Purse

I fought against the big purse trend for a long time. And now I have one. And it’s a big purse that was not bargain though it is pretty Italian leather fashioned in a classic square shape. I resisted the trend because I knew myself and knew I would cram it full of unnecessary stuff. Crap, if you will.

In no particular order, here are the contents of my purse:

1 skein of Sugar’nCream in green twists with receipt

1 brown leather wallet (I won’t even list its contents)

1 cool silver costume jewelry necklace

1 small black spiral bound notebook

1 black glasses case

1 512MB memory card and receipt (needs to be returned)

1 receipt for $14.01 from Saffron Thai Chicken (I love the spicy drunk noodles with tofu)

1 2008-2009 calendar (checkbook size)

1 compost-friendly fork (made from a potato)

1 travel brush

1 8”1/2 x 11” piece of paper folded into quarters with a grocery list written on it

1 ATM receipt

1 Flexible Spending Account Ineligible Letter

1 postcard coupon for Aveda Perfecting Cleanser

1 receipt from Rubio’s for $7.83

1 Surinder’s Coffee Shack Buy 9 Get 1 Free drink card with one stamp

1 copy of Massive Attack’s Wild Bunch cd (belongs to Mission Valley branch of the San Diego Public Library)

1 Weight Watchers week six booklet

1 checkbook

1 key on a wooden key chain engaged with “Paul” (in both English and Conji)

1 Weight Watchers pocket guide (complete with history of weight loss failures)

1 copy of Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears cd Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is

1 pair of sunglasses

1 bottle of naproxen sodium (50 caplets)

1 purse hook

1 faux leather wallet container store customer cards and stamps

1 black handled steak knife from the T.G.I. Friday’s employee compensation plan

1 receipt from Burger King for $4.88

1 bottle of Aveda Hand Relief

4 moist towelletes

1 purple votive candle

1 tube of The Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector

1 eye shadow in “Caught in the Act Courtney”

1 label for Lamb’s Pride Worsted 85%Wool/15%Mohair in green

2 pieces of Trident gum out of wrapper

1 Tazo Passion tea bag

1 bottle of Sally Hansen nail color in Rockstar Pink

3 pieces of Bliss milk chocolate

2 orange stitch markers

1 teal stitch maker

1 receipt from Vons for $6.82

1 purple hair tie

1 green thingee that keeps stitches from falling off a needle

1 eye shadow in Java

1 glue stick

1 eyeliner in Soft Black

1 Macy’s gift card

1 bottle of contact lens relief

4 lipsticks in colors Spice, 628, Espresso, 545, and unmarked

2 quarters

2 cellophane wrapped toothpicks

1 Being Fit membership card

1 brown hair tie

Regional Indicator

Is it indicative of the area that I’m living in that two of my favorite PBS programs, Austin City Limits and Independent Lens are shown at 12 am?

Granted I’m usually up but they are two of the coolest PBS shows.

Ever.

Things I Learned Staying in on a Saturday Night

Bon Jovi is currently on tour and has sold out 80% of its stadium shows.

Having free movie tickets in my possession isn’t enough to motivate me to deal with San Diego’s trendy Gas Lamp district to get to said movie theater and watch a film I really want to see.

Sewing is both harder and easier than I thought (I’m continually reminded of this)

Thanks to Al Gore, the Internet is a vastness of procrastination

Plaster walls require drilling before hammering

Quality tents at Craigslist prices seldom come up for sale on Craigslist

Chopping some onions really will induce tears

Don’t wait to buy concert tickets (Bon Jovi has nothing to do with this)

Reading the mail would allow for proper preparation for a scheduled electricity company outage

I don’t have to interact with people as long as I can see other people

Though never having been to Thailand I am a Thai food snob

Need: significant record store discount hook up

Ctrl + S often

Dry, cracked cuticles need a loving touch

Internet Radio

I like it when I find a radio stream that plays music that I don't know mixed with just a dash of songs that I know every word.

www.radioparadise.com

Free to stream but they're all about no commericals so donations are gladly accepted.


