The Talking Toaster

Conversations with My Sister

2011-10-04T13:40:00.001-05:00

This conversation with my sister from two Thanksgivings ago just popped into my head. Thought I'd share it here.

The scene: A three-mile hike through the woods of rural Virginia. Due to our fast walking pace, we've left the guys in our dust long ago.

Topics of conversation: Everything, including my brother-in-law and sister wanting to move to Mexico

Randomly...

Me: Sometimes living in The South just feels so "un-me." I'm not into big hair, big purses, and fashion.

My Sister: You're wearing a black, dry clean only shawl on a hike in the woods...

Me: (thoughtful pause)

Sent from my iPhone

It's Hot Chocolate Time

2011-10-02T00:20:00.001-05:00

It is chilly enough outside (and inside at 67 degrees) now that we are in a hot chocolate mood here in Nashville. We've just gone vegan and I threw away our Swiss Miss in the great pantry clean-out, but I had several boxes of Abuelita on-hand still. It appears to be vegan and so I melted it down in a pot of soy milk. One cocoa block per four cups of "milk" makes a warm and comforting treat on a cool evening.

That wooden Mexican frothing tool (we picked ours up last Thanksgiving in Oaxaca, Mexico) makes it all the smoother and creamier, plus it's fun to use. A delicious treat that I'm sure will be a staple as the season progresses.

The Vegan Experiment

2011-09-27T23:15:00.000-05:00

I'm about 68% (according to my ereader) through this book called The China Study and am feeling really convicted (well, scared, actually) that Les and I need to cut as many egg and dairy products as we can out of our diet. I've had borderline high cholesterol for the past few years, despite being vegetarian, and although blood cholesterol and dietary cholesterol are different, it seems worthwhile to try to reduce the amount of dietary cholesterol anyway. I'm also thinking that cutting high-fat dairy products like cheese out of my diet will lead to natural weight-loss.

We're still in the "eating through the bad stuff in the pantry" stage of dietary change, but we have started eating mostly vegan breakfasts and dinners. Overall, I've found many of the "fake" cheeses and the soy milk products to be pretty good, though we are trying to move down the path of whole foods rather than weird processed creations which just happen to be vegan.

We tried something like this about 8 or 9 years ago for a couple of months and didn't feel like we lost weight or saw any health benefits. Mostly we just found it terribly inconvenient because we couldn't eat all the foods that we loved (pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, yogurt, ice cream, etc.). As you can see, a lot of those foods weren't really the kinds of foods that we should have been eating anyway, but at the time, it was more about what we couldn't eat and less about what we should be eating for good health.

Online web resources are so much more robust now than they were back when we did this before. My favorite online recipe resource so far has been www.vegweb.com. As a person who doesn't really like to cook and doesn't like trying new things, such a big dietary change is challenging, but so many of the recipes on vegweb sound so delicious and seem so easy to make that I feel like I will keep wanting to try new things and won't fall into the habits of making the same thing over and over again. Les is doing cartwheels of joy at this news. He loves new experiences, especially when it comes to food.

This week's vegan dinner menu is as follows:

Sunday: Baked nachos
Monday: Mock chicken salad sandwiches and soup
Tuesday: Rice and beans + salad
Wednesday: Chana Masala
Thursday: Pasta with peas and cream sauce
Friday: Mini veggie tacos
Saturday: Tofu coconut curry

I have to also give a special shout-out to East Nashville's local vegan restaurant, The Wild Cow, who showed me how good vegan eating can be and convinced me that just because it tastes complex doesn't mean that it's complicated to make.

Enjoying this challenge and having fun eating more healthfully!

Education, Life, and What You Want to Be When You Grow Up

2011-09-15T14:41:00.000-05:00

My husband and I have reached "middle-age," though I'm not really sure what exactly is considered "middle" anymore. To be specific, he's almost 41 and I'm 37-3/4. For us, part of being this age and not having kids to distract us from existential crises means that we spend a lot of time talking about our future, specifically jobs and location.

We've been in the workplace in some form or another for 25 years apiece. Most of my work experience has been office-based (everything from envelope-stuffing and filing to project management) and most of Les's work experience has been retail-based, with specific focus on music retail. These are careers that we've fallen into accidentally, but careers that we're good at and definitely have a wealth of experience in by this point in our lives. But I think that we're both of the mindset that "easy" or "good" doesn't always equal "best" or "healthiest," so we're always thinking and exploring. Success doesn't mean that it's not fun or important to think about what-ifs, how-abouts, and perhapses as far as the future is concerned.

Because of this general belief that we're only at an approximate half-way point in life and not just working a seam that leads from "here" to a defined "there," I'm always interested to read articles (and specifically articles that don't spout the usual business or faith-based rhetoric and don't use the words "maximize" or "God-sized hole") that discuss "Why are you here?" themes. This article by Mark Edmundson, "Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?" is an amazing read.

I posted it on Facebook along with my favorite quotes from the last two paragraphs, but since Facebook doesn't have a good way to search for content I've posted in the past, I thought I would also log it here so I can find it again later.

Doing a Good Job...

2011-09-09T17:04:00.000-05:00

A funny quote from one of our freelancers, which someone repeated in a meeting today:

"Doing a good job around here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit: No one notices, but it sure gives you a warm feeling."

That's not my own experience at my job, but it made me laugh!

Hot Pepper, The Plant Who Lived

2011-09-08T15:51:00.000-05:00

This is the tale of a little hot pepper plant that I started from a seed in the Spring of 2010. The seed grew so nicely in my starter pot indoors. Two levels of leaves and a strong, strong stem.

When summer came, I happily put it right outside, having never heard of "hardening off" (yes, it sounds pervy). The newborn leaves got totally bleached in the sun. I thought this plant was a goner. It was completely yellow and the whole plant was dry like paper. Yet, there was still a little green at the base of the stem, so I kept watering it to see what would happen.

It never recovered last summer, but instead lost all of it's leaves and became mostly a partly-green stick. As winter approached, I brought the plant into the office because we keep our house so cold.

This Spring, we saw the first tiny leaf appear.

Now, several months later, it's looking fine: 12 leaves and a flower to boot! Since it seems so happy here at the office, and since Winter is not far away, I'm going to leave it on my desk and see what kind of growth occurs this winter. I might even get to put it in my garden next summer.

After hardening it off properly, of course.

My Other Blog

2011-09-02T09:30:00.002-05:00

I have definitely not abandoned this blog, but I've started a new blog over on WordPress (because I'm just so NOT brand-loyal, or possibly because I don't like my life to be too uncomplicated) about things that happen in my yard. It's a very basic, focus blog that I created because I wanted to just document and not worry about being poignant or thought-provoking or funny or inspiring. Probably this new blog will end up having elements of those things, on the sly, but that's not my intention.

I just didn't do it here because I felt like it would take this blog in a very set direction and I prefer to have a place to dump all of my random thoughts.

If you'd like to read it, check it out here.

Tools for Bible Study

2010-10-26T10:54:00.011-05:00

I work in the Bible, Reference, and Study Resources department of Thomas Nelson Publishers. Just a few weeks ago I heard this helpful breakdown of the types of reference products available for Bible Study.

If the title of the product uses the word:

Handbook: it's an overview of each book of the Bible, in canonical order (the order the books are in in your Bible).
Dictionary: it's word-focused and in alphabetical order.
Encyclopedia: it's topic- and phrase-focused and also in alphabetical order.

Other types of Bible reference books include:

Topical Bible: organized alphabetically by topic, a list of all the scriptures that apply to popular study topics.
Commentary: A book-by-book and sometimes even verse-by-verse explanation of the meanings behind Bible texts.
Concordance: A complete list of every word in the Bible, as well as where and how it's used (the popular Strong's concordance also shows the Greek and Hebrew words behind the English translation).
Manners and Customs or Life and Times: Understand how Bible people lived and discover the smallest details of life in Bible times (like what they wore and ate, how they worshipped, and what types of homes, job, transportation, plants, and animals existed in Bible times).

Hope this is helpful! Since I'd never heard this kind of breakdown before, even as close as I am to the production of these products, it felt like a "best kept secret" of the Bible scholar world. I wanted to share it with all of you so you'd be in the know! Happy studying!

Rediscovering the Old Ways

2009-11-22T14:06:00.006-06:00

We moved into our first house at the end of August and have ever since been looking for various things temporarily lost in the pile of boxes in our spare bedroom. Today's quest was for my family recipe book; the holiday season is upon us and there are just certain things that MUST be cooked, to honor family traditions as well as fulfill the anticipations of much awaited gastric delights.

Thanks to a wonderful computer program called Delicious Library, we knew it was probably in Book Box 18 with our other recipe books, so all we had to do is find said Book Box 18 among the 40 other boxes in the room. This wasn't as difficult as you might imagine thanks to some semblance of order in the way we had put the boxes in the room during an earlier organizing moment. Success was nearly immediate, and therein lay the problem. Mentally I had set aside, oh, an hour, to find the family recipe book. Success 10 minutes into the project meant that I was left with the feeling that I still had at least 50 minutes to "play" amongst the boxes.

This is a slippery slope, of course. First you just think that you'll peek into "Mystery Box of Crap from Howell" (yes, this is how I labeled some re-discovered boxes that never got unpacked after our move to TN 4.5 years ago), and then you start digging to see what's in the depths of the box, and the next thing you know, you've found random "treasures" and you're moving furniture around in the other rooms of the house to find places for your new treasures. And then your Sunday afternoon is completely gone and your house is a mess and you wonder how you got to this place when all you'd been doing was looking for one cookbook.

One of the treasures I just had to claim from the depths of the mystery box was an old wooden container of letters and visiting cards. I think I got this box from Les's Grandma Rollins' estate after she died, but I don't think I've ever really looked through it. Today was the day (but of course!). I lifted out each visiting card, most only containing a person's name written in lovely script, though a few had crazy tasseled borders or were tucked within a decorative, four-color paper card. There were a number of baby announcements, wedding invitations, and graduation invites, most very simple and all (surprisingly) confirming that we really haven't made any progress in invitation/announcement design in the past 100 years. I discovered a few Easter or Valentine's Day cards, though nothing was written on them, as if they were purchased to send and then never mailed.

My favorite piece in the box, however, is a dance invitation, simply because it provides a lovely snap-shot of life in 1907. I don't have my scanner hooked up, but it's quite a simple design, so I'll just type it up "as is" to give you an idea of what you might have gotten up to on a Monday night over 100 years ago.

Seventh Grand Dancing Party

will be given at Niedermeier's Hall, Newport, Michigan, on

Monday evening, February eleventh

nineteen seven

The presence of yourself and friends will add to

the pleasures of the occasion

Music by Finzel's Orchestra of Detroit

Music begins at eight thirty o'clock

Niedermeier Brothers

Admission 75 cents

Oyster Supper 25 cents

Special car leaves Newport for Rockwood at 12:30 and for Monroe at 1:00 o'clock

Imagine being out until 1 a.m. on a Monday night in February! Don't let anyone tell you they weren't living large back in aught-seven!

A Quote

2009-08-12T14:19:00.003-05:00

I was reading Ode Magazine during lunch and stumbled upon this quote. I think it's too long for a 140-character Tweet, so into the blog it goes!

"I have tried, too, in my time, to be a philosopher, but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in." -- Oliver Edwards, quoted (with lots of commas!) in James Boswell's Life of Johnson.

I resonate with this quote because it describes the life philosophy I keep coming back to. There are many moments when I think I need to be more discerning, more critical, more thought-provoked, more responsive, more involved, more aware, or more serious overall about life and all that's going on in the world. But that's just not me. It feels like work for me to live that way -- unnatural, un-fun, and stressful.

So, at the end of the day, I just keep defaulting to trying to have a cheerful disposition within each day and to help people see the fun and positive in their story as well.

Next step: Laughter therapy?

A Month of Compliments

2009-07-06T23:38:00.004-05:00

I just finished a Twitter/Facebook status update series called "Lisa's Morning Compliments," wherein I typed up a compliment to the world every morning. I thought someone might like to see all the compliments collected in one place (or might need 31 compliments in a row), so here they are in the order I posted them:

You've always been one of my favorites!
You are going to be super-awesome today -- I can tell just by looking at you!
I've never seen you so relaxed! The weekend looks good on you!
We are all getting older, but YOU look like time is standing still (or reversing). Amazing!
For many, Monday's "M" stands for "madness." For you, the "M" stands for "majorly-awesome." Have a triumphant day!
It makes me feel happy when I see your smiling face before I head to work. Starts the day off right!
Your personality sure is sparkling today! Way to brighten up the middle of the week!
You're looking confident today and it's Thursday. You've got this week in the bag! I knew you could do it!
You did a great job keeping it all together this week! Enjoy your TGIF in a big way!
You are having a great hair day! Even you baldies have a nice shine going! Enjoy the looks of admiration!
You lead such an interesting life! I love hearing about all your adventures!
Did you get some sun this weekend? You're positively glowing!
I love your eye-color!
You're a great friend! I always feel cared about, whether you're far or near!
Three words describe you today (courtesy of my Peggle game): "Cranking the awesomeness." Bring it!
You are so cleverly humorous!
There is a simple elegance about you...
You make any party feel even partier! You're so fun to be around!
You eat Monday for breakfast! Consider yourself triumphant before the day even begins!
You use your powers for good, not evil.
You're good enough, and smart enough, and gosh darn it, people LIKE you! (thank you, Stuart Smalley)
Your "charm" dial goes all the way up to 11!
You rocked this week! I now know what an "A+ game" looks like, and it's pretty amazing!
You've never gotten older, only better. You seem to be eternally-youthful!
You have great taste in music. I've learned about so many cool bands, thanks to you!
You're young, you're fly, and you're gonna stay flashy till the day that you die! (with a nod to my favorite CD from Girl Talk)
You've got a chilled-out kind of vibe going. Way to bring summer into your mid-week life!
One of my favorite things about you is your unique perspective on life. You aren't like everyone else, and that's a good thing!
You are full of WIN!
Your own struggles and triumphs in the realm of personal independence inspire me -- emotional, financial, physical, social, and so much more! Stay the course and celebrate your achievements!
I though you used all your sparklers yesterday -- yet you're still sparkling today!!

Takeaways from this exercise:

People really seemed to respond to the compliments, even when I sometimes doubted that I was able to convey the right complimentary tone in a sincere way. Sarcasm was NEVER my intention, but after 31 days of writing up generic compliments, I sometimes wondered if I was pulling it off.
I get the impression that a lot of people need to hear more positive words. Bring the praise, people!
I got a lot of compliments in return. This was an added bonus surprise!
It was kind of hard for me to come up with this many compliments and I had to cheat by quoting songs or pop culture icons sometimes. I felt bad about that, thinking my creativity is more amazing than it ended up being, but it was all worth it to bring the compliments to the people.
I wasn't sure what people would prefer to be complimented on -- wit, looks, work ethic, vibrancy, etc. I never knew what would resonate with people or what wouldn't. The comments on Facebook were fun and surprising to read.

Spreading some positivity daily was a happy thrill for me. I am trying to think up a new series that will accomplish something similar, but haven't struck creative gold yet. Any ideas?

Checking in

2009-05-26T21:41:00.005-05:00

Making my every-six-months stop here at my blog to see how things are going. All seems quiet on the blog front...

Random updates from my world:

(1) My social life is still active on Facebook, though I did go through and delete all the friends who I didn't really know. Amazingly, that was only about 25 people.

(2) We are thinking of buying a house. Well, we have gone one step further than that and have given notice to our apartment complex that we're moving out at the end of July. This is SO exciting to me. And so scary, too. How will we know which house to pick? There are so many choices! But it will be nice to have a home that feels more permanent. Maybe I'll even decorate (ha!).

(3) We went to our first Roller Derby meet. We stood rink-side and it was awesome! We are so thankful for our friends who introduced us to this sport. I want to go again. Have you gone? It's a big time in Nashville! Sell-out crowds! Does anyone want to go roller skating with me? I promise not to slam you.

(4) I'm suffering from running injuries. It's totally annoying. I feel a million years old. I went to see an awesome doctor and it got a little better, but not completely better. Staying healthy as a runner seems to be a lot of work.

(5) I did a tiny bit of HTML work on my church website. Tricky, but hilariously fun. But not fun enough to do more. One time was all I needed to feel a great sense of accomplishment. I am still congratulating myself.

(6) We're really into playing Settlers of Catan. We are joking that we need to have two kids so that we can play this game all the time without needing to have people over. It's that addicting! People might have kids to flesh out their home team!

(7) I have a new job. Sadly, my sweet boss left our company and my position was eliminated. Happily, a new position was found for me. I am amazingly thankful and having a blast learning all sorts of new things (and new acronyms!).

(8) Summer is here. We haven't planned any vacations. It's weird. What will we do? Where will we go? Must. Have. Summer. Fun.

(9) I have an iphone, and I love it. I read lots of books on it and can't believe how much I love an ebook. Never thought I would. Proved myself wrong (again).

(10) Sparkly Wednesday is still a phenomenon. We have a group on Facebook. It's 200-members strong. Join the sparkle-ution!

(10+1) I am so proud of myself for coming up with a new screen name based on my initials: LMR. My new screen name is Elemar (for the slow among us, El = L, em = M, ar = R). I also thought of LMKR = Elemkayar, but that's long and looks like an abbreviation for Elementary Kayaker. Try it with your initials! It's fun!

I have had flashes of blog ideas in my head. What else is new? But I haven't sat down to flesh them out yet. What else is new? The ten-plus-one-point update is a start. Hope you're well. Much love. Miss you.

Me, a marathon-runner?

2008-11-19T18:16:00.001-06:00

This past Sunday, my husband and I completed our very first full marathon (that's 26.2 miles for those of you who aren't familiar with this type of thing) in San Antonio, TX. We finished it in around 6 hours and 15 minutes.

If you know us or met us, I don't think you'd ever believe we could or would run a marathon (though a nun I met recently said I have "a runner's body" -- she was being SO generous! I didn't think nuns were supposed to lie. ). Les was an asthmatic kid who often spent at least part of the exciting Christmas season in the hospital getting help-me-breathe-again steroid shots, and I was a "bookish" girl, more interested in reading and letter-writing than running around outside. Yet, somehow we found ourselves on a marathon course, running, running, and finally finishing.

As I stood in my corral, waiting to start my very first marathon, I felt remarkably calm. My past race experiences have not been as good, leading me to say more than once that I love the training much more than the actual racing. I generally get too wound up during the pre-race wait in the corrals and want to bust a move and pass everyone once we start. Then I get annoyed when my husband insists on sticking to our 145-155 heart rate pace, and I spend a few miles feeling grumpily frustrated, like a dog straining at a leash. Because this was the longest distance I've ever run (ever!), I think I found it easier to sit back and pace myself and just enjoy the race as it progressed along. I was very aware of the possibility of running out of gas around mile 20, and wanted to save enough energy to make it across the finish line!

We had our ipods with us in case musical motivation was needed, but only listened to them for about a mile total -- the rest of the time we chatted with each other or looked at the scenery or the other racers or the supportive friends and family members along the sidelines (favorite signs I saw: "I thought you said 2.62 miles!" and "My feet hurt because I'm kicking so much ass!"). We were running at a slow pace, so we were able to enjoy the race more than some who are trying to finish in a certain time. That was a great way to experience our first marathon, and I would recommend it to all first-timers.

