Month: March 2012

Not in the mood

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I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing.  Big surprise.  And I’m going to regret it real soon now.  But I’m also not in the mood to be doing what I have been doing, which is checking out new blogs.  New to me.  Not new to the internet.  Blogs that bloggers I like like.  (I have never written a more perfect sentence fragment.)  If they like them, it stands to reason that I will too, right?  But I haven’t liked a single one so far, so I think I need to stop and try again some other time.  I mean, yes, I’m allowed to not like other blogs.  Of course I am.  And my reasons for not liking them are legitimate because it’s a matter of personal taste.  One blog was boring, the writing style of another drove me up the wall, and I left a third because the layout made it difficult to read the full post.  (That’s why I never used to read Mighty Girl.  Her layout bothered me.  I just checked it out, and I like it better now.  Maybe I’ll give her another try.)  I’m not sure I’d like anything new right now, though, so I think I’m going to put the new blog search away and get some homework done.  The homework I should be doing so I don’t have to worry about it next weekend.

Fighting with my phone

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Remember a few months ago when I wrote about my phone problems?  I still have those problems.  It seemed to get better for a while, but that’s probably because I avoided any data-heavy apps.  Unfortunately, my phone has rebooted itself many many times just in the last week.  I did a factory reset on Tuesday (which is what both Sprint and HTC recommended when I called them all those months ago), and then my phone rebooted four times IN A ROW Wednesday afternoon.  So the factory reset was not the solution.  I will probably try to take it to a Sprint repair center sometime soon, but that’ll cost me.  If I can hold out until August, I’ll reach the end of this two-year contract, and I can get a new phone for practically nothing.  But can I hold out until August?

Eddie Van Halen is a weird-looking dude

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Last night we saw Van Halen at the Verizon Center in DC.  All of Van Halen (almost).  Van Halen as they were meant to be (although a bit older and with Eddie’s son playing bass instead of Michael Anthony – I’m nitpicking here).  I’m referring, of course, to the return of David Lee Roth.

Our seats were on the side, level with and just slightly behind the stage, but we were pretty close and had a decent view.  Eddie and Diamond Dave (who glittered through at least 6 costume changes) spent plenty of time facing our way.  They both looked pretty darn happy to be performing (Eddie gets this crazy/happy/goofy grin on face sometimes).  And the sound was SO much better than the last time we saw them.  Of course, so were our seats.  It was a good concert.  They ended with “Jump”, but I woke up this morning with a song they didn’t play (from the new album) running through my head.  Over the ringing in my ears that hasn’t completely gone away yet.  (Under the ringing, I guess, since the music in my head isn’t really competing with the actual ringing sound.)  As we drove home last night, my ears felt all pressurized, like we’d just changed altitudes.  Our seats weren’t THAT high up, but it was THAT loud.  And THAT fun.  John had his little digital recorder out for most of the songs, but I kept forgetting it was there.  Which is unfortunate because now he’ll know how many of the words to his favorite songs I DON’T know.

(Also, if you’re near the Verizon Center and happen to be looking for a cheap-ish lunch/quick dinner one day, try Camille’s.  The Mexican Daredevil Grilled Hot Wrap was crazy good.  Menu.)

Today, though, I’m tired and cranky.  And hungry (which leads right back to cranky).  Starbucks gave me the wrong drink this morning (and naturally I didn’t realize it until I was in the office), and when I tried to get the right one around lunch time, it was TERRIBLE.  So no caffeine for me today.  We didn’t get to bed until around 1am.  Maybe I should just go to bed now…

Text Box: Lower Level,Text Box: Mid Level (Our Seats)

Not paying attention

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John and I are sitting on the couch together, laptops on our laps, mostly ignoring a TV show.  We started watching MI-5 the other day, and we’re enjoying it, but for some reason neither of us is interested enough to put the laptops aside and actually watch it.  But we don’t want to admit it, so it’s still on.

Hilarious (and terrifying).  The last 10 seconds are the best part.

Hey, Min, remember that time geese chased us at the zoo?

