My taste in movies - not so hip - and I like it.

Way back in the day when I lived in Provo, I was dating a guy who really liked to go see movies on $.50 night at the dollar movie theater. We went almost every week and one day he called me while I was at work and told me that we were going to go see a movie later that night. Since we went to the theater so often, I knew what movies were playing; we had already talked about them. The options were: Tuck Everlasting and The Ring.

When we started dating, we had talked about the fact that I hate scary movies. For the most part, I think that guys think that I mean to say "I don't like scary movies but if your big strong arms are around me, I will love it." They would also be wrong. I don't use the word "hate" lightly when talking about scary movies.

We get to the theater that evening and I'm thinking that "Oh he's so sweet that he's taking me to see Tuck Everlasting" - Obviously he knows I don't like scary movies and would never take me to see The Ring. That is where I was wrong. He dragged me past the theater where Tuck Everlasting was playing and plopped me right down in front of the screen where The Ring was about to start. And maybe this is where our relationship started to sour, but I told him that I'd give him his 50 cents back, but that I wasn't going to watch. And did I leave the theater? No - I just folded my arms and closed my eyes - which is where I stayed for the next two hours. So ok - maybe I opened my eyes once and a while if I knew that it wasn't scary time, but for about 75% of the movie, all I saw was the back of my eyelids.

I can't lie - just putting this picture on my blog gives me goosebumps. Ugh!

Why am I telling you this story? Why am I freaking myself out? I just wanted to report that I watched Tuck Everlasting tonight. Finally. Almost exactly 6 years later. What's not to love about Alexis Bleidel? And Jonathan Jackson?

And I absolutely loved it. Surprise, surprise. I'm so glad that I'm at a place in life where I always pick the movies - and they are never scary.

Survivor. Again.

Well, you guessed it. I survived my second half marathon. Pictures were taken and hopefully I will get them to you within the next few days. Running in the midst of 20,000 other women was quite inspiring. (Side rant - HATE MARATHON WALKERS!!!!!! It was a RACE people! Get the H out of my way!!!) Anyway - the race went very well and I beat my previous time! I improved by a whopping 3.28%!! haha. Well, so that may not be a lot, but hey - I improved! Considering that this course was considerably harder than my first, I am very proud of myself. There are a few things that helped me along the way:

The night before the race, I found a great i-Mix on i-Tunes from Joan Benoit Samuelson. I have listed the songs that were included so that you can download them yourself or listen to them by clicking on the links provided.

Change For You - The Midway State
Love Like Winter - AFI
Drama Queen - Switches
Carcinogen Crush - AFI
Let it happen - Jimmy Eat World
Everything's Magic - Angels and Airwaves
The Adventure - Angels and Airwaves
A Million Fireflies - The Midway State
Never Be Lonely - The Feeling
All We Are - One Republic
Sun Red Sky Blue - Kenna
Miss You Love You - Maroon 5
Dirty Little Secret - The All American Rejects
Sweetness - Jimmy Eat World
Miss Murder - AFI
Sorry Sorry - Rooney
Big Casino - Jimmy Eat World
Fill My Little World - The Feeling

I was totally in the zone with this music ringing in my ears. Of course there were some personal favorites in there as well, but I can't give all my secrets away. The best part of the race though was when LaNae met me at mile 10!!! Here's a cute picture of LaNae and I at the beach in San Diego a little over a year ago while we aren't sweaty and gross.

In the past few months we've become running buddies and I knew that I'd need someone to drag me in to the finish line. I owe her big time. I felt bad when she was yanked from the finish line just moments before I was handed this little beauty by a man in a tuxedo. And what a handsome man he was!

I have a feeling I'll be wearing my necklace for a few days. or maybe years. So now that I'm finished with this race, I'm thinking about running the Salt Lake City Marathon on April 18th. Who wants to join me? I'd better sign up while I'm hallucinating, right? I'm only walking with a slight limp today, so a full marathon's pain can't be that bad, can it?

Friday Ramblings

Last night I came home from work and realized that I had some major laundry folding to do. Ever since I moved to my new place at Dolores Park, I've had to bite the bullet and do my own laundry. I guess this has saved me some money, but really, I liked it a lot more when I paid the Chinese guy down the street to wash & fold it for me. And I digress. I folded laundry for almost an hour while watching Annie Hall. I rented it a few weeks ago and although I fell asleep the first two times I attempted viewing, I made it through last night.

