Wednesday, June 24, 2009

i like it when i like a story better 6 years after i first read it.

“Un día de estos”
Gabriel García Márquez


El lunes amaneció tibio y sin lluvia. Don Aurelio Escovar, dentista sin título y buen madrugador, abrió su gabinete a las seis. Sacó de la vidriera una dentadura postiza montada aún en el molde de yeso y puso sobre la mesa un puñado de instrumentos que ordenó de mayor a menor, como en una exposición. Llevaba una camisa a rayas, sin cuello, cerrada arriba con un botón dorado, y los pantalones sostenidos con cargadores elásticos. Era rígido, enjuto, con una mirada que raras veces correspondía a la situación, como la mirada de los sordos. 
Cuando tuvo las cosas dispuestas sobre la mesa rodó la fresa hacia el sillón de resortes y se sentó a pulir la dentadura postiza. Parecía no pensar en lo que hacía, pero trabajaba con obstinación, pedaleando en la fresa incluso cuando no se servía de ella. 
Después de la ocho hizo una pausa para mirar el cielo por la ventana y vio dos gallinazos pensativos que se secaban al sol en el caballete de la casa vecina. Siguió trabajando con la idea de que antes del almuerzo volvería a llover. La voz destemplada de su hijo de once años lo sacó de su abstracción. 
— Papá. 
— Qué 
— Dice el alcalde que si le sacas una muela. 
— Dile que no estoy aquí. 
Estaba puliendo un diente de oro. Lo retiró a la distancia del brazo y lo examinó con los ojos a medio cerrar. En la salita de espera volvió a gritar su hijo. 
— Dice que sí estás porque te está oyendo. 
El dentista siguió examinando el diente. Sólo cuando lo puso en la mesa con los trabajos terminados, dijo: 
— Mejor. 
Volvió a operar la fresa. De una cajita de cartón donde guardaba las cosas por hacer, sacó un puente de varias piezas y empezó a pulir el oro. 
— Papá. 
— Qué. 
Aún no había cambiado de expresión. 
— Dice que si no le sacas la mela te pega un tiro. 
Sin apresurarse, con un movimiento extremadamente tranquilo, dejó de pedalear en la fresa, la retiró del sillón y abrió por completo la gaveta inferior de la mesa. Allí estaba el revólver. 
— Bueno —dijo—. Dile que venga a pegármelo. 
Hizo girar el sillón hasta quedar de frente a la puerta, la mano apoyada en el borde de la gaveta. El alcalde apareció en el umbral. Se había afeitado la mejilla izquierda, pero en la otra, hinchada y dolorida, tenía una barba de cinco días. El dentista vio en sus ojos marchitos muchas noches de desesperación. Cerró la gaveta con la punta de los dedos y dijo suavemente: 
— Siéntese. 
— Buenos días —dijo el alcalde. 
— Buenos —dijo el dentista. 
Mientras hervían los instrumentos, el alcalde apoyó el cráneo en el cabezal de la silla y se sintió mejor. Respiraba un olor glacial. Era un gabinete pobre: una vieja silla de madera, la fresa de pedal, y una vidriera con pomos de loza. Frente a la silla, una ventana con un cancel de tela hasta la altura de un hombre. Cuando sintió que el dentista se acercaba, el alcalde afirmó los talones y abrió la boca. 
Don Aurelio Escovar le movió la cabeza hacia la luz. Después de obsevar la muela dañada, ajustó la mandíbula con una presión cautelosa de los dedos. 
— Tiene que ser sin anestesia —dijo. 
— ¿Por qué? 
— Porque tiene un absceso. 
El alcalde lo miró en los ojos. 
— Esta bien —dijo, y trató de sonreír. El dentista no le correspondió. Llevó a la mesa de trabajo la cacerola con los instrumentos hervidos y los sacó del agua con unas pinzas frías, todavía sin apresurarse. Después rodó la escupidera con la punta del zapato y fue a lavarse las manos en el aguamanil. Hizo todo sin mirar al alcalde. Pero el alcalde no lo perdió de vista. 
Era una cordal inferior. El dentista abrió las piernas y apretó la muela con el gatillo caliente. El alcalde se aferró a las barras de la silla, descargó toda su fuerza en los pies y sintió un vacío helado en los riñones, pero no soltó un suspiro. El dentista sólo movió la muñeca. Sin rencor, mas bien con una marga ternura, dijo: 
— Aquí nos paga veinte muertos, teniente. 
El alcalde sintió un crujido de huesos en la mandíbula y sus ojos se llenaron de lágrimas. Pero no suspiró hasta que no sintió salir la muela. Entonces la vio a través de las lágrimas. Le pareció tan extraña a su dolor, que no pudo entender la tortura de sus cinco noches anteriores. Inclinado sobre la escupidera, sudoroso, jadeante, se desabotonó la guerrera y buscó a tientas el pañuelo en el bolsillo del pantalón. El dentista le dio un trapo limpio. 
— Séquese las lágrimas —dijo. 
El alcalde lo hizo. Estaba temblando. Mientras el dentista se lavaba las manos, vio el cielorraso desfondadoy una telaraña polvorienta con huevos de araña e insectos muertos. El dentista regresó secándose. “Acuéstese —dijo— y haga buches de agua de sal.” El alcalde se puso de pie, se despidió con un displicente saludo militar, y se dirigió a la puerta estirando las piernas, sin abotonarse la guerrera. 
— Me pasa la cuenta -dijo. 
— ¿A usted o al municipio? 
El alcalde no lo miró. Cerró la puerta, y dijo, a través de la red metálica: 
— Es la misma vaina.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