Overall, I found that the experience was somewhat emotional (though some would say I'm just an emotional person overall). Running a marathon is the only thing I've ever really worked hard for in my entire life, and as the miles passed easily beneath my feet, I began to realize how much all the work and time and planning and training was really paying off. It was the first time that I felt that I could see the effort = results equation in full-effect. By mile 21 (the longest distance we'd run prior to this was 20 miles, so getting past that point was a big deal!), I really had a feeling of accomplishment and awe. By that point it seemed real to me that we were actually going to complete a whole marathon. Us. Really.

We had started training in earnest with our great trainer Terry Coker at the end of May. Before that, we had honored our New Year's resolution to get in better shape and had been steadily training for April's Music City 1/2 Marathon on our own. We had gone from "couch-potato-ness" to being able to run five miles by the half marathon. Although we had made good progress on our own, training with Terry really made a huge difference for us because he kept us from overdoing it and helped us build our stamina slowly and carefully. During our training, we had the same challenges and difficulties that most runners face -- cold weather, hot weather, busy schedules, various body aches, illness, lack of energy, boredom, etc. -- but we managed to power through all of that and stay on track. Somehow we also managed to develop the mental stamina to settle down and just run till the race was done. As a person who loves to get something done quickly and move on to the next thing, the development of any kind of mental stamina still seems like something purely magical to me, but it was real and it was there when I needed it.

One of my favorite parts of any race is seeing all the encouragement that comes from the sidelines. It's a faith-restoring experience for me. You see spectators who are playing cow-bells, holding hand-made signs, crying, yelling, and jumping up and down as their runners go by. You'll see the same people in multiple locations along the course because they've moved from one spot to another to give maximum encouragement. Then there are the spectators who don't seem to know anyone in the race, but have just come out to cheer random people on (sometimes they even hand out treats at the end of their driveway or play music from their cars to encourage us all to keep up the pace). Those are my favorites! Being encouraged by someone you've never met, someone who just saw you running by and thought, "That girl needs a shout-out!" makes me feel that there is so much good in the world and in humanity. The opportunity to be a great cheerleader is the one thing that would keep me from being a runner! It just looks like so much fun and I know how much it's appreciated by the people running by.

Around mile 22, I began to feel that the whole thing was over too quickly. My husband lost his stamina around mile 23, so he walked the rest of the way and I jogged alongside him to the finish line (I tried to walk, but my muscles weren't able to adapt to the pace and workout change, so I had to keep on running). That helped stretch out the last few miles, but I still felt that the time went by too fast.

We don't have our next marathon scheduled yet, but there is definitely another marathon in our future! I think I've got the marathon bug!

Missing my blog!

2008-07-08T18:57:00.003-05:00

I haven't blogged for forever, but I do think of blogging and miss it from time to time, so I thought I would stop by and say hello.

At the moment, I'm distracted by the instant gratification of social interaction on Facebook and Twitter. You put something out there and people respond, sometimes immediately. It's a much easier way to share photos (in albums! imagine!) and you can keep up with lots of people all at once. It seems more effective than email, text messaging, and blogging. I've reconnected with people I haven't talked to in years and am getting caught up on all their missing history. I have friends who are pretty spotty with emails, calls, and letters, but are pretty consistent with Facebook. It's opened my whole world and made distances between me and my friends seem almost non-existent. I never thought it would happen, but I guess I'm a web 2.0 convert!

It's not that blogging doesn't have it's own appeal, however. Write a long note on Facebook and see if anyone comments on it. Generally, none of us have the attention span to read through a whole multi-paragraph note with such a tempting buffet of interactions just one click away. If you have something longer and more thought-out or thought-provoking to say, a blog still seems to be the place to do it.

Of course, this brings up the questions: "But is anyone reading your blog anyway?" and "If no one is reading it, does it matter to you?" and "If it does matter to you, is there any way to get more of a connection with people?"

I feel like communication and social interaction is in a really bizarre state right now and no one really knows which direction it will take. Will people who feel they need more human interaction start going to open mic nights instead of posting stuff on their blogs? Will people revert back to mailing letters because it feels more authentic than sending an email or "poking" someone on Facebook? Will we start putting limits on the amount of updating we're doing online because we suddenly wake up one morning and think, "Who cares that I'm brewing coffee? I'm spending so much time telling people what I'm doing that I am not really even doing anything!"

And what would encourage me to start blogging again? I feel like I have things to say, but I don't feel like I have the time to sit down and write it all out. Could I be less wordy and more frequent? Could I just throw stuff up here and not agonize about spelling, punctuation, or content? Is less more? Or is less just less? And does it really matter? Maybe I shouldn't even be thinking about stuff like this.

Such is life in the modern age. Strangely, I love it.

Get Your Sparkle On!

2008-03-05T21:20:00.002-06:00

For the past year or so, I have been participating a weekly, self-created holiday known as "Sparkly Wednesdays." On SW I wear at least one obviously sparkly thing, although something shiny (like silver shoes) can be substituted for something that actually "sparkles" in a bejeweled kind of way.

It began accidentally. I don't have a lot of clothes and so I tend to wear the same things in a regular sort of rhythm. Mondays I dress up a bit because I'm usually in staff meetings with VPs. Tuesdays I usually wear a long skirt so I don't have to shave my legs again in the summer (sad excuse, but true). Thursdays tend to moving down the path to casual Fridays, so I wear linen pants or something relaxed. And Fridays are "jeans day" at work so (of course!) I wear jeans.

Wednesday had nothing to define it. So, probably out of boredom, I found myself wearing something bright or fun or interesting. For me, "fun" is frequently defined as "sparkly." Because I usually wear black or other somber tones, these sparkly outfits would stick out and people felt compelled to comment -- "Wow! That's some shirt!" I began to notice that I was usually getting comments about my outfits on Wednesdays, so when people would comment, I started to respond cheerfully with "Well, it IS Sparkly Wednesday!" After a while, the idea just stuck and the official, weekly holiday was born.

It seems to be catching on. People have started to wear sparkles on Wednesdays around the office and will come over and show me their outfits for my approval. I have told a few friends about it outside the office and they've seemed interested in participating from afar. I've been meaning to start up a group on Facebook where people can post photos of their sparkly awesomeness. Slowly, but surely, it is building momentum. Come sparkle with us!

Hot for Hockey

2007-10-07T11:28:00.000-05:00

Just a post to let everyone know that the Nashville Predators are really looking great this year! If you haven't been to a game yet this season, go for it!

I've been to the first two regular-season games. So far (and I do realize that it's only two games' worth of observation) I have been really impressed by their energy, their passing skills, and their defense around their own net. These are three things that I've thought they needed to improve upon in the past years (note that "shoot the puck!" isn't one of my three) and I'm so glad to see how well they're doing.

I have to admit that I was pretty nervous about this year. We got rid of some star players and I was wondering how the leftover guys and any new guys they might sign would do. The leftover guys would have to step up their game and be able to handle a lot more ice time and the new guys would have to try and gel with their new team. I really thought this season was going to start out rough... but get better as the year went on. Hopefully.

So, I was thrilled to see how great the team looked right out of the gate! It looks like our guys from last year are ready to show their stuff with their additional ice time, and I feel like our new guys are really trying to make a name for themselves with their new fan base.

Players I like so far, based on the two games I've seen: Zanon (a.k.a., Shotty McBlockblock), Legwand (he is looking GREAT this year!), Arnott (I've always liked him and am happy to see him get more ice time and recognition), Gelinas (I think he'll bring a lot to our team this year), and Radulov (loved him last year, too -- he's really working for it!).

Also, Mason looks like a total stud out there. I was nervous based on the pre-season stuff I had heard, but he pulled it all together for the regular-season games and looks at least as good as Vokoun. I am so excited for him!

Les and I will probably buy a 13-game pack. Les travels so much and so randomly that it's hard plan ahead and find games that we know he'll be home for. We've bought our tickets opportunistically so far and will probably continue to do that for a lot of the games. But we are loving all the excitement of having a team that's doing great and looking good, despite their off-season drama (I think Barry Trotz looks like he has aged 10 years over the summer)!

Nintendo DS Addiction

2007-09-25T11:52:00.000-05:00

As if I needed another technological addiction, Les has gotten me hooked on playing Brain Age and Brain Age II on his Nintendo DS. The games are a series of training sessions designed to develop various parts of your brain, followed by a test that tells you what age your brain is functioning at. There's a lot of math and counting, but also some word stuff like reading aloud or unscrambling rotating letters. The games also have a Sudoku feature (I think I never fully understood Sudoku until I tried it electronically) and a "relaxing" game that's similar to Tetris.

Aside from tracking your own progress in the training games from day-to-day, you can also compare yourself to others who are playing on the same memory card, and that adds a fun level of competition. It's been interesting to see how Les is good at some training games (he's waaaay better than I am at the syllable count and rock-paper-scissors) and how I am good at others (I am better at the word blend and calendar count training).

The game also has little side "conversation-starters" -- both of you draw a firetruck and then can compare drawings, for instance. Les and I have had fun noticing that his drawings always have some kind of action going on in them, whereas mine seem to be a still-life of some sort (boy - girl differences?); and that I usually draw things facing to the left, whereas he faces everything to the right.

It seems that our brain age levels vary from day to day. Les's lowest brain age has been 21 (that's 17 years younger than his actual brain age, for those who are keeping track!) and my lowest brain age has been 26 (not as dramatic a difference from my actual brain age, but still good).

The only bad thing is that I don't get to practice up when he's on the road because he takes the Nintendo DS with him. The interesting thing is that he seems to be a lot "younger" when he's NOT around me. He says I make him "stupid with love." I just think he can focus more. But "stupid with love" is a cute idea!

Officially on vacation!

2007-08-30T21:37:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Seattle! It has been quite a long day, but I wanted to post a quick update on our vacation while I wait for the Tylenol PM (known as "mother's little helper" -- even if I'm not a mother) to kick in, ensuring me a very good night's rest tonight! I don't know how often we'll have internet access on this trip, so I thought I had better take advantage of it while I can.

We left home at 3:30 a.m. today and have been up for 20 hours so far, with a long night's rest of four hours last night to keep us going. Needless to say, we've gone beyond tired into "punchy" and we're all being silly and goofy but have a tendency to fall asleep randomly mid-sentence. It's actually a lot of fun, and it's totally different to be really, really tired when you don't have to get up and go to work the next morning. All we have to do tomorrow is get on our tour bus at 9 a.m., ride to Vancouver, BC, and then get onto our Celebrity cruise ship. Should be easy, even if we're half-asleep.

To that end, we decided to see a bit of Seattle today instead of caving into our urge to take a five-hour nap this afternoon. We rented a car and then took Les's mom and his aunt and uncle downtown, stopping to get our National Parks Passports stamped at the Klondike Gold Rush site. The NP site was really well-done, but we didn't have too much time to spend there because Les couldn't find parking and was circling the block. The NP site is right near the Seahawks stadium and parking was $30 everywhere because there was a game that evening (love you, Matty!).

We then got a call from the other half of the family (we met up with three relatives who live locally) and we went up to the top of the Space Needle. The floor of the observation deck actually slopes downward toward the edge so that rainwater can drain off it easily, but it also gives you the impression that you're drawn uncontrollably towards the ledge of a very tall building. It's a bit unnerving, especially if you are afraid of heights. We had a very clear day (we saw four different mountain peaks on the plane ride in!) so we really got to see a lot of the city from the top of Space Needle.

For dinner, the party-of-13 family all went to Old Spaghetti Factory, where my parents treated us to dinner.

As Les's Aunt Dolores said, "We've had such an adventure today and we haven't even started cruising yet!"

It was a great day and we're looking forward to a good night's rest and a great day tomorrow.

p.s. It is SUNNY in Seattle -- how awesome is that? And the weather is about 75 degrees. We are in heaven!

What you really wear

2007-08-18T11:13:00.000-05:00

I won't go into too much detail about this link because I'm referencing a blog post by someone I don't know that Les posted on his Facebook page, and I'm so far removed from this idea being in any way connected to me that I don't want to take any credit even finding it. All I did was think this blog post was great enough to post it here so that some of you could enjoy it.

Follow this link and you'll be connected to a blog called 43 folders. The post I've linked to is about determining what clothes in your closet you really do wear and what clothes you don't. It's aimed at simplifying your life and clearing out clutter. These are concepts I love, but don't necessarily practice, so I try to put myself in the way of exposure to these types of ideas as frequently as possible in the hope that they'll sink in and I'll start being more zen, less cluttered, and more practical.

Potato Peelers

2007-08-18T09:26:00.000-05:00

Les and I have tried the tricky Japanese shirt-folding technique with quite a bit of success, so this easy potato-peeling technique from Japan seems appealing (get it? a-PEEL-ing!), too. I am not a big fan of peeling potatoes because I'm afraid of somehow nicking my potato-holding hand with the peeler (although this has never actually happened <--- irrational fear!). Also, it seems like I've never been in a situation that required fewer than 25 peeled potatoes, so its always a long and tedious process. The end reward of creamy, delicious mashed potatoes makes it worth while, of course, but what if there was a better way?

Unfortunately, I do not have any potatoes on-hand because they're just not a very summery food to me. I guess I'm just posting this with the hopes that someone out there will try it and tell me if it works. Any research assistants out there?

One of the commentors on the potato peeling page said that this Japanese process takes longer than peeling potatoes with a knife. He or she may be correct, but it seems so much more rewarding to see the skin come off in one swoosh. I mean, would you rather sit at a stop light if it meant that you could drive 5 miles without being in stop-and-go traffic, or would you rather just inch along for the 5 miles because it meant that you were constantly in motion? Wait! I may have come up with the universal question that defines our personalities and divides us up into two diverse groups! Potato-rific!

Working Ahead

2007-08-14T21:50:00.000-05:00

I would not consider myself a deliberate, plan-ahead type of person, but my job (admin assistant) requires that I work at least a few weeks into the future in my boss's calendar -- making appointments, rearranging meetings, and planning for travel. As a result, I often find myself unaware of what the actual date is, and sometimes even have a hard time keeping track of the current month. On very rare occasions, the year somehow escapes me, although those moments are usually in December or January -- the transitory months between years when everyone else is confused, too.

One such time-warp event occurred tonight, as I was brushing my teeth, and I honestly lost my head for about 10 intense minutes.

Here's the scenario: We are a few weeks away from a long vacation to Alaska, and because we will be crossing into Canada on our trip, we need to have current passports. As I was brushing my teeth (brush, brush, brush), this little Q&A was playing out in my mind:

Q: Hmmm. How long are passports actually valid?
A: I think they're valid for ten years, if I remember correctly.
Q: And how long ago did we actually get our passports?
A: Maybe a year or two after we got married. It's probably been about ten years now...

At this point, you must imagine a small choke, some spitting, a clatter of a toothbrush in the sink (unhygienic, I know, but emergencies are emergencies!), and a rush of bare feet on carpeted floors (in other words, insert no sound effects here). I dug out my passport from its secret hiding place (yeah, you wish you knew!) and stared at the date. My passport reads: Date of expiration 20 AUG / 08.

20 August! Why, that's (gasp, gasp, gasp) six days from now! Already I am calculating how long it might take to get a passport renewed. I'm instantly sitting at the computer, typing "renew US passport" into Google. I'm reading government web pages frantically, looking for timelines, expedition costs, and online applications. I'm planning my Wednesday: I'll go to our local passport office as soon as possible in the morning. Nothing else matters. Nothing else!

Then, slowly, I have the calming realization that "08" means next year. We are in fact living in what is popularly known as "07." The tingling sensation slowly drains from my arms. My eyes blink. I take a deep breath. Everything is going to be okay. Really.

Based on current passport issuance trends, I should actually be freaked out now if I am planning a trip out of the country any time after August 20 of next year, but for the moment I'm going to stay focused on this month and this trip and put off worrying about next year until a later date. Hopefully, I'll still be at least three months ahead of schedule anyway.

Construction Complete!

2007-08-05T22:24:00.000-05:00

I left on Friday and my world was construction-encrusted. When I returned home today, my world was nearly construction-free! It's a summer miracle!

It seems that most of the Briley Parkway/Elm Hill Pike construction is truly done, and the construction crews somehow managed to knock it out while I was away for the weekend. This created a "how long have I been gone?" sensation as I unexpectedly found myself driving on orange-barrel-free, newly paved roads on the way to my house this Sunday evening.

Although I barely remember what the roads were like before the days of construction, and although I never really hated all the construction messing up the traffic flow near my house, I do have to say that the current status is like driving through a paradise. It's so smooth, so roomy, so efficient. I am totally loving life now!

Viva la Manifesto!

2007-07-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

First, let me start by saying that a person can never use the phrase "Viva la ______" too many times. I just had that realization (many of you cleverer people probably have known this for years) when I started typing the title of this post. I thought, "Oh, I probably have used 'Viva la ______' already at some point. I should search my blog for it before I use it again. I don't want to be redundant." Then I thought, "No, you can never use 'Viva la ______' too many times. It's a classic!" I just want you to know where I stand on this issue before we go any further.

Now, on to the actual topic of this post: An Incomplete Manifesto. I love the ideology of this piece of writing and, after losing it for about two years, I was happy to stumble on to it again (okay, I actually just thought of it tonight, and then googled it, and here it is -- deliberate stumbling). I used to have this Incomplete Manifesto posted in my cubicle at work at Borders. When I changed companies, I thought it was a bit too radical to post at my new job, so it didn't make the transition with me to my current cubicle. Some people would say that I shouldn't let things like where I work and who I work with determine the "flags I fly," but I beg to differ. Although I do admire people who are who they are all the time regardless of the situation they're in, I am more intrigued by people who manage to keep their work personas and home personas at least a little bit separate. I think it helps to define the mental space between work-life and home-life, but it also allows some flexibility to be who you need to be for that particular moment.

At any rate, I thought I would post it here for some others to enjoy. That way I'll know right where it is when I need it again.

Viva la repetition!

Scooting Around

2007-07-17T23:52:00.001-05:00

Through zaadz.com's newsletter, I read about this woman who is traveling around the US on her scooter (she's only a few months younger than me, so it was even more interesting to read about her). I knew I would just lose track of her website if I saved it to my Favorites, so I thought I'd post about it here on my blog.

Although I'm quite overwhelmed by the idea of planning for an adventure like the one she is about to go on, I have to say that a sense of excitement coursed through me as I read about her prep work and experiments. At heart, I long to be the wild adventurer, heading out into the unknown wilderness. In reality, I've grown practical and more cautious as I've gotten older. I wouldn't consider myself "dug in" (as my friend Den likes to call folks who won't move houses or change jobs for the rest of their lives), but I'm walking more down that path than the path of wild abandonment.

I think I'm okay with that at the moment. In truth, I'm a really great cheerleader and I can happily live vicariously through other people's experiences. But someday I may run free again, and then I'll be having too much fun to blog about it.

Added an RSS Feed Option

2007-07-17T23:34:00.000-05:00

Sick of wondering when I actually get around to posting something on my blog? Well, scroll to the bottom of this page and hit my RSS feed option and you'll never need to wonder. Updates will come to your door (sort of).

