6, or 12, or more of Mr King’s works.

Heh. The Dark Tower series alone will get me to 7 ... and I intend to (re)visit a few of the DT-related books (The Talisman, Black House, Desperation, The Regulators, some of the Richard Bachman short stories...) and would put me right past 12, and that's not including excursions into his more recent works, because, you know, I’d love for Stephen King to redeem himself in my eyes :D

But why join The Stephen King Challenge 2011? Well, just because I've read most of these books before, it doesn't mean I've reviewed / properly written about them. And I want to (re)read them anyway. So here I am, throwing my hat into the ring of The Stephen King Challenge 2011.

Won't you join me?

(Tinyurl for this post: http://tinyurl.com/27v6q96)

Please pardon my language, but...

So you know how back in December 2008 I started a malaysian abroad (and later another blog too) at today.com for the promise of getting some moolah for the blogging I was doing anyway? They paid well enough, then changed their terms and didn't pay well anymore and alienated many members in the process, but I stuck with them, cutting them lots of slack... then out of the blue they moved domains to blogdog.com -- how ugly a domain name is that?? -- and I decided not to join them there. We parted ways amicably. I specifically asked that my email addy be removed from all administration emails (i.e. so that comment moderation requests wouldn't continue to be sent to me in the faint chance that someone would do so); they said it was done. That was back in June 2010.

Fast forward five months. I wanted to look up an old post of mine, and whaddaya know, NOTHING is available online anymore... the blogdog domain doesn't even look taken... wtf??

Fast forward another month... All of a sudden, this is my inbox:
click to embiggen

Un-fucking-believable.

Earlier this morning I sent a polite message to support at both domains asking what was going on and to please fix it.

Now it looks like I need to escalate this to WordPress.

Ugh.

Any other ex-today.commers having this problem?

Foody Friday: the butternut squash edition!

Last month I noticed bags of fresh cranberries on sale, and impulsively grabbed one. Then weeks passed, and I still had no idea what to do with it. So I went a-huntin' for cranberry ideas, and found this Butternut Squash Apple Cranberry Bake recipe that seemed simple enough for me. Once I prepared that, however, I ended up with quite a bit of leftover butternut squash, which I decided to make into "fries". I also decided to process the seeds. All in not just one day, but in one friggin' morning.

Procrastination *is* a wonderful thing, isn't it?

(butternut squash & seeds)

Here are the details:

1. Butternut Squash Apple Cranberry Bake
Pretty much followed the instructions, except, since I had so much of 'em, I used a whole cupful of cranberries LoL! It could probably do with a sprinkling of nuts; another improvement would be to dice the squash into much tinier pieces: the 1" chunks were a little too large and overpowering, and I tired of the taste really fast - Kosh ended up eating most of it.

2. Butternut Squash Fries
I thick-sliced the remaining squash into a mixing bowl, then poured a generous amount of oil over them and mixed to coat all surfaces. Then I liberally sprinkled ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg into the bowl and mixed 'em up again. Didn't need to spray the pan/foil because I'd been generous with the coating oil. Followed the instructions about turning them over twice, and putting the heat down at the last stage. This did not come out good at all, they were soggy, unappetizing. Shoulda puréed them and made a soup or something instead.

3. Roasted Butternut Squash Seeds
I was surprised: I got about a half cup of seeds from this one squash. Separating the seeds from the membranes was ... interesting: can you believe it actually strained my thumb a little? LoL!! I probably wouldn't have bothered with the seeds at all except that I'd already had the oven going for the previous two dishes, so why not just keep going? Waste not, want not, right? Thing is, just a few minutes after popping the tray of seeds into the uppermost rack of the oven, it sounded like I had some popcorn going in there ... the seeds were popping/exploding, and the shells were starting to litter the bottom of the oven! Yikes! So I took 'em out well before the minimum 10 minutes! Thankfully, they were nice and crunchy, and worth the mess in the oven :)

... so there you have it ... a cranberry adventure turned into a butternut squash excursion instead. Two out of three were edible - according to Meat Loaf, that ain't bad :)

Gobble gobble, foil and (apple) crumble...

... turkey turn and casserole bubble?



Here's wishing everyone in -- or of -- the USA a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!


(with apologies to William Shakespeare, LoL!)

