Wednesday, June 3, 2015

National Egg Day!

Mood::iconchibiaustriaplz:

I love eggs! They're very nutritious, too.:iconinloveplz:I don't have it as often as I used to. I think I tend to forget about them...:iconawkwardplz:We still have 2 of the brown eggs someone gave us from her own chicken coop. I think she gave us about a dozen of them, and it might have been in February or early March. Used a lot of them for cooking Passover food. So, it wasn't my normal consumption of it, and most of the time it wasn't by itself. I love scrambled eggs with a bunch of things mixed in. Cheese, spinach, dill, garlic, carrots, etc. whatever I feel like. It's a bit different than an omelet. I think Mom occasionally used to do them this way when we were both having eggs. It's like all the flavors are much more evenly mixed.:iconfrancisplz:I like omelets, too. It has to have cheese. But, it doesn't matter what kind. Vegetables are good in them. I don't like omelets that are too plain. Sometimes when I order a vegetarian omelet, there isn't much to it.:iconwtfromanoplz:Hard-boiled eggs are awesome, too! I could eat those by themselves, although a little salt makes it even better. 
This is my wallpaper for June. It features Tsuna in his Hyper Dying Will mode (far left), Giotto aka the 1st or Primo boss of the Vongola family (to the right of the Hyper Dying Will Tsuna, he's also in that mode), Reborn's original adult form (far upper right corner), and the way Tsuna normally is (just below Reborn). All from Hitman Reborn. Tsuna is technically the 10th generation boss of Vongola. Or, sometimes called Decimo. Everyone recognizes him as such, even though he doesn't want to be. As far as I've read in the manga, they haven't formally gone through with the ceremony to make him the next boss. That ceremony was interrupted halfway through. The previous bosses that had passed on (he was able to communicate with them through one of his 'trials' during training), the current 9th head (he's always accepted him, even before anyone else knew he was a 'candidate'), the families allied with Vongola, and others have accepted him. In a way, he seems to be like a reincarnation of Giotto. The 10th Guardians seem to be that way with the 1st's ones, as well. They have somewhat similar personalities, views on the world, and they all look similar to their counterparts. Tsuna's been the only boss to be able to use Giotto's 'gear' or weapons. Same with the 10th's Guardians and their counterparts. Reborn is normally in a baby form. He was cursed into being one, and I'm still not exactly sure why. In fact, the current arc I'm on is all about the Arcobalenos' curse. Arcobaleno is lit. 'rainbow' in Italian, and each Arcobaleno has a different colored pacifier. Reborn's is yellow. The only one that wasn't turned into a baby was Yuni (and others that were previously in her place), who's the boss of them. Her curse is that she'll have a short life, just like the previous Arcobaleno bosses. Next to Reborn is the Vongola family crest. Vongola means 'clam' in Italian, so there's a clam at the top. 

My Paris calendar features the Latin Quarter. There's a lot of bistros, restaurants, museums, shops, and galleries. It's split up by the Blvd St Germain and the Blvd St Michel. The pic is of a corner on St Germain looking at a bistro across the street. There's a pic of a scenic view from one of the many streets in that area. 

My Jewish calendar's main pic's of a painting called: Life? Or Theater? It's by Charlotte Salomon. Several other people helped out and contributed to it. (Pretty long names...) It's from France; 1940-1942. The painting's of a bride and groom, assuming to be on their wedding day. Does that mean they're playing around and not actually getting married? Or, will their life together be theatrical? Interesting. The 2nd pic's of a groom's glass, made by someone anonymous and Meijer Goudsmit, made out of glass. From Amsterdam; 1775-1789. The 'groom's glass' is what the groom stomps on at the end of the ceremony. After it's broken, some people collect the shards and either put it in a decorative pouch, or put the shards into a work of art. Nobody really knows how the custom came to be, but there are a lot of speculations. It's kind of fun to see, though. This one's beautiful and has a blessing on it. I wonder why it was never used? That's kind of sad. Especially considering how old it is. I love seeing stuff that old, though. It's interesting, and fascinating how some things can still look untouched after that amount of time. It's a glimpse at what life was like back then, too. The last pic's of a painting called: Wedding with Klezmers. It's by Abraham Yakin. From Jerusalem; 1988. This one looks like they tried to make it kind of old style. Like some of the illustrations I've seen through this from the mid-18th century. The way it was done, isn't my style...It has scenes from a wedding with a klezmer band. Klezmer is sometimes described as Eastern European Jewish Jazz. They often play at weddings and Bat/Bar Mitzvahs. But, there can be quite a range within the genre. Some songs are happy, party-like, dances, sad, niguns (vocal music- usually with just the voice), some religious songs' melodies came from klezmer, etc. It's a lot more than 'party music'. I like to play it on my clarinet. It's one of the central, most recognizable, instruments in a klezmer band. The violin is about equal with it. Although, any instrument can join in. That's also one of the joys of it. A lot of it just flows for me. It can be very soulful, too. In the future, it'd be interesting to play in a klezmer band. I think I need more klezmer books to practice from, though.

