This weekend we went to visit Who for the first time in ages. We've intended to go for the past month because Ellie has been having oil problems since December, but every single weekend has had thunderstorms. (a) It's hard to work on a car when it's raining, or if the ground under it is soggy, and (b) some of those storms were strong enough to make the drive to St. Paul deadly. Columbus had a few floods, and just a few days ago those tornadoes and hailstorms tore up half the of Greensburg.
But since it was Memorial Day weekend, and the sun was starting to peep out, we headed over on Saturday night. Before we left, Sweetie noted that Who sounded the happiest he had since, well, 2006. I took it as a sign that his health was recovering after the hole-in-his-stomach incident, but when we pushed open the door to the trailer it was immediately evident that his psychological health had also increased two-fold. Not only was it spotless, but he had decorated the living room, painted and fixed up the bathroom, and cleared the guest bedroom of the mountain of boxes inhabiting it since he moved in. Also, there was a giant butterfly on the bedspread...I'm not entirely sure why. But butterflies are usually a good indication that someone has bounced over the depression hump.
On Sunday morning, Who woke up at the same time I did: a little before 9 a.m. He went back to nap a little bit later, but you know what that means? He didn't drink. The entire weekend, I only saw him with Coke bottles. And in a car ride to Uncle F and Aunt B's, he ate potato chips. Note the verb in that sentence: ate. He eats things. Willingly. He cleaned his plate at dinner, too, though that isn't very hard to do because Uncle F and Aunt B are fantastic cooks. They buy fresh rolls and candies from Amish markets, and grow their own lettuce, and never overcook the vegetables.
The primary reason we were at F&B's was for the car, since F has memorized the manual for any vehicle you can find in Indiana and "just happens" to have any part Ellie could need. Like the perfect oil filter. The oil problems were, as I had suspected, a result of savagely attacking the wrong-size filter she had in December in attempt to get it off. But there was a secondary reason, too: F&B have a LOT of land. And where there's a lot of land, there's a lesser chance of accidentally killing someone when you're wielding deadly weapons.
Sweetie had wanted me to shoot our rifle (his Christmas present from 2009), because he doesn't want me to be useless if thieves come a-knocking. Or if, sometime in the future, a wild dog (or deer, or turkey) attacks Luna in the yard. So we spent an hour or so tearing holes in a cardboard box with bird shot. Some lessons to take away:
1) Even with muffling headphones, guns are LOUD. I hope I never have to fire one unprotected; it would probably damage my eardrums.
2) The tissue right next to my right shoulder is much more delicate than you would think. But it's also more resilient than you would think, considering that enough force to kill man was being jolted against it. It's tender, but I don't even have a bruise.
3) Human eyesight is wacky. There's an enormous difference between looking at the target normally and aligning your eye with the barrel. The former makes the bullets cut the grass above the cardboard box. The latter tears a scary-looking hole through the target.
Now that I've been properly initiated, Sweetie's talking about finding a local shooting range to practice. I don't mind, but I hope it doesn't get expensive.
For a while after that, we watched the Coca-Cola 600. I was bored out of my mind, and spent most of the time hoping someone would spin out and make things interesting. Fortunately, even the men got bored too, so we left at a reasonable hour. Who didn't want to drive back to the trailer because of his stiff leg, and Sweetie "didn't feel like it", so that left me behind the wheel. I'm not sure when I became the designated driver...probably sometime around summer 2009. The next day I drove back to Bloomington too, after dropping Who off at a Memorial Day lunch for veterans at the American Legion. And then I did what seems like a billion chores, preparing food for the week and trying to get cigarette smoke and mud and sweat out of all our belongings. He may have cut back on drinking, but the nicotine still has a hold.
By the way, it's HOT. And humid. I spent most of the weekend hovering on the edge of heat exhaustion. And today, walking to my internship at 8:40 in the morning, I was already baking in the sun. I've been diligent with the sunscreen and water, but it's still uncomfortable. Why is the temperature always 20 degrees away from the supposed average? It's supposed to be in the 40s in January (ha) and 70s in May (haha). Today will have a high of 93°. This year's weather is unusual, they tell me. Just like they told me last year, and the year before that, and the year before that....
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Website Launch: My Recipe Box
A little while ago, Katie of Making Food and Other Stuff (a newly minted Biology PhD!) posted about a "nerdy" purchase: a piece of software to store and organize her recipes. I commented that Sweetie has been on my case for years to make an application like that for us, and asked if I would get extra nerd points if I coded it myself. The nerd points were duly granted.
But I quickly realized that my bonus nerd points would be revoked if I didn't follow through. So this weekend I bunkered down and actually churned out the code. And while I was at it, I stolesome a lot of Sweetie's code for secure user accounts, so everyone else can use it too.
Now. It is my pleasure to introduce to you, the one, the somewhat unique, [drumroll] Recipe Box Website.
Well, it looks more impressive in real life. I swear.
The basic idea is that you can store all your recipes, and organize them by applying labels for easy access later. On the general Browse page you can see all the recipes you've entered and a "tag cloud" of labels you've applied to them. You can also import the recipes of other users, and they will appear in your "box" to be searched and sorted just like the ones you authored (but you can't edit them, because they do belong to someone else).
