Category: Sentiment

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"Other people" Being a girl Children Drew Family Games Parents Sentiment

Dads: The New Suffragettes

Just to perseverate on my post about the imbalance between recognizing moms and dads for their contributions…

Commercials are a terrible perpetrators of this phenomenon. How many commercials feature a dad and a small child making some kind of mess, and then looking sheepish until the mom comes in, smiling, and cleans everything up? Or the commercial where the dad builds a slanted table and the mom has to save the day with Eggo cinnamon toast waffle sticks? In commercials, dads look like helpless slobs who can’t get their kid through the day to save their life, and the moms sweep in and fix everything in a second.

P&G is currently running a series of ads focused on the Olympics. You’ve probably seen them. There are three or four, and each one features a mother getting a young child out of bed, taking him or her to some early morning practice, cheering on the child, driving the child around, doing dishes, doing laundry, feeding the child, taking care of the house, etc. (There is no sign of a day job for any of these moms.) The child grows up and then we see them at the Olympics, doing their best and sticking that landing, winning that race, etc. And then the mom is in the stands crying, and the kid hugs the mom, or blows her a kiss through the TV, and it’s so happy and sweet, and the tagline at the end of the commercial is “The hardest job in the world is the best job in the world. Thank you, Mom.”

Here’s the long version (it incorporates all the different moms/kids), if you want to feel really good. I’m not going to lie, I just watched it and teared up a little.

I just saw that P&G has an entire Facebook page called “Thank you, Mom by P&G,” where they post things like this video and other little tidbits that make moms cry. I mean, let’s face it, some large percentage of Facebook is probably moms, and moms love stuff like this. Even just moms-to-be. Even people who just like kids. Or seeing people succeed.

Here, try this one if the first commercial didn’t push you over the edge.

Who am I kidding? Everyone loves stuff like this. Drew just eats this ish up, and he’s the kind of guy who will willingly watch videos of people falling down.

And I don’t have anything against these commercials, or this Facebook page, or their entire campaign. It’s smart. And it’s so sweet. They take that overwhelming Olympics feeling, like the world comes together in these feel-good games, and people work so hard for this…and they juxtapose that with the intimacy of watching someone grow up and achieve something on a personal level. So smart.

BUT. I just have to point out…where are the dads in all this?

That’s it. Just sayin’. Why can’t it be, “The hardest job in the world is the best job in the world. THANKS, MOM AND DAD.”

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Awesome Being a girl Drew Exercise Food Friends Memoir Nonfiction Pregnancy Sentiment TV

Dear Diary Update 7/12

Big Brother Season 14 started tonight – one of the best summer traditions.

Drew just demonstrated his excellent planking (the exercise type) posture, while Erin counted slowly to 30. Meanwhile, I threw Hershey’s miniatures at him from across the room in an attempt to distract him or make him laugh enough that he fell. But he didn’t!

I found out today that I officially passed my glucose test, which is a 2-hour series of blood draws they do when you’re pregnant to test for gestational diabetes. No GD here – very happy!

Not much else to say about this evening. TGI(A)F!

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"Other people" Awesome Drew Memoir Music Nonfiction Not awesome Sentiment

Solstice and singing

So, as I understand it, yesterday was the first day of summer. I basically say my favorite season is whatever season we’re currently in (with a slight bias toward spring and fall), but seriously, summer is great. We left Drew’s parents’ house the other day just after 9pm, and it was still sort of light outside. I just freaking love that.

From here on out, the nights are going to start getting longer again. This is bittersweet. On the one hand, I’m enjoying the relative heat (for the most part) and the looooong days. On the other hand, this means we’re on the downhill slope into fall, which I’m looking forward to for a variety of reasons.

To celebrate the beginning of the decline of the summer, we were serenaded last night at 4am. Well, I was. Drew slept through it, thank goodness.

This same thing happened a couple weeks ago. That night, I also woke up at 4am, not sure if it was the music that woke me up or if it started after I was awake. (I wake up a lot in the middle of the night, and usually just fall back asleep.) But there was this vague instrumental music, and I thought, Is the TV on? But it seemed to be out the back window, so maybe it was coming from the house behind us? That night, it played through that instrumental song, then the Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You,” then “That’ll Be The Day” by Buddy Holly, then something I can’t remember, and then we were on “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon when it finally switched off.

