Personal Blog

Lost Blanket

13 Comments

This morning when I got out of my car, I saw a crumpled up little pink blanket in the road.  I picked it up and shook out the dirt and debris it had collected, noting the torn satin edges and little embroidered bear on the front.  Now, it could have been nothing.  It could have been something someone snagged from Goodwill to pad some furniture they moved.  Or maybe it did belong to a baby and fell from a car while he was being buckled in, and the baby was too young to care or even notice.

But in my mind, all I could think about when I was little and forced my Dad to drive 2 hours back to the lake after our vacation because I had discovered, to my horror, that I had left Doggy behind.  And I’m pretty sure I cried desperately non-stop until I had Doggy back in my arms (thank you, Dad!)

So, this blanket…I was unsure of the best course of action, so I just folded it up and left it on the back of my car, so that it would be in easy view and out of the road.  When I left work, the blanket was gone.  Sure, anyone could have just strolled up and taken it, but in my mind I like to believe I saved a panicky parent from facing a child with the possibility that Blankie was perma-lost.

I hope it found its way home!

Personal Blog

Lemon pork stir fry

Stir fry is my go-to default meal,so I don’t usually share recipes since they’re usually just small variants of my standard stir fry.  Tonight, though, my experiments led to a different enough path that I think it warrants recording.  The lemony flavor is quite strong.

Ingredients

  • 4 thin boneless pork chops
  • 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
  • 1 bell pepper, chopped
  • 1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 3-4 fresh sage leaves, chopped
  • 1 head of baby bok choy, chopped
  • soba noodles prepared according to package instructions (I normally make rice or pure vegetable stir fries, but tonight I was feeling noodley.  Feel free to use rice if you prefer it)

For marinade:

  • soy sauce
  • olive oil
  • rice vinegar
  • a dash of sesame oil
  • juice from one lemon
  • (1 tsp corn starch and 2 tsps water for thickening into sauce)
  1. Mix soy sauce, olive oil, rice vinegar into a shallow dish (I didn’t measure, sorry guys, do your best guess).  Add sesame oil and lemon juice and stir
  2. Cut pork chops into strips and place in marinade.  Marinate for an hour or so
  3. Heat some olive oil in a wok and brown the strips of pork on all sides.  Set pork aside and drain out some of the juices in the wok, leaving just enough to stir fry the vegetables
  4. Add all vegetables and stir fry for a few minutes
  5. Add the pork and stir
  6. in the reserved marinade, add corn starch and water and stir briskly.  Add to the wok and bring to a boil until sauce starts to thicken
  7. Add noodles, toss, and serve!
Personal Blog

Ants and Aphids

23 Comments

There’s a short wall behind my apartment complex where Mr. Davis likes to perch, and there’s often a line of ants coming and going up and over it that I like to watch.  Today, as I watched the ant line disappear under some ivy, something caught my eye.  It was several ants tending diligently to a flock of aphids!

Now, I’d known before about the relationship between ants and aphids, and seen it before on nature shows, but somehow stumbling upon it in my back yard made the phenomenon 100% more awesome.  I watched with wonder as the ants harvested honeydew from their aphid herd in wee little droplets.  Nearby, a large group of baby aphids was clustered on an ivy stem under the shelter of a leaf.  At the base of the stem, two ants were just hanging out, which was weird to see as one tends to encounter ants on the go.  Guard duty, I suppose.

Meanwhile, during my observation, Mr. Davis had hopped down and found where the line of ants picked up through the grass.  He was lapping them up by the tongueful.

Personal Blog

Petting a New Cat–A Guide for Cat Noobs

Mr. Davis is quite popular with the neighbors when we go out on our walks, and when people come to pet him I can always tell right away if that person is experienced or not in dealing with cats.

For my friends who are inexperienced with cats but still would like to pet them, here are some tips for cat-petting to make a better experience when meeting and greeting a new cat for the first time.

1. When you meet a new cat, let him sniff your hand before you pet him.  Stick your finger out towards his nose, stopping a few inches away, or offer your hand palm-up for him to investigate (coming in palm-down can seem threatening to some cats.  Dogs, too, for that matter)

2. Let him finish sniffing!  This is often where I see people mess up.  I feel like the “let a new animal sniff you” rule is pretty commonly understood, but lots of times a person will offer their hand, then after one sniff immediately go in for the pet.  Usually the cat is still trying to sniff, and cranes and arcs his head accordingly so the person can’t reach to pet.  It can be very awkward.

