To Jimi or not to Jimi

Referring to my previous post on Jimi Hendrix, I still haven't tried that song again. And I'm pretty sure that the longer I wait, the less of a chance there is that I'll actually like it. We'll see. I do plan to try it out. Maybe I'll add it to the list of things that I want to do this weekend while my parents are visiting my Grandma in Chicago.

For those of you who don't know, Max and I (and Ozzy and Nanna and Milhouse and Miru) have been living with my parents for the last 11 days. It's temporary, just until we move to Ireland. When plans had to be made, like giving notice to landlords and such, we were planning on moving in May. Things have gotten slightly, erm, sticky since then, and we may not be moving right away, so my lovely parents have graciously offered to host all 6 of us until we leave or whatever it is we do.

Anyway, when I was in high school and my parents would go away for the weekend, my to do list looked something like this:

1. Have friends over for stupid movies and junk food. Lots of pizzas. Make a huge mess.
2. Wake up. Cook breakfast. Make a huge mess.
3. Hang out and drink beer. Make a huge mess.
4. Repeat.
5. Spend 3 hours frantically trying to clean up a 45-hour mess.

How incredibly precious. Not that I miss high school, because I don't, but my to do list for this weekend looks more like this:

1. Come home form work Friday night. Watch Sharks game. Wish once again that the dogs could walk their own damn selves. Order pizza.
2. Sleep all weekend.
3. When not sleeping, do laundry, run errands, feed animals.

Although, it would be fun to have a party or a game night or something, just for the heck of it. "Hey, my parents are out of town! Let's get a case of beer and play Balderdash! But don't use any dishes."

Happy Birthday LDB

I remember when we first met and I thought 2 things:

1) Gosh, she's beautiful

2) Damn that cat is old

I miss Hickers because he got even older and eventually went to live in kitty heaven. I miss LDB because she continues to be gorgeous but lives so far away in Portland. Whenever she tries to leave, the people of Portland revolt and stop her from going. You see, they have no sun up in Portland so they need all the pretty people they can get. When one tries to leave, everyone gets all bent out of shape.

Enjoy your birthday! I'll have some Cold Stone for you.

This is the last Quick Post

Because I think I finally got it to do what I want it to do.

Quick POst

Quick Post

School is Cool

Rhonda and I are heading to the city in a bit to attend this month's NCBPMA meeting. They're going to be presenting a check to the winner of the 2006 Carol C. Butterfield Scholarship Grant--me! I'm going to use the grant money to attend the Stanford Professional Publishing Course in July which is really truly amazing. It looks like it's going to be a very intense, very jam-packed program full of tons of interesting speakers and attendees. I'm postponing my departure to Ireland until after the course; this is not something that should be effected by jetlag in any way.

The only thing that could make this better is if they hand me a giant cardboard check at lunch. Giant cardboard checks are much for fun than little paper checks. If they did hand me a giant cardboard check, would I have to write a giant cardboard thank-you note?

You could say that the secret ingredient is salt

Who put the "extra" in "extra super fantastic"? Me! Because jeez, this guy just did not seem super enough to me.

So what constitutes extra super fantastic? This (thanks, Scotty!). And this. And this!

The Dawning of a New Era

Well, it finally happened. After some hemming and hawing, I now have a website. It's on the internets even! No small thanks to Mr. Wait who has put up with my questions--some valid, most dumb-ass--for the past couple of days. He is a man who gives generously of himself to help those around him, less fortunate or not. A men among men, he is a hero to me.

So go, already!

And check back often, because I'm so totally going to town on that thing.

quick post

Like a spring-time-fresh horse and carriage

Soon I will be entering into the union of holy matrimony. As somebody may or may not have said, I guess I'd better learn how to cook.

It's truly terrifying! What are the basic rules of marriage? How should I behave? How should I expect my husband to behave? Thank goodness my friend LDB is looking out for me and answering all of my questions.

Please excuse me while I go and stick my head in the freshly cleaned oven.

The animals know that I'm leaving. They have been so nice to me, I can only deduce that they have ulterior motives. For at least 38 hours this weekend, there was a black cat lounging on some part of my person. The grey one even slept on the couch next to me while the black one was on my lap. Nanna has been extra super cute and cuddly, and Ozzy is barely taking up half of the bed. I can't imagine what they're planning, but I'm sure it will be gruesome.

The power outage on Friday evening prevented the garage sale from going down as planned, so here's your call to action: if I have something that you know you want, it's yours. Come and get it. This offer is only applicable to things that I no longer want; I don't want any smart asses stealing my computer or my Simpsons DVD collection. But feel free to take home some slightly used IKEA furniture or a book about Swedish Art History.

Anybody wanna buy a garage?

