old.tv

I just watched family feud. I don't watch this on a regular basis, but I do enjoy it every so often. My brand spanking new tivo recorded an episode in the "recommended" category, so I thought I'd zip through it before survivor came on. This was no new episode of family feud. It was on the game show network, and was, I found out, from 1988. Not only were the people funny looking, but the questions were a riot. Who'd have thought that television could be so entertaining?

for.sale.

Brand new baby boy for seal. This is the headline I heard on the radio today. Actually, what I heard was, "brand new baby boy for sale." Hmmm....

elizabeth.w.

I love this company. A few years ago, *ab* got me some of their stuff for christmas, and it smells SO good. I finished the body wash, and the lotion's almost out, so I went online and searched for a retailer. I ended up at their website, and they had the same scent (magnolia) in eau de parfum. I was overjoyed. I ordered it, and got an e-mail from them saying thank you. Here it is:

Dear *ss*,
Thank you so much for your order. As a small perfumery, we greatly value your business.
The order can ship today. Please let me know if I can help you further.
Finally, may I ask how you discovered elizabethW?
With kind regards,
Reymundo

elizabethW, San
Francisco
800 781-6126
www.elizabethW.com

How nice! A real, personalized letter thanking me for my business! What a nice fellow this reymundo is. I wrote back:

Hi Reymundo-
I'm glad to help support your company. It's so nice to receive personalized messages in this day and age!
I received some of your products for Christmas last year (the pack of three
bath pouches, body wash and body cream in the magnolia scent) and loved them!
I'm not sure where my friend purchased them, but I found your site in a web
search. I was very excited to find that you sold the perfume in the magnolia
scent as well. It's my favorite!
Thank you, and happy holidays-
*ss*

His reply:

Dear *ss*,
Thank you so much for the information and the kind words. We really are a small workshop
perfumery and strive to design and handcraft original, quality products in
fabulous fragrances. I hope you continue to enjoy them.
Best wishes, and happy holidays to you as well.
Reymundo

elizabethW San
Francisco
1 800 781-6126
www.elizabethW.com

It just makes me want to order stuff from them again. This is what customer service should be! Maybe I should write back and see if reymundo's married;)

new.order

I re-ordered my blog link list. (I also added a new one- a friend who recently commented on a blog entry who I never even knew had a blog. So he's on there now.) At first I was going to order them from the most frequently updated to the least, but I decided to go with the most recently updated to the least. I'll change it every week or so, but that's how it's going for now. This way, if you want to check another blog, and only have a few minutes, you'll be able to go to the blog that's most likely to have been updated:)

oops.

*ja* took a shower, and had a bottle of nail polish in her overnight kit. Apparently it fell out of the kit, and smashed on the tile floor in the bathroom. We called the front desk to see if they had any nail polish remover to take care of our "nail polish incident" and oscar said not to worry; that it was housekeeping's problem. Bummer.

good.times.at.ab

Yesterday was a busy, busy day. I had the nutcracker performance from 1 to 3 downtown. (It was great- *m* did a very good job as a doll, and her parents picked up the $125 tab for my third row seat.) Then it was out to acton for my grandmother's memorial mass from 5-6. Then over to *ja's* parent's house, and back into boston for our 10 year high school reunion. They'd set up a block of rooms at the hilton down on broad street, so a group of us booked a room. The reunion had been put together at the last minute (everyone assumed the folks who had organized the 5 year reunion would put this one together, and it wasn't until two months before that it became apparent they weren't. Luckily, *mg* was good enough to get stuff together at the last minute) so it was at a bar in fanueil hall instead of in some fancy hotel with catering. The good news is that this worked out much better for most people. Some people didn't find out about it until a few hours before the thing started, and they were still able to just show up. We grabbed some indian food before heading over to the bar, and got there around 9. There were a lot of people there. Our class was about 325, and there were probably 120ish at the reunion. There were a bunch of people who were there who weren't at the 5 year, so that was great too. I like reunions, because everyone is pretty much over the whole social groupings of high school. Not completely I guess, but we all had gone through school together, so we had a bond to begin with. I'm really glad I went. After we left the bar, we stopped at a store 24 and got a couple pints of ben and jerry's. We all hung out in the room eating ice cream and chatting. The funny thing was that I had walked around the bar by myself catching up with people, and felt like I'd seen pretty much everyone there. (Although I didn't take nearly any pictures which I'm very mad about now.) Then when we were talking later, someone would mention seeing someone I hadn't seen. I guess there really were a lot of people there! Good times....good times.

