Shot Through The Heart and You're To Blame...

"You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi got stuck in my head when I went to the shooting range on Saturday.

Maybe that is why I kept aiming at the upper left part of the target's chest, and not straight in the middle?  I swear I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular!

The one thing that I confirmed, in my mind, is that guns and gun ranges are a man's world. Whenever a man walked into a nail salon to get a manicure or pedicure, all the women would look at him suspiciously, as in "What are you doing here?  This is our turf!" At the gun range, I felt like I walked into a giant man cave outfitted with the latest weaponry.  But you know what, I really liked it!  Women shouldn't be so passive and learn to kick ass, literally, by using the most modern tools at our disposal.  I think that it would help check man's natural over-aggression and contribute to a more peaceful world.

Sights in Seattle

It is a cliche to write about weather in Seattle.  But it leaves the strongest and most permanent impression on a visitor.  Coming from dry and warm Northern California, the cold, rain, mist, fog and humidity that greeted us when we got out of the airport was very overpowering.  We initially only brought two umbrellas for three people, expecting that two of us could easily share one.  But because the downpour on Friday was unceasing, the experiment of two people shuffling under one umbrella in the pouring rain proved to be quite cumbersome.  We quickly found a Target and procured a third umbrella.  It seems trivial, but once we had the right equipment, we could stroll the streets and enjoy the city with a bit more comfort.

I think that arriving to a place that is so much wetter and more humid than home made my senses much stronger.  When I was walking around the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum, I read that Dale Chihuly, the artist that revolutionized glass blowing and made his home in the Pacific Northwest, noted that colors appear much brighter against a grey background, and indeed, there were colors everywhere.  The city was covered in flowers  that stood out so much more because the rainy environment. 

I really don't have too much to say about the Chihuly exhibit.  The art speaks for itself.  It was a great to have so much of it in one place and it was curated amazingly.  The visual of the Space Needle in the rain juxtaposed with the bright orange glass installation was incredible.

There was a ton of really awesome public art.  In Capital Hill, an artsy neighborhood we visited on our last day, there were really creative murals painted on a wooden fence erected temporarily around a construction site.

 Mom, looking cool in her moto-boots, in front of her favorite painting.

Another great aspect of the Seattle trip was the cuisine.  The seafood was very fresh, obviously.  The salmon, halibut, and clam chowder were very tasty.

 On display at Pike Place Market

We also had some local upscale cuisine. I didn't take any pictures of the doughnut holes at Dahlia's -they disappeared too quickly.  But I did manage to photograph my brunch plate.  I wanted to rearrange the potatoes and sausages on my plate to make a funny photo (wink wink), but I restrained myself in a high-class environment.

Where have I been?

I am surprised that I am sitting down and writing a blog.  In the past month, I wrote an 8,000 word, 33 page Master's thesis.  It was a long process, all consuming, somehow more boring than stressful.  I wrote about what I knew best; my work at the VA for the past six years.  God-six years! 

The point is...I passed!!! I got my final grades (not sure if the graduate adviser actually read the damned thing...), which means I am done with graduate school!  The kicker was when I changed my official Outlook email signature block:  Simona Stolpner, MS-HCA.  How rich!

Those who know me well know what a long and arduous process obtaining my graduate degree had been.  It wasn't the school work itself that was challenging, but me having to deal with some pretty hard personal problems.  This isn't the place to go into a long heart-felt confession, nor is it something I like to do, but I guess the one thing I learned is that you should not give up. 

For a long time, I thought that saying "Never give up on your dreams and goals" was just a cheesy platitude people said to fill a space with "good vibrations."  However, when I encountered the biggest and the hardest challenges in life, I learned that having a goal and slowly, slowly moving forward toward it makes all the difference. 

What helped me get through it was something that my grandmother had always said.  I am not sure how to translate it from Russian, something like "grab and hold on to patience."  I know that in English, we say "be patient" but somehow, "holding on" to patience really underscores the action of waiting, especially when in this day and age, instant gratification and easy success seem like the most important values.  I learned how to get through the boring stuff, and just...wait.  That was hard.

Another thing that helped pass the time is pretty pictures of flowers.  Here are some more lovelies.  Thanks Instagram for helping people without art skills like me feel creative :)

Yes, this post is about a restaurant bathroom.

When we were in Santa Barbara, Naomi and I went to the Palace Grill, a popular Cajun Restaurant downtown.  The food was so-so, but the trip was worth it because the bathroom was awesome.

All along the perimeter of the wall, a row of tiles were decorated with cartoons of naked people doing all sorts of funny things.

 

 

I have an immature sense of humor, so I find it absolutely hilarious.  Who ever came up with these caricatures is genius.

Back to School

One of the most unique aspects of my life is that my only sibling is more than a dozen years younger than me.  For most of my early life, I was an only child.  And then, during the beginning of my adolescence, I got a new member of the family, who I treated as a pet of sorts.  I remember during my senior year of high-school, my friend and I used the then 4-year-old Naomi as a study subject for an AP Psychology class.  We followed her around pre-school to record her interactions with other children and made her do tasks to track stages of development. 

