Sometimes I forget

I often forget that I know famous people. It's not any fault of my own, it's that I went to a college that spits out performers, some percentage of whom are bound to be famous. But I don't typically run in those circles so it always catches me by surprise when I see one of my old classmates in a movie or a commercial or a tv show.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I was looking at some wedding photos from a college friend's recent wedding. The pictures of her bridesmaids made me stop short. I checked the tags in the picture (thank you facebook!) for the name of one of the bridesmaids and then checked imdb.com. I had seen a few episodes of "Drop Dead Diva" and, lo and behold, one of my friend's bridesmaids plays the main character on that show.

Earlier this year I was watching the Tony Awards pre-thingy. I knew he was doing a new show but I had no idea my old college friend Chad (with whom I share a birthday) was nominated for a Tony for his role in the musical "Memphis"! Yay Chad! (I promptly congratulated him on facebook.)

Last November, I was canvassing in San Francisco for a local election and walked by a store that had the cover of a magazine taped in the front window. The picture on the cover of that magazine stopped me in my tracks. My walking partner asked me what was wrong as I walked up to the window. "That's my college room mate" is what came out of my very shocked mouth. Yup, Florian is not only a well-loved German TV star (a German McDreamy if you will), but also a film star. He was in San Francisco the week before promoting two of his films. One mainstream (with one of my favorite German actors) and one independent one he wrote and directed himself. Very exciting!!! Unfortunately I missed him by one week. It would have been great to see him and catch up.

I recently began watching the TV show "Mad Men" on Netflix. Tonight I was watching episode 5 from season 1. About half way through, a new character was introduced and I completely lost my concentration as I said - out loud - "Andy? Andy Hoff?" So, I hit pause and checked imdb again. Sure enough. Another fellow TBC graduate.

It's nice to see so many of my college friends doing what they always dreamed of doing. Makes me proud.

personal space

Ok, we all know I'm a hugger. I am a tactile person. I don't have too many issues with people entering my personal space. I'm pretty casual about that. But sometimes, it's just a little annoying.

Here's the situation: I was at the post office yesterday, waiting in line. There were two people working and the line wasn't moving very quickly. I hung out at the front of the line for a while waiting for one of the two windows to open up. The person behind me kept crowding me, kept bumping their packages into my back. I could feel this person so close behind me that I felt I might feel their breath on the back of my neck at any moment.

I inched forward a little but I didn't really have anywhere to go and it wasn't as if the place was so crowded that this person was being pushed forward. There were maybe 4 or 5 people in line, a fairly normal mid-day "rush" but not crazy busy.

I inched forward again and really had nowhere else to go but this person bumped into me again. So, I had a choice to make. I could either ignore it, or turn around and say something. If I chose to turn around and say something, I had to decide whether I would be annoyed and angry or happy and smiley. My instinct was to be mad and say something rude but I know that I always get better results in confrontations when I smile and stay pleasant.

I plastered a big smile on my face and turned. All I had time to say was "excuse me, am I in your way?" before I registered that I was speaking to a very old man, a priest nonetheless. I don't think he even heard me. I was just thankful that when I turned back around, one of the windows was open and I got to move away from him. But it did annoy me for the rest of the day.

I think I might have a bruise on my back from the corner of his packages that kept banging into me. Hrmph.

lacking inspiration

I bought some beautiful eggplants at the farmer's market this past weekend. I know I had something in mind for them but I can't remember what it was and now I can't think of anything that sounds appealing to do with them. :(

Suggestions anyone? I don't want them to go to waste.

Reason #259 why I love my neighborhood

I know everybody is a little tired of hearing how wonderful my neighborhood is and how much I love living here but I have to share just one more thing.

Today, as I was enjoying my regular Friday morning conference call walk around the lake, I decided to take a little detour and explore the community gardens that are on the route. I have a friend in town visiting and thought it would be a neat little side trip on the walk. We walked through the herb gardens, the flower gardens, the bonsai garden, the little trails with benches, and observed a group of 60-somethings doing Tai Chi in the late morning chill.

As we made our way through the vegetable gardens back to the regular lake trail, I noticed a little basket on the edge of one of the gardens with a sign on it that read "free produce" so I peeked in. There were three beautiful large zucchinis and I chose one that looked just perfect. So, on the way home, we made a quick stop at the store and got a couple of additional ingredients to make a fresh zucchini and whole wheat pasta lunch. Simply delicious.

I love getting my lunch inspiration from the local community garden! I will make the gardens a regular side-trip on my Friday conference call walks now. Very exciting!!

how to make a lotion vest - for complete dumbasses.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Well, I submit to you that severe dumb-assery (another new word!) and pain are the red headed step-children of invention. Even so, step-children - especially the red headed variety - are sometimes prone to strokes of genius.

