Enjablog

I got a comment from Tina of Sardonic Sideshow yesterday! She’s making her way to stardom, so that makes me on the fringe of coolness. Thanks to BFF for speaking up when she took offense to the quote I put with it a month ago.

Tina, if you’re back — I replied with a link to the post I quoted last time. Also, your archives are broken. -J.

QOTD: “You gave me a dime! I’m cheap, but not that cheap.”
LOTD: Don’t Tip the Waiter — Angry Waitron meets The Onion

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist: When Marriage Kills: “President Bush is focusing his program against AIDS in Africa on sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, relegating condoms to a distant third. It’s the kind of well-meaning policy that bubbles up out of a White House prayer meeting but that will mean a lot of unnecessary deaths on the ground in Africa.”

That second picture came out a little blurry, but starting from the top left, there’s an egg world, a more differently colored egg world, a bunny who was just decapitated (so recently that the head hasn’t fallen off yet), a bunny with eyes and teeth, a cross-section of an egg, and a poor, unfortunate bunny with a gangrenous foot and frostbitten ears who was shot. Poor bunny.

Watched Silver City this weekend. Another movie that makes me feel like I need to be doing more with my life and I should be out there more making a difference in the world instead of wasting time arguing the same points with people who won’t listen. That on top of reading about what Anoopa has spent the past 5 years doing. I feel so lazy.

Spent the weekend baking and decorating Easter cookies with Ian. Sent some over with my mom to the Valentines. Delivered some to HOY, but no one was around at the time. Dropped by my parents’ house and hung out with my grandmother while she tried to force food on Ian. Brought some to a BBQ where there was some excellent food and we got to dye eggs. And brought some with us to Ian’s parents’ place for their Easter dinner thing. Will post pictures later when I stop being lazy. -j.

50 dead on island after quake:

“The U.S. Geological Survey reported that an instrument near the Cocos Islands recorded the passing wave, but the magnitude of the ’small’ tsunami was not clear.

The agency said no major tsunami has been observed near epicenter of the earthquake which was upgraded from a magnitude of 8.2 to 8.7. An aftershock measuring 6.0 struck 30 minutes after the initial quake.

Scientists say the threat of a tsunami striking Indonesia and Thailand may have passed because a wave like the one that hit the region on December 26 would have reached those countries almost immediately. Monday’s quake struck at 11:09 a.m. ET (1609 GMT).”

Info: For anyone who knew Anoopa (Denise) Sharma, TJ Class of ‘98 –
Memorial Service
April 2nd, 2005, 3 PM
Rajdhani Mandir, Chantily, VA
Emory University article

Thanks to bff for the update.

So, after my update yesterday, I went running, did some laundry, ran some errands, made some cookies, found out about a bunch of sick people and dead people, started watching a movie, and got a call from BFF to find out that increased use of Elidel resulted in higher rates of cancer and that a high school classmate of ours died. Great phone call. Maybe I shouldn’t get so excited about waking up next time.

In other news, Lenny just called and we had a heated discussion regarding his latest update here, which turned into a debate on evolution vs. ID/creationism. I think it comes down to faith vs. science. I don’t understand how people can accept that someone put everything here on earth just as it is, despite evidence that shows otherwise. But, I guess God could have planted dinosaur bones in the ground to test our faith. I will fail miserably.

Lenny said that evolution cannot exist without ID, but ID can exist without evolution. Then he fell back on his failsafe, “I don’t know if evolution exists, so I don’t know if I believe in that.” It’s like that game my sister and I played on a car trip a while ago… What does Lenny have an opinion on?

Oh well. I guess my liberal education has brainwashed me. I don’t know how my brother got away unscathed. Maybe some day I will learn to think for myself.

Other things I’m angry about –
Kickboxing canceled again last week.
I know of 6 people who died this month. Granted, I only met 2 of them, but still… What’s up with this month?
Forgot about my chiropractor appointment yesterday and missed it.
My medical coverage is getting changed, but I don’t know when and I can’t fill my prescriptions without a new card, which I don’t have.
People driving the wrong way down my one-way street.
People putting trash in my recycling bin — which has not been picked up for at least two weeks and won’t get picked up for another week.
I was so excited about getting up yesterday, but not so much today.

QOTD: “Could Jesus create a burrito so large that even he could not lift it?”

So, I woke up this morning… and, get this, I got up! This is the first time in a really long time that I remember being awake when I woke up. So awake that I actually had the urge to crawl out from under the covers before my alarm went off. Not even before my alarm went off, but before it would have gone off had I been going to work today. What’s up with that?

Well, I’ll tell you what’s up with that. I have eczema. This means my skin is dry and I scratch all the time. All the time. My mom used to get mad at me when I was little because I would just stand around scratching up my arms and I would wake up in the morning having scratched my arms raw. I didn’t know I was doing it. I was just really, really itchy. I’ve seen numerous doctors/dermatologists over the years. A number of them told me that they used to have eczema, but grew out of it when they were teenagers. This gave me hope. But as I grew out of my teens (Yes, people. I am not really 16.), I continued to have this condition. So, that’s just the way it has been.

