August 28, 2008

Have a nice long weekend!

Even though the long weekend is still two (long) days away, I'm taking off early from the innernets so I can devote more time to obsessing over the weather and wondering if I should buy a Sham-wow. My life, so fascinating!

Have a great Labor Day weekend! Comments are closed.

Posted by laurie at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2008

If only we could all be followed by a halo of light...

Posted by laurie at 07:12 AM | Comments (37)

August 25, 2008

Trees! Water! Chocolate!

Oh, Lake Tahoe is beautiful! Once you get there.

I'd never been to Lake Tahoe before. My mom keeps saying that I have been there ("We took you there when you were little!") but then I called my dad and he said, "I've never been to Lake Tahoe either. She must have gone there with some other guy and his little girl!" which made my mom throw a shoe at him. I heard it thud in the background. I love being a source of family harmony and togetherness.

But getting to Lake Tahoe involved me hauling myself onto an airplane that had PROPELLERS. And there was no upgrading to first class, unless first class was hidden in the cockpit and I can tell you without a doubt they were seriously not letting me in the cockpit. I could tell they had warm cookies in there, too, I could smell them. Or maybe it was phantom cookies, I do not know! What I also do not know is why on God's green earth does every single airplane trip I take seem to begin with leaving my house at four o'clock in the morning? WHY OH WHY. Vacations are supposed to be fun and not horrifying things you want to stab with your curling iron at four in the morning.

ANYWAY. So I made it to LAX at the earliest possible time that wasn't the day before and the airplane was this charade of a flying machine piloted by Rocky and Bullwinkle. With propellers. And I started having a miniature freak out (because really, how large a freak out can one muster up at the buttcrack of dawn?) thinking, "Oh crap! Is this one of the scary airplanes all those commenters mentioned where they weigh the passengers with their luggage? And if so can I claim my luggage weighs 125 pounds?" but all was well and no weighing was required. And I managed to not fall out of the plane or barf on the way or get arrested for pounding on the cockpit door and asking for an upgrade. Yay me!

Also, how awesome do you think it is to have to fly with me? On a scale of like, zero to minus zero?

SO finally we landed in Reno, destination of said exotic airplane, and I got into my Budget Rental car and drove to... someplace not Lake Tahoe. One would think that a large body of water smack in the middle of the map would be rather more easy to find and one would be wrong, if one were me.

Now I do not think most people go on road trips the way I do. Not that you would call driving from the airport in Reno, Nevada to South Lake Tahoe (also on the Nevada side!) any road trip of real meaning. HOWEVER, I have great powers, amazing powers, powers that can turn a simple "Turn left and get on the freeway then exit at so-and-so") into hours of exploration of new territories.

Once when I was married, Mr. X and I went on a trip to Norway. I think we were on our way to Lillehammer one day, or someplace, and I was driving this leg of the trip. Mr. X fell asleep in the passenger's seat and the day was so perfect, it was snowing lightly and I was listening to the radio and thinking about living in Norway and how nice that would be and imagining myself in all sorts of coats and possibly in this fantasy I was a spy and also taller -- not important -- and that is when I noticed we seemed, after many hours, to still not be in our destination. And also, the little flag hanging outside the gas station I had just passed seemed... faintly not Norwegian. So I drove on a little further and saw another flag and tried to conjure up my eighth grade recollection of the flags of the world because that last flag had seemed really, very Not-Norwegian.

And I pulled into a little market and got out the map and a few minutes later Mr. X woke up.
"Are we there already?" he asked. Yawned.
"Hey! Guess what! I have great news!" I said.
"Uh, ok?"

Because really, what kind of great news could I have after driving in the car all morning?

"So! Don't you think IKEA is awesome?" I asked. Rhetorically.
"Uh, yeah, sure." He was confused. "We're going to Ikea?" he said.
"No! EVEN BETTER! Guess where we are! Someplace you always wanted to go!"
"Oh man," he said. "Are we in freaking SWEDEN?"