Foody Friday Sunday: recycled meatloaf! (Part Two)

Last week I blogged about how I recycled some of my leftover meatloaf by wrapping biscuit dough around strips of the stuff. Today I'll share my other recycle strategy: QUICHE!

As always, a good place to start for getting proportions right is 1 Blog & 2 Sides' Quiche recipe that I discovered almost two years ago.

Here's what I did:

Warm up and unroll 1 deep dish unbaked pie shell. Place it in your pie dish. I have a nice glass one now, whee! Preheat the oven to 450F. Generously prick the bottom and sides of the crust with a fork. Place in heated oven for 6-8mins, to get the crust slightly cooked. Remove immediately, and let cool.

Reset oven to 350F.

Sprinkle bottom of the pie with some cheese.

Add a layer of well-drained diced tomatoes.

Sprinkle chopped fresh basil.

Add another thin layer of cheese.

Crumble leftover meatloaf into the pie.


In a separate bowl whisk together 6 eggs and 1 cup of half-and-half, and pour carefully over the pie contents (the portions this time were perfect! Filled to the rim without spilling!!). Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.


Pop it into the oven for about 45mins. The quiche was nice and puffy when I took it out, but soon fell once it cooled.

If you're not sure about doneness, you can use a toothpick, or stick a thermometer in there (mine shot up past 160F so fast I figured it was fine!).

Let it cool a little before gorging. It could have done with perhaps more egg/less half-and-half, but the excellent cheese mixture more than made up for any slight lack of egginess.


Bon appetit!

Here's a proper list of ingredients:

• 1 deep dish unbaked pie shell
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups grated cheese (I used Kraft's Italian Five Cheese with a touch of Philadelphia Cream Cheese creaminess)
• 1 can diced tomatoes (I used Ro-Tel's hot with habañeros)
• 3 leaves of fresh basil, chopped fine
• 1 thick slice of leftover meatloaf, crumbled

The beauty about such a dish is you can totally mix it up and chances are you can't go wrong. Just need to keep an eye on the volume so you won't overfill the pie. Gonna try this out? Take pix, blog about it, and come tell me in a comment here, k?

Have a great week ahead!

Foody Friday: recycled meatloaf! (Part One)

So last week I shared my latest meatloaf experiment. That was a lot of meatloaf, and I grew tired of it really fast, despite it being really pretty good! So by the time Wednesday rolled around, I knew we had to run through the rest of the leftovers quick!

Notice the thick vein of cheese in the meatloaf? Yummmmmmm!



Recycle #1: Meatloaf biscuits

1 can Pillsbury simply buttermilk biscuits (10 biscuits)
2 thick slices of leftover meatloaf, each cut into 5 strips

One at a time, flatten a biscuit to about a 6 inch diameter
Place the strip of meatloaf in the middle

Fold it up

Place seam down on an ungreased cookie tray (I always line with foil because I hate cleaning up burned stuff!), and cook as per the biscuit instructions (I think it was 350F for 20mins)

Verdict? Here I quote my hubby who finally tried some last night: "Oh my god babe these are GOOD!" :)

Part Two will feature Recycle #2: Spicy meatloaf & tomato quiche. I'm about to get cracking on that now. Will update either tomorrow or next week. Stay tuned!

Foody Friday: another meatloaf variation

Hey hey hey, this is my first Foody Friday installment in a long long time! And what do I feature but that old versatile favorite, MEATLOAF! The one you pop in the oven and eat, not the one you (well, *i*) listen to, LoL!

About a year ago I talked about my turkey/soy flaxseed meatloaf experiment, which ended up a little oily/slimy. I'm sure I've revisited it since then yet I have no recollection of doing so. Anyhoo, yesterday I decided to whip up some meatloaf, à la lynne, of course.

Here's what I used:

1 packet Jewel Onion Soup mix
½ cup milled flaxseed
½ cup instant oatmeal
2 raw eggs
¼ cup hot bbq sauce from Lil Porgy's
¼ cup sweet vidalia onion relish
¼ cup diced celery
1 can petite diced tomatoes with green chiles, undrained

1 packet Morningstar Farms fake ground beef
1.25 lb ground turkey

1 cup shredded cheese (I used mexican fiesta blend)

Instructions:

Mix the first 3 ingredients well in a (very) large bowl, then add the subsequent 5 ingredients. Mix well.

