Thursday, December 18, 2008

Put a ribbon in your hair???


Oh man. Just when I think women have a long way to go to achieving equality, I find something that reminds me how far we've come already! Courtesy of Jezebel (a blog I read voraciously) I found this AWESOME "Good Wife's Guide" from 1955. I'll have to ask hubby how I measure up, considering my culinary masterpiece is Kraft Mac&Cheese!
I particularly like the part about "Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it." And "Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours." Haha! Click on the image above for the full article.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Bedtime Tunes - Updated Nightly

I have rediscovered the loveliness that is Bedtime Tunes: check it out online for some really mellow ambient/electronica/trip hop/folksy tunes.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Ode to Wine

I am short on inspiration today, so I'm letting Pablo Neruda's words work their magic:

Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through the shoots,
wind incites the day,
nothing is left
of your immutable soul.
Wine
stirs the spring, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped on the vessel of your belly,
your love an inexhaustible
cascade of wine,
light that illuminates my senses,
the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,
the fiery kiss,
the heat of fire,
more than the wine of life;
you are
the community of man,
translucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Recap

Somehow we managed to fit my parents and my brother in our lil "pied a terre" in Georgetown for the weekend. I threw my first "official" dinner party as well with my parents and my in-laws on Saturday night! --- meaning, we busted out the fine china and crystal glasses, which we then had to spend the better part of the evening washing by hand. It's tiring playing house!

We did cheat a teensy bit on the main dish: we served a rack of lamb that comes herbed and ready to cook from Trader Joe's (is that a total travesty? At least the meat is free-range and organic).

We continued the gluttonous weekend by having dim sum on Sunday at Fortune (Seven Corners, VA) - HIGHLY recommend it, have been there 3 or 4 times now and each time I come away from it I am happily stuffed. If you plan on going, be sure to make a reservation, it gets packed.

I also went to see the new James Bond which I really liked (plunk me down in front of mostly any spy movie and I will be content, especially if it includes Daniel Craig, shirtless). Maybe not as good as Casino Royale, but still worth seeing! If you're a fan of Daniel Craig, you should check out the movie Layercake as well.

And then we had dinner once again at Brasserie Beck, this time with the dozen usual suspects in tow, to celebrate a birthday (Happy birthday hubby!). And thank you to everyone who came out, even though it was a weeknight. You guys are pretty much irreplaceable. When I was a teenager I watched Friends a lot and thought, "when I'm in my 20's I'm going to have a really great group of friends too." And I do!

Also a BIG THANK YOU to a certain someone who offered us two bottles of Perrier-Jouet even though she couldn't be there with us (you know who you are, and you are my hero!).

Monday, November 10, 2008

I've started taking an art class at the Art League School in Alexandria. It's painting with pastels, something I haven't done diligently since high school, and I'm glad to report that my first project, still life with vase and mandarin orange, doesn't look like a big poo! I may not be Monet but at least it's three hours every week that I can set aside and devote to me. It's been a long time since I've had an activity where I end up getting lost in it and losing track of time.

I've also started volunteering for Homeward Trails Animal Rescue to fill the gaping hole that is "not having a dog in my daily life." Someday I will have one..or two, or three...and two cats - one will be named Cleopatra (Cleo for short), the other Leopold (Leo for short).

It's somewhat hard on the soul to volunteer at the dog adoption events, because there are so many good dogs that need good homes, and if I had the resources I would take them all in (I'm an equal-opportunity dog lover).

Also I woke up on November 5th feeling really good...because for the first time since I was 18, I was super super proud of my country (and my home state of North Carolina!).

Much happiness to Mr. and Mrs. Hall (or is that Mr. and Mrs. Reddick?)


Our friends got married in a little garden in Chevy Chase, MD on November 1st. Everything was so lovely, and the vows were funny and touching. It seems even the Man Upstairs was on call to paint the leaves the same shade as the bride's bouquet and ensure the weather was cooperative.