Enter: Elidel. My brother gave me an information pamphlet on it ages ago when it first came out. I think he got it in the mail or something. And then I started seeing commercials for it that told me to ask my doctor if Elidel was right for me. “While there is no cure for eczema, there are things you can do to help control it.” Great, right? Ok, so it sounded good, but I didn’t have a doctor, so I didn’t get around to getting it. Fast forward a year or so later. Ian finally convinces me to go find a doctor so I can ask if Elidel is right for me. Turns out: It is.

I’ve been using this new cream every morning for about 6 months and I have received a number of compliments from people on how well my skin is doing. I still wake up tired in the morning though, like I used to, and my arms feel like I spent all night scratching them. I have been blaming my grogginess on apnea, since I know that other people in my family have it and I’ve been known to snore on occasion. I figured I probably have it too (since I can’t breathe through my nose without medication) and that was why I was always so tired during the day.

As it turns out, I tried using Elidel last night so I wouldn’t be so itchy at night, seeing as it was working wonders during the day. I slept for about 6.5 hours, woke up, and actually couldn’t fall back asleep. (Family, has this ever happened to you?) Apparently I spend so much time scratching at night that I never get any good sleep. I hypothesized this about 3 years ago, but at some point I was put on some steroid medication that cleared up my skin for about a week and I was still groggy. I guess I was still scratching at night; My skin was just healing faster from the drugs than I was scratching.

I have always been the kind of person who could sleep anywhere any time for pretty much any length of time. I have gotten used to the sleep deprivation and just go through life in this constant haze. It turns out, there are people who don’t have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. People who don’t actually use alarm clocks. There are people who feel refreshed when they wake up. There are people who don’t fall asleep mid-conversation or while typing, driving, or biking. I don’t know if this is what I have now, but for the first time that I can remember, I woke up and got up. I hope I wake up again tomorrow. :) -J.

LOTD: Caffeine Awareness - A little late, but this month was Caffeine Awareness Month.

QOTD: “If there’s one thing that pisses me off, it’s all of those black, gay, liberal slave owners.”

LOTD: Capitol bill aims to control ‘leftist’ profs

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” - for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class - would also be given the right to sue.

Hey enjanerd,

I got you some oatmeal raison cookies from Kansas. They look really good. I haven’t tried them yet, but your mother has. Please take it home if you want them, otherwise i’ll eat them.

I read this article in the Washington Post about intelligent design. Thought you might like it:

Who’s Afraid of Intelligent Design?

Len

P.S. I noticed you have a lot of drafts. Why are you so angry?

LOTD (some of you may have seen this before… I took it down because of a complaint, but I’m re-posting with different, and hopefully, less offensive quotes.): Sardonic Side Show –
“California state lawmakers proposed giving 16-year-olds a 1/2 vote and 14-year-old residents a 1/4 vote to try to encourage teenagers to be more involved in the political process and learn fractions.”

“My point is: yet again this country has been split into two factions. There are those praying and hoping that Terri stays alive long enough to go through menopause because they are caring and compassionate people. And those that have told their loved ones to unplug them at the first sign of drool. Probate lawyers are getting frantic phone calls for their services.

“Look, I’ll pay you whatever you ask, just don’t let me end up in Florida as a national wedge issue.”

P.S. Back-posted and added in some cake pictures, if anyone wants to see.

Just found out this morning that a family friend passed away last Friday. John Valentine used to carpool with my dad and lived a few blocks away from us. Their family had kids around the ages of my siblings and me. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but I had heard he was battling cancer for the past year or so. Haven’t seen any of the family recently either. I guess I will this week…

His daughter, who married a former student of my brother, had another baby. He was born on Saturday.

Also, today is World Water Day.

LOTD: Please stop PATTING MY [expletive deleted] HEAD

QOTD (in the fashion of “yo’ momma” jokes): “Your momma is so nice, she baked cookies for me.”

I have written up some complaints on here before about bad drivers. I still don’t like bad drivers, but I can give them a lot more leeway now. At least they’re either oblivious or selfish drivers. Yesterday, I encountered an antagonistic driver. I just filled out a Traffic Safety Report for an aggressive driver and unbuckled children, though, so I feel somewhat vindicated.

The complaint:

Silver Honda Civic
JLP-3532
Middle-aged woman with female teenage front seat passenger and female pre-teen in the back seat

This was on Beauregard St waiting at the light for 236. I was in the middle lane (straight and left turn) stopped at the light. The left lane had only 2 cars at the front of the queue waiting for the light to change (I was at the end of approximately 20 cars). The driver slowed down next to me just as the person in front of me inched forward a little. She proceeded to inch into my lane without signaling or waving and when she got fully into the lane, she flicked me off. Admittedly, I gave her a dirty look in return, but I did not honk my horn or return the gesture. Her passenger (who I assume was her teenage daughter) proceeded to flick me off and looked like she was flicking off people passing in the right turn lane.

