I think it’s one of those de ja vu things

I’m going on 31 (this month). Surprising for me, I’m not scared about the whole age thing. I recently had one of those “eureka!” moments where I reflected on my 20s - and ended up relieved that the next decade of my life was going to be totally different. Yes, the fun, the friends, the social life, the easy job - they were awesome. Then again, the lack-of-money, the lack-of-house, the lack-of-stable-relationships, the lack-of-career-aspirations - heck, the lack of LIFE aspirations: not such good things. I’m looking forward to a decade of change, and I know that it will change for the better.

But still, I also feel strangely immature. It’s the parents. I’m trying to figure out how they, at the same age, did it? Cause, gosh darnit, I’m… so… very… tired… all the time. Each day is a memory before it really begins, and I’m scared that the next time I look up - I’ll be going on 41 (and no, the problem is not vitamins, exercise, or attitude). I’ve heard it doesn’t slow done.

When they were in their 30s, my parents must have been superhuman. They married early, had a kid early, were separated by a 13 hour time difference early. By the time they were 30, they had immigrated, had another kid, and moved to the equivalent of hicksville where there were no other ex-pats. In their 30s, they raised two kids, took care of a house, tended a garden, and looked after an aging parent - all while working 2 full time jobs with commutes that were at least 45 minutes each way. Granted, they didn’t have the world’s wonder dog, Bailey, but I just don’t get it. Don’t get how they did it. Don’t understand why I don’t have the same stamina. And I’m left wondering if I’m just lazy, or if life just requires more now that everything is so connected.

Regardless, I have an overwhelming amount of respect for them - and for anyone else that turns what could be life’s rat race into a tortoise’s stroll.

Visions of swastikas in my head
Plans for everyone

Made a really interesting soup the other night, a sort of Szechuan Carrot soup, for lack of a better name. Had lots of ginger, and loads of flavor. We really enjoyed it, but you do have to get over the whole idea of sipping a stirfry…

Szechuan Carrot Soup
For a spicier soup, use the larger end of the red pepper flakes and ginger.

• 2 tsps vegetable oil 
• 1 onion, chopped (the smaller you cut, the quicker you have soup!)
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 3/4″ to 1-1/2″ piece of ginger, peeled and sliced thin
• 1/8 to 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 lb carrots, chopped
• 1/2 of a sweet potato, chopped (or a tsp of sugar)
• 2 cups of vegetable broth & 1 cup water
• 1-1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp roasted sesame oil
• 1/4 cup light coconut milk, lowfat milk, or cream
• 3 scallions, white and green parts, sliced thin on the diagonal
• handful of cilantro, chopped
• lime wedges (gild the lily by zesting the lime, too!)

In a soup pot, saute the onion and celery with a pinch of salt over medium-low heat until tender (5-7 minutes).  Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and ginger and saute until fragrant (1 minute).  Add the carrots and sweet potato, and cover with the broth and water.  Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered until the carrots are really tender (30-45 minutes).  Stir in the soy sauce, sesame oil, and coconut milk.  Turn off the heat and puree soup in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender.  Return soup to low heat (careful - it spits) and add water until soup reaches a consistency you like.

Serve garnished with lots of scallions and cilantro.  Add lime zest if you’ve got it, squeeze the lime on top, and enjoy!

For the man
To pour the coffee

Actually we’re waiting at the counter (ok not at this very second) for the brownies to cool, so I thought I’d share a picture of the absurdly large lemon that Kyle found in the neighborhood. From left to right: garlic (normal size); lemon (absurdly large); orange (normal size); spaghetti squash (normal size).

[10 minutes later]

And here are the brownies.

La la la, la la, la la la
La la la, la la, la la la
Gosh diggety doggit (yes, this brings out the hidden hick in me) - ever since we watched that SNL cowbell skit I’ve had THAT song stuck in my head. iTunes is about to get another 99cents off of me. &*&(#$#*!&#&*!#&(!!@%!$#^!

