r e d.chilipepper

eat your dinner, boy!

i'm such a klutz i think someone needs to help me.

it's been very busy at work lately, such that i haven't had time to do my usual step out and eat, or eat outside on the work patio thing. so i've reverted to the classic "eat in front of computer, read so you don't feel sorry for yourself, and try not to drop crap into your keyboard" bit.

i've been highly unsuccessful. examples?

1. last week when i didn't see that i dropped some egg from my egg sandwich onto my seat, got up, and prompty sat down on the seat. the oil seeped into my pants and left a 3 inch size amorphous blob on my leg. all right before i was supposed to test a patient.

2. today when i peeled my orange and it exploded all over my pink shirt. the orange stains would not come out despite repeated washings. i was left with a stretched shirt and orange stains.

3. two weeks ago when i splattered balsamic vinegar dressed on my newly pressed white shirt. on a day, no less, when i had several meetings with important professors. if you've ever tried to wash out balsamic vinegar, you'll know it's not easy. the wailing in the bathroom did not belong to the child who had just gotten allergy shots. yes, that was me.

this has not been a week of high elegance for me. first my mullet, and then a barrage of dietary mishaps that make me look like the poster child of gluttony. oh, joy. i have no earned myself the so-desirable title of "asian mulleted slob". if the fashion police don't shoot me, please be kind and put me out of my uncoordinated misery.

flashback to 1982...

momma was in town this weekend so we took over the bay area. unfortunately, i succumbed to getting a haircut and i now look like this:

i'm so depressed.

a nerd for nature

i saw this last weekend in point reyes and thought it was cool. and then i realized that i was a dork. a really, really big dork.

hawt!

dang. it's so hot in palo alto, i want to melt. bf and i are going to take on the arastradero preserve (i finally managed to annihilate it last time)... but the heat is making me scared. i'm quaking a little in fear.

so let's see... i've been very busy of late, and a few suggestions on things to do, if you so find yourself inclined on a bootiful summer day:

1. Hog Island Oyster Co., Point Reyes, CA
reservations are required at least one week in advance, of parties between 6 - 15 people. if you arrive on a saturday, you have to be lucky (like we were), in order to get a table. bring all your own bbq materials (charcoal, lighters, lighter fluid, umbrellas, tongs, etc.). and as always, must have a bf in tow. nobody makes grilled oysters like he does. oh! and sunblock. good lord was it hot that day. afterwards, stop by sausalito for some window shopping and ice cream. it makes the perfect lazy saturday.

2. Ferry Market, San Francisco, CA.
arrive early to catch the strawberry man, and to sample everything you have. the farmer's market actually stretches to the back of the ferry building, and there are public seats in case you want to sit outside. i actually liked picking up random things, and then taking them outside to eat instead of waiting for a table at the restaurant.

3. Land's End, San Francisco, CA
bring a blanket. it gets cold at night. catch the sunset behind point bonita, as it stretches to stinson beach. mmm...

what's that shizz?

this is a very belated post, and it just came to me while i was washing my hands in the bathroom.. no idea why. while boarding this year, it occured to me and sue that we had no idea why some things are called what they are. the definitions thusly follow:

gondola: An enclosed structure suspended from a cable, used for conveying passengers, as to and from a ski slope.
funicular:A cable railway on a steep incline, especially such a railway with simultaneously ascending and descending cars counterbalancing one another.
lift: A powered conveyance that carries skiers up a hill.

so it would appear, for all you curious folk, that what we use at ski resorts is more aptly referred to as the lift or the gondola, and not a funicular. you can now thank me for edumacating you.

you're a freak and half...

i'm re-turning into a teeny bopper. i'm so crazy about this one musician, i'm ashamed to admit that i listen to him almost everday.. in the car, on my ipod, in my head, even while i'm peeling garlic. yeah, that's me, and i'm not consoled that i share my fanaticism with 4.5 million prepubscent and adolescent chinese girls. i'm the outlier, the oldie, me.

i'll say it anyhow. zhou jie lun, i love you. thanking for feeding my a-pop obsession and for letting me live vicariously as a pretend asian mafia chick through you.

