flopkins.com

but I truly do not understand how ‘white people’ (ok, ok, anyone know anyone who has grown up eating their grapefruit like this?!  I need a survey on the demographics of this population.)  eat grapefruit. And by ‘white people’ I mean anyone who cuts it crosswise and scoops out the flesh with a spoon. This is the image I have seen on TV growing up, at the breakfast buffet in hotels, etc…

I grew up in a grapefruit loving home (well, my dad loves grapefruit but my mom just kinda screws up her face and says it’s too bitter, and my dad and I would end up eating most of it) and we would always just peel the grapefruit like an orange, separate the slices, and then peel the thick skin off the individual slices with our hands. Definitely not as refined as eating a grapefruit with a nice spoon. But at least it doesn’t squirt you in the eye, leave lots of mashed up pulp, and a puddle of leftover juice. Plus, I think it feeds my OCD tendencies to make myself a nice pile of peeled grapefruit to savor. Yum.

Ryan says he doesn’t think he can take me out to a nice brunch anymore, since I don’t seem to want to eat my grapefruit in a civilized way. I say, if we’re busting out the big bucks for a nice brunch, I certainly won’t be wasting my precious stomach space on some grapefruit…

PS. Don’t tell me I need one of those pointy grapefruit spoons with the serrated edges. I need a set of those like I need another tokidoki bag.

Yes, it’s time for another one of my infamous rants. Buckle yourselves in.

Back to hp.

They are one of the evil companies that sell you (or even give you - oh, how generous are they) cheap crap printers and then rip you off on the $50 ink cartridges.

I’ve been holding out on buying those ridiculously priced ink cartridges… but that meant I couldn’t print anything at home for the last 6 months, which is kind of a problem.

Enter Office Depot.

They entice you with their Office Depot brand ink… significantly cheaper than the official hp ink. I fell for it and bought them. (Note to self and all (5) of my readers: DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I knew things weren’t going to go well when I look at the contact portion of the color cartridge. Kinda crusty looking… hm… oh well. I load it into my printer. 5 seconds later: fatal error: color cartridge failed. #*$&@#(*!!

I take Office Depot on their ‘100% Satisfaction Guaranteed’ offer. I return the crap cartridges to the surly OD employee. I buy the real hp ones. I wanted to buy them from Staples or something, just to piss off OD by not giving them my $$ after all that, but I admit it, I was lazy. I just wanted my damn printer to work. I even sold my soul by selling my old empty cartridges back to OD for the $3 off/cartridge discount. (which they will use to make MORE crap OD ink cartridges… argh!!!)

Finally. I load the new, authentic hp ink cartridges into the printer. They work fine.

Then I try to hook the printer up to Ryan’s new fancy schmancy new double screen computer that he spent $$$$ on. I can’t figure it out. Ryan to the rescue. He goes to the hp website to download the driver for the printer… enters the printer model, selects the windows operating system, and then:

We are sorry to inform you that there will be no Windows Vista support available for your HP product. Therefore your product will not work with Windows Vista.

The majority of HP products not supported in Windows Vista are beyond seven years old.

If you are using the Windows Vista operating system on your computer, please consider upgrading to a newer HP product that is supported on Windows Vista. HP has numerous products on the market that support Windows Vista.

For more information on the different options, click the How to Buy link at the top of the page.

And Office Depot - you just plain suck at trying to make money off the cash cow that is printer ink…

I was referring to my doctoral dissertation as a thesis. Well, a kind friend (who also happens to be working on her dissertation) and this document from UC Berkeley has set me straight. And, according to wikipedia - which we all know is the absolute authority on everything (and anyone) worth mentioning:

At most [US] universities, dissertation is the term for the required submission for the

doctorate and thesis refers only to the master’s degree requirement.

Ha! Obviously the author of this wikipedia entry has a doctorate! Why are all the master’s students out there sweating bullets? It’s only a thesis.

Gotta love the social hierarchy of academia.

You have to admit though - ‘dissertation’ just sounds more important than ‘thesis.’ Plus, it’s a much longer word. 12 letters versus a measly 6. Twice as long - it must mean a dissertation is twice as snooty.

I guess we have to grasp at something after all these years… I mean, it’s taken me 6 times longer to get my phD than it took Ryan to get his masters - which, by the way, was a two year program he finished in one.

Damn overachiever.

