Kaleidoscopic Curiosities

Thirty one days

I've now blogged every day for thirty one days. I didn't think it was possible (and I am probably the only person in the world for whom it has been an edifying experience) but I did it.

The following statements are also true:

• I haven't had a Diet Coke -- or any soft drink whatsoever -- in 31 days.
• I haven't eaten french fries in 31 days.
• I took 94 items to Goodwill in the last 31 days. I was shooting for 100, but I'm happy with 94.

I hadn't planned for this to amount to a grand exercise of any kind, but in retrospect it seems to be about decluttering my body as well as my home, and therefore my mind. My jeans are a little looser, my kitchen has a little more usable storage space and I sleep better knowing that I made good choices during the day.

It has been a good month. Now let's see if I can keep this momentum for another 29 days...

Thanks for reading!

Dhih beadupudda ist dulishiusth!

That's what "This peanut butter is delicious" sounds like, when your mouth is full of peanut butter. :)

My very dear friend Maria and I used to work together. For over seven years we shared responsibilities and we always joked that we "shared a brain" because one of us was able to pick up where the other left off, and we almost always thought alike. Well, this Christmas was one of those shared-brain moments because we unknowingly gave each other the magical gift of peanut butter.

My gift from Maria took the form of a membership in (I love these words together!) the Peanut Butter of the Month Club, and my first shipment arrived yesterday. Woohoo!

On the right is the white chocolate raspberry flavor of PB Loco (I gave Maria their Mocha Espresso flavor, to which I am seriously addicted). It has teeny tiny morsels of good white chocolate distributed throughout, and each mouthful carries a faint berry hint that you can't see or feel but you definitely taste. I give this peanut butter 4 stars out of 5!

Although they started out in Minnesota, PB Loco now has peanut butter cafes (!!) in several states. Last summer my mom and I dined at the one in Scottsdale, Arizona. She had a sandwich that was basically a BLT with sun dried tomato flavored peanut butter, and I enjoyed a sandwich of cinnamon raisin peanut butter and cream cheese layered with thinly sliced Granny Smith apple. And a big carton of milk!

On the left is Sunland Banana Peanut Butter Spread. Normally I am terrified of anything "banana flavored" because, let's face it, it rarely turns out to have a happy ending (case in point: the Elvis edition Reese's PB Cups!). But this stuff is pretty good. I think it might have actual banana in it. It is, however, a "spread" as opposed to true peanut butter -- it feels too loose or something -- so although it tastes pretty good I must dock it half a star on that technicality, so it gets 3 stars.

Fun Fact: Sunland is the only peanut butter company in the entire state of New Mexico!

like a kid on christmas eve

Couldn't sleep last night. I kept waking up with a start, thinking I'd slept through my alarm -- which was set for 2am, 3am and 4am, because today is registration day for the next MouseAdventure!

MouseAdventure is a twice-yearly event put together by the Disneyland fans at mouseplanet.com. It's sort of a scavenger hunt, but it's puzzle-based and trivia-based, and the quests are cleverly designed so that each puzzle has many layers of complexity (at each of which you may go veering off in a wrong direction!). My friends Maria, Mike and Peter join me on these day-long, somewhat grueling yet incredibly fun events (this will be our third one, but I think it is the fifteenth MouseAdventure overall). The event started out small but it has grown dramatically -- our pre- and post-game meetings max out the largest ballroom in one of the Disney hotels with a total of 650 players plus a couple dozen staff. (In the massive group photo above, taken at the Spring 2007 MA, if you look at the very center there are two people in wheelchairs, and then to the left of them is a guy in a grey sweatshirt, and then there's Maria in a pink shirt, Peter in a black shirt, and I'm the tall girl standing behind them wearing a red scarf. Thank goodness we stood in the front or we'd never have managed to spot ourselves. Mike had to stay home with an injured dog that time.)