Above is a screenshot of the basic recipe page. For example, here's a link to the recipe I use for bagels:
http://www.bookwyrms.com/recipebox/recipe.php?r=f. Anyone can view it, even if they don't have an account...you just need one to make a box of your own.
And here's the search page, where you can find recipes by titles or the ingredients used.
This searches your own box by default, but you can search the recipes of all users too if you want to expand your collection. I don't expect most people will want to, though, because by the time they get to the storage stage they've already picked out favorites. And there are much more extensive sources for new recipes, like cooking magazines or blogs.
At the last second I made a little "bonus" too....
You can choose from different color schemes in the "Site Preferences." This blue one is Sweetie's favorite, though he's also bizarrely partial to the pink "Princess" theme.
Not to sell myself short (Sweetie says I should stop being so "female" when it comes to advertising myself), but there are some things the site cannot do: for one, you can't upload pictures of your recipes. Technically, I have the code to do it, but (a) I'd have to store the images, and though we own a piece of a server I don't want to push it when that piece has to accommodate all of our projects, and (b) most people don't need to look at pictures of their own meals. You use blogs or sites like AllRecipes if you want to advertise your creations to other people...you don't attach photos to the index cards in your recipe box (unless they came with the newspaper clipping). You also can't import recipes directly from other sites, because there are just too many possibilities to accommodate. And finally, you can't interface with Facebook or Twitter like every other website on the planet. This is just a personal prejudice of mine...I find it skeevy that Mark Zuckerberg is oozing into every corner of our lives. And I hate that the websites I use are always trying to advertise my every move on my wall, sometimes without asking.
Anyway, in conclusion, "Tadaaa!" Check it out, if you have the time or inclination. It would be nice to see some other user accounts pop up for my creation.
But I quickly realized that my bonus nerd points would be revoked if I didn't follow through. So this weekend I bunkered down and actually churned out the code. And while I was at it, I stole
Now. It is my pleasure to introduce to you, the one, the somewhat unique, [drumroll] Recipe Box Website.
Well, it looks more impressive in real life. I swear.
The basic idea is that you can store all your recipes, and organize them by applying labels for easy access later. On the general Browse page you can see all the recipes you've entered and a "tag cloud" of labels you've applied to them. You can also import the recipes of other users, and they will appear in your "box" to be searched and sorted just like the ones you authored (but you can't edit them, because they do belong to someone else).
Above is a screenshot of the basic recipe page. For example, here's a link to the recipe I use for bagels:
http://www.bookwyrms.com/recipebox/recipe.php?r=f. Anyone can view it, even if they don't have an account...you just need one to make a box of your own.
And here's the search page, where you can find recipes by titles or the ingredients used.
This searches your own box by default, but you can search the recipes of all users too if you want to expand your collection. I don't expect most people will want to, though, because by the time they get to the storage stage they've already picked out favorites. And there are much more extensive sources for new recipes, like cooking magazines or blogs.
At the last second I made a little "bonus" too....
You can choose from different color schemes in the "Site Preferences." This blue one is Sweetie's favorite, though he's also bizarrely partial to the pink "Princess" theme.
Not to sell myself short (Sweetie says I should stop being so "female" when it comes to advertising myself), but there are some things the site cannot do: for one, you can't upload pictures of your recipes. Technically, I have the code to do it, but (a) I'd have to store the images, and though we own a piece of a server I don't want to push it when that piece has to accommodate all of our projects, and (b) most people don't need to look at pictures of their own meals. You use blogs or sites like AllRecipes if you want to advertise your creations to other people...you don't attach photos to the index cards in your recipe box (unless they came with the newspaper clipping). You also can't import recipes directly from other sites, because there are just too many possibilities to accommodate. And finally, you can't interface with Facebook or Twitter like every other website on the planet. This is just a personal prejudice of mine...I find it skeevy that Mark Zuckerberg is oozing into every corner of our lives. And I hate that the websites I use are always trying to advertise my every move on my wall, sometimes without asking.
Anyway, in conclusion, "Tadaaa!" Check it out, if you have the time or inclination. It would be nice to see some other user accounts pop up for my creation.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Lucky Cat Bag in 10 Steps
Since summer began, I've had time in the mornings to pack a real lunch to bring to my internship/work each day. Usually it's just PB&J, a string cheese and some fruit, but it beats paying $5 for a piece of soggy cardboard in the cafeteria. The thing is, I have difficulty carrying my food with me. When I worked sort-of-full-time I had an enormous kitchen practically all to myself to put tons of ingredients in, but now I'm a nomadic intern and have to schlepp my containers wherever I go. My purse is too small for that and I'm certainly not breaking out the backpack from high school, so for the past couple of weeks, I have been walking around dressed my professional best with a plastic grocery bag knocking against my knees.
I did have some alternatives. My mother gave me a posh pack that looks as nice as a purse but holds twice as much...but it's leather so I didn't want to put my wet water bottle and squishable bananas in it. I have some old mesh grocery bags lying around, but I think those only look appropriate in, well, the grocery store. Otherwise you just look like a hippie too hoity-toity for a proper resource-guzzling capitalist handbag. My final resort was a canvas bag I had lying around. Big enough, sturdy enough, and only slightly bag-lady-like.