black.friday

Sweet mary. My sister *j* and I tackled the mall today. It was a last minute decision, since she had recently been hinting that she wanted to sleep in today. She came back from thanksgiving dinner with me last night since I'd finally convinced someone to donate platelets with me. Go *j*!!! You're a star! When I set up the appointments, her main question was, "what time does that mean I have to get up?" We finally set them for 11am, thinking that would give us enough time to sleep a little late, but not waste the whole day watching movies from a reclining chair while our plasma was sucked out of our veins. Around 9pm on thursday, *j* decided that we should get up early to do some shopping. Not for other people mind you, but for ourselves. She had seen some adds, and some of the deals had interested her. The cambridge side galleria opened at 7am, and they have a best buy, sears, clothing stores, etc, so we decided to get up at 6am to make it there for opening. Then we checked out the website, and realized that some stores were opening at 5am. *j* decided that we needed to be there earlier, so we agreed to get up at 5am, and leave asap. After tossing in bed for a while, I finally fell asleep around 1am, only to be woken by my alarm, a very short four hours later. We got there a bit before six, and stopped by dunkin donuts for some bagels and coffee. We saw a line from best buy running the entire length of the mall. The metal screens were still down, so we assumed it wasn't yet open. (Later, we find out that it had opened at 5am, but there were so many people that they only let in some at a time. It was a riot.) We went to a few stores before tackling the best buy line, and by the time we get there, the line's only about a third the length of the mall. Once we're let in, we become part of the chaos. *j* wanted portable speakers for her iPod that were down to $40, so we headed straight for that section. After finding none left on the shelf, we lucked out and spotted a stash on a back shelf. She grabbed one of those, along with a $15 1 gig memory card, and we went upstairs to get in line. I made an impulse buy and grabbed a tivo. It was free (after rebate), and even though going with the comcast dvr makes more sense financially, this will be easier in the long run. The cable bill's not in my name, so I'd have to deal with paying *a* back instead of just paying the tivo subscription myself. After waiting in line for about an hour to pay, we went down to cvs to get some water. The apple store was right next door, and since *j's* nano was giving her problems, we stopped in to see if they could fix it. The guy ran some sort of test on it, and couldn't find a problem, but did see what she was talking about, so he gave her a new one. I tried to get him to give her one of the new colored ones, but he said no. Anyway...she was excited to get a brand new nano, so we were in good spirits despite our sleep deprivation. We hit several more stores (picking up a few presents for others too!) and then split a wrap from d'angelo's for "lunch" around 9:30. We got to children's a little early, but since *j* had never been there, she had to read through all the info first. I got hooked up first, and while they were working on her, my access pressure kept dropping (which just means the draw line couldn't get a strong enough blood flow) they messed around with the needle for a bit, without much luck- the alarm kept going off. Finally, one of the techs took all the tape off the needle to move it, and got great access pressure...for about a second. Since it wasn't taped down, once the pressure shot up, the needle shot out of my arm along with a bunch of blood. The blanket was all bloody, and there was a pool of blood on the hot pack. Nice. So I got to hang out with *j* while she donated. They were happy that I brought her, and even got a double product out of her since her platelet count is also high.
This blog entry is getting a little rambly I think, so I'll sum up the rest of our day. We got home, had a sandwich, went to target, *j* left, I went to best buy again, stopped by gap outlet and went home to set up my tivo. The fact that you have to hook the tivo up to either a wireless/wired internet connection or a phone jack kind of stunk, but I'm excited to be able to transfer tivod shows to my laptop and then burn them to dvd. Yippee!

