Can anybody tell me...

What exactly is Chop Suey?

I recently finished "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles" and absolutely loved it. Jennifer 8 Lee delves into the world of Chinese food in America after hearing about a statistical anomaly where numerous people (somewhere around 100) had major lottery winnings in a single contest. The link? The majority of the winners picked their numbers from a fortune cookie. She follows the history of Chinese food in America and examines its impact on American culture.

Growing up, my family always distinguished between Chinese food and "American Chinese food." When I first moved to Davis 10 years ago, I refused to eat at any Chinese restaurant because it wasn't authentic. Lee however, legitimizes American Chinese food as an integral part of American culture. She writes, "Our benchmark for Americanness is apple pie. But ask yourself: How often do you eat apple pie? How often do you eat Chinese food?"

It has helped me appreciate places like Panda Express for what it is. Now when my friends gush about "Orange Chicken," I understand that they are talking about their own homey comfort foods, and they fall in a different category than scrumptious chicken feet and pig's ears.

sex and the city... really!

I saw it tonight with my housemate Shannon after winning tickets through a drawing. Finally, after months of anticipation I found out whether or not Carrie and Big get married, if anybody dies, and which scenes are dream sequences.

It was fabulous although it espoused many values I didn't really agree with. Here's my estrogen boost for the month!

sex and the world

My Human Sexuality professor from my MFT program has a blog that addresses important issues regarding sex and sexuality. The title of my blog actually stemmed from taking his class, although I admit that there hasn't been too much sex talk recently.

His blog brought to my attention a news story that one would say is beyond atrocious. I showed Bryan the story and he pointed out that it is great evidence for the depravity of humanity. Sometimes if I watch enough Oprah, I may start believing that people are generally good and have goodness in them. I need to remind myself that Oprahland is as fictional as The Shire.

Baaawwwston!

Why write my own entry when someone else so aptly described my vacation?

Highlight of the trip: Boston Red Sox's Lester had a historic no-hitter against Kansas City

T-shirt mania!

If I actually wore tshirts, I'd probably wear more shirts that have those witty slogans or fun pictures on them. The only one I have I got from China for about a buck fifty, and it's of a bunch of pandas performing the 24 moves of tai chi... or was it 32? My friend Vicky also has a cool panda shirt that I admire. I do heart pandas, or at least cartoon ones.

Once in awhile, I will enjoy perusing the tshirt sites to chuckle at. Not at threadless.com though - their pictures often confuse me. Here are some tshirt images from noisebot.com I find amusing!



One of these days when these tshirts go out of style, we get to say "That's so late 2000s!"

I'm trying to find enough time to blog meaningfully, but not very successfully.

What do I do with my free time?

For those who don't know, we moved in November. I heart our new house! One of the many reasons I like it so much is the backyard. At our old house, the only way to get to the backyard was through the garage. It was also very shady - my attempts at growing veggies all failed. Partly because of the shade, and partly because I never went back there to water the plants.

Our new backyard gets plenty of sunshine and I have been reaping the benefits. We've been able to pick lettuce whenever we want salad. No more wasting wilted lettuce! The picture above is my first harvest of snow peas... yes, all 6 of them. I plan on plucking more off the vines later this week, hopefully eventually to have enough for some yummy stir fry.

Here are more pictures of my garden!

Over the weekend, we went to a composting class. I plan on starting my own worm bin this week and throwing all our peelings and dealings in for the worms to eat. Free fertilizer!

Still here...

I feel the need to explain my hiatus. Around the end of March, I broke out in some unexplained rash that was both painful and itchy. It was mostly on my hands and then on my arms. And then it spread all up and down my legs.

After some internet research I determined it was contact dermatitis aka poison oak. However I don't know if it was actually poison oak that I rolled around in since I haven't ever seen the culprit.

I was miserable... couldn't sleep, couldn't concentrate, the discomfort was great. Topical steroids didn't help. Tried every OTC medicine possible. Tried acupuncture and herbal topicals. Tried homeopathic remedies. Nothing worked and it just kept spreading. This lasted for about 3 weeks before I saw the dr. again and she put me on oral steroids.

The steroids helped but for about a week after I stopped them I encountered various side effects... blurred vision, headache, restlessness, feelings of weirdness i think i'm in the twilight zone...

Anyway, I'm almost back to normal. When the busy slows down, I'll put up a meaningful post.

By the way, the picture above was not me. Through my internet research I found a fascinating gallery of poison oak/ivy victims. I wasn't as bad as the worst pictures, but my rashes looked similar to the ones here. Here's the link, but warning... it's not for the faint of heart!