my life according to google

I stole this from Poke's Other blog...thanks!

[Instructions: Type in the following and insert the first choice.]



1: Type in "[your name] needs" in the Google search:
vickie needs to go! [Hey! I'm not wearing any pants, so I'm not going anywhere, thank you very much.]




2: Type in "[your name] looks like" in Google search:
vickie looks like a woman who's fought long and hard to enjoy herself [Not so much really...I'm pretty passive.]

3: Type in "[your name] does" in Google search:
vickie does dallas [yeah, yeah, yeah...I knew that one was coming.]




4: Type in "[your name] hates" in Google search:

If the reviewer Vickie hates a movie -- hooo-boy -- you'll be sure to hear about it! Hooo boy! Yee hah! [this posting is entitled "vickie the dictator"...apparently I'm a cowgirl dictator.]


5: Type in "[your name] goes" or "..has gone" in Google search:
vickie goes back to school! [Hey, chill out. I have another month before I go back.]



6: Type in "[your name] loves" in Google search:

vickie loves alex ii [Right, then. A Russian Czar for me.]




7: Type in "[your name] eats" in Google search:
vickie eats alooot for tha dae...& tries to groom herself bacc to perfection...while othrs talk too loud & i shut them up...!!lol!... [yes, I appear to be annoying...and what exactly do I mean by groom, I wonder?]




8: Type in "[your name] has" in Google search:
vickie has been featured in the recent issue of the magazine Curve! [Go me! I think. What exactly does that publication feature, aside from me?]



9: Type in "[your name] died" in Google search:

vickie died in 1998 [again, vickie the dictator...I guess that explains my current passivity.]

10: Type in "[your name] won't" in Google search:
vickie won't admit her feelings towrads Henry! [I guess I'm too busy working on my spelling skills.]

11: Type in "[your name] can't" in Google search
:
vickie can't wait for the new season [Actually, I prefer spring to summer, thank you.]

scrub, scrub, scrub/good and clean

We are, once again, the proud owners of a washing machine that works! (Insert happy little dance here.) I only have fifty-thousand loads of laundry to wash now -- score!

I'll treat you to a poem from Eve Merriam's Blackberry Ink, in just a moment. Last week, I took a leisurely trip to Savers, alone (hello summer break). I was half-heartedly glancing over the children's books, when Blackberry Ink caught my eye (another one of those "eye" cliches that grosses me out). It was tucked between a Full House book and The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I also found a signed (dedicated to someone else, but signed nonetheless) copy of Too Many Murphys by Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna. I love the notes in the fronts of books; I feel like the handwritten dedications and scrawled names give the books character.

So, here's the poem, a la Eve Merriam's Blackberry Ink:

Swish, swash,
Washing machine.
Swish, swash,
Make it clean.

Swish, swash,
Bubble and spin.
Swish, swash,
Pack it all in.

Mishmash,
Jeans and sheets,
T-shirts and towels,
And a skirt with pleats.

Mishmash,
Three odd socks,
An old rag doll,
And a terry-cloth fox.

Swish, swash,
Washing machine.
Swish, swash,
Clean all clean.

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P.S. I bought a new scale today, because weighing myself is one of my very favorite activities. In the "Care and Maintenance" section of the instruction sheet, is the following: "An occasional wiping with a soft cloth and mild soap will keep your scale attractive. Do not use abrasive cleaners. Your scale does not require oiling or lubrication of any kind." I just don't seem to have a special enough relationship with my scale. I've never thought of a scale's attractiveness and I've certainly never thought to oil or lubricate one.

bugs aplenty, bugs galore

I'm reading back issues of Self magazine and I came across this little delight in the August 2006 issue:

"Forget they fly in your soup; there may be crushed beetles in your juice, yogurt or the imitation crab in your California roll. The FDA has proposed a rule to require companies to list the ingredient as 'carmine' or 'cochineal extract' rather than 'color added' for people who are allergic to the critters. Bonus: Vegetarians, people on kosher diets and the rest of us will also be clued in."

How is an ingredient called "cochineal extract" or "carmine" going to clue anyone (other than those who have read this tidbit from the magazine and bug aficionados) into what is actually in the food?

I'm kind of grossed out and kind of not, considering I've probably already eaten tons of bugs and just didn't realize it. And how do those people allergic to beetles figure that out? I don't go around eating random stuff, especially random skittering-around stuff just to see how my body reacts.

Just thought I'd share. You're welcome.


