Kung-Fu Kitty

A man of words and not of deeds,
Is like a garden full of weeds;
And when the weeds begin to grow,
It's like a garden full of snow;
And when the snow begins to fall,
It's like a bird upon the wall;
And when the bird away does fly,
It's like an eagle in the sky;
And when the sky begins to roar,
It's like a lion at the door;
And when the door begins to crack,
It's like a stick across your back;
And when your back begins to smart,
It's like a penknife in your heart;
And when your heart begins to bleed,
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed!

Taken from the Helen Oxenbury Nursury Rhyme Book. For more information, check this out. (I couldn't find anything with more history, etc.)

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We're recording again tomorrow. Hourra!

I was about to type, "Good morning, World!" but then I realized that I would only be addressing about a quarter of the World (possibly more, depending on your definition of "morning"). And then, I realized that it's not really morning where I am, but mid-afternoon. Therefore, I did not type, "Good morning, World!" Now that that bit of uselessness is over and done with, I'll move on to the important things.

The Purim party was a great success, though there were only four of us and Etienne left early. There was a veritable feast and we were only able to make a small dent in it. I don't think I could name all the foods there. I felt bad only having contributed a bottle of wine, a brocolli salad and a place to have the party, when Adam had worked several hours making all the food. He brought it all over in a giant Dell box something like these ones:

Yesterday was a less than productive practice, and I apoligize to all parties if I was the one to make it so low energy, but I don't think it was only my fault. At least I had a fun time watching Attack the Gas Station, a very strange Korean independent film. I liked what I saw of it, but I think I fell asleep at some point. So there.

Thursday is the Jewish festival of Purim, and I'm going to have a party. Hourra! For this I thought I'd include a recipe for hamantaschen, a traditional pastry served on the occasion, representing the hat of the vilain in the story of Esther. Hopefully, I'll have time to make some, but here's the recipe anyway, thanks to Epicurious.com:

TRADITIONAL HAMANTASCHEN

Filled Tricornered Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons packed finely grated fresh orange zest
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
2/3 cup filling such as Date Orange Filling, Apple Raisin Filling, prune lekvar, poppy-seed filling, or apricot or cherry jam

Preparation:
Into a bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl with an electric mixer beat shortening, sugar, and egg at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add zest and juice and beat until incorporated. Add flour mixture, stirring, until a smooth dough is formed. Gather dough into a ball and flatten into a disk. Chill dough, wrapped in plastic wrap, at least 3 hours and up to 2 days.

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Halve dough. On a lightly floured surface roll out half of dough (keeping other half wrapped and chilled) 1/4 inch thick. With a 3-inch cutter cut out as many rounds as possible. Transfer rounds with a metal spatula to a large baking sheet, arranging about 1/2 inch apart. Reroll scraps and cut out more rounds. Put 1 teaspoon filling in center of each round and fold up edges to form triangular cookies resembling a tricornered hat, pinching corners together and leaving filling exposed. (Pinch dough tightly enough so seams are no longer visible and sides are taut enough to prevent cookies from leaking filling as they bake.)

Bake hamantaschen in middle of oven 20 minutes, or until pale golden. Cool hamantaschen on baking sheet 5 minutes and transfer to racks to cool completely. Make more hamantaschen with remaining dough and filling in same manner. Hamantaschen keep in an airtight container at room temperature 5 days.

Makes 24 cookies.

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In other news, I have red hair now. If I hear anyone utter a single verse of that song, I will make sure that punishment will be swift and to the point.

Ok, so I've listened to the entire album, Break Syndical, by Les Cowboys Fringants, and I think I'd like to learn a more fiddlish style so that I can play like they do. In particular, I liked the song "Joyeux Calvaire!", and I think I'd learn it just for the hell of it. I could contribute a lot more interesting things to the band if I learned to play like that. Another influence I'd like to consider is Yellowcard, a punk band that has a violinist. Their song "Believe" has a solo I'd like to learn, and possibly modify and use. I just have to get off my lazy ass and do it.

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Now, ever since I heard about Gmail, I thought it was the coolest thing on Earth. They have so many great features, the one gigabite of storage being only the beginning. While randomly Googling, I came across an interesting site discriminating against the revolutionary emailing system. I thought it was weird, but they do give some interesting arguments, along the lines that gmail is too creepy, that being the title of the site. Check it out.

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Also, apparently, the song "Peaches", by the Presidents of the United States of America, has a communist message. Check out this site, explaining it.

