A few days ago, when I blogged about having dinner with Jon, I intentionally omitted a humorous anecdote about the self-checkout machine at the grocery store. Because Jon had dibsed it for his blog, and dibses must always be honored by friends.
It may have taken him a few days, but I think Jon did the story justice. Go forth, read, and be amused.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The Three Geekiest Reasons to be Excited About Summer (and One Not-Geeky Reason!)
I don't go to the movies very often. The last movie I saw in the theater had snakes and planes and was so satisfying as a movie-going experience that I just haven't had the heart to displace it as "the last movie I saw in the theater." It's kindof like when you swear you'll never wash your hand again after that cute boy you are in love with touched it. Or maybe it's kindof like I'm too cheap to spend money on movies, which seem to double in price every year. One or the other.
But, I will be washing my proverbial movie hand this summer at least, as two movies hit the theaters that I have been eagerly awaiting for some time now.
The first is a movie based on a book by one of my all-time favorite authors, Neil Gaiman. It's got a great cast, and I fully expect to love it as much as my teenage self loved The Princess Bride. So, I will definitely be seeing Stardust when it comes out on August 10. And, if you are an especially big nerd like me, you will be equally excited to know that Paramount will be putting the trailer for Stardust up on the Yahoo Movies site tomorrow at noon. That's how much confidence I have in this movie's going-to-be-good-ness. I'm linking to the trailer before I've ever seen it myself.
The second summer movie I am looking forward to is, of course, the fifth Harry Potter movie. It's being released on July 13, which is also, incidentally, the same day as Erin and Brian's wedding, which I am in. Erin's sister and I are trying to figure out whether we can squeeze in a midnight showing on Thursday night, in between the bachelorette party and the wedding day. I honestly think we can. The trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is already available on the website, and you actually get a glimpse or two of Umbridge, who is one of the main reasons I am looking forward to this movie. I think she is one of the most well-written "bad" characters I've come across in literature in a long time. When I first read the book, there were several times that I had to set the book down and take a walk because I was literally shaking with anger and frustration. That's quality writing. I hope the movie does her justice.
I said three geeky things, and anyone who followed the entire Harry Potter discussion above probably already knows what I am going to say next. Not only is the fifth movie coming out this summer, but the seventh, and FINAL Harry Potter book is coming out this summer! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which we have been promised the death of at least one main character, is being released on July 21. I think it's a little bit unfortunate that it's coming out so close to the movie, because I know I will want to read book six again after seeing the movie, but then again, I'll have a week, and I'm pretty sure I read book six in less than a week the first time around.
So, have I geeked out enough for one post?
So, here's the other reason I am looking forward to next summer. (And, I'm totally posting this without permission, and may be in trouble shortly, but it's just too adorable to not share.) Sometime in early August, I will get to meet the growing little person inside of this glowing little person:
Hooray for summer!
But, I will be washing my proverbial movie hand this summer at least, as two movies hit the theaters that I have been eagerly awaiting for some time now.
The first is a movie based on a book by one of my all-time favorite authors, Neil Gaiman. It's got a great cast, and I fully expect to love it as much as my teenage self loved The Princess Bride. So, I will definitely be seeing Stardust when it comes out on August 10. And, if you are an especially big nerd like me, you will be equally excited to know that Paramount will be putting the trailer for Stardust up on the Yahoo Movies site tomorrow at noon. That's how much confidence I have in this movie's going-to-be-good-ness. I'm linking to the trailer before I've ever seen it myself.
The second summer movie I am looking forward to is, of course, the fifth Harry Potter movie. It's being released on July 13, which is also, incidentally, the same day as Erin and Brian's wedding, which I am in. Erin's sister and I are trying to figure out whether we can squeeze in a midnight showing on Thursday night, in between the bachelorette party and the wedding day. I honestly think we can. The trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is already available on the website, and you actually get a glimpse or two of Umbridge, who is one of the main reasons I am looking forward to this movie. I think she is one of the most well-written "bad" characters I've come across in literature in a long time. When I first read the book, there were several times that I had to set the book down and take a walk because I was literally shaking with anger and frustration. That's quality writing. I hope the movie does her justice.
I said three geeky things, and anyone who followed the entire Harry Potter discussion above probably already knows what I am going to say next. Not only is the fifth movie coming out this summer, but the seventh, and FINAL Harry Potter book is coming out this summer! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which we have been promised the death of at least one main character, is being released on July 21. I think it's a little bit unfortunate that it's coming out so close to the movie, because I know I will want to read book six again after seeing the movie, but then again, I'll have a week, and I'm pretty sure I read book six in less than a week the first time around.
