So I've started to teach myself the Dvorak keyboard. I can feel my brain rewiring itself. It is the same feeling as language immersion but easier because a) it's much more finite b) I'm sitting. Also, it's less embarassing. Of course, it's taken three days just for these four sentences.

Happy Halloween, kiddies.

Tomorrow is Halloween. I don't know yet where I'm going to go to avoid trick-or-treaters. I might just break down and buy candy.

I know eminem is the trendsetter, but I had my black hoody first.

So a retreat just came back, and the grades are all in . . . I have to do a worksheet for tomorrow, but all together I find myself less than slammed. I hardly know what to do with myself.

Good news; I found all my music; it had been hiding somewhere in my computer. I thought I had lost it all, and I had been afraid to synch up my ipod for fear of losing it all.

I've been training myself on the dvorak keyboard. why? who knows.

Nethercutt is now airing a bloopers reel; a far cry from his original smear ads. I hope a week from now he's sitting at home in Spokane looking for a job.

Tonight was the lunar eclipse. It was fine.

I just did a pore strip. It was nice.

I can't wait to vote against Bush, and against I-83. Ok, back to work.

I have been slammed at work lately; grades due, retreats, etc.

Today I made hummus by hand. I had soaked the chickpeas on Saturday but didn't get to cook them until yesterday (Tuesday). Didn't have lemon juice, so instead of making a hummus that was lacking, I slapped on some plastic wrap and threw the chickpeas in the fridge. Finally tonight I got to them, I mashed them in a bowl with a potato masher. I added water and olive oil. I mashed the garlic on a board with some salt. I added the tahini and juiced a lemon. I also added diced lemon zest. Salt and pepper to taste. It tasted like meat, it was so good. It's the lemon that makes it good. Lemon is magic.

I woke up this morning with a tickle in my throat, so I know I'm getting sick. It was starting to hurt at work. I asked my colleague L for something herbal; she swears by the eight little black pills, but didn't have any on her. She did have some chewable vitamin C tasting echinacea tablets, which are basically placeboes, am I right? I called L on my way home to ask her what the eight little black pills were called, but she never got back to me. I did put a crap load of raw garlic in the hummus.

Actually, I felt a lot better after getting some congee at Ocean City Noodle Cafe. It was funny. I ordered pork and fish congee, but then the cook started yelling at my waiter; they argued for a while, and then finally the waiter came up to me and told me there was no pork left. I'm not sure what that was about but I absolutely do not believe that there was no pork left. So I agreed to chicken instead. The congee was delicious. I did find a small black bug in my spoon, which looked like it had been stewed, but I didn't complain. I just won't go there again. It's a shame, that was my favorite chinese noodle cafe. Hmph. I know I'll be back.

Today I learned how to burn CDs using itunes.

I had a dream that I was following my cousin F down a hallway in the mall, but I couldn't keep up with her due to the spider webs. I ended up getting stuck in a web. And then I woke up.

So the anti-monorail people have cheap ads made on power point. They've totally turned their campaign into ST vs. Monorail, which shows just how out of touch they are with Seattlites. I hate them.

So is Kerry going to win or what? I wouldn't mind Bush winning again, if he wasn't a total moron. I would have been more excited about Dean. Americans are so superficial.

hmph.

My cousin came over for lunch. We had chicken adobo, spinach and garlic, steamed rice, and grocery-store apple pie. During lunch she confessed to us that she wants to see Monster's Inc. on Ice. She convinced my sister that she made the pie from scratch, and that she used soy sauce.

Later she stood on her chair for no apparent reason.

Later still, my sister said very thoughtfully that she could not taste the soy sauce.

I wonder where my checkbook is . . . --jpv

I make it a point to not blog about students, but I heard this morning anouncement and I have to blog it.

"Della, are you a lesbian?"
"No David, I'm not."
"Then why do you go to those Gay/Straight Alliance meetings?"
"David! You don't have to be a lesbian to go to the Gay/Straight Alliance meeting!"

This cracked me up, made me happy all day.

So a Marine platoon refused to go on a dangerous mission. Good for them. COs aren't always right.

If the world is safer now that Saddam Hussein is caught, why are we still at yellow alert?

My friend J and her husband M have a theory that all Seattle local news programs are mandated to have at least one animal story every night. Today there were three.

1) there's a big fat oil spill in south Puget Sound near Tacoma. Call if you spot some slicked sea animals. I'm worried about the oysters!

2) two baby cougars whose mother was shot were fedexed to Memphis.

3) a brown bear that was eating garbage in the Centralia; after weeks of this, animal control showed up to tranquilize the bear and take it away. The news leaked out and a crowd formed. When the bear ran up a tree to escape the crowd, they shot the bear in the head. Now people are mad at animal control for killing it. They should be mad at their own dumb asses, for forming a crowd and spooking the bear. Dumbasses.

When I run for public office, I will put specific limitations on my attack ads. First of all, no announcer with a quivering, melodramatic rhetorical question meant to insinuate that the other candidate is lame. How middle school. If the other candidate is lame, my attack ad is going to say 'My opponent is lame.' Rhetorical question insinuations are for assholes. Seriously.

Second my attack ads will focus on my opponents actual faults; not on sound bites taken out of context meant to embarrass them in the eyes of the decadent and superficial voting public.

Of course, I'll lose the election, because the electorate is decadent and superficial.

Is it hillarious or what, the anger that the republicans show after Kerry brought up Cheney's lesbian daughter. I do wish he used her first name, but whatever. Here's the point: she is openly gay, and Kerry did not say anything controversial. So where does the anger come from? Duh. The republicans are embarrassed about Cheney's openly gay daughter.

