Dive #15

Those last few went by pretty quickly. Today I did another volunteer dive to remove an invasive kelp from the Monterey Harbor. I got closer to finding some this time: I found a plant that looked like Undaria but that wasn't it. Oh well. I saw a skate! It was about 8 inches long and shaped like the back half of a shark with a flappy body at the front and little eyes on top. Cool! There were lots of sea lions nearby but I didn't see any from underwater. I saw the usual nifty invertebrates: sea stars, anemones, crabs. I also saw a lot of nudibranchs today. Lots of the neon purple ones with orange gills on top. Orange the color of Tang. And they just slug along, waving their little feelers. They're cute. There was also a sea cucumber AND a sunflower star, so there were two squishy things I resisted the urge to pet.

It wouldn't really hurt them - especially the sea star, they're all spiny and tough - but I don't want to bother sea life for no good reason.

I think I might be able to see color underwater more easily than most people. Sometimes people describe things like "it's really orange but I know it looked sort of brown underwater" but it looked orange to me. I don't have one of those tinted masks or anything. I guess I'm just lucky. Or maybe to some extent it's me interpreting "it's brownish, but without the bluey-green filter it'd be orange." One time I saw a vermilion rock fish and its spots looked plenty orange-red to me, though. That was maybe 40 feet down. Today we were in really shallow water so everyone could see the colors. Except the one guy who was colorblind.

Book Log

Book #8 and 9 Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

I got this on a whim. It was pretty good but I should have gotten Son of a Witch. I still haven't read that one. This one was much more grounded in reality and I wasn't expecting that. I wish the cover illustration hadn't contained a huge spoiler. That would've been nice. Still, I very much like the illustrations. I like them as much as I like the illustrations in A Series of Unfortunate Events. And I like how Maguire writes female characters. In this book, as in Wicked, it was all about relationships between women and men were mostly peripheral. I like how the "stepmother" character is so complex. Nobody's good or evil in his books, they're all just human.

The only complaint I had was the ending felt a little abrupt. That was mainly because there were more pages but it turned out those contained study questions, which was odd because I didn't think I'd picked up a special students' edition. Anyway. I can't help keeping in mind roughly how many pages are left as I'm approaching the end of a book. I don't know why I do that. But when the book ends sooner than I expected, because there's an appendix at the back or something, it's like "woah, what happened?" I especially would have liked to know how a certain character died. I won't spoil it.

It wasn't as epic as Wicked but I still highly recommend it.

****************
I also finished the next Brother Cadfael book but they're all pretty much the same so I don't feel like reviewing them any more. Some new characters are introduced, somebody murders one of them and Cadfael eventually figures out whodunit. The End. I like the characters and setting so I'm going to continue reading the series but I don't have a lot to say about it.

Y'know, come to think of it, if you've got good characters and settings, there could be hardly any plot at all and I'd still enjoy it. Well, unless it's a stupid plot that doesn't make any sense. That would bug me. Characters are always the most important aspect for me. Lousy characters and an awesome plot add up to a book that I probably wouldn't even bother to finish. Or I would finish it and then rip it up on LJ.

and the last post of the evening: recipe!

I made "chicken" and mushroom enchiladas last night. Not very authentic but they were darn tasty.

Ingredients:
• about 1/4 of a giant can of Rosarita enchilada sauce, because they don't sell smaller cans


• three handfulls of Morningstar Farms soy "chicken" strips


• two handfulls of chopped mushrooms (I'd add more next time)


• three handfulls of shredded cheddar/jack cheese


• 4 to 6 corn tortillas


• a few kalamata olives

Thaw the "chicken" in the microwave. Chop the chicken into little cubes and mix with mushrooms and two handfulls of cheese. Spread some enchilada sauce on the bottom of a baking dish. Take each tortilla and fill it with chicken/mushroom/cheese filling. Attempt to make neat little enchiladas and get enchilada sauce on your hands because they won't stay rolled up. Stuff the enchiladas into the dish so they're stuck in a rolled-up position. Pour more sauce over the top of the enchiladas and sprinkle on the remaining cheese. Bake uncovered at 350° for 20 minutes. Garnish with olives.

I used 4 tortillas and ended up with leftover filling so if you use 6 that'll probably work out about right.