So, have I geeked out enough for one post?
So, here's the other reason I am looking forward to next summer. (And, I'm totally posting this without permission, and may be in trouble shortly, but it's just too adorable to not share.) Sometime in early August, I will get to meet the growing little person inside of this glowing little person:
Hooray for summer!
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
An Evening with Jon
"Are you hungry?"
"Yeah."
"What do you want to do about dinner?"
"I dunno."
"Well, I need to get some things from the grocery store anyhow, we could pick something up there."
"Sounds good."
Later, at the grocery store...
"So, what do you want to eat?"
"I dunno."
"We could buy eggs and have omelets."
"Yay, omelets!" (runs off to fetch red peppers)
Later, at Jon's apartment...
Jule Ann is in the kitchen cracking, chopping, whisking, and cooking. Jon sits down to watch American Idol.
"I hope it's okay that I don't really know how to make proper omelets. I always cheat and just make scrambled eggs, then let them congeal into a patty at the end. I like them better that way anyhow. I don't particularly like proper omelets."
"Really? Then why did you agree to having omelets for dinner?"
"Because I secretly knew that you would sit down and watch American Idol, so I could make them however I wanted."
"You know, I think this is the first proper meal I have made in my new apartment."
"I'm going to have to disagree with your definition of 'proper meal'. And 'I'."
"Yeah."
"What do you want to do about dinner?"
"I dunno."
"Well, I need to get some things from the grocery store anyhow, we could pick something up there."
"Sounds good."
Later, at the grocery store...
"So, what do you want to eat?"
"I dunno."
"We could buy eggs and have omelets."
"Yay, omelets!" (runs off to fetch red peppers)
Later, at Jon's apartment...
Jule Ann is in the kitchen cracking, chopping, whisking, and cooking. Jon sits down to watch American Idol.
"I hope it's okay that I don't really know how to make proper omelets. I always cheat and just make scrambled eggs, then let them congeal into a patty at the end. I like them better that way anyhow. I don't particularly like proper omelets."
"Really? Then why did you agree to having omelets for dinner?"
"Because I secretly knew that you would sit down and watch American Idol, so I could make them however I wanted."
"You know, I think this is the first proper meal I have made in my new apartment."
"I'm going to have to disagree with your definition of 'proper meal'. And 'I'."
Monday, March 19, 2007
Full
Saturday was my last shift at Starbucks. It was also the morning after a particularly nasty storm, so it took me ten minutes to dig my car out from under piles of ice, and another ten to get it to back out of the driveway. Somehow, in the process, I also managed to kill the motor on the car's heater, probably by turning it on when the intake was blocked. So, no heat on the way to work on the coldest morning of the year. Oops.
But, Saturday ended up being a surprisingly good shift at work. Once the sun came up, business picked up, and we kept a pretty steady pace all day. I said goodbye to some of my regular customers, and simply served others with my usual smile, not wanting to disrupt their day with a sappy goodbye. Then, it was time for me to leave, and I dropped my keys in the safe, and went home, and cried for half an hour.
I've never been good at goodbyes. When I was in college, I used to hide at the end of the semester when everyone was packing up their stuff. And then, when the next semester started, and people would say things to me like, "I never saw you to say goodbye at the end of last semester!" I would feign innocence, and act like it was all an unfortunate accident. So I guess I've gotten a little bit better at saying goodbye, or I would have just hidden it from everyone. But still, there are several people who have been a regular part of my life, and I theirs, for the past year, whom I will probably never see again, and I never really made the effort to say a proper goodbye. In a way, it was easier with my coworkers, because I know I will see them when I visit, and many of them are already programmed into my cell phone so we can hang out later. And we will. But making someone's latte for them is a connection, too, as is knowing their drink and having it ready for them by the time they reach the counter. And it's hundreds of those random connections that I am losing as I leave my store.
It's more than that, too. Those of you who know me well know how much of a beating my self-esteem took in my first year out of law school. Starbucks was the first proper job I had after that, and I couldn't have been working at a better place to heal my shattered ego. I was constantly encouraged and supported, and my efforts to clean things, organize things, and improve things were acknowledged and (mostly) appreciated. I genuinely enjoyed my job, and I was good at my job. It's hard to let something like that go, even when you know, deep down, that it can't last forever.
