Cars and crazy people

We’ve got our car back now. Just picked it up this evening. The final cost was around $1700. The insurance appraised the damage at $1000, and we have a $300 deductible, so we ended up paying the difference: $1000. Yeah. So now our savings is significantly diminished. Again. I hate cars. I hate money. And it took JeT five hundred phone calls to get the insurance company to fax over the appropriate document to the shop so that we didn’t have to pay the whole thing up front and then be reimbursed. They were all “sure, we’ll fax that over.” Then the next day JeT would call the shop and there all “Um, no. No fax yet.” Another phone call (different rep answers): “Oh, yeah. We have all the info we need. We’ll totally fax that right over.” The next day same thing. Seriously. It’s like they get paid extra for every time we have to phone in to give them info they already have and to ask them something they told us they’d do nine times. /rant

I’m glad this week is over. And now, some fun:

Overheard Misheard on the red line (at Park Street):
Crazy man: Get off the train!! I’M ON A MISSION!!!

Turns out he wasn’t really crazy. He was just on the phone, yelling to someone who was (presumably) on the train, and he wasn’t saying “I’m on a mission” but rather “I’m going to miss you.” As in, if you don’t get off the train, we won’t be able to meet up, because you’re going to be on the train as it pulls out of the station. But still. The misheard version is way funnier. And more succinct.

Overheard on Church Street, Cambridge:
Man exiting Starbucks to no one in particular: It’s a Haaahvahd scaaahf! It’s a Haaaahvahd scaaahf!!! (exaggerated accent and arrogant head waggle)

At first I thought he was saying it to the woman going in to Starbucks, but she wasn’t really wearing a Harvard scarf. Then as he crossed the road, he just kept repeating it to every passerby he saw. It was too cold to stop to observe him further, and I was running late for work. I picture him trying out other Boston-area accents and testing them on the streets of Cambridge. How many micro-regional accents can he road test before he gets carted away? Hurrah for street linguistics!

My favorite crazy/surreal moment in the city happened last summer: I’m on the bus, going to work, right? I’m thinking about zombies, like you do, and wondering what the best way to fend them off in the city would be. Where would be the best gathering spot for survivors (somewhere with beer, right? We were riding past the Squealing Pig at that point, so that may have influenced my thinking a bit), what the best weapons would be (I’m sure the geese wandering around the Fenway wouldn’t mind sacrificing themselves for the cause), etc. When what do my overactive-imagination-fueled eyes see? This dude lurching and lurching himself across the sidewalk right in front of us, and no one seems to notice that there’s totally a zombie just walking around Boston. And then, I think “I’m totally going to be the first person to die, because I’m the one that sees them first, and no one is going to listen to me until it’s too late and they see me get eviscerated.” And then the guy comes into better view, and he’s not a zombie at all, but actually someone with some sort of disability.

This and that

I’ll start with the not-so-good so we can end on a positive note, yes?

