"maybe it's time for disintegration..."

hello friends...you'll be glad to know that my dreams of late have been of the non-murderous type. but with the recent time change, that could change {dot dot dot}

nice weekend, especially with the nice weather. i woke up early on saturday and did a bit of weekend shopping with my mother, excited to see people about town wearing their mason shirts. slim pickins in the shopping department, but i got away with a cute pair of summer shoes. keds~! i haven't worn keds since elementary school...lately it's been either pumas or aasics, but i felt a wave of nostalgia and snagged a pair of keds slip-ons with a whimsical forest green floral print. trés cute indeed.

oh, the night of the boob party. things started off with, of all things, a quicky pre-party cat nap. got ready, went to the bank, picked up vina, got back to the house to collect raquel. halfway through our drive to carol's house, we finally found the radio station playing the basketball game via vina's friend. (oy vey, depressing each time i think of it.)

anyhoo, good friend amie's good friend, carol was throwing a house party to raise some money for breast cancer up in arlington, and we went along to support (no pun intended). i volunteered to make some appetizers of afghan bread, hummus and cucumber...to go along with amie's famous boob cupcakes, mary's baklava and the like. (said josh: there are three flavors: white {white icing w/ red dot candies for nipples}, asian {beige icing w/ red dots, but corrected with poppables york peppermint patties}, and black {chocolate icing with the york peppermint poppables})

my loose moment in choosing which flavor of cupcake:
"i'll take the chocolate boob cupcake...i've got jungle fever."

i had an awesome time; there were a good number of bands there playing, and of course, carol's set was awesome. that girl knows how to own the stage. get it gorl, get it!(pic above is the poster she was kind enough to ask me to design) another great set that i remember was of laura burhenn whose voice actually reminded me a lot of feist.

this just in: the boob party raised enough to cover some expenses and donate $600 towards the walk for breast cancer. wooo~!

highlight during the performances: sitting across from amie in the living room texting nonsense.

amie: he sounds like jeff buckley
me: yeh and he samples like bird

amie: are you feeling emo?
me: i'm feeling myspace kind of emo

me: does everyone here have the same sweater?

amie: jameson...ewww

vina: HEY ANDREW! oh shit.

amie: my a.d.d. is kicking in

amie: is this from brokeback mountain?

other highlights of the evening: photo ops on the banana colored vespa, mariam's cameo w/ her posse, the ghetto cd with "the light" by common (i had to sing that one out), the crooked rocking chair (hey, want to see raquel fall and vina fly at the same time?), NEXTing the boys, talking trash about Noah (go mason), URAQT song (you big dummy), guarding the bathroom door, watching mariam on the prowl.

upon cutting cucumbers:

josh: ooh that looks good
me: thanks~! did you get a haircut?
josh: yeah!
me: it looks good~!
josh: thanks~! actually, there was lice on the little kids at my school.
me: uhhhhh.

a drunk josh asking amie for the keys:
josh: can i take it out to show them?
amie: no. i am saving you from yourSELF.

{drunk driving? no. josh wanted to take out his harry potter wand to show some of his friends}

vina getting a beer:

host peter: you guys can't leave, she just got that beer.
raquel: we're about to leave!
vina: there was no more water.
raquel: it's called a faucet.

so congratulations to carol, and you can always check out either raquel's or vina's page for more info i may have missed, or more importantly, embarassing pictures.

*fin*

"apple juice kissing makes me roll my hips"



lately, nothing to report...sadly. but i've been keeping up with everyone's journals, i promise~! even if i haven't left a comment, i have surely read through them all.

first off, trés excited about mason making the final four. i'm not all into basketball, or any sports for that matter, but i had a great time watching the game and yelling my lungs out. i'm convinced that the reason why i don't watch sports is because 1) i am prone to moments of a.d.d.; 2) it's too tedious to follow or keep track of; and D) i get too excited and end up screaming like it's sudden death in a game of taboo at a one of the avt dinner parties.

the past few nights, i've been having unsettling dreams, causing me to wake up several times during the night, and ultimately at 5:45. this is probably why some of you are getting to work and opening up emails from my work address clocking in at 7:39 am.

the other night i dreamt my father was sick, and then last night i dreamt that i was turning a corner over in the neighborhoods in back of vienna and some kid "ran" into my car. he bounced off and i was like, "oh shit". luckily, he was only knocked out for a second, but when i woke up, all i could feel was dread. i keep having recurring dreams about accidental death. it's either me, or a family member or a close friend who "accidentally" kills someone. or if they've killed someone, it's because they were bad. i will be taking any guesses from anyone as to what all this means.

and i think people have found out about my shortcut to work in the mornings because it's been backed up like nobody's business the past few days.

peace out.

go patriots~! kill 'em dead and kill 'em deadder on saturday.

