a new year's lobster for every pot

simmering lobster shells with some savories for stock. we are having lobster risotto for our new year eve dinner. the idea struck when i got my ass down to dominick's and the rack of lamb i was looking for cost more than a couple of frozen lobster tails - and was basically the same size. frozen lobster... i've never had it before but how bad could it be in some creamy rice?

i made lobster stock the last time we had everyone over for lobster at my mom's. was it a birthday? can't recall. it came out beautifully - the key is to brown the shells nicely for the flavor before simmering. my parents froze the stock and parceled it out over a couple of different gumbo batches. my, the depth of flavor. and to think we would always trash our shells without a second thought.

so here we are, lobster shells a'simmerin, lobster meat cooked and cut up, bubbly in the fridge. trevor is furiously studying for the bar (and furious at last check in) so i'm keeping to myself, chopping and humming and cooking and probably stanking up my entire floor.

happy new year!

evanston - first days

first evening alone in about 11 days. not that i'm counting, but one doesn't blog much when there are only two of you and no TV. i'm remedying that soon. the TV part, i mean. trevor thinks it's weird that a journalism student doesn't have a TV. i think it's weird to have free cable TV and no TV. either way, we end up agreeing on most things, and having a TV is one of them.

this year was my first christmas away from my family. not that big of a deal, surprisingly. i love christmas so i thought i might be feeling bummy about it, but i emotionally detach pretty well when i need to. trevor's family is actually great, so we had plenty of nights by the fire with his family and the doggies. xmas day was anti-climatic as it always is - spent at his uncle and aunt's place with a few uncles and cousins and more dogs. football was on so i was left to my own devices with the younger cousins and sisters. i think i like the wind-up to the holidays - the shopping and prep and food and hot drinks. the actual day is just icing.

it has snowed - or, more accurately, precipitated - for the past 7 solid days. i haven't let it keep me inside. upper 20s and 30s farenheit is nothing when you are anticipating -10, -20, -30 which should be arriving shortly. i guess i'll start feeling the shock of the move at a later point, but truthfully evanston and the surrounding suburbs of chicago are incredibly diverse, so i don't feel that out of place. nothing like the monstrous anglo wasteland called denver. there are asian markets and asian restaurants, women in burkas picking produce next to korean grandpas. it all feels quite natural. next week, when the weather clears a bit we're hoping to explore chicago's chinatown and little italy for some eats.

i'm having a harder time adjusting to being a student again. 10 years past graduation is a long time to be out of school. i finally got my shit together this week and ordered the software, electronic toys, and books. i read through my syllabi this morning and started to realize that i'm actually going to be in school again. kind of a mind bender.

ode to the first responders

i want to extend my gratitude to the police officers, EMTs, and firemen that respond to the average civil emergency. i want to express my relief upon seeing those flashing lights shortly after calling the non-emergency line at 11:30 pm for the one very drunk man beating his one very drunk friend on the sidewalk. we watched as his small red car rocked back and forth from the force of his punches and kicks. we watched him slam his friend into our iron fence and kick him repeatedly until his friend lay in the street. i want to share my palpable emotion when the cop whose bald head shone in the street lights climbed out of his car and examined the drunk friend and called an ambulance, whose EMTs then examined the hands of the drunk man, which were bruised and lacerated from the force with which he beat his friend.

it was with no small amount of horror that we watched three police cars, two fire engines, and an ambulance arrive on a scene caused by a careless amount of beers and likely some tequila shots. the thousands of dollars in trained guardians of the public spent on two men who got dressed in button-down shirts and jeans with sneakers to drive downtown, watch the NFL ticket, and drink themselves delusional. we watched the quiet friend take every blow, incredulous that he kept refusing to hand over the car keys and refusing even to walk away from a friend who kicked him, punched him in the stomach and the head, and threw him onto the pavement.

i am grateful for the hours spent interviewing, arresting, and booking these two men. i am humbled and disgusted realizing that entire careers are spent rescuing people from themselves. there is plenty said about the police, but i say thank you for existing.

overheard.... coming out of my mouth

photo courtesy of nola cuisine because my camera sucks




"my sister's heading to new orleans for 5 days."