So if anyone finds themselves in the Duboce Triangle neighborhood of San Francisco tomorrow, stop by my extra super fantastic garage sale. There will be everything from DVDs to lava lamps to kitchen appliances to furniture to a talking Simpson's clock ("Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel."). And tons of arts and crafts supplies. That's right, everything must go. We're moving next weekend on the first leg of the transatlantic journey that will henceforth be known as the time Deb & Max went to Ireland for a year and Deb fell in love with a sheep dog named Heidi and refused to leave her behind when it came time to come home and when Max tried to talk some sense into her she cried and cried and cried but eventually realized that 3 dogs and 2 cats is too many dogs and cats so she (reluctantly) left Heidi the sheep dog in Ireland and came home.

It will be unspeakably hard to live without my furry minions for the next year, but I plan to drown my sorrows in fish and chips.

Go Sharks! I'm looking forward to watching you wipe the ice with Nashville during the first game of round 1 of the playoffs tonight.

Back on track

It wasn't my fault. I blamed blogger, but it turns out it wasn't their fault, either. All I know is that I haven't been able to blog for a couple of weeks, but everything's back to normal now. Everyone can let out a sigh of relief.

Don't worry--nothing worth blogging about has happened in the last 12 days.

HA.

The Sharks are in the playoffs. My best friend is back from the Holy Land. The sun has been shining for 4 consecutive days. The wedding has been moved to points unknown--I'm pulling for EuroDisney--and on a date to be determined. My brother is gaffing for Sean Penn's new movie in Alaska. Holy crap, what hasn't happened in the last 12 days??

And, as promised, baby seals!



No, they're not dead. They're relaxing. And being cute. What else does a baby seal have to do, really? And happy upcoming birthday to another cute baby seal that I know. You continue to swim your way into my heart with your skillful use of flippers.

My dog ate my post

No excuses. Don't look back. Just keep on blogging.

Coming soon--pictures of baby seals!

It's already been brung--again

Oh, it's on.

Why do I love the teenage-competitive-sports-slash-coming-of-age-slash-feel-good movies? Beats the hell out of me. But it's not just Kirsten Dunst or Degrassi. OK, it's mainly Kirsten Dunst and Degrassi. But I'm really looking forward to this one. There simply aren't enough movies about competitive women's gymnastics.

The gypsy was right

Last night I fell into a peaceful, victorious sleep on my sofa during the final minutes of the Sharks' 5-0 blowout over the LA Kings. After the post game coverage, the special Bay Area sports channel went into off-the-air mode, where they show the DirecTV logo and play crappy music. But then something strange happened. After about 20 minutes, I slowly awoke to this deeply moving music, I would even call it soulful. It felt like a guitar was reaching into my chest cavity and squeezing my heart, simultaneously triggering every so-sweet-and-perfect-it-makes-me-cry feeling, and it was uncontrollable. The steady drum beat periodically exploded in a way that made the adrenaline simply rush through my body and I was ridiculously close to jumping up and actually shaking my booty--not an activity for which I am known. Then the drums settled back into the beat-keeping role while the guitar rose up and reminded me what passion feels like, dedication, faith, belief, optimism, wisdom--basically everything I felt when I was a teenager, when I still believed I could change the world. So imagine my horror as I slowly awoke to this crescendo of emotion and musical epiphany only to realize it was Jimi Hendrix playing Voodoo Child. You have got to be kidding me.

It's not like I don't feel passion for music anymore, and I am certainly inspired by music on a daily basis (ignore the fact that are playing Billy Joel on the office stereo right now). But emotionally inspiring music, for me, has the tight, energetic drumming of Dealership, the knock-you-down powerful harmonies of Mates of State, the melodic genius of Pavement, the lyrical perfection of M. Ward. And yes, the toe-tapping fluff of one Mr. William Joel. But I hate--nay, loathe Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the like. "Classic rock" honestly gives me indigestion. I'm not a fan of virtuoso guitar solos and lackluster lyrics like

"I’m a voodoo child, voodoo child
Lord knows I’m a voodoo child
Hey hey hey
I’m a voodoo child baby
I don’t take no for an answer
Question no
Yeah"

I mean, come on. I am also averse to the blues in general, and this particular song was obviously done in the style of the blues. So why did it make me feel as if a thousand angels were playing hacky sack in my heart? I have no idea. But I'm going to listen to that song again while I'm fully awake and see if it has the same effect. If it does, I'll refer to that feeling as the Jimi Hendrix Experience. 'Cause I'm super clever like that.

But it's a cozy lie, with a hood and a pocket on the front

I'm wearing my Blogger sweatshirt today. I feel like I'm wearing a lie.

