Sugar Chicken

2003-02-06T10:04:00.000-08:00

well i think i've just finished the first chapter of my crazy wedding stories, i'm sure it won't be the last. i guess everyone has these kinds of stories, the priest that shows up drunk, the wedding dress that gets "lost", the dj who plays inappropriate songs. anyway, here's mine:

so we've been trying to figure out who will perform our wedding right in kauai. our first thought was to fly out one of the rabbis we know from l.a. to perform the ceremony but that's really expensive because you have to pay for their flight, hotel, etc. but we found out there's a cantor on the island who can perform jewish weddings, so we thought we'd check him out first. i mean why pay all that extra if you can use someone local?

so daniel emailed him about month ago, saying hi, we're so and so, natalie's converting, blah blah we'd like to find out if you can perform weddings, etc. it was a very respectful, and friendly email. and the reply we got back was, get this: a HUGE big block of text that he's cut and pasted of a sample ceremony he can give with "enter bride's name here" in it kind of thing. not evn a hello, not a thank you for contacting me, not a i'm happy to do this, nothing. just a big slab of text.

we were totally taken aback by that impersonal response and said well just forget it, we'll figure something else out. but then as time progressed, and we got prices on some other things for the wedding, we realized we were rapidly going over budget. i wanted to cut out flying the rabbi in and see if we could try this cantor again, give him another chance. and since we are going to kauai next week i thought we should at least plan on meeting with him and see if we like him once we see him in person. not everyone comes across well in a digital format, i know that.

so i send a super nice email and said hi, remember me, we got your sample ceremony email, thank you so much (even though i'm thinking, thank you for what). we're both coming to hawaii between feb 14-17 and would love to meet with you if possible and discuss the ceremony. and by the way what is your fee, and where does it go? (most rabbis don't charge a fee, but they ask that you donate what you can afford to the synagogue). and then thank you very much, look forward to meeting you, etc. i mean it was a really nice email.

and he writes back. : My fee for performing a wedding is $300. which basically covers my time to set things up, get to the wedding site and back and handle the paper work. Because of my work schedule I do not as a rule meet with the couple as I really don't have the time and I would prefer to not have to charge the couples more for my time. The money goes to me so it is not tax deductible." that is his entire email.

i emailed him back, really short and just said "sorry for using up your valuable time. we won't be using your services. i can't imagine being married by someone who won't take the time to meet with us first. good luck to you." and i could have said SO much more but i held back. i thought this guy is a jerk, he doesn't deserve more of my time, forget about him. we'll figure something else out.

and just when you thought it was over...last night, he emailed DANIEL! as daniel and sent him the first email originally from his own email account. and said, i think you should see this correspondence from natalie, i don't think her behaviour is called for, etc. i was SO LIVID when i saw that i was practically bouncing off the walls.

so what, all of a sudden his ego is bruised so he needs to go to DANIEL and starts acting all surprised, like hey, what is this misunderstanding when really i'm such a nice guy? please!

and you know what makes me more mad than anything, more than his incredible rudeness, more than the way he treats the people he is going to marry as insignificant and mere irritants? is that he wrote to DANIEL. behind my back! as if Daniel is my keeper! like, you know, control your crazy emotional woman. where does he get off?

anyway, here comes what i hope is the end of this story. daniel wrote him a response last night that we hope will be the last of our correspondence with him. he was really calm about it but he stated really clearly that he and i feel the same way, he was completely aware of my email and we are on the same page about the reasons why we don't want him to perform our wedding. and that what he did was wrong, and we have come to expect more from someone who is a representative of the jewish religious faith.

end of chapter one.

2003-01-21T11:42:00.000-08:00

sea dragons! they're so cool. i know the photo doesn't really do it justice, but it has this amazing trumpet like snout, and these fairy wings stemming from it's back and it's belly. so beautiful and strange. we saw a bunch of sea dragons at the Aquarium of the Pacific yesterday, where we battled the hordes of stampeding children and wandered around for a few hours. definitely worth the drive down the long beach. we got to touch bat rays, and leopard sharks, and got to see all kinds of scary sharks and playful seals and clever otters and and and. it was really amazing.

2003-01-17T23:24:00.000-08:00

"The unfortunate thing is it had to be decided by them," O'Neal said of the officials. "A whole bunch of people who paid a lot of money had to see a game that was decided by someone who doesn't make a lot of money. That's unfortunate."

this is exactly why i don't like the lakers. i know it's about the most uncouth thing a girl who lives in l.a. can say but it's true, i root for the rockets (oh no!), the clippers (shut up!) and more than any other team, the kings (blasphemy!). i like confidence, but arrogance isn't attractive.

2003-01-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

natalie hearts daniel.

it's official, we're getting married! and chances are, if you are visiting sugarchicken, you're invited. so bust out the flip flops and spf 45, we're heading to hawai'i.

2002-12-20T09:20:00.000-08:00

"Someday, there'll be no Americans left in the NBA," said 12-year-old Xing Tao, who joined his school's team two weeks ago after watching Shanghai's own Yao in a televised NBA game.

"The players will all be Chinese, like Yao!"

2002-11-25T17:06:00.000-08:00

i learned something kind of interesting this weekend at our Shabbaton (shabbaton = sabbath + marathon x way 2 long). do you remember the vulcan hand gesture that spock used to make on star trek, with his hand held up, palm out, ring finger and pinkie together, index finger and middle finger together, and then those are held apart in a vee? leonard nimoy, the actor who played spock, grew up in an orthodox Jewish family and first saw this sign in his synagogue. the gesture represents the hebrew letter "shin" and has been used for about 3 thousand years by descendants of the Kohainim tribe as a blessing over the congregation. there are all these funny things i'm discovering that make me psyched about becoming Jewish.

nimoy, on choosing the oldest known gang sign as part of his spock character: “Actors are always looking for something personal to bring to their professional lives…Maybe, in a way, I can call that salute my Vulcan shalom, my greeting of peace, my yearning for the blessing of peace—the age-old quest of the Jewish people, my people.”

2002-11-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

someone reminded me today of a trip i once took to jamaica with my mom when i was 5. there are a couple things i remember from that trip:
1) there was a nice family we used to meet down around the pool, a mother and father and these 2 twins they adopted from sri lanka, a boy and a girl. they won their trip to jamaica off a box of corn flakes.
2) the twins were great swimmers, they were like fish in the water and i was always jealous. so my mom made a pact with me, if i could swim the full length of the pool by the end of our holiday she would buy me set of dominos which i had been coveting. on the last day of our trip, about 15 minutes before we had to get on our bus to get to the airport to fly home, i did it. i think i used the dominos for a couple of weeks.
3) the resort we went to had this weird money system where you would exchange dollars for these plastic bananas and then you'd just pay with bananas all over the resort. the bananas hooked into each other so you could wear them around your neck or wrist. the first night we got there i asked my mom if i could wear some and she said yes. but then she freaked out because i wanted to wear like 500 dollars worth of bananas or something and i really didn't get what the problem was with that.
4) somehow, one night i ended up off on my own, sitting in a circle with a bunch of adults playing a drinking game. i remember someone wrote my name on my leg in blue paint and that they let me skip my turn when i was supposed to drink.
5) one little excursion we took was to hike up a waterfall. but i bailed out after only a couple hundred feet, well below the top because i was bawling like well, like a kid, and i was afraid i would either get swept away by the rushing water which for the adults was up to their knees but on me was up to my armpits, and i thought i was going to step on a frog.
6) i entered a seashell contest at the resort and won a certificate for "Smallest Shell Collection". we have a photo of that momentous occasion where i'm sitting looking very forlornly at about 6 shells on a table that's eye-level to me.
7) i learned how to play shuffleboard and LOVED it. my mom kept making retiree in florida jokes, but i didn't care. that shit was addictive.

and my mom thinks all our trips were wasted because i can't remember anything important. come on mom! this is formative stuff.

2002-11-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

for those of you who may happen to be in london, u.k. tomorrow, you can take in the first public autopsy since 1830. that is, unless scotland yard caves into all the pressure from an outraged public and decides to stop it from happening. if they decide to let it happen though, you can watch as professor gunther van hagens dissects the preserved body of a 72 year old man and then passes his organs around the operating theatre. you probably want to skip on the fish n'chips and pint of bitter until after the show is over.

dear daniel will miss this event but are planning on seeing gunther's BodyWorlds exhibit when we get to london in the first week of december. lucky for us they extended the show dates, otherwise we were going to just squeak in before closing on the last day of the show. we're pretty excited to see it - partly because we're both fascinated by the way the body works (and how it sometimes doesn't), and also in large part because our friend chris saw it recently and came home just raving about it. i'll be sure to post about it when i return from our hop over to the otherside of the pond. pip pip.

oh and i just emailed a friend/old-coworker who lives in london now and she has the BEST email address. it's somecowtookmyname@blahblah.com. she's a writer, and she's funny.

2002-11-19T14:09:00.000-08:00

i just bought renters insurance online from state farm. i can't tell if they're giving us a discount for having this ferocious guard dog who will deter would-be thieves by threatening to lick them to death, or if we're paying more because we have a crazy beast who could maul our guests who will then turn around and sue the pants off of us. it's hard to tell, and they aren't too forthcoming about it in their documention.

2002-11-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

"Hello. This is Moby for PETA’s Holiday Hotline. Each year, the Butterball turkey company sponsors a Turkey Talk Line to answer questions about proper cooking techniques. Please join me in calling the Butterball people to let them know that there is no proper way to kill and cook these beautiful birds. Call 1-800-BUTTERBALL."

moby teams up with PETA to start a duel of the Holiday Hotlines. with Butterballi'm kind of tempted to call in. maybe he can tell me why the Tofurky Vegan Feast that i made for thanksgiving 3 years ago tasted more like papier-mâché.

we've been learning about Kashrut lately, Kashrut being the dietary laws concerning what is Kosher and what is not. you'd probably be as surprised as we were while learning about this. most Jews even have misconceptions about what keeping Kosher means and why it was even included as part of the Jewish faith. first, it's not all about hygenie. Kashrut did not originate from the belief that eating pigs was "unclean" . it does however, have everything to do with creating a feeling of responsibility for the things we consume, how we kill them and how we cook and consume them. but what is bumming me out now is this information i am finding about how the rules of Kosher killing for food is not keeping up with the times. whereas it may have been humane and clean in the days when it was first practiced, it's long been surpassed by modern non-Kosher standards. jay sent me a link that describes this in more depressing detail. so i'm unclear as to what i want to do. while part of me is starting to really get into the whole spirit of Kashrut and i think i could really give up bacon and lobster for good (!), the other part of me is thinking well if the reality of it actually ends up being the opposite of what it was intended for what good am i doing by observing blindly?

another important thing we've been learning lately is there is more importance placed on the attitude or the spirit behind a commandment rather than following each detail to a T. the meaning of Shabbat is to step back, to withdraw from the busyness of the work week where you work and cook and run around doing errands and such. its a day of rest, but also a day of reflection and a day to focus on family instead of the external things that tend to clutter most of our lives. but the details of how to observe Shabbat as interpreted in the Talmud are very strict about their definition of what you shouldn't do on the Sabbath - for example, you are not supposed to write two letters or erase two letters. but if writing is your hobby, if it relaxes you, lifts you up spiritually and connects you to your true self in a way you don't usually experience during the work week then i think its okay to sit down and write on the Sabbath since you are still observing within the spirit of Shabbat.

so now i'm thinking - is there a similar way to look at Kashrut? how can i observe the spirit of Kashrut but not follow the individual rules exactly, since they don't all really uphold the original intent? so this is what i'm noodling on today.

that and, wow, we're going to see my 98 year old opa in a month, which is very exciting. that's pretty freaking ancient. plus i get to see my dutch cousins and they're a lot of fun too. we're going to have a grand time in the Netherlands just you wait and see.

2002-10-31T12:19:00.000-08:00

okay, so yao ming failed to impress last night. i don't, like some people, think that spells disaster. he was under a lot of public scrutiny last night and his first 10 days in this country he has been surrounded by a media circus. the hype is enormous. but i think he is capable of living up to it.

it's true, i am really excited about yao ming coming here because of the colour of his skin, because he's chinese. and i don't think that's a racist thing. but you know you grow up in north america and you almost NEVER see asian people in celebrity roles - not on tv, not on commericials, not in print ads, not in music videos, in movies, or on the runways. it just reinforces the concept that we're living in a world where white dominates. seeing this yao ming makes me feel really glad inside. i know that sounds weak but i don't mean it in the mr. rogers "golly gee am i glad to see you kids today" way. and proud isn't quite the word i'm looking for but it's more just a happy feeling all inside. just happy to get representation out there, where everyone else can see it, where i can see it. it's something to identify with. plus i think he's going to be a really good role model for kids of all colours who love basketball. so far he sounds like a really thoughtful and respectful young man. so colour me glad.

