Growing up monkeytonic

Hello, internet journal. It's been a real long time since I've updated. Sorry for the neglect. We live in our house now. Ask questions and I'll answer in long-form, but I really don't know what else to say.

Layers, from bottom to top: mint chocolate chip ice cream, fudge sauce. Newman-O's, vanilla bean ice cream, hand made whipped cream frosting. Please make me something this good for my birthday!

I'm supposed to write an "artist's statement" today. I need to write it by midnight tonight, and I have nowhere to start. No clue what to put in something like that. There are questions I'm supposed to answer, but they're so vague and non-directional that I don't even know what they're asking. Have any of you written something like this before? What did you say?

I tried to get into the appropriate mood by getting drunk before the show. I drank a beer, and two shots of whiskey. I expected plenty of songs that I didn't know, after all we've only listened to the 90's music.

You could see Kim and Thurston playing their roles. They knew exactly what to do and when. The feedback loop was the same, yet still sounded new. The crowd in the front-the 18-21 year olds-loved what they saw and I don't blame them. It's a rock show of historic proportions. It's like when you hear about your parents seeing Queen or Pink Floyd. You don't quite believe you're there. But you are, and it's 2009 instead of 1996, where instead of the Target center before REM they're headlining at First Ave.

The band was in it's height and excited to play live in front of a massive live audience in the Target Center. I keep waiting for a song I know here at First Ave. There isn't a single one, not even in the encores (I left before the second encore was complete). At the Target Center, Kim and Thurston appear to be excited. They look like they've come expecting a crowd that expected of them. Tonight, they looked like they were just doing their job. No more than Melissa and I, who do our jobs every day.

another 15.13 mile ride today. on the mountain bike it's more than it seems. my wrists are killing me, but everything else feels good. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2647376

I was sort of filled up all week preparing for one thing or another and biking was pushed to the back of my brain. I actually took the mountain bike out and rode 15.5 miles today. This makes my weekly total the 20miles I was aiming for, but not the 5-miles-4-days thing that I was going for with consistency. Next week's goal, should it be warm, is to ride to work once and go for a couple leisurely rides, 23miles.

So I rode my bike. I slept until 11:30 trying to avoid it. I had to fix the brakes first and pump up the tires. I did both, easily. I went out and rode for 4.2 miles. I don't have a computer, so I just sort of guessed how far I went. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I plan on lengthening it just a bit before work.

Even though it's cold, even though I haven't ridden a bike since November (or, was it December?), even though I don't want to, I'm going to ride my mountain bike on Monday. I'm promising myself that I'll take it easy and I'll only make myself ride for 5 miles. If it's too cold or gross out after that, I can give up. If I'm too out of shape after the 5 miles, I can give up. But those 5 miles are going to be put in starting on Monday. Wish me luck!

(cross post from here.)

Truth be told, I'm pretty nervous about doing all this. At first, I just wanted to go on a long supported bike ride. Then I read about MS and this seemed not only like a crazy time, but also like a worthy cause. The MS150 was my first choice, because there was "no way I could do a 5-day bike trip." I registered for the 150 before I realized that it is the same weekend as my good friend Sean's wedding. The only option was to ride in two other rides-a one day ride or a five day ride. I wanted to raise the money, but I also waned to challenge myself to do something big.

I've never ridden more than 46 miles in one day. I haven't ridden my bike since November. I've never raised this much money for a charity.

But I can do it. I can give my time and my effort to MS. I can raise $750 and I can ride 280 miles. I can do it, even though I don't think I can right now.

21 weeks to go.

Hey, guys. I've decided to go on a long-ass bike ride to help find a reason and a cure for MS. I don't personally know anyone suffering from MS, but I do know people who have someone in their lives who are severely challenged due to a debilitating disease that is seemingly spontaneous and horrific. Go read about it, then donate here.

I'll be pestering you all many, many times about this over the next months, but the sooner I reach my fundraising goal, the sooner I stop talking about how I need you to donate.

Hi. My name is Ping Pong.

I haven't felt very well for days.

Today I tried to make myself feel better by making the worlds most delicious and comforting breakfast: German Oven Pancakes! and Bacon!

( Look! )

Hello internet. I miss you, but I can't seem to stay interested. Maybe I'm getting older or maybe I've become much more silent. I don't have much to say anymore or the things I used to say seem unimportant. I think this journal may be abandoned soon. I might be wrong and I may post when I have a whole lot more free time. For now, I'm accepting that I'm simply no longer interested.