I assume it’s someone’s clock radio going off, and it just takes them 15 minutes to turn it off. But that time a couple weeks ago, when it also woke up Drew, he sort of freaked out, and then spent the next two hours unable to fall back to sleep, and then had to get up for work.

So last night I tried to ignore it the best I could, and to fall back asleep, although it didn’t happen until it was finally quiet again. The only song I remember was “I Want You Back” by Jackson 5. I’m still not sure if it’s from the house behind us, or from our neighbor. Either way, I’m just really glad it didn’t disturb Drew, and that I wasn’t awake longer than about 20 minutes altogether.

Happy summer! Here’s to sleeping through the night tonight!

6/22 EDIT: I jinxed us! The radio went off again last night, and I got to hear Buddy Holly again, and also “I Can See Clearly Now,” and also about 4 other songs. It woke up Drew this time, and he walked around trying to figure out where it was coming from. He reported that you can hear it best in our room, leading me to believe it’s either our upstairs neighbor or the house out back.

He even opened the window to try and pinpoint it. When the music went off a minute after that, he said loudly, “Thank you.” Which I found hilarious.

The only upside is that this morning I heard what the station number is. So, Dad, it’s 103.7, which appears to be KOSF.  You can listen to it online here. I mean, it’s annoying at 4am, but it does seem like a good station overall. It’s not the station’s fault.

How many times do I let this happen before I start doing some investigating/conversing with neighbors?

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Awesome Beginnings Family Love Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment

A Much-Deserved Milestone

My parents are graduating today.

They’ve already sat through my graduations, all of ’em – from kindergarten to eighth grade to high school to college. So you’d think that this would be old hat. But apparently it’s weirder when it’s not you graduating, and you get to evaluate someone else’s major life choice.

Of course, they’ve also spent way more time in school than I did. When you’re a student, every step has such a firm expiration date on it (usually four years, if you’re doing it right) and so, while I felt like graduating college was an accomplishment, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, and I hadn’t been there that long anyway, and also I had to get out of this ceremony and over to Sacramento for a matinee.

But my parents have been teaching FOREVER. I know my mom started officially teaching long after I was in school, but she was there as an aide before that. I have memories from all ages of my mom at school, from monitoring the playground in elementary school, all the way up to middle school. As a substitute teacher, she took my sixth-grade class on one of our end-of-year field trips.

In high school it was my dad who was always around, whether he was actually teaching the class I was in, or just letting me and all my friends use the computers in his classroom during lunch. (I know, we were the most awesome kids ever, right?) He was one of my class advisors, which meant he led all the class meetings and was all over the prom planning. And probably the prom. Which was fine with me, since me and my parents have always been pretty cool.

But they’re graduating today. And I’m pretty sure they will still have to finish cleaning out their rooms next week (I mean, I could be wrong, but I’m just guessing here – teachers tend to accumulate a lot of stuff), but this is it. I’ve known this was coming for awhile now, but I guess it’s just sinking in.

Everyone keeps asking me, “What are they going to do??” and I just keep saying, “They will be busy.” Neither of them is a sit-around-and-do-nothing kind of person. I mean, maybe for a day. But not for much longer than that. So I’m pretty sure they’ll have things to do. I hope we will get to see each other more often.

Whatever they decide, I am super proud of them and they are extremely deserving of this chance to do whatever they want. So congratulations, you two, and definitely take at least a couple days to sit around and do nothing! (And then come visit me!) I love you both!

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Awesome Being a girl cars Family Memoir Sentiment

Parallel parking

I remember my dad teaching me to parallel park. The way it goes in my memory is that during one driving lesson when I was 15, he just announced that we were going to cover parallel parking so that I wasn’t one of those girls who can never do it. (He may not have actually said that, but that’s how it goes in my memory.)

I guess I took that very seriously. I have never liked anyone suggesting that I fit into the stereotype of the “female driver.” But I have taken special pride in parallel parking. I’m pretty good at it. It helps that I’m driving the same car I’ve been driving for 11 years, so I have a really stellar feel for the dimensions of the thing.

