I’ll let the picture do most of the talking on this post, I was just really excited last week to finally be able to start grilling again….. the end result is this picture of American gluttony:
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So I can definitely be considered the kind of person who is easily amused, and who also does not have a ton of “practical common since”. Both of these factors combine in today’s post.
I was at the grocery store with my sister and her Son. She starts to put him in the shopping cart, and I’m explaining too her I don’t think that’s a great idea he is just going to fall out. Then to my semi amazement, she proceeds to flip down this small piece of plastic that I had never paid any attention to and slide his legs through 2 little leg holes that are now there. She then up clips a seat belt (wth shopping carts have seat belts?). By the end of if he is securely in the cart, and I am just kind of shocked that I had 0 clue they designed shopping carts to also hold babies… it kind of blew my mind. Something I have used 100+ times and I had no clue it was setup for this.
Reminder to self: pay better attention to things around you and stop day dreaming so much…. oh and in case there are any women reading this, a picture of the baby in the story is provided below so for your viewing pleasure.
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Crater Lake
I read a description in a semi-autobiographical novel once about Crater Lake in Oregon once, and since then its felt like this mythical place that I have to go visit. The book is about this woman who at 26 hikes a huge portion of the Pacific Coast Trail, alone…and with no prior hiking experience. I am not sure about taking on that much due to time and possibly not being as brave/stupid to go alone as she was. But a hike over several days to reach Crater Lake? totally doable.
I should start figuring out a plan to make this real.
The lake was formed by a volcanic eruption about 8,000 years ago, so it’s like a mountain in reverse: 1,943 feet deep, the deepest in the country. The rim is about 700 feet above the water’s surface; it’s so blue when you look down. The Klamath Indian tribe considers it a sacred site.
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Change
A hilarious friend posted recently on facebook, using over-plucked eyebrows as a metaphor for learning to accept the way things are, letting it go, and moving the hell on with your day/life.
For some reason that hilarious anecdote stuck with me and really made me take a look at what I was holding onto; things I knew I was holding on to and just not dealing with.
Sometimes what you are holding onto and back from the one person you need to share it with only makes you feel worse. Even when you are trying to not hurt someone’s feelings, holding onto it will bring you down and begin to hurt you.
I took my friend’s Facebook, and other trusted friend’s (and favorite author’s) advice, and finally dealt with what I needed to. And as cliche as it is- I felt like a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders. I might have to go throw-up now because its still a huge change and scary and all that. But at least my eyebrows aren’t over-plucked.
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Know your source
If you graduated from high school or college anytime in the early 2000s like I did, I am sure you know the speech turned song “Wear Sunscreen”. Let me feel free to refresh your memory:
“Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.”
“Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.”
“Understand that friends come and go, but with the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need people who knew you when you were young.”
Yes, that speech, remember it now? Anyway, it was used by Baz Luhrmann and put into a song of sorts. I loved that speech. So much so that I googled after I first heard it (2005) and it was attributed as a speech given at a graduation by some guy. Some sites said it was Kurt Vonnegut at MIT, others listed no author.
I haven’t thought about that speech in years, until when reading a fantastic collection of articles by a Chicago Tribune columnist, there it was! It was an article, from a Chicago newspaper, from a woman columnist. Mind blown.
I guess it was naive for me to trust the internet in correctly citing the author of a speech or quote; but it is something a lot of people do.
Note to self, either take the time to properly research where the information you love and were affected by came from or don’t accredit it to anyone- just say its a piece you love. This goes for my facebook “favorite quotes” and should go for yours too.
Have you ever had one of those days, or worked on one of those projects that just fights every step of the way? You spill your morning cup of tea, you walk out to your car without your keys, you work on something for 3 hours only to figure out you completely messed up and have to back track? Well I had one of these experiences recently moving out an old fridge.
It all started with an amazing deal I found on Craigslist. I found a 1,500 cabinet depth fridge being listed (brand new in box) for 650$. This was a cash only deal, and in a decent/somewhat sketchy part of town (I’ll be honest I’m not even 100% sure about that, but it was up north which I will just paint with a wide brush as “somewhat sketchy). I drove up there with my buddy Brian, the deal went great, got a seemingly brand new 1500 fridge for only 650 cash, didn’t get mugged or otherwise harassed. Score one for the good guys.
The trouble starts right from the get go once we get the fridge home though….. its too wide to fit through the doorway (damn you builders from 1932, would it have killed you too have building codes! lol) So after a lot of “finagling” we get it through the door, ripping the box during the process but nothing major. From here the wheels really come off once we try to take the old fridge out.
To start with I move the fridge slightly so that we can get a dolly under it… I make a big gash in the hardwood floors I recently restored (damn). From there the fridge magically starts leaking water everywhere from some mystery location that we never end up finding. We move it all of the way to the door that separates the kitchen and dining room…. it doesn’t fit. Not even close. WTF how did they even get this monster inside in the first place… we are totally stumped for a good 15 minuets. We finally settle on opening the door, and “rotating” it through… it works! That college education really did pay off after all…. but then we meet our next obstacle, the front door. No problem we think to ourselves, now that we know how to do this “rotating” move with the door open this should be no match for us…… What we manage to do at the front door still enrages me when I think about it. We manage to literally get a section of the storm door stuck “inside” of the old fridge. In the process completely bending (ruining) a supporting section of the storm door that holds it onto the wall…. when its all said and done I’m so angry with the old fridge I literally picked it up and threw it off our porch resulting in the horror scene you see below:
There are 2 morals to this story:
1.) Sometimes when the universe is fucking with you on a day, or on a project at every turn, its best to take a step back. Take the day off, take a break from the project and come back to the too it in 30 minutes (preferably use this break time to eat something as well).
2.) Take 5 minutes before doing everything and think “is there any easier way I could be doing this, or a way I could get someone to do it for me”? In this case as it turns out I could have literally been paid $50 by our power utility company, and they would have moved the old fridge out of my house for me….. let me say that one more time…. They would have paid me $50 to remove the fridge from my own home!
For anyone thinking of moving their fridge themselves, do yourself a favor and get paid to have someone else do it for you:
http://www.ameren.com/sites/aue/UEfficiency/Pages/ReRecycle.aspx