Rain rain go away.

The weather report said there was a chance of severe thunderstorms, floods, hail and all the other nasties associated with clouds and stuff. Lucky for me I didn't hear anything about tornados.

I went to work this morning and the skies looked friendly. However around 9am the skies shifted. I took some pix with my digital and snapped this with my Mint.

I can hear thunder and all the managers on the south wall have their lights off to watch the lightning show. Creepy!!!

Now the power is flickering and I can hear the rain beating down on the bldg.

What? You act like I've never seen rain before... Not like this :)

Why am I so irritated?

Is it because of PMS?

Is it because I had to go back to work after a nice long weekend?

Is it because I'm worried about my financial stability?

Maybe yes to everything.

Most awesome biscuits.

Yesterday my cousin Les and his girlfriend Wendy had their housewarming party in combination with James' fifth birthday party. His parents, older brother and two of his kids were there too.

All the women were hanging out in the kitchen, making tea, mashing potatoes and peppering peas. The guys were out watching the bbq, watching TV and geeking out on the pc. Occasionally we'd all end up outside together in the garage chatting it up.

The amount of flies reminded me of when Sam and I put in out grass and the flies were just waiting to get in. Don't you just love fresh sod?

Somebody mentioned there were no biscuits, so Laura and I took James for a ride to walmart to get some cheddar, sippy cups, and pancake bisquick batter. Interesting. Weird they're using pancake batter, but I'll take the recipe.

My aunt cooks like my grandma. No measurements. I watch while she pours in some milk two eggs and pancake batter. The consistency is thick biscuit-ish. My aunt buttered up a cake pan and stuck it in the oven until the butter melted. (she used 1/3 of a stick of REAL butter). After that she used an ice cream scoop to measure out the biscuits, then used the butter from the pan to pour over each biscuit to give it that golden color.

The result was some really awesome biscuits. Oh yea, everything else was great too.

Lemon Lime Slushies

I haven't made one of these silly collages in a while. This one is ultimately cheesey but I don't care.

I was driving home today and all I could think of was getting home and making my slush. Todays temperature seemed to be hotter than usual (it said 89 but it felt hotter). The sun was also out which intensified the heat.

Cinders greets me as usual. I change from my office clothes to my hang out cottons. I'm almost outta ice so I turn the ice maker back on. Hopefully I won't have to throw the first few batches away like last time.

Pop the ice in shaver and walk away. Take the frozen glasses outta the freezer, the syrup outta the fridge. Pack it all in the glass. Have a seat on the floor in front of the fan. Instant cool down. Oh yea, life is sweet.

Gotta love grandma's

This past weekend I spend some well deserved time in the salon, before I left the studio I went to the restroom and left my sweater. Oops. I called on Tuesday and lucky for me it was still there. Too bad I can't say the same for the glasses I lost @ Target.

Oh well.

I went to pick up my sweater @ the Salon and since it's kinda in Grandma's neighborhood I gave her a call and asked if it was ok to stop by. Lucky for me she wasn't outside in her garden or at the market.

I've always loved going to see her and now that I live so much closer and don't have the financial restrictions I had last year I can see her as often as I want. The best thing about going to see her has always the food she would make while we would visit. I believe the food has gotten better over the years, especially since I have a more adventurous palet and try all those spicy salsas.
When Eddie was overseas he always wanted my grandma's salsa's in his care packages. He would tell me they never lasted more than a day. No matter how caliente they were, it was always finished and then he'd ask to send more.

I really need to sit down with her and write all her recipes down. One thing I learned long ago when Eddie sent me to grandma's to learn to cook was that she NEVER measured anything which is something I've pretty much never done either. This is something that my mom could never figure out (but she still buys me measuring spoons and cups). It annoyed Adam because sometimes I would mess up meals and they would be over or under flavored cause I never measured stuff. Sam would point out and wonder why I didn't use the tools my mom bought me. Eddie never cared, he ate anything and never watched me cook. I would usually say that I was never taught that way but the real reason was I didn't want to clean the spoons and cups.

The funny thing is when I watch the food network cooks unless their stuff is pre measured and put into those cute tiny serving size dishes they tend to 'eye-ball' the ingredients they toss in. So guess me and grandma are doing something right, right?

