when a cat is not a cat.

contrary to popular belief, inga does not have a heart of ice. recently, i've adopted two stray kitties. one is a mostly ferral cat named ingrid (unless you're ena, in which case you call the stray sophie) and a pretty friendly black cat named mr. wickham, who any day now will be lured into the kitty carrier by a can of fancy feast with gourmet greens and whisked off to the vet, so he can be checked, fixed, and let into the house.

but i digress. back to ingrid/sophie. one day i opened my garage door and startled ingrid/sophie, who startled me back. she'd apparently taken to sleeping on an old piece of pink carpeting rolled up in the garage. she'd found a spot where the carpet had unrolled a bit. feeling especially domestic and my heart apparently thawed somewhat that day, i found some old towels in the linen closet and made ingrid/sophie a little bed-nest in the garage. i put her dish in there. we were all happy.

sure, she often ate outside the garage, shouldering mr. wickham out of the way for a bit of his food, but whatevers. she's homeless.

or...she's been put out of her nest.

by the nasty possum, caught momentarily in the glare of my headlights late last night, who dashed into the garage (via a hole in the bottom of the door) as my car crept up the driveway.

possum = gross, gross, gross. possum = garage-cleaning-out this weekend!

and, uh, stella? thanks to these here posts, you can totally disregard the letter heading your way!

just goes to show 'good' means something different to everyone.

so stella's postings of food pics from japan reminded me how much i love the bento box. awhile ago, a friend of ours left to teach in japan (not dev). this friend sent stella and me each a super cute bento box, thus my love affair w/ the bentos began. i even found this great site online where a japanese mom took photos of her daugher's lunch in a bento every day and posted them. last night i tried to find it, but alas could not.

what i did find was a blog where some lady makes vegan lunches in a bento box for her kid every day and then posts photos. okay, cool. same thing, right?

well. not really. i mean, the food cut into cutesy shapes was the same, as was the selection of fun-colored food and the pretty placement of said food the boxes. but whereas the japanese mom made things such as rice balls shaped like Hello Kitty and chicken strips molded to look like a flowering ginko tree, vegan-mom's fare is much more...eclectic. sure, sure, she had photos of whole wheat tortillas, star-shaped carrots, and edamame. but, uh, she also had a thermos full of nacho cheese sauce for dipping. nacho cheese sauce made from nutritional yeast and pimentos.

'nuff said.

and, yes, yes, inga hearts the vegans, we all have our own choices to make, yadda yadda yadda. i cannot jump on this lady's band wagon that this 'nacho' 'cheese' dip is better than anything she ever tasted - even nacho dips with real cheese. not. buying. it. color me stella-rized.

the result of overfishing?

Holy fucking shit, y'all. A pelican ate a pigeon in St. James Park last week. My mouth was literally a.g.a.p.e. while reading this damnable story.

self esteem 101

For those kids who feel as if they'll never learn another language, these word cards offer some encouragement, though they might be assuming some proficiencies elsewhere:



Hell yes, I'm ALSO perfect at this flash card! MoFo!

one we didn't try

Check out menu item #2. What the hell could that be? I'll get one for whoever can guess the next time we're in Japan together. I promise.

glad I got back in when I did

Lifted blatantly from Boing Boing is a piece on a newly signed bill that allows the declaration of martial law:

For the current President, "enforcement of the laws to restore public order" means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the objections of local governmental, military and local police entities; ship them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode; and set them loose against "disorderly" citizenry - protesters, possibly, or those who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a bio-terror event.

The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called "illegal aliens," "potential terrorists" and other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That's right. Under the cover of a trumped-up "immigration emergency" and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration.

Stella leaves the country for ten days, and this happens??!? WTF.

and tonight we're having chinese

i forgot to photograph our meals for most of the trip, as per inga's request, but here's what we've got.

The first photo I remembered to take: Curry and rice on my plate (okay, so the curry's in the gravy boat), and squid and roe spaghetti on dev's.

I've got yakisoba with pork and vegetables (and shrimp and squid, which really do count as non-meats in Japan); dev's got a sampling of gyoza, meaty-filled steamed buns, and egg rolls. super-duper, this one.

This is the hotpot we had for dev's birthday dinner on Monday. There was sushi and sashimi as well, though stella was sad that the salmon sushi was smoked salmon. Hotpot and sake? Rock.

