"A blue bar of soap left on the sink..."

First Avenue Kind of Sucks (or, Leah shows that she is getting progressively lamer and has settled into her later 20s)

2008-02-16T08:23:00.003-06:00

I saw a show at First Avenue a few weeks back. I saw the same band the next night at a place in Chicago. I didn't think First Avenue was that bad until I experienced pretty much the same show the next night. And this has nothing to do with "Gosh, Chicago is so cool and Minneapolis is so lame." It's just about First Avenue. The place in Chicago was built more like the Fine Line, long and narrow, with a creepy wood floor that felt like it might cave in. But the key word: wood. Wood floors are good for people who stand for 3 hours to see a show. I have experimented with many different shoes in my days at First Avenue, and they always ache when I'm through. Not just "wow, my feet ache after shopping all day," a true, "wow, my feet are throbbing and pulsate when I lift them up," the way they throb and ache when you're in high school and work at a gas station or grocery store where you have to stand all day.

So that's the first thing, the floor (I would complain about the fact that shows could just as well start at 9, instead of doors at 8, show at 9, but not really 9, becuase there are two openers before the band you came to see, which means they won't go on until about 11:30, despite the fact that it's a Thursday and you have to go to work the next day. I would complain about that, but I can't, because that is pretty much all venues these days, not just First Avenue).

Second thing: the noise. First Avenue has never really understood volume control. So when the place is not fire-marshal packed to the gills, they leave the volume up as if it is. Without all the extra flesh in the room to absorb it, the sound is truly ear shattering. My ears literally throbbed, kind of like my feet, for a few hours after the show was over.

Third thing: the people. This is nothing against the people who work there (though it's astounding to me that they seem to only hire weirdly pierced and tattooed people, when most of the bands there are not at all punk or indie or bucking the system...lots of them are actually quite mainstream and cities 97ish). And it's actually not even against the people who go there on a semi regular basis (myself included). It's more that by virtue of it being one of the slightly larger venues without bumping all the way to a theatre show, there are more people there, thus a higher likelihood to have annoying people there. The venue is just big enough that it's fairly easy to get tickets without paying a whole lot. One more capacity step up to a theater show increases the ticket price to $35 or so, instead of $18 or $20. And going to first avenue is a closer approximation to "going out" than going to a sit-down seating locale, such as the state or the pantages. Likewise, because the venue is still a club and not a theater, it's a good middle step for bands. That means that they probably have had one or two mainstream hits that have attracted just enough people who say, "Oh my gosh! I totally love that one song!" get tickets, and then proceed to talk through the entire show, except when that one song comes on (I'm not trying to knock a particular show or anything, but Grey's Anatomy has MURDERED otherwise good shows with their clientele showing up because Meredith had some display of emotion with a chosen song just before the credits play). With less mainstream songs, they'd stay at the Varsity or the Fine Line, with just a few more, they'd bump up to the State or Pantages Theatre.

See, I thought this out. I'm lame, but with good reason.

Maybe Trix really are for kids

2008-02-01T17:56:00.000-06:00

So there was this great deal on cereal the other day. Buy 6 boxes, get $10 off. I figured that would bring my cost of box down to $1.50 or so, and who can pass that up? (I eat cereal every morning, so six boxes isn't that much...I can finish one in a week). I had a few extra coupons too, but there are only so many variations of cheerios one can buy (I was limited to a specific brand). So after three boxes of cheerios (multigrain, original, and their new crunch vareity), kix, golden grahams (a guilty pleasure), what was I left with? Behold, there is Trix. And for those of you who have not been paying attention to innovations in cereal, they have changed the Trix shape BACK to ordinary circles. I have not eaten Trix since they changed to the fruit shapes (cuts up the roof of your mouth).

I did have a bowl for breakfast this morning. They turned my milk pink. And after dinner tonight, I had another bowl because it was the closest thing we had in the house to dessert. And I haven't even mentioned the TOY that came in the box. When was the last time you got a toy with your breakfast? It's been quite a while for me.

The slog begins

2008-01-26T08:26:00.000-06:00

I had a glorious month off. No classes. Just coming home after work, reading whatever I wanted to. It was nice. I start class again now, but a change in plans has me only taking one class (not two), potentially one more in the summer, and then starting graduate school in the fall. the G word. Speaking of, I should probably make sure I know deadline dates and all that stuff... My new class has exactly one final, one midterm (short answer and multiple choice), one quiz, and one three page paper. Is that the best assignment list you've ever heard or what? And a big YAY for the professor that chooses modern texts instead of something theoretical written in 1765.

I went to Arizona last weekend. It was nice and warm there and kick ass freezing here. It was still kick ass freezing when we got home, too. But we brought grapefruit! Has there ever been a more perfect fruit to grow on a tree than grapefruit? I dare you to tell me what.

