I'm not the only one, right?

I rented The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey yesterday, and got to relive all the excited feelings from back in December when I saw it in theaters. The viewing was a bit more haphazard, as I kept waiting for my parents and older brother to come in and watch with me. Plus I had to keep pausing or rewinding to earlier scenes to remind my mother that this movie isn't any of the earlier versions of the movie. Don't ask me why it was a surprise for her to see that all the dwarves look different.

At one point Ben and I were on the computer as neither of us remembered who the actor playing Bard the Bowman will be (who is also for some reason going to be in a couple reboots: Dracula, as well as The Crow), and besides getting lost clicking links and looking at awesome things on The Mary Sue, got into a discussion over watching certain franchise films despite confirmations that they suck. The topic that sparked this (not) new debate was the X-Men film series. I haven't watched any of them as they don't seem particularly well made from a story perspective, and then Ben stated he'd watched all of them despite knowing they weren't well made from a story perspective. The talk then devolved into how great the 90s animated series had been before remembering we were hungry and still needed to finish The Hobbit. The company hadn't even fought with the trolls yet!

Still, I started thinking back onto similar arguments we had on just such an approach to media. I am of the opinion that if something is bad, I will not throw more money at it than I have to. For example, The Chronicles of Narnia films became strangely awful starting with Prince Caspian. Thus, I felt no need to purchases DVD copies of either it, or its sequel, Voyage of the Dawntreader. Especially now when money is tight, and traveling is difficult, if I can acquire the means to view something for free, even if it's just a small preview of a project, I will do so (internet permitting). Then later, I will make efforts to support said project through monetary means if I actually like it. This view probably explains why I'm so into crowd-funding projects, especially Kickstarter.

Ben, on the other hand, will support something even if it is terrible. We have had many a debate just on Star Trek shows and movies, and why he would pour so much money into a franchise he's able to find so many flaws with. I still question why he would pay money to go see the re-released Star Wars films when he is so vocal about the editing changes, such as "Han shot first," not to mention the nefarious Jar Jar Binks.

So really I couldn't decide if this issue is a Ben thing or a male thing. I don't have much empirical evidence to support either conclusion, therefore I have no choice but to keep assuming my brother is full of crazy like the rest of the family (self included).

Just some venting

This story occurs one week ago:

 

I barely remember the drive home. My mind focuses on the tight grip of the steering wheel and I barely feel my limbs as I shut off the car and grab my bags before walking into the house. I give a mumbled greeting to my father as I wobble over to my room. I set my things down on the bed, turn around, and promptly kneel on the floor. As I fall onto my side, all I can think of is how nice it is to just rest for a bit on solid ground. 

Some minutes later, the voice in the back of my mind screeching to grab my cell phone out of my bag that’s fallen to the floor to call for help manages to pierce through the dizziness and numb feeling of my thoughts. I shuffle slowly, already feeling tears dripping down my cheeks as my body starts reacting to the stress of being unable to distinguish up from down. The world tilts, and my phone is in my hand. My skull feels too tight, there is a pounding pain in my sinuses, and I feel as though I'm stuffed with cotton balls. I’m distantly aware I need to move my fingers on the touch screen of the phone, but it’s all I can do is grip the device tight in my hand to assure my body that I’m not about to fall into an empty abyss and recite the mantra that the tilting sensation will pass. I lay down again and close my eyes, trying to keep breathing through the panic that’s beginning to overwhelm me.

That is the position my father finds me in some minutes later, and promptly screams for my mom and brother to come help him guide me through another episode of overwhelming vertigo. Eventually I become aware of my body again, and even manage to sit up with some assistance from my brother. Ben at least knows how to keep his wits about him even if he's freaking out over seeing one of my 'episodes.' I have to mix a dose of Head-B-Clear bath salt mix to clear my head of the congestion that aggravated my condition, as no one could read the recipe I typed out for the homemade bath product, or else they couldn't find it in the box of bath product ingredients, but that sort of thing happens a lot around here. Apparently I have the sort of mind that is difficult to predict.