"I didn't feel good to sit on the bench and watch my teammates losing,'' Yao said. "Of course, I want to contribute.''

i think he's gonna be fine.

have a happy and safe all hallow's eve. BOO!

2002-10-29T16:14:00.000-08:00

yao ming makes his NBA debut tomorrow night when the Houston Rockets meet up with the Indiana Pacers. welcome yao ming! this is one chinese girl who is eager to welcome you the U.S. and to the exciting world of professional basketball. for those of you who don't know much about yao, let me fill you in on some fun yao facts:

~ you can call him yao, but you should also know that it's his last name.
~ he stands seven feet 5 inches huge and weighs 296 pounds. that's a helluva lot of rice that went into making this man.
~ he just turned 22 years old and is a virgo.
~ he was born in shanghai, and by the age of 12 he was already six foot six inches. holy crap, can you EVEN imagine?
~ houston was already scouting him in china when he was only 15 years old.
~ his mother, fang fengdi, has moved to houston with him and cooks for him. she is six feet three inches tall. that's one tall chinese lady!
~ the rockets are currently getting a 9 foot bed and an oversized bicycle custom-made to fit yao. i can just see him pedalling around a quiet houston suburb, like a gentle giant amongst the local kids.
~ he's now the second tallest player in the NBA, right behind Shawn Bradley who is a whole inch taller.
~ after witnessing one of his spin moves during a pre-season game, allen iverson called yao "a gift from God".

i really like what he has to say about coming to the U.S. to play in the NBA . he sounds like he's got a good, albeit oversized, head on his shoulders. i look forward to watching him grow as a player and as a person as he experiences new things and ideas.

"I hope I am a good textbook," he says. "It seems to me I am here to do more than play basketball." As for what he hopes to convey about China to Americans: "You have to understand that in China there is a lot of emphasis on collective honor and the honor of the entire country. I'd like Americans to see how Chinese people really work hard in difficult situations. I hope that, through my work in the NBA, they can see that."

2002-10-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

i'll have to vote with scatterboy on this one, go see bowling for columbine. it's a pretty great movie. not that michael moore doesn't go too far in a couple places, or overstate his point a couple times, i mean that's just his schtick. but the movie is really thought-provoking and i think it will make you take a look at the messages we get from the media and be more critical about it. i know i spend a lot of time questioning what i am being told, but little about why. i felt a little sheepish after the movie actually, as i feel like i'm no longer a part of that rational, calm, and more neighbourly loving canadian citizenry who, while still actively gun-toting, are not much into using those guns against each other. somehow, while i wasn't looking, i've allowed myself to get sucked into the whole fear culture that permeates the air around me. i lay awake worrying about bombs in bali, about being gassed during a concert or sporting event, about the mold growing in my air vents, about the liklihood of getting into an accident on an LA freeway with an "under-insured" motorist, about getting attacked by hooligans outside my apartment while i'm waiting for sugar to take her last tinkle of the day, or about what i don't know about imported cheeses that could kill me. it's terrible. i haven't even been able to sleep properly i'm so scared of random stuff. i wake up each day between 4 and 5 am and just lay there, staring at the ceiling or at the boy breathing deeply next to me and i fret. i think i'd be better off smoking than worrying as much as i do.

and my laying awake each night with all this worrying is not something i can blame on charlton heston and the NRA or on the media. i just need to be more aware that's all. and if seeing bowling for columbine makes you a little more aware of how you react to the media that surrounds us, i think it's more than worth the price of admission.

2002-10-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

don't cancel your trip to bali.

a balinese friend of mine who lives in L.A. now emailed me this week: "I called my Mom and my little bro last night, they gave me update that the island is very...very empty right now. No tourists, they all pack their bags and went home. 20 years of Balinese hard work to build the empire of tourism collapsed by terrorism."

I truly hope the damage done to the economy is not too long lasting.

and another article forwarded from my mom:

"Speaking at a meeting of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) in Surakarta, Central Java, the week after the tragic bomb blast in Bali, Indonesia's Minister of Culture and Tourism, I Gede Ardika has called for a considered approach by foreign powers in issuing their travel bans and warnings pertaining to the country.

Reminding the world that Bali and Indonesia were also victims of the terrorist attacks and that the goal of the perpetrators was economic disruption, the Minister suggested one of the means to fight the threat of terrorism is to support his efforts to rebuild tourism in the wake of the attack.

Minister Ardika said, "we ask for the understanding and assistance of the world to come to the aid of the Balinese people who love and cherish peace. It makes no sense to isolate them (the people of Bali). If we compare, when the WTC was attacked no one issued a travel ban on the U.S.A., did they?" "

2002-10-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

my mom just sent me an article that kind of describes the purification ceremony that just took place on Bali. here's an excerpt:

"The Balinese cosmos, comprised of Sekala and Niskala - the physical and spiritual planes, were left in total disarray and confusion by the outrage. It was as though God himself was angry that His guiding precept of Tri Hita Kirana - balance and harmony between Man and Man, Man and God, and Man and Nature – had, through the perpetration of this heinous deed, been so completely ignored. The Balinese universe was completely out of synch.

In times, such as these, the Balinese turn to God, asking forgiveness that any fellow member of our species could arrogate to himself the right to create such violent upheaval. Continuous prayers and meditations have been offered, both at the scene of the tragedy and at each of all the major temples of the island. Respectful members of the Christian, Islamic, and other faiths celebrated by the people of Bali were warmly welcomed at these ceremonies, united in the knowledge that we were all equally victims of the atrocity.

On Friday evening the sacred Byakon, Durmanggala and Prayascita rituals were performed at the bomb crater in Legian in an effort to purify the community and restore some sense of balance to the daily spiritual life of the island.

Nearly 20 high priests, or pemangku, gathered at the scene from the 3 main temples of Bali to officiate at the rites, bringing with them holy waters from six sacred sources on the island. Through sacred incantations in ancient Sanskrit, meditations and prayers floated on the fragrance of burning incense, and sacred holy waters drawn from Bali's underworld - Sekala and Niskala were rejoined and the slow path to cosmic balance commenced."

2002-10-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

martin regg cohen interviewed my mom as part of his piece on the economic impact of the bali bombings for the toronto star.

2002-10-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

more from the mom in bali, plus some photos she took at the scene of the bombing:

Day 5

Here's a small update on the ongoings here on Bali.

Still at the airport helping people and now mostly media types that are coming through. Some that I recognized from the TV with entire crews and tons of equipment. One of them was the Geraldo guy!!!!! No kidding it took me all day to think who the hell was that as I recognized his face. Too bad it took so long for the penny to drop as i would have loved to talk to him.

I will tell you about an interesting case that today came through:

This guy comes by our desk and he says I am here to meet an expedite officer. I tell him that there is no one there except for us and that most people would meet him outside the immigration and customs. He seemed very distressed about that. So I ask are you perhaps transiting then? No he says I am here to deliver some things. I ask do you have a card and he digs and give me his card. It reads special officer for the crisis response unit of the FBI! So I said why could you not leave the airport (like go outside) he says well because I don't have a return ticket I cannot get pass the immigration but I am here with a special pouch and equipment I have to install. So after the past 5 days of kissing up I have a new immigration officer friend in the airport so I take him over there and it turns out he even has a diplomatic passport on which he travels that has FBI stamped all over it. Anyway no problem my friend stamps his passport and now we are looking for his equipment. It consisted of 12 metal boxes, one could hardly lift with two people, each
about 3 ft long by 2 feet deep by 30 inches wide, plus other pieces each unbelievable heavy and huge. Then he told me that he had been working on the sniper case in Washington and when his shift ended at 4 am he was put on a plane to LA, from there to Sydney, then to Jakarta and poof here he was in Bali. He will stay for however long it takes to set up all this special equipment and no return ticket as he has no idea where he will go next.

Then I had a plane landing with 3000 kilos of bandages and where did I want it? Argh so again a few phone calls here and there and got them on the way
through customs etc.

Then off to lie a wreath at the site with the Canadian Ambassador who is fairly new. Going on the site was a very emotional experience as it looks like what I imagine a war zone. The club where most of the victims fell is flattened and totally levelled to the ground. The buildings on either side of the club and the ones across the street from the club are totally blown apart. I would say about 20 buildings. Cars totally flattened and/or burned. What is left of the car that had the explosives in it now confirmed to have contained Napalm and C-4 was just a few engine bits.

There are 23 Canadians missing, but we don't know if they were there. These are people whose families have called and had Bali on their itinerary. They could very well be somewhere else in Indonesia, as often people do not have very good communications on their whereabouts but we don't know. One young couple we found 4 days after the bomb sitting at the pool never thinking of calling their parents! Well let me tell you they got a piece of my friend's mind that found them. We had to call all the hotels, every single one of them, and find out if they had any Canadians staying and what were their names. Most hotels wouldn't even want to tell us so we said: we are from the Canadian Embassy and b-s our way through it. We found 6 of the original 29 missing list that way. Also there were 5 Canadians injured of which two are now in Singapore, two in Australia and one released.

This 21st at the full moon there is a huge cleansing of Bali in a Hindu-style ceremony. This has only has ever happened twice before because of a volcano having erupted which in their beliefs is also due to angry gods. This disaster for them is similar and the entire island needs cleansing. I am not sure yet where what and how but if I do go to see it I will take pictures again and keep you posted.

mom

2002-10-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

i found a nice dentist this week, dr. leith k. shawaf. i have no idea what kind of name that is but its confusing since he's just this big, blonde american dude. really nice guy though, the kind of person who actually says "gosh" without being ironic or coy. he was so funny and chatty when we first started, maybe because i was the first patient of the day but he was so excited and kept asking me questions and was considerate enough to pull the spit-sucking tube out of my yap so i could answer him. we talked a lot about bali since he had just come back from there 2 weeks ago and he loved it so much and was so sad to hear about what had happened there. man, these people really fucked up bali but good. the tourism industry is going to go to hell in a handbag and that in turn will negatively affect almost every single person on that island. and that will spread to the other islands of indonesia when workers who used to have jobs on bali have to go home because there is no more jobs and then their families who depend on them will suffer too. it's one big domino effect. and i don't think it's going to give these terrorists what they wanted in the short or long run. though i can't begin to guess what it is that they REALLY want, i truly can't imagine this is it.

so anyway, back to dr. shawaf. i hate going to the dentist so i go pretty rarely. i was really embarassed to tell him i haven't been for a checkup in about 3 years (EEEK!) so i lied and said 2. and he didn't make me feel guilty! not even a little. we love you dr. shawaf! he also took a lot of x-rays of my mouth since it's been a long time. and we found the last of my extra teeth that my previous dentists left in even after they extracted 5 other extra teeth and my 7 wisdom teeth. yes, i am a shark, even though i can't swim that well. my mom probably put the equivalent of a 4 bedroom house in bel air down on my dental work. too bad she can't live in it. so dr. shawaf was loving that little tooth, he kept pointing at it on the x-ray and saying how "cute" it was. what a doll. oh and he's the first dentist who's not afraid to finally remove my retainer! this is the retainer that my orthodonist bonded onto the back of my bottom teeth SIXTEEN years ago!! and then she refused to take it off, when i asked her about it she just waved her hand casually and said "oh, it'll just fall off one day, don't worry about it". i'm so psyched to finally be orthodontics-free!

my only beef with the whole dentist experience was the crappy ez-listening radio station piped in over the loudspeakers. why must i always hear the righteous brothers croon "you've lost that lovin' feelin'" every single time i have to rinse and spit, rinse and spit, that's a girl here's a tissue?

2002-10-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

as a lot of you who read this know, my mom currently lives on what used to be the peaceful island of bali. well now that's pretty much changed forever. i guess forever is a mighty long sentance to hand out, so i should modify that: changed for my lifetime at least, so for me that feels like forever. thanks to everyone who expressed their concern about my mom's well-being - she is just fine. probably shaken up and disturbed by the things she's seen in the past couple days but phyiscally she is okay. i've copied some excerpts from her emails over the past 24 hours below. sorry for the really long post again, but i think some of you are wondering about her and it's also a pretty good idea of what is happening in bali right now that you won't get from the bbc or cnn's coverage.

day one:
Just came home from the hospital where I am volunteering with all kinds of things. My job together with Bram is to take on all the Dutch and Germans and once a body is identified phone the consul and inform them to be available for any help the families might need of the deceased.

