I can't be out of pens, can I?

A thought just snuck up on me as I prepared to journal during nap time: it is a strange day when you run out of working pens.

Well, for me, at least. Currently, we have a drawer with a pile of pens in it, but I know I have run out of pens before (it must have been in college) and for one reason or another it's always a surprise. There's a constant state of knowing that you have a hundred pens and it feels like that must mean endless ink for infinite words. Infinite notes written, documents signed, doodles scrawled, and of course the inevitable hands and/or property colored upon when a child secrets one away while you're distracted. Those activities are always a possibility because of the hundred pens that could never run out of ink.

But they do, they will, and at some point there will be no pens with ink left in them. And the-- I suppose I'll call it naïveté, because I can't conjure a better word --the illogical naïveté of that infinite ink paradigm leaves you open to bewilderment as you realize that you have one hundred useless pens and they all must be thrown away. You can't remember the last time you bought pens. And you suddenly recall several instances in which you declined to take a promotional pen from some salesperson because you had a hundred of them in a drawer at home. 

And then I wondered if that's what it's like in the penultimate moment of one's life. You realize that you're out of life. You just ran out, because life runs out. Even though it's everywhere and there has always been enough of it. And perhaps you are momentarily struck with a flash of thoughts, realizing that there are no more "things" you will do on this earth. Not a blink, not a breath, not a shiver in the cold, not a sigh of relief. You'll never have another itch on your shoulder blade that is only just out of reach**. You've done all the things you will ever do because the ink in your hundredth pen has run dry.

I imagine that I will either think ten thousand things in that last flash of synapses or nothing at all. I suppose it will depend. But I am predicting that no matter what, that feeling of naive bewilderment will be there in some degree. Defying all logic, I may have thought to have enough ink for a few more notes or, audaciously, a novella of some kind. I may yet show my hand as a doubting Thomas and despair of the end of my life's ink. Maybe I feel compelled to consider these things now so that when that moment comes, I can end on the triumph of a discovery, a mysterious question answered even if I'm the only one to know. That last thought, especially, can give aspiring psychoanalysts something to surmise about me, eh?

Ah, well. Here's to a full life and a full pen drawer. Cheers.

**Unless you die with an itchy shoulder, in which case, I'm so very sorry. I'm annoyed just thinking about it, trivial as it is. May we all be blessed to avoid such a fate!

You Time-Travel in My Heart

Sometimes grief strikes in the most unexpected time or place. Just something makes you miss someone in a specific way that makes your stomach knot; because unlike missing someone who goes on vacation or gets a job out of town, you know that you just have to keep missing your person.

My person is my god brother, Andy. He and I were brought up together as babies. Our moms were pregnant together. His grandma babysat us. Our older sisters were best friends and obnoxiously made us get "married" over and over in ceremonies they'd officiate. He was my first and oldest friend.

A few Octobers ago he lost a battle with mental illness. Anyone who knows someone struggling with mental illness, especially bipolar disorder, knows that it's a dirty fight. Because how can you fight yourself so fiercely without painful consequences? His suicide cut one of the lines that tethered me to a nebulous concept of "this is who I am." Reconnecting with him had always been a touchstone of security and reassurance, no matter how long it had been between conversations.

This is the letter I wrote to him tonight. Because I miss him unexpectedly sometimes. Like when you were a kid and saw your teacher at the grocery store and got sort of confused and shocked, like, "What are you doing at the store?" So I wrote about it. To Andy.

---------

To Andy:

It's definitely self-serving, but I like to draw on your memory whenever I need to feel "un-judged" recently. Like, I know there are things you would just laugh with me about instead of giving a disapproving cringe (like being so exhausted that I mistook one tube for another and started moisturizing my face with Thomas the Tank Engine toothpaste, or having the baby wear the same onesie for 3 days in a row because... it just kinda happened). 

I know I could share those things with you and then we'd both laugh and possibly even have a new inside joke about the curative properties of kids' toothpaste on the skin. And I miss that. 

And sometimes just knowing that you cared for me unconditionally before you died is enough, because miraculously, you loved so hard that it's like there's still some left and I can feel it years later. But sometimes it's not enough. It just aches. Like driving past a house where I used to live and having it feel simultaneously familiar and foreign. And the foreignness hurts. Knowing that I can never again envelop myself in the homey-ness and safety I once felt there, because everything that made it feel like "home" and "mine" isn't there anymore. And you'd get that, too. It's that kind of ache. Something so familiar that you can no longer access the same way. 

So I think about you. And you time-travel in my heart until I get to see you again.

- Me

A Few Good Breakfasts. Gluten Free and Feingold Friendly!

Since diving into this strange, new diet plan here are some of the breakfast foods I've devised.