Add the meat & fake meat, mix well.

Slop about half into an aluminum foil-lined loaf pan, press down well.

Spread the cheese on the meat mixture in the pan.

Fill in the rest of the meat mixture, making sure to mash everything in well, I think that helps reduce the crumbliness of the cooked product.

Pop it in the oven (preheated to 350F) for what turned out to be about 1.5 hours. I got the internal temperature to 150+F, ideally it should have gotten to 160F but it had been cooking so long I didn't want it to dry out. Perhaps I should have upped the overall temp to compensate for the greater volume of stuff I put in there!

And here's the finished product:

MmmMmmmMMmmmMmm cheeeeeeeeeeese!

It was cheesy with a bit of a bite thanks to the chiles *and* bbq sauce: delicious!

It was also rather crumbly,
but this usually improves once it cools / is in the leftover stage

Here's what I would do differently next time:

• Mix the cheese in with the other dry/wet ingredients, which was what I had meant to do but forgot until I had already dumped half the mixture into the pan :p
• Look into what makes a good binder: I like not using nutritionally-worthless breadcrumbs, I wonder if I could just up the oatmeal used?

I enjoyed this experiment. Tell me if you try this out for yourself, k?

Have a great weekend!

It's been almost 2 months!

My oh my, can you believe it's been over 2 months since my last *real* post here? (the Hey Soul Sister and F--k Me Ray Bradbury ones were mostly filler). Poor poor poor neglected Life after Work!

Although... I might be needing to rebrand this blog since in theory I'll no longer be a jobless bum starting next summer... in case you're not following me on Twitter or friends with me on Facebook, let me share with you the biggest change in my life right now: I am training to be a Massage Therapist!!



Classes started in late August, and right now it's midterm exam season, which has me freaked out not because of the exams per se but because that means we're already halfway thru the first of two semesters... that means I'm already 25% through the program! A little scary :p

There are only 5 of us in the class: it's smaller than the organizers hoped, but it's great for us since we benefit from the much more personalised interaction, whether student/student or student/instructor.

We're learning Anatomy & Physiology ("the human body and how it works"), Pathology ("things that go wrong in the body"), and Kinesiology ("the body in motion") in addition to the actual hands-on practice: so far we've done Swedish Massage, Chair Massage, and are halfway through Sports Massage modalities. We are totally struggling with one topic in particular, one that's deemed a gone-case "necessary evil" that just can't be taught in an interesting manner: I think the defeatist mindset isn't helping!!



The course has had more than its share of hiccups, though: we *are* the guinea pig batch, however, so some of it is to be expected. Sadly, we lost the bestest instructor ever (don't ask), though, and his replacements (yes, plural) fall way short. Such a pity. Hopefully things'll get better over time..?!

My Springfield tweeps & pals have been benefitting from my kneading (haha) to practice on a variety of body types :) I'm supposed to practice keeping my full-body massages to an hour, but that timing tends to go out the window because I'd rather my intention be to help/heal rather than "to squeeze it all into an hour", y'know?



Borrowing one of the massage tables from class for use at home has been quite the pain, though: "portable" my a$$! Just because it folds and fits into a carry case doesn't mean it isn't heavy, bulky and friggin awkward to lug up/down stairs or fit in/out the car! So today I'm taking the plunge and buying a table of my own (probably this one: Earthlite Avalon XD Portable Massage Table Package .. free shipping from amazon!!): a decent table costs a pretty penny, but it should easily pay for itself once I am licensed and can charge for massages!

I've also been spending a small fortune on creams/lotions to use for the massage:

• There's an "all-natural Herbal Muscle Rub" by Afterthought Farms [available Saturdays & Wednesdays at the Farmers Market], $10 for 2-2.5 oz. It's really strong (the camphor!), could be a touch creamier, I tend to use a lot of it at a time.
• Then there's the Zum Rub brand of salves/balms, available at Food Fantasies for $8 for 2.5oz. I really liked the understated scent of the clove-mint one, but when I ran out it was no longer on the shelves :( So I bought tea tree-citrus instead: it too has a mild understated smell, and glides on nicely.

But compare those prices with $32/32oz or $10/8oz for the stuff we use in class! Yikes! Sorry local businesses but I think I'll be buying the much cheaper ones off of the 'net/catalogs: even with added shipping charges it still comes out way cheaper!

