February 08, 2010
Book signing on February 25th at The Grove in Los Angeles
Hello!
I am not touring for this book but I will be doing one reading/book signing in Los Angeles:
Barnes & Noble at The Grove
189 Grove Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
7:30 p.m. [ Map here ]
I am a little nervous. I haven't done any public appearances since 2006? 2007? And I've relapsed into my cozy hermit shell, where it's pleasant and there is TV. But I am excited to see folks I haven't seen in so long and chitchat and see what ya'll are knitting and look at your cute shoes and thank you for buying my book and also for agreeing with me that dating should come with hazard pay. I will also happily sign any book you buy, not just my books. I am flexible that way.
So there you have it. I will be at the bookstore on February 25th, all of me, so much more to go around this time! We will pretend I am taller, perhaps. Maybe I can find some really high heels. Or maybe I will get you all drunk so I look prettier through the misty haze of your tipsiness. Who knows! Be there or be a granny square!
Posted by laurie at 10:21 AM
February 02, 2010
Tuesday Five Things
1) Funny:
Hard to tell from my crappy picture, but that's Vitello's pizza on the left and just beside it on the right is SweetHarts, the candy shop run by the Hart family (of Melissa Joan Hart). Above both is the world's largest gastric band billboard. Funny?
2) Knitting
I have been knitting a baby sweater and booties set for my friend Courtney's new baby and by now I fear the child is already walking and will soon be driving while I am over here trying to finish a button band. I think the problem is that the pattern I chose looked better in the pictures than it does knitted up and since Courtney is a great knitter, I'm afraid she will think it's cheesy. Do I just finish it and wash it, block it and wrap it up and send it off with love or do I scrap the whole set and make something new? Tough to say. Maybe I'll do both. Send this off with a note that it was cuter in the pattern picture and then try to make her baby something really pretty at a later date.
3) TeeVee
I love television. This year I'm watching American Idol, which I haven't watched in over five years and I'm so glad I tuned in, I think there's something so entertainuplifting about watching people work toward a goal. Plus, I can't carry a tune in a bucket so I admire anyone with the ability to sing. And, just because it was on one night, I started watching the show that comes on after, Human Target. IT IS SO AWESOME. Cheesey fun entertainment in the ilk of Bond-meets-The Bodyguard. I'm also still watching Castle, which keeps getting better, and International House Hunters and all my usual addictions on The Travel Channel.
Last night I watched Anthony Bourdain in Prague and it made me feel a little sentimental about Prague and the great time I had there with Mr. X. But that was a long time ago, and one of the things most happy and liberating about my life now is that I am not afraid to go there by myself and make all sorts of new memories. Being the captain of your own ship can feel a little heavy sometimes, but it is also totally freeing in a way I never would have expected. I guess everything is two sides: the good and the not-so-good. Like the good Doctor Dyer says, every wave has a peak and a valley.
4) Book stuff
Apparently, I have an online book tour. I forgot I said yes to this, and so it snuck up on me. I have never done one of these but I agreed to it because I do not have to leave my house. I was sort of nervous, because I suck at promotion of pretty much every type and I didn't know what would happen. How nice to see the first person on the list was Kristy Sammis, who is like an old friend. So it's all very incestuous... just the way I like it and hopefully they will all be nice, which is all anyone who writes really wants. Forget constructive criticism, that is what the editor is for. Hah! Actually, it just dawned on me they're all doing book giveaways and I should do that too. I just got my shipment of books so maybe if I get my act together later this week or next week we can do that.
One thing I do love is how knitting folks all seem to stick together online. It's kind of the way the internet (and the world) should always be. I remember when the Yarn Harlot introduced herself to me at my first Book Expo and gave me a hug and it felt like finding a really solid anchor in the midst of a crazyass sea. Because of the blogtour thingy I've gotten to correspond this week with two of my favorite knitters, too, Wendy Johnson and Wendy Bernard. Knit people are good folks. I've met a lot of fancypants book people since all this started, and the knitters and crocheters are the only ones who are universally supportive, friendly and hoping you succeed, too. Some authors in other genres seem to feel if another writer gets a leg up it ruins their own chances. But with the yarn writers, they all seem to believe (as I do) that when one person gets an opportunity it opens the door wider for us all. I LOVE THAT.
5) Not All Pollyanna Fun & Games, Missy
I did lock myself out of my own Jeep this morning in the parking garage. I was on the phone with Drew and we were blabbing away happily and then I got out of the Jeep, locked and shut the driver's side door, walked to the passenger's side to get out my giganto-purse and my lunch and realized the door was locked. With my keys sitting in my purse pocket. Inside the Jeep. Luckily I know the secret whatsithaveyou to breaking into my own car, so I broke in just as Jennifer walked up and laughed at me (we work in the same building.) I am so happy that my two best friends, Drew and Jen, got to simultaneously witness me breaking into my own car on a Tuesday morning, an auspicious beginning to a day.
Oh, and I ate breakfast this morning. Thank goodness, I needed my strength for breaking and entering.
Posted by laurie at 10:18 AM | Comments (58)
February 01, 2010
February check in
It seems like five minutes ago that I was sitting down with a fresh notebook and a pen, contemplating my navel and making New Year's Resolutions. And now we're already a month in!
While I doubt this is as scintillating as, say, knitting content or videos of my cat sleeping, I thought I would post a little progress report at the beginning of each month here in my online diary more to keep me accountable than anything else.
Priority #1: Get Healthy
Progress: This is a tricky subject to write about because a lot of getting healthy is about food but it's so easy to devolve into diet mentality and start listing what you ate and grading yourself like a character assessment ("I ate this and am therefore good, I ate that and am therefore bad...") and honestly there is nothing more cliche or boring in this world to me than a woman blathering on about what she ate that day like a verbal diet diary. BO-RING. Useless. Unproductive. Total diet-brain stereotype.
So, having said that, I'm making good progress in my goal to be healthier. There is a food component, of course, but I'm trying to look at the whole and not be so weird about being ON PLAN or OFF PLAN and just remember you get one life with a lot of days and a lot of meals and the goal is to make basically healthy choices, that's the plan stan. (It is not the two tablespoons of olive oil on the roasted cauliflower that make you fat.)
The immediate challenge was to reign in my repertoire of mostly drive-through and junk food, none of which has any real nutritional value. Since the beginning of January I've been cooking all my meals except the occasional microwaved popcorn. The key is all the prep work on the weekends. I make sure to cook and assemble all my lunches on Sunday afternoon and pack my lunch bag every night before going to bed. It takes a lot of thinking ahead but it's worth it -- lunch is so easy during the week.
Dinners need to be quick -- I commute and I'm starving when I get home -- so I have been making staples ahead of time and re-heating them when I get home which is working out really well. Even roasted veggies re-heat well in the oven (I think they come back better in the oven for ten minutes on 300 than in the microwave.) I've been bringing snacks, too, mostly apples and walnuts because they keep longer and I like them. I'm discovering I'm more of a veggies person than a fruit person. I would rather eat a bowl of green beans than peel and eat an orange. But I like apples and they're portable.
I'm still having a hard time finding a workable breakfast, sometimes all I want is a coffee on the way to work. In February I want to work on getting a better breakfast routine.
All in all though, I'm pretty happy about cooking my own food. I like experimenting with new recipes and finding new foods (Brussels sprouts! who would have guessed it!) and I'm working very hard to keep sane about all this. If I start counting carbs or points or calories, someone smack me.
Exercise: I bought some awesome Nike shoes on sale right before the new year and I ordered the Nike + SportBand
So overall I am making progress in the health arena. Mostly little changes here and there, the biggest change being all the cooking and washing and chopping and so on. It is time consuming but it's getting easier each week. One thing I keep reminding myself is to look how fast January went by! And to remember that the small changes are cumulative and over time will make a larger change in my health and shape. At the beginning of the month it felt daunting to cook all my meals from scratch for four weeks but it went by in a blink and now already we're in month two of twelve. It really does get easier each passing day and I'm finally not having those McDonald's french fries detox pains anymore. I swear, I think McDonald's is more addictive than crack. Not that I have done a comparative study, mind you.
- - -
Priority #2: Come from an attitude of yes.
Progress: This is kind of one of those hippdippy resolutions that is so loosely defined it may not mean anything to anyone but me. Basically, I want to focus more on the good parts and less on the icky parts of life, looking for ways up instead of finding all the ways down.
My progress this past month has been ... interesting. I had a few times where I knew I overreacted to something or got upset about something I should have just let go. I want to get better at letting go of other people's crap. The Dalai Lama says you have all the power in your life to choose how you feel about someone else's words or actions. Except I noticed a few times last month that I get all inflamed with emotion before my brain even kicks in! Guess that is why he is the Dalai Lama and I am Her Ladyship PantiesInAWad.
Last week was particularly rocky and I didn't handle a difficult person very well. Luckily every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around. (Uh, it took me the whole week.) The biggest thing I want to work on in February is to institute a cooling-down period. Had I just taken a step or five back and waited to reply or respond to the difficult person, I may have had much better results. I tend to speak without a filter and I also get emotional about stupid stuff that isn't even that important. A cooling-off period helps me put things into perspective.
There were a few times this past month, though, when I started to really dwell on something icky and I caught myself mid-ick and made my brain think other thoughts until I honestly felt happier. So that is progress!! My favorite thought is just a little fantasy picture: Me sitting in a cafe in Paris (I get to imagine what I am wearing, down to my shoes) and I'm stirring a spoon through a steaming hot cup of coffee with milk. On the table is the cup and saucer, a smaller saucer with a few cubes of sugar, maybe a candle, or a place mat, a napkin. I have a guidebook with me, it's sitting out by the cup. Nothing of consequence happens in this scene, I'm just stirring the coffee in a Parisian cafe as the world walks by.
Thinking up that little picture makes crummy stuff in real life evaporate. It reminds me that the globe is large, much larger than the beige office or the crawling commute or the floors that need mopping.
- - -
I'm not sure how this is related to those resolutions, exactly, but it is: ever since I moved I've found it impossible to part with anything. It's only been a few months but still, it's very odd. I know I have tendencies to hoard and I try very hard to be diligent and clean and cull and let go of things when I need to. But I have been unable to let go of anything for a few months (except trash of course). It became very apparent to me the day I received a duplicate of a book I already owned and instead of passing it along I shelved it right up on the bookshelf next to its twin.
WEIRD. Even for me.
Last month I realized it was a combination of anxiety and discomfort and I figured it would work itself out. I'd also just parted with a huge chunk of stuff all at once when I moved, and maybe I needed a little time. I don't know.
Slowly (in the past week and a half) I've started easing up and over the weekend I took a whole Jeepload of stuff to the Goodwill, mostly clothes and things I found when I moved that I should have let go of back in September instead of moving them with me. And of course that extra book! And some other odds and ends. I also cleared out a big bag of papers and magazines and junk and went through my closet one more time and found some winter coats that don't fit and I donated those, too.
It felt good to clean up and clean out. I think it's a positive sign that I can at least tell when something is weird with me and I'm willing to let it work itself out. And it did work itself, I guess, since I felt a lot of relief cleaning the closet and getting rid of unneeded clutter.
- - -
Well, that was January. I ordered a new camera but it hasn't come yet. All empowered by the brilliant idea (after many many moons) to get rid of my lemon camera, I looked around my life for other lemons to eliminate. This weekend I made a list of other funkadelic things that are nagging at me and I'm going to fix or get rid of the irritation. Some will have to wait because of the cost, but some things I can fix myself. That has got to be a good step in the year of yes.
Posted by laurie at 09:49 AM | Comments (97)
January 29, 2010
Take a picture, it will last longer
Thanks so much for all the tips and input on digital cameras! I hadn't even heard of that Panasonic Lumix but it sounds interesting since it takes video, too. The Canon seems to be the overwhelming favorite. You've given me a lot to think about! This was the best insta-poll ever, thank you!
Oh -- and special thanks to the folks who said they also suffered with a Kodak lemon, too. No one believes me when I first tell them the camera is a lemon. So I hand it over. Then they use it. Days later the expert will give the camera back to me in disgust, defeated by the lemon. The exhilaration of know-it-all-ness is defeated by the agony of the lemon.
This process was especially frustrating because Kodak wouldn't take my camera back without a ridiculous restocking fee. (Lesson learned: buy from a place with a no-hassle return policy.) And I held out hope I could read the manual front to back, search online help forums, stand on my head and make it work. Later it was an irritation that was mildly amusing as a party trick ("Fine then -- you try to take good pictures with this camera! I dare you!") and now it's just gotten to the point where I hate to take any pictures at all. That's crazypants. I used to take hundreds of snapshots a week, especially of the cats or on vacation. And last year I think I only took a few hundred pics all year long. Vacations have gone virtually unrecorded, I ended up with maybe ten usable photos of my trip to Ireland.
Yesterday WorkJennifer and I were talking about this and I realized I felt so much RELIEF just deciding to buy a new camera. It's a small thing, really, and yet it makes me so happy. And the bigger lightbulb here is to stop being such a dumbaii and living with something irritating for almost TWO YEARS. I do not know why I am such a slow learner sometimes!
I'm going to make a conscious decision to pay more attention in my life and if there is something causing me low-grade irritation all the time (like the camera) I'm going to just fix it where it can be fixed. It's silly to let my cheapskatedness or laziness or unwillingness to just immediately chuck something that's a lemon win out over basic harmony. Life is too short to have a crappy camera in your pocket.
Wow, that was like going to church and getting religion. Combine that with the high of online shopping and I am so ready for the weekend. I'll let you know what I finally decide to get and how it works out... and I'll be using that 30-day no hassle return policy if needed!! (I guess I should be happy to see I can still learn from my mistakes, yes?) (Even if it takes me a long, long time.)
Posted by laurie at 10:12 AM | Comments (70)
January 27, 2010
I am the iceberg; camera help?
Geez, THIS WEEK.
Yesterday it was so insane that at 10 a.m. I declared to no one in particular, "I fear I have turned into the Titanic, sinking fast, and I am taking you all with me."
Depending on your definition of better today is "better" as I declared myself to be the iceberg instead of the Titanic, and my icy chill will destroy all I come into contact with!
Awesome.
- - -
Unrelated:
Even though I hate my camera I have not been inclined to buy a new one for all sorts of reasons consisting of laziness and cheapskatedness and general camera eschewingness.
But most of my pictures tend to look like this:
And that's after I have retouched them in Photoshop and done my artsy designery best. This camera is a lemon, and no setting or combination of setting or tinkering by any individual has ever managed to fix it. It is a lemon. For a while it was like a party trick -- complain about lousy camera, and someone in earshot would declare they could fix it. Hand over camera only to get it back by disgusted good-intentioned helper days later declaring, "This camera is an (expletive) piece of (expletive.)" Indeed!
The main issue is that the camera takes blurry pictures. Even using a tripod and a timer, the mere rotation of the earth on its axis is cause for blur. And you know, that is a problem.
So having complained about this for well over a year and a half now I have realized that perhaps eliminating irritations (such as replacing the camera that I HATE WITH A FIERY PASSION) is a good step in my Year of Yes. Wow, aren't I a brainiac? And it only took me a year and a half!
So I am going to buy a new camera. I want a simple point-and-shoot camera. Nothing crazypants fancy, nothing big and heavy, nothing super expensive. I like Kodak products (even though my lemon is a Kodak, I still love the way they render light and skintones) but I am open to other suggestions. I know that you all will have suggestions because you are smarter than Einstein me who needed a year and a half to decide the bad camera had to go and you probably like your camera. If you do have a suggestion, will you share?
La Soba really hates being blurry ... her personal paparazzo needs to upgrade!
Posted by laurie at 04:19 PM | Comments (274)
January 22, 2010
I like the nightlife, I like to boogie
Title of post not related to content. Just had that song in my head.
The local mountains are covered in snow, you can see them so clearly, it's beautiful. By now we've had dark skies and torrential rain for so long that the city has gone into mass sunlight deprivation and we're all turning into vampires, albeit ones who slurp down soy lattes instead of blood. Does blood have carbs? Do vampires wear Ugg boots?
Last night there was a huge storm in the Valley with lightening and thunder and hail! It was like being back in Mississippi, except inside an apartment meant to withstand things like sunshine and smog. I was worried the skylight would crack. But everything withstood the elements and all was well. The cats got freaked out, though, and I still cannot find my camera so you'll just have to imagine our snow-capped mountains and the sleeping furballs.
- - -
I'm almost finished with a baby sweater for a friend who had her baby over a month ago and now I'm afraid the sweater will be too small. Bummer. Tomorrow I'm going to JoAnn's fabrics to find some cute buttons -- I love buttons, and if I find my camera I'll even (finally) take pictures of my super-dooper-no-fail button sewing method which is really simple and not worth the build up. But that's how we roll here in tabloid land.
And I want to dig through my stash and figure out what my next knitting project will be. It's so cold outside that it's perfect knitting weather! I have a whole bin of wool yarn in different colors that I bought on sale almost five years ago when I first learned to knit. Because I was a beginner and just yarn-excited, I bought without knowing what to do with the yarn, so of course I bought too much for a small project and too little for a big project but I kept it all this time because it's so darn pretty. I was thinking I might get it all out of the bin in the closet and use all the different colors to make a gigantic felted bag like one I saw in AlterKnits Felt
I've really liked making baby sweaters, though, they're small enough not to get boring and they're so cute. I do want to make a sweater for myself at some point but not yet. I think my next project should be something felted. I love how the fabric shrinks down like magic and gets so dense and fuzzy.
- - -
Finally, I read an article yesterday online that was really interesting (read it here) about the well-meaning folks who are showing up unprepared in Haiti. I get it -- I also feel that deep urge of wanting to do something, anything, to help but then I remember who I am. Which is to say I don't speak Creole or French well enough to be a good translator, I have no medical experience or disaster relief experience, I don't know the lay of the land, I have no real ties to an established relief organization in the country and while I would be of no help at all I would likely try to bring home every person I met which of course you can't do unless you know how to get a passport and visa for everyone you meet.
In other words, the best way for me to help is with my pocketbook. I feel ridiculously lucky to have what I have in life and it's good to give generously to well-known groups who really can help (I chose the Red Cross.)
All this week I worried it was a little flippant to be joking about the rain and the flying palm trees when real devastation is happening somewhere else but obviously this website is built on the hard journalistic basics of whining about cat poop and weather and the trials and errors of reading a knitting pattern. That news article was a good reminder that even if I feel I am falling short because I am not helping with my hands, the reality is that my cash donation is more useful than my body ever could be.
- - -
Have a good weekend!
Posted by laurie at 10:40 AM
January 21, 2010
Thing One and Thing Two
Day before yesterday I was on the phone with Drew and we were talking about all sorts of things as we are wont to do and during the conversation I had one epiphany and one funny memory, both of which I will share with you since I forgot where I last set down my camera and it has all the pictures of Dallas Raines and the cats on it I intended to share with you today. So until I can find my camera again we have no pictures, just a lot of blah blah.
Thing #1:
Drew and I were talking about roasted vegetables, my newest cooking obsession, and we were talking about all the things I could roast and then I asked, "Do you think these vegetables retain any nutritional value after being cooked on a high heat like that?"
And Drew thought about it and we started talking about the nutrition and all that and midway through the conversation I just stopped.
"Wait," I said. "No, no, no. This is how I get myself into trouble! I start focusing on these ridiculous details and trying to be perfect when really all I need to remember is that eating a delicious dinner of roasted vegetables is healthier and better for me than eating a quarter pounder with cheese and a large order of fries."
"Amen to that," he said.
See what a lifetime of dieting has done to my head? This is how I get off track and overweight, by focusing on rules and regulations and trying to be on some kind of plan and then when I find ways I am failing I fall into a ditch. For those of you who have never struggled with your weight this will make no sense. But I know at least one or two of you know exactly what I am talking about.
I was pretty happy I snapped out of my stupid analysis of the nutritional value of a vegetable. It's so unproductive to get caught up in diet-mentality, but if you have been on a diet since you were eight years old it's difficult to break out of the habit. We make it so hard but it's not supposed to be. As Michael Pollan says, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." (His newest book Food Rules: An Eater's Manual
So, that was my epiphany.
- - -
Thing #2:
While Drew and I were talking I mentioned that right now is an excellent time to book a vacation since everything is on sale, and I offered (so generously) to search for a cheap flight for him from Houston to somewhere (and I guess mysteriously I would also be there, too, how fun to invite yourself on other people's vacations!) and so I started plugging in cities. He said to try flights to Manchester, which I did, then we both started singing, "Manchester England England, across the Atlantic sea..." which is a song from the musical Hair
About five years ago I was in my Jeep on a perfect summer day and I had the top off the Jeep and the stereo cranked up SO LOUD and I was bumping the cast recording of the musical Hair. Because I am cool that way.
Something happened to my Jeep -- I can't remember what it was, the radiator exploded or the battery died or something, so I had to pull over on the side of the road and wait for the tow truck to come. The car was not operational. But it was just what happened back then. Things broke a lot.
The tow truck took my Jeep to a local garage and they pulled the car inside the garage and I signed the papers and then I went inside where they were trying to get it started. Finally, they managed to get the engine back alive and as it started back up, so did the stereo which was on full blast -- now inside the garage, so it was REALLY loud -- and everyone got an earful of:
Black boys are nutritious
Black boys fill me up
Black boys are so damn yummy
They satisfy my tummy...
All seven or eight guys in the garage turned at one time and stared at me.
"Yes, I just love musicals!" I said.
Then I quickly went outside. Far away outside. I smoked a cigarette (oh I do miss smoking) and I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, I wonder what they would have thought if I'd been listening to track number two on the CD when my car stopped."
(In case you don't know what I mean, here's a link to Hair: Original Soundtrack Recording - Special Anniversary Edition
Ah, memories.
Manchester England England across the Atlantic Sea! And I'm a genius genius ... I believe in God and I believe that God believes in Claude! That's me ... that's me ....
Posted by laurie at 09:27 AM | Comments (60)
January 15, 2010
Friday
I am so impressed with the mobile giving campaign to help the earthquake victims in Haiti -- apparently over $7 million has been received so far, with over $5 million going to the Red Cross. How COOL is that? If you want to use your cell phone for good instead of gabbing today, here's how:
To give to the Red Cross, phone users can text the word "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10, and when prompted, hit "YES" to confirm the donation.The donation is added to the cell user's bill, and receipts are available.
Other text-message codes for donations include:
• Text the word "HAITI" to 20222 to donate $10 to the Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief Fund.
• Text "HAITI" to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee.
• Text "HAITI" to 85944 to donate $10 to the International Medical Corps.
Of course you can always donate any amount to the Red Cross at www.redcross.org.
Also, check with your job to see if the corporation will do matching donations -- the company I work for is matching colleague donations dollar for dollar. It made me feel really grateful and happy I work here.
Oh, and the next time I start getting myself riled up thinking about those crazypants people who shout "Death to America" and try to stuff explosives in their panties and blow up airplanes, I'm going to make myself focus instead on the mass of people in this world who give freely to help folks they have never met in a country they have likely never visited and may never see.
In my year of yes, I have decided I need to focus a whole lot more on the giving spirit and not nearly so much on the little faction of those whose spirit is programmed to take away. Truly the desire to alleviate suffering is so much stronger than the few people who want to create it.
- - -
The news in Haiti is also a really good reminder to those of us who are fault-line-adjacent to make sure we have a plan and some supplies on hand ourselves. When I'm out and about this weekend I plan to pick up a case of bottled water, a few Lara bars and some extra pet food and write the date of purchase on the item, then stash it somewhere. You don't have to go overboard planning but a few flashlights, fresh batteries and some water will go a long way towards preparation.
If you work in an office and you wear high heels to work there is one thing you can do right now that will cost you no money at all: dig through your home closet and find an old pair of sneakers or loafers or comfortable shoes and put them in your bag and take them to work. Leave those shoes in your desk drawer.
Because I work in a high-rise building we have frequent fire drills. I know they're just drills, but the more ladies we have clopping down the stairs in their high heels the longer it takes to get outside and finish the drill. It's ridiculous how slowly the whole thing goes. In an earthquake there's glass everywhere so going barefoot may not be an option. Take five minutes this weekend to unearth an old pair of comfortable shoes and bring them to your job next week. So simple! So easy! You will feel so prepared.
- - -
Have a great weekend!
- - -
Edited to add (3:30 p.m.):
I know the methods of giving or donating above may not be your personal preferred method of giving and I appreciate that each person gives in the way that is best for them. You should do whatever feel right with your money, your time and your hair.
I just wanted to highlight how easy and simple it can be to donate $5 or $10 for those who may not have a lot in the bank right now to give. One thing I know for sure is that even when you have very little in your pocket, you still want to help when you can and I know from personal experience it may feel embarrassing to call some 1-800 number and try to give five or ten bucks. That's how I felt during Katrina, back then I was broke five ways to Sunday but still wanted to give anything I had. So how cool is it that you can give through a simple text message! Small amounts do add up, and technology has made it so much easier. I just got an email from a friend who said the texting campaign may have raised close to ten million dollars since Wednesday!
While there is a billing cycle (I guess this was on the news, too) of up to 90 days, the Red Cross isn't waiting 90 days to act. Like most charitable organizations I'm sure they project their incoming donations and send immediate aid based on projections of incoming cash flow. And all those texts are adding up, almost ten million dollars! That's amazing!
Just got this email from Annie T.:
I just donated to the Red Cross through my local grocery store (Lucky). They can add it right on to your grocery bill. Another easy way to give. The man behind me in line heard me donate, and so he did as well. That feels good.
Annie, that is so cool! Thanks for sharing that tip!
Also, I got so many nice notes today from people saying they were also surprised and happy hearing about the people all over the world willing to donate what they can to help and how it just makes you feel hopeful.
I could not agree more. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Posted by laurie at 08:27 AM
January 11, 2010
Sprouts and other kitchen things
After I wrote about my delicious roasted cauliflower last week, I got an email from a reader letting me know she'd made Brussels sprouts the same way with excellent results. I thought that was good info to have and filed it away in my above-neck computer.
I'm trying to get on a good schedule where I do grocery shopping on Saturday morning and then wash and scrub and clean and soak and chop any veggies I bought so that on Sunday I can do some cooking and assemble my meals for the week. The best way I know to get a handle on my health is to eat food I made myself. It's time-consuming, though, to cook all your meals. I keep reminding myself that this year getting healthy is my priority and you just make time for what's important. This is important to me, so that's how I found myself at the market Saturday morning browsing around the veggies and ran across a container of fresh Brussels sprouts. I picked them up and brought them home for a test drive.
Confession time: I have not eaten a Brussels sprout in probably 15 years. And I have certainly never cooked one. I washed them and let them dry and then sort of wondered what I had gotten myself into.
The ends of each sprout looked like they needed trimming, so I did that while I preheated the oven to 375 degrees. This oven seems to run a bit hot so I'm finding the best roasting setting is just below 400 degrees. The bigger sprouts got chopped in half while the tiny ones remained whole. I roughly chopped about four cloves of garlic (I LOVE garlic) and sprinkled them with salt, pepper, a little cayenne and a healthy dose of olive oil:
Put them on a foil-lined pan (I LOVE Reynolds Release, it's magic, and for someone who can burn anything it has been a lifesaver):
This is what they looked like after cooking for about 25 minutes:
And in the bowl, with some grated Parmesan cheese:
They weren't bad at all. The cauliflower is still my favorite, but this was tasty, especially the outer leaves which got a bit crispy. I might cook them a bit longer next time but I have to say, for my first home sprout experience it wasn't half bad.
The dish I made alongside the sprouts was chicken with baby onions from Epicurious.com. One of the things I love best about Epicurious is that you get the benefit of reading all the reviews and tips. So I carmelized the onions before adding the chicken and things were going great until I realized I had no chicken broth in the cupboard. Whoops! I just went ahead and cooked it all in wine (and my pan was smaller than maybe recommended so that was plenty of liquid) and all was going well until I got distracted with something else and slightly overcooked the chicken. It's a little dry but the taste is fantastic so I'll try this one again, this time with all the right ingredients. The caramelized onions added a delicious taste to the chicken. I served it on some brown basmati rice (and that's what I packed for lunch, too.)
Just realized I seem to talk a lot about food on Mondays! Guess that's what happens after you spend most of Sunday afternoon and evening in the kitchen. But I am so relieved knowing all my lunches are ready for the week and little snacks and I roasted a big pan of potatoes (which keep well in the fridge) to have with dinner later in the week. It is work, I won't deny it, but it's the only way to break the vicious cheeseburger loop I seemed to be caught in for most of 2009.
- - -
You know what I was thinking about today? Since 9/11 things have changed so much at the airport that there's a whole generation of people now who probably don't remember that awesome feeling of having someone meet you at the gate. Remember that? Remember the wonderful, happy, giddy feeling you'd get knowing they'd be there so excited to pick you out of the crowd walking off the plane? And they won't get to know that sad goodbye, tearful, waving to someone as you walk down the jetbridge.
I'm still mad as hell at the stupid shoe bomber, who forever ruined the walk through security (the unsanitary aspects of walking where thousands of feet in questionable stages of cleanliness walk shoeless just skeeves me out) and now the underwear bomber will probably have us all getting felt up in the crotchal regions as we pass the TSA. And these are all unpleasant, depending on what the TSA agent doing the feeling-up looks like, but what I miss most of all is that awesome feeling of flying to see someone you missed so much and there they are at the gate, craning to see you get off the plane.
Meeting at baggage isn't quite the same.
Posted by laurie at 12:20 PM | Comments (105)
January 06, 2010
Coffee, the miracle elixir
It's a new year, but my body didn't get the memo. My sleep issues are boring and long-winded, I've had chronic insomnia for years and I have lots of ways of dealing with it but sometimes even when I do manage to fall asleep or even if I take an Ambien (like I did last night) I wake up in the middle of the night. There I am, just wide awake at 3:30 a.m. and nothing will get me back to sleep.
Sometimes I get up and write for a while or read or just watch TV but usually by 6 a.m. I am sleepy and ready for bed and that is disastrous, because if I fall asleep then I fall hard asleep and it's inevitable that I will be late for work and start the day behind schedule which makes me feel upside-down and backwards and grumpy from the very start.
I hate that feeling of falling behind before you even start the day!
This morning when I watched the clock pass from 3:30 to 3:35 to 3:38, I decided to get up and stay up. I wrote a little bit, read a little bit, petted the cats, flossed, made coffee, watched the weather. (I love watching the weather report, even though the most exciting thing we ever have is a little mist four times a year, I still must see the weather report!) I got dressed in track pants and a t-shirt and when it finally ticked away to 5 a.m. I put on my hoodie and fancypants new Nike shoes and went for a walk.
What a difference a cup of coffee makes! On Monday I shlubbed my way through a plodding, lumpy 30-minute walk and needed a nap midway through. Yesterday I slept right through my alleged walking time and took a lunchtime walk instead, just a little "exercise" to the mall. But today I was full of energy, walking almost like I wasn't the marshmallow I've become. Walking with my arms swinging and none of that slow walrus pace I had on Monday.
There are several people here at work who actually "work out" and do real exercise on a regular basis, so I consulted with one of them and she said she always tries to have a little cup of coffee before hitting the gym. How did I not know this secret until now? Amazing. I love coffee, and now I have another reason to adore it anew.
- - -
I meant to take a picture of my shoes but I forgot. When I wear them I pretend I am someone who is spry and athletic.
- - -
I have been fantasizing a lot about vacation, since it's the start of a new year and I get a whole new set of fresh, sparkling new vacation days. Usually I take a trip in January around MLK day and another in February around Valentine's Day but I think I'm going to hold off until later in the year to do any traveling. I love to think about vacation, though. I like to imagine packing a bag, walking out of the airport into a different city, getting a taxi, walking around and seeing the sights of some new place.
It's so weird that I love to stay home more than anything in the world, but I also love to randomly book a flight to someplace far away and just go. I would rather get on a plane and fly for 14 hours to some foreign country than to have to speak in a meeting or go to a party where I don't know people. Sometimes I get nervous and start sweating just from talking to my boss! But I can hail a taxi in Madrid or order wine in Poland. Funny.
I guess when I'm far from home there isn't a lot of social anxiety since I am not going to be seeing anyone from vacation again and they don't give me a performance review and I don't have to go to a party with them or work in an office beside them each day. You're kind of free on vacation. Free from your daily time constraints and free from worrying what people think about you.
- - -
I have been knitting a bunch of things, but one is a present I haven't mailed yet and the other I'll post tomorrow, I just got pictures of the item on the recipient. Wait until you see that amount of goofy goodness. My mom had to do seamstress surgery on it to get it to fit (I have NO IDEA how she managed that) and it was kind of a Christmas miracle. Hint: it involves the dog. Too funny.
That's all for today. MORE COFFEE.
Posted by laurie at 08:38 AM
January 04, 2010
Hello, week. Hello, year.
Maybe I had the idea that 2010 would come and some magical switch would be flipped and I would feel positive and renewed and full of interest in things such as exercise and vegetables. Most of my fall/winter 2009 diet consisted on Funyuns and takeout so the bar was set pretty low in the progress department, yet still no magical switch-flip seemed to occur as I slept off my bottle of Veuve Clicquot into the new year.
One of the wisest things I have ever heard was about inspiration: you can't just wait around for inspiration to strike. Sometimes you have to take action and just start driving the bus in the right direction. After you get a move on, the inspiration will come. It is so true! If I sat around waiting to be inspired to make changes or write or clean house or do anything I would surely be waiting on my butt for a long time to come. So this is how I feel about the new year, I'm making a plan and taking some action instead of just waiting for another day to pass. I can hope to be better and all that, but hope is not a plan.
One thing I've had to do is get realistic about my schedule. Unless I make time on the weekends to go shopping and prepare food, my week devolves very quickly into poor eating choices (see: Funyuns). I just don't have time during the week to wash and peel and chop and marinate and cook and clean and prep and peel and simmer. Even with my smaller commute time I still have a serious drive each day and by the time I get home at night I want to flop over. Instead of complaining about this or beating myself up for once again being too tired after work to whip up something not from a box, I have just accepted my schedule. It is what it is. So I went grocery shopping and then I spent the weekend making all sorts of interesting things for my week. I shredded a huge pile of carrots for that carrot blueberry salad I love (also, the shredder tool on the food processor is the best invention! I love it!) and I roasted some beets to make a chilled beet salad:
Roasted beets. Delicious.
Before I moved to California I didn't realize that most non-Southern people have only eaten beets that come from a can. No wonder so many people hate beets! Fresh beets are delicious and sweet and earthy. It's very Southern to boil beets and then let them cool and slip off the skins. I prefer to roast them in a foil packet because it's so foolproof. Heat your oven to 400 degrees, put three beets in a foil package (I don't know why, but three seems to be the magic number) and seal it tightly. Put the foil on a cookie sheet and then cook them in the oven for about an hour, or if the beets are very large leave them for an hour and a half. Beets get all juicy when you cook them this way, so I always use a cookie sheet just in case (I hate to clean a mess in the oven, I truly do.) Then take the foil packet out of the oven and just let it sit until it cools. Once cool, open it up and the beet skins will slip right off, it's so easy.
I like beets sliced and dressed in a little vinaigrette. Add some goat cheese and toasted pine nuts and it's all fancy and yummy. There are so many things you can do with a cooked beet: add it to salad, mix it with sliced red onions and lettuce, toss it with a crunchy sliced Bosc pear and add lemon and olive oil.
Yesterday I also made THE BEST cauliflower ever. If you like cauliflower (I do, it's probably my favorite vegetable besides green beans) you will love this recipe -- Roasted Cauliflower (here's a basic version on epicurious.com.) The key to roasted cauliflower is to cut the pieces very small, about two inches or so. Also, I don't mince the garlic like the epicurious recipe calls for, but instead cut it roughly into pieces about 1/4 inch or just cut the cloves in half. Put the cut cauliflower in a bowl with the garlic, salt and pepper and olive oil. I add a little cayenne, too, and about half a fresh-squeezed lemon. Mix it up and spread it on a cookie sheet:
Then roast it in the oven on 400 degrees until it's browned on the outside. It seems to work best if you stir it up once or twice while cooking. Top with a little Parmesan cheese for the most amazing cauliflower ever:
I ate all of it.
Of course one cannot live on carrots and beets and cauliflower alone, so I cooked some chicken and brown rice and steamed some broccoli and then packed all my lunches and breakfasts and snacks for the week, which made me feel like I had already accomplished something monumental and it is only January 4th. I definitely did not feel deeply inspired when I started all that work, but when I finished and put the last dirty pan in the dishwasher and set it to run I felt this huge feeling of relief. Like I had gotten off to a good start.
By the way, that dishwasher has changed my life. I love it. It's better than a brand new car.
And when I got in to work today, I was thinking how I wished I had bought more lemons this weekend when I was at the store because I still have a whole bag of fresh cauliflower in the fridge and I want to make some more of that amazing crackass addictive roasted cauliflower. When I went to the breakroom to make a cup of tea I noticed some kind soul had brought in lemons from their tree to share with the group and now I have two of them resting happily in my purse, which I believe is a very good omen:
Lemons in my super-duper cheap but fabulous Target purse.
So that's Monday. No magical switch has flipped, but with a little effort and a good grocery shopping list I think I am at least turning the bus around and getting myself out of the ditch. That's enough for me.
Posted by laurie at 12:27 PM
December 31, 2009
Happy New Year 2010!
I hope your 2010 is happy, healthy, wealthy, delicious and covered in chocolate. Happy New Year!
xoxo
laurie and associates
(My associates)
Posted by laurie at 09:18 AM
December 29, 2009
New Year's Resolutions for a New Decade
Everyone around the office is conversationally asking, "So, what are your plans for New Year's Eve?" I don't really go out on New Year's Eve. There are plenty of reasons to stay in (the party-amateur drivers, the fact that I am a hermit, Dick Clark) but the main reason I don't make a big to-do over New Year's Eve is that it's not a big party holiday for me. I think it's probably my favorite holiday, but to me it's a very reflective day, very contemplative. You're marking the end of a calendar year and looking backwards and forwards. Because you're all flexible that way. Like the gal from the Exorcist, if only she'd been spewing resolutions instead of pea soup.
My plan for New Year's Eve is to stay home and commune with those in fur coats, cuddle up with that bottle of Veuve Cliquot I bought on sale at Ralph's ($20 off the regular price! Love you, Recession Alcohol Value Buys!) and call all my widespread friends and family members when it hits midnight in their time zones. I also enjoy watching that part of the nightly news where they show different countries ringing in the New Year.
Oh, and of course, there is list-making. And reflection.
Usually I make a hugeass long list of to-do items for my New Year's Resolutions. It's a hopeful wishlist of ways to improve my life, my outlook, my pants size, my future and my household cleaning routine. I love lists. This year, though, I have decided to dial down the Resolutions and make two very simple, over-arching goals for the year and all my other lists -- my to-do lists and to-read lists and to-clean lists -- will all just be the daily stuff that support my greater goals.
My 2010 Resolutions
1) Get really healthy
2) Come from a place of yes
So, the first goal is pretty self-explanatory. Some people lose weight and get all skinny and become marathon runners when writing their manuscripts. I do the exact opposite and marshmallow out. Since I am planning to have a mid-life crisis in 2011, I need to get into the best possible shape EVER so I can be foxy and wear cute clothes and not get out of breath on the way to my awesome ladycrisis escapades. Also, I believe it's probably a sign of some sort that I got exhausted just from going to the shoe store to purchase new tennis shoes for all the exercising I'm going to do in 2010.
Seriously, I broke a sweat trying on lace-up shoes.
On a side note, I found it funny how many people emailed me to say that 40 is not mid-life. I had no idea how many of ya'll were going to live to be 120 years old. I am impressed! More power to you!! Me, I am the one getting winded at the Lady Foot Locker so I'm keeping my expectations realistic. Plus, I still plan to take up smoking when I turn 60. But go with your bad self living to 120. I hope you wear any kooky thing you want and read trashy books all day and carry a dog around in a purse. That just sounds purely fun.
- - -
My other resolution is a little more nuanced: come from a place of yes.
This past year (especially toward the end of it) I had some moments when I was so carpy and negative even I didn't want to be around me. And I complained a lot, which is something I find I am naturally skilled at doing. It is my cardio, you know. And sometimes I can be quite amusing with my complaining. But there was some gradual crossing-over point when my good-natured griping became really annoying.
