Not a fan.

Wanna upset some people? Tell them you hate Halloween. Wanna upset them more? Have some sort of vaguely “goth” leanings, like a fondness for skulls, or a primarily black wardrobe. Wanna really, really piss them off? Tell them Valentine’s Day is your favorite holiday. Never fails.

Yeah, that’s me. Not a fan of Halloween despite a deep and abiding love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, books about monsters, a dresser full of black t-shirts and one really cool pair of skull and cross bones earrings. And yes, I really do like Valentine’s Day, although to say it is my favorite holiday may be a bit of a stretch. I think Thanksgiving actually wins that prize. And before you get on your “Hallmark Holiday” high horse, let me point out that I do make my own Valentines and um…have you been to Hallmark lately? It’s kind of full of Halloween crap. As is the grocery store. And the drug store. And every other store in town. You don’t want to get into the commercialization conversation on this one.

Halloween has never been my thing. I always liked to dress up, but was never terribly fond of the scary stuff. And the candy, well, how many Necco wafers do you have to eat before you decide that most Halloween candy is yucky. I’m going to say “One”. Yeesh. And the spooky stuff? No way. I hate haunted houses, haunted boats, haunted hayrides and haunted…things. I don’t enjoy being startled and I certainly have no desire to pay for it.

Like I said, this is nothing new with me. I have hated rubber masks since I was a wee lass. And I have always preferred high-end candy. But I participated. Dressed up, walked in the Halloween parade, went trick-or-treating, went to parties and studiously avoided the haunted houses unless I could work in them.

If you come to my apartment, I will give you candy. If you make a nice costume, I will be appropriately awed. But Halloween is really not my thing. Sorry. Call me around Thanksgiving and I’ll happily make you a turkey though. Or stop by in February and see my Valentines.

Two things I am usually not...

1. early
2. not scary

But this time...well...a little bit early and not at all scary. Go figure.


Wait...I mean to say I am usually scary...not NOT scary...but...oh damn. Add a third to that list...not clever.

Wait...

...never mind.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Ten things...

...that have annoyed me in the past 24 hours:

1. Traffic…obviously
2. Rush Limbaugh
3. and Jim Caviezal and Patricia Heaton
4. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
5. The radio
6. More specifically, Beck and Lakshmi Singh on the radio but the radio in general as well
7. The fly in my kitchen
8. The last 2 minutes and 13 seconds of 30 Rock
9. My hair
10. That dude in the crappy blue Corolla who felt the need to pull out of the traffic, pass ten people on the right and then push back into traffic

You can contact me if you need more clarification on any of these. But you probably don’t.

WAIT! I forgot one!

11. R2D2! Damn he was annoying!

In search of...

I am not very big on the idea of “perfection”…obviously. In fact, it just took me three times to type that sentence because it kept coming our “I am not bog on the idea odf perfection…okbviously”. But I did bother to fix it, not for the sake of perfection but for the sake of readability. I honestly don’t believe in perfection of any type, but I still search for it. Some people search for it in nature, but nature is as imperfect as everything else. Some people search for it in themselves, seeking to improve their bodies, their minds, their souls. Me, I look for it in three things. Eyeliner, handbags and shoes. And so far…well, let’s just say we are getting closer but we aren’t there yet.

I need the perfect eyeliner. I have been looking for years, wasting money and time and hazarding serious eye infections along the way. I have tried pencils and liquids and gels and even an “eyeliner sealant” which is almost as scary as it sounds. I have blended with brushes and sponges and fingers. My eyes have been lined in blue, green, purple, gray, black, bronze, gold and brown. And pink…and burgundy. I like the gold best but I generally retreat to brown because it tends to last longer. I want something that will make my eyes glisten and dance. In a good way. Not a crazy way. I have tried high-end make-up and drugstore make-up and what may well have been a briquette of charcoal in pencil form. But none of them are perfect enough. In fact, I am not sure that any of them have even come close to perfection. I keep looking. I will keep looking until I am blinded by all the chemicals that have slid into my eyes from all these concoctions.