This is my parallel parking job from when I got home this evening. And yes, the spot I was parking in was a pretty good size. And honestly, this is slightly closer to the curb than I would usually shoot for. But still. This is one shot, on the first try.

Thanks, Dad!

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Awesome Being a girl Books Children Drew Family Friends Memoir Nonfiction Pregnancy Sentiment TV Work

The weekend that lasted 3 days

This weekend felt longer than three days, but in that kind of weird draggy way. Allow me to explain.

On Saturday we had a dinner-and-game-night at our place, which I spent the day kind of stressing about, since it was an eclectic crowd of people and I’m not quite used to playing hostess yet. But overall everything went very well (possibly better than I had expected) and I learned that I love the game Balderdash, which I have never played before but now want to play all the time.

On Sunday, Drew and I went with Erin to San Jose to help out her dad with this steampunk convention he was doing. It was part of FanimeCon, but apparently only sort of? We didn’t really have all the details, but we were mostly there to do little odd jobs and make sure no one stole any of the equipment. It was…nerdy, honestly, and I don’t need to get into it but there was some major judging going on there. (By us; of the people attending the convention.) It was a fun day though, and it’s always good to branch out and spend some time around people wearing full out Victorian costumes (with steampunk accessories) and speaking in bad British accents.

Also, this bag of heads. But I have no idea why.

On Sunday night Drew and I started our Modern Family marathon – we hadn’t watched any of this most recent season, which ended last Wednesday. At least, we thought we hadn’t, until we started watching episodes and realized we’d actually seen about 4. But marathoning it is more fun than watching a half-hour episode once a week.

That’s mostly what we did on Sunday (after finishing reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the morning), until after 9 episodes I said, “I need a break,” and then right after that Hulu Plus said “You’ve been watching for 3 hours, need a break?” Oh how we laughed.

We went for a walk but didn’t really accomplish anything while on it. Well, we did pick up a menu from this Thai place near us that we may try out later this week.

We watched some more episodes that night, but we still have maybe 8 or 9 to go, which I think is a nice amount. Although, I do want to finish them this week because I think I’d like to cancel Hulu Plus before I have to pay for another month. (That’s how I roll.)

When I came into work this morning, I found a post-it saying “Gotcha!” taped over the laser on my mouse (so it wouldn’t work). I also found these people taped under the handset of my phone:

If you’re not familiar with Game of Thrones, that’s Cersei (she’s sort of a bad guy) and Tyrion (he’s totally the best guy). Tonight we watch episode 9 of season 2, which aired on Sunday, and which I have heard is an amazing episode. I am pretty stoked. (And I highly recommend if you’re not watching, you begin immediately.)

And, finally, if you’re keeping score, today marks 22 weeks pregnant for me, which is the end of the 5th month. (The counting is complicated, but trust me: 22 weeks = 5 months.) This week the baby is the size of a papaya, and probably weighs about a pound. This isn’t a particularly huge landmark, but we’re celebrating every single little one, plus I just kind of like this picture I took this morning. So please enjoy this relatively infrequent pregnancy update!

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Awesome Books Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment Technology

The real function of the internet

Yesterday I brought up the old adage that all quotes are either from the Bible or Shakespeare. Last night I was thinking about this. Before the internet, how did we know whether any particular quote was Shakespeare or Scripture?

If I had wanted to know where “Not with a bang but a whimper” came from, I would probably have to first have an idea (my idea was Yeats) and then I’d have to go through my poetry books from high school and college and try to find “that Yeats poem” that the quote was from.

If I were trying to narrow it down between the Bible and the Bard, I guess it’s possible that I would have a concordance of one or both of those things (my parents had a Bible concordance) and I could search for it that way. Is it likely, though, that I would have either of those books? (Maybe…as I was an English major, they would have been great pre-internet gifts.)

But then what happens in this situation, when all my guesses are wrong? I would have to just ask people if they knew, and keep an eye out for it in the future? Or maybe in a non-internet society I would be trained to remember these things better? And like a good English major, I would have just known: “Oh, that’s from TS Eliot’s The Hollow Men. It’s a reference to the Gunpowder Plot, and how instead of ending with the planned explosion, it ended with Guy Fawkes’ whimper as he was caught and executed.”