I really don't want to be that person. You know, the one you avoid because they're such a Debbie Downer. I hate that person! She emails me all the damn time! Always pointing out the stuff I am doing wrong, or should have done better, or how I am soon to meet a tragic end. Folks, I am determined not to be Debbie Downer. (I am also going to officially stop reading any negative emails or talking about them. I'm just going to delete at the first hint of crappiness. It's a mini-resolution. Delete! Delete!)
This "place of yes" resolution doesn't mean I pull a full Pollyanna and slap a happy sticker on everything. That behavior is deeply unimaginative, don't you think? And something about the relentlessly aggressive forced-positive approach to life just grates on me like sandpaper. It's so fake! It invalidates every real thing about the weird, wacky ups and downs of a true life. I like having different experiences and seeing all the colors of the rainbow and all that stuff. I just want to stop bitching about it so much.
So, in general, lay off the griping.
Coming from the yes place also does not mean saying yes to everything all the time. That would be "coming from the place of sure self-induced insanity." What it does mean is that I want to spend 2010 choosing to be upbeat, choosing to look for unexpectedly good outcomes, choosing to be hopeful, choosing to be friendly, choosing to believe the best in people and just letting go of the crap. Letting go of the nagging anxiety, the rote and chronic complaining, the irritating way I have of being able to see people's crappiest personality traits. I have a knack for seeing the devil within people... and I don't even mean to. This is handy when picking a boyfriend or a tax attorney, but not really useful at work where it's simply unproductive to harp on and on about That Person who is petty, jealous and mean-spirited. So what! They're a big steaming mess! Move on. They will still be a mess and yet you will not be paying them a whit of attention, and that is good.
Some people say it's all about being grateful (and that is true, too) but it's also about being less freaking fearful. Live it up a little! Stop looking for all the ways it won't work out and think of a few ways it will work out! That's who I want to be. Not pretending to be happy, but really choosing just to shrug off the icky and embrace an attitude of possibility.
When stuff happens -- which it does, that is the whole point of life -- instead of feeling anxious or worried or dwelling on the negatives, I'm going to give it up to the great cannoli in the sky, hope it all works out in some magical, unexpected way and go about my day. Not living in fear. Not expecting the worst. Not dreading stuff. Not making excuses. Not doing things I hate just because I feel obligated.
Wake up, say yes to the day, let it unfold, be a part of it, and choose the better-feeling thought (whatever that may be). Resist the temptation to point out people's petty behavior. Be forgiving of myself and others. Choose to believe people mean well. Choose to avoid people who are yucky. Don't take things so God-awful personally.
Take a leap of faith that things may end up better than you could ever expect.
- - -
So those are my resolutions. I have really good feelings about 2010. I am so ready for something different, and a new year is like a calendar re-boot. I am really grateful about many things that happened in 2009 but mostly I am glad it's over and we're on to something new! Maybe that's irrational. Or maybe that's me already strapping on my fancypants new running shoes and walking from the place of yes. Who cares! It's a new year, a new list, a whole new calendar of little blocks that could contain something - anything - great.
Are you happy 2009 is almost over and 2010 is coming? Am I the only one here who feels relieved? What are your New Year's Resolutions? I love hearing other people's lists. I love to hear your New Year's plans, too. (Comments are open for a bit.) (Look at me coming from the yes place on comments! hee.)
And most of all thank you for visiting with me every day, even though I got a little bit cranky and unfocused and marshmallowy. I will probably still complain about traffic because that is one of life's great pleasures, but I do hope to lobotomize my inner Debbie Downer for the year ahead.
xoxo
laurie
Posted by laurie at 09:03 PM | Comments (289)
December 28, 2009
All the vampires walkin' through The Valley move west down Ventura Boulevard
For my 40th birthday I have decided to have a mid-life crisis. I don't turn 40 for quite a while, I don't even turn 40 in 2010, but I am a planner and that gives me plenty of time to come up with something awesome for my crisis. Move to Spain and herd sheep? Get all-over liposuction? Have everything botoxed into perpetual stillness? Laser hair removal? Cabin in the woods manifesto writing? Move the cats and my shoes into an RV and drive around the country? There is so much opportunity for a midlife meltdown makeover. I am really looking forward to it. I am making a list of all the things I want to do between now and 40 and there's all kinds of crazy stuff on it. Lord only knows what my Midlife Crisis List may contain.
Making lists is just part of December. This is by far my favorite time of the year: the end of it. This is when all the crud and muck and shlub of days gone by gets wrapped up and shrugged off as "last year" and you get to move on and think about the shiny, happy unknown future which is "Next Year." Next Year can bring anything, and it might be good! You could win the lottery, meet a sexasaurus, get a fantastic haircut, lose weight, travel to someplace great, floss.
Anything can happen Next Year!
Even though I try hard to stay in the present sometimes the present is anxiety-causing or dull or full of traffic, so I tend to drift off into the future. I worry I am living a lot more in the future than right now, but that makes me anxious so I fantasize that in the future this will not be a problem.
I'm pretty excited about my future midlife crisis. I don't have a lot of tethers so who knows where I could float off to. Pull a Hemingway and write all day, drink all evening, fight the Spanish Civil War, go fishing in the Keys, have some six-toed cats. I'm not really that fond of boats but I might get on one anyway. Or at least a canoe. Or maybe a surfboard with a sail on it.
Maybe I will cut off all my hair or get those really thick bangs or buy a small watermelon farm in ... uh... somewhere watermelons grow, or I'll rescue goats. As surely goats need rescuing!
There are so many options! And I have time to make lists and lists and more lists. I feel I am very ready for a midlife crisis, I'm not really deeply committed to anything except TV and Magic Erasers, I'm not sure where I am exactly on my personal progress spectrum and it's been a weird, wacky year for the entire world. This is the ideal breeding ground for a real go off-the-rails out-of-the-box leap of crazypants.
As it is list time, I'm also working on my New Year's Resolutions, many of which are carryovers from 2009's list since I don't think I really accomplished much. I did write a book, but I'm not sure it's any good. I did travel a little, and write a bunch of stuff here online though not as often as I wanted. I sat in traffic a lot. I moved into a gorgeous new apartment, but sort of as an F-you to the gardeners who I doubt are really missing me. I made two baby sweaters!! Real sweaters, and also baby shoes, I do feel that was an accomplishment. Oh, and entrelac. Frankly I may put "entrelac" down as a skill on my resume I'm so proud of it.
I gave in to my hermit tendencies more than ever before, largely explained as "I'm working... sorry... can't leave the house..." and I enjoyed it, which I can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I completely lost the battle of the bulge and gained more weight instead of losing more, which was a bummer. I worked on a project at work that was really challenging and turned out great, and that was a good feeling. I got my first ever traffic ticket and did traffic school online, also known as "eight hours I can never get back." I started picking my battles more carefully, which was a nice change, and I totally opted out of the Recession Doom And Gloom which was the best choice I made all year.
But still in the end I feel like I didn't do much in 2009. In 2010 I want to be more active in my own life, but I haven't really defined what that means. Which brings us back to the Midlife Crisis, because all that stuff you wish you had the guts to do but are too afraid to do? I think a Midlife Crisis is the perfect time to try them out! Unlike a male midlife crisis which is so silly and predictable, I think my ladycrisis is going to be far more adventurous and zeitgeisty and run-off-to-Australia-and-recreate-The-ThornBirds, you know? Men have no imagination. And, besides, I already have a red convertible!
Posted by laurie at 09:37 AM
December 22, 2009
Tuesday Five
Weird things I saw downtown this morning:
Guy walking across Spring Street in a dress and cowboy boots. Two armed guards with their guns drawn (!!) on Flower Street. Whole crew of guys on the Temple off-ramp from the 101 cleaning up what looked like all the fallen palm tree branches in the city congregating in one spot.
Weather
I hear that in other parts of the country people are having "snow" and "blizzards" and "ice." I have seen that stuff before on TV, like in the claymation movies all about Christmas and it looks sweet and fluffy. Out here we're having a hard winter! First, it was sunny and 80 degrees all weekend and I was low on sunscreen. Then, it got inhospitably cold overnight and today we're only going to see 60 degrees as a high temperature! How will we survive? And there is wind! (See: downed palm tree fronds, above.) My hair got messed up on the walk from the parking garage to my building and there were leaves blowing around. I was able to wear a scarf, though, the one upside of the harsh Los Angeles winter.
Santa Hat
Our office manager gave me a Santa Hat this morning and I want to wear it but I tried to put it on and my head is too big. Has my head swelled with knowledge or is this hat meant for small-headed people? Is it my ginormous forehead? Have I gained weight in my head, too? Depressing concept. Moving on.
Twitter, and then complaining
I am not sure I get the concept. I mean, I have a Twitter thingy and sometimes I write stuff, but since I never cook anything worth writing about and since even my shortest thoughts are two paragraphs long the whole thing seems like an exercise in self-editing, something I fail at miserably already. Interestingly enough, Twitter and Facebook (something I am not doing at all) are totally 100% available through our corporate firewall and yet Netflix has been blocked. Not just the "watch instantly" portion (that was blocked, and reasonably so, but you used to be able to still see your movie queue and re-arrange it) but now the entire site is blocked. So... let me get this straight. It's OK with the corporate security people for employees to spend all day on Facebook -- which they do -- but it's not OK for me to re-arrange my movie queue for six minutes on my lunch break once a week? GO FIGURE.
Noises, creaky
The building is making these creaky noises and I can't tell if it's from the wind or if we're having a mild earthquake. Which reminds me, to all those people who made fun of me for drinking instant coffee guess which one of us will be happily caffeinated during the next Big One while your Starbucks is closed? I can boil water on a gas grill and drink my Nescafe Clasico even if the power is off for two weeks... you and your fancy coffee snob preferences will be knocking on my door for some of that Nescafe love...
- - -
That's all for today. I'm grumpy but not sure why. Maybe it's because I want to be home drinking my instant coffee and re-arranging my movie queue! Ah, the jet-setting life of the single gal.
Posted by laurie at 11:26 AM
December 18, 2009
Hot off the press....
Apparently my publisher printed the book early and shipped it off and so the tome of absurdity which is Home Is Where the Wine Is
My publicist did an interview Q&A with me earlier this week, this was the first question:
KW: The cover of your book has another pair of sexy legs in high heels. Are those your legs? LP: No. Have you seen me? We had to go with stunt legs.
(One day I aspire to have the legs from my book covers.)
So, this is the scary part -- knowing it's out there and waiting and hoping that the words on the page make people laugh and praying with divine fervor that folks don't hate it but if they do they politely refrain from telling you as much. And of course if it's really a turd we'll all just make jokes about it later.
Jokes! Comedy! Stunt legs! Ah, let the weekend begin.
Posted by laurie at 06:54 AM
December 16, 2009
Holiday party nerves mitigated only by the cold that will not die.
Tomorrow is the holiday party.
Every year we have a holiday "party" at work and every year I see it for what it truly is: another opportunity for me to get nervous and in my attempts to seem like I'm normal I overtalk and say truly godawful inappropriate things for which I may possibly get fired for later. Rock on!
When I worked in the newspaper business or in entertainment, holiday parties weren't these scary things where work mixes with socialness in a confused jumble. At my previous jobs the holiday party was a big Saturday night drunkfest. One year the advertising director of a certain entertainment company showed up at our Christmas party with two hookers and a bottle of tequila. One year when I was at the Daily News the reporters burned editor-in-chief D.B. in effigy and then later I drunkenly propositioned someone from the city desk ... it was all in good fun. Somehow I lost a shoe.
Here, at Big Corporation, Inc., the "party" is held during the middle of the day and you come back to work right after. It's like a long lunch with drink tickets. Except this is an extremely business professional environment, so there's a very fine line on the drinking plus you're still technically at work and on the clock so you want to be sure you still have your work face on. I have a hard enough time keeping a lid on my mouth while I'm here just working, adding in a veneer of socializing can be disastrous for someone like me. Meaning someone who has a limited ability to filter combined with a brain that says things like, "You know in France they're just called fries. And what do you think they call the good plates in China?"
Usually I manage to say something really inappropriate that makes whoever I'm talking to need to take an urgent phone call, then I sweat until it's time to come back to work.
I had no idea until I came to work here what a business professional environment was like. I'd always worked in deeply dysfunctional newsrooms and later, equally screwed up entertainment companies. The parties were fun but in that way it's fun when the lunatics start running the asylum. Here, the day-to-day is so much nicer, people are pleasant and respectful and no one swears or throws things at you and no one is crying in the bathroom stalls. The dress code is much stricter and I have to monitor my trucker's mouth, but for the most part it's really nice. So the holiday party seems like a bizarre thing to be the most stressful event of my year, but there you have it. It's a two-hour landmine in which I try desperately to not say anything that will make people shun me back at the office.
Luckily (or otherwise) I've been unable to shake this horrible cold and my voice is raspy and it hurts to talk so maybe I'll run out of steam before I get wound up. And to keep from having to carry along a backpack of Kleenex I'll be downing some cold medicine before the party which will hopefully make me too drowsy to say ridiculous things, like last year when I told an SVP that he had "junk in the trunk and gold in the hold." As you can imagine, he had to take an immediate important call... away from me.
Kind of makes you long for the days when your boss showed up with a couple of hookers and some tequila.
Posted by laurie at 06:28 PM
December 15, 2009
There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting ...
This year everyone in my group at work decided that instead of buying gifts for each other we'd adopt a family. We actually got the idea from Work-Jennifer, I was asking her what she usually does for co-worker gifts in her group and she told me they'd stopped doing that years ago and now they all adopt a local family and make Christmas for them instead and I thought this was brilliant! After all, I'm not sure anyone in my group is going to just keel over if they don't get yet another Starbucks gift card.
And now most of the loot is collecting in my office and we're all going to wrap presents tomorrow at lunchtime.
Usually I buy giftcards for my own family members, so I haven't done real Christmas shopping -- picking out presents and goodies -- probably since I was married. OMG SO MUCH FUN. Corey and I both picked the little girls in the family and so I got to buy pink clothes and girly shoes and TOYS! And most of all, I got to buy The Head:
Every woman near my age in this office has walked by my open door and seen The Head and swooned, because we all remember being kids in the 70s and wanting The Head. I never had one as a child, but apparently the love endures because even these 30-odd years later I keep looking at it and it makes me happy. The moment I saw it in Target I knew that one little girl would spend Christmas morning combing The Head's hair and putting on her play makeup and changing out her bows and barrettes. There were actually two versions of The Head at Target (the other one was Barbie Wedding Day Head) and for a minute there in the pink aisle it was Sophie's Choice, WHICH ONE? HOW TO CHOOSE? But since the little girl on my list said she specifically liked Princess stuff, I went with the Belle Head.
For a brief moment I considered buying one for myself on Saturday but I can't think of anything I want to be less than a woman living alone with a bunch of cats playing dress-up with Barbie Head. You know?
Still, I have enjoyed having it on my desk for a few days....
Posted by laurie at 11:11 AM
December 04, 2009
Missives from Kleenex City
I'm home today because I have a cold. Unlike the people who come to work and sneeze and snortle and infect us all with their germy germs, I am staying home to lie in bed and try not to cough and read books and drink hot tea. I just had a tea made from a weird combination that Corey got me started on. It's a little too mastercleansy for me, but every now and then it does hit the spot. Juice a few lemons, add cayenne pepper and some finely grated ginger. (I keep my ginger root in the freezer and then grate it, frozen, on the small side of a box grater. Works great.) Add honey and hot water to make a tea.
By the way, the most emails I got this week were from shocked (shocked!! I tell you!!) readers from Australia and the UK and Ireland and Europe who were curious how Americans heat water if they don't have electric kettles. I wonder how many suffered mild heart attacks when I answered back that many of us heat the water in a kettle on the stove but some - gasp - heat it in the microwave. heh. State secrets exposed!!
Of course I am using my shiny, happy electric kettle today:
I'm trying to decide if I should bring it upstairs and just plug it in here in the bedroom and just resolve not to leave my bed all day. Especially with all the awesome book and TV recommendations from yesterday, thank you!! We'll have to make that a regular thing, it was too fun. And it's sometimes hard for hermits such as myself to find other people to talk about knitting, books, TV and movies with.
Speaking about movies, Jen and I did not end up going to see "2012" last night, she was working late lawyering and I wasn't feeling well so it was probably best. But I still want to see it. And I can't wait to see "Up In The Air" because I love George Clooney and I am also one of those crazy airmiles people. It is all about the miles.
But today it is all about the Kleenex and the hot tea.
Have a great weekend!
Posted by laurie at 08:55 AM
December 03, 2009
Book soup
Let's talk books!
I'm on a reading kick lately, which is strange since I have also been on an insane TV binge. But I haven't been sleeping much and my manuscript is done and shipped off so I guess I am making up for lost time, catching up on TV and books and even laundry. Yesterday I was trying to convince my friend Corey to watch the new season of "Hoarders" with me and she refused.
Corey: I don't have time to watch TV! I have a five year old at home.
Me: You need Tivo. It will change your life. You can watch TV much more efficiently, especially if you have insomnia like me. I love TV.
Corey: You're a TVaholic!
Me: I am!
Corey: You're addicted to TVahol!
So, yes, I am addicted to TVahol. I didn't used to be, I didn't grow up watching TV at all. But I love my shows, what can I say. Hoarders, Oprah, CSI(x3), Castle, Glee, The Closer, and I've even somehow got sucked into that show with Christian Slater, "The Forgotten." It will probably get canceled -- every year I pick one or two new shows to watch and every year they get canceled. The fact that Castle had a season two shocked the pants off me.
In addition to mainlining TV, I also love reading. Right now I am on an Ann Patchett binge since reading The Magician's Assistant
Corey recommended Olive Kitteridge
A few weeks ago I mentioned that in honor of the swine flu paranoia, I was re-reading the best flu apocalypse love story good-vs-evil epic narrative ever written:
THE STAND
I was so excited to get emails from other Stand-fans and lovers of Stu Redman. In the movie based off the book, Stu was played by Gary Sinise so now when I read the book he's Gary Sinise mixed with the Stu I imagined all those years ago when I first read the book as a teenager. And he is sexy. One of my emailers and I were chatting back and forth about the book and I mentioned Stu Redman was the perfect man and she said:
"Yeah, that's how you know it's fiction -- that's the only place to find one of those!"
That about cracked me up ass over teakettle. I laughed all day thinking about that.
I love survivalist stories and end-of-the-world the-apocalypse-is-coming fiction. (And movies! Jen and I are going to see "2012" tonight which will be the first movie I have seen in years because, you know, busy busy and also ... hermity. But it is about the end of the world! Must see!) My fascination with giant disaster movies and post-apocalyptic books is strange because in my real life I am ridiculously good at not worrying about worst-case scenarios at all. I am very relaxed about what I cannot control in real life (mostly) but I do love a good end of days survival story. Got any recommendations?
After I finish Bel Canto I may start in on another Ann Patchett (I get like this with authors, I find one I like and want to read everything!) or I may have to move over to one of the selections in this pile:
I am so excited that so many of my friends online are out there getting their work published and this is a whole stack of books just out from people I know! I am so happy for them, it's like the doors just keep on opening and opening. I love it.
Unclutter Your Life in One Week
Erin Doland is the lovely editor-in-chief of one of my favorite all-time blogs, Unclutterer. Her book is coming at the right time... after moving and unpacking (mostly) I need all the help I can get, so I am excited to dive into it.
How to Knit a Love Song: A Cypress Hollow Yarn
Rachael Herron is the author of yarnagogo.com and the friend who invited me to guest post at PensFatales.com. This is the first of three fiction books that have yarn and romance and suspense all wrapped up together and I think she's a talented writer and I only wish I had a plane ride coming up soon, because it's just the sort of book you want to read uninterrupted for hours on a plane.
Crazy Lace:an artistic approach to Creative Lace Knitting
Myra Wood, one of the talented designers who provided patterns for my upcoming book (because a whole set of patterns from me would be a lot of scarves, you know?) anyway, Myra has a beautiful and colorful new book out all about lace. The pictures of the projects are just gorgeous!
Sword of the Slave
Eric Thompson is off writing an entire world of fantasy and swordfights starting with Sword of the Slave. Fantasy writers kind of mystify me... even my fiction stuff is autiobiographicalish, so I can't imagine making up a whole world!
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So much good stuff to read! If only we all got to stay home all day and read books while our trust funds collected more golddust... ah, that's the life.
And finally, do you ever get the deep sudden need to re-read an old favorite book you've read 100 times already just so you can sink back into it for a while? I was telling someone the other day how I was shocked to see when I moved just how many books I have... and they are heavy going up three flights of stairs! She asked why I didn't just get rid of my books. I know there are many I could pare down, but how to choose? I love my books like old friends. The ones I re-read the most often are probably Timeline
So I thought I would open comments for a few hours on this topic so we can all chat about favorite books and movies and being TVaholics. What are you reading? Did you love The Magician's Assistant, too? Is anyone else watching The Forgotten but me? Is anyone else as obsessed with Hoarders? I have to go clean something right after I watch it. But also my heart breaks for those folks. And how many people are now reading The Stand in preparation of getting the swine flu?
Posted by laurie at 10:12 AM | Comments (273)
December 02, 2009
Stuff I Like Addendum
Yesterday I forgot to include a very important item on my Stuff I Like List. (Previous lists here and here.)
Best Inexpensive Thin Sweater -- Perfect For Traveling!
Target Mossimo sweaters. Last year when I went to London in November I wrote that I packed just my thin layering sweaters, a few T-shirts and pants and I was set. I got those sweaters at Target for such an amazingly inexpensive price, so I got them in every color and wore them to death but by the time I told you about them Target had removed them from the inventory online because I couldn't find them for you. Well, they're back online and they are currently on sale!
These sweaters are so comfortable and great for casual stuff and look great dressed up, too. You can even wash and dry them right in the machine and they hold up pretty well -- and for $15 they're a steal! Here's the basic black, red and brown and they have it in plus sizes, too: plus size black, red and brown. They have other colors available online, just browse around for more options. Here is a link to all Target sweaters, too, in case you want to browse everything.
I am one of those people who can get hot in a blizzard, so I like traveling to cold places but I need to do it in thin layers so I can peel down like an onion when I start getting hot. I get really grumpy and short-fused when I'm overheated, it's one of the little charming quirks about my personality ... anyway, I have learned to dress to suit my personal climate and adjust as needed. Thin sweaters are the best! Just enough to layer over a thin T-shirt and they pack well because they aren't bulky. And you can still fit into your coat when you're wearing them. I have them in every color.
I do not look this skinny in my skinny sweater.
Posted by laurie at 11:09 AM
December 01, 2009
More happy things I like
Sometimes I like to blather on about stuff I like. My previous Stuff I Like lists are here and here. That was all I could find. I tried searching the archives but I have a LOT of archives. Who wrote all that stuff? Geez.
By the way, no one pays me to talk about products. (Sadly. hah) I am originally from a newspaper background and I find it totally bizarre and unethical that people would get paid to review items or receive free items and not disclose that information. Anything that is advertising is clearly over there on the sidebar as an advertisement. Love you, blogads! Anyway, I just list things I like. The end.
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Best Bargain Hair Conditioner
Pantene Pro-V Beautiful Lengths Hair Conditioner
I have long, very fine hair that tangles like crazy and will break off in the middle of a sentence for no good reason at all. I also live in a climate with 2% humidity so I need a very thick conditioner! I love the Kerastase products
Best Green Veggie From A Box
Cascadian Farms organic green beans with almonds
I love these green beans. I put them in a saucepan with a little olive oil and sprinkle on some garlic powder and cook them until they're unrecognizable (Southerners love green beans cooked to death, I never realized it was a cultural thing until I moved out here.) And these beans taste so much better than any others I have ever found, canned or frozen. One day I flipped over the box and read the label and found out why -- they have a little sugar and salt on them. Sneaky! But so so tasty.
My closest Ralph's doesn't carry these and Whole Foods stopped carrying them a while ago, so in a pinch I buy bagged, frozen organic French cut green beans at Whole Foods and cook them to death (really, the secret is cooking them in olive oil and adding garlic powder, or garlic salt if the beans are unsalted and just cooking forever) and then adding my own almonds. It works fine but the all-in-one boxed kind are the best. Must be the sugar.
Most Addictive Lip Balm Ever
Carmex Stick lip balm
It works great and I always have it in my purse. It even has sunscreen!
Favorite Travel Widget
SeatGuru.com
It's not really a widget, it's a service. But if you're getting on an airplane, get thee to SeatGuru fast! You can find your flight's make and model on your reservation, then look it up on SeatGuru to find the best (and worst) seat assignments.
Most Used Most Awesome Kitchen Gadget
The electric kettle!! Ubiquitous in European kitchens, the electric kettle is the best invention in hot water since the flame. I don't know why Americans haven't embraced the electric kettle, though. It's a mystery.
The one I have is the Aroma 1-1/2-Liter Kettle
I use my kettle every day, the water heats up super fast and I love that it's not sitting on the stovetop getting grody. I don't make a whole pot of coffee each morning, I make one cup of tea or I make instant coffee. Yeah, I know, you're writhing on the floor in pain at the mention of instant coffee, but I like it and if you buy quality coffee it tastes just fine. I have it on very good authority that the French often drink instant in their own homes so move past your indignation that I drink instant and focus it instead on the idea of the French drinking instant coffee!
Best Book I've Read In A While
The Magician's Assistant
A woman at work brought this in for me to read and she was right, it was a perfect book for me. For one thing, the main character loves Los Angeles. And it's a character story, a lovely, small, perfect character story. I bought a copy for myself, my mom and my friend Corey. I love to buy books for people, especially good books like this one. I love good books.
- - -
Finally, I got an email from a reader asking me about my Asus eeePC -- she was about to go on a trip overseas and had recently purchased one for the vacation, and asked if I had trouble typing on it and she said hers did not fit in her handbag and she had some issues with it. And she didn't think her friends or family had skype and she wasn't sure it was all worth it and was thinking of returning it.
I know I have talked up my rockin' little netbook (here's an entry where I yammer on about it), it's so small and was so inexpensive! I couldn't believe they made anything so tiny that actually worked:
But I bought my netbook a few years ago and a lot has changed since then. Now almost every computer brand makes one and they have gotten bigger and better. More keyboard space, more battery life, and still very affordable and portable. The eeePC I have is a very early version, it has a teetiny screen and an infinitesimal keyboard and runs on Linux. (I do not want to check email or work while I'm on vacation and the small keyboard was never a problem for me.) The battery life is limited, about an hour or two. The touchpad buttons are clunky.
Having said all of that it was the first computer I had ever seen that was so small, came in cute colors and was both sturdy and affordable! Unlike my "real" laptop, I had no fear taking it all over the world and plugging it into suspect power outlets or accidentally dropping it in the TSA line or having it banged a bit in the suitcase.
However, the new crop of netbooks are as varied and full-featured as the regular laptop market. Travel + Leisure magazine recently ranked their favorite new travel gadgets and listed many new, slick-looking netbooks:
• Sony VAIO W 10.1" Netbook - Up to 7 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7)
• Toshiba Mini NB205 10.1" Netbook - 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7)
• ASUS Eee PC 1008 10.1" Netbook - 6 Hour Battery Life (Windows XP)
• HP Mini 110 10.1" Netbook - Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7)
• Lenovo S10-2 10.1" Netbook - Up to 6 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7)
(Check out the cute floral options)
Please note I have not tried any of these computers myself. But the netbook concept in general is a favorite thing and this list alone should give you an idea of how outdated my 8-inch, 1-hour battery life Linux model is. There's a world of options available now! Netbooks galore can be had for under $400 and with a lot more bells and battery juice.
As for the skype question, when I am traveling I use skype to stay in touch with people but they don't need the software. I just put in a few bucks of credit on my skype account and I can call anyone's cellphone or landline for uber-cheap, around two cents a minute. (You can also use skype on your iphone if you're in a wifi hotspot, I have not tried this yet.)
Having said all of this, I wouldn't buy a netbook just for a single trip abroad. And especially not a trip to Europe where you can often duck into an internet cafe. Your hotel may even offer a computer in the lobby for guest use.
I bought my netbook because I knew I was going to be traveling fairly frequently, I did not at the time have an iphone, I knew I would be traveling alone and would want to call home and I knew I would want it for entertaining myself on the plane and in the airport lobbies of the world. A friend of mine at work loaded a ton of movies and TV shows onto an external drive for me (please do not email me asking how to do this as I have no idea and am of no help at all) and now I can watch videos when I travel. It has been most useful as a phone, though -- using skype through the hotel wifi to track down lost luggage in France, make changes to a tour in Rome, reschedule my flight in Maui. I used it as a handy research tool to find train schedules and opening hours at restaurants and yarn shops.
Could I have traveled without it? Absolutely. But it has been handy and helpful and I like it and it has probably paid for itself in phone bill savings alone. Several years ago my luggage went to Morocco and I went to Paris and it took HOURS of calls to get that figured out. That's when I started packing a carryon bag.
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Ok, that's my list for today. Happy anti-recessioning! After all, when you're saving $25 on hair conditioner, it adds up and you can buy that netbook of your dreams. Or lots and lots of green beans.
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Updated to add: Because of the hungry ducks pecking at every little thing on this planet I am updating this post to be VERY CLEAR that YES of course I have an amazon.com affiliate account and YES of course I put it in my amazon.com links. You should do it, too, because when you buy your own stuff from amazon.com you get a small percentage back. That is the main reason I do it, because I shop there. For what it's worth I make about four bucks a year from it. NO, it is not a paid endorsement. A paid endorsement is when someone who makes a product pays you to endorse the product. For example, if Magic Eraser paid me to review the product, I would tell you. They do not. (Again, so sad, they could just pay me in Magic Erasers and I would die happy. I love them.)
I also provide amazon.com links AND many other store links when I can find them because if not I get eleventy eight hundred emails asking where to buy something. I just think it's convenient to do the link for you. I am now reconsidering this and all writing of any kind ever because of the aforementioned hungry pecking ducks.
According to my lawyer, as pertains to ME ONLY, because I am not giving you legal advice, because unlike many people I realize I am not a lawyer and do not pretend to know law things, a link to a store that has a flat fee on anything purchased is not a paid endorsement unless I guess you're being paid the percentage just to review their online store. No, I am not in violation of the FTC rules as it has been explained to me by my legal professional explainer. If the FTC visits me you will be the first to know. I will take pictures. If you have issues or concerns of your own please consult a lawyer. If you are not a lawyer, please do not fear, there is probably one standing next to you in the grocery store.
Also, WTF with email people? Yesterday it was people sending me long detailed history lessons about the geopolitical status of Romania and today it's everyone's day to play lawyer?
Can we just have a standing assumption that I already know something I said no matter how small or useless or made-up or silly or joking will somehow someway offend someone and we can just all assume I know it, and therefore you can save the email? I am just suggesting is all.
Posted by laurie at 01:43 AM
November 27, 2009
Black Friday
My sister-in-law woke up at 3 a.m. to be ready to hit the mall with some of her friends when the stores opened at 4 a.m. I always wondered who was off shopping at a mall at 4 a.m. and now I know, it's my sister-in-law!
I prefer to do my shopping the hermit's way: online, in my pajamas, with a glass of wine. I have furnished my house almost entirely from shopping online, I buy my clothes online, my books, shoes. I love the UPS man, the FedEx lady, the reliable ol' U.S. Postal Service.
Speaking of the postal service, I wrote a little guest post about holiday letters over at PensFatales.com. Unlike horrible, mean curmudgeony me, the lovely ladies of PensFatales allow comments, so comment away! Carry on my wayward son, there'll be peace when you are done.
As for me, I'm at work, waiting for the end of the day and for the weekend to officially begin with pajamas and wine and maybe some shopping of my own -- from the safety of my living room of course. Have a great weekend!
Posted by laurie at 11:05 AM
November 25, 2009
Happy Thanking Day!
Happy Thanksgiving! And day-before-Thanksgiving! Especially to the servicemen and women who read from half a world away.... I don't know how you put on fatigues each day a million miles away from home and do your work and still find the muster to endure yet more blabbering about my exciting life (cat poop! gardening trauma! the great and ongoing discussion of whether or not I should wear bangs!) but I appreciate my readers in uniform and thank you for checking in and emailing and for doing a job I'm too chicken to do but appreciate more than I can say.
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Lately I have spent a ridiculous amount of time feeling anxiety over the next book and all which that entails, and even though I know it's a high-class problem to have and all that, there is still anxiety, a sucking pit of acid pooling in my stomach. It reminds me that all change (even good change) can cause stress. I've never been one who thinks that just because someone somewhere else has it worse your problems should miraculously vanish or become unimportant, but I do try to get out of my own head from time to time. Finding things to be thankful about always helps.
Jennifer and I went through a period of time where we'd email each other three things a day. Three happy things or stuff we were thankful for. We haven't done it in a while but it was funny how something so simple could make you pause from your constant brainchatter -- even just for a few minutes -- and focus on just looking for good things. It changes your mood.
Of course I feel grateful for my family and friends and that I am alive and employed and my cats are healthy and my car isn't making mysterious noises and I have so much, I even have a second a book to worry about. Today, though, my top three are:
1) My little circle of female friends, who I love and admire and respect and learn so much from. I've never been one of those people with 200 best friends, I've always kept a very small group, and now as an adult I feel even more grateful for the smart and funny women I know and feel close to. They give me perspective, they give me laughs, they give me a reality check when I need it, they show me their lives and share their stories with me. They make my life feel full and happy.
1a ) Drew. We're both 12th house Cancers. And he doesn't fall into my close-girlfriend zone being as he is a dude and all but he's my speed-dial for therapy, advice and daydreaming. If I called Drew today and told him I was buying a ruin in Spain and moving there to herd sheep, he'd offer to help me pack. He'd help decorate. He'd help name the sheep. He goes with me on my wild flights of fantasy and that is a true friend indeed.
2) Readers. All readers, not just folks who read here but people who read books and buy books and walk out of the library with a stack. Reading is the cheapest and fastest way I know to get out of my head and into a whole new world. I love swapping books with people and getting book recommendations and most of all I just love others like me who know they're never alone as long as they have a book. With a book I can go places, you know? I can lie in bed or sit on the subway or just curl up on the sofa with a book and I am somewhere else, it's magic.
3) My job. Obviously one day I want to be less Walter Mitty and more J.K. Rowling and I will never give up that dream. Until then, however, I still have bills to pay and like to eat (a lot) and my job has been a solid spot in a crazy year. 2009 has been a wild ride in the world of finance and I know how lucky I am to be employed and especially how lucky to be employed at a place I genuinely like! This year I got to work on a project that was very detailed and complex and time-consuming and challenging and it was the best project I've done in all the time I've worked here and I feel ridiculously proud of it. The whole team was smart and hardworking and I think it made what could have been a difficult year much happier for me, more fulfilling. A lot of other stuff was not going so well, but instead of harping on the icky parts I just focused deeply on the project I liked.
Sometimes I find I have to look for the one thing that is going right and focus intently on it until all the crappy stuff begins to lose its importance, lose its grasp on me. That's what I did at work this year and it made me happier about coming in each day. And for that I am well and truly thankful.
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That's my three for today. Hope that wherever you are and whatever you're doing for Thanksgiving you're happy and full and that you have a good book picked out for later.
xo
laurie
Posted by laurie at 11:40 AM
November 16, 2009
It's scarf weather until at least 10 a.m.
One thing I love about the Valley is that it gets cold in the mornings. It's only 52 degrees outside right now! That's downright wintery for us.
I have a stomach ache. I ate too many tortilla chips last night. Or maybe it was the salsa. Either way, I fear there may be spewing. I hate to throw up more than anything else so I may be able to avoid it by sheer force of will. This is how my morning is unfolding so far, and it does not bode well for the day ahead.
So here are my three good things:
1) With all the H1N1 flu news I thought this was a good time to re-read The Stand by Stephen King
2) Christmas decorating. I got my tree put together on Saturday but haven't decorated it yet. My wreath from the past few years is still pretty so I hung it on the front door and already I feel the holiday cheer.
3) Netflix. I know, I know, I resisted for so long. Then I gave in and I have become an addict. I like being able to watch shows streaming online, that's by far my favorite part of the service. That's how I got into The Office and Dexter and caught up on last season's 30 Rock. I love TV, I will not lie to you.
So that is Monday. I am wearing a scarf. I am trying not to barf. I rhyme! Good times.
Posted by laurie at 07:11 AM
November 13, 2009
Friday the 13th and then just some blabbering
As superstitious as I am, I'm not really that interested in Friday the 13th. Though I won't fly on a Friday the 13th, so I guess I do still have my little trepidations. Not that I am flying anywhere.
Many months ago I posted a link to this video:
The first time I saw it, it made me go into the ugly cry. You know that part where everyone suddenly starts to come down the stairs and sing? I just started sobbing like a weirdo.
At first I couldn't figure out why that was my reaction. And I got a lot of email from people telling me the same thing happened to them. It took a while, but finally it dawned on me that most of the time we're so disconnected from pure joy that it's a shock to the system to feel a rush of it. Pure joy makes us leak at the eyeballs.
I've learned a lot from the email I get, it's been by far the most interesting and thought-provoking part of all this. I get emails all day every day. Most of them are lovely, happy, goofy, funny. Informative. It's through email that I've found cool patterns and funny videos and all sorts of things, people sharing them with me, I love that. Then there is a whole other category of correspondence, the concerned emails. It took me a while to get accustomed to it. All these strangers, all their fears. We're so alike in that we all carry secret fears but it took me a while -- a very long while -- to understand that some folks feel a deep need to warn others, help them avoid sure tragedy. It's not even a thought process, they just do it instantly. I think perhaps it's their way of reaching out, relating to others, showing connection.
That first year I was so soft, every fear I had was so transparent. People would comment or email me with their fears and I felt overcome, like I had to take on each of these new, strange, unforeseen worries.
"That thing you wrote about today? You shouldn't do that, maybe you didn't know, but... it could end horribly, tragically, it's unhealthy, causes cancer, explodes on impact, will cause food poisoning, is bad for cats, contains toxins, is bad for the environment, leads to getting fired, traveling alone is dangerous, hotel safes are not safe, your passport will get stolen, you will get lost, watch out, beware, it's harmful, you drink too much, peanut butter is fattening, the garden soil is probably toxic, I knew this friend who ate that and got so sick...."
And I would worry, fret, overwhelming anxiety crept in. I am human and fallible with my own personalized bag of crap and fear. But I couldn't anticipate or even dream up other people's fears until I started getting emails. I would write some hasty, chatty little thing and suddenly people -- people I did not know -- would scold me, school me, tell me all the ways I was ignorant, astray, about to maim, addicted, lost, tragic, pathetic, about to kill my cats, surely going to cause an accident. I was caught totally off guard.
That first year I took it all to heart because I had never experienced anything like it, and I was tightly wound all the time anyway. Soft.
The second year I was divorcing and broke and just tired. I took it less to heart. I began to suspect that complete strangers read my online diary and surmised one thing: this woman is a total idiot. She makes bad decisions and is stupid. Nothing about the email had changed, mind you, but all the sudden I was making it about my shortcomings, seeing it as an assault on my intellect. Irritated. Offended! Lord, that ought to tell you where I was those days.
The third year I just over-thought it and finally snapped, culminating in a breakdown in the Nashville airport. Awesome. I cried into the basket of chicken fingers at some overpriced restaurant with bad barbecue sauce.
After the meltdown, I loosened up. It helped that I was more comfortable with myself and that I had not actually come to some tragic end as predicted. I threw caution to the wind and I did not get eaten by a monster. I laughed a little more, at myself and at other people and our collective insanity. I started feeling grateful for notes from strangers. Happy. Interested -- not assaulted. I started looking forward to the new and goofy stuff I would see in my inbox each day. I can't wait to see what people are saying today! How does that person have email in prison? I had no idea that yarn could be funky because of YARN PLY. Isn't that interesting how this woman interpreted that sentence and got something totally opposite of what I intended? That is so fascinating! I should aim to be more succinct next time. Also, I should spell check. I use a LOT of commas. They make yarn from what kind of animal? Wacky!
These days I love getting email and seeing where people are at, what they're reading, what they hear, what they knit. I even appreciate the people who tell me I need 12 steps and a prayer because I finally understand that it isn't about me, it's about them and their fears and that's fine. But it's theirs to carry, not mine. People tell you things all the time that have nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. You don't have to take it on personally. That is a relief and it frees you up to just live your life instead of constantly being on the defensive. I do feel a connection to folks whose hearts beat in rhythm with compassion even if it's misplaced concern. That sort of care is hard to come by and I appreciate it all. But I am not a handyman's special, I am not a fixer-upper for someone else, I am not an art project. Once I got that into my thick head everything came easier, I relaxed, it's been good with an occasional ugly cry thrown in for balance.