First, you'll need to get an RSS reader set up. Les recommended Google's RSS reader, which you can find here. Or you can download FireFox (another internet browser system) and read about their "live bookmarks" option here.

If you're like, "What's RSS?" then you should read this wiki entry about it here. Actually, I need to read it as well, because I am totally clueless. This post could be titled "the blind leading the blind" for all that I know about RSS.

Let me know how it goes. I've also linked my blog to my Facebook account, so if you're a Facebook friend, you can keep up with things online that way.

Remember that I'm a total non-techie, so these are giant steps for me. Gulp.

Clapicap

2007-07-16T00:07:00.000-05:00

After years of trying to be a rhythmicly-inclined, participating audience member, I have finally come to terms with the fact that I just can't clap when I'm supposed to. I consistently find myself clapping to a different beat as everyone else in the venue, and when I notice it, I have to stop, watch everyone else for a few claps to see when they're clapping, and then jump back in, on-beat. It feels a little like trying to jump in between twirling double-dutch ropes. I was never particularly good at that either.

It could be worse, I suppose. I am at least clapping rhythmically, if off-beat, exactly opposite of everyone else. I could be unable to keep any rhythm at all, meaning that I could never get back on beat with people at any point. As it is now, if I really focus, I can eventually get to the point of blending in with the crowd. I think there is some sort of life symbolism here...

I don't know what to blame this opposite-clapping tendency on. Is it because I sang a lot of spirituals at vespers in high school and people at the sing-a-long were often trying to set themselves apart by clapping in interesting ways? Did I just develop a unique clapping style at that formative age, by association? Or is it because of "Dub Sundays" at our house, where I hear a whole four or five hours of dub music, which emphasizes the off-beat? Or is it just because I'm so unique that I have a hard time going along with the crowd?

I realized half way through this post that I could have actually called this problem that I have a "handicap" since it involves my hands misfiring. People might not have gotten the pun, but I would have laughed about it to myself every time I re-read this post. Instead, I broke out the word "clapicap" (which came to me one night as I was laying in bed, half-asleep), which probably no one will get until they get to this paragraph, but I became obsessed with the perceived cleverness of it and then couldn't walk away from it. "Clapicap" doesn't hold up as well in the light of day, but I'm comitted to it now and have decided to try and work it into today's vernacular.

Let that be a lesson to you all -- the words you think up half-asleep may not be the best tools on your workbench. Clap on!

I guess I'm the only one impressed...

2007-07-16T00:00:00.000-05:00

After my June 1 (2007) post on the great progress I've seen the construction crews making on Briley Parkway, my husband sent me this Tennessean article. Obviously, I am the only person in the state of TN who is impressed with how quickly this project is moving along.

I've only lived here two years, so I just must not have reached the same level of critical mass of impatience with this project that people who have lived here since the beginning of this mess have reached.

I still say that it's really coming along, so my kudos remain in effect. I just wanted to give my blog readers the other side of the story.

Well, at least I'm better off than these guys...

2007-06-21T07:17:00.000-05:00

I had to laugh when I read this article on Reuters Oddly Enough this morning:

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Two U.S. car thieves failed to make their getaway in a car they had just stolen because they couldn't figure out how to use its manual transmission, a witness said on Wednesday.

The teenagers armed with a gun approached a man outside a pizza restaurant in Marietta, Georgia, late on Monday. They stole his wallet and the keys to his Honda Accord, got into the car but couldn't make it start because it had stick shift, according to John Williamson, 18, a restaurant employee.

"The kid was just sitting in the car trying to start it but he had no idea what to do. He looked dumbfounded. The only thing he had going was the radio," said Williamson who witnessed the scene.

While the thief was trying to start the car, restaurant employees called the police who arrived and caught the teenagers as they tried to escape into nearby woods.

Unlike many parts of the world, the majority of cars in the United States are automatic and many drivers are unused to driving "stick shift" vehicles, in which a clutch pedal must be depressed to change gear.

Movies in the Park

2007-06-20T22:49:00.000-05:00

I went to "Movies in the Park" tonight at Centennial Park. If you have never been to this family-friendly event under the stars, I highly recommend it. I have only been one time before tonight (to see Grease), but it was such a lovely experience two weeks ago that I knew I had to go at least once more before the summer season ended.

I got there around 6:45 p.m. (which is late, if you're trying to get a good seat, even though the movie doesn't start till 8:15 or so), so I didn't have too many blanket-spot options. It was a choice between either far to one side, waaaay in the back, or right up front. I went with right up front because although I knew the sound would be loud (it's turned up to concert volume levels so that all the people waaaay in the back can hear, too), I also knew that I'd be able to see well and that the loud sound would cut down on any crowd distractions.

Last time I went, I didn't bring any pillows and regretted it, as the grass is quite level and once you lay down on the blanket, you can see the stars really well, but you have to crane your neck weirdly to see the screen and even then it looks all distorted because of the angle. This time, I had an extra blanket for my head, so I was all set.

My friend Kenzie came with me and got to the park in time to grab a Rotier's sandwich and an ice cream cone (I'd had pizza earlier, but joined her for the ice cream experience), and then we settled in and got ready for the movie.

Tonight's feature was Singing in the Rain, a movie that I'd seen a few years ago, but couldn't remember the plot of at all . . . so it was basically like seeing a whole new movie. Of course, by the end of the first scene I was completely in love with the dashing Gene Kelly, and our on-screen / off-screen romance continued until the credits were rolling at the end. The American Film Institute rated this movie #10 of their Top 100 movies, and if you ever see it, you'll know why. Unlike some musicals, which have at least one somber, downer scene, this musical is light and fun and entertaining the whole way through. Great dancing and great songs! I'll be tapping my way to work tomorrow, while humming "Good morning, good morning..."

The highlight of my week so far.

A new ipod

2007-06-18T22:29:00.001-05:00

Well, I took my little sad-faced ipod into the Mac store in Green Hills (yes, aren't you impressed that I'm driving a stick shift in Green Hills?!) after making an appointment online. I tried the drop-in method at the Mac store on Saturday night which just didn't work out well. So back I went today.

The upshot is that it looks like I'll be getting a new ipod. This one is fried, and he didn't think they could even save what's on the hard drive. Thank goodness for having a warranty that still has three more months on it. Now, I have to find the Keane CD (Under the Iron Sea) that I've been craving. It's not on our Mac right now because Les accidentally erased our entire iTunes library a few months ago, and I had downloaded the Keane CD before the Great iTunes Disaster of 2007. I guess I'll be digging through some boxes. Wish me luck!

Father's Day (my sister's perspective)

2007-06-17T22:01:00.000-05:00

My sister is totally creative when it comes to cards and presents. She always makes her own cards out of family photos and then makes up her own funny captions (based on my other post about the difficulty I have finding Father's Day cards for my dad, it seems that I could learn something from my sister!). Sometimes she draws pictures or uses construction paper. I have not gotten any glue-and-macaroni cards yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see one arrive in the mail from her.

For Father's Day, my sister got my dad his favorite thing EVER -- chocolate! She got him one candy bar for each year that he's been her dad. For those of you who don't know my sister, that's 30 candy bars! Around each bar, she wrapped a piece of paper with a memory of my dad written on it. When I read the list, I laughed out loud a few times and got a little teary by the end. Although I know some of these items are "you had to be there" moments, I am posting the list here for folks to see because I feel that it's such a great snapshot of the way my dad is and what a fun and interesting person we have as a father.

(1) Red wagon rides from the top of the hill all the way to the house
(2) Convincing Mom to let me go visit Jonathan (my sister's husband) in CA before we were married
(3) Getting the joke about 20 seconds later than everyone else and bursting out laughing, spitting tea all over me and the table in Russia
(4) Your Russian dances at your daughters' weddings
(5) Going to the Farm Show
(6) Hiking the Appalachian Trail with us in several states
(7) Making jokes when Lisa’s head got pooped on by a seagull at Sea World
(8) Saying that the huge Saint Bernard in a nearby yard would clean up after me when I got threw up on our road trip out west
(9) Waking me up with a drum made out of a Quaker Oatmeal container after a nap
(10) Rescuing a wild and weak stray cat (Twinkie) from the farm
(11) Going along with my great idea to vacuum Twinkie to reduce the cat hair around the house, then getting scratched by Twinkie as I operated the vacuum
(12) Asking if I needed money (деньги) in Russian
(13) Hiking up to Katadin with us to finish the Appalachian Trail
(14) Never making it through a whole movie without falling asleep, but talking about it as if you had watched the whole thing
(15) Cleaning up Twinkie’s puke for all those years
(16) Joking about sending Uncle Chauncey a video of stunt bike tricks after he fell off his bike and broke his hip
(17) Trying to keep Lisa and I in line during family prayers when we would always start laughing
(18) Staying up late to put all our Christmas presents together
(19) Stacking up change on the table to get me to eat my veggies
(20) Making me cry at every meal before we went to Russia, because whatever we were having was the only thing that they served in Russia, and if I couldn’t finish my plate, I would never survive in Russia. Interestingly enough it worked, and I ate everything in Russia while Lisa lived off Tootsie Rolls
(21) For always asking “What’s for dessert?”
(22) Helping me to get a clear version of Mona Lisa
(23) Taking care of Charlie (our dog) and making him fat and happy
(24) Being supportive of whatever it was that I was interested in or wanted to do
(25) For cursing when you found the moldy spaghetti sauce I had thrown out in the trash ("We can just eat around the mold...")
(26) Picking us up almost every night when we hiked the AT through PA
(27) Making sure the house is stocked with my favorite foods when we come home to visit
(28) Hiding in corners around your office to scare me when I was walking around
(29) Warming up the car for Mom and I in the winter time, so we wouldn’t be cold
(30) Cleaning off the porch of dead animal parts that the cats had left for us as presents before we went to school so that we never even knew about it

Dad, I hope you can feel the love, even if you don't read about it here!

Father's Day (a.k.a., I love you, Dad!)

2007-06-17T21:37:00.000-05:00

Well, a person really can't let a Father's Day go by without posting a little something about their dad (even though my dad doesn't use the internet and may never see this).

My dad is a very unique individual. I am reminded of this every time I go to buy him a Father's Day card. He's not into normal dad things, or at least what it appears that normal dads are into based on the Father's Day cards available. He doesn't read The Wall Street Journal. He doesn't drink beer. He doesn't oogle at sexy ladies. He doesn't sleep on the sofa in a shirk-my-honey-do-list sort of way. He doesn't obsess about his yard, driving around on his riding lawn mower. He doesn't wear a lot of ties. He doesn't go hunting. He isn't into fixing cars or other stuff around the house. He doesn't grill. He's not into sports. He doesn't use duct tape to repair things. He's not really known for loving to burp and fart. When you have a father like my dad, buying a Father's Day card can be quite challenging.

Here, then, are the topics for Father's Day cards that would work for a guy like my dad (Hallmark, I hope you're listening):
(1) A picture of a dad sitting at a table with all kinds of empty dishes around him (my dad loves to eat).
(2) A picture of a dad cuddling with his kids, reading a book (my dad was the sweetest guy when we were litle -- and he still is today).
(3) A picture of a dad having fun with a dog (my dad is great with pets).
(4) A picture of a dad out in an open field (my dad grew up on a farm and loves nature).
(5) A picture of a dad holding up an empty wallet and smiling in a "yep, that's how it is" kind of way (my dad will always give his girls all the dollars in his wallet before you head back home).
(6) A picture of a dad wearing a funny hat and glasses (my dad loves attention and loves to ham it up).
(7) A picture of a dad riding down a hill on a sled or in a little red wagon (my dad was just a big kid when we were little and loved to play with us).
(8) A picture of a dad shaving with a little girl (not just a little boy) looking up at him (my dad loved to chase us around the house asking us for kisses, with a shaving cream filled face).
(9) A picture of a dad carrying kids on his shoulders or piggy-back or both at once (my dad was a jungle-gym in human form when we were kids).
(10) A picture of a dad tossing a little kid up in the air (dads just know how to have the most fun ever).

Even though I am reminded at least once a year on Father's Day that my dad isn't a "normal" dad, I am so glad to have someone as unique and funny and creative and special in my life. I love you, Dad!

Money for Nuthin'

2007-06-16T00:02:00.000-05:00

My friend Lisa (not me, another Lisa) and I have decided to do some walking after work to get a few extra steps on the ol' step counter. We're supposed to be doing this to burn calories, but on our first trip we walked to Sonic for root beer floats and on the second trip (today) we walked to get Mexican food, so I think it's really more for fun than for dieting thus far. We usually walk about four miles each outing, but I don't know that four miles is enough to burn off a large root beer float and some onion rings, though I must confess that I haven't actually done the math.

As we were walking back from the restaurant, I suggested that we cut through an vacant lot just for the sake of adventure (in general, Lisas love adventure). As we stepped off the road, Lisa (not me, the other Lisa) said, "Maybe we'll find some MONEY!" Just then, I looked down to see a crisp $1 bill on the grass right near her feet. I said, "Look! Money!" Lisa (not me, the other Lisa) was so shocked that she fell down on the ground and started laughing hysterically. "Quick," I said, "Say something about finding a husband out here!" Lisa (not me, the other Lisa) has determined that this is the year she's going to get married, but she isn't even dating anyone at the moment so I thought this magical vacant lot wish fulfillment was worth a try. She said, "I hope I find a husband out here," and we looked around on the ground but didn't see anything that seemed promising.

A friend later pointed out that you probably shouldn't consider a guy laying around in a vacant lot good husband material. I think that's a pretty safe guideline to live by, but you never know...

Postcards Post

2007-06-15T22:38:00.000-05:00

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I have a postcard collection. I can't really remember how it started other than I've always loved sending postcards (on road trips I usually send 50-100 postcards a week . . . while Les drives, of course!) because they're just the perfect amount of space (even though I do try to cram a lot in) to say a few things and then be done and on to the next one.

Because I've always enjoyed sending postcards, I guess I just collected free or artsy ones as I traveled to have a ready supply. Slowly my collection grew. Then I inherited the postcard collections of my grandmas and Les's grandmas after they passed away. In just a few years, my collection grew from 100 postcards to 700+! Of course, not all of them are cool postcards, but sometimes that's just the fun of postcards -- a small snapshot of cheesy Americana.

The cool thing about inheriting postcard collections is that some of them were already written on, sometimes sent to and sent from people none of us had ever heard of. It was interesting to see how much it cost to send a postcard back in the days when my Grandma A was still single (1 cent) and to see how vague some of the old addresses were on these cards (Mr. & Mrs. Karpenko, Kief, ND), although I must add that all of my family members have always lived in small towns, so that kind of addressing would probably still work today!

Here are a few excerpts from my collection...

From my Grandpa Laubach to my Grandma Laubach, dated June 6, 1992, from Heidelberg: "Honey, I wish you were here. I miss you. I'm on their fine train, but got a wrong ticket and I wound up in Switzerland!"

From my Grandma Laubach to their employees at the Stihl Chain Saw Shop, no date, but the stamp cost 13 cents, from Los Angeles Airport, probably on their way to Hawaii: "It better be great weather where we are going -- cause we just got here by 9. This is to be a hard day -- just like work or probably a little worse. The crew says the isles are great cause they were there 2 weeks ago."

From someone named Ruth to my Grandma and Grandpa Karpenko, dated October 13, 1940, from Sidney, MT: "Yes, I landed way over here for a change. Yesterday we visited the sugar factory. My, it's wonderful to watch them make the sugar. Well, we must be going to church now. Will see you soon. Nice scenery."

From my Great Uncle George to his sister (my Grandma) Anne before she was married, dated July 7, 1935, from Twin Falls, ID: "Dear Sister Anne, Your both letters are received. The one was addressed to Boise got here about 5 days sooner than the last one. I ain't working yet but may in a short time as I just got in touch with some people around here. Everything is okay with me and was glad to hear that all is fine and well at thome. I may write a letter in a few days or after I'll be someplace else, but you can use the same address yet."

Right now my postcards are organized by state (my favorite state postcards are the ones that show a drawing of the state with all of the regional exports or activities drawn on the map), and then the non-US postcards are together with some other miscellaneous ones. It's been great to live in another part of the US because I've gotten postcards from new areas as we have traveled around a bit down here. And now Les is traveling quite regularly, so my postcard collection continues to grow. It's so much fun to look through them and see all the interesting places people I know have been. I really does give you an urge to shake the dust off your shoes and head out to do some of your own exploring.

On one of Les's recent trips, he bought some funny postcards made by a company called Duckboy. I checked them out online and laughed out loud at a couple of them. My favorite is "Row vs. Wade: The Great American Fishing Controversy." It shows a man fishing in a rowboat and another fishing in waders. To me, this is postcard humor at its finest.

As I've been looking through these old postcards, I've been motivated to write more to people. It's a great way to jot a line to someone and then perhaps leave a snapshot of your life for future generations.

Stuck in Neutral

2007-06-12T23:31:00.000-05:00

As an anniversary present, Les took my Honda down to Florida to get it painted. Its original "eggplant" clearcoat has been eaten off by both the Florida and the Tennessee sun rays, and it's only getting worse. Fearing that rust is next, we decided to invest in a new paint job before it was a total crisis situation. Les had a little time off and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to be sweet to me and also visit his mom and sister in Florida in one trip.

The bad news for me is that this leaves me driving our other car, which is a stick shift. I hate driving stick shift. I'm passable at it, but not good, and I don't feel like I'm getting any better. Getting into first is the worst. Getting into first on a hill is the worst of the worst. As a result, the sight of a red light strikes fear into my heart. The sight of a red light where I'm on a slight hill is even worse, and if a car pulls up behind me and inches ever closer to my bumper . . . well, my hands start sweating, my left knee starts shaking violently, and I am convinced I might spend the rest of my life stuck at this light, coasting back ever closer to the car foolishly hugging my rear bumper. Due to stress, I either stall out or totally squeal my tires in these situations, which only makes me more nervous and more likely to stall out again.

To make it worse, my car is the SVT model (although no one outside of Detroit probably knows what that means) so theoretically the driver of my car (me, in this case) has purchased this particular car for its low-pro tires, six-speed transmission, premium gasoline guzzling engine with 178 hp worth of performance . . . not because it's a good "learner car." It's the equivalent of seeing a muscled-out mustang with a blower, two tailpipes emitting flames, and a bumper sticker that says "Born to drag race" stalling out in front of you. Or to put it in Music City terms, it's the equivalent of going to a singer-songwriter performance and noticing that the next performer doesn't know how to tune his guitar.

Although everyone has told me that if I just drive a stick shift for two weeks, I'll become a pro before I know it, I don't know if that's really true for me. I don't feel like I'm making any improvement. Besides, maybe I'm just not meant to drive a stick shift. Maybe my body just isn't made for it (annoyingly weak left leg!).

What if this is just like playing the piano for me? I took lessons for eight years, practiced, did recitals, and at the end of the day, I'm just not good at it. Sure, I can read music and plonk things out, but I still don't understand the general concept of how chords work, how progressions progress, or what makes some notes sound better together than others. Because I'm not technically good (as in, my technique is poor) at it and I also don't understand the theory behind it, I'm just not a lover of playing the piano even this many years later. There's no joy in it for me.

So, I have to accept that I may never be good at driving a stick shift, no matter how long or how often I drive it. I am thinking about becoming a mechanic so I can at least enjoy the technical side of things. But someone might have to drive the stick shift cars I work on into the garage for me.