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Oh and I just found this link to a discussion of this (from 2003). The responses are interesting.

the ups and downs of apartment living, not necessarily in that order

In case you haven’t heard, we’re back to apartment living. Our landlady filed for bankruptcy in April and we had to start worrying about where to live (wonderful fodder to add to the mental/emotional breakdown I was experiencing) We decided to move back to apartment life. Some advised us to rent another house, but I didn’t want to have the same thing happen a few months down the road. I love to move*, but I’d rather not do it more than once a year.

We returned to the complex we lived in before we moved to the house. It’s been a bit over a week now. I kept having doubts and feelings of inadequacy and selfish moments of I-want-to-buy-a-house-now (which is just not possible for so many reasons). It’s an adjustment, definitely, but we’re getting along.

Pic has a huge bedroom (both of the bedrooms have full baths – with tubs – but ours has the linen closet and Pic’s has the walk-in closet). This morning, she asked Papi, “Do you want to see the band-aid in my big, big bedroom?”

We haven’t used the air conditioning yet. Just having it, though, is a HUGE improvement over last summer. The house had no a/c, which meant it was 94 degrees most summer days (I often suspected that that was just how high the thermostat read and that it was actually much hotter). We’d always be stuck at home during the hottest part of the day so that Pic could nap and I could boil in the living room. How she ever slept was beyond me. We finally broke down and bought a window unit, although we had less than no money last summer, and the living room, at least, was cooler.

Our neighbors seem incapable of closing any door in their apartment like normal human beings (maybe they aren’t?). Thirty million times a day, there’s a tremendous crash! as someone enters or exits a room. And Thursday was a particularly special day, when, from 10-11p, there was an even more excessive amount of slamming. Added to this was yelling and thumping and much throwing of trash outside. Fun times. Our neighbors’ apartment seems to be a get-together spot for every young teen within a ten-mile radius (and that’s a lot of teens). We’ll see how this goes.

On a much more positive note, there’re two pools here. In my horrible self-consciousness, I have a hard time getting into a bathing suit (says the girl who was on the swim team in high school…but that was different, I swear) and I often get caught up on this terrifying event and forget just how much I love being in the water. When Pic woke up from her nap today, I told Cardo we should head over to the pool. At first the water was chilly, inviting us to sit on the side of the pool and gaze at it lapping the concrete. I persevered, though, and quickly warmed up. I swam some laps while Ali cheered me on and Cardo tried to keep me from smashing into anything (I don’t know where my goggles are, so I didn’t wear my contacts, so I was pretty screwed in the sight department). I swam more laps than I thought I could, although I didn’t push myself until I was exhausted. Oh, I miss the water and I’m considering membership to the Y or a gym that has a pool so that I can regularly swim after our pools here are emptied. We’ll see.

All in all, I think these next thirteen months (the length of our lease) are doable.

In other non-news, in case anyone’s in the market for a Prius: they are once again on a six-month back-order.

[* I like the newness of places, I just don't like packing/unpacking all of my junk.]

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Currently watching: Hannah and Her Sisters

Currently listening to: Mercedes Benz

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Finally: Happy Birthday, Ms J! I hope the surprise dinner was fabulous and the movie was fun.

i'm in the mood for...please excuse the interruption

Cardo and I were about to christen the new apartment, break out the board games, (I know, I know, we've been here a week already), when Pic's old radar kicked in. She had to have round crackers. Seriously, kid, what about my needs.

And, just as I was typing this, and as the child was supposed to be sleeping, she calls me up to her room. She either called, "Mamma, there's a little fire in my bathroom" or "Mamma, there's a little spider in my bathroom." It turns out there was a little fuzz in her sink. Which she was washing out with plenty of puffy soap, by the way.

Anyhow, picture time. We've finally eaten a dinner I prepared here in the apartment (I know, I know, it's been a week). As I mentioned, the refrigerator is about to wheeze out its last breaths and the maintenance person is coming tomorrow to fix it, so I decided we needed to use up the food in the freezer. (Yes, I was very undomestic goddessy tonight.) We had Trader Joe's party meatballs (because suddenly I'm Mrs Flax from Mermaids) in Newman's mushroom marinara sauce (which Cardo decided tasted like mole*...it did strangely transform after fifteen minutes of simmering with the meat), vegetables in cheese sauce and House of Bread sundried-tomato focaccia. [This picture is dedicated to Ms J...I read your comment just as I was about to upload this dinner picture.]





