target.eye

As I've mentioned before, weird eyes bother me. So...have any of you seen that target commercial with david blaine? The one where he's suspended in the air over nyc? At the beginning, it starts with a close-up on his eye, and instead of the normal iris, pupil, etc.- they have a target circle in there. Vomit.

four.days

Ahhhh....it's the end of the week already. I was thinking about holidays today, and realized that thanksgiving is the best. Along with thursday, almost everyone (unless you work retail in which case you're screwed) has the friday after turkey day off too. This beats out all other holidays- even christmas. Sometimes christmas is on a weekend, and then you're really out of luck, although I suppose there's a monday holiday to make up for it. This is interesting since I actually don't like thanksgiving. I mean, I like hanging out with family, but I don't really like turkey, and always feel ill after eating the bowl of mashed potatoes. At least I have three days to recuperate.

chirp.chirp

This little guy was hanging out on my windowsill this morning. He had pals on the other window, but this one was literally right next to my bed. I didn't want to move the shade because I knew it would scare him off. He was chirping and hopping back and forth across the sill. All I could think in my groggy state was, "haven't all the birds left for florida already?"

do.it.yourself

Last year for christmas, *ac* got me a subscription to "ready made," a really great magazine that tells you how to build cool stuff. I was looking at their site today, and found links to some other do-it-yourself sites, which is good, because when I tried to do a web search for "do-it-yourself," I got a bunch of stupid stuff- either kid projects or artsy-fartsy stuff. If you're looking to build something, and want an idea, look here or here or here.

fondue.mmm.

I ate lots of food tonight. I was at *lw's* house for a fondue dinner. She and her husband *tw* had tons of stuff- steak, chicken, shrimp for the meat eaters, and eggplant, yam, broccoli, zucchini and banana for fruit/veggies. It sounds healthy enough, but if you consider the fact that we were dipping it all in boiling oil- some in batter first- it pretty much counteracts any health benefits that might have been present to begin with. For dessert we had a chocolate one. Foods to dip? Pineapple, kiwi, clementine, pound cake and croissants. Let's just say that I'm glad I've eaten pretty healthy the rest of the week because this sunk the boat. It was delicious though, and the company couldn't be beat.

hey.yo

I heard the song "snow (hey yo)" by the chili peppers the other day and I'm addicted to it. I've liked some of their songs before, but never this much. Hopefully it won't be overplayed on the radio since it's the third song from the disc. That always ruins it for me.

bad.dreams.

I've been having weird dreams recently. I wake up, and I feel like I never slept. Most of them I don't really remember- I'll just get little glimpses during the day- but one I had a few nights ago is still pretty clear.

I was in a bedroom with two or three twin sized beds. I think it was a kids room, but I can't be sure. The room was very long and L shaped, and the beds were spread out a bit. There were several pillows on each bed. There was some sort of bad spirit or something that kept hassling me. It seemed like he was a person who died, and stayed in the room haunting whoever happened to be there. I tried to get rid of him, but he'd keep coming back. I finally found him wrapped in a white sheet in front of a pillow on one of the beds. It was a stuffed squirrel. I yelled at it, grabbed a pencil from the desk, and stabbed the bottom side of the squirrel. I ripped the fabric back and it was full of both stuffing and those little plastic beans. I made sure not to drop any beans since that would keep the bad spirit in the room. Then I opened a window and threw the whole thing outside. It amazes me how terrified I was of this thing. I woke up with a racing heartbeat and covered in sweat. Even though I knew it was a dream I was still scared to death. Weird.

new.soup.

