the flame is Lame.
for the record, the typekit font i’m using for ye olde blog here is somehow turning the letter combo “fl” into capital “L”.
so, f loor = Loor.
f luorescent = Luorescent
f lame = Lame.
Lame. Lame. LAME.
so lame, in fact, that just to TELL you about the problem, i’ve had to put spaces between the F and the L, otherwise it wasn’t making any sense.
it’s driving me crazygonuts, but i’m sure hopeful it will be fixed shortly.
but i couldn’t continue on while my brain explodes trying to read the phrase “cheese fell on the Loor. Loor? lore? blerghh….”
it’s not just a first world problem, it’s like a 2.0 world problem, because the issue is VIRTUAL.
so.
you can resume, you know, a life that matters now.
of magic microwaves and kitchen sermons.
i can see the closest parking space to a location from a mile away.
i don’t usually have to drive up and down the aisles, but can peruse the parking lot situation quickly once i turn into the location. on these brilliant, sunny days we’ve been having lately, this skill is stored in the back of my closet with the winter coats and galoshes because i don’t mind a long walk from the far end of the lot; however, with the aforementioned puffyfoot not healing like i’ve told it to a thousand times (don’t ankles ever listen!?!) and in rainy/cold weather, this skill is sharpened, honed, and ready to go.
the boy i’m married to has no such skill.
he’s like a horse with blinders on, a tunnel-visioned champ that can focus with laser-like precision on his current mission: designing a logo, building a website, and, well, parking.
the first spot he sees open (which, mind you, is usually the ONLY spot he sees open) is the one he’s pulling into, happily, while i flail about in the passenger seat, all pointer fingers and missed parking spot opportunities.
he loves driving with me.
he especially loves it when, while tapping on the brakes to avoid colliding with the car in front of us or for stopping the car in general, i suck the air out of the car and shield my eyes for the impending doom that i’m positive will commence and then insist that i’m not doing anything.
i’ve been a bit scarred by a few rear-ends.
i’ve also been a bit scarred by accidentally rear-ending a few people. in cars.
i think it’s that second one that is responsible for the gasping for air.
poor guy.
this is the background information for what i’m about to tell you.
the boy and i were preparing a most nutritious lunch of hot dogs (mine without bun not for health reasons like i try to pretend, but just because we can’t seem to get the same amount of hot dogs and buns at the store (except in our case, we always have more hot dogs than buns). i prefer cheese on my hot dogs, so while i laid several slices of tillamook extra sharp cheddar (i know the full names of my cheese, folks. i’m not messing around) the boy requested that i cut him off a hunk.
i obliged and set the piece of cheese on his plate, about 6 inches from where we were standing, then switched places with him (he standing by the fridge/microwave) because our kitchen is barely a two-butt kitchen, so we have to constantly reposition ourselves if we both insist on being in there at the same time. he immediately went to cut himself off a slice, not noticing the slice i cut for him RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS FACE, waving and holding up a neon sign, like cheese tends to do.
laughing, i put my hot dogs in the microwave above our fridge to melt the cheese, all while going into a humorous diatribe about his lack of observancy and how comical it is to me, the overly-observant.
mid-rant, i take my hot dogs out of the microwave and the cheese is gone.
as in, no sign of it on the hot dogs or plate.
we peer into the microwave.
no sign of cheese.
our next thought, which should have been that the cheese somehow fell off of my plate onto the floor, was not that. it was this:
the microwave magically made the cheese disappear.
we’re two grown adults with two combined college degrees, owned businesses and we can tie our shoes perfectly EACH AND EVERY TIME for years, yet our brains were seriously contemplating the magic of the kitchen appliances.
it took us a few good seconds to roll around our magic microwave scenario (how did it do that? will a rabbit appear next? can a microwave also vaporize humans? can we take this on the road?) before we noticed the pile of cheese on the floor, having unceremoniously tumbled off my plate while i was busy telling my dear husband how unobservant he is; the cheese, mocking me and my puffed-up observant badge of honor. that’s how i like my irony served, friends. with snacks.
the food got cold before we could stop laughing hard enough to eat it.