There are formalities to get the bodies out, crisis counselling people that are here, funeral arrangements and so on. There are 182 dead, over 200 wounded and still 350 missing!

I am situated next to the emergency so you can imagine what it is like with the burned patients, and often dead bodies going by. Phones ringing off the hook and most of the dead bodies hardly to be identified. They have just now taken pictures of faces that still have some resemblance and hope to further identify peoples. It is a huge chaos of peoples, looking for friends, family, the entire world phoning in and journalists and tv etc etc.

There is every nationality and finding people who are skilled in all languages is another task on hand for me. From Equador to Peru to Japan and all of Europe. just about every language skill is needed here. We have found a few crisis psychologists to help us in the efforts and who happened to be here on a holiday.

Well glad to be able to help a bit. Going to sleep now as I have been up for 24 hours now.

mom

day two:

This morning back to the hospital again to help and then off to the airport where I set up a center for the family/friends of the victims who are starting to all fly in now. What we do is talk to them and explain what they need to do where to get information and whom to contact.

The arriving peoples are taken to the hotel and then the main hospital/morgue where they will be further assisted by volunteers and medical experts and counsellors.

it is heartbreaking to see all these people who are coming from just about every nation in the world.

unfortunately there are some media peoples who find it neccessary to come and film the arriving peoples and stick cameras in their faces as they come off the airplanes. I have managed to get two crews like that thrown out to save the already stressed and grieving peoples from them.

I find it amazing that in the newcasts I have seen, not one president or head of state has mentioned Indonesians when they have sent their condolences. and only one person of all the Indonesian staff in the two clubs lived! peoples on the street, and in cars nearby all perished and amongst them were many Indonesians as well. it is the second largest group of people who make up the lists of victims.

I am meeting amazing people.

For instance the Belgium consul flew in and has not been away from his computer since I first met him 2 1/2 days ago typing and updating the lists of hundreds of peoples that are missed, deceased or wounded. I just received (11 :30 pm) the updated list of missing persons that alone is 20 pages long!

On Bali most consulates with exception of the Dutch, Japanese and Australian are only honorary consulates and hence a one man/women band and not equiped for such a disaster but everybody is helping them manning the phones and getting the right information out there 24 hrs a day.

My two staff are totally desolute. Minar my garden/pool man wrote me a sweet note before he left very early this morning on his day off telling me how sorry he was, warning me to not accept any parcels or opening the gates and to be carefull, and appologizing for being Javanese and Muslim. The way they express themselves is heartwarming. To understand his worries: all Indonesians that are not from this island are very stressed as they worry that the Balinese will send them off the island. This would not be uncommon and has happened in the past for lesser reasons and with the country in already shaky state going home means an even a worse situation as Bali was always doing better than anywhere else in the country. Made the hosuekeeper has cried all day, feeling hopeless and saddened by it all wishing that there was something she could do.

Tomorrow and other busy day and I better get some sleep now so I can face another day and be strong.

mom

2002-10-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

another reason to love the double-barrelled names: you can have six babies and get to pick a dozen names for them.

2002-10-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

i'm supposed to be cooking shabbat dinner for daniel's second cousin from israel tonight and then we're all going to go to shabbat service at the synagogue down the street. this worries me. not becasue i think yisrael (yes, that's his name) won't like my challah but because i think he's going to freak out watching some chinese dutch canadian girl try on his religious customs. and most israelis are pretty vehemently secular so i'm sure he'll be doubly freaked out. eek.

oh and guess what i learned from our rabbi at our intro to judaism class last night? there's a jewish hell! everyone kept telling me there was no such thing! even daniel feels kind of mislead as he grew up thinking there wasn't a hell for him either. it does seem there are a few different interpretations on what exactly it means though, and on how it's been translated from the jewish bible. its referred to as sheol, gehenna, hell, hades, and god knows what else.

i realized recently that there are a couple words that i am really not used to typing. so while my mind is thinking one thing, my fingers are typing something else, a word that is close to what i'm thinking but one i'm more used to typing. everytime i try to type "rabbi" it comes out "rabbit", and now i'm seeing "hell" come out as "hello".

tell me rabbit, is there a hello?

2002-10-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

so spcoon posted something interesting late yesterday about his own exploration of religion. in his case he was drawn to islam- he told me it spoke to him in his darkest place, in his darkest hour. you know, i believe boiled down to their very essence the messages in the koran and the torah are probably very similar. it's too bad that certain people choose to interpret them in ways to justify violence and hatred against others.

the past couple of months i've learned a lot about my friends' religious beliefs, and their personal struggles with it. since i'm considering conversion to judaism right now a lot of people have started opening up about their own concerns about what religion means and how it fits into their lives. the depth has been a bit unexpected but it has made for some really fascinating conversations. i guess i was expecting most people to just nod their heads and politely murmur "uhuh, hmm, super." when i told them what i was doing but it turns out everyone has their own unique story, their own inner conflicts and debates about religion. it just isn't something most people are comfortable talking about everyday i guess, and with good reason. as a friend of mine told me recently, it's been said that if you want to keep your friends don't ever bring up religion or politics. well i guess i'm lucky like that, most of the people around me are for the most part, eager to be able to explore this topic with me and i'm getting to learn a ton.

2002-10-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

so my friend spcoon tells me it actually wasn't drudge who wrote that, but someone else (still not shakespeare though). i don't know who it was, i don't know that it matters. but its sort of funny that not one of barbra streisand's thousand minions did any fact checking before she opened her mouth.

2002-10-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervour, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.

Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know?

For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."

so quoth babs, a.k.a. ms. streisand at a recent democratic fund-raiser. quoted and wrongfully attributed to shakespeare, who in fact, penned no such thing. babs has "truth alert" up on her site and has apologized for her technical error but not for the message. go girl.

apparently matt drudge is the actual author of the quote. the internet is so weird.

2002-09-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

oh hi. um, is this your boat? sorry, we were just going to borrow it for a minute. do you mind?

2002-09-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

you know i had one of the best birthdays ever yesterday. i felt loved all damn day, from midnight to midnight. i was also stuffed up with delicious food and drink like a chicken being led to slaughter mind you, but in a really loving way. :) thanks to all my fantastic friends and family who made me feel so good yesterday. you guys are the best. i'm sorry if i've been grouchy lately with the whole conversion thing - i know i can be a grumpy pain in the butt sometimes. and despite my grim silence these past few weeks y'all still made me feel really special, and that means a lot. i feel really lucky. thank you.

2002-09-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

last week i spent a lot of time talking to people about my conversion to judaism. i talked to family, close friends, co-workers, acquaintances. the conversations were all over the place, but in the end there were a couple big surprises. one, it was my closest friends whom i felt judged me the quickest and the harshest. and two, it was the co-workers and acquaintances, the people i'm least close to who were the most supportive and understanding. mbell is one example. his entry from 09/19/02 just blows me away. after the reactions i got from my friends, i certainly wasn't expecting this: "Can you, simple-minded reader, even begin to realize what kind of a selfless, loving, mature action this is? So many of us are about "me, me, me", and this woman is giving a huge part of herself for benefits her family may never realize."

i'm not so sure that i'm being as strong and selfless as you think mbell, but thank you, thank you, thank you. with my state of mind after last week, i really needed to hear that. it's a difficult process, one that has me conflicted and confused and i often feel like i'm drowning in quicksand. it's nice to get some positive reinforcement once in awhile.

2002-09-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

yesterday my bff and i had an interesting and lively debate over IM. which is not an unusual event in and of itself, but yesterday's topic was concerning my recent thoughts and feelings about converting to judaism, something i am going through right now. and since everyone i know who actually takes the time to read this site has a lot of similar questions and concerns for me, i thought i'd post our conversation here. hopefully it will answer a lot of your questions and also stir up some more. that's ok, bring it on. just be gentle, i'm learning about this too.

p.s. sorry for the insane length of this post. it may be best consumed over more than one sitting.

the hen wen: so.
the hen wen: what do you want to know?
xjayisfatx: i dunno.
xjayisfatx: you're gonna be jewish, huh?
the hen wen: yah. it certainly seems so.
the hen wen: i test drove a jetta.
the hen wen: fyi. i may be a jewess in a jetta soon.
xjayisfatx: how was the jetta?
the hen wen: fun.
xjayisfatx: right.
the hen wen: so.
the hen wen: are we talking?
xjayisfatx: i guess.
xjayisfatx: i wish i could hear more about the reasons for the conversion.
the hen wen: oh. well.
the hen wen: i think it is going to be a very good foundation for our family.
xjayisfatx: uh-huh.
xjayisfatx: i guess that religion is important to daniel, huh?
the hen wen: yes. it is.
the hen wen: i am learning some good stuff.
the hen wen: the difference between judaism and christianity is like the difference between a family and a group. in a group you get together with strangers with a common idea, that jesus is the son of god, and he died for our sins.
the hen wen: if you don't belive it, you try to convince others to see your way, or you leave and start your own group, or join another that sees things your way
the hen wen: whereas judaism is more like a family, in which people have different ideas and beliefs yet they are bonded by a common ancestry, spiritual or otherwise.
xjayisfatx: uh-huh.
xjayisfatx: i am not so big on religion, so it's hard for me to understand.
the hen wen: what about it makes you not big on it?
xjayisfatx: it's very divisive.
xjayisfatx: and we're chosen and you're not. i don't think the world needs more of that.
the hen wen: but the jews don't do that. and if they do, they are not supposed to.
xjayisfatx: um, aren't they 'god's chosen people'?
the hen wen: it's not what judaism is about. they are chosen to live a certain way not chosen as favoured.
the hen wen: chosen to live by the torah, or god's rules. to do good things, and be good to others, and show by example.
xjayisfatx: right, but why do you need a religion for that?
xjayisfatx: just do good things, be good to others and show by example. boom. you're done.
the hen wen: hahaha.
the hen wen: right. but people don't.
xjayisfatx: well, they should. it's just that simple.
the hen wen: rules keep you from getting hit by cars when you cross the street.
xjayisfatx: well, yeah. traffic rules are fantastic.
the hen wen: rules let you get medical treatment
xjayisfatx: thank you, i know.
the hen wen: and drugs when you are sick
xjayisfatx: but rules on how to live your life are not great.
xjayisfatx: who is anyone else to tell you how to live?
the hen wen: you don't have to live them like that. you have a choice. you can choose to live that way or not.
the hen wen: i don't think you can deny that the rule, do unto your neighbour as you would have him do unto you is a good one. but it's not one that people seem to act upon very often.
xjayisfatx: right. but it's common sense.
the hen wen: people treat others like shit.
the hen wen: right. most of it is common sense. but no one does it.
xjayisfatx: why do you need a religion for common sense? i do it all the time.
the hen wen: well you are better than most.
xjayisfatx: you're as good as me.
xjayisfatx: you don't need a religion to tell you common sense stuff.
the hen wen: i need reminding all the time.
the hen wen: in the service on monday night, in one of the readings, it talks about not thinking bad about people. and i look around the synagogue and i think, why is she wearing that skirt it looks terrible
xjayisfatx: right, which is fine.
the hen wen: it's not fine.
the hen wen: i don't need to think negative thoughts about people who i don't even know. and they are not doing anything to me
xjayisfatx: right, but it isn't a big deal. at all.
the hen wen: it is to me.
the hen wen: i'm not telling you what not to do or what to do
xjayisfatx: i know you're not.
the hen wen: so i'm just saying. you don't have to tell me not to follow some rules if i think it will help me, if i think i can gain something from it and be a better person
the hen wen: i am not finding god
the hen wen: i am not praying
the hen wen: i am not trying to be holy
xjayisfatx: but you have to convert. which is a huge thing.
the hen wen: why is it a huge thing?
xjayisfatx: when really, all you seem to want are some guidelines.
the hen wen: it's not JUST the guidelines
the hen wen: the guidelines are the torah.
xjayisfatx: the guidelines are: be nice.
the hen wen: to be jewish is to be part of a historical and cultural group
xjayisfatx: but you have a historical and cultural group.
the hen wen: there are customs and rituals that are part of being jewish.
xjayisfatx: two pretty cool ones.
the hen wen: i have two, yes.
xjayisfatx: really cool ones.
the hen wen: well.
the hen wen: i have issues with both.
xjayisfatx: and not the jews?
the hen wen: of course i do. but it's not about agreeing with everything 100%
the hen wen: the person i love is jewish, they are part of the history and culture, we want to have a family. i don't particularly WANT to raise that family in a chinese fashion, or dutch.
the hen wen: i wasn't raised that way. and from what i know of it, its not what i'd want
the hen wen: from what i am learning SO FAR about judaism, i think its a very good foundation
xjayisfatx: why is it better than buddhism?
the hen wen: for one no one in my family is a buddhist. that i know of.
xjayisfatx: right.
the hen wen: so it's not something i feel closely associated with. i'm not saying it's better.
xjayisfatx: what if you were living with a buddhist?
the hen wen: i would consider it if it was important to them
_______

