mom

happy mother's day, mom! i couldn't have asked for a better mom. thanks for everything you do for me... i love you, tina.

10,ooo

i've dreamt one hundred dreams 

i've dreamt ten thousand, hundred dreams

one hundred thoughts

ten thousand hundred thoughts 

clouded by you

one million inventions 

uninvented 

because of people like you

(or something...)

thanks magic castles.

weekend

this weekend was a world of it's own.  

friday housewarming party for a fun couple (beautiful house!) and stayed up way too late drinking really good beer. basically i took a nap before going to work at the wedge saturday morning. 

saturday i saw heartless bastards (the band) and it was an effing great show.  what a sexy rockin' band.

now it's sunday night and i'm sitting on the couch with my nephews pretending to watch them play x-box.  although joe is onto me.  he just said, "tina, always watch us.  don't look at the computer."  this afternoon the whole fam (and then some) went to the local community theater here in scf and saw the wizard of oz.  it was adorable, although i had a hard time staying awake since i hung out too late last night with my downstairs neighbors who i ran into at the concert. they gave me wine and fed me pad thai, so it was hard leaving, even though it felt very uncomfortable and white.  i've never felt so white in my life.  not even when i'm pasty after a long winter and listening to fiona apple.  they were showing off how many languages they could speak (in an annoying, not admirable, fashion), criticizing the band we'd just seen ("they only use three chords in this song") and talking about how many countries they'd visited and which orchestras they'd played in (but none of them knew who nina simone was) and the one guy played some song on the guitar about taking his hamster for a walk.  i think he honestly thought it was funny, in some garrison kiellor dorked out way that wasn't funny at all but made me want to vomit.  and the worst part was that i think he was trying to hit on me a little, which was totally gross and horrifying.  now that i'm twentyfive is it really acceptable for that sort of person to hit on me?  it was a scary realization.  

anyway tomorrow's monday and the weekend's over, but i have this poem to help me with the shock that monday morning always is:

Every morning 

the world

is created.

Under the orange

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches --

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy 

you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination 

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit carries within it

the thorn 

that is heavier than lead--

if it's all you can do

to keep on trudging--

there is still 

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted--

each pond with it's blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

Morning Poem by Mary OIiver.

new computer!

new computer!  new computer! thank you rachel! new computer!

the summer day by mary oliver

who made the world?
who made the swan and the black bear?
who made the grasshopper?
this grasshopper, i mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
now she snaps her wings open and floats away.
i don't know exactly what a prayer is.
i do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll throught the fields,
which is what i have been doing all day.
tell me, what else should i have done?
doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

scones

last night i made blueberry scones. or rather, i tried to make blueberry scones. or rather, i made a terrible, terrible batch of blueberry scones. i got the recipe online and there was a typo in it. it called for 2 1/2 tablespoons of baking powder when really all it needed was 2 1/2 teaspoons. drat. i don't bake enough to have known that 2 1/2 tablespoons would be a ridiculous amount of baking powder. it was a very expensive mistake, as i had doubled the recipe. there was a lot of butter, several eggs, some milk, and not to mention the flour...
oh well. now i know.

internet treasures

from post secret:


from craigslist free stuff:

pink toilet (Minnetonka)

---

Reply to: sale-1005254971@craigslist.org ^[?]
Date: 2009-01-23, 8:49PM CST

Free pink toilet, come and get it...

• Location: Minnetonka
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 1005254971

(i added the picture. and here's another one...)

i like this picture because it looks like the picture caught the toilet in it's natural, wild setting.

another craigslist free stuff posting:

Couch (Saint Paul)

---

Reply to: sale-1006003878@craigslist.org ^[?]
Date: 2009-01-24, 1:31PM CST


Free couch has a stain but will come out if cleaned


no it won't. you know that that stain is not going anywhere, cleaning or no cleaning. gross. but it got me interested in pictures of stains. here they are:

bee costume.

(not my) family pictures:

ernie bonner family

von erich family

sellers family

hariri family

cute

check out this lykke li video: dance dance dance. it's cute.

lately i've been liking her song "little bit" too.

lately liking lykke li
lately liking lykke li
lately liking lykke li
lately licking like a lee