- Plain old eggs with salt and pepper

- Plain Greek Yogurt from Kirkland (Costco) topped with:

   * Kashi's Simply Maize Organic Corn Cereal 

   * Feingold friendly fruits like: banana and mango

   * or mixed with JIF creamy peanut butter

- Kashi's Simply Maize cereal with milk

- Hodgson Mill's Buckwheat Creamy Hot Cereal topped with
  * Feingold friendly fruits like: banana and mango
  * Brown sugar

- Envirokidz's Peanut Butter Panda Puffs cereal with milk

- Your choice of gluten free, preservative free bread with Earth Balance Organic Coconut Spread or JIF.
  * Honestly, I haven't found a very great GF, preservative free, dye free, etc. bread yet... Maybe because I love real bread so much? But the coconut spread is pretty darn good anyhow. Just keep it on your radar.

- Baked pears and bananas by themselves, over GF toast, or on the buckwheat hot cereal
  * Preheat oven to 400F
  * Place halved pears face-down on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes OR until the skin starts to wrinkle/pucker.
  * Slice bananas, brush with melted coconut spread or butter, bake on a sheet for 10 minutes or until they look smooshy and sweet enough for your liking. You can also cook banana slices in a pan, 1 minute on each side.

Have more ideas? Share them below!

Our Feingold, Gluten-Free Diet Plan... AKA: Are there actual foods we can still eat?

    It's been evident for some time that P has more energy and sleeps way less than the average toddler. Literally, every--single--time we go out with him, he's tearing around at full speed and someone comments, "Wow! He's sure gonna' sleep well tonight!"... and he almost never does. He just goes and goes. That alone wouldn't have convinced me to change our diets so drastically, but more recently this was also accompanied by steep mood swings beyond normal Terrible Twos. He's gotten out of control crying, or sometimes raging, to the point that he almost seems scared. Another red flag: he can lie awake for 2 or 3 hours in his bed without going to sleep. Just crying, tossing, turning, calling out for a million things. Then when he wakes up, he's a wreck--more crying and screaming, often for upwards of 30  minutes.

     His pediatrician brought up going gluten free, but only after trying a few other things. The other things fell flat, i.e., I didn't notice a difference. So after toying with the idea of diet change for a while, I bit the bullet and dove in. I hit Trader Joe's and thought I'd find all these great gluten-free (GF) foods. I was a little overwhelmed and asked an employee for help, at which point I told him what the GF diet was for. He alerted me to the Feingold Diet, originally called the Kaiser Permanente Diet or KP Diet. It's intended to address ADHD behaviors (which the TJ employee said all but disappeared in his 7 year-old son on the diet), but can also help with sleep issues, perseverating, and some other things I saw happening with P that time-outs and patience hadn't done boo to remedy.

     The nuts and bolts of the Feingold Diet are to cut out artificial dyes, artificial flavors, and certain artificial preservatives, and foods containing salicylates (a compound that occurs naturally in certain foods) like apples, grapes, fresh pineapple, berries, tomatoes, peppers, oranges, tangerines, cucumbers, almonds, apricots, pickles... you really need to look up the comprehensive list. There are different stages. During Stage 1, you eliminate all of the foods on the list, then after a period of one to two weeks you integrate the foods back one at a time and hopefully get some of them back into your diet if there are no adverse reactions.

     So after some research on that, I decided that I would rather try both diets (GF and Feingold) at once just in case there were multiple food factors affecting him. Then after a few weeks I could try integrating some of the foods back into his diet. The learning curve is STEEP, which is why I'm going to keep a record of the things I'm feeding P on this diet. So stay tuned as I post those soon!

     Disclaimer: I'm not an expert. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm probably not doing this 100% correctly. If you are an expert at going gluten free or using the Feingold Diet, and you notice that I list some food that's not in line with those diets, go ahead and let me know! Also, before you try any diet change for your own child, consult with your child's pediatrician.

Throwing stars are not appropriate for court

Or so I hear.

I got a jury summons just before we moved across the country this summer, so I couldn't do my civic duty that time BUT I still had to go through the whole process of registering. Of course I immediately had to explain that I couldn't actually serve, but that's beside the point.

Key here is that I had to get oriented to the process regardless. In Los Angeles they are pretty thorough in describing some of the things you may not bring with you to the jury box. Now that we're settled in the new house, I'm posting what I thought was pretty good stuff. Without further ado, my favorites:
- Bicycle parts
- Rollerblades
- Rope that is longer than 2 inches
- Safety pins that are longer than 2 inches
- Flashlights that are longer than 3 inches
- Tools that are longer than 3 inches
- Grafitti tools
- Belt buckles resembling actual firearms
- Swords / cane swords
- Tape measures
-  Stun guns

Thoughts from a feminist misfit

         I am a Christian, pro-life feminist. Concerning the charged topic of abortion, I don't expect everyone to think or believe the same way I do. I disagree with the prevailing feminist assertion that "any abortion is a legitimate abortion because any choice a woman makes concerning her own body is a legitimate one." But I realize I'm an anomalous "conservative feminist" and try to keep my mind open to understand where others are coming from when more liberal feminism conflicts with my conservatism.

