07-31-05
It is to discourage customers from ordering more of that pricey tap water.
During countless breakfasts at the Cascade Big Boy over the past 10 years, I've noticed that when I ask for a second pot of hot water for my tea, the water often arrives at the table smelling like wet dog. I'm never sure quite how to complain about it (and I'm not really the complaining type, anyway), so I always just drink it. The third pot of water is usually ok.
07-31-05
Gasoline horseys will take us away.
While my car is having its damage assessed, I am borrowing my mom's car for the week. When I was driving back this morning I was like, "Wow, I can open the passenger side window while driving because I don't have to lean way over to the seat to do it. And when I set the cruise control, it stays at the speed I set it at and doesn't sporadically speed up or slow down! And what is that noise? Those voices. . .it is a radio! A working radio! Driving this car is like driving a million star hotel!"
But then I got to my apartment,looked at the gas gauge and thought, "Whoa. Driving this car is like driving a million star hotel whose employees all drink gasoline." Please come home soon, my crumpled, 40 miles per gallon friend!
07-28-05
Exciting excitement
So, there I was, all optimistic about a weekend at my parents' house (free food! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (possibly in IMAX) with my mom (free!)).
Then I was merging onto I-94, gently coaxing my friend the Honda Civic hatchback to go faster and faster until it hit 75 and THE HOOD SUDDENLY FLEW OPEN AND SMASHED UP THE WINDSHIELD.
So there I was, frantically trying to pull onto the shoulder of the highway while being completely unable to see, stopping the car, telephoning my parents (who of course weren't home), ending my message on their answering machine with WHY DON'T YOU JUST HAVE A CELL PHONE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!
There I was, calling my roommate who was halfway across the state. She at least had the number of a local tow truck. I had nothing. A cell phone doesn't do you any good if you don't have anyone to call.
So, there I was, sitting in an increasingly hot car reading Fables: Legends in Exile, waiting for the tow truck (I've never once regretted my take a book everywhere rule). I climbed over the passenger seat and out the door, afraid to get out on the driver's side because of the constant stream of traffic whizzing by. I closed the hood as best as it could be closed. It looked (looks) bad.
There I was, sitting in the passenger seat of a tow truck. Sam the towtruckman (who was very nice. Are all towtruckmen very nice? Because all of my experiences with them have been positive. I mean, except for the needing a towtruck part of the experience.) said I was lucky. And I thought: there I was, on the highway at one of the busiest times of the day and there were no cars anywhere near me. I was lucky. And still, in spite of the fact that I should be happy to be ok, all I can think about is the fact that my car is all busted up, and how it might take forever and cost a fortune to get fixed, and how it might cause me to miss the Zook family reunion next weekend just when I was starting to look forward to it instead of dreading spending three days with 300 relatives.
Anyway. There is no food here because I was expecting to be gone for the weekend, so I think I am going to go get pizza. I have cheated death by car accident, but I think I can still achieve death by poor nutrition choices.
07-25-05
Ideal conditions.
Dear Wednesday,
Please come soon.
xoxo,
Kim
07-24-05
My freshman year roommate was from Chicago, but I try not to hold that against the whole city.
I ate pancakes on the way to Chicago yesterday. I love pancakes! Especially when they are covered with fruit. These pancakes were particularly great in that they didn't require butter or syrup in order to be delicious. I don't like syrup very much, which interferes with my great love of pancakes.
For a while, it didn't look like I was going to be able to finish my pancakes, but I eventually pulled through. I always feel guilty if I don't eat all of my food, and I guess if I am going to contribute to the great American obesity epidemic, I'd rather it be for reasons of guilt than for gluttony.
Our first stop in (the) Chicago (area) was IKEA! And we would've gotten there pretty much right on schedule if I had been on the right road. Highways should have names that are easy to remember, like 'Harvey.' Then you could remember your directions by thinking "Well, I just take the Harvey until I come to the exit for Isabelle," but as things are (if your roommate claims to not be able to read maps and will not even try to help you), you have to remember all kinds of crazy 2s and Is and 90s and πr²s, and that's just crazy. We did eventually get there, and I bought myself some nice clear glass cereal bowls. I've wanted clear bowls (and also glass bowls) since we bought our trusty four pack of blue, plastic bowls from the dollar store. The only clear glass bowls I'd ever been able to find, though, were not of a suitable weight. I like my glass tableware to be heavy. It is hard to explain, and possibly also a little crazy to be so picky about the weight of a bowl. But now I have them and I'm sure we will be very happy.
