Through the Rabbit Hole or Something

So apparently I walked into the craft store after lunch and fell through the rabbit hole.

I'm standing there perusing the selection of tote bags and around the corner I hear two women like, GETTING INTO IT over amber and crystals and spirituality, and which hand receives spirituality or something. We are talking palpable tension over the disagreement here, like the kind of tension that would cause two drunk people to start throwing punches but in two sober spiritualitycrafty women means they are just thinking supersnide thoughts about each other with the fire of a thousand suns?

And then I'm trying to pay and leave but the cashier and the customer in front of me are busy rehashing a recent auto accident that the customer was in, and then, what seemed to be every auto accident either of them or their known acquaintances had ever experienced including permutations of insurance and hit-and-runs and court dates and HANGING THE PERSON WHO HIT HER. Figuratively, of course. I think.

I just wanted a plain tote bag to sew for my mommy :-(

Practice Makes Better and Whatnot

I have been lucky in my belly dance experiences to have some pretty great teachers.  The common traits of these great teachers are how well they explain movements, how they emphasize posture and dancing to protect your body from injury, how supportive they are, and of course what beautiful dancers each is on her/his own.  To this end, they've also all related how much they practiced and drilled when learning belly dance themselves, to get moves built into muscle memory. 

The first couple of years of my belly dance classes, I had enough musical ability and memory for choreography that with average practice I could perform routines adequately with my face and feet pointed in the right direction.  Which is fine when I perform in public once or twice a year.  But, now that I'm trying to push myself to perform more often and as a soloist, that's not enough.  So I've committed myself to daily drills even if it's just for 20 minutes.  And OF COURSE my hip shimmy is feeling less brokedown and busted.  My great teachers are all annoyingly right, it seems :-)

In other news, the dating internetz is an even more terrifying place than the tiny corner of it that I've experienced.  Check out Date Wrecks but not for at least 30 minutes after a meal, unless you want to see that meal again. 

In crappy news, at some point probably a month or so ago I injured myself and seem to have gotten myself a good case of tennis elbow.  Which sucks ass because I want to be continuing my cardioweights routine AND practice poi spinning but I am afraid to make the injury even worse.  I found some stretching exercises for it online a couple of days ago that seem to be helping so far.

Jeannette Daft's Tim Burton hafla went really well and now I am buckling down to knocking out a choreography for fundraisers hosted by Zafirah and Donna Diva at the end of the month. 

Till next time, I'll be fixing my brokedown shimmy

D

Random Good Things and More Fun in Dating Internetz

Good Thing #1 (no, not trying to be Martha Stewart with Good Things)

Getting veil poi lesson from Donna Diva!  I got a mini-workshop this past Saturday on poi and veil poi.  Yes, I hit myself a lot but I made a lot of progress too!  Check out this pic I got of one of the other girls working the veil poi.



Cool, right? Super-helpful to have a live person show you what you are and aren't doing right. I can't do it too often because my right arm was already hurting from lifting something weird but as soon as that's healed I am back on this!

Good Thing #2


Streaming Netflix to Wii.  Now, since my wireless router was from around when the earth's crust cooled, my Wii refused to connect to my wireless.  (Inter-technology snobbery!!!)  So since I already had a new laptop on the way, I decided to get a new router too.

Mollified, my Wii latched on to the new wireless setup and I was able to stream Netflix.

In a nutshell, this shit is dangerous.  DANGEROUS.  I was up ridonkolate for two nights watching Season 1 of Dexter.  OMFG that show is jacked up.  But uber easy to just sit there and get sucked in when I just have to lift one feeble hand with a Wiimote and click "Play next episode".  Again, DANGEROUS.  But awesome at the same time.

Good Thing #3


NEW LAPTOP.  Finally caved into getting a new machine, as my current laptop has a broken hinge and therefore a tendency to yaw open and fall completely flat if I'm not careful, plus I can have a full and balanced meal in the time it takes to boot up.

DON'T MIND ME, I'M JUST FUCKENORMOUS


I've never had a 17 in laptop before and while I find it a little unwieldy (especially with the sore arm) I am sure I will get used to it quickly.

And now we move on to the Strange World of Dating Internetz.

