March 2009

That’s right. One more day in March, one more drive in March, and I’m thankfully already at my goal for this month for work. Basically this means it’s time to focus the entirety of my energy of April. Sigh.

In other news though only a week and a half until I’m in Houston celebrating Easter with my fantastic family and friends. And having the 2nd annual Garcia/Messick beer hunt. Yay for Easter Egg type hunting for adults. Please be sunny please be sunny please be sunny. I sat in the steam room at the JCC today to prepare for the heat and humidity of Houston so now I’m ready to be in a swimsuit and soak up the sun.

Of course the thing that got me most excited for Easter was this picture of my favorite Easter Bunny cartoon. Enjoy!

Things I am thankful for today:

• People who can smile at 7 am before getting ready to swim (with no wet suit!) in the Bay
• The space heater I borrowed for under my desk to keep my feet warm
• Back and forth emails with friends
• Andy’s horrible spelling that makes me laugh
• Ridiculous tattoo suggestions
• My daily Mom calls
• Being reminded that sitting in traffic is better than being in the accident that caused it
• It being halfway through the week (even if I do have to work this weekend)
• Finishing a good book …

And on that last note time to go finish The Poisonwood Bible so that it will stop keeping me up all night wondering what is next.

I have learned my lesson by way of Owen Meany and the Price Family that I need to be patient. Obviously in general in life would be good but at the very least when it comes to reading. I am finally rereading The Poisonwood Bible, giving it a third try thanks to my sister persistently recommending it, and am now at the point where I have to set limits for myself or else I will wind up getting 4 hours of sleep per night and start dreaming of the Congo. It took a little to get to know (or like) any of the characters. This is a problem when each chapter is written back and forth from the different women. But finally I’ve gotten to the point where I like them all, even Rachel who I formerly found whiny and boring. And Adah who I hate because I have to reread the lines she writes backwards.

I also was reminded the joy of good conversations with best friends who you haven’t caught up with in awhile by having a good long hour plus phone chat with Megan tonight. It’s nice to say to someone “oh my gosh I feel exactly like that too” and know that despite your own voice sometimes making you feel as such, there is much evidence to the contrary that you are never alone in your complaints about how life may have turned out to be a bit different than originally expected.

Last but not least I will say that I have finally determined that Monday is not always such a bad day and that being productive for at least a few hours of any morning makes the afternoon go by much more quickly.

I cannot believe the weekend is over already. Seriously.

I love that today my mom, my aunt, and I had a many email long string going back and forth about dog food. My aunt should’ve known she was in for it when she sent the simple email with the subject line: Have you heard of this food? and the link to the dog food company. Then it all began. By the end the email was taking up quite the scrollable screen and there was more than one list of ingredients. Chicken meal = bad. Chicken = good. White rice = bad. And you can chop up your own veggies or use leftovers from your own meals.

I still have no idea how my aunt or cousins are doing but I do know that Fenway is eating a four star food and that he doesn’t like Natural Balance.

I have to admit that lately everything I eat is in a bowl. Yogurt and cereal? Bowl. Pasta? Bowl. Oatmeal, salad, Ramen noodles, rice and beans, soup. I have a stack of bowls to wash every day. It is ridiculous. No wonder I have two loaves of bread in my fridge that have yet to be opened. Although the good news is that it is incredible how fantastically they stack together in the sink – it is easy to ignore washing them.

In other news the memory of my love of Tetris has been revived thanks to this funny photograph by Erik Johansson.

Check out the rest of his photo manipulations here.

Those commercials of Windows Photo Gallery with the little kids taking photos and doing cool stuff with them make me feel nervous. I mean it makes me not want to use a PC because what if I can’t manage to get my non-panoramic photos to become panoramic but that 7 year old can take ten pictures of her fort, splice them all together, and print it in a photo all in under 2 minutes? Embarrassing. Thanks Mac for always making me feel smart.

I heard from my mom today that Katie Holmes had new hair. Big news I know. So I went to People.com to check it out. Nothing there (did she really get extensions?) but I did see an article about Rihanna and Chris Brown recording a duet together so I have to take a moment to rant. I mean seriously? Unless the duet was her singing “you are a jerk and I’m going to break up with you and then testify at your trial” and him singing “I am going to jail” then that’s pathetic. I’m all for forgiveness but when you are role models to young men and women maybe at least TRY to put some thought into your actions. I mean of course following the actions that you didn’t put any thought into that got you here in the first place. Ugh.

But in other news, happy (almost) Friday!

So last night I saw Tara Hunt of Horse Pig Cow. Today I saw walking down Chestnut in the Marina Dog Cat Rat. Yes – welcome to San Francisco. The city of diversity and acceptance.

And crazy people who can make a dog and a cat and a rat be friends. Although I will admit then when I saw them the cat looked less than thrilled to be participating in the entire experience. My mother pointed out that getting a cat on a leash was impressive enough.

I then saw a colony of wild parrots at Fort Mason and decided that the weekend better hurry up and get here because who knows what strange things might happen tomorrow.

So tonight I attended Net Tuesday at TechSoup and heard Tara Hunt (www.horsepigcow.com) talk about Whuffie. It was hard for me to get past the fact that Whuffie sounds like Whoopie and then I kept thinking of the outdated phrase “making whoopie” which then made me think about this program I heard on KQED radio today about generational differences in words and phrases. But I digress.

What is whuffie? It’s the social capital or social currency that we all create for ourselves by being genuine and respectable in our online interactions.

Of course not to be confused with *wuffie*, which Urban Dictionary describes as “white urban failure”. Describes the element of the white American underclass that is neither urban nor rural.

And to draw both elements together I’m reminded of that Brad Paisley song Online.

There’s nothing better than spending the weekend playing in the snow, drinking free wine and playing video poker, and hanging out with some of my favorite people. Add to that a sleigh ride with my mom and pup … what fun!

Plus it is always so much fun to watch Glory play in the snow.

I started the week off with a mild panic attack this morning that my house was ridiculously dirty and bags still unpacked from the weekend. I think sometimes I have trouble not fixating on details … especially before I have coffee. Or cereal.