Hara hatchi bu, the Okinawan people’s habit of eating only till they are 80 percent full, is thought to be one of the secrets of their extraordinary health and longevity.
I think the real question here is how the Okinawans know they’re 80 percent full. Do they ever err and eat until they’re 85 percent full? Does it mix things up on the days they accidentally eat until they are only 73% full? Are children punished if they eat until they’re 97% full?
Here’s the part where you all get to laugh at me and my horrible taste in music.
Whatever. I’ve never tried to pretend I was cool. At least not on this blog.
I heard this song on the radio that I liked so I remembered some of the lyrics and looked it up on iTunes and it turns out the band is called Airborne Toxic Event and the song is called “Somewhere Around Midnight.”
When I was a girl, bands had names like Mötley Crüe, Dëf Leppärd and Güns n’ Röses.
WTF kind of name is Airborne Toxic Event? Oh, excuse me. The Airborne Toxic Event.
Here are some of my ideas for some band names:
Taco Eating Frenzy
Bloody Festering Wound
Shiny Hubcap Party
I’d think of more but I’m hungry and need dinner. Three loyal readers, please leave your ideas in the comments.
In the middle of the day Bob called from the other room, “Honey, come here. You have to see this.”
It was this sandwich.
I thought I should share the moment.
Like every weekend, I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted. I think next weekend my goal is going to be one thing. Like, empty the dishwasher. Then I can marvel about all the things I do that I didn’t have on my list.
Last night I woke up at 1am and couldn’t fall back asleep. Bob was downstairs watching movies and heard me bumping around and came upstairs. Then I got the giggles and it took another couple hours before I fell back asleep. But I was glad that we were grown-ups and there was no one yelling at us from the other room to knock it off and go to sleep.
It’s not as dire as it seems. There was a big sign on the door that said just that particular store is closed. I can’t make excuses to run over there on my lunch hour. The ones at the malls are still open.
I hate the mall and the idea of having to make a special trip just to get my See’s fix disgruntles me. Plus if See’s would have told me they were closing I would have stocked up.
That’s a little bit of a joke because I have a few nuts and chews at the office plus 2 1lb Valentine’s boxes (1 – milk chocolate , 1 – assorted) which I have to share with Bob. Plus I have a 1 lb box of truffles that I’m going to take to the office because the nuts and chews are getting so low. You thought I was kidding when I said I cried.
I don’t eat chocolate every day or even every week. But when I want it, I want it. And it has to be good.
And speaking of chocolate, when I got to the grocery store last night I was thrilled to see that Cadbury Eggs are out. I bought one big one and a packet of a dozen little ones.
It’s too early for wine (I’m typing this in the morning) but I put this bottle in the picture to keep the theme going. I’m going to see Kimberlee the massage therapist today and I’m giving it to her because it’s Kimberly’s Reserve. And also very delicious.
See’s Candy downtown closed!
I cried when I saw the empty store.
We were just there the week before Valentine’s Day. There was a line out the door and we all got a free chocolate. Even me and I went to wait outside because it was so crowded.
Remember when I was learning Illustrator? From this post it looks like it was in 2006. I haven’t improved a bit.
That’s one of the things on my list every weekend, to do a few tutorials and refresh my skills. I never get to it. An experienced Illustrator person could probably have made the above in 3 seconds. It took me about 15 minutes. Not bad.
I didn’t sleep well Sunday or Monday night. Last night my eyes were drooping by 7pm but I bravely kept the light on until 9pm and then passed out the second my head hit the pillow. I still feel sorta wonky.
On Monday one of my headlights went out. My car is an 01 with 85K miles on it and it feels like all the pieces are breaking off. I think the windshield washer fluid thingy is leaking since I’ve never added washer fluid since owning the car and this is the third time the light has come on in three months. I don’t want to spend another day + sitting around with my car in the shop and paying a couple hundred bucks for something stupid.
But I do want to take care of the headlight. I only drive to and from the park and ride which equals about 15 minutes a day but it’s all in the dark
I’m dreading going back to Toyota because I complained about my last service. And my service contact called me about my complaint and he was very nice and apologetic. He also told me that he had zero recollection of my service problem (the one where I dropped off a drive-able car on Tuesday morning and never heard a peep about when it would be done and both me and my husband called them at least twice a day and then they called us Friday at 4pm and told us we could come get it) and they didn’t like to have unhappy customers. Is that supposed to make me feel better?
