Non-self

Feb 19, 2010

Escaping from shutter island

This evening April, Randall and I went to the kabuki to see shutter
island. I wasn't necessarily into seeing shutter island, but it was at
the kabuki screen 1 balcony and that's pretty much the only theater I
care to go to anymore. I knew very little about the movie going into
it, and for the most part I enjoyed it (maybe a tad too long).

I won't spoil the movie for you, but i'll just say, it felt old
school. Very traditional scorsese. The music, the dialogue, and some
of the scenes, all just felt like an older movie. Or an homage to an
older film era. And the end, well i think I'd seen it before. Oh and
also, apparently the trailer/commercial (which I haven't really seen)
is making it look like a thriller. Don't be fooled, it's not. It's
suspenseful, but it's not a horror (although some lady did awkwardly
scream in our screening). Yet I thought scared would be a more fun
emotion to portray than intrigued, so here ya go.

Type: color, other people, non-self, ps mobile -- Tags: April, mobile, not so nerd Friday, finished evening with hot bob's donuts

0 Comments

Feb 18, 2010

the sf dumpling queens

to celebrate the new year, julie decided to host a dumpling dinner. last night, after our awesome 99 ranch run, we made the fillings in order to be ready. and tonight, we put everyone else to work. we made over a hundred potstickers, and then topped those off with mochi ice cream and delicious sesame and peanut balls soaked in ginger syrup/tea. afterwards we went outside and lit sparklers (the real kind made from metal!) and ran around as if we were a dragon line. julie's housemate took a video, and as soon as she posts it, i'll share it with you. Happy New Year (again) everyone!

Type: color, other people, bonus photo, non-self -- Tags: Julie, awesome aprons, we were trying to be like julie and julia, wearing red for luck, we didn't buy enough skins i was a little bit worried about that, beef isn't as awesome as pork, but it was still delicious, dessert was great too

6 Comments

Feb 15, 2010

beauty is in the pie of the beholder

i am so glad i took today off of work (it technically wasn't a real holiday at sugar, but a "float" one). in addition to getting a lot of pesky chores done (i hadn't been home for anything longer than a sleeping spell since last monday night), i was able to head over to the east bay for a bit of pie tasting. you see, my pal jessi (the award-winning piemaker) is gearing up for the national pie championships and wanted her friends' opinions on a few of her creations. so naturally, randall and i complied. (although i should point out, randall doesn't even like pie.) there were three creations (all variations of apple-huckleberry) and twelve people. we judged each pie on looks, flavor, creativity, crust, and anything else we could think of. essentially jessi just wanted us to give constructive criticism and metaphorically tear each pie apart. we did one better than that. as you can see, we literally tore them apart too.

Type: color, other people, bonus photo, non-self, randall took this pic -- Tags: pie, eating, jessi, it's seriously delicious pie, i hope jessi wins, she's got a secret in the crust someday i'll get her to tell me, she's going all the way to florida to compete, she told me i could be her coach

2 Comments

Feb 14, 2010

happy new year's valentine's day.

this morning morm and i got up early (as in hours before i'm normally awake) to go volunteer down at temple. each year, for chinese new year's, they have a huge celebration. unlike other religions, this one (or at least the temple my mom goes to) doesn't have services. you're supposed to go on new year's day, but you go when you want to (well between 8am and 7pm). you say your thanks and prayers, ask for your blessings, offer your fruits, ask your questions and then go home. it's how most of their day-to-day behavior is, but on new years, they ask you to stick around and partake in a feast (and yes, it's fully buddhist and therefore vegetarian, but even randall liked it). i ended up on serving duty: eggrolls, fried taro, and then sweet and sour crispy soy item. samshrew, randall, and chris showed up later, but didn't have to stick around long (samshrew got roped into eggroll duty for a while, but got out of it when the rush ended). morm and i left after six hours of serving up food, and needless to say, i was pretty exhausted at the end of it. also, i never really considered myself a religious person (i only go to temple a couple times of year, and mostly because of morm), but you know there's something sort of amazing about a religion that says, hey come say what you feel like and before you go why don't you eat a boatload of food. not to mention it sounds like it was invented just for me.

