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March 31 Ice Ice BabyI had my favorite type of ice this week. The 'rabbit pellet' ice. This is the kind of ice that is crushed and formed into small round ice nodules. Rabbit pellet ice is good b/c you can crunch it easily between your teeth. It is ok to chew this type of ice. It is crunchy yet light and airy (how is that?). Rabbit pellet ice is great with water, Coke, or 7Up. Sadly, rabbit pellet ice has gone the way of the crinkle cut fries--hardly anyone has 'em anymore.
Crushed ice. I prefer ice out of a refrigerator dispenser to be crushed. As a typical rule of thumb, I prefer crushed ice over big chunks of ice. But crushed ice isn't available that much. I also like when you get a fountain soda and crushed is the available type of ice. For some reason, I feel like it helps to aerate the soda and makes it fizzy for longer. Pop just tastes better to me with crushed ice. Plus then you can get little bits of ice in your mouth with each gulp of soda and that is super tasty!
My next favorite type of ice is the 'O ring' ice. It comes in small cylinders with a hole down the middle. This is the type of ice you get in Mexico. Regarding ice in MX, someone once told me, "You know the ice is made of purified water if it is in this shape. If a cold drink has any other type of ice, don't drink it." Words to live by while in MX if you don't want the zooms. This one breaks the 'crushed ice rule' but it is fun to play with the ice cubes-you can stick your straw in the hole and fuss with your ice while consuming a drink.
Concave lens ice. Maybe I only tend to notice the alternatively shaped cubes. But this one is also pretty cool. The are shaped kind of like large contact lenses. These are fun to roll around in your mouth because they are not that large and they make a nice clinking sound. March 30 A Whole New WorldRog has somehow managed to get on the neighborhood email list for the new ‘hood. These email updates tend to be fairly shocking to Roger and I regarding just how different the new neighborhood is from the old one. Here is an excerpt from today's post:
“Has anyone else noticed that our neighborhood rooster has been crowing at 4:00 in the morning sometimes for an hour straight? I'm not sure what to do as I want to respect our neighbors choice of pets, but I don't feel that it is fair to have to wear earplugs in my own house!...Please help! Does anyone have any suggestions for me or know anything about noise ordinances in the area? We live near Dawson and 57th and I am not even 100% sure where the rooster lives as the chickens seem to travel to other people's yards. I'm just frustrated because we moved to the area because it seemed peaceful - I guess we should have spent a night here before we bought our house.”
WTF! Our neighborhood NOISY? What a joke. This is by far the most hilarious thing I’ve read yet regarding activities in our new ‘hood. Yes, there are some neighborhood wild chickens and one rooster. The rooster crows at daylight. I’ve heard the rooster myself quite a few times when I leave the house at the crack of dawn. Roger and I were just remarking last night how much we love all the birds, waterfowl, roosters, etc that seem to wander the neighborhood. I am constantly seeing ducks and herons in people’s yards, eagles in trees, etc. I can’t believe that the biggest issue for the neighborhood is the presence of a feral rooster and some chickens (come to find out through the email string that they are in fact wild chickens that just roam around people’s yards).
Roger’s direct quote: “Good god, what a change from our last neighborhood email list. This is awesome. Worst thing is the roosters crowing?” The old ‘hood email list-serv was all about stolen cars, alerts about people trying to scam money off of residents, shootings, the local mailman getting jumped, etc. But a rooster crowing? Dude, people need some perspective.
It is actually quite shocking how quiet and peaceful the neighborhood is. This woman does not know the meaning of noisy neighborhood. Try living on Cherry Street two parcels away from an AM/PM.. Now that is NOISY.
March 27 The tuneless whistlerYes, I'm one of 'those people'. Those people who can barely whistle. When I do whistle, what comes out is a tuneless attempt at whistling. I've been practicing how to whistle since I was a kid. My friends would tease me about it in high school. Barely learned how to make a decent sound while in college. It has always bothered me that I am an inadequate whistler, so I keep trying.
Sometimes I can whistle a tune, but it is rare. What I find is that I'll be wandering the office, standing at the printer, or reading the newspaper and all of a sudden 'come to' and realize that I'm tuneless whistling again. I also do it around the house...I'll be folding clothes or tidying up the house and it just escapes. I seem to tuneless whistle when I'm in my head--thinking or concentrating about things. To be honest, I quite enjoy tuneless whistling. It is kind of organic and relaxing. Each one is a personal masterpiece (in my opinion of course). Rog finds tuneless whistling annoying...I can still remember him talking shit about an EA at Terra who could never whistle properly. I don't remember her name anymore..all I remember is that she was a crappy whistler.
