Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Paella

According to tradition in Valencia, paella is cooked by men over an open fire, fueled by orange and pine branches along with pine cones. This produces an aromatic smoke which infuses the paella. Also, dinner guests traditionally eat directly out of the paellera...
  • Heat oil in a paellera.
  • Sauté meat after seasoning with salt.
  • Add green vegetables and sauté until soft.
  • Add garlic (optional), grated tomatoes, beans and sauté.
  • Add paprika and sauté.
  • Add water, saffron (and/or food coloring), snails and rosemary.
  • Boil to make broth and allow it to reduce by half.
  • Add rice and simmer until rice is cooked.
  • Garnish with more fresh rosemary.
Velencia is a salt water lagoon of the east coast of Spain.  This recipe is standardized because Valencians consider it traditional and very much part of their culture. Rice in Valencian paella is never braised in oil, as pilau, though the paella made further southwest of Valencia often is.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Death to Scooty

Scooter Update!!
It looks like I got taken for a ride-- and not an enjoyable one.
I bought a lemon, a sour, sour, very sour LEMON....!!
The engine was f*ckeeeed when I bought it-- the guy put some thick ass 90 wt oil in the engine to mask the knocking noise and smoking exhaust which would have made it clear that the engine was shot...
:(                   ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS KARMA M*THER F*CKER
On the bright side, at least now I know how to take apart a motorcycle engine.... And I guess I learned (????) to always take shit to a mechanic before you hand over the $$$

Thursday, May 26, 2011

the last 24 hours have turned my hands BLACK.

Yesterday the scooter decided it didn't want to work at 8 o'clock in the morning. I had to be somewhere at 8:30. I rethought "have to," rescheduled, and spent the entire day working on this new toy turned 'project.' The engine turned over a few times in the morning, but after about 4 x's it was only clicking with the ignition. It seemed like an easy power issue so I took the battery out first...
I put it in my purse, hopped on my bike and pedaled down Ventura Blvd. to 'Big O Tires.' I started talking to one of the guys in the garage and he offered to charge it for me. I left it there for a few hours. When I got it back, I thought I had the problem handled... 
That wasn't the problem :(
So today I took it apart, determined to get to the bottom of this! 70 mpg-- two days ago I had the open road at my fingertips, I want it back please, thank you... 
So I did ALOT of research, called some folks, and set out to check my starter selenoid. It's below in the picture. The positive and negative wires from the battery connect into it-- and then this big fatty black encased wire comes out of it and careens into the bottom of this engine and attaches to the starter motor, so hard to see! I go to Auto Zone and pick up a test light hoping it will tell me the engines NOT getting power, this will help narrow down the problem... too bad the selenoid was working fine...
The next thing I need to check is the starter motor. So I take the body of the scooter off to get closer, but this proves to be a mission in itself considering I didn't have a socket wrench to save my life at this point. Once I'm in there it's still difficult because there's this huge Air Box in the way.


 Anyways so I take it out and take it Firestone on Ventura Blvd., they test it, it works, F*ck, um what else could it be...? It's not turning over so it can't be my CDI or engine coils, I have oil, gas and power... power? One of the guys at firestone says it may be the battery, I tell him I just got it charged, "It doesn't matter, if it's old it will show a charge when you test it, but that doesn't mean it's enough to power the engine." He offers to test it so I go home and grab it... Their machines unfortunately couldn't test it accurately because they're meant for batteries with higher amps, or something, so I go to PepBoys, I almost cry when the guy tells me it's a bad battery. I buy a new one, I've spent over 24 hours on this thing, I'm ready to ride it already jeeeeeze. I go home and put it in the engine. It turns over a little, but not fully :( ahhhhh what is this, imobilize Portia month? Good god, I got my car towed last week and now my new wheels are failing me?

I find out you have to charge it before you use it... I asked the guy at PepBoys before I left, he said he didn't think so. I call him and he says "Oh yeah, I guess you do. We don't sell battery chargers, but I know for a fact AutoZone does.." Back to AutoZone, the fourth time in two days!

