explicit.lyrics

I like the newish gwen stefani song sweet escape. This is no surprise since it reminds me of that paris hilton song that I was embarrassed to like several months ago. I went onto itunes to buy it last night ($0.99 per song is just too great to pass up) and had to choose between the "clean" version, and the "explicit" version. This is usually a bit of a dilemma for me. On one hand, I like to hear the music the way the artist meant for it to be- before it gets hacked up and made appropriate for the radio. On the other hand, I want to be able to listen to music with little ears around, and not worry about having to skip over or turn down a particular song at a particular point. So before picking a version, I did a little research a la lyric search. It turns out that the offensive word was "skank". Since when did skank turn an otherwise unremarkable song into an "explicit" version? When I think of explicit lyrics, I think of those four letter words that would make you blush if spoken around kids or the elderly. While skank isn't exactly a nice word, it isn't one that would normally make me blush. I looked up the actual definition on answers.com and this is what it said- one who is disgustingly foul or filthy and often considered sexually promiscuous. Used especially of a woman or girl. Wow. That's pretty rough. Disgustingly foul or filthy. That really makes me reconsider my view of four letter words.

off.target

I went to target today to pick up four things- a lightweight black hat for jogging to keep my ears warm, some cheapy long underwear pants for jogging to keep my legs warm, a stopwatch to time the jogs, and some of those velcro wrist weights to keep my hands busy while my legs are working- all things that target should have. Except that today, I found nothing. I wandered around the store for close to an hour in vain. It seems that since it's january 30th, all the hats have made their way to some discount store in order to make room for all the spring gear- bags, sunhats, bathing suits. Same goes for the long underwear. The wrist weights they actually should have (since they're on sale this week- thus my reasoning behind going there), but they were out of stock. I picked up a rain check. The stopwatch was a lost cause. I found some regular timex type watches, but I really just wanted an actual stopwatch that I could throw in my pocket. By the time I left, I was really annoyed. I spent four dollars. Two on a three pack of stride gum, and two on a bag of mini peppermint patties, of which I ate six upon getting to the car. It's a good thing I was going straight to the gym, because my blood pressure must have been off the charts.

kindred.spirits

After the first sip of any sort of carbonated beverage, I hiccup once. I'm pretty used to this, and keep my lips zipped so it's not overly apparent to everyone else. Yesterday, after sipping some diet coke (and hiccuping) at the baptism reception, I casually mentioned how this happens to me. Low and behold, *ts* said that the same exact thing happens to her! She always felt like she was the only one. I think she was really happy to have someone who shared her weird reflex. I figured that we've lived for so many years feeling alone in our oddities, only to realize that we're not so strange, that there must be others out there that this happens to. Anyone? I'm thinking of starting a support group.

oscar.fever.

It's oscar season folks! Every year, I go to *oh's* house. This will be the ninth year in a row. The first year was by accident. I had to talk to *ah* about something, and stopped by. Then I got sucked into the awards, even though I never really cared much about that type of thing. I think the second year was also an accident, but I don't remember details. After that, we planned on it, and now it's the one scheduled time I see them each year. For the first five or so years, I didn't make an effort to see the movies. If I'd caught some, great. If not, no biggie. After all, it's really about the outfits. After a while, I decided that it was more enjoyable if I actually had an opinion about which movie/actor/director should win, so I started watching things that were nominated. Last year was the first year that I watched all the movies in major categories (best- actor, actress, supporting actor/actress, and picture). This year I hope to do just as well, if not better, which means I have a total of sixteen movies to see by february 25th. (I've listed them below.) I've already seen two (little miss sunshine and the departed), so I have fourteen left to check out. I netflixed the ones that are available on dvd. The others I'll have to go to the theater to see. Double movies, here I come!