Hope this update helps to tide y'all over somewhat... I will continue to blog, no doubt about that, but just know that it's going to be rather erratic! So if you haven't already, how about subscribing? :)

Cheers!

Photo credit:
massage by grietgriet from morguefile.com
skeletal system via wikipedia

My latest ear- (and eye-) worm!

[warning: the video and song are NSFW!]

For the longest time, I've loved fantasy books, but hated fantasy movies, because the special effects were so cheesy. Then LOTR came and changed everything. Now fantasy movies are a dime a dozen, and all too many are low of story and high on special effects (*cough*StarWarsEpI-IIi*cough*). At the same time, I enjoyed what could be considered sci-fi movies, but never really did get into the books. ... but I *do* know the name Ray Bradbury.

And after listening to and watching this video over and over and over and over again...



... I might want to pick up a book or three from this list :) I *have* listened to an unfortunately abridged audiobook of Fahrenheit 451: does that count for anything? :p

In the meantime, I have yet to hit the hay (it's now 11:30am... I stumbled upon this song over 2 hours ago, when I made the mistake of checking twitter before turning in for the day... it's all Neil Gaiman's fault!!) because I keep listening to this song over and over and over... if Rachel Bloom ever makes an MP3 available, it is getting downloaded faster than you can say F--k me, Ray Bradbury!!

Music Monday: Hey Soul Sister

There is something just *so* infectious about this song: hit play, and tell me if you can stop at just one listen :)



The song is Hey Soul Sister by the group Train.

Every time the "Hey hey, hey hey hey hey" and the plinking of the (banjo?) come on the radio I just *have* to turn it up and (try to) sing along (I am rather ashamed to admit I've yet to wrap my head around all the lyrics... getting old lah...)

Speaking of lyrics, you can find them here.



Enjoy!

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the actual post link here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

Musical Interlude: The Rasmus

I know I know, I've not continued with my Cat Tales ... I will, I will... but in the meantime I thought I'd share something that's got me kinda irritated at myself ... You see, back during a difficult time in my life, I was vacationing in Switzerland and happened to be in a place (NOT my grandmother's obviously, LoL!) that had not just a tv, but cable, and I had MTV on ... There were four songs songs/videos that were played over and over and over...

• Clocks by Coldplay - never liked it, much to Kosh's dismay, LoL!
  
• Some dance number by some european rapper or dj - I really liked it, surprising myself b/c that music's not really my style (obviously I didn't like it enough to remember it tho, despite having the CD b/c my brother actually went out of his way to hunt it down, LoL!)
• Heyya by OutKast - somehow the song didn't click with me then, but I remember the "shake it like a polaroid picture" part of the vid! Love the song now, can't help but sway and sing along, right?
  
• In the Shadows by The Rasmus - there was something about this song that so resonated with me, I know I pretty much stopped whatever I was doing whenever this song came on, and just let it wash over me ...

... so here's the irritating thing ... a pal posted this video on FB:



but it's not the version I remember ... I think the bank heist storyline would have detracted from the song, frankly, so I'm glad Swiss/European MTV wasn't playing that version ... wanting to refresh my memory for the version I DID know, I looked around for the other version ... turns out there are THREE versions. That bank heist one is known as the Bandit version, and was their first, Finnish video.

Next came the Crow version:


Hmmmm.... not quite familiar (wouldn't I have remembered the feathers growing out their arms?), so I moved on to the third one, the Mirror version:



TOTALLY unfamiliar. I'm sure I would have remembered the overlapping timelines and Take On Me similarity of being pulled into an alternate world.

So I guess I did watch the Crow version. I'm just a bit disconcerted about not remembering it better. Like I said, this song totally resonated with me at the time. I also love music videos, although by this time (2003) I hardly saw any anymore. Having totally loved In The Shadows, I went ahead and bought The Rasmus' Dead Letters album, which had In the Shadows, and TWO other majorly-talking-to-me songs: In My Life and Time to Burn.

Enjoy! And have a gr8 weekend!

Cat Tweets: the recent cat saga (Part One)

About a month ago, followers on twitter and friends on facebook were treated to rants, whines and frustration surrounding the naranek cat...