By the way, I would like to point out for the record that was only the first time I accidentally ended up in Sweden. The second time I managed to get us to Sweden, which is apparently calling to me on some magnetic visceral level, was several years after the Norway-Sweden adventure. We were in a rental car at the airport in Copenhagen where IN MY DEFENSE the signs were totally not well-marked or even in existence, and I somehow did not get on the entrance to the freeway but instead ended up in the tunnel under the ocean connecting Denmark to Malmo, Sweden. And in case you weren't sure about this, the answer is No, you cannot flip a U-turn in an under-ocean tunnel! So we drove all the way to Sweden where we promptly paid our many fancy foreign dollars for the pleasure of taking the tunnel and the man in the nice toll booth handed us a convenient pre-printed map for getting back to Denmark (which, if you think about it, only CONFIRMS my story of poor and/or missing signage) and we turned around and went back to Denmark through the tunnel. Really now.

And see, just when I think I have shared all my safe-to-tell-in-public stories with you, I up and remember the story of how I accidentally managed to visit Sweden. TWICE. That is just awesome because who knows what-all kinds of stories I may have forgotten to tell you?

So. Where was I? Oh yes, driving around Nevada.

The guy at the desk of Budget Rental Car offered to upsell me a navigational device and I know -- really, I ALREADY KNOW -- how much people love these devices and claim they are the greatest things ever invented since Tivo and Light Beer. And I truly respect and honor your love of GPS navigation systems, I do! I, however, am old school and I prefer the good ol' tried-and-true method of using a paper map and getting a little detoured and depending on the kindness of strangers and my Pilgrim spirit. Also I'm just not very good at watching TV and driving at the same time, which is what those GPS things are like for me, moth to flame.

And there is a greater precedence at stake here, because if we have read any amount of cheesy spiritual selfhelpery AT ALL, don't we know by now that it is the JOURNEY which matters and not the destination? Aren't we supposed to adventure through life? (By the way, if you need some self-helpy platitudes twisted to justify your own crazyass quirks, just let me know! I'll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitress!)

Also, if we're being honest here, I like old-fashioned road maps! I love them. I feel it is my obligation to buy road maps and road atlases (atlasii?) so they will not become extinct one of these days, like phone books and movie times in the newspaper.

In other words, no, I did not get the GPS add-on and no, I am not the least bit sorry. Because had I been listening to some computer voice say, NO NO YOU IDIOT!! TURN BACK THERE!! I would never have seen this:

Giant weird statue!

Or this:

There's gold in them thar hills!

Or this:

Nature!

Ah, road trips.

My hotel room was beyond great, and I neglected to take any pictures of it. Room service was also fabulous and was what I needed to heal me and make me well and I also neglected to take pictures of that. I was too busy watching Saved By The Bell and re-toxing my body while lounging in the jacuzzi tub in my room which is also possibly the greatest invention ever, eclipsing both beer and Tivo.

I did actually leave the room at some point, where I bumped into these characters:

Drew and Maggie! What are you doing on my vacation? What a coincidence! Actually, I think you should always pick a mini-vacation spot by calling your friends and asking them where they're going on vacation and then just show up all, "Oh my God! What a weird surprise!"

I kept marveling at how blue the sky was in this land of "we don't have smog." Generally I prefer my air brown and crunchy because that's how I know I'm home. But there is something to be said for clean air and trees of the not-palm variety and beautiful mountains and pristine natural vistas that you can enjoy for hours and then remember peacefully from the comfort of your jacuzzi tub.

Mmmm. Jacuzzi tub.

Posted by laurie at 08:44 AM | Comments (89)

August 21, 2008

Fall is coming and apparently it gives you great handwarmers and terrible posture

A few days ago I got a mailer from my local Bloomingdales ("The Mothership") featuring all their new DKNY stuff for fall. This little get-up caught my attention:

(Click all images below for a gigantor version)

What caught my eye isn't the fetching stance of the obviously sun-blinded-model, but what appeared to be charcoal-grey handwarmers... nice!

