pubs

one of my coworkers sent me this link to peculiar british pubs, and asked if i'd been to the eagle and child, the pub in oxford that is on the list.  i have, though i almost didn't go there - it's the most well-known pub in oxford because j.r.r. tolkien and c.s. lewis (and probably other people so fancy that they used only their initials) used to eat and drink there, so it felt like a touristy thing to go there.  and i tried (somewhat successfully) to be as un-touristy as possible.  while we ate lunch there, probably five different groups of tourists came in, took pictures, and left, all without having a drink.  and in a country where it is totally appropriate to have a pint of beer or cider at lunch, this is silly.

i went to the eagle and child (aka "the bird and baby" if you want to sound like you are cool and local) with my friend anna (hi anna!) and two of her friends in this weird convergence of two worlds.  anna was flying through the uk last july on her way to zambia, where she has been living and working this year.  and i was in the uk.  she and i live about 400 miles apart in the us, and here we were in the same place thousands of miles away from that.  she met up with some friends for a couple days, and they came to oxford to sight see, and to see me.  we drank beer, ate lunch, bought caramel digestives (the best cookies EVER), and walked around, and it was fabulous.  anna was a year behind me at duke, but a year or two older than me in age, and we liked to call her grandma.  she and i played rugby together and became really good friends and she is wonderful and we miss her now that she is far away.  but she comes home this summer and that will be very exciting.  i don't think our paths will pass again in oxford, but i'll cross my fingers that they will.

bottom line, though - the pubs listed in the article i linked to at the top are really interesting, and you should waste time looking at them.  that is all.

coconut red lentil soup

i've linked to her blog before, but i love this chef/cookbook writer/food experimenter heidi and her vegetarian recipes.  this week i made her coconut red lentil soup, except i used green lentil, because that's what kroger had, and let it thicken until it was less soup and more stew.  DELICIOUS.  i felt like an amazing chef after making it because all the different components came together so well.  it's lentil-y and a tiny bit spicy (it feels thai because of the curry powder and coconut milk) and hearty, but also has a sweetness every once in a while from the ginger (i used pickled ginger) and the raisins.  SO GOOD.  i brought some leftovers for lunch today, and i am now counting down the hours until i can eat it.  because i live from meal to meal.  and maybe that isn't a healthy way to look at things, but it's the way i look at things - planning my next meal as i finish my last one.  who's with me on that?  (i know my sister is, because we do it together...)

david vs. daaaavid

jon stewart talking about duke basketball?  two of my favorite things combined?  oh, life is good.  (he starts talking about it at about minute 1:30, so just enjoy his first joke or two before he gets to the good stuff...)

southbound train

train tracks run right next to my neighborhood, and dozens of times a day we hear the rumble of trains going by.  i don't know what it is, but something about hearing a train go by - not the loud whistle, but the noise the train makes as it goes over the tracks - is really soothing.  these are my train tracks.  hello, train.

the sound is soothing to me in the same way that a thunderstorm is soothing - maybe it's white noise?

speaking of thunderstorms, we need one, and we're supposedly getting one today.  great green-yellow clouds of pollen are blowing off of trees and covering everything in sight.  we need some rain to clean up our city.  this radar map makes me pretty happy.

(from weatherbug)

i learned how to spell kyrgyzstan for this post

"large scale protests appear to have overthrown the government of kyrgyzstan."

we take for granted, i think, that it would take more than 17 deaths in an attempt to overthrow our government, let alone a SUCCESSFUL attempt where the president flees for his life to norway.  yikes.  this is scary and unstable.  and i had to go to google maps to find kyrgyzstan.


and, since in 2010, there are immediately videos of it on youtube.  of course there are.  videos of people in suits coming from the office and riot police and shots being fired.  what crazy world is this that we are living in - where there is immediacy like this?

drag race

for people who are tired of reading about basketball, i offer this:

on sunday i went to a drag race with willis and dani.

that is, i went to an event in which drag queens raced in high heels.  they call it a drag race.  this entertains me greatly.

it actually sounds more interesting than it was.  it was fun, certainly - we scoped out boys for willis, saw lots of men in tacky drag outfits, were horrified when families with small children walked by, and giggled at the races.  but it was also hot, and i melt in the heat.  we stayed about an hour and then left for air conditioning.  because it was in the high 80s this weekend.  WHERE DID SPRING GO?  WHO TOOK HER HOSTAGE?  I DEMAND SPRING BACK!  it is supposed to cool down a bit starting thursday, and rain some, which we need.  then, hopefully, i will have my spring back.

text message record

a selection of text messages received:

9:58pm - nora: i may not live to age 27 if this game continues as such.
10:16pm - jenny: fritz has already damaged his laptop slamming it shut repeatedly.
10:33pm - nora: not going to lie, i have a mini-crush on the butler coach.  if he's the cause of my death it will affect my attraction to him.
11:00pm - becky: only at a duke bar are thirty percent of the fans wearing suits and ties.
11:38pm - jenny: +1000 for zoubek!!!
11:39pm - nora: duuuuuuuuuke!
11:40pm - becky: OMG!!!!!!!!!!  zoubs is a herooooooooo
11:52pm - nora: now i can more openly have a crush on the butler coach, whose name i can never remember.
12:48am - new york times news alert: duke wins NCAA men's basketball championship


here is a great sports illustrated article.  more thoughts later.  let's just say that my heart was beating a thousand miles per hour for the full two hours last night, reaching a fever pitch with about a minute left to play.  i shouldn't have even gone to the gym yesterday; the game gave me a workout for my heart that can best any cardio routine.  zoubs and duke: you have attained greatness.  i knew you were capable of it.  what a team.  SO sad that the season is over, but what a way to end it.

(photo courtesy of the new york times)

duke vs. butler

in honor of the game tonight.  i love this photo:

rip 'em up, tear 'em up, give 'em hell DUKE!


(thanks to dolan and willis for finding this!)

photo

courtesy of the new york times, this is the photo of butler and huggins from last night that i think says it all:

and i didn't say it in the earlier post, but i totally got teary during this moment of the game.  having to watch butler in such pain, writhing on the floor, and then to have huggins come in to comfort him...so touching.  such a human moment...they were two people in that moment, not a player and a coach.

i will take back all the bad things i said about huggins wearing a warm up suit and not a real suit when he coaches

hobbits love the scheyer

is it bad that this doesn't feel real?  that it doesn't feel like duke's playing in the national championship game on monday?  i think it's because i know that duke has imperfections, that we don't have any superstar players, that as recently as february we had games where we played like CRAP, and even in this tournament we've had moments were we struggled.  when we made this run the last time it was in 2001, and we had battier, williams, dunleavy, boozer.  two of those players had their jerseys retired quickly.  THAT was a team of superstars.  i know that basketball has changed in ten years - that more players leave to go pro before finishing four years, so we may never see a team like that again.  and a team like ours - a great TEAM, as coach k said - may be able to win it all.

but it just doesn't feel real.  we played a great game last night - by the end, we were clearly a better team, or a team having a better night.  i'm such a happy girl - and so proud of what they've accomplished.  i know that real athletes play to WIN, but i watch duke basketball for the forty minutes of entertainment.  i like it a lot when we win, but i'm really along for the ride, good season or bad season.  and this is a good season.

I LOVE COLLEGE BASKETBALL SEASON.  come on, devils - let's win one more!


[i will also never get the image out of my mind of bob huggins leaning over da'sean butler and cradling his face and talking him through the pain and the devastation of his season ending right there.  the most tender moment.  you could tell how much huggins loves his players in that single unplanned and unanticipated interaction.]

more pink

a week ago the tulips were just budding and now they are nearing the end of their lives.  still so beautiful, though.  in this photo they are soaking up the heat.  i think they look pretty happy.

bottom line: i love the colors of spring.

final four

charlie rose did a really nice interview with coach k that i've been watching this afternoon.  if you have a spare 30 minutes and care about these things, check it out!

i woke up nervous.  my nerves will be on end all day, i know.  it's final four day.  LET'S GO DUKE!

flowering tree confetti

now begins the time of year when the streets of my neighborhood become covered in the petals from flowering trees...

spring evening

71 degrees when i left world peace cafe at 10:15pm tonight.

drove part of the way home with the windows down.

no school tomorrow.

ceiling fan on in my bedroom.

will be sleeping with the windows open.