Congratulations to V&D!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

God, I am such a tool

The other night we watched "I Am Legend" and I started to bawl my eyes out when Will Smith's dog was bitten by zombie dogs and died. I really need to get a grip.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Rest in peace


Midnight was my best friend. She died of cardiac arrest on a Wednesday at 6 in the morning after 10 days in the hospital with a blocked bile duct and two operations. She was 12. I wish she didn't have to go that way, I would have liked for her to be in the comfort of her home instead of scared and alone in the animal hospital, but she had a great life and was very pampered and very loved from the minute we found her and her sisters and brothers, abandoned, when they were only about a week old. We placed all of the other puppies and kept her, the runt of the litter. She had purple spots on her tongue (she was a black lab/terrier/chow mix, we think) and liked to dig for moles in the ground. She was a sweetheart, very loyal, shy almost to the point of being skittish with people she didn't know, she was calm, she had the softest ears. She will be greatly missed.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Honeymoon

It has been a long time since I have written (hey, give me a break! I was planning a wedding and enjoying three weeks of not being in the US). Just to get you up to speed - we were in France from June 28th to July 8th (and were married on July 5th), and then in the Seychelles Islands from July 8th-July16th, and then in Paris from July 16th-July 20th. The 20th marks our return to DC and to its lovely summertime humidity, and it's taken me at least until today (July 28th) to settle in/get over my yearly post-vacation funk/organize my life after this dreamy, magical interlude.

Let me just say that the Seychelles Islands is everything I hoped it would be: paradisiaque, as they say in French; the bluest waters and whitest sands of the Indian Ocean; smooth granite rocks bordering the beaches; tropical fish and birds; Creole and Thai food to die for; basically, it was very depaysant (meaning I felt like I was in a different world). It was so beautiful it felt like I had walked into an amusement park, like it was man-made. There were many European, Russian, Indian tourists, but we only met one American tourist and he lived with his Romanian girlfriend in Dubai. So I guess it's somewhat off the beaten path for us Americans, but well worth the time needed to get there. We took a direct flight with Air Seychelles from Paris to Mahe, the main (and largest) island of the Seychelles. It's about a 9-hour overnight flight. We spent four days at the Banyan Tree, a resort overlooking Anse Intendance. There were mainly couples staying there. Each couple has their own villa recessed into the hillside complete with its own little patio and private pool.

The first day we got there we decided to treat ourselves to a three-hour spa treatment. First you start off with a cup of chilled tea and an icy face towel that is perfumed with mint essential oil. Then we each had a body scrub with orange, yogurt and sugar; you're rinsed off with warm water, rubbed with honey and then rinsed off once more with warm milk and then you have a 10-minute steam bath. THEN you have an hour-and-a-half Thai full body message. They have to help peel you off the massage table after that because you're completely limp. And then you're treated to hot ginger tea and oranges. That was a GREAT way to start the vacation!! We ate at a Thai restaurant on our first day for dinner and I bit into a pepper that was so hot I thought my head would explode. Otherwise the food was scrumptious.

The next day we went on an excursion by boat to Moyenne Island and went snorkeling in Baie Sainte Anne which is near Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles. Moyenne Island is a private island owned by this crazy kooky English guy since the mid-1960s. He lives there on his own with a bunch of tortoises and dogs. He has spray-painted each tortoise with a big orange letter so that he can identify them, and has also created a "museum" which consists of seashells he's found and articles about himself in newspapers (the "real Robinson Crusoe").

On the third day we took it easy by the pool and the beach at Banyan Tree. Swimming, Scrabble, reading, taking underwater pictures, and applying sunscreen every 10 minutes (Seychelles is 4 degrees south of the Equator). On the fourth day we also spent some time by the beach and pool, and treated ourselves to another massage (they were that good).

And then our time at Banyan Tree was over - the next day we left for another island called Praslin, which is a 15-minute flight from Mahe. Praslin has some really beautiful beaches, especially Petite Anse Kerlan at the Lemuria resort where we were staying, and Anse Lazio, considered by some to be one of the best beaches in the world.

