I'll be home for Christmas part III

Which "rhymes with 'if only in my dreams'" variation is most suitable to my annual return home to Connecticut? I'm leaving tonight, so I give you, dear reader, the choice:

I'll be home for Christmas,
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me,
Where the love light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas,
_________________.

a) listening to mom's parrots scream!
b) drinking dunkin' donuts coffee (which is mostly cream)!
c) cheering for my tundra bowl team!
d) watching gutter icicles gleam!
e) admiring the hot tub's steam!

Happy Holidays!

Unprecedented

I left home at 8:15am today. I got into work at 8:35am. I never dipped below 40 miles per hour on the bridge, whose speed limit, I believe, is usually 50mph by law and 15mph by practice.

Happy Holidays to ME!! People need to take vacations more often!! If only every morning could be THAT easy!

Cheerfully yours,

EHH

Not Terribly Clever

You're all probably familiar with the myriad names that a spoof or spam email will use to get their emails past your spam detector. "Thurnbockle Snogglesworth" has sent you an email entitled "BEST STOCKS ACT NOW," for example.

Which is why I had to laugh when I opened my spam folder to be sure an email wasn't accidentally diverted into it, and saw maybe the least clever cover name I'd ever seen attached to a spam email.

It said, simply: PARASITE.

Ha ha ha -- I'm a cheap date!!

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

Driving Miss Piggy

I left the house at 8:05am today, and got to work at 8:40am.
I left the house at 8:15am on Thursday and got to to work at 9:15am.

There is no calculating Calicommuting...you just leave a little early and cross your fingers.

Last night S. and I had a baking fest. Don't know what inspired us exactly -- he got a hankering to bake a pumpkin pie, because it's one of the only sweets he likes, and because he's not "a baker" and wants to start learning. So I gave him my favorite pumpkin pie recipe and we dug up a graham cracker crust recipe (which we used old girl scout shortbread cookies for -- at last!! a use!!) and he buckled down to bake (or should I say, bakled down?)

I got a hankering for bread. Hadn't used the ol' bread machine in a bit, and hadn't yet used the birthday book o' bread baking recipes (or should I say, the broeakingday o' recipes? Hmm, that one didn't work so well...) I got from L., so I dug up a yummy sounding recipe and another yummy sounding recipe, and made a bread machined loaf of parmesan olivey goodness and an traditional oven baked loaf of Pumpkin bread, substituting the 1/2 cup of oil in the recipe with cinnamon applesauce as a low fat option, thanks to a trick my stepmother taught me.

The parmesan olive one kinda came out a little shrunken and none of the olives incorporated into the inside of the loaf -- so it has a very elaborate crust!! But it still came out okay and is quite flavorful. And the pumpkin bread is too moist. I didn't think pumpkin bread could be too moist, but I cooked it at a slightly lower temperature than was recommended -- so S. could bake his pie at the same time -- and I'm wondering if some of that moisture was meant to burn off? Or was it the applesauce substitute? Dunno.

S. reports that his pie tastes great, though the crust is stuck to the pan. So I guess it was a moral victory for us -- sheer creativity points -- rather than an awesome success.

I have been getting over a cold. I seem to get one annually, and this one came right on the heels of my flight back from VA, so it makes sense. I think yesterday may have been my first full day of energy post-cold, which may explain the sudden burst of baking endeavors...

Happy Christmas Season!

Superhero or Cleaner?

This is pretty funny!

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/11/superhero_quiz.php

I only got 12 out of 20 -- it is harder than you think!

Vegetable Victory and Vitamin Value

Last night, after a long day and a lengthy gym workout, I was desperately craving pasta -- rich, cheese-laden rigatoni with italian sausage in the marinara sauce. Instead I walked to the supermarket and bought italian and yellow squash, mushrooms, an onion, and some canned diced tomatoes and made up a little ragout-like saute instead, like my mom used to make. Which she then would put over some angel-hair pasta.

Which I did not. I did put it over a half a cup of cooked white rice. But I was led not into pasta consumption, for I delivered myself some vegetables.

It was good.

Also, I've started taking a multi-vitamin, daily. I have proof that my body is absorbing and benefiting from this practice -- my fingernails grow like nobody's business, but more noticeably, they don't break or chip any more. Previously they've grown pretty fast but have an upper-limit of length because they chip and shred after a certain point. These days I've had to file those suckers down twice since I started taking the vitamins, because they're getting in the way of me comfortably typing!!