Saturday night, I spent with friends, and I was glad for the distraction. Rachel cooked a fantastic Irish meal, and we ate and talked for hours, enjoying each others' company. I was, perhaps, slightly less than my usual bubbly self, but no one condemned me when I waxed quiet or broody on occasion. My mom pointed out to me the last time we talked that, as hard as it has been for me this past year, it's been bearable because of my friends. And she's right. I don't like to brag, but there are worse things to be proud of. I really do have awesome friends.
And an awesome church. Sunday morning, I went to church early, although I didn't really know why. When I got there, I discovered that the worship team was short a voice, and that they would be doing a few drummy songs, so I jumped in for the pre-service worship time, and was blessed to be a part of it. Then, after church, our "faith in action" event was bringing meals to some of the housebound members of the church. We split up into five groups, and went five different ways, and I opted to not accompany the group that was going to have lunch with my husband, since I see him all the time, and instead spent a fantastic lunch with two absolutely wonderful older ladies who grew up in my church when it was huge and thriving.
And, in case my heart was not already full, one of my friends from church invited me over for a tea party on Sunday afternoon. Tea, and scones, and female conversation (to be honest, not a regular occurrence in my life) filled the rest of my afternoon. I felt a little disconnected at first, as everyone else talked about topics that they had all obviously discussed before. I wondered why I had gone, and what had made me think I would have anything to talk to a group of women about. But they gradually drew me in, and I found myself opening up, and really enjoying the connection.
I haven't talked about my faith a whole lot on my blog lately, but don't feel bad: it's not you, it's me. I haven't really talked about my faith to anyone lately. But I think about it, a lot. I've found myself questioning assumptions I have held for basically my entire life, and while I haven't necessarily rejected anything, I have stripped my beliefs down, layer by layer like an onion, in an attempt to figure out what lies beneath it all. And I am so far from any kinds of conclusions, I don't dare even try to blog about it. Because even stripped down, I still have an ironic security in some of the things that I believe, but I lack the clarity to make any kind of coherent argument about how or why.
But somehow, girl talk dragged some of that out of me, and while I didn't leave with any new answers, I did leave feeling purged of some of the murkiness. And I am grateful to my church girlfriends, and hope that I will remember that and make more efforts to seek out their company more often.
Full, and fuller, I looked at the clock and decided that I still had time to swing by Starbucks and see an ex-coworker of mine who had moved to Boston last summer but was in town this week for Spring break. He was going to be playing an impromptu show at my store, and I wanted to see him. Unfortunately, I was too late for the show, but I got to chat with several people I hadn't seen in a while, and it was really nice catching up. It was also nice to be able to tell new people about my new job, because it allowed me to get back into the mindset that I had been in two weeks prior, when I was so excited about the new job, and felt like everything was looking up. Two weeks of thinking too much had dampened my enthusiasm, and it was refreshing to feel enthusiastic again.
And that, in an extremely verbose and hyper-introspective way, brings us to today: my first day at the new job. Which I won't really be talking about. How anti-climactic. But, I think that my "don't blog about your job" policy is a pretty good one, and I will continue to respect it for the time being.
Because frankly, even if I wanted to talk about my first day at my new job, I'm not sure I could. I'm such a backlog of thoughts and emotions right now, I feel like it will be months before my brain catches up with my life. Even as I type and retype perpetually inadequate endings to this post, I keep coming up empty-handed for a conclusion. I guess there is no conclusion.
But, Saturday ended up being a surprisingly good shift at work. Once the sun came up, business picked up, and we kept a pretty steady pace all day. I said goodbye to some of my regular customers, and simply served others with my usual smile, not wanting to disrupt their day with a sappy goodbye. Then, it was time for me to leave, and I dropped my keys in the safe, and went home, and cried for half an hour.
I've never been good at goodbyes. When I was in college, I used to hide at the end of the semester when everyone was packing up their stuff. And then, when the next semester started, and people would say things to me like, "I never saw you to say goodbye at the end of last semester!" I would feign innocence, and act like it was all an unfortunate accident. So I guess I've gotten a little bit better at saying goodbye, or I would have just hidden it from everyone. But still, there are several people who have been a regular part of my life, and I theirs, for the past year, whom I will probably never see again, and I never really made the effort to say a proper goodbye. In a way, it was easier with my coworkers, because I know I will see them when I visit, and many of them are already programmed into my cell phone so we can hang out later. And we will. But making someone's latte for them is a connection, too, as is knowing their drink and having it ready for them by the time they reach the counter. And it's hundreds of those random connections that I am losing as I leave my store.