          So recently a post from a feminist blog about abortion led me down a comment thread that... surprised me. The topic was de-stigmatizing open discussion of one's abortion(s) based on the statistic that 1 in 3 American women will have an abortion in their reproductive lifetime. The post observed that some women regret it and others don't, but regardless of your stance on the morality of abortion, as an inherently invasive procedure that can have lasting physical and emotional repercussions, women should have an outlet to discuss their experiences in a therapeutic way without all the shame and vitriol surrounding the topic currently.

          As a feminist, I can agree with that sentiment. It has nothing to do with putting my stamp of approval on abortion, but everything to do with letting those who need to heal, heal. In a purely feminist sense, women who have an abortion face all kinds of societal flack while it's rare that such judgment is hurled toward the men involved. But especially in a Christian sense, I know there are those who feel beyond the fellowship of others because of such an experience that feels off-limits to discuss, even in terms of regret.

          So I read the comments and took them with a grain of salt.  I thought I knew what to expect, but then came the curve ball comments that surprised me. Not because there were so many women describing their own experiences with abortion (though that didn't make my day), but because of one of the ways that a several women framed it.

          First, at least three women described their situations as terminating a pregnancy earlier, but now being married with one or more children. One woman's sentiment was that she is open with her children about her past abortion, because that way they can know that she really wanted them and loves them and planned them intentionally. She wrote:

Yes, I have talked openly about my abortion - and about what a positive experience it was. I also like to make the point that my children will always know that they weren't an "accident" although they weren't planned. I chose to continue my pregnancies because I wanted them.

         
          Others, evidently, agreed with this line of thought, giving it 33 "thumbs up." Another mother wrote that she and her husband almost decided to have an abortion, but didn't-- and later provided this story to her daughter as a means of showing the daughter how giving her life was a conscious choice, even though other options were considered. It was meant as a testament to how much the daughter was loved and wanted. Other readers also seemed to appreciate this woman's thoughts.

Only one other person had a similar reaction to my own:

Oh dear God. "Thanks for not killing me, Mom!" You're going to hear those words and get the warm and fuzzies?

...which got got zero thumbs up.

          Though I consider myself part of the pro-life/pro-child camp, I'm not going to sling mud at anyone who's made a heart-rending choice like abortion. It's not my place. That said, I was thinking the same thing as the unpopular reader directly above-- it sounds off to want your current kids to feel *extra* loved based on the fact that you didn't abort them. So the children you do birth will be buoyed up knowing that there were other embryos/fetuses that didn't make the cut? Erm, no. I felt icky reading that.

          It's one thing to desire a society in which women who have had an abortion can discuss their difficult and painful experiences without a host of people lining up to judge and condemn them. That's entirely different from desiring a society in which abortion should be considered so common that we celebrate children who are chosen (and expect them to celebrate, too), because it reflects the ultimate empowerment of women as keepers of their own bodies and lives. That's a philosophical approach to "progressive thinking," conscientious child-bearing, and womanhood that disturbs me.

And the fact that there were so many virtual head nods and only one other incredulous voice... Evidently I'm a feminist misfit.

Lost in Translation: My Chocolates

Originally posted: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 7:51pm

Ben Preston and I just had some fun trying to guess what was in the box of German chocolates we were eating (we ate the chocolates, not the box). Anyway, the cheat sheet that most boxes of chocolate comes with--you know, to tell you what's hidden in each chocolatey surprise--is written in German. Very authentic. So we headed to the all-knowing fount of internet wisdom: Google. After translation, here are some of the things we found out about the chocolates we ate:

Marc de Champagne Truffles: chocolate-wraps from wife
Gianduja: delicate melting Gianduja with typical nutty-note
Ek Chuah: tender roasted cacao nibs in fine bitter-nut-nougat cream-chocolate-in alpine milk.
Pistachio-Marzipan: aromatic pistachio-marzipan flavored with cherry-water in the dark

After being thus informed, we're still trying to figure out whether we're okay with eating "nibs" or chocolate-wraps from someone's wife.

Battle of the Vans

Parents are obviously dorky. But not me. Not yet, right? Riiiiiight.

Here's the meat of it: I think dorkiness really only takes root when you stop taking, "But that won't look very cool..." into consideration. And looking back, that probably happened the first time someone pointed out that I had dried baby spit-up on my shoulder and my thought was, "Well of course it's dry. That's from yesterday."

But it might be happening in a more consistent way soon. With Baby Boy II on the way, we've been looking at mini-vanz (the early 2000s taught me to make something seem cooler by subbing "z" for "s"). And the thing is, now I'm all excited about it.

Our search for a larger car didn't devolve into the search for the right van until recently. First, I can confidently say that I have crawled through and test driven darn near every car on the market that has a 3rd row. I had various love affairs with small SUVs and a few crossovers, but I'll be danged if the stupid mini vans haven't converted me. The manufacturers must know that no one will want them, so they make 'em extra comfy and add things that you don't need, but are convenient. Prime example: auto sliding rear doors. It's like you just give the handle a little tug and the van goes, "No, no-- Allow me...*shooooooop*" and the door slides open.

