Favorite Word o' the Day: #2

eponymous

–adjective

giving one's name to a tribe, place, etc.: Romulus, the eponymous founder of Rome.

(I learned this word while reading Bill Bryson's latest book, At Home.)

An 11-month novel

I love Russian literature. A couple of years ago, I read Tolstoy's War and Peace for the fun of it.

Today, I'd like to announce that I have finished Anna Karenina, just about eleven months after I started it. It is only 800 and some-odd pages; but for some reason, it took me about seven-eight months longer to finish it than to finish War and Peace.

Whatever. I finished it today. And now I must be off, in search of another ridiculously long book to read in between all my other, shorter books. I'm thinking about Tristram Shandy. Any other suggestions?

The Dress, #1

About a month ago, I started working at a bridal boutique in Rochester, MN - a job that is quite right for me in many ways, not the least of which is the fact that I get to look (and touch) pretty dresses for 30-ish hours a week.

I knew this job would come with certain hazards, and I fell into one of the snares today: declaring a dress to be The Dress for my (someday) wedding.

Today, The Dress is a Sottera and Midgely dress. Feast your eyes upon the wonders of...

Wa-Bam. Artsy hem, nontraditional color, A-line, $1000+.

Of course, next week, I could find a different The Dress. I'll be sure to share my finds with you. :-)

UPDATE: the link was no longer good - I think the dress must have been discontinued this year. Fortunately, I had emailed it to myself, so I have a picture.

The Culture Shock Continues

Perhaps the two hardest things to get used to are the two things that were unique to Oregon: gas and sales tax.

Nine years ago, I scoffed at Oregonians who didn't know how to pump their own gas. I chafed at having my freedom to pump gas taken from me. Then I got my own car, and I rather enjoyed being able to read while having my gas pumped for me.

Little did I know, I was forgetting how to perform such a task myself. I guess pumping my own gas once or twice a year in Washington didn't keep my skills up to date. Last month, on our road trip to Oklahoma, I got out to pump my gas, I drove away, and realized 300 miles later at my next fill-up that I'd left the gas cap behind.

Nine years ago, I was a whiz at calculating sales tax in my head. I worked retail, and I could usually guess - to the penny - how much something was going to cost before I rang it up.

Then I lived in a wonderful world in which the price on the tag/menu was the price one would actually pay. Even in other countries, the tax was included in the printed price. Now, I live in a state where food and clothes have no sales tax, but everything else does.

I ordered a drink for $4.35 at Starbucks today, and the cashier said, "That comes to $4.65." I was like, "The sign says $4.35." "Yes," she patiently explained as though she runs across it every day. "It's $4.35 plus some tax."

Sigh. One day, I'll have it figured out.

Let the Holidays Begin

Happy National Punctuation Day!

Do you remember Victor Borge who did a skit about punctuation marks and how they would sound if said aloud? Well, he was on the Dean Martin Show back in the day, and the two of them adapted the routine to be a two-person bit. I think I had tears streaming down my eyes because it was so funny.

Enjoy!


And here's one of my favorite grammar vandalism stories of the year, in which a disgruntled customer decided to take snarkiness to a new level:
http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_15622794?source=rss

Also, here are a couple of pics of how I celebrated National Punctuation Day two years ago, when I worked at Travel Connection:

A Quest Fulfilled

I am a coffee snob. More accurately, a coffee shop snob.

I was not aware of this fact until I moved away from the Northwest, and it took me over a month to find a good coffee shop in my new town.

The ingredients for a good coffee shop:

• The aroma of coffee gently wafting around you as you walk in (coffee must not be burnt or so faint that you have to sniff for it)
• The kind of menu that you can read and improvise on (the more chalkboards and Sharpeed-out words the better)
• Comfy chairs - at least four
• Outlets, and plenty of them
• Local art on the walls (doesn't matter if it's good art)
• Baristas who don't wear uniforms, and who actually keep up with you when you order drinks not on the menu
• Free wifi
• Good coffee

Not so hard to find, right? Wrong. The best coffee I'd found in Rochester until today was at the drive-through coffee shop that my sister works out. Good coffee, but not a good place to take my laptop and hang out with free wifi.

Today - today, at last - I found a coffee shop that effortlessly blends all these ingredients to create a coffee shop that would make the Northwest...well, if not proud, at least comfortable. Now I can relax. Now, with a cup of autumn splendor in my hand, free wifi at my fingertips, and the swirl of coffee conversations mixing up the perfect atmosphere, I am home.

Favorite Word o' the Day: #1

Autodidact: 
–noun

a person who has learned a subject without the benefit of ateacher or formal education; a self-taught person.

Minnesota Likes and Dislikes

I've been here a month and a day, so I thought I'd share my lists of things I like and don't like about life in Minnesota so far.

Don't like: the parking lots. They never have enough in/out places, and I wind up driving around and around (either outside the parking lot trying to get in, or inside the parking lot trying to get out).
Do like: the speed limits. Highways are 60-65, and even residential areas are 30.