It's more than that, too. Those of you who know me well know how much of a beating my self-esteem took in my first year out of law school. Starbucks was the first proper job I had after that, and I couldn't have been working at a better place to heal my shattered ego. I was constantly encouraged and supported, and my efforts to clean things, organize things, and improve things were acknowledged and (mostly) appreciated. I genuinely enjoyed my job, and I was good at my job. It's hard to let something like that go, even when you know, deep down, that it can't last forever.
Saturday night, I spent with friends, and I was glad for the distraction. Rachel cooked a fantastic Irish meal, and we ate and talked for hours, enjoying each others' company. I was, perhaps, slightly less than my usual bubbly self, but no one condemned me when I waxed quiet or broody on occasion. My mom pointed out to me the last time we talked that, as hard as it has been for me this past year, it's been bearable because of my friends. And she's right. I don't like to brag, but there are worse things to be proud of. I really do have awesome friends.
And an awesome church. Sunday morning, I went to church early, although I didn't really know why. When I got there, I discovered that the worship team was short a voice, and that they would be doing a few drummy songs, so I jumped in for the pre-service worship time, and was blessed to be a part of it. Then, after church, our "faith in action" event was bringing meals to some of the housebound members of the church. We split up into five groups, and went five different ways, and I opted to not accompany the group that was going to have lunch with my husband, since I see him all the time, and instead spent a fantastic lunch with two absolutely wonderful older ladies who grew up in my church when it was huge and thriving.
And, in case my heart was not already full, one of my friends from church invited me over for a tea party on Sunday afternoon. Tea, and scones, and female conversation (to be honest, not a regular occurrence in my life) filled the rest of my afternoon. I felt a little disconnected at first, as everyone else talked about topics that they had all obviously discussed before. I wondered why I had gone, and what had made me think I would have anything to talk to a group of women about. But they gradually drew me in, and I found myself opening up, and really enjoying the connection.
I haven't talked about my faith a whole lot on my blog lately, but don't feel bad: it's not you, it's me. I haven't really talked about my faith to anyone lately. But I think about it, a lot. I've found myself questioning assumptions I have held for basically my entire life, and while I haven't necessarily rejected anything, I have stripped my beliefs down, layer by layer like an onion, in an attempt to figure out what lies beneath it all. And I am so far from any kinds of conclusions, I don't dare even try to blog about it. Because even stripped down, I still have an ironic security in some of the things that I believe, but I lack the clarity to make any kind of coherent argument about how or why.
But somehow, girl talk dragged some of that out of me, and while I didn't leave with any new answers, I did leave feeling purged of some of the murkiness. And I am grateful to my church girlfriends, and hope that I will remember that and make more efforts to seek out their company more often.
Full, and fuller, I looked at the clock and decided that I still had time to swing by Starbucks and see an ex-coworker of mine who had moved to Boston last summer but was in town this week for Spring break. He was going to be playing an impromptu show at my store, and I wanted to see him. Unfortunately, I was too late for the show, but I got to chat with several people I hadn't seen in a while, and it was really nice catching up. It was also nice to be able to tell new people about my new job, because it allowed me to get back into the mindset that I had been in two weeks prior, when I was so excited about the new job, and felt like everything was looking up. Two weeks of thinking too much had dampened my enthusiasm, and it was refreshing to feel enthusiastic again.
And that, in an extremely verbose and hyper-introspective way, brings us to today: my first day at the new job. Which I won't really be talking about. How anti-climactic. But, I think that my "don't blog about your job" policy is a pretty good one, and I will continue to respect it for the time being.
Because frankly, even if I wanted to talk about my first day at my new job, I'm not sure I could. I'm such a backlog of thoughts and emotions right now, I feel like it will be months before my brain catches up with my life. Even as I type and retype perpetually inadequate endings to this post, I keep coming up empty-handed for a conclusion. I guess there is no conclusion.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Horoscope
First, let me say that I don't put a lot of stock in horoscopes. I think that, in some people, the personality side of the Zodiac can be fairly accurate (in fact, if you read a description of a typical Aquarius, it's an approximately 85% accurate description of me). I don't know why this is, maybe it's the way April showers affected your brain at a certain stage of development, but there is something to that aspect of horoscopes. I don't think that they are determinative, however, and I don't believe in using astrology to tell the future or make major or minor life decisions.
