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April 25, 2006
Cadbury Creme Egg Cake
April 24, 2006 Back home from a weekend trip to Philadephia and New Jersey. We hung out with my sister, my brother-in-law, and a bunch of my cousins (and I found out that I'm going to be an aunt - well, first cousin once removed, but that's too much to expect a little kid to say, and besides, I like the sound of "Aunt Kim"), saw some of our friends, and generally had a great time. Very tasty: We ate at Gianna's Grille in Philly, a great little dive place with lots of vegan options, including a vegan cheezesteak that of course I had to try. They also had a full vegan baked goods case - I Very annoying: I was very careful about laptop battery management, because I wanted to work on the plane ride home. Unfortunately, I was only careful about the battery that was actually inside my laptop - I forgot that I had swapped batteries on the flight out, so I had one very full battery and one battery with about 4 minutes of life. When my first one gave out on the trip home somewhere over Nebraska, I reached for the second one and pitched a mini-fit when I saw how low it was. I won't be making that mistake again, I hope. Our brush with fame: When we were standing in line for the security check at the airport, there was a very large man in front of us who was being escorted through the security line as a VIP. There were four teenaged boys chasing after him with footballs and copies of Sports Illustrated, asking him to sign them. We of course had no idea who the heck he was. While watching TV last night, an asthma commercial came on with a football player spokesperson. He looked really familiar, and I paused the scene for a minute while trying to figure it out. Then it hit me - he was the guy we saw at the airport on Sunday! I looked him up, and Jamie totally agrees - it appears that we were in line behind Jerome "The Bus" Bettis, who until recently played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He also used to play for Notre Dame, and the guy we saw was wearing a ND shirt and hat so that seals the deal. April 20, 2006
One doctor's visit and four x-rays later, the diagnosis is: nothing broken, just lots of bruising. Generally, I'm going to be in a whole lot of pain for about two weeks, especially for the next few days. Ibuprofen will be one of my main food groups for a while, and I'm going to be spending a lot of time with my heating pad. Ugh. April 19, 2006 Check out this picture, noting specifically the big "NO FUCKING RIGHT TURN" sign (emphasis and vulgarity mine):
Hard to tell from this picture, but there is another no-right-turn sign on the other side of the intersection. Also, the lane paint under the taxi says "NO TURN". Now, change the color of the car and the clothing of the bicyclist, and that could be a picture of the accident I was in this morning. No, I wasn't the one in the car. I'm generally ok. A qualified ok. As today went on, I started aching more and more until I got home from work tonight (yes, I should have called in "hit by car", I know) and put on the ice packs. I left a message for my doctor's office and will try to get squeezed in tomorrow. That intersection, the new on-ramp to the Central Freeway (at Market and Octavia Streets) is such a mess. I wasn't looking for a new cause to take up, but I think I just found one (or it found me). April 17, 2006 Here's what I don't get: Say you nominate yourself for a makeover show. It's not sprung on you, intervention-style, like for most other people on such shows. No, you've actively gone to the mall on a certain day, given your minute plea into the camera, admitted your style faults and that you are helpless to overcome these faults without professional help, and have crossed your fingers that you'll receive this once in a lifetime chance. And you do. You get $5,000 to spend on clothes plus a trip to New York plus a five day top-to-bottom personalized makeover by several well paid and very talented stylists. This is a chance that quite a few people (including all the other ones lined up at the mall that day) would really have liked. Life-changing, many former winners say at the end of their week. And out of eveyone who debased themselves in front of a camera and who knows how many other people, your plea has touched something in the selection committee, and they've decided to give you this great opportunity. And yet... You won't really try on any clothes. You liked your old scruffy sweats. You finally are kind of browbeaten into some decent outfits, but you're not too enthused. You are surly and grouchy and unenthusiastic during the entire shopping trip. The hairstylist points out that your past-yer-butt hair isn't doing anything for you, that it's dry and lifeless and has at least 6 inches of dead ends, and by the way, you've had it up in a big old bun every single shot for the last 35 minutes of film and probably the last 15 years of your life. He suggests that you trim it up to around your bustline, which will remove the dead stuff and give the rest some body, while still leaving it in about the 99th percentile for length. Nope, you won't even let him wash it. Your hair is your identity, tough noogies (even though your identity lives in scrunchies 24/7). He walks out, professionally offended and feeling quite sorry for you. The makeup artist at least gets you to try on some lipstick and eyeshadow, and even though you admit that you like how it looks, and she comes up with a 3 minute morning routine, you flat out state that you're just not going to even give it a shot. Not interested. And at the