Consumables #57

During this week, also known as Dysnowpia 2012 Seattle, many folks are feeling cabin fever. I am hoping that your cabin fever has to do with having your kids home from school and maybe a lack of being able to drive to the store, and does not have anything to do with a for reals blizzard out there or someone busting your kneecaps Misery-style. For some reason when I hear "cabin fever" I always think about Pa Ingalls having to tie a string from his front door to his barn so that he can hang on to it and not get lost in the snow storm, or Kathy Bates and James Caan. I don't know why. I'm just saying, I hope that if you have cabin fever, it is normal people usage of that term, and not me-usage.


For all the cabin-fever-or-not that has been happening this week, I have been light on the consuming, but here's what I've got.

Movies:
Beginners
I thought this was so sweet. Ewan McGregor could not be more charming, and Christopher Plummer was delightful and their relationship just made my heart feel all squeezy. It made me cry a bit.

The Recruit
Sometimes if Nordic Boy is waiting for something- like for me to get ready, or for a friend to come pick him up- he will flip the tv on and find a movie and watch it, just for the ten-fifteen minutes he has to wait. Earlier this week, The Recruit was on tv, so he watched a bit from the latter half of the movie. A day or so later, he was waiting again, and he turned the tv on, and The Recruit was playing again, but it was at an entirely different point in the movie, so he watched ten more minutes. He did this about four times all week. First of all, whatever tv channel that was? Wow, showing a real commitment to Farrell and Pacino there. Second of all, how can one stand to watch a movie all chopped up and in the completely wrong order? I don't care what the movie is, that would drive me insane. At any rate, I saw a fair amount of this movie by default this week. Shockingly, it seemed disjointed to me.

TV
Downton Abbey
Bates' low self-esteem stuff is starting to drive me crazy. And also, Maria Doyle Kennedy really has cornered the market on unwanted-wife roles, what with this and then the whole Queen Catherine thing on The Tudors. That's quite a specific niche.

Parks and Rec
THANK GOODNESS YOU'RE BACK.

Project Runway All Stars
I can't decide how I felt about them having to do an outfit for Miss Piggy. On the one hand, Miss Piggy is awesome. On the other hand, really? They had to design an outfit for a Muppet? On the other hand, I like it when something unpretentious happens on Project Runway. On the other hand, the fact that the designers all gushed and treated it so seriously was weird. As you can see, there were a lot of hands in my argument with myself on this.

Books
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
If Beginners made me cry a little bit in a sweet way, this one made me cry a lot in a sad way. I want to say it was unbelievably sad, but really, unfortunately it was believably sad. The story was well told, and had a lot of access points in it- it's got history, and science, and racial issues, poverty issues, and genealogy, and ethics, and law, and journalism, and family dynamics. All of it works, and works well together. Nicely done, Ms. Skloot. And p.s. I love saying your last name.

Happy Friday!

Snow Day

Seattle is shut down, y'all. It started dumping snow on Wednesday night and it hasn't let up at our house yet. We tromped around all afternoon. I came home with straight up icicles in my hair. I'd almost forgotten what that feels like.

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True

This weekend we celebrated Nordic Boy's birthday. It was quiet, full of love and sweetness, just like him. It snowed a bunch, and we took walks in the silent neighborhood, sometimes turning a corner to find squealing kids sledding down empty streets. We ventured out to a show downtown, and we ate some fancy meals in low lit restaurants that were mostly empty due to the weather. His mom and sisters called him up, and so did my folks, all to tell him they love him. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and he said he just wanted to see me and his two besties, so we had Biogirl and Delium over and ate and laughed. Biogirl made us waffles one morning and I went to a fancy bakery to find us some cake. He bought himself a present that only he would be super excited about: a dust vac that hooks right up to his power tools so the sawdust is collected before it hits the ground. Who buys themselves a dust vac for their birthday, I ask you?

The same sort of dude who thinks knots are way cool, that's who. When I first met Nordic Boy when he was just a kid, we would go to the local bookstore and he would pore over this big book, about knots. I have teased him about it for years and years. This honker is gigantic- it's got to be a 10 pounder of a book, at least it seems so. Paying for it would have kept us in Taco Bell burritos for literally two months, so buying it was out of the question. Even now, when we can afford that book, he has never bought it. It's something he'll go look at in the store every once in a while, even all these years later. He's had a long and true yearning for that book, and the fascination has never waned. This year, I bought it for him. The delight that this purchase brought him will make me smile for just as many years, I'm pretty sure.

I also took our old deck of cards out of the closet. This deck of cards has been with us for almost two decades. The first thing that Nordic Boy and I ever did together was play cards with that deck, in my very first little apartment back in Illinois. I love that deck. So I wrote out, on each card, one thing that is awesome about that dude of mine. It was hard to limit to 52.

Happy birthday, sweet soul. You rock my socks.

Consumables #56

I have noise-cancelling headphones on right now, and then I decided to chew a piece of gum. Have you ever done this? Hearing gum chewing inside one's own head sounds disgusting, and kind of like a washing machine.

Yes, this is your one-stop shop for high cultural commentary such as that.


