Quodlibets

Commute Notes

• Dude, if you can't handle the wall on LSD, get in one of the middle lanes.  Don't drive half in my lane and muck traffic up.  Also, screw you if you can't stay in your lane on the s-curve.  It's not THAT scary, and it's especially not scary if you're in the far right lane, going north.  That lane is the widest on the s-curve in the first turn, and you've got all the room in the world.  So a) stay in your damn lane and b) don't go 5 mph around that turn. 
• One of the greatest joys of my day is the last bit of my drive home, the bit that happens after I get on Lower Wacker.  If traffic is light enough, Lower Wacker is like a curvy playground for your car.  I love it.  And then as you're shooting onto LSD, going north, there is nothing quite like the pleasure of accelerating up that ramp and seeing NO traffic on the drive, and being able to literally cross four lanes of the road while going 50.  And if the sky is blue?  And the sun is shining?  It's like my heart will burst from the happiness of it. 
• Also, and this isn't so much a commute note, but a general note about driving in the city.  Which just happens to be one of the most frustrating things ever.  Seriously, people drive like fucknuts here.  I saw so much rude and horrible and dangerous behavior on Tuesday that I was shocked.  People just showing blantant disregard for the fact that snow changes the way you have to drive.  I saw one guy turn right on red with traffic literally almost on top of him from the green light.  Someone had to slam on their brakes in the blowing snow--thank god it was a car that probably had 4-wheel drive.  But jesus.
• That wasn't the point of the note.  The point of the note was the buses.  The buses do not so much obey the traffic laws.  I've seen so many buses run stop signs, I can't even tell you.  Now, when I see one coming towards me through a four-way, I just take it for granted that they aren't stopping.  Sad, huh?  It's dangerous and just plain wrong.  I don't care if they're running late on their routes.

Otherwise, I do love my new car.  It saved me approximately $60-70 dollars in gas in the first month.  I still chuckle when I fill up my car.  It's delightful.  (If you see me in it though, ignore the powdery white crap all over it.  Three snows, no car wash.  I'm workin' on it.

It Must Have Been Something I Ate

For I am decidedly not well, and there is no food in this house that will be okay for a bad stomach.  I do have rice and a rice cooker, but no instructions for the latter.  I attempted to work it to see if I could, and the answer is a resounding NO.  (Why not use a pot, and the stove, you ask?  Because I have done that before and every single time I cook rice on my electric stove, it's crunchy.  I do not like crunchy rice.  No one likes crunchy rice.  Now, I really do want a rice cooker and I fear this one is useless.  I am going to figure out which one is the best, and ask for it for Christmas.  Because I cannot keep living without rice, simply because I can't cook it.)

Why doesn't S help you, you might wonder.  Well, he will, wonderful boy that he is, but he's currently finishing up a dogsitting job, and can't leave my dad's house until he feeds the dogs dinner.  He can't really do that until five-ish, and then he is still a half hour away.  I absolutely cannot go to a store, because I, well, am tethered to the house by, the um, toilet.  I can't think of anything I can order in (except white rice, but I'm not sure that the Chinese food place will deliver one order of white rice).  Thus, all I've eaten today is two bagels with a teensy bit of peanut butter on top of them.  Neither one stuck around very long.  We don't have saltines, or chicken soup (not that I would deign to eat it if we did; I hate any sort of chicken broth soup.).  No bread for toast, no potatoes (for plain baked potatoes, which is always my favorite fall-back option after rice, in this sort of situation) and well, no clear drink besides water.  I just want SOMETHING, you understand.

Also, and this is the bigger problem, at least as far as the far future is concerned, I am supposed to go to another play with my sister in the city tomorrow night.  Best case scenario: I'm better, but have to eat toast and potato in a restaurant that my sister wants to eat in.  I cannot imagine that my stomach will be well enough to process the Mexican meal we were planning on.  Worst case:  I'm not better, and I'm so not better that I'm not better by Friday, which is when S and I have to get on a plane and go visit his family.  I cannot fly four hours in this state.  There is simply NO possible way for S to get me there alive, if this is still around, because the other people on the plane will kill me.  I do not think I am exaggerating.

