Obviously

I am having a DOOZY of a fortnight these days. How much of a doozy? Enough of a doozy for me to say "fortnight." And "doozy" too, for that matter.

Ok, now that I have incohered for a few sentences, let's just cut to the chace crawford and let me state some obvious things.

1.It's almost November. How the hell did that happen? Halloween is upon us! And I'm all "Halloween? More like Hallow-whaaat!?" And then I have a good guffaw at my ability to entertain myself.

2. There's an election going on next Tuesday, I'm not sure if you've heard about it.

3. Getting old SUCKS DONKEY BALLS. I don't care what kind of age-defying shit you're trying to sell me. I have loved ones who are bonafide old folks and the shit they go through? Not cool, people. Your body, it starts to break the fuck down. Look, I know there are young people whose bodies also break down for depressing reasons as well. That too sucks donkey balls but I am focusing right now so don't interrupt me. Getting old sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks.

4. You know how people say to you..."if I ever do thus-and-so, please promise me you'll tell me that I am being an idiot." That is so totally such a bad idea and don't you fall for it if someone says such a thing to you. I'm not talking about things like having spinach stuck in your teeth. I'm talking about bigger things. Years ago I had a friend say that she wanted me to tell her something like that, and you know what? I did, and then she wasn't my friend any more. I am telling you I am done being burned on THAT deal. So just for the record, don't say that to me, ok? Because if you turn into an ass, that's your business.

Oh, and now that stating the obvious is done, I have two questions for you.

1. One of the things Nordic Boy got me for my birthday this year was a Flip Video camera. So now, I suppose I could vlog a little if I wanted to. But I haven't been inspired. Any suggestions? Keep it clean, folks.

2. Who's doing NaBloPoMoFo this year? I need to be peer-pressured if I am to endeavor upon it again.

That's all, my sugars.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Mr. Bean Jeans

Nordic Boy and I had never shopped at Eddie Bauer. No offense to Eddie Bauer, just...we never did. Never even went it there. It was never a store that spoke to us (hi marketing, you really do control our minds), even though in some ways that makes no sense at all. I mean, they have t-shirts and hoodies. Nordic Boy is a big fan of t-shirts and hoodies. And they have jeans. And we wear jeans. But all those down vests in the ads? Not for us. And the sweaters with snowflake patterns? No way, Beyonce.

No judgment. Just not our store.

So, my jeans connection, the place where I have bought my jeans for at least the past 5 years or so? DISCONTINUED MY JEANS. Damn Lucky Brand store. No more jeans for me. They no longer love me and so what? I no longer love them. I'm not scared. There are jeans everywhere! I am a consummate fashionista! I can find jeans! NO PROBLEMO.

I know I am not saying anything new here, but DANG. Women's jeans? HARD TO FIND.

What is going on with women's jeans? Every store has jeans and they all have them in multiple cuts and shapes. Curvy! Straight leg! Skinny! Classic! Relaxed!Boyfriend! Loose Fit! Low Rise! Mid Rise! Bell! Essential!

NONE OF THESE FIT ME, PEOPLE.

Am I a freak? No. Because ask any one of my friends, and they shall tell you their own tale of woe about finding jeans that fit them right. It seems we all have them. Are you listening fashion designers of the world? Jean cuts SUCK. Next time you walk down the street? Look around at the denim-clad ladies around you. People are wearing jeans that don't fit them. Like, almost everyone. I spent the weekend a couple of weekends ago jeans shopping, and I was taking note of every ass-in-jeans that passed by and it was pitiful. Pi-tee-full.

This is why, when people find the jean that fits them, they have such loyalty to it. This is also why they sort of lose they motherflippin minds when their jeans connection is taken away.

ANYWHO. This is all to preface the fact that Nordic Boy and I went into an Eddie Bauer for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I had gone to just about every other jeans store I could think of, and this was the last stop. And although I was there, and it was fine, I suppose, I think we may have a block. A mental block. Blocking out Eddie Bauer.

