| October is here! |
[01 Oct 2009|08:51pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 cold |
] |
It is cold and rainy outside. And dark. I forgot how dark it is here after mid-September.
My dog ate all my Chapstick, which is unfortunate for both myself and the rug. I need to purchase a few tubes and leave one at work along with some lotion--my hands and lips are already feeling the effects of colder weather.
I finally got around to buying a portable radio so I can listen to NPR on my way to and from work again. I put it off for so long because finding a radio was more difficult than I expected. The young employees at Best Buy looked at me like I was asking them for an 8-track. Target still caries portable CD players, but no radios. Thank goodness enough radio-loving freaks like me exist to make it worth amazon’s while to sell them.
I ended up buying a $100 radio that was on sale for roughly $60 with tax and shipping. For that kind of money I expected gold plating or something, but it’s rather dull looking. It works better than my last one, but still has problems with picking up reception when it’s too close to a radio tower--at certain points in my commute all of the frequencies play the station(s) I’m physically closest to.
Back to the Chapstick eating dog... I want to teach him to roll over. The video and training book I consulted both made a big deal about not pushing your dog; you’re supposed to lead the dog’s head with food so that his/her body follows. Dexter follows the food by twisting his head as far as he can go, and then moving his head back around to the other side. I resorted to pushing him over tonight. I am a bad dog mom sometimes.
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| Death to the squirrels? |
[09 Sep 2009|10:15pm] |
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mood |
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 hopeful |
] |
Does it make me a bad person to want a large backyard so my dog has a decent chance of catching a squirrel? I don’t think so, considering how the squirrels violated Mr. Stripey, my beloved heirloom tomato plant.
Today I allowed Dexter (my dog) more freedom on his retractable leash to chase squirrels. Despite his limited experience, he’s figured out the basics of cornering and cutting off escape routes. A year ago I would have found it repulsive to encourage the capture and violent shaking of a small mammal, but having your tomato plant pillaged changes a person. Apparently, a few ladies who happened to be walking by when Dexter had a squirrel trapped behind a bush did not have reason to hate the squirrels; they glared at me and I felt a little embarrassed.
Dexter does have weekly access to a backyard now. We were recruited off the street for a small dog play group. It didn’t meet this week due to Labor Day, and I found myself quite disappointed. Then, it made me happy to notice I was disappointed because it means I found an activity in my neighborhood that I look forward to. I really hope Dexter doesn’t manage to catch a squirrel during play group, though...blood and gore rarely enhance a social gathering.
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| Book Group™: My Night of Discussing Dangerously |
[08 Sep 2009|10:50pm] |
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mood |
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 disappointed |
] |
In my effort to make friends, I attended a book group™ tonight. We discussed Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously.
I give the book 4.5 out of 5 stars. If I have to stick with round numbers, make it a solid 4. It’s a book based on a blog, and thus retains the stylistic qualities--I see this as a bonus because I <3 a fast and easy read. Several parts made me laugh out loud. Although she’s overdramatic and immature, I identified with the narrator’s crisis about hitting the big three-oh. It’s not literature, nor does it pretend to be; it is what it is, and it’s good at that.
No one at book group™ shared my opinion. They found it simplistic, hated the narrator/author, and didn’t believe the French really make/consume such disgusting/unhealthy foodstuffs. While I cannot speak for all of France, I do know it is common to make your own mayonnaise. Also, their butcher shops display skinned rabbits, heads still intact. It doesn’t get much more disgusting than that. The book group™ people were also mad about there being too much cussing in the book. I vaguely recall cussing. Clearly we are of a different stock, the book group™ people and I.
I felt like the class Neanderthal for enjoying such crude writing. Several group members spoke with disappointment about the book making some best seller list; they felt misled and betrayed that a lot of other people think the book’s worth buying. I considered pointing out that while Transformers was the #1 movie in America this summer, a Sundance-loving, pop-culture-hating club shouldn’t buy tickets on opening night.
