Tåß has a HUMAN FACE

Not your average bear…a Boylan-supplying fountain of love...

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:04:03 -0500

Not your average bear…a Boylan-supplying fountain of love at Pete’s New Haven Pizza, Columbia Heights, DC

A dinner of churros, soft serve with burnt caramel praline and a...

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:58:05 -0500

A dinner of churros, soft serve with burnt caramel praline and a tart from Rick “the Earnest” Bayless’s stew restaurant Caldo in Chicago.

Staying in hotel in the city where I have an apartment. Look at...

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:39:04 -0500

Staying in hotel in the city where I have an apartment. Look at this soap doughnut found in my room?! Will they sell me the soap holes now?

Macintosh apple (the eating kind!), mah beloved watch watch, CDG...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:38:00 -0600

Macintosh apple (the eating kind!), mah beloved watch watch, CDG wallet, my favorite badge that travels with me (no MFI = no Uncle Milty Institutee.) Priority Mail label stickers. Journal article. My new calendrical system that is no longer digital but paper-based is enabled by a Moleskin 18 month organizer. (Also, I have renamed the months after my childhood pets and the 20th of Pee-Wee is now the “Day of Total Omnipotence,”)

My deep and abiding love for Postal Service Priority Mail sticker labels (and the compulsion to own stacks and stacks of them) will have them waiting for me at the Lake Park branch door, shackles in hand, and a Spaniard holding a 99 year lease to privatize, necessitated by a 6 billion dollar operating deficit exaggerated by all sorts of missing labels, in the other. (Well, technically, the labels are free. And I spend $400 in Priority Mail postage costs a month…ok, ok. I’ll just say it plain, don’t kill me when it happens.)

On the other hand, McKinsey Madrid is gonna make the post cards I send to you from Upstate Maximum Security Prison arrive wrapped in “paper” made of Jamón Jabugo de Cinco Jotas.

And they’ll have their first new jobs upstate since the Erie was turned exclusively into a very long rubber tubing summertime-fun activity.

I am proud of this one: I rolled out and cut by hand spinach...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:44:08 -0600

I am proud of this one: I rolled out and cut by hand spinach spaghettini! It is dressed simply, in olive oil, garlic and parmesan.

On the side, I made a sour red lentil and spinach soup with onions. It’s spiced in a South Asian direction — heavy on the mustard seeds, cumin and tumeric. We had a lot of fresh spinach to get rid of.

Jer’s Armenian meatloaf (pork and beef, cloves and nutmeg,...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:42:09 -0600

Jer’s Armenian meatloaf (pork and beef, cloves and nutmeg, rice and spinach), roasted beets in a mint/herb dressing, odds and ends of cheeses discovered in our refrigerator (Gruyere, Clochet, a Spanish Zamorano). Roasted squash soup w/ marjoram and thyme.

Not pictured is a MacBook. We don’t eat dinner in front of the television, but we do listen to the Savage Love Podcast at the dinner table (and exchange arch commentary between bites of salad.)

Apologies for the not-being-around business. My dissertation is...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:37:34 -0600

Apologies for the not-being-around business. My dissertation is interesting to me these days, and a main project is gaining some of the weight I lost over the last year — the result of my illness du global south.

On my doctor’s orders, I am drinking, in bulk, a not-so-delicious shake called “Ensure”* and supplementing with meals. Cases of Ensure are not only heavy (how do the oldsters get these mineral laden liquid bricks home I wonder?), but a bottle is nearly equivalent in price to two pieces of Popeye’s chicken (or one third a piece of nigiri), either of which I would rather be eating.

Here are photos of the meals I’m taking to supplement my Ensure.

Above: last Friday we made Mexican tortilla soup, made with dried pasilla and guajillo peppers, roasted tomatoes and our own chicken stock.

Garnished with roasted ancho chiles, avocado, Salvadorean-style tortillas, and crumbled guajillo peppers.

*a bit ominous, this name, no? Ensure what? That I don’t die?

PLEASE HAVE A LOOK AT THIS DELIGHTFUL SLOW LORIS.

