Lemonade Day!

This holiday was yesterday. Lemonade's really nice on a hot summer day. It probably would have been good yesterday. I haven't made it in a while. For mine, I usually use lemon juice first to about a 1/2 inch in the glass, then add some sugar (roughly 1/2 as much as the juice), then fill up the glass with however much water I want. It helps mix it up more this way. I still end up stirring it afterwards, just not as much. Sometimes I use Splenda to cut down on calories, however it gets a weird aftertaste. 

It was also Cupcake Day. I'm starting to like those more. I just didn't think much of them in the past. It's nice to have a little individual serving of cake, though. It's cute. They come in many sizes, too. The ones from Safeway are amazing, but huge!

The air quality is pretty bad today, too. It's a bit more in the red unhealthy category than yesterday. I can see more of the smoke from looking out the windows. Some of it has seeped inside, but it's not nearly as bad as outside. My gut's not liking this either. It seems upset. Rosie seems a bit worried about the smoke. She knows it's not normal. It's also expected to reach close to 90 degrees. When it's that hot with an unhealthy air quality, it's oppressive. Makes it hard to breathe or do much. It still looks like things will be a lot better starting after tomorrow. I hope that's true, it improves, and we stay with normal clean air. We're also still in a drought. Hopefully, we'll get some rain soon.

Last night I watched an episode of the Indian supernatural detective series, Anjaan: Special Crimes Unit on Netflix. I'm really liking this show so far. It's interesting to hear so much English interspersed with the Hindi. Hindi sounds and looks cool. I might try that on Duolingo in the future. I've heard and seen it before, but I think this is the first show I've watched where they speak it and show it written out. I've mostly just seen/heard it in movies, which are brief. Duolingo recently created a course for it, too. They show a lot of cultural aspects as well. I love learning about other cultures, so that's been a treat for me. 

Anyways, I thought it would be hokey, so my expectations were low. I was pleasantly surprised. The only thing I haven't liked, so far, is that they killed off someone who I thought would be a main character by the end of the 3rd episode. She was a very likeable character. It was a rather big twist. There's a new woman that might replace her, though. Haven't seen much of her, so I'm not sure how I feel about her. The side stories that are connected to the main mystery are very interesting in themselves. Everything has to do with a yellow-eyed demon-like character, Vanraj, and the main character, Vikrant. Vikrant's a detective. Netflix has 15 episodes, but looking at the wikipedia article, it actually has 65. Maybe they'll put the rest up in the future. It feels like I'm nearing the end, yet I've only watched 5 episodes. Should be interesting to see how it unfolds.

Watched 2 episodes of Gintama last night. I was behind a few weeks. 2 because of the awful internet connection at the hotel, and another because I was reluctant to continue watching the final season. It's my fave anime, and to think it's ending soon makes it hard to watch...I'll catch up next week with it. They implied that a major character was going to die, hence another factor to not wanting to continue. Turned out that he might be ok. However, a different character died. One I wasn't expecting. Everyone hated him when he first showed up, and he was a real jerk back then. This story arc has really changed him, and they actually made me tear up while he was dying. Gintama's good at making people hate a character, and turning them into something more. They're usually not 'evil', just misunderstood. Deep down they can be good people. The creator is a genius at character development, as well as other aspects. I don't think I could ever truly like the real 'bad guy', Utsuro, of this story though. He truly seems evil and doesn't care what happens to others. He seems to want to destroy planets, including Earth at the moment, because it's fun. He technically can't die, and has been trying to find ways to kill himself. The longer he lives, the more bored he feels. I like that they're showing characters we haven't seen in a long time, too. Each one has had a hand in trying to save Earth. 

Also, last night I caught up to One Piece again. (There's a new one today that I'll probably watch tonight.) The mochi devil fruit eater is annoying. Luffy doesn't seem to be landing any hits against him. Brook and Chopper are turning into hard candies, but Pedro may have saved them. He killed himself with a bomb to kill the candy devil fruit eater. If he dies, Brook and Chopper will return to normal, and the ship will be free. I didn't want Pedro to die...Even if he wasn't in the story for long. He was cool. It was a big enough blast that it sent the ship flying, Big Mom was blasted, and nearby fleets were blown up, too. Probably won't kill Big Mom, but she may be wounded. The only problem is the mochi guy, and luring Big Mom out to sea now. 

Ended up burning 928 calories yesterday. Roughly 62% of my calorie intake for the day. I was surprised by that, but again it wasn't a 'normal' day. I didn't do the added stair climbing, but ended up climbing stairs 15 times. If I had done the extra ones it would have been 24. That's a lot. I burned 270 calories alone with the natural stair climbing. That's close to the amount of one of my meals. So far today, I've burned 353 calories. Not bad considering I've done a lot less things than yesterday. 

