I Still Lost with 332 Points

I scored 123 points in Scrabble with the word "equator." That's right, folks, I am a genius. Q on the triple letter score, the whole word on a double word score, and using every single letter I had on my rack equals 123 points. I'm also a nerd.

Calm! I'm Calm! I'm Always Calm!

The guy who works at the garage came around to the driver's side to give me my ticket.
"I'll be here around 5:30," I said.
"Okay...what's your name?"
"Dina."
"Are you always calm like this? You're always so calm."
I smiled.
"Well, it's the morning...calm's the best way to start your day."
He laughed and got into my car as I walked outside to buy a coffee.

Did You Know the Song "Levon" is Named After Levon Helms?

I realized I was up when I realized the light was coming from the hallway light I left on before going to sleep. I realized it was 3-something am when I realized I didn't know why I was up. And let me tell you--of all the nights to not sleep, this is quite a surprise for me. I did a ridiculous amount of relaxing things today (yoga class, pedicure, etc.). But no. No, I can't sleep. After fighting reality for twenty minutes, I started coming up with ideas. Perhaps the air conditioner is too loud and I keep waking up when it goes into power save cycles. Lower went the air conditioner setting. Perhaps I need music to calm me. I put my ipod on and found myself having thoughts such as, "you sing it, Elton!" Clearly, I was well beyond the hope of intervention. Plus, every time he says, "frozen here on the ladder of my life" I laugh. Something having to do with frozen hairs on a ladder...long story.
On another vaguely related note, I'm experiencing sharp hunger pains. But it's 4 am and I'm not eating now. Why can't a 9 pm falafel tide me over at least until morning? I'll just have to sit these pains out.
So this morning, a woman wheeling a double stroller nearly ran me over. I know they're hard to handle, but seriously, I was walking in a straight line at an 8:15 am pace (read: slow). Really, that was my first thought. My second thought was more along the lines of, "how did I miss a double stroller barreling across the park directly across my path?" and then I felt bad. Later when I was walking down 5th I sneezed. The only person who offered her blessing was a woman wheeling her toddler in a stroller. So you see? Moms are awesome.
In other news, I'm never going to rid my habit of walking in on people in the bathroom at work until said people learn to use the little lock. You're not the only one privy to knowing the code to get into the women's bathroom. Hence, the little lock. I'd love it if you could please lock me out when you go in there.
It has now officially been an hour since I woke up for good this morning. It wasn't all that great a sleep to begin with and I'm starting to fantasize about ice cream sandwiches. But I hate eating in the middle of my sleep; it's so disruptive. Remember when Steve used 78 semi-colons in one paper and got a C for making the teacher laugh?
I wanna have a baby.

What Can I Say?

Sometimes, you get a song stuck in your head. You sing it walking down the street. You sing it when you're alone. You even find yourself singing it when other songs are playing on the radio. A sad situation, yes, but not as sad as when you get just a line or two of a song stuck in your head. Then it's "you told me good-bye, how was I to know you didn't mean good-bye, you meant please don't let me go? I was having a high time, living the good life" all day long. Even more unfortunate, if you can stand to hear this, is when you get a word stuck in your head. Over and over the word twirls around your mind dancing with different meanings that you're not sure but think it could possibly work with. Then it settles on your tongue and you find yourself mouthing the word 3600 times an hour.
The last time I was afflicted with single word lodging was when I was doing a two-hour drive home from New Jersey. Gubernatorial somehow popped into my brain and I couldn't figure out what it meant. The more I mouthed it the more I realized how poppy and exciting it was to say. Gubernatorial stuck. Luckily, that was only a two hour affair--something I can't say about today's word.
Today's word was Schlumberger. Schlumberger Limited, the oilfield service company. You see, one Friday about a month ago, I traded some Schlumberger. That night my grandfather mentioned the company. Only, he pronounced the French owned and operated company "Schlumber-jhay," a far-cry from my American-sounding pronunciation: Schlumberger. And so all today whenever I had a free moment to think or wonder or daydream, all my brain would produce was, "Schlumberger, Schlumber-jhay, Schlumber-jhay? Schlumber-jhay...Schlumberger!" Etc.
It's been a long day.

Cafe au lait avec glace?

This past week I went to London and Paris and had a number of fun language experiences. However, the best language experience was the one waiting for me when I got home. There, sitting on the kitchen counter were some signs my brother made to welcome all of us home (he was the only one around this week).
One sign read:

Cheerio, mite

and another read:

bon sowr (boon swah)
and
madam, madam roselle (or something like that)

I love them.

Rainy Day Adventures Vol. 2

This morning I had one of those rare moments when you do something so embarrassing you can't help but not be embarrassed. Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about because you definitely do. In a move to trump stepping straight out of my shoe last week when it was rainy, I stepped directly on someone else's shoe--not someone else's foot--someone else's shoes. You see, after putting my coffee down on the counter, I tried explaining to the woman that I was also going to get a water, a sports bottle, a sport water, a water, she wasn't getting it. So I left my coffee on the counter and just went to get the water. When I came back, I placed my water on the counter (which was now crowded by two other people) and my foot on something squishy.
"That's my shoe," the man next to me said.
I looked down and sure enough, there was his flip-flop in all its lonesome glory and his naked foot hovering somewhere between 5 and 6 inches above it. With a look of wide-eyed alarm, I stared at him not knowing what to do or say. Why wasn't his shoe on? Did he see my foot inching closer and immediately slide out of his shoe to avoid my stomp? Did he slide out of his shoe because it was too wet to hold his foot like I had done only a week ago? Did he take his foot out of his flip-flop to scratch his other leg with his toes? The questions were just burning inside of me. And then my mouth opened and an overly apologetic, urgently pleading voice came out a tad too loud shouting, "I'm so sorry. SO, SO sorry!"
When I realized how exaggerated my reaction was and how calmly he just looked at me, we both started laughing and he told me it was fine.
I think I should rename the blog Rainy Day Adventures with Dina.

