CucumPear's Ramblings

May-December Whu?

2011-07-29T22:33:00.001+02:00

Somehow the term May-December Romance/Relationship never made sense to me. It’s relatively obvious what it’s supposed to mean. But when you think about it with some measure of logic it gets less than logical. Even if you apply Kirk-logic rather than Spock-logic.

If we equal the human lifespan to a year, December ought to be the last 12th of a person’s life. Since we can’t usually do more than guesstimate a living human’s time of death* we shall use - due to my laziness - a multiple of 12 as our baseline. I chose 84 for this bit of basic math and shall also ignore that the months have different lengths in the actual calendar.
*Various mobile phone applications claim to do so, but I think we’re all reasonably smart and know what those are worth.

All right, let’s do this. *rubs hands together* And feel free to correct me, I haven’t really done any math in years, even simple multiplication. :-P
One year, i.e. one lifetime, equals 84 years.
One month therefore is equal to seven years. Thus, January defines the timespan between birth and the seventh birthday, February means seven to 14, and so forth. Midlife crises should happen in June, what a shocker.

According to these calculations the participants in a May-December relationship would be 28-35 and 77-84 years old. However, the term is usually applied to couples who’d fit in an April-July bracket (21-28 and 49-56). An actual M-D R is actually fairly rare.
I really feel that a seven month age difference is quite different to three months.

*wanders off singing April Is In My Mistress’ Face*

Kitchenage - Day Nine and Ten

2011-07-17T04:09:00.001+02:00

Day Nine, otherwise known as Thursday was Delivery Day. The sheer amount of flatpacked stuff was amazing and filled about one third of the kitchen. o.O

Friday was much more interesting. The assembly crew arrived pretty early, circa 8:30 (I was so tired after only three-ish hours of sleep) and were crazy fast, they only needed six hours or so.
Or course they found that a couple of cupboard doors were the wrong kind and that one was damaged.
See here and ignore the icky to-be-covered wall:

Not finished by far, but blue floor! And the DIY store is being rather slow and won’t have our countertops until Tuesday. We’re hoping that we’ll get them installed by Tuesday evening so all the appliances and plumbing can be done on Wednesday. Monday will be cleaning day unless something unexpected happens.

Kitchenage - Days Six Through Eight

2011-07-14T02:06:00.001+02:00

Monday and Tuesday weren’t all that work-intensive for us. On those days the floor was finished, which took that long because after the levelling of the underlying surface (on Friday), the linoleum had to be laid out to flatten by itself. Apparently it is rather brittle. Tuesday was the final gluing and sealing the seams. Seams? Yeah, the linoleum we chose (and most others) were only available in 2m wide. Thankfully the seams will be hidden beneath the cupboards.
We did a bit of preliminary spackling on Tuesday night, but the spackling paste behaved weirdly (it thickened way too quickly).

Today was more exhausting. We got up fairly early to finish getting the walls smoothed and painted. Of course the funky spackling paste had not dried properly. We finished with a different brand, but some parts of the walls are still wonky (most is concealed, though).
The area behind the old cabinets was problematic, too. The paint was peeling and literally looking like wallpaper. Sanding did not keep the remnants to come off, sticking to the rollers.
We spent quite a bit of time bitching about the people responsible for the original paint job.

Right now the kitchen looks rather Mediterranean. All (well, mostly) white and a rich blue floor. The camera didn’t like it, but here’s an image to give you an impression (and now imagine it with lime green countertops). Who on earth paints a radiator yellowy gross (my mom, I believe).

Tomorrow it’s kitchen delivery day and the cupboards should be assembled on Friday. ‘course the countertops won’t be ready until Monday or so and then we need to get all appliances and plumbing done. I wish I knew how to do that, but a kitchen is way beyond my DIY skills.

Kitchenage - Day Five

2011-07-09T00:46:00.001+02:00

This morning was faintly annoying. We had arranged for the floor people to come by at 8 to prepare the concrete for Monday and level the surface.

8:00 - no workers
8:30 - still nothing
9:00 - *chirp chirp*

Shortly after nine we caught them on the phone and by 10:15 they were actually here and working.
’course I couldn’t actually do anything today and since we were told not to ‘get anything on the surface’ we can’t really do much over the weekend.
Smooth floor:

So come back on Monday for an exciting new instalment of Kitchenage, where I whinge over not being able to cook.

Wait, have I done any whinging yet?

