Tag: postaweek2011

Categories
"Other people" Books

At the library…

Last week, Jonathan and I were in Borders on University in Palo Alto, picking through the few things left. I actually picked up some good stuff – a Dean Koontz book from the 80s (love them!), Laurie Notaro’s Spooky Little Girl, an Augusten Burroughs I haven’t read yet, and It’s All Relative, by Wade Rouse – a memoir that Jen Lancaster told me to read. 80% off rocks – although I am sorry that Borders has to close.

Anyway, I saw this on the mystery shelf: The Chocolate Cat Caper. And I took a picture of it, and made fun of it in my head.

I’m sure you know what I mean.

Like, I totally believe there’s a market somewhere of older women, who just love chocolate, cats, and mysteries. I mean, I guess I like all those things, and I’m not that old. But I just don’t think that you have to make it that easy for people to make fun of you.

Psshhh…Chocolate Cat Caper.

So then yesterday, I was killing time between the matinee and the evening show, at the Mountain View public library. I wandered over to the mysteries shelf, and checked out the Agatha Christies. I picked up The Pale Horse because I’ve never read it. The main character’s name is Thomasina, which I thought was funny, or something.

I wandered through a few more aisles, and then saw One Hundred Girls’ Mother, “A Women of the West Novel” by Lenore Carroll, lying out of place on a shelf. the cover looked interesting so I opened it up to read the inside flap of the jacket, and it also features a woman named Thomasina! So I thought it was a sign, and I took that one too.

Then I saw Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin, which I totally have been wanting to read, so I grabbed that too. Pretty excited about that one.

Anyway, then I saw this series of books back in the mystery section!

A whole series of Chocolate Mystery things! That is even funnier than I originally thought it was. And that’s the whole point of this post.

Categories
Awesome Memoir Nonfiction

Dan Just Laughs

There used to be this show on MTV called “Undergrads” – it ran for one season and everyone I talked to either loved it, or had never heard of it. I actually never saw it on TV, I watched downloaded episodes after it had been canceled. But I have fond memories.

This is one section that I have never forgotten:

Throughout the entire beginning half of the episode (called “New Friends,” which I recommend, but I doubted anyone would watch an 18-minute youtube clip), Brody keeps saying things about film and directors and his awesome film career, Kruger just drops f-bombs, and Dan laughs at them.

Sometimes…I just feel like Dan. Everyone around me is talking, and I just laugh at everything and contribute nothing.

Categories
"Other people" Family

It’s a California thing.

Recently I saw an aunt and uncle who I haven’t seen in ages. They live in Washington. They drove down to California. When I said, “Oh wow, how long is that?” he said, “It’s about 900 miles.” And I was like, I don’t really know what that means, even though it is a totally appropriate and probably more accurate answer to my question.

I’ve heard it’s “a California thing” to give distance in terms of time (it takes about 3 hours) and not miles (it’s like 130 miles). Honestly, I don’t even know how many miles away things are, but I can tell you how long it’ll take to get there. Well, I know my work is about 30 miles from my house, but that’s only because I gauge how many more trips I have before I’ll have to get gas.

It was a lovely family visit, by the way.

Anyway. I’m curious.

Categories
Awesome Children Friends Uncategorized

Drawing A Baby

Today we went to a friend’s baby shower – both Drew’s and my first baby shower. One of the games was to put a paper plate on top of your head, and then draw a baby – no looking at the plate!

This used to be kind of my thing. I used to draw pictures of my high school best friends all the time, without looking at the paper. I recently found some of those drawings, which I would love to scan and insert here, but they are back in a box somewhere and that is very labor-intensive.

But here’s the plate with baby that won me the game (well, I tied with another guy) and the Jamba Juice gift card!

That’s not an earring – it’s a rattle. I just missed the hand.

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Family Food Love Nonfiction Tomato

Making Mom Proud, or, A Very Beet Story

Over Labor Day weekend, my mom brought me a bunch of home-grown food: a zucchini, some beets (red and golden), cherry tomatoes, pear tomatoes, pears (not ripe yet), and a gallon Ziplock full of blackberries – my favorite!

I wanted to do something special with it all – I like the concept of “living off the land,” not that I’ve ever actually done it, and I’ve never cooked beets before.

So I dreamed up this menu for last night, basically using everything. On Wednesday night I cooked the beets so that I could refrigerate them all day. Beets, it turns out, are the most fun.

"What am I gonna do with these here beet greens?" Answer...nothing.

Meanwhile, the beets bubbled away on the stovetop.

Then I peeled them – and the skins came right off, just like the internet said they would.

Oh so satisfying.

Then into the refrigerator so that last night I could make beet salad.

Beet salad! Microgreens, beets, cherry tomatoes, and shaved parmesan. (Also penne with chicken, zucchini, and pesto.)

(Tonight! Leftover beet salad! Also, potstickers. And leftover rice.)

After dinner last night, it was time to make blackberry pie.

Yay mom!

Success, beezys!

Thanks, Mom! If you have more beets or berries you need to get rid of, you know where I am.

(Coincidentally, Jamba Juice has a “Berry Upbeet” smoothie that combines these two flavors. You’d think I would love it. But actually it tastes like berry, with an undertaste of V8. It’s okay, but it’s not going to become my go-to.)