"bitch! damn, that's nice."

"yeah. and she's bringing me back a muffaletta!"

"what'd you just call me?"


go to central grocery, 923 decatur street, for the real deal holyfield.

still truckin'

so, i'm on day 2 of Project Eat All the Old Shit in My Fridge. i had an egg last night that expired in july, which i figured was just fine because i accidentally ate an egg at sherry's apartment that was three months old, plus it was in china and somehow chinese eggs seem more ominous. it was ok, if a little rubbery. the egg i ate last night was just fine, too. just going to show you that the expiration date on food is really angled towards mass consumption and doesn't mean you have to throw everything away.

today for lunch (at 4 pm, i got distracted) i had some old beets with old garbanzo beans and somewhat flaccid persian cucumbers on top of (new) baby spinach. i am concluding that beans have the life span of about 100 years. i also threw in an underripe avocado, but that barely warrants mentioning.

why the experiment, you ask? well, i think most of us do this sort of thing when we've been busy/out of town and there ain't shit in the fridge but old food. i'm not just trying to be weird or cheap, although i know i can be both (cut to my friends and family cheering). i do hate wasting food and dumping nearly whole packages of english muffins from june into the trash (even i have standards... they were nasty to begin with or you know i'd be eating one right now, toasted) and two bunches of gross stank chard from about eight months ago. i never thought to question sell-by or expiration dates until several years ago when i happened upon a miracle half-gallon of milk that just never went bad. it was fine way beyond the sell-by date; i think i hit two months. yes, i know. only i would keep drinking milk two months past its date and proclaim it to still be good. but it was! and actually, i'm sure my dad would do the same.

that apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it.

well, my grand experiment is over. two whole days (meals, actually) and my lazy cheap ass has already gone to the store to re-stock. my sister-slash-roommate is getting back into town on friday and in anticipation of her eye-cutting, loud sighs, and straight-up lectures, i decided to toss all this nasty shit and buy some new stuff. (not like it ain't her chard that went all disgusting, but you know how people get.) can't wait to see how long salt pork lasts! i'm betting over a year. i'm making a big batch of meatballs tonight to eat and freeze (i made a mess for trevor over the weekend and got jealous they weren't in my freezer) and at some point this month or next i'm going to make ants climbing a hill with my newly purchased bean thread noodles, and some sort of creamy pasta with that salt pork. yum.

last night

"so then steve jobs is back."

"yeah, he's back."

"what about that other one, the fat one?"

"steve wozniak?"

"yeah, him."

"he's not around. but he was on dancing with the stars!"

[laughter]

"no way."

"totally. and my sister saw him rolling down the embarcadero on a segway!"

[extremely raucous laughter]

"shut the fuck up! only in san francisco, i swear."

bounty-ful

I have a hatred for wasting paper towels. Paper anything, really. My sister and I believe there is a deep-seated cause for this, namely our father’s insane quirks which included his Only Four Squares! Rule for toilet paper and You Always Use it At Least Twice Rule for Kleenex. Yes, I know. Believe me, I know. You could argue he is from the hippie generation and an original conservationist. You could also argue he is one of the most frugal humans on the planet. Either one fits.

So here at the office, where we use normal household Bounty paper towels and not the brown-or-white industrial kind, I have started this bizarre habit of paper towel-hoarding in my cube.