The problem: the painted pattern on it was ugly. After a couple of months of walking around with the ugly painted side facing my body, I forgot it under the kitchen table, where it became one of Luna's numerous options for bedding. It's been a couple of years since, and I have a brand new sewing machine whose cost needs justification.
Hee.
Step 1: Visit Joanne's Fabrics and pick out some shiny string. While you're there, peruse some pattern books while veteran housewives three times your age peer at you in a mixture of shock and suspicion.
Step 2: Find a pretty picture of a Lucky Cat (a.k.a. "Maneki Neko") online.
Step 3: Copy cat.
I've never been particularly artistically inclined, but I do plagiarize well.
Step 4: Pin cat to fabric matching the color of the bag. Attach to an embroidery hoop.
Step 5: Trace Lucky Cat in highly visible string. If you're smart, you'll do this in the color that will eventually be laid on top of it. If you're not, you'll do this in a color that clashes horribly and which you will then have to pick out fuzz by fuzz for an hour after completion. For example, teal blue on a Lucky Cat that will be gold and red.
Step 6: Embroider the bold lines of Lucky Cat with a zig-zag stitch on the lowest width. Tear embroidery apart and repeat until your lines almost look intentional. Finish the finer lines (nose, kanji, whiskers) by hand. Take slightly blurry photos so your blog readers can't see how messy those lines really are.
Step 7: Pin your Lucky Cat over the ugly old pattern on your bag. At this point, realize three crucial things: 1) You have to take it off again because you forgot the inner ears. 2) You made one of the strokes on the kanji for "good luck" wrong, but there's no way you're going to fix it because that's all one thread. And 3) Your bag is fully assembled. This means to actually get your Lucky Cat onto the bag, you will either have to take it all apart, or take your machine all apart.
Step 8: Take your machine all apart (i.e. slide out the base to expose the free arm, and praise the ingenuity of sewing machine engineers). Straight stitch what you can reach and wrangle your stitches embroidery-style (no pressure foot or feed dogs, just your fingers at the mercy of the fast-moving needle) where you can't. Which is most of it.
Step 9: Thank your lucky stars you kept all your fingers. Relax and admire the result of the past 8 hours.
Step 10: Model.
Perfect? No. A step up from Kroger bags? Definitely. As long as no one who knows Japanese or Chinese sees it and laughs at me for that erroneous stroke, I'm golden. Or at least my Lucky Cat is.
I did have some alternatives. My mother gave me a posh pack that looks as nice as a purse but holds twice as much...but it's leather so I didn't want to put my wet water bottle and squishable bananas in it. I have some old mesh grocery bags lying around, but I think those only look appropriate in, well, the grocery store. Otherwise you just look like a hippie too hoity-toity for a proper resource-guzzling capitalist handbag. My final resort was a canvas bag I had lying around. Big enough, sturdy enough, and only slightly bag-lady-like.
The problem: the painted pattern on it was ugly. After a couple of months of walking around with the ugly painted side facing my body, I forgot it under the kitchen table, where it became one of Luna's numerous options for bedding. It's been a couple of years since, and I have a brand new sewing machine whose cost needs justification.
Hee.
Step 1: Visit Joanne's Fabrics and pick out some shiny string. While you're there, peruse some pattern books while veteran housewives three times your age peer at you in a mixture of shock and suspicion.
Step 2: Find a pretty picture of a Lucky Cat (a.k.a. "Maneki Neko") online.
Step 3: Copy cat.
I've never been particularly artistically inclined, but I do plagiarize well.
Step 4: Pin cat to fabric matching the color of the bag. Attach to an embroidery hoop.
Step 5: Trace Lucky Cat in highly visible string. If you're smart, you'll do this in the color that will eventually be laid on top of it. If you're not, you'll do this in a color that clashes horribly and which you will then have to pick out fuzz by fuzz for an hour after completion. For example, teal blue on a Lucky Cat that will be gold and red.
Step 6: Embroider the bold lines of Lucky Cat with a zig-zag stitch on the lowest width. Tear embroidery apart and repeat until your lines almost look intentional. Finish the finer lines (nose, kanji, whiskers) by hand. Take slightly blurry photos so your blog readers can't see how messy those lines really are.
Step 7: Pin your Lucky Cat over the ugly old pattern on your bag. At this point, realize three crucial things: 1) You have to take it off again because you forgot the inner ears. 2) You made one of the strokes on the kanji for "good luck" wrong, but there's no way you're going to fix it because that's all one thread. And 3) Your bag is fully assembled. This means to actually get your Lucky Cat onto the bag, you will either have to take it all apart, or take your machine all apart.
Step 8: Take your machine all apart (i.e. slide out the base to expose the free arm, and praise the ingenuity of sewing machine engineers). Straight stitch what you can reach and wrangle your stitches embroidery-style (no pressure foot or feed dogs, just your fingers at the mercy of the fast-moving needle) where you can't. Which is most of it.
Step 9: Thank your lucky stars you kept all your fingers. Relax and admire the result of the past 8 hours.
