From my fave expat parisian blog. Cracks me up in so many ways. Plus, I think we need to have a viewing of La Moustache…perhaps the best film ever?
2 years ago • 0 notesOK! I admit it!!! I relapsed a few months ago. I had been doing the program and everything, got through eight weeks…and relapsed. The pressure was just too much, and I was so busy with work at my first job and work at my second job and like, you know, watching tv and stuff to RELAX after all that working and I just cracked. That’s right…I quit running and went back to the couch. Hey, the first step is admitting you have a problem right?
In Alaska, I was shamed verbally by some not so subtle coworkers who reminded me, as I was stripping off layers and clutching my chest on the side of a mountain and gasping “Can we just calm the Yankee pace down a bit?”, that they were old enough to be my mother and I should be more in shape than this. I agreed, which I thought would get them to shut up, but it did not, and the verbal shaming continued…as if they were my actual mother. (Apparently the second step is getting a physical AND verbal beat down from some coworkers in their mid 50s.)
So now…I’m back in the program bitches! c25k…or couch to 5K for those of you not in the know. Just now, on a Saturday night, I completed week 3 day 1. This consists of two 90 second runs and two 3 minute runs with walking intermixed. Now it might not sound like much and yes, your mother COULD probably outpace me, but I did it…and I did it on hills! And to think a couple of weeks ago I was just in the couch phase.
The 5K in question is on October 10th. Think I’ll make it?
2 years ago • Notes10. Espresso shacks every mile!
9. That there is really only one main road. It goes from Anchorage to Fairbanks…and that’s all they need!
8. People keep their Chirstmas lights on their homes and lit up at least through the winter months, and about 50% have them up year round…even on businesses and government offices.
7. The constant directions on what to do if one is near a grizzly bear, black bear, or moose. Stand still and if attacked play dead…stand still and if attacked fight back…and run (those moose moms don’t mess around!).
6. Halibut Tacos at the Denali Salmon Bake
5. White water rafting on the Nenana River
4. Moose on the side of Stampede Rd in Healy…so close I could have easily shot one!
3. Hippies and rednecks living in harmony…bizarre but oh so happy!
2. Talkeetna - the little drinking town with a climbing problem.
1. Fireweed! Ranks right up there with dandelions!!!
2 years ago • 0 notesWhew. All the kids with high-functioning autism were WILD today, and thinking about it, my only hypotheses were:
And then I remembered reading about some quack study about autism being caused by rain, so I had to look it up. It’s of course not true…or is it????
3 years ago • 0 notesRecently I was looking through the house for a book to re-read. I love re-reading some of the same books over and over (I’d rather do this than read a new book most times…I suppose I am cognitively lazy in this sense), and settled on The Mermaid Chair (by the same person who wrote The Secret Life of Bees…but I don’t remember who that person is right now. Sue something. OK FINE, I’ll google it. Sue Monk Kidd.). And then I re-realized, that the reason I like this book is that it falls into my favorite genre, which is, I am pretty sure, an unnamed genre…therefore not existing. But it probably should.
OK, so I think this genre can be defined as…female main characters who are having an internal conflict, as in “woman vs. herself.” These women are all dissatisfied with their lives, particularly their significant others, and set out to find themselves. Most often they end up killing themselves (but through death feel some sense of victory over their lives) but sometimes, they actually find happiness (this though, is rare)!
I told Jim about this and he nodded and gave me this look that said both “that explains a lot” and also, “you aren’t telling me anything new, I knew you were [insane, depressive-tendencied, bred to be unhappy in all your relationships].” It was a unique look. I kinda agreed….
BUT now…I’m working under a new hypothesis to explain my literary preferences and/or tendency to lean toward depression. My first love of this genre was in high school when I fell for Tess of the D’urbervilles, quickly followed by The Awakening. (In high school people…before I was allegedly crazy (I think)). Before this I had read a bunch of Shakespeare, meeting Romeo and Macbeth and King Lear and all these other dudes…and Juliet and Ophelia. I loved Ophelia more than the others (and almost named Isabella this but Isabella’s winningly sweet and optimistic personality led her to a more traditional princess name).
ANYWAY…my working hypothesis is, maybe there are NOT strong, interesting female main characters out there. If there are, maybe I have not come across them in my literary affairs…or if I did bump into them, perhaps I was not attracted to them.
