Mr. Fizgig and I had been talking about going camping in the desert with Banjo for a while.  Rather, Mister was longing to go, and I looked at him like this: o.O

You see, Mister loves the outdoors, and has happily hiked for a week into the wilderness. (Yes, that’s hiking for a week just to reach the perfect camping spot, which, to me, is inconceivable.)  Although not a complete princess, I admit I’m reluctant to head any place where I am likely to be surrounded by any number of vile creepy-crawlies that always seem to find ME, followed by a fitful night’s sleep on a cold, hard floor.

I can see the charm of camping, but wilderness-trekking rejector of basic creature comforts I am not.

But then Mister and I spotted a 4-person tent with a screened porch AND mesh ceiling so you can lie in your sleeping bag and gaze at the stars for only $67.  And Lil Ms here thought why not? It could be a relatively bug-free overnight trip.

And so a couple of weeks ago, with the cold nights of winter behind us and the promise of an almost-perigee moon before us, we piled into the car and headed east into the Anza-Borrego desert.

We found a beautiful and secluded spot in the dog-friendly Culp Valley, a primitive (i.e. no running water) camping spot high above the parched valley spread below.  After pitching the tent, we set up our folding chairs, placing a towel at our feet to protect Banjo from the evil prickles of the cholla cacti.  And so, from the comfort of our chairs, surrounded by boulders and spiky succulents, we guzzled a rather good cava as the sun set.  This is actually alright! I grinned and began to relax — but Banjo was on high alert and stayed close as the mournful howls of the coyotes floated past on the thick breeze of the cooling desert night.

To be honest, the moon didn’t seem any larger than usual, but it did seem slightly brighter. No matter, we were moonstruck anyway, marvelling at the light casting a pale blue glow that lit our way.

The next morning, we awoke before 6am to watch the sunrise. The colours were beautiful, a muted palette of soft pinks and corals against a dusky taupe. The valley around and below us used to be a sea bed, and I imagined being a spiny creature swimming amongst the rocks.

We had to leave around 9am: the sun was already beating down and the air was so dry that I could actually feel the skin on my face begin to crack, despite drinking loads of water. I kept dreaming of diving into a cobalt blue swimming pool or plunging into the ocean, feeling cool water splashing my face and engulfing my body… My thoughts were interrupted by a cry from Mister who almost stepped on a rattlesnake! Luckily, Banjo was already saddled up on the backseat of the car, which we’d just about finished loading. We sped away down the mountain towards Borrego Springs to find coffee and breakfast.

Back at sea level, my trusty foodie nose sniffed out the dog-friendly El Borrego Restaurant (whose garden features artworks by sculptor Ricardo A. Breceda — more of which in a min!) Although they don’t serve breakfast after March (“it’s too hot”) the kind owner gladly shared her personal pot of coffee with us at no charge, which we enjoyed over a hearty breakfast of chicken fajitas.

On our way back to San Diego, we stopped to look at the strange and wonderful metal sculptures of prehistoric creatures that are dotted around the outskirts of Borrego Springs. Created by artist Ricardo A. Breceda, these giant sculptures are sort of part Jurassic Park, part Mad Max. What I really like about them is that Breceda really captures the emotion of the moment: we saw a tender scene of a suckling foal and his mother; a horse with whaling eyes, in the split second before it is pounced upon by a sabre-toothed tiger; the majesty of a mammoth rearing up. They are marvellous to look at and you don’t have to get out of the car to admire them — an important factor in the extreme desert conditions.

{ click to see larger image }

Except for the moths and the rattlesnake, I really enjoyed being in the wilderness. And I’m always a sucker for desert art. I think next time I’d like to go back for two or more nights — but I’d bring a dog bed and booties for Banjo; citronella spray; and something softer to lie on. Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up a serious camper one day… hey, the Mister can dream, right?!

§

Anza-Borrego is the largest state park in California, and one of the few parks in the whole USA which permits ‘open camping’ — i.e. you can camp wherever you want. Certain rules apply.

For our final project in Photoshop class, we had to create a 3D animation.  It could be anything we liked, whether for personal or professional use. Adding sound (in a separate program — in my case, iMovie) was optional. In fact, the only criterion was that it be a minimum of 10 seconds long.

