I actually have been blogging lately, but I’ve been doing it here. A separate exclusive doll blog seemed necessary since it was all I felt like writing about for awhile and I didn’t want this blog to be consumed with doll-related trivialities. It’s trivial enough just as it is.
Since my last post I have gotten hired as a pilot by an air ambulance company and have moved to Spokane, Washington to help with the company’s 135 certification.
I’ve been really homesick for LA these last few months – not so much because Spokane is awful, I don’t think it is – but because life has been so stressful ever since I got here and that’s tainted my enjoyment of the city.
Here’s a photo of me taken two weeks ago. As you can see the stress has really taken it’s toll.
Well, I’m pretty much always in a good mood, but the last few weeks I’ve definitely been happier knowing that my training is scheduled and my flight to LA is booked. Soon I’ll be flying regularly again so it won’t matter where I’m living. However, the air ambulance company needs to be based out of Seattle, since that’s where the nurses and other necessary resources are I’ll be moving there around August. I’ve never lived in Seattle before, so this will be another new experience! I love new experiences!
Spokane, in general, is lovely – it’s surrounded by coniferous forest as far as the eye can see in any direction. The city itself is very lush with vegetation even in the Winter and has these ragged volcanic basalt rocks and boulders sticking out of the ground all over the place. There is also some interesting history and lots of great old buildings. The building I’m renting an apartment in right now was built in 1906. When I’m there I feel I can get a sense of what is was like to live 100 years ago. I would walk around in Edwardian gowns if I had any.
Another project I’m working on – Royal Hawaiian Air Service – an inter-island Hawaiian airline is moving forward encouragingly albeit slowly. We have a lot of support and most of the funding, so I should have more news on that soon. Either way I’ll be going to Oahu again in September, which I’m anticipating since I’ve been missing it ever since my last trip there a year ago. Something else I’ve been playing around with in my head – getting a horticultural degree at the University of Hawaii…
If you were in Japan at this moment, inside the Volks Super Dollfie store, it would not be unusual for you to see a grown man buying one of the beautifully sculpted two-feet tall Super Dollfie dolls. Obviously that’s not normal here in North America, but different cultures have very differing attitudes toward dolls. Both the Asian and Mexican cultures have a very strong interest in dolls. If you go to flickr.com and search for pictures of dolls almost all the comments on the pictures are by Latina women! I’ve collected dolls in some form or another my whole life. When I was little girl it was mainly Barbies, then up to recently it was Takara Blythe dolls. I bought my first Blythe doll on a trip to Japan – it was love at first sight and I faithfully collected Blythes until I was browsing for Blythe photos online and came across a picture of the most gorgeous work of art! A Volks Super Dollfie named Chinatsu! After that first sighting it was only a matter of time until I got my own Super Dollfie – she’s the Yo-SD named Suzuna. The ‘Yo’ in Yo-SD means ‘infant’ in Japanese because the Yo-SDs are smaller and younger looking than either the Mini SDs, SDs, or SD13s. They are also the cutest.
The Super Dollfies have so stolen my heart that I will not be collecting the Takara Blythes anymore. I’d like to focus all my attention on the Super Dollfies and since the SDs are really expensive and I need the shelf real-estate I think I will sell my Blythe collection. That is going to be a ton of work.
To give you a little taste of what the Blythes are like here are some cute videos Blythe enthusiasts made.
I took the liberty of watching just about every Blythe video I could find as a last goodbye. Here are the best of them.
This is the photo I put on the background of my new Zune HD. Am I loving the new Zune HD? I am not. I don’t like that I can’t put a background on the main page anymore and I don’t like that the screen is less wide even though it is longer and I don’t like that I’m having a really hard time putting mp4s onto it!!! Raaaaaaawwwwwwr!!!!!!
Boo. If only I created everything in the world things would work perfectly.
