Finally putting my high school film class skillz to good use

The soundtrack for this video might be a bit rough for sensitive ears. You have been forewarned.

When people ask me what it's like to live in Anacortes, I will say that it's nice and quiet and inevitably complain about the local deer gang that roams freely around the neighborhood. At first, they were cute and it was pretty novel to see wildlife hanging out in your backyard with complete disregard for private property rights. Soon, I started noticing the downsides--basically the animals were pooping in the yard, making it a veritable feces landmine and I didn't enjoy spending too much time in the grass, and eating the shrubs down to bare branches.

The romanticism of having wildlife so close to me wore off very quickly. I don't hate them outright, but it does get annoying when you're driving and there are deer in the road, but they don't bother to scuttle out of the way so you end up having to stop the car and wave wildly out of the window while honking your horn to get the deer's attention and, after all of that, they take their sweet ass time walking away.

First world problems, amirite?

'Tis the season!

Decorations up. Presents wrapped. Bring on the Christmas.

I like to think that my friends and I have built up our various little traditions. Traditions like making breakfast on the weekends before doing something as a group, Kate's on Tuesdays, celebrating New Year's at Jen's place (not because Jen is a willing host, but because we demand it of her), and, for a while at least, dinner and Settler's on Wednesdays. Usually doing anything at least twice will be considered in the running for a "tradition". Like the "tradition" where Christy and I (or anyone else) go to McMenamin's happy hour before a PNW Ballet show because it's so affordable to eat there and their cheeseburger goes really well with their Vanilla Nitro Stout.

So, it occurred to me the other day, when I dragged Jack out shopping for Christmas presents, that the girls and I did not get to do our usual holiday tradition--shopping at the outlet malls and making our way down to Alderwood Mall and finally to HoSoonYi (or any of that area's fine Korean dining establishments) for some soft tofu soup to warm us up.

I'm the type of person that easily gloms onto traditions (or, most like, repetitive habits), real or imagined, because of the sense of security they give me and it's a chance to find some meaning (however tiny) in our increasingly busy schedules. It's nice to know that if I was having a bad day, I could always look forward to having a drink with friends at Kate's. Similarly, the shopping trip to the outlets was just another way to spend some form of the holidays with friends before we all split up to celebrate Christmas with our respective families. Plus, there were always shopping deals to be had--hello, LeSportSac store and thank you for my $20 overnight bag!

It also occurs to me that perhaps I am only nostalgic for these traditions because Jack is such a terrible shopping partner in contrast with the girls. But those shopping trips were always a fun way to spend the day--especially since none of us had cars then and getting the Zipcar to get out of the city to go to the suburbs was a big friggin' deal.

Live(ish) blogging my first Halloween in Anacortes!

These things have happened:

-One of the kids came to our door dressed as a Wizard. Upon opening the door, I was greeted with: "You shall not pass!" That elicited a giggle.
-A bunch of high school kids were super enthusiastic about about Jen's Troll Face jack-o-lantern.

The pumpkin looked much better before it was left out on the porch...in the rain.

 -I successfully brokered a trade for a piece of candy from a kid's own candy bag in exchange for his choice from our candy bowl.

Exploration! Destination: Edison, WA

Probably about a month ago, I managed to convince Jack to drive out to Edison, WA for a day of exploration. Edison is a tiny little hamlet to the east of Anacortes and just south of Bellingham. Well, it would be directly east of Anacortes if not for Padilla Bay and that whole body of water.

Anyways, Edison is what I imagine a town (if you can call it that, the 2010 Census registered 133 residents) would look like if all the Capitol Hill hipsters decided to move out to the country. The town has 2 art galleries and a small handful of artsy boutiques cum antique shops. That's 2 more art galleries and a small handful of artsy boutiques cum antique shops than I'd expect in that area.

Fun fact! Edward R. Murrow graduated from Edison High School

Jack and I had lunch at Edison Inn, which reminded me of a much larger and slightly less greasy version of Kate's Pub. Apparently, you can't go wrong with food in Edison--all the restaurants and bakeries (Yes! There are even multiple restaurants and bakeries in this town of 133) came with rave reviews online, and even a mention in a recent Bon Appetit issue.

It was an entertaining afternoon, poking around all the closed shops (we went on a Thursday, I believe, and most of the stores/shops are, understandably, open only on the weekends) and pretending to be really interested in that $1,000 oil painting of Puget Sound. Also important to note before you go: Breadfarm, which apparently makes super delicious pies, cookies, and bread, are cash only. I did not know this and so when I went in looking for coffee and a cookie, I had to turn around because I did not have cash. This was most painful and heartbreaking.