Step 10: Model.
Perfect? No. A step up from Kroger bags? Definitely. As long as no one who knows Japanese or Chinese sees it and laughs at me for that erroneous stroke, I'm golden. Or at least my Lucky Cat is.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Sewing Machine!
On Mother's Day, I picked up some knitting that has gone unfinished for two years now. While trying to remember my knits and purls, I pulled up some episodes on HGTV.com. Under this barrage of domesticity, it entered my head that I should get a sewing machine.
This stray thought was bizarre, given my history with sewing machines. When I was a teenager, I tried to make a single quilting square. It took an entire day and only made it halfway finished. Then a few years ago, I tried to give it another shot on a borrowed Singer. That ended in a nightmare of tangled thread and stitches a fraction as orderly as the foot paths on a Family Circus comic.
Yup. That approximates the behavior of both my hemlines and Luna at 6 a.m.
Do not be fooled by the facade of lazy incompetence.
Anyway, I opened the website for Joann's Fabrics despite my dark history with automated needles. And you know what I discovered? A) The world has gone insane, because the first thing that pops up when you search for a sewing machine are crazy computerized things with friggin' Smart Phones built into the side, and B) the horrifying results of my previous attempts were not my fault! The reviews for the simple Singer models complained of the same headaches I'd experienced trying to get that borrowed machine to work for me. So I wasn't hopeless; the machine was a cheap hunk of fussy plastic. The consensus online was to stay away from Singers. Not knowing anything about sewing machine brands, where did that leave me?
Just then, my mother called for her Mother's Day Chat. My mother just so happens to be a veteran sewer. She recommended a Kemore...the same brand as the washing machine Sweetie and I bought last winter and couldn't be happier with. Plus, there were a couple available down the road at the local Sears on sale for almost $50 less than the prices online.
Da-dun! So many fancy options....
With a thick book-sized manual explaining how to do them.
So pretty! You know what else is pretty? Me, in this dress I could finally finish.
Two years ago, this went into the closet with the edges unfinished, the seams barely holding together, and random strings falling out of the skirt. Within hours, thanks to a fully functional machine, it was structurally sound and all trimmed up!
I could even put that little black sash on straight. Initially, I just let the crooked waist hang out there, with bunches making me look 6 months pregnant. But with the sash to mask it, I think I look downright svelte, even at the worst of hip-emphasizing camera angles.
The one downside to the sash was that it would cut straight across the side zipper. I worked around that by stopping the sash short, then embroidering a little flower patch to Velcro on after zipping up.
I did this by hand, since I don't have the control to pull off movements that careful on the machine just yet. Plus, when I tried this morning, I wasted a lot of thread because I didn't know that even if you don't have a foot attached, you still need to put the foot presser down for the tension discs to catch the upper thread. (Don't I sound all technical now? This is thanks to spending the morning wasting an entire spool of green thread. Hence, the bare-bones leaves next to my daisy).
Now I'm thinking up more things to do with my fancy machine. I'm thinking of making a new summer robe, since the one I brought from Temecula five years ago is practically falling apart. I might also embroider some hand towels, since I've bleached them all to high heaven with benzoyl peroxide anyway. But first, that knitting project never did get done....
This stray thought was bizarre, given my history with sewing machines. When I was a teenager, I tried to make a single quilting square. It took an entire day and only made it halfway finished. Then a few years ago, I tried to give it another shot on a borrowed Singer. That ended in a nightmare of tangled thread and stitches a fraction as orderly as the foot paths on a Family Circus comic.
Yup. That approximates the behavior of both my hemlines and Luna at 6 a.m.
Do not be fooled by the facade of lazy incompetence.
Anyway, I opened the website for Joann's Fabrics despite my dark history with automated needles. And you know what I discovered? A) The world has gone insane, because the first thing that pops up when you search for a sewing machine are crazy computerized things with friggin' Smart Phones built into the side, and B) the horrifying results of my previous attempts were not my fault! The reviews for the simple Singer models complained of the same headaches I'd experienced trying to get that borrowed machine to work for me. So I wasn't hopeless; the machine was a cheap hunk of fussy plastic. The consensus online was to stay away from Singers. Not knowing anything about sewing machine brands, where did that leave me?
Just then, my mother called for her Mother's Day Chat. My mother just so happens to be a veteran sewer. She recommended a Kemore...the same brand as the washing machine Sweetie and I bought last winter and couldn't be happier with. Plus, there were a couple available down the road at the local Sears on sale for almost $50 less than the prices online.
Da-dun! So many fancy options....
With a thick book-sized manual explaining how to do them.
So pretty! You know what else is pretty? Me, in this dress I could finally finish.
Two years ago, this went into the closet with the edges unfinished, the seams barely holding together, and random strings falling out of the skirt. Within hours, thanks to a fully functional machine, it was structurally sound and all trimmed up!
I could even put that little black sash on straight. Initially, I just let the crooked waist hang out there, with bunches making me look 6 months pregnant. But with the sash to mask it, I think I look downright svelte, even at the worst of hip-emphasizing camera angles.
The one downside to the sash was that it would cut straight across the side zipper. I worked around that by stopping the sash short, then embroidering a little flower patch to Velcro on after zipping up.