MouseAdventure is HIGHLY addictive. My heart would break if we were to miss out on registering, but Team Bibbidy Bobbidy Bleep is in! I sealed the deal at 2:45am, hooray! So between now and the next MouseAdventure, we'll scout the park to review commemorative plaques, peruse the window displays, refresh our memories about shortcuts between Lands and notice the stuff that you normally don't notice, like floor tiles and doorknobs and weather vanes and wrought iron. Oh yes. Last time there was a quest in which we were given photos of fifteen different New Orleans Square wrought iron balconies, and we had to spot them, find the address of the store or restaurant below it, associate each 2-digit number with the correct list of letters, and use those letters to decode a lengthy clue -- THEN we had to understand what the heck the clue was talking about, and know where to find the answer! And then manage to phrase the answer correctly in the right spot on the answer sheet. There are a hundred ways to get it wrong and only one way to get it right. (We got it right!)

Being gluttons for punishment, we compete in the Advanced division although relative newbies really belong in the Basic division. In our first MA we only placed 41st out of 60+ Advanced teams (we had tons of time management issues as well as a general bafflement at the whole spectacle of it), but in our second MA we improved to 21st place so we are hopeful to continue our upward trend. I'll be "in training" at Disneyland on numerous Sunday mornings leading up to April 13. Obsessed? Not quite. Just very, very competitive... 

interesting quiz

70%

kitchen treasures, day 4

Back to the kitchen, my sweets. Which of these things is not like the others?

If you said R2D2, I'm afraid you are mistaken: R2 is exactly where he ought to be, because he is a pepper mill! Spin his little head-dome around and he'll leave a trail of freshly cracked pepper. How cool is that? (In case you aren't aware, I am a serious Star Wars fan -- original trilogy only, please.) The only way this could be cooler would be if it beepled and boopled while it worked (I am sure some geekboy will figure out a way to enable this, sort of like that kid who hacked into the iPhone to enable the use of phone companies other than the one it was contractually married to). Now I need a C3PO salt shaker but I don't think it exists yet. Waiting patiently for the factory in China to catch up with me. 

PR: Even Designers Get the Blues

 

Loved this episode, if for no other reason than that it marks the departure of sour-faced Victorya. That really was an awful outfit and didn't look very altered (third from the right). She's obviously got  designer chops but I lost  respect for her when photos emerged online showing that her winning dress in the prom challenge was a straightforward ripoff of a dress a former PR designer (Michael Knight) created for a tv show. Now I'm reading that Victorya somehow scored her own show at Fashion Week, so that'll be interesting to see. Fashion Week is in about two weeks, and images of the PR shows will be available at Getty Images nearly instantaneously for us PR junkies to obsess over until the finale finally airs...

Anyway, back to this week's episode, in which the designers were to create an original iconic look using only Levi's 501 jeans, jean jackets and white cotton (presumably the stuff they make pockets out of). They were given lots of additional Levi's notions like huge cones of ochre thread, fly buttons and those little red Levi's flags.

I was happy for Ricky, the winner, but I didn't think his dress was the best one (third from the left, in the photo above). It was definitely Ricky's best work, though, and in closeups you can see all the great seaming in the bodice.

I thought Rami's dress (left) was really sharp. He did the exposed zipper thing like Jeffrey did on that green striped dress in his runway collection last season, and I thought the whole thing had nice lines. It was different from everything else Rami has constructed this season, too, so that was refreshing.

I also loved Sweet P's smart patchwork dress (below). Michael Kors said it has "the voodoo," meaning the placement of the dark fabrics provides instant visual slimming, that most desired and most elusive quality! P was smart to hack off the bottom of her planned gown to make it a short dress. My only quibble is that the whole 501 jeans thing is about the button fly, am I right? And her dress doesn't have any buttons on it, so while I think it is the most wearable and the cutest, it does not fulfill the challenge brief as well as some others do (Rami and Christian -- the only look with pants, above -- both knocked it out of the park in that sense).

Sweet P has done great work several weeks in a row and I would love to see her at Fashion Week, but for some reason I don't get a sense from the editing that she is going all the way... We'll see.

Michael Kors made some really good points this week. Along with the "voodoo" comment about P's dress, he commented on the slightly frayed touches on Chris' dress, saying he should have pushed it and done it all over. That's something that all visual artists could learn from. Whatever quirky thing you decide to leave in, make it look intentional and make it look like it belongs there. Don't leave the viewer any opportunity to think of your quirky touch as an oversight or a mistake. Own it!