1. babel- picture, supporting actress (adriana barraza), supporting actress (rinko kikuchi)
2. the departed-picture, supporting actor (mark wahlberg)
3. letters from iwo jima-picture
4. little miss sunshine- picture, supporting actor (alan arkin), supporting actress (abigail breslin)
5. the queen- picture
6. blood diamond- actor (leonardo dicaprio), supporting actor (djimon hounsou)
7. half nelson- actor (ryan gosling)
8. venus- actor (peter o'toole)
9. the pursuit of happyness- actor (will smith)
10. the last king of scotland- actor (forest whitaker)
11. volver- actress (penelope cruz)
12. notes on a scandel- actress (judi dench), supporting actress (cate blanchett)
13. the queen- actress (helen mirran)
14. the devil wears prada- actress (meryl streep)
15. little children- actress (kate winslet), supporting actor (jackie earle haley)
16. dreamgirls- supporting actor (eddie murphy), supporting actress (jennifer hudson)

card.dilemma

Tomorrow is my longest friend, *km's* son's christening. This will be the first christening I've gone to that isn't for some sort of family member, which means that I needed to figure out what to get for a gift. My mom usually gets these engraved frames with the baby's dob, weight, length, etc. They're not churchy at all. The four of us have our own from our childhood. They're hanging in the living room. I obviously don't have time to do all the necessary research and get the frame engraved, so I had to come up with a different idea. I figured that it was appropriate to get a card and put a check in it. You know, for the kid's college fund or something. I was in acton for a lunch, and stopped at ralph jordan's and the paper store (gift stores nearby). The paper store actually had baptism gear- frames engraved with "bless this child", crosses with the lord's prayer painted on, etc. I didn't want to go the religious route (despite the fact that this is a religious thing), so I headed for the card section. It took me a few minutes to locate the christening section, but I eventually found it, only to be horrified at the options. Everything they had was super sacchariney. Pale colors, stuff about god, special days, and all the writing was in cursive. That was way too tacky for me. There was no way I was buying one of those cards. Earlier in my card search, I had come across a card I loved. It was under the anniversary section, and had a boy and girl on the front. They were looking at each other. At the top, it said something like "the first time he saw her, and the first time she saw him" and then at the bottom it said "everyone who saw it threw up a little." I'm totally getting this wrong. Trust me. It was funny on the card. You know, the boy and girl fell in love at first glance, and everyone else was so jealous, they threw up. Anyway- I briefly considered getting that card, and crossing out the "happy anniversary" on the inside and writing "happy christening." While this would work for some people (my brother once gave me a "greatest grandpa" card for my birthday) I didn't think that *km* would truly appreciate the humor in it. So I got a blank card that has a black and white picture of a baby's butt as he crawls through the sand on a beach or something. I figured it was good middle ground.

success.

Every week, *m* and *l* have a spelling test. They get their words on monday, and have the week to practice them. Then, on friday morning, they get tested. *m* has 27 words (22 from the current week, and 5 from the previous week), and *l* has 15. They're tricky words too- not your typical hat, cat, mat, etc. For example, in second grade, they get one or two states each week and its capital. Imagine watching a seven year old spelling california and sacramento, and then having to find it on a map. Well, maybe california wouldn't be tricky to locate. I always had trouble with those large rectangular western states myself. Back to the point. Every single week, since the beginning of the year, one of them gets one word wrong. Usually *l* gets them all right, but the two times she got one wrong were the two times *m* got all hers right. I told them it must be a subconscious block at this point. Anyway, the deal was that the first time both of them got 100%, we'd get a special dessert. Today was the day! They made their own sundae's, complete with chocolate sauce, hot fudge, butterscotch, whipped cream and star shaped sprinkles. Here's the picture of the finished products. They pretty much licked the bowl clean.

all.i.did.was.drive.today

It all started at 8am when I woke up. I took a shower, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, and drove the seven miles to mass general for my doctors appt. Of course, since it was city driving, it took thirty-five minutes. Then from mass general, I went to the kids' school for *m's* basketball game (35 mins). From there, it was back home quick (10 mins), then all the way back into boston to drop *a* off at work (35 mins). Then from boston to acton (45 mins) to pick my baby brother up, then continuing on to framingham (35 mins) to drop him off for an interview type thing for his (fingers crossed) internship this summer at genzyme. From framingham back to the girls' school (30 mins), to the bank and gas station (15 mins), home (5 mins), to their gymnastics class (2o mins), and finally, back home (20 mins). In total, I was actively driving for 4.75 hours and that doesn't include waiting in the car (which I did several times as well). Maybe I should drive a taxi in my spare time. Then at least I'd be making money!

tax.

I just did my taxes. It was quite a letdown, actually. I somehow managed to get back a good deal over the past few years, but not so this year. I think it mainly comes down to having no education claims, and no medical claims. While it's nice not having to shell out the money month to month, I'd become accustomed to my nice fat refund check in february. The good news is that I don't owe any money, and I'll still get back enough to cover my most recent car issue (hopefully- I only have a vague idea of what it will cost). I really need to work on the savings. My ira is filling up, so at least I know I'll be rolling in it when I'm old.

ouch.