It is at least better than the Archos 5 Internet Tablet that I bought on the way up to Vancouver. I bought it in Sacramento and then I returned it a week later in Tacoma. Nothing worked on it. Although the screen was bigger. The fact that nothing worked like it should AND they had zero technical support was too much to bear. I returned it to the Tacoma location of Best Buy as a punishment to it. Harsh perhaps, but I want my technology to work as promised!
Vancouver was fun, especially Halloween at Clairessa’s place. I brought a big cheese/deli meats/crackers platter and several bottles of Malbec, which is my wine of the moment. I also brought my board games collection – we played ‘Apples to Apples’ and ‘Imaginiff’ -those are some of my favourite games. Michael won ‘Apples to Apples’ and I don’t recall if we ever finished ‘Imaginiff’, we may have been pretty sauced. In the photos it shows us with shots of Patron while the game is still laid out, so I’m guessing that things went astray…
I have to confess that I’m SICK of the food I’ve been eating lately. SO SICK OF IT. I tried to eat scrambled eggs yesterday and it was all I could do to keep from throwing up. My body does not want them in it. And I agree. Eggs are for throwing at houses and making smiley faces in the frying pan with.
Where does this leave me…………………………………………………………………..?
After an existential breakdown I gathered myself together and re-evaluated. I do still believe that low-carb, high protein and fats is the way to go, but something is not right because I DETEST eating this food! Je deteste! Je refuse!
I’m sick of cheese, yogurt, bacon, various other meats, nuts, and chili. The only low-carb approved food that I still enjoy is steak and milk. Oh! and whipped cream. But I have neither the time nor the inclination to char a Chicago-style steak everyday. Plus, something tells me that would get old really quick too.
This doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to hate food that is ideal for you. It really doesn’t make sense that the more you ate the healthy food the more it would make you want to throw up. That cannot be natural.
Here’s my guess: both Ryan and I are getting canker sores, ulcers, and heartburn. Yes, he’s eating the exact same as me. It’s pretty obvious that our acid levels are off the charts. Maybe the millet grain in that cereal that I was eating was enough to reduce the pH to levels where my body could still handle eating all that protein from the eggs and almonds at lunch. I thought milk was fairly alkaline, but it’s not. Everything I’m eating now is pretty acidic. I bought some bread at Whole foods that is just made with millet, amaranth, salt, and water. It’s actually fairly tasty. Millet is a very old grain that Europeans have been eating for millenia. I mention this because I’m from European descent and I think it’s safe to assume that if your ancestors were eating it then your body will know better how to process it. So, if you’re asian or arab etc… then you can probably healthfully eat different foods than I can. So, Ryan and I researched what grains have been around for eons for Europeans and the answer is millet, barley, and oats. Rye too, but I don’t like rye.
My plan now is to eat a small amount of millet, barley, or oats everyday along with my regular low-carb foods. I did that starting today and it was refreshing to actually have some energy at the gym. My other complaint about the 100% protein & fat diet was that I had noooooo energgggggggggy. That actually made it super hard to lose weight since I had no energy to work out.
It’s important to point out that there is no yeast in that bread I bought. It is my belief that yeast is not good for you. There are many articles I’ve read on the detriment of yeast to your body and honestly it is just. really. gross.
In conclusion: It was so nice to have buttered bread with my eggs and it did make them not only tolerable, but pleasant. Also, I finally had the sensation of being satiated, which I just wasn’t getting from eating only meat and dairy. This simple type of bread also filled me up and did not cause me to crave more carbs or mess with my blood sugar levels. I stayed full for the rest of the day. I’ll let you know if this works!
After many long ponderous titles steeped in fromage I thought I would do one that would catch your attention and turn your world upside down.
It’s been awhile since I last wrote, but I got so busy. I’m all done now with the classwork I needed to do ahead of my Vancouver trip, so that I wouldn’t fall behind. I did two chapters of PHP and one chapter of CSS, worked on Jessica Lee’s website and discovered the world twice over. Now I can truly say I have lived! … the life of a computer geek.