For example:

... that's right: the cat was having major pee issues again ... before I left for my 3-week trip to Malaysia/Singapore, she had already been having issues, but due to the small volume of pee per 'accident' we figured it was a UTI... brought her to the vet who took our word for it because they couldn't extract anything from her bladder to test! We had trouble getting her to consume the liver-flavored antibiotic pills, so we decided to halve her dry food and see if she would then eat the 'spiked' canned food.

Combine the food deprivation with the upside-down schedule due to Dr Kosh's vampiric hours and resulting lack of attention given to the cat, and the medical condition transformed into a behavioral one. By the time I got back, she was peeing in the bathroom (but not in her box) on a regular basis. Like, daily.

Then she expanded her horizons to the kitchen: right by the kitchen/back door... and...

... yes, she peed IN one of her food bowls (we had a few interim bowls lying around, because one of the fixes suggested is to put her food where she tends to pee... ummmm, didn't *quite* work for her!!). ... and then, horror of horrors...

(fyi a month later and I *still* haven't found a replacement!!)

Limiting the cat to just the bathroom -- and allowing her out only if she was with one of us / under supervision -- would limit the damage she could inflict on us .... but hubby wasn't keen on 'punishing' the cat... then...


Kosh and I were mega stressed-out by all this... and this didn't help either:



... have things gone back to normal now? Stay tuned, I'll tell you more in Part Two!

looking for four-leaf clovers by Archimedes' twin circles

Thanks to karl for some blog fodder during my dry spell! This time around it's the Album Cover Meme! Here's mine:

(good thing I don't do art / design album covers for a living, eh?)

I've seen this meme before and had tried it, but couldn't in good conscience use an image that was all rights reserved... and this time around it was the same but I SO wanted to do this, so I fudged rule #3 and kept hitting refresh until the third photo on the page was something I could use. Pity, because the first image was SO appropriate... oh well!!

Wanna play along? Here are the rules:
1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random”
or click en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
[Mine = Archimedes' twin circles]

2 – Go to “Random quotations”
or click http://www.randomquotes.org/
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
[Mine = looking for four-leaf clovers]

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
[Image used: "GT2 RS - Explored # 131 -" by Lucian Bickerton via a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license]

4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.


Participating? Drop me a link in the comments and I'll be happy to drop by and see what you came up with!! :)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

What's this Phrase?

I saw this on Patricia's Subjective Soup blog and decided not just to take a crack at it, but to publish my effort too :)

1. 26 L. of the A.
2. 88 P. K.
3. 18 H. on a G. C.
4. 4 Q. in a G.
5. 13 S. on the A. F.
6. 7 W. of the W.
7. 24 H. in a D.
8. 9 D. in a S. S. N.

9. 99 R. B.

I have easily identified 6 out of 8 so far, while the first two still have me stumped for the moment (will provide answers in the comments below)... and in case you were keeping track, #9 is one I added on myself. Kinda lame, I know :p

If you are also playing along, drop by the comments with a link to your post, k?

Have a great weekend!

this just in:

Remember the content thief?

I just got an email from the folks at Live Journal:

Thank you for your report. Upon investigation, we have permanently suspended this account for violations of the Terms of Service.

Cool!

Thank you, Live Journal!

hair's to you, Mrs Naranek!

Among the many suspected aggravators of my itchies and scratchies is my hair, because so many times I end up with my upper back/shoulders weltified, pretty much the area that my hair would have access to. It being summer and all, I decided to test my theory. I have been threatening to shave it all off, but figured that would make my round face even rounder! So I went for a "long angled bob with some layers".

Here are before and after shots of...

front

... did you know that if you're a friend of mine on FB, you can see the "front" pix w/o the smiley? :D And if you vaguely remember my doing a before/after post already, you're right! See: My head feels lighter... ... moving on...

side


back



Overall, it's not exactly what I wanted (that's not layered, is it?), but is definitely good enough for now; when it's time to refresh it in say 2 months' time, I'll see if I can get something like this instead (but with a drastic/pronounced angled-to-the-front bit). (probably should have had the front ending half an inch longer - oh well!).

Either way -- at least now the back of my neck and upper back/shoulders can breathe! We'll see if this translates into fewer hives back there.

should I be flattered? can those who've faced this pls weigh in?

