tandoori turkey

Hello fellow thankful beings. Happy belated Thanksgiving to you all! I hope you enjoyed your holiday celebration.

For Turkey Day, my family was invited out to an Indian restaurant. Not exactly your typical Thanksgiving dinner, but boy do I love Indian food. Nevertheless, turkey did make its way into our smorgasboard of curries and kebabs. Tandoori Turkey. No joke. The restaurant had a special for Thanksgiving.

I wish I could tell you that this was the recipe to best all strangely bizarre turkey recipies. No more tales of tofurkey or turkducken. Tandoori Turkey saves the day! But sadly, I cannot. It was perfectly enjoyable, but not worth the effort. I had a few bites and then went back to my luscious mango lassi and chicken tikka masala. No cultural fusion and/or assimilation here, thank you very much.

What is a group of Indian and Pakistani families to do on Thanksgiving night, when the normal post-turkey tryptophan stupor afflicts our reveling neighbors? There is only one answer: go to the movies. Note that this is the same thought process that drives us in hoards to see movies on Christmas Day. Except on that day we are joined in our actions by our friends of the Jewish faith.

We saw Alexander. You can stop reading here if you are planning on seeing it soon and do not want to be influenced by my extremely persuasive writing. I keed.

It sucked. So badly. I literally cannot think of a more appropriate or articulate way to state it. I thought the movie was disjointed and the acting was appalling. Colin Farrell certainly provides a service with his ridiculous good looks, but that's about it. He seems to think that pretending to be constipated can pass for very serious reflection.

While I can easily stare at him for about 15 minutes, doing so for the duration of the movie was a challenge. As a public service announcement, please be aware that the movie is approximately 3 hours long. Any movie of that length that does not include musical numbers with women in saris is completely unacceptable.

For the boys - and some of the girls out there - Anjelina certainly is phenomenally hot. Hotter than hellfire. She looks pretty damn good in the movie too. But that's it. It was impossible to actually believe her as Olympias (Alexander's Mom), rather than someone trying desperately hard to act the part. This woman's acting skills are worse than Donald Trump's ability to read from a teleprompter. The accent she attempted to adopt failed miserably. Where did she get the idea that not moving her jaw and rolling her r's as if she is taking a beginning French class can pass as a Macedonian accent? The last time she purred "Alexandrrr", I could have sworn I felt spittle fly across the theater.

Last petty criticism: Alexander is shown writing during one scene. It looks like Greek letters on the scroll, but when I looked closer, it was all English. The font, I suppose, was "Oliver Stone thinks this is what ancient Greek probably looked like." I mean, sure the dialogue is all in English, but give the audience some credit ... at least have the props look somewhat realistic!

The best part of the movie occurred when an unfortunate fellow decided to lay a large and noisy fart about 2 hours into the movie. The whole theather erupted in laughter - you could feel the laughter wave move from left to right as people couldn't contain themselves. Highly amusing. Even my mom giggled.

Also, why do theaters have seats in the front? Seats should not begin until about 20 rows back. Sitting anywhere closer is pure torture and a mean scam by the theater companies.

Enough about Alexander the Not-So-Great. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I am thankful for:

My family. My new life and my old friends. The metrocard reader at the subway stations that tells you how much money you have left on a metrocard before you get stuck in the turnstyle with insufficient fare. And everything in between. And I'm thankful for all of you who actually read this and give me reason to write. As dorky as it is, I do so very much enjoy keeping this blog.

da game

Harvard won the Harvard Yale football game. I don't think I'll ever take Ivy League Football seriously. I'm convinced they are playing with Nerf footballs.

I haven't actually watched the game itself in years - the real fun is at the tailgates. This year we had to buy tickets to attend the tailgate; nothing like Harvard to remind you that having fun really does come at a price. But I must admit, it was a blast. There were several mini-reunions with friends I had not seen in quite some time. And they were serving mac & cheese. Mmm.

A fantastic weekend overall though. I didn't eat much on Friday, so partying on Friday night turned out to be quite economical, if you get my drift. I bonded with my roommate (not the francoholic). She's awesome! She joined us for some dancing on Friday. On Saturday, she hosted a potluck dinner and made lasagna and Oreo cheesecake from scratch. She is also helping me learn how to cook. At least we know she welcomes a challenge.

Are you all watching Desperate Housewives yet? It's so trashy, I know. But I looove it. I used to be addicted to Melrose Place - and this is literally a reincarnation of that genius of a show. Two of the actors from Melrose Place are on Desperate Housewives too. How fun. Let me know if you're into it. I need someone to watch and talk about it with.

Oh, every year they have t-shirts at the Game where each school pokes fun at the other. This year's shirt was great. What do Yale and poop have in common? They are both #2.

five times five is

Twenty-five is a funny age. I'm past the midpoint of my twenties. I remember thinking when I was young that somebody who was 25 was sooo old. But it's not so bad. It's no 16 though. That was a good year. And four. Four was pretty fun also. Hey, they are all square numbers. Maybe 25 won't be so bad.