Like WPXN but more on the rock-ish side.

Seriously

Any time that my camera would like to reveal its current location that would be great.

Even St. Anthony has offered no assistance. Should I learn the St. Anthony chant in Italian?

Sans camera my faithful readership, all four of you, are missing pictures of my newest hobby, my sister's recent visit and loads of other stuff.

And just how am I supposed to make my millions selling stuff on ebay without digital pics?

Snow

As it's not Chinese New Year yet I'm not feeling overwhelmed by the new year. Or does that logic only work if you're Chinese?

In addition to not thinking about the new year yet I also don't make resolutions. Who ever keeps those? I make goals. They seem much more obtainable.

I've gotten a jump start on one of my goals for the new year by being more active. That doesn't necessary mean exercise but walking to more places, I'm on the hunt for my third bike and so on.

For the past two consecutive Sundays I've gone on day hikes within San Diego county.

The first was up the northeast ascent of Cowle's Mountain. It's the highest peak in San Diego. The guide book claims that on a clear day you can see nearly up to San Clemente (a quaint beach town an hour north). It was a hazy day and we couldn't even see the ocean. It's three miles round trip and very, very steep.

The week's Sunday took us to the Laguna Mountains to Cleaveland National Forest, forty-minutes away from San Diego proper. We were at 6000 ft. elevation and we weren't prepared for the 32 degree weather. That's right, 32 degrees and there was snow on the ground. In San Diego!

Completely unprepared, I had to stop at the general store and buy fleece pants and gloves to keep warm. Lucky for me they were black stretchy gloves with snowflakes on them. I did get learn where Mount Laguna Lodge is. I've great things about these tiny cabins and now know exactly where it's located.

The scenery made it all worth it. Our small group of four are all from the northeast and there was a comfort being in landscape like that.

Disclaimer: We posed the photo. However, the snow was very close to the cactus.

Caring

I vacillate between paying attention and being appropriately outraged by the current political climate or chose ignorance. In my defense I have to pull my five square inch tv off the shelf, plug it in, extend the antenna and tune the station.

This morning I came across the article Why You Should Care at www.saveourcourts.org.

Save Our Courts is a joint venture from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund.

In addition to commentary on the day’s nomination hearings (NPR is of course doing their own as well) they are also posting free .pdfs of the entire day’s transcripts, which are good for placing the sound bites from the news in context - imagine, thinking about something in context.

Recyle Almost Anything

Meant to post this awhile ago.

The recently defunct magazine Organic Style (that my former roommate subscribed to, I just lived in the apartment where it was delivered) ran this piece on How to Recycle Anything. My favorite was finding a use for bridesmaids dresses.

I also think that if you tell the post office that you’re mailing something that’s a donation there’s a different form to use so that you can itemize it – if you do that sort of thing.

Thrift Store Victory

Things are a bit tight these days after the Red Baron’s $423.56 trip to the mechanic on Tuesday.

A friend had helped me with the diagnostics on my car and many other favors that day in the very early and chilly hours of the morning and since buying him a few beers is out of the question, I found out he has a major sweet tooth.

I have a great chocolate cake recipe that makes grown men cry with its sweety goodness. However, I was one bundt pan short of completing the plan.

I estimated I couldn’t get out of Target without spending $9 for a new bundt pan. And how often does someone really use a bundt pan?

So I headed to Max’s 99 cent store, which should really be named Max’s Nothing Over Two-Fitty. They have everything in there. Everything except bundt pans.

The Baras Thrift Store is located two doors down and voila: a bundt pan for $2!

It’s a little smaller than most but very cute and will serve the purpose.

I’m just amusing myself until which time it is financially feasible for me to have a social life again. Expect more thrift store victory reports.

