Frog Blog

fall has arrived:

and with it, some nice foliage along with the rain. it’s been very cold and wet but very fresh and dramatic. while we don’t get the same type of foliage as new england, a couple of trees like the one in the photo above (near my apartment) stand out from all the grey.

on another note, i finally figured out how to use the macro setting on my camera:

that’s remnants of a scrambled egg with cheese and onions from sunday’s breakfast. B makes a good scramble, that’s for sure.

as we didn’t have much of a summer, i’m trying to soak up all the colorful foliage and moments of sun i can find. it’s been cold around our apartment so we turned on the heat for the first time this past weekend (hearts have been broken!). it’s a full two weeks before we turned on the heat last autumn. normally i don’t mind the rain and grey but this year it’s wearing thin. wet and grey is one thing, but a high of 55 on the last day of september? spare me. unfortunately our apartment is poorly insulated; last winter we put plastic over the windows to keep out the drafts. we only took down that plastic four short months ago. we’ve decided this is a “plastic in the windows eight months out of the year” kind of place. what a drag!

i’m incapable of not singing along to “anyone who had a heart” by dionne warwick whenever i hear it. i drop everything and belt it out after that first tragic chord. i wish i could sing as well as dionne. i can carry a tune ok, but not like dionne. i wish i’d been burt bacharach’s muse. i wonder if i’ve ever been anyone’s muse? anyway, if you’ve never heard this song, it’s a real gem, a real throwback, and available on imeem.com, a free music sharing site. you can’t download any of the songs but you can listen to other member’s playlists. i have a few other dionne songs: “walk on by” and “do you know the way to san jose?”. brilliant. itunes has butted into imeem; some songs you might want to hear are only available as 30-second previews but can be heard in full if you purchase them from apple. whatever. it’s mostly the more popular songs, i guess. dionne warwick, however, is quite below the radar.

make sure the room is sufficiently cool. but not too cool- if you’re too cold, especially your feet, all bets are off. making the room too hot on the other hand, is sure to keep you awake and feeling stuffy. stuffy noses can also be a problem. you must clear your nose before laying down.

valerian root capsules are recommended a half hour before getting in bed, preferrably right before settling into a book. valerian root only really works if you’re already a little tired, so reading before bed can be very beneficial. especially if the book is slow. “into thin air” is not a good choice.

as a last option, tylenol “simply sleep” can be administered. be sure this is not taken on an empty stomach. this is important! “simply sleep” is basically an antihistimine, which everyone knows has a side effect of sleepiness. however, on an empty stomach, antihistimes can have the opposite effect: they can jack you up instead of calming you down.

by no means should you go to bed on too full a stomach, as that can cause indigestion and general malaise. pepto bismol is your friend and should always be at the ready in the nightstand drawer. going to bed while hungry, though, has its own problems. aside from the aforementioned bad interactions with the tylenol, being too hungry can also cause fits of sleeplessness. it’s best to go to bed on a perfect stomach. try having some toast, preferably with a little protein (peanut butter is a good choice) about an hour before hitting the sack.

the clock should be facing away from you. any glimpse at clock faces or watches right before going to bed should be completely disregarded lest you start thinking about what time it is, and what time you have to get up, and how many hours there are in between.

thinking about how many hours of sleep you’ll get if you “go to sleep right now” does not work. in fact, it makes it worse.

you must not, under any circumstances, have a heated discussion with the boyfriend before retiring. in fact, we advise not speaking to anyone or listening to any music whatsoever. and you should absolutely not watch “mad men” in bed until 11 p.m. quiet time should begin about an hour before bed, possibly while eating your toast and before the valerian.

if you are unable to fall asleep within the first 30 minutes, we recommend meditation. don’t start freaking out. and don’t start thinking about freaking out or the fact that hey, you’re not freaking out this time! because then you will definitely start to freak out. the key is to get your heart rate back down to normal. deep breaths help. not thinking about work helps. or, if you must think about work, know that at the very least you’ll be tired at work but, really, that’s not out of the ordinary, right? nothing new here. keep on keeping on.

here’s some highlights of my week:

walking home from the train on tuesday, i saw a man face down in the island of a busy intersection. a cable guy was standing near him and a passerby stopped to help. at first i thought the man was dead. my heart stopped a little. but he was just really, really drunk and had passed out. the passerby had just leaned down to talk to him when he woke up and lunged forward on his stomach. he inched with his elbows and reached out to grab the passerby, all the while grumbling and moaning. i walked over and asked if i could call someone; the cable guy told me he already had. the CHIERS van showed up a minute later and took the man away. at least, i think they did; i didn’t stick around to see the outcome.

