Random Life Update: 

The current song haunting me on the radio across multiple stations is For The Longest Time. At least once a day every day this week while I'm in the car. Which I can't say I mind at all - in point of fact, I grin and squee "O I love this song!!" and jump on my seat happy dance while driving during the intro Ohs and finger snaps whenever it starts. I mean, the reason Billy Joel on randomize is most often my dog's babysitter when I leave her by herself is because of how much I adore Billy Joel songs and him being my favorite since I was like 5yo so my dog grew up hearing his songs all the time and me getting happy every time they come on. 

Also, both my cat and my dog have a very marked preference for piano over all other instruments - Spock will lay on the piano bench whenever he wants to hear piano music and if I ignore him he'll meowl plaintively, reach for me with his paw if I walk nearby, or tap at the keys himself til I get the idea. 🤣 I'm not a particularly good pianist, I have it to get the random melodies in my head out of my head - but he's pretty happy with that. Whenever there are fireworks or the fire alarm was pulled/tested, or noise in the halls or on the roof or even just the lawnmower going, I put on George Winston or Billy Joel for the animals. Even if I wanted to choose another favorite instrument in my household (o my favorite is piano too, but a beautiful strings arrangement gives even piano music a run for the money with me) I'd be outvoted by the fur babies and piano would win.

So yeah, definitely not at all sad that nearly every time I get in the car for the last week I catch For The Longest Time on the radio. Not sad in the least. Not even sad it's currently still stuck in my head and I'm wandering around my kitchen singing it while making fried rice after I heard it while driving home from watering my outdoor planters at work around sunset. (Highs in the low 80s and sunny all week - so once again daily watering the herbs and the nightshades. And the banana plants that have been outside since their division- will ask my papa to help me bring them in on Monday before the lows dip back down into the 40s.) 

P. S. Made an interesting spicy sweet Japanese style fried rice with habanero, jalapenos, umami powder, sansho seasoning, garlic, wasabi, pickled ginger, and yuzu hot sauce. (the soy sauce soaked rice, wasabi, and pickled ginger were from my dad's bento box - he doesn't like rice, only eats it in sushi rolls and neither of my parents like pickled ginger so I always inherit all of it when we have sushi.) Veggies were carrots, peppers, frozen broccoli, kale. And then scrambled egg (the distinction between stir fry and fried rice is, imho, the egg in fried rice. Because you can make stir fry with or without rice, but fried rice always has rice and eggs in it, in every Asian cuisine I know of.) And then organic Houijacha green tea to drink with it.

As I said, spicy and sweet Japanese inspired fried rice. I went back for seconds so I have no leftovers, would definitely do again!  Too and there's no recipe since I make up my cooking as I go once I know the rules and reasons for a given dish/cuisine. I tend to cook by smell and my mood, but I know the basic recipes and reasons for them. My cooking habits tend to be French, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, southwest, Mexican, Native American, Indian, Thai, and Asian fusion.  (But all of them when cooked by me don't have any pork, bacon, or lard because of how violently sick I get from ingesting even the amount of pork protein in the gelatin of a gummy candy/vitamin/edible.)