Preoccupied

I've been thinking about what to first write about for this year's Favorite Things, and I have this--I think--great idea for my first topic, but because it's very important to me, personally, I have been working on the post meticulously. It should be ready by tomorrow night, and I do hope you all enjoy it. I hope I enjoy it.

By the way, I've just encountered Wilco for the first time. Speechless.

It's That Time...Again

Dear friends,

With it being the first official day of Autumn, the one season that can assuage my restless spirit,
I think it's time to start my "Favorite Things" blog mini-series once again. Focusing on my Favorite Things allows me to remember the good stuff and to brush off the tons and tons of unnecessary negative things I encounter on a daily basis.

Quite a few events have occurred in the past month, but anyway, I am here now, and I hope I can write some more: writing always lightens my mood---or at least lets me share some random (and on occasion, insightful) thoughts.

Anyway, do you have any Favorite Things? I would love to hear about what makes you all happy.

Till tomorrow, then, I need to organize myself a bit and prepare a reading-worthy post.

P.S. I seriously had forgotten that in my original "Favorite Things" post I had written basically the same thing I wrote above, anent the good stuff and the "unnecessary negative things." (...did I use anent correctly? Is there an anent-connoisseur out there?)

cereal for dinner
cereal for lunch
What have I become?
munch munch munch

Today I got to wear my whale dress. It was lovely. :)

Peanut Tragedy

I love peanut butter. I have loved it since the first time I tasted it. It goes without saying then (even though I am, in fact, saying it) that peanut butter is an essential food staple in the Tidbit Pantry.

...

For the past 20+ years I've been a loyal Jif peanut butter eater, but lately, their product's consistency was unsatisfactory: if left in the pantry, the oil would separate; if left in the fridge, it'd be too hard and cold to enjoy. So I decided to search for another brand. And I found it: Planters *NEW* peanut butter. It's definitely been an improvement, consistency-wise, and it doesn't have a bad taste. Anyway, the real story today lies within the world of labels, and how not paying close attention can lead to terrible consequences...relatively speaking.

It was Grocery Day, and peanut butter was on the top of my list. While my mother went on ahead to the bread aisle, I stayed behind to pick the peanut butter. When you think about this wonderful yet humble food item, there are actually a lot of different brands, and they all at least carry two types: CRUNCHY and CREAMY. Notice how both words start with "CR-" and end in "-Y." And usually, the brands distinguish the two types by the color of the label (e.g. red label vs. blue label).

As I got closer to the Planters peanut butter, I even said to myself (since I prefer CREAMY peanut butter), "Don't get the crunchy kind!" I grabbed the peanut butter jar, opened it to ensure the freshness seal was intact, and left. The rest of the Grocery Quest moved along, uneventful. We got home and put away the groceries...

The next morning, as I got ready for work super early, I rushed to get some of that delicious peanut butter. Even more exciting was the fact that I would be opening that particular jar for the first time---which is the best time to enjoy peanut butter, because after the freshness seal has been peeled off it's still pristine and untouched by human hands. To my horror....TO MY HORROR...

T O  M Y  H O R R O R . . .

after the seal came off, I saw a number of little bumps (like tiny anthills on a poor, defenseless field) all over my peanut butter.

Shaken up, I looked at the label. CRUNCHY.

How could this have happened!? I was outraged! I was speechless! I was heartbroken!

Now, is it possible that I mistakenly got the crunchy peanut butter because unconsciously I wanted to sabotage my peanut butter enjoyment???

Or...

Was it because of poor labeling? You tell me:

Craziness. The majority of both labels is blue, right?

Anyway, that's what happened. Poor peanut butter. Now I have to find it a CRUNCHY-loving home.

Speaking of Planters...who remembers P.B. Crisps?

Here and There

Dear everyone,


It's been a good month or so (I think?) since I last transformed my thoughts into words, and now seems like a great time to do so. Several subjects have come to mind for reading-worthy blog posts, but alas, I've been engulfed by my work, learning, and ambitions. Anyway, I promise some good stuff is coming your way, like.....