Here's what be up! I'm too lazy to put in the links today. Shoddy blogmanship, I know.

TeeVee
Downton Abbey
Nordic Boy is catching up with Season 1 right now, and it just about blew his mind when Maggie Smith was all "what's a weekend?" He was like "God DAMMIT if I could be that rich, to not even know what a weekend is!" He sort of couldn't stop talking about it for a while after that. So Mind? Meet Boggled.

Luther
First of all, let's just get it out of the way by first off saying that Idris Alba can make one want to get dirty in your skirty. Ok? We good on that? He's hot and we don't even need to talk about it. Idris, Stringer Bell, Luther, I don't care WHAT your name is. I feel like I might have talked about this show before, since I started watching it a while ago, so forgive the repeat if I did that. This was a little more on the creepy side than I usually tend to watch, but I stuck with it. I think Alba carries it and I'm not just saying that because of the hotness. I liked the whole Silence of the Lambs vibe it had going on.

Movies
Young Frankenstein
This is one of the first movies Nordic Boy and I ever watched together and we hadn't seen it in a while. It makes me all goopy remembering us watching the first time. "Ovaltine!" To me, that's romantic.

Contagion
I so did not understand the point of this movie. There was a virus, it spread, people died. I just kept wanting to say "...and?" It was fine though.

Books
All nonfiction this week!

Just Kids, by Patti Smith
For some reason I wasn't expecting this book to be that good. I don't know why. But it totally was! I love it when that happens. I was not overly familiar with Smith (I mean I know her stuff, but am not a fanatic) so there was a lot of interesting stuff that was news to me, and I found her not at all like I thought she might be.

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vaillant
I can sum up this book by just saying this. Do NOT, whatever you do, FUCK with a FUCKING TIGER. Don't steal food from him, don't mess with tiger babies, don't insult him, don't look at him funny, just DON'T DO ANYTHING. Because that tiger understands who you are, and can find where you live, and can smell you from a long ways away, and will wait for you and remember you for years and you will not even see it coming and then WHAM he will jump out and eat your ass to the bone and then find anyone else that you have been hanging with that smells like you and eat THEIRSELVES TOO. If you have to mess with a lion, ok. If you have to mess with a bear, so be it. Just NOT A TIGER. The end.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Stay clear of tigers.

Cold gray Januar-ay

The thermometer says it's not really that cold, but my body disagrees. It feels colder than the thermometer says. I know, talking about the weather is ceaselessly entertaining. I have been trying not to hole up in my house too much. To that end, I did the following.

1. Brunched out with pals twice.
2. Shopped (ok I just went and touched the clothes) at Horseshoe.
3. Supported Biogirl's pie problem by tagging along with her to A La Mode.
4. Did some rounds around Green Lake.
5. "Helped" Nordic Boy plant a new terrarium (hey, I watched him with waves of encouragement emanating out of me. That's totally helping).
6. Ok, I'm not going to lie there was also lots of holing up and staying in, but effort was made.

The Nordic Job

The Nordic Job: like the Italian Job only with Volvos!

So hey, you want to know what happened around Thanksgiving of 2011? Nordic Boy got laid off. It was so awesome, by which I mean that it was terrifically spectacularly not awesome.


I didn't want to talk about it then because (a) I have a rule about blogging about my work and so it hardly seemed fair for me to blab details about Nordic Boy's, but I just couldn't not talk about the details for a while there, so I thought I better just not mention it at all or diarrhea of the keyboard might happen. I have specific ways that I will talk about my job on the internets and they are super narrow parameters, mostly because I think that work takes up way too much of my brain already so why would I spend more time dedicated to this and also I just think it a bad idea to blog about work in general because there is probably some way that you will get your ass bit by that, or at least I would. And also (b) it was super stressful and Joel had just died in the fall which was still on our minds a lot of course so we weren't really feeling our most strong anyway and so we did something in our family that is akin to "circling the wagons" or "huddling up" but not those things because I don't like sports metaphors and circling the wagons makes me want to barf, as a phrase. Basically, for the month of December, we told people, but in terms of talking about the real stuff- how it felt, and what we were thinking- we kept that for the most significant peeps until recently.

But, now the huddling of wagons is over and I'm still not talking about Nordic Boy's job details, but the feelings stuff? Ok, in a nutshell.

I know that, unfortunately, being laid off is not an uncommon thing to have happen to people these days. Heck, I am from Flint where, when I was a kid, pretty much everyone I knew was getting laid off of something somewhere, so it's not even a new event in my life. I knew what the term "laid off" was by the time I was 4 years old. Still, it sucks. Su-hucks. It sucks because it makes you aware that sometimes, it doesn't matter how good you are at your job, how much of a difference you make while doing it, how much experience you have built up, how much expertise you have, how much your coworkers respect what you do, how well you are liked, how much money and efficiency you bring back to your organization, how much you completely kick ass all day every day, or how ridiculously hard you work. Nordic Boy was at the top top top on all of these fronts, and I am not just saying that because I think he's the cat's pajamas. Really, it's just an objective fact: he is all of these things and more. But keeping his job just didn't have anything to do with any of that. Not one little bit.