[correction: will be sleeping AS LONG AS I WANT HOORAY NO SCHOOL TOMORROW with the windows open.]

atlanta: i am in love with you.

wilkes county

when i saw my parents last weekend, claire #2 and i were telling them that we're going to see the zac brown band in atlanta in may and we are SO EXCITED.  my mom then told us two facts, one of which is true and one of which is not.

fact #1: the zac brown band is coming to merlefest this year!  (a quick google search confirmed this.  i was impressed that my mom (a) had heard of the band, and (b) remembered that they were coming to merlefest.  merlefest, for those who don't know, is this big mostly-bluegrass music festival that happens in my hometown every may.)

fact #2: my mom then says, "zach galifianakis, the drummer in the band, is from wilkes county!  i know his mom!"  my dad was EXTREMELY skeptical.  (so was i.  in fact, i did no research and just wrote this off as false information.  it was interesting, though, that she came up with this [unusual] name seemingly out of nowhere.  perhaps she was on to something.)  fast forward two weeks.  last night i was on facebook.  for those who don't know, facebook suggests friends for you if you know people in common or went to the same school.  there on my facebook homepage was this: "become friends with zach galifianakis.  you both went to wilkes central high school."  HOLY SHIT.  now, he is not in the zac brown band, but my mom was right about something.

wilkes county will now be famous for: lowes foods and lowes hardware starting there, having a nascar racetrack once-upon-a-time, tom dooley, merlefest, famous siamese twins who lived here, and the birthplace of the longest serving senator in us history.  and zach galifianakis.

easter

for easter, instead of a baby chick or a baby bunny, i would like a baby otter.  this is the cutest thing i have EVER SEEN.

art

i had dinner at a teacher-friend's million dollar (or more) house tonight, and i believe he had an original gustav klimt painting in his home.

willis and i conferred by phone afterwards.  about our friend's amazing house, how much fun we had, how nice he is to invite a bunch of us over, and how someone who owns that amazing a house wouldn't - couldn't - have a $20 klimt reproduction in a huge gold frame.  it was like we were in a freaking art gallery.  it was that kind of frame.

holy shit, is all i have to say.

i know little to nothing about art, but klimt's paintings are distinctive.  and beautiful.  so i know about them because i like them.  and this one was gorgeous.

now, how am i going to find out if it is an original without being tacky and asking?  IS it tacky to ask?  if you ask it feels like you are saying "how much money do you have hanging on your wall?," when what i really mean is "i love this."

help.

PSA

because i'm REALLY WHITE, i don't tan.  i mean, obviously.  i guess i didn't realize that until relatively recently, because i did get some bad burns when i was younger because i was attempting to tan.  or being lazy with the sunscreen.

and now i've had two pre-melanomas removed!  awesome!

they are called displastic nevuses (nevi?), and apparently dermatologists are split - some think that displastic nevuses turn into melanomas if you don't do anything; others think that melanomas start out as melanomas and displastic nevuses are nothing to worry about.

i've had my two removed - one in may of last year and one in august - one of which was in the "moderate" stage instead of the "mild" stage, and required a two inch incision to get it all out and seven stitches and a pretty beastly scar.  if people ask about it sometimes i tell them i was knifed in a bar fight.  because it looks like that.  when i was in europe, british people were especially susceptible to believing this story.  in my mind, this is because there is so little violence in the uk and they imagine that the united states is crazy-violent and something like this could just HAPPEN.*

so now i'm going to the dermatologist's office every six months to check my moles instead of once a year.  and yesterday they did biopsies on two more "weird" moles.  i am just accumulating scars like it's my job.

here's hoping that they come back as nothing other than funny looking.

are all of you getting your moles checked once a year?  BECAUSE YOU NEED TO.

that is your public service announcement for today.


*i'm finally watching bowling for columbine, in which michael moore cites this statistic - in 2001, 68 people were killed in the uk by a gun.  in the united states?  11,127.  now, i realize that the population of the us is five times that of the uk, but still.  oh. my. god.

this was my weekend:

duke game with beer and friends.  near heart attack.  yay - we beat purdue even though we played like crap for parts of the game!

oh, sleeping in is so nice.  i don't need to wake up to go to my class at the gym.  i will lie around in my pajamas a little more.

now i will take a long walk in the sun to make up for not going to the gym.  4.4 miles = a lot for me, but the sun and this american life made it go by quickly.

i have earned the right to lie around a lot more and watch basketball and on my computer and talk with q at the same time.  it was like we were in the same room watching it together!  except we weren't.

sunday = big trip to whole foods to buy delicious things i don't really need!  yum.

more lying around.

duke game with massive amounts of diet coke and many friends.  my heart, at points, was beating so loudly that i thought it might jump out of my chest.  i had to stand up for the whole second half.  mike did, too, so i wasn't the only freak.  willis and i like to play a game in which we grade brian zoubek during a game.  if he does something particularly awesome, he gets +1.  if he does something dumb, he gets -1.  except willis thinks zoubek is overrated by people like me (i have discovered that i love zoubek because about a month ago he figured out how to actually score!  and rebound!  and sometimes not foul out!), and willis is very stingy about giving +1s and very quick to give a -1.  but zoubs still ended with a +1 cumulative for the game (after being down as much as -2).  and we won!  yay!  final fourrrrrrrrr for the first time since 2004 (when i was a senior at duke)!

moving mike and kelly into our condo.  fixing of a dryer.  eating angel food cake with chocolate syrup (because it needed a little more sugar).  conference call with the duke friends.  lots of giggling.  sleep.

BSE, duke university, '74 and '05

last night mike and kelly moved into our condo for the week until they can (hopefully) move into their new house.  yay for new roommates!  mike immediately put himself to work fixing our dryer.  because he's my friend like that.  (and because i told him in advance that his services were needed.)  my dad did diagnostic work last weekend, taking the back of the dryer apart, running various dad-created tests to figure out which part was responsible for the fact that the dryer wasn't heating clothes that were put in it.  which is the dryer's JOB, so this was a problem.  his best guess was that the heating element had broken, so he left the back of the dryer disassembled, and labeled all the wires that would need to be reconnected so that even i could probably put it back together once the new part arrived.

the new heating element came in the mail this week and then so did mike (well, he didn't come in the mail...), and mike put it all back together again.  best moment:
him: "oh, your dad labeled all the wires - perfect.  this is exactly how i would have labeled them."
me: "well, you both do have the same degree from the same university, just 31 years apart.  so i'm glad to see that you think the same way."
[note: mike's degree is in electrical engineering and my dad's degree is in civil engineering, but CLOSE ENOUGH.]

thank you, duke, for providing an education in how to fix dryers (or something like that).

and ohmygoodness, GO DEVILS!!

i love march

okay, my life has order again.  ncaa basketball resumes this evening.  whew.  my north star has appeared again, i'm back on track, and i know exactly what i'll be doing for the next four days.  duke doesn't play until tomorrow, but four games this evening will keep me appropriately entertained.

how did i survive the last three days without basketball on tv?  AND (after duke wins the national championship) HOW WILL I SURVIVE THE NEXT SEVEN MONTHS WITHOUT IT?

rant for today

tell 'em, bob herbert!

when people act in ways that i find repulsive, i try to tell myself that they are doing the best they can.  but sometimes i can't believe that.  then i start to tell myself that people are crazy and you can't reason with everyone.  some of the crazy tea party people?  unreasonable.

