This Week's Mr. RoBento

[Vigo Red beans & Rice with Chicken/Turkey/Basil sausage; Tuscan tomato bisque; Trader Joe's key lime pie; oyster crackers & Kiwi gummy candies. ]

Sometimes I eat beans that are not black. Sometimes. :)

Boys on the Brain

I think I have a crush on Mike Rowe of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs. I really like his sense of humor, I love that he used to sing opera and that he's willing to try just about anything. I think "liking him" became "luuving him" when, once on Dirty Jobs, he was describing how his co-worker fell into some mud and he said, "That wasn't a pirouette. It was like a tour j'ete [sp?] or somethin." Hee! Ballet jokes! Hee!

Reasons to see 300:

• Half-naked Gerard Butler (and another 299 half-naked Spartans)
• Mostly naked Rodrigo Santoro
• Peter Mensah has a small role (yay!)

Sigh. Pretty boys. :)

Double Arigato, Mr. RoBento

The very kind & generous Jessica gave me a Mr. Bento for Christmas/B-day/Housewarming and I finally get to unveil it! I coveted her Mr. Bento and it was very thoughtful of her to get me one.



Mr. Bento reminds me Klaatu, the robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still. I commented this to Dr. D who quickly christened it Mr. RoBento.

This is tomorrow's lunch - the first meal in Mr. RoBento:


(click on it for a bigger version; grilled chicken, DKM's coconut rice with a little B-Man's teriyaki sauce, spinach with currants, golden raisins, sunflower seeds and sugar plum grape tomotoes (not shown), grapes & Girl Scout Thin Mints [Where are the Samoas, you may ask? In a box, in my desk for, you know, emergencies. :) ]

I'm not disciplined enough to post every one of my Bento's, but I will try to take post the more interesting recipes.

So, double arigato, J - I really love Mr. RoBento. :)

My Beachin' Bathroom

(The floor looks a little darker in this pic than it actually is - it's actually pale sand color.)

The bathroom theme is the beach - sand & surf. :)

So, yes, the old tub is gone - it was in bad shape. I prefer showers over baths, so I put in a shower. The wall for the fixtures had to be put in; the fixtures couldn't go in the opposite wall b/c that's where the China cabinet is.

Here's another pic which is not that great (I'm not sure why the floor came out so dark), but you can better see my pretty shower doors (Solstice by Kohler). [They're actually prettier than in this picture.] It really looks like rain flowing down the glass. :)

Bathroom Sneak Peek

See how the blue for the walls was inspired by one of the blue stripes on the bathroom accoutrements? The paint is Behr's "Gulf Winds".

I'll take more pictures tomorrow in the daylight.

Front Porch is now Screenless!

A little more curb appeal, yes? :)


(also in this pic are the bedroom & closet doors, temporarily being stored there on the porch)

(ALSO, notice a certain Jindo looking out the bedroom window)

In a way, it was a small change, but now you can really see the house. I like the French door(even though it's in bad shape), BUT I don't feel particularly secure with that as my front door so I'll be getting a new one soon.


[I've been contaminated with some mutant flu bug...more pics in a couple of days.]

Pictures! At last!

The painter is still working on some details, but here's a pic:

BEFORE:




AFTER:



Sorry about the glare on the next one (but you can see the awesome yet-to-be-restored vintage stove & the new floor & the non-apartment fridge):

Bathroom Before

The bathroom was in pretty bad shape. There was water damage along the back wall and termite damage under that nasty floor. The old tub, though pretty, was cracked and in too bad a shape to save. I prefer showers anyway so I didn't mind losing the tub. The sink, though retro, reminded me of the sinks in an old hospital & had to go. The toilet was pretty nasty & probably would have been fine with a good cleaning & a new seat, but new toilets are relatively cheap so I got a new toilet, too. And, no, I don't know why there was such an extensive filtering system in the bathroom.







There's still some painting left to do in the bathroom (and my camera is still missing) so "after" pics will have to wait for a bit (but hopefully by next weekend!).

Back Soon...

Moving & no access to The Internets have kept me away. :(

Before pictures of kitchen and bath will be up soon. :)

New Year's Day Skywriting

I was walking Lola on Jan 1 and noticed some (foreign) CalTech students talking pictures of, well, the sky. I looked up & saw some skywriting in progress:

"WHO WILL S "

I was really hoping it would say:

"WHO WILL SAVE THE CHEERLEADER?"

