parking lot conversation

the scene: i have just gotten out of my car at home.  my roommate is leaving the apartment to go trick or treating with some friends who have kids.

me: um, can you believe those new speed bumps?!
roomie: no! they are going to screw up the suspension in our cars, in addition to being annoying.
me: really?  or are we exaggerating.
roomie: yes!  they are the bumpity bumpity kind!
me: true.  ugh!
roomie: the condo association needs to focus on fixing the gate instead of adding new speed bumps that aren't even necessary.
me: they are old and having nothing better to do!
roomie: no!  they have nothing better to do than meddle!
me: how far do you think it is from the gate to our apartment?  1/4 mile?  one trip around the track?  and now there are two speed bumps between here and there.
roomie: three!  three!  there's that one as you go through the gate!  and no.  it's 1/8 of a mile.
me: i'm going to say 1/6 of a mile just to not be accused of exaggerating.
roomie: fine.
me: and let's be honest, why do we need these speed bumps?  have you ever seen anyone drive too fast up that hill?
roomie: yes!  me!  i've got places to go!
me: i knew you would be indignant about this with me.

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.”
--William James

it has been sads-ville in my world for the last week, which is partially the reason for the lack of posting.  a good friend's father had been fighting cancer for several years and died on saturday.  jim treated his son's friends like family, inviting us on family vacations and to their house for pumpkin carving around halloween and gingerbread house building contests around christmas.  he was warm and generous, a talented writer as he described his fight with cancer on his blog.  the world is worse off for his passing.

sometimes the world seems orderly - that hard work brings success in our endeavors, that the good people win, that every day the world becomes a better place.  other days the world seems chaotic and i search for meaning.  i've been thinking about this line recently, from "the second coming," by yeats: "turning and turning in the widening gyre / the falcon cannot hear the falconer."  i know i'm not alone in feeling like a little falcon, looking for meaning to my circles.

the not feeling alone part?  that's really important.  i've got the best friends and family ever.  how lucky i am to not feel alone in a world where a lot of people do.

ken jennings entertains me.

cookie the little penguin

this is worth watching through to the end (the last 30 seconds are the best).  reasons you should watch this video:
1. his name is cookie.
2. he is a little penguin.
NEED I SAY MORE?

um, oops.

i had my two year blog anniversary in late september and i didn't realize until after the fact.

in belated honor of the anniversary, i've changed up the format of the blog again - mostly just changed the background (love these flowers*) and added a "favicon."  if you know what a favicon is, i'm impressed, as i did not.  it is the little picture to the left of the address in your address bar at the top of the page.  assuming it's still working, that's little me!

my biggest accomplishment today was actually going to the gym even though it was cold and gray outside and i DID NOT want to.  my second biggest accomplishment was completing an 8 x 8 kenken puzzle, probably only the second or third 8 x 8 i've ever completed (i had been doing 6 x 6s until last week).  if you are not kenken-ing, you should be.


*yes, blue with flowers again.  but slightly different blue with flowers!  you shouldn't be surprised about more blue.  let me recreate an exact conversation i had on the phone with my grandma (my dad's mom) about 10 years ago:
me: dad redid the bathroom and mom painted it...
grandma: let me guess: blue.
me: how did you know?
grandma: your mother loves blue.  she always has.
(let's call this "i am my mother, example #6.")

back to the start

have you seen this commercial?  YOU MUST WATCH THIS COMMERCIAL.  it played in the movie theater on monday night when i saw ides of march and i was IN LOVE.



great music, beautiful visually, a message i love.  now, do i think chipotle uses only free range pork and beef in their burritos?  no i do not and by making this commercial they clearly want you to think that they do.  oh well.  i love the commercial anyway.

(will i be buying this song on itunes?  probably so...)

random thoughts

are tuesdays the hardest day of the week for anyone else?  i can NOT stop yawning.

yawning.  what a weird word.

my tuesday is being made even more miserable by the need to be ELOQUENT.  womp womp.  teachers are my school write comments on every student twice a year - october and march.  and here it is: october.  so now i'm trying to write coherent and helpful notes to each family about their child.  it isn't exactly fun, even if i know that is useful and necessary.  i am blogging to put off writing comments.  don't tell.

last night i made quesadillas on my panini press (did i tell you that i bought a panini press?  i did.  it is an incredible invention) and then lily and i saw the ides of march, which really was quite good.  there were exactly 3 other people in the theater.  i guess that's what you get on a monday night.

what i'm listening to right now

thanks to pandora: florence + the machine, "drumming sound"

this video is bizarro, so you should just listen while looking at something else.  i have found this to be a theme: music videos are ridiculous.

i am my mother, example #5

yesterday it was beautiful (we're having such incredible weather here - highs in the 80s, lows in the 50s, sleeping with the windows open weather.  LOVE IT) and i went for a walk at my new favorite walking location (read about it here!).  it is history + beautiful + shady + a 1 hour round trip walk.  it makes me happy.

as i'm on the home stretch and nearing the parking lot, i see a mcdonald's coffee cup on the trail.  here is a transcription of what happened in my brain: "argh!!  it is beautiful here and some lame person is littering.  i hate them.  i should throw this away.  i'm not too far from the parking lot so i won't have to carry it too far.  oh my god.  I AM MY MOTHER."

so i picked up the coffee cup, and then a twix wrapper, and then a starbucks napkin.

when i was growing up, this is what my mom would do all the time.  it's wonderful, of course - leaving the place cleaner than you found it - but somehow this really embarrassed me as a child.  like, mom, don't be weird.  no one else does this.  isn't it funny how much of our childhood we spend trying to be like everyone else?


next thing you know i'll be carrying a special bag on my walks just for other people's trash.

