day in the life – Page 2

Em oi! Vacation, day 4

It is hard not to observe that the average American these days enjoys a good meal. Food is everywhere, cookbooks are bestsellers (despite the demise of cooking), and there are even two full cable networks devoted to cooking shows. Cruises, as the phenomenal Dave Barry has pointed out, exacerbate the problem, since there’s an actual rule that you cannot be on a cruise ship and not eating. Still, when I get stuck standing in line for a sandwich behind a man who is in his left hand holding the crust of a pizza he just finished consuming before lumbering up to the deli window to order something with extra cheese and extra mayo. And then, before leaving the window, to see the man just leave the pizza crust on the counter instead of turning around and putting it in the waste basket five feet behind him. Well, I start to feel a little snappish toward other human beings.

It’s true.

This particular cruise had all of the rooms named for Impressionist painters. I am damned if I know why. All of the Impressionists were male and white, of course; the only room named after a woman was the Cassatt Lounge and no one went in there. That was weird. The restaurant on the Lido deck (the buffet) was named The Cezanne. It had this painting hung several times on its walls:

That was weird because it was hung at irregular intervals, as though the decorator of the ship had assumed that either no one would notice that there were several iterations of the painting or perhaps was unable to get more than three different Cezanne paintings to cover the entirety of the large room, thus necessitating the repetition. Bryan and I, working on our various projects, sat at a table for an hour or so and contemplated the judgmental features of this particular lady.

This comic is filed under: NC1763.V3 L86 2012b, for Drawing. Design. Illustration–Caricature. Pictorial humor and satire–Special subjects, A-Z–Vacations. For more comics from this trip, check out: Vacation, Day 1.

To finish things up, here is another photo. This one was taken in Mexico, but I guess it could have been about anywhere. It reminds me of an important principle in my photography, which is that photographs tend to turn out better if I get as close as possible to the subject. Also, they turn out better if I use autofocus, since my poor eyesight means that I sometimes manually focus the lens into fuzziness. Oops.

Em oi! Vacation–day 1

The TSA guy let me mail the knife back to myself. This is a service provided by the old ladies at the customer service and information desk at the airport in Milwaukee. They buy the envelopes, take enough to cover postage, and drop the packages off on their way home after work. I have nothing mean or sarcastic to say about the people at MKE. They were super nice and classy. Also there is a Recombobulation Area at the airport.

UGH. So this happens sometimes with stretch denim I guess? I had a (really new) pair of jeans go when I was in Baltimore in October. I guess I’m going back on my diet for now.

The flight wouldn’t have been SO bad, except that at 21:00 (9pm) my 12-hour cough syrup wore off, so the last three hours of travel were all spent coughing my lungs out. Super lame. After we got to our hotel (about 1:00am) we called a nearby greasy spoon and got greasy, greasy food delivered to us. And we ate it while sitting on the carpet and watching the Discovery Channel. And then we slept for like ten hours, except for me because I woke up coughing at 8am and went for a run.

These are a couple of comics I drew on day one of our trip. I’ll have some more as the week goes on–it turns out they take a fair amount of time to clean up, since I sketched them freehand in pen. We’ll file them under NC1763.V3 L86 2012, for Drawing. Design. Illustration–Caricature. Pictorial humor and satire–Special subjects, A-Z–Vacations.

Here’s a photograph which I took with my new camera. I think it is one of the best I have taken of late.

It’s at least half not me though–it’s hard to get a bad photo of Sam (my sister-in-law).

Em oi! #344: Mazel Tov

Although I’m not quite done with school, I attended the SLIS graduation ceremony this past Sunday. A friend’s father took this picture of several of us who are interested in South and Southeast Asian librarianship. (My spell-checker informs me that “librarianship” is not a word; not sure what to say instead–librarianism? Hm.) It was a lot of fun. I really felt like I was part of something, which (given my previous experience at UW-Madison) is unusual (for me, anyway).

Could I have put more parenthetical notations in that sentence?

Anyway, here is the picture I drew the above comic from. You can see I put glasses on myself because…well, I just don’t look right in my drawings without glasses.

