Project File: last minute tree ornament

I was invited to tag along to a holiday party this weekend.  I found out the day before that we were supposed to bring an ornament for the Christmas tree.  I panic under such short notice.

Luckily, I have way too much stuff in my apartment, including a large bag of glove animals in various sizes.  I decided to string one up.  I must say, extra fine merino wool mini penguin was a big hit!

The House Rabbit Society Welcomes You

Anyone who knows me knows I love bunnies. I'm not ashamed. I had two rabbits: Mr. Bun, the 17lb albino during junior high, and Annabelle, the black and white lop eared sweetie.  Both were great, had their own personalities, and both had sweet tooths (one for Danish butter cookies, the other for chewy candies that were not orange flavored.) I loved them both dearly.

And because everyone who knows me knows I love rabbits, they love to give me things with rabbit themes.  I embrace them all. 

Today I was toting my oversized canvas grocery bag with a bunny silkscreened on it, and this kooky looking older lady (why do they always have frizzy hair?) comes up to me on the subway platform and asks if I have a rabbit. I say I used to have rabbits, but not anymore.  She then proceeds to tell me that she is a member of the House Rabbit Society and she owns 4 rabbits. Plus a dwarf. As if that poor tiny dwarf rabbit does not count as a real rabbit? 

I replied, "That's nice" and ran onto the opposite train.

The Worst Gift To Ever Have To Give

Recently, a lot of loved ones of my loved ones have passed away.  I didn't know these people personally, but they were parents, grandparents, and other family members of my dear friends. 

And so I've been purchasing sympathy baskets more often than wedding presents this year. It's a little weird. And sad. It is also very difficult purchasing that kind of gift. I know, it is purely a thoughtful gesture, but right now I am perusing Godiva Chocolate's "Sympathy" section and it is a hard decision which box of chocolates to send.  Is the $50 truffle selection enough? Too much?

Also, last week my coworker's father-in-law passed away and they received a ton of food while sitting shiva.  They couldn't eat it all so she brought some of it into work.  I have to admit, it felt a little uncomfortable eating chocolate chip poundcake that existed only because someone had died. 

To Do...At the Bottom of the List

Full disclosure:  I do not floss regularly. (I do brush my teeth at least twice a day.) So I was not surprised when I went for my 6 month teeth cleaning last week and the dental hygienist said to me, "You don't floss."

My response? Surprisingly, not guilty embarrassment. I think I'm getting too old for that. I said to her, "Maria, no, I don't floss. And you know what? I have a long list of things I have to do regularly: taking my meds and daily vitamin, exercising regularly, wearing sunscreen every day, moisturizing, going to all of my regular doctors appts, etc.  Flossing is just low on that list and will probably never move up."

She didn't exactly laugh, but she seemed to understand. "You should still floss, but at least you come every 6 months for a cleaning so it doesn't get too bad--but it still doesn't replace flossing."

Don't worry, Maria, my next cleaning is on my To Do list.

Psych(ic) Evaluation

Last September, Vickie and I stopped by to see a psychic in downtown Brooklyn.  She was recommended to us.  I have to say, she was pretty good--definitely better than some of the $5 psychics in the East Village. She didn't really say too much of significance, some things were on point, other things were not (beware of someone named Lisa.) But I do remember she said I would be traveling, and I would be going to Florida.

"FLORIDA!?!?!" I exclaimed.

Sure, tons of people go there, and I travel a lot, but at the time I'd only been to FL once in my life and had no plans to go again.

Fast forward almost exactly one year later:

Interesting, no?

Hardwired

I took E$ and Maddog to the aquarium at Coney Island. We went to the sea lion show. I look over and the nephew is sitting quietly on the bleacher with his hands in his waistband. Such a guy thing, even in a four year old. Boys really are hard wired to be boys, aren't they?

I am becoming that friend...

You know, the flaky one.  Who forgets your birthday. And never texts you back.

Since I've given up my Moleskine planner and went electronic with the iPhone--I know, I never thought it would happen either, but I just can't carry all that stuff around. I'm trying to simplify my life--I keep forgetting people's birthdays, and things that I've had planned weeks in advance.  It's not a huge deal (I always make it to events, and belated birthday wishes are better than none at all), but I like to be on top of things.  I am also terrible at returning texts now--I read them and forget to go back and respond. Why? Sure, I'm busy as usual, but I think my iPhone offers too many distractions. Like Boggle. Harbor Master. And Pocket Frogs. Sweet, sweet, Pocket Frogs.  The biggest time suck in my life right now. 

