Bodum Pavina Double-Walled Glasses

I bought a set of two of these glasses at Sur La Table in San Francisco. They're great-looking and you can put hot drinks or cold drinks in them; you don't feel any heat or cold in your hand (which is weird and kind of nifty) and I can put them on my glass coffeetable and they don't make any condensation. One of my friends liked mine so much that she bought some for herself.

Peace, Man

Sheesh, my dad is such a peace-lovin' hippie. Not only does he frequently address me as "man", as in "hey, man..." Also, while I'm busy hating people for their cycling pants and necklaces, he sends me this e-mail; this is all it says.


Subject: the 14th Dalai Lama


"I look at every human being from a more positive angle: I try to look for their positive aspects. This attitude immediately creates a feeling of affinity, a kind of connectedness."

How ever did he come to have such a shallow daughter? Ha ha ha.

Grrrrrr!

I like Kenneth Jay Lane's enamel jewelry on a long goldtone chain, like the strawberry that comes in red, clear, black and coral colors, the pear, and my favorite, the apple.
I've long wanted one (I want the white apple one) but it always seems I want something else more, so I've not gotten one.

Imagine my HORROR when the most foul woman at my work showed up dressed in one of her spectacularly horrid outfits, yet wearing this Kenneth Jay Lane red strawberry necklace! She was also wearing some kind of sleeveless velveteen electric blue top she sewed herself. Sewing is cool and I admire people who know how... but her fashion sense is horrible, her clothes are horrible, she often cycles to work and stays in her cycling clothes all day (cropped black Spandex cycling pants with weird little triangle designs down the legs plus yellow cycling jacket, underneath which is worn a boxy olive colored tee shirt that says ALLOWED FULL USE OF LANE on the back). I'm only being so mean about her clothing because she also has money, and she also makes our work lives hellish. She trotted cheerfully up the stairs past me, and I swear I almost fell down the stairs from the shock of seeing her wearing a bizarrely out of place trendy item like this. They have them at the big Bloomingdale's downtown. I would not think this woman would go near a Bloomingdale's, ever.

What will she be rocking next?! I couldn't have been shocked had she shown up with a Mohawk hairstyle and Joe's Jeans and Louis Vuitton shoes.

Tiny Victorian

I felt sorry for this little mint green house, squeezed between the two taller ones to either side. A lot of the houses in San Francisco touch each other, which looks really strange to people who are used to houses having more space around them, and, uh, side yards, even! I'm used to the way it looks, but this little house seems dwarfed and shadowed by the pink Victorian to its right and the ugly monster to its left.

Personalized Plates

Personalized license plates have been somewhat on my mind lately, ever since one of my committees at work put forth the idea of changing "SUS AG" on the license plate of the truck on our website homepage to "ORGANIC". Personally, I'm rather glad the proposal got a "thumbs down". I think SUS AG is fun, and personalized license plates are supposed to be kind of fun to try and figure out. "Organic" seemed a little too dumbed-down.

As I was thinking about this on my drive home today, an SUV ugly monster vehicle thing turned in front of me. MBA JD something something it read. Barf! How smug and pretentious to have your degrees on your vanity plates. Vanity plates, indeed.
Oh, I'm just annoyed that there's no good way to abbreviate "Useless Degree in English with an Emphasis in American Lit".

Who Farted?

Today at work my friend was showing me a fancy pen she got recently. I told her that when I test pens at a store I always used to write "hello" over and over again, but recently I've started writing "who farted?" because someone is going to be testing pens on the same pad of paper and it will be hilarious if it's someone uptight and they read what I wrote. Every time I write, "who farted?" on tester pads at a store I just crack myself up. It's very immature, I know!

We have two bathrooms at work; one is a single and one has two stalls. Today I was walking toward the one with two stalls with the meanest lady at my workplace. I often get that "shy bladder" thing where I can't urinate with other people around, but if I have to pee really badly I always can. So I figured it would be fine to go into the bathroom with her this time. So I went into one stall and a second later she went into the other one. While I was urinating, she sat down (presumably) and there was this long pause, and then she farted. It was one of those long drawn out horse farts... I laughed to myself and I kept smiling while I was washing my hands and applying hand lotion, but I couldn't look her in the eye or I was afraid I would really laugh. Then I went running around frantically looking for my friend so I could tell her this story, but I couldn't find her anywhere.

Now if you have a mac, go immediately and download the whoopee cushion widget and click it a few times while writing "who farted?" in your most beautiful, formal handwriting. HA HA HA!

The Grass is Never Greener.

