Toned, Symmetrical People Gettin' It On

I'm all full of sex news tonight.

Did you hear about the condom shortage at the Vancouver Winter Olympics?

Yep. Loads of hot, athletic, young people getting it on.

I'll let you sit with that for a moment.

Now, onto the bits of the story that I find interesting...

Health officials in Vancouver have already provided 100,000 free condoms to the roughly 7,000 athletes and officials at the Games. That's about 14 condoms per person. But as of Wednesday, those supplies started running dangerously low.

Let's think about that for a moment... Assuming that hot people want to have sex with other hot people and not us mere mortals (and admit it, as much as you might fantasize about it, do you really think you could keep up with a world-class athlete in the best condition of their lives? That's okay, I already hear your response... "No, but I would try! Please let me just try!") this means that there are 28 condoms per couple. The games started on 12 Feb and the article was written on 24 Feb. Figure that your event takes place over two days, on average, and that you opt not to have sex on the preceding nights. That's 2.8 instances of sexual activity requiring condom use per day.

Hot, sweaty, athletic adrenaline sex.

Go find your partner, I'll be here when you get back.

I've heard a few people saying different things. My favorite so far has been the call to not send more condoms to the Olympic Village. The reasoning has a delicious form of logic.

"Think of the 2030 games! Breeding the uber athlete! It could be done!"

I have to admit, it sounds just whacky enough to work.

My pet theory is that with all the anti-weed hoo-hah (anyone that's done pot will tell you that it's not a performance-enhancing drug) that they've had to find something else to do with their time off.

Urban Fox Mating Rituals

...apparently take place under my living room window.

I was happily watching some event of the Winter Olympics a few nights ago when I heard what sounded like a cat fight out my window. Okay, no biggie, even though it was past midnight, until it started sounding like a child being flayed. Then I grabbed the phone, ready to call 999 and possibly go outside and beat someone with a lead pipe. (Just call me Miss Scarlet.)

I look out the window and I see a shadow scurry off in one direction and notice a fox looking up at me. Yeah, we live near Greenwich Park and Blackheath, both extensive green spaces, but I'm not sure I expected so much attitude from a fox.

As I looked down at the fox, he looked up at me and might as well have said "what, Bitch, I was gettin' my groove on and you have to be all human and ruin it."

I actually felt bad for interrupting the fox fucking, and then realized that I was getting a tough guy attitude from a fox.

I guess I'm glad that there will continue to be kits around, but as the fox sauntered off, I came to the sudden realization that we have chav foxes engaged in car-less dogging. Go Greenwich!

25 - 28 Feb 2010

Planned dinner menus:

Thai-style scallops with rice and vegetables

Venison lasagne with salad and garlic bread

Erwtesoep with fresh baked bread and salad

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos with refried beans and Spanish rice.

That is, of course, the plan.

The Thai-style scallops with rice are going to be simple; I have a sambal sauce that's pre-prepared, so I'll caramalize the scallops and then toss them with some of the sauce, serve it over rice with broccolini and green beans.

Venison lasagne is just a lasagne with venison mince cooked into the red sauce.

Erwtesoep is a split pea and sausage stew that B fell in love with when he was working in Amsterdam for three years. I have a recipe that's supposed to be wonderful, and we'll give it a shot. It makes about 17 million gallons. Somewhere around there, it serves 8 people or some such. I figure I'll be able to portion the remainder out and tuck it in the freezer for emergency eating. It's a good winter food, and given that it's barely cleared 40°F here in London in the last month, it seems to be a well timed meal. The only issue is that I can't find split green peas here, so it will be yellow. I admit to debating on getting green food coloring in order to get it more to the color B (and I) expect... But I think the yellow split peas will be slightly sweeter than green would be.

The chicken taquitos I came across when I sent a plaintive Gchat message to Ritsuka, saying "HELP! I have three mains, I need a fourth for when B comes home!" I explained what I had planned, and she said, "This sounds like a time to use foodgawker."

"Uh, bwuh, what is foo...oooooooh."

"Yeah."

"POOD FORN! You gave me pood forn!" (Yes, I was so excited I transposed letters. Leave me be.)

I've started digging 'round in there and I've decided that one meal a week will be from foodgawker.

To explain, I only have to plan out four meals a week because B works out of town and I generally eat leftovers or quick food during the week.

I can't wait for Spring to hit so I can go mental at Borough Market. I already have plans and I can't wait to see my fishmonger again. And I'm sure that B would love to get some new and exciting cheese.

Dreams

My dreams are telling me to write. To the point where the dream-me is running a constant narration of what is occuring in my dreams.

Case in point:

Last night's dream was set in Anchorage (I attribute this to being in touch with Anchorage people and my father's recent birthday). I lost my car. Well, I couldn't remember where I parked it, so I cut through the trees towards where I thought it might be. (The trees I cut through were the off-limits forest between the Knowles trail and Lake Hood.)

Before I hit Lake Hood, I ended up in a parking lot where I ran into my mother (who hasn't been in Alaska for well over a decade) and she asked to see my keys to help me sort out where I'd put my car (what make) when we determined that I didn't come in a car, but a plane. She and I wandered about heading towards Lake Hood and overshot it by a bit, ending up near Alaskan Knives and finding a well preserved pre-historic underground native artifact site.

When we emerged from poking around (not touching anything), we were on the other side of La Mex, but in the same location.

I woke before I found my plane. (Which is probably good because I have no idea where I was living in order to require me to come to Anchorage in a float plane.)