Obviously, my dorkiness has not subsided with age.

I subscribe to the A Word A Day e-mail. They send you A Word A Day (duh) with a definition and etymology. Each week's words are associated with a theme, and the words are usually pretty unique. This week's theme is "words to describe women." Earlier this week, words included "sylph" and "minx." Words that conjure the image of sexy, sneaky, flirty women. So what would today's word - my birthday word - be, I wondered. As I checked my e-mail this morning, I was greeted with this:

feme sole (fem sol) noun, plural femes sole
A single woman, whether divorced, widowed, or never married

There was nothing left to do except smile and embrace my feme soledness.

I am fortunate in that my birthday falls on the weekend of the Harvard / Yale Football game, which is tomorrow. A large contingent of my friends from college are in town, and we get to celebrate good times tonight! I have an outfit picked out. It involves pink. An ode to my blog.

Oh, and Happy World Toilet Day everyone!

happy birthday to loo

My brother just sent me an article from CNN.com titled "Summit Flushes Out Smelly Toilets." The article describes how the 2004 World Toilet Summit is being held next week in Beijing. Officials hope to ameliorate China's public toilet situation, especially in light of the Olympics in 2008.

While the subject matter was interesting, my brother sent it to me solely for the last line in the article:

"The last day of the summit falls on November 19, World Toilet Day, when organizers say they hope to focus worldwide attention on promoting toilet etiquette."

Ahem. November 19th is my birthday. My birthday is World Toilet Day.

I don't think I'll ever be able to enjoy the anniverary of my birth in the same way ever again. I also think that everyone who becomes aware of this will give me toilet themed gifts for the rest of my life.

So next Friday, if you sprinkle while you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat. And then wish me a happy birthday.

ps: I am very proud of the title I came up with for this post. I know I'm being self-indulgent, but I can't stop giggling. Hee hee!

library

Yesterday I went to the local library and got a library card. Since apparently Harvard doesn't consider Extension School students to be real Harvard students, I can't use the libraries on campus.

The Cambridge Public Library provided the necessary characters one would expect in such a venue. Random local people perusing the newspapers. Small women with sunglasses examining the titles in the Romance section. A little old lady librarian, who took about 30 minutes to type in my information to the computer before I could get a library card. My e-mail address has an underscore in it (you know, as in this_thing). I don't think she had ever seen an underscore before, and wasn't sure what to do with it. Instead, she decided to underline my entire name. I don't think I'll be getting my overdue notice e-mails. Oh well.

But I did find some books that I've been meaning to read, which was nice. No more buying books for a while. It's starting to get expensive and I don't really have the space. Plus, someone once told me that the more you use your local libraries, the more tax dollars they can get to buy books. I don't know if it's true, but hey, if I can be a good samaritan in addition to being cheap, that's cool.

While at the library, I peeked in on a day-care class that was going on. The little kids were singing the alphabet song and "Old Macdonald had a farm." It was too cute; I was embarassed to find myself swaying to their voices in the doorway. I'm going to have to buy me a kid one of these days.

I have my first MCAT class tonight. Last week we had our diagnostic exam, which thoroughly shook any remnants of self-confidence I had left out of my system. I know these test-prep companies do this on purpose, so that you feel like you've grown a second brain by the time you take the actual exam and perform profoundly better than you did on the obnoxious diagnostic. That being said, if I don't improve much, I should look into whether they are hiring at my local library. At least I can find the underscore key.

snowflakes

It snowed yesterday for about 10 minutes. I looked up as I was leaving class and couldn't believe it. The weather did not suggest snow, but there it was. The light flurries were beautiful - the type that you can see through the light cast by lamposts and that melts before it hits the ground.

As pretty as the scene was, it doesn't change that fact that these snowflakes are the harbinger of winter. Here comes Jack Frost. Luckily I have a new bright red down jacket to protect me from the cold. It looks like a huge comforter (or a sleeping bag as a friend told me). But I like it. And it's red! But I will tell you the best part about the coat ... are you ready? It was from Costco. That's right. That's why I love it so much. I bought it wholesale. And in bulk. I have 2o more at home. (I'm kidding, though now that I wrote it, I'm wondering why I didn't buy more, you know, in case I lose mine or something.)

Since winter is coming and I could potentially never leave my apartment, I decided to motivate myself to become more active. I joined a gym. This is a big deal. I'm the least athletic person I know. Changing the channel on the remote control is my idea of exercise. The last time I consistently worked out was in high school, when I was on the track team. Yes folks, it's true, I used to be on a sports team. Though track was really my only option. All the other sports had a pre-requisite of hand-eye coordination, which wasn't really happening on my part.

