2009

My 2009 Resolutions:

-Adventure!
-Eat new kinds of animal (not endangered ones)
-Continue this 23 year streak of exuding beauty, wit, and humility

Oslo 2

Norwegians force the silliness. It is 7:28 AM, and I arrived home about ten minutes ago, and I am sober.

From 6 to 7 AM, two Norwegian sillies danced in their silly way to ABBA, Whitney Houston, and whoever sings the "Maniac" song. It was the hardest I laughed all 2009.

Good night.

Barack Obama

You know how I love Barack Obama? So do my Scandinavian pals. Well, maybe not ALL of them, but all the ones I've talked to.

Here are other things some Scandinavians love:
-Ciabatta rolls
-Pretty buildings
-Languages I can't understand
-Good beer
-Playing Whitney Houston loud on the train so I can tap my feet along
-How their money goes far in the U.S.A.
-Being thoughtful and generous to me.

I like this trip even more than I like crispy marshmallows.

Oslo

"Heeey Oslo!"

"Heeeeiii Kelly!"

Exactly what I expected to see in Scandinavia

Huuuuge Viking boats!

And baby bears!

International urination

The toilets in Denmark are remarkable.

First off, they're tiny. The seating area is the same - all humans have similar bum sizes - but the bowl and back and bottom are flat or non-existent. I don't know how they do it.

Also, the public stalls have enormous doors. You have lots of privacy when doing your thing. If the stall door doesn't reach all the way to floor, like normal doors, it is usually only an inch or two above the floor. This has one downside: you can't bend down and look at shoes to see if a stall is in use.

The final (and my personal favorite) difference in Danish toilets is this: some of them have number 1 and number 2 buttons! They don't SAY number one and number two, of course, but the left half circle only uses half the water to flush, and the whole circle uses more water. (That'd be number 1 and number 2, respectively). Not ALL of the toilets have this, but I've encountered several and let me tell you, it is a thrill.

Fancy toilets. What a great country.

I'm flying to Scandinavia soon.

When I come back, I will probably be a viking. I won't rape, but I might pillage. Sorry ahead of time.

Exposing myself to real life situations... in Norwegian!

This is how I will learn to speak Norwegian. And open books.

More snow day blogging!

I love West Seattle, and I really love the West Seattle Blog. It's adorable and neighborhoody, and you know how I like hoodies.

Snow, snow, snow!

Pre-dawn blogging

You've noticed that I am blogging BEFORE SUNRISE, right? I am the Blog Warrior.

Here are some others things I have done before sunrise today:
-Call Oats to wake him up and hoot, "Happy Snow Day!"
-Chatted with Ma when Oats hung up because he preferred sleeping to celebrating... what a silly man
-Made English Breakfast Tea
-Took Tylenol
-Planned my scrambled egg breakfast
-Blogged... TWICE
-Woke up at 2 and 4 and got my work pants on both times until I realized it was 2 and 4
-Texted Drew to tell him to have fun skiing
-Texted Scott to tell him to sneak out of work
-Texted Jodi to brag about my snow day
-Posted a link to the Daily Puppy on Lindsay's Facebook wall and mocked her belief that rabbits are "real pets"
-Made a commitment not to get out of my pajamas for hours, HOURS!

Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo!

Super Morn'!

So, Scotty Too Hotty and I stayed up late playing darts and watching amazing hockey moves. We were counting on the roads being awful, AWFUL, so we wouldn't have to go into work.

My dream came true. His did not. I'm sorry Scotty.

I'm not sorry, Self.

You know what I'm going to to do today? (Note: I accidentally misspelled "today" as "toady" - one of my favorite typos!) I am going to eat MultiGrain Cheerios, return the books to the library that I forgot to return yesterday, dance four special dances, buy asparagus, check wunderground.com every 12ish minutes, give snow clouds "the look", and continue reading Into the Wild.

Today is even more awesome than the chocolate bar one of my adorable students gave me yesterday.

Into the book

Even though I'm not a fan of the "white boy living in the woods" genre (at least on principle... I admit they can be fun), I am going to start reading Into the Wild today. The reasons are twofold.

First, I want to see the movie. The soundtrack is supposedly awesome, and Emile Hirsch is kind of dreamy. Plus, you know, they say it's kind of good, and I don't like reading books after the movie, once the producer has formulated all the images of the characters and settings for me.

