nina turns 40

fotorama

With little in the way of introduction or explanation, here's a roundup of fotos from 2005 that y'all haven't seen yet

a spoonful of meme

Both Scott and Chris have tagged me.  It's not nearly as sexy as it sounds.  The memes are similar, a list of lists, with a numerical theme.  We'll start with the fives.

Five Snacks That I Enjoy:

Scharffenberger extra bitter (either the 70% or the 82% depending on my mood)
Cinnamon Bears (affectionately referred to as sin bears)
Popcorn (NOT microwave)
Quesadillas (made by me with corn tortillas)
Fried Calamari

Five Songs I Know All the Lyrics To:

Righteously by Lucinda Williams
Closer To Fine by The Indigo Girls
Almost Blue by Elvis Costello
Amelia by Joni Mitchell
Dos Arbolitos, an old Mexican bolero

Five Things I Would Do If I Were A Millionaire:

Buy a house in Seattle
Buy land in Mexico and British Columbia
Buy a camper, wire it to the hilt, and take a year to drive all over North America, homeschooling the kidlet and blogging it.
Quit eVil Corp.
Invest wisely

Five Bad Habits:

Fucking cussing all the damn time
Using bad posture when I sit at the computer
Talking too fast
Checking my email too much at work
Hitting the snooze button one too many times

Five Things I'll Never Wear Again:

White jeans
Stiletto heels
Blue eyeshadow
Knee socks
A wedding dress

Five Three Favorite Toys:

iPod
Computer
Camera

The next meme is all about seven.  I've answered a very similar one already so for my replies to the questions Seven Things I Want to Do Before I Die, Seven Things I Cannot Do, and Seven Things I Say All The Time, please click here.  Thank you.

Seven Things That Attract Me to Blogging:

My vanity
Writing for an audience
Place to publish my fotos
All the hot monkey sex
Community
Being a part of the new media
My love of freedom and liberty and Christmas

Seven Books I Love:

Setting Free the Bears by John Irving.  His first novel, and in many ways, still my favorite.  I've written about it before here.

Songlines by Bruce Chatwin.  Chatwin wins the prize for authors that I wish more people knew about.  It's one of my tests when I meet someone new--if they know Chatwin they get big bonus points (yes, Mr. Christmas Date, who needs a better nickname, passed the test).  This book has so many themes running through it, but like much of Chatwin's work, at the heart of it is an aching restlessness and a dissatisfaction with modern life. It's been far too long since I've read it.  I lent out my copy, and have regretted it since.

Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao te Ching.  I wrote about that one here.

Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek.  I don't care what anybody says about this book, I still love it.  I don't care that the opening anecdote isn't hers, and she wrote it as if it were.  Dillard can write your fucking socks off.  Calling her a liar is ridiculous.  Of course it's a lie, she's telling a story; all stories are lies, even if they come from the non-fiction shelf. </soapbox> Quite simply, this book woke me up.

Anais Nin's Diaries.  If she were alive today, she'd have the best blog. Evah.

Steinbeck's Travels With Charley.

Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr.  She's another author that I wish more people knew about.  This book is devastating.

Seven Movies I Watch Over and Over:

Diva
Out of Africa
Henry & June
Finding Nemo (not by choice)
El Norte
Anything with Jeremy Northam in it
Sense & Sensibility

Seven Songs I Play Over and Over:

Are You Down? by Lucinda Williams
Mulence by Cubanismo
Llora Mi Nena by Eliades Ochoa
You Can Close Your Eyes by James Taylor
A Million Tears by Kasey Chambers
Honey by Venus Hum
Ty, Y Mi Ciudad by Ruben Blades

Oh, and I'm not tagging anybody.  If you want to play along, tag your own damn self.  You know you want to.

to meme or not to meme

I've been tagged for not one, but two memes.  I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that you'd rather hear about my dates.  I have some bad news: they went really well.  And dates that go well, while they may make me all warm and fuzzy inside, just aren't as entertaining as dates that go poorly.  How do you know when a date is going well?  When you are the last people in a once crowded restaurant and the staff is going around picking up candles and straightening chairs, watching you carefully to see when you'll leave, but gracious enough not to kick you out.  On the way out, you decide to nab a table in the bar so you can keep talking, but it's closed (it's Christmas, afterall).  So you walk about the nearly empty city on wet sidewalks that reflect the glitter of the lighted trees.  Everything is bright and quiet and your voices echo off the store windows.  It starts to rain again, so you head back to your car.  As you stand at the curb talking with your keys in your hand, your glasses get covered in raindrops, but neither of you want to say good-bye.  As you drive home, you realize you are smiling.