My butt hurts. I took my first ever spinning class today, and it was rough. My legs were tired to begin with, and now my calves are angry. It was a great workout though- all that sitting and standing, and increase and decrease in resistance really makes you sweat. I think I'm going to try it again next week- they say it gets better the more you do it, plus you burn a crap load of calories.

three.hours

I did three hours of exercise today. Three hours!!! It all started this morning. My pecs and hamstrings were still sore from a class I took on saturday, so I decided to skip my usual weights class today, and try the instructor's earlier class instead. I got up early, and made it to the gym in time for the low-impact cardio class. Since it was the same teacher who teaches my normal weights class, she convinced me to stay for part of the next one. I didn't want to walk out in the middle of it, so I was there for two hours straight. Plus, since they were both classes, I had to work much harder than I would have if I worked out by myself. By the end of it, I was beat. Then, sticking with our usual monday/thursday nights, *ja* came in and we walked 3.76 miles around the neighborhood in the snow. (Thank you mapmyrun) This is just the way to begin the week, and it only gets better. I'm going to a spinning class for the first time tomorrow (it's part of our weekly challenge) and then my normal two classes on wednesday, hour walk on thursday, and new cardio interval class on friday. That's eight hours already, assuming I do nothing during the day on thursday or on the weekend. Watch out et#1. Pretty soon I'll be passing you during one of your crazy marathons or 16 mile joy runs!

free.gas

So over the past few months, whenever I donated platelets, I got a gift card for $25 to exxon/mobil. That's right...free gas. It was ideal. Since I was going in every two weeks, and drive my car fairly infrequently, I could have realistically gone for quite some time before ever having to pay for my own gas. It was good while it lasted, but unfortunately, all good things must eventually come to an end. Even though I tried to keep this saucy bit of info to myself, others must have found out, and now they've run out of cards. I must have totaled about 5 cards, and now I'm down to 1. In a couple of weeks I'll actually have to pay for my own gas again. It's unfortunate.

almost.done

You know how sometimes when you're reading a really good book, you want to finish it, but at the same time, you don't want to finish? You're anxious to get to the end to learn what happens, but then you'll miss the enjoyment you're experiencing while reading it. Well, I'm in the same situation with arrested development. In total, there are eight discs representing three seasons of the show, and I've finished six of them. The final two are coming soon from netflix, and I can't wait. I'm close to chewing my nails in anticipation. At the same time, I don't want them to end. They're so unbelievably funny. I'm talking laugh-out-loud funny. Seinfeld funny. Curb your enthusiasm funny. There's going to be an empty space in my life once I finish them. I'll have to find something to fill it up.

clinique.bonus.times..

..does anyone know when they are? Did I already ask this? Lord and taylors was before christmas, and it looks like bloomingdale's is from february 18th-march 4th, but I wouldn't stake my life on it. I asked at one store (macy's?) and think they said october and april, but since I'm not even sure what store it was, I also could be wrong with the months. I got roped in with the freebies last time. One of the samples (or zamples as *e* says) was this intensive night cream. It was amazing. Or amazing until I found out how much it was. The sample size was 0.5 oz, and the regular size is 1.7 oz (so just over three times) and it's about $50. I still can't decide if it's worth it, but my skin really liked it, and misses it now that it's gone. I guess that it lasted about one month, so the full size would last for three, which would break down to $16ish/month. Again, this is pointless right now since I refuse to buy anything clinique unless I get free stuff too. Best case scenario? I wait until february 18th and stop by bloomingdales.

