Life in the Slow Lane

A little over a week ago, I had a brilliant idea to post about how people are always asking for an extra day to get more things done because they have way too much to do and this year we got an extra day! But I've been so busy, I am only just now getting around to post about it. And ironically, I found the time to do so on the day when we lose an hour. Sometimes time doesn't march on... I think it skips and jumps and drags its heels and then takes great big leaps.

As I've mentioned before , when your living space is small, things gain multiple uses. So it was, that one day my co-worker asked "That is a lovely collar. Is that part of this shirt or is it a necklace?" I admitted, "No, it's a belt. I just thought I would try it in a different place." The next day I was complemented again about my colorful hair-tie. Me: "Oh, this? Um... it's actually a belt, too." Poor dear. Now every time she remarks about something I am wearing she quickly adds "Or is that a belt?"

One of the best ways to feel productive is to check items off of a to do list as you complete them. Wonderful thing it is, to plan to accomplish something and to follow through on that plan. That is why I made sure to include "Take nap in hammock" on my list. There is nothing like waking up, refreshed, and finding that you have been productive while you slept.

At some point, the best answer to this question is not "Here I am! Here I am!" Really, after a blood blister, two cuts, a burn and some accidental bonding with super glue, Pointer might just deserve a nice, relaxing soak in the tub. Wait... that sounds kind of like washing dishes... I'd keep quiet, if I were you, Pointer. And don't let Thumbkin do any more volunteering for you.

Sometimes I get a glimpse of foreshadowing. For instance, I am fairly certain that some day, while backing out of my parking spot at my apartment, I will go a wee bit too far and hit the yellow post positioned to keep people from hitting the fire hydrant. This suspicion was heightened when someone else knocked it over. The good news being that now that it has already been knocked over once, it will do less damage to my car when I hit it. You may think that this is unsightly pessimism rearing its ugly head, but there is a hole in the wall at work to prove otherwise. And really, what good does optimism do in situations like this? Answer: It gives you a dislocated side mirror.

I think it is time for me to cut my hair super short, die it pink, and spike it. Not once, but twice recently I have been confused for someone else. Not your normal, garden variety "Oh, I only saw the back of you". No, this is "I sat right next to you, spoke to you, and I thought you, who I have known for months, were someone I have known years." Or, "I was in the middle of a hug with you when I realized you weren't who I thought you were." The weird thing is, that I have met the two different women who I have been confused with. The only way we look similar, in my opinion, is that we have curly hair and glasses. It really makes me doubt to new depths that we are at all very observant. So like I say, maybe I should make it easier for people to see that I am me and not anybody else. But then I guess I wouldn't really be me if I had pink spiked hair.

10. It's Southern California, how cold can it get? 9. I lost my toe nail clippers. 8. I tried buying winter shoes, but the shoe racks are too small to carry my size. (I'd post a picture of my feet to show you how big they are, but your computer screen is too small to display it properly.) 7. How else am I going to open a door when my hands are full? 6. We decided democratically about which shoes to wear, and there are two of my feet, and only one of me. 5. It's such a beautiful day, I couldn't keep my toes cooped up. 4. My feet were playing Survivor , and my toes got voted off the island. 3. Oh, my toes are bare? I guess I stopped feeling them awhile ago. 2. My toe nail polish is so bright, I'm lucky my feet aren't sweating. 1. I do my best thinking when I can study my toes.

Today I received Preseasonal Happy Christmas Greetings from my sons and daughters in Liberia. I so very much enjoyed receiving them, that I thought I would pass them along so that others might enjoy this fine greeting as well. So... I greet you with preseasonal happy Christmas greetings!

So this week my roommates are gone. That means I finally get to do something that I've been wanting to do almost since the very first week that I moved in. I get to buy a watermelon. Now perhaps you think that there was no need to wait until my roommates left for me to do this, but I tell you it's true. When your refrigerator space consists of a short shelf, a narrow drawer, and some door space, buying a watermelon just isn't practical. Especially when you are the only one that will be eating it. Now granted, I could have bought myself a "personal sized watermelon" but I think it violates all moral principles to pay $3.99 a pound for a watermelon. Or, I could go with the other option of eating an entire watermelon by myself without the aid of refrigeration. I tried that once. Without plastic wrap. In the heat and flies of China. I wouldn't recommend it to those who only have a passing fondness for watermelon. Because truth be told, by the time you get to the e...

When outside temperatures edge towards 115 degrees and inside temperatures don't lag very far behind, you begin to wonder about integral parts. For instance, is this scarf an integral part of this dress? Is make-up an important part of formal dress? Is this slip a critical part of being modest? But as you progressively decide that there are fewer and fewer real necessities for dressing up, keep in mind that yes, the bridesmaid dress IS an integral part of being a bridesmaid.

Most buses in Recife are easily recognizeable as proper city buses. They may have broken glass on half a dozen seats or they may have a driver who is trying to make up for being behind schedule after having made stops to buy lottery tickets and snacks and to catch up with old friends. But for the most part, city buses look like city buses. Every once in a while, however, there is a route that supplements their buses with a VW bus. Perhaps you have been inside of a VW bus before and perhaps you've noticed, as I have, that they can fit nine people snuggly. So what do you call it when the bus stops and my sister and I are passenger numbers 15 and 16, not counting lap children, groceries, etc.? The man in charge of collecting the fare, opening and closing the door, and calling out the stops to potential passengers, stepped down from the bus, sizing up our rear ends, calculating the space available and the space required. (Just as you might decide how to fit another plate and bowl into ...