Reading fast

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Faster than usual, I mean.  Especially lately.  I started A Princess of Mars two weeks ago.  TWO weeks ago.  That’s ridiculous.  Turns out I didn’t really want to read it.  Over the weekend, I got invited to join a book club, but I can’t start the new book until I finish the one I’m reading.  So I stayed up too late last night, racing through it as fast as I could without skimming, and I finally finished it when I got home from work.  I’m free!  And now I can start reading The Snow Child.  It’s a new book, only out in hardcover, so I decided to use this as my Kindle test.  I bought my first Kindle book, and now that I’m free (!), I can start it.  And that is a little bit why I’m not writing any more tonight.  Also because I am sleepy.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

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Someday we’re going to live in a place where good sushi isn’t readily accessible.  I’m not looking forward to that, but I can’t really see making sushi a deal-breaker when looking for a place to live.  Not that we’re looking right now.  Still, sad day ahead.

You know what’s not sad (or who, I should say)?  Erik and Margaret’s teeny baby when I’m holding her.  We went to their place yesterday to meet adorable little Corinne, and I surprised us all by turning into Supersitter!.  Supersitter! took the baby (who was fighting her nap) when we got arrived, and Supersitter! swung and bounced her while we chatted in the kitchen, and then Supersitter! soothed wee baby Corinne right to sleep, head buried in Supersitter!’s armpit (which seemed odd to Supersitter!, but what can you do?).  It certainly wasn’t Supersitter!’s arms that got tired or Supersitter!’s stomach that was growling – those things don’t happen to Supersitter!.  It was a nice afternoon.  Good to see them all.

Then I spent last night and most of today getting ahead on my homework.  Exciting.  And apropos of absolutely nothing (but courtesy of The Bloggess), here are some otters that look like Benedict Cumberbatch.

Where the grass is labeled

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This is still my favorite XKCD comic.  I think.  It’s one of my favorites, definitely, because it’s one of the ones I continue to laugh at, even though it’s been years since it was posted.

Also, this one.

Do you have the Draw Something app?  Our friendly neighborhood Wombat asked me that exact question just the other day.  My response (after immediately downloading it to my phone) was “I do now!”   I am so very bad at it, but it’s fun.  It’s like Pictionary without the yelling.  (Usually.)  And Wombat is being very gracious about my terrible drawings.  She’s good – she drew a great cheeseburger.  I really suck.  Truly.  But if you download it and you want to play, send me an email!

I have never seen a Marilyn Monroe movie

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Are you watching Smash?  I started it today and I’m three episodes in (yay Hulu Plus).  So fun!  And right up my alley.  I mean, come on.  It’s a show about a new Broadway musical.  Singing, dancing, backstage drama, singing, dancing…  Did I mention there’s singing and dancing?  I love singing and dancing.  I didn’t even bother to ask John if he was interested in watching this one with me.  Singing and dancing!  The only thing I’m wondering is how it’s going to keep going for a whole season.  I’m three episodes in, and it seems like we’ve already seen half the musical.  There seems to be plenty of plot to keep it going, but not enough show.

I went for a run this morning (unusual lately).  I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it could have been SO much harder.  It was also SLOW (no singing and dancing).  I didn’t take my watch (just as well – the details would have been depressing), so all I know is it took me less than 40 minutes.  How much less?  NO idea.  That time included a short warm-up, some stretching, and a walk back to the house to cool down (not included in the mileage). And for today, I guess I don’t really care.  I’ll try again on Thursday.  DC for work tomorrow, so unless I get up at 5, I’m not running tomorrow.  Nope, not even if I get up at 5.  I don’t like to run in the dark.

Meanwhile, catty backstage drama is catty.

I love spring

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Every day should start like today.  We slept in a little (letting the dogs sleep upstairs = not a good night’s sleep), and then we took the dogs for a nice stroll around the neighborhood together.  The weather was perfect, we weren’t in a hurry – if it hadn’t been for work, it could have been the perfect morning.

This is just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

Recovering

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Last week was the week from hell.  There wasn’t a single day I didn’t come home later than usual and thoroughly exhausted.  And for three of those days, I had long commutes (either to DC or to Baltimore).  I’m desperately in need of rest.  Today was a good start, but I could use another week.

The mirror is not my friend today

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I just got back from yoga.  It was good, but…  Heh.  More like, it was good, butt…  My yoga instructor had us put our mats up against the wall.  Most of the room is mirrored, so my back was up against the mirror, facing her in the middle of the room.  Then we went into down dog.  Hands and feet on the mat, butt high up in the air, head hanging down.  Because my head was down and my neck was relaxed, I was looking at my legs.  More specifically, I was looking through my legs, between my thighs.  At the mirror.  Where I had a fantastic view of my butt.  And it looked eNORmous.  I’m telling myself it was an optical illusion.  My butt’s not THAT big, right?  Anyone?

