Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Tuesday's A Thing I Need to Do Anyway

I was up late again last night. I passed the time by watching You Laugh But It's True the documentary made by Trevor Noah, the mixed-race, South African comedian who will take over at The Daily Show when Jon Stewart leaves later this year. I had never heard of him before, but I really liked the doc. I hardly ever watch TDS anymore, but I might tune in to see how the new guy does. He did have one joke I really liked, about being unsure about whether or not he would make it as a comedian: "I guess I can always fall back on poverty," he said optimistically.

A little before 1:00 a.m., I made Dave's lunch (a cheese sandwich, a bag of baby carrots and celery sticks, Greek yogurt and berries, an apple) for the morning. I also remembered to put the remaining Girl Scout cookies (one sleeve of cookies from each of the two boxes we bought) in his lunch bag so that he wouldn't forget to take them to work to feed the break room vultures. I would love to have finished both boxes of cookies, but since I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to sugary things (or most things, really), I sent them away.

I finally got to sleep just before 4:00 a.m. and slept fairly soundly until just after 11:00 a.m. I had taken my medication before I fell asleep, so I got up and had blunch (breakfast/lunch) right away. I made a quinoa patty sandwich on low-sodium bread and had some of the beet, red cabbage and apple slaw I made for dinner last night. I also had a cup of half-caf coffee. Then I had another cup of half-caf coffee. The caffeine doesn't jolt me awake the way it once did; I should probably look into a source for cocaine. (Which is a joke, of course. Those days are long, long, long gone.)

I remembered that I hadn't taken my phone off airplane mode after the concert last night, so I did that and immediately two texts and a voicemail were delivered. The voicemail reminded me that I have a dentist appointment on Thursday at 8:00 am. The texts were from my mother and Dave. I answered everyone and then got into the shower.

My face has been awfully dry recently so I've been trying a few new things. I've been taking less hot showers--which is a wrench for me because I love ridiculously hot showers. I've been adding a few drops of jojoba oil to my face wash. I've also been using the olive oil and beeswax face cream I bought. It seems to help a little. (What I've tried but hasn't worked: The YuBe cream and a LUSH facial cleanser called Ultrabland. Sadly, both caused an allergic reaction.) I'm not sure what I'll do if this regime doesn't ultimately work. I'll just have to walk around looking like a reptile that's shedding its skin, I suppose.

After my shower, I put on makeup so I could wear my new year's resolution red lipstick. Today is Sephora's cream lip stain in 01-Always Red layered with Revlon's ColorBurst Lip Butter in Red Velvet (which has apparently been discontinued).

Later

Dave and I met up with my brother for dinner at China Express, a hole-in-the-wall type restaurant that serves everything in styrofoam take-out containers. Surprisingly, it was really good! Dave and I shared an order of tofu with vegetables and an order of mixed vegetables, both with steamed rice. My brother had sweet and sour chicken. We all had egg rolls, too. I'm sure the sodium content of the meal was a bit much, but as a once in awhile treat, it will be fine.

We came home via the co-op, where we picked up some bananas, chocolate, raisins, and cereal.  We were going to buy vinegar, but it was almost $6 a gallon, which, no thank you. We can get it for about $2-3 a gallon everywhere else.

I've been watching a half-hour show on youtube from NHK called "Begin Japanology" that talks about different aspects of Japanese culture, everything from tsukemono (Japanese pickles) to the shipbuilding industry. It's making me long to visit Japan again. I especially miss a lot of the foods that you can't find in New Mexico, mentaiko (spicy codfish roe), for example, and sakura-mochi (a cherry blossom flavored sweet rice). David and I talked about traveling to Vietnam early next year, so maybe we can manage a quick swing over to Japan at the tail end of the trip. It will mean having to update my passport because it expired, but that's something I need to do anyway.

2 comments:

Helen said...

I always enjoy "Begin Japanology" whenever I am able to find it. Peter Barakan is a talented presenter, and he's so knowledgeable.

It would be cool if you could visit Japan! Don't know if I'd be able to swing a trip to meet up though.

Chinese food sounds so good. I'd love some! The Chinese food here is okay, but I prefer the North American style that I grew up with! (Which isn't authentic but so what?)

Rosa said...

Hi, Helen,

It is a cool show. It was a completely fateful find on youtube. Someone's posted all the episodes there, too, which is nice.

I'd love to visit Japan again. I can't believe it's been nine years since I've been there. Maybe we can meet somewhere near your city? I never got out of Tokyo much--outings to Hiroshima, Kyoto and a few other places, that's it.

I could never get used to the Japanese take on non-Japanese food, whether it was Chinese, French, Italian, what have you. It was always, like, not everything needs to have dashi and aonori added to it!