There was a lot of discussion about ensuring that the next book meets the criteria for “literature,” which is all well and good, but really...since when does liking novels mean you can’t appreciate a straightforward, blog-based memoir? Now I feel like I have to go back next month and say I liked the “smart” book too in an effort to make them respect my opinion. Apparently proving myself to strangers means a lot to me these days.
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| Writer's Block: As the Cookie Crumbles |
[01 Sep 2009|08:58pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 contemplative |
] |
Just today I was thinking about the writer’s block about the strangest advice from a fortune cookie, and now today’s writer’s block is about fortune cookies again. If I was superstitious, I would have to start taking my fortune cookies more seriously.
Anyway, the reason I was thinking about fortune cookies today is because I ate one. It said:
God can mend a broken heart, but He needs all the pieces.
I think the writer intends to illustrate that God can help you, but you must do some work too--He’s not gonna break out the heart-mending super glue until you crawl around on your hands and knees with a flashlight and dig out all those broken pieces from behind the refrigerator.
I find this a little insulting to God. Does the fortune writer really think there is a limit to God’s powers or creativity? Couldn’t He use a sturdy molding putty to fill in the holes? Even my dad can fix broken lamps and mugs and what-not using some type of filler and paint.
Furthermore, what if your heart shattered outdoors and some of the pieces went down a storm drain? Would God turn His back on you, leaving you on your own to convince the Streets and Sanitation Department to let you dig around a million people’s street muck in a futile effort to find all the pieces of your broken heart? I know He was pretty grumpy in the Old Testament, but come on...street muck? Who’s gonna worship the guy leaving you elbow deep in street muck? Gross.
Anyway, regarding the message I would make sure gets put inside the cookies. I’d totally go with, Today is lucky day!
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| Sudsing up the streets |
[26 Aug 2009|09:00pm] |
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mood |
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 tired |
] |
After living here almost a year, Chicagoland has yet to win me over. It doesn’t help that I got another parking ticket today. Twenty-five fucking dollars because I forgot that today was Street Cleaning Day. This seems especially outrageous because it rained ALL FUCKING DAY--since when is asphalt immune to the cleansing power of rain?
I wish they had a punch card--pay 9 tickets get the 10th one free! Or maybe give out prizes at milestone counts, e.g. 5 tickets gets you a coffee mug, 10 a t-shirt, 20 a fancy deck of playing cards. Sadly, no such rewards system exists, so I must pay my ticket for the sole reward of keeping my car sans boot. As I mentioned before, it rained ALL FUCKING DAY so my soggy mess of ticket fell apart on one edge. I think enough of it is intact for me to mail to Wisconsin. Yes, their “citation processing center” is outsourced to Wisconsin. Nothing against Wisconsin, but if I’m paying bogus fines I at least want them to generate some jobs in my local economy. Damn.
So I guess I should say one positive thing about living here to keep it Fair & Balanced. Once I saw a street cleaning machine decorated in a pink ribbon for breast cancer motif. It was pretty funny, and also a little inappropriate since the logo was splattered with dirty water. I took a photo and everything.
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| A fur real update |
[18 Aug 2009|08:51pm] |
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mood |
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 lonely |
] |
I am really and truly going to start regularly updating again. And no, this isn’t like all the other times I’ve promised that. I am fur real this time.
Rather than write about the important stuff in life, I thought I’d share a few mundane details of my evening walk with Dexter.
First, we ran into the little old Eastern-European couple who always smile and tell me he is “like horse.” I love this for two reasons:
1. Their description creates a more vivid mental image than if their English vocabulary included the verb “prance”
2. They are the only people on the street I have ever met who make the assumption that Dexter is a boy
We also passed the ice cream cart. There are no ice cream trucks here, just carts that combine the power of a deep freezer with the portability of a wheelbarrow. I have yet to understand what powers them, as they appear too small for a generator. Maybe they are like electric cars and people plug them into their garages overnight. I would stop and ask, but the ice cream mongers always look hot and grumpy. And sticky. So very, very sticky.