the hen wen: hallo? are you done with me?
xjayisfatx: i dunno what to say. i'm mulling it all over.
xjayisfatx: i'm having a hard time with all of it. and trying to figure out why.
the hen wen: okay. i'm here to talk you know.
xjayisfatx: i know.
xjayisfatx: would daniel want to be with you if you weren't thinking about converting to judaism?
xjayisfatx: i know he would. but would he feel a strain?
the hen wen: i don't know.
the hen wen: probably a strain yes. but he would still want to be with me. we've talked about it.
the hen wen: i told him i didn't want to go through this if i thought i was do or die.
xjayisfatx: but would the kids be raised jewish?
xjayisfatx: i mean, i never thought you cared about religion either way.
the hen wen: i don't know. it's not a bridge we've needed to cross. i mean if i decided i couldn't convert, well i'm not sure i'd want my kids raised with a religion i couldn't live with.
xjayisfatx: we used to make fun of the churchies on sunday mornings.
the hen wen: ha. i still will. :-)
xjayisfatx: uh-huh.
xjayisfatx: religion is divisive. i don't like that.
the hen wen: full circle. :-)
xjayisfatx: yeah.
the hen wen: in judaism it gives you a common bond with a group of people.
the hen wen: and one of it's main tenents is to look upon others, non-jews, with love
xjayisfatx: right, then why make them convert to raise kids?
the hen wen: because to convert you have to gain a special understanding of the relegion
the hen wen: it is part of you
the hen wen: you are far more likely to pass along the importance of judaism and it's teachings to your kids
xjayisfatx: i don't think you would become jewish if you were with someone who wasn't religious.
the hen wen: no i wouldn't.
xjayisfatx: so why become jewish.
the hen wen: because i AM with someone who is
xjayisfatx: so why doesn't he stop being jewish because he's with someone who isn't?
the hen wen: because it's important to him. he was raised with it. it is a big part of who he is.
the hen wen: for me, being nothing is not a big part of who i am.
the hen wen: it's just nothing.
xjayisfatx: nothing is big.
xjayisfatx: nothing is independent.
xjayisfatx: it's flexible.
xjayisfatx: it has options.
the hen wen: it doesn't have options if your only option is nothing.
the hen wen: and you're right. i have nothing for religion. i am free to choose. so i'm making a choice.
xjayisfatx: yeah.
the hen wen: and yes, it's not a blind choice, for it's own merits
the hen wen: like i was bored one day and i'm going to look at all religions and pick the one that most appeals to me.
xjayisfatx: which makes sense.
xjayisfatx: it just seems like you're only exploring judaism because of daniel. not because you want a religion.
the hen wen: you're right, if i wasn't with daniel, i wouldn't be converting.
the hen wen: but i AM with daniel. and it's important to him. and we want a family.
xjayisfatx: so why bother? you've lived without it for 28 years and you've done fine.
the hen wen: why bother? because it matters to him.
xjayisfatx: yeah. you're a good person.
the hen wen: because what matters to him matters to me.
xjayisfatx: he started dating you before you were jewish.
the hen wen: ha. i know. he couldn't resist this meshugana shiksa.
xjayisfatx: right.
the hen wen: it's not do or die jason. if i don't convert, i don't think daniel would be out the door.
xjayisfatx: that's good.
the hen wen: i think his ties to judaism are very very strong, stronger than anything i have ties to
xjayisfatx: uh-huh.
the hen wen: in terms of a history, a bond, an ancestry, customs and rituals.
the hen wen: but i do believe his love for me is also very strong
xjayisfatx: right.
the hen wen: and luckily for him, i don't think he will have to choose between one or the other.
xjayisfatx: yeah.
the hen wen: but i don't know yet. only 1 class so far!!
xjayisfatx: i just have a hard time aligning myself with anything.
xjayisfatx: and don't understand why anyone else would want to either.
xjayisfatx: i know that's really weird of me.
the hen wen: :-)
xjayisfatx: and bad for not putting myself in their place, but i really don't get it.
the hen wen: it's ok.
xjayisfatx: i just can't.
the hen wen: i never thought i'd have a religion.
the hen wen: but it feels less like gaining god than gaining some guidelines as you said, and becoming part of a group of people.
xjayisfatx: do you really want to choose a side in the israel/palestine conflict? when both are not really great? i mean, what you do makes a statement.
the hen wen: that is a big issue. of course i dont' want to be part of the conflict.
xjayisfatx: i know you don't.
the hen wen: do i want to be part of another persecuted group? no way. but i cannot discard the whole religion because say, i don't like ariel sharon.
xjayisfatx: i know.
the hen wen: i'd take a green card in a heartbeat and i hate bush and what he's doing, and i disagree with a lot of america's politics and aggression
xjayisfatx: yeah, i can see taking the good with the bad.
the hen wen: so...
xjayisfatx: so i dunno.
the hen wen: i mean it's an issue sure. but i don't know nearly enough about what's going on there. and the history.
xjayisfatx: right.
the hen wen: honestly, i have a harder time grappling with the holocaust right now.
xjayisfatx: why?
the hen wen: i don't know.
the hen wen: the idea that i am willingly joining a group, a religion, a people who were hated that much, that the nazis gassed 6 million of them.
the hen wen: i think about my children. and theirs. and i worry - what if it happened again? i don't think it will, but who knows.
xjayisfatx: right.
the hen wen: and that scares the bejesus out of me.
xjayisfatx: i hear you.
xjayisfatx: hey. i should eat. i am starving. sorry, but my blood sugar is dropping.
the hen wen: ha. sure.
the hen wen: would you mind if i posted some of our conversation? i don't mind if you say no. but a lot of people i know are asking me and/or thinking all the same things. and i think they might learn a lot about what i am thinking by reading this.
xjayisfatx: sure.
the hen wen: ok. danke. have a nice lunch
xjayisfatx: thanks for talking. i do appreciate it. judaism is all about debate. which is part of the reason why i like it.
the hen wen: of course. bff!

2002-09-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

this poor chinese kid will never be the same again.

2002-09-04T16:31:00.000-07:00

so my mom just told me about this acquaintance she had in bali, how this guy was a very experienced diver who dove 3 or 4 times a week and that he went diving near her house a few days ago with the brother of his ex-girlfriend. well apparently they were out diving when the brother noticed that they were getting caught up in this strong current so he motioned he was going up. the other guy motioned that he was going up too, but when the brother surfaced he was alone. and the other guy has not been seen since. terrible story, everyone in my mom's little expat community there is distraught, they've had helicopters and rescue teams scouring the ocean and beaches for days now looking for a body, looking for anything but nothing has turned up. there's a lot of weird things about this story but the strangest i think was my first reaction to it - i wanted to believe that this guy was tired of his life in bali (yah, right) and wanted to run away and start his life all over again, so he didn't actually die in the ocean, no he actually surfaced a mile away and rendezvoused with a speedboat that whisked him away to tasmania or something. i don't know why but i always do that whenever someone is reported as missing, well except for all these poor kidnapped kids of course. someone i work with was close to a woman who was kidnapped earlier this year, held for ransom and then murdered along with four other people. but when he first told us about how she had disappeared getting in her car after work one day, leaving her husband and new baby waiting at home, i immediately had visions of a secret affair, money stashed away in a seperate bank account and this woman running away with the true love of her life to start her life anew at an emu ranch in prince george, british columbia. maybe i watched too much young and the restless growing up.

2002-08-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

happy birthday jason peter patrikios. you're a whole year older today! welcome to the 28th year of your life. i hope this new year holds real joy and belly laughs and lust and love and most of all the ability to accept the things that make you happy, that make you different. you're a peach and a mensch and i wish you all the best. hartelijk gefeliciteerd op uw verjaardag. bff!

2002-08-26T16:01:00.000-07:00

the miracles of modern-day surgery! when i read this my first thought was: wow, i can't believe they've done ELEVEN hand transplants, i've never even heard of it! and my second thought was: huh, that actually isn't so many. couldn't they have figured out the drug part a bit sooner? which is just like me. happy for about a millisecond, then suddenly it's not good enough. anyway, it was cool to hear about the guy who had a double hand transplant and is out there happily installing rain gutters again. i have a few questions i'd like to ask him. one, how did you lose your hands? in a freak rain gutter accident, or otherwise? how long did you live without hands? are the transplanted hands from the same person, or two different people? how do they match your skin tone? can you wear a watch? matching gloves? do they ever want to do something your mind or heart doesn't, like pinch your friend cyril's ass as he reaches up to clear out the pine needles from the gutter? though of course i'd have to ask all of that en francais.

2002-08-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

my patriotic pride was given a healthy injection last night when we went to the house of blues to see the tragically hip. there were all sorts of canadians there, wearing their own pride proudly in the form of molson's canadian tshirts, battered and worn hip concert shirts, hockey jerseys, blue jays caps, tight jeans, polite smiles and mullets. it was a great crowd, lots of hockey-buffed arms pumping into the air, everyone was shouting out lyrics, flags were waving and lots of beer was consumed. plus the canadian comedians were out in full force: several members from the now defunct but once totally brilliant comedy troupekids in the hall and a spacy looking tom green. and i'm sure if jason priestly would walk he would have been there too.

2002-08-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

p.s. also, why am i such a space monkey?

2002-08-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

one of the best movies i've seen this year is the new 3D IMAX movie, Space Station. it's narrated by tom cruise who sounds like he's smirking and gloating through-out, which is the one part i could have lived without. but the rest of it was just amazing, i literally had chills for the entire 45 minutes it was that good. there were amazing views of the earth, floating by out the window, short profiles of various crewmembers who went to set up different parts of the station and who had to leave their families behind for months on earth, the scary/uncomfortable parts of space travel and living like in order to get to the space station you have to sit cramped in a shuttle with 3 or 4 other crewmembers, with your knees in your chest, peeing into a bag and not moving for 3 days, the poor women astronauts who had to endure frizzy hair the whole time they were in space (!), the possibility of becoming untethered while on a spacewalk and drifting away into oblivion plus the cool stuff like somersaulting through the halls, squirting water into the air and watching the droplets float gracefully into your mouth. what was also really interesting is that the movie seems to have two seemingly opposite themes: 1) that this is a truly international endeavor, that to be out there learning more about our planet, our solar system and how we can perhaps one day live elsewhere transcends borders and races and cultures, and 2) AMERICA RULES, HECK YEAH! i mean every single american astronaut who showed up at that space station was wearing stars and stripes socks, waving little flags and giving their fellow americans high fives. the russian cosmonauts came across as way more subdued, but then again, they didn't make the movie.

i must admit though, i found it pretty exciting to see the Canadian arm with the maple leaf on it in the movie... it made me want to crack open a cold molson's and raise my leafs cap. patriotism is weird. like a bigger home team to root for. go canada, goooooooooal!

anyway, if you want to check out the space station, nasa, once again, has a pretty cool website where you can learn more about each expedition, pinpoint it's exact location, view images of earth taken from the station, and find out how to talk to the crew members via ham radio. super super super freaking cool.

2002-08-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

oh yeah, and we're also not always that little my big boned pasty friend.

2002-08-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

i was just walking back to the office from starbucks and passed two ladies who were also walking and chatting. as i passed by them i overheard one lady gush to the other : "well the thing is, i'm really going to miss my little asian friend who sits in the cubicle next to me..."

ack!

maybe i should test that out for awhile, talking about everyone i meet or know in relation to their race first. like tonight when i come home i'll say to daniel "jeez, i have this new white yoga instructor and damn is he touchy-feely. i can't stand it. so i talked to these 3 white women in the class and we've agreed to write a letter to the owner of the yoga studio. i forget her name right now, but she's that white woman you always see standing at the back of the class, taking money when class is over."

it only sounds weird when you preface a description of someone with their race when they're white. i don't know why if you don't mention someone's race in a story people assume they're white. i mean i make the same assumption most of the time, but i really hate it.

when i was sixteen, going on 30, i attended summer school at cornell (and yes, if you're wondering, ithaca really is gorges). so i met this cool girl there named christina and we instantly became best friends. when the summer was over we both went back home for our last year of high school, christina in d.c., me in hong kong. but we kept in close contact with that unrivalled intensity and passion that teenage girls in love manage to generate, all through our senior years and into college. one day, several years later, when we were finally living together in boston, christina's parents came to visit and i met them for the first time. i remember after our first dinner event her mom chastised christina for not letting her know that i was asian. she was upset because she was unprepared for this natalie she'd heard so much about to turn out to not be white. christina was great, she just shrugged and said "what's the big deal? i didn't think it was important enough to mention. sorry."

