I have a juicer; all for the equivalent exchange of a bag of lego.

The Leprechaun and I have stocked the fridge full of produce, though it's quickly diminishing, with fruits and veggies.  I think he's getting an even bigger kick out of it than I am.  The only problem I'm having is what to do with all the remaining pulp.  There's a lot of left over veggie fiber that I don't want to waste.
I attempted fruit leathers but the batch that I made definitely needs some tweaking.  So far it just tastes like dried out fruit pulp.  I'm also thinking of making soup stock but I don't make soup all that often to balance out the juice that I've made in the past two days.  I might make a veggie pesto.
Come spring I may do a juice cleanse and see how that goes.  I was informed that they can cause a person to stink because the toxins just come out the pores.  Considering this information came from a house full of hippies who went through the cleanse I figure I should be okay as long as I take frequent showers.

...  Yay, Juicer!!! !

Well, Christmas went alright this year; even with the bottle of scotch that was bought and the overflowing table dedicated to booze; no one passed out on the front porch in the cold and no one lost any clothing which is to say that that has happened in the past.  I wasn't drinking anything this year since I'm in the middle of a cleanse, something that elicited many strange looks, either from the cleanse or the lack of drinking (most where from the lack of drinking) it was actually nice drinking my umpteen million glasses of water.  I only wish I had been bright enough to add the lemons and limes in at the beginning of the stay at my parents place and not on the last legs. 

I got a squegee!  To start my new career you know.  At least my shower will be easier to clean.  I think I carry my work home with me too much.  I don't know many people who get excited over such things nor do I think people should but then I also got one of those out door mats with the holes in them to put under my litter box to catch the litter and stop it from tracking and I knew then that I had the best brother ever!  All of these were asked for. 

I have to say though, I really hate asking for things on christmas, I dislike getting things I don't need or even getting things I ask for but they're not the quality or style I would want.  And that makes me feel like a an ass.  I hate christmas for bringing out that spoiled side of me.  I get all these wonderful things from people and I get upset because they waste money on trivial little trinkets that are garbage, or it's lotion that I wont use because I'm incredibly picky about ingredients, or they miss the mark and get something that's not what I want and I get greedy.  There's a monster that's inside me this time of year and I don't like it. 
On a side note I got some scratch lottery tickets and won $26 which is pretty sweet.



This starts in June:  Well it's been awhile.  Sooo hot and sticky.  Hello friends, My mom has adopted a baby robin.  What a sad thing, to spend six months cultivating and tending to something to find it gone.  Today I over came my distaste for eggplant. 

Today I over came my distaste for eggplant. 

(Actually, that happened in China when I chanced eating at a locals house for lunch and the husband made an eggplant dish, I think I was the only one eating it, they refilled it twice, and it was amazing.  So much food and so good).

So, I have this mentality that I should be varying my dietary intake; that is, eating foods that I wouldn't normally eat because I don't like them, even though I know they have nutritional benefits.  Since I've started doing this a lot of my hangups on certain foods have been changing to be more accepting.  Most notably, bananas.  Hated them before, now I love them. 
As an example; if it's been over a month I'll go a buy mushrooms or brussel sprouts, or maybe some beans etc. 
I decided today that I haven't really given eggplant a chance so I picked up two today along with some tomatoes and portabellos and researched, "how the hell does one prepare eggplant anyways?", and followed a pretty simple procedure and came out with one fucking amazing dinner.  I winged the recipe on my own for the most part because my cupboards are incredibly bare.  No garlic or onions...

I split my eggplant into long strips with the skin still on and then salted them pretty heavily and left them to leak [or weep] for about 45 min, then I rinsed them off and sponged them dry with some paper towel.  The salt apparently pulls out the bitter flavors. 

I made a paste with; canola oil, curry, cumin, cayenne, chili powder, coriander, salt, fresh ground pepper and tomato paste.  Half a can.  My boy told me there was a recipe that was just eggplant and tomato paste so I took that idea and mixed in a ton of spices and oil. 

I took the mixture and lathered it onto the eggplant that I had laid out into a thin casserole dish.  I threw that in the oven on 350 for forty five minutes.  I diced up a portabello and two tomatoes and threw those on top for a few minutes and the stirred them into the oily mixture for a few more minutes.  At this point I had some rice cooking.

When the rice was finished cooking I put it in a bowl and threw in fresh spinach on top and then skinned the eggplant on top of the spinach. 