Perhaps there is a middle scenario, where I am not better tomorrow, but well on the way to recovery by Friday, at which point I can go to CA and not eat anything remotely resembling interesting food, in the interest of not having the problem again before the flight home.  The whole damn thing sucks.  (And yes, I am shallow enough to think, "gee, this might take those five gained pounds off" but I don't really mean it, because I would so much rather be eating normally and not sick.  Any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.)

A Coupla Things (before the OC is on)

-You know how everyone professes to hate Daylight Savings?  I don't.  I actually love it when it gets dark earlier, because there is nothing that I like more than cuddling up on the couch with a book, cozy and warm against the cold, dark night.  This is why I think somewhere that is always warm is the wrong place for me.

-I'm cheesy, but I still love Christmas music.  And today, I acquired a fantastic (!!) new Xmas CD--Diana Krall's new one.  I'm very particular about my xmas music, to the point that the only two CDs I listen to a lot are the Charlie Brown Xmas CD and Winston's December.  But I think I could seriously consider adding the Krall CD to the monotony.  (Honestly, I like instrumental xmas music more than vocal.)  We'll see how it holds up, but I think I can say with assurance that if you like xmas music at all, this is a great addition to any collection.  It's perfect for background music at a party, too, I think.

-I hate nutmeg.  Hate, hate, hate.  Can't stand.  Every time I watch foodtv, someone is cooking something with nutmeg.  Today, Alton Brown put it in some rice dish.  The other day, Rachael Ray put it in a cheese sauce for some turkey meatballs.  Uck, people!  There is nothing right about a savory dish with nutmeg in it.  Nothing!

-My page for my sister's colorbook is going to be so kick-ass I can't even tell you how kick-ass it is going to be.  I'm so excited to start it.  I've missed sewing!  (I've been on a break since I finished S's page and the arrival of our new colorbook projects.)  I think I will probably sew tonight.  You know, while I watch the OC.

E-town

Elizabethtown sucked.  S and I went to see it last night, and both of us thought it was unsuccessful. 

For my part, I was disappointed because even the romantic comedy part of the movie didn't work.  I mean, I can watch almost EVERY romantic comedy ever made happily.  For example, Maid in Manhattan was by all accounts a terrifyingly bad movie, but I still enjoyed it, especially at the end, when they got together.  There's a little upwelling of happiness and rightness that comes with cheesy movies like that.  If Elizabethtown had been terrible but cheesy-good, I would have said that it was "cute" and "fulfilling".  But no, no, no. 

I'm not sure if Crowe was just trying to do too much with this movie, or if it was badly written.  (My friend Tim said that he read the script a long time ago, though, and that the script read wonderfully.  I said as much to S last night, when I said that I suspected that E-town would make a great novel, because it was so rich with material.  So I guess I'm saying that it wasn't badly written.)  It wasn't the acting, per se.  I'm lukewarm about Orlando, and Kirsten.  Both were okay, and it was clear that if anyone could have saved the movie, it was Dunst.  But she didn't, unfortunately for the movie.  The minor cast of characters was wonderful; one of my favorite little parts of the movie was the interplay between Drew (Orlando Bloom) and his cousin Jesse, and Jesse's son, Samson.  It occurs to me now that the whole meaning of this little interplay was some message about fatherhood, being that Drew has just lost his father.

In fact, I feel nothing for Drew's loss, because I don't understand his relationship with his father.  There was nothing in this movie to make us care.  Seriously.  There was only one moment that resonated with me, and I'm almost certain that it's 75% about the music playing during the moment.  "Moon River" will do it to me evrey time. 

Anyway, this is very, very disappointing, because I was eagerly looking forward to another "Almost Famous".  If Crowe had succeeded, this movie would have been RIDICULOUSLY good.  (Like one reviewer said, same story as "Garden State", kinda, but where he said that it was good where GS was bad, I'll have to disagree with him.  GS worked far better than this movie did.)

