otpid/web huggingface dataset:
Silly Site o' the Day    Last evening's muscle pull had stiffened up during the night, making it necessary to commute by express bus this morning, but everyone at work was very understanding and it was a pretty quiet day anyhow, so I worked through lunch and left early, as well as deciding to take tomorrow off to rest the leg and bum so I'll be okay for the trip to and from Mom's on Saturday.  Finally caught up with email, where I found  Rich Watson , a wonderfully twisted individual whom I'm proud to call my friend, recommending that I pass along word of a blog called  Cake Wrecks .  And so I have.
I’ve been back at the ancestral manse since about 1AM, following a pretty painless flight and drive with my brother, who picked me up. It’s been a nice quiet day, full of chores and playing with kids, until just now when copious amounts of relatives starting showing up. We shall soon leave them to their family dinner (just my mom, her nine brothers and sisters and their spouses).   It’s been nice so far. I get the sense, however, that four days of insanity are just about to begin.
Once upon a time, Jeff said, “Twitter? Is so stupid. That’s one fad I’ll never fall for.”   Fast forward like, a year. It’s Saturday morning, 7ish. It might just as well be Tuesday morning, as weekends and that thing called “sleeping late” no longer exist for us. We’re lying in bed, I’ve just finished feeding Oliver and Ethan is making “I’m awake now” noises in his room. I lean over to ensure that Jeff is awake before yelling at him to go get Ethan. And what do I see? He is lying on his side, iPod in hand,  twittering .
When I removed, temporarily, to the high desert last January; I was not quite clear of the duration of my stay here, but it was clear to me that I wanted to spend plenty of time writing, enjoying my grandkids, and doing as much music as possible.   I took a job working as a server across the street in order to stave off starvation and feed my car, but, it was not a job as a singing waiter, so I endeavored to connect myself with extracurricular music. I joined the Symphony Guild and went to a couple of concerts; sang with the local Messiah Choral Society, and visited and joined Sweet Adelines; thus committing to long rehearsals and learning a ton of new music. Then miraculously, I was offered a full time job teaching Core Knowledge music.   Umm.   Do you think I have enough music in my life?     I go to sleep with my brain swimming in baritone harmony to a number of barbershop / swing tunes.   I spend my days convincing eighth graders there is no business like show business; and fourth graders that my grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf. Third graders are sure now, that nobody is home, but that they will soon be able to keep on track and sing a tune while Ms. Teacher sings a round.   All in due time.   Seventh graders are amazed to learn that Ms. Teacher knows a tune – and the words- to the poem about a capital ship named Walloping Window Blind; which they learned last spring in sixth grade. Second grade has already begun the move west by workin’ on the railroad.   First grade is primed for this year’s world series by step, clap, clapping, in ¾ time while they beg, “take me out to the ballgame.” Fifth grade exhibits fine reading skills by mastering ALL the vocabulary to FIVE verses of Battle Hymn of the Republic and sixth grade, well, sixth graders have learned to communicate precisely how they feel about the early start of a new school year by singing Hallelujah or humming me a funeral march. School has been in session four days.   Do you think I am getting enough music in my life?   Do you think we will be a singing school?   You bet!
A**hole - The driver was tailgating me for more than 2 miles on the north bound 101, then he cuts me off. I have to get on the shoulder of the 101 so he could get by. It is not like I am not there for the last two miles following the same car on the left lane from Elliot Rd all the way to US60 on the 101. He was driving a white BMW 3-Series from the late 90s.