One week til I leave for Vancouver!!! I’m so excited. We’re all having a party at Clairessa’s place in downtown Vancouver on Halloween. That’s going to be super fun. I’m going to be a bum this year and not make a costume. There just isn’t the time or money unfortunately… it would cause me too much stress. Boo… I know. Next year I’ll make two costumes and do a wardrobe change in the middle of the evening to make up for it.
What I’m really focusing on right now is Jessica Lee’s website, which has to be perfect. I really want it to be something special that people will enjoy shopping at. I’m having a little web designer/developer trepidation that it will take me too long to make the website or that the shopping cart will turn out to be a nightmare. Lots of nagging uncertain thoughts. That is why this is doubly important for me to finish and do well – then I won’t feel this way ever again!
It has not all been work lately though – Ryan and I went to the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride. It was the first time for both of us, so we didn’t know what to expect. Now that I’ve had the experience I think that I would like very much to go on a hayride again, but the haunted part was just ‘meh’. I really loved sitting in fresh hay in a flatbed trailer with a bunch of happy strangers getting pulled around all over the place. That’s an experience I would like to explore. The scary part was not super scary and I didn’t like all the performers screaming so close to me, it was grating. I get much more scared when I’m at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights and I’m walking around and someone jumps out at me when I least suspect it. I should be going there in the next few days.
Pacifica Air is still toodling along. We’re still waiting for our certificate to mature, which means we can submit our stuff to the FAA and do proving runs. There’s been a few small aviation business deals we’ve done while we’re waiting, but it’s all very tenuous until the money is in your account. Aviation is not a very dependable or forthright industry.
Hello! I hope you won’t hold it against me, but I ate most of the cheesecake already… sorrrrrrrrrry – and I say that with a Canadian accent with the hard ‘o’ – not the American way, which I can only say when I’m not sincere: “I’m so sar-rry.” I do try not to say it unless I really am being genuine though, it’s one of those things you can say ’til it’s meaningless!
Let’s move on.
I did make the cheesecake and it was tasty in a Stevia-ish way. Yes, it does taste good, but not ‘to-die-for’ good because you’ll only get that with sugar, since it’s really less about the taste and more the addictiveness of carbs that makes you feel that way. Think about it, what IS taste, really? – ‘taste buds’ are actually chemosensors that detect certain chemical stimuli in the environment. These chemosensors go wild over sugar, but it’s so counterproductive to what our bodies need, I have no idea as to why the sensors haven’t evolved more. I know eggs are really good for me – why can’t eggs be something my taste buds tell me is fantastically exciting? Why!? I hate eating eggs! Though… my good news for you today is that this cheesecake recipe has 8 eggs in it.
Other than the obvious fact that it’s not quite as compelling without sugar, the cheesecake actually turned out super rad. So much so that I thought that I would include the recipe and the publication I got it from. It’s from a special edition of ‘Cook’s Illustrated‘, which I highly recommend for the scientifically precise info they supply you with and the perfectionism with which they research their recipes – awesome – you cannot go wrong if you follow their recipes to the ‘T’. Which is what I did and the cheesecake was perfect! No crack on the top, perfect texture, everything just as they said it would be. Thank you!!! I’m actually not that much into cooking, but I miss eating dessert and you can forget about buying a sugar free cheesecake, not gonna happen. So here I be, in the kitchen.
Here are the pages that I scanned from the issue for you: page 1 and page 2. Also, if you click on the cheesecake pics I included you can see hugemongous examples of my results. If you’re interested in buying Cook’s Illustrated, it’s published in a magazine format and I bet you could get it at any good newsstand or bookstore, but I get mine as an impulse buy when I stand in line at Whole Foods.