Man, I’d feel so smart all the time. And probably do better on Jeopardy!

But instead, the second I come up against something I’m not sure of (or something I’m pretty sure of) I run to Google to double check it.

New project: instead of just Googling things all the time* I’m going to try to remember some of them, using my brain power. Let’s see how this goes.

*Things I have Googled while writing this post: Yeats (correct spelling?); concordance (correct spelling?); “not with a bang but a whimper” (which Eliot poem was that again?); Shakespeare concordance (does such a thing exist?), “if I were” vs “if I was” (and now I finally understand the different between these two – so today is a success).

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Awesome Being a girl Drew Memoir Self improvement Sentiment Technology TV

Google me

I wanted to go back through my Google search terms in my phone, because I like revisiting the things I’ve needed to look up while I’m on the go. It’s amusing and can bring back some happy memories. (Like all the Harry Potter stuff I’ve googled.) Unfortunately, I realize that my phone actually only keeps the terms for a couple weeks – major bummer.

So, in order from most to least recent, here they are:

Rampion – photo from flickr.com (click for direct link)

Rampion – I had radicchio at dinner last night…which led to me wondering if that was in the Witch’s “rap” in the opening song of Into the Woods…which led to us doing the rap…which led to Drew saying, “Do you think she entered her rampion in competitions?” (“my rampion, my champion”)…which led to me googling rampion to see exactly what it was. (I was positive that it was a type of lettuce, but it’s just a flower.)

BART schedule – took BART to Berkeley the other day. Checked the schedule a lot.

Lakeport English Inn – I had to find their phone number so I could call and double check that they weren’t cash only. (They’re not.)

Not with a bang but a whimper – The title of the final Dexter episode is “This is the way the world ends,” so then I said, “Not with a bang but a whimper,” and then Erin and I were debating what that quote was from. Then we were talking about how in The Westing Game (the best kids’ mystery book ever), one of the characters says that every quote is from the Bible or Shakespeare. I guessed that this was actually a quote from a Yeats poem, but it’s TS Eliot, which I totally should have known.

AJ Jacobs Drop Dead Healthy – Potentially my next book club pick, although it’s just come out and I’d like to wait to get it until it’s in paperback. At any rate, I love AJ Jacobs!

Fiona Fullerton – there was an oldschool version of Alice in Wonderland on TV, and I thought the actress playing Alice looked familiar, so I googled her. I do not know who she is at all.

Lego game of thrones – Someone recreated the Game of Thrones opening sequence in Legos. It’s okay. It would have been better if they had used the actual theme song, rather than using a weird “brand X” version of it.

Mahogany – On Facebook, The Hunger Games posts daily typography images that fans have done. Good examples are here and here. (That second one is worth a look around – she has some really stellar work, not just The Hunger Games but also Harry Potter stuff, and others.) A bad example is one that used the quote “That is mahogany” but spelled mahogany wrong. I was just double checking that I was spelling it right. Because I’m an insufferable know-it-all like that. (I did not comment on the post or anything.)

Just look at her.

 

Whore of Babylon – Dexter again. Just wanted to get some background info on the whore of Babylon.

 

 

How long does it take to get from London to Hogwarts? – Well this is self-explanatory. And the answer is, all afternoon. The train leaves at 11am and arrives sometime around 6 or 7 in the evening.

Low blood pressure – Just wanted to know what was considered low blood pressure. Just keeping healthy.

Handicapped parking san Francisco – Just curious if it’s true that if you have a handicapped placard, you don’t have to pay for parking in the city.

5k miles – The Arthritis Walk was 5k and I wanted to double check what I got myself into. (3.1 miles…so not much.)

Professor kettleburn – He taught Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts before Hagrid took over.

Professor sprout – We needed to double check her first name. (Drew was right, it’s Pomona.)

Carrie underwood blown away – I wanted to show Drew the cover for Carrie Underwood’s new album. Mostly because Jonathan said it looks like the winner of a Judith Light drag queen contest, and I knew that Drew would think that was funny.