One of the last times I was there she had mentioned that she wanted to give me a fryer for my fish tacos. She couldn't find it at the time but after looking inbetween visits she found it. It's one of the classic fryers and not like these new ones with multiple parts that may or may not be dishwasher safe or may or may not be washable. I know those fry vats at fast food and fine dining establishments rarely get cleaned... but still, I'd like to be able to clean my electronics from time to time without worrying about electricuting myself. Basically it's one piece and has adjustable temperature.

Sweet!

She asked me when I was going to see my parents again, I told her I wasn't sure so she went ahead and gave me a book of photos of my grandpa to deliver to my mom when I next saw her. In the book are some photos I've not seen. When I called my mom later, I asked her to bring her scanner if she comes to visit before I do. I want to make some copies of these photos and hang them on my wall or better yet, flickr 'em. Some of them are very arty and I see where my eye comes from.

We spent some time in the garden too and she sent me home with a fresh seeded pot of rosemary and another filled with basil. You just know I'm gonna be cooking soon.

How do you freaks find me?

So I was getting ready to go to bed and I happen to log into myspace just for kicks. I read this message from this girl who claims she WAS engaged to this guy that I was seeing earlier this year. As it turned out he was too good to be true. Mannie suggested I ditch him and long story short I did.

Seeing her email made me curious as to what she was referring to, so I looked at moe's flickr page. Funny how seeing things after you put them behind you will just piss you off again.

Just as I was soothing myself down for the night I get all wound up again. The question is ~ do I want to take on this drama? I mean, if I was a girl that WAS engaged to that guy, I personally, at least as an instant reaction would want my questions answered. But then I would think about it and wonder, "Do I *REALLY* want to know the answers to the questions I'm asking?"

Despite me trying to leave my drama behind me, it seems to find me somehow. Here's her message:

Hi. My name is CHICK* and I was engaged to LOSER*. Our engagement was on hold for these last several months while we worked things out. I was searching for some things online and ran across your flickr page. There are several pictures of the two of you together back in January. We were still together at that time and needless to say I'm a little shocked at what I saw. I recently ended our relationship, but I just wanted to know a little bit about what happened. Did he ever tell you about me? At one time I had my suspicions that something was going on with him but I ignored it. Turns out it was true. We were even together on New Year's Eve and it looks like he was then with you less than 2 weeks later. I'm not at all accusing you because I get the feeling that you had no idea that he was with someone already. I just want some answers so that I can have some closure about all this. How long were you seeing each other? When did it start and end?

I have no intentions of bothering you at all, I just want to know what was or is going on. If he deceived you like he did me, I am sorry that you had to go through that. He is very smooth and will tell you everything you want to hear and then some. He was too good to be true. We have been together since Jan 06 and we got engaged in March 06. We were best friends for months before we even dated. For the first couple months of this year he was acting strangely toward me so this would explain some of that. I truly believed that we were working things out and it was understood that we were still exclusive. He assured me several times that he wasn't seeing anyone.

I hope you can find this as a kind e-mail and not an accusatory tone.

Thank you for any insights you might have.

*NAMES have been changed, blah blah blah

She sounds like a smart girl, at least she understands the simplicity of forming coherent sentences and paragraph structure. She even said thanks. I know this one time when i was 22 I found out that the man I was seeing was married. I tried to tell the wife, but she didn't want to hear it. I ended things with him of course, but he really didn't like what I did to his life after that.

Seeing that email seems kinda like the same story 10 years ago. I didn't know the LOSER was engaged, but he did have some issues that just didn't fly with me. The only difference now is that I found out 5 almost 6 months after the fact while before I found out while I was dating the married guy. I'm sure Ally, Rach, Mannie and Danny can back me up on the LOSER boy stories.

Whatever. It's something to think about.

Who came up with these names anyway?

This morning the traffic report mentioned there was an accident on the highway I usually traverse and that two of the four lanes were closed.

Just great.

Lucky for me there is a TOLLway parallel to my usual commute route that I would be driving on this morning. I continue getting dressed and decide it would be wise to leave about 5 minutes early since I've never been down this road before. I walk out the door and drive half way down the block before I realize my GPS friendly cel phone is still sitting at home on my bed.

Great place for it right?

