ne(one)piphany

Real 1/2-birthday today, spent lazily at home, one brief moment of weekend rest in a whirlwind month-plus of nonstop travel for weddings, birthdays, and other assorted miscellany. Even had a chance to take an early afternoon nap, that rarest of pleasures — v. heavenly!

Won’t go into too much detail about today (some things stay secret!), but instead, some recent observations:

Divine bread/cheese combinations: Great Harvest’s rosemary & garlic loaf with Beecher’s flagship; also, honey whole wheat (Great Harvest too) and Tintern (wonderful Welsh cheddar with shallots & chives). Poor lactose intolerant me, with my irresistible love of cheese. Love is pain, as they say.

Have also been playing a lot of Dance Dance Revolution (thank you, Cobalt Flux!) lately and I think I’m slowly getting better. I’ve been passing some seven-footers and passed my first heavy-difficulty song just the other day. Best of all, that after-workout glow is back, and I love it!

Thanks to kakumei, I’ve been able to try out some foreign DDR releases, and we’re totally getting the short end of the stick here in the States. The Japanese version of Extreme is just stuffed to the gills with fun, cute J-pop tracks, while Dancing Stage Fusion — a European release — is more Eurodance-heavy (incidentally, v. surprised & excited to find my television displays PAL video just fine!). DDR Festival seems to be more of a re-import of some of the U.S. tracks back into Japan, but has a few fun anime/J-pop songs as well. Still, nothing beats Dreamcast’s 2nd ReMix in my eyes (with all-time faves: “Boys,” “Dub-I-Dub,” “Butterfly,” “Hero” &c.). I miss it so much.

I’m not going to be wowing the aisles at Gameworks anytime soon, but still! Getting better.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou still makes me cry.

Finally, thank you to v. for the pretty pretty!

Think I’ll finish celebrating with a hot bath and the last of the Lush stash. Love you all!

Aromatic manna from the frozen north arrived today into my eager hands, courtesy of Rav. The take, all from Lush: “Breeze on a Sea Air” facial toner (“Made with fresh Hebridean sea water”), Aura Suavis bubblebar (my favorite!), and “Sweet Japanese Girl” facial bar (“Massage and exfoliate your face with this lovely little bar. Wash off and smile.”). The aforementioned enabler extraordinaire came into my office at work last Friday to give me a sample spritz of the toner, and that was all she wrote. I was sold.

What passes for winter in the northwest — bone-chilling rains and oppressive, grey skies — has begun in earnest. The three giant plum trees in the front yard have started shedding their bounty all over the grass, so I’ve been spending a lot of time soaked in the elements trying to clear away the mess. Nothing like an hour spent steeping in warm, fragrant goodness to cure the bad-weather blues.

Heavenly!