Cold me no likey

Brr! It's freezing here! We're posting single-digit temperatures and it's still November! When I was scraping my car off yesterday, it was only nine degrees. Today we're supposed to get a balmy high of 24.

I like winter and snow and stuff, but this is a bit ridiculous.

By special request

Since I was asked, here's another post on the ongoing saga of my car. [Do you have a topic you'd like to see discussed on this blog? Just let me know!]

I am still driving the rental car - this is day 37, for those of you keeping track at home. "But Suzanne," you may be thinking to yourself, "doesn't your insurance policy only cover a rental car for 25 days?"

Why yes, yes it does.

"Why ever then," you may be thinking now, "are you still driving the stinky little rental car?"

Because the insurance company is extraordinarily slow. That's why. Here's a quick time line of events:

• October 21 - car go smash
• October 23 - I fly home
• October 23 - I get a rental car
• October 31 - repair estimate made
• November 9 - I am notified that the car is totaled
• November 23 - Thanksgiving
• November 28 - the rental car agency calls to ask when they're getting their car back
• November 29 - the insurance agency gets a fax from the credit union, and cuts me a check
• December 1 (fingers crossed) - I will receive a very big check from the insurance company

If the insurance company doesn't pay for all the extra days of the rental car, there will be much yelling.

Hopefully I will have a new car next week! I will post pictures of it as soon as I get it, be sure of that.

Let it snow

Dear residents of Salt Lake County:

Please learn how to drive. I would really appreciate it, as my 16-mile drive to work this morning took me 45 minutes.

Yes, I know it snowed last night. I know the roads are a mess. However, if we could all just use our brains while driving, we could all get to work in one piece and in less than an hour.

It's going to snow again today and tonight, so let's try this tomorrow, but without the 60 accidents on the road at the same time, mmmmkay?

Thanks ever so much,
Suzanne

33-31

Not that I'm rubbing it in, but them's the facts. BYU beat Utah, 33-31, on Saturday. How do I know this? Well, I live in Utah and I'm alive, but also I was at the game! The always wonderful Elliott got me a ticket, and it was so cool. I've had season tickets to BYU games before, and have been to half a dozen Ute games, but never a BYU-Utah game. The atmosphere in the stadium was very amped up - way more than a regular game.

This was the last regular-season game for both teams, and BYU was unbeaten in the conference. BYU are also the conference champions, and ranked 21 in the country at the time. Both teams were already going to bowl games, so all this was for bragging rights.

It was senior day for the U, and we got to our seats just as they were introducing the senior players, last of all Eric Weddle, who is a football genius. Say what you will about the U in the name of rivalry, but Weddle is amazing. He plays defense, offense, special teams . . . he's scored 7 touchdowns (three on defense) and thrown for another. He's pretty awesome. We were sitting in the student section, and when he was introduced the crowed cheered for a very long time. There were also a few stretches in the game when the crowd was chanting his name.

BYU did the haka before the game, which I always enjoy watching. Unfortunately, since we were in the U student section, I could only see it from behind. Also, since we were sitting in the U student section, I had elected to wear green, rather than blue. I like my team, but I also like not getting booed.

BYU started off great in the 1st quarter, going up 14-0, and then the U took over and almost killed me. It was 14-10 at the half, and then suddenly it was 14-24! Officials were all over the place, with weird spots and strange calls (and non-calls). There were missed field goals (Utah), fourth-down conversions (Utah), missed extra points (BYU), penalties taking the game from 3rd-and-29 to 1st-and-5 (BYU possession). Finally, it came down to this: 27-31 with 69 seconds to play. BYU on the 25 yard line. Impending doom. I was hiding behind Elliott. John Beck and BYU went down the field. Pass. Pass. Pass. Scrambles. Time outs.

Finally, they are down near the 10 with 2 seconds left. I am surrounded by very, very excited Ute fans. People start queueing up to storm the field. The ball is snapped.

Beck looks for a receiver. Looks. Looks. Looks. Every Utah defender is covering every BYU guy, except Beck. Time runs out. Beck looks. Looks. A Ute comes running for Beck; he scrambles right. All receivers follow him right. I lose view and watch the BYU section instead. Suddenly, silence. Suddenly, the BYU section goes nuts.

Not every receiver had followed Beck to the right - Harline had stayed at the left end of the end zone, and was wide, wide open. Beck scrambled, then turned and threw left while running right. Harline went down to his knees, and caught the ball right behind the goal line. Touchdown BYU. BYU players storm the field. The U student section stands agape.