I did it again.

Thanks to jayfish for pointing out that my last post was - uh - “incomplete”, shall we say? It’s been corrected with a little Clash. And no - I’m not above quoting Britney if the mood fits. But I do try to keep that to a minimum.

Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
Finished reading A Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Brilliantly written, creative plot, and downright creepy (and a little remniscent of recent times, sadly). That being said, the ending is weak - as if after 300 pages of exceptional story telling, he just got lost and didn’t know how to conclude. Don’t read it as a “what if” book (as in what if American had gone fascist) - it’ll only disappoint. But do read it as the memoirs of a young American Jewish boy during WWII. He does a great job capturing a child’s fear and confusion, dare I say more thoughtfully than Khaled Hosseini did in the Kite Runner (my favorite book of 2005).

All our times have come
Here but now they’re gone
We watched The Best of Christopher Walken on SNL last night. If you haven’t seen the Blue Oyster Cult sketch with Will Farrell yet (the cowbell skit), you haven’t laughed enough in your life. We were driven to watch it over and over and over again - and cried ourselves silly each time. Good stuff.

A CIRCUMSTANCE BEYOND OUR CONTROL,
OH OH OH OH

As promised - here’s the tale of my fateful stay at the St. Regis in SF. Sit right back and read this (long!) one!

The summary: I’ve had two all-department meetings at the St. Regis in SF. The most recent one went without a hitch. But still. I can’t seem to let go of the trauma that shook me during November during my last visit. At that time, the St. Regis in San Francisco had been open for a grand total of 2 weeks. And in those brief 2 weeks, they’d had 5 meetings or so and 2 weddings. But apparently, they were still working out a few kinks.

The stage: The St. Regis in SF is a cutting edge hotel, where old-world sophistication and Silicon Valley gadgetry intersect - and down-right collide. The hotel itself is lovely - everything is dark chocolate brown and purple, albeit a little masculine. The rooms are lighter in feel, more Scandanavian. Deep tan panelling on one set of walls, cream leather on the other (yes, there are leather walls in the room - leather companies even SPONSOR the suites, so you can stay in the “COACH room”, for example), and natural stone in the bathroom.

Act I: My first night

My adventure started when I returned from dinner. I came into the room and saw that my coat had walked away from its place on the chair. I eventually discovered it hiding in a secret set of TINY closets that blended in perfectly with what I had thought was just panelling (this panelling also contained my minibar I was delighted to discover).

Incident #1: This was how I discovered that I had a personal butler. By the way, I couldn’t open the closet door fully to retrieve my coat - it was blocked by the desk. So I had to do this sneaky maneuver of reaching over the desk with one hand to keep the closet door open, while I reached in with the other hand to hang up or retrieve clothing.

My mysterious butler had also turned down the room. I hate sleeping with blackout curtains, so I was determined to raise them. I pulled. I poked. I peered for a cord. Which is when I discovered that rather innocuous looking touch screen LCD panel by the bedside - the one I had thought was just a clock (hereafter referred to as the BSTSLCDP - BedSide TouchScreen LCD Panel). Oh! Of course! It’s one of those NEW MODERN rooms! Cool! Click-click -click - and up the curtains went! Technology rocks! While I was there, I set the alarm, scheduled a wake up call, lowered the room temperature, and noted that I could ring my personal butler from the comfort of my pillow. He was no longer an enigma.

Incident #2: Everything in the room is controlled from the BSTSLCDP. Only later would I discover that there are in fact bypass switches in the room - but you need a magnifying glass and bloodhound to find them.

But now, I was on a mission for an iron. With Kyle on the phone, I hunted for the one that must surely exist in such a high tech room. High and low - in the closet, under the bed. How could there not be an iron in such a new, modern, high-end hotel room? Of course - it was there, it was just hidden from view - just like those closets. It had to be a built- in ironing board secreted among those invisible closet doors.

