i’m not making up a new season. i’m giving a name to something that already exists: sprummer.
it’s the last two weeks of may and first couple weeks of june, when spring’s already sprung but summer’s not yet summed. everything’s green and chlorophylly, but the weather’s still in the 70s and perfect. the sun stays up late and gets up early, plants are breaking free of the soil, and the last remnants of cold in the earth are gone.
a haiku:
green, warm sprummertime
winter: distant memory
hold tight; it’s fleeting.
this month marks the 2nd year – SECOND YEAR- that i’ve been running. omg! that is nuts to me. in november 2011, i got my $20/month membership to the st. ben’s fieldhouse and used the track 3 times a week doing couch to 5k. two years later, here i am. i still run slow. i still plod along. but i am doing it! here are some tips. homer again because i always feel like this when i run.
1. make it a personal game with yourself. sure, you can get running buddies who force you to get out there and hit the pavement, but no one is going to make you do it but you. if you don’t have that mindset, you aren’t going to feel any sort of reward. i love it when i get a personal best.
2. get good gear. when i started out, i was wearing two bras (an underwire with a $10 sports bra over it) and a pair of crappy tennis shoes. an awesome bra and a pair of CORRECT running shoes will do wonders; they will help your joints and save the sag.
3. even if you go slow, still go. i can’t run a 10 minute mile. i can barely break a 12 minute mile. that doesn’t matter; at least i’m still out there running and breaking a sweat.
4. get pumped up. if listening to podcasts is your thing, then listen to them while you run. if listening to christmas music is it, then so be it. personally, my playlist is full of britney spears, prince, kesha, and flogging molly (quite the eclectic array, i know).
5. just do it. nike’s right. no excuses. what else were you going to do tonight? try to figure out what to watch on netflix for an hour? stare at cats on reddit for an hour? read crappy literature for an hour? (fyi – i never read crappy literature.) you can carve an hour or less out of your day to do this. what else were you going to do?
this years kablpomo has been really relaxing. the last years i’ve done it, there have always been days where i say, ack! i forgot to blog! or ack! what am i blogging about? (i’m channeling my inner cathy- comic.)
this year it’s come to me pretty easily, which is nice! and there are a mere 10 entries left, so i’d better get on with my pintertests!
(this bodes well for kablpoye.)
my mom wonders why i have such a fascination with krampus. same thing with the spooky side of halloween.
first – krampus. i first learned of krampus from a classmate in my judeo-christian class at st. ben’s. on st. nicholas day, her parents would rattle the furnace, throw rocks at the windows, and generally do a bunch of spooky stuff. she had a little brother who was prime age for this, so she was looking forward to helping out this year. (she also had a tattoo of a teddy bear on the top of her thigh, which i found intriguing, but has nothing to do with the story.)
how can you appreciate the good if you don’t see the dark? it can’t be puppies and unicorn farts 24/7 – life’s not like that. if it were just santa claus, what’s the worst that happens to bad boys and girls? they get coal? no presents? big whoop – just like every other day of the year (and for people pre-electricity, coal was probably a good present!). by utilizing the dark, there is a worse outcome than just no presents – krampus will come and kidnap you away!
think of all the disney-fied fairy tales. now think of their origins. the originals were a lot more dark than what disney has perpetuated. those medieval peeps knew what they were doing. cinderella’s stepsisters, in the originals, got their eyes pecked out by birds afterward for being so evil. compare that to the disney version, where they just ended up not marrying the prince. sometimes being evil and mean has consequences! a dark element in a story gives the good in a story that much more meaning.
you have to wonder if we coddle ourselves too much these days.
claim: use gelatin and milk to replace spendy biore nose strips! source: http://petitelefant.com/how-to-pore-strips/ test: well, this definitely works. fortunately i had some gelatine in my cupboard for some reason, so i was able whip this up easily. 1 packet of gelatine mixed with 2 tblsp of milk. mix that bad boy up.
it gets chunky. then put it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds.
it gets soupy, and now’s the time to apply!
the worst part about this stuff?? it STINKS like bad milk. yucko. the instructions say to apply with a popsicle stick, but why waste something like that? use your fingers.
i just put it on my nose and chin. you can put it all over your face if you’d like. let it dry til you can’t move your mouth. i let it sit for about 20 mins.
omg time to peel! that was all the farther my mouth would open. that stuff is STIFF. peel back an edge with your fingernail (might take a few tries), and peel away.
and boy does this peel away stuff. it is BETTER than a biore strip. if you have sensitive skin, you might want to not try this, or wait til a weekend so if your skin peels off with the gelatin, you have a day to recover.
smooth as a baby’s butt! my skin is still tingling.
