Tag: holidailies 2008 (Page 3 of 3)

I miss DC

December 18, 2008 / melissa / 2 Comments

Even though I was born and raised in Arkansas, Washington DC, the federal district and last plantation in America (ha), is the place that has always felt like home.

I miss the diversity. I miss the streets and the row houses. I miss the pedestrian friendliness of it all. I miss my 1920s Art Deco apartment building with long winding halls similar to the Shining inside.

I miss the ethnic restaurants and the museums. I even miss the snarky Washington City Paper and knowing enough about the local business to get all the jokes. Sometimes, I miss the goofy stuff like the exploding manholes or the fact that it takes several hours to get anything done at DMV.

I miss the educated and curious about the world people. There were lots of runners and running clubs. I always got a kick how they would have this TV show called “It’s Academic” on Saturday (or was it Sunday) morning which was QUIZ BOWL. That’s right QUIZ BOWL on television. The most amusing part is that the school’s cheerleaders were there. Cheerleaders for quiz bowl. Now that is RICH! There was free classical music at the National Museum of Art.

I miss the crazy influx of interns in the summer who walk around thinking their hot shit. I miss playing frisbee on the mall and watching the people play tennis on the public court in Adams Morgan. I miss the chuckling at the UPS trucks double parked on the street with the parking ticket stuck under the window.

I miss the four stories of escalators in the courthouse. I even miss the court security which was the same people for the entire time I was there. I always forgot I had a camera in my purse. It was to the point that I had a permanent “hello my name is” sticker on the back of it. (or course this means it wasn’t digital).

I like how there is enough of a willingness for intellectual debate that when a church group puts up ads on the metrobus, an atheist group will pop up and purchase some ad space for atheist propoganda. Yes equal time.

Dupont Circle.

And snow. IT would actually snow once in a while with a bonafide good dusting.

I miss the craziness of having to call work or school to tell them that you will be late because a Presidential motorcade is blocking your route.

Fun for all ages.

December 18, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Work was crazy today. From Strange Pup, here’s a video from Robin Williams.

Sixteen tons and what do you get?

December 16, 2008 / melissa / 1 Comment

Bellesouth says that I tagged her on facebook for this meme but she is sadly mistaken. I haven’t done this meme anywhere and since it’s Holidailies, I thought I would amuse you with these snippets.

The Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 16 random people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

I actually keep a large and annotated bucket/things to do before I croak/goal list. There are hundreds of things on there
I want to finish a marathon
Even though I am from Arkansas which considers itself the South even though the coasts consider it the Midwest (these are some fighting words y’all), I do not like fried catfish, sweet tea, boiled okra, deer hunting, the Arkansas Razorback football team or watermelon. I’m afraid the state might revoke my driver’s license, “Sorry hon but you’re no Arkansan of mine!”
Once upon a time, I had a website and I wrote an entry about how I was so horny I could cry. A reader sent me a vibrator for Christmas. God bless the internet
I love the writing of William Faulkner and want to read everything he has ever written
I was able to name 111 countries on this website
I was inspired to take piano lessons from a Bugs Bunny cartoon involving Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
I still want to be able to play that song
One of the most amusing memories of my brother is when he put an egg in the microwave to cook it. I believe I was 12 and he was 10. The egg exploded and blew the microwave door wide open.
I have straddled the equator in Kenya
When I’m on my own accord and not bound my societal conventions or legal obligations, I curse like a sailor.
If it’s possible to have a diet Dr. Pepper addition, then I definitely need join Diet Dr. Pepper Anonymous.
I want to ride on camel while looking at the pyramids in Egypt. I need to hurry up, I hear acid rain is making them erode away
I’m scared of snakes
I like taking photographs. In another life, I would be a photojournalist
I turn into a babbling baby talking idiot whenever I see a kitty cat or a tiny puppy dog. Seriously, someone is going to shoot me someday.
I lost 30 pounds this year. GO ME!

This isn’t actually facebook so I’ll just tag anybody who reads this and needs a holidailies prompt.

Mission may be accomplished but the war's not over yet.

December 15, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

This now ubiquitous video of an Iraqi journalist throwing shoes at George W. Bush will never get old for me. In fact, I like it so much that I fear I will be placed on the terrorist watch list. Oh Baby Bush has some lightning fast reflexes there. It seems that he is used to people throwing crap at him.

Oh the hilarity.

The Little Rock Nine have been invited to attend the swearing in ceremony of Barack Obama. This was at the suggestion of Senator Mark Pryor who pretty much didn’t campaign for Obama AT ALL. The Arkansas Times reports that Elizabeth Eckford, 67, who still lives in the house where she grew up, said she can’t afford the trip. It turns out that she doesn’t want to go because she hates crowds and the cold.

I guess if I went to school every day with a bunch of people yelling bad words at me, I would be hating crowds too.

The hilarious part is that Mark Pryor, the man who couldn’t be bothered to put up an Obama sign in his yard is now for having the Little Rock Nine come and the big time photo op that it entails. Did I mention he skipped out on the big Hillary for Obama rally on the Capital? Many many folks were completely lackluster in their campaigning even though Obama came here in 2006 to campaign for Mike Beebe.

See the “vote for Beebe” sign? I told you.

This is very surprising and one answer for that just might be racism. In fact, John Brummett called the citizens of Arkansas out for it. (I can’t find the original link so here is the column about the letters received after the original column ran).