Seriously, you guys. Markets shifted and none of that awesomeness that he was bringing to the table meant a good goddamn. When it came to keeping his job, all that good stuff just straight up did not matter.That's fucked up when you have to think about it, and sit with it, and know it in your guts. That's a faceful of reality right there.

To use another sports metaphor, but only because it is so appropriate that I can't not, Nordic Boy took it like a champ. He really did, and not in a stiff upper lip way. He took it in, felt some feelings, and then moved on to what he could do about it and figured out what he couldn't do about it. Man, if we could package up his reaction to stuff like this, we would be RICH. Also, this is further evidence (as if I needed more) that he is who you want to have around when the zombie apocalypse comes. If the braineaters show up, you all need to hightail it to our house.

Before you all become too worried about the state of things around here (I should have said this right up front, sorry), we are ok, and Nordic Boy has found another job that he starts today. It's hard for us to know how to feel about this- of course we are happy and we want to feel proud of him for getting out there ("put yourself out there!" as the Bachelor always talks about) and making something happen that is positive and a great opportunity, which it is and we do, but I also want to make sure I acknowledge that there are so many other people out there losing jobs, losing homes, losing a lot, and they deserve good things too, pretty likely more than we do. I don't think, and I know that Nordic Boy doesn't think, that he deserves it more than them. I just have to say that and if you are someone that has lost a job and have not been able to find another one yet, good luck to you. Not an ironic, sarcastic good luck to you. (How did that phrase become so flip? "Oh yeah? Well good luck to you, sucker!") I'm not talking about that kind. I'm talking a heartfelt, sincere one. Good luck to you.

Anyway, this was kind of a big deal in our lives, even though the turnaround time was thankfully, luckily so short, and so I thought I would let you all know about it. As I said, he starts his new job today, and he's really excited about it, and again we're lucky that not only did he find something, but it's a something he wants to be doing. And super bonus: no more travelling! At least not on a regular basis. I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I get to see him every single day, and we get to sleep in the same bed every single night. SO COOL.

And to our peeps who were in the wagon huddle: super big ups, y'all.

Consumables #55

Movies!

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Do we still think Jude Law is cute? Like, as a society? Because I can't remember if we're still supposed to be thinking that. Anyway. There were fights and chases and explosions and I liked how Holmes and Watson were sort of in love with each other. They even get to partner dance with each other and it warmed my heart.

Muppets

There was nothing that I wanted more at a certain time in my life than to live inside the Muppet Show. This movie made me want that again. I want to wear Amy Adams' rainbow outfits and sing in production numbers about how life is a happy song with Rolf's floppy ears going crazy and Gonzo and his weird chicken lovers and Kermit somehow always being so frigging poignant and why can't I do it, WHYYYYY.

Hugo

There is a thing that happens in lots of kids' movies which I call the "whoaaaaaaa" moment. It's when a chase is happening, or someone falls off something, or slides down a chute, or is in a car or plane or train that goes out of control, and the character goes "whoa!" for about 10 seconds. The whoa moment is everywhere now, and I find it irritating because I am old and crotchety. Hugo is a beautiful film that is heartfelt and suspenseful and does not have ONE whoa moment. Not one! This gives it points in my book based on that alone. Even with that aside, I thought it was lovely. Good job, Mr. Scorsese. And you didn't even have to have Joe Pesci show up to put the beat down on anyone.

Christmas Carol times two

After reading a Christmas Carol again this year, I felt like watching a couple of movie versions. First, we watched the 1938 version starring Reginald Owen. Then we watched the Muppet version with Michael Caine. Both were worth seeing, but I shall warn you that Michael Caine is made to sing in his version which probably could have gone undone.

Green Lantern

I basically half-watched this while doing other things. 50% of my attention was still too much.

The Trip

I could see some people finding this movie completely annoying, but I didn't. I thought it funny and it made me want to take a foodie road trip through England. There was a scene where Steve Coogan is running across some step stones in a river, and gets stuck in the middle, and Rob Brydon yells to him from shore: "Oh no! You're stuck in a metaphor!" That cracked me right up for days.

Eames: The Architect and the Painter

I liked that this wasn't an idealized portrayal of Charles and Ray. For fans of their work, there is plenty of eye candy, but I wished there was a little more depth in the description of their processes.

TeeVee!

Portlandia

It kind of amazes me that this is so popular everywhere. I get so much glee from it because I live in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, I think it's funny anyway, but it's just that extra something-something if you live here.

Caprica

A spinoff/prequel of Battlestar Galactica, which I should have watched a long time ago but I was kind of mad about how BG ended. So I finally got around to this one, and it was ok, but not a barnburner, entertainment-wise.

Books!

Karma, by Cathy Osterle

I give this one points for an exciting plot that will keep people turning pages, and for tackling a specific time and place in history that is hard to find in teen lit: the time period during the time that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated and the riots that followed. Ultimately, I found it disappointing that the characters were so stereotypical, and that all of the Indian population, with only one or two exceptions, were portrayed as a cruel people, prone to terrorism at worst and apathy at best as a whole.