It's finally happened to me.

I just found that one of my posts from Life After Work has been reproduced on someone else's blog! See MY POST, then see THE IMITATOR! Apart from a few words that have been changed/substituted (and very poorly), it's all mine!!

I intended to leave a comment calling the author out on this, and asking for an immediate takedown of the post. But I would need to get an OpenID or LiveJournal account first. Ugh.

I started to lodge a complaint with LiveJournal, but felt the default language/steps I am guided through to report intellectual property / copyright violation rather drastic so I canceled the process... and yet... this IS a case of copyright violation, isn't it?

What should I do, and how?
I remember reading of things like this happening to other bloggers, but am not up for perusing the 'net for solutions right now... so if you're among those who have had this happen to you, please weigh in.. your input is appreciated!

miserable

Sorry for the blog(s) silence... I'm battling my what seems to be kinda seasonal attack of the hives... We have yet to find ourselves an internist / main doc let alone an allergist, so I'm just using what worked in the past, but doesn't seem to be doing much right now, hence this post's title.

This was me about 2 weeks ago: just call me Lynne Dax??!*

* that's a ST:DS9 reference, in case you didn't get it

I have attacks on different parts of the body, depending on the phase of the moon or something. Occasionally I wake up with one finger or the other swollen such that I can't quite make a closed fist without discomfort. Or over the course of the day my belly, or back, or inner thighs, get covered in welts that of course get angry as I scratch at them...

.. I thought I had found a temporary solution: we all know that calamine lotion is the go-to anti-itch lotion, but I really didn't want to deal with the chalky flakiness. Then my sil introduced me to this clear anti-itch gel that functions like calamine lotion, but goes on clear. Its main active ingredient is 1% analgesic, so it gently numbs you just a wee bit... worked well for me when we were visiting with her last week. So well, that before heading back to Springfield, we got a bottle of the stuff for ourselves.

Turns out that there's generic, and then there's generic.

My sil had the Safeway brand generic (from Dominick's, if I'm not mistaken); we happened to drop by a Jewel-Osco and got their Equaline equivalent. The 'original' branded product is Caladryl Anti-Itch Lotion.

Guess who seems to be reacting to the Equaline product??!!

*sigh*

but again in an inconsistent manner... I slathered some on the instep of one foot and on a forearm but there wasn't a noticeable reaction... but for example this morning I slathered some on my belly and in the underwear region and omg you should see it now! Or rather, be glad I didn't snap a pic.

ugh

no more BP for me!

Remember the Brent Spar debacle? I didn't land firmly on either side of the battle, but it did put the environment vs oil&gas companies in a back burner in my mind.

A few years later, Shell (in Malaysia, anyway) came up with a new formulation for their petrol ('gas' to you Americans!) and started a really off-putting Vrooom Power campaign. How off-putting? So off-putting (the way they said "Vroom pah-wah" grated on my nerves so much just thinking about it now still raises my blood pressure!) that I stopped using Shell petrol altogether and started going with the local Petronas petrol instead.

Then my life journey brought me to the U.S., and I eased up on the "no Shell" stance... until late 2008 when we ran into a bad product and atrocious customer service for a product that fell under the Shell group of companies. Kosh was so incensed by it all that he called for a household boycott of all things Royal Dutch Shell.

I was amused at how these things happen... it's as if Shell was destined to not be my oil&gas company of choice!

... and then ...


...and then came BP ...

Ever since they rebranded themselves to stand for Beyond Petroleum, I'd always cut them more slack than other O&G companies out there, kinda buying into their image building propaganda of an environmentally responsible company... but then came April 20th 2010 and the Deepwater Horizon blowout which now has the dubious record of being the largest offshore spill and biggest environmental disaster in the U.S.

... and over a month later IT'S STILL NOT FIXED?!!!
In fact, fix after fix fails to stem the flow of oil gushing out of the well, while Mother Nature gets cloaked more and more in a layer of filthy chocking oil.

and now hurricane season is about to begin ...

... while the high winds and choppy water can help accelerate the biodegradation process required to get the oil out of there, what *I* see happening is the oil getting spread into an even wider area than it already is in. This will come to include land as well, remember!

The damage already incurred, and impending, is horrendous!

[clap] [clap] [clap] [clap]

way. to. go. BP.