Now I have to wait ten point five hours... it's been like five, I'm still so happy at the thought that I might be able to ride it tomorrow.... And to be honest-- I learned so much about this engine, it's a 150 cc, and every shop I went to said it's pretty much a motorcycle engine. This is fantastic news because motorcycles are looking sexier everyday. The only draw back about all of this is that my hands appear permanently grease tinted.... But it's cool, I'm getting a manicure tomorrow :)



Tuesday, May 24, 2011

scooters-- surprisingly rad

I bought a scooter last week. I rode it home today. I giggled my fckin face off the whole way home, I had no idea I was going to be so stoked on this.... I wonder how long this excitement is going to last me before I have to buckle down and buy a motorcycle.


Thursday, May 19, 2011

 Photos by Stanley Forman from July 22, 1975, fire in Boston

I love Glitch Mob's 'Bad Wings' album cover.... this turns me on




New shoes...



I'm OBSESSED with these little top-slider(ish) Military chic tennis shoe I got yesterday. I LOVE them. I've always loved tennis shoes. In high school I had a collection of Nike dunks-- I caught guys in my closet trying to trade out their shoes with mine more than once. My love of the flat stems from the fact that I'm taller than everyone most of the time already..... I'm not into dudes having to stand on curbs while they kiss me, too bad though, cause heels make our butts look effing good....

Anyways, occasions like this when I find a shoe that's versatile enough to wear during the day, and when I go out at night, I get stoked... can you tell???












can somebody just pay me to rhyme all day long...seriously, i'd love that.

We are all packed up and in with all we need
here on our missions
released from light we came to life
in a fruition of divine division
the notes playing bleed intuition
but the road ahead is winding
and charcoal thunder clouds soar above indecision.

It's almost time for new tires.
I don't even notice the pressure
as its burning rubber down to wire.

Sometimes I get so lost
trying to decipher destiny in desire
Losing logic to lust and love to liars
walking the plank one of them prepared to jump
but in a flash the drop retired
the heat rose up from the belly of the fire
tricked into trance in a state of admirer

pushing past the stillness
a coalition of currents came chaotic
feel this?

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Great song. But I OBJECT!



AmazZZZing song. I disagree completely with the message it's sending.

This song captures her emotion in a way that makes the way she's feeling clearly transferrable, at least I feel it when I hear it, like my body hurts a little bit or a little extra weight just got added to my heart... I'm sure we can all bring ourselves back to a past love who has occupied our brain space for a significant period of time, but nobody should waste so much time thinking about someone if it's not reciprocatory.

As human beings we have ourselves to think about here, you know discovering those things that make you you, the things we're on this planet to cultivate in ourselves, don't forget those things, emotions are powerful, but why allow yourself to get tangled and drained in a situation when THERE ARE A MILLION AND ONE fish in the sea....

Sunday, May 15, 2011



I think I'm getting a scooter....

It finally happened. My little jeepy jeep is no more.  I walked outside of my apartment this afternoon around 3 and had planned on going to whole foods to get a bottle of wine, a mango Kambucha and a chocolate chip cookie. That is, until I found out that my car was not where I left it. In my mind I retraced my steps from the night before. I got home at 4 am.. I probably shouldn't have been driving. I went to park my car on the street outside of my apartment and I remember being compelled to take it around to the back and park where I usually do. Figuring the less time I spend in the car the better,  I forfeited the effort of looping the block and crossing Ventura Blvd.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

samsara escapes the death grip on youth...

We are the indigo kids
Reconstructed.
A new generation.
The wavelengths reformatted.
This is the beginning of creation
Translate.
Or.. Fall into the static inferno.
The old ways are outdated,
we're painting the past, present and future
Eternal.

The world has been pickled by the hearts of men,
greed multiplied by grief and back again.
Colonial green further darkened the the light,
with rusted blood lines their branches descend,
natural laws phased from the masses,
purposely distorting things like the value of oxygen..
Skulls in hoods stole the bones from intuition.
The unnoticed incision.

