brainxplosion

4: number of times I hit snooze this morning
2: number of pimples in my nose (one per nostril)
7: number of outfits I tried on
30: number of minutes it took me to get dressed (argh!)
3: number of creases running straight down my pantsleg
1: approved number of creases in pantsleg
eleventy billion: number of times I wished Jennifer was here to cut my hair real quick (or style it, or help me pick a hat)
13: number of times I considered calling in sick because of my fashion and hair emergencies
1: number of times I started panicking because I just saw how late it was
10: number of minutes I was early for work (so much for panicking)
7: number of insipid radio stations I listened to on my way to work
0: number of infected sinuses - hehehe
1: number of suddenly sore again throats
1: number of thermoses full of tea I'm drinking
32: estimated number of dreams for a bathroom makeover, all hatched at the hardware store after work
eleventy hundred :estimated number of dollars bathroom makeover might cost *sigh*
0: estimated number of dollars budgeted for bathroom makeover
1: number of phonecalls from a random Spanish-speaking guy who asked if I needed somebody to do work for me
1: number of phonecalls from guys cold-calling to ask for work needed to put bathroom makeover into perspective

Too lazy to write an actual post? Bullet points to the rescue!

* I declared myself cured of The Cold From Hell and went back to work on Friday. I kept the coughing at a minimum and even though it was work, it was good to be back. Now I have to come to terms with the fact that I have to actually go back to work again tomorrow. Hmpf.

* Yesterday, I slept in (and I never sleep in). I was up for a little while, then I went back to bed to read. The material (The Hobbit, the "enchanting prelude to The Lord of the Rings" as the cover of the book claims) was boring enough to put me back to sleep for two hours. Ahhhh.

* I randomly remembered this one guy I met this one time. Let me tell you that story. When I was 19, I (and a highly qualified team) went on a two-week vacation with a group of 11-13 year old girls. We stayed on a ranch somewhere in the East of Germany, close to the border to the Czech Republic (this is code for the middle of nowhere). Quite against my expectations, girls kept falling off horses left and right (and down), so we spent quite a bit of time at the local emergency room. One day, one of the adults fell off her horse and was (and stayed) unconsicous. She was taken to the next bigger hospital in an ambulance and I was chosen to accompany her. I spent about an hour shotgun with this old MT with an impressive grey beard. Hint: This is the guy I was talking about in the beginning of this bullet point. Take heart, the story is almost over. It took a while (I was nervous/worried), but I finally noticed that his beard was tucked into his shirt. And, more importantly, there was a little tuft of hair (beard hair, no less) peeking out from under his shirt (does this still qualify as facial hair?). So I got him to pull out his beard so I could see it in all its glory, and it was really impressive. At Christmastime, he goes around the orphanages playing Santa. If he was going for sainthood, he'd totally have my vote.
BTW, the faller-off-the-horse was fine.

* The Olympic closing ceremonies are on TV. YMCA, people? Kinda cool, actually.

* We watched The Incredibles last night. Very good. HOWever: When Dash is called to the office, and his mom meets him there, you will notice that the baby is NOT in the office. On the way home, the baby is in the car. Hmmmm. Leaving your baby in the car: incredible, but NOT super.

* That's all, folks.

I was late-evening web-browsing and happened upon this article on lactose intolerance. I was only looking for cooking tips, since my dad is lactose-intolerant and ALSO COMING TO VISIT YAY. I quickly realized that this article wasn't going to help me, but the last paragraph caught my eye:

If you're severely lactose intolerant (which is quite rare) and must avoid dairy products altogether, be sure to incorporate calcium-rich foods in your diet, such as calcium-fortified orange juice or milk, tofu, almonds and green vegetables. "It's not easy for the body to absorb calcium from these sources, however," cautions Gerbstadt, so eat as much of them as you can.

I added the emphasis for your convenience.
And now, go replace the milk in your diet with milk.

It all makes sense now! My fickle cold has turned into a sinus infection, more specifically, maxillary sinusitis on the left*. I diagnosed it with the help of the sudden, very localized pain in my face and with that of my BFF, webmd. Things I found out on the internet that made me go OH!:
1. Maxillary Sinusitis can make your teeth ache (upper teeth esp.). REMEMBER how I said that my gums were itchy? The itch morphed into irritated gums in my upper left (!) jaw. OH!
2. Often, sinusitis comes after days of cold symptoms. OH!
3. Make sure your sinusitis heales completely, or it might become CHRONICAL. OH CRAP!

[Aside: Did you know worms are the only disease-free organisms on earth? TV is not dumbing me down. ER reruns are a good thing. Oh, if only I could be a disease-free worm...]

