Elephants and monkeys and spiders, oh my!

This morning I've been doing a bit of e-mail catch up and blog reading. I know I just said e-mail catch up but that doesn't mean that anyone should actually expect e-mail from me, I'm not that on the ball yet. So, I was reading all about D's adventures in southeast Asia and, dare I say it, I'm slightly envious. I know that in theory I've just settled down for the foreseeable future but it sounds so exciting to be navigating the cities and outback of Thailand and Cambodia. As much as I love being at "home" I will always be plagued by wanderlust.

Fire in the hole!

. . . and I mean that literally. I caused a minor fire in the apartment today. All I wanted to do was bake some chocolate chip scones, I have a great recipe and I've been craving them for days. So, when I came home for my lunch break I set about baking. To make a long story short, when I opened the oven to check on the scones, flames came leaping out at me. Now, don't worry I didn't panic. I quickly closed the oven door to make sure the fire stayed relatively contained and then I turned off the power to the oven. For a split second I debated between practicality and extra precaution, the latter being the choice to use the fire extinguisher. Practicality won out in the end. I figured that if I used the fire extinguisher on the flames I'd have to tell our landlord about it and then something would have to be done 'professionally' to the oven and I really didn't think that I could handle that financially . . . plus it was a relatively tiny fire . . . I think.

Anyway, what did I do, you ask? I took a quick look at the flames again to make sure it wasn't electrical items burning and then took a mug of water and flung the contents at the flames. Probably not the best choice and I can just hear the collective gasp of horror that's coming out of you all as you read this. The water did the trick though and out went the flames. The apartment was filled with smoke and even now, hours later, still smells slightly smoky . . . although more like bonfire than oven fire, which is kind of nice. And the icing on the cake is that the scones still turned out wonderfully despite being licked by flames! It's not the way I would recommend baking them but if I added, "Don't do this at home kids," to the end of the story I feel like it can be like any other public service announcement. All's well that ends well though, the fire is out, the oven is fine, no one got hurt and I don't have to pay to replace an appliance that I can't afford in the first place. I will be cleaning out the oven thoroughly though so that there isn't anything else that can catch on fire and I think I make take a hiatus from baking just as a precaution.

I heart candy and pumpkins

Yet again I'm blogging when I should be working . . . oh the procrastination gene is my bane! But what can I do? It was inherited and I have no control over it, *sly grin* although I'm sure my father would protest.

Halloween has crept up on me this year. A quick trip to Target this evening proved that I was clearly behind the times, most of the decorations had long since been swiped up and I wasn't impressed by what was left behind. Rubber heads with pre-recorded creepy voices and glowing eyes that move a little when you press a button are so uninspired as a decoration and left me wanting more. Not that I'm a Halloween fanatic but I must admit that I do like Halloween for these two reasons: 1) The candy 2) The pumpkins.

So, pumpkins . . . well, they're just fun, aren't they? Their subdued shades of orange seem so appropriate for fall, cozy and warm. And of course there's pumpkin pie, a favorite of mine, and roasted pumpkin seeds too, such yummy treats for this time of year.

And any excuse to have lots of candy, especially chocolate, is great in my point of view. The notable exception to this being Easter. Easter is tainted for me by its inextricable association with Peeps, which (as Sherry knows only too well) I absolutely HATE! They are creepy and unnatural, should we really be eating something that can be run over by a steamroller and still regain it's former shape? Absolutely not. And the colors are absolutely garish too. Items in shades of neon pink and yellow should never be consumed. I mean please, there's a reason why neon fashion didn't make it past the 80s, it was nauseating and horrifying to look at, let alone eat!

Okay, now that I have that little rant out of my system . . . a happy Friday to you all. And if you are celebrating Halloween early over the weekend, as many people are, Happy Halloween.

The vivid unreality

There was a time when I had extremely vivid dreams on a regular basis. And when I say vivid I mean sometimes I wasn't sure if I had merely dreamt things or if they had actually happened . . . which is frankly unnerving. It's been a while since I've had such a vivid dream but last night's was a doozy. Not that it was elaborate, just so realistic that I was really confused when I woke up this morning. In the dream I was with Sarah and Carolyn and we were riding in a steam engine locomotive with a chef (in full chef garb) and some guy dressed up as Abraham Lincoln (minus the beard). Now, this wasn't just any ol' locomotive, we were in a train carriage made out of a hot-air-balloon basket. And even though everyone else was nicely dressed I was wearing my pajamas . . . but not the pajamas that I was actually wearing as I slept, if that makes sense. Anyway, the locomotive was traveling across plains of tall amber colored grass and it looked so beautiful, then we suddenly crossed a large river and the water was glittering in the sunlight and I was breathless from the perfection of it all. At which point we plunged, locomotive and all, into a futuristic tourist village enclosed in a giant glass arcade with too cute to be real antique storefronts. That's when I woke up . . . although I swear I saw a giant Christmas tree out of the corner of my eye before I woke up, and it wasn't anywhere near Christmas time.

