Severely Dry Skin

How does one go about convincing a hubby to do the lion's share of the cooking? Granted, he doesn't have much range (only about three simple dishes so far as I can tell), but what he does make is amazing. And I'm perfectly willing to admit that he cooks better than me. Truth to tell, I don't like to cook; I prefer making desserts like cookies, cakes, ice cream, sorbets, etc. So he should make the entrees, and I'll make the desserts! *thumbs up*

I tell him all the time that I love his cooking but he dodges the compliments as the 'why don't you cook more often?' blandishments that they are.

Grr. I'll get him yet.   >:3

Jeez...

the majority of my female friends are getting married and having babies. Not my nerd friends or the grad school friends, but everyone else (high school, undergrad, previous co-workers). There's probably a correlation there.

I don't feel that I'm behind, however. Probably because I identify more with the first two groups, and I'm still rather more career-oriented and I don't feel ready (financially, emotionally) for a baby yet. Maybe in two years or so.

But still, it's a strange feeling to see all these people I've known for such a long time...getting all domestic and popping out little mini-me's.

The hubby and I spent the afternoon in the ER because on Thursday he was playing soccer and stepped in a hole. We left it because we just assumed it was a bad sprain but after visiting my mom this morning and she told us that it looked bad enough to need an X-ray. So we went. Four hours later spent among people who looked like they needed way more help than us, and it turns out that it is indeed just a really bad sprain. Plaster cast and crutches.

My life is so fucking surreal sometimes. I'm *extremely* glad he's okay. But when I complained to my mom about it (because this is like the fifth time he's come back mangled from soccer and I'd told him multiple times previously that maybe he should lay off the soccer because it's a dangerous sport to be playing when you don't have medical insurance) you know what she said? She asked why I hadn't gone with him! To make sure he doesn't hurt himself!

I was like, what, I'm supposed to run alongside to make sure he doesn't step in a hole??

And then she said something about my presence there 'scaring' him into being careful. *snort*


After the hospital, he called her to let her know he was okay and she asked if I was still mad at him, and told him to tell me that nagging doesn't solve any problems. WHAAA??


Dude, this is the woman who invented nagging, and who had spent the previous eight years nagging me to break up with him. And now she's lecturing me about not taking care of him properly, or enough.

*sigh* Surreal.

Quickie life update and such.

June turned into an incredibly busy month for me, after months and months of nothing but pottering around my garden to do.

I got a job at the De Young Museum in San Francisco in the Membership department, which I'm thrilled about; first steps along the road of a career in the arts and all that. I love working there; it's in Golden Gate Park so I'm surrounded by beautiful nature at all times, I can avoid the ghetto parts of SF (the Tenderloin *shudder*) and I'm surrounded by like-minded individuals who are generally are all either artists or interested in/have degrees in the humanities and arts. Also I get paid decently and they're really relaxed there. San Francisco at its best, and my virulent hate of that city has tempered somewhat. Only downside is the 2-hour commute (one way) by train.

I also got another job at the YMCA as the Technology Center coordinator. It's unpaid, but I'm doing it for my resume's sake because it's a supervisory position. And you know me, I like being bossy. Bwahaha. At least I can make my own hours and my supervisor is chill.

And then I also teach private SAT English classes on the side. Having aced SAT Verbal in high school and GRE Verbal in college, and having taught TOEFL in Japan (and having taught GRE at Kaplan briefly), I guess it's a useful skill to have.

And then I also garden.



Also went to San Francisco Pride last weekend. It was so much fun! San Fran went several notches up in my estimation after I was talking about going with my coworkers and all of them basically said, "You're going? I'm going too! Let's go together!"

...If I'd said I was going to Pride to people in San Jose, most people would've looked at me strangely and that would've been it. San Franciscans can be crazy but most of them (or the ones I know at the museum) have this very 'que sera sera' attitude towards other people's lifestyles. Sometimes I wonder wistfully why it can't be like this everywhere?