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That's enough randomness for now, but I feel it necessary to include my one drawing accepted into the Mitre:

Well, I found out this evening that, although I'm "a good candidate" for the entrance scholarship to McGill, I'm not good enough. Therefore, I may decide to go to Bishop's University in the end, much to everyone's pleasure. I won't have to pay tuition because Dad works there, I'm getting the scholarship there, and I wouldn't have to pay room and board. Plus, there's a pretty good Science program at BU, or so I've heard. I dunno, I guess I just expected to be the best at everything, and to not get that McGill scholarship depresses me a little. Yeah, I'm an overachiever who should be thankful that she even got accepted there.

Etienne's supposed to be giving a talk at this very minute on a paper he's been working very hard on. I feel sort of bad for not going, but I had a lot of homework. Now, I feel even worse for blogging instead of working. Yeah, I'm going to get to that, but first...

Much drinking has been going on during the past week, with five nights since exactly a week ago where I've consumed alcohol in some shape or form. I'd say it has defined my week. Last Sunday we had a crazy movie night at Etienne's where Josee, Oliver and I finished a bottle of tequila rose, and half a bottle of amaretto. Hourra for drinking games! We watched Six String Samurai, one of my favorite movies right now, and Inuyasha (spelling?), which I didn't get most of. Wednesday, I indulged in some Kaluha and milk, which was very yummy. I also had a beer with Andrea Vettoretti and my dad. The former is a very talented classical guitarist who was "artist in residence" here at BU, and who gave a very excellent concert on Friday night. Thursday, was the worse night... Sam and I went to Ryan's and sort of had five tequila shots each, and then attempted to go to the play, Twelfth Night, at Centennial. We actually got there, but there was much stumbling, and I didn't get most of the play. Ah well, I had fun. Friday was the night of the excellent concert by the above-mentionned talented guitarist. I had two glasses of wine at the reception, and a beer once we got home. There was a post-reception party at our place, and, interestingly enough, all the people there, except me, were both male and guitar-playing to some degree. So, there was pretty much an all-night jam session with two electric guitars, one classical, and, randomly, some other guitar that someone would pull out. Very interesting and cool.

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And now, for everyone's culinary (or otherwise) delight, a purple duck caught in a vortex:

Once there was a little boy named Cameron
And he blew up all over the place.
Now, Cameron, he went to heaven
But God said, "Cam, this is no place for you!"

So Cameron went to Hell
But Cam wasn't very happy there.
With the fire and the demons, the torture and the screaming,
Hell was not a pleasant place at all.

Cameron, Cameron, what have you done?
Cameron, Cameron, what have you done?

Now, Cameron was very bold.
He went to the Devil and told him what he thought.
The Devil was very impressed.
No one had ever dared to question his will.

The Devil decided he liked Cam
And Cameron became his right hand man.
Now, Cameron was very happy.
He became in death what in life he could never be.

Cameron, Cameron, what have you done?
Cameron, Cameron, what have you done?

Once there was a little boy named Cameron
And he blew up all over the place.
Cameron, Cameron, what have you done?
Didn't you know that dying's no fun?

I've been writing this entry in my head for the past few hours, through two plane and one bus ride, and lots of waiting around in terminals. So, though I'm tired and still a little bit sick, I'm going to regale you all with stories of wonder and of woe, whether you like it or not.

First of all, a short description of Florida. It is a state to the South of America, filled with strip malls, beach resorts, struggling wilderness, and old people. I kid you not, that is Florida in a nutshell. Every time we'd pass a strip mall, my grandmother would say, "I remember when this used to be all bush." It's sad, but developpers are destroying an otherwise naturally beautiful state, and I'm afraid that it will have disastrous results eventually. Also, I wasn't overwhelmed terribly by the American-ness of it all, but the few "Support our Troops" signs annoyed my slightly. I don't know why their patriotism in particular annoys me so much...

Anyway, about the actual trip. I'm afraid it might sound a bit complaining, but you should all be used to that by now. I had some ear problems before leaving and they were aggravated by the changes in pressure from flying, and now, I'm partially deaf, and was for most of the trip. That put a bit of a damper on things, but I think I had fun anyway. We went to the beach only once, and the waves, the sand, and the pelicans were beautiful. We also went to this place called "Caribbean Gardens" which was basically an animal preserve. They had some beautiful animals, but my favorite were the Indo-China tigers (I think I'm calling them the right thing), the biggest felines on Earth. They are so incredibly beautiful. We also went mini-golfing (my grandfather won), and ice cream-eating. I think I may have gained twenty pounds from my grandmother's cooking, but I'm too afraid to step on the scale.

At any rate, now that I've written this less than satisfactory entry, due to lack of sleep, I must catch up on sleep and then catch up on other things, like this recording thing-a-ma-gig which is tomorrow or something. Huh...