I don't have a great solution.  The iPhone is here to stay, as my memory slowly and quietly fades away. I guess I just have to be more mindful? And perhaps set better reminders in my calendar...

The Curious Case of the Diseased Hand

Labor Day Weekend I went upstate to my favorite farm for some produce picking.  Apples, corn, plums...We picked some fresh corn, one of my most favorite things to eat.  It was pretty tight in the corn field and I had to push stalks out of my way to get through.

Well, I noticed later I had some scratches on my hand and arm, but didn't think anything of it.

And a few days later (when I went to Disney World) the rash started. First it was small red dots on my hand--not raised or itchy or painful. Just red marks all over my hand. These marks looked worse but never felt worse. I looked like I had a weird skin disease. Ew. I shuck and eat plenty of corn without harm, but was it possible I'm allergic to corn pollen???

I wanted to get to the bottom of this so I went and saw a dermatologist.

1. After explaining what happened, she said she had never seen anything like that. Comforting. It wasn't a corn allergy, but more of a mild poison ivy-like skin reaction, minus the insane itching. So either the oils on the corn leaves irritated my hand and caused an inflammatory response, or I got micro-lacerations that got irritated.

2. The spots had darkened so my hand looked like that of a 75 year old, minus the wrinkles. Or that I had some henna that went horribly wrong. The derm said these spots would not go away quickly, that the inflammatory response on my hand hyperpigmented. Super. I'm going to walk around with old lady hand for the next several months. I made extra special effort to exfoliate and use fade cream.  It's been almost two months and the marks are very, very faint.  Definitely more like light freckle than weird skin disease. Whew.

3. I got tested for allergies. The results were no big surprise: very allergic to birch pollen (spring allergies, plus the non-citrus tree fruits), ragweed (fall allergies), cats, and dustmites.  The macadamia nut allergy didn't come up at all, curiously. But when I told her about it, she thought it was strange I was only allergic to macadamia and no other type of nut.  I am supposed to avoid them. Unlike the fruit allergy, which is just itchiness but won't kill me, the macadamia nuts could in theory close my throat and kill me. This saddens me, since I LOVE macadamia nuts. LOVE them. (aside: I asked if it was a common allergy and she said macadamia nuts are expensive so fewer people eat them, and thus less data on it. I felt like there might have been some judgment there, like I am some bourgeois nut connoisseur or something.)

R.I.P. Composting Worms

OBITUARY

Composting Worms

2008-2010

Fortune Cookie's composting worms died this summer from natural causes--the multiple heat waves that hit NYC were too much for them. In their brief two year lifespan, the composting worms generated several cups of compost (a/k/a "black gold"), which the plants in the apartment greatly appreciated. The worms enjoyed strawberry tops, carrot shavings, and mesclun.  Like their caretaker, they were not huge fans of frisee. These worms will always be remembered, even after they are replaced by a new batch. 

No services will be held. 

State Pride

It's fairly obvious that I am overflowing with state pride. I love my home state of MN, quite possibly because I haven't lived there in 17 years, but also because it is a great state with the BEST. STATE FAIR. EVER.  I have impressed people with my knowledge of MN facts (state bird: loon, state flower: lady slipper, land of 10K lakes, home to companies such as Target, Hormel, General Mills, 3M--you wouldn't have Post-its if it weren't for MN...)

I also love NY, which is my birth state and residence of the past 17 years.  (But really, who doesn't love New York or at least the city?)

Well, last month I went to Texas.  I have to say, Texas pride is overwhelming down there. Texans love Texas like no others love their state.  It's almost scary, and it makes me feel like a poser for all my state pride.  I haven't been able to figure exactly why they love Texas so much. The Bush family? Oil? Cattle? Football? Texas Toast?

ADDENDUM:
Another thing I have noticed is that people from Utah do not have a lot of state pride. I met three different Utah-ans this summer (after my trip out there), and when I found out they were from the beehive state I exclaimed, "I LOVED Utah! It's such a beautiful place!"  Only to be looked at incredulously.  Now, if someone said to me that they loved MN or NY, I would respond, "Me too!" 