Especially since I don't know how to get to work from the TOLLway. I take my chances and keep driving.

So far so good, when the TOLLway ends I realize that I've gone too far, but the prior exit was 4 miles ago.... Who came up with THAT bright idea? My GPS sooo woulda come in handy. The good news I'm about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. The bad news I'm downtown, hello I work uptown.

I find a street I'm familiar with and head north. Eventually I wind my way to that tall ass building that's next to the building I work in. I'm so glad I can navigate by land marks cause seriously trying to drive on these streets is confusing. I make it to work right on time. If I had my GPS I prob woulda been 10 mins early.

~*~*~*~

Before lunch, I check on my TOLLtag, it's been 11 days since I've ordered it and it's still not in my mailbox. I call up the company again they said I could come to their office and get a new one for no charge.

Great, I can pick up my cel phone at home too. Good thing the TOLLtag office is in the vicinity of my apt. I pick up my phone and then head to the TOLLoffice.

After 5 minutes of being there, I decide I NEVER want to come here EVER again. It's right up there with going to the post office and the bank. When I got there nobody was in the office but the workers and it was quiet.

Next thing 5 random other people walk in and two of them decide that talking LOUDLY on their cel phones was more important that the task at hand.

TAKE IT OUTSIDE PEOPLE!!!!! THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW YOUR BIZNESS!!!!

This causes the 4 other people that are with reps to raise their voices to the reps in front of them so they can be heard. Mind you this office does not have those nice little mini cubicle partitions that the Triple A offices have to suck up noise and keep your conversation between the CSRs and the Customers private.

I don't want to be here anymore.

When I get my tag, I say my thanks and leave. I'm so flustered with those two stupid cel phone so I give them both dirty looks to which they are oblivious of course. I slam my car door and I hear my tires screech as I speed away.

My bad. Oh well.

I turn on my GPS and try the TOLLroad again.

I swear, I'm getting madder now. Who named these fucking roads anyway? I'm driving SOUTH on the road labeled NORTH TOLLWAY. This TOLLroad is just as dumb as the road next to that other highway. The one way road that goes SOUTH on the ONE WAY ROAD called the NORTH expressway. WTF?

Also, I have to get used to NOT calling these roads FREEways cause there ARE no free roads here. There are highways and expressways, and tollways. I really miss those Eastwood commercials. "Freeway, it's that thing you're speeding on."

Stupid cowboys with their stupid naming conventions.

One of my friends laughs at what I trip on. He says that if those are my only problems then my life is good. Guess he's right.

365 days

Flickr has this group called 365 days. I've been a member for quite some time and before I left CA I wanted to participate in this group but my life changed and those plans never panned out.

The rules are simple, take a self portrait for the next year and post them to the group. It's tempting but my hindrance excuse for the moment is that I'm using ancient technology camera wise. (Canon A40)

Before I moved into my new apartment I wanted to buy myself a new Canon D30 DSLR and the 28-135 IS Zoom Lens (my favorite lens aside from the 1.4 50MM) That didn't happen either. I was too happy spending time in Salons, going clothes shopping and getting old clothes tailored to fit my new shape. Those sprees were fun, but I do wish I had exercised some self control and got the camera instead. Oh well, it will be mine eventually.

Back to that group. I should get over myself and my point and shoot digi and just join. Have fun and learn more about self photos, right? I mean it seems to be the thing now days away. It's funny, when I was learning about photography in school they would always say that the self portrait is the hardest photo you will ever have to take.

I think they wrote those lessons before they invented cel phone cameras.

It's been a while . . .

Since I've last actually sat down and thought about WHAT I want to write about, so long in fact that I really don't know what subjects to conquer. I get my inspiration from so many places, while I'm out driving, when I go for my walks, sitting in my cube, watching TV, listening to the radio, hanging out with friends ~ basically it comes from everywhere and strikes at anytime.

When I was living with my cousin and he and I had out internet outtage (which he is STILL wwwless ~ damn those Charter Communications buttheads) I would still write my blogs, however when he and I would actually make it to the cafe's the blogs seemed pointless so I wouldn't post them.

Then when I was staying with my parents, the environment was so stressful that I could never write anything nice about anybody, but I would write it anyway. I think I'm still paying for the repercussion's on that one, but whatever I refuse to sugar coat my words or take them back and I'm not sorry for writing them.