1. Friday was hell: I was running late for work. They don’t plow the road into the train station very well, and I slid down the hill and crashed into the curb on the turn into the parking lot. I did manage to pull into a space and still make my train, because there was no way I was going to deal with that mess while it was still snowing. We borrowed JeT’s mom’s car on Saturday and went back to get our car towed to the shop. Not good news: $1500 worth of damage. Pretty much everything but the axle was busted. We’re waiting on the insurance appraisal, because there’s no way we can pay for that out of pocket. Not after this summer’s transmission debacle (which was also my fault, by the way). Feeling pretty lame. Oh, and during the adventures (see point #2 below) I slipped on the ice and fell on my giant bruise again. Double lame.
2. Friday continued: On the train ride home, JeT realizes that we have to go back into Boston because he has the only set of keys to the med room in his pocket. Luckily, we hadn’t passed Quincy yet, and were able to make the U-turn without incident. I was starving, so we decided to pretend to be tourists in the snow and go get food at Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market. We got Indian food. It was delicious. So, full bellied, we headed home in better spirits. Of course, we didn’t yet know the full damage of the car at this point. Alas.
3. I think I stayed in my jammies all day on Saturday. I can’t really remember.
4. Skipping to Monday, because I want to keep all the crappy stuff together: I did not have a very good practice last night. My knee took forever to warm up, so I only did half of the falling drills (which are actually quite fun). Then, during this one drill where we were practicing being jammers and blockers (alternating, of course) I was having a really hard time keeping up. Turns out it wasn’t just because my legs were aching. Apparently I stopped being able to breathe properly. I pulled over and skated around the outside of the track for a while trying to catch my breath. I could breathe out just fine, but it felt really constricted breathing in. Like in a bad panic attack when it feels like there’s a cave troll sitting on your chest. Well this was as if it was gripping my breathy tubes every time I tried to inhale. It was really freaky, and started to scare me a bit, but I was too angry to really be that scared. I mean, how dare my lungs freak out when I’m trying to learn something new and keep up with the rest of the girls. I hate feeling weak and I hate having to sit out a drill because of weakness. Oh, and while the other girls were learning jammer starts (you know, where you run on your toes for a bit to get up speed) I was still trying to recover my ability to breathe. They got to learn something cool while I had to gimp around the track like a big ball of weakness on wheels. /rant.
5. And I don’t feel at all well today, so I’m home sick.
6. Sunday was pretty awesome though: PRD had a scrimmage against Pioneer Valley Roller Derby. It was the Riveters against their travel team. We won by something like 158 to 21 or something crazy. It was still a really competitive bout, and was tons of fun to watch. Afterwards we went out to a local bar in Naragansett (or something). I rode with Hysterica and her boyfriend Jeff, aka, the Reverend Al Mighty. They were super nice and gave me a ride down to the scrimmage. I shall have to bake them cookies. At the bar, I felt pretty awkward at first. I never do well in crowded situations. Especially at bars. By nature I’m geeky and awkward. Like all of a sudden I’ve grown two extra feet, have eight arms, nine legs, and can’t seem to stand anywhere without being in someone’s way. But after a couple of beers I felt normal again and was able to talk to people like I wasn’t some sort of space alien. In the end, it was quite fun, and I’m glad I went. We didn’t get home until 1:30 in the morning though, so I was a bit of a zombie at work yesterday.
7. We got some great news on Monday: JeT got the job he interviewed for last week! Yay! It’s a step up the ladder at the place where he currently works. He’s very excited to start in two weeks. It’ll be more paperwork and less work with the clients, but it pays more. So, hooray for that. And hooray for JeT! I think we’re going to the Garden Grille before the Battle of the Bands, so if anyone wants to come help us celebrate, you’re more than welcome.
8. Saturday is the Battle of the Bands (see post below) and we need to bring a ton of people. This is a fundraiser for PRD, and you know you want to support your local derby girls, right? It starts early enough that if you wanted to come for a bit but leave before the wee hours of the morning, that would be cool, too!

Battle of the Bands!

Saturday, March 1st at the Living Room!
You know you wanna rock out and support PRD!!!
$10 for 9 bands!!!!

7:15-7:45 Doctrine
8-8:30 The Providence Morons
8:45-9:15 The Fashion Failures
9:30-10 PHI
10:15-10:45 Mustang Cobra
11-11:30 SEXCoffee
11:45-12:15 The Chasers
12:30-1 The Theorists
1:15-1:45 The Law

Happy Chocolate Day!

yum

So, JeT and I don’t actually celebrate Valentine’s Day. It just feels awkward and weird. One year, I went all out with a theme, “pink, red, and mellow” with a themed meal and a concert, but really, it was only because The Kings of Convenience were in town that week. So, in order to celebrate it, we have to coat it with a huge layer of irony and sarcasm, and I just didn’t have it in me this year. On the day in question, while scoffing at the dudes buying flowers in the depths of South Station (not even bothering to go upstairs to the good flower shop in the same station, sheesh) on their way home, I thought about a different way to celebrate the day.

Because I can’t just ignore it and hope it will go away; it’s way to In Yo Face, Foo! to just pretend it isn’t there, I decided instead of celebrating Love (TM), we should celebrate chocolate (and maybe flowers, but mostly chocolate). Now that’s a holiday I can get behind.

I do love JeT. Very much. I just don’t like Valentine’s Day. And not just because it’s all commercial. (Because I still like Christmas and Easter and Halloween, and those are just as commercialized.) It’s that I can’t shake the awkwardness of the whole thing. When I was single, it made me feel crappy. When I was coupled, it made me feel weird, like I was trying to live up to some expectation where the standards were set by some weird, faceless entity. Yeah. Awkward. No matter what. I’ve tried to do the whole “hooray for love” thing on 14 February, but it just feels… not good. Besides, diamond commercials make me… not happy. And I’m already annoyed and angered by all the other commercials out there this time of year: diet! Diet! DIET, bitches! Oh, and here’s an ad for junk food! /rage

But the celebration of chocolate, I can get behind. So, today I made awesome chocolates. On the right are ginger candies dipped in dark chocolate. In the middle are marzipan balls dipped in chocolate and rolled in coconut. And on the left is a dark chocolate bark made with raisins, dried blueberries, and coconut (because I got tired of dipping things). Yum!!!

