Month: February 2011

This is what I sound like

Life

I came across this meme on Sassenach’s blog when I was catching up on my blog reading the other day. Since then I’ve found it all over the internet on lots of other blogs and Youtube. I find this kind of thing fascinating. I’ve always been interested in the study of dialects and accents. So of course I felt the need to participate!

My linguistic background: I was born and raised in Spokane Washington, which is on the Eastern side of Washington State. I lived in New York for a year when I was 20 and then I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, CA, where I lived for 14 (or so) years. I moved back to Spokane four years ago and am currently living in Oregon in the Portland area.

My video is below and the questions and words that I am supposed to recite are below the video.

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

And here are the questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

I used my iPod to film this and realize that I forgot to hold it in landscape mode so that’s why it looks all wonky.

Doing this makes me realize that I should do more video blogs. They are kind of fun! Maybe I’ll shoot some video while out hiking to share with you.

And if any of you decide to make one, please share the link! I love watching these things, especially if they are friends.

Photography Friday

Photography

Here is a photo I took this morning with my iPod. I took it using the True HDR app, which I recently downloaded. I haven’t had a chance to use it much but will play around with it this weekend if I can get outside.

I have to say, I’m having lots of fun taking photos with my ipod. The camera in it is crap, and that bugs me sometimes. But the applications for it are awesome. I’m probably going to buy an iPhone pretty soon now that they switched to Verizon. I kind of only want to get an iPhone because of the better camera. is that bad?

I realized that today is the three year anniversary of getting hit by a car. This is the kind of thing that I really don’t want to celebrate the anniversary of and the only reason why I am thinking about it is because I injured my back two weeks ago by slipping on a (very hard) rock while hiking. Just slipped right on it and landed flat on my back. I twisted my wrist trying to catch myself. I was o.k. when it happened and felt fine the next day, as well. But when I was sitting in a class last week my back started aching. And it kind of hasn’t stopped with varying degrees of pain. So one of those delayed reactions kinds of things, much like when I got hit by that car three years ago.

Booking Through Thursday: Something Old, Something New

Books, Music, Art, Movies

I keep forgetting that I wanted to participate in Booking Through Thursday. catching up on Sassenach’s blog today reminded me that I should! Here’s this week’s writing prompt:

All other things being equal–do you prefer used books? Or new books? (The physical speciman, that is, not the title.) Does your preference differentiate between a standard kind of used book, and a pristine, leather-bound copy?

This is a hard question because I love both for different reasons. New books are very special indeed. There is something wonderful about cracking open a book that is brand new and breaking the binding in.

However, I do love used books. There are stories attached to them. Meta-stories, if you will. For example, the book I just finished reading, Angle of Repose was purchased used at Powells. I’d been grinding my way, very slowly, through that book since November. When I was about three quarters of the way through it I found a receipt (what is it with me and receipts?). At first I thought it was mine but I looked more closely at it. It was somebody else’s. The date was earlier in 2010, sometime in March I think. And there was another book purchased with it. Damn. Now I wish I had saved it so I could look at what the other book was (because there’s another detail to the story). But I remember looking at this receipt and creating a story around it. It was purchased by someone else at Powells  mere months before I bought it. It was in almost brand new condition so I doubt this person read it. So what was it doing back on the Powell’s shelf in November when I bought it?

See how that works? there is a story there. Used books have all kinds of them. My favorite used books are the ones that belonged to my Granny Mary. I inherited a few of them when she died. They are leather bound and are classics. On of them is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It has her writing scribbled in the margins. I surmise from these scribbles that she acted in the play at one time in her life and these were her notes. I love that. It makes me feel closer to her.

Running update

Health and Fitness

This is what the moon looked like Saturday Morning before my run.

So. Running. It is going pretty well. My ankle healed and I’m happy about that. I took a few days off and iced it everyday and that seemed to do the trick. I stopped running on the incline treadmill as I think that might have aggravated it. When I decided I could run on it I mapped out a 2 mile run using the website walkjogrun (which is awesome, by the way). I decided to run in my regular running shoes. The run felt pretty good. However, I did noticed that my sciatica flared up when I was finished. I thought that interesting.

So the next time I ran the same route in my Vibrams and guess what? no pain whatsoever. My heel didn’t even hurt.

I’ve decided to nix the training schedule I mentioned in a previous blog post and just do my own thing. I’m not concerned about speed at all. And I’ve given myself permission to walk and run Bloomsday (if I decide to sign up). What I’m going to do instead is just add another Kilometer each week. So this week I’m up to 6k.

It’s been really cold outside in the morning. This morning it actually snowed. I’ve been bundled up, so I’m keeping warm. The only problem is that my toes get REALLY cold. Some of them get numb and that freaks me out a little bit. So I’m looking forward to spring and the ground being warmer.

Rafael is really into running completely barefoot or with running huaraches. He made a couple of pairs of his own. The second pair he was running and they worked really well. But he decided to buy some of the Lunas that Barefoot Ted sells. I’m actually thinking about buying a pair myself and trying them out. I think Raf might get them for me for my birthday. Raf started a running blog if you are interested. It’s called Barefoot Runner’s Life. He’s even posted some You Tube videos. Can you believe that? My camera-shy husband. He really does exist! 🙂

Photography Friday: Weeds

Photography, Random, Thoughts and Opinions

Oh my goodness! how has more than a week gone by? I’ve been busy.

I met Preita again for coffee! This time at Tiny’s in NorthEast Portland. I think so far this is my favorite place. It wasn’t pretentious. The coffee was pretty good. Everything about it was cool. Except for one thing. There were two toilets in the restroom. What. The. Fuck. My mind doesn’t even know how to process it. It was just weird. Portland is weird. And I’ve lived in Santa Cruz. So that’s saying a lot.

We wandered around the neighborhood and shot some of the scenery. It was kind of a rough looking area, which is fun photography-wise.

 

I’m going to end this post on a completely different subject. I just found out today that the House voted to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. This is really bad. I don’t know if the House of Representatives understands the importance of this institution to millions of men and women in this country. For me, personally, Planned Parenthood was very important in many different ways. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I finally got health insurance through my full time job. Up until then I absolutely relied on Planned Parenthood for my annul exam.

They provided me with the birth control pill, for free, which was a god send. See, we live in a time when a woman can choose to have a child or not have a child. This is incredible. I feel so incredibly grateful to be living in this time in history. Planned Parenthood makes this choice a reality for women who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it and this is a very good thing.

And, yes, I had an abortion when I was in my early twenties. And I was able to do this through Planned Parenthood. The experience was very safe and very professional. The radicals outside the clinic were an entirely different story. I’ve never written about this experience before and maybe I should. But I do have to say that I am very grateful that Planned Parenthood was there during this time in my life. Of course there are mixed feelings surrounding this decision I made. But I am very, very grateful that I was able to make the decision. If it wasn’t for Planned Parenthood that decision wouldn’t even be there.

They are an essential service. Please consider signing their petition.