Veteran's Day & Interesting Times

Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2003 - 6:16 a.m.

Today is Veterans' Day. None of this nearest Monday nonsense; the powers that be already did that to Memorial Day, which used to be May 30th. No, the observations related to November 11th are probably never going to be moved.

My father served in the United States Marine Corps from 1952-1957. Technically, as with every serviceperson who is enlisted at that time, he was considered a veteran of the Korean Conflict, even though he was never sent to the front.

He spent his entire hitch stationed in southern California. But he used to say that he was always so proud of the fact that during his time in the Marines, the enemy never advanced any further than Escondido. :)

Happy Veteran's Day. And if you have served, I humbly thank you.

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Yesterday morning, an extremely stupid and extremely annoying cooking question popped into my head, and so naturally, the person I turned to in search of the answer was P@ul Schu!tz.

He'd had one of those interesting weekends, as in the pronouncement May you live in Interesting Times *, so he was more than a little preoccupied with some things -- but he answered on the second ring and when he was greeted with the question "Hey! What's the difference between a dough and a batter?" he said "What?" as if to not believe what he was hearing -- but then he proceeded to explain the difference.

The evening before, John had purchased a can of mixed nuts consisting of only two different kinds -- macadamia and cashew -- and when he doled some out to me, I saved my portion and decided to throw them into the next batch of chocolate chip cookie dough. But cashews and macadamia nuts are extremely different; cashews are soft and become rubbery when they're cooked or baked with, but macadamia nuts retain their consistency. When I asked Paul which I could put into the cookies, he told me to stick with macadamias.

I had a wonderful visit yesterday afternoon on the telephone with JJ. We're probably going to go knock around Pier 39, sortakinda, in a week or so, and see the pinnipeds and the tourist traps. I haven't been anywhere near Pier 39 since I moved here, and I couldn't tell you how to get to Coit Tower if my life depended on it. But I am looking forward to doing something with her in the not too distant future.:)

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Last night, I webcammed with Todd Thalimer. It was supposed to be a mutual viewing session, but his camera got peculiar on him. The night before that, he'd held up one of his cats to the lens to try and show off its crossed eyes -- and the extremely disinterested cat batted the webcam off of its stand. I got to see what the floor looks like under Todd's desk, and I got to see what a fleeing cat looks like at the Thalimer residence.

So anyway, I went ahead and put my cam on, and we visited with him able to see me through Yahoo! Messenger, but not the other way.

Now then. When I webcam, I tend to hide my own cam window, so I won't be as self-conscious about my actions as I would be if I were trying to actually watch myself. I find that I'm better able to concentrate on the chat window or on any other cams I'm looking at.

So anyway, John came home from work last night as usual. He went into the bedroom and got out of his work clothes as usual, and climbed into his pamajas as usual. But in between those two events, clad only in his birthday suit, he came back out into the living room, into the viewing area of the camera, and placed his wristwatch and his wallet into the drawer where he keeps them.

Todd: Whoah, I just saw something.
Brin: (turns around) Oh my! I did, too!

I will cop to contributory negligence here, as John didn't know the cam was on, and probably wouldn't have been able to tell with the passing glance he bestowed on the monitor when he walked by earlier.

I apologize, John. In front of the hundreds of readers of this diary.

Who... um... now know the story, instead of just the three of us.

Whoops.

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All right. Here's where the other end of the asterisk lives. I thought you might like to know that the Interesting Times quote is only a fragment of the entire curse. Here's the entire translated text:

* May you live in interesting times. May you come to the attention of a high government official. And may you always get everything you ever wish for.

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Seeya next time. I'll let you know how the cookies turn out.

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