Tonight, Ryan and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary with the usual: yummy food. We had a delicious dinner at Baraka - highly recommend the pistachio crusted goat cheese with honey, onions, and crostini!!!

The strange thing about being married for 2 years is that on the one hand, I feel like I’ve known Ryan forever and our relationship feels totally natural - and on the other hand I *still* feel like I’m pretending to be a grown up, old person that is married…

Ah well, who cares about my inner struggles… I leave you with a picture of our former, skinnier selves… but looking pretty much as we always do - Ryan with a smirk and me with my non-existent eyes. Ha!

PS - For the record, married life has been great… I love it!! Everyone should get married!! *hint hint - this applies to more than one of you couples out there!!!* (I promise I’ll help with the wedding planning… really!!!)

PPS - Pics of Ryan’s bday steak bonanza to come, I promise…  I know, I’m a lame-o.

This is me and tokidoki:

This is Ryan (Ryan being the one in the green shirt):

I would like to point out, however, that I have not purchased a new tokidoki item in almost three weeks… and have been under budget every week since the new year… yay for me!!!

I’ve been contemplating giving up my cell phone. Ryan wants to switch over to his work phone, because (a) it would be free and (b) his razr sucks. The problem is, he’s the primary account holder on our Verizon account, and Verizon sucks and won’t let us switch names on the account, so I’d have to sign up all over again on a new plan with them… which means I might as well switch providers all together! (Why should I give them my business when they don’t want my business?!!) I used to have a fantastic plan with the Identity Crisis Company (AT&T/Cingular/AT&T) but of course now all of the big cell companies basically have the same crap plan for everyone.

So, I’ve been thinking - do I REALLY need a cell phone? I mean, gosh, I’ve had one since maybe freshman year of college… pretty much 10 years. But I never really pick up my phone anyway (I’m sure most of you can attest to this) and I’d probably get a land line instead. Plus, the thought of not having a phone sounds rather appealing. If someone really wants to talk to me, they can email me. Or call my work line. Or Ryan. Ha!

Besides, no one really calls me anyway, except Ryan and my parents. Ryan actually sounded kind of excited at the thought of saving even more money (going from a $100/mo cell phone bill to $0) but his face fell a bit when I asked the real question: Can HE survive if I didn’t have a phone?

Maybe I need to do an experiment - one week with no cell phone. What do you think?!

Sometimes, I just need to remind myself of the great things in my life, and there are quite a few things recently that have given me joy (in no particular order):

1. Adorable nephew Mattie:

2. nanoBrew (our nerdy name for our nerdy Rock Band)

3. Unexpected flowers and delicious fruits from Ryan (and homemade ice cream from Dryw):

4. The new and improved Engineering Circle. I think they tore this down my freshman year of undergrad, and now, after 9 years, a seismically retrofitted Heart Mining Building and brand new Stanley Hall… it is gorgeous.

5. Rice vermicelli with Imperial Rolls from Le Petit Cheval.

( Tamales from the Tamale Lady come in a close second. )

6. Adorable doggies: Winston, a shorkie (shih tsu and yorki mix)

7. Mission Bay Community Church (MBCC): Fun, friendly, and two blocks from home… what more could I ask?

8. Happy news from friends:
Genese and Adrian on their new house!
Lucinda and Dan expecting their first baby in April!
Michelle and Will expecting their first baby in August!
Julian and Diana expecting their first baby in August/September!
Michelle and Kreg on their upcoming wedding this October!

9. My dad is a real golfer!!

10. The expectation of trying our very own brown ale beer… in another week or so!!

Or, How well do you know my friends?

I asked a friend of mine if they had any plans for V-day and the reply was:

“Every day is Valentine’s Day for us!”

It was said in an admittedly half joking way, but, like I said, half joking. Of course, I did my duty as a great and fantastic friend and laughed my head off…

so the question is: do you know who said it?! Comment below and win the satisfaction that you were right.

I do have to admit that I have a love/hate relationship with V-day - I hate it because it’s really just a made-up holiday just so the card, flower, and food industries can charge us exorbitant amounts to kick start their sales after the holiday slump. But inside I really love it when Ryan gets me flowers, or takes me out to dinner, or gets me a little gift. Obviously, I love that kind of stuff any day of the year, but heck, another excuse to squeeze a nice dinner outta my hubby isn’t a bad thing, right?!!