And the handbag? It needs to be the right size, more oblong than long, more east west than north south, if you know those handbag design terms. It needs to have a zipper, because although that may not be the most beautiful fastener for a hand bag it is, let’s face it, the smartest, things don’t slide out and sneaking hands don’t get in. It needs some pockets inside for cell phones and mp3 players and the like, but not so many pockets as to lose things in. And it needs to be a neutral enough color to go with everything but happy and bright enough for me to want to carry it. It should fit a book and a wallet and all the various things of day to day life (eye drops, compact, notebook, 3 pens, painkillers, tampons and a pair of socks if necessary) but never feel heavy and the straps should be long enough to go over my shoulder, possibly even across my chest if my hands are full, but not so long as to drag on the ground when carried in hand. This bag…it does not actually exist, but I keep the hope alive.

The shoes...don’t even get me started on the shoes.

I seek perfection. But only in the things I need everyday. Who needs a perfect body when they can’t carry around the stuff needed to maintain it? Who needs a perfect soul if the eyes that can’t be properly lined in a beautiful color that won’t wear out after an allergy attack and a few tears over a spilled coffee, are the window to that soul? Why seek perfection in myself if I can’t find a damn pair of shoes that I like?

Etsy Plug

Oooh, I got a package in the mail today! It contained my first purchase from etsy.com, a pair of fingerless gloves from TaranehsBazaar. They are very nicely made and cute to boot. Someone even told me that they were “fashionable”…go figure, I own something fashionable! Mine have blue and brown stripes and a pink peace sign. I love blue and brown together, and how in the world could a resist a pink peace sigh? Well obviously I couldn’t. My hope is that these fingerless gloves will keep my hands a little warmer this winter when it’s a balmy 70 degrees outside and a chilly 60 in my deep freeze of an office while still allowing me to type. We’ll see.

Now, truth be told, I can sort of knit and it is possible that this is something that I could make myself. But I haven’t yet and I only recently discovered that I knit backwards. Don’t ask. But TaranehsBazaar made them real nice, far better than I could, so why not go the easy way?

Etsy is a really nice idea and I have seen so many things there that I would like to buy. There is a great range of product and a great range of prices, so you may want to consider looking there when doing your holiday shopping. And when you do, maybe you should check out JustJenn’s shop too.

So that’s my plug for this week. I don’t get paid for this stuff, I do it out of LOVE!

Bye-bye, Weekend, I'll miss you!

I am sad that the weekend is gone, even though I didn’t really do much to take advantage of it. Well, there was some cleaning, a thing which must continue as the ‘rents are coming for a birthday visit in a few weeks and while our apartment is not exactly a disaster…it’s a clutter. Seems like every corner has collected stuff. Stacks of books, books of dvd's, piles of cds, piles of storage boxes purchased eight months ago to house the cds but as of yet unfilled because said cds should really be organized and one box should be for opera and one for jazz, but what to put in the other two? That kind of stuff. It’s getting there. And it WILL be tidy for the visit. But it’s the getting there that I am not enjoying.

Aside from that there was some baking. This year, for the ‘rents “special days” (i.e. birthdays, mother’s day, father’s day) I decided not to buy them presents but rather, to make them food, largely because it’s disposable (ok, technically, I should say it a “consumable” but it’s also disposable because if they don’t like it, they can just throw it away). For mother’s day and dad’s birthday (they tend to take place together) it was two kinds of scones and challah bread, for father’s day it was lemon cake, sliced and sealed in serving size packets, just ready for the freezer. So this weekend I made cookies for mom’s birthday. Whole wheat gingersnaps and almond scented sugar cookies, packaged in fours and wrapped for freezing. I hope she likes them, we thought that the ugly ones were pretty good (she only gets the “pretties”, even though ugly cookies still taste good, it’s all about the presentation).