Sometimes I consciously try to whistle hip hop jams...and usually it is disastrous, though Roger is quite kind and occasionally yells from another room, "that was close!" The ones I have been practicing recently are "I'm In Love with A Stripper" and "Yo!". I keep trying, though I don't think I can ever be a good whistler b/c of the gap between my teeth. Maybe when I'm a grandma I'll be able to whistle correctly and keep a tune. Until then, I'll just keep practicing and crafting the tuneless whistle. March 23 I just can't get enoughI have officially become procrastinator extraordinaire with multiple blog entries today.When it rains, it pours and I am brain-dead. Good thing it is Thursday night.
But I have to share my new obsession with Isaac. Noticed Chloe's blog about ANTM and was reminded why I love Issac. First discovered the show with Rog a few weeks ago when we went away to Whidbey for the weekend and now I can't stop watching it. I have been recording every single show recently and watch an ep every night. I love his flamboyant mannerisms, the bon mots, the fashion vignette's, the interviews on the street, and of course, 'Sketches and Answers'. I don't even need to watch the celebrity interviews, mostly I just want to watch Isaac. He is a laugh riot. If you haven't seen the show ( and you care about fashion, style, celebrities, etc) check out this show. It rocks. Yo! All Ages Show!YO! I'm so psyched. Rog just won free tix to see Chris Brown tomorrow! He's my current fav lil' hip hop artist. I discovered C. Brown on MTV Jams when we first moved into the new house. (I think MTV Jams is the best thing about the new cable...also having TV in the bedroom. I love watching 5-10 minutes of hip hop videos before going to bed. MTV Jams is all hip hop videos all the time. No commercials). Within about 2 weeks of his hit Yo! running non-stop on MTV Jams, KUBE finally started playing the song. When I see a song on JAMS that I like, it takes anywhere from 2 weeks to a month for KUBE to start playing it. Sad that our hip hop station is so behind the times.
Anyway, Chris Brown can DANCE. The video is really cute in a teeny bopper kind of way. The song is a total jammie. When we went to LA, I purchased a swap meet mix CD called Phat Jamz Vol. 49, Thug Love and it includes Yo!. I've been listening to the disc non-stop in my truck. The CD has all the current hip hop jams on it. Quite a steal for $5.
Though I don't like all ages shows typically, an all ages show at the Showbox is pretty great. As an 'elder' you can walk into the Green Room and don't have to wait in a huge line outside. You get to enter first and have the reserved bar area with a good view of the stage. Can't wait to see all the lil' ones at the show...and of course I can't wait to see C. Brown bust out the dance moves..."he was made to dance like this!" Free concert tickets rock. what's your City's motto?I have to say, I find these things pretty amusing...when cities start a new branding/marketing campaign to help bring business, tourism, etc to their community. These marketing campaigns always start with a new motto for the city. A way to redefine the image of the community. Some of these tend to be fairly ridiculous. It is actually quite interesting to discover the hidden messages behind the motto--i.e. what identity/image is the community trying to rid themselves of? Almost every city has a slogan or motto, some more outrageous than others.
Let's take some local examples. I won't judge...just going to comment on the ones I find most amusing:
Some of my personal non-local favorites:
The question is, do you know what you city motto is? Gasp...Breathe...Ok back for moreSad lonely little blog. No activity for weeks. Little attention paid to my faithful readers. I'm barely a functional being these days. Work has been totally kicking my butt. It is a vicious cycle I fall into. When I work this much and sleep this little I feel like crap. It wouldn't be so bad to be busy if I wasn't producing shoddy work. I'm so consumed by deadlines that I keep putting out sub par work. Perhaps that is the most dissatisfying. It would be one thing to work my butt off and then reap the rewards of feeling good about myself. Instead I work my butt off, feel bad about the products, and have to keep working on the next deadline. So I'm taking a second from the mad dash that is my work life to come up for air, take a breath, and let ya'll know that I miss blogging, but have not much time or energy to devote to it these days. The bad news: I'm gonna be like this until a major product deadline on April 20th. The good news: I go on vacation April 21st. I now have my eye on the prize...vegging out in the Jamaican sun. Whoo! March 10 The Proverbial Time FlyWhat is most shocking when I go home to visit the family is how much the kids change each time. Since I pretty much only go down once or twice a year, the changes are striking. With the exception of Malia, I can't even call them kids anymore. They are all young ladies. I get sad when I think about the fact that I missed seeing them grow up. Alyssa was barely a babe in arms when I left for college. Nat and Bianca were toddlers.