"i saw you last night, my my...how indiscreet~!"

nice weekend with the friends *le smile*...time for a picture post. but i have to admit, i'm cheating on this one because all the pictures i'm posting were taken by nasreen because my camera was taken by my mother while she was packing to go on holiday to the philippines. for pictures of the ZOO, please refer to the pages of raquel and vina.

to recap: friday night was dinner at the tapas bar "jaleo" with the avt girls, saturday was national zoo day, sunday was family day, and monday was go to work then dinner at sunflower with the friends day.



margi chatsing about how she is unimpressed with the tapas, but the sangria is mighty tasty~! ok, a bit disappointed with jaleo that night because they kept screwing up our order, but the walls were pretty and i enjoyed looking at the moroccan tiles. dinner crew: me, yathrib, mariam, nasreen, and margarita.



later that night after stopping by cold stone creamery, mariam asked us to walk her to her car in some remote garage in crystal city. we agreed and wouldn't you know it, we got lost trying to get out of the garage. we tried exiting at one gate, but it was a "members only" gate. mariam accidentally pressed the intercom button and some dude with an island accent answered:

"hallohhh. hallohhhh??"
"yeah i can't get out of the garage!"
"do you have your key cahd?"
"no..."
"hallohhhhh. hallohhhhhh? do you have your key cahd??"

this went on for a good five minutes when mariam suddenly just started u-turning out of the cement box leaving the talking "hallohhhh" box behind. we finally navigated our way to the visitor's exit...which turned out to be facing opposite of where we before AND right next to the guard station where the "halloh" guard had been watching us the whole time. *le sigh*

saturday--->missing pictures--->you'll have to check raquel's and vina's pages for upcoming pictures of the zoo visit. but i'll tell you this: it was my first time to the zoo and i enjoyed it~! i saw the famous pandas and watched them romp around a little bit. then, i saw the elephants, some birds, hippos, fish, snakes, chickens, goats, mexican wolves, seals, sea lions, otters, and coolest of all...a giraffe~! i walked into the house and i was like, holy shit is that giraffe real?? ahh...beautiful, that giraffe was, and i think i must have spent a whole 20 minutes just watching him watch us. all in all, a nice day spent with my sister, her gentleman-friend dave, and vina.

on monday i had to go to work, but the lack of traffic made it bearable. i was pretty tired having pulled a 9 to 7, and girl was looking ROUGH--but i managed to make it out there to see them~! this whole sunflower excursion happened after several weeks of IMing amie about how much we were craving the food at sunflower. unlike most vegetarian places, the food at sunflower doesn't suck and nothing tastes like cardboard...which is always a plus for me. at first it was just going to be me, amie and our friend muse...but then it grew into a list of me, amie, muse, mary, jessica, raquel, josh, vina, donnie, yathrib, mariam, and nasreen. who knew that much fun could be had at a vegetarian restaurant? anyhoo...here are some pics:




left clockwise: donnie, vina, yathrib, josh, amie, mary, jessica, raquel, muse, mariam, yours truly.





funniest random exclamation: (by josh)
"oh my god are they playing josh GROBAN?"
*silence*
"they ARE! i love him. one time i went to his concert and there were a bunch of REPUBLICANS there all with "W '04" stickers on their cars and there i was, in the middle of the crowd yelling out 'WILL YOU MARRY ME!!'"
...at which point people were gasping for air and muse was choking on his food.

*awkarddddd* moment:
josh: aren't you going to wrap up your leftovers?
muse: no i don't eat leftovers.
josh: don't you know how many children are starving in africa who'd like to have that?
muse: yeah well i'm from africa.
josh: then you should know...!

different responses to this: nervous laughter, incredulous laughter, run and hide, drink lots of water, go to the bathroom...rumble in sunflower!!

other highlights: donnie doing his cheecake impression w/ the f.o.b accent, class pictures outside the restaurant, food food food diddly food food food, amie's super cute present to me (an edition of "anne of green gables" in italian and some cute stationery), stories amie's, mary's, jessica's, and josh's students picking their noses...?

andddddd until the next time we hit up sunflower or some kind of gallavanting of the like...

