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Meditation

Ah, see the baby, how beautiful he is!

He will walk among us, as one of us, and yet not so, for he has come forth from the God of heaven and earth. The praise of angels precede him, the prophecies of men are fulfilled in him, and the Spirit of the Lord is upon him.

And look! Here are the star-watchers, who have journeyed long, bearing gifts, that they may kneel before the Morning Star. Here are the shepherds too, who, hearing the song of angels as they kept their dark-night vigil among their flocks, have shaken off sleep to gaze on the one who will shepherd many peoples.

Come and see, the baby sleeps. But hush, for the cares and evils of the world and all men will lie heavy on his shoulders when he wakes, and he will bear that weary burden all the days of his life. He will feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort the sorrowful, rebuke the proud, and restore life to the dead and dying. Then he himself will die for those who revile him and turn away. He will be torn, bruised, and broken for all, whether they have loved or hated him. He will forgive the ones who destroy his life.

Those who love him will falter and stray, but he will be faithful, because he loves them and they are his.

Oh! if only I could make you see how beautiful he is! This baby, this little child, this man named Jesus, this Son of God.

For the light has come, and the darkness does not know how to bear it.

No Work For Me=Blog For You!

Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Holiday stresses got you down? Well never fear--the frogg is here! Today I have heroically used my downtime at work to entertain you with this blog. At least, I hope you are entertained. (If you aren't, and would like to complain, please see the second-to-last paragraph of this post. Thank you.)

First of all, I would just like to inform you that today is a cause for celebration. Many celebrations, actually. Because NOT ONLY is it the Winter Solstice, it is also a Palindrome Day! Look--12/21. Now write the numbers from right to left, and it is the same! Watch, I'll do it: 12/21. Whoa! How cool is that!

(Yes, I have too much free time.)

But wait, there's more! Today is also: National Flashlight Day, National Hamburger Day, and Look on the Bright Side Day. So do yourself a favor and look on the bright side by shining your flashlight on a burger from your favorite burger joint (In-N-Out, baby!). And don't forget that "hamburger" written backward is "regrubmah." Uh, that's not a palindrome, is it. Oops. (But it's kind of funny, because it sounds like "Re-grub, ma." Haha!)

Ok, moving on. The next thing I want to share with you is a site called innocentenglish, featuring lots of funny signs gleaned from foreign countries. Here are a few of my favorites, which had me nearly choking in my efforts to not laugh so loudly that the attention of my co-workers would be drawn to the fact that I am doing a lot less work than they are today:

1) A yellow caution sign by a river in Japan:
CAREFULLY FALL INTO THE RIVER!

2) On a multipurpose knife sold in Japan:
CAUTION: BLADE EXTREMELY SHARP! KEEP OUT OF CHILDREN.

3) Sign at park:
KEEP JAPAN GREEN
DON'T BURN
THE FIRE CHIEF

(oh I do love that one!)

4) A flush button in subway toilet:
You lady will push this button before leaving.

5) Bathroom sign:
Caution: when you take a bath, please close the
door and switch on the fun without fail.

6) On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.


Yes, it's hard to choose a favorite, but this one gets the Frogg's Croak Award today:

7) A sign in an Osaka hotel elevator above the emergency call button:
Push this button in case anything happens.

Finally, if you are tempted to complain about how crazy things are at this time of year, or anything else really, save it for December 26, which is National Whiners Day. I tell you I can't wait! I am a prodigiously accomplished whiner. Just ask my family...my Christmas-Day trademark, "Come on, guys--When are we going to open the presents?" is legendary (and still performed).

Until next time, here's wishing you a blessed/good/joyous/merry/seasonal/holiday day. Kisses from the frogg princess...

No Happy Holidays For You!

As a followup to my previous post, here is a link to a CNN article that I happened to find a few minutes ago:

Tiptoeing Around "Merry Christmas," Er, "Happy Holidays"

I would laugh if it weren't so depressing...the fact that people are busily fighting, at Christmas time, over what is the best way to greet someone, or what to call a tree that has pretty lights on it.

Not to mention the fact that this is primetime news.

Personally, I think we should all just...not talk. No pleasant greetings! No cheerful salutations! And all these angry people get a lump of coal in their stockings for being ridiculous.

(Unless, of course, they don't believe that Christ approves of stockings, in which case I just don't want to hear it.)

Thinking Aloud

This morning I logged onto bible.com because I can't remember very well the last time I read much of the Bible, and I felt like maybe it would be nice to read some, today. I found the following survey on the front page of the site:

What concerns you the most about how the world is attacking Christmas, a Christian holiday?

a) Using an "X" to replace Christ's name in Christmas - i.e. Xmas
b) Banning manger scenes from public places
c) Substituting "Happy Holidays" for "Merry Christmas"
d) Emphasizng Santa Claus over Baby Jesus

I have to say, I am not particularly bothered by any of the above, and it depresses me a little that this seems to be the big concern for Christians at this time of year. Why should we be surprised if a world that doesn't care much for God as a general rule, doesn't want to honor him at all?

It strikes me (wearisomely, these days) that we who love the Lord have to pick our battles, and we seem to be picking all the wrong ones.

I remember meeting a woman a few years ago, in a Borders bookstore, and somehow engaging her in a conversation about God and religion. I began to talk to her about the concept of "grace" and she looked blank. I asked if she knew what the word meant--just the dictionary definition, really--and she shook her head.

That bothers me a whole lot more than whether or not a manger scene is set up on a street corner.

I Just Want To Tell You...

...that I love Christmas lights.

I'm Back...

...and I'm sick. Stupid cold and flu season. I hate it.

Feel free to tell me how sorry you are for me. I'm sure that will help me feel better soon. Pity parties are oh-so-fun!

In the meantime, this is the frogg, signing off and thinking longingly of her bed at home, where she would much prefer to be right now, instead of at work. Sigh.

I Lied...

...obviously, because here I am, blogging when I said I would be gone for a few days. Well, I am gone, so I guess that wasn't a lie, but I am blogging, so maybe that was. I don't know because I have been up since 3am, and it is now 8pm Pacific Time, and I am operating on about 2 hours of sleep. Why am I posting, you ask? Or maybe you didn't. I don't know, because I am not right there with you. But I will tell you anyway--I was conscience-stricken about one of the links I had in my previous post. The post is edited, the link is gone, and I can go to sleep now.

I'll be back soon.

PS Texas is alright, but very flat and brown. It's strange not to see mountains in any direction, for miles. Sigh...

Speaking of Strange, But Amusing, News

In bizarre news today, a man in New Zealand apparently "fled" a hospital in Christchurch sporting casts on both arms and a traction apparatus to correct a serious neck injury.

I have to ask: is the word "fled" (which to me means runnning desperately away from someone/something) really appropriate here? How fast could this man possibly go in the condition that he's in? Was someone actually chasing him, that he would be fleeing from them?? And that person couldn't catch a man wearing elbow-to-wrist casts on BOTH arms, AND the neck-traction halo? Wow.

On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that he just slipped out of the hospital with no one noticing, and somehow lost himself in the city. I mean, look at what he's wearing!! Not exactly inconspicuous, is it? Unless the fashion trends have taken a very startling turn in kiwiland.

And yet, the fact remains that the man has "disappeared" and the police are actually hunting for him. How odd.

Ah, I miss New Zealand!

Note: This is my last post for the week. I'm off to the Lone Star state (appropriate, no?) for the next few days, to see my brother get his wings. Yes, that is what I said. Til I return, miss me, my darlings!

Stop the Presses!

After hearing nothing from my editor in over a week, I got an email from her today asking if I want to undertake a story about some family who might be buying cows and keeping them locally, in someone's field. Um, no, not really. My editor called it, "strange, but amusing." But I am not so sure. I feel like the only thing this story will do is get some cow-buying folks mad at me, because I am pretty sure it will turn out that they are in violation of some city ordinance or other, and since I would have to call the city manager for a quote on the legality of what these people are doing, authorities will find out about it and go after them if they are in fact doing something wrong.

Oh, the hot drama of small-town news!

Of course, if it turns out they are within their rights, and have a permit or whatever it is you would need to have cows in your backyard, then the whole story is pointless. "Extra, extra, read all about it--people keeping cows in a field! Turns out they're allowed to! Extra, extra!"

You know, I am really not cut out for journalism.

Why The Frogg Is Still Single, Reason #1,385

I figured out another reason for my incurable singleness tonight as I walked to the movie theatre to take in a 7pm showing of Narnia. Here it is:

I am a bad dresser.

Since early years, dressing with anything remotely approaching a "style" has been a challenge for me. I found a photo of me once, at Disneyland a hundred years ago when I was a child, and I am wearing a brown and orange horizontally striped shirt with an applique owl where my left breast would have been (if I had had breasts, which I didn't because of being about five), and these yellow corduroy pants with baskets of strawberries in a repeating pattern all over them.

To say that my attire was aesthetically insulting is an understatement.

I recall being utterly aghast when I saw that photo, and asking my mother, "How could you let me go out of the house wearing such a terrible outfit, where I could be seen by actual people? In public?!" To which she shrugged and replied (I kid you not), "That's what you wanted to wear."

Oh did I. Hmmm, since when do parents actually let you do what you want to do? I mean, what if I had wanted to wear coconuts and a grass skirt, would she have let me out of the house in that?!

I think not.

The point being, when I was younger I was not what you would call "fashion savvy." And I am apparently still not. Here is what I wore tonight to the movies (remember, this is SATURDAY NIGHT, out on the town!):

1) Old gray high school sweatshirt that I found in my brother's old dresser.
2) Yellow sweatpants (pretty bright yellow, actually)
3) A tan knit beanie with an orangish and a blueish stripe (and yes, I realize that nothing is really "matching" so far).
4) Dark gray trail running shoes.