For the last few years, one of the birthday presents I've received from my parents has been cooking classes at the  Culinary Arts School of Ontario .  Though these classes are exactly that, one day (well, three hour) classes, the amount that I've learned has been very helpful in my day-to-day cooking exploits.  Knowing something as simple as the proper way to chop vegetables has both sped up my food prep time, and reduced (but not completely eliminated - that's another story) the number of nicks and cuts I inflict on myself with my brand-new, very sharp 7"  Santoku  knife I got for Christmas from my girlfriend.  It's very nice.  But I digress.  The last class I took was entitled 'Classic and Contemporary Sauces', and oh my god, did I ever end up with some good food at the end of that class.  The chef gave us a choice at the beginning of the class; he said,       "You will get to take home a little bit of everything we make today, so we can do this two ways:  either you guys can make the sauces yourselves, in which case we'll get about six done, OR you can watch me make sauces and help out, and we'll get about twelve done."   We took Option B.  Yes, I know, it's supposed to be a cooking class where we're the ones doing the cooking, but we all (10 of us) acted as sous-chefs and were more involved than we thought we were going to be.  The sauces we ended up with included (but were not limited to)  Hollandaise ,  Alfredo ,  Chocolate Ganache  (oh yes), Three-Pepper Veal Reduction, and  Pesto .  Ah, pesto.  It's simple, really.  All you need is fresh basil, salt, good olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.  Then blend everything until smooth.  How can you go wrong with a list of ingredients like that?  We got right into it, and ended up making a vat of pesto.  Seriously, it was a vat.  Everyone in the class went home with a huge plastic tub of pesto under their arm, including myself.  As far as I'm concerned, pesto goes with everything.  At least, I used it with everything.  Mmmmmm... pesto...  A few days after the class, I stopped in at the Grocery Palace on my way home from work, and they had some really nice-looking artisanal pizza bread for sale in the bakery section.  I immediately thought "Pesto Pizza!", and went about finding the rest of the ingredients that I thought would go well with the pesto sauce.      I settled on the following:  thick layer of Pesto Sauce Chicken legs, baked and shredded red onion, roughly chopped green olives with pimento, sliced more garlic cloves mozzerella cheese, shredded mediterranean cheddar with olives and sundried tomatoes, roughly torn fresh black pepper  I baked it at 400F for about ten minutes, until the cheese was bubbly and slightly browned.  Served with a nice bottle of white wine, that was a great meal.
VERONIKA SAYS:    I went to Hollywood to meet up w/Miss Lorelei to take some nudie pics of me. I showed up  wearing a Sailor Jerry hoodie w/a tiger on the back. I also brought a Sailor Jerry shirt for the shoot w/the same tiger on the back. And I am telling you this because??? When I am going through my clothes Lorelei points out the unplanned  tiger painting against the wall. Was this session simply meant to be? Oh yes...it most certainly was.
Marshalls is, for me, one of those guilty pleasure stores.  I wouldn't readily admit that I have shopped there, but I have. But it's my mother's fault (isn't is always?)  My mom loves Marshalls! She has a store close to where she lives, so every time I visit it's either "do you want to watch a movie?" or "do you want to go to Marshalls?"  I go with her because it's an easy mother and daughter activity, and I usually look at their kitchen and bedroom stuff. Sometimes at the handbags. Rarely at the clothes. Never at the shoes.  Well, the people at Marshalls wanted to change that and sent me a $200 gift certificate. So this time around it was  "Mom, we have to go to Marshalls!"  Considering I wanted to blog about my fashion finds on the blog, there was no point in looking at pots and pans, nor at duvet covers... and so I rolled-up my sleeves and hit those hundreds and hundreds of aisles looking for fashionable stuff but also for great deals. I mean, it's Marshalls, I shouldn't be paying more than $50 for anything in the store, right?  I was pleasantly surprised to find more things than I could fit in my certificate: pretty and colorful shirts, designer jeans, Ralph Lauren polo shirts and cotton sweaters... Coach bags!!! I didn't know you could find a Coach bag at Marshalls!  And it's not even a once in a while occurrence, in fact, since that first time I saw one, every time we go to Marshalls, it's a race to see who finds a Coach bag first, and there is always a winner!  