OK, seriously, I think I am addicted to M&Ms now.
I blame my roommate (in, of course, the nicest possible way). She came home the other day with a giant plastic tub filled to the brim with M&Ms—a prize she had won at an anniversary party for some friends of hers. So maybe I should actually blame her friends. Anyway, there are enough M&Ms in there to last til Doomsday. Or whenever North Korea decides to fire their rockets at us, whichever comes first.
Er, wait.
Whatever, the point is, I can't manage a simple walk through the dining room without taking a scoop of M&Ms out of the little glass bowl that sits on the table. Or sit in the living room without having a few—or a few too many—out of another glass jar on the coffee table. I can't even eat oatmeal anymore. I mean, by itself.
On the other hand, I've been wondering what to give up for Lent this year. Maybe I have my answer.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Breakfast of Champions...
...can get a little old after a few days in a row.
Not that I would know from personal experience or anything.
In other news, I'm off for a hike near Malibu today. A much-needed opportunity to get outdoors and clear the brain after a tough week. Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday! With love, as usual, from the frogg princess...
Not that I would know from personal experience or anything.
In other news, I'm off for a hike near Malibu today. A much-needed opportunity to get outdoors and clear the brain after a tough week. Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday! With love, as usual, from the frogg princess...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Oatmeal + M&Ms
= the breakfast of champions. Strange champions, perhaps; quirky champions that you almost kind of wonder if you should maybe worry about their mental health, but champions nonetheless.
Although I should clarify: you have to actually put the M&Ms in your oatmeal to qualify. Besides, if you don't, you won't see how many pretty colors your oatmeal can turn, and then what fun is it?
I'm going to go now.
Although I should clarify: you have to actually put the M&Ms in your oatmeal to qualify. Besides, if you don't, you won't see how many pretty colors your oatmeal can turn, and then what fun is it?
I'm going to go now.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Time For Another Frogg Award
Haven't handed one of these out in a while, but I'm proud to announce that, in the "Most Embarrassing Moment of My Life" category, we have a winner. For those of you too lazy to click on the link (and honestly, how lazy are you, that you can't click on a link?!), our recipient was participating in a guided tour at the Met in New York when, for some unexplained reason, she stumbled and fell. On a painting. By Picasso. And tore it. In front of many other people.
Yikes.
As an expert in embarrassing moments, having played a starring role in more of them than I care to remember, I just have to point out that there's really no good way to ever live something like this down.
I also have to point out that the article kind of leaves a lot of unanswered questions rolling around in my mind. Not least is the question of what on earth Picasso was thinking when he produced that painting. And if you'd just click on the link like I said, you'd know exactly what I was talking about. But also right up there is the question of how the docent leading the tour reacted in the moment of the accident. I mean, museum docents have kind of perfected the art of looking vaguely threatening even at the best of times; i.e., times when you are not falling on an irreplaceable masterpiece and destroying it. So really, I can only imagine. After all, we're talking here about a painting which had been negotiated for a sale of $139 million.The woman is no doubt thanking anything but her lucky stars (which were clearly asleep on the job that day) that the museum did not enforce a "you break it, you buy it" policy.
Yikes.
As an expert in embarrassing moments, having played a starring role in more of them than I care to remember, I just have to point out that there's really no good way to ever live something like this down.
I also have to point out that the article kind of leaves a lot of unanswered questions rolling around in my mind. Not least is the question of what on earth Picasso was thinking when he produced that painting. And if you'd just click on the link like I said, you'd know exactly what I was talking about. But also right up there is the question of how the docent leading the tour reacted in the moment of the accident. I mean, museum docents have kind of perfected the art of looking vaguely threatening even at the best of times; i.e., times when you are not falling on an irreplaceable masterpiece and destroying it. So really, I can only imagine. After all, we're talking here about a painting which had been negotiated for a sale of $139 million.The woman is no doubt thanking anything but her lucky stars (which were clearly asleep on the job that day) that the museum did not enforce a "you break it, you buy it" policy.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Thoughts On A Rainy Night
The long, stormy day is done. Earlier this evening I saw lightning through a heavy rain as I drove the streets near my house. Now I'm home again, sitting in my room with a cup of chamomile tea, the light dim and a few candles burning. Just thinking. I make a few false starts on the ol' blog, but nothing flows. Sigh.
I pick up my old journal and flip to the entry for this date last year. Turns out that on January 21, 2009, I was on a plane headed to Thailand. Strange. Seems a lifetime ago and then some. In a way, I suppose it was. Just over two weeks after getting back from that trip, I'd find myself starting chemotherapy. Life is full of surprises.
My hair has grown back very thick, and curlier than before. Darker, too. Meanwhile, the biopsy scar at the base of my throat is fading. I doubt anyone would notice it anymore, if they ever did. I see it, though. Every day.
I pause and listen. The rain has stopped. I wonder if it stopped a long time ago and I just never noticed until now. Everything is quiet outside. Inside, well. That's another story.
I pick up my old journal and flip to the entry for this date last year. Turns out that on January 21, 2009, I was on a plane headed to Thailand. Strange. Seems a lifetime ago and then some. In a way, I suppose it was. Just over two weeks after getting back from that trip, I'd find myself starting chemotherapy. Life is full of surprises.