I don’t find drying your hands to be a sufficient usage for paper towels, so if I used one just to dry my hands, I bring it back to my cube and either stuff it into my bag (so no one sees how bizarre I am), or try to disguise it in plain sight for later use, like folding it into coaster size and placing it under my coffee cup. I pretend to care about my desktop surface while actually disguising my ridiculous OCD. Generally, I allow a maximum of two bunched-up, plain-view paper products on my desk top (including Kleenex used for wiping my eyes after eye drops, a result of Lasik), so there is usually a used Kleenex or something hanging around (eye-wiping only, even I have standards). Right now my desk features one paper towel “coaster,” one bunched up napkin, and a folded Kleenex stuffed under my key board. Yes, this is getting to be alarming. Maybe I should start tucking a hand towel into my waistband so I can wipe my hands /blot my eyes dry without further wasting trees. Think that would fly below the dress code radar?

One a side note, in reading Apartment Therapy and its related spinoffs, please note the little re-use tricks such as these that are gaining popularity for hipsters and yupsters from Silver Lake to Williamsburg. Washed-out yogurt cups to house different sized nails and screws? Been going on for decades in my parents’ garage. Stacking little slivers of soap together and “making” a new bar? Definitely. Re-using paper towels is the next big thing! There’s going to be some nifty little owl-embroidered paper towel reuser up on Etsy in a minute, I bet you.

conundrum

i went to the city on friday with my sister and her friend, P. we were on a mission to find new kicks. my sister needs more shoes like she needs a hole in her head, but P and i were in dire straights. i have one pair of beat up running shoes full of dirt and gravel, a pair of converse that gives me blisters, and a pair of pumas that are a size too big. if i want to go out with a casual shoe, it involves either a flip flop or blisters. these are not fun options.

what do we end up with by the weekend's close? i own a new pair of sandals and work shoes. P and my sister each bought boots. and i am now shopping for shoes to wear to this wedding. i'm going to have to wait another month before even considering buying those sneakers.

this is pitiful.

BINGO!

on saturday late afternoon, my sister and i went to see our grandma at the home. saturday late afternoons are actually a terrible time to visit because she plays bingo, and she will ignore the hell out of your ass for some bingo. bingo is grandma's favorite thing to do these days, even though she doesn't know it and will totally forget she played about a minute after the cards are cleared from in front of her. she will actually go so far as to deny that she plays bingo, and then make a face like you're fucking crazy, sort of implying that bingo is for utter losers and she has always played bridge.

so we show up in the middle of bingo, and of course she barely looks up even though she hasn't seen me for three weeks - although what does she know about that, silly me - and my sister and i settle in for some boring-ass bingo times. then someone yells out, BINGO! and we look over and a gaggle of CNAs (employees) are not only playing bingo, they're winning! on top of that, the weekend activities lady we refer to as the placid cow for IQ and appearance reasons trods over there with the tray of prizes and gives them prizes. and top of THAT, they are actually taking these sad prizes, these little tokens that make the residents' day. LAME.

this was too much. not only are these juvenile-ass employees playing bingo against a boatload of senile old people, but they are playing against senile old people who live to play bingo and are now taking prizes? oh hell no.

so of course i go up to placid cow and say, "i really don't think employees should be winning. i don't think you should be giving them prizes. this activity is for the residents and they're at a disadvantage." my sister, of course, jumps in and adds her two cents, and the placid cow gets flustered and starts flapping around and braying, "I DON'T WANT TO GET INVOLVED! I'M NOT GETTING INVOLVED!" to which we say, "we'll get fucking involved, lady. those CNAs are playing against senile old people and its not fair." we had at this point noticed that the CNAs had a few prizes in front of them, meaning that they had basically been winning all afternoon. the placid cow trods back to the CNAs, and under the guise of telling them to fuck off, actually says, "i need to check your numbers!" then discovers that they don't actually have bingo, but it's too late because she's already handed prizes out to them. see why we call her placid cow? i should call her dumbass for short.

the kicker about the whole thing is that the CNAs were only about ten feet away and placid cow lows very loudly, so we could hear that she didn't tell them to scram, but instead said something totally random. not sly, lady. not everyone has the IQ of a lamp post, try and remember.