• Really, if you want someone to keep on a leash, go get a dog.  I have no idea what about my profile made this guy think I would go for his psycho conditions, but really, it is not reasonable for you to expect that
• I cannot go to a bar unless shackled securely to you and your evident trust issues.
• I need to get rid of all my guy friends for you.  No, gay guy friends aren't acceptable either.  That was explicitly stated in this winner of a profile.
• You live 40 miles away from me?  Well, ok, not insurmountable.  What's that?  You don't have a car?  Why did you write to me?  Are you going to run a marathon to meet me halfway?  (It's not like he just happened to miss my location, he asked where my town was in his first message because even though it's 40 miles away, he's never heard of it.  He's also apparently never heard of Google Maps.)
• I don't care how good you think you are in bed (IT MUST BE TRUE BECAUSE HE WROTE HOW AWESOME HE IS ALL IN CAPS), I have no interest in hooking up with a married man.  I say it right there in my profile.  I even put asterisks around it.  Maybe I needed to put it in all caps and several languages.
• Unless you are a male bellydancer, telling me that you regularly watch Shimmy on FitTV is only going to creep my shit out something fierce.

 The hits just keep coming.

Well I have to scoot and practice for the Tim Burton hafla - right now I feel VERY NOT GOOD about this solo but sadly, VERY NOT GOOD is a few steps up from where I was feeling about it last week.

Toodles, noodles
D

Signs I Need to Get Out More

This morning I had a dream that my neighbor's cat (I don't know my neighbors but as far as I know they both have dogs) got into my house.  Then it had a kitten in my house.  Then Molly and the neighbor cat and kitten were all loving up on each other.  Guinness stood off to the side all WTFISTHISHEINOUSFUCKERY and there was all, huge cat drama.  Cat drama.  I am dreaming about cat drama.

For whatever reason, probably because I have the day off tomorrow AND I CAN, I am watching one of the Encore channels that is showing a Wes Craven dud called Shocker.  Something about a convicted murderer who survived the electric chair?  That's what Comcast is telling me anyway.  My tv screen is telling me that a lazyboy recliner came to life, grew eyes (I shit you not, EYES.  In the seams at the top of the chair) and turned into the murderer, but a grainy tv 2d hologram version of the murderer and beat the guy sitting in the chair.

And now the murderer dived into the tv and somehow yanked the guy with him.

And now they are running through random tv shows like Leave it to Beaver.

OMFG AND NOW THEY LANDED ON JOHN TESH.  YES, ERSTWHILE ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT HOST TURNED NEW AGE-Y MUSICIAN WITH AN EVEN LARGER MORE RECTANGULAR HEAD THAN PEYTON MANNING JOHN TESH.

WTF why did Comcast list this as one star???  This is the best thing ever.

Another Food Post and Random Bits

So I've been trying to take better care of myself and eat better, so my cooking efforts have increased as of late. This weekend's efforts include

Chickpea Cutlets (from Veganomicon cookbook)

Wait, what?  Chickpea cutlets?  No, it's true.  I know I am going to be the eleventy bozillionth person to blog about these but eh, it's my blog, so suck it.  My desire to test-drive these after hearing of them is largely due to

1. The fact that I oddly love fake meat items.  I have been known to skip the meats entirely at Flat Top Grill and just load up on all the fake meats like tempeh and Veat.  
2. The fact that I hardly ever cook meat at home because I hate doing it.  I don't know if it's the effort or the salmonella risk or what, but I hate cooking meat at home.  F-

So I trucked out and picked up some vital wheat gluten (I love chickpeas so always always have a few cans in the pantry) and got to work.  It was a bit of assembling but still fairly easy.  And OMGDELICIOUS.  I can see where some people might not love them but I thought they were awesome.  I plan to try again with other beans (black bean burgers of my very ownsome, huzzah!) and stock up on vital wheat gluten from Amazon Grocery.

Here's one of my unattractive but delicious chickpea cutlets.  I chose to bake instead of fry.


Have I mentioned I'm a lazy cook?  I'm a lazy cook.  So when I figured out I could make quinoa in the rice cooker YEA VERILY CELEBRATIONS WERE HEARD THROUGHOUT THE LAND.  Today I made a bunch of quinoa - 2 cups quinoa, 2 cups chicken broth, 2 cups water.  You can use whatever broth/seasoning you like - mushroom broth is particularly awesome with quinoa.

Then I dumped some frozen corn, a can of black beans, a can of Rotel, some garlic powder, minced onion, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper together in a bowl and mixed it with the cooked quinoa.  And got this mountain of awesome:



I am stuffed full of a helping (and then some) right now.  OM NOM NOM NOM!!!

I wasn't as productive with spring cleaning as I wanted to be but I did get some big things done, so I am going to bake off some Ghirardelli brownie mix later, using applesauce and flaxseed instead of oil and eggs.  I've done the applesauce trick before and find that the brownies taste just fine.  I heard about the flaxseed trick (1 tbsp ground flaxseed + 3 tbsp water  = 1 egg) just this week so I am curious to try it out.