Every Me, Every You, by David Levithan

I know this title is taken from a Placebo song, but every time I picked it up for some reason I couldn't help singing "Knowing Me, Knowing You" by Abba instead. The good news is, every time I sang the words "Knowing me, knowing you," Nordic Boy would pipe in with the "uh huh" part. Oh, you wanted to hear about the book? Silly me. I have read a lot of teen books, but this one tops my list of one of the most emo ones I have read. So just prepare yourself for that. I did like the mix of photos and text though.

The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga

The setting and the point of this book are both not anything new, but what makes it a great read is the character of Balram, the confessor who is telling the story of his crime. He is maddening and sympathetic, funny and scary, and his point of view carried the whole thing for me.

Music!

Here is some advice from me to you about combining two activities: cooking and dancing. Nordic Boy and I are great cooking/dance party enthusiasts, and I realized that the best songs for this are ones that have calm moments where you can concentrate on the recipe you are following, etc. But then they have to bust out with a ramp up section where you can kick up a serious groove for a minute. The song that came up on Pandora that really brought this home for me was that Usher song "Without You." Tell me you can't listen to this and know when it is time to measure your ingredients and when it's time to throw your hands up and shake the bootango.

Happy Friday!

I don't think so

My TiVo says weird things to me sometimes.

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The Meta Plan

Nordic Boy and I are total planners. There is a part of me that wanted to deny or qualify this before I even finished typing the words. I don't want to sound stodgy. I don't think of myself as a Bert. I think of myself as an Ernie. And I do think that we are pretty good about not sticking to a plan when it's failing, or changing course when we need to. We're not married to our plans. But we do make them, commit to them, and pretty much always follow through on them. I guess we are pretty goal oriented in some ways, although again for some reason I feel embarrassed to say so. It's not the hippy/hipster thing to be, is it? I feel like I am Ben Stiller and Winona Ryder is just going to go off with that fuckface Ethan Hawke. And why the hell did she do that, you guys? Ethan Hawke was SUCH A DICK.

One thing we usually do in January is check up on all the plans we made the January before and check them off the list and talk about what plans we have for the new year and write out how we'll accomplish them. I realize I have been saying for so many years now that I am not a New Years Resolutions lady and so perhaps you are calling me a Full of Crap lady because it sounds like the same thing to you. To me, it seems different. Oh well. Anyway. We have a plan for our house- we have a huge master list of every last thing that we want to do on our house from now until the end of time- and we pick out the things that we think we can tackle for this year. Then we do a projected budget, and a timeline, and a supplies list. We also do a financial plan for the year. We set specific goals and then figure out what it will take to achieve them, and we write that shit out too. Then we make a vacation plan- any trips we need to take for the year? Where? How much vacation time will we need? How much money? Any personal goals for the year? A class one of us wants to take? An experience one of us wants to have? And then...

You get the picture. We plan.

In our defense (again, I am feeling the need to defend this), we don't just plan and put these things away until the next year. We check in with our plans throughout the year, see where we are, what needs attention. And as stick-in-the-mud as it sounds, at the end of the year, it feels SO FREAKING AWESOME when we look over all of those plans and see what we have accomplished. We have a yay us! grand old time every December. Because even if we didn't meet our goals exactly, we probably met part of them, and most of the time it's a big part. It's really motivating and empowering. And more than anything, I think it's a way for us to communicate about what we want out of our lives, what we are thinking about, what we are worried about, and what we can help each other with.

We were talking over one of our plans tonight (this one budgetary). We had gathered up some information and we were going over it and figuring out how to proceed this year. After we were done, he walked over to the kitchen to start dinner, which he did by first looking at our fridge to see the posted - wait for it- weekly meal plan.

Him: Wow, come to think of it, we have a lot of plans in our lives.

Me: I know, we really do.

Him: Let's think about what all part of our lives we have plans for.

Me: What, like just say them? In a list?

Him: Yeah.

Me: What for?

Him: So we can have a picture of our overall plan. What you plan for says a lot about your priorities in life. What you think is important.

Me: What do you mean our overall plan?

Him: Like, what do our many plans paint an overall picture of? When you put them all together, what does it say?

Me: That's deep, dude.

Him: Maybe we should think about the overall plan first, and then do the individual plans from that. Think about it philosophically before we get into the practical.

Me: I think I get what you're saying. Basically, you're saying what if we had a plan that will guide all of our plans.

(pause)

Him: I think I just tipped us right over into crazytown.

Me: Yeah.

Him: Forget I said anything.

Me: I plan to.

Holiday shots

Stuff I want to remember from the last week or so.

2011 kicks the bucket

Another holiday season behind us, and a fresh clean year has started just so that we can fill it up with our joys and fuck ups. We'll have them both, but let's hope for more joys. It was my sixth anniversary of the bloggie this past month, so now is a good time to thank you for stopping by to hear my mess every so often, and if you blog yourself, thanks for letting me read about what's up with you. Writing is good, is what I have discovered, because I am always down for pointing out the obvious and claiming to have discovered it. Watch, I'll do it again: pop tarts are probably not that great for you, healthwise, is what I have discovered.

Anyway. You guys are good blog friends, and I appreciate it.

Happiness, healthiness, love. These three I wish for you. And let's face it, for me too, I won't front.

