Sailor Saturn

Aw Erin, please don't sad.  Please don't be blue.  You are beautiful, and I love you.  I will marry you inshaAllah.  So please be patient, and pray.  Don't you get the feeling that somehow someway we are getting closer and closer?  I feel it.  Today is Sunday, and like every Sunday, I've been busy all day.  It's sunset now, and I'm finally getting a chance to really slow down.  It's the middle of the day that's an issue: I need to be rested for voice training, otherwise I won't feel and sound good.  Yeah I'm lazy, but I can get pretty militant about my nap before voice training.  So I was tolerably rested today, and I sang OK.  The menu is dull today.  Curry pups, fry bread and marinara sauce.  This current batch of marinara sauce is awesome, though.  So totally tasty.  So totally vegetarian.  So simple, too.  I have to keep making it this way, but I like to experiment with marinara sauces.  Experimentation keeps life interesting.

Hi Natty honey!  I can't tell who is in that snapshot you took.  I'm sure you know that you need some kind of front lighting for night shots.  Even with long exposures.  A cell phone should light up the face adequately, or if your cell phone is busy then you might think about carrying some sort of pocket led light.  I think somebody makes a credit card shaped led light.  Wasn't Hansel an all-around talented guy in the movie?  I think Derek and Hansel were badly cast in that movie.  Too ugly to be male models.  But I don't like male models anyway, so I guess I don't really care.

Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn is SO ABSOLUTELY COOL!!!!!!!!!!!

New old songs

Hi Honey!  What's going on today?  I assume you are keeping busy.  Oh yeah, it is the weekend after all: sports pros have to work on weekends.  By the way, you are the most beautiful VS Angel to me, even when you try to dress down in the presence of your buddies.  I love YOU.  I just added 3 new songs to my karaoke set list, and I'm really excited about them.  I had been looking for an acceptable version of "My Funny Valentine" for a long time already, but I couldn't find one that resonated with my emotions.  You see, I'm not a technical singer.  I am an emotional singer: I rely on my emotions to give me accuracy and power.  So I had trouble finding a good version of that song, and no I don't want to sing like Sinatra.  After a while of searching, then I found Rita Hayworth's rendition of the song.  Beautiful woman.  Not a singer, but the emotion is on the nose.  Plus she has a deep voice, which is easily in my range.  I love the aura of the old productions.

Hi Natty honey!  Are you learning how to cook, by any chance?  I think if you have free time, you should practice cooking.  Not just to feed yourself, but your family.  And since you are my wife inshaAllah, being an expert cook will give you even greater influence in the food business.  Anyway, the next song I added is "Dancing Queen" by Abba.  You know that one, right?  People want to hear the standards, performed as close to the original as possible.  Theory is that no one can be better than the original.  Except for the live situation: different circumstance, different aura, different "magic" (power of God, rather).  The 3rd song I chose is not a standard.  It is dear and personal to me.  Let's just say that it was when God kicked me up several notches by running me into the ground, and Siouxsie and the Banshees provided the soundtrack.  Siouxsie is beautiful in this video.  Who would have guessed.

The kitchen rules the day

Hi Honey!  How's it going today?  How's business?  I'm sure everyone is fussing over how beautiful you are.  Oh!  I'm feeling a bit neurotic today.  I spent most of the day fussing over the kitchen.  It started off slowly, I had planned to make fried noodles for lunch.  But all I had available for the sauce is chicken broth.  The noodles turned out fine, but I much prefer a blended chillies sauce.  Then I had the idea of using parsley in combination with scallions: I had some parsley left over from making marinara sauce, which was awesome by the way.  The marinara sauce tasted like a blended gazpacho.  Very flavorful.  But parsley in fried noodles, though it tasted fine, kept on getting stuck between my teeth when I ate the noodles.  Not that scallions don't get stuck either, but parsley is more annoying somehow.  I won't do that again.  So I had to go out and get dried chillies, so I can make an all-purpose hot sauce like "sambal tumis" (which is blended chillies, onions, and belacan (fermented shrimp) fried in oil until saturated, if you don't remember).  It was too hot during the day and I had to attend Friday prayer anyway, so it was evening when I was available to go shopping for the few more items I needed for the kitchen.  Rush hour.  So I'm feeling a bit neurotic right now.  I had planned to make bread to eat with the last of the curry, but the marinara sauce is so good I want that instead.  But my Mom gave me some corn on the cob, so I'm full for now.  Maybe later.