(also, how will history remember a political party with the acronym TEA to stand for "taxed enough already"?  THIS IS A RIDICULOUS ACRONYM.  i realize that tea parties in the 1770s were for freedom from an oppressive government and these tea partiers now think they are working for freedom from an oppressive government, but seriously?  it's was on a different level then.  GET A BETTER NAME.)

end rant.

polo lane

about a mile from my house, in the middle of a neighborhood, is a long gravel driveway that extends beyond a gate.  it ends in a regulation sized polo field where, in the summer, people bring huge horse trailers and play actual polo on horses.  bizarro world.  beyond the polo field is the chattahoochee river.  you feel like you're in the middle of the country, but you're in the atlanta city limits.

the owner of the land - in the flood plain, so it's understandable that these acres haven't been built on - has a big sign up on the gate that reads something like, "this is private land, not a public park. walkers are welcome, as long as they keep their dogs under their control and respect the horses and wildlife."  i love this man, though i've never met him, because he is generous with his land and dozens of people come here to walk every day, me being one of them.

this is green spring grass in one of the fields.  even though this green screams SPRING, you can tell it's still winter...bare trees, long long shadows.  but the green draws me in...

tuesday night hockey

so i went to an atlanta thrashers (NHL) game tonight and sat in the fourth row, behind the thrashers' bench (do they call it a bench?).  clearly i got the ticket for free from a woman at work.  i had never been to an NHL game before, and it was a great seat and really fun, even though i only sort of knew what was going on.  my favorite part of the game was the fight in the first period.  here is how it went:

some play happens that i don't see because hockey moves REALLY FAST and i was probably looking through my program to figure out who the hell was on the ice at that moment.

a thrashers player and a bruins player get pissed.  they throw off their gloves.  play stops.  the three refs stand around near them.

both players put up their fists like you imagine people doing when they are going to fight.  they circle each other.  everyone in the crowd stands up and begins cheering excitedly.  it appears that some people have come to the game hoping for a good fight like this.

they start throwing punches at each other.  the refs stand around.  the refs kick the gloves out of the way so the players don't trip on them.  i am appalled.  why are the refs not breaking this up?  the other players from both teams stand around.  if this was any other sport, the benches would have emptied by now and other players would be (a) trying to get in on the fight, or (b) trying to stop the fight.  these players are just enjoying the show.

through punches and wrestling moves, the bruins player somehow knocks off the helmet of the thrashers player.  i am thinking to myself, "oh, helmet off - this guy could get really hurt.  the refs will stop it now."  one ref kicks the helmet out of the way.  the fight continues.  punches are being thrown left and right.  i find myself cheering when the thrashers player lands some pretty good punches on the bruins player's face.

after probably 20-30 seconds (which is a really long time when people are punching each other), the refs move in and break up the fight.  both men are led to their respective penalty boxes.

in retrospect, it felt like the testosterone was so thick in the air that the refs thought, "if we let them punch each other for a while, they will feel better and cool down and we can get back to playing hockey."

but i need help: anyone know why they are allowed to do THIS in hockey but not allowed to, say, trip someone?  or hit someone with their stick?  or do any number of other things that are not allowed but aren't as bad as PUNCHING SOMEONE REPEATEDLY IN THE FACE?  i don't get it.

(oh yeah - and the thrashers lost 4-0.  lame.)

your daily procrastination

ohmygod.  try not to cry when you read this article from the new york times, especially the part about the book they read on her first day of college.  it is so perfect.  it is order in a crazy world.  it is wonderful.

pink!

pretty blossoms on a cherry tree in my neighborhood on a sunny day last week.  yesterday was not a sunny day.  in fact, yesterday was a cold rainy day with snow flurries in the morning.  how can it be 70 degrees and sunny one day and 40 degrees and rainy the next?  I DO NOT APPROVE.  the calendar says that it is officially spring now.  the weather needs to man up and act like it.

minimum payment

this is my credit card bill from wachovia this month.  apparently a new law has gone into effect that requires them to explain exactly what this whole "minimum payment" thing and "interest" thing means.  i thought people knew that when you use a credit card and don't pay off the full balance each month, you pay interest on your balance, thus increasing the amount you owe.  apparently everyone wasn't really getting that.  i should have guessed.

what i didn't realize, though (so i'm glad this new law is in effect) is this line: "if you make no additional charges this month, and each month you pay only the minimum payment, you will pay off the balance on this statement in about 19 years."  19 YEARS??  are you kidding me?  i knew that not paying off the full amount each month increased the amount you had to pay, but i didn't realize that someone could be making payments on this bill for almost 20 years.  i think this is a sign that we need to raise the mandatory minimum payment, because this seems ridiculous to me.

note: i always pay off my credit card balance each month because i know that credit cards get people into trouble and, thus, credit cards are scary.  however, this new information on my bill has scared me even more, and while this bill isn't due until april 10th, i will totally be paying it TODAY.  whoever passed a law saying that credit card companies had to spell things out in plain english should be rewarded somehow.  maybe with a cookie.

(do you like how i changed my tune WITHIN THIS POST?  i guess the bottom line is: i think this law is necessary and important for america even if it doesn't change my behavior too much.  the end.)

(click the picture to zoom in.)

more evidence that spring is here!

remember my one lonely daffodil that had bloomed?  he has friends now!  in fact, all the daffodils in my neighborhood are flowering, and they're beautiful.  some tulips have followed their lead.  HOORAY FOR SPRING.

next up: purdue

this girl is really happy about duke's win today!  i was really grumpy that CBS turned away from our game in the middle of the second half to show the two closer games that were on, but i guess it's good to know that duke was winning by enough that they could turn away from our game.

we play again on friday night - so happy that we've made it into the sweet sixteen and get to (hopefully) lay the smack down on purdue.  let's go duke!

i've mentioned it before, but i'll mention it again: i love this time of year.  what am i going to do with myself until games start up again on thursday??  (oh, maybe DO MY JOB and GO TO SLEEP ON TIME...)

911 call by a five year old

okay, this entertained me greatly.  ADORABLE.  i love how she is concerned that she and her dad are still in their "jammies."  if you need a five minute break from work, this should do it...

[thanks, erica!]

i heart cbs

can i tell you how much mom + dad + i love CBS's march madness on demand?  um, thiiiiiiiiiiis much.  you can live stream any of the ncaa tournament games on your computer, which is key when three or four games are going on at the same time and your local CBS station will only be showing one.  so we get my laptop ready, assuming they will cut away from the 1-16 game if/when the 1 team (duke) runs away with it.  well, we turn the tv on, and (horror of horrors!) the georgia tech game is on at the same time and we are CLEARLY in tech country.  they showed not a minute of the duke game on tv, but we watched the whole thing on my laptop.  i couldn't stop talking about how great the live streaming quality was.  IT WAS GREAT.

i love you, cbs.

mom and dad are here this weekend because dad was a guest speaker in my government classes this morning.  they liked the lecture (and seemed to get what he was talking about), but his mustache was the real star of the day.  when you are an 18 year old boy, my dad's mustache is incredible because you really wish you could grow one just like it.  last year one of my students said to me the day after dad's visit, "your dad has a sweet 'stache."

when we go to trivia tomorrow night, dad has proclaimed that we are going to name our team "the sweet 'staches."

also...

...i dare you to read NYU's list of top 100 works of journalism of the 20th century in the US and not get the shivers.  (or maybe that's the historian in me.)

68. Joe Rosenthal. Photograph of Marines raising a U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima. 1945

55. ABC. Live broadcast of Army-McCarthy hearings. 1954

44. Randy Shilts. Reporting on AIDS. 1981-85

41. Huyn Cong Ut. Photograph of a burning girl running from a napalm attack. 1972

35. James Baldwin. "The Fire Next Time." 1963

31. John Steinbeck. Reports on Okie migrant camp life for the San Francisco News. 1936

17. Henry Hampton. "Eyes on the Prize." 1987

14. James Agee and Walker Evans. "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men." 1941

9. Ernie Pyle. Reports from Europe and the Pacific during World War II. 1940-45

4. Edward R. Murrow. "This is London . . ." radio reports for CBS on the German bombing of London. Also collected in book form. 1940

3. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Watergate investigations for the Washington Post. 1972-73

2. Rachel Carson. "Silent Spring." 1962

i heart nonfiction

as a girl who likes nonfiction essays and articles, i am amazed by this list from NYU's journalism school of the 80 best works of journalism this decade.  they plan to narrow it down to 10 "winners," but i may not even pay attention to that when it happens.  this list of 80 is so impressive to begin with.