I am way the fuck behind on choreographies for upcoming performances, BUT one of the things I did accomplish this weekend was to clean out my office/third bedroom enough to line up the cheeeeep mirrors I got from IKEA along the wall to use for dance practice.  I would post a pic except the mirrors also reflect how the rest of the office is still pretty cluttered.  So I expect to catch up this week.

I started watching the 1st season of Breaking Bad from netflix.  OMFG.  That shit is messed up.

Silence of the Lambs is on tv now.  This movie is 19 years old.  WTF when did that happen.

And guess what has two thumbs and got to see Christopher Moore, fuckawesome author?  THIS GIRL.

I am really pissed I didn't have the forethought and guts to ask him to address my book to "Fucksocks"

Amy took this of me in the bookstore, nonchalantly ignoring the dragon that wants to eat my head.


That's it for me today.  Later, taters!

Adventures in the Dating Internetz

So, I have been on dating sites on and off for a few years, mostly off, because cheebus wept, even my amazing limits for laughing at the fail of others can get overstretched.  I have met a few initially decent guys in my internetz wanderings, but they turned out to be closet assholes.  Hey, that can happen no matter where I meet someone so I can't blame the internet for that. 

For your entertainment, I thought I'd review some basic guidelines about how to turn me off, and then I'll go into some specific examples.  (Having forced myself into a largely science/math education, I have been trained to show my work and give examples.)

Basic Guidelines

• Take your shirt off for your main picture/majority of your pictures.  If I want to see you with your shirt off, I will ask you to take it off.  If you're just trying to show that you don't have moobs, that can still be accomplished with a t-shirt on.  
• Your main picture is your car.  Or your motorcycle.  All I hear when I see this kind of picture is CHECK MY SWEET RIDE!  MESSAGE ME NOW AND MY OTHER RIDE CAN BE YOU!!! 
• Replacing "you" and "your" and "I'm" with "u", "ur" and "Im" respectively.  If you made your profile on a cell phone, you shouldn't have.  If you didn't make your profile on a cell phone, there is no excuse for not typing the TWO EXTRA LETTERS in "you" and if you really want to get crazy up in here, SPELL-CHECK.  Do you people send out resumes that look so god-awful?  Because you are trying to make a good first impression and be noticed positively in either situation, no?
• In your first message, send some variation of "GIRL U R SEXY WANNA GET WITH YOU NOW HIT ME UP K".  You know, props for being honest and straightforward, but I am not interested in providing the orifice that you drop your tackle into this week. Or any other.
• Born during /before the Eisenhower Administration or during/after the Reagan Administration.  AND have nothing in common with me.  
• Your basic heinous fuckery including:
• Sexist or racist jokes in your profile or messages to me. 
• Being married or otherwise committed but "Available" and looking for some side action.

Specific Examples

• The guy whose only picture was of himself sitting at a table with an Asian woman (her arms around him) and a vase of red roses next to them.  Of course he specifies Asian women only in his profile.  Take-home message: IF YOU GET HERE FAST ENOUGH, I CAN REUSE THE FLOWERS I GAVE THIS ONE
• Fringe benefit on this one - Holy Sweet Mullets, Batman.
• The guy whose profile was a long-winded explanation of why he needed a quiet little lady to care for his house and later, children.  Also, numerous examples of why American society (which apparently is entirely comprised of beer and unworthy sports like football) is beneath him.  AMERICA, FUCK NO!
• The guy who wrote "OMG THOSE FUNBAGS ARE HUGE FOR AN ASIAN WOMAN.  IM me at racistsexistdickbag@yahoo.com, k???"  No, I cannot make this shit up.  Well ok, the email address I made up.  But unfortunately the rest of it is verbatim.
• More shit I cannot make up - the guy who messaged me "ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME, SUCKY SUCKY FIVE DOLLAH???"  But apparently that incident got him kicked off match.com.  Woot!
• As referenced in another blog post, the guy who was into "intelictual pursuits".  SPELL-CHECK.  ALSO, IRONY-CHECK.
• The guy who was 17 yrs younger than me and had nothing in common with me.  Conversely, the guy who was 22 yrs older than me and again, had nothing in common with me. 
• The guy whose pictures looked strongly Chester Molester-ish and who sent me demands to give him a chance interspersed with long rambling screeds of philosophy and mayhem.  This was after I'd sent two polite indications of my lack of interest.  I shouldn't have blocked him before I got some more good fictional character ideas from him but you know, I gotta get through the day sane somehow. 
• The guy who has been told he resembles an actor.  So his only profile picture is actually a picture of that actor.  Proof, right?
• The guy who was not only nearly 20 yrs older than me, but one of his pictures was taken specifically at an angle and distance to let you know that yes, he has a penis, and yes, it is ready for your orifice.  No, it was not an accident.  He specifically stated in the picture caption that this was the look he was going for.  