Technological Meltdown

2007-06-11T20:51:00.001-05:00

I hesitate to even spend any time typing on this computer at the moment, worried that something may happen to it, thereby shutting me off from the modern age completely. We are experiencing what appears to be some severe technological meltdown in our household, and I feel that it's a miracle that I still have a CD player and a computer (with its multitude of parts) that work.

It started on Friday when we had a brief thunderstorm that wiped out our power for 0.3 seconds, but destroyed our router forever. It was an old router that needed to be replaced anyway, so Les rolled with it and ran out and got a new one and had us back up and running by the end of the work day (I was working from home that day so it mattered a little more than normal, but I still had a lot to do offline, so it was no biggie). After he got the new router installed, he couldn't get it to communicate with our wireless printer unless there was no encryption on our network whatsoever (not a workable solution). After spending three hours on the phone with technical support and another hour or two just messing around, he gave up and went to bed.

Meanwhile, our DVD player also stopped opening or playing, although it was on and pretending to try to open or play. I took it apart to get out the disc that was stuck in there and finally pried the CD out, just barely. Even after taking out all the screws, there were parts that seemed to be melted together or something. Thank goodness for slightly-bendable plastic.

We tried fixing the network again the next day to no avail. On Sunday we dropped in at the Apple store to see if they had any advice for us. They suggested that we purchase the Apple router, saying that it's really easy to set up and we should be up and running in 20 minutes or less. Personally, we would have been happy with anything under five hours, so our expectations were low. It couldn't successfully communicate with our printer either (which is under two years old and an HP and not particularly tricky or anything, but it does have a built-in wireless card that we paid extra for -- hence the drive to try and get the wireless thing to work). Now, we had two new routers that didn't work and no printer unless we connected up wired, which doesn't work great for our crowded house.

Les decided to take the printer down to his mom in FL who doesn't actually need a wireless printer (in case we can never get it to work wirelessly again), and we'll return one router and buy a new printer and a new DVD player.

Then today my ipod stopped working. I got the dreaded (so I hear) "sad ipod" face on my screen. Fortunately, we bought the extended warranty and it's covered until September, but it feels like a close call. I'm actually pretty careful with my ipod (okay, I have dropped it a few times at the gym, and actually fell on it on cement another time . . . so maybe I'm not exactly that careful with it), but I did unplug it from the charger without disconnecting it from the computer first, so Les thought that's maybe what happened.

We're beginning to wonder if there's a message here. I grew up in PA around the Amish, but didn't actually learn much about living "off the grid" other than the fact that many Amish horses are retired racers and if you're an unmarried man there is some flexibility about how much technology you can own and use. Les is basically out of luck there, but maybe that's how he would like it anyway after this past weekend.

If you don't hear from me again, you'll know what happened at least.

Wee Willie Winkie

2007-06-07T22:39:00.000-05:00

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town, upstairs and downstairs, in his nightgown. Rapping at the windows, crying through the lock, "Are all the children in their beds for now it's 8 o'clock."

This nosey, bossy, peeping-Tom character from a nursery rhyme book that I used to read as a child at my Grandma A's house (I had a Grandma named Anne and a Grandma named Beatrice -- also known as "Grandma A" and "Grandma B") was one of the answers to a clue in my crossword puzzle book last night. I hadn't thought of this little guy in years, but the more that I pondered the poem, the more that I think he and I have quite a bit in common.

Although I don't wear nightgowns, obsess about bedtimes, or yell outside of people's doors, I too take nightly walks through my neighborhood, peering in at the well-lit interiors of apartments, curious to see who has big screen TVs, well-decorated living rooms (people hang things on the walls as if committed to living here for the rest of their lives), toys scattered all over the floor, a crowd hanging out at their place, or bored pets peering out at the exciting outdoor life just beyond their grasp. In these moments, the rooms are a collection of movie screens, lined up on a museum wall, and I march past, peering at each of the snapshots of human existence, piecing together random stories about the characters in the scenes.

Every once in a while, however, someone peers back at me and our eyes meet. The gig is up! They've looked at me looking at them, and I speed up to move quickly on to the next tableau, while they wonder about my story and wait for the next passerby to break up the monotony of the view from their sofa.

The songs of our youth

2007-06-05T20:20:00.000-05:00

I don't mean to over-sentimentalize "the greatest generation" but it does seem that at least the songs of their youth had some style and panache. Think of the Big Bands, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby. Think of the lyrics to God Bless America, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, or even All Shook Up. These are songs you could hear as an 80 year old and think back fondly to the glory days of happy times, a unified America, and a world that seemed a little more simple and predictable than the one you're living in now.

This sentimentality about childhood is harder drum up for those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, and this fact came home to me this evening while driving home from the grocery store. A song came on the radio that immediately took me back to the year 1983. I was instantly transported into the darkened recesses of my small-town roller rink, cruising along (crossing-over around the corners, of course) to My Angel is a Centerfold. Now that's a classy song (thank you, The J. Geils Band!).

At the age of 9 I had no idea what the lyrics meant and, in fact, remember singing along and kind of muttering through the "centerfold" part in the chorus because I didn't understand what they were saying. Ironically, the song is kind of about lost innocence and about people not being who they appear to be. These were the themes of our age, and it's hard to get sentimental about that.

Well, at least we'll always have the innocence of Puff the Magic Dragon to cling to. Nothing can tarnish that! Right?

Do I know you?

2007-06-04T23:06:00.000-05:00

I wouldn't call myself an optimist, per se, but I do go through life expecting to be pleasantly surprised at any moment. I am, of course, often disappointed and am not pleasantly surprised, or sometimes I am even unpleasantly surprised, but I still believe deep down that these few moments of unpleasant-surprise-ness are the exception of my life instead of the rule. At any moment, something totally awesome could happen. I can just feel it.

One of the more extreme ways that this belief comes out is that I am constantly thinking that I see someone I know. Not someone I know from work or from church or from my neighborhood, however, but someone who lives across the US or even in another country, someone who has utterly no business being in my city. Yet, I could swear that I just saw them pulling away from the gas pump next to mine, or turning down an aisle in the grocery store, or on the jumbotron cheering at a hockey game. When this happens, the "expecting surprises" part of me is convinced that friends or relations who do not in fact live anywhere near me have made a special trip to Nashville and are driving around in cars past the intersection where I am sitting at a red light or walking down the road in front of my office to subtly surprise me with their presence . . . if I would just so happen to look up and notice that they're there.

Now, I do know that the chances of this actually happening are very unlikely. What friend would travel all the way across the country and spend the day following you around in a rented car, hoping that you'll look up and go, "Oh my goodness! Is that Stacy? Wow! It is!" Most people don't have time for this kind of tomfoolery and would instead call ahead to make sure you'll be in town when they visit, have you pick them up at the airport, make plans to stay at your house, and then go home when the weekend is over. Yet for some reason I hang on to the notion that one day I will walking into the post office to get my mail and I'll pass one of my friends coming out of the building, seemingly engaged in conversation on their cell phone, wondering if I've figured out yet that it's them.

Oddly, when I just coincidentally run into someone I know at the airport or at Disney World or at the Grand Ole Opry, I never think they've spent the whole day walking around just on the edge of my vision, waiting for me to turn my head and catch them in the act. It seems like a true coincidence that I'm there and they're there and we ran into each other.

Hmmm... Maybe I'm not giving people enough credit for their cleverness. Maybe they're so clever that their "I'm surprised to see you, too!" act has had me totally fooled. I may have more pleasant surprises in my life than I originally thought. What a pleasant surprise!

Walking the dog

2007-06-03T23:45:00.000-05:00

Today I was eating lunch with some friends on the patio in front of the Panera at the Green Hills Mall. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving across the ground and then I saw someone walking along, seemingly behind whatever object I had just seen moving. My first thought (my first thought!) was, "Is that man walking one of those 'invisible dogs'?" and I craned my neck to see.

Note: I haven't actually seen one of those stiff leashes that are supposed to be "invisible dogs" since I was about 13 years old.

Why would I think that a grown man would suddenly be walking around with one now, here (far from the seaside boardwalks where invisible dogs are bred), at the Green Hills Mall? The idea that I thought someone had an invisible dog suddenly seemed more ridiculous to me than if he had actually been walking an invisible dog. Whose mind jumps to invisible dog before real dog, bird, napkin (which is what I really saw), strangely-visible wind, or even hole in the fabric of time?

But it had been a surreal day at the Panera even before this happened. Just moments before, a 60 year old man wearing bright green shorts, a bright pink shirt, and matching pink crocs had strode past our table. I was so distracted by his loudly-hued outfit that I did not even notice if he was walking an invisible dog. And maybe that was his clever strategy.

My other favorite topic: Shoes

2007-06-03T22:37:00.000-05:00

After living in Nashville for two years, I have finally stumbled upon the thing I will really miss if we ever move away -- the Marti and Liz shoe store in Cool Springs. It's in the same shopping center as the Kroger on Mallory Lane. If you have not yet visited this store (assuming that you love shoe shopping), please make a trip down there as soon as is humanly possible.

I first visited Marti and Liz after my birthday in January. With birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, Les and I found this legendary store and I spent a good hour there, trying on shoes and working to narrow down my purchases to a less outrageous quantity than every pair on the shelf in my size. I walked out the door with (only) five pairs of shoes, and it was a struggle for me to hold myself back to that number. Still, I only spent $120 dollars on five pairs, and I thought that was a great bargain.

In case I haven't explained it before, my mother created what I consider to be an ingenious system for rationalizing spending money on things. The system is this: Will you use/wear this item one time for every dollar you spend on it?

You can quickly see the wisdom in this system through the following examples:

1. A pair of sneakers for $90. Will I wear them 90 times? Yes, I'll probably wear them at least twice a week for a year. Okay, then I can rationalize buying them.

2. A dress for $80. Will I wear this dress 80 times? No way! Then I really need to think long and hard about buying it.

You can see where this system breaks down for things like cars or houses and other extremely high-dollar items, but otherwise this is a fantastic guideline for determining whether or not to buy something, no matter how expensive or inexpensive it seems.

But if you're going to spend money, just give Marti and Liz a try.

One of my favorite topics: Hair

2007-06-03T01:17:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite topics to talk about with anyone is what they're planning to do with their hair, style-wise. My husband says that my sister and I are all about "hair and shoes" and, indeed, when the two of us are together, those two items usually come up in conversation within the first ten minutes. He suggests that talking about shoes made out of hair or a hair-style shaped like a shoe would be our ultimate bliss, but I fear that it would probably be too much of a good thing and we'd both implode as a result.

Right now I'm "growing my hair out." That is the official "girl phrase" used to describe the act of only letting your hairdresser cut off the minimum amount each time you sit in the beauty salon chair. Currently, it almost touches my shoulders, which is actually pretty long for me. If I tip my head way back, I can grab about an inch of my hair with my hand behind my back. I know that tipping your head way back is cheating when it comes to judging hair length, but every girl who has grown her hair out knows that you have to cheat a little bit to encourage yourself along down the long and arduous path of growing your hair into a longer style. Draping a towel on your head like hair and flipping it around is another good way to cheat and make yourself feel like you have really long hair. Not that I've actually done this. I'm just saying I've heard about such things. You know, from friends. Crazy friends.

There are many moments during the course of growing your hair out that you consider chopping it all off. Sometimes it gets in your mouth when you bend over to pick something up. Annoying! Sometimes you see a girl with a super-cute short haircut and you think, "Ooooh! I want that!" Or sometimes you just feel an overwhelming sense of futility about the whole thing -- "My hair will NEVER get long! What's the point of torturing myself?" But then you'll see someone with lovely, long hair and, even if your hair has never been long or lovely or long and lovely, you'll think, "I will also look that beautiful one day when my hair is long and lovely and swooshy!" And so you persist.

In high school, we used to actually wash our hair with some sort of horrible-smelling horse shampoo to make it grow faster. These days I know more people who are taking pre-natal vitamins (never mind the nausea!) for the same results. I am fortunate to have a very good hairdresser (Nikki at the Tip Top Salon) who just somehow arranges things in a magical way to enable me to have a good-looking haircut all the way through this challenging process.

Today I wore my hair in a ponytail all day and was so excited that it was long enough to do that. Next . . . braids. I can hardly handle the anticipation!

Bible Belt Bumpers

2007-06-02T16:06:00.000-05:00

Something that has been fun about living in The South is that people tend to wear their religious beliefs on their sleeves a lot more than in non-Southern areas. This leads to a few interesting discussions with strangers, a lot of in-your-face t-shirts (that you have to read quickly and secretly to not get engaged in a conversation on the topic of the t-shirt), and some though-provoking experiences. This post is about my two favorite bumper stickers (so far...), but I'll veer down the tangential path of Christian subculture in general as well.

But first, the bumper stickers!

Favorite bumper sticker #1: Are you following Jesus as closely as you're following me?

Favorite bumper sticker #2: Try Jesus. If you don't like Him, the Devil will take you back.

Before I moved to The South and before I worked at a Christian company, I had no idea of the humor-filled (yet pointed) subculture that exists within the Christian community. Case in point, this music video by Sir Readsalot. I love it, but I had never heard of it before I started mixing with the Christians. What else have I been missing?

Similarly, someone just emailed me these "Christian vs. Christ-follower" parodies of the Mac vs. PC commercials. Well-done, and they do make a point.

Churches here advertise on bulletin boards, our free paper has a section on where to worship, and they even have a "Church of the Week" feature on the local news. It's so different from our experience in Michigan, and I have to say that I'm more thoughtful about my faith since I've been submersed into a culture (both at work and around town) that focuses on religion and spirituality so much.

If you weren't a Christian, I could see how this would really get on your nerves, or make you feel like an outsider here. But, that's the interesting thing about Nashville . . . there's the honky-tonkin', partyin', livin'-it-up side of the city as well. Although sometimes you'll find the same people at Tootsie's on Saturday night and in the pew next to you on Sunday, so you never can tell...

Construction Worker Kudos

2007-06-01T23:06:00.000-05:00

Now, I know that giving props to construction workers is not exactly "up there" in the realm of popular things to do, but I just can't help it. I drive on Elm Hill Pike and under Briley Parkway every day on my way to and from work. I have been making this commute ever since I moved to Nashville, and construction on this intersection basically started as soon as I moved here (had I known, I would have looked for a place of residence on the same side of Briley as my office, but that's water under the bridge now), so I feel that I have seen the whole project from start to almost-finish. And I have to say, that things are really coming along!

When it comes to construction, I'm pretty much a six year old boy's brain in a 33 year old woman's body. I love all the various construction equipment, and could sit and watch them move earth around, break up concrete, and load rocks into trucks all day long. The power! The mobility! The excitement!

Every day is a surprise. One day I drove to work and the road was curving one way, and then I drove home after work and they had shifted the lanes over and things were totally different. I got on Briley by accident because I veered where I used to veer and it was an on-ramp instead of just a jog in the road!

But I back to the praise for the construction workers. They're really working hard and getting this project done. They work on Saturdays. They work early and late. They work at night with lights that are as bright as the sun. They hang from harnesses and balance on beams and eat dust for lunch and still keep plugging away at this big project that 98% of the people who drive on Elm Hill Pike every day would tell you will never be completed.

But I'm really seeing progress. I got on Briley Southbound and was on a whole new part of the road. They're pouring cement for the edge-of-road barriers so you can really see where the road will be, how the on- and off-ramps will work, and how they'll shift all the traffic on to the new bridge.

Maybe I'm a geek for being so excited about all of this. In fact, I'm almost sad to think that they're almost done. Erm, okay, maybe not. As much as I love construction, I love quickly flowing traffic even more.

That's SO meta!

2007-05-31T22:45:00.000-05:00

I have a "Quote of the Day" box on my Google homepage and I am continually amused by the quotes that appear. Some are extremely funny, some are wrist-slitting depressing, and some are brain-stretching, like this quote from Jacques Derrida:

To pretend, I actually do the thing. Therefore, I have only pretended to pretend.

Best quote ever! Now this is the way I like to think! I printed it off and stuck it up in my cubicle, upside-down of course!

Drinking Problem

2007-05-24T23:55:00.000-05:00

Whenever I fill up a glass, I fill it all the way up, to the point where it's almost overflowing and I have to slurp up some of the liquid in it before I can even pick it up. I am particularly bad about this with water and with coffee (though my need for extreme amounts of creamer is partially to blame).

You know how they describe optimists as people who see the glass as half full, and pessimists as people who see the glass as half empty? What's it mean when you see the glass as never full enough?

Snow's a-comin'!

2007-01-31T18:42:00.000-06:00

Here is the official forecast for Nashville as it stands right now:

Tonight
Light snow developing after midnight. Accumulation around 1 inch. Lows in the mid 20s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 90 percent.

Thursday
Light snow in the morning...then a mix of light rain...snow and sleet in the afternoon. Additional snow and sleet accumulation around 1 inch. Storm total accumulation around 2 inches. Highs in the mid to upper 30s. East winds around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation near 100 percent.

As a former Michigander, I must admit that I am having quite a bit of fun watching everyone freak out over a potential 2 inches of snow. People were taking work out the door with them in case they had to work from home tomorrow. People with 4-wheel-drives were commenting how nervous they were about how bad the roads might be. And when I drove up the hill into my apartment complex today, the driveway had already been pre-salted . . . just in case.

Now, I assure you that I have already heard all the usual commentary about snow in Nashville: (1) people here don’t know how to drive in snow, (2) we don’t have the equipment down here to handle snow, (3) you may know how to drive in snow, but ice is a whole different situation, and (4) remember that terrible snowstorm in 2004 when it took us all 8 hours to make the normally 30-minute drive home!?

I’m all for being “better safe than sorry” when it comes to bad weather (which is why I always had a blanket, boots, a small shovel, snacks, and a candle in my car during the winter months in Michigan), but this much excitement and concern seems a little disproportionate to the amount of snow predicted, and honestly seems to border on irrational behavior.

But, since I don’t think I can really do much to reassure people that it is honestly going to be alright, I thought I would – at best – share some factoids of truly amazing Nashville weather, or – at worst – just feed the paranoia.

Here’s my personal highlight:

Most snowfall in 24 hours: 17.0", March 17, 1892

Now that’s something to freak out about!

Positively Positive

2006-12-02T21:21:00.000-06:00

Les and I swung by our local Tower Records to check out the sales tonight. If you haven’t heard, Tower Records is going out of business, liquidating all their stock, and closing all their stores (maybe except for one or two). It’s a sad state of affairs. But it is an opportunity to find some unusual things for a very good deal, so we as gawkers went in to see what there was to see.

Les picked up a couple of good CD deals at 75% off, and I browsed through magazines, which were 80% off. Most of the magazines just didn’t fit my personal interests (Atlanta rap, tattoo artists, Tulsa skateboarding, Ford truck customization, etc.), but one title caught my attention -– Ode. Although I have never heard of it, I was roped in by the subtitle, “For intelligent optimists.” Honestly, I don’t count myself in the world group of exceptionally intelligent people and I struggle to maintain even a façade of optimism sometimes, but I thought, “Now, that’s [an intelligent optimist] someone I’d like to become. Maybe this magazine will show me how!”

