And then there are mornings where I fail at pancakes.

And then there are mornings where I fail at pancakes.

Fist-sized chunks of the balcony outside spontaneously disintegrated onto the ground floor. It was fixed within the week. Nevertheless I find this to be somewhat alarming. It was left me feeling a tad incredulous because my rent's raised starting next month.

Perhaps my new goal ought to be to graduate and move out before the building I live in collapses around my ears. (Ugh so close, so CLOSE -- I need to get a publication quality image for an experiment but the antibody gives me background so I'm tweaking one variable at a time -- and I have two additional experiments to triple check my findings and another talk in 28 days OH GOD.)

Went hiking yesterday at Cuyamaca Peak (5000-6000ft elev.) yesterday because I have never done hiking at an elevation (WELL, I've done leisurely walks on relatively flat grounds at elevation that I don't really count as hiking) and I figured I should probably figure out how I'd react to elevation BEFORE I reached Peru, i.e. Machu Picchu (~8000ft) and Cuzco (something like 11k ft?). It was 70-75F where I live at around sea level but cold enough at the summit that there was snow in the tree shade and I was extremely glad of my sweater (yes I brought a sweater). I have learned that:

1) I'm a-okay at 6K elevation doing a medium - moderately strenuous trail.
2) My water consumption did not noticeably increase, which sort of freaked out the people I was with who were not used to how little water I normally drank.
3) Cheeses get softer at high elevations. Weird but true. Soft cheeses will get weird and gooey at 6K in sandwiches.
4) UV radiation is indeed a lot more severe at high elevations -- I know this because though I remembered to put on sunscreen before I left I (possibly because I'm right handed) missed a spot on the back of my neck, just behind my left ear, and now I have this 2cm spot that's sunburned while the rest of me is fine. So much for my reputation of being thorough.

It's near the end of wild flower season but there was still a bunch of the little blue flowers that I liked everywhere along with the occasional bunches of lupine and poppies so it's quite nice. The snow was weird though. Really weird.

They started stocking Tazo chai again! Now in a new grey-on-grey packaging. To be fair Tazo actually does a pretty good job with the packaging designs compared to some of the other brands. (Numi your tea's excellent but some of your design choices are suspect.)

Also got letter notice that my rent's being raised UGH stupid protein why won't you behave properly so I can finish up my project and graduate. Maybe to some place that's less expensive to live. Or at least to a position that has better pay.

Have decided to try out the food coloring color palette I found a long time ago and made myself green pancakes -- mint chip green to be exact. Experiment v. successful.

Moving on to plan B (sports stores) as my hip to waist ratio is unsuited for boy pants. My options are either to go with something that's really uncomfortably tight or to wear a belt and have an uncomfortable amount of material bunched at my waist.

Also cream in soup is weird. Maybe it's better if I can't taste it.

So this is a pretty awesome recipe and you should take my rec seriously because it's a recipe for cheesy bread and I don't even like cheese.

Also the sketchiness was indeed a power thing and I've had no trouble since the reset. 

Ugh I think the internet sketchiness from yesterday may have been a minor power flux / power cut in the area or something and messed up router.  Did ipconfig /flushdns and router reset and everything seems fine...FOR NOW.