And looking at mini-vans has somehow warped my sense of how many children I will have, and how quickly. We will have two kids in car seats in the near future, but I'm in there counting all the LATCH adapters (LATCH is the new system that secures children's car seats to metal brackets in the vehicle's back seats). When you start making reproductive calculations based on a car, the manufacturer has won.

Me-in-the-moment: "Hmmm. There are only 4 adapters for car seats in this van. The other van had 5. I wish this one had 5..."

Also, WHAT?! Since when am I a person who uses car seat adapters as an evaluation tool at all? Since now, I guess. Because there are several related criteria I've created for must-haves in a vehicle:
  - Must be able to get an infant carrier in and out without breaking my back.
  - Must be room for me to sit in the back with a toddler and newborn in their car seats.
  - Must have a rear back-up camera so I don't accidentally back into the neighbors' mailboxes, or my own offspring, negating the need for a van at all.

Steal the bacon-- just not MY bacon!

Originally posted: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 5:59pm I don't know how to put this, but someone stole my bacon.

Stole.
My.
Bacon.

My bacon is not for stealing.

Remember the Bacon Explosion I posted a few weeks ago? Delicious recipe that called for 2 lbs of bacon? Yeah, that bacon came in a pack of 4 1lb bags. That means I had 2 lbs left.

So THEN I made green beans with bacon, onion, and tomato. I made it twice. That used up another pound. That means I had 1lb left.

So I go to look for it just now, and... WHERE'S MY BACON?!! It's not in the fridge, it's not in the freezer. I even got panicked enough to look in a couple of drawers. Just in case? No bacon.

I called Bryce, and he has no idea where it is either. I made him reassure me that he wasn't playing a trick or something (though I don't know what kind of "trick" it would be-- hiding-- bacon...) and then I did another thorough sweep of the fridge and freezer. I took everything off the shelves and felt around corners in case my bacon is lying neglected and afraid in some secret refrigerator dungeon between the vegetable drawer and the wall.

I found no bacon. Though I did find some dried mushrooms labeled "Matsutake 10/17/97" (the last person to live in our condo was Japanese, so I guess she kept a special stash. I just googled it to confirm and found that it's a highly sought after mushroom that can be sold for $2,000 per kilogram when it's in season. Um. Wonder what 13 year old mushrooms would sell for...). ANYWAYS, still no bacon.

I'm very vexed by this missing bacon... I would remember eating/cooking a whole pound of bacon.

Thoughts on where my bacon went?

The Meat Cake Adventure

Originally posted: Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 7:22pm

So I made this meat cake/log/brick for our church's ManFood competition. I laughed several times while making it, just because...well, I hope you can laugh at it, too.

Here we go:

Step (1) Weave 1 lb of bacon together.

Technically still good like this.

Step (2) Cover bacon mat with 1 lb ground beef. Sprinkle with a little cooked bacon.


Step (3) Press a mix of whole and sliced Little Smokies into the beef.

Smokies: the only other meat that could've improved this thing.

Step (4) Cover with cheese.


Step (5) Add MORE BACON!?!


Step (6) It needs BBQ sauce. And BBQ seasoning.

Slather away.

Step (7) Roll that sucker up and cook it good! Do not eat until fully cooked, however tempting.

Admire the weave.

 

Irish wisdom and CURSES!!!

Originally posted: Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 10:35pm

Tonight I remembered some little Irish sayings my grandmother used to throw around, and when I went to look up the exact wording, I found other Irish sayings, blessings, and, yes, cursings. You gotta hand it to the Irish, though, because even some of the "curses" I found were pretty funny.

Anyhow, I took a few minutes and found some sayings that I consider to be real gems.

The italics are my additions... Read at your leisure.

Sayings
- Both your friend and your enemy think you will never die.

- The wearer best knows where the shoe pinches.
So important for decision-makers to remember this when they create mandates that affect people beyond their own circle.

- It is not a secret if it is known by three people.
I'm not sure that many people know this rule...

- You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

- Need teaches a plan.

- A trade not properly learned is an enemy.

- A hen is heavy when carried far.
Couldn't agree more. When I let a little problem go unresolved for a long time, it becomes the heaviest weight of all.

- To live above with the Saints we love,
Ah, that is the purest glory.
To live below with the Saints we know,
Ah, that is another story!


CURSES!!!
May those who love us love us.
And those that don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping.

May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can't find you with a telescope.
I'm half hoping that someone makes me mad enough that I can feel justified saying this to them.

Blessings
May the roof above us never fall in.
And may the friends gathered below it never fall out.

May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.

Here's a toast to your enemies' enemies!

If God sends you down a stony path,
may he give you strong shoes.

May the good Lord take a liking to you...
But not too soon!

May you be half an hour in Heaven
Before the Devil knows you’re dead.

Jokes
Mick and Paddy were walking home after a night on the beer when a severed head rolled along the ground. Mick picked it up to his face and said to Paddy "Jez, that look like Sean" to which Paddy replied "No, Sean was taller than that."