I attended my first spinning class on Wednesday night. I've been a regular exerciser off and on for 5 years now. I started out running a few miles every day when I lived in Winona. I clung to running for awhile, until I realized that I hated it. I still find it very triumphant...but the actual doing of it just sucks. I get weird hip pain, too, so last summer I switched to biking home from work, which is multi-tasking and much easier on the hips. This winter, I go to the gym two or three times a week for intense cardio with a friend (intense because she's in way better shape than me and I have to act like I can keep up, and I would feel dumb if I quit, whereas normally I just stop when I think what I'm doing it not fun) and loads of weight lifting (which I actually love...no sweating, but still working. It's perfect). So spinning is on this special kind of resistance bike...I don't get what makes it different from others. It's easier to change the resistance I suppose. But it's kind of like hell. It's cool because the instructor is like CONQUERING THIS HILL IS LIKE CONQUERING YOUR OWN FEARS! YOU ARE ALL HEROS! But there comes a point in my life where I let fear get the best of me if it's like climbing a hill at level ten for THREE MINUTES. What ever happened to short climbs? Small victories? Maybe next class. On top of it being like hell, your ass will ache for three days, even if you do wear padded bike shorts.

The slog is over!!

2007-12-17T21:04:00.000-06:00

I finished my four credit class on social theory tonight. Final over! Papers over! Christmas nearly here!

To celebrate, I did something that I likely would have done the first time I was in college. Any guesses? I ate a whole bowl of sauteed mushrooms. No steak, just mushrooms. Quite possibly my favorite food. And I realized tonight that just because I'm a respectable adult who married a pretty good cook, there is no reason I should not be eating random bowls of sauteed mushrooms more often.

Christmas cookies are kind of like rabbits. Nice to see, good to eat, even, but they MULTIPLY like you would not believe. Work has been well fed, as well as anyone else who's come by our house. "EAT A COOKIE," I beg. If you come over, you too would be offered cookies. What can I say, I was in a cookie bake of my own, was invited to a cookie exchange, and then merely ATTENDED a cookie bake where I had nothing reasonable to offer, and they still gave me a few plates worth.

Maybe the presence of cookies can make up for the lack of other displayed spirit around here. no tree (by choice). no wreath or any other display (by sheer time passing more quickly than I think it ought to. And it's cold outside).

Tonight there is a vikings game. My bus to the train would not drive me by the train because of this. I had to walk two blocks through the midst of viking fans. They were everywhere. The train came, so I thought, but they wouldn't let us on that train...it was out of service from that point forward. The fans swarmed out. They went to climb the fence. I backed up, thinking I was not in front of the bench. I was. I was forced to sit down when I ran into the bench with the back of my legs. My Upass got smushed as I sat down with my hand weirdly gripping it. It broke in half. It no longer lets me get on the train free. I hope I have money on my old bus pass, or it might be a long walk tomorrow morning.

Recent observations:

2007-11-27T22:32:00.000-06:00

Possums are mysterious. It's like seeing a dragon. I saw one in person the other day as I walked to the bus. It was awesome.

Buying pants on ebay may or may not be a good idea. In my case, at least this week, the "may not" part.

It was REALLY cold today.

Reality shows are kind of like cocaine. There is this guy who talks about cocaine in the History Channel series: "Hooked: Illegal drugs and how they got that way" (which I would recommend to anyone; it's totally fascinating stuff). He says that you'll never irradicate a problem that has a 17000% profit margin. No matter how serious the penalty, the promise of that much return on your investment will never stop it from being imported. If you watch the section from the same series on opium and learn about public executions in China, you may disagree with that statement. But after seeing "Trick my Trucker" on CMT the other day, I've become convinced. If you can pay out $2500 in gas money and that's your only real cost for "talent" in a half hour show, why would you ever think it's worthwhile to pay people $1 million or more per episode, even if it was as successful as Friends or Seinfeld?

Not that I'm being all anti reality tv. I watch reality tv. I actually really like Survivor. And the Amazing Race. Obviously, I've been known to see "trick my trucker" (gave myself away on that one). And who could resist a good episode of "flip this house?" Pretty much no one.

A knock at the back door

2007-11-17T22:51:00.000-06:00

This is a true story. I was watching Court TV and reading stuff on the internet about the Caledonia Jane Doe (a girl who was found shot in 1979 in New York and never been identified). Kyle was gone. There was a knock at the back door. We have an enclosed court yard, so the only people (in theory) who could knock at the back door would be someone who lived in the complex. Or a bad guy. because I'm watching Court TV and reading about murders, so I was admittedly creeped out (note: this happens often. I just about peed myself one time in college watching a documentary about the zodiac killer on a sunny Sunday afternoon when my roommate came home early). It was indeed a neighbor, who had received a phone call from the hospital telling her to come get her boyfriend (who was there for an unknown reason). She was not quite sober enough to drive and asked if I could give her a ride. SInce I didn't have a car, I said I could drive her car, if she was okay with that.

A trip to HCMC, and oops. She had wrong information. She couldn't pick him up quite yet, but at least she found out what was wrong. Just a little too much to drink (or probably a lot too much) and a subsequent fight while taking a certain mode of public transportation.

I'm glad I don't have enough drama in my life that I have to read about other drama on the internet. Or inherit a little from my neighbor.

