Obsessions

I have mentioned before that I tend to get a little obsessed about things sometimes. Here are some things that have been occupying my time lately:

The O.C. Disorder (don't call it that!)

For Christmas, my husband gave to me the complete series box set because it had apparently been on my Amazon wishlist for so long he felt bad for me. I am currently halfway through the second season and I remember why I liked the show so much-- it's over-the-top without being as sleazy as some of the teen shows that came afterward (see 90210: The New Class and Gossip Girl). This show was on at a time in my life where I didn't have any other cares in the world-- I had just graduated college and my responsibilities included working a slightly-higher-than-minimum-wage job and dating boys. It's been so nice to re-watch the show and feel nostalgic.

Simply Naked is Simply Delicious!

Even as I am typing this, I am snacking on these delicious chips. When we were in Texas, my sister had a bag of these and I tried to steal them but somebody got to them first. You can buy them at Costco. Normally I hate chips because they're too salty, but these are the perfect amount of saltiness and bakedness.

"Don't call me Bones!"

I'm not sure how I missed this for the first few seasons, especially since I am such a 5-in-the-morning fan of David Boreanaz and "Angel." Of course, this show follows precisely the formula of hot, young people working in jobs that hot, young people would never actually work in (genius scientists don't tend to be so well-coiffed), with the pairing of one genius who understands science but doesn't understand people (Temperence "Bones" Brennan) with a goofy-but-deadly FBI agent who understands people but not science (Seeley Booth). I'm not so snobby that I don't let this work for me and I recommend this show to anyone who likes a will-they-or-won't-they romance with their proceedurals.

Hidden Object games make me feel like I can bring order to chaos

I was never a fan of hidden object puzzles when I was a kid (except "Where's Waldo?") because they kind of stressed me out. So I'm not sure why I started playing Mystery Case File games online, but now I can't get enough of them. I usually buy presents for myself as a reward for finishing a term of school without failing any classes, and this past term I bought "Madame Fate" and played it for three days straight.

This misanthropic doctor saves lives and pops pills--
as opposed to other doctors who pop lives and save pills

My dad started talking about this show last year but I had never been interested. House sort of annoys me because his character is so mean. But then USA started running "House" marathons during times where I had a lot of time on my hands and nothing much else to do (like the days after Christmas). Right now my DVR is filled with episodes, but I can only watch one or two at a time because the show, which is about diagnosing "impossible cases," always makes me think I am dying from an embolism or rare genetic disorder.

If you take a UA, you can actually check a box
saying you've eaten poppyseeds

I love poppyseed muffins. I don't know why, especially since I'm not really a muffin fan. In the past I have gotten muffins from Costco, but that doesn't really work since there are three kinds to a box, so the chocolate and blueberry muffins get ignored, and also those muffins are so big it's like eating a sandwich. But I recently found this Krusteaz muffin mix at the grocery store and I feel like a whole new world has been opened to me! Now I can have muffins all day every day. I think in the future I might try poppyseeds in a pie crust. Yum.

THIS is American Idol!

Honestly, I had never seen an episode of "American Idol" until last year. I never understood the interest and singing competitions kind of make me cringe. But then Josh convinced me to start watching and then I got really invested in who advanced each week (and I'll admit it-- I voted for David Archuletta). So I've been really looking forward to "American Idol" starting again and I'm looking forward to Hollywood Week and all of that. I like watching talented people succeed at something that is their passion.

Once you get the taste for House Meat, you can never go back

Even though we bought our house just less than a year ago, I have started looking at houses online again. It's not so that we can buy anything or move again-- it's more just for fun so I can imagine where we might live in 20 years if we ever outgrow our current house. Mostly I look in Beaverton or Eugene, but I also like looking in Austin, TX where my sister lives. I love houses. Up until six months ago I liked watching all sorts of renovation shows, but then my tv watching schedule got too full.

Mercury the Hutt

My husband has an unhealthy obsession with toys. He refuses to get rid of his childhood action figures and we have Mr. Potato Heads for every holiday and geeky movie franchise (ie Star Wars, Spiderman, Transformers). This drives my nephews nuts because Josh also refuses to let anyone play with them ("They'll get scuffed!" he cries).

He also has an unhealthy obsession with tormenting my poor cat who is, admittedly, a little over-plump (I like to think of her as "Rubenesque"). He often refers to her as "Mercury the Hutt" because, in his words, "She has a tendency to fold into her squatty body."