Instead, it said:
"WHO WILL SHE CHOOSE?"

I had no idea what it was about...till later that afternoon when I heard a radio ad about some stupid reality show.

Catching up...

Hi, all.
I was without internet service for 5 days (stupid cable company!) And sick with a cold for the last 4. [Add packing, having folks work on the house and prepping stuff for work next week & I hope you understand why I haven't posted.]

Lola & I celebrated our first Christmas together. I cooked & she cleaned...well, her bowl at least. ;) We both ate a lot of turkey, rice and dessert. :) I never really get to use my fancy China, but I decided that Christmas was worth the hand washing. Here's the spread:




and dessert:




[Click on the pictures for more details. oops...the pie is out of focus...I will blame my full belly.]

And, yes, it was a lot of food. I'm my mother's daughter. :) There were plenty of leftovers.
Christmas Day was nice - calls to family in the morning and SoCal came over for lunch (leftovers) & movie(Casino Royale). Overall, it was very nice & relaxing.

J- I posted the pics to show I can actually cook & to show off my fancy China. :)
I will try to remember to put some of that seasoning in TheBox.

DK - you are always welcome to come. You'd have to leave the fluffies behind, though...unless you wanted Lola to chase them. ;)

As for the house, I got my new fridge & washer & dryer delivered! Yay! I got them on super-sale Thanksgiving weekend & had been anxiously awaiting them ever since. No more apt fridges! No more crappy apt washers & dryers! Yay! They are not even unwrapped though, because they are still working on the floor in the kitchen & painting & such. :( How sad is it that I hope to be doing laundry next weekend?

New Year's in Pasadena was interesting. There was this vibe in the air - from the bowl game & the parade, I think. People were already camping out at 1pm New Year's Eve for the parade the next morning. Kuh-razy.

Note to self: keep away from from Fair Oaks AVE & do not go to South Pasadena on New Year's Eve. I decided to run to the supermarket New Year's Eve & I got stuck in Parade traffic - half an hour on the way to the supermarket and another hour on the way back. That's right, Parade traffic. No, not people going to the parade...the parade itself. They were moving floats to the staging area. On the plus side, I saw 12 floats up close & personal. They really are pretty!

I know! Pictures! Soon, I promise.

Internal Work

Heh. I just made a physics reference. Anyway, all the work being done on the house so far is internal (electrical is being upgraded & termite damage in the bathroom subflooring has been repaired). The bathroom should be finished soon & I will have pictures then. I've begun moving stuff into the shed (aka, the kidnap room) - nothing is going into the house until the floors are refinished. When you see pictures of the inside of the shed, you will understand why it's called the kidnap room...

Blame Canada

Brrr.

It's been pretty cold this past week here in SoCal - overnight lows in the 40's; daytime highs in 60's - all due to a cold front from Canada.

Thanks, Canada!

Brrr.

Potential Curb Appeal of Casa Lola

It's a little curb apalling now, but I hope y'all see the same potential that I do. :)

Some pics of the exterior - these are the ones I have handy. The first is a scan of the picture from the realtor flyer and the other two are lo-res pics also from the realtor...I,um, forgot to take pics of the outside. oops! There will be interior pics in the next few days as I begin to paint.

Click on this one for some notes:

My first purchase!

I don't have a major home improvement center close to me, but I do have an OSH. I went to get paint supplies and to check out what they had in a general sense. I know I need some lighting for the outdoors and when I saw this guy, I couldn't leave it:


Is it weird to name an outdoor lighting fixture? I think I'll call him Malibu.

Also, I only had a dinky, 6ft "apartment" tape measure and my utility knife never appeared after my move to Cali so I got those too:



My utility knife has flowers. I think I love OSH.
:)

Damn Internet Explorer

I use Firefox exclusively at home (b/c I hate Microsoft products). At work, we are forced to use IE and only IE. The blog looks funny, nay, ugly on IE here at work (at least on these computers). I'm not sure why, since it looked just fine on Firefox at home, and I'm not going to even try to figure it out. So for best viewing, use Firefox. Or Opera. (which you should be using anyway).

Starter Home

Yes, I've bought a house! It's a 1915 Craftsman in Pasadena. It's small, with a small yard. It needs a bunch of work (which is how I could afford a house in this crazy California housing market). So it's a starter home (welcome to the world of equity!). Pictures will be posted later this week. It's exciting & scary.

aw, crap, I gotta pack & move again.

Still, yay! It's worth it.