Monday, September 27, 2010

Mindreader

You know how, in gmail, it does that scary thing where it knows what you are typing and then suggests links that are related to what you have written?  Here's what was suggested to me as I wrote an email today at work.

"More about...
Leadership Skills
Employee Performance
Employee Motivation
Budget Spreadsheets
Donuts Recipe
Glazed Donuts
Donut Icing
Baked Donuts"
 
I think gmail, in this link list, has gone from analyzing what I was actually typing about straight into what I WANT to be typing about.
 
Fricking spooky.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Rattling around

Things bouncing around in my head this week:


1. For a city house, my yard sees all kinds of animal action. Dogs, cats, birds, the occassional raccoon or rabbit. I have noticed that the animals that visit my yard seem to be under the impression that my yard is their toilet. Birds seem to poop on my car on purpose, and dogs think that the strip of grass between my front stoop and the street curb is made for doggie poo poo. (Ok, that last one I can't really blame on the dogs. It's my dog owner neighbors that don't seem to think that the scoop law applies to them). And today, there was cat vomit on my stoop stairs. ANIMALS OF SEATTLE, I IMPLORE YOU. Stop the insanity.

2. Biogirl and I went on a walk last night and clocked the amount of time it takes to walk from my front door to her soon-to-be front door. Three minutes at a leisurely stroll, people. Heck yes.

3. Sometimes I wonder if people with less melanin than I happen to have truly understand the racist boolshizz that flies around brownies like me on a daily basis. I mean, really, I am not kidding. A DAILY BASIS. For example, a nice looking business man type asked me about a book today, which I had never heard of. His response, dripping with disgustingness, was "it's a popular book here in AMERICA, you know." His meaning was clear. I wish this was out of the ordinary, but it ain't. Post-racial, my ass. Don't fool yourself.

4. I am thinking that, for my birthday next month, I might buy myself a DSLR camera. I have been researching for a while now and I think I know what I might get, but anyone have any recommendations on that? Give it to me.

5. I have had a long, tired history of not being able to find a winter coat that meets my stringent standards of pretty. I mean I have been looking, actively, for like two or three years straight. And this fall, I have declared the YEAR OF THE COAT! There are coats everywhere that I like! And can afford! And are cute! And warm! I have bought two and am done with coat shopping for now. However, now I am in winter boot hell. This whole ugly shoe trend has gone on long enough, everyone. Can we all make a pact and tell it to stop? I think we can make it happen if we all band together.

6. Why are people afraid of spiders? I don't really understand that one. I mean unless they will poison you to death or something, but a daddy longlegs? A little bug with legs like strands of hair? Scary, why?

7. I am contemplating putting some effort into Halloween this year. Oh, who am I kidding.

Monday, September 20, 2010

My Brain In Strain Falls Mainly on the Plane

There is so much to think about in my life right now. Think think think. Think about what is happening, think about what parts of that I can help to change, think about what actions I need to take to help, think about how I can support people I care about around me, think about my own choices in reacting to what's going on.


I am having serious brain strain. And sometimes when having serious brain strain, I just need to shut it down, at least temporarily, or else I am liable to blow a gasket, and then what good am I to anyone, if my gasket is popped?

Hence, my weekend, wherein my peeps made sure that I stayed sane. Well, you know. Relatively.

On Friday night I went out to a fancy restaurant with Nordic Boy, Sarah and Craig. And we ate a bunch of stuff that we didn't even know what it was. And it cost like 3.2 million dollars. But that's ok, because um...why is that ok again? I don't really know. I expected my sphincter to squeeze out some diamonds or something, after that meal, but alas it was not to be. Still, the food was tasty, and the company was divine. Except that when I say that my brain needed to totally shut down? It did, during dinner. Which made me keep recommending documentaries and books to my friends and then stupidly not be able to recall the names of any of them. Which was delightful for them I am sure. I am so charming.

The rest of the weekend contained things like:

Spontaneously driving to Bellingham, WA, eating lunch, and hiking around.




Going to an apple orchard/farm in Skagit county and visiting the most adorable family farm store where we loaded up on preserves, and cider, and fresh apple cinnamon doughnuts. The farmer was kind enough to let us wander through some of his land.




Heading over to M and S's house to meet the newest members of their family: their chickens! Bawk bawk. They are usually free range but often like to stay in their coop. And if you were a chicken, wouldn't you? That is one swanky coop.



Staying late at M and S's house and chatting the night away (and YAY library folks! We didn't talk about work but AT ALL, which is kind of a miracle right now). The later it got, the more everyone kicked their shoes off, put their feet up, and leaned back in their chairs. The body language was obvious- we all wanted to get some sleep but the conversation was too good, the company too lovely.