sick day

i had to call in to work today. i finally threw up last night, but the only thing i'd eaten all day was some soup from quang. it's sad because i really love that soup, it's one of my favorite things in this world and i even have some leftovers waiting for me in the fridge, but now i don't know if i'll be able to eat it without thinking of throwing it up. i felt a little better this morning (after i'd been in bed for over twelve hours) but i waited to eat til just now. the only thing that sounded good to me were pancakes, so i made some and ate them, and now i feel like shit again.
i feel like i did when i was a kid and would stay home sick from school. i think mom's rule was that if you threw up you could watch t.v.; if you hadn't thrown up and were just feeling sick, you could stay home but no t.v. (in case we were faking it). sometimes elva, the cleaning lady, would be around during the day when i was home sick and i think she kind of liked having someone to take care of. she would make me toast. but she put butter on and then jam, which my mom never did. it was always one or the other.
turns out it was a good day to stay home sick because i got to watch the inaugeration on television (which would be okay by my mom's rules because i did throw up). yay! it was very exciting and touching. it didn't look like there was a dry eye in the crowd, especially when aretha sang "my country tis of thee". great speech, of course, by obama, but i was lying on the couch clutching my stomach, so i wasn't really paying all that close of attention... it was really liberating, after the ceremony, to watch the bushes climb onto their helicopter and fly off. good riddance and thanks for nothin. the only thing that would have been better would've been if someone threw one last shoe at them as they were flying away. that would've been funny.

another way i'm planning on spending my sick day is reading some more of, maybe even finish, skinny legs and all:
i'm really enjoying this book, but i wish i was reading it in a book club because it's so strange and covers so much territory that it would be nice to talk about it with someone else and hear what they think. that's what i miss most about school.

sick

here is a picture of the flu virus that i believe has attacked my system. i feel pukey and diarrhea-y, sore, tired, and generally gross. it just happened last night in the middle of the night. i couldn't tell at first because i thought it was just the effects of the large bottle of wine that kara and i drank while singing along to mama mia!, but no, this is no hangover. there is still the chance that it's just something i ate (maybe the nachos i split with jenny at liquor lyle's after work at the wedge yesterday...) but it really feels like some sort of bug. eew. either way, i'm sure the large bottle of wine didn't help.
today kara and i went back to good ol' accessability to visit and do a watercolor painting class with the clients there. with the exception of my gross feeling, it was a great day. it was so good to see all the peeps and in a way it felt like we never left. it felt just like all other days there, which was really nice and comforting. everyone was really happy to see us, too, which is always a good feeling. lots of hugs. the only other thing that wasn't perfect was that robbie, my girl, wasn't there. i love all of the clients there and really enjoyed working with all of them for a year, but with robbie i had a special connection. i really got a kick out of robbie and she was even in a dream of mine last week, so i was really looking forward to seeing her. i wanted to see her clap her hands, scream into her hand, and say, "happy!". anyway, we got some cool watercolors made and hopefully soon we'll display them at dunn brothers and make some money for the crew.
i hope i don't feel this crappy tomorrow. there's no way -no way- that i could keep up with toddlers feeling like this. and if you don't keep up with toddlers they attempt to do something stupid and end up hurting themselves, like trying to pull the window shade down by wrapping the string around their neck a couple of times, or standing up on the play kitchen stove, tipping it over and crashing down backwards against the wall, or eating the paint, or running with the scissors, or...

trikonasana

i've recomitted myself to my yoga practice. at least for now. and it feels good. i've been sleeping better and this week i finally kicked the stupid cold i had for three weeks. my first class back after a long time, probably about two months, went really well. too well. suspiciously well. trikonasana, triangle pose (above) has always been the bane -well, one of the banes (is that how you pluralize bane?)- of my class. and it went just fine. in fact, a lot of the poses that are usually tough and trying for me were very easy and felt really good. hmmm. maybe it was just because i didn't care and my expectations were low. either way, i'll take it. then i went to another class two days later, and it wasn't quite as good, but still not all that hard. it's also helped because it's been colder than, well, whatever's really cold, this week, and "it's always warm and sunny in the yoga room." that's what they say to try to get you to like the 105 degree sweltering heat and 50% humidity; but this week i actually have really appreciated it. i'm going again today and am looking forward to it very much. chris is going to come and try his first yoga class, ever. and it's a hard one to start out on, bikram's beginning yoga class. i think it'll be fun. trikonasana, here i come.
my art show at caffetto is finally up. it took me til almost a third of the month was through to get the whole thing up, but at least now it's there and i think it looks pretty alright. i've sold at least one piece so far. yay.
i have a three day weekend from work because of the good doctor, and i'm really excited for what i have planned! in the spirit of mlk, kara and i are going to volunteer at our old place of volunteerism, accessability. it is the day program we worked at for a year through americorps. we worked with a group of adults with mental disabilities and we're going back on monday to hang out and do a watercolor painting class. i miss this group so much, and have been dreaming about them lately, so i'm super excited to see them! we're going to try to hang the paintings in a local coffee shop and sell them to make money for the program. as a nonprofit they don't have a very large budget: only about $100 a month for twentysome adults to do activities, classes, and outings with. we displayed and sold some of their paintings last september at caffetto and they made about $300!
this afternoon i'm babysitting joe, the four year-old son of the yoga studio owners (as a trade for free class). maybe we'll go iceskating!

new blog

new blog, i hope you're better than the last
new blog, my favorite meal is breakfast