But if I had been attracted to these non-existent strong, happy, well-rounded female characters from the tender age of 14 onward…well, what then? Who would I be today?
By the way, some books in my favorite genre are…Tess of the D’urbervilles, The Awakening, The Mermaid Chair, and Eat Pray Love. The latter is the most read by me (I read it about once a month) and is by far the most uplifting and inspiring.
Do you know other books that fit into this genre? Or books that show likable main female characters…that aren’t chick lit? Is any book with a female main character chick lit? How often do guys read books with female main characters…and vice versa?
3 years ago • 0 notesThis might show my ignorance of political matters, foreign affairs, and speed boats, but someone has got to say it.
Pirates? Really???
I remember when I first read about this pirates brouhaha on cnn.com. I thought the article was a joke at first, for real. “CNN is paying homage to National Talk Like a Pirate Day! Awesome!” But then there kept being more articles, and now months later you can’t hit cnn.com without hearing about some pirates getting some more booty.
I’ve read a fair amount about these pirates, and I am sure there are significant historical reasons about why these pirates are pirates. I’m sure we have screwed each of these particular pirate groups (what IS a pirate group called, pray tell?) over multiple times, and they are just reacting and survivin’ (say it in a Scottish accent like Sawyer in that one episode of LOST) and all of that. But I have a few questions which have gone unanswered thus far and here they go…
1. WHY are we calling these punks with machine guns on speed boats “pirates”? The very word “pirate” calls into mind daring and dashing images of the Black Pearl, Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, cannons, and swords. Plus, there is like some sense of honor, and most importantly, flags. I have not seen any of these speed boats bearing a tattered flag with a skull and crossbones. Plus, when the media says “pirate” we think, “Ahh, yay, bringing the piraete back! It’s so sad what happened to Blackbeard! Give the man a pint, a parrot, and a peg leg and let’s toast to the high seas.”
We’ve got to call them what they are, something like Rebel Insurgents Of The High Seas (or RIOTHS for short). RIOTHS, while a mouthful, incites fear, not Disney images of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride complete with a lilting Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum. Which leads us to my next question…
2. WHY are unarmed ships rolling up in the RIOTHS territory? You KNOW there are pirates, excuse me, RIOTHS chilling there, and if you don’t, you might need to be hitting cnn.com a bit more. Keep up with the current events. If someone was like “Yo Katie, let’s sail around the world” I’d be like “OK, but we need to watch out for those RIOTHS. Maybe we should like prepare a defense just in case.” And then we would load some canons on the sailboat and be on our way.
3. WHY are people trying to do some hostage exchange with the RIOTHS? Guess what happens? You give the RIOTHS their RIOTHS back, and they keep your captain. It’s not rocket science folks. Now you are in a huge, easy to target, slow moving vessel and they (the Rebel Insurgents of the High Seas) speed away with your captain in a speed boat sans flag.
The French tried to get their hostage back but ended up shooting him, which takes “Shoot the hostage” to a whole other level.
What ever happened to the idea of “we do not negotiate with terrorists.” I cannot remember if that was a real political stance or from a movie, but I think it works. However, semantics comes into play again here, and “We do not negotiate with pirates” just sounds silly because again, aren’t pirates drunk and peg-legged and generally fun to be around when they aren’t fighting? So shouldn’t we give them a chance? See #1 for solution.
4. Why haven’t all the UN nations and everywhere else gotten together to take out these Rebel Insurgents of the High Seas? I’m not a big fan of war myself but come ON. They are wreaking havoc on a NUMBER of different countries. It’s not just this one US captain who’s being held hostage somehow in a lifeboat (I know, I don’t understand it either) but the French and some Italians, plus all the food and other supplies that cannot reach the people in these African countries who need this aid. I get they are in speedy little boats and therefore hard to track down (actually I don’t get that. I mean, find them for Blackbeard’s sake) but if the world cannot come together to fix this problem, I am not very hopeful for more abstract problems like “global warming” and “the economy.”
I’m sure there are more questions but I have grown weary of all this talk of RIOTHS. Or maybe I have scurvy from lack of vegetables. Either way, I’m sure that you have your own opinions about real pirates and the other punks in speedboats, so feel free to share and give me a more correct view of the world which I may choose to completely ignore.
Did you hear about the pirate movie coming out this summer?
It’s rated AAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
3 years ago • 0 notes