Then there was dinner. James does not eat pasta. I know, I know, it’s crazy. Pasta is that go to dinner, the easy choice, the quick fix. Well, that dog don’t hunt in our house and pasta is a no-go. Well, I suppose I could make it and he could just have sauce, but that just seems cruel. So this weekend I did a little experiment. I have made spaghetti squash for myself before, but I checked with James and he agreed to try spaghetti squash and turkey meatballs. It was a hit. It gave me the pasta like feeling that I so miss without the griping about “if I wanted to eat wet bread, I would just eat wet bread”, both parties were happy and this will go into the recipe file. I thought the spaghetti squash would be too sweet but I tossed it with lots of black pepper and a little olive oil and it was just fine. And it’s an extra serving of veggies, so that’s a nice bonus.

Now I am off to try to design a logo based on the information “she needs a logo…something that evokes memories. And uses a star…and turquoise and orange.” Sigh.

Oh, and I hear that Torchwood is a smash in the U.K. I’ll have to see what I can do about that over here!

Random Ten and a kid with antlers.

For a while, I was trying to give the SnarkyDork ten questions every Monday. They were fairly random and for no reason other than because I could. I got out of the habit…well, actually, I ran out of questions. But this week they are back and more random than usual. But, as I normally do, I answered the questions that I posed to her because that’s just fair, and because what the heck else do I have to do?

Ten fairly random questions that you (I) may expand (expanded) on as you (I) see (saw) fit…

1. What is the last song you listened to?
   Last song was “Disco 2000” by Pulp. Current song is “Pencil Skirt” by Pulp.
   
   
2. What makes you swoon?
   Winking. I like being winked at.
   
   
3. What is your favorite cupcake? (heh, trick question! ALL CUPCAKES!! No seriously, because the next question is…
   Chocolate with vanilla frosting.
   
   
4. What’s your favorite sweet?
   You know, it used to be chocolate pudding but now it makes me sick. I’m gonna stick with cupcakes for now. And Jodi, it’s ok if you don’t CARE about cupcakes because I know you LIKE them once in a while. And that’s all that really matters.
   
5. What kind of writing instrument do you prefer to use?
   My favorite current pen is a Uniball Signo. I like to sketch with it. Since my sketching skills are…well…sketchy, I don’t like a pen that provides a smooth line, I like all the little skips that a ball point provides. And I have this great ball point pen that was tucked in a package from Taggd Apparel. I don’t know why it writes so smoothly, it’s just a cheap ballpoint, but it really feels good, nice and smooth. My mom does always say that the pens from hotels are the best, so maybe the freebies from catalog orders are good too!
   
6. What fascinates you, yet would surprise us that you are fascinated…by…it. That’s a really poorly formed sentence but I think you know what I mean.
   Um…science in general. Forensics in particular. But not to see, just to read about. I would be a theoretical forensic pathologist, one who just figures out how it happens without having to deal with decay and stuff. And also, in that vein (heh), the commerce of death fascinates me.
   
   
7. What did you NOT do in high school that you wish now you had?
   Since I hated marching band so much, I kind of wish I had been a cheerleader. But our cheerleaders were not the fluffy blonde type. Oh not. They were big…and scary.
   
   
8. What kind of candy will you give out on Halloween?
   NONE! No kids come to our apartment. But that said, every year I buy a bag of something that I like, just in case we do get some kinds and then if we don’t, I put it in a candy bowl on the coffee table and somehow, everyone else eats it and I never get any!
   
   
9. What gadget would you love to have but wouldn’t spend the money on?
   Ooh, I don’t know. I would like one of those laser level thingies so I can hang pictures straight. And I’ve been wanting a cordless drill for years and never buy one. And I wouldn’t mind a video iPod. Or another computer. Or a really, really small computer. Or something like a Blackberry, or a new fancy phone or maybe a big food processor, mine is kind of small, or a new stand mixer, mine is from the 1940’s….I could go on…
   
   
10. Do you like horror movies?
    You know, it’s funny, I used to really like them but now I am afraid of them. I worry about having nightmares from something gory. But that said, two of my favorite movies of the last few years have been “horror-esque”, Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later, so maybe I like being scared more than I think. It’s just stuff like Cabin Fever and anything with rotting zombies that gets me. I know, I know, Shaun of the Dead has zombies, but not the gruesome kind. And no way will I watch anything like House of Wax I remember watching the old one with Vincent Price when I was a kid and it still gives me nightmares.
    
