i am Mod

Impulsive music purchase of the week: Fleet Foxes White Winter Hymnal

What I'm hoping to attend this weekend. Promoted by one of my students and it looks like fun.

Galas and Stuff

One of my students sent me this link. I think it's stuff worth keeping.

I added my review of Gala to Yelp today.

I should have added a cautionary note about how tippy
the flower vases are so future customers don't mistakenly
dump water all over themselves and their place-setting
when they simply reach over their dining partner's glass
to get the breadbasket.

By the way, I did verify the pronunciation alternatives.

I just love saying GAY-la!! It reminds me of Eric Clapton.

Chariots of Fire

Today I won my age group in the Danny Oates 5K. There's not much else to add. I am fast, very fast.

IMDB

I look like Helen Hunt, that's what one of my students told me. I've heard it before but it's been a few years. My twins according to different people over the years: Donna Reed, Helen Hunt, and Ellen DeGeneres. Hunt, Reed, and Waters sound like they belong together in a duck blind.

Let 'er rip

I just made a major change to my blog.
It's invisible to you but maybe it'll earn me the big bucks.
Expect to see more brand names on my site like Nike, Nestle, and Gnarls Barkley!
Let's see what happens - I can't wait!

Wet Tea Shirt

The corner of Tremont and Boylston is a hotbed of promotional activity and SWAG. This week I was passing through in the company of four of my twenty-something female students, who had invited me to lunch in Chinatown. Three energetic twenty-something guys were shepherding a large cooler filled with free product, which turned out to be Honest Tea.
No sooner had they thrust bottles of tea in our hands, then cameras were whipped out. We were told we had to actually drink the tea; not vamp with an unopened bottle of tea. Well, that's fine, actually I've bought this product before and I like it. But this bottle was warm, not cold, and not designed for direct from bottle slurping. As soon as I lifted the bottle to my mouth, tea slopped out and all over my brand new white tee-shirt In the meantime, the teameisters had sequestered the four young lovelies to focus their cameras on them. "You, old lady, stay in the corner with your sloppy tea-covered shirt!"

The outing improved as we ate lunch at Pho Pasteur, a Vietnamese restaurant, my first ever. One of my students told us that her Vietnam-born father used to drive out for meals at Pho Pasteur from OHIO. For about $7.50 I got a bowl full of noodles, pork, shrimp, vegetables. I ate my fill and ate the rest for lunch the next day (with the Honest Tea.) In all honesty, Honest Tea is 40% owned by Coca Cola.

Hurricane Avoidance

Hurricane Hannah is supposed to swing by tonight, with a water deposit of six inches or more predicted. The shopping centers were full of people stocking up on shoes, linen blazers, and sports equipment to weather the storm. We invested in some emergency items of our own, and on our way out of the mall, stopped at the ladies room. As I was about to exit my cubicle, I heard a mother and her young child enter, in a flurry.
Mom: Don't worry Jonny, it's not the kind with the loud toilets. I'll check.
Mom: Yes, they're not the ones that flush on their own. (WRONG!)
Jonny: Oh Mommy are you sure? I don't want it to go! Wahhh!
Mom: Yes, uh, I think so
Me: Gee, what's the proper etiquette here? (Opens the door)
Toilet: SWOOSH! BWAHHH! WOOOOOO
Kid: Wahhhhh!
Mom: This blows today's toilet training.

Time Flies and I Slow Down

9/3/08 Ran the Danny Oates course today in 33 and change. Sigh. Returning home I passed little Jack V next door, waiting for Bus #4 on his first ever day of school. His Mom, Dad, and little sis had just finished posing for pictures. From our house I watched the bus come and go and suddenly had a yearning to read Take Care of Things, Edward Said. Evidently, someone did not take care of it because it was nowhere to be found. :(

Tiny Dog is the Devil

9/1/08 On the sixth mile of my seven mile walk today I witnessed a motorcycle accident caused by a tiny dog named Goliath. The damage: one swerving car, one motorcyclist, one trailing shrieking braking car that blessedly did not hit the motorcyclist who was lying in the middle of the street.