quotable 2010

these are quotes i have been collecting this year ... some i've seen on friends' blogs (thanks); others i've just run into. enjoy! if you have one to add, let me know.

• "as an individual undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest and, next, no one left to borrow from; so must it be with government." -- abraham lincoln
• "when one door closes, another opens. but we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don't see the one that has opened for us." -- alexander graham bell
• "pride is spiritual cancer. it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense." -- cs lewis
• "for attractive lips, speak words of kindness. for lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. for a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. for beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. for poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. people, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never through out anyone. remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. as you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others." -- audrey hepburn
• "o segredo nao e' correr atras das borboletas ... e sim cuidar do jardim para que elas venham ate voce." -- unknown
• ‎"don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful." -- ann landers
• "the measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out." -- thomas babington macaulay
• "in the end, people either have excuses or experiences; reasons or results; buts or brilliance. they either have what they wanted or they have a detailed list of all the rational reasons why not." -- anonymous

don't ask

i hit myself in the face with my car tonight.

quotable 2009

these are quotes i have been collecting this year ... some i've seen on friends' blogs (thanks); others i've just run into. enjoy! if you have one to add, let me know.

• "as an individual undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest and, next, no one left to borrow from; so must it be with government." -- abraham lincoln

• "we can aspire to anything, but we don't get it just because we want it. i would rather spend my life close to the birds than waste it wishing i had wings." -- patient, on episode of house

• "a friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." -- donna roberts

• "to many people, free will is a license to rebel not against what is unjust or hard in life but against what is best for them and true." -- dean koontz, in the darkest evening of the year

• "going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car." -- unknown

• "some people are like slinkies. they don't really have a purpose but it still brings a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs." -- unknown

find a penny

if it's in the bathroom at a t.g.i. fridays, though, is it good luck or bad luck?

(p.s. -- i washed it. don't worry.)

the gravy

my boy jerry takes care of me. when i visited the woodworths this summer, mike made fun of me for how in love i am with my jerry jetta. but i cannot deny it: he is amazing. pretty, fuel efficient, powerful, acclaimed, sporty ... without belaboring all the features that i have already mentioned, i must tell you about some that i have grown to love over the past 3 months:

• sunroof. pretty sure i have already mentioned it, but i had to say that i *love*, love, love my sunroof. there is never a time when i drive without it open. man, that was a great choice, christianna. really. good job.

• courtesy blinkers. they blink, blink, blink and then turn off when you change lanes. talk about awesome. i will no longer ever be one of "those" people, driving down the highway unaware that my blinkers are confusing drivers on all sides.

• heated seats. now, i admit that living in sunny socal really limits the need for heated seats ... but ... i have horrible back trouble most of the days, and these heated seats provide the right amount of relaxing warmth for my whining muscles. ahhh. not the manufacturer's intended purpose, i know, but perhaps all the more valuable for it.

okay, ryan, i'll stop rubbing it in now. hope you get yours soon.

lasting impressions

chatting with a co-worker tonight, griping about the same old office complaints ...

... i got an unexpected glimpse of the impression i leave on some people:

"i'm starving and talking to you made me think of jerry's."

[nose wriggle]. funny.

...

what do i make *you* think of??

pump gas much?

so ... it's been a while, okay?

i stopped at the shell last night to refuel.

as i sat for about 5 minutes, waiting for the outside "stalls" to free up (since they are the only pumps with diesel) i realized that my tank was on the other side of the car and promptly pulled into the empty diesel stall in front of me.

i put him in park and climbed out. i swiped my card and waited. and waited. oh, i have to put in my zip code. hmm ... where's the key pad? oh. found it.

i grabbed the nozzle and put it into the tank. when i squeezed the handle, nothing happened. huh? oh, i have to push the fuel type button.

i squeezed the handle again and the diesel started flowing.

finally.

i didn't remember that refueling was such an ordeal ...

thanks, jerry, for being so fuel-efficient.

a mutual error

i was in chicago for work, participating in a team-building activity called "planks" at the time the 2-hour house season premier aired. the activity was kind of an interesting puzzle thing, and i like puzzles, but my team didn't win or get any prizes. *and* i missed house.

i was so annoyed.

so i got home from my trip around midnight on monday this week and turned on the tv to catch up on my house-watching, only to find that direct tv had recorded the episodes but wouldn't replay them! can you believe it? what's the point of recording the show if it can't be replayed? the dvr just sat there "searching for authorized content" for 5 minutes, then asked me if i want to delete the show.

uhh ... no! i don't want to delete the show! i want to *watch* the show! seriously, people.

i answered "no", and tried again. but same thing. and again.

i was even more annoyed than plank night.

but -- what can you do?