Joey-Jim was tooling along the road one fine day when the local policeman, a friend of his, pulled him over. "What's wrong, Seamus?" Joey-Jim asked. "Well didn't ya know, Joey-Jim, that your wife fell out of the car about five miles back?" said Seamus. "Ah, praise the Almighty!" he replied with relief. "I thought I'd gone deaf!"

Best text message EVER

Originally posted: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 9:58pm

While I was in Egypt I left Skype on for a few hours and found this message from my brother when I returned. Anyone who doesn't think this is the best message ever--I will fight you.

Enjoy. I sure did.
PS I kept the original formatting so as to preserve the streamofconsciousness nature of the thing.

"Caitlin! I had the craziest dream that you and I made a flying van/spaceship/airplane that we used to send down the west coast of central and south america and drop lobster traps and pick them up and bring them back to us. Only we also caught a princess and her dad and they came back to our home - which for some reason was in the midwest somewhere among crops and stuff and we were operating out of a treehouse. The US government was getting super curious about our little craft and thought it was an enemy vessel. Luckily it was small enough to fly below the radar and fast enough not to get caught. Somehow we got it to run off of corn oil and it also used solar power. It was new technology that you developed - you developed the technology and I built it into a van that could fly real fast and drop and pick up lobster traps. We brought home one lobster, a princess and her father, garnered the attention of the US government/military, and developed a new technology... awesome. It kinda crash landed when it got home and for some reason we could fly it from our tree house so it was also remote controled. Our dad was there when it landed but he wasn't all that impressed because we only caught one lobster and it wasn't big enough to eat so I put it in a pot of salt water in the sink. Turns out the lobster was some sort of pet to the princess. Oh, and our flying lobstering van worked perfectly when it dropped the lobster traps and picked them up pretty good too - we just fished in the wrong place i guess. ok - thats it - can't wait to see you!"

Bwahahahahaha! That's the most ridiculous dream ever! I love my siblings.

Cheese Balls: The Snack (not a medical condition)

Originally posted: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 10:35am

Alternate title: My selfish alter-ego

For Halloween my mom gave Husband and I a ONE POUND drum of cheese balls/puffs (meant to resemble pumpkins or something). One pound doesn't sound like much, but think of how light those things are. It's like the size of a sparkletts jug.

We have so many we've been using them to barter with. Ex: We gave a friend a baggy of cheese puffs to borrow two of her movies. Cheese balls could be the currency of the future, should the economy continue in a downslide...

And people get really excited about cheese puffs. Like everybody wants one or two as soon as they see that you've got some. But you look like a selfish jerk if you only give someone one or two cheese balls even if they only ask for one or two (I mean, who can't spare a handful of a cheap snack?), but I'm REALLY covetous of certain food. Luckily, cheese balls are the kind of thing that I realize I will get sick of pretty quickly. As soon as all that processed cheese dust and the deep-fried dough puffs start to build a layer of glutinous, sodium-filled jelly in my stomach... I'm done and ready to share. But sometimes I don't want to share food.

Like, usually, I love to feed people. I will give you tons of home-cooked food. I'll make several dishes and want you to stuff yourself on them, but if I go to the store and find some snack food that I REALLY want, and then I get it... I'm like freaking Golum hiding in some cave with the "One Snack." I think everybody else wants it, too, so I eat it secretly where no one will see and ask for some.

I try and keep this covetousness a secret. Husband only recently found this out with grape juice. It's a guilty pleasure, since it's kinda expensive as far as juice goes. I have to limit how much I drink or I will make myself disgustingly ill on it. And like I said, I get kinda manic about it, like, even *how* I drink it. Grape juice must be sipped. Must. Otherwise you miss the full spectrum of delicious flavor. Well, a few weeks back, we got two 64oz containers of grape juice from Costco. I thought I was going to cry I was so happy about all that juice. I quickly imagined how, if I paced myself, I could make it last a long time.

When we got it home, I immediately poured myself a glass; so did Husband. I hadn't calculated his consumption into my grape juice forecast. I tried to let it go, thinking of how silly it was wanting to have all the grape juice for myself. I sipped my cup of juice: it was fantastic; incredibly flavorful; like an old friend it was familiar and yet I hadn't had any in a while, so the taste was refreshing. Slowly sipping and savoring, I was entering a sort of meditation with my grape juice. Then I heard a horrifying noise: *glumph**glorb**glumph*

"NO!" I cried out unexpectedly. Husband was GULPING down his glass of grape juice. That oaf was reverse-vomiting the precious nectar of my delight. I snatched his glass from him before he could finish off what little juice remained in it. I was another person, it seemed.

"What are you DOING?!" my mouth surprised me by talking, "You can't CHUG the grape juice!"

I must have really shocked Husband because he just stood there with his eyes popped open about as big as I've seen them. He was biting his lips together and his hand was still curled around some phantom cup in midair-- everything had happened so fast, and surely he hadn't expected to be attacked just then.

