Monday, January 12, 2009
Earworm
Thanks, Kaira for the insight about getting songs stuck in my head. It's called Earworm--and it's a legitimate phenomenon. I'm not sure if I feel better or worse now that I know it has a real name. The name itself causes me a slight bit of discomfort because it brings to mind this Star Trek movie where Khan puts these worms . . . *shiver* . . . well, you know the one.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Ode to Bubble Tea
I'm aware that I've sung the praises of Bubble Tea here before. I just can't stop myself from doing it again.
It's been months and months since I've had any and tonight while visiting Tea Chai Té, a tea bar on 23rd in Portland, OR, I unexpectedly found myself enjoying a delicious black milk tea with traditional tapioca pearls (or bubbles).
Here's a pic from their website. Evidently, I'm not the only one who likes it :)
Saturday, January 10, 2009
4 Things for Jackie
I started this on 10/19/08 at 5:19 pm . . . and remembered that I hadn't ever finished. So, here it is . . . better late than never!
4 things I was doing 10 years ago:
Sleeping only 2 hours a night trying to finish my final semester of graduate course work (ironically enough for a degree I never finished)
Eating lunch with Mary Beth at the Mall Deli.
Living in the Quincy House . . . oh how I loved that house--but NOT the camel crickets that eventually took over the basement *shiver*
Ministering alongside a fantastic team of men and women on the CrossQuest Staff.
4 things on my to-do list for today:
Load and unload the Dishwasher
Update my blog
Send Jess her Pepperoni
40 minutes on the ellyptical machine and maybe some weights.
Farm Hand/Tree Planter
Phone answerer/order taker at Pizza Pipeline in Pullman, WA
Tailor in residence at The Buckle in Pittsburg, KS
Adjunct English Professor
4 movies I have watched more than once:
Clue
Top Gun
Princess Bride
So I Married An Axe Murderer
4 favorite albums:
Tapestry--Carole King
Slippery When Wet--Bon Jovi
Along the Road--Margaret Becker, Christine Dente, Susan Ashton
Twilight Soundtrack
4 places I have lived:
Zillah, Washington
Pullman, Washington
PIttsburg, Kansas
Vancouver, Washington
4 places I've been:
Maui, Hawaii--the Summer of 1993 . . . no rock fever here :)
Binalonan, Philippines--spent the summer pf 1995 sleeping in a choir loft under a mosquito net and was never late for church!
Shenyang, China--the summer of 1996 were I was consistently awakened in the wee hours of the morning by the North Koreans playing soccer in the hallway outside my door in the Foreign Student Dorm
Playa Del Carmen, Mexico--July of 2003? an hour south of Cancun, it's all the great things about the Yucatan Pennisula and not all the tourist hype . . . oh, there's enough hype, just not ALL of it
4 places I want to visit:
Nepal and the sooner the better!
New York, New York
Norway
Kansas, even though I was just there.
4 TV shows I watch via DVD:
Good Eats
Good Eats
Sorry, there aren't any more. That's really it.
Okay, okay, I might catch part of an episode of Smallville or Supernatural or Gilmore Girls on DVD, but that's only because my roommates watching them . . . and I'm walking through the living room.
4 of my favorite meals:
Taco Salad made from my mother's recipe . . . not how she's changed it up in recent years, but the old school way she made it when we were kids.
Zucchini and Corn
Homemade pizza with spinach, feta cheese and sundried tomatos
Steak--a thick, good cut of meat, rubbed down with olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper and maybe a little rosemary--grilled about 5 or 6 minutes on each side so that it moos at me a little
4 things you may not know about me:
Once, while playing a game in college, I convinced a whole room of people that my family's motor home fell into a crevice in the earth caused by a tornado/earthquake while we were on vacation in North Dakota (loosely based on a true story).
My whole life, until recently, I've had a secret desire to be a truck driver.
In high school I wrote a screenplay parody of Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Adventure (The name of which I'll withhold to protect the star cast members) where two girls went back in time via a refrigerator sized present to gather personalities for their church youth group's Christmas Presentation. And we filmed it. And showed it to the whole church. It was pretty ridiculous.
I took a rifle shooting class for a PE credit in college and got an "A" . . . so . . . don't get on my bad side :)
And I'll copy Jackie who copied Meredith and ask you, you and you to answer the questions too (but only if you want to).
4 things I was doing 10 years ago:
Sleeping only 2 hours a night trying to finish my final semester of graduate course work (ironically enough for a degree I never finished)
Eating lunch with Mary Beth at the Mall Deli.
Living in the Quincy House . . . oh how I loved that house--but NOT the camel crickets that eventually took over the basement *shiver*
Ministering alongside a fantastic team of men and women on the CrossQuest Staff.
4 things on my to-do list for today:
Load and unload the Dishwasher
Update my blog
Send Jess her Pepperoni
40 minutes on the ellyptical machine and maybe some weights.
4 jobs that I have had:
Farm Hand/Tree Planter
Phone answerer/order taker at Pizza Pipeline in Pullman, WA
Tailor in residence at The Buckle in Pittsburg, KS
Adjunct English Professor
4 movies I have watched more than once:
Clue
Top Gun
Princess Bride
So I Married An Axe Murderer
4 favorite albums:
Tapestry--Carole King
Slippery When Wet--Bon Jovi
Along the Road--Margaret Becker, Christine Dente, Susan Ashton
Twilight Soundtrack
4 places I have lived:
Zillah, Washington
Pullman, Washington
PIttsburg, Kansas
Vancouver, Washington
4 places I've been:
Maui, Hawaii--the Summer of 1993 . . . no rock fever here :)
Binalonan, Philippines--spent the summer pf 1995 sleeping in a choir loft under a mosquito net and was never late for church!
