Hello blog. It’s been, gosh, weeks…I just haven’t had much to say. Sludging through the quarter, occasionally panicking about my prospectus, and the like. I’m headed to the bay area in the next few weeks for a preliminary research trip. That’ll be fun; all I need to do is survive my Chinese final and finish grading my students’ finals and I can plan plan plan.

Therefore: a meme. From Ms. Bride in exile! And I tag Satsuma and Ms. Babe, if y’all got the time

The Rules
Step 1: respond and rework—answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.
Step 2: tag other un-tagged people.

Make a list of things you can see without getting up:
This awesome 22 inch flatscreen monitor that my parents brought up for me to use, so i don’t have to develop a hump hunching over my laptop. My Chinese vocab flashcards, my brown summer floppy hat, and a green vase with a crackled glaze.

Favorite Etsy Shop:

I know not of this thing called Etsy, and it’s probably for the best. At least where my bank account is concerned.
What are you wearing right now?
A gray long-sleeved shirt, a delicate little diamond necklace from Mr. P, terry cloth bermuda shorts (they’re as hideous as you imagine), and my labradorite ring.

What color are the eyes of the person you love most in the world?
Brown! My favorite eye color.

What’s the last thing you read/are currently reading?
The Nasty Bits, by Anthony Bourdain. And a master’s thesis about an obscure newspaper in an obscure mining town during the 19th century.
What is the last thing you cooked?
sweet mung bean soup: raw mung beans boiled with sugar. yum.

What is your favorite restaurant of all time?
A roadside shack in Hubei, China where I had the most glorious potato slivers in vinegar. And Thai Lingo in Fullerton.

What’s your current obsession/addiction?
the Online Archive of California

What was the last gift you gave?
Tickets to Das Rheingold for Mr. P. I hated it by the way; aside from my longstanding distaste for Wagner, who was the only composer to have ever make my lips go numb in the middle of a concert, the staging was absolutely horrible and incomprehensible. My least favorite thing was the clown prostitute with big pointy nipples and floppy padded ass. If you’re going to do Wagner, bring back horned hats and metal brassieres! Bugs Bunny knew how to do it.

What are you listening to right now?
Van Halen.

What movie do you know every word to?
All the Lord of the Rings movies, Star Wars and possibly the 40 Year Old Virgin, (but this only because Mr. P is obsessed with that movie).

If you could have any super power, what would it be?
Learning by osmosis. I want to just put my hand on a book and know everything in it. Just imagine what you could do with foreign language dictionaries…the possibilities are dizzying. I think my nerd is showing.

What is your most challenging goal right now?
To wake up at 7AM every morning without wanting to crush my alarm clock into small small bits.

If you could have a house–totally paid for, fully furnished–anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?
Big Sur, California.

Where is your ideal vacation?
I want to go to Greece.

Name one thing you just can’t resist no matter how bad it is for you
Any sort of Asian noodle.

If you could meet anyone famous – dead or alive – who would it be?
My great grandfather, who was a minor nobleman with 4 wives and an opium addiction. He’s not famous, but I think it would just be interesting to meet him. And my great grandmother, and any of her co-wives, just to see how all that worked out (or not. Apparently there was a lot of fighting)
If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
If not a children’s book author, a writer/animator for Pixar.

You see a cute baby, what is your reaction?
cute, I guess? I’m very bad with children of all ages.

Your favorite day spent in another country?
Stomping through the Galway countryside with my sorority sisters, without knowing where we were going and when we were going to get back. We bought some pecan buns, saw a couple donkeys, and sang a lot of songs.
If your life could have a soundtrack? Name a song on it–
Quizas, quizas, quizas.

Which literary character most resembles yourself?
The narrator from “Why I live at the PO” by Eudora Welty. Her ridiculousness and her family’s ridiculousness ring true.

If you were an animal, you’d be:
well, according to a rather zany woman (you know who I’m talking about, Ms. Bride) from camp a few years back, my spirit animal is a unicorn. Everyone else got solid, down-to-earth animals like groundhogs, ravens, and mice. I’m not sure what it says about me that my spirit animal is imaginary.

What was your strangest dream?

Al Pacino was making me assassinate Joseph Lieberman in a Banana Republic with a camera that could morph into a gun. I was also at the cashier’s desk, and they were making sand in large buckets out back.

上个星期我的生日很快了.

I probably wrote it wrong, but anyway…I am celebrating my birthday, and I had a lovely little sojourn down home last weekend to celebrate it with my family and friends. Because my friends are all scattered, it was nice to see the OC gals, the nucleus of all my friendships, for once. There was much eating, and boozing. Yes, I boozed rather heavily, particularly at brunch. I had about 4 or 5 mimosas, and thought I would pass out midway through dessert, as I stabbed unsteadily at the creme brulee.

We went out Friday night and thrashed on a dance floor, drank martinis, and went on a Del Taco run at about 1 in the morning. Delicious. We went out Sunday for brunch at Cafe Jardin in beachy Corona del Mar, tucked away into the quaint Sherman Gardens.

Behold the goodness:

Assiette provencale: duck paté, cornichons, salami, eggplant caviar

appetizer

Appetizer #2: smoked salmon, tuna, and smoked trout.

seafood plate!

There was also a delicious swiss cheese and chive omelette, which I didn’t take a picture of. But onwards to the main course, salmon in a bearnaise sauce:

Dessert: raspberry creme brulee with almond cookies, various chocolate confections, a hazelnut eclair, a slice of lemon tart, fresh whipped cream (I was told that this was done by hand…is that better?).

And fresh bread with butter, and many, many, many mimosas.

I give Cafe Jardin a drunken thumbs up.

I owe the gym more than a few visits after gorging thusly, but it was a wonderful way to celebrate. And now, back to studying 中文.

I recently discovered dark chocolate. To celebrate this milestone, Lisa threw together a dark chocolate tasting party. Friday night, Mr. P and I drove to Pasadena for the occasion.

our gracious host, Ying.

Lisa bought 15 different varieties of high quality, plain dark chocolate and broke them into pieces. They were arranged anonymously in these lovely little dishes with accompanying numbers.

the spread!

We each took notes on each anonymous chocolate. I think this one was #14 (ew!).

We quickly realized that one chocolate blended into another, without some drinkable refreshment to clean our palates!

Once all the chocolates had been sampled and judgments scribbled down, we went around the table to declare what we each thought of each chocolate. Lisa then announced the name and brand!

It occasionally took a bit of sorting to find the correct chocolate wrapper.

I was feeling slightly ill–in the best way possible–after trying each chocolate. Some of it was definitely not worth finishing, but some others–oh la la. My favorite was the Lake Champlain (#6), and my least favorite was the Chocovic Bitter Dark Chocolate Unique Origin Ocumare 71%(#10). The former was sweet and nutty (according to my notes), and the latter received no written judgment at all because I spat it out after the first bite. Lisa’s blog has the best summary of each chocolate we tried.

Mr. P and I headed home, stuffed and utterly content. An excellent evening. Plus, more such fetes to come–cheese parties, apple parties, pie, vanilla ice cream… a big bag o’ kudos to Lisa for the brilliant idea, and the execution thereof!

one of my best, I think. of beautiful xine.