Sometimes I wish we had more control over what we dreamed about . . . be with people that we miss or see places that we have yet to go to or return to places we've enjoyed. But the completely random nature of dreams is what makes them so amusing in the first place, so perhaps having such control over them would render them pointless, just another daydream. Either way, when dreams can be so sweet it's hard not to wish that we could stay in that unreality rather than to open our eyes to the reality that is our lives.

TGIF

Heavens to Betsy, it's Friday! How does the week go by so quickly? It was just Tuesday . . . and now it's Friday. Anyway, I should be reading an article for my next class but I'm being indulgent and blogging instead. Besides reading the article would mean printing some of it out and my ink cartridge has been dying a slow and colorful death. I ran out of black ink the day before yesterday and the paper I printed out for class this morning started out in navy and slowly faded to a mauve-ish violet color. I hope my professor has a sense of humor about it.

Something special for Friday . . . well, for some reason the acronym TGIF always makes me think of ice cream and since I had a lovely homemade ice cream sandwich after lunch I'm going to make a short list (in no particular order) of ice cream flavors that make my world go round. Please add or suggest at your leisure . . .

1. Strawberry Cheesecake
2. Cake Batter - which I've only ever had in Michigan
3. Butter Pecan
4. Mint Chocolate Chip - but not the artificially green kind b/c that's a little scary
5. Moose Tracks (or Traxx)
6. Neapolitan - a classic; three flavors in one, what more could you ask for?

Purple waves

It's such an autumnal day today. There's a chill in the air and a haze is draped over the city hiding the building tops. I can feel the cold in my bones and that's the true sign that winter is coming in Seattle. Sarah sent me pictures of snow in Michigan and crazy though it sounds, I'm slightly envious. I know that I won't see snow around here this winter except on the mountain peaks in the distance.

As I was walking through campus earlier today I saw two bridal parties taking photos on the grounds. It's definitely a pretty spot, especially with the leaves changing colors now. It was funny though since there were tailgaters everywhere in anticipation of the football game. The contrast between the bridal parties and the purple clad sports fans . . . well you can imagine. Have I mentioned yet that I love that purple is one of UW's school colors? I think it's just great, mainly because I like purple but also because it means that everyone else wears purple around here too. So, on game days like today there are just seas of people in purple. How cool is that? I would probably be highly amused by the fans at the stadium but I don't follow the football, too bad.

It's Wednesday

It has been far too long since I last posted. I haven't got a good excuse . . . maybe that school is keeping me busy or in reality kicking my tush. Just a few random thoughts from life lately.

Academic reading can be fascinating at times and dry as day-old bread crumbs at others. Sometimes though we're fortunate enough to run across little gems hidden in amongst the wordy muddle. Just such a gem that I encountered lately,

"Are low trusters social idiots?"

Yes, really. I didn't think the word "idiot" could be used in academic writing, but there it was. And no, low trusters aren't social idiots in case you were wondering.

And in random people sitings, I saw the Shoebox Greeting Card granny. You know who I'm talking about, the sassy old granny with the wavy white hair and sunglasses who is always on the Shoebox Greeting cards. I know she's supposed to be a fictitious person but I saw her . . . except she had shorter hair. She was waiting to cross the street with me in front of the hotdog shop on 45th. I wanted to say something to her just to see if she'd comeback with a saucy remark but thought better of it. After all, actually talking to her could have ruined my little encounter.

I bought yarn for myself for the first time in ages, it seemed so extravagant. With a limited income of late, I've only let myself buy yarn that would go into gifts for other people. But since I moved to Seattle without my stash (well, a very small portion came with me) I don't have any yarn to play with, so indulged myself and got a beautiful hank of Manos del Uruguay which I've been eyeing covetously for ages. Now, I have to fight the urge to knit or at least fight it until I've done my homework for the day, then out come the knitting needles and it will be time to play!

The leaps and bounds of my brain

I forgot how dry the theory of social sciences can be and despite my best efforts to the contrary my mind starts to wander in class. We were discussing the comparison of nonprofits internationally through nonprofit organizations with worldwide chapters. Someone raised the example of Greenpeace and how it was started in the UK but spread worldwide through chapters in different countries. Since the course focuses on civil society in Japan, our professor connects the example back to Japan by saying that we could compare the Greenpeace chapter in Japan with those in other countries. Oddly enough this is where my mind went off on a totally ridiculous tangent. In my head, all I could think about was how in Japanese Greenpeace has the same phonetic pronunciation as 'green peas' which is what peas are commonly referred to there. Now, I can only imagine that the chapter of Greenpeace in Japan has to deal with a lot of miscommunication regarding it and the consumption of peas. Here my brain automatically connects the phonetic blip of peas with Pocari Sweat, a popular Japanese sports drink that they tried to launch in the US but failed miserably for what I would think are obvious reasons. I mean, who wants to drink anything called 'Sweat'? Although, people do seem to enjoy Pimp Juice and Crunk which sound equally distasteful to me. But what I really want to know is, how did I get from peas to Pocari Sweat?

PS - If you go to the Greenpeace Japan website, please know that when they say the "True Food Prize" went to Bourbon they are in fact talking about a snack food manufacturer, not the whiskey beverage. Though I'm sure there are those who would argue that bourbon is indeed a true food.