Anyhoo. So there I was, with a sudden pain. The internet, which is usually brilliant, was completely silent as to what to do, and 3. (see above) freaked me out a bit. I saw a diagram of the sinuses on the internet and decided that it would help to hang upside down. I WAS SO RIGHT! Some of the pain and pressure were relieved. Then, I went to the drugstore to get a superhero decongestant.
And right next to the decongestants, I saw IT.


Yup. You squirt saline solution up one nostril until it drips out of the other one. This is pretty gross and a bit uncomfortable, but really not at all as icky as it sounds. It can even be hilarious: Sometimes, when you finish squirting and look down into the sink, you will see little printed letters. And you will freak out a little, because it looks like the letters came out of your nose! And then you will notice that that's impossible and your mind will jump to the next conclusion, which is that you pumped little letters into your nose and now you might have leftover letters in your nose and OH MY no wonder your sinuses are infected! This will continue until you realize that the little letters came off the outside of the bottle and that there is no way they could've gotten into the bottle.


Note the missing letters on the squirty bottle.

And now I have a little date with George Clooney. Goodbye.


*For our international readers: Nebenhoehlenvereiterung.

This may be a movie only SoCalys can laugh about, but it just hits home. Especially if you've been a live-in nanny before. Hereby highly recommended.
English class:
"Romeo and Juliet - who does that make you think of?"
"Claire Danes?"
"Good, who else?"
"Leonardo DiCaprio"
Hehehehe.

And any movie that has Jack Black in it? Just watch it and enjoy the INSANITY!

Why don't you click on this link and ruthlessly judge my personality?
Just a girl is doing this, so I figured I'd jump on her bandwagon.

This is my last SPT. I've realized that I signed up for SPT for all the wrong reasons. I was looking for a way to keep this site going and interesting at the same time. Truth is, I'm just not ready for the kind of public self-reflection that is needed to make SPT meaningful. I know that's a weird thing to say on a blog, which is supposed to be a public personal journal. I'm not a journaler. I don't write my deepest & darkest stuff down on a daily basis (which doesn't mean I don't confront it/think about it/discuss it with others). My blog is space for me to finish my sentences without being interrupted by people with different opinions*. I don't have a problem with self-reflection, but the format of HAVING TO do it every Tuesday is too rigid for me. The themes rub me the wrong way for the same reason. There are some things that will never be discussed on this website, and that's that.
So... we'll have self-reflection, and we'll have pictures, but it won't be on a regular basis, because I'm not a friend of too much discipline.
The end.

PS: Now look who just got all self-reflective on a Tuesday with a picture!

*This is not a poorly masked criticism of my husband.

Cold. Evil, very evil. Sonja? Whiny, so whiny. And frustrated. I feel like crap over here!!! The Cold from Hell moves in waves.
Sunday - sick
Monday - well enough to go to work
Tuesday - near death
Wednesday - pretty good, feeling like going back to work on Thursday
Thursday - almost as bad as Tuesday
Friday - okay but weak, so weak
Saturday - optimistic but weak, so weak
Sunday - pissed off about being sick STILL AFTER A WEEK ON THE COUCH, DAGNABIT!

home remedies I tried:
1) Soak towel in cold water, wrap around feverish calves, wrap dry towel around it, let wet towel soak fever out of body. Especially fun at 1 am when freaking out over a fever that wasn't that high which I would've found out had I bothered to convert the silly Fahrenheit degrees into a sensible measurement, like Celsius.

2) Chew gum to make sore throat bearable. Successful? Doubtful!

3) Boil some water in a pot, then sit with a blanket (or towel) over your head and inhale the steam. Add chamomille or eucalyptus oil to the water. Repeat as needed. This really helped - basically a supercharged humdifier.

Assorted complaints:
1. Cough. Oh the cough. To the point of gagging. Argh.
2. Soreness of the throat, and pain - PAIN - when I swallowed. This lasted for 6 days and lozenges did NOT HELP. In the least.
3. Nasal congestion. Especially fun when your throat is sore because breathing through your mouth is just the thing for that. Makes the throat nice and leathery.
4. Skin under nose/over lips has this angry red tint and dry flakes, which makes blowing the nose so much more thrilling.
4. My gums are itching. Web MD is completely silent on this topic. HELP!
5. Newest addition to the symptom family: eye infection. Might be pinkeye.

I might go to a kick-butt urgent care tomorrow. Last time I went to one, I ended up taking steroid pills for an eye infection.

Clearly, my life is over. It was nice knowing all of you. Goodbye.

PS: I was going to add a picture, but I look disgusting and sick, and the internet is moody and can't be bothered to help me find a picture that fits, so no picture, people. Sorry.