I know what you must be thinking, because I am thinking the same thing, namely, what is the deal with me and yellow pants?! Well, I don't know the answer, any more than I know the airspeed velocity of an African swallow, but I do know that something good came of my fashion handicap tonight. No, I did not find a husband (helloooo, bad dresser, remember?), but I did get a student discount at the movie theatre. I didn't even have to lie, because the girl charging me didn't ask. I guess the high school sweatshirt was all she needed to see.

I don't know whether to be flattered that at the age of 30, I can apparently pass for a teenager, or discouraged that at the age of 30, I do not give the impression of being a grown woman. Even though I now have breasts.

Well, I could go on (and on and on) with countless examples of my sartorial misadventures, but I will spare you. The simple fact that there are so many examples I could draw on is evidence enough to support my final conclusion: If anyone is ever going to fall in love with me, it will have to be because of my amazing br...I mean, personality.

At any rate, I'm pretty confident that it won't be because of the yellow pants.

Eew

Speaking of things that are gross to eat...

Oh wait, we weren't? Huh. Well, let's. Because I just got this chocolate bar out of the vending machine, and you know how there are some things that sound perfectly tenable in theory (such as a roller coaster that stays stationary in the interests of supreme customer safety), they are in fact really dumb ideas (such as the aforementioned, which would hit the bottom of the charts in customer satisfaction)?

Well, let me tell you, the M-Azing milk chocolate bar with peanut butter M&M's in it is surely one of those things.

It doesn't sound like it would be, and that's the problem. It lures you into a false sense of pleased expectation, because hey, we all know that chocolate and peanut butter are a great combination, thanks to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I personally, being old and all, remember with great fondness their advertisements of thousands of years ago wherein, for example (and this is true), a caveman with a jar of peanut butter gets into a grunting argument with a caveman who is eating a chocolate bar, presumably debating which one tastes better...and then suddenly the chocolate bar falls into the peanut butter jar (was glass invented in the Stone Age? oh never mind...) and voila! The addictive Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is born--well, not really because it is still caveman times in the commercial but you get the idea that it will be, and then oh what delight awaits the masses! (Such as myself.)

So Reese's PB cups are a good idea. But the M-Azing bar...not so much. It tastes like too many different things at the exact same time, i.e., a milk chocolate bar (of questionable chocolate quality), and peanut butter M&Ms (which already have three different tastes going on: peanut butter, the thin candy shell, and more sub-par chocolate). I admit am still eating it, because I keep thinking maybe I am wrong about how bad it is, and on the next try I will see the light (or taste it, so to speak), but it never does happen. (Kind of the same experience I have with diet soda, come to think of it.)

Sigh. What a waste of .25.

On a lighter note, it's Friday! And I am going to a party tonight! With a bunch of people I don't even know! So who was the dork who said I lead a boring life?

Oh wait.

Um

So I was thinking that it would make for a good, entertaining post, if I shared with you a most scandalous secret about myself. Then I wracked my brains for a few minutes, trying (unsuccessfully) to make one up, because I couldn't think of any.

I am either really uncreative or I lead a very boring life. Or both.

Thought of the Day

You know how some days, you get these nagging thoughts that won't leave you alone? Like wondering if maybe you left the coffeepot on when you left the house, or the iron. Or maybe the rent is due, and you need to remember to pay it. Or maybe it's an annoying song, like "Ob La Di Ob La Da." (Gah!)

Well, my nagging thought for the day is that if there were such a thing as a Dork-O-Meter, it's all too likely that I would register pretty high on it, and I can't make up my mind if this amuses or worries me.

Hmm, probably a bit of both.

(PS "Horse With No Name" is also a very annoying song.)

For Theophilus

in all my work, theophilus, my desire is you will find the one who seeks you so persistently, who draws you ever onward and upward, into his waiting embrace. do not think you can escape him, if you love him! it is good to be a prisoner of hope.

if i can be as transparent as glass, so that the light in me (but it is not of me) can shine for you in a dark place, if i can make you smile, if i can make you think with longing of the one my heart longs for, i will consider myself well rewarded for all my labors.

but i want to tell you that he loves you very much, this God who does not know how to leave you alone. and something good will come of all this doubting, and sorrow, and struggle. you cannot see it now. but neither can you see the beauty of the rose that will one day spring from the seed you drop into the ground. you must trust that the seasons will bring forth the work of the one who set them in motion in ancient days.

he has not forgotten you.

God save and keep you, friend. he loves you and has forgiven you for everything. he doesn't even think of it. as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. his grace is sufficient for you, and oh how he wants you to know it!

therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

do not forget the eternal God who is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. but if you are faithless, he is faithful. he will not let you go; he knows you love him. he knows your heart. as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him.

ah theophilus, may you find rest in the midst of all your strivings. i have great hopes for you. may his peace guard you, his light guide you, and his love surround you--always.

Friday Afternoon Lull

Friday afternoon, and I have no client projects to work on. I am sitting at my desk with my afternoon cup of English Teatime tea (I always drink Earl Grey in the morning), and listening to the traffic nine stories down, on Fairfax. It's gray outside, and I would say gloomy, except that I think I'm ready for a bit of rain, perhaps even hoping for it.

I love it when it rains at night, and I can lie in bed listening to the sound of it. That's one of my favorite things.

Another favorite thing is Christmas lights, and I have seen, on my night-time walks, that the houses in my neighborhood are starting to put those up.

Which reminds me, I can now allow myself to start playing Christmas songs on the piano, since Thanksgiving is past!

And that reminds me that I actually succeeded in playing through the frustrating second line of Chopin's Piano Prelude #6 last night, and I am quite excited because that is one of the most difficult sections of that composition, so that means I can start working through the rest, and perhaps by my next lesson I will be able to play the whole thing through. It's a very pretty piece, and I like it.

Hmm. I like the word "pretty." Can you say it aloud without smiling? If you can, you shouldn't.

(Yes, I know I'm rambling. But it's that sort of day, and anyway, now you know what is usually going on in my head all the time...just multiply the tangents and randomness by whatever it would take to fill up 24 hours, and you will have a good idea of why I ought to spontaneously combust! I don't know why I don't, actually. Maybe it's because I drink so much tea--that's supposed to be very relaxing.)

Untitled

I am thinking a lot today. It is Rilke's fault, and the fact that I actually have some downtime at work, and am not drowning in all the red ink that has threatened to overtake me over the past week, and which spills from my pen like blood all over seemingly countless pages! But that sort of wounding is for the ultimate good, after all.

Ah, but about Rilke. i have been reading his Letters to a Young Poet when I have no jobs to proof, and he made me almost cry today, except that I did not let myself because it might have been awkward trying to explain if a co-worker came suddenly into my office, as they do. (The work can be demanding, but it has not reduce me to tears...not yet!)

Rilke writes nothing that is entirely new to me, but much that touches a certain place in me that corresponds to what he writes...I mean, if I can explain it, a place that has always known what he says, and thought of it, and tried in various ways to express it. And it is like how I feel when I play a particular chord in the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"--this one chord always makes me want to close my eyes, because it is so sweet it hurts. And I can't say how, but I know this chord belongs to me, comes from me in the playing of it, just as much as it belongs to beethoven, and came from him when he penned it.

In Letter #3, Rilke talks about gestation and birth, and I think a lot about those things. Not because I am a woman and I want children, because I don't, though I am. But because I have felt the past two years that I was caught up in a pregnancy of sorts...my own or the world's, I don't know. The transitions of my life, recently, have taken place for the most part in 9-month stretches--9 months in New Zealand the first time, 9 months the second; then 9 months working in a transitional job and struggling through feelings of such disappointment, such anger with God, that it perplexes me to remember them, and I hardly recognize myself in those months.

Now perhaps I am embarking on a new time, but toward what? And what have all these pregnancies brought forth, after all?

That remains to be seen. But I like what Rilke says:

Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.

In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn't matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!

(trans. by Stephen Mitchell)

Allow Me To Introduce...

my brother, the pod person.

I have suspected for some time that E-rock is not like the rest of us--and by rest of us, I mean human beings. He seems to live in this world of perpetual good luck, where everything he does or wants to do works out in golden spades. Midas would be jealous of this man.

For example, people give E-rock--on a regular basis--random things like expensive running shoes, snowboards, and computers and they don't ask him to pay for any of them. It's weird, especially since these people aren't always even his friends. One time, a complete and total stranger gave him the keys to an expensive hotel room in Tahoe and told him to make himself, and his friend T, at home.

Now honestly. These sorts of things do not happen to normal, everyday people. (Especially that last one.)

I remember one time driving around Huntington Beach with E, and he was completely amazed at the fact that he was having difficulty finding parking. "I always find a place to park!" he said in wonderment. I looked at him, disbelieving, and said something along the lines of, "Welcome to the world of the rest of us." Because who on earth finds good places to park in HB on a sunny, beautiful weekend? No one, that's who! But I did not suspect the truth even then (which was, of course, that it was because I, a normal human being, was in the car, thereby effectively blocking by my mere proximity his alien find-awesome-parking-place powers).

Last night, though, it all became abundantly clear, through one short conversation that started like this, "Oh by the way, I won tickets to Vegas."

(And you better believe it wasn't ME that said that.)

I stared at my brother. "What?!"

"Yeah."

"No wait, what do you mean, you won tickets? Won them how?"

"On the radio. I listen to this talk radio station and the other day I called in and I got these tickets."

"To...Vegas."

"Yeah. Wanna go?"

Cue "Twilight Zone" music.

What made this really eerie was the fact that we had been talking a few weeks ago about taking a trip to Vegas, because we were bored and we thought it might make for a fun little adventure, but we couldn't find any tickets at a good price. Then suddenly ("by the way"!!!) he just WINS tickets. I mean, come on! Talk about blowing your cover, Mr Alien Man.