Type: Square, color, cropped, other people, non-self -- Tags: temple, samshrew, Happy New Year, morm, happy valentine's day, red works for both holidays, but my dress was blue so morm had me wear her red scarf for luck, the food was seriously delicious, please note the cucumber that is carved into a crab, it is simply adorable

5 Comments

Feb 4, 2010

I forgot to take a marketing pic, so here's a pretty awesome morm story instead

The sugar marketing department had an offsite today. We literally
talked from 10am to 4pm. I meant to take a picture of our group
working hard, but I was so wrapped up in the discussion that I forgot.

So instead of a fun group marketing photo, I'm going to show you the
mogwai face. Mogwai means monster in chinese (fyi the mandarin
pronounciation is moe-gway and not mog-why like gremlins which I think
is the Cantonese way) and this is the face my mom would make whenever
she would talk about monsters.

The time that stands out the most is when I was about three years old.
It was stormy and the power was out. My mom and I were home in the dark with only
these weird blue glass globe candles. My dad was away at work (he'd been gone for
a few days) and it was definitely night time. I remember we were
sitting in the living room and I was coloring at the living room table
by candlelight. My mom left to use the bathroom and a few minutes
later she came back like this. She was moaning and said
saaahhhbreeennnaahhh I ate your mom.

Needless to say, my three year old self flipped the fuck out.

Type: color, iphone, non-self, randall took this pic -- Tags: mobile, no makeup, mogwai, she was in her early twenties and was probably bored out of her skull and i bet she thought it would be funny i kind of can't blame her, years later it totally is, but let me tell you back then not so much

3 Comments

Feb 1, 2010

i'm not above funeral crashing.

this evening my beginning improv class reached a graduation point, which meant we put on a show. it was a bit ridiculous. we'd only been practicing for five weeks, but it was fun. in fact it was way more fun than i anticipated, and not as painful as i thought it would be either. if you're wondering why i didn't remind you about the show, let's just say that i was worried it was going to be a flop. but it wasn't. or at least it didn't feel like it. the folks that were there laughed, and for the most part it was a har har time. thanks for melissa, nicole, dk, and meegan who came out to point and mock. randall too, even if he did get in trouble for being on his iphone. and for those of you who wish you were there, here you go. this is a wild lines game where we interact in a scene (in this case a funeral), but randomly have to say these lines we pull from our pockets. the lines are tweets our instructor put down for us, we had no idea what they were going to be.

Type: Video, color, other people, bonus photo, non-self -- Tags: moon face, this is my improv class, randall took this video, this was my favorite game, thanks for coming guys even if i did try to talk you out of it!, my face is a big ol moon face with too many chins

4 Comments

Jan 31, 2010

life fulfillment: oysterfest 2010 edition (shucking is fun!)

this morning my friend nick picked up two bushels of oysters for our eating enjoyment. if you're wondering a bushel is 10 dozen, and if you do the math you'll see that yes, that is 20 dozen oysters. there were 8 of us total, so it wasn't an outrageous ordeal, but it was gluttonous. nick and i were there for the big haul, everyone else said they'd do a dozen or two. julie (who was pulled into lifefulfillment oyster edition late in the game) signed up for two, but is pretty sure she ate three. so why did we do this? well (1) we are gluttons (2) it is pretty economical when you buy them in bulk and (3) -- this is the main reason -- a long while back nick said he'd teach me how to shuck. i've been pretty terrified because of the sharp knife close to your hands and special glove recommended thing (we used dish towels). but, once i got started, i loved it. i picked it up pretty quickly and it turned out to be a lot of fun. shuck shuck shuck! and best part was, no injuries! julie and jeff both had tiny scrapes, but i walked away unscathed. and i must say i probably shucked at least 4 dozen, possibly 5. i didn't eat quite that many, but i'm sure it was close.

