Crank it up

Browsing through the International section of iTunes streaming radio options, I run across this enticing description:

"French songs since 1890 of the dead artists."


And if that doesn't say dance party, I don't know what does.

Like a bad and hard soldier

On NPR last night there was a special edition of Youth Radio focused on young people in New Orleans. Unsurprisingly, it was full of stories of kids struggling, but ultimately triumphing even in the face of horrible circumstances. One segment was about a family who'd stayed in their house for a week even though it was full of water. The father felt it was safer for them to stay together at home than to evacuate. The sister narrates. She says that her family is stronger now than they were before. She says that she is far more self confident and is no longer bothered by trivial things like namecalling at school. She speaks about how her brothers are stronger too--physically stronger and more fearless. I picture these boys all lean and muscled and tall. I picture them looking people in the eye and taking all comers. Cut to the voice of the younger brother:

Like a bad and hard soldier, I got very very brave. I used to be very very scared of crickets. One night one got on me. I was about to scream at the top of my lungs, but I just looked at it and was like wait, it’s going to be alright, that cricket can’t do nothing, it’s not going to bite you, and it just flew off. And I said wait, that’s just a harmless little bug.

Miss Manners

Sophie is one of the most charming and gracious children I've ever met. Yesterday at her 5th birthday party she greeted each guest with true enthusiasm and told them how glad she was to see them. When it was time for her to choose an assistant for the magic show, the other girls clamored for her attention. She said, "I will pick someone who is being very quiet." And she did. True, she was a little panicky about being first for face painting, but come on, she was the birthday girl.

When she was opening her presents, she always said her thank you's and frequently said, "These are the best presents ever." Still, who among us has never made a faux pas? She opened a big present and said happily, "A kite!" "Wow. It's a pirate kite," said her mother. Sophie, fairy-loving child that she is, replied, "I don't like pirates." Instantly, she knew her mistake. You could actually see the dismay flicker over her face. "But I love Uncle Billy's present, though!"

Nice save, Sophie. Emily Post would be be proud.

No comment

I was doing so well there for a while. Did you notice? Writing and updating and making humorous observations and all? It was great. Then my boyfriend and I broke up and now I find that the humorous-commentary energy has transformed into crying-all-the-time energy.

Nevertheless in the spirit of looking at the bright side of life here are three nice things from today:

1. Whole Foods sells oatmeal in the morning. They even have brown sugar and raisins and milk there. This may not strike you as exciting, but when you are obliged to go to Whole Foods at 8am because you forgot to buy flowers for a work event, hot oatmeal is very welcome indeed.

2. Dahlias. One bunch is dark pink and the other is purple. I find them so cheerful that I would like to just carry them around with me.

3. This morning I heard the Mill Valley song on the radio. I learned it in elementary school, but apparently it was an international hit before I was born. Go figure. I sang along. I got all misty eyed and nostalgic about my home town. Aww.

That's it people. That's all I got. I hope to be funny again sometime soon.

Today's lesson

Today for lunch I had a bowl of onion soup. Or rather, I had several spoonfuls of onion soup before I gave up on the whole project and poured the rest down the drain. However, while eating those few, inadequate spoonfuls, I learned something-- something I shall generously share with you.

French onion soup is delicious. Why is it delicious? Because in the wee tureen of steaming onion broth, there is also half a pound of melted cheese and a quarter of a baguette. When you have onion soup from a can both the cheese and bread are necessarily, albeit tragically, absent. Therefore, onion soup from a can is not delicious. Not at all delicious.

Heed my words.

War is Hell

Knowing how much I love the performing arts, you may be inclined to buy me tickets for this. Thank you for the kind thought. Sadly, as much as sitting through an opera by Philip Glass about the civil war seems like a fantastic way to spend an evening, I find I am busy for the entire month of October.

Speaking of hell, we spend a fair amount of time discussing it in my Dante class--quelle suprise. Yesterday the professor asked us to share our own notions of hell. One woman said, "Well, what about here? Marin County?"

Um...right. Or Darfur. Whichever.

Changing sides

Yesterday I dragged my poor, sick self to the drug store to buy more Nyquil and tissues. By some miracle, I remembered that I also needed to get toothpaste. I stood there in my viral haze, overwhelmed by the dazzling American array of toothpaste options. Tartar control, dual cavity fighting action, dazzling white, etc., etc. My eye fell on a new type of Crest called Pro Health. "Hey," I thought, sniffling pitifully, "I'm pro health." And so I bought it.