Well, I guess there are worse things in life than finding out your brother is not actually from Planet Earth. One might be that he would decide to take someone else with him to Vegas.

So what can I say? Beam me up, Scotty.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for many things, of course--God, family, friends--you know, the requisites. But I thought that I would dedicate today's post to you--my legions of frogg files readers! Because I certainly am thankful for you. Many's the time I thought about quitting this silly blog, and then someone would say they like reading, or that something I wrote made them think, or laugh, and I would say to myself, "Ok. If one person is still getting something out of it, then I'll keep it up just a little longer."

And here it is, more than a year later since I started! Who would've thought.

Many thanks to Steve for getting me started with the blogging and for all the fun stuff we've done over the years; to Mark for the same thing (except for the idea to start blogging!); to Aunt B for being one of my biggest fans (hey I still have that "creativity" stone you bought me at Harper's Ferry years ago!); to my cousin the noble lady, who is a beautiful, talented girl and a good writer and singer; to beccaline for her friendship and all the laughs; to Single Proposition who is not unaware of my shortcomings as a friend, and yet is friends with me anyway; to andi for encouraging and praying me through a rough time this year; to daily pepper for being a cool writing buddy and a good friend; to beautiphil for being my IWT partner in crime; to Bees for the offer to spend his future lottery winnings on a private jet so he can fly out to see me, or bring me back to NZ for a visit; to expectmuch who said some very nice things about me on his blog once, and who also stops me from being as hard on myself as I try to be; porter for the occasional late-night glass of bourbon and the oscar wilde nightingale story; to skwerlman7 and thelittlekappa who have always been supportive and encouraging, of both me as a person, and also my writing.

If you did not see your name in the above list, you should comment more often...or just let me know that you read the next time we talk! Whatever the case, don't be sad. I am thankful for you too.

I will raise a glass of Martinelli's sparkling cranberry juice to you, my readers, today. Thank you, and remember me as you eat your pumpkin pie! Also mincemeat.

PS After all that, I won't be writing for you for the next few days...off to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I am lucky enough to have a second family who all but adopted me, and who is having their Thanksgiving on Saturday! So I get two Thanksgivings this year! Yay!

PPS and for those of little faith among you, who doubted my veracity on a previous posting, I give you...the dinosaur eating the giant clock! I bet he would rather have turkey though. Feel sorry for him as you gobble yours down.

The Dog Ate My Boyfriend, and Other Fun Holiday Disclaimers

Well, it's that time of year again...the time when you, as a single person, are surrounded with what seems to be suddenly ENDLESS, INFINITE amounts of couples holding hands, and smiling endearingly at one another as they stroll through the mall, or eat at McDonald's, or drive cars. And while this may be charming and picturesque and cuddly and all, the trouble with it is that your relatives are seeing these VERY SAME CUTE DARLING COUPLES, so that when they see you (all by yourself) at a holiday function (such as, for example, Thanksgiving), they are more than primed, not to mention prone, to pop The Question.

Namely, "Why are you still single?"

In the interest of public service and the sanity of singles everywhere, I have spent a great deal of time--10 whole minutes, I think--considering possible answers to what has become, for many singles, the Mt Everest of Stupid Questions, and I am proud to say that I have come up with a few ideas that should help the single person to smoothly deflect any well-meaning, but annoying, attempts at deciphering the mystery of why you are not part of a Cute Couple. (If you are not single, you should probably not read this, because you'll spoil the surprise.)

I hereby offer to you my Top Five Answers to The Question, as a way of getting the simple point--"Because I just AM, ok??"--across, without resorting to heavy artillery or weapons of mass humiliation, which after all, tend to put a bit of a damper on holiday get-togethers.

1) Say, "I'm sorry, but that is top-secret information, classified under the Act of Fabrication, according to the third amendment (section A) of the Code of Non-marital Ethics, Statute #342-X71. Technically, I have to kill you now, but I'll let it pass just this once."

Sometimes the best weapon at your disposal is complete and utter confusion. And this phrase has the added bonus of making sure you have absolutely no competition for first-in-line for the food, or for dessert. I bet you won't even have to fight for elbow space at the dinner table; in fact, you just might get the whole table all to yourself! More pumpkin pie for you!!

2) Shrug airily and say, "They were out of the model I wanted when I went to the boyfriend store the other day, and I didn't care for any of the others."

I swear I am going to use this one for real. I can't wait! NB: Men, this would not be a good one to adapt to your singleness situation. It sounds much worse to say that they were out of girlfriends at the girlfriend store. I'm sorry, but sometimes life is unfair like that.

3) Look startled, then amazed as you say, "I'm--I'm single? What the--why doesn't anyone ever TELL me these things! Dammit, where's my publicist?!" Then go running out of the room.

If people don't start laughing at this, I despair of your relatives. You must find new ones, fast. NB: Don't forget to grab a piece of pumpkin pie as you dash away.

4) Pretend you have gone deaf.

This one might be a little tricky to pull off if you have seen or talked to any of your relatives recently. They are liable to say embarrassing things like, "Deaf?! Why, I just talked to you on the phone last night, you weren't deaf then!" That's when you gesture for a writing pad, and scribble down "His name is John"--er, wait. You don't need a writing pad--you're deaf, not mute! D'oh. Ok, so just make sure you pretend to read your relatives' lips as they express their incredulity, and then explain that you have a rare case of Nilaudioconfamilia deushelpmeinsis (you might have to write that down for people, actually), which has rendered you temporariily incapable of hearing, but it's being treated and you expect to be right as rain soon--tomorrow in fact, or maybe even this evening after everyone has left and you have the pumpkin pie leftovers to yourself (mmmm, pumpkin pie!).

5) Collapse into the arms of whoever asked the question, sobbing uncontrollably.

When all else fails, tears are your heavy artillery...and hey, I bet this one will get you extra pieces of pumpkin pie, with whipped cream!

Finally, as a bonus answer, I'd just like to say that "The dog ate my boyfriend" is actually pretty hilarious.

Well, now that you are armed and dangerous with the above responses, go forth and conquer! If nothing else, I am sure that use of any or all of the above answers/excuses to the question of why you are single will be cause for much hilarity and good cheer, and there is nothing wrong with adding a bit of those to the holiday mix, now, is there?

And by the way, just in case I didn't make it clear, I really really like pumpkin pie.

PS Also mincemeat.

NB: I must credit beccaline for the inspiration of this post, since it was her posting of an article about this whole topic (minus the fixation on pumpkin pie), that gave me the idea for my post. Thanks, beccaline! Looking forward to seeing you soon!

A Promise is a Promise

Aunt B has reminded me a few times now that not long ago I promised to post a picture of myself with my "new" haircolor (meaning my real haircolor!) here on the blog. I had sort of hoped people would forget about it, and I think they all did except for her, and if it were anyone else I would laugh and gaily renege, but since she is my aunt I want to stay on her good side. Especially because I like visiting her. She takes me cool places like Ocean City, Gettysburg, and Rita's.

So Aunt B, this one is for you! (Sorry I couldn't make it for Thanksgiving, but maybe next year.)



PS Red eye is "in." Trust me.

R U KDING ME?

CNN.com reports that a British mobile phone service is going to start condensing classic works of literature into SMS messages. So now Hamlet, instead of decrying his immortal, "To be or not to be?" will bark out "2B? Nt2B?"

I am so depressed.

The Vending Machine Blues

Hello, and welcome to an all-new episode of "Frogg's Legs: Adventures in Non-Cooking," hosted by yours truly.

Today's topic, based on my own most recent culinary experiences, is: "Quick Meals for the Busy Professional; or, Don't Underestimate the Power of the Vending Machine."

Of course, if you are a Busy Professional, you are probably not reading this because you are so busy. In which case, I refer you to one of my upcoming episodes, entitled: "Do Not Take Your Blackberry On Vacation, You Psychotic Overachiever. Please." (I realize that has nothing to do with cooking, but I don't care.)

But back to today's show. I'm here to tell you that vending machines, when put to proper use, can save valuable time, and provide important nutritional nutrients, such as Vitamin B12 and Riboflavin. Also chocolate. What more does anyone really need to get through a full workday? I ask you.

Let's take a look at what I ate today as an illustration of what I mean, shall we?

Breakfast: Vending machine Pop Tarts.

I didn't have time for breakfast this morning because I overslept and was desperately trying to get out of the house before 7:30am, so that I could get stuck in bad traffic instead of hideously-horrendous-bad-evil traffic. But I knew there was no reason to fear that I would miss out on the most important meal of the day-- after all, the vending machine at work carries strawberry Pop Tarts! Strawberry=fruit=healthy. So far my day was off to a great culinary start!

Lunch: Vending machine Cheez-Its and vending machine Diet Dr. Pepper.

This mouth-watering treat for the tastebuds came about because I had been given a copywriting assignment at work--my first one. Naturally that meant that I was suddenly inundated with massive amounts of proofreading jobs that demanded my attention, since after all I am the full-time proofreader. So that meant that I had to give up my lunch hour to do the copywriting assigment, because I didn't have any other time to do it. Once again, the vending machine came to the rescue! Cheezits=dairy=healthy. Diet Dr. Pepper=diet=healthy. AND I had the added benefit of an award-winning taste combination! Mmmm-mmmmm!

Afternoon snack: Vending machine Hostess Zingers

When all you've had is Cheezits and Diet Dr. Pepper for lunch, you might find yourself feeling a little peckish (i.e., fainting) come mid-afternoon, so it's time for a snack. I chose Hostess Zingers. Chocolate=delicious=who cares if it's healthy? I had my dairy and fruit group already, so leave me alone! And give me back my Zingers!

