Yep

I'm so backlogged with posts I've intended to write. Oftentimes I'll take pictures of whatever it is that has inspired a thought about what to write about. After the uploading and copying and pasting and resizing I become distracted by shiny things. Or the TV with its sounds and words, and I just never get around to writing. Or I write and I can't bring myself to publish for some reason. For many reasons.

Here's my cake for my fifth birthday. I'm five.



I'm not five actually. (Just emotionally.) This was the cake marking my fifth year anniversary at my school. Cuh-ray-zee. I never never thought I would last five years here. It's as much a triumph as it is tragically pathetic. I remember my first day at the school, visiting the ladies washroom and encountering the first two stalls with disgustingly splattered squatty toilets and I swore if there was a third version in the next stall I was absolutely outta here. There was a Western throne waiting for me as I opened the final door, so I decided to wait and see.

That cake was good, though. My cake. My co-worker (manager?) celebrated her birthday this past week and my boss got her a cake and a big bunch of pretty but nearing death flowers. If there is a bigger fan of chocolate than my co-worker Cindy, I haven't met them. She spent some time in Australia and hath tasted the riches of a deep moist sweet dense chocolate cake. She's spent time here searching for such a brown unicorn, but I think it's a lost cause. Still, there's no question as to what kind of cake to get for Cindy, but leave it to a man - and you get sweet potato cake. An abomination regardless.

As it was, I woke up early and put together a giant pasta salad. I grilled up vegetables on my silly grilly sandwich press thing, and included smoked chicken and sun-dried tomatoes with a tasty dressing of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, thyme, and fresh parsley. After our little celebration less than one third of the heinous "goguma" cake was eaten, while two very big containers of pasta salad were gobbled up. Score!

So there. I've written something. Maybe it'll shake me out of my funk. I'm into my third day of a "staycation" - a term I just came across this week, and I've found that I've had too much time to hang out by myself considering how much I actually hate my current circumstances. Hate-hate.

Hatey-hate-hate-hate.

Here. Look at this bug.



I don't even know what it is, but it looks like an evil flying newt. It's representative of my unhappiness. I coaxed it onto a piece of paper and set it free outside an open window at school. Not a bad lesson: capture the unpleasant and set it free.

**UPDATE: I received an e-mail from someone (perhaps an entomologist?) who points out that bug up above is actually a mole cricket! Here's a couple fun facts: these bugs are quite common, but rarely seen because they spend almost all their lives underground. They're commonly considered to be pests, except in Eadt Asia where they're sometimes considered FOOD! (Fried mole crickets, yum yum yum!) Thank you, E-mailer!**