from this list, i've read/seen:
ehrenreich's nickel and dimed
pelosi's journeys with george
jon stewart's coverage of the '04 and '08 elections
if by chance we meet again, a piece from this american life (that is STUNNING)
lee's when the levees broke
jesus camp
nate silver's blog fivethirtyeight.com (were you my friend in the fall of 2008?  because i was talking about this blog basically every day.)
this american life's episode the giant pool of money
man on wire


[i'm going to be honest, and i didn't realize this when i started this post, i loved - LOVED, like it made a huge impact on me - every one of these pieces that i've read or seen.  so this undertaking by NYU becomes legit to me.  and i would really recommend that people who haven't seen or read the ones i list above to do so now.  now, i said.]


i'd already wanted to read/see:
gladwell's the tipping point
bryson's a short history of nearly everything
fog of war
friedman's the world is flat


nora wallis, are you reading?  because this list makes me think of you. :)

handshakes

a couple weekends ago i spent 7 hours at school interviewing students who are applying to our school for next year.  it went by quickly - 15 minutes of interviewing, they do a writing sample for us for about 15 minutes, i write up the interview, and it's on to the next kid.  all the kids i interviewed today are in 8th grade and applying for 9th grade.  it's really fun to see them all dressed up and a bit nervous and trying to impress us.  they shake hands with me like real grown ups would, both before and after the interview.  i imagine that this is something their parents drill into them - "make sure you shake her hand afterwards and thank her for taking the time to talk with you!"

i had this vivid memory at the end of the day, shaking hands with the last girl i interviewed, of my grandma giving me the same talk.  i don't know what award i was about to receive, but i knew that the next day i'd be shaking hands with some grown up after they gave me an award.  this was when my grandma lived next door to me, so i must have been in elementary school - maybe 4th grade?  my grandma made me practice with her the night beforehand.  "okay, hold your hand like this.  good.  now, firm handshake.  not limp like this - no, firm.  good.  the first thing a person will notice about you is your handshake.  you have to make a good, strong first impression."

and a handshake is one of those things, isn't it, that we do judge people on if they give a limp handshake, or just use the tips of their fingers, or just hold their hand out and give no pressure in return.  for a working girl like myself, a handshake is important.  and when i was 9, my grandma knew that.

the daffodils are lying

the weather outside during that fire drill we just had?  indicates that it is still winter.

the oscars

how have i not posted about the oscars yet??  bottom line: if you haven't seen the hurt locker or up yet, get thee to a blockbuster or your netflix queue and rent them pronto.  i loved them.  and they won lots of awards - yay!  it makes me happy when movies that i like get greater recognition as good films.  and, let's be honest, it makes me feel cultured.  [mom, seriously, how have you not seen up yet?  you will love it.]   willis and anderson had a bunch of people over to their house, fed us girl scout cookies, and we watched the broadcast together.  what made the boring awards more interesting was (a) tivo, and (b) oscar ballots!  we filled out ballots for the 24 televised awards, guessing who would win in each category.  anderson and i both did better than a.o. scott, the new york times's film critic (his picks were available online).  this will forever be my claim to fame.

[yes, it was dumb luck that anderson and i did better than a.o. scott, a man who actually SAW all the films that were nominated.  we don't care.  we saw a lot of the films!  okay, okay - a fair number.]

youtube almost-rant

Handsome Men's Club (thanks, morgan!)

this entertains me a LOT and if you have ten minutes to kill and you think boys are cute, you should watch this.  i could get into a rant here about how the tech department at my work has blocked youtube access for everyone because the kids are abusing it, disregarding that teachers use it as an ACTUAL TEACHING TOOL (in addition to a procrastination tool), but OHMYGOD AMAZING VICTORY, my complaining to our administration appears to have resulted in youtube getting unblocked.

life is so good right now.

rude awakening

omg.  waking up this morning - the first day back to work after spring break - was not fun.  i had envisioned an easy morning for myself - catch up on email, maybe make a tournament bracket or two, but the phone had other plans and brought me a phone call from a parent and an ensuing issue that i've been dealing with.  awesome.

in other news, duke plays at 7:30pm on friday in the first round of the tournament, and this makes me very happy, as i'll be done with work and will be able to watch.  that is, if CBS doesn't preempt our game for another, more competitive, 7:30 game.  that is my least favorite thing about the opening weekend of the tournament.

netflix "watch instantly"

are you aware of how amazing the tv show weeds is?  BECAUSE IT IS AMAZING.  i heart everything about it, but especially the music.  they used an abigail washburn song in one episode of the first season and a song by the mountain goats in another episode.  and i adored mary-louise parker and justin kirk in angels in america, and here they are again.  how can i not love this show?  this show and i were destined to be BFF.

i'd heard people say good things about weeds, but i thought "i have no interest in watching a tv show about a suburban pot dealer."  people, i was wrong.  it is about so much more than that.  and thanks to netflix's "watch instant" feature, i've just watched the first season on my computer over the past five days.  and i'm starting on season two.  i will spare you a bad joke about how i am addicted to this show.  but i am.

[in other news, hooray for an ACC tournament championship and a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament for my blue devils!!]

hit bull, win a steak

wish list:
durham bulls shirt

when i was at the beer carnival last weekend with my friends (including miss nora, durham native), we saw a girl wearing this shirt and i totally busted into her conversation to tell her (a) how much i love the durham bulls, and (b) how cute her shirt was.  and i was only on my first beer.

small world.  and adorable shirt.

an odd preference

"i wish we had the stuff to make vodka tonics.  that's my favorite drink to have in the shower."
--willis

open letter

dear duke men's basketball team,
i love to watch you play.  i realized today that we saw carolina play their last game of the season, and i'm getting sad about the end of our season, too.  i heart you.  let's win some more games before we say goodbye to zoubs and lance and scheyer.

love,
claire

drive all night

willis, dudley, irving, and i departed atlanta at 1:05am last night and arrived at the beach house at 6:55am.  and magically, we weren't grumpy.  i know you can't believe this, but it's true.  we then slept until 1:00pm. my neck hurts like a bitch right now from sleeping in the car, but otherwise, all is well.

willis drove the whole way.

THE WHOLE WAY.

because he's bad ass like that.

awesome text from willis while we were lying in our beds in different rooms, waking up this morning:
"i don't like that both dudley and irving have white aristocratic names and i have a second class black name."

(apologies to all people named willis out there.)

i informed willis that we can't change his pseudonym now.  my mom just figured it out.

embarrassing my mom

mom: so i was reading your blog the other day and i read the story about willis's letter to the new president of grinnell, and i said to john, "is willis really [willis's real name]?"
me: wait, mom, are you kidding me?
mom: no!  i thought that this was a new work friend who i hadn't met before, but then he described himself in the email and i was like, this sounds like [willis's real name].  why don't you call him [willis's real name]?
me: sometimes i tell stories about him that might be embarrassing, so i've given him a pseudonym.
mom: does anybody else have one?
me: no, not so far.

note: mom and dad are pretty much BFF with willis.  they've known him since i was in college with him.  they met him at a duke football game (so this must have been the fall of my senior year), and i have this really vivid memory of the moment they met.  willis walked up and i got ready to introduce them and my dad stood up all weirdly, but i didn't think much of it.  after willis walked away dad confessed that he thought willis was a security guard who was going to yell at him for sitting in the wrong seat.

hehe.

physically, willis looks like he could beat you up in a back alley.  nothing could be further from the truth.  willis loves words, like me.  and if you met willis in a back alley, he would not beat you up.  unless crushing you with a hug counts.

in other news, i am about to embark on a four day beach vacation with willis, dudley [pseudonym alert!],  and irving [pseudonym alert!].  yes, readers, claire and the gay boys (it's like a band.  i will play the tambourine.  no, no - the recorder.) are going on vacation together.  i anticipate the boys doing embarrassing things, and i want to be able to blog about it, so i'm preemptively giving pseudonyms.  theme: old people names.

Grammar police, part 2

An adult wrote this: "I think the coolest pet to have would be a qualla bear! Dont know if there legal but would be awesome!"

There are no words to describe how I feel about this.

american idol confession

are you kidding me right now?  the red haired chick on american idol just sang brandi carlile's "the story"!  for those of you long-time followers who read my travel blog last summer, you'll remember my looooooooooove for this song.

here's hoping a million people go buy it on itunes and brandi carlile makes some cash money.  YAY.

