magical deals

i get such a warm fuzzy feeling when i find something cute that is on sale.  (is that bad?  i guess i'm supposed to get a warm fuzzy feeling when i help others...which i do.  this is just a different kind of warm fuzzy.)  i am feeling especially proud of my trip to ann taylor loft today.  i bought a fuschia dress (i can't find it online to show you the link), regularly priced at $98, for $23.  and this dress, regularly priced at $128, for $29.  I AM AMAZING.  and there was vanity sizing.  really, it was the best shopping outing ever.

i'm going to a new years (or year's or years' - help!) party tonight and needed something cute to wear.  i will probably freeze to death.  but at least i'll look good doing it.

hope everyone has a happy and safe end to 2009!

mashup

this is a really cool mashup of some billboard hits this year, and i hope you enjoy it: Blame It on the Pop.  i have now watched it three times in a row.  i figured: good enough to repost.  i found it though a friend of Becky's blog that i read daily.  she entertains me.  you should read her blog, too.

mcgrady

after a really nice week at home, i'm back in atlanta, the land of wireless internet and central heating and yoga studios!  it was a great trip home, though, and so good to spend time with my family.  this is where i grew up and where my parents still live.  just keep zooming out until you find a town you've heard of.  i hope that happens before the towns on the map are charlotte and raleigh.

for those of you who haven't been there, mcgrady is a zero stop light town, a place where you drive ten miles to get "into town" to work or do whatever shopping you need to do.  when i was just learning to drive a stick shift (i was probably 20 years old), i was driving through "town" (north wilkesboro) and i stopped at a stop light.  i was in the left turn lane.  i was the first car.  the light turned green.  i stalled.  and restarted the car.  and stalled.  and restarted the car.  bottom line: i stalled all the way through the light.  the light was green for a while and then turned yellow and then red again and i was STILL SITTING THERE frantically trying to get the car to move.  this is indicative of my driving skills early on; i'm much better now thankyouverymuch.  here's the thing, though: not a single car honked at me while i stalled through that light.  and THAT, in a nutshell, tells you a lot about the place where i grew up.

i am an object at rest

i gave up on reading the oldest living confederate widow tells all because it was boring and it was slow.  i got through 250 pages before i just couldn't make myself pick up the book any more.  i hate abandoning books, but i really had to this time.  now i'm reading the story of edgar sawtelle and it's so hard to put DOWN.  victory.  and christmas time allows for a lot of book reading.  and a lot of tv and movie watching...i watched the two movies from netflix that i'd had at home since just after thanksgiving.  sheesh. 

oh, and eating.  christmas time allows for a lot of eating.  gingerbread cookies, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, sea salt caramels from trader joe's.  i don't even want to think about what i've been eating.  the gift certificate dad got me to my new yoga studio (!!) will be put to good use in january...

there is also a lot of dog petting required at our house.  even after floor time with dad, the dogs will come up to you when you're sitting on the couch and put their head next to you and just LOOK at you until you pet them.  it's impossible not to.  so cute.

19th place

i'm in a bowling league and we had our last night of bowling tonight.  our team, the pin-ups (we hope you're giggling about that team name right now), was in 19th place out of 20 teams.  hold your applause.  we were battling the 20th place team to try not to lose the league.  tonight we won 2 out of 3 games and total pins, and avoided last place (hooray).  my average is a 120, and this is so symbolic of our team: i bowled a 135, a 187, and a 93.  we are perhaps the least consistent team on the planet.  but oh how proud i am of my 187...

i'm traveling home to NC tomorrow where internet access is spotty, so posting may be sporadic...if i don't write again before friday, merry christmas to all!  i hope you spend the holidays curled up inside with good food, fun board games, and the people you love.  i plan to eat excessive amounts of calories, force my family to play fun games with me, and snuggle with our dogs.

love to you all!

i'm sad that i'm missing this...

omg.  this means ohmygod for the old(er) people reading this.  except the old(er) people i'm directly descended from aren't reading this because when i talked to them at 9pm there were 10 inches of snow on the ground in mcgrady, they don't have internet access at home, and they CLEARLY won't be getting into town any time soon.  10. inches. of. snow.  i made mom get out her tape measure and put on shoes and go out to measure how much was on the picnic table in the backyard and then tell me about it.  she acquiesced because she's a great mom.  the tape measure read 10 inches.  the dogs must be so confused.  abby the dog is only approximately 10 inches high.  i should have made mom measure her, too.

