Random Act of Snowman-ness

This is another of the backlog of photos I forgot I ever took using my camera phone. Now that I see it, I remember taking it because I was completely captivated by this accidental finding... it satisfies my need for random hilarity...

This photo is dated 10/23/07, and I think its awesome. I found this little guy, just randomly, around the back of a building at work. He is made out of the kind of crushed ice we use in lab, except normally you just dump it in the sink and don't, you know, create ice sculptures out of it (although, obviously, given what I now realize we could be doing, this is our loss).

At any rate, as you can see, he's a little lonely since he's definitely the only snowman around these parts (LA being less snowman friendly that the average climate)- I think his expression even looks a little wistful... if he was a puppy, I would totally take him home...

Yuuuuummmm... Coconut Curry Soup

Oh man. So, I got stuck on this idea of making coconut curry soup with lentils after seeing it on this blog. I didn't really do exactly the same thing, but, after hacking something together with the things at hand and using the advice of the internet, I'm super excited about it... this is what I had....

a bit of oil
half an onion- sliced
garlic- 3 cloves or so
fresh ginger- a lot, diced
lentils- about 2/3 of a bag
anaheim pepper- sliced thin
carrots- sliced thin
fresh basil
lemon juice
Pataks hot curry paste (a lot)
chicken broth- enough to cover lentils
2 cans light coconut milk

Basically, I browned the onion, ginger, and garlic and added the anheim pepper. Then stirred in the curry paste, and put in lentils and chicken broth. I let the lentils cook most of the way and then added the coconut milk. Towards the end I squeezed in a bunch of lemon juice (lime might have been better, but my one lime isn't ready yet and put in some diced fresh basil.

I wasn't really sure how this would turn out, I've never used coconut milk before. But let me tell you, this is AWWEEEEESSOOMMME. Its one of those things where you taste it, and kind of don't believe you actually made it yourself. I am definitely making this again (although not for a while, the pot of soup this made is massive!!)

How I use technology

I learned (by accident) how to download stuff off my camera phone onto my computer, which has given me a big eye opener about what I actually use this thing for. Here are some examples:

To remember the floor I parked on:

To document the insane thing my computer screen did for no reason, since I thought no one would believe me:

To take a picture of this abandoned car, which was in the back yard of a very nice house. I know about this car because I used to have to park in the alley to visit someone. After a year or so of being obsessed with it I finally took a picture:

Shouldn't a "Spy Shop" be a little more secret?:


There are more, but I will save them for later. Generally though, I think we can all agree that any dreams I may have had of being Ansel Adams or some such thing may be a thing of the past. That said, its kind of cool to find them all at once, after a year or so of having the phone. In addition to these sorts of things, for a while I also had a 'hobby' (that I totally forgot about until I downloaded these) of taking pictures of ridiculous personalized license plates, but I feel weird posting them since they're of actual people's cars and I don't know any of them. But let it be known, stupid personalized plates are aplenty in LA.

Shameless Product Placement

This is a plug. I can't help it. These things are awesome, and you should try them. That is all.



Note: I am not in any way officially affiliated with Trader Joes, masala, vegetables, or any of the other things you see pictured here. I am, however, a very enthusiastic consumer of veggie burgers, and frankly, these are delicious.

Almost a lady

Today I did something I've never done before... what is it, you ask?

Well, theres a lot of little things I haven't done that people give me grief about these include, but are not limited to, things like never having watched any one of the Rocky movies.

There are also a lot of little things I haven't done that no one cares about but me. These include things like: going to the middle of the country to make sure it really is as flat as everyone says it is, trying to ride a unicycle, knitting anything longer than 2 inches without giving up, doing a triathlon (sounds so awesome, but... yeah), learning to make soap, figuring out any good recipes to make with my gross caramel, going a full week without losing my keys, and so on.

This one is somewhere in the middle. Today, with a bit of moral support, I got my first manicure. I know people like this, but I'm always afraid of situations that might involve enforced chatting with a stranger (I love chatting with strangers, just not when I'm forced to). I also am afraid of being yelled at by the manicurist for having short nails and horrifically neglected cuticles. Fortunately, none of this happened, and I survived the incident unscathed. I don't know if I'll do it again, but for the moment, I'm feeling pretty glamorous...

Margarita status: imminent

Ok, so while I was off pondering horseshoe crabs, things back at home were far from slacking off. given that when I got the tree, a burst of teeny weeny limes appeared, but then were never to be seen again, I was pretty sure that this whole lime tree plan might take longer than I hoped to pan out...

Well, maybe not, because, CHECK OUT THIS LIME!

This is very good news for a Friday. Now lets hope I don't kill it by running outside and admiring it too often...

Lookin' all fancy

I made a new fancy addition to the side bar over yonder.... its my blog list, but, you know, fancier. Check it out!

Obedience

Clearly, I am an upstanding, law abiding, rule following citizen.

Horseshoes, anyone?

So, this time I was not lazy, this time I was gone! While many very interesting and exciting things happened, there are only pictures of some of them. BUT, one thing I did document (almost excessively) was my first exposure to the craziest beach critter I have ever seen. What is this mysterious beast, you ask? Well... check it out...

This is a horseshoe crab... which apparently is called a crab but which is really more related to spiders and ticks. Also, my totally non-scientific googling efforts further taught me that they have not had to evolve much in the last 250 million years mainly because they're almost impossible to eat, can apparently go up to a year without eating themselves, and they can live up to about 30 years.

Anyhow, we were apparently lucky enough to arrive during mating season, as you can see here:

Essentially, what you're looking at here is a horseshoe crab threesome, which I suppose theoretically I should label as 'not safe for work' except that, basically, they look like a pile of rocks. I would like to point out that there were also a lot of misguided young ones who had trouble differentiating rocks from young lady crabs, which I suppose is an understandable mistake.

At any rate, as a California native, I have got to say, there is a lot of crazy stuff out here, but we don't have anything like this!