While we were at IKEA the roommate's eye hurt, and when we got to the car she took out her contact and it was torn. She didn't have her glasses with her and didn't know if she should wear just one contact, so she took her other contact out and saw only a blur of Chicago for the rest of the day. The trip was probably less fun that way. It also meant that I had to do all of the driving and map reading and sign reading, which would've made the trip less fun for me if I hadn't been able to lie to her about the things I was seeing. She asked, "Is that a big furry white dog?" I answered, "No, OH MY GOSH, it is a POLAR BEAR! There is a polar bear walking the streets of Chicago! On a leash!"
All of the extra driving around we did while trying to get to IKEA meant that we had to skip the International Museum of Surgical Science, which was extremely disappointing. But not even being blind could stop my roommate from her pilgrimage to Oprah's studio. So we went there and I took pictures of her by the sign and made fun of everyone who was there. I am not sure what my problem is with Oprah, but I definitely have one.
Next: the Bob Newhart statue!
I love Bob Newhart! but not more than I love pancakes.
I had no idea that this statue even existed prior to watching the PBS special the other night, so I'm glad that we didn't go to Chicago when we had originally intended to. We stood around by it long enough for people to notice that we'd been standing by the Bob Newhart statue for an absurd amount of time, then, since we were already at Navy Pier and it was not a place that we wanted to make a return trip to at any point in our future lives, we decided to pretend that $5 per person was not an exorbitant charge to ride a ferris wheel and rode the ferris wheel. We hoped to get some good photos of the city from it, but the cars were all surrounded by dirty clear plastic so that people couldn't jump out or throw things over the side or generally do any of the mean or stupid things that people can think of to do to injure themselves and sue Navy Pier. So good photos weren't really an option. (Although, to be fair to those dumb, lawsuit-happy people, good photos are not usually an option when I am behind the camera).
After H & M we wandered around and tried to find somewhere to eat, finally settling on Pizano's. We got a deep dish pizza with spinach, tomatoes and mushrooms that was not only delicious, but ridiculously delicious. And also very cheesy. And we got an appetizer of cheesy garlic bread. And apparently my body has a problem with an 11pm meal consisting mostly of cheese. The sick feeling, however, did not develop into anything more than a feeling, which is good because I have a history of vomiting on the street in Chicago and I'm not sure how many more times I can do it and still remain welcome there. Then we scraped together all of our cash and found out that we didn't have enough to liberate my car from the parking garage. I've never had to pay for parking with a credit card before, but I'm glad they gave me the option. We had an uneventful drive home, with the roommate sleeping and me pointing all of the air conditioner vents at my face to keep me awake. We are not dead, nor did I kill anyone else, so I guess that it worked. I did meet a car going west in the eastbound lanes and my first thought was that I had fallen asleep and crossed the median and was about to die. But again, we did not die, and it was the other car that was on the wrong side of the highway. This entry is long and I hope the format is ok because I've never tried to do one like this before.
The ferris wheel was fun, but it wasn't $5 per person fun. It was most notable for the fact that we waited to take our pictures on it until the point when the graffiti reading "Jackie rocks ass!!!" outside our car was most clearly visible. After that we bought popcorn (it was about 5pm eastern by then and we hadn't eaten since breakfast at around 8:30am, so those pancakes were not only delicious but had staying power too!), which was the best popcorn I have ever had. Ever. I kept talking and talking about it while we were trying to figure out where we had parked, and when it was gone I tried to eat the unpopped kernels to see if they held the same deliciousness of their popped brethren. They did not. And yes, delicious is the only adjective I use in reference to food I like. There are others that I could use, but I prefer not to.
It was getting late, and if we were going to do any shopping at all, we needed to get to it. In the end we only went to H & M, unless you count going into Borders to use their restroom and encountering the most baffling automatic sinks I've ever seen. I went to H & M when I was in New York, but nothing they had would actually fit me then. Now they fit, but I never have any idea of how anything looks on me. I usually make the roommate look at everything I try on, but yesterday, in addition to being blind, she was busy looking at earrings when I was ready to enter the fitting room for the second time (the first time everything I took in with me was too big, because I can't even tell what size of clothing looks like it'll fit). I took pictures, hoping to find her and ask her for advice afterwards. She said, "Buy them! Buy them all!" which makes her not a very good person to ask for advice. The shirt pictured was the hardest one to decide on. It was cheap and it fit, but the whole bare arms thing still makes me uncomfortable. I finally decided against getting it, but as I was approaching the cashier I had a change of heart and rushed back to the rack to get it, sure that someone else had already taken it (it was the last one in that size). Now that I own it, I am again having second thoughts, but since I'd have to drive for four hours to return it, I should probably just accept the fact that is now mine and move on with life.07-22-05
See also: New Stupid Ways to Waste Money
I've recently developed a bizarre, all-consuming need for lip gloss. It is troubling, because I'm not even sure that lip gloss is a cosmetic for grown-ups. The concept seems very tween ("But mom, it's not make-up! It's only lip gloss!"), and I'm wondering if I should take the step up to lipstick. Lipstick, though, seems a little too fancy and colorful for my purposes. It also usually does not have any kind of delightful fruit flavor, like cranapple pear (I always say that more than two fruits in a juice seems excessive, but that rule does not apply to lip gloss), so I'm not sure what to do.