2002-08-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

last night after our hair cuts three of us went for dinner at this cute little italian place on abbot kinney where we witnessed a first date happening to our left. it's always fascinating to watch people struggle to make that first date connection, looking for things to relate that foster intimacy and empathy yet don't scream "restraining order", and my favourite, watching how they deal when the cheque arrives. the woman last night was wearing a sort of tarty red dress which was made even more tarty by the fact that she wore a black bra underneath which you could see poking out in several different places. anyway, the dress wasn't the worst part, it was really just depressing because they both looked so exhausted. like they were going through the motions when really they were tired and would rather be at home in their p.j.'s talking on the phone or brushing their cat. i bet even SHE didn't like that red dress anymore. it was like that. she also said something during dinner i found kind of shocking and then sort of grossly desperate: "well i happen to think that my pussy is just as enviable as any man's dick!" na-sty. keep that stuff in your boudoir please, it's just not polite dinner conversation. though i'm sure she's quite right.

i'd also like to mention that my "hair cut" entailed no actual cutting of hair, just a rinse of color that i hope will a) stop my hair from looking like the interior of a goth girl's closet, black and absorbing all available light, and c) to cover up my 2 new friends: Shocking White Strand of Hair, recent resident of my left sideburn and her quieter neighbour, Tired Grey Strand of Hair, new arrival to the right sideburn. i'm not against aging or anything, in fact i hope to do it as gracefully as possible, etc. etc. but i just wasn't quite ready for this yet. my mom didn't go grey till she was in her thirties. i guess this is another thing i can attribute to my conveniently absent father. i hope i don't ever meet him one day and find out that he actually has slim ankles, a trim waist, shiny, straight, controllable jet-black hair, an outgoing personality, a smooth singing voice and whiz-like math skillz. yeah, that would suck.

2002-07-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

we were in tejas all last week so there was no blogging to be done. and now that i'm back for some reason i'm super busy so i won't be writing till the end of the week at the earliest. eh. well if you're interested you can browse our tejas photo album and see what we wore, ate, saw and looked like all last week. yeehaw.

2002-07-18T16:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Miss Wen,

You are anxiously awaited at home by your loved ones. Please procede to the nearest elemavator and destinate towards 532 Pier Ave. Apt #D.

Warmest Regards and Cutest Bottoms

-Boy

_______________

this is the most adorable thing i've heard all day.

2002-07-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

blogger sucks. i can't believe this. usually it just eats my posts, but today it ate my template. i'm gonna fight back one day. then it will be sorry.

2002-07-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

man, i don't know what it is lately but i have been getting the wicked hairy eyeball from strangers lately. not just any strangers either, but sorta-famous women strangers. this morning i was at the bean on main and ashland for breakfast - daniel and sugar were outside holding a patio table and i was battling it out with the incompetent and surly "service" folks inside. anyway, as i walked out to deliver a muffin and coffee cake to our table i caught someone giving me a crazy hairy eyeball, like someone who turned around as i walked by and STARED. when i looked at over i realized it was carre otis. now some of you (most of you i bet) won't know who she is. but i have always had a Car Crash Fascination with her since the late eighties and through the nineties 'till she dropped out of sight. there was just so much going on there: tattoos, drug overdoses, real sex during the filming of wild orchid (or so the rumour mill has it), a tumultuos and abusive marriage to mickey rourke, motorcyle crashes, cheekbone implants. wow. now that's rock n' roll hollywood glamour.

and during the july 4th long weekend daniel and i were at this too hip for it's own good korean/brazilian restaurant on la cienega and we happened to sit next to claire danes who was there with her boyfriend ben lee and a NFF (non famous friend). anyway, i was sitting right next to her and couldn't exactly turn around and stare at her or anything so i just ignored her completely during dinner. which was fine with me actually because i had a super interesting couple to watch 2 tables over on my left: two older gentlemen, a couple i assumed, one white, one asian, both extremely dapper in their linen suits and small round eyeglasses, the asian guy was in a wheelchair and was being fed tenderly by the other one. i liked that they ate a lot and seemed to really enjoy being together quietly plus they were very hollywood in that Behind the Scenes way. like i bet they're famous consultants to the stars on what flowers to grow in their gardens, or tell them what colour drawlz to wear to a casting call or something else weird and lucrative. this town is full of those famousish Behind the Scenes type people. they're almost better than than real star sightings because at least you can make a game out of wondering what strange talent they posses. any.way. so claire and her posse get up to leave just as we're finishing dinner and they pass right by our table to go out the door. and as she's walking behind daniel, claire stops, turns slowly and deliberately towards me and gives me the meanest hairy eyeball i think i've gotten since grade six. like daggers. right through me. it was so bad i gasped, audibly. really. and when she left i think i almost cried. so mean! so cold! and i didn't even stare! what am i doing wrong here?

i think maybe i look like some manicurist to the stars who's been giving all the ladies some bad fungal infection with dirty orange sticks or something. i'm joking but only kind of. daniel thinks they're jealous which is really sweet but i'm pretty sure that's not it. i can't quite put my finger on what it is yet but i'm gonna figure it out soon. next time i run into pamela anderson and she glares in my direction i'll stomp over and say in my best calm yet deadly voice "come on, let's go. let's work that shit out right now." and then we'll get down to it.

2002-06-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

oh so guess what i learned last night in my own house? fingerhut means finger hat, i.e. thimble in german. so if you're descendant from a long line of german tailors chances are your last name is fingerhut. either that or your family sells crappy shlock to the midwest via catalogues. although i am sad to report, it looks like fingerhut may be in receivership. sad. and today the internet told me that fingerhut is also the german name for foxglove, which is a nice looking plant with finger-hat-shaped flowers. i don't know about you but i think that's sort of nice even if it is german.

2002-06-27T17:08:00.000-07:00

the monkey dog has packed herself a little grass skirt, a coconut bikini top and is sitting by the front door, waiting patiently. she thinks she's going to hawaii with her terrible bad uncle, who is running a marathon there in december (one day after pearl harbor day, for those who may find that interesting). if you have some extra cash to throw around or you want to donate to a good cause, help the boy out.

Baby born ahead of schedule _ next to cash registers at Wal-Mart. god i would have loved to have been buying fourth of july sparklers at the counter next to this scene. this story has some great ambiance, mother of mother-to-be screaming "Lord, that's my child!", mother-to-be thinking "i'm fixin' to be a mama now, i can't be scared", and making the night manager the godfather. man, kmart could have used this event a lot more than wal-mart.
(thanks jay for the link)

2002-06-26T17:11:00.000-07:00

this week a bottle of liquid soap suddenly materialized in the ladies' bathroom at work. it's called "très elegante". um. pardonez-yo, is that spench soap? weird. it looks very Dollar Store-esque. i freaking love the dollar store, they are so brilliant. everytime i pop in to pick up something real quick i end up there for at least an hour. i get this sort of zombie-like, deer in a headlight look and end up buying all kinds of crap i don't need. too much stimulus does that to me - like saturday morning cartoons or music videos or lots of flashing neon lights. i guess that's the whole idea. razzle dazzle us 'till we're so confused we have no choice but to hand over our money. but hey, it only costs a dollar, so how could you go wrong? you know the manufacturers of these cheap products are not putting their money into marketing or spell checking softare or fancy translators so they must be focusing on quality.

the "très elegante" hand soap in the bathroom is a perfect symbol of our dotcom's decline. we went from twice weekly massages and free dinners to dollar store soap. while it's definitely funnier to be where we are now, i have to say i still occasionally look back fondly on the good old days. you can't beat a free massage with a bat.

2002-06-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

is it just me or does the burpee garden wizard look like the offspring of paul newman and mickey mouse from fantasia? plus he told me i can only grow five things based on my criteria. jerk.

2002-06-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

i have to check my hotmail account every day now because of the ridiculous amount of spam i get. i let it go for a week once and they almost cut me off for good because i went over my 2 mb storage limit. which is annoying because if they filtered the freaking spam better then i'd never get even close to that limit. bastardos. but today i got one email touting diet pills or something from the funniest fake name i've seen in awhile: seamus hussein. that almost makes the daily spam cleaning ritual worth it.

2002-06-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

this melancholy kat movie leaves more room for discussion and debate than any movie spielberg has made in the past decade. did the kat find luv and leave the box, or did the kat die of lonliness and get buried in the box at the end? discuss.

2002-06-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

i think it would be worth paying money to have a monkey named after me. especially a dutch brazillian monkey-cat!

2002-05-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

"The exercise of a homosexual lifestyle involving romantic activities such as dating is not consistent with Catholic beliefs and values. It is something we simply cannot condone or promote," Martin said. well shove it up your tight Catholic butt 'cause young marc hall is bringing his boyfriend to the prom tonight. with just a few hours to spare a canadian superior court judge ruled that a school board could not preventing hall from bringing his boyfriend to his high school prom. added bonus in this story: everyone has a name like marc or jean-paul and they're all so damn polite even while fighting deviants and bigots. oh canada!

2002-05-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

i think i'm going to send mark shuttleworth a t-shirt that reads: "I paid $20 million for a trip to space and all I got was this lousy spacesuit". he's not exactly complaining, but he really wanted to take the 7 ton capsule he came back to Earth in home. not sure why, maybe he needs an extra planter for his cactus garden. well okay, he said he's planning on using a replica of the pod as a teaching aid in helping bring awareness of space travel to south africa. just what they need, in lieu of decent AIDS prevention education. i liked the response from the russian space agency : "The shuttle is federal property, it is not a question of price," Russian space agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov said. "The suit is different. He can wear it at home if he wants." sadly, i bet he's trotting that suit out to impress the ladies. oh well. can't blame a guy for working whatever angles he's got.

2002-05-06T16:06:00.000-07:00

Tobey Maguire has made a name for himself with roles in such acclaimed pictures as The Ice Storm and Pleasantville, displaying the type of dark-eyed, low-key intensity that has made him a favorite with latte-sipping, art house-loving young women everywhere. ouch. i think i just got pigeonholed by yahoo! movies. i'm going to see spiderman tomorrow and am very excited. i may be a art house-loving young woman but i still love a good action flick. these new blockbusters keep breaking box office records over and over again which i don't remember happening much when i was a kid. they're raising the bar kinda high though, i don't know how they'll keep it up. attack of the clones is coming out soon and even though i personally think it looks even more horrid than phantom menace, i bet it'll bust some records too. according to geek.com it looks like it's going to cost the economy about $319 million just in employee absentism. weird. but somehow fitting. i've definitely felt more of a drain than a gain from lucas's latest star wars episodes.

2002-05-06T15:54:00.000-07:00

so i was talking to my cousin kim, who lives in the Netherlands on IM today and i was trying to get the inside poop on what the hell happened with Pim Fortuyn, the right-wing dutch politician who was assasinated today. and so we're talking about the details of the shooting a bit, and kim says something about how the media park in which fortuyn was shot was pretty heavily guarded by security since 9-11 so they had a good chance of catching the assasin. only he didn't refer to it as 9-11, he wrote "11-09". which struck me as odd for a minute, but then of course it makes sense since Europeans always write month-date-year. funny to think that there's a whole bunch of people out there who think refer to that event as "eleven-nine".

2002-05-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

ratbots! abhorrent inethical treatment of animals or justifiable in light of potentially saving human lives? i'm not sure, but i'm wondering when we'll all have chips implanted that will "stimulate our reward centres". mmm. and again, a great last line for a news story:"Nonetheless, the idea is sort of creepy. I do not know what the answer is to that."

2002-04-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

so the boy and i are moving in together. well he's moving into my teeny one bedroom apartment so we can save up some more cash for a downpayment on a house one day in the hopefully not too distant future. so last night we entered phase one of preparing for cohabitation: merging foodstuffs and music. we sorted through his cupboards and brought some of his stuff over, and then we went through mine and threw some stuff out. we did the same with the music, he brought some cds over and i set some old ones i never listen to aside to sell. so all in all, it broke down sorta like this:

added:
3 boxes of lipton cup o' soup
2 bottles of honey, 1 mesquite, 1 israeli
2 jars of tahini, unopened
2 bottles of worchestershire sauce, unopened
6 cans of beans, kidney and black
8 assorted boxes and bags of pasta
2 offspring cds
3 gnr cds
1 pink floyd cd, the wall

removed:
1 bag of dried chipotle chilies
1 small container of pine nuts
3 bags of rice crackers
1 small bag of wild rice
1 box of trader joe's madras curried lentils
1 deborah cox cd
1 temptations cd
2 stevie wonder cds

compromise is a good thing i've heard.

