It's almost the weekend: Yay!

Update to yesterday's update: It took me a mere 20 minutes to get home. Foo on that - it took me 45 minutes on Wednesday evening to get home WITHOUT any snow but WITH rush hour traffic! My conclusion: to keep my own sanity, I should not leave work at 5 o'clock, ever. Period. I just don't know where that leaves me when it comes to having a life, because it's not like i can leave early...but at least I won't be a crazy, ranting lunatic. I have enough other stuff in my life to rant about (mainly all politics).

And now, it's nearly the weekend. I am glad to note that my plans for the weekend are not nearly as nuts as last weekend's, and maybe that means I'll get some sleep. I still have an orchestra concert Sunday, but it's in the afternoon, so I can leisurely lounge around on a Sunday evening without feeling the need to rush somewhere or quickly get ready for the next week at ten o'clock at night.

P.S. After playing this concert series, one of my new favorite pieces to listen to is the Schumann Cello Concerto. You can listen to it in four parts here, here, here and here. (The movement I especially like is in the last two links.) It really makes me realize that Schumann liberally borrows from his own works, because very similar themes show up in a lot of his works.

One of my favorite TV shows is This Old House. I don't know why, 'cause it's not like I ever remodel anything, but I love that show. After catching up with their latest project last night, it's my new goal to learn how to solder something. Never mind I live in an apartment and barely even own a hammer, but I still want to solder some stuff together.

Update: It HAS been a long day

Update: Yes, today has been long, and it's not nearly over. It is snowing. I mean, really snowing. None of this one inch of fluff stuff. As of an hour ago, I noticed that there were two accordian buses, both stuck right outside the MN Capitol as we concluded session for the day. In the picture above, there is a stoplight towards the right, and it is a slight incline as you head the direction the buses are going. It is not a one-way street, even though it looks like it here. The bus on the right is stuck on the curb and can't get going. The bus on the left apparently was trying to stop and skidded across the street while the second half of the bus got away from the driver.

My conclusion: you do not want to be near one of these things during a snowstorm.

Unfortunately, I will not be getting home anytime soon.

Shhh: Don't tell my hair stylist (and other strange things)

It all started this morning when I decided I didn't want to go work out because my back is killing me today. So I set the alarm for later, rolled over and went back to sleep. If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have had weird dreams for an extra hour and a half, and probably wouldn't have taken a scissors to my hair this morning.

Just a little friendly advice: don't use two hair products together for the first time on a morning when you're already running a little late, and expect them to react well to each other (even if they are made by the same company). I got this huge snarl in my hair this morning when I did just that and then took a blow dryer to it. I worked and worked on that horrible little knot of hair, but could not get it out, so rather than rip it out from the end of my hair where I'd worked it down to, I just took a scissors to it. Snip, all better.

If I had ignored my back pain and gone to the club, I would not have had the new hair product available to me, and also I have no scissors there, so would have been forced to deal with any potential snarl in a different way.

This day is going to be very long, I can just tell.
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In other random news, I went to the grocery store last night, and was "accosted" (his word, not mine) by an older gentleman who apparently had a new lease on life and decided to tell everyone around him about it. I happened to be in line right behind him at the cash register, so he was informing me of his wonder at grocery stores with cheap food (Rainbow), and he was done with expensive stores (like Lunds) where they sell all the same food anyway. I felt like I was being interviewed by a "secret" Rainbow employee: "Why do you come here? Is it the prices? I just can't believe all this cheap food! That's why I come here." He then took a phone call while he was bagging his own groceries (after I directed him towards the paper bags with the handles he so preferred) and informed whomever it was he was speaking to that he was having the time of his life at the grocery store where they sell cheap food and was "accosting" people to get their opinions on the place. Granted, this was in Uptown, which is a bit crazy (okay, way crazy), but this was beyond anything I've ever experienced at an Uptown grocery store.
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Over the last few days at work, I've noticed someone has been calling me from California, but the caller has never left a message when I've failed to answer since I've not been in my office at the time of the calls. Until yesterday, that is.

I answered the phone by stating my name, only to be asked if I was the same person who used to work at the Topanga newspaper. No, I am not the same person.

I always thought my name is fairly uncommon, but though I figured someone out there would have it, I really have no idea how many people possess the same name, although I'm now getting a better idea since this is the second time in my life someone has called to speak with another woman with the same name who works/worked in a completely different field (the first was nursing, but at least that one was local; I'd expect more people in Minnesota to have my extremely Scandanavian name than someone in California, but maybe that's just me).
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In other work-related news, every office has one:

A guy with whom I work decided yesterday that the only way he can eat microwaved popcorn is if it shoots out flames first, it's cooked so well. Our office suite still reeks.

Quote of the Moment: OJ Pulp

The absolutely funniest thing I've heard in weeks is the following, which was a comment posted on another website by this guy:

"I can’t drink OJ with pulp. It’s like there’s bits of dead lip skin from a thousand people who have never heard of ChapStick floating around in my juice."

