Author: Zannah

Making friends

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Today, I played a short game of tag with an 8-year-old who guessed I was 44.

I beat him.

Of course, I mean that I took no pity on him during this game of tag and outraced him handily even though he kept trying to live on the gravel pile that was home base.

His second guess at my age was 29 (27? upper 20s), and his third guess was 19, so he either realized his mistake at guessing 44 in the first place and was trying to fix it the best way he knew how or he’s just really really bad at guessing.

Last week, we discussed dogs.  Maybe next week I’ll get his name.

Batteries included, but how can you tell if it’s dying?

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A few weeks ago we bought a cute little waterproof bluetooth speaker so we could listen to music in the shower or while doing dishes or wherever without using headphones or dealing with crappy phone speakers.  Good purchase!  It sounds good, it’s cute and little (as mentioned above), and it’s called the Oontz Angle.  Worth it for the amusement I get out of the name alone.  Its battery is rechargeable via USB, and it’s all-around wonderful except for one minor thing: there’s no battery life indicator.

When it arrived, we couldn’t tell if it had been charged.  Most electronics need to be charged before their first use, but when we turned it on, it worked immediately.  And with almost daily use (not more than an hour a day, but still), it ran for nearly six weeks before it died.  Of course, it died mid-shower (my shower, naturally), and I had no warning.  If I’d known it was low, I would have plugged the poor thing in.  Maybe a warning light?  Where blinking means “Plug me in, please”?  But really, that’s the only complaint I have about it.

Don’t be stupid!

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I ran yesterday, which messed up my schedule, so I needed to run again today to get back on track.  Running every day didn’t used to be a problem, but since I’m slowly working my way back to normal, I’m only running every other day.  For reasons, I switched out my insoles today, and the bottoms of both feet like they were getting pounded.  I warmed up, I stretched, I kept going to see if it would work itself out, I stopped running and rested…and then I realized I was being really really dumb.  The reason I’m in this recovery plan in the first place is because the bottom of my foot felt like it was getting pounded.  So I stopped running, turned around and walked home, and you know what?  It takes a much longer time to walk home than it does to run home.  But it was the smarter thing to do.

I brought it on myself

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As you know, I loved The Silvered, and I was worried about my next book because of it.  So either I was right to be worried about that, or I talked myself right into not enjoying my next TWO books.  First, I picked up The Scorch Trials, which is the sequel to The Maze Runner.  The first book was fine, but this one had no real plot, which drives me crazy.  I got about halfway, told John I was going to put it down, and then finished it two hours later.  It was a quick read, but not especially enjoyable.  I might watch the movies.

Then I picked up The Lake House.  I had my doubts before I started it because her other four books are all very similar.  The structure is basically identical, although the details are different.  I’ve enjoyed all four, to a certain extent, but when I picked up this fifth one, I felt tired.  Oh, look, there’s a mystery in the past.  Oh, look, there’s a person in the present having problems.  Oh, look, this person in the present is going to mixed up in figuring out what happened in the past and somehow solve that mystery AND their own problems.  I gave up on it pretty quickly.  I’m sorry, Kate Morton.  I thought The Secret Keeper was really good, and I’m happy the book club chose to read it while I was a member.  That’s as far as I can go.

Thankfully, it only took two books to get me out of that very unpleasant hole.  I started a collection of short stories by Mary Robinette Kowal, and those have been really good so far.

I’ve decided it was the books, not me.  I chose badly twice in a row.  It’s still my fault (I chose the books), but it’s less obnoxious than blaming it on my mood.

Perspective shift

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I should stop being annoyed by my constant time zone confusion and treat it like an adventure.  Friday morning at 9am (local), I looked at the forecast and saw that rain was predicted for 12:30.  “Oh, no,” I said.  “I want to run, but it might rain on me while I’m out there.  That sucks.”  THEN I remembered that no, even though my laptop says it’s noon, and everyone I work with is heading out to lunch, and I’ve been working for long enough that it feels like midday, the 12:30 forecast for rain is three and a half hours in my future, not half an hour.  I’ve been to noon already, I’ve seen the rain coming, but now I’m back to 9am and I have plenty of time to run.

I AM A TIME TRAVELER.

Much ado about 15 minutes

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Here’s the a downside of working east coast hours while living on the west coast:

I try to start work by 9am Eastern, so I get up no later than 5:45 Pacific.  My first meeting of the day is usually 9:30 Eastern, giving me half an hour to go through some email and wake up a bit more before I have to talk to anyone.  On Thursdays, I have a 9am meeting with my boss, just him and me, so on Thursdays, I get up at 5:30 Pacific – enough extra time awake that I can be coherent.  It’s feels like it’s a whole hour earlier when I wake up, but I get over that once I get out of bed.