Just be patient.  The sniffy investigation can take several seconds, even longer for wary cats.  Keep holding your hand still and wait for the signal.

Cat has initiated sniffing. Let him finish! Be patient!

IMG_5726

Not finished yet!!
IMG_5733

3.  After a thorough sniff, the cat will generally give a clear signal on how to proceed.  If the cat backs away or does not move towards you, he doesn’t want to be petted.  Don’t press the issue, maybe next time.

Cat is not interested, do not proceed with pet.

IMG_5727

Other times he will initiate the pet, which is very easy to follow up.  He may rub his face against your outstretched hand or finger, which which case, just scratch that cheek or under the chin.  Just make scratching motions with your hand and hold it in place, and the cat will apply the appropriate pressure that he wants by how forcefully he pushes his face into your hand.

He also may move towards you and turn his side towards you, in which case this is a good signal to stroke his back.  It may be helpful for inexperienced cat petters to keep the strokes short across the shoulders or at the base of the back near the tail.  Like the cheek rub, most of the time the cat will lean into your hand at the part that he wants to be petted, just pay attention.

4.  On petting the head: I find that most inexperienced cat-petters want to pat the cat on the top of the head, like you do with dogs.  This can be fine, but I recommend avoiding going in to pet the head straight in front of the cat.  Having your arm looming right over the cat’s face and obscuring his vision can put him on the defensive.  Instead, go in from the side of the cat’s head, or from behind, over the back.

When petting the top of the head, avoid going straight in over the face like this
IMG_5728

Go in from the side, like so
IMG_5731IMG_5729

5.  Look for the signal to stop petting.  Mostly this is just when the cat moves away from you, but sometimes a cat can be mischievous and get riled up by prolonged affection, leading him to view your hand as a play toy.  Watch for a vigorously swishing tail, or for the cat to start sharply turning his head towards your hand, or for his eyes to get really big.  Those are generally signs to stop petting.

That’s all for now!  I hope this guide is helpful.  I feel like a lot of these can apply to meeting new dogs as well, but I am most familiar with cats so I’ll stick to that.  Good luck!

Personal Blog

Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Icing

Just a super quick recipe post…yesterday I baked a chocolate cake for kicks, and wanted to figure out how I could use up some leftover chocolate chips and marshmallows.  I couldn’t find an icing recipe that I had all the ingredients for, but I used them for reference and made this cake frosting that turned out wonderfully!

Unfortunately it was sort of “throw a bit of this and a bit of that” into a saucepan, so most of these measurements are shifty.

Ingredients

  • 2 TBs butter
  • 1/4 – 1/2 cup of chocolate chips (I had like 1/4 of a bag leftover)
  • Some water
  • Some vanilla (maybe 1/2 teaspoon)
  • 1 TBs of sugar or more (I literally grabbed several pinches of it)
  • Handful of mini marshmallows, maybe 1 cup

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan.  stir in chocolate chips and keep stirring over medium low heat until they are melted.  Add some water if needed to keep from scorching.

2. Stir in vanilla and sugar.

3. Stir in marshmallows and keep stirring until they are melted.  Taste for if you need more sugar (but don’t burn your tongue).

4. Remove from heat and continue stirring until mixture thickens slightly as it cools.  Frost cake immediately!  (it gets pretty stiff when it cools completely)

Edit: I should add: this made enough frosting to cover a 1 layer 8 inch round cake.

Personal Blog

Steamed Greens

If you know me well, then you know I struggle to eat vegetables.  None is so difficult to force myself to consume than the greens, though.  This is because greens are disgusting, clearly, but I feel I must make some effort to be healthy.

I can disguise them pretty well in a stir fry, but sometimes I run out of other vegetables to include.  After much experimenting, I have FINALLY figured out a form in which I will actually enjoy them:

Ingredients

  • Olive oil
  • Clove of garlic, chopped
  • Greens (this can be spinach, chard, collards, cabbage, kale – whatever) chopped into wide strips
  • Salt
  • Apple cider vinegar (OR rice vinegar and soy sauce, but more vinegar)

Directions

  1. Heat the oil in a wok or skillet and saute the garlic for a bit
  2. Add the greens and toss until it starts to wilt slightly
  3. Add a sprinkle of salt and a bit of vinegar (I usually use a capful so I’m not sure how much this is.  Maybe 2 teaspoons?) and toss the greens.
  4. Cover the wok and let the greens steam for a few minutes
  5. Remove from wok and serve.
Personal Blog

Books!

These posts are really more for my own reference than anything, but I figure it’s good to share them all the same.  Here’s a bunch of books that I’ve chewed through recently.