Anyway. So, right after work, attended the huge street party in the Castro on Saturday with coworkers and old friends and then danced my heart out in a club after the street party ended. I love clubbing in the Castro, it's so carefree and unpretentious. We skipped the Parade on Sunday morning, mostly because we were somewhat hungover ppl had to go to work, and I didn't feel like dealing w/ the traffic.


So yeah, a bit pooped right now, but mostly relieved that I'm being productive once again.

BTW, it turns out there's a Museum Studies grad program at SFSU. I'm still sorta burned out on academics, but I kind of turn the idea over in my mind ever so often. In few years, perhaps.

Saw Transformers today. I didn't get what I expected. Which is to say, I went in expecting it to suck, but its level of suck was much worse than I thought it would be. 

The movie had the requisite number of explosions (BAY-SPLOSIONS!!!!) but what killed it was that it couldn't take itself seriously enough to walk the fine line between entertaining humor and drama without dipping into sheer silliness. The humor in it is of the penis and humping joke variety and not the snappy banter of the first one. The movie really went overboard and tried too hard to make everything funny, but the only people laughing in the theatre were the teenaged boys. Non-humorous melodramatic bits were also ruined by godawful cliched lines.

The 'bot fight scenes were entertaining enough, though I had many moments of 'wtf, where's all the other Autobots?' because Optimus was pretty much always playing Lone Ranger in a dogpile of at least two or three Decepticons. I guess everyone else was just sitting there twiddling their thumbs while their fearless leader was getting the snot kicked out of him?

And wtf is with the twin 'bots? I mean, jive-talking bots with big ears, wizened faces, goofy eyes, and gold snaggle teeth. Not to get into racial stereotypes or anything, but I guess they're supposed to be the comic relief but imo the movie would have been greatly improved if they'd not been there at ALL. They served NO purpose to the storyline whatsoever, not even protecting Sam, which was supposedly their purpose. All they did was talk jive and talk smack and bicker with each other. Haha, so funny, just as charming as Jar Jar Binks.

And Megatron?? I'm not that familiar with G1 (I was like all of 5 when Transformers was really big on tv, I tuned in instead for the animated movie and Beast Wars) but why is Megatron so pussified? He has a master? Somehow his bad-assedness was diminished in my eyes when he started in with the servility and "my master" and all that. (That's Starscream's job, yo.) And all the Decepticons were just so...generic. *shrugs* I love the Decepticons, but I was disappointed in their designs. The Autobot designs were better, although the entire movie wound up being only about Optimus and a little bit about 'Bee, and not much about any other 'bot.

I also spent the entire movie distracted by Megan Fox's enormous lips. I'm sure there's a shortage of collagen in LA now because the entire previous supply went into her face.

This movie gets a.. C-. If I watched this on dvd so I could just fast-forward to the fight scenes, maybe it'd be C+. ...I think the movie will only appeal to teenaged boys. I can't judge fandom's response.


On a side note, did anyone else find it hilarious that Optimus pretty much went Super-Saiyan? :D


ETA: Whoa, intarnets hivemind.

My mom made me LOL today.
She just got back from Korea and visiting her sister, and she complained about basically what I bitched about when I went. To whit -- fam will pinch you and tell you that you're really fat, and then proceed to stuff you silly anyways. I think she was just as unsuccessful at saying no to having food put in front of her (and being guilted obligated to eat it).  >:D

The garden is blooming~


There was a week of some worry because half of the potted plants were dying/dead...the result of a misunderstanding of the technique/schedule of watering between myself and the hubby while I was in LA.

But I rescued and applied plant 911 to what I could and most of the plants are recovering nicely. Just the marigolds (which are cheaply and easily replaced) and my herb garden died...and the herb garden is easily restarted again anyway. I mean, we eat all the time at Vietnamese restaurants, so I just grab the extra mint and basil stalks and bring them home and root them in water. Plus my housemate Athena went over to her aunt's and her aunt just gave her an entire mint bush just for my sake. :3 I LOVE mint. It's a weed, and will probably grow to cover the entire backyard (which my other mint bush is busily doing) but it's so lovely and smells so nice. I have a chocolate mint bush in my veg garden, too. I'm thinking about getting myself a lemon mint also, just for variety.

