Accidental Southern Belle

Now THIS is cool

We were wandering the streets of our little town on Saturday (after I had recovered from a horrible, accidental, hangover) and we went into the the fun arty shop where my Pocket Buddha came from. And among many fun things, we found these: INVISIBLE BOOKSHELVES. Now they hang outside the bathroom, adorned with bathroom reading (funny essays and serious short stories--obviously). How do you think they work?! I'm not telling!!

Here's the close up:

With a Hokie on top:

My Laptop has been to the following places

My laptop started in China, went to Alaska, then Kentucky, then North Carolina and now for goodness sakes, PLEASE get it here to Tennessee, oh UPS gods. I was all excited about Seb the customer service guy because he seemed nice and helpful. UNTIL he ignored my request to re-address my laptop until I had to call and eMail frantically about how I had REQUESTED that he send the laptop to Tennessee as of 12/10, but now it is 12/20 and the laptop is HURTLING TOWARD NORTH CAROLINA AT BREATHTAKING SPEED. Now, it seems to be a bit delayed...but I still don't know where it will go next. I may have made a huge mistake. I am going to wait to purchase a laptop bag until it is safely in my possession. What do you think of this one? (See right)

Ridiculous Gift Suggestions

On our way to Nashville yesterday, we heard an ad for a local spa in Knoxville. Apparently, if you buy your LADY FRIEND a spa treatment you (manly, man you) will receive your very own free MAN BODY BUTTER. We laughed for about 50 miles about that one.

If your man (or woman) doesn't need SKIN smoothing, what about FEET smoothing? Check out the Ped Egg. Yes, the Ped Egg. It can scrape the most unslightly nastiness from the bottom of your feet and STORE IT IN ITS EGG-SHAPED STORAGE UNIT. Brilliant. Gross. But brilliant.

Jewish Crackers

Last night, Matt and I went to Wal-Mart to get the major necessities for our seder: brisket, seder plate stuff, matzah. He is being lovely and is humoring me in this endeavor even though he is sort of confused, ("Why do you need lettuce AND parsley?" "I just DO!" "Why do you need a bone?" "For the seder plate, so I won't have to draw one on a piece of paper and cut it out like I did last year.")

So, we had everything, including the egg dying coloring because I've always wanted to color eggs and I just never have, so I'm going to color one and then write the Hebrew word for egg on it with the special egg-coloring crayon.

Since there was AN ENTIRE AISLE of Easter stuff in this Walmart and there are a number of Jews in this region of Virginia, I figured that this Wal Mart would have Matzah, which I didn't buy in NC because I didn't want to crush it in the car. I look all over for it, but I JUST CAN'T FIND IT. So, I go up to this helpful-looking guy and say, "Do you have Matzah here?"

And he looks back at me and says, "What's that?"

So, I'm kind of at a loss because I've never MET anyone who didn't know what matzah was before...so I come up with, "It's kind of a cracker. That Jewish people eat? On Passover?"

And he thinks about it for a minute and says, "Well, then it'd be in the cracker aisle!"

So, I accept this. And then, trying to be more helpful, he says, "Or in the Ethnic aisle."

I say thank you. "The Ethnic aisle is aisle 4."

I don't REALLY think of myself as "ethnic" per se. Nor do I think of myself as a "minority" (which is what this Jew I met the other night said and it made me want to strangle her. She's like (paraphrasing), "I need to raise my children with a Jewish iron fist because they are a MINORITY. I always felt like a MINORITY." (empasis hers. She just kept saying minority over and over again and I could tell that the girl who was listening (not Jewish) was like, I have no idea what you are talking about.)

But, needless to say there was not ONE BOX of matzah in that entire Wal Mart (I found something they don't have!!!). So, we had to go to Kroger. Where we also got a box of 72 Holyland candles. I will have candles for the rest of my life.

Now I just need candlesticks.

New Year, New Gnome

I've spent the past week (with Matt's help and some funding from my generous landlord) sprucing up my house.  I now have a new ceiling fan in my bedroom and a gorgeous brushed metal light fixture in my dining room. I also have reorganized my office a bit and moved the bookshelf that was improperly holding my printer out into the living room where it can do its actual job and hold my book collection. But the real boon of this week is that I finally found a garden gnome. I'm calling him Chuck after the dog that wandered into Joel's deep fry party on Friday night (long story, the dog's name wasn't ACTUALLY Chuck, but that was the name that I gave it because it was the name that it most closely responded to. Post-party theories show that the folks that showed up with "Chuck" the dog actually knew what the dog's name was because it was THEIR dog and they were just using it as a prop to enter said party. But regardless, the gnome is now Chuck.). View him in all of his glory (the gnome, not the dog).

The Curse of the Hourglass

I can't shop in this town. I don't know what it is, but either there's something manic about how I always feel when I get in a shop here (i.e. I need to get out ASAP) or there just aren't the right shops here. It's actually a similar problem to the restaurant problem here: there aren't any affordable, good restaurants, something that New York did seem to have in abundance. I think there may be good restaurants here, but I can't afford them. So, I wouldn't know.

Similarly, I think there are shops here with nice clothes, but I can't afford them. And the ones that are in price range are just horrible. I mean, I'm just not going to shop at Pac Sun or whatever that surfer store at the mall is called. I'm not.

Anyway, when I was in New York, I had about one hour to shop at H&M...somehow that was all the trip allowed, so I went there and bought two skirts and a shirt. One of the skirts is corduroy so I won't wear that for a few months (considering the fact that for the past few days our newspaper's graphic to go along with the temperature hasn't been a sun or a rain cloud but just the word HOT surrounded by little hazy squiggles), and the other is a little black a-line number that I thought would replace my horribly ruined eyelet skirt, but alas, the same thing has happened that almost always happens when I buy clothes: I bought the wrong size.

This may just be the curse of having hips that are much bigger than one's waist, but I am constantly buying skirts that look great on in the dressing room, when they SIT ON MY HIPS, but when I buy and WEAR them, they no longer sit on my hips, they ride up. And they turn. And they have nothing to grip on to because of the small waist, I mean there is literally an eight or nine inch difference between my hips and my waist, so this is serious business. And there is nothing more uncomfortable than a skirt that has nothing to grab on to.

So, I'm wearing my new skirt today, but I'm totally miserable. All I've done since I left my house is tug at it. And bemoan my fate of being a person who does not have anything to wear. Despite my lovely walk-in closet. If only it could be fixed...I think the only answer is the thing I've been saying for years: I need a tailor who makes my clothes for me. Better finish that book, huh? ;)