This Just In

San Diego authorities are concerned about social pH levels in America's Finest City as SDPD has just received word that Margaret A. Harrison of Fit, Fine, Inline, and In Her Prime, will be joining her sister, Carol Jane Harrison chairperson of Sewers Making a Cool Kountry (SMACK), for the Christmas Holidays in the Hillcrest section of the city. Local law enforcement agencies doubt whether this coastal city can withstand the levels of fun that the reputation of the Harrison sisters threaten.
Neighborhood proprietor of Midnight Books and Video and Thursday night bingo caller at the GLT Center, Rod Feelgood commented, "It'll be just fabulous. We haven't had a good shake up since Ru Paul left San Diego to become a NYC morning DJ."

While the elder Harrison sister is only scheduled for a three night, four day stay, Chief of Social Investigations Darrin Wantego says,"Often short visits are the worst. It's like a Tasmanian devil approach to fun. When the visitor leaves its the city left gasping for air under the dust cloud of merriment and mayhem. The fun-makers are usually clueless and are only concerned with those join who them."

San Diego authorities would like to caution all social people out this weekend that these sisters should only be approached if you can handle spontaneous magnitudes of fun.

Adventures in Fitness

Following last week’s adventure in pilates class I returned to the gym for the Rep Reebok class I had been attending months ago. And today I wore a pink shirt. (Important information for later)

I think it’s called that because the steps used are manufactured by Reebok and maybe the class at one time followed a plan designed by the company. In short, it’s sixty minutes of weights and strength training, no cardio

I had heard around the water cooler that the instructor I was familiar with was no more as she went off to open her own pilates studio and the gym has been having trouble keeping a consistent instructor.

Today was not only my return to the Tuesday 11 am class but the first day on the job for a new instructor.

Admittedly it’s a hard job. An instructor has to do the exercises, while doling out instructions and be perky while ten plus grumpy faces stare back her.

There were two warning signs:

1. She brought her own microphone headset. The wire leading to the microphone was thin so the nerf-like green ball looked like it was hovering in front of her mouth.

2. She was a former Rockette. She was taking this season off after eight years of doing the Christmas Spectacular. You should see how chiseled her back is.

I didn’t look at the clock until 11:30 which meant I had gone thirty minutes before looking at the clock however that meant there were still thirty more to go.

Near the end of the class after an excruciating ab set she asked in earnest if we should do more and someone yelped an affirmative and the instructor looked right at me and said, “Pretty in pink don’t roll your eyes.”

The Box

My roommate has Tivo and yes, I do like being like being able to tape a program easily though I seldom do. And as on demand television is growing with cable providers what is going to happen to the serendipitous rainy after when a great movie is on? Or a fantastic documentary?

I still think that if cable companies have the capability to block pay channels like the four different HBOs and Showtimes then they should be able to offer a package a la carte, like for 10.00 you get five standard cable channels. Mine would be

American Movie Classics
History Channel
Nature Channel
TNT

And I’d have to think about the fifth.

Perhaps in the quest for consumer driven control of media it will raise the standard especially with advertisers having to reshape how they fit into the paradigm.

And that’s not a bad thing.

Snicker, Snicker, Buzz, Buzz

I decided to venture over to the gym at work and take the Wednesday, 11 am pilates class.

The instructor had a slight British accent which somehow made her instructions of contracting, extending and isolating muscles less of an order and more of a polite and reasonable request with an implied promise of crumpets if we all did well. She was thorough in her guidance, using great descriptions to highlight what muscles to use and how we could identify that we were doing the exercise correctly.

While in a position similar to the precursor to the classic Yoga stance downward dog pose the instructor said, "Extend your taill bone like a naughty bee about to sting someone from behind."

It was worse than trying not to laugh in church.

Halloween 2005

Two pictures from Halloween

Chalk Festival

Little Italy has this annual chalk festival. My understanding is that its roots go back to WWII when disabled soldiers returning home unable to work created street art for donations.

Now it's a festival to remind San Diegans that the easy to forget neighborhood has businesses you should give your money to.

Pictures here