Funny Business

My first ebay sale!!!!!!

I'm well on my way now to becoming a millionaire. I just know it. I just sold my first item on ebay. Ebay was something Vinh and I wanted to try to get rid of some collectibles we have been tripping over. And I'll be damned if it's not working!

I sold a vintage sweater clip that I never wore. They're used, in case you're wondering, to hold the two edges of a cardigan together fashionably. Since I only wear v-necks, and feel this look works better on the over-60 set, I decided to pass along this lovely accessory to someone, perhaps a nice librarian, who could use it.

Someone in Oklahoma bought it. I feel like including a note that says I LOVES YOU! when I mail her the clip. But I guess that may scare away a precious, precious customer. I guess there's a way to reward people by giving them a good review if they pay on time, so I'll do that instead.

Basically people wait until the last day of your auction, then they pounce. I had totally lost hope that the item would sell, then suddenly, Woohoo! I'm $5 richer! Of course that's minus the like, 32 cents it cost to post the item on ebay. I don't think ebay takes a bigger cut, but I could be wrong. Now, then. Would anyone like a vintage Barbie Loves Elvis collectible set??? A little wear and tear on the box, but otherwise in great condition??? OK, I'm totally selling my other clips for $6. Maybe even $7!!!

Wooohoooooo!

Flower power

To go along with the perfectly cooked steak I recently blog-bragged about, I bought some broccolini. When I got home I noticed something I'd never seen before. Some of the florets had little bright yellow flowers on them. I so savor these tiny little things I see and learn. Almost every day life brings something to marvel at. This post is sounding a bit like a hallmark card, but the flowers were so precious I just wanted to put the broccolini in a vase and see if more blooms appeared. There's something great about putting a veggie in a vase. Why not?

Instead, we ate the bunch sauteed in olive oil and now the flowering stalk I left out to show Vinh is lying on the table wilting. Typical for me. I'll marvel at something...then quickly move on to the next marvel, leaving behind a mess to marvel at.

In case you had a burning desire to know, Wikipedia clears up the myth (if we can trust Wikipedia as a source) that broccolini is young broccoli. According to Wikipedia:

"broccolini is actually a natural hybrid of the cabbage family Brassica oleracea, a cross between broccoli and kai-lan (Chinese broccoli)."

I don't know what a natural hybrid is (one day the cabbage and kai-lan decided to get up in each others' veggie patches and get it on???) but broccolini makes a tasty alternative to broccoli, its cousin. Keep it in the family.

Sukiyaki Western Django

Sukiyaki Western Django was not the kind of movie we expected to find in Redbox at Shaw's. If you haven't tried Redbox, do so. It's a little kiosk where you can rent and return movies for a dollar. It has mostly mainstream movies but some foreign and indy.

So Quentin Tarantino directed this movie but please, Quentin, stay away from acting. The whole movie contained  these beautiful Japanese people in it. Then there's Quentin, whose directing we love, but really, stay BEHIND the camera.

So, the movie dragged in places, but was odd and stylish. The most amazing part was the costumes. They combined traditional elements like Japanese kimonos with old school Western wear and native american flourishes. The actors pulled off the looks effortlessly and the outfits added color and drama.

A quirky part was all the actors spoke heavily accented english, some of them not well. One expects a movie like this to be in Japanese with subtitles. But it was fun to listen to. Also, some Zen elements were thrown in, which added a new element to the traditional western. Women were treated as more than beautiful objects, which was gratifying.  Granny turns out to have special skills!

There was comic relief and slapstick and that good old fashioned glorious violence we know and love from Tarantino (reservoir dogs, anyone?). I think he directed in conjunction with  a Japanese director we love. Takashi Miike. I'll see anything directors I like create. (Coen brothers are a case in point.)
So if you're looking for odd yet extremely stylish, check out Sukiyaki Western Django! (FYI D is silent in the title.)

Tantric yogi takes wrong turn into meditation

There was a white-haired guy I've never seen before in last night's sangha. He started asking us all these questions about meditation. Most of them were about what it could do for him. It was almost cliched, like what you read in the beginning buddhism books about how if you have a goal you're trying to reach by meditation or through Buddhism, that's not a good approach.

In some odd way, I felt like the guy could be the buddha reincarnated, or a hidden master come to test our insight. So I was careful about answering the questions, especially since I can't claim to know the answers. I told him I've become less reactive since beginning meditation. There's less knee jerk and more wait till you tell that guy he's a jerk. My road rage, I've noticed, is still hard to reign in. When someone cuts me off, it's so hard not to immediately supply one of my homegrown curse words (alone in my car, I come up with odd combinations).

Last night our teacher, Scott, made an interesting comment to my comment that when he rings the bell it seems so incredibly jarringly loud. He said that's how we want it to be. That quieting the mind is like removing the filter that's always there between you and the world. I had never looked at it that way, but I like to think I can quiet some of the static to enjoy the world as it is.

Then the white-haired guy asked: "Does meditation make you more sexual?" Uh, dude, you  are obviously in the wrong place. You need to leave the meditation room and go find the tantric yoga class. Now. Please.

Non-leathery steak, at last!