Er, sorry. All this healthy food made me a little delirious for a second there. I am better now. Moving on...

That's the end of our show! I hope you learned a thing or two. Until next time, this is the frogg, collapsing in a sugar-induced coma onto her bed. Hopefully she will wake up tomorrow. If you don't hear from her after a few days, DON'T EAT ANYTHING FROM YOUR VENDING MACHINE.

Not Appropriate for Younger Viewers

Every day on my company's internal web site, they feature tips and tricks of the direct marketing trade, including a marketing term of the day. Today's term is (and I am not making this up)--"Hickey."

I would tell you what it means in marketing terms but Safari cannot find the page when I click on the link. Which is too bad, because for once I am quite eager to learn the meaning of a marketing term. Who would've thought.

(By the way, this was almost as good as what happened to my brother last week, when he was online checking the status on a flight he was taking for a business trip. Suddenly he started laughing and called out, "Oh my gosh! Check this out!!" I came into the room and looked over his shoulder to see that his confirmation code--and here I must ask any of our younger readers to close their innocent eyes--was "FHUCKU." Now really, Alaska Airlines, what sort of customer service is THAT?!)

While I'm Driving

So I have noticed a disturbing habit that I am developing as I make this horrendous commute every day; namely, the habit of talking aloud. Obviously that would not be disturbing if there were, say, another human being in the vehicle, but as there is not, it's probably a little weird.

I have also started playing the license plate game with myself, because I've spotted quite a few out-of-state plates on my commute every day. Like today, for example, I saw Connecticut (at which point I said aloud to myself, "YEEESS!! Connecticut!" See? I told you, it's disturbing!), South Carolina, Texas, Illinois, and Florida. And that was just today! I've also spied New York, Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nevada, and North Carolina. Fun!

Other things I see on my way to/from work:

- a cemetery.

- Mulholland Drive.

- Warner Brothers Studios (across the street from the cemetery...hmmm).

- CBS studios.

- CNN building.

-a dinosaur breaking through a roof and eating a giant clock (you don't believe me, but I don't care, it's true).

- Farmer's Market at 3rd and Fairfax (which is a Historical Landmark, since 1934! Whoa! Hey now, that's old for Cali).

- Kodak Theater, near the intersection of Hollywood and Highland (where you can also walk along the famed Walk of Fame, and look at the stars on the sidewalk, with talented people's names on them, like Britney Spears and Bugs Bunny).


Well, I suppose some might call it the scenic route, especially some who might be alot more interested in The Industry (i.e., movie biz) than I am, but there's nothing along the way that I particularly care to see. Except the dinosaur, maybe. That's kind of cool.

(You still don't believe me, but it's still true!)

Thinking About Church

In church today, while we were singing one of the songs, I suddenly had a flashback to my time in Thailand two years ago, and a night when I attended a worship service among Thai Christians who were jumping up and down as they sang loud praises to God, in a room with no walls. They sang in Thai, but I knew some of the songs in English, and though I knew little of any of the people around me, I felt a unity with them that made me smile.

There was a simple beauty in that moment, in that place, that I have let myself forget in the intervening time, growing disillusioned as I have with myself, my faith, and my God. I was glad for the reminder today.

I don't know why I go to church sometimes. But after remembering that moment in Thailand, I thought that maybe part of it is because I can look around and see the antidote to my pride, my arrogance, my critical judgmentalism. What is that antidote? It is...other people. Ah, they can be the poison, too, I don't deny it. But I believe in grace--ah, grace, the undeserved favor of a God who loves people regardless of whether they always love him back. And I cannot believe in grace as an abstract theory, but as a vital reality working itself out in people's lives. And so the antidote, the cure, is in knowing that if God can work miracles in me (and I pray that he does), he must be working them in the people around me--even the ones I see in church! And none of them are perfect yet, and lots of them might annoy, bore, or anger me, but perhaps I do the same to them. God knows what he forgives me for, every single day.

It's true that I still do not like "church," the formal, programmed routine with its endless join-the-club type activities that takes up Sunday mornings and various weeknights in buildings across the country, and around the world. But I don't believe that God hates it. I believe he is sorry about it, but he is able, as I rarely am, to look past the program, the imperfections, the posturings, the studied piety, and see individual hearts that are broken, weary, and struggling to be good and love him--just like mine.

I would do better to remember that more often, than to recite the critiques and grievances that are so often nothing more than the litany of my spiteful arrogance.

I am glad that God is love.

Los Angeles; or, Descent into the Seventh Circle of Commuter Hell

It doesn't really matter where you are trying to get to in Los Angeles; you are bound to spend at least an hour in your car (aka the iron coffin). Ask an Angeleno, "How far away is it?" and you will get the answer in terms of minutes, not miles. If you insist on knowing the distance, all you will get is a blank stare, and some half-hearted attempts at guessing. No one ever knows distances to anything in this city, but people are remarkably good at estimating how long it will take to get there.

"You need to go to the grocery store? 45 minutes."

"But...it's just down the street..."

"It's rush hour."

"It's 3pm!"

"Rush hour is 6am-8pm."

"But...but that's all day!"

"What's your point?"

Basically, there are two rules of travel when within the environs of Los Angeles: 1) assume traffic, and 2) assume traffic will be really bad. If you do that, you will help to decrease your road rage levels just a little bit, because you won't be at all surprised when you find yourself going 0-5mph on a three-lane street or a six-lane highway. You'll do what I do; namely, put one side of your iPod headphones into one of your ears (not both, because that's definitely illegal, whereas one is only marginally so!), and sing along to music. You might also call lots of your friends. (And if you are huffing and puffing about people driving while on their cell phones, believe me, you need to experience LA traffic every single day--you'll start using your cell phone in your car too, because it's probably the only time you'll have to talk to your friends anymore. Besides, how unsafe can it be? You're only going 0mph.)

There really is so much you can do while "driving" 50 mph less than the speed limit. Over the years I've seen people reading the newspaper, shaving, brushing their teeth, etc. Maybe you'll write a book. I bet you could write a whole novel in the time it would take you to get from Pasadena to, say, Westwood on a Friday night. (You could write two if you take the 405.)

Distance and time are so out of sync in this town, they might as well get together and form a ragtime band. On Saturday night, I drove to Ventura, which is about 70 miles away from my house (and I only know that because Mapquest said so!). It took me a little over an hour, which is perfectly reasonable. Now, compare that to last night, when I left work at 6pm and it took me an hour and 20 minutes to drive to my piano teacher's house...12 miles away.

Sigh...

Oh well. Happy Friday, everybody. Here's to the weekend at last! It couldn't come fast enough for me...but that's probably because it got stuck in LA traffic.

Oh for Snow!

In the lunchroom today, leafing through the LA Times, I found a special section on the upcoming snow season, and I have just two words to say:

Bring it, baby.

Oh wait, that's three. Well, now you know why I mostly flunked math all my life.

But thankfully you don't have to be good at math to be good at snowboarding, because then I'd hate it, and I just love it.

Uh, yeah. Anyway.

The last time I went snowboarding was quite memorable--well, for me; for one of the friends I went with, it wasn't, because, well, he lost his memory. I think to this day he is not quite certain if he had a good time, though I assure him that it really was an epic day, at least up until the point where we were racing down a nice long run and he took a bad fall, knocked himself in the head, got a concussion, got amnesia, had to go to ski patrol, then ride in an ambulance to the hospital, and eventually go home still not knowing who the president of the United States was or why he was in the mountains that day in the first place.

But thankfully he did indeed recover, although I think he wishes he could have enough of a relapse to forget about his hospital bill--oops.

Ah, good times on the slopes. And no doubt there will be more to come this season, though hopefully with a little less pain and suffering. Stay tuned!

If You Could...

So E-rock and I were talking tonight, about time travel, and what we would do if we could go back in time. We covered a lot of ground, but not as much as we could have--I was stricken by a bad-case of not-creativeness, and could never think of who I would go to see, or what I would take, or who I would assassinate.

E-rock nearly had a fit when I said that I would take deodorant on my sojourn into history. "Deodorant!" he cried. "What about plans for an airplane?! Then you could be rich!" Oh. Hmmm, but what good is being rich if you stink? Meanwhile, for all these questions, E-rock had a wide variety of answers--often quite detailed answers. Apparently he has thought about them lots.

But finally we ended on this question, which I submit for your consideration:

If you could go back in time and dance a jig in front of anyone, who would it be?

Of course, I couldn't think of anyone, mostly because I can't imagine dancing a jig. I mean honestly, does anyone actually know what a jig looks like??? If you do, then come and dance one in front of me--so I can laugh at you, because I bet it is silly!

E-rock says he would go back in time and dance a jig in front of our mother, two months before she gives birth to him, and as he danced he would say, "You're going to have ME in a couple months!" Then POOF! he would disappear!

I have to say that I don't think this would be a terribly good plan, because he might wreck his chances of being born by causing our mother's untimely death, with a fright-induced heart attack. But hopefully we will never know!

Idiotic Ignorance

This month's copy of Discover magazine had the following letter to the editor in it, from a man whose name is not Joe:

"...I am sick of scientists tiptoeing around the topic of religion. Scientists need to make it clear that if you believe in God you are most likely an idiot or at best uneducated."

And the mouth of genius has apparently spoken! Thank you, Joe, for your edifying and enlightening remarks. I always thought that I was a pretty educated sort of person--I graduated in three and a half years from a highly competitive, private, secular liberal arts college, cum laude and with departmental honors. Yet somehow, I did, and still do, believe in God. Huh! How very strange. Well, now I know the answer--I just must be stupid! And to think I never knew!

Lots of thousands of dollars down the drain. Pity.