I gave it some thought and decided I wanted to create something that would be funny to watch.  Given the limitations of what can be done in Photoshop, I decided to keep it simple… and British.  The image of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster popped into my head, and from thereon my mini-comedy began to take shape…

One of the things I miss about living in England is the humour: I think we Brits are quite good at laughing at ourselves, much to the confusion and astonishment of people unfamiliar with our culture.  Yet sometimes just as confusing is our emotional stoicism — I’ve written before about how “the only time I have ever been glad to inherit that most English of postures, the stiff upper lip, is when there is something unpleasant to be done.” — and think that the Brits could sometimes express feelings better.  I feel that this mini-comedy both celebrates and pokes fun at what it means to be British. ‘Nuff said… Enjoy:

Fool Britannia from Lauren Vasil on Vimeo

Credits

Spoiler alert - if you haven’t yet watched this lil’ video, be warned that there are spoilers below. Watch it now, if you haven’t already – it’s only 37 seconds!

Sounds via ILoveWavs – a great selection of WAVs compiled from across the internet.  Do check first if you plan on using them for anything other than personal / educational use – under copyright law I was able to because this video was for a college project.

Keep Calm and Carry On poster via Wikipedia – an iconic piece of WWII propaganda, I later learned it was the third in a series of wartime posters but never actually seen by the public: it was designed in 1939 by a British civil servant and would have been released had Germany invaded Britain (read more about the history here). I can just hear the BBC correspondent now, dispensing this government-issued advice in his fraightfully clipped RP accent.  As it turns out, the image of the KC&CO poster is actually in the public domain: as it was originally created by the British government it was protected by Crown Copyright which expires after 50 years.

Vector Crown by rones @ AllFreeDownload – it was sheer luck that I should find a vector-based image for the crown in the poster.  It definitely made it easy to play around with its position without losing resolution.

Pointed Hand, via The Graphics Fairy – The Graphics Fairy is a wonderful resource for clip art that is in the public domain.  I downloaded her Victorian pointed hand and ‘shopped in a long, black sleeve for the part where the big crown is raised in the video.  I also ‘shopped out the fingers to make the back of the hand that presses the On button / draws her moustache; and recreated the open hands with painted fingernails by duplicating the fingers, reducing their scale, and then duplicating / flipping the image horizontally to create the pair of hands the open to reveal the Queen.

Brick Wall via LoveTextures via  – I wanted to find a brick wall that reminded me of London in the early ’80s.  One of my favourite resources, NaldzGraphics, led me to this particular image.  I zoomed in to get the bricks to the size I wanted and then modified the colour ever so slightly.

Union Flag via AllFreeDownload – it seemed fitting that the spoof open and close with the Union Flag*, so why not wield some basic Photoshop warping skills and make theatrical curtains too?

* Not many people know that it’s only called the Union Jack when the flag is at sea.

The image of the Queen was obtained via a simple Google Images search.  Sadly, I was not able to determine its copyright information, so if you are the copyright holder, please let me know via email at fizgiggery / gmail

I’ve finally made proper use of my domain, LaurenVasil.com — the third project for my Photoshop class was to make a 4-page website.  I decided to create a simple website to help propel me into the world of Graphic Design.  A sort of virtual business card, if you will.  And that got me thinking about brand identity.

See, I reckoned that if I want to be seen as a graphic designer then it doesn’t make much sense to have someone else’s photograph of me as my avatar.  Why not show an image of myself that I created? So, I decided to wield my skills to create a digital self-portrait on my About page, which I can then use as an avatar across the web, including on my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

This was my first attempt at a vector illustration in Photoshop, and I’m quite pleased with the result!  In fact, it’s already been featured in this informative article about Pinterest, written by Minal Bopaiah AND I’ve since had several requests to create a digital portrait of other people!  (Maybe I should start offering my digital portrait services on Etsy… hmmm…)

But, back to school work, I still had to create a 4-page website, which had to also include a Gallery page — perfect for displaying my growing portfolio!  I pulled the colour scheme from my digital self-portrait and set about creating a logo — an 8-pointed Moorish star, that’s roughly based on my initials, LV.  From there I also created a Moroccan-style background, based on the star logo.