I am a little taken aback that we seem to live in so much fear. It doesn't seem healthy, folks immediately feeling the need to warn others about surely impending doom. I can't tell if it's forever been this way or if something in our society has shifted, moving us into a place where we instantly think of the worst-case scenario, feel the need to warn people, feel scared of outcomes. Scared of peanuts. I'm not built that way so it still feels foreign to me and I haven't quite wrapped my mind around it. But maybe it's always been this way? Or maybe the pervasive news of fear has forever altered the way folks see the world. What do you think? I'm not sure, myself.
With all our stress and anxiety and concerns it's no surprise we fall into the ugly cry seeing a group of people dance in a train station. We're a whole world so constantly vigilant against tragedy (or addicted to it?) that a moment of pure joy makes us fall to pieces.
Like everyone, I want to choose happy over tragic and like most people I have my days. I'm not a Pollyanna. I absolutely hate it when someone tries to paste a happy face sticker over every last thing, it's trite and annoying and it feels fake. But I also work daily not to immediately default to the worst-case fear, either. It's so exhausting to always be on guard against unforeseen trauma and it never really changes the outcome anyway. It's easier to make jokes about stuff, loosen up, let your freak flag fly, use the damn hotel safe if you want to and eat peanuts with wild abandon.
And now and then it feels good to do a little ugly cry. It's cleansing.
Posted by laurie at 09:58 AM
October 29, 2009
In the city ladies look pretty, guys tell jokes so they can seem witty
One of my hidden talents is that I have a freakishly vast knowledge of song lyrics from the 1980s. I can conduct an entire conversation in random song lyrics, which I do sometimes at work accidentally and then I find myself on a conference call saying something like, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life ..."
Which goes over really well. As you can imagine.
Crosswords fascinate me. Not the actual completion or challenge of the crossword puzzle -- the only ones I have a shot of getting right are the crosswords in the back of People magazine. What amazes me is that it is someone's job to make all the boxes and clues line up just so. I'm sure they have software for it now, I think I've run across it somewhere online, but before fancy algorithms computed on microchips someone somewhere sat in an office and drew clues from words arranged in little boxes. This is what I think about in traffic.
Last night I stayed up past midnight trying to finish this knitting project and I'm still not done, but I think I can wrap it up at lunch time. Knitting on a deadline isn't as relaxed as random knitting, but it is far more productive. I'm going to lock myself away with my lunch and finish, my own little knitting sweatshop of one. Maybe I'll call my knitting friends at work and invite them, "I got me a Chrysler, it seats about 20, so hurry up and bring your jukebox money!" It would help if my song lyrics made any sense at all to the conversation at hand, perhaps.
More Sobakowa keeping the homefires burning:
They're lying on the beach perpetrating a tan so that a brother with money can be their man...
Posted by laurie at 10:20 AM
October 28, 2009
Reader Q&A Day
The immediacy of email still surprises me, mostly because I am not very immediate about it on my end. But just imagine you post some little essay and then you go get coffee, wash your hands repeatedly, flip through an Avon catalog, stare out the window, and fifteen minutes later you check your inbox and you have 149 emails about your forgotten essay's factual inaccuracies. How else would I know when I had neglected to talk up Alaska's tax-free status?
I tell this to my friend Work-Jennifer and she says, "Doesn't it bother you that an essay about people pointing out flaws in your fantasies only elicits a flood of email from people pointing out flaws in your writing?"
I think about it for a minute.
"I must be either totally desensitized or completely shallow," I tell her. "Because all I thought was, 'Wow, I have a lot of readers in the state of Alaska! Cool!'"
Here's some other recent email questions from readers:
I'm making the baby sweater with seed stitch bands that you recently made. I could NOT figure out the buttonhole rows. Finally, I realized that "P1,k1,p1,k2tog,yf, seed stitch to end" must be English instructions, and that the "yf" that made no sense should be "yo". I think the edition that I took my pattern from is older. When I looked on the website for errata, the pattern was called Baby Jacket with moss stitch bands. --Maureen
Maureen, I had the same problem with the buttonhole rows on the red baby sweater! That "yf" made no sense to me. I had to Google it and that is when I discovered Debbie Bliss and her seriously adorable baby clothes (in Baby Knits for Beginners
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Hi Laurie. I made the chickpea and kale soup you linked to last week and my husband and I both loved it! I just wanted to thank you for sharing that recipe. so -- thanks! (and if you have any suggestions for the chard or collards taking up space in my veggie drawer...) --Mims
Oh, I am so happy you like that soup recipe. I love it, it's a new staple in my house and it freezes and re-heats really well. Also, I am shocked that I do actually have a good recipe for chard! I made this Swiss Chard and Red Pepper Gratin last year when this recipe came out in the New York Times and I really liked it. That is also the recipe that started my deep love affair with arborio rice. I'd never made it before and so I just boiled two cups of water to one cup of arborio (so I had plenty left over from the recipe) and it was like heaven. Gooey, white carby heaven. Oh -- and the gratin wasn't bad either.
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Hi Laurie, I have been reading and enjoying your site for a couple of years. You mentioned in a post once that you are learning Polish. That struck me because I lived in Poland for a year and learned as much Polish as I could - tough language! Anyway, I found this website yesterday from a CNN post and thought it might be helpful to you - http://lang-8.com. You post journal entries in the language you are learning and native speakers correct them for you (and you can do the same for English learners). --Lisa
Lisa, that is so cool! I'm not sure I'm ready to write anything in Polish just yet but I love this idea. Proving once again you can do so much more with the innernet than just buy shoes and stalk old boyfriends on Facebook.
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Hello! I have been on a rather disappointing quest! I'm a relatively new knitter, and quite obsessed with conquering the art of sock construction...something at least bound to be productive one day. My weapon of choice is a set of DPNs which are metal. I've tried knitting a wide variety of gauges and for the life of me can't figure out why there are three gaps in my work. Every time I change over from one DPN to another, there is a nearly double wide gap in my sock, which looks ugly! Would you happen to know how to fix this? What am I doing wrong?! Any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
--Trish
Hi Trish! Those gaps are really common, especially when you first start out using double-pointed needles. Sometimes they're called "ladders" or also "holy crap why do we have to use these freaking DPNs?"
Because I am a freakishly tight knitter I don't get gaps. I do sometimes get knitted objects that can stand on their own from the stiffness of the gauge but hey, no ladders! Since I don't think everyone is comfortable being a crazy-tight knitter, I looked online for some suggestions to help you and found this thread on the knittinghelp.com forums. I hope some of the suggestions there can help you close the gap.
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Hi Laurie! =-) I have a question for you. I have made the sweet little baby sweater out of the variegated yarn and am at the button stage. Did you ever tell us how to sew on those buttons that never in a million years will come off? I was away from the computer for about 4 months over the summer and into the fall and don't know if I missed it...and that is a LOT of reading backlog, I tell ya! If you did write about it can you point me in the right direction to find the post? Or, if not, if you ever get a chance, I am sure there are others like me who would love that info. I'm a fairly new knitter, maybe about 3-4 years worth of scarves, hats, bags,and dishcloths. Now I have graduated to baby sweaters and simple adult garments. No grandbabies yet (except grand cats, of course) but I figure the sweaters are good knitting practice and I can put them away in my grandma hope chest or have something already available when I get invited to showers, etc.
Hugs,
Debby Mc
Debby, I am SO glad you emailed me, I forgot all about the buttons! This weekend I'll sew something up and take a picture or two for illustrative purposes, as I to tend to be wordy, and I'll post something next week. Thank you for the reminder! And congratulations on your sweater-making!!
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Hi Laurie-- I just wanted to ask you where you got that rug in front of your fireplace in the picture. The smaller one on top with the squares. It's the exact color palette and similar square pattern as my living room rug and I could use a little bit of matching in my mish-mash of apartment decor. :)~Heidi
Hi Heidi! I wanted to be named Heidi for about ten years of my childhood. I was so jealous of girls named Heidi. Lucky you and your cool name.
The fireplace rug on top of the other rug (which are still there, by the way, I have made no progress at all in my house) was a little find from Target. They have such cute household stuff. And best of all, this time I actually found a link to the rug online for you here. I bought the small one which is a little too small for the fireplace hearth, but I love it and I feel weird returning something my cats have been sitting on for two weeks, so I may use it at the front door as the entry rug. But for now it's being held down by this little goofball:
If you look closely you can see Frankie's tail on the bottom right side of the picture. It's the tail with the white dot on the end. She sees the camera come out and wants to be in all the pictures. I had to push her out of the way before Soba gave her a smack down for harshing her kittycat fireplace buzz.
That's about it for today. I'm almost finished with my top-secret knitted item, which I have to ship by tomorrow at the very latest so I will be up late again doing weird things with yarn and wine. Hopefully by this time next week you will have pictures of what I believe is both the silliest and the most oddly-proportioned thing I have ever made in my entire life.
Thanks for the emails! Love you, Alaska!
Posted by laurie at 11:36 AM
October 27, 2009
Taxes and Death and Big Talk
More from the cutting room floor. Seems like all my favorite stuff got edited out with a red pen!
Taxes and Death and Big TalkMy accountant is a year younger than me, and he’s tall. Over six feet tall. He has dark brown hair and is the best looking accountant I have ever met. The first year I went to see him I was still in the process of getting divorced and I cried in his office. I did that a lot back then.
The next year I was happier, because I was really moved on from the crying and I was working on my first book. It was an exciting time, so much so that I managed to completely ignore his suggestion to begin paying quarterly taxes and this year I am sitting in his office, thirty hours before April 15th and I am watching the numbers on the screen add up. I brought my checkbook but I’m not sure how much it will help, I forgot to rob a bank first.
The accountant and I agree that the number is large, larger than we expected. I have to pay that amount, and I ask if there is some way to claim the cats on my tax return. He laughs politely. I own no house for deductions, I have no dependent children, and I am in the state with the highest tax burden in the U.S. The accountant and I chitchat before I leave –- I don't cry, victory again! -– and then he tells me he's getting married and she's in the medical field.
"Taxes and death," he says. I laugh politely and leave.
Later that night I call my dad and tell him I've been to see my accountant and I am now researching the states with no personal income tax.
My dad is used to me saying things such as "I think I want to be a painter and develop a dark side," and "I’m thinking about quitting my job at the bank and taking my chances at professional cat whispering. Unless there's an opening for blimp drivers, doesn't blimp driving sound fun?" He listens to me patiently contrast all the pros and cons of the seven states on the list.
"There’s Florida –- too humid. Nevada is too gambly. Texas is on the list but I was born there and if I move back no one will find my southern accent charming because they all have accents," I said.
"Yes," said my dad, "that and now you sound like a Yankee from living out in Los Angeles for so long."
Sounding like a Yankee is a cardinal sin for most southerners but I took voice and diction lessons for five long years so that I could have conversations with other human beings from outside the Delta without them interrupting me four words in to say, "Where are you from? Your accent is so... thick!" so I am not only unoffended by sounding Yankee-ish, but smugly thrilled that my family thinks I am a yellowbellied Yankee traitor in the diction arena.
"New Mexico was a real possibility," I tell him. "But it seems hot, and I already live in the San Fernando Valley so it would be out of the frying pan and into the fryer. South Dakota is really far. So that leaves Washington State and Wyoming. Those are all seven states with no state income tax. I don’t want to pay taxes anymore, so that’s as close as I can get without being jailed or moving offshore."
"I can see your time at the bank has paid off," said my dad. "You have become a true financial whiz kid."
"I’m thinking Wyoming," I said. "It sounds rugged."
"What will you do in Wyoming?" dad asks. He is always the annoying and how do you plan to pay for that missy sort of pragmatist.
"I don’t know, but I will be free, dad! Freedom! Los Angeles has been great but I am certain I have an inner rugged pioneer spirit just waiting to burst forth!" I said.
"When you come here for a visit you don’t even like to go upstairs," he pointed out.
I know better than to call my pragmatic, Southern parents and talk to them about ridiculous notions such as enlightenment, moving to encourage my inner pioneer or sharing my dream of one day opening a museum of knitted objects. Not just knitted scarves and hats but everything like tables, chairs, plates, little knitted cupcakes and silverware. I think it could become quite the roadside attraction.
This is a clear example of discovering who is on your team. There are people you love and admire and talk to every day –- friends, family members, psychic astrologers. But not everyone is on your team. Some people are just programmed to be dogmatic pragmatists. They can't help but poke holes in all your fantasies and stories. They're the ones who interrupt you to tell you that they don't think "Roberta" is the best name to use when you become an undercover operative for the CIA. Like they would know!
Those who are on your team will nod and smile and act like they are listening to you as you pour your heart out on the telephone. They are silently playing online scrabble on the other end of the phone line, but they are not arguing with your logic, your planning skills or your loose definition of "earning potential." These people are your support team, the ones you go to first with your ridiculous ideas and wild-hair-up-your-butt theories.
Everyone else –- no matter how close you may be or how closely related you may be –- will be full of all the ways your current dream and plan will never work. They will tell you how bad the economy is, or how risky that kind of adventure is, or that you're too short for espionage, and they will helpfully provide any number of ways you can fail, fall over or embarrass yourself. Those are the ones you do not share your schemes with. You can still remain close to these folks but you don't tell them about the long afternoons at your desk when you daydream, picturing yourself on horseback wearing faded jeans and something plaid, riding free on a windswept big-sky farm in tax-free Wyoming.
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Edited to add: Thank you for all the people emailing me furiously about Tennessee and New Hampshire. Those states tax dividend and interest income which technically does not make them personal tax-free states. As for you folks emailing me about Alaska, what can I say? It was a silly essay, not a real-life hard news story about the taxation situation in the U.S. I probably had wine. What's funniest of all is that it's not actually about finding a place to live OR about taxes! In my mind it was about fantasizing, dreaming, goofy stuff. Clearly now I know why this essay was cut. Thank God I have an editor, right? I seem to be hearing another language sometimes. Funny funny.
Posted by laurie at 10:17 AM
October 22, 2009
Like a star sighting, only better
Brush with fame
A few months ago I wrote about my favorite childhood books, one of which is The Grounding of Group 6
That's my brush of fame for the day. Exciting! Even better than the time I saw Ralph Macchio in the produce aisle at Gelson's. (He was so short. Why are all actors four feet tall? Is it because they have to fit inside the TV?)
It was exciting to get Mr. Thompson's email because it makes him REAL. I've read The Grounding of Group 6 a hundred times since I was a kid and I love his characters and his style, and I thought it was magic the way he could get me to read and re-read the story even though I knew what happened, had it memorized. That's what great writers do, they tell a story so well you want to read it over and over. But I forget that authors are real people -- people who read websites (or their wives do) and sometimes they even send a note. I forget this even though technically I am an author myself. Which brings me to:
Brush with insane
I love the mundane, the kitchen reality of making dinner or going to IKEA and I have a small, normal life. I like it that way very much. Most of the action takes place in my head, in words, on paper. But yes, of course, some things have changed now. I'd like to say the main change is that now I have a houseboy named Raimundo but we all know that hasn't happened... yet. Anyway, I was going to try to explain the inner shift that happened but that seems vaguely moronic and boring so instead I will tell you a real-life conversation I had with a fellow commuter on our fine L.A. freeway system. It's illustrative.
It was a Tuesday some time ago. It was hot and I had the windows zipped off the Jeep and I'd stripped down to my camisole because sweat was running down my spine. My CD player had suddenly stopped working and every FM station was on commercial break. Traffic was a nightmare and the whole four-level interchange downtown was clogged and people were tense, murderous, ready to honk.
I had to merge onto the 101 and the guy in the primer-grey Honda right next to me kept edging me out. I am not a timid driver, I'm not one of those people who needs an Act of Congress to merge into another lane. I'm efficient, I'm on top of things. But this guy was determined not to let me in. I would sense a small opening in the traffic and before I could even turn my steering wheel he would accelerate and block me out. Finally, I put my blinker on and merged right into his lane and I figured that if he didn't stop we'd have an accident and during the investigation, one of us would be ticketed for having no insurance and it would not be me. I merged.
His windows were down and we were six inches from each other.
"You effing b**ch! You drive like sh**! Eff you!!!" he yelled at me.
With no windows in the Jeep it was like we were sitting right next to each other, hollering.
"Oh yeah? Yeah? You want to go there?" I yelled back. "You think I'm an Effing B**ch? I'm a PUBLISHED AUTHOR. You can find my book in fine bookstores near you! SUCK ON IT!"
It was both my greatest road rage accomplishment and the most publicity I've done voluntarily. And he did shut up, I assume he was stunned by my expansive vocabulary. I knew that even though I may have stooped to his level and hollered at him on a freeway, I had one up on him: I was a published author. I felt the confidence of my own dream come true. I flipped him off and merged onto the 101.
Posted by laurie at 09:21 AM
October 13, 2009
Stuff I have been doing and also not doing, sometimes at the same time
1. Awaiting the Storm of The Century
We are on Storm Watch 2009!!!! over here. There were actual raindrops on my windshield this morning. It was very exciting because I was prepared for windshield watering ... a few weeks ago I bought brand new windshield wipers, not out of a fit of preparation but mostly from embarrassment. My old ones had cracked and rotted from disuse and part of the rubber was flapping off. My new wipers are so efficient. I got to use them at least three times this morning! This is the first measurable rainfall we've had since June 5th, and that was a fluke. They say ("The U.S. Department of They") that this is going to be a wet winter. I love the rain, it makes everything clean again. Downtown, which normally smells like a human litter box, will soon be fresh and sparkly.
2. Procrastinating
We have projects at work that are so involved they've spun off side projects and the boxes at home will not unpack themselves and my manuscript was due 100 years ago and I have decided I want to move to Spain and herd sheep. I've been doing a lot of anxious cleaning. I cleaned my keyboard four times yesterday.
3. Blah blah
I've been listening to everyone at work talk about their Myers-Briggs, except one co-worker who shall remain unnamed who thinks the whole thing is a load of crap. Which is funny to me because I would much rather be said coworker's personality type than my own.
4. They're all leased anyway
All the cars in my new apartment's garage area are really nice, expensive cars. There are about eleventy-nine BMWs and just as many Mercedes SUVs and then there is my Jeep, which is still the coolest car EVER!!! but it definitely needed a bath, so I took it to the car wash and even agreed to have them put the shiny stuff on the tires. Now when I walk out to my car it looks like this rugged, dented machine on top of these shiny Barbie Jeep tires. And then of course it brought upon us the wrath of Storm Watch 2009!!!!
5. Winter
Winter has arrived, we can tell it is here from the cold and inhospitable high of only 68 degrees yesterday. How ever will we survive? People at work are complaining today about it being chilly. I would feel more empathy for them but some people need to eat a sandwich or two because they have no fat to keep them warm. Me, on the other hand, I can wade through the frozen tundra with nothing more than a cardigan and my own thick layer of personal insulation.
6. Freakazoid
Since I got sick my germaphobia has taken hold of me with renewed fervor. I had to leave a store the other day because some woman with all these kids kept sneezing wetly and with great gusto up and down every aisle and it was almost like she was following me and finally I figured we were about to reach a tipping point in the sneeze-to-clean-air ratio and I had to abandon my groceries and leave. I have explained before how my germaphobia is both cyclical and has many phases of understanding. It's pretty simple, really. When I am very stressed out and feel like I have no control over my life I lose the ability to touch a public door handle. I think if we had to pick crazy qualities, I would definitely choose my brand of crazy over other people's coping mechanisms. It's cheaper than spending $200 a week on yammering with a therapist and it's more fulfilling in the long term than say road rage or a gambling addiction. Everybody's got some crazy! This is mine.
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Happy Monday-that's-a-Tuesday! I like short weeks. Friday sneaks up on you faster that way.
Posted by laurie at 10:32 AM
October 01, 2009
Panty lines visible from outer space and other news
The title says a lot about my morning. Et tu, Brute?
Cult of Personality
Everyone in my division had to take the Myers-Brigg type test and we had our results revealed during an all-day departmental meeting yesterday. I'd taken the test before about ten years ago which was of course prior to my great interpersonal meltdown, my "I got drunk and directed traffic in my nightgown" divorce, and before I came to work at Big Corporation, Inc. When I originally took the test I was an INFJ and I didn't expect any change since they say ("The U.S. Department of They") that people rarely change core personality types.
The "I" stands for Introvert. When I first took this test a decade ago I was shocked to find I was not just an introvert, I was a REALLY BIG introvert. My score was off the chart. The more I learned about it, though, the more it made sense. The best way I have ever heard the Extrovert/Introvert thing explained is that extroverts get their energy from being around other people and introverts get their batteries recharged by being alone. There's a lot more to it, but I wasn't surprised to find that I am still an "I" -- the person who prefers to go on vacation alone is an introvert? Big shocker!
The "N" stands for Intuition (as opposed to Sensing). The best way I've heard this explained is that Sensers make lists of to-do items they want to check off today (if not sooner!) and Intuits make lists of stuff they hope to one day achieve or see or experience. S people are detail-oriented and N people are maybe not so much.
F is for Feelings! Feelings, nothing more than feelings, trying to forget my feelings of love... I'm not a high-scoring F, so I also have some affinity for the other side which is "T" for Thinking. Generally speaking Thinkers are logic/truth/principles people and Feelers are harmony/tact/loyalty people. (By the way, there is a whole lot more to all this Myers Briggsonian stuff than I am explaining, this is just the Cliff's Notes of the Cliff's Notes version.)
The only surprise here was that I switched from being a very high J -- Judging -- to a very high P -- Perception. I was a little surprised at how big of a change I'd made in this area but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. I used to be a big judgypants. I had very specific thoughts about everything, I was exacting, regimented and spent most of my time and energy focused on other people and their issues. I gave a fair amount of my own unsolicited advice and spent a lot of time answering questions no one had asked me.
The change in this part of my personality was gradual but enormous. It's like someone else moved into that part of my brain. I still make judgment calls, but it's almost always self-directed and I've replaced my opinionated spouting off with "Eh, everybody's got problems. Who am I to judge?" I still share my opinions (product recommendations, here I come!) and I'll give my opinion about a topic when asked but even the tone of that has changed. I used to say with great authority, "Well, you know what you SHOULD do, you should do this and then this and then this and then you ought to blah blah blah..." and now it sounds like, "Well, let's see. This is what works for me but what works for other people will be different. However, since you asked, and only since you asked, this is what works in my experience..."
Funny. Anyway, this change made me secretly very pleased because it proves that people can change and this particular change has made my life infinitely better. Like Dr. Dyer says, "Your opinion of me is none of my business." And conversely, it's really not my job to tell you what I think of you. I can't tell you how much easier this has made my relationships. And my life in general is a lot less tense, I'm just not that interested in solving other people's problems or telling them what to do and I really don't feel like arguing anymore. It's like exhaling.
So, I am an INFP. Also, not surprisingly, I was the only person in the entire division who was an INFP. It's lonely out here in the wilderness of weirdness. Secretly I always want to fall into the statistical norm and I never do. It's a little like always getting picked last for kickball. The only comfort here is that everyone at my table fell into a statistical norm and each said they'd prefer to be in the "less than 1%" categories. That's the shared human experience, isn't it? Always wanting something different from what we've got.
If you want to take this test online I found some similar tests here (it has less questions but they're pretty consistent) and there's also the Myers Brigg Foundation, and of course there is a Wiki on it.
Earthquakes & Tsunamis
I am a little freaked out by the recent big earthquake activity in the news. Usually I am pretty Zen about this subject since I have no control over the tectonic plates and I have an overachiever Type A Plus earthquake kit at home. But recently I started having a recurring earthquake dream. In this dream, we have a major shaker here in Los Angeles next March. In one of these dreams I was writing about the earthquake, and I wrote the date but all I could see was "Ma" so then I wasn't sure if it was March or May, but everything else in the dream was the same.
At first I thought these dreams were stress dreams, much like the recurring tidal wave nightmares I used to have. But the earthquake dreams were so specific they freaked me out. So in a nod to my core superstitious personality type -- not noted in Myers Briggs -- I am now writing about this dream because saying it out loud will ward off a temblor. Also, probably later I will toss salt over my shoulder and walk around my cat three times while holding a sausage. Freakazoid.
October Brings Big Weather!
Who says we don't have weather here in Los Angeles?
Not only are we having wild temperature mood swings, Dapper Dallas is also hovering around the word DRIZZLE! Not that I believe it will happen, mind you, but just having mist in the forecast is enough to make people here think winter is upon us. Dallas Raines knows how to excite a crowd. I just got new windshield wipers on the Jeep so I'm ready for even a real raindrop, should that occur. It's always exciting to see the seasons change here in Los Angeles. Before you know it we'll be out of fire season and into mudslide season with a chance of wind. Our weather really keeps you on your flip-flop clad toes!
Posted by laurie at 10:24 AM
September 30, 2009
Knitting, Glee, Mr. Clean, Borders, traffic photography
Knitting:
The past few weeks have seen no knitting at all as I packed, moved, then got sick. A few days ago I unpacked the box that was hiding my newest knitting project -- I did manage to put all the necessary components (pattern, yarn, needles, etc.) together into one box but then I mislabeled it and you can imagine my happy surprise when I opened a box expecting to find the fondue pot and instead found my long lost knitting project. But it's a gift for someone who reads this website and I'm not going to spoil the surprise.
[ use you imagination, picture something knitted here ]
The other night as I was sitting on the sofa staring at a pile of boxes that sadly would not unpack themselves, I thought of a great idea for my living room. I have a really pretty wooden bowl thingy that I'm going to set out with some Noro yarn and a set of aluminum needles and at some point I'm going to start an entrelac scarf using said yarn and needles and I can just leave it out all the time because it will look pretty in the bowl. And that way even if I'm not working on a specific project I can knit up a little square or two at night. And if I use metal needles the cats (read: Bob) won't chew on them. They don't bother yarn but wooden needles have a ten-second shelf life around ol' Big Teeth. Anyway, as soon as I unpack the bowl and find the yarn I'm going to make it into a little domestic art installation. I'm not sure why this idea made me happy but it's the little things, you know.
Glee:
A coworker of mine mentioned offhandedly that he'd started watching a new show called "Glee." This coworker and I sit very close together but we watch none of the same shows, and if we've all learned anything about conservative business corporate etiquette, it is that you need to share some social connections with your coworkers and that usually ends up being TV. Which is fine with me, that's how I discovered Dexter which I became totally addicted to one weekend.
Anyway, I decided to Tivo "Glee" just to see what it was like and I think I got about five minutes into last week's episode (where Kurt dances his own version of a Beyonce video) and I was so in love already that I decided to watch all the back episodes in order on hulu.com. Here's the clip that sucked me into this show and made me an instant fan:
This whole episode was just that good. Glee is by far my new favorite fall show. It was even better since I got to go online and watch the pilot and the two other episodes I had missed. That also reinforced to me of how AWESOME the internet is because it reminded me of the year I was crackass addicted to Felicity and I was on vacation to like Poland or Iceland or somewhere that did not get the WB and I missed the episode where Felicity chooses between Ben and Noel and I was heartbroken. Heartbroken, I tell you! I had to call a friend of a friend who worked at the network to get me a bootleg of the episode on VHS and by then all the surprise was gone.
This is a very long way of saying that I now love the happiness that comes with knowing it's easy to find TV episodes I missed online. So I did, and I watched Glee from the very beginning. I was surprised by how good the clarity and quality of the streaming video was on hulu.com -- and even though there are occasional short commercial breaks some of them were HILARIOUS, like this one, the Dokken/chicken ad from Norton:
I think whoever came up with the concept for that marketing campaign is both brilliant and probably around my age. Kind of makes me want to spray my hair with Rave #4 and peg my acid wash jeans.
Anyway! Glee comes on tonight at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. central) on Fox. And now you have all day to watch back episodes in preparation. If you like it than you shoulda put a ring on it!
He's A Magic Man
Today at work we have a full-day workshop and part of the homework was to pick a brand you feel strongly about and share a bunch of stuff with the group like the brand's target demographic, its brand feeling, value proposition and market share, etc. etc.
I picked Mr. Clean and his Magic Erasers which I think I've written about already eleventy-nine times but hey, I love me some Mr. Clean. When the movers left big marks all along my freshly painted walls it was Mr. Clean to the rescue. I have Magic Erasered everything from the walls to the stovetop to the crockpot (I have one of those white crockpots and when you make pot roast it gets all discolored which grosses me out) and Mr. Clean is my man -- always available, never lets me down. While I was doing my research for our meeting today I came across this funny piece of trivia:
According to Procter & Gamble, the original model for the image of Mr. Clean was a United States Navy sailor from the city of Pensacola, Florida, although most people think he is a genie based on his earring, folded arms, and tendency to appear magically at the appropriate time.
Somewhere out there a real-life woman was probably married to the real-life Mr. Clean and he was a salty sailor. How about that!
Making a run for the Borders
I stopped into a Borders book store last night on my way home from work to pick up a gift for a friend's birthday. Guess whose book was on display! Oddly enough, I sometimes forget that I have a whole 'nother secret life so it always shocks me to see anyone reading my book or a store that carries it. I walked in to Borders to get the newest Dan Brown and saw Drunk Cat Hair books and I think I blushed. Maybe it was a relapse of the Cupcake flu but maybe it wasn't. Who's to say. Anyway, go Borders.
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How this column became an entire ode to brands and products I have no idea.
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Finally, this morning's traffic shot:
Funny!
Posted by laurie at 08:40 AM
September 24, 2009
So that was nice!
Comments lasted a grand total of what... not even a month? Awesome!
Yesterday I wrote a little sentence at the end of my entry about pot roast. I offhandedly mentioned we're having a group lunch potluck thingy today at my job and the theme is to bring an item creatively made with peanuts in an Iron-Chef inspired taste-off. You guys always have the best ideas, so I thought I'd ask for recipe suggestions.
A few hours later I went to read the comments to see what new and unusual dishes my creative Internet friends make with peanuts and I found a bunch of nasty, bitter mean-spirited comments about peanuts. PEANUTS. I think I let out an audible UGH!!!!!!!!!!! Good grief on a cracker.
I can assure you all that:
1) Had I wanted a vitriolic diatribe on peanut allergies I would have googled it. I did not. I was not really that interested in vitriolic diatribes. I was however quite enticed by the recipe for Asian cole slaw.
2) The person planning the potluck checked with everyone first to make sure no one would keel over from some peanut butter fudge so you do not have to contact Human Resources, a legal representative or the ACLU, but thank you for the offer. (Also, why does this require explaining?)
3) I had no idea peanuts were the new "You're an alcoholic."
4) Our little departmental potluck is not putting you -- leaver of mean-spirited comments -- personally at risk of going into anaphylactic shock since you do not work here. I know this because I can see your IP address and if you are on my floor you have no other way to access the internet than through our subnet.
5) I kind of feel mad geeky having just said "subnet."
So, that was fun, an almost-month of comments! Say hey to your mama and thanks for the memories!
I know that there are other people who would handle stuff like that better. Some people love and embrace unasked for advice, unsolicited snarkiness and strangers pointing out that the sky is falling. Sadly, I am not other people. (I keep shopping for clothes like I am someone else though -- someone taller and skinnier. So sad. Yet, so hopeful!)
Maybe it's because I've been ridiculously sick for two weeks and I just do not have the energy or time or disposition for other people's issues. And I have at least learned that when people go off about some random thing like some complete stranger's potluck, it's their issue, not mine. I'm just so incredibly tired. I don't want to deal with other people's stuff. I had the flu. You know... THE flu. And it sapped the happy go-go right out of me. I know they say when you get sick and run-down the first thing to go is the sense of humor. I wonder if mine left forever? I dearly hope it comes back one day. ("Dear God, are you there? It's me Margaret and forget about the period, I want my happiness back.") Usually when I see mean-spirited comments I can hit the delete key without bemoaning the loss of civilized human discourse but apparently I have lost not only my sense of humor but my entire sense of whimsical bemusement. I got irritated and bitchy my ownself just reading people's blahblahblah.
Mostly I was irritated because folks seem to forget that even if the spiteful comment doesn't personally affect me, it may in fact directly insult a friend of mine who may have picked the theme of the potluck and who may read this here website and its comments. Perhaps when I get my mojo and my voice back all the way I will also get my cheerful, delete-key-happy disposition back. We'll see.
So that's that, off with their heads, no peanuts for you, pass the winesack. All this and I didn't even make anything with peanuts! I worked late last night and by the time I got home I fell onto the sofa and drooled onto the remote control. (I make single life sound SO ATTRACTIVE, do I not?) So I just brought drinks since nobody had signed up for that and it didn't require me to cook. And not cooking gives me so much more time to bemoan the loss of civil discourse!
Posted by laurie at 09:19 AM
September 11, 2009
Nine Eleven
There are a million places to read on the internet about politics and I have never felt a need to write about all that, mostly because I prefer to debate the merits of new brands of cat litter and whether or not I should finally make the switch from a plain old moisturizer to one of those fancy anti-aging creams. Decisions, decisions.
My parents and I have totally opposite political beliefs. It is because of this great ideological divide in my own family that I believe with ardent fervor there are good, decent and smart people on either end of the spectrum. I do not need people to believe what I believe. And to their unending credit, my parents have never tried to change me. They accepted early on that I often held the completely opposite viewpoint and we made jokes about it and they just let me be me. They have teased me to no end and sometimes we cannot talk about certain topics without rolling our eyes at each other, but in the end we respect each other. We share the desire to make our nation the finest and most decent place we can.
I am so happy and grateful to be an American girl. I love travel and I love my diverse and multi-ethnic adopted city and when I'm abroad I want to represent my country well to everyone I meet. I am not a xenophobic flag-waver and never have been, but I also never once backed away from saying I am an American, even when I traveled after the first months of the Iraq war when many people in other places were openly hostile about it. I remember being cornered in a bar in Reykjavik by two women who were enraged about the war and I just listened and told them that many Americans shared their feelings and felt frustration and anger, too. In the end I bought us all a round of drinks and one of the girls laughed and said, "It might be easier for you to say you're Canadian, you know!"
But I have never lied about being an American. I was in France two weeks after the stupid Freedom Fries thing and I was mightily tempted to all-the-sudden be from Manitoba, but I still told people where I was from when they asked.
To me, patriotism is being kind and open and welcoming and always propagating The Dream. I believe that our nation is a hopeful and optimistic place that one can come to and work hard and make a life and live better. My father is the embodiment of the American dream, and even though I know he is sometimes disillusioned with our politics, he is also someone who instilled in me a love for my nation, my neighborhood, and my work. My father taught me to look up, to look forward, to strive. My older brother Guy is also the American Dream, he has started over more times than I can count and worked his way up that ladder every time. I admire him because he never gives up, to me he embodies our national spirit.
After September 11th, when the anniversary of the events rolled around one year later, I was horrified that I would be expected to get up and get dressed and go to work that day and each and every September 11th from then on. I desperately felt we needed to make it a national day of mourning, a day of quiet and reverence and personal grief. I felt a lot of grief that day, I lost someone on that first plane and like many I also forever lost my sense of safety and my naive belief in the integral decency of others. I was furious that someone -- many someones -- could move here and work here and shop for groceries here for months, years, and then one day get on an airplane and create such evil.
I took September 11th very personally. I was angry, I was bereft, I was broken in half. I wanted that day to be forever silenced and remembered and held in your hands gently. I divided my life into pre-9/11 and post 9/11.
Enough time has passed now that I think I understand even more what it means to be an American citizen. It means to keep on keeping on, to move onward and remember without becoming mired in paralyzing sadness and regret. It means to remain optimistic and hopeful and to strive to become better. This nation is not perfect and never will be. We screw up. We're imperfect. But we don't give up.
I was very happy to see that September 11th is being commemorated in a new way -- today is the first National Day of Service and Remembrance.
The New York Times has a piece on it, this jumped out at me:
By joining with those already planning to take all or part of the day to aid their chosen cause or charity, Americans can show their patriotism and help recapture the spirit of community that saw so many people volunteer to help the families who lost loved ones in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 horror.
This to me is the real essence of our American character, giving back, giving to others, giving forward. Much better than a day of mourning -- it's a day of helping. It's a way to remember and honor and give at the same time, which truly is the best of us.
If you are looking for places to volunteer at today specifically in honor of September 11th, visit http://911dayofservice.org/ or visit http://www.serve.gov/ for a list of opportunities to serve at all times in your area.
Posted by laurie at 08:56 AM | Comments (67)
September 10, 2009
Har har
I love dumb jokes. Here are some of my favorites:
Q: Where does the king keep his armies?
A: In his sleevies!
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Q: Why does a cow wear a bell around his neck?
A: Because his horns don't work.
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Q: What do you call a cow with three legs?
A: Lean beef.
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Q: What do you call a cow with no legs?
A: Ground beef.
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Two sausages are in a frying pan. One sausage says to the other, "Wow it sure is hot in here!"
The other sausage says, "Oh my gosh -- you're a talking sausage!"
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A dog walks into the unemployment agency to fill out an application. He tells the startled woman at the front desk he's come to see if there are any job openings in his field.
"A talking dog!" she says excitedly. "You should be in the circus!"
The dog looks puzzled. "Why would the circus need a plumber?"
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And my favorite joke of all, which I know I have already told you, is my graphic designer joke:
Q: How many graphic designers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: A lightbulb? Does it have to be a lightbulb? Can we go with a candle, maybe with a flickering light? Or a lantern? Why do we have to go with a lightbulb? I was thinking more along the lines of an open road, with clouds and a desertscape. Who came up with this crappy lightbulb idea? It was marketing, wasn't it?
Posted by laurie at 10:35 AM | Comments (111)
August 31, 2009
Monday List
This was supposed to be a little ditty about Jack & Diane... or rather about baby booties, which I completed and photographed so carefully then I forgot to bring my camera, so no pictures. Ah well. The only thing people are talking about anyway are the fires.
Driving into downtown today the smoke was so thick and heavy it obscured even the skyline. I have a lot of coworkers who live in or near the fire area, it's scary. This season is worse than usual, it reminds me of that awful summer five years ago when my ex-husband left abruptly and I was living in that huge condo alone and I would sit on the patio each night and smoke even though I knew it was redundant. Just breathing was bad enough. But that's what people do in hard times, they do whatever it takes to get through a single day and I don't regret a minute of it. Regret is useless, it robs you of living right now.
Can you believe it's been five years? By nature I am a very private person, and sometimes I'm shocked how much I poured out in this online diary. I think about removing it sometimes, it's all just the past. But then I get an email from someone who's going through it right now, today, and she says it helps and in the end I guess I'm glad I went a little crazy that summer and the whole next year, a majestic meltdown. And all captured in words. What I remember most about it is sitting out on the patio alone at night and smoking after all the tears had dried up.
So I'm grateful for having opened up and poured it all out. I'm happy when someone else finds it useful, or at least comforting to know she isn't the only one.
Other things I love today:
1) Firemen. California has the best firemen in the world, I am sure of it. They work so hard! And they're so goodlooking.
2) Those traffic signs that tell you how many minutes to wherever. Like this morning it was 80 minutes to downtown. It helps to know it in advance so you aren't getting more and more anxious as traffic crawls into the haze.
3) My ipod. I love the ipod, it's such a perfect invention. I love being able to carry a bazillion songs around so that when I wake up and have the line "Girl, put your records on..." stuck in my head, I can just pull out my little portable music library and listen to the song until I'm sick of it.
4) Coffee with milk.
5) Those little re-usable cold packs you can put into your lunch bag. Genius! Keeps lunch cold during an 80-minute commute. I have them in all different sizes.
6) My dad using email. It's so much fun to get an email full of pictures of the dog and the truck and family members and anything he sends. Now if we could just get my Uncle Truman on email we'd be all wired.
7) Finding sunglasses I forgot I had. They were in the seat pocket in the Jeep. It was like Christmas!
8) How your life can be something completely different and better than you expected in just five years. I love not knowing what will happen next. I love finally being able to believe it could be something even better than I imagined.
So that's Monday in Los Angeles, pictureless and bootyless but full of hot firemen.
Posted by laurie at 10:08 AM | Comments (89)
August 24, 2009
Comments (testing, testing)
Thanks for all the emails about the Great Pumpkin Massacre of 2009. I'm sorry I can't respond to all of them... all eleventy-nine thousand... but I read them and appreciated your notes. Also, let me just say that if I ever want to exact revenge on anyone who has greatly wronged me I know who I am coming to for ideas. Oh yes I do.
I know that it is annoying to have to do all communicating by email especially with someone who hates email and often breaks it or avoids it. Last October I needed a little silent time and turned off the comments. Then after a while I got over myself and one day I tried to re-open the comments but with some very minor code modifications and I broke them entirely. Nice work!