So when I read the article about the Tuskeegee airmen and the Little Rock Nine with the headline, “We’ve Completed Our Mission” from this quotation:

“The culmination of our efforts and others’ was this great prize we were given on Nov. 4,” he [retired Lt. William Broadwater, 82] said. “Now we feel like we’ve completed our mission. This inauguration will be the ultimate result.”

I’m sorry Mr. Broadwater but as long as there are people making jokes about whether Obama will plant a watermelon patch at the White house (something I endured at a funeral, of all places) or someone is raising a Confederate flag to protest the election or you see “The Anti-Christ Hussein Obama” at a tattoo parlor, the mission is not over. Unless you are referring to the fact that the Commander in Chief will be a black man which could be considered the ultimate end result of the Tuskeegee Airmen’s mission, then yes that mission will be accomplished January 20th.

But the war is definitely, definitely not over.

This “fish and Chips” logo on the back of a Mini Cooper in Little Rock cracked me up. There are so many fundamentalist that the “Jesus fish” is pretty ubiquitous around these parts. Every once ina while, I will see an “evolution fish” but this “fish and chips” fish makes me laugh. In fact, I think I want one for myself.

Long run report

December 13, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

After my Jingle Bell 5K experience with hills, I decided to enter the Little Rock Half Marathon instead of the marathon. With that adjustment, I decided to incorporate some hills into my training regiment and see what happens. So far so good.

Today was an 8 mile run. It’s not the longest run I’ve ever done (that would be 12) but it is pretty far and still a little intimidating. There was 10 mile an hour winds that seemed to be blowing in my face. It didn’t matter which direction I was running, the wind seemed to adjust to be blowing RIGHT IN MY FACE. It was hard enough that I felt it was slowing me down. My short goal is to manage to jog up this hill without stopping to walk. It’s pretty steep. I didn’t make it this time. Maybe next time.

No one tried to run me off the road.

I did however meet another runner which surprised me. There doesn’t seem to be that many bona fide runners around here.

So when it was all said and done. (according to the Nike + iPod)

8 miles
1:40:31
average pace 12:33 minute/mile

My favorite song for this run was “When I Grow Up” by the Pussycat Dolls.

Random facts and figures

December 13, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

My friend Jennybee is a new Aunt. Even though I am not only old enough to have a child and am old enough to start worrying about the freshness of my eggs, I still don’t feel old enough to actually have a kid. I’m stuck in some sort of adolescent mindset. When I get bonafide big wrinkles, I am going to faint. I have friends who have teenagers and they weren’t teenage moms. Lord have mercy, when did I get old?

Today I heard that in this town, an African American woman who lives in a prominently white neighborhood had her house vandalized and the police did nothing. I mean people literally spray painted “N&****” on the front of it. It didn’t even make the local paper. How the hell does that happen? in 2008?!? I am stunned. Completely stunned. Of course, I had to call my friend to apologize for making jokes about her Fort Knox style security system on her house.

My post Jingle Bell 5K soreness and hill running problems during the race have convinced me that instead of signing u for the Little Rock Marathon, I am going to sign up for the half instead and do more hill training and pace training instead of just trying to finish. I think my legs will thank me.

As a business owner, I can attest that I am feeling the economic fallout of everybody being broke. It’s a sad sad day in Melissaland.

A few weeks ago while running in the dusk, a guy turned his headlights on bright and swerved toward the shoulder where I was located. Seriously, some mother fucker tried to “pretend” to run over me. What if he had lost control of his big ass truck and not been able to swerve back in time. I had on the big hunter orange vest with reflective tape that promised to be seen from 1200 feet away. Who does that?

Rest in peace Bettie Page

December 11, 2008 / melissa / 2 Comments

Bettie Page, pin up queen with the hairdo imitated by a gazillion hipsters, died today at 85. She was one of the first women to pose nude in Playboy and one of the first women to pose in bondage photos. She managed to be sexy, beautiful, and wholesome at the same time. She was as described by Hugh Hefner, “the bad girl next door.”

She got married a couple of times, spent several years in a mental institution, and became a born again Christian. It’s amazing how lives change but she will always be immortalized with her dark bangs and bright blue eyes and vintage underwear.

Money making Christmas

December 10, 2008 / melissa / 2 Comments

I’ve never understood people going into crazy debt trying to buy Christmas gifts. For as long as I can remember, my mother’s way of buying Christmas gifts was that there was a huge change jar in the corner of the kitchen. Over the course of the year, change went into the jar. That change was the money used to buy gifts.

My grandmother, on the other hand, sold pecans. She has quite a few pecan trees on her property. It becomes a family affair really. First they are picked up off the ground and put in big buckets.

Then they are cracked and picked out. “Picked out” is the process where all the non edible contents inside the shell of the pecan gets removed from the edible part of the pecan. This is done carefully so that the pecan itself is still in one piece. Then the pecans are rinsed and put in a big dishpan.

From here, the pecans are put in baggies in one pound increments. Yes there is a scale but not where I took these pictures. They are then sold. The harvest is anywhere from 500-1200 pounds.

Pearl Harbor

December 7, 2008 / melissa / 1 Comment

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Here is a copy of “The World at War” taken from newsreels and Japanese archive footage.

Veterans gathered to celebrate the anniversary.

We should always remember Pearl Harbor. We should always remember that the aftermath of Pearl Harbor created Japanese internment camps and the Korematsu decision. We must remember not to let our fear and anger over tragedy turn us into that which we claim to despise.

Archives