My hair has grown back very thick, and curlier than before. Darker, too. Meanwhile, the biopsy scar at the base of my throat is fading. I doubt anyone would notice it anymore, if they ever did. I see it, though. Every day.
I pause and listen. The rain has stopped. I wonder if it stopped a long time ago and I just never noticed until now. Everything is quiet outside. Inside, well. That's another story.
A Quote For The Day
The following made me smile, for a number of reasons.
"God is not without mercy," said Toma vaguely.
"Toma, when you first came here three years ago, the year Annushka was born, you told me you were an unbeliever."
Toma's face relaxed into the creases of leathery goodwill which were a preparation for hours of aimless discussion.
"Not an unbeliever, sir, a free-thinker. Perhaps you've never thought about the difference. As a free-thinker I can believe what I like, when I like. I can commit you, in your sad situation, to the protection of God this evening, even though tomorrow morning I shan't believe he exists. As an unbeliever I should be obliged not to believe, and that's an unwarrantable restriction on my thoughts."
-- from Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring
"God is not without mercy," said Toma vaguely.
"Toma, when you first came here three years ago, the year Annushka was born, you told me you were an unbeliever."
Toma's face relaxed into the creases of leathery goodwill which were a preparation for hours of aimless discussion.
"Not an unbeliever, sir, a free-thinker. Perhaps you've never thought about the difference. As a free-thinker I can believe what I like, when I like. I can commit you, in your sad situation, to the protection of God this evening, even though tomorrow morning I shan't believe he exists. As an unbeliever I should be obliged not to believe, and that's an unwarrantable restriction on my thoughts."
-- from Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Hope, Truth And A Dose Of Something That Might Be, But Probably Isn't, Quantum Physics
I've been reading Rob Riemen's Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal and today I came across a passage where he quotes Camus, who wrote to a friend,
Only one thing on earth seems to me to be a greater good than justice—and that is, if not truth itself, the pursuit of truth. We don't need hope, we just need truth.
I'm not so sure I agree. Can hope and truth exist without one another? Or no: better to say, can we as human beings exist without both? That is, exist in a way that does honor to what we are? Although even as I write that, I hear Jesus' words in my head, when he said to the disciples once, "You know not what manner of spirit you are of." So that leads me to the question, what are we anyway? Can we find out the truth without hope? I would think that hope provides the motivation to seek out and pursue truth. But what if we do find truth, and it teaches us that there is nothing to hope for?
Ouch, my brain hurts.
On a tenuously related note, I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day on Gchat. We were talking about God and he was telling me about how his idea of God is inspired somewhat by his understanding of quantum physics (and here I'm pretty sure I'm about to mangle both my friend's understanding of God and whatever quantum physics is really all about, so I apologize in advance to my friend as well as any scientists who might, however improbably, be following this blog); that is, that God, existing outside of time in the realm of infinity, thus contains everything that not only has happened but that could happen. Every conceivable possibility is in God. So when I responded to that with, "My head just exploded," my friend said that somewhere, I guess in a parallel universe or something, that really happened and that in that parallel time and place, he felt bad about making my head explode and then HIS head exploded. Which made me laugh, in this universe.
Quantum physics is nothing if not very strange. And somewhat entertaining, at least if it's anything like the way I understand it, which I admit is highly doubtful. But anyway, I just hope I'm always living in the universe in which my head remains firmly attached to my body, intact. And that's the truth.
Only one thing on earth seems to me to be a greater good than justice—and that is, if not truth itself, the pursuit of truth. We don't need hope, we just need truth.
I'm not so sure I agree. Can hope and truth exist without one another? Or no: better to say, can we as human beings exist without both? That is, exist in a way that does honor to what we are? Although even as I write that, I hear Jesus' words in my head, when he said to the disciples once, "You know not what manner of spirit you are of." So that leads me to the question, what are we anyway? Can we find out the truth without hope? I would think that hope provides the motivation to seek out and pursue truth. But what if we do find truth, and it teaches us that there is nothing to hope for?
Ouch, my brain hurts.
On a tenuously related note, I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day on Gchat. We were talking about God and he was telling me about how his idea of God is inspired somewhat by his understanding of quantum physics (and here I'm pretty sure I'm about to mangle both my friend's understanding of God and whatever quantum physics is really all about, so I apologize in advance to my friend as well as any scientists who might, however improbably, be following this blog); that is, that God, existing outside of time in the realm of infinity, thus contains everything that not only has happened but that could happen. Every conceivable possibility is in God. So when I responded to that with, "My head just exploded," my friend said that somewhere, I guess in a parallel universe or something, that really happened and that in that parallel time and place, he felt bad about making my head explode and then HIS head exploded. Which made me laugh, in this universe.
Quantum physics is nothing if not very strange. And somewhat entertaining, at least if it's anything like the way I understand it, which I admit is highly doubtful. But anyway, I just hope I'm always living in the universe in which my head remains firmly attached to my body, intact. And that's the truth.
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