Going to brunch and then on a long walk with Biogirl, my soon to be new neighbor.

Getting under a blanket and watching movies with Nordic Boy while the rain seemed to fall sideways out of the sky.

My weekend was full of awesome people, good weather, lots of fresh air, and a perfect balance between being busy sandwiched between small pockets of doing nothing. Brain unstrained, at least for now. Ahhh.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Tee Gee Muthasuckin' Eye Eff

Gussied up? Check.
Stuffed full of food? Check.
Friends who make you snort-laugh? Check.
Running in heels through a warm downpour? Check.
Oh Friday, how I love thee.



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Consumables #28

Secret Lives of Pippa Lee

One of the reasons I don't usually lust after celebrities is that most of them seem like idiots in real life, and I can't get past that, even if they are really, really good actors or singers or what have you. I am not attracted to idiots. This might seem to go without saying but it seems to me that many people don't give a rat's ass about whether or not someone's an idiot as a prereq for getting in their pantaloons. Which, really, why would it be? One's pantaloons are not tied directly to idiocy levels. But still, for me, they are totally related. However, Keanu Reeves in this movie is cyoot. He doesn't say much, which helps, and I still think he's probably dumb as a box of rocks, but he's pretty. And I have a soft spot for Robin Wright for reasons too stupid to mention.

Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story
I love this dude.

Roman Holiday
I watched this again because a good friend o' mine has up and left for Italy and so what better movie to watch and imagine them running around the streets of Rome? I love how Audrey Hepburn is just so fricking consistent. She is the same goddamn person in everything, all the time, which some have noted is kind of an acting flaw, but hell. I appreciate knowing what I am getting. And Gregory Peck, and vespas, and Eddie Albert, the Green Acres guy? Delish.

I'd Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman
This genre is not my usual cup of tea, but I liked it overall. I was thankful for no gory stuff, but at the same time she didn't sugarcoat anything either. Good balance. The one thing I couldn't get over was the fact that the main character and her husband didn't seem quite appalled, repulsed, angry enough that a psycho who had victimized her was trying to get back in touch with her. They just sort of seemed like, ok, well that's awkward, and kind of gross, but ok, you know, whatevs.

Things in worky land are stressful for me and my library homies currently. This song seems appropriate for my mindset right now, in terms of timing, and summer ending, and what's ahead.




Have a loverly weekend, alla yous!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Belonging

When I was back in Michigan this month, I had a chance to go to a party where there were friends of mine with whom I went to elementary school, middle school, high school. It was at Allison's mom's house.


1. Emily and I sneaked into the kitchen before lunch was ready and pilfered some mini spinach pies to chomp on, because it smelled delicious and we were starving. Allison's mom yelled at us to get the hell out of her kitchen until she was ready. We scurried out, laughing like we were 12 years old.
2. Allison and Steph told a hilarious story about when they went to Obama's inauguration and the travel logistics broke down. They kept calling other groups of people "those yahoos" and I thought about how I say that phrase too, but I don't hear it from my Seattle friends very much. Do Seattle people say "those yahoos"? Not in my experience.
3. Everyone was loud, jovial, warm, and hugged me as though they just saw me yesterday even though some of them haven't seen me in at least 10 years, and hugged Nordic Boy even though they don't know him from the side of a barn.

I totally kept thinking to myself, in a wistful sort of way: THESE ARE SO TOTALLY MY PEOPLE.

I also got to spend a lot of time at my parents' house in Michigan.
1. My nephew started to sneeze and then plugged his nose to stop it from coming out. My mom said "don't do that! Your face will blow up!" which caused him to fall on the floor laughing.
2. Four little kids piled on top of my teeny tiny dad, all wanting to sit on his lap at the same time, and his arms seemed strangely capable of gathering them all up in one big ball of rugrat.
3. My brother, whose official title should be Most Rambunctious Uncle In the Universe, played Bloody Murder with all the kids in the yard at dusk. Screeching and giggling noises throughout the neighborhood at dinner time, every night.
4. My sister and brother, with their inside jokes, and me, the little sister, still not getting what they are talking about even after all these years. That's ok if they're cliquey though, because my cousin Rosita and I are sort of the same way.
5. My relatives from New Zealand, Fiji, Australia, calling on the phone and us all passing the phone around, as we always do when we're home at the same time. Me missing them all so much it sort of hurts.

This family? My people.