By the time we got home, the lightening bugs (or fireflies, depending on where you grew up) were out. The lightening bugs here are, for lack of a more PC term, retarded. Out of habit, I catch lightening bugs if they are near my path. The Northeastern Kansas lightening bugs are quick to recover; they fly away within seconds of you opening your hand. The Chicago lightening bugs just cling to you. I walked three blocks with one on my hand once, waiting for it to take off, and finally got so frustrated I scraped it onto the grass. Maybe all the pesticides have caused nerve damage (or whatever the nerve equivalent is in bugs). Or maybe there aren’t as many kids out catching them, so they don’t have to be as quick-witted. Or maybe they have adapted to adults catching them by becoming sluggish and gross; I certainly don’t catch them anymore.
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| Writer's Block: Cookies |
[04 Feb 2009|11:42pm] |
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mood |
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reflective |
] |
I still have the slip of paper in my wallet: Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else's water lily.
I saved it in 2001 on the same day I got another fortune, Don't be afraid to take that big step, which struck me as very meaningful at the time--it was at a farewell lunch with some coworkers celebrating my move to Lawrence and enrollment at KU. I just saved the onion one because I thought it was funny.
There ended up being a lot of unexpected "big steps" I had to take over the next year, and in many aspects it was the most miserable year of my life. Trying to make sense of everything, I finally got the onion fortune--someone else's life sucks even worse, so be grateful for what you have.
I sometimes think about it when I'm depressed. It helps put things in perspective in a count your blessings type of way. Also, I love that it starts with Alas!...how can that not cheer you up?
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| Chinese New Year |
[01 Feb 2009|12:08am] |
We went to a Chinese New Year celebration today. The parade included fireworks, dancing dragons, and lucky candy. I love fireworks, dragons, and candy.
My favorite part was immediately after the parade when the businesses hung lettuce over their doors like mistletoe. The dragon roamed the streets with its entourage of men beating various noise-making objects. When it encountered a business door, it approached with curiosity, sniffed around a bit more, and then proceeded to messily chomp down the lettuce. Well, actually it spit the lettuce out and consumed only the red, money-containing envelope nestled in the middle of the greens.
Next the dragon went into the business for a while. I'm not sure what occurred inside, but outside in the doorway the drum beating was supplemented by firecrackers thrown into the doorway. Eventually it returned and the procession continued to the next doorway. The Chinese know how to party it up--much more exciting than watching a stupid ball fall down in Times Square.
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| Iced beverages: good / iced water: sometimes bad |
[30 Jan 2009|06:24pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 nostalgic |
] |
I'm for really real going to try to write in this more again. For real.
Right now the city is on some kind of water-conservation alert. I guess the pipes that get water out of Lake Michigan have frozen over so they are unable to get enough water into the water processing plant. Seeing how it gets FUCKING COLD* here every winter, it seems like they should have had this figured out by now. Currently, you can't do any laundry or dishes or other water-consuming things that are not necessary to sustain life, or the city will hunt you down and yell at you for using too much water. I had been debating the merits of showering today, but this tips the scale toward stink-fest.
The city also suggested citizens "draw and store drinking water before going to bed tonight" as "weather forecasts indicate that conditions will remain optimal for ice formation to reoccur for the next several days." I started gathering vessels to "draw and store" water in, and found I am entirely unprepared for a disaster. Even our camping supplies fall short as we always go places that have a water spigot nearby. My mom used to buy me cases of bottled water as gifts, instructing me that one should always have bottled water on hand in case something happens to the municipal water source. I ignored her good advice, choosing to greedily consume all the water within a few weeks. After a few years of this cycle, I heard a story on NPR about the environmental/social consequences of people in the US buying bottled water and swore to never drink it again. I started keeping the bottled water from my mom in the trunk of my car to avoid temptation. Ultimately this led to the water tasting so horrible (who knows what chemicals leeched into it?) that it was thrown away after a few years, which is actually quite a bit sadder than if I had just drank it.
Anyway, the point of all this is that I now see the value in having some bottled water hanging out in my pantry. The only things to drink in there now are some cans of V8, a bottle of vinegar, a jar of spaghetti sauce, and some olive oil.