07-21-05
We're going to blindfold you and run.
It snowed in a single corner of my patio!
Crazy Michigan weather.
Completely unrelatedly, there was a glacier growing in my refrigerator. I am not sure how I managed to miss the fact that the space in my already small refrigerator had been reduced to half the size it had originally been, but yesterday I discovered that melting ice from the glacier had leaked into a bag of baby carrots and ruined them, a full five days before their expiration date! I was like, "This time it's personal, refrigerator!" and went at it with a hammer and a screwdriver (while whistling "I'm Going to Buy You a Gun," which seems notable for some reason). Five hours later I am done! but the refrigerator isn't cold enough to put food into it yet. All day long I've had to drink room temperature water, and I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing that. But I am unwilling to put my water pitcher in the fridge in the laundry room down the hall (where all the food is right now), because I don't enjoy the idea of running down there every 20 minutes (I drink a lot of water) in my stay-at-home clothes (too big skirt and too big t-shirt from the Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory) which, in addition to being ugly and too big, are also pretty wet from the whole ice chipping experience. I'll probably have to drink room temperature water until tomorrow. I have a hard life.
07-20-05
Burn, bridges! Burn!
I saw someone I went to high school with over the weekend. We weren't great friends or anything, but he was a friend of people who were my good friends, so it wasn't like we were complete strangers. Anyway, he was cashiering at Meijer last weekend while I was buying bananas and gummy dinosaurs, and when I left he said, "Thanks, have a nice day," or something to that effect. I said, "Yeah, you too," even though I could very easily have said, "Yeah, you too, FIRSTNAME LASTNAME!"
I'm not sure of what kind of segue I was going for here and I'm in a hurry because I want to go watch the Bob Newhart thing on PBS, so the point is that he didn't recognize me. And that it was fine with me, because I have absolutely no interest in being connected to the high school version of myself. But I feel a little bad that I didn't say hello. It wouldn't be my life if I didn't feel a little bad about something.
07-11-05
Is going to Chicago, is not going to Chicago.
I am not going to Chicago tomorrow! Because weather.com claims that it will thunderstorm there all day. It would make my hair frizzy and Chicago would think that I am ugly, therefore the trip has been postponed until July 23. It is just as well since it will give us time to figure out what we want to do. So far the only two places to go that the roommate and I have picked out are the International Museum of Surgical Science* (my choice) and Harpo Studios, where Oprah is taped (her choice). Sometimes it seems completely bizarre that the roommate and I are even friends.
*Bloodletting, gallstones and ancient speculums! How could anyone not want to go to this place? (Ooh, and the 1918 bonecruncher! Why haven't I already been to this museum?)
07-10-05
The door! It's opening by itself!
The other day I went to the store to buy pickles and granola bars, and one of the the doors to the store was broken. They were out of both the pickles and the granola bars that I wanted, so I went back to the store yesterday and the door had been repaired, but instead of having a sign on on it that said "Enter" or "Exit," or that had one of those up arrows that I know means 'go through this way' but that always causes me to glance upwards just in case I'm missing something up there, the new door has a sign that says, "Automatic Door/Keep Moving." Apparently we are no longer allowed to stand and gape in amazement at automatic doors.
Also, in case you were worried, I did get my pickles (sale price-coupon=39 cents!), but they were still out of granola bars and I got a rain check. Asking for rain checks always makes me feel like I'm about 70 years old, but I have serious aversions to (1) spending more money on granola bars than is necessary; and (2) living life without granola bars.
Also, I'm going to Chicago on Tuesday. The fact that I have no clear idea about what I am going to do there makes me think that this is going to be one of those trips where I drive a long way, get lost a bunch of times*, get ice cream and go home. I'm really looking forward to that ice cream.
*Actually, that is untrue. It is impossible to get lost when you don't care where you are, which is usually what my road trips are like.
07-06-05
Shower knows best.