Standing outside in cold weather + hot soup = best idea ever

Stuff I was aware of, but I didn't really believe would make a huge difference:

• A homemade broth for your soup base is amazing. I knew that homemade broths were always superior to the canned stuff at the store, but, in the past, I was always too lazy/busy/impatient to actually try it. Thanks to my longer-than-I-previously-anticipated unemployment status, I had all the time in the world to make the chicken stock and I think it made the soup from "meh, dinner" to Jack yelling at me one afternoon before I dared to reheat a bowl of the leftover soup without his knowing.
• The key to making a delicious broth is simmering it for hours on end and the best part is when you finally get to the OMGWTFBBQthisshitistotallyfallingoffthebone stage, because that means you have arrived in flavor country (to steal a phrase from a friend).   

Thanks to a handy blog post from the Chasing Delicious lady, Ten Reasons to Make Broth from Scratch with Recipes & Tips, it finally motivated me enough to try making a homemade broth and I haven't ever felt the same way since. I think I'm a changed person. ...Well, not too changed, since a week later I went a stocked up on canned stock because it was on sale at the store and I had coupons. It was a steal and I don't regret buying canned stock at all.


Anyways, I made soup a few weeks ago for dinner when it first started feeling vaguely fall-like. It started out as a "posole" as per the directions from the Real Simple recipe, but I decided that I didn't like hominy and I just said "Fuck it, we'll do it live" and doctored and adapted the recipe from there. So now it's more of like a chicken vegetable soup. Also, I can't guarantee that I would be able to replicate the same dish again, so don't ask me to make this for you.


So this is what you need: (taken from the original Real Simple recipe here)
According to the original recipe, this should serve 4, but I would hoard it to myself.
-Some olive oil, about a tablespoon
-1 onion, sliced thinly
-At least 4 cups (32oz) of chicken broth, I think I ended up using about 6 cups.
-1 28oz can of diced tomatoes, drained of the water
-some dried red pepper flakes or a sliced jalapeno pepper (or use whatever suits your fancy)
-2 cups shredded chicken, cooked (I used the chicken from the broth, but whatever, do what you want)
-1 15oz can of corn, drained
-1 lime cut into wedges
-Cilantro, chopped, and green onions, diced, for garnish
*Since I used my homemade broth, I also kept the carrots, celery, and onions in the broth to have more vegetables in the soup.

This is what you need to do:
-Heat the oil in a dutch oven or a sauce pan over medium heat.
-Add the onion and season with salt and pepper. Cook it, stirring occasionally, until it starts to brown and caramelize, about 10 to 12 minutes.
-Add the broth and tomatoes and bring it to a boil.
-Add the jalapenos and/or red pepper flakes
-Add in the chicken and corn, simmer until all the things are heated through
-Garnish with cilantro and the green onions and serve it with a lime.
-Enjoy your trip in flavor country. Send me a postcard.

Television is not the only thing that's rotting my brain.

It's official. Someone please hire me now because the longer I remain unemployed, spending way too much with trashy reality television shows, my brain is quickly atrophying to the point where I have forgotten basic baking principles:

Last week, I wanted to make some blueberry cheesecake bars for the upcoming camping trip so I set to baking. I made the crust without any major problems, but then came the cheesecake filling. Normally, like any sane person with half a gram of baking skillz, you would normally cream your fats (butter and/or cream cheese) with the sugar, add in the eggs, and finally the vanilla extract with some zest. But not me! I, with the atrophied brain mass, proceeded to dump EVERYTHING (ALL TOGETHER, AT ONCE) into the mixing bowl and set to mixing. It took about five minutes (5!!), when the eggs started to foam, that I realized my mistake.

After a quick round of cursing, I plow ahead, thinking maybe the heat from the baking would melt the cream cheese and it would all come together in the end. NOPE. After about 20 minutes of baking, the center was still liquid and chunky. There was no way it was going to set. Finally, that's when I decided that maybe it was a better idea to just throw it away.

I'm so cool. Look at all the awesome things I've done.

It's been a month since I last worked and I am both enjoying this time off and achingly desperately to get another job. Perhaps its the American mentality that you live to work (or maybe that's a child of an immigrant's mentality), but some days I feel like my identity is closely tied to what I do. Without a job, I just feel lost, without something to anchor me down and give me a day to day purpose.

It also occurs to me that I don't necessarily need a job to to define myself. I can find things that I'm passionate about and, if I'm supremely lucky, I can find a job that meets my expectations for myself. But then again--have you not seen our economy? I am seriously wondering how much longer until I go back to retail.

