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February 28, 2004

Photo regrets

I was reading Stacey George's post about losing her contract and possibly discontinuing her blog. Having slacked off writing blog entries myself for the past few months, I too came to rhe realization that outside of work, I had very little to blog about. Even worse, I have stopped taking photos. Photography was a new hobby that had energized me. My father is an amateur photographer who used to photograph nature and occasionally, weddings.

The other morning I walked by rubble that used to be a baptist church in my neighborhood. For days I had watched the Celtic construction truck knock out everything behid the facade of the church. I even watched a man photograph the process of the destruction. The last time I saw the church, the sun was blazing through the broken orange window above the entrance. Behind the barely there structure, a perfect blue sky was host to passing grey-white clouds. Twice I walked by this scene, with camera in tow and never once took a photo.Tomorrow, I said to myself. There are no guarantees of tomorrow, as evidenced by the rubble, that once was a church.

Posted by kafi at 01:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 23, 2004

Water, interrupted

My regular Sunday morning routine:

Get up and use toilet
Shower and brush my teeth
Go to market for newspaper and breakfast foods
Make coffee
Watch Meet the Press
Do laundry

My Morning Routine This Sunday

Get up and use toilet
Go to wash hands and notice water pressure is low
Brush my teeth without water
Walk to market, unshowered and buy jug of water
Make coffee with jugged water
Watch Meet the Press
Walk downstairs to see if anyone else has water problem - no messages on the apartment board
Careful not to drink too much liquid, because I obviously have no water to flush the toilet

7:00pm
I desperately need to wash dishes in order to make dinner. I turn on the faucet and finally, finally, something other than air spews out. Good old, yellow, District of Columbia water! I let it run a few minutes before actually using it. I wash some dishes, take a shower and prepare a bowl of garlic shrimp as I set down for a evening of TV viewing.

8:00am Monday
A sign with crossed out dates is posted next to the apartment community board. It reads, "Water service will be interrupted at 9:00am for approximately 8 hours." Not unusual for a city that reads your energy meter twice in one month, with the second bill stating a past due amount for the bill you received last week.

Posted by kafi at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 22, 2004

Uncle Vanya

I lived in Baltimore for over two years and never once went to the theatre. Now I live in DC and a coworker of mine, both an actor and a playright, is acting in Uncle Vanya, a 100 year old Russian play at the Spotlighter Theatre, a small playhouse, tucked away in Mount Vernon, a very Fab Five area of town. It's the story of a love triangle, and my co-worker played the doctor in the middle of it all. As my friend says, he's the hottie. It was a great show. I mean, who thought a Russian play could be humorous?

Posted by kafi at 08:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 08, 2004

Breaking my silence

I have found myself very busy over the past several weeks. I spent a week in LA, which would have been fun, had I actually had a chance to see the beach. Alas, I was working, just as I do in the office and I never saw beyond the 4 walls of the conference room I was sequestered in for 3 long days. The trip did afford me the opportunity to read a significant portion of Wicked for my literary club. Especially when I was nearly threatened with spending the night at O'Hare as my flight back east kept getting delayed. The impending snow storm did not help matters. Unfortunately, I have found reading the reviews on Amazon more interesting than reading the book.

On a tastier note, I was finally inspired to recreate my favorite dessert, bread pudding. It all started at breadpudding.com. Not satisfied with the recipes I tried, I turned to my Cuban cookbook. It was there I found the perfect recipe for me. A bread pudding devoid of cinnamon and spices. Instead it relies on sherry and vanilla for flavoring. The end result is delicately sweet and rich with added depth from the sherry. No need to make a bourbon sauce, this bread pudding stands on its own. And I make the bread pudding in very small portions with extra liquid, so it puffs up a like a souffle, very light and airy. The experimenting has been fun, but just as with eating dessert night after night, it does require spending some quality time at the gym.

Posted by kafi at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack