Afternoon Delight

I got a new iphone! Here's an adorable picture of me trying to "download apps" on my first day. One of my favorite apps is called Dragon Dictation. As a person who has spent hundreds of tedious, eyeball-bleeding hours transcribing audio interviews, I appreciate the app's ability to convert my speech into text, and then allow me to email, text, facebook, or tweet the message to a person of my pleasing.

Here's the thing though. Dragon Dictation isn't exactly...accurate. Especially when you sing to it, which of course you would. You're familiar with the 1976 lovable hit "Afternoon Delight" by the Starlight Vocal Band, yes? Or maybe Will Ferrel's a cappella version in Anchorman? Well I serenaded Grape (my iphone) last night and I will provide you with the original lyrics, and then the app's version of what I sang.

Original lyrics:

Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight

gonna grab some afternoon delight

My motto's always been when it's right it's right

Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night

When everything's a little clearer in the light of day

And you know the night is always gonna be there anyway

Dragon Dictation's version of what I sang:

Can you send them baby killers old phone tag

planning grants the master noon be mad

I started doing family that sad it's sad

When I went and seen the man has a cool tag match

Where everything is A-OK in a matter of JE

Thanks Grape! I love you.

Indoors Girl meets Nature, doesn't die

I've never been ashamed of the fact that I'm an indoors kind of a girl. I like reading, knitting, and watching movies. I don't like getting dirty, being wet, or mosquitoes. So even though I live in what feels like the Camping Capital of the Universe, I never feel the urge to join in. You go carry all your provisions on your back and risk getting mauled by a bear and tempt malaria and squat to pee and sit around in your own filth for days. I'm going to make a strawberry meringue cake and watch a pithy French film.

But due to the whole not getting my contract situation last week (see previous post; update below), the gent had all sorts of time off and wanted to use it taking a trip to Crater Lake. A camping trip. Since Friday was our Negative One Anniversary, I decided, sigh, to be a good almost-wife and go with him.

Our friends Lrin and Erane were kind enough to lend us their tent and sleeping bags, and the gent purchased our provisions: marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, trail mix, bananas, beef jerky, peanut butter, jelly, and bread. I brought three changes of clothes, four pairs of socks, five books, and my neck support pillow.

We managed to snag the very last campsite-- there was a wuss family who left because they couldn't deal with the skeeters-- and we set to work building a fire so I could have what I came there for: an embarrassment of roasted marshmallows.

Some might say this didn't really count as camping, because our car was about 10 feet from our tent, and there were flush toilets a two-minute walk away. But I slept on the ground, dammit. I got really dirty foraging for wood and waited a whole half-hour before running to the bathroom to wash my hands. And when I woke up, I didn't shower. No sir. I splashed some water on my face and called it clean... eventhoughIknewIhadbugsprayinmyhairanditwasdrivingmecrazyandIfeltlikeIhadcreepycrawliesalloverme.

But it was all worth it, because I got to see stuff like this:

Contract update: Still nothing. I swallowed my fear of speaking French over the telephone and called there during my early morning/ their late afternoon. I'm pretty sure she said that everyone who could help me was on vacay for the rest of time so I was SOL. I do keep having dreams that I'll be placed in Auxerre, so there's that.

The Story of How Ice Cream Made Everything Much More Better

I had a terrible day. A rotten, no good, horrible, all-wrong day. Let me whine to you about it for a little while. You'll like it.

A couple of months ago, upon the advice of the smarties running my program in France,  I made an appointment to talk to the folks at the French Consulate in San Francisco for this Friday. The way the process works is that the school where I'll be teaching is supposed to send me an official contract (arrêté in Frenchy) saying that I'm legit to be in Franceland for an extended period of time. The contract will also finally make me privy to such apparently insignificant facts as what city I'm going to be in and how long I'm going to be there. You know, stupid stuff.

I need the contract before I can get my visa, and I need to go in person to SF to get said visa. So back in May I made that all-important appointment for this Friday, thinking I was giving myself legions of buffer time. That Guy I Live With took Thursday thru Sunday off so we could drive down there and make it a real adventure. It was all so perfectly planned.  Except: I have received exactly bubkiss from France.

Thus I couldn't keep my Friday appointment. Thus I had to make a new appointment for the last week I'm in Portlandia. Thus I had to buy a plane ticket that will take me to the Mecca of Awesome (Oakland). Thus I was very upset and may or may not have shed numerous tears in my office-cave.