I haven’t read through all of it yet, but I’m enjoying it so far. I think the thing that is most stimulating to me in what I’ve read is that it is truly an international magazine (yet conveniently in English, for me), with all sorts of interesting stories from around the world. Six of the 17 Letters to the Editor (my favorite section in any magazine) were from the Netherlands, and 8 were from the US, with the rest being from England, India, and Chile. Interestingly, there were no letters from Canada, making me wonder whether they're keeping up with their letter-writing reputation these days or just slacking off up there. Maybe their computers are snowed in? Three of the letters were from Portland, OR, once again reminding me that this must be one of the coolest cities in the US and why have I not been there yet?

I saw an advert in Ode for www.zaadz.com (the word for “seeds” in Dutch) and decided to check it out. It appears to be a more grown-up, intelligent, and activism-driven version of MySpace, so of course it totally peaked my interest (often on MySpace I feel like I'm one of the few people who isn't just about drinking, partying, taking internet quizzes [even though I do love them], and trying to collect as many "friends" as possible). I just started my profile today, under my now-common moniker of "It's Lisa, y'all" (which is leading me to wonder what I'll do if I ever move out of the South!). I haven't added much of anything in there, but I'm working on it. After writing up profiles for Blogger and MySpace, I have to find a quiet moment to compose if I want this one to be anything more than a cut-and-paste from the other sites. And, as you can imagine, this is a bit challenging during the holiday season. New year, new Zaadz profile?

Whew! Back in the South

2006-11-27T20:28:00.000-06:00

We just got back from a week-long Thanksgiving break in Michigan. It was SO great to see all of our wonderful family members who lived up there and it really made me wish that they lived somewhere warmer (hint, hint, family!) so that we could live near them again. They are just some of the best people I know!

Of course, I suffered from my usual “this would never happen in the South!” culture-shock as we drove North. In Ohio, I went to step into an elevator and the man in the elevator (who did actually have the right-of-way, but I didn’t see him when I started to step in) pushed passed me without acknowledging my existence as I tried to enter the elevator before he had a chance to exit it.

In contrast, on my first day back in the office, a man who was carrying his lunchbox and a tray of cupcakes sped up to open the door into the building for me, pushed the UP button on the elevator, and let me enter the elevator first. A girl can get used to this kind of treatment, which will then prevent her from being able to live anywhere else. Manners -– something I just love about the South! Way to go, guys!

Tiny, tiny art

2006-10-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

I’m off work today for a “mental health day” and am enjoying sleeping in, reading some stuff on the internet, and will eventually enjoy things like going outside and doing stuff (I am hoping to get a few work-hours-only cancellations in our National Parks Passport Book today).

I followed a link to this site on Wired.com and thought you folks out in the rest of the world would enjoy it if you haven’t seen it yet.

I really love people who go out and just “do art” randomly on the streets of their city and then document it (although I’m not particularly a fan of straight-up graffiti bombers with zero talent) and share it with others. This artist’s work is interesting to me because you could conceivably stumble upon it if you happened to be looking in the right place at the right time. “Hidden in plain sight,” so to speak. And the small stories these mini art works tell are both true and entertaining. Huzzah!

Speaking of chastity belts (which we weren't)...

2006-07-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

Folks, I’m here to talk to you about the humble zipper. I just learned something about the zipper this week that I never knew. Apparently, some zippers have sliders (that’s the little thing that you pull to zip or unzip the zipper) that lock, preventing the zipper from being unzipped while the slider is in the “locked” or “down” position. No more “XYZ” situations for me!

I found out about this unexpected zipper technology while I was talking to a friend of mine at work. I had just gotten a new pair of pants and was telling her that I liked them very much, but complained that the zipper kept sliding down part-way. She asked me if the slider was in the locked position or not. “What are you talking about? Locked?” I asked. She explained that many zippers on pants have the locked/unlocked feature to save you from embarrassing situations and told me to check my own zipper slider. I did so (delicately, in the middle of her cubicle) and found that it was indeed in the up or unlocked position. Ah ha!

After I learned about this locking feature, I made sure to lock my zipper after every trip to “see a man about a horse” and had no further problems. I was so excited about my new knowledge that I told a couple of my friends about it and found that none of them had ever heard of it either. I tried to find a page that explained the technology but came up empty-handed. It seems that you either know about it or you don’t and, if you want to have it explained to you, you need to learn to just accept things on faith instead. It will not let you (or your zipper) down!

Happy, Happy, Dane, Dane!

2006-07-27T22:27:00.000-05:00

Denmark is the happiest country in the world. The United States is the 23rd most happy, out of a total of 178 countries. Not too bad, but lower than I expected. Now I feel sad. Oops, I think we just slipped to 24! I’d better hold it together.

With fire, is how he cuts his hair

2006-07-27T22:22:00.000-05:00

Les and I recently saw an independent film about the Shakespeare & Co Bookshop in Paris, France. The name of the movie is “Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man.” Although I felt like I was watching Part 2 of a movie I had never seen Part 1 of (in that it seemed like a lot of information was just thrown out there with no explanation, as if you already knew about these people, this history, this author, this artist), there were many shocking, laugh-out-loud, and tender moments. I thought, “If I were just a bit more literary, I bet I would really enjoy this movie a lot.”

So, all you avid readers and smart people out there -- check out this movie if you get the chance. I promise that you won’t be disappointed.

Beauticians, on the other hand, should probably steer clear. The 91 year old owner cuts his hair by lighting it on fire and then snuffing it out before it gets too short. I think that would be painful to watch if you were a professional. On the other hand, my friend got THE BEST eyebrow grooming from a gas grill that was a little too-much-gas/too-late-lit. Foomp! But they looked really good!

Borders Layoffs

2006-06-10T13:15:00.000-05:00

I used to work at the Borders (the bookstore) corporate office in Ann Arbor, MI. Those of you who live in the area, work at Borders still, or used to work at Borders are well aware of the fact that about 90 people were laid off there this week. The article about the layoffs in the Detroit News was quite short, so I’ll just post it here:

Borders Group to lay off 90 staffers, mostly at Ann Arbor headquarters
Santiago Esparza / The Detroit News

Borders Group Inc. today announced the layoff of 90 workers, most from the bookstore company's headquarters in Ann Arbor. The layoffs represent about 6 percent of the workforce there, said spokeswoman Anne Roman.

The staffers can receive counseling and severance pay of 30 days of pay plus one week's pay for every year of service. Borders also will provide opportunity for these employees to meet with a professional recruitment firm.

"We have a responsibility to our employees, customers and shareholders to maintain an appropriate balance of costs relative to current and projected sales and income opportunities," Roman said. "Looking at our current trends and five-year plan, it is clear that corporate costs require adjustment at this time."

Roman said the layoffs are not related to the company announcement today it has corrected its first- quarter financial statements, posting a 31-cent loss, two cents more than announced on May 23. The error occurred in fiscal year 2005, company officials said.

There will be no layoffs at the chain's Borders and Waldenbooks stores, Roman said.

The day after it happened, I talked to one of my friends who was laid off and I got the names of other people in the company who were also laid off. Many of them were some of the best people I know and certainly people who had worked hard to make the company as good as it could be, sometimes by asking the unpopular questions or by stepping out of the “yes man” box to bring issues to the forefront. After I heard the list of the employees who got cut, it felt a little bit to me like the company was getting rid of some of its thinkers and questioners to allow itself to move forward on its current path without harassment. I also wondered who would do all the work with these people gone.

The whole situation made me really sad. The economy in all of Southeast Michigan is pretty challenged (part of the reason why we moved out of Michigan), so I know it will be difficult for my friends to find jobs if they want to continue to stay in the Ann Arbor area. Also, letting go of some of its most Borders-esque people (long time employees who really care about the employees in the stores and are trying to make the company great, rather than just profitable) seemed to signify a cultural shift for me -– out with the old and in with the new. I feel that, not only did my friends lose their jobs, but Borders as a company also lost a little bit more of what made me love it in the first place.

Obviously, business is business and publicly-traded companies need to do what they need to do to make the company profitable (something that Borders has been struggling with for quite some time). I get that. But I’m just enough of an idealist to believe that you can hire passionate people who work hard and are innovative and are thinkers and this can lead you to be successful as a company. I don’t believe that the lack of vision at Borders sits in the lower ranks of the company (where most of the cuts occurred). Instead, the upper management is desperately reacting, instead of deliberately acting.

Oh, ipod! What am I going to do with you?

2006-06-09T19:53:00.000-05:00

I got a little ipod for Christmas (just in case you're wondering, I named it "Little Dudelo"). I wasn’t sure when I was going to use it and if I would even enjoy it. I’m not exactly the first adapter of new technology and was thinking, “What I am going to do with this thing? How am I going to find anything on here?” I could see an ipod being useful if you ride the train to work for more than 30 minutes each way or if you are on vacation and don’t want to take your CD collection or if you are moving overseas and can’t take much stuff, but I didn’t know how an ipod would fit into my life. It seemed like more trouble than it was worth. My husband, on the other hand, was THRILLED!

In the past week, however, I have really started to enjoy my ipod a lot. I work in a typical office with the typical office distractions: doors opening and closing, people talking in the open areas or on the phone in nearby cubicles, people yelling at their computers, meetings in nearby conference rooms, etc. I have found that putting my ipod on while I sit at my desk allows me to ignore all of the distractions that are not aimed at me but just happen to occur near me. It also cuts down on some of the distractions that are aimed at me because people assume I’m busy and leave me to my business when they see the earphones in.

Overall, I like the soundtrack of my life to be created by the noise of my surroundings. I’m not generally the type of person who wants to impose a soundtrack of my choosing upon my environment by wearing headphones everywhere I go. I find that I need quiet time where there’s nothing demanding my attention. I’m also a friendly, outgoing person and find that wearing headphones greatly decreases your opportunity to interact with people. But sometimes you do want to cut down on interaction or distraction and I have really enjoyed having a tool to help me do that.

The only bad side effect is my tendency to sing along to my music or do a little dance at my desk. Hopefully, my cubicle neighbors are wearing their own headphones to cut down on that distraction.

Matt Besser Does Belmont

2006-06-07T23:36:00.000-05:00

Tonight we went to a show at Bongo Java’s After Hours Theatre, across the street from Belmont University. Les had read that Matt Besser was going to be in town on his “Woo Pig Sooie” spoken word/comedy tour. If you’re like me, you might be saying, “Who’s Matt Besser, again?” He’s the curly-haired guy from The Upright Citizen’s Brigade, Les reminded me. “Oh, that guy!”

If you’re now saying, “What’s The Upright Citizen’s Brigade?” I guess I have to say that you should just stop reading this post now and go check out the DVD. UCB is scathingly honest, completely ridiculous sketch comedy that makes me laugh, gasp, and fidget in my seat, sometimes all in one scene.

We got to the venue about 40 minutes before the show. With time to kill, we went over to Tabouli’s for a quick bite to eat. I was surprised to find pretty good Middle Eastern food at a restaurant I had never heard of. Nashville’s best kept secret? I must explore that part of town more.

We rushed through dinner to get back in time for the show, only to find that the show had sold out. The woman who seemed to be in charge said that they might do a second show, so we put our names on the waiting list and decided to walk around the surrounding neighborhoods while we waited.

We found the Belmont area charming. We had never been in this area before and really enjoyed walking and looking at houses and yards and the people out and about.

Lucky for us, there was a second show and we got in (how awesome is it that Matt Besser stayed to do two shows back to back?!). When we got up to the After Hours Theatre area, we realized why the first show had sold out so quickly . . . the venue only seats about 35 people! Very intimate!

Matt covered a range of topics during his hour-long show: religion, politics, social pressures, etc. He read letters from his grandmother to his mom that were disturbing and shocking. I could relate to a lot of things he talked about, and I found his somewhat random jumping-from-one-topic-to-another style familiar and conversational. There were sad parts and laugh-out-loud parts and audience participation parts and parts where you just nodded your head or sat and thought. He did a great job.

The show ended with all of us doing the Arkansas Razorbacks cheer: Woo Pig Sooie! Fun!

Here’s a write-up of the show to read if you’re interested. It was a really neat experience, both because of Matt Besser’s performance and because of the tiny venue we saw it happen in.

Boots and Pack

2006-06-03T09:27:00.000-05:00

We’ve been doing quite a bit of hiking in the state parks around Tennessee, trying to enjoy the nice weather and be more active overall, and today we decided to splurge as an anniversary present to ourselves and buy hiking boots and a water backpack.

We went to REI in Brentwood and each bought a pair of Vasque hiking boots on sale (woo-hoo) and picked up a Camelback Rim Runner, too. It holds 100 ounces of water, which just about gets us through a four-hour hike if neither of us are water piggies.

Of course, we had to go and try out our new boots immediately, so we headed over to Edwin Warner Park to hike the blue trail. With our new boots, we felt much more stable on rocky areas and on mud. We also found the padded socks we bought very comfy and cozy to walk in. Best of all, we totally look like real hikers now! So outdoorsy!

Since buying our gear, we have had an opportunity to use it four or fives times so far. We really like everything we bought and are so glad we got it. Hike on!

Urban Hike #3

2006-05-21T20:02:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was one of those days when not much was going on around town, but we felt up for adventure. We decided to create our own. Les came up with the idea of walking from our house into downtown Nashville -– about a 6-mile walk. We knew we were capable of doing it, we just didn’t know how long it would take us or how walker-friendly the route would be. I’ve always felt that you are sure to see interesting things when you walk instead of drive, so we packed our camera into my little “Mr. Friendly” backpack (I bought it in Taiwan. It looks like this, but it’s yellow instead) and headed out.

We followed the same route that we usually drove when heading to the Predators hockey games. It was kind of a warm day and, 15 minutes into the hike, I had out my bandana and my persp-towel, and was sweating like crazy. I was sure that we were going to be completely dehydrated by the time we got to downtown and started wondering, “Why are we doing this again?” which is not really a good thing to be thinking 15 minutes into your multi-hour hike. We stopped and drank big bottles of water about an hour into our walk and used the extremely air conditioned restrooms at a gas station (I mean, it was COLD in there!), which much improved my mood and outlook. We passed some things we had wanted to check out up close and took photos -– a multi-nozzle fire hydrant spigot, a set of abandoned train cars on a bridge, a big cemetery with rolling hills and interesting monuments, a cute yellow building near the power station, construction projects along our route that we had been curious about, etc. I also looked over the edge of every bridge we walked over, just because that’s something I like to do.

We also noticed things we weren’t expecting to see. There’s a house on Spence Lane that has about 40 cement animals scattered around the yard. We had seen that before, but what we hadn’t noticed was that every single animal was wearing a small pair of sunglasses in honor of the summer season. This was probably the highlight of our trip. We also realized that many of the bridges on Hermitage Avenue have people living under them, way up high in the “rafters,” where you would never see them if you were just driving by (I’ve since tried).

It took us about three hours to get into downtown, but we did dawdle along the way. We were sweaty, dirty, smelly, and just overall unappealing by the time we got there. We walked down Broadway and all the tourists looked so clean and sweet-smelling by comparison. I felt like I had just come down from the mountains into civilization. We went into one of the little ice cream shops to get water and use the bathrooms and enjoy the air conditioning, and then we strategized our next steps.

We decided to walk across the pedestrian bridge into East Nashville and see how that went. We were able to find the “cool” part of town and got some snacks at The Turnip Truck (I just love that little place!). Les got directions to Rosepepper Cantina in East Nashville. One of our vegan friends had told us that they offered healthful, quality food with lots of vegetarian (and even vegan) options. Since we were “in the neighborhood” we decided to try it out.It took us another 45 minutes to walk to the Rosepepper. You kind of go out of the neighborhoody parts of East Nashville to get there, so we wondered if we were lost. Getting lost in a car can be frustrating and inconvenient, but getting lost on foot on a multi-hour hike can make you feel like you’re going to have to sleep out here on the streets because you’re expending the same energy you need to get home. Despite my moment of doubting, our good directions didn’t fail us and we soon were sitting down (ahhhh!) and eating some delicious Mexican food. It was some of the best food we ever had and walking four hours to get it might have had something to do with that.

After dinner, we were in a hurry to get home. We had about four hours of real daylight left and, unfortunately, the area closest to our house is the worst area for pedestrians (very little shoulder by the road, no sidewalks, and hills/curves that don’t give you or cars much visibility) so we were eager to get through there when we could be well-seen. It took us about 3.5 hours to make the trip back home from Rosepepper. We had a fast pace and lots of energy after fueling up our bodies. Nonetheless, the last 15 minutes were really hard. We were tired, and it seemed like the entire last part of our hike was uphill (you also don’t notice all the hills along your route until you’re walking), including the major hill into our apartment complex. I had to do some serious motivational lectures in my head to stop from throwing a temper tantrum and insisting that Les get the car and come back for me.

We did make it home before dark and it did feel great to have walked all the way from our house to East Nashville and back. What a sense of accomplishment! Today we went out and drove our route to see how many miles we walked. Although we were extremely tired yesterday and still tired today, we were still surprised by the total –- 20 miles! This is by far the furthest we’ve ever walked! Best of all, I got 45,058 steps yesterday. A new record!

10 Years

2006-05-17T21:33:00.000-05:00

Today is our “first” 10 year anniversary! Wow! And hooray!

Aside: We had two wedding ceremonies so we celebrate two anniversaries each year. Our first wedding was in May in Michigan and was a pretty unusual “progressive party” style of wedding, ending with a ceremony on the beach. Our second wedding was in June in Pennsylvania and was a very lovely and traditional church wedding. The great thing about this (aside from everyone getting their “dream wedding”), is that if we forget our May anniversary, there’s always our June anniversary.

Time has really flown by and we can’t believe we’ve already been married 10 years. Les was so cute and was telling everyone all about it at work, even customers. What a romantic!

Here’s to another 40 years together!

Prunes, the REAL Musical Fruit

2006-05-15T21:52:00.000-05:00

I know this is kind of weird, but I think I like prunes. I feel like I’m about 30 years too young for this emotion, but I’m openly admitting it nonetheless in case there’s a Youthful Prune-eaters Club out there that I can join.

One of my earliest experiences with prunes was not a particularly good one. It was at Lou Mitchell’s restaurant, in the shadow of the Sears Tower in Chicago. This is a diner of “extras” – you get piping-hot donut holes when you walk in the door, ladies get little boxes of Milk Duds as they wait in line, and yes, you even get a prune as part of every meal (maybe to balance the high-calorie diner food?). Because there’s always a line at Lou’s, we opted to sit at the counter for faster service. As soon as we sat down, the busboy put a dish of prunes in front of each of us. They were very fresh – sweet and wet, with the pits still inside. Quite hungry, and knowing that it might be a while before we got our food, I decided to see what this prune thing was all about, and ended up somewhat choking down the fleshy fruit, not at all sure that I liked the strong favor and the slippery texture.

The busboy, mistaking my desperate hunger for an enthusiasm for prunes, decided to hook me up with another prune, giving me a sweet wink as he took away my pit-dish and put another prune on the counter. I swallowed nervously and tried to smile enthusiastically, but did take my time getting around to prune #2, lest a prune #3 not be far behind.