i wouldn't normally say shit to how people do their jobs, especially people who clean diapers and shit (literally) for a living, but we pay this fucking facility eight grand a MONTH to take care of our grouchy old lady and she needs to win her ass some bingo. sorry, CNAs, you're going to have to go and actually do your jobs now and stop whooping on old folks at bingo and winning saran-wrapped sugar cookies, bananas, and tangerines.

the additional component to this sad tale is that grandma usually wins since she is one of the more alert residents and we always find little packets of cookies hidden in her fleece jacket pockets, or a bag of animal crackers on her dresser. sure enough, the last game was BLACKOUT and grandma won that shit and chose some cookies, which she immediately tried to give to my sister. since saturday, i've retold the story to my parents and now that i'm up at four thirty in the morning, i am deciding that i'll tell the weekday activities director, whom i'm guessing is placid cow's boss. i'm not kidding myself into thinking that placid cow will be fired or even reprimanded, or that the CNAs will be told to cut it out, because this is a nursing home and shit is always retarded. it must be hard to find idiots to pay to call out bingo numbers. but seriously, someone needs to let the staff know that their employee is a fucking idiot. at the end of the game, placid cow walks over to me and says conspiratorially, "you know, i think they were just trying to trick me. i went and checked their numbers and they didn't actually have the right numbers." um, what? duh. why are you telling me this? to look more like an idiot? you don't think i already fucking gathered that? jesus.

so it's 5:13 am and i woke up at 3:30 and started ranting about bingo in my head. i got up a few minutes ago to type it out and eat some maple + brown sugar mini wheats. and now i should try and get some sleep. it's fucked up that i only spent three weeks in asia and i am so brutally jet lagged. i was still jet lagged in asia, which for me stands to reason that i should have adjusted to being home fairly quickly. guess not.

heads ablaze

sherry and i got ear candled at the spa on saturday.

stupid maya

So, yesterday included some random misadventures par for the course here in Shanghai. My friend Sherry that has been housing me for the past two weeks left for Seoul early yesterday morning and before doing so, ensured that I would be up to no good by signing T and I up for a photo shoot at a fancy restaurant, Maya. Lured by the promise of endless free drinks and fish tacos in exchange for some posing and smiling, I unwittingly sent out smses to my other nearest and dearest, encouraging them to stop by one of their favorite joints for drinks and food while watching me and T make utter fools of ourselves. And fools we were.

The amateur-hour theme of the photo shoot was not surprising. This is, after all, Shanghai, where every amateur is given his/her own fifteen minutes of fame and, if particularly enterprising, can extend it to a full hour. But three hours, five weak margaritas, and about two metric tons of chips and salsa (the “canapés” we were promised) later, we were starving, glassy-eyed with awkwardness and boredom, and ready to punch someone in the face. I had somehow gotten other friends dragged into it, friends who were in good faith just coming to Maya to hang out on one of my last days and wanted only some form of taco or chorizo or cheesy item to gnaw on while doing so. God. After the last shot (a long-table, romantically-lit banquet dinner where people apparently keep napkins folded on top of plates and eat only chips and guac), we were told that the kitchen was now closed and we could feel free to finish all the chips on the table.

What the fuck?! I don’t even get one stinking taco out of this mess? Eff all of you to hell. There are a lot of things that I will do for food, which apparently includes cajoling and berating my boyfriend into dressing in “smart casual” and accompanying me to Most Awkward Situation Ever née Most Irritating Experience I’ve Had For a While, then obligating my friends via Guise of Free Drink to participate as well, but to then be fed only small trough by small trough of tortilla chips accompanied by ridiculously shallow containers of salsa?? RUDE. Eff you again. Don’t tell me I’m getting canapés when I am in fact getting Shanghai versions of the jumbo Costco bag of Mi Tierra chips and Kool-aid versions of margaritas. I don’t want to see you again, particular in a dark alley while I just happen to be carrying those aforementioned items, which may or may not be jammed down your gullet while the words, “FEEL FREE TO FINISH THE CHIPS AT THE TABLE” are being screamed into your ear.

