October 2007 – Page 3 – anywhere is….

Month: October 2007

Reading Survey

17 October 2007 / books, survey

1. How old were you when you got your first library card?
Eleven or so, I think. Can’t remember.

2. What’s the first book you can remember reading from a library?
Some book that I colored all over even though I was told not to. I was about five or six, and it was from the school library. I thought I was being nice.

3. Did you ever participate in a summer reading program or other kids’ event at a library growing up?
Not at a library. I did BookIt! through my school when I was in 3rd grade.

4. Do you remember when card catalogues weren’t computerized?
Yes.

5. When was the last time you went to the library?
I dropped some stuff on Monday.

6. How many books do you usually check out of the library at one time?
At least five.

7. Name one great author you’ve discovered at your library.
Cherry Whytock

8. What was the librarian at your elementary school like?
I can’t remember my primary librarian, but I do remember my 4–6th grade librarian. She was interesting. My high school librian(s) hated me because I was so disruptive, especially if anyone mentioned anything about Joe McIntyre having a girlfriend.

9. How many times a year do you go to the library?
At least 50.

10. If you could change on thing about your library, what would it be and why?
I dunno. It’s a pretty cool place. Everything’s computerized, the reserve system is great, The teen section is good, and check-out is also computerized. You can pay overdue fines online. It’s a swanky system. I’m going to miss it when I move to Chicago.

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Over The Moon

15 October 2007 / grrr!, life

I’ve about had it with this apartment complex.

1. Friday night/Saturday morning, some jerk decided he needed to do his car repairs right then. Right outside my bedroom window. He revved his engine for an hour and a half. From 12:30 to 2:00am.

2. The lady across the hall asked me if she could use my phone. When I told her I was going to bed and that I needed to talk to Adam before I did so, she stood in the hall and yelled that I was a “damned liar” before going into her apartment and slamming the door.

3. The neighbor downstairs no longer has his loud sexfests because he and his girlfriend broke up, but he still blasts crappy music for 90 to 120 minutes almost every evening while he works out. His work out grunts sound like sex sounds.

4. The lady across the hall also stands at her door and yells “SHUT THAT DAMN NOISE” for no reason. I don’t hear any sounds. There is no way she can hear me typing on my computer. But she’ll stand there and yell and yell and yell. It’s really annoying. The management won’t do anything about it. They’ve tried but now, I think they just figure we have to deal with her.

5. Let’s not forget the chronic door slammer.

6. … and the really stinky apartment (I’m pretty sure it’s the door slammer’s.). It’s so bad that the management had to put those automatic air freshener things in the hall.

Ugh.

Boo.

Blah.

How long ’til I move to Chicago?

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Survey

15 October 2007 / survey

TECHNOLOGY

Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A: A wallpaper of Adam and me.

Q. How many televisions are in your house?
A: There is one in the living room, and one in the closet.

BIOLOGY

Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A. Right-handed.

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A. II once had a baby removed from my body. Does that count?

Q. When was the last time you had a cavity?
A. The dentist says my back teeth are soft and that some are coming.

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A. Aidan.

Q. Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A. No.

BULLSHITTOLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. No.

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A. I wouldn’t change it. I go by “Ronni” anyway, so yeah.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
A. Pink, brown, teal, green, red. I think I look okay in almost every color.

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A. Yes.

Q. Have you ever saved someone’s life?
A. Not that I’m aware of.

Q. Has someone ever saved yours?
A. Yes, those nurses at the hospital back when I went into complications while I was in labor with Aidan. And a guy on the suicide prevention hotline back in 1998.

DAREOLOGY

Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A. Yes. As long as Adam is okay with it.

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
A. No.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. Doubt it.

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A. I doubt anyone would ask me to do such a thing.

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A. No. I don’t like hot sauce.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A. Absolutely not.

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket?
A: I’m in my lounging clothes. No pockets.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A. I thought it was funny.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A: Carpet.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A: Stand.

Q: Could you live with roommates?
A: Not if I’m not married to him.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A: About five, I think.

Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A: October 2005.

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: Not struggling with money all the time.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Friend you talked to?
A: Adam.

Q: Last person who called you?
A: Adam.

Q: Person you hugged?
A: Aidan.

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?
A: 19.

Q: Season?
A: Autumn.

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?
A: Yes.

Q: Mood?
A: Cranky.

Q: Listening to?
A: My typing, the fan, the neighbor’s crappy music.

Q: Watching?
A: Nothing.

Q: Worrying about?
A: What do you think?

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?
A: The bathroom.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
A: Move to Chicago and marry Adam.

Q: What’s the last movie you saw?
A: Rent.

Q: Do you smile often?
A: Not as much as I used to.

Q: Are you a friendly person?
A: I can be. I’m also very introverted at times. Depends on my mood.