In the meantime, I've been keeping busy. I finally have the chance to cook through all cookbooks and magazines that I've collected all these years. I've been able to take a run during the day. I'm now caught up on every single trashy reality show on air currently (so happy that Jersey Shore is back). I have managed to kill all my useful brain cells by watching said reality shows. I have watched a group of deer come into our back lawn nearly everyday to defecate and eat the bushes. I'm very nearly halfway through Dance of Dragons. I've also caught up with the TV series. I finished my quilt. And I also had time to fix it once it began to fall apart. I've watered the lawn and taken out the trash (to various levels of success since I haven't done that in years). I have also explored a bit of Friday Harbor with Jack. And, I've finally had time to enjoy being sick since I'm home all the time anyway.

Up next: Car camping!

Anacortes

I can't believe I live here. I mean that in a sense that we scored an awesome deal getting a house with a view, but also that I've made it through the moving process to live with Jack. It's a bit bittersweet.

I don't think I'm sick for Seattle yet, probably because it has only been a week and it is still summer (I'm sure once the winter doldrums roll in, I'll be hankering for more Seattle love). However, a visit by Jen, Jason, Christy, and Xuan this past weekend definitely helped ease any creeping sense of loneliness that I might have been getting.

It was a fun weekend with an air show at Whidbey NAS, marathon gaming, and breakfasts in the mornings! They definitely helped the house feel more homey and lived in--I guess that's why people host house warming parties. Well, I'm looking forward to when we really finish with our moving and putting stuff away so that we can have another house warming party!

My summer break - A quick overview

So I've been on a roughly self-imposed "summer break" for nearly two weeks now, I figured now is as good a time as any to give it a quick overview to see how I am doing. Perhaps it will give me some perspective and also to figure out how the hell I managed to whittle away all those hours during high school summer break.

Days slept in: 6 (Initially, I had trouble adjusting to the fact that I didn't have to wake up to work)

Hours slept: Way too many to count. It's like summer hibernation.

Average time that I wake up every morning: 10:00am

Cups of coffee drank (despite not having to wake up for work): 10

Cups of coffee finished: 1 ( I tend to leave the last inch in my mug because of the dregs and I realized that I didn't need coffee because I had no real reason to be alert)

Deer sightings at the house since we've moved in: 1 (And it wasn't even in our backyard. Come on!)

Days that I've left the house since moving to Anacortes: 2 (And it was to get groceries and to go to Target)

Total number of pull-ups I've managed to do (not consecutively) on Jack's pull up bar since moving into the house: 4

Cravings that I've had so far: A Dick's Deluxe, sushi, french fries from the Fish Fry, Shultzy's Junkyard Dog, and Kate's (I know it's technically not a craving, but I want a nearby bar)

Amount of running I've done: 0

Number BBQ grills successfully put together: 1

How far I've gotten in Dance of Dragons: about a 1/3 way through--and it's driving Jack crazy.

My life in boxes

 

In the last week, I've managed to pack up and move all my worldly possessions up to Anacortes. And boy, do I have a lot of "worldly possessions." Jack mentioned that I would learn very quickly, and certainly by our next move, exactly what I want to keep and what to throw away or donate. Le sigh.

My last week in Seattle was marked by grand circle tour of Fremont and Wallingford; packing and cleaning; lunch with co-workers at Paseo's; happy hour at the Walrus and Carpenters with more co-workers; finally purchasing the Seattle Neighborhoods poster I've been coveting for so long; more packing and cleaning, only more frantic; wrapping 70 pot stickers in an hour for dinner with friends; spending Thursday night in Anacortes to wait for the Comcast guy on Friday; and one last hurrah at Kate's with my awesome friends.

So far, Anacortes has been fun although I haven't explored much since I've spent my days unpacking and taking over the hallway bathroom. All I know is that I better find a job soon because I've become restless and staying at home all the time is getting boring fast.

(f)unemployment starts today!

Things I can do on the weekdays now that I don't have a job:

-Pack...eh, maybe.
-Go to Cafe Besalu for some croissants.
-Go running
-Clean the apartment
-Spend my WHOLE day on Facebook and just add a ton of people
-Make it to 3 o'clock happy hours!
-Sleep in
-Finish my quilt
-Develop the film from my Holga
-Finish my crochet project
-Find a shadowbox so I can display all the cool wine corks I've collected
-Shop at Nordstrom in the middle of the day and not worry about making it back to work by 1:00pm.
-Stay up late to watch Whose Line Is It Anyway?

One card to rule them all.

I had to surrender my ORCA card today. It was my last day of work. It hasn't quite sunk in that I don't have to wake up early for work tomorrow, so to help with the transition, I am going to stay up late and do crossword puzzles and then wake up whenever I want to tomorrow. Well, not whenever...I still have to pack (technically, still haven't started) and I have a dentist appointment at 10:00am.