I did this by hand, since I don't have the control to pull off movements that careful on the machine just yet. Plus, when I tried this morning, I wasted a lot of thread because I didn't know that even if you don't have a foot attached, you still need to put the foot presser down for the tension discs to catch the upper thread. (Don't I sound all technical now? This is thanks to spending the morning wasting an entire spool of green thread. Hence, the bare-bones leaves next to my daisy).
Now I'm thinking up more things to do with my fancy machine. I'm thinking of making a new summer robe, since the one I brought from Temecula five years ago is practically falling apart. I might also embroider some hand towels, since I've bleached them all to high heaven with benzoyl peroxide anyway. But first, that knitting project never did get done....
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Spring '11 Grades
Yay me.
^^That sentence would have an exclamation point at the end, if I hadn't had to rip my mental and physical health to shreds for that GPA. But for the record, an A+ doesn't even exist on the official department rubric; you're only supposed to get an A for anything over 96%. It's only possible if you're a super-genius Übermensch...or the professor didn't read the official department rubric. Let's pretend it's the former, shall we?
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Mother's Day
As I've written before, I never appreciated how good my mother was to me until I grew up and met a bunch of really bad ones. When I was growing up, my assessment of her nurturing skills was limited to comparisons with the seeming perfection of other girls' lives: what fashionable items other girls possessed, what other girls were free to do, or more importantly, what other girls were free to not do. Like study, save their own money, or spend hours rewriting their English papers to a former professor's satisfaction. It didn't occur to me until recently to judge the quality of my childhood not by how cushy and carefree my life was at 16, but by how cushy my life is now after leaving the nest. Those hours spent on English papers don't seem so bad when I can now pump out A-level reports for my masters program with half the effort of my classmates.
The enormous responsibility of being a mother is something a lot of people can't, or shouldn't, take on. I know quite a few who are barely capable of acting like fully-functioning adults, much less parents. For example, I would make a really terrible mother. I don't have the patience, especially if my kid were to to have a personality anything like mine. Rather than a bundle of joy, the stork dropped off a bundle of strong will on that doorstep in San Diego 23 years ago. Here are some things my mother did to turn that bundle into a mostly decent human being:
1. Exposed me to the right influences and kept me away from the bad ones
While my classmates were idolizing supermodels, my mother was pushing me to read books featuring capable women. Instead of letting me mimic the Spice Girls, she put a flute in my hand and made me develop real musical skills. I may not play the flute anymore, but I'm also not running around acting like I'm Posh Spice.
2. Took me places
Every weekend she would drive for hours to get me to orchestral rehearsals, museums, hiking trails, or theater shows. At the time I thought that this was completely normal, and sometimes even resented these outings. I didn't know how lucky I was until I met mothers who weren't willing to drive 40 minutes to an event their kids would have treasured for a lifetime, because their TV shows were more important.
3. Took me to BIGGER places
When my youth orchestra went to Europe in the summer of 2004, my mother hopped on the plane with me and made the trip 100% more interesting (left to my own devices, I would have hung around the touristy shopping centers with the other flutists for two weeks). She drove me and my brothers 16 hours to the Grand Canyon. She flew me to Oregon and the east coast. Not only can I put those push-pins on the Google Map of my travels, but I have memories aplenty. And I'm pretty sure memories of the mountains and waterfalls in Meiringen, Switzerland will stick with me longer than memories of designer jeans would have.
4. Let me screw up
When one of our cats was hit by a car, my mother said it was better that she ran around and enjoyed life before going than if she was confined to the house, perfectly safe and bored for 20 years. She liked this approach to her parenting style, which, if a bit morbid, is not a bad philosophy. Of course I'd rather not be hit by a car, but I did have the freedom to rebel, explore, bring myself to the brink of destruction and find my way back again. Much less dramatically, I could ride my bike all over the place without being traced like a criminal. And dally in different life paths until I found the right one. And move in with a boy I'd known for two months. Result: stability and happiness. I'm certain I'm a much better person than I would have been if I sat like a china doll in a plastic castle being coddled and suppressed for 18 years.
Four items is not the traditional length of lists like these, but I think a lot is wrapped up in them. Bottom line: my mother did well. Happy Mother's Day.
The enormous responsibility of being a mother is something a lot of people can't, or shouldn't, take on. I know quite a few who are barely capable of acting like fully-functioning adults, much less parents. For example, I would make a really terrible mother. I don't have the patience, especially if my kid were to to have a personality anything like mine. Rather than a bundle of joy, the stork dropped off a bundle of strong will on that doorstep in San Diego 23 years ago. Here are some things my mother did to turn that bundle into a mostly decent human being:
1. Exposed me to the right influences and kept me away from the bad ones
While my classmates were idolizing supermodels, my mother was pushing me to read books featuring capable women. Instead of letting me mimic the Spice Girls, she put a flute in my hand and made me develop real musical skills. I may not play the flute anymore, but I'm also not running around acting like I'm Posh Spice.