Lasagna Inspiration

2007-10-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

I met my husband over lasagna. The dish has sentimental value to me. This morning, going through the Sunday ads, I saw this amazing picture of 9 layer lasagna at Macaroni Grill. Initially, I thought, "I must find a reason and a friend to go to Macaroni Grill to eat this masterpiece." About three seconds later, I thought, "Hey, it's a Sunday afternoon. I could probably make this myself."

Heck yeah I could! So it wasn't nine layers, but it cost me $9.31 in ingredients and produced TWELVE pieces of Lasagna. Woo!

My other achievement of this weekend: finally conquering the stick shift. My car has been sold for about 6 months now, and I generally take the bus or train or bike everywhere. But there are those occaisions where I need to go somewhere that K doesn't really want to go or doesn't need to. Generally, he drives me anyway. It's that bad, folks. I never learned how to drive a stick and now that I've put in 10 years just hitting gas for go, it's hard to do that much thinking when you're driving.

I spent time this summer practicing on my dad's ancient 4 speed truck, which was significantly harder to drive than our mazda so the mazda should be easy, right? WRONG. The 4 speed truck is driven out in the middle of no where, and the only thing worse than taking a good 15 seconds to get started at a stop light is having three people behind you revving up, waiting for you to go. And then you panic nad then you kill it and then they are more impatient and they rear end you. Or at least, I'm always nervous about getting rear ended.

But yesterday, there was a girly gathering 35 miles north. I wanted to go. Kyle did not want to go. It was time for the training wheels to come off. And I made it. I made it there and I made it home. There were minor crisises on both trips (traffic, stop and go, unexpected stop lights, getting minorly lost, etc.) But I really think I have finally conquered the beast. Go me. I even bought myself some cheesy popcorn to celebrate.

Further clarification on earliest posts:

When I said I couldn't believe I had been married a year, it was disbelief because time had gone so quickly, NOT because K is horrible to live with and we should have broken up by now. Not that at all, just the time flying thing.

The super sweet camera kyle got me is a Sony Cyber Shot....um....there are some specifications too that would probably better explain...12.1 something? It's nice.

My new camera

2007-10-21T21:31:00.000-05:00

I like trees. A lot. A little white pine that I saved last year got her first pine cone this year (immortalized here). I was home this weekend to pick up my parents' truck for some house projects and took advantage of their outdoors to snap a few photos with my super awesome camera that my super awesome husband got for me.

Maybe San Diego wasn't so bad

2007-10-12T22:10:00.000-05:00

So we've gotten sucked into that "we might as well" syndrome. You've witnessed it countless times on TLC home improvement shows, no doubt. It's the "we're already painting (replacing the light fixture, tearing out the cabinet, cleaning the carpets, etc.) so we might as well (buy a new entertainment center, install those shelves, move all our furniture into the garage in definitely)... We did move the couch in because it was just too depressing after sitting on the floor for a few days.

I've been married for a year this weekend, if you can believe that. Yeah, neither can I.

San Diego

2007-09-26T08:47:00.001-05:00

I'm currently travelling for work. It's been okay.

The hotel we are at is on a beautiful lot. Is it the nicest hotel? Definitely not. I've stayed at many cheap hotels, and honestly, I often think there's not a lot of difference between a remodeled super 8 and a sheraton (especially if the sheraton is on the original carpet from 10 years ago, the super 8 might even seem nicer). This may be the first place i've stayed where I'm honestly annoyed by a lot of things. And not just the lamps shaped like pineapples. A few grievances:

* The bathroom fan is rigged to come in with the light. Really annoying.
* Loosely hung doors. They rattle a lot, so every time your neighbor goes in their room, you think they are trying to come in yours.
* A TV remote without a lot of oomph. You have to be really close or at just the right angle to get it to work. I did leave a note for housekeeping asking that I get new batteries. They either ignored it or couldn't read it, as the note was placed neatly in the middle of the bed when I came back, no new batteries.
* A toilet not securely attached to the wall, so it makes a ceramic clanky noise every time you sit down or get up.
* Neither one of my phones worked when I first came in. One had no dial tone; the other had dial tone but wouldn't do anything when you pressed any buttons.
* A pepsi machine that was out of diet pepsi. The next pepsi machine steadfastly refused to accept my dollar bills. It just pretended they weren't there.
* The information binder is missing whole sections of information. Like, if you turn to "area maps and attractions," it is just empty.

There's also a lack of outlets, which is annoying in a tech savvy world. You either are stuck at the desk if you want to charge your laptop, or you have to crawl under the bed (more dangerous than it would seem, as the headboards are not attached to the bed, but just kind of loosely hung on the wall).

I'm looking forward to going home.

Where have all the Tuesdays gone?

2007-09-14T08:53:00.001-05:00

A few notes: My computer ate the last blog I tried to type out. Also, a good friend of ours just died from cancer, so that's kept me off the computer, too. More on the latter further below.

