Cris & Taja

Taja's Saut�ed Mushrooms Recipe

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Taja’s Sautéed Mushrooms

2 packs of small fresh chopped mushrooms
1-cup butter or margarine
8 cloves of fresh garlic/ crushed
3-cups of red table wine
1 teaspoons of garlic powder
Large size Teflon saucepan

The recipe size seems to be a lot but is because the mushrooms cook-down quite a bit in size. With these quantities, the end result will usually give about 2-cups of mushrooms to disperse.

Begin with 1-cup of butter/margarine in large saucepan on a medium heat. Once it has melted, add 8 cloves of crushed fresh garlic cloves & let simmer until the garlic color turns from white to opaque. Next, add 2-cups of red table wine. Allow the wine a moment to heat up then add 2-packs of fresh chopped mushrooms. Close the pan with a lid & let simmer; occasionally stir the mushrooms around to be sure all sides are soaking & occasionally scrape the bottom of the pan to stir in any garlic that may have settled.

Once it has simmered a while, you will notice that the mushrooms will slowly change color from their natural light-gray to a medium burgundy-gray. When this happens, add 1-teaspoon of garlic powder & the other 1-cup of red table wine. (Sometimes, I will also add another spoonful of butter at this point balance the addition of wine, but it is up to preference.)

Once the last of the ingredients are thrown in, allow the moisture to leave the pan by simmering on high without the lid. At this point, preference is the decision maker. Taste-testing a small piece for flavor is advised. I personally cook until the liquid level is much decreased and the mushrooms turn to a caramelized dark burgundy-gray.

Fem of the Night: Golden Magnificence [1]

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 00:39:00 +0000

Fem of the Night: Golden Magnificence

1 Waking Up

It was a quiet morning. Taja was contemplating life and realizing that she had quite a boring one. She was getting ready for work; her husband Cris was still asleep as usual at 4am in the morning. Kiddy, Taja's grey short hair domestic cat, meowed loudly as Taja made her way to the living room to start her day.

"Shhh... do you want to wake Cris up?"

Annoyingly the cat answered with a flick of her tail and rubbed her head against Taja's leg to make her point.

"You're hungry, aren't you? You fat thing, I should wait to let Cris feed you when he wakes up at 7."

Taja's husband Cris was 6'3"; he was every bit as pale in skin as Taja was but without the embarrassing freckles that covered her arms and face. She had always liked tall white-boys. He had dirty brown hair shaved almost to the skin like Jason Statham and a recently unshaved beard to match which is how he normally wore it. He was a Geek for the Geek Squad so their home always had the latest TVs and Computers, though Taja rarely used either.

It was a particularly cold morning Taja noticed as she began getting goose bumps while feeding the meowing cat at her feet. "Meeew, Meew" Khali, Taja's other cat came running up as if to complain that she was not made aware that feeding time had commenced and was giving warning that it shant happen again. The skinnier of the two cats continued her objection by glaring at Kiddy who had already begun eating while flicking her long white tail with the greyish tip. Taja hated when Khali did this because her longer fur always flew in a wirlwind around the food bowl with every flick. "Oh, shut up and eat your food. If you don't hurry then Kiddy will have eaten it all."

"Guuughunga... boom... crash"... A large crashing noise rang out through Taja's world rocking her bones.

"Oh my god, what the hell was that!?" Taja looked around and waited for another noise to follow. She looked over at Kiddy and Khali to make sure they weren't clawing the curtain or killing each other like they do when any noise happens in the 5 mile radius around the house. They were fine, calm, as if nothing had happened. Taja ran to her bedroom to see if Cris had noticed anything. She prepared herself to hear the familiar 'chkk chkk' noise of the rifle Cris kept next to the bed, but heard only silence. She went to the door, and he was fast asleep... She went to the front and back doors to see if there was anything to see and all was normal. Just a normal black sky and all asleep as was usual at this time. "What was that noise... I know I am not imagining things"

"Crash boom, pahchunga"

Again, the noise rang through her body, but less shaking this time. More like an aftershock, she felt the noise vibrate within her, throwing her off balance. Again, the cats were fine. She felt a little dizzy but being a logical person, had no proof that she was not imagining things... "Oh great, I am losing my freaking mind!!!" Taja gathered herself with resolve and went to the bathroom to start her shower, convinced that the noises were imagined or otherwise inconsequential.