Speaking of which, we celebrated Valentine’s early this year, on Tuesday, in fact. (Ryan wanted to cheer me up after a crappy morning - see my previous post) We went to this fun restaurant in the Marina/North Beach called Albona. Total old school European kinda place, and the owner, Bruno, was a total hoot. As we were leaving he was escorting us out and giving me detailed instructions on how to reheat my risotto (he didn’t want me thinking his risotto was glue, God forbid) when the topic of V-day came up. He asked if we had any plans, and we admitted that we were celebrating early!! He lit up and started his rant about V-day… Oh, everyone on V-day, ah… they’re amateurs!! We give them this set menu, so they don’t have to think about it, and for me, it’s just hell… (he shows us his reservation screen for the 14th - completely packed, obviously) much better that you’re celebrating early~! And the men, they all have intentions, you know… ulterior motives for after dinner, eh?!!

I think we both got a huge kick out of that.

I am decidedly NOT a morning person. I love sleeping in. I love laying in bed, the sun shining into our apartment, knowing I don’t have to get out of bed. Of course, I can’t sleep in every day, and of course I need to (eventually) get out of bed. Usually though, once I get out of bed and into the shower, things start feeling a bit better and I go about my day.

Today, however, was a different story. Actually, let me give a timeline here, which adds some context to the story.

Last Wednesday:
I finally dropped off a HUGE amount of laundry off at the dry cleaners. I think Ryan and I were about 6 months behind on our dry cleaning, and it was just one of those things where there got to be so much of it, neither of us wanted to bring it out to actually get it cleaned because we knew it would cost $$$$. Plus, I had my favorite dry cleaners back in El Cerrito, and I hadn’t found a new one that was convenient. See? We haven’t done dry cleaning since we moved to SF. That’s how long it’s been. So, finally, I looked up dry cleaners in Berkeley. On yelp, of course. There happened to be one that got great reviews that was right on my way home from lab. Fantastic! I dropped off two huge bags of clothes and they told me it would be ready by Friday.

Friday:
Of course, since normal people have normal hours, they close at 6:30PM, and I didn’t get there in time to pick it up Friday, but I figured I’d just pick it up this week.
(Random aside: even if I HAD got out of work in time, I wouldn’t have been able to pick up the dry cleaning, because I forgot my wallet at home… but that’s another story)

Monday night, in bed:
Me: Hm… I need my dress pants.
Ryan: Is it still at the cleaners? Have you picked it up yet?
Me: I haven’t picked it up yet, I didn’t have time on Friday or today… I’ll pick it up later this week.
Ryan: You should pick it up immediately!!! You know they sell your clothes if you leave it at the cleaners too long.
Me: What?? Are you serious?!!
Ryan: Yup. My suit is there and I would be pretty upset about it if they sold my suit.
Me: No way… I mean come on, they said it wouldn’t be ready until Friday, and it was the weekend, it’s been less than a week!!!
Ryan: hm… true. But you need those pants anyway, right?

Side note: Ok, so the completely rational part of me *knows* that the cleaners hasn’t sold all our clothes in the last week. But I’m still kinda nervous about it so I say:

Me: Yeah… Sigh. I’ll pick them up tomorrow morning before I head into work.

Tueday morning (today):
It all started out like a normal morning. I got up, took a shower, got ready for work. Got into my car, it’s a beautiful day, sun is shining, I’m listening to NPR, life is good.

Then I pull up to the dry cleaners. I get out of my car, walk to the parking ticket dispenser, like a good citizen that I am, to pay for my parking (plus, the yelp reviews all said the meter maids were nazis around here) and deposit a quarter. Shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to pick up my laundry right?! No problem. Machine takes my quarter. I push the button for the ticket. Nothing happens. In fact, I feel like there’s something weird about that button, because I think it usually depresses when you push it, but this one isn’t. Argh! Someone superglued the ticket-dispensing-button on the machine!!!

I evaluate the situation. Seriously, how long could it take to pick up the clothes?! Forget the parking! I walk over to the cleaners. They’re CLOSED!!!! I read the sign: Hours: Tu-Fri 10-6:30. I can see the clock inside the cleaners. It reads 9:55. Hm… okay maybe I’ll wait. As I wait I see two meter maids in their little annoying carpods zip by… making me doubly nervous. I stare at the cleaner and check the sign again… Sat 10-6, Sun-Mon Closed. Gee, I couldn’t have picked it up yesterday anyway since they were closed!! Ryan was freaking me out for no reason… grrrrr!! I finally get into my car, start the engine and am about to pull away when I see a guy opening the cleaners. Oh! Well I can still get the clothes! Great!