(and yes, i am admitting that i watch american idol.  in fact, i love the trashiness that is american idol.  my friends and i do bracketology with american idol once it gets down to the top 12 and compete to see who can best predict the order that the contestants will be eliminated.  this combines my love of american idol with my love of competition.  you'll see that it's perfect for me.)

coin laundromat

today i went somewhere that i don't normally go: a coin laundromat.  when i lived in new hampshire for a year i trucked my laundry up and down four flights of stairs (no elevator in the dorm where i lived) and drove to a laundromat to clean my clothes.  and it sucked.  i love that my roommate owns a washer and dryer and i have the luxury of doing laundry whenever i want in machines that are clean.  now i've started doing laundry once a month for world peace cafe - washing the yucky rags they use around the restaurant - two huge garbage bags full of food-y, slightly moist rags accumulate every week, and i'm washing them occasionally.  delish.  i pack them into my car and truck them half a mile from the restaurant to the nearest laundromat.  this laundromat is in a little shopping center right next to the area where hispanic men - dozens of them - hang out hoping to be hired by someone for a day's worth of labor.  i was the only non-hispanic person in the laundromat, and none of the signs were in english.  i did a good job not being "that white girl who doesn't know how to use the machines."  i was proud of myself.

in addition to the coin laundromat, this shopping center houses:
a check cashing place
a mexican bakery
a travel agent
a hair salon
a "night club billiard" place
a liquor store
a place advertising "legal services"
a cell phone store
and a chinese restaurant.

(one of these things is not like the other...one of these things just doesn't belong...)

i read my newsweek and listened to "this american life" on my ipod and changed laundry from washer to dryer and then into (clean) trash bags to take back to the restaurant.  and that was my morning - not bad at all.  (it's spring break!  woo hoo!  i'm back in bed and watching movies on my laptop.  life is good.)

i love my alma mater

huge props to dad for sending me this article on storming the court - when it is acceptable, when it isn't, and how grumpy it makes the commentator when fans do it unnecessarily.  one point that he makes (that i love): if you realize you're going to win well before the game is over and you PLAN to storm the court - well this is the ultimate no-no.  rock on, rick reilly.  rock on.

did you SEE my blue devils on saturday night?  love it.  after that loss to maryland we needed a big win for our seniors on senior night, and when that big win can be achieved over the tarheels, well - even better.  acc tournament, here we come.

hope

i saw this on my walk today and had to come back with my camera.

daffodils are the first sure sign of spring in my world.  this, plus the dose of vitamin d that i got on my walk, have made me quite happy.

(now, blue devils, keep my happy streak alive tonight - beat unc in cameron on senior night!)

a willis story that isn't embarrassing

have you heard about this?

(i don't know why you would, necessarily, but i thought i would ask.)

grinnell college in iowa - where my dear, dear friends abby and aaron (hi abby and aaron!) went to college - has chosen a new president who is black and gay.  this is news is 2010 - and maybe it won't be in twenty years, but it is now.

willis is a little bit beside himself about this.  you see, willis wants to be president of duke university one day.

and willis is the kind of person who would do this:


From: [willis]
Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2010 9:27 AM
To: Kington, Raynard (NIH/OD) [E]
Subject: Congratulations and Thank You

Dr. Kington-

Good morning. I'm [willis]. Since I was a young boy, I knew that I
wanted to be in education. I'd often stay behind and talk with my teachers
about why they chose the profession, what they liked about it, and as
importantly, what they would change. I made worksheets and lesson plans
that I kept, certain I'd be a teacher one day. Throwing my mortar board
into the air in a small farm town in Missouri, again at Duke University, and
once more in Ann Arbor, I was certain that education was the path and the
more I matured, the more I knew that leading an institution of higher
education was "it" for me.

I did what all young adults do --management consulting (in healthcare and
higher education) -- for a couple of years before I arrived at my current
position, the creator and Director of the [our school] Program in Global
Citizenship. Using servant leadership, citizenship and diversity as its
pillars, we strive to create experiences for our students that encourage
them to think through problems in the world with lenses of justice,
fairness, and social entrepreneurship. Being at an Episcopal independent
day school in Atlanta has again reminded me of why the collegiate experience
is the one I want to shape and mold.

I say all that to say this. You, with your recent appointment as the 13th
president of Grinnell College, have paved the way for me to achieve my
lifelong dream of becoming a college president. Growing up as a biracial
gay male, the possibility of becoming a university president seemed
unattainable at times, regardless of the effort I put forth, the experiences
I sought out, or the people to whom I introduced myself. And you have
changed that. Your work, your dedication to your career, and your interest
in the education and growth of others has made it possible for individuals
like myself to continue down this track.

I never wanted to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a fireman when I was a boy.
What I wanted was to live and exist in a community in which we cared about
the growth of young adults. A community that we fostered opportunities to
develop citizens of the world. A community that demanded--without
demanding-- concern for social justice, equality, and the pursuit of
knowledge and wisdom.

I realize you don't know me. But I needed you to know these things. Good
luck as you embark upon your tenure at Grinnell. Should an opportunity
arise, I'm only an e-mail away.

Regards,
[willis]


and the new president of grinnell WROTE HIM BACK.


From: "Kington, Raynard (NIH/OD) [E]"
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 10:35:51 -0500
To: [willis]
Subject: RE: Congratulations and Thank You

[willis] -- First, let me apologize for taking so long to respond to your
kind note -- I am slowly working my way through a mountain of email! Of
course, I am delighted if I can serve as a role model for bright young
people such as you. I wish you the best in your career, and I hope your path
can lead you to your ultimate goals. Leading Grinnell will be a big
challenge, but I plan to do my best. It helps to know that people such as
yourself are behind me!

Take care,
Raynard



are you a little teary yet?  if you haven't already, watch the video that i linked to at the top of this post - grinnell's new president seems awesome, if only because he is so great with his cute little kiddo.  and because he took the time to write willis back.  some people write fan mail to movie stars and pop singers.  willis writes fan mail to university presidents.  willis = adorable.

(thanks to willis for letting me share in his excitement of getting an email back(!!!), and for letting me post it here.)

dress code

An email from a colleague:

"You know a student's skirt is too short when the control top of her pantyhose extends BELOW the hem of her skirt!!!"


This is definitely worthy of three exclamation marks.

rugby players

let me set the scene for you.

march 2008.

portmarnock, ireland.

i am sitting in the lobby of a hotel as one of my friends checks us in.  we've just arrived in ireland and made it to our hotel and we're tired.  we've collapsed into some couches.

we are made up of two girls, two gay guys, and a straight guy.  (this information becomes important shortly.)

a bus pulls up outside.  the entire welsh rugby team exits the bus and enters the lobby of the hotel.  the lobby of the hotel that we are sitting in.

THE ENTIRE WELSH RUGBY TEAM.

four of us are speechless and perhaps had to pick our jaws up off the floor.  one person doesn't really care.

the welsh rugby team was there because they were playing ireland in a six nations rugby match.  the reason we were staying in portmarnock (a suburb of dublin) was because all the hotels in dublin were booked for this wales-ireland match.

we cheered for wales (quietly) the next day in the pub where we watched the game.  and they won!

at 4am, we were awoken to the sound of the welsh rugby team returning to the hotel.  they seemed pretty happy that they'd won.

today, one member of this trip sends this article to the other members of the trip.  (minus the straight guy.  he clearly doesn't care.)  i most definitely looked at all nine pages of this website immediately.

swoon.

camping out for the supreme court

OHMYGOD.  (That is what I said out loud when I read this article.)

I've known this kid in person since the first week of college at Duke (we're both in the class of 2004).  And even before that - he had set up this online group for other incoming Duke freshmen so we could all "meet" online before we met in person.  This was the summer of 2000.  Facebook didn't exist.  Mike Sacks was ahead of his time.  And then he went around East Campus during the first week of college, meeting everyone he could.  If you ask anyone from my graduating class at Duke if they know Mike Sacks, I predict 90% of people will say yes.  He's that guy.  I, on the other hand, hid in my room a lot during those first few weeks.  Duke was BIG and I didn't know these people.  My reaction was pretty much the exact opposite of his.  But I met him, so I must have left my room at some point.