At least I have some items for storing drinking water, including 3 Nalgene bottles, 2 half-gallon empty milk jars, 1 Brita pitcher, and 1 stock pot. I think that will be more than enough because I don’t think the city will really run out of water anyway. I'm an optimist like that.
*Seriously, it is cold, a lot colder than Kansas. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a lying sack of dog poop or recovering from head trauma that caused memory loss. A few people who had lived both places told us the weather "isn't that much different." I am unsure what category they fell into...maybe both.
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| The election |
[05 Nov 2008|01:46am] |
| [ |
mood |
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hopeful |
] |
What a relief tonight--I still can't quite believe it really happened.
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| Dexter at the Dog Beach |
[31 Oct 2008|09:51pm] |
Dexter stands on the edge of Lake Michigan on this unusually warm Halloween.
There are photos of him dressed up like a jack-o-lanturn uploaded to flickr too, but this pic was my favorite from the day.
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| Introducing Dexter! |
[28 Sep 2008|09:50pm] |
This is our new puppy. When we picked him up, he looked like a muppet due to severe neglect (there's some nasty mats underneath all those cute curls). His first haircut revealed that he is actually a poodle.
Right now we are working on (a) fattening him up (he weighs 9.6 lbs and should be at least 13), (b) teaching him to kennel on command, and (c) assuring him that the world is not all dangerous and scary and what-not. Progress is as follows:
(a) He is a finicky eater so fattening him up has been difficult. We made some fancy concoction out of raw hamburger, oats, pumpkin, gelatin, and molasses...he likes that a lot, but it causes some nasty dog farts. The vet gave him some paste that is designed to stimulate the appetite of anorexic cats. Gross. He also likes cheese and hot dogs, but I question the nutritional value of both.
(b) He remains wary of the kennel, but does not whine excessively.
(c) His tail used to be tucked in between his legs constantly, and now it is out around 80% of the time...not bad progress for one week.
We are also working on peeing outside the house, but that has made a recent regression...thank god we don't have carpet.
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| The successful arrival to my destination |
[18 Sep 2008|04:12am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 here (as opposed to there) |
] |
I live in Evanston now--the people who live here enjoy pointing out that it is NOT CHICAGO because it's better than ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH SO THERE!!! Whatever, we live 5 blocks from Chicago. Evanston does have much nicer trees than any of the surrounding communities though, so I guess that's something to brag about.
I plan to write a more substantial update in the near future. Maybe it will even have pictures or something. No music, though, because I hate when websites have music.
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| Writer's Block: Your Invention... |
[14 Aug 2008|10:53pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 awake when I shouldn't be |
] |
I want a device that works like a microwave, only instead of heating things up really fast it would make things cold. Imagine the instant gratification of making ice cubes in 30 seconds. I mean, really, there is nothing better than an iced beverage with a straw. Also, portable models with European power adaptors would be available--never again would an American suffer through the unpleasant task of drinking a sort-of cold beverage.
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| Move over turkey baster, now is the era of the popsicle! |
[05 Aug 2008|01:17am] |
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mood |
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 here |
] |
Many things have happened, but I should be sleeping instead of typing this, so we’ll see how far I get. To my surprise, my supervisor commented on how tired I looked today given the “black circles” under my eyes. It caught me off guard for several reasons, but the most disturbing one is that I had no clue. I don’t know what I’ll do when I don’t work with someone who feels comfortable telling me about my shoddy appearance. Tomorrow morning, I’m breaking out the concealer!
I had a two week vacation. To kick it off, I went to Colorado for my grandmother’s 80th birthday party. My plane had little TVs on the back of each seat. Had our flight been long enough, I might have decided one of the shitty movie options was worth $4. Instead, I watched a map of where our plane was interrupted by advertisements, including several about adopting frozen embryos. There is an entire Embryo Adoption Awareness Campaign so that good god-fearin’ folk can rescue all the frozen children (byproducts from other couples’ in vetro fertilization). Why adopt from the child welfare system when you can simply make a kid from a popsicle?