    

And speaking of nightmares, I almost forgot my mom’s birthday…but I remembered just in time to send her some cards. Here is the art from one of them. I never actually had an antler costume, but I think I would have liked one.

Guess who is wearing her crankypants today!

I apparently live in the noisiest neighborhood in the known universe. Last week a truck backed up FOR HALF AN HOUR at 6 in the morning. As I live on a short block and the I’m-backing-up beep went on and on, I can only imagine that the truck rolled very…very…slowly down the block at less then one quarter of a mile per hour. This morning a car alarm went off at 4:45, which left me awake but too tired to do things I needed to do (I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to do taxes or bills at 4:45 in the morning. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to do much of anything at 4:45 in the morning). I finally fell asleep and the neighbor who can only be a chainsaw artist started working. I have no idea what kind of work other than chainsaw artist requires the use of a chain saw EVERY MORNING. Unless maybe he is a very active serial killer.

That’s all in the morning though. At night I have the neighbor that plays some video game at top decibels, the neighbor who comes home drunk and stands outside with his friends “chatting” at the top of his voice, The guy who calls home long distance to India, right under my bedroom window and the guy who vomits every morning at 3 am. Seriously.

I know that I must make noise that I am unaware of but really people! But to be fair, they are all nice enough to shut up if you ask them politely. But I kind of feel like I really shouldn’t HAVE to ask someone to not stand under my open window at 2 in the morning having and argument on their cell phone. My window is in a little alcove, it’s not like he is standing on the street.

Needless to say but said anyway…lack of sleep makes me cranky.

Do you have a preferred tipple? Do you know what tipple means? Because it’s not nearly as dirty as it sounds (I say that a lot, I think everything sounds dirty. So immature!).

See, I had a few drinks this weekend and I was thinking about how I came to be a whisky drinker. It really was a random choice. We were talking at work one day and somehow we all decided that we wanted to start sampling whisky, so we did. And now, quite randomly, I am a whisky drinker, as in, whisky is my drink of choice, which is not entirely true actually now that I think about it for a second. Whisky is my drink of choice in the winter, gin and tonic in the summer and beer with food. But I am pretty picky about all of them. I have kind of expensive tastes. I would rather drink water than drink a beer I don’t like. Same with whisky I think, although I am more flexible with gin because I prefer to mix it with something (soda, tonic, olives, ice…although I may have had a gin and juice more than once in my life because yes, I am that ghetto (Dude, I am so NOT ghetto even when I try to be)). I did the “extremely cheap alcohol” thing in college, I don’t need to do that anymore. Seriously, you can only be friends with Pepe Lopez for so long.

Wine is another story though. I can appreciate a fine wine but what I buy is actually either the best cheap wine in a box I can find (I am totally serious, stop looking at me like that), or the wine with the prettiest label. As I am prone to headaches, I tend to avoid reds and stick with whites. I don’t like it too sweet, but I don’t like it too dry either. But all that is really beside the point as I have often said to my friends while drinking something that could be wine or could be anti-freeze “I have never met a wine I wouldn’t drink.” I have had Nightrain and Mad Dog and I’m not even a hobo! I may have even drunk Boone’s Farm from the bottle with a crazy straw, I ain’t sayin’ one way or another. Me and wine, we are long time friends.

But in reality, I am not that big a drinker (shutup Jodi!). Saturday night marked the end of a particular bottle of whiskey that I have been nursing for two years. And it was sad. I didn’t want to say goodbye to my “The Speyside” (that’s the name of it, you have to keep the “The” in there, other wise you are just talking about a type of whisky, see, not only do I drink it, but I know things about it! That’s what makes me a “drinker” not an “alcoholic”). Naturally, there is another bottle that is already taking its place. And there is one in line for after that, but extrapolating from the previous bottle-drinking rate, I think it will take a while to get through these. Wanna come over for a drink? I gots lots to share!


(psst...In case you were wondering, "whisky" is the preferred spelling for the drink that comes from Scotland. Which is what I usually drink. But I am totally open to other spellings and other "whiskeys" if you are buying.)