From Praslin we also took a day trip to the island of La Digue, a very small island where people get around mainly on bike. Anse Source d'Argent is a really famous beach there - we spent some time snorkeling and taking pictures there as well.
V. relaxing, lovely vacation...the stuff of dreams.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Obamabots and Billaryites

Regardless of your political beliefs, this has been a historic week in the history of the US: a racially-mixed man has clinched the presidential nomination of a major party for the first time. It would be no less historic had Clinton been the nominee.

For all of the dirty politics that have been in play these past few months from both sides of the Democratic party, for all of the age/gender/race/education divisions that the media love to talk about and that I'm sick of hearing about, look how far we have come already: a woman and a black/white man as serious contenders for the presidency. That would have been unthinkable 50 years ago, when women had three options for careers (nurse, teacher, secretary) and black people had to sit in the back of the bus. I mean, I wasn't around then, but I think it would have been unthinkable. I really do admire them and congratulate them both for the fact that they got into politics in the first place, 'cause it's not something I would ever be capable of doing. I couldn't deal with the slime, spin and backstabbing.

It makes me happy that we are living in an America where two such people are able to run for president and be taken seriously. And for the Democrats that are saying that they will abstain from voting in November if their candidate is not nominated (ahem, Clinton supporters), you're just silly. We have a lot of work to do. Sigh.

I happen to like Obama. The media might say that's typical, since I'm young, college-educated and live in an urban, progressive area. I also eat arugula, shop at Whole Foods on occasion, don't own a gun, and believe that people should be able to marry whoever they want (gasp!) - go ahead and categorize me into your predefined boxes, if you'd like. I have my own reasons. But if Clinton was the nominee, I would still vote for her in November. Voting for McCain because you're unhappy with Obama would essentially be undermining everything Clinton promised to work for. It's like throwing out the baby with the bathwater...errr... buying the milk when you could get it for free...or something like that.

(On a side note, and I'm walking on eggshells on this one, Obama is 50% white, 50% black, so I have always wondered why people refer to him as black if he's equally black and white in his genetic makeup? Why don't they say "of mixed race" or something along those lines?)

On a more frivolous side, Sex and the City was totally fabulous - a lovely little guilty pleasure full of shoes, being pathologically self-absorbed with oneself, objectification of men, and forgetting about the real world for 2.5 hours - and if you liked the show you should go see the movie. With some girlfriends, of course.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

A good dose of estrogen (and some good eggs)

Ok, now I know what you're thinking when you read "a good dose of estrogen:" no, it has nothing to do with the monthly bill. It's just that I'm gearing up for a long weekend of gal-pal bonding. Ooooo I am so excited.

Wednesday I'm going to see Sex & the City with a bunch of girlfriends, Friday I'm hanging out with three of my favorite Lynks from college, and Saturday there is something of a surprise in store for me: a bridal shower & bachelorette party, the details of which I know little to nothing about. Fiance will be off doing his own thing, his boys are taking him somewhere for the weekend and told him to pack a pair of gloves and some goggles (I don't want to know.).

Also about the good eggs thing: I always thought that was a quirky but kind of cute thing to say as a toast with your best girlfriends. I guess it means that you're a great person and should definitely reproduce someday (as opposed to some people who should maybe...not.). So, here's to some damn good eggs.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Quite a way to start the summer.

...with a Nationals baseball game on Saturday evening (Boeing Co. box seats and super-convenient parking courtesy of our friend Phil - thank you!), a BBQ on Sunday in Maryland, complete with firepit, s'mores, real Coca-Cola made in Mexico with sugar instead of HFCS (high-fructose crap syrup) and staring at the stars through the night, and a day trip to Chrysalis Vineyards in Middleburg, VA (gorgeous views, bad wine), this kind of weekend might have to become a tradition.

And now it's back to reality: Office, Pushing Important Papers Around, you know, The Usual.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I wear red nail polish too

I found this Wife Chart online. I think my score comes to about -4 (that's negative four): abysmal failure as a wife by 1939 standards.