When I got back to Seattle, I've gone out with different library buds for drinks, dinners, and lunches.
1. Look at all the cute dresses on all the cute librarians. So delightful.
2. We talk about work, and books, and movies, and Big Ideas and Philosophy. Ooh la la. There are many things that make all of us say What. The. Fuck? And so we do. Say it a lot.
3. We walk around this city and we all revel in the sheer gorgeousness of it all, and we eat a lot of amazing food. And there are sparkling skyscrapers. And mountains. And trees.
4. We are going through a big bad budget time this year, and people cry when it gets too much and the rest of us hug them.

And wait, maybe THESE are my people.

And then I go back to work, and I get into my daily grind and Nordic Boy gets into his. Me: work work work. Him: Work work work.
1. Biogirl and I manage, even though we are busier than SNOT, to text and call each other throughout the day with updates on the minutia of our lives that probably mean nothing to anyone but us. How did that meeting go? And did you get a chance to eat lunch? And my coworker just told me the funniest thing.
2. When Nordic Boy goes to Portland this week and I have to work late, Delium calls me up and tells me that he'll pick up dinner for us both and to just come over after work and not worry about finding dinner on my own. We then eat pad thai and laugh until we want to die even though my day had just been shit on a stick.
3. I'll listen to a sweet mix tape (CD, but whatever, I call it a mix tape) from Jeanine. And Maddie's tweets will crack me up. And I'll get a nice email from another blog friend, I'm sure, since you guys are awesome and you check in every so often.
4.  Our other friends make us all dinner reservations, and yet more dear ones invite us over. These are all people who think of us and go out of their way. Who make an effort, consistently. Who never let their lives get in the way of remembering to include us.

Those are completely my people.

Nordic Boy is coming home from Portland this afternoon.
1. I know when I get home he'll hug me until my spine kind of cracks. In a good way.
2. I know we'll probably get take out and talk each other's ears off. Although we talk a lot while he's away, we always have so much to say when he gets back, as if we hadn't been talking at all for a while.
3. I know that he'll fall asleep before I do, and that I'll listen to him breathing before I finally go to sleep. I also know that he'll wake up before I do, and kiss me awake.

He's for so totally sure my people.

I've got a lot of people, people. How lucky is that?

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Consumables #27

The American
On our Midwest trip, Nordic Boy and I had a little over 24 hours to spend in Chicagoland before heading to Michigan. Most of that time we spent with Alli and Chris, but there was an afternoon when they were otherwise occupied and we had to find something to do on our own. Cue TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. We bundled up, borrowed an umbrella, and left their house determined to walk around Chicago a little. After about 30 seconds, we said fuck THAT and ducked into a movie theater (Seattle-ites! Skerred by rain!). The theater was ginormous and we were literally the only people there. It was kind of a perfect afternoon movie theater experience. The movie was quiet, and looked so beautiful- the kind where I could have watched it with no sound at all. I don't know whether I loved the movie, or whether I loved the afternoon so much that it made me love the movie. Either way, it was nice.

Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok
Good descriptions of how a immigrant child who is learning English experiences school.

Stiltsville, by Susanna Daniel
I appreciated what this book was doing, but I don't know that I loved it. It chronicled the mundane details that make up love and marriage, and I appreciated the idea and how the idea was executed, but mundane can be sort of mundane. But I get the point, and I liked the point.

Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart
Shteyngart takes current social trends like the erosion of privacy and the take-over of social networks by corporate interests and exaggerates them to the point where the world he creates is batty. Only really, it wasn't that batty to me. It wasn't that big of a stretch to imagine that world being real, which I guess is one of the scary points he's making.

I've spent a lot of time with my various nieces and nephews this past couple of weeks. And it is totally because of them that I can't get this DANG SONG out of my head, for the life of me. THX KIDS!

Lastly, (way to bury the lead, lady) BIOGIRL IS TOTALLY MOVING TO A HOUSE ON MY STREET SOON. Now our co-dependency can be GEOGRAPHICAL. This news may have made the both of us do something like this.


NEIGHBORS, BETCHES.

Monday, September 13, 2010

No Scoop for You!

When I was little, there was this thing that little girls like I was would do when we would go swimming at the neighborhood pool. It was just called "tea party." You got with your friends and swam to the bottom of the pool, and then sat in a circle on the pool floor for a second or two. I always thought of this as maybe the dumbest game ever. There were many things about swimming that I never really understood, in terms of fun levels. This was on the top of that list. Why was that supposed to be fun?


Anyway, when you're a kid, the bottom of the pool seems like a far place to get to. And in that few seconds when you sit on the bottom of the pool, everything about being up on dry land seems like another world entirely.

I don't know how to explain the last two weeks, but that is what it felt like to me. Like I was in another place, totally disconnected from my real life. Dunked in vacation. Mostly in a good way. Mostly.