I also have some lemongrass that's been rooted in water that I'm a bit undecided what to do with.

The only plant that's still doing a bit poorly is my camellia bush...it's still little more than a sapling and puts out leaves VERY slowly, so it's difficult for me to judge if it's going to go belly-up or not. Poor baby. :( This one was given to me by my mom so it has sentimental value for me, and I'll be VERY sad if it dies.

I guess the hubby realized that watering and gardening isn't as easy as it looks! haha.

On the other hand, the veg garden is going like gangbusters. There're tomatoes on the vine!! I'm excited! The green onions are growing into actual onions, some Korean perilla have sprouted and is slowly growing, and the red bell pepper plants, which I'd given up for lost (they're a bit stunted because I planted them too early in the season) is beginning to flower, so maybe I'll have some bell peppers later. *crosses fingers*

As for the 'in-ground' plants, those weathered the week-long drought just fine...and some are doing really well. Usually when I plant things there's a period of a couple weeks in which the plant looks like it's going to die. It's called transplant shock, but it's pronounced in my backyard because of the heavy soil. But if it survives those initial weeks, then afterwards the plant just suddenly seems to decide that it wants to live and just takes off. I have orange California poppies and nasturtium and begonia and some purple flower (dunno what it is) blooming~  *happy*

One thing though-- we seriously need to cut the grass... the "lawn" is getting to be a total wilderness now because we can't locate/borrow a working lawnmower. Sometimes I see the neighborhood kitties stalking through the grass like tigers! Cute, but they're so well hidden!

I watched Up tonight. I loved it! I actually cried during the first part, and I *never* cry. (I'm usually the irritating person laughing in the back row during the schmoopy or dramatic bits). And the dog? Okay, I do prefer cats but I thoroughly convinced now that I need a dog too.

One thing though--this one was a *very* adult-oriented movie. I do like that this movie assumes that children don't need to be coddled and can handle adult themes like death, lifetime aspirations, failure, and clinging to the past, but I did wonder in the back of my mind if younger children, to whom this movie is supposed to be marketed, would even find half the movie even remotely interesting or understandable. Of course, there's the dog and the bird and some seriously silly stuff going on at the end to keep them entertained, though. I think perhaps older children would get more enjoyment out of this than, say, 5-8 year olds.


***
Busy making oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies right now. I'd intended to make some sort of loaf cake, but I'd forgotten exactly what... gettin' old.

Lessee.

I just spent a very relaxing week with kyouichi . Went down by bus on the spur of the moment. Bus, you say? What? Well, the bus, being run by Vietnamese people, is exceedingly cheap ($40 flat rate, one way) and exceedingly fast. It only takes six hours to get from San Jose to Los Angeles. Just to give you a comparison of just how fast that is, I used to drive that distance in my car in about the same time. ...but going about 80-90 mph. On the way back home, I got back to San Jose in about five and a half hours. Wazoo!  I usually curl up in the back and try to ignore whatever traffic rules the bus driver is breaking. 

...Plus, they give you a free lunch. The only thing you've got to put up with is a rather annoying Vietnamese variety/music show put up on the television, but the volume's lower than it used to be, and is otherwise easily ignorable if one has sound-canceling earbuds. And you've also got to ignore annoying Chinese people who talk really loud on the phone for hours or who lean forward in their seat and chew their sandwich with loud smacks right next to your ear (and ignore you when you turn around in your seat and glare at them for a long time), but that's a rant for another day.


On the trip down, I met a Vietnamese woman who I used to know when I worked at the bank. I used to make fun of the hubby because whereever we go in the Vietnamese side of town, he runs into a lot of people he knows! Now it's happening to me! The hubby laughs at me and tells me I'm turning Vietnamese. (It's the beginning of the end.)


Anyway. In LA I didn't do much except hang out with people I hadn't seen since I moved to the UK (yaaay), and eat lots of food that I'd fantasized about while in Japan. Roscoes (heart-attack inducing Southern style chicken and waffles and gravy and biscuits and collard green, yum), Mexican heart-attack dogs (hot dogs wrapped in bacon and fried in lard, topped with mayonnaise and a jalapeno also fried in lard, om nom nom), Mexican fruit with chili, The Tops hamburger with pastrami, Ethiopian food, vegan food.