Natty honey, from the looks of your teeth, I think you have been eating too much candy.  Those are milk teeth?  I'm going to have to stick my fingers into your mouth and wiggle each tooth to see which ones are loose, so I can pull them out, so you won't grow up having crooked teeth.  You're not going to like that one bit.  Please make sure you floss regularly and wash your mouth with salt water to dissolve the sugar.  I'm afraid I don't have any candy in the house.  Would you like some chocolate instead?  I have a huge bar of chocolate in my cooler.  All girls love chocolate.

OK OK I'll go out and get you some candy.  Not the hard candy, that can break your teeth.  This stuff only gets stuck to your teeth.  You know what?  I think kids need to earn the right to eat candy and sweets.  Do a good deed before you get any candy.

Nice boots, by the way.

Hyp-mo-tized

Hi Honey!  Sorry I'm running a little late today.  I had a lot of kitchen work to do, in fact I have more to do after this.  Perhaps I'll just stuff everything in the cooler and procrastinate until tomorrow and watch more Sailor Moon instead, like a good Pisces should do.  Say, you're not still smoking, are you?  I think the last time I had a cigarette was over 5 years ago.  My Dad is a chain smoker (and a walking miracle at that, being that he is an 81 year old chain smoker and still alive), one day I picked up one of his stubs and lit it up.  It gave me a buzz, but that's all.  I don't smoke.  God would kick my butt if I acquired a smoking related illness, when I'm supposed to be singing everyday.  I've been walking around in a daze today, almost falling asleep on my feet.  I think I'm putting myself to sleep, or I'm just not getting enough sleep.  By the way, I think that snapshot of you asleep is so beautiful.  I love it.  I put it in my slideshow.  Are you getting a new personal trainer?  Wow.  To sculpt the American Queen.  You should tape it and make a reality show.

Hi Natty honey!  Oh, is that your gramma?  Say hi to her for me.  My grandmother passed away in 2008.  I loved her, she was always very patient with me.  I never saw her in a bikini, though.  That's probably for the best.  I went to the supermarket just now, to get stuff for my spaghetti sauce.  I think this batch is going to be an all-natural ingredients batch.  Fresh tomatoes, cilantro, parsley, garlic etc.  I'll blend it up tomorrow inshaAllah.  But I won't be eating pasta tomorrow.  Tomorrow's menu is fried noodles for lunch, and bread and curry for dinner.  The cooler rules our family menu- aging food must be used up first!  Now I have to put away my boiled potatoes.  For shepherd's pie and curry pups.  Please excuse me.

So desirable

Hi Honey!  Wow Erin, you are so desirable right now.  Right now, you not just the American Princess, but also the American dollar.  Try to enjoy your position, OK?  Learn to have fun with what God has given you.  If you want to be afraid, then put your fear in Allah.  It is easy for people to love you.  Even monkeys love you.  I don't really like monkeys or apes.  Like baby chimps, they're cute when they are young, but when they grow bigger you have to get rid of them.  Life at the zoo.  I got a visit from a baby chimp during voice training today.  I was glad she got bored and left.

Hey Natty honey!  What's going on, beautiful girl?  I just had my dinner.  I had home made fry bread with tofu in curry.  I like to make a "generic" curry, where you can just heat it up and add whatever to it.  Wouldn't it be so handy to come back after a hard day of work, buy a loaf of bread, heat up the curry or cook a chicken breast or a block of tofu in the curry, then dinner is ready?  That's what I did for dinner.  You want some?

Today's photographic art is titled "2 cats on the cooler".

I was slow getting the camera, a few minutes before this shot they were perfectly aligned with each other.

I love Doris Day!  😭  I love Doris Day SO much!  😭😭😭  Les Brown once said that even though she was a girl singer, she wasn't troublesome.  Isn't leaving the band to get married or become a movie star considered troublesome?  Unlike other girl singers who wipe out early, Doris outlived the people around her, including her only son, which is sad.  As for me, I am the most troublesome girl singer of them all.

Hi Honey

How are you today, my darling?  I hope you are feeling great and doing great in everything you do.  I really like that snapshot of you, in the bra that's the same color of the skirt I wore during voice training today.  My avatar, I mean.  I wonder what color that is, beige maybe?  Being color blind makes it tough for me to put together outfits, sometimes I notice a clash or mistake a few days later, then wonder what became of me to create such an outlandish getup.  You've worn a lot of different bras in your life.  I didn't want to say this before, but most of them were not very flattering to your bosom.  It's like someone trying to push them in the wrong direction.  But the one you wore in that photo, the one without straps right?  That one totally suits you.

Hi Natty honey!  Oh it's awesome that you are doing ballet or dance or something.  Yes with the grace of a dancer, you would certainly look even more awesome than ever.  There's something about that snapshot though, that makes me want to tackle you and pin you to the ground.  It's not a dance move, it's just something that I feel like doing.