Now Naomi is a high-school senior and her college application and admission process is a family affair.  I offered to take Naomi on a visit to UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.  She needed to see the schools and I needed a vacation. 

We did a four day road trip.  The first stop was Santa Barbara.  We went on an obligatory tour around campus with very good guides. 

Reading about UCSB on the sunny campus

Chickens, Sheep and Cows

For once, I am not planning on writing about farm animals we have been eating.  In fact, my trip to Hidden Villa, a nature preserve with a working farm on-site in Los Altos Hills, was a welcome change to my all-too-static routine.  It is amazing how something so simple as interacting with cute baby animals can quickly improve morale.  It simply made me happy.  I think I was more excited to see the baby animals than some of the children who were also at the farm.

First, there were the pigs-I think there were at least seven.  They were in a pen that was a bit far away, but I did manage to get a few cute photos, of every angle.  The rumors are true-all pigs do is eat.  I tried very hard not to think of the piggies as bacon!

Happy Bir-ZZZ-day, Papa!

It is a cliche to say that we love to celebrate happy occasions with food.  However, it is a sign of how well you know somebody when you are able to pick a restaurant that suites their tastes and personality perfectly.  When it came time to celebrate Dad's birthday, I knew that we couldn't go wrong with a restaurant that served meat, lots and lots of red, juicy meat. 

Books, TV, and Shopping

Oh dearest Blog, I feel like I have abandoned you!  And it didn't take long either-I just started blogging in January.  I will try to be better.

I have been going into winter hibernation/introversion mode lately.  I have been doing a lot of reading, watching TV and movies, and shopping.  There is nothing wrong with that-I  enjoy these activities-but I will be doing more social things in the next month, so there will be more fun things to document.

But for the sake of trying to write about "mi vida loca",  I will quickly run through some of my favorite reading, watching and sartorial finds from the past month.

Books

I absolutely love historical fiction, especially material that is set in the early 20th century.  A few months ago, I picked up Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.  I just saw the cover and was hooked right away.

How chic and decadent does the woman look?  The book is about a young woman trying to make it in Depression-era New York, and let's just say that I read for 24 hours straight, and even missed a party so that I didn't have to interrupt my reading.

Suspended

The last couple weeks have been somewhat slow and unproductive.  Work has been really slow; I end up sitting for hours with basically nothing to do, and this feeling of "doing nothing" has definitely filtered into my entire day.  I haven't updated the blog, even though I have been doing fun things, and I have not been as good about working out, either.  I did, however, finally finish the formal project plan for my Master's thesis/work-based project, which is great! Now, I have about seven weeks to complete the project, and I will officially be done with graduate school! Yay!

I have been trying to get outside more now that the cold weather has lifted a bit.  On Martin Luther King Jr Day, Mom, Bambi and I finally got to go to Pacifica.  It is truly one of my favorite Bay Area outdoor activities.  We go when we are stressed, happy, depressed, or need to recharge in any way. 

That particular Monday was so sunny (Pacifica tends to be windy) and absolutely gorgeous.  There were huge waves coming in as well, and tons of people enjoying the weather and the unusual swells.

Warm Day in San Francisco

One of the best consequences of trying to blog is forcing yourself to look around and capture interesting and unusual things that you see throughout your life that are fleeting and often forgotten.

Yesterday, when I went to San Francisco with a few friends, I ended up taking a few photos of some of these unusual things, which I don't usually see in my suburban surrounds. It was the first warm day after weeks of bitter cold, so there were tons of happy people in the streets!

First stop was the Contemporary Jewish Museum, which has an uber-modern addition that was built fairly recently-and as my friend commented-looks like a space-ship. 

From the inside, the structure opens into a huge room, where the windows turn into beautiful sky lights.

I'm fed up!

My computer at work is a useless piece of junk.  We are still using Internet Explorer 7, which so out-of-date that many web-sites don't function on it.  However, since internal VA sites only work on IE, we are forced to use it.  Already today, it crashed twice while I have been trying to do some work.  My head is about to explode!

To top it all off, my Google search isn't working.  I called our IT help desk, and I haven't received any help.  This is such a Dilbert moment.  I would put in a cartoon, but my Google isn't working.  What an irony!

I suppose that the only sane thing to do is to realize that working for the government means that I will not get the most advanced technology on the market.  After all, I work in a building that used to be a nursing home and was built when Lyndon Johnson was President.  You can also find random treasures like old 1960s cafeteria that hasn't been used in twenty years but hasn't been remodeled due to lack of funds.

Honey, you baked!

Whenever I bake, I always think about the scene in Clueless when Cher is getting ready for her date with Christian and tries to bake some cookies for him.  She takes a roll of store-bought cookie dough, rolls it onto a baking pan, and sticks it in the oven.  However, she forgets to take it out and causes a minor fire.

Anyway, that is neither here nor there. 