That said, I often read my horoscope in the morning paper. Just because it's there, on the page beside the comics, and I usually finish the comics before I finish my breakfast. And I often need something to cheer me up after being so very disappointed, once again, with the caliber of humor on the so-called funny pages.
As is the case with most vague statements, my one-liner horoscope is sometimes spot on, sometimes spot off, and sometimes ambiguous enough to go either way. Today's horoscope, however, was obviously not written by anybody who has been around me recently. So much for astrology.
At least I got a good laugh out of something in the paper today. Stupid Garfield and his stupid spiders...
That said, I often read my horoscope in the morning paper. Just because it's there, on the page beside the comics, and I usually finish the comics before I finish my breakfast. And I often need something to cheer me up after being so very disappointed, once again, with the caliber of humor on the so-called funny pages.
As is the case with most vague statements, my one-liner horoscope is sometimes spot on, sometimes spot off, and sometimes ambiguous enough to go either way. Today's horoscope, however, was obviously not written by anybody who has been around me recently. So much for astrology.
AQUARIUS: You're the light, bright spirit who will know how to help others erase troubling thoughts from their minds.
At least I got a good laugh out of something in the paper today. Stupid Garfield and his stupid spiders...
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Musings
I just finished reading my blogrolls for the day, and I counted no less than two poop stories and one bathroom story in the most recent round of entries.
And I'm wondering if it's more odd that these three stories all appeared on the same day, or that none of the aforementioned bloggers are the parents of small children.
Probably what is most odd, however, is the fact that I noticed the trend at all. But then again, I am accustomed to being the oddest element in any given equation.
And I'm wondering if it's more odd that these three stories all appeared on the same day, or that none of the aforementioned bloggers are the parents of small children.
Probably what is most odd, however, is the fact that I noticed the trend at all. But then again, I am accustomed to being the oddest element in any given equation.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
I guess it wasn't the laughing after all
I believe I mentioned here that the rest of the house has been sick recently. Some kind of cold/flu/G.I. thing. My brother-in-law got it the worst, with basically all of the imaginable symptoms. My parent-in-laws both got off with slight colds. My husband had a fever and cold symptoms, but seems to be mostly on the mend (well, back to his normally sick state, anyhow). Saturday night, I started to notice a slight sore throat, which has since developed into a full-blown cold. I'm still hoping I will escape the worst of it, but after two days of crappy coldiness, I am confident that the sore throat was caused by the illness that has been making the rounds of my house, and not, unfortunately, by all the laughing I did this weekend.
But I didn't open this blog post to complain about being sick. I opened it to publicly complain about my own stupidity. I know that the reason most people read blogs is to be reminded how much smarter they are than other people and/or how much other people are screwing up their lives much worse than they are. So, without further ado, here is an anecdote to make you feel better about yourself.
I tried to go to bed about an hour and a half ago. But my nose was stuffy. And I can't sleep when I can't breathe, so I got up and took some Sudafed.
Which is basically speed.
Which is not exactly sleep-inducing.
So I went back to bed, knowing that I had about a half hour or so before the drugs would kick in, and hoping I could fall asleep quickly, before they did. But I couldn't fall asleep, because my nose was stuffy. And it remained stuffy well after the wide-awake-ness of the Sudafed kicked in. So I tossed, and turned, and cursed drugs and my own stupidity, and finally gave up and came back out here to kill time on my computer. And I finished reading all my blogrolls, and ran out of distractions, so I decided that the only thing left for me to do was create content of my own. (This was after joining Facebook and my ten-year high school reunion forum.)
So, in the end, I guess that wasn't a very interesting story. But it's all I've got right now. Unless you want to hear about random things that I now have time to link to, since I've probably got another hour to kill before my body adjusts enough to the speed to let me sleep. (I buy the 12-hour Sudafed for precisely this reason: I can usually go to sleep about 3 hours or so after taking it, after it has worked its magic on the stuffiness, and after my body has adapted to the adrenaline buzz. But unfortunately, I forgot to take the 12-hour Sudafed when I needed to, three hours before bedtime, when I was still at work.)
So, links, eh?
Free coffee at Starbucks on March 15
Free iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts on March 21
Free Rita's Water Ice on March 21 (I blogged about this last year.)
Hmmm... Still awake...