lists

i think i’ve said this before
but they should invent a website where you just have lists
lists of lists of lists
with tags

and comments
and stuff.


anyway
movies i want to see / actors / actresses i like
almost famous (saw it before wanna see it again)
stage beauty
american beauty
billy crudup/batman/laurie guy/ethan hawke look similarly good looking
the lead from MI3 and the girl from canada from “how i met your mother” are both similarly pretty

Monday, June 15, 2009

i

wish

restless

random things i want to do:
eat cheap hawaiian bbq from shattuck (teriyaki chicken musubi)
rent a movie with friends over the summer
have a berkeley college summer
know italian and german
or russian
… well.
so that i can do comp lit grad. … i’m too lazy and unskilled to pursue that :-(
visit the badlands
see old faithful
drive across the usa
learn guitar bar chords


JUST DO SOMETHING

instead of trying to figure out grammar lessons and what stories to cut out for stupid english. :-/

i want to do the least amount of work possible for this miserable pay.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Cosmopolitan Hamburger Pasta Casserole

I say Cosmopolitan because it *is* quite diverse.

First of all, i'm using half of the meatloaf I made 2 days ago because my brother's sick of eating meatloaf  (i, on the other hand, could eat the same thing over and over again.  thank you college, thank you.)

anyway, to be merciful (and because I'm bored), i decided to make something else.

cut up a quarter onion; mixed it up with meatloaf** that i broke up with my hand.  (about 2 cups of cooked meat)

sliced 5 red potatoes (with a mandolin)

oiled a glass casserole dish

lined the bottom with one layer of sliced potatoes ** (in a slight overlap style)
sprinkled half the meat+onion mixture
added 1/2 bag of left over Trader Joe's uncooked Pennette  (just thinner non-ridged penne that i accidentally bought instead of penne)
sprinkled on the rest of the meat+onion mixture
put the rest of the potatoes lined on top (about 1 very overlapped layer)

poured 1 jar of 1/2 alfredo sauce and 1/2 chopped tomatoes over everything.  added 3/4 jar of trader joe's creamy alfredo sauce.  [overall liquid quotient ~3 cups?] **

grated some frozen gouda** and sprinkled it over everything.  (oh about.. 1/2 cup?  i like to go more with cheese though)

stuck it into a 350 degree oven. for.. i dono. the longer the better for semi-al dente pasta.  let's say.. 45 min?

it's not done yet.


OH SHOOT I FORGOT TO ADD CRUSHED RED PEPPER (a must for any dinner item)


**subs

normally you'd just use ground meat instead of.. meatloaf. and you'd cook the meat with the onions and if you're extra shmancy, you'd add garlic and crushed red pepper and maybe a chopped jalapeno or two.

instead of sliced potatoes, tater tots work wonders.

you could use 1-2 8oz cans of cream of mushroom (which we didn't have) instead of the creamy alfredo mixture.

you could use cheddar cheese ... in fact cheddar cheese makes it more "hamburger-y"  .. i just used gouda b/c that's all i had.  (i know, so gourmet.  not)

you could use any kinda cheese really..


you could also just nix the pasta.  but.. my poor carb-deprived brother.  he needs the carbs.


you could probably add broccoli... or .... i mean what the heck, this is a casserole; throw in anything if you have to!


edit//  the alfredo sauce is REALLY salty. like almost to the point of blech.    and the mixture with sweet meatloaf is sort of weird.

so. i guess this goes under....

FAIL!