Odds and Ends

I don't have too much to say today (though a post about the ethically bankrupt people in government [be they Republican or Democrat] is fermenting in my head.  So instead, here are some links to things that I've enjoyed recently.

• A list of commonly mispronounced words.  I'm pretty sure that I don't err in this way very often.  There were a couple of words on the list that I refrain from saying, normally, because I wasn't sure how to pronounce them, but know I know.
• A list of the 100 most commonly misspelled words.  I am guilty on so many of these (not so good with the i before e rule; I also forget all the time which words have double letters) so thank god for spell check.  I do think that the it's/its rule is more of a grammar thing--but it drives me CRAZY when people misuse the words.  It is so freakin' easy to remember the rule on it's/its.  The apostrophe, in the English language, often takes the place of a letter.  In the word "it's", the apostrophe is an i.  Hence, if you say this, "The cow was chewing it's cud," you are saying, "The cow was chewing it is cud."  Clearly, that's not what you want to be saying. 
• I've been reading Gaper's Block at least once a week.  I like to look at the strange events happening in the city, even though most likely, I will never go to any of them.  (To be fair, I did drag my mom and sister to the Renegade Craft Fair, due to information from GB.  The craft fair was a BUST, but not because of the crafts.  No, the mud made it positively unpleasant [isn't that an awesome oxymoron!] and hence, we didn't have fun.)  GB makes it seem like there is always something fun going on in the city, and for some reason, that appeals to me.
• The GIANT SQUID.  For some weird reason, I find the squid fascinating.  I mean, it's such a mythical creature, and the fact that no one has ever seen one in its natural habitat is baffling to me.  Humans can go to the moon, but they can't find a 26 foot-long giant squid in the ocean?  It seems like if we can do one, we can do the other.  Strange, right?  And then I saw this (pleeeeeeease click the link) and almost bought one.  You know what's weird?  Me.  I can't believe I'm this excited about a stupid giant squid.
• I can't deny that I'm in love with THIS site.  I have a weakness for the wee kitties.  I suppose that it won't go away ever, and that S should just admit right now that at some point, he'll break down and allow me to get a damn cat.  Even if it does mean he'll need shots.
• I have a weakness (that I've never indulged) for vintage jewelry.  Mostly brooches.  I found the Absolutely Vintage site once, while looking, and I go back now and again to check the newest additions to the site.  It's hard to know what the pieces will look like in person, but sometimes I think that it doesn't so much matter.  I just like window-shopping, as it were.

Anyway.

:::::Sniff:::::

I'm too tired to be coherent.

Do it!

You should be one too.

Banging the colorbook drum

One more appeal on the blog.  If you're interested, email one of us.  We're aiming for at least ten participants.  We've got five. 

Again, if you're remotely interested, let one of us know.  It could be very fun.

My sis will be posting pics of the colorbook she's currently working on, and when she does, I'll link to them so you can see what it's all about.

Library stuff

Hooray for Salinas, CA. 

Via Suburban Guerilla.

Beatlemania!!!!!

I just finished Ticket to Ride, about the Beatles first two tours of the US, and not for the first time, I wish I'd been alive and kicking while the Beatles were storming America.

Every single time I read or hear something new about the Beatles, I am struck again with a feverish desire to listen to their music, and in fact, I've been humming Beatles tunes since yesterday morning, when I started the book.  Lots of "If I Fell" and "I'll Be Back", with of course, a dash of "Ticket to Ride" thrown in. 

I'm also excited because the next time I get in my car, I'm going to attempt to listen to the CD that came with the book.  I say attempt because the book is from the library, and I doubt very much that the CD is in pristine shape.  That said, the CD contains some 60 minutes of interviews the author did at the time with "the boys".  Can't wait.

I can't imagine, in my world, a musical act--a concert--that makes people scream and cry.  Men and women.  I simply cannot imagine a world in which hundreds and hundreds of people storm airports and hotels and concert venues to get a glimpse of John, Paul, George and Ringo.  Although, now that I think about it, a young Macca might have induced me to screams.  Who knows?  I've never screamed like that before.