"Any flame longer than 8 feet is considered unstoppable…"

Posted on October 23, 2007 by jeannie

We’ve been breathing in lots of smoke the last few days, but fortunately the billowing clouds remain on the horizon.

The hot, dry Santa Ana winds have pushed the thermostat back into the 80’s and left grit in all our keyboards.

So far, Bella’s teacher’s almost-son-in-law lost his house to the fire, and somebody else, a guy I’ve met a couple times, has been evacuated with his three dogs. Knock on wood, that’s as close as it’s gotten.

Thanks for your calls and emails of concern. We can deal with scratchy eyes and gritty keyboards. Bella’s psyched that cross country practice has been canceled for two days. We’re doing fine.

Read today’s yahoo story about the largest mass evacuation since Katrina here.

Posted in south OC | Leave a comment

Free Tix

Posted on October 22, 2007 by jeannie

Only a short half hour to when my hubby gets home and we get to watch Heroes together, so a quick post.
This was a funny weekend for free things.

Friday was Chad’s day off, so we did our typical run, shower, and get to the Irvine Spectrum for the 10:30 am show of the weekend’s newest release – this weekend it was Gone Baby Gone (imdb 8.6/10.0). The previous weekend we had forgotten one of our Nalgene water bottles in the theater, and I was hoping against hope that it might be in the lost and found. So I found the manager and very politely asked if he would check the lost and found for me. I knew it was in the large tub under his desk just left of his knee. The manager, Mike, basically stood up tall, crossed his arms and said, “Sorry, but we have a policy of throwing away all water bottles.” I pulled out another Nalgene, explained that it cost ten bucks and that possibly somebody might think it non-water bottle enough to put in the lost and found, would he please check?

Nothing doing. Mike just pulled himself taller, crossed his arms tighter, and said. “Ma’am even if somebody had put your water bottle in the lost and found, it would have been thrown away after three days.” Period. He would not bend to lean over and check that damn tub by his knee.

I walked away fuming. “The dude takes his job waaaay too seriously,” I muttered to Chad. No way there was anybody organized enough at that theater to be weeding the lost and found for items older than three days. The guy was just a self-righteous jerk who didn’t want to be bothered.

After the movie, I noticed that somebody else was in the customer service booth, so I ran over and sweetly asked him to plu-eese check the lost and found for my Nalgene, which he did willingly. I mean, all he had to do was flip the lid of a tub which sat not twelve inches away from his right hand.

My Nalgene was sitting right there on top. I never felt so triumphant and smug in my whole life. and I had to let Mike know about it. Problem was, once I showed Mike the water bottle, he started to say things like, “Ma’m, had you made it clear that you wanted me to check the lost and found, I would have been happy to…”

Wha?

I snapped. My finger started waggling, and I started out with, “Why don’t you start that apology again, but this time without blaming ME?” and that poor manager began to shake and tremble. I got up on my high and mighty horse and gave that guy a piece of mind – and by the time Chad dragged me away, the manager was chucking me as many free movie tickets as his nervous fingers could perforate. Well, four at least – which is not bad considering that a matinee costs nine bucks at this joint.

That was Friday, you know, before I drove up to LA to hang out with my brother.

Then Saturday at the Omni, Corrina and I got back to the hotel (don’t worry I was finished with the yelling), and the concierge hurried up to me and said, “Ms. Lee, I’m so sorry, but there’s been an accident.” My comprehension was slow, but I figured he couldn’t mean Bella or Chad or any other family member, so how bad could it be? Turned out that he’d dropped my bag. The bag with a half-full bottle of spiced rum and the snacks.

You know what? This guy was so apologetic and so ready to make amends, there was no need for anger or frustration. I decided to try quiet resignation and no tip. And I still ended up with a complimentary lunch for two at the Omni Hotel.

Not a bad amount of freebies for a weekend.

Posted in not keeping my mouth shut | Leave a comment

Be Prepared for All Eventualities

Posted on October 22, 2007 by jeannie

This weekend I thought my brother Songbae was coming down for the whole weekend and I excitedly planned a BBQ to welcome him to our new house. He had after all given us the beautiful leather club sofa and chair that make our living room so comfy and welcoming. Plus he is always so busy that we rarely get to spend time with him – and his birthday was just a few weeks ago. So, it all added up to cleaning house, planning appetizers, and making a perfect birthday card – but in true crazy Lee fashion, Songbae emailed on Thursday and said that he had to fly back to San Fran early and that he would only be down for the fundraiser banquet in LA Friday night.

Initially I was pissed.

But then I got over it. It was a relief to back off the cleaning and cancel the BBQ. And in any case, it is a Lee family trademark trait to be flexible; we all excel at flying by the seat of our pants and enjoy the occasional opportunity to do so. AND Songbae totally made it up to me.