*Holy crap! I just went to clinique's site to get the link to the cream I like, and it's up to $62 now. Sixty-two dollars!!! I swear it was $48 or something last time I looked, which was probably at the end of december. Apparently I shouldn't have been such a cheapskate, and just bought it then without the freebies. Now I'm basically paying $14 for a bag of samples. Grrrr.......Here's the link anyway, just in case anyone is feeling charitable and wants to surprise me with a little present.

geeky.chic

I don't watch american idol. It really stresses me out to see how badly some people sing, only to be mocked and ridiculed first by the judges, and eventually, all of america. Having said this, I did happen to walk into the room when poor, poor, jason alexander from minnesota "sang" and juggled with......devil sticks. Seeing this geeky sixteen year old using the very same things I just got so excited about finding after twelve years was a downer. It made me question how cool they really were. Maybe they'll make their way back into the closet for another twelve years.

to.be.rich

I picked the youngest kid up at a friend's house down on beacon hill today. By this point, I'm pretty used to the fancy houses and semi-famous people we run into thanks to the private school the girls all attend. This house was one of the nicest. It was on a "tree" street right by the common/public gardens, and the mom (who was very nice and not at all snotty) told me that they just gutted it and moved in at the beginning of september. Apparently it had been an apartment building, so they had to get rid of all the apartments before they could make it into a huge a** brownstone. Not only can I not imagine how they managed to buy up a bunch of condos at the same time, but I really can't imagine how much that property cost. That real estate plus the cost of gutting and completely remodeling the place must have set them back at least $4,000,000- and that's just a guess. Depending on how many apartments were in the place, it could be much, much more. Ahh...to have money, yet not be spoiled rotten by it. That's the ideal mix.

old.music

I found another treasure while cleaning out my closet in my parent's house (and yes, I've been practicing my circus moves on the devil sticks- I hope to be up to par in no time). I found a binder full of every music piece we sang/played in 8th grade chorus. This is special, because it was the year that I really started to love the piano. It all started with one piece-"over the sea to sky". It was one of the first ones we sang, and I loved it right away. When I found out that students were allowed to accompany the chorus on the piano, I was thrilled. By this point, I was thirteen, and had been playing the piano for six years. I'd obviously liked it (since I'd stuck with it for this long) but the idea of being able to play in front of not only the students in the chorus, but an entire auditorium full of parents, teachers, kids, etc proved to be the exact thing I needed to shoot my piano career through the roof. I brought that piece home, played it until I had it down perfectly, and then went back for more. I hadn't seen any of these pieces in years, and it was very exciting to find them when I wasn't expecting to. I'd just been talking about some of the songs this past weekend with *ba* and *ja* who were also in chorus with me in junior high. Ahh..the good ole days.

maybe.i'll.join.the.circus

After being out of the house for ten years, my parents are finally doing away with my room. They're combining their room and the current computer room to make a fabulous master suite, and since my room is the smallest of the other rooms, (coupled with the fact that out of the four kids, I sleep there the least (two nights/year at christmas time)) they're hijacking it for the new computer room. Today I drove out there to go through some stuff I still had in the closet. It was mostly crap- tons, and tons of photos- but I came across one treasure. These guys are going to change my life!

creepy.trees

It was so foggy out, that I didn't get to show anyone the great views from various peaks on the skyline trail. I did however get these pictures of creepy looking trees.

old.friends

Since I have the house to myself, I dragged *ja* and *ba* over last night for dinner. We had a great time- just like we did in high school. After eating, we played some "would you rather" and karaoke for a bit. They both stayed over, and we went hiking today. We did the same trail loop that *nn* showed me a while back, and even though it was wet and foggy, it was fun to do. That's us at the top of the observation tower on great blue hill. I look like I just dipped my head in a vat of boiling water. It took longer today than it normally does too, because we had to be careful not to slip on the rocks. Some places can get pretty treacherous too. We got back a little later, wet and shivering, and all grabbed a cup of tea to warm us up before *ja* and *ba* had to head out. We're already planning hiking trips out in western mass when we visit *ba* where he lives in northampton. Eventually I want to build up to a weekend trip in the adirondacks where you carry everything on your back. That would really be fun.

**As an aside- *ba* learned how to play the piano since high school- and he's really good too! I've always been the pianist in my circle of friends, and not only is he better than me, but he could literally play every single song that I played. I'd start something, and he'd say "oh ya! That's (fill in the blank) by (a dead musician)." I didn't even know half of the titles to things I'd played for years!

cuban.treats.