Four-cheese/Margherita pizza and house wine at the Italian restaurant we ate at for a break from the fish and noodles and rice and broiled meats. Those Japanese know their pizza, oddly enough. There was calamari too, and holy, holy jeezus. Never visit Japan and forget to eat squid. You've never had it better.

a tiny, tiny portion of the last night's meal with the gang. the rest included bonkatsu (maybe dev can tell me what that word should really be? hint, dev!); soba topped with tea, a quail egg, and green onions; tempura; and too much hot sake and draft beer.

That's what you get for now, amigos!

hmm.

so, really? an inability to put on weight? or keep the food down?

notice the timestamp

Stella is back from Japan, and she is jet-lagged like a mofo. Sometime soon, many photos will follow here, but for now, here's a brief recap of Stella's time over the past ten days:

1. landed, took train to dev's town, and went to dinner at sweet 15-seat restaurant -- saw a tanuki scurry across road
2. hiked to a temple on mountain famous for springtime cherry blossoms
3. had the world's best dumplings -- purchased in the freezer section of the chain grocery
4. met dev's colleagues for drinks in nara -- highlights include the belgian friend of one of the colleagues
5. went to kyoto and had hotel-finding adventure
6. visited silver pavillion in kyoto
7. broke up with dev
8. went to one of the three major festivals in kyoto
9. saw a performance in gion corner of geisha-ish stuff
10. saw the five-tiered pagoda in nara and museum at the empress's temple
11. stared in awe at the giant buddha
12. went through the opening day exhibit of national treasures at the nara national museum
13. got a lost sweater back three days after it went missing at a train station
14. toured dev's school
15. had dinner and too-too-many drinks with dev's local jet friends
16. hungover, got packed, dressed, and onto the train in record time to head to kansai airport

The weather was rocktastic, let me tell you. I left Thursday morning in Osaka at 70* and sunny. I landed in XXX at 40* and raining. Welcome home, indeed. New gardens are still being planted there; flowers are blooming there; rice is just being harvested there. Here? Not so much.

(If you're focused on item no. 7 up there, don't ignore the other 15. Dev and I didn't. But in lieu of flowers, you may send donations in dev's name to the temple of bad decisions fund.)

the inga show! continued.

random.

my boyfriend won project runway! my girlfriend proved herself number one as she graciously accepted the number two spot!

cK sent out a lovely missive earlier about teaching and grading. i laughed as i read it, esp. since last night Old Guy in class and i had this conversation after i returned a paper to him.

Old Guy: so, uh, i disagree with some of these marks.
Inga: okay. why?
Old Guy: well, as writing is subjective, just because you don't like the way i say something doesn't mean it's wrong.
Inga: well, the marks have nothing to do with whether or not i like what you're writing. they have to do with whether or not your sentences are grammatically correct, you commas correctly, and have the most effective word choice.
Old Guy: oh, c'mon. so what? as long as i get my point across, what's it matter?
Inga: this is an advanced writing class. it matters.
Old Guy, muttering under his breath as he walks away: everyone knows writing is subjective...

everyone, apparently, but me. c'est la vie.

the inga show!

ah, screw stella. who needs her and her japan-lovin' self?

and speaking of japan, agatha sent this to me this morning. interesting. also in japan related news, on NPR this morning they talked about the opening of japan's version of the dollar store, though you can get things for roughly 85 cents. according to the guy they interviewed, since the stores sell flip-flops, shirts, and pants, you can dress yourself real cheap! but then they interviewed a customer, an old man, whose cart was filled with single-serve meals - seaweed and peanuts, tofu, rice. then the story just got depressing. oh, and then they interviewed a woman, 'past her flush of youth' (no shit, the reported actually said that! on NPR!) still living at home, what the japanese call a parasite - a young adult still at home. ouch. i mean, i don't want to live at home - and don't - but youch. a parasite? uh, isn't japan terribly expensive in live in?

that kind of a day.

those of you who know inga know that there are a few things i can't stand, things that make me weak in the knees and cause me to run for cover. one of those things: people brushing their teeth. ever since the fifth-grade slumber party at loreli's house, when, in a bathroom full of girls primping, loreli brushed and brushed and brushed and then, rather than spitting and rinsing like the rest of us, proceeded to swallow all the gunk in her mouth, a move i am sure was her springboard to popularity in high school. to this day, i can't be around anyone brushing teeth - not even the beaus i've loved and lived with.

the second thing that completely grosses me out is people eating cereal in milk. the dribbly milk, the double-dipping, the soggy cereal? ick. and, yes, i know these are weird, but i'll get my help, okay? the point is - gross.