First of all, both Chad and Bella had backed out of the fundraiser dinner for Friday night, which left me with two dinner tix at the Omni Hotel for two friends – that little switch dramatically changed the nature of my Friday night. Since Chad was staying home, he could take care of the pup who wasn’t feeling well and the kid who needed to be dropped off at 5:45 am for her cross-country meet Saturday morning. I was no longer going to be a mom OR a wife, but simply my brother’s tag along sister for the evening with fun girlfriends in tow.

And I could accept my brother’s invitation to stay at the Omni Friday night, which meant I no longer had to worry about driving or bedtime curfews. So, when I left my house Friday afternoon, I packed for all eventualities and told Corrina to do the same. This meant having fancy clothes and casual clothes, glasses and contacts, bathing suit and laptop, rum and root beer, and cheese, crackers, and salsa. And Songbae’s birthday gifts and birthday card.

It all worked out extremely well.

The NAKASEC fundraiser dinner was excellent: braised short ribs, mashed potatoes, and roasted veggies. The company at our table was delightful and diverse. And the end of the presentations and entertainment coincided perfectly with the arrival of strawberry cheesecake and coffee. And as hard as I laughed when Corrina got pulled up on stage to beat on the Korean drums for the finale, there was much more laughter in store…

After the rousing performances with dinner, we all strolled around California Plaza in the mild LA weather, taking pictures with the MOCA sculptures, and just generally giggling and unwinding. We ended up on the outside terrace bar of the Omni, each having our own night caps. Finally Songbae stood up to stretch, and said that he’d better make his way over to the after party at the Korean Resource Center. Without realizing that Korean + party = alcohol + karaoke, Susan, Corrina, and I, all decided to tag along.

We were told it would be a $10 cab ride – a straight shot down Olympic to Crenshaw. We all piled into a cab and Songbae immediately befriended the driver, Jacob, who happened to be an Armenian engineer who had been driving a cab in LA for only one week. We soon discovered that as nice a guy as Jacob was, he didn’t know how to get on Olympic or which way to head towards Crenshaw. (!!) Songbae basically pushed half his body through the little cabbie window separating the back from the front seat and began punching buttons on the GPS according to Susan’s directions; I was in the back with the light on and a map; the cab crawled slowly along, and Corrina scouted for a likely person to ask for directions. Luckily, Jacob was a very nice guy and Songbae too generous to mind the ultimately outrageous $20 cab fare – and we got to the Korean Resource Center in one piece.

Boy, Koreans sure know how to sing and drink. The party was well under way – and so we tried to discreetly move along the edges of the main room foraging for shrimp chips and escargot and sake. No chance. We all danced some, sang a little, and laughed a lot. The highlight of the evening was watching Songbae and Corrina belt out Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All.” I had never before noticed how many times that refrain was repeated at the end of that song. Whew. It was repeated many many times. Enough times for about half the room to put on their coats and say good-bye is all I’m saying.

We finally made it back to the hotel, thanks to sweet, sober, non-profit worker named Caroline; it was unfortunate though that the rearview mirror on the driver’s side of the SUV fell off while we were driving. That’s right. It just fell off. And hit the road.

??

After a slightly scary stop in the road with Songbae running against traffic to retrieve the mirror, it was determined that our own levels of drunkenness had nothing to do with the fallen mirror. Some other drunk person had clearly knocked off the mirror earlier in the evening and propped it back on the car. I hope Caroline didn’t get in trouble with her dad… It was his car.

Back at the hotel, it was time for birthday presents (Brooks Brothers!), fortifying snacks (stoned wheat thins, salsa, and jack cheese!), more drinks (spiced rum and root beer!) and generally lots of melting into soft pillows. By the time we were all thoroughly melted and beginning to dread our 7:15 am wake up calls, it was getting dangerously close to morning.

And because we wanted to maximize our time with Songbae, we had actually made breakfast plans for Saturday morning, before his 10 am board meeting. By 7:50 am, Corrina, Songbae, and I were up and strolling out of the Omni (it was a bright day!) and walking the three blocks to the Hilton where we met Jimmy by 8 am. We were pretty impressed with ourselves and with breakfast at the Checkers Restaurant. It was fantastic! I think it was the best fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice and Eggs Benedict I’ve ever had, hangover not withstanding.

Then, it was time to hug Songbae good-bye. After only a brief bit of lazing back in the hotel room, Corrina and I hit MOCA next. I don’t know where we found the energy, but I thoroughly enjoyed a second opportunity to cruise around the Gordon Matta-Clark show. By noon, Corrina and I were flagging. And feeling like we’d lived a lifetime together in the last twelve hours. But we hauled our butts back down to OC and felt very not guilty about napping away the rest of the weekend.

