"Forget love. Try good manners." - Vivi*

Really, people. If you are going to make plans to meet someone for a date, said day comes along, and you decide not to go, if you are unable to make it, don't just not show up. Send some excuse, at least. Here are some reasonable options, any one of which would have not made me ever want to meet you again, but would have worked at least as an excuse. Thankfully I was waiting at a bookstore, and lost track of time reading Milosz, which would have made me late to said date, but I would never just not show up. How rude!

Some excuses that could be valid:

"I got hit by a bus and broke my right leg."

"I have food poisoning and am puking my guts out every 2 minutes."

"My car was stolen and I am writing a police report."

Of course, the only way these would be acceptable is if someone actually CALLED AND SAID THEM. Manners, people, what happened to manners? I'm going to start giving out free copies of the Guide to Excuciatingly Correct Behavior.


*from Divine Secrets, Rebecca Wells

post-christmas g-chats

johnny v: dilbert

evs: is never drinking again.

bickle: ♫ I give a Flock. www.heifer.org

van ant: iced in at xmas

where's santa?

if you're curious, the NORAD folks are tracking him and I think they'll even respond to your e-mail.

Happy Christmas Eve!

which power do you want?

If I were a hero, I think i'd like the poison deal maya's got, but it might not be a good idea for me to have that kind of power.

hair washing g-chats

evs:
doesn't recommend accidentally washing your hair with the hotel's small bottle of body lotion.

taft:
♫ requests that you not let her fall

bickle:
i give a Flock

meg:
stole link from kristin, very funny: 12 things to throw at bush

a day in the life of a saturday seattle snowstorm

8 am: Wake up to meet Bethany by 9. Because of snow, take #48, which for once in its life is blessedly on time, to Judkins Park. Walk up Massachusetts, wind up park and hill to 31st in Mt. Baker, plowing through snow uphill. Going uphill in the snow is excellent exercise, by the way.

9 am: Wake up the girls at the Mt. Baker house, which has the most beautiful views of the city, ever. Also fall in love with the wood paneling in the dining room. Trust me, you need to see it. It's the stuff that people used to craft 100 years ago. It's gorgeous. Have tea with the Mt. Baker house girls, who are all lovely. Dream about making Beecher's Homemade Mac n' Cheese.

11 am: Tromp over to see Liv at Sweet and Savory, which is entirely worthy of its review in November's Seattle magazine, and in Viv's blog. It's lovely in decor and smells, and I want to stay for a long while. But it's going to snow. Bethany drops me off at the corner of Madison and 23rd, and I run into the Safeway - well, actually, I don't run, I walk. Carefully, on the ice - to find people thinking the apocolypse is coming and they need to buy 800 lbs. of everything they might possibly need in the coming snowy days. I get some Beecher's Cheddar, and Gruyere, which might be my favorite cheese in the world at the moment.

2 p.m. Make Beecher's Mac n Cheese. 1/2 the recipe, because let's be honest, I don't need a whole pan.

3 p.m. Start making bread and put it to rise. Make some broccoli, since I want to eat something green with my mac n' cheese. Eat broccoli, mac n' cheese, and sigh happily.

4 p.m. Liv calls and says she might ski over. But it's started snowing now, and it will be dark. We nix the idea.

4:30 pm. Brush butter on top of bread before about to put in oven and watch it deflate a little. Very sad. Must let it rise a bit more. It does so.

6 pm. Take bread out of the over. Marvel at how beautifully it turned out after all. Thankful.

7 pm. Make a batch of lemon drop cookies and a batch of the best brownies in the world. I freeze them. Also freeze 1/2 the bread, since Dri left already for Christmas and there is no one else to eat it.

8 pm. Laugh at Will Ferrell in Elf, on CBS, which is the only station coming in with my little rabbit ears.