Now, a mere nine months later, I am getting around to attempting to fix this mess. Testing new settings below. Let me know if it mysteriously eats your comment, which it started thanks to my "fixing" it. Mind you, I can't fix it or anything, and it only happens sporadically but there it is. Your name still appears underneath the comment. I can't fix that either. Gack. I'm officially halting all efforts trying to fix this website and designing a newer fancier website which will be ready sometime when cars fly and jetpacks are the preferred method of commuting. Or in 2010, maybe.
Also: I delete comments that I think are mean-spirited, nasty, abusive, spam, or blatant attempts to get free advertising. Probably some other stuff too. It's not a policy, it's just common sense and it's how I roll. I'm not a corporation, I'm simply a person and I won't pay to host crud. And I might have times when I don't want public feedback -- not because of something you did but because I am occasionally just too thin-skinned for my own good, so on those times I close the comments. I know many people disagree with that approach. Luckily, they get to do whatever they want on their own website. Viva la difference and all that.
Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank every person who was surprised when I shut off comments, then annoyed they never came back but kept reading anyway. Thank you. Thank you to all the people who emailed, who wrote just to say hi, who laughed at me and with me at my dorky internet ways and understood that sometimes I am just fallible and persnickity and want to hide in a cave. I appreciate it more than you know.
Thank you! I'll go hide in my cave now.
Posted by laurie at 05:42 PM | Comments (241)
August 19, 2009
And Hollywood's calling for the movie rights, singing "Hey babe let's keep in touch..."
Sometimes it's so easy to find one nagging thing to dwell upon until everything else goes grey and sour. (I'm not talking about any one specific thing, just in general. In life.) But it's so much more comforting to look for even one thing that's going right and focus solely on it so that you're not as fixated on the other stuff. It's not easier but it is so much more satisfying.
Yesterday a coworker and I were talking about this -- her boyfriend watches the news and is well-read and intelligent and watching the news and being informed is really important to him. I don't remember how we got on the topic but she and I were both agreeing that we just don't have it in us to watch all the emotionally charged stuff on TV news right now about politics and the frustration and the yelling and the breakdown of discourse. (Well, I feel that way about most of the news, getting upset about topics that I have absolutely no control over is just a waste of energy. No matter how upset I get, it has no effect on the outcome.) Is this putting your head in the sand? Or is it maintaining sanity? Guess it depends on your point of view. Whatever works for you, that's what I think.
What's going right today? The weather for one, it's so cool for August! The low clouds start coming in from the ocean late in the evenings and by morning it's cool and overcast and even in the Valley it hasn't gotten over 90 in about a week. Last night I got home and it was 79 degrees! It felt like winter. I love cold weather (or I think I do, what do I know from cold weather?) and last night the cats snuggled on me as if I were their personal heater.
The kitty posse. They're all healthy, knock on wood. (I'm very superstitious, you know.) Last night I was picking up the stitches and finishing the neckband of the little red sweater and Frankie meowed until I put everything aside and gave her all the attention. People who have animals will get it, there's something so uniquely goofy and pleasurable about having to put everything aside so you can pet and coddle and murmur to this little creature who lives in your house, especially one who ignores you most of the time.
Infecting my coworkers with yarn instead of swine flu. It is so enjoyable to come to work and see what new thing Work-Jennifer is creating (today it's a Brangelina hat in a beautiful variegated wool blend) or see how Corey is doing with her entrelac or confess to one of them that I just spent all my discretionary income this month on yarn. A few years ago I was the only knitter in my office and now it feels like everyone is in on it. I love that so many people around here are getting knocked up so I can make baby sweaters -- it must be in the water. (Also: "I'll take bottled water for $200, Alex.") The weather helps, it's easier to pretend you're knitting during a long winter in Finland when you're not sweating through your clothes at 8 a.m.
Here's more: Coffee with milk, putting your ipod on shuffle and getting songs you'd forgotten about but love, rice and beans for lunch, finding SWS on sale online and buying it in every color, being able to call dad at anytime just to say hi, finding clean trousers to wear today even though I forgot to do laundry last night, traffic lighter than usual on the way to work. Cats yawning.
Yes, it's easier to list the crappy stuff and I am naturally accomplished when it comes to complaining, but it's so much less stressful to list instead all the things that smooth out the rough edges.
Posted by laurie at 10:21 AM
August 12, 2009
Summer Reading circa 1979
Last month columnist Nicholas Kristof offered up his list of top-ten summertime reads for kids. Then he had to write a follow-up column because of all the comments (people are very passionate about books!) I love children's books. When I was little, I didn't watch TV, I read books. Lots and lots of books. Books were my best friends and sometimes my only friends since we moved around a lot. I loved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Betsy, Tacy and Tib and later all the people in Sweet Valley who attended the high school of my dreams. One of my all-time favorite books is on Kristof's list, On to Oregon (when I first read it back in the late 1970s, it was called "Seven Alone.") It was that book which made me come up with my own list.
My top-ten childhood favorites:
1) The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia
2) On to Oregon!
3) The Grounding of Group 6
4) The Laura Ingalls Wilder The Little House Collection
5) Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
6) The Betsy
7) Go Ask Alice
8) Bridge to Terabithia
9) The Misty books -- Misty of Chincoteague
10) The Chronicles of Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander (The Book of Three
11) From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
12) A Wrinkle in Time
So there is my Top Ten-now-Twelve. I'm sure I forgot about 400 books, but those are my picks this morning. Just looking at this list makes me want to go home and open up a book and get wrapped up in its pages. Nothing makes you get out of your own head and into someone else's like a deliciously well-told story.
Posted by laurie at 09:03 AM
August 11, 2009
A little email Q&A day
I've gotten a lot of email about one apparently hot and inflamed topic spurred on by the close-up picture of my baby sweater on this page:
I think your stitches look the way they do because you are twisting your stitches...
Ah, the dreaded twisted knitter! To set your mind at ease: No, I am not twisting my stitches. But I was curious about the case of the not-so-perfect Vs, too. Thanks to all the great folks who wrote in and educated me about the ply of the yarn making the difference in the way the stitches look on the fabric. I had never seen my stockinette look like that (and I have knitted MILES of stockinette in the past four and a half years, it's my go-to stitch, yo yo) and I was happily enlightened by all the people who sent me this link to the article about yarn ply. It even has visual aids, hooray!
When I read the article it was sigh of relief. Blame the yarn! Blame is so good, so healing, so cleansing. It was also nice to hear from other knitters working with this Baby Cashmerino who had the exact same results. I don't mind the look of the finished fabric, I just wasn't sure why it was looking that way, and now I know. Knowledge is power. Word.
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Laurie, I want to know how you did it. The no spending for 3 months. Did you start with a plan, how did you decide what was a necessity, what did you do when you caught yourself starting to fall off the wagon. I admire you (ok, I'm really jealous)of what you have accomplished from that endeavor and I want to do the same. If you could give me any advice, what would that be? I need to simplify my life so that I can enjoy it.
Thanks, Linda
Hi Linda!
Well, the first time I did a no-spend it was for three months (and it was hard!) But in 2008, I vowed to go from Memorial Day to Christmas without spending on non-essentials, and it was revolutionary in my way of thinking, living, shopping.
Essentials vary from person to person. If this is all new for you, I would start with just a month. Try to buy only what is absolutely necessary: food, toiletries as they run out, gas, etc. Every time you see something you want that is not a dire need just write it on a list (I kept a little notebook for this) and tell yourself at the end of the month you can buy it if you absolutely still must have it. I kept a list and told myself I could buy all of it when my no-spend was over, but by the time a month or two had passed I found I didn't still want most of what was on the list!
That's how I got started. It took a while to get good at it, and I didn't beat myself up when I had minor slip-ups. I found that simply not being at the stores or at the mall every weekend helped enormously. I filled my time with other things besides shopping. I knit from my stash, made food from my pantry, and decided I could live without a new outfit for a month or two. And I could. I did. I do.
I have found over and over again the number one way to increase the amount of money you have in the bank is to just stop spending it. Even small periods of time used for a shopping moratorium -- a month here and there -- help boost your bank account. But really committing to it for at least a three-month period is where you can see the most benefit and where the payoff really starts. I found it takes about that long to kick the consumer habit.
It's also an excellent way to see how much of our time is spent buying and shopping and returning stuff and more buying. When I stopped shopping it amazed me how much instant free time I had every weekend. I made one trip to the grocery store per week and if needed a trip to Target for household stuff like toilet paper or shampoo or whatever. I found I really only needed to go to Target about once every month, not once a week. Funny how that works.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with shopping and buying things you love and make you happy and comfortable when you have the means to do so. Nothing. I'm not advocating that everyone turn all minimalist and live in an empty room with a single mattress on the floor.
But I personally had confused buying/shopping with happiness. There was a time in my life when I shopped to fill up something empty. And I did it to excess, and I had credit card debt because of it. Plus I had a clutter problem that was insane. So I needed to stop bringing new things into the house, stop spending money, and start figuring out what I was trying to fill up with stuff. It has taken me a long time and I'm still not perfect at this. I still take spending breaks every few months. Sometimes I go nuts shopping (last month I spent all my discretionary money on yarn!) and then I dial it back for a while. After four years of working on this personal issue, I can tell you my house is less cluttered than it's ever been, I still have plenty of stuff that I love and enjoy but now I can see it. It no longer takes me eleventeen days to clean the house, moving piles of clutter from here to there. And after all this time, I'm not one single cent in debt. So for me it has been worth it.
I hope this has helped, I know it's a long answer! Money and spending are so personal, and what is essential for one person may not be for another. I took a pretty dramatic approach and it worked for me, but I think you could do a modified approach and still see some great results.
Good luck to you on your quest to spend less!
- - -
Hey Laurie, I am thinking about getting one of those DKNY wrap sweaters you blogged about. Two questions if you don't mind asking. I wear a size 16. Do you think the L/XL will fit? (I think I recall you saying you were about my size at one point.) Second, most of my upcoming travel will be to LA. Do you think the merino blend is thin enough to wear in Sept/Oct in LA?
Hi there! The L/XL will fit you perfectly. I have varied in size from a 14 up to a 20 (yeah, yeah, I know) and still that sweater has fit me. It's extremely flattering to any body type. Of course I can't wear it all wrapped and tied behind me like the stick skinny gals in the brochure pictures, but I prefer one long end draped over and across one shoulder, it feels very glamorous to me!
About our L.A. weather -- unless we have a freak cold spell, that sweater will be more than enough for September and October, which are traditionally our hottest months. It's not unusual for it to be 100+ out here in October. It does get quite chilly at night sometimes -- well, if you consider 60 chilly, which we do -- and a wrap sweater would be perfect.
Hope this helps and have a great trip!
That's me illustrating how glamorous book tours are. But anyway, I'm wearing my DKNY wrap and rolling with my Samsonite bag which now appears to be sold out.
- - -
I could swear that I have heard of a website, I THINK from you, where I can say "I want to leave Pittsburgh to anywhere, find me where I can go cheap!" and the website will do this. Am I crazy or does such a site exist? If it doesn't, don't you think it should?
Yes indeed! Try this one:
You can pick just U.S. cities or different regions of the world and once you get the display of results, it has all sorts of advanced search filters too, like if you want the results to be sorted by your preferred airline, or by price or date. The only caveat is that the prices displayed often don't figure in taxes and fares -- and that can add a lot of money to the final cost! But it certainly is a cool feature to see what's on sale in the world.
- - -
Hey Laurie,
Since you are my "packing mentor" I have a question for you.I am getting ready for a long weekend (5 day) with family at Disneyworld and am hoping to go with just carry on...My biggest issue is my make-up/toiletries. How do you manage to pack them and be within the TSA guidelines??? I usually can get by in the summer limiting my clothes but ALWAYS have issues with bathroom accessories!!
Thanks moochly!
Beth
Hello, Beth!
Packing toiletries is not easy and the TSA made it even harder when they instituted the 3-1-1 rule. I usually check on the hotel's website or on traveler review forums like Trip Advisor to see what sort of amenities the hotel offers to begin with. Usually a good hotel offers soap and shampoo, maybe lotion, bodywash or conditioner. I bring travel-size portions of contact solution, conditioner, face cream and toothpaste and put them in a ziploc baggie that meets the TSA requirements. I also add in lip balm, lip gloss, mascara, a few other things. That plastic baggie goes in my shoulder bag so it's easy to remove when going through security.
In a separate cosmetic bag I bring the rest of my non-liquid stuff. Sometimes I bring my own soap, I bring a few Qtips, some wet wipes, kleenex, medications, makeup, a comb, toothbrush, stuff like that. I have found over time that I don't really need much and if I do forget something I can buy it while I'm there.
If this is your first time attempting the carry-on-only thing, you may want to make a list ahead of time of everything you packed and mark off what you use as you go. Then when you return home you can see what you really needed and what you could have left behind.
If you plan to travel a lot, you may want to keep a packed toiletries bag ready to go. I started doing that when I was on my book tour and I've kept it up. I have a little spot in my cupboard for my travel essentials and when it's vacation time I pull everything out and take what I need. It varies from time to time -- I needed extra sunscreen in Hawaii, for example, but not for London in November.
The most important thing is not to forget your ID or passport, everything else you can purchase or improvise.
Packing is fun. Maybe I am crazy.
- - -
I love the fact that you travel by yourself. I haven't gotten up the guts to do that yet, and honestly you really did inspire me as Ireland is the #1 place I want to visit. I've been waiting and waiting to go with someone, but it never seems to work out, so I am beginning to think that next year I will just pick up and go by myself.
OK, I'm not sure this was a question but I emailed a book in response.
I felt the exact same way about wanting to go on vacation and none of my friends could make it when I wanted to go. So I went by myself and on the first trip I learned a whole lot about traveling solo. For one thing, I got a little lonely at night. So on all my following trips I knew I needed to bring a great book, a great knit (delicious yarn helps, I usually bring one or two skeins of something and make a hat or armwarmers) and now I bring my tiny netbook so I can skype my folks or Drew if I get lonely. I can also watch movies on it. A coworker loaded up a bunch of movies on a USB drive for me and honestly, that and a bottle of wine and some yarn and I love my vacations alone -- even at night! I like booking a luscious room and getting into a fluffy bed to read or have a glass of wine and knit or watch a movie after a long day of walking and sightseeing.
When I'm out, I always bring a book so I can look "busy" if I feel self-conscious at a restaurant. When I want help taking a picture, I look for a couple that seem like tourists and ask the woman to take my picture, then I offer to take a pic of the two of them in return, which works out well for everyone.
Aside from that, I honestly think it is easier to travel alone than with someone!
One of the things that is better about traveling alone is that fewer people bother you because you don't look like an average tourist. I think the street buskers and the scam artists at the main tourist sites seeking out gullible tourists look for pairs and groups. I noticed this in Rome. On the way to the Vatican the streets are full of people trying to give you a rose, a ring, ask for money, sell you something, ask you to sign something, it's all a racket. But they left me completely alone. I think they saw a woman walking alone with a handbag as someone who maybe lived there, was on her way to work, or lunch, or whatever. I had this same experience in Paris, in Madrid, in London, in Dublin. As long as you keep your wits about you I think in some ways you are less of a target, especially in western Europe.
Having said that, I don't do the nightclub and bar scene when I travel. I think it's too dangerous to drink alone late at night in bars without a buddy to keep track of you. This is just my opinion and what works for me. Safety is always my first priority and anyway, I hate clubs. We have the world of clubs right here in Los Angeles and I never go. When I'm on vacation I prefer to get up early and take pictures of the city or go to museums or browse in the local markets and spend the day walking, watching, searching, browsing. Doing it alone is not at all the lonely adventure I dreaded, it's the epitome of freedom. You set the schedule, you see what you want, you pick the restaurant.
I'm planning to take a trip next year with two of my friends but I still intend to keep seeing the world solo as often as I can.
Frankie wants to be my travel partner.
- - -
Finally, three things I am grateful for today:
1) People who love emailing and writing and reading about travel as much as I do! I know I'm no expert and I learn as I go, but it is so much fun to swap tips, even when I am just armchair traveling from my desk.
2) Learning about yarn ply. I had no idea. I love knowing new stuff. Thank you to everyone who helped me with this.
3) My three little balls of fur.
Posted by laurie at 10:31 AM
August 04, 2009
Tuesday bits and pieces
One:
As far as I can tell from watching my Facebook-addicted friends, that entire application was created for stalking old boyfriends and seeing who has gotten fat since high school and really, beyond that, I'm not sure what people do on there all day.
What I am sure about is that right now someone is composing me a detailed email with all the ways they love Facebook and so on and so forth and I am happy for you, may you forever Facebook in peace. I can barely keep up with my Tivo list, my email, my job and my life, so I am wary of adding new timesuckers. I did however finally send out a Twitter Tweet blahblahblah. Most of it was me just going, Yay! I figured it out! And then I sent out something I hoped was useful:
Ok -- easy one. Mistake Rib Scarf: Any yarn, any needle. CO 27 stitches. K2 P2 across row, purl last stitch. Repeat. BO. Scarftastic!.
But who really wants a knitting pattern in a single truncated breath? I'm not sure. I still don't know what the point of Twitter is, perhaps there isn't one. Maybe I just wanted to feel less antiquated for a few minutes. Anyway, I'm on there for now, @crazyauntpurl.
- - -
Two:
Last week at Big Corporation, Inc., someone asked me to make a graphic representing the progress of a campaign and they wanted a big cartoony thermometer.
I thought, "But that would look like a big penis!"
Just as I was about to say this out loud, my filter engaged and instead I said, "But that would look... um, maybe very intriguing!" And I was so proud of myself. For once I was victorious over my mouth. Work is stressful for me on many levels, not the least of which is my constant feeling that I am inappropriate and eccentric and at any moment I may say something nonsensical that will result in security escorting me from the building.
- - -
Three:
The only promise I made to myself for this fresh, new month was to exercise every day. Even if it's just for a few minutes. I went out for a walk early this morning before work, I made it thirty minutes. Not bad. Last night I had to go after commuting home from work and I was exhausted and grumpy about it. Forgetting to set my alarm on Sunday night meant that I overslept Monday morning and missed the bus and my day was all off-kilter.
There are people who love exercise but I am not among them. It doesn't matter how many times people tell me they feel so good afterward, or how much energy it gives them, or how fervently they assure me I'll grow to love it and need it. They're flat wrong. (And it doesn't matter how many times people try to tell me I just haven't had the right sushi at the right place or the right kind, I don't like sushi. Just like you hate Brussels sprouts or mustard or okra and no amount of convincing will work.) But I sit in an office all day and sometimes I suspect my ass is beginning to form to the shape of my chair. Thus, exercise is necessary if not enjoyable.
So last night I put on my tennis shoes and went out for a walk because no way I'm going to fail a mere three days into the month. And if you can't keep a promise to yourself, really, who can you trust?
I just went around the block and the street next to mine, and midway through I crossed paths with a woman out walking her dog. I saw the dog first -- fluffy and white and adorable, this tiny little cloudpuff of fur and I swear the dog smiled when I told her she was the prettiest thing. I was kneeling down, petting her and her whole body wagged. So it was a moment or two before I looked up and noticed the woman walking the dog was holding an enormous glass of red wine. I wondered if I had stumbled into a Tennessee Williams play.
She saw me notice the glass and waved it around a bit and said, "That's right! Tell all your friends you just met a woman who walks with wine!" and I thought to myself, My God! This is why I hate exercise! I have been doing it all wrong!
- - -
Finally:
The best car on the road, a hot pink mustang with silver reflective mirrors, it was delicious like a piece of candy:
Driving photos are my specialty.
Posted by laurie at 10:03 AM
August 03, 2009
Mundaneday
Already today my alarm did not go off, I missed the bus and arrived to Big Corporation, Inc. to find an email picking at something I made. Today will have meetings back to back, I'll probably eat lunch at my desk, work late, and I promised myself I would exercise every single day this month so I have to muster up the sports bra and do some form of exercise before puddling into a pile at the end of it all. How can you look forward to the rest of a day that sounds like that? It's like being pecked to death by ducks.
So I am going to lock myself away in my office at lunchtime and knit.
New project, a baby sweater! My first real garment.
For a while Jennifer and I were emailing each other with three good things each day, and it worked, especially on days like today. So, to offset all the ugliness, here are my three things:
1) I finished my entrelac scarf! I need to block it and then take pictures, but it's done and it's by far the prettiest thing I have ever made and I'm so proud of it.
2) Watermelon. They had organic watermelons on sale at Whole Foods for $7.99 each and I had watermelon for breakfast today. Delicious. It's my favorite fruit.
3) For lunch I brought grilled chicken that I made yesterday and one of my favorite dishes -- mashed potatoes with kale, or colcannon. I make it more like this version, with kale in place of cabbage. It's like sneaking health food into lunch without it being gross.
So there's my list. Two of them are food-related and one is about yarn. I think that pretty much says it all.
Posted by laurie at 09:15 AM
July 30, 2009
Long day ends with happiness, then shopping
Last night Jennifer and Amber and I met up for happy hour and it was so good to see them, it's been way too long since we all got together and it feels so good to hang out with people who have known you longest and best. There's a comfort level and it is so reassuring. Halfway through I do believe I pulled out my knitting and bragged about it because I still can't get over how awesome my badass entrelac scarf is. Jen and Amber dutifully admired it and we laughed. Before long I will be stopping strangers on the street, people in traffic, anyone, everyone.
After happy hour I stopped by a little yarn shop in the valley called the Stitch Cafe. They're open late on Wednesday nights and Corey had given me a gift certificate at Christmas and it was burning a hole in my pocket (for seven months.) I really just stopped in for needles I need for my next project and of course walked out with a huge bag of delicious yarn.
I've actually shopped in this place once or twice before but now it's under new ownership and they've re-arranged the shop so it looks twice the size, and it's cozy and yet orderly now and just has a really great vibe. You know how you go to some yarn shops and you feel almost like you're intruding? Or how you suddenly feel like a terrible no good bad knitter who isn't good enough to shop there? I hate that. And the Stitch Cafe was the exact opposite of the snooty yarn shop -- I actually met the owner, she helped me with my purchase -- and she was just lovely. She was warm and kind and friendly and helpful. I wish I would have asked her name, I wanted to, but sometimes I am paralyzed with shyness and I get nervous to talk to people and I started sweating which is a bad sign. I hate being socially anxious, it's so stupid and annoying and useless and yet there it is. Sometimes it's so bad I can't look people in the eye, which was kind of happening, but she was nice to me anyway and I really liked talking to her. Oh, and their yarn selection was really good. I spent too much money. I love yarn. And I had a rough day at work so I totally justified it as therapy by shopping.
Wednesday night at the Stitch Cafe.
All in all an excellent end to a tough workday. Good friends, good conversation and then yarn shopping. Can life get any better, really?
Posted by laurie at 10:32 AM
July 17, 2009
Q&A Friday
My favorite days are the ones where I get interesting email questions (as opposed to "Will you send me a picture of yourself in pantyhose?"), and lots of people wanted to know the same thing as reader Heather:
How do you pack such a small suitcase? How long is your trip and what do you take in order to take something so small? I pride myself in packing light, but I think you've got me beat. Can you share your secret?
Never in a million years did I imagine I could go anywhere with just a carryon bag. I used to need a sherpa to travel just for a weekend away. When I went to my first book expo in New York City, I took a huge suitcase and had to pay an overweight fee for the bag -- for a three day, two-night stay! I neglected (probably out of shame) to take a picture of my luggage for that trip. Here, however, is what I packed for a trip to Paris with my girl friends back in 2006:
That's a purse, my same old shoulder bag I always use, plus a giant flowered expandable upright rolling bag. It weighed 2,000 pounds. (For all the people who have asked about my shoulder bag, I bought it years and years ago in Santee Alley, near the garment district in downtown Los Angeles, sorry!)
As it turns out, I was NOT the girl who packed heaviest for that trip, though! The honor for most over-packed traveler goes to Shannon:
Amen, sister.
During my book tour I didn't bother packing light since I had no idea what all I would need or who I would meet or what shoes would make my ass look skinnier. For a trip to Portland and Seattle I took all this:
There's my little Samsonite rolling bag
Going from the gigantor suitcase me to the carryon me has been a process. I started before my trip to Rome by doing a trial run -- a month before I was scheduled to leave for Italy, I visited my family in Florida for a three-day weekend and I took a rolling duffel bag (kind of like this one
For my trip to Rome I just checked a bag. It was my first trip abroad by myself and trying to anticipate my every need was too stressful. A few months later I went to Paris by myself and I took a checked suitcase there, too, and on the way home had to pay another surcharge for the bag since I had bought so many books at Shakespeare & Company that I was over the limit again!
After that, I finally committed fully to the carryon. The trick seems to be going for a short enough time that I can take just what I need and also having one good pair of shoes that I can use for almost every occasion. (I did pack some flipflops for my trip to Hawaii, and I have some ballet flats I sneak in to look dressier sometimes.) I don't pack contingency outfits anymore -- that's the "I don't know if I'll need this but it's awfully cute..." stuff.
Here's what I took on my recent trip to Dublin:
[Rolling bag contents]
1) Four pairs of black trousers
2) One pair of soft yoga pants (good for pajamas and in a pinch, dressed up with ballet flats, they can pass as palazzo pants)
3) Underwear and socks -- just enough for the trip. I don't pack extras since you can easily wash a pair of socks in the hotel sink if you absolutely have to.
4) Five soft layering T-shirts in neutral colors (black, grey, wheat, white)
5) One long-sleeve black T-shirt for layering (good to wear on the plane ride home)
6) Two thin cotton layering sweaters, one black and one dark red.
7) My DKNY sweater wrap, which can be outerwear on a cool day or can be a dressy sweater top. (Here is a picture of it so you can see what I mean -- from the DKNY site, so many variations. I have the merino wool cozy, but that cashmere-linen blend one looks really nice, too. By the way I have had this for two years and it still looks as great as the day I bought it.)
8) Gadgets -- eeePC
9) Toiletries. In my TSA-ready one quart clear ziploc bag you will find a small bottle of contact solution, lip gloss, a tube of L'Occitaine hand cream, a tube of the Olay face cream I use, backup contacts lenses, travel-size toothpaste, and a travel-size conditioner. The hotel I booked had great soaps and shampoos (most hotels offer something) and I'm not picky about shampoo. But I am picky with conditioner, so I bring a small 3-oz. bottle of my own.
In addition to the liquids, I also pack a small cosmetic bag with a washcloth (this is something most European hotels have not embraced, and I like it for washing my face), makeup and mascara, a comb, deodorant, toothbrush, earrings and assorted stuff. The guidebook can fit in the suitcase along with a tiny compact travel umbrella and that's about it!
In my shoulder bag I pack my book, notebook, earphones and ipod for the plane, all my personal items (passport, money, medications, aspirin, gum, glasses, etc.), a copy of my flight itinerary and hotel info. Sometimes I bring some super-compact slippers for wearing over my socks on the plane. I keep them in a ziplock baggie. For this trip I subbed in my ballet flats, which I can also wear as shoes for dinner, or anywhere I don't do a lot of walking. Oh -- and I take snacks with me, usually a few Lara bars.
On my trip to Ireland I also brought along a water-resistant coat which I didn't use once! For coats, I don't even try to pack them, just carry them on the plane with everything else. I usually tuck a scarf or two in the pockets or a hat or gloves.
It takes a while to go from super overpacker to small just-enough-packer. And if I were flying nonstop to somewhere and staying for an extended period, I would probably check a bag. The downsides to traveling with just a carryon bag are that you can't bring liquids over 3 oz., you can't bring things like a corkscrew or tweezers, and you are limited to just a few clothing and shoe options.
The upside to traveling so light is that you don't have to worry about losing your luggage. For a very short trip, this is a huge relief. And if you have a tight connection (especially on the way back) you don't have to wait for your luggage to come through customs and then re-check it before boarding the plane to your final destination. And of course you get to brag on your website about how light you travel!
- - -
The other question I got a lot of was this:
Where do you find good deals on tickets?
Here is a link to an entry I wrote that gives up all my cheapskate airfare secrets.
Not much has changed. I do usually check the airline website that houses my frequent flier program, too, because I often use my miles to upgrade to a better seat. If you're planning on traveling a lot, try to find one loyalty program and stick with it. Even if a flight on my preferred frequent-flier airline is $30 more I'll go with the more expensive fare so I have all my points in one place. Those miles add up!
- - -
Hope you have a great weekend! I plan to join la Soba in some serious weekend relaxation...
Posted by laurie at 10:58 AM
July 15, 2009
It's hard to pass up a sale.
Crowds swarming the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris - February 2008.
Just as some people watch eBay obsessively or read blogs or online news or adult content, or can't go a day without twittering or facebooking or whatevering, my online addiction is travel websites. My name is Laurie, and I'm an addict. Hello, Laurie.
I don't have many vacation days left for the year (and it's only July!) so I had planned to stay here for the rest of the year and save my money and my vacation days in case my parents ever make good on their threat to come west. But on my lunch breaks, I still troll online travel sites like I'm on a bender. I just can't break the habit. And there are so many good deals out there -- LAX to Milan for $628 roundtrip including taxes and fees (I saw that one on the American Airlines website last week, it may be gone by now.) If that deal is gone, no need to fret because as soon as one deal evaporates another springs up. It's amazing. I haven't seen fares like this since right after 9/11 when the SARS scare hit and nobody was flying.
If you have the means this is a GREAT time to travel. Everything is on sale! Just about anywhere you want to go, you can find a deal for it. Now I feel like a drug dealer pushing my addiction onto others. But it's the one thing I love almost as much as staying home. I'm such a homebody, every single time I book a trip I get an instant high followed by an instant shock of fear ... what if the cats get sick while I'm gone? What if something happens to my house? What if there's an earthquake while I'm gone and I can't get back in time? What if my plane crashes? What if the hotel has bedbugs? You name it, I fear it. The exhilarating part is having all that fear and anxiety and going anyway. Ok, "exhilarating" isn't the right word. But you get the idea, I would rather stay home than do anything else in the world except -- every now and then --to run off and catch a plane to somewhere a million miles away.
One of the things I love best about traveling is that it gets me out of my head. I've read that some people feel this way about rock climbing or extreme sports, because you stay completely focused on the present moment, almost like a form of meditation. Traveling is like that to me. You show up in this new place and from the moment the plane lands your brain is focused almost entirely on the pressing needs: Where do I go now? How do I say, "Thank you" in this language? How do I get a taxi? Where is the hotel? How do I get this weird faucet to work? Is the museum on the left or am I on the wrong street? How does this ticket machine work? Is that my bus?
Everyone trying to work the ticket machines, London Victoria station. - November 2008.
And of course, there's the happy feeling of going home again, too, where you love your own bed even more than you did before you left. I get just as excited to come home from a trip as I do to go on one in the first place.
Planning for a vacation is such a uniquely individual experience. I have a coworker who recently went to Paris for a ten-day stay and she had each day mapped out with an itinerary, sights to see, where they would go and eat and visit. I loved watching her plan and I gave her all my books on France (even the fiction books!) and maps and anything I could to help her. I enjoy buying travel books and I have guides to all sorts of places, but I rarely plan anything for my own trips aside from my flight and hotel. I just figure I'll work it out once I get there. When I was married, I used to just book the flight and a rental car and we'd show up and start driving and just stay wherever we ended up, which is how I once drove from Denmark to Poland and back. This method of touristing would drive some people insane, just as I would be miserable on a schedule. Everyone is different.
It is very important to stay hydrated properly when journeying to new places.
I love packing, though. Making my lists -- there are so many lists to make! -- I start off with a list in my spiral notebook of things I don't want to forget ("Make shuttle reservation to airport." and "Don't forget portable alarm clock this time!!!") Besides my passport the most valuable travel essential for me is my little tiny Asus eeePC (here's a link to it on amazon.com
In the lounge at LAX, waiting. - June 2009.
So there's the little mini eeePC, the iPod, headphones, camera, gadget chargers and converter. A guidebook, a map, sunglasses, or maybe depending on the location a scarf, hat, gloves. I put stuff in a little pile on the kitchen table as I think of it. Packing happens all-at-once, usually the night before I go (why do my vacations always seem to require me to wake at 3 a.m. and be on a shuttle at 4:45 a.m.?) I set out my little suitcase (I found a link to it online!
Luggage sitting on the hotel room floor in Madrid. This rolling carryon bag is much smaller than a standard bag and fits really well on the plane. I take a shoulder bag, too, and I'm done. - February 2009.
There's another list, too -- stuff I have to do before I can safely leave. Arrange everything with the cat sitter, leave her a note (I am ridiculously overprepared), set out all the food and supplies enough to feed eleventy hundred cats, unplug this, set that, do this. And above all, I have to clean the house. I can't leave with a messy house! It's some weird combination of superstition, OCD and not wanting my cat sitter to think I have dustballs the size of compact cars. So the weekend before leaving I start cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, tidying everything up. And when I come home I am always so happy to see such a clean house.
Bob on the bed.
I can't believe I wasted so much time worrying that I would never travel again after my divorce. Going alone seemed impossible back then (lots of things seemed impossible.) Since starting all this solo roadtripping I've made odd discoveries, each time refining what I want or where to go. For example, now I know a trip of more than four solid days in one place will make me lonely, so I take short vacations. I like to hear a familiar voice, and I like the feeling of not being irrevocably loose in the world, so I call my parents at least once when I'm away. They're always happy to hear from me and the details of wherever I am, it's nice. I tuck a book in my purse before leaving the hotel room to see the sights so that I can read and peoplewatch alone from a table. I go to the grocery store wherever I visit and buy water and wine and look at what people are putting in their baskets. I get up early and wander the streets before they get crowded. I try to take at least one picture before and after to bookend the trip, maybe a shot before I get on the plane and later, as I'm on my way home, a picture of the taxi or the airport or the waiting area.
And when I went to Hawaii over the holidays last year I discovered I had made an error in judgment, that location and timing are important factors when traveling alone but for different reasons than I expected. That was when I learned I should be careful not to pick places that are full of honeymooners and retirees and families at the peak of togetherness-time who stare at you for being the only person eating alone. The stares were not that bad, really, it was the comments (you know how people can be. Funny.) So, it's better for me traveling solo in a big city, or maybe just far away, but definitely not in a resort during a major holiday. Good to know!
And I started out traveling with a big suitcase and have pared it down to just a little pile of stuff on wheels. If that isn't a parallel with my life, I don't know what is. The places I have visited alone so far have been familiar, at least in the way cities in Western Europe are all sort of familiar. Maybe next year I'll try something new -- or not. There are no rules. It's not a test or a competition.
Whenever I get cold feet (usually right before the plane takes off) I remind myself that nobody ever rests on their deathbed thinking, "I should have spent more time at home watching TV." You don't have to go far to feel like you've traveled. The whole experience -- finding the ticket, booking the trip, making a list, packing, buying a map, getting ready, getting on the plane -- takes you out of the everyday and into a new frame of mind.
Anyway, if you can, this is a good time to snap up a cheap ticket to somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. And you don't even need a travel partner! I have found that a good book can be an excellent dinner companion in any situation.
Vacation, just after ordering dinner.
Posted by laurie at 02:06 PM
July 10, 2009
A breath of fresh friday
Recently a competitor in the financial world re-designed their logo. Yesterday morning our Creative Services director came in and told us it was now visible on the competitor's website and we were all looking at it on a monitor and I said in my customarily reserved and professional manner, "It looks like an ad for tampons!"
And everyone was silent for a minute, because tampons aren't something normal banky people talk about in the office. And then finally everyone laughed and agreed that it did make them feel a little not-so-fresh. Hah! I felt victorious. Truly, I did. Victorious!
And thus ends another week in which I am shocked not to be fired. Well, then again, the day ain't over yet.
- - -
So, I think that just admitting that I have a July issue was kind of cathartic. Afterward I felt surprisingly less gloomy. It helped that I got several emails from others who confessed to hating July, too, or August, and one person candidly shared with me her deep loathing and abject fear of October. So thank you for that! Misery loving company and all. The more the merrier! Or gloomier!
But it's not misery, really, just July. Ever onward July. I have been doing a little summer knitting, a luxe Noro silk garden scarf in plain old garter stitch. But I've done it up in an oversized scale, very wide (I cast on 55 stitches) and using a size 15 needle. I've paused on it for the time being while I finish this book I'm reading (The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
Noro silk garden, color 246.
I also got lots of emailed book recommendations from others out there who share my obsession with WW2/Holocaust/European Occupation literature. Sometimes people I know talk about going back to school and wonder out loud what they'd go back to study. I would definitely study history. Not because it has any applicable use in my life or to make a career of it, but just for the sheer love of it. Why does everything have to be useful? The cats for example. They are not useful at all, except for loving and pooping and laying on my legs but I can't imagine being without them.
On Wednesday I complimented my friend Corey on how well she was handling a sticky situation with someone and then I said, "I wouldn't have handled it as well. This is probably why my closest friends are cats."
I think I may have turned into one of those people who likes animals more than people ... and yet I am strangely not bothered by this. Next I will be covering my outlets with tin foil and talking into my shoe.
- - -
So far the entire harvest from my vegetable garden is the following:
• One cucumber
• One pattypan squash
Both have already been eaten and enjoyed. I thinly sliced the squash and dipped it in milk, then rolled it in a cornmeal breading and panfried it like you would okra or green tomatoes. It was deliriously delicious. (My recipe for fried okra is here, and the recipe for fried green tomatoes is here.) I am still eagerly awaiting the first red tomato. Still waiting. Waiting. Waiting!
I also need to call my dad and ask how you know corn is ripe enough to pick. I think mine is getting close but I'm not sure. The ears are firm, I guess, I'm not really used to feeling up cornstalks. It is amazing how little attention I paid to the delicate details of vegetable gardening while I was growing up. My dad would tell us when to pick things and we'd pick them. The cornsilk at the top of the corn ears has started to turn beige, but a medium sand-beige, not yet a rustic brown or mellowed ochre, it's more a hex value C4C4A1. (Perhaps proof I have been spending too much time working on branding a newer, even beiger version of financial online services?) (But at least it doesn't look like an ad for feminine hygiene products. I mean really.)
Have I told my graphic designer joke yet?
Q: How many graphic designers does it take to change a lightbulb?A: A lightbulb? Does it have to be a lightbulb? Can we go with a candle, maybe with a flickering light? Or a lantern? Why do we have to go with a lightbulb? I was thinking more along the lines of an open road, with clouds and a desertscape. Who came up with this crappy lightbulb idea? It was marketing, wasn't it?
Anyway, I want to pick the corn in my personal backyard cornfield before the raccoons discover it. One night a few weeks ago I was coming home late from work and it had gotten dark already, just past dusk, and as I turned onto my street my headlights illuminated three very large furry raccoons crossing the road. They were huge! And they raced across my little street and climbed up a big tree. THEY CLIMBED UP A TREE, people. Three gigantic furry raccoons the size of overstuffed footstools shimmied up a TREE.
Now when I go for walks I am always looking up above me, trying to make sure one of those huge examples of urban wildlife doesn't drop down on me all George-of-the-Jungle style. Creepy.
- - -
This week has just been so long, and I am relieved it's Friday. Tomorrow morning I have to go to the dentist, and then check my mail and go to the grocery store and then for the rest of the weekend I plan to do nothing that requires me to leave my house, which is the perfect weekend. Read, do some laundry, make a big dish of no-fail brown rice, water the plants, stay home, follow the cats around with my camera. I love weekends that don't have deadlines or 300 to-do-list items.
Posted by laurie at 10:37 AM
July 09, 2009
July, the reject month
I'm not sure why but July is a down month for me. And it's weird, and I think this may be the first time I've even admitted it out loud. Some people abhor February, and some people loathe January, but who dreads July? It's summer, after all, and it's not full of the anxiety of the holidays or the letdown of the beginning of the year. But for whatever reason July is not my favorite month.
I try really hard not to be depressing or negative. I try, and sometimes I fail. Have you ever noticed that as soon as you say anything even remotely not-happy, people immediately chime in with all the ways and reasons and whys that you should feel the exact opposite? I noticed this years ago, when I was going through my divorce. I would be sad, or upset, or just down, and someone would say, "People have it so much worse!" or "Well, just be thankful you had four cats, not four kids!" or whatever. And I would stare at them dumbly, blankly, because there is nothing to say to that. It puts you in the unenviable position of having to either defend your unhappiness or deny how you feel. So it's best to keep your mouth shut, just don't say anything.