I'm a Hopi Indian
we're all a part of them.
We were once monks in Tibet..
The Earth has turned soil for centuries
mind bodies digested with enzymes of human regret..
We are the people with the triangle on our foreheads,
we've come to catalyze the reset
we are here to take care of tomorrow,
to spark fire in life and give love truth to defend
all these life cycles seemed like only seconds
in the grand spectrum of the end
but they've added up--
recycled souls, we can no longer pretend

look close...
the moon shines through
a beacon of truth. awaken third eye.
There's no place for 'a tooth for a tooth.'
or scales of pounds and flesh,
The material body's destiny is empty and dry
samsara escapes the death grip on youth
and you're already scheduled to die...

We are everything and nothing
simultaneously united by the same something.
Nomad's in a new age
we're here to change the channel,
our case connection is growing
the program -- many won't know how to handle,
get side-tracked, stale in the mundane
or lost in the chaotic
either way,
the past is swallowing all that is robotic...
.......the future is breaking into weightless liberation
-----Get With It

<3

Portia Leigh
5/2011

Monday, May 9, 2011

Daddy's little stunt girl

       When I was younger my dad used to call me his little guinea pig. I was thrilled by the idea of being the guinea pig without knowing what it entailed. In all honest, I initially agreed to the role of the occasional test dummy because I thought guinea pigs were cute. My dad sorta treated me like a female G.I. Joe doll, his little stunt girl.    
        At four years old I was doing high falls off the roof into an airbag (more like "active" falls, as he was the one gently tossing me off the roof). He would say "Look at my little stunt girl," while a seven year old me is climbing the ladder, getting ready to jump.  My dad and his stuntmen friends would have these 'work outs'. They'd all get together at one of their houses and work on perfecting what they do for a living, stunts.
            Since my parents separated when I was three, whenever I was with my dad, I was literally WITH my dad. I didn't have babysitters, and I didn't have a lot of friends to hang out with until high school, so from the ages of four through 13, he brought me everywhere with him.
          One of the work-outs would be at his friend Tony S.'s house in Culver city. He had a trapese set-up in his back yard, something like you would find in circus de solei. I loved going to his house, because he had dogs and the backyard was huge, I could run rampant if I wanted. On the trapese set there was this harness attached to two bungee chords, once buckled in, the possibility of voluntarily removing myself was unlikely. The chords were attached to the top off two white metal support poles that shot out of the ground, 3 stories high and about a volleyball courts distance apart from each other.
      Once I was in the harness my dad, and whoever I could convince, would grab me by the ankles and start walking with me until the tension in the bungee's was strong enough to launch me across the back yard like amo in a sling-shot. I always wanted to go higher, even when I was up above all of the trees, HIGHER, higher please.
       From as early as I can remember my dad's main field of stunt work has been car work; precision driving, crashes, rolls...  one afternoon his friends were over adding to his demo real, everyone was outside. I was sitting on the warm concrete playing with rolli-pollys in my one-piece bathing suit (my uniform for years) as my dad and three of his friends stood discussing the stunt they were about to pull on our street.There was a 20 x 25 Porta Pit (a vinyl-covered cushion for jumps and falls) laid out adjacent to our drive-way, it was black and about 3 feet think.
      My dad was in his royal blue driving suit from this 80s racing team he used to drive for called Performance 2, one of his friends was holding the video camera and the other one was on the roof of somebody's grey-blue two door sedan, face-down, arms spread across like a crucifixtion as he gripped the side doors on his left and right. They drive around the block (with me in the back seat of course), one is shooting the scene from the passenger seat as my dad and the friend on the roof fake fight through the driver's side window. When he got the car in position for the finish he sped up, turned slightly to the right, then pulled the e-break just enough to slide perfectly into place beside the porta pit in front of our house, the man on the roof rolled off... gently I'm sure.
      This sparked my interest in car stunts. We used to have this little old 9-14 six convertible Porsche, my dad would always do 360s if I begged for long enough. I loved the thrill, it made my stomach feel non-existent, excitement coursed through my veins. At about age eight he started letting me jump out of the car, but only in the convertible, like in the movies. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd experienced up until that point in life.. and then I ate shit. hard.
       The routine would go as follows, we'd get onto Kittridge St. and once we were a few houses away from ours he'd slow down, I'd crouch up onto the seat with a left hand grip on the top of it and have my right hand on the door beside me, slowly putting pressure on it until I had the guts to jump... all you've got to do is come down running.
        My mom had just bought me these semi-baggy jeans with loony tune characters hanging out the back pocket for my 9th birthday, she and my grandma said they were like Janet Jackson's and the loose boy-friend jean was in. When it came to clothes, they chose sizes as if they were waiting for the day when I'd shoot up like Jack's bean stock, at least the'd be prepared garment-wise.
       The day of the fall was sunny and beautiful. These older boys that lived up my street were outside playing on their skateboards, as we passed by on the drive home I decided I wanted to impress them. I tell my dad to slow it down, the speedometer drops to a cool five mph and I crawl into position like a parrot perched. I prepare for take-off, I'm nervous. When I'm nervous or undecided about something, I jump in. Figuratively and literally choosing action with my eyes closed is something I struggle with. I'm 24 years-old, and sometimes on the days when I can't make up my mind, I still throw all of it, myself included, into the universe.... hope it comes out alright.
     So I jump out of the cherry red convertible. My jeans get caught on the little silver unlocked door lock protruding out of the passenger side door, far from graceful I awkwardly try to avoid a crash landing. Arms flayle on the take off, feet impact assphault, brain say's Come down running. I do. And for a mili-second I think I'm home free...then, SMACK. My pants weren't feeling the jog that afternoon. My feet got tangled up in the excess and as I tried to run, I tripped violently instead.... I didn't try to do that in front of boys, or anyone else for that matter, EVER again... (what tomorrow brings though is a different story, I wear tighter pants these days)



