What hole?

Why are they called doughnut holes? Aren't doughnut holes non-existent?

These are more like doughnut balls.

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends.

I didn't do much this Thanksgiving. But one thing I did do was make a fabulous homemade cranberry sauce! I had never tasted a homemade cranberry sauce before, but all the ones I've seen on TV seemed very saucy; not like the jellied sauces that you buy in cans. And I wondered whether I'd like the sauciness. So I couldn't resist when I saw a bag a fresh cranberries at Joeten on Thanksgiving morning.

One 12-oz bag of fresh cranberries
A little more than one cup of water
A little more than one cup of sugar
Bring to a low boil, cook stirring occasionally until the skins pop and until it's where you want it



It didn't turn out saucy at all. I think that's because I started eating a sandwich while it was boiling and I maybe sort of forgot about it for a couple of minutes. But I really like it jellied. Maybe next Thanksgiving I'll make a saucy one.



Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

Lemmai have it!

Mmmm . . . breadfruit cooked in coconut milk. I could eat it everyday.



Lemmai, bbq ribs, koko. That's all I need.

This is madness!

I am not a potato lover.

I only eat the really soggy fries and I don't eat the potatoes in the potato salad. I don't like mashed potatoes, even with gravy. The only time I really ever eat (and enjoy) potatoes are when they are in the form of well seasoned hash browns mixed with over easy eggs - also known as potatoes and eggs.

I don't know what happened, but I decided to eat tater tots for lunch the other day. Just tater tots and ketchup. And they were good.

Three-Oh!

Thirty years ago a 9lb bald baby girl was born in California.

Approximately twenty five years ago that same baby, who was then five years old (I'm purdy good at math), moved with her family from her father's home (California) to her mother's home (Saipan).

Twenty years ago my father bought be my first pair of roller blades. (At least I'm pretty sure it was 20 years ago.)

Fifteen years ago I was one year away from getting my braces off and graduating from high school.

Ten years ago I met my future husband. (It's actually more like 11 years ago, but let's just go with this.)

Five years ago I had one baby and another baby on the way.

And today I am thirty.

Look In Your Jars

You know that person in your family who has a piece of No.2 pencil lead stuck in their hand from some freak elementary school hand stabbing? I have two such people. My sister and my husband. My sister has a piece stuck in her finger and my husband has a piece stuck in his palm.

What is it they say when you get a splinter that is entirely under your skin and you aren't able to squeeze it out? Oh that's right, "Don't worry, your body will push it out on it's own". But unlike the bone fragment left by my upper right wisdom tooth extraction, those pieces of graphite were not pushed out on their own. And neither was the tip of the glass stalagmite that stabbed my thumb a week ago.

I was transferring small jars from their box to the sink in order to wash and then sterilize them. I inserted my thumb into one of the small jars and dagnabbit! That little sucker stabbed me! It was bleeding, it was painful, it was terrible. And although I insisted that there was a piece splintered in my thumb, neither James nor I could squeeze it out. Maybe it wasn't there.

Wrong! It was there. It was there for a whole eight days. I didn't know what to do. Would my body push it out on it's own - when, in a month, in ten years? Should I waste money to go to a doctor so he/she could extract an invisible splinter? Would I be left to suffer like my sister and husband with a piece of glass stuck in my thumb for the rest of my life? How would I knit?! It was glass. In my thumb! And it hurt.

Well, I couldn't stand it anymore. On Saturday I pulled out the alcohol - the rubbing alcohol, people - a quilters pin, and a nail clipper and dug that baby out myself. It made me very queasy, digging out a piece of clear glass from my thumb. I wasn't even sure if I was in the right spot - how deep was that thing?! It was in pretty deep and I was afraid that if I did it wrong I'd end up pushing it in further. Ugh! It wasn't pleasant, but I finally got that stupid stalagmite spear out. It was gross. And pretty cool.

Remember Me

Do you ever want to write a memoir? I . . . I want to write something, I'm just not sure I'm suited to write a memoir. I mean, really, who would want to read about an Irish-Chamolinian who grew up on a tropical island so small that it isn't even drawn on most maps? I mean, really, no one wants to read about the time my cousins stayed the evening with me and my sister so my parents could go out to an event and we got so spooked by a mysterious knocking on the living room window that we called the police. And, yes, the police came to our house.

Well, isn't that what this blog really is anyway. A series of poorly written stories about my life. A memoir, if you will.