That’s not the downside I’m talking about, although it is one.

No, the downside is when your boss, who you thought was a kind and understanding man, deprives you of that 15 minutes of sleep by rescheduling your 9am meeting to another day and making that schedule change at 8am the morning of.  I woke up at 5:30, crept downstairs in the dark to avoid waking John up, brushed my teeth, washed my face, put my contacts in, and then, all awake, I sat down in front of my laptop and found that my boss, who is clearly a cold-hearted monster with no regard for my feelings, had moved the meeting to next week less than an hour before.  If he had made the change last night, I would have seen it AND I COULD HAVE SLEPT IN.

Can’t stop, won’t stop

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The downside of binge-watching Gilmore Girls episodes is that the theme song is constantly running through my head.  It’s a Carole King song, so it’s not bad (John begs to differ), but it’s too much.  And I can’t get rid of it.  And if the theme song is in my head, then the show is in my head.  Rory is too freakin’ cute, so that’s okay, but Lorelai – back off a bit, Lorelai.  Take your Carole King song and take a vacation.

This won’t stop me from watching more tomorrow, though.  I’m in season 3 now.

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Some books should never end

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I have already declared my love of Tanya Huff (space marines!) in this space, but I think I need to say it again.  I just finished a stand-alone fantasy novel that I really really really enjoyed.  Like, I didn’t want it to be over.  I want more of it.  I want it to be a series, Ms. Tanya Huff, please ma’am.  It reminded me of Sherwood Smith’s Inda books, a fantasy series (ahem) I also liked a ton.  The Inda books take place in a world I don’t want to leave when the books end.  The characters stay with me, and now I’m feeling the same way about The Silvered.  It’s about mages and a version of werewolves, and yes, Mom and Margaret have both just lost interest, but I couldn’t put it down even as I wished I could slow down and never finish it.

Now, sadly, it’s over (I stayed up late last night to get to the end), and I’m putting off starting another book because I’m not ready.  My next book is going to be a disappointment, through no fault of its own (I hope), and that’s not fair to it.

Licensed!

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Congratulate me, everyone.  I finally have an actual Oregon license.  Except that I don’t.  I have a piece of paper that looks kind of like an actual Oregon license, and legally (or so I’ve been told), it IS an Oregon license, but I won’t get the real laminated license for a few weeks.  I’ll be nervous until I do.  It just doesn’t look legal.

On the plus side, I am finally registered to vote.  I’ll take care of this election – don’t you worry.

Habits

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I occasionally think about changing my blogging habits and writing in the morning instead of the afternoon or evening, but I think that might not be a good idea.  If I write in the morning, the posts will be about the mornings.  When it’s really early, I’ll bitch and moan about the dark and the cold and oh it’s so early and I want to go back to bed.  If the sun is up, I’ll rhapsodize about the sun and the sky and the birds and how wonderful it is to be up and awake and alive.  You know – you’ve read both types of posts here before.

It’s really early now (and it’s dark and it’s cold), but I’m avoiding the trap because I am self-aware (and self-congratulatory), and I noticed that what I was inspired to type is the same thing that I think to myself nearly every morning, and I have written about it several times before.  I’m also self-aware enough to know that I fell right into the trap in the previous sentence, but I’m giving myself a pass on that because I’m in a forgiving mood.

I can’t believe I actually want it to rain

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I checked the weather on Friday and saw that Sunday was supposed to be a rainy day, so we arranged our weekend in such a way that we could take advantage and stay inside and cozy all day.  A rainy day, especially a rainy fall day after such a dry sunny summer, is the perfect justification to have pancakes for breakfast while watching lots of TV and then to curl up and read under a blanket for the rest of the day.  The pancakes and TV watching went as planned, and then it was time for the reading and blanketing.  It was still raining, so I headed for the papasan chair, but by the time I got there the rain had lessened. Like, it’s barely sprinkling and the sun is trying to peek out.  I need it to keep raining!  Yes, I like the sun, and yes, I’ll miss it terribly if it disappears for the next six months like I keep hearing it will, but when the sun is shining I feel compelled to go outside and enjoy it because it’s going to go away and that’s not how I was planning to spend my day.  If the sun is out, I have to go to the grocery store.  So please, sun, go back behind the clouds and let the rain come.  Just this once.

I’m going to regret that plea.

Whoosh

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Time is flying by every day (except for certain hours here and there that drag on forever), the work week is gone when I blink, the weekend totally disappears every week, and how on earth is it October TOMORROW?  We’ve been in Oregon six months now, and it feels like two weeks.

This is another sign I’m getting old, isn’t it?

