I know for a fact that I'm neither the best nor the most imaginative chef around>

That doesn't mean I can't cook at all, though, or be good at it.

When I was at school I wanted to become a chef.  I loved cooking while I still lived at home, but my mother's stomach (or burning thereof) limited what I was allowed and thus able to cook.  Plus, we seldom had anything exciting in the house to experiment with - it was the barest minimum of what we needed.

No, I'm not telling you this for a sob story.  Goodness knows I hear enough of them, and prefer hearing them to telling them.

After I left school my second job involved admin at a hotel, where my meals, since I lived on the premises, were provided by management.  None of the staff were even allowed in the kitchen to make our own tea.  The kitchen staff made and brought it to us.

I had better luck living with my aunt, in terms of experimentation, but even so, I couldn't use some of my favourite spices.

When I lived alone, I very rarely ate at night - I simply didn't see the point in cooking for only one person every night.

So, supper tonight was a risk for me.  I used a recipe I pulled off of Google for dumplings, and though they fell apart and I forgot the salt in the filling, I have to say I rather enjoyed it.  Mommy to the rescue:  I haven't the faintest idea on how to make a gravy, so my mom rescued the dumplings from killing us with boredom by making a delicious sweet/sour gravy for it.  Wow...  Even thinking about it makes my tummy happy again.

On the topic of food:  why is the Neo-<insert description here> movement suddenly giving rise to so many vegetarians?  I look at myself and draw on the descriptions of a rather prominent figure of South African Pagan who says that while our [Pagan] ancestors most certainly lived very close to nature, they were by no means vegetarians.  I refer here to Anglo-Saxon / Celtic Pagans.  So many of us who follow this path suddenly convert to vegetarianism  - what real reason is there behind it?  I mean, I can understand if it were part of our religion (as it is for some Buddhists or all Jainists), but those who follow the other gods rarely ate only one food.  Do I have the wrong end of the story here again?

I wouldn't be too surprised - my nose is all stuffy and that usually affects my cognitive functions.

I've finally managed to get hold of Dan Pelletier's "The Process", in which he likens his tarot journey to his rose garden.  Please, if you get the chance, listen to it - it's brilliant, and I love the way he draws the listener into the story - you actually sit there and see the way he speaks about his roses and how he likens them to the tarot.  I'm going to listen to it the first chance I get, but from what I've heard so far:  anyone in the tarot should REALLY get this audiobook!

I like Chinese food and things and and and...

No, that doesn't make much sense, and I'll be the first one to admit that.  Hee hee!

My mind's been in a bit of a twist the last two days thanks to a tummy bug doing the rounds.  I'd hoped it was flushed out by today, but apparently not.

Anyway, gross topic with TMI.

We had Chinese food for supper (the U-Seng Sweet and Sour family meal) because I got this gier to try out wonton dumplings.  OMG!!  They are wonderful!  The ones my mom and Pierre ordered were the pan-fried pork dumplings and man, the it was so certainly worth the spinach!

In this shot:  Sweet and Sour pork nuggets, no dough; chow mein noodles with chicken and veggies; the last vegetable spring roll; and the three white dumplings.  OMG!

while I waited for the food (the two "elders" made like bananas and  split) I wandered around the little supermarket they have attached to the restaurant.  They have some really interesting things in there!  They also have some really unidentifiable things in there.

One of the more unusual items is what they call in Chinese "Hundred Year Eggs".  Don't worry, they aren't really 100 years old.  No, it's duck eggs that are covered (traditionally) with a layer of clay and rice husk.  As the clay dries and the egg ages, it actually chemically preserves the egg and changes the flavour.  It doesn't look too appetising, I have to say, but have a look for yourself and think it over for the next round of munchies (oops!  Did that come out...?):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg

On another note, and one more closely related to tarot:

I've been relearning my runes.  No, not in terms of the written alphabet (I know and use that anyway), but in terms of divinations.  All I can say is, thank goodness for tarot.  If not for the cards I do believe I would have had a much harder time of this.  I made a set of willow runes about ten years ago, but only used them once or twice.  Now, with time and reason to learn them again, i actually find them easier to work with.  I can't read them as "fluently" as my cards yet, nor remember their proper names (I only have the Anglo-Saxon names in my little book - really frustrating!), but I do have a better grasp of them now, and I say it's thanks to my experience with the tarot.

I also learned that the study of runes (all varieties), is know as Runology :P

Here's hoping I can get my lazy rear end (mentally speaking) back into learning them properly!

OK, so I'm a tad behind on my people skills.

Earlier tonight I rescued a little rain spider (probably a male, otherwise a baby) that only had four legs left to its body, two to each side of it.

In the shower now, that got me thinking about life.

Our lives very much resemble those of spiders:  as we grow, we go through different and unique stages in our lives.  I want to smack anyone I hear speaking of a "normal" life or "normal" experiences.  The only "normal" about anyone's life, from one person to the next, is that we get through these different stages the same way a spider moults - it sheds the old exoskeleton, the broken and damaged one, and moves to the next.

This even goes for those poor people working desk or call centre jobs - you have precisely the same job and duties as the person in the next cubicle - hells, you might even have your one dog and 2.4 children - but your thoughts, dreams and ides are yours and yours alone.

The same way spiders lose legs and body hair for defence, we tend to cut out or let go of those situations that  hurt us or cause us emotional harm.  This can even be likened to the people who drain us, what we call "emotional vampires":  we let them go because they damage us.  They make up those body hairs we release for defence.

The enterprising members of our race build their webs and maintain them as part of their plans and dreams.  others also build webs, but then wait for something to walk into them.  Yet other have given up fixed webs in favour of going out into the big, wide world and looking for "nourishment" - spiders do the same.  Orb-weavers build their big-ass webs every night, or every few nights, and maintain them, keeping track of the damage they may pick up and replacing them often to keep them sticky.  Funnel spiders build their webs in the short grasses in the veld and wait for something to walk into them, not replacing their webs nor maintaining them because they see no need to.  Jumping spiders, among my favourites, roam our houses and our gardens looking for their prey.

Basically, we aren't really so different, in our day-to-day lives, as the spiders so many of us so (VERY WRONGLY) squash or kill with Doom or Baygon.  We build our webs or roam through our lives, but we all go and look for dreams where our biology sends us.

The biggest thing is, we're human; we can change our "biology".