Quickly looked at my DW profile’s interests and wow, I had not thought of so many of those listed that I had to wonder just how much I truly was into some of them. Was pleasently reminded of a few things, like the documentary Surfwise. Described as “Forsaking a traditional home life, Dorian ‘Doc’ Paskowitz and his wife raise their large brood in a 24-foot camper and spend their time surfing” - it’s pretty much what you would expect, and I had hoped a movie could have been made, but Captain Fantastic with Viggo Mortensen was a close as I’ve gotten.

It’s been enough time since I tried to write more than a line or two that I lost track of my laptop. I didnt imagine that I would give up on a keyboard, but it did fade from my day to day, like all those Boing Boing articles said it would. 10 years ago I didn’t believe things would go this way, but outside of fandoms circles every blog I used to read has gone silent.

Spent last night making the quickest tamales ever, deciding on a vegan theme and timing them to be in the steamer in around 1 hour. A small batch, to test a few things, including how best stack each step. Kitchen Aid mixer did all the hard work, and I was actually pleased at the results. A bit different than the pork Christmas tamales that took 6+ hours and some cursing in Spanish.

I never got the lurking thing until I just went quiet myself.  I trailed off before livejournal died, but the Tumblr sinking got me thinking on what would be next for following fandoms I love.  Hopefully something that does not involve seeing the same post reblogged 20 times - wow that put me right off from Tumblr most days.  

Right now it seem like no real easy options are out there for fandom, but I keep reading others better informed on what’s be shaping up for 2019.

The Tumblr thing did motivate me to contribute again to AO3, reminding me how lucky I am as a reader to have that space feel solid.

Edit: Tried again to read about Hubzilla over here at Medium. Again it read like something way beyond what I can do.

So I watched the whole 2 seasons of Teen Wolf in one big long gulp. It gave me all the fluffy fun I was hoping for, but then it gave me a father-son relationship that is warm and feels kind of unusual for this kind of show. I usually hear a lot of those speeches written and delivered in what at best I can call a competent manner, but Stiles and his dad, those two actually feel like people who care about each other. It made me extra fond of the show.

After feeling pretty meh and kind of annoyed at the season premiere,  this second episode was primarily a relief, because I still care. Supernatural season 8? I can't believe I've stuck to it for this long. This is about where I dropped out of following The X-Files, but that was mostly because of a lack of Mulder. 

When it comes to fic, I'm finding very little to read that I get completely pulled into, in any fandom. This makes me sad and turning more and more to novels, but I so miss my fannish squee.

Sheol by bellatemple
Great Sam & Dean voices. Loved the author's ideas and her Dean POV.

 ¡Ay,! Going down the fandom rabbit hole of an old beloved show is both fun and frustrating, and the best kind of nostalgia. Spending some quality time remembering my love of Sonny Crockett and wondering how I'd forgotten how truly bad the hair was. There are moments where the hair kind of looks like what a dude in the 80s might consider stylish, but there are others when the pretty manpain gets derailed by split ends and poor use of hair products.

Skipping here and there on Netlfix, I see that the Burnett arc mostly holds up (phew!) and that Shadow in the Dark is still a damn good episode, even after years of watching dozens of takes on the same storyline (good guy goes somewhat wacky going after wacky bad guy). Most of those takes are not as wonderfully creepy, which is always disappointing. Pretty cool that they manage that episode without it being about the usual villain, a serial killer. 

Now I'm on the phase where I visit old, OLD, livejournal and dreamwidth entries, reading conversations that make me happy and grateful that others before me took the time to write down their love of this show.

I'm trying to figure out the phase 1 workout in The New Rules of Lifting for Life, but holy mackerel Batman! Box jumps? Really? Isn't that like asking for injury? Well, at least for me. I'm not a graceful person when it comes to quick movement, so I can perfectly picture myself jumping wrong and horrible things happening.

You know how as a kid you're fearless and never think something bad could happen to you? That was never me. Even 7 yr old me could imagine how almost anything could go wrong when I was trying to learn anything, like how to roller skate. I managed to learn how to ride a bike only because an older friend, who I thought was the coolest girl in the world, took it upon herself to teach this scaredy cat.

My cat is sick and I'm once again reminded that she is now old. She's on my lap, pretending that I'm not jostling her with my typing. We're waiting for the vet to call, so for now time for coffee and cat.

It's been long enough since I used this account that I had trouble logging in. Lurking mode has turned into spending lots of time in hives of scum and villany, like reddit. I've watched way more kitty videos and people hurting themselves (while doing improbable things with skateboards) than any one person really should. Once is a while I'll see something pretty cool, like human castles.