Having the little screen made the flight more tolerable. I strongly dislike flying, but seeing that little map was the equivalent of watching the doctor stick me with the needle (I also do not like flu shots). Somehow knowing what’s coming makes it easier to tolerate.
Seeing my extended family went much better than expected, so that was nice. I rode back to Kansas with my parents and found that an English setter makes a decent pillow once you smash her into submission. As soon as I returned, Maureen and I packed/cleaned nonstop. Oh wait, I did stop to get a temporary crown put on my decay-ridden tooth. Nothing says fun vacation memories like moving and dental work! Our things are now in storage and I am living out of a suitcase in Anne’s sweet-ass pad with cable and lots of scented lotion to try. Right now, I smell like a jasmine flower freshly fucked by a vanilla bean.
I went canoeing too, but am too tired to talk about it. Plus, there might be pictures later which would make the post oh so much more interesting. Unlike this post that kind-of sucked. And has sentence fragments. Also, lots of coma splices, because commas are my best friend.
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| Let me see your grill. You wanna see my WHAT? |
[12 Jul 2008|04:31pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 missing Maureen |
] |
I really wrote this on Monday night, but accidentially made it private instead of friends-only so now it's showing up on July 12 instead of July 7.
My car hit 111111 miles today. I took a picture of the odometer with my cell phone. Ah, the little things in life that please me.
I went in for the yearly physical/pap today. It always seems like my doctor is more uncomfortable with the pap smear process than me. He makes this big deal about helping me stay completely covered (the gown is pretty short, so they put a blanket over my tummy/legs). Last year the blanket fell down a bit, exposing my stomach, and he apologized like 5 times. I thought, “You’re going to be looking at my vagina in a few minutes, why the hell would I care if you see my stomach?” Maybe I should say something like that out loud to try and lighten the mood a bit.
I also went to the dentist. If I had a choice between the dentist and a pap smear, I’d drop my pants with no hesitation. I have to get a crown on a cracked tooth--this will involve approximately 90 minutes of having my jaw hinged open (much worse than 10 minutes of having my snatch hinged apart). I have a few weeks to decide if I want to go with gold or porcelain for my crown. Both cost about the same, so money won’t influence the decision. Here’s a breakdown of the pros/cons:
Gold | Porcelain |
Durability superior to porcelain
|
Will have to replace sooner than gold
|
Less tooth is shaved off to make room for the crown
| More tooth is shaved off, and that tooth is already pretty fucked up...if I’m going to lose it someday, it would be nice to have as much of it in my mouth as long as possible...unless they would let me take the shavings home in a baby food jar to treasure forever (I still have all my baby teeth in a little wooden box cause I’m cool like that) |
I will have a gold tooth, but it is far in the back so I don’t know how much it will really show
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No one will ever know it is there (unless they’ve read this journal entry)
| One step closer to getting a grill |
Does not look good w/diamonds embedded in it
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Maybe I’ll get some of that putty people use to make missing teeth when dressing as hobos for Halloween, slap it on the cracked tooth, and use it as a judge on how much the crown will actually show. I welcome any feedback from those who have crowns.
On a non-health-related note, Maureen has been out of town almost two weeks now to help her mom recover from surgery. It sucks.
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| Rancid chocolate |
[18 May 2008|01:37am] |
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mood |
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disappointed |
] |
Thanks to my cell phone, I have a newfound respect for the technologically challenged (aka old people and my friend Nichole). I upgraded to a blue ice* LG Chocolate from Verizon’s online store. I hadn’t actually used this model of phone, but remembered all the fancy commercials when it came out. Plus, it was one of the most expensive ones they offered for free** so I figured it was a good pick.