I'm seriously having the hardest time studying for an exam I have at 5:30 tonight. I studied all day yesterday, yet today I keep finding other things to do. Like post to an internet journal.

Today there's an owl outside my window, cooing loudly, and I'm unable to locate it. I'm pretty sure it's in the pine tree just outside of our yard. I cannot identify it since I don't know owl-sounds very well (or at all).

I'm wearing new shoes, and I'm going to attempt to drive my car to work, although since I've woken up it seems like less and less of the grand idea that I thought it was last night when I was dying for sleep.

As I'm a grandma, I have an ulcer and google sends me text messages every morning to remind me to take my medicines.

Short story:
My car was broken into. I fixed the window, and just bought new tabs the day before (total $280). The dudes busted up the heating and electrical work, so to make the car liveable would cost about $500 for a crappy job and $1000 for a good job (at a shop) because I'd need to replace the whole dashboard. Now, my car is worth maybe $1250 total.

Question:
What do I do? Fix it, sell it, keep it as is, attempt to fix it myself, junk it? Please, dear internet, guide me.

Oh, hello there internet!

Just wanted to say that. Later gators.

in a taste test between Garrett's and Nuts on Clark, Garrett's has the best caramel corn.
in a separate but equally executed taste test between Gino's East and Giordano's, Gino's East has the best pizza.

just thought you'd all like to know.

Today holds visits to both of Minnesota's senators offices in order to convince them that the farm bill subsidies of corn, rice, wheat, soybeans, and cotton need to be discontinued. I'm more than a bit nervous about this, as I had not been as active in the campaign as I had planned. I have no idea what to even say to these senators. "Hi. I don't think subsidies are a good way to spend money or help farmers." There's no why statement I can come up with. Maybe I'll have to re-read all the literature I so diligently handed out back in June. I know there's something about decreasing the value of cotton and making farmers in Africa even poorer. I also remember something about mega-farms getting all the subsidies and small farmers getting none. Then there's re-distribution of money, perhaps to nutrition programs and rural development (internet access, information infrastructure, small business loans). Then there's always the food stamp program, which for some reason is part of the farm bill.

Make trade fair
2007 farm bill

30-ish hours until kittenbeer; is in the same state as me!

Skymaps, to help you locate the constellations in their positions each month.

Earth & Sky, to give you things to look for in the sky. Also, podcasts and things.

Farmer's Almanac, for random bits of information, like when the next meteor shower will be or what time the sun sets and what moon phase it is.

the middle prong thing broke out of the power charger thing for my computer. this makes charging sort of an acrobatic feat that requires precision placement and absolute stillness once the position is found that allows charging.

the next best part is that my laptop battery is reaching it's charging life limit, near the same time as my lead acid car battery. both self discharge at seemingly alarming rates. my computer self-turns off to preserve memory after about 10 minutes of no charge and my car stereo clock is about 3 minutes behind every time i turn my car on.

the funny thing is that the computer is more expensive to fix, yet getting rid of my car immediately is the first thing that pops into my head.

that said, if anyone knows of a good deal on chargers or batteries for either cars or G4 iBooks, letagirlknow.

good things from yesterday:
+ went to Krispy Kreme and watched the doughnuts get made, then ate a big huge pile of them (four). hot, fresh Krispy Kremes kill me with the yum. not hot, different story. but right when they're made? AWESOME.
+ went to the police bike auction. scored a sweet trek 4500 alpha mountain bike. it needs a little help on the front end, maybe a little more help elsewhere that I haven't looked at yet, but still it's in pretty much aces condition. it's got some sweet components and wheels. I can't wait to ride it in rough conditions and all winter. across the lake.
+ watched "terror planet", which was pretty awful, but whatevs. it was awful-good.
+ the day before I made some completely awesome squash risotto with uh, squash. and leeks and mushrooms. it was killing me with yum.

good things for today:
+ girlsbikerace! I'm going to try to ride it. first, some studying up on various possible stop locations and plotting in my mind. and eating lots of carbs for lunch in about 20 minutes.
+ working the overnight.
+ resting a whole lot.

