jinian

Well, I can see that it'll take me a while to convince my body that I would like to sleep more than six hours a night. Having my digestion settle down will help with that too.

One of the nice things about being awake Too Fucking Early*, though, is that Hex is all cutely active. He also seems more energetic in the bigger tank, so yay me for finally getting that set up.

So what actually happened yesterday?

( Lots, as it turns out )

Friday:
- revision was IN
- afternoon was OFF
- Bellevue Art Museum with m-pig (paper teahouse, bamboo basketry, Nikki McClure, bizarre fiber arts; unfortunate photo-taking nitwits)
- cheesecake
- acupuncture
- La Cocina dinner

Saturday:
- napping
- working in the garden
- making tasty food

Sunday:
- brunch with Wim's dad and stepmom; giving of the adorable snow monkey magnet in trade for Inuyama HDR dahlia print
- tromping over Cougar Mountain (Anti-Aircraft trailhead, Shangri-La Trail, West Tibbetts Creek, Bear Ridge to Fantastic Erratic -- a huge fern-clad boulder -- and back, Tibbetts Marsh; then to the "million-dollar view" of Lake Sammamish)
- Central Library, including my first time parking there
- more tasty food

Today has had many fine features too:
- paid rent
- ordinary pleasures of walking in to school
- found theses online and in the library to review
- Mt. Rainier visible from campus
- undergrads discussing the personal lives of the fountain's ducks with some vehemence

(Annoying things from today include a committee member trying to make it my fault she didn't tell me about her sabbatical -- oh no she didn't -- and certain journal publishers failing to provide dissertation reuse policies on their web sites, wtf, everyone in the world does this, just post your permission like a good journal.)

We got in a bit late after a turbulent flight yesterday, then went to brunch with my parents and M-pig. All is substantially well in the home place, modulo clutter and dirt, so after a small cleaning freakout I went to bed for the afternoon with cats on me as planned. Woke up for more cleaning and cooking (BAKING in my OVEN), then back to bed around midnight for fourteen hours with additional cats-on-me time. Currently on the couch, mind operating about one-quarter speed. I had visions of a Yuletide treat but I am thinking no.

Very glad to be home. I think all the sleeping is more about MY BED and the completion of a very stressful experience than it is about jet lag. Also cats are highly soothing when not hissing at each other, and Hex is an axolotl.

Today, I made the entire fifth floor of the South Science Building smell of pumpkin pie. It was awesome.

I had to explain the technique of proper pastry, and make it with the "two knives as scissors" method since I couldn't find a pastry cutter at all. People understood the kabocha squash and cinnamon and were excited about them, but the nutmeg and particularly allspice were mystifying. The Hokkaido butter gets unusually hard, so we had to fold the crust in four after the initial rolling, but it worked out very well indeed. Everyone seemed to like it very much.

Despite my calculations beforehand, there was too much pie filling, so we wound up making four pumpkin custards in ramekins. I love that I am working in a lab that has common-use ramekins. Noted for future lab of my own.

(People also asked me the difference between shrimp and prawns. I explained the size difference and also the prevalent confusion of terms.)

So we had an awesome party including the pie, pasta puttanesca, salad, and various pizzas including a teriyaki chicken pizza that, with cheese, was really just too salty. The celebration was because someone's paper was finally getting published after almost a year; I am not entirely clear on how this happened. There was champagne, which fountained onto a bench very festively, and kinpaku, which is sake with gold leaf in.

My own recent paper was rejected tonight, though with largely quite positive comments, so that I think we can easily revise and resubmit. I am not bothered in the slightest, because (1) I was almost hoping for a rejection since they rejected the cosubmitted paper already, which would be hella awkward if they accepted mine -- I rather think that's what the editor was thinking too -- and (2) I got home to find two packages from my ground crew! Thanks, hattifattener and marzipan_pig!

Friday: Spring Fair in Puyallup with marzipan_pig! We don't do this every year like the harvest-time fair, but occasionally we get it together for this one too. Great weather this year, cool with sunbreaks and no rain at all. Going on Friday, we missed the crowds, which was a little strange; it did mean we got to see more mascots and clowns than usual, including a guy riding a giant chicken (on stilts inside the suit, I think). Highlights included an impromptu monster truck parade, Swifty Swine races, miniature horses and pygmy goats, and the Land of Wool with spinning, yarn, and real little lambs. Neither of us liked the dancing horses, who just seemed uncomfortable. I got dahlias that I need to plant soon, good plump tubers with shoots coming since the selection was still nice, and a head-crushing hairband from which I plan to harvest the adorable brown and polka-dotted fascinator.