Ooh, Ooh, Can I Be Rainy Day Woman #35?

The rain was coming down hard but I didn't really mind because I had an umbrella. It would have been nice to be in rain boots, but I left those at home and had to make do with what I had at the apartment. Plus, we always used jellies for the pool so it wasn't that bad. And they could be washed off and dried, something I planned to do as soon as I'd get to the offive. Nearing the offive, I crossed the street. This was a careful one step at a time kind of day because the rain kept making the inside of my jellies slippery. I wasn't at risk of slipping on the sidewalk; I was at risk of slipping clear out of my shoes. Which I did when trying to get from the street onto the sidewalk. Putting one foot firmly on the sidewalk, I lifted the other and realized the ease with which it happened was too smooth. My shoe was still sitting in the puddle that gathered against the wall of the sidewalk. I turned around to get a better look at the situation and found myself making straight eye contact with a very attractive laughing 20-something guy. He was standing in the street about a foot behind my swimming shoe waiting for me to figure out what to do. I leaned down and slipped my foot into the shoe, still keeping eye-contact. (No really, he was very cute.)
"Well, at least your shoes are plastic!"
"That's why I've got them!" I said and walked down the rest of the block wondering why at 22 I still can't make myself seem cool.

Take Time to Tell Me You Really Caaaa-are

One of our poetry assignments (gooooo summer school!) was to write about a song that has special meaning to us. One of my classmates wrote about "Always and Forever." When she took her poem out to read and told the class what song it was about, my professor started singing it. At one point in the reading, she looked up to give the teacher a dirty look because her humming got a little too loud. I thought that was weird. Y'know, that my professor was humming while the woman read. But when the poem was over, my professor said, "okay! Now everyone!" and led the class into the song. Yes. The whole thing. I didn't join in, but I danced in my chair.

So It's Ice Cream Sandwiches for Lunch

I saw my husband/s today at the supermarket. After moving my stuff into the apartment I'm subletting for the summer, I went to buy some food. And there at the top of the aisle I walked down was heaven himself. I looked at him and blushed. He looked at me and I think he might have laughed or smiled or done something because then his friend, whose back was to me, turned around to see who was there. He was heaven number two. And heaven number three was the other friend. When I say they were heaven, what I mean is that they were tall, dark haired, and bearded. I was so thrown off I forgot to get peanut butter.

It Could Also Be Related to Banging My Head too Hard on the Floor

Remember when I went to the dentist months ago and told them that I felt like my jaw hurt sometimes when I ate and they listened for clicks and heard none and told me it was nothing? My headaches and I do. I took them back to the dentist today and told him, "I don't know if it's my gums or my jaw, but there's something going on inside my mouth and it's been causing me headaches every morning." I went despite people saying, "well, if it starts in the morning you're obviously under stress from work and it's tension headaches." And guess what--just guess! My mouth works in just the opposite way a normal mouth should. So when I move my jaw forward or to the side and my front teeth should be taking over, they don't. All the stresses of running my mouth fall onto my back teeth and they haven't been too happy about that lately. All I know is that if this thing the dentist gave me doesn't help I'm going to prescribe myself bed and stop functioning. Also, in unrelated mouth news, I got a double chin today. I am the only person magical enough to get a double chin after losing weight that she didn't try losing.

Whistlepig

There is a crazy turkey walking around my backyard. When the groundhog/woodchuck/whistlepig walked past her, she suddenly stood straight and spread her wings. Then the groundhog continued on its way, going under the fence and into the woods and she went back to eating what ever it was she found in the grass. When she went to the birdfeeder and scared the birds away, I slammed the door a few times to get her to run away and she ignored me. Ignored me!
Over Shabbos, my parents and I spent at least an hour staring out the door at the action around the bird feeder. It's like nature's office water cooler.
Extra credit to whomever can tell me what this is from: "Oh, the water cooler was brought over here for... maintenance. So what do you guys hear? What's the scuttlebutt?"

*The etymology of the name woodchuck is unrelated to wood. It stems from an Algonquian name for the animal, wuchak.

The Freckles are Coming! The Freckles are Coming!

Yesterday when I stood in the grocery store aisle debating over whether to purchase a regular moisturizer with low sunscreen or a night moisturizer with no sunscreen, I reminded myself that in the summer I use sunblock as a moisturizer during the day anyway and besides, I still had half a bottle of the same low sunscreen moisturizer at home. Obviously, I needed the night moisturizer (technically, I don't, but I think I'm supposed to start moisturizing my face more to keep it youthful). So this morning when my already broken low sunscreen moisturizer bottle broke even more, I was left with no choice but to slather the right side of my face with my new night moisturizer. It was that or search my room for 10 precious morning minutes for a potential sunblock find. And just as the bread always falls on the buttered side, the sun was hitting me hardest from my right all day.