I didn't love the movie - I think mostly because I find Woody Allen to be kinda creepy, but I loved the last line of the movie. It goes like this:

Alvy Singer: It was great seeing Annie again and I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her and I thought of that old joke, you know, the, this, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, uh, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken,' and uh, the doctor says, 'well why don't you turn him in?' And the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and, but uh, I guess we keep going through it...because...most of us need the eggs.

Amen!

I was planning on going running to break in my new shoes at 8, but "someone" fell asleep on the couch until 9:30pm. Oops. No worries - I paid for it at 6am this morning with a 3 mile jog at Kezar and so far, my shoes are OK. Breaking in new shoes - not the most enjoyable thing in the world, but they'll have to do.

On my way home, I was shuffling through my ipod for a good playlist to listen to and I came across one that I made a few months back. For some reason I made a playlist of songs that remind me of things and people - most specifically, ex-boyfriends, but there's a little Islands in the Stream in there too, OK? Sometimes, I don't know why I do things like that to myself. I get all nostalgic until something hits me and WHAM! What in the heck do I think I'm missing? I sat on MY huge red couch last night watching a movie about how loving someone sometimes means that things don't work out (amen) in my house in SAN FRANCISCO of all places. And...guess what? I didn't eat dinner last night - I wasn't hungry. I didn't have to make dinner for anyone either. I think I'm just grateful today for the way things are and that this is the way things SHOULD be. For me, at least.

And on that note, Happy Friday. I'll be traveling until next Thursday, but as usual, you might hear from me. Have a great weekend!

PS - read this.

Ramblings on a Friday

I've been really bad lately about updating my blog. I hope you'll forgive me. I feel like the past two weeks have flown by and its a miracle that my head is still above water. I made a few calls to make an attempt at some visiting teaching tonight - and I have a question. Does yelling out the window at one of your teachees while you're driving through Russian Hill count as visiting teaching? What if I asked her if she wanted a ride to wherever it was that she was going? Hmmm. At least I made contact, right? And can we talk about leaving voicemails?

To ease my stress pangs, I'm going to tell you all the things that I'm excited about which are in the semi-near future.

I made plans the other day to go to New York for the day - while I'm in DC over a weekend in September. I'm rather excited about driving up to the Big Apple and although I'm not excited about driving for 4 hours after a red eye to DC, I AM excited about spending some time with my friend who lives in Brooklyn. Seriously - if you live up there, give me a shout. Maybe I can see you too!

In about 6 weeks, I'm going to Utah to visit my parents, sister, nephews (if I spoke Spanish, Hannah would totally be included in the word 'nephews' so let's just pretend, shall we?), and Matt. Oh yeah - and if you live in Utah, give me a shout so that maybe I can see you too. I'm excited to be there in the fall - maybe I'll even go for a drive through the Alpine Loop. Good memories, that Alpine Loop.

I'm really looking forward to my Thanksgiving in Costa Rica. I went salsa dancing last weekend and it got me all excited to go to Central America. Too bad I'll be there with my parents - no offense Mom, but you aren't exactly going to go dancing with me while we're there. ha - just the mental image of it makes me shudder. haha!

Christmas Eve - oh yes. I can't wait. The other night, I was in a gchat group talking with Matt, Melissa, and Scott. It felt like old times when we were sitting in Matt's living room, eating brownies or cupcakes, or some other food that Matt compared me to, just laughing and laughing. It made me miss them even more. Too bad we all live hundreds of miles away from each other. Having Christmas Eve with all of them can't come fast enough.

Paris. Hooray! Now if only I can find a man to give me French lessons. oui oui!

And in other things totally unrelated to this post, here's a picture for Kristy.

I'm off to the beach with 48 of my closest friends for the weekend. I hope that everyone has a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Mine will be full of dance parties and pranks and laughing.

Middle of the Week Randomness

Last night I attended my monthly LAC meeting where we made personalized aprons and learned how to make fancy appetizers from Chef Tom. I'd sampled some caviar in the past, but I'd never so thoroughly enjoyed it as I did last night. boo howdy - it was yummy. We had some good times last night and as always, it was good to see everyone. Hopefully there will be pictures to post sometime today.

Yesterday, my car got what she finally deserved - a detail job - and she's looking great. It makes me really happy every time I get in the car. That was LONG overdue. If I actually clean out the trunk, then I'll really be set.

Tonight I'm going to be rather busy as soon as I get home from work - and I really hope that I can get to bed semi-early. Bootcamp this morning was really hard - my chest still feels tight from running up/down the Lyon Street stairs. I mean - running them once is one thing, but whoa; I wasn't expecting nonstop running of the stairs for the full hour. Some friends are gathering tonight to have a Pre-American Idol audition concert. Oh how I wish I could be there tomorrow with my friends to cheer them on. I mean - my everlasting crush, Ryan Seacrest, is going to be there...sigh. Other exciting things are coming this weekend, but you'll just have to wait to hear more about that.

4th of July Pictures Delayed Due to Laziness

Last night I went with my roommates to The Little Chihuahua. It was extremely delicious. After we got home, Kirsten and I went on a walk around the neighborhood to enjoy the nice weather and then afterwards, I got sucked into a book, which means that you'll have to wait until tomorrow to get pictures from North Carolina. Unless I get sucked into the book again.

So until then, here's a cute picture of me and the roommates.

Aren't we cute?

Uzi, You Tagged Me. Duh.

Uzi tagged me in a post the other day where I had to tell you what can be found in my purse. Kristy - I hope this makes you laugh. And here are the contents of my purse for all who are interested. Seriously though, thanks for making me dump that out. I found some gum that I forgot I had.

Loyalty at its best.

Yesterday Todd and I met up for lunch. When I walked around the corner, I had to laugh at what he was wearing. Go Giants!

I rock, You rock, We all rock.

My most awesome blog-friend-that-I-wish-I-knew-in-real-life, Heather, gave me a "YOU ROCK THE CRIB!" shout-out the other day. Thanks girl!!

Since I'm all about following the leader, I guess I'm supposed to award someone else with this prestigious award. Also, since I happen to be the boss of this blog, I'm going to award it to people who have made a difference to me in my blog world.

1. Have you checked out nienie and her amazing blog? Girl Scout's honor, its the first thing I check every day. It makes me happy.

2. There's no way I could leave Pace & Joy off this list. I started this madness due to their loving encouragement...and because I think that they're awesome. We used to have McBalderdash fairly regularly on their blog and those were good times.

3. Ever need to know what to wear? Emily can help you out. She's also the first blog friend that I ever met in real life. I think she's amazingly stylish and great.

4. Hola Isabel is one of my favorite blogs and I just can't leave it out. Friggin' hilarious.

Check em' out if you haven't already.

From Now On, I'm Lowering My Expectations...

Sounds like a strange title for a post, right? I only say that because I went into this weekend not really knowing what was in store for me. My expectations were low not because I didn't think I'd be with cool people, but I just didn't know how things would go. I can't remember when I've had a more fun and well-spent weekend.

Rita and I had plans for dinner on Friday night to celebrate her birthday, which was a few weeks ago. Lucky for her, the people next to us were at the restaurant celebrating their friend's birthday, so when I told them it was Rita's birthday, they passed down a piece of cake. Happy Birthday! We also had some interesting conversation with some other fellow customers, but that is a story for another time.

Friday night after dining with Rita at Memphis Minnie's, I headed down to Half Moon Bay to spend the night at the Conran's. Upon arriving, Steph and her mom were putting together a puzzle, which is actually something that I love to do. They were also eating a full pan of brownies; can't disagree with that either. This morning we slept in, had a good breakfast, and headed down to the Pumpkin Festival.

We watched Farmer Mike craft a face out of a very large pumpkin for quite a while.

And then I decided that I wanted to get a pumpkin or two to bring back to San Fran.

Steph really wanted to get this huge green pumpkin.

And then I had trouble deciding between these two pumpkins. The 1 pounder or the 500 pounder...

I definitely didn't want vegetables with warts. Ew. Gross. Steph didn't want any brussel sprouts because the plant looks like some type of strange weapon. Mean face!

All of that deciding was wearing me out. So I had a little rest on a pumpkin.

Seriously, the pumpkin patch was the best part of the day. So. Many. Pumpkins.

I love this time of year!!! It doesn't get much better than that, does it? Well, I had no idea what was in store for me that night. I got back into the city at about 7pm and met up with LaNae to go to the World Championship Roller Derby Competition. Yeah, you read that right. Roller Derby. Yeah, San Francisco might have weird zombies once and a while, but professional Roller Derby Skaters?

Ok this deserves a new paragraph because OH MY GOSH have you ever been to a Roller Derby? Run. Do. Not. Walk. to your nearest Roller Derby. It was by far one of the funnest/funniest things I have ever done in my entire life. For sure, it is a complete white trash sport. It was a mix of football, mud wrestling, and hockey. Oddly enough, roller derby as a sport is only even semi popular in California and New York. ? You mean...North Carolina doesn't have their own roller derby team? Well, I guess they do. But they just use a wussy flat track. Alabama has one too, and that's all the research I did, so maybe its gaining popularity in recent years. But you know what that means? That there is probably one near your house so that you can see this outrageous event for yourself. Its just that I never thought in my whole life that I'd see two women in their mid 50s and 60s in an all-out brawl. You can't see this woman's hair underneath her helmet, but it's gray. And she was one of the worst. Full on punching other middle-aged women in the face. Who does that?!