Kitchenage - Days Three & Four

2011-07-08T21:04:00.001+02:00

Somehow I didn’t get around to posting this on the actual days. Days 3 and 4 were the noisy, dirty ones. We got the electrical stuff brought up to date in most of the flat when we moved in, but in the kitchen that would have required ripping out the kitchen, so we waited until we were ready to do that.
Thus the noise. The guys also made a bit of a hole into a wall, breaking through to the hallway. I can’t blame just them, though, our walls are the most ridiculous pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. To firmly affix a shelf with, say, four screws we need at up to three different wall plugs.

So yeah. Dust and noise and whatever to get a dozen or so outlets. In a fairly small room. Here are a couple of example photos (I actually made sure to thoroughly document all walls so we can check those when attaching shelves and such. I’m crazy paranoid about drilling into stuff.

Later tonight: Day Five with the early stages of pretteh floor.

Kitchenage - Day Two

2011-07-05T23:24:00.001+02:00

We got up early when the cupboard and junk-we-don’t-need removal guys came (that only took 45 minutes). I may have fallen back asleep after that and only awoke when sis started gleefully bashing the tiles into submission. Apparently that was so much fun she didn’t want me to help.

Disgusting wall (and look at those bracket things, they really don’t look like they could hold up to the weight of a full cupboard):

I only found out when she was almost sweeping up the debris that she hadn’t worn a mask or goggles. Well, she’s a grown woman but if I had been there she wouldn’t have gotten away without proper protection.

We then spent the whole bloody afternoon at IKEA (hopefully we didn’t forget anything important) only to find out at the very end that no, this week was extra busy and they can’t deliver and assemble the cupboards until the 14th and 15th.
Wankers. Last time we went we were told that is was impossible to buy and arrange for delivery earlier than one week before the desired date. Apparently this is utterly wrong, one might just have to pay extra for them storing the stuff.

So now we have this cock-up setting us back severely. We can only get the countertop cut when we have the actual measurements, so that won’t be finished until the 18th (damn weekend, these are the situations where it sucks to live in Austria). And then we can only hope that we can reschedule getting the appliances and plumbing to be done.

Meh.
I also had the feeling that my sister isn’t all that happy with my rather easy acceptance. But I don’t have it in me to bitch at a nice lady who isn’t at fault for the lack of time slots. I might glare at the uninformed bint who misinformed us in the first place, though.

Also, I got the oddest anonymous postcard today. Who do I know in Prague who knows to write to this address, but doesn’t know that I haven’t studied Earth Sciences since before I moved here? Or maybe someone is fucking with me. I dunno.

Kitchenage – Day One

2011-07-04T22:20:00.001+02:00

Woken up by the guys who took away the old stove and ancient water heating thingie (there’s a cute patch of gross wallpaper left over, we obviously couldn’t remove it when we moved in), ‘cause we forgot to tell them when to come by. D’oh.
Here are the empty spaces (sorry about the yucky dirt):

Clearing cupboards isn’t all that easy when you don’t have a lot of space to work in. But I had a little squee when I found my ice crusher. I thought it lost in the space between spaces or somewhere. Turned out it was exactly in the best place, which is probably why I put it there in the first place; I’m sensible that way (which doesn’t explain why I frequently forget where I put stuff).
Also cleaned the fridge and freezer. We tried to detach the door and move the hinge to the right side, but one bloody pin was stuck and we couldn’t get it loose.

Here’s how part of the kitchen looked halfway through:

We had something like ten big boxes of stuff and we still had some dishes and food left to use over the next couple of weeks. O.o Eep.
But lookee! Empty (well, mostly)!

Hate round sinks? Do I ever!
For the record: I actually don’t mind the colour at all. But the whole “falling apart” thing was a bit of a pain. We didn’t actually remove any cupboard doors today, they’ve been standing around somewhere for months, because the cupboard frames where the hinges are attached were completely unusable (see top right and bottom left).

screams

2011-07-01T22:04:00.000+02:00

I really don't cope well with even the least amount of stress right now. Stress isn't usually that hard to cope with, but I appear to be at a really bad time in my cycle, which always exacerbates my depression.
Tomorrow my cousin is getting married and I still have to shorten my dress, paint all 20 nails, wash my hair and see what I need to take with me to change and stuff. I also haven't eaten yet. On Monday we start clearing the kitchen.
So now I have a headache and my mood has dropped somewhere between crying in desperation and screaming in anger. I haven't felt this fucked up in ages and am tempted to just say 'Screw this!' and stay at home to get a head start with the kitchen thing. Another plus would be that then we wouldn't have to rely on my 89-year-old grandmother to feed the cats.
I truly don't want to hurt my cousin and his fiancée, though, and will try to kick myself into action. It would help a lot if my sister would just bloody leave me alone. She keeps bothering me, knocking on my door in that infuriating and barely audible scratchy way and asking inane questions. I've already given her my opinion on her clothes choices, I don't care about her decisions of how the weather affect them. And I don't appreciate being asked my opinion and then being grumbled at because she doesn't like what I have to say. It's not like she doesn't know that I have a completely different taste in clothing.
Get a fucking clue, I don't want to socialise today. I told her outright to leave me alone when she pulled once again the 'how can I help you' routine she always uses when I'm ornery and that drives me to internal screaming fury every time.

