rainy day in the bay area

ick. it's very very wet here. and not in a good way.

highlights of the day, however:

1. writing lists like the omf. theyre just so efficient!

2. ordering a stationary bike up to my room and watching she's the man while working out in the tiny space that is corporate housing (if you thought my room smelled funny before, i just made it so much worse. also, amanda bynes rocks. so so much. i really need to stop watching that movie. and why does no one ever mistake her for a butchie?!? there's this whole subtext in that movie that someone needs to explore.)

3. meeting heide, jude's friend from vassar. she's doing americore in san diego, and is here visiting one of her (seven!!) siblings. anyway judy e-troduced us, and we got together this morning to check out the free jam and tapenades at pier 1, drink tea in a faux tea house, talk food stamps (there are debit-like cards - very discreet!) and agree on how all around spectacular a certain former vassarite is.

4. navigating the bus system to make my way to jimmy's. there was a chinese new years parade today, and maybe that's why the zhong ren were out in full force. seriously, ive never been on a bus with that many cantonese speakers in my life (except when i lived in china, i guess...). it was like getting on a bus in west philly. except, you know... oh! but man, these hills! it's terrifying! im going to get killer ripped from gripping the straps while i try to maintain my balance all the way to jimmy's

5. making chinese food with jimmy. havent made ma pou dou fu (spicy tofu / pork) in years. it's so easy. but i may have gone overboard with the red bean chili paste. jimmy and i are going to be sweating garlic and ginger hardcore tonight. we'll pretend it's in honor of chinese new years. the recipe, if youre interested:

approx 1 ib of ground pork (feel free to use turkey. or skip it alltogether. but pork works best)
garlic (however much youre comfortable wiht. in my case, less is more)
ginger (lots!)
two things of extra firm tofu (delicious!)
a jar of spicy red bean chili paste (i think that's what it's called)

mince the garlic, ginger, throw it in a wok and brown the pork in there. add half the jar of chili sauce (we added the whole jar. that may have been a mistake) and then the tofu (dice it first!). mix it all up, let is cook for a while until the tofu's soft, and then let it sit for however long you want. eat it over rice! (of if you fear carbohydrates, salad)

6. jimmy singing in the shower. wait, that's not exactly a highlight. but we have been having fun trying to learn hey there delilah on the guitar. (okay, so it's more him learning and me singing along off-key, but still. i taught him the first few chords of blister in the sun. thanks, 7th grade guitar lessons!)

7. that's all i have for now. ooh! but last night rocked. chris, who i havent seen in like 7 years (except for that time in baltimore like a month ago), met jimmy and i at this super cool bar and had a blast. there were a gazillion boston googlers, and chris and i felt slightly out of place, so my solution: tell everyone we were from google kansas city. it was hilarious. we just told ppl we were a small but growing office and that "bandwidth is cheap out there!" okay so it was kind of an asshole move to lie to all these kids jimmy sort of knows, but it was still pretty amusing. the music was pretty good, too - we danced our pants off big time. forgot how fast jimmy can move. great to see chris, though.

oh! jimmy's out of the shower. go time!