THE RETURN

...of Guest Post Through Paraphrase!

Seriously though, my friends have all of these funny ideas and stories. But in the end it's always, "Hey, you should put this on your blog!" So here we go:

My friend (let me emphasize, my FRIEND, not me...you'll see why in a minute) has this friend that she's known since they were preschoolers in Sunday School. And because they are sort of trapped in a small town with few cool people to hang out with, they have been spending some time together at parties and such - I think she dog-sat for his parents while they were out of town too - little stuff like that.

So the other night following a margarita-themed birthday party, they were hanging out and visiting. He was telling some story about giving blood, and my friend is pretty grossed out by normal needles, much less big huge needles to funnel blood out of one's arm. So she was squirming and cringing and pleading for the story to be over, and he reached over and grabbed her hand. At this point, you could imagine it was a comforting, friendly hand grab, meant to reassure her that life would go on once the needle story was over. But then the topic changed to lighter things, and he kept holding her hand. And as my friend would tell you, she is quite the hand-talker - there is much waving and gesturing and such - so at points she would break free, but when she was done, he would grab her hand again. She was puzzled by all of this, and finally said to him, "Hey, it's kind of funny how you grabbed my hand to comfort me, but then you just kept right on holding it." In other words, "Look, dude, what exactly are you trying to do here?" And he sort of mumbled this, "yeah well, I just wanted to hold it...mmph...er...yeah" and continued to hold her hand.

Now this guy is a little on the goofy, artsy, emotionally-connected side of things, so the initial hand-hold could be overlooked...but the continuation? So strange. Finally she got up to leave, taking her hand with her. And that was the end of the hand-holding. But not the end of the puzzlement. What exactly was he going for there? Was he going to put on some moves? Was he just seeking the comfort of another hand? We may never know.

So I'm back from this long, rather unintended hiatus, to bring you all a list of what pretty much boils down to selfishness. In other words, things that I have found strange, and I wanted to share. If you participate in any of the following, this is your clue to never let me know, unless you want to be mocked:

-Couple profiles/email addresses: Seriously people, are you so much into the identity of being with someone, in a couple, proving that you do have a significant other, etc. that the idea of having something still all by yourself is too much to bear? I think the jimandalicesmith@hotmail.com-types are about the dorkiest thing ever. Ditto with any sort of profile, especially on places like myspace or friendster. The whole point is for it to be JUST YOU, not the both of you.*

-The other day, there was a big rainstorm here. I was taking the bus home, and of course didn't have an umbrella. I made it, damply, under the bus stop, to then fight for space with a women who had her umbrella open. Under the bus stop. Where there was no rain. She stood like that for 20 minutes, waiting for the bus, dripping on those around her. I know you might wonder that I didn't say something (and believe me, I thought about it) but then I was really curious to see if she would ever clue in. She didn't. So I took a picture of her, for mocking purposes:















If you know this woman (not that you could probably tell from the picture), please tactfully explain to her why this is ridiculous, okay?

-I'm currently cat-sitting for two very nice guy cats, Sterling and D'Artagnan. Their owners about as granola as it gets though - they even buy holistic cat food and organic kitty tuna. I think they might actually spend more on their cats than I spend on myself. I'm all for eating healthy, but these cats also regularly eat mice and birds, which they probably find hanging out near the trash cans in the back alley.

*This does not include, however, blogs that are shared amongst two or more contributors. In my world, that is more of a forum, and not at all the same thing.

Gastronomy: the art of living well

Ebony came to visit me these last few days, making it a nice, long food-rich weekend. We ate our way all through DC, North Arlington and even West Virginia. Ebony and I share a very important philosophy about vacationing: eating well makes every trip better.

Ahhh...

So let's review the goodness:

Dim Sum in Chinatown (enough said)
Wine festival, with acres and acres of vineyards backing up to the Blue Ridge mountains, and ten different wines to try
Ben's Chili Bowl: DC landmark that completely lives up to its reputation for the best chili half-smokes in the land
The brunchiest of brunch places in DC, with books to peruse beforehand, and pancakes and eggs benedict during the brunch hour...

...and the crowning jewel in our gastronomic adventures:
Lebanese Taverna (oh sweet wonderful essence of all things yummy...this was a GOOD meal): involving spicy stuffed baby eggplant, hommous with pine nuts, chicken shwarma, kibbeh yoghurtlieh, and Lebanese chilled white wine, served al fresco in the gorgeous summer air

Seriously, food does make all trips better. Served up with great company and some cooperative weather, and I didn't even need to leave home to have a vacation.