So the other day, he set up this picture:

Apparently this is a re-enactment of a pivotal point in "Return of the Jedi" where Leia dresses up like the bounty hunter Boushh in order to free Han Solo from carbonite

Josh wanted to make sure I included the quote from his facebook page: "Mercury the Hutt says, 'This bounty hunter is my kind of scum: fearless and inventive.'" If you didn't know this before, I am married to a nerd of gigantic proportions! (That is, his nerdiness is gigantic, not my actual husband).

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

A couple weeks ago we opened our blinds to discover this:

The house on the right is ours

Apparently sometime shortly after the Arctic Blast of 2008, our neighbors decided that having a fence separating them from the ShepAlders was too emotionally painful. We're not entirely sure whether we should mention to them that we preferred not to have to stare at their patio furniture every time we peeked outside, but we haven't said anything to them and they certainly haven't said anything to us.

The pile of wood that used to keep us apart from the rest of the world

Is this weird? I think it's weird that they would just tear down the fence without word to us since it's kind of our fence too. And then, of course, we're a little unsure whether they expect us to replace it since we're not the ones that destroyed it, but if it gets to be summer and it's still communal living in the backyard, or if we add any more ShepAlders to the mix, then we'll probably have to put our feet down (all 12 of them, including Falkor and Mercury). Of course, here's our chance to build a bigger, better wall, such as this:

The great wall of ShepAlderdonia

Or perhaps these:

This wall would be especially great to protect us from neighboring hoards
(That means you, Gold family!)

Or we could add a moat, which might be against the city's zoning codes

It's Unknown Movie Quote Time!

Clearly Fundamentals of Behavioral Neuroscience is not really my scene, because instead of paying attention during lecture, I composed this list of movie quotes. The point of this game is for you all to guess where these quotes are from without cheating and using IMDB. Josh was disappointed that only a few people were able to guess the movies he put on the list he wrote for Facebook, but I think he may have made the movies too hard. So I tried to make my quotes a little less difficult.

Maybe I'll give a prize to the person who is able to get the most correct. Though, I guess that would only be possible if you lived nearby. And the prize would probably be a pie, so that's probably a deterrant rather than an inducement. Oh well, here's my list (I'll post the answers in a week):

1. [Character 1]: So, you're not gonna go to law school? What do you wanna do then?
[Character 2]: I wanna dance!

2.It's like asking why all the guys chew Copenhagen. If you're 17, and you're not a total fry, it's just watcha do.

3. Isn't the one-and-only supposed to be, like, one? And only?

4. [Character 1]: Now let's see what we have here. We have one missing, dead, naked butler, one host with a butcher's knife in his back, and one poisonous scorpion crawling up out sheets.
[Character 2]: Is that what that is?
[Character 1]: Yes. They can kill instantly. I suggest we don't move.
[Character 2]: For how long?
[Character 1]: Quite possibly for the rest of our lives.

5. Obviously, doctor, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl.

6. [Character 1]: Oh, no. . . it's just that I thought you had hidden depths.
[Character 2]: No, no, you've always had that wrong about me. I really am this shallow.

7. That's why her hair is so big. It's full of secrets.

8. That's cool baby. You know how it is-- rockin' and rollin' and what not.

9. What do I need manners for? I already got me a wife.

10. Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all, you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.

And the super special bonus 11th quote:
11. Yes, yes, I did it. I killed Yvette. I hated her so much . . . it-it-the f-it flam-flames. Flames on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths. Heaving breath. . .

The Facts Were These

In honor of my now-defunct favorite show Pushing Daisies, and due to the fact that over Winter Break I found myself unable to sit still for very long, I decided to try my hand at pie making. I'm not especially enamored with pie (and there are only two pie eaters in our household anyway since the cats are watching their waistlines), so we brought a few pies to our neighbors.

This is the first pie I've ever made in my life

And thankfully it didn't kill anyone!

I had to re-top this cherry pie twice;
The crust-holes are supposed to be hearts.

We made more pies, but this pumpkin one was the last of which we remembered to take a picture

In Other News:

Falkor had a banana sticker on his head for several days

My brother Austin bought ANOTHER dog and named him Jack


So Josh made him fly


And I (VERY BRIEFLY) closed Jack in his food tub and laughed hysterically


And Also:

Our backyard was covered in snow

"So good, so good, so good!!"

One of the perks of my job is that I get to decide where our advertising budget goes as far as print, radio and television. Most of the representatives for these companies earn a commission by bringing in business, so they pull out all the stops to convince various advertisers to go with them. This week, I got an email from a radio station we work with in Bend. The rep said she had two extra tickets to the Neil Diamond concert here in Portland on Thursday, and wondered if I might like to go. I said, "Certainly!" So, she sent the tickets via FedEx and Emily and I went.