Saturday matinee: Metropolis with restored footage and live music by Alloy Orchestra at the Cinerama. $30 a person was a bit excessive, considering Alloy Orchestra turns out to be three dudes. However, the movie is beautiful, a great look at early science fiction filmmaking with a good score and effective cinematography. Despite some slight overamplification I really enjoyed the show.

The three musicians did a great job, and it was a lot of fun to see them on stage making the sound effects and performing the percussion. All the non-percussion was synthesized, which was a little disappointing from a spectator's perspective but likely inevitable given their staffing restrictions.

Metropolis was severely edited shortly after its initial release, and the footage removed was thought to have been lost entirely until a print was found in Argentina a few years ago. The quality of the formerly lost footage is not good, but in a way it's nice that there's a marked condition for it. I'd never seen any of the edited versions, so this way I could guess at how confusing certain events would've been. (Pretty darn confusing! How did real Maria get away from the evil inventor without this footage?)

Of course I loved the Art Deco style, and I really wonder just how many things I've never suspected were visually influenced by this film. The Thin Man so obviously needs a white-clad counterpart. And when they first show the inventor's house -- a mysterious little house left behind as the city grew up around it, which everyone avoids or fails to notice -- I fully expected to find the Dimension Witch inside it.

From mail to marzipan_pig:

I have just gotten A RESULT from MY SOFTWARE and it took for freakin' ever and I would have loved to have it WEEKS AGO but it is GOOD.

Off to Japan tomorrow! I spent largish amounts of money yesterday on presents for my hosts (Theo Chocolate), presentation outfit (Calvin Klein dress on the comparative cheap), and a sufficiently femme laptop bag (ratty backpack will not do). New haircut from Monday was way cute until washing and now will take getting used to again, alas.

After chilly rain, clouds with sunbreaks, evening sun on the Dyke March yesterday but cold afterward, FINALLY: today is truly sunny and fine. Mountains in both directions, as is only right, and floral smells wafting all over.

I've decided my fatal flaw as a gardener is that I love order far less than the charming overgrown look, so I find it very difficult to put in any work when things have gotten the way I like them best. Then I come back two weeks later when I have time again, and all is chaos. (Well, the other problem is hay fever, but that's more trial-of-Job than hubris-equivalent; the true flaw is inherent in my personality.) Nonetheless, I am now eating snow peas (yellow and green pods), my rhubarb prospers, and the shiso may be the prettiest thing out there: bronzy leaf-tops with chocolate undersides. Plus, my tiny hydrangea is about to bloom for the first time!

Last Friday: Willy Wonka (1971) in Smell-o-vision at SIFF Cinema with grad friends, subtitled for singing along. The enhancement consisted of some candies and fabric swatches, and the subtitles said when to use which ones: "Chew the gum/ With your mouth open." The best part (and okay, I was a little high, but it was amazing) was in the bubble room part, when the entire audience was also blowing bubbles. So surrounded by wonder, way better than 3D movies. Afterward most of us got some food and I managed to blow someone's mind completely, so that was pretty great too.

Last Saturday: grad Christmas party, complete with someone in a Santa suit, someone afraid of the Santa suit, Kinect dancing game, Ultimate Fighting (did not watch), the Grinch (totally watched), and lots of eggnog. My lemon meringue pie was a hit, though I meant to balance it slightly sweeter; the sugar we have is coarse and fell out of the meringue more than it melted in.

Last Sunday: brunch at Salish Lodge, next to an overwhelmingly full Snoqualmie Falls. The gauge for water flow was at 80-85% of its capacity, and the falls was enormous. ( Largish photos )

And then dinner out for marzipan_pig's birthday, with PIG HATS.

Last Wednesday: did a little work and hung out with my dad.

Yesterday: Tron Legacy in 3D at the Cinerama: geeky and mythic and pretty, and the 3D is mostly good rather than super-gimmicky. Total Bechdel fail, of course. And while "Laser Lebowski" on the Neptune marquee cracked me up, "Return to DOS" incensed me, as "whoami" is clearly UNIX.

Last night: dinner with m-pig; intention to go to an SF reading was foiled by its having been on Wednesday (crap!); instead going to Elliott Bay, reading the Virgin Project comics, and meeting people we knew of old. Figured out what to give my mom for Xmas, thank god. Met a girl with my name, spelled the same!

Tonight: Labyrinth! with grad friends and m-pig. Considering wearing a ballgown.