This morning I used it for the first time. It tastes sort of like baking soda and glue sprinkled with cinnamon. What's more, it lingers for hours. I'm not sure if it's meant to promote oral health or general health or if Crest just wants you to know where they stand on the general question of health, but one thing is clear. If this is the taste of health, I'm going to have to side with illness.

Where have you been all my life?

Today my printer revealed to me a previously unseen error message. It stated that Tray 3 was not programmed and then gave me two options, one of which I was to select.

1. Resolve all problems for me automatically.
2. I will resolve this problem myself.

Oh, Option One, I knew you had to be out there somewhere. Goodbye insomnia. Goodbye indecision. Goodbye worry. Hello Option One.

If you see me around town dragging a massive printer behind me everywhere I go, you'll know why.

Tidying up

They tell me that I am soon to get a new computer at work, so yesterday I dutifully cleaned all the random documents off my computer desktop. They frown on us saving things to the desktop because they will not be magically backed up in the night like all those things saved to more appropriate files. If it's on your desktop and your computer crashes, it's gone forever. Frankly, I don't care very much if the things on my desktop are lost forever, but still would prefer to avoid the "too many documents on your desktop" lecture, so I refiled them. That is to say, I dragged them all into a file called "Misc. from desktop" which is also on my desktop. But still, it looks better and I figure I'm ready for the new machine any time.

Today though, I noticed my actual desktop. You know, the top of my wooden desk here in physical reality. It turns out that my real desktop is a good deal less tidy that my virtual one. Not only are there dozens of documents that ought to be filed into real labeled folders, there are also scores of little scratch paper notes to myself, five pens, a calculator, a message pad, a notebook, a phone extension list, a variety of loose power cords, an envelope sealer, a plastic cup, a saucer, a small teapot, a long spoon, a pitcher, a tee shirt, and a slightly used kleenex. If the IT guys came in here to replace this computer, they'd have to excavate it first.

Here's what I'm thinking: I go to the garage and get a big cardboard box. I sweep all this stuff into it and with a big black marker label it: Misc. from Desktop. Then I'll just put it on the corner of my desk.

Perfect.

Narnia

My neighbors sleep, Narnia style, in the back of my closet. Or at any rate just beyond the back of my closet. Who am I to say whether or not they exist in a magical kingdom? They might. I've never been in their apartment. I know they're over there though because I hear them. When they retire at night, I hear their bed squeak; I hear their murmuring voices. If I go to bed after them, I'm sure they hear me jostling hangers in my closet as I undress. They probably wish I wasn't addicted to the snooze alarm in the morning.

Last night I was awakened by something. I lay in the dark listening for the mystery disturbance. I could hear nothing alarming, just a little muffled repetitive noise that I identified as a carpet sweeper being run back and forth over the same crumb-covered bit of rug. Then I realized that no one in 2007 has a carpet sweeper and that the apartments in my building have wood floors.

What else makes a muffled repetitive noise late at night? Oohhhh. Right. That. Now I'm all embarrassed.

There's a special place in hell...

Lately I have been reading Dante. (Let's just leave that there by itself for a moment since it looks so literary and highly-educated and self-improving and all.) Actually, I'm reading Dante under duress because I was obliged to enroll in a class called something like "Dante, Dante, Dante." Who knows? Maybe I'll grow to love the Divine Comedy. I don't love it yet, mind you, but I'm only four cantos in, so there's time. Lots and lots of time.

However, this translator's explanation from the end of Canto I is already worth mentioning:

The gay Leopard is the image of the self-indulgent sins--Incontinence; the fierce Lion, of the violent sins--Bestiality; the She-Wolf of the malicious sins, which involve Fraud.

All right, I think I can agree that bestiality counts as a sin, but incontinence? Surely not. Messy, yes. Humiliating, yes, but not a sin. Even to call it "self indulgent" seems a trifle harsh.




[Okay, okay. If you really want to know, incontinent can mean "unchaste," but I'll be that's not the first thing you thought of either.]

Waste not...

I had a dream this morning in which I had been hiking for days through a treacherous mountain range full of Mayan ruins. I believe I also happened to be Leonardo DiCaprio, but that is not too critical. I/Leo was fortunate to run accross another group of explores who A) knew the way down and B) had provisions. We came to rest and the head of their group ripped open numerous packs of Oscar Meyer bologna and distributing them among the travelers. We began devouring it by the handful. Just then many starving villagers appeared. The travelers ignored them, but I/Leo could not bear this injustice and vowed to go hungry if it meant I could feed even one starving child. I tossed my pack of bologna into the crowd.

