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Showing posts from 2012

The Books I Read!

Countdown of the 38 Books I Read in 2012 from good to BEST 38-36: 50 Shades of Gray, E.L. James—So I read them, don’t get all grouchy at me. They’re not terrible, but not particularly great writing. A little juicy, a little dumb. I was inspired that mediocre writing could make millions! I also particularly enjoyed the fantasy of a wealthy-beyond-belief guy who was devastatingly attractive but so emotionally tormented. Until he meets the protagonist. My friend Denise and I called this the “but he needs me” syndrome. 35 Spoon Fed: How 8 Cooks Saved My Life, Kim Severson—I enjoyed Severson’s tales about herself and found myself impressed with her ability to talk about her family in a reveling but cautious way. I felt like I knew her family without any lines of their privacy being crossed. I wish I could say the same for how she writes about the cooks in her life. I found her narrative about them at turns, catty, rude and neurotic. 34 Some Assembly Required, Anne Lamott, Sam

A Fork and a Piece of String

Every week I put 'write a blog post' on my list but unfortunately it hasn't happened very often. I've been writing a food memoir but have been keeping it kind of close for the moment. So when I think about other things I might want to write on the blog, I sometimes come up short. But as always, my niece Sinead, has inspired me again. I watched her and her sister yesterday. The girls were playing with a fork tied to a piece of string. I know, right? I imagine Fiona was holding a fork and some tape flitted by her and she was standing on some string and voila! a toy. That girl makes trinkets out of everything. I'll look away for a second and when I turn back she is handing me an origami cat. The girls were taking turns with the fork and string and throwing it at the tree in their front yard. It would wrap around a branch and then they would yank on it until it flew back at them. While they were engaged in this child-safe game I was filling their water bottles so

Pokemon

A couple weeks ago, Shaughn and I watched our nieces for an afternoon. After playing soccer in high heels and generally wearing myself out, the seven year old asked me to battle with her pokemon cards. I have tried to do this one other time and it made absolutely no sense. Basically I asked her how to do everything and then after some cards were flipped and she mentioned something about powers and damage she loudly declared that she was the winner. And I would say, "What? You cheated!" Wanting to avoid another proud moment of me calling a seven year old a cheater, I told her I needed to learn to play. So while I dozed on the couch she went through a tutorial online telling me to pay attention. And then we played, this time with me asking more pertinent questions than "Is it my turn?" It was actually pretty fun. The next time I saw her I asked if she wanted to play again and we played several more games, this time with her older sister helping me. She won eve

Quiche

Yesterday I decided to heat up one of those frozen quiches from Trader Joes for dinner as I was in a bit of a rush. I turned on the oven, took the quiche out of the wrapper and little box and put it on a sheet pan and stuck it in the oven. Then I hopped in the shower to use my new scrub brush. It's one of those funny ones with the long handle that you see people using to wash their back. It was an impulse buy at Bartells. Happens. Turns out the scrub brush is incredibly awkward. I kept hitting the shower curtain and the sides of the shower wall. When I hopped out of the shower I went and checked on the quiche. I opened the oven and looked but it wasn't there. I shut the door, looked at the top of the empty stove, and looked in the oven again. I looked around the kitchen and then again in the oven. Nowhere. I checked the fridge and the freezer. And the oven another 6 times. I peeked into the living room. I looked in the oven again. And then I looked in the bottom shelf  of the

cats and kids

Last night I hung out with my friend, Emily. She was telling me about her boyfriend's cat who likes to chew on things it could not possibly conquer. Like a table. As she was telling me this, we heard it start to chew on something. She goes over to it asking it if it had found another bottle cap. It was chewing on a phone charger still plugged into the wall. "What no! Don't do that! Oh my God! Are you going to try to put a penny in a light socket next?!" Phoebe and I were at the park the other day with some kids we watch. A couple of them were in the sandbox with some other kids. I was watching them from another part of the park until I saw a little 2 year old (if that) start taking off his clothes. He took of his socks, his pants and then his underwear. I was like, uh....So Phoebe and I go over there just to sort of monitor the situation and hopefully draw the attention of his adult. Another kid I watch came up to see what was going on and took one look at the hal

Hillbilly Hankerin'

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My sophomore year, my best friends, Anne and Jacqui, and I all went out for the all-school play "Emperor's New Clothes". We were cast as the Emperor's daughters. And we were so awesomely snotty and high pitched, it was a distraction to the show. It was by far my favorite role of my career. We didn't have a lot of lines, we were mostly told to not act but react to everything in a stepsister-y kind of way. I only remember one line, "I hate and LOATHE this, Daddy!" ( Sitting down: Anne, Me, Jac. Behind us, our parents: the Empress Stephanie McAllister, Emperor Michael Rust. Center stage: Tyla Vogt leading Carmen Williams (I think?) Back stage right of the Emperor is ?, can't see, Jacob Thaler and Andy Hagberg)  (From left to right: Emperor Mike Rust, Andy, ME!, Terah Binder, Jacqui, Anne, Empress Steph) My junior year I remember well the try outs for the all-school play, Hillbilly Hankerin'. I felt like I nailed every single part.

Drama

( Two and half years ago, I wrote.. .) Friday night I went to a show on Cap Hill with my dear friends Basil and Emily. The show didn't even go on until 11 and not wanting another incident where I go home before the band even plays, I drank some tea. Because i also didn't want to be up too much past the band playing. We went and got drinks at the Wild Rose before and after the show. We danced and in general had a great time, although i will admit that there was a moment in the night where I thought, "Oh no! I'm missing my evening vitamin!" And since only other people in the evening of their 20's seem to want to hear about how strange it is to get older, i've decided to shift gears and write about drama. I wish I was writing about being in the kind of glee club as seen on Glee but we didn't have glee. We had swing choir where we had black skirts and white button down shirts with the biggest yellow cumberbun you have ever seen. I've see