Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Swatch and Jellies

Okay, so I was only 2 when 1980 rolled around, but it’s still the decade that I identify with the most. I was a Toys R Us kid, owned a Lite Brite, a large collection of My Little Ponies, and a Pogo Ball (no one I know seems to remember what those were). I thought Cabbage Patch Kids were creepy, but loved the smell of my Strawberry Shortcake doll. I watched Rainbow Bright (which might explain my affinity towards rainbows), She-Ra, Care Bears, and Transformers.

Thanks to having older siblings I was exposed to a lot of 80s fashion. Yes, I had far too much Lacoste clothing, had permed hair (which looked awful), wore Doc Martens, and loved my LA Gears - with 3 different colored shoelaces, of course.

Grace & Lacoste

This year I was feeling nostalgic so I asked Randy for a Swatch watch and some jelly bracelets for my birthday. To my surprise, he bought me three!

Swatch Watch

Unless you were a complete loser, you had at least two or three swatch watches in the 80s. If you were really cool you wore them at the same time. Swatch watches weren’t just watches – they were a culture. Swatches were so cool, they had their own accessories: Swatch Guards. Oh yes, you needed at least one of those as well. The ultimate in cool was if you took two Swatch Guards of different colors and twisted them together across the watch face.

Jelly bracelets were also a thing in the 80’s thanks to Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. This was before Avril brought them back or before they became known as sex bracelets. Then again, I suppose they never fully went away.



Don’t worry, I’m not planning to go full retro. I will not be crimping my hair or wearing any Flashdance inspired clothing any time soon. I’ll stick to only one Swatch watch and a couple of jelly bracelets at a time for now.

By the way, I can still sing you the theme song to the Greatest American Hero if you want me to. “Believe it or not I’m walkin’ on air, I never thought I could feel so free…. Believe it or not, it’s just me!”

Monday, March 22, 2010

It's Just a Number...

Happy Birthday to me! It’s my birthday today and I have no shame in telling the world that.

I think I may be breaking some female code telling people my age, but I’m 32 today. I don’t really understand why some women feel so ashamed to tell others how old they are or why the they feel the need to lie about their age, at least not in this day and age. I relish getting older. Don’t get me wrong, I still wish I had the body I had when I was 22, but I don’t see how lying about my age is going to get me that. Maybe a few more sit-ups would get me closer though.

I’m going to work today and I’m regretting not asking for the day off. I would spend most of the morning on the computer on twitter and FB, and then go shopping for some new jeans (most of my jeans now have holes in them where my thighs rub together).

I hate shopping for new jeans. First of all, I hate they way manufacturers label sizes. I’m a 9 with some brands and a 17 with others. Why can’t those people just standardize on one sizing convention? I wouldn’t care if it said I was a size 23 if it would just remain constant. Okay, I get why. I know some women do care about what size they are; they want to be able to tell people they are a size 6, even if that means the waist size is actually 40 inches.

While we’re on the topic of numbers, I’m 168 pounds right now. Lying or not telling people how much I weigh is not going to make me look any different either. Sure, I don’t like the way I look and I want to loose weight, but that’s not going to stop me from telling people how much I weigh. It’s just a number. I just have to eat less junk food and exercise more.

Okay, maybe when it comes to exercise the number does matter. Doing 10 push ups is probably better than doing 1.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The Book I'm Reading

For the past few weeks I’ve started writing at least a dozen blog posts, but I’ve deleted them all because I thought they were pointless. Then I thought, “Why does it have to have a point?”

I might as well just tell you about the book I’m currently reading. It’s called “Pour Your Heart Into It” by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks. It’s a story about how Starbucks came to be.


I never thought I would like non-fiction books. I’m more of a Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter kind of girl, but here I am. Lately, I’ve been reading books about large corporations and how they got started, always written by the people that founded them. I want to start my own company one day so I figured this was a good way to find out how other people did it.

It turns out that I'm just as enthralled by these stories as much as the ones about lions, hobbits and wizards. I want to find out what happens next to the main characters and how they overcome the obstacles they face. I get irritated when I have to go to work because I have to put the book down.

The next two books I’m going to read arrived in the mail this week. One is called “Built from Scratch” by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, founders of The Home Depot and the other is “Dave’s Way” by Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s.



I get most of my books from Amazon.com and almost always used. They’re usually in pretty good condition; some are as good as new. I picked up the Dave Thomas book for a paltry 42 cents. Heck, the shipping ($3.99) cost more than the book.

See, there’s no point at all to this post and I’m fine with it.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Family Dinner

My dad recently got a job in South Carolina and is leaving on Tuesday. He could have retired a long time ago, but I think he gets bored staying at home. It must be nice to work because you want to rather than because you have to.

Bar-b-q

My sister wanted to have dinner as a family before he left so Randy and I went over to the house. As usual, she and Chatchi prepared a mini feast: steak, crab, and clams.

steak

crab

clams

I’m still not used to eating together as a family. We never did that sort of thing when I was growing up. The fact that my dad and I are still estranged just added to awkwardness.

My sister has been trying for 10 years to get my dad and me to get along again. She has made some progress. She’s gotten me to say hi to my dad when I go to the house and he actually acknowledges my existence these days.

Last month he spoke to me for the first time in 13 years. I had gone to the house without Randy for the first time in a long time. My dad walked up to me and asked where Randy was. I was so caught off guard by the question it took me a couple of seconds to realize he was actually talking to me. I told him that Randy was still at work and he would be by later. We stood next to each other in silence for a moment while I tried to think of something else to say to him. I was drawing a blank. After a few more seconds of the awkward silence he walked away and we haven’t spoken since.

After dinner my dad went about the process of opening up a durian for us to eat. I was still in the documenting mood so I got up to take pictures of my dad prying open the spiky fruit. It was the first time I’ve ever taken a picture of my dad. He never said a word or looked at me while I snapped away, but it still felt like the most intimate moment we've shared in 25 years.

Daddy and the Durian

I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to the way we were, but I am content with where we are.

NOTE: all photos were shot and edited on my iPhone with the Photoshop ap.