this is an amazing article for two reasons.  one: it says that 3-7 inches of accumulation were expected today (um, they got 10) and an additional 8-12 inches tonight.  yikes!  i can't wait to call tomorrow and find out what happened overnight.  two: the article is on the website of the biggest newspaper in wilkes county, and it is, uh, perhaps not the fanciest website.  this entertains me.

creepy picture guy

for my AP government final exam i gave my students the ability to earn 10 bonus points, 1 each for correctly identifying the following important people, places, and things of 2009.  i purposefully made some of them easy enough that everyone should get them (SHOULD), and some so hard that i didn't know if anyone would get them.  here's the list, for your enjoyment, along with the funniest answers i received.  (giggling over the silly things that students write is the best part about being a teacher.  i figured i should share.)  maximum number of correct answers by a student: 7.

1. bagram - [no funny answers - just lots of wrong answers.  two kids knew, though - i was so proud!]

2. fareed zakaria - president of iran AND president of afghanistan AND regular contributor to Newsweek (creepy picture guy??)

3. fort hood - shooting massacre!  [if you are a 17 year old girl, you like to put exclamation points at the end of sentences that, perhaps, don't need them.]

4. going rogue: an american life - [everyone knew this - hooray]

5. khalid shaikh mohammed - former Nobel Peace Prize winner OR winner of the mayoral race in atlanta

6. mary norwood - [you non-atlantans may not know who she is; she lost the atlanta mayoral race in a run-off, but would have been the first white mayor of atlanta in almost 40 years had she won.]

7. rahm emanuel - terrorist

8. tehran - [most kids knew this, too.]

9. timothy geithner - guy from project runway who always says "designers!" [said by a boy - i love it]

10. the west wing - [i got more answers related to the tv show of this name than the actual location, but i gave them credit]

tuesday, december 15

how to be happy, by miss claire:

step 1: after work, go check out the yoga studio on your way home that you've been meaning to try for a while.  have the best hour and a half of yoga of your life (not totally true...but the best in a really long time), even though the man next to you moans for most of the class.  afterwards, they serve you a little plate of fresh fruit.  who does this?  i will clearly be going back, both for the yoga and for the fruit.

step 2: for dinner, take Trader Joe's Biryani Rice, add a handful of cashews and half a can of chickpeas.  stir fry for 5 minutes.  YOU HAVE NEVER TASTED ANYTHING MORE DELICIOUS.  bonus: when you bring your leftovers to school for lunch it looks like you are an amazing chef when you have done little more than pour things in a skillet and stir.  (shout out to aunt monica for introducing this to me!!)

step 3: watch your blue devils score 113 points and jon scheyer play the game of his life.

step 4: read the story of edgar sawtelle until you fall asleep.

dear santa,

i would like the following things for christmas.  i know some of them won't really fit in your sleigh - i'm just dreaming...


for duke to beat carolina at home and in chapel hill.  and for duke to win the national championship, but i'll settle for just beating carolina twice.

this necklace from etsy

for madewell to start making their graphic t-shirts again.  best fitting shirt EVER.

this wallet, in color "mogano"

any of the following books: city of thieves, gentlemen and players, dreaming in hindi, her fearful symmetry, the hour i first believed

an extra hour every day in which to read these books

for al qaeda and the taliban and all the other bad guys in the world to put down their guns/bombs/other weapons

this ring from etsy (i have no idea what size ring i wear.  7 1/2?  8?)

a garlic press

itunes gift certificates, so i can continue to go crazy every once in a while

love,
claire

chelsea grill

i've found the perfect neighborhood bar, where the bartenders are fun and hilarious, the drinks are reasonably priced and plentiful, the menu includes three vegetarian meals and lots of waffle fries, and you never want to leave.  unfortunately, this bar is in new york city and i do not live in new york city.  CRAP.  this cannot be my neighborhood bar.  THE WORLD IS NOT FAIR.

fantastic dork-a-palooza

last night i went (with three friends) to see a taping of the NPR show "wait, wait...don't tell me" at the cobb energy center here in the lovely atlanta.  it was so fun to see what the panelists and karl casell and peter sagel looked like in real life.  the guest was rick sanchez from CNN, and he was a little lame.  if you had to get someone from CNN, why not anderson cooper??  or better yet, don't get someone from CNN.  give me someone cool.

two wonderfully dorky moments from last night:

in line at the bathroom before the show:
woman #1: quite a line!  we'll get to see if that theory plays out...that a whole bunch of stalls open at the same time, the line moves really fast, and then it stops and you stand and wait for a while.  fast, stop, fast, stop.  what's that theory called?  string theory?  chaos theory?
woman #2 [potentially woman #1's friend]: yeah, doesn't traffic work like that, too?
woman #1: yeah!
[four stalls open at once and the line moves quickly, proving woman #1's theory.]
woman #3 [who definitely did not know the other two] as she walked toward a stall: it's actually alfred p. lloyd's theory.*
woman #1: oh yeah!