I spent at least one Tuesday at the state fair. I ate no less than the following (though almost all of these were shared with either my mom or my two friends who joined us later in the day):

Fresh cut French Fries
Cheese Curds
A Deep friend Reuben with raspberry jelly
deep fried pickles
a pronto pup
lefse
a cream puff
coffee and a few diet cokes

There may be more.

The next Tuesday was spent at the Wilco concert, or rather, because it was freezing cold in Duluth, in the hotel room being crafty and watching court TV while Kyle worked at the Wilco concert and I showed up at the last possible second. I did learn a TON about the Phil Spector murder trial.

This coming Tuesday-off was going to be switched to Monday, as I was going to be out of town for the Austin City Limits music festival. Because of the aforementioned death in our circle of friends, we cancelled our trip. I will now have Tuesday off which will probably be spent doing homework. I started a new class. I have to read Marx and Weber and all that stuff. That kind of stuff is hard.

K and I are actually heading up to the visitation tonight, funeral tomorrow. Our good friend Jake, who was K's friend from childhood and definitely the "K friend" I was closest to since we met and I then met all his friends, was diagnosed with cancer shortly after our wedding (which he was in). He was treated and, we thought, recovering, but last Tuesday when we were at the Wilco show, we heard he was back in the hospital. We visited him on Tuesday and Wednesday, but found out after we arrived home on Wednesday that his cancer was back, everywhere, and terminal. We drove up to see him on Friday evening, when we were blessed with a chance to say a deliberate and heartbreaking goodbye, and we received word that he died on Monday evening. It was unbelievably fast. We are at peace, given such an unbelievable chance to tell him how much we loved him and hear that from him, but funerals still suck, especially when you see his wife and four children in the front row.

I'll post a picture later...for now, if you're interested in remembering which one he was from our wedding, there is a classic Jake picture posted at www.rally-america.com. There is a fund set up for his wife and children (who are between the ages of 5 and 8). If you would like information on how to paypal a donation, feel free to contact me.

Notes on my bike, my dream car, and a perfect Friday night

2007-08-17T19:15:00.000-05:00

1) I know kickstands have fallen out of favor. I don't get it; they are totally functional. I have one, and I know it's kind of lame. A coworker even pointed this out to me the other day. "Leah, you have to get rid of the kickstand" (we work together closely, so it's ok for him to say that). But see, I have to drop the rack on the bus, and the bike can only go in the rack a certain direction, so I have to have the bike set up on the side of the curb just right so I can drop the rack and get the bike on. So not only can I not depend on there always being a random pole or something to lean my bike against, I also have to hurry because the bus driver is watching the light and wanting me to go fast. So I have a kickstand. And I know it's nerdy. But I just need to have it. As my coworker said, "Pocket protectors are functional, too, but I don't see you wearing one." Touche.

2) Tonight as I was riding my bike home, I saw an ORANGE KIA SPECTRA WAGON. I did not know the existed. Now I know that they do. When the time comes, I know what I'll be shopping for.

3) I've been wanting a burger and fries all week. I also was wanting to eat out tonight because it's Friday! Let's celebrate a simple pleasure in life on a Friday night, namely, having someone else make your food for you. I have the MPR discount card (totally worth it, by the way, $84 a year to public radio, tax deductible, and you get two for one at a billion different restaurants). But there's a baseball game tonight! World Series Celebration Weekend! We can't miss the game! Solution: a call-in take out order to the 5-8 Club, Ribs and a PepperJack Juicy Lucy with JoJos (they have great JoJos). I might explode. But I'm happy.

Accountability Tuesday Strikes back!

2007-08-14T19:24:00.000-05:00

A guy in wilco has the chicken pox. Thus my AT was spent at home, being accountable to my time off. I did pretty well, I must admit. It included:

* getting a quote on car insurance
* posting a bunch of stuff on craigs list and possibly selling my old tv for $45
* 4 loads of laundry
* going into the garage to casually clean and discovering that we had water on the floor which ruined some boxes...

Nothing like wetness to get you to take care of random junk in the garage. So far, we only lost my old shoe trunk, the case of my roller skates, one book, one pair of shoes, and some random cardboard boxes. There's some stuff drying on the couch, but it also resulted in the garage really get cleaned out... No more boxes on the floor. The theory is that the car brought in some water when it was pouring rain the other night and K pulled it in.

Oh, I did lose the box to a puzzle i got for my birthday, so I now have to look up Thomas Kincaid's "seaside hideaway" on the internet before I attempt to put that one together. But I'll take on that challenge.

BillyBob

2007-08-07T19:24:00.000-05:00

So, Accountability Tuesday was spent working (because I switched my day off to next week which I will spend not doing housework as I'll be in Duluth at a Wilco show). I did go to the dentist to fix a pesky and traumatically painful filling. The cavity never hurt but the filling has caused numerous problems, so out it came and it got refilled. I have to go again in a few months and get it refilled again with a real filling (this apparently is just a temporary "make it feel better" filling, not the real thing). So far, so good.