So, it’s surprising that now I’m eating at least a serving of 7 prunes every day after dinner. I may have been roped in by the clever advertising on the package – they are not called “prunes” (except in very small print) but rather “dried plums,” which sounds much more appealing. The packaging also talks a lot about all the great nutritional elements of a prune (other than just the fiber that old people love them for) and it’s pretty convincing. In addition, the mini prunes I eat are more like big raisins than the wet, slimy lump I had at Lou Mitchell’s years ago, though the flavor is the same.

Try a prune out and see what you think. I’ll let you know when I start drinking any of those powered fiber mixers old folks are always advertising on TV. Then you can really start to worry about my premature aging.

A Saturday in Nashville / Urban Hike #2

2006-05-06T23:27:00.000-05:00

Today was a pretty fun day of diverse activities. We swung by the Ryman to pick up tickets for the Erasure acoustic show tonight – something we had been meaning to do, but just hadn’t managed to actually accomplish. They still had tickets left in the balcony (they are only playing a few dates in the US and not any other dates close to us, so we weren’t sure), so we snagged those and then headed out to kill time before the show.

Les had read that there was a local art festival in Centennial Park, so we went to check it out. After many years of attending and fighting crowds at the huge Ann Arbor Art Festival, it was actually a breath of fresh air to not only have fewer artists to look at, but also to have fewer crowds to squeeze through. And the quality of art was just as good!

One of our favorite artists was the couple Lucius & Lenda DuBose. Lucius has some fabulous bird prints that we were immediately drawn to, but they are also wonderful people who we enjoyed just chatting to for 20 minutes about birding, art, and print-making. We hope to see them again in the fall at the bigger Nashville Art Festival. We want to buy one of their prints for Les’s mom, but we need her here to help pick it out.

We did buy a gorgeous wood cutting-board after our onion-flavored watermelon fiasco of a week ago (see Signs of Summer post), but managed to mostly just really enjoy walking around without consuming too much.

To further our urban hiking experiences, we decided to walk from Sitar Indian Restaurant in the Vandy area to the Ryman Auditorium downtown. It’s a little over a mile and half and probably about 20 blocks. It doesn’t sound very far when you say it that way, but it seems far when you’re driving it because you’re going from one side of town to the other. It definitely seems even further when you’re walking it because you get out of the city, over the highway, and you feel like you’re in a land between two lands. The walk there was fine and interesting and enjoyable, but the walk back after the concert was quite rainy and Les couldn’t see a thing through his splattered glasses. I kept saying, “Hey, we’re creating a memory here!” but I was seriously regretting our decision to walk to the show, especially as our clothes got wetter and wetter and heavier and heavier and it seemed like the entire return walk was uphill. We thought about taking a taxi, but we couldn’t remember whether the roof light was on or off if it was available (I now know that if the number light is lit up, the taxi is available; if the top light is off, the taxi is in use) so we just trudged on.

When we finally got to our car, we felt a great sense of accomplishment, but decided that next time we would definitely take an umbrella at least . . . or drive.

My Erasure “5 Things” are:

1. The songs translated surprisingly well into acoustic, countrified versions. I didn’t know many of the songs, but Les (who did know most of the songs) was impressed with how good they sounded as country songs.

2. The crowd was wildly enthusiastic. For once, I felt like I could sit back and not clap at all and still be assured that there would be multiple encores.

3. The balcony is THE place to sit in the Ryman – great view, more elbow room, great sound.

4. Andy Bell said that he was so happy to be performing that he just had to lick the stage. He did, and told the crowd that it tasted just like strawberries. He’s darling!

5. They ended with Respect, which got everyone up and dancing and singing along very dramatically. This music just brings emotive singing-along right out of you!

TMBG

2006-05-06T08:39:00.000-05:00

They Might Be Giants came to town! We just had to go! Les has never seen them live except for an in-store performance at Borders, and I haven’t seen them live since New Year’s Eve 1992 (I think – it’s so long ago, now).

They were originally going to be at City Hall, which is a venue we’ve wanted to go to for a while, but then they changed the venue at the last minute to Exit/In, a smaller club that we saw Sharon Jones at and like quite well.

We got to the club and queued up outside in a sizeable line of people who appeared to have never queued up before (there were two lines for apparently no reason). When we got to the door, we found out that I needed ID to get in, even though – I assure you – I definitely appear to be over 21 and our tickets said nothing about ID being required. We rushed back to our car, drove home, got my ID, searched for parking, and got back to the club in time to see the show, though we did miss the opening band and heard he was great. I am yet again SO thankful for living in such close proximity to the city! If that had happened in Michigan, when we lived an hour from everything, we would have either skipped the show, snuck in, or I would have gotten to wait in the car. Yay, Nashville!

The show was great! TMBG are so clever and energetic and wonderful! We had a fabulous time!
A few years ago, when Les and I were going to 2 to 4 shows a week, we devised a system to boil down our show experiences and document them so that we would walk away with specific memories from each show. It’s just called our “5 Things” list (obviously, it’s more about documenting things than selling our system to the public through clever naming and marketing!).

My They Might Be Giants 5 Things are:

A lot of their songs were faster, more upbeat, rockier takes on the album versions. At times I thought I was at a punk show. Rock on!

They had a confetti cannon for one song. How awesome is that?

The audience was “old” – for once I felt like a young person at 32.

I asked for and got the set list from the sound guy. It’s my first set list ever, and even though it’s not the band’s set list, it still had interesting drawing on it and was cool.

They played a song called “Fingertips,” which is just a bunch of short snippets from never-written songs. It’s a weird song and not exactly one that would be easy to play live, so I was thrilled to hear it.

Urban Hiking

2006-05-04T07:52:00.000-05:00

As many of you who have read my blog know, I have a step-counter and am a little bit obsessed with “getting steps” (10,000 at least) every day. I usually get around 5,000 steps at work, leaving me with another 5,000 steps to get after I arrive at home. Usually, that’s not too much of a problem, but if I arrive home with fewer than 5,000 steps, it can be challenging to get all those steps just walking around our apartment complex.

Yesterday, I arrived home with about 2,800 steps -- a new low for me. Getting up to 10,000 required an intervention, not just a little additional effort. Les, who has become committed to getting me 10,000 steps every day (come hell or high water), suggested a small “urban hike” to make up my deficit. “Let’s walk to our Post Office and back,” he said. Because this is exactly the type of adventure that strikes my fancy, I was chomping at the bit to head out.

Our Post Office is probably about a mile and a half away from us. There are no sidewalks where we live. We have to walk through a construction area that doesn’t have much of a shoulder for a short part, but the rest of our route is either off of the main road or on a road that has a very generous shoulder. We kind of walk past my office on our route and, since I have often wondered if I could walk to work, I was interested to see how long it took us to walk to the Post Office and how dangerous it was to be a pedestrian in a non-pedestrian-friendly area.

It took us about 45 minutes to make the walk each way. This was because we kept stopping to check out things we had never noticed when driving this same route. It’s amazing how much you see when you’re moving at a slow pace: turtles swimming in a pond, baby geese and their parents, old computer monitors dumped in the bushes, a collection of beer bottles in the woods, a parking lot that is easy-in/how-do-I-get-out, unusual businesses you’ve never heard of, weird flowers and trees, and even interesting-looking people encapsulated in their cars driving by.

You also never notice the hills when you’re driving in your car. There’s one killer hill that is long and gradual and I was convinced that we would never make it to the top. But we did, and then there we were . . . at the Post Office.

I have to say that I felt a great sense of accomplishment after we did this walk. I told a lot of people about it and took pride in their looks of, “What on earth were you thinking? Who walks on streets?!” Although it’s obviously much more productive to drive from Point A to Point B, it’s interesting to find out what is within walking distance of your house and what it is like to walk somewhere instead of driving there, the world blurring by your car windows.

Save gas – try walking somewhere.

Living a Lie

2006-04-30T09:39:00.000-05:00

At the last Predators home playoff game, every attendee received a bunch of plastic strips to wave around in the air during the game. Half way through the first period, the announcer said (and it was written on the jumbotron, too), “Everyone, wave your pompons!” “Did he just say ‘pomPON’?” I asked Les, incredulously. Les, who was watching players skate around on the ice, gave me a grunted response, signifying that this was neither the place nor the time to ask such a ridiculous, non-hockey-related question.

So, during the first intermission, I asked the couple in front of me, “Did you hear the announcer say ‘pomPON’?” “Yes,” the woman replied, “and it’s printed in the program, too!” We both agreed that we had always thought it was “pompom” and now felt like we had possibly been living a lie for the last 30 years. As if to make us feel worse, the man added that he was familiar with the “pompon” term. His high school had a Pompon Squad, and he remembered very clearly that it was an “n” and not an “m” at the end of the word.

When I got home, I had to Google it to find out which term was really right. After all, can you really believe a hockey announcer and a hockey fan who says he remembers cheerleading squad information 15 years after the fact? Apparently you can. After looking this up online, I found this following information on a Common Errors in English website:

“To most people that fuzzy ball on the top of a knit hat and the implement wielded by a cheerleader are both “pompoms,” but to traditionalists they are “pompons,” spelled the way the French—who gave us the word—spell it. A pompom, say these purists, is only a sort of large gun. Though you’re unlikely to bother many people by falling into the common confusion, you can show off your education by observing the distinction.”

I couldn’t believe that I had been so grammatically incorrect for so many years! Next thing you know, I’ll be saying “Valentime’s Day,” “ying and yang,” “libary,” and “expresso”! Ugh!

Signs of Summer

2006-04-30T09:04:00.000-05:00

As the weather has been getting gradually warmer here in TN, I’ve been seeing the signs of summer appearing in my everyday activities. Two weekends ago, I painted my toenails for a CD cover photo I was making about picnicking. Painting my toenails is one of the earliest signs of summer-to-be. It means that I am committing to wearing toe-less shoes at least three or four days each week so that everyone can see my awesome polish-job (“Hide it under a shoe-toe? No! I’m gonna let it shine!”). For my fake picnic set up, it was about 75 degrees out and certainly felt warm enough for a picnic outside on the as-yet-unmowed lawn. You could feel in the air that summer was coming. Yes, it was exciting!

Here are a few other signs of summer I’ve observed so far this season:

Last weekend we ate a watermelon. It was actually pretty good (8 out of 10 on the Larry-Lyle rating scale – my family’s standard measurement for watermelon), but we unfortunately sliced it up on a cutting board that had last had onions on it, and the onion taste managed to permeate the watermelon in parts! Oh, well!

I have put away my ice scraper (being from Michigan originally, I am one of the few TN residents who own a deluxe ice scraper with brush, two blades, and an extendable reach option) and gotten out my sunshade (folks, I still attest that this really does keep you car cooler).

Les and I are looking at lawn furniture. Sure, we only have a small balcony at our apartment, but it would be nice to sit out on it on these cool spring evenings.

I’m starting to wonder when the pool in our apartment complex is going to open. There have already been a few days when swimming seemed appealing.

We’re starting to make our list of summer festivals we want to attend in Tennessee (any ideas, please comment in my blog).

Les is wearing shorts and Birks everywhere except to work.

The outside patio at restaurants is fuller than the inside rooms.

It’s too hot to wear my hockey jersey to the Predators games. I have to carry it there, then put it on over my short sleeves once we get inside the arena.

My feet are getting too hot in regular shoes and I’m only too happy to show off my sparkly toenails in flip-flops.

People in my office have started wearing short pants and tank tops to work.

If summer hasn’t quite made it to you yet, be patient. It’s coming in all its glory soon!

Weight on the High Seas

2006-04-30T08:33:00.000-05:00

I heard on the radio that the Coast Guard is taking a look at adjusting the per person weight average on smaller boats from the current 140 pounds to possibly as high as180 pounds in reaction to the American obesity epidemic. This has been brought about by a couple of ferries that capsized because (they think) there was too much weight on board and the boat became unstable. The last time the weight average was adjusted was in 1960. It’s hard to believe that the average American has gained 40 pounds in 40 years, but I suppose that a pound a year isn’t that dramatic of a weight gain . . . on a single person. It seems pretty dramatic as a national average.

Ferry operators are upset because this will change the maximum number of people allowed on the boats – one man said his load will go from 260 people to 225, for instance – and that will reduce their profits. He also complained that the weight adjustment doesn’t make sense for captains who more often take out a group of children rather than larger and heavier adults. Maybe it’s time to say good-bye to the idea of weight averages and accept the fact that things are too diverse and atypical to stay with our old system.

I may be too pragmatic, but I feel that the obvious answer here is to make a law that all charter boat operators weigh in their customers to make sure they do not go over their maximum weight, regardless of the number of people on board. Although some customers may feel uncomfortable with this, it really is for the good of all on board and has to happen. If you are afraid of getting on a scale, then charter boating is not for you.

Right now our luggage gets weighed on flights (and on small planes the flight attendants actually move larger people around to balance the weight on the plane) and there are certain sports like sky-diving and bungee jumping which have weight requirements because of the limitations of the equipment. It doesn’t seem radical that boating requires similar safety measures.

Historic Nashville

2006-03-26T13:03:00.000-06:00

I love historic photos of places and old postcards, so when I stumbled upon this Historic Nashville website, I thought I would share the wealth with all of you. There are some interesting images and write-ups here. I know virtually nothing about historic Nashville, so even reading about who Granny White was (there is a road named after her, after all) was interesting.

What’s your favorite picture or tidbit?

How's Your Pooh-sticking?

2006-03-26T11:09:00.000-06:00

I was scanning through the various news pages today and stumbled across this story on a real Pooh-sticks competition that is held annually in Oxfordshire. I read the books as a child and have played Pooh-sticks on a number of occasions, so I thought it was fun that someone got serious about it for charity.

This story also seems to demonstrate that you can make an event out of anything, which is comforting. I do enjoy easily entertained people (like myself).

When I mentioned this news story to my husband, he said, “You should include a link to some information about that UK band called the Pooh Sticks. Are they even still doing anything?” It appears that the Pooh Sticks have disbanded, but I’m including a link to their unofficial fan page here anyway.

Second Friday of Exploration

2006-03-18T12:49:00.000-06:00

As part of my own March “use up that paid time off” Madness, I left work early two Fridays in a row (this time I actually made it out of the office by 1:00 p.m.) to have some fun with Les. We got a late lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant, Sitar (where I actually enjoy the non-buffet better than the buffet), and then went exploring in search of the old City Cemetery.

Les knew approximately where it was, but I had never even heard of it. We started just driving south on 4th Avenue, looking for signs of a park-like atmosphere among the industrial buildings. Suddenly, there it was! But unable to react quickly enough, we drove right by the entrance! We tried to circle the block, but ended up not being able to find a way around and found ourselves over by the Nashville Sounds stadium instead. In attempting to loop around another way, we noticed Fort Negley up on the hill. Surprised that we had never noticed it before and curious to see what it was about, we parked our car and got out and walked around.

The area seemed well-maintained and well-documented. Although it was virtually empty when we visited on this cold, gray day in March, I would imagine that it’s much more active during the summer months when droves of Civil War enthusiasts visit the South. At least there were a lot of parking spots.

From the top of the fort, we could look across the valley to the City Reservoir, yet another thing we had never noticed before, despite the fact that one of our favorite record stores – Grimey’s – sits right in its shadow. I always wondered what that “Reservoir Park” across the street from them was all about. A Nashville local landmarks page says: “Located at 1401 8th Avenue South and built between 1887 and 1889, the Reservoir is an elliptical masonry structure with a holding capacity of slightly more than 51 million gallons in two sections. In 1912, the southeast wall broke, pouring 25 million gallons toward the fair grounds. There was property damage, but no lives were lost. The gate house visible from nearby streets and highways contains the valves that control the flow of water from one side of the reservoir to the other.” You can’t get too close to it because it is surrounded by a high fence, but it was interesting to see it anyway.

Eventually, we did manage to make it back to the Nashville City Cemetery. Although it was colder and getting too late in the afternoon to really enjoy our time outside, we did a quick circuit around the area. It was kind of sad to see the state of disrepair that our oldest cemetery is currently in. A lot of headstones are broken and unreadable and the grounds seemed neglected. There were bullet holes in some of the windows and the fences around family plots were bent or missing entirely. It looked abandoned and uncared for. This is a shame considering how many famous early Nashvillians are buried there and what a part of our history this site represents. If you haven’t been there, I suggest you go and check it out before it gets any worse.

This Friday wasn’t as fun as the Friday before due to the colder weather and lack of sun, but we still stumbled upon three interesting things here in our fair city.

Cedars of Lebanon, TN

2006-03-12T10:21:00.000-06:00

Over a year ago, a person I met on a graveyard tour of Warner Parks ("Take a walk back in time visiting the cemeteries of the Parks. Take a step into the future to see what park staff and volunteers are doing to preserve these historical treasures.") suggested that I join her and a group from Tennessee Trails on an excursion to the Cedars of Lebanon State Park, about 35 minutes East of Nashville.

The scheduling didn't work out at the time, but this Saturday Les and I ventured East to check it out for ourselves. Since I am still obsessed with "getting steps" (thanks to my hip-side step counter), I suggested that we take the five-mile trail through the woods. We started around 3:00 p.m., and I was sure that we could hike five miles in three hours, getting back to the car before the sun went down around 5:45 p.m.

The "cedars" in this state park are actually juniper trees (I looked that up on the internet -- I'm not that much of a tree-identifying genius...), but were mistaken for cedars by the first settlers in the area. Aside from a forest of juniper trees, the other interesting thing about this park is that there are a lot of limestone sinkholes throughout the area, many large enough to fall into and crack your head open. We also saw a few sinkholes that looked like they could be caves, but since we didn't have our spelunking gear with us, we stayed top-side.

The discovery of these big holes did create a sense of urgency as we considered navigating the trail post-dusk, and our first-hour exploratory attitude shifted to, “Let’s not dawdle too much!”

By 5:30 p.m., I was convinced that we were certainly never going to make it around the loop to the trailhead where we had started. It seemed like we had been walking for hours, and I was reminded of the time I walked the 8-mile loop at Kensington Park, convinced by mile 5 that I had surely walked past my parked car and was going around a second time (I hadn’t – it was just a really, really long trail). Back in the juniper forest, I was encouraged when we came out of the dead-quiet of deep wilderness and emerged on the edge of a housing development. We hiked in sight of open fields and houses for 15 minutes, before heading back into the woods. Just as I was starting to feel a little nervous (again), we saw signs for the trailhead and were back in our car by 5:55 p.m.

Overall, the Cedars of Lebanon State Park features a variety of terrain, a pretty level hiking path, and a definite sense of being far away from civilization. But we hardly saw any wildlife, which seemed odd for being so far out in the woods with nary a human in sight (new slogan for Cedars State Park: “If you hate wildlife, you’ll love our park!”). Because of the tree cover, you are rarely hiking in direct sunlight, but you don’t get much of a breeze either. We were glad to be visiting the park during a mid-70s day rather than a day with a higher temperature. We thought it could get a little hot in there during the summer months.

After hiking, we drove further down Route 231 to Murfreesboro to get dinner at The Clay Pit, an Indian restaurant we had read good things about. Although the cafeteria-style buffet is unusual (you feel like a piggy getting up in front of everyone to ask for seconds; on the plus side, there is less wasted food), the food was great and the staff made you feel very welcomed.

All in all, it was a great day!