Then I saw this picture:

OH MY GOD THAT POOR GIRL HAS TO WEAR ARM WARMERS BECAUSE SHE HAS THE ARMS OF A MONSTER. Also, I love how in this picture the perspective is so that her handbag is actually large enough to contain her entire body if only she would hunch down a little more. But anyway, arm-warmers! Knits for fall!

And then the poor girl got mugged by a very large woolen scarf:

DEAR MODELING AGENCY, I HAVE GREAT POSTURE.

Oh, I love fashion. I like anything that makes pretty girls slump over and get monster claw hands and wear handknits. Also I think I will probably try making me some armwarmers like that for winter, assuming it ever will be winter again.

It will be winter again one day, won't it?

Posted by laurie at 08:26 AM | Comments (89)

August 20, 2008

Mysteries of the deep....

Sometimes when it is dark and stormy and cold outside I like to pull out my knitting and curl up on the sofa and do nothing but drink warm beverages out of a cup that may or may not be laced with Calvados....

Wait! OH YEAH YA'LL. I live in the valley where it doesn't rain. Ever! Our new teammate here at Big Corporation, Inc. who as you will recall is from New Jersey (so I call him New Joisey, which for whatever reason doesn't amuse him but if we were below the Mason Dixon it would SO get laughs) (ANYWAY) poor New Jersey came in to work the other day and declared that he had not seen one drop of rain since he'd moved to this godforsaken city.

"Doesn't it ever rain here?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Until it does rain and then...."
"... and then what?" he asked.
"Uh, have you ever been to someplace where it never snows when it accidentally snows? And so people can't drive in it but try to anyway?"
"No," he said.
"Oh! I think my phone is ringing!"

And so I still haven't told him what happens here when it rains.

BUT IF IT DID ever get dark and stormy and below 85 degrees, I would probably dork out and watch a Tivo'd show off the History channel called ROGUE WAVES!!!!! Because that is exactly what I did the other night when I couldn't sleep and it was dark but not stormy and definitely not cold.

I sat right there and got my nerd on with the History Channel. And learned all about ROGUE WAVES!!!! Apparently for hundreds of years seamen (heh) would tell tall tales of bigass rogue waves hitting boats and coming from nowhere and yet nobody believed them. In fact, there was a whole period of time when ship captains were afraid to say they'd taken a rogue wave because people would think they were drunk. (Also, for the record, from now on if I have had too much to drink I am going to tell people I have taken on a rogue wave.)

But in time, as people evolved and got fancier and so on, mathematicians made whole gigantor math calculations and equations and quadrilaterals and biceps (can you tell who painted her nails with scented glitter polish during Algebra I?) and these mathematicians declared that rogue waves -- any wave of tremendous height of 100 feet or so -- could only occur once in every 10,000 years. Once in every 10,000 years! So they concluded that rogue waves do not really exist and seafarers were full of seacrap.

Then fast forward to the 1980s or maybe 1990s (all right, fine, I wasn't exactly taking notes) and a huge old wave hits an oil drilling platform in some cold northern sea and it was recorded by sonar or radar or somedar. The first measured rogue wave! And eventually satellites began to map the wave patterns of the earth's oceans and by now scientists seem to agree that rogue waves not only exist, they are way more frequent than scientists apparently ever dreamed in their wildest, wettest, roguest dreams.

Now that is something else. I love that science can 100% unequivocally say that a thing doesn't exist (or occurs once in every 10,000 years) and then one day that science is just debunked and all the math was wrong, wrong wrong and two cruiseships are hit by rogue waves in a 12-hour period. Because it means that A) I have yet another reason for saying I will never go on a cruise and B) there is still so much we don't know and any old thing could happen. In a good way! Like your diagnosis could be wrong or you could just magically spontaneously heal or you could experience something people think doesn't exist or money could actually grow on trees. Magic!

But the reason I feel compelled to share with you every gory and probably mistranslated detail of this really nerdy programming I enjoy is that They ("The U.S. Department of They") believe some of the mysterious disappearances of ships in the Bermuda Triangle might be attributed to rogue waves. Which reminded me ... OH YEAH! How come nobody ever talks about the Bermuda Triangle anymore?