Never could keep those seams in my hose from not becoming crooked.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Hope it's not their first date

Last Saturday was undoubtedly the most exciting dinner I've been to in a long time. I mean exciting in a bad way, like you think someone's about to die.

We had just ordered our sushi at Kotobuki (a small, intimate restaurant that seats 30 people max) when the woman seated at the table next to us started yelling to call 911, that it wasn't a joke, as she leaned over and grabbed her boyfriend, whose eyes were rolling into the back of his head and he was passing out. I couldn't tell if it was a stroke or seizure, but it was something bad. After a few moments and 5 people calling 911 simultaneously (including me, a first) he came to and could speak, but he really didn't look so good because he first turned the color of the wall (eggshell white) and then turned greener and greener, until he vomited all over the table. Poor guy. Good thing an off-duty paramedic was there and helped him lie down and offered suggestions on what to do. Finally the paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital. I kinda lost my appetite after that but still managed to enjoy my spicy tuna roll.

Friday, April 25, 2008

I am a fashion maverick

Got a new pair of eyeglasses. They are by DKNY and have red frames. They make my face look nice. Yay!

(To the kid in the fourth grade who called me Four Eyes: ha, look who's hot now. You're probably in jail anyways. That also goes for the kid who called me Bony Rony in the sixth grade: I know you're in jail. I knew it starting from the day in third grade when you threw that chair across the classroom and then proceeded to bite that other kid on the head. Quality public-school education.)

Monday, April 21, 2008

Tuning out

Hey, word to the media: I don’t care if Obama doesn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel. I don’t care if Hillary “misspoke” about her trip to Bosnia. I don’t really care about whose pastor said what on what day (ever hear of separation between church and state??). I don’t care about seeing John McCain’s tax records; I can imagine he makes much more money than I do anyways. I don't care that Obama is bad at bowling and that Hillary drank a shot of whiskey or whatever it was in a bar in PA. I don’t care that Michelle Obama said that for the first time in her life she felt really proud of her country since her husband is running for president, because frankly I feel the same: it’s about time that we had a woman and a black man that are both serious contenders for the presidency.

I’m so tired of the mud-slinging, Swift-boating, over-analyzing, ridiculous circus that is the US media. It’s an insult to my intelligence. I don’t want a president who is just like the average American. Look where electing a “good ol’ boy,” someone you’d like to have a beer with, got us: the worst presidency ever (and by the way, I don’t think that someone who was born into oil industry money, who attended Andover and Yale, is technically an “average American.”). I, frankly, expect the president of the US to be much smarter than me, and much smarter than 90% of the rest of the American population. I expect him/her to be eloquent, extremely intelligent, diplomatic, open-minded, non-abrasive, and surrounded by some damn good advisers. Sometimes I wonder if the media just tries to spin non-important things into huge controversies so that Americans will keep being distracted from the real issues at hand (and in between their spins, they place commercials so that people can keep buying shit they don’t need. America goes shopping: the national pastime.).

This is what I care about:

What is the next president going to do for the single mother scraping by on 30K a year, with no health insurance, who gets laid off from her job at a factory because she has to take care of her sick kids?

What is the next president going to do for the Iraqi veteran who comes home maimed, with PTSD, and who receives only substandard care in a roach-infested room at Walter Reed?

What is the next president going to do about the US’ tarnished reputation abroad?

What is the next president going to do to ensure that kids coming out of public schools can read and write?

What is the next president going to do about health care costs going through the roof?

So to the media: get back to the important stuff. Please just stop with all the BS and the scrutiny of minutiae, lifting candidates’ words out of context and turning them into convenient little packages of sound bytes so that you can improve your ratings and increase your viewership. Because I’m tuning out.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Every bride's worst nightmare

Last night I dreamt that it was "the big day," you know, the day that symbolizes the beginning of the rest of my life (or the end of it, depending on who you ask) and absolutely nothing was ready. I was trying to set up a tent in my parent's backyard in Davidson and it was raining, dark and muddy, and I already had on my wedding dress, which had mud and grass stains at the knees. The tent's cover was dark blue and had "Blockbuster" written in yellow all over it. The priest was nowhere to be found, nor was the groom.