Okay, one more thing, then I swear, I will go distract myself with flash games or videos on YouTube. This is like one of those "name five songs you are listening to right now" memes, except that it's so highly specialized that I doubt anyone else will really be able to steal it and do it themselves. And, I'll probably cheat and list more than five.
Starbucks has some pretty good music on their regular rotation right now. And, I am fortunate enough to work in a store that still has one of the older machines that lets you scroll through and select which song you want it to play (although you're stuck with whatever song happens to come on after that, unless you hang out in the back by the CD player and keep selecting the next song whenever one ends, which frankly, you never really have time to do. Unless you have just closed the store and are running some of the closing procedures in the back, directly underneath the machine, but then you don't get to really hear the songs, because they will be playing in the lobby, not the back.
So, without further rambling, here are the songs that I will skip to if I ever have the time, the songs that make me happy and a more productive worker, the songs that I might just have to buy when I no longer have Starbucks to play them for me:
1. Sandi Thom - I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (with Flowers in My Hair)
2. Belle and Sebastian - The Blues are Still Blue
3. Janis Joplin - Mercedes Benz
4. Zero 7 - Throw It All Away
5. Lily Allen - Littlest Things
6. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3
7. Damien Rice - 9 Crimes
8. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
(Okay, fine, that's an album, not a song, but I made the game up, so I get to bend the rules.)
But I didn't open this blog post to complain about being sick. I opened it to publicly complain about my own stupidity. I know that the reason most people read blogs is to be reminded how much smarter they are than other people and/or how much other people are screwing up their lives much worse than they are. So, without further ado, here is an anecdote to make you feel better about yourself.
I tried to go to bed about an hour and a half ago. But my nose was stuffy. And I can't sleep when I can't breathe, so I got up and took some Sudafed.
Which is basically speed.
Which is not exactly sleep-inducing.
So I went back to bed, knowing that I had about a half hour or so before the drugs would kick in, and hoping I could fall asleep quickly, before they did. But I couldn't fall asleep, because my nose was stuffy. And it remained stuffy well after the wide-awake-ness of the Sudafed kicked in. So I tossed, and turned, and cursed drugs and my own stupidity, and finally gave up and came back out here to kill time on my computer. And I finished reading all my blogrolls, and ran out of distractions, so I decided that the only thing left for me to do was create content of my own. (This was after joining Facebook and my ten-year high school reunion forum.)
So, in the end, I guess that wasn't a very interesting story. But it's all I've got right now. Unless you want to hear about random things that I now have time to link to, since I've probably got another hour to kill before my body adjusts enough to the speed to let me sleep. (I buy the 12-hour Sudafed for precisely this reason: I can usually go to sleep about 3 hours or so after taking it, after it has worked its magic on the stuffiness, and after my body has adapted to the adrenaline buzz. But unfortunately, I forgot to take the 12-hour Sudafed when I needed to, three hours before bedtime, when I was still at work.)
So, links, eh?
Free coffee at Starbucks on March 15
Free iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts on March 21
Free Rita's Water Ice on March 21 (I blogged about this last year.)
Hmmm... Still awake...
Okay, one more thing, then I swear, I will go distract myself with flash games or videos on YouTube. This is like one of those "name five songs you are listening to right now" memes, except that it's so highly specialized that I doubt anyone else will really be able to steal it and do it themselves. And, I'll probably cheat and list more than five.
Starbucks has some pretty good music on their regular rotation right now. And, I am fortunate enough to work in a store that still has one of the older machines that lets you scroll through and select which song you want it to play (although you're stuck with whatever song happens to come on after that, unless you hang out in the back by the CD player and keep selecting the next song whenever one ends, which frankly, you never really have time to do. Unless you have just closed the store and are running some of the closing procedures in the back, directly underneath the machine, but then you don't get to really hear the songs, because they will be playing in the lobby, not the back.
So, without further rambling, here are the songs that I will skip to if I ever have the time, the songs that make me happy and a more productive worker, the songs that I might just have to buy when I no longer have Starbucks to play them for me:
1. Sandi Thom - I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (with Flowers in My Hair)
2. Belle and Sebastian - The Blues are Still Blue
3. Janis Joplin - Mercedes Benz
4. Zero 7 - Throw It All Away
5. Lily Allen - Littlest Things
6. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3
7. Damien Rice - 9 Crimes
8. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
(Okay, fine, that's an album, not a song, but I made the game up, so I get to bend the rules.)