And now...I'm back. It feels really sudden. What am I supposed to be doing again? Making sure my bills are paid? Going grocery shopping? Showing up for work where I am responsible for stuff? Whut?

On Saturday night, I went out for dinner and drinks with some ladyfriends of mine. After the drinky dinnery fun, a few of us decided to walk over to Molly Moon's ice cream place for a scoop. As usual for that place, the line was out the door, with people leisurely soaking up the last bits of summer night weather, chatting, laughing, just having a peaceful night. As were we. Until we got to the front of the line and were immediately shoved into CRAZYTOWN.

There were two scooping professionals, a man and a woman. And they were screaming at people! About ice cream procedure!

Woman: I CAN HELP THE NEXT PERSON OVER HERE!

My friend Jen walked over to her. Since Biogirl and I were paying together, we waited for the next station to be open. Um, wrong idea.

Man: (pointing at Jen and looking at us) ARE YOU WITH HER?
Us: Nope, we're paying separately.
Man: BUT ARE YOU WITH HER???
Us: Um, no?
Man (accusingly, stil pointing at her) ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME THAT YOU HAVE NO RELATIONSHIP TO THAT WOMAN WHATSOEVER?

Us: Well, uh, yes, we know her, I mean, we came in together, I...

Man: (pointing at us) YOU NEED TO GET OVER THERE WITH HER!!

So we ran over there. And I mean we ran. Because we were frightened.

But when we got there, the other lady was doing the same shit!

Woman: (rapid fire talking with a megaphone voice) DO YOU NEED A TASTE OF SOMETHING?
Biogirl: The peach basil flavor, please.
Woman: (to me) AND YOU!? DO YOU NEED A TASTE OF SOMETHING?
Me: No, I--
Woman: WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Me: Um, I, oh! I guess, um,

Dudes, this is when we all started to laugh. Me, Jen, and Biogirl, that is. The lady did not laugh. She looked like she wanted to kill us all for holding up the superfasticecreamline.

Me: Strawberr--
Woman: CUP OR CONE?
Me: Cup?
Woman: WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Biogirl:

Biogirl hesitated for maybe 4 seconds. Jen and I nervously giggled at each other, but inside I was like Biogirl for the love of GOD please say a flavor or we are TOAST.

Biogirl: Chocola--
Woman: CUP OR CONE?
Biogirl: Cup! I think! I don't know! Cup!

When this was done, we ran out of there with our ice creams. This was like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, except scarier. I mean, really. "ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME THAT YOU HAVE NO RELATIONSHIP TO THAT WOMAN WHATSOEVER?" What type of ice cream related scenario could ever warrant that statement to be said at all, much less in a Jack Nicholson you-can't-handle-the-truth bark?

It was weird, you guys.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Royal Oak, MI

Just had dinner with my favorite relative and snapped this photo outside the restaurant.


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Monday, September 06, 2010

Grandpop

My pops is the sweetest grandpa ever.




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Flint Coney

Lunch in Flint town with my hometown ladies at an old haunt.




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Saturday, September 04, 2010

And they're off!

36 hours in Chicagoland. Next stop: the Land of Neverending Foodstuffs.




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Thursday, September 02, 2010

Sticky wicket

Chicagoland. You are one hot town. I happen to love hot weather so I am good with it. My hair gets extra boofy and I don't even need moisturizer, which most people would consider cons but I enjoy. The breeze offa the lake is also a nice touch. Now, if only you could stop your residents from that infernal car honking behavior, we would have ourselves a downright lovely place. Hot weather? Ok. Honking? Please stop.



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Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Three State Tour

We're tooling around the Midwest at breakneck speed, people. It's sort of a blur so far. This is a family-only trip and we're trying to see as many blood relations as we can so it's back to back breakfasts, brunches, and dinners. We don't even have gigantic families, so I don't even understand how those of you who do even figure out logistics.

Today we're having our first few minutes of calm while we stop in the outer hinterlands of Chicagoland at Alli's house. (And ok so she's not a blood relation but she might as well be).

Ima try to keep the blog rolling as we go. We'll see if I'm successful, but your doubting me is probably smart.

Three things of note to report:
1. Our hotel for the past two nights decided to upgrade us, at no extra cost, to a Presidential Suite. It was at the top of a spiral staircase and majorly fancy. Of all the primo amenities, the one i need to tell you about is how they kept bringing us hot chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. Like, without us even asking. Because that's how the presidents do it, baby.




2. On the other end of the fanciness scale, we went and found the house that Nordic Boy spent most of his childhood in. I wanted to hug this house for taking care of him for so many years.





3. We also went to visit the theatre where Nordic Boy and I first met about a gajillion years ago. The nostalgia in that place? Off the charts.



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