Battlefield

I do apologize for my long absence. But I have returned, and hopefully you will all find me as eloquent (or not) and befuddling as ever.

Today, my mother had a colonoscopy. I can't even begin to comprehend the pain that that procedure entails, especially as it involves getting a camera shoved up one's ***** and FASTING for 24 hours before the procedure. That's right. NOT EATING. I don't think I could have survived.

Of course, being the obedient daughter I am, I decided to do something nice for her. Knowing that she'd probably be starving once she stumbled home, I cast around for something I could prep for her. Note the word "prep," because my skill with a frying pan extends to crumbly scrambled eggs and warming up precooked ham (warming up because I'm too scared to leave the stuff on the stove for too long out of fear that it will burn). I spotted the watermelon.

No challenge, right? It's a freakin' producer, after all, and hawks are at least tertiary consumers. I was above it in both stature and metaphysical presence in the food chain.

But I was wise. I did not plunge into the fray with butcher knife a-swinging (though in the end, a similar scene did ensue). I googled "how to cut a watermelon." I kid you not. There is no such thing as an adversary you should face unprepared, and even a swollen plant ovary detached from its mother is no different.

The directions said to cut off the ends and then slice the watermelon into quarters lengthwise. With this plan of action, I pulled the skinny, serrated fruit blade out of the knife block and marched off to battle with the misplaced confidence of Napoleon heading into Russia wearing nothing but long johns and a wifebeater.

I had forgotten the watermelon, which was sitting happily on the ground outside the kitchen. I sheepishly replaced the knife, then swung the watermelon up into my arms like it was my loving mistress. I balanced it awkwardly on the dividing section of the sink, then tried to give it a quick rinse. Unfortunately, when I tried to swing the faucet head to the other side of the watermelon, the melon was too fat for it to cross. That was only the beginning of my problems.

As the process continued, I realized how woefully unprepared I was for this undertaking. As I cradled the now-damp melon in my left arm and reached for the cutting board with my right, my side started to cramp up. The heavier the melon is, the more water it contains, and the more delicious it will be. Well, my mother had watermelon-picking down to a science. Whenever I went with her to our local Costco, I would stand by on the sidelines in amazement as she knocked out some strange Aboriginal rhythm on the watermelons, intervening only to crawl to the top of the stack of boxes to pull down the one melon she just HAD to get. Digression aside, this melon must have been ambrosia in a striped jacket because it was HEAVY.

As I plunged the knife into the body of my victim, the straight cuts I had envisioned in my head and planned to replicate in reality became jagged, drippy edges. Frustrated, I finally settled for pulling the watermelon apart with my hands. Now I had two halves of watermelon, and I set aside half for later. Easier said than done. Our crowded countertop provided me only a narrow avenue to work with, and the half I set aside teetered precariously in a basin I had put it in to catch drippage. I was sure it was going to fall over any second. And it almost did, but I put my arm out--and the knife fell to the floor, bouncing around joyfullywhile I executed a rather sloppy rendition of St. Vitus' Dance and prayed that a visit to the hospital was nowhere in my future.

But the hard part was over, and all that remained was for me to slice up the now-manageable pieces. Tupperware after tupperware was filled with chunks of the watermelon's carcass and marched off to the fridge to cool. The microwave and my brother's MuscleTech water bottle, which were unfortunate enough to be in the splash zone, were bathed in the juice of my hack-and-slash job.

Finally, finally, it was done. The sliced up half of the watermelon that I had finished occupied the entire top shelf of the fridge, and the half that remained in its plastic basin was removed from its precarious perch (you could almost hear its sigh of relief) to rest on the shelf beneath. But I observed the kitchen. Juice drippings from my pilgrimages back and forth from the refrigerator had left a trail of fructose that would send an extended family of ants into paroxysms of glee.

I knew that cleaning the floor was my brother's chore, and I was sorely tempted to leave it all to him. But not only was stepping on the tacky surface disgusting, but the filial obedience that had gotten me into this entire mess (and fear of my mother's wrath if she happened to wake up in time) kicked in again. I sighed and reached for the rag.

P.S. If you could figure out what the stars stood for, you're amazing because I sure as heck have no clue.

PLAID

Creature completion: 100%

Once we get a pattern made for this thing, I'll post it up on the blog.

We're trying to refine the process so it involves less painstaking stitching (and unstitching)

Oh dear, oh dear

Looks like procrastination is kicking in again.

But I should do a post before I sleep, and then another post later today (dammit) before I sleep again.

Today's post will be a chronicle of the Very Exciting Things that Quail did today, and their Very Exciting Results.

Quail has spent the past 3 days reliving childhood memories by reading some long-forgotten (but well-loved) books from the past. Today was no exception, as she biked to the library and checked out some books by Patricia C. Wrede (who is a fabulous fantasy writer for the young adult crowd).
Once that was done, Quail then proceeded to meet up with Duck and conspired to make the wondrous creature known as the...

PLAIDIPUS

(It is Exactly What It Says On The Tin)

The creatures will be completed tomorrow, and pictures will go up. Up, up, and away!

More links?!

This post is intended to plug a very awesome website. I discovered this last night while researching Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day (which came up when I was reading webcomics).

The aforementioned site is Improv Everywhere, a sort of social experimentation group that goes around (mostly NYC) breaking social norms.