Aside from Veggies and Vitamins, things trundle on like normal. Hope you all are well. (~i_i)

Life Quiz

Thanks to Jack for posting his first...

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.1
Mind:	7.2
Body:	6.8
Spirit:	7.9
Friends/Family:	5
Love:	6.9
Finance:	7.7
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

It's kind of a bland quiz -- it just sort of rates how healthy each of these factors is. My life is "on a good path" -- apparently. "Your friends and family score is not bad but can be improved. Maintain your current social net, while you try to expand it. Try new things and form new friendships. You will be rewarded greatly." I think this quiz is predisposed to believe that three to five good friends is too low. I disagree. I think the people who are close to me are great at support, healthiness and dependability. So there!

Halloweeeeeee!

Hey everyone,

I had a great Halloween weekend. Steve has started accompanying me to ROCK, the kids organization I volunteer with, and so this Saturday morning was their costume celebration. I put on some tiger pants I hadn't worn in 5 years (ow, were they tight!), ears, a tail, and some tigery eye make up, and Steve dressed as a 'giants fan.' So many cute costumes -- little American Idols, Devils, Samurais, one Human Torch, some Scream masks that "dripped blood" -- Halloween is really all about kids age 6-12, so it was fun to get to be with them. Steve, by the way, is a hit with the 5th grade boys. They want to sumo wrestle him, sword fight him, beat him in basketball...it's really cute. I, on the other hand, seem to be a hit with the 4th grade girls (which was probably my happiest year at Rumsey...interesting) -- especially the ones who find themselves on the margins. It's still hard to get up early on Saturday morning, but even more fulfilling to be making lots of connections with these kids. This weekend is the last one of the season, to resume in January.

Saturday night was our friends 3rd annual halloween party, as well as Steve's best friend's 30th birthday (he got the "best depressing statement of the night award" by saying, Welcome to your Fourth Decade!). My friends had cooked up a fairie theme, Leslie was an Autumn fairie, Laura was a Winter fairie, Sarah (their new house mate and a friend of mine from Wes) was Spring, and another friend, Becca, was Summer. To fit myself into this theme with some degree of autonomy, I went as a Night fairie, or Night personified, and Steve, game as he always is, went as...you guessed it...Day. When we thought of it, it clicked like a pair of red sequin heels: night and day. I rocked a black bob wig, a black vintage eightie's dress with lots of tulle in the skirt, black wings, dark make up, false eyelashes with shimmery beads on the end, and stars and moons where ever I could draw or stick them (though they didn't stay stuck long). Steve found a flamey colored tunic, a sun mask, some flamey wings, and some orangey gold tights. He vaguely looked like a Mexican Wrestler, which led us to call him El Sol all night. He was a hit where ever we went, not just for sheer bravery points. Also, we got to use our latest word of the day -- together we formed a Nycthemeron, which is a 24 hour period. (~_-)

Email me if you must see pictures. (^_^)

And today -- the actual day of Halloween -- I re-donned the wig, threw on some dark make up and some red lips and a black dress and some black boots -- kinda going as a 1920's vamp...only to find that NO ONE IN MY OFFICE DRESSED UP.

Um...can we say, "salient"?

But if I've learned anything, it's that I can "do" goth or "go" black if I "wanted" to. Lots o' compliments, double takes, and extra visits to my desk.

It's been nice to transform 3 times in a row. I hope you all got equal opportunities for rebirths, be it cosmetic or metaphysical...Happy Dark and Scary Day!

Also -- thanks to 2Dad for the card and to Mom and Steve for the care package. Always a pleasure to receive honest-to-goodness mail. Kisses!

In neglect, the Mountains Stood in Haze

A. called me a couple days ago and reminded me of a few of my favorite poems I'd dug up in my college days. I'm grateful because I'd almost forgotten they'd existed, but I used to love them so much that so much as the first few syllables escaped his lips and I was spouting the lines with him.

Here they are:

In Neglect, by Robert Frost

They leave us so to the way we took
As two in whom they were proved mistaken,
That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook,
With mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look,
And try if we cannot feel forsaken.

An excerpt from The Mountains Stood in Haze, by Emily Dickinson

So soft upon the scene
The act of evening fell
We felt how neighborly a thing
Was the invisible.

