Kids, never listen to your mother

We had guests over yesterday, and after everyone finished their hamburgers my mom made me go cut up watermelon for everyone. I say made because she seems to think I'm the permanent cutter of all fruit weighing over 5 lbs. and it's getting to be a bit annoying what with her penchant for having watermelon cut just right every hour, on the hour. 

At any rate, I begrudgingly got up to go cut it, at which point five different people started yelling at me that I was doing it wrong. You have to WASH the watermelon first apparently, even though NO ONE eats the rind. And then, I wasn't washing it properly, either killing trees or spreading disease. And THEN, I wasn't cutting it properly. One should cut in quarters. All I have to say is that if you don't like the way I do it, do it yourself. 

In a moment of utter boredom a few days ago, I sharpened every single knife in the kitchen. This is a new fetish or something, but these knives were SHARP, and I was glad. So I'm just about to finish cutting the first slice of the stupid, clean watermelon when I drive the very sharp, very long blade into my hand. Blood spurts EVERYWHERE. My face, my clothes, the watermelon, the floor. And then, because my mom wouldn't let me take a first aid class back in high school, all over the sink because I promptly stick my hand under cold water and just let the damn thing bleed. For the record, blood feels very warm when it is gushing all over you. And telling a person that the spatter on your face looks like freckles is not helpful. 

After spending an hour and a half in Urgent Care with absolutely no reading material because SOMEONE forgot to grab my brother's Roald Dahl collection from the car, I got out of there with 9 stitches and a tetanus shot. Of course the whole time that we were waiting I had to explain to my mother why it was that it was completely her fault. I don't think she understands that since she is the one that made me do it, she should be the one to take responsibility for it. 

I got back at her on the car ride back though, when I started describing, in detail, exactly how they were stitching me up. And while I live for things like this, my mother is THE most squeamish person I've ever met. You can't even say the words blood, stitches, or hey mom, come look at the inside of this cow eyeball to her. I tried that last one while I was taking physiology and it did not play over well. 

So the picture below could have been much more gruesome but my mom probably would have killed me. Apparently I made her feel sick with my tales of gushing blood last night. I took several much better up-close shots where you can really see the blood and gore. But this is good too. 

The Last Lecture (Part 2)

Randy Paush, the author of the book I lauded below, died today of complications from pancreatic cancer. 

Please read the book. 

The Last Lecture

I just cried myself silly reading this book. It's by Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science who is dying of pancreatic cancer. He lectured at Carnegie Mellon last year about achieving your childhood dreams. Find out more about him and the book here. And read it. Definitely read it. It's a little book with only about 200 pages and is a very fast, albeit rather teary, read.

 

Frida Kahlo

Today I went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to see a Frida Kahlo exhibition. First of all, I'm embarrassed to say, I always thought she was Spanish. You just don't hear of many Mexican artists, and I never took the time to really discover anything about her. Her life was terribly interesting though, especially her marriages with Diego Rivera. Both of them had fiery tempers and both had issues staying faithful. He had and affair with her younger sister and she had an affair with Leon Trotsky. You can't make this stuff up. 

Below is one of my favorite paintings by her. It is called Moses and was painted in 1945. I spent ages looking at it today. It was inspired by one of Freud's essays which connected Ancient Egypt, Moses, and the beginnings of monotheistic religion. See how many people you can identify on it. Larger version here.

Why am I such a lightweight?

I'm sitting on the couch munching on snap peas and drinking some wine, which I am in desperate need of because my brother, for the past 15 minutes, has been yelling NA NA NA NA NAAAAAA at the top of his lungs. There's more words to that little ditty, but these are the most intrusive ones. So you can see why the alcohol is essential. But so far I've only had half a glass and yet I am feeeeling it. On the one hand it's convenient because once I finally hit the blessed age of 21 I will save myself a lot of money. On the other hand, it's a little embarrassing. I come from a long line of strong Russian and Jewish stock, cultures which do very few things without first drinking a lot. So shouldn't one of my numerous skills be the ability to process large amounts of alcohol without this embarrassing propensity to start saying every single thing that comes into my head at slightly inappropriate volumes? And if any of you feel the urge to point out to me that I do this when I'm sober as well, then you are lame because that would be way too easy. While I do tend to have more verbal diarrhea than I should at my age, there is a noticeable increase with spirits. So shut up Sveta. 

On a separate note, I've discovered an awesome blog written by a woman in Utah. Read it at dooce.com. She is also great with a camera and posts a lot of her own photos. 

What I learned today

Farsi and Persian is the same thing. This has probably been completely obvious to some of you from the very beginning but I never knew this. Actually, Farsi is the Persian word for Persian, so saying "she speaks Farsi" is like saying "she speaks français" and saying this to a knowledgeable person will make you sound stupid or pretentious. But we live in America, the land of the oblivious, so running into a knowledgeable person is a a rare and wondrous thing. Which explains why I've been using the word condone to mean praise almost my entire life without anyone correcting me. Thanks a lot, America. 

On a related note, a friend recently let me borrow Firoozeh Dumas' Funny in Farsi and Laughing Without an Accent, both memoirs about growing up Iranian in America. The books are extremely funny and convey the immigrant experience in a way that firmly makes you believe that the only difference between an Iranian and Russian immigrant is a passion for grape leaves. Also, the paperback version of Funny in Farsi has an interview with Khaled Hosseini, who wrote The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, which are amazing. Please read them. 

Also, both authors live in the Bay Area, so way to represent. 

Bodacious things

Violins in rock music

Really dark strawberries

Crackling weather

My brother's cheeks

Text messages

Cute little boxes

Shaved legs

Grains