Fuck. And now that I've written through being pissed I'm actually starting to bawl. I just want my brain chemistry to be normal.
I need to go back to writing something interesting and fun here. Suggestions?

Computerised Heatstroke

2011-06-21T16:27:00.000+02:00

Today I went to pick up my new computer (with my father giving me a ride and another pair of strong arms to drag the stuff to the car). I decided to give them a break and not say anything about the email thing.

When I came home and started to unpack everything I luckily checked my Windows before opening it, because the pitiable fool gave me Home Premium instead of Professional (it's a OEM box, so both look the same). Therefore I got on the bus and went back to exchange it.
Which was good for the guy because he had failed to ask me for any kind of proof that I'm the person who bought the stuff. I provided said proof and at the same time managed to clear up the funky thing I complained about last time. Turns out sis and I had separate logins, but both led to the same account on their side. Which is odd and doesn't explain why I received the automated email and it had my name and address on it. *shrugs* It should be fixed now.

And now I get to try and disentangle all cable and get everything hooked up and running. It's probably good that I have fond memories of the years with regular hard drive formatting and reinstalling Win 98SE. Good times...

Waiting for the bus in the blazing sun (torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike?) = *iz ded*

Furiosity

2011-06-20T23:29:00.000+02:00

I was just composing a tweet and twitter, apparently being a spiteful cunt tonight, refused to post it.

Right now I'm furious. Actually, I don't think I've been as angry in ages (not that anyone would know just by looking at me, my face just ain't that expressive).

Those who follow me on twitter might already know than on Saturday my laptop died. I grumbled and whined and then sat down with my dinky Acer Aspire One to choose a nice clunky desktop PC. The store I chose, a fairly big chain over here, has an online store with the option of picking the goodies up at any store. I ordered, got the automated response with the instruction to await the second email which would tell me that my MechaCalculatrix (sounds more awesome than its real name) was ready to be picked up and provide me with a pdf to print and take along.

I waited all day.
Sunday was also message-free, as expected.
Nothing today.

Then my sister came home, she was away over the weekend, and suddenly appeared with a printed out pdf...

What. The. Fuck?

Now I know that our first names are similar, our last names, address and IP are identical. But I fucking logged in and ordered through my account with my own credit card. I feel that I should bitch quite extensively, more so than I really will.
If they in turn attempt to bitch at me tomorrow because I'm late for the pick-up and the papery stuff has sis' name on it I shall be very cross and emulate Mr Flibble.

Exasperationlation

2011-05-07T21:47:00.000+02:00

I'm currently in a dual state of elation and exasperation.
New Kitchen! Well, hopefully new kitchen soon.

Sis and I currently reside in a flat owned by our parents, which is very nice. Then only flaw is the 45+ year-old kitchen (and it looks its age), which is slowly disintegrating. The appliances are newer, of course, and only the stove needs to be replaced. But the cupboards are on their last legs. Two don't have doors at the moment, and one has had the hinges rather forcefully glued back on, since the screws wouldn't hold any more.

So yeah. New kitchen. Therefore elation.

However, the planning is proving to be an annoyance. We decided to do the cheap thing and go to IKEA (we love IKEA I'm guessing that 80% of our furniture was bought there). When we started talking about it, sis said 'I'm not planning to live here forever, so I'm not going to get too involved.' (or something like that, I don't remember her exact words).
I want a wooden countertop, she thinks that's gross (oh noes, one might have to regularly oil that!). I want coloured or otherwise pretty cupboards, she frowns. Apparently I can do whatever I want, except that sis wants stark white everywhere, so you can see the dirt.
Now I agree in general that hide-the-dirt speckled counters are really odd and not all that sensible, but I will not have a sterile kitchen. No fucking way.
Either there's some kind of colour (or wood) on the cupboards or a wooden counter( I'll compromise and take a wood-effect melamine if it's convincing).