Here it is:

When you are:
a) a complete and total dumb-ass (as I am one)
and
b) you get yourself utterly lobsterized (see previous post)
and
c) you can't raise your arms to reach the burn on your back because of the burn on your shoulders
and
d) the mere thought of someone rubbing lotion - no matter how gently and lightly - on your burn makes you want to cry,

well, then you figure out how to make...

a lotion vest.

It's very simple, really, and disposable: The sun burn alleviating lotion of your choice slathered on a double layer of paper towel multiplied by however many you need. For me it was one for my back and one for each shoulder which made it look like a weird white papery vest, hence: lotion vest.

I'm a dumb-ass. But I did finally get some relief.

Lobsterized - a new word

I went to the beach on Sunday. My favorite beach is Alameda Beach. It's quiet, it's small, there's always a breeze, never too many people, and it's only 15 minutes away.

I went there because I wanted some quiet time. I wanted to read my book, go for a long walk, relax.

I did all of those things and it was lovely. I was even joined toward the end of my stay there by my dear friend Naseem and I have to say thank you to Naseem. She is the one who made me leave the beach that day to go grocery shopping. Something we both needed to do.

Here's why it was a good thing I left. Once I got home, had put all my groceries away, etc. I passed by a mirror...

SO much redness!
So much sunburn.
So much ouch coming my way.
So much STUPID!!!

My upper back, shoulders, and chest are bright red. Like a lobster. I have been lobsterized.

Lobsterized. New word. Painful word.

P.S. oddly, my face didn't change colors. So now I have a pale white face and a dark red chest. Very funny looking indeed.

a traveler's observations

People wear funny shoes. I noticed this while I was at the Phoenix airport over the weekend on my way back from a conference in Chicago. Typically, when I have time to kill at an airport, I read or work. This time I just sat and decided to do some people watching.

Then I realized that watching people's shoes (instead of them) was actually REALLY entertaining. Here are some of my observations (and opinions since I apparently do not lack for those):

Men are by far the more sensible gender in footwear choices but they are still interesting. You can tell a lot about a man and his personality by his choice of footwear:
- old worn out cowboy boots... I look up and the man is indeed wearing a cowboy hat, has a weathered look about him. There's something genuine about him but he looks a little lost in the hustle and bustle of the big airport.
- sneakers with oddly pointy up-turned toes... I look up and the man is also oddly pointy
- loafers with no socks... I look up and, sure enough, he is wearing a polo shirt with the collar popped!
- another pair of cowboy boots, newer, shinier than the old cowboy from earlier and it turns out to be the pilot for my plane.

Now, women. As a woman with a bit of a "shoe problem" myself, I feel like I am fully qualified to make some observations and, yes, judgments on women's footwear choices. Women by far make the more ridiculous footwear choices: wearing high heels while traveling is generally silly (I suppose there are exceptions to this) but wearing shoes - heels - that make you look like you are in excruciating pain with every step you take, well, that's just plain dumb (The assumption here being that if you look like you are in pain then you most likely are, in fact, in pain).

Some rules/observations/judgments (purely my own personal opinions of course):
1. If you can't walk in heels in normal life, traveling in them is worse. You don't look cute. You look ridiculous.
2. Little girls wearing 2 inch wedge sandals that they can't really walk in is also kind of silly. I'm just saying.
3. Strappy 4-inch sandals while pulling a heavy suitcase: you look silly and by the way, you probably overpacked.
4. Fip flops that make your toes go whacky while you walk look funny. Have you ever watched someone walk in flip flops that are too big or too loose or too slippery? Their toes are working overtime! Those toes are grabbing onto whatever they can get ahold of with every step. This canNOT be comfortable!
5. Older women are much more sensible than 20- and 30-somethings in their footwear choices, although often much less fashionable.
6. Black sneakers with day-glo orange shoelaces may go very well with bright colored striped pants, a hot pink and orange checkered jacket and sunglasses inside but darlin', you may match but you're causing everyone else to have to put on their sunglasses. No wonder you're wearing yours inside!
7. 4-inch open-toed wedges - well, any open-toed shoes that are too short for your feet - are bad. Here's what's happening when you do more than just sit and look pretty: when you walk, which you inevitably must do in airports, by the way, your feet slide forward (it's called gravity) and your toes reach out over the front of the shoe, like spider monkey toes, and reach over the edge of your shoe to clasp it and hang on for dear life. NOT cute. I promise.

And then I got on the plane. Now I can't stop looking at people's feet.