Directions: Rinse your rice. Then mix up the “liquid ingredients” and toss that into the rice. Add enough water so it hits your index finger first knuckle when your finger tip is just touching the rice…the finger measuring for cooking rice. You can really add anything. Bok choy, cabbage shreds, spinach, frozen veggies, very thin pieces of chicken or pork, shrimp, any kind of asian dumpling. Whatever you have. Bean sprouts, spinach. If the meat you want to use is thick like sausage, it probably should be cooked ahead of time. But rice first, then the other stuff but put the dumplings [shumai, wonton, etc.] on top. Pop in the rice cooker and let it cycle through the cook.

Also… Portuguese cabbage is collard greens.

Boy, it has been a year. I am hoping that you all have a great 2025 and that the world is nice to you!

It’s alarmingly cold right now but the squirrels are happy because Badger (the grumpy tuxedo I have) won’t eat cat food that’s fallen out of the main dish so it goes outside to the squirrels. It’s not a lot but something I know won’t hurt them. I probably should put out actual squirrel food if I was serious about feeding them but let’s face it…. that’s not wise to do if you live in the middle of a forest filled with the buggers. I don’t want a squirrel war on my front porch.

One thing I do miss about living in Hawai’i is oddly enough… prune cake. I have no idea why I love it. And I should just make it but who else but me would eat it. Only because I’m living alone right now but I suppose I could pawn it off on others as well. It might sound odd but it’s really damned tasty and not something you find every day.

Not overly sweet, it’s moist and really flavourful. If you want to take a chance on it, have a go at this cutout newspaper recipe. I can’t remember who gave me this. Probably my mom.

I really just might need to make it.

Well to be fair, it wasn’t really LEFTOVER but it was damned cold here and sometimes you need a good hearty stew to warm up the insides. It was perfect weather for kimchi jjigae so off to the pot everything went!

I mention this dish several times in the Cole McGinnis series. Mind you I didn’t have shrimp with heads on them to be detached but that’s always a possibility. Last night’s version was tofu, chicken, and shrimp. And a lot of kimchi. Over rice of course.

I actually intend to write a longer blog but that’s can require some time and probably some content because I have just been shuffling through my brain cells lately. Still, I wanted to share something that just made me a little happy. Something that brought me a little bit of joy.

I am going to make a determined effort to remove myself from Twitter as a main posting platform and use BlueSky instead. As well? I am in flux like so many of us so we’ll see where life takes me. Just building the space there so it’ll take me a bit to get the ground under me.

If you want to follow me there, you can find me at…

Having a late dinner tonight of Spam and rice. Weather’s been flexing its mean and man, the migraines are real. I do not recommend them.

How is everyone doing? What good thing has happened to you in the past couple of weeks? Share some happy!

Hugs all of you.

That’s really all I can say.

Yes. I can see this.

I think the worst part about this is that I (with my brain spiciness) puts a lot of faith into people telling me how they are my friends. Now I have to trust that because fucking hell, I can’t read emotions for shit. Everything is DANGER.

Sadly, it also means I don’t notice when people are actually shitty to me and toxic until they do something SO fucked up that I’m like… Hey, why do you keep setting my head on fire? That’s not nice.

The flip side of this? People also assume I might be doing something sneaky or manipulative to “get them”. I can tell you that if I do something petty, it’s pretty obvious. Hell, I don’t even do practical jokes much. 😀

The worst part about this whole spiced ham brain? When people who are supposed to love and protect you are more into hurting you, you are CONVINCED it must be something you’ve done wrong or if you could just explain it a different way then they’d understand.

No. They’re just being mean. And it hurts even more when you realize it.

There is no space in the “normal” world for people on the spectrum. We know this. I know this. It’s just a matter of us waking up every morning and deciding if we have the energy to fight ALL the battles or just some of them.

Well the weather has snapped cold… which is a lie in Florida because it’ll be summer again in a couple of days. Fall likes to play hide and go seek here. So does the internet. But eventually it all works out.

One of the most frustrating things in moving to a different state is doing all the adult things like get a new license and register your car in the state. I had all my paperwork from California and was ready to change Tengu over to Florida when the Florida DMV said; Wait, yes you have this year’s registration but we also need last year’s or you have to pay sales tax on your car… which we don’t know the value of so can you give us a bill of sale?

Um… no. Because that was back in 1989. And I don’t keep prior year’s registration cards. They don’t hold any special meaning to me. Who saves those? Well California DMV was nice and said; here you can print this out to show them that you’ve owned the car since Aquanet but really we’re kind of at a loss for words because … who keeps old registration papers?

Oh, and I have the title.

Everyone was very nice but it is just… perplexing.

So of course I got a Starbucks on the way home.

All of that being said… I’m going to hit up a Dunkin because they have ube macchiattos.

It’s the little things that make me happy.

Badger is NOT happy because I kicked him off the couch to swap out the foam inserts. The ones that came with it were rock hard and well, our bodies are all connected and the stress on my outer muscles was twisting severe pain into my core. The new foam is a bit squisher and not as high so there’s less tension on my knees too.

All of that tension now lives in Badger and he’s glaring at me from across the room.

I care not.

I might have to go find a Truck and Treat event to participate in since I need to throw candy at little kids and sadly, I am now in the boonies and that won’t happen. So I shall have to search that out.

What are all of your plans for Halloween? And what was your fave candy / treat to get when you went to terrorize the neighbours on Halloween?