Today I chose my UBC Med school clothing, which is a little ritual my sister and I have: every Fall when she receives the Med school clothing catalogue I pick out which ones I want and then I get it as one of my Christmas gifts from her. Even though I’m very fashiony and not the sweatshirt/t-shirt type, a lot of the time I’m chillin at home or doing some rigorous physical activities that call for that sort of apparel, so I have usually completely worn them out within the year and require my Fall replenishment. It makes me happy to wear them because it reminds me of Clairessa and how proud I am of her. This year I picked out a women’s fitted navy hoodie with the UBC crest and a pair of matching sweatpants that have the elastic around the ankle – so 80′s I know, but those old school sweatpants look kinda cool I think and it’s more flattering on me since most sweatpants are too short for me anyway, they would just be hanging loosely like 5 inches above the ground – not attractive. Still, I may not leave the house in them… Je deteste looking bummy.
If you’re wondering what happened to my guitar playing, I’ll tell you – I cut my thumb very deeply when I broke an hourglass the other day. Rather cryptic don’t you think? I knocked the hourglass, the top half came off and my thumb caught on a shard of the bottom half. It bled a lot and was very terrible. My texting, button pushing, and 6th string guitar playing skills are in shambles. Fiddlesticks.
I wonder if you would feel better if you put the lime in the coconut and drank them both together….? Some day I will experiment and let you know.
Today is one of those dark gloomy days mostly seen in Vancouver and not Newport Beach, but the last two day have been like that here. Makes me want to get some fake logs for my gas fireplace. I’ve been working on my personal webpage the last few days and have gotten the foundations finished. You can check it out here. It may seem like a waste of time to put so much effort into a page that I frankly don’t need, but by working on my own webpage I learn in a real way how to take an idea and design and turn it into a working website. All the classes, videos, and textbooks I’m reading don’t give you much more than an idea of how to go about it. So, many things go awry or affect your page in ways that you could’t have guessed that it’s pretty much the only way to really learn – the textbooks and videos are all worked out in advance to give you a specific result with specific steps. Ha! Like that ever happens in reality!
I talked to my Grandma yesterday, she’s so cute. She told me all about how the family was doing and she talked about Clairessa coming to stay with her in February for a month, so I know she’s already excited about that. Clairessa got to Toronto yesterday where she’s going to be for a month because of one of her med school rotations. I think she’s liking 4th year a bit better. Thank goodness. But I also think she’s happier now because she went back to eating some meat. From empirical evidence I’ve witnessed that being a vegetarian makes a person puffy and wrinkly and GROUCHY! If you want a more scientific and peer-reviewed case for eating meat then I highly recommend this book – ‘Good Calories, Bad Calories’ by Gary Taubes. (If you don’t have time to read the thick book here is a video of the author which covers a lot of what’s in the book ) I had so much trouble staying thin until I read this book. A rice cake with 30 calories would make me gain weight, but eating cheese with 1000′s of calories wouldn’t – that is totally against what popular wisdom says these days – but popular wisdom is just that, it is inherently popular but it is not inherently true.
And now I will answer all your life’s most important and hitherto unanswerable questions:
Q. What is the purpose of life?
A. To spawn more life. That is the very nature of life – it begets more life. Go have some kids. You’ll be glad when you’re old and still relevant to someone.
Q. Is that a debt collector or a possibly important business contact calling me?
A. It’s a debt collector. Answer the phone and tell them you’re not your own self and they have reached the wrong number and would they take it off their calling list.
Q. Why can’t I find the right partner?
A. The right partner is a tolerable one. Anyone you live with will drive you crazy in short order.
Q. Why is it that my hair is dull, dry, unremarkable and I can’t seem to stay thin?
A. Because you’re eating too much sugar.
Q. Why aren’t human babies as cute as animal babies?
A. It’s easy to be objective about animal babies, they obviously aren’t our offspring, so it’s easy to love them for the cute things they are – human babies on the other hand are only really lovable to their own parents and not so much for you as they are competition for your own genetic carriers.
Q. Why are the tastiest foods the worst for me?
A. To maintain the balance of the universe. Only by keeping us from eating non-stop can existence continue with any kind of order.
I hope that was helpful and now your life seems more organized and less arbitrary. Animal babies ARE so much cuter aren’t they? Just looking at my fluffy white standard poodle, Adelle, causes me to hug her and pinch her cheeks and smoosh her foofy head all day long. Really, it’s hard to get work done. I challenge any child I have to be that cute.
So, yesterday I went shopping and bought all the ingredients for the New York Cheesecake that I’m going to make tomorrow – yum, num, num. I researched and found by all accounts the best possible cheesecake recipe in existence. It calls for 5 packages of cream cheese, 1 lemon, some sour cream, lotsa eggs, a titch of salt, and of course sugar, ew, I’m substituting that with stevia. I’ll let you know how that turns out. I’m making a crushed pecan nut crust instead of graham cracker to keep things low carb. I’m hoping it’s not too time consuming so that I can make and eat my cheesecakes regularly.
Tonight I went to my CSS class and we’ve all decided, the prof included, that this textbook is terrible. It’s written in such confusing language that what should be a simple task turns into a headache-inducing day long epic drama. Dude, it’s just CSS. My PHP class is WAY easier thanks to the power of clear intelligible English in the textbook. However, I ‘am’ learning and also, I’m getting straight A’s. Hurray! Guitar is going well too, my teacher says that I play everything perfectly. That is very encouraging. I’m on the right path towards being a legitimate guitar player. During moments of grandeur I even imagine myself being in a band or at least an ensemble.
Lately I’ve had this song stuck in my head – “Just Go” by Lionel Richie – it’s really where I’m at this week, I just want to get away and relax. The last two weeks have been just one trial and tribulation after another. I feel like I am going to be surprised with a Survivor-type reality show trophy any minute now. Soon it will be mine – I’m sure of it!
This weekend was an oasis of fun in the recent desert of living though, we did all sorts of Autumnal activities like go to Target and get little orange candycorn lights, which I put up around all my windows and my balcony, and I got a cute pumpkin candle holder centerpiece for my table, which I lit along with my other candles and played my guitar in the soft orange glow. I also made soup!!! Which was yummy, I put all sorts of veggies and just the right spices in it. And we went for a hike in Trabuco canyon, which was interesting in many ways if not for beauteous reasons. Much red rooibos tea was drunk and a good time had by all.
Trabuco canyon is very canyony, but I wouldn’t recommend it for hiking. It took a very loooooooong drive down a very treacherous boulder filled ‘path’, for I would not call it a road, to even get to the trail head. Unless you are in an off-roading vehicle I wouldn’t advise it. Several cars and us didn’t even make it to the trail head because parts of the path ahead of us were just a swatch of jagged foot high rocks – it would have just shredded the bottoms of our cars. So, we parked and walked from there which meant we were pooped by the time we reached the trail – bah! There was also a lot of Poison Oak and even at 5pm it was hot, so though our moods were jolly, I can’t say that it inspired my soul and regale you with tales of natural beauty that would impress you. Foiled again!
I talked to my Mom Saturday morning, I was very relieved that she was safely back from the cabin and in good spirits. She went up by herself last Monday, and it still has Dad’s stuff just as he left it, so Clairessa and I were worried she’d get into some weird mood and take her life. It was a valid worry I think, but anyway she seems to have dealt with some of the issues regarding his death, so maybe she’s gonna be a bit happier from now on…..? I really hope so. I’ll go up near Halloween and give her a big hug. Adelle will love that, she loves Mom and visiting Vancouver. I’ll drive up so that I can easily take Adelle and the foliage is gorgeous through Oregon and Washington at that time of year. It’s worth it to go just for the drive.
Looks like we might get government funding for Pacifica. Keep your fingers crossed. This would be the hugest relief and allow us to keep full control of the company without being under-capitalized into extinction. Right now I know a lot of us are under-funded and under-funned, but I’ve got some ideas like the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride! It will only solve the latter problem though, sorry. I’m planning on doing that in a few weeks and of course Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights! So. Much. Fun.