By the time she finished washing her face and gathering her favorite super fluffy black towels, she felt a little more calm. She turned on the hot water and let the steam fill the small room, and her lungs. She breathed in and out slowly as if reclaiming her sanity and when she felt like herself again, she began to undress and get into the shower. She stood there for a while letting the hot water burn her skin and warm her inner core; Taja always proclaimed that this was the best part of any shower. She then began to squeeze shampoo into her hand to commence the daily ritual of washing her long black hair when she heard a voice, so slight that it may have been in her own mind. A voice that nearly made her jump to a sure fall from slipping on the shampoo that now slither at her feet and down the drain.

"Taja.... You are the chosen fem of the night..." Taja stood frozen as if any movement would scare this voice away. Convinced now that she was crazy, but very interested in what the voice was talking about, as if in some miracle she hadn't imagined anything and was in-fact sane, she stood waiting for more information.

"You are the chosen fem"... the voice uttered again even softer, if that is even possible, than before.

"What is the chosen fem?" Taja whispered back so quietly that over the water her voice would not have been heard by someone, even if they had been standing in the shower with her, but somehow she knew the voice would hear.

"The Fem is the Generational Woman of Golden Magnificence chosen from every generation and of every world. You are the chosen fem of the night, Taja..."

As if the water just began losing all heat, she began to feel very cold again. Taja has never been afraid of the dark, she was not affraid of ghosts and the only thing that ever really scared her were the possibility of very real body injury from things like car crashes. There are no ghosts or goblins in Taja's nightmares, this whispering-voice thing just isn't possible. Taja began to argue with herself as if it were possible to become two people in a conversation with yourself.

"This isn't possible, you are going crazy. Things like this don't happen."

"Then what was that crash? That noise happened!!"

"No, it didn't... the cats and Cris would all have been making noise with it had they heard anything."

"Well, what about the whispering voice? What about the fem of the night, the golden magnificense?"

"What? Seriously? Does that sound like something that normally gets whispered to a showering girl."

"Well, I don't know, but it sounds familiar, you can't deny that it sounds very stupidly familiar!!"

"yea, you made it up, it was all in your crazy head. It sounds familiar because it came from your brain."

"No, there is no way I would have made that up, and even so... why would I have? What would make me pretend to be whispered to about a fem of the night in my shower in the morning?"

"I don't know, bordom?"

"Ok, I admit I get bored on occasion, but NOT while getting ready for work at 4am in the morning!!"

"Ok, you got me there..."

"Yea, and why would I talk about myself like that? The chosen women? Fem of the Night? Golden Magnificense? You know we don't think too kindly of ourself and would never go there.."

"Ok, another good point..." And just as quickly as she had split, both parts of Taja made resolute that there is no way she would have imagined this...

Goose bumps, like a wave, flooded her skin beginning with the tiny hairs on the back of her neck, and flew down her limbs until her feet tingled. She didn't know what the fem of the night was, nor what the hell Golden Magnificence meant, but she knew her life was changing in this moment. Just then, all the lights went out, she went numb... and the world disappeared around her...

Taja Leigh Marie Armington Collins Beiber Prendez Baca Meadows. AKAs: Todd, TJ, etc...

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Written in third person to give the biography perspective, and also cuz I'm a dork :P

*Taja Leigh Marie Armington Collins Beiber Prendez Baca Meadows <=This is Taja's full names, all adopted, used, and dropped names included. Nick-names also ending the entry.

Taja:

Her first name was taken from a "cousin" says Taja's mother Cathy (who Taja has never met, never seen a pic of, and never know how she is a cousin to any relations she is aware of).

Leigh Marie:

Taja was born "Taja Marie Beiber" but her parents decided on the middle name of Leigh long before her birth. She was given the middle name of Marie in a fit of last minute panic when her parents Ken, and Cathy were affraid she would hate her first name and would then have no middle name to go by.
So, Marie was hastly put on the certificate.

Armington Collins Beiber:

Taja's father Ken was born Kenneth Armington for his father Steve Armington, but he was adopted as a child by his mother's new husband Ron Beiber... But- Steve Armington was also adopted as a young boy. His true name was Steve Collins.
Collins is our actual blood name of lineage. Armington was an adopted name as is Beiber.
But, Beiber is what was legally on my father's new adopted certificates, and so Taja's name was also given.

