Possible Disturbance in the Time/Space Continuum

On the way home from choir tonight, I pulled behind a hatchback Suburu and my eyes fell on a bumper sticker whose likeness I have mimicked below:



Prominently placed in the trunk were three hula hoops - one florescent yellow, one florescent orange, and a black one with dots of the other two colors strewn about its hideous surface. It was like 1992 all over again. Back then I also liked trolls, wore my hair in pigtails, oh, and I WAS TEN. What's their excuse?

Update Post? Zzzzzz

It's been a dull week here at the Fyf. The cats have been only low-key amusing. I've been collecting important supplies for crafting but have yet to generate anything new this week. Lazy slob, I know. I haven't cooked anything too fancy nor tried anything too exciting for takeout. I enjoyed a couple of free concerts in the US Army Field Band's Chamber Music series - one with flute and the other with clarinet selections. They were fantastic, both well over the hour mark in length and chock full of beautiful music. It looks like they tour the country, so if you get the chance hit them up. Lovely, plus people know not to clap between movements - huzzah for fellow music nerds and our persnickity ways!

Today Hubster and I hit up DuClaw Brewing Company for happy hour with friends, and I tried their Misfit Red ale. Delicious beer, totally insane crowds. I guess it was an event night when they debuted a new brew, but still, yikes. Still, the beer was fantastic. Worth a little crowd surfing. I just had the one and I didn't try any food, so maybe we'll return sometime and check them out more fully, but it was fine for a casual get together.

Oh, and I've finished reading several books. I was hoping to write one big recap with all of them together, but frankly, I'm not motivated to write that much. So here are my truncated reviews:

Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club: I love this murder-mystery/literary thriller because of the interesting, fairly good characterization, the period detail (it's set in the mid-19th century), and the excellent plotting. Read List Priority? High.

Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn: Better known for the Girl with the Pearl Earring (which I've yet to read, although the movie was gorgeous), this author's style is beautiful prose with well-drawn characters, but aside from those features, I didn't really love it. It was interesting because of the period detail, but the plot and story still left something to be desired. Read List Priority? Medium.

Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire: As I alluded in previous post, it was because I so enjoyed The Historian (review here), that I decided to delve into other vampire-themed books when I picked it up. At her best, Rice describes the apparently heightened vampire senses of sight and hearing and movement and in those descriptions, there's rich detail and inventive passages. The story involves an at-times reluctant vampire wrestling with the morality of killing to survive eternally. It seemed as though the rationalizations of the character lacked depth in some way - the changes were too sudden and convenient to the plot. I don't know. Ultimately, I found it unsatisfying. Read List Priority? Low.

Right now I'm plowing through Matthew Pearl's second novel, The Poe Shadow, but it's not nearly as engaging as The Dante Club, and I'm finding it hard to sympathize with the main character's obsession with Poe's death considering the he has rather slim reasons to ignore his future wife and his work responsibilities. It's annoying enough that I don't actually choose to the read the book often. Not usually a good sign, right? We'll see if I finish. For now, enjoy this totally unrelated picture:


Experimenting with the poster edges filter in Photoshop. (Incidentally, should I be alarmed that our church's trees are budding now, in the dead of winter? I totally love this tree. Don't die, Tree!)

¡Hace frío!

Winter. We go out less because it's so cold, because it might snow, because tea and a quiet night in which your thermal-regulatory systems won't be challenged in any way? I'LL TAKE THAT WITH A SIDE OF WARM COOKIES, THANKS. (Incidentally, I love that in Spanish, the weather has agency: it's not that it "is cold," it's that it "does cold." It makes me feel better about taking it personally.)

Hubster had to go get a crown put on Monday. I was going to drop him off and then pick him up. In between, I was going to browse for matte-jersey-appropriate patterns at a local fabric store (that jersey? $3/yd at G Street, talk about your shopping coups!). The second I landed out of the car, all motivation was gone. Not even the irritating and repetitive dental TV programming - hilariously entitled "DentLine," get it, like "DateLine" for teeth, HA - could motivate me out of that warm room and into the car for the extra cold my errand would entail. Now, I eventually got bored and thought about destroying their giant plasma screen just so the pictures would stop - all those bad teeth magically fixed with dental procedures costing mere thousands of dollars. "Double-mortgage your house, sell a kid, pretty teeth will totally be worth it," coaxes the DentLine voice as my daydream self unleashes a primal scream, rips the TV off the wall and bends the frame into a horrific industrial sculpture expressing my tumultuous relationship with postmodern dentistry.