It was amazing. I hate close games because they make me nervous - I loves me a good blowout - but I really didn't think we'd win. They had to clear the field again in order to kick the extra point, since they have to attempt an extra point. BYU just took a knee, not wanting to risk the U running it back for a safety and tying the game again. This also meant that they didn't end up winning 34-31. If you have been a BYU fan for a while, you'll know the significance of that.

After storming the field again and celebrating some more, the BYU team all went and did the haka again for the fans (yay!), and we left. Elliott was so crushed by the ending of the game that I took him out to dinner at the Sky Box.

Hiccups

I was trying to look at Melissa and Adam's new pictures on Flickr when I encountered this error message:

Hold your clicks a moment please...

Flickr has the hiccups. We're looking into the problem right now, so please check back later.

A nifty error message, n'est-il pas?

Pumpkins

I love fall, and pumpkins are a major reason why. I also like leaves changing color, and the way the air smells, and the rain-sans-thunder (which does not happen in summer), and kids going back to school. But a big part are the pumpkins, and here's why:

The color orange. I have grown fond of orange in the last few years. Pumpkins are such a lovely color of orange - it stands out against green, against brown, against most things really . . . it looks good with the red and yellow leaves.

Pumpkin treats. I don't like to eat squash. That's a well-known fact. However, if you puree pumpkin or cook it or whatever it is you do to it to turn it into the orange stuff in the can, then it's great. Pumpkin bread, squares, cookies, cake, pie . . . mmm . . . pie. Pumpkin soup is good too, but I think it's really just squash soup with "pumpkin" used as a generic term

Jack-o-Lanterns. I love carving pumpkins. Scraping out the guts, using the little pumpkin saws to make cool pictures and faces, feeding pumpkin seeds to the hamster, it's so much fun. Sadly, I didn't do any jack-o-lanterns this Halloween, but I plan to make up for it next year.

Please help

Someone, please, put me out of my misery here. If you have math skills, please tell me why this works.

How does this work?


YOUR AGE BY DINER & RESTAURANT MATH

This is pretty neat. Don't cheat by scrolling down first! It takes less than a minute. Work this out as you read; be sure you don't read the bottom until you've worked it out!

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to go out to eat. (more than once but less than 10)

2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)

3. Add 5

4. Multiply it by 50

5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1756 . If you haven't, add 1755.

6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.You should have a three digit number.

The first digit of this was your original number ( i.e., how many times you want to go out to restaurants in a week.) The next two digits are your age! 2006 is the only year it will ever work!

Where did that naughty little hamster go?

Okay, this hamster's name wasn't Charlie (that was 4 hamsters ago, for those of you keeping track at home). His name was Admir, but more commonly he was called Squeaky. Or Hacksaw. Or Monkey. Or Stinky. Or, most recently, Tumor.

Squeaky was a very good hamster, full of all kinds of personality. He enjoyed climbing to the very top of the 3-story cage and chewing on the bars on the top corner (hence, Hacksaw). When you tapped him on the nose to get him to stop, he would shimmy across to the other corner and then climb down (hence, Monkey). Jessica often had to be prompted to clean the cage (hence, Stinky).

Most recently, however, he became afflicted with old age and developed cancer (hence, Tumor). He was approaching his third Christmas, a Blockburger hamster record, when we noticed a marble-sized growth on his chest. It didn't seem to bother him in any way so we gave it little notice until it started growing very, very fast. In the last month the tumor became so large that it became hard for him to walk around, since it dragged between his front legs. He even had a hard time getting food in and out of his cheek pouches, since his left hand was obstructed. He soldiered on, however, and we fed him all the treats he wanted. Ever see a hamster with peanut butter stuck to the roof of its mouth? So cute. He loved peanut butter.

Well, on Sunday night we were sitting down to dinner when we noticed that he was lying underneath his exercise wheel instead of in his snug plastic igloo. Fearing the worst, and getting no response from him, we said our goodbyes and took the cage outside. After dinner, I went to take the rest of his furniture and exercise ball outside when I discovered he was gone. Not gone in the "he's gone, sob!" sense of the word - gone, as in missing. Our dead hamster had wandered off.

Turns out he got cold and went inside his snug little igloo. Not so dead as we had thought.

So Stinky the miracle hamster was brought back inside for a final night in the house, and we all debated having him put to sleep or just waiting it out. It was decided not to take him outside again to let nature take it's course.

