Month: February 2016

I’m not that big of a fan, really. I’ve still never seen The Notebook.

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For reasons that I cannot remember right now, I googled “Rachel McAdams hair” today and searched the images that appeared.

To start with, I was (and am) tickled at the categories across the top.

 

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You can search for pictures of her hair by year, by color, by movie – the possibilities are endless!

Oh, I remember – I saw a picture of her on Tom and Lorenzo with blond hair, and I couldn’t remember what she looked like with red hair.  It was important to me at the time.

So I scrolled through the results.

Rachel McAdams with short hair:

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Rachel McAdams with red hair:

Rachelmcadamsred

Rachel McAdams with brown hair:

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Rachel McAdams with blond hair:

Rachelmcadamsblonde

NOT Rachel McAdams:

sarahhyland

Imagine my surprise when I found that among the many many many head shots of Rachel McAdams.  That’s what’s-her-name from Modern Family.  She doesn’t look like Rachel McAdams.  She has hair, so maybe that’s why Google included her?  Nah, Google is better than that.

But wait!

ALSO not Rachel McAdams:

kerirussell

Dude, that’s Keri Russell! And wait, isn’t that Emma Stone?

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Why are these people who are not Rachel McAdams showing up in my Google results?  Is Google sick?  Maybe Google is very clever and has reached into the heads of these three women and discovered that they all want to BE Rachel McAdams, and because Google loves them very much, it wants to do them this favor and let them pretend they ARE Rachel McAdams and so they show up in search results for Rachel McAdams and….no.  That can’t be it.  At least because I can’t imagine any of them wishing they were Rachel McAdams instead of themselves.  Not because I think any of this is ridiculous and far-fetched.  Because it’s definitely not that.

Hallelujah and whoop-de-doo

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Friends, the day I’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.  I have read (or tried to read and abandoned, which totally counts) all of the physical books on my bookshelf.  I have a bunch of graphic novels to read, which a) won’t take long, and b) will be fun, and then I am free free free free free free free free free free free free free to move on the LONG list of books I’ve put on my to-read list or, in some cases, already downloaded to my Kindle app.  I’ll probably start with those.

I have to tell you, though – I may have a problem.  My eyes just wandered over John’s bookshelf.  There are a couple of books there that I plan to re-read before I pick up their sequels.  Maaaaaaaaayyyybe I’ll re-read those now, since I will be free free free free free free free free free free free free free free to go find those sequels in e-book format or at the library and not feel guilty about not reading the books on MY shelf. Because I have FINISHED all of the books on my shelf!

Do-over

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I would like a do-over of today.  Can anyone make that happen for me?  I’d really appreciate it.

…

…

No?  Fine.  Tomorrow will just have to be my Sunday, plus work.

That sounds awful – all the stress of knowing the work week is about to start, plus it’s actually Monday.  I changed my mind.  Let’s skip straight to Tuesday.

I hurt all over

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Moving sucks.  Even when (especially when?) you’re not moving yourself.  We helped Jess move into her new apartment today, and it feels like everything that could go wrong, did.  I know that’s not true – plenty of things went right – but the percentage of bad things was unusually high.

Bad things:

  • We met Jess at the truck rental place first thing in the morning.  John was going to drive it for her, so we had to be there when she picked it up.  Since he’s the driver, he’s basically renting it, and when they asked if we wanted extra insurance, we said no.  The lady said that’s fine, here, fill out this form with your policy number and the coverage you have for 6-wheeled commercial vehicles.  Um, what?  We’ve rented a lot of trucks in the past year, and no one has asked us that.  I called USAA, and no, we don’t have coverage for that.  (So every time we’ve rented a truck, like, EVER, we’ve been tempting fate with the no extra coverage thing.  Oops.)  Okay, so Jess had to pay an extra amount for it, but hey – it’s refundable.  Except…it’ll be higher than previously mentioned and not ALL of it is refundable because she’s changing an existing rental.  Excuse me?  Still, not that much higher, and we can deal with it.
  • Another family came in, renting a 12′ foot truck (ours was 16′), and they were leaving as we were finalizing the insurance stuff.  As they drove out of the lot, the lady said, “Wait!  They took your truck!”  Yeah, they drove out in the 16′ truck with the ramp we needed.  (They eventually came back and we got our truck.)

The lady joked that all the bad things were happening NOW so we’d be all set the rest of the day.  Way to tempt fate, Rental Truck Lady.

  • We loaded up the truck with all of Jess’s stuff without incident, but I’m including it as a bad thing that happened because her furniture is REALLY HEAVY.  It’s like real grown-up furniture weight.

Good things:

  • We were able to get all of her furniture out of her house and into the truck!  (We’ve had bad luck with couches – couldn’t get Emily’s out of their townhouse last year, so she sold it to the new owners.)
  • By the time John and I (in the truck and our car) caught up with Jess at the new apartment, she’d checked in with the leasing office and gotten her new keys and a parking pass so we could start unloading immediately.

Bad things:

  • She overestimated how much of her stuff could fit in the apartment.  She wanted her big leather couch, loveseat, and chair, but we realized that no matter how we arranged the furniture, the couch wasn’t going to make it.  Or the coffee table.  They stayed on the truck.
  • The really $&%^# heavy leather couch could have been left behind in the house.

Good things:

  • Goodwill was still open, we still had the truck, and they took the couch and the coffee table off our hands!  This is getting to be a habit.
  • We were done with the truck early and could fill it up with gas and return it!

Bad thing:

  • Our credit cards were declined at the gas station pump.

