mandarin tools, pez dispensers & hearts

on wednesday, i welcomed the year of the rooster by walking to marco & luca during lunch for some vegetarian hot & sour soup and a steamed veggie bun. their excellent soup warms you & clears your head esp. when you have a cold. so the chinese new year arrived, and it's still early in 2005. i'm trying to stay convinced this will be an auspicious year but it's hard not to get antsy b/c some of the changes i'm hoping for in my life can't seem to come fast enough. and i still don't even know if it'll all work out the way i want it to in the end.

did you know that i grew up knowing my lunar/chinese calendar birthday? (not that i celebrate it or anything, but it's still cool to know). fear not, b/c YOU, too, can figure out your lunar/chinese calendar birthday**! just go to Mandarin Tools, type in your complete birth date, and click on "western to chinese". (it turns out, my lunar birthday is april 24th in the year of the tiger). ok, go do it now. pretty neat, huh?

so you know valentine's day is coming when someone gives you a red heart-shaped PEZ dispenser. mine sits atop my desk to remind me that i'm loved. rad! now, i know many people (single & attached) boycott the commercialism of valentine's day. i think people should just do whatever makes them happy on the 14th, since it's only another day, albeit a day to wear red or pink (or black). i think you should always let your mate/friends/family know you love them, and not just in superficial ways or only on valentine's day. that said, if you want a baking idea for feb. 14th, here's a hot tip: How To Make A Heart-Shaped Cake w/o A Heart-Shaped Pan. don�t laugh--i actually did this once and it worked beautifully!

**PS: if your birthday is in jan. or feb., it's possible your lunar/chinese b-day falls in nov. or dec. of the previous year (depending on the year you were born). this means your chinese zodiac sign is actually one year earlier. so say you were born 1/1/74, your lunar birthday is sometime in december, meaning you're not a tiger as you previously thought, but actually are an ox (1973). make sense? yeah. now go play w/ mandarin tools.

PPS: doing the music meme (previous entry) has inspired me to make a mix cd this weekend. boy am i glad the weekend is here.