This comic is filed under LB3065 .L86 2011, for Theory and practice of education–School administration and organization–School management and discipline–Graduation.

Em oi! #335: The M&M Jar

Well, I’m knackered, but my computer is now up and running again (Windows 7) after a reformat, and hopefully it will keep going for a long time. Unfortunately, I’ve lost the password I needed to log into the site (Classification Web) where I could look things up in LCC, so the comics won’t be categorized for a while. After winter break ends, I can use the hard copy of LCC or the computers in the library school lab.

A few quick notes about the comic:

Based on an actual conversation, and I laughed for a long time. Bryan has a perfect sense of timing.
My birthday is actually May 3. I figure since it’s mostly Bryan and my mom who read this, I shouldn’t bother mentioning it. But then I thought maybe I should for those random strangers.
I have had this drawn for a couple of days and I’ve been waiting on the re-installation of all my various programs before I could process and upload it. I would have had it up last night, but Bryan’s computer exploded and I went to go play games with him to console him. The things we do for love.
I think that’s it. I’m really tired now.
Oh, the name of the comic was chosen to be similar to The Bell Jar. Not that I recommend the book, mind. Unless you are a depressed teenager, then it will be awesome. Actually, I take that back. I think it was so depressing I had to stop reading it. So that’s pretty depressing.

I’m not one for Xmas cheer, but I’ll close by wishing everyone a happy holiday season. My gift is a trip to Paris and London. I am so excited I cannot sit still. I get to go to Paris! I can run to the Eiffel Tower! We’ll go to London! I’ll see Baker Street!

I’m full of exclamation points.

If I owe you an email, I’m sorry. Still getting caught up on everything from finals.

ETA: Classed as GT2920.C3 L86 2010 for Manners and customs (General)–Customs relative to private life–Eating and drinking customs–Foods and beverages–Beverages–Other, A-Z–Chocolate.

Em ơi! #334: A Short and Pointless Story

Bryan’s friend’s dog came over (long story) to go for a run with us tonight. Last week when this happened, Kali (the cat) freaked out, urinated on me to get me to drop her, streaked up the stairs and was not heard from for another three hours. This week she sat on the sofa and hissed quietly when the dog came near. This was pretty distressing for the dog, who wants to be friends with everyone and who was evidently determined to protect his friend Bryan from the mean nasty bitchy cat, but I think it’s a vast improvement.

This comic…Bryan and I have had a couple of conversations about it. The first one was like this:

Em: I’m going to do a comic about your socks.

Bryan: My…my socks? That won’t be funny. Aren’t you afraid people will think you’re all domestic?

Em: It’ll be fine.

Second conversation:

Bryan: The comic is funnier now that I’ve read it again. (pause) I’ve been finding mis-matched socks in my drawer for the last two weeks.

Em: See, I’m helpful.

We’ll file this comic under PN6231.S634 L86 2010, for Collections of general literature–Wit and humor–Collections on special topics, A-Z–Socks.

I usually don’t class my stuff in PN (literature) because, well, everything would go there, and part of the point of this exercise (if there is a point) is to get to know the LCC in general. But I’m only finding one other topic related to socks, and it’s about knitting, which isn’t right. So literature it is. This is, of course, the problem with an enumerative classification (all categories listed out, as opposed to an expressive classification like Dewey which allows a cataloger to create numbers on the fly). But don’t get me started…

I’ve noticed that most bloggers end with questions to try to engage their readers in a dialog and garner comments. So how about this: Do you have any opinions on enumerative versus expressive classification systems?

No, wait. Don’t go. Let’s start with something easier, like “How was your day?” I myself swam 2100 yards, cleaned a heinous virus off my laptop, and made truffles out of bad fudge. What did you do today?

Comfort Food: Baked Squash with Lentils and Rice

I had this marathon dentist appointment yesterday.

Dentist: Well, not quite a marathon, more of a half marathon. (True, he actually said this.)

Emily: My half marathon PR is about an hour shorter than this appointment.