sfo to hk to sh to broke

omfg. i keep saying that. over and over. i am lit from within, and by that i mean raging. mad. angry. flummoxed. frustrated. ridiculous!

communication style in chinese families goes like this: (uncle to cousin-in-law to me) hey, i told your mom about the price of the plane ticket, so it's already booked, ok?

and i get the itinerary in my inbox and it's about 3x as much as i want to or can pay. !)!(@#$^%&%(#)#! WTF? wait, WHY? how does this happen? i call my mom and ask her if they talked to her about a plane ticket. she says, yeah, they mentioned something about 3000 HKD. wait, so why am i now booked on probably the most expensive ticket from hong kong to shanghai? it's a 2 hour flight! it's costing me nearly as much as my flight from san francisco to hong kong! how does this happen?

oh, if only the answer was simple. it has to do with my mom's birth positioning (oldest of seven), my language barrier, my black sheep uncle who does whatever the hell, my cousins' deference to him for whatever reason, and so on. for the love of friggin GOD. now i'm paying $456 USD for a 2-hour flight. and without any consent on my part. and without any money on my part. and if i complain, everyone will get offended. why do i do this to myself? i should know better. i'm just going to blame myself because there's no one else here. my mom told me on the phone, "well this is your situation so you deal with it. i'm hanging up now. bye" i had thanked her sarcastically for her help navigating her crazyass family and it didn't faze her a bit. "you're welcome. ok bye." THIS is why i never tell her anything. THIS is why i do things myself. THIS is why i moved halfway around the world. my people is crazy! crazy crazy crazy. and now i'm $456 in the hole. what the hell.

anyone want to hire me?

every day is a new day

every day is independent of the previous, at least those first few moments after waking. today, that little dwarf that pulls levers and pushes buttons in my brain decided that today was going to be deathly-fearful-that-i'm-not-getting-into-my-grad-school-program-day. why i am obsessing over this now is beyond me. i have work to do, i have things to write and deadlines to meet. i don't need to be distracted.

right now i'm listening to jaydiohead (courtesy of jevaun) which, concerning music to write to certainly rachets up the intensity but not necessarily the focus. but one can only listen to a mozart station on pandora so many days in the row.

i really want it to be july 3 right about now. argh.

conclusions

we said goodbye to one of my grandmas last week. she is already terribly missed.

chicaaaaaago!

i'm back from the windy city. oh, so windy. but also, oh so neat. and, at the risk of sounding like some bumpkin that rode in on a haystack, it's huge. there is space for countless parks of varying enormity, and "neighborhoods" extend far enough to encompass entire towns. we walked the lincoln park area for hours and stayed within its bounds.

i ate enough meat - red and otherwise - to feed a small nation for a month. wow. those were definitely my nutritional choices and no one force-fed me, but damn. i could use some vegetables and fish now, thank you.

the main purpose of the trip was to see trevor off to china for the summer, where he is interning, but also to meet the future in-laws and have them meet me. i must say that i really lucked out - his family is nice. really nice. it was interesting to live within the bounds of another family which isn't yours. it's like living in a reality show. i see now why trev is such a gentle person. his parents speak to each other nicely. they don't scold and boss and yell, like some families (ahem). i've heard a multitude of nightmare mother-in-law stories and i'm pretty sure i won't be part of that. i got back and spent the day doing grandma-related stuff with my parents and it was like, jesus. my mom's a screamer and has exceptional anxiety when driving or riding in a vehicle, resulting in constant loud and abrasive verbal guidance while operating a car with her in it. at one point i told her that she needed to stop jumping and grabbing onto the oh-shit handle each time a car in our vicinity changed lanes or pulled out onto our street. my dad (in the back seat), was like, "yeah!"

anyways, here are some photos:



water tower, one of three buildings that survived the 1871 fire, resulting in chicago's status as the first planned city in the u.s.



