For My Sister: Part 1

Today has kind of been a grab bag of up and down. Good day at work, with the added bonus of a super-fantastic new co-worker who just happens to teach break dancing, and also has won third place in a national cake decorating contest. I'm hoping to learn all sorts of neat stuff from him. Mostly to do with break dancing, after that I'll think about perfecting my buttercream roses. Priorities are in order.

Also good: cleaned the sin out of the apartment while listening to Beck. How good is E-Pro? It makes you feel bad-ass even while scrubbing toilets with bleach. The man is effing brilliant and I like to pretend that I don't know he is in fact a Scientologist because that disappoints me on a few levels. Beck, so long as you keep kicking out the good shit I suppose you can believe in whatever you fancy.

And now I shall elaborate on the blueish side of this Monday.

My little sister Hilary has begun treatments in preparation for her kidney transplant taking place at the end of June. My father will be the donor.
Early this morning, after a sleepless night, she went into Boston all by herself on an early morning train, walked into the hospital and got a dialysis catheter put in. It's basically a series of tubes running from an incision above her collar bone, through her neck, into her heart. Her blood will get pumped out through this into a dialysis machine, and sent back into her better than it was before. This is good. But also pretty fucking terrifying in my opinion.
I hate myself for not knowing she was going to be by herself today. I should have called, rather than assumed someone else would be free. Also angry at the rest of my family for thinking it was just fine to send her off on her own. I blame myself for not calling them, and them for not calling me...I have this giant mass of frustration and I just don't know what to pin it to.

I remember when she was still tiny, at the onset of the disease. I remember nobody being able to figure out why she was crying, I remember regular trips to Floating Hospital, biopsies, how she got chubby when she had to take steroids. How she had to be home schooled for a while, how in retrospect she missed out on quite a lot, and yet was strong as hell, always growing and always brave. She has always been such a hard worker, in school and in every other aspect...her way of trying harder, doing better, expecting more....it has a way of making you forget entirely about the fact that she has a disease.

We've had more than our share of heated arguments over the past few years...more than I like to think about or admit. Mostly due to sharing a car, and other issues that seem entirely petty in retrospect. For the most part, by sibling standards I think we've done well, and have both recently agreed that we share a mutual distaste for fighting with each other. We make much better friends than enemies.
I will say with complete honesty that my sister knows how to raise my temper more quickly than anyone else in this world. Yet she was also the one who wrote a well composed letter laced with fury to the dean of admissions at UMass Amherst, upon receiving notice that I was not accepted into their undergraduate program. They read the letter and reversed their decision. My sister literally got me into college with an argument. She is that good.

Since she's been home, we've tried to go to the beach at every given chance. There haven't been nearly enough good beach days...we only got to go twice. I feel like we've been robbed. But I'm also really glad that she did convince me to go swimming, even though the water was freezing cold. We did it when we were kids, in this same ocean. There's no reason why we can't deal with it now...it's how we grew up, it's in our blood.

Hilary has started a new blog and I highly suggest that you give it a good look. She talks about her disease, her approach to these treatments, life and the summer in general. She writes in a way that makes me profoundly jealous, and amazed at the same time. Give it a gander. It will make you want to try.

Progress, Etc.

Lately I'm feeling that there aren't enough hours in the day. I'm not really sure why, seeing as I don't work overtime by any stretch of the imagination. I'm blaming it partly on having to find a new car, a slightly longer commute, and having ten billion things I want to accomplish in a short period of time...even when I'm not accomplishing them, the time spent making tentative blueprints in my head seems to count as labor in some way, and is making me pretty tired on a daily basis. Except for this past Sunday which I spent entirely on playing The Sims 3. By 8 pm or so, I finally got the characters to get it on after I realized I couldn't put the bed against the wall. My list of achievements for Sunday end there. And I'm almost ok with that.

Policecop left for AT in the wee hours of Saturday morning, which left me the entire weekend to move stuff about, hang things up , organize, etc. The living room is honestly looking pretty damn fabulous. Ten points for having a boyfriend who already owns a full-sized Soviet flag which you can hang over your fancy stiletto display, in the style of Cindy Gallop's Selby feature.

Bookshelves: Filled. I am in love with having the analogue cameras on display here, they look like toys...

Say hello to my old-as-hell diner napkin dispenser. Yesterday Gabby and Nick cleaned out the cafe basement (god bless their hearts...) which was pretty much a treasure chest of random junk from the cafes that existed in this location before us. This was the first thing I scored, and I was almost hesitant...there was a whole bucket full of them. Dusty, dirty with rust spots...I took the best one I could find and cleaned it up. Now I am in love. It catches my eye every time I walk by it. Probably because this is one item that never really exists in homes.