This morning, I got to leave the house! For the first time in almost a week! I was excited! And also exhausted from getting ready (which involved putting a beanie over my bed head)! D. and I went to the grocery stores, which is a neverending delight, especially on Saturdays.
I have several lingering questions.

1.) Why do things such as cranberries with orange flavor and cranberries with cherry flavor exist? I've accidentally tasted an orange-flavored cranberry before and it was nasty. Very nasty. It falls under the category of fruit cruelty and should be outalwed. If you want a dried ruit that tastes like cherry? Eat a DRIED CHERRY. It's not rocket science, you know?!

2.) Why does the majority of pasta sauces have sugar in them? Sweetened tomato sauce, much like orange-flavored cranberries, is nasty (and not just a little nasty). At the very least, offer the same sauce with and without. And Paul Newman, I'm especially dissappointed with you. Baaaaad gourmet actor.

3.) An open letter to grocery baggers far and wide:
What do you get when you load 5 cans of refried beans and two glass jars of jelly into one flimsy plastic bag? Any takers? Let it marinate and think about this: What happens when you practically throw above mentioned bag (coz you gotta kinda throw it coz it's like, all heavy and stuff) on top of the bananas? Need to think about that one, too?
All I gotta say is this: Grocery stores need to hire people for baggers who have at least 6 months experience. Not in grocery bagging, in grocery shopping.

Bitter? Me? Why do you ask?

(click to enlarge)


This is my smart, cool, beautiful friend Marion her and husband Mike, who is perfect for her. They got married last summer, and I just found a CD with gobs and gobs of pictures of the event.
These are good people, and I miss them.

I updated my list of "things about me" (see sidebar) and finally uploaded some more pictures onto flickr. You're welcome.

...you put mentholated ointment under your nose and you CANNOT smell it. At all.

The good news is that that was yesterday, and today is much better. I still feel pretty crappy, but well enough to sit on the couch, drink tea, and watch ER reruns and other high quality daytime TV.
Since little is going on in my life, I shall entertain you with ideas I've had for posts that never made it.

1. I noticed that the boys in my Spanish class usually show up with no supplies whatsoever. What in the world? Do they not take notes? Or do they carry notepaper folded up in the back pockets of their baggy lowrider-look-at-my-underwear jeans?*
I have to admit that I am an enabler - I let people share my book. I'm nice that way.

2. I overheard a conversation between two girls at the college bookstore. It's been a while, so I don't remember all of the details, but it involved a lot of talk about using the jacuzzi to store a vast number of kegs and how much fun that party would be. You know, when her parents, like, go out of town and stuff?

3. The return policy for said college bookstore includes a paragraph about shrinkwrapped items and the fact that once the shrinkwrap is opened, they are non-returnable. There are no exceptions and "Saran wrap is unacceptable." Hehehe.

**********UPDATED TO ADD**********

4. Why, why, why, I ask you, doesn't the bleach bottle have a pouring spout? WHY IN THE WORLD DOESN'T IT? Oh, I know. Let's not be too convenient, shall we?! And no, I didn't just splash bleach onto my favorite sweater. But for a moment, I thought I did.

*What is it, BTW, with boys wearing their belts over both their belt loops AND their boxers that are sticking out of their pants. Is it so hard to understand that if it's called underwear, it should be WORN UNDER clothing???
Crap. I'm old. Someone help me - I have a quarter-life crisis.

Rufus won!
He wasn't my first choice though - I'm all for hot dogs.

Anyhoo. All the talk about this super dog show reminds me of one of the best movies on the planet: Best in Show.

It's (almost) as quotable as The Princess Bride.
"Get the busy bee! She is freaking out!!!"
"I have two left feet. They used to call me Loopy."
"We could talk or not talk for hours and still find things not to talk about."
"What are you, some kind of wizard? You stupid hotel manager!"
"Bratwurst and Shelele! Paging Dr. Freud."
"Pine Nut - which is a nut, but it's also the name of the town."

I'm sick and miserable. I don't think I've been this sick in years.
And guess what I had to do. Just guess.
No, that's not it.
I had to go to my neighbors' house to borrow a plunger for my overflowing toilet. We are a really, uh, close-knit community.
Happy Valentine's Day, people.

Today is my blog anniversary. This was my first post, and it's as true now as it was a year ago. Except for that bit about the gym, because I don't go there anymore. Enjoy!

Monday, February 14, 2005
Hallmark Holiday

So... it's one of those days. We buy candy and overpriced flowers and go on dates to crowded, expensive restaurants and give stuffed animals (that aren't even that cute) to mature adults. And why? Because the calendar says it's corporately sponsored romance day. Can you feel the love?

