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buffy

Three (3!) Things Thursday

Nov 17th, 2011
by gazelle.
8 comments

1. I don’t know how I ever got through my life thus far without having seen an episode of Torchwood. Seriously. I love Brit TV. I love time traveling sci-fi. I used to watch Dr. Who (back in the old days, I actually haven’t seen any of the newer stuff, but trust that it’s in my queue). I originally added Torchwood to my Netflix queue a few years ago when James Marsters was on a couple of episodes, but then never watched it. HUGE MISTAKE. However, I have decided that my “I’ll just watch one episode before starting on my homework” is not a good plan, and instead it needs to be one episode after I finish my homework. So much love.

 

2. Besides working and homeworking and occasional working out (that’s a lot of work for one pregnant lady), my other obsession has been food. I haven’t daydreamed this much about food since September 2009 (i.e. the last month before my first marathon). I am going through eggs like I have my own personal chicken (I don’t) and have developed a renewed love for the lunchtime salad. In fact, I am so obsessed with food, that when the architect and I were talking about taking a last little mini trip before baby, I picked LA. Admittedly, one reason was so that I could get some serious vitamin D time in February (after a winter without much daylight here), but the real reason? Mexican food. (And shh….don’t tell anyone…but I think we’re going to go to Medieval Times, too.) I miss Mexican food so much.

 

3. Monday I got home from work and there was a package on my front steps. I was pretty excited! I love surprise packages (and it was a decent sized one, too….heh). I picked it up & saw the return address, and then I was even more excited. It was from her, and I know she’s going through a baking frenzy right now. I was right to be excited, because when I opened it up, this is what I saw:

Yay! Festive Cookie Tin!

Hmmmm…..I wonder what’s inside?

M'fashnik, like mmmm....cookies

This tin actually originally held a lot more of these delicious chocolate stout brownies, but they…disappeared? No idea what happened. (Thanks Cat!)

 

Gratitude Journal

November 17, 2011: I am grateful for coffee. I know it seems like I mentioned it yesterday, but yesterday I only said I was grateful for the coffee maker (in a list of other things). But I really wanted to draw attention to coffee as deserving of its own special day. Coffee is the best beverage ever invented. I don’t understand how I got through so many years never drinking it and thinking it really wasn’t that great. Mmmmmm……coffee.

November 16, 2011: I am grateful for all the little luxuries I have that I often take for granted…my car, my phone, the coffee maker (so very grateful for my coffee maker). It’s so easy to caught up in the things I don’t have that I occasionally forget how very lucky I am. My life is so freaking awesome.

November 15, 2011: I am grateful that I have the kind of job/life/etc. that allows me to afford pretty shoes, and the level-headedness that keeps me from buying (very many) shoes that wouldn’t be practical.

November 14, 2011: I am grateful that I work in a place with lots of little food nooks. It’s always an easy walk to grab more food. Which I do more often than ever, lately.

November 13, 2011: I am grateful for streaming Netflix (and Hulu Plus!). Also, I am grateful for John Barrowman. And my new found love of Torchwood.

November 12, 2011: I am grateful for my awesome friends! I got so much good quality friend-time this weekend! Walks & cocoa & thrifting with her! Ornament painting and dinner and movies with Alisa, Jen, Lisa & Sarah! Cocoa and a chat with her! (I should maybe also mention that I’m grateful for hot cocoa.)

November 11, 2011: I am grateful for laid back evenings at home with the architect.

November 10, 2011: I am grateful to live in Portland, Oregon. It is so beautiful here. I love that we have four seasons, and I especially love autumn.

November 9, 2011: I am grateful for modern medical conveniences that help eliminate unnecessary surprises from my life. Yay for ultrasounds!

November 8, 2011: I am grateful for my brand-new employee who started today, who I am hoping will help take some of the financial reporting burden off my plate & allow me to do a better job on the more big-picture things.

November 7, 2011: I am grateful for weekends and the opportunity to relax and recharge.

November 6, 2011: I am grateful for running – and grateful that I am still able to run. I am also grateful for my proximity to the most awesome running park in the history of the world: Forest Park.

November 5, 2011:I am grateful that I was able to discover enough courage to join Toastmasters. I know this sounds super cheesy, but it’s really made a HUGE difference in my life.

November 4, 2011: I am grateful for the internet, which gives me the ability to work from home, in my pajamas, this morning.

November 3, 2011: I am grateful that I have a good job that is challenging & interesting, if not necessarily catering to my life interests.

November 2, 2011: I am grateful for the architect, who is simply wonderful. He picks up the household slack when I’m busy with schoolwork, brings me chicken fingers on his way home from work, and is simply the most wonderful husband I could ask for…

November 1, 2011:  I am grateful for my (so far, knock on wood) easy and wonderful pregnancy.

Storyteller

Aug 26th, 2010
by gazelle.
1 comment

As I was waiting at the MAX stop this morning, a man on a bicycle rode up. I noticed him right away for his…unique…outfit.

