grouch.

the dog barfed on the living room rug. then ate it. the cat peed on the bathroom rug. three times. i think he's getting a UTI again. and is chewing all of his hair off. again. so i spend too much time digging in my closet and begin to run late for school. when i get there, i see parking-ticket-guy issuing tickets already. so i find a space far away from normal, walk to the daily-permit machine, and it wont take my money. so i walk back to my car and drive all the way to the front of campus and park in the visitor section so i can get change and try to buy a permit. the lady tells me there's a change machine behind the building (wtf isnt it next to the permit machine?!). so i walk over. get change for the only $5 bill in my wallet - hooray! $5 in quarters! i walk back to the permit machine, pay my $3 in quarters to get my dinky little parking permit for the day, and walk back to my, get in it, and drive all the way around to the first parking lot i was in. fortunately, now i can find a space closer to where i need to be and park in it. i make a point of placing the permit in the center of my windsheild where it cant be covered by the military stickers or other nonsense. i go to class. i walk all the way back to my car. there's a parking ticket. three inches away from the parking permit. WTF?! i peel it off. read it, thinking this cant be real, is that guy an I-D-ten-T or what? well, yes, he is, because he put my license as a CA plate. so anyway, i get in my car and drive all the way back to the lady in the little police building next to the visitor's lot. she tells me she cant help me, i have to go to the campus police office in the center of campus. well F, i have another class to go to. so i get back in my car, drive back all the way around campus and park, fortunately, right outside my next class. still 45 minutes to burn, so i walk to the campus police office. she cant do anything if i still have a class to go to because she wants to keep my parking permit to void the ticket. so i walk all the way back to my car, half expecting there to be another ticket in the window (there wasn't, thank goodness for him) and sit for a minute. hot and angry, i want a soda. my water is hot, i'm hot, i'm starting to feel a sinus infection coming on, my head hurts, i need a soda. so i grab $1.25 in my new shiny quarters and head to the cafeteria. never been in there before, lets see what they have to offer. no soda's under $1.40, foundtain drink is cheapest at $1.20, but without my ID (which i left int he car) they charge sales tax and i wouldn't have enough. so i wander to a soda machine. no cans. all bottles. no prices. the smallest bag of cheetos was a $1.25 so i figured the soda would be worse. when did they get so expensive? water was even more pricey in the cafe and i decided i couldnt afford to look at juice! so walked back to my car. grumbled, and decided to ditch my next class and take my grumpy ass home and go back to bed.
i get home. i let the dog out. i wash the cat. and i make a sandwich. that was it, for a few hours i lay on the couch burning up and ignoring the tv. i tried to read a textbook but i couldnt digest anything.
thanks poor schools for cutting back on your janitorial services and keeping your classroom dirty and germ-infested. i've been in class one week and am already sick. every semester here, EVERY ONE, i get sick right at the beginning and it throws me off for a while, i get behind in class and have to work hard to catch up. stupid public schools. stupid california. grumble grumble grumble...

that kind of day

so i'm sitting at the dining table on the computer. the windows are all open because there's no a/c. its a quiet sunday, just the occasional car or airplane, no music, no tv, nuthin. alluvasudden there's a loud scratching at the dining room window, that makes both myself and the dog jump. grainne stands up and peers out the window, and i'm staring trying to figure out what it was. the tree branch scraping the window? no... its a bougainvillea, no branches. the screen is flapping around, looks like it came loose on the bottom. need to call the landlord to see if she'll have someone come out and fix that one and the one in the kitch - SCCCCRRRRRAAAAAAATCH! MEOW! MEOW! and little azreal head pops into the window from the outside.

apparently his dumb ass fell out of the window, which is what knocked the screen loose, just like in the kitchen, and he was trying to climb up the wall to get back in the window. i had to go outside, around the house, and coax him in the front door

no more family guy before bed.

i dreamed last night that a friend found azreal and a kitten in the hands of some bastard little kid who was 'making sandwiches' out of them by pressing them onto hot skillets on the stove, and burned their skin on both their backs and bellies. we had to clean them up and peel crispy black skin off them and try to help them heal. and i also dreamed that rebecca and i were in taco bell, and before our order came up, when it was all sprawled on the counter, a group of people came in behind us and threw their little kid onto the counter to 'go find us some service' and he smooshed my cheeesy gordita crunch. so i pulled the kid off the counter and started a fight with the giant fat bald man who started the whole thing, then when large fights ensued i took the kid and ran. wtf is wrong with me?

Summer Fruit Galette

If you're anything like me, you get really excited to see fresh fruit overflowing in the grocery stores. I buy and buy and buy and then only eat and e.... so much of it begins to turn before I can eat it all. Well, this summer I found a super delicious way to use up fruit that may just be a bit too ripe to bite in to - a homemade fruit galette!

This is the easy version, using all ready-to-use-at-purchase ingredients:

1 Trader Joe's frozen pie crust (because its already rolled flat and perfectly round, and because I'm rolling pin-retarded)
1 egg white
A peach or two, and a handful of blackberries
A handful of shortbread cookies
A couple spoonfuls of sugar
A sprinkle of cinnamon

Since this pie crust is frozen, just let it sit until it reaches room temperature, or a little cooler. You'll want it to be pliable.

Slice your fruits. I used a peach and a handful of blackberries. You can use any combination you can imagine - apples and blueberries, blueberries and pears, strawberries, raspberries, cherries... anything goes!









Crumble a few shortbread cookies into a small bowl. The only shortbread cookies I could find have bits of fruit filling in them, so I just crumbled around the center and nibbled on the filling as I went along.

I lined a cookie sheet with foil, but if you have a baking stone that would work great too. Lay out your pie crust, and sprinkle the cookie crumbles in the center to within 2 inches of the outer edge. Lay out your fruit in any pattern that you fancy. Sprinkle with a spoonful of sugar and drizzle with honey. You can substitute brown sugar if you like. (Here, I used organic turbinado sugar from Trader Joe's.)

Fold up the edges to wrap around the fruit. You'll have to crease the pie crust to get it to fold up tightly, and can pinch the ends a bit if you need to.













Brush the outside with your egg white, and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Bake at 350 until edges are golden brown. You'll find that the fruit filling will produce a lot of juice, and I found it best to let it cool completely before serving to let the filling set. You can heat it up again briefly before serving if you prefer it warm. With ice cream :)