Monthly Archives: May 2005

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Pet Peeve of the Day

Dream about making stirfry all day long, take a mental inventory of the onion, yellow pepper, broccoli, tofu, carrot, and yellow squash purchased recently for said stirfry, only to arrive home and open refrigerator drawers to find liquified veggies.

How has it really been a month since I went to the store and planned this feast? This same neglect can be applied to my “promptness” in returning phone calls and emails. To me, each voice message or email that comes to me was sent a mere day ago, not the actual month or so that you left it. May my pet peeve for liquified veggies be the karma all you have been wishing upon me.

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Bright Copper Kettles

This may look like I’m into gimmicks, but it’s not totally like that. I had the pleasure of visiting the Celestial Seasonings Factory in Boulder, Colorado. Those who know me well, know that I love factories. I blame Mr. Rogers. I have clear memories of him taking us to factory after factory, watching straws or crayons being made and packaged. I always felt giddy watching the machines do what seemed impossible! How could the machine know how to wrap the crayon or cut the straw? Don’t we need people to do this? Little did I know that the very thing that wowed me about these factories was putting thousands of people out of work. Why didn’t Mr. Rogers ever tell us that? Well, Fred? I wonder if when he passed away he had to go through some conveyer-belt-like-factory to get his ass up to heaven? I wish I could draw because I have a lot of comic strips always going on in my head.

Man, I always get side-tracked. So there I was at the Celestial Seasonings Factory, wiping tears from my eyes from visiting the Peppermint Tea room, and we get handed sample upon sample of tea. The Metabo Partner Tea tastes like Ruby Red Grapefruit only not as acidic. I bought some and all last summer made ice tea out of it. It was the perfect summer drink. I highly recommend it. Now the problem is, good luck finding it in a store. You’ll have to order it online. Enjoy!

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L Word Thought of the day

Alright, I finished the first season of L Word and I have to admit…I cried. Partly because I don’t have Showtime so I am unable to watch the second season until it comes out on DVD, but also because is was really well done. In the beginning, I was thinking the show might not have much to it, but then it started to develop itself and its characters a bit. I think that Jennifer Beals has really made a comeback with this show. In the last episode, you are so angry with her while still believing that she really doesn’t want to hurt her partner, Tina, played by Laurel Holloman. I was shocked to discover that sweet little Laurel is the same girl who played Randy in “The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.”

The thing with Queer as Folk, which my sister was pointing out to me the other day, is that every episode is about sex or leading up to sex. It’s as if they are thinking, “how many minutes before we can get these guys naked.” With the L Word, there is more development of plot and relationships. I still get annoyed with little things and there are always moments of weakness in the writing, but in all I think it is extremely well done.

Now, if I could just get my hands on Season 2.

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Bright Copper Kettles

For those who don’t recognize the reference, I’m starting an entry for my Favorite Things as I either discover them or rediscover them. Not to mention that I just love saying “bright copper kettles.” copper kettles, copper kettles, copper kettles. I mean we have three types of linguistic stops in there. We have the labial ‘p’ and the alveolar ‘t,’ but that Velar Stop of the ‘c’ and ‘k’ feels amazing. You know I used to think I liked glottal friction the best (i.e. “uh-oh”) but I realized it’s the word “glottal” that I actually like, thereby glottal stops being my favorite, as in ‘bottle’ or as indicated before ‘glottal.’ Hmm….it’s been years since I took a linguistics class and I’ve probably gotten all this wrong, but I digress.

I just realized that my first entry sort of screams of my older sisters and me. The alcohol represents Maddy, the Starbucks represents Marie, and the adding of fattening cream or milk and drinking too much of it represents me (I’m a walking deadly sin). A true family delight.

Starbucks Coffee Liqueur and milk over ice. (Soy milk will do, for you Vegans) It’s like a white russian, sans vodka.