The farm that harveytchainsaw and I get vegetables from each week was flooded in August with this massive succession of rainstorms that followed the severe-t-extreme drought that was plaguing us in Minnesota. Floooded with like 17 inches of rain, and I'm not even joking. They're still trying to figure out where to go from here, how to recover from a loss to the business that is a family farm and move forward. Clean up, paperwork, all that.

We didn't get vegetables for two weeks, which was a sort of strange blessing as it cleared out both of our refrigerators and we started fresh this week with an all new load of produce, altered slightly because some of the things we were to get had been submerged in water for days and weeks.

The box did not dissappoint, it had peppers and a strange looking celery and a watermelon and beets and a bunch of other stuff. I'll show you a picture sometime. I still owe you all one of the last week before the flood (which was taken with a polaroid due to my broken sloppy-joe camera).

Tonight, I made for dinner a Quorn thingy with goat cheese and cranberries with a delicious side of beet greens all fancied up. Here's what I did:

beet greens
spring onion
garlic
hot/sweet purple pepper
cherry tomatoes

-saute the onion & garlic until semi-soft, at high temperature to get it all crispy on the edges if you like that sort of thing.
-add the pepper in slices or rings or diced or whatever sized chunks you like. also add the cherry tomatoes (cut in half lengthwise) and make sure that for real it's on high heat. do this for just a little bit, until the tomatoes just barely start to shrink in size.
-then throw in those beet tops and try to get them to fit in the pan without spilling anything. don't worry, they shrink.
-keep it on that hot heat and toss it all around until the greens are not giant. the very second that they're not fluffy any more they're done. don't overcook them or they'll taste like how you remember cooked canned spinach tasting when you were a little kid and your mom still made you eat it even though it tasted like salt and puke mixed together.
-eat it all up right away. remember to turn off the stove, cause we don't want the house to burn down.


It was really good. Now I'm going to eat cheesecake, drink wine, listen to the Pixies, and study organic chemistry. It's funny, because studying organic chemistry is completely fun and I feel like I'm cheating the system when it's time to study that instead of physics or calculus. Although calculus isn't terrible. But that physics is for SURE. Super terrible, that physics is. He's not invited to our parties. Unless it's Isaac Asimov. He can come. Also the string theory guy, whatever his name is.

You know how people often wish "there were more hours in a day"? Well, I wish there was one more day per week, in which I'd actually get a day off to take care of everything that gets pushed to "the next week" and then never done. Like hanging up pictures, organizing a massive box of paper/mail/whatever, and all that nonsense. An extra day every week would be real nice.

Also, that cheesecake has been made. It's okay. A little too pasty for me, but it's probably my own fault. I couldn't get the egg whites to get merengue-y, possibly because I didn't wash the beaters very well and there was probably lots of other stuff in them besides just egg whites. But whatever, it's still cheesecake. Probably a good cheesecake to put stuff on, like chocolate sauce, fruit, whatever. I bet I could make some massive good peach stuff or raspberry stuff to put on that motha'.

I'm wandering around the hospital waiting for a friend to get out of surgery so I can take her loopy anesthesia-ass home and what do I see? An early 20s man in a wheelchair with a system who's playing some very triple-X rated rap very loudly. His speakers were about a thousand times more awesome than the ones in my car. Although his were duct taped to the back of his seat and mine I'm sure are in a secure location with bolts and whatnot.

I am supposed to be sleeping now, in preparation of my next shift in another two hours. But I am not, as it's pretty much impossible to take an hour long nap at 8pm. I was going to attempt this nap at about 5pm, however, after an afternoon of lazy and cuddling and food prep, I ended up cooking and eating instead. As well as interneting, which has been neglected for what seems like weeks.

This hermiting has gone on long enough. It'll continue, I'm sure, but I'm sick of it. School starts in two weeks. I'm having troubles with so much financial stuff that my biggest fear at the moment is needing to drop out of school to make it all work. Or, also, full time working on top of a crazy science-math year at the same time. Or, two part time jobs. My biggest hope is that I get another two shifts at my job per week. Then I'd get health insurance. Yay!

I think I'm right on the crest of the wave that will allow me to sell my car after I fall over the edge. All the places I need to go, there's a bus or train. Maybe.