Skip ahead to last week, when Nordic Boy was in Portland on business and he called me up in the evening.

Him: Before I head to dinner, I might go look for some new work shirts.
Me: Where are you going to look?
Him: Maybe I'll stop in to that one place that we went to last week. Mr. Bean.
Me: MR. BEAN?
Him: Yeah, you know. That store.
Me: First of all, I think you mean LL BEAN.
Him: Oh, yeah- right.
Me: Second of all we've never been to an LL Bean. So what I think you mean to say is Eddie Bauer.
Him: Eddie Bauer, LL Bean, it's all the same, right?
Me: Sure. Eddie, LL, Mr. Bean. Whichever.

Then? This weekend? I was going to head over to the local shopping area in my hood.

Me: Yeah, I'm going to go check out those jeans again.
Him: Which ones?
Me: The J Crew ones.
Him: Since when do you shop at J Crew?
Me: Since we went there last week! And you went there in Portland!
Him: That wasn't J Crew! That was LL Bean!
Me: You mean Eddie Bauer!
Him: YOU mean Eddie Bauer!
Me: We BOTH mean Eddie Bauer!
Him: Say hi to Mr. Bean for me.
Me: I will.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Captain Marvel and The Flash Go To Whole Foods

To me, the sign of a true city person is the ability to navigate crowds. Being able to weave in and out of throngs of foot traffic is something that comes very easily to me and this makes my daily treks through life much, much easier. This skill doesn't just help me out in the cityscape either. Put me in the slow cattle herd that is an Ikea superstore and watch me slide through faster than jello slides off a wall when you try and nail it there. (What was it that McCain said during the second debate? Something about nailing jello to a wall? And being slippery? Or something? I'm just trying to keep up with the hip McCainster slang, people).

Put two people who are expert at navigating crowds together and you've got the perfect getaway team. Throw in the fact that those two people have been hanging out together for years on end, able to communicate to each other with a mere nod of the head or a subtle hand signal, their crowd nav skills doubled by two, and you know what you've got?

Fastest. Grocery shopping. Ever.

Nordic Boy and I, during a regular market pit-stop, will take our grocery shopping slow. Chatting, moseying up each aisle, leisurely deciding on what items we're going to choose. But if we're shopping on a Sunday? When everyone else IN THE WORLD is shopping? We kick it into high gear. ZOOM! We get our list on and tag team it. POW!

We are sometimes a two-store grocery shopping pair. First, we go to our neighborhood local food co-op and get all we can there. Because it's a small market, sometimes there are a few items that can't be found at the co-op. On those days, we head over to Whole Foods, which if you have ever been to a Seattle area Whole Foods on a Sunday afternoon, you know that it is not impossible for a person to be crushed by the hordes of humanity that cram themselves in there.

So there we were, game faces on. It's like Pac Man and Ms Pac Man are playing the same board. "You get grapes, oranges, and apple cider, I'll get mushrooms, spinach, and avocado!" I say and we're OFF! Heading away and then back together, away and back together. It's really quite impressive if I do say so myself.

I never thought Nordic Boy really took note of how ridickerous our grocery shopping really is. Until this weekend.

We were in the noodle aisle, and there was a couple in the middle of the aisle, probably younger than us, most certainly not a tag team shopping pair, and clearly uncomfortable in crowds.

Woman: "Oh!" (Trying to reverse her cart but blocking the flow). "I forgot the eggs!"
Man: "Oh, uh...you want me to go get them?"
Woman: "Um. Ok...well, no...we'll just get them after. Now why were we in this aisle?"
Man: "Wait, where's the list?"

Nordic Boy zips through the oh, 72 billion people crunched in this aisle, comes up to me to drop some tomato paste in my basket before taking off to get some olives. As he walks by, he looks at me, laughs and says one word under his breath.

"Amateurs."