I explained how it needed to be sipped, savored, about the spectrum of delicious flavor, the nirvana... I started to hear how ridiculous I was. And Husband was still standing there looking really sheepish before he burst out laughing and promised that he would "sip from now on." While he conceded that it was unquestionably better when sipped, I felt bad enough about letting my Golum alter-ego surface that I told him he could chug it if he wanted to and I wouldn't attack him again... He still seems too afraid to do that, though, because whenever he drinks the grape juice now, he always casts furtive glances my way as he sips. Secretly, I am pleased.

Now you know more about my selfish alter-ego.

If I write 25 things will you people stop tagging me?

Originally posted: Friday, February 13, 2009 at 4:59am
Context: For a while college facebookers were all "tagging" each other in these chain messages. In an act of pure procrastination and insomnia, I played along.

Alright, I've been tagged in these things a few times now, so I figured I'd take the time all early in the morning to go ahead and bare my soul to you all in a bullet point fashion. Because soul-bearing should be well organized if done at all.

1. When I was little I collected really weird things, and really half-heartledly:

• erasers (mostly Lisa Frank garbage, for those of you who remember that stuff)
• rocks
• my teeth (I waited for them to fall out naturally)
• stickers
• pencils
• letters and cards that people sent me
• baseball cards  (I have a ton of worthless cards. I was a big Daryl Strawberry fan. Ouch.)
• coins (when I say "half-heartedly" it means that there are Chuck-e-cheese tokens in there)
• hairballs (this collection didn't last long. My mom found out I was stealing the hair from everyone's brushes and got really freaked out. Made me stop.)
• diaries/journals (I pity the poor person who ever tries to write my biography. I've always kept at least two journals going simultaneously.)

2. I added a new collection about 2 years ago: bouncy balls. I think I wrote about it in another note.

3. I can't do math. Can't. Do. Math. I'm not being humble, people. It's bad. Yesterday I had to ask someone what 4+5 was. I would've gotten it eventually...

5. I can't count, either.

6. Almost all of my earliest memories of my brother Connor involve him getting me to ride on a bike/scooter/wagon/sled/skateboard with him down some big hill and then crashing. That and him laughing whenever my sister Reagan or I would get mad at him.

7. When I was in elementary school Reagan would babysit us when we got home, and Connor would get me to mutiny with him against her and lock her in her room so we could watch tv instead of do homework.

8. I've never really belonged to a group of friends that I hang out with every day. I'm more of a drifter who has friends in different groups of people and spends time with them randomly.
* I will make a slight correction here, as I definitely had best friends in Cairo who I saw ALL the time. Ya'll know who you are.

9. Whenever people find out that my parents met in the circus (no, not *at* the circus) they almost always feel compelled to be witty and say something like, "Well that explains some things."

10. I'm pretty indecisive on most things. When people ask me about my favorites I usually make something up for that moment. Sorry if that makes you all question whether you really know me.

11. I am prone to becoming a part of strange stories. A few weeks into my semester in Egypt, I accidentally dyed most of my clothing *pink* in a terrible, terrible decision-making process.

12. I recently followed up on room-for-rent ad at a house only to find 6 dogs named Doodle, Doo-dah, Two-toe, Maximoose, Small thing, and Smaller thing ... and 5 cats. One cat "helps" a guy who lives there (he goes by the name Meow--the man does) composing music by "telling him when it's right on."

13. Last semester I rented an apartment in Egypt from the ex Egyptian Ambassador to China. Craziest time there had to be when we had 8 girls living in an apt meant for three: Me and Daphne from USC; Lindsey from Michigan; Karla from El Salvador, but living in Israel; Dina a Russian-Israeli; Armen, Samah, and Juliet from Jordan. IHOM - International House of Mormons (minus Daphne, but she's kinda Mormon by association).

12. In Cairo, I got addicted to soda. Me + soda is as close to drunk as you'll ever see me. Under the influence of soda I composed a number of impromptu songs about people and other stuff.

13. I'm not allowed to make fun of Uggs or people who wear them after I had to wear a pair of pink Uggs for about a month straight in my senior year of high school. Bone spurs in my achilles tendons necessitated loose boots.

14. I had a pet lobster and crawdad and some fish until the crawdad, Gilligan, ate the feelers and all but one leg off the lobster, Fivel. I fed Fivel with chopsticks for a few days and watched in horror as he could only push himself in circles. And then he died. Gilligan laster slightly longer until I trusted him to Elisa while I was in Cairo. He made a few attempts at escape and then died of a broken heart. Even ruthless lobster-mauling machines have teeny-tiny, gross little hearts, people.

15. When I was in Egypt, men would always ask if I was German and I'd say yes so they couldn't talk to me anymore. Until I realized that there are quite a few Egyptians who can speak German...so I switched my story and told people that I was from Argentina so I'd be safe if anyone tried to call my bluff.