All in all I think it took me 2 hours to make including the leaking phase of the eggplant.  But sooo worth it.  This dish is amazing.  <3

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Is my enjoyment of the Temptations' song "My
Girl" diminished by the fact that it was used in a commercial for Sun Maid
Raisins? Does Jose Gonzalez' tune "Heartbeats" evoke less feeling in me
because I know it was used as the soundtrack for a Sony TV commercial?
Well, yeah, actually. The songs haven't been totally wrecked for me, but
neither do they make my heart soar anymore. Is there anything like that
in your life, Gemini? Some pure and innocent pleasure that has been
tainted or watered down? Believe it or not, you could restore it to its
original state in the coming weeks.

What a sad thing, to spend six months cultivating and tending to something to find it gone.  I went to go look and see how the tomatos where doing and they were just gone.  Trelace and plants.  Gone.  There must have been a good 15-20 green tomatos last I checked at the beginning of the week.  Funny because I even contemplated taking them all off the vine to ripen at home but I didn't.  I wanted to wait out the season for another week or two.  

I guess what really makes it hit home is the fact that it means Sheena is no longer living in Ottawa.  The garden got decimated once she left and all those tomatos and all the time we worked cultivating the plants and there's really nothing left to show for it.  The kale got buried in rubble.  And everything else is gone and what was left which I guess I personified into what ever connection I had left with Sheena is now gone.  I wanted to look after the garden in respect to our friendship and now there's nothing left and it's like there's nothing left to us now.  At least here. 

Kind of sucks not having any females around to talk to.  I feel like I'm going crazy and could really use a friend.  One who isn't a guy... no offence guys. 

Hello friends,

My mom has adopted a baby robin.  How cute is that?  I tried not to get sucked in but damn, hard to do when he's sucking up and trying to eat my finger cause I'm wiggling it like a worm.  Don't know what she's going to do with him since she's going home in September, I might end up adopting a bird.  Hope a Robin isn't hard to look after, especially when I have cats.  And I feel bad putting him in a cage but maybe I can make it work. 

( Pictures for your enjoyment )

I think my rescue betta is dying.  He's all lethargic and unresponsive to feeding or me making scary faces at him.  I feel bad, he was doing all right until I left to house sit for a friend and the person who was looking after my cat didn't feed the fish.  For whatever reason they thought I was?  Even though they were feeding the cat.  But I should have been more clear with the instructions.  Now I don't know what to do.  I've looked online and I can't find anything.
And I know this sounds horrible but fish take a long time to die and I don't want to watch him die slowly over the next few weeks.  Looks like I have to though.  Keep going through the motions of feeding him and changing the water but all to an unresponding fish.  He just keeps tipping sideways.  Or his tail sinks down.  Or he leans on the glass.  But he doesn't swim. 
It's sad.
Don't know what to do.

Ah, it's been nice having my place to myself.  I've been doing the difficult task of sorting through my sisters things and finding homes for everything.  It's not easy and I have to be super organized about stashing everything so that it's accessible but out of the way.  My main living area is cleaned up nicely, mostly because I've thrown everything into my bedroom to be sorted. 

I don't know if it's because things are more organized or if it's because I have more time to myself but I've been finishing a lot of small projects around the house, not necessary projects but little things that make this place more habited by me.  I spent last night working on a dream catcher and carved a turtle out of a bead to put in the middle.  I also podged up my spice jars so now my spices are identifiable by people and camels and candies. 

( Pictures of productivity )

Today was a good day as well.  Including finishing more chores around the house I also got to get some more driving in with dad and lisa.  I helped lisa with her errands and drove her around town, did a few lanes changes and got to do a u-turn for the first time.  My steering needs a bit of work but after learning standard driving automatic is laughably easy.  Or at least less stressful.  I'm still working on getting comfortable with being aware of my environment and paying attention to the road.  The actual driving part.  But it's good, I'm having a lot of fun with this.  I want to drive more.  I feel like I've been infected with a bug that just wants to drive... standard though.  I kept noticing when the engine was shifting gears and it would throw me off because it seemed to come across as delayed to me.

It wont be long before I get my license and then it's road trip season.  I know a few people who will be happy to see me get my license.

It took me long enough but I finally have my bike up and running and fully operational, which is great because It's half through June and biking season is almost over.  I don't know how much money I've wasted on the bus these past months.  

 

So, it's been another year; my birthday is in one week.  Or rather six days.  I'm going to be doing an all you can eat sushi night on sunday, june 20th with friends so if anyone is interested in coming let me know.  When I have more details I can fill you in; I have to figure out where I'm going and what the cost is.

The more the merrier. 

SUsHi MonsTEr!

RAWR!