Cut ahead dream style. We, the viewers, are standing in a cave where a youngster is proudly displaying some kind of peculiarly textured what? hide? on a rack. In front of it is a little rack of bottles filled with yellowish liquid. Apparently, the villagers have managed to extract olive oil from the bologna and then they have made it into a kind a jerky which they split among themselves and chew for two years.

When I woke I spent some time considering what exactly constitutes a nightmare and whether a drying rack of bologna jerky would be allowed to count. I decided that it would.

Not saying much

Things have come to a pretty pass when I'm actually more afraid of my blog (a word I still hate, for the record) than I am of the gym. Did I remember my password? No. No, I did not. Was I a wee bit ashamed? Sadly, yes. But here we are! Again! New leaves all around, say I. Let us turn them together. Ready? Go.

Last night I heard an ad on the radio soliciting support for a summer camp for terminally ill children. They said that this exciting summer escapade would create "memories that will last a lifetime." Which, when you're talking about terminally ill children isn't saying a whole hell of a lot. They may want to rethink that.

And besides, it's true

I saw a review of the new movie Bridge to Terabithia (which, in case you don't know because you never cried over it yourself as a child, is based on a very sad, Newbery Award winning book of the same name). At the very end of the review where there is generally an explantation of why a movie has its particular rating (violence, language, nudity, etc.) it says this:

-- Advisory: This movie contains mild violence, mature themes and false and defamatory claims that "TV kills your brain cells."


I don't even really know what to say about this. Is this somehow legally required? Or is it a weird joke by the reviewer? Have we ever seen a joke in that section of a review?

But it has to be a joke, right?
Sure.
Let's just stick with that theory.

Small thanks

Thank you, Weather, for stuffing all those clouds into the linen closet and keeping the rain in your various buckets and pots and barrels for just one day. I'll have wet feet when I get home today, sure, but I wanted you to know that I did appreciate the sunny Sunday. We went on a longish walk that took us to delicious waffles and tea and contributed to the breaking in of my new shoes. Sure, we might have done that even with umbrellas, but we did like the sunshine very much. It was thoughtful of you. Tonight I have to write a paper, so if you would like to keep going with the precipitation, you have my blessing.

New math

I had a dream that a friend of mine had decided to engage in bigamy. There was nothing sneaky about it. She and her two finaces were planning to get married all at once in the same ceremony. She called her parents excitedly and said, "I can't wait for you to meet the men I'm going to marry!" "Men?" they repeated, alarmed by the plural. "Yes," she said. "You know how people wait and wait to get married because they are waiting for the one? Well, this completely solves that problem."

Be Mine, but maybe next year?

Trader Joe's has produced what may well be the best Valentine's Day merchandizing commercial ever. It goes something like this:


Everyone knows that roses and chocolate make perfect Valentine's Day gifts, but what if your relationship hasn't reached the dozen roses stage? Finding a gift that reflects your feelings for your "friend" can be stressful. What should you do if you're not sure just how special your special someone is? Trader Joe's recommends a jar of marinated mushrooms with garlic. They are wonderfully flavorful and at just $2.69, your budget will be in line with your feelings. Of course, if you're sure, TJ's also has a large assortment of roses and chocolate at great prices, but a jar of marinated mushrooms with garlic is a great way to say, "I like you, but let's not rush into anything."

Frere Jacques

I had one of those nights of shallow sleep where I was plagued with the fear of oversleeping. Even my dreams were about being late to work. So great was my dread of somehow missing the alarm, that I was only able to relax after it had woken me up at the appointed time and I had turned it off. Only then, finally free from Alarm Anticipation Syndrome (AAS), was I able to really sleep. Which I did. For an hour. And then was very late to work.

Considering other possibilities

I heard on the radio this morning the very sad news that a missing Stanford grad student had been found dead in the trunk of her car. The police, according to the report, suspect suicide.

What?

Now clearly I haven't been through any extensive police training, but if I found someone in the trunk of her car, I probably wouldn't go with suicide as a first guess. These police officers have apparently never seen any movies. At all. Because if the cinema teaches us anything it's that dead body+trunk of car=murder. Unless there is also suikidnapping involved, which, obviously, changes things.

Color me crazy

but, no matter how arty your film may be, I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario in which it makes sense for Cate Blanchett to play the role of Bob Dylan.