Book meme

(From The Spinstah)

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence/ phrase.
4. Blog the next four sentences/ phrases together with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig your shelves for that very special or intellectual book.
6. Pass it forward to six friends.

In April 1943 a group of around thirty of us were gathered in this beautiful place so we could discuss how to embark on the most secret of all war projects. In the early phase of our work at Los Alamos there were many questions to be answered: Exactly how many neutrons are released with each fission of a uranium nucleus? What is the speed of these neutrons? How are the neutrons absorbed or scattered around when they penetrate different materials?

That’s from The Joy of Insight, the autobiography of Victor Weisskopf, who was second in command of the Theoretical Division of the Manhattan Project. I’m assisting in the processing of his collection at the MIT Archives. It’s been facinating, really. The book is in my work bag, hanging off the desk chair.

Though, if I were to quote my favorite passage from that book it would be this one:

He was a tall, rather heavily built man whose strong body, over-sized hands, and large skull made him look like the captain of a fishing fleet rather than a scientist. He had bushy eyebrows and a sharp, straight nose set in a long, broad face. His large head almost caused his death in 1943, when after fleeing from the Nazis he was transported from Sweden to London in a British warplane that flew very high to avoid antiaircraft fire. The helmet containing an intercom between him and the pilot was too small to fit his head, so he did not hear a warning to put on his oxygen mask. Luckily, the plane descended to a safer altitude so quickly that Bohr was not seriously affected.

That’s how Weisskopf introduces Niels Borh. It’s nice to know that in addition to being a brilliant physicist, Bohr had a giant head. Probably for to keep his huge brain.

Check it out!

new shoes

These are my brand, spankin’ new skates! Words do not express the excitement! Only exclamation points will do!!!!!

It still takes me a little while at the beginning of each practice to get my legs acclimated to rolling, instead of walking, but these made it much easier. They’re well balanced, they roll properly, and are not at all like a shopping cart (you know, where one of the wheels decides it would really rather be turning right, when you’re obviously trying to go left). I spent way more time at this practice actually maneuvering, instead of spending most of my energy just trying to stay up on my feet.

I still fell a helluva lot, but not because of the skates, more like because I’m not that good at steering around people when they fall right in front of me in the pack (during falling drills). (Click through to see a picture of my first big bruise.)

Well, I’m certainly invested now, since I dropped about $300 on gear, so I suppose I’d better go through with this. Not that I need much convincing. I heart my new skates. They are the rocking.

What I learned at roller derby practice:

wicked gross and awesome

(Yeah, you read that right.)

• I’m stronger than I thought I was
• I’m not that strong
• My butt hurts in unexpected places
• Blisters not only hurt, but are wicked gross
• I can’t wait to go back for more

Super Bento Party!

bento #26

We had friends over for a living room picnic bento party this afternoon. I made inari-zushi for the first time. It took us forever to find the abura-age (deep fried tofu pockets), but find them we did, and these little morsels were a hit, I think. I’m definitely making them again. The dumplings turned out yummy, as usual, thank goodness. I’d hate for people to come over and have them turn out yucky. I made three types of maki: carrot, red pepper, and baked tofu. There were all sorts of veggies and fruits and other sweets for people to eat, as well as cheeze and fauxlogne (that’s veggie bologne), and nori for garnishing.

Everyone seemed to enjoy filling their bento boxes and decorating their food (and eating it, of course). We made our lunches for tomorrow out of the leftovers. I’m sure there will be comments from my coworkers about it. Of course I love showing off my food, but there have been a couple of comments that have been really confusing. Not annoying or anything, just odd. Friday, for example, I was working in a different building than the one I usually work in, and so had lunch with different people. One person asked, “where’d you get that?” And I told them which store, to which she replied, “you buy your lunch their every day?” And on Thursday, another person asked, “Is it reusable?” This question really confused me, because, why would I buy a lunch box and not reuse it. People keep assuming that I buy the boxes with the food already in it, which I suppose would be really flattering (they must look good, eh?), if I understood right away that’s what they were asking. Instead, I just sort of look at them with a confused expression, until it dawns on me that I should probably explain that I pack my own lunches the night before.

Anyway, it was very fun to have people over to have lunch with us, bento style. Thank you all for eating with us, and I hope you all will enjoy your bento boxes and make yummy (and cute) lunches for yourself.