2002-04-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

coachella was freaking amazing. i thought the people and the vibe was going to be the best part and the music sort of secondary but it turned out to be the other way around. the weekend was all about the great music. bjork was incredible. she's pregnant too which made her even more radiant. and for her encore she pranced around in the best lettuce leaf costume i've ever seen. i know this girl couldn't have asked for more out of her weekend. my only caveat for those who might go next year: plan on bringing antihistamines. a lot of us seemed to be having allergic reactions to the polo pony horse poop. or something.

2002-04-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

COACHELLA!!!!!

2002-04-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

mark shuttleworth blasted off into space today, the second space tourist, a.k.a. rich dude with $20 million to burn and a desire for space travel. i'm not really sure why but they're calling him the first "afronaut". i mean i know why they think he's the first afronaut, being from south afrika and all but you know, i think they should reserve that for someone with an actual afro. no space helmet needed, just me and my 'fro thank you very much. i love how mark's mom ronelle makes it sound like she's seeing her son off to summer camp or something: "I'm sure he's going to have a wonderful time. I'll worry a little bit but I'm sure it will be fine".

speaking of afros, have y'all seen kobe's latest do? mmm. he has the best hairstylists, they never steer him wrong. and yes, i bet it's plural.

2002-04-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

but rushkoff's blog is up and i'm psyched. nothing like a smart and accomplished jewish boy's weblog to quicken this chicken's pulse. plus he's a regular contributor to npr. be still my beating heart.

2002-04-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

dooce is down and i'm bummed.

2002-04-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

best movie i saw this weekend: enigma, directed by michael apted and starring a very lush (and pregnant at the time of filming), beautiful and bright kate winslet, a soooper snoooty and suave jeremy northham, and a tired, tortured but still tasty dougray scott (sporting the greek circles - yassou!). alliteration abounds! sorry, i didn't even notice i was doing that. anyway, a decent movie with an interesting historical plot revolving around the code crackers of world war II based at bletchley park. the enigma was a cipher machine used to encrypt morse code that the germans were transmitting during the war (U-571 is an overacted movie about a U.S. sub that captured an enigma machine, and isn't really worth seeing unless you're a submarine freak like me, das boot is about a bazillion times better). the movie didn't explain the workings of the enigma all that well but i think they didn't really try that hard because a) it's pretty freaking complicated and b) watching kate winslet dash about the english countryside being clever is more entertaining than plugs, switches, curents and rotors. using the enigma each letter of a message would get encrypted a MINIMUM of seven times and up to NINE times, just for a single letter! oof. i can't imagine trying to crack that. my head hurts just trying to add up my scrabble points. i found a decent explanation of how the enigma works though, so if you have a few minutes with no distractions it's worth reading up on. and definitely try to read a bit about it before you go see the movie, things will make a bit more sense.

the other super cool thing i learned about as a result of seeing this movie are the machines that were created in order to decode the enigma and other encyphered messages. max newman invented colossus which apart from having a cool name was one of the first programmable computers ever built. by the end of the war there were 10 huge colossi supercomputers working to decode german messages. once the war ended each computer was dismantled and the drawings and documents about them were ordered burned. as churchill said, the decoding work done at bletchley park was the "goose that laid the golden egg, but didn't cackle". and it's been reopened as an historical tourist attraction and houses a rebuilt colossus. way cool.

2002-04-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

i take a lot of pride in my nationality and my two ethnicities. i consider my mixed identity bag to be a blessing, unlike some people who aren't so sure, or who aren't excited by the prospect of having that mixed bag as part of their family. this week's news has struck a chord with each one of them, one bad, one mixed and one good.

starting with the bad, during a military training exercise in Kandahar 4 canadian troops were killed and 8 wounded due to "friendly U.S. fire". enough with the friendly fire accidents already. look before you shoot, and confirm your position before dropping a 500-pound (this page is metric friendly, so 227-kilogram) bomb on top of some nice canadian troops. not that it's any worse that they're canadian mind you, it sucks any way you look at it. but it seems especially dumb that these are the first casualties canadian troops have suffered in combat since the ko-rean war 50 some years ago. though i am happy about getting to hear jean chretien getting air play down here in the u.s. because of it. nothing stirs up my maple flag pride more than hearing that man talk. it's just so deliciously over-the-top Québécois, wah wah, wah wah, wrrrrrrow.

on to the mixed, the dutch cabinet, led by prime minister wim kok resigned en masse this week in response to a report that condemned the dutch government for their part in allowing a massacre to take place in a U.N.-designated safe area in Srebrenica in 1995. some say the dutch military and goverment didn't give the troops protecting Srebrenica enough artilery to be effective nor the proper instructions to act in a situation like that. but that doesn't explain why the stood by and watched (some reports even say they helped round up the men into nearby fields and barns where they were then executed by the Serbs). perhaps because they were heavily outnumbered and outarmed or because they were never fired upon and their orders were to only fire when fired upon first. you can look more broadly at the U.N. and whether or not they had the mandate in this situation to be able to enforce their 'safe-area'. it sounds like the dutch troops didn't know what they were doing there exactly, or what they were allowed to do and because of poor equipment and communication and politics ended up doing nothing. while in a way i think it's admirable of the dutch cabinet to take the responsibility for this on their shoulders (the army's top general just resigned too) i think it's a shame they had to take all the blame when it seems that the way the U.N. operates within these areas of conflict should be looked at as an equal part of the problem. i don't think events would have turned out differently if say the belgians or the canadians had been assigned to that particular duty.

and finally i get to the good. the chinese government has pledged to spend $1M (not sure what currency, either way it's a lot) in order to preserve what they think is the world's only language used solely by women. the chinese government does a lot (and i mean a LOT) of sketchy/bad things but this effort to preserve a piece of our culture redeems them a bit at least in my eyes. it's hard to know how much is pure P.R. but maybe their intentions aren't all bad and even if they were, it's still having a positive effect so i won't question it too much. if you've got the time, this is a really cool article on the Yao ethnic minority, the rural Hunan portion of which is where this old, women-only language is still in use. the description sounds way more crouching tiger, hidden dragon-esque (in terms of scenery not wire fighting) than the china i've seen.

and that my friends, is this week's news in brief. i'm natalie wen, your kung fu fighting, clog stomping, molson's drinking correspondent signing off. joi gin, tot ziens and hose off eh.

2002-04-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

feelin' kinda southern after the past few days. first i've been listening to this great song on kcrw's sounds eclectic called boll weevil. it's a remix of this acapella recording done down in alabama in 1940. then last night the boy and i got caught up in this hbo documentary called 'southern comfort' which was alternately bewildering (who's a man, who's a woman, is that man who was a woman now married to a woman who's now a man, who's on first), eye-opening, thought-provoking, hick (shotguns, trailers, X-tra thick bacon and non-stop cigarette puffing), open-minded, funny and tragic. and today a co-worker (who is soon to become an ex-co-worker, he's moving to israel, can you imagine?) dropped by and gave me a sassafras see's lollipop. so i've been researching sassafras a bit today, you know, since it's sort of an uncommon flavour to run across (well in my experience anyhow) and it turns out it has quite a colourful history. it was originally used for different medicinal purposes by native Americans and settlers, and used to treat ailments ranging from syphilis to rheumatism to skin diseases and even in some cases to induce abortions. the bark of the roots is 80% safrole oil which is chemically similar to thujone which is used to make absinthe (a substance suspected of contributing to the madness of many artists including van gogh and poe). safrole used to be one of the key ingredients in root beer and sassafras tea until the '60s when the FDA banned its use because it was found to cause liver cancer in lab rats. now the roots are treated chemically to remove the safrole but it results in a watered down sassafras flavouring. let's hear it for sufferin' sassafras!

2002-04-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

our 22 year old russian, velour track suit and gucci loafer wearing, mafioso-wannabe QA punk just walked in here and asked: "natalie. how many personal days do we have?" what i heard was: "natalie. how many personalities do you have?" and i was ready to flip out. this is where i'm at today people. PMS ahoy!

2002-04-12T16:47:00.000-07:00

williamstown, massachusetts 01247 is indeed a strange place. once having set foot there it seems to change your destiny somehow so you are always revolving through there and running into people who have some similar connection with the place no matter where you go. dear daniel thinks its some kind of strange vortex on our planet where everyone at some point seems to whirl briefly in then out again. it's kinda like being canadian in a way but it's weirder because williamstown is just a small pop. 8,000 on a good day, 2 bar (and 1 pub), 1 movie theatre town, not an entire country. when daniel pearl was murdered earlier this year most people were talking about the politics, his expecting wife, the horror of his death. my friends were saying "wow, did you know daniel pearl used to write for the berkshire eagle?" (they also cared about the other things that everyone else cared about too, they're not heartless by any means. it just made the identification stronger for them like "you know, i KNEW he looked like a stand-up guy, i mean he lived in the berkshires for pete's sake.")

and today i interviewed a guy at work who, it turns out, grew up in dorset, vermont and had cousins who lived an hour away in williamstown (in the berkshires if something is an hour away it's fair game for brunch or apple picking or if necessary, "antiquing"). anyway, he recounted a cute story about williamstown when he was 12 and visting said williamstown cousins one weekend. apparently all the cousins dressed up like ninjas one night and snuck out of the house. they were skulking about the william college campus and discovered the construction site surrounding the new addition to the school gymnasium. they poked around there for awhile and suddenly found themselves emerging out of the soon to be complete locker room and into the main auditorium where a concert was just winding down. and as they're standing there squinting up at the stage they're asking each other "what the hell is an R.E.M."? and everyone who's been through williamstown will tell you something equally sweet, wacky and memorable has happened to them there. it's just that kind of place. the kind of place where you can track a lost baby black bear through town in your bff's jetta, where the local variety store gets held up by a guy with a bow and arrow (and the clerk went to HIGH SCHOOL with the robber, imagine that conversation "hey dude, how's it goin'. sorry i gotta do this but gimme all the money out of the registers and throw a pack of american spirits in there while you're at it and some slim jims. thanks dude. see you at the purple pub later."), where the local slumlord used to be a reverend 1 hour north in vermont until he got a parishoner pregnant and they ran him out of town and now he has a daughter and granddaughter the same age and employs 2 muscled but pint-sized white haired twins to do repairs on his properties, where it's impossible to keep affairs, illnesses, bad hair days or grocery purchases a secret. and it's the place i met my bff, my dearest friends cabana boy david, le vaal, loyal trooper lee and my dear dear daniel so you know there's some magic going on. if you ever get a chance, i definitely recommend checking it out.

2002-04-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

so i'm starting to rethink my whole sporty thing. on our second practice about 3 weeks ago i was playing 1st and got nailed in the head by a ball, and managed to jam my thumb at the same time. my cheek and hand puffed up for a few hours and were sore for about two days. and last night i managed to pull/tear both my quads pretty well on my first at bat in the second inning. i knew my quads were sore from yoga on monday night but holy hellfire nothing prepared me for the ripping and then burning sensation as i tried to sprint to 1st. thankfully they threw me out so i could hobble off the field (diamond? i don't even really know the right lingo dammit.) and ended up rolling around in pain for about 15 minutes before i could compose myself. i know i'm sort of a sissy when it comes to pain but this was no joke. it immediately made my mouth nasty-pasty and i thought i was going to yak up my wahoo's fish bowl. out of the 6 women on our recreational softball team 4 of us ended up with pulled quads of varying degrees. so beware, softball is dangerous!

funniest thing for me was the humiliation didn't end when the ref called game and the other team (they were air and freight cargo handers! big ones! mean ones! grrrrr!) handed our wussy dot-com asses to us on a plate, no that would have been too easy. i decided i needed some kind of cream or tiger balm to ease my muscles which were starting to spasm a bit so i stopped off at the sav-on on the way home. and i'm hobbling around the aisles, my hair is all mussed and up in ponytails, glasses on, and i'm cursing outloud about where the frig are they hiding the sports injury section when i hear "natalie? is that you?" coming from the line at the prescription desk. sigh. it was my old co-worker nancy looking totally confused at my broke-ass state. i mean it's l.a., you're not supposed to run into anyone you know at a drugstore.

the worst thing of it all, aside from my still sore quads? now my whole damn apartment smells like ben-gay. it's like living in a retirement home! yuck.

so last night as i was trying to find a comfortable position in bed that would let me fall asleep i was thinking about maybe quitting. giving up on my whole this year i'm gonna learn more about sports: the players, the teams, the strategies, going to games, the whole bit. but then i thought you know what, i could do the opposite of what the old, non-sporty natalie would normally do: i could get INTO it injuries and all! like getting injured is a risk you take, it's a legitimate part of the experience and instead of running from it i should gulp it down with the rest. so that's what i'm going to do. i'm gonna rest up, ice my quads and then before our next game i'm going to stretch like crazy and do laps and stuff and not try to break any land speed records to 1st base. think of it like moby's damn-fuck attitude. damn-fuck i'm into softball/baseball, pulled quads, puffy cheek and all. pass me another miller high life.