At my brothers, because of the style of power outlets he had, I couldn't even plug in my laptop. He didn't have internet either so forget about trying to blog. I also found a job and in the beginning the one time I made an attempt to go out blog, I couldn'd find an open outlet. Another time the internet was down or running very sluggish. Yet another time at the bookstore I went to I had just paid for access and then they closed 15 mins after I paid... I gave up trying after that.

Now I finally have my own place! On Friday I made the trek down to my local friendly Time Warner Cable office and picked up my high speed internet kit. After a short misunderstanding they let me take my 2 boxes home (For some reason they thought I wanted a tech to come and install their goodies at my place. Over the phone I was given the option to self install or wait 2 weeks for a tech to come out, I said I would do it myself TYVM)

When I got home on Friday, the first thing I saw on my laptop was to call their call center. They told me my modem was registered to another account and it would be 24 hours before they could release the mac address.

Grumble. Oh well, I've been five months without internet, whats another day right?

Saturday evening, I test it out again, Reboot the modem and my mac ~ I get same redirect message. I call TWC again, they refresh their system and everything is magically working. Now to work on my wireless router.

This project took alot longer than I expected. First of all my old reliable blue linksys router managed to keep all the settings in it despite unplugging it and not using it for six months. This new wireless blue linksys that I bought in February was not so smart. I plug it in connect my laptop to the box with a wire ~ nothing.

Hmmm. I go to the linksys router setup page, download updates that I can't seem to open despite them being .bin files, I check my setting and they all look right, but it's not working. I call up TWC again and they tell me since it's not their gear I need to call linksys. So I make another phone call. Lucky for me I get right thru.

An hour later I'm all up and wireless, catching up with all my online buddies, looking at all my waste of time websites, reading random emails and of course searcing for recipes.

Ah life is complete again!

I have a weakness and it's raspado's

Originally uploaded from flickr.

I blame my brother for this purchase. One day I was chilling on the couch watching TV @ his place and him and Gracie come home from Wal-Mart. They're unloading their bags and my brother is totally excited about his slushie maker.

He's a little disappointed when he gets it out of the box because the ice tub is only 1/2 of what it looks like in the picture but he doesn't let this deter him. He loads up his slushie maker with ice and twists the nob.

A few minutes later he's poured the syrup over his shaved ice (and I asked if he could make me one too) so we're both enjoying the slushee treats.

A few days later, I had to buy some toothpaste or something @ Target and saw they had a small stash of slurpee flavors themselves, so I bought a 3 pak of Lemon-Lime, Grape and Strawberry Banana. After that I pretty much made myself 2 or 3 slurpees a day.

The weekend I moved out, I was joking around with him and said I was gonna pack up his slurpee maker and he could come over when he had a slushee craving. He said him and Gracie were planning on getting me a slushee maker for my place, but I just spoiled my surprise (too bad I couldn't wait for their gift).

The same weekend Daniel was helping me move, we were wandering around the Wal-Mart in my neighborhood and saw their HUGE stash of slurpee mix, he took home some more for his collection, I passed them up cause I had nothing to drink it with... until now.

So today I'm wandering around with a specific budgeted shopping list @ Target when I see in spanish, in huge hard to miss pink letters: RASPADOS ¡Prepare sus bebidas congeladas favoritas en minutos! Disfrute de granizados, raspados y bebidas congeladas con su soda, jugo o fruta favorito.

Dude use a translator, or common sense to figure out what it said.

Budget be damned. I brought this baby home with me along with 3 new syrupy flavors. I've had two already today. Someday I'll head back over to Wal-Mart and raid their slurpee flavor stash. I'm sure, in fact I know I can make the syrup myself and I can make it better.

When I made my first slurpee in my apartment, I had this memory triggered from last year where I blended some canned pineapple, maraschino cherry juice, pineapple and sunkist soda and lemon zest with some simple syrup. I swear I made the biggest mess but even after freezing it I think I figured out how to make my own homemade sherbert. Two days later it was still that not quite solid but not quite frozen consistency.