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:24:47 -0500

PLEASE HAVE A LOOK AT THIS DELIGHTFUL SLOW LORIS.

When the cat’s away, the mouse will eat three cupcakes in...

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:21:47 -0500

When the cat’s away, the mouse will eat three cupcakes in lieu of dinner. Chicks.

In Bloomingdale/LeDroit Park, our new hood. I’ve got to...

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:24:50 -0500

In Bloomingdale/LeDroit Park, our new hood.

I’ve got to come up with a “tag” soon. Gotta lay claim to some territory.

How curious. It is only by coincidence that my loving nickname...

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:17:00 -0500

How curious. It is only by coincidence that my loving nickname for Jer, “Old Man Eloquent,” is shared by John Q. Adams.

The succulents are trying to make their way, too.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:54:39 -0500

The succulents are trying to make their way, too.

DC Garden Early Days Sept 2009

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:53:35 -0500

DC Garden Early Days Sept 2009

yessssss.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:49:00 -0500

I have finally reached a tumblr rating of one (1). Honestly, it was not a surprise. I’d not been feeling particularly sanguine about my chances of hitting the zeniths I glanced last May after I posted this picture of a sandwich I once consumed lovingly and with some regularity when I lived in Miraflores, LIma.

Last week, I went to a conference in New Orleans — my first trip there since my freshman year in college when a friend and I walked into town with $30 between the two of us and asked for the cheapest, trashiest rooming house in town. (This is a typical strategy of a budget -minded - and bright, don’t forget terribly bright! college student, no?)

It was after this conference last year that it became apparent that I was very, very ill. After most of January spent eating hospital food* in an air-tight, isolation ward (in the same wing that Mircea Eliade died, no less), I left the hospital as the sun was setting and waited in my wheelchair for a cab to plow through the ice to take me home.

In between deathly sickness in November 2008 - October 2009, I managed to move me and the old lady to DC.

I just erased all the images I took of a barbershop on Pulaski Rd (in Chicago) that *still* specializes in designing graphics for fades. I am in the right place, evidently.

Had my second Birria meal of the week. I can not say enough good things about Birria Zaragoza on 48th and Pulaski. It gets better as you learn how to ask to tailor the bowl/plate exactly to your tastes. They frequently send you home with leftovers — this time with fresh tortillas and consommé.

I asked for birria bien surtido in a bowl rather than a plate, since I prefer more broth and more fat vs less of either. It was utterly sublime.

I am now eating quesedillias made with their tortillas — hecho por mano por supuesto, queso fresco and their salsa molcajate — and looking at pictures of birria on the ‘net. Earlier at the restaurant, they even gave us bowl of what they, the Zaragoza family, were eating for lunch: camarones diavolas. And the recipe.

(I wonder is Norma is recruiting orphans to learn her trade, or if such secrets must remain with the Zaragoza family and others with whom the family have deep, established friendships and ties.)

Afterward, James and I went to a hipster-y coffee shop in the loop while we waited for an Iranian film showing at the Gene Siskel to start.

Now, I am home, reading my new copy of Max Weber’s Economy and Society and going through a stack of old New Yorkers for fun. Do things get better than this? Nah.

*an actual image of an actual meal consumed.

our front porch in DC.

Wednesday…much has been happening. More later.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:55:39 -0500

Wednesday…much has been happening. More later.

DC thus far.

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:20:41 -0500

DC thus far.

before leaving

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:46:14 -0500

before leaving

My move has left me utterly akimbo. But here is a photo of my...

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:27:01 -0500

My move has left me utterly akimbo.

But here is a photo of my cat, Keiko.

This is the view from my bedroom. Ahead is the Museum of Science...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:14:42 -0500

This is the view from my bedroom. Ahead is the Museum of Science and Industry, whose structure was built as part of the White City for the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

I put my things on a truck yesterday, including my mattress but...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:07:00 -0500

I put my things on a truck yesterday, including my mattress but not my bed, which I am keeping in Chicago. So I put my twin mattress that usually resides in my office on my queen size bed frame.