My brother may cancel a lot of plans, but when he sticks around he sure knows how to make friends and have a good time! Thanks for a great weekend, Songbae.
Check Corrina’s post about this very same evening for photographic proof.

Posted in family | 2 Comments

Rowling Says Dumbledore is G…

Posted on October 20, 2007 by jeannie

That is not just a teasing post title, but all I could read on my Firefox tab as the Newsweek page loaded. Talk about suspense! Is Newsweek so web savvy that somebody could have actually planned such a loaded title cut-off (28 spaces?)? That would be some tricky marketing.

If you want to read what J. K. Rowling has to say, then do what I did, and follow this link.

Posted in books | Leave a comment

My Weekend Starts Now!

Posted on October 19, 2007 by jeannie

A proper post needs containment, and sometimes I don’t have the  presence of mind for all that corralling of my thoughts. Especially after two hours of TV (My Name is Earl, The New Sara Silverman Show, and Grey’s Anatomy). And six or seven hours of sitting in front of an office computer working on somebody else’s project.

What was I thinking? I just spent four months not working and stressing about not working, when really I should have just been enjoying the heck out of myself. Well, I did enjoy myself  – but in a stressful way. I hate to think that stressful “fun” has become my m.o.,

because that would mean that I’ve become my mother.

oh god.

My mom and I at Sue and Joss’s wedding in 200? Look at us with our hair all dyed black…

Posted in work | Leave a comment

Typical Night at Home

Posted on October 18, 2007 by jeannie

Chad looking through movies to find something we can all watch and Giselle sitting on my lap.

Posted in poochie | Leave a comment

Settling In

Posted on October 16, 2007 by jeannie

It’s been just over three months now since we’ve moved to Laguna Niguel and I finally feel like I’ve adjusted. We’ve started losing track of all our “firsts” – Bella’s gone out now several times to the mall (one of the many) with new friends from school, I know where the post office is, and where I like to buy Giselle’s dog food. We even have a chiropractor.

This means that I am finally learning my way around this joint. But check out these six photos of totally different streets in my neighborhood; is it any wonder that I’ve been getting lost daily?

It’s worse than when I arrived in Korea and thought everybody looked the same.

Posted in movies | 2 Comments

Vermi-composting

Posted on October 15, 2007 by jeannie

Buy this book!I am a big believer in vermi-composting; worms do an incredibly efficient job of eating our organic waste and turning it into rich fertilizer – and today for Blog Action Day I will explain the basics of keeping worms alive. I originally posted about worms when I still lived in the desert, but more in generalities. Read that post here. Or you can go straight to the source: everything I know about worms I originally read in Mary Appelhof’s book Worms Eat My Garbage; however, the following directions are in my own words and are supplemented with a dozen years of wormy experience. Keeping worms is easy and makes organic fertilizer on par with bat guano.

 

You will need:

  • Worms – Red wrigglers are best because they actually are garbage eaters. I have bought worms on several different occasions, but keep in mind that the worms will be delivered to your house… in a box… alive. So be at home and order the worms when the weather is hospitable. I have also had very good luck with worms that we dug up from under the water bucket in my friend’s goat pen.
  • Large container with drainage – A 50-gal plastic tub with a lid will do it. For drainage you can drill holes in the bottom and set the whole thing on top of a couple 2 x 4’s. Or if you live in a very hot or cold place, you can dig a big hole, line the bottom of the hole with rocks, and set the tub on top of the rocks for drainage.
  • Shredded newspaper or shredded paper for worm bedding – Offices and schools always have plenty of shreddies to give away.
  • Organic kitchen waste – No meat or dairy or fat: these things will attract flies and hence larvae. Eeyew.

To start, set up your worm home before you get your worms. Believe me, you will want to get those worms out of that shipping box ASAP.

You can buy a plastic tub and make a worm house yourself or you can order a pre-aerated worm box with drainage from Mary Appelhof’s site: Flowerfield Enterprises. You can get a 19x16x12 box with one pound of worms for $70 or a slightly larger one for $80. The site says that the larger box will take care of 3-5 pounds of garbage a week, bu personally, I prefer a larger box. A larger container will 1) Make allowance for your mistakes. If a box is nice and roomy, worms can find a spot that will work for them within that box. 2) Accommodate the extra garbage you produce when you go into a cooking frenzy or when you have guests or around the holidays.

drilling holes in the worm boxIn a harsh climate like the desert, I put the worm box in the ground where it will be insulated from the heat. Here, in Laguna Niguel, a worm box is perfectly fine above ground, but still needs drainage. Drill holes and set the box on top of some planks or bricks.