Searching for answers. Finding nothing.

Lately it seems popular to post what people are searching for when they wind up at your blog. I always find this fascinating. Mostly people who just Google and up here are searching for The Rolling Stones “Some Girls” album, info on Ciaran Hinds, Bruce Parry or a 1976 Cutlass Oldsmobile. I even cut some of my links to that stuff in order to not mislead traffic. Today, however, I went to Google to search for something and I noticed all the searches I have done since I last emptied my cache. So, instead of presenting you with the odd searches that got people here…here are the odd searches that got me somewhere. I am amazed by the number of comic book references, although I suppose I shouldn’t be. I also tend to use Google Images a lot for picture reference, so I left out the less interesting searches like “mermaid” and “crown”. The really odd thing is that I can remember what almost every single one of these searches was for (go ahead, ask me why I wanted to know about “cram cream”, it’s not as dirty as it sounds), I mean, why I wanted the information, obviously I can tell what I searched for…duh. I haven’t linked anything because, well, aside from the fact that I am far too lazy, I suggest that if you really can’t figure out why a person would search for…let’s say…“cockney rhyming slang+Britney”, that you Google it for yourself and see what comes up! It could be an entertaining waste of two seconds.

Hunh, now I am going to get weird random hits on things that I have gotten weird random hits on…weird.

And please don’t ask why I was searching for “sweet dreams romances”…I just was, OK?

ali g
all this is mine
amaranth
american library association
anderson website had wedding date wrong
ant+comic
antlers
anti-adoption
archie comics
arthur rimbaud
bells+whisky
bershon
big boss comics
billboard+1992
bird in a skirt
black bush whiskey
bluefish
boom! studios
bree walker
buddha machine
buffalo tofu
bullet
buttercup
clementon park
cockney rhyming slang+britney
convert c to f
cram cream
cutting+psychology
dicketry
dream dictionary
dudley moore+dance sequence
dumplings
eddie izzard+lowlife
elizabethan hats
eric powell
esa pekka salonen
eu de cologne
fauxtess
fake girl scout badges
fan museum+london
fat tony diamico
flip flops
folding cane
for better or for worse+blinking
general public
gentleman zombie
giant fortune cookie
good goth
headache map
headbandshealth by chocolate
henry: portrait of a serial killer
honey ice cream
how do i store fresh tofu?
how do you feel today?
hyde park+chair rental
is tmj hereditary?
is yawning and involuntary reflex?
is yawning contagious?
jacky-twoad
jeff levine+comics
jeremy lambros
jin vase
johnny speedpants
justjenn designs
k-tel+songbird
katchipuri
kristen bell
krust+bakery+burbank
l u v+ new york dolls
last kiss comics
lemon cake
lionel richie
lipstick
lismore single malt
locks of love
lonelygirl15
mc steamy
me and ro
metheglin
milville, nj
mollisher
mr. toast
my precious
nutritional content calculator
nick fury
nicolae ceaucescu
oni comics
one inch buttons
paddington station
pagliacci
panda
piggy bank
queen of england
radiation treatment for cancer
raina tegelmeyer
ratt+metal
reverse phone directory
richard iii+ring
richie rich
rick geary
road closings october 3 los angles
roman dirge
run lola run
sad robots need love too
script+clerks
shiba inu
silent devil comics
silver bullet comics
slave leia
smart monkey raw food
songs on “house”
soy yoghurt
sugarfree peach pie
sweet dreams romances

Damn, this is along list AND it's edited AND it only goes to "s". Well, maybe someday I will do the rest of the alphabet. Heck, it amuses me!

Oh Cupcakes, I love you.

So, the vegan baking experiments have continued. There has been much cupcaking. Chocolate, vanilla (two different attempts) and orange. All have been pretty decent, some have been excellent. Next up, perfecting the icing.