I enjoy savoring small victories. Perhaps that's because they're the only kind I have. Nothing can rob me of my enjoyment, and the latest was I actually cooked a steak properly. Until I met Vinh I didn't care, as I didn't eat much meat, and loathed preparing it. It still grosses me out, but making a steak for someone I love gets me over the hump of touching cold cow cartilage, and stiff muscle. Ugh. I decided to make steak frites  (a healthier version, with sweet potatoes with ginger and cinnamon) and got some top sirloin from whole foods (top price top sirloin). I asked what the best cut was for steak frites and the meat man gave me steak cooking tips, which resulted in a steak that was, finally, thoroughly cooked but still tender and juicy. Vinh is a germophobe/recipe purist and I tend to wing it in the kitchen, so although previous steaks we cooked certainly followed food safety guidelines, they were not delicious, as they had the consistency of shoe leather.

So, if you enjoy the occasional steak, here's how to cook one successfully:
Put steak in non-stick pan over medium gas flame with fan on high
Cooking it in butter is optional
Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side

Remove and put in 450 oven for 10-15 minutes. Enjoy!

I tried to make gravy using the pan juices, cornstarch, and a little red wine. My mom said that was a good idea, but to make sure to heat the mixture to burn off the alcohol in the red wine. Hopefully I'll be posting about successful gravy soon!

YouTube Obsessions

The latest is a clip of a monkey who works two hours a day in a bar in Japan. And instead of working for peanuts like most of us, this monkey works for soybeans. What a good healthy monkey! My favorite part is when he kind of rolls his head skyward. Maybe he's so used to being in trees, he's looking for the next branch. I must fly to Japan immediately just to see this monkey and have him serve me a beer. Enjoy!

Turkeys Running Wild

Driving down route 9 in Brookline across from Fisher HIll Estates around 8 a.m. today when a 4-foot tall girl turkey

(picture not the actual turkey but it looked like this) stepped elegantly in front of my car. She was either fighting my front fender or mating with it. It was hard to tell which, but my guess is fighting it as she was trying to cross the street and my Fit was a big grey metal turkey in her way. She was warbling and gobbling away, I think telling her male friend, who was waiting cautiously at the side of the road, to follow her. Either that, or she was telling me I was a white honky jive turkey that was in her way and she was going to kick my butt. I kept my windows rolled up.

I beeped at her a few times and that didn't help. It may have even made things worse as she may have interpreted the horn as an aggro gobble.

She kept dipping under my fender and hesitating and I was afraid I was going to run her over but eventually I was able to pull around the two turkeys to the left. Dang! Where is my rifle when I need it?? I could have bagged TWO thanksgiving turkeys at once! These birds were four feet tall! I really need to publish the collected stories of local encounters with wild turkeys. And maybe other wild animals too. With all the abnormally warm weather, I think animal behavior is only going to (hopefully) get more crazy.

The best bubbles ever

If there is a child in your life, it's inevitable that bubbles will come up. It's incredible, but amazing how simple it is to entertain children (and many adults) for hours with a little soapy water and a bubble wand. That said, not all bubble formulas are created equal. Some don't form bubbles well at all, and when they do, they're too fragile. Don't burst children's bubbles, people, with sub-par bubbles!

Today I discovered Gymboree bubbles --which didn't even pop when they landed on carpet! This is truly a miracle formula. And trust me, I've blown quite a few bubbles with my niece.

The French Deliver Once Again

Yet another twisted movie from the french. You can never predict how they'll end!

Gille's Wife. This is even better than the movie where the guy sells their baby.

So, Gilles falls in love with his wife's hot younger sister Victorine while his wife is carrying Gille's spawn. Soon her husband starts sleeping with Victorine. The wife finds out and when the husband confides in his wife that he's in love with Victorine she just kind of accepts it and starts following Victorine to spy on her for the husband. ! She gets enmeshed in the affair and even kind of supports it.

Turns out Victorine gets engaged to someone else. The husband finds out and starts beating the stuffing out of Victorine for being a ho. ! The wife stands and watches the beatdown for a while, then stops Gilles from killing Victorine.

Later, when the wife confronts Victorine about the affair with Gilles, she just says, "You should have kept Gilles at home." Dag. That's cold!

Eventually Gilles falls out of love with Victorine and things go back to "normal." then one day, the wife just jumps out the attic window and kills herself. Huh. Take that, Disney!

Crypt Keepers

On Sunday I went to the Castle Island Association's Halloween event as the Castle Island fort. The fact that the association is run by the elderly gave the halloween event an extra frisson. No need to draw in frightening wrinkles--they were already there!!!! With the southie grannies standing next to the open coffins, all it would take was one tiny push...

Maybe my nose is out of joint because I went dressed as Pinocchio and you wouldn't believe how many violent comments were directed at my nose. The guy at the gate, who actually had a sword, offered to give my nose a "trim."

Annika not only asked me to take my nose off (embarrassed by me already? I thought she'd be at least 5 before that happened), but tried to rip it off several times. The magician razzed me with, "You shouldn't have lied." And a few yahoos in the fort, yelled, "put your nose back on!" Hey--you try to put your nose back on, when the adhesive it came with doesn't work, and the duct tape you doctored it with has started to come loose in the 75-degree October sunshine! No easy task.

Still the fort is way cool--I've always wanted to see the inside. Me and Annika put our hands out to touch the cool, old stone. You can see the cannons, and they have different rooms set up with cookies and juice, a storyteller, and a magician. There's a grassy courtyard in the middle with free popcorn and balloons handed out, picnic tables, face painting (shamrocks are popular), and tough southie kids cutting us in line.

And I don't want to think we're raising a junior narcissist, but Anni and I looked around and admired all the kids' costumes, from Strawberry Shortcake, to darth vader, to supergirl, to scooby doo, to a sullen Commando. I asked her what her favorite costume was, and she replied: "mine." (Maybe HER nose was out of joint because she wasn't the only Ariel there).