(unless you like salty things) .. which some people do)



at least it looks appetizing:



Appleberry Cobbler

i roughly followed pioneer woman's blackberry cobbler recipe  (i was gonna follow this one but i didn't have self-rising flour; and it seemed pretty important to the recipe)

combined
about 6 cups total of frozen blackberries (3 cups), frozen blueberries (2 cups), and 2 small apples chopped (minus the peel because the peel tasted so weird.... : ALWAYS taste your fruit before putting it into a dessert!  ...  usually i just leave the peel in though; because i'm lazy and my eaters are grateful regardless) ... i don't think the ratio of fruit matter.  i'm just recording it for my sake
a healthy drizzle of honey (~1/3 cup = bc honey is sweeter than sugar and bc i was in my mom's kitchen and couldn't find the sugar)
half a ripe lemon juice (about 1 tb) 
half a lemon's lemon rind (cut up tinily b/c i couldn't find a grater)

then
preheated oven to 425 degrees.

then
combined
2 C whole wheat flour (no white flour/cake flour in the house.. don't think it makes a difference honestly.....)
1 tb of baking powder
1/4 tsp of kosher salt (couldn't find the normal salt til later)
1 tb of white sugar (i found it!.. i also eyeballed the measurement)

mixed it.

then, i thinly sliced in 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick!)  

this helped a lot in cutting in the butter since i don't have a pastry cutter.

i just use 2 knives (butter knives or steak knives are fine.. in this case i used steak knives since that's what i used to cut my apples)  and do awkward scissor motions.  the butter cuts into the flour relatively quickly; it works pretty well! .... DON'T melt the butter and mix it.. or use a blender or anything that horrendous.  thank you.

when the flour is coarse and coated tiny pieces of butter (about a quarter of a dime size)

then added: 1/2 cup milk into a 1 cup measurer (from the flour) and cracked an egg into it.  mixed it with a steak knife  (hey! less to wash!)   ... basically i eyeballed the milk measurement.

made a well in the flour mixture; poured in the milk. and roughly added more flour mixture into the center with the knife until most was combined.  then went in with my hands and tried to get into a ball more or less.

i rubbed a tart dish with butter
poured the fruit mixture (and juice) into it.

then tore off pieces of the dough and littered the top so that it looks like a cobblestone street! (hence the name cobbler...according to Pioneer Woman. hah)

THEnnnn into the oven for 30 minutes!  until the top is golden-browned!  which it was!

and was pretty good.

you could taste the lemon rind for sure and that REALLY made it pop.

the crust itself was aiight.  the berries were fine.
it was sort of watery:  i think that's why you need sugar.

you could probably also add some flour or corn starch into the mixture to thicken it.

ehh; don't care that much!  hah 
:-)




Saturday, June 13, 2009

:-/

the last phone call i got from someone who wasn’t a telemarketer or family was on June 8, 2008 at 3:52pm.

come on people.

am i really that unloved?!

>:O

and considering how beth (and maybe janet) are the only people who really read this, … …. ….


its okay

:-D!

Friday, June 12, 2009

so many weird conversations today

"I love you Junia, you are one of a kind.”


but that’s the last conversation today!

yeah, with my mom i am such a brat. the epitome of petulance. where we can go from laughing our butts off to suddenly me growing defensive or frustrated to shouting matches to hugs and make ups to compliments to insults….. usually i instigate them all.

i need to learn not to push away / test those who love me the most.

green beans

So i made meatloaf for dinner today. and so of course i'd make mashed potatoes (I know what you're thinking; isn't this recipe for green beans?) .  Anyway, ... I screwed up on.. frozen instant Trader Joe mashed potatoes.  I accidentally put in.. oh about, 2 tablespoons of black pepper.  MY POTATOES TURNED GRAY! they were really spicy too.  into the trash.  how sad.

so i found some fresh green beans in the fridge and decided to clean those.

so,
about 5 cups of fresh green beans (cleaned and stems cut or snapped off)
I added around 2 Tb of olive oil to a hot saucepan and then sliced up 4 cloves of garlic(more is more in the case of Garlic).  i quickly sauteed it a bit, then added the green beans.  mixed it about so that it was coated.  then added some black pepper, some crushed red pepper and some kosher salt. covered it.  sliced a lemon in half.  sliced up half a lemon rind.  added the lemon rind to the green beans and squeezed the juice of the lemon halfonto it.  stirred it about.  added about 1 Tb more of olive oil.  covered it.  added the rest of my mom's sliced honey toasted almonds  (plain ones will do I should think).. which is oh about 1 Tb worth.  tasted the green beans.  added more salt.  then covered it until it was ready!  The green beans should be al-dente... because mushy green beans are never good!