Black baggy shorts.

Brown, short-sleeved button-down shirt.

White knee socks.

Black sneakers.

Fanny pack.

Messenger bag.

iPhone in a holster with large, large headphones (not earbuds at all – the kind you see in recording studios!)

Did I mention the fanny pack?

I was, admittedly, staring. And then – I saw it.

A bug dropped from his shorts. It looked like a roach.

I was a little squicked out, but then who hasn’t randomly discovered a bug on themselves? Just last weekend, I was chasing an  escaped cat around my house & ran through a web. I was covered in sticky webs & tiny carcasses, but didn’t see the actual spider. Until a few hours later when I found it drowned in my cleavage (it was a hot day & I was sweaty glistening) – so I know that sometimes bugs happen.

But then – there was another! Another roach-like thing dropped from his shorts.

And I know you’re thinking what I’m thinking:

Order of Taraka, right?

I’m sure we all went to the same place there.

I wasn’t sure who he’d been sent to assassinate, so I just stayed away. Also because dude had bugs falling out of his pants. That is just not healthy.

*****

As I was looking for the Norman Pfister (above) image on the interwebs, I did find a lot of other, nicer images of the cast of Buffy. So, I’ll leave you with a much, much nicer one.

Much nicer.

7.16

Overheard at the gym…

Nov 18th, 2009
by gazelle.
7 comments

Not quite locker room diaries, because except for that one time*, I have steered clear of the men’s locker room at my new gym.

Last night, I was at the gym (I know, AGAIN! I am a gym monkey!) and was, once again, in the free weights room. I love the little weight machines – they are so easy AND most of them have illustrations of what I’m supposed to do. The free weights are harder – even the ones that are slightly machine like the decline bench press thingie (technical term). There are no drawings! How do I know if I’m doing it right?

ANYWAYS – the story. As I’m decline bench pressing away, feeling kind of bad ass, because I’m using big plates (30 lbs on each side, which equals 60, for the mathically challenged), I start to overhear this group of guys talking. There are three of them, and they are exactly the way I stereotype gym rats. Tall, stocky, muscular arms, but on the soft side in the middle. They are all wearing those tank tops that look like the arms have been ripped & stretched out & super long baggy shorts. The smallest one made some offhand comment – maybe a song lyric – that sounded like he was hitting on the other two guys. Guy M(eathead) said, “pretty soon, if you keep making those kind of comments, we are actually going to start believing that you are gay.”

Guy A(mbigious sexuality): Ha ha ha. You guys know I’m just kidding! I’m so straight! Like an arrow! Or a line!**

Guy M: Whatever, gay person.

Guy N(umbskull): Hey, remember that one time that Tonya that you were gay?

Guy A: yeah – that was funny (just typed runny – weird typo). And then, to prove to her I wasn’t, *graphic sex account*

Guys M&N: ha ha ha. That was awesome.

Guy A: and then, my ex-gf broke up with me & said it was because I was gay. Guess I showed her, if you know what I mean. Snap snap, grin grin, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

Guys M&N: yeah, you sure did! ha ha ha

—-

And then, I was done declining & pressing. Later, I was back in the room to push down a straight bar. I had my straight bar, and there was the pulley – way up high. I couldn’t reach it. Did any of the macho men (who had now moved on to the time they were extras in a movie & got to throw beer cans at homeless people) come help me? No, I had to pull over a bench to reach the pulley. By the time I had gotten half way through my pulling down (waaaay easier than pulling up, btw), they were back on “incidences of mistaken gay identity.”

It was so weird. I went home & asked the architect if this is normal macho guy conversation. I mean, I’ve never sat around with a bunch of straight guys & heard them talk about how extremely straight they are. And actually, I’ve seldom hung out with gay men & had them talk about how extremely gay they are. I mean, things come up in conversation that indicate a preference one way or another, but I thought maybe guys only break out that topic when there are no ladies about. (shut up, I totally count as a lady. assholes.)

Also, as a man-preferring woman, I have never sat around with my other hetero girl friends and had long discussions about how much we prefer the men. Or all those times people thought we were lesbians, but we WEREN”T.

I kind of wanted to go tell Guys A, M & N that it was okay to be gay, and that there was no reason to hide it behind sexist remarks & misogynistic behavior (a la Larry in Buffy), but I didn’t, because I couldn’t handle the wave of protests that were sure to follow, and I’m no Xander looking for a werewolf.

SO – anyways – am I wrong? Do straight men have these conversations all the time? Is this normal gym testosterone-fueled behavior? Help a girl out.

—

I did have a great workout last night, though. 45 minutes of weights + 3 mile run (with negative splits, thank you very much) on the dreadmill. I feel pretty good today!

—————-

*it was an accident; there were no naked men in there, and with the exception of one person, no one saw it happen. which may mean there was no reason to share it with anyone.

**dialog mostly made up, because I didn’t have a tape recorder, and so am being forced to recreate the gist of it. Also for dramatic effect.