*i actually can't remember what she called it, but it sounded something like this.  dad, i am hoping you know.


at the end of the show, they brought a woman from the audience - from the second balcony, where we were sitting! - up on stage to answer a question and win a prize for the audience.  and she won us something - hooray!  what was it, you ask?  well, we NPR fans/listeners each got an NPR tote bag so when we go to whole foods to pick up our free range chicken eggs and organic produce we don't have to use a big bad plastic bag that will hurt the environment and add to our liberal guilt.  oh, NPR, you know us so well.

go to hell, carolina

i paid off one of my two student loans!  i am amazing!  i am patting myself on the back right now.

and you know, even though i had/have two student loans from attending the lovely duke university, i don't care.  it was the best school ever and totally worth paying for some of it myself.  here is why.  a list.  (of course.)

1. i am still very close to rachel, jen, the other rugby girls, morgan, q, andy, mike, thomas, jenny, and veronica from duke.  oh, and the non-blog-reading-sister-of-mine.  that is a lot of people.  i have great friends from college.  i know i am so lucky.

2. duke basketball = the reason to live from november to march.  for those who don't know, i used to regularly forgo warmth and sleep to stand in line/tent for games.  and i miss that a lot now.  it was worth every minute.  i never felt more school spirit than when i was in cameron, sweating profusely, and losing my voice while cheering on the blue devils with 1,600 of my classmates.

3. indian food wednesdays.

4. duke is gorgeous.

5. duke informed me (nonverbally) that i was good at history and liked it.  and that i was bad at chemistry and hated it.  this turned out to be an excellent thing, as i now have an excellent life at an excellent job that i love.

6. veggie tacos and chips and queso at the dillo.

7. i learned how to play rugby, later became president of duwrfc, lived in the rugby house, learned rugby songs, and made some rockin' friends.

8. hearing the bells played from the chapel at 5pm every day.


fellow dukies, what am i missing?

written while watching "rudolph the red-nosed reindeer"

i have an obsession with christmas tv and movies.  i MUST watch the following programs in december:

1. a charlie brown christmas (you will not be surprised to know that i own it)
2. rudolph the red-nosed reindeer (the claymation one)
3. how the grinch stole christmas
4. it's a wonderful life
5. love, actually

optional, but highly suggested, watching:
1. mixed nuts
2. home alone (totally a christmas movie)
3. meet me in st. louis
4. elf

there is something about watching christmas tv programs, particularly, that takes me back to when i was little and believed in santa claus and sat in the living room of our house in mcgrady watching these shows.  if you lived in mcgrady in the 1980s your tv weatherman was neil macneil (real name), and on christmas eve he would pop onto tv every hour or so and show us where santa's sleigh was over a map of the united states.  typically, santa was over new england.  this would be the signal for moms throughout the region to tell their children that santa was getting closer and we needed to go to bed.  because neil macneil was a NEWS ANCHOR (sort of) and if he said santa was coming, SANTA WAS COMING.  i believed it 100%.  and that is what is awesome about being a kid.

lunch time

it was mexican food day in the cafeteria (best lunch day ever!) and in addition to black bean and cheese quesadillas or chicken fajitas (we all know which one i chose), they had real guacamole.  that had come from an avocado, not a bag.  IT WAS AMAZING.

oh, the little things in life...

country singers and creepy abraham lincoln

let me set the scene for you.  nashville, tennessee.  yesterday.  claire, erica, and i are full to the brim with delicious food and we have spent a lot of time reminiscing and giggling.  erica's on a high because alabama kicked florida's butt, i'm on a high because duke beat st. john's (though not as handily as i'd have liked), and claire's on a high because she went for a run.  claire's high is a result of doing good things for her body.  mine and erica's high is from sitting on our butts and eating spinach artichoke dip and occasionally clapping and cheering.

note: there are two claires.  i am one of those claires.  the other claire also works at my school, and sometimes we call her claire #1 because she was there first.  we also look kind of a lot alike.  it is weird.  and awesome.

