Baby, it's Cold Outside

I didn't really know that song until I watched the movie Elf for the first time. That's my favorite scene in the movie. My second favorite is where Buddy says, "There are four major food groups. Candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup!" as he's putting syrup on his spaghetti noodles instead of sauce. It kind of makes me shudder in sugar horror even thinking about it; I don' t know why I like it, but I do. I would never do such a thing, and the rest of the movie is pretty lame, as far as I'm concerned, but I do like those two parts.


This week it was record cold. It snowed and sent the city into shutdown mode. When I woke up on Wednesday the thermometer read 19, feels like 10. Brrr. I was a little ice box all week. My little feet were frozen at work. I wore a scarf, hat, gloves, and big winter coat, not to mention boots with fairly good tread as I made the trek to work. There was no way anybody without those little tire tread makers hooked on their tires was going anywhere.

The nice thing about snow is that when you're a little kid and you don't have to worry about going anywhere, it's actually romantic. Little individual ice crystals falling from the sky that you can go play in, make snowballs with, go sledding on, and do snow angels in - what could be better? Especially when you can just go inside and have hot cocoa when you're done with five little marshmallows on it (ten if mom's feeling generous).

Apparently my neighbors are small children inside, because a snow day was announced, and since there was 2" of snow on the street, they got their sleds and snowboots on and slid down the street again and again, shrieking gleefully at the tops of their lungs until almost midnight. I thought it was kind of cute and a nice background noise until I started imagining what would happen if someone in a Range Rover decided to come down the street going too fast, and the possible ramifications and lawsuits, and then I kind of tried to block out the sound. Oh, how quickly I have become a negator!*

For a few days everything was minimally staffed - hardly anyone was at work - and staying warm and traveling safely were all anybody thought about. It made me think, hm. If I were still down south, I wouldn't have thought about weird weather in the north at all. Weather's one of those things where unless you're in it you just don't care/understand. "Oh, poor you, you're having a snowstorm. Guess what? It's 55 and sunny today!" If you're not in the place with the weather, it doesn't affect you at all. But if you are in the place with the weather, and it's bad weather, it consumes you. I never even looked at weather.com before....not since I moved. But you can bet that every few hours I'd refresh the page to see what it looked like.

It was cold outside. It's warmer now - and for a few weeks, people will be careful, and try to keep a few emergency items on hand. But after a few weeks, it may snow again, and we will replay the situation over and over again. It's like a broken record: snow. panic. cleanup. remember. forget. snow. panic. cleanup. remember. forget. All the way until spring, and then the "forget" becomes the rut until next winter.

Yes, I did just compare weather to a record. Hopefully anyone who reads this knows what a record is. Oh help for those who don't. If you haven't, you're missing out. But you can miss out less...you can experience the cold just by putting on "Baby, it's Cold Outside."

Negator: Professional wet blanket.

Goodwill

Dear Goodwill in the Warehouse District:

I appreciate your presence. Although you have limited parking and your concrete steps are hollow, at least you are handicap accessible and you *have* parking. And it's free. So kudos on that.

The signs on your bathroom scare me, and the fact that your employees  need to wear gloves that can withstand Clorox and masks that could potentially ward off h1n1 makes me dubious about your success.

You do carry a variety of plastics, which I like. And while I would not buy a stuffed animal for a small child from you, or dig through various bins of debris to find the lid to the perfect sized salad spinner that I was eying but then realized there was no lid (I could just hear my mom saying, "look with your hands, not with your eyes"...but sorry, Mom, I just couldn't do it. Not without industrial strength gloves.). So I am salad-spinnerless.

However, the shapes of some of the composite furniture you had on display was fairly impressive, and the sewing machine that didn't have a presser foot was really amazing...at least 70 years old. That's how you know the oldies but goodies brands. And the pricing scheme you came up with was unique: 49 cents per pound of housewares. I don't think I've ever seen wholesale plastic cups and old pans by the pound before. And someone with good taste donates to you, because I saw at least 5 Roger Whittaker records for sale. But let me share a secret with you: you're a bit short on books.

I'm glad I visited you. It made me hope that I will never by pure necessity visit to purchase shoes or any other accessories or even need stop by again. But every time I want to feel gratitude, I may stop by. It won't be a pity party. You're strong, even in this economy. You have options. People need you. I need you. Even if it's not for the same reasons that some of the other people do.