That's one of the things I miss from when I lived in SoCal -- the food. Oh my god, the food. They really don't have this kind of variety anywhere else, except maybe in New York. I regained the two pounds I'd lost before I went to visit Cys. Mmmmmm. So worth it.

Met some new, cool people too, like hippediva  whom I'd heard of before. (The nerd community is a circumscribed one.) And I met the baby that kyouichi nannies for, who is just as adorable as stated! :D We tried to give him the Korean trial-by-fire of feeding him some slightly spicy kimchi water n rice, but he wasn't having it, haha. Wait until he graduates to gochu-jang and rice, bwahaha!

Anyway. What else?

My mom and my hubby are getting along great nowadays. He finds her pretty amusing and in him she has a great listener to talk at. I'm usually pretty pleased with this until my mom starts scolding me about something and then he totally eggs her on. And he also often adds I told you so! with a huge grin on his face.

My mom's started giving me all sorts of advice on how I should take care of the hubby and how I should treat him. The shirt ironing thing was only the beginning. And her advice is *very* old fashioned Korean woman advice. Color *me* surprised, considering that she's pretty damn Americanized and Woman Empowerment otherwise. Like, she scolded me for leaving the hubby alone for a week!  I was just, "...He's a big boy, he won't starve!"

*mutter*

The hubby loves it. *sigh*

And when I complain to her about things, like how the hubby somehow managed to kill half my plants when I was gone for the week DESPITE supposedly watering them regularly, she started scolding me about killing the plants by my watering them too much. >_<; I didn't kill them, they were fine before I left! And he's also somehow convinced my mom that I can't cook. I think it works because he says a lot of stuff because he thinks it's funny and my mom takes him seriously.

So our visits to my mom often wind up that he's highly entertained, my mom's highly entertained and pretty pleased with her son-in-law, and I've just been scolded and teased about pretty much everything.    Wah.


I've threatened the hubby with bodily harm if he asks me to iron his shirts properly one more time, though. LOL

Watched Terminator Salvation today.

I guess I'll go with the average 'regular viewer' grade and give it a B. I mean, it was entertaining enough and had a relatively solid plot, but just if it hadn't been part of a blockbuster franchise, it would never have gotten a mention again. It was a totally forgettable movie. It had the requisite number of explosions and cyborgs, but it just wasn't...exciting.. Had really way too many fucking gas flares too. And seriously, I know it's the end of the world but does EVERYTHING have to be on fire? Even shit that's not flammable had a flame sticking out of it. The dialogue was atrocious, and some of the actors crossed the line between dramatic acting and so-ridiculous-it's-a-parody. Overall, the drama was a bit *too* heavy-handed. And also overall something was just missing. Maybe it was...charm, since I can't think of a better word.

( And one half-assed-semi-spoiler snark: )

Also, what bugged me throughout the movie was, for people who are supposedly being hunted to extinction, they were sure making a lot of noise, explosions, and light (and fire) considering that they're supposed to be HIDING. Even when they were out in the field, enemy territory, at home, whatever. Even when they didn't need to have  noise/light/explosions, they had them. Whatever John Connor learned from his mom, stealth sure wasn't it, I guess.


At least, Anton Yelchin was actually pretty good. *thumbs up*  But Christian Bale has like, only two expressions. ("I'm pissed because I smelled a fart" and "I'm trying to be a rough, intense hero so I'm thinking deep, somewhat angry thoughts".) You know, pretty much every character that he's played. Come on, even Orlando Bloom has at least four expressions. ("(Did Someone Fart? Confused! Thoughtful", "Someone Did Fart, now I'm Angry!Thoughtful", "Aw Man, Farted in my FACE - Emo Puppy! Thoughtful", and "Haha, You Can't Prove I Farted - Happy but Bzuh?")