2002-04-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

oh and if you're a real baseball fan (i.e. not just in your dreaming hours) you might want to check out tony's baseball blog. i don't read it but i just might start soon. i hear it's quite good, from people who should know about both baseball and blogs.

2002-04-09T17:49:00.000-07:00

i had my first baseball dream last night. we were playing in a huge stadium, like fenway or something, and the big lights were in my eyes and we were winning by a huge margin. i was standing in the dugout, watching our team kick ass in the bottom of the 9th and talking on my cell phone to derek jeter. he was telling me about the new plays the yankees had, how he was involved in one called "get the ball in as fast as possible" and another one called "summer breeze" and how no one wanted to be part of that one because it sounded so wussy. we were laughing about that and i was singing frank sinatra's "summer wind" to him and then suddenly the game was over, i was walking out of the stadium with the cheering crowd and they were playing "new york, new york" on the sound system. amazing. i play 1 decent game of recreational softball with the company team and all of a sudden i'm chatting with derek jeter. this silliness is so much better than my nightmares.

2002-04-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

my love affair with launch is on the wane. i still like certain aspects: you can X any song you don't ever want to hear again, you can rate songs, artists and albums that will increase the likelihood of having them played again, and the video part is cool because you can actually pick which ones you want to see. (though it looks REALLY bad to watch videos at work during the day, sometimes i'll do it) and i think it's really funny that they want to play a lot of old school depeche mode, smiths and new order for me. that cracks me up, becuase it's very teen angst natalie, and well, that's just funny. however. about half a dozen times a day launch will play me something entirely, utterly offensive. like it just tried to feed me "humpin' around" by bobby brown with new edition. humpin' around! come on! earlier today they tried to tell me that they were playing some garth brooks because "this is popular on other launchcast stations!" sigh. do they know nothing about me? do they not even care? and they don't have ANY radiohead. that blows.

i think i take bad recommendations from the internet pretty personally when i really shouldn't. sometimes even amazon recommends a dud and i'm always genuinely surprised and even a bit hurt. it's like showing up at a friend's house and getting served a plate of cilantro pesto pasta or something. you should know me by now dammit. i can't eat/listen/read/watch that shit! how could you even suggest such a thing! i should stop taking the internet personally i know. even personalization. internet personalization still has a long way to go. in the meantime perhaps i should keep my expectations on the lower side.

2002-04-04T18:12:00.000-08:00

"The evil part of this I believe is the relationship between these two boys," Northeastern University criminology professor Jack Levin said recently. "I don't think either one of them would have done this by himself. It was the chemistry between them and the bond they shared." yet another brilliant last line to end yet another gruesome news story. what the hell it is about the searing intensity of adolescent relationships that is often a breeding ground for murder and mayhem? there was that famous case in 1954 in christchurch, new zealand when pauline yvonne parker and juliet marion hulme, aged sixteen and fifteen respectively, brutally killed pauline's mother hoping it would keep them from being separated. peter jackson directed a great movie based on thisr story called heavenly creatures, which also happened to be kate winslet's debut. great movie, highly recommended though i'm sure everyone who visits sugarchicken as already seen it. y'all are totally on the ball. poking around the internet today (ow, quit it!) i found some great articles in the an article from the sun-star newspaper in christchurch printed on the day the trial opened which has some interesting details about their relationship and their crime and it also has some cool photos (sorry it's partly a .pdf). juliet eventually changed her name and is now a semi-successful mystery novelist. so wacky. i tell you, the truth is stranger than fiction.

2002-04-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

if you're like me you find the new mitsubishi eclipse commercial sort of sickly fascinating. fascinating because the music is great and the woman who's poppin' & lockin' in the pink kangol in the front seat is having such a great time. sickly because jeez, it's a mitsubishi eclipse. but maybe that's just my own problem. anyway, you can check out dirty vegas's video for that song "days go by" here. good beats to blog by.

2002-04-03T14:24:00.000-08:00

baby bubble boy is freed! in a nutshell, they took this kid with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease (SCID) which meant he was basically living in a bubble because anything and everything could potentially give him something his immune system, or lack of an immune system, couldn't handle, they took him, created a "good" version of the cell, attached it to a retrovirus which they inserted back into his body and it "infected" him with the good gene, replicating and basically getting rid of the faulty genes that were causing the problem. how super cool is that? the bbc's q&a gives a good basic overview and if you are feeling more ambitious, try pbs's gene therapy primer. this is a fairly new treatment that's been used with success since early 2000, starting with bébés parisiens and moving across the channel to london tots. i am hopeful that gene therapy will be able to help those with AIDS and cancer and other scary diseases. it's so exciting to be alive right now, when science and technology are moving ahead with incredible speed. my opa is going to be 97 in august and he's seen some pretty amazing things happen in that time. imagine what the world will be like by the time i'm an old woman?

2002-04-01T19:00:00.000-08:00

i keep having all these weird but somewhat similar things happen to me. the feeling i got from my dream muffin incident keeps coming back again and again. there was the time i made todd eldredge appear in boston, then on thursday i made david duchovny appear in brentwood (okay, not a great stretch since he and téa live in that area), then on sunday morning i dreamt i was annette funicello starring in a surf movie and when i woke up i picked up a new yorker and read an article that mentions annette and her influence on spring break movies. seemingly totally random incidents taken separately but when i look at them as a string of events over the past few months i feel like there's some odd kind of pattern.

the todd eldredge one was the best, so i'll start with that one. 3 of us were leaving our conference one night and decided to try walking to meet our dinner party at a restaurant near park station, which is only 2 or 3 T stops away. we got about 3 blocks before wimping out and grabbing a cab the rest of the way. so sad, considering 2 of us are canadian-born and the other one is a boston-native. i tell you, blood-thinning in warmer climes is no lie. anyway, so we hop in the cab and my 2 companions are complaining loudly about the damp cold and oh the inhumanity of it all etc, when i say something like "oh well, think of how good that walk was for our skin. i mean look at todd eldredge. he's in his thirties and his skin looks amazing, all tight and clear. must be all that time spent in ice rinks." and then we jump out of the cab and we cruise into this super-swank restaurant mantra and who's right in front of us in a bad mossimo sweater and faded black versace jeans checking his coat? todd fucking eldredge. no lie. and brian boitano (!!) and kristi yamaguchi and all these other crazy professional ice skaters. so insane. the words todd eldredge are still hanging in that bubble coming out of my mouth and wham there he is, dressed way tacky but with perfect tight skin and smirking at our jaws hitting the floor. i could care less about the guy but conjuring him up out of thin air with skater buddies to boot is pretty damn cool.

then this past weekend i took jay to one of my favourite low key and vegan-friendly places to eat, a votre santé. as soon as we sit down i tell him how 'hollywood' this place is, how i think jim saw david duchovny there once. and jay, being jay, bursts into the refrain from the song "david duchovny, why won't you love me" somewhere just a hair below shouting. and as he's singing this tall sweaty guy in shorts, tank top and hightops leaves the counter about 4 feet behind us with a bag of baba ganouj to-go and walks right past us. and again, lots of smirking. i'm not sure what this means but i have a feeling could be a profit in my newfound talent for making celebrities appear upon command.

the annette funicello one was just weird. i dreamt i was annette, or at least annette-esque, wearing one of those funny thick bikinis that made me look super curvy in that sixties hour glass way, and shooting some movie out in hawaii. i think i was sort of annoyed with the director, who was making me sit in the water forever and i HATE that squishy pruny feeling in my fingers and toes. and i remember joking around with frankie avalon. that's about it. and i'm still sort of ruminating on this dream, chewing on it in my mind a few hours later when i started reading this new yorker article that just sort of by the way mentions annette and frankie and how their movies like "bikini beach", "beach blanket bingo" and "how to stuff a wild bikini" (ooh, risqué!) were the predecessors to trash like "girls gone wild" which is mostly just bare boobs and butts in thongs getting mauled by drunk frat boys in south padre island over spring break. i had one of those moments though, where i see the name "annette funicello" in print and immediately i look up and scan my living room to see if someone is watching me to check out my reaction. just weird you know?

not sure what to make of it. but it's definitely on the wet side of spooky-cool. and i really wonder what the rest of this year will bring, given that it's started out this way and seems to show no signs of stopping.

2002-03-26T17:46:00.000-08:00

sleeping so well these days. don't want to jinx anything but i'm feeling pretty good. sun is shining, dog is walking, boy is loving, sleeping is non-terrifying and coachella is only 1 month away! i'm really hoping to get involved in the movie they're making about coachella this year. i'd be so excited knowing that i was part of documenting the people and the vibe and the whole deal. keep your fingers crossed!

2002-03-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

last night i slept beautifully, so go figure. i dreamt of a girlie sleepover party: dyeing our hair in the bathroom, giggling while jostling each other at the sink trying to rinse our hair, walking to get some clam chowder for lunch, talking about movies and books and boys. pretty benign. there was one small part of my dream where i was in las vegas with my gramma and was trying to check my grampa out of the morgue which was being run like a coat check but nothing really happened it was just odd. ah well, i'm just thankful for the restful night. thank you Goddess of Sleep and Dreams. i really needed it.

2002-03-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

i am kind of bummed today. just sort of saddish all around the edges. and wicked tired. all on account of this spate of nightmares i've been having. i guess i started having more nightmares about six or seven months ago and it's been snowballing in frequency and intensity. now i'm at the point where i'm waking myself up in the middle of these nightmares, sometimes from yelling, sometimes from crying, sometimes from flat-out terror. i'm not sure what's going on but i'm getting very down about it. i used to really love sleeping. getting ready for bed, hopping in while the sheets are still cool, fluffing your pillow and arranging it just so, pulling up the comforter so it's tucked just right under your chin, drifting for awhile, sometimes talking, sometimes listening to music, sometimes just listening to the dog sigh heavily before falling fully into sleep. jim sent me a link to common questions about nightmares by the association for the study of dreams which has made me think two things: 1) maybe this just means that i'm one of those extra sensitive and creative types who have more nightmares than most, and 2) thank baby jesus they're not night terrors. yet.

i'm going to start writing my dreams down again. not on paper of course, but on my 'puter at work. which is probably a bad idea professionally-speaking but i really find it impossible to write anything coherent on paper anymore. not even grocery lists. amazing how quickly that skill atrophies. huh. atrophy is a lot different than a trophy. faraway, so close!

the night before last i dreamt that daniel and i were serial killers who were being hunted down by rival serial killers. it sounds ridiculous but it was really terrifying. they blinded daniel in one eye, impaled me with a long sharp metal rod and killed our baby daughter. and the worst thing was i couldn't feel outraged by what had happened to us because i knew we were really bad people and that this was probably justice being served for all the horrible crimes we had committed in the past. last night's dream was even stranger: i was a gay man and i would bring men i was attracted to back to my room for sex but then i would turn on them and beat them violently and brutally out of my own anger and frustration about not being able to deal openly with my own sexuality. holy crap. that one scared me awake at 3 a.m. and kept me freaking out for the next 3 hours. i can't even imagine what tonight will bring.

2002-03-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

if you're in the northern hemisphere, sometime today the vernal equinox will arrive. for my mom and everyone else in the southern hemisphere, it's the autumnal equinox. either way, it's the beginning of a new season and also one of the two days in the calendar year when daytime and nighttime are about equal in length. so happy whichever equinox to you! for those of us on the west coast, it's going to hit precisely at 11:16am, so if you happen to look up from whatever you're doing at 11:16am, welcome back the warmer days.

2002-03-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

yesterday i noticed yet another thing i do sort of backwards. all the other crazy dog people who talk to their dogs when they're walking them seem to only have 1 way conversations. kinda like "come on Winnie, let's go home now. say goodbye to your friend sugar, you'll see her tomorrow." etc. whereas my conversations with sugar are 2 way, with sugar's responses being implied: "yes sugar, we're going to to go home and see eat your dinner now. i know you're hungry, i am too. yes, i think your monkey might be sleeping but we can wake him up when we get home."