I met up with *nk* and *ac* today for lunch. We've been friends since college, and while I still see *ac* on a regular basis, *nk* is finishing up med school in ohio, so we only see her when she's in town (or when we go visit her out there in the middle of nowhere). She just finished all her interviews for a residency position- hopefully she'll end up back in boston so we can hang out more. We went to this cuban place in jp that *ac* had tried to go to on new year's eve. They called the day before to see if they needed reservations, and were told that they could just show up. Show up they did, and found a closed restaurant. So we tried it out today, and it was really good. All three of us got cuban sandwiches, we shared plantains, and *nk* got some chicken soup too. Even with two espressos, the bill only came to $25 or so. I guess that means we'll be taking some more trips for cuban!

arrested.development

My goodness. I've been watching arrested development for some time tonight, and it sure is funny. My brother watched it when it was on tv, and kept telling me how great it was, so I finally added the three seasons to my netflix list. I watched the first two discs before christmas, and just got the third and fourth today. It's pretty unbelievable how much play they can get out of a fairly straightforward plot line. I laughed so hard I cried.

bus.

Boy do I have a story for you. Tonight was the night that *ac* hosted fitness night. She'd ordered a video from netflix- bellydancing this time- and we were all supposed to meet at her place around 7:15pm to try it out. Since *ja* and I try to stick to our walk/jog plans on monday and thursday nights, I convinced her to come to bellydancing with me. We'd take the bus to *ac's* place, and then walk the 2.74 miles home afterwards. In theory, this was perfect. In reality, it was a disaster. The bus should have been at our stop around 7:03. I was running a little behind, so we left the house at 7:01. We should have made it since it's literally around the corner, but it was either really early, or it never came. We waited for ten minutes or so, and then started walking to the main street to catch one of the other buses. We were a block away as we saw the 37 drive past. We got to the corner and tried to decide what to do. All I had in my pocket was a roll of quarters and a T pass- no phone, cash, etc. *ja* had her phone, but thanks to auto-dial, I don't know anyone's number by heart. As we were standing there, I saw a 37 heading in the opposite direction, and made a snap decision to hop on. I didn't think it went much further, and then it would turn around and drop us off near *ac's* place. Plus, it was freezing out, and I didn't know when another bus would be coming along. On our way in the wrong direction, we passed two other buses heading the right way. Ah well. So we get to the end of the line, and instead of just continuing back in the right direction, we sit on the bus for ten minutes. This made sense when I thought about it later- some buses actually stick to a schedule, and if she just kept driving, we would have been really early for the other stops. So we didn't get to forest hills until 7:55, and then had to walk 0.62 miles to *ac's* place. I was a wreck since I couldn't remember her phone number and felt bad that we were almost an hour late. It all worked out, and we did our hilarious bellydancing video that actually made us sweat (who'd have thought there was so much cardio going on there?) and set out for our trek home a little after 9pm. It was freezing, and I think that we both have wind burn on our cheeks, but we made it the entire way home, for a total of four freezing cold miles.

read.palms?

Here's one for you...

cough.cough.

I can't stand it when people cough. Not because of the germ issue either, just because it's incredibly irritating. It's a little ridiculous because people can't usually control a cough- if they're sick, they're sick- but the constant coughing gets under my skin. The girls are constantly coughing. The oldest and youngest pretty much have a cold for the entire fall/winter/spring, and the middle one has asthma that results in her coughing whenever she runs or exerts herself (and when she has a cold, obviously). This annoys me to no end. My response? I tell them to stop (like they can) and threaten them with cough medicine. This seems to be somewhat effective since they hate it, and usually gag and eventually vomit when forced to take it. We've tried all kinds and flavors, with little success. The "thin strips" work as a last resort for the middle one, but not for the other two. So in order to avoid the medicine route, they suppress their coughing. Hopefully they don't suffer any long term negative effects from all those uncoughed coughs.

got.it

I went to the photo store yesterday with the head to my enlarger, and they had the right sized light bulb! Now I'm going to have to be in my darkroom for hours catching up on all the backed up printing I have to do. I wonder if it's too late to do my christmas/new years cards?

anyone?