There are more examples but I've probably rendered all 7 of my readers catatonic with this list already.

What's Cookin'

Me! Or I've been trying to cook a bit, lately. I don't like cooking that much but eh, I can do it ok and certainly well enough to support my curves and then some.

Last week I remembered a fairly healthy snack that I used to like to make and probably got tired of at some point, but I decided to resurrect it: roasted chickpeas.



These are a bit burnt/overdone.  I used:

• 2 cans of garbanzo beans, drained
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• garlic pepper, garlic powder, and a bit of splenda for grins

Mix and dump onto a baking sheet and roast at 400 deg F for 30 minutes (I left them longer than that and I probably shouldn't have.)  Then turn off the oven and leave them overnight to get crunchy.  I am trying it again now but I've doubled the recipe and added more pepper, some tabasco, and a couple of tbsp of brown sugar splenda mix.  Oh and a couple dashes of vinegar.  My cooking is always heavy on the experimentation (and consequently sometimes heavy on the fail.)

I also made a double batch of these Baked Oatmeal Squares to grab for breakfast during the week.  I used applesauce instead of the oil and brown sugar splenda instead of the sugar.  I wouldn't substitute 1:1 with the sugar vs. splenda next time, they're a little sweet for my liking.

Also got a bulk shipment of quinoa from Amazon Grocery because it's good and good for you.  I have heard of people being allergic to it which makes me sad because I think it's pretty delicious.  I cook it in the rice cooker, 1 cup quinoa to 1 cup chicken broth + 1 cup water.  Awesome rice substitute and makes a yummy salad with black beans, corn, onion, and a hit of olive oil and vinegar.

In other news, I got to see my friend Kimmy yesterday and one of the best dogs in the world, Jamberoo


Isn't she adorable??? Such a little spazz too. I love dogs so much but in most cases, I am happy to play with them and then go home to my lower-maintenance kitties. Who are sadly also much snobbier than dogs. But life's a trade-off, yes?

We also cruised the cute little shops on Southport and I picked up this piece after much dithering and first-world whining over which necklace was prettier.



This week, I wasn't able to make it to class with Christina King :( and my other teachers are on SPRING BREAK luckyawesome vacations.  I am getting down to Naperville on Tuesday night to catch one of my most favorite authors, Christopher Moore, at a signing for his new book, Bite Me.  SO EXCITED!!!  AND I have the day off Friday and will do some much-needed cleaning.  And sleeping.  Let's be honest, more sleeping.

Cheers,
D

Light at the End of the Tunnel

This project at work is coming to a close, for which yea verily, thanks be to all higher powers and celebrations throughout the land.  Or throughout my wineglass anyway.

I started the FIRM cardioweights routine again - I think this routine right now is best for my body (getting old SUCKS) and my schedule.  I wanted to stick with Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred but my knee swelled up like a balloon after 3 workouts.  F-

I want to know what the hell this is about and who had the time to do it.

I received a message on a dating site from a guy who claimed to be into intellectual pursuits.  Only he spelled it "intelictual".  That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

I am watching a dvr'ed episode of Barefoot Contessa on Food Network.  This woman is nearly as unrelatable to the general public as Martha Stewart (excuse me while I go cut some rosemary from my FUCKENORMOUS garden in the Hamptons) but I still like watching her cook.  She uses the best ingredients she can get in fairly unfussy recipes, which I think is a concept any cook can use. 

Time to watch another mediocre episode of Project Runway, pussycats.  Check ya later.

So Grand in My Brain, So Little in Reality

Daylight Savings Time apparently gets harder the older I get because I could not get enough sleep this week.  I was able to catch a couple of bellydance haflas this weekend, which both inspire me and make me think OMGIWILLNEVERBEGOODDANCER.  Yes, I think in all caps a lot.  The lovely Zafirah and I hit IKEA today for some cheeeep mirrors that I am going to put in my home office so I can get my dance practice on right.  However, at the moment, they are leaning against the wall outside that room.  :-s  Honest, I am going to spring clean as soon as this project at work is launched and get that set up and get my shimmy working correctly.  I feel oftentimes that it's brokedown and busted.

For now, my latest two uploads to 365 Project, my baby girl (erm, as much as a 6 yr old cat can be a baby) Molly and a beautiful veil bellydance routine from Saturday night.

365 Project

This is a fun idea - take a picture a day and upload them to this site.  Here's mine: http://365project.org/loredona/365.  Feel free to follow me :)

In other news, work is a little stressful but nothing too bad.  Today was so gorgeous, and typical Midwest springtime means it will snow on Saturday.  No, seriously.  F-  But right now I'm warm and my baby girl kitty is asleep behind my head.  Life is pretty good.