 As with most things web-related, LaurenVasil.com is definitely a work in progress.  My teacher wanted us to create an 800×600 template, which is why the site pages currently don’t fill the screen: the next update will be to create pages that accommodate a larger monitor size.  I have big plans!  Watch this Creative Geek space…

Oh, teh interwebs… it’s a strange virtual world we live in.  We find ourselves suddenly connected to all sorts of people, most of whom we’ve never met in real life.  And yet, like friends, we look forward to reading their blog posts, and perhaps their social media updates too.

So, it’s really rather wonderful when a fellow bloggy friend, whom you haven’t met in real life and who therefore isn’t completely biased, nominates your blog for an award.  Who, me? Bring on the recognition! It feels good to be appreciated, so thank you ConvertibleLife for the honour!

Here are the rules for this award:
1) Include the award logo in a post or in your blog.
2) Answer 10 questions about yourself.
3) Nominate 10 to 12 other fabulous bloggers.
4) Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blog to let them know they are nominated.
5) Share the love and link the person who nominated you.

And here are my answers to these random questions:

Favorite color: That magical point in the spectrum where red meets pink.

Favorite number: Seven, because it’s a prime number, and I think they’re cool.

Favorite animal: Dogs.  Specifically, mine. Aroo!!

Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Something caffeinated – espresso-based coffee in the morning; Earl Grey tea in the afternoon.

Prefer Facebook or Twitter: I can’t really make a comparison because I use the two platforms for totally different reasons: Facebook for keeping in touch with friends and family; Twitter for networking and keeping up-to-date with local goings-on.  (I never liked Twitter until I discovered the fabulous TweetBot app.  Best $3 I spent in the App Store.)

My Passion: Friends, laughter, colour, food.

Prefer giving or getting presents: I actually really enjoy giving gifts.  I think I’m pretty good at picking out what I think someone would like, even when it’s not completely to my taste.  (Of course, I also like the element of surprise, so getting gifts is nice too.)

Favorite pattern: Stripes. Love ‘em.  Particularly horizontal ones.

Favorite day of the week: I think Saturday.  I associate it with freedom.

Favorite flower: Ranunculus, peonies, roses, jasmine. How could I pick just one?

And here are the bloggers I am nominating for this award:

✩ Momsicle because she is a good friend and I loves her
✩ Sherry Parnes because she is my crazy wife
✩ Notabilia because she got me started on this whole website thang in the first place
✩ A Lady Reveals Nothing because she makes me howl
✩ The Daily Frolic because she takes beautiful, peachy photographs
✩ Brandi Girl Blog because she shares explorations in colour and web design beautifully
✩ Kadja1 for faithfully sharing, tweeting, and promoting everything I create!
✩ Everything Worth Writing About for her openness and honesty
✩ What Possessed Me because I like the things she notice
✩ San Budí because she reminds me of home

Now go blog visiting, share some comment love — and tell them I sent you.

- featuring my uncle’s Jack Russell, Roxy.

I wonder if there is a more Spanish dish than tortilla.  I’m not talking about the flour or corn flatbread that wrap Mexican food — I mean tortilla española, or “Spanish Omelette” as it is known amongst the British ex-pat diaspora.

From the upscale nouvelle cuisine joints in Madrid, to sunflower seed and cigarette butt-strewn holes in the wall in Andalusian bus stations, with all the tapas bars in-between — noisy, smoke-filled, and with legs of jamón serrano hanging overhead — when I think of the many tapas bars I’ve eaten in, I think of tortilla: a lovely yellow wedge of cool potatoes, flavoured with onion, bound by eggs, and served with a few slices of crusty white bread.

So ubiquitous and simple is tortilla, that my mother will often cheat and buy it, shrink-wrapped, from the gas station at the bottom of the winding road that leads to her village.

Here, on the other side of the Atlantic, I have had to learn how to make it.  My friends seem to love it, because there’s never any left over at parties — so it’s become my go-to dish for a pot luck: easy to make, easier to transport, the ingredients are cheap, it’s vegetarian, it can be served hot or cold, and eaten as a side dish or as a main course.  How much more versatile can you get?!