WANTED: cultural curator / personal assistant

I can't keep up.  I just can't.

One of the perks of living in New York City is that there are a million and one things to do at any given time. We are the city that never sleeps. (Which isn't to say, when I really need an idea for something to do, I can't think of anything awesome.)  And in addition to keeping abreast of those activities, there's always new music, art, shows, etc. to follow. Oh yes, and the news. Current events are always good.

So I'm on at least a dozen different mailing lists about all of those sorts of things. I joined Twitter (hold on, before you mock me!) for the newsfeeds--sadly, none of my friends are on there regularly so I have to rely on Gothamist, the Onion, and Conan O'Brian to entertain me with tweets. I read various websites. I talk to people. But I still miss out on cool things that are going on, generally finding out about them the day of.  That doesn't really work for my schedule.

What I really need is a cultural curator. Someone to filter through all of those channels and give me a concise list of things I should know about.  I need a debriefing twice a day or something. It's not that I want to be cutting edge, I just want someone to tell me what is going on so I don't have to spend the time figuring out myself.

Applications currently being accepted. Inquire within.

From the Desk of the Peeved

There are many things that get me riled up.  This is one of them:

At one of the wineries out on the North Fork of Long Island, they named their Pinot Grigio "P-No-Gree-G-O."  They have a Chardonnay similarly named.

Some might find this cute or funny.  I find it infuriating.  It didn't help that the wine was terrible too.

Can we try to be a little classy, Long Island? America?

Chia Liberty: Live Free or Die!

One of my tasks as super-tech in Dr. Christina's lab was to set up the Chia Statue of Liberty. It hadn't even started sprouting when I left St. Louis, but I received photo-updates every couple of days:

Then I stopped getting updates. A week later I got the bad news: Dr. Christina didn't going into lab for a few days and thus poor Chia Liberty did not get watered.  Most of her luscious green locks died off except for a little bit of mullet left over:

It was a sad day for Liberty.

Hammy the Hamster

Hamster sitting Hammy the Hamster while the family is on vacation for a few weeks.  Hammy kind of freaks me out a little, and I know he doesn't like me that much. (Why this is so, I'm not entirely certain, since the kids grab him in one fist and run around screaming. All I do is feed him treats. But maybe he knows I have an aversion to big-balled animals?)

Regardless, I am grateful that Hammy did not die on my watch.

Not So Easy Bake Oven

Maddog received an Easy Bake Oven for her birthday last week. Of course she's going to be a little baker like her auntie, right?

I'm all for kids baking and cooking--it's therapeutic, good for the math and science skills, and creates delicious goodness. But Easy Bake Ovens, even though we all wanted one when we were kids, are not very practical.

I know, I know, I sound like a total hater. I'm all for toys. But if you are going to learn to bake, it is not going to be by just adding a tablespoon of water to a packet of mix and "baking" it with a 100W bulb. And what really baffles me is that the 100W bulb has to "preheat" for 15 minutes. I can preheat my real oven in that amount of time! I can just as easily teach Maddog how to bake a real cake. It doesn't require that much more work than boxed cake mix. And at least regular cake mix requires adding some ingredients in addition to water. And you can make enough for the whole family.

I will say, though, that the Easy Bake chocolate chip cookie (singular, as only one can be baked at a time--we had to split it 5 ways) was much better tasting than we expected.

IHNIWTM (I Have No Idea What That Means)

I work in a field that is acronym-centric. My institution, my department, my division, and pretty much everything else has an acronym or abbreviation.  Even though we are reminded on a yearly basis, I will never remember what RACE stands for (in case of fire):

     Rescue
     Activate the alarm
     Confine the fire
     Evacuate (I always think "Escape!")

We also live in a society of txt spk. I have a hard time deciphering it (look, I still write out my to-do lists, okay?), and the niece and nephew are not quite old enough to translate for me so I have to rely on Dirty and his 20yo interns. LOL, LMAO, NSFW, TTYL...that's about all I understand at this point. Someone at work hit "Reply All" to an email and sent a message to about 800 people that said "FML."  The saddest thing is, no one in my office knew what the hell that meant. (we looked it up: "f*ck my life".)  Yeah, we're old.