So we're down to six designers, which was the point at which they made a field trip to Paris last season. I wonder what is in store for us this time? 

a needlefelting tragedy

Ever since Heide Murray wrote a needlefelting project for ARTitude Zine, I've wanted to try it. Turns out to be highly therapeutic, all that stabbing! I am pretty sure I'm not felting my pieces to a firm enough state, but so far I'm just making ornaments that won't be handled much, so I think it's more important for me to worry about wrangling the fibers into the (somewhat recognizable) shape I intend for them to take. If I keep going, trying to firm things up, I end up with lumpy bumpy dryer lint. But I'm getting better! There's really nothing to it, and it's fun. Just requires practice. And I think I'd have better luck with fibers that are not as slippery as this nice smooth roving.

So, where's the tragedy? I hung this plump little yellow guy to snap the photo and then the phone rang so I went into the other room. When I came back, it was gone... Yes, the kittens bagged their first bird! They gutted it, literally turned it inside out. I am still finding wisps of yellow roving everywhere, and one chewed-up wing lies on the kitchen floor as a testament to the cats' dominance.

Their mama would be proud. When they were tiny kittens, before they came to live with me, they lived in my dad's back yard. One day my stepmother saw the momcat teaching the kittens about butterflies. Another day, there must have been a lesson on birds -- what they do, and why they must be stopped.

I guess I can't fault them. Yellow birdie was too tempting, dangling there. My bad. But still sad. 

gratitude

On Thursdays I have been blogging about the previous night's Project Runway, but last night I didn't manage to watch it. Thank goodness for TiVo! (And yes, I suppose Bravo will show the episode over and over like it always does, thanks Bravo!)

Yesterday was a crazy day, in fact the whole week is kind of nuts. But I accomplished one very good thing yesterday: I got my roof repaired, and a lucky thing too because we had a biblical-scale deluge that afternoon and evening, with more rain on the way. Can I just mention that, in general, roofers know they can charge pretty much whatever they want, and they do, and are jerks about it?? Thank goodness I found one I felt comfortable with, whose rates are somewhat less than extortion-level. If you are in the SoCal South Bay and need roof work, I highly recommend Navarro Roofing.

So while I'm appreciating the new patch of roof shingles that kept me dry and cozy through the storm, let me also celebrate:

1. eeep! Productions, the website developer that recently updated the ARTitude Zine website. This still isn't the long-rumored complete overhaul, but at least now all the available issues are represented and the shopping cart has been adjusted. So (a) feel free to order those issues you didn't know existed, and (b) talk to Tracey if you need web help -- she's a gem. 

2. Life without Diet Coke. Yeah, I'm sort of practicing reverse psychology here, because I desperately miss the zippy refreshment of my beloved beverage, but I've gone without it for three weeks now in an attempt to "eat clean." Aspartame is pretty bad news, according to what I've been reading. And as someone who is trying to manage depression without medications, I'd better try to eat simply and without chemicals. I am grateful for ice-cold water in plentiful supply and herbal teas to warm my afternoons.

3. Kittens! Oh come on, I haven't posted a photo of them in days. Cut me some slack! :) It's hard to contain this much cuteness.

kitchen treasures, day 3

My dear mother cross stitched this sampler. I heartily endorse its sentiment. :)

kitchen photolog, day two

 

These are my beloved Dr. Doolittle curtains! I think I may have mentioned them long ago in this space, but they always bring a smile to my face and definitely belong on this list of kitchen favorites. I found these at a flea market and could barely contain my excitement, but anyone who shops at flea markets knows that Rule #1 is "Don't let the vendor know that you'll pay any price to get these," so I calmly inquired about the price and forked over the cash without allowing my face to register the giddiness I was feeling.

Dr. Doolittle was one of my favorite childhood films, along with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins (I definitely had a thing for Dick Van Dyke). I loved the ship and the weird island and Rex Harrison's dashingly handsome doctor who could talk with the animals. In my kitchen curtains you'll find the snail with the broken tail, the horse who needed glasses, the two headed push-me-pull-you, the talking parrot and the whale who saved the day, not to mention a monkey wearing clothing who is the main reason my eye was drawn to this textile in the first place.

Yah, they're a little nursery-ish but they make me happy (and they go perfectly with the green walls and all my vintage dishes, so they're a keeper).