A haircut

The Chinese New Year was on Thursday, Feb. 3. Chinese believes getting a haircut before Chinese New Year brings good luck for the rest of the year. Something along the line of getting rid of the old and welcoming the new. This year, getting a good haircut is not easy as it used to be, ever since my hair dresser moved back home to Ventura County.

Having a good hair cut, like having a good massage or facial, is a very personal business. I have learn not to choose a new beautician lightly, or I would end up being upset for a long time. So I did plenty of research before calling for any appointment, and once I picked a beautician that I like, I wouldn't let go unless he/she let me go.

The weekend before Chinese New Year, I was so desperate that I called all the hair-dressers close to home, to see who could give me a haircut on Sunday. Most of the spa/salons nowadays don't have any receptionist and the professionals are independent contractors to the salons. This is either something to do with the economy, or it is just a new way people do business now, I am not sure. So instead of calling the salon to make an appointment, you have to call the hair-dressers' phone number, leave them messages indicating your need and the time you want, then wait for them to call you back.

I did that on Saturday when I was waiting in the theater to watch The King's Speech, which turned out to be an absolute delight. I must have called 5 different ladies. A couple of them called back saying they didn't work on Sundays and suggested someone else or suggested a time during the week. I reluctantly made an appointment for Wednesday, which would be New Years Eve just in case.

Sunday was absolutely miserable with rainy weather, so we stayed home instead of taking the dogs out for their runs. Around 3 PM, after I finished all of my house chores, I bit the bullet and called a salon in Half Moon Bay downtown to see if anyone was working there. I was pleasantly surprised that I got an appointment for 5 PM with the owner of the salon. I was excited.

I had a good hair cut, but I am not sure if I would go back to her. The salon was nice, and I was offered tea when I got in. The people there were way too chatty. There were totally 3 hair dressers working at the time, and they were having so much fun making 'smart' remarks about people. The other two stylists seemed to kiss up to the salon owner a lot, and the owner surely enjoyed the attention. After all, she did own two upscale salons around the neighborhood. As for me, I am just happy that nobody messed up my hair.

The search for my stylist shall continue.

The magical ice

During my snowboarding trip to Lake Tahoe over the MLK holiday weekend, I jammed my thumb twice, and was saved by ice!

The first time was on Saturday. When I pushed myself off the lift chair, somehow my left thumb got caught on the edge of the chair and it hurt! It was the beginning of the day and I was already injured. It wasn't fun, because the rest of the day I fell many times on my arms or my butt, and I needed to be careful not to hurt my thumb any more.

It was definitely a workout. Since I haven't gone snowboarding for two years, I started to realize what I "missed". In this regard, I much prefer kiteboarding, as in kiting, I fall into water. Not that kiteboarding didn't have its moments.

That day when we got back to our hotel, both of us were so exhausted we didn't want to move a muscle. Jack told me I should ice my thumb to see if it helped. I was like: "Do I really have to?"

"For all I know, you might have broken your thumb." The scare tactic works on me every time.

Reluctantly I dragged my aching body out of bed and went to get ice from the ice maker on the other end of the building. I put some ice in a towel, and wrapped it around my left thumb.

"How long does it take?" I asked.

"Until your hand freezes." Jack said.

"Oh bugger. My hand is already freezing after 1 minute." I grumbled.

"Then hold it for 7 minutes and rest, then do it again."

It actually worked!! I was totally amazed how this simple, annoying treatment worked like magic.

The second day we went back to the mountain. Toward the end of our day when we got off the last chair lift to go back to the gondola, I fell on my left thumb again, ouch! I boarded down the mild slope and got out of my snowboard. This time I just picked up some snow and put it around my twice injured thumb. One the way down the mountain, I was relieved to feel that I survive this snowboarding trip, and I very much enjoyed the view of Lake Tahoe from the gondola.

The next morning we got up early to pack for home. Jack slipped on the ice by the car and he screamed. He hit his shine on the car while balancing himself on it. We got back to the room, and put some ice on his shine for 10 minutes.

In fact, everyone should always remember the rule of thumb for treating muscle injuries: ice within 48 hours and heat therapy thereafter.

Yogurt is the new rice

Yogurt just beat rice to become my new number one comfort food, at least for now. For a southern Chinese girl, that means a lot. It is our habit to eat rice in every meal, and it is a part of our lives.

Recently I started to have frequent upset stomach. No matter what I ate - home-made or otherwise - my stomach would be unsettled afterwards especially after lunches. Other than that my health was fine: I kept exercising, had normal sleep, and no other abnormal problems.

I pondered about it for a while, read some books about healthy-whole food diet, but couldn't find any answers there. I even thought about seeing medical help.

Last weekend we went shop at the local Indian market. I looked at the pint size plain yogurt in the refrigerator and wondered if that would help to calm my stomach. Well, yogurt is basic, so it can't be any harm. So I bought a pine of plain yogurt and just to try it out.

I never really like yogurts, because most of them were too sweet. The plain yogurt wasn't very bad. I ate 3-5 table spoons of plain yogurt everyday for the last few days, and amazingly, my stomach was fine ever since! I could even eat at restaurants and no problem. It worked like magic.

Indian buffets always include some kind of yogurt side dishes, and as a habit, my Indian friends always eat it to to accompany their food. Now I know the reason for it and I will eat yogurt everyday religiously.

There is a reason why people say yogurt is a super food.

Guru

Ask me what Jack has been up to last month.

He has been setting up a home media server. He used PLEX as the media server software running on a Mac Mini, Drobo as a data storage (a fancy disk drive), a new A/V receiver to connect these pieces together along with our TV set, DVD player and speakers. In addition there are totally 3 Ethernet hubs having physical connections to various hardware, and 5 2 terra-byte internal hard drives to the Drobo. He went under the house a couple of times to drill holes into the bedrooms, office and living room to hard wire the ethernet cables to the equipments.

After the hardwares and software were setup, he loaded movies to the hard drive - we have over 400 DVDs, and he was done with half. He has been troubleshooting the quality of the streamed movies, so he went online to join the PLEX user's forum. He had so many problems streaming movies onto the TV. First the video was OK, but the audio didn't come up, then both the video and audio were normal, but they were out of sync. Then the video quality had to be improved. Those were the most frustrating problems, so he often said he had to consult the "Gurus".

Up to last Monday, he posted 15 questions and (self) answers to the forum. So on Monday morning when we were having our coffee, he proudly announced that he was promoted from a "Newbie" to a "Member" on the forum.

"You mean they label your seniority on your posts?" I asked. I think it sounded very much like geeks would do.

"Yes." He explained that after "members", there were "dedicated members", and "developers" and then the "Gurus".

A compliment

Jack gave me the best compliment on Monday night when we drove to the gym. He said, "one of the most attractive things about living in the Bay Area is there are so many different good restaurants where we can go for good food. Now that your cooking is so good, it is not much of a concern anymore, because you can always cook good food anywhere you go."

The Blog Name

I have to change the name of my blog "My state of chaos", or at least qualify it, as my life is not at all chaos comparing to what is happening at work, in the city, state, and the country in which I live, or the rest of this world. I can only compare my state with myself, or with the state I prefer to be in, which is such a smaller scale comparatively.

I'd like to keep the peace within myself, and cherish what I have at this moment.

What is a satisfying life?

I felt that I wrote about food and eating too much, so I must add a new non-food related posting on the top of my blog. This is just a rhetorical question.

Emotionally and intellectually fulfilled

Around good friends and lover

Eating and entertaining well

Continue to explore the unknown

Grow emotionally

Maintain good health and a flexible, pain-free body

Be productive and creative