Hopefully my action steps will be more effective:

• No more gas purchases from BP.
• Heck, no more visits just to the convenience stores that are part of the BP gas stations either!

You hear that, BP?

I am cutting you out of my life.

It's the least I can do to you for the damage you have wrought upon my Mother.

.... ... but before you ask: Kosh and I are not the typical American family with a gas guzzling vehicle each ... we have a 13 y.o. car with decent gas mileage ... unfortunately since moving to Springfield I find myself using the car more often than when in Chicago when I could use the L to get almost anywhere I needed ... but still ... we are way-below-average gas consumers ... and now that it's summertime we're going to use bikes more and the car less ... I consider myself NOT part of the problem that caused high demand that led to offshore drilling in order to satisfy said demand.

How about you?

image credit: epkes.com

squeee!

Thanks to blog buddy Kim I found out about Tarma Designs back in mid-February, and totally fell in want with their Om drop pendant...



... guess what was waiting for me in the mailbox when I got back from #bloodymarymafia today???

sometimes Kosh totally surprises me with stuff like this ... thanks hun!!

squeeeee!!!!

... and on that note: have a great weekend, everybody!

What I did on my (summer) vacation

Surely I'm not the only one who immediately thinks of this when someone mentions summer vacation? (and don't call me Shirley!)

On the first day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

On the second day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

On the third day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I got a job keeping people from hanging out in front of the drugstore.

On the fourth day of my summer vacation ...

If you're not sure what I'm referring to, check out Cheech & Chong's Sister Mary Elephant skit. I swear you'll never say "thank you" the same way ever again! :)

But back to *my* vacation... here's a quick of list of all the activities I crammed into three weekends in Malaysia and 2.5 days in Singapore:

• Fri 23rd: arrived; ran some personal errands
• Sat 24th: gatecrashed my mother's yoga class; gatecrashed my friend's mother's birthday party
• Sun 25th: late night coffee with Als
• Mon 26th: morning walk in the park; bought my BlueBerry phone; met with Mandy; bought tea & chili sauce to bring back
• Tues 27th: in the KLCC area for personal stuff plus Rachel's performance, and caught up with Rik as she and hubby gave me a ride back after the concert.
• Wed 28th: followed-up on phone-related issues; #chickenwingtwtup
• Thurs 29th: debilitated -- I blame dirty ice! Canceled appt with Lan as a result.
• Fri 30th: Coffee at Bangsar Shopping Center with Als and Mars in the evening, followed by meet-up with Chewbies and some of her friends at a mamak in the Bangsar Village area.
• Sat 1st: the ankle incident and hospital visit :(
• Sun 2nd: the reunion! 1 2 3
  
• Mon 3rd: hospital follow-up; impromptu massage/torture session with Sunny as my ride and co-victim!
• Tues 4th: dinner with Veya and Lan; joined by Baby Angel for coffee later.
• Wed 5th: lunch with St Marians Airnon, Ija, Sally and Rik; dinner with PWC: another St Marian, a long lost senior :)
• Thurs 6th: tea-time with Rachel
• Fri 7th: TK-217 photoshoot; foot spa; bbq beef ribs for lunch, ka-ROCK-k in the evening: hail St Marians!
• Sat 8th: breakfast with Veya; follow-up massage/torture session; mamak catch-up with Chewbies
• Sun 9th: follow-up with Mandy; tea with Zu
• Mon 10th: Singapore here I come! Many thanks to Moomykin for hosting me!
• Tues 11th: lunch with Prasana and Kin; tea with Lin; dinner with Connie & sig other.
• Wed 12th: pre-lunch with Bea and Kin; dinner with Kin's family; packpackpack!
• Thurs 13th: the LONG journey back to Springfield that started at 3am in Singapore, ended at 9pm in Springfield with the Woman in 5D incident.
  

Want some pix? If you're friends with me on Facebook, look for the MY2010 album!!

I'll be filling in the blanks and adding links back to this list, so if you're interested in my mundane minutiae and navel gazing, by all means please bookmark and revisit/refresh this page over the next week or so, k?

Ciao!

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BOH Seri Songket flavored teas

For many a year, boxes of BOH's Seri Songket flavored tea have served as handy buah tangans for relatives and friends in Switzerland and the USA, providing exotic teas in an exquisite bit of packaging. I'd not tasted any of these teas for myself, though, so this time around on my trip to Malaysia I made it a point to get me a few boxes of my own.