Finally, more pictures. Pic and I are a bit dress-obsessed this spring, it seems. We've splurged on tons of dresses (from Savers), so I'll post pictures of Pic in her 'new' dresses as she wears them.

















































* say: mO-lay...just in case you were totally grossed out by what you might have thought Cardo eats

posts from my laptop

I wrote the following posts as we were in the process of moving, so they're a little behind. I'm just going to post both together, though, because I'd like to get back to regularly scheduled programming.

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[last Friday or Saturday perhaps]

My life is chaos right now. We are at the latter end of a move right now – the part where we live surrounded by mounds and mounds of boxes and slowly find permanent places for things to belong. If I could find the camera, I would take a picture of the craziness and share, but um…right, finding stuff isn’t exactly going to be a strong trait of mine right now.

In my determination to actually purge our lives of some of the clutter (note: I said “some”), I am delving into boxes that haven’t been opened in anywhere between two and five years. Among the things I’m letting go are our wedding ring pillow, a Trapper Keeper covered in bears and a whole slew of candles. Among the things I still can’t let go are a Port of Subs kid’s meal pail full of rubber bouncy balls, a bag of badges I never sewed onto my Girl Scouts sash and a “spacemaker” box that holds my comic cards and a comb with a tiny chocolate bar motif.

Also, apparently unpacking makes me uncontrollably giddy. I have just spent the last forty-five minutes giggling over love/stalker letters to JDA (I’ll share when the scanner is set up in this place), the Wedgie Rangers theme song and tags from pajamas that have long since disintegrated.

And now, as I add to this entry later, the giddiness is gone and the exhaustion sets in. I’m tired of moving. I’m tired of unpacking. I’m tired just thinking about going back to the house tomorrow to clean and throw the rest of our random belongings into bags and boxes only to bring them here and realize we have no place for them. I think it’s time to call it quits for the night, go upstairs, take a bath, read a magazine and get some rest.


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[a couple of days later -- Tuesday]

Here I am again, still unpacking. Verrry slooowly, our apartment is becoming less chaotic. Cardo is totally focused on the whole picture: we walk in and BAM!, chaos. However, a friend just gave me the advice to just take it one box at a time, to not focus on the humongous mess. Good advice, I think.

We’re hitting bumps here and there. The refrigerator here leaks and we’ll have to have that fixed, which will be difficult as we have food in there and the freezer is completely jam-packed (it’s that classic pull-one-item-out-and-everything-else-follows situation in there). I remember the first time we lived here our refrigerator broke and they had to replace it. That was a pain. Also, right now, the washing machine is being a butthead. Everything was fine until the spin cycle and now the agitator refuses to move. I really need to clean some laundry (well, some more, because there is clean, incredibly drenched laundry in the machine) and I have no idea how to fix it. I’ll have Cardo look at it when he gets home.

Pic, Baby K, Ms J and I went to storytime at the library today. The regular woman was not there (she was attending a junior high graduation for one of her daughters) and the much quieter librarian lead storytime. Pic was actually very well-behaved, which surprised me because the last time this woman lead storytime, Pic wanted to leave about three minutes in. She likes the noise and the movement of storytime. I’ve tried taking her to preschool storytime with Mr J, but there are no noisemakers, there is no music, there are only the books and she got bored very easily. Maybe I’ll try taking her to that one again soon and have her sit through one story and we’ll work our way up…we’ll see.

Anyhow, things are moving along. I’ve survived all of this chaos and I continue to do so (even though I had my doubts for a while). Pic is super excited to be here (I think she inherited the moving gene from me, which could work out as we’ll be moving plenty more times in the future). Together, she and I will drive Papí crazy with our incessant desire to always be somewhere new. It’s important to have goals in life.

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That's all folks. Later, I'll catch y'all up on aparment livin'.

Currently reading: back issues of Self magazine and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

i'm baaack!...

...in the saddle again. Okay, so it's definitely not a saddle, but an office chair we bought from someone on Craig's list and that is now covered in a thick layer of cat hair, but you get the idea. So, I have posts I've written in the last few days, but they need to be transferred from un altro computer (seriously 'computer' in Italian is 'computer', at least commonly). In the meantime, Ms J started a blog and I'm incredibly excited by this (yes, I'm blog-obsessed...thanks be that Poke explained to me what blogs were at an embarrassingly late stage in the game). Check out 'hey, coach j!' on my blog roll. (Ms J, it was great to see you guys at the library yesterday and...um, I'm working on Greenblatt.)

Currently reading: Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare