Is a badass
So sweet
I saw a movie in the back of the video store with the same name.
Watermelon KitKat! I am moving to Japan
i've been interested in paying more attention to where my food comes from lately and just how far it travels to get to me. this includes fresh produce as well as processed foods. this map shows where most of what i have eaten today originated.
much of today's food came from the following places:
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colorado = 1252 miles
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wisconsin = 2162 miles
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oakland, ca = 17 miles
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massachusetts = 3110 miles
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chico, ca = 177 miles
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watsonville, ca = 89 miles
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napa, ca = 57 miles
I am not at all graceful. I am clumsy and accident-prone and never seem to have total control over my limbs. I can rub my stomach and pat my belly - but only if I totally concentrate. And just barely. I am the kid who moved backwards instead of to the side to avoid the ball in dodge ball - merely delaying the hit. I have stubbed my toe a dozen times on the same leg of the same couch that has been in the same spot for 15 months. I am also the person that just has to be in a room with someone with a sniffle and I will get bronchitis.
- almost poking my eye out. we were playing man hunt in the woods behind my house. I was about to be discovered and jumped up to run and ended up poking my eye on a branch. I covered my eye with my hand while my friend Kristie repeatedly asked "did your eye come out?" It didn't. But i had to go get tree matter scraped from my eyeball (picture a big contraption that holds your eye open and all you see is a Dr coming at you with a scraper thingy. And then you hear the scraping. ahhhh!) and had torn it so I wore a patch for a few weeks to let it heal and then wore a patch on the other eye to make sure the injured eye didn't just give up and never work again. did i mention this was summertime? sucked.
- spraining my ankle. trying to do a split at the woods road school playground. i did not succeed.
- walking pneumonia (the 1st time in 4th grade). i remember being in bed for what seemed like forever. i remember xrays at the hospital and coughing and coughing. finally i threw up a gigantic ball of phlegm. my mom was shocked and could not believe it actually came out of me. i just felt relieved i could finally breathe without that raspy sound and feeling. and right after? i got chickenpox!
- walking pneumonia (the 2nd time when i was 30). i coughed so much and so violently that i cracked a rib.
- bacterial conjunctivitis. i have had this so many times i have lost count. nothing like crusty eyes in the morning! the photo belows shows my "progress" over the course of a few days.
- wisdom tooth removal. everything that could go wrong, did. the dr left bone splinters in that pushed themselves up and out and had to be removed later. the dr also left a hole from my mouth into my nasal passage. his staff also prescribed me the wrong antibiotic which i rejected so i got an infection in the hole. pus in the mouth. yumm! i missed 3 weeks of work from this "simple" procedure.
- lightbulb to the arm. i was crawling around in our basement crawlspace and literally stuck the inside (you know that really nice, soft skin?) of my arm to a bare lightbulb that was hanging from the ceiling. i left a perfect circle of skin behind on the bulb.
- african fly larvae in the arm (myiasis). i literally came back from uganda with a fly larvae (either tumbu or lund's) in my arm. to get it out we could have gone to the hospital, but we chose to follow a set of directions we found on the internet. we suffocated it by covering the opening on my arm with vaseline and then tung squeezed the hell out of the skin around it until it popped out. before that, we tried the "lure it out with bacon" suggestion but my larvae must have been a vegetarian because that did not work. in hindsight, we should have filmed the whole thing. i dare you to go to google and search images for "myiasis."
i heard a terrible story recently. a local father killed the mother of his 2 children and fled the country, leaving behind a one-month old and an 18-month old. they are lucky enough to have an aunt take them into her family. but, holy crap does that story put things in perspective. it seems like a hundred (little) things go wrong or annoy me each day - naps that are too short, or the fact that no one in this house is sleeping thru the night, or a stubbed toe, or a long overdue thank you note that has still not found it's way into a mailbox.... and i am one to really let things pile up psychologically and grab hold of the negative feelings and run with them (especially when i am tired as i often am these days) - either beating myself up for not doing better or feeling like the world is just working against me and kinda shutting down.
- i have a healthy baby. his first 5 minutes were rocky and the milk allergy is a pain in the ass (literally, for him). but overall he is 20+ lbs of chubby good health. our pediatrician reminded us that we are lucky to have such a healthy baby. and he would know since he deals with many sick babies and terrified parents. he admitted to us that days filled with crying, sick babies are hard sometimes. i bet.
- i have the privilege to change almost every single dirty diaper. i did not return to my office job as planned after ryall hit 3 mos for various reasons. i get to be with him all day every day and see every diaper and every smile and every sneeze every new thing he does. sometimes i don't know how tung can walk out the door every single day and leave him for 10 hrs. he misses so much.