So here's to you, Warehouse Goodwill. Keep up the good work.

Songiment I

It's safe to say that I love naps, and the world could use more love and more naps. But you'll never catch me  snoozing in a field of gold or sleeping in the flowers. What if there was clover, and I rolled over and landed on a bee, and got stung on the lip, and it started to swell and look like a red rubber ball? Then I'd really be a lady in red.   (When I was younger, [so] much younger, I thought that song was about me all the time because my hair's red.)

To make myself feel a little better,  I'd probably have something sweet - probably vanilla ice cream - with peaches, if they were in season. That reminds me of the time Uncle Dan got stung by a bee and ruined by a little bird within thirty seconds of each other. As long as I don't have a not-so-fine day like that, I'll be all right. But if all that did happen, at least I'd have something to talk about.

Okay. Give me a break. Some of these are a little reachy, but they're what popped into my head. A true sequence of songs and I wanted to link them together. The story is a little weak, but I'm going to do a series of these, and hopefully they'll improve as I go along.

Little Bird/ He-art

brush your grey wings on my head / say what you've said / say it again / they tell me I'm crazy, but you told me I'm golden


sometimes it's hard to tell the truth from a lie / nobody knows what's in the hold of your mind

Something about this song just struck me. It was my song of the week about three weeks ago. I was searching desperately for a different song- one that I thought was by the Weepies, but was actually Regina Spektor. Fidelity. What a good name for a song. So you can guess what my song of the week was as soon as I found it. I kept hearing the "ha-ha-ah-ha-ha-ah-ha-ha-eart" line over and over again in my head, which is kind of funny, considering the lyrics of the song: "i hear in my mind all of these voices / i hear in my mind all of these words / i hear in my mind all of this music / and it breaks my heart".

There's just something about it - going back to the Weepies song - the fact that it's 3/4 time, the softness of the song, the odd harmonies, the words of the song, the mood I was in when I heard it for the first time - that really made an impact. I think I listened to it about twenty times. The chorus, especially, got to me. brush your grey wings on my head like, it's okay, all the bad stuff is gone now. You were confused but you don't have to be any more. Just let me comfort you and everything will be all right. Keep telling me it will be all right, and I'll believe you.

The way she talks about how it seems like nobody knows you, but if you just look for the good things, and don't let the regular mundane everyday minutiae get to you, you'll see how good life is and how much better it can be if you let it. Sometimes life just stinks. It's true. But if you listen to the little bird inside of you, maybe it will gradually get better. 

Every person needs a little bird. The wings don't need to be grey, and the bird doesn't have to have a Weepie voice and it doesn't need to sing in three quarter time. I don't even like birds...but I like the little bird in this song. So little birds everywhere, keep singing. Keep comforting. You never know who will need a brush of wing or a hug from you.

Sierra Leone (not the country)

So, I would like to think that I'm a pretty smart person. Able to (perhaps with some tutoring, depending on the subject) understand concepts and theories and put them selectively into practice. Usually Wiki is great for helping me in my quest to become a more educated individual.

For example, you can find out when almost every ship in the US Navy was commissioned and whether it's still in active service or not; you can find out about the Defenestration of Prague and other historical events; you can find out the discography of even a prolific artist (like Gordon Lightfoot! Who I finally saw in person! but that is for another blog post); and you can look up mathematical formulas and business strategems. What a great tool.

But every once in awhile, there's Wiki Fail. Sometimes, we make wiki fail on purpose. For example, making certain assertions about a certain player from a certain hockey team and his lack of ethics in his hitting and taunting practices. (He shall remain nameless in order to allow him protection.) And then other people fix it! To take out bias and the like.

Sometimes Wiki is just darned confusing. Or maybe I was just dazed and confused when I read the article on dubstep. A friend of mine sent me a song and I listened to it, and I hadn't really ever heard of dubstep before so I looked it up to see how it was done, etc. And the result was sort of confusing. But I like the song anyway! It's this one. 

Pretty cool, especially when you listen with surround sound speakers like mah sistah has. Of course, five minutes is about all I can handle, but this particular one is an interesting mix of ethereal and dark.

So really this isn't about dubstep at all. It's about the fact that I like music, that Wiki fails sometimes, and that I like learning. Thanks for 'learning' along with me.