[grumble]

so tonight, i watched house online. my first time online. kinda cool set-up: fox.com posts the full episode 8 days after initial air. means i have to wait a week -- but it's not like i have oodles of time to just sit around watching house all day anyway.

the only really annoying thing, i suppose, is that each full episode is sponsored by a single advertiser -- which means that each regularly scheduled commercial break consists of only one commercial -- but it's the *same* commercial every 15 minutes. and you can't skip or fast forward or anything.

in tonight's case, the advertiser was northwestern mutual. life insurance. blah-blah.

on the third time through this riveting juxtaposition between baseball and blah-blah, i noticed something interesting in the commercial: the company can't even spell their own legal name right.

ha ha.

well, in all fairness, their tagline is, "put our strength to work for you." they said nothing about putting their spelling skills to work for you.

okay.

computer expert

every morning, when pat asks me a computer question, this is actually *precisely* what i do.

snail mail

i haven't opened mail in over a month. i haven't had time, people! lately i get home from work, grab my mail off the table, walk it to my room, and *lovingly* place it in the "mail pile" on the floor in front of my dresser before crashing on my bed.

(incidentally, the mail pile sits right in front of the clean-and-folded-but-not-put-away-because-i-still-haven't-had-time-to-unpack-from-my-utah-idaho-texas-and-vegas-trips clothes pile. i am considering implementing a new no-flying-until-you-unpack-from-your-last-trip rule. but then i might never get out of this place.)

so today after church and church, i came home on a mission. my mission: to open and deal with everything in the mail pile. the clean-and-folded-but-... clothes pile would have to wait for another day.

but it was definitely time to get through that mail pile. i mean, for all i knew, my long-lost lover had written me the most beautiful, poetic, sugary, sticky love letter pen ever put to paper ... so ... obviously ... i couldn't keep him waiting any longer.

it took me about an hour, but i made it through the whole stack. the mail pile brought adventures and intrigue. behold:

• 3 surveys. people want my opinion! they do!

monitoring the future survey, from the university of michigan. (been filling that one out annually since high school.)

equal employment opportunity survey, from cal state northridge. (to be a part-time instructor.)

customer service survey, from my bank. (i bank online; why can't the surveys be online, too. i'd probably get to them faster that way.)

• an apheresis award from the red cross. so i logged in to my account where i found out that i have donated 35 times since moving to los angeles -- 35 times! just imagine how many lives i have saved!! :P

  and while i was on that roll, i went ahead and called to set up a new appointment for next week.

• 1 check that i have been awaiting for about a month. hmmm. maybe i shoulda gone through this stack a while ago ...

• 3 letters from my car dealership, congratulating me on my purchase. i feel pretty special to have received 3 letters. no, none of the letters included a get-out-of-jail-free card on the car payment. drat.

• an official letter from the state board letting me know that i passed my tests! guess they didn't hear my joy. that's okay -- let's celebrate again!

and ... umm, that was it. with all that and a (large) handful of statements and credit card offers, i had dug it down to the carpet.

and there was nothing else.

no love.

no poetry.

no sugary, sticky.

what's up with that?

who even invented snail mail?

voicemail

i got a message today:

"so i'm standing here, washing dishes, minding my own business ...

and flynn says,

'mom, if you would be christianna, you would have crazy hair.'

so ... apparently, good thing i'm not you."

thanks, bud.

sitting, waiting, wishing ...

i have wanted one of these for a while ...

• 0 to 60 in 8.2 seconds

• 2.0 L

• 140 hp

• 236 lbs-ft torque

• in-line 4 cylinder turbocharged clean diesel engine with common rail direct injection (tdi)

my little sister texted me one day back in april, asking if i would sell reggie to her. in the midst of recovering from busy season, her text only served to stress me out ... but, the more i thought about it, i realized that this provided the perfect excuse to do some shopping!

• tdi

• manual transmission

• blue graphite exterior

• anthracite interior (who names these colors?)