But let me show you my favorite find:     A lingerie set by Miss Sixty.  I first noticed the top and immediately loved it because it was different than the usual stuff with prints and flowers.  It actually reminded me of something Dolce & Gabbana.  But I ended up putting it back because I like to have matching top and bottoms if I can.  Two aisles down, and without even looking for it, the bikini bottom jumped at me and I almost heard it go "ta da!"  I immediately took the bikini bottom, ran back where the top was and grabbed the top, and then continued shopping, with a new and satisfied smile on my face. I later picked a pair of shorts, a dress and two pillows (sorry, I just can't go to Marshalls and not buy something for the house).     While I am certainly thankful for the gift certificate, I am even more thankful for the opportunity to go and scout and find a treasure that I didn't think would be there.  Look! It sparkles!!!  :)
Just for the record, my marriage isn't in trouble.  Mark and I have always had communication issues, which you would figure after 12 years of living together, we'd finally figure out.  Not so much.  I know who he is and him me, but sometimes those issues that were cute little nothings in the beginning become so much more after the stress of mortgages, children, money and family problems come to pile on top of you while you lay there awake at night.    When I am feeling tender and broken, I write about it.  Somehow writing about something takes away it's power to cut so deep.  I can look back and see that emotion and know that  at that moment,  I could feel each of those hurts like tiny shards of glass dug into my skin... much like how I imagine it feels when you lay a motorcycle down in gravel.  And then I can examine what's happening with my emotions at that very moment and realize that it's all survivable.  I can realize that it did not fracture my soul when he hurt my feelings, even if that's what it felt like  in the moment .   On Monday, the girls and I were throwing imaginary pennies into the fountain at the market and Lily announced her wish, "I'm wishing for a mommy who is nice and has long, straight hair."  I felt my stomach drop out and the familiar emotion of being the last kid picked for dodge ball flooded over me, pushing me back to those days when my hair was short and frizzy and my knees always skinned.  I wanted to lash back at her and tell her I was wishing for a different kid, one who would like me, dammit.  Instead, I told her in a very quiet voice that she had hurt my feelings.  And then I took her hand and walked across the parking lot to the car, feeling the emptiness that comes with hurt.  Kids say what they feel in the moment, even if it's not always true or articulated to truly reflect what they mean.  For all I know, she didn't mean she wanted me to go away and was simply trying to add to the mommy count.  But this is where my emotions were still hovering when Mark and I had the stupid discussion that prompted  my last post .  Couple that with the extended-family issues we've been dealing with and I feel like I'm walking around raw.  Open.  Shredded.   I want to be in the moment with everything that's happening right now.  I need to feel it all and write it out and then know I can get through it with my psyche intact.  I need to know that this too shall pass.  I need to shut up and listen and trust that it'll all work out as intended.  I need to remember that not every moment is fraught with emotion, even if right now, at this moment, I can't help but take it all into my tired little heart.     In short, I need to stop trying to push the river.  No.  Instead, I think I'm going to just strip naked and jump in; hoping the rapids aren't too cold and won't leave me smashed against the rocks.  Because really, the ride? So freaking fun.  And I could use some reminding about that now and again.  Anyone want to jump in?  Swimsuits optional.
Feelin very nostalgic, having just finished a conversation with a guy I was friends with, when i lived in, I’ll call it K-Shore.  I remember him well, and remember things that have happened, or that we’ve done together, but apparently not everything.   First let me say, that it really saddens me, when someone refreshes my memory of all the good and fun things that have happened, that I can’t remember. It saddens me, because without that refresher, would I have ever been able to remember that certain moment on my own? Probably not. But then again, when someone does ignite or spark a trigger in me, that gets me to thinking and remembering, I get excited, and nostalgic. much like what’s happening right now.