On second thought, don’t answer that.

Do you know what is awesome?

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You probably know lots of things that are awesome, but I have a nostalgic (for me, anyway) addition to my list of Things That Are Awesome.  (Note to self: post list of Things That Are Awesome.  Everyone should have a list of Things That Are Awesome.)  In college, I went to Au Bon Pain for lunch fairly regularly (it was just off campus – probably still there), and I always got a turkey sandwich on a croissant with lettuce and honey mustard.  GREAT sandwich.  But it was the honey mustard I kept going back for.  It had the consistency of honey instead of mustard, and it had more of a horseradish-like kick.  I loved it.  But then we moved away, to places that don’t have Au Bon Pain, and I was left without this fantastic honey mustard.  I found a bagel shop in Newport that used it (or something very similar), but that was 11 years ago.  Au Bon Pain doesn’t have many (or any, in some cases) restaurants in the places we’ve lived since Newport, and I have tried many different honey mustard dressings.  (I’m not obsessive dedicated enough to try to make my own, but you probably already knew that.  I hope.)  Today, for the first time in, yeah, about 11 years, I found my way back to an Au Bon Pain (they just opened one in the building I work in when I’m in DC), and I ordered my sandwich.  Same honey mustard, same kick-ass sandwich.  Awesome!

What?  You think it’s weird that my list of Things That Are Awesome includes a sandwich?  It includes more than one sandwich, so there.

Should I do it again?

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I need to start running again.  The weather is warming up (not that it ever got that cold, but it was still cold enough for me to want to stay inside), and even though the mornings are dark again, that won’t last long.  I ran a couple miles with Roxy last week, and my legs were a little surprised.  Impact?  Hills?  What is this?  The gym doesn’t have such things.  Jess is training for a 5K, and I promised to run with her, and if I don’t get my ass back outside, she’s going to leave me in her dust.  We can’t have that.  (This is not about being competitive – it’s about running together.)

The other day, someone asked me if I planned to run the Army Ten-Miler again.  I hadn’t thought about it at all, and now that I have, I’m really not sure if I want to.  I do want to be able to run that far (or farther) again, and I can see how it helps to have an actual goal to shoot for, a race you HAVE to finish, but the logistics of getting there to pick up our packets the day before and then getting there again that morning and leaving our stuff and parking and the (oh-so-painful) trek back to the car when it was over were such a pain in the ass…  I like races, I like the crowds (of runners and spectators), and if there’s a 10-mile race closer to me, I’d be more inclined to do it, I think.  It’s cool to run on the streets of DC, but I wasn’t exactly enjoying it.  I was barely aware of it, so maybe it’s lost on me.

I’ll have to think about it.

People faint all the time at my events

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Yesterday was a weird day.  It started fine.  I got a ton of stuff done at work in the morning and I left to take my statistics midterm with plenty of time to finish it.  Except it wasn’t enough time.  I got about halfway done in TWO HOURS and then the testing center closed (it’s Spring Break) and I had to leave it unfinished.  (I emailed my professor.  We’ll see.)  Then I had a ridiculously strange conversation with the checkout lady at Wegmans when I ran in to pick up dinner (I was talking about knee highs.  She was talking about tampons.  She must have thought I was insane.), and when I got home I wasn’t in the mood to do ANYthing.  It was such a huge contrast to the day before.  When I got home from the gym Wednesday night, I felt like I could climb mountains.  You know why?  I’ll tell you why.  But wait – I need some space.  This is big and needs its own paragraph.

For the first time in my life – this is no exaggeration – I touched my toes.  Even when I was little, even when I was in high school and so skinny I could hurt people with my hip bones (those days are long gone), I couldn’t do that.  I faked it in the Navy – we were sitting down and I could lunge for my toes twice a year.  But this, this was real.  (I’m a purist.)  This was standing up, folding forward, and reaching.  And I. Touched. My. Toes.

Go me.  Go yoga.