Since I don't have my pass with unlimited bus (and commuter train!) rides anymore, I loaded up my spare ORCA card with $20.00 to get me through the rest of the week. Public transit has never felt more expensive to me than today. It cost me to $2.25 to go from the Mt. Baker station, down four stops, to the International District and then $0.50 to transfer to a bus. That leaves only $17.25 on my ORCA card! I have places to go this week! Errands to run! Friends at happy hour to meet! So, in order to be more judicious with my remaining card balance, I've decided to attempt to walk everywhere tomorrow.

I have checked the weather. Roughly ideal walking weather: 71 degrees, partly cloudy.

I have Google mapped my optimal route to cut down on unnecessary mileage and to avoid as many uphill climbs as possible.

So, motivation willing, I will be attempting this tomorrow:

Surprisingly, they are all about a mile apart. And I'll get the grand circle tour of the Wallingford/Fremont neighborhoods--along with some clean teeth, a Cuban pulled pork sandwich, and a snazzy new haircut.

Things you learn while moving. Part I

Today I started to clean the apartment in preparation for my move out of the apartment. Christy, ever the efficient one, has been tinkering at it for the last week or so. Already the apartment looks so empty even though we still have the bulk of our furniture. I think it's all the little things that make it seem lived in--the Christmas lights that are up all year (and yet never really turned on), the stuffed animals on the shelves, the DVDs that we never watch.

So, here are the things I've learned so far, in my first three hours of cleaning (and very thorough cleaning, mind you):
- I am a dirty hoarder. I had most--if not all--of my undergraduate green book final exams, old musty textbooks that I hadn't even used during that quarter, and various academic paraphernalia dumped into a bin that I hadn't bothered to clean out until today.
-I was (still am) a terrible writer. I was looking through my old essays for my classes and they were TERRIBLE. Unfinished arguments, inconclusive conclusions, vagaries disguised as an actual explanation...they were all there. Sadly, I don't think I would do much better now given how out of practice I am at the art of bullshitting my way through a midterm.
-Spiders--they are everywhere. Even in spaces you didn't think they could get to--they will get there. I was cleaning out some old glasses that I was planning on donating when I saw a spider at the bottom at one of the glasses. I thought it was dead so I went to wash it out--but it wasn't! It started wriggling around in the hot water I had poured into the glasses. I just hope it had a quick and painless death in boiling hot water.

As I continue to pack and move, I'm sure I'll learn more things.

Healthy food is better when it is made unhealthy.

Now here comes the part where I am going to share a recipe with you. However, I've discovered that I keep track of my recipes the old Asian mama way: That is, I don't know the specific amounts for any ingredient because I make things up as I go along so that when people ask me for recipes I end up telling them the ingredient list, but I couldn't fully articulate how much to put into the dish either because I eyeball it each time or I'm guarding a closely held family recipe secret (and for now, it's mostly the former).

However, unlike an old Asian mama, I tend to drink a bit while I cook.  I find it helps ease off the pressure of making a good meal because when you've got the drunk munchies, everything will taste awesome, dude.

I am actually surprised that I managed to doctor up a dish by myself because I usually rely a lot on my cookbooks or cooking blogs. I've never quite figured out whether it is because I don't trust myself to taste my dishes and feel when it's seasoned perfectly or that I want so badly for a dish to turn out a certain way that I turn to cookbooks again and again to have that consistency. Or it could be neither of those reasons.

At any rate, healthy food is better when there is some element to it that makes it unhealthy.  I like kale more when it is bathed in a pool of cheese and cream with potatoes in a gratin or roasted beets which are topped off with some goat cheese. Quinoa is a fairly healthy grain and I do like it as a substitute for bulgur wheat in tabbouleh, but I've always felt that there was something missing. And that something is: motherfucking MEAT.  I call this my DOUBLE PROTEIN DISH OF AWESOMENESS. The recipe is below:

DOUBLE PROTEIN DISH OF AWESOMENESS:

Ingredients:
-1 cup of Quinoa
-One and a half tomato, diced - I saved the half of one for guacamole that I would make later in the week. Presumably, you could go crazy and use the whole tomato, so that would be two tomatoes.
-Red meat, diced - I used Trader Jose's pre-marinated carne asada steaks. I tried it once with some pork and it was good, but I think I just like the flavor of red meat more. The other time I tried it with red meat was some leftover beef from an Ethiopian restaurant--delicious.
-Lime/lemon juice
-Cucumber or Zucchini, diced - I actually started cutting up some cucumbers for this meal (I had cut up about six slices at this point) and then I decided I didn't want any. So then I stopped, but for the six slices I already threw in, it tasted fine along with the dish.
-Cilantro or parsley or mint--whatever you think complements your red meat more. For the carne asada, I used cilantro--also because I already had cilantro. So, your call.

