*1146 - poka; the playful one

Hi Everyone,

My name is Poka (from Pocahontas). I'm EV and D's latest addition to the family. I was really scared of my new world when they first adopted me last weekend and so ate my food while half under the bed and half outside.



Now a week later, I've finished exploring their little apartment and I don't hide under the bed anymore. Look, I've even made friends with Frisque.



I love playing with my new toys, especially the one that flies like a bird. I can jump ridiculously high to catch it. Because I'm a quick-moving Russian Blue, it's hard to capture that on camera at night--I'm just a little grey blur.

Did you know, we kitty cats sleep up to 16 hours a day? I like to curl up next to EV and D when they are on the couch and snuggle in EV's lap at night. I know I am intensely cute when I am asleep. Look:





Mrreeaoww.

*1145 - guacamole

Now that we are on the topic of food that I have recently made (as it often is), here is my guacamole, tweaked over time and made just the way I like it.



A third of a red onion, diced
A few cloves of garlic, minced
2-3 roma tomatoes
A handful of chopped cilantro (fresh)
A sprig of chopped green onion
1 Hass avocado, cubed
Juice from half a lime
Cumin, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper

What I do that is sacrilegious to guacamole but I do because I hate the smell of raw onion and garlic is to saute the onion and garlic lightly until half-cooked. Let cool and mix with all other ingredients. The cumin here is the secret ingredient that gives the guacamole a bit of an adult-tasting kick, and I do add more tomatoes than normal as I find it gives the guacamole a nice freshness. Everything is a vague estimation and sometimes I add more of this or more of that if I feel like it.

*1144 - breakfast in a cup

So I don't forget how I made this:

Wrap a half-cooked bacon strip around the edge of a muffin pan cup. Push cubed bread in the base, drizzled with maple syrup, splashed with milk, patted with butter. Then, top with a piece of cheese (I think I used provolone). Crack an egg over. Sea salt, cracked black pepper, and rosemary to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Important to have the bacon already half-cooked (but still soft so you can shape it) so that your egg doesn't overcook.

Individual baked eggs. Breakfast in a cup. Though you probably need to have two, or three.

*1143 - frisque

Hi Everyone,

My name is Frisque. It's pronounced "Freesk". I'm Evelyn's special froggie mug that she uses for coffee at home.

*1142 - bloobry doobry

Guess who I dragged kicking and screaming (almost) to the slopes this long weekend?

And guess who "shredded the slopes" and wants to go back?



Yup. 'Twas Doobry.

I skied for the first time ever (pretty fun) and snowboarded for the first time in ... two years? Three? (Major fun) And today I am limping with a pulled groin muscle and covered with bruises, but so so pleased! Snowboarding is one of those unnatural physical activities with a steep and painful learning curve and hence so addictively fulfilling.

Plus, Lake Tahoe is beeeaautiful. Not too bummed that I never had my camera on me at the right moment (why, imagine that!) because I know we are going to be back!

*1141 - ev's homemade focaccia

I luvluvluvluvluv my focaccia bread. It's probably one of the yummiest things I've ever produced with my own 2 hands.

Delicious, savory, scrumptious, delectable, and downright titillating...it makes you wanna slap your mamma!

(Starring Guest Blogger D putting on the persona of EV. I bet you couldn't tell!)

*1140 - me

I am an introvert, which means that I make selective connections and put myself in certain social situations but not others and choose a lifestyle where I have just a handful of very solid bonds with the people who matter to me. (Clarification: it doesn't mean that we are necessarily socially awkward or shy (which I am, teehee)--it is a matter of where energy is derived, inside or out.)

Yet I often live vicariously by means of words or pictures through the lives of girls who are skinny and beautiful and popular and decked out with pretty shoes / clothes / friends, who are the life of the party and whom everyone wants to be around, and especially those who are intelligent and witty and articulate on top of all that ... and while I know that is not me and I know that I don't really desire to be something other than who I am, I wonder sometimes why it cannot be me and what I am missing and why I have to be missing those little things. Don't you wonder too?

*1139 - winter

Today, it is 61 degrees and we are headed out in a t-shirt (for him) and shorts (for me, albeit with a pair of thin tights). What are all those people complaining about the weather in SF for? They obviously have not experienced winter on the East Coast. It's balmy and I'm appreciating winter in San Francisco very much.

*1138 - ramblings about osha

There are two Thai restaurants right where we live--one is fancier and is in the same building as the apartment complex, and one has embarrassing decor and service but great home-style cooking.

Guess which one this is.







It's been a while since I had last had a green papaya salad, and this one was a particularly handsome one. OSHA also makes the best crab fried rice ever with huge hunks of snow crab meat, which I love even though it is possibly the cheapest entree on their menu ($12 or $13). And we were once served by a lovely Thai server (they almost always are Thai, which can only mean good things for the restaurant, I think) whom I thought was a lady but whom the boys were convinced was a man.

*1137 - candy cane, christmas tree, and an angel by the pool with a trumpet

Perhaps our most magnificent sparkler photographs yet! If you look hard enough, you'll see that the angel's feet look remarkably like Maddy's.







See? Quarter-way to grannyhood and still dancing.

*1136 - happy new year!

As everyone in the blogging world churns out witty / touching / inspiring posts about the new year and what it has in store for them, their families, their friends, humankind, I shall instead divulge a most embarrassing secret as I sit huddled in bed listening to the washer rumble in the next room (see? Productivity! This bodes well!):

I downloaded the Sims on my iPad two days ago and have not since been able to stop planting onions, making the little Sims do the WooHoo, and baking croissants.

I'm so behind the times, I know.

Well. It being 2012 makes no difference to me (although the midnight champagne and kisses were very cute) because we live moment by moment and breath by breath (which is the way I regard every milestone) but every occasion is a reminder to celebrate life and love and a reminder that blessings are in store whether it is 2011, 2012, or decades down the road. I'm celebrating this very moment, right now, and it just happens to be the first day of 2012.

Cheers!