so this weekend i was sick. sick with the flu in bed sick. i'm feeling a bit better today, thank you very much, and found myself needing to bop across campus this morning. why drive, i thought, eyeing my prime front row spot. i'll take the bus. feeling better, see? so the bus pulls up. i get on. it's pretty empty. my meeting across campus is only four stops away. by stop three, the bus is fully loaded. a girl sits next to me, styrofoam cup in hand. oh, coffee, i think, envious. huh, coffee with a spoon?

uh, no. lucky charms and milk. which the girl proceeds to eat the entire stretch between stop three and stop four, a stretch that includes a rather long traffic light. and lots of foot traffic the busses need to slow down for. so there i was, the smell of damp colored marshmallows wafting toward me, milk dribbling back into the cup, a couple of under- classman bottoms (and not even the cute ones!) inches from my face.

inga is no longer feeling better.

and, uh, did anyone really believe stella when she proclaimed, "I'll have lots of time to blog while I'm in Japan!" really?

up, up, & away.

so stella's off! she's en route to japan, as we speak, to visit dev. yea! well, okay, right now i think she's probably sitting on the airplane preparing to take off, but she's on the plane!

the bad news? it's a bijillion-hour long flight. the good news? stella scored herself a direct flight from xxx to japan. you go, girl!

safe travels.

here it is, y'all!

I was late for work for this. Not that that's something unusual, inga's saying to herself right now.



who wouldn't kiss that cook?

Honorary Snarky Girl

I don't really know this woman's music much, but golly, she's got a snark up her skirt:

I think some people perceive me to part of a movement or something that I don't really associate myself with. I think there's a lot of fakery, a lot of monkeying and posturing, a handful of kids who just latched right onto what they saw as a scene, and set themselves industriously to the synthesis of a particular vibe, and I'm pretty insulted when i occasionally get credited in the press for having anything to do with the dissemination of that vibe... I'm not part of some epic, bracelet-clanking, eyes-rolled-back, blase, nihilistic scenester cult or anything. I've seen some awful displays, let me tell you. I've gone to some shows that have left me feeling heartbroken about the state of music.

From what I hear, her music can be a bit boring, but WOW! what a fucking attitude! Excellent...

from Jaded Insider, a Billboard blog

gotta love the kids.

scene: building _____ on campus
weather: crappy - cold and windy, air temps hovering somewhere around 36 degrees f
sky: grayish-white with large billowy clouds you just know are full of snow

i'm in building ______ looking for ginger ale. something is making inga feel ill. alice adams, per chance? i locate said ginger ale (feel as though i have won the lottery) and, as i walk my poor, poor, sad self through the lobby, i overhear one student talking to another.

"damn, let me tell you what, by nine o'clock tonight, i'm gonna be naked in my bed, sippin' on some hot chocolate, swearin' to myself."

brr. part 213.

really. considering there's a large swath of snow/winter weather from wyoming to indiana, i won't be divulging where, exactly, X is when i say: it snowed today.

yes. october. early october. there isn't even heat yet in fair ck's apartment it's so early still. and yet this morning i walked vivien and nieve (ena and garvey's dog, the negative image of vivien) in swirling snow.

now obviously my name is inga, which means there's a fair chance i like snow. and i do. very much. especially when it looks like, well, the photos attached. and, sure, these are photos of snow in norway (okay, not my photos of skiing in norway, but it's likely oonagh destroyed the negatives once nils's destroyed her heart, but i digress), but i'd like to remind everyone that oonagh and i once spent a really fabulous ski weekend in norway and we literally skied around a mountain. and, sure, it took us eight hours and sure, nils's father, who is in his 60s, circled the mountain twice in the time it took us to circle it once, but it was a great vacation, one of the top 5, not least of all because of scandinavian airlines or because nils's mother made moose burgers (fabulous!) and after a fresh snow, took us outside to make candle holders out of snow we then put candles in and lit.

but i digress.

above = good snow.
snow in X in october = bad snow.

sniffle.

and by the by ~ if anyone ever, and i mean anyone, suggests writing a dlb entry, run. quickly. the other way.

huh.

Really. I'm not sure what else to say about this. Meow, maybe?

to those who wait?

I'm lookin', and when I find it, we're totally watching Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem on The Colbert Report.

if this is true, it's a sure sign of a coming apocalypse.

Stel will be in town this week, en route to Japan and her visit with Dev, so we're obviously going to get together for dinner and, what?, seven or twelve bottles of wine. She's already decided she wants Thai, because apparently in her new hometown of X, the local Thai restaurant leaves something to be desired...and it's not more of their curry.