Don't like: the scarcity of good coffee. I didn't realize how much of a coffee snob I was until I moved away from the Pacific Northwest.
Do like: the abundance of super shopping. In Rochester, a town of about 100,000 people, we have two Super Targets, two Super Wal*Marts, and a mall. Plus, the Mall of America is only 90 minutes away.

Don't like: the early closing hours. Would you believe Super Target closes at 10:00 p.m.? Ridiculous.
Do like: the elbow room. It's not as crowded here, even though there are three times as many people as in Newberg. And Minneapolis has mostly two-way streets downtown because - gasp - there's room for them.

Don't like: how it was summer one day and fall the next. Where's my transition?
Do like: the thunderstorms. I've never seen so much lightning in my life, as I've seen here in one month.

Don't like: living in the middle of the continent. How am I supposed to know which way is West without the ocean nearby?
Do like: living in the Central Time Zone. No one on the continent is more than two hours away from me. (This one has its cons, though, since all my friends except a couple live outside the Central Time Zone, and it's hard to keep track.)

I have mixed feelings about:
* the accent. It's like a Canadian accent on steroids (to quote my sister).
* the location of the city I live in; there's a lot of stuff here, but you have to go a long way to get anything that's not.
* the whole dressing-up-for-work culture. I kind of liked the dressing-down atmosphere of Portland. Even at my "business casual" jobs, we could usually take our shoes off.

The hardest thing about moving to a new state: not knowing ANYthing. Like who the gubernatorial candidates are (or even when the election is), where to get the best cup of coffee, how far away things are, when to put the trash on the curb, and which street my house is on.

The most fun thing about moving to a new state: not knowing ANYthing. ;-)

In Defense of "Like"

Many are the times I’ve heard an older person descry young people’s (over)use of the word “like.” I am here today to defend its usage in language, in everyday speech, and – yes – in the vocabulary of young people.

Like is such a versatile word. Up there with the word “okay,” which I know old people use frequently. Here are some of the many ways it is used:

·         CONJUNCTION: To replace “as if” or “as though.” As an editor, I defend this usage because it cuts the needed words by 50%.

Example: “He asked me to do the solo – like I know how to sing or something.”

·         ADJECTIVE: To substitute for “approximately” or the suffix “-ish.” As an English-speaker, I defend this usage because it is much easier to say than “approximately” and less tacked-on than “-ish.”

Example: “The solo is like five hours long.”

            “I thought it was 230 minutes.”

            “Something like that.”

·         PUNCTUATION: To indicate quoted speech coming up (in verbal communication only). I defend this usage because it means that we don’t have to say “comma, opening quotation marks” and then “closing quotation marks” when we’re quoting someone in speech.

Example: “I was like what, me? And he was like yeah, I think you have a nice voice. Then I was like thanks I guess.”

·         VERB: It provides an alternative to the word “love.” As a writer, I defend this usage because the word “love” is overused and undervalued.

Example: “I liked the solo, but I didn’t love it; it wasn’t as good as last year’s.”

·         INTERJECTION: It replaces the word “um.” As a former student of speech class, I defend this usage because “um” gets really annoying.

Example: “What did you think of, like, the choir robes?”

“Honestly, like, color was okay, but the style was kind of early-90s.”

·         PRONOUN(?): To hedge around things that you might not exactly know, or at least don’t want to take responsibility for. As a talkative person, I defend this usage because it means I don’t have to think for a long time before I say some things.

Example: “There was like a red choir robe and a black choir robe I could choose from.” (NOTE: This could mean that the choir robes were pink and dark green; but use of the word “like” gives the speaker wiggle-room.)

And if you’re really short on vocabulary, you can always use them all at the same time: “When he was like, I liked it, I was like stunned or something. I mean, like, the singer did an awesome job – not like last year when it was like soooooo boring, I like fell asleep. Anyway, it’s not like he even knows what he’s talking about.”

Bad Blue Beta

Last Sunday, I went to the pet store to buy a fish (since my fishbowl was looking rather lonely, and it was starting to collect random crap from my room). 

I got to PetSmart and found out that my only choice for a non-filtered, non-heated fishbowl was a beta. I'm not a huge fan of betas since they are pretty typical. I mean, someone says they have a fish, and you're like, "what kind?" and they're always like "goldfish" or "beta." But some of the betas at the fish store were blue, which intrigued me since I'd never seen blue ones. And the lady there said it was okay to put a male and female together in the same bowl. 

So I got a male and female (both blue) and named them Percy and Mary Shelley, hoping they'd fall in love and make babies...or at least not kill each other.

Well, they've been pretty lazy and non-interested in each other. Until today. 

When I changed their water this morning, it looked like they were playing together nicely, and I had high hopes for my little fishy romance. This evening, my mom looked at them and said, "I think he's eating her." 

Sure enough, Mary's fin was chewed on, and some scales were missing from both sides of her face. So I had to move her to one of my mom's glass mixing bowls, and she seems much happier. 