Sing with me now

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Who’s having the best day ever?  Would you mind sharing?  Just a bit?  No, my day wasn’t horrible.  I made a small decision I wish I hadn’t (although it’s not really that big a deal), and yes, my commute was not what I’d hoped for, but I’m home now (makes up for a lot), and the weather is perfect (makes up for even more), and the week is over half done.  I’m kinda halfway between wanting to just go to bed now and looking forward to going to the gym.  I’ll probably be leaning more towards the gym once I get out of these #&$%%# tights.

Look, magic!

(from The Daily What)

Sometimes I bore myself

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You know something? I’m pretty good at babbling.  Sometimes it’s entertaining (I hope.  It is to me, anyway.).  More often, it’s not.  And sometimes it’s surprising just how long I can go on about something (like school, for instance) before I realize it’s boring.  To you, to me, to the dogs.  Flat out not interesting to anyone at all.  I TRY to delete (deletedeletedeletedeletedeletedeletedelete) that stuff.  Like I just did.  Blah blah boringcakes.

Unfortunately, there are some times (like, oh, I don’t know…now?) when I don’t have anything rattling around in my head to replace the long-ass rant I just deleted about the waste of time and money my statistics class has turned into (because a full half of this course is a repeat of the last two chapters of the previous statistics course, a course that was a pre-req to this one – I get review chapters, but these two review chapters are the only subjects on the @*&$%&*^ midterm – that was a much more concise way of putting it).  Do you think that’s going to stop me from posting?  Hmm?

Maybe.  It depends on a number of things.  Like, what time is it?  How tired am I?  Is my book particularly engrossing?  If the answers are a) late, b) very, and/or c) ohmygodyes, then no post is forthcoming.  Sorry.  If it’s today, however, and the answers are a) midday, b) not particularly, and c) have you looked at the time? What do you think I do all day that I could be reading my book right now?, then the fact that you’ve read this far should tell you something.  (Psst.  Come here.  Closer.  Just you.  You’re my favorite.)

A cozy night in

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It was cold today.  Like wintry cold.  And it flurried.  So why not have a fire?  John is working on his thesis, but he can do that on his laptop, and I can curl up in a chair by the fire with my book.  My book that looks eerily like a laptop.  A laptop that does magic tricks and will transform into a real book in just a few minutes.  As soon as I’m done catching up on the internet.  Yes, the whole internet.  I’m that good.

Inter-charity rivalry

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Every so often we get a flyer in the mail from Purple Heart that lets us know when they’ll be in our neighborhood picking up donations.  We try to always have something, but not as hard as we used to.  They used to call ahead to see if we had anything to donate, and if we did, they’d come to the neighborhood.  I always said yes and then made sure I had something ready that morning.  I certainly don’t want to have them come all the way to our house only to find we forgot.  That would suck.  Now that they’re mailing us a flyer that says they’re coming no  matter what, we’re not as diligent.   But still, we do try.  Anyway, AmVets still calls ahead, and they called us the day before we got a Purple Heart flyer, so I figured that this month, our donation would go to AmVets instead (and we didn’t have enough to get rid of this time to give to both).  Both places have the same process: put your stuff in a bag or a box or whatever and LABEL it very CLEARLY with LARGE letters.  It has to say AMVETS (or PURPLE HEART) or they won’t pick it up.  You can leave it on the curb or on the front porch – anywhere that’s clearly visible from the street.  I always leave mine on the edge of the front porch with LABEL facing the STREET.  (Got a little carried away there.)  Which is what I did the other morning.  I was working from home that day, and I made sure that my big bag of clothes was out on the front porch by 8am with AMVETS written across it on two sides in really big letters.  Around lunchtime, the dogs started barking, and when I looked out the front window, I saw a guy walking back to his big truck (like a small moving van, white sides) with the bag.  Pickup completed.  EXCEPT.  A couple of hours later, the dogs started to go nuts again.  I went to the door this time and saw a guy walking back to HIS big white truck.  There was a “sorry we missed you” AmVets receipt in the door, and I realized what had happened.  I ran back outside to catch the guy and apologize.  He was really nice about it, but STILL.  Purple Heart stole my donation!  And he came all the way out here, and I didn’t have anything else ready to give away.  I’m sorry, AmVets.  I’ll have twice as much next time.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone at Purple Heart noticed the AmVets label on the bag and donated it to them anyway?  I wonder if they do that.