This was on Monday, but why not keep celebrating it? Almonds are very versatile. They can be cooked in so many different recipes, and are great by themselves. You can have them plain, roasted, salted, seasoned, etc. There's even such a thing as almond 'milk'. (If it doesn't have actual milk in it, I feel odd about calling it 'milk'.
But, it's good.) It's very healthy, too. It was also Presidents' Day. I hope people who like Valentine's Day had a great one. I was going to say 'those who celebrate', but it sounded weird.
I've always felt odd about the holiday for many reasons. One, I was dumped on Valentine's Day over the phone several years ago...So, that's kind of soured it a bit for me.
Another reason is that it really is a 'religious' holiday. No matter how commercialized its gotten (and I know it's over-the-top with that), it still has those origins. There's a reason why 'Saint' is in the name. Since it's not apart of my religion, I feel even weirder about it.
Some Jews will ignore the whole thing because of this. Jews already have a similar 'love' holiday, but it's a very minor one. (It's Tu B'Av or the 15th of the month of Av. Some refer to it as the Jewish Day of Love. It's in the summertime.) The only thing good I see in Valentine's Day is the sales on candy/chocolates. I still haven't been feeling too good.
I'm a lot better than when I went to Urgent Care at the end of last month. But, whatever I have, seems to be lingering still. The Imodium has really helped. I followed the first dose's instructions with taking 2 pills at once. Couldn't go for about a week...
Then, the 'problem', pain, and nausea came back after that. So, I took one pill after waiting a little while. Thinking things would equal out on their own. No such luck. With one pill, it was a lot better on my system. It felt more normal. I might have to take another one soon, though. That stuff is powerful!
Maybe whatever I have really is on its way out, but it's just taking its sweet time.
Went to the support group last night. Had a really big turnout. A lot of people hadn't been to a meeting for a while. Interesting discussions, too. We went to Shari's, like usual, afterwards. Had their turtle sundae. A 'turtle' is chocolate, nuts, and caramel combined. There was a very large brownie at the bottom with caramel and nuts mixed in. On top of that, there was a HUGE scoop (more like a mountain) of vanilla ice cream. Whipped cream topped that. Chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, and pieces of nuts were drizzled/sprinkled over everything. The brownie was amazing!
Way too much ice cream for me...
If it had an amazing flavor to it, I might feel otherwise. Before that we went to Taco Time for a quick dinner. We had been out for most of the day. I haven't been there in a long time. I got my fave, which was the bean soft burrito. It's so good!
It has pinto beans mashed up, lots of cheese, and quite a bit of enchilada sauce stuffed inside a flour tortilla. It's huge! At least to me it is.
Since I got the combo, it comes with some mexi-fries. They were pretty good too! It all was so satisfying, I was fighting off sleep afterwards.
I looked it up later, and found out the burrito is a lot less calories than I expected. The mexi-fries were almost as many calories. It's good to know for in the future.
Maybe I'll just get the burrito and a drink next time, too. I only had 2 meals plus that brownie for the entire day. Knowing that, I think it was probably a good idea to eat everything I got for dinner. I still have to be smart about how little calories I might have, too. We went on various errands for the rest of the day. Dad had a 4-day weekend. I finally deposited the check my grandpa sent with a Hanukkah card during the holiday. I just have to figure out what I want for a Hanukkah present for myself, now that it's in the bank. I'm thinking of the seasons expansion for the Sims 2. There will actually be seasons for them. As it is right now, it's like a perpetual spring with no rain.
With this, there'll be rain, snow, falling leaves, changes in temp, other types of weather, along with the seasons, etc. They also get more clothes, new items, new house furnishings, plants, etc. I was also thinking about the pets expansion, but if it's just enough for one, I'd rather have the seasons one. Seems like so much more to it.
Managed to write more of the 12th short story to my nightmare anthology. I've seemed to break through my block on it, and have more of a clearer picture as to how I want it to go. Not sure how it'll end up yet, though.
Last week I also managed to practice my clarinet. It felt so good to get back to it!
Hopefully, I can get back to it on a regular basis. Did some jazz and Irish tunes. Played well enough that Rosie sat up close on the bed next to me. She usually loves it when I play. It feels a bit weird, yet nice, to have a furry fan like that...
Also, got around to studying more kanji. The more I learn, the more interesting it gets.
One of them had its handwritten short-forms listed. It has like 16 strokes, so it can get tedious to write out over and over. So, they have some simplified versions for writing it. Looks nicer and cleaner simplified, too. Also, did pretty well with the practice part and quizzes on JapaneseClass' site. I'm going to look into the Japanese version of RocketNews' site. I love their English version. Sometimes the English one has translated articles from the original Japanese one, but most of it's original. So, there will be more stories on the original. It may be more interesting to read than asahi's or mainichi's site. Trying to cover more of the reading part, too. Scanned all of the drawings of my original characters' outfits/accessories, and the Hanukkah themed one. (It features Shadow, who's the main character from my novel, Alliance.) I'll go over them a bit in Photoshop, but it probably won't take long until I post them to dA. Still trying to decide if I want to post each characters' stuff individually, or by page. I technically have 20 characters, but 2 of them have 2 different 'forms'. It ended up being 5 pages of characters...