Where did Mike Sacks learn to wait in line?  Um, that SHOULD be in Krzyzewskiville.  But as he explains on his blog, he apparently never camped out for a Duke game.  EXCUSE ME?

And now he is profiled in a New York Times article.

The world is very small.

Yay Duke.  Yay camping out.  Yay Supreme Court.

That is all.

mundane things

1. it is snowing!  big flakes.  who knows what this means - will we get out of school early??  it is the south, after all.  we freak out when it snows.

2. i had a new flavor of wallaby yogurt this morning - key lime.  IT TASTED LIKE KEY LIME PIE.  i was extremely happy about this.

3. last night anderson and i saw a movie!  on a monday!  we are crazy, i know.  speaking of crazy, the movie we saw was crazy heart and it was really good - beautifully shot, compelling story, jeff bridges is amazing.  i wore my yoga clothes, brought in take out food to eat during the movie (this is why i carry a big bag), shared anderson's enormous diet coke, and wrapped up in a blanket (conveniently found in the trunk of my car).  it was like i was at home on my couch.  the 6 other people in the movie theater didn't care.  hooray!

4. it is still snowing.

speaking of books...

do you guys know about sporcle?  it's an online collection of quizzes on different topics, and if you are in the 12th grade at my school, you spend 25% of your day taking these quizzes.  which is cool, when you think about it, because they are wasting time by taking quizzes, not by playing video games.  so i approve.

anderson emailed me with this quiz - www.sporcle.com/games/bookcovers.php 
i got 21 correct and was embarrassingly proud.  let's see if you can beat me!

[for those digital tourists out there (can you tell that i've been to many professional development seminars on technology?), you just click on "start the quiz" or some such, and then type any answer in the box at the top of the screen.  mom: you are a digital tourist.  dad: you are a digital immigrant.  the beckster and i are digital natives.  i'll explain more later, and you can debate your status with me.]

nerd alert

excerpt from an email that my sister sent me:
"I finished my kids' book and it was SO GOOD. Luckily there is a sequel. My strongest readers will be so excited."

kids' book = book written for children that my sister was reading for pleasure.  because that's what you do on a snow day when you are a 4th grade teacher.

strongest readers = children in my sister's class who can read more difficult books.  or maybe this will help put you back in the mindset of 4th grade:

i got lost in my book!

oh, 4th grade is adorable.  and i would be very excited to have my sister as my teacher, as i was a nerd who got lost in my book.

some pretty things

my friend nora is in town this weekend (hooray!) and the sun is out (double hooray!) and life is good.  the first thing you should know about nora is that she makes the best mixed CDs in the world, and she will make one for every fun get-together of far-away friends.  TIPsgiving, reBOONEunion - mixed CDs for each.  making mixed CDs is an art, and nora should give classes.  she made one for me (!) for this weekend, and we've been listening to it in the car with the windows down as we drive around atlanta.  (note: it's only 50 degrees, so the windows aren't down very far.)

in honor of nora's new blog, let me show you some pretty things i own and love.  straight men will probably be bored and should stop reading now.

these are my pretty pink ruffled flats.  i adore them.  they are from old navy, and thus affordable, and that makes me even happier.  ruffles make me happy, because they are a little bit girly without being too girly.  which is maybe the essence of everything i like to wear.

this is my cute new wallet!  in december, i blogged about how much i coveted this wallet and wanted santa to buy it for me for christmas.  so my dad DID, because he is my santa claus.  YAY HOORAY.  it is brown leather with lots of places to store things and is lined with this really beautiful tan/cream print (it's a three fold wallet, but i've opened up one fold so that you can see the lining).  whenever i buy something now - two months after getting it - i still get smiley about how pretty it is.

and that is my fashion round up of the day.

happy last-day-of-february-oh-my-god-i'm-glad-this-cold-month-is-over!

breaking news alert

when my sister misses school, i get a breaking news alert from the new york times.  it is NATIONAL NEWS.  that is crazy to me.

becky doesn't read this blog on a regular basis.  but maybe because it is a SNOW DAY, SNOW DAY, SHE HAS A SNOW DAY! she will.  hi, becks!


Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Fri, February 26, 2010 -- 6:34 AM ET
-----

Public Schools in New York City Closed Because of Snow

All New York City public schools will be closed on Friday in
response to the huge snowstorm that pounded the region
overnight.

Dozens of other school districts in New Jersey, Westchester
County and Long Island also canceled classes on Friday.
Before dawn, snow was still falling heavily, leaving
foot-deep drifts in Times Square and turning roads across the
region into skating rinks.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na

too low to be useful

This study is awesome: Brain Scans Track Hoop Fans' Happy Memories.

My favorite quotation from it:
"A pilot study for the basketball experiment included a half-dozen women who had passed the super-fan test, but even after five or six showings of the game, their recall of the shots was too low to be useful."

I can't stop laughing at this.  We women fans, we are tragic at remembering specific moments of a game.  But honestly, I'm not surprised.  When I coached softball, we'd play a team for the second time that season and the male coach that I worked with would say things like, "remember when we played them last?  Hannah had a double play in the last inning to win it for us!"  And I would have ABSOLUTELY NO MEMORY of this.  I couldn't have told you our record, let alone if we beat a team the last time we played them, LET ALONE specific plays from that game.  Perhaps my brain is programmed differently.  Or perhaps this was not drilled into me as a small child.

Mini test!  My Blue Devils.  I've watched every televised game this season.  What is their record?  I will guess 24-4 overall and 9-2 in the ACC.  Now I will check online.  (Do you like how I am giving you a play-by-play?)  Okay, they are 23-4 and 11-2 in the ACC.  I know about their loses!  And I was pretty close!  I am patting myself on the back right now.

Also, I want to know if I would pass this Duke basketball "super-fan test."  I think I would.  I want to see these questions.

There's a game tonight - rip 'em up, tear 'em up, give 'em hell DUKE!

signs that i am an old lady

ways in which i have become my mother (part 1 of a continuing series also known as as-claire-gets-older-she-becomes-her-mama):
1. i ask my students (mostly girls), "are you warm enough??" when they wear skirts in the winter without tights.  when you are a teenager i know that there is no worse question.  AND STILL I DO IT.  it's like an automatic reaction.  i can't control it.
2. all of our students have laptops that have been provided by the school.  in order to save battery life, many of the kids turn down the brightness level of the screen.  i spend a lot of time saying, "you are hurting your eyes - how can you read that?"  this is the 21st century equivalent of when my mom would say, "do you have enough light to read by?"  when i would say yes, she would turn another lamp on.

i am only 27, team.  if i'm doing this now, what will i be like in 10 years???

i think being a teacher accelerates my travels on the already inevitable path.

[note: i have a pretty awesome mama, so maybe this is an good thing.]

friends

this article talks about google's doodles - you all know how much i love the ones on the olympics that are changing daily.  hooray to willis for passing on this article to me!


on another topic entirely - friends: and let's be honest: i am the luckiest girl EVER to have a lot of friends in my life, people who are so important to my happiness and who care about my well being and who love me all the time, even when i am grumpy or fiesty.  so - yay for my friends.  every single day i am reminded of this.

