leafing through

These past two weeks I’ve been waking up at 5:30 and shutting down at around 9 or 10. Even the nights when I have class, my brain is in sleep mode by 9:00. I don’t know how my parents do this every day. They normally stay up til midnight too. For helping make it through this time, I would like to thank:

• My friends for keeping me from going bonkers with boredom. And for keeping me company.
• Pandora and Grooveshark
• Sims
• The World Wide Web
• COFFEE!

… now I need my mom and dad!

As I’m digging through my clothes looking for as many layers as I can throw on, I realize, I have some doozies that need to be given away or just plain tossed! Vintage styles aside, you don’t want to go to work looking like you just came out of the 80s. Nor do you want to look like you put your clothes through the car wash on a weekly basis. If the fabric is visibly frayed, faded, stained, pulled out of shape, don’t wear it out. I am guilty of all of the above. The biggest reason is because my I-Give-A-Crap meter doesn’t kick in all the time. Like right now.

Yesterday we got a few inches of snow, but then it changed to ice in the evening. This morning I woke up and not realizing the roads and cars were covered with about a quarter to half inch layer of ice, got ready to go to work. I stepped out, and nearly ate it on the sidewalk. I went back inside after trying to get the ice off the car and making no progress. Slept for another two hours before trying again. The major roads were fine but the neighborhood roads were covered in ice. I heard a lot of people spinning their wheels. This weather makes me want to eat, eat, eat. And stay under the covers, warm in bed. I couldn’t do the latter, but I did eat, eat, eat.

Happy Lunar New Year! The gluttonous New Year’s Eve spread..

Tadaaa!

Clams, tofu, watercress, shrimp, spinach, oysters, beef slices, cellophane noodles, enoki, button mushrooms, squid, and fish and Vietnamese meatballs. Mmm, hot pot is perfect for such freezing cold evenings! Plus, since I’d been eating nothing but ramen with egg, Cheez-its, Goldfish crackers, yogurt, oatmeal and vitamin supplements all last week, this was finally REAL FOOD! Extra yum! I’m going to try and eat better this week.

So I was emailing with my Asian friend who asked me when New Years was so we could go to the Asian m

Updated 1-27-09: arket to pick up mooncakes. I told her she was a failure in life for mixing up Mid-Autumn Festival when you eat mooncakes and the Lunar New Year when you don’t eat mooncakes. A few days later, I retold the story:

“You remember my friend R? The other day she emailed me asking if we can go pick up mooncakes at the Asian market for the New Year. Wrong holiday!! Asian FAIL!”

“Hahaha!!” “Hahaha!”

“… uh, honestly, I was thinking the same thing about the mooncakes for New Years too. Hahaha.”

“…”

It is SOOoooO hard to not shop.

• I’ve been feeding the guppies every morning and man can they chow down! I only give them a miserable pittance because I don’t want to dirty up the water, plus I noticed that they don’t have much food left. Must ration! And, must SHOP!! I love shopping for our fishies and aquariums. It fills me with a selfless sense of purpose. In other words, I feel less gimme-gimme, while still getting that satisfying feeling of acquiring.
• Obama’s inauguration means I need to buy the commemorative Metro cards and newspaper. More SHOPPING!
• There are swimsuit sales everywhere! Who cares if it’s 20 degrees, I can’t swim, and I don’t have any vacation planned in the foreseeable future! SHOP!!
• I need cough drops! Oooh look, Cheez-it’s are on sale! GIMME!!
• The vacuum is gimpy. As if I didn’t dislike (despise) vacuuming enough, doing it with a gimpy vacuum is ridiculous. I am literally dragging it around. Must buy an awesome vacuum cleaner! Maybe it’ll make me not dislike it so much for a few weeks.

Why would anybody re-button their shirt after taking it off to wash?

The 1 to 2-inch snow accumulation stuck around long enough to leave evidence that deer are eating my shrubbery! They’re walking right up to my front doorstep and chowing down on the miserable bushes. I don’t know where I got this idea in my head that they don’t like walking on concrete and pavement. Clearly that is a wrong assumption.

Bedtime suddenly gets earlier and earlier when the house is cold. Ah, I appreciate my warm toasty room that much more when the house is 45 degrees. In looking back at the last time that cymbidium bloomed (Feb 2006) I realize it’s not going to happen this year. The flower spike started growing the previous year and it took months. If it happens, it won’t be until 2010. Hopefully, these 40-something temps will encourage it to happen next year.