Well folks, the deed is done. The wedding dress only required a dozen or so on-the-spot alterations. We were able to go without the helium balloons and the bride still managed to float down the aisle. For the reception, it was decided to shed the hula hoops so the bride could have improved mobility, but due to the course of events, I'm wondering if maybe I should have made the hoops a little more permanent. I was ambushed. I was chased down and ambushed by the bride even though she was carrying her six foot train and her bouquet. Of course, my way was a little impeded since I was at the front of a crowd of single women, aged two and older. So yes, I "caught" the bouquet with about the same amount of effort as you might catch a cold after you've taken vitamin C, echinacea, and lots of water. Imagine my efforts in trying to explain that one to the on lookers. An eight year old: "I thought she was supposed to throw it." The volunteer caterer: "Just keep in...

Talk about hidden costs... Tuition. Of course. Books, yeah, that, too. Parking. I guess. Health fee? What? Maybe. Student Center fee? Um... Student Representation fee. Excuse me? Sounds like a silly tax. Keep an eye on your tea shipment, is all I have to say. But what in the world is the "materials fee" for my computer class? Time for a history lesson: Several years ago a mistake was made in an order and the college recieved 30,000 (yes, that is thirty thousand) floppy disks. So every semester they give their computer students two disks and a disk container and charge them six dollars under "materials fee". They have enough disks to see them through 2007. Too bad most computers don't even have disk drives any more.

The writer's life always sounds very noble and romantic. But it occured to me that maybe the reason behind this was due to the fact that it is writers who write about it. Now you may think this is rather self-explanatory, but imagine what an engineer might have to say about how the writer lives. Even if he thought writers were cool, if it all relied on him to propagate the occupation, it would live a miserable existence. I think that this is for the same reason you have a large field of historians who study the history of history. It is good and right that the people involved in a particular field should enjoy that field and study all of its avenues, but writers and historians have an extra dimension to the scope of their field. I mean, can you imagine the study of the mathematicalness of math? or the orthodontics of orthodonture? or the science of science? Sure, there may be a handful of people who take an interest in what might be construed as such, but mostly they...

After a lead in like that, you are bound to be disappointed, and I have to admit that it was a little anti-climactic. See, I started planning in November, and I dreamed about it and dreamed about it all through December when I finally put it together on Christmas Eve and... nothing. I just happened to forget about a few key properties of the great cool thing I was wrapping. That cool thing being dry ice. Like for instance that you can't handle it with bare hands. Or that it should be kept in a well ventilated place. Or that in order for it to "smoke" it has to have water in it. (Now at this point you should say "Water doesn't work very well in a well ventilated container that may be shaken and turned upside down as Christmas gifts frequently are." And this is what I should have said, too. But alas, it was not to be.) And I also happened to forget the great physical truth that cold air does not rise. So while visions of a huge smoking pac...

I am very excited. Today I have officially entered the business world. How have I done that? you ask. I purchased myself not one, but TWO address stamps (the kind that inks itself). And today I got them in the mail. Now perhaps you wonder why something as small as an address stamp proves that I am now part of the business world. But let me tell you that it signifies how important I am in that it is proof that I have to write my address lots and lots of times. Every time I use that address stamp instead of hand writing my address or using one of those freeby return address labels people sometimes send out, I am proclaiming to the world "This woman is so important that she should not waste her time and hand strength on something so trivial as an address." And obviously, anyone whose time is so valuable must be part of the working world. I think the next step is writing myself pay checks from my checking account.

Apparently, the illustrious town in which I live has an optimist club which gets a little bored. In order to curb this boredom, they plan stealth operations. These operations consist of borrowing the services of the police and watching the license plates of passersby. As soon as they spot an out of state license, they turn on the siren and speed after the car. The poor, frightened foreigner, once pulled over, is then greeted with a warm welcome and the offer to eat dinner here in town, curtesy of the optimist club. I suspect that only an optimist club would think that this was the best way to welcome people.

When one is busy and must cart laundry a fair distance to use a laundromat, it makes sense to save up several loads worth. (Usually this results in doing you laundry in your "laundry day outfit" which consists of anything you would be mortified to be caught wearing by anyone you know.) However, when one is not overly busy, has no need to cart laundry a fair distance to the single washer and dryer in house, it makes absolutely no sense to save up several loads worth to do all at once. But herein lies a problem. How do you manage to wash colors with like colors when you only have a week's worth of laundry? I have been musing on this difficulty for some time and I have arrived at a few solutions. 1) Make your wardrobe all of one color. This works especially well with black or grey. 2) Wear like colored clothing all week long. Thus, after a week of wearing "gentle, light colors" you could wash those and move on to "denim, dark colors in warm w...

Today I made fig jam. I have never made fig jam before. I have never made jam before. But today I made a small batch and arrived with approximately 5 pints of fig something. Whether it is jam is still to be determined. The good news is that today I only used a third of our fig harvest, so I will have the opportunity to try again. But since we will never be able to use it all, I plan on just passing the jars on to my neighbors with the instructions to just keep on passing on whatever they won't be able to use. You should be getting some shortly.

Women are supposed to be nurturers. If that is so, how come I have a long line of accidental deaths behind me? The impossible to kill plants, which I so easily killed. The scores of fish who lived longer when I didn't look after them. The koi I pet sat, two of whom ended up in the freezer. And the most recent tragedy. Today I found a worm from our worm farm, squished because of my neglegence. Poor thing. It didn't even have a chance to fight back. We used to have 500 worms, give or take a few, and because of me we now only have 499 worms, give or take a few. So today, be good to a worm for my sake.