On the other hand, there was a preview for a new movie, Sherlock Holmes. It looked like it would be zany. Historical but zany. With Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock....  (my thoughts at this point were, "OOOOOHHH....") and Jude Law as Watson. ("ZOMG EYECANDY, MUST SEE")


Yes.  *ahem*

NSFW warning:
www.howtogivehead.biz

D:<


IMHO, you should just be grateful someone is willing to even give you one.

So I've been seeing reviews of Terminator: Salvation that basically say that it sucks. 34% on rottentomatoes.com. That makes me sad. The movie had so much potential to be awesome in the way Star Trek was (95% on rottentomatoes) but I guess it's not, and is instead mostly an action movie with lots of cyborgs and explosions and with little plot. :(


One thing that made me go wtf and then lol is that Anton Yelchin is Kyle Reese. That's Chekov to you. Seriously, Kyle Reese? Maybe I'm undervaluing his acting ability but I've only ever seen Yelchin play light, adorable, humorously innocent characters. I had a massive pre-teen crush on the original Kyle Reese (don't judge me!), so this casting made me go *eyebrow*.


Oh well. I'll probably go see it this weekend anyway because bad reviews were never an indicator of whether I'll like a movie or not. I did like DOOM after all. *grin* Mostly because of Eomer-of-the-blindingly-white-teeth, but yeah.

A spider just went traipsing across the carpet, in front of us, going "La lalalala doo doo doo~" and I went, "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

The hubby whapped it with the sample election ballot (we voted today, wazoo) and then picked it up with his fingers.  dagk;aksfdh!!

Then he dropped it quickly, saying, "Oh shit, it's still alive."  adflkadkhkjfhgkj!! and then whacked it a couple more times and then picked it up with his fingers again. Keep in mind that the soundtrack overlaying all this action was me still going, "AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

He went to dump it outside, me cringing in case he did an Alex and waved the bugger in my face (which he didn't, because he's a good person) and I practically shrieked, "Where are you going with that?!"

He gave me a blank look and said, "Uhhh... I'm putting it in the plants?"

SLKFJKLDAHH;AKFSKFH!   "WHAT? NOOOOO!"

"What, it's fertilizer!"

"NOT. IN. THE. PLANTS!"

Long exasperated sigh. "Fine. Not in the plants. Why?"

...because I go rooting around in the plants everyday!


I wuv my hubby, because he went and just threw the spider away without further comment. :3 The balance in his brownie point account has gone up.

Sometimes I think I'm more of a pussy around spiders when he's around because then he'll get rid of it for me. If I'm by myself, I have to be an adult and do it myself --either by drowning (which Alex has proved is less than 100% effective), vacuuming, or smashing against the wall with a Bible or just whimpering to myself and trying to pretend it's not there. In general there's a whole lot less screaming (except the initial piercing one), more swearing, and more frantic seizures.

Yesterday, I was driving Minh's younger brother home from a friend's house. He's 14. We were talking about his transferring to another high school, and whether or not he'd like that. And then we got on the subject of girls, because apparently he's really popular with the chicks, not that he appreciates it. He started complaining about how all these girls he doesn't even know just come up to him and ask him random questions, but the most common question is, "Are you half-white?" (He's not, but with his light brown hair and light skin he does look it) and I just laughed and told him that he should just  milk it. Most guys only wish that lots of random girls would come up and talk to them!

And then we had this conversation:

Him: So, like, this girl I don't even know wanted to hang out with me, so I said okay.
Me: Oh?
Him: Yeah, we're hanging out tomorrow in the park.
Me: That's cool. Is any one else coming?
Him: I don't think so.
Me: ... ... Really?
Him: What?
Me: Nothing.

(later)

Him: Man, I don't want to go to the park tomorrow! It's frickin' hot!
Me: Yeah, why don't you guys go to the mall instead? At least the mall's air-conditioned. What were you going to do at the park tomorrow anyway?
Him: She said she wanted to have a picnic.
Me: ... ...Really?
Him: ...What?
Me: Dude, that totally sounds like a date to me.
Him: HUH?!
Me: Really. (LOL)

Doesn't it?? Though, I'm not surprised he totally missed it because just before that he was enthusiastically telling me about his (female) friend's b-day party he'd just left, in which his idea of great fun with girls was to smash them in the face with birthday cake and threaten to hose them down with water.