Happy New Year.

New Year Meme 2011

Once again, I'm doing this tired old thing. Don't tell me that I never recycle anything.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Went to a baseball game. The food sucked monkey balls and cost like it came from the mothereffing Ritz. But the game was fun, and the friends, and the sweet, sweet sunshine. Also, I went to see roller derby. Look at me, so sporty!

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year I did a whole list of things I want to keep up, rather than things I wanted to change. I should write a post about whether I did all of it or whether I was full of shit. Perhaps I will. But not right now. As for 2012 ones, I doubt it. I haven't decided yet.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! It was another year of babies all around! Cuteness levels WAY UP in 2011.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Well, he was close to Nordic Boy, which is as close to me as you can get. It was horrible.

5. What countries did you visit? 

You know what? I am changing this question to "what trips did you take?" so I don't have to keep saying the same mess every year about not travelling abroad.

New York, New York, it's a wonderful town! (I love singing the line from that song). Also, Dungeness Spit, the Olympic Peninsula, Portland, Michigan.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
More healthiness for all my loved ones. Or all of everyone. Just...health to all.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why
I have so many, but I will say July 4, because I went to a really fun party and saw fireworks and it was good times.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Keeping it positive on the work tip, yo. Also, resolving some friendship stuff that needed resolving on a couple of fronts. The friendship situations just about killed me this year. It's good to care that much and love people as much as I do, and I wouldn't change that about myself even if I could, but sometimes it opens me up to heartbreak too. Thankee Jebus that I still have some good homies to count on.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I honestly can't think of one. Apparently I have a high opinion of myself. There was that time I lost my new camera, which made me feel like a first class a-hole.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a serious case of gut bug for the first time ever. It was terrible but I did get to lie on the bathroom floor like a frigging rock star. GLAM.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My plane tickets to New York.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I have so many people I could mention for this, which is awesomesauce. I will just say Alli and Map, for coming to see me just because I missed them so bad. And BioGirl, for carrying out friendship duties with panache.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I don't even want to talk about it, because my being appalled doesn't change a goddamn thing.

14. Where did most of your money go?
A gas line and a new furnace to match. The furnace company was all "make it rain, suckers!" and we did. It poured.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going to Portland Fashion Week with my bestie.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

It's not even a song from this year, but I listened to it a lot this year, because I can be dumb and dramatic sometimes. "Every Heartbeat" by Robyn. I'll put a clip of it at the end of the post.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Both
ii. thinner or fatter? Same
iii. richer or poorer? Same

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Reading and spending time with my peeps and going to arty things. You know, the stuff I want to be doing all the time.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Working

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Already happened! My dude, movies, reading, laughing, eating.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Every frigging day.

23. How many one-night stands?
Zip.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Parks and Rec. Ron Swanson for President.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No. To quote Michael Jackson, I'm a lover not a fighter. Also, shamone.

26. What was the best book you read?
I quite enjoyed two books I read by Aravind Adiga: Last Man in Tower and The White Tiger.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I like Craft Spells a lot.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Harry Potter, Muppets. Because I am 10 years old?

31. What did you do on your birthday?
I dropped Nordic Boy off at the airport so he could see his cousin in the hospital, I had lunch with Biogirl, got my beloved new camera, and got ready to go to Portland Fashion Week. It was a day full of super highs and super lows, like last year.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Less activity around hospitals overall.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
I love clothes and I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny. However, I went to New York this year and was on a budget and did not buy one thing. ONE THING. Restraint, people.

34. What kept you sane?
My peeps, hands down.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't know. I hate this question. I know that every die-hard Gilmore Girls fan was feeling that strange happy/possessive feeling about Melissa McCarthy this year. You know, the so-glad-she-is-successful mixed with I-totally-knew-about-her-awesomeness-before-everyone else. Let's all collectively get over that, because I wasn't the only one watching the Gilmore Girls and neither were you. It just feels that way.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Japanese tsunami, Arab Spring, and the Penn State disgustingness.

37. Who did you miss?
Mom, Dad, Allison, Map, Julia, Nan, Rosita... so many people to miss. Sigh.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
My new coworkers are pretty rad.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
I've learned it before but I had to learn it again and it was just as hard as ever: letting go is all there is to do sometimes.

40. A song lyric that sums up your year.

I'll do that sad one I mentioned before, but then end on a happy one, because both are totally appropriate, and I am feeling hopeful about 2012 and I want to end on that. May you feel the same about the coming year.

Goodbye 2011:
Maybe we could make it all right
We could make it better sometime
Maybe we could make it happen, baby

We could keep trying but things will never change, so I don't look back
Still I'm dying with every step I take, but I don't look back

And it hurts with every heartbeat
And it hurts with every heartbeat

Hello 2012:

You don't have a clue
What it is like to be next to you
I'm here to tell you
That it is good
That it is true

Birds singing a song
Old paint is peeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling

Words can't be that strong
My heart is reeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling

Try
Try to forget what's in the past
Tomorrow is here
Love,
Orange sky above lighting your way
There's nothing to fear

Birds singing a song
Old paint is peeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling

Words can't be that strong
My heart is reeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling

Some people are good

Babe in the 'hood

So pure and so free

I'd make a safe bet

You're gonna get whatever you need

Oh, you mean a holiday as in taking a holiday. I see now.