I decided that I was going play Sally Homemaker and make dinner.  Since starting school, I almost never cook, and mooch off my parents for almost all of my home-made food.  Yesterday, I made chili, which is something we never make at home, since it doesn't really fall into the Russian food category.  It was really yummy-lots of turkey meat, beans, and tomatoey sauce.  I served it with sliced avocado, chives, cilantro, sour cream and shredded cheese.  My family approved.  My dad even took some to grandma's house, and she really enjoyed it.  It's a chili miracle!

For dessert, I made a "chocolate chip cookie pie" which is basically a giant chocolate chip cookie/pazooki. 

When I posted the pic on Facebook, I think people assumed that I did something very fancy, when in fact it was super easy.  I googled a recipe for a "Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie"-this is the link on AllRecipes.com.  Naomi mixed up the cookie dough, and instead of spreading it thinly on a pizza pan like the recipe says, we shoved the dough into a pie tin.

Two really important things to remember:  cook the pie for about 30 minutes longer than the recipe suggests, since the middle is really thick; and cover the pie with tin-foil so that the crust doesn't burn while the middle bakes through. 

We ate it"a la mode" with vanilla bean ice-cream.  It turned out to be a super rich, decadent dessert.  The only down-side is that I ended up falling into a major food coma, and instead of going out with my friends, I ended up vegging on the couch and watching Russian TV with my mother.

Comings and Goings

My mom complained that I haven't posted anything on this blog in a while (isn't it great that my mom is the #1 and only fan of this here bloggy).  When I told her that I have nothing to write about-my life consists of going to work, going home in the dark, driving to my parents to eat dinner, and driving to school, now that the quarter has started.  I jokingly said that I can write about the muddy parking lot I am forced to use when I go to work, and my mom actually thought it was a good idea. 

First, let me begin by saying that nobody's job is perfect.  I do not hate working where I work.  I simply think that there are some idiosyncrasies in working for the federal government that may not exist in the private sector, especially the "flush-with-cash" Silicon Valley private sector-aka Facebook, Google, etc.

First, I work on a medical campus, which is going through a lot of construction.  One problem is that there is not enough parking.  So the "Powers that be" decided to open up one of the grass "pastures" and turn it into a "temporary" parking lot.  This "temporary" parking lot has been open for at least three years.  During the summer, the heat hardens the dirt/mulch/saw-dust mixture, so it is habitable.

However, since this winter has been particularly rainy, the parking lot entrance has turned into a mud-pit, similar to the kind of surface dirt bikers or monster truck drivers particularly enjoy.

 Here is a photo of one of these grass lots.  My poor little Mazda is on the left.  

Every morning and evening, I go off-roading in the mud.  So maybe my days aren't that boring after all.

Photos of Flowers

During the last several day, I have been thinking about what my next blog post should be.  I don't want this to be simply a diary of special events, travel, or parties.  At the same time, I don't want to spill my deepest and darkest secrets (this is a public forum, after all).

Since I don't really know if anyone reads this, or really cares...I almost imagine this being an online vault where I can deposit something I would like to remember.  Things move so fast, and my memory is getting worse and worse by the second, so I need a little help cataloging things I do, think about and feel throughout life.

And, since my life is not especially exciting at the moment...I always say that you can do work & social life, or school &social life, but work & school & social life does not really work...I will write about little moments or thoughts that inspire me, lessons I have learned, impressions that I gather, and so on.

With that, let's proceed.

This post will be about how I like to take photos of flowers on my phone.  Photos of flowers look especially beautiful and unique with some snazzy Instagram effects.

Roses look amazing!

This is a photo of a dahlia I took this summer.  It grew in a planter box at Stanford Shopping Center.  I can't believe that something so perfect is real!

These are a few of my favorite things...

Well, it's 2013!!!!!  I am excited for the new year, although it is impossible to predict what will happen in the next 12 months.  I know that there will be two graduations-Naomi's and mine-but besides that, the year is a blank slate. 

My three resolutions this year are:

1) Go to bed before 11pm on work-nights.  My sleep schedule is so funky and unpredictable, and everyone knows that if you don't get good sleep, your heath and mood suffer, blah blah blah.

2) Be more positive.  I will strive to notice and comment on more positive things in life, to compliment people more, to gossip less, smile more, and be less sarcastic/sardonic/caustic. 

3) Have more fun.  School is almost over!  Time to hang out with fun people :)

The Czechs have a saying- "jak na novy rok, tak po cely rok (Like the New Year, like the Next Year.)"  Meaning-the way you spent new year is the way you will spend the rest of the year.  I think I have a good chance of having a good 2013-Novey God was great!

These lovely people visited!

We celebrated Mom's birthday!

We had a lovely table setting!

We had amazing food-including lamb chops...

that we all enjoyed!

I got to wear my new hot pink blazer, even though Naomi said I looked like Blanche from the Golden Girls :)

The only one that had a rough go was Bambi.  I scared her when I popped some small fire-works.  She had an anxiety attack, peed on Mom's bed, trembled all night, and looked for Naomi obsessively.  We finally gave her some roofies (tranquilizers from the vet) and she calmed down after several hours and passed out.  Poor thing-I'm sorry Bambi!

 

Well, here's to a great 2013!  Happy...Happy...Happy...Happy...