Friday, September 23, 2011

M5 Alive

[whisper] Vroom, vroom.

I usually pick up the Kindle when the hus turns on Top Gear. But every now and then, I get pulled in by a joke made funnier by a British accent, or an especially creative battle of American cars. Let's just say I've tuned in enough, and respect the hus enough - as well as the other men in my family - to appreciate a good car when I see one. Or get the chance to drive one.

[whisper] Vroom, vroom.

Nope, that's not a Mazda from its cute commercial, interrupting my self-deprecating blogging - that's my big brother's M5 beckoning me back to Washington state. Though he's had the BMW since grad school, the stars aligned only recently for me to slip behind the wheel and into the leathery smelling dome of the silver, 2001 model.

Courtesy of an MBWorld discussion forum
Besides a jittery couple stints in second gear (which my dad reassured me he's had as well), the five-speed (or stick shift - fact for dummies like me: these terms are interchangeable), treated me like a cowboy's well-trained horse, responding to my every movement. I left my brother's neighborhood, driving gingerly, getting the feel of the "poppy" clutch, gears that click in to place like fun-to-push buttons, and brakes definitely in better condition than my own car's. As I boarded (yep) the freeway, the onramp was short, reinforcing my #1 reason for why fast cars are safer. I accelerated, realizing how 70 feels like 90 in our used Toyotas, and how that same MPH feels like 40 with the longtime manufacturer of German engine bad-ass-ness.

I was on my way to meet up with someone but started pondering, what after?

I'll have a few hours before the next family/friends activity. I should just drive. I should just drive the way to Mount St. Helen's. One of my favorite places in one of my now fave cars. I never knew driving could be this much fun! Weee... I should find something else besides Your Story Hour to listen to? Hm, it is relaxing. But I need ... Okay, this'll do. U2. Man, I could get used to this. No more brake-chattering 4Runner, or stiff-sticked (that's what she said) Tacoma pick-up. Life would probably just unfold more easily for me. People would want to turn my blog into a book. Then a movie. Featuring ZooeyD and ASkars, and directed by Sophia Coppola. Then I could trick some house into publishing a mediocre book of mine. Then I could afford to buy the hus his own dream car to keep him entertained while I'm on a book tour. That only tours Paris.

Before I exit the freeway and my daydream, I accelerate one more time and feel the car hold me in my black, slippery seat, seatbelt tight, hands easily gripping the wheel and stick shift that will beckon me once I leave the land of pine trees and country roads and return to Pensacola. SIGH

It feels good to feel alive like that. If only more commercials for female consumers played on that. Women seem a careful kind of pathetic. Wanting both good car engines and good makeup. Romance, not sap. (Like I've said), just-not-cardboard tampons and sweet-smelling shampoo - not white pants in a mosh pit and vaseline-smeared tresses. Chick flicks and lit with plot. Inventions that will remove the fast food smell from your car, blow our your hair like the stylist does, and trim your own bangs. Cures for cystic acne, breast cancer, and why not, testicular cancer. We want, at least I want, the reality of good engines and good makeup alike.

Don't give me this:



Give me this:



Let these women write more of our entertainment. Let me. JUST KIDDING
Courtesy of The New York Times
{Great article - yep, that's Juno's Oscar-winning Diablo Cody and
New Girl writer and real life new girl Liz Meriwether}
























In honor of my wish to be like the above ladies, I'm introducing a new Side of Honeydew feature called WordGirl for Grown-ups, even though the cartoon can be enjoyed by anyone over age 11, too. The concluding blurb will hopefully sometimes teach you something you didn't know regarding definitions or grammar. And thus help you not seem like an idiot. Because I often do until my co-freelancers or weirdly grammar-smart hus correct me. If you don't want to learn anything new today, that's okay - scroll to the end, and your treat for reading this post will be something cool via my friend's Tumblr.

Oh, and feel free to submit your own tips or tumbles, especially call out my mistakes. =)

And yes, it's Friday night, and I'm blogging. Because until I become rich and famous (so, never), I'll stay home and blog while my husband hovers over the earth on fun and exciting helicopter trips to everywhere but here.

[whisper] Vroom, vroom.

WordGirl for Grown-ups

How to speak, or write, correctly about your plural possession of something (read on; it'll make more sense)

Please commit this to memory and take the time in conversation to practice it, because it's messed up all the time on reality TV shows, and it makes me wanna throw the remote at my beautiful television. Tsk, tsk.

WRONG:

Cary and I's beamer. (AKA BMW)

RIGHT:

Cary's and my beamer.

Hint - You should be able to remove either subject, and the sentence will still make sense. Also, just like in another aspect of good grammar, the person who's not you should be referenced first. How polite, right?