I feel kinda bad that Percy and Mary's marriage ended so badly; but I did my part in stopping domestic beta violence today, and I feel good about that.

But now I have to get Mary Shelley her own fish bowl so my mom can have her mixing bowl back. Pet ownership is SUCH a big responsibility.

I'm famous!

I took the picture featured in a post on the SPOGG blog. (SPOGG = Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar.)

On an unrelated note: National Punctuation Day is September 24. How are you planning to celebrate?

Our New House

So now that the house is pretty much put together, I thought I'd share some photos. :-)

But before we get to pics of the house, I wanted to show you these. We moved over 2000 books, not including my 350-ish.

Okay, now to the house.

We have a red door! It makes me happy.

We also have three floors. Here is the basement, with my room...

...my bathroom...

...and my dad's study.

I call this his "smart wall" because it makes him seem smart and scholarly.

Here is the main floor, with the furniture-less living room...

...the dining room...

...kitchen...

...family room...

...and guest bathroom.

And here is the top floor, with the master bathroom (note the earring holder I designed for my mom)...

...the master bedroom (my parents found their dream four-poster bed on craigslist last week)...

...my sister's room (which she's planning to redecorate as soon as she can afford it)...

...and the boys' room.

We also have a nice big, shady backyard; but I don't have any good pics of it.

So far, I'm still looking for a job; but I have a few applications out, and I hope it won't be long before I land in that perfect job with great co-workers, perfect hours, and pleasant customers. (Okay, so I'm dreaming a bit.)

Road trip!

The road trip from Newberg, OR to Rochester, MN was pretty epic, I must say. My 20-year-old brother and I split the driving of my car, with our two younger bros in the back. And our parents drove the truck - well, my dad did while my mom kept him awake (my dad's affinity for sleeping at the wheel is legendary in our family).

We drove through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Minnesota. I have to say that the speed limits in Montana were pretty nice; my bro and I drove like vampires. ;-) South Dakota was the most unfriendly, and Idaho was the most beautiful.

Along the way, we...

Played with our food

Toured the Lewis and Clark Caverns

Met some bison in Yellowstone National Park (This one's name is Bill, and he said he's not responsible for any of the people-goring that happens in the park.)

Saw more Harleys than any one person could ever fathom (there was a rally in Sturgis, SD)

Snapped a family pic at Mt. Rushmore

And got very well-acquainted with the open road.

The day we arrived in Rochester, it was triple-digit weather with double-digit humidity. Everyone who showed up to help us unload the truck (the whole church, basically) took showers in their own sweat. Eeeeewwwww.

But we're glad to be here, done driving, and settling in. Somewhere in the midst of last-minute Super Target runs, assembling furniture, and job-hunting, I've not had time to take pics of the house; it's a bit of a mess anyway, really. You're not missing anything, trust me.

Life Lessons - Moving Time

Things I learned whilst moving:

• It's kind of a bad idea to have ANY wasted space; if you do, your mom will make you repack, and your stuff may just not make the cut.
• It's good to be a girl:
• Boys carry things for you.
• You can balance things on your hips. Honestly, I don't know how guys carry all that stuff using only their arms.
• I didn't know everything about my family. On the road trip, I learned that:
• Jeremy is afraid of heights.
• Josiah is unable to sleep at normal hours.
• My parents can be tourists (albeit American ones).
• My mom still thinks that "pee" is a bad word, and she disapproves of going 10 miles over the speed limit. In Montana. Where there are no other cars. Or turns in the road, for that matter.

We arrived safely in our new town of Rochester, Minn on Tuesday. Road trip and new house pics in the next post!

Pre-move processing

Someone asked me the other day what I'd miss about Portland. Fortunately, my list-making brain had already started a list. Here is what I said, plus a few other things in random order:

• The Max. I love trains, and I love that I live within walking distance of the Portland metro area train.
• Powell's. 'Nuff said.
• The absolute crazy addiction to coffee. I've seen espresso shops attached to more businesses than is remotely reasonable. The other day, I even saw an espresso shop/tanning salon. Yay for P-town.
• The downtown bridges.
• No sales tax.
• Not having to pump my own gas.
• My church.
• Of course, my friends.

And here's what I'm not going to miss about Portland:

• My crazy loud neighbors with screeching children. That's right, screeching.
• Living alone. Technically, I have a roommate, but I see her about once every two or three weeks.
• Driving downtown.
• The dreary "summer" mornings.

 I'm sure I'll have similar lists about Minnesota pretty soon.

Moving craziness

It seems like the last four months or so have been full of good-byes, so I'm pretty eager to get to Rochester, Minn. and start my new life there.

Between today and next Sunday (the day we get out of Dodge), though, I have to get everything on my to-do lists done. Moving as an adult is a lot of work! I have to shut down utilities, arrange roommate move-out schedules, make sure every person moves out with the right stuff, figure out what to do with my plants and fish...and the list goes on and on and...

Just thinking about it makes me tired. So excuse me - I need to rustle up some lunch and keep on labeling boxes.