Oblivious to Modern Technology (once again)

2006-03-11T12:51:00.000-06:00

I was sitting at a red light the other day and happened to look up and notice that the traffic light for the cars crossing my lane was really thin. Like razor-thin. Like if-you-took-off-the-glare-shields-and-the-light-turned-sideways-you-could-barely-see-it thin. When did this happen?

Sure, I had heard the rumors about LCD lights being used in traffic lights. I had even noticed that some traffic lights appear to have flat lenses now instead of the rounded lenses I was used to. Yet in my mind, the depth of traffic lights remained the same, regardless of the type of light used. I was picturing all lights to be as thick or thicker than the light in the photo above, only to find that I am completely oblivious to modern technology once again!

On a related topic, for years I have been curious about how lights know when to change colors. Sure, some lights are obviously just on a basic timer, but what about those lights that seem to know when a car is waiting on a low-traffic road and can change in response? If you are curious like me, you need to wonder no more, because I have finally gotten around to doing the research for you! You will be happy to know that some lights have a metal-detector-type sensor buried under the pavement that can detect the metal in your car and know that someone is waiting. Of course, if you drive an all plastic car, this will be an issue. Otherwise, it works nearly flawlessly.

Next time you're sitting at a light, look up. Are you shocked by its thinness also?

Friday Afternoon Delights

2006-03-10T22:07:00.000-06:00

I have a little extra vacation time at the end of this year (our fiscal year ends in March, oddly enough), so I've been able to take a few Fridays (or Friday afternoons) off this month, enjoy some of the warm-ish Spring weather, and spend some time hanging out with Les during weekday daylight hours.

Last Friday was a beautiful warm and sunny day, more like early May than mid-March, and I couldn’t wait to get out of the office and into the great outdoors! I left my office at 2:00 p.m. (barely “early,” but those few extra hours do count), went home and changed, and then Les and I went off in search of food (yes, I had skipped lunch to get out early). We headed to Maggiano’s Little Italy for a late lunch. It’s a chain restaurant on West End that we had heard good things about, but had also heard that it was a nightmare to get into because it was so popular. As expected, it was pretty empty at 2:30 p.m., and we were able to get in and out in less than an hour (I should say we were able to be rolled out of the restaurant an hour later, full of gnocchi with vodka sauce and roasted new potatoes), and move on to our next stop.

Being obsessed with “getting steps” like I am, the key goal for me for the day was to get my step-counter up to 10,000. I had spent most of the day at my desk (working hard so that I could leave early), so I was only at 3,000 by 2:00 p.m. We headed to Radnor Lake State Park (one of Les’s favorite walking areas because of the level terrain and the abundance of wildlife) and got moving. During our hike, we saw about 15 turtles (including two very large turtles who appeared to be mating in a small pond – racy!), a few different birds (but nothing too exciting), three muskrats, and what appeared to be a beaver (with signs of beaver activity on trees in the area). We also saw lots of cute dogs (on leashes), a few cute kids, and a variety of people walking around the lake.

Since we still had an hour of daylight 8,000 steps later, we decided to drive around the Radnor Lake area and see what we could find. We stumbled across the David Lipscomb University area, an area we had never been to before (and one where we wish we could afford to live), and got takeout from Perfect Pizza (yum!). We headed home, pizza in hand, and caught up on some of our recorded programs (we are totally digging Deep Sea Detectives on the History Channel at the moment), and both agreed that it was a perfect day thanks to good weather, good activity, good food, and quality time together.

Thinking about blogging does not a blogger make...

2006-02-27T18:36:00.000-06:00

While there are some pursuits where thinking about something is nearly the same as actually doing it (like, philosophy, for instance, and . . . erm, okay, I can't think of anything else that really applies here), blogging is not one of those things, unfortunately for me.

As you can see from my blog, there's been very little DOING lately even though there has been a great deal of THINKING going on. Really, I swear! I think about blogging all the time as I'm driving down the road...

What's been taking my time lately? Well, for a while I could use the Olympics as an excuse. We had just gotten a DVR (think "Tivo" but with a different name, through Comcast) and we were recording every ounce of Olympic programming. Our DVR was constantly at 98% full. We were watching four hours of Olympics a night for a while there, and that was fast-forwarding through all the commercials and the boring parts of the events themselves ("Nope, no falls yet! 30 laps of speed skating to go. Keep fast-forwarding!"

Now, I'm currently addicted to Ape Escape 3 for PS2. It's my perfect kind of video game -- cute monkeys, not too hard, not many jumps to make over an abyss, etc. I'm at 51% right now, and will keep renting it with my free blockbuster coupons until I'm nearly done . . . or completely sick of it. In Ape Escape 2, I got to a part that I could not get past, and I gave it up around 75%. We'll see how far I get on this one.

But, just so all of you know, I am thinking about blogging and hope to one day soon be more than just a thinker again.

Public Art in Nashville

2006-02-04T13:45:00.000-06:00

During the Christmas holiday, a friend visited us from Tampa, FL. He moved to Tampa about a year ago and has spent the past 12 months visiting and photographing every public art site that he can find in Tampa and the surrounding area. When he visited Nashville, he was interested in doing something similar in our lovely city. The problem was, I couldn't find a list of public art anywhere. I knew where a couple of pieces were, but did not know of a compiled list that you could work towards "checking off."

Since my friend's return to Tampa, I've been compiling my own personal list of things I want to see and do in Nashville and I revisited the public art checklist idea. I did a little research, but could only really come up with this site. While the details about each of the pieces listed are extensive, I know that there are a lot of works left off of this list. Do any Nashvillians know of a more comprehensive list that exists? If not, I'm half tempted to make up a list of my own.

Urban Explorers

2006-01-22T00:17:00.000-06:00

Although Les tells me he has known about Urban Explorers for years (which means I knew about them at one time, too, but have managed to forget it somewhere along the way -- my brain is kind of small and doesn't have a lot of extra space, so I have to abandon unused information to make room for new details), I am just (re)discovering this interesting group of people. They break into abandoned buildings, underground passageways, and other places otherwise reserved for "authorized personnel" only, explore these forbidden areas, and often photo-document what they see.

I just spent a few moments Googling for photos of Vanderbilt University's underground tunnels, which I read about in an old article in the Nashville Scene. Although I didn't find what I was looking for, I did turn up photos from the adventures of other Urban Explorers.

I really liked the photos on this website so I thought I would share them on my blog. The pictures that had the greatest appeal to me were the ones from abandoned office spaces. I think that's because I work in a typical office and know what it should normally look like. Therefore, seeing binders all over the floor or shelves of unused supplies or a copier that hasn't been turned on in months is a strange glimpse into my own personal Bizarro World. And, being the nosey kind of person I am, my mind can't help but speculate on what I'd find in their filing cabinets or on the speed dial buttons of their phones.

It seems like it would be very eerie to walk around a building that is unused but still full of machinery, office supplies, and furniture. I would imagine that you would get a bit of a post-apocalyptic feeling, as if you were the only person left in the world.

However, potential creep-out aside, the real reason I wouldn't be a good Urban Explorer is that I'm too "goody two shoes" and too afraid of getting caught. Still, I can enjoy living vicariously.

Happy Birthday, Poe!

2006-01-19T12:33:00.000-06:00

I just heard on NPR that today is Edgar Allen Poe's birthday. I thought, "Wow! Who knew? I should totally go home and read some Poe! I have a BA in English Lit after all -- reading Poe is what I do!"

Then I thought, "Who are you kidding? You're never going to go home and read Poe! You're going to be reading Bartimaeus instead. Poe is too depressing for bedtime reading, and you never really liked his stories that much anyway!"

Then I thought, "Seriously, who has time to keep track of the birthdays of famous dead people? I can't even keep track of my car keys!"

So, Poe, I won't be reading any of your works today, and I didn't even know it was your birthday, and I guess it doesn't even matter to me that much, but I hope it was happy.

Honorary Family Member

2006-01-18T21:50:00.000-06:00

My husband got a new program for our iMac and, in the process of learning how some aspect of it worked, he stumbled upon this family's website. I love their videos and now would like to be an honorary member of the DiLoreto family. If you have a moment, please check out "MTV" and "Beach Dancing." I laughed and laughed. Even the grandparents are SO fun!

If you're not out of your seat while watching these home movies, you obviously don't have your volume turned up loud enough.

Shake it!

New Invention Request: Cereal Sieve

2006-01-17T06:37:00.000-06:00

I just poured myself a bowl of cereal, emptying out the box. As I got to the bottom, it was mostly dust, with a few tidbits of real cereal. Herein lies my dilemma: If I dump the entire contents of the box into my bowl, all the cereal dust will create a sludgy effect which is really gross. If I leave the last five tablespoons in the bottom of the bag, I feel like I'm wasting cereal.

I tried to use a standard spaghetti strainer to get rid of all the dust, leaving only the bigger bits behind, but somehow the cereal dust ended up clogging up the strainer holes, and it really wasn't very effective.

Any brilliant ideas?

Series Photos

2006-01-16T11:54:00.000-06:00

Series photos are something that I enjoy but have not created for a few years. If you looked through the personal photos of my college years, however, you would find at least three or four different photo series in my collection. My favorite is a series I did with an exclamation mark sticker I pulled off of a CD case. I have a whole roll of film of various people holding that sticker. It still makes me laugh.

I was delighted when my husband found this web page, documenting a series of over 900 photos where people are covering one eye. It reminded me of a similar series of photos I had on my wall in college . . . I had just happened to stumble across three photos in music magazines of people itching one eye, and I lined them all up together.

It looks like the blogger has his email posted at the bottom of the page, and I bet that if you took a photo of yourself covering one eye, he would post it on his blog. Pretty cool!

Bathroom Queue Ponderings

2006-01-16T11:35:00.000-06:00

As I was standing in line for the restrooms at the end of the last Nashville Preds game, a few thoughts crossed my mind. In an effort to put a toe over the line into "too much information" land, I thought I would share those thoughts here.

1. It is great to be a woman at a sporting event. For once, the guys restroom line is as long or longer than the girls. Ha, ha!

2. Seriously, what are women doing in those stalls that it takes them so long to come out again? The mind reels. Especially since they come out of the stalls and then primp in the mirror for another five minutes. Our lines may be shorter but the time per person is extremely inefficient. Hurry up!

3. In Taiwan (where I lived for six months), they really know how to queue up for the restrooms. Each person stands in front of a specific stall door, thereby eliminating most of the line that usually bottlenecks the entrance to the restroom. It makes the line look a lot shorter to people entering the restroom, making your restroom visit less discouraging (at least initially). Queueing in front of a specific stall also eliminates those moments of indecision when two stall doors open and you're not sure which one to go for first. On the negative side of this restroom strategy, if you pick the wrong door to stand in front of it could be really annoying. I keep meaning to try and organize it sometime, but I think the people in the restroom might be totally freaked out by it. On the plus side, the line might actually get shorter as people flee from my freakiness!

I was trying to find a link to a study I once read about where "scientists" measured the amount of time women took in the restroom vs. men. It was at least twice as long for women. Instead, I found this link to a research project someone at the University of Chicago Law School was doing on men's vs. women's restrooms. Since it's topical, I thought I would include the link here.

Wax Me 16

2006-01-09T11:34:00.000-06:00

One of my hesitancies about getting my bushy eyebrows waxed in the first place was that I worried they would be waxed unevenly, making me look like some kind of a freak (as if my own plucking was perfectly symmetrical or as if having two furry catepillars above my eyes didn't make me look like a freak!). And I must admit that I usually come home, look in the mirror, and do some additional grooming after I get them waxed. This last waxing, however, I looked in the mirror and noticed that my right eyebrow was much more arched than the other one, making me look like I was raising one eyebrow in a sarcastic manner.

This immediately took me back to my teenage years, when raising one eyebrow sarcasticly was something that happened many, many times a day. My friends and I would practice single eyebrow raising in the mirror, and see if we could raise our left eyebrows as effectively as our right ones (ambidextrous eyebrows?). I remember someone even giving me this compliment once: "You can really raise that one eyebrow really high! Wow!" Obviously, my eyebrow-lift exercises were paying off!

Of course, I fixed the left eyebrow so that it looked similarly sarcastic, thereby neutralizing the right one. And then, just for kicks, I tried to raise just one of them sarcastically. I'm not that good at it any more, but my left eyebrow is definitely the stronger of the two. Maybe some more exercises are in order. Just in case.

Waste as Art

2006-01-03T12:03:00.000-06:00

All of us have probably seen art made out of garbage at some point in our lives (if you haven't, you might need to get out and visit a contemporary art gallery a little more often). Although it sometimes make you feel like you're being tricked by people cleverer than you into believing anything is art, a lot of garbage-as-art can really be beautiful, emotional, and overwhelming in its meaning.

One of my recently discovered trash artists is Chris Jordan. His series on consumerism and waste is really powerful. Check out his photographs here. Be sure to read his artist statements because I think they give even more meaning to the photos (as a good artist statment should!). His series on waste not only makes me even more driven to be a good recycler, but also makes me reconsider the long list of things I want to buy.

Behold! The Chex Mix!

2005-12-17T09:32:00.016-06:00

It is writ, "Man shall not live by chex mix alone." How fortunate, then, that I am a woman! Every Christmas season brings about the mixing of the chex and it seems that I spend the next 48 hours, post-mix, pretending that chex mix is the only food in the entire house.

Chex mix for breakfast? Why not! It's got cereal in it! Chex mix for lunch? Sure! It's fast and easy and portable! Chex mix for dinner? Of course! Those nuts give you a lot of protein to keep you full while you sleep!

Because I love it so much, I thought I would share my recipe here. It's actually my mother-in-law's recipe, but I kind of suspect that she got it off of a chex box. What she did do is double or triple the recipe so that you have a LOT of chex mix at the end of it all.

Ingredients:
-- 2 large boxes of Chex cereal (corn and rice)
-- 1 bag of pretzels (Synder butter or other pretzel you like)
-- 2 10-ounce containers of deluxe mixed nuts
-- 1 or 2 packages of garlic mini-chips (in the Deli section at Kroger's)
-- 8 ounces or so of some sort of cracker (this year I used Musso's Deli Dippers Snacksticks -- in the Deli section at Kroger's, but I've also used those pretzel thins)
-- 18 Tbs of salted butter
-- 8 Tbs of Worchester sauce
-- 6 tsp seasoned salt
-- 4 tsp garlic powder
-- 3 tsp onion powder

Instructions:
-- Heat oven to 220 degrees.
-- Layer all ingredients in 9 x 12 casserole dishes (I have to use three casserole dishes for this recipe) or other glass baking dishes
-- Melt butter in the microwave and mix all the seasonings into the melted butter
-- Pour butter/seasonings mix over the dry ingredients in the dishes (stir butter-sauce while pouring or all seasonings will sink to the bottom)
-- Using a large spatula, gently and thoroughly flip ingredients in the dishes, spreading the butter sauce around
-- Put pans in the oven for 15 minutes. When timer goes off, pull pans out and flip ingredients in the pans
-- Put pans in for another 15 minutes. Stir again.
-- Put pans in for another 15 minutes. Stir again.
-- Put pans in for another 15 minutes.
-- Turn off oven. Stir ingredients one last time. Let cool/sit in oven overnight.
-- Transfer to a tupperware in the morning.

The secret is in the mixing! I usually not only stir each baking dish but also swap the chex mix from one dish to another. The more thoroughly you mix it, the more consistent the flavor is as you eat it.

Enjoy! You will have a very large quantity to share or to pig out on all by yourself!

Anti "Happy Holidays"

2005-12-15T12:07:00.000-06:00

Apparently, I'm not alone in my feelings. A recent poll released by Gallup states:

Most Americans think the trend toward saying "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" at Christmastime is a change for the worse. But is it therefore a bad marketing decision for retailers to greet customers this way? Gallup finds some evidence of a consumer backlash, as 32% of Americans say it bothers them when stores use "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" in their displays at this time of year instead of "Merry Christmas."

While the generic greetings bother a third of the public, there is almost unanimous public tolerance for the phrase, "Merry Christmas." Only 3% of national adults say it bothers them when stores specifically refer to the Christian holiday in their displays, rather than "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings."

(These results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,013 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Dec. 5-8, 2005.)

I am not sure if you need a subscription to Gallup to read the rest of the article, but I'm including the link anyway.

"Merry Christmas" is the new rebellion

2005-12-11T11:52:00.000-06:00

After working in a secular environment for years, being conditioned to never say "Merry Christmas" for fear of offending someone, it has been weird to work in a Christian environment (like I do now) where the reverse is true. People fully embrace "Merry Christmas" and some people are offended if you don't use it in giving your December well-wishes.

Since I've always preferred "Merry Christmas" anyway ("Happy Holidays" is fine, but "Season's Greetings" sounds like a phrase that was created in 1928, and seems so old-timey and irrelevant now), I've been happy with this transition back to my original holiday greeting, but I still catch myself saying "Merry Christmas" guiltily, as if I'm getting away with something by being non-generic.

Maybe I've sunk into a false sense of security, living in a place with a higher Christian population than I'm accustomed to. It seems like you're less likely to get busted using "Merry Christmas" in Nashville than up in Michigan. I feel like "Merry Christmas" is just more the norm down here. I noticed last December when I visited this area that everyone said "Merry Christmas" to me (as opposed to "Happy Holidays") -- waitresses at Shoney's, clerks at the mall, sweet gentlemen holding the door open for me, even the skycap at the airport. I even had a life-long Nashville resident tell me that he had never thought of a Christmas Tree as a Christian symbol (I was talking about the difficulty of buying "holiday" cards for a secular corporation and how anything that had any type of Christmas ornament, symbol, or reference was taboo).

And I guess that I just don't buy the idea anymore that people are so easily offended by "Merry Christmas." I know I wouldn't be offended by someone wishing me a "Happy Chanukkah" or "Happy Kwanza" or "Happy Winter Solstice" or "Happy Boxing Day" or "Merry Festivus"! Seriously, try me!

Boring Boredey Bored

2005-12-10T22:56:00.000-06:00

The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'.
--Phillip Lopate

Although I do not consider myself someone who has a hard time relaxing (based on all the weekends where it seems I don't do much of anything), the Friday after Thanksgiving was one of the most boring days in recent history.

Les was working and I was home all by myself, with nothing at all to do for the day except "whatever I wanted to do." You would think this would be a fantastic thing; it certainly seemed to be something that I had been longing for for months. Yet, after sleeping in as late as I could, I found myself pacing nervously around the apartment. What to do? What to do?

Chores were out -- this was supposed to be a vacation day, a "day off," after all.

Shopping was out -- one of the worst days of the year to do it, and I'm not a big shopper anyway.

And I felt too distracted to concentrate on a book or a movie.

Too many options, and I couldn't select just one!

In the end, I watched a movie (Saved) that we had had out from Blockbuster's mail order for four months, just so I could check "Watch Saved and send it back to Blockbuster" off of my To Do List (I knew I could slip a chore in there somehow!). I went and got the mail. I paged through a magazine (backwards, the way I always look at magazines). I took a shower.

At last, Les came home around 4:30 and I could cook dinner and do whatever he wanted to do. You'd think that after six months living by myself in TN, I could thoroughly entertain myself for six hours one Friday. Guess not.

What happens if . . .