Yesterday during my 90mins of cardio (for the turkey trot) I flipped through a cooking light magazine and found two recipes that looked good. One of them was a butternut squash and leek soup, which was perfect since I had a squash sitting on the counter at home just waiting for something to do. The other recipe was a three bean chili. I stopped by the grocery store on my way home from the gym today to pick up all the ingredients, and spent the afternoon cooking. The chili was my favorite. It has tons of veggies and other healthy stuff- zucchini, carrots, red pepper, onions, garlic, black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, crushed tomato, tomato puree, some spices and water- and it's super thick and delicious. The squash soup wasn't as yummy. It was a bit too garlicky. I think if I made it again, I'd cut down on the garlic and add some extra butternut squash. I think I may keep up with this new cooking thing. Even though I'm not usually excited about, every once in a while I find it extremely satisfying.

little.miss.sunshine

Last night, evil twin #1 (aka *mk*) and I went to see little miss sunshine. Since it opened on july 27th and everyone else has seen it, we made plans to go together. It was only playing in a few theaters (since again, it has been out for almost four months) so we made our way to the kendell theater in cambridge. The rumors were true. This movie was hilarious. There were so many amusing parts that I can't even pick my favorite. Today when I was driving somewhere, I turned the radio to npr, and they were interviewing greg kinnear. He talked about how they pushed the vw bus, but really had to give it some gas since it was way too heavy to push with just a few people. I thought it was a good sign that the interview came on the day after I saw the movie. A sign of what, I'm not sure, but a good sign none-the-less.

new.boots.

I just ordered new winter boots. I'm anti-uggs since everyone and their mother has them (plus I kind of think they're ugly) but I did want something snuggly and warm for the rough new england winters. The boots I'd been wearing for the past seven years were really my low ankle height hiking boots. It wasn't so much fun getting a boot full of snow everytime we got more then four inches. I ended up deciding on the merrell spirit tibet high, and after discussing it with my sister, choose the timber color. The best news is the price. They're listed at $142.95, but I got an e-mail coupon for 20% off boots and slippers from shoebuy (enter code "bootslipper06" in the promotional code area by nov 27th if you want to order something). I don't think it's supposed to work on merrells (I added another pair to my cart just to check the code, and it said that merrell's not participating in the promotion) but it worked out well for the ones I picked. So that knocked off $28.59, but it gets better. I got an extra 10% (or $11.44) off for registering my account, so the total (with free shipping) was $102.92 or $40. 03 off. Not that $102.92 is cheap for boots, but I wanted to make an investment in something good, and I'm a big fan of the merrell comfort. Excellent. Now I just have to wait for them to arrive. At least we're not expecting snow anytime soon!

bone.marrow

Last fall, I was contacted by the blood center at children's hospital and told that the antigens in my platelets had been matched to a child. Platelets aren't type specific (it doesn't matter if you have O-, AB, O+, etc) but when children are going through serious procedures, it can be helpful to have the antigens match in order to reduce their rejection rate. I went in every week during that six week period, and it really made a difference knowing that my platelets were helping this specific child. They weren't able to give me any info on him, but my platelet bag was labeled with his name, and after doing a web search, I learned that he had a rare disease called malignant infantile osteopetrosis (MIOP). It's a condition where the bones are overly dense which eventually causes bone marrow failure. Without a bone marrow transplant, babies with MIOP often die before they turn one. 70% of children with MIOP die by the age of six, and almost 100% die by the age of ten without curative therapy. I found a site that documents another baby's struggle with MIOP, and as I browsed through the updates, pictures and guest book, I couldn't imagine being in a similar situation. I put myself on the bone marrow donor list several years ago, and encourage you to do the same. The chances of being matched with someone are very remote, but the possibility of saving a life should be worth any inconvenience in getting yourself on that list. So go do it. Now.

j.e.l.l.o

During my freshman year at bu, my roommate and I made sugar-free jello on a regular basis. We made double batches, and kept it in the little fridge we kept under my bed. I haven't had jello regularly since then, but after watching the biggest loser, my interest has been renewed. I picked up a bunch at the store today, and made up two batches. The way I look at it, I can eat an entire box of jello (2 cups) and it's only 40 calories. 40 calories!!!!! It's sweet, so it satisfies the sweet tooth. Plus, it's so jiggly, it fills your stomach up, so you're not hungry. I think that jello might just be the magic ingredient for healthy eating.