If anything, at least my real wedding can't come close to being that disastrous....right?

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Note to my French peeps

It is absolutely forbidden to eat cupcakes with a spoon!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Spring cleaning

It's funny how springtime always makes me feel like it's not only time to clean out my closet but also clean out my life. And when I say clean out my life, I don't mean getting rid of anything in particular but re-evaluating things: I always get antsy when it starts to get warm again, when the flowers bloom and the trees are just starting to show new, light green little delicate leaves. It's a yearning for renewal in some shape or form, the creation of something new even if that means making the smallest of changes. What I do know is that my next step, career-wise, is either going to be grad school or a new job (this, btw, won't be until at least 2009. Also, my boss knows that I will not be at the Embassy forever - in fact he has urged me to think about the next step).

In either case, whether my next step is grad school or a new job, I am going to be extremely picky (90% of jobs on Craigslist do not appeal to me in the least) because I have to admit I have been incredibly spoiled at the Embassy. It really is the perfect situation for me: I use my French, I get to travel every now and then, I like my colleagues, I have a lot of autonomy in the type of research activities I do, I've met some very interesting people. Alas, it is not the type of position I can stay in forever since there is no room for advancement - unless by some miracle the French Foreign Ministry would let me bypass their entrance exam - and everyone needs new challenges and responsibilities. Somehow, though, I know that things will generally work themselves out - they always do, in the end, that's the optimist in me - because four years ago when I was graduating from college I never could have imagined I would be here, doing what I do. I feel in retrospect that I didn't know anything about anything when I was fresh out of college.

I'm also itching to take up oil pastels, drawing, watercolors again and I really need to devote some time to that soon. That, and maybe take a dancing class. That's also part of my yearning to create something new. I also really need to go to the seaside. Eat some crabs. Have a margarita. And finally learn how to cook & bake. I don't think I mentioned that the other day I tried to bake a lemon cake, and it was a total disaster. The whole apartment was full of smoke. I then tried to redeem myself by making blueberry pancakes, and they were undercooked. Needless to say, I am far from becoming Martha-Frickin'-Suzy-Homemaker-Stewart.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

How to tick people off, by anon

  1. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17-inch paper, 99 copies.
  2. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."
  3. Specify that your drive-through order is "TO-GO."
  4. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
  5. Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
  6. Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."
  7. Reply to everything someone says with "that's what you think."
  8. Practice making fax and modem noises.
  9. Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc" them to your boss.
  10. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
  11. Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with the prophecy."
  12. Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears and grimacing.
  13. Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.
  14. Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
  15. Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
  16. Staple pages in the middle of the page.
  17. Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
  18. Honk and wave to strangers.
  19. Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints at the cash register.
  20. TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
  21. type only in lowercase.
  22. dont use any punctuation either
  23. Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
  24. Repeat the following conversation a dozen times.
    "DO YOU HEAR THAT?"
    "What?"
    "Never mind, it's gone now."
  25. As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
  26. Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "No, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
  27. Ask people what gender they are.
  28. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
  29. Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
  30. Sing along at the opera.
  31. Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.
Might I also add my own:
32. U shud alwayz rite in txt msg format (LOL! OMG! ROFL...)
33. Walk really really slowly on the sidewalk when there are lots of people behind you.
34. Start up a conversation with your next-door stall neighbor while sitting on the toilet.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Love love loving it

Goldfrapp's album "The Seventh Tree" kind of transports me to a different place, and depending on the song, makes me think of a melancholy mime in a park when it's cloudy/James Bond driving in (what else) an Aston Martin on a scenic overlook near Monaco/a lady walking on a sun-dappled street in London in springtime/some high-roller with chrome rims rolling up to a velvet-roped club in South Beach, Miami. What has YOUR music done for you lately? =D

Friday, April 11, 2008

Mr. Picassohead

A throwback to that grade-school classic, Mr. Potatohead.