2002-03-19T16:43:00.000-08:00

oh you rat bastards. blogger ate a huge entry today and i'm totally annoyed with them. scowl, scowl, scowl. now i'm going to try and rewrite it and get even more annoyed when i can't. blah. the internet is bad today.

2002-03-18T10:58:00.000-08:00

it's the return of jimlog. and he's got some different things on his mind these days. i can't wait to see where this is going.

2002-03-15T17:13:00.000-08:00

the last line of any news article is always the best. here's some of the proof i've found this week:

It says, "FUCK YOU!!!! STOP LOOKING THROUGH MY WIDOW, YOU ASSHOLE!!!"

The hoaxsters were later fired for causing a worldwide panic.

"I like this bird," said Martins, a native of Portugal. "This bird is very important for this country. I wouldn't feel good if somebody killed this bird."

2002-03-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

i have a new obsession and it's name is Launch. it's already been around for a long time in dotcom years but yahoo just bought it and did a revamp. love it! love yahoo! love music! it's a win-win situation everyone! and today they've introduced me to NIN and Poe which has been a long time coming. so i'm psyched.

2002-03-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

i can't believe there's hardly been a mention in the news of the paralympics, which are going on right now in salt lake city. what kind of message does that send to people? hey, if you win the slalom on your own 2 legs great, we'll stick you on the front page of the paper. but if you're winning on 2 metal springs attached to your kneecaps, well tough luck honey, let the other weirdos pat you on the back. really, aren't these athletes even more inspiring because of the immense physical challenges they've overcome to be able to compete? and the para actually stands for parallel in case y'all were wonderin'.

2002-03-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

i'm starting to resent, regret, fear and avoid blogging. this can't be a good sign. i bet i'm about to crack.

here, however, is something blog-worthy: my sweet boy of 9 months (!) on IMDB.

2002-03-08T11:36:00.000-08:00

i've been searching for the right place to post my photo on the internet and have finally found it. check it out - infatuasian!

2002-03-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

i just made todd eldredge appear out of nowhere. no kidding. i'm in boston right now but i'll tell you about it when i get back to the warmth of california and my fingers thaw enough to type some more. i'm telling you though, I MADE HIM APPEAR.

2002-02-25T10:21:00.000-08:00

"I think a lot of people wanted to see Canada kick the crap out of the Americans," Kirk said. "It's fantastic to see that, and I think the rest of the world wanted to see that."

take that scatterboy.

2002-02-22T15:21:00.000-08:00

my mom just got the cutest little american cocker brother for sugar! only problem is he doesn't have a name yet. please send your suggestions here. (thanks to the world's fattest boy for hosting the big ass doggie photo.)

2002-02-22T12:11:00.000-08:00

and yeah, i'm sad about michelle but you know what sarah hughes skated an amazing program with lots of hard jumps and combinations and she really nailed it. there was no question that she won gold. well, i guess except maybe for the russians. dammit, all these challenges and threats of pulling out of the olympics and going to court over every damn thing is getting really annoying. i don't know if every olympics has been this bad or maybe i'm just paying more attention this year but yeesh, come on already. it's hard to enjoy any of their wins anymore knowing that 2 minutes later someone is going to start bitching about it. and i know there has been corruption and a lot of crazy calls and it really sucks to be on the wrong side of those things but the whole business is massively bumming me out.

2002-02-22T11:57:00.000-08:00

a Russian cosmonaut with space-station experience has warned that putting seven heterosexual adults shoulder to shoulder for nine months "provides all the conditions necessary for murder.'' that's funny, that sounds just like where i work. this is actually a very cool article about scientists hypothesizing how we could travel into space with the intention of looking for new places to colonize or just to explore. which is an idea i think an ordinate amount about. basically what they are saying is it's going to take so long to get anywhere even travelling at 180 miles an hour that we're going to have to build a travelling commune, where generations of space travellers are born, live and die before actually getting anywhere. i really, really want to sign up for that trip. i mean i haven't killed anyone at work yet and we're not even getting anywhere.

i think cosmonaut is so much cooler sounding than astronaut. but then astro boy sounds better than cosmo boy. cosmo boy just sounds like a sleazy cover model holding a frou-frou cocktail.

2002-02-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

go michelle!!!! i can't even tell you how exciting it is to be watching this incredible and inspiring asian-american woman olympic athlete. she's poised yet playful, graceful and strong, independent and self-confident. and i'm ultra psyched for all the young asian american girls who can view her as a role model or at least know that they too may kick ass one day in whatever they choose to pursue. when i was growing up there were no cool asian american women out there in the public eye, well there was connie chung, who don't get me wrong, was pretty cool for the time but she's no michelle. plus michelle gets extra bonus marks because she's dating a hoser.

2002-02-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

to all those who keep asking me "so, what's jim up to these days?" here is your answer. now quit asking already.

2002-02-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

wow, bank of america customer service are not folks, they are jerks! when i called them to cancel the guy said "oh, well you also have a chequeing account with us too so you should be getting some pretty good deals." so jokingly i replied "damn straight, i should be getting GREAT deals from you guys. i have a savings account with you too!" and he replied with "well, i'd hate to see your monthly service fees go up if you cancel this credit card now." what a dick. i almost asked him if he was threatening me. instead i said "hm, well i doubt it. and now i'm even more sure that i want to cancel it."

2002-02-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

ack. i am such a sucker for freebies. this weekend i got a new credit card from visa in the mail that gives me airmiles. so i decided that i should cut up 2 of my old credit cards and just go with the new one. but those wiley customer service folks (and yes, they be folks) at discover saw me coming and offered to send me a $200 coupon toward a flight good on all major airlines if i stayed with them. sigh. okay, okay, twist my arm. i felt so cheap, i mean i didn't even put up any resistence. so yes i can be bought, for a worthless coupon. because i'm sure it comes with a million fine print restrictions that means i'll only be able to use it to fly to gütersloh in the last week of february. i'm on the line right now with my other credit card provider and we'll see if they can up the ante a bit.

2002-02-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

a couple weekends ago when my mom and i were driving back to LA from santa barbara i spotted an old souped up chevy nova screaming along the 101. when he passed me (to the right of course, no one in this state knows how to drive safely) he sort of hoovered for a bit just in front of my car so i managed to get a good look at him. on the back of his window was one of those angry calvin peeing stickers only this one wasn't pissing on a Ford or a Chevy logo but on these 2 words: Rice Rockets. by far the funniest use of the peeing calvin i've seen so far. if you don't know what rice rockets are you should a) visit east LA after midnight or b) watch the fast and the furious or c) watch the fast and the furious in east LA after midnight. anyway, i asked my mom to take a picture of this sticker so i could send it to jay and right when she took the picture the guy looked in his rearview mirror, saw the camera and took off like a shot. i mean he must have been doing 90, 95 miles an hour to get away from us. !!! my mom said "hm. maybe he thinks we're undercover cops." to which i replied "yeah, 2 smallish asian ladies in a beat up volvo, i'm sure that's just what he thought." too funny.

2002-02-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

i wonder if canadian hockey players call it body chequeing, eh?

there's nothing better than hoser spelling. oh canada!

2002-02-14T14:50:00.000-08:00

happy valentine's day. i hope cupid hits you square in the bee-hind. there have been some years when february 14th only conjured up images of the st. valentine's day massacre. this year it's a bit different, thanks to 8 months of concerted effort, increased maturity and a lot of luck. well whatever your state of mind today i hope at the very least you are reminded that there's some lovin' out there with your name on it. i guarantee it or i'll give your money back, no questions asked.

2002-02-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

speaking of bunnies, this site has some way cute pixel bunnies. i don't quite know how i feel about pixel art but it's sorta like movie theatre popcorn. i consume too much too quickly but then 1 hour later i can gorge all over again.

here are some nice pixel art sites:

unlovely.com
habbohotel
goldenshower
biscuit theater
icontown (jay made me a hen coop for christmas one year, it's really cute and lives just kitty korner from the chinese pagoda and yes, that was intentional though if there had been a windmill too i think he would have had a harder time choosing the location)

2002-02-13T18:32:00.000-08:00

i live in santa monica and i have funny neighbours. i don't think it has anything to do with where i live, since i've always had funny neighbours wherever i've hung my hat but last night when i walked the MonkeyDog i got to thinking about this particular cast of characters. it's sort of a funny perspective to have on people too, because you only see them driving their kids to school, or dragging their tired butts home after work, or picking up dog poop (or as the case may be, pretending it wasn't their dog and not picking up dog poop). so you only get these teensy snapshots of their existence and they end up forming these bizarre little portraits.

first there's the family that lives kitty korner from me. they probably have one of the biggest single-family houses in my neighbourhood if you don't count north of montana. which frankly you shouldn't, because it's a whole different caste up there. anyway, it's this big, 2 story white house, sort of in that california-fied psuedo italian style and it seems to be attached to a few apartments behind it. i think the family owns the whole building and rents out the rest to tenants but i'm not sure. the poppa neighbour drives a weird white van thingy which is in pretty good condition and always wears loose khaki shorts, untucked white t-shirt and birkenstocks no matter what the weather. the momma neighbour drives a white mercedes, C-class i think and is of the manicured, coiffed, casual capri pants and t-shirt ilk. if you have been to santa monica or palm beach you know the type. poppa and momma have 2 sons, one is fifteenish and the other is elevenish, they tend to travel via skateboard or get chauffered in the benz and they both dress exactly the same in baggy jeans, skate shoes, hooded sweatshirts with the hood up and black backpacks and have the same surly, slouched, un-enthused shuffle. in fact when you see them together on the rare occasion it makes you think of cloning.

the first time i really noticed this family was right after i moved here and i had parked my car on the street outside their house. i got into my car, started it, put it in reverse and looked in my rearview mirror only to see a small white bunny rabbit hop over from the right, down off the kerb and under my car. i turned off my car and kept watching to see if it would hop back out but instead i saw another small white bunny rabbit hop over from the same place and it joined the the first one under my car. so i got out of my car at this point to see if maybe there might be a whole pack of bunnies coming, you know, who knows maybe i had inadvertently parked on the bunny trail. this is when i met the momma neighbour. she came over and identified the bunnies as "buttercup" and "thumper" and then i helped her shoo them out from under my car and back into her backyard. that has pretty much been my only interaction with anyone from that house but over the next several months the bunnies and i became well acquainted. the MonkeyDog and i would walk by their yard twice a day and i'd arrange it so we'd pass them twice, once going and once coming back. the bunny sightings were the best part of the walk. and they were very comical bunnies too, one day i saw one of them sitting in an empty planter, another day one of them was sitting in the low branches of a rosebush, another day one of them was resting inside of a fallen palm frond. but they were always alone those poor bunnies. i think the momma neighbour had bought them in hopes that her two sons would take an interest but i never saw anyone in the yard ever except just to pass through it. i began to plot with the bunnies about their Jailbreak from their lonely yard. the MonkeyDog told them she would be happy to share her kennel with them at our house. i was hopeful that one day the bunnies would lead happier, love-filled lives away from the family that had plopped them into their well-manicured yard and forgotten they even existed. then one day the bunnies just weren't there. everyone in the neighbourhood was abuzz with conjecture about what had happened to them, especially the people who had dogs and who also liked to see the bunnies on their daily walks. in the end it turns out the bunnies were eaten by coyotes in the middle of the night. a tragic end for those cute little bunnies. but they made my life a bit better while they were around, so i am not sorry that they were there.

since then i've had very little to do with that house. sometimes i see poppa neighbour parking his van, or leaving in his van for parts unknown. i heard a rumour that he directed a movie once and hasn't worked since. there are lots and lots of people like that where i live and it's not as glamourous as you might think. i see the momma neighbour lots of mornings driving her sons to school. she always drives them separately, and their schools can't be far because i often see her leave and return while the MonkeyDog and i are still ambling around the block. sometimes she seems mad at them. they always seem mad at her or at least semi-disgusted with her but maybe it's non-specific teen angst. and once daniel and i got back from a hike and parked outside my house and watched the neighbour sons and one of their little friends practicing their skateboarding tricks on the kerb and on a piece of pipe. they were so bad and kept having these scary-awesome wipeouts, sometimes even when they weren't moving at all suddenly legs and arms would flail and they'd go down on their asses. we were riveted by this scene and sat in the car for at least 20 minutes just staring and emitting some oohs, aaahs and ouches. it was even better than teevee. these are my neighbours.

2002-02-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

if lego made little speed skater people, this is what they'd look like.