I need some help. I remember hearing about a site where you can enter in the route you take while walking/jogging/biking, and it will tell you the mileage you covered. Obviously this would apply to neighborhoods and city streets, not trails, etc. Anyway, I can't find it, and since I'm starting to walk/jog with *ja* two night a week (outside too, not in isolation on my treadmill!), I really want to be able to get an accurate measure of what we're doing without buying a pedometer. I thought about using something like hop stop and entering in the route piece by piece, but really, that's just ridiculous. Plus, I don't think it would be accurate at all. Grrr....I remember hearing about the site sometime in july. Now I'm kicking myself that I didn't write it down.

i.need.a.light.bulb

I'm out of luck. The light bulb in my enlarger burnt out, and I can't find another one. I'm quite surprised that it lasted this long- I've had the enlarger for over five years now, with just one bulb. It's a weird one all right. It kind of looks like a refrigerator bulb, but it's white, has a crazy high wattage and voltage, and instead of a threaded base, it's smooth, with two bumps at the bottom. Anyway. I went to home depot first on the off chance they'd have it- which they didn't- and the guys sent me to an electrical supply store. The electrical supply store didn't have it either, so the next step was to look online. Unfortunately, the light bulb disappeared before I could do this, and since I bought the enlarger used, it didn't come with any info. My last ditch effort was to bring the head to a photo supply store (in this case, zeffs) in the hope that they could help me figure it out. It's a little bit of a drive to belmont, so I called them first to make sure they carried light bulbs. It was a good thing I did, because while they're regularly opened on sunday, today they were closed for inventory. They do carry bulbs, so it looks like I'll be taking a drive out there tomorrow.

wind.issues.

Today couldn't have been a nicer day. Temps reached the 70's, and the sun was out in full force at times. Instead of sitting on my butt inside all day, I went out to rollerblade at millennium park. I did the upper loop four times, and hung out on a bench overlooking the river and woods. The sky was deep blue, with puffy white clouds, and the contrast with the trees and river was great. (I wished I had my camera, but I probably would have wiped out and crushed it, so it's better that I didn't.) Since it's at the top of a hill, you get great views of the city as well as the blue hills (and the girls' school on top of their own hill). The only problem with being so high up, is that the same wind which makes this one of boston's best kite flying areas, also makes it close to impossible to rollerblade. The loop is a large oval. The short sides are no problem, but one of the long sides has you facing into the wind, so no matter how hard you work, you roll a few feet before stopping. It pretty much kicked my butt- my shins weren't happy. On the other hand, once you made it to the opposite long side, you pretty much just hung out, and the wind pushed you the whole way. I liked to give it a few pushes every so often so it looked like I was doing something, but really, I wasn't. I suppose the effort exerted on the hard side evens out the easy side, so I probably get just as much of a workout. Ah...the joys of a warm day in january.

new.plants.

A few years ago, I developed an obsession with indoor plants. They make my place feel warmer and not so stark. I have some jade plants, a couple of taller tree type things, some philodendrons, and my sister's favorite, a wandering jew. Most of them need sun, so the hallway at the top of my stairs is pretty empty. I've tried to keep a few in there, and they've all died, but considering the fact that I know little to nothing about plants, this came as no surprise. After having my christmas tree in the hallway, I decided that I really needed a good dark-happy plant out there to keep things alive. I stopped by winston's the other day (a step up from my normal home depot runs- and as a side-note, if anyone ever wants to get me flowers, get them from this place), and talked to someone about what types would grow in low light areas. I ended up with a really neat looking plant called a zz plant. (Pic up there.) It's pretty sweet. It's right at home in my hallway, and really perks the place up. Of course, while I was there, I found several other plants I liked which turned out to need lots of sun. I got them anyway, and have one hanging in my window (a cool succulent called string of pearls- in the picture over there- it kind of reminds me of seaweed), and two ferns in my bathroom. They make me happy.

free.food.

I had lunch at my dad's office today. My sister had to return something at the cambridge side galleria, and my dad invited her to lunch since his company feeds everyone every friday. It turned out that she needed me to come with her since I used my credit card, and they needed it in order to do a return. I figured if I was going to drive over there, I may as well go a little further to kendall square to score some free food. Today was greek day. Last time I ended up there, it was indian day. Mmm..mmm. They had a ton of food. I picked out some sort of delicious chicken wrap thing, salad, spinach philo squares and sausage, and they had a bunch of other things. As if it couldn't get any better, they also had ice cream. I'm not talking hood half-gallons either. They had jp licks, and no less than thirty quarts of it. I assumed they would stick with the vanilla/chocolate/strawberry/coffee flavors, but they had everything, including my personal favorite, peanut butter hard yogurt. To top everything off, there were quarts of sauce, (chocolate, caramel, marshmallow, etc) and quarts of toppings (m+m's, crushed oreos, nuts, etc)- two of each. Can someone teach me computer programming so I can get a job there??

bad.dream.