Good thing:

  • Apparently that’s just a really sketchy gas station and Navy Federal locks down cards that get used there.  That seems really weird to me, but I suppose I’m glad they’re looking out for us.  Cards are fine.  Crisis averted.

Bad thing:

  • I’m dirty and tired and achy.

Good thing:

  • I’m home.  I can shower and go to bed.

Extra good thing:

  • Jess lives a mile and a half from us now.  Yippee!

I should stop agonizing over not liking a book

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I’ve had a physical copy of one of John Hodgman’s books for quite some time (More Information Than You Require).  It’s one of the books I saved out of the original donation pile with the intention of reading it before we move across the country.  I like John Hodgman.  I think he’s funny.  We both like him enough that we bought tickets to see his show at The Birchmere a few years back.  We didn’t go at the last minute, for depressing reasons (still absolutely the right decision), but I’m sure we would have enjoyed the show.

I had every expectation of enjoying his book.  And then I tried to read it (this was yesterday).  I’ve been talking a lot about the books on my bookshelf and how I feel about reading them.  Some of them are really just not for me (Gormenghast, some of the Kate Atkinson novels), some of them I have REALLY liked, and some I might just not be in the mood for.  I think I’m just not in the mood for John Hodgman.  There are a lot of made-up facts, there’s a lot of ALL CAPS EMPHASIS going on, a lot of absurdity – these are all things I think are funny.  Just not this week, I guess. Or maybe for me, Hodgman’s humor doesn’t translate to the page.  Or maybe I’m just not in the right mood.

I put the book in the donation pile.  I might try again before we actually donate the books.  I might not.  It won’t be hard to get if I change my mind later.

I feel bad about this (hence the hedging and rationalizing).

Not that bad, though.  I picked up Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare book last night and was immediately more interested. I’m much happier when I’m reading something for fun and not because I feel like I have to.

I’m sorry, John Hodgman, that apparently I feel like your book is something I have to read.

AMC makes some good TV

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We starting watching Halt and Catch Fire on Netflix the other day, and that’s all we’ve wanted to watch since then.  I was initially…not resistant, exactly, but not terribly enthusiastic about starting it.  Hey, a show about building computers in 1980!  Yay?  Haven’t they made this movie (the Apple/Microsoft/IBM, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates in their garages thing) over and over again?

But, wait!  It’s compelling.  The two married people actually TALK THROUGH THEIR PROBLEMS.  The sales guy is idealistic and an ENORMOUS TOOL.  The people at the company are smart and solve problems.  Everyone is mostly likeable with a little bit of horribleness or mostly horrible with a little bit of likeableness.

It’s GOOD TV.  Also, it has Lee Pace in it (cute) and the other lead actor’s name is Scoot.  How could you not watch that?

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Sidetracked

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This afternoon, I got up from my desk in our front room and headed to the kitchen with the express purpose of checking our tomatoes to still if they’re still edible.  The kitchen is two rooms away.  As I walked through the room in between, I remembered that tomorrow is Thursday and immediately thought, “Yay Thursday!”  I started thinking about how much I like Thursdays.  They’re such nice days, announcing the upcoming weekend but without all the stress of trying to get ALL THE WORK done before the weekend (which is why I’m less in love with Fridays).  They’re friendly days, nonthreatening days.  I did a little Thursday happy dance (premature, but maybe I was practicing for tomorrow), and by the time I was done, I was through the kitchen and standing in our bedroom, with NO memory of why I’d gotten up in the first place.

It came back to me within a few seconds, and yes, the tomatoes are still edible (I know you were wondering), but DUDE.  Am I flaky?  Just old?

Way to ruin breakfast, dude

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We are boycotting Graul’s Market (the nearest grocery store) from here on out.  For the second time in less than 6 months, we have opened a brand new sealed gallon of milk with a sell-by date over a week in the future to find it spoiled.  John got a face full of the smell when he opened the new gallon to add milk to his cereal, and it nearly put him off food altogether.  That’s a really awful smell.  Just the thought of it makes me shudder.

Yes, we could return the milk, but it’s not worth the trip.  We just won’t go back there.  It’s the closest store, but it’s far enough that we have to drive, so if we’re going to get in the car anyway, we’ll just go somewhere else.  Annoying, but we’ve got less than two months to go.  We’ll manage.

We have other smell problems this evening.  I’m making salmon (so yum salmon and garlic and olive oil), but our downstairs neighbors are cooking something that clashes unpleasantly.  On its own, I’m sure it would smell delicious (when I can separate it from our dinner, I get something sweet and warm, like cake, but not dessert), but mixed with salmon and garlic?  Not so great.

It’s a habit, but it’s not a HABIT, you know?

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I was going to stop drinking coffee, right?  As soon as my creamer ran out?  Yeah, I’ve failed on that one already.  I used the last of the creamer Saturday morning.  Sunday morning, John flew for an hour, so I went with him just to be up and about.  I couldn’t fly with him (he’s not licensed yet), so after he took off, I went looking for a bakery I’d found online.  Got there, ordered a cheese danish.

“Coffee?”  “Yeah, sure.”

So yeah, I had regular coffee and a danish for breakfast Sunday morning.  I didn’t even realize what I’d done until we got home.  But it was January 31st, right?  So…maybe we can say I’m starting this in February.  My birthday present to myself – less caffeine, fewer empty calories.  Today (being February 1st), I had decaf tea and instant oatmeal for breakfast.  Much healthier.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch (we’re going to the store as soon as John finishes his Battlefront mission) and nothing but water to drink the rest of the day.

Except for the half-pint of Naptown Brown Ale I had when I met Jess for lunch.  Oops.  Baby steps.