10 pm. Laugh at Must Love Dogs. John Cusack essentially reprises Lloyd Dobler here, but it's oh so sweet and also funny. The zingy one-liners are enough to send me happily off to sleep with only one glance outside at the falling snow. It's been a while since there's been a good romantic comedy out. I wouldn't say MLD is Grant/Hepburn/Tracy worthy, but it's a notch above the recent idiocies.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Seattle shuts down during snowstorms, but I cannot bear being inside for hours and hours and hours.

So I walk downtown from my house, meandering down on Union, then Seneca. I tell people waiting at bus stops that the #2 bus is not coming, that parts of Union have been cordoned off. People are so hopeful in Seattle, I hate being the bearer of bad news. I haven't been in a department store in months, but I find myself wandering around Macy's. I test out some Black Pearl eyeshadow. I try on about 13 coats and drool over the Michael Kors dresses that I certainly don't need. I have some soup and sit in the window, reading the first essay in Best American Travel Writing 08. This is a book I want to savor, so I am reading each essay one at a time, like eating a good chocolate once a week. I'm hoping to drag it all out til February at least. I pass the line for Santa, which is stretched out for a block. But people are patient and happy in the cold, smiling and greeting folks who pass by.

The bus does not appear to be running, so I brace myself for the walk back up the hill and do so. It only takes me a bit longer to get home than it did to go down.

"Did you just blow a kiss at me?" - CCL*

There are some things that should be given context, and some that should not. This one probably should, but will remain mostly contextless in this blog. You can feel free to imagine how it occurred, at the end of a 105 minute weekly staff meeting.

*CCL is, to put it mildly, a harried, crazy person who needs about 8 years of sabbaticals. That is me being nice.

if i were going to buy more boots

i would buy the ugg kona boots, which i have been obsessed with for approximately 27 hours. or the surfcat ones.



i went boot-shopping with BeCs before she left for Germany, and we both found some...I love these new boots: they are cool-looking, I could wear them horse-back riding if I wanted, and i can walk for miles in them. I've worn them about 60 times since I bought them. But they are NOT warm. And it is FREEZING outside.

But I don't really need ugg kona boots, since I just bought some boots two months ago. The fact that I don't need them is not preventing me from constantly checking ebay to see if there's any chance they're up there for under $100.00.

"finally tracked you down, can you move your car?"

this was asked of me by a super nice security guard at the UW ER late Monday night, after having parked illegally for about 7 hours right out front. he tracked me down in room 6, where I was hanging out with a friend who needed to be there, trying to make her laugh and distract her from the fact she needed to be in the ER.

I learned a few things about the emergency room during my visit.

here's some tips:

1) go to UW. they're all so nice. I mean, really, really, really nice. from the nurses to the security guards to the residents and docs...everyone was stellar. and I parked her car illegally for 7 hours, and they came to find me and ask me nicely to move. how nice are they? super nice.

2) have a book. for the long periods of boredom when your friend is taken to wherever before coming back to the room. I had Water for Elephants, and this is a good one to have along.

3) going to the ER involves long periods of boredom interspersed with short superspeedy periods of humming activity. during the long periods of boredom, it helps to have jokes. and coffee. there is a roaming coffee cart in the hospital, and it is nice.

all you need at a party is...

a black person?

Racewire had this posted last week, off of gawker. it's disturbing on many levels. thoughts?

coffeehouse is the coolest event ever

and i am consistently amazed at how many amazing talents people have. Also consistently humbled, that folks would share their amazing talent so freely.

seriously, check out the playlist. people were fantastic, and I can't wait for the next one, jan 10th!

coffeehouse commercial

if you need a preview of tomorrow night's coffeehouse, here's what happened last time.

it was awesome.

tomorrow will be awesome too.

Dri and Gretzky are performing a very special number, as are several others. It will not be recorded for posterity, you must be there in person to see it!

xoxo,

gretzky

monday, monday, monday

First of all, I'd like to point out to Steve Jobs that taking an interview while on vacation with his family means one is not on vacation with their family. (I was googling "Monday Meetings" to see what would come up.)