Follow your passion...even if you want to eat your city

My friend L found this. It was too cool not to post.

http://www.lizhickok.com/assets/portfolio/pages/01city.html

Random poem, revisited

One of my favorite poetry sites is the plagiarist.com, where users type in their favorite poems, and after verification, they get posted and can be commented on, discussed, etc. They also have a feature for generating a random poem, and today's random poem was one that I not only knew, but has a line I absolutely love. Here's the poem reproduced, and with my favorite line in italics:

Autumn Daybreak
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Cold wind of autumn, blowing loud
At dawn, a fortnight overdue,
Jostling the doors, and tearing through
My bedroom to rejoin the cloud,
I know—for I can hear the hiss
And scrape of leaves along the floor—
How may boughs, lashed bare by this,
Will rake the cluttered sky once more.
Tardy, and somewhat south of east,
The sun will rise at length, made known
More by the meagre light increased
Than by a disk in splendour shown;
When, having but to turn my head,
Through the stripped maple I shall see,
Bleak and remembered, patched with red,
The hill all summer hid from me.


The whole poem has a lot to say -- that impending cold and bleakness can reveal as much as light and warmth -- but the line I italicized strikes a chord with me as a reminder that --evolution, change, the light at the end of the tunnel -- the things we strive for -- so often show up as a "meagre light increased" than as "a disk in splendour shown."

Sometimes what reveals progress most is simply the guts, not the glory.

Hesychasts

I've been hearing the phrase 'navel gazing' boundied* about for a while, and today I finally decided to see from whence it came.

Found an unexpected answer here -- it came from monks!!

*so this is obviously not a word. I didn't even notice it at first. I meant to say "bandied about" or "bounced around" and got "boundied." I stand by my completely made up word -- it's obviously divine inspiration as a direct result of hesychasm.

Yes Please!!

Check it out -- a new twist on an old idea...

Cell Phone Booth!

Now, do they make any for cars?

Playing Catch Up

Hey guys,

Last week was very busy as is this week, but I've noticed my energy levels are revving back up, so I'll try to post more often. Great things have happened in the interim since I last wrote -- firstly, two (more!) of Steve's friends got married up in Healdsburg -- one of the more awesome weddings I've been to. It was a traditional Jewish wedding, and everyone totally got into it, Jewish or not -- singing to get the couple to come out and sign the ketubah (sp??), crying at their vows, laughing at their foibles; at the reception: hoisting them up in chairs, forming a circle and doing goofy little skits and dances to make them laugh, and going even further -- doing the wave during dinner, creating cheers for each individual table (which were named after obscure islands -- we sat at Palau), and everyone in the room squinting one eye and shouting "ARRRRR!" like a pirate at the best man's behest. It was one of the most participatory weddings I have ever seen, and it was awesome.

The second major event was Steve's "3rd annual 29th birthday," as he likes to put it. This past Saturday we threw a little late afternoon barbecue and lots of people came -- the last guest didn't leave until 7 hours later!! We created a new drinking game too, one whose premise is not based on getting smashed, but rather, based on guts. Succinctly, we called it ring toss. Between my birthday and his birthday and people showing up bearing booz,e we had a lot more alcohol than we could have ever anticipated, and people were daunted by what to mix. Rather than maturely suggest common drink combinations, we created three foil rings and willing volunteers threw them until they landed on three different bottles -- which they then combined in a shot and drank.

I know warning bells may be going off in your head, so let me tell you the parameters:
1) no one was forced -- to play you had to volunteer
2) you only mixed 3 things
3) there were lots of standard non-alcoholic mixers on the table, including some wild cards -- rice vinegar, pepper shaker, home-made hot-pepper infused vodka, etc.
4) the ring-tosser got to choose their own quantity of each ingredient, and these only combined to the size of a shot, so no one got ill
5) we only played three rounds

Immature, gross, and hilarious, but by no means a road to getting smashed, which is why it was fun. Actually, the most fun part was coming up with terrible names for the things we had to drink, most of which aren't reproducible here. One of the grossest ones, for example, was named "living death" by its drinker -- lemon juice, beer, and tequila rose -- which for the uninitiated is a creme liqueur that tastes like an ever so slightly alcoholic strawberry milkshake -- the key word involved here is "Curdle."

What really counts though is that Steve had a fabulous time and felt very loved and celebrated. (A shout out to Mom and HerSt for their generous gifts -- S. was tickled pink and especially ecstatic over the slicer, as you well know! We also received the best buy g.c., though it didn't say it was from you so I had to tell him.)