I went to the gym tonight, and it was great. No problems with parking...

I'd love to write a deeply reflective post about all the things that have changed over the past year, but working with kids makes you vulnerable, so I am currently battling The Cold From Hell with all the fun, feverish excitement this implies.

I'm finding that The Princess Bride is extremely versatile in its quotability. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"Life is pain, your highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something."
"Only a few more steps, and we'll be safe in the fireswamp!"
"Have you heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons!"
"I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."
"Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!"
"Unless I am wrong, and I am never wrong."
"You are very good"-"I've worked hard to become so."
"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
"If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."
"And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest."
"Have fun storming the castle!"
"As you wish."

If you have not seen this movie, it's about time.

I haven't posted about this much, but it's been over a month since I graduated with my credential, and I spent some of that time in agony over being unable to find a teaching job. Finally, a friend suggested I apply as an instructional aide. Initially, I was less than thrilled because I WANNA BE THE TEACHER, but then the idea started to make sense - a lot of sense. I applied in the morning, got a call just a few hours later, and went to an interview two days after. The day after the interview they called to offer me a job and I was skippy and happy and joyful.
This Monday was my first day. I have two struggling third-graders basically to myself. They come in from 8-11:15, and during that time, I do language arts and math with them. Then I try and squeeze in 15 minutes in a classroom with two girls who "need help with math," which is pretty pointless because 15 minutes is nothing. I'm done at 11:30, which is awesome because I don't have to pack a lunch. And let me tell you what I hate: packing lunches.
Starting next Monday, I will be doing after school Homework Club twice a week for an hour each time. Which is sweet because it pays reeeeeally well (at least compared to my other job).
I also get two things I never got for any other job before EVER:
1. paid holidays (though not during my 6-month probationary period - grrrrr)
2. an assigned parking spot (which rocks because it is IN THE SHADE)
So I'm happy and skippy and joyful, because I like this job. Lots.

The theme for January was "personal history." Last Tuesday was actually still in January, so I should've used January's theme. Since I skipped ahead last week, I'll skip backwards (??) this week and give you:

Five-year-old Sonja holding zero-year-old baby sister.

I was writing deeply felt reflections about the fog, but my thoughts refused to be committed to paper (or rather, website), so let me just say this: I love the fog. I like that things look strange and different while remaining familar at the same time. I always feel some suspense, as though something is about to happen. At the same time, I feel mysteriously comforted with a certainty that I am safe and nothing can happen to me.

Here's a great post from my friend Grace.

get your own at snapshirts

I declare myself famous. (Andy Warhol said I'd get my 15 minutes sometime.)
The very person who cuts my hair is going to be in TV here in 10 minutes. She is giving a geek a makeover on Beauty and the Geek 2 fromthedaringmindofashtonkutcherblahblahcommercialmakesmewanttovomit. She will be waxing a hairy chest.
Better get my popcorn started...

Things that have made me cry lately:
1) Movies - I cried at the end of 50 First Dates. I sniffled during Last Holiday (which was excellently warm & fuzzy).
2) crap on TV
2a) COMMERCIALS! Seriously - what's wrong with me??? There is this one commercial for the California Lottery. Two girls wake up, run to the window to look out, get very excited, race into their parents' bedroom yelling "You were right, you were right!" Then they run outside, where the yard is covered in snow. The camera pans, and we see that there is a huge snowblower-thingy that covered only their house in snow. The street sign says "City of San Diego" Then we zoom in on the parents standing in the doorway. She asks him "Are you going to do this every day?" He answers "Maybe," and I sob (a little).
2b) Little kids and dogs. I don't know why. WHY???
3) Internet stuff. Birth stories like Amalah's.

Now what is this? Hormones? The dreaded, highly overrated biological clock? Some female gene that suddenly decided to kick in?
What happened to me?

1. I don't like getting in the shower when the tub is already wet.
2. I have a personalized license plate.
3. I like reading others' blogs more than I like to update my own.
4. I have a love/hate relationship with reality TV.
5. I wish I could be more put together.

6. I get frustrated with my body for not being healthy when I'm sick.
7. I laugh about my own jokes. Often enough, I'm the only one laughing.
8. I'm addicted to Su Doku.
9. I hate making sandwiches. Hate it. So much.
10. I have a love/hate relationship with The Lord of the Rings movies.

11. I'm a stickler for correct spelling and grammar. (I was actually reluctant to write this down because commenters will now be sure to point out all of my inadequacies in this department. Is that how you spell inadequacies??? Help!)
12. Am a bit anal. Sometimes.
I will update this list peridoically - so keep checking the link in the sidebar!