[now, how do i write this post without making someone sad or left out?  impossible.  i will persevere anyway.  if you read this blog, i love you.  i hope that is enough.  i will call you out on another occasion.]

i'm realizing that while i love all my friends, some friends are the perfect companion for one kind of occasion and other friends are the perfect companion for another kind of occasion.  some examples:

if you want to drink a beer right after school and talk girl talk, willis and jenny are the perfect friends for that.  you just drive over to meehan's and boom: two hours of awesomeness.

if you want to listen to live music in a bar - whether that be a bad 80s cover band or irish music at limerick junction - claire #2 is your woman.

if your garbage disposal breaks - or your tivo is being weird - or you have any question involving your computer - or you are lost near piedmont park - you call thomas.  he can solve pretty much any and all problems of this nature.

if you want to be lame on a friday night and need someone to be lame with you, joey will totally go out to dinner with you and giggle with you and lie around in pajamas in the living room afterward with you and then you can go to bed at an old lady time.  which is so needed sometimes.

attention, attention!  new category that was only realized last night!  if you are going to hear music that is not necessarily your kind of music, at a bar that you've never been to, kind of late on a school night, and you want someone who will roll with the punches and come with you, do not pass go, do not collect $200, CALL ANDERSON AND DANI.  ohmygod we had such a good time last night seeing my cousin nate's band christopher the conquered (and dangerwoman and leslie and the lys).  i thought andy and dani would be the perfect companions, and i was not disappointed.  we planned dani's next birthday party (theme: bedazzled clothing), giggled with my cousin nate and his girlfriend/she'stotallymycousintoo kate, jumped around a little, and called it a night.  so. much. fun.

and i'm exhausted today.  old lady.  that is me.

not lost

you will never believe this.

this morning i went to a breakfast at the ansley golf club, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHERE I WAS LOST ON FOOT ON SUNDAY.  i turn down a road (following my mapquest directions, as i'd never been there before), and realize OHMYGOD I WALKED DOWN THIS ROAD WHEN I WAS LOST.  AND THIS ROAD.  AND I REMEMBER THIS INTERSECTION.  it's hard to forget the intersection of beverly road and friar tuck road.  or beverly road and robin hood road.  yes, those are real life intersections in atlanta, and i have now been there twice.

so i wasn't lost on foot on sunday.  i was just exploring a new neighborhood so when i went to the breakfast this morning i would have some idea of where i was.

right.

but i mean, what are the odds?  i'd never been in this neighborhood before, and then i was there twice (once on purpose, once not) in a 48 hour period.  what a weird world.

i may never live this down

when you have your own blog, you can really present yourself in any way you want.  you can blog only about your good qualities, your accomplishments, moments where you shine.  sometimes you may leave out the less than flattering moments in your life because IT'S YOUR BLOG, DAMN IT.  you can write whatever you want.  you can write about how you eat yummy healthy yogurt most mornings for breakfast, and leave out the fact that a mere day after posting about yogurt you eat an egg and cheese biscuit from chik-fil-a for breakfast.  or that sometimes you eat leftover pizza for breakfast.  (these are just hypotheticals, obviously.)

well, yesterday i did something both dumb and funny, but i did it in front of my friends and they informed me that they expected to hear about it on the blog and that they knew where i lived if i didn't post it.  so readers, here it is: the most embarrassing thing i've done recently.

it was GORGEOUS here on sunday - 65 degrees!  sunny!  breezy!  i kind of lost my mind.  the duke crew (called such because most of us went to duke) decided to go to piedmont park (with the rest of atlanta) to play in the sun.  i called anderson on my way there and he said "park near where you used to park for kickball.  there are a lot of people here, though, so it may be hard to find parking."  check.  i turn down the street near the park where i used to park when coming to play kickball at piedmont park (yes, i was in an adult kickball league for a couple years), but i don't go as far into the neighborhood as usual, thinking it will be hard to find a spot.  i find a spot on the road that isn't in a "residents only" area, park my car, grab my blanket, water bottle, cell phone, and keys, and walk towards the park.

well, i thought i was walking toward the park.  turns out i wasn't.  i walked northeast when i should have walked due east.  no problem, right?  i'll just run into the park further north than i wanted to, but the park is totally due east and i'll be fine.  i realize this as i'm walking through this neighborhood, but i feel pretty good about my sense of direction.  i have to run into piedmont road eventually, and the park is on the other side of piedmont road.

thirty minutes later, there is no park in sight.  (in my mind, this was a 10-15 minute walk i was getting myself into.)  i call thomas.  "um, i'm lost on foot.  help."  his iphone came to the rescue and he got me turned the right way (the conversation involved such phrases as "where is the sun in relation to the direction you are walking?" - that is how tragic i was).  an hour after setting off from my car, i arrived at the park.  my friends clapped for me.  we google-mapped my route.  i was 1.2 miles away from the park when i called thomas.  um, oops.  turns out, piedmont road does not run north-south.  it run northeast-southwest.  i walked parallel to the park for half an hour.

i was wearing flip flops (in my excitement of the sun i decided that it was SUMMER).  my feet hadn't worn flip flops in six months, and certainly didn't expect to walk 2.5 miles in them.  today, my feet hurt a lot.

i am an idiot.  i hope to live this down.  some day.

regional differences

to summarize things we already know:
1. i am tired of winter.
2. i get cold easily.
3. i am a weenie.
4. my family has gone to iowa for the last couple thanksgivings to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins.  this is really fun even though it can be cold and i am a weenie.  i stay inside a lot when i'm there.

things you may not know:
1. my uncle matt walks 15 or so minutes to work in iowa every day of the year, even when it is really cold.  (matt, this is where you respond in the comments and tell us the coldest/grossest day you have ever walked to work and the readers who are southerners start to shiver just thinking about it.)
2. matt had commented on the blog recently about how iowans were really tough, and some of the college students in the town where they live have been known to wear shorts in the winter.  i was flabbergasted by this, and told him i would need photographic evidence.  well, friends, here it is.  ames, iowa - february 2010:

OHMYGOD.  it isn't just winter in iowa, but there are huge snowdrifts AND IT IS CURRENTLY SNOWING and this kid is wearing shorts.  this isn't a scenario in which there was a warm front coming through and this kid was like "i'll wear shorts today - it's supposed to be nice!"  this kid looked out the window, saw snowdrifts, and thought "i'll wear shorts today."

iowans are really tough.

(BIG shout out to my cousin laura for taking this picture!  hi, laura!)

winter beer carnival

i'm going to this with my friends next weekend - including two out of town friends who are coming to visit!!  i am so excited - excited enough to use two exclamations points.  wowsers.  i know.  but beer + carnival games + friends = worthy of two exclamation points.

comparison

willis's breakfast - a sausage mcgriddle and a large sprite.
sausage mcgriddle:
420 calories
22 grams of fat
1,030 mg of sodium (43% of recommended daily value)
11 grams of protein
(i made him read all of this to me from his mcdonald's wrapper.)

eww.  before he told me all of this and i'd just seen the mcdonald's bag, i tried to guess what willis had gotten for breakfast.
me: "a ham and cheese biscuit!"
willis: "gross!  i don't trust mcdonald's ham.  it's a sausage mcgriddle."
me: "but you do trust their sausage??"

my breakfast - a wallaby organic lowfat maple yogurt and water
140 calories
2.5 grams of fat
85 mg of sodium (4% of rdv)
6 grams of protein

i've never been a person who can eat a lot in the morning.  i get up at 6:30,* take a yogurt with me to work, and eat it at about 7:45.  and i have to force myself to do so.  i'm not hungry and eating does not appeal to me that early in the day.  i know that if i DON'T eat something, though, i will be SO HUNGRY I COULD PUNCH SOMEONE at about 10:30am.  at that point, i will eat whatever i can find, and lots of it.  but if i eat a yogurt before work, i'm fine until lunch.  i do not understand how human digestion and metabolization works, but i do know that this works for me, so i do it.

now, i can put away some food at dinnertime.  sometimes, an obscene amount of food.  yum.

that is all.