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Things I WANT or NEED to be doing but can’t seem to motivate myself to do them:

  • Floss
  • Set sewing machine up
  • Finish quilt for Jay
  • Learn Guitar
  • Exercise
  • Cut my hair
  • Do my laundry
  • Blog about the best wedding I’ve ever been to
  • Meet with a Mortgage Broker
  • Deposit the $3,000 worth of checks that I have in my hands into the bank
  • Do my expense report so I can get another check for $500 to not deposit
  • Drop my work shirts off at the dry cleaner
  • Read the 20 books I have in my “To Read” pile before buying yet another book to add to the pile
  • Send RAR the Europe Pictures which are on a CD sitting on my desk staring me in the face
  • Call my friends in California, Atlanta, Swampscott, and even Seattle
  • Submit the edits to the Smart Text for Behavioral Health for work
  • Pick up my work laptop from the office (since we are not working at our offices for 2 months)
  • Change my earrings
  • Shave my legs
  • Sit up straight
  • Wash my sheets
  • Clean my room
  • Clean the bathroom for once (she always beats me to it, that’s my story)
  • Notice my sister’s yardwork
  • Sleep more at night instead of in the morning
  • Recover my lost pictures from my screwed up hard drive
  • Write. Really write.
  • Learn something new
  • Take on a challenge
  • Send Submission Hold a box and money so they can send my digital camera back to me when they get back from tour
  • Spend less
  • Make a budget that will reflect what I will have to spend monthly after I buy a house
  • Buy a friggin’ house
  • Ask my other sister if she really wants to go together on a place
  • Give Tonja the card I got for her
  • Create something. Anything. NOT food related.
  • Visit Dawnelle
  • Pick dates in July to meet Susie on the cruise ship
  • Plan book club
  • Start participating more in Act of Giving (especially since I’m going to be the Secretary/Communications Gal)
  • Learn Web design so you don’t have to keep asking Kables for help
  • Help my sister find her camera charger
  • Make a mix cd for Suki
  • Get my favorite cd’s back from Troy whose phone number seems to have been disconnected (a little help here, Kamala?)
  • Get the bump on the top of my head removed so I can have any hairstyle I want for the first time in my life
  • Start taking that St. John’s Wort. It’s time.
  • Call my parents more
  • Care about something again
  • Thank Leah one more time for letting me throw up on her and then telling me I’m cute
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Tag. I’m it.

Kris tagged me a couple of times this week and I thought I’d actually do one of them.

Total Volume of music files on my computer: 2.41GB (but my hard drive crashed not too long ago and if you look at my Ipod you’ll see that at one point I had 4,000 songs on my computer).


The Last CD I Bought Was:
“La Maison de Mon Reve”by CocoRosie


Song playing right now: “The Book of Right-On” by Joanna Newsom (but it’s on shuffle so I just listened to Missy Elliot as well).

Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me:

Three people to whom I’m passing the baton:

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Today is a good day to drive

The day has finally come.

While driving around the country for my last job, I managed to acquire 5 moving violations in a two-year period. Some of which I feel were unjustly doled out to me while others probably were deserved. They are as follows:

  • UNJUST TICKET #1: The only redeeming thing about Texas is that you can drive 70mph on their back roads. Unfortunately, after a few months of trips there I was sent to Michigan where the back roads are 55mph if you’re lucky. I was driving on a back road late at night with a co-worker, soon-to-be boyfriend, and I wanted to impress him with my good driving. So I was being extra careful to go the speed limit: 65mph. Lo and behold, flashing lights pop up behind us. I pull over, completely dumbfounded as to why I’m getting pulled over. Turns out it was 55mph. So the reason I think this is unjust is: 1) how can anyone possibly go 55mph AND 2) I really was TRYING to go the posted speed limit. Apparently, I hadn’t looked to see what that posted speed limit was. Argh.
  • UNJUST TICKET #2: Again late at night, but this time driving in Missouri on a lonely dark back road. Listening to a REALLY suspenseful scary point in my book on tape. Now for any of you who know me, or any of you who listen to books on tape, you know that sometimes you find yourself doing things like driving an hour past your exit before realizing it because of the engrossing story you’re listening to. So here I am, staring madly at the road and as the story’s intensity climbs, my foot pushes further down on the gas pedal. Now without any other cars for miles I don’t realize that I’m going 80mph on a probably 55mph road (damn M states and their slow speeds). Because of the subject matter in my book, my mind is of course preoccupied with people in trouble or bad situations, so when I see a car pulled over on the opposite side of the road I immediately worry that something is wrong and this person needs my help. So I slow down with every intention of flipping a bitch in order to go back and help them.
    Well, the damn car was a cop and as I was slowing down he was flipping his own bitch to chase my speeding ass. When he walked up to my car I held up my book on tape box and said, “I was at a REALLY good part in my book and had NO idea how fast I was going.” He laughed and said, “Well, I’ve never heard that one before. Leave your car running so the heater stays on, but come sit in the cruiser with me while I run this.” Strange? I didn’t think so at the time because it was soon-to-snow cold out and he probably didn’t want to ask me any questions while standing in the freezing air. So here I am sitting in a police cruiser on a practically abandoned highway. He was young, cute, and sweet so I decided things could be worse. Let’s face it, I was going 30mph OVER the speed limit.
    Then get this, they couldn’t trace my driver’s license because of the asterisk in the number (I have a four letter last name). I said, “I guess you can’t issue me a ticket then, right,” flashing that smile people have said is my only redeeming characteristic. He appreciated the joke (was it a joke?) but ran the plates instead. Weirdness part two: the car’s plates were registered to a different car. Luckily he believed me when I said, “Hey, it’s a rental. I don’t even know what company makes that car. Do you recognize that symbol?” He didn’t. We laughed. He gave me a ticket for going only 5mph over the speed limit and said I should rethink my book-on-tape habit. Then I climbed back into my warm SUV and started the book up again. You’re probably wondering why I think this is an unjust ticket. Well, I wasn’t purposely speeding AND I even slowed down with intent to help the supposed stranded motorist (which was a stupid idea anyway). So I feel like I had all good intentions. That’s all. But I’ll take the 5mph gift.
  • TOTALLY JUSTIFIED TICKET #3: Well, I can’t really remember where I got this one. I’m sure it was probably Virginia. They must have some sort of contest out there by Charlottesville to see which cop can give the most tickets because they were everywhere and if you ask my co-workers, that’s probably the state or county where we scored the most tickets. Scored meaning, those fucking assholes got us every time.
  • SOMEWHAT JUSTIFIED TICKETS #4 and #5: Car accident. Big. Huge. Not paying attention. Cruise control on. Saw cars stopped up ahead. Wondered why I wasn’t slowing down. Realized I had cruise control on and had to actually put my foot on the brake. Rental car made me worry about skidding. Plenty of time to stop, but doubted everything in that moment. Big Ravine to the right, gravel lot to the left, chose to cross the oncoming lane (thinking all traffic was stopped). Hit by oncoming Peterbilt Asphalt Truck. Car totaled. Truck driver panicked that he killed passengers. I was the only one in the car. No permanent injuries, but rushed to the hospital in an ambulance none-the-less. Looked like my boyfriend had taken a baseball bat to my body. Couldn’t sit well for a month or two. Long story short. Two tickets. No fine for the tickets. One for crossing an oncoming lane. The other for “careless driving” different from reckless driving. Careless driving is what they give you if you accidentally back into someone’s mailbox. I got off easy. But on my insurance it looks like two moving violations. Equal opportunity tickets.

So why am I reminiscing? Because after a few years of paying $1800 for every 6 months of car insurance, the five tickets have finally dropped off my record. I am now happily paying only $581 for every 6 months. Thank god. Now I can buy a house.