My motivation for writing on the bloggy always goes down a bit this time of year, because I feel like people probably aren't reading. What with work holidays, travelling, and the like. Do I know this from my blog stats, you ask? Do I even look at my blog stats anymore? Well, that's beside the point, is what I say. Who needs facts when my feelings tell me I can slack off? Thanks, feelings!


You know how I am always saying that when it comes to the holidays, I don't really understand what all the fuss is about? Well, during pretty much my entire adult working life, I have never taken any days off around the holidays, and this year I did. Newsflash, everyone! Not having to work for a few extra days totally makes holiday time so exciting! NOW I GET IT. See, sometimes I see the dots, but I don't always connect the dots.

I had four days off in a row this week, and it was like a relaxation bonanza going on around here. There was one day when I didn't even crack my door open to leave my house but at all. I know! Crazyballs!

On Friday as I was leaving work, Nordic Boy called to tell me that our car crapped out and so we had it towed and waited with bated breath to hear back that it wouldn't cost five zillion dollars to fix. We got it back yesterday and it was only 2 zillion dollars, so I guess our wishing should have been more specific. The time that wasn't spent wasted on highballing our wishes was pretty good. Nordic Boy cooked up a ton of awesome food, which I helped with, and it was all so delicious, and I loved it, and it was fun to make together, but honestly I am all cooked out for probably the rest of my life.

Other than that I didn't do one productive thing at all. Well, we paid bills and cleaned the house and did laundry and that type of thing, but that doesn't count. Other than that we watched movies and read books and just were complete and total shut ins. Nordic Boy didn't even work on the house. I know, WUT. Other than some time spent with Delium, we kicked it hermit style and it was awesome.

I hope that you had a great holiday, if in fact you celebrate that sort of thing. If you don't do the holidays, at least take a lesson from me. Take some days off if you can. That's the kind of holiday magic anyone can get behind.

Hello Talbots, and you too Chico's

Mom: I stopped over at Christopher and Banks this morning, but I didn't find anything.
Me: What store is that again?
Mom: Christopher and Banks.
Me: I've never been there. What is it? Clothes?
Mom: You've never heard of it?
Me: I've heard of it, but there isn't one here in Seattle I think. Other than maybe in the malls, and I don't go to the mall much. What kind of stuff do they have?
Mom: Oh you know. Clothes for older ladies. Like us.
Me: (silence as I slowly digest that my septuagenarian mother has now put me in her age category)
Me: Oh.
Mom: (back pedal, back pedal!) I just mean, it's not for teenagers. That's all I mean.
Me: Got it.

I guess it's time for me to stop thinking Ann Taylor is too old for me.

...

I CAN'T. I JUST CAN'T.

Consumables #54

I checked the weather this morning and the forecast for Seattle was colder than the forecast for Wisconsin, Michigan and New York today. What kind of ridiculousness is that? Mild climate my ass. I also happened to see the local tv news the other day, and the weatherman was calling his forecast the "futurecast." Wow, so space age! And also, are we now afraid that the word forecast is too hard for people to understand? So we have to put the word future into it just to make sure we understand what is happening? What's next? Will history class be called Pastory or Old-Timey-Times or something?


I don't know. Perhaps I am just gripey because it looks like this outside.

So get this, I have further evidence that old ladyness is taking over my being. Last night I came home from work and Nordic Boy and I had a lovely dinner, followed by a little Daily Show/Colbert on the DVR, and some conversation after that. At about 9pm, we were sitting on our couch, looking at the candles in our fireplace. Nordic Boy reached over and turned the lights down to romantical levels, and within 5 minutes? I WAS ASLEEP. Can you believe that nonsense? Oh yes, I know how to keep the spark alive, people.

The holidays are totally happening, like almost now, and not only have my normal levels of non-caring about them gone on (still not interested in a tree or putting up lights or making cookies or shopping for gifts or traveling), but the one and only thing I usually do for the holidays- send out cards- has fallen by the wayside. I have not done a good goddamn about holiday cards yet, which means at this point it's probably not happening. Perhaps I shall send out Groundhog Day cards later on or something instead. I guess this is my way of telling any of you who are reading this who normally get a card from me this year that the lack of card-giving does not mean I have chopped you from the list. I'm just full on in denial about the season. Ho ho ho.

Wait, hold on. My denial is not total and complete. I have done one holiday-ish item this year. Check me out! It's a Consumable.

Books
I decided to read some Christmasy stuff written by old Chuck Dickens. First of all, I read A Christmas Carol, which I haven't read since I was in high school. I confess I rather like Mr. Scrooge. Not so much on the being a bad boss thing, but on all the other stuff. I didn't find him to be so bad. I found him quite likeable actually. I know I sound crazyballs on this one, but hear me out. I think that I find a secret (ok maybe not so secret) glee in characters who don't understand the holidays. This is why I love Charlie Brown so much. And the Grinch too. And all those selfish city ladies in Hallmark Original Movies about the holidays. Sure, they all find the Christmas spirit at the end, but that's like, during the last 5 minutes of the story so I can almost ignore that part. The rest of the time they are all "merry who now?" I can identify, is all I am saying.