Tumblr Treat

Quotes of the Day

“It’s never too early for pub mix… or to be at a pub.”

In response to me [Erin] asking if someone was ok, “Yes, it was just a strange dream-to-reality transition this morning.”

“Careful with that - it’s a man tool.”  (It was a new razor blade)

“When I saw your sweatshirt on the ground, I thought someone had poured water on you.”

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Thank You

Words are not enough.


Anja Niedringhaus, The Associated Press

August 5, 2011 and June 28, 2005, and moment after moment after moment of deserving silence since September 11, 2001. We are war-weary, yet our soldiers keep volunteering and our civilians keep building taller buildings 10 years over.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

The Little Piggy with the Low IQ Goes to Market

Courtesy of The Movie Database
The other night, I lied (laid? eff!) awake, thoughts reeling and body edges restless. I was trying to save the final chapter of the book I was reading for the beach (the female protagonist had just died anyway), and when I went out to watch TV, nothing was on. 'Cept The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Which is great, but it wasn't in HD, so I pouted while watching.

I was still restless with a lack of writing inspiration, and I longed to just jump into the story with Arthur, Trillian, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Marvin the depressed but oh-so-cute robot. Adventure...with a British accent ... This is what I needed.
"Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."
Courtesy of Sharp Pen/Dull Sword
I'd settle for a summer in Paris in a crap flat instead of a spaceship and alien worlds. Heck, I'd settle for weekly shopping trips to the higher-scale Florida grocery store Publix instead of Walmart. But since it was nearing 2 a.m., I instead started pondering if I was anywhere near smart or creative enough to come up with a plot like in 'Hitchhiker's.'

So, I leaned from the couch to precariously grab the laptop off the coffee table with one hand and its T-rex-weak arm and did a complimentary, online IQ test. Yup. 38 questions, distracted just barely once or twice by a comment like this:
"On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins, because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."
Or this:

"I refuse to answer that question, on the grounds that I don't know the answer," says Zaphod.

Or this:
Marvin: "I am at a rough estimate 30 billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number." Zem: "Er, five." Marvin: "Wrong. You see?"
Courtesy of Wikipedia
[Wait, maybe being smart isn't that big of a deal, I think. Cleverness seems to be. Aren't those related though? Why don't I know that?!]

I eventually clicked SUBMIT.

I checked my e-mail for my results. Things start to jump out at me from the screen. Credit card information? $9.99? That'll tell you my IQ right there. What was I thinking...Hadn't I done this before? Found a Web site, answered quizzy questions, opened my e-mail, checked, sighed, deleted. Oh just settle for the toothpick test, Al. (However, I don't think I can do that either.) Maybe just using toothpicks after meals means you have a decent IQ. Maybe just knowing that as you get older, you need to make sure your teeth are food free, lipstick isn't smeared on them, and that you don't clear your throat a zillion times after a meal if you're around people. Maybe just operating like a decent human being means your brain is decent enough. Just not for novel writing. Shiat.

Courtesy of Smart Couponing
So, I went on a Publix adventure the next day.

Justification: It was on our way home more than Walmart. And we thought it would be fun. We climb out of the car and see slender, stylish people moving through the parking lot as we grab a cart and make our way, too. I pull on my sweatshirt, because while it's hot though stormy here lately, insides are pumped full of AC.

"Warm enough there, girl?" a man asks me as we enter.

"No."

We meander through the bakery, deli and produce as well as each and every soothingly-lit aisle. I use the excuse that I don't know where anything is, but really, I just wanna see what yummy foods, fun packaging, and organics await my careful plucking.

Courtesy of the blog True Wild Life
Eventually, our basket is full of prettier generic boxes and bags, and new (to us) kinds of fresh fruit (despite our fridge being broken and living out of ice chests for 6 days - I must say, my hands begged to fall off after digging around for 15 seconds at a time for a single stick of string cheese or cup o' yogurt - how do penguins and the like do it? But the new fridge is here. The ice chests gone. The trips to super-cheap Twice-the-Ice dispensers over. Sniff? Nah.)

We now manually motor up to one of the several minimally-lined check-outs. We're rung up, bagged, and rolling out to the car in such a short amount of time, and by seemingly truly happy people - healthier and almost overly helpful - that we don't know what to do with all the extra time in our evening.

Courtesy of the blog hitchhikers guide to jms
The receipt is substantially larger ($160 for a volume that usually costs us around $120). But I just wanna be more like the couple that had been leaving the store as we entered. The grown up skater boy and girl with the hipster outfit and salon hair, packing groceries into a Subaru. Hm. Enough saving for these things it is. I'll save Publix for when I need to avoid thinking about my IQ.