*already, i am lying to you.  my alarm goes off at 6:25 and i get out of bed at 6:45.  i like the snooze button.

i heart youtube

those readers who could care less about figure skating can stop reading right now.  i promise to stop my figure skating mania when the olympics are over.  but for now: yay for figure skating!

one of nbc's figure skating commentators is a guy named dick button, and they talk about him like he's the best thing since sliced bread.  he (apparently) is the last man to win figure skating gold in two consecutive olympics - the 1948 and 1952 games.  this entertains me greatly, because that was a LONG ASS TIME AGO.  i spent some time thinking today: if a man can do a quadruple axel in competition now and couldn't ten years ago, what was competitive figure skating like 60 years ago?  answer: silly.  through the wonders of youtube, i bring you footage of dick button's gold medal winning performances in 1948 and 1952.

silly things:
1. 1948 - they skated outside!
2. the skaters look like waiters (rhymes!) - they are wearing ties and tuxedo-like outfits.  johnny weir does not wear a tie.
3. dick button won a gold medal with THAT performance?  and another gold medal with the THAT one?  i would like to see the performance of someone who didn't place.  i predict they just skated around in circles.  (okay, okay, i can't even come close to dick button's performance.  i'll give the man his due.  he jumps really high and doesn't fall and some of the elements are identical to today's performances.  but still.  silliness.)

on figure skating

if you go to http://www.google.com/, every day during the olympics they are posting a new "google" image involving the olympics, and (i know this makes me a nerd) they are really gorgeous.  whoever is doing the computer graphics for google right now needs a raise.  do you hear that, google?  give him a raise!

on a slightly unrelated note, i totally have the hots for bryce davison, the canadian olympics pairs figure skater.  be still, my beating heart.  here is a new rule i have concocted: male figure skaters who skate in the pairs competition are more masculine than male figure skaters who skate in the individual competition.  i will use bryce davison and johnny weir to prove my point.  i love watching johnny weir skate.  he is GOOD.  and his outfits make me giggle.  here's another example to entertain you.  but do i have the hots for him?  negative.  i just want him to be my younger brother.

rant for the day

i am a stickler for spelling and grammar.  i know when you should say less and when you should say fewer, the you're/your difference, the their/they're/there difference, when an apostrophe is necessary.  i know not to split infinitives and not to end a sentence with a preposition.  sometimes i am too lazy to figure out how to write a sentence so that it doesn't end with a preposition, but i know it's wrong.  so there.

i grew up next door to my grandma.  my grandma was an english teacher.  my grandma didn't (doesn't) take any shit from anyone, and she didn't take any bad grammar from her grandchildren.  even today, at 90 years old, if you play scrabble with my grandma: be on your toes.  she will play words that you didn't even know existed.

i have little to no patience for people who don't know these differences, or who don't care enough to read over their writing.

my favorite recent grammatical tragedy, by an ADULT: "i don't read very much, but i would have to say the last book i red was a magazine."

there are no words for how quickly i was turned off by this person.  um, you obviously don't read a lot, buddy.  i can tell.

i realize that this fanaticism about grammar may make me a bitch.  i don't care.  sometimes, for fun, i read articles or blogs like this.  just so i know i'm not alone.

when students write poorly, i use my red pen and make big circles around the tragedies.  i don't tell them in particular what they've done wrong.  they're in 12th grade.  they can figure it out on their own.  i don't think they realize how much of a grammar and spelling fanatic i am.  i try to hide my crazy side from most people.  but not you, blog readers.  not you.

chocolate for valentine's day

for valentine's day (spent in pajamas with erin and claire #2, watching movies), i made these Chocolate Puddle Cookies - and took a picture so you can (maybe) see what they look like.  they were really easy to make and delish and many still reside in my fridge (i need to take them to work tomorrow).  they are dangerously delicious and not very good for you, so i can't let them stay in my house for too long.  i got the recipe off of a blog i read called "101 cookbooks" (the number of cookbooks, apparently, that the author owns).  it's a great blog if you're looking for organic or healthy-but-still-tasty recipes.  check her out.

i had to learn how to toast walnuts in order to make this recipe.  yes, this is not hard, but i'd never done it before, so - good rule follower that i am - i looked up a how-to guide.

on the olympics

if your country brings only one athlete, i will get a little teary for that athlete - he or she will probably not medal or even be in the top half of competitors.  money for training is probably scarce, training facilities and coaches not close to as good as a country like mine has.  but to represent your country - and to be the only person in your country to have qualified to do so - what a great honor.  i will get teary in the parade of nations.  like i did last night.  (and the republic of georgia, walking in the parade of nations after one of their athletes died that day in a luge training run?  wow.  they didn't wave flags or smile or engage the crowd...they looked like it was all they could do to keep it together and walk.  so sad.  and so brave.)

i also get teary for national anthems.  when they are played because a nation's olympian has won a gold medal, no matter how silly your event (biathlon comes to mind), when you take the podium and the whole place gets silent to hear your nation's anthem - i will get teary.

i can't help these things.

photo shoot

joey and i decided to take some roommate pictures in the snow - we have so few pictures of just the two of us, and we clearly needed to document the snow for all of our non-atlanta readers.  hope everyone's having a good friday!

we live on the second floor...so you can barely see our balcony in this photo.  this is our version of the couple-in-front-of-their-first-home picture.  we giggled a lot as i set the timer on my camera and then scampered across the street to join joey for this picture.  i did not slip in the slush and fall.  i'm quite proud of myself.

and now...

...snow is actually falling from the sky.  it's 1:30pm.  after a yummy lunch at taqueria with willis and a trip to the grocery store (not for bread and milk: for sprite & the ingredients for chocolate walnut cookies - if i'm snowed in, those things will be more important for me to have at hand), i'm back at home, in my pajamas, and on the couch.  i don't expect to emerge until tomorrow.

snow is pretty.

sniffle + snow day

well, i'm sick.  sore throat, stuffy nose, head-feels-like-it-is-three-times-its-normal-size-like-in-the-commercials sick.  i haven't had a cold since this summer (and THAT was weird -a summertime cold?  i think it was a mild case of the swine flu, and i'm sticking with that story), and i guess i'm due for one.  but yuck.

only positive?  WE HAVE A SNOW DAY TODAY.  i didn't see this coming at all, and when willis stopped by world peace cafe when i was working last night and told me (i hadn't gotten the "alert now" message on my cell phone because i'd left my phone in the car), i thought he was joking.  the weather reports are that there is an 80% change we'll get 1-3 inches of snow today, so our head of school cancelled school at 9pm yesterday.  are you KIDDING me?  not one drop of precipitation has fallen from the sky in the 10 hours since he cancelled school.

living in the south is ridiculous sometimes.

now, it may get wintery here in a minute or in an hour, but i maintain that we could have at least had half a day of school before going home.  the teacher in me is screaming: we have a test next week!  i have material to get through!

not that i'm complaining too much, though, because i feel like crap right now.  i'm happily in my pajamas with a box of kleenex by my side, drinking lots of crystal light pink lemonade and watching tv.  i'm going out to lunch with willis, but the rest of my friday will consist of more of the same: couch time.  my exciting friday night plans: watching the opening ceremonies of the winter olympics.  be jealous of my life right now.

if i have bags under my eyes tomorrow, it will be from staying up late tonight...

jenny and i have talked a fair amount about who our favorite duke player will be once jon scheyer graduates (right now he's at the top of both our lists).  i am tending toward nolan smith - let's be honest, i like guards who shoot well.  jenny is tending toward kyle singler.  singler hasn't had a great season - he's averaging 16 points a game, but somehow that doesn't feel great yet.  and then last week he made 8 3-pointers on an injured wrist, including 4 in a row.  so he's moving up both of our lists.

for now, i'll be content to adore jon scheyer.

duke vs. carolina, round 1 is tonight at 9pm.  even though duke is ranked (yay!) and carolina isn't (woo hoo!), it's still bound to be a good game.  it's duke-carolina, for heaven's sake.  it's always a good game.

GO TO HELL, CAROLINA, GO TO HELL!

question

so how do you know which melon to buy at the grocery store?  i was at trader joe's yesterday, standing over a big box of melons, and i had no idea which one to buy.  do you look for color?  do you smell it?  do you rap on it with your knuckles and listen to something?  note: i did all of these things.  and looked like a fool.  they all looked/smelled/sounded the same and i had no idea which one was the best one to buy.  so i randomly picked one.  and it's a little under-ripe.  perhaps that is because it is february, but these melons grew up somewhere warmer, so maybe that doesn't matter.  i feel like this is one of those secrets of adulthood that i have yet to be let in on: how do you choose a melon?

help.

reason #441 why i love my job

my AP government students just finished a project where they picked a federal agency and did research on what the agency does, how the agency has changed under the obama administration, what bills are pending before congress that relate to their agency, etc.  one of my kids is notorious for writing more than my minimum requirements.  minimum page length for this part of the project: 3 pages.  she wrote: 9 pages.  this is what she wrote in an email to me when she sent me her project:

Ok, so I got a little bit carried away and went totally overboard. Sorry, I just got really into the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

and, friends, she's not being facetious.  i love my quasi-nerdy kids.