…AND of course, since it was made of milk, sophie had to eat the remains XP verdict: this works. it takes maybe a minute to prepare. and definitely cheaper than biore. i had a LOT of leftover goo after i applied. i don’t know if it’s possible, but a person could try to put it in the fridge and re-microwave when you want to use it next.
*inspired by jane’s watching of “the muppet movie”. oh, SPOILERS!!!!
10. 500 days of summer – so what if this is the ultimate hipster movie. i love the end. when you think all is lost, one simple name and a breaking of the 4th wall gives a glimmer of hope.
9. the dark knight rises – we see alfred sitting at a cafe. he looks up and smiles. we KNOW it’s bruce, then it cuts to bruce. (really, nolan, you could have cut the scene where we actually see bruce, and it would have been 10% better, but i digress). and to learn that blake’s first name is ROBIN. ha.
8. wild things – nicely done, third wheel!!! ps – the credits are a must watch.
7. breakfast at tiffany’s – rain. a missing cat. a kiss. can’t beat that.
6. shawshank redemption – i give credit to stephen king on writing an awesome book first and foremost (well, novella). the film adaptation was my first exposure, so i have to include it. music adds a ton to the end when we see how andy circumvented the system and got to that end of the sewer pipe. then sweet, sweet justice when he clears out the bank account. add in red’s parole, and reunification with andy, and awwww yeaaahhh.
5. the usual suspects – brilliant, and you don’t see it coming (well, i didn’t). kevin spacey is a genius
4. beauty and the beast – go belle go! barge through the doors on horseback! fly up the stairs! the moment when you think the beast is dead, then she whispers “i love you” JUST before the last petal takes its deadly descent. aw yeah, getting goosebumps just thinking about it.
3. it’s a wonderful life – when george bailey’s brother calls him the richest man in town, liek if you cry evry tiem.
2. muppet movie – this movie is awesome because it has my favorite beginning as well as a favorite ending. everything crashes down, the roof opens up, life seems hopeless for the muppets, and suddenly, a rainbow filters through the hole in the roof. “life’s like a movie, make your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending, we’ve just done what we set out to do…thanks to the lovers, the dreamers, and you!”
1. fivel goes west – for an animated non-disney kids’ sequel filmed on a low budget in 1991, this movie is AWESOME. if you haven’t seen it, i highly suggest finding it asap. jimmy stewart, dom delouise, john cleese, plus some music by james horner. it’s a funny film, but the ending is perfect. jimmy stewart gives some advice to our young fivel as the sun sets in the out west desert. perfect.
i get these form http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/
once again, santa was a victim of inter-stellar mugging. this was the third time, and it was getting old. speaking of old, he was definitely getting too old for this.
just last night, christmas eve, he was out on his yearly journey, his eight tiny reindeer leaping through the skies toward their destinations. he was almost done – just a few of the aleutians left to drop down chimneys and leave goodies, then it was a quick right toward home. he could smell the hot chocolate laced with bailey’s already. he was dreaming of his comfy bed. his reindeer were dreaming of carrots and oats.
then, out of nowhere, they came for him. it was like they had a wormhole homed in specifically on him every christmas eve. suddenly santa and his sleigh were bathed in a bright blue-white light; the reindeer reared, the sleigh shuddered, and they were beamed aboard.
“not again,” santa muttered. he decided to just close his eyes and let them do their thing.
once in the hull of the ship (it was a huge ship – santa more than once wondered how on earth, with all the fancy detection systems the countries around the world had, that no one had detected it. he had checked the news each of the previous two times he’d been zapped, and nothing), the speedy little suckers swarmed around his sleigh. they were children, climbing all over his sleigh and nosing into his bag. whether or not they were actually children or just transformed to look like kids so he wouldn’t be freaked out, santa didn’t know. all he knew was that he couldn’t kick a kaboodle of kids outta his sleigh.
so he sighed and let them take over. they took his candy canes, his chocolate, the remaining presents, his stash of hot chocolate (sans bailey’s for the sleigh ride), the tinsel in the glove compartment, cookies and candies, the extra stockings, jingle bells – even his naughty list! (he was getting to the age where he forgot often and so needed a list).
then they pulled him from the sleigh, and he obliged. the first time he had protested, but learned that was a mistake when they knocked him out cold and he didn’t wake up for another week. his tummy was certainly grumbling for a sugar cookie by that point.
santa stumbled to the circle in the center of the hull under a bright light. his reindeer snuffled, whites of their eyes showing, and stomped their feet.
