I have sat around at home.
I haven’t done the dishes.
I haven’t talked much.
I only cook what I want, when I want.
I…really need to shower.

Good God it’s lonely.

So he’ll be back today and I’m sure he’ll have many fun stories to tell (and some that can probably never be told). And I’ll miss my weekend of bachelorettedom. But there will be another time. Perhaps next time I’ll even go do something productive.

So to each one of you reading this, I wish you an other, a someone:

Someone who inspires you every day.
Someone you wake up with each morning.
Someone you can wake up before each morning.
Someone you can wake up when they’re late for work.
Someone who gives good hugs.
Someone who is kind to you.
Someone who makes cool stuff.
Someone who is always excited to tell you about the cool stuff he/she is making.
Someone whom you can talk to.
Someone with whom you can be sad.
Someone with whom you can be what nobody else knows you are.

2.) That sometimes, the exception becomes the reality and that it can be devastating.

3.) That I have become old and cranky, in the best ‘don’t fuck with me’ way, especially in dealing with companies. Like recently, I bought one of those deal vouchers from LivingSocial Vancouver for house cleaning. Turns out, the company offering the deal, Qualico Cleaning Services, is a total phishing scam. Nobody showed up for the appointment, nobody responded to my email asking what happened, their “Booking Line” is a FULL voicemail message box (not surprising). Getting a refund from LivingSocial, but really! As an established company with a decent reputation, I’m really disappointed that LivingSocial did not properly vet this company before offering a deal on it, which over 1000 people bought. I’m not going to be the only one that’s going to be pissed about this.

4.) I dreamt about running with Terry Fox.

The four items above don’t actually have anything to do with each other. It’s early in the morning, I’m tired and didn’t sleep well, and need to clear my mind before getting on with my day.

The same thing now has been happening with ROGERS. They call from +1 (855) 465-4015.

When you call the number back, you get a recorded message from ZEDD SOLUTIONS, a telemarketing company that calls on behalf of Rogers.

To remove your number from their call list, you have to call (647) 727-1645, according to the recorded message.

Really? I’m not going to call long distance just so they stop calling me.

Anyway, hope this helps those out there who are looking for the solution to their mystery calls!

So after a bad spat of exertion headaches and migraines (6 of 9 days ruined!), I went to go see my doctor about it. She looked and sounded SO alarmed, brought out big scary words like STROKE, and BLOOD CLOTS. So I got alarmed, and promptly started crying. 

Anyway, after some kleenex and a long discussion about what to do, stuff like I’m not getting an IUD instead of using the Nuvaring because I want kids in the near future; using Nuvaring back to back might help hormone fluctuations; Yes I understand the estrogen might be making things worse, but my PMS migraines were so  bad before I went on Nuvaring anyway I don’t think it’s making it worse or better, she poked around her computer a little bit, and we decided to try a couple of new medications – one she had prescribed me in February, with the instruction to give it a try if my headaches got to the frequency of 1/week. I never filled that prescription, but thought that now would be an appropriate time to give it a try.

So I’ve been on this new medication, Propranolol, for about a week now. It’s supposed to help prevent migraines. I think it’s too soon to say whether or not it’s working yet, but I have noticed some side effects.

I’m on one 10mg pill per day. I’ve been taking it in the morning with breakfast, mostly. The warnings are that it might make you a little bit dizzy and tired, which I have been finding to be true. For rowing, perhaps due to a combination of having just recovered from a cold, followed by a bad 2 weeks of headaches, the drug, and horrid sleep etc, my power has just been disappearing. My latest 6k and 2k test results were embarrasing. So embarassing.

The other major side effect seems to be that I get major cold sweats when exercising. My face and chest will just LEAK water. I’m usually a sweater, but not this much, and it’s usually warm! And it seems to be less salty than usual as well. My body’s warm, but my skin goes cold. So cold. Even in a cardio room at the gym that I’m sure is more on the warm side than not. The cold sweat and the slight dizziness I’m pretty sure are side effects. The tiredness and groggy brain-ness…well, that could just be me in general. 

So feeling a little bit foggy is annoying, especially when you’re trying to interact with people. Also, feeling weak and a little bit dizzy is annoying for morning rowing practices. So last night I tried taking the Propranolol with dinner, thinking that I can handle being groggy before bed. Unfortunately, it just caused my skin to go cold before I went to sleep (different feeling than just being cold and needing more blankets), and I woke up a few times during the night with my skin and sheets cold and soaked with cold sweat. 

I mean, I have been having trouble this year with night sweats, but it’s usually more GROSS, and not COLD. 

Man, I really gotta get this shit figured out. Perhaps I can try taking it with LUNCH tomorrow? 

Happily, the vertigo/dizziness seem to have decreased in the past few days, so maybe in time the rest of the side effects will go away as well. 

The other medication I’m trying is Indomethacin 25mg before intense exercise – it’s supposed to prevent exertion headaches. Have only used it twice so far – Steve was on Indomethacin for a long time for his arthritis and it ended up giving him some kind of ulcer, which was a real pain to fix, so that one I will use sparingly and with caution.

How can I use this crumpled bit of tin? Oh hey! I can do _______ with it – that’s neat!

You need to do _________ ? Well, I can help you do ____ and _____ and ______ … not perfect, but sort of!

Yes I have a _________ … do you need it?

But it’s not perfect. There’s only so much I’ve acquired, only so much I can do with what I have. I try to do as much as I can, but the resources are asked to do more than they’re supposed to know how. Overclocked. Off-label. Which is pretty cool. But not perfect.