As we turned onto 236 and onto the I-395 on-ramp, the passenger opened both her window and the sunroof to flick me off out both windows. The driver then cut me off in the merge lane and the adjacent lane so I could not pass them. The other passenger in the back seat continually turned around to check to see if I was still behind them. She may have had her seatbelt on, but I could not tell and it didn’t seem like it from the way she kept turning around completely. The front seat passenger then proceeded to stand up, turn around, and stick her head out the sunroof to yell something at me. I could not hear or tell what she was saying though. I was finally able to get around them to exit onto 495.

Most of my weekend was spent working on two cakes. Ian’s family was doing a thing for his grandmother’s birthday and he was in charge of the cake. He found a nice recipe for a Danish Poppy Seed Cake which took us about 10 hours to complete. Went on a quest Friday night for poppy seeds and other ingredients.

Got some exercise in on Saturday morning/afternoon. Ian and his brother had an ultimate frisbee game and went out to watch and jogged a bit with their cousin. Went out to Irish Times afterward for a late lunch. Got started on the cake with Ian after we got back. The cake part of it turned out pretty easy and that finished without a hitch. Thanks to Ian’s mom for lending us all of her round cake tins. Two of which were pretty old, but had a small strip of metal that ran along a radius of the pan and up the side so you could slide it around to loosen the cake from the pan. It works kind of like the ice cream scoops that have the little metal lever doober. Anyway, it worked splendidly.

Thanks to my mom for the use of her double boiler to make the filling. The filling took much longer than the recipe said (about 20 minutes instead of 5). It needed to be over boiling water as well, not just hot water. That took a while to figure out. Then, we had more filling than expected, so we sliced two of the layers in half and ended up with a 5-layer cake.

The topping, which we expected to come out as a frosting, resulted in a glaze that we poured over the cake and let solidify. The learning process for that resulted in added hours of preparation and a very concentrated topping mixture. Fortunately, it all went over well and I think people really liked it. Ian’s grandmother seemed to appreciate the effort put into choosing the cake recipe too. It’s a good thing it turned out well, since Ian and I didn’t have a chance to try any of the cake before it was served. We had tasted a little bit of each of the parts, and it didn’t seem like anything special, but it was much better combined. The cake was a little bland on its own, the filling wasn’t that sweet, and the topping seemed a little too sweet (though that may have been our fault since we kept adding sugar to thicken the concoction), but all together, it seemed to work out well.

We made a second cake on Sunday to make sure there would be enough cake for everyone. We decided on something pretty tame: chocolate cake with a bourbon cream cheese frosting. Made that into a two-layer half-sheet cake without much trouble.

The evening was filled with Ian’s immediate family and about a dozen of his extended family. Each of the family units prepared a dish to bring so there was lots of good food and just general chatting and catching up. That’s about it for the weekend. Very cake-y. -J.

Poppy-Seed Cake - Valmuefrøkage

* 1/2 cup poppy seeds
* 1 cup milk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 3/4 cup soft butter
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 2 cups flour — sifted
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 4 egg whites

* 4 egg yolks
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 2 tablespoons cornstarch
* 1 1/2 cups milk
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup hazelnuts
* 1 teaspoon vanilla

* 1 cup powdered sugar
* 3 tablespoons rum
* 1 tablespoon water
* 1/2 cup hazelnuts — ground

Soak poppy seeds in the milk and vanilla overnight.

Cream butter until soft. Add the sugar gradually and cream well. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Blend the flour and poppy-seed mixtures alternately into the creamed butter mix. Blend well.

Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold into mixture.

Pour the batter into 2 buttered and lightly floured 8″ layer cake tines, and bake 30 minutes in a preheated 350º oven. Let cool a little in the pans before turning out onto racks. If you wish you can cut each layer in half and spread filling between four layers. Whichever you choose to do, here’s a suggestion for a mouth-watering between-the-layers spread:

Beat the egg yolks until frothy. Mix sugar, cornstarch, milk and salt with the beaten yolks and cook in the top of a double boiler over hot water about 5 minutes. Stir constantly to keep the mixture from scorching.

Grind nuts and add to cooked mixture with vanilla. Mix well, and spread between layers.

Top the cake as follows:

Stir the sugar with the rum until smooth. Add the water and beat well. Ice the sides and top of the cake. Sprinkle the ground nuts over the top.

Dark Chocolate Cake

INGREDIENTS:

* 2 cups boiling water
* 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 2 1/4 cups white sugar
* 4 eggs
* 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 3 - 9 inch round cake pans. In medium bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa, and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at time, then stir in vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture. Spread batter evenly between the 3 prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool.

Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting

INGREDIENTS:

* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
* 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
* 5 tablespoons premium bourbon

DIRECTIONS:

1. Beat softened butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add confectioners’ sugar and bourbon. Beat until creamy.