These are the things that make me cranky…
* Puns. Can’t stand them. Almost every pun I hear or read is groanworthy. I know people love puns, I’m sure they have their merits. I can not stand them. It’s like you’re obligated to pretend they’re clever when they’re not. I also realize that by posting this I am going to receive a number of pun-related comments in my comments section. Dammit.
* Classic Cars. Again, I don’t know why but when I see classic cars I want to run them off the road and punch the driver. I honestly don’t know why. I don’t think they are cool or interesting, only infuriating. I do, however, recognize how irrational this hatred is. I know there is no earthly reason to hate classic cars, they are what they are and they bring happiness to their owners. I still hate them.
* Bruce Springsteen. Hate him. Cannot stand to listen to him. I know why I hate him, though, unlike the previous two issues. In 1984 I was 11 years old, Born in the USA had just been released. One of the big hits from that album was I’m on Fire. Every morning my clock radio would go off and this damned song would be playing. I was a little lost on the concept of metaphor and just got amazingly creeped out byt the situation suggested in the first verse. I could not believe that such a creepy song would be allowed on the air. In Springsteen’s defense, he can hardly be held responsible for the confusions of an 11 year old girl, but it was an impressionable time and it’s just too late now. Hearing him sing ‘My City of Ruins’ at the benefit concert shortly after 9/11 did help a bit.
* People that don’t understand that a pedestrian at a crosswalk has the right of way. Fuck you impatient drivers, you’re in a nice, dry car, I am walking in the rain with 2 hot cups of coffee. Let me cross the damned street.
This post might lead you to believe that I am cranky today. Far from it, I’m in an excellent mood and so far it has been a most excellent day. Good for me. Still have not done the dishes yet. Better get on that!
ah rain
it’s one of those quiet, snuggly rainy days where I want to bake or read or do both.
Except my duplex neighbor is moving, which is sad but also loud and upsetting to the dogs. It’s all standard moving stuff, friends talking, big trucks, doors opened over and over, but my dogs are jackasses and must make sure that they respond to every noise with a “I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE AND DON’T THINK FOR A MINUTE I’M LETTING YOU IN HERE BECAUSE I CAN BARK AND I HAVE A MOUTH” warning bark.
So I got up early and kept the dogs calm and now I think it’s time to shuffle down and get coffee.
Maybe I’ll do dishes and do a little grocery shopping!
if it wasn’t considered bad touch I would hug you right now
Okay, quicklike.
Thursday night started out with the dog park which is not all that exciting except Ghengis has become some sort of mini-celebrity. More that one person came up to me and said “is that Ghengis? I’ve heard about him!”. Now, Ghengis is cute, I’ll grant that, but I’m still not sure where this fame is coming from. The lady from the children’s book store fell in love with him, it was so cute. She owned a lab/shar pei (and possibly mastiff) mix that was 8 months old and so damned cute!
Dog park. I swear to god this is the happiest place on earth.
After the dog park, David and I decided to go out. I decided it was a date, he decided it was going out and having fun. It’s a battle of semantics that I will win, even if I only win in my head.
It was “Dining out for Life” night (which I keep calling “Dining out for AIDS” by accident giving it a completely different meaning) and so we picked a restaurant and headed out figuring we’d do dinner and then catch the 10pm showing ov V for Vendetta as we have not yet seen that.
The restaurant had a wait of over an hour when we got there. I’d been to this place before and it was a weird little run-down hole in the wall kind of place with great latino food. Now it had been completely remodeled and it seems that everyone found out. Damn. The food looked great but we didn’t really want to wait an hour so we considered our options. Pizza Luce was a couple blocks down, but I’m still Luce’d out and we wanted to go somewhere relatively new. So we settled on Crema cafe which has just started dinner service.
I don’t know how long Crema has been doing actual dinner service but it’s obvious they have some kinks to work out of the system. The ordering system was just weird, sit at a table with your menus, pick your stuff, get up and get in line with the ice cream orderers, order your meal, sit down, meal is delivered. The food wasn’t bad but it also wasn’t great. I had the bucatini al bolognese and the sauce was good but the noodles were wrong. The sauce needed flat, wide noodles to hold onto. David’s dinner was okay, the salad was way bland. We also ordered a bottle of wine, a highly recommended Portuguese red. My initial tasting was good so I accepted the bottle but after a few good drinks I realized it was a bad choice. It was all high notes almost to the point of being metallic. It had good body and wasn’t terribly dry, but it was also pretty singular.