• sunroof (if i can negotiate a good price)

http://www.vw.com/ is so much fun! try on different colors ... check out the rear spoiler ... add an ipod hookup ... (create a child) ...

okay. so my sister lives in utah. as such, one detail of the sale would need to address reggie's transport across 4 states. the most obvious solution was for me to drive him up there ... and since i'd be up there and car-less ... the most obvious solution to that situation would be for me to buy a new car there and drive him home. sounds pretty perfect, right?

what's even more perfect was the timing: my other little sister and family were going to be visiting in utah at the beginning of july. *aaand* some good college friends were putting together a rocking reunion over the 4^th of july weekend.

i was soon in the makings of a pretty perfect plan!

so i went about seeing what was possible. found a utah dealer. check.

now, to find a car ... well, the color i wanted, proved to cause much headache. apparently there were no blue graphite in the state of utah. so ... the utah dealer had to transport the car in from portland or vegas or somewhere. whatever, i don't really care!

we'd leave socal after work on thursday, july 2. drive up to utah. spend the weekend with friends and family. drive back to socal with my new car!

ba-da-boom. ba-da-bing!

so ... last thursday matti flew in from utah to drive up with me. she called me as soon as she landed -- super excited to be a soon-to-be-car-owner. and i was super excited for her. and for me!

about a half hour later, i got a call from the utah dealer:

"hi, christianna. the car just got in," he stated flatly. shouldn't he be excited? i was.

"great!" probably shoulda tried to hide a *little* bit of that enthusiasm.

"well, kinda ... it's an automatic."

-- wha- what?? --

"you're kidding." please be kidding ...

"um, no."

-- pause --

-- didn't include this in my calculations --

-- pause --

he continued, "so ... if you'd like to take the blue graphite automatic, it's here and ready for you. or i've got a manual in silver and red. or, i can see if i can get a manual in the blue graphite from the east coast; the shipping would just be more."

"but ... umm ... -- can i call you back in a few minutes?" too much to think about. too much.

"sure. just let me know what you want me to do."

i hung up and immediately called my mom. no answer. called again. no answer again. grr! where could she be at a time like this!!?

okay, deep breath. what to do?

i then dialed up 3 other car dealers i had spoken to previously. none of them answered. none. -- what kind of no-work-thursday vortex had i woken up in??! -- i dialed 3 car dealers. i left 3 messages.

then i called eden. she always knows what to do.

she listened to me whine. she offered advice.

the other 3 dealers started calling me back. so began the stressful day ... ...

by noon i still had no answers. i called the utah dealer back and asked him how long it would take to get the car from the east coast. he checked and it would take 7 business days. which would put the car in utah a full week *after* i was supposed to have left.

around 230 i spoke to a dealer here in california. he found 2 -- one was marked "sold", the other wouldn't be available for 3 weeks. oh, man. well, i told him to see what he could find out. at least it was something.

he finally called me back at 530. (half an hour after i was supposed to have been on the road out of town.) the one marked "sold" was actually sold. so the other one ... could be here in 3 weeks ...

so ...

3 weeks it is!

now, we wait.

(it's already been 1 week ... so ... 2 weeks left!)

but i know i have good things to look forward to. and i'm getting a better deal on this one than the utah dealer was giving me. for the exact same out-the-door price, i am getting upgraded mats and trunk liner ... and a *sunroof*. i *love* sunroofs! (err, uhh ... sunrooves?? whatever.)

off the face of the earth

some of you probably think i fell off the face of the earth. in fact, i have been asked precisely that.

well, i am back now. it was a lovely place, but i am glad to be among the living again. i'll have to tell y'all about it sometime.

but not right now. right now i am packing up so i can watch transformers with my nephew.

tchau!

mmmm

the one redeeming quality of an overly-air-conditioned office with an adequately-supplied break room is that i get to curl up with a warm cup of soup in the middle of a 90-degree day. mmmm.

stars, diamonds, and shower curtains

how do you rate a hotel?

the star classification system is a common one for rating hotels. higher star ratings indicate more luxury. the aaa and their affiliated bodies use diamonds instead of stars to express hotel and restaurant ratings levels.

but what criteria do they use to rate hotels? room size? friendliness of the concierge? size of the flat screen? luxury of the sheets?

me? i use shower curtains.

more specifically, shower curtain rods.

a good hotel has a round shower curtain rod in the bathroom.

the rounder the better.

i mean, look at this:

i'm definitely gonna have round shower curtain rods in my bathrooms when i grow up. and all my house guests will herald the luxury, opulence, splendor, and bliss that it is to visit me.

they will.

always prepared

wondering what to put in your trunk? well, as i disassemble mine in this pictorial essay, take note. have you forgotten any of this?

fuzzy jacket, pillow, and blanket -- it's a cold, cold world.

