Yay, Facial

Today, I got my second-ever facial. I love facials. Love, love, love. My skin feels so happy and healthy, much more elastic. I get terribly dry skin, and it can feel like I'm wearing an uncomfortably tight, scratchy sweater on my face. But the aesthetician knows just how to peel off the scratchy layer, ever so gently, and then apply layers of soothing, cooling moisture. Ah, renewed.

Dreamscape

Chefs Ming Tsai and Jacques Pepin are teaching me how to make casseroles. Ming's creation is rather like a mooncake, with a characteristic flaky, stamped crust on top, only filled with red pork and gelatinous pork fat. Mssr. Pepin's has a bechamel sauce, into which we are putting broccoli and cauliflower. Because of all the fat in the dishes, I'm feeling grateful I did aerobics earlier when the moon was full. Jacques is about to add some sort of meat to the casserole when the air raid sirens start going off.

Damn alarm.

I keep hitting snooze and drifting back into the dream--Ming is trying to tell me something, and it's more real to my consciousness than the sirens and the room beyond them--but my husband helps me get up.

Tomorrow

I'll be visiting a middle school ESL department, and I'm looking forward to it! Of course, my shiatsu practice attracted a new customer, and I'm thinking, "As soon as I pick a new course, my practice will become wildly successful." What to do, what to do.

How to Amuse the Proprietors of the Indian Market

I used my last masala chai teabag that G's friend had brought back from India. Last time, I had to wait until Arun returned home, and then back to Boston, for more tea. This time, I was more savvy. I saved the last 2 teabag wrappers (in case I lost one of the wrappers).

At the Indian grocer, I made a beeline for the tea section. I held my green wrapper up to the mostly red and gold boxes. I found no matching packaging; the closest design was on an herbal cough remedy. But I did spy the words masala chai on two boxes. One box showed a beaming Indian woman against a garish yellow background. The slightly more expensive box showed an illustration of tea and spices against a garish yellow background. I chose the latter.

We dodged the cute children running around and begging their parents for sweets (Indian cuisine does sweets really well) to approach the register. I held up the tea box and the green wrapper and asked the store proprietor if they were the same thing, explaining the backstory. He grinned and consulted with his wife. They concluded that it was same thing, different brand.

They appeared highly amused.

PS. I'd been trying to find a perfect make-your-own recipe for chai for years, until God revealed through the hand of Arun that there existed teabags where this is already done for you--perfectly.

Spring Cleaning Update

Casualty: Pyrex mixing bowl. RIP.

Status:
Kitchen--spices arranged, stove and tiles scrubbed, sliding class door washed, things thrown out from cabinets and/or consolidated. Crap thrown out includes (but is not limited to): year-old jar of maraschino cherries, caramel coffee sauce I could not stop eating, "pancake syrup".

Living room--books vetted, placed in stacks: donate to library, return to owner, keep. Slipcovers washed. Surfaces dusted. Carpet vaccuumed.

Storage closet (aka "Wampus Room")--Recycling taken to center.

I think a stanza from Frost best expresses how I'm feeling about the daunting amount of cleaning left to do:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, 
And miles to go before I sleep.

Spring Cleaning

It's amazing how much messier everything gets in the process of spring cleaning. Now, the cookbook shelf is clean and organized, loose printouts of recipes tucked into binders or thrown away, vitamins vetted, microwave wiped down. But the rest of the kitchen is scarier than when I started.

G. is tackling the living room.

Cats are distressed.

Converting

I've decided I can't stand the Dem wars anymore. Clinton, Obama: grow up. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'll be voting for McCain in the general.

Heck, he looks like a Dem if you squint.