2. Took me places
Every weekend she would drive for hours to get me to orchestral rehearsals, museums, hiking trails, or theater shows. At the time I thought that this was completely normal, and sometimes even resented these outings. I didn't know how lucky I was until I met mothers who weren't willing to drive 40 minutes to an event their kids would have treasured for a lifetime, because their TV shows were more important.
3. Took me to BIGGER places
When my youth orchestra went to Europe in the summer of 2004, my mother hopped on the plane with me and made the trip 100% more interesting (left to my own devices, I would have hung around the touristy shopping centers with the other flutists for two weeks). She drove me and my brothers 16 hours to the Grand Canyon. She flew me to Oregon and the east coast. Not only can I put those push-pins on the Google Map of my travels, but I have memories aplenty. And I'm pretty sure memories of the mountains and waterfalls in Meiringen, Switzerland will stick with me longer than memories of designer jeans would have.
4. Let me screw up
When one of our cats was hit by a car, my mother said it was better that she ran around and enjoyed life before going than if she was confined to the house, perfectly safe and bored for 20 years. She liked this approach to her parenting style, which, if a bit morbid, is not a bad philosophy. Of course I'd rather not be hit by a car, but I did have the freedom to rebel, explore, bring myself to the brink of destruction and find my way back again. Much less dramatically, I could ride my bike all over the place without being traced like a criminal. And dally in different life paths until I found the right one. And move in with a boy I'd known for two months. Result: stability and happiness. I'm certain I'm a much better person than I would have been if I sat like a china doll in a plastic castle being coddled and suppressed for 18 years.
Four items is not the traditional length of lists like these, but I think a lot is wrapped up in them. Bottom line: my mother did well. Happy Mother's Day.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Lazy
With the sun shining and the number of people in on campus dwindling, an aura of laziness has settled over the city. Some exemplars:
1) Because I had plans to capitalize on the magical Kohl's gift card, I drove to my group meeting on Wednesday. Though a lot of students had already vacated campus for summer, the nearest parking spot was still a ten-minute walk north of the library. It was a sunny, breezy day, so I didn't mind. I got out of my car near a bus stop, where a girl in athletic clothes was waiting. I continued walking past the Sell-Your-Book-mobiles and grand Greek houses, soaking up the sun. Five minutes later a bus pulled up in front of me, and the girl with the athletic clothes I saw up the street got off and sauntered across the road towards the Student Recreation Center for a workout.
2) I arrived for my internship at 9am on Thursday morning. The DLP office is on the fifth floor of the library, and I'd had to sprint to the bus a half hour before, so I enjoyed the luxury of the elevator. One pinged open and I stepped in. I pressed the button for "5". The elevator doors stay open for a while on the ground floor to give people a chance to board, so I waited. A girl in what looked like the clothes she slept in dashed in. She pressed "2". The elevator did not move immediately, so she jammed the "Close Door" button repeatedly while students entered the stairwell five steps across the hall and arrived at her floor before the elevator even started to move.
3) This morning Sweetie and I woke up at 11:00 am. We actually woke up several hours before that, but didn't feel like getting out of bed. But come 11, our stomachs decided we couldn't just lie around daydreaming all day. I did not feel like cooking. And it was too far to drive anywhere.
Hot dogs aren't a strange breakfast food--they're just like eating sausage and toast for breakfast! Yes... Besides, my side was healthy. I had the first good batch of grapes of the year.
Fruit is a perfectly acceptable breakfast food. Downright sophisticated, actually. Especially in a three-year-old Pizza Express cup.
Though I can't say anything for Sweetie's Cool Ranch Doritos.
This is not my sweetie. This is Selena Gomez, who popped up surprisingly often in a Google Image search for "Cool Ranch Doritos." This is the person whose body I wished I could inhabit, until this happened:
Ewwwgetoffgetoffgetoff! I don't want it if a tweeny-bopper's hands are all over it! Besides, he's a minor and she's not and, given those making-out-in-bathing-suits pics, I'm pretty sure they've broken the law.
1) Because I had plans to capitalize on the magical Kohl's gift card, I drove to my group meeting on Wednesday. Though a lot of students had already vacated campus for summer, the nearest parking spot was still a ten-minute walk north of the library. It was a sunny, breezy day, so I didn't mind. I got out of my car near a bus stop, where a girl in athletic clothes was waiting. I continued walking past the Sell-Your-Book-mobiles and grand Greek houses, soaking up the sun. Five minutes later a bus pulled up in front of me, and the girl with the athletic clothes I saw up the street got off and sauntered across the road towards the Student Recreation Center for a workout.
2) I arrived for my internship at 9am on Thursday morning. The DLP office is on the fifth floor of the library, and I'd had to sprint to the bus a half hour before, so I enjoyed the luxury of the elevator. One pinged open and I stepped in. I pressed the button for "5". The elevator doors stay open for a while on the ground floor to give people a chance to board, so I waited. A girl in what looked like the clothes she slept in dashed in. She pressed "2". The elevator did not move immediately, so she jammed the "Close Door" button repeatedly while students entered the stairwell five steps across the hall and arrived at her floor before the elevator even started to move.
3) This morning Sweetie and I woke up at 11:00 am. We actually woke up several hours before that, but didn't feel like getting out of bed. But come 11, our stomachs decided we couldn't just lie around daydreaming all day. I did not feel like cooking. And it was too far to drive anywhere.