I serenaded the sunset below the horizon tonight with descending arpeggios – it was lovely and I’ve been wanting do it for such a long time now – I sat on my balcony and played my guitar as the world went to sleep and the night came alive and I had to get up and turn on the balcony light.
Taking deep breathes of fresh ocean air I watched as the sky changed from red to turquoise to purple and the planes landed and took off from John Wayne airport like brightly twinkling stars in the dusk. All the while trying to keep up the timing and play the right string and fret. I’m not really at the stage yet where I’m worrying about which fingers I’m using on certain strings and frets, as long as my timing’s decent and I play the right notes then I’m happy.
I went to a flamenco guitar performance this weekend and there were also flamenco dancers, which was very cool and I had trouble focusing on the guitar playing at times because I just wanted to watch the dancing, because let’s admit it: it’s more fun to watch. Whenever I could pull myself away from watching the dancers I watched the guitarists’ hands and how their fingers were moving, but I don’t think I was able to take a lot away from the experience. Maybe when I’m more accomplished I can gather more info from watching someone play, at this point it’s all very similar to me.
The dancers had great swirly dresses all red and satiny and polka-dotty with tiers and tiers of large ruffles around the hem and sometimes to my enormous delight they would use castanets! I dunno, I’ve just had a fascination with them since I was a kid. The performance gave me the idea of being a flamenco dancer for Halloween. I’m not positive yet though, but I better figure my costume out soon – Halloween’s coming!!! Next weekend I’m gonna put up little Halloween lights, purple, green, & orange, around the balcony and windows and put up some Autumnal decorations. I LOVE decorating for the holidays.
Or at least that’s what I thought my horoscope said the other day and I was so excited about that. I do think I’m ready for a unicorn, whatever that may entail I’m sure that I have what’s necessary.
Hope everyone had a good long weekend. Sunday I went to the LA County Fair and had a lot of fun. My favorite thing to do is pet the farm animals. The sheep are my favorite, they’re softer and more cuddly than the goats and a sign at the fair said that they make good pets. I plan on getting one. The piglets were adorable too, but I eat a lot of pork, so I think that would make me feel a bit uncomfortable. I think meat is the optimal food for humans to eat, but I wish it didn’t come from animals. I try to separate the two objects in my mind.
Another thing I did a lot of this weekend was practice my guitar. I am amazed that I can play simple songs now, that is so super cool to me because for many years I just stared at my guitar with a few lackluster attempts to learn to play which would last no more than a few weeks. I think I’ve broken some kind of mental barrier between ‘I can’t play guitar’ and ‘I can play guitar’. I feel extraordinarily jubilant! Quite a lot of the time in life after completing a task I think ‘If I’d known how easy that would be I would have done it long ago’. We really are our own biggest obstacles in life. I’m still waiting for some calluses to form to protect my left hand fingers against the metal strings, they are super resistant to being anything but soft, squashy, and vulnerable. I understand where they are coming from though. My guitar is a electric hollow body, she’s very pretty with yummy brown and amber colors, mother-of-pearl inlays, and gold-colored hardware. I will post a pic as soon as I have a good one. To go with my guitar I also have an fairly big amp and a processor that gives my hollow-body a fat acoustic guitar sound – awesome!!! My gift to myself once I get to a certain level of proficiency is a nice acoustic guitar so I can play more mobiley. I’m thinking campfires, picnics, that sort of thing.
I have my CSS class tonight, so hopefully that goes well, since that prof was such a poop last week, but I’m not worried, she probably feels bad about the incident too. So far, I have actually learned more about CSS in my Dynamic Web Database online class – I guess between the two I’ll be pretty proficient at CSS by Chrismastime. I can’t get over how into coding I am – weird. Never in a million years would I have thought I had a predilection towards that.
Pacifica is moving along slooooooowly, but what can you do? Some things, especially big things, just cannot be rushed. All I can say about it is that our business plan is extremely fluid, but it has to be in this economy. We are considering, right now, moving the operation to Hawaii because there just seems to be more flying opportunities there. Hopefully next week I will have some more concrete information for you.