So far the only thing we agree on is that we want a similar kind of PVC floor like we have now (we got that when we moved in). Much nicer to walk on and to clean than tiles.
See the exasperation?
What annoys me is not so much that we disagree, it's that sis wants to hand the whole planning to me, but at the same time wants to have a right to veto any of my choices. I guess I'll have to talk to my mother and convince her that I'm right. ;-)

Out of the Frying Pan and onto the Gas Stove

2010-11-05T05:45:00.000+01:00

I learned to cook on a glass-ceramic stove and though it worked fine I was never quite happy with it. Cleaning electric stoves tends to be a pain in the buttock of choice. So I was really excited when my sis and I moved out and our flat had a gas stove. "Neat," I thought.
Sure, there's always the chance of burning down the building, but at least when you turn of the burner it stops adding more heat to the inferno. That's kinda awesome. If you have at least three ways of extinguishing flames nearby (we have two different extinguishers and a super special blanket, FYI).
What was I going on about? Ah, yes. The ability to dosage heat precisely and so forth. That's really great in theory. Except that my super-awesome gas stove can basically be set to 'off' and varying degrees of 'burn.' So unsurprisingly I'm a bit frustrated.
Also, my kitchen is kinda collapsing. It's increasingly gross and partially uncleanable. Yay?
I want a new kitchen. With an induction stove and one of them steamy devices and something to make decent grilled cheese sammiches with. A pony would be nice, too. I'd paint it green and call it Buttercup. Then I'd sell it to buy a new camera and computer.

Lost in Translation

2010-10-27T04:37:00.001+02:00

Did you ever sit down and genuinely translate something? Did you ever consciously and critically read a translated text?

I don’t think we did much true translating in English, French or Russian class when I was in high school, it was more a read and understand, learn to speak and spell kinda thing. But Latin and Ancient Greek are taught very differently. This is why in my mind there are a few ways of translating and I really much prefer one of them.

The kind of translation you’ll most frequently encounter is what you find in novels. It’s supposed to be stylistically similar to the original, but idioms and cultural context can be changed, depending on author, publisher and translator. Titles, name format, societal structures will usually be replaced. This can be utterly annoying. I still don’t understand why names were changed in many Harry Potter translations. That’s just stupid.

Then there’s the analytical kind of translation that doesn’t necessarily sound pretty and can be heavily annotated to mark grammatical structures and their subtext. Good for linguistics, philology and history, but not especially nice to read for fun.

Personally, I want the kind of translation that stays as true to the original as possible, even if it sounds a bit awkward at times. A good translation should start with either a brief introduction to culture/world the work is set in with vital information for understanding the cultural context or it should contain a link or reference to such a guide. The text itself should be as close in the overall feeling as possible, but still contain the same amount of information and stay as true to the original syntax and vocabulary. Sometimes it’s better to transliterate a phrase rather than to translate it if the actual sound is of importance for plot and context. In this case a footnote is the proper way to translate and explain. Footnotes are generally awesome, in my opinion.

Why am I whinging about translation today? Well, I just got a few volumes of Skip Beat! and while I’m happy with the translation in general (not that I’m a judge, I don’t know more than a few words of Japanese), it really pisses me off that the names were inversed and that all honorifics were translated. I just hate that kinda thing. If you read a Russian novel in translation you’ll constantly find people calling each other by their first name and patronym and I have yet to see that changed to ‘Mr last name.’ So why do they do that with Japanese fiction?

Seriously, just print a paragraph with reading direction and an explanation of san/kun/chan and the family name before given name thing at the beginning of the book.

I’m rooting for multiple versions of manga, easy to read mirrored and overtranslated for the lazies (hey, if you translate stuff that doesn’t need to be translated you don’t have to keep the original reading direction, either) and proper translations for the rest of us. And maybe an electronic version in Japanese with a tap-to-translate function, a full explanation of why it translates to that and what the bloody subtext is.

*sighs*

On Identity, Gender and Family

2010-10-24T04:39:00.000+02:00

After writing this out it occurred to me that this is very rambly and probably won't be of any interest to anyone. Tough. I'm not forcing anyone to read it, after all.

I'm not someone who gains any kind of identity through my family. That sounds odd, doesn't it?
Of course I'm influenced by my upbringing in many ways, but if someone asked me who I am I wouldn't say 'I'm A's daughter' or even that I'm part Egyptian. It's like being semi-consciously aware that your great-grandfather might have been French. You may have a French name, but you probably won't sing the Marseillaise with tears in your eyes. Then again, my father actually grew up in Egypt, so it sometimes feels like it should matter more, but except for our names, the fact that he's Muslim and a few bits and pieces in my parents' flat you really wouldn't know.
When I think of who and what I am I tend to come up with different things every time, though some stay, in all probability fixed for the rest of my life.

Who am I? An atheist. Considering that I just don't normally think about religion it seems odd that this is the first thing that springs to mind. A reasonable intelligent and rational person. I hope.
What am I? A student. A blogger. A depressed person. Hopefully the first and last of these are only temporary.