After all my bitching about my downstairs neighbor, she's moving out. She's moving out, and I realized tonight that I desperately want her to stay! She slams her cabinets when she's hungrily rummaging for her Costco stash, and she has some crazy bass boosted surround sound TV on which she plays movies that all sound like Platoon and Saving Private Ryan (machine gun fire, etc.) BUT she's single and she doesn't mingle. There aren't frat boys all over the place, she doesn't leave shoes, surfboards, little decrepit Weber barbeques and dead potted plants outside her door, no audible bad porn movies or people with demential screaming Jesus' name at the recycling bins outside. These are all experiences I've had within the past few years.
I actually LIKE two of the three other tenants in our building, and even Jamie Downstairs is tolerable. Finally, I'm in a good situation. And now she's posted an ad to sublet her apartment. Woe is me. DD says to cheer up, because someone single, small and quiet might move in yet, but I'm feeling rather pessimistic.

Hidden Tape

I like to giftwrap, and I'm pretty good at it. My mom taught me how. Everyone in our family wraps the same way. Well, at least my grandma did, (she passed away), my mom does, and one of my aunts does, too. My special signature is that I hide the tape by either using double-stick tape beneath the flaps of the paper, or by using stickers or seals instead of tape to hold a flap down. This is a gift for a nineteen-year-old I know; for her birthday; hence the bubblegum pink ribbon. I love this giftwrap paper; it's very heavy and rich-feeling and it behaves beautifully. (The most difficult material to wrap with is shiny foil paper; it's very unforgiving and it dents and wrinkles and gets fingerprints easily.)

I put somewhat matching Hello Kitty stickers on the two sides of the box to hold the paper down.

Ceramic Knives

My dad sent me this ceramic-blade paring knife. When I called to thank him, he went on and on telling me how sharp it is and how I should be very careful to turn the vegetable and not the knife if I'm paring something. "Uh huh... okay..." I agreed. I didn't remind him about the time when I was fifteen and we were in Hawaii and he sliced open his hand cutting some sugarcane of all things, and I had to drive our rental car to an emergency room. I didn't have my license and didn't really know where I was going, and all because Mr Camping, Fishing and Safe Knife Handling Man was cutting toward himself rather than away-from.
Ha ha ha.
Anyhow, this mofo really is sharp. I sliced up a cucumber into paper-thin slices for fun, and it also cut through a hard raw sweet potato as if it were soft cheese. Sharp indeed; I'll be careful!

Alfajores by Sabores Del Sur

These alfajores are delicious little flaky, buttery cookies, made by Guisell Osorio; her company is called Sabores del Sur. The cookies are shortbread-y and there's some dulce de leche filling inside, and they're sprinkled with powdered sugar. They melt in your mouth and are sooo amazing!

Cleaner Glass...Windex

The smells of Clorox bleach, Pine Sol and Windex evoke my mother. One whiff of Windex and I'm back in the baby crib. She's a total clean freak. I still remember when "Soft Scrub with Bleach" came out. She was so excited, happily explaining to me why Soft Scrub with BLEACH is so much better than the plain Soft Scrub they had before.

I grew up thinking that Windex was a verb, as in "you need to Windex the table/mirror/window/sliding glass door". Mom and I could often be found Windexing our Windexable surfaces on Saturday mornings (Saturday was official housecleaning day).

I like a clean house full of clean glass surfaces, too. There are 31 Windexable surfaces in my living room alone. But I don't like the smell of Windex, and would rather use a less toxic product.

The three I have in rotation are: Earth Friendly Products Window Kleener (leaves streaks), Mrs Meyer's Clean Day Window Spray (smells awesome, like lavender), and my recently acquired Method Glass Cleaner. It's supposed to smell like mint, and it kind of does. It's also got that comfortingly blue Windex color... comforting because it reminds ya of Windex. The Method one works the best, Mrs. Meyer's second best, and Earth Friendly "Kleener" with a K is the worst. If you hate fragrance, it's the best, though, because it just smells like vinegar. Unfortunately, Windex works better than all three of these, but I'm not giving up my search for the perfect glass cleaning alternative to Windex.

My Be@rbrick Andre 400% and 100%

Be@rbricks are collectible adult toys (by "adult toys" I'm not saying sex toys) made by a company called Medicom in Japan. The bears come in a vast array of colors and designs; it's kind of mind-blowing, actually. It might just be the most mind-blowing collectible thing I've ever seen, with the exception of Limoges porcelain boxes. People who collect Be@rbricks are as addicted and fervent as any antique hunters. I don't collect Be@rbricks, I just think they're fun and cute and weird. I received this 400% (the big one) and 100% Be@rbrick set. This one was designed by French graffiti artist Andre.