16. I can sing with my mouth closed. No, not humming, it's singing.

17. I procrastinate. Last semester I had a book review due, woke up at (Lindsey, correct me here) 6am, read the whole book and took notes, wrote a 12 page review, and got it in to class by 4pm. Favorite quote during that episode as I crouched over my laptop in our dining room: "Lindsey, if I pull this one off I won't learn my lesson, but I sure will be happy."

18. I stop at stop signs.

19. My elementary school had a milk program where they'd leave a crate of milk sitting outside each classroom, and you picked one up on your way out to recess. Well, some days they'd leave them out too long, or re-use the unopened milks the next day, and there'd be bad milk with chunks in it. So now I've got this strange compulsion to smell all milk before drinking it, and I'm always asking for a second opinion on it.

20. I can eat a lot more than people assume.

21. I'm surprised that I've been able to focus long enough to write this many things. Ummm... I love the internet or interweb or blogosphere, or blogonet, or whatever else it goes by.

22. Oh! I like nerdy games. My friend Stephanie Shin and I used to give each other hard words to spell in an attempt to stump one another. And Juli Kiyan and I were once reduced to playing 'Guess the Historical Figure' while waiting for Mr. Atchley to open the Hobachi room for us.

23. I love quirky websites that are useful and fun to peruse:
www.freerice.com
www.flashcardexchange.com
http://www.bored.com/getannoyed/general.htm -- A list of ways to annoy people. Some good ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXpYk7WGN5Y -- Most awkward Letterman interview EVER
http://www.virtual-bubblewrap.com/popnow.shtml
http://bored.com/dumb/ -- really dumb
http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=cool%2C+huh%3F+-+Caitlin
http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

24. I really like learning new languages. So far I can converse in English and Spanish, get by in Egyptian Arabic, greet people in Mandarin, and say animals, colors, greetings, and days of the week in Hungarian. I'm always up for learning more if you want to teach me!

25. If you really want to get to know anything else about me, just ask. I'm too tired to think up any more things. (yeah, I know I cheated with that whole "I can't count" trick up in #5, but whatever.)

Memorizing Scriptures

Originally posted: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 10:23pm

So, I've been trying to memorize more Bible passages lately, you know, just to have more of them handy. So wonder of wonders, in my travels of the Internet I found some interesting resources... and I thought I'd share 'em with whoever was interested.

They're scriptures set to music, which is supposed to be a great memorization technique.

Keep in mind, I never said they were all high-quality or enjoyable ;) I had to laugh at some of the versions. But all tastes are different, and to me these range from REALLY hokey to actually pretty catchy. I'm just trying to find the ones that I think will stick in my head.


So here they are:

http://biblememorymusic.com/

http://www.scripturesongs.net/

http://www.scripturemusic.com/mp3.htm

http://www.joyfulnoisescripture.org/

Say Wha--? (great moments this week)

Originally posted: Saturday, February 9, 2008 at 9:03am
Context: I was in college and, hence, more likely to be in strange places at odd hours with eccentric people.

Firstly, I have to say that I honestly believe that people wait to do/say weird things until they're around me. Seriously. I believe that people are pretty normal until they get within a certain distance, and then they turn weird, because I swear I hear and see the strangest things all the time. It's like I attract it. Or maybe I encourage it.

With that, I heard some good ones in the past few days. So enjoy.

1:30 this morningReally drunk girl: *walking by outside, shouting* I'm a freaking DIVA!
Guy walking with her: Really? Because you just threw up back there.

---------

Girl in my office: I hear that CostCo has some pretty good opta-- ops--- obstetricians...
Me: Do you mean "optometrists?"
Girl: No, obsta...*eyes get wide* ...yeah, optometrists.

---------

12:15 A.M. at a taco stand in South Los Angeles with friends
Homeless man: Hey guys, I don't wanna tell you my whole life story or anything, but lemme tell you what: I'm going to try to surprise you, and if you're not surprised you don't have to give me anything.
Carlos: *whispering to us* Please don't let him pull his pants down.
Homeless man: Here I go...
*all of us start edging backwards*
Homeless man: (singing) Je-e-e-e-e-e-e-sus! Y-o-o-o-u are-- *waves had around* m-i-i-i-i-ne!
Another guy nearby: Hey! He sang that last night --and he was better then! Tonight's version smells like beer...
---------
Sitting for lunch in one of the university dining halls
Friend who I shall call "Sean": What's wrong with that guy's HAIR?
Me: I don't know.
Sean: But LOOK at it! Why is it like that?
Me: I don't know --I'm not a hair specialist.
Sean: But it's all... it's gone in some parts but really long on the other side. Do you think it's some religious hair cut?
Me: Seriously? Let it go.
Sean: ... there's something wrong. I'm going to find out.

I Miss Pluto

Originally posted: Thursday, September 14, 2006 at 3:21am

Context: "Science" had just announced that Pluto would no longer be considered a planet in the Solar System.

