things i love. food and stuff edition.

if, given the choice, i'd probably spend the better part of my life sitting in coffee shops and cafes having a drink. even if it's water. it makes me unbelievably happy.

has anyone heard of yogurtville? the walls are covered with frozen yogurt machines where you fill up your cup with whatever flavor(s) you want and then put whatever toppings from the topping bar you want. so yum! [i chose chocolate with m&ms, reeses peanut butter cups and sprinkles.]

how do you feel about cakes with pictures on them? sometimes you end up with the side of someone's head on top of your piece. creepy.

and finally, let's all have a round of applause for teamwork. :)

gbff.

i hate hearing when my friends are going through tough shit. i want to scoop them up and buy them some coffee and hug them and hold them and make them laugh until everything bad fades away.





even if it means having a twenty minute conversation with them where we speak with jersey yiddish accents about how we are going to write our own version of the king arthur legend. we're calling "king arthursteinowitz and the knights of the mazzo ball table".

lovehim!

lack of following may lead to dire consequences. (who am i kidding? i have no power.)

i work in a little cubicle (okay, that's a lie...it's actually pretty spacious) in an office job. honestly, i don't know what else i'd be doing so i'm so not complaining about work or the office. but i do have to say that through the years i've learned a thing or two about office etiquette.

1. if you walk past someone (even if you don't know their name), smile. it will NOT kill you. it is even worse to not smile if you see this person on a semi-regular basis. chances are, they know you more than you know them. (blue scratched car with a BYU sticker on the back whose name i will omit: you sent some mail to CO a while back. or at least you meant to until you left the stamped envelope on the table in the bathroom and i was nice enough to take it downstairs to the mailbox since it was friday and you probably wanted it sent. bt dub - you have terrible handwriting.)

2. if, in daily pleasantries, someone asks you how you are and you are NOT their friend or really even their acquaintance, it's not okay to spend ten minutes talking to them about your crappy day and the swine flu. particularly when your hair is that unkempt and it's pulled back by a headband that does nothing but show off your desperate need to get your roots did.

3. if you have an office that has a door, close it if you're using speakerphone. particularly if you're a loud talker. even moreso if you are talking to someone else in the office who everyone can clearly hear both on your speakerphone and at their respective desk.

4. speaking of phones, pick your ringtone carefully. and if you are around other people (like, say, a cubicle environment) turn it down. better yet, put it on vibrate. you can hear it in your pocket. you can put it on your desk and let it annoy people when it vibrates while you're away from your desk. it is not, however, acceptable to make the rest of the office listen to your ringtone that reminds them of nothing more than a porn video.

5. if you give someone a time frame in which something will occur or need to be done, it is rude to start it three hours earlier and not give the person any heads up. girls gotta leave for lunch to buy purses sometimes.

6. standing behind someone's chair and waiting for them to turn around is just CREEPY. let me go ahead and admit, i listen to my ipod at my desk and mouth the words along. and sometimes i dance. so if you do not announce your presence, you are getting a show i didn't give you access to. and if you're tall enough to stare over my tall cubicle wall, please announce yourself there too. possibly more because you can see my face where i am probably looking stupid.

7. if you are at my desk and have what you have deemed an emergency (your idea and mine are probably not the same, but whatevs), do not take it upon yourself to sit on my desk. i have an extra chair at my desk for a reason. it's for company. you are a pest, but still company. sit in the chair. or stand somewhere. but don't plop your skeezy self on my desk, rubbing near my printer.

8. if, while investigating said emergency, you feel the need to stand and wait for me to look up the answer, don't glare at my computer watching me do everything. i have a bit of performance anxiety. i can type quickly and move around my computer deftly, but don't watch me. just look at my pictures or pretend something else exciting is around (i know there is not) so you're not just standing over me. [note to self: get a sofabook to put on said desk.]

9. even for a smallish office, it is not nice to yell someone's name until they come to your desk. if you are in my vicinity (or on my team), that is one thing. but being five offices away and just screaming someone's name is just rude. apparently in a world of technology (between email, phones and IM) it is impossible to use anything except your annoying voice to beckon a coworker. or your boss.

10. if you have to poop, go to the first floor. the bathroom there is practically empty all the time.

anyone else have office etiquette to share?

epic fail.

it is very seldom that i will actually admit that there are things i can not do. but alas, there are a few things.

1. eating all my fruits and veggies. i've grown by leaps and bounds, but unless french fries are considered a veggie, i don't think i'm meeting my daily quotient.

