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Wednesday, May 30, 2018

I Dream of the Devil

Grabbed you, didn't I? XD

Personally, I'm not religious in any sense of the word. I consider myself agnostic, which even for me is kind of a stretch because I'm a logical "I'll believe it when I see it" kind of person. I'm a hardcore believer in evolution but I will concede and say that it's possible that evolution may have been jump-started by a an all powerful being. It's not out of the realm of possibility for me.

But the point of this post is not to talk about God or argue semantics, but to explore a show that I completely fell in love with and never expected to: Lucifer.

I'll be honest, it had a lot of things going against it [for me]. First, it was a cop drama. I hate cop dramas. I find detective stories, mob boss stories and gang stories completely boring and hard to follow. And on top of that, it introduced religion. Well, kind of. For a show about the Devil it never talked about belief until Ella joined the cast in season two. To me, it introduced a supernatural element, and I was all over that.

But I'm writing this to kind of explain to people what this show is and what it isn't. And I'm writing this from the perspective of someone who is not religious, has not read the bible, and only in a vague sense even know the "history" of all that jazz. 

I know a person or two who refuses to watch Lucifer because it's a show about the Devil. And The Devil is evil. And sinful. Super sinful. mmmmmm ---------->

*clears throat* Anyway, I only half understand this reasoning. I don't know if it was Neil Gaiman (who wrote the original Lucifer story line in his graphic novels) or the writers of the series, but they go to great lengths to define and describe Lucifer. Over the last 3 seasons, his character has had many existential crises who is sometimes even at a loss to describe himself and what his nature truly is. The more time he spends on Earth, the more "human" he becomes, but we never forget that he is an angel; fallen or not.

Is he evil? No. What he is tasked to do is search out evil and punish those who do wrong by others. He often blames his dad for his shortcomings but realizes that he is only who he makes himself.
He helps detective Decker because they have the same goal: to find evil and make them pay for their crimes.

The writers made his character deep and complex. On the surface he is selfish, narcissistic, and brash, but on the inside he questions his existence. We learn that he regained his angel wings and lost his devil face because he finally believed that he was not defined by that persona. He guards the gates of Hell as punishment for his rebellion; he doesn't want to be there; he's not going to be characterized by his job.

Considering I'm not religious, I'm fairly convinced that if Lucifer Morningstar did actually exist, he would be like this character in Lucifer. This series is more than just the sum of its parts. It's more than just a "controversial" drama. And this is why I have written this piece and to join the movement to #SaveLucifer. I think it is a show that deserves to exist. 

Just like Lucifer Morningstar.


Saturday, May 5, 2018

Birthday Weekend

Usually, my birthday goes by without much fuss. I'll hang out with a friend and drink at home, watch some movies, play some games. Maybe go out with my parents to dinner at some point during the week. However, for journaling purposes, I feel like this one is good enough for the memory books!

So, after my supervisor told me to "take more time off [dammit]" (unsaid but implied), I took that to heart; mostly because my co-worker had to take 2 weeks off due to a medical issue and man those two weeks were greaaaaaaat. 
-_-

Anyway, I decided to take off the Thursday, Friday and Monday surrounding my birthday. But, because I know how to adult, I figured I'd schedule some things that are hard to do during off-work hours, such as finally getting the recall notice taken care of on my Sonic.
Turns out, even though I confirmed twice, they had scheduled the repair for Wednesday at 10 and not Thursday. I don't even understand why the "key chime indicator" was a recall anyway - how could that possibly be dangerous to anyone? (and this is why it took me 2 years to finally schedule the damn thing). Plus, after what Gilchrist did to my Malibu after I took that in for a recall notice, I decided to drive to another one further away to get it taken care of instead.
I basically walked down 112th for 30 minutes, grabbed a drink from Bigfoot Java, and walked back. I definitely got my 9,000 steps in that day.

Friday was a blast. I had invited a couple work-friends over to my apartment (Brenda, Beverly, and Kim) to feed them some food. 

You cooked them dinner on your birthday?