Other than that, I've been working hard, trying to get to the gym at least twice a week, reading some great books (I think you will very much enjoy Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God -- read them if you can), and trying to relax when I can. This weekend volunteering starts up again, next week volleyball starts up again -- oh, by the way, we were league champions for our division this past season -- woohoo!! -- and tonight I'm going to an A's game.

Life is good. Hope the same can be said for you.

Horsie!

So a funny thing happened on the way to work this morning -- driving down Telegraph in Oakland I see someone on horseback at the side of the road. I was fully prepared to assume it was some loon taking the urban frontier back, but it was a policeman. "Cool," I thought, "wish I could take a picture," and drove on.

When I got to work, I needed coffee -- got lots of meeting minutes to polish. So I trot on over to the coffee joint and who should I see at the intersection but a mounted policeman. "Cool," I thought, "if he's still there when I come out, maybe I'll see if I can take a picture."

He was. I walked up and politely asked to take his pic, and turns out he was very friendly and handsome -- gave me an open smile (while his equally handsome horse turned to inspect me -- probably smelled the sugary cinnamon bun in the bag), and even asked if we wanted him to face or pose a certain way.

"Nope, just a smile will do."

Not one to be passive, he gently tugged his horse ("Rocko?" I think was his name) to look at the camera.

Et voila. I had mentioned that I wanted the pic because it was such a rare thing to see, and he said that was no surprise, because there was only one of him. So it was the same man I saw driving in.


The one mounted policeman in Oakland.

Oh man, do I miss horses. "Rocko?" was very blase and matter of fact about the whole interaction, obviously well accustomed to his rider, traffic, and pedestrians. Aside from that distracting whiff of cinnamon sugar, he was ready for a pleasant amble or a sudden burst of action. How well I remember that attitude from all the bomb-proof trail riding antics of camp horses, or the bond that formed with my favorite horse of all back when I used to take lessons -- Tasha, a long, tall drink of horse water who used to take me around at a break-neck canter and rub her head against my back when we were walking to cool down.

*Sighs.*

Might be time to look into some riding lessons around here, or to take a vacation in Montana -- if only to get my fix.

Alabama, Louisana and Mississippi OPO's

Hey everyone,

While I'm lucky enough not to have close friends or family left behind in the path of the hurricane, I do have "coworkers" there by virtue of the organ donation community. I thought I would let you know that everyone in the Alabama, Lousiana and Mississippi OPOs (Organ Procurement Organization) -- Alabama Organ Center (AOC), Louisana Organ Procurement Agency (LOPA) and Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency (MORA) -- escaped unharmed, and they are continuing their operations out of alternate locations, and working on getting their technology back in light of the power outages. Not surprisingly, the hospitals they work so closely with are overwhelmed, but everyone is making a valiant effort to lend a hand -- each OPO to its hospitals and the hospitals to continue to refer potential organ donors where possible -- and of course all 3 OPOs have had numerous offers from the OPO community to back them up with man power, resources, etc.

All of it in the hopes of continuing to donate life (and/or quality thereof) in a death-heavy time. I truly love my job. We combat death and aid the severely ill every day, and in times like these, are particularly well equipped and quick to help.

I encourage all of you who feel helpless in the face of such wide-scale death to put some thought into donating organs and tissue, and if you decide that is what you want to do, make sure it's documented and discussed with your closest kin.

Otherwise, I wish love, light and courage to everyone facing the (personal, professional, and psychological) reconstruction of the coastal south.

Take care and lots of love,

Elise


p.s. in case you noticed, I deleted the "where I've been" post because it screwed up my side bar. Interestingly enough, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana were all on my "I don't think I've been" list. A lost chance for me...but I will be happy to put some tourism money into the reconstruction efforts by visiting soon.

Dear Saint Potpourri,

The time has come to complain. I'm sorry.

I appreciate the fact that there's a scent-squirter in the women's bathroom to mask any unpleasant smells. And for the most part, it works unobtrusively.

But it seems to be my luck to walk in at about the time that it sends out a fresh blast of scent. And in a small, windowless bathroom, it is like walking into the perfume section of a department store when they are actively hawking "Remora," their new expensive gladiola-sandalwood-eau-de-gorilla musk, and being cornered by three ambitious perfume mongerers who are paid on commission.