my lower back has been aching for a couple of weeks. it’s more of a general, weird pressure in my lumbar region. i notice the pressure mostly at work. there’s something wrong with my chair or how i’m sitting. my company is hiring an ergonomist to check out my work space next week. i’m so grateful for this!

tonight i forgot my purse, the word “tempura” and tripped twice on the walk to dinner with my aunt L. we got to the thai restaurant and i realized i’d left my purse at home. weird! i never forget my purse. i love that purse! and i was trying to tell her how good the tempura was at this particular restaurant and i just blanked on that word. we got pad ke mao instead (love it!).

i’ve been writing in my other blog.

on monday, there were three chunky piles of human poop on the sidewalk at my bus stop. i knew it was human because it lacked that certain dog poop odor.

on thursday, there was a man sleeping on the sidewalk at my bus stop. in the rain. the blanket he was sleeping on and the blanket on top of him were both soaked. he was snoring, which was relieving … but heartbreaking nonetheless. about 15 people walked by him. i don’t even know who to call in that kind of situation. the police? no, the man wasn’t raging or dangerous or threatening. a shelter? maybe, but which one? would they come to get him? or does he have to go on his own? were they all full the night before? i was (and still am) at a loss.

and finally, i watched as the red sox won game 5 against cleveland! yeah!

i just found out that lucky dube died in south africa when terrorists tried to carjack his vehicle. you’ve probably never heard of lucky dube, but he was really, really great. he was a reggae musician and his music was uplifting, fun and vibrant. i saw him in concert about five years ago with my dad, aunt and uncle and two friends. the concert was loud and hot and electric. the whole band turned it on and cranked it out nonstop for more than two hours. i remember feeling the bass and drums vibrate my whole body and the energy was radiant. i couldn’t help but stand up and dance.

i know people die in senseless, tragic ways every day, but it hits home even more when you’ve actually met someone or experienced their art. it goes from being this faceless name in the international section of the newspaper to chipping off a piece of your heart.

last night some friends and i went to see brandi carlile. it was a good show— a really good show, actually— and that’s coming from a non-fan. i like her music but i’ve never sought her out nor do i own any albums. i liked her more and more as the evening progressed, which i took as a good sign. in a way, it was cool not knowing any of her songs— i ended up paying attention more to her lyrics and the general mood of her music.

i have to say, though, that i hate sing-alongs. i hate clapping aloud. no snapping along for me. i don’t sing out loud to myself at concerts, either. i know what i sound like; i want to hear whomever i’m singning. so, yeah. last night’s concert had snapping and clapping and 3-part harmony where each third of the room had their own part. my friend S looked at me during the snapping part and said, what are you too cool to snap? and i said yes, yes, YES! i’m too cool to snap! singing along gives me the creeps, the heebie jeebs, it’s too touchy-feely and campfire circles and church.

i also really, really hate it when the singer stops and the audience picks up singning. it’s always out of tune and embarrassing. last night, brandi carlile did this and at the end of the song she said that she’s done that in the past and no one sang along. dead silence! it must have been a room full of me!

there’s a small grocery store about eight blocks from my apartment; catch the link for the name, but we’ve nicknamed it “shitty mark-up” because it’s so expensive. my main issue with the store isn’t necessarily the price; i figure you’re going to pay for gourmet, organic food and when i’m looking for something special or of great quality, i’ll shop there as a treat. they have excellent produce and fish, a huge array of cheese and meats, a nice wine selection. my city is ripe with such quality products, though. whole foods is completely superfluous out here. i imagine a whole grocery store full of organic food in the middle of iowa is a blessing; out here, though, i’m blessed with fresh, local produce in nearly every grocery store.

anyway, today i ended up at shitty mark-up after a brief walk. and my experience there posed a question for my walk home: why are some people so completely uninterested in being even remotely friendly? shitty mark-up has, oh, about 4 trillion types of cheeses, all gorgeous and labeled and stinky. i’ts a cheese-lover’s paradise. i could spend all day there sampling and tasting. cheese makes me happy.

but the woman behind the counter ruined it a little bit for me. i try not to take other people’s moods personally, but when she glared at me with half-opened eyes, sighed and mumbled, “canni helpya with an-thing?” i just wanted to say, no thanks and walk away. maybe it was her slouch. maybe it was her innate vibe of not wanting to be at work or helping me. i should have left; i would have saved about $14. instead i chose comte (from france) and trailshead (from washington). she skulked and sighed again and proceeded to give me the hugest piece of comte, mostly rind, that was waaaay bigger than i asked for.

is it in good taste to refuse a piece of already cut cheese? is it in good taste to look at someone and tell them to wake up? is it even my place to do either? or is the problem me? do i take too long to make a decision? do i take it too personally when someone is such a foul, annoyed mood? all for the love of cheese …