* * * * *
in other news, this time a year ago, we were practicing walking down the aisle, surrounded by friends.
tomorrow’s a good day already, i feel it.
(images via here and me, respectively)
book sevenish: emma donaghue’s “room”.
fin: 20 march 2011
[so, technically, this should be book 4, but i forgot about it. so it’s sevenish. i’m really good at math.]
the more interesting story is the story within the plot: the explanations
we come up with to make sense of the world around us and what happens when those start falling apart.
weekend wrap-up.
one. i got my bike back from the shop for its annual tune-up. we got matching 1968 schwinn bicycles a year ago on craigslist (mine blue, his red) and love love love (did i mention LOVE) to ride them all summer and into fall, particularly a few miles away to the drive-in burger shop where we get ice cream. because i just biked all of 3 miles, and i deserve a triple cone. the guys at the bike shop gave her back to me in tip-top shape, and she can even switch gears now without having a schizophrenic episode and retreating with a low-gear depressive sigh!
these bikes are drool-magnets. everywhere we go, and i’m totally serious, we get people coming over to admire our bikes. it’s one of those things we lucked into (not really being bike people, we just knew we liked old bikes and we wanted cruisers that were in good shape without spending a bunch of coin) without really understanding the deal we were getting. at the bike shop this last time, the owners were telling us how much the mechanics were drooling over the bikes, and while i was testing out the bike’s new capacities, another couple mentioned how beautiful she was.
SCHWINNING, people.
two. went to the grocery store, per usual. always wonder how my “short” list of a few things winds up to be about $80. inwardly laughed at the checkout line, because the people in front of me had the polar opposite of carts as i did. (i.e. if i was buying watermelon, they were buying watermelon-flavored jolly ranchers). the parallels were bizarre and funny.
but only to me, because apparently when i’m in a grocery store with about 9,678 other people, my brain starts to overheat and i start looking for the nearest exit, and apparently things become either really funny or horrendously bad in the store. funny is always the better option. also, turns out you can get coke icees at the store to cool you down while you wait IN LINE IN THE DAIRY AISLE because someone is having a decision-making disorder about yogurt.
sluuuuuuuuuurp. you take your time, lady.
three. cleaned the house, and amazed ourselves at the fact that we could literally re-stuff a teddy bear with the amount of dust we collected.
yes, literally, and not figuratively.
because i know the difference.
four. had a lovely movie night with good friend meg & lee, who are wonderful sports despite the fact that we continually subject them to watching our oscar list movies. the oscar list, if you recall, was our attempt in the year 2008 to at least begin watching but withholding veto power for westerns and some musicals watch all of the movies that won best picture oscar. of course, we weren’t foolish enough to think we’d get it done in a year, and gave ourselves double that time, 2 years tops, to complete the list.
3 years later, and we’ve made it through about 1/4 of them.
so, with as much gusto as we can muster and our netflix queue all lined up, we began again. with buddies, of course. we watched the 1955 best picture oscar winner Marty, ate way too much chocolate, ate popcorn and talked throughout the movie (but in a good way). marty was good, although i find myself getting very sad for characters who try very, very hard and get crapped on by everyone.
i will be very sad when they move to the north side of town, because then the ice cream will get all drippy on the way to their house for movie night.
first world problems, my friends, first world problems.
five. i got some delicious chocolate frozen yogurt.
six. i planted my dill, basil and chives in their indoor pots, and can hardly wait the 10 days it will take for them to show some life. i hope they aren’t DOA or inedible. i also repotted my burrito plant (seriously, that’s it’s name) in some soil more suitable for succulents (alliteration! yay!) and got the boy a new plant after the atmosphere of his workspace (read: cave) killed the little stegosaurus-looking plant he had.
seven. had business therapy at the design ranger’s house, wherein we met a few of their friends who were DELIGHTFUL, and got to sit around and discuss small-business-owner-lamenty-type-things and eat way, way, way too much delicious food.
i find that i actually eat rather well during most weeks, but give me a buffet of food out at a friend’s house, and i can’t seem to shovel the food in my mouth fast enough, far past the time that i’m full.
and then i tell the boy to bring me more dessert.
and then i moan all the way home.
and i tell him that i’m never, ever AND I MEAN IT THIS TIME going to eat food ever again.
and he just shakes his head at me.
eight. i went for a walk/jog (couch to 5K program, usually love it) saturday morning in monument valley park, which is my favorite for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it’s one of the flattest trails in the city.
although i felt great after it (never during; those people are crazy who say that…crazy, or in shape) my ankle was not so happy and proceeded to remind me of that all weekend long.
sigh. so, we’ll try again in another month, and instead just sign up for more spinning classes.
nine. 3-day weekend…sort of!
being self-employed, and with the workflow we have right now, you can kind of take a 3-day weekend whenever you darn well please. if i’m having a particularly non-focused friday, i end up with a de facto 3-day weekend. so, tomorrow being memorial day is definitely observed — in terms of recognition of purpose and service — in our house, but not observed in terms of taking the entire day off of work. so, we split the difference: spin class & work in the morning, and a birthday barbecue and a fantastic dinner with our friends over at art in love, jeremy & liz. our menu consists of burgers, burgers, and more burgers. and things that go with burgers. and dessert that follows burgers.
i really like burgers, and we’ve defrosted some excellent bison, crumbled some blue cheese and i’ve been trolling the internet machine for tasty burger recipes.
post script: the weekend actually ended up with a no-go on dinner with friends and a birthday barbecue courtesy of a serious lack of focus + mounting work to do, 1 rib that has been going out for weeks now and a pinched nerve in my lower back. big bummer. it’s been one of those kind of days. and the spin class we went to monday morning sucked, because it’s really fun to be shouted at for an hour on a bike.
ten. it got so hot on sunday that i know that the air conditioner in the window time is imminent.
i can’t say that i love HOT weather. i prefer the springtime sun, and the fall crisp…but whatevs. i’ll just plan on getting out in the early morning and late evening and hole up in my office-cave during the day.
i like my sunshine with a side of cool, breezy air.
bon weekend, indeed. [minus the lame monday part]
*all photos linked to original source, except for the schwinn which is by yours truly.
i don’t know, sam, i’m a puzzle.
we’re pretty confusing, we people. i remember about a thousand years ago being in the living room of my parent’s house while an older teenager talked about how he spent one entire day asking himself about his motivations for each thing he did (or did not do) and how interesting it was to him the things he discovered. he also found it interesting the amount of actions that seemed to have no conscious motivation whatsoever.
that’s stuck with me, the idea of the thinking behind the doing.
i always taught my students that “why” was the most interesting question they could ask, and the hardest.
so when i came across this quote, from the dalai lama, it all came to mind again. he was asked what surprised him most about humanity.
we’re pretty confusing, we people.
his answer:
Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
*title from my favorite tv show ever.
book six: steve martin’s “an object of beauty”.
fin: 20 may 2011
yes, by THAT steve martin.
the book was an interesting story with a narrative of the current state of the art world, and only occasionally uneven. by uneven, i mean that at times when i was reading i felt like i wasn’t quite getting something and not in an agatha-christie-what’s-the-mystery kind of way, but in a david-letterman-is-this-something? kind of way. it definitely illuminated parts of the art world without being overly critical (just the right amount, i think) or too apart of it.
here’s my favorite excerpt of the book, wherein a character explains to a dinner party his defense (and explanation) of loving obscure art pieces in the midst of a whole slew of people who think it’s ridiculous:
“Let’s say you’re going to buy a puppy. You’re going to buy a yellow Lab. A cuddly yellow Lab. So you read that you should go to a breeder, because you don’t want to get one that’s going to go sick on you. No you get to the breeder and you find out there’s English Labs and American Labs. American Labs are good for hunting because they’re kind of lithe. But you don’t want to hunt hi, so you go for an English Lab, more stocky. Then you’re told that the real prize of the Labrador breed is one with a big head. So you wait and wait, and finally you get one with a big head. Now you take it home and proudly show your big-headed puppy to a friend. You’re thinking, I’ve got this great show dog, an English Lab with a big head, and your friend is thinking, What an ugly puppy.”
fin: 15 april 2011
note: i only had a little bit left of this book when i started reading book four, but i can’t lie: i got a little bored during the 3rd quarter of mr. pollan’s book. i had to pause, then regroup and finish it out.
you are, quite literally, made of corn.
or
too many choices does not mean you have to eat bologna and twinkies.
today was the inaugural event of Fixer Design Fun Treat Fridays, wherein the employees of Fixer Design (which is, of course, just the lovely boy and i) check out for a bit mid-afternoon on fridays to get a tasty treat before we finish the work week.
today’s tasty treat came courtesy of the colorado springs cupcake truck
(currently in competition for the four best words EVER to appear together)
which travels about the city delivering its sugary magic wherever it goes. it made a last-minute stop downtown with my favorite special – birthday cake – and we got a buy 3 get 1 free special in care of the auspicious date (friday 13th).
our loot:
2 birthday cake with sprinkles (yellow cake with chocolate frosting)
1 peak pistachio (for the boy)
1 chocolate overload (for my friend meg who i am seeing tonight)
1 carrot cake (with cranberries on top, also for the boy)
we bounced a few streets over to give one to my brother and to pick up some milk,
and then finished the afternoon in tasty, tasty style.
the glass, which is my new favorite, is courtesy of the local goodwill when i decided this week that i had had enough of matched dishes and instead just wanted to get all the glasses i like instead.
i just posted about food two days in a row. what does this say about me?
don’t answer that.
bon weekend!
what i came home to.
I came home last night to find this little sussy* at my desk.
That boy sure knows the way to charm me.
*surprise. When we were kids, my parents brought us home ‘sussies’ from the grocery store. It didn’t occur to me that this was a silly non-word until middle school. Awkward conversation, that was.
ms. hiraz mussbedragin
whoa. i am duh-ragging this morning. going back to work on mondays is never really fun, but i have to say when you work from home, monday morning isn’t quite as bad, but still…monday is hitting me this morning like a Mack truck.
i have so many things to say, to think about, to write about, but they are all bouncing around my pinball head (pinhead? hmm, i don’t think that’s right) at subatomic speeds and i can’t seem to slow down enough to capture them and write them all down.
[side note: do you listen to car talk? you really should. at very least, you would understand the title of this post. but, perhaps you have better things to do with your time. things like reading inane blather on blogs. wink.]
anyway, on this monday, even after i’ve gone to the gym for the first time in a month since the terrible treadmill puffyfoot incident, i am still very lethargic. here are some things getting my dragging muffler through the day:
1. chobani greek yogurt
this is my current go-to breakfast now that it’s getting a bit too warm for oatmeal for me.
2. the moth
stories. good ones. not too long. from real people.
sometimes, just sometimes, i don’t want to listen to music.
i just want someone to tell me a story.
3. lilacs
the lilac bush in front of our house is in bloom, and it smells so good i will almost volunteer to take the trash out because i have an excuse to walk right by it an extra time during the day.
we’ve had some great spring breezes recently, and it carries the lilac scent down the road.
i like to cut a few and put it in a bowl for my desk.
it’s like dessert for my nose.
* * * * *
happy monday, loves. what’s getting you through today?
sara, darling. 