When I was a kid the Bermuda Triangle was the it-girl of its day. It was the spooky, scary mysterious phenomenon that everyone talked about and there were movies about it and it was a really big deal! When the heck did the Bermuda Triangle go out of style? Was it right around the time we stopped wearing parachute pants and spending hours contouring our blusher? How did this go quietly into the night without my mourning its passing?

Also, wow. I really used to be all about the contouring blush. Three colors of blush to make your face look extra pink and ridiculous!

So, that is all I have to share today. I believe I have reached my nerdy maximum sharing limit for the day and will retreat back to my corner. My corner which is definitely NOT in the Bermuda Triangle and definitely not experiencing rain!

And also, sadly bereft of contouring blush in three magical, delicious shades of pink.

Posted by laurie at 08:42 AM | Comments (130)

August 19, 2008

Well, I declare!

This last half of August (which apparently began a week ago, in my mind) has turned out to be far busier than I expected. All sorts of exciting things have happened, like when the metal doodad holding down the thingamajig connecting the canvas top to my Jeep came undone ON THE FREEWAY so the top started peeling back as I was driving at nearly top speeds at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday on my way to a weekend seminar. AWESOME!!! But I guess I had more commitment to the seminar than I expected because I freaked out only for a second then exited the freeway without hitting anyone (very good) and drove the rest of the way on side streets holding the canvas top that was flapping up with my bare hands. I arrived late and exhausted and dirty but I arrived, dammit!

Re: Dammit
Someone wrote me an email saying they couldn't like my book because of the "potty mouth bits" and to that I say, you should have met me before I had any readers, or before my parents got the website address and way before I got an editor! I was hellfire and trucker lips! Yummy!

Also:
I may stop reading email. Or perhaps I'll find someone to screen them all for me and just send me just the good ones. Actually that is a fabulous idea! Maybe my email screener can be named Raoul and wear little red bikini pants and bring me drinks with umbrellas in them! Oh, and read email too sometimes. Dammit.

SO. The seminar I attended on Saturday finished on Sunday and my whole weekend was spent on learnin' stuff. The Jeep problem was "solved" after Saturday's full-day seminar. I just used my time in the venue's parking garage wisely, while everyone else lined up to exit I removed the canvas that shaded me from the sun (sigh) and got out my handy duct tape to keep the metal doodad from flapping off. I have learned it is best to carry duct tape in the Jeep at all times as my car frequently likes to eject its parts when it gets tired of holding on to them.

There was no time to get it properly fixed on Sunday as I had MORE learnin' to do! There was this one guy I saw on Sunday sitting a few rows ahead of me and he was wearing shoes I couldn't get a picture of without being obviously, you know, weird and creepy ... but they were these suede saddle shoes we were all OBSESSED with my first year of college. Everyone and their brother (boys and girls alike!) wore these and we called them bucks. I do not know why. We wore those shoes with our Duckhead cut-offs and these striped Rugby shirts that were all the rage and our weird surferdude hair. Basically, for an entire year of college me and everyone I knew dressed like a gay preppy boy who'd been attacked by the L.L. Bean catalog. But when I saw that guy's shoes at the seminar I just melted a little on the inside because even though we may have been dorks we thought we were cool, and it made me feel all nostalgic and forgetty about my car problems.

The most traumatic thing that happened to me occurred yesterday morning when I woke up with the following song lyrics STUCK in my head:
Oh-kay, here's the situation! My parents went away on a week's vacation!

Not just those two lines, but the whole entire song. Now let's look at this objectively for a moment. I cannot remember my own cellphone number half the time, I forget birthdays, I have to park in the same place everyday or I can't find my car. Yet I know ALL THE LYRICS to "Parents Just Don't Understand," a song which has not been popular for two decades!! My brain cells are mutinous, 80s-loving nostalgic little creatures who really just want more wine and less stimulation. Bastards!!