Sorry, Carrie Underwood, you know I love you. (But I like you so much more when you’re all country and down-home kinda girl. This is just a lot of glitter, and a lot of leg.)

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Being a girl Drew Food Memoir Self improvement Sentiment

I Want Tomatoes, and Mashed Potatoes

A foodie, I am not. Which is to my own chagrin, when someone suggests going somewhere “fancy” or “exotic.” (And probably to Drew’s chagrin, when I order chicken katsu yet AGAIN.)

It should probably be considered a character flaw. I’m just not that adventurous when it comes to food. I wonder if I can blame it on growing up somewhere without a lot of exotic food. I mean, the one Chinese place in Lakeport is called Hong Kong. And I still think it’s delicious…but I’m not sure how Chinese it is.

I had sushi for the first time in high school (out of town)… Thai food for the first time in college… and Indian food for the first time about 6 months ago. (Since THAT little work-friends lunch, I’ve definitely been called out in public for my vanilla palate. But I mean…turkey sandwiches and Greek salads are just so good. Why would you change it up?) Among the things I haven’t tasted yet: Moroccan, Ethiopian, churrasco.

It doesn’t help that I’m not really into spicy stuff. I got a quesadilla at this taqueria the other day, and accidentally ordered it with the spicy chicken. Oops. Trying to find the non-spicy option can be limiting at certain establishments. Also embarrassing, in general.

But I have been reading back through my livejournal entries (whoa, right?) and I found this entry about Drew’s and my farewell-to-New-York dinner, back in July 2009. (I just realized I titled that entry “food food food delicious food.” I didn’t try so hard, back then.)

Gotham Bar and Grill – photo from Yelp

We dressed up all fancy and went to Gotham Bar and Grill in Greenwich Village. Luckily, because I’m a hoarder of information, I wrote down exactly what we ate that night. (Most of it is taken exactly from the menu, which is why it’s so specific. But the Gotham Market Pasta is a seasonal thing and so I didn’t have the exact wording.)

I had:
SMOKED MAGRET DUCK BREAST
fresh figs, mostarda di frutta and pecorino tartufo
balsamic vinegar reduction
GOTHAM MARKET PASTA
last night’s special was fettuccine with mushrooms, spinach, and cheese.  I’m sure they would have worded it better than that though.
CRISP SOFT SHELL CRAB
chanterelles, asparagus, sweet corn and brown butter aioli
white verjus sauce

He had:
BLACK BASS CEVICHE
honeydew melon, hearts of palm, grapefruit and radish
jalapeno cucumber broth
FOIE GRAS AND ORGANIC CHICKEN TERRINE
toasted brioche, kumquat marmalade and balsamic vinegar
RACK OF LAMB
swiss chard, roasted cipollini and potato purée

For dessert:
RHUBARB PINEAPPLE SOUFFLÉ
rose petal jam, crisp meringue
strawberry ice cream
and
GOTHAM CHOCOLATE CAKE
with seasonal ice cream

I remember thinking it was delicious. And I remember, at the time, thinking that going out to a place like this was a good idea. But then it makes me wonder…what happened that I changed my tune, so that I just want grilled cheese and apples with peanut butter? And am I hiding this flaw well enough? Also, what is an appropriate occasion for me to suggest Outback Steakhouse? Or do I need to just bring it up ironically and then see what people’s reactions are? Alternately, would Outback deliver lunch to my work?

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Beginnings Drew Home improvements Pregnancy Sentiment

Cribs

We keep telling ourselves we have plenty of time to get everything ready for this baby, and that’s kind of true. But we had our crib just sitting around in the box, so today we put it together.

Here’s the “before” shot:

This was an exciting moment – realizing we didn’t need any additional tools and that all the pieces are carefully sorted and labeled for you!

So step one is to…dump all the pieces out onto the ground in a pile. (Bonus points if the pieces are about the same color as the carpet.)

After a false start or two, we got our sea legs and things started coming together.

Love the finished product! We still have 80% of “nursery” stuff to go – including a crib mattress – but if the crib is the centerpiece, then we made some real headway today.