Month: February 2009

Wow.  I just watched about a minute of The Secret Life of an American Teenager (this is the ABC Family show about a pregnant teenager (Molly Ringwald is her mother)).  That is some seriously bad acting on the part of the pregnant teen and her friend (sister? boyfriend’s sister?  I’m not sure who she was, actually).

Not a lot happened today.  It’s Monday.  I’ve decided to officially start worrying about work and money.  Nothing has changed, but I was worrying anyway while feeling like I shouldn’t.  I don’t need the guilt.  🙂  For now, though, I’m not going to worry or feel guilty about it.  I’m just gonna read.

It’s early February, the windows are open at home, and I went for a run in shorts and a t-shirt.  Something is wrong here.  I like it, but I’m just going to be disappointed when the temperature plummets again.

I finally finished The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.  I was forcing myself through it until around page 200.  Then it got interesting.  No, that’s not fair.  It was always interesting, but I didn’t really care.  The plot didn’t settle down until around the 200th page, which was when I was sure I was going to finish it.  And by that I mean I actually got hooked.  But I shouldn’t have had to get through 200 pages first.  It will never go on my list of favorite books, and I will probably never re-read it, but it wasn’t bad.  I just can’t really recommend it to anyone who isn’t an all out Michael Chabon fan.  The kind who will read anything by him.  I’m like that with lots of authors (more than I can name, really).  Not him.  But I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I’ve liked a couple of his other books.  I’m not giving up on this guy.  I’m just not in a hurry to move on to the next book.

My legs are tired.  I ran three miles this morning (hamstrings still sore from Yoga Booty Ballet (!) the other day), walked maybe 8 blocks round trip to and from the American History Museum, and spent several hours standing while in the museum.  I think it’s the standing that did it.  And the tiredness only kicked in while driving home.  All of a sudden it was an effort to keep my foot on the gas.  Pathetic.  I certainly don’t regret the museum.  I got to hang out with Jess, Chuck, and Cody, and we had a good time.  Of course.  We didn’t get to hang out long enough, as far as I’m concerned.  They may not agree.  🙂

I came home to John, who looks burned out (burnt out?  When do you use burned vs. burnt?)* on homework.  And he’s not done!  He’s practicing his guitar right now, and we’ll probably have dinner soon (I suggested we go to IHOP for dinner – he’s very happy about that).  But he may have to go back to his homework later tonight, and he’ll definitely have to work on it tomorrow.  Sucks that this is taking up his whole weekend.

By the way, the Americans at War exhibit at the Museum of American History is neverending!  Lots of neat stuff.  Too much, perhaps.

*Google to the rescue!  In general use, this is more of a British English vs. American English thing.  The British tend to use burnt and Americans use burned.  There’s also some past tense vs. past participle stuff out there, but I’m going with the general use thing for now.

Apparently (from an article in the Chicago Tribune), the local government in Birmingham, UK is officially removing all apostrophes from street signs.  They claim apostrophes are confusing.  ?!?!?  It’s so much more confusing without them!  Here’s the article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-britain-no-apostrophe,0,5519367.story

If you’ve never been to woot.com, you should check it out.  They sell one thing every day.  Just one.  They sell it until they run out of whatever it is.  And then they sell a new thing the next day.  It could be anything (toy helicopters, mp3 players, roombas, headphones – anything).  Some things are new, some are reconditioned, but they’re always in good shape and they’re always CHEAP.  And only available for that day.  You check the site in the morning.  They have a laptop computer/iPod docking station/Nerf bow and arrow set that you may not have realized you wanted until you saw it at the woot.com price.  Do you buy the desk chair/stand-up mixer/bar accessory kit because you’ve always kinda wanted one but have never seen it less than half the usual price before?  Well, you have to make that decision fast.  So is buying it right now, at a ridiculously cheap price, even though you don’t really need it, worth it because you may never see it that cheap again?  This is the woot conundrum.  Today, it was a record player that has a USB port so you can transfer all your records to mp3.  What can you do?

The next time a Dyson vacuum cleaner is on there, I’m in trouble.

I went to bed last night determined to NOT be lazy anymore.  I want to get my act together and get back to exercising regularly and being careful about what I eat.  I checked the weather last night for this morning, so I knew it was going to be bitterly cold (the forecast last night was for a low of 15, with a windchill around 5).  John and I decided not to brave the cold and to just work out inside, instead.