In seeing the new Superman movie, I have developed a little bit of a crush. It's not on Superman himself, although he is certainly worthy of a crush, but it's on a rather unlikely person. John Williams, to be exact. One of the most thrilling parts of the whole movie - the part where I decided I already loved it - was when the "Superman" theme began to play with the opening credits. The music is so amazing! And Mr. Talented Composer didn't just do this, no no no, he has done so many more: ET! Star Wars! Schindler's List! Raider's of the Lost Ark! Harry Potter! The list could go on and on.

I've noticed a trend lately (with myself) that inclines more and more to instrumental and/or classical music. It's really the background music to my childhood - if you dropped into my parents' house right this moment, they would have on the classical music station or a similar CD (assuming they're home, of course). And then there were 14 years of ballet lessons, all performed to classical music. This also has an interesting side-effect, in that I can hear Chopin or Grieg, and immediately my muscles want to launch into a barre routine. Frappes! Degages! Musical memory is a strange thing indeed.

Don't get me wrong: I still love my rock'n'roll and all the others, but there's something so soothing about music that is purely instrumental. You don't have pay attention to or be distracted by the words, because there aren't any.* It leads me to one of my favorite quotes, which I collect for moments such as this: "It is only that which cannot be expressed otherwise that is worth expressing in music." (Frederick Delius). Beautiful.

*I sort of lop opera music into this category as well, because there are words, but I can't understand them.

Things That Rock

Tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad (with hearts of palm)
Superman Returns
Tank tops
Oscillating fans
Plans to see a matinee on a Tuesday
No more rain
Federal holidays

Regarding the Warren Buffet big donation story:

His children will not inherit a significant proportion of his wealth. These actions are consistent with statements he has made in the past indicating his opposition to the transfer of great fortunes from one generation to the next. Buffet once commented, "I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing."

How wrong is it that I sincerely hope that this makes the Paris Hilton-types of the world wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night?

Fun new twist on an old, old forward-type thing

So I saw this on Danielle's and Babs's blogs, and loved it and decided to play along.

I know you're all disappointed that this isn't about my time in Huntsville, Alabama and Space Camp and all, but oh my dear lord there are photos to post so very soon...and they can be summed up in two words: taxidermy convention.

But back to the forward-thing:

Google your answers to the questions/topics and choose a picture from the first page and post it.*

Where I was born:
Where I live now:
My name:
My favorite food:

My favorite drink:
My favorite superhero:

My favorite smell:
My favorite TV show:
My favorite sport:

My pet's name:

My favorite color:
My favorite holiday:

My favorite vacation:

*Although I would like to add that I didn't exactly do this so much as run a Google image search and picked the one on the first row that I liked. I had good intentions, but it didn't really go very quickly and it was either search for images or scrap the idea entirely...

I often have random associations with songs. And I just got a new mp3 player in the mail yesterday - it holds LOTS more songs than my former one (which was stolen off my desk, or I would still have...as discussed with the phone situation, I am too cheap to upgrade voluntarily). So with all of the music on it, I'm on a very bizarre walk down memory lane.

For instance: "Shake Ya Ass" by Mystikal. This song was huge my junior year of college. And because I have so much space on this thing, I sort of threw whatever on there. This song makes me think of Ebony's mom. She LOVED this song. I think the exact quote was "He sounds like James Brown!" I just think it's awesome that this dirty rap song makes me think of a little Hispanic woman in Austin.

Another one, not up on the shuffle deck just yet but the Mystikal song makes me think of it, is "Up in Here" by DMX. It makes me think of Joi's dad, because apparently he used the phrase "Y'all goin' make me act a fool" in his everyday life, prior to the song coming out. I totally love that.

Some more:
"Mundian to Bach Ke" (Panjabi MC) = African-ish bar in France and Cuba Libres
"2 Times" (Ann Lee) = drunk guy friends singing falsetto in a London flat
"Lady Marmalade" (the Moulin Rouge version) = blow-up plastic microphones and Babs, Eb, and me dancing in our campus apartment.

Tell me yours!

Train!

While I was at home for my sister's graduation, I learned something very interesting. My grandmother, like my sister, was the valedictorian of her class. We were chatting, and I asked her about the content of her speech. She told me she couldn't remember, but it was also a pretty sad time, because her grandfather had just died in an accident two days before the graduation.

I asked her how he died. Her reply was something along the lines of, "Well, he had some chickens. And there was this grass he liked to feed the chickens that grew along the railroad tracks. Now, he was about 90 years old and was pretty deaf, so I guess a train came along and he didn't hear it coming. So he died because he got hit by a train."

This was startling to me for a number of reasons. First of all, I was pretty sure my mother had NEVER heard this story, and as such had no idea how her great-grandfather had gone to meet his Maker. Turns out I was right - she was also pretty startled. Then there's the weirdness around the mere concept of my great-great-grandfather being hit by a train. And finally, holy crap I have an ancestor who lived to be 90 in freakin' 1935!! I might actually live forever, barring any run-ins with transportation services.