Finally, here is my beauty supermodel Frankie:

She looked deep in thought, so I said, Hey Frankie! Why are you so pensive and ponder-y? And she said, First of all ponder-y is not a word. But since you asked, I am thinking about Frank.

Frank is a knitting buddy who makes amazing cakes and has a cute kid named Oliver and Frank has been in and out of the hospital a lot lately and is going through chemo and I guess Frankie was thinking about Frank. So if you get a chance today and want to leave happy cheerful getwellnessisms to Frank, this is his webpage. And I believe even the most delicate ears among us will agree or at least manage to look the other way when I proclaim loudly: SCREW CANCER!

Posted by laurie at 07:46 AM | Comments (111)

August 15, 2008

The edible lawn...?

A few weeks ago I found an article online about people turning the front lawns into gardens. The article is here on Time Magazine's website. Then I read an opinion article a few days ago on the New York Times website about urban agriculture. You can read that one here.

I would LOVE to get rid of my front lawn and have a big old garden out there instead! My landlord did not love this idea one bit, though, and informed me about all the hard work and time and effort and money the gardeners have put into getting the lawn in good shape, etc. etc. blah blah blah. I won't let the gardeners put any chemicals in my yard which drives them crazy and of course the landlord gave me an earful about that, too. So I doubt he'd be receptive to zucchini on the front lawn.

And of course even if he were open to the idea (which he is not, at all, the end!) truth is I don't have time to maintain an edible lawn right now anyway. I don't have time to maintain my own (somewhat astonishing) leg-hair weeding and fertilizing and mowing. Commuting is a tough taskmaster!

But one day when I live somewhere with a less lawn-crazed landlord OR when I own a house AND THEN when I have time to breathe (someday, always someday, the sun will come out tomorrow, I will worry about that tomorrow, etc. etc. lorem ipsum dolar...) I think I will plant a big garden out front. Makes so much more sense than some grass of suspect pedigree and all the watering and care you have to do just to have ... plain old grass. I'd much rather have a yard of thyme and basil or a yard full of avocado trees.

Would you replace a lawn with a veggie garden? How about your front lawn? I have a friend who started a garden out back but his wife thought it was a redneck thing to do and she was embarrassed by it. Until he shared that with me it never occurred to me that a garden was anything but a natural work of art, I guess everyone has a different take on things.

And my own garden in the backyard is doing just so-so this year, I don't have any free time right now and it's been a HOT summer and someone at my house is dead lazy about watering on any regular or meaningful schedule. My one lone pumpkin seems to be doing well enough, though. It long ago breached the walls of the raised-bed garden and has taken over most of the entire Back 40 and now its lone fruit rests happily in the weeds of the back-backyard:

But I will not lie to you -- up close it is THE UGLIEST PUMPKIN I HAVE EVER SEEN!! It is lumpy and misshapen and bulgy in all the wrong places and of course this makes me love it even more! I love my ugly lumpy pumkin that is not even orange! I call it my Charlie Brown Yellowbellied Lumpkin. I hope it grows up to be a magnificent huge size and astonishes all who gaze upon its lumpy misshapen pumpkinness. And I do hope it one day turns orange, really now.

My zukes this year are kind of scrawny and sad. It's just the pervasive heat, I guess, either that or the pumpkin sucked all the life out of the dirt which I kind of hope happened, Darwinism in the dirt! On the other side of the yard my peppers have made a comeback, apparently they need water to live (WHO KNEW) and since they are my dad's little heirlooms I treat them to a little drink now and then:

Even the little sprig I stuck in a pot is doing well and has peppers on it:

Ignore the brown sad plant to its left. We're very selective around here what with our midnight watering and all.

Gardening probably takes way more time and care than I have to devote to it, apparently it goes on my "one day..." list. Boy that list gets long sometimes. Dear Someday, please arrive NOW. Thanks! However, I DO take the time to feed and water the cats regularly so they will be big and strong and cute...

Blurry, yes. But cute!

Have a great weekend, lumps and all!

Posted by laurie at 08:28 AM | Comments (134)