almost a year ago, we bought osmanthus tea at wing hop fung in chinatown. when we brewed it at home, it was, shall i say, unappealing. we are now in a desperate search for non-caffeinated teas. tonight, m brought the osmanthus back out and mixed it with the lavender and it is *lovely*. i had pooh-poohed the osmanthus. i had forgotten about it. but m sees the creative potential in so many things.
this is what i love about her. my life is so much richer with her in it.
in the wee hours of this morning, almost 22 hours ago, i finished “the girl with the dragon tattoo.” to my surprise, i read all 2300-plus pages on my iphone via an app and the santa monica public library’s ebook collection. it’s not my favorite way to read and i don’t think i’ll buy a kindle anytime soon, but it was nice to be able to do yet another thing on my phone that i didn’t have to carry around. notepads, filofaxes, books, ipods, even a small laptop and a small digital camera have been removed from my backpack because one device can do it all. reading on the iphone means i miss the tactile feel of a book, but i like the search function and the fact that i don’t have to hold the book (i ate a whole grapefruit while reading on my iphone and i didn’t even squirt the screen with sticky grapefruit juice!). and i don’t have to wonder just how clean the book’s pages are as i eat with my hand and turn pages that other hands have turned. conversely, ebooks make me more sedentary and i don’t walk to the library to borrow/return the book in question. conversely, again, i don’t have to read with the light on (the jury is still out on this one as i may realize i’m going blind looking at an lcd screen in the dark for hours at a time). with that thought, i will wrap up this post as i have been sitting in the dark now for about an hour both reading and blogging while m sleeps soundly not 6 inches away (silent keys- brilliant!).
my second trip yesterday to pick up some lovely taza mexican chocolate. while i was there, thought i’d sample a few pastries. i picked out the guava/cheese taco because i love guava cheese pastries. i have to say, not as good as porto’s and that’s not because la monarca sprinkles theirs with sugar. i found it too doughy and not enough guava (of course!). they offered bite size samples of the sweet corn bread (omg! i loved it. not too sweet. moist. perfect for the cornbread lover.). i also sampled the bread pudding. it was okay, but i probably wouldn’t get it by itself. it was gummy without any bread texture. i tasted a lot of caramel and sugar but little else. and then i was a bad girl…on my way to the cashier, i spotted a small palmier (orejita) about 1/3 the size of the large ones in the pastry case. so i picked one of those up too. mmmm…flaky on the outside. a little sticky chewy on the inside. it would be perfect with a cup of coffee. next time. perhaps when we go there to work/study.
a while back, i blogged about good work/study places. it would seem this topic needs to be revisited. m and i have recently taken to working outside the house since neither of us can focus when we’re at home. she’s trying to get motivated to do work; i’m trying not to worry about how much it costs to work/study outside the house. pretty typical situation.
yelp published a newsletter on this very topic.
the issues: wifi, free parking, outlets, squatting privileges with decent food/coffee/tea, and bathrooms. literati cafe is now off my list as its wifi sucks. ditto for unurban coffeehouse (not too sad about this one as i wasn’t keen on the unique decor). i’d probably get a coffee from bite bar before i’d get a coffee from unurban.
good places. confirmed.
places to try
my elements of style is missing. i can’t find it anywhere. ultimately, i found the answer i was looking for: fewer refers to individual units/numbers (There are five fewer donuts in the box.) and less refers to general quantities (The amount of money in our account is less than it was last year). but now i have a new mystery – where is it?!? do not obsess. do not obsess…
been going through a kiwifruit phase. our csa box this week contained 4. i’m eating 2 of them now. tastes like kiwifruit candy. so good. our box also had tangerine “candy.”
why, oh why, don’t we live in west hollywood anymore?
[1] Lindy & Grundy: two women who love meat open a butcher shop. together.
[2] salt’s cure: a butcher shop that serves lunch
[3] grindhaus grindhaus: sausage. ’nuff said.
my iphone, tasting table, blackboard eats, urbandaddy – i’m never going to do anything but read about food, write about it, and then go in search of it. doesn’t really sound that bad, actually.
as always, i am conflicted. i am sitting on the fence. i am straddling the line. (any other good cliches?) last night, i signed up for foursquare, urbanspoon, urbandaddy, yelp and i downloaded 3 of the 4’s iphone apps. and then i went looking for other people on foursquare and found my lovely, wonderful, favorite at&t employee. should i make him my friend?
i have this distinct need to connect and socialize but yet i detest the commitment so much once i’m connected. or perhaps it’s really the lack of connectedness. RJ and i were just talking about the fakeness of befriending lots of people on FB who you absolutely know are not your friends and with whom you will never talk again. i keep my FB friend list small and therefore, when i read updates, i really read them all because i know these people and i’m interested in their lives. i don’t have time to sift through updates of 456 people.
i tell myself that i signed up because i simply want the GPS features and the tips from other users. and then i go looking for people, because i’m curious. i admit it: i’ve gone looking for people i knew in high school on FB…wondering what they are up to. (all of them appear to be straight – how is that even possible?)
and then i have this other issue: i have a huge list of places i enjoy and places i want to try, my favorites and my wishlist, if you will. i have them in a moleskine. i have them on this blog. i have them in a notes file on my iphone. and now i’m going to have them online in urbanspoon and yelp and tasting table to-dos, if i so desire. updating 6 different databases seems like overkill. this whole conversation underscores why i was always a paper person. it’s tactile. there’s only one copy: a well-thumbed, stained piece of paper with lots of history. and you don’t have to worry if the server is down or if the info won’t sync or if the web site disappears altogether. this is why i save the email newsletter. this is why i still haven’t signed up on a digital scrapbooking site. now i’m just rambling…
aye, dios mio! who cares? enjoy!
just finished eating lobster roll and crab roll at the lobsta truck. Also, had fresh squeezed lemonade and whoopie pie even though i’m not a
dessert person and i hate frosting. I liked the crab roll better than the lobster roll. Both were on a piece of toasted texas toast. Yum!
i love filofax diaries and wearing a watch and keeping a notebook of my time spent on this earth, but i’ve never been a calendar person. i never used my sierra club calendars. i’m not a big fan of the sudoku a day or dilbert pads of 365 square sheets of paper. i used to rip out the photo side of a calendar that i thought was particularly stunning, but the side with all the squares…not so much. let’s face it – i just wasn’t digging the calendar.
last year, something changed. some spark of creative interest led my eye to the atherton lin 2010 calendar at ooga booga in chinatown. i was mildly interested, but quickly dismissed it and continued shopping. after a week of rumination, i decided to buy the calendar and enjoyed all 12 months of it. i even spazzed out this year at the thought that i might not get a 2011 calendar because they were sold out in a few places already. i mean, come on, athertonlin.com says they are sold out. (what am i going to do?!?) oh, how times have changed…
so, to indulge my new compulsion, i went on a mission to inquire about the very first atherton lin calendar created in 2009. i asked ooga booga if they had any. they replied no, but at the next delivery of atherton lin goods, they would personally ask either atherton or lin if they had any more. i followed up this conversation with an email and on january 3, atherton lin confirmed that they still had a few left and i was welcome to purchase one.
so, you could you say that i now dig calendars. and i dig excellent customer service.
i have also started drawing/coloring my own 2011 calendar. i’m on march and i’m hoping our drawing class will help me explore and expand my newfound creativity.