I had one crazy dream last night. I don't remember most of it, but the parts I do remember are weird. Like being locked in an abandoned house that was full of swampy stuff- mud, water, you know. It wasn't deep or anything, we were just trudging through it. I was with two other people- don't remember who- and we were trying to get out. We kept looking through drawers for things we could use, but didn't come up with much. Then I found an old bed sheet somewhere, and decided that we could use it as a tent-like shelter when we got out. (Apparently we were in the middle of the woods- nothing much was around. We got out (which didn't turn out to be hard), but we had to look out for the bad guys. Then we ended up in another house that had been turned into a museum. We didn't want to go in, but "they" made us. (No. I don't know who "they" are. I'm assuming the bad guys we were looking out for.) We were walking through this place, and walked into a room where the ceiling was built on weird angles- kind of like we were under the stairs or in an attic. It freaked me out- like panic attack material. The other two people who were with me were freaked out too, and I think we were whispering about it. That's it. That's all I remember. Anyone interested in interpreting this one?

lick.lick.jp

I hung out with my london friends today. They came back for the holiday's, but were in connecticut and new york for most of it. Today, they drove up to boston, and met up with some of their daughters old school friends at the clayroom in coolidge corner. I showed up around 4pm, just when they were finishing up the painting (good timing, huh?!) and then we all went over to jp licks. It was quite the trip. There were nine little girls who were all super excited to see each other. Chaos for sure. They're staying in boston tonight, and are heading back to connecticut tomorrow, but not before they meet me for lunch. As nice as it was to see the kids having fun, it will be nicer to have a quiet visit with them all to myself. I can't wait until march, when I go visit them back in london!

page.rank.

Wow. I just figured out what my page rank was thanks to some help from evil. It's a 2/10. Hmmm.. I wanted it to be higher so I could get some treats from adagio tea which is sending out samples based on the page rating of your site (if you link to them of course). I'll get something little, but if it was one higher, I'd get an even tastier treat. The real shock occurred when I looked at the page rank of the other blogs I read. I'd have guessed that the ones that are the most regularly updated would have the higher ranking, but that wasn't the case. Surprisingly, my brother's was a 6/10. *b*, you should go to this site, and add a link to your blog. You could get a pretty sweet treat. (That you'd share with me no doubt!) I'm going to look into how to raise my rank now....

no.comments?

One of my new year's resolutions is to post more comments on blogs that I read. I always enjoy reading them, and didn't think about the fact that the blog folks wouldn't know this. Recently, I've noticed that when I get comments posted to my blog (or sent to my e-mail when the post option doesn't work like et#1 recently did) I get really excited. I guess I always assume that only my mom reads my blog. When someone mentions something that I posted about, I'm always confused at first, like, "What? When did I tell you that?" It's pretty funny. Pre-tty, pre-tty funny (a la larry david). So all those blogs listed to the right are in for some new comments this year. All except my brother's which won't let me comment. If you want to make my day, I encourage you to do the same:)

happy.new.year!

Despite my desire to go downtown for new year's, I couldn't convince anyone else to go with me. Some people had legitimate plans that they couldn't get out of, but most people just thought I was crazy to want to put myself through the chaos that is first night. I ended up having dinner at home, and drove over to *ac* and *gl*'s place around 11. We hung out there with some other friends until midnight, cheered with champagne and pama, and around 12:30, all decided to head over to matt murphy's (a bar in brookline). There was a live band there, along with the entire population of a small town, but we managed to squeeze ourselves into a little area around the bar. I like matt murphy's. It's cozy, has good decor, and the food's good. We didn't have any food last night, but I've had it before, and it's good. There was this one kid who kept collecting glasses and bringing them back to the bar. I think he thought he was being helpful, but since he was as drunk as a skunk, he probably spilt stale beer over several people, and broke at least three glasses. The bartender wasn't thrilled. While we were jammed in there, I recognized this women whom I'd known six years or so ago. Her kid went to the daycare I worked at while at bu. I wasn't sure it was her at first, because she didn't look old enough, but after a bit, I was convinced. When the bar was kicking us all out, I went up to her, and I was right. She didn't recognize me at first, but when I told her who I was, she remembered. She kept saying how good I looked, and how much she liked my haircut, and how she couldn't believe that I was old enough to go to bars now. I guess I never realized that I looked so bad before! Maybe it's my new makeup!