So last night I had the funniest dream about Stella's visit here to Y. In my dream, we were walking down the street to Y's local Thai restaurant when Stella stopped suddenly and said, in great earnestness, "You know, in X we can't get good doritos. They're always stale. And deli meat? It doesn't come freshly cut, so could we just go to a deli and get stuff to make sandwiches? And some doritos?"

"Rather than Thai?" dream-Inga asked.

"You don't look excited," dream-Stella replied.

Dream-Inga contemplated this all for a moment, and then replied, "Well, so long as I can pick up an all beef kosher hotdog, okay."

And just like that, our dream identities were happy as clams ~ Stella was going to get her doritos and I was going to get my all beef kosher hot dog.

Which is more disturbing, that Stel was suddenly so happy about doritos and sliced deli meats or that I was so swayed by a hot dog?

awesome.

so, sometimes, when bush isn't on tv speaking (or in the white house merely thinking), when people like foley and hassertt aren't 'leading', when university football teams aren't getting more funding than academic programs, and when produce isn't making everyone sick, i heart me some u.s.a.

take this exchange one recent lovely fall afternoon. two pretty muslim girls stand outside the uni-library. they're pretty ultra-swank ~ designer books, tight jeans, shiny hair.

"so," girl 1 says. "how's ramadan going for you?"
"oh, man," girl 2 says, shiny hair swinging as she shakes her head. "okay, but i so cannot fast."
"no fasting?" girl 1 says. "oh, my god. why not?"
"i have so got an ulcer," girl 2 says, "like you would not believe. the doctor says no fasting."
"bummer," girl 1 sympathesizes.
"totally," girl 2 agrees.

i mean, seriously. pretty cute.

all your shopping needs.

hmm, so let's say you have a pretty varied shopping list, you know, and you're short on time and want to make just one stop ~ where do you go? maybe your list looks like this,

1. bulk paper products
2. package of seven different kinds of cheese
3. discount books
4. a gallon of shampoo
5. four boxes of cereal shrink-wrapped together
6. industrial-sized container of miracle whip
   
7. casket

where could you go for all your shopping needs? here.

creepy? or just me?

wish upon a star

on veronica mars tonight, we met wallace's new roommate. he's from a town just outside portland. beaverton.

i hope they find a way to license our friend seth's motto: "you get a ton o' beaver in beaverton." maybe they'd even take the extended radio spot: "not a hundred pounds of beaver; not five hundred; not even a full half ton of beaver." you can fill in the rest.

while we were sleeping

in case anybody didn't notice, what with anna nicole's tragedy and the perverted representative, the detainee bill was signed this weekend. here's a sample:

"The Definition of 'Unlawful Enemy Combatant'

The bill expands the definition of unlawful enemy combatants to include people who have "purposefully and materially supported hostilities" and people who have been declared enemy combatants under Combat Status Review Tribunals, "or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense." Under this new language, people in the United States who are not American citizens could be declared unlawful enemy combatants and held indefinitely without trial.

Habeas Corpus

The bill prohibits detainees held by the United States from filing lawsuits challenging their detention, known as habeas corpus pleadings. This wipes out both pending and future lawsuits, and it would apply to people picked up anywhere in the world, including the United States.

The provision is significant. Habeas corpus is an ancient protection that stems from English common law, and its use dates back to as early as the 12th century. In 1969, the Supreme Court called it "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action." Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced an amendment to remove this part of the legislation. He argued that the ability to challenge one's detention is one of the most fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. The proposed amendment failed.

ON THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS

Coercive Interrogation Tactics

The bill prohibits "grave breaches" of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. That includes "cruel or inhuman treatment." But many legal analysts and government officials believe the definition of cruel or inhuman treatment as written in the bill does not encompass some of the severe interrogation tactics that the CIA has reportedly used against terrorism suspects. The bill also prohibits enemy combatants from filing lawsuits claiming a violation of their rights under the Geneva Conventions. That could make it difficult to hold accountable those who do engage in torture.'" (NPR.org)

how is it a sign of the american way of life to undo the legal foundations at work in western culture since the magna carta? (which, by the way, i saw five of in person at the british library during their "2000 years of literature" exhibit in (you guessed it!) 2000. one with the seal still in tact. maybe that was the copy being held for the u.s. wish somebody'd read it this millenium.)

think of the least likely answer...

Quiz time! Who of our readership is seeing the Pogues play as I type.

Answer: Dev. In Osaka.

Mayhaps we'll get a show review? [Note: Dev, freshness tip? ;)]