- i have a husband who is willing to make a go of it as a single-income family in the bay area so i can stay home with our son. this puts extra pressure on him in many ways. yes, i'll try to freelance. but honestly, unless the project finds me it won't be happening for me. for the first time in a long time, there is a tight budget to be followed..... but we're doing it. we made our son the priority and it feels good.
- i have a husband who is willing to do so much after working all day. he will cook dinner if i have not done so. he will walk the baby around the house endlessly to make him sleepy. he will sing him songs and hold him tight so that he feels loved enough and secure enough to sleep. he will change poopy diapers and give baths. he will do anything the baby needs and anything that i ask of him without complaint. a friend recently split from her partner just a few months after the birth of their baby. she goes it alone every single night and i am in awe.
- i have friends who are willing to give real advice. and give it gently. and not be offended if i do not immediately accept it all. and never say "i told you so" later when you admit that they were right.
- i live in a beautiful, diverse city. 10 blocks from the ocean and 2 blocks from one of the most visited city parks in America. and a 30 minute train ride downtown where there is amazing shopping and food. not to mention that wine country is an hour away. and tahoe? just a few hours away. most importantly, our son will never feel different here because he is bi-racial.
- i am healthy. yes, the knees are a bit creaky. yes, the gut is flabby. yes, the gray is taking over. but i can pick up my gigantor of a baby. i can provide the milk he needs. i can walk for hours with him strapped to me in the ergo.
- i am loved. by my husband, family, friends. people who want me to be happy and to feel loved. and yes, by my baby. just the look in his eye when he first sees my after waking up is enough love to last me an entire day.
After reading raving reviews from various homies about Girl Talk, and his latest album, I decided to give it a whirl after coming across it on someone's iTunes share at work.
Holy shit! I do love me some well-done mashup goodness, and this is it. Currently listening to an amalgam of Deee-Lite, Salt n Pepa, and Nirvana. It's pretty much impossible to convey the awesomeness in a post, so here... listen:
It's not because of Obama's goofy choice for a VP... despite the fact that, as the first black President, he's almost certain to be assassinated. It's not because of his backpedaling on issues that are important. It's not even because he didn't take a few minutes in Hawaii to come hang out with me and the rest of the wedding party. Dude's busy. I get that.
No, the reason is email, and Barack's and the Party's annoying abuse of my information. Barack's got one email address for me (I remember giving it to him a while back), and the Democrats have another one that goes to the same email box, which I don't remember giving them, but I guess it's plausible that they got it through some non-shady means. Anyway, I'd say it's about two times a day on average that Barack sends email to the address that he has, and nine times out of ten, the Democratic Party sends the same exact mail to the address they have. Beyond that, I get another handful of emails every week from Howard Dean, Michelle Obama, and Nancy Pelosi at the Party's email address.
THIS IS TOO MUCH FUCKING MAIL from a political campaign. In case the fact that I have email didn't tip you off, let me let you in on a secret about me: I have a fucking computer, and it's on the fucking internet. I can read the news, your website, and blogs. I don't need an email alert to tell me how proud you are that your wife was so eloquent on stage.
That's the other thing... they're all really inane throwaway mails. It's stuff like "Heeeeey, we're gonna announce a VP in a few days. Can we have your phone number and some money?" or "Heeeeey, did you hear that shit that McCain was talkin? LOL! Can we have some money?"
No, dude. I gave you a TON of money already.
Now here's the kicker: I went to go unsubscribe from the Democratic Party's email list, and when I put in my email address and my reason for unsubscribing, I got this:
To ensure the security of your account, we've sent you an email at the address you provided us. This email contains a 4-digit code that you will need to enter below. If you do not see the inbox within a couple of minutes, check your junk or bulk mail folder as your ISP may have incorrectly marked this message as spam.
That was like 15 minutes ago and guess what... Yeah... no email with a confirmation code.
WHY THE FUCK do I need a confirmation code to unsubscribe from an email list? Is that even legal? It's not like the unsubscribe process required my credit card number or something. Just fucking unsubscribe me! Bastards.
I'm thinking about making my own list of every Democrat's email address I can find, and during the day, I'm going to send it updates on how I'm doing at work. Potential subject lines:
- Barack, I wrote some pretty sweet code today
- Just because I'm on Vox doesn't mean I'm not working
- Nancy, let me tell you about the lunch I just had
- Give me your phone number and I'll text you next time I log a bug!
* I'm not really voting for McCain. Back off!