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Laughter
Someone once said that laughter is good for the soul. Probably. It sounds like something someone would say, anyhow.
This weekend, my soul has been doing really well.
Friday night, playing games with some friends from church, I didn't stop laughing for about four hours. Laughed so hard it hurt, and on occasion, I couldn't quite breathe. I was having such a good time that I ignored the time, repeatedly, until I finally decided that I would need to go to sleep right then if I wanted to get three full hours of sleep before work.
And then the sun came out on Saturday, and rather than taking a nap on Saturday afternoon, I dragged the hammock outside and lay in the fresh air and sunshine for about an hour, enjoying the smell of the thawing mud of Spring. That's pretty good for the soul, too, I expect.
But, apparently, I still had more laughter in me. And when a bunch of us went out to dinner at the brewery in Manayunk, we were laughing enough to make our table a target for a wandering magician. Who, incidentally, was quite good, and kept us laughing for about an hour non-stop. So much laughing this weekend. So much fun.
And now I'm wondering if this sore throat I have developed over the weekend is more due to the nasty bug that everyone else in my house seems to have caught, or my lousy sleeping habits over the past few days, or, quite simply, to all the laughing. I hope it's all the laughing. I would wear this sore throat like a badge of honor. Anyone can catch a virus, and anyone who is more sociable than responsible can go without sleep, but it takes a special person to rip her throat laughing.
It's probably something boring like "all of the above", though. Stupid viruses.
This weekend, my soul has been doing really well.
Friday night, playing games with some friends from church, I didn't stop laughing for about four hours. Laughed so hard it hurt, and on occasion, I couldn't quite breathe. I was having such a good time that I ignored the time, repeatedly, until I finally decided that I would need to go to sleep right then if I wanted to get three full hours of sleep before work.
And then the sun came out on Saturday, and rather than taking a nap on Saturday afternoon, I dragged the hammock outside and lay in the fresh air and sunshine for about an hour, enjoying the smell of the thawing mud of Spring. That's pretty good for the soul, too, I expect.
But, apparently, I still had more laughter in me. And when a bunch of us went out to dinner at the brewery in Manayunk, we were laughing enough to make our table a target for a wandering magician. Who, incidentally, was quite good, and kept us laughing for about an hour non-stop. So much laughing this weekend. So much fun.
And now I'm wondering if this sore throat I have developed over the weekend is more due to the nasty bug that everyone else in my house seems to have caught, or my lousy sleeping habits over the past few days, or, quite simply, to all the laughing. I hope it's all the laughing. I would wear this sore throat like a badge of honor. Anyone can catch a virus, and anyone who is more sociable than responsible can go without sleep, but it takes a special person to rip her throat laughing.
It's probably something boring like "all of the above", though. Stupid viruses.
Friday, March 09, 2007
One thing I won't miss...
It's been hard saying my goodbyes to everybody at Starbucks. I know I will still see them on occasion, but as a visitor, or even more sadly, as a customer. It won't be the same as working with them on a daily basis. My job is a very interactive job. It's not like an office setting where you might chat for a few minutes at a time with your co-workers at the water cooler; you're constantly working together to put out a product, as a team. In this environment, it didn't take long for me to think of my co-workers rather as friends. I will miss my Starbucks friends a lot.
But you know what I won't miss? 5:00 a.m. Especially after nights like last night. Which went something like this:
9:00 p.m. - finish work, head for home
10:00 p.m. - get ready for bed
10:30 p.m. - set alarm for 4:30 and turn out the lights
10:30 p.m. to around midnight - toss and turn
sometime after finally falling asleep - start to dream strange dreams that all seem to feature a low battery noise at regular intervals
3:15 a.m. - wake up to discover that the low battery noise is, in fact, somewhere in the room
3:17 a.m. - find phone in the dark, fumble for charger base, which is not on the shelf it is supposed to live on
3:18 a.m. - turn on light, find charger base under a pile of clothes, grumble about my crappy housekeeping abilities, place phone on base
3:19 a.m. - turn off light, try to fall asleep
3:20 a.m. - "bdaleep" (that's how I have decided to onomatopoeiatize the low battery noise)
3:21 a.m. - turn light back on, follow cord from charger base to wall, which leads under trash can, which is overflowing, grumble and complain that no one but me ever changes the trash, unplug and plug back in charger base
3:22 a.m. - turn light back off, try to fall asleep
3:23 a.m. - "bdaleep"
3:24 a.m. - turn light back on, unplug charger base, move phone and base both into the other room and plug them in as far away from my sleep-deprived head as I can get them
3:26 a.m. - "bdaleep" - from somewhere inside the bedroom
3:27 a.m. - start to cry
3:28 a.m. - turn light back on, tear room apart looking for another phone
3:30 a.m. - find another phone, also with a dying battery, plug it into another charger
3:32 a.m. - turn light off, try to fall asleep
3:32 a.m. to around 4:00 a.m. - toss and turn
sometime after 4:00 a.m. - finally drift off to sleep
5:10 a.m. - freshly recharged phone rings, it's my fellow opener wondering why I'm not at work yet, mumble a flustered apology, roll into yesterday's work clothes, check why alarm didn't go off and discover that I had set it for 4:30 p.m. (The oldest excuse in the book, I know. I swear it's the first time I've done it in ages.)