Got to studying more Chinese today. I hadn't played the game for today before. It was on spelling. You choose what letters (pinyin) go in the blanks for a word, and if you get it right they turn into coins that fall into a pot. I was correct with the spelling for all the words. The only thing I messed up on was one tone for a word. They noted it, but marked the word correct. Sometimes it's hard to remember the right tone. Especially if it's an up or down one. They look similar. I finished the In the Office unit. The speaking part was frustrating, but I didn't mess up too badly. Ended up getting a 3.4 out of 4 for the all speaking lesson. Doing Business is the next unit. 

Read more of the manga, Alive. Not sure where this one's going, but it's certainly intriguing. They all lost the 'Heart of Akuro' (and Hirose who's inside) when the ship that was carrying it sunk. It's still 'alive', even if it might be at the bottom of the ocean now. I'm not sure what Megumi's situation is now. She's taking care of the people who kidnapped her 2 years ago...Doesn't seem right. 

Got to practicing my clarinet. Probably was not the best time considering it was around 80 degrees outside. (We don't have ac at home.) After that hour of practice, I was sweating like crazy. I don't regret it, though. Played some jazz and mostly Irish tunes this time. Wasn't too bad today, either. A few mistakes, but I'm working through them. 

National Potato Day!

This holiday was yesterday. I absolutely love potatoes! Could probably eat them all day and not get tired of them. There are so many different ways to eat or cook them. I don't think I had any potatoes yesterday, sadly. I should have...

The weather hasn't been great today. It'll be more of the same tomorrow. It's hot and smoky. So smoky, that right now the air quality index is at 165 and in the red. That's unhealthy territory for everyone. Particularly bad for the elderly, kids, people with respiratory issues, and people with other health issues (even difficult for people like me who have IBD). At least the sunlight coming inside is pretty. Again, the smoke is coming from wildfires in Canada, Washington (the state I'm from), Oregon, California, Idaho, and Montana. Wahoo! In the forecast, it seems that Thursday and on will be much cooler and less smoky. (Not sure if they expect the smoke to completely lift by then.) That's a positive light, at least. 

I've still been sticking to my 'diet' plan. Although I wanted Saturday and Sunday to be my treat days, I didn't reach my 'goal' for calories those days. I got to the high end of my 'normal' days at least. It amazes me how long some things last while eating this way. Like the muesli I got from Ikea seems only half empty. I've been having it for breakfast during the week, and switching to my normal cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch) during the weekend. Still have quite a bit of my regular cereal too, and that box is older. The bag of honey mustard and onion pretzel pieces seems endless, too. I've had that one for a while, and have had it for most of my afternoon snacks. Fruit lasts quite a while, as well. (Going by portion sizes/calories.) The only problem with that is that fruit goes bad pretty quickly. The other stuff can be fine for a while. 

I decided to do stair climbing at home inside, because of the awful air and heat outside. We have a full flight of stairs, so that's handy. I did 3 'sets' of running up and down those stairs 3 times yesterday. It got my heart racing. Quite a workout with just that. According to MyFitnessPal, I burned 163 calories with this. More than I thought. I also didn't realize that stair climbing is apparently a thing. Some people swear that it's the best exercise. Interesting reading about it. Maybe I'll keep it up even when I get back to walking. 

I've also been keeping track of my 'exercise' today on MyFitnessPal. Today's a bit different than usual, considering it's a big laundry day. (Plus, styling my hair...) So far I've burned 704 calories. More than I thought I would be at this point. Just playing my clarinet for an hour burned 145 calories. Cooking/prepping food, light cleaning, running up/down stairs, etc. are all possible entries on there and counted towards it. 

Studied more Chinese today. The training game today was on listening. They featured some traditional Chinese opera masks. That was cool to see. I think it was the first time I played this one. They say a word, and you choose the correct answer then drag it onto the other half of the mask. I didn't miss any of them. I stopped at the 2nd lesson in the In the Office unit. I only have 4 more units after this one. There's still some other parts of it that I haven't finished. I might study Russian after I finish this course. I loved studying it in college. I'm interested in so many more languages. Hopefully, Duolingo will be better with Russian. 