The second Dickens item I read was the short story A Christmas Tree. And holy guacamole was it a total snoozefest. Ay carumba with the on and on about the dang tree. SHUT UP, CHUCKIE. (Are you seeing why I have empathy for Ebenezer now?) I'm just saying that I don't recommend that one.

Movies
We watched Captain America, wherein he kicks Nazi ass. It was everything that you might want/expect out of a movie like that. No surprises and that was just fine with me. We also watched Helen Mirren kick Nazi ass in The Debt. Lastly I watched Funny Girl where there were no Nazis at all, thank goodness. I watched it because my friend Linda, when referring to her own outfit, used the words "ruffled shirt" and what else is one supposed to do when those words are used than think "Nick Arnestein!" and then run home and watch Babs and Omar? I was like Pavlov's dog: she said ruffled shirt and I had immediate Funny Girl cravings. And, I totally had forgotten that Frankincense Pontipee was in that movie. I want to also mention the outfit that Barbra wears that has, instead of a shoulder clasp or brooch, a full-size bunch of grapes hanging off of her shoulder, but I can't think of how to work it in so I am just going to mention it and leave it alone. Also, I love the headpieces during "His Love Makes Me Beautiful." Let's look at it together, shall we?



Have a lovely weekend!

Consumables #53

This hibernation thing is getting out of control.


My policy of saying yes to things has gone down the frigging toilet this past month. All I do is stay home, and then decide to stay home some more, with a side of staying home. To be fair, I am feeling very mentally busy lately, rather than my usual vapid self, and all this thinking and plotting and scheming takes TIME. And luckily, most of it can be done from the comfort of my own couch, preferably under a blanket. But still. I had the opportunity to go see Mark Morris last weekend and I just totally didn't feel like going, so I didn't. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME? Oh, and in case you were just dying with curiosity about that whole Next Phase of Life thing that I was talking about? Don't hold your breath on that one, because it turns out that planning big things takes a shit ton of time. And also, my definition of a Big Thing is probably not yours. (That's what she said).

Also, remember my policy last year of saying yes to the holidays? How I went all out (at least for me) and Kris Kringled it up? That shit is not happening this year either. I have not given the holidays one itty bitty corner of my mind this year. Not even a little. Honestly I don't really know what month it is. So what happened last year is apparently not a trend.

So, to sum up: policies are all going to shit!

My policy of consumable consuming is still on though.

Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens. Dude, this shit was harsh! I mean, I knew what it was about, but had never read it for real, and poor Oliver gets beat up, beat down, kidnapped, starved. I would sit there and read, and Nordic Boy would say "How's Oliver doing?" and I would say "not good, man. Not good." Also, there was nothing quotable about it in quite the same way as this, one of our favorite things to re-enact in our house:



The 12 Men of Christmas
Lest you think I was going all high-minded on you with my bad Dickensian self, let me share with you the joy that is The 12 Men of Christmas, a Lifetime Original Movie starring Kristen Chenoweth and the dude from Cougartown. Kristen stars as a high-powered career gal who is lonely and loveless (surprise!). She loses her PR job when her bitchy career gal boss humps Kristen's skeezy big city boyfriend. A small town in Montana somehow gets her number and wants to hire her for a year to live there and drum up PR for tourism for their town, aka she is totally Northern Exposured. She goes to Montana and doesn't understand those crazy small towners! They volunteer, as in work without being paid, and no one in the city ever does that! She has never heard of such a thing. They also hug you when you show up for business meetings. And there is also a dickish guy who is mean and condescending to her, which is a drop dead signal that they will end up together by the end of this thing, because if you are dicky to a lady, that just shows her you are passionate and adorable. Take note, fellas! Anyway, Kristin's brilliant, completely original, never-thought-of-before idea is that the town's hot dudes will be featured in a racy calendar. So Northern Exposure has now turned into a Full Monty/Calendar Girls hybrid. And you know what? The calendar makes the town WORLD FAMOUS. And Kristen gets the man at the end (causing it to snow). Side note: you know how you can tell a Hallmark Original Holiday movie from a Lifetime Original Holiday movie? Lifetime is racier. For instance, Kristen finds herself in a situation where she happens upon a swimming pool where Cougartown man is skinny dipping. As you do. And he decides to flirt with her by getting out of the pool nude and being assy to her (both physically and metaphorically) which hey, that isn't creepy and prosecutable! And she looks him up and down and says: "not interested." and he says something like: "I bet you I can make your interest GROW." There was also a fishing lesson whereby he asks her to be gentle with the rod or some such thing. Oh, Lifetime.

Hey you guys. I just wrote four sentences about Dickens and about twenty on the 12 Men of Christmas. I should be so proud.

NOVA: Fabric of the Cosmos
Brian Green (or, as I like to imagine him, Brian Austin Green) talks trippy physics. I am also convinced that he creates a time-space distortion that is created within the confines of the show. Evidence: while I am watching it, I totally understand everything he is saying. As soon as it's over, I can't explain shit.

