Oishii Tabemono

Received in the mail this week: Bird Nest Drink
Ingredients: Rock sugar, ginseng, bird nests

It's really not so bad. It tastes a little like mild dish soap, with sugar. Boyfriend actually really liked it, which works out, because according to the box, bird nest drink is supposed to increase manly vitality. And as Boyfriend has a show every night this week alongside work, he needs all the vitality he can get.

Eaten this week (several times): vegan ramen
From:Miho Izakaya

Miho Izakaya, my favourite restaurant in town, has a menu full of delishusness, with occasional specials that are even more delishuser-such a this week's vegan ramen. They say it might become a permanent part of the menu, since it's soon to be "soup weather." Nothing would make me happier. I'll probly be eating dinner there nearly every day!

Eaten every morning this week for breakfast: vegan cake
Main ingredient: coconut milk.

We are out of sugar, so we made the cake with brown sugar, which is way better than regular sugar. Specially when home-made from regular sugar and molasses, though that's part of the reason why we're out of regular sugar.

What extra-oishii foods have you eaten lately?

A Pillow with a View

Knits with Wolves

Of my winter knitting project, I have already finished 2 squares. But now, I have been stuck on the same knit sample square all week. I can't seem to get past the first row. The pattern wants me to increase by 4, then decrease by 5, and that just feels wrong to me. I'm sure the stitches come back in the next row, but as I've been working on it piecemeal on breaks at work, I just get flummoxed and give up. But now that I have a weekend ahead of me, maybe I can finally figure it out.

In other news, temperatures in the mornings, when I bike to work, have been consistently in the 40-46 F range. So, I've put away my summer clothes and busted out my winter clothes. What a sad summer! I'm pretty sure I only just put away my winter clothes less than 3 months ago.

Whiskey "Dolla Dolla Billz" Burkle, the kitten, has been most confused by the change in weather - especially by that thing we call "rain." Even though her first tender weeks were spent outside in the cold mountain air, since Boyfriend and I brought her home she has only known artificially heated domiciles and summer sunshine.

She still wants to be outside all the time, but once she goes out and feels the frosty chilliness, she cries to come back inside. 5 minutes later, she wants back out, as if she expected something to change. Rainy days are even worse.

Maybe I'll have to knit her some sweaters.

Crayon Been Blogged!

By someone other than me! Finally, world-wide stardom is within his grasp.





A fellow librarian just started this blog, starring animals in sweaters (because when you take regular animals and add sweaters, you increase their natural cute levels by a factor of OMG).

Now it's Official!

Finally, I'm a real librarian! I get to catalog manuscript collections at the Oregon Historical Society - collections that have been briefly cataloged once before, in card form, but now need to be brought into the 21st century!

Yes, this is the very same job that I didn't get two months ago - but luckily for everyone, the girl they hired over me got an even better job (for her) at the county archives, so, as the second person on the original 2 person short list, I got the call. I'm really glad it worked out this way, because I like my predecessor, but it was hard for me to overcome my jealousy and be nice when she had the job I wanted. So now we both have jobs and everyone is happy!

So far I've gotten to catalog some interesting stuff, including some letters from President Buchanan to various people, including President Polk, about the "Oregon Question."

By far the MOST interesting item I've come across I didn't actually get to catalog myself, the former Project Cataloger cataloged it as she was training me to take over: a paper purporting that many, if not most, Pacific Northwest place names that we generally accept as Native American in origin are actually Russian. Including Sacagawea, which he asserts is actually Russian for "Fat Bitch." The author makes these claims without any citations whatsoever, without even using the international phonetic alphabet to back up his claims of similar pronunciation, and finally, without anything even resembling a historical linguistic analysis.

Perhaps that's why it has been sitting in the OHS vault uncatalogued for 60 years. In any case, it's sure to be a fascinating read for students of either linguistics or the racism of the 50s.

The Weather Turns

Now that the temperatures are beginning to dip below 50 and the rain keeps me indoors, its time to turn my crafty attentions back towards the type you can do whilst cuddled under a blanket in front of a roaring heater duct: knitting and crochet.

I tend not to do many yarn crafts in the summer. I think its because it feels too sedentary for nice weather and because the pile of yarn that must sit in your lap is much too warm. But it's perfect for winter. I can knit and crochet while cuddling with Boyfriend and watching movies (I do like to multi-task).

For the past few winters I have been ever so slowly working on a large collection of sample squares which I have been combining into a giant knitty-crochet quilt:

I figure its a good way to develop a feel for the different types of stitches more complex patterns may call for. It also develops my pattern reading skills, which I may say is quite good at this point. I can read almost any pattern with only an occasional call to my mother.

I've just printed up a thick new stack of square patterns for this winter (downloaded for FREE! from Knit and Crochet Now). I'm ready for you now, Winter!

The Adventures of Sara and Jessica: Episode 1

Obviously, Jr. High School in California taught us a whole lot...

...about killing time.