if supercalifragilistic-dom was a place, would you want to be there all the time?

so i went for a run today and i was pretty psyched because i knew what i wanted to do and i was going to do it. i wanted to run 10 miles, and through a confluence of circumstances, this turned out to be a good day for that. i blithely disregarded the fact that i've already run a bunch this week and played futbol and it's hot out. nah! all i knew what that it's going to be raining all weekend, and i wasn't carpooling today so i could stay a bit late and make up the time. [although really no one notices or cares if i take a long lunch but i still feel obligated to put in the time, and hey, come to think of it maybe that's why nobody notices if i take a long lunch.] all i knew was what i wanted to do, and i figured that was good enough.

ppfahahaha!!

okay, so after about 5.5 i felt completely done physically, but this was an out & back so i had no shortcuts so i sucked it up and pulled some reserves from the recesses of my cerebellum. after about 7 i was done mentally - clearly the reserves were a bit thin - so there was nothing left to fall back on but my soul and my soul said "oh no, this was NOT my idea!" although blatently it was because where else do ideas come from. [heh.]

by the time i completed the circuit my mouth was figuratively glued shut. [insert gratuitous "shut up, ace!" joke here.] i don't think i've been that thirsty since the shaman put me in the car and drove straight on down to shebbavulle and answered my incessant cries for something to slake my thirst with "do you want me to spit in your mouth? cause that is all we have here is my spit. do ya?!". good times. good times.

i could have and should have stopped for water myriad places along the way - the most obvious being the golf course where the golfers were not 10 yds away from me pulling water from a tank into those funny cone-shaped cups and guzzling away. coulda. shoulda. didn't. i am not sure why i didn't but as far as i can remember, i thought if i stopped i wouldn't be able to start again.

and so it was pretty much a complete disastah. i did everything incorrectly - didn't drink enough beforehand, piled too much activity together in the span of 24 hrs, waited a bit too late in the day to get out the door, blah blah blah-dee blah blah blah. the activity was both poorly conceived and poorly executed. it was not fun. it was hot and painful and lonely.

but when i got home today i was already planning my next run and there was a wee tiny part of my poor dehydrated raisin of a brain that thought maybe it would be fun to go out right now. the day has cooled. i have had some water and wee bit of rest and i am feeling better and i am thinking - i will go out right now and do it right this time. the thing about running is that sometimes it is so wonderful, so enjoyable, so freeing, magical, empowering, serendipitous... and occassionally, rarely perhaps, it is so much of all these things that it is like getting all filled with supercalifragilisticness until i think i could possibly bust right open with the pure fabulousness of the entirety of existence.

most of the time i am running around chasing supercalifragilistic-dom. but sometimes? sometimes i am there. and that's what keeps me coming back for more.

today i cut my tongue on my tooth. what the hell is up with my razor-sharp teeth?

the other day on npr they referred to a particular action of the folk at goldman-sachs as an "aggressive accounting device". this is of course a euphemism bel grande but what's good for the npr is good for the ace. i am going to start referring to my project management technique as "aggressive workflow device".

yes, i rescheduled your task due date to a date that's already passed. what's the problem?

yes, i have provided you insufficient interval to complete your task. what's the problem?

yes, i have committed you to provide files to the vendor during your planned vacation. what's the problem?

yes, i have required more of you than is physically feasible. what's the problem?

yes, you will be held accountable for tasks outside your control. what's the problem?

what's the problem, eh? it's simply an aggressive workflow device. get with the program!

c'mon baby drive south, with the one you love

wan waxing wafer
(prodigious pompous pout)
lingering languidly low,
tickling tiptop treetops,
slowing sliding skyward.

beam brightens!
glow grows!
shine sharpens!

hush, hide headlight
(drained, dulled, dimmed)
recondite road rises,
moonlight meets motorcar,
coolly colorless collision.

i wanted some circus peanuts but all i had were animal crackers... oh, the humanity!.... one must soldier on, though, mustn't one?

do not sit on the chairs... an instant classique.

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space spork!

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very psyched about using, but as yet unable to use, this coupon. very psyched! very!

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some simple directions for those who may not know the front of their sports equipment from the back. [apologies for the blurries. damb stupid iphone camera!]

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an ace, saved especially for you. 12821. ah, beauty! [in re: blurries, see above]

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the white screen of death doth appeareth preeminent of the hard disk of death.

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lucky for charlie pimp and his angel, starbux has no dress code.

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addendum

okay so one of the points i meant to make yesterday is when you carry that living, growing list thing around for a few days it can become a part of your existence and then it's sort of difficult to get rid of it and i guess that's why people carry notebooks. but i have tried a notebook at work and after a while it's simply annoying to have all those pages of scratched-out "done" stuff weighing the apparatus down.

not to say it isn't cool to have a to-done list. my old man and i made a list a couple weeks ago, on a saturday, and it was ambitious but we completed every single thing on the list and so now that list is sort of just hanging around the kitchen counter and the desk and back & forth because how can you throw out such a treasure as the completely completed list? it's like a trophy of a well-spent saturday.

brontosaurus stegosaurus tyrannosaurus rex - quadriceps biceps don't forget the pecs

i am down with the lists. i like mine old school - paper & ink lists. i roll my own. i've tried your outlook task scheduler and your iphone itask app and your google calendar. i've tried 'em all, i tell ya, and there ain't nothing like the paper & ink list. my favorite lists are the ones on the college ruled looseleaf or the yellow non-legal-size legal pad sheet -- the big lists that have some chores here and some tasks there and some shopping list stuff over here and maybe a phone number to call circled right there and a box drawn around one part and an arrow from here to there, a connector.

these lists are organic - they grow on the paper. you write down a couple chores, then another chore, then one of the chores is like "fix the sink" and so it has an attached list "buy sink warshers, new wrench, little screenie thing that goes on the faucet" and so that chore + list becomes an errand and you've got to run to the homede-pot, so beside the homede-pot list you put "eggs, pita cheeps, granny smiths" because the publix is right there next to the homede-pot so you bout as well pick up some groceries while you're in the neighborhood. but you don't want your grocery list getting in the way of your chores and your homede-pot list, so you draw a little box around the groceries. then you call your friend jane the plumber just to plumb her pretty little jane brain a bit about the sink before you go about fixing it. she tells you to axe for "herman" at the homede-pot, so you write down "herman" [without the ""] beside your homede-pot list, and you circle that so you won't forget. then you remember you need light bubs and flower bubs so you write those down, too, but there's no room by the homede-pot list, so you write them on another section and you draw a box around them and a line between the homedepot list and the bub list to bind them together. so you pack up the car and head over to the publix / homede-pot shopping center [which also has a starbux so you bring one of those free coffee coupons] and while you are over there at the homede-pot you see a truck in the parking lot with "driveways by looper" and a phone number painted on the side, and you need some driveway work, so you pull out your list and you write down the phone number and "driveway" but you don't have to draw a box around it to separate it because you wrote it upside down in the margin so it's got a sort of natural separation thing there. and then you remember it's your mom's-in-law's birthday in a couple days so you put that on the list - "call mom's-in-law on tuesday" and right there you've crossed right on over to the multi-day list. if there is anything better than the multi-task list, it's the multi-day list which is like a multi-task list on steriods. and now you can fold it gently and put it in the little pocket in your phone case and you can carry it around at least a couple days in all it's glorious listey glory. and you can scratch things off and add things and in about a week you have a work of list art - the list bel grande.

ah. lists rock my world.

kevin harvick's a pompous arse, so it's not like i wanted him to win, but did you see that finish?! man. textbook, i tell ya!

so the other day we were at o'reilly's which in case you don't know is not a pub but rather an auto parts store. we were not looking for an auto part, but in case you don't know, these places carry more than parts. they are simply called "auto parts" stores because that's easier than calling them "auto parts and accessories and doodads and cleaning stuff and keychains and other shizzle" stores.

we were looking for something to take the tar off the new truck before we installed the geniune factory mud flaps that we got from the body shop guy who has connections to the geniune factory. of course, our truck's a nissan, not a geniune, so i am not sure if these are the correct thing.

right.

so we were looking for something to take off the tar, and there are several selections. some of them purport to remove bugs and tar, but some only do bug removal so you have to read all the labels. then, there are pre-wash formulas and post-wash. finally, there are aerosol and pump. i choose my auto cleaning products the same way i choose my wine - by the funnest label - so, i was wanting this one kind that i liked the name. my old man was all - okay we'll ask the guy at the counter which is best. so we axt and guess what? the one i liked is in fact the best!

THE TARMINATOR!

no, i was not walking around the store going "THE TARMINATOR!" over and over again and waving around things like the magic magnetic wand thingie that you can use to pick up screws that fall on the garage floor. (or, like paperclips at work. you know?) but of course i was not doing that! jeez. why would you even think that? what about me says "act the fool"? do you think i am completely ridiculous? of course i did not do that. i had to be satisfied with thinking about it in my head, because you can only get away with that stuff up to about age 6 and i don't want to be left in the car then next time we go to the "auto parts and accessories and doodads and cleaning stuff and keychains and other shizzle" store.

*^--^*

went to watch junior finish at the half this morning and i realized two things when we were there - [1] i should have run it and [2] i miss speedy.

but, really, i knew that second one already.

livebloggin from the barrel

i hate getting stuck with my back to the door. or as the iphone first thought I said - Dior. i mean, what if they come in shooting? or, like, flinging fashionable faux furs?

when ever i see a car like my car carooming down the parkway i always look to see what kind of person is driving it. if the driver's like a dweeble or something i might have to do a write up to the slingshot car coolness committee. right?

::sigh::

where's my egg and bishkit?!

jon gruden is smirky smurf.

i've made it to pg 53 in lev grossman's the magicians and i do believe it's going to live up to its billing as "harry potter for grown-ups". [in case you have forgotten where i got this book.] if you like the harry potter stories or patrick rothfuss's the name of the wind, you'll like the magicians. i cannot tell you too much b/c as soon as i get done with it, it's going straight to mini-me and i don't want to spoil her fun. i will tell you that it's rich with detail, sly humour, true feeling, and a touch of mystery. i know i'm not too far into it, but already it's revealing itself as sturdily crafted - with a tight plot and good pacing. characters spring well-rounded from their first appearance, fully described with a minimum of description, if you know what i mean.

so far, i've followed quentin to the school, but based on the official synopsis's rush to graduation, i'm guessing post-grad will make up a majority of the book. i mean, a synopsis usually doesn't give away the ending.

the cover's compelling, don't you think?

official synopsis:

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. He's a senior in high school, and a certifiable genius, but he's still secretly obsessed with a series of fantasy novels he read as a kid, about the adventures of five children in a magical land called Fillory. Compared to that, anything in his real life just seems gray and colorless.

Everything changes when Quentin finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the practice of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. But something is still missing. Magic doesn't bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he thought it would.

Then, after graduation, he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real.

simply typing the word "nude" here will raise my googlecred immeasurably even though i'm talking about a pantyhose color.

i highly recommend l'eggs sheer energy pantyhose for athletes and for people whose work requires standing for hours and for people who have perhaps the hobby of standing for hours. i use size b nude control top reinforced toe. the reinforced toe is maybe not too attractive for the shoes-off styling, but i don't go galavanting around the workplace with my shoes off, so i prefer to invest my hosiery dollar in the security of the reinforced toe.

if you can get away with wearing them b/c you're a woman - making it not so very out of the ordinary - put 'em on, sistah! i know that a lot of you ladies like to go all bare-leggedy in the summertime and i know that a lot of you ladies don't like to wear pantyhose at any season, but gals you are Missing Out with a capital M to the O if you are not taking advantage of the all-day massage of the l'eggs sheer energy. if you cannot necessarily get away with it b/c you're a guy, well you should yank 'em on and pull your levi's over the top because fellas, i am telling you - there is nothing like the all-day massage of the l'eggs sheer energy. this is not a joke.

most days when i am really getting into the running, these things are the last bastion of my standingness - holding off the unsightly sight of my collapsing on the floor in a puddle of jelly-noodle legs.

shed a little light on it

so my lamp broke - the one by the table over here where i sit on my end of the couch. it's a floor lamp with which i have been less than enamoured for some time because it's all like tippy-overish. a couple weeks ago the on-off winder thingie snapped off. so now the floor lamp is broken and i am having to plug & unplug it every time i want to use it. stelldarr! a lamp i don't even like is requiring extra effort simply to perform!

i am not heartbroken over its being broken b/c i have been wanting to get a table lamp instead - b/c of the tippy-overish issue. so i am all like -- hey, i want to get a lamp to match our unique décor -- and my old man is all -- well, then you better start shopping the garage sales.

har har hardee har har. funny.

tonight we were at his mom's and i was all like -- yeah, i am looking for a new lamp -- and she was all -- oh, please take this one! and, this one! take these lamps off my hands! and these matching shades! take them! -- and so we took them and now we have lovely new-old lamps sans adventures in other folks's garages.

sometimes it takes for.eve.er to get a picture to email offa the iphone to the computer so's i can use it here. ::sigh::

so we sold the little soldier car and she now lives in a community of prefabricated homes. i was all like - that's a long way from princeton and my old man was all like - your pops didn't buy it new, maybe it started in a trailer park and now it's glad to be back. we have both anthropomorphized the car. aren't we cute! and i do hope what he said is true and that she's happy....

so what happened was that this oldish man wanted to purchase the little soldier, and i would say he's english-as-a-second-language, but he didn't actually adventure into the second language. he's sort of still embedded in the first. so, he brought his youngish grown-up son who has begun the adventure into a second language, english, and this youngish grown-up son has gotten about as far as here to the steak & shake, which is to say not too very far.

anyway. they settled on a price and the spanglishmen went to get their money. whilst they were gone, one-ringie-dingie-two-ringie-dingie... another guy calls and wants to buy the car. my old man is all like - well somebody already has gone to get his money but if he doesn't come back, i will call you. and then he is saying it again - well somebody already has gone to get his money but if he doesn't come back, i will call you. OMG! what part of this is the caller not getting? then, my old man is all like - well, did you come here and drive it? did you? no? well, the guy that went to get his money drove it so i guess that isn't you, is it?

heh. right. like -- "oh, i think it is me that went to get the money. yes, it is me. i will be right there." heh. NO.

and so i was like - how long do we wait? well, the buyer said it would be maybe 20 mins to get the money. so we are waiting and waiting and waiting. and, waiting. and, then they drive up! they get out of the piece of crap car they are driving and approach us at the piece of crap car they are purchasing - the oldish spanish-as-a-first-language man and the youngish english-as-a-second-language man - they approach us with the money in their hands. i mean, both mens both hands. each had a stack of about 6" of moneys clutched with both hands. o to the m to the g. so my old man is all like - do you run a strip club? and english-as-a-second-language is all like - no, no, poppy he work at ceecee pizza.

and i am wondering do they think "ceecee" is "¡sí! ¡sí!" -- yes! yes! pizza!

and then we counted the money three times and they were $2 over, so we gave them $2 back and then followed them to their prefab house and removed the license plate from the car and left her there. i wonder if they'll keep the monkey.

you call it corn, we call it maize.

outdoor soccer season started three weeks before easter, but for each of those three weeks it rained so much that the games were cancelled. then, no games on easter and then it was last week & we had a bye. now, it's this week and 5 weeks after we were supposed to start the season we have our first game. it's a beautiful day with no forecast of rain and a predicted high of 70º. perfect. i checked the schedule and the game should be relatively easy. perfect x2. not that i am not generally up for a challenge but it takes some orientating to get ones bearings out there after playing indoor all winter and i'd just as soon there weren't a bunch of supahstars bearing down on me while i am trying to get my shit together. if you know what i mean.

i've played soccer for a lot of years - took it up when i was about 10 years old. it was the new sport in town and although the details are somewhat fuzzy, i remember playing on a rather wack co-ed team with my bff jennifer and some older guys who would take off their shirts during practice. this was my first glimpse of bare-chested, sweaty young men breathing hard, and all i knew at the time was that i wanted to go to practice every day. we did have a coach and played games in a league so it's not like it was some random scheme launched by high-schoolers to pick up elementary school girls. it was just that sort of odd mix you can get when you're launching something new at the ymca.

my bff was unexpectedly good at soccer. well, unexpected for me at least. and she might not even have been all that good objectivelywise, but she was better at soccering than i, and it was the first time i noticed i might have to try a bit harder at this sports thing than maybe other people did. apparently i am a bit discoördinated. who knew? it was also the first time i noticed that my bff jennifer was a blonde haired, blue eyed beauty and that i was a rather dull four-eyed brunette. nothing like a bare-chested 16 year old talking to your bff while you stand there like a doof to bring this realization slamming on home.

ANYWAYS.

i played in junior high school and became a fairly solid outside fullback. there is enough diversity of position on the soccer field for everyone to find a place - sort of a disney moment for us all. my jr high coach wanted to move me to halfback but with all the running there, i had serious trouble breathing and am only now able to put it all together and see that i've had asthma probably all my life. we'll just skip the part here where no one was paying enough attention to my health to help me put this together at the time. [poor pitiful me!]

so i took it up when i was about 10 and played thru junior high but my high school didn't have soccer for girls until i was a senior, when i played again, but apparently all those years not playing hadn't helped my mad soccer skillz. what's odd is that i don't so much remember not being good at it, but i do clearly remember being told by my teammates that the coach only put me into games because she felt sorry for me and wanted me to be eligible for a varsity letter. by then i was well on my way to being valedictorian so i knew in my head that it's okay to be not-so-good at sports, but somehow failed to realize that these teammates were olympic-quality wankettes.

flash forward to me sitting at my kitchen table as a grown-up having one of those "this is not my house" moments, perusing the newspaper for an escape hatch when lo & behold, what to my wondering eyes should appear - soccer for grown-ups. count me in! and i've been playing ever since.

the end.

selling the soldier to pay for the frontier - but don't you need soldiers on the frontier?

so we made a list and did a bunch of errands today and let me tell you something about errands - they will wear your britches OUT! and, if you make a list you can sometimes have too many things to get them all done and that's a bit of a let down. but we accomplished quite a bit, including putting the little soldier out for sale.



i meant to take a picture and i definitely will try to get one before she goes for good but that's basically what she looks like there -- in san francisco where clearly all the sentras go on holiday. she's a cute little car with a lot going for her - no rips or tears or stains on the upholstery, no cracks in the dash or doors, the AC works, the heater works, the rear window defogger works, the radio works, the cassette player [i know, right?] works, the brakes and tires and windshield wipers are all good. she's got a few issues, the most pressing of which is that the clutch has needed replacing from the time we got it, and here we are a year later and it still doesn't particularly like to go into 2nd and sometimes it'll just pop right on out of 4th, but it's not any better & it's not any worse. that's good b/c it's not any worse, but it's bad b/c it's got to be closer to the end of its life. she's really in pretty good shape overall but we do need to sell her before she falls apart.

wanna buy a car?

f to the r to the i to the d to the a to the y

my old man took apart the vacuum cleaner. i can hardly wait to get the necessary parts and put it back together tomorrow. yip. yip. yipee.

you know what would be cool? if there were people who either liked to clean houses or maybe didn't mind it too much, and you could pay them, and they'd come over and clean YOUR house. you know, like at the motel how they will clean your room, only at your house. maybe twice a month or so, they'd come in and bring their bucket o' cleaning potions and just scrub it up.

what?

finally got my free starbucks at like 19:00 but it was an all day offer so better late than never!

today we took what was about a 4" stack of cash money and counted it out onto a desk that looked like it had recently been in a box and is now in an prefab office building on a used car lot right off the highway in a small town about 45 mins east of here. maybe a 5" stack. we got the money kinda quick and it was not all large bills, so the stack was a bit on the thick side. but we counted it out into piles which the salesman then collected without recounting any of it which was sort of a nice touch because he did just watch me count it so would have been a bit dooshie to count it again right there. and then we signed some papers and shook some hands and collected the one key [lame-oh!] that went with the vehicle and drove away the proud owners of a 2007 nissan frontier crew cab. yeah, baby! it is a sweet truck. my old man's a bit wonky over the amount of money but we got a good deal really and he will be okay with it. he now has the entire package - truck, trailer, mower, weedeater, pushmower - to do a bit of mowing this summer. it will keep him busy, keep him outside, allow him to earn some pocket change for golfing. and he won't have to deal with the guy he was cutting with last year who we will simply say is a difficult sort and leave it at that.

two of my favorite things about the truck are - now i can take my bicycle places without taking it apart first and there are 4 doors which makes for easy access for beavis & regina. here's a pic of the type of truck to tide you over until i can take a pic of the whole outfit - truck, trailer, and mowing gear.



ours is this same color - silver - only ours has some pinstripes. our wheels are not all schmancy like these and the tires are new but not white letter. a neat thing you cannot see in this pic is the bed extender. the bed is relatively short b/c the cab is long, so there's a sort of bar-cage thing in the back where you can leave the tail down and extend the bed. like this --



you can also use the bed extender with the tail up - like, to anchor your bike or whatever. or you can remove it altogether if you wanted. it's cool like swimming at the pool after school.

it's a wee bit warm in here.....

at times it seems the more pervasive technology becomes the less people get it. i don't mean, like, they can't use a microwave or a blackberry or whatever - they can USE the technology but they don't GET it. they don't see the point. prime example: printing out emails. i cannot begin to explain the idiocy of this to you b/c if you print emails, you won't ever get it, and if you don't print emails, you already do. today, marketing-guy brought a printout of some tech guy's blog where the guy was ranting about the uselessness of the prevalent IT practice of requiring frequent password changes. [in case you don't know, frequent password changes don't bolster security.] so, marketing-guy was all - «next time you see the IT guys, give them this, haha!» and i am all - «no.» if i were to take a printout of a blog containing a trite, over-ranted ranting about an admittedly useless but pathetically patterned IT practice and hand it to the IT guys, they'd laugh at me. firstly, who prints out blogs?? send a freaking link! and on the other hand, we all already know about the fact that changing passwords is just method to distract the user community from the fact that security is simply smoke & mirrors. and by "we" i mean of course, everyone but marketing-guy.

books 2010

currently:

complete:
benjamin pratt & the keepers of the school: we the children
[andrew clements]
water for elephants
[sara gruen]
the last child
[john hart]
the youngest templar: the keeper of the grail
[michael p. spradlin]
the last song
[nicholas sparks]
the magykal papers
[angie sage]
the memory of running
[ron mclarty]

today was a code-orange air alert which in this case means there will be no pictures in today's blog.

so i like to run & play outside, and for some reason this makes people think that firstly i care about their workout programme and secondly that i am judging them. i am fairly certain they're projecting this from inside their own weetle noggins b/c it's not like i ever ask about anyone's anythings. they just volunteer the information.

"you'd be so proud of me - i worked out three days in a row!" well, by golly there co-worker, you couldn't be more wrong. i am not proud of you nor do i hold you in contempt. it's more along the lines of simply not caring, although i am sort of relieved to learn that our health care maintenance system will suffer a bit less of a burgeoning burden because of your bustling.

"oh, don't look but i'm going to have another piece of cake!" well, by golly there co-worker, who the flock cares? i mean, really. who? i don't care what you eat or when or where. i will admit that i sort of need you not to be a piggy-pig-pig because firstly mayhaps i wanted some of the cake, and secondly if you drift into a food-induced stupor and cannot complete your assignments, i will have to do them and the reason you have a job is because there is a job there to be done and i already have a job and so i don't want two. in conclusion, i think i will watch you eat that piece of cake after all, and i might just judge you for it, too.

"ace doesn't eat junk like this." well, by golly there co-worker, have you been following me around recording my eatings in a food diary? b/c that would be really handy and while you're at it please calculate my total calorie intake and also the protein and the niacinamide, a nutrient vital to healthy hair.

mostly people try to put their fellowpeople into neat little boxes with neat little labels on them so that they don't have to think about you every time they see you. nobody wants to reanalyze and resort the world every day, hour, minute. there's simply not enough brainpower for that. you've got to have your categories sorted out to a certain extent or you'd never be able to get past reintroducing yourself to everyone and everything and every process. as insulting as it can be to be on the receiving end of it, prejudice keeps us alive.

but if you've judged me based on my behaviour and you've decided that i am some particular sort person then what follows is that you are going to expect me to behave in alignment with the way you have decided that i am, and then the conclusion is that you will be sorely disappointed.

that is, unless i have misjudged you, too... because there is that slim chance you will be delighted after all.

the quotidian surpise

so after work i did some errands and all like that, and got home, and then we are sitting there with the usual discussion - what's for supper. it's really fairly pathetic how often this comes up, i mean it's like 7 times a week or something. i am all like whatever and my old man is all like whatever and i am all like okay i am getting my shoes and he is all like okay i'll be in the car and so we take off in search of a piece of grilled chicken on a piece of bread. where else would we go for grilled chix but chick-fil-a? so we pull up there and he gets in the drive thru. eh? what's this? drive thru?

[sorry but i just have to say here that my old man is lame-oh at ordering. it's supposed to go like this, "2 #2s, one iced tea, one coke zero" but he's all "gimme a couple... ah... charcoal grilled... um... sandwiches and (to me) what do you want to drink? (to speaker) okay, a... um... one iced tea and also, no sauce on the sandwiches, put the sauce on the side, and uh... what? oh, a coke zero... and those are the meals, right? got it?"]

so he orders, and thru some miracle of the chicken-god, they get it correct. he did remember to axe for two separate bags, which is important ifyouknowwhatimean. and so i'm sitting there holding the bags while he's driving the getaway car and up at the traffic signal he makes a right but home is left. left! left, i say!


hmm.... something good is going to happen now. i just know it! drive. drive. blah. blah. we end up a the parc. yay! we are going to eat outside! so we eat and we talk and we laff and we talk and laff and eat. it was da bomp. da. bomp.

okay, see, here's the thing. i am a grown up. i can go to the parc any damb time i please. i can just tootle my own self right on down there. and i can tell my old man - take me to the parc. or i can say - let's go to the parc. but there is just something so dear and sort of unexplainably lovely about thinking you're going to have a chick-fil-a at the chick-fil-a store and then finding out that you're going to have a chick-fil-a at the parc.

well, anyway, it was beautiful and if you cannot understand then you can just suck it.

we still say "tape that show" even though the vcr has been replaced by a dvr.

when you eat a baked tater, do you eat the skin? i do. my old man does not. he is all like - hey, that's gross, you don't know if they cleaned it. but the truth is he doesn't like tater skins so it really doesn't matter if they are clean, he is not going to eat them anyway. it's also true that i do like them so it really doesn't matter if they are clean, i am going to eat them anyway. i mean, if there were like clumps of mud hanging off, well no i would not eat THAT and i'd actually be very likely to send it back. i mean, i'd send it back if i were at a restaurant. if i fixed myself a baked tater and there was mud on it, i would not eat the skin, but i would still eat the tater. i would not send it back to myself because i am really likely to spit in the food if i have to refix it and spit trumps mud. as far as tater skins go - the best are the ones that have giant salt crystals all over them. mmm!

our cutlery is a sad lot. we've got a mélange of forks, knives, and spoons that make the drawer where they live look like a bin at goodwill. some of the pieces are uselessly misshapen, and the sad thing is they were made that way on purpose. forks with no substance to them and knives with no weight in the handle and spoons with bowls that are made for turtles' mouths. there's some stuff that bothers me so bad i cannot even eat with it. i give it to my old man. he doesn't notice.

we have a nice box of stainless flatware in the other room, for company, and a box of silver in the basement, for looking at. i have considered moving the nice, matching stainless to the drawer and using it as our everyday but the problem is that there are a few pieces in the ménagerie that are special. there's my cereal spoon, my ice cream / yogurt spoon, and my butter knife. the cereal spoon is a vintage dig 'em spoon, one of which me & my pals each sent away for with boxtops saved at brigadoon. these are apparently now a collectors item. the ice cream / yogurt spoon was lifted by the shaman from an american airlines flight meal. back in the day, they handed out actual stainless with the airplane food. this is also apparently now a collectors item. the butter knife is the only piece i have left from the stainless of my childhood, doubtless also a collectors item if i knew where to look.

i have to guard these carefully b/c as i said, my old man doesn't notice. he will use them with total disregard. i do keep them in a separate part of the drawer, but sometimes they get into circulation via the dish drainer. i am ever vigilant and have been known to replace a special utensil in my old man's hand with a plain utensil. you would think after all these years he'd realize that some of the pieces are not intended for his use. sheesh.

ooops! forgot the title. hello, this is the title. hello.

just finished sara gruen's water for elephants. what a spectacular book! it's difficult to describe... i guess maybe it's a coming-of-age tale? the setting is a circus in 1931 and an assisted living facility in "present day". the descriptions of the settings, the action, and both the circus folk & the old folk -- all are detailed. the dialog is sharp, clear, real. the situations are plausible and yet with it being a circus, fantastic. the pacing is excellent. good, good book!

next up, benjamin pratt & the keepers of the school: we the children. this is the uncorrected proof i received out of the blue the other day. have no idea how that happened, but i am not one to turn down free books! it came with a card encouraging me to email the editor and tell her what i think about it. wonder if i'll get more if i don't reply about this one.

what about ol' tiger, back in the swing of things at the master's? the crowds have been welcoming him back, and really, who doesn't deserve a second chance. can you imagine having your foibles made public -- and by public i don't mean folks in your neighborhood know you've been messing around on your old lady, i mean The World knows. jeezumpete, that would just be humiliating, don't you think? and then to have to get up in front of everyone and play a sport that requires calm nerves and steely focus. it's hard enough to simply perform at golf while be stared at by the others in your foursome, much less dozens or maybe hundreds of live onlookers, much less millions more via teevee, but to know what they all must be thinking... sheesh. so, i am giving ol' tiger a second chance, and we'll just see what he does with it. i know he'll be happy to know about this, because i know that my allowances mean a lot to him.

books 2010

currently:
benjamin pratt & the keepers of the school: we the children
[andrew clements]

complete:
water for elephants
[sara gruen]
the last child
[john hart]
the youngest templar: the keeper of the grail
[michael p. spradlin]
the last song
[nicholas sparks]
the magykal papers
[angie sage]
the memory of running
[ron mclarty]

livebloggin from the barrel

the nonfood-vendor vendor brought jordan almonds today. omg! i love jordan almonds! they are da bomp. i remember having them at the movies all the time when i was a kid. oddly, i don't remember that we went to the movies much. huh.

here at the barrel the parking lot was freakin jam packed but I guess everyone is next door at the krimpy kreme bc this place just isn't that busy. i think our waiter is a bit forrest-gump, ifyaknowwhatimean. but he managed to splain the menu so it's all good.

the bullet hole in my luckys came unpatched. oh, the humanity! i had to patch my lovely liz claiborne capris the other day bc i punchured them on the toolbox gettin mini-me's bikecycle outta the subbasement. shouldn'ta wore 'em to do the heavy lifting, eh?

food! food!

oldies but goodies

one

two

three

nicklaus. palmer. player. they may age, but it never gets old.

so tonight for dindin we went to jason's deli. i know, right? every time we go my old man gets the same thing. i don't mean some of the time or most of the time. i mean every. single. time. now, i will get this same thing a lot but not every time. i'll have maybe the tomato-basil soup or the pasta primo - the pasta sauce is tomato-basil soup, so those are actually sort of the same thing. there's this other pasta thing i like and a couple wrap sammiches and the veggie pizza and the salad bar. but, the point isn't all the different things i will eat there. the point is that my old man only eats the one thing - the pollo mexicano potato.

now clearly this is a mexican style dish because mexicano means "mexican style" in espagnole and of course, pollo means chicken. i believe the proper pronounciation of pollo is POI-yoh. i generally give it the ol' halfass try, POH-yoh. my old man will go as far as POH-loh, which is not very far at all. couldn't tell you why exactly. it's not like POI-yoh is that hard to say but for some reason, it sounds silly to me. POI-yoh. it doesn't sound like real food, so i don't want to say it.