Things to do at work, things to bring to work:
-burn lame cds for coworkers. bring blank cds, computer, cds to be copied
-print receipts and pack books for selling. then bring to post office on the way home in the a-em. bring: trig, chem books, packing paper, tape.
-read. bring book to finish (still!) and book to start.
-eat. bring food: casserole, coleslaw, mixed nuts, biscuits, jam.
-exercise. bring: athletic shoes. walk up and down all the stairs in the hospital, do yoga, chair-squat thingies for the arms, sit ups, push ups.
-drink a massive amount of H2O. at least 2 liters.

I've been sick since yesterday midday and I hate it. I ate a super spicy dinner in an attempt to quell it. Instead, it just burns when I poop. Luckily, one of my lab partners from the spring works at the Thai restaurant. So the boyfriend and I ate for the price of one entree. We had fancy tea drinks, appetizer, entree, and coconut ice cream. For $13 plus the tip. That was awesome.

Yesterday, also, in reverse order, I went to the Luce block party. The block party itself wasn't very exciting. It was nice, however, to see Mary and Corey and Patrick. I like seeing Miss Boiling Babies very much.

Before that, I went shopping with my twin. She was in town for a day or two. We started by having breakfast with our dudes at the French Meadow. Then we went to Anthropologie where I fell in love with everything and decided I need to gain a massive amount of $ for spending. Then, to the Mall of the America, because it was patriotic. I got a blue belt for $3. Also, somewhere thrown in there was an estate sale in which I procured a springform pan. This means that I will soon learn to make the world's best cheesecake. Who wants to be friends? Included in the friend requirements is eating a lot of cheesecake. And carrot cake, apparently.

this week's CSA, thanks to Harvey yet again. please give ideas. i'm lacking in inspiration currently for cooking. last week's marvel was carrot cake and an amazing pizza, which must be created again I'm afraid.

the past 4 weeks of produce have now been added to flickr, if you're interested take a look. also my camera has passed away in a tragic sloppy joe incident, giving one last breath of life for me to take the final images off of the card.

Heartbroken is really the only word I can think of to say about all this. It's cement. It's an artery. It's broken. People are destroyed and lost.

I'm safe. I was in an Asian grocery when a lady was shouting at us about the bridge having crashed about two minutes earlier. Everyone that I know of is safe. People I know had close calls. Pictures were floating in my mind all day, I was close to tears many times and actually came to them several. I got home from work and rode my bike as close as I could. I only saw a very small fraction from where the police tape was, through the trees. It frightens me. It did. It continues to do so.

I need to force myself to see it. I wanted almost to see a body floating somewhere downstream. I wanted to take pictures, to capture the pain. There wasn't any facing it, though. I tried to face it and stare it down but it didn't happen as I wanted it to. I wanted to see it and cry and accept the awfulness. The fear I've had since I was a kid of bridges after I saw images of the world series earthquake highway collapse is now magnified ten-fold.

Right now, I miss my friends immensely. I appreciated all the voicemails and emails and text messages. Really, I did. Thank you for your love.

does anyone have any good recommendations for websites that help you train and plan for long distance biking? next summer, I think I'm going to bike to Denver. uphill AND long distance. the plan seems to be 70-100 miles per day. must find good training regimen.

This week's CSA looks like an amazing catch. I can't wait to coook with it all. Plus, I'll be making something for the family reunion tomorrow. What to make???

Oh geez! The deliciousness! Please inundate me with your recipes and suggestions.

Thanks to the fine gentleman, Mr. My-son-needs-growth-hormones Harvey the Chainsaw for the picture.

This weeks plans for all this food are as follows: boil the beats and devour them real fast, roast the turnip, make some risotto with the peas and some of the parsley from last week, potato salad with the beautiful potatoes and some of the old dill from a few weeks ago, some thai-style dish with a peanut sauce for the broccoli, onions, and basil, and then perhaps some fruit salsa with the cilantro. The lettuce will be eaten on it's own as it's sweet and delicious. The kohlrabi was given to Sir Chainsaw today, as I sort of didn't want to think about how to eat it or how to properly split it. Also, I need ideas for the chard-it's terribly pretty.

jesus. cleaning old apartments right before you move out is the worst part of all of the moving stuff.

it takes forever, there's always things you forget, and you won't get to enjoy the fully spotlessly clean apartment.

so far, i've:
-cleaned the bathroom and scrubbed the floor in there
-cleaned out the closet and scrubbed off all the scuff marks
-washed all the walls
-scrubbed out the fridge, stove, and oven
-washed all the crazy little corners
-vacuumed three times
-gotten rid of the table and the big old plant


still to do:
-clean kitchen floor & sink
-wash kitchen floor
-once-over the bathroom, in case i accidentally spilled dirty water on anything
-wash the radiator
-make sure elecrical outlets are "clean"

awesome website of the day: your body. practically a whole anatomy class all free and online! the best. now I just need the coloring book, too.

thanks to the wonderful harvey the chainsaw for picking up our yummy food this week and taking this awesome picture.please tell us things to make with these foods!