end of the show, when most of the audience has already switched away in disgust, you really aren't changed at all by the experience - you won't change your hair, you're not going to wear the makeup, and you're pretty sure you won't really get much use out of the clothes. The hosts have the unpleasant job of attempting to keep smiling while you say this. In fact, I'm sure that you wish you hadn't even gone on the show. And I'm even more sure that the 500 other women at that mall would have all chipped in to buy you a new college-logo sweatshirt, if it would have gotten you to leave and increase the odds for someone who would appreciate this chance. I wonder what your conversation with your boyfriend (or was it husband?) was like when you got home. Hopefully he talked some sense into you, but somehow I doubt that's possible... April 16, 2006 One year ago, with much emotional support (read: prodding) from Jamie, I circled a date on the calendar. The date that I was going to give my notice at work, and (after taking a short vacation) become a fulltime freelancer. That little circled date on the calendar was my savior for the following month, while I quietly wrapped up projects at work, surreptitiously cleaned out my desk a little bit each day, and sat through an excruciating performance evaluation. That circled date was the light at the end of the tunnel, and allowed me to share the news with a few close friends while still keeping my mouth shut around my coworkers. Freelance life has had its ups and downs, but as I've said many times, my worst day working for myself is still better than my best day working for someone else. I've discovered the joys of occasionally bringing my laptop to a coffee shop, and have become one of those people at the cafe on Tuesday afternoon, people towards whom, as the column notes, I used to feel anger and secret jealousy. Now I set my own hours, and if I feel like working until 2am and sleeping in the next morning (as I did a few evenings this week), I can pull that off. Of course, there are downsides, mostly involving a lack of peer pressure and oversight. It's been difficult to get past that, and to make myself stay in and work when it's a beautiful sunny day outside calling me to go for a bike ride - although that particular situation has not come up lately. I've recently discovered Steve Pavlina, a terrific motivational writer whose point of view and sense of humor is close to my own. Many of his articles are about leaving the corporate world and striking out on one's own, and each one has made me reassess my choice and realize once again that I made - and continue to make - the right decision. I sometimes wish I could go back one year and let my nervous self, trying to pick a date on a calendar, know that it would all turn out ok, or go back two years and convince myself to make the jump earlier than I did. But the nervousness has been a good motivator and was probably necessary for the process; besides, if I could go back in time and deliver one message to myself, these would be extremely low on the list... April 15, 2006 Can't help it - every time I stumble across this video, I get all mushy and have a strong urge to call my Dad... April 14, 2006 Reason #1,732 why I adore dooce: Hate mail: "...women like you seriously have no business having kids at this juncture. i'm sure you love your girl, but kids need more than love. they need happy, mature parents." dooce: I didn't have a response to this email because I was too high from the cocaine I just snorted off [my daughter's] bare tummy. April 13, 2006 Oh well, maybe next time there will be yellow roses... April 12, 2006 OMG so incredibly cute: Baby Bluebird Cupcakes April 11, 2006 I have been reading through the 43 Folders' "Inbox Zero" articles, as I recently made a decision to lighten my email burdens. At one point I had over a thousand messages in my inbox, but for the last year I've kept it down to around 500 or so at any given point. I've been working on this project for a few weeks now. As of this moment: 97 messages in my inbox. Down to double digits! April 10, 2006 I found two dollar bills on the ground the other day, and decided to take one of them and buy a lottery ticket. While I didn't win the $168 million, I did win $3 which is a pretty good ROI in 24 hours. This morning I took the ticket back to the store, and decided to get my original dollar back and "reinvest" the $2 winnings. A very old, kindly looking man was in line in front of me, obviously a regular lottery customer at that same location since he and the proprietor had a kind of patter going. After his purchase, he stepped aside to organize his stack of tickets, and I dealt with my transaction. The old man looked over at me as I was leaving, smiled, and said "If you win the big money, I bet you'll have two hundred men at your door with yellow roses." I replied something flippant about "Thank you, but I'm pretty happy with the one I've got" and left. I thought about this strange statement for quite a while. First, why would I even want anyone who obviously wasn't that interested in me before I had money? Second, if I won millions of dollars, couldn't I afford my own darn roses? And why specifically yellow roses? It's true that I love yellow roses, but one would normally think red or pink or even white flowers from a suitor, right? I think that if I win big on those tickets, that I'm going to find out where that old man lives and show up at his door with yellow roses... April 9, 2006 For your pleasure: Longmire Does Romance Novel Covers April 7, 2006
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