All of the energy that I regularly use for blogging has been sucked up by just about every other aspect of life lately. Work, love, logistics, animals, responsibilities, hygiene, dental improbabilities--there's no energy left for reflection, communication, or pointy wit and sarcasm. Heck, there's barely energy to stay awake during Law & Order. I realize that it's a phase, and that life tends to ebb and flow just like anything else. It just sucks when it results in blog neglect.

To make up for it, I'll share this invigorating link that Rhonda found (of course she knew to share it with me). I've also got a theme song this week, which I will also share. Enjoy!

Husky/Shepherd/Silly Putty Mix

I found another really good use for The Simple Life yesterday. If you watch like 3 or 4 episodes in a row, you can almost let go of the anxiety and horror you experience when your crazy dog jumps out of your car and runs away.

It's OK, we found him. But not before I ran around Colma for 20 minutes in a pair of bowling shoes, clutching my cell phone, crying hysterically, and asking everyone I saw if they'd seen a big white dog. After a while I found a couple of police officers--obviously sent from god--who alerted the Colma, Daily City and South San Francisco police departments of the situation. They joined my own personal search committee, comprised of Miriam, Kate, Laura and Brian (We were just about to begin a friendly little bowling competition when I was alerted to the fact that there was a crying dog in a station wagon in the parking lot. When I went out to check on him, the original dog count had been reduced by one.). I was already beyond the point of loosing it when Laura and Brian called--they found Ozzy sitting quietly in front of a Walgreens about 4 blocks away.

Anyone here who can tell me how a 65 pound dog with a chest which is, at it's narrowest, 16 inches across fits through a 3 1/2 inch crack in the window wins a big, big prize. Apparently, he was motivated. While I was wandering around looking for him, I passed a cemetery (Colma is nothing but cemeteries--weird place) that was having some sort of odd celebration involving fire crackers. We couldn't hear the fire crackers from the parking lot at the bowling alley, but Ozzy's canine super hearing had no trouble distinguishing one of the scariest noises in the world, second only to thunder. Within 15 minutes of arriving at the bowling alley, he lost it and decided to use his other canine super power--contortion--to escape the evil noises.

Of course, Ozzy was just fine and dandy after all was said and done. I had been reduced to bawling, slobbering, mucasy mess--and poor Nanna was a witness to the whole thing; yet another reason cars are bad, bad, bad. I'm glad he's home safe and sound, but sometimes I want to chop his little doggie feet off. In a good way.

Record Breaking Sucks

Ah, San Francisco. The little city that could. Could what, you ask? Could deliver a totally sucky March, weather-wise. It's almost as if the city wants me to leave, and go somewhere where it doesn't rain as much. Hmmmm. Tastes slightly ironic to me.

I won't regale you with the details of my tooth saga, but I'm pretty sure that my whole mouth is turning against me. And here I was thinking that whenever I break my diet to eat pizza, I do so for the benefit of my mouth and all of the little taste buds that live in there, giving no regard to any love handles, thunder thighs or extra chins that may or may not be temporarily leasing space on my person. Well, no good deed goes unpunished, my friends. The great endodontic uprising of 2006 is upon us.

Fair Warning: Wedding Content

If you're sick of hearing me yap on and on about wedding stuff, stop reading now. Go shopping instead.

I tried on wedding dresses today. Of course I won't post pictures of the fairy princess fashion show here, but suffice it to say that I love me the tulle skirts.



That's 10 layers of tulle, netting and taffeta. Yup. Long live poofy dresses!

I've only scratched the surface

I was reading a friend of a friend's blog and apparently he blogs with something called Word Press. I know that to many of you, that sentence was not unlike "I was talking to a friend of a friend and he drinks something called soda." It's not like I haven't heard of Word Press, it's just that I started blogging in August 2004 with Blogger and I never looked back. Between Blogger and The Planning Shop's server, I've always had everything I've ever needed to blog, post pictures, songs, videos (sort of), links, etc. Sometimes I'd like to customize the look of my blog a bit more, but I have acute codephobia. HTML, HTM-anything. That stuff is like gobbeldy gook for the most part. Whenever I start to wonder what Word Press could do for me, or Movable Type or any of those other way cool sounding platforms, I take little peek at their websites then go running post hast back to the warm and safe arms of Blogger. So what if my blog looks a little, erm, un-customized? And so what if I basically only have one page of blog? If I had access to more than one page, there would be a page for each pet, at least page for wedding stuff, a page for travel destinations...it would just get out of hand. This is exactly how it works when I have a grand idea for an art project: "Oh, it will be great. I'll use the shadow box and that freaky dollhead I found in college and that glitter glue I borrowed from Alene and the pictures from that weekend we went tot he beach..." And then I make a mess and the project never actually gets done. But when I take a nice photo, put it in a frame and simply hang it, it only takes 5 minutes. And it looks lovely. And it gets done.