Roving gangs of nanny goats

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On my way to the running trail this morning, I got stuck behind a mob of mommy joggers crossing the bridge over the Willamette.  Five women, all with jogging strollers with those big sturdy tires, one baby wailing, taking up the entire width of the bridge.  Luckily, they went left on the other side and I went right, but I spent the next ten minutes trying to decide what to call them.

A posse?  A gaggle?  A pack?  A bevy?  A brood?  Ooh, that’s a good one for mothers.

What if they were nannies, not parents?  Are they then a flock?  A herd? A swarm?  A troop?

A murder?  Appropriate for my podcast.

You get the picture.  It kept me occupied during my run.

Now I’ll actually tell you about the flash mob

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I realized this morning that while I wrote about the flash mob yesterday, I didn’t actually tell you about the flash mob, and THAT is because I was typing with the debate on in the background and I was trying to keep my head from exploding.  I’m definitely not going to write about the debate (see above re: head exploding), but that explains why I said “oh, we saw a flash mob!” and then didn’t tell you anything about it.  It’s not because I’m mean.

So, this flash mob.  We were at Blairally Vintage Arcade, which doesn’t have a website but does have a Facebook page, and  – yeah, hold on, I have to stop there.  My hate for the name burns with the heat of a thousand suns, and I can’t continue without explaining why (although some of you may have worked it out already because you’re smart like that).  The place is on Blair Blvd, with its door facing an alley that runs through the block.  Blair Alley, right?  So why is it “Blairally”?  WHY?!?

Okay.  We were at the arcade, which is also a bar, which also has a DJ sometimes, and I was kicking ass at 4-player Pacman (which is neither here nor there).  That evening one of the bartenders, a very nice woman named Rio, was talking to me about gin.  She wears a sailor hat like this:

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That is also neither here nor there.

The DJ was playing 80s and 90s music and had already refused to take any requests unless they were Prince songs.  Elena, Kirsten, and I were dancing, and this other woman came over and asked us if we knew the dance to Thriller because they’re doing it at 8:30.  We’d been warned.  Invited, but also warned.  So Thriller started, and the dance floor, which was small to begin with, completely filled up.  There were at least 40 people, all completely into the zombie dance thing.  Very fun to watch.

Maybe that wasn’t really a flash mob, now that I think about it.  I mean, they were people at a bar with music and dancing, who all did the one dance together.  It’s not like they were wandering the neighborhood and broke into a dance randomly.  When they do it for Halloween, maybe it’ll be more flash mob-like.

I have to stop saying flash mob.  It sounds dumber every time.  Flash mob.  You’re a mob.

Flash mob!

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Apparently, Thriller flash mobs the Saturday before Halloween are a thing, and they’re a thing in Eugene.  We saw them two Saturdays ago when we were out for Will’s birthday, and they’re gathering people to do it on October 29th.  It was a lot of fun to watch that night, and it looks like it would be a lot of fun to join.  The night we saw them, there was no doubt that I was going to join them.  (I was quite enthusiastic.)  Now…well, I get lazy.  They’re practicing in the evenings once a week, and I would have to leave the house…  Who wants to leave the house at night?  So, I’m lazy.  This week.  Maybe next week.

Gin is not always disgusting

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Gin: not the grossest alcohol on the planet.

Let’s not get too excited about this, gin drinkers.  I still think gin by itself tastes like pine sap, and gin and tonics taste like rubbing alcohol, so those of you who like it that way (Mom and Dad, Mel, Will) – yeah, you’re still crazy.

HOWEVER, I have discovered that I like some drinks that have gin in them, like the gimlet.  I had a vodka gimlet in Annapolis one night with Jess that was pretty good, and in the spirit of adventure, I tried a gin gimlet a few weeks ago and liked it.  Better, I think.  That’s basic, right?  Gin, lime juice, and sugar.  Surprisingly yum.  I haven’t tried making one myself, so I have no idea about proportions.  I’ve also tried experimenting with different gins, but last night’s experiments were made by different bartenders, too, so the whole thing wasn’t very scientific.

Three gimlets, three different gins, three different bartenders (same bar – the band had a gig)…so for one thing, each bartender might have made them differently.  For another thing, that means I had three gimlets last night.  Did I like the third one best because it used Hendricks instead of Bombay (the first gimlet, my second favorite) or Tanqueray (the second gimlet, my third favorite)?  Or did I like the third one best because it was the third one and of COURSE I liked the third one?  Also not scientific: last week, the gimlets I drank at the arcade with the 90s music and the flash mob (did I tell you about the flash mob?) were made with New Amsterdam gin, and I liked those very much.  More than the Hendricks one?  I have NO idea.