Writing it down is the best. I like to write in my spiral notebooks, filling up pages and pages. It gets it all out of the inside and makes it less messy or important or pressing and no one is there to tell you that people have it so much worse, or that you should be happy, or how you are full of nonsense and bullhockey. It gets exhausting knowing people always have something to say about everything! I prefer keeping it in spiral where no one can read it, no one can say squat, it's no one's business. I don't know why people feel compelled to tell you what to do, give advice. These are things I think about in July.
Last July I watched a lot of TV and drank a lot of wine, which didn't help. It just made me more morose. This July I'm not drinking at all and instead am spending the evenings reading, because nothing transports you or makes you get out of your own head and into someone else's like a book. It's like having a conversation with the author, and it's my next favorite therapy after scribbling in notebooks.
Right now I'm reading The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
Next on my list is The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews
Speaking of amazon.com, they recently dropped the price of the Kindle to $299, and I can't tell if I'm truly tempted or just having gadget wanderlust. The comments are still broken, so I can't ask you if you have a Kindle and love it or if you want one, too. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up paper, though. I love books, love the way they feel in your hand (I love adding my post-it-pen stickies to pages or in some books, highlighting pieces I want to remember.) But the idea of being able to download a book right-here right-now on impulse is very appetizing. And the one thing I own more of than anything else is books, and books must be stored and stacked and when I ever move, I'll have to move them all, too. The Kindle keeps all the books in one tiny space. But even though my books definitely add to the stuff quotient in my tiny house, there's something comforting about having all of them nearby. I'd rather get rid of pots and pans I rarely use or knick-knacks or even shoes than part with my favorite books.
So that's what's happening in my July. I forgot to water the plants this morning. It's hot. I couldn't sleep last night and feel asleep an hour before the alarm went off. The cats are on a diet and hate me. My car wouldn't start on Monday and I was late to work. Blah blah blah. Clocking time until August. Or sometimes I'm just clocking time, and simultaneously wondering why it went by so fast. That's the whole problem with July!
Posted by laurie at 09:28 AM
June 30, 2009
Dublin!
Yes, that's the place. I didn't plan on going to Dublin, I actually had a flight booked in January to somewhere else and ended up having to cancel it at the last minute. So when I called the nice lady at the airlines to figure out what I could do with my unused ticket, maybe go somewhere in mid-June, I just left it up to the Gods Of Cheap Destinations. Take me where you will! The lowest priced destination available for that date was Dublin, so that is where the Gods sent me. And it seemed like a good spin of fate, Ireland is a country I've never visited and they speak the same language and I enjoy Lucky Charms. A lot.
So, I went there and it was lovely! I understand why so many people choose Ireland as a vacation destination (and I always forget how much simpler it is to travel where you speak the language) but I was surprised at how few actual Irish people I met in Dublin. I think I met three. Most everyone else who was working at the hotel or bar or restaurant wherever I went was Polish or Malaysian or Swiss, the room service guy was French, and even the tour guide for the open-air bus (just around the city center) was Polish. There was a recording in an Irish accent, though, for the tour portion. I guess the Polish fellow just drives the bus and takes the tickets. I've been practicing learning Polish for a while now (I have weird hobbies, people) so it was kind of fun -- although odd -- to be ordering wine in a bar or saying please and thank you in Polish while in Dublin, Ireland. But fun!
The first rule of thumb when going someplace new is try try as you might to book a hotel with a balcony:
My hotel overlooked St. Stephen's Green and that's the beginning of Grafton Street to the left. Grafton Street is a pedestrianized shopping area, it reminded me a lot of Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, touristy and fun:
I loved the flower stalls set up everywhere:
And of course I did the tourist stuff, saw Trinity College, hit the highlights, all that stuff you can read about in Frommer's.
The required James Joyce mention.
My favorite way to get a quick overview of a new city is by playing cheesy tourist on one of those hop-on, hop-off bus tours. And that's where I met the Polish driver and also got a great view of the city, mostly to myself! The top of the double-decker tour bus has two rows of covered seats near the very front and the rest is open-air seating, and with the sporadic rain that day I was the only one up on the top of the bus. It was fine and dry under the small plexiglass covering in the front row, but no one else joined me upstairs which was fine by me! I had fun being the total tourist and taking pictures of anything and everything.
After that I hoofed it. Dublin itself is a really walkable city, you can get just about anywhere on foot and it felt much safer walking around by myself there than walking around alone in most parts of Los Angeles. Of course, as in any city I don't walk around with a hundred-dollar bill pinned to my butt while all alone at 4 a.m. in a dark alley, but normal precautions were more than enough to keep me safe in Dublin. I'm always surprised how much cautionary scary stuff you can read about traveling (internet forums: I am looking at you) but I've felt more scared for my life at the Wal-Mart in Panorama City than any of the overseas trips I've made alone. Just use your common sense, if you have any ... that's what my dad would say!
There's plenty of shopping, though I just went with a carry-on bag again, so I didn't do too much shopping. The city center is filled with a huge variety of places to eat and drink just about any time of the day or night. I'm discovering that sometimes the tricky part about traveling solo is eating meals alone, but Dublin was pretty easy. There are so many little bars that have good menus it just didn't pose a problem. Paris is like that, too, with all the street cafes you can just stop in anytime and get a little bite to eat and a glass of wine. I usually take a book with me or people-watch out the windows, but dinig alone is definitely easier for me in a more casual setting and Dublin had plenty to choose from.
Aside from taking the Dublin city hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus, the other ridiculously touristy thing I did while I was on vacation was to book a day-long bus tour of the Irish countryside. This was new for me -- I have never once taken a bonafide guided bus tour. (I don't think the hop-on-hop-off buses count. Do they?) Usually I prefer to drive around a new place to get a feel for it (and I think if you can drive in Los Angeles you can drive anywhere) but there was the little matter of the stick shift being on the left and driving on the wrong side of the road while also trying to find my way around. Alone. Yeah. I voted on bus tour.
So for 25 euros I boarded a bus with a bunch of strangers (also a double-decker bus, but this time the whole top area is enclosed, too) and I wasn't sure how I felt about this whole thing -- being trapped in an enclosed space with strangers is my idea of hell -- but it went great! No one was weird or skeevy, the tour guide was actually Irish and he was very chatty and knowledgeable, and it was a great way to relax and see the countryside. We went down along the ocean, curving around the beach towns to the south and stopped at a beautiful place called Powercourt Castle. Everyone got plenty of time to walk around on their own and eat lunch and meander, then we all got back on the bus and drove back through the Wicklow Mountains.
Here's Dublin Bay:
Look closely ... people are SWIMMING in there! It can't be over 50 degrees in that water. You crazy Irish!
Pretty beachside park:
Gorgeous Powerscourt Castle:
The grounds:
Required Artsy Fartsy picture:
So that was fun and everything was very charming and pretty and since the tour guide was Irish, I met my first official Irish person. yay me. And I could keep posting pictures of that but I figure you can get most of the tourist highlights better in a guidebook than from me, to be honest. You see, I had a very specific view of Dublin in mind, a mission! Dah dah dumn!
My mission was yarn, plain and simple.
Irish knitting is legendary. Complicated cables, aran knits, hearty fisherman sweaters and delicate baby blankets. Irish knitting is known all over the world, even to people who have never picked up sticks and string. So I just assumed the whole city would be a playground for the yarn hungry.
Wow. I was kind of wrong about that.
I started my yarn crawl with what I had cobbled together on the internet, four shops in Dublin's city center, all within easy walking distance of my hotel. The first shop, Blarney's Woollen Mills on Nassau Street near Trinity College ended up being a bust. They had plenty of pretty knitted garments but no yarn or knitting supplies:
I was a little disappointed, but on the north side of the river Liffey right across the Ha'penny bridge is the other Woollen Mills store, and this one has yarn:
But not very much yarn:
That shelf of yarn you see in the picture is the whole selection for the entire shop, and it's a fairly large sized-shop. They have buttons and sewing doodads and a selection of hand-knitted goods:
The Woollen Mills is located just on the north side of the Ha'penny bridge, 41 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin
But the yarn selection was very small and most of it was chain market stuff that I can get here at home. I was starting to get a little disappointed. But the next stop was not just a yarn shop, it was also a little education about Irish Yarn.
Meet This Is Knit:
This Is Knit is located on the First Floor of the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, South William Street, Dublin 2
This cute little yarn shop spans across a walkway in the Powerscourt Townhouse shopping center. And one of the nice ladies inside -- my second real Irish person! -- explained to me that the wool on the sheep in Ireland is too coarse to be used in handknitting. She said that Irish wool is either exported for other uses (rugs, maybe) or some farmers just burn it in the fields because it's so worthless. I was astonished. Because ... you know... Irish knitting! I just assumed it came from Irish sheep. And the friendly lady in the shop showed me the brand of yarns in the store that are spun and dyed and created in Ireland (but made with imported wool). They're very pretty Aran tweed colors, and I bought some skeins to take home for friends. More importantly, I felt like I had just learned some kind of knitting secret, like unmasking Zorro or something.
I don't know if the wool situation also explains why there are so few yarn shops in Ireland's capital city. Or at least from what I could find. Is knitting not a big hobby in cold, blustery Ireland like it is here in the hellishly hot San Fernando Valley in California? Because we have a yarn shop every four miles. Not that I am complaining mind you. I am just curious.
So my last stop on the yarn crawl was Hickey's, located on Henry Street, which is more of a JoAnn's type fabric shop but on the basement floor they did have a corner with some yarn in the back:
(That guy in the doorway kept following me around the shop like I was about to steal something.)
That was my mission for the afternoon, seeing the city from yarn shop to yarn shop. It was a good day in Dublin, mostly because I didn't buy very much and my luggage was still able to close and make the trip home. I was just very surprised, I guess I'd imagined that Ireland would be full of yarn shops and knitters and crazy cool varieties of homegrown yarn. Shocker! Maybe I just didn't stumble on the underground knitting scene or something. Maybe it's different in the countryside? Maybe in Ireland people prefer scrapbooking or origami or cake decorating as their hobby of choice? I have no idea. You Irish folks out there have to let me know what you think. While I was wandering around looking for the first Woolen Mills place, I asked a lady in the shop down the street if I was on the right road (I was) and she asked me what I was looking for.
"A yarn shop," I told her.
"What for?" she asked.
"Well... for knitting."
She looked at me crossways for a second. "Are you a knitter, then? I thought only old grannies did any knitting!"
Hrmph. I didn't count her in my tally of real Irish people I met. She was from... probably somewhere else. Probably.
So, in conclusion, it was a brief trip but a great one. I would definitely return to Ireland except I think I might try renting a car (yikes) and getting out of the city and seeing more of the beautiful countryside. I'd like to see these alleged sheep who have fur made of nettles and iron or whatever.
Johnny's Irish cousin, I presume?
Posted by laurie at 05:42 PM
June 26, 2009
Let the madness in the music get to you, life ain't so bad at all if you live it off the wall
I do plan on getting around to blathering on and on about vacation but it's a little hard to ignore what's happening in the world, especially when Ventura Boulevard in Encino is a parking lot with Hayvenhurst closed down and people streaming up and down Hollywood Blvd. in sparkly gloves and carrying flowers.
I guess I have a selective rememory because when ever I think of Michael Jackson I think only of MJ in his early days. Still to this day "Off the Wall" is in my top ten albums of all time. When I was 12 I got this poster from a record shop in Lafayette, Louisiana and taped it carefully to the back of my bedroom door:
All my friends had moved into the cool Thriller posters by then, but even at age 12 I guess I was stuck in the past and wanted to hang onto my MJ in his fuzzy yellow sweater vest. MJ was the soundtrack of junior high and the 1980s and I never followed any of the news about him as he grew more eccentric. Who knows what fame like that can do to someone? I just loved MJ, singing "Don't stop 'til you get enough" and moonwalking and remember when he did his solo in "We Are The World" and Diana Ross held his hand the whole time and we all really thought we could save the world by going to Record Barn and getting the 45 for all our friends that year for Christmas?
I'm not planning to camp out at the Jackson family's house in Encino or anything, but I'm also not going to complain about the traffic, at least not too much. I'm just going to think of that fuzzy yellow sweater Michael and listen to Off the Wall and think to myself, yeah, you got to leave the nine-to-five up on a shelf, and just enjoy yourself. Life ain't so bad at all.
Posted by laurie at 10:13 AM
June 25, 2009
Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
I've been off gallavanting, this time to a place I've never visited before. I actually got back a few days ago but brought some kind of bug with me, I blame all those hours cooped up on a plane with coughing maniacs. I have completely lost my voice, which people at work are calling "a godsend," a term that apparently means "oh we miss your sweet voice so much."
Anyway, I have no voice and no energy and no mascara on, but I do have a picture or three:
Tomorrow I'll tell you all about it. Oh, and there was yarn shopping, too!
Posted by laurie at 09:44 AM
June 12, 2009
Talking 'bout a revolution. But only after my tea or coffee.
June! I like it though, the days have been overcast in the mornings with our only real weather, June Gloom. So my garden is still alive even though I have been too busy to admire it each morning and too neglectful to water with any regularity.
The first three times I read this sticker on the car in front of me, I thought it said "Tweezers Suck" and I was surprised, because tweezers are so necessary and good. Then I realized my error. Also, could my windshield be any more dirty and crusty? For a place with no weather my car gets dirty with remarkable speed.
This morning on the bus a woman in the seat behind me talked on her phone dramatically and loudly during the entire commute. I had on my Queen Dorksalot over-the-ear noise-canceling headphones and I could still hear her really well. She was speaking in some other language, not English or Spanish, so I couldn't understand her which made it easier to ignore, it was just a long string of bleeshadosheevi, mokhuuucluuuveri noshee! with the occasional "OK" and "anyway" thrown in. But at least two men on the bus seemed to understand her, because they would turn in surprise from time to time and look back at her and frown. Other people did the shame-on-you move, which consists of a full turn in the seat, slowly, with a pointed look to determine who is talking on the phone, letting the offending person see them noticing their behavior. Then the offended party will turn around and repeat the move a few more times. It never works, by the way. The offending party just keeps on doing whatever it is you find offensive.
The commuter bus isn't like a local, it only stops a few times and then it gets on the freeway for a long stretch, and delivers its riders to a few stops on the other side of the city. It's usually full of working stiffs like me, and everyone is generally quiet but especially so in the mornings. One person talking loudly on a bus full of quiet strangers is so much more annoying than seventeen people all talking to each other on the bus. I wasn't personally outraged, especially since I couldn't make out many words and I just turned my ipod up louder. But I was amazed that anyone could be so enthusiastic about talking that early in the morning. I don't think I have ever had a whole conversation with anyone at seven in the morning.
Yesterday a coworker found me at the kitchen sink in the galley, I had just gotten to work and I was washing out my coffee mug. I hadn't had tea and I don't think I had spoken to another living soul since waking. I was still in the space between sleeping and functional. And my coworker started asking me all sorts of work-related questions about a project she's working on and I stared at her blankly and watched her mouth move and then I said, "Tea."
So it's hard for me to imagine myself chatting with vigor and speed on my cellphone so early in the morning. I guess I could do it if I had stayed up the night before, but then it wouldn't be morning, it would be more day.
The talking woman exited on my same bus stop. Right as our stop neared she hung up and got off the bus and then as soon as she was on the sidewalk she opened up her cell, dialed, and started talking again. I don't know how she determined that it was OK to talk for the whole bus ride, and OK to talk while walking along the sidewalk but she had to hang up to get off the bus. Funny.
Posted by laurie at 08:57 AM
June 05, 2009
Friday
Los Angeles is in shock, we're not used to rain in June. People keep asking each other in bewilderment, "What's happening? Why? Why?"
We're so cute, with our shock and awe that water comes from the sky anytime after February. (My garden will be happier than I was, it didn't have to commute downtown in the rain.)
Today I had my new favorite breakfast. Thick, creamy nonfat Greek yogurt with a pile of fresh blueberries. And tea, to offset the rain and unseasonable chill (sixty degrees! In June! What have we done to anger the sun gods?)
Have a great weekend!
Posted by laurie at 11:03 AM
May 27, 2009
One day, one day ... one day
Right around this time last year I made my big declaration to buy nothing nonessential for the rest of 2008. I had all different reasons for this ... I wanted to get a hold on my consumeritis, which had crept back in since paying off my gargantuan debt, and I wanted to have less stuff to worry about and clean and I wanted to have more free time and more money. (You can read all about that here and here.)
A lot of folks were freaked out by my declaration ("What exactly counts as a non-essential?" "What about going to the movies?" "Why would you do something like that?") and some people were intrigued, and some folks placed bets on how long I'd last. But I didn't do it for other people (who lost those bets by the way!) I did it for myself and my own gratification. I revised my goal a few times, deciding books counted as essentials since I prefer to buy books and support the author, and gifts for others were definitely essentials. As for the real non-essential stuff, I had a few detours. I bought a bathing suit in December for my vacation, and I bought three sweaters and two pair of boots. That was the sum total of my non-essential spending from May to January, which isn't too bad in my opinion.
Of course somewhere around late September 2008, the markets went ass over teakettle and by the end of last fall a lot of folks started their own version of no-spend, either out of fear or necessity or dire circumstances. I felt really bad for the people who were thrust into budgeting that way, Lord knows I have been there and it's one thing to make a voluntary decision to dial down the spending -- it's another matter altogether to do it because there won't be food on the table if you don't. There's a stress that goes along with it, knowing you're rubbing two pennies together hoping to get a nickel. Having been at the bottom of that very dark hole myself, I felt it for others.
The one good thing I hope comes from all this is that people get the chance to see how truly little of their self-worth is wrapped up in purses or shoes or cars or even houses. At least that's what slowly changed for me the past four or five years. It's the reason I didn't care about not buying new, shiny stuff during my recent no-shop. For so long in my late 20s and early 30s I tried hard to keep up this appearance of someone who was "doing well" (whatever that means!) and all of it was a lie: the perfect condo, the perfect marriage, the perfect life. It was a sham. It wasn't delightful to move out alone and look at all my stuff, which I could no longer afford to house, and look at my bills that I had accumulated from all that junk. I was scared, and worried, and alone, and broke. But eventually (and out of necessity) it became very clear how little I needed to be happy. Healthy cats, a little yarn, a roof over my head, some Kettle Bakes, a bottle of two-buck-chuck.
Sure I like nice things, pretty things, tasty things. I love books and cute T-shirts and shoes, oh the shoes. And I'll forgo all that for a plane ticket to anywhere. But I think it's a balance, liking things just because, and not pretending they give you superpowers, or make you better, or nicer or funnier. Or happier. There's this story about a family who gets so excited buying a TV, and they think it's the greatest thing ever. Once they have a TV they'll be happy! And they are for a while, they watch the TV and dust it, and put it in a prime spot in the living room. But before long they're not happy with their TV because it's just a small television set and they want a bigger set, so they decide to buy one and think, "This is what will make us happy. We just needed a bigger TV set." And it does make them happy! Until they see how great those flat-screen plasma TVs look, and before long they are unhappy with their current big old TV set and need the newer, better, bigger flat-screen model. And then, then, they're really be happy this time.
I think about that story constantly. Even though I've found some peace and balance in my relationship with buying stuff, I'm still partially living my life on layaway. Dreams in storage. It's the idea that when I weigh X amount, or when I have X amount of money in the bank, or when I have a bestseller, or I figure out where I want to move, when I can buy a house, when I know more... then, then I'll really start living. Then I'll be happy.
It's all wrapped up, isn't it? I used to buy things because shopping was an activity and an idea that maybe this thing, this object, these jeans will make me happy, satisfied, confident, complete. And even though I finally figured out I couldn't purchase my happiness and contentment in a store I still even to this day put my happiness on a pinpoint -- sometime in the future, when I do this or know that or achieve this, I will be happy.
That's the real work for me. Finding contentment today, in the place where I am right now. Putting away the credit cards and budgeting and living within my means was a good step, no doubt about it, but I'm still walking through each day with one foot in the future, always waiting to live until I get there. And there never comes. I don't even know where there is! I think I've been hoping I'd recognize it when I find it.
It's in my nature to be restless and dreamy, always thinking of the future, imagining myself in a different life down to the shoes I'm wearing in that imaginary future. I think it's why I used to move around so much, always looking for something new. These days I have to resist the urge to make things happen just so I feel I'm closer to there. What I really need to do is be here, really BE here. That's where I am after all.
It sure is hard to break that life-on-layaway habit.
Posted by laurie at 09:01 AM
May 22, 2009
Friday! The end of the 405 will come, soon.
The email I've gotten recently has been fascinating. It's like a litmus test in reverse, via email. Or maybe Rorschach blots... each person sees something different, based on how their brain works and what's going on in their lives.
With me, all Rorschach blots look like soft beds where you can sleep a full six hours. I'm busy, and a little sleep-deprived so snoozing sounds great. All week I've been taking a class down by the airport which entails driving two hours each way. That's four hours of sitting on the freeway (in my car, not on the bus), with seven hours in between of filling the brain with code. During class breaks I try to catch up on emails for both my job and my other job. At home, I try to remember to feed everyone and scoop the box and wear something clean and maybe if there's time water the plants. I have a manuscript rewrite that's past due and at the bottom of the pile of to-do's there's this website which gets the dregs of my 6 a.m. one or two paragraph blurts.
A diary like this one is a lot like a photo album. Or, more accurately, it's like a stranger's photo album, and you turn the pages and see a picture here, a smile there, a cake with a candle, a vacation shot, a self-portrait.
And the person who is flipping through the pages looking at some stranger's life fills in the in-between parts with their own ideas, maybe draws some conclusions. But you don't see a snapshot of every minute of every day (and who would want to? this is why I still haven't wrapped my mind around twitter) so it's easy to make assumptions or create a storyline. Except those assumptions are yours and have nothing to do with the person in the photo album. The storyline you create based on a few snapshots probably won't look much like the real movie.
I don't know why that fascinates me but it does! Myself, I love to people watch and I'll make up stories for the people who walk by, I like to "guess" their occupation, their hometown, their secret dreams. It's just for fun.
So this busy, busy week I decided to write little paragraphs here and there instead of leaving the page blank -- little snapshots -- and I've gotten the strangest and funniest email. People wondering if I was going through a terrible emotional break up (no, I'm fine), folks wondering if I was changing jobs (not that I'm aware of), and people letting me know there are support groups for both my spider and earthquake fears (thanks, I'm OK). It's always illuminating to see how something you think is tiny and unremarkable sparks something wholly unexpected in someone else.
Oh, and this has nothing to do with anything but I drank so much peppermint tea yesterday in class that at the end of the day my pee was minty fresh. Wee!
Posted by laurie at 09:06 AM
May 21, 2009
Maybe it comes with some Cracker Jack
I wish I had a decoder ring for my life. It would help me figure out which way to turn next, and what would make me happy, and how to handle yucky situations and who's telling the truth. It might also predict the weather, although that isn't a requirement. It would be a sure-fire bullshit detector and would warn me of impending tragedy.
My special Life Decoder Ring would never lead me astray. It would let me know when I'm making a bad decision (or a good one) and would magically alert me when I've reached my fat consumption for the day. It would be like a psychic palm pilot in an emerald cut, 24-karat gold setting.
If you stumble upon one, please let me know.
Posted by laurie at 06:23 AM
May 14, 2009
Thursday?
I've been sick and even typing makes my head hurt. But I'm not above snapping a picture in the parking lot at Dr. Feelgood's office...
Posted by laurie at 10:27 AM
May 06, 2009
If Only Life Were A Musical
Now that I am all the way across the building, Corey and I can no longer chitchat freely so occasionally we have to use the corporate closed-channel IM, which is moderately creepy because someone somewhere in the building sits and reads all the IMs to be sure we're not being humorous or having any fun. It's the corporate version of domestic wiretapping. Luckily, we're two fairly tame renegades, and neither one of us has much time for instant messaging.
But a few days ago we were messaging back and forth about an Excel spreadsheet problem (scintillating!) and that was when I discovered Corey is someone who completely gets my "If life were a musical..." train of thought! I just think life would be better if it were a musical, with ordinary people in ordinary situations suddenly breaking into song and dance:
[ imagine a few boring lines about spreadsheets]
[ not going to repeat them here]
[ too mind-numbingly dull]
corey:Â
I think someone should do a skit that is just IM text. It's OK to read, but can you imagine if we talked like this?
laurie:
OMG great idea
laurie:
we should make it a musical
corey:
The musical of lost conversation threads
corey:
That's a job for Stephen Sondheim
laurie:
I wish real life were a musical
like at the book fair we would have all broken into song
and yesterday we would be like the factory scene from Carmen
corey:
Several folks did start singing at the book fair once the Ella started playing
corey:
Have you seen that YouTube of the Antwerp train station?
So she sent me the video below, which of course was blocked at work but I went home at watched it and about peed my pants with glee. (Glee! The new pee!) It made me so happy I squealed like a little child and must have watched it eleventeen times:
Oh, if only life were a musical! Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start!
Posted by laurie at 08:22 AM
May 05, 2009
Cinco de Mayonnaise
I can't believe it's already May. It's practically summer. I'm not ready for summer! Make it stop!
Not as funny as if you could read the stickers yourself ...
Posted by laurie at 09:06 AM
April 23, 2009
Can you smell that smell?
I love the smell of a list in the morning!
TeeVee
I watch Jeopardy. I don't Tivo it, but I try to be home by 7 p.m. so I can see it, I usually make it a few nights a week. I play along with the TV, saying the answers out loud, like I am competing. And when I know the answer and none of the contestants do, I say the answer LOUDER as if that will help. I also get irrationally attached to people on Jeopardy, for example I'll be rooting for one person to win and then I'll feel real, actual disappointment if they bet a lot on a daily double and lose the game, or if they lose in Final Jeopardy. I feel bad for them. Probably because I am loose in the brainial area.
Carry on my wayward son
The gardeners and I are in a fight. I'm not sure they know it yet, but we are, and they will know it for sure on Saturday. Last weekend they left me a nasty note on the timer mechanism for the sprinklers along the lines of "If you turn off the automatic timer again we'll report you to the landlord nah nah nah." So I called my landlord and told him I don't want mean notes from the gardeners and we are in a DROUGHT and the city has a list of ordinances (like you cannot serve people water in a restaurant unless they ask, I mean really) and if you break the water law you could be fined and if you exceed tier 1 usage your bill will cost more and WHO WILL PAY IT? The mean gardeners have the timer set to run six days a week for 45 minutes. PEOPLE. That is EXCESSIVE. So I turn off the timer and run the sprinklers manually because I don't want an $800 water bill. WILL THE MEAN GARDENERS PAY IT?
So I typed up a letter to the gardeners along those lines and attached the entire city ordinance with appropriate areas highlighted and tagged with post-it flags. Basically it says they either change the timer or they can pay my water bill. I am sure their love will grow exponentially for me.
And I can't believe I am going to say this, but I miss Francisco. I miss his strangely pruned shrubbery and bizarrely hacked trees. We used to have a beer, hang out, sometimes he wouldn't come for weeks and that was fine. The new gardeners lecture me and scold me and tell me not to walk on my own grass. They're so strict. Such grassophiles. And now we're in a fight.
The Ghetto Garden
Which brings me to this year's gardening efforts, which I plan to call The 2009 Ghetto Garden. It's my attempt to combine my countryass love of gardening with my need to annoy the gardeners. Thanks to the many readers who sent me this article about Lasagna Gardening, [no idea why the link only works half the time -- you may have to go to that site and search for it] I got the idea to use my old cardboard boxes from the storage shed out back to make walkways between my gardening piles and that will mean NO GRASS and the gardeners will probably have their little heads pop off as soon as they see it. I don't have the winter ahead (obviously) to make a real lasagna garden like in the article, but I'm going to use some of the techniques there since I can't till the soil (landlord's request -- and I have to stay on someone's good side.) On Saturday I plan to be up at the buttcrack of dawn running all my gardening errands. My budget for this masterpiece is $100, and I need soil and mulch and seedlings and other stuff. The gardeners come on Saturday so I'll be out shopping for the Ghetto Garden supplies when they find my awesome Water Wars note attached to the sprinklers, and then just as they are recovering from that they'll arrive next week to find a cardboard jungle.
This makes me so happy and I can't express why. Probably because I am evil, and should be destroyed.
No rest for the wicked
Of course I also have to work this weekend, which is going to cut into my gardening time. I don't know why I can't just drink wine and garden and read books for a living.
Reading is my cardio
I'm on this big Michael Crichton kick right now. It started right about two weeks ago in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep and needed to read something that would take my mind off the thoughts that were keeping me awake. You know how you can worry about something and think about it so much that the thoughts start thinking you? That's where I was. So I picked up an old Michael Crichton favorite, Timeline
I like Crichton because he writes this insane dialogue, where an expert character will explain to a lesser, dumber character all the exposition -- not just little details, but HUGE tumbling blocks of exposition. It's his way of combining character development and technical exposition at the same time, and I think very few writers really pull that off and keep a story moving. I thought State of Fear was a little too heavy in the oratory but I never get bored with his books, I always want to know how it all ends.
Winter
The weather changed back, so the 100-degree spell ended and now it's nice and chilly and foggy out, like winter. You know, 65 degrees. Almost cold enough for a wool scarf.
Moving
Even though my office move is really boring and not dramatically far away, it's still weird. Moving is not my favorite thing to do. I forget sometimes how much I am a creature of habit, liking things to be steady and constant and yet nothing ever is. Everything changes. Things end, new things begin, nothing really ever stays the same. Sometimes that feels exhilarating because when life is crappy you can count on it to eventually change, which is hopeful. But sometimes it's disconcerting too, because you have to move along with the flow and nothing can be relied upon to stay the same forever.
Posted by laurie at 07:06 AM
April 22, 2009
It's your earthday, it's your earthday, go shorty... it's your earthday...
Oh, the tens of people who will laugh at the headline. How I love thee, let me count the ways.
On this Earth Day I am cleaning out my office because on Friday I am moving to another office in some other area of the building. It's the farthest my boss can move me away from him without putting me in the parking garage with a red stapler. O Banking, you are vast and mysterious. I started the real cleaning out of file drawers and dusty cabinets a few days ago and yesterday got through two entire filing cabinets and this was the state of the sitting spot when I left yesterday:
I thought maybe overnight it would morph and change and the folders would breed with the binder clips all Transformers-style and by morning I would have an assistant made totally from office supplies.
No such luck.
It's still there.
The mountain of file folders and remnant notebooks and reference books is all that remains of the seven years I have worked here. Yesterday I dumped and recycled all the memos and presentations and documents that used to collect dust inside those file folders so that one day they will be your post-consumer particulate in toilet paper and kleenex.
I also cleaned out the little cabinet by my desk where I store (read: hoard) office supplies and discovered 32 semi-used post-it note pads. THIRTY-TWO. My entire life has been borne on the back of the post-it-note. It's my Borne Identity. hahaha. Cracked myself up. I also had a newspaper from 2002 (?) and at the bottom of the drawer I found two pictures of me and Mr. X from a vacation we took to Denmark and Poland. It was actually funny, and I showed them to Corey and Cindi and then I put them in the recycle bin, too.
This kind of cleaning feels GREAT. I thought it would be stressful, especially because I have a lot of work to do this week and the office seemed like a mammoth endeavor but it's been really liberating to take a break, maybe an hour a day, and just focus entirely on getting rid of stuff. By the end of today I should be finished with the major purging and I'll only have a fraction of the stuff left to pack up in boxes.
It's amazing how much less often I print stuff out these days -- going through my old files it's clear I used to print everything. The whole industry was paper-heavy, relying on documents printed out and stored in binders. The biggest change I can see is how everyone has slowly started to rely on saving and storing stuff electronically instead of on the printed page. It's the little changes that add up over time. Getting rid of stuff always feels like an accomplishment of greatness ... not necessarily because it's a noble cause in itself, but because your relationship with your stuff can define your whole life. It can drag you down, it can anchor you, it can make you feel secure, or it can just be a nagging to-do list item.
The biggest change in my relationship with stuff is that I definitely do not acquire things at the rate I used to. Learning to discern wants from needs was a good first step. Then there's the money aspect -- you have more money when you spend less of it. Finding a way to get rid of things has also been a challenge -- first you have to learn how to just let go of stuff, emotionally, and then you have to find ways of getting rid of your stuff that make sense. Like recycling old papers, and donating usable things (or going with the ol' yard sale technique.) My collection of post-it-note pads tells me I'm still not free of my little packrat ways but I am at least happy when I see my file cabinet purged and the old file folders recycled in the supply cabinet.
So I'm not exactly out there playing warrior of the environment today, but cleaning and recycling all this old stuff feels really good which must be good for the environment in a very roundabout way. After all, happy people don't flip you off as often in traffic and that makes the world a better place. Yes? Maybe I will even share my post-its with those less fortunate, like the guy down the hall who is always looking for something to write on. Or maybe I will just keep them all for myself. Baby steps!
Posted by laurie at 07:22 AM
April 13, 2009
There's plenty of room at the bottom
Driving in to work today I noticed there was a larger than usual population of Sunday drivers on the road. That's the non-cussword name I've given to the people who never drive in rush hour traffic except on the rare occasion they're driving to or from some holiday getaway. They don't know that the lane on the far left is the faster lane, or that the lane next to it is the still-not-slow lane. During periods when the traffic breaks they poke along 25 miles slower than anyone else and then exactly two feet before their exit they remember they want to get off on Hollywood or Sunset and they try to get across five lanes of traffic by becoming virtually stationary in the roadway waiting for an opening to pass through. People honk and show them the California State Bird.
One guy was doing such a bad job of driving this morning that I tried to take a picture of him. But my camera wouldn't work. For just a moment I had a flash of hope and excitement -- maybe my camera had died and I could now freely purchase a new one that takes better pictures! Sadly, it dawned on me that my camera battery was just dead, and if I charged the beast it would again turn on and take its predictably blurry pictures.
I love what happens when I tell people I hate my camera. They ask what kind it is (a Kodak) and then say they're surprised (I have always used Kodak cameras, they have the best skin tones in my opinion) and then they ask what the problem is. I bought this little point-and-shoot off the innernet just before my trip to Rome. It has 12 (!) megapixels and it's small and compact and very simple. I like point-and-shoot cameras, as I prefer to take really impromptu pictures of things like bumper stickers and stupid signs and guys picking their noses in traffic and I don't need a digital SLR camera with manual focus and RAW output for the type of high art I'm into.
But this camera is a lemon. No matter which setting you select or whether or not you use image stabilization or whether the planets are aligned or if you prayed twice to the camera gods and spun in a circle counter-clockwise, this camera takes blurry pictures. The only way to increase the odds of a non-blurry picture is to use the tripod and the timer in daylight or in daylight with flash. Which defeats the purpose of both the point-and-shoot functionality and the nice Kodak skin tones, all annihilated by the gigantorflash. And even with every precaution, the mere rotation of the earth is enough jiggle to make the image blurry.
So when I tell people it won't take clear pictures they all have the same exact reaction: Have you tried so-and-so? Have you tried digital image stabilization? Have you tried using different settings? Have you tried standing still? Have you tried eating nothing but eggshells and walnut husks and then taking a picture?
Because it is impossible for anyone to believe the camera is just a lemon. Obviously, it must be user error.
So about two months after I got the camera and had experimented with every setting and pronounced it a lemon, the guy I was seeing at the time took the camera out of my hand and said, "Let me take a look at that!" Because Lord knows he could fix it. He would find the magic button that I, crazy picture-taking woman, could not find. After four hours he handed it back to me and said, "Maybe it's broken?"
I thought this was a very funny story and so I told this story to a friend of mine at work who is in the computer whatsit division. He said, "You must not have the settings on accurately." I gave him the camera and told him to keep it as long as he wanted. Computer whatsit guys tend to be able to magically fix things and I was hopeful. Honestly, I don't have any ego wrapped up in fixing things -- I tend to break things with great vigor, but if there truly was some user error going on, I was happy to know about it and fix it (the camera, by the way, was not returnable.)
But a week later he gave me the camera back. "Maybe it's a lemon," he said. "I think I got one picture out of twenty that wasn't shaky."
And so I still have the lemoncamera, every day wishing I had my little old brick of a camera back with it's tiny 3.0 megapixels of sweet Kodak clarity. Eventually I will buy a new camera, maybe for my birthday. I do manage to fix most of my blurred-out pictures in photoshop anyway, it's just such a hassle.
All of this camera talk reminded me of something that happened a few weeks ago at Target. Because people are so seriously sure that they can do it right -- no matter what the issue -- and you're a dumbass. I find this incredibly amusing.
So there I was at Target standing in line, checking out. It was quite early in the morning, maybe a little before 9 a.m. and the store was still fairly quiet. The woman and guy in line behind me seemed to be in an awful hurry, well, at least the woman half of the couple was. She was doing that L.A. linecrushing thing, you know where someone impatiently hovers so close to you that you can actually smell their coffee breath breathing down the back of your neck. I will never understand people who do that. It really doesn't make the line move faster. If anything it just makes me do things like randomly flip my hair so they get a mouthful of my split ends.
So I was checking out and I swiped my card through the electronic keypad/cardreader. This particular Target has the touchscreen keypads, the little LCD screens that show you the pin keypad in images and you use the stylus to push on the screen. The cardreader recognized my card but the LCD screen wasn't recognizing the stylus. I tried my thumb and no luck. I used to develop graphic content for touchscreens at work and the technology can be sensitive and buggy and sometimes no matter what it won't read the touch.
"I don't think the touchscreen is working today," I said to the checkout clerk. She shrugged, "Yeah, sometimes it just doesn't want to cooperate."
So just as I was about to hand my card to the checkout gal to run it manually, the woman behind me in line grabbed the stylus out of my hand and started punching away at the keypad. You can imagine it was getting a little crowded there at the keypad so I took a gentle step to the side, as the woman in line behind me -- a complete stranger -- tried to FIX the situation, since I was clearly doing it wrong and was clearly a stupid idiot. The checkout lady just stared. I am sure she sees some crazyass things all day, but even she was a little shocked. She looked at me. I shrugged.
After furiously stabbing at the screen with the stylus, the strange woman with coffee-breath said in disgust, "This thing is broken!"
She wasn't embarrassed, or even slightly humiliated that she had pushed another customer out of the way and grabbed the reins. She just stood there, tapping her foot impatiently. The guy with her tried to silently disappear into the candy rack. At least he was embarrassed for her. I mean really now.
I paid, signing the receipt the old-fashioned way, with an ink pen.
People are funny, ya'll. They are just too damn funny. I would have taken a picture of the whole thing but it would have come out blurry.
Posted by laurie at 07:58 AM
April 10, 2009
Friday List
The only ones that seem to stick are lists.
1) Pirates!!!
When we first started hearing news stories of Somali pirates taking over big freighters I was astonished and then kind of ... confused. Did they shoot cannons at the big ships? Make people walk the plank? Who wore the flouncy shirts and hats? Where was the peg-leg and the parrot? When pirates attacked an American ship earlier in the week I was astonished at the real details... apparently the pirates come aboard the huge gigantor-ship from just a little skiff, using hooks and ladders (hooks!) and take over with their AK-47s. According to a recent AP story, there is even a "pirate stronghold" in Somalia. This is so anachronistic! So crazy! And apparently even with all the smart bombs and unmanned drones and technology that can see through your clothes and read the tag on your panties, we still seem to be unable to break up a ring of pirates on skiffs.
All of this is simply to point out yet one more reason I will not go on a boat.
2) My fault again.
As I've pointed out in the past, every year I seem to decide to watch one or two new TV shows and they always without fail are the TV shows that get canceled two weeks later. There was Women's Murder Club, and New Amsterdam, and of course the dearly departed Life on Mars (it was a all a dream? are you f'ing kidding me?), and anyway. I Tivo'd "The Unusuals" on Wednesday night but I'm afraid to watch it or it will canceled today.
3) Speaking of TV!
For those of us with insomnia, Tivo is the best invention ever thanks to the combination of bizarre keyword searches and all-night availability of saved shows. So when I had a long sleepless night ahead of me last night, I watched the cheese de resistance of TV -- High School Reunion. And I was so perplexed. How could Jessica accuse Maricela of being a prostitute and Maricela just ... stood there? In a white bikini? Why didn't she cut off Jessica's head and eat it? Unless... is it true? Which was never addressed directly! She never came right out and said, "That is a bald-faced lie you crazy wacko!" Maricela just said, "I know who I am and I know my character." Which is not the response I would have gone with personally (see: cannibalism.) And then I remembered that great scene in Shirley Valentine where Shirley meets up with her old classmate who is glamorous and beautiful and successful and later she tells Shirley she's a hooker. Good times. Then it was time for me to take a shower and come to work.