Listen, we don't scale mountains or run marathons. Getting through a crowded Whole Foods in under 15 minutes is ALL WE'VE GOT.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Three Scary Things

I usually have a strict policy about not boring other people with my weird dreams, but this one is too good. The other night I dreamt that I was a contestant on America's Next Top Model, and that a fellow competitor was a giant Dorito-like chip, with arms and legs growing out of it. It even had white gloves on, like Mickey Mouse. We found out that our challenge was to pose in the surf at the beach, and I was really happy because I knew I would win because the chip was totally going to GET SOGGY in the water and who thinks a soggy chip is sexy? NO ONE. But before we could start the shoot, Tyra came running down the beach and crashed right into the chip and it shattered! Tyra killed the chip! And then I felt bad for feeling glee at the thought of winning at the expense of the soggy chip.

What does this say about me? Really. I am open to interpretations.

Secondly, I thought the trees were after me again. Have I ever told you that I have a love/fear relationship with trees? I love them, because, well, they are trees and I am a card-carrying tree-hugging pinko so of course I love trees. But I also fear them. You would too if one attacked you. Remember this kamikaze leafster that came after me while I was sleeping?

So the other night, at 4am, as Nordic Boy and I slept soundly in our beds, we were jolted awake by a loud BOOM. As if a large scary item (meteor? dinosaur? TREE?) had fallen right into our house. We got up and were relieved to discover that it was only a large piece of lumber that we had propped up on our porch (leftover from Roof Replacement '08) that had fallen due to the gale force winds that have been happening around here lately. No damage, just a large belly-flop of a sound. But still. I am having tree trauma. Maybe this accounts for the weirdo dreams about Tyra committing chipicide?

Thirdly, my cell phone number? Has a very sketchy past. Ever since I got my new number, I get a voicemail message every day from collection agencies, random gravelly-voiced dudes saying "hon?" instead of "hello" and other such lovliness. I always tell the collection folks that they have the wrong number, and they say sorry and they don't call back, but new ones always start up after that. It's been kind of a pain in the nuts, and always makes me a little sad for whoever "hon" is- all these people chasing after her for her debts and all those craggy sounding dudes calling all the time. Then today, I get a message from a city police department detective asking for her to call back with the information on the "open case we had discussed earlier." Wow. I called the detective to tell him that I was sorry but that person no longer had this phone number, and he sounded absolutely crestfallen. Like, "hon" had the key to crack the case and now she had turned up missing! And now the case will never be solved!

Or perhaps I have seen too many episodes of Murder She Wrote and my imagination is running away with me. It's possible. You should just be thankful that I didn't ask the detective if he had ever heard of chipicide.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

PS- That reference to Murder She Wrote goes straight out to a special someone- you know who you are.

Smiting the Curse

As a couple of you may have noticed, if'n you've been around here long enough, for the past few years (five to be exact), I have had the Birthday Curse. This means that on my birthday, or within a week of my birthday, something stupid happens. This year, BioGirl has moved back home and she has declared herself on a mission to break the Birthday Curse, once and for all. This is a good thing because I had seriously given up hope. I had quietly (ok maybe not so quietly at first) resigned myself to a life full of Eeyore-style birthdays. She, however, was Not Having It. And if there is a hallmark to BioGirl, it is that she can make things happen with sheer force of will and even aggression if she has to. I was going to have a good birthday or she might have to give the birthday gods a knuckle sandwich, dig? It was like everyone, for miles around, had to capitulate to my Birthday. OR ELSE. She was going to boss her way into a good birthday for me and she was not kidding. 90% of me was glad. 10% of me was kind of scared. What if she put in all this effort and then my birthday sucked anyway? Now not only would I have to feel bad about a shitty birthday, but I would have to feel bad for her, that she tried and failed. It was double pressure. My expectations, and now hers. It was as if I had Double Stuff hubris cream in my oreo cookie.

I needn't have worried. She stomped that Birthday Curse right in the face! First, as I told you about before, she corralled my friends and made me up a fancy birthday advent calendar. I have thoroughly been enjoying waking up every morning and opening a gift each and every single day. POW, Birthday Curse! Eat THAT.

Besides the calendar, BioGirl and Nordic Boy also threw me a birthday party over the weekend. And the day of the party, I decided to treat myself. I went and got my hair did. My stylist offered to discount a fancy hairdo for me for my birthday (which, geez, how awesome is that?). So I went and she totally worked some hair magic on me. It was all curls and bounce and shine like I had just come out of the Tresemme Hair Salon and all I had left to do was to make a stop at the Loreal Paris Make Up Room and the Bluefly Accessory Wall, if you know what I'm saying and I think you do. My hair alone could have gotten me a seat on the Pretty Committee. It was hair magic.

And an aside-- I had a book with me during the styling appointment. I was reading this. Which is more geeky than sexy, despite the title, and so I didn't really feel weird reading it in front of my stylist. There aren't nasty illustrations or anything like that. Um, at least I thought there weren't. Until I turned the page and there was a drawing of a man putting his hand...in a pig. And by "in" I mean...IN. Like, in the pig's hoohah. Granted, the chapter was about the research on sow insemination (which did you know that that is often done by hand? I am here to educate, people) and what that reveals about the physiological fertility processes in mammals...but STILL. I closed the book fast and I am not sure if my stylist saw it.

Hi stylist! The librarian readeth the pervy books!

Anyway. My hair looked awesome. The problem? Saturday just happened to be a wind storm. 30-45 mile per hour winds, to be exact, with power outages all over the city. So as I left the salon? Pretty Committee. By the time I walked in the door of my house? Cranial birds' nest. Which I guess could have come out of the Tresemme Hair Salon, since some people who go there end up looking like this.



This may be tragic in terms of hair, but it wasn't bad enough to be Birthday Curse-worthy or anything.

I got my hair looking respectable and went to my party. And, despite my fears, people showed up. Actual people! Not party cyborgs for rent! HUMAN PEOPLE. Nice ones, even! What a relief. I really was convinced that no one would come. I was braced for disappointment. You see what the Curse has done to me?

At any rate, the party was lovely, a total success, and there were cupcakes and I got to show off my horrifying billiards skills and everything.

On Sunday, I had the perfect day with Nordic Boy. We stayed in bed until 10 (which is very, very late in our geriatric world), went out to brunch, stopped off at the bookstore to browse, and then took a two-hour nap until dinner time. Then I got to open presents from him, which were above and beyond the call of duty. Then he made me dinner, we watched old movies, and we ate leftover cupcakes from the night before. We had our phones turned off for the whole day. It was the best.

So it is official. BioGirl, Nordic Boy, and all of my other peeps have successfully browbeaten the Birthday Curse into remission. I didn't believe it could be done, but there you have it.

Birthday Curse, FUCK OFF.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

Ahead of his time

You know what's weird? Nordic Boy has no idea how old anyone is. And I mean, ANYONE. Neighbor J's daughter? She just turned one this summer. When we were getting ready to go to her party, Nordic Boy is all..."how old is she turning again?" ONE. She is turning ONE. This is her first birthday; we have never celebrated her birthday ever before, ergo...she is ONE. How hard is that?

The other thing about this is he always inflates birthdays, sometimes by a year, and sometimes by several years. In his mind, people are always older than they actually are. Why this is I can't figure out.

The morning of my birthday, as I am sleeping:
Him: Wake up! It's your birthday! Happy birthday!
Me: Aww, thanks!
Him: So, birthday lady, how does it feel to be THIRTY SEVEN?
(Note to you all out there...I am not 37.)
Me: WHAT? How long was I asleep? What am I, Rip Van Winkle? How am I thirty seven?
Him: Wait...you're not?
Me: No!!!
Him: But...I thought you were turning the same age as I am.
Me: Dude. YOU'RE NOT THIRTY SEVEN EITHER.