Ta Da!

When plating it; instead of leaving the"chikuggi" (korean for left behind bits) in the pan, i put it on top of the green beans, so that the green beans had a nice, semi-carmelized toasted almond and garlic and lemon rind topping.

yummy!


*I really should think about taking pictures.

Friday, June 5, 2009

my last day in the east bay

or a long while i suppose.


that’s all.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Oatmeal ChocoChip cookies

so i'm just trying to get rid of random ingredients as i pack up and move.
we have a lot of oats, chocolate chips and raisins.  come on now!  :-)
sooooo i perused my favorite food blog and came across pioneer woman's oatmeal crispies


i decided to do things my way though.. 


2 cup brown sugar  (i had to get rid of the sugar)
1 cup white sugar
2 sticks of butter/margarine  (one of each)  (i don't own crisco. it's nasty)


(mix!)

add:
about 1/2 c veggie oil (eyeballed it.. to keep it relatively proportionate)
3 eggs
1.5 tsp vanilla (about... i put 2 capfuls of safeway vanilla flavoring)

mix!

add
1.5 tsp salt  (sort of)
1.5 tsp baking soda (again eyeballed)
2 1/3 c flour (eyeballed.. maybe 2 1/2 cup..)
4 cups of oats

mix mix

add 1/2 bag of chocolate chips
1/2 bag of raisins

uhh let's see.
maybe 2 cups of each?

add 1/8 cup of walnuts (i only had that much)

mix mix!!!

spoon onto baking pan
bake at 350 for 18 minutes.

hopefully they'll turn out okay!  HAHAHA


update:
they didnt spread too much  (but leave aboute 1-2 inches between each cookie glob)
soft and not too sweet!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

there's only one thing two do three words four you

last summer it was Lucky by Jason Mraz.
this summer it might be 1234. (plain white ts)

you know, those generally accepted to be good music artists that mean nothing to you until *that one song* ?

for me, it was jason mraz.
i just really didn’t care.
mraz?
eh.

and then i heard lucky. and i fell.
and i love jason mraz.


same thing for plain white ts.
i mean yeah.. hey there delilah was catchy, but it was whatevers.
but… 1234…. and yeah, now i’m listening to plain white ts.


i miss last summer. this summer came so quick.
if i could measure life by summers… i could.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

summer of my russian authors

do u see the title play? and the implicit nods? eh? eh???

anyway, i’m packing and i realize although i’ve given up mostly the bad habit of collecting things, i still .. collect.. books

favorite bookstores in berkeley
Friends of the Public Library
(sooooo cheap!! and nice quality too!!)
but the bad thing is, is as i walk home, i naturally meander thru sather gate and browse thru the library - half an hour easily goes by - and then the change in my purse or the stray dollar bills end up as concrete, holdable, books in my hands. and they can be anything! from Five Quarters of the Orange (a book i read in high school that i remembered liking but don’t remember, which i am reading now) to Nanny Diaries (a book i read during finals whenever i needed a break and convincing that i don’t ever want to be a nanny or raise spoiled children or have a horrible husband who’ll cheat on me or be a horrible wife who’s gross and icky).

I like book readings at Moe’s

I liked walking around Cody’s (but it closed)

i like that random shakespeare store b/c i had a copy of Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil which I needed badly

and..
okay,
Ned’s. because you’re cheaper than the student bookstore right across the street!


heh heh heh


anyway, i’m packing.. and… I have five compact heavy boxes of books. -_- 
and sadly, it’s not like when i was younger and i had a book in my hand all the time. i don’t have that time anymore. or else i waste my time sleeping.


so.. i just have.. decorations i guess. :-/ i also LOVe owning books. i love the idea that i can just pick out a book and flip through it and find a quote. and you know, with certain books, i do that a lot…

i realize my favorite genres are just.. plain ole good american literature and then young adult literature. 
but then i love the brontes and jane austin. and i love lm montgomery. and i love harry pottah. and i love cs lewis.

but then i love toni morrison and jerry spinelli and beverly cleary.


ANYWAY

this summer I plan on reading all the tolstoy and dostoevsky I ended up NOT reading during the school year b/c i dropped the class.

and i want to read short stories

and maybe edit my 2 stories i wrote.

and maybe go back to some songs.

and maybe try to be literarily creative


or just darkly morbidly humorous and write comic strips about the weird experiences at CCS which I foresee. :-)

AND………………………………………….
i want to return to Psalm 119.

blessed

Monday, June 1, 2009