Christmas Decorations

I'd say "Holiday Decorations," but the menorah was put away earlier and I think the Hanukkah candle holders should not be near so many flammable objects.

At the request of Mordecai's mom, we assembled some decorations. We got a little rosemary tree from Trader Joe's, and Mordecai found an animatronic tree that sings "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" at Walgreens. It was one of those moments where one of us says, "Look at this silly thing" and then it ends up home with us. This reminds me of someone, who, despite the addition of the puppy, is still a star member of our pack:

The tree's eyes reminds me a little of Doraemon.

Colors

School has started again, piano will start again, the end of baseball season is approaching, and football season is on its way. I heard from Sean who heard from his brother that the Farmer's Almanac is predicting a bad winter for the Great Lakes area. Even without that prediction, I'd still be scared of the winter, and I'm preparing for the worst anyway. My plan is to avoid winter blues by paying attention to football, baking, cleaning (!), and keeping color around me. As a result, I've been thinking about changing the background of this blog to white, or some other pastel-y color. Stay tuned. I'm also thinking about highlighting my hair some more. Stay tuned.

For Labor Day weekend, we dog-sat this superdawg named Jackson. He's easy to take care of because he never barks, doesn't eat or beg for people food, doesn't destroy things, and is well-behaved. Well, he does stick his head in your crotch and kind of nuzzles around. Some people find that offensive, and others like myself find it endearing.

I've also gone through three football drafts this past weekend. I have no idea who anyone is, and I've once again upset Joe by taking his preferred players without knowledge of who they are, what position they play, or what team they play for. All I knew was that Andre Johnson was my first auto-pick in Matt's Fleaflicker league, and that some guy named Cole or Coles was bald, and I thought it'd be nice to have a bald man on my team. Where ignorance is bliss for some, it is apparently hell for others.

Sonia Kashuk for Target eyeshadow brush, Shu Uemura lip/eye brush, MAC 187 I-guess-anything-for-face brush

Also, I'm becoming obsessed with makeup. I don't know much, and there are few resources for true-blue monolids and Anpanman faces. Not that I'm complaining about these features. Makeup is so much fun! I never thought this day would come, but here it is. Makeup and football.

Lately

• It's cold here in Chicago. There is no real eye socket or eyeball protection available for subzero temperatures; someone needs to get on that market. Here is Oji on Thursday afternoon when it felt like -30 degrees F (-34 degrees C). Can you imagine if the Hudson River crash occurred in the Chicago River on the same day?
  

• Food for winter--I made 'takikomi' rice last week. Kikkoman describes it as a 'rice medley.' I was supposed to make it from scratch, but succumbed to The Box. It has everything you need--you just add and mix it in with your rice and water.

• Food for winter--I made (milk) chocolate chip cookies tonight. My paradigm for cookies is former-best-boss Emily's cookies. It is not possible for my cookies to attain Emily's-cookie-hood, but it's good to have goals.
  
• It turns out I make a lot of weird comments while baking. Mordecai suggested I get a cooking show with special guests, like my mom ("Why do you put ginger and soy sauce in your gravy for turkey?" "I think turkey smells bad so I put ginger in as an odor-reliever"), and Nik and his father for Dutch donut-making, and so on. Maybe one day I will bust out the camcorder and upload a video of how pathetic my arm muscles are, which explains why it takes me an abnormally long time to prepare cookie dough. I could bake this crazy Skittles Barf Cake, as Nik called it, and record the rainbow process!
  
• I've been meaning to have a new header. I've collected all the photos that I want in it; it's just a matter of making it look right. Stay tuned...
  

Early

My second cousins from Yokohama, Mitsutaka and Mai, just left today after visiting us for a week. They were real troopers, coming to Chicago in mid-December after visiting San Fransisco for a few days. When they arrived at our apartment, they started unleashing the omiyage, or gifts, from the motherland. Christmas and Hanukkah came early!!!

Apparently their father gets a lot of cosmetic samples, so they generously shared some of their fortune. With the exception of the Chanel lip palette, the above are all sample products. Clockwise from the top left: facial moisturizing masks, hair treatment oil (that I saw and eyed at Mitsuwa, incidentally), heating packs, sun block base, more heating packs, flowery-scented lotion-soaked cotton wipes, strawberry-honey lip cream, buttery lip cream, sheer "sakura pink" lip cream, and a shimmery facial powder that supposedly makes one more photogenic.

The Chanel lip palette was from their mother--this set is apparently only available in Asia. I played around with it today and got overly excited and applied all four colors to my lips.

They had an early flight today, so when we got home I just fell asleep in the heated table. I couldn't even play Animal Crossing. After I woke up, the living room immediately started to fall into a most disorderly state. Naturally.