I ran spring track all four years. I used to run the half-mile. And do the high jump. Yes, that's correct. The high jump. 5 feet 2 inches tall and I used to do the high jump. How lucky was I that everyone else on my team sucked so bad at that event? It was the best ... during track practices I would say I had to work on the high jump. I would take one or two jumps while other people were running until their legs turned to putty. In between jumps, I would take mini-naps on the huge high-jump pit. Nobody ever picked up on it.

Let me preface for you that I am from Long Island. In the vicinity of my neighborhood, most girls are under 5' 5". The population has a high concentration of Jewish, South Asian and Asian families. So my participating in the high-jump wasn't too out of place. I didn't do too poorly in the local track meets either. Those two elements combined into a delusional notion that I was actually pretty good at this sport.

That was, of course, until I made it past the local qualifiers into the county meet. Where we competed against other schools that had more diverse student bodies. Where I hardly came up to the bellies of some of the girls I was competing against. Let's just say I didn't really participate in the high jump much after that.

What was I saying? Oh yes. Quite a long way to tell you that I joined a gym. I've been pretty regular about going too, which is as nice as it is surprising. Overall it's probably a good thing, given that my eating habits and sweet tooth have not improved whatsoever.

say it ain't so

I almost feel like it would be overkill to lament the horror of this election. So this will be brief.

What happened? Why did the American public re-elect this sorry excuse for a human, let alone a President? Why is the voting process so problematic? Why did people wait 10 hours in line to vote? Why should I feel proud to be an American?

Who are my fellow Americans? People who would rather pass judgement than make good judgement. People who fear gay marriage and partial birth abortion, rather than the looming economic crisis and their upcoming Social Security benefits.

Another election conceded. Two in a lifetime. When my kids read about the Bush presidency in their textbooks and ask me if I remember, will I say it's too painful to talk about?

So much more to learn, reflect upon and think about. I defer to my much wiser friends at the Three Guys blog.

paris je t'aime

My living situation in Cambridge is a bit odd. I found my apartment through Craigslist - mistake #1. Actually, the place itself is pretty nice and serves my needs. One room in a 3-bedroom; all I had to do was furnish my own room. Everything else was already there.

After I moved in, I started to pick up on the weird vibe in the apartment. There are two other women who live here: one is 26 and is pursuing a degree in drama. The other is in her thirties and I'm not totally sure what she does.

The background, I learned, is as follows. The older roommate has been living in this apartment for quite some time. She furnished the majority of it, and basically runs it like a boarding house. She likes it too much to leave, so looks for new roommmates whenever people move out. She doesn't own the apartment though - she just advertises for new roommates. All three tenants' names are on the list. Seems normal. But it's not.

First of all, Paris is the dominant theme in the apartment. I noticed it when I first saw the place, but didn't realize the extent of it until I arrived. It's really creepy. Every piece of artwork has to do with France (usually the Eiffel Tower). In the living room there are three paintings of the Eiffel Tower. Three picture frames with it. A pillow with a picture of the tower. And another pillow that says "My other house is in France." And la piece-de-resistance, an Eiffel Tower shaped lamp.

That's just the beginning. All the artwork in the hallways is in French. The sign on the bathroom door says "Salle de Bain." The guest room (a tiny space with a futon) has a huge map of France. The kitchen has tiles in French. The drinking glasses have pictures of France on them. The other day she left her room door open and I peeked in. Whoa! "I'd rather be in Paris" pillows decorated her bed. Bookshelf filled with books about Paris.

You would think this woman were French, correct? Alas, she is not. She's Southern. She is a francoholic. In addition, she is also incapable of having social interactions. She doesn't speak to me or the other woman at all. She only spends time in her room (she even eats in her room). She devises cleaning schedules for the apartment that are a little frighteningly detailed (snippets include: Mop floor with 1/2 Murphy's Oil and 1/2 Water. Clean countertop with Clorox wipes). The brand names are italicized. She also only communicates in post-it notes. Recently, I saw the vacuum in the pantry. There was an empty vacuum bag on top of it with a note saying "Please replace me. Thanks!" Wha-wha? Where the hell am I?

But frankly, none of this really affected my life or personal space, so I didn't really care. Recently, however, the other roommate has been getting frustrated about the living situation. Apparently she will be taking a semester abroad and wants to sublet her room, but the francoholic won't agree to it. So they've got some beef (or filet mignon, given that everything is now in French). Roommate #2 has started to act a bit passive-aggressively to make sure the other woman realizes that we all share this space. Her actions include draping a blanket over the couch and lighting candles all over the apartment (because her mother is a candlemaker. Don't ask. I don't make this stuff up.) So now I feel like I'm in a French Church. Just great.

It's amusing to watch. It's temporary housing and with it comes temporary weirdness. Doesn't really matter though. What does is that I have a midterm tonight.