Type: color, timer, other people, bonus photos, non-self, s90 -- Tags: life fulfillment, julie w, nick p, oysterfest 2010, i love julie's face in the top picture and especially love nick's reaction to it, thanks nice for arranging, when is the next oysterfest?, shucking is fun

2 Comments

Jan 18, 2010

Not so Grim Reaper

today was the start of rain town. it was pouring pretty hard when i left for work, so i decided to bring out the big coat. the thing with the coat is that it's normal sized everywhere except for the sleeves and the hood. the sleeves i understand, my arms aren't raptor-like, but they're not that long either. however the hood is another story it hangs about halfway down my face. it's as if my neck is supposed to be three feet long. it does however, keep the rain completely out of my face and hair. so at least that's something.

Type: color, non-self, randall took this pic -- Tags: at home, raintown, big coat, i always think of it as the grim reaper hood coat, this is especially true since i've been watching an awful lot of dead like me

0 Comments

Dec 5, 2009

A birthday the dude would abide by

Tonight, for kjell's birthday, Molly rented out the variety screening
room -- and no, we didn't watch Kung Fu panda. The group of us ate 15
pizzas (they were delfina ones, so it sounds extraodinary but wasn't)
and a bunch of cupcakes (kara's and white Russian ones made by yours
truly). And if white Russian didn't tip you off, the movie we watched
was the big lebowski. It had been a long time since i'd seen it, in
fact it was like watching it for the first time. I'd forgotten how
funny and surreal it is.

Speaking of surreal, I love today's picture. It is so odd. Kungfu
panda, kissing gals, smiling kjell, it's all so weird.

Happy birthday kjell!

geoloc

Type: color, iphone, non-self -- Tags: mobile, surreal, smooches, abide, the candy goodie bags were brillant

0 Comments

Dec 3, 2009

meeting people is easy

I spent the first chunk of my life as a military brat. But let me preempt you before you ask if I moved a lot. I didn’t. My dad was oddly stationed at the same base for almost 10 years and then he retired. So no, we didn’t move much. We didn’t really move at all.

Recently someone said oh so unlike other military kids, your life was pretty stable then. I hardly think that a new best classmate each year counts as stable. You see while I might not have moved, my friends did. The twins, the kid with Pappy dog next door, my awesome best friend from 2nd grade, Tina from across the street, all the kids who’s names I’ve forgotten and then even Davita moved away. In the end, while I stayed in the same place, my friends changed constantly.

Once I said this outloud I realized what had been so obvious all these years. It clearly had a huge impact on who I am and how I interact with people, and what I expect from friendships even. To me friends are people I have a good time with, hang out with, love and live for, you know while they’re there. Once they’re gone I instinctively find their replacement. I don’t mean to. It just happens. This is not to say that I don’t have amazing friendships that have lasted over the years. This is to say that I’m okay with making new friends and have gotten pretty decent at it. You know, survival instinct and what have you.

Tonight I ended up at the Blogher holiday meetup at Tres Agaves. I ran into some old faces, and met a lot of new ones. This is Marie, she runs an online boutique for curvy gals. She’s working on a fashion show and has all sorts of other tricks up her sleeve. Something tells me we’ll see her again. That is, unless she moves away.

ps. i have a feeling the above abandonment is also why i don't fully understand the term "i miss you" but that’s a topic for another day.

Type: color, iphone, blurry, non-self, bad exposure -- Tags: BlogHer, i forget the gal's name who took the pic but thanks, marie denee, meeting people is easy, no seriously it is you just open your mouth and then shut it and listen interjecting when appropriate, also being nice helps too, yes i don't ever miss people it is a character flaw, i also don't identify with a group of people and have never had my besties although college was pretty darn close but in an A- sort of way, A- is another topic for another day

0 Comments