In an effort to cheer me up, my buddies Do and Janielle insisted that I join them for lunch. I had a lovely time with my lovely friends until it was time to pay. I rooted through my Nina Toten Bag and could not seem to find my wallet in betwixt various other  flotsam. I figured it had to be in the vicinity of my desk, because I had just used my card to buy a ticket to the Mecca of Awesome. We got back to the office and it was exactly nowhere. My already fragile nerves got so bo-jangly that I was pretty sure I was going to simultaneously vomit everywhere and scream in a pitch only alpacas can hear. I retraced my steps with Janielle, all the while thinking about all the irreplaceable things i had in my wallet, like my high school library card, and trying so so hard not to cry.

We made it to the restaurant where we had just dined and the proprietor proffered my wallet the moment we entered the premises.

"Bless you!" I exclaimed. "Seriously. Bless you! Bless you! I mean it. Bless you!" (I don't know. It seemed like the most appropriate response.)

I forced another friend to join me for happy hour so she could tell me happy things that would distract from Woe Day. Afterward, we went to Lovely's Fifty Fifty, which has the most superior ice cream in my neighborhood. It's much nobler than that at another new scoop shop I shall not name, whose caramel salted chocolate ice cream was so saltily inedible I feel the need to defame it at every opportunity. But at Lovely's I had a dish of their coffee toffee ice cream with candied almonds and hazelnuts.

And that made my day much more better. The end.

Postscript: I was relating the day's woes whilst cuddling with That Guy and the right shoulder strap on my prettiest, pinkest summer dress snapped. Tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be a better day. Amen.

Monsieur Fatty Fat Cat

This cat has been stalking our apartment for a good month now. He's enormously fat and whiny and wobbly. His favorite things include: sitting outside our windows/doors and meowing incessantly, scratching at our front door at all hours of the night until we open it and hiss at him, and lounging on the concrete walkway directly in front of our home. He's so fat that his stomach almost brushes the ground when he waddles from window to window to torture us. We thought he might be pregnant, but a Cat-pert took a closer gander and saw that he'd been fixed.

He's obviously never looked at my Facebook profile, because if he had he'd know that one my favorite activities is Insulting Cats Right to Their Faces. And boy, do I.

What did you get on your ZAT's?

I haven't had much of a life lately, and that's because I have rehearsal five nights a week for three to four hours a night. For what, you say? Great question. My a cappella group wrote a musical. An a cappella musical. About zombies. For the Fringe Festival in August. It's pretty much going to bring the house down.

So here's the sitch. It's called Zombie High School. In the play, the Zombie Apocalypse has come and gone, and now the undead and humans are trying desperately to coexist. A young human student, Maggie Mulligan, decides to brave all obstacles and become an exchange student at a high school for zombies in order to learn more about their culture. However, in the folly of youth, Maggie ends up biting off more than she can chew. RIGHT? Right.

All I can tell you is, I'm Maggie, and you're going to love it. It will literally make you die with joy.

"Zombie High School"
@ Mixed Blood Theater

8/7 5:30 p.m.
8/8 7:00 p.m.
8/9 5:30 p.m.
8/10 10:00 p.m.
8/14 8:30 p.m.

And here is Troy teaching us how to walk like zombies:

Robo wants to wish TP a happy third birthday

I got lots and lots of cool stuff for my birthday (hello! Travel Scrabble!) but this is definitely one of-- if not the-- coolest. My friend Big D KNIT this. She knit the whole entire thing and stuffed it with love. It was her first time doing fair isle! She's the coolest! She told me its name was Gilgaplex or something, but I shall call him Tyranamas Pyrgmates in honor of this very blog's third birthday.

On our birthdays my mom always likes to tell her spawn their birth stories. (Mine goes a little something like, "They put me in a terribly cold and sterile room and my doctor was MEAN!" Explains a lot, oui?)

TP, here's yours:

Recent graduates Anna and Neenuh had just spent their very first month apart whilst slaving away at their respective West Coast internships. They wanted a way to share their adventures with the world, and they thought with their powers combined they could make it so, so good. While they Gchatted away on that fateful July 5, a blog was born.

