How I spent my holiday:
The end.
I suppose I can't say that this has been a heartbreaking trip so far because that would imply more care for my parents' well-being than I actually possess. It's been frustrating, occasionally frightening, and definitely annoying. My parents are showing a certain amount of mental decline, but seem to be not in the least bit aware of it. I asked the sib about it after we got home; he only shrugged. "What can you do about it?" he says. I guess not much, in the end. But I am not okay with feeling unsafe or feeling like I have to be vigilant for their safety for long periods of time. I was reluctant to agree to this trip, and now I can say with certainty that I am never going to agree to do this again.
I still have another week of traveling. I've managed for the most part not to go insane, but I think that if I ever find myself in a situation requiring extensive travel again I will need to buy a laptop.
The Meth Lab King
for King and Tweaker Chorus
(sung to the tune of the Pirate King aria from The Pirates of Penzance)
KING: Oh better far to live and die
Under the crystal flag I fly
Than play a sanctimonious part
With a meth lab head and a meth lab heart
Away to the cheating world go you
Where druggies all are well-to-do
But I'll be true to the song I sing
And live and die a meth lab king!
For I am a Meth Lab King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Meth Lab King!
For I am a Meth Lab King!
CHORUS: You are!
Hurrah for our Meth Lab King!
KING: And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Meth Lab King.
CHORUS: It is!
Hurrah for our Meth Lab King!
KING & CHORUS: Hurrah for the Meth Lab King!
KING: When I sally forth to sell my 'phet
A bleak addiction's what they get.
I ruin a few more lives, it’s true,
Than a drug trade monarch ought to do;
But many a king on a first-class throne,
If he wants to call his crown his own,
Must manage somehow to get through
More dirty work than ever I do
For I am a Meth Lab King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Meth Lab King!
For I am a Meth Lab King!
CHORUS: You are!
Hurrah for our Meth Lab King!
KING: And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Meth Lab King.
CHORUS: It is!
Hurrah for our Meth Lab King!
KING & CHORUS: Hurrah for the Meth Lab King!
(Yes, I know I'm going to hell. The special kind, with the child molesters and people who talk in theaters. This is probably what I'm going to perform for them onstage.)
One of the things I've been trying to do in the kitchen is find uses for tilapia, a freshwater, farmed fish. The pros and cons of this fish are well known: cheap and sustainable, but usually bland (WHY do they make sashimi out of this now? Frakking A). Like so many others, I've put it to use in fish tacos. Marinated tialpia filets in lime juice, mirin, salt, and a little curry powder, breaded and pan fried--yields something you can work with in the taco world (as always, I have no recipe for this, I just made it up). For toppings I had fresh salsa made out of pureed sweet red bell pepper and red onion; mache rosettes; chopped cilantro; sweet corn salsa from Whole Foods; and sour cream.
Man, I wish I'd picked up that Scharfenberger chocolate pudding while I was at Whole Paycheck today. I seem to never stop craving pudding anymore. I guess I'm dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb for pudding... (that song is NEVER going to leave my head now. Jeff MacDougall has my vote).
How I spent my holiday:
The end.
I can't seem to get all the way down to seven keeping any semblance of the original coloring scheme! Okay, I'm going to opt for the radical recolor. Argh. I'm trying to keep the warm colors of the explosion but it has to look good on a blue background...
Colors I absolutely need: indigo, beige, flesh, red, white, gray, yellow. That's seven. I can do everything grayscale except the explosion, Indigo, JoCo, and Beige--that will be seven and a half colors that may end up looking garish on blue, depending on what shade of blue gets used.
Must! Keep! Trying!
But I still feel like crap. I don't know if I'm going to do much this weekend.
]]>You don't know pain until you've had your uterus scraped raw for a biopsy! I will never complain about Pap smears again, that's nothing compared to a good ol' fashioned D&C. I almost fell down in the driveway when I got home.
Ugh. And JoCo is waiting on me for the shirt revision. I don't think I'm going to make much headway on that today.
Salmon ceviche. It's a pity that this is a bad season for salmon; this would probably taste better with a bit more belly fat, of which the non-native salmon species tend to lack. Take a slab of good salmon, slice it thin, and marinate in the following mix: juice of one lemon and one orange each, 6 thin slices of lemon, dash of mirin, splash of vodka, 1/8 chopped onion, 1 clove garlic, 2 tsp chopped parsley, a pinch of salt, a pinch of fenugreek, and 2 tsp vanilla extract. Cover marinade container and chill in fridge for however long, I did something like 30 minutes. Could maybe use some mustard or black pepper next time.
]]>Joel, creator of Hijinks Ensue, one of my fave geek comics, is asking for ad banner ideas for his comic. I am so on that this morning. Pics to come...
ETA: here they are...
Experimenting with slightly healthier and cheaper ways to get my spinach orzo salad fix. $9/lb at Whole Paycheck is a bit indulgent given that I never have leftovers after one sitting. Doing half spinach and half chard for the base, with a little pesto sauce mixed in. Also, half orzo and half quinoa, and Bragg's apple cider vinegar instead of balsamic.
The homemade cheese is standing in for feta. It's aging in interesting ways. Still kinda crumbly though not as much, very tart on the tongue, but finishes on the palate with that distinct sweet-earthy brie flavor. Guess the brie bugs are still hanging on, although a rind never formed. Heh, I have culture wars in my cheese! Next time I'm going to try a different brand of kefir and see if that makes a difference in the curd texture. For now, I'm adding a little brie rind to the ends of the cheese log just to see if it'll take.
Mental day today. At home, although I can't really afford to be. Which is why I'm cooking. I dunno, I'm starting to debate the merits of cooking. It takes up far too much time, and with the rising cost of food these days, it may be more economically sound for me to suck it up and buy my meals from the Whole Foods deli, spending the rest of the evening on drawings for my portfolio, with the objective of selling art in the not so distant future. Of course, on the other hand, the economy is such that it's going to be difficult to convince people to buy art at the moment, unless I can latch onto a sub-group or genre of art appreciators who are consistently willing to buy even in more difficult times.
I just feel like I've got to do something towards that end, especially with my health being iffy. It seems entirely possible at this point that I will end up leaving my current job sooner than I'd ideally planned for, and that it will be too soon for me to have my comic going by the time that happens.