Die, you, DIE!!

bf and i have taken a domestic slant in one of our projects. i have a lemon tree on my porch, and he has tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and a variety of useful herbs on his (note: don't you hate how all the grocery stores sell you herbs in bunch sizes that you couldn't possibly use up, so you end up feeling like you're wasting all these plants and money??). gardening, even in the cities where you don't have rodents, is not easy. mr. tomato plant recently acquired some sort of bacterial infection, while my lemon tree got attacked by bugs.

at first, i was somewhat calm about the flies, given that there were only a few of them, i thought it was normal. also i tend not to kill bugs, but instead try to usher them away nicely, transport them places, etc. and then two days ago, i was watering the tree and noticed an infestation of bugs. i flipped out. they were flying everywhere, coming out of the soil, attacking the buds, crawling up the vines, huddling under the leaves in masses. a deep shudder wracked my body. i think i quaked a little. it was disgusting. i can't stand those swarmy little maggots, killing my lovely tree.

i marched myself over to the nursery and bought an organic pesticide.

and then i went home that night and sprayed the plant everywhere. i didn't just spray the plant, i sprayed it all the while chanting "die die die, die now, die!" in my head. with each squeeze of the bottle, i chanted my mantra louder in my head. if i saw something flying around the tree, i sprayed with even more vigor.

bf was inside. i'm glad he couldn't see me in unleashing my fury with the bottle, as my love affair with violence against insects has just started. you should all be a little afraid, now, methinks. i even freaked myself out a little.

look momma, no hands!

en route to work today, i saw something very interesting.

a girl, in her mid twenties perhaps, riding to work on a new shiny retro red bicycle. her golden hair was pleated in a perfect braid down her back and you could tell she was singing along happily to a song in her mind. she was wearing a black skirt with cowboy boots, and riding with her hands stretched out, as if she was superman. she rode like this for a while, over the sidewalk, into the street, onto the sidewalk, exuding a calm peacefulness and freeness that contrasted starkly with the frenzied traffic i was battling. i've never been able to ride without my hands on the handlebars, and i admired her for that, and especially for her innocence.

then on the next block, she rode off the sidewalk and hit a tree. the smile on her face disappeared.

and i laughed. it felt so good to be evil.

why do you ask..?

i wonder why people sometimes ask questions when they don't really want to hear the answer. conversation at work today:

lady sticks head in door:
lady: "how do i get to the blood clinic?'
rcp: "walk downstairs, take a left at the bottom of the stairs."
lady: "yeah but there are painters."
rcp: "well the only other entrance is outside, walk around."
lady: "but there are painters... i need to get around the painters."
rcp: "well then i can't help you, sorry."
lady: "but what about the painters?"

i often find that we ask questions without really wanting to listen to what the answers are. or maybe we ask them just to see how people would endeavor to answer. for example,

sally: "what do you think? should i do this?"
bob: "no.. that's not a good idea, because of x y and z."
sally: "but franny says it's a good idea, and the magazine suggests that you do it."
bob: "so why are you asking for my opinion?"

i'm guilty of doing this. sometimes i just want to compare what people say. sometimes i ask in the hope of getting an answer i want. most of the time, i realize i'm not really listening to what the person says. it's like ear fodder. how annoying.

the aphrodisiac...

whoa. i just realized that the word "aphrodisiac" probably has some basis in "Aphrodite," the greek goddess of love. aren't i a genius?

before i continue, i must ask! can someone please refresh my memory how the original X-men went? that is, the story line in the comic books? bf and i came back from x-men iii, and though i knew there were several inconsistencies (will not blog here so as to serve as a spoiler), i'm not sure i can pinpoint them all. so there were a few i could remember:

1. doesn't dr. xavier come back later again evil?
2. the way jean grey becomes phoenix was through some alien, right?
3. doesn't jean grey eventually become good again?
4. aren't we missing gambit and jubilee?

anyhow, it's been an eventful few weeks. the trip to italy was cancelled for work reasons (ironic since i was going for work reasons), we had an amazing weekend in yosemite, although the memorial day weekend traffic made me want to gouge my eyes out. today, bf and i decided to explore farmer's market at the ferry building in sf.

a few comments:
1. the golden gate meat company: hello? can we say delicious? those chicken pot pies were killer.
2. you'll also find the miette bakery, with perfectly looking cakes, the mushroom store that has the most perfect button mushrooms in the world, as well as sea beans and wild asparagus (dang it.. shoulda brought my camera), and the hog island oyster company.
3. this deserves a bullet of its own. i think i am allergic or something to raw oysters. the last 3/4 times i ate them, i nearly died. today, i was in pain for 3 hours. that is not to say the oysters were not fresh or delicious (which they were), i just sadly think i cannot eat them. that especially sucks because bf can grill those buggers like you wouldn't believe...
4. the farmers market is open until 2 pm on weekends. it's a cute place to go, but methinks the MV farmer's market is better.

well, tomorrow it's off to napa with some friends. soooo looking forward to the inebriation. *hic*.