But as bad as I am, my friend Jamie is even worse. It is a running joke that he does not get acronyms.  "Let's meet in the WV for HH."  His response? "Why would we go to West Virginia?" Um, that would be the West Village. For happy hour.

To Do...

I openly admit that I am not particularly tech savvy. Sure, I blog, I Google like nobody's business and I am a pro at online shopping, but I have only just noticed that there is a specific camera button on the cell phone I've had for the past two years. And I can barely use my little digital camera.

My friend Westchester is all about the electronic. At least 2 Apple devices go off when he gets an email, and he seems to control everything with his iPhone. It's scary. When I mentioned to him that I still keep a paper calendar (I ♥ my Moleskine) and honest to god paper To-Do lists, where I gleefully cross things out with a marker, he almost had a seizure. It got worse when I mentioned I will probably stick with my old (paper loving) ways even after I get the new iPhone in a few months.

Yes, yes, I know it is bad for the trees. But will using an electronic device lessen my carbon footprint more than pen and paper?

Also, old habits die hard. I think handwriting is a dying art. I spent all that time in grade school honing my special print (cursive was definitely not for me.) When is the last time you saw a friend's handwriting? I think for a large majority of people I've befriended in the last few years, I would not recognize their handwriting. In fact, I may never have even seen their handwriting. There is something to be said about a personal, handwritten note; text and email--as much as I love it--just doesn't quite make the cut.

Luckily, I have a small coterie of friends who love real mail as much as I do, and we send each other cards and postcards.  I am fairly certain I could identify them by their handwriting alone. I think that is a testament to our friendship, no?

P-Touch, Tool of the Organized

My very dear friend, Dr. Xina, is moving to St. Louis to head her own lab.  We have known each other for over ten years, and were lab bay-mates back in grad school. We even went and bought a stereo together for our bay. Aw.

I am planning on going out to STL in July to help set up her lab (and hopefully catch a glimpse of Nelly.) I may be a PhDon't, but I am one damn organized person and the labels on my bottles were always impeccable. I'm a little OCD. I cannot help this.

Part of the bargain is that I will get my very own white lab coat with my name embroidered on it. It will be left hanging on the lab coat hook for my annual visits/lab inspections. We hope to have all of the lab members live in fear of me and thus keep things neat and organized--and labeled well. I also get to pick out the P-Touch label maker for the lab!!! Funny thing is, I've never had to pick one out, because everywhere I've worked, there already was one.

It actually took me a couple of hours to figure out the best label maker to get, but I think I'll be happy with this one. It is PC/Mac compatible so I can design the labels on the computer and preview them, there are 8, count 'em, 8 different fonts, and a whole bunch of bells and whistles. Come July, there will be whole lot of fancy label-making going on at Wash U...

Happy Birthday, E$!!!

The little nephew turned 4 (!) last week. He had a party at the Prospect Park Zoo, so I made cupcakes with an animal theme:

I was just waiting for some smartass four year old to tell me that the sprinkles on the zebra cupcakes didn't match (they're dolphins--I didn't have zebra sprinkles), but luckily, they didn't notice.

Project File: Cream Puffs

My first attempt at pastry! I made cream puffs and they were delicious. Who knew they were so easy to make?

Special Person's Day

It was Grandparents and Special Person's (or maybe it was Special Friend's) Day at E$'s preschool. Since his grandparents aren't nearby, I was called on to be his Special Person. Aw.

I'd been to similar types of things when Maddog was that age so I thought I knew what to expect: snacks and a little bit of singing. I was wrong. No snacks and nothing so organized like a song circle. We played with green play-doh for an hour.

I'm happy to take a few hours off work to play with my favorite nephew, but I can play with him any time and I was kinda hoping to see a bunch of cute 3 year olds singing songs like "Hot Cross Buns" or something. I did get to meet some of his friends (he even remembered to introduce me) and he told me the girl sitting next to him "worries a lot." I didn't get a lot of details about why she worried so much, but I thought it was pretty funny he said that. She did have her brow furrowed while playing with the play-doh...