 

I never really thought about Pluto - aka the ninth and smallest planet in our solar system - aka the Pickles in the My-Very-Educated-Mother-Just-Served-Us-Nine-Pickles mnemonic for memorizing the planets - aka the planet we really cared least about.

But NOW I care. Science has decided that Pluto isn't really a planet after all...
Sorry, Pluto.

So now what is my very educated mother going to serve us? Ninjas? NAKED? How inappropriate of her.

I guess this makes it easier on those kids who make that same styrofoam ball solar system deal, complete with the sun and everything, but still. This sucks. That ninth little ball that every little kid paints blue for some reason isn't allowed to be there anymore.

I miss Pluto. We should get rid of Neptune instead. Does anyone know anything cool about Neptune? Didn't think so.
I know lots about Pluto:
- it's tiny
- it's cold
- it's really far away
- it was the best planet (fact, not opinion)

Neptune on the other hand... Its name sounds like "tuna," which smells funny.

Nuff said.

Tiny Animals on Fingers

Originally published: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 11:23am
Context: I was probably in the midst of serious procrastination.

In the process of surfing the Internet for countless hours, I made a cool but useless discovery. There is an entire photo album on Flickr dedicated to unbelievably small animals sitting on people's fingers.

The awesome factor increases as the size of the monkey/creature decreases. Trust me, it's science.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/specklet/sets/72157594204828139/



Normally, I'd be scared of (what looks like?) a poison dart frog, but this is just cool.



This is what finger monkeys look like when they're plotting to take over the world. Or the rest of that hand.



I had no idea monkeys could be this small.

Itty bitty sea turtle? This was probably illegal. But if you're gonna do something illegal, at least let it be for an awesome photo.

Sleepy finger monkeys. I think the one on the left has crumbs on his face from his most recent snack of tiny crackers.

 

 

Two freakishly small chameleons staring each other down.

Sugar glider on somebody's fingas.

An angry horny toad. This toad gots 'tude.

 

 

Happiest dragonfly ever.

You're welcome.

 

 

Bouncy Balls - BALLIN'!

Originally published: Saturday, May 5, 2007 at 8:31pm

I don't usually gamble.

I don't get a thrill from it and I like keeping my money too much. But my new habit has become an addiction, perhaps worse than gambling.

I'm addicted to a little quarter machine game in Olympian Burger on Vermont Avenue near USC. For one quarter you can win up to 3 bouncy balls! THREE! I did it as a joke at first, since the fact that I have to hunch over to play it tells me that it's made for 5 year olds.

But now I have almost 150 bouncy balls in my room.

And you can only do so much with them. I dropped them all down the stairwell in my building (which was awesome), and I got into a bouncy ball fight with a few people (which was awesome until we-- until I --realized that some people are babies and will get all dramatic if you throw one stupid ball wrong and it hits them in the face).

It's gotten bad though, because now when I get change back, all I think about is how many bouncy balls it'll get me...

PS in case you ever wondered what it would look like, here's what 250,000 bouncy balls look like when they're launched down a San Francisco street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP5J4W5GQ3w

People Buy the Dumbest Stuff

Originally published: Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 8:37am

I went to IKEA last weekend (as you would know if you'd seen the strangely titled photos I posted in one album), and really got a better grasp on why other countries may think we're a bunch of idiots.

Exhibit A: the Big Yellow Bag

 

People come to IKEA for ONE THING, and then they pick up the BYB and start looking at throw pillows and bedskirts saying things like, "Well, isn't this a bargain?" Subconsciously they are thinking "I'll bet this could fit in the BYB..."

 

 To explain, you go there and "for your shopping convenience" they have the Big Yellow Bag (see photo) for you to borrow whilst shopping. Now, the BYB is bigger and yellower than any bag ever should be. It's made that big so you feel stupid if you only put one thing in it, wasting a lot of BYB available space. It would feel like you were that person who lives alone and drives a Hummer around, ruining the world.

 

We're Americans and we can't help wanting to use all of our available resources, so you see people in IKEA trying to stuff all of the throw pillows and shower curtains on God's green earth into the BYB. Not only are we buying stuff we don't need, but we look hideous while doing it, almost like a tackier, yellower Santa who gives presents to himself.

There were these bundles of sticks that all these people kept stopping to look at. "Man, these are some great sticks. Imagine the possibilities!"

Then, there's the issue of buying things that Nature gives you for free. At IKEA they were selling large bundles of sticks. Granted, they were cleaner than "fresh" ones, but no. Just no. Next to them were pine cones and other forrest contraband. I'm not sayin' I don't think they look kinda cool in a vase but are you really going to BUY them?

 

You might argue, "But what about those poor souls who don't live near trees, but want the joys of nature in their house?" Well, all I can say is that deforrestation in the name of their vase-decorating "needs" could be linked to the reason for the large distances between those people and real Nature. Not only that, but I can just see people in Brazil going, "They buy WHAT in America? [Except in Portuguese] Hahahahaha!" I mean, laughing at us.

 

Or maybe it's just me laughing at us. Well, me and the Swedes that own IKEA