Also seeing the term raspado on that box reminded me of when Sam would go to that little mexican taco shop near our house and he would bring me back my lemon lime raspado and my shrimp/octopus cocktail. Damn I loved those things, now I can make my own!

Sweet!

Blood Donation

I was watching my emails come in one day at work and I see they are having a blood drive in the near future.

I think of all the blood my grandpa lost.

I think about my cheesy little Red Cross certificates telling me how much blood I've donated. (about 2 gallons)

I get scared they'll send me away because my iron count is so low. It's happened before, on top of a myriad of other mishaps when I donate my time and fluids.

I see there is an e-sign-in sheet an fill out their form. I scheduled myself for a 12:15 appointment on their blood mobile. Time passes quickly and next thing you know the time to donate is here.

Too bad the day I donated, I wore a skirt.... The good news is nobody was in the blood mobile when I walked in (which changed quickly).

While I sat in the round chair I could feel the blood moving thru the tube as it left my arm. Before I sat down, they asked me who I wanted to donate my blood to, I wrote down any grandpa or trauma woman. I didn't think about it until later to maybe donate some to Jessica. I don't even know if she's my blood type, but if I happen to donate again before she's a mommy, I'll make the attempt to leave some for her too.

I finished up without feeling sick or spitting out any projectiles. Good thing I ate at Freeb!irds right? That steak burrito helped boost up my iron to a 13. Their minimum requirement is a 12.5 which is higher than San Diego which is a 12. Honestly I've never seen my iron so high. Its usually hovering between 9.5-12.

They sent me back to my cube with loads of sugar and juices and of course my Tshirt. It's retro yellow / brown Padre colors.

They also patched up my arm in my favorite neon green tape.

The rest of the day I've been super tired and took a nice long nap when I got home.

FREEB!RDS

Guess what I found?! My cousin Mannie and I took a road trip to College Station last year and him and his then girlfriend took me to this awesome burrito shack called Fireb!rds. I swear it was probably THE best burrito I've had (not counting anything with the name Roberto's or any other variation of ~berto in the name). Well my coworkers and I were supposed to go to Chipotle today.. *bland I know* but lucky for me the driver exited the freeway... ahem highway too early and someone else said Fireb!rds was here.

I perked up?!?! You mean that awesome place I went to last year?! That's right here? This close to work? AWESUM! I snapped a photo and txt'd it to Mannie. His reply? He hated me. No cold mushy leftovers for you buddy!

Hopefully the steak-rito will be enough to boost my iron for my blood donation later.

There's no place like. . . H O M E !! !! !!

0511071915-768876, originally uploaded by molashes.

My new place.

I <3 Duke!

I usually let the doggies out when I come home, most of the time because of the weather the backyard is usually muddy which they then bring back into the house. Then I have to leave them in the kitchen until I feel their paws are nice and dry to come out and hang with the human(s)

earth -v- wind

I'll take earthquakes over these tornados, knock-down wind storms, torrential rains and flash floods any day. Call me crazy, but earthquakes last no longer than a minute and sure only the ones with a magnitue of 5.5 or greater (which is rare) do any devistating damage. These storms however have lasted since oh say late November and have yet to leave me with my beloved Blue Skies.

Living in SoCal for as long as I did, I grew accostomed to rain happening only every so often, usually at night and never really being something that would scare me. However just about everytime it rains here, some area that I need to traverse in (either walking or driving) turns into a pond or stream that isn't heel friendly. The water that falls out of the sky is also warmer, which does wonders for my curlz ~ gotta love high humidity.

Guess what it comes down to is what you're accustomed to. I've grown accustomed to little earthquakes here and there. The best way to describe an earthquake to somebody is when you're sitting in your car, and you happen to get stuck on a bridge and that bridge also happens to shake while you're sitting there waiting for traffic to move. That is the closest I can put into words the feeling of what 90% of the earthquakes I felt.

These storms, they seem to last forever; the wind howls, if you have animals, they panic. If you have a house, sometimes bits of your house or lawn end up somewhere they don't belong. Even worse if you like to garden, your bushes end up torn up or uprooted. I've seen fallen bits of trees moved to the front of peoples yards that eventually wilt before they are taken away by the garbage trucks. I've also seen bits of the roof hanging out on the ground. Fun stuff to take care of on top of all the

Face

Rainy Goodness