It's amazing, rereading, how it takes you back in time. Providing intimate encounters, so unexpected, with the yous you used to be. For example, yesterday I opened my copy of  The Stone Angel  for the first time since I read it in my grade twelve English class. First, on the first page is written in my (still) best friend's hand: "I hate this book because I can't read it because I am illiterate," ascribed to me, which must have been funny once. (What  is  funny, of course, is that illiterate was spelled wrong.) And then how about the trigonometry on the inside cover?? At least I think it's trigonometry, and the most remarkable thing about it is that it's  my  handwriting! That once upon a time that gibberish meant anything at all to me, and I struggled over it, slaved over it, vandalized my very own paperbacks with it (and for naught, I think I see now considering I don't even know what it is. Though did anybody even pretend that trigonometry was going to be useful?). What a strange life I must have lived then, and no wonder I sort of missed the point of the book, and we'll just add this to the exponentially ever-growing list of reasons why I'm glad I get to be an adult now.
The next day we again hung out with Mom until HA called us from the airport rental car place. We picked her up and headed home. She had a good time visiting her relatives, and they are doing as well as can be expected--her nephew is very bipolar, and though he takes meds to control it, he lives on a farm without indoor plumbing or electricity (HA stayed in a motel) and has some strange habits, like not eating very much. HA worries about him, but he was doing o. k. Even though it wasn't really dinner time when we got to Columbia, the kids insisted we visit the Pasta Factory, where they had had such a nice lunch  before . It was really good. I had lobster ravioli in a gorgonzola alfredo sauce with asparagus, and a good white wine from my favorite part of New Zealand--Marlborough. Toyplayer had a to-die-for, melt in your mouth white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake. I am not usually a great fan of cheesecake because it is so rich, but this was very light textured. From the menu we learned that the building housing the restaurant used to be the college newspaper building, so Tennessee Williams probably spent some time there, which was interesting to Mall Diva. We also picked up some cowboy boots for Toyplayer at a truck stop, and before we knew it, we were dropping HA off so she could atone for leaving her cats, Hermione and Sugar, and soon afterwards we were making our own apologies to Venus and Dr. Weirsdo.    The End
Every so often, I check the site meter thing, and today, lo and behold, someone found my blog by doing a google search for " good things to use while teepeeing ."  Teepee?  No forks!  And if you could just leave a note, maybe, rather than wasting all those trees?  I've been leaving a sliding glass door open so guest dog can go out on the deck and lounge around; she seems to like that a lot.  The other day, I heard this weird noise, and somehow a barn swallow had come into the house and found it's way to the window in the sun room, a window with a seriously big screen that I can't just take off.  So I opened up pretty much every door I could and encouraged it to go back into the room with the two big open doors.  However, the ceiling in there is somewhat vaulted, and the bird kept aiming for up, hitting the vault, and then bouncing off, only to try again for up.  Worse, it was looking stressed, and couldn't really pick up speed to fly at a good barn swallow speed.  Finally, though, it got low enough that the open door looked good, and out it went.  A few feet out, it kicked into gear and zoomed off.  I hope it was okay after all.  Just a few minutes ago, I was petting the guest dog and found a HUGE, engorged tick on her ear.  I hate ticks.  I took it off; hope I got the whole thing, and flushed it.  And now, of course, every little thing is making me feel itchy and worry that I've got ticks.  Did I mention I hate ticks?  Yeah.  I used to have to detick my old dog pretty regularly, despite the anti-tick/flea once a month stuff.  At least that seemed to make the ticks not want to really dig in.  But yuck, I just hate ticks.  (This wasn't a deer tick, I don't think... it was bigger than a coffee bean, a LOT bigger.)  I feel like bathing with steel wool.  I ran into a friend in the department today (after I finished writing a couple letters of recommendation!  Bardiac 1 for the day, procrastination 0), and got invited to join up for a gelato tasting excursion.  Yum.  And then a couple of us went out to a drive in for dinner.  Also yum.  Did I mention I hate ticks?
