Tag: holidailies (Page 5 of 5)

Melissa's favorite things.

December 19, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Yeah yeah, It’s the 19th and you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping. You’re freaking out and while you know you don’t want to know into super debt, you still feel you need to put something under the tree. I know that feeling. Truth is, I haven’t finished my shopping either.

So what do you do?

Here’s some help from ME!

I saw this in Smorgasbite, It’s a girly girl flask that’s green with pink flowers.

girly flask.
LOOK!
I’m also a fan of Fiestaware. Those are some sturdy and cute dishes. You can find buttloads of old dishes made in the past (30s and on) but you can also get the new straight from the factory dishes at department stores. They have a classic line that look nice but don’t necessarily scream, “I got these dishes in 1986” They’re timeless.
Food of the month clubs. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Here’s a bacon of the month club. Personally, I’m drooling over the cheese of the month club. CHEESE. OYEZ. FROMMAGE.
This might not be necessarily favorite thing but I live in a place where I don’t have access to some of the foods that I loved in DC. So if you are internet savvy, you might want to consider getting some of your friend’s favorite foods from far away. A lot of places will deliver food via fed ex. FOR EXAMPLE!
1. Artisanal Cheese will deliver cheese anywhere so I can get the brie.
2. H and H bagels, the New York bagel company (sorry folks but bagels from new york taste different and a lot of what you buy in the supermarket labeled bagels aren’t bagels) will deliver. So will Katz’s Deli.
3. Giordano’s out of Chicago will deliver it’s famous stuffed pizza
4. You can always look on amazon.com food section for groceries that aren’t necessarily placed everywhere like “Utz’s potato chips“
Runningwise, I am all over my Nike + ipod sport kit. It’s a little sensor that you can place on your shoe with a sensor that attaches to your ipod. It keeps track of your time, pace, and distance. If you enter your weight, it will give an estimate of calories burned. It is all that and a bag of chips and probably the best thing I bought for myself all year. If you look in this picture, you can see the sensor on my running shoe.
Books. I love books. I always have to recommend some.
1. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. (of course this book screamed that I’m doom to be a failure due to my poor white trash upbringing. THANKS!)
2. The Watchmen. Yeah it’s a comi—err graphic novel but it has multiple layers and has a lot to say.
3. Indefensible: One Lawyer’s Journey into the Inferno of American Justice by David Feige. This guy was a public defender in the Bronx and this book is about his experiences. It’s riveting and gives great insight into the whole criminal justice system.
I’m still loving my red Old Navy coat. They still have the grey version left. It is CHIC!
Okay for me personally, I would love gift certificates to Star of India restaurant.

Can you tell that I am writing this before dinner and I skipped lunch? I can but I’m keeping it.

Fun for all ages.

December 18, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

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

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.

Jingle Bell 5K

December 6, 2008 / melissa / 3 Comments

I woke up bright and early for a Saturday to run in Craig’s Jingle Bell 5K. Craig is Craig O’Neil of KHTV Channel 11 fame. He has big eyes and big lips. Think Mick Jagger but replace rock star sexy with goofy and that’s about it. This is the first race timed race I’ve run. It’s also one of the first larger races I’ve run. By larger, I mean large enough where I would have to worry about hitting or getting hit by other people in the beginning due to the crowd. Since running a marathon is one of those life goals on the bucket list, I figured I should get used to it.

It was exciting. Crazy exciting. I invited my mother to come with me to watch the action. It turned out she hates the cold and sat in a restaurant to keep warm the entire time. Oops. She was a trooper otherwise though.

It was chilly this morning. I hadn’t registered beforehand so I got to be there before 10:30 to get in. It was windy and chilly.

When I picked up my race number, I also got a temporary tattoo and some tiny jingle bells to put on my shoes.

ME and my TATTOO!

JINGLE BELLS!

I wasn’t expecting the big push of adrenaline waiting in the crowd at the starting line right before the race. It is a “I wanna go! I wanna go NOW!” feeling. Also, my training runs on the high school track and the shoulders of roads didn’t prepare me for the pounding that is running on the street. . Also, I didn’t know you could wear your iPod during a race so I had no music. There weren’t tons of spectators cheering you on like there were at the Race for the Cure.

My calf threatened to shut the race down on me at the first hill so I had to slow down my pace and walk up most of the hills. My time, therefore, sucked really damn hard. I had to remind myself this was my first race and the goal was to finish. This was a FUN RUN dammit. It wasn’t like I had any chance in hell of coming in first.

This 5K run/walk had the distinction that you could walk your dog in the race. There were lots of cuties. Some wore Christmas-y garb and some didn’t.

Here’s a picture of me looking like a dork at the finish line. (Dear Lane Bryant, Can you pLease make some jogging pants that don’t want to go up to my boobs. Seriously those are some Steve Urkel style highwaisted jogging pants from hell. I might send the other pair of pants I have unopened back.) Craig’s in the background.

My post race lunch was a gyro platter at Leo’s Greek Castle. YUMMY!

Holidailies.

Who am I? Who is anybody really?

December 6, 2008 / melissa / 1 Comment

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete,and a basket case, and a princess, and a criminal…
Does that answer your question?
Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

I decided to challenge myself by signing up for Holidailies. This means I agree to post something every day starting today until January the 5th. Hold on to your seats, kids.

I’m going with the writing prompt since I don’t have a buttload of archives for you to see.

So who am I? Well the basics are that my name is Melissa. I call myself “Merlisser” on here because JennyBee called me that a long time ago and it amuses me. I’m a 35 year old caucasian female from Arkansas. Right now I am overweight. I used to be regular weight or thin as people used to say.

I guess I could define myself by my hobbies. I like to run, take pictures, read books, watch movies, travel (Although I don’t do it nearly enough) and write.

Would where I’ve lived help you? Arkansas, DC with a summer in New York, and Florida.

My job? I’m a lawyer. I particularly like criminal defense. You can define me by that, I guess.

Maybe listing some of the cool (or at least interesting) stuff I’ve done will help you.

Attended Clinton’s second inauguration
Worked as a criminal investigator for criminal defense attorneys in DC. It was like Veronica Mars but with a lot less gadgets
Volunteered for the Obama campaign
helped build a school in Kenya
straddled the equator (in Kenya)
Ate Pizza at Grimadli’s
Walked Race for the Cure with some friends
Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge for fun (it has a great view)
Tromped cotton as a kid
Used an outhouse
Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Or maybe a list of favorites.

book: Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
song: Paper Bag by Fiona Apple (although this one changes every day and I could list about 20 “favorite songs”)
restaurant: Star of India in Little Rock Arkansas. OR Zorba’s Cafe in Washington DC with City Lights of China in DC a close second.
color: purple. a really dark shade of purple.
movie: Shawshank Redemption (although this constantly changes as well. Today it’s Shawshank)
vice: driving really fast
animal: Bichon Frise dogs
curse word: FUCK
word: onomatopoeia
drink: margarita

There are some snippets. And to introduce myself.

Hi. I’m Melissa and it’s nice to meet you.

Holidailies.

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