TV is my friend. But it is so confusing.
4) Spam
I'm surprised that all this time later, since the innernets were invented and the email machine was invented that spam has been an ongoing part of this entire cycle and no one has done anything about it. Since the invention of the electronic mail there has been the electronic junk mail. And no one can seem to stop it! This is just as crazy to me as the pirates. We have Google earth and devices that can record phone calls in space and we have machines that clip our nose hairs for pete's sake. And yet I still get email every single day that says, "Want to have a bigger penis?" and "Learn how to make her sizzle!" (I assume that last one isn't about cooking humans. But maybe it is, who knows. Cannibals!) Pirates and spam seem to be the two things we cannot thwart in life.
5) How green is your garden?
This weekend I'm going to do a little gardening out in the ol' back 40. I want to plant mainly herbs this year, but I did really well with the pumpkins last year so maybe I'll try that again, too. The main concern is our water shortage which could mean very limited sprinkler time for the yard. I don't want to get fined for sneaking out back and running the hose over the pumpkin patch at midnight. We may not be able to catch and punish the spammers of the world or the pirates of the wild seas but you know the water police would be at my doorstep in a heartbeat if I so much as turned the hosepipe to the left during water rationing.
- - -
Have a nice weekend and a happy Easter!
Posted by laurie at 08:58 AM
April 03, 2009
The happy holy car smog place. It's in the Valley.
A few weeks ago I had to take my Jeep to get smog checked. This is California's way of trying to make people who drive "classic" cars such as 1995 Jeep Wranglers sweat in anxiety of buying new catalytic converters.
Anyway, this smog check is required every two years for you to get your plates renewed. The year I was dumped by Mr. X I failed. A lot. And cried and then the guy at the smog check station was placed in the unenviable position of having to comfort a bawling hysterical divorcing woman with car problems and a fear of failure. It was nice as you can imagine.
The next time I got a smog check alert, I realized I had grown a lot as a person and all, but I was not stupid enough to go back to the place where I had cried like a little red-faced baby so I went to a new place where a very short, very old Asian man with a cowboy hat hugged me. Or perhaps I hugged him. Anyway, I passed.
[Also, seriously, how freaking long have I been wring this website? Seventeen years?]
This time I decided to go back to the good-luck cowboy hat place, but it had changed a bit into the "Jesus is Lord Car Smog Place." I tell you this because there were framed pictures of Jesus, multiple pictures, there were praying hand statues, there were Bible verses neatly printed out and placed inside plastic sleeves and tacked on every possible surface. There was also a TV that had been installed in a hole cut into the counter and it was hooked up to a VCR that showed different parts of the Bible in a loop.
And that is where I met the son of Mr. Cowboy Hat, who was happy to see me and my red Jeep and he told me that Pham, his dad, had retired and handed the business over to him and would I like a free Bible?
And I happily accepted the free Bible and I pulled out my knitting and waited patiently under a portrait of Jesus for my car to be smogged. And this all seemed right to me because in my experience car issues and prayer go hand in hand. "Dear God, please let my car pass smog so I don't have to spend a million dollars fixing a vehicle that is only worth $2,000." And, "Dear God, please don't let that expensive-sounding noise be more than my rent." And also, "Thank you God for the new radiator. Again. I MEAN REALLY NOW."
Anyway, it was a good day. I passed.
Thank you, God.
Posted by laurie at 08:05 AM
April 02, 2009
Thursday list plus preface.
I finally broke down and looked at the email machine. I had no idea anyone was still reading, so thank you for the nice notes about me going insane. I most appreciate the reader who pointed out that insanity is proof my brain isn't turning to oatmeal. There is nothing like an eternal optimist!
So! As it turns out I am writing this book, which I have been given a few more days to work on before I have to hand it in. I am someone who can yammer on with no verbs and many comma splices for hours and hours and yet halfway through this I'm all, "Wow. 65,000 is a whole lot of words. That is a very large number of words. If I double space this will there be more words?"
And I have decided I am the most boring subject matter ever and yet I plod onward. Actually the very best part of writing this thing is realizing that all the stuff that made me cry and want to move away and change my name and also my whole wardrobe is kind of funny in a "Wow, I am glad that wasn't me" kind of way, aside from the fact that it was me. But to you it won't be personal, and therefore maybe helpfully funny in the cautionary tale sort of way. Also, I am not a plotline, sadly. I think after this one, it will be nice to stop telling my personal funny stories and just make up stories for a fictional character -- Raurie perhaps -- who is still searching for enlightenment but doing it in a pair of size six jeans and she is taller and has a cadre of crime-busting friends who hunt criminals and tie them to trees with i-cord and poke them with Addi turbo knitting needles.
OH MY GOD SOMEONE COPYRIGHT THAT, NOW.
So here is the plan. I am going to finish this plotless thing and turn it in and then one day I will even tell you the name of it and then I'm going to sigh, sleep, lose the 15 (23) (26) pounds I have gained from eating funyuns as a method of procrastination, then I am going to pray someone likes said plotless wonder. Prayer helps. Then after I have slept and made real food and done some much needed laundry and maybe even called some of the people I have been ignoring for two months, then, THEN I am going to finally fix this stupid website and make it have a different design and the database will work and by God there may even be a comment place again. I'm not sure how long that will take, because 65,000 words is a whole lot of words and there is this thing called "editing" and it takes a while, what with the commas and all.
But it's good. I realize I am naturally skilled at bemoaning but mostly it's the good kind of bemoaning, where you're exactly in the place you need to be to get to where you're going, with the occasional traffic snarls and detours and funyuns.
Today's list:
1) Pay rent that was due two days ago.
2) Write 10,000 words.
3) Wine.
4) Clean catbox.
Posted by laurie at 08:27 AM
April 01, 2009
Wednesday list
1) I'm just going to start writing everything in list format. Perhaps one day I will write a fiction novel entirely in list format. It will be something scintillating like:
• The detective noticed a small packed suitcase sitting beside the front door.
• "Planning on taking a trip?" he asked
• "Always," she said.
I don't know why there is a detective or a packed bag or a mystery woman with one-line answers, but it sounded like an excellent bulleted way to begin. Just imagine the sex scenes in neatly numbered, perfectly indented lists!
2) Yesterday I walked around my house for twelve minutes with a post-it note stuck to my foot. When I realized it and made motions to rectify the matter, I discovered it was a note reminding me about my parents' dog's birthday. Which was last week, in case you were wondering and hoping to send a card.
3) There is a tumbleweed beneath the kitchen table that now has grown so large it has a gravitational pull and has attracted a stray hair elastic, a cat toy and a receipt from In-n-Out.
4) In full procrastination mode, I have knitted six sets of handwarmers and watched every single episode of CSI: New York on my computer using Netflix, which I fully and completely now understand, embrace and reverse my earlier refusal to adopt. I am not a person who cannot admit when they are wrong.
5) Furthermore, I have watched so much CSI that when I discovered a dead beetle on the back patio I wondered if it should be autopsied for toxic levels of radon and/or traces of a victim nearby and/or as a witness to a crime.
6) I had another one of those dreams where I'm going along in my life and a giant wave washes over me. Not unlike my recurring tidal wave dreams of yore, these dreams feature me in some normal daily life scenario on or near the water and all the sudden a huge wave rears up and slaps us all upside the head. In this one I was on a bus and we were on a bridge driving along all normal like (over the ocean?) and a huge rogue wave rises up and drenches the bus, and then I woke up.
7) I decided to drive into work today.
8) All I ate yesterday was funyuns.
Posted by laurie at 10:13 AM
March 29, 2009
Top ten nonsense. The part that is funny is that I have not gone missing, just merely insane.
1. I have to produce a manuscript from my nether regions in two days. I am not sleeping. Not because I am writing but because I am praying for earthquakes.
2. Which seems to be working. There was a "swarm" of earthquakes around the Salton Sea last week and just this weekend a whole 'nother swarm near Chino Hills but Lord if you are listening what I need is The Big One, circa now, circa the Encino-adjacent region, no injuries, just massive disruption in manuscript-sending email abilities. Thanks. Love the orange blossoms ... good job on spring.
3. Also is there something wrong in your life when you are praying for a MOTHERFREAKING EARTHQUAKE?
4. Don't answer that.
5. I saw Julie Newmar -- the original Catwoman -- on Saturday and I was like, "Do I know her? Is she my old neighbor from when I lived in Studio City that time?" People, there is something wrong with my celebrometer. Anytime I see someone famous I forget I live in L.A. where famous people grow, and I just think, "Do I know that girl? Did we go to high school together?" which is exactly how I found myself asking Sandra Bullock if we used to work at Disney together one night in a bookstore in Studio City wherein Dweezil Zappa came and rescued her from me, crazy lady, and I was suitably embarrassed. And also, hey, that was Dweezil Zappa!
6. Writing books is a stupid idea. Who does that anyway? Random people just go on amazon.com and pretend to be authorities in litterture and leave their comments about said book with no concern at all to how long that person wrote the book or loved the book or tried REALLY REALLY hard not to suck and because of that now I am hesitant to even say if I slightly do not love a movie because it might get back to the person who wrote it and they will hide under their covers with their cat eating peanut butter from a spoon for a week. NOT LIKE I KNOW OR ANYTHING.
7. I just want to be someone else. Is that so wrong? Like I wanted to be cute little perky Sabrina Bryan when she was on Dancing With The Stars and in luuurve with Mark Ballas and doing cha cha. Or Lindsey Monroe from CSI New York. But I once heard this crazyass theory that if you took a group of people and tossed all their problems out into the open on a hillside and let each person in the group see each other's problems, then you told each person to go out and pick from all the exposed mountain of problems ... each person would run to grab their own bag of crap. Is that true? Are the perfect ones hiding a mountain of problems I would never want to carry around? I do not want to believe this. I do not want your US Weekly tabloid revelations! I want to believe there are people out there living perfect lives!
8. I tried to meditate again. It went like this:
"Ok, I am going to focus on my breathing, in and out. Just sit quietly and breathe. In. Out. Good! In, out. Oh. My leg itches. Is it OK to scratch during meditation? I am breathing. In. Out. And breathing. In and out. And itching. GOT TO SCRATCH. OK! just scratch and get it over with then you can meditate. (scratch scratch scratch yum) In. Out. Breathe. I am meditating! Breathe. Focus on in and out. Exhale. OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO CALL THE DENTIST AND CANCEL. SHIT. Are they going to charge me? Because that stupid ticket for turning right on red which is TOTALLY FREAKING LEGAL was over four hundred dollars and I doubt the cats want to eat ramen noodles all month! MEDITATING SUCKS!!!!!!"
"Breathe in, breathe out...."
9. How is it that when people tell you, "You should be happy that...blah blahblah..." you just start lawyering up and arguing for the insanity defense? It's funny. When someone tells you HOW you should be or feel, it has this weird inversely opposite effect where you start really defending your unhappiness. Why is it so easy for other people to tell you how to be? Is this why monks go off alone in search of solitude?
Makes you wonder.
And finally, a top ten list with ten items!!!!
10. Last week my dad called and said he was converting an airstream trailer into a tamale truck and I said, "Dad! You should get someone to make you a big airstreamy metal sombrero and then you could weld it to the top of the tamale truck!" and my dad was all, "Yes, but we should weld it on top slightly askew, like a sombrero askance..." and in that moment I realized I may never win a Pulitzer but I at least come from a family who all prefer their sombreros welded askance. Or askew. Whichever.
And somehow that was a very comforting thing.
Posted by laurie at 10:31 PM
March 23, 2009
Which one of these things does not belong in a kitchen?
She is either:
A) Communing with her higher power
B) Establishing her reign as our overlord
or
C) Pretending to be a cookie jar.
Cats are very strange creatures.
Posted by laurie at 09:20 AM
March 16, 2009
Beware the ides of March!
Technically, I guess the Ides of March occurred yesterday but as I am a freewheeling sort of superstitious, I think it can coincide nicely with Friday the 13th through March 16th, a Monday.
I don't usually go a whole week with nothing to say unless I am off gallivanting around and I assure you there was no gallivanting going on with me last week, just work work work.
Not my vehicle, but apropos.
And I've been trying this new thing where if you haven't got anything nice (happy, funny, ridiculous, etc.) to say, don't say anything at all, and last week was definitely a shut yo mouth! kind of week. But that is the past, and this is the Ideas Belated.
So this is funny:
That is a guy I saw in traffic this morning ... he was driving a city Transit Security vehicle and texting while driving, which is illegal in California. I feel very safe. Luckily, taking pictures of transit authorities driving while texting isn't illegal. Yet! I love taking pictures of people in traffic, it's one of my greatest little indulgences. That and online Scrabble. And wine. And cats:
Have you ever seen anything cuter in your whole life? You're lying if you say yes. I just woke up and there they were, Bob sleeping on the other pillow and Frankie in a little ball next to him.
Stop it, you're messing up my hair!
Posted by laurie at 07:20 AM
March 06, 2009
More mail: my brain, your brain, travel and Boggle.
Thank you to all the people who emailed me to assure me you also have weird vague half-memories and that my poor oatmeal brain can stop rotting if I do crosswords. Even if you're just saying it to be nice, I still appreciate it.
Jane M. wrote: I choose not to think that the gray matter is dying. I choose that, since I've lived a long and interesting (giggle, giggle, tee, who am I kidding)life, I have too much stuff to remember. So, I have to let some of it go. Gone are the names of important people in my life, brother, sister, cat, etc. Instead, I shall remember the theme song to Dark Shadows. You're probably too young to remember that soap opera but it was the Twilight series of my day. Gone are the memories of where I'm supposed to be for a meeting today. I shall remember the names of everyone's pet instead of their owners. Sheesh! The brain is a weird animal!
Now that just cracked me up. I personally can remember every word of every 80s song, the names and killer lines of every character in every John Hughes movie from 1983-1989 and I have an encyclopedic memory for commercial jingles.
Of course last week I gave someone the wrong phone number because I couldn't remember my ACTUAL, CORRECT home phone number but whatever.
Ksenija wrote: Hi Laurie! I'm around your age, too, and I tell you what has really had me questioning all my memories lately is signing up for Facebook and having all those people from my past find me...and, um, I didn't realize I went through high school in such a fog, but I just can't remember very many of them. But they remember me? Yikes!
Well that is exactly why I will not sign up for Facebook! Ha! And I can't imagine boring people with twitters ... "I walked into a room and forgot why." "Pondered my cuticle for almost fourteen minutes just now." "Finally broke down and called myself to get my own phone number." Honestly.
Actually, I have an even worse confession about high school memories. Last year my friend Chris (who I graduated high school with) reminded me of "that funny time we were on the bus for a school field trip and Brad said something foul to you and you reached back and slapped him. On the bus! In front of Mr. Chamberlain!" Chris just laughed and laughed. He said some folks from our graduating class get together on a regular basis and often laugh about that hee-larious incident.
And ya'll I could not even remember that event. Seriously. This little piece of historical hijinks which was being retold by my former classmates on a regular basis rang NO BELLS with me. I had apparently pulled a Scarlett O'Hara on a boy in my class right there on the bus on a field trip and yet I had no recollection at all of this momentous event.
HOWEVER, I can remember every word of every song to New Edition's Heart Break album, the first album released without Bobby Brown, featuring such hits as "Crucial" and "If It Isn't Love."
Yeah, I know. So many kinds of wrong.
- - -
Most of the email I've been getting is travel-related. I am so happy to know there are others out there who also get excited talking about travel and dreaming about travel and fantasizing about where to go next. I keep watching fares drop lower and lower (Roundtrip from LAX to Moscow on American Airlines for under $700!!) and I mentally weigh the cost of traveling against my free-floating economic anxiety multiplied by the square root of how much I have to pay in taxes divided by whether or not I think the world ends in 2012. It's hard to say where the math ends up.
Mary S. writes: Next time you get asked about "beginner" destinations for people who haven't traveled before -- in addition to England, Canada, Australia, etc, may I suggest Scandanavia? Norway's required basic proficiency in English to graduate from high school since WWII, and Denmark requires either English or German. I've had the luck to visit both -- didn't get to spend any time in the capital of either, but I'll attest to the friendliness of people in the smaller cities. Aalesund, Norway, and Aalborg, Denmark. Loved them.
Keep up the good work,
Mary
Mary, thanks for the reminder! And you are so right -- I LOVED every place I've visited in Scandinavia and it was safe, easy to get around and exceptionally beautiful. I've been to Sweden twice on accident (that long story is buried in this column somewhere) and taken long driving trips through both Norway and Denmark. Skagen, Denmark and Bergen, Norway are two of my favorite places ever. I want to go to Finland soon, it's actually on my Top Five List of Places I want To See Very Soon. That list includes: Ireland, Finland, Chile, Poland (again) and Estonia.
Oh -- Iceland is also one of the best destinations EVER for vacation. And now that their currency is devalued it's half the price it used to be. I recommend going in late June, the weather is perfect but it's not so crowded with tourists yet. And rent a car and drive! It's the most gorgeous countryside I have ever been to in my life.
Janet H. writes: Hi, can you still take knitting needles on planes as airlines are so strict about what can be taken as hand luggage? I'm not a good flyer and knitting would take my mind off the 30,000 ft below me! I enjoy reading your blog. Janet
Hi Janet! A lot of people emailed to ask this same question! According to the TSA website (and all the flights I have taken) it is totally OK to bring knitting needles on a plane, although from personal experience I would only bring wood or plastic knitting needles. Circular needles are good, too, and I usually travel with a small project (in other words, I have never tried to get through security with size 19 gigantor wooden needles.)
You can read the TSA's special page on knitting needles here. Usually I bring wooden/bamboo needles in size 10 or smaller and keep them with my project in a ziploc bag. In the bag I also travel with a very small pair of Hello Kitty scissors (about two inches long all total) with blunt ends, they're useless for any real precision cutting but I can saw through yarn just fine. I have had no problems with them in security. Your mileage may vary.
One word of advice: Don't bring along your best, most expensive needles, even if they are wood. I always travel with a basic pair of $7 clover needles, because if I get turned away at security -- which has not yet happened -- I figure I won't cry over $7. I'm not going to haul around a pre-stamped envelope and I don't check a bag much anymore, so I just hope for the best. It's worked out so far.
Knitting en route to somewhere!
Shelia W. writes: How do you get those knitting needles on the plane, especially if you have a carry-on? I've wanted to bring my needlepoint with me but I figured they'd confiscate my needle/scissors.
Shelia, I looked at the TSA's special page for Transporting Knitting Needles & Needlepoint and here's what it says specifically about needlepoint:
Most of the items needed to pursue a Needlepoint project are permitted in your carry-on baggage or checked baggage with the exception of circular thread cutters or any cutter with a blade contained inside. These items cannot be taken through a security checkpoint. They must go in your checked baggage.
Hope that helps! The TSA has a whole area on their website just for travelers preparing for a trip if you have other questions. And you can call your airlines directly if you have a specific issue, sometimes they have more details. By the way, if you are flying out of an overseas airport you need to check the airport's website to see what they do and do not allow through security (Heathrow especially) because their rules for carryon allowances and prohibited items may be different.
The TSA's list of prohibited items is here for your reference.
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RoseAnna wrote: I've loved hearing about your travels. I love traveling, though strangely enough I hate flying--its very stressful for me. But once I get where I am going I love visiting new places. Reading your travel descriptions always makes me want to visit the places that you write about (I would love to visit Madrid, for example).But I was concerned when you said that you left your passport in your hotel in a safe. You've probably been alright in the countries you've visited, as you've always picked safe, stable places to go, but I know when I was in Mexico my host family freaked out that I had left my passport at home--and I was just going out to
eat with my host family, who knew who I was and what I was doing in Mexico. They told me I should never, ever leave home without my passport because it was the only proof of who I was.To be fair, this was toward the end of the zapatista rebellion and the Mexican government was cracking down on suspected insurgents and kicking out a lot of foreigners on the grounds of suspected involvement--but I wasn't in the states where the zapatistas were, and I was just a student, taking classes for the semester at the local university, so it didn't occur to me that I might need it on me to prove my American citizenship etc.
But in a lot of countries, that American citizenship is an important protection, so it's a good idea to have your passport with you at all times. What I was told to do was to photocopy my passport, particularly the page with all your personal information, so that if your passport was lost or stolen you had that to show the embassy to facilitate getting it replaced. And if you have a travel visa for that country, do the same thing with that--photo copy the original and put the photocopy in a safe place, and keep the original with your passport.
Also, I carried my passport in one of those money-belts that go under your clothes so that it was less likely to be lost or stolen.
Anyway, safe travels! May you have many more enjoyable trips and knitting adventures :)
Hi RoseAnna! Thanks for the email.
The passport thing and the moneybelt thing are topics that come up time and time again on travel forums. I think a lot of this depends on the traveler, the place being visited and even the time of year.
When I went to Rome last winter, I was so scared after reading guidebooks and travel forums warning of pickpockets and "roaming gangs of thieving children" that even I got paranoid! But when I got there I realized Rome in February was no more dangerous or risky than Los Angeles at any time of year and I mellowed out. I didn't walk around with a hundred dollar bill to my butt yelling "Victim!" but I wasn't overly paranoid either.
I'm careful by nature because I've lived in this crazyass city for so long. When traveling, I do in any major city as I do in Los Angeles: I carry a purse and keep my hand on it. I travel with a little wallet in an inner zippered pocket and in the wallet I just have my two travel credit cards, a little walking around cash for the day, my list of important numbers and contacts and a photocopy of my passport. This works for me because the one thing I do NOT want to lose is my passport. Last year I FINALLY (!!!) got a decent passport picture that makes me look only semi-portly and I am not letting go of it as it is a vast improvement over my previous picture. Besides, losing a passport is a time-consuming adventure I do not want to experience. To get on the plane and go home you have to be holding that passport!
I know a lot of people disagree with me and my methods of traveling but I just do what works for me. I could never see myself fumbling under my clothes or digging around in a neck belt for money and I personally would be paranoid knowing all that stuff was on my body. To other folks, that's the only way they feel safe traveling. I think people should do whatever makes them feel safest.
And for me, that starts with picking a safe destination to visit all alone. The places I go alone are generally not in the midst of a Zapatista uprising, and in my experience a simple photocopy of the passport will do for walking around art museums and drinking wine at a cafe at lunchtime in most of Western Europe. You do need a passport in some countries for making large purchases on your credit card (which I don't do, being budgety and all) and you need it on your person if you get arrested which I generally try to avoid.
I think it's partly a personal decision and partly a risk-based assessment. I don't travel alone to risky places because safety is always my #1 concern so I am not often in a place where Federalis are stopping and asking for ID. In fact I have never been stopped and asked for my passport anywhere even on my most adventurous travels (lost in Eastern Europe ten years ago, for example.)
So it comes down to personal risk assessment and choice. In my opinion, it's riskier for me to carry around my official government passport all day (in and out of restaurants, museums, metro cars, public restrooms, buses) than it is to carry a photocopy and leave the real document in the room safe or locked in my luggage in a locked hotel room. Your decision will vary based on who you are, where you travel, where you're staying and when you go. Other people may have different thoughts and will do what works for them. Traveling alone presents its own unique challenges and I think each person eventually strikes a balance of common sense and precaution that works for them.
When I'm relating my travel stories they're just my personal experiences, I know everyone has a different way of doing it and all I can speak to is my own experience.
By the way, I also find flying stressful! Knitting helps. I'm usually OK during the flight itself but take-off and landing makes me jittery.
Ruth C. writes: Hi, I have been reading about your travels and I just wanted to give you a warning about hotel safes. The hotel always has a way to get into the safe--they have to in case some dodo forgets the combo they set. I have been told to NEVER use them. Instead, I bought a neck travel pouch and keep extra money and my passport hidden close to my body, under my clothes at all times. Yes, it can get hot in warm climates and my passport looks a little worn. Probably should put it in a small plastic baggy . . . but, I know it's safe. If you set up the strap so it goes through one arm, the strap can be pinned or looped around your bra strap, the bag hangs at your side and is virtually undetectable. Just an idea.I have been told that depending upon the political climate of the US at the time and the country you are traveling in, a US passport can be a valuable item on the black market and are the subject of theft. That was years ago, but I don't doubt it today either.
Ruth
Hi Ruth! Apparently the hotel safe/passport topic struck a nerve with folks as I got a fair amount of email about it. My trip to Madrid was the first time I've used the hotel safe, and it was AWESOME. It was a pretty new-looking safe with great instructions on how to use it and set your own pin number and everything.
Here's a picture:
And a close-up of the safe:
I loved it. I used it every day for my laptop, ipod and passport. I had no problems at all and found it convenient and easy to use. Usually I just carry a combo lock with me and lock my stuff in my luggage for the day. That is definitely just as easy to walk off with as the safe key from the front desk or whatever but my philosophy is you do what you can to mitigate risk and then you let go. And I am just not interested in carrying all my valuables on my person in a moneybelt or some necklace thingy. To me that seems way riskier that a hotel safe in a well-reviewed four star hotel -- but that's just me. Other folks wholeheartedly disagree, and they should do what feels best to them.
The way I see it, there's always risk. There's risk in walking across the street in your own neighborhood. Nothing I travel with is irreplaceable or rare or even that sentimental. I mean I would hate to lose my beloved ipod, but it happened once (right here on the bus in good ol' Los Angeles) and I survived. I don't get on the bus every day worrying about losing my ipod, though, or my wallet. If I did that I would drive myself insane.
Everyone has to base their decisions on how they feel about the location, the hotel, the staff, the quality of the establishment, the reviews you've read about the hotel (trust me if someone experienced a theft in their room safe the Trip Advisor forums would alert you to it) and your gut instinct. You also have to consider where you're traveling, the political and social climate and the risk.
I guess I had to make a choice at some point in traveling to either worry prohibitively about theft and fear pickpockets and thieves and miscreants ... or to just take normal precautions and make smart choices and then let go and enjoy the trip, wherever that may take me. After all, I doubt many people living in Paris or Madrid or Rome or Prague or Stockholm walk around all day long in the city wearing their passport and all their money in a pouch under their clothes. I know we don't do that here in Los Angeles. (That begs the question... do people from other countries come to Los Angeles and wear their passports and all their money in hidden pouches? That seems really unsafe to me. But maybe to someone else it's a good idea.)
So as always it comes down to what works for the individual. What works for me may not work for everyone. Also, keep in mind that I'm not out roaming the jungles of South America alone with my backpack and valuables. I was staying in a major Western European capital city in a hotel with heated towel racks and room service and a nicer TV than what I have in my own house. You know?
I'm definitely not a travel expert and I don't talk about my travels for instructional guidance ... I'm just sharing my little personal adventures and taking pictures of exit signs:
- - -
A few knitting questions, too:
Robin asks: HELP! I'm behind on making a birthday present. I want to make a felted bag. Will 100% acrylic yarn work? Or must I use wool? THANK YOU!!!!
Robin, I hate to be the bearer of misfelted news (heh) but you can't felt 100% acrylic yarn. You can't even felt all wool yarns -- superwash wool will not felt, and some wool that is extremely bleached out doesn't felt well, either (take it from someone who tried to felt a white wool bag 12 times.) But on the upside there are tons of yarns out there at your local yarn shop and craft store made especially for felting. The Patons line of feltable wool yarn is GREAT and I've heard good things about Lion Brand's wool yarn, too. Noro is lovely and felts (eventually) and my favorite of all is Patons SWS (Soy Wool Stripes) yarn which is a felting maniac.
- - -
I love your handwarmers (great colors!) and I'm totally going to make some for myself. I hate seaming, though, so I had an idea. Why not knit them in the round? When you get to the thumb just start knitting back and forth, then re-join into a round after the thumb and continue until you're done. I think that would work, don't you? -Alison
Hi Alison! I've heard from many folks who warm their hands by knitting in the round and making lovely tubes and I think it is a great idea. For my first handwarmer project I just wanted to make a pattern so simple that any beginner could do it and sometimes folks get skeered off with knitting in the round, especially for a small piece requiring the DPNoD (Double-Pointed Needles of Death.)
I have had a few folks email me links to patterns with thumbs but the handwarmer I wanted to make needed to be easy easy so any beginner could do it and ALSO made out of my brain (sad and degenerating as it is) so I'm not infringing upon anyone if I want to print it or give it away. Sad to say I have yet to take the time out to pick up my stitches and make a thumb though I hope to get to it this weekend. I'll write that portion up to in a hand+thumb warmer combo pattern when I manage to make a thumb worthy of writing home about.
- - -
So, yesterday Corey and I played Boggle
That's rice and beans in the middle there that I brought for lunch. It's cheap and nutritious and perfect for bringing to work (it's filling, too). I cook the rice and the beans separate and then when everything is cooked I line up my little lunch containers and fill them up with a scoop and a half of rice topped with a couple of scoops of beans. I can easily make five lunches (and sometimes two extra to freeze) in one afternoon.
I used organic brown basmati rice, though I think plain old organic brown rice would hold up better. Basmati seems a little soft and mushy even though I cooked it according to the package instructions (2 cups of rice to four cups of liquid -- I used chicken broth) and then simmer for 50 minutes.
For the beans, I used two cans of organic black beans simmered with half of a finely diced yellow onion and about four small cloves of garlic run through a garlic press. Just let it simmer until the garlic is mild and the onion is soft. I also added hot sauce to the beans for kick.
Usually I use dried beans which are cheaper and I think they taste better, but canned was all I had in the pantry last Sunday and they cooked up just fine. I figured up the cost once -- making a big mess of rice and beans comes out to about 50 cents per meal, and that's using all-organic ingredients. I can eat rice and beans all week without getting tired of it, it's just such a comforting meal, but I usually make more than I need for lunches and freeze a few servings for future lunches. I try to do this with everything I make -- eat half and freeze half, so that I have variety in the freezer and I can have chili one day or soup the next. So far my two favorite recipes of all time (and they freeze GREAT) are chicken and white bean chili -- delicious!! -- and kale and chickpea stew. The secret to the stew is you have to use a great spicy sausage because it gives most of the flavor to the dish. I use a spicy Italian-style sausage from Whole Foods that has some kick to it and it's the best stew ever.
This weekend I want to find some new recipe to make. I've discovered that if I spend a few hours on Sunday grocery shopping, preparing a meal for my lunches and getting all my snacks and stuff together for the week I tend to have a better, more productive and easy week. And I eat better.
It's a process, anyway. I guess I'll just keep trying and trying again to get healthy until I get it right.
- - -
Finally....
She can read my mind ... even when I can't!
Posted by laurie at 07:51 AM
February 26, 2009
The email machine is currently working and other news.
This is the brief two-minute window of time where I actually have access to my email and the server hasn't crashed. Miracle of miracles!
Nancy from Ohio writes: Do you get scared traveling by yourself? What about pickpockets and safety of traveling by yourself?
Hi Nancy!
Well, definitely the most important concern when you're a woman traveling alone is your personal safety. That's why I've picked all relatively safe destinations to visit by myself (Western Europe, places in the states) and I haven't ventured out into more adventurous locations ... yet!
Once you've picked a destination with reasonable expectations of personal safety, the key is to not freak out and get get paranoid but just take normal precautions. I figure I live in Los Angeles and work downtown and I would never walk around lost and tipsy here at night, or leave my handbag draped over the back of a chair or anywhere unattended, I wouldn't wear a backpack on the metro escalator or carry my valuables through skid row. So why would I do that abroad? (Also I think most places I've visited overseas are way safer in general than Los Angeles!) When I'm traveling, I carry a purse and look at maps and I'm a tourist but I take precautions just like I would in L.A. I keep my handbag zipped up tight, my passport stays in the room safe (or you can lock it in your luggage back at the hotel) and I stay aware of my surroundings.
It's a little bit of a leap of faith, no matter where you go. It also gets MUCH easier to believe this once you actually go on a trip. It's the fear and anxiety beforehand that get you! Once you're there you'll see it's not nearly as scary as you imagined.
Holy Cow! I'm traveling alone!
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Margaret J. wrote:Hi Laurie! I've really enjoyed your last couple of posts
about Madrid. And phooey to the people who ask if/how you can afford to travel. First of all, it's none of their business and didn't their mamas teach them manners? Secondly, from what I've seen, 2009 is THE year to travel. There are LOTS of great deals out there, because even places like Vegas are having a hard time luring the tourists. So keep up the adventuring and thanks for sharing with us!
Dear Margaret, thanks for the note!
I agree-- this is the year to travel cheap! You know how some people go online obsessively for facebook or fantasy football or stalking? I am like that with travel websites. I have all my favorites bookmarked and I read travel news like it's going out of style and I watch airfares like some people watch ebay.
This year is full of crazy deals. This is the best time since Bird Flu to get a cheap ticket to a far-away destination. My favorite sites are CheapTickets.com, Kayak.com (check out their "buzz" feature to see flights in your price range to any region of the world) and for hotels I love LateRooms.com. I am the master of the cheap airfare ... my flight to Madrid was $558 roundtrip (including taxes and fees.) And my hotel was a great last minute deal from Orbitz.com. If you're flexible on your destination you can go just about anywhere on the cheap right now. By the way -- American just announced a big European fare sale, too. It's good for travel through May (usually cheap European fares dry up by the end of March.) You do have to purchase by March but that gives you plenty of time to plan a trip.
And the dollar is holding its own against the Euro for the first time in forever. I found all my meals and drinks to be really on par in Madrid with what I would pay here in Los Angeles, if not a little cheaper. And I always go to the grocery store wherever I am to stock up on water, wine, snacks and stuff so I can have a picnic now and then instead of full restaurant meals. Oh -- always look for a hotel that includes breakfast in the price. My hotel in Madrid had a GREAT buffet breakfast included in the room price. The buffet was stocked with juice, coffee, yogurt, fruit, cereal, breads and pastries and freshly cooked sausages, bacon, eggs and Spanish tortilla de patatas which was incredible. They served until 11 a.m. so for me it was breakfast and lunch.
- - -
Marcy S. emailed to say: I admire your willingness to travel abroad alone. You've inspired me. I've never been afraid to do things alone. I eat in restaurants, go to festivals, even travel by myself, but for some reason, I never thought of traveling abroad by myself. So, after reading about your trips to France, Italy, and now Spain, I've decided to start saving up for a trip to England. I will then go to France next (since I have an undergrad degree in French, I should manage pretty well with the language).
Dear Marcy-- thank you! The main reason I write about traveling and post pictures is because I figure if a big sissy such as myself can up and travel alone to a foreign country, anyone on earth can do it. And I can't believe I wasted so much time thinking you had to travel with someone! What I didn't realize is that I am a great travel partner ... I laugh at my own jokes and appreciate dorky signs and don't mind when I hog the bathroom.
The best part about traveling alone is the total immersion in whatever you want to do. You can sleep as late as you want or wake as early as you want. You're never waiting on someone else, you can stare at a Goya painting for half an hour if you want, you can eat anytime and any place you choose. I've discovered that when left to my own devices I will spend five hours in a museum every single day. I never had the luxury of doing that before -- anyone I've ever traveled with has been ready to go after about an hour. Now I can spend as many hours in a museum as I want without worrying that I am ruining my partner's vacation.
I've also started taking more super-short trips because I don't mind the airplane rides and I think it combats the loneliness factor. After about five days in a place with a foreign language I start to get lonely. I spent a week last year in Paris and I think it was about two days too long. Four days seems to be the magic number for me, but your mileage may vary!
Oh, and when I am traveling alone no one makes fun of me for stopping to take pictures of little signs done up in cross-stitch:
- - -
Angie writes:Ok, please elaborate (quickly, I am leaving for FLA in 1 week) on these packing cubes, I don't understand how packing into something for the sake of organizing helps cut down on your luggage. My DD8 and I are planning to travel for a week on 1 carry-on and our purses. I've got the mix/match going, but the cubes, I don't get?
Hi Angie!
The cubes help me because it's easy to see at a glance what will or won't fit -- the cubes are space limited. Second, the cubes keep everything organized. And finally, and most importantly, they keep your stuff enclosed so that when TSA is digging through your bag you don't have them touching your panties and socks and it all fits back together like luggage tetris.
Before I bought the cubes I used ziploc bags, but the cubes are re-useable and more durable. You don't NEED them -- I mean it is absolutely possible to pack without them -- but they seem to make my packing much easier. I also use a 17" carryon bag, which is smaller than average, so every inch of space needs to stay organized.
Have fun in Florida! Take sunscreen!
I use this set of three cubes
- - - -
Beth writes:Hey Laurie, I was wondering what brand of luggage you use. My husband and I are planning a trip overseas next year, and would love any advice you have to offer, as we've never been. Thanks!
Hi Beth!
The only advice I have with luggage is to buy something lightweight and durable. Lightweight is key because the airlines are charging you an arm, a leg, and a torso for every bag over the weight limit. And durable goes without saying.
A few years back I bought some cheapo luggage at Ross and it lasted me exactly two plane trips. So I went to a regular department store with a sale coupon and bought my one little Samsonite carryon two years ago. It has been the most durable piece of luggage ever! I have hauled it through the airports of the world and it's still working like a charm. I think for something like luggage (which you plan to keep for a long time) it's not a bad idea to invest in good pieces. But right now sales are everywhere, so I would keep an eye on your Macy's ads and even online places like eBags, which often offers free shipping. Just remember -- lightweight! That's the key!
The little carryon I have is kind of similar to this one from Samsonite
Have fun on your trip!
- - -
Amanda writes:OK, how does one work up the guts to travel alone? I spent a semester in Italy in college, but it was as part of a group, and since then I haven't even been brave enough to go out of state by myself - even though I enjoy traveling. I guess it doesn't help that I *did* meet one of those Italian pickpockets... Is it just one
of those things you have to just DO without thinking about it too much beforehand?
Well, I'm sorry you had a pickpocketing experience, and I can see how that could dampen your desire to travel alone. Or ... I guess you could consider yourself officially pre-disastered, since the statistical chance of you being targeted twice is very low. Right?
I think it comes down to desire and decision -- how much you want to travel abroad combined with the decision to just do it. And then you just do it. For folks with a lot of fear and anxiety, I would start someplace that you can speak the language (so if you speak only English, I would suggest the U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.) Then set yourself a budget and start looking for a plane ticket. And buy it.
I don't recommend buying a ticket for a trip months and months and months away because that gives you way too much time to worry and get anxious. Buy a ticket for a trip just a month or two away. Then get a guidebook, read about some good areas of town to stay in and pick a hotel. Then just go. Go and have fun. You've already been pickpocketed once so it doesn't have to happen again. You can figure out where things went wrong and change it up (for example, if it was a backpack, consider a purse with a zipper and inside zippered pockets and hold it under your arm. If it was a pocket, don't keep anything in your pockets. That kind of thing.) I don't think one poor experience should deter you from seeing the world if you really want to see it. In fact, you might even consider yourself lucky because you got the one bad experience out of the way already and now you can travel without problems!
And of course, some people have no interest in traveling at all and there is 100% NOTHING wrong with that. I myself would not go on a cruise for a million bucks in cash ... I am just not a boat person. But I know people who love nothing more than a relaxing cruise. Each to their own!
- - -
And finally...
Pamela T. asks:Can you go for days without checking email or going online? How do you stay in touch with people when you're gone alone?
Sadly, I am one of the humans not yet retrofitted for technology and I can go for long stretches of time without even remembering the computer exists at all. But in an effort to not incur the exasperation of my coworkers, my family and my editor, I do try to pay attention and answer emails a few times a week. (Usually.) My email has been held together by gum and rubber bands for about two years and the server upgrade a few months ago wiped out all of my folders and filters and now it is back to being rubber bands, gum and now the occasional paper clip. One day I hope to be free of email altogether, but I fear I am the only one who feels this way.
I do stay in touch with my family and my house sitter while I'm gone. And I do it all with the world's cutest laptop. About a year and a half ago I bought the ASUS Eee PC
I use this little guy all the time when I'm traveling for staying in touch (I call my friends and family using Skype) and most hotels where I've stayed offer wifi either free or for a small fee per day. I bring along a little foldable headset with a microphone and when I call my dad from some far-flung country, it sounds like he's in the next room. And Skype calls cost just pennies (and they're free computer-to-computer.) This little laptop fits inside my handbag and weighs less than two pounds. And when I was in Madrid I used it to watch the entire first season of 30 Rock
(Knitting and watching shows in the hotel ... jet lag never had it so good.)