Played my clarinet for a full hour today. I'm happy I can do it for that long now. I played better than I thought I would. Still made some mistakes, but that's to be expected. Also, realized that I had been playing something incorrectly in the past. Maybe the time away from it made it more 'fresh' for me so I could see it. Today I played more Duke Ellington, Gershwin, and an advanced solo classical music book. The Gershwin one is also rather advanced. I was frustrated at times, but got through them. Rosie sat super close to me on the bed. I normally put my chair flush to the bed. It's not like I actually play it on it. She loved listening to me so much, she fell asleep and started drooling. As soon as I stopped, she looked at me as if to say: "Why did you stop? Keep up the music!" I was pretty loud at times and played high notes, and she still stayed so close...

I don't think I mentioned this, but I finished watching the anime Juuni Taisen or Zodiac Wars. Even though the winner was predictable, there were a lot of twists to it. Since they killed off the zodiac animals in reverse order, my sign won. He had an interesting power. He can live through 99 possible scenarios for every situation. Learning what worked more each time. He ended up being killed 98 times, and we were watching the 99th try. It was no wonder he was so tired. Even after he won the tournament, he died 98 more times while meeting with the one who organized the whole thing. If you refuse to answer his questions, you die either while still in front of him, or just outside of the building. The one who won was just a high school kid. He said he was forced into the tournament. I think he was the only one that wasn't really an assassin or warrior. After surviving and answering the organizer's questions, he was only given a few days to decide on a wish. They can grant any wish. The organizer even said that wish can be for more wishes. Going through 98 different possible wishes, he felt like he was going crazy. Eventually, he just wished that he'd forget about the whole thing. So, they erased his memories. I have a feeling that he may have dreamt the whole thing up. His 'world' seemed different compared to the others. I like that it was a very psychological one. It messed with the audience quite a bit. There are a lot of mixed reviews of it. Most people either love it or hate it. I liked it. Not the best, but it was good. Some people commented that it should have had more episodes. Well, they stuck to the zodiac theme and there were 12 of them. It wouldn't make sense that way to make it longer. I had hoped that they would have done more of a background on the rabbit and ox. There wasn't anything on the rabbit really, and he was the biggest and most ruthless killer. We only knew he was 'crazy' and a necromancer. Oh, and he really wanted friends. That's not much to go on. There was a little on the ox when they went through the tiger's background, but not much.

The anime Shiyan Pin Jiating's ending was disappointing. It was pretty good and very interesting. I watched most of it with the Chinese dub. It's actually based on a Chinese comic or manhua, and the anime is a collab between China and Japan. That in itself is interesting. I didn't like that each episode was only about 15 minutes, which is close to half of a regular anime episode. Since I heard the Chinese dub, it was handy while learning the language. The last episode ended way too soon. It seemed to allude to a 2nd season, but the ending was so abrupt...I don't know. They were finally agreeing to tell the person that was taking care of them about their family. That essentially all but Tannis (or Dennis depending on which version) are lab experiments. One is part spider, her identical twin is part plant (the spider's hair changed color and texture after transforming, so she looks different), one of them is part dog, and the last one is a psychic. Tannis is considered to be a genius. Most of the last episode was about Tannis convincing the others to go back home with him and try to learn how to live with other humans. The others wanted to live without him at the abandoned lab that was once their home, before their parents abandoned them. They didn't want to be a burden to Tannis anymore. They felt like they were monsters and deserved to fade into the shadows. Anyways, just as they were about to spill the family secret, it cut away. The psychic was overwhelmed with their caretaker's thoughts, and a name popped up that she recognized. Someone that hadn't been mentioned before. Why end it right there? 

Hataraku Saibou (Cells at Work) and Satsuriku no Tenshi (Angels of Slaughter) have both been great. Hataraku Saibou is surprisingly violent, yet very accurate. Accurate for anthropomorphizing cells and their functions. The white blood cells look pretty much like what I'd imagine them being. The most recent episode was on a cancer cell. They actually made us feel sorry for them. Especially when he said things like: "Why was I born?" They made him look kind of cool, but scary. Satsuriku no Tenshi is a horror escape game. All the characters are pretty twisted. Rachel may be the most. I feel bad for Zack. Yes, he's a serial killer, but he had an awful past. Rachel's the one that thinks through clues and such, and Zack protects her, attacks people and things, and does the more physical stuff. They have an agreement that he needs Rachel in order to make it out; and she wants to die but can't do it herself (she thinks it'll go against G-d if she suicides), so Zack promised to kill her once they make it out. She has amnesia, and the only thing she remembers is witnessing a murder, a short therapy session, and her name. I'm not sure why she wants to die so badly. I'm wondering if when her memories come back that'll change. I do remember, at the beginning, she was terrified of dying. What changed that? The more I think about the story so far, the more intrigued I am.