I guess I'll decide on it at some point. Getting closer to finishing with editing the exaggerated emotions meme with Junko (another character from Alliance) in Photoshop. It's taking longer because I didn't color it in, and the smudges/marks/etc. show up more that way. So, there's some cleaning up to do. But, it seems to be getting easier. After the editing, I'll get to put each drawing into the correct spaces on the meme. There's 24 of them. The number of small drawings might also be another reason for it taking so long...The movie/special I'm watching now is Oriento Kyuko Satsujin Jiken or Murder on the Orient Express. (Last time I watched Pandemic.) It's a 2-episode special, but each episode is like 2 1/2 hours long. So, I'm breaking them into chunks. Watched the 1st episode. It's an interesting adaptation of the original Agatha Christie novel. I don't particularly like the detective's voice, but the rest of it has been good. I like Agatha Christie stories. They're fascinating. I have a video game called And Then There Were None based on the novel of the same name. It's interesting, too. Haven't played it in a while.
Finished watching Guu Guu, the Cat. It was a pretty good miniseries. The mangaka (creator of the manga) had a very active imagination. It looked like she was hallucinating every so often. Occasionally, I couldn't tell what was 'real' and what was imaginary.
Anyways, Guu Guu lived to be 15 years old, and he died just before the mangaka was going to receive an award for her work that was based on Guu Guu. It was bittersweet that way. She ended up with 13 cats. I don't see how people could take care of that many...
This is based on a true story, and they gave out the real life info about the mangaka, Guu Guu, and her cats at the end. Guu Guu helped her overcome depression, and got her motivated to draw again. In real life the mangaka was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at some point, and she feels she wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for her cats. They gave her the courage to keep living, and to be adventurous. They slightly hinted about the cancer in the miniseries. She seemed rather bitter about it in the show. Partially because she would never be able to get pregnant. She became depressed again once Guu Guu passed away, but with looking back at all her cats, she couldn't feel that way for long. They cheered her up. So, it was a bittersweet, but good, story. I'm kind of interested in the manga now. Can't find it anywhere, though.
Since I noticed some of Smoking Gun's missing episodes were up, I'm back to watching it. The only one that's still not up (from when I last checked) is the finale. But, I'm hoping that by the time I get to it, it'll be up. It's a good show, and I'm glad that I might finally be able to finish it soon.
Ouroboros has only gotten better. It's not nearly as 'cheesy' as it started out as. (Someone commented that it seemed too cheesy after the 1st episode.) It has a lot of depth to the story, and the characters are very interesting. It seems like with each episode they get a very tiny clue (seemingly insignificant until the next episode) about what happened the day their teacher from the orphanage was killed, and who was behind it. Their teacher had some dark secrets, too. They usually have this view that she's very pure, but that changed with Ikuo remembering what happened just before she was shot. He had blocked out the memory until a recent case brought it all back.
Parasyte has been awesome!
With the most recent episode, they messed with everyone's emotions. Apparently Reiko, who's a parasite, ended up with a maternal instinct that most parasites haven't expressed before. She was more into studying humans, and finding out why they behave in certain ways. Her host ended up pregnant, and she kept the baby after she gave birth to it. It's a perfectly normal human baby. At first, she was turned off by it, and thought several times about 'getting rid' of it. But, something kept drawing her to it. Over time that feeling grew. Parasites so far aren't known to possess emotions like humans do, so she surprised herself. She even picked up laughing. Her maternal side became so strong, she refused to let a private investigator kill it. She stabbed him immediately through the heart and grabbed the baby. The detectives on the case caught up with her, and started firing their guns at her. She was able to lengthen and harden her hair that wrapped itself around the baby, protecting it. She didn't resist or fight the detectives. Shinichi was there, because she asked him to meet with her, saying it was important. He was watching it all unfold around him, and as she's still being shot at, she tried her best to walk towards him. Eventually, the detectives realized she wasn't fighting back, and stopped firing. She gave Shinichi the baby, saying that he should protect and take it to a safe place. With that, she passed out and died. So sad. I didn't expect her to end up being a 'good' person. She was pretty vicious towards her own kind the night before...But, they were going to kill her. I think she was very misunderstood, too. Shinichi was picked up by the police to give his statement about what happened. They found his father and he's under their protection now. They know that he knows about the parasites. But, they certainly don't know about Migi yet. Migi is a parasite that only made it to Shinichi's right hand, instead of traveling to his head and gaining control. He seems to be very intelligent, and has a wicked sense of humor. Migi's cells have intermingled with Shinichi's in other parts of his body, and it's affecting him physically and mentally. The police wanted Shinichi to identify if a convicted serial killer at their jail is a parasite. They told the serial killer to tell them if Shinichi is one or has some sort of special ability against them. At the very end of the episode, there was a possibility that Shinichi and Migi may have been found out. The convict knew something. But, they left us hanging on that. It's like one of the worst cliffhangers ever!
Dad got an amaryllis plant bulb recently as a present. The plant's been growing in the kitchen ever since. It's gotten so huge! It finally has bloomed, too. The flowers are bigger than I expected as well. They're a pretty red color. It's been interesting watching it grow.
I have this weird feeling that it may take over the entire kitchen. It's pretty impressive as it is.
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