(i will do my best not to let that happen.)

first world problems

i am incredibly spoiled by living in atlanta - not when it comes to my commute (boo hiss), but when it comes to air travel.  because atlanta is a delta hub, i can drive 30 minutes to the airport and then fly almost anywhere on a (relatively cheap) direct flight.  no layovers for me!  direct to new york, DC, london!  (not direct to sun valley idaho, but that i can understand.)

today i had to buy a flight with a layover and it is almost killing me.  hartford, connecticut, i can get to you direct on delta, but it would cost $175 less to take a layover and fly us air.  ugh.  i guess i'll make do.

(so yes!  i'll be in connecticut visiting my grandma and aunt and uncle - and seeing becky and my dad - the last weekend in october.  hooray!)

last night i made vegetarian chili and sour cream and cheddar cheese biscuits.  it was my first lazy evening in a while - cooking and watching tv and lying around over the course of several hours with no obligations to get in the way.  it was wonderful.  the biscuits turned out SUPER sticky, such that i couldn't effectively shape them into circles, so they became more free form on the cookie sheet.  i also made them a bit smaller than the recipe suggests - so i made more like 8 or 9 biscuits instead of 6.  ohmygod they were delicious.  i may have eaten two of them just standing there in the kitchen before even ladling out the soup, grabbing a biscuit, and sitting down to dinner.

new hampshire

this weekend other claire, lilly, and i went to new hampshire to visit two coworkers who moved there this summer.  here is a visual highlight:

add to that: beautiful red and yellow leaves, a walk through the woods, great food, time to read books, a walk on the beach, shopping in portsmouth, and four nights in a house built in 1745 (!!) and you've got my weekend.

it was wonderful to spend time with friends and talk about things big and small.  the weather was incredible - highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s maybe, and sunny all weekend.  coming back to work today was a little bit of a rude awakening...

look for me here on december 5th!  very excited.  now i have to start getting nervous about what i will write...

(don't worry - i'll be sure to link to the blog once my post is up.)

what i'm listening to right now

uh, oops.  i've been really busy lately and haven't been posting as often as i want and mean to...

here's a cheating post (aka i didn't have to work very hard to put this one together):

"maybe," by ingrid michaelson.  LOVE HER.



shout out to lindsey for introducing me to this song!

this morning while driving to work i was listening to NPR, and right after an advertisement for the atlanta ballet's newest production was an advertisement for the european union.  um, whaaaaat?  (a) the european union is not a product, and (b) i thought the EU was in some financial trouble...is advertising on atlanta's NPR station really a good use of their money?

i am so confused.  and entertained.  definitely entertained.


in other news, it was 46 degrees when i drove to work this morning.  DISCUSS.

when i was in new york visiting becky i bought this hoodie (in blue) from athleta and it is totally the best thing everrrrrr.  on saturday i went for a long walk on a trail that runs off of the silver comet trail (a 5 mile drive from my house) and it was such perfect, crisp, sunny fall weather and me and this hoodie became best friends.  so then i wore the hoodie again to yoga today.  and i'm planning to wear it to the gym again tomorrow.

can i go on the record as saying that fall is absolutely the best season?

september: 25, 26, & 27

september!  this month i read...


a feast for crows, by george r.r. martin (the 4th book in the series.  each book is narrated by about 10 characters, who each get a couple of chapters throughout the book to tell the story from their perspective.  GRRM decided to make this a book entirely of new-ish narrators.  i had this conversation (monologue) with a coworker who also reads the books: me: "where is jon?  where is tyrion?  WHERE ARE ALL MY FAVORITE NARRATORS???  i hate jamie chapters.  it is all jamie all the time.  except when it's cersei!  i hate cersei chapters even more!!"  suffice it to say, i got a little feisty about all these new narrators.  i have since calmed down.)

the red tent, by anita diamant (the first book for the book club i've joined!  this is the biblical story of dinah, told from her perspective (which isn't the perspective you find in the bible).  really interesting - a look into a world of the past, and actually not very religious, which surprised me.  i don't know if i would have gotten around to reading this without the book club, but i'm really glad that i did.  and we had an AWESOME conversation about it at the book club meeting.  and kelly fed us delicious food.  victory on all counts.)

the tiger's wife, by tea obreht (i bought this book on august 4th and finished it on september 18th because...other books got in the way.  oops.  there was an urgency around books for book club and books from the library that needed to be returned by a certain date and in that climate this book kept getting put on the bottom of the stack.  it's funny - before this self-imposed book challenge it wouldn't have been unusual for me to spend a month and a half reading a book, but now i am reading 3 or 4 books in that period of time.  because i never got into a good rhythm with this book - it's not that i didn't like it (i did), it just that it never totally hooked me - i didn't love this book.  i mean: good book!  but i wasn't dying to get home to read it in the same way that i've felt with other books.  when i finished it i thought, this was probably supposed to be a profound ending, but it isn't for me.  oops again.)