Gophers Game

My dad and I had a great time at the Gophers basketball game on Sunday night. The Barn was hoppin' and we beat Northwestern, so all is well.

Question of the Day

Would I rather win or be honorable?

I would rather be humble and honorable.

Quote of the Moment: Good Statesmanship

"The height of statesmanship is to come home with a dam, even if you have nowhere to put it." --humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Most of the time, I really am not a huge fan of shopping.

What started out as a quick trip last night to buy my mother a birthday card turned into an all-out shopping spree (at least for me it was an all-out shopping spree), fueled by the thoughts I'd been having all day yesterday that I hated the shoes I was wearing (old, smelly and cracked leather make for woeful footwear). I don't do this often, but about once, maybe twice a year, I realize I hate all my shoes and they hurt my feet because they haven't aged well since I wear them to death, and want new ones. (This goes along with my feeling once or twice a year that I hate all my clothes - especially suits during session - and want new ones.) So if I go shopping a couple times a year for these things, I tell myself it's not so bad. By the time I've been shopping for shoes for about 20 minutes, though, I usually want to just drop everything and leave, but I buck up and make it through. (It's a bit longer for clothes - I can last an hour before I feel the tentacles of Hatred for All Designers, Retail Stores and Other Shoppers begin to slither around my neck. I'm never really sure if the breath-squeezed-out-of-me feeling is from getting mad that I'm stuck in a store with people I don't like, a strange version of claustrophobia or displeasure that my miserly self is spending $$$ on stuff. And yet, once I get the stuff home and I like it, I'm usually a happy camper.)

So I went shoe shopping at DSW last night, and experienced several minor miracles: I don't know if it was the Monday night thing or the economy thing, but the foot traffic was very light. I hate fighting other people through crowded aisles to take a gander at merchandise. Second minor miracle was that they had my size in most of the styles I really liked. Amazing! Even more amazing was that, on average, they were all half off. The shoes I'm wearing today were originally $80 and I got them for 18 bucks. So I feel slightly justified, and I can be proud that I held out against a fifth pair because I realized it looked too similar to two of the other pairs I purchased and went against the sixth pair because there are only so many pairs of patent leather shoes a girl can own. Anyway, I have shoes to wear to work that are not falling apart! Yay! And now I can be free from that place for a good many months.

Add a trip to Target and the post office, and I got all the errands complete, didn't want to punch anything, and even remembered the birthday card, which was the point of the trek-about in the first place.

The only problem with this scary story is that it happened on Wednesday the 11th and not Friday the 13th.

The other day I was mistaken for this woman:(By the way, this picture is probably only the second time I've seen this woman smile in over 3 years.)

I would have thought that most people would notice a few small differences, such as I'm at least six inches taller, weigh less than her by, oh, a good 50 to 100 pounds, and am about 40 years younger. The worst part was that the gentleman looking for this woman had already met her, so it's not like he'd never seen her before.

Um, yeah.

Found a new website. I think that all the pictures of food on a stick came from the MN State Fair. Also, is it bad that there are a couple things on there that I think actually sound good (although they may not look good in the pics provided)? (OK, some of them even look good, too. Like snickers pie. Who am I kidding? I'd eat that in a heartbeat. I've eaten a kitchen sink before, too, and on more than one occasion whilst I've been in Illinois...though I'll admit to having help.)

Quote of the Moment: Reagan, Zero-Based Budgeting

"For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers -- they just are not easy ones. The time has come for us to decide whether collectively we can afford everything and anything we think of simply because we think of it. The time has come to run a check to see if all the services government provides were in answer to demands or were just goodies dreamed up for our supposed betterment. The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around." -Ronald Reagan

The Weekend, in Short, Kinda Precise Bullet Points

• As many of you might know, I love spending a couple hours at the Guthrie now and again, especially when they do a Shakespeare comedy in a completely different era (such as Saturday, when I saw Two Gentlemen of Verona set in 1955 - I enjoyed it immensely; also, I am completely infatuated with Randy Reyes - he has stolen every show I've ever seen him in)
  
• A good place to go when you're starving and don't mind spending a few bucks is J.D. Hoyt's in Mpls: they grill meat very nicely, especially when it's cajun-seasoned; I love that when you open the menu online, the first page they show you is the dessert page (and I did a double-take when I first saw the drawing on the menu, thinking that I'd stumbled into George W. Bush and Nixon territory)
  
• I went to the boat club to work out, and discovered that someone was a little over-zealous in watering plants and a little under-zealous when it came to detail: someone watered a bunch of fake flowers in a glass jar - even though it was very obvious that there was fake water already in the jar. There had been an event in the ballroom over the weekend, so I smelled it just to be sure someone hadn't poured her alcoholic beverage into the flowers, but no. It was water. Someone watered the fake water. I am still smiling about it...
  

Piper: George Whitefield

After reading this piece, I have many things to ponder.