Actually that picture doesn't illustrate how TINY this thing is. Here's another shot while skyping with Drew, the little laptop is with my coffee mug for scale:
I honestly could not believe you could purchase something like this for $299 -- and that it would WORK -- but it's a great little machine and it's been working like a charm for almost two years now. The keyboard is a bit cramped and takes some getting used to, but it's fine for traveling and it's super durable. It also has a built-in webcam and great speaker sound. I don't work for this computer company or anything, I just like sharing a cool product when I find one. The newer versions of the Asus eeePC are on sale at Target, too, I've seen both the black and the pearl white models on display.
- - -
Ok, enough yammering on for one day. Time to go fill that coffee mug!
Posted by laurie at 07:40 AM
February 24, 2009
Mas Madrid...
This is the line to get into the Prado. Muy largo!
The Prado Museum is amazing. They have a fantastic collection. But no museums let you take photos inside anymore, even with flash off. Bummer.
On the street, I noticed this sex shop featuring American movies, and in the green lettering just above the word "American" in says "Californosa!" Nice. Our major export... porn.
Heh. The antique gay pharmacy! Yes, I am five.
I love to grocery shop in other countries.
Bimbo bread!
The best kind of museum: The Museum of HAM!
I spent several afternoons in the Plaza Santa Ana, it was sunny and lovely and one day this band showed up and started playing Zydeco music. Seriously.
I spent a day at the Reina Sofia, they have an amazing collection but the layout is a little like viewing art in Alcatraz. The coffee shop was lovely, though. A cafe con leche for one euro twenty.
I saw one of these in London, too, but the Madrid Church of Scientology was HUGE. I thought that was just an L.A. thing?
The Puerta Del Sol in the daytime.
Cute window display with a knitted cactus and a knitted cake. Actually, it might be crochet. Anyway, it was cute.
- - -
One of my coworkers stopped me in the hallway the day before I left for vacation.
"Where are you off to this time?" she asked.
"Madrid," I said.
"How in the world do you afford all this?" she asked, in a voice that implied I was about to embark on a three-month voyage to the moon.
"Well," I said, "I don't buy stuff. I don't buy anything really unless I need it, and so now I spend money I used to spend buying junk on traveling. I don't buy magazines or DVDs or placemats or trinkets or earrings. I drive a fourteen year old car. So my priorities are just different, I guess."
"Oh," she said. "That makes sense!"
This month I noticed more than a few raised eyebrows from people who had thoughts of their own about my travel plans, especially in light of the doom and gloom news we hear every day about the world spiraling into a dire dust bowl of despair. The news has affected me, too, even though I try not to let it leak in... more than once I reconsidered taking this little vacation. Was it wise? How much would it cost me to cancel the flight? Should I be spending anything at all? But I had budgeted for it, and it seemed silly not to go on a few days of vacation because of free-floating anxiety.
I guess I got used to living well within (and below) my means way before the economy tanked and I do realize I am very fortunate -- fortunate to have learned how to budget, fortunate be employed and fortunate to have the choice of saving or spending the way I best see fit. And I'm grateful for all of that.
But mostly I am grateful I finally learned how to make good financial decisions. I chose not to buy a house I could ill-afford even when everyone I knew was telling me I was a fool for renting and that I could qualify for a zero-down loan. (By the way, no one gives me that piece of unsolicited advice anymore.) I chose to drive the same old car instead of buying something new and locking myself into monthly payments. I chose to stop spending money on superfluous stuff a year ago so I could focus on experiences, not decorations.
However, I have to admit that the constant dour news about the economy makes me feel a little guilty, guilty for living my life when I know so many people are struggling to make ends meet. It's weird, feeling guilty for something that's not yours to control. I wonder where that comes from? Is there such a thing as economic survivor's guilt?
I didn't mind answering my coworker's question. A few years ago I would have been sensitive about it, or felt bad for what someone else saw as extravagance. But it's not like I'm having octuplets on welfare checks or giving my cats million-dollar bonuses on the taxpayer dime. I work hard and manage my money very, very carefully. And I believe that finding the money to do anything -- including travel -- is sometimes just a shift of perception and priorities. For example, the average American car payment ranges between $380 and $460 per month. I drive a car that is paid-off (read: practically antique) and I take care of it and use mass transit whenever possible to help my Jeep live as long as it can. Now, assuming I would have a car payment of $400 if I bought a new car, each vacation I take is roughly the equivalent of three months of car payments. (Hawaii in December was the exception, it was probably 4.5 car payments.) It's just math, you see, not voodoo. Money isn't magic and it's not even that complicated -- managing money is about discipline and paying attention. It doesn't matter if you've allotted the numbers in your budget to a car, to a house or to a plane ticket ... the key is to actually use a budget.
Perception is endlessly fascinating. For me, the very idea of buying a new car is terrifying. You have to make a huge decision on which car to buy and you want to make the right decision because you're committed to that car for years of your life. That's overwhelming to me. And you might have to haggle, which feels like Dante's seventh circle of consumer hell. And then you have this new expensive thing that you worry about, and you get paranoid about dings and spills and scrapes and all of it sounds awful to me. It sounds like something that will require research and commitment and cash and it makes me wonder if I can get another good five years out of Big Red.
To some people buying a car is no big deal at all. To them it's much easier than randomly snapping up a cheap airfare to some distant city, getting on a plane and walking around a bunch of strangers. To me, traveling is relaxing and I don't worry about the hotel because there are always other hotels, and I don't worry about where to go or what to see because there's always something to see. I put less research into my vacations than I do into my haircuts. It's just a few days out of your life when you take pictures and order wine in a new language and deconstruct airline food. But to other folks this idea makes them break out in hives of anxiety. So I guess, like everything, it's all in the way you look at it.
I'm not sure if I'll be traveling again for a while, the pervasive economic doom makes me feel like I should be squirreling away every dime. But it was a fun trip, a nice few days away.
Last night in Madrid. Adios!
Posted by laurie at 07:33 AM
February 23, 2009
Me gusta Madrid!
This is beautiful Madrid at night:
This is me in Madrid. You may notice I am a tad on the freakishly blurry side:
That's what happens when you have a crapass camera and don't really want to bother strangers with a detailed explanation of how they have to stop breathing and become one with the rotation of the earth to get a somewhat unblurred image. (I am going to buy a new camera this year. I can't take another year of blur!)
Last year I had so much fun on my Valentine's solo trip to Rome that I decided I should make it a regular thing, taking myself somewhere fun and far away on Valentine's Day. Madrid is beautiful and alive and crazy and delicious and it was perfect for a little getaway.
The first time I went to Madrid I was in my twenties and my ex-husband and I arrived in the middle of the afternoon and we stayed in a hotel right on the Puerta del Sol and I remember looking at him later that night when the whole world was walking by -- teenagers in groups with their friends, old folks out at eleven o'clock in the evening just taking a paseo, ladies with baby strollers, couples hand-in-hand -- and I told him I could live in Madrid the rest of my life. Madrid has an energy that matches mine, or maybe it's the energy I want to have, either way I love it. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Spain and how great the Spaniards are, it's been almost ten years since the last time I was there.
I didn't stay in the Puerta del Sol this time since it has turned into the world's largest excavation dig :
The last trip I took to Spain was a long meandering driving adventure through the countryside of Galicia and the Basque area and Portugal, too. I knew I wanted to go back but I never in a million years dreamed I'd be arriving in Madrid by myself (and might I add I arrived with merely a carryon bag) but that's what I did and it was muy bueno. It's so much easier to be in a place where you can communicate, too, my Spanish is MUCH better than my French or Italian. I think last time I was in France I ordered a cheese sandwich on a grandmother with a side of boots.
While in Madrid I stayed in a GREAT hotel:
The Catalonia Las Cortes. Fantastico!
Minibar, nicer TV than I have at home, even room for a desk for my laptop. (King size bed ... you can kind of see the corner of it in this picture.)
The bathroom was really nice. I need a nice bathroom. I am prissy.
I got a great deal on the hotel through Orbitz.com, and this trip to Spain was about 70% cheaper than the trip I took to Maui over Christmas. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU. I was in Maui for about the same amount of time and it was twice the price of this trip to Madrid. (I don't think I wrote about going to Maui, did I? It was very pretty and nice but I had booked that trip way back last April before prices fell and I was locked into what ended up being a VERY spendy vacation, by my standards. Just as an example, my hotel in Madrid cost 1/5 of my hotel in Maui. Seriously.)
I know I've said it before but if you can afford it, this is a great year to travel and a great year to travel abroad. I got a good rate on the Euro and the flight was very reasonable compared to last year's prices. Usually when I travel I set myself a budget for spending while I'm there, and this budget is the amount of money I change into foreign currency at my bank before I leave for my trip. I get a base rate on the exchange so this works best for me (and I'm not paranoid about carrying money) but everyone is different. And of course if I need more there's always ATM machines. Usually I manage to stay within my spending budget, though. Especially when taking a carry-on bag -- no room for a lot of souvenirs!
By the way, I cannot believe I managed to travel to Spain for six days with just a carry-on bag. In winter. I never thought I would become someone who could travel light! I used to need a sherpa and a pack mule just for a weekend visit to San Diego. I think it was that damn book tour that did it ... after weeks of hauling around a suitcase the size of a Smart Car, I was exhausted by my own stuff. Now I try to pick hotels with a hairdryer in the room and toiletries so I didn't have to bring shampoo and stuff, and I packed clothes that all matched and were interchangeable. Since these people were never going to see me again I didn't figure anyone would just die of embarrassment for me if I wore the same red sweater twice.
The secret to packing light.... packing cubes!! I use three for every trip, one large one for pants and sweaters and two small ones. In one of the small cubes I pack undies and socks and in the other T-shirts, something to sleep in and accessories. I also pack a little cosmetic bag and in my shoulder bag I take my ipod, a book, notebook, knitting, and other stuff.
This trip was great, perfect, exactly what I needed. I haven't been in a funk per se, but close enough to funky to be icky. Nothing gets you out of your little tunnel vision like traveling! There's something about getting on that airplane and going to a whole 'nother continent and breathing the air of a new city that makes you feel alive. I guess it's because everything is so new all your senses are alive and on guard and you're awake. It's definitely what I needed right now, the right city at the right time.
I love traveling by myself. More pictures tomorrow!
Posted by laurie at 10:21 AM
February 03, 2009
Headache
Yesterday I left work early with a sinus headache. I just wanted to come home and lie in bed with a pillow over my head.
I pulled into my driveway and there was Mrs. Lee, sitting on a footstool in the middle of her driveway, which is right next to my driveway, and she was surrounded by stuff, stuff everywhere. They've been doing something to one of their cars and for for days their driveway has been a playground for tools and wires and parts and junk. It's almost Southern. It looks like Mr. Lee's tool shed exploded all over the concrete drive.
So she was just sitting there with her headphones on, doing what looked like a massive purse cleanout in the driveway next to the spare transmission and spark plugs.
"Hey Mrs. Lee, you OK?" I asked.
"Oh you know, Julie, not so good." Mrs. Lee always calls me Julie.
"What's up?"
And that's when she told me her and Mr. Lee were not very happy and some things had transpired and now after 22 years of marriage she was thinking of divorce. She said she might move back to St. Louis and stay with her first husband. I didn't touch that one with a ten-foot pole.
I hugged her. She's gotten more used to me hugging, this time she didn't even flinch. I wanted to give her some advice, something useful, since I was the poster child of divorcees for several years there but I just didn't have any advice at all. Everyone's situation is different and everyone makes their own way through and sometimes I think the best you can do is just listen, so I did. And later I brought her over a bottle of wine and some oranges from my backyard tree. And then I went to bed with a pillow over my head.
I hate to think of someone being sixty-one and getting unhitched. I guess I still have some traditional ideas about marriage hidden in there, like how by the time you're retired you ought to have figured some stuff out but that's ridiculous, as soon as it crossed my mind I realized it was such a dumb assumption. Who ever figures everything out? I can't imagine I'll be sixty-two and have figured anything out at all. I didn't even realize there was still a part of me that expects grown-ups to have all the right answers. When does one even officially become a grown up?
So I guess time will tell, maybe they'll work things out. You just never know. Maybe she'll move and fall in love all over again and grow her hair out long and start calling people in St. Louis Julie. or maybe she'll decide to move back to Korea and she'll open up a big organic farming complex and live her life happy among the plants (she has this incredible garden in her backyard, it's magical, I'm not kidding. She has a green thumb and entire green limbs, it's fantastic.) Or maybe she'll stay here and they'll work it out and be happier than ever and get a dog. That's the thing about bad events, they always seem like the very end but unless they are the very VERY end, you keep going right through them until you reach the other side and usually something good is waiting. Or that's how I choose to see it all, anyway. Even if I do sometimes find myself in bed with a pillow over my head.
Posted by laurie at 08:59 AM
January 31, 2009
January wrap-up
Not only is it already the year 2009, which is right before the year TWENTY TEN (!!!), but it is also January 31st, which is practically almost February and I need to slow down and breathe or all the sudden it will be summer and I'll be wondering when my New Year's resolutions will start and why is another year gone already?
Because I think 2010 -- TWENTY TEN!!!! -- is going to be a really great year. That doesn't say much for the year we are currently in, year not-twenty-ten. Is it just me? Or does 2009 feel like a gap year, where there's so much housecleaning and hard work you have to do?
I am not sure why I am so fixated on this. Maybe it's because even though I have opted out of the recession there is still a part of me subconsciously soaking up the gloomy news about 2009? Or maybe it's because I know how busy and full this 2009 is because I have a calendar and eyesight and I am already tired from looking at it. It feels like I need an attitude adjustment but I don't even know where to start.
So I decided to vacuum. At 5 a.m. I love to vacuum, which probably makes me weird and perverted in ways I don't even want to acknowledge. But it's so fulfilling! You can actually see and feel and smell the difference as you're doing it. Taking vitamins and exercising are supposed to be fulfilling but you don't take your multivitamin and feel instantly better. And maybe you love the way you feel after exercising, but I just feel sweaty and in dire need of a bath. But vacuuming is like nerdy nirvana -- one minute you see the cat litter trailed onto the carpet and the next minute it's gone! Eradicated! Vanquished!
The floors aren't the only things I vacuum, either. I use all the attachments and I dust my keyboard, clean the slats in the wooden shutters, remove dust off the air vent in the hallway. Vacuuming feels like conquering, I can see my progress as I go.
There's something incredibly gratifying about having a clean house. It makes me feel like I have my domain under control, like I can at least count on getting one thing right, that knowing where all the pots and pans and shoes go and having things in their place is some kind of internal order which might one day spring forth and vomit into my daily life of disorder and chaos. Anyway, it's a good theory, achieving order by osmosis.
The biggest dilemma I seem to have right now is finding a way to be completely at ease (if that's even possible) with uncertainty. So many things are uncertain and aside from knowing where the shoes and pans and silverware go (and aside from my neurotic love of vacuuming), not much else feels very stable or permanent or real. So it's as if I have arrived at this big crossroads -- no, not a crossroads, that's too poetic. This is one of those huge freeway intersections with multiple on-ramps and off-ramps and detours and some road construction thrown in, and it's poorly marked and oh, it's also rush hour -- and my choices are:
1) Become completely panicked and freak out. Then make some random decision that has no basis at all in reason or meaning but is a DECISION. The Decider!
2) Find some way to be at peace with the knowledge that I am not sure which route to take and have no idea how I managed to find myself at this intersection. And just keep moving toward whatever seems better and hope it all works out OK.
3) Pull over on the side of the road and pray for wine.
I'm a naturally inclined optimist so I am going to select Choice #2 and hope it all works out, because it always seems to work out somehow. I just want to find that peace that lets a person be OK with not knowing, peace with uncertainty. In the past when I got all messy and chaotic and "how did I get here where the heck am I going?" I used to make decisions just to do anything at all, because doing something seemed like a plan, like action, like a solution. But all it meant was a change of scenery, usually, or a new boss or boyfriend or house or whatever, and it became just a method to distract me from driving the car of my life.
Sometimes instead of deciding some random thing on my own, I would stop and ask people for directions. I would actually let other people tell me what they thought about my life and what I should do. These were people I probably wouldn't take actual driving directions from! Funny. Sad. Thank God I stopped doing that.
So anyway. I'm not taking any real action, unless you include vacuuming. I'm not asking for opinions. I am not even sure where I am, except that it is the tail end of January, 2009 which feels a little murky and I know there is some stuff that needs to be worked out and I don't want to panic on the freeway. So to speak. I'm just trying to be still from time to time and listen.
Maybe the whole point of all this is to teach me how to be at ease with the rapidly moving current of uncertainty and instability which is commonly known as "real life." Maybe this is that time people talk about in their lives between where they used to be and where they are going. It's an in-between place. For me, I think that in-between place is 2009.
Just in case though, it still wouldn't hurt to pray for wine.
Posted by laurie at 12:23 PM
January 28, 2009
You can skip the dream analysis portion. It won't hurt my feelings.
First, if you are an American Airlines AAdvantage member and you haven't signed up for Netflix, which as you all know I have not because so many damn people insisted I sign up now! immediately! that I decided I would never sign up, anyway. If you want to get 3,000 frequent flier miles, sign up for the $8.99 subscription and you can cancel after a month. If you hold on for three months you get an additional 500 AAdvantage miles. But this offer is only good if you sign up before January 31, so there's just a few days left.
I did grudgingly sign up for Netflix because 3500 miles is a good deal for an $8.99 subscription, plus apparently you can watch some movies on your computer. I don't have a Netflix lifestyle, meaning that if I miraculously happen to have a blank two-hour time slot for a movie and I have a hankering to watch something, it is rare and requires instant gratification. (See: The Bodyguard.) But I finally broke down and signed up for Netflix mostly for the miles and because they have a good documentary section, some that are hard to find through On Demand or at Blockbuster. We'll see. My movie queue is all stuff about mountain climbing and the Holocaust, go figure.
- - - -
New Jersey just arrived, and he announced to the whole office, "I officially hate Los Angeles."
He was stuck in traffic because the eastbound 10 is closed down from a wrong-way driver accident. Those happen more than you'd imagine, although I swear I'd never heard of anyone driving the wrong way on the freeway until I moved out here.
"But it's sunny outside," I said. "And it's going to be 78 degrees today. In January. That should make you happy."
"I just spent two hours driving twelve miles."
"Sunny! Warm!"
It's a hard sell.
- - - -
One of the most boring things you can ever do is tell people about your dreams. I once dated a guy who did this all the time and it was really snooze-inspiring. So I am not the least bit offended if you skip this next part and go get a coffee instead.
In my dream night before last I was at the market with my mom and my friend Corey and we were walking out of the store to my Jeep and also, I was carrying my cat Sobakowa. Because it makes so much sense in a dream.
So then I noticed one of the flaps on the Jeep's soft-top was loose so I handed Soba to my mom to hold onto while I snapped down the canvas top. But she put the cat down on the ground and the cat walked off a bit and then some random girl who was walking out of the market grabbed MY CAT and took her. So of course I hollered and took off running after her. I caught up to the girl and her friend and now they were both sort of standing in some kind of line (???) and so I walked up to her and she had the cat hidden under her shirt. She was really blonde, like almost platinum blonde, and she was wearing a big plaid long-sleeved shirt that I knew concealed my cat. So I confronted her.
"Give me my damn cat. NOW."
"I don't have your cat," she said.
So then I grabbed her hair and I guess I had some monster dream-enhanced vice grip because I really had a hold on her, so she let go of my cat and I picked up Soba and walked back to the Jeep except now we were getting on an airplane, one of those small prop planes, but on the inside it kind of looked like my parents' motorhome. The people in the dream had kind of changed, too, and as we left and flew over the countryside it was so pretty, I noticed all the green pastures and the beautiful blue ocean and there were horses, one of the horses was bright blue with a white mane (yesterday at lunchtime I told this dream to Corey, because I am exceptionally boring as a friend, and she said, "Oh my God! You dreamed about My Little Pony!" and she thought this was very funny. Which serves me right for boring anyone with my dreams.)
So the plane was gliding along and then the pilot, who was a woman, decided to set it down on the side of a mountain but there was a tunnel just ahead and it sheared off the wings. Which she didn't seem the least bit worried about until the road we were on, hugging the side of a mountain, began to spiral uphill instead of downhill. And I knew we were going to crash majestically so I had to plot my way out of the airplane because I had to -- get this -- save my cat Sobakowa, who was still in this neverending crazyass dream.
And that's when I woke up to my alarm clock and noticed that the Sobakowa was laying on me and I was petting her and she was staring at me. Like somehow she controlled my mind and made it into my dreams. And it kind of freaked me out.
The point is, I am starting to be a little afraid of the Tortie. She's manipulating my thoughts! And also maybe I shouldn't eat Mexican food before bedtime.
The end.
Posted by laurie at 09:29 AM
January 27, 2009
Birthday Bro
Today is my older brother Guy's birthday. This is a picture of us when we were little, during the finite window of time in which I was cuter than him:
Later everything changed and I got braces and had my hair fried by perms and massive amounts of Sun-In, and he morphed into some golden god that all my junior high school girlfriends would swoon over while I made dramatic and loud barfing noises.
The metamorphosis has begun.
The best story I have about my brother Guy was in the summer before eighth grade. School was just about to start and we had cheerleader practice every day at Acadian Elementary School and all of us soon-to-be-eighth-graders took it very seriously, with our herkies and clapping and hollering about touchdowns. It was very Important Work.
My family lived way out on the bayou back then and it was a pretty long drive to the school so sometimes (probably as punishment) my dad would make my older brother pick me up after cheerleading practice. He had this giant gold Monte Carlo that he loved and he spent long hours that summer working on his car with his buddies and they had all become brown as little raisins from being in the Louisiana sun all summer in just cutoffs, talking about radiators and gaskets and subwoofers.
One day at cheer practice we got done early and the whole squad sat on the front lawn waiting for all our rides to come get us, talking and gossiping and carrying on. Up drove my brother in his Monte Carlo, windows down, a tape by The Doors blaring from his stereo. A hush fell over the entire group of chatty gossipy cheerleaders, I looked at hem because OH MY GAWD YA'LL IT'S JUST MY STUPID BROTHER, but before I could say anything it dawned on me that every girl there thought my brother was the coolest human being to ever grace the face of the earth and he was in their presence. And the were awed.
So instead of faking barf noises like usual when ever my brother was near, I just got in the car all smooth-like, as if his unbelievable coolness could rub off on me by proximity and familial ties alone and he peeled off in a screech of tire rubber and gas fumes.
He didn't talk to me -- I wasn't cool enough -- but he just looked at me and laughed. He gunned it down the bayou road and turned the stereo up all the way. I remember that day as clear as if it happened yesterday: my brother all tan and lean and young, with his head out the window of his hot rod, singing along with Jim Morrison, "Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel..." Of course it helped that after that everyone at school thought I was unbelievably lucky (barf) to have Guy as my brother and could he take them home on the way, also?
And so he's kind of frozen in my mind that way. My brother, the Golden Teenage God, driving down that bayou with his head out the window with the sun on his face and wind rushing through his hair singing, "I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer... the future's uncertain but the end is always clear... let it roll, baby, roll..."
That's how I think of my brother, even though we spent most of our lives beating each other up with the blinding hate of a thousand fiery suns. There's nothing like an older brother to make your life a living hell one minute, and the next to make you the coolest kid in the entire eighth grade.
Happy Birthday, Guy!
Posted by laurie at 09:14 AM
January 23, 2009
TGIF
I'm not sure how ALL my deadlines seem to converge at the same time but they always do. Must be a conspiracy to make me go crazy... oh! by the way, it's working!
When I am really overworked and tired and stressed out I do unique things such as put the remote control away in the refrigerator. Or my old tried and true -- getting into the shower with my socks still on. However, I can tell you who is NOT the least bit stressed out:
The Sobakowa, who sleeps in a ray of sunlight with her little head on a giant pillow. Nothing under 1000 thread count sheets will do.
Speaking of animal farm pictures, my parents have been calling me trying to find out why I haven't commented on the cuteness they sent me via email why why WHY. But my email is broken and I have been too busy all week to spend seven hours on the phone with tech support to discover this new and exciting reason why I am locked out of my mail server, so all I know is there is something very important involving the puppy wearing a hoodie and if I don't see the pictures soon I might get excommunicated from my own family. No pressure!
- - -
Remember last week when an airplane landed in the FREAKING HUDSON RIVER? I was at work and I was in the elevator on the way to a meeting -- we have little TVs in the elevator which usually I think should be tuned to something happy like the Food Network -- but they show news all day and usually it's either talking heads blah blah blahing about politics or it's news of yet another financial collapse, sky is falling, etc. Of course the best times are when you're in the elevator with your boss or say the SVP of Compliance and you are both held captive in the elevator with the loud volume and the TV is playing an erectile dysfunction ad. Yup. Good times.
So anyway, I was in the elevator with a VP from Product and we're staring mutely at the TV when it both dawns on us that is an AIRPLANE sticking out of the RIVER. The next night I was watching the ABC World News because a PLANE was in the RIVER and I saw this woman:
Ya'll, she and I went to high school together. I am not even lying. It's like that time I was watching that TV show "STUDS" and I saw a guy I worked with participating on the show, trying to be one of the STUDS.
Anyway I never knew her that well but as soon as I saw her face I realized two things. ONE: I was glad this person I hardly knew was still alive, and TWO: Some people have aged perhaps better than others and maybe I won't go to the reunion after all unless I discover a fountain of Botox in my backyard. Or win the lotto. Because rich trumps cute any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
- - -
While I have yet to discover the Botox fountain in my yard, or the money tree, you will be shocked and awed to know my poor orange tree which the old gardener Francisco used to prune down to the trunk every spring is now a hearty real live actual tree with green leaves and this year it has multiple (read: more than one) oranges! Real bonafide eatable oranges!
It is my greatest accomplishment to date and I had virtually nothing to do with it at all. And while I don't even like oranges that much but I have been going outside in the DARK of morning and picking one each day to take to work and I have bored all my coworkers silly with the rhapsodizing about my abundance of greenthumbery as I peel and eat my orange each day:
- - -
One last thing...
On the way home from work a few days ago I got behind this behemoth truck with Alaska plates and a bumper sticker that made me laugh:
The bumper sticker had been half-peeled off and the driver was a woman, so I couldn't help but wonder if maybe some previous owner had stuck it there and someone had tried to get it off, bumper stickers have a history of their own, I guess:
I know it's hard to read in the picture but the sticker says, "MY CAR DRINKS JET FUEL AND EATS ASPHALT."
That is so 2008!
Posted by laurie at 09:02 AM
January 20, 2009
January 20th, 2009
It was so exciting to see everyone at work crammed into the conference room watching the TV, watching the new President of the United States be sworn in, listening so intently to his inaugural speech.
And it was crazy and exhilarating to see people lining the streets and pouring into Washington D.C., hundreds of thousands of people really excited to be an American, I have never in my entire life watched that many people come together and shout out the President's name, over and over again like a mantra. I was astonished, really, because I can't even remember watching an inauguration before this one (except on TV later that night, as part of the news.) But this one I started watching as soon as I got up, I drove into work so I didn't miss a minute listening to it on the radio, and later we all watched it together at work and cheered.
Even if you didn't like the guy and didn't vote for him, I'd imagine you have to be amazed and surprised at how he's bringing people together to feel good about our country, even on a cold January day (well, cold in Washington D.C. I live in Los Angeles where summer started two weeks ago and people are wearing flip-flops and tank tops.)
Later, Corey and I met in the breakroom upstairs to eat our lunches and when were done, we got in the elevator to go back downstairs. The little TV screen in the elevator showed the new President and the new First Lady getting out of a limo for the traditional Presidential parade. So we rode the elevator down to the lobby and back -- three times -- so we could watch it on the TV. I can't imagine doing that for anyone else!
What an exciting day. So full of hope!
Posted by laurie at 01:39 PM
January 06, 2009
Donde esta el coffee? Abajo el perro.
So I spent most of the New Year's holiday with this character:
More specifically, I spent my New Year's Eve doing this:
Truly, he was the best date I've had in years! You know I don't really ever talk about dating much on this website but maybe if I were writing another book, maybe, I would throw in a funny story or two. Or ten. Just because honestly some of the goofiest things that have ever happened to me happened in the company of strangers posing as datable men.
I did have an epiphany recently though, about how you have to be responsible for your own happiness and spend time and energy getting to know yourself and not pin your hopes and goals and dreams on some other poor unsuspecting human. Well, honestly, I figured out that part even a few years ago, but the epiphany addendum I had recently was that you must only spend time on other people who are responsible for their own happiness. It's awful being the source of someone's highs and lows, it's too much pressure having someone look to you each day to make them happy. Don't you agree?
Except animals, of course...
That's my parents' dog, and he's so cute and goofy. I love animals. I sometimes used to worry I was one of those eccentric weirdos who like animals more than people and now I have just fully embraced it, because animals are happy. They make you laugh and studies say they lower your blood pressure (and then combine that with the wine studies that make you healthier and we're in business!)
My cats had a field day when I got home sniffing my clothes and making a big dramatic deal out of my socks and the shoes the dog had slobbered all over. Sometimes I look at my cats and I'm so surprised that these little strange creatures live in my house and eat and breathe and sleep (and do not forget poop, oh there is poop!) and we all cohabitate and they're so fluffy and different from each other. Anyone who says animals don't have personalities has never truly loved an animal.
My folks are just nuts about their little dog, and his personality is definitely spoiled rotten. I love how he perks his ears up when you say his name, and he knows words! Like "outside" and "go" and "eat." Dogs are so different from cats but equally happy-making.
That's the cuteness right there.
Posted by laurie at 09:27 AM
January 02, 2009
Happy New Year 2009!
Los Angeles is cold and shrouded today, a big thick blanket of heavy fog is just sitting on downtown and the valleys and it feels toasty inside and wintery out. New years start out one way and end another... but this one especially, I think. This year is starting out with fog (metaphorically, too) but by the end of 2009 we could be anywhere, most likely we'll all be someplace better than we are right now. It's kind of exciting to know anything at all could happen. It's kind of exciting to think the stock market might go back above 9000 or that the side-ponytail could come back in style or that California might go bankrupt and the Valley could secede not just from Los Angeles but the whole state and think of all the jokes we can tell about that one!
The beginning of a new year is exciting anyway just because it's such a nice way to mentally dump the old stuff that's broken and not working, and take on some new stuff that feels hopeful and possible. Usually at the end of the year I make a whole list of resolutions, I love them, I love lists. I waited until the year officially began this time around, mostly because I've been traveling and busy and visiting with my family and working and so it took me a while to find a stretch of uninterrupted time to just sit and think and write about my hopes and ideas and wants for the next year.
People are so funny about New Year's Resolutions. Some folks think they're laughable, some folks get really stressed out at the mention. Me, I just love goals and lists and thinking of changes to make. Goals aren't really what they used to be -- I used to check things off on a list and wonder why I was still so unfulfilled, so unhappy. Now my goals are just a way to move me through life, from here to there, and when I get "there" I already have new goals, new things to do and see and think about. Nothing ever really gets finished and thank God! Because it seems to be working -- I mean I'm still alive, still coming back for more, still making lists!
So this is my Big List For 2009. It seems to be largely cliche-based, which is funny since I do love a finely tuned platitude. I think 2008 was the year I learned that common sayings are common for a reason -- eventually they come true, they come to mean something real.
Big List of New Year's Resolutions 2009
1) Listen to my instincts. They're always right.
This is something I already knew of course, but in 2008 I got a whole new complex addendum to the "listen to your instincts" cliche. When you are faced with some kind of challenge in real life and you have to weigh your instinctual desire against the conflicting desires of others, you get an opportunity to know yourself real quicklike. One way or another.
There was that whole magazine incident back over the summer, where I felt myself getting cornered into something I was not at all comfortable with. And in the end if I had just listened to myself at the very beginning and not tried to please others, not tried to be The Good Girl, or be so polite, or be so focused on what others want I probably could have made than incident last a few short minutes instead of drag out mercilessly over the span of weeks. Lesson learned.
And later in the year it happened again, a situation where I should have listened to my instincts but I tried to talk myself into something. Dumb, really. I met a guy and just a few months into our relationship something happened that set off my radar. And I should have just listened to myself, just ended it right then and there. But maybe I liked the idea of the relationship, and I made some excuses for him ("We just have different styles of communication, I guess...") or maybe I thought I was being too hard on him. "You're not a very forgiving person," he said to me, when I confronted him about the incident. And of course when people are trying to talk you into something, especially by trying to guilt you into a thing, that's a dead give-away you should proceed with extreme expediency to the nearest available exit.
But did I listen immediately, trust myself without fail? Oh Lord. Would we be having this conversation if I did? No, I fell for it, I wanted to be such a Good Girl like usual, be a nice person, give him the benefit of the doubt. And as usual, my gut instinct was right on target and it was only a few more weeks before I wanted out so completely that I couldn't believe I had ignored my own instincts again.
It's not that dramatic of a thing, really, just some goofy thing with some guy. But had I ended it the moment it felt wrong, I sure could have saved us both a lot of trouble! Just like the magazine interview, just like so many other things that are too numerous to list all in one day. My instinct told me what to do and I ignored myself because ... why? To be pleasing? To be nice? So people would like me? So I wouldn't feel bad for saying no, or saying good-bye or saying what I wanted? That is INSANE.
What a pain in the ass all of these incidents were -- but they taught me everything I need to know about listening to myself. I have taken that class and now I am done, I do not want to repeat Remedial Instinct Listening 101 -- again. And so it's my job to listen to myself and follow my instincts and stop doubting myself. Which brings me to 2009 Resolution #2...
2) Ditch the doubt.
Drew keeps reminding me that doubt is about as useless an emotion as you can come by, because it just robs you of happiness. But I am so naturally skilled at doubting and worrying that it has taken me a long while to realize that perhaps I could do without it. Perhaps I should perfect some other skills, like yodeling or eye-shadow application. They'd be about as useful for life skills.
Whatever you end up doing -- or deciding, or choosing or making -- gets you to where you are and it's always where you're meant to be, somehow or another. So why spend time and energy doubting every single step along the path?
Instead of doubting my choices and ideas and instincts and decisions, in 2009 I'm going to just lean into my life and see what happens. When I start doubting my choices I've decided I will deliberately switch the topic in my mind, immediately and with great fervor. I know myself -- I can think thoughts so obsessively that they start thinking me! So I picked a little mental fantasy that I just love, and I decided every time I start doubting myself and my decisions and my words and my blah blah blah on and on and on... I will switch deliberately to my little mental fantasyland picture and stay there until my doubt seeps out and is replaced by something else. Or I will read a book or watch some really engrossing movie or go for a run or anything at all to change the channel of doubt and worry I can get on. This is the year I switch that channel off for good. I'm just so tired of preemptively worrying about things that never get solved from worry and doubt anyway. It's time to move on.
3) Financially: keep on keeping on with good choices!
Last year I made the decision to drop out of consumerism. I have had many periods in my life where I was so broke I just couldn't shop or spend -- you know when you're too broke to even window shop? That was me after my divorce! So in the years that followed my divorce I worked so hard to get out of debt that once I finally got out I decided I wanted to stay debt-free. Forever.
Last year in May I made the crazypants decision to buy no more nonessential stuff for the rest of the year (you can read about that here and a little more about it right here). I think I did pretty well, overall (and I'll write more about this another day next week, because finances are a big topic for everyone this year.) My goal for 2009 is to keep up with my new spend-less-buy-less habits. I would much rather save my money and spend it on travel and seeing the world than buy magazines and dishes and clock radios and doodads. I am hugely fortunate to have my job and my savings and my money choices in the past few years have been good ones. I'm really proud of myself -- I'm not perfect, there have been new shoes from time to time -- but for the most part I have really managed to stick with my spending moratorium and it feels great, it feels sustainable, it feels like the right thing to do for me.
4) TRAVEL!!
All the travel analysts and news sites claim that 2009 is going to be a great year for travel deals and I can already see how right on these predictions are. I search for travel deals like some people search for dates on match.com, and I can tell you that prices are down almost by half from where they were just six or eight months ago. If you do have the means, this is a good year to get going and see some new things. I want to try something new this year, something adventurous and who knows where I'll end up. I love traveling by myself -- it's so much fun to just do any old thing YOU want to do and not spend all that time focused on someone else's wants or needs or preferences or schedule or stomach or tastebuds or anything at all. I know there are folks out there who cannot imagine traveling alone. I used to be one, and now I cannot imagine why I waited so long to do it!
5) Focus on well-being, even if everything else gets pushed aside.
Last year I got very, very sick. It started in 2007, really, and by the end of my book tour I was so worn down and worn out that I started suspecting something might be amiss. I think I knew even then it was something more than just being tired or over-worked. It took almost an entire year to figure out what the issue was, and by the end of July of this past year I was sicker than I've ever been, and exhausted, and depressed and scared half to death I was falling apart. In late August I finally found out what the HELL was going on with my body and since I've made some changes to my lifestyle and my diet I've seen the craziest turnaround ever. I had felt so bad for so long I didn't even know what feeling good meant, and so when I started getting healthy again it was like the daylight arrived in what used to be a very dark and depressing room.
I don't share a lot of private stuff online (well, my whole divorce, but I was crazy then and no one was reading), and anyway my health situation wasn't something I wanted to talk about with anyone, even in my real life, and I had no intention of gabbing about it on the innernet. But now I feel so much better that I just want to keep it fresh and first (or fifth) on my New Year's List. I want to continue getting healthy, I want to appreciate the body I've got instead of fighting with it, I want to take care of myself and never let my own health and care come last again. I want to stay healthy and get healthier and be strong and well.
And I've learned that when something feels wrong with your body it's more important to address that challenge than anything else on your list. The commute, the job, the commitments, the bills, the housecleaning ... all of that stuff is just details, they're just topics. Your health is your gift to yourself. Everything falls into line when you're well. Even the crap that doesn't fall into line is easier to deal with when you're well! Every day I wake up and feel grateful that the light came on, that I found my way to feeling good, that I made the changes I had to make and am still doing it. I like this vantage point a whole lot better than the sick and sad one. I plan on staying well and getting even better.
- - -
So that's my list. I feel really optimistic about 2009, and of course you know I have lots of to-do lists and goals and little things, too, scribbled in my notebooks and on post-its and in binders of lists. My headstone will be a list, ya'll know it's true.
But I decided not to make 2009 about details and topics and logistics. For the most part I just want to focus on hope and health and prosperity (which means something new to me now, it doesn't come from a mall) and I want to lean into my life with a little trust that I'll do the right thing without so much time wasted on doubt and worry. In 2008 I learned that even if 100 things are going wrong you can still find one thing going right. And when I would think about the 100 screwed up things I would feel bad, and worried and anxious. But when I just thought about the one thing that's actually working, I would feel better. So I stopped making lists of what was broken and started making lists of what was working. It didn't fix the 100 broken things, but they seem a lot less urgent, a lot less scary.
Just find one thing that's going right and run with it, that's what 2009 will be for me.
Happy New Year!!!
Posted by laurie at 02:31 PM
December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas and bon voyage to 2008 .. it's been a wacky, crazy, happy, hairy, upside-down, right-side-up-again year. I'm ready for a little break before a new year starts again.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from this past year, with my favorite things in life. My favorite people. My little fur-covered friends. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy End Of Year and here's to hopeful beginnings for a new one!
xo,
laurie
p.s. Love you all.
p.p.s. See you next year!
Posted by laurie at 01:26 PM
December 22, 2008
Rainy days and Mondays always get me chocolate
What ... are we turning into Florida or something? This is at least the fourth day of rain this year! Four days when the sun didn't shine and water came from above! Personally, I'm against it. I've lived here for something like 15 years (gasp) and I have officially become insulted by the rain and prefer that it stops, now.
Also, it has been cold! It was 36 degrees yesterday morning which is cold in any language. So for dinner I made a pot roast in the crock pot (very easy -- take a roast or a brisket or even tri-tip and coat it in a mixture of black pepper and crushed garlic -- I buy the stuff in the jar at the market -- and brown it in a pot, then put the browned beef into the crockpot with some onions sliced up. For liquid, add broth or some people do Lipton's onion soup, or beer. What I did last night was to deglaze the pan I browned the meat in with some beef broth and add that to the crockpot as the liquid. Deglazing sounds fancy, yes? You just add broth to the pan and scrape up the browned bits, easy!)
I like pot roast and I like the idea of adding in the veggies and having a one-pot meal, but I don't like all my vegetables to taste like pot roast. And after they've been cooking that long I just think they're mushy. So usually I make mashed potatoes as a side, but this time I tried something new, I roasted the vegetables separately in a pan in the oven and it turned out great!