Second of all, I can't stand Monday meetings. I think they're pretty awful. For a multitude of reasons. Mostly this week I didn't have coffee or breakfast before attending a series of 3 meetings, which is really not the meetings' fault. Let's be honest, I should have eaten something and then I would have been less cranky. Or at least more productive.

Here's some helpful meeting tips, in case you missed my first round of complaints about meetings a while ago.

if I were being proposed to at the sea

i would hope this didn't happen. but I will never be 4'11 and 93 pounds. Ever. Even if I get the dreaded shrinks like the Twits. This might help me remain bouyant.

Also, I'd just like to point out that not only is this a tragedy, he broke the 1/2 +7 rule. I'm disturbed by that, too.

As well as the fact that they met online. People, really, can anybody give me some hope that people don't just meet online anymore? Anyone?

singing g-chats

evs:

You. Are. Welcome. http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/11/13

and

Take a deep breath, America. Your skies are safe now that TSA has confiscated my deadly terrorist hair products.

k8:

♫ thinks: there's a time to stay and a time to rock 'n roll


cowboy:
is busy. You may be interrupting.

"it's very important to have crushes" - Alec Greven, aged 9

This kid could help a lot of guys I know.



seriously, you gotta watch the interview. He's hilarious.



and probably in 20 years he will be in some elected office with of course, the perfect female on his arm.

other people's children

"Rainer Beach needs to be closed and consolidated. If the kids in these gangs can't learn to go to school and be civil like normal human beings, let the justice system deal with it. You can't maintain a school system that falters under the pressure of maintaining gang territory. Let the heavy hammer of the law fall and regain some order. " BothellMom, comment on 12/04 article in the Seattle Times.


Dear Bothell Mom,

You seem to have overwhelming confidence in the justice system to transform kids who have been under-served for their entire lives into productive members of society. Yeah, let's put all the kids we're scared of into jail, that'll work wonders.

I am not convinced that the best way to transform an at-risk student into a productive citizen is by incarcerating them.

Perhaps you know something I don't?

Your general attitude reeks of a refusal to see the "kids in these gangs" as what they are - kids, young human beings who are trying to survive the best way they know how. And they certainly aren't someone else's problem to write off, to say, oh, that's just another young black kid again, shooting themselves or someone else up.

John Donne said it better than I ever could: "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."


Sincerely,

Gretzky

a picture's worth a thousand words

or something like that.

but if you need an image, google's got 'em: LIFE photo archive, hosted by Google.

g-chat sins

johhny v:

"Mother Nature makes wine, brewers make beer": New Yorker.


marsh:
I had no idea: 7 deadly sins

and

Most annoying/awesome gift ever


k8:
election withdrawls? vote 3 times per email address per day and help the north texas food bank get a truckload of tuna!!! (our guy is in 4th place!)

Meg:
why is it 60 degrees?

evs:
"You like Phil Collins?"
"I've got two ears and a heart, don't I?"

new maths

one of the coolest things about my job is that I get to learn a lot all the time.

for example, I recently got to spend some time with the Everyday Math curriculum and people who know it far better than I do.

this is what I learned: a new way of doing math. and it is cool. maybe you already know this, but just in case you don't, I will share the partial sum equations process for addition with you. It was my favorite.

Example Problem:

579 + 285 =

What you do is go left to right, like in reading. this makes sense, right? And you start by adding the hundreds, then the tens, then the ones. This way kids get a sense that that 5 actually means 500s, it's not just a 5.

So you add the hundreds: 500 + 200 = 700

Then you add the tens: 70 + 80 = 150

Then you add the ones: 9 +5 = 14.

And then you add it all together: 700 + 150 + 14 = 864.


Okay, let's try it again, just in case you're confused.

347 + 928 =


Hundreds: 300 + 900 = 1200
Tens: 40 + 20 = 60
Ones: 7 + 8 = 15

1200 + 60 + 15 = 1375.

Isn't that awesome? I love it!