tonight we were each getting this delightful potato stuffed with chicken, cheese, pico, and we add broccoli. no butter, but i get a little sour cream on the side. mmm.... the gal at the counter goes "why don't you get one big one instead of two halfs?" and i was like "why would we?" and she was like "well, the halfs cost $5.39 each and the whole is $6.39." i did the math really quickly in my head, and i think we saved $27! so we got the one big one and they fixed it and brought it to the table. one potato, one plate, one fork, no sour cream. i told the young lady we needed another plate, another fork, and some sour cream. she was like really nice and all "of course you do!" and in only 2 more trips she managed to bring those items so then we were all set.

i chopped off a bit of the tater and set up shop on the no-longer-empty plate. i smushed it and smashed it and added some sour cream and i'm all set to go and i take a couple bites and then i am like, "hey, i didn't get any chicken. give me some off that other part." and my old man is all, "hey, i didn't get any chicken." and so i sort of sit there looking at him watching the sun of knowledge dawn in his head until he goes "hey, there's no chicken on this tater!" as a reward for his quickness, i assigned him the task of getting us some chicken. he visited the counter and returned to the table and was followed shortly by a manager who brought the chicken. nothing like efficient use of walk-time, eh?

that's what we get for pollo mispronounciation. mispollonciation.

i will tell you these three things. these three things i will tell you.

this envelope showed up for me today. huh? what? it's from simon & schuster. in case you didn't know, simon & schuster is a publisher, so in case you can't figger it out, it's a book. an unsolicited advance reader copy. woowoo! i am now gettin' random books in the mail! well, not random books. simon & schuster books. heh. that's a book joke. you might not get it. too bad!

this is the last season of saving grace. i am not sure i am ready for it to be done. they didn't ask me. in other television-related news, mini-me alerted me to the fact that merlin's on scyfy. yay! so i went right over there to tape it and there are apparently only 3 epi's left. again, with the not asking me.

tonight we took the harley to smooth. that's his real name. smooth. i could not make that up. smooth, the harley guy. anyway, he's going to get her a new battery and change her oil so she can go live with somebody else. he kept saying how good looking she is and all that, and it's true, she's lovely. she's just too damb big. next time, i will get a rebel. heh. next time.

patrick warburton is a comic genius.

so if you didn't know it was exit 113 in LEXINGTON you might take 113 in MT STERLING and that would be a mistake. then, if you didn't know in advance it was exit 113, well it's not like there is any indication that's the exit when you get there. so you kind of have to take that one on faith. then, you have to pre-know that you need to take a right on north broad and another right on new circle. i mean, it's not like they are telling you this stuff. only after you've been on new circle for a couple miles do you get any signage about the bluegrass pkwy. and then you are pretty much all set, except when you get to the bluegrass, you have to backtrack a bit to get to the starbux, and when you have a pocketful of free coffee coupons, you will make that extry effort to get to the starbux. whew! and, don't even get me STARTED on finding the starbux in bowling green! wander indiana, indeed. i say - wander kentuck!

so i stumbled out of the car in lexvegas to get my free javajoe and sort of blearily made my way into the store, and i am a pathetic starbux groupie so i know the drill and generally burst in with the confidence but i was in a strange store in a strange city so i am walking in with a smallish chip, maybe like a pita chip, on my shoulder and looking at everyone like, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, as i am at this point trying to cover up the fact that i am firstly & foremostly looking for the restroom b/c i need it fairly extremely and i am trying not to dash in & demand to know where is it where is it - and i am also thinking oh-please-don't-be-locked! - and all this is going on when i am registering in the wee far recesses of my brain that something has softly struck my lower left leg and gently plunked on the floor and i do manage enough coordinated body function to look around and lo & behold, there on the floor is the USB + charger for my iphone. clearly the little frooker hitched a ride on my purse. frooker! i scooped it up like i meant for it to be there. on the floor. i meant for it to be there. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

by the by, "TMI WALTONKY" from the other day's post that nobody guessed on... was printed on a vinyl truck cover and when unfolded it read - "TMI WALTON, KY". hahaha! it was a truck from walton, kentuck. waltonky!! now that's funny, i don't care who you are!

cricket is like baseball. hurling is like lacrosse. curling is like shuffleboard. sort of, not really.

one thing about a vacation where you don't really do anything is that you cannot remember what you did. one thing i just remembered that i did not do was this one work thing i said i would do last thursday. one thing. i realize it's vacation, but really, i could do the one thing. gah! one thing! one freakin thing! yeah, so i just now did it. better late than never, eh?

one thing about a vacation where you drive a long way to get there is that you are going to have a long drive home. this is why i chose a rental with satellite radio. by my good fortune, the vernal equinox rabbit brought me some fig newtons. woohoo - vernal equinox rabbit! and, i got some wheat thins at the cheapo brothers store, and i have enough empty starbux pkgs to get free talls from here to omaha, and because i am not going to omaha, i think i am all set in the coffee dept.

one thing about a vacation where you stay in someone's home is that you will end up watching on teevee what they watch on teevee and tonight here in graceland there was nearly a showing of the simpsons and this was a really big risk for me b/c i have never seen an epi of that show and would really like to keep that particular streak alive.

one thing about a vacation is that you're usually going to eat more and exercise less but i'd have to say that this time, really, there was a good balance. for exercising, there was a chance to go running with mini-me on her brilliant greenway and then here in graceland there was this kick-arse class that elvis wanted to do at the Y so we did that twice and also there was walking around town and a couple chances to go running on elvis's simply brilliant greenway and of course chasing beavis around the parc and the back yard. for meals in graceland we mostly had only 2 - brunch + supper - because we were really busy getting our arses kicked over to the Y. and of course, there was plenty of coffee and in between snacks like m&ms and jelly beans and pita chips. woohoo snacks! for meals we had, starting with evening on the first day -
-- homemade qorma & rice
-- bob evans - i had the eggs over easy, sausage, biscuits
-- fancy bistro sammiches at the fancy bistro - i had chicken with some kind of cheese i don't remember + granny smith apple + caramelized onyons
-- chinese take out - sesame chicken!
-- steel cut oats, bacon, frittata with spinach & shrooms, fruit
-- grilled burgers & chickens & peppers with chips & beans + corn
-- homemade scones, bacon, scrambled eggs, fruit
-- leftovers - i had turkey lasagna, sesame chicken!, peas, and a lovely scone

one thing about a vacation is it is never long enough, and i realize that's a cliché, and it's not like i hate my life or anything, but simply hanging out really has a lot going for it.

absence of activity does not invariably equal boredom, just like having plenty of time to write doesn't necessarily translate into quality blogs.

so here's the thing about vacation - you will maybe sit around watching rugby and eating m&ms. and you don't even really like m&ms but they are there and so you eat them b/c maybe you are hungry or maybe you are just simply on vacation and that's what you do while you are on vacation - you eat. and also you watch something odd on the telly b/c you are in a different place and it's in the middle of the afternoon and you're just simply there, watching, and it's rugby that is on, and so you watch some. and, maybe you talk about yourself in the second person because maybe that's what you do on vacation.

vacation is supposed to be a break from everyday life, but i'm not really your Big Exciting Destination kind of person. back in the day, we took mini-me to disney, and yeah we should have done the magic kingdom instead of universal studios. who knew that nickelodeon would be such a disappointment? but, the point is that disney is a Big Exciting Destination and besides the nick, we did actually have a Really Good Time, but for the most part i'd rather just not have a plan. my everyday life is heavy on planning. hell, my chosen career is planning - i am a professional planner, by trade. simply not having a plan is all the vacation i need.

pass the m&ms, k?

dental care is something that has really come a long way in the past 100 years.

it's like you're in this group and a new person comes in and this new person is just a complete dork, a loser, an idiot really, but the other people in the group start to accept this person and pretty soon this person is included in the group which is all well and good because it's a group not an individual, and groups have different people in them and that's what keeps a group fresh.

but then this person sort of starts to move into what you might call a leadership position, although there aren't like official elected leaders in the group b/c it's not that sort of a group, but this person sort of starts to move to the forefront. and that's all well and good b/c it's a free country and this person can do whatever seems right for this person and can be whatever is achievable for this person. it's all good. it's fabulous. it's stellar, really. i mean, good on ya, person.

what this person can achieve in this case, in this group, is reliant on what works for the other people in this group. so when the elevation of this person happens it can really make you wonder if you misjudged the whole group from the beginning and didn't really understand what the group was about or what the people were about. you did not get the baseline. or, maybe the people all changed in reaction to this person's differentness. maybe the baseline shifted. nothing wrong with that. the group will decide what is best for the group, and if what is best for the group is to have a baseline shift, then good on ya, group.

so you misjudged the group from the beginning or the group has changed, but either way there is a gap now between you and the group. you go visit the group, and all you feel is the gap. you don't have anything to say to them anymore, so you listen for a while, just listen. and what you hear consistenly highlights the gap, and you see pretty quickly that it's about more than this one person. this person was a sort of catalyst that showed you the gap, but the gap is about you and the gap is about the group.

and so there is the group and there is you and there is a gap between the two, and it is what it is. so, you'll just head off to another group, right? i mean, no worries, eh? just spend a bit less time with this group and a bit more time with that other group.

wait. what? you don't have another group? jeez. who's the idiot now, eh?

son of adventures in vacationland

today's adventure included driving from vacationville to graceland. there were myriad sights to see along the way.

have you ever seen where they've put a guardrail across a former exit ramp? it's weird - sort of spooky and ghost-towny. makes me wonder who used to use that ramp and where do they exit now? or, maybe there was like one person who used it and they died and nobody needs the ramp anymore. i am not talking about closed off rest areas. i realize why those places get closed off. i am talking about actual exit ramps that actually leave the interstate. with a guardrail womp-womp-womp right across it and the pavement all cracked and weeds growing up. weird.

and what about that car where they get right beside you and then they go the same speed that you are going. i mean, there you are in the right hand lane, and this car pulls up in the left as if to pass and then just sits there. i use the cruise control, so it's not me that is speeding up, it's them that are slowing down. what is this, a car convoy? a carvoy? jeebux. so, i'll speed up and try to get away from them, break the logjam and let the others cars thru, but what in heavens name causes people to do that in the first place?

sometimes you can see a road running beside the freeway and it's not a major road and you can tell it's not used much at all. it's just a country road. but, when you look over there, sometimes it looks like a really good place to go for a run. i'll be all like - hey, that looks like a really good place to go for a run, maybe i will go run there sometime. then i remember i am like hundreds of miles from home and so maybe not so much with the running there.

today i saw a super 7 motel. super 7? is that like, not quite super enough to be a super 8?

i also saw a truck with this stenciled on the back - "tmi waltonky". it was a business truck. this was a business name. what kind of business do you think it was? hint: i may not have read it prigzactly correctly.

and, last but not least, i skillfully snapped this pic for you. yes, i was driving at the time, but no worries, i was also mostly awake. you don't see something like this everyday, do ya now?