And how strange is it that 'a woman' is not an important part of my identity? I suppose I should talk to someone about this, my psyche seems to not have developed quite right during my adolescence. I don't miss that part of my identity, though. It shouldn't matter what kind of naughty bits I have and to me it doesn't really. I enjoy traditionally girlie things, but I feel that this is personality, rather than gender stereotyping.
When I was a child I had a duality about me: left to my own devices I would quietly play in my room with my doll or Barbies, only occasionally with Playmobil or Lego. But when dragged outside, to my aunt's or grandparents' garden I'd turn into a more tomboyish creature, playing in the forest, roughhousing and so forth. And I do remember that even back in elementary school I was aware that I was female, but I didn't really feel that I was a girl. I don't know if that is normal and I couldn't care less.

My first period wasn't a wondrous thing that magically turned me into a woman, it was just blood coming out of a part on my anatomy that I had never really thought about before and feeling kinda awkward. It didn't help that, though I knew the facts of life, conception and pregnancy and whatnot, I had no clue about the emotional side of growing up.
Which reminds me that I probably should sit down with my mother at some point and explain to her that telling a kid about the horrors of genital mutilation (aka 'female circumcision') is important, but maybe the kid should know what exactly a clitoris is for first. I was kinda horrified, but also very confused.

Y'know what. I don't want to talk about this any more tonight. Ew.

On the matter of shame

2010-09-27T21:07:00.000+02:00

Sometimes when I'm reading or watching TV I suddenly feel deeply ashamed at how much of my entertainment stems from a favourite character being fucked over again and again. I wonder what kind of a person that makes me.

Then again, I could get my jollies from laughing and pointing at terminally ill people at the hospital, so I guess I ain't that bad. And I do root for aforementioned fucked-over characters and am liable to do a little cheer and happy-jiggle when stuff works out for them... as long as there are no "x years in the future" epilogues breaking my fandom (I'm talking about you, JKR).
No, seriously, I jiggle in my chair, softly exclaiming 'woo' or 'yay' (as it's usually 2 am or some other unmentionable* hour).

* You know, it's really hard to talk like a reasonably normal person when you try to avoid religious references. I can't replace every god with Spock, after all. But at least I haven't accidentally greeted people with Grüß Gott in a long time.

Bad Music is Bad

2010-09-11T10:39:00.000+02:00

Why is so much bad music so incredibly popular? Ah, yes. I remember. The whole free will and different tastes thing.
I just fled in horror as Alejandro came on (I can't stand Gaga, sue me) and the first thing that's on as I came back was Your Love is My Drug (seriously Ke$ha, Tik Tok was kinda amusing and catchy, but this is juast horrifying and makes me want to pierce my ear drums). Well at least I can reminisce about Todd In The Shadows' reviews, which are awesome and you should check them out.

What really surprised me recently - in a completely positive way - is Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow's new song Shame. It's pretty damn catchy, has an old-school-y feel and the video is fantastic with its not too subtle barbs flung at slash-happy bandom fangirls (which I'm not, btw. I was never interested in boybands except for the Beatles and Rolling Stones and by Spock's pointy ears, I don't even want to know if there's Paul/Ringo fanfic out there). Do a quick search for the video if you have a few minutes, just be advised that the one on YouTube is not available everywhere.

Gotta lay off the crossovers

2010-08-21T06:00:00.001+02:00

It seems there’s a good reason why I shouldn’t read Sailor Moon manga at 5 am. Firstly, it’s a bit disappointing. I used to watch the anime back in the olden days and remember it more interesting than the manga. On the other hand, the manga seems to move more quickly than the anime. Secondly, I think I just broke my brain. Again.

I’ve long felt that there are too many ‘male’ planets and for some reason I decided when I was a teenager and really into mythology that the Asteroid belt should really be Minerva. I think we were still told that there may have been an actual planet rather than it never properly forming due to interfering gravitational pull. *shrugs* Either way, in Sailor Moon canon the asteroid belt is evidence of Saturn’s destructive power. I’m not that far into the manga, actually, and I haven’t seen the anime in a decade or so, so I’m not sure if they actually spell that out, but it sounds like a destroyed planet and a dead scout to me. We’ll see.
In the back of my mind the association with Minerva remains. I claim that it’s reasonable because both 2 Pallas and 93 Minerva are located in the Asteroid belt. So there. Apparently (according to Wikipedia ;-) ) both Pluto and Uranus were proposed to be called Minerva. If they’d been brighter we wouldn’t have had to endure moronic Uranus jokes or Pluto wouldn’t have been unplanetised. It’s a curse, I tell ya! If they discover another planet and refuse to name it Minerva it’s probably going to crash into Earth while cheerily humming ‘There’s a Light That Never Goes Out.’