Managerial Proficiency

Last week I took a 2-day training to assess my managerial proficiencies. On the first day, we watched an outdated video about Bill, and his team of managers and the staff they supervise. Based on these scenarios, we answered multiple choice questions about them and our results are compared to the 700,000 managers who have taken the training to evaluate our proficiency in 12 competencies needed to be an effective manager (according to the methodology.) On the second day we got our results and attempted to interpret them with an HR consultant

So. My results? I scored in the 6th percentile for Thinking Clearly & Analytically and 9th percentile in Time Management and Prioritizing. That means 94 percent of the 700,000 people who took this class think more clearly and analytically than I do!

In contrast, I scored above the 90th percentile for Decision Making, Giving Clear Information, Setting Goals & Standards, and Training, Coaching and Delegating.

I met with the HR consultant and told her I was surprised with those low results, especially since, well, I am an analytical thinker with a science background who is always told she thinks quite logically and pragmatically. Besides, how can I make good decisions and give clear information if I can't think clearly? As for time management, I am annoyingly punctual and have never missed a deadline. Her response? "Hmmm...that's strange. You scored really high on everything else so your profile is actually really great. Well, I wouldn't worry about it. Feel free to take one of our classes if you want..."

Weird, no?

Eye of the Tiger

It's Chinese New Year on February 14th. This is the year of the Tiger. And because I was born before the lunar new year, I'm half-sies on the zodiac signs--back half of the Tiger, front half of the rabbit. I don't mind at all.

However, I am slightly offended that the U.S. Postal Service has issued one of the lamest Chinese New Year stamps for what is one of my years:

Um, why is the tiger no larger than the price of the stamp? Lame.

Happy New Year!

Kicks reversion

At dinner the other night, the topic of properly tying your shoelaces came up. MT demonstrated, and I immediately went to put my shoes on and try out the new technique.

Until I realized that I was wearing Vans slip-ons. And that I don't really own shoes with laces. (Except my running shoes, and maybe a pair of old Vans I wear in the summer.) Does this mean I'm either too lazy to be bothered with laces or I'm reverting back to childhood when shoes were always slip-on or velcro?

Here are instructions for tying shoelaces (It's called a Granny knot):

1. Entire Right lace crosses over Left lace.
2. Then bring the Right lace under the Left lace.
3. Hold end of Right lace in right hand, hold end of Left lace in left hand.
4. Pull both ends at the same time and tighten.
5. Then make your traditional bow to finish up the process of tying your shoelaces the correct way.

Your bow will look perfect. The bow won't look crooked on your shoe. It will lie perpendicular to the length of your shoe. And, more importantly your shoelaces will not come undone because you tied them in a Granny knot. You tied them the right way. The only difference is that with the Granny knot you always start with the Right lace always crossing over the Left lace.

So there.

Project File: Thank You!

Project File: Vodka Infusions

We had a mini vodka infusing party this week, using mint, rosemary, peppercorns, cranberries and citrus fruits in various combinations. Sadly, we will have to wait a few weeks before we can drink it.

Kicking off the new year...with a new age...

It was my birthday this week, and although I'm not for the whole aging process and the fact that when I get carded they hand back my license with a new respect for their elder (look, I can't help that I look young for my age, but I certainly look older than 21), I love celebrating. This week included Psychic Nite, pizza happy hour, dinner & cake with Maddog and E$, a party at Elsa bar, a RockBand potluck, and to top things off, Professional Bull Riding championships at the Garden. (Yes, I was shocked to find out they came to New York, too. )

My birthday year forecast:
A more sociable year than usual is ahead of you, perhaps at times at the expense of work and responsibilities! New connections can be made through shared intellectual and cultural interests. Openness to change is a valuable asset this year. Major restructuring of your life will help you to clear your head and to get your priorities straight.

More sociable? REALLY? Because quite frankly, it's barely over a week into 2010 and I'm exhausted. Last year was insanely busy as it is--I don't know if I can kick it up a notch. Also, I'm not sure about this "restructuring" of my life. I like how it is structured. That seems to imply I will fire some friends and reassign responsibilities.

Happy New Year!

Mall Cops: Mall of America

Really?

TLC aired this as a one hour special and has expanded it into a 12 episode series. The show "shares the story of the men and women who work the security team at Mall Of America."

I worked many years at the MOA, and although it is huge with an amusement park, aquarium and wedding chapel, I really didn't think it was that hardcore. Maybe I was just insulated from the terror while folding jeans at the Gap...