Why is it some people consider a belief in God as incompatible with either intelligence or learning? When science first began, it was not something separate from religion. It was not divorced from belief in the divine. If anything, those who studied it did so because they wanted to see the divine just a little bit closer--to open the window to heaven and catch, if they could, just a glimpse of the glory they saw only in shadows here on earth.

Last night I saw part of the Stephen Colbert Show, and Colbert was interviewing some scientist guy that I can't remember the name of now, who said that believing in intelligent design was "intellectually lazy." Leaving aside the question of the theory of ID as it is being presented to schools, etc., how could a scientist ever say that belief in a divine, creative mind at work in an amazingly complex, highly diversified universe is not in any way intellectually stimulating? Are you kidding me? Thinking about God makes my head hurt, lots!

But maybe that's because I'm an idiot.

Well, I digress. Getting back to Joe--the fact is, he founds his "argument" (gah, I hardly like to honor his ridiculous generalizations with the word) on nothing more than his own emotional reaction against "religious fundamentalists," whom he talks about next, saying,

"Do [scientists] think that polite silence will stop religious fundamentalists from burning copies of Harry Potter books or pushing science out of classrooms? To treat beliefs as if they mean anything merely elevates them to equal status with science."

It is difficult to follow the sophisticated logic of Joe's reasoning, mostly because there isn't any. From what I can see, the real issue is that he doesn't like the people who burn books in the name of God and want Genesis 1:1 to be the starting point for science classes. I am not quite sure how he then makes the leap to his assumption that anyone who has a belief in God must be lacking in intelligence and capability for rational thought, but I suspect that it wasn't by any sort of scientific method on Joe's part.

Look, you can peg me for insufferable arrogance if you like. That's probably true enough! But don't call me stupid, and don't tell me I am uneducated. That will only prove your own ignorance as you display your inability to carry on a meaningful, logical conversation about anything important.

And in my book, that makes you the idiot.

Contemplation

I was thinking today that there are some things you can't trust God for. You cannot trust that he will never allow anyone or anything to hurt you. You cannot trust that he will always protect your loved ones. You cannot trust that you, or anyone else you know and love, will be healed from every disease or physical ailment. You cannot trust that God will provide you with the husband or wife of your dreams or longing.

You cannot trust him not to lead you through desert places, or the valley of the shadow of death.

But you can trust him to walk with you when he does.

I cannot trust God for things, material or not. I can only trust him to be who he is--the one who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth (Jer 9:24), who causes sun to shine and rain to fall on both the evil and the good (Matt 5:45).

I can pray for things, I suppose. We can all present our requests to him, and ought to. No harm is done by asking! but he will not be manipulated, not even by tears--though he will treasure them. (Psalm 56:8)

I trust him to love me, even though sometimes I am afraid perhaps he doesn't. I trust him to forgive me, even though I know I don't deserve it. I trust him to listen to me, even though sometimes I doubt if he's there. I trust him to care about what I desire, even though he doesn't always give it to me.

At least, I try to.

There is a quotation from one of my favorite books that sums up how I think about God, often. In a few short sentences, it speaks for me better than I have been able to speak for myself. C.S. Lewis writes in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,

"Safe?...'course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you."

Ah, so.

No Pain, No Gain!

Or, in my case, any pain is my gain. In other words--I survived my first-ever half-marathon!

Impossible, you say? I'm tempted to agree with you, except the fact is I seem to be sitting here and typing these words, which means I must be alive, which means that I didn't die during the incredibly taxing physical ordeal that I put myself through two days ago. I still can't quite believe that I a) drove up to San Francisco early Saturday morning, b) ran the half-marathon segment of theNike Women's Marathon early Sunday morning, and c) drove all the way back to Los Angeles on Sunday night.

Next time, I am so taking an airplane.

But yes, I said next time! The fact is, I had a blast! And--are you ready for this?--I actually ended up running pretty nearly the whole thing. Though I admit I use "running" in the loosest possible sense, meaning "jogging at about the same pace as a really fast walker." Today I am terribly sore, although massive amounts of ibuprofen and naproxen have done wonders to keep me from keeling over and/or sobbing from the physical trauma sustained by my still-in-shock body over the course of 13.1 miles (which I "ran" in just under three hours).

I have been walking like an old lady ever since. Actually no--I think an old lady would get around better than I can right now. An old lady with a walker would beat me in a footrace today.

Come to think of it, I want a walker. Ouch!

At least the route was beautiful. I adore San Francisco, and even though it was a bit foggy (I couldn't see the Golden Gate Bridge, though we passed right by it), I thoroughly enjoyed running along the Embarcadero, up past the Presidio, and then down to Baker Beach and the Great Highway before heading through Golden Gate Park...all of which brought back memories of my time living in the Bay Area a few years ago. In fact, the first part of the route exactly coincided with a route that I rollerbladed as part of a Friday Night Skate event in the city, and during which I was injured when some drunk guy in a car through a bottle out the window and it hit the railing along the path where we were skating, so that it broke, and I got caught in all the flying glass, and sustained a cut on my elbow that led to two whole stitches (after four hours in the emergency room) and a little scar that looks purple when it gets cold out. Ah, yes...good times in San Fran!

But I digress, as usual. Back to the half-marathon!

I did well for the first nine miles, but then I had to walk part of the way up an apparently never-ending hill...I picked up the pace again on the way down. There came a point, actually, where walking hurt more than running. I know that sounds like a big fat lie, but it isn't. However, that said, the last two miles were brutal and I had to walk a bit there too. However, I did succeed in running across the finish line, where I and the other finishers were met by about 20 guys in tuxedoes with gift boxes from Tiffany's on silver trays--our reward for making it to the end of the grueling race. The boxes, I mean, not the men!

(I am still not sure, actually, if I appreciated that final finishing (ha) touch or not. I mean, after all, let's face it--a girl does not exactly look her best after running 13 miles! At least, I sure as heck don't.)

Oh well. The point is, I--who never knowingly, or particularly willingly, ran more than a mile or two at a stretch in her entire life, and with no training whatsoever, actually ran a half-marathon, and I am still around to tell the tale (in probably a lot more words than were striclty necessary, of course!)! In other words--I did something crazy and I lived! Wow, maybe I should try bunjy jumping next!

Or maybe not. Unless they have studly guys in tuxedoes waiting at the bottom of the jump. Then I might.

A Quick Note

Well, the day that I never thought would actually arrive is now upon me. I speak, of course, of Sunday, October 23rd--the day when I will attempt to walk, possibly even jog, a half-marathon in San Francisco. The unliklihood of such a thing is really beyond my best abilities to communicate, so I won't even try. I will just say three little heartfelt words, which will sum up the situation as I see it quite nicely:

Pray for me.

I leave tomorrow morning at 4am, driving to San Francisco with a friend who is doing this crazy thing with me. The race is 7am on Sunday morning. I'll be coming back Sunday night so that I can be at work on Monday morning. And yes, I know that I am insane.

Oh, and yes, I believe I owe you all an updated picture of myself, since everyone voted YES in the comments on my last post. I have not forgotten! I will keep my promise, after I get back from San Francisco.

Assuming I live through the weekend, that is.

Love and kisses to my adoring fans--here's hoping I live long enough for you to adore me for many more years to come!

Hair I Am Again

You know the saying, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop"?

Well.

Tonight I decided I would change my hair back to its normal color, which is (I think) dark brown. It's been awhile, so I could be wrong, but that is the color of my roots, so I can't be too far off.

So I was just thinking that one of the funny things about hair dye is that when you mix together the developer and the coloring agent, sometimes it really doesn't look like anything when you drip it on stuff. You wonder if it actually will do anything to your hair, because it seems to be almost clear. And then you look down at, say, your leg for example, where perhaps (hypothetically) you spilled a big glop of it while you were applying the dye, only you were too hasty to clean it up quick, because you thought, "What's the big deal? It's clear!" And then ten minutes later you see this huge dark bruise-like spot that doesn't look anything like the stuff that dripped there (it was practically clear when it dripped, remember!), but does look very much like the color you are trying to change your hair to, which I guess is good because that means your hair will indeed turn that color, so no need to worry about that, but now you have to worry about how on earth you are going to get this big bruise off of your leg. Oh, and the dye has also perhaps hypothetically seeped a bit around your forehead, and gotten on your hands, so now you look like you enjoy playing in dirt and not taking showers. You start to feel just a little bit anxious about the fact that you have to go to work tomorrow and look, you know, sort of grownup and professional--not to mention clean.

You know, I really really shouldn't do the hair dyeing thing late at night. Or unsupervised, come to think of it.

Procrastination in the Running

Ok, so remember how I said awhile back that I had signed up to do a half-marathon in San Francisco at the end of October? Perhaps you might also recall how I said I wouldn't wait til the last minute to train and get ready for it.

And if you know me well at all, perhaps you are already snickering because you know what I am about to say, which is: of COURSE I waited til the last minute! I have done absolutely no training whatsoever, unless you can call eating whatever I want and not exercising at all "training." I'm figuring you probably can't without lying, and I don't like to lie. It's unhealthy--kind of like my eating habits.

But I confess to feeling a little nervous about this whole event as the day (Oct 23!!) gets closer, so last night I went for a 2-mileish jog, and actually succeeded in jogging the whole time, instead of walking for 10 minutes, jogging for two, walking for 20, jogging for one, etc. I was pleased to note that I might be in better shape than I thought. But then again, two miles is a far cry from the length of a half-marathon, which is 13 miles. Yikes!

It's strange to think that in my early twenties, I was an avid exerciser. I was in the gym five days a week, 1-2 hours a day, lifting weights, stairclimbing, treadmilling, the works. It was such a short-lived era, and not one which I am particularly nostalgic for--though maybe I am just a little nostalgic for the body that went along with that era.