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Talking Marriage

10 October 2007 / adam, marriage, ronni

Today, I stumbled across an article titled Ten Things to Consider Before Getting Married. Lots of food for thought.

I forwarded the article to Adam and it opened up a nice dialogue of some of our expectations, habits, compromises we’ll have to make, etc. It was good. We found that we’re pretty much in alignment with everything.

If I haven’t learned anything else from before, I did learn that communication is SO very important. Sure, people say that all the time, but it’s really true. The thing is, I’m very non-confrontational. If someone does something and I get upset by it, I find it hard to go to the person and say “Hey, it really bugged me when you did blah blah blah.” But I’ve found that when I suck it up and say something, a few things happen.

1. He gets a chance to explain what he meant or why he said it or whatever.
2. I get to realize that it probably wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.
3. The air is cleared.

I’m not carrying around this hidden resentment and bitterness, everything is cleared up, and we can move on. In the past, I used to hold stuff in, let it fester, and then something small would push me over the edge and I would shut down. I am terrible with The Silent Treatment. It is so much easier (at least, right away) to shut down and stew. But these days, I force myself out of my comfort zone and actually TALK about whatever is bothering me. It’s so much better for both of us this way. And in the long run, a lot easier than letting stuff build up.

The article talks about “plans,” and he outlines the basics for starting a conversation about 1-, 3-, 6-, and 9-year plans. Those things cover meatier topics, but I think we can manage it. 🙂 I *LIKE* to talk about relationship-related stuff. And wedding stuff. And romantic stuff.

‘Til next time!

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Take Me or Leave Me (Pictures)

8 October 2007 / books, california, friends, life, pictures, san francisco, vacation

I haven’t written in just over a week, so here’s a recap of what I’ve been up to.

I finally got my hands on Leven Thumps and the Eyes of the Want, and OMG. It’s the best one in the series!!! I am so going to renew it when it comes time for it to be due—I can’t wait to reread it!

Seriously, I recommend these books to everyone because they’re so good. You have to be able to make that leap into the imaginary. It’s a huge leap. It’s like the deal with reading Madeleine L’Engle. You have be able to visualize—and the author does a great job of describing things in a unique but clear way—but it can be challenging because things in Foo are VERY different from Reality.

Go to Amazon, and you’ll see solid 5-star ratings for this one, and high ratings for the others. This one is Book 3, and there will be a total of five in the series. I’m already freaking out that I have to wait at least six months for the next one! I wonder if the publisher will put out a boxed set when they’re all done?

– I read Fast Food Nation. Um… Wow. That’s about all I can say about it. As hard as it will be, I am going to try not to support the fast food industry anymore, unless I am near an In-An-Out Burger or Carl’s Jr. The other places… sigh. Knowing that people work so hard in those meat packing plants with almost nothing to show for it. Those dangerous jobs. Those scary jobs. No benefits. Little pay. It’s like a sweatshop or something. 🙁 And the stuff in the meat. The things they feed to the cattle. Cattle is supposed to eat grass, not the remnants of other animals, or poop, or whatever the hell they feed them. The two restaurants I mentioned don’t use those awful meat-packing places. Unfortunately, those places are not in the midwest (not that I know of). That’s okay though, because fast food is not that good for me. And it’ll be great for me to stop eating it.

– I also read The Golden Compass. I started on the new A-List book, and I also have Kite Runner. Oh, and I’m in the middle of the second Daughters of Isis book. The 3rd one is in my queue.

– I apparently won one of the many book contests I enter, because I randomly got a copy of Stephanie Hale’s Revenge of the Homecoming Queen in the mail one day. Awesome, right? When I met Stephanie, it was at the Chicago Spring Fling conference in April of 2006. She hadn’t even had an agent yet. And now she’s all published and stuff.

– I became addicted to Earl Grey tea. Mmmmm. I take it with four sugars. Rosa and Richard tell me that I drink syrup, not tea. At any rate, I’m becoming a tea drinker. Digging out all the boxes of tea I’ve had in my cupboard, and they supply free tea at work. This is a good thing!

– I watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and watched my favorite line over and over:
He don’t eat no meat? What do you mean he DON’T EAT NO MEAT????

– I made it through 2/3rds of Rent without getting interrupted. One of these days, I’m going to get to watch the whole thing in one sitting.

– I got the original Broadway recording of Rent out of the library and have been listening to it like crazy for the past several days. I love Light My Candle, One Song Glory, Contact (my favorite!), Will I?, and Life Support. Every time I listen (which is a LOT!), I hear more and more that I really like. Someday I’d LOVE to see the actual show. Yes, I do realize that I’m ten years behind everyone in loving this musical, but hey, better late than never, right? 🙂

five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes….

But the big thing is that thanks to my rad friend (and bridesmaid) Rosa (meimeigui), and her cool hubby Richard, I got to spend the weekend in San Francisco!! Lots and lots and lots of sightseeing went down, as well as picture taking. I had a blast.