I am not such the icing fan. My default icing is whipped cream-cream cheese icing, which shouldn’t be too hard to veganize. It will be thicker than the original but who cares? As long as it tastes good. And I have been pleased with the results of all the experimentation so far, so I am hopeful that it will taste good. And hey, there are plenty of hardcore non-vegans who seem to be enjoying it all as well. The girl in the office upstairs just opened the window and yelled down that she loved my chocolate cupcakes. Unless that was some kind of disturbing come-on…no, no…she was talking about the actual cupcakes.

As well as potentially saving some animals and resources, I am finding vegan baking to also be very handy. I am not one who eats eggs really to begin with, so when I do have them around it’s often a question of…um…how old are these? And you can do that whole float them in water thing but I never remember if it’s good for an egg to sink or swim, so cutting them out of the recipe entirely is just safer. Same for the milk, I don’t drink it so I don’t generally know off the top of my head if there is any about, but since these recipes don’t call for it, no worries. Very handy that.

But so far, so good with the vegan baking. Come on over and try it for yourself…actually…don’t. I won’t answer, you’ll see my shadow through the peephole but I’ll pretend I’m not home. You’ll know because you’ll hear the television suddenly mute.

Oh wait, one more thing…does anyone know if the expression “humpy daddy” is pretty much exclusive to the gay community? I thought it was kind of on par with “yummy mummy” but after a quick google, I find mostly links that I don’t want to click…go figure. And if it is, what would you say is the male equivalent to a “yummy mummy” (which is the polite terminology for a MILF). And if you have no idea what I am talking about at all…don’t do a search, for the love of Pete, DON’T DO A SEARCH!

Five.

I was reading April Winchell’s blog and if you don’t read it, it’s worth a look. She’s very funny and she has a great and disturbing mp3 collection. She was recently interviewed for a Japanese women’s magazine. They told her that they always ask 5 questions and…well, you can read it all at her place. But I was intrigued by the questions. I have an ongoing interview with myself in my mind, just so I won’t get caught off guard when the time comes so I decided to go ahead and answer these, just to keep in top form for any future interviews…

1. Do you have any good luck charm? Do you practice any ritual to make your work successful?
I always want to believe that I have a good luck charm and over the years I have carried many different things in my pockets for good luck; a jade fish, a St. Christopher card, various pebbles and shells, you name it. But in the end, I really don’t believe in luck, I just believe that I should have a good luck charm. At the moment, I have none. I do, however have a 128MB jump drive in my pocket, so today, that is my good luck charm. So far, it’s not working. And I don’t practice any ritual to make my work successful, but I probably should just practice, that would make me better at it.


2. Three things you always carry in your purse?
THREE? Are you serious? Only three? Well, there are tons of things I THINK I need in there, but I do always have eyedrops, lip balm and at least three pens in there. Oh and come to think of it, I have a key card from a vacation at Disney World in my wallet. It’s five years old but I guess I do keep it as kind of a good luck charm. But really it’s just a “good day” reminder.


3. Where do you go for relaxing?
Now, if I had the money and the vacation time, this question would have a very different answer, but as it stands right now, I go to the bathroom for relaxing. And that’s not just for the obvious reason, but because I know I can be alone in the bathroom. People don’t like to bother you there. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time hiding in the bathroom.


4. One book you will bring with you for your travel.
Again I say ONE? JUST ONE? I always travel with far too many books. Today, I have…3 books and two magazines with me. One book is The Moor by Laurie King, the other two are guides on hand made books, one magazine is High Fructose, because there is an article about Mark Ryden in there that I have been trying to read but I keep getting distracted by the crappy editing. The other magazine is a music magazine called Magnet. I haven’t really read any of it yet.


5. What kind of compliment do you like to hear most about yourself?
I like when people tell me I smell good. You could tell me I looked nice, I wouldn’t believe you. You could tell me that I am funny, I would strongly doubt that. You could tell me you like my hair, my eyes, my whatever…not interested. But if you tell me I smell good, I am flattered. Because I think I do. But you have to be really close to smell me and I’ll probably punch you before you discover that the combination of coconut body butter and honey shampoo is really nice.

I think scent is one of the least regarded senses, until something smells really bad, that is. I assure you, most of the time, I smell pretty good or not much at all. Most of the time.