back to the story.

so we're in nashville and we've put on our dancing shoes and gotten ourselves in a cab and we're headed out to listen to live music and go dancing.  nashville is the BEST PLACE EVER for live music - free, in every bar on the main (touristy) strip, and of really high quality.  mostly country music, but not always.  this was my third time in nashville and every time i've had SUCH a good time going out, mostly because i love live music.  hooray.

at about midnight, in a bar, claire and i saw cowboy troy and gretchen wilson and a man dressed up as abraham lincoln.  the man dressed up like abraham lincoln was creepy because he looked SO like abraham lincoln.  we ran away from him.  or, scurried away from him.  it is hard to run in a bar.  i did not know who cowboy troy was.  we passed by him in the bar at one point and i thought he was just a guy with bad facial hair.  twenty minutes later he was up on stage and the band was introducing him and he was singing/rapping songs.  really fun.  and then the band introduced gretchen wilson who i HAVE heard of.  i kept asking claire "is that really her?" but the moment she started singing her hit songs it was clear that it was.  she sang a couple of her songs with the band behind her - in what appeared to be a totally impromptu performance - and the first stanza of janis joplin's "oh lord won't you buy me a mercedes benz," which entertained me greatly - and then she and cowboy troy disappeared and all was normal again.

so fun.  and it felt so NASHVILLE.

now i am back in atlanta.  and i will take a nap.

typical

Transcription of a voicemail I received today:

"Ms. L [yes, adults who are at least 15 years older than me often call me by my teacher-name...I guess because their children do], this is so-and-so, blah's mom.  I just wanted to let you know that blah is going to be tested for ADHD this Friday and Monday and will miss school for it - we think she has it pretty bad.  If you could...[3 second pause]...oh my goodness, I'm driving and I thought they just tore down Rio Bravo on Roswell Road.  Maybe I have ADHD, too.  Anyway, if you could give me a call, my number is..."


The apple, friends, does not fall far from the tree...

Tweeter

I'm on a listserv for the AP (advanced placement) course I teach; people on the listserv can email the whole group.  I get about 10 emails a day from other teachers - sharing cool articles or websites or lesson plans...or wasting my time.  Here are some real life examples of how people like to waste my time.

If you are a good person and don't want to listen to me complain about people who are both annoying and bad at technology, stop reading.  This is your only warning.


Email #1:
I know the FRQ's [free response questions - there are four on the AP exam in May] are posted on the college board's website but does anyone have them in word format? I would like a copy if you do.

What I want to say to this person:
You copy and paste.  Seriously?  Are you too lazy to go to the website and find the document...is that what this is about?  So instead you send an email that goes into all our inboxes and we have to delete it?  In the amount of time it took you to write that email you could have gone to the website and copied and pasted and been done with it.  Control-C!  Control-V!


Email #2:
Ok, I admit it I am behind in these things and I don't have time nor the interest to be a slave to them. However, I find that there are some political ramifications to them. I need a quick and brief instruction guide to the use of these innovations on the internet and possible uses for me as an AP teacher. Any suggestions?  I have an account with both Facebook and Tweeter (internet)

What I want to say to this person:
There are a lot of things I want to say to this person.  I like lists.  I will start a list.
1. Correct me if I'm wrong, English teachers - Erica, I'm looking at you - but shouldn't this be "I don't have the time or the interest"?  OR "I have neither the time nor the interest"?  This is my first problem with this email.  Oh, this list is going to be a long one.
2. If you don't have the time "nor" the interest, WHY ARE YOU TRYING??  Just do what you've always done - it's probably okay, and it hasn't gotten you fired yet.
3. Is technology going to enslave you?  Because you insinuate that it is.  And buddy, you're not making any friends ON THE INTERNET LISTSERV YOU BELONG TO.
4. This listserv is for us to exchange ideas, not for me to teach you all about Facebook and "Tweeter," so no, you will not be getting a "quick and brief instruction guide" from me.  [Note: Thanksgiving IS the time for me to teach you all about Facebook and "Tweeter," as I did for my dad last week.  Dad: you get bonus points if you remember what "Tweeter" is really called - show this guy up!!]
5. "I have an account with both Facebook and Tweeter (internet)" is the best sentence I have ever read.  I am giggling so hard right now I have started laugh-crying.  In my office by myself.  If you are not giggling, you are not my target audience for this blog.


Rant over.