Loser (driver) with Overprocessed hair ( passenger) Drivers on Elwood/Burr Road- LONG ISLAND - I was driving down Cuba Hill Road to pick up my son from playdate going the 30MPH as mandated. I was on the phone with my ear piece. The guy with his huge SUV was tailgaiting me and as soon as the light ( right before the elementary school on Cuba Hill Road)turned green he honked his horn (irradically). I was not going to be intimidated and continued driving, I had to slow down to 15MPH bc of the school zone. but then kept on driving at 30-35 on this residential area. I stopped at the light that crossed over Elwood Road to Burr Road. These are narrow streets. As soon as I crossed over, he went to my left side ( the other side of the narrow road) and zoomed in front of me. I didnt think anything of it, if he wanted to risk his life that was his problem..not mine. The the idiot proceeded to stop right in front of me for no reason at all. He was trying to intimidate me. I just stood there and honked my horn. Eventually he moved, but not before flipping me the bird.
Am I the only one who dreads opening the mail? it isn't because I expect bad news -- it is that I now expect something,  anything , to be fff'd up beyond redemption. Example:  Today's mail:   A bill from EZ-Pass for $25.35. EZPass did not pick up my signal from my EZPass device when going thru a toll machine for 35 cents. It looked up my driver's license and sent me a bill for 35 cents plus a $25 fee. I had to call to straighten it out. No, they could not just charge my account the thirty five cents, as the account was in a different state than the toll.(WTF???) So I have to write out a check for thirty five cents. They will waive the $25. The stamp will cost more than the enclosed check is made out for. This took about a half hour to fix. Now they will have to process my check. I wonder how much it will eventually cost them to collect thirty five cents?  But the ail reflects a larger problem. Today I placed the following emergency call to the local police department:  Me: Hello. I have just driven over the XXX Bridge, going South. In the Northbound lane, with much surrounding traffic is a 60 year old African American man in a motorized wheelchair. The chair is stopped. His hands are in his lap, and his head is hung down. I am not sure if he is conscious.  PD Dispatch: And what is the man wearing?  Me: Wearing?  I have no idea..pants, a shirt, shoes....  PD Dispatch : So you didn't pay attention to what he was wearing?  Me: Correct me if I am wrong here -- but in a largely white town of 30,000 people, there are probably not a lot of 60 year old African American men stalled in wheelchairs in the Northbound bridge lane. I'm guessing any one you find like that is going to be the guy I saw.  PD Dispatch: (Says they will dispatch a unit.)   Back to the mail:  The state I no longer live in has revoked my license (which I changed to a Mass. license in Feb) for not having my car insured in that state. (The car which has not been registered in that state since Feb.) I have written to them once about this. Now I will do so again.   Is it the moon? Is the combination of a failing school system and too much automation making the SNAFUs more frequent?  I now divide my mail into three piles:  PAY THIS SAVE THIS CRAP I HAVE TO FIX
I think something must be terribly wrong with me. October where are youuuu?? I know after October, things would be better for me. I KNOW IT!!  Anyway..  Few days ago I almost got knocked down by a bike. If I was slightly fatter, my ass would've been gone. As usual my Boo will fetch me from Kelana Jaya LRT station, across the bridge, infront of 7-11 where most cars stop to pick people up, a motorcycle was behind my Boo's car when he arrived. The rider of the bike was probably having a nice time checking out girls, thus having his head looking SIDEWAYS, and not noticing that my Boo has stopped his car. By the time he realized, he couldn't break on time. I was at the door, ready to open, when I heard his screeching breaks, and he swerved towards MY direction, and I had to squeeze myself to the DIRTY car to let the stupid bike pass behind. Phewf. Thank god my ass is safe! It pays to have small ass ok!  Yesterday while walking to the LRT station, I walked across the open space parking outside, and as usual, there were a bunch of indian men selling car polish and wax crap. I walked pass as usual, on the phone with my Boo, while being FULLY ALERT, I saw one indian guy trying to approach a guy who was going into his car, but he probably saw me as a better target, so he switch to follow me instead. FOLLOW BEHIND ME LEH! I felt someone behind, so I turned around and looked, and indeed he was following (not very closely lah), and so I said loudly to my Boo some fucker was following me, and the next time I turned around, he was gone. WTF!  Sigh..I'm a paranoid woman!