But during the entire dream, my mother was telling me that it was okay with her if I wrote my teenaged memoirs (or something to that effect) and that she wouldn't hold any of it against me. And dream-me had constant narration in her head, describing the dance required to negotiate spruce, fir, and alder without being caught by airport security or surprised moose.

My psyche is telling me to write. I'm happy for that, but at the same time, I've never had "GO DO THIS" dreams quite so clearly.

Now to figure out if I should write books, novellas, screenplays, or plays. (Or radio plays, blablabla.) But until then, back to domesticity. I still have washing up to do from last night and preperation for the grocery delivery.

This also means that I have to get in the mindset to actually edit my work. I hate editing.

Accent on Youth

Unlike professional reviewers, I don't have an editor breathing down my neck. (Just a boyfriend.) I also don't get paid, so it doesn't behoove me to be bitchy when something is good or gush when something is bad.

I also don't care if the show is still running by the time I get the review up!

TheBrit and I were in New York to give him some time to see his grandmother. (She passed shortly after he saw her. I'm very glad we went to New York so he could see her.) Accent on Youth came up as an option because TheBrit knows I love seeing shows (though he's not as in love with musical theatre as I am) and suggested that we catch a Broadway show and sent me a short list of what he thought we would both be interested in.

I admit that I am a David Hyde Pierce fangirl. No, he doesn't solve poverty in his spare time (that I'm aware of) but he's an actor of the old school, when it felt like a craft, not an industry.That, and DHP has awesome comedic timing while still being erudite. I love that.

The play consists of one of the standard plotline setups - discovery of young ingenue, love found, love lost, bla bla bla...

It's formulaic. It's ancient. And it is the easiest storyline to write and screw up. This was not screwed up. I liked it so much that I actually want to own the script so I can look at the lines and the stage directions.

The stage opens on a late 1920s/early 1930s New York City brownstone (or so I assume) sitting room. To the left is a double desk (the type where two people sit opposite each other) with a secretary. To the right is a couch, chair, and the ubiquitous wall bar with a decanter of scotch/whiskey/bourbon. Charles Kimbrough (Jim Dial im Murphy Brown) is playing the sidekick/butler. DHP comes on stage from what is inferred to be the bedroom and the audience applauds. (I will comment on this later.)

The play was rife with commentary on the duplicitous nature of theatre/film and how people will say anything to have the sensitive actors think they're loved and impressive and to soothe the egos. And then, out of nowhere seems to come a snide but completely accurate comment about the audience. (I believe it was "theatre would be fantastic if it weren't for the audience" or something similar.) The whole thing was suitably meta and probably broke the fourth wall a little too much for people during the original run in the 1930s.

In a lot of ways, it what your typical May/December romance theme has been since the origins of theatre. It has the additional flavour of the young love theme so popularized in Romeo and Juliet and the like.

Reviewers hated this play. They considered it to be humourless and stilted. The audience I saw it with found it suitably amusing. I liked it. So neener, professional reviewers.

(I secretly suspect that professional reviewers are supposed to hate everything that I'd love and love everything I'd hate. At least in the US.)

Reviews and opinons to come!

Oh man, it's been busy. Aside from not feeling well (apparently, it's a pre-requisite for turning 30 in my body), it's been a constant whirlwind of events here.

So, here's a list of the reviews and posts and whatnot to come over the next few days...

Accent On Youth (play)
Exit the King (play)
Waiting for Godot (play)
Bam-Bou (restaurant)

...I'm sure I'm missing something, maybe The Brit can help me out.

And yes, I've turned 30. Oh, my... 30. I suppose it should be scary and bad, but it's really just another year. Or so I keep telling myself. I've compensated for aging by dyeing my hair blue. A friend of mine came over (thanks Emma!) to help me out with the bleaching and dyeing. My hair takes after its owner - certain parts of it were just resistant. I figure that I'll muck around with it when it's time to do the redyeing. Still need to get a haircut done and then the following cut, I'll have them do a professional bleach/strip job and come home and have The Brit goop me up.

However, the dyeing led to two awesome things aside from the blue hair: awesome bacon and pea pasta dinner of numminess and the best tweet that was ever tweeted in the twitterverse. In England. That hour. Originating from the 3rd floor of a building.

"I have lube, Emma, and food. I'll leave it to you to imagine what we'll be up to."

So, my early mid-life crisis has displayed itself in the form of blue hair. I like the front colour better than the back and will probably do that on my whole head for the next time. Or if the back blue washes out before the front does.

I swear, I'll do the reviews soon! Promise!

Weekend menu

I figure this is going to be the best way of keeping track of weekend foodstuffs.

Thursday:
Dinner - Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad

Ingredients:
2-4 chicken breasts
Fusilli pasta
Romaine lettuce
Caesar salad dressing
Parmesan cheese

Recipe:
Take chicken breasts, saute. Boil pasta (some kind with nooks and crannies). Mix pasta with Caesar dressing and chicken. In a seperate bowl, mix romaine lettuce with dressing. Layer plate with lettuce on bottom, pasta on top. Add freshly grated parmesan cheese and croutons (if desired). Nom.

Friday:
Breakfast - Grab 'n go (likely crumpets)
Lunch - Egg salad sandwiches of yumminess (recipe here)
Dinner - Out for Sushi (mmmm sushi)

Saturday:
Breakfast - Pancakes
Lunch - Cold cut buffet
Dinner - Beef stir fry with rice

Sunday:
Breakfast - Eggs Benedict
Lunch - BLTs
Out for Russell Howard show and foodstuffs in Brighton