I went in at 9:30 and left at 12:15, is what I’m saying. And that was for four cavities, as mentioned previously. Yikes. That much terror is exhausting, though luckily the appointment was relatively pain-free.

So with Bryan out of town and the election results not coming up in favor of the candidates I was backing (Go Tammy Baldwin, though! I’m so glad she beat Chad Lee, who was an ass of the first degree), I needed something comforting to eat. Comforting and soft. And easy.

Then I remembered we had an acorn squash! Since Bryan dislikes squash, I told him I would be cooking and eating a bunch of it while he was gone. Alas, all the recipes I found on the internet were for squash coated in brown sugar. Now brown sugar and squash are a good combination, but after all that dental work I was a bit reluctant to make something hugely sugary (this resolution lasted until 22:00). So I had to make up a recipe. This is it. It takes about an hour to make, but that’s about fifteen minutes of actually doing things and the other forty-five minutes of sitting in the next room ~~reading blogs~~ doing homework.

Ingredients

1 acorn squash, cut in half (equatorial, not longitudinally–you want to wind up with rings of squash when you are done) seeds removed.
About 1 tsp of pesto and 2 tsp of margarine, mixed, with a pinch of rosemary and cayenne.
1/3 c. of (brown or green) lentils and 1/3 c. rice. The lentils I buy are brown in color but technically I think they are green lentils. I don’t know. Lentils.
1/4 c. of red lentils.
2/3 c. + 1/4 c. water.
Spices like 1 cube veggie bouillon, a bit of the margarine/pesto mix, whatever you like on your lentils.
A handful of sliced Crimini mushrooms.
A splash of Marsala.
Some pasta sauce (I like Newman’s Own).

What to do:

Preheat oven to 375°. Smear the insides of the halved squashes with the butter/pesto mixture and drizzle with balsamic vinegar if you want. You may want to score the squashes — I didn’t but it would have been a good idea. Also salt and pepper (I forgot). Put the squash in a foil-lined baking dish and stick them in the oven. Set timer for 30 minutes and get the rice cooker ready to go on the rice and lentils, but don’t turn it on yet.
At the 30 minute mark, turn on the rice cooker and set the timer for 15 more minutes.
At the 45 minute mark, check the squash. If it’s done, take it out, otherwise give it another 10 or so. Saute the mushrooms in a little butter. I usually do this over high heat because I like my veggies to get brown and kind of seared. Bryan thinks this is heretical and does them over medium when he’s cooking. So pick the method you’re comfortable with.
When the mushrooms are done, deglaze the pan with Marsala and add a half cup or a cup of tomato sauce, just long enough to warm up.
Plating: Ring of squash on the bottom, stuffed with lentil/rice mixture in the middle, topped with mushrooms and sauce and Parmesan cheese after that (if you want cheese).

This recipe would be good without the tomato sauce too. Go with what you’re feeling, that’s what I’m saying.

Em ơi! #318: My Vietnamese Class (year 3)

There were actually a couple of errors I figured out in the Vietnamese between the time I inked the damn thing and scanned it.

Um. But I’m getting much better. This is about how I felt during the first two weeks of my course. Week three, I actually started to be much better at listening comprehension. This coming week is week four – we have our first final, and I’m providing myself with some fun new challenges. We’ll see how it goes.

This is classified as:

PL4371.L86 2010

For (deep breath):

Languages of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania–Austroasiatic languages–Mon-Khmer (Mon-Anam) languages–Individual languages–Vietnamese. Annamese–General works

Oh man, that was complicated. And I should have been in bed an hour and a half ago.

Fun fact: Vietnamese has the most speakers of any Austroasiatic language. I didn’t know this – until recently I thought Vietnamese was Sino-Tibetan. This means I know one Austroasiatic language, one Sino-Tibetan, one Semitic (sort of), one Romance, and one Germanic. Hm. Perhaps I should have taken Italian and Spanish instead of Hebrew and Chinese…

#295

I missed Monday, so here is an extra-large comic to compensate.

Per the last two panels, it turned out that the margarine I always buy was the lowest in fat. Exciting, I know.