But! The lady who took the order forgot to write the bottle of wine on the ticket. When the cashier rung us up later we asked her about it and she didn’t feel like running the card again so she gave us the wine for free.
And we (I) couldn’t leave Crema without ice cream. They had an Olive Oil ice cream (with fleur de sel) which I tried and really disliked. I ended up going with the cardamom/black pepper ice cream. Heavenly.
We ate our dinner out in the little courtyard they have. It was absolutely date-like regardless of what David wants to call it.
The night ended up getting late so instead of going to the movie we headed home for other things.
All in all, a wonderful date night.
And today…
Today I worked on grinding Anna’s soul down even more and then building it back up with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I’m good like that. I’ll hurt you, but I will mend you with treats.
pilgrims, pills and tourists
Why are there no good murder ballads anymore? I always loved good murder ballads. What the hell does that say about me? Hell, I didn’t even know thay were a specific genre.
On the other hand I have the Decemberists singing to me about lost, dead baby ghosts, teenage runaway prostitutes, sailors being eaten by whales and what your mother has to do to get the money to feed you! I’ve been on a Decemberists kick since, well…December.
So when you see that girl in the volvo driving down the street belting out a song about gay love in the trenches of world war one, you’ll know that’s me.
This week at work has been crazy and it’s only Tuesday. I have, however, vowed not to write about either situation here out of a sense of propriety and because I don’t want to get dooced! But, as my friend Mark said today, “work is great, you just sit back and the entertainment is free”.
Yeah, i got nothing unless you want a box filled with whining about how much my hand hurts, how much I like my dogs or how David consistently surprises me with happy.
pant pant pant
part 1
David’s mom was in town this week. Unrelatedly, I had battled some sort of stomach fluishness. To tie these two together…I ate Ethiopian food, tamales, Thai food and South Indian food (not to be confused with the more popular northern Indian foods). My belly suffered but the food and the company were great.
part 2
My phone was fucked for 2 weeks. Couldn’t figure what the deal was. Sometimes it would ring, sometimes it wouldn’t. Futzing with it caused it to crash in some way. Crashing caused it to shut down. Shutting down reset it and it work. Moral? I should have just restarted it like a petulant computer. If I did not answer your call this week (Mark!) I apologize.
part 3
I discovered that the mini-documentary about how they made “Winged Migration” was infinitely more interesting than the actual movie. Especially when you find out that they shot the bird themselves for the hunting scenes.
part 4
I laid down a tad too much cash on the dogs today while at the pet store. I like to keep it in perspective, though…kids are infinitely more expensive and dogs are more appreciative. While I was out tonight Maddie got into the Snausages and ate 4.2 million pounds! David and I went out for sandwiches and pet shopping. I thought Ghengis was going to throw a tantrum when we left without him! We took him to the dog park when we got back and he cheered right up. Asshole.
part 5
We went to go see Consequences of Love tonight, but there was a shipping problem or something so they showed the Al Franken movie again. It was amusing but something is very clear to me. It does not matter what side you’re on, it does not matter if I agree with you or not. If you are in politics or political media in anyway you are an ass. Period. Both sides. Asses. I could not believe that with so many important issues that need to be discussed how often debates devolved into arguments over semantics and name calling. Screw you guys! Seriously, fuck you! How about instead of acting like a bunch of babies you get something done! Gloating, name calling, whining, picking apart sentance structure? USELESS! I’m sending this out to both sides! I’m standing here with my arms crossed, my foot tapping in disgust. Get your shit together or put the toys away and go home. I mean it about sendign this out to both sides, O’Reilly and Franken, you both should be ashamed of yourselves!
part 6
David and I rode out bikes over to the Riverview to see the aforementioned movie. It is approximately 8.7 billion miles uphill each way. No lie. I’m going to reward myself with an ice cream. Go me.
part ps
I know I shouldn’t, but I started crocheting again. I owe so many people so many gifts and my hand just does not want to work but I found this pattern and I figured I’d work on it slowly and maybe make soemthing for myself for once I’m doing it in variegated japanese wool. Wish me luck. (then it’s a beaded bag for a certain Canadian munchkin, baby blankets and slippers for Mary and a scarf for Evie’s buddy!).