Oh how I was wrong. It has this horrid little wheel with a tiny “OK” button in the middle (roughly the size of an iPod designed for a garden gnome). If you graze the little wheel when trying to say “OK,” it’s likely to move to another menu selection nanoseconds before you give the phone your (now wrong) “OK” to do something. Also, there’s four buttons that are so sensitive to touch you don’t have to actually push down. They’re pretty neat, but if you accidentally touch one with another part of your hand while trying to use the stupid little wheel/OK control it fucks everything up. As I programmed in numbers, the excitement of having a fun new toy slowly drained away...I longed for the days of my old, simple phone...the days when buttons were just buttons.
I couldn’t help but recall an ad routinely run in The Nation for a phone that offers the “comfort” of a “familiar dial tone” to people who just can’t manage the technological leap from land line to cellular. Maybe I’ll switch to one just to spite those Chocolate-mongering bastards at Verizon...or maybe I’ll give the new phone a try for a few days. If it doesn’t work out, I guess I’ll try to exchange it or sell it on eBay.
In more important news, Maureen finished her master’s degree and was hooded today. Hoods look so weird.
*apparently they don’t care about giving them cute flavor names that are actual chocolate flavors anymore
**if you consider signing a 2-year contract in exchange as free
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| Update #200080401.2231 |
[01 Apr 2008|10:31pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 itchy (not bitchy) |
] |
My allergies are either getting worse and worse and worse, or I have something like a chronic mild case of the mumps. I’m pretty sure it’s allergies since it gets somewhat better with an antihistamine. My throat feels so itchy I’m tempted to stab a brillo pad with a pencil and scratch around in there.
Today was the first day my job switched over to our paperless medical records system. Call me old fashioned, but I felt somewhat defeated that I did not have a small stack of dead tree to prove I did something useful with my day. They’ve been telling us new launch dates for the past 1.5 years...I was a little surprised they actually went through with it on April Fools’ Day.
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| great lemon taste? |
[27 Dec 2007|03:33pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 determined to finish the fish |
] |
Drinking Snake Fish Oil: How clever marketing tricked me into wasting $25
My doctor instructed me to take fish oil for its alleged ability to improve one's mood. Sadly, taking the capsules led to the dreaded "fish burp" people so frequently lament about on internet forums. I purchased some with an enuretic coating when they were on sale. They worked great, but cost over twice as much as their non-coated brethren. Determined to save some $$$, I waited months for them to go on sale again. Frustrated, I finally decided to pay retail at the local hippie natural foods store.
What happened next was a horrible lapse of judgment I blame on low blood sugar.
While browsing the products, I came across Nordic Naturals Omega-3 Liquid. Yes, liquid. Not in capsules. Liquid. As in, you drink it. No coating whatsoever, not even a plain gelatin capsule to let you swallow it down without tasting it. Liquid. Pure liquid oil.
The bottle, however, featured a convincing graphic with a lemon and the text, “great lemon taste.” An employee vouched for the “great lemon taste,” proudly announcing that he takes 3 times the recommended amount ever day. He went on to describe exactly how he consumes such high amounts, mimicking the use of a giant spoon and clarifying that he does not have to drink anything afterwards to “wash it down.” No juice, no water, nothing. Just a “great lemon taste” lingering in his mouth for a few seconds, and he's done. He also threw in a bit about the company’s dedication to environmentally responsible practices.
I was sold. $25 later, I had my bottle of liquid oil and an angry wife claiming I wasted my money on what would surely taste like fish. She was not at all convinced by the lemon graphic. I repeated the sales pitch that convinced me to try it and got out my own giant spoon to prove her wrong.
Oh my god it was awful. It was an oily, lemony, fishy explosion in my mouth. Now when I burped, I felt like a seal who drank a can of Pledge®. Unable to bear such gustatorial abuse, I abandoned my hopes of finishing the bottle 6 days later. The bottle continues to reside in my fridge, taunting me every time I search for something to eat. I will start to throw it away, but keep it due to the guilt of wasting money and fish.
Today, I came up with an idea. Why not make fish cubes in the freezer? I bet I could get them far enough back in my throat to minimize the chance of tasting before swallowing. I am going to search for a suitable container to experiment with (a regular ice cube tray is way too big). Keep your fingers crossed for me, kind readers.
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