So, 5 am plus Sailor Moon meant internally grumbling about Sailor Mercury being referred to as ‘Scout of Wisdom,’ because wisdom is not really an aspect of Mercury. If you know your mythology (or know how to use Wikipedia) you’ll remember Mercurius as messenger of the gods, as bearer/guide of souls, the god of trade and thieves. Smart, sure. Wise, not so much. And as much as I like Ami* (even though I always thought that Makoto/Jupiter was way cuter), she’s not really wise, more of a Hermione.

There I go rambling again. There I was thinking about a bloody brilliant, but probably cracked Sailor Minerva. Who absolutely has to be River Tam. It’s obvious, isn’t it. And, hey, doesn’t Blue Sun sound like a Sailor Moon-esque villain?

All in all, Sailor Moon isn’t that impressive. I’m very glad I have Ranma 1/2 and Skip Beat! (the anime’s available at crunchyroll!) to read when I’m in a manga mood. I really wish I could find the Attack No. 1 manga somewhere (in English or German). I used to love the anime when I was a kid.

* There’s no way in hell I’m going to call her Amy. Or Rei Raye. Or Usagi Serena, Bunny I’m ok with. I’m kinda ambivalent about the changing of names. In some cases I can see why the American or European distributors choose to do so, for example: Aforementioned Attack No. 1’s main character Kozue has been renamed differently in various countries and I get that to most kids here that would be a weird name and I suppose that would make it hard for little volleyball-girlies to identify with her. But her friend Midori kept that name in the German dub. WTF? In the German dub of Sailor Moon some names were changed. Usagi turned into Bunny (thankfully neither Kaninchen nor Häschen are name-worthy), Ami and Rei were pronounced sorta kinda English, but all three retained their family names. I believe all other characters kept their names, even Chibiusa. Go figure and go German distributors. ;-)

Cat Spam Sunday

2010-06-06T22:25:00.001+02:00

As I completely forgot to charge my camera’s batteries last night and they take ages to recharge I declare today to be Cat Spam Sunday. I should stop squeeing at your cats and introduce my own. This is going to be a bit rambly, so skip this post if you don’t like reading about the fluffballs.
Click on the images to embiggen! You know you want to see each and every fuzzy detail.

This is Jill, we originally named her Gilyan (my sis and I were really into Katharine Kerr back then), but these days her name has devolved and I usually call her ChiChi (sis calls her Chilli, which is of some importance when it comes to cat no. 2). She’s almost twelve years old, which worries me as a few cats I’ve known died around that age, but Jill’s fine at the moment. ChiChi’s a bit dumb at times and occasionally she’s scared of jumping. Sometimes I think that choosing the kitten that chews on your shoe might not have been the most logical method of cat-pickage, but I love her to bits. This cat squeaks and meeps and makes weird pigeon sounds. Go figure.

And here’s Punica. Yeah, we’re a bit weird about naming. We had real issues deciding on a name and finally came to the conclusion that it should be food-related to match with Chilli and looked through my Latin dictionary. My little pomegranate… Most of the time we call her Pu, though (which in turn goes well with ChiChi). We don’t know how old Pu is, she was a knocked up stray, but she might have been two when we got her five years ago. My brother’s girlfriend decided to temporarily give her a home until her kittens were born and weaned, then my sister visited her and fell in love with the little cow (seriously, she doesn't just eat grass, Punica grazes, we considered naming her Milka, for her cowsy pattern). Pu also has strange mutant claw growth, a day after we cut them she’ll have at least one pointy claw and after a week or so they’ll all be renewed. We’re constantly finding bits of chewed off nail.
Isn’t she cute with her tongue poking out of her mouth?

Punica and Jill don't really interact a lot, both are much too fixated on humans. So this kind of photo of them sleeping next to each other are fairly rare. I have no idea why Punica loves this cushion so much, I have a few similar ones, but she lies on the teal one most of the time. I guess she knows how good she looks on teal. ;-)

I used to have a hamster named Bob, and though he usually stayed in his little house most of the day, both cats loved to sit and wait for him to emerge. Sometimes one would come out of her BobTV immersion to poke her paw through into the cage and Bob would sit just out of range and look inexplicably smug. Who’d have thunk hamsters could have that expression.

I refuse to write captions in lolcatese. Still, these photos required some kind of comment. Because if you leave Jill alone with your computer she will step on the keyboard and most of the time she zooms. Maybe her sight really is bad, her mum was a half-starved stray. The second image shows Punica when I first met her, I still argue with my sister about whether she remembers her kittens or not.

So, that’s it for now, folks. Feel free to tell me about your critters, ask questions, whatever! And why don’t you do a Cat Spam (or Pet Spam) post, too?

