adventuress extraordinaire

I made myself the ugliest delicious food I’ve ever had for brunch this morning: black bean quesadillas.  My ingredients might sound a little odd, but I swear this was delicious:

– refried black beans

– rice (optional)

– cream cheese

– caramelized onions

– chopped tomato or other garnishes

– tortillas

I started my onions to caramelizing and warmed up the rice and beans (left over from a tostadas meal earlier in the week).  I set up a second pan for browning the quesadilla.  It’s tricky when you use cream cheese; you don’t want to have to heat the quesadilla in the pan too long—just long enough to get brown and crispy—because you don’t want your cream cheese to get runny (ewww).  So I use medium heat for the quesadilla pan, and you want everything but the cream cheese to go in already hot, so you don’t have to wait for it to warm through.

I mixed a little rice in with the beans because it helps everything hold together a little better, but it’s unnecessary; who really cares about cleanliness?  I smeared some of that on one half of a tortilla, and some cream cheese on the other.  The onions were ready so those got plopped down in between.  Fold over, brown in pan, and voila, delicious meal.  You can easily open the quesadilla up after it’s cooked to pop in garnishes you don’t want cooked; I loved the tomatoes I used.

Next time I just gotta find something to add a little spice!

• slept in
• church: the battle is not mine, but god’s
• lox ‘n’ bagel
• new books!
• afternoon nap
• indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull
• reading
• kitties
• dinner with mah folks
• total disregard for grammatical standards
• wished ruthie un buen viaje on the eve of her return to mexico
• boston cream pie and off to bed!

(She’s getting so big!!!)

Time: Ten Questions for Toni Morrison - After you watch the video, there’s a link on the right for the rest of the ten questions.

“Color, Controversy and DNA” - The Root Editor-in-Chief Henry Louis Gates Jr. talks with DNA pioneer James Watson about his controversial statements about race and intelligence.  Be sure to read Gates’ thoughts on the discussion, where he makes the important distinction that Watson is not racist, but he is a racialist.

The older I get, the more I enjoy being my mother’s dress-up doll.

I just got this, for no reason other than I mentioned last week that I was looking for something for Jess’s wedding, and since it’s going to be in June, in the late afternoon, in Louisiana, in the great outdoors, I thought I ought to get something pretty and light, preferably a cotton skirt with cotton lining.

And voila.  She showed up with the skirt this afternoon, and I LOVE IT.  And she got me the shirt it’s advertised with, which is not the sort of thing I would ever have pulled off the shelf for myself, but I love it.

Can’t wait for June 21! (For other reasons, too, but this is outfit is one of them!)

My friend Ruth just sent me this link.  It tells the story of el movimiento de los 400 pueblos—the movement of the 400 towns.  They’re protesting a senator, Dante Delgado, who they claim illegally appropriated their land when he was interim governor of Veracruz in 1992.

I did a google search for the movement and found a lot more, including pictures of the near-naked men protesting on a flickr page marked “for women’s eyes only.”  :rolls eyes:

But I will share a pic here—took this when we were in Mexico City in July.  The picture on the carefully-placed papers, is, of course, the face of Dante Delgado.

and trying to make plans for a summer visit.

Step one: suck it up and get a passport!

Did anyone watch the movie mentioned in this article? I watched it before it was taken down. It had some frightening stuff—both the acts and ideas of militant, extremist Muslims and the fact that the movie didn’t differentiate between these fanatics and the rest of religion’s followers.

And the call from two fanatical sects to squelch out (either through death or denying freedoms) anyone not like them… chilling.

The 2/14 always has the potential to be a rough day for the singles out in the world… especially when most people your age are engaged (the late bloomers), married (the norm), or expecting (the over-achievers). But my Valentine’s Day was awesome. Awesomely pitiful. (Not really—I’m not that bitter!)

Within an hour of getting to work, I was peed on. Urinated, voided, showered upon. At least it was by a canine. I had even gone to the work of dressing up for the Day of Love. Bah. I rewarded myself with some of the cookie cake a co-worker brought to work… probably not the most healthy way to handle unpleasant situations. The rest of the work day was great—sales were up, which is certainly a reason to celebrate. Then I had a creepy experience toward the end of the day, which I probably shouldn’t elaborate on in a public forum.

The day ended with a nice dinner with my parents (and I refuse to be ashamed of the fact that that’s what I did with my evening, because the steak was great and my parents are wonderful),

Well, I’ve been teaching SAT classes for a while now.  I enjoy it, but I am also looking for the next “real” thing to come along.  I do think that even when that thing shows up, I will keep doing the SAT classes on the nights/weekends.  It really is a great job.

Along those lines, I interviewed with a great non-profit here in Houston.  I didn’t get the job, but something may develop there in the future, which I’m excited about.  I also need to work up the moxie (and the energy) to do some out-of-state searches.  I’ve wanted to move for a while, but with my sister moving soon, I’ve wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.  We shall see, we shall see…

Another little adventure: postcard poetry.  Spare little poems, sent to strangers along with a pretty picture.  Ain’t that grand?

More later… promise to try not to be gone so long next time…