calcium.lime.rust

After seeing all those commercials for c.l.r., I decided to give it a try. I have an old sink, and it tends to get some rust stains around the drain. The part I was most excited about was the part where the guy dips the faucet head into a bowl filled with clr. It made the water come out strong and even. I first scrubbed the rust. It worked pretty well, but didn't completely remove the stain. Then I tried to dip the faucet, but that didn't work at all. In the commercial, he dips the shower head, which bends downwards. My sink faucet doesn't at all, so there was no way to submerge the head. The experiment was fairly successful, and now I'm energized to clean my whole bathroom really well. I'm washing my shower curtains tomorrow.

phone.

I finally broke down and bought a new phone on ebay. It should be coming any day now.

vivian.

My car went into the dealership yesterday for some help. It started making some not-so-great sounds last week, and I was getting nervous driving it for fear of getting caught in a car fire. In the past, I've had panic attacks when told the total cost for repairs, so this time I was prepared. I anticipated costs up to $2500. That way, when the total was less, I'd be relieved instead of anxious. It worked. The total was a mere $1268.22- of which $902.50 was labor. I find it hard to believe that it took them 9.5 hours to fix my car, but what can you do. They replaced the serpentine belt and tensioned dampner (which was interfering with something and caused the noise that was worrying me), replaced the hood latch (because the hood wouldn't open), and performed the 60,000 mile maintenance. So now my car's happy, which makes me happy. Although next time I'm due for a new one, I think I'll steer clear of vw's.

blood.bash

Last night was the annual blood donor recognition event at the seaport/world trade center. I'd gone to donate that morning, and k told me I could sit at their table with the blood techs since I didn't really know many of the other regular donors. It was great. They had several speakers- parents of kids who were sick, a 16yr old who'd had several heart surgeries, etc. It was nice to hear how appreciative they all were. We got a gift too- a whole auto emergency kit with all the fixings to save your butt. At 10, when they were kicking the last of us stragglers out, we all went to the bar in the hotel. That's l (one of the phlebotomists) over there with r, the bloodmobile driver. I think she looks like scarlett johansson. On the right is l again with c and j. They'd all taken advantage of the open bar at the dinner. It was fun to hang out with them outside of the blood center. It was a little disconcerting seeing them all dressed up though...especially when I'm used to seeing everyone in scrubs and lab coats. It was a great time. I took a trip to mcdonald's for a cheeseburger happy meal around 10:30 this morning!

trunk.monkey

My dad sent me a funny email with these video clips attached. I want one.
trunk monkey 1
trunk monkey 2
trunk monkey 3
trunk money 4
trunk monkey 5
trunk monkey 6
If you want to see more, go to this site.

cell.hell

I need to get a new cell phone. I cracked the screen of the one I have now, and the liquid indicator isn't looking too great either. I have another year left on my contract, so I can't even extend it to get a deal on a new one. I checked out ebay to see what was listed for verizon. (That's another thing- it's crappy that verizon phones are set differently than every other plan. There's definitely a better selection for all those other carriers.) Even used phones are expensive when you're used to getting them for free! I'm also not convinced that I'd get a good used one. Knowing my luck, I'd probably end up with a scratched screen and a battery that won't hold a charge. I may try to dig up my old phone and charger and just reactivate that for now. Unless any of you have a verizon phone you want to give me a good deal on....

i.liked.this.quote

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.

Thomas A. Edison

holidays.and.holy.days

Last year, I waited until december to pick up the new inserts for my planner. Actually, that's not quite true. I went to bloomingdale's and tried to get them, but for some reason, they had stopped carrying the kate spade refills. So by the time I made it down to the newbury street store, it was december, and they were sold out. I ordered them and they got to me sometime mid january. This year I was more prepared, and grabbed the pack last weekend. I had a few dates to write in it too.
Today I was looking through the new calendar, and spent some time on the two pages that make up the "holidays and holy days." They list tons of holidays, and note who celebrates them- canada(c), japan(j), mexico(m), united kingdom(uk) or united states(us). Most of the holidays were pretty standard (christmas, mothers day, presidents' day, etc), but there were a bunch that were creative, and they are all celebrated in japan. Here are some examples: nation's foundation day (feb 11th), greenery day (april 29th), constitutional memorial day (may 3), children's day (may 5), marine day (july 20th), respect for the aged day (sept 15th), health & sports day (oct 8th), and my personal favorite, coming of age day (jan 8th). I think I may start celebrating some of these- along with all our regular ones of course.