It’s episodes like these that make me wonder if I’ll ever be able to have a normal career, though, or be able to live on my own. When I get a bad enough episode of vertigo thanks to Miniere's syndrome or something else that remains undiagnosed, I’m literally needing to be laid out flat, unable to focus on much besides inane media on the internet or flip through the tv channels. When I can’t even control my body or feel like I’m even ’present,’ I feel very down and hopeless for a long while afterwards. Heck, I've already run into difficulties in two different semesters because I wasn't able to even attend classes. I really don’t know much else to do except keep trying to move forward and wait for my body to become mine to control once more.

Today Was Worth Writing About

An indication of how interesting my life might be today started at about 6:00 am. This hour is not my typical wake up time on a Friday, but my dad had scheduled for an exterminator to spray poison to ward off spiders, ants, and possibly other things we didn't want to think about crawling around in our walls, so we had to pack ourselves and our animals up to be gone by 7:30 am. The menagerie consists of one dog, three cats, and a tarantula. As a bit of a treat to keep us out of the house, we would go eat breakfast and take care of some errands in town.

In attempting to put our male cat in his cage, he repaid our foresight by mauling me rather well. I managed to acquire battle wounds all over my chest, stomach, and arms. Those who know me personally can guess how irritable I might be when injured, exhausted, and on an empty stomach before the magic of caffeine has calmed me somewhat. It didn't help that as my mother and I struggled to get the adult cats into their cage, my dad didn't really act for some time and merely questioned what the heck we were doing allowing ourselves to be attacked by the ferocious household felines. One of my favorite shirts must now be retired with full honors for attempting to stand up to shredding claws.

After the wild animals pets were dealt with, I had to change my shirt and bandage up. My little brother helped carry my sister's tarantula tank out to the car in the meantime. Unwilling to take pain meds on an empty stomach, I had to endure the 15 minute drive to the restaurant with falling blood sugar and increasing dizziness from the pain. However, the next interesting thing to occur, was the loud crash from the backseat where the tarantula cage was being stored as my mother made a tight turn. Understandably alarmed, she pulled over, and we had to talk my little brother through determining the simple observation of WHETHER OR NOT THE TANK TIPPED OVER. Little brother is not the most articulate of people on a good day. The next ten minutes are spent in tense silence as my mom fishes around in the tank with first my father's cane, then a hammer handle to make sure the tarantula is 1) in the tank, and 2) not squished. I was secretly hoping 2) would be proven false. Unfortunately, Fuzz Lightyear will live a little longer to rejoice at the rain of crickets his owner provides him.

Arriving at the restaurant it is now 7:52 am. I am moments away from a blood sugar crisis, and the stupid restaurant doesn't open until 8:00 am! Therefore an excursion must be made into the neighboring grocery store where I buy a mango/banana puree pouch for myself (and thusly, Sirenidi as well). Calmed, we have to wait outside while little brother goes to the bathroom before entering the restaurant. It is typical diner food and I settle for an egg, cheese, and bacon sandwich with iced tea. Somehow I managed to dust myself with sweetener while attempting to pour it into my drink. The joys of eating out, eh?

Next stop is getting a spare key made. My car is from a company decent enough to only manufacture ignition keys that require a computer chip to start the vehicle. They were also kind enough to only allow certain stores other than the dealership to make such keys. My town apparently only has such a store 20 miles from my house. My dad said he researched the place to find out what was needed, however he failed to ask if the car would be needed to program the key (spoiler: THEY DO). Therefore, we had to schlep the whole crew back to the house to actually fetch my car. Luckily, enough time had passed we could return and let the animals out without accidentally poisoning anyone. Of course, SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to let the dog loose before opening the cat cages, so my mom gets to have a repeat of a desperate freak out of the sort that anyone else would have assumed meant a murder was in progress had they heard it.

After so much excitement, I decide the best thing to do is take a nap. It was lovely. Then the day continued. My dad had forgotten he had scheduled to leave my car at the mechanic's to be serviced before my road trip. D'oh! I still had to return to the hardware store to get the spare ignition key made, so instead I went to a Jiffy Lube for a once over on the car. It takes nearly an hour for my key to get made when I return to the store, because the machine was being touchy. I was careful to control my anger tics.

Needing to buy a suitcase, as no one could remember where the ones we owned had ended up, I did some thrift store shopping. Ah, the soothing balm of a bargain. Then I arrive home to find that my mom had found the travel suitcases. FACEPALM!

Then more chaos happened as my parents realized that dinner, preparations for the day trip to the lake the next day, and me attempting to pack needed to happen, and fast! Becerra family excursions can quickly become needlessly complicated if no one tries to organize. We shall see what may come of trying to bond over sand, expensive snack bars, and the Nevada weather in August upon the morrow.*

*This statement indicates there may or may not be an update about Saturday's day trip.

News, of a sort

I have been quiet over on this blog of late, life just got in the way.

My latest internship opportunity has been weighed down by bad timing, miscommunication, and a terrible bout of "what are we doing?"

Such things have left me uninspired and unwilling to pursue much in the way of creative outlets. Family isn't much help, either. With each passing day, I grow more worried about my father. He's lost a lot of weight, is in constant pain, and has trouble remembering things. I'm not thinking it's dementia, but there is a strong case for it.

Luckily, I'll be getting away for a little while traveling the roads of the northwestern states, so maybe some battery recharging will help matters before the new school year starts.

Until next time, GlamGothChica, out!

Things That Happened Today

Today I woke to my mom screaming bloody murder at the dog like it was killing something. Actually he was just chasing one of our cats around the yard (again), which never leads to actual death, and is not likely to. The dog is afraid of the young cat in our house that is 1/8 his size, see, and he only ever chews on synthetic products or his rawhide bones. The entire house was nicely awake after this episode.

I arrived at my new internship site on time, but had to wait, as no one else could access the computer database I needed in order to do my job that day. After an hour I was permitted to leave, as my supervisor who did know how to work the database had not arrived, nor left any message as to where she was. About 45 minutes after leaving, I not only discovered that Walmart apparently didn't sell lunch box freezer packs, but my supervisor had made it into the office.

Swinging back to said office, I was finally permitted to search through 29 pages of data, looking for any errors. Five hours later I managed to finish the project, after some boosts from my good friend caffeine. Somewhere between walking out the building and to my car 30 ft away, I lost my last pair of sunglasses, D'oh!

By this time it was well after 5:30pm, and I had promised to visit a friend. Also needing to wash my car, I got a sandwich at Port of Subs, headed to the nearby auto car wash, and jammed to indie rock and the swoosh of running water while I ate.

Visiting my friend went well, I got to show off my new ipad, and we chatted about random stuff. We're going to the midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises, it's gonna be awesome! I headed to the nearby shopping center and managed to score a 2/$15 deal on sunglasses. They fit nice enough, but I noticed on the 30 minute drive home that they put a lot of aching pressure on my nose. So the search is still on.

Kind of a crazy Monday, not sure if these events will be an indicator of the rest of the week...

Apple Pie and the Art of Being Polychronic

I have actually had the idea for this post stewing in my brain since Monday, but internship hours + part time job hours = very dead, if not loopy, me. That morning I was at my hospital internship where I had to watch the dishwasher station to "observe for possible improvements to work flow." Apparently watching other people wash dishes makes my brain go for a creative spin, as I started thinking about monochronic vs. polychronic time, especially in relation to cultural contexts of Latinos.


These terms come from a book I'm currently reading by Susan Elgin, Mastering The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, and, combined with my avid interest in discussions of gender and cultural expectations, really gave me something else to think about. The idea of monochronic time, especially when it comes to workplace practices, is completing one task at at a time until everything is done. Most men will conduct themselves this way, and therefore work according to deadlines or set goals. Women, however, function on polychronic time, completing multiple tasks at once. That is because in a traditional housewife position (feminists, let me argue here), a woman would have to watch the baby while folding the clothes, washing the dishes, cooking dinner, and so forth. It has been noted that switching to a work setting of deadlines and goals can be difficult for someone who has functioned largely on this polychronic mode for most of their lives. How can someone be expected to give a timeframe for completing a task, when completion is directly proportional to the number of interruptions? Conversely, it can be difficult to adjust from a monochronic mode, and have to deal with the influx of tasks that all need to be completed in the same amount of time. The family comedies about "Mr. Dad" exist for a reason, even if it can largely be proven untrue nowadays. Also, the current climate of what makes a good comedy and the perpetuated stereotypes of cultures and genders is another blog entirely.

In Latino communities, these differences are even more incredibly apparent, at least from where I'm standing. Men go out to work, while the women have to take care of children, house, and sometimes a job of their own as well. I feel like my own house is often in chaos, because while I'm at home, the chores are all done, and done correctly. Whereas if I'm too busy (such as now), my father and brothers are in charge of the house, so I come home to find dirty dishes, piles of laundry, and all the youngsters of the house running amok. Finding a way to communicate how things OUGHT TO BE DONE is proving difficult, and very tiresome on top of everything else I try to be responsible for. Case in point: people buy groceries, shove them in the fridge, and then forget they are there. At least until the stench of rotting food clues someone in. Every other Hispanic woman I've talked to has the same kinds of problems with their men, whether it be fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, nephews, or cousins. It is clearly a communication issue, so hopefully Susan Elgin can clue me in to how to get what I want across, at least until I somehow manage to get rich enough to move into my own home.


In the meantime, there have been other ways I can push my family to understand how work in different time modes. For instance, working in a kitchen has combinations of monochronic and polychronic tasking. For instance, when making my Super Fabulous Apple Pie, I have to make the pie crust and allow it to chill, peel and chop the apples and let them macerate, and cook the flavored syrup for the topping before rolling out the dough and assembling the dessert. Each of these steps must be completed separately, but for dessert to be ready on time, they all have to happen relatively close together to allow enough cool off time to remove the pie from its pan intact. Then of course, homemade apple pie is nothing without homemade whipped cream.


So I suppose my conclusion is, that if anyone wants to be better at multitasking, it would be good practice to work in the kitchen. Make dinner, make dessert, anything! When the people around you reward you with praise, you can guilt them into doing the dishes. After all, you didn't just make something delicious, you mastered how to change time modes!

Oy Vey

If you don't wish to read about a crazy-ass weekend, I leave you with some entertaining tidbits from Neil Gaiman and Stephen Colbert that I came across in my net surfing.

Stephen Colbert's interview with Maurice Sendak


Anyhow, the craziness started on Friday, when I made the suggestion to take my sister and niece out thrift store shopping. We had made plans for a two hour outing, with a stop at a Chinese food restaurant for lunch after my niece returned from preschool. That ought to leave enough time to take the cats to the vet for their shots at 5:00. Unfortunately, we both should have known better than to make plans with fate being the trollop it is.

My dad had arranged for a repair service to come fix our stove that morning, for which the scheduled time was any point between 8am and 12pm. To further confuse things, my older brother had randomly decided to get his truck serviced, so he would need to be picked up from the university campus after his classes ended in the afternoon. Plus, my younger brother required transportation to and from his job as a sign waver for Quiznos during the lunch hour.

At first, the arrangement would be for my dad to take my brother to work if we would pick him and my other brother up. Fair enough, as we would have to wait for my niece's school bus anyway. Repair person arrived in the designated window, but took three hours to fix the faulty burner on the stove. During that time I had to make an effort to clean the revealed stove siding, since it was incredibly disgusting. Also we all snacked on one of my homemade ice creams while we waited. By then it was late, and we had to have my dad pick up younger brother.

Since it was nearly time to pick up older brother, my sister suggested getting a snack at Sonic. BEST IDEA YET. She paid for onion rings, mozzarella sticks, and slushes, aw yeah. When older brother called with his location, I thought it would be best to get a map to the building, since I am horrible with finding things, especially at the university. My sister fires up the dang GPS, which takes us to the clear opposite side of the campus where my brother is at. *facepalm* After some finagling on the phone with older brother, we figure out where to actually go. He is much more calmed after chugging a Sonic Cherry Slush. I drop him off at the auto shop, since his truck is done.