How dare Kerry expose the Cheney family's homophobia! The nerve! My friend D has a theory that when complacent white americans are challenged in a way that they can't argue their way out of, they "resort to manners." How rude!

Once my friend was complaining about how Native Americans in Washington have a the right to collect shellfish from private property, due to a treaty signed over a hundred years ago. He said, yah, they should stop letting them collect shellfish; if it was my property, I'd shoot them.

So let's forget for a moment that white americans who own waterfront property are not there for the shellfish harvest; and let's put aside for now the fact that the vast majority of the waterfront property owners who are affected by the Native American harvest have arranged a personal understanding with the tribes in terms of their conduct on their properties. I didn't use those arguments on my exasperated republican friend. Instead, I just laughed and said that the United States of America is incapable of honoring a treaty with Native Americans. This country has no honor.

His response? You're rude! No, I'm not rude, son, you've just run out of arguement.

Bill O'Reilly is trying to say that the Andrea Mackris' sexual harrassment lawsuit is politically motivated, since her lawyer has donated to the Kerry campaign.

Esa gente no tiene verguenza. They will say anything, and the public is too stupid to lose respect for these people. Failing to lose respect for shamless public figures is a form of stupidity.

Tom Brocaw just defined 'latino' and 'hispanic' to America; he said "In California, Latino; in the Southwest, 'Hispanic' is the preferred term. Sigh. Because of Tommy's non-definition definition, millions of Americans will accept this handed-down-by-a-white-man definition as "politically correct." Then when they are corrected by an actual latino, they will cite Tom Brocaw as the law-giver. You watch.

Hmph.

Right now I'm eating some leftover pansit with a chopped tomato with kosher salt and a mashed fresh garlic.

I paid most of the bills today. I'm totally in the hole, but I've got some checks coming in this week, and I've got a plan to be back on track. If only I could just stop eating. H does not seem to be able to go without heat.

Let's see what's happened in the past week. The director of Supersize Me came to my work today, and gave a talk and answered questions. Ron Sims and Michael Irons of the King County Coucil tried to explain to new voters the difference between democrats and republicans. After two weeks of never getting the phone call with the estimate, I picked up the digital piano from the repair shop; it was worse than when I dropped it off. I took it back the next day.

J flew in from LA, we went to a casino for drinks because I don't know or care much about Tacoma. The next day I watched the town hall debate between Kerry and W, and then picked up J and we both went to the airport to pick up M. He wanted pizza, so I took them to Zeeks (R wasn't there). I really enjoyed the pizza, but J and M didn't seem too impressed. I only like Zeeks, Mad, Northlake, maybe Atlantic Street, none of which are fancy enough to take guests to. After that we went to the Harborside for dessert.

The next morning I got up and bought that frozen shrimp that my family is crazy about. I personally would rather cook it myself. Anway, I brought it to Auntie E's and then met J and M at Ho Ho Seafood. They introduced me to H and A. They had ordered fish maw soup, deep fried crab, beef chow fun, and manila clams with black bean sauce. We went to Yummy House after that; I got a sponge cake; J had a petit four, and the others got cake: strawberry, chestnut, and cream.

Then we walked over to the Wing Luke Asian American Museum. I'm going to reccommend it to the diversity director. We went to Pike Place (they kept calling it Pike's), wandered through. J and H bought some slippers from the pinoys on the corner. They bought fruit bars, I think, and then we stopped for a caramel apple: we got pecan bear, I believe. Then they bought flowers (so silly) for my family. But before going there, we stopped at the Ballard Locks, saw the engineering, saw the salmon, etc.

Finally we went to my family's party. We were directed to eat immediately; they didn't even ask for our coats. There was pinakbet (which M ate), chicken legs, lasagna, karekare, whole fish, Auntie Baby N's beef lumpia, and lots more, I can't remember. Mostly I remember the lumpia and the lasagna. Later Auntie Baby N told us that there was soy sauce in the lasagna. We listend to B sing a couple songs, and then I gave the signal to go. I was thinking my friends were getting bored, but J seemed a little sad to leave. My family is fun and charming.

Actually, Uncle T and Auntie N were the ones who talked to them the most in the basement, which funtioned as the 'kids table.' In my family, the 'kids' (i.e., the kids, the in-laws, the out of town guests, and other non-Vs) end up at the 'kids table' not because they are not welcome by the adults, but because the adults are so boisterous that it intimidates them. Playing ping pong with M, I asked him if he was still intimidated by my family. He said "No!" and then he said "less." We asked C, M, and H where we could go get drinks and be asian. Auntie N recommended Bush Garden karaoke. My friends were intrigued, but I explained later. Auntie N is charming.

We ended up going to H and A's place for a couple of bottles of wine. There we had some intelligent adult conversation. We ended up talking about squid, so H rallied us to go eat. We ended up at Honeycourt (down the street from Bush Gardens) and ordered salt and pepper squid and a couple of bowls of congee; one sliced fish and one chicken and abalone.

The next morning I went to brunch at Auntie Baby N's with C, M, H, and Auntie R. Auntie Baby N is a food trip. Fluffy moist pancakes, bacon, beef lumpia, shrimp, sausage and pepper omelettes . . . we joked that it was less brunch and more pre-lunch, or prunch. Apples, grapes, bananna bread.

I took Auntie R to my place to wait for H, and then my friends showed up. I didn't even get a chance to put away dishes, much less shop for food. So we had some tea and fortune cookies. Then we went to the Crab Pot and looked at furniture (I think the Crab Pot gave me the poops last night; it wasn't as salty as before, but prices are up, and I can still make it better at home). I think after that we went to H and A's place, and then it was off to the airport.

Today I slept it, ate lunch at Lemieux, bought myself a hoodie, went grocery shopping, paid bills online, and that's about it. I am just behind on work as I was Friday afternoon.