5:20 a.m. - arrive at work, spewing apologies and gratitude for the wake-up call to my fellow opener, kick it into high gear and have the doors open for business at 5:25 a.m.
6:28 a.m. (or thereabouts) - start breathing again
But you know what I won't miss? 5:00 a.m. Especially after nights like last night. Which went something like this:
9:00 p.m. - finish work, head for home
10:00 p.m. - get ready for bed
10:30 p.m. - set alarm for 4:30 and turn out the lights
10:30 p.m. to around midnight - toss and turn
sometime after finally falling asleep - start to dream strange dreams that all seem to feature a low battery noise at regular intervals
3:15 a.m. - wake up to discover that the low battery noise is, in fact, somewhere in the room
3:17 a.m. - find phone in the dark, fumble for charger base, which is not on the shelf it is supposed to live on
3:18 a.m. - turn on light, find charger base under a pile of clothes, grumble about my crappy housekeeping abilities, place phone on base
3:19 a.m. - turn off light, try to fall asleep
3:20 a.m. - "bdaleep" (that's how I have decided to onomatopoeiatize the low battery noise)
3:21 a.m. - turn light back on, follow cord from charger base to wall, which leads under trash can, which is overflowing, grumble and complain that no one but me ever changes the trash, unplug and plug back in charger base
3:22 a.m. - turn light back off, try to fall asleep
3:23 a.m. - "bdaleep"
3:24 a.m. - turn light back on, unplug charger base, move phone and base both into the other room and plug them in as far away from my sleep-deprived head as I can get them
3:26 a.m. - "bdaleep" - from somewhere inside the bedroom
3:27 a.m. - start to cry
3:28 a.m. - turn light back on, tear room apart looking for another phone
3:30 a.m. - find another phone, also with a dying battery, plug it into another charger
3:32 a.m. - turn light off, try to fall asleep
3:32 a.m. to around 4:00 a.m. - toss and turn
sometime after 4:00 a.m. - finally drift off to sleep
5:10 a.m. - freshly recharged phone rings, it's my fellow opener wondering why I'm not at work yet, mumble a flustered apology, roll into yesterday's work clothes, check why alarm didn't go off and discover that I had set it for 4:30 p.m. (The oldest excuse in the book, I know. I swear it's the first time I've done it in ages.)
5:20 a.m. - arrive at work, spewing apologies and gratitude for the wake-up call to my fellow opener, kick it into high gear and have the doors open for business at 5:25 a.m.
6:28 a.m. (or thereabouts) - start breathing again
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Wednesday Night Love
Friends watch LOST with you.
Super Awesome Amazing Friends wait until 11:00 p.m. to watch LOST with you when you have to work on a Wednesday night until 10:30 and have to record it the old-fashioned way from a broadcast signal to your VCR.
Jeremy and Dan are officially awesome.
(But I still like you, too, Jon. Because I only work until 8:30 next Wednesday night, which gives me plenty of time to get to your house and watch LOST the new-fashioned way: in HD and as big as a wall. I'm still invited, right? I'll bring cookies...)
Super Awesome Amazing Friends wait until 11:00 p.m. to watch LOST with you when you have to work on a Wednesday night until 10:30 and have to record it the old-fashioned way from a broadcast signal to your VCR.
Jeremy and Dan are officially awesome.
(But I still like you, too, Jon. Because I only work until 8:30 next Wednesday night, which gives me plenty of time to get to your house and watch LOST the new-fashioned way: in HD and as big as a wall. I'm still invited, right? I'll bring cookies...)
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