Hot dogs aren't a strange breakfast food--they're just like eating sausage and toast for breakfast! Yes... Besides, my side was healthy. I had the first good batch of grapes of the year.
Fruit is a perfectly acceptable breakfast food. Downright sophisticated, actually. Especially in a three-year-old Pizza Express cup.
Though I can't say anything for Sweetie's Cool Ranch Doritos.
This is not my sweetie. This is Selena Gomez, who popped up surprisingly often in a Google Image search for "Cool Ranch Doritos." This is the person whose body I wished I could inhabit, until this happened:
Ewwwgetoffgetoffgetoff! I don't want it if a tweeny-bopper's hands are all over it! Besides, he's a minor and she's not and, given those making-out-in-bathing-suits pics, I'm pretty sure they've broken the law.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Me Day
Today was the first "Me Day" I've had in more than a year. My classes are over, my boss is out of town, and it's not raining. I walked around with neither jacket nor umbrella for the first time since October 2010. I woke up at my leisure around 8am (my normal schedule was adjusted upwards because of my internship), walk/jogged a couple of miles to Body of Proof, and had actually had time to blow-dry my hair afterwards! Save for a somewhat ineffectual meeting to tie up loose ends in a group project, my morning was sublime...though it was after the meeting that the real fun started.
See, I've been saving up Karma Points all semester. I worked hard, was nice to my classmates, sent helpful supplemental material to my professors, and have washed the dishes regularly. My floor is clean, my boyfriend is well fed, and the local library has pretty graphs to look at. But like my credit card rewards points and the loose change in my Christmas-tree-shaped jar, I avoided cashing in my Karma Points for as long as possible. They've been quietly accruing interest in the Bodhisattva Vault until today, when I took it all out and bet the lot on one horse.
That horse: Kohls department store. A few days ago they sent me a promotional postcard for $10 off anything in-store, including sale items. There is one piece I have been looking for since my freshman year of college, the need for which has recently increased ten-fold: a professional-looking black blazer. Not just any blazer, but a petite one with sleeves that end at my wrists. One that I can machine wash. And one that will force conference attendees, potential employers, and clients to take me somewhat seriously.
In the entire department store, I found only two women's blazers tucked on a mish-mash rack in the back.
One was a size 4p, and the other a 6p. And the 6p fit.
How much did I pay for this one-piece wonder? Well, I was disappointed when I saw the price tag at first....
Egads. It was on a rack with some other suitings priced 30% off, but $54 was higher than any of the "Was $X...Now $Y" listings on the card. I took it with me anyway on another trip 'round the store, but the only other jackets available were in the Juniors department, and the sleeves ended at my fingertips. I contemplated. I ran over the list: Do the sleeves end where they're supposed to? Check. Is it machine washable? Check check. Does it make me look like a grown-up? Check check check.
I took the plunge.
$27.00 biatches! 50% off! And with my $10-off postcard, I paid a grand total of $18.19. Mwahaha. My accumulated karma, in combination with Kohl's bad karma from treating my mother like a felon when she tried to return some items and set off the theft alarm, gave me a victory not unlike Sabrina the Teenage Witch's magical bikini purchase in 1996.
God she was young. The last time I saw this movie, high school was, like, "adult." And it was normal to pay with cash.
After Kohls I also stopped by Kroger for some necessities. And one not-necessarily-a-necessity.
Lynn Chen says she uses this brand of scrubs to keep her skin movie-star clear. Don't get the wrong idea; I'm not the sort of person who will rush out and buy a product just because a movie star says she uses it. That's obviously a lie. I bought this in the hopes that tomorrow I will wake up four inches taller with long starlet-legs and a sunny apartment in Hollywood.
When's the last time you had a "Me Day"?
See, I've been saving up Karma Points all semester. I worked hard, was nice to my classmates, sent helpful supplemental material to my professors, and have washed the dishes regularly. My floor is clean, my boyfriend is well fed, and the local library has pretty graphs to look at. But like my credit card rewards points and the loose change in my Christmas-tree-shaped jar, I avoided cashing in my Karma Points for as long as possible. They've been quietly accruing interest in the Bodhisattva Vault until today, when I took it all out and bet the lot on one horse.
That horse: Kohls department store. A few days ago they sent me a promotional postcard for $10 off anything in-store, including sale items. There is one piece I have been looking for since my freshman year of college, the need for which has recently increased ten-fold: a professional-looking black blazer. Not just any blazer, but a petite one with sleeves that end at my wrists. One that I can machine wash. And one that will force conference attendees, potential employers, and clients to take me somewhat seriously.
In the entire department store, I found only two women's blazers tucked on a mish-mash rack in the back.
One was a size 4p, and the other a 6p. And the 6p fit.
How much did I pay for this one-piece wonder? Well, I was disappointed when I saw the price tag at first....
Egads. It was on a rack with some other suitings priced 30% off, but $54 was higher than any of the "Was $X...Now $Y" listings on the card. I took it with me anyway on another trip 'round the store, but the only other jackets available were in the Juniors department, and the sleeves ended at my fingertips. I contemplated. I ran over the list: Do the sleeves end where they're supposed to? Check. Is it machine washable? Check check. Does it make me look like a grown-up? Check check check.