Anna: ok I need a new blog name because wonk is apparently close to a famous blogger name

  what's a good one? also, we need a blog name

  I was thinking, like, "the *something truth"

  or something

 me: truth pirates

 Anna: perf

Throughout our various outposts in California, DC, Minnesota and Oregon, we've kept her alive against (sob!) ALL THE ODDS! And when I venture to Francey in two short months, Tyranamas Pyrgmates will remind me to give TP all my amour on the reg.

Stop leaving me notes, Minneapolis!

Three notes. I've gotten three passive aggressive notes in the last month from strangers commenting on my behavior. Three finicky messages, referencing three different forms of my transportation. C'mon people!

1. The first note, slipped under my apartment door, on pink stationary:

"STOP slamming your door. Your door slamming is out of control. You are bothering people on MORE THAN ONE FLOOR. PLEASE. STOP."

To be fair, our carpet was just ripped up in the hallway and as soon as you let the hallway door slip from your hands, it slams on its own. When I'm carrying my bike up and down two floors, gently letting the door close behind me has admittedly not been my #1 priority. After I got the note, I started being much more careful about the doors, but the note seemed like a huge overreaction. As it turned out, it was. A week later, Steph and I were leaving my apartment and we got stopped in the hall by a large, husky man that slowly sauntered into the hallway as soon as he heard us out there. He shuffled toward me with a sly look on his face and said "You the door slammer?" as he held out his hand for a shake. I took his hand and said "No". He stared into my face, not letting go of his firm hold on my hand, and told me that his girlfriend lives here and he's a veteran and when doors slam at night he thinks they're gun shots and it has to stop. I told him I really haven't been slamming doors and I'm hardly ever even at my apartment. "I think it's the girl next to you," he said. "I met her and she seemed nice, but...she's not. She's not nice at all." I told him I didn't think any of us are intentionally slamming doors and that he should probably call our landlord and ask for the carpet to be reinstalled. "Anna - just stop. Stop it. Stop right there," he said. "I'm on your side." And then, just to heap on to the level of creep, he says, "I've been watching you out back in the parking lot. Your hair looks really nice when it's up. You should wear it like that more often." Needless to say, I've been zooming in and out of this house like a squirrel in traffic ever since, never stopping to linger outside.

2. The second, a note precisely written out and delicately taped to the handle of my bicycle, which was parked outside a friend's house during our rehearsal:

"What kind of a person would park a bike in front of someone's sidewalk?"

I'm going to draw a mental picture for you of what was going on here. My friend's house is a duplex that is up on a very small hill, so it has two separate cement walkways that start with a small set of stairs then lead up to each doorway in front of the house. Now, it was later at night so I parked my bike in front of his neighbor's walkway, but didn't think it was a big deal because I knew they had a baby so they probably weren't out late, and anyone could take ONE step to the side to get to the second step. Easy peasy, right? WRONG. Apparently I'm a terrible person. But I mean really. Who leaves a note on a bike? Perplexed, I stood there holding the note for a while, then decided the proper thing to do would be to tape the note back on their first step in order to shame them in the morning when they discovered my bike gone and their anal retentiveness staring them in the face. Shame! Shame on unnecessary note writers!

3. A two-page letter, pages numbered, with a scrap of paper taped to the second page to elongate the message, written in black sharpie and found underneath my windshield wiper. All caps. Location: the one-way street in front of my beef's house.

"Hey! I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for parking here. Seriously, great job. Please park here often. You'd be surprised how many jerkoffs and J-holes park here. No permits, 3 feet from the curb, expired tabs, just a MESS. You, however, are the exception. You keep Fremont going! Thanks! --Fremont Neighborhood Association (FNA) est. 2010"

Well I tell you, my day was MADE. After staring at the note for about five minutes and determining that it wasn't sarcastic, that it was likely from an overly-dorky neighborhood association member who genuinely was thankful that I had a permit and did a good parking job, a calm came over me. It was as if the universe was saying "Hey Anna. Don't even think about those first two notes. This third note is a message for you from Minneapolis, nay, the world, that you are doing a good job here on Earth. From your parking job to your permit-having to frankly being just a great person, I just wanted to say, well, thanks." I drove away with a smile stretched ear to ear thinking that some stranger out there took the time to write me a two-page letter THANKING me for my behavior. I was doing ok.

The next day, with a spring in my step, I remembered that I hadn't told my bf about the note I got in front of his house yet! "Hey - I forgot to tell you what I found on my car the other day!" I said, to which he replied, "Oh, you got my note??"

GREAT.