I lined a cookie sheet with that Reynolds Release tin foil which is MIRACULOUS, love it, it's a non-stick foil and I use it for everything. Then I cut up a purple onion, peeled and cut three carrots, peeled and sliced up two parsnips, and added about four small yukon gold potatoes sliced up, too. I chopped some garlic, sprinkled the pan with salt and cracked pepper and added a little drizzle of olive oil. I also cut up a leek and added it in but you may want to skip the leek -- it got kind of crunchy (which I don't mind but then again I am not very picky.)
Then put the whole pan in the oven at 425F and bake/roast for as long as it takes to get everything the amount of done you like (I roasted mine for about an hour, and I stirred everything up a few times in between with a big spatula.) TASTY!!!! I don't know why I don't do this more often, I love roasted anything and this is a big healthy plate of yummy. Perfect for a cold blustery winter's day!
Posted by laurie at 10:01 AM
December 11, 2008
It's the end of the world as we know it.
Drew called me last night.
"Guess why I can't go to the gym?" he asked.
"Oh, fun!" I said. Because trust me when I tell you I will be calling in sick at the gym for a long time to come. I love this game.
"Ok, so are you calling in drunk?"
"Not this time," he said. "They won't fall for that one again."
Pause.
"Sadly."
Then we laughed and chitchatted and temporarily forgot why he was calling me. Later I said, "So what is your reason for not going to the gym?" Because Drew is not allergic to the gym like I am.
"OH," he said. "GUESS WHAT!"
"What?" all over again. Fun!
(By the way can you see how we're both so easily amused. It's like Waiting For Godot in reverse. We're even worse in person.)
"It's snowing!" he said. "HERE! In HOUSTON!"
"Oh my God, it's the end of the world! Do you have wine?"
"Yes! Thank Goodness!" he said. "We have a Hurricane Kit and now it is SNOWING! In HOUSTON!"
"Have you taken pictures? Video? Is it really snow?" I asked. Because ya'll, I was born in Texas. You cannot fool me. Houston is where people go to sweat and then die. Never wear polyester blends south of Kerrville.
"I AM OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW." Then: "HOLY CRAP IT IS REALLY COLD OUT HERE."
"You know," I said, because I am a good friend, "you see, in mathematics and barometrics and also logical blahblahnese, if it's snowing it's an indication of coldness. Generally speaking."
"It's all Al's fault," said Drew. Also because he is a good friend.
"No," I said. "Al Gore is perfect, have you seen him? He's lost weight. Mmmhmmm. He's not calling in sick to the gym! So THIS SNOW my friend is a bonafide Christmas miracle!"
"You're right," he said. "I don't have to go to the gym, I can drink wine and have a fire in the fireplace without turning on the air conditioning! Because it is a Christmas Miracle! Two weeks early!"
So ya'll it is snowing in Houston. What's next? Carbs come back in style? People in Los Angeles stop wearing pajamas to the market? Cats become aerodynamically sound and fly from place to place? If it can snow in Houston anything is possible. Well, anything is possible except for me going to the gym. I called in a snow day long ago, never to return. Because Drew is SO right, it's much easier than calling in drunk! Call in snowing! It is a Christmas Miracle.
Posted by laurie at 09:01 AM
December 10, 2008
The holidays are in the air and in the mind. And in the hair.
Yesterday at Moskatels I saw a crazy upside-down Christmas tree suspended from the ceiling:
(Click image for a gigantic picture.)
I've always wanted to do an upside-down tree, this one was sparkly and wacky and I really liked it. I have yet to put up my tree and Sobakowa is wondering where the greenery and sparkle is in her honor:
Where is my tree, human?
Doesn't she look ready to launch an invasion, plan a war, create an empire? That cat has a secret life I can only imagine.
And yesterday on the bus I was knitting and I was half-asleep, my sleep deprivation is reaching near-2005 levels at this point, which is insanity, but anyway I looked up in my fugue state and noticed a wisp of yarn fiber from my scarf-in-progress had become airborne and attached itself to the head of the person riding in the seat in front of me.
What a moral dilemma! What to do? I could either remove it, which would involve me touching a stranger's HEAD and also alerting the person I had shed upon them. Which is weird, even by Los Angeles standards. Or I could do nothing and hope for a wind storm.
I won't tell you my decision, but I will tell you we had Santa Anas yesterday, and I trust Mother Nature on these issues....
Only 14 days left until Christmas. Can we call a time-out?
Posted by laurie at 10:22 AM
December 08, 2008
Arms and legs and spaces in between
My leg is much better. I'm practically a healing machine, I am certain of it. I have a lot of theories about why my body betrayed me and I have finally decided it's because I haven't been drinking enough, or at all. Sometime back in September I stopped drinking wine (or anything) because I was entering into one of my famously freakish health nut phases where I was purifying with smoothies and flax oil and decaf greet tea and kale. Seriously, one day someone at work asked me if I had eaten anything without kale in a month and the answer was, um, sadly ... no.
So I believe this is my body's way of asking for wine, STAT.
In arm news, I discovered these super cutie cute armwarmers at Target for $10:
There are two reasons why I bought these. One, I loved them. And two, I am certain I can deconstruct the pattern and make a pattern of my own based off these. I know there are probably 176,000 armwarmer patterns on the internet but ya'll know how I can be. I want to make something of my own with trial and error and possible need for felting. Also the upside is that once I figure it out, I can put it here for free to warm all the arms of the world!
It has a thumb gusset, too:
And since my Great Mitten Experiment I am all about the thumb gusset. I think I'll start armwarming away as soon as I finish my current project, and also all other projects, and so one day in 2013 I'll post a pattern.
Just a few days ago my friend Corey and I were talking about our knitting and she and I have both realized we're at an age in life and a level of both maturity and insanity where we might, might, be ready to take on a cardigan. Maybe.
One day. Right after I drink some more wine and pretend I'm not already seven months behind on real life.
Posted by laurie at 11:49 AM
December 04, 2008
In which I am incredibly sappy. And later you may go into sugar shock over it all.
Last night traffic was horrendous and I exited the freeway and stopped off Woodman Avenue to get gas ($1.99 a gallon! Incredible!) and then I took back streets all the way across the Valley. I love this valley, I know it like the back of my hand. It's the longest I have ever lived in one geographical area. Before moving to Los Angeles the longest I ever stayed in one city was the four years I spent in college in Tennessee. Now I have been here more than a decade and I love that easy familiarity with all the backroads and shortcuts. You need them here, where traffic is sometimes so slow it's moving backwards in time.
As I drove through different neighborhoods I saw blue lights, menorahs, christmas lights strung in the formation of the Mexican flag, a house with nothing but white sparkly icicle lights (my favorite). I saw a man and his kids standing around a ladder with an inflatable reindeer. I think someone was tangled in something but they were soldiering onward, no reindeer left behind! I don't know why seeing all the Christmas stuff in stores and hearing Christmas songs makes me so pensive and maudlin and puddly. It's like this every year! I am a dork. You would think I'd become desensitized to it but alas. Dorkdom perseveres.
Christmas is such a strange time of the year. It makes you grateful for what you have and sometimes, for some people, it can be lonely. Or it can be stressful, I suppose, if you have a huge family and so many obligations and of course there is always traffic. This year I have planned well for the holidays -- I'm a planner, sometimes -- and I feel happy about my Christmas season. But it's always there anyway, this undercurrent. When you hear "Chesnuts roasting on an open fire..." and you get that little pang of blue.
Or is it just me?
I think it's so much easier to fall in love when you're young. When you're still young and fresh you haven't been washed over with complicated (and expensive) despair, you haven't failed so much. You still feel optimistic and hopeful and still believe in finding the right person, and you believe in happily ever afters. And Christmas is romantic and hopeful and only stressful because will you buy him a gift that says too much? Are you going overboard, are you too excited? You want to hold back and at the same time you want to rush forward.
When you're very young you still look forward to finding that right fit of a person who will Jerry Maguire you -- maybe we're an entire planet that suffers from Jerry Maguirism, more commonly known as "You Complete Me!" Syndrome. And when you're young you plan on getting married and buying a riding lawnmower or an SUV or a dining room set or whatever it is that symbolizes grown-upedness. And of course later you're older, you already have a dining room table, and you have to tell him your story and he tells you his and each person carries around a little shell, a little roadmap of where they have been.
I love listening to my parents talk to each other because they have been together for so long, through so many ups and downs that they're just so comfortable with each other and funny, and now of course they have this dog which is Their New Favorite Child. My dad is great in a million ways but mostly because he showed me by living example what great men are like and how men should treat women.
A few weeks ago a friend asked me to describe my Mr. Right and I couldn't do it. I got completely flustered. Of course like a lot of girls I made a list once a long time ago, I think it was a pretty specific list but I can only remember one thing on that stupid catalog of traits for Mr. Perfect: "Doesn't watch a lot of porn." (Clearly I made that list during Post-Divorce Year One: Dating In Freakangeles.) (This is a very strange city, my friends.) But I didn't say that one detail in the conversation, because really, isn't that sort of portentous that the single thing I can remember on the so-called List of Traits Mr. Perfect Will Have involves not being a porn addict? Even I know when to keep my mouth shut sometimes.
But I knew I had to come up with something to say about So Called Mr. Right because my friend was still waiting for my reply. Finally I just said the only thing that's true -- I want this alleged Mr. Right character to be madly in love with me and I will be madly in love with him. That kind of sums it up. (Oh, and it would be nice if he weren't a porn addict. JUST SAYING.)
Although I can't help but wonder ... does anyone fall madly in love after age 17? Or maybe 19? I can't believe this is me talking, the me who grew up in love with love, the one who used to think it was the only thing to wake up for each day. Apparently I am a pathological optimist in all areas of life except one... love. I'm not sure anymore. Maybe I'm jaded or maybe I've been so busy with my life and building my little dreams word by word that I don't think about the future except in terms of deadlines and vacations and when will I ever be able to afford a Jeep with air conditioning? There are so many great things about being independent and self-reliant that it's seductive.
It's easy to be alone once you know how, once you know you can have company any time you please (this is after all a wide and varied city full of people) but somewhere I stopped thinking about Love. Maybe I just gave it up to the Universe, maybe I just decided it was best to spend so much time focusing on my own improvement and health that the rest would somehow occur naturally. I honestly don't know. Or maybe at a certain age Love means something different, maybe Love isn't all-consuming and rapturous, maybe Love is someone who wakes up crazy early to call you one day because they know you'll be too busy to talk for the next 87 hours and they just want to say hello.
My parents aren't perfect, they get irritated with each other and they sigh with great abandon at each other sometimes, we're all very dramatic in my family with our facial expressions and existential sighs. But then one afternoon over the telephone, my mom tells me how my dad was concerned that the dog was cold so he let the dog sleep under the blanket. And it was just the way she said it, that little softness in her tone, where she's so fond of this man and you know that's real Love. Proof to me that the impossible never happens. It's out there, it just may look very different from You Complete Me.
Posted by laurie at 07:03 AM
December 03, 2008
London calling!
This was the airport over Thanksgiving weekend:
That's the International terminal of LAX with nobody and I mean NOBODY in line, no one jostling through baggage screening, no one at all. I had to take a picture because HOLY RECESSION BATMAN!
Then I took a picture of my baggage because I am most amazed at myself for being able to actually go anywhere for more than six hours without needing a sherpa. Usually I pack a huge suitcase and need to pay for a camel and a guide. That's my teensy carryon, my coat, and my shoulder bag with my little grey pillow inside its little grey case. I like those neck pillow thingies, I know inflatable ones are easier to carry but I like my smooshy one.
So I conquered a tiny piece of Europe in a wee few days with my magical carry-on. And I used most of the luggage space for my handknit wool scarf that I have never once worn because newsflash -- I live in Los Angeles -- but I was willing to forgo three extra cute tops for one hulking scarf of my own making. More on that later.
In my carryon shoulder bag I usually pack a book, my notebook for scribbling, ipod and headphones, camera, and a smaller traveling purse tucked inside the middle part that holds all my normal purse stuff and money and passport. In another compartment I have my stupid 3-ounce liquids in the stupid magic ziploc of defense, and I leave some room in the bag so later I can buy some bottled water and I usually bring at least one little snack, this time it was an energy bar. You've already seen the pillow bag which in addition to my mini-pillow also holds an eyeshade, earplugs and little ziploc with these soft slippers that fold up very small. I found them at Target for $2 on clearance and I always taken them on the plane so I don't have to sully my socks. When I get home I can just throw them in the wash. I hate walking into the airplane bathroom in my socks. EEEEWWWW.
I am not a low-maintenance gal, I suspect.
But truly I love airplanes, which makes me probably certifiably insane. I love them. I love traveling, I love going to the airport. I've always been this way and maybe it's because I grew up in a town so small we were outnumbered by chickens and I never thought I would end up being a girl who has seen anything and so every time I get on an airplane I still feel like it's a little magic. My parents think I am silly and remind me they took me to California and Mexico when I was a teenager and that I am not from a barn but you know, I guess I always felt smalltown. Truth is I am smalltown, even in Los Angeles, because it's just a part of me. Maybe that's why traveling never gets old.
And so I arrived at Heathrow and went to use the facilities which is why my very first official picture in London was this:
Pictures in airport bathrooms. God I am classy. Also, in America we call these "mints" but in British they say "chewable toothbrush" apparently.
Here is my hotel room:
Small but cute and clean, and I got a GREAT deal by using this website, LateRooms.com. I had never used the service before but now I can recommend it, at least for me it worked out perfectly.
This is the loo but it looks just like a bathroom to me....
Note to self. Turtleneck not flattering. But warm!
It was VERY COLD in this London place, which I thought I would like what with my already perfectly insulated body but even with a T-shirt, turtleneck sweater, gloves, coat and fabooscarf it was COLD! I was so happy to wear my enormous scarf that I didn't even care my nose was freezing off my face:
Me on the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's in the background. Please ignore that I have not had a haircut or highlights in ten years. I blame it on traffic. Or something.
Saw the Globe as Shakespeare intended it... what light by yonder scaffolding breaks...
Had breakfast at Leon's where I got the most delicious yogurt I have ever eaten and it was covered in warm blackberry compote:
I wanted to bathe in it. I resisted.
Then I went to the very highlight for me, as I am an Art Geek Extraordinaire:
They had an amazing Rothko exhibit:
By the way, most of the museums in London are free and you just pay for entrance to the special exhibitions. I support that philosophy! Also you aren't really supposed to take pictures even without flash (which I suspected) but I had it firmly confirmed to me by a woman who sounded a lot like Scary Spice.
After the museum, I found an old church whose name I have already forgotten because I was jetlagged:
Then I walked around some more where I took pictures of only important things:
And finished up my trip with an awesome steak with garlic butter sauce and a bowl of fries, maybe my favorite meal combination. I had this meal at the Ebury Street Wine Bar & Restaurant which I did not make reservations at but they let me sit at the bar and chitchat with the bartender and the food was outstanding.
It was all in all a great, short, perfect trip. This is the third trip I have taken overseas by myself -- you know all about Rome which I blathered on incessantly for days and days and of course my whole travel obsession. That was the first trip alone and it was great. In April I went to France which I kind of kept all to myself, because some things in life are just for you, you know? And that trip was good and sometimes strange but I'm glad I did it. So far, this trip to London was by far both the shortest and the best solo traveling I have done.
It's been so long that I have traveled to any place that speaks my own language that I forgot how much easier it makes everything. I always work on my language skills a little before I travel someplace and I think I can order a beer now in about six languages, but there is a huge cushion of ease when you can turn to someone at the Underground station and ask, "Is this an off-peak day or a peak day?" and it's so nice to be able to chat with the waiter or ask anyone nearby for directions. It's less lonely, too, because you do have social interaction and not just "please" and "thank you" conversations. So if someone from here were to ask me where they should go on their first trip alone abroad, I might still say Paris (because it is so unbelievably beautiful) but depending on your level of comfort with traveling and being alone, a common language makes everything seem easier somehow. When you're alone and far from home it could make a difference. It all depends on the traveler, I think. I tend to never pick the easy solution but this time it really made a very short trip so much smoother.
I loved London, it was great and cold and I got to wear my scarf and drink wine and eat chips, which are not chips at all but look just like french fries. And now I have a fond reminder of my trip, which is the bruise on my leg which kind of resembles a Rothko actually. (I don't have to get amputated by the way -- I'm fine, as I suspected.) My only regret is that I didn't stay long enough to develop a fake British accent like Madonna.
Oh well, there's always next time!
Posted by laurie at 11:18 AM
December 02, 2008
Whoops! It's December already!
Hello, December! December, the month I wanted to spend writing each and every day and now it's only five hours into the second day of the month and already I have failed. AWESOME!! What shoes accompany failure, you think?
Yesterday I meant to write a very long chatty travelogue of my trip to London -- I spent Thanksgiving weekend over the pond with all those cute accents -- but today I am going in for some kind of special X-ray on my leg which is purple from pulling some muscle from some other thing and really, today it's so much more fun to tell you how I got this injury which will explain perhaps why I am not, nor will I ever be, a great athlete. Or even a bad one.
I injured myself by walking across the street.
Yes, folks! That is how I felt a pop -- just like the day I was running for the bus a week or two ago -- only this time I saw stars and wondered if I had somehow been shot while walking to the Victoria tube station. It was so strange. I was not kung-fu fighting, I wasn't doing pirate swaggers after three liters of wine, I wasn't even doing my ridiculously dorky laurieperydance which is a weird combo of the white-girl cabbage patch and the samba roll. No, it was just my fine talent for WALKING that caused a great bodily injury. Anyway I tried to ignore it and walk it off because vacation! Walk it off, soldier, we have art to see and french fries to eat! And then Sunday night when I got home from my 1,000 hour plane ride I took off my knee socks and noticed one leg looked as if it were still wearing a black and purple argyle sock. Boy that is so sexy!
So yesterday instead of writing I waited at my Doctor's office for fourteen hours while people around me coughed -- I hate the doctor's office, there are sick people everywhere! And tried to covertly clean the armchair I was sitting in with anti-bacterial wet wipes but people stared because they don't know the magic which is the travel-size antibacterial wet wipe, hence why they are COUGHING. But I didn't care that they caught me in mid-OCD form because they were sick! Germy! And I am perfectly well aside from having a bruise roughly the size of Rhode Island on my rapidly enlarging calf area.
Now today I get to have an ultrasound done because apparently I did not know how babies were made and my leg, as it turns out, is three months pregnant. Lord, all I can say is it is one ugly and painful baby. No really though, in all seriousness people, there is a greater reason for me writing about my leg. I need a much better story about my injury! One cannot hobble around with an elephantine purple left leg and explain it with a suave, "Oh, you know, I just hurt it when I was WALKING."
I am thinking that for the folks at work who are very business professional and always look so perfect in their pantyhose (while mine are riding down halfway between my knees and my crotch -- another story for another time perhaps) I will come up with a really good leg injury explanation story that involves bondage. No?
For random strangers maybe I'll say I was climbing over the gate to George Clooney's house and apparently the dogs and security team discourage it but isn't it funny how my bruise is kind of shaped like George Cloooney? Doesn't it look just like him? He loves me you know. I heard it from that time Elvis spoke to me.
For my friends, especially the ones who read this, let's pretend you don't already know about my natural grace and agility and let's assume I was injured during my rigorous training for the Ironman triathlon... again....
Tomorrow though, after they do all this great medical imaging and x-raying and ultrasounding and eventually tell me what I already know which is "Take two motrin and don't go ballroom dancing for a while," I plan to share with you my pictures of London including the best steak EVER and wax on and on about how the very best part of saving for a rainy day is having one in another city where everyone sounds so good with their swanky yummy accents. Travel is my favorite thing on earth.
But for now I'm going to drink coffee and come up with a way to work in a shark bite story explaining my limp. I'm certain it was very dangerous and exciting! he was a toothless shark, very rare in the English Channel, but he gummed my leg....
Posted by laurie at 05:30 AM
November 26, 2008
I love the smell of turkey in the morning...
The amount of busy-ness in my life is inversely proportional to the amount of writing I have been doing here online, which is a fancypants way of saying YA'LL I MIGHT NEED TO MOVE TO AN ASHRAM SOON.
DO THEY TAKE CATS? AND SHOES?
Anyway all the sudden it is up and Thanksgiving Eve! Which is very exciting because I love thinking about all the things I am thankful for and grateful for and in love with, such as:
1) Wine
2) The miraculous support of underwire
3) Deodorant
Oh you know I just being silly. Except deodorant -- so necessary. I am also in love with my family and my friends and my cats and my Jeep and the fact that I can joke finally without breaking into sobbing tears that my 401(k) is now a 101(k). I am also thankful for jokes because I'd sure be boring without them.
Speaking of people I love -- I got to see two of my beloved friends this weekend:
It's Kim and Astrologer Phyllis!
This picture was taken after I said, "Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim please tear your eyes away from your beloved iPhone, yes I know the iPhone is sexay, but please look up and smile..."
Heh heh. Kim loves her iPhone.
We met up with Kim's friend Sharon and we had a good time with the fine Reverend Dr. Michael doing a little singing and getting our Sunday on down at Agape. How much do I love Los Angeles, where a nice Southern Catholic gal, an Astrologer and two Jewish ladies can meet up for spiritual goodness and star-sightings at an L.A. church hotspot? Really now.
I love the singing part the best, nothing says Sunday to me like some good old-fashioned SANGIN'. You southerners know what I mean. When I was younger I used to attend this church down in Mississippi that could have doubled for a hotspot if it hadn't been Sunday morning. Also there was no bar. But there was a full brass band and a piano player that was ON FIRE and everyone dressed to the nines and they would stand when the spirit moved them and the energy and love in that little tiny place in the Delta stayed with me my whole life. I was the only crazyass white girl in attendance and no one ever made fun of me for glowing in the dark. Or for the fact that ya'll, I cannot carry a tune in a bucket. I am the most off-key individual you have ever met but I do it with great vigor and enthusiasm. Anyway, I'm not much for dogma and rules and of course just last week I tried to give an officer of the law a social disease WITH MY MIND, so I am no good through and through but Lord I do love some SANGIN' on a Sunday.
Here we are standing in line before services last weekend (people, I do not even stand in line for a good club!) and notice how I look like I am wrapped in a shroud:
It was cold. What can I say? Also, am I pale? Have I mentioned I was so sick earlier this month that me and "death on a cracker" were synonymous? Note to self: lipstick. EVERYWHERE.
Later we went for coffee and I got this great picture of Phyllis getting into her car, I love that bumpersticker:
That's how I feel too. Bless all of us! Even the turkeys, even the traffic cops, even the little kitty cats who just last night played hockey on my torso. I know this has been a trying time for so many people (see: 401K downgraded to 101K) but it's the blessings we don't buy that carry us over, like good friends and dirty jokes and the love you have inside you, even if sometimes it comes out off-key and you forget the words. I'm being mushy. Must be the weather.
Happy Thanksgiving Eve!
Posted by laurie at 09:58 AM
November 14, 2008
Still breathing, still not smelling anything
Well, I'm not dead, just croaky. I haven't been this sick in a long time. Yesterday I thought the teabags were undulating, so apparently it's affecting my vision as well.
I do have that sexy throaty voice thing going, where you think you sound like Kim Carnes singing "Bette Davis Eyes" but really you kind of sound like an eighty-nine-year-old male smoker. Tomato, tomahto.
I managed to soldier through most of the workweek but today I'm at home, padding around in my pajamas and making tea and trying to decide if 9 a.m. is too soon to go back to bed.
But I wanted to post this picture I took yesterday at the bus stop, I was standing there wondering if anyone could smell the Vicks Vap-o-Pub wafting off from my direction when I looked up and saw the most perfect little bird's nest:
Isn't that something? How do birds manage to create something so perfect and beautiful and round without the use of opposable thumbs? And it looks so fragile there, like a strong wind could blow it away. Today we have these gusty crazy typhphoon-level winds so I hope the bird's nest is OK. It made me want to put up signs warning people to be gentle near the tree. Usually that's a sure indicator that I'm sick... when I start tearing up and getting misty and maudlin over things like bird's nests and Kodak commercials and Bob's little meow.
Anyway, I plan to spend my weekend home with tea and cats and my favorite movies, do you think the cats want to watch "Gone With The Wind" for the five millionth time? We are gone with the wind, all of here in Los Angeles. We talk a big game about how we have no weather but while we don't get tornadoes and floods and ice storms we do get this crazyass wind that blows hot and dry and makes everthing crackle with static electricity.
Time to go back to bed. Have a good weekend! (She said, in a scratchy, deep voice..)
Posted by laurie at 07:53 AM
November 10, 2008
Shlumpy top tem list
Oh, I haven't made a list in a while. Mondays are perfect for lists, the first day of a new week which I am so far behind on life that it's still October in my mental calendar. I tried to say Top Ten List but it came out sounding like I was pinched by gnomes. I am having challenges.
1) Significant Reason My Nose Is Red
I have a hateful and insidious cold that started creeping up on me late Friday afternoon so that I could spend the entire weekend sniffling and lazy and trying to hide under the covers. I am nasal. My friend Corey at work is also sick so we are together tag-team-infecting the entire office slowly and with great sneezy precision.
2) Cats Have Very Small Brains
I like to think the cats are smart, perhaps even superior to mere mortals, well... except Bob. Anyway. My felines have a veritable buffet of kitty food in the kitchen: Kibble #1 "The Healthy Kibble" and Kibble #2 "The slightly less holistically balanced food, which they actually eat." And I give them a can of wet food to share in the morning. But they LOVE Greenies. They love Greenies so much that now anytime I open any bag at all in the kitchen they come running at the very sound of rustling and whine like a pack of very small, daft dogs.
I keep the dry kibble in little plastic cereal-pouring Tupperware containers because I have mad love for compact organizational plastic. Really, it's a sickness, my love of organizational doodads. But yesterday as I was crinkling the cat food bag to add fresh cat food to the plastic seal-tight container, of course the feline wolfpack came running in and stared at me with great existential angst.
And we were out of Greenies.
So -- just on the OFF off chance they might be appeased with a substitute -- I put some of the dry cat food that they already have in their bowl on a new plate like it was a pile of Greenies. But this time I poured it right from the crinkly cat food bag.
And they ate it with great fervor and happiness! So now I don't even have to give them Greenies, I just have to give them their own dry cat food -- but pour it out of the BAG, not from the Tupperware and put it on a plate and not in their bowl. Which for the record already contains the same exact food.
Cats. Go figure.
3. I fear this Top Ten List will end at three. Perhaps that is what Top Tem means?
A magical number, yes? So even though I was paltry and sneezy I did not let that change my Saturday shopping, Target and Whole Foods (where let us not forget I was remiss in buying Greenies.) Target has all the Christmas stuff out, great big aisles of sparkly lights and shiny ornaments and usually this is the time of year when I complain and say I am not ready for Christmas yet and could the holidays please call a therapist?
But this year I felt warm puddles of happiness for bright sparkly lights and happy snowflake ornaments made out of frosted glass.
Surely this must be a sign that all those sad years of wondering how I can avoid Christmas Carols and jingle-bell encrusted cheermongers are behind me. Maybe? I'm not saying that I just love the pathologically cheerful -- especially when I am in traffic or carrying around Rudolph's red nose right on my very face, such as at this moment! -- but I don't expect to see myself coiled up in lonesome under the tree while drinking Jack Daniels from a coffee cup again this year.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
And the strangest thing of all is how you can feel vaguely nostalgic for something that wasn't even that good to begin with. I'm glad Christmas comes every year whether you like it or not. It gives you the chance to decorate new all over again, and make anything you want out of it.
Posted by laurie at 08:46 AM
November 07, 2008
Friday: I am either the Walrus or the Webmaster. Not sure.
Thank you for all the nice people who gently emailed me to remind me, OH YEAH! I have a sweepstakes open to win Drew's book!
Here is a very funny story for you. I spent a little time last weekend updating my anti-virus software and settings on my laptop, which is the same computer that has FTP access to get into my directories and make changes to things such as say... closing the sweepstakes.
And on Sunday when I went into my little laptop to close the sweepstakes, I noticed, OH NO. I can no longer FTP! All of this is very exciting to you, I am sure. Because I am using fancy words such as "FTP" and also at home I was using very many colorful and fancy cuss words. But because I am a genius, I did not connect the dots between the updated superdooper anti-everyone settings on my laptop and the FTP problem all week long! I just assumed my laptop was mad at me and trying to get a one-way pass to the dump. I have run diagnostics, uninstalled and re-installed FTP, used a different FTP client, all to no avail. Then one of the tech guys at work said, "Have you checked your firewall settings?" And I said, "Do I have a firewall?"
And then after some re-adjusting of the alleged firewall I got my access back! Which is awesome because I totally FIXED the problem! Nevermind that I also totally CREATED the problem. The greater achievement is that I could solve a problem created by such a clever technical wizard. Clearly.
Also, next laptop I am so getting a mac.
Congratulations to my three winners: Denise in Irvine, Karen from Virginia and Melissa from lovely Mississippi!
Have a great weekend everyone. Let me know if you need me to come fix ya'lls computers, OK?
Posted by laurie at 11:03 AM
November 01, 2008
Heavy stuff, man
Recently something really confusing happened.
It started out just fine. I got contacted by a reporter from a major women's magazine who told me she was doing a story about women (plural) who had given up dieting for their New Year's Resolutions. She'd read some of what I've written in the past on this and wanted to ask a few questions for her story, and that was fine with me. I've already covered most of that in public anyway (and you can read those columns here and here and here.) Interview requests like that are pretty commonplace -- a reporter is doing a story and sees something I wrote about the subject, they email me, I answer a few questions and they give brief mention to the book in the article. The reporter gets a story deadline met with good quotes and I get a book blurb. Win-win.
This particular reporter emailed me some questions, I answered and we were done. But then it all started to change. The reporter had more questions -- and her editor now wanted the story to focus just on me, and they wanted a photo shoot and all of this and suddenly the story was no longer about many women who decided to give up dieting as a New Year's Resolution, suddenly now it was about me and "body confidence" and ... I'm just not there yet. I'm still figuring this all out as I go! I'm not anybody's role model for body confidence. The story I originally agreed to help with turned into something else altogether. Suddenly it was all about my weight and the way I look and I became very uncomfortable with that kind of spotlight.
The reason I gave up on dieting is because it made me crazy. I was in a relationship with food that wasn't working, it was totally screwed up, and I was unhealthy and exhausted and I just could not go on one more diet. I knew I needed to make some serious changes in my lifestyle but I could not diet again. All I knew for sure was that I was recently divorced, alone, overweight, unhealthy and miserable and I made a life-shifting decision to get a handle on my insanity. I wanted to be healthy and strong for ME. I wanted to feel good. I'd been feeling bad for so long I didn't even remember what feeling good was like!
That's when I decided I would never diet again. Ever. Even if I had to stay heavy my whole life I was going to deal with it and figure out how to treat myself healthfully and with the same care I would give to a loved one no matter what I weighed. I'd spent most of my life waiting to be happy until I reached X size or X weight .... that had to stop. I've written about all that stuff before, none of that has changed.
It takes time to undo a lifetime of habits. It takes time to develop trust in yourself. I didn't even know what to eat those first few months -- I had been on a diet so long that I didn't even know what healthy food was! I only knew food as the enemy -- whatever it was, I shouldn't be eating it. In a twisted way, dieting makes you think food is bad and if you can just stop eating you'll be in top form. At that time I knew all about points and calories and carbs, but I had no idea what nutrients my body needed. I had never paid attention to how food made my body feel, only to the numbers on the scale (or, conversely, when I fell off-plan as I always did, I would carefully avoid the scale.) To un-do a lifetime of diet mentality I had to learn new stuff and learn to stop my crazy either-or dieting mindset -- you're either "good" or "bad" but never in-between! On-plan or failing miserable! Being healthy or falling off the wagon!
But there is no wagon. It all goes into the same body, this "good" and "bad" food. It's just food, it isn't the enemy. God it's taken me forever to work all this out. It's hard. If you have never struggled with your weight I might as well be talking to you about particle physics right now. But if you've ever been there, well, you know. You might even understand the dread and panic I felt at having a large national magazine turn a big spotlight on my body size.
I was happy to talk to a reporter about my no-dieting decision in the context of health and sanity and breaking out of the diet-binge cycle. However I was not at all prepared to be held up as some model of undieting, a body-confident woman! I'm not that woman. It felt like a lie. There were other things, too. I am not going to use my body to sell anything, but especially not my book. And above all of that, I don't want people scrutinizing my body's shape and size to decide if I have succeeded or failed in their opinion. The whole point of stepping outside my diet mentality was to stop evaluating my self worth based on the size of my ass.
Because I have finally learned this ONE thing for sure -- my self worth has nothing at all to do with the size of my ass! And neither does yours! A photo focuses only on the exterior and not on the inside stuff. Anyone can lose weight, believe me, but figuring out what your messy stuff is, figuring out how to live and breathe all on your own terms and trust that you will stop eating if you don't have a diet plan -- that's much harder than counting calories. It's risky. There might be REALLY MESSY STUFF inside you. You might not be a size six, ever. You might not trust yourself at first. But it was worth it to me to get messy and figure it out because thirty years of dieting did not fix my problems and something had to change.
I knew people would see my picture and think I failed, yet again, because I am not super skinny. And yet I am healthier and saner right now than I have ever been in my life. I eat really nutritious food, I'm learning to cook, I exercise, I quit smoking. I drink in moderation, I pack my own lunch, I take vitamins. These things sound so small but for me they are HUGE HUGE accomplishments! I don't care what other people think of my little successes, and I don't want diet tips from other people or scrutiny about my body. I didn't make these changes for other people, I did it for ME because I am worth living healthy. And my definition of healthy is not the same as someone else's. Weight and size and food are personal subjects and each person gets to decide what works best for them. But I'm not naive, I know what happens when it all gets reduced to a single snapshot. That kind of scrutiny is not healthy for me, not right now. Not ever.
So anyway, I agonized over that article for weeks and when there wasn't any more time to wait, I had to make a decision and then I just knew. I knew where the boundary was: I was happy to answer the reporter's final questions but I would not be sitting for a full-body photo shoot for anyone. Any story that requires a "ful-length image of the body" of the author is not the story for me. That is not who I am.
As soon as I said it out loud I felt enormous relief wash over me. Relief was followed rather quickly by that old familiar feeling of being a bad person letting everyone down -- letting down the nice reporter, the nice magazine people just trying to do their jobs, my rockstar publicist who had to run interference for me in the end, the five million (!!) possible readers I would miss out on to promote my book. But it was the right thing for me to do. Relief, but what a mess.
And my publicist Kim really was a rockstar. She understood before I even explained it. I knew it was risky to give up the opportunity to be featured in that magazine but it felt wrong, it felt too exposed, it felt like something I just wasn't ready to do. I couldn't let myself be reduced down to a single picture, not when it's all so private and personal and sensitive for me. My weight is not a photo op -- it's a lifetime of struggle. Kim explained it to the reporter, told her I was happy to participate in the interview but not ready to be a feature model, sorry, thank you, so sorry.
The magazine canceled the whole story.
All of this stuff, it's still new to me. I'm just a normal person living a normal flawed deeply weird and goofy life. I'm not used to having a spotlight shine anywhere near me, so I don't always know where it's OK to draw the lines. I've learned some of it through trial-and-error here on this website, and I have big areas of my life that are off-limits for content (I'll be the first to caution you that if your personal life becomes your content then you will eventually have no personal life.) It's important to protect your own privacy because we all need that space, we all need to keep parts of ourselves private and safe. And it really is OK to answer all a reporter's questions up and until the line of questioning becomes uncomfortable to you. It's OK to say no, even if it is awkward. Even if you feel a little bad for having to say no (of course it feels bad when you first start to say no -- it takes a long time to un-do all that smile and act nice training we get as young girls.)
While it's flattering and fun to have someone want to do interviews, it's also clear to me now that there is a fine line between promoting your work and selling out. But where is that line? How can you know until you brush up against it? I wanted those five million magazine readers to see the cover of my book! But this whole approach didn't feel right. Pick me apart for my writing, my comma splices, my crappy typing, my thinking, my corny self-helpy lovin' cat-hair-covered personality, but don't scrutinize my body and sum me up with a picture. I am not that girl.
This is all new, uncharted territory. I'm so grateful for the opportunities. And I'm aware that the missteps are bigger now, the chances riskier. The trickiest thing about all this is knowing there are people -- maybe even people on your own team -- who think you're crazy to pass up any kind of opportunity. But they aren't the girl in the picture. They aren't the ones who have to pass the check-out lane in the supermarket with their body on display. And how could I really live my own life if I were still saying yes when I want to say no?
So in conclusion: it was awkward, I did not handle it perfectly, I had mixed feelings, but I made a decision I felt was right for me and the world kept spinning on its axis. No one came to my house to repossess my cute shoes, no one called me to tell me I was a bad person, the cats still like me, my friends still talk to me, I still love writing and will do it forever even if no one ever buys another copy of my book. The magazine story got canceled, the world kept breathing, and I'm still here and I'm learning as I go.
It's OK, I'll take it.
Posted by laurie at 09:25 AM
October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween! Happy Clouds! Happy (free) crochet books!
Finally we have weather:
Look, it's a cloud!
It's very exciting. Clouds! Plus the temperature has dropped to at least 76 degrees and everyone is saying how fall-like and crisp and autumny it is. We are crazy. I love this city.
So guess what I have! Three copies of Drew's awesome new book, The Crochet Dude's Designs for Guys: 30 Projects Men Will Love
You can visit him in person TOMORROW and get a copy of his book at the awesome yarn shop Yarntopia in Katy, Texas. Or you can click right here and put your name in the hat for a free copy of his book! Winners announced Monday.
I hope everyone has a safe and scary-good Halloween. Now go forth and eat candy!
Posted by laurie at 10:08 AM
October 28, 2008
It's still a billion degrees, just in case you were wondering...
Congratulations to the six winners from my Misti Alpaca/Harmony wood knitting needles sweepstakes! Laina in Massachusetts won the yarn, and the winners of the five sets of needles were: Michelle in Illinois, Dahlia in California, Whitney in Virginia, M. in Arkansas and Emily in Michigan. I've sent emails to all the winners so if your name is here -- check your inbox! Thanks to everyone for entering so far and big BIG thanks to Allison at SuperCrafty.com for providing the yummy Misti Alpaca for the giveaway and to all the folks at KnitPicks.com for providing the gorgeous Harmony Wood knitting needles.
I meant to announce all this earlier today but forgot I would be at the dentist this morning. Not that the dentist itself as a morning isn't bad enough but let me tell you about AWKWARD ... because if there is a way to take something to the next level of Awkward, I am your girl. I am the one who got her eyebrows waxed the day BEFORE a job interview once. I looked like my eyebrows had a social disease. I am all about the awkward.
ANYWAY. Mr. X and I used to go to the same dentist, who I still go to. I just assumed that after spending an arm and a leg and someone else's arm and leg on credit to get once-and-for-all dissolutioned in a court of law, it would be OBVIOUS that he would have to change dentists. DUH! It would be the only right thing to do especially what with the "one of us got remarried one month after the divorce was final and I will let you decide which one of us it was."
So there I am after getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist's office this morning waiting for the dentist to come in and poke around and scold me because I need a filling. And imagine my surprise when my friend Mindy -- the receptionist at the dentist's office -- walks in instead of Dr. Dentist and says, "Um, Hi! I rebooked you for Thursday for your filling and you can talk to the dentist then and you might want to leave RIGHTNOW, REALLY." And that is when I discovered le ex-hubby was on his way in for a cleaning at MY dentist! MINE!! I am not sure if he read between the lines of the fine print on the divorce papers but I am pretty sure it said he got a new wife, I got the cats and the DENTIST.
So I fled the scene of the fluoride. It has been quite a morning I tell you what.
Posted by laurie at 12:00 PM
October 27, 2008
Sweepstakes, complaining and TV
Since it's Monday and that seems like a harmonious day to keep things open, not closed, I decided to keep the giveaway alive for one more day. You can still enter to win right here >
Thanks to everyone for entering so far and thanks to Allison at SuperCrafty.com for providing the yarn for the giveaway and to all the folks at KnitPicks.com for providing the knitting needles.
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Because I am a total Her Nerdsalot, I have my homepage set to weather.com and not just any weather.com but the personalized version where I have my city set plus my weather watch list so I can see not just the weather in the Valley but downtown, too! And keep an eye on the weather of Paris and Madrid and a few other places because.. I need to know. I am a little obsessed with weather (Fun fact! I was the weathergirl at my college'