“it’s ok lads. i’ll see you soon.” each time his sleigh and reindeer had landed safely at home in the north pole, none worse for the wear except for being stripped of anything of value and a frantic ms. claus.
a murmur in a weird language unknown to santa (and he knew all the languages) went up among the group of alien children who had led him over to the circle, then he felt a familiar swooping sensation, and glimpsing one last look at the horde overtaking his sleigh, he was gone.
*****
his suit was getting a little warm, and why on earth was his comfy bed so unbearable this morning? his mittened hands went up to rub his sandy morning eyes, and they opened on a cityscape. and then it hit him.
mugged again.
let me tell you a story about avoiding childhood trauma by omission. i’m not saying my parents were deceptive; my mom is the most honest person i know. but adult matters don’t need to be discussed with children, especially if their foreseen consequences don’t necessarily come to fruition.
my childhood was not your normal childhood. we lived on welfare and foodstamps for a good two years when i was 11-13 years old while my mom went back to school to get her degree (and get a better job – guess what? welfare works!).
you ask my brother, and he will be able to tell you nothing of that time. my sister liz was amazed at ice cube trays a few years ago, mentioning that we only had store-bought ice growing up. i looked at her like she was crazy; we used ice cube trays until i was 14 years old. needless to say, as the oldest, i remember the most about this time.
i didn’t comprehend the stigma. in fact, a lot of the response we got was positive and in the form of help from church and community members. but as a non-financial-dealing person of the family, i had no idea how stressful this actually was.
i recently found out the reason why we were almost homeless at one point, and for personal reasons (hi mom!) i’m not going to explain. but i will say this: the deception by omission was probably one of the best things my parents did for my siblings’ and my relationships with other family members.
i remember a little about the sale of 60 acres of the family farm (it was my dad’s dad’s land): watching the surveyors and pulling the long 150′ measuring tape along the east edge of the property. only later did i find out some more details – how my mom’s friend helped us out with some money and how close we were to being homeless.
i never wondered the reasons behind the foreclosure on the land – i always thought it was just because we were on welfare. sure, that had to be part of it; if we’d had a lot of money, it wouldn’t have been an issue at all. but after hearing more information, it became a little clearer and understandable, and my relationships were different, so i could more easily come to terms with what i was hearing. if i’d heard it when i was 13, i would have been devastated.
but i will say that the omission my parents performed during that time was for the best. i don’t consider it deceptive, because it was an adult matter. we grow cynical and suspicious with age, and to have that thrust upon a person at an early age is to deprive her of an innocence that doesn’t last forever. we need the hope and wonder of our childhood to keep our cynical selves in check later in life.
diverting back to houseblog, this will be my final houseblog post for a while. why? today nate and i finally closed on our house – two weeks past the initial closing date. woo! finally we are homeowners again. I’m excited to not worry about keeping quiet, paint the walls, put in a garden, PARK IN A GARAGE. omg. winter’s coming, you know. it was nice today, but it’s right around the corner.
and speaking of around the corner, christmas is. but thanksgiving is still only 2 weeks away, and for some reason the coffee shops have decided to get rid of anything pumpkin. i don’t understand it? thanksgiving is as much about pumpkin as halloween is. hello?? pumpkin pie??? but no, they’ve converted to mint everything, and i already miss my pumpkin mocha. (they do still have pumpkin bread, though, which is a relief.)
caribou, if you read this, let’s keep pumpkin around til at least thanksgiving. i like mint as much as the next person, but come on! let’s not rush things! life is short enough as it is to not savor pumpkin as long as possible.
things are slowly but surely coming together. except my left pointer finger. i grabbed a scissors today by the blade and cut open my finger. AGAIN. that poor finger. it never gets a break.
put together another bookshelf today for my dvds, and nate bought three folding tobales and lined the entire office with desks. omg.
and tomorrow’s the actual closing on the house!
but really, i had a decent post planned for you tonight, but then the finger thing happened. stupid finger. >:( living room w/new movie shelf. hutch looks pretty good! my poor 20″ imac looks so tiny.
in other news, did you know there is actually an organized blog posting month? who knew?? http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-nablopomo.htm#slideshow