Good grief. It is now after 3:00, and we finally make it to the restaurant. We get some quick combo plates, and I indulge in lemon chicken even after the deep-fried snack I had, because I needed to be pacified from the enormous time wasted already. My niece predictably takes a shower with her chow mein. It was estimated at least 80% ended up in her belly, anyway.

Finally we arrive at the thrift store. My sister asks to wander off for pants and bags, so I take it upon myself to find some dressy play shoes for the niece. They have nice shoes at the thrift store, but not many in her size. It was also difficult to get niece to understand the concept of wiggling her toes to check growth room in the shoes. Still, she ended up with a nice pair of strappy tap heels, that she promptly decided were for her to wear to "ballerina class," and thus kept asking the rest of the time we were in the store when we would go to said "ballerina class." I cannot wait until this child can understand concepts of time.

By then it was past 4pm, and while I was all for heading straight home, my sister brilliantly changes her mind and wants me to drive to pick up her girlfriend. Ugh. Girlfriend happened to live over in east Sparks, while we were in south Reno! The easiest way to get there would be to do some freeway hopping, but with the recent remodeling, people were stupider than usual and clogging up the exits to change freeways. So I had to pull a little back street maneuvering to get to girlfriend's house.

After picking up girlfriend, she apparently needs a sandwich, having not eaten for awhile. Sister also wants to pick up booze, and younger brother called to have us pick up DVDs at the store, please. I am thoroughly surprised at myself at this point for not banging my head repeatedly on a hard, firm surface. Mother arrives home from work early on Fridays, so at least she was on hand to deal with the cats' visit to the vet. Girlfriend and sister argue about where to get booze while we make a stop at Quiznos for a sandwich and Office Depot for DVDs. Niece is incredibly cranky from sitting in the car so long, as am I.

I solve the booze dilemma by driving to Raley's, which happens to be near the vet. I check in with my parents, pulling a double hit by showing off niece's new shoes. Now, since school started, I have made a habit of checking on what dinner will be, so I can either a) join the family or b) buy/make something healthier. My father claims we will shop briefly at the store to pick up some things for a dinner of steak for the boys and meatloaf for them, this way we can grab something me and my sister would be willing to eat. I agree with this plan, and head from the vet's to Raley's with my niece to get a head start. Apparently my sister and her girlfriend picked out their liquor really quick, because they were already in the parking lot looking for me. I tried to explain the plan to them, but apparently my dad pulled a typical 180º and decided that, no, we would not be shopping, as all we needed at the house was sour cream.

Trying not to punch something, I quickly decided that I would shop for my dang dinner as I'd planned. Returning my niece to her mother, I returned to the store to get sour cream, arugula, and turkey thighs. I also found some nice red bell peppers. Arriving at home with my purchases, I found that creating a pulled turkey sandwich with an old poultry spice blend I'd made was a really satisfying meal. The wine slushee probably helped too. Then of course, nothing could stay perfect and I had to help my dad bake the meatloaf. Which didn't come up to temperature even after over an hour of baking at 350º. This situation is why I tell my father to stop shopping at cheap grocery chains like Scolari's.

As for today's happenings, all I will say is that opera, Krull, and spiced pumpkin ice cream make things happy in my brain.

Also, before I forget, this was a recent Pastry Arts project:

White cake with chocolate fudge buttercream, coffee syrup, butterfinger chip sprinkles, and topped with brown sugar caramel (penuche). The layering turned out well, and I'm rather proud of the piping! (Yes it's only five rosettes, but it's sadly the best I've done). We are also going to be making intermezzo sherbets for the up and coming culinary school student's restaurant experience, and I was granted permission to make this sorbet. I'll be making the soda from scratch, but I'm considering running to the store for the ginger beer just in case ;)