Right now: I am listening to this dude. I downloaded his stuff for free (it’s there for a limited time so snap it up if you are interested). It’s intriguing. I keep thinking “Hey, I really like this dude” and then all of the sudden he does something that I really don’t like. So at least he is keeping me on my toes. See, kind of like rehearsing for that one big interview. There it is all tied up in a neat little package for you. There you go.

This makes me so happy.

I miss Sifl & Ollie.

I tried.

For the record, I just want to announce that I did TRY the Pumpkin Pie Latte thing. Schwee was kind enough to offer me the first two sips from hers. She told me I had to take two because after the first one, I would not be sure if I liked it or not. She was right. I had two. I have decided that I don’t need anymore. I did, however, enjoy the Maple Macchiato. But I will return to my café Americano until the White Chocolate Peppermint Mocha arrives, I will have one too many of those and then I will go on back to plain ol’ coffee.

I won’t declare the Pumpkin Pie Latte experiment a failure. Not like the ill-fated Banana Mocha Frappicino experiment. But I don’t think I need to try it again.

I just don’t know what to think of this whole “pumpkin pie latte” thing. Schwee has had several times now and every time I think…”Oooh, that’s sounds good!…no, it sounds wrong…no, it sounds good.” Today she said “Oh, come on, if you could get a Boston Cream Pie beverage, you totally would!” But the interesting part of a Boston Cream Pie is the differences in texture, I argued. Then she said that a Boston Cream Pie drink WOULD have diffences in texture…I shudder to think. I’m sticking to my Café Americano for the moment. Or, as I like to call it…coffee.

Wow, not a lot has been going on lately. Well, I did get to meet Mr. Palmer for dinner last week…he says it was not awkward, I am shocked. I don’t know how to be anything other than awkward. Actually, I had a really nice time hanging out with him and hope he comes back with the family. And my family too, for that matter. But there is your example of yet another blogger meeting that doesn’t end in tragedy.

Ah, what else? What else? Well, I did go grocery shopping yesterday, which is hardly news but I was totally fascinated by the other people in the store. See, I am a pretty organized grocery shopper. I make lists, I arrange the lists by aisle. I know what brands I want and all but if I send James to the store, I make sure I give him an incredibly detailed list with weights, colors of the packages, brand names, if the generic is ok, stuff like that. (Apparently, sometimes I go overboard. Once I sent him to the store for confectioner’s sugar. I am pretty sure I gave him the bag weight, and probably wrote “10x confectioner’s sugar” on the list. He called to tell me that the store didn’t have any confectioner’s sugar and could I possibly use powered sugar instead. Sigh.) So there was this guy in the store shopping by himself, but every time I passed him he happened to be one the phone with whomever he was shopping for. I ran across him and evesdropped during the “brown sugar” discussion:

“Well, they have light brown and golden brown. Oh wait here is the dark brown. But you want light brown? Is that the same as golden brown? Do you want it in a box or a bag? Well, they have a bag but it’s not re-sealable. Well, they have the dark brown in a re-sealable bag. Is golden brown the same?”

I grabbed what I needed and carried on. I must have passed him at least four times and every time he was on the phone. I don’t know what to make of that. I think it’s nice that he’s concerned enough to get EXACTLY what the person on the other end of the line wants, but man, what a tedious conversation if you are that other person!

Then, while in the soup aisle, I passed a couple shopping together. I woudn’t have noticed them except the man SHOUTED everything he said to the woman. I guess she could have been hearing impaired but I got the impression that he was just loud. She was scurrying ahead of him, shivering and muttering to herself. At first I thought she was afraid of him but then I realized that I shiver in the grocery store (it’s cold in there!) and I surely mutter to myself if I take a loud male with me…not that the male I take is loud…heh.

So he was running down the aisle after her yelling, “Hey I’m going to get this soup meal. Right? Because you said the food won’t be ready for a while? So this way I won’t get hungry, right? See? THIS SOUP MEAL.”

That’s all. Just observing. I like to shop alone but I take James with me a lot of times so he can pick out what he wants. It’s not quite that bad with him. Not quite.