my "before" picture, lunch at manny's deli, an obama favorite



my "after." see why my body hates me? but it was too good to stop.



trev with his "girls," haley (left) and shelby. did you know there were american and british labs? british labs are thicker in the body, like our girl shelby, whom trevor refers to as "the walrus." american labs are leaner, taller, more athletic.



the new modern wing in the art institute, designed by renzo piano. beautiful space.



trev's parents took us on an architectural tour by boat. so awesome and highly recommended. we boarded right under the wrigley building.



view down the chicago river



john hancock building



navy pier. it's like pier 39 on super juice.

super eyes

36 hours after my surgery and i'm seeing really well. typing with my eyes closed, though. i shouldn't be straining my eyes with computer screen, reading, or watching tv just yet. mentally noting that there are damn few things you can do without your eyes.

what do the visually impaired do when they're feeling antsy?

what happened to the simple things

no more pure enjoyment of twitter for its random thoughts and artful observations. it's sad, but it's typical. you can't be part of something as successful as twitter without it turning into a useful marketing tool for shit like the diet-fucking-evaluation-council-dot-fucking-org who is following me because i mentioned how much water i drank today. so fucking american.

#disgusted

um, so

i've got a million-dollar observation.

when things seem bleak in your own life, when you are too tired or too sad to even think about moving forward, don't watch that show on A & E, Intervention.

i mean, jesus christ. i am watching a family that was torn apart by a daughter's abduction, rape, and murder, which resulted in, amongst other things, another child's severe drug addiction. add to that the mother's decades of grief and enabling, and it's just the most depressing shit ever.

i guess on one hand you can be grateful that you aren't the one heading down to the crack house to sell yourself for sixty bucks. driven by your fiance.

that elusive silver lining!

ugh. i feel like i need a shower just watching what people do to themselves.

hearts

photo credit

so, i was talking to a good friend of mine recently. this buddy happens to be in a tricky relationship situation, one that you listen to and try to find something wise and original and helpful to say in response, and basically come up with, "oh.... damn. that sounds shitty, dude."

i think i can safely say that 75% of us (and by us i am assuming those who read this are 20 or 30-somethings that don't live in the remote wilderness and have exactly zero dead bodies stored in the deep freeze) have been in a long-term relationship that has been painful and drawn-out and made you deeply unsure about what love means and where you stand and what fate ultimately has in store for you.

talking to my friend, of course, brought up my own time and a lot of those questions and doubts from back in the day. (thank god it was back in the day.) i am thankful for a few things in life, and i'll count them quickly now - being in my thirties, having someone awesome that i appreciate (don't laugh, i give a lot of beef but i do recognize), and having gone through the drama and craziness so i know what i want, what doesn't work, and how to spot a bastard. during my most miserable, soul-searching shit, i remember looking out of the window at the wall of ivy covering the building next door, watching the fog roll through against that backdrop. there was one small window in that building that i could see clearly enough to determine that it was a bathroom window, and i used to sit there, all tragic, and wonder if the people in that apartment were happy. if they could sense my world of misery, if they were living what i was living. whew. (i told you. when it comes to misery i'm a pro.) as shitty as times were, i am grateful for that lesson, that i know what it feels like, what took me there, and how to go in a completely opposite direction if i can sense the fringes of that coming my direction.

ok. now that My World has been established, let's move on. what's the right thing to do? will i regret it for the rest of my life? maybe being in love is different for me than it is for others. i will never be able to forget that he said that to me. well, friends, no one really has the answers for you. it's something that you and your person work out, however messily, for however long it takes. it works out in the end, and when you get to that right place, you'll know it. you'll feel it throughout your mind and body. your internal chaos will be silent, those torn fibers will knit and become whole. something inside just tells you. but you've got to fuck up a whole hell of a lot to get there. at least i did.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

waaaaaaaaaay too funny. the cuchini! solves those pesky camel toe problems. you must see the celebrity photo gallery and WATCH THE VID. trust me. it's way too worth it.