"the tragedy starts from the very first spark; losing your mind for the sake of your heart..."

above pic: postcard i drew with a sharpie on cardboard, for post due, a cool new postcard ring you should definitely check out if you like postcards and good old fashioned tangible snail mail. remember snail mail? all my penpals are via the internet now, but i've always had a love for handwriting. i don't have as many pictures of my friends posted up around my desk area, but i've noticed that i display all the little notes and cards they've written on. for me, something handwritten is more memorable than a face or a picture...favorite thing to do on a lazy afternoon: gallavant through old notes and papers and see myself, family and friends, age through handwriting in a matter of a few glances..

i know i've been m.i.a for a while, and sadly...after being gone for so long, i still have nothing interesting to report. work is going well and thanks to all you who have been kind enough to ask about it :-) the new office is swank and the monday breakfasts and friday lunches are something to look forward to.

basically this past month has been work work work, but the next few weeks should be picking up so i'll have more nonsensical yum yums to post up here.

annnnnnnnnd it's snowing now.

i'm ready for winter to just leave already.

"window pain. cutting through the rain, looks so easy. frame by frame looking for a name to claim on a breezy afternoon. and the end's coming soon."

oooh suki suki now. my sister raquel has battled the car demons yet AGAIN. methinks january her car no likey. last year, it was the jersey woman who mutliated the car, and this time it was a floating barbeque grill.

{also refer to her story about this, i'm just giving the cliffs notes version}...last weekend the wind was acting a fool and sent a runaway barbecue via air mail and broke her back window and dented her roof. yay raquel...she was commended for not freaking out by the clinical psychiatrist who helped tape up her window with plastic bags {annnnd insert singing of "in search of mate"...anyways.} lucky her, her friend was nice enough to keep her car in his garage for safekeeping. she called me about the news and my first reaction was "did you get the cds out???"

of COURSE i was very relieved you weren't hurt, raquel.

she took her car to the shop and it's there until february 3rd. until then, they've given her a mighty rental car that bears the name impala. what does it matter that she saved her cds?? monsieur impala has only a tape deck...which is the reason why i relived a better part of my high school days this past saturday.

first things first, i fished around in the purple box on the bottom of my shelf in search of old unfinished mixtapes abandoned. an hour was spent playing through the old tapes and re-rolling up the tape because my old tape deck is very old and very tired. then, after going through my cds, i realized that a good chunk of everything i listen to is on the computer because that's where i receive the music now. legally, of course. *le sigh* but hey, it could've been worse...instead of taping off cds, i could have gone hardcore and taped off TAPES.

so i decided to make her tape a real mix of first the nostalgic stuff that used to go on tapes and then side B would consist of more up to date music. right now, making mix cds can take me around 2 hours to complete because i'm just a freak like that, but i forgot how time consuming mix taping was altogether. to say the least, i was rusty so i kept forgetting to: press "pause" right after the end of the song; write the playlist as i went along; and keep track of time, so i had to re-tape the ends of both side A and B multiple times so everything would fit perfectly and not cut off. who knew songs that were only 2.30 minutes long could be such heroes?

"but she's not afraid to die. the people all call her alaska."

today was fun, gallavanting about w/ vina. i sent off my entry to that children's book contest and that fedex mofo cost $39. *le sigh* last night, i saw "last holiday" with the girls and it made me want to quit my job and go fly around the world. who's in?

one day back in college (i think i graduated just so i could say that line. dork), it was mason day. mason day is basically a day where they set up a spot on campus and have free food, live bands, lots of free stuff like posters, cds, pins, and what-have-you. so, i went with my friends from the design group and we walked about the grounds, hit up a fear-factor challenge (i got mustard up my nose but received headband with shrek ears in return), and then headed back to the food court at the jc.

mariam and i were in line at the register when we heard this big voice boom out,

"anybody want some PIE??????"

we turned around to see a boy eager to use up the last of his meal card, carrying a tray full of cartons of pie.

"really??"
"uh huh."

banana cream pie. yummmmy.

next day in class, we told everyone else about the pie, and elyad came rushing in. i love elyad, but that boy is crazy. as in crazy haha as in haha funny...for example...his final photo project was a series of pictures depicting the flirting/courtship/marriage/consummation of two coffee cups. and any story he tells is twice as funny because he gets over excited and his accent gets thicker.