Shenyang, China--the summer of 1996 were I was consistently awakened in the wee hours of the morning by the North Koreans playing soccer in the hallway outside my door in the Foreign Student Dorm
Playa Del Carmen, Mexico--July of 2003? an hour south of Cancun, it's all the great things about the Yucatan Pennisula and not all the tourist hype . . . oh, there's enough hype, just not ALL of it
4 places I want to visit:
Nepal and the sooner the better!
New York, New York
Norway
Kansas, even though I was just there.
4 TV shows I watch via DVD:
Good Eats
Good Eats
Sorry, there aren't any more. That's really it.
Okay, okay, I might catch part of an episode of Smallville or Supernatural or Gilmore Girls on DVD, but that's only because my roommates watching them . . . and I'm walking through the living room.
4 of my favorite meals:
Taco Salad made from my mother's recipe . . . not how she's changed it up in recent years, but the old school way she made it when we were kids.
Zucchini and Corn
Homemade pizza with spinach, feta cheese and sundried tomatos
Steak--a thick, good cut of meat, rubbed down with olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper and maybe a little rosemary--grilled about 5 or 6 minutes on each side so that it moos at me a little
4 things you may not know about me:
Once, while playing a game in college, I convinced a whole room of people that my family's motor home fell into a crevice in the earth caused by a tornado/earthquake while we were on vacation in North Dakota (loosely based on a true story).
My whole life, until recently, I've had a secret desire to be a truck driver.
In high school I wrote a screenplay parody of Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Adventure (The name of which I'll withhold to protect the star cast members) where two girls went back in time via a refrigerator sized present to gather personalities for their church youth group's Christmas Presentation. And we filmed it. And showed it to the whole church. It was pretty ridiculous.
I took a rifle shooting class for a PE credit in college and got an "A" . . . so . . . don't get on my bad side :)
And I'll copy Jackie who copied Meredith and ask you, you and you to answer the questions too (but only if you want to).
Friday, December 5, 2008
Journey of the Magi
This is one of my favorite poems. It produces a longing in me. To experience in my own life something so real that I "should be glad of another death." Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Or at least a little.
Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
An 18 Year Old Love Affair
Yesterday I went to the NKOTB "The Block" Concert. It was actually a decent show. They either are good business men themselves and/or have an excellent marketing team. The show was well put together and not too cheesy. It had just the right balance of old school and new school. (And I wasn't even a fan back in the day.)
Their opening act, Lady Gaga . . . well, I don't even know what to say about her. She definitely has some heavy european influences, is very dramatic, and likes bats. Click here http://www.ladygaga.com/ if you want to catch more of her.
Natasha Bedingfield more than made up for the first act by being her awesome and sweet self. She was so nice. And she said it best as she dedicated one of her songs to the whole arena full of women. She said she thought the NKOTB Reunion tour was sweet because it is the culmination of an 18 year old love affair. What a thoughtful and poignant point of view, and so true. I saw a whole stadium full of grown women turn into giggly, giddy 13 year olds the instant NKOTB came out on stage.
It is an interesting situation to be in a room full of people so like yourself. The whole room was full of women, ages ranging from 28ish to 33ish, with a sprinkling of begruding husbands or boyfriends mixed in. We were all different shapes, sizes, and colors, but there for one purpose--to see New Kids On The Block. There is a solidarity felt when one is in such a homogeneous environment. And it was kind of awesome to watch . . . thousands of women singing the lines to songs they probably didn't even realize they still knew.
Overall, I give it a thumbs up. Good job, NKOTB, on the comeback. And kuddos for being so forward thinking to become the original "boy band" so long ago . . . I'm not sure anyone's given you all the credit you deserve for that.
Their opening act, Lady Gaga . . . well, I don't even know what to say about her. She definitely has some heavy european influences, is very dramatic, and likes bats. Click here http://www.ladygaga.com/ if you want to catch more of her.
Natasha Bedingfield more than made up for the first act by being her awesome and sweet self. She was so nice. And she said it best as she dedicated one of her songs to the whole arena full of women. She said she thought the NKOTB Reunion tour was sweet because it is the culmination of an 18 year old love affair. What a thoughtful and poignant point of view, and so true. I saw a whole stadium full of grown women turn into giggly, giddy 13 year olds the instant NKOTB came out on stage.
It is an interesting situation to be in a room full of people so like yourself. The whole room was full of women, ages ranging from 28ish to 33ish, with a sprinkling of begruding husbands or boyfriends mixed in. We were all different shapes, sizes, and colors, but there for one purpose--to see New Kids On The Block. There is a solidarity felt when one is in such a homogeneous environment. And it was kind of awesome to watch . . . thousands of women singing the lines to songs they probably didn't even realize they still knew.
Overall, I give it a thumbs up. Good job, NKOTB, on the comeback. And kuddos for being so forward thinking to become the original "boy band" so long ago . . . I'm not sure anyone's given you all the credit you deserve for that.
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