Making Harmony with the Minnesota Hoodlums

So after having lived my whole life in New York, and having driven around the city for a few years with nothing happening, my cousin's car (which I've been borrowing) was just broken into today in the great and friendly state of Minnesota.

I find something ironic in the fact that this occurred just around the corner from the aikido dojo, in broad daylight, while I was training in making harmonious relationships with black belts in a martial art. The damage isn't actually very serious - the radio was stolen, and one of the rear side windows was broken, but they did a very professional job and didn't touch anything else. And hey, they even locked the car again after they stole from it - how's that for Minnesota nice?

A real piece of actual news

So I've been putting off posting about this because it wasn't 100% sure, but now it is, so it's going up. As you probably knew, the family was going to go to Botswana in August for my mom's - wait, I won't say the age, 'cause she's reading this blog, and in any case we all know she looks no more than 45. (This is totally where I should be asking her for more money or something.)

But anyway, she's turning an important age and has wanted to go on safari forever. Only now, my dad needs to get surgery in August and we had to cancel the trip. (In anticipation of people being concerned - it's not an insignificant surgery, but all probabilities say, and I have utmost faith, that it'll go smoothly and all will turn out OK. So, obviously everyone's a little anxious, but you don't need to be worried on my account.)

So this puts me in an interesting spot.

a) It sucks for several reasons, the obvious one being that my dad needs surgery, and second of which is that my mom has been wanting to go to Africa since I was little. She's been doing all this research and everything, and it's a big disappointment all around.

b) It is an enormous relief for me, because I'm leaving for China on August 31 (I think), and that's a whole lot of traveling to do in a very short period of time. The flight from NY to Johannesburg may actually (though I'm not totally sure) be longer than the one from LA to Beijing.

c) This also means I'm going to have a lot of free time on the east coast, to visit people and relax and get ready for a really intense fall term. And I'm very grateful for that.

So, sorry this isn't a very entertaining post, but I thought you all might like to know what's up, so you can start planning fun things to do while I'm in NY!

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To end on a more amusing (and potentially edifying) note, I have been experimenting a lot with spice combinations on stir-fried or sauteed vegetables. Here are my latest seasoning creations - all of which are very tasty and easy, for those of you cooking for yourselves this summer:

- Thai green curry paste : comes in a jar, and use it sparingly, because it's hot! i.e., don't choose this one when you're using up the hot pepper. Also, serve the stir-fry with coconut rice. It's incredible. Well really, serve anything with coconut rice and it's incredible.
- cilantro, olive oil, & vinegar : I know, a little more traditional, but easy and tasty on couscous.
- fresh ginger & ground mustard & a bit of chopped hot pepper: I recently stumbled upon the ground mustard in stir fry idea, and it may be the next best thing since sliced bread.

Other tips that I have discovered:
- use less oil! I was definitely drowning my veggies too much. If they start sticking, turn down the heat instead of adding more oil - when they cook a little more, they'll release liquid, and they won't stick any more.
- also, add the tofu on the earlier side. I used to add it at the very end of the stir-fry, but now I realize that if you add it with all the rest of the vegetables, by the time the veggies cook, the tofu has a lovely faint golden color and a little firmer consistency.
- Can you use mint in a stir fry? I don't see why not, and I have all this mint to use up... I'll let you know how it turns out.

As you can see, my summer has been very productively spent perfecting the art of vegetable preparation. I may not be pro yet, but, I'm telling you, ground mustard.

Life, The Universe, and... Colin Firth?

So many of you out there will have to forgive me, but until today I had never seen the entire 6 hour A&E "Pride and Prejudice." I know, this is scandalous. Well, Nikki (the prof I'm housesitting for) had it on DVD, and I had all these Taoism things to look through, so I thought, what better way to do my work than in front of Jane Austen?

Also, as you might know I was never such a huge Colin Firth person.
Wait, wait, before you get too excited, I am still not a huge Colin Firth person.

But I now have a new appreciation for why everyone loves Mr. Darcy: basically, he's been playing hard-to-get for 6 hours, and you're spending the entirety of those 6 hours waiting for that one chaste kiss at the end. So when it happens, it's such a relief, and so satisfying, that you can't help but be a little bit in love with him for finally doing it.

Like the other day, I was very hungry, and I walked by the Rueb, and there was this scent of fried food wafting out the door, and suddenly I really wanted some. But then I had to go meet Rachel over at Monday's, but I ended up walking out to meet her at West Gym, and then we walked back, and then the waitress was really really slow taking our order... but when the chicken strips and steak-cut fries finally came out, they were quite possibly the best thing I had ever tasted.

So if I may compare Colin Firth to a basket of fries and chicken strips, the moral of the story is:
Delayed gratification is damn good.

Homeless no more!

So I'm finally settled in my summer house, with Kitty (yes, that's the cat's name) and Jenny, my housemate. It is lovely. I am very much enjoying eating real food - I made some delicious cold cucumber soup today - and being able to have a fixed place to work and put my stuff.

The weekend has been excellent, too - lots of aikido, lots of socializing, a little bit of work on the Taoism book... This project is pretty interesting, too. My latest challenge is to go through a box of student work from the term and pull out quotable or interesting passages, so he can have a section of student responses and interpretations of Applied New Taoism. (Picture a pile of 60 journals of responses to class notes, and 60 10-page final projects. It's going to be a big job...) A lot of it is really boring, because some people not only can't write but also have nothing original to say, but every once in a while I've stumbled on something really smart, often written by really improbable people. The Tao has been connected to the Sistine Chapel, Aesop's fables, Bob Marley, Rene Magritte, the Grand Canyon, and Woody Allen - and I've barely put a dent in this box. So it's not bad, compared to some other peoples' boring summer jobs.

It's nice to be a little more settled. It finally seems really like summer; there's much less to worry about when you're not sleeping on someone's spare bed and living out of a duffel bag.

edit: I've just been searching for potential publishers for Qiguang's book, and I've been looking on Amazon to see who else has published Taoism books, and guess what I've found? "The Taoist Manual: An Illustrated Guide Applying Taoism to Daily Life." uh oh. I guess someone's beat him to the punch... So do I tell him his revolutionary new book has already been written?