For our second date we planned to see a movie.  We started out at one of my favorite places for drinks and conversation.  We never made it to the movie; conversed right through it, then went for coffee and closed that place down, too.  It's apparent that neither of us knows when to shut up.  When you talk about everything from quantum mechanics to Spain, why should you?

Memes to follow, and yeah, more dates, too.

 

briefly, before I sleep

I'm sitting here in the glow of the lights from the tree, listening to the rain.  The kidlet is at his dad's, and I just got home from a very nice date.  Christmas was very much as it has been ever since I can remember.  The kidlet's wholehearted belief in the magic of Santa pierces me to the core.  Every Christmas, as we listen to my Grandmother sing, we wonder if it's going to be the last year she is with us.  There are songs I never want to hear again after she is gone.  This afternoon we packed the car full of boxes and bags. As the ferry pulled away from the dock at Winslow, the kidlet laid splayed out on one of the long benches.  "Look, Mom!" he said, leaning his chin on the windowsill, "I can see the Space Needle."

out the office window

Answers to the lyrics game below the fold

tuesday iPod random ten thank god tomorrow's the solstice lyrics game

You know how it works, boys and girls, I give you the lyrics, and you give me the titles and artist.  Remember, googlers make the polar bears drown.

1) Mango ladies, vendedoras, at a bus stop sing a Banda Macho chorus
2) I'm yelling at the kids in the back 'cause they're banging like Charlie Watts
3)You raise my hopes then you raise the odds, you tell me that I dream too much, now I'm spending time in disillusionment
4) I've seen some hot hot blazes burn down to smoke and ash
5) I bought you that ring 'cause I never was cool
6) She bold as a street light, dark and sweet as hash
7) I heard you let that little friend of mine take off your party dress
8) I don't care if you don't want me, I'm yours right now
9) To walk to school, she has to get up early.  Her clothes are old, but never are they dirty
10) There are some things you can't cover up with lipstick and powder

And for all you badass chingón cabrones out there, a bonus:
Y pensar que te adoraba ciegamente
A tu lado como nunca me sentí
Y por esas cosas raras de la vida
Sin el beso de tu boca yo me ví

the unbearable lightness of parenting

Whenever I complain to my mother about how overwhelmed I get about all the Christmas duties like buying and putting up a tree, she reminds me--wise woman that she is--that the kidlet is six, and he will never be six again.  This obvious bit of information always lands like a blow to my gut.  How can one possibly grasp such a thing?  If you think about this too much, if you take it completely to heart it becomes impossibly heavy.  Ordinary life becomes unthinkable, you can't just continue going to the grocery store and doing homework and reminding him to bring his bowl into the kitchen.  You just want to sit with your child in your lap and stroke his hair.  You want to watch him every moment that he sleeps, you want every day to be Christmas, and you especially want the chance to change all of your mistakes, take back all those times you lose your patience or don't play a game with him because this is the only chance you get and he will never be six again.

monday miscellania

Question of the day:  What's more humiliating, coming to work all soaked through, or walking the streets of Seattle with your son's blue doggie umbrella, complete with ears?  I opted for the former, and I'm not so sure it was the best move.  I'm still damp.

Speaking of humiliating, thanks to my most recent foray into the joys of online dating, I've now figured out that my target demographic is much too low.  I should be looking at guys at least 20 years older than me.  To them, I am quite the hot young babe.  I'm sorry, but I refuse to date someone older than my mother.  Especially if that someone lives several hundred miles away and can't even be bothered to write an actual email to me.  Here's a tip guys:  that winking feature just makes you look like an idiot, especially if you are way out of the parameters of what I say I'm looking for.  If you already have an age and a distance strike against you, don't you think it would behoove you to try and make a little effort to impress me?   

It does look like I will have coffee (the quintessential Seattle first meeting) with a gentleman soon, however, and he's in his forties.  And cute.

I do it for your love

Oh people, the things I do for your entertainment.  I have updated my profile on a certain online dating service (not that lame one, either), and have even begun to contact folks.  I think my timing is especially hilarious, as who has time to start dating during the holidays?  Isn't there enough stress already?  Apparently not.  Apparently, my life has been sailing along far too smoothly.  Time to mix it up a bit.

Meanwhile, I've been invited to post at another group blog of pissed off typepad bloggers. 

tragic blogfree day

So what did I do all day while typepad was on the blink?  Besides rolling my terrible eyes, and gnashing my terrible teeth, and roaring my terrible roar, I blogged a wee bit over here.