Last week I got to go to Christopher Smith's sentencing (guy from burnsville who ran an online pharmacy and then threatened to kill a government witness). Good things happen to those who are always caught up at work, I guess. Moral of the story: even if you think your business is sort of legitimate, when the cops say stop, don't attempt to continuing developing your enterprise, especially on a prison line that you've forwarded overseas. That's how you get 30 years when others who did the same got 7 to 10.

Referring to that subject line, I got the most billybob ear of corn you've ever seen tonight. I'm just husking along, and BAM: what the heck happened to this guy?

ok, some things do change

2007-07-31T12:48:00.000-05:00

It's 9:34 am, so a good 32 hours before my paper is due, and it's finished. And not finished like "yeah, I wrote the paper, I just need to add the conclusion and introduction and finish my bibliography and proof it in the morning," really finished. Like I could print it out and hand it in right now. That is what truly shows growth in me as a student. I was so that girl who didn't start papers until the night before.

Other things, seemingly, do not change. For example, the archetypal students encountered in various liberal arts classes. From my recent sociology class, an overview:

The "Well, like, in my personal experience, well, I don't know, like, you know" Girl: Barely 19, she's got spunk, but not a lot of experience in thinking before she speaks. You're caught between loathing her for talking all the time and being grateful that she always has something to say, making class discussion more lively without you necessarily having to contribute to it.

The Globalization Guy: Poverty in third world countries, the United States sagging economy, Lindsay Lohan getting busted (that cocaine came in from somewhere), you get the picture. He raises his hand, and you pretty much know what he thinks is a contributing factor to the discussion at hand.

The Graduate Student Stuck in an Undergraduate's Body: This is the guy who is "severly insulted" at certain ideas that are brought up, not afraid to say why, and tends to have that huffy kind of breathing when the conversation is particularly shallow or has gone over someone's head. He also is that guy who asks guest speakers, "ok, it seems to me you're approaching this from a functionalist perspective. Don't you think that severly limits your ability to analyze this amazingly obscure aspect I just thought of that makes me seem really smart and you seem unprepared?"

The Race, Class, and Gender Girl: Typically someone who admits her eyes were just opened to the societal constraints we face each day in the last few semesters and still has amazing zeal for the topic. May have recently done a familiy tree to fully embrace the minority within her.

The Intimacy and GBLT Studies Girl: Not a GBLT herself, just immensely interested in them, she brings everything back to power and sex. She also tends to whine before and after class that not enough time was devoted to this hushed up topic, brags that she's read the original works that the articles assigned cited, and has hoards of liberated GBLT friends who make her life infinitely more interesting than yours or mine. In the case of my class, she also happens to be...

The Private College Girl: "no, I don't go to the U, I go to MacDonaldster, I'm just here for a semester." It is never clear why she is taking just one class at the U, but one starts to think it's just so she can find ways to convince herself that the doubled cost of tuition is worthwhile, especially after hearing, again, that at MacDonaldster, we don't have this, we don't do that, our classes are so small and intimate, my professors invite their students over for whiskey shots, etc etc etc. Class starts, and you think hearing all this is over, until our mid-class break: "I love when I run into people I know here. They always say, 'You don't belong here; you go do McDonaldster!' It's just so funny..." Yeah, hilarious.

Some things never change

2007-07-29T19:33:00.001-05:00

It's still hard to get motivted to write a paper when it's not due for another three days. I wish I could just finish it, but dang it, I don't really want to.

Accountability Tuesday III

2007-07-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

I have to be honest with you all...I did not get a lot done this last Tuesday. Basically, I didn't want to. So I just made the decision that I was going to relax more than I was going to work, and I'm fine with that decision.

I did vaccuum and clean my bathroom--including scrubbing the floor. I think floor scrubbing makes up for a lot of things I didn't do.

I did watch an episode of the Practice as well as watch the Twins lose. I watched three more episodes on Wednesday. I anticipate watching another four episodes this weekend.

Speaking of Wednesday, I had a very bad experience with our stick shift mazda. We have had this car for a year, now. I have had very good intentions of learning to drive it. In fact, I've practiced with my dad and my husband, and I have driven it successfully before (even once by myself, home from the train station). Wednesday, K left the car for me at the train station. I just had to get two miles home by myself. That's it, just two miles! I made it about 2 feet (killing it about 7 or 8 times in between). I wanted to abort, but by that time I had lurched it far enough out of the parking space that I had to reverse it a little back in or else it was going to get smucked by the next driver coming through. I tried to reverse it and heard a terrible scrape. I thought I had hit the curb. Turns out that when you kill it in reverse, it makes a scraping noise, whereas killing it in 1st makes a clunking noise. I abandoned the car, took the train to the mall and took a bus home. Utter failure. Utter utter failure.

Babysitting the Drowsy Owl

2007-07-21T16:14:00.001-05:00

So as my friend and all of her friends and family are at a wedding, I'm here at the Drowsy Owl Bookstore. So far I have not sold anything. But I have internet, I am allowed to sit down, I am listening to the radio, and so on all those fronts, it's way better than being at the bookstore I used to work at. I'm also adding funny comments to a romance book I'm purchasing called "Falling for the Sheik," a pasttime of me and some friends. It's like Mystery Science Theatre for books.

