Is it ridiculous, or is it haute couture?

 

Hi Natty1  How are you today, my love?  Are you enjoying LA weather?  It's hot and muggy over here.  Ugh, I hate hot tropical weather.  Cool tropical weather is fantastic, but hot tropical weather is the pits.  When it's hot and muggy like today, even when it's not hot it's hot.  I like mountain climate.  I wish I had been born in the mountains, but I wasn't.  Mary was born in the mountains.  I was born here.  Well 40 miles from here, in the next state.  To cope with this climate, I'm pretty much half naked all the time when at home.  I would go around everywhere half naked if I could, but I need sun protection.

Who would wear such a ridiculous dress?  Why, a Pop Diva of course!

Too much sun

Natty, have you been getting too much sun?  We all know how much you love the outdoors and outdoor fun, but don't get too much sun.  I believe it is now (for you) when one gets the most skin damage, in the 20s and 30s.  I don't think any age is more vulnerable to sun damage than any other age, but that it's the 20s and 30s when people frolic more under the sun.  Sunscreen doesn't work, Honey.  The only thing that works is staying in the shade.  The sun damage may appear in places where you don't notice.  Your arms and elbows, perhaps.  Your beautiful arms and elbows.  Sure, beauty fades.  Sometimes it fades faster than others.

 

Salted fish: pekasam

 

Hi Natty!  What's going on today, beautiful girl?  Wow, it's the end of March already.  Have you got your Masters yet?  I hope everything is easy going for you.  Lol... you like challenges while I want a life of no challenges.  Ah, that must be heaven.

But since I have no cheese, there happens to be a substitute for the flavor!  I used to nibble on blue cheese and brie a lot back in the States, but over here you can get the same experience and flavor from salted fish.  Today's salted fish is called "pekasam".  Which is basically when they coat the fish with a salt and tamarind mix to create a crunchy skin when fried.

The best fish for this recipe is the puyu, which you can often see people fishing for around here in the storm drains by the roadside.  Or the rice fields, like the video below.  The small fish are the tastiest.  The fish you see in the photo above is way too big, ideally it should be a third that size.  That's because you can crunch right through the bones!  When the fish is too big, the bones are unpalatable.  I found someone selling puyu pekasam at the day market today when I went there to pick up some ant poison for my mother.  I fried some up for lunch, and they were so good!  Like a beautifully aged cheese.  Then I used the renderings left over in the pan to make broth for my noodles.  The fish I got were too big, and I had to pick the bones out of my mouth.  Remember, the smaller the better when it comes to puyu pekasam!

Spaghetti again?

 

Hi Natty!  How are you today, my darling beautiful babe?  I hope you are healthy and having a wonderful time.  It's been a busy Monday.  I had so clean my own house this morning.  The vacuum cleaner I have sucks because it doesn't suck, so I had  to move things and sweep vigorously.  Cats.  In the evening, I went around the compound with a hoe, and dug up unwanted saplings.  One of them fought back, and I have a bruised knuckle.  Army ants attacked my balls.  They seem to enjoy doing that.  Dinner was spaghetti again.  Spaghetti with mango marinara sauce.  You should try some of this spaghetti, Natty.  It tastes like spaghetti.  It would have been perfect if I had cheese, but I don't.  Even some sliced cheese would have been great, but oh well.  I'm stuffed.  I have a lot more to do, so I gotta go.  I love you!

 

Computer problems

 Hi Natty!  How are you today, my love?  I hope you are doing well, and enjoying yourself.  I'm having some computer problems here this Sunday.  After I shut down, after Mary Unknown7's session today, my Ethernet connection stopped working.  I didn't change anything.  Good thing I had a plug in Wi-Fi, so that's what I'm running on right now.  I don't know if it's good enough for my daily duties though.  It should be fine inshaAllah, I don't have many high speed applications, and Second Life seems to be running OK and I don't take Mary's avatar out to anywhere complex.  Not recently, at least.  After I post today's blog, I'm going to shut down and find out what's wrong and try to fix it.  Please stay tuned, folks.  We should be streaming as usual, inshaAllah.

Otherwise, it's an average Sunday.  I'm quite tired from all the labor I did, but I just had a nap and am ready to tackle more work.  Lily is in heat, and I have to keep a closed door between her and her brother, so I have to include some cat shuffling in my daily routine.  Bah.  What a "not a blessing".  Lily doesn't like to be alone either, but Lookie keeps her company.  Since I couldn't tell that Lily went into heat his time around, this new cat routine might be permanent.  I can't just chuck Adolf Kitler out to live in the wild.  He's a VIP.  Anyway Honey, I gotta go.  I'll talk to you again tomorrow inshaAllah.  I love you!

More feminine than thou

 Howdy Bronco!  Let's ride!  Natty, your hat looks like it's getting smooshed up.  You're just too tall.  It's sure looks like you're having fun, like you're on tour or something.  It must be that crazy carousel again.  Natty, I know you are a firm believer of pushing your boundaries, but that philosophy is not something that can be imposed on small children.  Intellectually perhaps, but otherwise ages 0 to 6 years must be as stress free as possible, and boring boring boring.  No emotional or physical extremes, no unnecessary travel, no separation from parents.  When they become stronger then we can test their limits, but until then life must be as safe and stable with no surprises.  That is the ideal.

Recent events has gotten my thinking, what is feminine?  And that it's such a horse race.  What do you think is feminine, Natty?  This is probably a non-issue for you, but many people take it very seriously, and and many businesses thrive on the concept.  Fashion, for example.  It's not about beauty, but it could be.  Lily is in heat right now.  It's a silent heat this time, the only way I know is that her brother Adolf Kitler knows, so I have to keep a closed door between them at all times.  He's a beast, and that is his excuse.  Humans can rise above being beasts, but is femininity about attraction?  If anything, what's feminine attracts females as much as males.  Femininity is a competition, to be more feminine than thou.

Here are some more nice snapshots from the How does your avatar look today ? thread:

This is Mary Unknown7's avatar:

Mary wants to join a band episode 6: not cut out for math rock?

 

Hi Natty!  That's a beautiful slideshow.  It shows how much you love this world, and you can see all the greatness in it.  You make me want to take good care of you, and do all I can so nothing bad ever happens to you.  You are truly, my better half.  I love you.

Yvette Young put this song out on YouTube, so Mary and I have been working on it for the past couple of weeks to try record a good vocal track, to show to Yvette.  Unfortunately she can't hit the high notes, and she's been in tears over it.  She said she feels humiliated.  Don't worry folks, she weeps all the time.  Everyday.  I told her, "If Yvette can hit those notes then that means she wants to sing it herself.  If anything, you can sing backup."  But Mary can't even do that.  If you folks hadn't noticed, she keeps terrible time.  You people don't hear it on your side of the stream, but I listen to her everyday singing along to the track coming out of the monitor.  Mary Unknown7 is an emotional singer, and what she does is stomp all over the music with her emotions.  I said to her, "You are a pop diva.  I don't know why you want to join a technical band like Covet.  If you really want to join a band, let's just find a more straightforward music that doesn't make you sing too many high notes."  She's really bummed out about this, folks.  But I'm going to pull the plug on this "Simple and Clean" project, and have her get back to studying more Ella Fitzgerald and Patsy Cline.