I rush into the store, and hand him my ticket. As I wait for him to find our clothes, I read the sign: “Cash only. No credit cards or ATM.” Sh*t!!!!!! I check my wallet. I have less than $15 in cash.
Me: uh, no credit cards huh?
Dry cleaner dude: nope.
Me: How much is it?
Dry cleaner dude: $85.
Me: $85?!!! $#&%$(#)$~!!!

So I get back in my car. I reevaluate the situation for the second time. I’m already late for work. There’s no way I’m going to get out of work by 6:30. I’ll just go find some cash, and come back and pick it up. Alright. Where can I get cash? Hm… downtown Berkeley isn’t too far. I’ll go there.

I go to downtown Berkeley. Parking is impossible. Then I remember that Bank of America has a parking lot. Our joint account is at Wells Fargo, which is across the street, but I feel like a traitor parking at BOA and actually going to WF, plus there are all kinds of scary signs in the BOA lot saying it’s for BOA customers only. That’s alright, I’ll just withdraw some cash from my BOA account. No problem. I go to the ATM. I punch in my PIN. I tell the machine I want $200. It tells me my pin is wrong. Sh*t. What’s my pin?! I haven’t used my BOA ATM in so long… I punch in another PIN. Cr*p. Still wrong. Wait, did I just punch in the same one as before? I can’t remember…. ARGH!!! I punch in another PIN for the 3rd time. Finally it goes through. Thank God!! I get my cash and run…

I get back to the dry cleaners, park, don’t pay for parking since I can’t, and run into the store and pay the guy his freaking $85 and pick up our huge amount of clothes and stuff it all in my trunk. Okay, finally I am done and I can get to work.

I drive about half a block from the dry cleaners when I get a phone call. It’s from BOA Fraud Protection Services. There’s been some unusual activity on my ATM card, and I need to call them back to verify the transactions…

Need I say more? I had a sucky morning.

So…. with an unprecedented amount of opinions generated by my last post, I feel I have to do a follow-up post. I can’t have everything thinking Ryan is a horrible person. I mean, he puts up with me, for example. That must make him a hero! Plus, I can’t have everyone thinking I am being Miss High and Mighty… I have my own personal issues with giving money to the homeless, and all I really wanted was for Ryan to have some accountability. But in any case I think God is trying to tell me to stop being such a pessimist. Not even a day after I called Ryan a cheater and tight-wad… well… this is what happened the very next day:

I was really wanting some pho for lunch. It was getting cold, and cold weather always makes me want to eat some hot soup… so we decided to go to the Tenderloin, where the best pho in SF is. Now, if you have ever been to the Tenderloin, you know what it’s like there. Not exactly the place you take your grandma for lunch, ya know… (unless she loves pho too) so we find a parking space and right there was a bum, sitting on the sidewalk leaning on a random wall, reading the paper. He had his backpack of stuff sitting next to him. Wasn’t asking for money or anything. Ryan gives him a dollar. The guy was quite gracious and says thank you. A real thank you. You know what I mean. A genuine, authentic thank you. I have to tell you, I have given food to many people, and they don’t often say thank you at all, let alone a genuine thanks.

Later that day we went to Union Square for the Macy’s Christmas Tree Lighting, and, of course, being the tightwads that we are, we hate paying for parking, so we park in the Tenderloin/Theater District and walk over. Over the 4 or 5 block span we saw maybe 3 bums, panhandling. I think Ryan handed out at least 2 or 3 dollars, all to different guys. (side note - I don’t think I’ve seen a single woman panhandling in SF. In Berkeley I used to see a couple regulars outside Cheeseboard but for some reason men seem to be the majority of the ones asking for money. I wonder why. I mean, there’s gotta be a lot of women who are homeless too, right?? Maybe I need to some some homework on this.) Anyway, back to my story, after the lighting Ryan gave the last dollar in his wallet to a guy selling Street Spirit (the free publication they ’sell’ for donations). The Street Spirit dude was really nice, and even gave us information on the hostels in the area (we were in front of a hostel, musing to ourselves aloud whether there were others nearby and he chimed in)…

I have to say I think that this charitable fitness just needs more exercising… just as I obviously need some exercise in optimism (and at the gym too!). I don’t know if Ryan would admit it but I think his experiences that day might have tipped him in favor of more charitable giving.