Last night, after posting, I found $10 in my jeans pocket, so it really was the best Friday ever. And I watched another episode of the Practice this morning, making it just about the best Saturday morning ever.

most perfect friday EVER

2007-07-20T20:30:00.001-05:00

Seriously, beat this:

1) Friday is jean day
2) I took two hours off along with my half hour lunch and went out with my best friend, which included picking up tickets for the upcoming Brandi Carlile show, eating organic black bean wraps, fruit, and a chocolate raspberry brownie. It also included reliving a certain awkward moment at a wedding when I nearly choked on some broccoli (in a really funny way, the way choking on broccoli is just intrinsicly funny)
3) Riding my bike home from work. I didn't even get PASSED today. Either no one was on the roads or I'm picking up speed
4) Watching two episodes of The Practice. This was my favorite show in high school and college, and really, I have always called it my favorite show ever...rewatching it now and I'm still convinced it's the greatest. See, when it was out, it was right at that time when DVDs were getting popular... Now as soon as a mildly successful series ends its season it's out on DVD. But back then, there was no guarantee anything would ever come out on DVD. David E Kelley seemed to be holding out for awhile (he also was the brains behind Ally McBeal), but I finally thought to check Netflix and they had season one! My word, I'm seriously in heaven...at one point, Tv Guide called it "the best show that no one's watching" because of dismal ratings, but it ended up winning emmys and continuing to be awesome. Then it got moved to a bad night (though they brought on James Spader, and that was a pretty good time). Boston Legal is the spinoff, which I watched for awhile, but it was too cutesy flirty for me and not a hardcore ethical moral dilemma law show like The Practice. Can you tell I'm excited? The best part is that I started watching around the 2nd or 3rd season,s o I haven't even SEEN some of these episodes. Can't wait for more seasons to come out, because I'm pretty sure I'll be finishing up this first season in the next week or two.

So seriously, that's a pretty good friday. And the twins are winning. ROCK!

Twins and Target

2007-07-15T21:26:00.000-05:00

If you don't care about baseball, I think you should. It's super. And the Twins just swept Oakland. I would have preferred saving some of their winning power to sweep the Tigers, but maybe they'll sweep them too.

Target kind of sucks these days. Seems every time I go there lately, they are out of something kind of major that they shouldn't be out of. Today: generic ibuprofen, the big bottle.

Accountability Tuesday II

2007-07-09T16:52:00.000-05:00

I switched my day off from Tuesday to Monday in case we decided to stay up north an extra day... Sadly, Monday was not nearly as productive as Tuesday. For one, I have a midterm in one hour and I was never good at studying right before a test. The night before, sure, but the few hours before, I just felt like it wasn't doing much but psyching me out anyway. K's intern was here, who is a nice guy, but it's had to clean out the linen closet he happens to be sitting in front of.

I did empty out one drawer. I had two drawers in my dresser full of random junk...now, I only have one drawer full of stuff (random junk can be transformed into "stuff" if you just organize it, right?) I found a sticky dinosaur that is not so sticky (the kind on a flexy bendy sticky stretchy string that you can fling at stuff and then yank back). Holy bananas, does Amory love that thing. More exercise than that orange tabby has ever really gotten. Don't ask why I had a previously sticky but now unsticky dinosaur in my dresser drawer. I'm honestly not sure either.

being american and stuff

2007-07-04T22:26:00.000-05:00

July 3rd -- I went to the police show and it totally rocked my face off. Seriously. They opened with Message in a Bottle, and I just had to close my eyes and think, "Oh my gosh, I'm hearing this live...I never thought this would happen in my lifetime." It was pretty awesome. Worth every penny. I got a blinkie pin, too. I figured it would have been lame to collect over 100 vintage pins throughout my college years and then not pick up the new one they are selling on the current tour.

July 4th -- Watched "the Smartest Guys in the Room," a documentary about the fall of Enron. Highly recommended...would be great for a Christian discussion, as well: very relevant in that "what good is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul" kind of way.

Biked a heck of a long way with A&E. Roughly 12 miles around the chain of lakes (Calhoun, Isles, Harriet, and Nokomis) plus four miles inbetween (from nokomis to harriet and harriet to calhoun), which we did twice, to get to all the lakes and back. Along with another mile to and from A's house, and then two miles (twice) for me to get to the lightrail station, train up, and then get to A's house...so that was 25 miles for me today. A chunk of it was in the rain. I ate subway. It was a fun day. I'm torn between thinking "dude, I can so do the 9-mile ride home" tomorrow and thinking "a day off would probably be a good thing."

And that was my day celebrating america. Listening to a British rock band and then spending the whole day not spending any money (save three dollars at subway, which A actually covered because their credit machine was down) and not driving a car using gasoline solely for my own purposes. I didn't watch fireworks either. I guess that was not a very american day at all. But I still like living here, I promise.

d) follow up

2007-06-29T12:37:00.000-05:00

The microwave man came. He removed the melted stuff with a plier. He pulled the shell out, sanded and painted it. He said he should charge $180, but he only charged us $130. Order has been restored to our kitchen. Accountability Tuesday is so powerful, it can even reach into the future to help get stuff done.