This lady was about to punch the referee.

And sometimes the referees would just watch while all the women were piled up, beating the crap out of each other.

Oh if you only you could have seen the amazing fights. The one where the Brooklyn skater pushed one of the Bay City Bombers into the penalty box wall, pulled it down on top of him and then proceeded to jump up and down on it. Ok...WAY BETTER THAN HOCKEY!

And then these guys sitting behind us bought us some hot dogs. They were pretty funny and they explained the basic rules of roller derby to us. We decided that we should become Roller Derby frequenters and sit with Brian and Gary every time.

We also like Brian and Gary because they made us go up and take pictures with some of the World Champions of the Roller Derby. These are hard-core athletes. I saw how many times they fell tonight. And based on personal experience, falling down while you're on roller skates doesn't feel so good.

I'm still in shock over what an amazing weekend it's been. Southern food for dinner, puzzles and brownies, great friends, and giant pumpkins. And it isn't even Sunday yet. Bring it.

5 Questions

So Heidi emailed me 5 questions that I am supposed to answer here for all of you to see. Here you go:

1. What is your most memorable vacation? Why?
Growing up my family went on a lot of trips. We moved to North Carolina from the Bay Area when I was 7 years old. My Dad is really into American history, so we took advantage of living on the East Coast. I've seen almost every single Civil War and Revolutionary War Battle site known to man. Some of them I've seen more than necessary. We drove across the United States every summer to visit friends and family along the way to California, but one summer, our family (with another lds family) did a Church history tour. We started out in Palmyra, saw the Hill Cumorah Pagaent, drove to Kirtland, Ohio, drove all night across the Mississippi River (this was summer of '91) to get to Nauvoo. We also went to Independence, Missouri somewhere in there. It took us about a week to do it all and I'll never forget all the things we saw and did. Amazing.

2. What is your idea of a perfect day?

Honestly, my idea of a perfect day is pretty simple. I would spend the day somewhere beautiful surrounded by my family and good friends, laughing the entire time, eating all the crap I wanted with no side effects including tons of chocolate cheesecake and tacos. An alternate perfect day would include me and someone that I love on a train somewhere in Europe on our way somewhere awesome.

3. If you suddenly won 1,000,000 dollars, what would you do first, second and third? (Tax free, we're talking about 1 million smackers to spend!)

I know that this sounds dumb, but I probably wouldn't change my life too much. I'd probably invest it so that I could buy a piece of property here in San Francisco and travel to places more exciting than the places I go now. I don't have much to complain about, so things would pretty much stay the same. Except that I might hire a full-time personal trainer (don't worry, I know whose I am) and buy myself a new wardrobe.

4. What is your favorite thing about San Francisco?

There are so many amazing things about this city. I fall more in love with it every day. I love the great restaurants, the amazing friends that I have here, the weather (even though its sometimes easy to complain) is great because it never changes, I love that the people aren't afraid to be who they want to be, I hear the ocean at night, the shopping is great, I have an awesome job, I'm close to family, there's always something going on in the city to go to, there's a temple close by. Oh...wait. Did you want me to pick just one thing or list some of my favorite things?

5. Do you have any strange habits or odd tendencies you would like to admit?

Well, when I get tired, I literally can't keep my mouth shut. My mom is the same way. Its the easiest way to tell if I'm really tired. You look at me and I'm staring off into space with my mouth wide open. Sad, but true.

Ok so if you want questions, ask Heidi...

Beehive

Have you ever wanted to know how to do your hair like this? I think that this could be a great party theme....Here are some directions.

Happy Friday!

Ok so this made me laugh today. Happy Friday everyone!

photo courtsey of Menna on Flickr

Who Makes A Better Sanjaya?

Make your own here.

Dirty Dancing?

I'm honestly speechless after watching this video. I mean...this dance is classic and awesome and I could see Uzi and I wanting to remake our own music video involving much of this choreography. But at your own wedding?????? What are your thoughts. Really people. I want to see some comments today.

Japanese Name

I'm planning on eating tempura for lunch. Vegetables sound so yummy right now. I thought this was appropriate.

Your Japanese Name Is...

Shoko Shigenoi

What's your Japanese Name?