I made a batch of "Pistachio and Rosewater Cupcakes" (sans frosting) today, but forgot to add in the pistachios. They taste great anyway.

Pink magnolias abloom:



Me back in January, suited up for using the angle grinder:


A sunrise last month:



Doglets:

In the airport, leaving, Qiao's hat almost got left behind. But Forestfen valiantly sent it through the security checkpoint after us.

I already mentioned the beverages in the plane and the alarming car. (Dasani sparkling lime, like unsweet Sprite).

I had planned to have my name added to the rental car contract as an additional driver, but the person at the counter in Boston said it wasn't necessary; that we were "domestic partners" even though not married, as we live at the same address.

First stop after leaving the airport: My Thai Vegan Cafe for dinner. Google Maps told us to take an exit that didn't exist as we were driving through the tunnel from the airport. Then it directed us to drive all the way across town, and would have had us turn around and drive back the same way. I decided not. We eventually got to the right place. The staircase up to the restaurant, which reviews had described as being so sketchy, turned out to be a perfectly fine staircase. Though admittedly not so great for someone with a bad foot and knee.

The ambiance in the restaurant was nice (not fancy, but pleasant enough), with large windows looking out on downtown Boston after dark. The food was delicious. Appetizers: Tofu Cigars (crisp! fried! tasty!) and mango salad (tangy! zesty! fresh!). For an entree I had a creamy tofu & mock meat curry served over avocado. They had vegan bubble tea and chocolate layer cake too. The cake was to-go, and oh was it good the next day. So good, I'm still thinking about it.

Then we drove to our hotel (smelling petunias before seeing them), checked in, and slept. At home, we sleep with fans on. Qiao likes the wind. We both like that it drowns out other noise. On the trip, I used the Simple Noise App on my phone along with a small portable speaker. In brown noise oscillating mode, it sounds ocean-like. The speaker takes 2 AA batteries, and we used it 7 nights for at least 8 hours each night. The batteries surprisingly never died.

In spite of getting good sleep each night, my eyesight didn't seem to improve any during the whole week.

The next day, we scouted out the concert venue early in the day (saw a giant cruise ship) and returned to the hotel for lunch. I would have liked to walk around downtown a bit, but Qiao's foot (or hip?) was acting up badly. Later we went to the concert. Tweety Bird got to watch the concert too, tucked into Qiao's shirt pocket.

On Monday we drove to my dad's place and spent the rest of the week there, taking it easy. My dad puts the rest of us to shame, the way he's exercising and staying in shape. My step-mom had tools for making hand-made cards, and showed me how to use them. She also showed me how to play Word Jewels. I played a bit of pool. Walked around the circle a few times. Went to a Lebanese restaurant. Listened to a recording of my grandma that I hadn't heard before.

On a grocery trip, I came across some Maya Kaimal ketchup, so I promptly got 2 bottles to take home with us. To avoid a nasty mess should the bottles break, I carefully wrapped them in clear bubble wrap, and put each in its own ziplock bag. Then I further wrapped them in clothing when packing my suitcase.

On the trip back home, I was worried we'd miss our connection in DC as the layover was only 40 minutes, and we had to switch terminals via one of those sandcrawler buses. But we made it to our gate just as the plane was starting to board - luckily about ten minutes later than scheduled.

We had a night flight to Columbia. I had forgotten how pretty towns and cities look from up above, lit up at night.

On one of the flights, there was an intercom announcement before landing, "If you leave behind any items on the plane, you can check for them tomorrow on eBay."

At home, unpacking my suitcase, I found a notice that it had been searched by the TSA. That wasn't a big surprise - I had suspected the carefully wrapped bottles in my suitcase would look suspicious through a scanner. Even though the ketchup labels were visible through the bubble wrap, they had sliced apart the cellophane tape I had used to keep the bubble wrap in place.

( Photos... )

I'm going to wear this to work tomorrow... umm, today, actually.

This is what I was wearing for Halloween. The shirt is the one I found at the thrift store. It looks good with red hair as well as blue. The wig was scratchy and warm and the hairs kept getting in my face, but it looked sweet.

More pix later, possibly.

Today was the first day since I started growing my bangs out that my hair felt comfortable enough not to have to pin it back out of my face. In other words, it wasn't scratching my eyeballs or tickling my nose.

It sure is nice to be able to pull shirts over my head again, without it messing up the pins in my hair. And it looks much better without the pins.



.

I can see the sun as it rises from the yellow room window.

(The sun below the horizon is a window reflection.)
It is surprising how fast the sun rises - on the day I took the above photo, the sun was only halfway over the horizon when I first looked out the window, and that is what I wanted to capture. But in the minute or so that it took me to get my camera from the other room, it had already risen all the way over the horizon, as can be seen in the photo.

I will take a photo every week or so until the solstice, so I can see how the sun moves along the horizon, and what the southernmost sunrise point is... Maybe I'll try to figure out where it should rise on the solstice, based on this data, and then see if I'm right or not.

Isn't this a great t-shirt on me?



^_^

I wore a dress today. Ain't that something?



And don't it look coolishly gothy / matrixy? But it's durn hard to walk and ascend stairs in.