Oblivious teenage boys. I was just "PPPFFFFFF" most of the way back home. :D

Lately I've been having competition for my strawberries from the sparrows that live in my tree. I don't mind too much, since I've seen them hopping about the yard eating bugs too... I just pick the strawberries and cut off the parts that have holes. Organic home-grown strawberries, though not large, are EXTREMELY good. There's also a mockingbird who lives in a tree next door, who sneaks over and swipes twigs.

Currently there's a giant daddy-long-legs tap-dancing around outside on my window............I like to leave the blinds up so I can see my garden as I sit here and type, and this morning the wind was blowing and this creature went swinging around like a pendulum in front of my window! I don't know wtf it's doing now, it's just sorta scrabbling back and forth. >_< ...I guess I'll leave it alone. It' s not a real spider, and generally I don't mind the thin, spindly spiders too much anyway. (See? I've improved from my younger days!) It's the big hairy ones that'll crunch and squish I can't stand.


BTW, the other day I put an end to the big spiky fat-bottomed one that frightened five years off my life. I actually feel bad about it, though.

I was just watering the plants in his corner, and he came scrambling out of this crack next to a pipe sticking out of the house. (Yeah, he was living in the foundations, I'm fucking glad I'm not a plumber or exterminator or ANY OTHER JOB THAT INVOLVES GOING UNDER THE HOUSE; there's whole boxes of my stuff that's still in my mom's crawlspace that I'll never get back because I'm NOT EVER GOING UNDER THERE.) I guess he felt the vibrations of the water on his web and thought he'd caught something?

So I saw him, didn't scream (feel proud of me), thought, 'Huh, not as big as I thought' and then 'STILL WAY TOO BIG!' and then drowned his fat ass. I feel a little bad because he almost got away from me then too, but then I pinned him with the water into a corner and I could see him flopping around and going "GLUB GURGLE GLUB GLUB"... So yeah. Guilty.

Of course, with my luck he's probably survived and will come popping out  "BOOOGA!" again and we'll have a repeat performance.


Oh shi-- a bird just sped by and snatched the daddy-long-legs who was mooning me. GO BIRDS!

I have discovered a new webcomic to drool over: Hark! A Vagrant which is a webcomic for history and lit geeks.

Some of the best bits can be found here. I seriously choked on my Frosted Flakes reading.

By the way, I've figured out what my Frosted Flakes Star Trek communicator toy does.... It lights up with a yellow LED! The hubby was totally *facepalm* when I showed him while cackling wildly.

After reading about the upholding of the convictions of the men who beat and strangled the transgender teen Gwen Araujo
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAJK17JSU3.DTL, (what I want to know is, how can you use the "gay panic defense" if there were FOUR of you?)
I went researching around on the 'net on other LGBT-related murder cases.

Did you know that, under federal law, crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation are not prosecutable as hate crimes? Seriously. I couldn't believe it at first!

It appears that bills were introduced in order to expand the definition of hate crime to cover sexual orientation but they were defeated in Congress. The latest attempt, which did survive both houses, was then vetoed by Bush in 2007. (goddamn Bush.)

Clinton attempted the first bill. Come on, Obama, don't fails me now.

BWAHAHAHAHA!





As a side note, I found a Star Trek communicator toy in my Frosted Flakes today. (NO, I didn't buy the cereal just for the toy!)
.........Don't judge me! >_<;;;;

DUDE.

Star Trek T-shirts.

I especially want the The Trouble with Tribbles: CRAZY DELICIOUS one. Or the Good Spock Evil Spock one, just because they made me rofl.

As an aside, I am really enjoying the wank over at PHD Comic's current week posting arguing over who's more useful/more practical/does more valuable work/IS BETTER, the Humanities or the Sciences?

The predominant audience of this web comic is graduate students and those who do have advanced degrees. So it's like fandom wank...but academic fandom wank. :D


So finding proof that fandom wank happens at all levels of intellectualism is so, so delicious. Depressing, (esp when reading the comments about the state of funding for the humanities at large) but so, so delicious.