I have perfected the recipe over the years and think I am finally ready to share my version of tortilla with you… here it is:

Ingredients

• 9 free range eggs
• 6-7 medium-sized potatoes (about 1kg or 2lbs)
• 1 large onion
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

• Slice your potatoes into thin discs, 3-5mms (1/8″) thick.
• Julienne your onion — cut in half, then slice into thin strips along the grain.
• Season with salt and pepper.

When you’re done chopping, your ingredients should look like this:

• Heat a generous glug of olive oil in a large pan.
• When the oil thins, add potatoes and onion.
• Sauté on a medium high heat until the potatoes are cooked all the way through, but still firm. (The onions should be lightly caramelised.)
• Meanwhile, beat the eggs together in a large bowl.
• Season.
• When the potatoes and onion are done, tip into the egg mixture and gently stir, coating all potatoes.
• In a 25cm / 10″ frying pan, heat up a little olive oil.
• Rotate the pan to coat it with the oil, then, when hot, add the potato mixture.
• Cook on a medium high heat for 10 minutes, until there is a pale yellow edge.

Here is the beginning of the pale yellow edge (at “six o’clock”), and this is when it starts to smell reaaaally good…

• Turn down the heat and cook for another 15 minutes, or so.
• When it’s cooked enough for you to be able to do the following, it’s time to…
• … grab a plate, place it over the pan, and flip the tortilla onto the plate.
• Slide the undercooked side of the tortilla back into the pan, and tuck in the sides.
• Cook for another 5-10 minutes, or until a knife comes out damp, but clean.

The Hard Part

• Now you have to wait until it’s cool enough to eat!

Tips

• Potatoes: use Yukon Gold, or another low starch spud that will retain its firmness during cooking.
• Seasoning your potatoes before cooking is key to good flavour!
• Nine eggs sounds like a lot, but any fewer and your tortilla will be quite dry.
• Do tip the potatoes into the eggs and not the other way around, else your tortilla will be dry.
• Slicing potatoes into discs, not cubes, reduces cooking time and means it will be easier to serve — like a brick wall, the discs will layer and retain the shape of the tortilla.
• Serve with a simple green salad for a lovely lunch or light supper.
• Um, it’s also really good with HP Sauce!
• For easy transportation to a put luck, simply tear of a sheet of aluminium foil twice as long as the diametre of the tortilla, and fold in half. Then wrap as usual to transport. This extra layer makes it all the easier to slice upon arrival at your host’s home.

¡Olé!

Will you be making this? How did it work for you? Any adjustments you’d make? How did you serve it? Do share below!

What do you get when you combine these photos and several more?

A surreal art gallery at the beach, of course!

If you read my last post, you will see Sir Banjo floating in the ceiling.  Now you know why he was knighted!

What you might not know was that this was a project for the Photoshop class I’m currently taking. It’s the first composite photograph I’ve ever created, and I’m quite pleased with it.  I think working on this project is what fuelling my addiction to enthusiasm for Photoshop!  Watch this space…

What’s in an accent?

Years ago when I was on the London Underground, there was an Irish drunk sitting opposite me. He was a merry drunk, but I didn’t want to engage him in conversation because he kept asking people around him some rather personal questions, and in those days I wasn’t very good at gently deflecting such an intrusion.

As all Tube riders know, avoid eye contact. It worked for a short while, but the moment came when he singled me out. So I decided to play along by putting on a Spanish accent.

“Ah!” he cried, “If ye’re Spahnish, ye must loike a nice glars o’Port!”

“Pord?” I enquired, with a disingenuous frown smeared across my face, “Dees ees a dreenk? Ay teenk diss ess warr joo poot boats en sheeps?”

He roared with laughter, the posh businessman to my left chuckled, and  then I began to really ham it up. Red-faced, shouty drunk, meets, er, young woman from–…

“Ye don’t look Spahnish, dough? Ye be taall and blont-hairt…”

“O no! I’n frong Argentina!” I improvised.