one.too.many

Before I go to bed, I turn on the tv and watch whatever happens to be on. Sometimes I turn it off, but usually I fall asleep and then wake up a half hour later to turn it off. It's a habit I need to break. Regardless. Last night I got stuck watching "one too many" on tlc. It's a show about people born with extra body parts- fingers, toes, heads...etc. Most of these people (I don't say kids since many of them were older teens) lived in third world countries, and they surmised that lack of prenatal care was largely responsible for the extra parts. There was a 16 yr old girl with 24 fingers and toes (one extra on each), an 18 yr old girl with an extra "leg" (it was more like a second torso complete with a belly button and hair and a y shaped end), and a baby girl with a second head. The head and the extra leg were caused by a twin who didn't survive and joined the other fetus. There was also a 10 yr old kid in India with 6 fingers on each hand, 6 toes on one foot and 7 toes on the other. The cool thing was that they all worked! So typing was as easy as pie for him! Generally, extra fingers and toes don't have any muscle control and just hang out. In most cases (except for the boy from India), they brought the kid to america or china, and performed surgery to remove the extra parts. They showed the surgery in detail, and although it was gruesome, I couldn't turn away...until I fell asleep.

girls.night.out

I had a fabulous night with the girls. Their parents had a dinner to go to, and since friday is the only non-homework day of the week, I decided to make it a fun one. It started off with a movie- flushed away was the choice for tonight. It was very entertaining for a kids movie. Then over to ac moore to pick up some embroidery floss for friendship bracelets, and 25 cent fuzzy bears which are crucial to the trading opportunities available in 1st and 3rd grade. When given the choice between a sit-down dinner somewhere or mcdonalds, they simultaneously choose the sit-down dinner. Surprising, yet good. We tried john harvards since it was next to ac moore, but the wait was 45-50 mins, and since it was already 6:30, we had to pick somewhere else. Chili's was the consensus. *e* got pizza, *m* got pasta, *l* got ribs, an I got a chicken fajita with a side of seasonal veggies to get in my five a day. Everyone was happy, cooperative and thankful the entire night, which made it much more enjoyable for me!

peeping.e

*e* got in trouble at school today. Last thursday she got in trouble for not listening (surprise, surprise), but she had shaped up since then. When I picked her up, her teacher told me that *e* had something to tell me. I couldn't tell if it was a "something she has to tell me because she got in trouble" or a "something she has to tell me because she did something good" type of something. Turns out it was the first. Apparently she and another 5 year old were caught spying in on a boy in the bathroom. She got read the riot act by all of us, but I'm not sure how much it will sink in. She's too independent to really let anyone get her down. I wouldn't be surprised if she grew up to be a big hollywood actress with tons of drama surrounding her. I told her when she's rich, to share some with me. She said okay. So I don't really feel bad for her. Who I do feel bad for is that poor kid. Only 5, and he already has two girls laughing at him with his pants down.

trot.trot.

Today was the first day of the "turkey trot", an annual competition at my gym. It's on for the whole month of november, and the goal is to do enough cardio to get from boston to plymouth rock during that time. For every 15 minutes, we get a turkey leg hung up next to our name on the bulletin board. Three turkey legs make one mile (despite the fact that running for 45 mins could get you a lot further) and 10 miles get you one huge turkey leg. They set 90 mins max per day so people don't try and work out for 5 hours a day and die. Last year I won, but this year there are already a lot more people signed up, many who had done 90 minutes by the time I got to the gym today. All that means is that I'll be doing an hour and a half every day for a month unless something physically prevents me. Bring it on turkey trot.