• my thoughts on Brideshead Revisited (an amazing work of literature)
• the crazy things I keep in my purse (CRAZY!)
• an education on whales (or at least, my attempts at drawing them)
• my quest to find an awesome Autumn playlist, and
• an update (hopefully!) on the super-fun world of job searching ~~ ok, that sounds boring, let me come up with something more interesting: uhm, like perhaps my attempt at hosting a mini-dinner party.

Of course, we can't forget the exciting world of POLITICS (yes, I will almost always capitalize that word, it makes me feel fancy). We'll look at (and pick apart at) what kind of crazy shenanigans these candidates are getting into....Oh yes, this Fall is going to be amazing, I can feel it.


Aaaaaaaaaand, I'll chronicle my first encounters with a bicycle ~~~~~ will I finally learn how to ride a bike? Time will let us know...


I'll see y'all around, and to show my apologies for the lack of writing, I drew this wonderful picture of a.................................rock. Enjoy! :)

"I'm a rock."

Tidbits Adventures: Dallas

You know, I've lived in Dallas my entire life (well, in the D/FW metroplex or whatever, if you wanna be technical), but I've never taken a decidedly decisive decision to explore it. Well, there was that one time back in high school, when I went downtown with my high-school-love (and now good friend) James and walked around for hours carrying a bunch of grapefruits and eating corn in a cup, and so much other good stuff. But ever since then, Dallas had remained a magical mystery to me.

On the road to discover myself, I suggested to my younger sister that we should explore Dallas. We narrowed our exploration to just the Dallas Museum of Art, since, if you really think about it, Dallas is quite large and it is kind of an overwhelming task to do everything there is to do in a single day. I had been to the museum one and a half times before, the first as some nerd-field trip, and the half when my uncle, sisters, and I walked around the premises at some random hour of the day. From nerd-field trip to last Thursday (which is when I went), nearly a decade had spanned in which I had lived without a museum visit. Can you believe that: a DECADE!?!?!?

Anyway, my sister and I started our tiny trip by driving to Mockingbird Station, and from there, randomly chose the Red Line on DART (since all lines lead downtown), and rode along without knowing really where to stop or what to do once we got where we got. It's thrilling, actually, getting on a train (even if it is just DART) without knowing where to stop.

We stopped though, right by the Plaza of the Americas. We roamed around aimlessly, until I decided, let's go toward the Cathedral, it can be our sanctuary if we don't know where to start or go. So we got there. The Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe, by the way, is at once comforting and humbling, so large and secure, adding a feeling of serene safety in the otherwise busy and loud microcosm that is downtown Dallas.

The DMA:

So we made our way to the museum, crossing the street with so many people, so many strangers. We went inside. Wow, the museum looked a lot bigger than before. Perhaps because last time, I hadn't truly looked at the many works of art that the DMA had to offer. Anyway, my sister and I went inside and decided to start with Henri Matisse's Ivy in Flower. (Its story, by the way, is kind of sad, but nevertheless impressive and a wonderful way to start exploring the museum.)

Here are some of my favorite works:

Banquete Chair with Pandas, Campana.

Santa Gertrudis, Miguel Cabrera.

Mixed Doubles, George L.K. Morris (sorry it's sideways!)

Persian Letters, Rene Magritte.

Tau Tau, (funerary figure), Indonesia.

I was kind of sad that I didn't get to see all of the Impressionist works of art up close like I wanted to, but I certainly enjoyed myself with what there was. We ended up spending about four hours, and even then we still had a few things that we wanted to analyze and admire. It's just amazing, really, how all the artists contained in the DMA left their marks on the world. Did they know they would be a part of history? Did they know that hundreds and even thousands of years later, so many strangers would be analyzing their works?

That was the tiny trip to Dallas. Oh so much more left to explore, and I intend on venturing again in the near future.