Monday, August 27, 2007

Yet Another Memetic Virus

I blame Brian and Zach for this one...

Three things in my fridge that define life right now:

1. My wife and daughter's lunch. Every night or morning, if I am unlucky and too preoccupied the night before, I make lunch for my daughter, wife, and myself. My wife is banging her head against the wall of ESLdom and weird profs at her college and my daughter - being 2 and a 1/2 - is still to young to really help out, so I am left doing the food prep. That extends to breakfast and dinner, btw.

2. JUICE! We consume juice like we use it instead of air. We often go to Trader Joe's and pick up a good 7 gallons at a time and this covers us for about two weeks...if we're lucky. Keep in mind, based on what our Doctor told us, we are watering down the juice for Avrora: it's only 25% juice and the rest is old fashioned water. She still sucks down 1/3 a gallon of juice per day. Which means she is drinking 1 1/3 gallons of juice/water mix and a cup of milk each day.

3. Cilantro: It's a good symptom of my life. WHAT?! Let me explain, but just hold still this won't hurt. It's something that I have been long curious about - not the herb itself - but experimental cooking. Some of my NMican friends are probably still wincing in remembered pain when I tried stir frying back about 7 years ago: you just have to mumble "ginger" to them to retrigger their Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome that was only recently cured after what was probably a long road through expensive therapy. OTOH, occasionally I hit some real home runs. Chicken a la Will, as Jason calls it was one. My spaghetti was another. My salsas are yet another. However, like any good Mad Scientist there are lots of casualties dumped out the laboratory and let loose on the unsuspecting mankind.

Three recent acquisitions:

1. Books. They are political (immigration mostly), deep time, and history related.

2. A Microscope. For my wife on her birthday. Being an up and coming bio type, it seemed like a good idea. Besides, she wanted it.

3. tickets to hawaii. We'll be there over Turkey Day.

Three classics I reach for every day:

1. Books. I read every down moment I have which isn't much. This includes walking to and from the parking garage, the few moments after putting my daughter in bed, or when I am cooking and the pot needs stirring, but I can't get away. I even read when I am at the gym: either in a treadmill or exercise bike or between sets on weights.

2. The Tivo remote. I do stomach crunches every day. I actually do between five hundred and two thousand depending on the amount of time I have. I'm a classic Gen Xer so I need constant mental stimulation. Doing exercise is, frankly, BORING with a blink tag. Stomach crunches are accompanied by a movie, show, or some such. It's close to the only TV I get these days.

3. My family. Hugs and kisses and tickles and general affection keeps my mood up even when I am frustrated and lances any festering anger or unhappiness if I am frustrated with something...which happens alot.

My kids right now, in three words or less:

Brilliant, Beautiful Weed.

My sweetie right now, in three words or less:

Beautiful, Aggressive, Crafty.

What's on my to-do list:

Too much. White & academic papers to read and comment on. A uber long blog post to finish for the Boneyard. A design document to finish. A project at work to reinvigorate.

What I'm listening to right now:

nada. I need to remember to bring an ipod to work. My puter has issues for playing music at the moment.

What I'm worried about right now:

Family. Not my immediate family, but my wife's and my own extended one.

Which news stories I'm following right now:

Immigration related. Global Warming Related. International Relations Related (esp wrt to Ukraine and Russia since it effects family). Presidential Election Related.

What I'm reading right now:

The Nemesis Affair: A Story of the Death of Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science.

What I'm looking forward to right now:

A Date with My Wife. I have a coworker that is offering to babysit Avrora since I stayed late when I was not supposed to to help her with a problem at work that I had some idea on how to fix: being one of the GPFS people here and she was getting whacked by confused fs mgr by didn't realize it. So, Lyuda and I are planning to go out to dinner and either catch something of the fine arts - opera, ballet, or symphony - or go to a movie depending on the time we have.

A thought I keep returning to right now:

I need more hours in a day.

One small thing that's making me happy right now:

Seeing my daughter run up to me, demand to sit on my lap, wrap her arms around me and tell me: "Papa, I love you."

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