Monday, I wore two tops and wound up keeping my coat and scarf on all day.
Tuesday, I wore three tops and wound up keeping my coat and scarf on all day.
Today, I have four tops and two pants on. And I finally shed the coat. The scarf stays on though! Remember that story of the girl who always wore a ribbon around her neck and she promised she’d tell her lover why she never took it off after they got married? Then on their wedding night, she finally let him take off the ribbon…and, you know what happened yeah?

Brrr… It snowed yesterday and should again today. Beautiful stuff but only a couple of inches of accumulation. What a cold day it’s going to be for many people downtown. At least the portable latrines won’t be smelly if everyone’s stuff is all frozen.

I’ve been watching some of the news videos online and the energy is palpable even not being downtown. On my way into work, I noticed a lot of cars exiting to the two metro stations with parking lots. Plus, I read a report saying most of the metro parking lots are already full if not 3/4 full as of 5:45 AM!! I think if I didn’t have to work, I’d try to go just because this is such an historically important & exciting event. 1-2 Million people! Already he’s pulling people together. I can’t wait to hear his speech.

It was 45 degrees in my house last time I looked. The heater came on this morning or it would’ve been colder. Maybe we’ll get cymbidium flowers this year again.

10:58 AM – I’ve been watching this since 7:30 or 8 AM. This morning, they (Obama & Michelle) went from the Blair house to St. John’s for church services. Then they went to the White House for coffee with Bush & Laura. They just arrived at the U.S. Capitol. Haven’t seen any sign of Sasha or Malia.

11:03 AM – Chief Justice Roberts looks so young. He’ll be swearing in the new president. There’s a lot of chanting “Obama!” and I just saw the Jamaican flag among a sea of American flags. How international.

11:23 AM – All the former presidents are filing in starting with Jimmy Carter, then Bush and Clinton. 14 degrees out there right now, looks windy too. Now they’re showing the moving vans at the White House. And there’s Malia and Sasha with their grandma. Two regular looking kids. They look excited. Oh I think I saw Elaine Chao.

11:30 AM – Malia is a regular shutterbug! She’s got her camera with her everywhere; at the Inauguration Concert on Sunday and even here. Smart girl, she’s got one of the best seats in the house.

11:35 AM – Finally, here come the president & vp. Cheney is in a wheelchair. Something about hurting his back while moving to his new permanent home in McLean, VA. Everytime they pan the crowd, it just looks unbelievably large. A huge sea of people from the Capital all the way past the Washington Monument mostly watching from Jumbotrons placed around the city.

11:41 AM – Here he comes down the hallway!! The new guy! He looks somber.

11:43 AM – They just announced him! What a cheer! Yay! Go Obama!

11:45 AM – Things are moving along nicely. Senator Dianne Feinstein is giving her speech. Excellent speech, it was about 3 minutes! And now the prayer. Malia looks a lot like Obama with the long lanky face. Both very cute girls. They’re wearing matching coats. Blue (purple?) for Malia & pink for Sasha.

11:57 AM – Joe Biden is swearing in now. OMG!! What happened?! It’s not playing… well no matter I got 2 webcasts going.

12:01 PM – It’s just Itzhak Perlman & Yo-Yo Ma doing their thing. Very lovely. Barack is now president! He hasn’t taken the oath yet but it’s past 12 Noon!

12:05 PM – So eager to start, he’s tripping over the words. He’s sworn in! Wonderful! They’re doing this canon thing.

12:08 PM – Here’s his speech written by the 27 yr old John Favreau. Malia is filming her dad. How cute!

12:27 PM – A good speech. Inspiring. Be a doer. Meet the challenges!

I am officially running this ship solo for the next week or so. It was kinda’ weird coming home last night after class. I mean, I knew no one was home but I still felt like it was too quiet and empty. Having dinner by myself wasn’t all that enjoyable either, and I usually love eating. Thankfully, work will keep me busy. And thank goodness for telephones! And the computer! All wonderful modern day inventions that make solitary confinement seem almost luxuriously relaxing and yet private. All I need now is cable tv to round out the trifecta of amenities for this at-home vacation of sorts. There ya go, I just marketed this to myself. Now Do Not Disturb. I’m on vacation.

Oh by the way, a classmate just introduced me to Grooveshark. It’s similar to Pandora but much more customizable. I see the benefits to both though. Pandora is good for discovering new music or if you just feel like listening to a genre and don’t really know which artists or what songs. For instance, I really like the John Coltrane station on Pandora but I hardly know any of the artists on it. On the other hand, if you want to listen to Britney’s Circus, then Sara Bareilles’ Bottle it Up, then whatever, you should use Grooveshark. Grooveshark also introduces new songs through recommendations but sometimes I like Pandora’s style of just turning it on and listening to whatever they throw at you, good or bad. I can see myself spending a lot of time on Grooveshark.