Also, I’m not experimenting again for at least a week because three gimlets is my limit.  Oh, I had a gin cocktail with dinner Friday night: rosemary-infused gin, lemon, grenadine, ginger soda, bitters.  It was pretty good.  Conclusion: add sugar in some form and gin tastes good!

The show where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter

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Last night’s show was SO MUCH FUN.  I can’t overstate it.  My whole face hurt from laughing so hard.  Nearly two hours of Whose Line Is It Anyway games, all improvised by Ryan Stiles and Greg Proops, who’ve been on the TV show FOREVER, Jeff Davis, who was vaguely familiar to us from later seasons of the show, and Joel Murray, who was a complete surprise to us.  He’s funny?  Yes, he is!  (I mean, we know who he is, but we didn’t expect him to be up for improv.)

We had great seats in the fifth row – close enough to be able to see everything, just barely far enough away to be safe from being picked to go on stage.  It was surreal being 20 feet away from these people we’ve seen on TV for years.

Also totally weird to remember (again – this is one of those facts I keep forgetting) that Joel Murray is Bill Murray’s youngest brother).  He said something last night that was dead-on Bill Murray.  And his impression of Dan Aykroyd was pretty good, too.

I’m not going to bother trying to tell you any of the funny things that happened because they won’t translate (and I suck at telling stories, as you all know).  I wish you could have been there.

The show is still touring, but they’re going to CO and then CA only, so they’re a bit out of reach for most of you (and us – I’d see it again in a heartbeat).  We’ll just have to content ourselves with YouTube.

It was so great.  And weirdly, it continued the pattern of reliving the 90s in Eugene.  I started watching the show in 1994, maybe 1995, after my academic team friends introduced me to it.  (Yes, I know, super nerdy.  To make it nerdier, it was at an academic team party, and we were playing games from the show.)  It was on Comedy Central all the time.  Seeing it live last night, with two of the comedians who were on it then, was oddly flashback-y.  And totally awesome.

Flat hair

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My hair will never not be flat.  Not never, but what fullness I can get out of it I only keep for five minutes (ten, if I’m lucky).  We’re about to go out to dinner and a show (Whose Line Is It Anyway – so excited!), so I used my hair dryer and some volumizing…stuff and right now, right this second, my hair looks good.  By the time we get wherever it is we’re going for dinner, it will be right back to its normal flatness.

I guess that’s okay – I’m certainly used to it – but it looks so much better with a little oomph.  I’m totally jealous of people like Margaret and Jess whose hair is naturally voluminous.  Volume-full.  Volume-y.  Big.  But not, like, 80s big.  Just right big.

Jealous.

Pre’s Trail

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The other day, when I ran and freaked myself out while listening to a podcast, I was running on Pre’s Trail.  I don’t think he ever ran there (and certainly not on the trail as it exists now – it was built after he died), but it was built as a tribute to him.  It was his idea, inspired by the soft-surface running trails he had seen in Scandinavia.  The soft surface is why I’m running on it now.  Well, that and it’s Pre’s Trail and it’s close to our house.  I’m still working my way back up to normal running, and I think technically I’m still supposed to be on a treadmill, but I really wanted to get outside, and the wood chip-covered trail is way better for me than the hard paths in the park.  What I didn’t anticipate is how dusty and dirty I’d get.  Until this past week or so, all of my outside running, for years, has been on paved paths.  Unless there are puddles, you just don’t get dirty on paved paths.  On this bark and dirt path, though, every step I take kicks up dust and pieces of wood, and it gets everywhere.  When I get home, I have to take my shoes off outside and shake them out.  My socks are brown with the dirt that sifted into my shoes, and when I take my socks off, my toes are covered with the dirt that somehow sifted through the fabric of my socks.  And my calves!  All dirt up to my knees.  When I take my socks off, I look like I have a really dark tan line right around my ankle.  I assure you, I do not.  It’s straight-up dirt, so it’s pretty much directly into the shower for me when I get back every time.  Do not stop and rest, do not go into the kitchen, DO NOT PASS GO.

Even with the dirt, though, I like it.  My feet don’t hurt, and it’s pretty.  I’m in and out of woods, sometimes next to a pond or a canal.  The paved paths are pretty, too, and since this trail is only 4 miles long, I’ll probably go back to them once I get back to that distance, but I think it’ll be a while.  I’m still following my physical therapist’s instructions and sticking to 30 minutes only.  I think I have one more run at 1 minute walk, 5 minutes running, and then I’ll graduate to 20 minutes of running, no walking.  I’ll do that three times, every other day, then 25 minutes three times, then 30 minutes three times, and then I’m back to normal.  I hope.  Then I can go back to working on distance.  Just in time for winter.  Can’t wait!