So when I make mistakes, forget, screw up, disappoint, forget…

Forgive me.

Okay.

Wow!

Good stuff!

So now my favourite version of Ochazuke is this (these ingredients just happened to be in my fridge this morning…they’re not authentically Japanese or anything like that…but it looks like people on the interwebs make Chazuke with pretty much any kind of topping – the common thing being that it’s tea poured over rice):

Steamed rice (can be leftover)
Brewed green tea (or oolong)
Diced cucumber
Bocconcini
Furikake
Genmaicha (dry)
Salt

1.) Steep tea.
2.) Heat up a bowl of leftover rice in microwave (and if you’re using cheese, add it to the rice so it gets all melty)
3.) Dice cucumber
4.) Add salt and cucmber to rice in bowl
5.) Pour tea over the rice
6.) Top the island of rice with furikake and genmaicha
7.) EAT!

If you manage to get the furikake and genmaicha to sit on top of the island of rice in the middle, they’ll stay nice and crispy until you decide to eat it. That genmaicha is really a nice addition! It’s got such a wonderful toasted rice flavour, and the tea leaves are crispy as well, so it makes a really nice topping.

This is actually so much better and cleaner tasting than the little packets of ochazuke topping that you just add to rice and pour boiling water over – those leave me all weird and MSG’d out.

No pictures with this post – you’ve got to make it yourself to try it out!

Beverly reads friend’s post on Facebook, quoting Eckhart Tolle.

How do you pronounce Eckhart Tolle anyway?

Eckhart…is that the same as Aaron Eckhart?

Bet he was a first kid. People like to name their first child starting with A.

Why do people always name their children starting with such common letters?

What about Q. What words start with Q?

Quantum. Hah! I could name a child QUANTUM!

Hmm, Quantum what Hannah?

How about Quantum Object Hannah?

Random Frequent Flyer Dent.

I wish I could. But how would my poor little Chinese grandmother deal with a great grandchild named Quantum Object?

It would sound like “Kontomohdzeh Hehnnah”

And what if it never lived up to its name?

Quasi.

Perhaps I could call it Quasi Quantum Object Hannah.

That’s awesome!

…

My husband would never go for it.

…

Maybe I should just get a cat.

Yes, one day, I will get a cat, and name it Quasi Quantum Object Hannah.

Perhaps for Christmas someone can just get me a box and tell me there’s a cat inside!

Yes, that will do nicely.

Of course, the video of Steve Job’s speech at a Stanford commencement in 2005 was everywhere today, and as I had forgotten what he said, I watched it again just now. It hit me. Apparently it had also hit me when I had first watched it some time ago, because I can see how it has changed me since then:

I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.

This past week, a good friend and I visited Raw Canvas in Yaletown to chat and paint. Twice. On Monday September 26th, and a week later, Monday October 3rd. Not knowing why, I felt like I needed to paint “Do What You Love, Love What You Do.”

Do What You Love, Love What You Do.

I still don’t know why.

But I know that these words and this painting resonated in my heart before, during, and after its painting.

Rest in peace, Steve. You’ve changed the world in this life, and you’ve changed me.

—–

On a sillier note, today, I really identify with Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s Happy Vertical People Transporters with Defocused Temporal Perception… ie. the ability to see dimly (very dimly) into the future. When people around me get close to dying, I get very tired and heavy. I have to sleep. I hit the bed mid-day, have to sleep for a long time, and usually receive sad news soon after I wake up. Maybe it’s because I happen to take mid-day naps more than the average person, but really, it’s starting to get to be a trend. I know, correlation, not causation. But it’s happened about 4 times this year already.

Ingredients:
pasta (I used rigatoni)
sesame oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 package of Green Cuisine Tempeh Burgers, diced
1 tomato, diced
1/2 apple, diced (I used a Honeycrisp)
cumin powder
coriander powder
salt
sriracha hot sauce
1/2 can of coconut cream (or coconut milk)

Directions:

1. Boil pasta
2. Sauté onion and garlic in sesame oil
3. Continue sauteing and at your leisure, add tempeh, tomato, apple, cumin, coriander, salt, sriracha (I quickly squirt one circle of the pan – not too spicy). I added one ingredient at a time, while chopping the next ingredient.
4. Saute some more
5. Add 1/2 can of coconut cream/milk (stir up the can first so the liquid mixes with the cream on top)
6. Saute some more at slightly higher than medium heat until coconut milk reduces and you’re left with a sauce-like texture
7. serve over pasta!

How much of things like coriander and cumin, you ask? Well, with the powdered stuff, it’s not very strong (it’s been sitting in my pantry for a couple of years) so like maybe a teaspoon of both (or more?)? I honestly just shake it out of the bag until it seems like enough. It’s hard to go overboard – the flavour ends up pretty mellow when it mixes in with the coconut milk.

It’s like learning that in English, the vowels in “bit” and “beat” will produce a difference in meaning, but that saying those words with higher pitch, or longer vowel duration won’t change the meaning. The brain takes all that sort of variation into account and slots them into the right categories and spits out something you understand. Cool.

Handwriting is the same way! I mean, if you look at the handwriting of 10 adults in the same language, they’ll all write with different styles – printing, cursive, spacing, speed, pressure, messiness, slanted, large bubbles, connected letters, etc. But almost always we can decipher the content behind the symbols, and this is one aspect that is missing from online language learning.

So here I am, developing my own version of Greek handwriting, with no idea if it’s actually within the boundaries of acceptable letter structure variation, such that it would be legible and not laughable to a native speaker of Greek.

Oh well.