I finished S2 of Sherlock last week (oh my, so good!), so now I'm looking for fics. Of course. I had no idea it might be years before we get another season, which is scary in one sense, but might prove to be one of those things that inspires a lot of good and varied stories. I'm still not into the main pairing, which is not unusual. Sometimes it takes a while for me, to fall in love with a "/". I do love that Sherlock's characters are old enough that I can't be their mom. sometimes that kind of kills it for me.

You know that feeling of jumping online after a really good episode, hoping some cool fic was posted, only to quickly leave AO3 when you find one too many diaper kink and scat fics posted in the latest page?

*sigh*

BTW, I'm still trying to deal with the stuff with the dog dicks, and by dealing I mean learning how not to read summaries once I see certain tags.

See, this is what happens when you're not into the major pairing of the moment in SPN. I bet a lot of those Dean/Castiel fics have a greater percentage of human cocks and somewhat less poop.

So, that idea of documenting the whole tamales making process? I didn't count on the fact that my hands were going to be all messy and covered in dough through most of it, so for now this is my sole picture of my efforts in tamal cooking.

I'm kind of surprised that they turned out well! They're queso con rajas, which is dough made with masa, finely grounded white rice, homemade chicken broth, lard (next time I'm trying it with olive oil, but decide not to mess with original recipe for now), and salt. In an effort to keep it simple I stuffed the tamale dough with farmer's cheese and poblano and serrano slices. Pretty tasty, although they're missing a good tomatillo sauce on the side.

I grew up completely spoiled by my mom's cooking. Little did I realize that other people's moms would not be necessarily be as - um - focused on their cooking. I didn't really learn to cook from her as much as I could have, because she had little patience, didn't cook from recipes, and most times doing 3 course meals was way more than she should have been doing every single day.

Apparently, once I moved out, my mom's cooking started not being as good as it used to be. Talking to her, it seems that I was the one who always commented on how good the food was, and after I left she wasn't as motivated. I have little memory of this, but she insists that even as a kid I always talked about what made food good. Not the technique, that was beyond me until my late 20s, but texture and tastes and comparisons to meals we had weeks, months or years before.

Talking to Mr. L last Sunday reminded me how lucky I was. His mom wasn't a good cook, and according to him one of the best things she made was a spam* and rice dish. Which explains his interest in learning to cook more than the basics and his praise of almost anything I make. But he cooks better rice than me, so he did learn something from mom!




*I've never had spam myself, but since most people make the DDDDDDDD: face when they hear the word spam, and M*A*S*H had a running joke on the awfulness of eating spam all the time, I'm guessing spam =/= good.

Spent most of my Saturday over in Tijuana with ma', making great quantities of tamalas: pork, chicken, cheese and peppers, and pineapple-cinnamon. We wrapped them up and froze them, ready to be put in the tamalera on Xmas Eve. The whole eating, present opening and partying happens on the 24th, which is pretty convenient, because then we cross the border Xmas morning to spend that day with family and friends in San Diego. My family mostly spends that day eating leftovers in their PJs, so not being around is perfectly acceptable.

Perhaps for the first time ever I'll be able to make and share some tamales of my own on the 25th. I plan to cook some on Saturday as an experiment, although we already have gingerbread men baking planned for that day. Might be too much to even think of making a pound of masa, a tiny amount by any Mexican cook's standard, but still we're talking tamales here. Is there another Xmas food that takes as much time and can be so thoroughly fucked up?

There is also the possibility of pozole, but that is going to have to be on my mom's shoulders this year. No way am I crossing the border again until the 24th. It took me 2 hours to get through.

It happens that once in a while I'll forget to check for new fic for a particular fandom. I didn't realize that some many additional stories had been posted over at AO3 in the last 2 years for Profit, so I'm freaking delighted this morning, sipping my coffee and reading fic after good fic. Oh, where is my Profit icon? I must find another one.

I had a light day today at work, so I thought I would kill a few minutes before I took off early, and started reading A Man of Few Words: an addendum to Pride and Prejudice. It's now an hour later and I. Can't. Stop. Reading.

I'm reading The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes, but at some point (lets say 200 pages in) I want to tell Steven Pinker yes, yes, I believe you, stop it with the stats, only to then realize that most of the book is stats. Who are these people that believe human beings, on average, are in more danger to suffer from violent acts now than in the not so distant past? I don't even have to look that far back in my own family history. The good old days were anything but.

I believe I might have found the right chiropractor for me. So easy going and not pushing me to come back for a series of adjustments, unlike the other dude. This one was just sent me off with his card and a recommendation to call him if I don't feel better. There was a lot of cracking going on, but in a way that wasn't as disturbing as previous adjustments. I'm hopeful this is the guy to help me feel better.