Incident #3: Sure enough, I located an awkwardly placed panel in the wall behind the desk - one of those Scandanavian designed things. But once again, that desk was in the way. I pulled, I prodded, and eventually managed to slip a couple of fingers in a crevice, to feel what I thought was the ironing board cover. With new determination I pulled off the panel, delicately avoiding the desk… to discover the heater vent. Oops. I ended up calling down to my butler to have an ironing board delivered.

I went to bed. But that BSTSLCDP just kept glaring at me. Brightly. Geez. You’d have thought that it had an automatic dimmer setting. End Act I.

Act II: My first morning

First of all, let’s get this straight. I am not a morning person. I’ve tried to be one. I’ve even talked to a doctor about it. I’m just not. I do my best thinking between 3pm & 8pm, and NOT between the hours of 5am and 8 am. I’m the anomaly of my friends and family. So when I have to report downstairs at 7am it’s a big deal. I set two alarms AND schedule a wake up call.

My first alarm went off. And of course, I slapped the top of it. Again. And again. The blasted thing wouldn’t go into the snooze mode. Why? Astute readers will have caught that the alarm was none other than our friend the BSTSLCDP.

Incident #4: There are NO BUTTONS on the BSTSLCDP. Realize my pain. It’s pitch black - and I’m absolutely blind in the morning without my glasses. And now you’re asking me to:

1. Find my glasses
2. Put on my glasses
3. Read the BSTSLCDP
4. Navigate the BSTSLCDP
5. Tap the snooze icon on the BSTSLCDP

Well I tapped the snooze icon and went blissfully back to sleep. The second alarm went off. But this time, it wasn’t responding to my gentle, persuasive taps. In fact, the alarm just kept getting louder and louder. And then phone started ringing - why it was my personal butler with my wake up call.

Incident #5: The phone next to the bedside is connected to the BSTSLCDP. The BSTSLCDP had frozen. By freezing, it had also taken out the bedside phone. Which means that, IN THE DARK, I had to navigate to where I remembered the second phone to be (on that desk), figure out how to turn it on (it was a cordless phone), and explain (at 5:30am) that my alarm clock wouldn’t shut off. My butler’s response? “They have a mind of their own sometimes. Shall I send up a technician?” “No thank you. It just blue screened, and now appears to be rebooting itself.”

You might be wondering why I didn’t just turn on the lights to find the second phone? Remember - as far as I knew, the lights were controlled by the BSTSLCDP. I didn’t yet have my bloodhound to find the invisible bypass switches.

OK. So now it’s shower time. The shower is one of those new overhead “Rain” showers. A little odd because it’s kind of a Truman Show-like experience. You’re in it, but then you move, and you’re completely out of it.

Incident #6: I didn’t like that rain shower thing one bit. The St. Regis hotel designers must have figured that some less-progressive guests (aka me) would react this way, so they thoughtfully supplied a handheld showerhead as well. So I rigged the handheld to function like a normal, angled shower and was happy. Until I turned off the water. You know how showers release any left over (usually cold) water a few seconds after you turn them off? You guessed it. Just as I exited the shower (all nice and warm) I got a “refreshing” dose of cold water from the rain head above. I don’t like being cold. Period.

Enough said. In that round, I battled technology and lost royally. As did 5 of my colleagues I discovered. I wasn’t as bad off as them though - I had a toilet seat cover. Like I said in an earlier post, the good news is that during my most recent stay, my alarm clock turned off, and didn’t blue screen. Still no irons in the room, but at least I have a good relationship with my butler.

A man makes a picture
A moving picture

Our meyer lemon tree is bursting with fruit. So naturally I took the opportunity to make a Lind family treat - lemon tart! This one’s got a short buttery crust with a slight almond flavor. Lemon curd recipe courtesy of Kyle’s mom - extra tangy!

The spheres’re in commotion
The elements in harmony

I was convinced I left my nerdy days behind. Yes - I got manganese right, thank you very much.