Why yes, I did. I bought some brisket and smoked it in my Emson Pressure Smoker (no longer available for purchase but well worth it). It took only 90 minutes to cook roughly 2 lbs of it. I also air-fried garlic/rosemary red potatoes and corn on the cob using my Breville Smart Oven Air (love that thing). Brenda bought the cake from Metropolitan Market and I dolled out some Barefoot Red Moscato because I can't handle real red wine lol.
The cooking part was easy. I enjoy cooking for other people (sometimes) because I don't ever make meals for myself. I just eat whatever random crap I happen to have in my house. I wasn't slaving over a hot stove all evening while my friends chatted in another room. My apartment is barely big enough to hold four people at once lol. So, I had a really good time. We drank, we ate, we laughed. The food was super good. I will definitely be smoking brisket again in the near future. 

On Saturday I had double plans. 2pm was my hair appointment (which getting on a Saturday was an amazing feat in itself) and after my best friend Mary got done with her daughter at a birthday party, we hung out and watched shaky cam movies.
[They're called pirated or bootleged movies but I blame Justin for getting me stuck on using the "shaky cam" phrase. It stems from people taking cameras into theaters and sneakily recording the screen. A lot of the time they would shuffle and such, which is where I get it from.]
But actually, the bootleg for Black Panther was rather good. Mary and I had decided that they either must work at the theater or rent out the entire place, because it was set up tripod style with no background noise. 
I ended up getting bored with Black Panther rather quickly. It was way too political for me, and I told Mary to just keep me informed while I made macarons lol
Btw, still not quite getting the hang of making them. I went out and bought finely milled almond flour after my first debacle but then I made the cookies much too big. They still taste good, but are not very macaron-y. 
Did you just say macaroni in your head because I just did xD

On Sunday, I already had plans to hike with the Meetup group at Capitol State Forest down near Olympia. The trail was Larch Mountain Loop, and it was going to be roughly 8 miles. Rob, his girlfriend Bonnie, Debi and I all went. It was a long rough ride on forest roads to get to the "trailhead". 

 This is Mima falls. Different trail, but same Forest

Once we hiked about 6 miles, Bonnie had an injury. She had tripped over a rock, and her arm got tangled in her trekking poles on the way down. She was in a lot of pain, but luckily we had literally just crossed a bit of the forest road when she fell. While Debi stayed with her, Rob and I took the road back to the car - about 1.5 miles away. We booked it, especially since we didn't know what was wrong with her. Signs were good though: her fingers were moving, there was no blood, bruising, or bones seemingly out of place. Other than the pain she was doing all right.
Rob dropped me off back at my car in Olympia and they all went to the ER together. The next day, I got a message from Rob saying that she had dislocated her elbow but that it didn't require any surgery - just 6-8 weeks in a sling, thank goodness.

I didn't even know that you could dislocate your elbow - ouch!

That was one thing that I didn't have in my 10-essentials bag: painkillers. Will be adding them now!

Monday was another great day. I hadn't even planned anything to do until Saturday, when I decided that I couldn't wait a whole week to see Avengers: Infinity War. I had already asked my friend David to come with me on Saturday May 5th, but he was perfectly happy seeing it on Monday the 30th instead. So, I bought the tickets for the 11:40 show, and we went to the Waffle Stop to have brunch. Man oh man; those waffles. I don't know why I didn't have the sense to take a picture of my BACON COOKIE BUTTER WAFFLE before digging in, but it was amazeballs. David had the french toast waffle. Almost as delicious as mine!
After brunch, we stepped into the Pacific Northwest Store, which I'd been wanting to visit for a while and had had no idea they were right next door to the Waffle Stop until I'd parked my car lol. This place is basically the abbreviated version of stories you find watching Evening Magazine. Hell, I even discovered the store by watching that show. Anyway, David was acting weird the entire time and I quickly discovered why: the things I was pointing at saying I'd love to have, he picked up and then bought for me as my birthday presents - despite my objections, of course! 
I ended up getting a 253 sticker (253 pride!! Always wanted one), a very pretty one-handed stainless steel pepper grinder with a Native American design on it, and a Truelux candle, which I'd seen on Evening Magazine and wanted to pick up. I got the blood orange scent and it smells amazing.

So after that little shopping excursion, it was time for the movie. David still bought a large popcorn and candy. I don't know where his other stomach is but he has to have one!
No spoilers here, but all I'm going to say is

DAMMIT.

Fine, it's fine. Everything is fine. I'm fine.

 


Also David and I


Anyway, that was my busy weekend. I had loads of fun with all my peeps. Definitely a birthday to remember.