Lie. Tell me it was miscommunication about the part and they thought they had it but they didn’t and then their phones went out when the space ship landed and they couldn’t call me. And their memories were wiped so they didn’t remember later. I don’t want to go in there and have them be all phony nice about replacing a headlight.
I am not much of a poetry person but I love this poem by Sherman Alexie: Unkissed.
It always cracks me up when actors are complimented on their courage. Like it takes courage to get a bazillion dollars to go to work where someone else dresses them and does their hair and brings them coffee and tells them how great they are. Then they pretend using lines someone else wrote.
How come I can’t make biscuits?
Unless I pop them out of a can. If you can pop them out of a can, how hard can it be?
I had a great recipe with buttermilk and I totally followed the directions. And the FLAT butter crackers that emerged were so embarrassing that I was too ashamed to take a photo. I ate 5 of them.
This was a big writing weekend which was unfortunately, not brilliantly productive. Today I gave myself a productivity goal instead of a time goal.
A time goal is when I say I’m going to keep my butt in the chair until x o’clock.
A productivity goals is when I say I’m going to keep my butt in the chair until I reach a million pages. Or, a million words. Or whatever the actual goal is.
The productivity goal keeps me honest when I’m distracted. It was a harrowing day. By 5pm my head hurt and my eyeballs were screaming for mercy. But I made the goal.
I told Bob I didn’t want to spend 4 hours watching the Oscars but I keep running out in the other room to see what’s going on. I thought they were streamlining the thing. It took 20 minutes to give out the first acting award. It was like a giant never-ending group hug. Like actors don’t get enough love.
Future Tulips and Daffodils
I had some crocus (Remember that band Krokus? They had a hit “Screaming in the Night”? I’m going to see if I can find that on my iPod) that I bought specifically because they come early and are a tiny bit of color in the sea of bland. I saw them starting to peek out last weekend and when I checked them this morning, they were gone. Never even bloomed. Must be damn squirrels.
I wish I could put today in a bottle and take it out every February at this time. I dug around in the yard for a couple of hours. I cleaned up some stuff that I never finished in the fall and dug up some weeds.
We have a big compost bin and I have no formal procedure but every few years I empty it out into the garden. Not a moment too soon. That thing was so heavy I had to scoop out several shovels full before I could even move it to the garden. It smelled partly rich and composty and partly nasty badass. Lots of wiggly worms.
I think it’s going to be decent tomorrow so I can work some more. It’s nice to have a little bit of a head start on the garden in February.
Future Hyacinth
We’ve been getting these notices of doom from Comcast about how we need new equipment because it’s the dawn of a new era and the frequency is changing or whatever. I think it’s all a scam to make people pay for more stuff.
I read through the notice but I was confused because we already have digital cable. Comcast bills us for that. Wouldn’t they know that we already had digital cable? I looked the pictures of the stuff we can get for our TV and it looked different that what we have.
So do we need new equipment or not?
I called the magical phone number of information and it’s a scary recording with a lady that sounds like that generic lady on the Simpsons. And she wants me to say what I want instead of just pressing 1 for “I want someone to answer my questions.” And scary recording lady wants to know what equipment I have so she can figure out if we need new equipment.
Funny, because that’s why I’m calling her. I asked to speak to a real person and she offered to transfer me to my account executive. HA HA. You mean a person at a call center? And the real person asked me how many TVs I had without digital cable boxes. I said, None. She said, then I don’t need to worry about it.
And that is why Comcast has not taken over the world.
I did something I haven’t done in eons and I bought a computer game over the weekend. It’s called World Of Goo. I decided to get based on this review and viewing a demo. As has been well documented here, I’m not looking for any more things to waste time on the computer, but every once in awhile I think it’s a good idea to break out of my fortress of no distractions and try something new.
I’m not sorry. It has cute music and graphics and I had a great time figuring out the first two levels. That’s right, I’m already stuck after 15 minutes of play. Only about 85 more levels to go. I really don’t understand what’s happening but I drag and click on the goo balls until they make that squealing-laugh sound like either Jawas or Ewoks. I think I unlocked another window where I could buy something. I’m not sure.
Recommended.