I picked three: Earl Grey with Tangerine; Passion Fruit; and Lime & Ginger; and have tasted two out of the three so far. According to Moomykin, the unlikely Lychee Rose combination is surprisingly good, so I'll grab that next time. Other flavors available in theory are Cinnamon; Clove & Cardamom; Mango; and Vanilla.

Review of the Seri Songket Passion Fruit flavored tea:

I've had this twice so far.

When you open the sachet, the smell/flavor is rather overpowering. But it all disappears when the teabag is steeped in hot water.

The first time, I used one bag to make 4 cups of tea. It seemed a touch watery, and tasted just like plain old black tea to me. They did say on the box that you need to sweeten the tea in order to get the flavors to emerge: a tablespoon of honey later, I guess some flavor did emerge, but overall I wasn't impressed.

However, I figured there was an easy way to jazz it up, based on my past chai experiments: the next time around I did all the same things as before, but added a pack of Equal and two sticks of cinnamon.

What a world of difference!
Even Kosh loved the impact of the cinnamon.

Review of the Seri Songket Lime and Ginger flavored tea

I have had this just once so far, in between the two passion fruit sessions above.

When I didn't get much of a whiff of anything much upon opening the shiny green sachet, I wondered if this too was going to taste just like plain old black tea too. I decided to go ahead and jazz it up pre-emptively: a nubbin of fresh ginger was grated and added to the container with the tea bag and freshly boiled water. A generous but not overwhelming amount of honey was used as sweetener.

The verdict? Well, it was certainly ginger-y!
Was there just a hint of lime in the background? ... perhaps... maybe next time I'll use just half a nubbin of ginger and see how it turns out.

So far, two out of three seem to require some jazzing up before being palatable. As such, I'm not that impressed with them. I'll qualify my future buah tangans with the recommendation to jazz it up a little. That goes for Jeanette too, who won a box of the Passion Fruit tea today.

... well at least now I know!

Disclaimer for the FTC: this review is 100% my own --unsolicited-- opinion.

To the woman in 5D

To the woman who was sitting in 5D on last night's much-delayed flight from Chicago O'Hare to Springfield IL:

I remember when no cell phone / electronic device use was allowed at all while on the airplane, whether in the air or on the tarmac.

Now, it seems as if the airlines bend over backwards to accommodate customers who insist on being connected at all times, who can't survive without their own music, who can't stand the thought of having quiet time to themselves, etc.

BUT there are specific times when use of such devices are utterly prohibited. Not just to show you who's boss, but for our own safety. Sure, the legendary 1995 incident of a laptop suspected of interfering with a 747's auto-pilot couldn't be replicated, but still... all electronic devices emit radio waves that potentially can interfere with the navigation equipment on board a plane... I'd rather be safe than sorry on this one: wouldn't you?

So when it's time to switch off your electronic devices before takeoff, it's not about the airlines inconveniencing you, it's about the SAFETY of everyone on board!

... and yet there you were, continuing to SMS/email on your BlackBerry even after the plane door had closed, and it was obvious you KNEW you were not supposed to be using the phone because you hid it under your arm as the stewardess made her rounds checking for safety compliance! And when your concerned neighbor finally pointed out that you should have the phone off you mumbled something and put the phone away WITHOUT TURNING IT OFF! How do I know this? Because IT STARTED RINGING... AND YOU ANSWERED THE BLOODY THING AS WE WERE TAXIING FOR TAKEOFF!! WHAT. THE. EFF!! I wouldn't be surprised if the phone was on the whole entire flight.

I was torn between confronting you directly and siccing the stewardess on you. In the end I took the let-it-all-boil-inside path, trusting that the odds were in our favor and that your selfish assininity wouldn't lead to 'complications'. Thankfully we all arrived in one piece, incident-free.

However, I humbly ask that in the future you inform me, somehow, whenever you know of when you'll be making other plane trips somewhere, anywhere... because as far as possible I'll plan my own trips around yours so that I have to share neither plane nor sky with you, ever again.

Like I said before, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

... not that you'd relate to that in any way ...

Yours sincerely,

*lynne naranek*

Images from MS Office clip art