I took the plunge.
$27.00 biatches! 50% off! And with my $10-off postcard, I paid a grand total of $18.19. Mwahaha. My accumulated karma, in combination with Kohl's bad karma from treating my mother like a felon when she tried to return some items and set off the theft alarm, gave me a victory not unlike Sabrina the Teenage Witch's magical bikini purchase in 1996.
God she was young. The last time I saw this movie, high school was, like, "adult." And it was normal to pay with cash.
After Kohls I also stopped by Kroger for some necessities. And one not-necessarily-a-necessity.
Lynn Chen says she uses this brand of scrubs to keep her skin movie-star clear. Don't get the wrong idea; I'm not the sort of person who will rush out and buy a product just because a movie star says she uses it. That's obviously a lie. I bought this in the hopes that tomorrow I will wake up four inches taller with long starlet-legs and a sunny apartment in Hollywood.
When's the last time you had a "Me Day"?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The Journalists of the Future
Yesterday, the White House announced Osama Bin Laden's death. Journalists the world over temporarily forgot about the newlywed Royal Couple, seized this tidbit and ran with it. The editors at my university's paper, however, knew where the real story was.
Beer cans and shockers. Always worthy of the front page.
Beer cans and shockers. Always worthy of the front page.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Stalling Tactics
I'm running out of excuses to delay writing my paper. They're being knocked off one by one, and I'm getting desperate.
Yesterday morning: I have to take care of AT&T screw-ups. Sweetie and I combined our numbers into a "family" plan, but the store messed up and landed me with two rate plans instead. The billing period ends in seven days, so of course this is more urgent than the paper due in two.
Yesterday afternoon: I was out of soy milk. Cereal is also more important than a paper due in two days...I don't want to get osteoporosis in a few decades, right? While we're at it, we need a squirt gun to discipline the cat. And test the squirt gun that will be used to discipline the cat. Sunny days come few and far between.
Yesterday evening: What do you mean the department cancelled my class? I needed that class. The summer semester starts in one week, so I have to fix this now. And blog about it. The stuff due this semester can wait.
Yesterday night: Sweetie's out of cookies. I should bake some. First, to clean the mixing bowl...That orange stuff coating the bottom of the dish-drying rack is really bugging me. Have to wash all the dishes first to get them out of the sink, and then I'll have room to take it apart to wash. Why is the kitchen floor so dirty?
Late yesterday night: I can't write well when I'm tired. I'll just finish the outline. Ooh, there are back episodes of Body of Proof I haven't seen.
This morning: Yay, Sweetie and I are awake at the same time! I'll make him food. And since he's up, I can use the treadmill. My health is more important than a grade. I can also wash the sheets. And the rest of the laundry. And vacuum the floors, under the bed, inside the couch. Who can sit comfortably on the couch and write a paper knowing there's unidentifiable crumb-like substances under there?
This afternoon: Time for lunch. I shouldn't work and eat at the same time. What's Sweetie up to? Cultivating my relationship is a long-term investment.
Now my environment, social, entertainment, sleep, hunger, and aspiration bars are full. It looks like I have no choice but to write the darned thing. Unless someone out there has a pressing crisis and needs my help immediately. Anyone?
Yesterday morning: I have to take care of AT&T screw-ups. Sweetie and I combined our numbers into a "family" plan, but the store messed up and landed me with two rate plans instead. The billing period ends in seven days, so of course this is more urgent than the paper due in two.
Yesterday afternoon: I was out of soy milk. Cereal is also more important than a paper due in two days...I don't want to get osteoporosis in a few decades, right? While we're at it, we need a squirt gun to discipline the cat. And test the squirt gun that will be used to discipline the cat. Sunny days come few and far between.
Yesterday evening: What do you mean the department cancelled my class? I needed that class. The summer semester starts in one week, so I have to fix this now. And blog about it. The stuff due this semester can wait.
Yesterday night: Sweetie's out of cookies. I should bake some. First, to clean the mixing bowl...That orange stuff coating the bottom of the dish-drying rack is really bugging me. Have to wash all the dishes first to get them out of the sink, and then I'll have room to take it apart to wash. Why is the kitchen floor so dirty?
Late yesterday night: I can't write well when I'm tired. I'll just finish the outline. Ooh, there are back episodes of Body of Proof I haven't seen.
This morning: Yay, Sweetie and I are awake at the same time! I'll make him food. And since he's up, I can use the treadmill. My health is more important than a grade. I can also wash the sheets. And the rest of the laundry. And vacuum the floors, under the bed, inside the couch. Who can sit comfortably on the couch and write a paper knowing there's unidentifiable crumb-like substances under there?
This afternoon: Time for lunch. I shouldn't work and eat at the same time. What's Sweetie up to? Cultivating my relationship is a long-term investment.
Now my environment, social, entertainment, sleep, hunger, and aspiration bars are full. It looks like I have no choice but to write the darned thing. Unless someone out there has a pressing crisis and needs my help immediately. Anyone?
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