cooking and other goodness

It's been a busy start to the new year! Along with revitalizing this blog - I've also created a new one for me and my Stude! You can find it at www.greasegirl.wordpress.com! I hope to begin to connect with more people in the hot rod community and have a venue to post articles with beginner car knowledge...it's been fun so far and I've gotten lots of good responses!

I've also been back to work creating some art. I finally finished the painting begun for Kim's 30th birthday. As well as beginning to work out some of the figures for a new painting. Which reminds me...I'm wanting to expand my "blue boy" painting to a whole series of kids. If you have any great photographs of a childs face...I'd love to have it - the idea is to have kids from around the globe, with stories to go along. I also finally got some pinstripping laid down on the bottom of my skateboard. To see this stuff, visit :create:, my artblog. (Click on :create: to be redirected).

The skateboard finally got done, because I was creating an example design for what may be a budding business amongst 3 of my neighbor kids. A friend gave them a "seed" of 6 skateboard decks in which to start a little business with. It was fun going to my friend's, John from InnerCHANGE, office and having him talk to the kids about business, money, and what not. We also made another trip to a skate shop (Non-Factory) to get grip tape. The guy working there was super nice and gave the kids a great lesson on how to apply grip tape to the board. After that we came back to the house and everybody took turns putting a sheet on a board. All of our fingers were all rough and sandpapery after that! At the moment the kids are a little discouraged because they're not finding buyers as fast as they thought they would. We'll see...even if nothing else happens it's already been a really good experience.

This past Sunday, my community had its first ever Sunday gathering. Much like church, but in the home. It was really fantastic! Some friends came - we sang, took communion, talked about grace. Since it was the day before MLK - I was happy to be able to focus on that a little with others. I'd been realizing last week how much grace exists in hope and in the ability to pursue one's dreams. So each person read a segment of MLK's I Have A Dream speech - which was so cool for me to hear a collective group of people read. I love hearing the voice of Martin Luther King Jr., but hearing the voice of my community say those words was pretty cool.

Sunday evening I went and saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire, after a bunch of people told me I should go see it. SUCH a good movie! I went in having no idea of what it was about...which is how I suggest it. Enough to know is...it's a story, it portrays some realities, and it's hopeful but not easy. Highly recommended! After the movie I was lucky enough to go swing dancing. The Derby, of long-standing placement, is going to be closing it's doors at the end of this month. The building is a historical spot, so it will eventually reopen again - I hope with better owners who can really bring the original feeling of the club back.

On Tuesday I was super excited about the inauguration of President Obama. I couldn't help but shed some tears during the proceedings. I hadn't been gung-ho for Obama from the beginning. I actually didn't decide who I would vote for until about September. But since then, it's been really exciting to see people excited again about the President. Especially when its, for example, impoverished kids from Watts. I thought his speech was fantastic - hopefully an indication of his handling of his office. I felt he was able to lay out the seriousness of the situation that we're in while at the same time reinforcing ideals and instilling not only hope but action.

One thing that really struck me as I watched everything was how much all of the individuals on that podium seemed like family. Not that I'm naive to think all of those relationships are rosy. But it is something unique about America I think. That all of our past living leaders can stand together. The ideal closeness and intimacy of the American family is quite unique.

And lastly...I haven't been too shutter-happy lately, so there's not many photos to share. I thought I'd share my very impressive baking project of non-gluten bread. Since I stopped eating gluten in September, one of the things I've craved most is just a regular old sandwich. (I do have sliced bread which works really well for toast, but not so much for sandwiches.) So this was my first trial of non-gluten yeast bread...and it's post-creation, a delicious BLT. Oh...and then below is the pictures from December I failed to post...Kim and I's holiday cookie-baking extravaganza!

New look! New look! New look!

Sometimes things need to be updated...so wah-lah...the new look for my old blog. No, you have not navigated to the wrong page...it's still me. My hair is still red, but my blog is no longer blue.

1 day

Yesterday was a very interesting day…so I wanted to share it with you all.

It began as a nice, normal day. I made rice pudding for breakfast, which was a delicious treat.
Soon I headed out to work, meeting a colleague to do some trafficking outreach together. He wanted to go check on an 18-year-old Central American he’d met before the holidays who had said that he just wants to go back home. He had got into the US illegally and is finding that work is hard to come by. The worker center at Home Depot said only about 5% of the guys who show up get work these days. Some guys show up every day, all day and don’t get work for weeks.

This young Central American led us to an appointment at the his consulate, where we actually got a meeting with the Consulate General. I had no idea we were meeting with someone of her position, and was fumbling around to use my Spanish properly. She was a lovely woman however, and I think possibly may be able to help our young friend somehow. It was very interesting to hear her viewpoints on things such as immigration and human trafficking.

From there we dropped our young friend off and began making some rounds of lofts around downtown. Over the past 5 or so years, downtown has been going under mass revitalization and is now quite the place to be. In fact, there’s a huge Ritz-Carlton residence building going in right now (that looks quite odd if you ask me.) From the neighborhoods I dwell in, the world of luxury loft buildings is quite an odd one. For the most part, concierges seemed quite interested that we wanted to offer training on human trafficking to their occupants. I say give me the color of my neighborhood over the fabricated hipness of luxury loft living any day.

Some more errands and work occupied the rest of the afternoon until it was time to run out to Little Tokyo to pick up some miso paste. I’m planning on making miso soup from scratch tonight – something I’ve always wanted to do. Going into a Japanese grocery is such a shock! I know there’s every little ethnic neighborhood in this town – and I’m in them often – but there’s just something about going into the Japanese and Korean grocery stores that gives me the jeebies. I’m the only non-Asian person in there, everything is so clean and stark, labeling is all in letters I can’t read, and people look at me weird! Globetrotting all within 5 miles of my house!

Anyhow – I found the miso, which was very exciting. And I also enjoyed taking out the Stude. The transmission is going awry and I haven’t driven her since Christmas. It felt very nice to chug down the road again makin some noise!

To end the night off, Kacie, an in-town friend who lives out-of-town currently was in-town. She’s one of the few swing dancers I’m friends with – so of course, we went out dancing together. We drove the Stude up to Joe’s, a little pub sort of place with a live band and swing night on Tuesdays. This place has one of the most interesting mix of characters. From the older guy, who looks very Irish and must be a bar regular, walking in a sitting down at a table alone all night, with no drink, just taking in the sights. To David, a theatre writer who is very…theatrical. To a host of different swing dance characters, old skool and not, good and not, funny and not. The music was good, the people were good, the dancing was good. Great.

The day isn’t over quite yet. After Joes we hear Skinny’s is the place to go. Skinny’s has a West Coast Swing lesson earlier in the evening and people dance there until 2am. (For those who aren’t hep to swing…I dance East Coast/Lindy Hop which is very different then West Coast. Technically Lindy is the same steps as West Coast, but just arranged very differently). So we pull up to Skinnys, the Stude get’s a front door parking spot (which I love…and even more so when I glide on in parallel parking like a pro!) Skinny’s is an upscale, club-ish atmosphere. Club music is thumping through their fancy sound system. There are West Coast dancers on the floor getting their groove on. Same steps as I dance…completely different vibe. Kacie and I likened it to what “parents did in the early 90s when they went out.” It was like they were out dancing at a club but were doing crazy complex dance steps. As sexy as Salsa but with a different vibe.

Very interesting. That was my day. One interesting of many. I’m rarely in want of wonder, which I’m thankful for.