On pride: "I am nothing, have nothing, and can do nothing without God. What although I may, like a polished sepulcher appear a little beautiful without, yet within I am full of pride, self-love and all manner of corruption. However, by the grace of God I am what I am, and if it should please God to make me instrumental to do the least good, not unto me, but unto him, be all the glory." -George Whitefield, from The Revived Puritan: The Spirituality of George Whitefield, edited by Michael A. G. Haykin

On Calvinism and election: "[Whitefield] believed these biblical truths—which he sometimes called 'the doctrines of the Reformation'—did the most to 'debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus. . . . All others leave free will in man, and make him, in part at least, a Savior to himself.'" -Revived Puritan

On humility and election: "For my part I cannot see how true humbleness of mind can be attained without a knowledge of [the doctrine of election]; and though I will not say, that every one who denies election is a bad man, yet I will say, with that sweet singer, Mr. Trail, it is a very bad sign: such a one, whoever he be, I think cannot truly know himself; for, if we deny election, we must, partly at least, glory in ourselves; but our redemption is so ordered, that no flesh should glory in the Divine presence; and hence it is, that the pride of man opposes this doctrine, because, according to this doctrine, and no other, 'he that glories must glory only in the Lord.'" -Revived Puritan

"There was, as [Whitefield] himself so freely confessed, sin remaining in him. And that is what we have found in every human soul on this earth—except one. Which is why our lives are meant to point to him. His perfect obedience, not ours, is the foundation of our acceptance with God. If then, our sin, as well as our righteousness, can point people away from ourselves to Christ, we will rejoice even as we repent." -John Piper

Not Afraid to Admit It...

Not once but twice this week I have wandered around with my skirt on sideways. I kept wondering why they were looking and feeling so strange, but I will admit the second time it happened, I was so busy and mentally preoccupied it took me over four hours to realize what was wrong. Too many of these skirts have no belt loops, so it's not like I can anchor them down with a belt or anything, and they also have no pockets, so that's not exactly going to help clue me in, either. And when there is a slit on the side of the skirt vs. a slit on the back, and since it's been a while since I've worn some of these suits, I've forgotten which direction it goes. Or sometimes even worse, when there is no slit at all, and you're unsure if it zips in the back or on the side, then I'm just totally lost, and it's miraculous they're not on backwards.

Today I decided to just stick with pants. Those are much harder to get turned around in.

Digital TV

If people are claiming that they're unprepared for the digital conversion because they're unaware of it, apparently they aren't watching TV anyway, so we don't really have to wait for them to get ready. The rest of them apparently don't really think it's a priority if they haven't gotten it taken care of by now. (Don't tell me the $ ran out from Congress. They've had 3 years to claim their "free" coupons.)

Randomness

~On Sunday, I went to have dinner with my parents at their house. My mother made turkey. It was only a turkey breast, which looked rather miserly. It was like the recession version of turkey. Granted, it was only the three of us for dinner. Nevertheless, I don't want to see the depression version of turkey any time soon.

~I have got to get to bed earlier than 11p if I intend to get up at 5a...and not be a total crab to absolutely everyone I meet with throughout each day.

~I am tired of people trying to legislate change of heart. I'm sorry. That doesn't work. Quit bringing bills to the committees I cover and saying that, although what you're trying to ban is unethical and/or potentially already illegal based on some other law or something, adding this new law will deter people from doing what is morally wrong (or already illegal, whatever you think is right for people to do, etc.). You think that because you make it a law that everyone will just stop doing whatever the activity is because you think it's wrong, perverse? That people will all of a sudden become moral, upright citizens? There will always be someone breaking the law, no matter how much you think that one more law will change that and they'll all of a sudden do what you want them to do.

~On that note about legislation, the Legislature is not in the business of enforcement. The Legislature creates the laws that are then enforced by other people. If the "other people" - i.e., sheriffs, prosecutors, judges - are not enforcing a law that's already in existence, what makes you think that adding another law that says the same thing, just in a different way, is going to magically make them enforce the provision? It didn't work the first time, so I think your "solution" to the problem is going about it in the wrong way.

~Also, you cannot legislate all harm away from every single person. Accidents and bad things happen, and no matter how many law books we create trying to prevent them (apparently the number of volumes of MN Statutes has doubled in the last couple decades), accidents and bad things will still happen to people. (See? Crabby. Point listed above.)

~See this bill, for an example of something that drives me nuts for many, many reasons.

~I really enjoy the U of M tanks, and we're back in action there this winter. Saturday afternoon we had our first session, and even though I had a couple new blisters, it's all good. Yes, there is open water in the state of MN right now; it just happens to be indoors in a rowing tank.

~I love many things about the Winter Carnival. I have decided, however, that I really don't like walking in the Torchlight Parade. It's not so bad in and of itself, and I was there with the boat club on Saturday evening, but it brings so many campaigning flashbacks to mind that the overall feeling is Not Good. But at least we got to carry oars and a boat decked out with twinkle lights, and the weather was downright warm (yay! for actually getting a January thaw - on the last possible day, of course), though a tad windy.

~I didn't actually say it out loud, but when I read "$11,200" in an article earlier today, my mind pronounced it like "eleventy-two hundred." (Also, see lack of sleep, point listed above.)