East of Eden – is this my first Steinbeck ?  It might be!  I’m glad I read it now, though, since I’ve lived in California a bit and have a much better mental context for the setting.  It was exciting when Nick and I took the train to San Francisco and passed Salinas.  The character of Cathy Ames was so horrifying, though, that I almost ended the book prematurely.  I stuck it through!

The Snow Fox – sometimes when I don’t have any ideas of the next book I should read, I wander the aisles of the library and randomly pluck out titles, then try the first one that has a blurb of interest to me.  This book was a love story between a samurai and a poet in medieval Japan, and had wonderful imagery.  They did some playing around with time jumps, though, so occasionally I wasn’t sure when I was reading, but the story was nice, if not somewhat melancholy.

Cat’s Cradle – I usually have a really hard time with Vonnegut, but I really enjoyed this one.  The whole Bokononism thing was really fun, and a clever lens through which to interpret the world

Trickster Makes this World – I was actually kind of disappointed by this book.  I am really interested in trickster stories and was hoping to learn more about their origins and their relations to each other across cultures.  There was some of that, but he would get so swirling and deep and metaphysical about the interpretations of just a few key trickster stories that they felt worn out and uninteresting by the end of it.  Pretty “meh,” and I probably should have just stuck to reading actual trickster tales.

To Kill a Mockingbird – another classic story that I realize I’d never read.  This book is wonderful, but it’s also pretty depressing to see that many of the uglier aspects of how human beings treat each other still go on today.  Sigh

Neverwhere – I generally enjoy Neil Gaiman but just had never gotten around to reading this one.  It was awesome.  I liked it.

Magic Street – I always think I’ve read more Orson Scott Card than I actually have.  I always think I’ve read Ender’s Game when it was really The Worthing Saga that I read.  Anyway.  I love fantasy books that spin on the traditional Tolkein-inspired notions of fantasty, and this story is a prime example.  Highly recommended!

As always, if you have a good read to suggest, please do so!

Personal Blog

February Free Event

27 Comments

This month’s free event was a Nature Photography Workshop at Franklin Canyon, which is a little nature preserve snugged away in the middle of Beverly Hills that I had no idea existed.  The local canyon parks have various hikes and workshops every month, and they always catch my eye as I scan EyeSpyLA for free events. 

It was a pretty casual arrangement.  Basically one of the park’s volunteer naturalists led the group on a trail and gave tips here and there.  She also worked with people individually to help them learn how to use their cameras.  I was able to finally get some guidance on taking distant shots and landscapes to some success, but man I’m starting to crave a zoom lens!

Anyway, it was super fun and I’m really glad I went.  Here are the results from the day:

https://picasaweb.google.com/102954115822334585421/FranklinCanyon2012

With a few favorites:

Anyone recognize this place?

Looking ahead to March, I most definitely want to return to the Annual Festival of the Kite.  Still, I’ll keep an eye out for any other interesting events that show up.

Personal Blog

January Free Thing Recap

I did two free events in LA in January, and both were pretty neat.  The first was a free pipe organ concert by Hector Olivera.  Unlike many other musical concerts, for a pipe organ concert you have to go to where the pipe organ is, and seeing as pipe organs are generally in churches in the choir loft and the pews face the opposite direction, there was that awkwardness of sitting facing away from the performer.  The first half was just stuff on the pipe organ and it was super cool.  For the second half, he performed on his symphonic touring organ, which is the kind that has synthesizers for all the other instruments in the symphony.  While technically impressive to watch him hammer out all the instrument parts himself, unfortunately symphonic organs just don’t sound very good.  It’s like listening to a midi keyboard.  Nevertheless, the performance was good, and free, and they had homemade baked goods as refreshments, score!

The second event was a workshop given by graffiti artist, Galo “MAKE ONE” Canote.  It’s part of  a program by the Craft and Folk Art Museum called “Folk Art Everywhere,” which has various workshops held in different cultural centers all throughout LA.  He gave us a lecture about his work and LA street culture, then had a workshop on very basic lettering, showing us the most basic way to deform letters without losing their inherent structure, and we all practiced lettering our names with markers on papers.  Basically it was “How to make a locker sign.” It was cool, though, and I learned some things for sure.  As a bonus, everyone who came was given free passes for the Craft and Folk Art Museum. 

February Free Events that look promising:

  • Nature photography workshop at Franklin Canyon
  • Astronomy walk at the observatory
  • Staged reading of Sophocles’ Ajax

We’ll see what other events pop up

Game Designer