We rode the MAX into downtown Portland from Beaverton, which takes about 35 minutes. When we got to the Rose Garden, we had decent seats to the right rear of stage. The woman next to us was a bit tipsy even before the concert started, and started talking to me. She was from Bend and this was her first Neil Diamond concert. She realized that Emily and I were clearly younger than the mostly middle-age crowd (and, I'm guessing there were a good 15,000 people there), she asked if we *actually* liked Neil Diamond. We told her that, yes, we did like him, she said, "That's great! Have you seen "The Jazz Singer?"

Now, I studied film in college... so I immediately thought of the 1927 Al Jolson film, which is renowned for being the first feature film with synchronized dialogue (aka a "talkie"). Jolson shocked audiences in 1927 by breaking out in song during a conversation with his mother, in a scene from the otherwise silent film.



"The Al Jolson film... yeah, I've seen that," I said. She looked at me weird and said, "No... I was talking about the Neil Diamond movie. How do you know about Al Jolson?" I told her about my insane love of movies and the film studies courses in college and she proceeded to tell me that her dad's gravestone has an inscription about how he is now "singing in heaven with Al Jolson." Weird! (For the record, I haven't seen the 1980 Neil Diamond remake, but I was aware of its existence. The film buff in me just immediately thought of the original Jolson film).

The concert was a lot of fun... Neil Diamond, I'm happy to report, can still put on a good show at age 67. I didn't know every song, as his catalog spans four decades, but he sang plenty of hits, including "I'm a Believer," "Sweet Caroline," "Cherry, Cherry," "Coming to America," "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show," "He's Not Heavy, He's My Brother," "Cracklin' Rosie," "Forever in Blue Jeans," and more.

Neil Diamond likes to rock the party!

When he sang "Red, Red Wine," Emily, realizing that Niel Diamond wrote it, said, "Man, UB40 wouldn't even exist without covering other people's songs!" So true!

I'm gonna guess that the average age of a Neil Diamond concertgoer is about 52. Or more judging from the extremely excited ladies of somewhat advanced age in the front row.


Few people realize that Neil got his last name from his tendency to shine under bright lights.

It was one of those concerts that we wouldn't have normally attended... nothing against Neil Diamond... but tickets for shows of that nature tend to be in the $50-$200 range, which is a lot more than these two indie rock kids are used to paying (we love live music, but most of the band we like charge around $15-40 person). All in all, we had a great time... even if we didn't brawl with the security guards in the front row as they forcibly removed us from the arena (but, we had a fun time watching that happen to someone else...).

A reversed image of Neil on the big screen gave us a much better look at the venerable singer/songwriter, as we were seated behind the stage. I can't complain, though... the tickets were free.

Here are some videos from our seats at the concert:

A Literary Resolution

My resolution for this year is to write down (and possibly critique?) all the books I read during the year. I did something similar to this in 2005 and I wanted to re-visit the list, but it is locked in a trunk to which I have lost the key (it's a long and uninteresting story). It was fun then because it motivated me to read more (and finish books when I start them) and I read something like 95 books in total. I doubt that I will be able to read anywhere close to that many this year.

I think what made me want to do this again is that I've read some exceptionally good books in this past year and I wish that I had listed them so I could remember them all. Some of the greats from 2008 are:

* American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld-- I am in love with this book. It is a fictionalized account of the life of Laura Bush and I never realized she was so interesting. I've read that Sittenfeld has been somewhat obsessed with the subject and it shows. I can't describe it better than that-- just that it's exactly the kind of book that someone with a spectacular imagination would write about someone whose private life has been so hidden. I think Sittenfeld did an excellent job making her protagonist three-dimensional, and it has made me more accepting of our current lame-duck president.

* The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield-- a murder mystery-type novel with an amateur biographer as the protagonist who is called upon to write the definitive tell-all about a famous authoress who is close to death. The tone of the novel has been compared to Victorian-era novels like Jane Eyre.

* The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett-- this novel is about the things that we don't know about the people we think we know well. After her husband, the magician that she assisted, dies, the main character discovers he had a mother and sisters when he claimed he was an orphan.

* The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett-- this was the year I discovered Ann Patchett, who is one of the best authors I've read in awhile (she also wrote Bel Canto, which I don't think is her best novel even though it might be her most popular). This was her first novel and it felt a bit incomplete and unsatisfying, but it was intensely engrossing. Told from three points of view, it is the story of a woman who comes to a Catholic home for unwed mothers even though she is married, then stays for longer than she intended. As a psychologist-in-training, I loved the portrayal of a woman who is hindered by her need for secrecy and privacy.

So this year I resolve to write down all of the non-school books this year that I read. Hopefully this will help me remember the good ones so I can recommend them to others.