72-hour kit, toilet paper in a zip-loc, an empty grocery sack, and *2* first aid kits -- you never know what could happen on the 405.

tire pressure gauge and tire inflator -- first you check your tire pressure, then you inflate the tire. in that order.

a beach ball, a frisbee, a towel, a tank top and shorts, sunblock, and *2* bathing suits -- it's spelled c-a-l-i-f-o-r-n-i-a.

3 types of pass-along cards, copies of the Book of Mormon (spanish and english), mormon pamphlets, and a Temple bag -- you might be inspired to do something with those.

printer, hole punch, and luggage roller -- for the auditor extraordinaire.

and holes -- where there is a hole puncher ...

how'd you do?

i am sure that if the boy scouts were to have a patch for the always prepared trunk, i would win it for sure. (you win patches, right?)

stay tuned, friends, if you're lucky we may soon venture on to the treasure trove known as the glove box.

what's under your bed?

cleaned out under my bed the other day.

so ... would you say that i *am* or *am not* the type of person who is used to packing up and moving at a moment's notice?

look how they grow!

i mostly took this picture so my mom could see how long my fingernails are. but i figured that all of you would want to see, too. i mean, why wouldn't you?

see, mom? i can let them grow ...

this is what happens when i am working out of town so i can't have weekly harp lessons (which require short nails). plus, i guess i haven't been stressed enough to chomp them off. though ... looking back at how this busy season went ... not sure how i can claim to not have been stressed ...

i didn't really even recognize how long they were getting until my sister commented on them last weekend. yeah.

okay. now i am going to go cut them.

they clack on my keyboard keys.

that gets annoying after a while.

quotable 2008

okay, following the precedent started last year ... only a little delayed this year ...

these are quotes i have been collecting this year ... some i've seen on friends' blogs (thanks); others i've just run into. enjoy! if you have one to add, let me know.

• "wheresoever you go, go with all your heart." -- confucius

• "never let your failures go to your heart, or your successes go to your head." -- anon.

• "a wise man learns by the mistakes of others; a fool by his own." -- latin proverb

• "to keep your marriage brimming with love from the loving cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it. whenever you're right, shut up." -- ogden nash

• "being in a relationship is like eating ice cream with chop sticks: you're not sure why you're doing it, but you wish everyone would just leave you alone about it." -- unknown

• "life is best enjoyed when time periods are evenly divided between labour, sleep, and recreation... all people should spend one-third of their time in recreation which is rebuilding, voluntary activity -- never idleness." --pres. brigham young

• "whenever i'm about to do something, i think, 'would an idiot do that?' and if they would, then i do not do that thing." -- dwight schrute

• "a government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have." -- thomas jefferson

• "it's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground." -- interesting nasa guy on the airplane, (explaining the benefits of flight delays)

d-i-y car repair?

reggie sounds like an orca whale ... again.

i think it was november that i took him in for a check-up and my mechanic fixed him up real pretty, even changed the power steering fluid tubing because it had a leak.

about a month later, he started squealing at me on cold mornings whenever i turned the wheel. so, after text-consulting a car guru friend, i took him back to the shop. my mechanic tightened the belts and added a super-powered-additive-juice-something to the power steering fluid. pronto! reggie stopped complaining.

until a couple weeks ago. the orca whale is back.

(oh -- i don't actually know what an orca whale sounds like, as opposed to a regular whale, but i presume it says something like "ooorr-caaaaa", which is what reggie says, too, so ... there you go.)

i texted my car guru friend again. he says it might be expensive to fix. so i was thinking of trying to fix it myself. because, y'know, i *am* a fan of do-it-yourselfing it in general -- i mean, if you *can* do it, why not? besides, i figure learning how to fix cars is a good thing.

which is, i am sure, what the owner of this vehicle thought:

see the funniez? yeah, i captured that perfect shot that on the way home a few months ago. heh.