2. i have tried to play five different instruments. and have NOT been able to stick with any of them. i just can't do it. it's not that i can't keep beat. i can play the djembe when i'm drunk. but that's about all i've got.

3. saving money. i have very little to show for all the money i've made in the past ten years. but i'm thinking if you open my closet, you will probably see a big chunk of it.

4. resisting my mom's homemade brownies. damn paula dean had to introduce the world to brownies made with symphony bars in the middle. so they're all gooey in the middle with perfect bits of almond and toffee. i could make myself insanely sick with the amount of those brownies i could eat.

5. stick with things. i try. seriously, i do. i usually blame it on being a gemini. we're a bit flighty. i end up just falling for something and get into it for about a week and then drop it. like knitting. scrapbooking. being a vet. doing gymnastics. well, this list could go on foreverrrrr.

6. making myself throw up. i know that's something people don't say "man, i wish i could make myself vomit!" but seriously. when it comes down to it, i just can't do it. and in the days when i drank a lot, it would have come in quite handy.

7. picking guys. apparently this one will have to have it's own post devoted to it because it's THAT bad. i either pick ones that don't like me back, that are nuts, that are unavailable. OR (the best!) that they are all of the above because they are gay. and trust me, there have been quite a few of those.

8. science. earlier i was trying to figure out if i am worse at science or math. i deduced that it's totally science. mainly because someone once complimented on my ability to do long division. but no one has ever commented on my mad science skills.

9. biting my tongue. i try (i PROMISE i do!) but sometimes it's just not possible. sometimes things slip out that should never have been put out into the universe. but there you have it. it's been said and i can't shove it back in. and most of the time, i'm actually glad i didn't.

well i'm going to stop there before i make myself feel worse about my shortcomings. hopefully next time will be a bit more uplifting and all that.

a giveaway!

pretty girl jasmine is having a wee little giveaway so you should go check her out and try to win.

you can find her here: http://experimentinpoverty.blogspot.com/2009/07/first-aeip-giveaway.html

promise to write something of interest soon. like about my recent trip to NYC.

things that make your day better.

1. margaritas with dinner. clearly, homemade margaritas are better because they are (a) cheaper and (b) you can decide how much booze to portion to margarita mix. even better with a bendy neon straw.

2. learning your arch nemesis has met their demise. well, as much demise as you could hope for them without feeling too bad. add in that it makes your lot in life a lot easier and it's an even better day.

3. making it a coffee night. on a porch is better, but let's get real. i live in texas. it is 7 pm and currently 102 degrees outside. it's effin hot. there is no porch that is that cool. and let's get really real. i'm a sweater.

4. coming home to find you have mail. i have pen pals. real pen to paper (or in today's case) postcard pen pals. the pretty one in oklahoma sent me a postcard that makes me ever so anxious to write her back.

5. fried pickles. this needs no explanation.

6. boys. if i can recall correctly, there was once a time when there were boys that made your day better with a phone call or a hug or what have you. i guess on the plus side, there isn't currently one to make my day worse.

7. pedicures. never fail, paying someone to rough about your feet and make them prettier is way worth it. even better if they dig into your calf muscle with the right amount of pain. (note to self: get higher paying job. need to afford pedicures on daily basis.)

8. something good on tv. i'm pretty sure that the invention of satellite tv has been the best and worst thing that could have happened to our society. we are totally okay with locking ourselves in a room for hours on end watching terrible reality television (except who would have ever known "kendra" would be as good as it is?! she was so obnoxious on "the girls next door".) but we have 800 channels and can't find a damn thing to watch. i have ALMOST resigned myself to watching "the 700 club" because i couldn't stand to watch another repeat of "the real world".

9. hearing a great song on the radio. the other day i was driving home, having just one of those days. i was feeling like i might fall asleep and i mustered enough energy to change the radio station (really, do they make them good girls go bad?) and i totally perked right up because "bullet with butterfly wings" came on the radio. it made me think back to high school when my friend's dad would drive down the street singing that song opera style. maybe we really all ARE trapped in a cage...

10. finding anything to laugh about. recently my friend and i realized we might actually be twins. (you know, except she's older and has bigger boobs. and, well, i have furniture.) it does mean, however, that we take every opportunity to freak out at how strange it is that we say things at the exact same time, in the exact same accent. and that we both got hangnails on our pointer fingers. and how we make the same stupid jokes. and then we laugh hysterically and i'm pretty sure everyone looks at us like we're a little crazy. and for the record, i'm okay being nearly thirty and laughing about stupid shit like how i have a long lost twin who grew up near houston.