I left for Joann's instead. If anyone's making me pay for a plasma, it should end up on my wall in functional condition instead of on the floor of a waiting room in a mangled heap, potential sculptural career notwithstanding. It was too cold to take it out to the dumpster anyway.

Colts for the win!

So Friday, BossLady calls to inform me that if the Colts lose the Super Bowl, I will get two paid hours of work so that my day starts at 10:00am. If the Colts win, I get a PAID DAY OFF. Hallelujah!

It was a lovely day, the game yesterday was pretty fun to watch (the delicious food we enjoyed with friends whilst watching had a weeee bit to do with that), and the whole weekend was fine, really. Saturday, I went to a magical place called G Street Fabrics which was so stocked to the gills with beautiful apparel fabrics, gorgeous decorating fabrics, trims, notions, and anything a seamstress' heart could desire that I've asked my husband to procure a burial plot for me on its premises. Should you be a) a sewer and b) in the DC vicinity YOU MUST SEE IT. [swoon]

Other than that, I didn't really do much of interest. I'll write something tomorrow. Technically, I still have the day off for another hour and 27 minutes, and I intend to use it. To sleep. I live large, people, and I'm okay with it. Good night!

Boot Camp It Ain't

It's interesting that I wrote this whole anti-FitWell post the other day, because I'm increasingly comfortable with matters of nutrition, health, and weight management lately. I've mentioned that I enjoy yoga oodles of times, but joining a local studio or classes at a gym is complicated what with Hubster and I sharing a car. Until it's financially and physically possible for me to get out and do yoga, I've been doing it at home with videos and books as my guides. About a month ago, though, I realized I hadn't been doing it more than once a week for a long time. I wasn't motivated anymore, and I was letting all exercise slide because of it. Oopsies!

I have four or five videos which I alternate, but they tend to seem the same after a while, and variety is the spice of every other part of my life, so shaking things up seemed like one way to get back on track. I bought a "cardio-sculpting" program that's supposed to involve both aerobic and low-resistance strength-training exercises. It's been humiliation central ever since what with my body and mind have totally separate ideas about how to accomplish all this movement, but at least I'm moving. I now realize several key things: 1) the fact that I ever learned to swing dance can only be attributed to persistence because my feet are unruly at best, 2) my heart is NOT in shape - every time I do the "cardio interval" segment I have to skip portions because my heart starts to feel like the entire cast of Stomp on speed, and 3) "boot camp" is only a figurative title. I asked myself the question "Aren’t you supposed to yell at me and call me 'homo' and motivate me over this wall?" I should have my brother revamp the entire course to more accurately reflect his experiences in Army. Yes, that's just what their target demographic of 18-34-year-old women wants - real, balls-to-the-wall, remove-your-gas-mask-in-a-contaminated-room-then-state- your-name-and-serial-number boot camp.

I'm better at the whole food angle. It's by no means easy for a gustophile to avoid those tasty, tasty plates of alfredo in favor of marinara, but I'm doing it and doing it consistently. My cooking is lowfat pretty much all the time because otherwise Hubster gets all antsy about his nutritional intake and puh-lease tell me someone else's significant other does that because I swear I WILL END HIM sometimes, and I would like to think I'm not alone out here. I guess the flip side of that coin is that I eat well most of the time and save my dietary sinning for restaurants where it is done with joy and relish (the emotion, not the condiment).

This week I've been enjoying my workouts. No, really, Mom, I'm not kidding or exaggerating (please don't have a heart attack). I'm also realizing that this will stave off back problems in the future, and since I also graduated from physical therapy this week, I am looking forward to saving my $40 co-pays for more frivolous matters. My therapist said over and over that regular, full-body workouts were a good way to ensure that my goal of financial wantonness was met.

Bottomline: I have more reasons than bad body image to eat well and exercise. More importantly, I'm able to be more consistent about pursuing those things in a way that motivates and challenges me. It's nice to have made that kind of progress.