Lastly, just when I think I could not love Jon Stewart any more than I do, he goes and does this. I frigging love it so much.

How I can turn breadmaking into a tearjerker

There is a lot of stuff changing in my life right now, and I feel like the train is moving fast and I am holding on to the caboose for dear life, my feet flying out behind me. Most of it is stuff that I can't talk about on the bloggie (omg don't you HATE coy shit like that?) but all of a sudden Nordic Boy and I are making plans for the Next Phase in Our Lives. Doesn't that sound like a soap opera? Or the tagline for some sort of menopause commercial? Or I guess I should say menopause medication commercial. They don't really make ads for menopause itself.


And, just in case you are one of Nordic Boy's aunts out there, the Next Phase in Our Lives does not mean I am preggers.

So this weekend was full of talking and prepping and thinking and percolating. Also spreadsheets were involved. You know shit is about to get exciting when you bust out a spreadsheet! Am I right?

In other news, my parents bought Nordic Boy a present, just because he's awesome. I love the fact that my parents and Nordic Boy are so close. I am for serious, I could boohoo just thinking about it. There was a point where my dad was in the hospital a few years ago, and he was just as sick as could be, and when he came home he was too weak to walk into the house on his own, and the ambulance driver offered to lift my dad out of the vehicle, but my dad said "I'd like my son to do that please," and Nordic Boy stepped right up and carried my little dad all the way into the house, and helped him into his pajamas and got him into bed, and my dad looked at him and said "thank you, kiddo" and I could see the two of them look into each other's faces for a second, and it was a huge moment in my life, let me tell you. You can't beat that, man, you really can't.

Anyway, this is the most roundabout tangent-ridden way on earth to tell you that Nordic Boy was enamored of my folks' bread machine the last time we were there, and they up and bought him one and had it sent to our house and it has been like Christmas come early. My only fear is that Nordic Boy will now unceasingly stuff me with carbs until I burst open. I guess that's not a bad way to go.

So life planning and carbs was basically how I spent my weekend. Oh, and also last night there was a crazy scuffling sound outside our front door, and when we looked outside, there were two giant raccoons on our porch. They had made a really weird, loud noise to get our attention like that and I think they were either fighting or having racoon loving. When they saw Nordic Boy's face in the window, they both stood up and raised their arms up as if to say "you want a piece of this?" We decided that we really did not want a piece of that, and let them be. Raccoons are bad ASS.

Also, I tagged along with Nordic Boy to the bookstore. I didn't really go for my own purposes, so while he was looking for his deal, I went over to the Humor section to take a look at the new Mindy Kaling book. I feel a lot of pressure to read Mindy Kaling's book, because she is a hip Indian lady, and so I feel like I am OBLIGATED. It's like how I feel obligated to like MIA. I have two whole pop culture role models, which is two more than I ever had as a kid, so having two feels OVERWHELMING. I mean, when I was a child I liked Jacqueline Smith the best out of the Charlie's Angels because she was the DARKEST. That was about as much hope as I had in my life about people looking like me. So that is the scale I am used to, people.

Anyway, the Humor section was super crowded so I went to the next section over and read the Kaling book. Turns out the next section over was the Bible section. So me, sitting in the Bible section, laughing my guts out. Lovely.

I think I might have exceeded all bounds of randomness this time around.

Ditching

I'm becoming a first-class ditcher. But really, a book, a movie, a blanket, a couch, and a cute boy? Saturday night happiness.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Yuletide Yodel

I am thinking about last weekend right now. It was a good one, but dang it seems like years ago now. I realized that I usually do a weekend roundup type dealie, and I didn't this time, so Ima do it now. I just KNOW you were all antsy in your pantsies about not knowing how my weekend was last weekend, right? I know. It was tearing you up inside.


First of all, I met up with some homies at a local drinky station. Both Nordic Boy and I were seriously dragging our asses and were perfectly primed for the last minute bail, but we pulled through and showed our faces. I am still on a grand quest to find my signature drink, and I am sorry to say that I did not find it yet. This time I sampled a Mamie Taylor. Actually I can't remember what it was I had. Which maybe is a sign that I really liked it or I really didn't. The other thing that happened was that Nordic Boy got ripped. He can hold his liquor really well so the last time I saw him in such a state was circa 1995. When we got home he ran around our house for a good half an hour singing the opening yodel from "Tonight I'm Lovin' You" by Enrique Iglesias, or as Nordic Boy insisted upon calling him: Julio Ing-Ling-ias Junior. So actually, it wasn't that different from non-drunk Nordic Boy.

Also, we stayed out that night until midnight or so. Alert the media!

Thanksgiving was a day of cooking, and eating, and watching really bad movies. Just like the pilgrims.

I rounded out the rest of the weekend by cloistering myself in my house pretty much the whole time, with one break to go over to Biogirl's house to help her put up her tree and otherwise get her yule decoration on. Although I am not a Christmas tree or decor person I do like that I know people who are and that I can participate in it to some extent. I rather like it in short bursts. Like, for an afternoon is perfect.

And now it's December, which, yikes.

Happy Friday, all. Please start it off with yodel along with Mr. Ing-Ling-ias.