No idea how old I am. Or how old he is. I know that this is common (I have brought it up with y'all before and you schooled me on the number of folks that don't know how old you are out there and I get it, it's a lot of you. But still. I think it's weird.)

Sheesh.

In other birthday news. How frickin' cute is THIS? (Thanks Pop Quiz Kid, for finding this).


Little kids celebrate Gandhi's birthday in India.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl

If I do say so myself

I raise a glass to who I am on the inside and say...



HAPPY



BIRTHDAY


TO MEEEEEE

Done and Done-er

My mind, she is blank.

BLANK, people. Tabula rasa, wite-out, blank. They say that still waters run deep and my mind is very still these days. What about shallow still water? That's what I think I have. A still puddle, if you will. You will, right?

Maybe it's all this news I have been ingesting. I usually suck up a fair amount of news, and these days I am drowning in it. I think Charlie Rose and Stephen Innskeep and Anderson Cooper and even my beloved Jon Stewart are beating my brain into a soupy pulp. (And can I just tell you that I love the name "Innskeep"? There are so many levels to my loving that name. First of all, the double-double letters. You've got two n's AND two e's. Deelightfful. Plus, I imagine that in high school, his friends probably called him "Skeep" or something. In fact, sometimes when I listen to NPR and he comes on, I say it aloud. "SKEEP!" That's like a bad surfer nickname. Hey Skeep, let's go cut out of a cruncher and then headdip a heavy! Also? Just the etymology. Keeper of an inn. Thus Innskeep. It's kind of cool, in an old-fashioned sort of way. Like, I want a name with "keep" in it. What do I keep, though? Nothing, really. In fact, I am known for my capacity to not keep things. Librarian Girl Nothingskeep? That just doesn't sound as cool.)

Did I mention that my mind is a still puddle lately? Just thought I would recap in case you missed it the first time.

Let's see, I could tell you that last week, when I watched the presidential debate, every time Baracko would make a good point, I would yell out "BadaBING!" and everytime McCain would make a good point I would say "Bah-ZOW!" and that was the extent of my political commentary for the evening. Or I could tell you that I have taken to calling Obama "Baracko" because I saw this interview with Michelle Obama where she said that little kids often think her husband's name is Baracko Bama, and now I just can't say it right because that way is more fun. Or I could tell you that I wish that Tina Fey would do a Sarah Palin skit for me every night before I go to bed because for serious I would not get tired of it. Or I could tell you that I wish that Nordic Boy was into Halloween because I kind of had this genius idea that we should dress up as Heidi Klum (him) and Seal (me) and he is so not doing that in a million years even if it would save us from eyeball eating zombies. Or I could tell you that I am not a fan of the side-hug. You know those people that want to hug you, sort of, so they come at you from the side with one arm? Always awkward. Side-huggers, I demand an explanation. Or I could tell you that I spent a good ten full minutes the other night at dinner boring Nordic Boy and BioGirl almost to the point of tears pontificating on my problems with side-hugging. Or I could tell you about the dream I had last night where Woody Allen asked Nordic Boy to be in a movie and when we went to meet with him I accidentally elbowed Woody in the nuts which obviously ruined the deal for everyone.

Or maybe I should tell you that our roof is done. It was actually done about a week ago, but we have been too busy dancing the lambada of happy time for me to mention it. DONE, people. Dee you enn, done. Crocodile Done Dee. New wood, new decking, new insulation, new air ducts, new wiring, new fascia board (yeah I didn't know what that was either), new waterproofing membrane, new EVERYTHING. Our house has a new 'do up top, y'all, and Nordic Boy did it from start to finish. YEE-FRICKIN-HAW!

Trust me, it's exciting to us.

Bada-BING! Bah-ZOW!

I'm out,
Librarian Girl