I saw this book on the free table in our laundry room and thought I'd try it out. It looked like one of those fluffy chick lit books, and I wasn't wrong. I thought that after reading a few classic-y books I'd like something lighter, but I actually couldn't get into this book for the first hundred pages or so. By the time it finally got me engaged it was mostly over and headed into the denouement. The end is exactly what you'd expect, but despite the cliche I still squeezed out a few tears for the main character.

All in all, I liked it okay, it was fun, but I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. XD

So last time when my mom was here visiting, we went to the Asian grocery store and bought all sorts of ingredients intended to make potstickers. In the end, we had some left over ground pork, and before she left she said off-hand, "Oh, you can make sticky rice next time for Mike." So of course I had to do it, even though I've never made sticky rice in my life and have maybe watched my mom make it once all the way through.

On a side note, I found out today that my sister doesn't like sticky rice at all. I always thought she just didn't prefer it, but she actually doesn't like it. I feel kind of bad since we've been having it for years at family dinners/holiday get-togethers. Now I know. And originally I wanted to try out the sticky rice thing so that I would know what to do for Thanksgiving, but now I guess I don't have to make it for Thanksgiving at all. =P

Okay, so, here's what I did based on my fading memory of what I'm supposed to do.

Ingredients:
- ground pork (don't know how much I had, but it was about the size of a fat hamburger patty)
- sweet rice (3 cups)
- fried shallots (I used about 1/3 of a 2oz bag)
- shiitake mushrooms (I used ten small-medium sized ones)
- tiny dried shrimp (tiny spice bowl full, maybe 20?)
- soy sauce

Soak the sweet rice for 2+ hours. I soaked the mushrooms and shrimp at the same time since I wasn't sure. About an hour in, I checked on the rice and added more water so that it was fully submerged again. I soaked the sweet rice in a 2-qt glass bowl with lid so that I could use the same container later.

When the rice was done soaking, I put the whole thing (which still had extra water) in the microwave for 4 minutes.
Slice the mushrooms and finely chop the shrimp.

Tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, put the pork in there and stir it around so you get little chunks of meat. Added soy sauce for a little flavor and color. When it was mostly cooked, I took it out of the pan and put it in a different bowl.

Checked on the rice, it wasn't nearly done, microwaved it for 4 more minutes.

Olive oil in the pan again, put in the shallots, mixed them around. Waited, then put in the shrimp. At some point I added more oil just because it looked dry. And then I put in some of the mushroom soaking water because I didn't want to put more oil.

Drained the rice and dumped it all in the pan and mixed it around. Tablespoon or so of soy sauce, mixed it around and it looked brown enough so I thought it was fine. Put in the mushrooms, mix. Put the meat back in, mix.

At this point it looked like risotto and tasted "al dente." I put the lid on and put it on simmer for 5 minutes. Checked back and it was still mostly cooked but not all the way cooked? And then I seemed to remember Mommy microwaving again at the end, so I transferred the whole thing back into the glass bowl, and microwaved for 3 minutes.

Tastes pretty good for a first try. I'm happy with it.

"I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!"
"Nonsense, child; you'll think your husband better.
"Impossible," said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; "husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order."

---

I had been wanting to read Middlemarch for a long time, and now that I'm finished I think I would class it as one of my favorite books. It has that same feel as Pride and Prejudice, except I remember hating P&P the first time through and not really appreciating it until afterwards. The characters in Middlemarch are less exasperating, with just as much drama, I think.

Everything you think might happen to create conflict pretty much happens, but even expecting it doesn't make it stale when you read it, which is a measure of success as well.

Anyway. Classic sort of BritLit novel. I didn't like it quite as much as The Portrait of a Lady but it has that same sort of appeal to me.

It's been awhile since I've had a book of poetry at my bedside. I like reading a few poems before going to sleep so I can think about them as I drift off. I picked up this volume because of the title, "Bread Alone." It was not at all what I expected, although I can't quite say what it was that I expected. There were a few pieces that I really liked:

from "Languedoc"
...
Not to be young forever -

But rather to travel as a mollusk, a barnacle
a subatomic particle, to become nothing
more than

the passage of tiem itself -

an eternal witness to every small death
that happens nto when we die
but when we stay alive.

from "Rock Bottom"
...Praise the brave
who take the plunge

and trade every article of faith
for a shred of compassion or reason -

either one.

from "I Have Not Forgotten You"
All poems are love poems
if you read them right

to left or left to right
for they assume an other

we are forever
trying to reach.

...

There are no legitimate borders
in poems - no fences, no walls, no checkpoints -

for the spirit that inhabits poetry
is a sad ghost, and all poems
are made of mourning.

---

"work"

tallow moss
stone wall

winter grey
road alone

this is all

I long
to leave

nothing
more -

a row
of words

a mile long

Started working through Shakespeare again. Picked up Comedy of Errors from the library last time I was there and just finished it. Actually one of the more annoying Shakespeare plays I've written. I know a lot of his comedies are based on role-switching and confusion and whatnot, but this one is about two sets of twins.

I thought I understood that at the beginning of the story, one of the twins was in the city in order to look for his twin. Under this belief, I thought that meant all of the twins knew that they had twin brothers somewhere in the world. If that were true though, and one brother is looking for another brother, it really shouldn't have taken five acts for them to realize they had found each other? I mean, if you know you have an identical twin, you go to a city you've never been to before, and everyone acts like they know you, wouldn't that tip you off that you're in the right place and that your twin lives nearby?

Anyway, so that just made me sort of frustrated at how the story was dragging on. =/
My advice - skip this one. There are plenty more Shakespeare plays in the sea.