But apparently not nostalgic enough to say no to In-N-Out burgers, Dr. Pepper, chocolate, red wine, and all the other bad-idea-if-you're-training-for-a-half-marathon-or-if-you-just-want-to-live-til-you're-sixty type of foods.

Let's face it: this half-marathon was a terrible, terrible idea. I don't honestly know how I am going to survive. I don't know if I'm going to survive. I am feeling a little depressed now at the thought of my possibly imminent demise.

Well, but on the bright side, if nothing else, this whole experience should make for a very entertaining post when it's all over, assuming that I do in fact live through it and don't die. (See how willing I am to sacrifice myself for the amusement of my dear readers!)

Holy Exclamation Points, Rex Morgan!

I've noticed that I've been using a lot of exclamation points in my titles lately. So of course I am reminded of dramatic comic strips such as "Rex Morgan, M.D.", "Mary Worth" and "Apt 3G", which make extensive--one might be tempted to say, gratuitous, if one were being uncharitable--use of the exclamation point.

Rex Morgan and his cronies must lead very exciting, deeply meaningful lives, because every single sentence that isn't a question ends in a decisive "!". (Hmm, come to think of it, I believe many questions actually feature the emotive symbol, right after the question mark.)

Every event in life is vitally important in a dramatic comic strip--even lunchtime. I remember one "Rex Morgan" episode that I actually cut out of the newspaper because it made me laugh out loud, even though I know it was supposed to be very serious and dramatic (which, I'm sorry, only adds to the hilarity). There were these two women, and one of them was exclaiming (of course) over the fact that she hated somebody who was mean to her. The other woman comforts her in exclamatory tones, saying that the mean woman "is always like that!" Then she urges her friend to join them for lunch because "we're having pot pies!"

Pot pies! Why, they make everything better!! I'd say that's worthy of two, maybe even three "!!!"! Wow!!!!!!!

Of course, "Rex Morgan" is hardly the only comic strip that is guilty of wildly unjustified excessive emotion. I mentioned a few others before, but the one that really comes to mind is "Batman," which features the jittery, excitable Robin and all of his quintessentially explosive "Holy this-or-that" commentary, such as, "Holy hummingbird feeders, Batman!" or perhaps "Holy bad people, Batman!" (oh wait, that last one didn't make much sense...well, most of his exclamations didn't).

Good old Robin!

Well, in the course of writing this, a co-worker stopped by my office who has just returned from doing a marathon in Chicago (which he ran in just a little over three hours! If that isn't exclamation-point-worthy, I don't know what is!). I told him about how I am supposed to do a half-marathon in San Francisco in less than two weeks, and how I haven't done any training for it, and he looked at me like he wanted to exclaim a few things of his own, like maybe "Are you crazy! You idiot! How could you not be training for it! You'll never make it!"

Oh wait, I think that is actually my conscience exclaiming those things at me! Well, it's right! I am crazy! And I also love exclamation points!!

Can't you tell?!?!

Come On, Dance!

I am not a very good dancer. But there are some songs that, when I hear them, I simply cannot stay still. One of them is apparently "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits; when it came on my iTunes at work, I was air-drumming, seat-dancing, the whole nine yards. It's a good thing no one walked by and saw me, because they probably would have thought I was in the throes of some sort of seizure. (Did I mention I am not a good dancer? Exactly.)

Well, come to think of it, they might have walked by and I wouldn't have noticed, because the music was turned up in my headphones. Hmmm. Best not to think about that.

Ha! That reminds me of a funny story, and since I have nothing else to do at the moment, even though I am at work (God, I love this job), I will tell it to you.

It was the year 2000 and I had just started my job at a magazine publisher's in the Bay Area. (Oh, I am already laughing, and I haven't even started the story yet! Ahem...ok.) So I was working with mostly older ladies, two of whom worked at desks very close to mine. They were very nice, gentle, pleasant people who did not seem like they would really enjoy music by, oh, Creed for example.

Well, I brought in some CDs one day, and popped in (you guessed it) Creed's first album. Since I didn't want to bother the ladies with my music, I put in headphones, and then I cranked it up.

About half an hour later, I got up to do something, took off the headphones...and realized I could still hear the music. I had put the headphones in the wrong jack!!! Everyone had been listening to the music all along! All these poor women subjected to Creed. Oh, the shame...

And as if that wasn't bad enough, because they saw I was wearing headphones they all thought I must have some sort of hearing problem, that I would turn up my music so loud in my headphones that they could hear it on the other side of the room!

Yes, it was one of my embarrassing moments...but by no means the first, the last, or even the worst. (So many of them to tell about, so little time.)

Back to our regularly scheduled topic, I'd just like to say that another good get-up-and-dance-around song is "Crash" by the Primitives.

"Superman" by Five For Fighting, on the other hand, is really not a dancing song at all.

Shoes!

Will someone PLEASE tell me where I can get an adult-sized pair of those shoes kids are wearing, where they can skate around on them, but they look like regular shoes!! I want some!

I mean, really, how fun would that be...you're walking along, and then you think, "Hey I'm going a little slow here," and you shift your foot back...and now you are skating along! Awesome!

Kids have all the cool stuff, I tell you.

Awake...Gah!

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean ? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

--Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

Happy Friday!

Well, my first week at my new job is over, and I can tell you I have learned quite a few things already.

For example:

1) Driving a car with manual transmission in Los Angeles traffic should be outlawed. Honestly, I probably ought to be fined for exacting cruel and unusual punishment on myself.

2) A vending machine where everything is .25 is pretty cool. Too cool. I am eating way more junk than I have in a long time. Today I bought Hostess Cupcakes from the machine, which seems strange. Is that something you normally see in a vending machine? I never really patronized vending machines much (except for sodas), so I don't know.

(What I do know is that the cupcakes didn't taste nearly as good as I remembered from when I was a kid. Sigh...)

3) Being a proofreader suits me a little too well; I like finding other people's mistakes and correcting them brightly in red pen. This seems unfortunate, pointing to either a deep-seated nerdiness or a strongly rooted sense of egotistical superiority. Maybe both. Yikes.

(Add them to the list of reasons why the frogg is still single...what are we up to now? #385?)

4) People in LA have elevated bad driving to an art form. They make me crazy. Worse, they make me look crazy, because I start talking at them, and since I am alone in my car, I look like I'm talking to myself, and not very nicely at that.

(Yesterday a man had the nerve to ask--in an incredibly whiny voice, I might add--what I was doing, not letting him make a left turn across a double-yellow line and three lanes of stopped traffic so he could get into his driveway! Gah!

5) The Hollywood sign was built in 1923, as part of a publicity stunt by a guy named Mark Sennet, who was seeking to draw people to the Hollywoodland subdivision in Beachwood Canyon.

I learned this because I was having a slow day yesterday and because I have an office that has a balcony. What this means is that I went out on the balcony to kill some time and watch the hustle and bustle of Wilshire Blvd, when I happened to look to the left and saw the Hollywood sign on the nearby mountains. So then I started wondering, who on earth came up with that idea in the first place? I mean the idea for the sign. Thank God for the Internet...my voracious curiosity was assuaged! (I also learned that Marilyn Munroe is one of several celebrities who haunts the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Bet you didn't know that!)

Oh, I guess I also learned some things about my job, but mostly it was all this other stuff.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

PS You will thank me for the Hollywood trivia someday, even if you are laughing at me about it now. Trust me--when a band of roving, blood-thirsty pirates captures you and demands to know when the Hollywood sign was built or else you will have to walk the plank, you will be very relieved that you read this blog.

Smile :)

"I try to be good! I do! My heart is as pure as the driven snow! It's just that, well, sometimes events beyond my control conspire against me!"

--Calvin, Calvin & Hobbes

Remembering

On October 3, 2004, a girl with a broken heart boarded a plane in London, en route to Los Angeles after three weeks in the Middle East and nearly two years of unsettled traveling. She was on her way home, but "home" was a word that had long since ceased to mean anything except a deep, unfillable ache inside her chest, where she thought her heart must be, what was left of it. She tried not to cry, but when she saw news footage of Mt St Helens shaking and trembling and giving in to too much pressure after years of sleeping, she did.

But only a little, so no one would see.

The next day, the homeless girl with the broken heart started writing again, and this--the frogg files--is what she wrote.

Happy birthday, frogg files.

5 Reasons Why I Love LA

5) Impatient people who honk at you to turn left at intersections, even though someone is in front of you, and you are waiting for them to turn, because after all, you aren't driving a monster truck that would allow you to roll right over them and skoosh them so that the person behind you could then get to their destination those two milliseconds faster.

Ok, I'm a fast driver as a rule, but when someone pulls this little stunt on me, I suddenly turn into Gracie the Infant Snail, slowing to as much of a craaaawl as I can without coming to an absolute stop. Then I watch the person behind me proceed to do the Aggressive Car Seat Dance, featuring all sorts of hilarious, blood-pressure-raising gestures. It's a fun game! Try it sometime!

4) Wildfire season.

Because the air quality isn't bad enough.

3) The lack of a decent public transportation system.

I have friends from New Zealand who come to Los Angeles and take buses everywhere, and this completely mystifies me. I'm always like, "We have buses??"

Haha. I'm kidding, of course. Naturally I know we have buses, because I get stuck behind them when I want to make right turns anywhere. But I hardly ever see anyone on these buses. And if you asked me to plot out how to get anywhere on a bus, I would stare blankly, and then laugh at you. I don't think I would even know where to start to find out how to go anywhere on a bus.

The same applies to the ridiculous excuse for a "Metro" that we have here, only raised to the 22nd power times 10.

2) Um, I can't think of anything for this one, so we'll just move right along to the number one reason why I love LA...(drum roll please):

1) TRAFFIC!