Roger said something last night that totally blew my mind. We were reminiscing about our trip to LA and talking about how cute and mature the three girls look these days. They all have boyfriends, stylish clothes, and cute personalities. It occurred to me that it must be interesting for Roger to see them change so much since he doesn't have any siblings of his own. He mentioned that Alyssa was 3 years old the first time I brought him home to visit the family. He said that she was the most 'affectionate' of everyone that first visit and wanted to lay on his lap and just stare up at him. So cute! The fact that she is now in the 8th grade is crazy. She doesn't even know me without Roger being around. Wow.
Lil' Malia also said something to me that made me feel sad. We were coloring on Saturday and she asked "Have I met you before this time"? I said, "yes, babe, we see you ever year, but you were too little and probably don't remember". Boo. I almost burst into tears. She only knows Auntie Gina and Uncle Roger via the phone, photos, or stories from the family. I didn't like that feeling. If only I could get away more often to visit the family... March 09 Worst TV Personality EverThis guy gives me the heebie-jeebies. All I can say is...AAAAAAGGGHH! I can't stand this guy. It's to the point where I can't even see him on the TV without letting out an involuntary gutteral groaning sound until the channel is changed or fast forwarded.
Recent J. Basedow intrigue and drama. Who knew?
"It worked for me, it can work for you too" March 07 StorytellerMy sister Tenaya gave me a major flashback this weekend. I was sitting on the couch with Malia and Tenaya tells her, "go get your book and show it to Gina". Malia returned with a illustrated book of Fairy Tales that used to belong to Tenaya when she was a kid. Wow! What a flashback. I had spent many hours as a youth reading this book with Tenaya. It even had all these scribbles in it from when Tenaya defaced the book as a kid. I love that Malia now has this book. Anyway, the book contains some of the classic tales such as The Princess and The Pea, Thumbelina, etc. It also contains my very favorite fairy tale, The Tinderbox.
When I was in the 4th or 5th grade (I can't remember which now), I did this thing call "Storytelling" at my elementary school. I don't even know how I got involved in it. Not all students got to do it. I think there were only 5-10 of us. Maybe it was a GATE thing. I can't really remember anymore. Each participating student picked a story that they wanted to tell during an assembly for the lower grade students. Essentially, you had to memorize the fairy tale, folk tale, or nursery rhyme and then think of a good way to tell it that would engage the crowd. We didn't really get much direction on it other than, "use your voice in different ways for the characters" and "memorize the story but make it your own".
For whatever reason, I loved Storytelling. I think I liked it because it meant I got to get out of class to practice and to attend the assemblies. I remember just pouring over all my books, trying to find the right story. The stories I picked over the course of the year were: The Tinderbox, The Gingerbread Man, and The Three Little Kittens.
I practiced a lot to prepare for each public speaking event (we had to stand on the cafeteria stage by ourselves--which I had never done before). I remember reading each story over and over again to remember it word for word. I would read a page, and then force myself to recite it word for word...and I wouldn't change the page until I got it completely right. I practiced the story when I walked home from school, while taking a bath, any chance I could get. I practiced for hours in my bedroom in front of the mirror--trying to emote, trying to think of the different voices I would use for a witch, a soldier, a dog, a fox, a gingerbread man, etc. I tried to make up little gesticulations to go with the story, and thought I was quite clever when I would pause for emphasis and pretend to look knowingly around the crowd. I must have been a total ham. Of course, once I got on stage I was all nervous and would skip parts of the story that I tried so hard to remember. I was most proud of The Gingerbread Man storytelling event. I nailed that one. The other ones...not so successful, but still fun.
This was my first foray into what would become a career of public speaking. Now that I reflect, it was kind of an odd thing to have kids do, but a really cool experience. After that, I wasn't so nervous to be up on a stage or to speak in a public setting. Once I got to Jr. High, I was all prepped to run for student government because I wasn't nervous about making speeches and such in front of a crowd.
Funny that seeing an old book from my youth would give me such a surge of memories from this childhood experience. I wonder if kids these days do stuff like this...or are we really losing the oral tradition? March 02 Oaktown babyIt is a gorgeous sunny early spring day in Oakland. I've been in Oakland for a total of 10 hours now (flying back home soon). Just a quick trip, but I am already feeling nostalgic. The Bay Area is a great place to live. It is so warm out...like in the sixties! I am practically sweating in a short sleeved shirt. I can't believe how sunny and warm it is here.
Some general observations:
I'm heading to LA tomorrow and I it should be a lot of fun. Good family time. It is bound to be warmer in LA than it is in Oaktown. I am totally wearing shorts or a short skirt this weekend...and maybe a tank top when we go to the swap meet. Can't wait to get stocked up on some cheap Made In China goods. |
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