Meadows:

When Taja married Cris, she dropped her name for her husband's.

Prendez Baca:

Taja's mom had 2 husbands after her father. Mike Prendez, who has a son that Taja still considers her brother.
And, Tom Baca who Taja considers a second dad.
Though Taja never adopted either of step-dad's names, they were family in part.

Nick-Names:

T.J. was given when kids had a hard time saying her name at school. Many of Taja's school-mates called her TJ because it was easier.
Todja was used as a frequent misspronouciation of Taja.
Todd was adopted as a shortening of the above misspronouciation and was used through her twenties and still now once in a while.
Taha was used through Taja's mexican days and in Spanish class.
Twenty-Girl was used by her mother. Though Taja & Cathy can neither tell you where it came from, it was ironically dropped the moment Taja turned 20.
TajaBear was used by friends of Taja's mom, namely by Annette. Annette, on a side note, was nicked name "Auntie-Mom" by Taja because she resembled Taja physically but was like an auntie to her.

Neverending Story Uyulala's Poem, How to Name the Emperess

Sat, 07 May 2011 16:57:00 +0000

Taken from Pages 117 - 118 of

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Atreyu had traveled far and had come at last trough a gate which in entering had wiped his mind of all his memories and his quest. Uyulala (The Voice) had told him that the Empress is sick and so on. See an excerpt below:

From page 116:
-------------------------

"[ And the voice sang:

"The Childlike Empress is sick,

And with her Fantastica will die.

The Nothing will swallow this place,

It will perish and so will I.

We shall vanish into the Nowhere and Never,

As though we had never been.

The Empress needs a new name

To make her well again.

Atreyu pleaded:

"Oh, tell me, Uyulala, oh, tell me who can give The Childlike Empress the name, which alone will let her live."

The voice replied:

"Listen and listen well

to the truth I have to tell.

Though your spirit may be blind

To the sense of what I say,

Print my words upon your mind

Before you go away.

Later you may dredge them up

From the depths of memory,

Raise them to the light of day

Exactly as they flow from me.

Everything depends on whether

You remember faithfully."

For a time he heard only a plaintive sound without words. Then suddenly the voice came from right next to him, as though someone were whispering into his ear:

"Who can give the Childlike Empress

The new name that will make her well?

Not you, not I, no elf, no djinn,

Can save us from the evil spell.

For we are figures in a book -

We do what we were invented for,

But we can fashion nothing new

And cannot change from what we are.

But there's a realm outside Fantastica,

The Outer World is its name,

The people who live there are rich indeed

And not all the same.

Born of the Word, the children of man,

Or humans, as they're sometimes called,

Have had the gift of giving names

Ever since our worlds began,

In every age it's they who gave

The Childlike Empress life,

For wondrous new names have the power to save.

But now for many and many a day,

No human has visited Fantastica,

For they no longer know the way.

They have forgotten how real we are,

They don't believe in us anymore.

Oh, if only one child of amn would come,

Oh, then at last the thing would be done.

If only one would hear our plea.

For them it is near, but for us too far,

Never can we go out to them,

For theirs is the world of reality.

But tell me, my hero, you so young,

Will you remember what I have sung?"

"Oh yes!" cried Atreyu in his bewilderment. He was determined to imprint every word on his memore, though he had forgotten what for. He merely had a feeling that it was very, very important. But the singsong voice and the effort of hearing and speaking in rhymes made him sleepy. He murmured:

"I will remember. I will remember every word.

But tell me, what shall I do with what I've heard?"

And the voice answered:

"That is for you alone to decide.

I've told you what was in my heart.

So this is when our ways divide,

When you and I must part." ]"

-------------

to page 119

RSS Feeds Updated!

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:38:00 +0000

I totally got our RSS feeds up and running finally. It has taken some-time to figure out since webs.com has little information to tell you directly. I had to do this on-my-own, and am proud to say that it seems to be working fine.

For all of you who don't read my posts, I am a huge blog-writer and tend to vent on here whenever something blows my mind or really erks me... so I tend to write a lot. Also, if I just LOVE or simply HATE a book I've read, or a game or movie... then most likely, it will end up here.

Thanks for reading... If you couldn't tell, this was mostly a RSS Feed Test as well as a Hey all, nice to see you blog.

Love you!!

-Taja