One of the interesting things about driving in LA is that no one here measures distance in miles, but in time. This is because distance means absolutely nothing in a place where it can routinely take you more than an hour to go 15 miles. There is a formula that Angelenos can use to figure out how long it takes to get anywhere, and it goes like this:

Where x=distance, and y=time and c=destination, then--oh wait, maybe that should be "d" since destination starts with d! Gah. This is lame. Forget it.

The point is, a couple weeks ago my brother left our house two hours in advance of an appointment he had in LA, and he got there 45 minutes late. The location of the appointment was probably not more than 30 miles away. And no, I am not exaggerating.

Oh, and let me tell you how much more fun traffic is when you drive a car with manual transmission! The joy I feel in shifting and downshifting while navigating stop-and-go traffic at 0-5 miles an hour is really inexpressible, so you will have to imagine the verbal expressions that might be employed to express all that...rapture.

Here is a picture of the sort of gridlock that just makes my day, taken while I was attempting to get a friend to the airport in a timely (ha!) fashion:



Gotta love LA!

News

I start a new job tomorrow. It's the first time I'll have a "typical" 9-5 (or more like 9-6ish) job since, oh, hmmm...2002? Wow. Hard to believe it's been that long!

Well, it's good news for me, but bad news for the frogg files, because I sincerely doubt I will be updating this blog as frequently as I have til now. However, I promise will do my best to check in at least once or twice a week! If I get too behind, drop me a line and tell me how much you miss me; that is always a good way to motivate me into writing.

In other news--the boys are all home this weekend! Yay! My youngest brother (who lives in Texas) surprised me when he showed up unexpectedly last night, when everyone except yours truly had gone to bed. I love surprises like that!

In yet more news--um, well, actually I don't have any other news. Sorry, false alarm.

Have a great Sunday, and a great week.

LA Fires

Just a brief note to reassure friends and family, if any were wondering, that we are ok and not threatened by the wildfires that are burning up rather a large section of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in California. My town is about 40 miles away; however, as I drove around doing errands this morning, I could see a huge cloud of smoke covering most of the western horizon.

I do have family that lives much closer to the fires, specifically relatives in Canoga Park and my brother in Thousand Oaks. So far they are all fine. My brother emailed this morning and said that yesterday the air was full of ash and smoke, and he could see flames on the hills, but the fire was not close enough to his house to be a danger. Some people in his company had to evacuate their homes, but where he lives seems to be fine. He said things are a little better today, except for the air quality.

According to the latest update on cnn.com, about 1,500 people were evacuated, and three homes and a few other structures have been destroyed, along with over 20,000 acres.

Firefighters are doing a valiant job, as usual under tough conditions--it has been extremely hot (yesterday hit 100 degrees easily) and very dry, not to mention that we had the Santa Ana winds through here a couple days ago. Thankfully the winds have died down, and today is starting to cool off (still in the 90s though!!). I think they are starting to get things under control. Still, it's a little weird to go outside and see the massive smoke-cloud hanging over the sky!

Torturous Beauty

First of all, GREAT JOB YARDLEY at the Knitting Factory last night! Don't know yet if they scored one of the nominations for the LA Music Awards, but if they didn't, well, there is something very wrong with the judges, like maybe they are deaf. LB, Stephen, Tommy, Mel--you guys sounded great! Best wishes...

Ok, so in other totally unrelated and yet somehow equally important news (to me): I got my eyebrows done the other day, and I think the lady messed up. It hurts me to say so, because this is the lady I've been going to regularly (and by "regularly" I mean, "regularly for me," which equates to about once every two months or so, instead of once every three weeks). Also, she is a very nice lady, and she always remembers things like my birthday, and asking after my sister (the cowgirl used to go to her too). She also usually gushes over the beauty of my eyebrows, which is probably not good for my ego, but is still very nice to hear.

She did not gush over them the other day, probably because she was horrified at the state I let them get into, and the fact that I, in my attempt at keeping them in some sort of shape on my own (terrible idea), had actually plucked out too much and left one of them shorter than the other. Apparently this was very bad, even though I hadn't noticed it. But I do notice that now, after getting them done, my eyebrows are kind of crooked. No one else has said anything, but I think they are just trying to be tactful.

All this brings me (finally) to my real topic of the day, which is: beauty routines. Specifically, my beauty routines. And since I have none, this ought to be a very short post, but since it's me writing it, it already isn't.

Not too long ago, I visited a Mary Kay consultant for some reason that I can't quite recall. Perhaps I have blocked it out of my mind. Anyway, we sat down at her dining room table and she said, "Ok, now tell me a little about your beauty routine," and I burst out laughing. Um, I brush my teeth every day--does that count? Well, no, apparently it doesn't. For one thing, to have a beauty routine, you kind of have to have beauty essentials, like makeup and the tools to apply it. I have very little of either. In fact, during my Mary Kay visit, the poor woman handed me a brush or something and I had to ask her what it was and how to use it.

"Um, that's for putting on eyeshadow."

"Of course! I knew that. I was just, uh, testing you. Yeah! Now what about this?"

"That's a fork."

"Oh. Right."

Ahem.

Some of these makeup tools, by the way, bear a frightening resemblance to torture devices. I went to a beauty store in the mall yesterday with a friend whose wife had asked him to pick up some tweezers, and we found, not just tweezers, but a whole tweezer section, with lots of different types. There was one particular set that contained a pair of tweezers so sharp that I nearly drew blood just touching their tips with my finger. And this is something that I am supposed to put in the vicinity of my eye!

But my "favorite" tool was this strange, surgically-silver implement that I can't quite remember the exact name of now, but which I definitely remember involved the words "extractor" and "lance." It was long and thin and looked like something the Ancient Egyptians might have used in their embalming processes, like maybe the thing they stuck up the nose of the corpse in order to yank out the brains. Again, not something that I would personally choose, on purpose, to be anywhere near the region of my face, or even my body in general.

As we looked at the sparkling array of tools, my friend observed, "Beauty hurts." I had to agree. Even though I don't have a beauty routine, I still do get my eyebrows done whenever the weather changes, and it's no picnic, unless it's a picnic under attack by a vast army of innumerable Fire Ants, each one carrying extractor lances and pointy tweezers like little daggers.

Top Five Pet Peeves

My creativity is at an all-time low (again--I have a lot of those, which I acknowledge as being logically impossible, but I don't care), so I thought I would write something completely and utterly frivolous. You know, for a change.

So without more ado, I submit to you, my gentle and oh-so-forbearing readers, the following list: The Frogg's Top Five Pet Peeves.

(Please understand that I'm not saying I only have five pet peeves. I'm saying these are the top five. Which is weird, because that's kind of like saying they are my favorite, but since pet peeves are things that bother you, it's hard to qualify any of them as one you like better than others. Hmmm. Oh well--again, I don't care.)

These are not in any particular order, because a pet peeve of mine is putting things in order (just kidding).

1) People who don't turn off their signal on the freeway, and spend 1-2 miles indicating that they are going to change lines in front of you, but then don't because they simply forgot to turn off the signal.

As a corollary to that particular pet peeve are the people who, when you finally decide they have forgotten to turn off their signal and then accelerate to speed past them, suddenly remember that they did, in fact, want to change lanes, and do so without bothering to check their mirrors or blind spots, prompting your sudden swerving into the next lane over to avoid hitting or getting hit by them, and narrowly being hit by the person in that.

2) People who tap me on the shoulder when they want to get my attention.

Do not ever do this. I'm not even going to say please. Just don't. Yes, I might bite.

3) Used books that have other people's notes in the margins, and their highlighted passages. (Especially if their highlighting or underlining didn't come out straight.)

I hated this in college: I would buy used textbooks to save some money, but when I opened them up and found that someone else had marked them, it would annoy me, making me breathe hard through my nose and press my lips together tight. Why did they underline/highlight that bit of text? I wouldn't have! Now I'm stuck with seeing this utterly unremarkable (to me) passage always brought to the forefront of my attention, by virtue of someone else's marking. Gah! Hate that.

4) When someone comes into the room where you are watching a movie and starts asking all these questions about it, that they would have known the answer to if they had just come in and watched it from the beginning, but now they expect a summary of everything that's happened and who all the characters are, while you are still watching and missing valuable pieces of plot.

(Okay, I have to confess I actually do that last one, sometimes. It's still a pet peeve when other people do it.)

And number five, which is probably one of my biggest pet peeves ever:

5) Complete disregard for cell phone etiquette.

For example: When you are driving somewhere with someone, and they get a call on their cell phone and answer it, and proceed to have this long conversation with someone who is somewhere else, even though you are right there with them in the car, and hey, you aren't being paid to be a chauffeur all of a sudden, are you? Sheesh.

And then there was the other day when I was at work, and a customer was on the phone (grr) and gesturing to me to come over and help him, only I didn't know that because he was one the phone, and I thought he was just gesturing along with his conversation. So I went and stood a little ways away from him, and then finally he catches my eye again and says (rudely), "What, are you on a break?" And oh, how I wish I had said, "Well, I wasn't, but I sure am now! See ya." (The other thing I wanted to say was, "GET OFF THE PHONE IF YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME, JERK" but I thought that might be too antagonistic, given that he was already mad and was also a lot bigger than me.)

Here is the frogg's tip of the day: Just because a phone rings, doesn't mean you have to answer it. Whoa. I know that is a huge revelation for some of you. But that's what VOICE MAIL is for, people. So people can LEAVE A MESSAGE and then you can CALL THEM BACK LATER at a more CONVENIENT TIME. Like, when you are not driving around with your friend who really doesn't want to get stuck listening to your half of a conversation with someone they probably don't know or care about. Or when you are not in a store where you are preparing to lay out a good bit of money for a computer and peripherals and expecting someone like me to help you out with said purchase.