Also: Please consider getting your future pets from an animal shelter, I have never met a cat that was as trusting and sweet as Punica.

Foodie Easter Eggs

2010-04-06T05:45:00.001+02:00

Every year my sister and I dye some Easter Eggs. We do not, however, buy any dyes. Instead we do the traditional veggie dyeing with onion skins and this year we tried red cabbage dye.

We were a bit unorganised this year and thus failed to buy any white eggs. Normally we don’t need them, but the blue eggs would have been so much nicer with a light base.

Anyhow, here are a few of our eggs. We leave some plain, but most get wrapped with string. I usually go for neatly wrapping the string around the eggs (the ones on the left) while my sister just does some random wraps (like the ones on the right side).

Now let’s talk dyes. The onion skin dye is fool-proof and yields such pretty results. You need to collect some yellow onion skins, pack them into a pot and just cover them with water and a splash of vinegar. Add the eggs, heat and simmer for 12-15 minutes. Usually the eggs will look gorgeous, but if you’re not happy, turn off the stove and let them sit in the dye-bath for another 30 minutes.

Unwrap the eggs and let them dry. If you want them to be shiny you can oil them, but we’re quite happy with the un-greased result.

The red cabbage dye is almost as easy, I used this tutorial. Be advised that the cabbage will stain your fingers, so if you don’t like scrubbing you may want to wear gloves.

The really neat part about this is watching the change in colour as you boil the dye. Though the raw cabbage will stain your fingers blue, the dye starts out reddish-purple and will become more and more blue.

After we added the eggs the mixture started frothing in a funky purple colour, the photos don’t do the colour justice. As before you can strain the dye and let the eggs sit if they’re not blue enough.

And what’s really great about red cabbage dye: it’s a pH-indicator. If you add acids it’ll turn reddish, add a base and it’ll turn teal. Fill some shot glasses with the dye and try out anything you can think of. It’s not poisonous, though it does contain alum (if you make this just to play with and don’t need it to be relatively colourfast, skip the alum), so you can use it to teach kids about chemistry.

Earworms -The Ultimate Mental Parasites

2010-03-03T03:21:00.000+01:00

We all know them and sort of hate them sometimes. Earworms. If you're not familiar with this term it's a loaner from (and literal translation of) the German Ohrwurm and means 'song that gets stuck in one's head.' Typically it will be a particularly memorable phrase that's easy to loop. I had frequent earworms back when I was in my Uni's choir and we practised the Messiah, you can very easily mash up all the easy yokes and purification.
The frankenstein-earworms deserve a special mention: that's when two or more songe merge and loop. That can be pretty surreal (like mixing Mulan and Rocky Horror).

Sometimes Ohrwürmer are fun. I sat in a paleography class last semester when 'quoniam' happened to appear in a text and my brain went 'quoniam tu solus sanctus. tu solus dominus...' (Mass in E minor - Gloria). Today I read 'dieu' in my book on Indo-Europeans and there it was, going 'dieu! qu'il a fait bon regarder' (Debussy, check it out if you don't know it). That kind of thing is neat, as is automatically linking songs to phrases. How could I not burst into Meat Loaf-y song (at least mentally) when I stumble across 'I would do anything for...' I couldn't forgive myself.

Of course there are songs I don't want to have in my head taking up valuable space. Lady Gaga, for example, I could live without (except for this, which is made of awesome). And (the horror, the horror) the Atomic Kitten version of 'The Tide Is High.' That one was particularly painful as I couldn't fall asleep due to earworm plus bonus visuals from their ridiculous video.

Overall I tend to have more good than bad earworms, which is of the good. How about you?
*goes to youtube to listen to I'll Make A Man Out Of You*

Glühwein is awesome

2010-01-29T00:24:00.000+01:00

Glühwein, i.e. mulled wine, is one of the few alcoholic beverages I enjoy and make at home. I do like cocktails, but I suck at making them and find them way too expensive to buy regularly. Wine is mostly meh, I've only enjoyed a few and I'm fairly sure that those were pretty expensive. Beer nauseates me.
So a couple of times per winter I make Glühwein. It's very easy to make once you get over the urge to make it 'correctly.' I find that 'proper' and 'genuine' recipes have no place in my kitchen, I just make stuff how I like it.