!!!^-^!!!

I flew in Friday, on Skybus. Skybus is a very inexpensive carrier, and if you’re lucky, you can get seats for as little as $10! The reason they can charge so little is because they use smaller airports (for example, I flew into Oakland instead of the big San Francisco airport), they charge for things such as beverages, meals (you can get real food!), and checking baggage. They also bring this little cart down the aisle with products one can buy—things such as perfume and jewelry and gourmet chocolate! I thought that was the funniest thing. There were people buying stuff up like crazy. Basically, they don’t want to charge everyone for what only a few people will take. Not everyone gets a beverage or checks a bag on flights. It was nonstop, and that was very nice. I had the His Dark Materials trilogy with me and that’s when I made a decent dent in The Golden Compass. I’m finding it easier to get into The Subtle Knife, now. My problem is that with these big books, I want to hurry and race to the end so I can see what happens. I have to FORCE myself to slow down and actually ingest the words as I am reading them.

Anyway, I got to the city, and Rosa got me and took me to the headquarters of imeem.com. What a SUPER DUPER cool place to work, let me tell you. When the drudgery of the work day gets too much, the office is equipped with a foosball table, a Playstation 2, a Nintendo Wii, guitars, a drum set, a kitchen stocked with snacks like whoa, a fridge stocked with Red Bull, just to name a few. OK. How awesome, right? Yeah, that would NEVER happen at ZB. Never, never. Ever. But can you imagine working in such a cool place? A place where the boss lets one of the workers bring in her puppy on Fridays?

Friday was pretty low key. Hanging out with Rosa and Richard, drinking tea, and hanging out with their cool friends, one of whom was out of town as well. Played Scattergories, drank lots of tea, and watched the “wild ass.”

Saturday was super duper busy, and it started with a trip to the Farmer’s Market.

Me and Rosa!

Gorgeous Organic Flowers

Pumpkins! Pretty!

Chicken feet. Eeek!

Then we had tea service at Samovar in Yerba Buena. Yummy.

We popped into SF SOMA for a bit and drooled and dreamed over the cool stuff in the museum shop, then we hopped on the trolley (streetcar?) to head to all the touristy stuff. You know the things they had in the Rice-A-Roni commercials? Yeah, I got to ride two. Sweet, right? I also got to take this random picture of a steep street in the city, and also one of Coit Tower:

We hit the top of Lombard Street, and Rosa and I ran down with our arms out. When we got to the bottom, a hippie drove by and yelled “THAT IS FUCKING TWISTED!!!” Rosa and I cracked up because well, Lombard is twisted. And steep. And pretty.

From Lombard, we walked to Fisherman’s Wharf, which is TOURIST CENTRAL. OMG so many people. Lots and lots of people. Didn’t help that the Blue Angels were in town, being all cool and loud and stuff.

One can see lots of cool stuff at Fisherman’s Wharf, like Alcatraz. And sea lions.

Alcatraz

Sea Lions

Sunday morning, I got to meet and hang out with Katy (drkangelmommy)!!

Isn’t she so cute??? 😀

Of course, no trip to SF is complete without going to The Golden Gate Bridge. Rosa took me there early Sunday morning. It was a perfect day. Cloudless blue skies, no fog. Beautiful.

So YAY! Thanks a million to Rosa for making this happen. She’s an awesome gal and I had a blast with her. 🙂

I was in a cranky mood at the grocery store today because 1) it was crowded, and 2) they jacked the prices WAY up since I’ve been there last. An 8 oz. can of Hunt’s tomato sauce used to cost about 35 cents, now it’s 40 cents. Lord knows that the organic stuff is priced sky high. No wonder people love Aldi and Marc’s! I usually go to Marc’s anyway, because it’s closer to me than Aldi is. And sometimes Marc’s has obscure stuff one can’t find in a regular grocery store.

I’m heading toward crankiness again because there is one of those little flitty bugs flitting around and being annoying, and it’s already after 7pm (naturally the work day crawled by), and I’ll have to go to bed soon.

OH! I was on the Apostrophe Abuse blog today, and click to see what the cat dragged in: http://www.apostropheabuse.com/2007/09/thank-yous-note-cards.html. Yes, the same issue from Target that I emailed them about two years ago.

I got good mail today! A gift card, a letter, and a coupon for a free chicken sandwich and medium Coke from Chick-fil-A. You too, can have one. Just go to http://freechickenandcoke.com. If it’s still up and running, you can have free Chick-fil-A too! 🙂 Ka-CHOW!

mandibaby just got married! Congrats to her! She looked beautiful! 😀

All right. I need to get going. Time to make dinner. Tilapia, mashed potatoes, and spinach is on the menu for tonight. Yummy. 🙂

Cheers!

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