*deep breath*

Okay, enough about me. What are some of your pet peeves? Here's your chance to vent them all!

(Hopefully one of yours isn't "girls who write long--way too long--lists about their pet peeves" or I'll feel sad.)

Music Lovers in Los Angeles, Read This!

Well, I don't know how many of you, my dear readers, are actually in the Los Angeles area. However, if you are, you might want to check out a great gig at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood this coming Wednesday night--my friends' band Yardley will rock the house! They have a shot at being nominated for the LA Music Awards, so we're trying to round up as many people as we can to go and cheer them on!

I'm planning on going, so maybe I'll see you there! Bring friends...I guarantee you won't be disappointed. If you want to hear samples of their music, go to yardleyband.com and check 'em out. Some cool new stuff too--"Beautiful" and "Try Me" are two of my personal favorites!

Come on, guys, what else are you going to do on a Wednesday night for only $8.00 in LA??

Here's a link to a larger image of the flier I pasted above.

Hope to run into you on the Hollywood side...

What: Yardley, showcasing for the LA Music Awards!
Where: Alterknit Lounge, The Knitting Factory, 7021 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028
When: Wednesday, September 28, 9:00pm
Cover: $8
ALL AGES WELCOME!

Happy Life Day!

I am awfully excited because I had a rare opportunity this past weekend. I learned for the first time in my life of the existence of a rare precious gem of "comic gold" (if Pepper will excuse me for lifting her expression, which I love), in the form of a bootlegged DVD. And that DVD was...The Star Wars Holiday Special!

Aired in 1978, this show is the big embarrassment of the George Lucas empire, and believe me, it more than deserves its pride of place. I don't know when I've ever seen anything so incredibly bad (and thus hysterically funny).

Oh wait! There was this really dreadul monster movie I saw once, with partners in crime Mark and Steve. We were flipping channels on TV one night, and I will be forever grateful for the fact that we stumbled across Reptilicus, which I can only describe as Godzilla on a budget. Er, yeah. It's basically about a monster that bears a kind of resemblance to the Japanese lizard, except that instead of being electrifying and breathing fire (wait, did Godzilla breathe fire? I forget), Reptilicus...well, I'm sure this isn't what the filmmaker intended, but it looks like he vomits on people. Green cartoon slime came out of his mouth as he stomped through the towns, which looked rather like King Friday's papier-mache kingdom on "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood." Also, instead of Japan, the movie takes place in some Netherlandish location.

But no, I think the Star Wars Holiday Special is actually worse than Reptilicus. At least the monster movie had a fairly coherent story and plot outline--monster terrorizes Denmark, people try to kill it, monster spits or vomits its green slime on people, chaos ensues for awhile, the monster is vanquished, and people are happy again in their Lego-like village. I mean, that's a story we can all understand and appreciate, if not entirely relate to.

In the case of the Star Wars Holiday Special, the word "coherent" was banned from the set, apparently considered in incredibly bad taste by whoever filmed it. It begins epically, with a deep-voiced voice-over guy mentioning the characters--Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and then introducing "Chewie's family," one of which (this is where I nearly fell off the couch) was actually named--LUMPY.

Another one was Itchy. And no, I am not making any of this up.

The opening scene could take the place of Chinese water torture; it has much the same effect. The viewer finds himself in the home of Chewie's sort of endearing, but not exactly English-speaking, family. After 20 minutes of listening to Wookie-speak (which, as you all know from watching the Star Wars movies, consists solely of emitting strange, strangled growls and yells), the family becomes much less endearing and much more annoying. Subtitles might have helped, but then again, I doubt it.

During the opening, there is this one obscure and slightly disturbing (to me anyway) sequence where Chewbacca's son (or daughter--I guess Lumpy could be a girl name too), turns on some sort of holograph-machine-table-thing, and all these little people suddenly appear, dancing, kind of like fairies or something. Lumpy watches, enthralled, as the improbably-colored fairies do little gymnastic routines and make music in an effort that I am sure is meant to entertain, but, if my reaction is any gauge, actually repels the viewer (but still makes them laugh at the sheer, mind-numbing ridiculousness of the whole thing).

At some point it becomes "clear" (and I use that word in the loosest possible sense) that the family is concerned because Chewie, out on some mission somewhere, has not come home in spite of the fact that a holiday is rapidly approaching. It being the future and all, "Christmas" has apparently become a bit jejeune, so that meant someone had to come up with a name for the holiday. Remember that whoever this someone was also came up with the names for Chewie's family--ahem, Lumpy, anyone? And once again we see that creativity did not abound in the scriptwriting department, as Luke assures the worried family that Chewbacca "hasn't missed a Life Day yet."

I'll never know for sure (mostly because I'm too lazy to find out), but I am fairly confident that whoever wrote this show never worked in Hollywood again ever, when it was done.

Other priceless moments include an appearance by the band Jefferson Starship inside a music box, and a very weird cartoon that introduces Boba Fett, who had my favorite line of the show: "You'll only get in the way. But if you must--come on."

Yeah, Boba Fett! You tell 'em!

I thought that perhaps the show was the result of someone (or many someones) doing too many drugs, but then I thought that people on drugs would probably have come up with something a lot more interesting. So perhaps the viewer is supposed to be taking drugs when they watch it. I for one wouldn't have minded taking something for the pain, at least.

I couldn't make it through the whole thing, I confess. But I do think it is a must-see for any Star Wars fan. In some sadistic sense, it will be worth it, I promise. (Laughter is only the best medicine til it kills you, but hey, there are worse ways to go.)

May the Force be with you--you'll need it.

Break

I will be taking a break from the frogg files for a few days. Be back soon.

Hmmm, does anyone else think the word "break" looks really weird? It does!

Anyway. Be good, and miss me.

Ack

Well, I had these grand plans of writing something very funny and witty today, but after (finally) getting off work, I feel like I've been hit by a truck, and I am not so sure I possess the ability to be even remotely humorous at the moment.

And I must say, if I hear--nay, if someone so much as mouthes--the words "4GB iPod Nano," I am going to...well, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm sure it will be something drastic.

Hmm. Is that how you spell "mouthes"? Or is it "mouths"? Oh who cares.

Catching My Breath

So I didn't go to a party tonight because I was tired and it was going to be too late, and I have work early in the morning. Now it is nearly 2am, and I am still up because I can't find my asthma inhaler and I sort of can't breathe at the moment. And on top of the discomfort of not breathing well, I am very irritated at myself because I just bought that stupid inhaler a couple weeks ago (and since I don't have health insurance it cost me nearly $30). How could I lose it so soon!!! Gah!

I am so good at losing things that I wish it were an Olympic sport, because I'd definitely win the gold. Then I'd be rich and famous and could afford to have servants who would lose my inhalers for me.

Well, one can dream, I suppose. But of course, it's much easier to dream when one is actually ASLEEP. Which I, in case you haven't noticed, am not. I am awake...at 1:45am!

I don't want to be awake! I want to be in bed, sleeping! AAARRRGGGGHHHH!

I can't believe I lost my inhaler. I can't believe I have to be up in less than six hours. I can't believe I'll have to work a full day on less than six hours' of sleep.

I can't believe I'm such a whiner.

Sigh...

My Kingdom for a...Corkscrew!

One of the difficult things about housesitting is you never know where anything is. In the kitchen, for instance. Like a corkscrew, for example. I mean, just as an illustration of sorts.

Imagine you are planning a nice quiet evening at home. You are going to watch a movie and have a glass of, say, Black Opal shiraz from Australia, which you'd bought at (naturally) Trader Joe's, with this very sort of evening in mind. A lovely idea, no? I thought so too.

Then last night I began looking for the corkscrew.

Now, I am not exactly what you'd call renowned at finding things. (I am what you'd call notorious for losing them, but that's another story--lots of other stories, actually.) But in this case I absolutely ransacked every imaginable drawer and cupboard and nook and cranny looking for that corkscrew, which I knew must exist because my friends had bottles of wine on the kitchen counter, and one of them was even open, proving the existence of the corkscrew! But where!! I couldn't have found it if my life depended on it, and to be honest, I am a person of such one-track mindedness that it began to seem like, in fact, my life did depend on it.

I looked everywhere, I really did. I even looked inside the coffee container, and while it isn't particularly surprising that I didn't find it there, I really did expect it to turn up somewhere. I mean, it had to be here! But after about a half hour of looking, I had to admit defeat (though not very graciously).

I considered trying to open the bottle with my teeth, but it seemed unlikely. Someone suggested breaking the neck of the bottle, but that sounded dangerous. Another suggestion involved somehow pressing the cork down into the bottle, but I didn't think I had the strength for that, at least not without breaking the cork into little pieces, and if I have a pet peeve (if! I just made myself laugh out loud), it's little pieces of cork floating around in my glass of wine. Yuck.

So in the end I was resigned to drinking from my friends' open bottle of some sort of red wine that turned my lips and teeth purple. Mmmmm!

But the experience did make me think. I mean, a corkscrew is absolutely irreplaceable among kitchen implements, for its purpose. If you don't have a corkscrew, you really have a problem. Other things you can improvise--you know, like use a knife if you can't find a bottle opener, or something like that. But no corkscrew! Oh, then you're...well, screwed. Ha.

Another friend suggested I get one of those little corkscrews you attach to your keychain. I think I will. "Hi, my name is grackyfrogg, and while I'm not an alcoholic, I like wine so much that I carry around this little corkscrew everywhere I go because I become an obsessively raging monster when I badly want a glass of wine and can't find a corkscrew. Not that it happens often or anything! Because it doesn't! I'm not an alcoholic, remember! I just like to know I have a corkscrew when I need it, ok!"

Hmmm.