Er, Directions, I guess:
-Cook the quinoa per the package's instruction...the one it came in.... Unless you bought it from the bulk containers at the store, in which case (and just for your reference) I usually cook it with a ratio of 1 cup of quinoa to about 2 cups of water, bring to a boil, and bring it back down to a simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes.
-While your quinoa is cooking, take out your grilling skillet (or if you have a grill, that would be even better) to cook the red meat. I cooked my meat until it was fairly well done and then I ended up mincing it up to fairly small pieces.
-Dice up the tomatoes, cucumbers/zucchinis, and/or cilantro/parsley/mint and put them into your large bowl. You've got one of those right? Because the quinoa cooks up a lot.
-Oh, by the way, maybe you should probably stir your quinoa once in a while too to make sure that the quinoa at the bottom doesn't stick to the pot and so that it fluffs up like a pilaf.
-After the 15 to 20 minutes, your quinoa should be cooked and properly fluffed. I usually let it cool a bit because I don't like quinoa that's just-off-the-stove hot. So while I'm finishing dicing up the last of the tomatoes or whatever, the quinoa will sit in the pot and chill for a bit.
-Then, when you're good and ready, combine the stuff all together in the big bowl with the tomatoes and cucumbers and cilantro in it and mix it real good. Add in the lime/lemon juice and salt to taste. There's also the option to add some olive oil in there, but I like my quinoa a bit dry-ish, so I wouldn't know how much olive oil you'd want to put. Just eyeball it.
-Finally, take a nice long sip from your gin and tonic and you've got yourself the DOUBLE PROTEIN DISH OF AWESOMENESS.

What to do with the rest of my life?

Today my boss made an offer to the candidate who will replace me as Executive Assistant. I suppose now would be too late to say that I don't want to leave.

I haven't thought much about what I want to do next, other than my desperate need to find another job. But, lately, as my end date is creeping closer and closer, I've been wondering what would happen if I don't find a job right away--or, god forbid, if I never find another job. The economy is still in the shitter and I'm not sure I could convince someone to hire me for a little more than a year before I'd have to move again.

I could always volunteer and do community work, but that is my comfort zone. This time could be my chance to do something completely different! I can learn how to decorate cakes! Make furniture! Craft all day long! Learn CPR!

A part of me loves this idea. I like the concept of making stuff up as you go along, flying by the seat of your pants, and just taking this time off to learn something new that is completely different from what I have spent the last couple of years doing. Then again, I also have student loans to pay off and I can't depend on just my savings account and Jack forever. So...I don't know.

Maybe I should just start buying lottery scratch tickets and hope for the best.

The power of love

I bought some strawberries the other day and just as I was about to cut up this little sucker, I noticed that it was in a shape of a heart! It was cute so I grabbed my trusty ol' point-and-shoot to get a picture of it before I cut it up and ate it for lunch.

Generally, I'm not too much of a lovey-dovey person and I particularly dislike trite expressions of "love" usually represented by cute little hearts and Valentine's Day, but I like it when I find heart-shaped things in among my day-to-day life. Like when I drink enough, and I squint real hard, the city lights blur and sometimes they become hearts. That stuff (along with some social drinking) I like, but put a pink heart on teddy bear? I think I might barf from smug love.

So, lest people think I'm a sarcastic curmudgeon incapable of affection, here's my perennially amended list of ten things I love. And for the purposes of this list (and to keep it fairly manageable), things are defined as mostly inanimate objects and ideas, but many contain living things such as fluffy animals.

• Saturday morning brunch with my friends
• A cold can of Dr. Pepper
• French press coffee
• Flowers
• Seattle on a sunny day
• Puppies
• French fries
• Growlers of Mac and Jacks beer
• Letterpress stationary 
• The color yellow

And so it begins.

Jack got his wings about a week ago and with that it sets off a whole motion of other things that will ultimately (I think) drag me kicking and screaming into adulthood. Let me be clear: I do not intend on letting go of my carefree lifestyle that easily. I will put up a fight. And I intend to blog about this, because I find that blogging is the ultimate manifestation of my learned behavior of Pacific Northwest-style passive aggression.

Well, I have other plans for this and I will list them out below:

1. Practice my writing skills on something that is a little more free form than preparing Board meeting minutes.

2. Share pictures or random things I find.

3. Provide another place for my friends to keep tabs on me. Damn creepers.