Accountability Tuesday I

2007-06-26T21:16:00.000-05:00

Indeed, a regular feature on my blog! I have every other Tuesday off (don't worry, it's not just because I have a cushy government job...I put in extra hours the other days I work to allow for that). Why Tuesday? To tell you the truth, when I first started, there were already people in my department off on the Mondays and Fridays, so I took Tuesday. When I was offered Monday, I declined, because I feel like Tuesday off feels like a gift. Monday or Friday, I'd probably waste it, being that it felt so much like a weekend. But having Tuesday off, I get my crap done. At least, I like to think I do, so I'm going to start proving it, to myself and to all of you, but posting what I do.

Today,

a) Scrubbed half the kitchen floor. The other half is covered with a rug that is under our dining room table and harder to move, so I just did the true kitchen half that tends to get sticky spots. Of course, I used pet friendly white vinegar.

b) Scrubbed the shower walls and tub floor. I hate doing this. I did it anyway. That's not to say the shower couldn't use any more work, it could, but I did what I could.

c) worked on a friend's birthday gift. It required my sewing machine, and after screwing up, a seam ripper and an extra hour. I finished it to satisfaction, though.

d) called and scheduled an appointment for someone to come out and look at our microwave which started on fire. It started on fire around December or January, but I knew it was going to be such a headache getting someone called out, so I kept avoiding it. We may have to pay the $70 fee (plus parts and labor), but I did hear from one woman that if the repair guy calls in and confirms that there was a fire in the microwave (not hard, there's a big piece of melted plastic in there), they may be able to waive the fee. I'm opposed to paying ANYTHING for a $350 2.5 year old microwave that started on fire...it just shouldn't happen, but anything under $350 is going to be the same price as buying a new one and be a lot easier, considering we'd have to take the old one out, rehook up the range hood, and then have a hunk of metal sitting in our garage and then later in the landfill. We'll know more on Thursday.

K's softball team won tonight. And according to myspace, all my high school crushes (who all went to different schools and did not know each other at the time of high school) are all weirdly connected and in each other's top eight and stuff. It sucks (I know crushes are a part of high school, but I did some annoying teenage love sick stuff that is just plain embarrassing). This is why I think it might be a good idea to burn those yearbooks.

another poll:

2007-06-24T17:08:00.000-05:00

High school yearbooks: Keep or toss? If you toss, should they be disposed of in a certain way to show respect for your past (ie, burned vs just tossed in with old food). If you keep, why, and where do you put them? If you keep them, is it really respectful to keep them in your garage and let them get moldy?

risky business

2007-06-22T22:37:00.000-05:00

1) taking suburban buses. You know how bus routes often have letters on them? Generally, when you are travelling downtown or in a first tier suburb, the letters don't mean anything (that's not to say I didn't get stranded once at about 11:30 at night because the 5 I hopped on didn't go all the way to Mall of America...I did). But as you head out deeper into the suburbs, the letters mean more, generally, that some letters go down some streets and some go down others. Thus, my conundrum as I hopped on the 766H instead of the 766F. The problem is, then you get dropped off in Champlin and you're stuck where you get dropped off. If you end up the wrong place downtown, there's another bus somewhere to get you someplace else. But when you're taking commuter buses into the suburbs, you're stuck.

2) Accepting rides from strangers. Obviously, some woman noticed my gulp as I asked the bus driver, "Are you an F?" "No, I'm an H." So I get off the bus and look around thinking, "okay, I walk 2 miles in what direction now?" and she asks where I live. "Bloomington. That's how I managed to get on the wrong letter bus." "Oh, I can give you a ride." Mind you, this was a 40-50 something woman with graying hair, in Champlin (not a young male off the 5 in Minneapolis...I'm not being stereotypical, but I work in corrections...I know who statistically shows up in our office more often). A 40-50 something woman with graying hair in Champlin who takes the bus on a regular basis. "I know what it's like to accidentally get on the wrong bus." TruDat.

3) The Pythagorean Theorum. No kidding, I actually USED this tonight. I'm seriously not kidding. What was I doing in Champlin anyway? A friend of mine from my previous job researching dead people is opening a used book store in three weeks, and I went out there to help build bookshelves. They were done when I arrived, so I was given a tape measure and a ladder and told to figure out the right length of chain to purchase to hang her stain glass signs in the windows. This required a little math to figure out, if a piece of glass was hanging from two chains forming a isoceles triangle along with the top of the frame, how far from the top point is the glass actually hanging? Draw a line, and that's a right angle people. Yay for 11th grade. Maybe I should email Ms. Prigge. If I'm going to write a letter to H&M about shoddy service, I should at least let my geometry teacher know that I used this outside of class, a real life word problem.

btw, you should check out my friend's website and totally go to her store when it's open. It's going to be awesome.

http://drowsyowl.com/

How biking is like other things:

2007-06-20T16:42:00.000-05:00

Biking is like running (or at least, my biking is like my running) because I still get passed. A lot. Not by cars, by other bikes. Slow and steady wins the race. Unless you're not racing. In that case, it gets you where you need to go, except slower than the others.