"yesterrrday my frrriend bought twwwwenty pisses of pie! heyheyhey and yoh know what they deed to the pie?? when they see their frrriend, then they THROW the pie at them."

good times with pie.

happy new year~!

follow the happy link to my very own end-of-the-year post complete with pics :-)

http://www.xanga.com/pinkmartini88/

much love,
steph

"cerf-volant, volant au vent, ne t'arrête pas..."

end of the year post to appear soon...if ever. i'm planning to recap the year because although i say it sort of sucked, there were lots of good things in between.

hope everyone had a good holiday~! a good thing happened to me today. i went to the print shop to pick up my book print out and i've been there quite often for the past year or two for school projects, so i got to know some of the people pretty well. i got to talking to the lady behind the counter and she asked about how many times i've gotten my book print out from there and i said, "oh i think this is about the seventh time"...and she said, "okay, well this one's on me."

i never get stuff for free really... especially a nice 13 dollar print. this made me very happy. so i'm giving her chocolate in thanks.

i called my old piano teacher of seven years because i received a christmas card from her lightly reprimanding me for not telling her where the hell i am. so tomorrow, i'm going to pay her a visit at three in the afternoon to play catch-up and to deliver her crimmus present. my fondest memories of her are:

1) playing the piano in her living room in the afternoon with foxy, her huge golden retriever. whenever i had lessons there, he would fall into a deep deep sleep next to the piano. once, during one particular piece, he sat straight up with his nose one inch away from the keyboard, listening. oh foxy.

2) having her attend my 7th grade choir concert when i was accompanying the choir in some "special" piece on the piano. i came out of the auditorium to find her standing in high heels and a huge fur coat alongside her husband and son, both in tuxedos. they looked like something out of an f. scott fitzgerald book.

"nein was the cold reply of Frau ecstasy..."

first off, check out vina's page for the picture post if you haven't already, and raquel's page for an account on the cookie party.

last few days have been nice...last saturday, i attended a "cookie party" at priyanka's house accompanied by raquel and vina. she had prepared lots of nice food for us and i got the chance to debut (for the 3rd time) my "lunar calendar punch". perhaps i should start measuring the ingredients for the punch one day. anyhoo, lots of fun making candy cane cookies, or as i like to call them..."striped j's". after the cleaning up, priyanka went to the bathroom and i suggested we all hide since the house is pretty huge. everyone scrambled for a hiding place and poor vina couldn't find one in time and ended up just sitting at the table.

"where'd everybody go?"
"huh? iunno."

we were all found except raquel, and we spent a good 7 minutes looking for her. yelled priyanka:

"maybe the house ate her."

and i replied:

"oh my god the house ate my sister!!"

i felt 8 years old again back when the neighborhood kids used to gather at dusk at the top of our hill and play hide and go seek and ghosts in the graveyard until well into the night.

below are some sketches made while waiting to teach a class at my least favorite school. i can't help it; the place smells like a gallon of lysol sitting on top of macaroni and cheese. gross. p.s...it's my last week teaching...yippeee~!


her name is emilah breakfast and she likes to collect mason jars of all sorts.


he reminds me of a boy named jordon in one of my classes
who picks boogers and eats them.
amie: "did you pick a winner? go wash your hands!!!"


vina: "is her name olga?"
me: "hahah okay."

"somebody has to kill the babysitter..."

first off, it was a really nice weekend catching up with my friends from school for movie night-slash-birthday fête at yathrib's house, then a get-together at priyanka's house the next night. movie night consisted of breakfast at dinner, birthday cakes, pizza, voodoo, crashing a band practice, five million u-turns, the big christmas tree on dale boulevard, blockbuster, ghost stories and last but not least, deer. the next night at priyanka's, there was much joy to be had over a late late dinner of stuffed tomatoes, brownies, burnt but yummy banana flambé á la viná, clue, more ghost stories, snapshots of india, a parade of saris, a pink night sky, and driving on a dark dark curvy curvy road. hurrah exclamation point.

last week, i finished my training to become a teacher. of sorts. teaching children feels gratifying and fun if i try not to think about what weekly disease they might be incubating...i sort of felt the sniffles when a five year old boy held up a booger to me on his finger asking for a tissue. and i got a scratchy throat when i kept passing by school memos taped to the doors about a case of strep throat being found among one of the students. *shudder* oh yeah and my other point...i feel sort of weird teaching kids as young as 2 yrs old how to use the computer. i know the lesson is just for half an hour, but i still feel like they should be running around doing something else. it's kind of eerie to watch the 7 yr olds completely glued to a computer screen, clicking and dragging the mouse to color in a picture they should be coloring in real life (oh wait that's what i do. hah. touché, my friend. touché.)

move over television, computer is the new babysitter. oh well, at least i won't be there for much longer....*knock on wood* and after teaching some of the kids i don't really feel all that old. yet.