The month-long holidays are: National Candy Month, National Dairy Month, National Iced Tea Month, National Seafood Month, National Camping Month, LGBT Pride Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun.

Hoping to post more often here than I have been.:iconkikuplz:Lately I haven't felt too good. I think since February, I've had some weird gut issues. It got bad enough at the end of February that I went to Urgent Care. They basically told me to wait it out, and to drink plenty of fluids. I might have gotten something for the pain? Can't remember, but that only helps for a short time. I've been bouncing back and forth from a laxative to Imodium ever since. (There have been times where I've been fine, too.) There have been times where I've tried my best to stay away from both, but eventually it gets so bad I have to take something. This last bout was interesting. I was seriously blocked up, but didn't want to use a laxative unless I couldn't breathe or something. It got pretty bad, so I took 3 pills in total over 2 days of the laxative. 1 dose is considered 1-3 pills. It was successful after a couple of days. A little too successful after that...:iconlietplz:I tried to stay away from the imodium as best I could, but I've been losing a lot in the last 3 weeks or so. I took one pill which was half of the '1st' dose on Monday, thinking maybe easing into it will change it. Not much of a success since. Gatorade has helped in making me feel better, though. Also, found some rashes...They seem to be going away, though. It just all feels weird and kind of suspicious to me.:iconhongkongplz:Also, haven't heard a thing from my new doctor about the meds...:iconwtfukplz:

I'm still brainstorming a title for my nightmare anthology of short stories. It's funny because with the 1st novel, I thought up the title only about a paragraph into it. Really early on. Not even sure why it popped into my head, but it certainly fit the story. I have all the individual story names, at least. The titles I've come up with for the whole thing, haven't truly struck a cord with me.:iconnorwayunimpressedplz:I'll have to go through them again to see if either I like one of them more than I thought, or it might get me to come up with better ones. After this, I'm putting them all together, reformatting it all, adding the 'extras' (contents, acknowledgements, etc.), figuring out the cover art, and then finally sending it off to Smashwords to publish. There's still quite a bit to do.:iconpolandplz:I kind of like everything, but the coming up with a title and the cover art parts. They can be fun. 

Saturday night, we went to a local paella/tapas bar. Paella is a Spanish dish that's a rice mixture that tends to have seafood (specifically a lot of shellfish), some pork, and is kind of smoky. I think I've read it technically just has to have rice, meat/some sort of protein, and the smoky sauce. I think I've had a version in the past that didn't have shellfish or pork, and it was pretty good. Tapas are like little snacks or appetizers. You order a variety of them in order to make it a meal. A lot of people share them, too. We were celebrating Dad's birthday a little early. She wanted her birthday dinner to be paella, so we went there. I also was kind of celebrating that I had recently finished writing my 2nd novel, and finished rereading/reediting the whole thing a couple of days before. The tapas I got were: lamb meatballs, potato tortillas with artichokes and aioli, and piquillo peppers stuffed with goat cheese and roasted pepper coulis. It was all very good. Even though they're supposed to be 'snack' sizes, I couldn't finish them and had to take some home with me. Oh well, meant more awesomeness for later! The only problem I had with this place was how warm it was. I was sweating like crazy.:iconitshotplz:It felt warmer than my room gets at home during a hot day. It's like the hottest room in the house. (Even without my computer on.) They apparently don't have AC, and said they'd only open the windows when the outside was cooler. They had fans going, but it wasn't really helping. The fans were kind of slow at that.