I felt bad for a moment that I wasn’t being myself, but he just wanted someone to talk to and it’s not like anyone else was happy to engage. He stumbled off a few stops later; whereupon the posh businessman, who had been paying close attention to this foreign exchange, turned to me and said in his plummy accent, “End hwhere in Argentinah daw yaw come from?”. I responded chirpily in my usual accent that I was, in fact, from London — tee hee!  To my astonishment, he got very cross that I had so mislead him (him! not the Irishman!) and told me off. The cheek! Some people just don’t have a sense of humour…

Still, I think of this story when I am occasionally forced to sound American — mostly when I end up in some automated phone system that doesn’t understand any accent other than American.  Mr. Fizgig knows it’s particularly bad when I start screeching AAPERAYDERRRR!!!

It’s not just phone systems, though.  Some people don’t understand me when I say words like water, butter, and tomato, which invariably become ‘waaderr’, ‘budderr’, and ‘tamaydo’.  Others still sometimes display a shockingly ignorant streak that occasionally verges on the xenophobic.

I’ve heard everything from the mildly condescending “Wow, you count our money real good!” (Er, thank you?)

to the frat-tastic “Your [sic*] British? Dude, we KICKED your asses!” (Really? You look wonderful for your age. I say, old bean, are you in the Guinness Book of Records? Tally ho!)

to the dismissive “Um, I have no idea where this person is from… France or something…” (OK, you can just piss off.)

to my all time favourite, “OMIGOD! You’re from Europe? OMG, don’t they, like, speak a bunch of different languages there? Like, they speak French in Italy?” (… [too busy wiping tears from my eyes]…)

* because this is clearly how this particular ignoramus would spell “you’re”

My usual response is to put on a winning smile and say “Actually, I’m American — I just don’t sound it.”

This might be considered treason on both sides of the Atlantic!

Truthfully, most of the time my fellow Americans are quite charmed by my accent.  Some say it’s cute.  Some ask me to say The name’s Bond. James Bond. and then call me Money Penny. Some men even seem to have a fetish for it and want me to record their outgoing voicemail messages. And some people ask me if I know the Queen and I always say why yes, as a matter of fact I had tea with her last week!

Since moving to San Diego, the phrase I hear most is “I really like your accent!”  I think this is a very nice thing to say. Still, I cannot help but respond, Thank you, I like yours too! which usually makes them shriek with laughter because to that person they don’t have an accent. (What can I say? I like turning the tables.)

Sometimes, the “I like your accent” comment is an opener for “Where are you from?” and it is here that I inwardly groan in anticipation. Half the time, “…Australia?” is offered before I can even respond.

From an American linguistic perspective, here’s a simple way to tell us apart:

British: Fish and Chips

Australian: Feesh ind Cheeps

New Zealander: Fush und Chups

And this usually leads to my party trick: Doing Other People’s Accents.  The actress in me rather enjoys hamming it up.  I can’t do a Dutch accent for the life of me, but ask me to do a Valley Girl or a Upper West Side Grandmother, and I’m as pleased as punch to be able to say this usually has people holding their sides.  One of the things I enjoy most in life is making people laugh, and I’ve learned that mimicry is one way to do that.

What’s in an accent?  Well, if you have one or several — and a sense of humour — it can be a great way to break the ice.

I’ve been wooed by a little knight recently: his name is Sir Banjo of Shyhound, and I am quite smitten…

(Part of my composite photo project for my Photoshop class… more soon!)

Golly!  It’s been a few weeks since my last post, which I think is the longest stretch I’ve not posted in a year.  I guess sometimes life takes over and some things get pushed to one side, temporarily.

I’ve been quite busy this past month with work, class, restocking my Etsy store (2 sales already, yeah!), redesigning flaurena.com, and getting to know San Diego.  I’m pleased to report that my Photoshop class is going well, and I’m feeling more and more confident every time I open up the program.  Plus, I installed an extra 8 gigs of RAM onto my computer, which means Photoshop now takes only 5 seconds to open — an improvement on the previous 15 seconds!

I’ll be sharing some of what I’ve been learning in another post quite soon; in the meantime, here’s a post about one of my favourite colours.

✩ ✩ ✩

I’m not as bad as Shelby from Steel Magnolias, but I do love pink — more so the punk / “sock-it-to-me” shades than the softer / girly / pastel shades.  And, as I’ll tell you over at flaurena, I think Nature’s colour combinations are the most sophisticated and inspiring.  Without further ado, here are some snaps from this past month, with their corresponding colour palette.  WOT LARX!