Categories
Nonfiction Self improvement

They do it with mirrors

*Spoiler alert* Dental hygienists are not wizards.

A week ago I made a dentist appointment. Not because anything was wrong, but because it had been 6 months since my last appointment, and I got one of those little postcards in the mail.

Um, thanks.

So my appointment was on Tuesday, and on Monday night I sat around thinking, “Why am I going to this thing again? I was JUST THERE.”

But adulthood is adulthood, and I mean, I went to the dentist twice a year for the first 20 years of my life, so it’s not unfamiliar territory. But it’s amazing how fast you get used to infrequent health care when you go without insurance for a few years.

But that’s all in the past now. Now I’m an adult who goes to the dentist every six months. So I went.

Near the end of my cleaning, the hygienist pointed out the top outside gums on the right side of my mouth, and said, “Your gums look a little tender here. This is where you start when you brush your teeth, isn’t it?”

And I thought for a second and said, “Wow, yeah, it is.”

And she said, “Try starting somewhere else in your mouth, because you start out brushing rougher, and by the time you get to that part of your mouth it’ll be a little softer.”

And I thought, “OMG, she’s like a wizard or something!!”

I’ve brushed my teeth 3 times since then, and I am forced to admit – I don’t naturally start brushing there at all. I start on the complete opposite side. I have no idea what the reason for weird tender gums is. Maybe I’m just extra aggressive there. I don’t know. But she’s not a wizard at all.

Illusion shattered!

Categories
Drew Sleep talking

Sleep Talking, 15!

It’s recently been suggested to me that I’m making up these “sleep talkings.” Or that Drew is faking it. While neither is true, now I’m all paranoid. So that when this happened last night:

Drew: What about them? What about them?
Me: What about what?
Drew: …The ultimate terminator.
Me: …Really?

I wondered if he was faking it. I’ve been robbed of my blind trust.

Pretty sure this one was real, though. Pretty sure.

Categories
Sports Work

Love our patrons

Tonight at the theatre I overheard a patron telling his three friends this joke.

So these two guys are out on the golf course playing a skins game. [Note: in a skins game, the “winner” of each hole wins money. If two players are tied on a hole, the money doubles on the next hole.]They are at the last hole, and the winner will get like a hundred bucks.** It’s so exciting! The first guy lines up his shot, he’s got to make like a 5-foot putt to win the whole thing.

Just then, a hearse begins passing the golf course. The first guy steps away from the shot, takes off his hat and holds it over his heart, and waits while the hearse and all the funeral cars go by. Afterward, the second guy says, “That was a really great thing to do, very respectful,” and the first guy says, “Yeah, well, we were married for 30 years.”

LOL

**I tried to make the math work, but couldn’t. I thought about saying some mathematically-accurate number (“the winner will get like eighty bucks!”) but I opted not to. Well, I guess at this point I’ve split the difference and said too much about it.

Categories
Beauty Beginnings Dreams Memoir Nature Religion Sentiment

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face” – John Donne

I woke up this morning with my socked foot sticking out from under the covers. I felt very warm under the covers, and outside (while still the inside of my apartment) felt very brisk. This is the point at which I gave up and welcomed in fall.

It’s been feeling more and more autumny for days now – I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly. A smell? A certain snap to the air? Maybe the trees are changing colors and I just haven’t really been paying attention? Suddenly all I want to do is shop for new boots and sweaters. Not to mention school supplies…oh, the school supplies…

I can’t stop reminiscing, as of late. Mostly I’ve been thinking about being in high school. Which isn’t to say that I want to go back to high school. I mean, even the memories I’m getting trapped in are of being in bed when the alarm goes off, and it’s so early and dark out. It’s not particularly welcoming.

I will try to steer my thoughts toward fall in college – with its classes that start later. (Remember when we were all in high school and we would get up at like 6:00 to go to zero period? And it’s just what you did? That ish is crazy.) College is good fall memories. I’ll have to buy some strawberry conditioner (works every time) and a pumpkin pie spice candle.

Or I can think about being in New York – working at the haunted house in October (October is even the coolest word!), and everything gets windy, but not cold yet, and leaves are everywhere, and you’re just so freaking happy that it’s not summer anymore. The landlord turns your heat on for the first time in 6 months… Everything is burgundy and burnt orange and brown. I mean the clothes, of course.

I’m really looking forward to the fact that this show and the next show we’re doing are in Mountain View. Downtown Mountain View in the fall is pretty darn perfect. Again with the leaves and the wind. And soon it’ll be Halloween. I don’t like dressing up for Halloween, but I love every other single thing about it.

I will bemoan one more time the fact that, living where we do, we don’t really get seasons. This just means I’ll have to be sure to go to Lake County this fall to enjoy it. And take advantage of every second I’m down at work.

I love spring and I love summer and I even love winter, but above all else, man I love the fall.

Categories
Awesome Beauty cars Sentiment

Golden Gate Bridge pictures

On our way home from Labor Day dinner with my family in Santa Rosa…we stopped to check out the Golden Gate Bridge from high up.

Everyone else had had the same idea, so we had to pass the first two vista points and stop at the third, which is a little further away and so the point is slightly less vista. But that’s okay!

Then we got back into the long line of cars to drive slooooowly over the bridge.

Long live San Francisco!