So then it gets stranger. Apparently on my dad's side, his father lost not one but two grandparents to a train accident. His grandparents were driving along (do you still say "driving" if it's in a buggy with a horse? I suppose so, as I can't imagine what else you'd say) and they apparently stopped on or very near to a railroad crossing. Again, they are both hard of hearing (I believe Grandaddy's exact phrase was "deaf as posts") and a train came along. So they both died. If you're wondering, no one seems to know what happened to the horse.

I would say I would try to avoid trains now if possible, but frankly that's just not going to happen around here. I will, however, be getting my hearing checked at my next doctor's appointment. Just in case.

Awesome

(Scene: Rachel is sitting at the front desk filling in for the receptionist. A large group of Afghan visitors arrives at the office).

R: Hello!

Tall Man in Turban: Thank you!

R: (pause)...Hi!

TMIT: THANK YOU!!

R: Er, you're welcome?

It's SO embarassing...

Actually, it's not all that embarassing, but I don't think I realized this side effect when signing up for a blog last year: all the entries are still here! Granted, not everyone knows what they're referring to exactly or what I was feeling at the time, and as much as I have attempted to make this as non-diary as possible, dramatic writings and such have still snuck their way in. So I won't go back and edit things (because those sorts of revisions seem like cheating), but I would like to clarify:

The sappy paragraph I wrote about my Turkish visitors? They were a total pain in my ass the ENTIRE THREE WEEKS they were in the U.S. The problem of abuse=still awful. My tolerance for Turkish women=very low.

#2 makes me sound very self-righteous, especially since I reactivated that bad boy this afternoon.

I still use smileys like ALL the freakin' time.

I was not specific enough here. Random straight boys are often not all that better, and sometimes WAY creepier.

I seriously regret any rhapsodizing I did about certain music and/or concerts...not that I don't still feel the same way, but my writing skills are apparently not advanced enough and they all came off as though I am fifteen. Which I am not. Ditto for anything about London or Paris.

There, I feel better now. If only I had this option for the adolescent years of my life.

The games we play

Work here can be a little slow sometimes. Other times it's super-busy, but there's always the off-hour or two (or day or two) when not a whole lot is going on. Fortunately the people in the cubicles surrounding me are very creative:

The Spam Emails:
Literally: Spam. So you know when you go into the "Spam" folder in your gmail account? Usually there is a recipe that ranges from icky to totally vile. We like to email these to each other. Some examples:
Spam Vegetable Strudel - Bake 20 minutes or until golden, serve with soy sauce ("is it Chinese or German? Who can tell?")
Spam Confetti Pasta - Spoon SPAM mixture over pasta ("this is SO not kosher")

And my favorites by far...
The Pictionary Emails:
There really are no words to describe this one, but I will try. We didn't have internet for a day and a half last December, which is already a slow month anyway. So our solution was an extended game of Paint pictionary. Some samples (with answers...):

(Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)




(Kermit the Frog, performing "It's Not Easy Being Green")

(And the best one: Saved by the Bell, Hawaiian Style)

Never doubt the places a college degree will take you.

Reasons I haven't really been updating at all

1. Gina keeps getting "Alias" dvds from Netflix, and I am a wee bit obsessed.

2. I might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from an incident that involved stabbing my big toe with a salad fork.

3. I had to bake a lot of small cute dessert-like things for a bridal shower over the weekend. And I had to find all my summer tank tops to take to Texas so I don't die of heat stroke.

4. I'm working on my secret plot to take down UPS...they have messed with me for the LAST TIME. I'll show THEM "not a working address."

5. I got this really badass t-shirt that I have been wanting for just about forever, and I'm spending all my free time trying to figure out how to post a picture of it for you all to admire!

Technology is ruining my life

Well, that's not exactly it...it's more like, I am so reliant on technology, that when it's taken away from me, I get really annoyed. Like last night, we encrypted the wireless network in our house, and it now won't let me log on, even though my roommates can. Grrr. And in addition to that, I got my new cell phone in the mail (yay!) but couldn't activate it because my stupid internet wasn't working.

But onto the new cell phone - expect flickr pictures soon, because I have a camera phone! I know I'm like the second to last person in the U.S. to get one, but my love of gadgets is overruled by my cheap nature, and I was not getting a new phone until my cell phone company gave it to me for free with a new contract. I still have really no idea how to load things from the phone to flickr and then from flickr to here, but I think the possibilities of doing so are quite cool. And I'll be working on that.

I wonder what my first picture post will be? Oh the pressure...