Avocado Gardening. I have been eating avocados as if they were going to be discontinued indefinitely. I saved a bunch of the pits, and finally got around to buying toothpicks to set up my own elementary-level science experiment. Very excited.

The other things I scored from the cafe: vintage cigarette rack and chip racks...both were crap brown before I hit them with a can of chrome spray paint. HOW IN THE NAME OF GOD did it take me this long to discover chrome spray paint? If I had my own lawn, I think I would have every piece of furniture in the place out there by now, entirely chromitized.

Policecop's Lichtenstein prints, which will be badass when we can get them framed. Also his French flag-esque knit blanket he got as a present from someone waiting outside of Circuit City on Black Friday.

Art for the bathroom. Made from previously owned cheap-ass frame from Michael's and four beautiful hipstamatic prints taken by Policecop.

And that is all for now.

The Sushi and Cake.

GOOD NEWS: As of tomorrow, I will have a stable, unfaltering internet connection of my own. It has been terrible going without, mostly because this means I've still got 3 episodes of Lost to catch up on, one of which is the grand finale, last episode ever....I don't want to hear anything good or bad about it, I refuse to read the newspaper or watch the news...if you start to talk about it, I will run in the other direction.

This Saturday I faced the challenge of decorating a birthday cake all by myself, for the very first time. While it was entirely frustrating (I ended up dropping the only perfect buttercream rose I made), and took about an hour and a half...my Grandmother was ecstatic, she loved it to death. Which made the 90 minutes of toil and foot-stomping entirely worth while. In addition, my confectionery confidence has received an extreme boost. Mad props to Donovin, who showed me how to properly hold a piping bag when writing. Great Success!

In other news, I've re-discovered an $8 gem in my closet...the cheap black wrap dress from Rave. I got this at least three years ago.
Invest in one of these. They are easy to wear, flattering on every figure, and sold in cheap places. And, entirely adjustable to boot. You could add or drop four dress sizes and still fit into the same wrap dress. GENIUS. Bravo, Diane Von Furstenberg!

And for my last news brief before my internet connection kicks the bucket:
Sushi is the new hamburger helper.
Yes, that's what I said. I discovered this Saturday night, during a quasi-drunk attempt at making dinner. Let me explain...
Rice is cheap. (Make it short grain though, this is important...)
Dried seaweed is cheap....
For the rest, use whatever else you have to fill in the gap. Avocado, scallion hummus, chopped cucumber and roasted sesame seeds made for an outrageously good dinner.
Think about it...there are all kinds of crazy sushi rolls advertised in America...so long as you have rice and nori as a base, just assume that you can make good shit...
mango, chicken, cream cheese?...DONE
Banana, steak, tomato?...DONE.

I've decided to live off of sushi. I will just buy whatever is dirt cheap at Roche Brothers, wrap it in rice and be done with it. There is no other poverty meal that could possibly feel so glamorous.

A few good things going on:

1:Tonight I somehow made a miracle happen with a box of Jiffy cornbread mix, in an attempt to duplicate the recipe for rosemary cornbread from the House of Blues. I kind of just guesstimated the entire thing and in the end, I'm in bliss over these things. I even made special honey butter. Going to make a huge batch for our camping trip at the end of June.

2: Our kitchen rug. I don't know why I love it so much. I just do.

3: REAL BED. I'm waiting on my Florida Lomo prints to renovate the wall. I took 5 rolls...

4: Coffee table books!

5: Photo Coasters!

6: A real honest to god grown-up sofa!

7: Fleur de lis throw pillows from salvation army!

While I'd like to post more about the big move and the decorating that has ensued, it's going to take quite a bit more time, money saving and effort to make this place look perfect.
Fortunately Policecop has been able to move the furniture in, which makes for a much more civilized-feeling lifestyle...although I was getting entirely used to the air mattress. (Sometimes I liked to pretend it was a water bed. When I was growing up a few of my friend's parents had them and I was always severely jealous.)

Anyway, a few corners of the place here and there are starting to look less vacant, which is wonderful. And I truly, truly love having my own kitchen...it feels like the sky is the limit. Or would be if food didn't cost so much damn money. Hrm.

a new rule for sundays:

I've decided to make Sunday a cliff-bar-free, cereal-free zone. I am introducing an elaborate and beautiful breakfast rule for this day. Mainly because I enjoyed making/eating my french toast so much this morning. With blackberries, strawberries, honey and powdered sugar. So terribly freaking good.