Biking is like driving because you still need to weave around small animals with a death wish. In my case yesterday, it was a chihuahua dragging a leash and doing some serious yipping at my front tire. I nearly killed him, or he nearly killed me. I'm certain he could have bucked me off the bike had he got in front of the front tire. This is why we wear helmets, people.

Biker Girl

2007-06-14T20:11:00.000-05:00

That's me, no kidding, because today I rode my bike all the way home from work. It's 9.43 miles, if you're curious.

I had been talking about doing this for awhile. I just decided today that I had to finally do it. I almost talked myself out of it, being that it was about 90 degrees today with 10-14 mph winds. In retrospect, I think that was a good thing, as now anytime I don't want to do it, I can remind myself that as a beginner I had less than favorable conditions.

Here's the thing: I decided recently that I hate running. Actually, I probably just let myself full acknowledge that I hated running; I'm pretty sure that I hated it for awhile and it was not really about making a decision, but rather about just being honest with myself.

Apparently K had been thinking about getting me a bike for awhile, and when I told him this epiphany of mine, it was solidified for him and he got me one. It's a pretty sweet bike, if I do say so myself. I take public transit every day, so a lot of the benefits they preach about taking your bike to work don't apply for me (saving on parking, saving on gas, etc. as I already don't pay for parking or gas). And no matter how enviro-friendly I am in that respect, I still like thinking of new ways to accomplish that. Thus, the idea of biking home from work was born

Normally, I would get home from work on the train around 6:10. Today, I got home at 6:45, was out of the shower by 7:00. There is no way I would ever be able to get home, change, go run, come back, and shower by 7:00. So not only is it good environmentally, exercisably, it's all just a practical choice.

There is a big hill crossing 62 that kind of kicked my butt, and I think I'm sunburned on my face a bit, but overall, a small price to pay. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

poll:

2007-06-04T21:12:00.001-05:00

Is writing a letter saying you're annoyed with a certain store's customer service (addressed to that store's manager) a service to them, letting them know a loyal customer is annoyed, or just plain petty?

when bored, clean carpets

2007-06-03T19:59:00.000-05:00

I really didn't have anything in mind in regard to this weekend. I wondered how I would fill my time. I even asked people at work, "what are you doing this weekend?" to see if they had any great ideas about what I could be doing.

Good thing real life is so darn eventful. Come Saturday morning, there was a pile of something that left a mark on the carpet. Some of you non-pet owners will say, "That's what you get with cats." But pet owners and parents will know that, like children, even well trained ones have random accidents. Enough on that...what better time to clean carpets that had never once been cleaned since I moved in three years ago?

See, I have a dual problem, well, actually three things contribute to the problem. #1) I have very cheap carpet. Had I know the carpet they would be installing when I purchased this house was going kind of like one of those throw rugs they sell at menards for putting under your car when the oil is being changed, I might have opted for pergo. In any case, it's cheap carpet. The problem with cheap carpet is that, three years later, I'm still pulling out fibers every time I vacuum, enough to pretty much fill my bag every single time. Maybe that's good, I'm just pulling up the whole fiber instead of just the dirt, but my vacuum gets so full so quickly I wonder if I pull up any dirt at all. #2) I have cats. #3) Just because I bought a home the day before I turned 23, that doesn't really mean I had any different mentality towards cleaning than a 23 year old in an apartment. For the first year, I really didn't vacuum all that often. Like, pretty much never.

In any case, Uhaul rents carpet cleaners. They look like a space satellite that might take off at any second (a space satellite built in the kennedy era), but for $21, as long as it doesn't inject mud into your floor, you're probably coming out ahead.

The first few batches of water were pretty black. But it did a nice job. Highly recommended if you need to clean your carpets for not too much dough. Or if you just need to kill 6 hours on a saturday.

On an ECO note: soap is bad. Not all soap, but carpet soap is bad, as it permeates your carpets so deeply, when you have kitties, it's probably not smart for them to walk all over the wet carpet while it dries for five hours (especially if you're next door drinking wine with the neighbors for the better part of the evening) and then use those same paws to clean their faces. Would you like carpet soap on your toothbrush? Exactly. Some people even say soap makes it get dirtier faster because it makes the carpet sticky and traps new dirt in. Save yourself the $7 at Uhaul and the sudsy wudsy factor. Hot water and vinegar works just fine for cheap and is environmentally friendly. Your house may smell like a pickle for a few hours, but at least pickles are all natural and safe to eat, where ammonia and bleach are not.

Seriously, everybody IS doing it

2007-06-01T13:48:00.000-05:00

Brevity is divine. If you don't believe me, try reading a 600 page book that's 400 pages too long. Everyone needs a first post introducing their blog. I wrote something big, but it sounded lame, like I was overstretching my blogging boundaries, trying to be a "real" blogger when I have not yet proved myself. So I deleted it.