I really enjoyed their Mobius loop project, which involved several members of the group repeating the same sequence of actions over and over again at a local Starbucks to simulate a recycling pocket of time.

Another one of the projects I love is the MP3 Experiment, which involves many strangers from the internet downloading the same mp3 and showing up at a predetermined location. Everybody starts listening on their music players at the same time. The mp3 then goes through a set of directions and guides the participants through various actions. It's all very interesting, especially when viewed by video.

Things Quail likes:

• People in large groups acting in unison (it just seems so overwhelmingly forceful and majestic somehow)
• Random strangers meeting up and banding together due to a common interest
• Videos of people doing silly, silly things.
• Silly, silly things.

Also, I am afraid I am 11 minutes late to this post.

Interesting links, hmm?

Short post for today.
I recently picked up reading tvtropes.org (a hellishly ensnaring site if there ever was one), and managed to find my way to Hetalia, Deadpool, and all manner of other things.

Hetalia is a pretty amazing webcomic/4-koma/anime written by a Japanese guy who has way too much time on his hands. (index of scanlations can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/hetaliaindexes/)
The strip personifies countries and then teaches history by acting out events with said personified countries. That being said, the whole series is a delightfully irreverent account of what would normally be snore-worthy material. I mean, I like history well enough, but I absolutely love Hetalia.
I think fanart is in order, hmm?

Another history-based webcomic occurs in the form of Kate Beaton's site: Hark, a Vagrant
The same that is said about Hetalia can be said about Hark, a Vagrant. The site is a collection of historical comics that details some of the lesser known events in history (and lots of Canadian history to boot) with a slightly...unusual take on the characters. I mean, even John Adams gets to have his fun. The personal comics about the artist are also quite amusing, and I always look forward to updates.

Both these comics feature quite a lot of research and care to get all the facts straight, and are excellent study tools for classes like World History, Canadian History, History, and Comedy.

May also be an excellent source of laughs.

Fears and phobias

I've managed to make it for today, eh?

This post was supposed to go up a few weeks ago, when it was more relevant to the topic at hand (moving).
While I was sitting in the garage, sorting out 5+ years of junk (tossing out about 6 boxes worth of trash), I realized why I became such a pack rat, and why I kept (worthless) things dating back 10+ years. Of course, it was far worse in middle school, when every single thing had 'sentimental value', but it was still hard to throw away some of my trinkets that I held on to. It felt as if every item thrown in the junk pile was a memory lost, that I would never again have a retrieval cue to that particular memory.
Then, of course, I'd realize that the memory in question didn't have any significance in relation to anything (like that fish keychain I got as a party favor at a birthday party in a store where we painted ceramics. I can't, for the life of me, remember whose birthday it was, or what grade I was in, or who my friends were at that time) and then I'd toss the offending item in the junk bin. It felt like my brain was some sort of large shrubbery that needed pruning so that new branches could grow and flourish.

The metaphor, however, becomes invalid once you realize that the human brain is nearly limitless in its storage capacity, and that memories can persist for years and years if you retain the proper retrieval cues. These days, however, it feels like every day goes by without being recorded in my brain. Perhaps it's the monotony, or maybe I'm just not making the effort to remember things, but frankly it scares me not to be able to remember what happened the day before yesterday, or the week before, or what I did last winter break. Part of it is turning into such a space case that my grasp on reality seems tenuous at best, and it feels like my default setting is auto-pilot.

Cutting loose from reality and living in the present are all well and good, but every time I do so, it always scares me just a little bit more that I remember just a little bit less.

And this is why I take lots of inane pictures of things and write stuff down whenever I can.

(Made it within 3 minutes of the deadline)

My plans have contracted a slight case of the hiccups

It seems that all of my posts have to start with an apology for being missing these days, and this one is no exception.

Now that the apology has been touched on, a justification now appears!
My parents thought it a good idea to start trying to sell the house now, so Quail returned from Japan to find the house partially deconstructed and most things box-sized or smaller stashed in the garage. Needless to say, this threw a small wrench in most of my plans including (but not limited to) t-shirt making, art, sewing, other similarly craft-y plans, and the like.

Quail's room is still bare-bones, but at least the computer and interwebs are functional, which means that life is good.
Quail has also stopped working at her job (but will probably still go next week), which leaves more time to pack and blog.
This leads me to my next resolution:
Starting with today, I will post every day this week (ending next Friday). We'll see how the post schedule continues after that.

Quail out.

Jetlag

We're back!!

Of course you all must be DYING to hear about our much-anticipated trip to Japan. For the first few days, we did a tour that turned out to be far more luxurious than expected. Then we were onr our own (dun dun dunnn). Despite daily phone calls from one participant's dad (who will remain unspecified), the experience can be described as nothing other than an exercise in independence. Figuring out how to ride the subway to get to places, pointing mutely at menus to order food (because none of us can speak Japanese), remembering to brush our teeth at night...I feel like even though these two weeks might have caused us to waste a lot of money, they were definitely anything but a waste of our time.

It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be able to head to a foreign country with your friends with no adult supervison while you are still young enough to be immature and enjoy things that don't involve alcohol or host clubs. It feels great being hormonal enough to be able to check out guys' hair and squeal over it (Japanese guys have AMAZING HAIR @_@) without being unfaithful to lifelong partners.

Still, it feels nice to finally be at home where I can sleep off this ridiculously long all-nighter I've been pulling due to the time difference. More later? Maybe.