Forget the Elexctra Townie that I've been lusting after. I still want/need (have not yet decided if this is a want or a need) a mountain bike. However, the next thing I want, sometime soonish (i.e. before next winter): a Surly Big Dummy with winter-able wheels and tires. Then, selling the car ensues.

I just had a lovely affair with about a hundred cicadas.

I took four of them home with me, and now plan on taking them out of the nice jar and putting them in the naughty jar. Then, gutting them and stuffing them and then on to pinning! They are adorable. I also seem to have found a cute little damselfly and a mean looking stonefly. They will also go into the naughty jar.

On the drive to Illinoise, I happened to also see two cranes, which I hadn't really ever seen alive and in actual-land rather than on tv. It's true.

Then, I'm going to bake a cherry pie for my family. Hopefully it tastes good.

Hey everyone, I've made an RSS syndication for Minnesota Oxfam Action Corps blog regarding the 2007 Farm Bill (mn_oxfam_action). Add it if you're interested in the Farm Bill. It should be interesting for people who are outside of MN, too, since this is a national issue.

This is Harvey The Chainsaw and my first CSA box. Later in the season, the boxes should be getting more exciting. This one has: salad mix of lettuce, red leaf lettuce, spinach, asparagus, and chives.


Also, from the farmers market, I got some eggs, scallions, and rhubarb. I have some plans brewing for what I am going to make, we'll see how much time I get!

one little thing that i'm going to miss about living here (there's not many things) is listening in to my neighbor's fights. it's equally disturbing and entertaining. i can hear it very clearly and he's mean and loud, sometimes violent. but then i hear him throw his cell phone against the wall and realize that nobody's in immediate danger. nevertheless, i love listening in. it'll be strange not to have people to spy on like that, people to make up stories about in my head. maybe i will, they'll just be further away than across a thin wall.

i'm going to chicago tonight, so i wanted to change my brake lights/blinkers. i thought it would be easy.

a) lost the screws holding the whole light in place into the bumper somewhere.
b) couldn't get the "latches" to unlatch
c) owners guide thing says "hit lamp with your hand towards side panel to release latches." could this be more vague? do i hit the back of the light away from the trunk in a sweeping motion? do i hit straight on the back to make it go forward? do i hit the side of the lamp, straight on, on the side panel?
d) now i have no left side blinker or brake light. for a 400 mile trip. this sucks hard.

so if any of ya'all know how to change that lamp on a 97 ford escort, please comment.

oh! hey there! did you know that Paul "magic bullet" Ehrlich and Paul "population bomb" Ehrlich are two different people? yeah. this explains why i was so massively confused with places referencing Mr. Ehrlich as being a cranky old man and "why are people still listening to him", while others referencing him as being a hero who died in 1915. it baffled me how each discipline totally ignored the other. now it all clears up.

count: 4 morels for me, 1 morel for sean.



found by sean: the coolest bug in all of minnesota that i've ever seen. it was a long green shiny beetle with blue legs and white symmetrical dots. it was going to come home with me, but then i lost him.

***edit***

after some research, I now know that the coolest bug in all of minnesota is called a Tiger Beetle, or, Cicindela sexguttata. It looks like this:



(photo from http://bugguide.net, by Jay Barnes)

I forgot to post about this: on Thursday night, as we (Eliza Riot! and I) were waiting outside for a table at Luce for the Aliveness Project Dining out for life thing, I saw a flying squirrel! seriously. I knew that there were two varieties of flying squirrel in Minnesota, but I've never seen a single one. I looked up and saw something glide into a tree, it was wide and a big ol' white tummy. I thought at first that it was a squirrel, but thought that I was just being hopeful and really it was a bat or a bird. The animal landed, then quickly climbed up to the very top branch of the tree and leapt to the next tree. Then I lost track of it. So exciting, I've been telling everyone about it since.