Getting up wasn’t too hard, although it took a little longer than it should have.  It takes turning the light on to make getting up inevitable.  John headed to the basement to lift weights, and I grabbed my yoga mat and 5-lb dumbbells for Yoga Booty Ballet!

I can’t decide – no.  I like parts of the video, but I just can’t do the yoga section.  I am incapable of touching the ground with my hands while my legs are straight (and my feet are flat on the ground).  Just can’t do it.  And that seems to be an inescapable part of yoga.  Or at least of the yoga parts of this video.  I’m sure there are other yoga-related positions that don’t ask me to do that.  My point is that because that’s what they base most of the yoga portion on, I can’t do it.  I try to fake it, but I don’t feel like I’m getting anything out of it.  I wouldn’t mind taking a beginner yoga class or something.  I just think I’ll be skipping the yoga section of this video.

Anyway, I mentioned the weather forecast earlier for a reason.  I didn’t check it again until I was done with Yoga Booty Ballet (! (I think it should always end with an exclamation mark.)), and by then the sun was up.  The temperature outside, after the sun had been up for about 30 minutes, was 15 degrees.  The windchill?  -1.  Yes, that’s one below zero.  It is NOT supposed to get that cold here.  Especially not when it hit 60 degrees four days ago, and it’s going to be in the 50s in two days.  What’s the weather trying to do, make us all sick?  Is this revenge for global warming?

Okay, so I’m not really that outraged about the weather.  It’s fake outrage.  I admit it.  What are you gonna do about it, huh?  And there’s some fake belligerence.  I’m done now.  With the fake emotions, I mean.  🙂  Also, I’m done with this post.

This cracked me up today.  It came from an article on the Washington State Bar Association website about grammar pet peeves:

Comma errors: The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (do a Web search for these folks and start reading them regularly) recently noted a startling example of what a difference a comma can make: “The state Board of Elections decided today to adopt a ban on clothing, including buttons and hats that directly endorse a candidate or issue.” Without a comma after “hats,” the Board is not banning the wearing of things that promote political causes but is banning apparel altogether.

Here’s the link to the whole article.

I turned on the TV intending to switch to one of the classical music channels, but Dirty Dancing is on and I got sidetracked.  What a great movie.  I believe every minute of it.

I really hate it when a song gets stuck in my head.  It’s even worse when it’s a commercial jingle.  I have Subway’s $5 foot-long ad repeating over and over in my head.  And the only other song I can bring to mind is one I can’t stand (it’s Steely Dan), so maybe I’ll just give up and try to ignore Subway.

Ignoring it is not working.  I’ve been sitting here, trying to start another sentence, and all I can think is “Five.  Five dollar.  Five-dollar foot-long,” with the horrible guitar riff from “Reeling in the Years” in the background.  I can’t believe I made it worse.

That reminds me, though, of a coincidence today.  This morning I had three words from a song I couldn’t name stuck in my head (“night life baby”) along with the hook.  And I kept trying to fit the words “cat scratch fever” in instead of “night life baby”, even though I knew the song wasn’t “Cat Scratch Fever.”  Very different song.  Anyway, I got distracted and forgot about it.  I got into the car and turned the radio on just in time to hear “night life baby” followed by that hook!  It’s “Let’s Go” by the Cars.  So that’s a little weird.  And now I’m hearing that song sort of combined with “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince.  At least I got rid of the other two.  This is an improvement.  And I’ve decided I really like the Cars.  Or at least their hits.  I know more of their songs than I realized.

And naturally, the first thing I heard when I got in the car this morning was “I Got You, Babe” by Sonny and Cher.  And this evening, also naturally, Groundhog Day is on TV.  And even though I hate Andie MacDowell, I love this movie.

The weather today is unbelievable.  For February 1st, anyway.  It’s 60 degrees out (!), the sun is shining, the snow is melting, and it just feels good.  Of course, since my run this morning, I’ve spent most of the day inside, but I can still appreciate the weather.  🙂  The house smells SO good.  I put a brisket in the oven around 11:30 (one hour to go!), and the whole house smells like warm brisket cooking.  It’s too nice out.  I’m gonna go sit on the deck with my book.

For everyone who’s been bugging us about TV, here’s the update.  We are all caught up on Lost, and we just finished the last season of Battlestar Galactica.  We have three episodes on our DVR (from the last three Fridays), so we’ll get to those soon, but we’ve watched everything that’s out on DVD.