And worse still, it aims directly over the sink, so I am constantly facing the dilemma of whether to clean my hands and risk blinding myself, not to mention subject myself to level 5 olefactory hurricanes, or whether to spread germs as far as the office's kitchen sink, and THEN kill 'em off.

All of which leads to total paranoia -- entering the bathroom and listening, trepidatiously, for that unholy "shppppppppst" sound, at which point I have less than 5 seconds before I feel my hair anointed and must return to the office smelling like a french...well...you know...woman who likes to hang out on street corners late at night.

I swear I have transcended the sins of evil scent. Saint Potpourri, I need no further anointment! I have paid my nostril pennance! I have already been baptized! Have mercy!!

PSA: demonic possession still a myth

Calm down, folks, the zombie-virus has not yet leaked from the pentagon/terrorist/monkey facility in Africa, etc., nor have the demons finally broken the human brain-wave barrier.

It's just color contacts.

For those of you unacquainted with them, color contacts appear to change the color of your pupils, and these days they do so quite masterfully -- they can have the same streaks, spots, and variations of tone that normal irises do. However, the shades themselves are still unavoidably unnatural. There are eye colors we expect to see with certain hair shades and skin tones, and then there are startling eye colors that can make someone gorgeous, and then there are color contacts, which, more often than not, speak to me of demonic possession. They aren't meant to be subtle, so the colors are turquoise rather than blue, cedar rather than brown, emerald rather than green, and in some cases, violet or gold, which you just don't see much, if at all.

I will admit, my education in color contacts comes more from sci-fi and horror movies, so I'm probably making the association based on the content of said movies...

All of this stems from an experience with one of the girls behind the jamba juice counter, who was wearing color contacts. I'm sure jamba-girl usually has lovely brown eyes, and with her contacts on, she had golden orangey streaks and flecks as well.

She was smiling and friendly, and I'm pretty sure she wanted to make jamba juice out of my brains and suck them down with a straw. And while I'm sure my brains would go well with strawberries and orange sorbet, too, I'd rather not have to contemplate this on my lunch break.

However, it was just a false warning, so I thought I'd reassure any of you who have encountered it...reassure and forewarn. (~_-)

Returned from my return

I got back yesterday (about a year ago) from a week's visit to Connecticut (wait, I don't still live there?) with a day visit to New York (about five years ago) embedded.

The time dilation was astronomical and cohesion of experience entirely subordinated. Steve and I found ourselves unable to plumb the concept of a San Franciscan domicile within about 12 hours of our arrival last Tuesday. Assimilation into Connecticut life came swiftly and cleanly -- conversing about cars, dogs known as doods, real estate, tractors, humidity, Eastover; waking up to sunlight, which, bounced off of all that humid verdure, took on a golden crystalline aspect that both energized and soothed; and then morning broke on the crowning event of the visit -- an enatic family reunion.

Said family reunion, from marinated kabobs to souvenir t-shirts to Eastover's Erik-trimmed lawns, went off completely hitch-less-ly. My mom and Mary had the clever idea to color code the t-shirts according to branch of the family, so that the Freddie Pratts (my mom and Mary's dad) all received purple, the Teddie Pratts all received red, the Tracy Pratts all received blue, and the Butlers all received green. The brilliance of this idea became clear once the t-shirts were dispersed and donned -- almost immediately the family was aware of the tendency to clump within one's "color." This led to a sense of belonging, certainly, but also made later evidence of more widely dispersed comingling a satisfying visual collage.

I realized I have awesome cousins, all within 9 years of my age, athletic, friendly, wry and quick. This would be the result of excellent breeding, no matter what everyone says about their first marriages. ;0)

The trip to NYC was brief and phantasmagoric. We caught up with old friends and walked north along Central Park West for an hour, simply taking it all in. Sponsored by Steve's parents in their upper west side apartment, we gazed at the Hudson from the 23rd floor and slowly picked out the shapes of passers-by from the frenetic beige of the buildings.

Planes lead to the staccato of experience, it is widely agreed. But I must say, the train we took to and from NYC was no more skilled in adhesion than its aviatior counterpart. Steve and I bore a swollen sense of dislocation with a stoic cry of wee-wee-wee all the way home...and I find myself at work today sorting through a disjointed collage of contentedness.

I raise a toast upon the memory of an icey bottle of Sam Adam's Summer Ale -- Here's to family!