You know you're getting older when...

you are planning a yearly beach trip with your girlfriends from college!
Charleston, SC, August 14-19, 2008
Wooooooot.

Quite true.

My better half sent me this, by anon:

9 WORDS WOMEN USE (obviously written by a man)
(1) "Fine" This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up [or conversely, when they are mad about something and won't tell you what it is].

(2) "Five minutes" If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

(3) "Nothing" This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in fine.

(4) "Go Ahead" This is a dare, not permission. Don't Do It!

(5) Loud sigh: This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing (Refer back to # 3 for the meaning of nothing.)

(6) "That's okay" This is one of the most dangerous state ments a women can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

(7) "Thanks" A woman is thanking you, do not question, or Faint. Just say you're welcome. (I want to add in a clause here - This is true, unless she says 'Thanks a lot' - that is PURE sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say 'you're welcome' ... that will bring on a 'whatever').

(8) "Whatever" Is a woman's way of saying SCREW YOU!

(9) "Don't worry about it, I got it" Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking 'What's wrong?' For the woman's response refer to # 3.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Cupcakes

A shameless plug for my future sister-in-law:
http://www.couture-cupcakes.com/
IMHO, they are way better than the Georgetown Cupcake cupcakes and the Baked & Wired cupcakes (and you don't have to wait in line).

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Guilty pleasures

I admit it: www.thesuperficial.com has reeled me in. It's crass, mean, insipid, and all about celebrities. But it is so funny.

A second confession: the steak-frites at Bistrot du Coin is so good, I almost didn't feel guilty about eating cow for a second.

Duh.

I'm all for scientific research. I think it serves a very useful purpose for society at large, for the economy, blah blah blah - in essence for many things. If scientific research didn't exist we would still be thinking the Earth is flat and blood-letting to cure disease. What I don't understand is the purpose of scientific research that does not seem to bring anything new to the table. Some recent examples of studies I have read about in EurekAlert! where all I could think of was "tell me something I don't know":
  • "Study finds that discrimination varies by gender and race"
  • "Childhood mental health problems blight adult working life"
  • "Backpack straps can decrease blood flow to the shoulder and arm"
  • "Basic yoga moves could help prevent falls in women over 65 years old" (Ok, maybe not so obvious to the majority of the population, but to a yoga practitioner that's like telling them the sky is blue.)
And my favorite "Duh" study of the day:
  • "Having a husband creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women, according to a University of Michigan study of a nationally representative sample of US families."
While we're on the topic of science, I have just a couple of words for the creationist tour guides of a natural history museum (see Dateline video below): that's totally irresponsible.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Recent obsessions

- Bedtime Tunes.
- Eat, Pray, Love.
- Mint tea.
- Recapturing lost memories from college with Hot Butter (my friend who has just moved to DC from South Beach).
- Cheery cherry blossoms, kites on a Mall, orchids in a botanical garden sanctuary.
- Waking up to songbirds and spring smells in my little pad in the Palisades, and then walking to work in the sunshine .
- Curry cravings (especially the Panang Curry from Bangkok Joe's).
- Crate & Barrel yuppiness.
- The blog 'Stuff White People Like' (sarcasm, people).
- Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii.
- Blockbuster Access (currently on my to-watch list: Atonement, Darjeeling Limited, Ghandi, The Simpsons Movie, Across the Universe, The Syrian Bride, Boys Don't Cry...and about 50 others).
- Kotobuki: the best & cheapest sushi in DC.
- Grinding my own coffee.
- Rooting for my homies from Davidson College in the NCAA tournament...until they lost to Kansas (even though I didn't go there, Davidson will obviously always hold a special place in my heart! And there is something so gratifying about seeing 'the underdog' win).
- Yann Tiersen's "La Chute" and attempting to play it on the piano.
- Enur's Calabria 2008. This song would make a dead person dance.

My favorite movie