Author: cdwan

My pumpkins are starting to scare me. Three days out of the soil, they needed to be transplanted, because they were badly root-bound. What have I wrought? How much plant is needed to sustain a 300lb pumpkin? Where, oh where will I plant them? In other news, the plant-shelf has moved outside to a shady spot to give the seedlings a chance to harden to sun and wind before being planted in the dirt.

I’m getting my shots today. I listed my itinerary to the nice person on the phone at the travelers clinic, and she said “you should just come in.” Bah. I can’t wait.

Oh yeah! And I got my passport back with the India “B” class visa! It’s funky looking – all colorful and stuff. I’m not clear on why they put it at some random page in the back of the passport, rather than on (say) the “next available” page…but still. One down, one to go. Gee, I still need to write my talks for those training sessions too. Hrm. Maybe I should stop journalling and get to work.

Ninja monkey gallery. Especially for simianpower.

I started learning the chucks today at karate. Nun-chucks, that is.

I can’t even describe the three-year-old like excitement that I feel about this.

Chucka-chucka-nun-chucka-chucka.

In totally unrelated news, I have these odd, oblong bruises all over my shoulders, back, and hips.

I have the first sunburn of the year.

More gardening. Have installed a total of 10 + 15 = 25 bags of cedar mulch, and purchased 15 more bags. That should damn well do it for the cedar mulch, I’m thinking. On the other hand, the yard is starting to look pretty sweet. The grass is growing, the flower beds are settled, etc. I went all obsessive compulsive on a couple of flower beds, and I may have destroyed the crab grass infestation. Maybe. That crap never dies. It’s got its own compost pile, on pavement, where I’m going to burn it on a day when the wind is blowing away from my house.

Pruned several trees, which is sort of gratifying. You decide what you want the tree to look like, and then hope you get lucky by taking off the correct limbs. I’m going for trees that don’t look like it would be really hard to mow underneath them. My goal for spiders in the hair while steering a running lawn mower this year is zero. Also, removed the 10″ rusty pipe that the previous owner had pounded into the ground next to one of my dogwoods. I think he had tied the tree to this pipe, hoping that it would help somehow. Instead, the tree was getting sicker and sicker. I used my kung-fu grip to pull the pipe out of the ground. Seriously.

My BFM (Big Melons) have sprouted! These things are huge even right out of the dirt! A standard watermelon seedling comes forth with baby leaves about 1/8″ by 1/4″. The pumpkin burst forth from the soil with leaves 1″ x 1.5″. Amazing.

Jen’s mom was in town, which was cool. They started a quilt together.

1) In a heavy saucepan, combine 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces, 2 tbsp cherry brandy, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp light corn syrup, and 2 tbsp sugar. Melt over very low heat, scrape into a bowl and allow to cool a little.

2) Seperate two eggs. Whisk the whites until soft peaks form (a hella-long time. You cannot do this by hand. Get a mixer). Beat yolks into cooled chocolate mixture, then gently mix in a dollop of whites to lighten it. Carefully folk fork in remaining whites. Take care to keep mousse airy.

3) Spoon mousse into two wine glasses. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least two hours.

Okay, this is fun. Setting up a series of one way jogs across China, Singapore, and India through Expedia and Travelocity. The numbers are just insane. I’ve never seen price spans like this before. Getting home, on a single page, they offered me trips ranging from $800 to $11,000, and taking from 17 hours to upwards of 28 hours. Singapore air is even more fun. They display their prices in the currency of the departing country. So. One flight was 8000. Another, similar in distance was 800. Both worked out to around $600. Gah.

I almost wept at the simplicity of the hotel arrangements. Yes, $200 a night. Great. I’ll take it. Free internet? Awesome. Marble bathroom and fitness facility that spans three floors? Great, but all I’m gonna see is the bed after my 20 hour trip. What about pillows? Do I get extra pillows?

Strangely, it appears to be cheaper (not to mention more convenient) to come and go from Providence than from Boston. The two are totally uncorrelated though, since either city requires a hop to some hub. Basically I tap into different airline networks depending on the departure city. I wind up connecting in Frankfurt or Chicago out of Providence, and Amsterdam and Dulles out of Boston.

This trip is still totally insane.

A bunch of kids at MIT have put together a USB controlled, light up dance floor.

Andrea Dworkin was a mighty crusader against pornography and for women’s rights. As the New York Times put it “Dworkin is one of the few remaining specimens of pure countercultural romanticism: fierce, melodramatic, and utterly convinced that all truth can be found in her own roiling, untempered emotions.”

She died at 58 on Saturday.

I respect her as a mighty, fearless, and independent spirit, even though we would have had screaming disagreements about many of our views.