Fill the box with shredded paper. Water it down and begin adding your kitchen waste. Remember: NO FAT, NO MEAT, and NO DAIRY. I recommend allowing some kitchen waste to stay damp and begin rotting in your worm box before you get worms. The compost you add will barely change, but worms really do prefer older, more rotten garbage. Once you add the worms, that garbage will disappear FAST!

I keep the worm box in the yard because of potential fruit flies, and you will probably find it more convenient to store veggie peelings and zucchini ends somewhere in the kitchen until to have enough to merit a trip outside. There are several ways of storing your kitchen waste without attracting fruit flies. My mother-in-law keeps a sealable plastic container on her countertop. Another friend uses an ice bucket (with a lid that seals well). I like keeping compost in an old bread bag in the bottom of my fridge.

Once your worms arrive, add them to your box and water the whole box contents well. There is no need to stif the worms around, as they will quickly wriggle away from any source of light. They may not seem like very many in comparison to the size of the box at first, but they will reproduce like crazy if the environment is worm-friendly.

And speaking of which, the only tricky part about raising worms is making sure that they don’t get too hot or too cold. Rotting garbage produces heat, so I always make sure that I put all the kitchen waste on one side of the container for a week or so; that way, the two sides are at different times of the composting cycle. Also, always make sure there is plenty of newspaper and keep everything damp. The worms will gravitate to the section of the worm box that is most attractive to them. The worms will eat their way through every single thing in that box and turn it into worm poop, called worm castings. It looks and smells like rich black earth.

Eventually you will want to “harvest” some of the worm castings for fertilizer. There are a couple ways to do this. The easiest is to just take a scoop and add the castings, worms and all to your garden soil – the worms will aerate the garden and the worms in the tub will reproduce and replace the ones you have taken. Or once you start building up a good base of castings, start feeding the worms just on one side for several weeks; the worms will gradually migrate to that one side. Then you can scoop the almost wormless castings out and use it in your garden to grow super veggies.

If you take good care of your worms, your worms will turn your kitchen waste and shredded newspaper into black gold inside of two weeks. I swear it to you; there will not be any food thing recognizable in the tub! Good luck with your worms.

Posted in worms | Leave a comment

Weekend Movie Recap

Posted on October 14, 2007 by jeannie

There was a surge of movie releases this weekend, a harbinger of all the many releases we’ll see for the holiday season. Chad was interested in three, just from the preliminary buzz: We Own the Night, Michael Clayton, and Elizabeth II. We made it to the first two, both at the Irvine Spectrum, both for the first show of day, which is what Chad prefers. (I think I saw the same people there both days – it takes a certain kind of movie junkie to go see a movie in the theater at 10 am on Saturday or Sunday morning.)

We Own the Night (2007 – imdb 7.7/10.0) was a decent picture with a strong acting team: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, Eva Mendes – and parts of it were excellent. I’m thinking of the hair-raising climatic scene when Phoenix is blindfolded and brought to the broken down apartment building where there is a massive but silent and focused cocaine packaging operation going on. The kind of muffled silence that happens when a group of people are wearing dust masks and working meticulously accurately,  surrounded by Russian thugs with smashed faces and big guns. On the other hand, parts of the story line, especially towards the end, were far too predictable and the conclusion was too neat. For action entertainment, I give this movie a B, although I know Chad says he’d give it a B + or an A-. I guess you can choose between the girl vote and the boy vote here.

Hello George. I did not prefer Michael Clayton (2007 – imdb 7.6/10.0) because of George Clooney, but I did definitely like this movie better. It was like a cerebral Bourne Supremacy with a much cuter lead. Clooney plays a “fixer,” or what he calls a “janitor;” he’s the guy that minimizes all major messes for a very large, important law firm. Clooney plays the role to the hilt – and I love how the story line (and characters) tilt just off center and maintain a precarious equilibrium between holding it together and falling apart. Life just feels like that to me most of the time. I did have moments, or perhaps minutes, three-quarters of the way through the movie, when I was confused and a little ready to be done, but the conclusion was well-done and satisfying. Tilda Swinton played the barely-ready-to-be-corporate-boss woman just right. I give this movie an A- => pretty good.

Posted in movies | Leave a comment

Blog Action Day is Coming, Blog Action is Coming!

Posted on October 14, 2007 by jeannie

Monday, October 15, 2007 is Blog Action Day and this year millions and millions of blogs will all be posting about the same topic: the environment. These are the suggested ways of participating:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfO8mGjXoe8]

I’ll be posting a short tutorial on vermi-composting… and I’ll be looking forward to seeing what everybody else posts!

Posted in modernday hippiness | Leave a comment