The remainder of the day has been spent on some painfully slow flickr uploads, bathroom cleaning and finally unpacking my Florida stuff. We weren't able to go batshit crazy in the souvenir shops, but did manage to find some neat stuff to bring back:

Florida beach in a bottle. A little bit too cute.

A plethora of magnets.

Elvis dish. What am I going to use this for? No clue.

Clearance bikini at SuperTarget. I've seen this one up here since I've been back, but it's not on clearance yet. Boooyaaah.

Japanese Bath salts from Mitsukoshi. I am full-on in love with the fact that I have my own bathtub and hope to use it 3 nights a week minimum.

Oh Florida.

I haven't had the means to post in quite a while due to lack of internet at the new place. We've been trying to find a provider that isn't out to rape our bank accounts, but it seems that we've been living in a fantasy world because in the great USA, internet is probably going to cost us more per month than electricity...FUCKED UP.

Anyhow, during my absence I took a long overdue vacation. Destination: Florida.
I think I was just about the only New Englander over the age of 20 left that hadn't been before.

While I had rather low hopes for Disney World, turns out I loved it. I can't understand why the progression of mankind hasn't lead to the entire world being something along the lines of the Magic Kingdom. Think about it...Disney is pretty much like the Vatican. Only much more fun, with water rides, beer, churros and no talk about eternal damnation. If the Vatican is a country, I think Disney should be too. Although they might have an illegal immigrant crisis, I think they've definitely got enough money to figure something out.

Policecop and I took about a billion pictures during our trip. Unfortunately in addition to lack of internet, I'm having pc hard drive space problems and can't upload them all. But here are a few for now, and the rest I will post on flickr once I get this crap sorted out.

And to close, here is my Florida Top Ten List, in no particular order:

1: The Sunshine: It rained for about 20 minutes the entire week I was there. I'm pretty much as tan as I can get (down from level 10 to level 8.1 alabaster, with freckles).
2:The Smell: There were real honest-to-god jasmine patches all over Disney. I'm sure that the hbic's in charge of things there knew that this would add to the general sense of magic. They were correct. But even greater than the jasmine were these strange trees with giant white flowers. After some google research, I'm thinking that they might have been magnolias. Either way, they smelled so beautiful that it was hard to walk away from one after you found it. If it were possible for me to uproot one of these trees and bring it home I would have done so.
3: Epcot World Pavilion:I've decided that this is the only place for me in this dark and dreary world. Every 100 steps that you take you arrive in a new country...Morocco, Italy, France, China, JAPAN. With a mini-mock Mitsukoshi department store...I spent at least 45 minutes deliberating over which snack to buy, settling on kasugai peanuts...which Policecop hated. (More for me).

4: Alligators. I was anticipating extreme gator action from the moment the plane touched down. Every time we drove by a swamp-ish area, I was on the lookout. So Gatorland was an extra special treat for me.

5: Palm Trees. I was just down right fascinated, regardless of having seen them in Guam before. Also, I was fully expecting to be on the look-out for falling coconuts...but apparently Florida isn't quite as tropical as I had hoped.

6: Seafoooooood: The best mahi mahi and coconut shrimp I've had in this lifetime.

7: The Possibilities of Tropical Fruit: On my last day in Orlando I had chicken with a passion fruit creme sauce...I will die if I can't duplicate this recipe. Also fresh pineapple, mango, whatever...I'm suddenly in love with fruit all over again.
8: To Each his Own Kidney Bean Shaped Pool: There is nothing as good as coming home after a terribly hot day and jumping in your very own pool. At night. With a built in porch around it so you don't have to worry about alligators or mosquitoes. Good stuff.

9: Spanish Moss. Creepy looking stuff. For some reason it kept making me think of New Orleans and how much I'd like to go there too.

10: I almost held a peacock. And did manage to hold a butterfly. I'm running out of specific things, but it was all just really, really good.

MOVING DAY!!!

I've been up since 7:30 lethargically stuffing things into boxes and bags. Today is the day we bust a move. Well, me that is. Policecop is on guard duty this weekend, so I will be moving my half of the goods in solo. This sucks because I don't have a bed. Not that I would want to move a bed by myself in the first place.

I'm borrowing an air mattress from my lovely boss for the time being, which should be fine and a certain upgrade from when I moved into my apartment in Kyoto, sleeping on a blanket on the floor for a few weeks...that sucked volumes.
The one fly in the ointment is the air pump...charged by car cigarette lighter only. I've got to inflate the damn thing in front of all of my neighbors and then bring it in. I hate things that make me feel insecure about my level of white-trash-dom. I'm going to have my brother help me out with this so I don't feel alone.

This entire post has been brought to you by procrastination.

DON'T WANNA.
Sigh.