Lately, instead of being irritated that I can never have a constant water temperature for the duration of a shower, I've decided to instead pretend that I live in a computerized superhouse that can automatically detect the most desirable water temperature for me based on the outside temperature, my body temperature, humidity levels and etc. Therefore, that sudden shift from warm water to freezing water to scalding water was merely based on some imperceptible physiological change, and was not the result of living in a sad, old building with sad, old pipes.
I also sometimes like to think that my futuristic superhouse is being motherly and looking out for me. Like when it is hot and I want to take a cold shower. It gives me hot water, and if it could speak it would say, "Cold showers are for psychotics, Kim. You will sweat and you will be sane!"
Someday soon I will try to figure out what my house is trying to communicate to me through the leaky refrigerator. It really should've come with a manual.
07-05-05
Oh Columbia!
A while ago I preordered Sufjan Stevens's Illinois album, assuming that that meant that I would get it when it was released. When it showed up five days after I ordered it I was disappointed, since I had spent so much energy to avoid knowing anything about the album prior to its release date. I hadn't downloaded any of the many tracks that were showing up all over mp3 blogs. I didn't read about it. I didn't want to know what the songs were called or how many of them there were. I really thrive on depriving myself of things.
So, skipping the middle part of the story (it is boring and involves me listening to Illinois repeatedly), for the first time ever in the history of my life something worked out well for me and I now own a collector's item. Except it didn't work out perfectly for me because my collector's item is not sellable on eBay for an absurd amount of money because I opened it and listened to it extensively.
I didn't know it would be rare! I assumed that it would get less rare for a while until eventually becoming rare in 50 years or so, when nobody would care about it anyway.
(I wouldn't have sold it anyway.)
Unrelatedly, yesterday's marathons of The Twilight Zone and King of the Hill proved to be something of a conflict of interest for me. I eventually ended up picking black raspberries, but it was hot and mosquitoey and black raspberry bushes are scratchy. Plus, black raspberries have more seeds than really seems necessary, so they make your Cheerios extra crunchy. But it was still a nice change from naked Cheerios.
07-02-05
You can't unread it.
First things first, July? Are you kidding me?
Moving on,
#1 All week, for no identifiable reason, I've been thinking about how in third grade we were promised a pizza party when everybody learned their multiplication tables. You know who held that party up? Me. We had to correctly complete one of these worksheets (it is completely insane that I remember exactly what they were called and looked like 15 years later, but those Mad Minutes caused me a lot of grief) in 60 seconds, and I just couldn't do it. There was a chart on the wall with everyone's name on it, and everyone who had learned their multiplication tables had a sticker next to their name. My name did not have a sticker (maybe there were one or two other people who hadn't learned them either, but I was supposed to be smart, so people were always like, "What, you still can't multiply?" It was shameful.). The solution? My mom bought me a multiplication rap cassette (that is not actually the one I had. The one I had was orange and had a rabbit on it, but I can't find a picture of it anywhere.) I am unsure of why I now find learning my multiplication tables from a tape called Multiplication Rap equally shameful to not knowing my multiplication tables at all, but I do.
#2 My dad emailed me the other day to tell me that if the only reason we weren't using our air conditioner was because it would make our electricity bill higher, he would pay the extra money for us to use it. I'm not sure why, since I haven't been complaining about the heat (I've said that I like working because it is air conditioned there and that usually I'm ok at night just using my fan). And also because we didn't have air conditioning at home until I was at least 16 or 17, and I'm not completely sure that they got it before I went to college. I didn't have air conditioning in the co-ops, so that makes approximately 23 summers that I lived without air conditioning. Why would I start needing it now? I don't want to take money from my parents for something so frivolous when I might need it for something important later, like a European vacation or vegetables or hospital visits for my bruises, nine month old black toenail, or dizzy spells.
#3 Someone called the library last night to find out who played the daughters/nieces on Petticoat Junction. That is so close to receiving a phone call about Green Acres that I was all aquiver. I have been daydreaming about a Green Acres phone call ever since. The daydreams range from cheerful exchanges about Hank Kimball (he's my favorite character! well, he's not my favorite character. . .) to me slamming the telephone down in disgust when someone calls Arnold Ziffel a talking pig.
#4 Speaking of work telephone calls, yesterday I answered the phone and said, "... .... uh ... ... ... I don't remember what desk I'm at."
#5 Full slips make me extra sweaty, but they also make me feel as though it is 1953 and I am working as a girl Friday for a private investigator whom I am secretly in love with, but who has no time for romance. I come home to my Manhattan studio apartment, open all the windows and lay across my couch with a cocktail, wondering if tonight will be the night he finally calls or if it is another night alone at the movie theater for me. I have a very active, but ultimately depressing, fantasy life. A very active, depressing fantasy life that is dependent upon my choice of underwear.
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