Second, it might motivate me to stop whining about my moderately cold toes. My triplex is cozier than "the wild."

I'll tell you how it was. Maybe.

Heeeey fish-tailing and tail-wagging

The icy roads bring out things. They bring out bad drivers, fuzzy hats, and... SNOW DOGS!

This looks like Lindy Lou, a Norwegian Elkhound we met at Freshy's. Lindy looked at us with a tilted head, cute-dog style. It also snooped into our purses and wagged its tail and made me excited for Norway.

Apparently, Lindy Lou howls at people wearing fur, due to her moose-hunting background.

And that, my friend, is my creepy, dog-loving post for the day.

What! What! Did this really happen?

Socks

It is the start of the Expensive Sock Era.

Until 2007, I only owned cotton, white socks - white socks with gold toes, white socks with gold stripes, white socks that got mismatched so I'd have to wear non-mates but it wasn't a big deal because they were both white and cotton. It was like my high school, except instead of white people, it was white socks. Just lots and lots of white socks, everywhere.

Then, I started student-teaching. Can you wear white socks with black pants? Only if you are Michael Jackson! So I invested in several pairs of cheap, fally-downy black socks. For over a year, I wore white socks for the silliness and black socks for the professionalness.

Finally, boyfriend stepped in. He said, "Kelly, you are going to Norway. You need wool socks, and a warm hat. Here, I will buy you this warm hat. Please don't lose it in Fremont the first day you wear it." (Sorry.)

I was like, "Aight. I have one pair of wool socks right for that time I went snowshoeing with Michelle, and they are satisfactorily warm. They are thick and brown."

"Thick and brown? Your wool socks don't need to be thick and brown." He took me to his store and gestured to a wall of striped, snowflaked, non-super-thick foot coverings. "You can wear... synthetic wool!"

So, I bought synthetic and syntheticish wools socks. They are adorable, and they keep my toes warm, and some of them have enough black that I can wear them to work. Plus, they don't retain water like cotton, so I can wear a pair more than once without washing them! Not that I would. I am squeaky clean.

No more high school with predominately white people, and no more sock bag (I don't have a sock drawer right now... that's another story) with predominately white socks. Thank you relocation and shopping for adding color onto my feet. And into my life.

I've been giving you lots of links.

Hilary Clinton is funny. So is Obama's speech writer. Everyone involved in this is funny.

Prop 8 - The Musical

Lynn showed me THE BEST VIDEO EVER:

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Snuggie. The blanket with sleeves.

Scotty Too Hotty and I were watching an informational and depressing documentary on genocide, when we learned about the Snuggie. Yes, the Snuggie! The Snuggie is different from a robe in that one looks like a cult member while wearing it, and it is called a Snuggie, not a robe. Any sane person prefers to say "Snuggie" over robe.

Snuggie. Snuggie.

Here's the commercial:


Hold on, hold on, hold on! It's not over.

After the informational and depressing documentary on genocide, I checked my email. The trash email, where I get spam. GUESS THE THIRD EMAIL IN MY INBOX. Yes! "Snuggie. The blanket with sleeves!"

I may be destined to buy a Snuggie. Will YOU be the lucky recipient?

Hypothetical call

Politicians everywhere are paranoid about prank calls. I, however, am not a politician. I am a professional bad ass. If President-Elect Barack Obama called me, you know what I'd say? I'd say, "Hey buddy! Let's bring world peace!" And we would. And our plan would involve puppies. And ginger snaps. And Top Chef.

Harry Potter on the brain.

Ma: You can talk on Snape, or whatever that's called.
Me: Skype?
Ma: Haha, yeah. That's it.

Animals and my conscience

You see what free press does? It makes me feel guilty about my favorite food. What's next, what's next? Eating COW is bad for the earth?

(That's a joke. I know eating cow is bad for the earth. And I still do it... but not that often. Really. And it has nothing to do with feeling bad for the cow. I don't feel that bad for cows. Cows would eat people, maybe. It's just that, you know, we only have so many resources until the inevitable day we conquer an infinite number of planets.)

He's driving. I'm blogging.

My boyfriend works here now.

(Do not be confused by the link. My boyfriend is not a sloth bear, not even a little.)