2005-12-03T01:23:00.000-06:00

Here's a photo of what might happen if you try to scootchy-scootch in front of me!
Consider yourself warned!

Thanksgiving Cooking Rule #5

2005-11-24T15:04:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving Cooking Rule #5 is: No matter how tempting, do not try to dispose of the peelings from five pounds of potatoes in your in-sink garbage disposal. Potato starch turns to glue really quickly.

Trust me on this one. Seriously, I know all about this.

Persistence Pays Off!

2005-11-24T09:30:00.000-06:00

The year was 1997 and I was in a revenge state of mind. We were sitting in a movie theatre watching the credits of Spice World (yep, the Spice Girls movie) roll past. I had blindfolded my friend Rob, led him into the theatre, and made him watch this movie against his wishes.

What had he done to deserve such a cruel fate? He had taken me to see David Lynch's Lost Highway a few weekends prior. I had really hated that movie. In fact, I would have walked out of the theatre after the first 10 minutes if it hadn't been for the fact that Rob was my ride home.

And so, to get back at him, I had made him watch Spice World. It actually hadn't been that bad (especially compared to Lost Highway), and I was thinking that he might have gotten off easy, so I decided that we would stay to the bitter end and watch all of the credits, too.

As the last of the words rolled up the screen, we began collecting our things, getting ready to leave. But wait! There's more! The Spice Girls came back on the screen and told us to go home. At the end of the credits, something else happened. Who knew?

This experience changed me forever. Now I always stay in the movie theatre until the credits have rolled by and the theatre lights have come on, just in case something awesome happens after the words. 98% of the time, nothing happens. But Tuesday night I went to a free screening of The Producers, and there was a post-credit bonus sequence. And there were only about six people in the theatre to see it. Vindication!

So, if you go and see The Producers, stay until the bitter end. It's worth waiting for...

It's a Flip Flop Flying Christmas!

2005-11-24T09:00:00.000-06:00

I know that Thanksgiving isn't even over yet, so it might be too soon to speak of Christmas, but I'm going to do it anyway. I have neglected to mention one of my favorite websites of all times: Flip Flop Flying. The site was created by this guy named Craig Robinson, a Brit who now lives in Berlin. Craig is the creator of "Minipops." You may have seen a book about minipops in stores last holiday season or you might have seen minipops on album covers or magazines in the last couple of years. If you're totally oblivious to the minipops phenomenon, I believe you will be delighted when you first gaze upon them and figure them out.

In my opinion, Craig is brilliant. I admire his sense of humor, his dedication to his work, and his overall coolness. There are many creative people that I have jealously wanted to switch personalities and lifestyles with, and Craig is one who's at the top of my list.

I haven't visited his website for quite a while. Since the last time I was there, he has added a blog and a blog for his dog and a bunch of new characters to The World of Flip Flop Flying.

Although I don't visit FFF every month, I am always reminded of this website every Christmas season because one year he did a really fun internet Advent calendar which I did check every day (I am utterly obsessed with Advent calendars for some reason). He has done other interesting Christmas things, and you can view all of them here.

Take a moment to poke around on his website and absorb the brilliance that is Craig. I do not think you'll be disappointed!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-24T03:39:00.000-06:00

I was so tuckered out last night that I went to bed really early. It's not surprising that I woke up at 2:30, after about 6 hours of sleep, and was wide awake. I thought I would take an opportunity to wish you all an early morning Happy Thanksgiving! Perhaps my friends with new babies will be awake, too, catching up on blogs during their early morning feeding... If so, HELLO!

I was thinking, "Maybe I should start cooking something!" but then decided that that seemed a little bit crazy, especially since it's just the two of us for Thanksgiving and we can eat whenever we want to today.

Instead, I thought that I would give everyone my veggie Thanksgiving recipe. Since we're vegetarian, we never have turkey for Thanksgiving (obviously), but I make this chicken roast instead. Yes, I know it should be a turkey roast to be consistent with the holiday, but for some reason it has always been a chicken roast through the years and so the tradition continues.

If you're not vegetarian and you're not a roast eater, I fear that you will read the ingredients and think, "Gross!" In my experience, however, the magic of roasts is that you can throw a lot of disconnected things into a pan, mix them up, bake them, and they turn out delicious!

Stuff you will need:

-1.5 cups soft bread crumbs (just run pieces of bread through a food processor until you have enough)

-13 oz. frozen veggie chicken, shredded in a food processor and added to the bread crumbs (I use Worthington Foods' "Meatless Chicken Style" veggie protein; it comes in a big roll in the freezer section and usually has to be purchased at an Adventist Book Center -- check your phone book for the nearest ABC location)
-1/4 cup chopped onion (I don't like onions, so I blend them in a little blender thingy until they're nearly onion juice!)
-1 tsp McKay's Chicken Seasoning, vegetarian (also usually purchased at an Adventist Book Center; it comes in a jar and is in powered form)
-1/2 cup mayo
-1 tsp lemon juice
-1/2 cup milk (use condensed milk if you're really being "naughty")
-2 Tbsp vegetable oil
-crushed corn flakes to go on top of the roast, for a crispy upper crust

Directions:
-Shred bread and chicken in food processor (I use the blade that has lots of holes in it)
-Add oil, onions, chicken seasoning, mayo, and lemon juice
-Mix well
-Put into greased (or no-stick sprayed) smaller (9x9 or 11x7) casserole/roast dish
-Pour milk evenly on top
-Cover with crushed corn flakes (you can judge how much to use; I can still see the roast through the corn flake layer when I'm done)
-Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 375 degrees

I hope you like it! We think it's delicious!

Sports Update

2005-11-20T18:11:00.000-06:00

I realized the other day that, for all of my earlier talk about how involved I am in various sports things this Fall, I haven't given any updates whatsoever. Here, then, is an update on my various teams and how things are going...

Fantasy Football:

I am currently tied for 1st place with two other players in my 12-team league. This comes across as amazingly lucky to me since I am only 4th place in total points and don't really have that great of a team. My strategy has been to sign a nearly new team every week, picking up the best free agents and getting rid of last week's sign-ups. Because I know very little about individual players, this looks like a risky approach to me, but it seems to be working okay overall. Now that Donovan McNabb is out for the season, however, I am really worried about pulling off wins each week! He was my superstar QB!

I am watching less football than I was earlier in the season, thereby proving to everyone that I'm really just a fake fan. I also spend less time each week agonizing over which players to pick up or drop. I am not sure if this is because I have a system in place now or because I am less interested in it. Overall, it seems like the less time I have spent on this, the better my results have been!

Fantasy Hockey:

Since there are so many hockey games per week, I spend even less time agonizing about my Fantasy Hockey team. I don't make a lot of bench changes either (pick-ups or drops), but mostly just go through each day a month ahead of time and make sure that I have players in as many games as possible. I am currently in second place in my six-team league, so it's working out okay, but I feel like I'm taking a very half-baked approach to this fantasy league.

It is interesting to note that Fantasy Hockey has far fewer perks than Fantasy Football does. For instance, you can't "smack talk" in Fantasy Hockey -- the most fun part of Fantasy Football! And there is less expert advice as well, making player selection feel like a shot in the dark. This represents part of the reason that I am probably not as into it as I am into Fantasy Football. But I am still enjoying being in second place!

Nashville Predators:

The Preds are currently at 13-3-3 (wins-losses-overtime losses), and it's always nice to watch a winning team! I am still really enjoying being a season ticket holder. For some reason, I find going to the games very relaxing. For those 2.5 hours, you are completely immersed in what's going on around you, taking your mind off of anything that is currently stressing you out. And there's something rejuvenating about yelling and screaming, and dancing around when your team scores a goal. Although it has been an expensive endeavor to pay for two season tickets, I must say that I am currently up for getting season tickets again next year. It gets you out of the house regularly, gives you a feeling of belonging to a club, and really is a lot of fun. Plus, the Preds organization really goes out of their way to offer perks to their season ticket holders, so it feels like you really do get something extra for signing up.

The only con to this experience has been how it has affected the flexibility of our schedule. With 42 home games in the regular season, there are a lot of other things you can't participate in. We've had to forego a couple of out-of-town weddings so far this year and are staying in Nashville for Thanksgiving because we have games on Thursday and Saturday. That has been the only "hardship" about being a season ticket holder.

So, that's the update on all my sporting involvement this year. I'm having fun and keeping busy!

Restaurant Reviewer

2005-11-12T16:29:00.000-06:00

I've decided to start reviewing local restaurants on www.citysearch.com. So far, I have reviewed all the restaurants we've eaten at, other than restaurants like Macaroni Grill or Waffle House because they're pretty common and already had a million reviews each.

The reason I decided to start doing this was because I was recently looking for a new Thai restaurant to try and I found that a lot of the reviews were of two varieties: (1) "Oh my goodness! This is my favorite restaurant ever! I love it so much!" or (2) "This restaurant sucked! Don't ever go there! You'll probably die from food poisoning!" Surprisingly, many restaurants have both kinds of reviews, making you wonder who was right (or who was paid off).

I always try to note whether there are many vegetarian options and I think this gives me a unique (if worthless to 95% of the population) perspective compared with other reviewers.

Because of this new attraction to citysearch restaurant reviewing, I have decided to abandon my unrealized plan of reviewing restaurants here on my blog. Instead, I encourage my readers to go check out (and review your own restaurants on) citysearch. You'll get a more diverse perspective than I could have given you and you might find some good (or really bad) places to eat nearby.

So these must be my favorite songs...

2005-11-12T11:54:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago, I went through a desperate search of our collection for the latest Gorillaz CD. I had heard the last half of "Feel Good, Inc." on the radio and suddenly HAD to hear that song. When I found the CD, I immediately put it in the car so that I could listen to it on the way to work. Nine days later, when I was still listening to that song, I realized that I had probably listened to "Feel Good, Inc." 30 times in a row (quite an accomplishment, considering that my commute is less than ten minutes) by hitting the back button every time I got to the end of the song. I guess I really like that song.

I have a habit of listening to music this way. Although I have an equally long list of CDs that I have listened to all the way through multiple times in a row (there are at least 10 CDs that have stayed in my CD player non-stop for a month each during my commute to work; during college, U2's Zooropa was the album I did all my paper-writing to -- I had listened to it so many times that it was less music and more pleasant noise to me, used to block out the rest of the paper-writers in the computer lab), my ability to listen to the same song over and over and over again without getting tired of it seems weirder. How many of you do that? Can we start a club?

I thought it would be interesting (well, to me at least) to compile a list of these "favorite" songs of mine. I can't remember what songs fell into this category back in the day, so this is a more current list from the last couple of years and probably makes me look less dorky than if I were able to remember songs from my high school and college days. I do know that two of my college songs were Ace of Base's "All That She Wants" and House of Pain's "Jump Around." What can I say? Those were popular songs back in 1992!

So, here is my incomplete list of songs that I have listened to more than 15 times in a row:

Aqualung: 7 Keys
Aphex Twin: Girl/Boy Song
Avalanches: Gimix (it's a whole CD, but a live mix -- the Bob Dillon part is my fave)
Badly Drawn Boy: Once Around the Block
Badly Drawn Boy: River Sea Ocean
Beastie Boys: Intergalactic
Bebel Gilberto: August Day Song
Bjork: Joga
Bob Marley: Is This Love
Bob Marley: No Woman No Cry (live)
Bob Marley: Three Little Birds
Bob Marley: Redemption Song
Bob Marley vs. Funkstar De Luxe (remix): Sun Is Shining
Coldplay: Don't Panic
Coldplay: Speed of Sound
Cure: Friday I'm in Love
Daft Punk: Harder Better Faster Stronger
The Darkness: I Believe In a Thing Called Love
DMX Crew: Good Time Girl
Doves: M62 Song
Dykehouse: Map Ref 41 degrees North, 93 degrees West
Elbow: Asleep in the Back
Handsome Boy Modeling School: I've Been Thinking
Handsome Boy Modeling School: Breakdown
Handsome Boy Modeling School: The Truth
Handsome Boy Modeling School: Sunshine
The Irresistable Force: Natural Frequency
Jack Johnson: Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
Jay-Jay Johanson: I Want Some Fun
Jeff Buckley: Hallelujah
Keane: This is the Last Time
Larry Karpenko: Lighthouse
Maroon 5: This Love
Paul Weller: Wild Wood
Phoenix: Everything is Everything
Phoenix: If I Ever Feel Better
Ray and Christian: Play On (Featuring the Jungle Brothers)
REM: Nightswimming
Richard Ashcroft: Song for the Lovers
Squarepusher: A Journey to Reedham (7 a.m. mix)
TMBG: Meet James Ensor
TMBG: Ana Ng
TMBG: Dr. Worm
TMBG: Yeh Yeh
Tiga: Hot in Here
Tilly and the Wall: Fell Down the Stairs
Tilly and the Wall: Bessa
Tom McRae: Draw Down the Stars
Travis: Why Does It Always Rain on Me?
U2: Beautiful Day
The Vines: Get Free
The Vines: I'm Only Sleeping (cover)
Ween: Ocean Man
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Maps
Zero 7: Destiny

That seems like kind of a long list (especially since it's fairly incomplete), but I guess that when you have an hour commute each way and then live by yourself for six months, you have a lot of time to play whatever music you want to. In my case, I guess this leads to playing a few songs over and over and over again.

Say "YES" to your off button!

2005-11-03T07:35:00.000-06:00

After sitting in our staff meeting where the same person's cell phone rings every single week, I have to say that I admire the Packers coach and his tough line-drawing on this issue. Now that everyone, even grannies, have had cell phones for at least a year or two, it's inexcusable that people are still forgetting to turn them off when they go into church, to the symphony, to an art gallery, to class, and yes, even to meetings. But I still reserve a special kind of evil eye for the people who not only "forget" to turn their cell phones off but actually answer them in those same situations, thereby prolonging the interruption.

Although some people may offer up the defense of "It could be an emergency!" I have never heard anyone answer and say, "What?! Dad's in the hospital?!" and then immediately get up and leave. It's always, "Oh hey, yeah, I'm at the Opry. What are you up to? What? I can't hear you over this music! Sure, I'll speak up!"

I can't wait for those cell phone signal jammers to be legalized here in the US.

Stop Sign Guidelines

2005-10-26T17:33:00.000-05:00

If you're like me, you often find yourself pulling away from a stop sign wondering, "Did I actually stop long enough just then? Or was that a 'rolling stop'?" (This concern over rolling stops should not be confused with Tennessee residents who live in our apartment complex who seem completely oblivious to stop signs. Even a rolling stop is better than no stop at all.) This "was that a full and complete stop?" question is especially front-of-mind when I happen to notice that I have a cop car right behind me as I'm pulling away from the stop sign. Yikes!

A few years ago, I saw a "bit" about full and complete stops on Comedy Central's spoof cop show Reno 911. Whenever I am sitting at a stop sign, this scene from the show plays itself out in my head. One of the officers is teaching a traffic school class for delinquent drivers and is reviewing various traffic laws. His guideline for pausing appropriately at a stop sign was that you should say aloud, "One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four TO THE FLOOR!" Although I don't often do the one-two-three counting part, it is rare for me to pull away from a stop sign without saying, "Four to the floor!" Whee!

Sunday Morning Breakfast Sandwiches

2005-10-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

Here's what we're having for breakfast this morning. It's a classic recipe, easy to make, and very delicious. Let me know if you ever get around to trying it and how the whole microwaved egg thing goes for you. It seems more scary than it actually is, but if you stir your eggs up too vigorously, they can get pretty tall once your microwave them.

Stuff you will need:
-1 egg
-2 pieces of bread (English muffin, bagels, or sliced)
-1 slice of cheese (preferrably not American)
-3 pieces of bacon (we use veggie bacon)
-1 sausage pattie (we use veggie sausage)
-mayo (if you're using a dry bread, like we do)
-garlic salt
-pepper
-seasoned salt
-1 coffee mug, buttered on the inside (use a baggie, dip in margarine, then smear the inside of the mug)
-1 extra baggie to go over the top of the mug when you microwave it

Directions:
-Cook the bacon and sausage first (we make ours in the oven, rather than fry it up or microwave it)
-While the bacon and sausage is cooking, start "buttering your mugs" (sounds more risque than it really is -- hee, hee!)
-Crack one egg into each buttered mug
-Sprinkle garlic salt, pepper, and seasoned salt on top of each egg (the amount is up to you -- we tend to sprinkle liberally)
-Stir egg and seasoning enthusiastically
-Cover mug with baggie so that it appears that your mug is now wearing a plastic hat (pull baggie down over handle, at least, or it will fly off during the microwaving process)
-Bacon and sausage should be done by now, so remove them from their cooking process (whatever that may be)
-Put your bread in for its initial toasting (our toaster takes two rounds to get dark enough, but if yours does not, then you will have to adjust my toasting instructions)
-When your bread pops up, put your egg in the microwave for one minute
-Put your toast down for its final toasting
-When your egg is done, pop up your toast
-Spread mayo on your bread if it's a dry, dense bread (no mayo needed if you're using bagels or English muffins)
-Break bacon slices in half and put three halves on each slice of bread
-Put cheese slice on one piece of bread, on top of the bacon
-Put sausage pattie on one slice of bread
-Put cooked egg on top of sausage pattie
-Put other slice of bread (with bacon) on top, completing sandwich
-Microwave whole sandwich for 15-25 seconds to melt the cheese

Enjoy!

Guess who's turning 35?

2005-10-13T00:14:00.000-05:00

It's not me! It's Leslie Rollins (that guy I live with)! He celebrates the big 3-5 today! He's a little bit bigger now than he was in this photo above, but just as full of activity!

If you would like to send him well-wishes, just drop them into the comments section below. I'll make sure that he reads them when he gets home tonight.

Happy, happy birthday, Les!

Overheard at the last Preds game...

2005-10-12T22:02:00.000-05:00

"I am so sick of these bell bottom jeans! I can't wait for that fold & roll style to come back in!"

Of course, I was all about the old "fold & roll" back in high school (yes, even the guys were doing it!), but personally feel now that jeans with a little flare at the cuff are more flattering overall. I don't want to go back to folding and rolling, living the life of a peg-legged, oversized-shirtted, big-haired girl! It's just not me anymore!

And so I have chosen a new motto-of-the-day: "Just say NO to fo' and ro'!" I admit that not everyone is going to understand what my motto means and, as a result, it probably won't do much to stem the tide of retro fashion. But it's fun to say aloud at least (really, try it)!

Considering that I couldn't even find a photo of the fold and roll style on the internet, I'd say the fad is not knocking on door . . . yet. But when it does arrive, can stirrup pants be far behind?

Something I won't be wearing this winter...

2005-10-12T21:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I know that I've gloated (especially to my Michigan friends) about the nice Nashville weather in the past, but I just can't resist gloating again. I got the new Land's End catalog in the mail today and, as I looked at the back cover advertising New Extreme Squall Boots, I just couldn't help thinking, "Well, that's something I won't be wearing this winter!" Yes, the thought of a mild winter still brings a smile to my face, even after experiencing one first-hand last year. It just doesn't get old!

But now that I've said that, we'll probably have the snowiest winter on record and I'll be out there in my flip-flops with blue toes and icy toenails. The Farmer's Almanac does provide me with some comfort (or a false sense of security), however, predicting a fairly mild winter for Tennessee. Yippee!