On the radio

As I'm listening to the news on the way into work, the announcer is promoting an upcoming show.

"It turns out that people who eat less calories actually live substantially longer."

Snippet from Dr. Expert: "Yes, but the problem is that you're hungry all of the time. So really the result isn't necessarily that you're living longer, but maybe that it just FEELS a lot longer."

A real, less funny, answer

About a year ago, I kept getting all of this German spam in my work email box. The title that intrigued me the most was the one I chose as my subject.

Turns out, it's a real title of an article, published here in Der Spiegel (in English, of course). It's a sad story, and ultimately now related to me, as we just hosted four Turkish women determined to stop honor killings in their country. It is hard for me to fathom how such things could still occur.

Mostly I'm just feeling very fortunate right now.

Promise to return to happy postings soon.

When I was mentally composing this post, I had three things I wanted to talk about. But now I can only remember two. I think this is very indicative of my long travel day yesterday.

Speaking of which, there was this guy on the second leg of my flight. And it was a little windy and bumpy during the flight, especially at take-off and landing times. Poor guy was not taking it well. He started stream-of-consciousness talking to me, the total stranger to his right to whom he had not introduced himself, about all sorts of stuff. Particularly his anti-anxiety medication that he forgot to take. The bumpiness made me feel a bit queasy, so I didn't mind the conversation (if you could call it that, monologue with interjected "oh's" and "rights" from me is really more appropriate) because it took my mind off my own troubles. But let me tell you, it's a good thing I don't have any flying-related phobias, because on the way down he chose to cope by telling me flying horror stories. The one where the plane crashed in Charlotte because of a sudden wind gust when it was taking off (he wasn't on that plane, but lives in Charlotte). The one where the plane had to take off at the foot of a mountain in St. Martin's and was flying up at an 80 degree angle (he was on that plane). The one where the plane hit a huge air pocket over the Pacific Ocean and dropped 1800 feet, sending those not buckled in knocking into the roof (that one too). So understandably he was a little paranoid about flying, but I don't really see how recounting scary plane times helped. If we had a big lurch he would have to pause (while white-knuckling the tray table) to regain his composure. I guess I just find the whole story interesting because I didn't talk at all, he just talked to me, and I can't decide if it's something nice, like I have a sympathetic face, or less nice and I was the body that happened to be next to him.

Also, on an unrelated note, does anyone have any good book recommendations? Now, when I mean good, I do not mean anything written by this or this person, for instance. It is important that we delineate between "entertaining" and "good." The last really good novel I read (that I can remember, anyway) was The Kite Runner. I've also read some good memoirs, Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Bookseller of Kabul, so a memoir would work too. My brain has been feeling a bit like mush lately, and I'm not okay with that. Any thoughts are much appreciated. Gracias, merci, and thanks y'all.

For your reading pleasure

I'm am SO going out of town this afternoon. I'm beyond excited (not to mention ready) to do so.

Blogging is unlikely, so I will leave you with links to two of perhaps my favorite related posts I have found on the internet.

Mighty Girl and Harry Potter
Defective Yeti and Harry and other

You should also check out this.

And this. (Seriously, this guy is hilarious).

Hope all these keep you satisfied for a bit. Toodles!

irony

I have applied to a lot of random jobs. Some, I would have given my eye-teeth to just be asked back for an in-person interview (I am great in person, over the phone not so much I think). Others were sort of in the "why not" category - I was either over or under-qualified for them, they don't really relate to my skills set, etc. But usually they were related in some way to international development work, which is what I think I want to do when I grow up.

So today I get a call-back for a job I applied for in November (!) and it's with some policy council that deals with agriculture and international trade. Even I can't figure why they want to interview me for this...I have NO experience whatsoever with either agriculture or international trade. The closest I think I have come to agricultural experience is the cows that would graze on our back acre at my parents' old house. That, and the occasional hayride at Halloween. Maybe they think all Texans are farmers. Whatever.

But I'm wondering, why a call-back for THIS position?! There have been some places that look SO great, that I was SO VERY qualified for the position. Now I can't even find the original job description for this one anywhere, so I don't even really know what I'm interviewing for anymore. I'm still going, because primarily I think any interviewing practice is good for me, and also because I know so very little about what I have in fact applied for, that it could very well turn out to be something interesting. As interesting as international agricultural policies can be, anyway.

Sigh.

Come On! Feel the Illinoise!

Okay, so I'm a little mad at all of you. Why didn't anybody tell me that Sufjan Stevens was going to rock my freakin' socks off??!! Seriously people, when I think of the hours I've wasted listening to lesser music, I get a little depressed.

Yet I only need to crank up "Chicago" and hear the opening notes and I am happy again. And then I perhaps set the repeat and listen to it over and over again for a couple of hours.