This is how I make Glühwein, a procedure that will make conoisseurs cringe:

Get some average red wine: I know next to nothing about wine, so I grab something local between 5 and 7 €. It should be something I might drink plain (but I usually just use it for cooking...).
Grab a pot and pour in the wine, that much should be obvious. I would not recommend microwaving wine.
Add whole spices. The traditional ones are (per .75 litre bottle): 1 stick of cinnamon, 4-6 cloves, ~4 allspice seeds, 3 or 4 pods of star anise. I usually skip the star anise as I never remember to buy it.
Add citrus. Technically it should be lemon peel, but I prefer a fruity flavour and add a sliced up orange and lemon. And when the Glühwein is done I eat the orange slices, they taste awesome.
Sweeten with 3-4 tbs brown sugar. That's one reason why you shouldn't use cheap sour wine, you need too much sugar and that supposedly gives you a headache (I wouldn't know, never had a hangover or booze-headache).
Heat: Glühwein should be gently heated to 70°C. I don't like the strong alcoholic flavour that remains, so I bring it to a boil (this is the part that the Committee for the Protection of Traditional Recipes will flay me for).
Pour into mugs or into a pot through a sieve, leaving in the spices or bits of citrus would turn the Glühwein bitter.

If I make drinkies for other folks I make sure I add less sugar and let everyone adjust the level of sweetness themselves.
Drink safely, stay hydrated and don't kill people by driving (or handling weapons, for fucks sake!) intoxicated.

Academic Failure

2010-01-26T12:45:00.000+01:00

I consider myself a reasonably bright person with a decent ability to absorb and retain information. Usually I do quite well at University.
Today was one of those days when I question my memory and general intelligence. Today I attempted to finish my Ancient Greek exam. I had already taken the written part in October and learned today that I had managed a 1- (= A-) on that test, but when presented with a text today, my mind went totally blank. I knew that I had translated this before and that I should know what it was about, but all the knowledge was gone. I'm lucky, though, because it's not unusual for professors to pretend that an oral exam 'never happened.' In some cases this only applies when you've already failed a few times. So I get to retake this in about three weeks. I see a lot of Greek in my future. ;-)
At least I now know exactly how this exam works, I kind of expected to have a few minutes to look at the text and make soem notes. Not so. *sighs*

And now I should work on something nail, related. I didn't have time to do a post yesterday.
(edited to remove ridiculous spelling mistake that you can still see in the address...)

On Falco's Jeanny

2010-01-15T18:45:00.000+01:00

The Falco I'm takling about today isn't called Marcus Didius, I mean the musician. Most of you probably know him as the 'Rock Me Amadeus'-guy. I don't particularly care for that song or most of his songs, come to think of it. But there is one that I love. The masterpiece of creepiness: Jeanny.
It's like 'Where the Wild Roses Grow' to the third power. A song telling the story about a guy who... huh... y'know it's never stated what exactly happens. A guy watches a young girl, a newsflash suggests that the girl vanishes, but at no point is it made clear that she's abducted, raped or killed. Just strongly implied.
Several German TV and radio broadcasters banned this song as it supposedly glorifies violence and rape. What the fuck? It's a song. It's clear that the guy whose POV we're presented with is unhinged. Falco never says 'it's great to smack around and rape the bitches, yo!' The assumption that using violence as the topic of a song (or a novel, a poem, whatever) means the composer/singer/author glorifies violence is absurd and pisses me off.

Sadly, to get the full dose of goosebump-inflicting creepiness you need to understand German.

Reactions? Suggestions? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I am CucumPear, hear me Disclaim

2010-01-10T20:44:00.000+01:00

Hey, folks!

This is the chick from CucumPear's Pandemonium of Cosmetics speaking. Or writing, whatever.

So why do I need another blog I hear you cry (what's the aural equivalent of visualise? auralise?). Well, I sometimes have random stuff I want to talk about and nobody to tell. And as I gave up my livejournal some time ago and don't want to swamp my beauty blog with personal observations and thoughts it seemed like a sensible enough idea to create another blog.

I don't write this for anyone out there, but I certainly wouldn't mind people reading it (why else would I choose a public medium?). If you do decide to read the posts I publish on this blog, please take note of the following:
This is my own bleeding personal blog. I will swear if I want to and I will make off-colour remarks.
I respect other people's beliefs and choices. That will not stop me from making fun of them. If you take anything I say personally you might want to read something else.
Sarcasm, cynicism, irony. None of these translate well into writing, but I do use them frequently. Remember this while reading this blog.
This blog is not the same as my beauty blog. On Pandemonium of Cosmetics I try to give every reader a pleasurable experience. I might use the odd 'bloody' or 'damn' there, but I try to keep the swearing down. Here I say whatever the fuck I feel like and not everything will make sense. As you can see, on this blog I will neither censor myself nor force a structure upon myself. Some posts will be orderly, some disjointed.

Summary: If you don't like CucumPear's Ramblings, go to CucumPear's Pandemonium of Cosmetics or somewhere else. The web is large, it contains multitudes.