(Chapter: Dad/ childhood)

Layered thick and deep with all this squash-like pulp...Mango!

I keep forgetting to buy the swiss miss exfoliator I usually use, I rarely remember to get things I need until I'm in need of them. So I was in the shower today and I realize I have no scrubby scrub and there are these little bumps on the back of my arms and they only go away with exfoliator, so I'm bummed...
I get over it, and out of the shower, throw on some clothing, and go to the kitchen. I decided its a good day for sitting outside and having lunch, so I start cutting up this mango, which I now know is called the 'King of Fruits.' So I start butchering into it and to be honest the little guy is a rather intimidating advisary, how does one slice this thing up clean?? I get to the seed, and all of the sudden I'm off on a tagent...

  Holy shit, this seed is fckng huge! I wonder how they cut the mangos that end up in all those packages of diced frozen fruit?! How do you get around this thing? machine or a lot of manual labor? the latter gives me hope, maybe blue collar jobs can exist in the future..





So I start cleaning off this seed and it is a mission, it's layered thick and deep with all this soft yellow squash-like pulp. I get down close to being able to see the actual hard part of the seed and I see all these little grainy dots on it... As I'm cleaning the seed I'm handling it like a bar of soap (don't ask me why because I don't fckng know) and so I massage this thing between my hand for a while (until I decide I've had enough of getting side-tracked from the initial plan of having a nice lunch outside) I put the soap seed down, only to discover my hands are soft as fck!

So I do a little research and low and behold, the seed inside this little mango can be used as an exfoliant once you clean it off, you can rub it all over you body while you're in the shower and feel silky smooth after....The mango has a multitude of other uses too, the site below lists a lot of interesting facts... or facts that I found interesting haha...

http://www.freshmangoes.com/factsmyths.html

It doesn't mention the seed as an exfoliant,  but other sources do.. the particular site gives a broader overview than others.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

self-sacrifice which denies common sense is not a virtue. It's a spiritual dissipation. 
Margaret Deland


A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
Mohandas Gandhi