The next evening, having seen no activity in the hamster abode and no food touched from the food dish, the cage was opened and the contents of the igloo examined. It was determined at that time that the hamster was actually dead, and mourning commenced anew.

Clint dug a small grave by flashlight, and Hacksaw was laid to rest. We will miss him, although there are some among us who are choosing to wait three days to make sure he's not coming back again before they start to mourn.

It's called denial, and it's often the first step in the grieving process, followed by anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Sentence diagram

Clark, I think you owe me a dollar.

Quiz time!

What do these items all have in common?

• prayer flags
• sock monkey
• rubber boots
• plush meerkat
• bug collection
• baseball hats
• SpongeBob notepad
• sunblock
• three pair of sunglasses
• four mugs
• a case of chips
• two bird houses
• a candy dish full of the little sponge animals that grow out of the little capsules when you put them in water
• hippo Pez dispenser
• a basket made out of Coke bottle caps
• postcard from Yellowstone
• elephant vase
• naked mole rat life-size model
• sisal plant
• bucket of sidewalk chalk
• crayons
• Spanish-English dictionary
• a sack of National Geographic maps
• Tour de France leaderboard

Bobby

Hey everybody! I have passes to go see an advance screening of Bobby tonight at the Broadway theater. Want to go? I have three extra tickets . . . you know you want to. Just hop a plane over here!

Philosophical musings on blogging

When I started this blog a month ago, I did it mainly out of peer pressure. I really didn't expect to update it as often as I have, and I certainly didn't expect anyone much to read it.

But now I'm updating it pretty regularly, and on days when I can't think of anything to say, I feel like I'm letting people (all three of you) down in some way. And when I post something and people comment, I get way too excited. (Hint!)

So, the question is: why am I blogging? To amuse myself? To amuse you, gentle reader? To keep you informed on the very few events in my life?

I suppose the main reason is to amuse myself. If you are also amused, that is a bonus. I have to admit that I'm very easily amused - wearing mittens for the first time this winter last week, I kept myself entertained for quite a long time. Imagine if those mittens had little googly eyes on them! I'd still be wearing them, and that makes it hard to type.

Someone asked me last week what the point of a blog is. Why would one blog when one could just send an email? Why would you want personal information online?

I think the answer to the first question is this: people don't always care. So yeah, maybe I've just bought a really cool toy and I think it's the greatest thing ever. I want to tell everyone about it. There are going to be a certain number of people I miss on the emailing list, and then there's the ever-present dilemma that maybe you all don't care. (Because, let's face it, it's going to be about 20 minutes from now when I discover something else that I think is the greatest thing ever.) But - eureka! - if I post about it on a blog, you all can read or disregard the message at your leisure, without feeling guilt about not having sent a reply email. It's all the communication with only the fraction of the hassle!

Regarding the second question, "Why could you want personal information online?", I view it like this: this isn't personal information. Can someone steal my bank account by knowing that I enjoy songs by OK Go? No. Is my name or place of business on here anywhere? I don't think so. Is any of this information something that you wouldn't glean from sitting next to me on a bus for 20 minutes? Probably not. So hey, why not post it online? I don't see a problem there. Anything that's personal or sensitive or intended for one person is still going to go in an email.

So anyway, those are my thoughts on the bloggerverse. Make of them what you will.

Or not; that's cool, too.

Tryptophantastic

I got some really good sleep on Saturday night, and I blame the turkey. We had a Thanksgiving dinner at work (sometimes it's easier to have a Thanksgiving party than a Christmas party) and we had TONS of food. Such good, tasty food. And so much of it! I don't know where all the leftovers went - and there must have been tons of them. We had turkey and ham, and I love both. I had seconds on the turkey, and you could tell at the end of dinner that everyone at our table was getting quiet . . . but in a good way, you know? I had so much turkey, I didn't even have dessert. Elliott was falling asleep in his chair. For a work party, it was pretty good. Usually they can be pretty awkward. The staff did end up sitting apart from all the volunteers - as usual - even to the extent of bringing extra chairs over to our table in the corner. It was interesting to see different people eat dinner together who don't usually interact at work. It was a good night. Now, if only blogger would let me put hard returns in here to split this into paragraphs and make it easier to read, then I'd really be on top of the world! I blame AOL.

$18,858.16

Yes, Johnny is no more. Eighteen thousand, eight hundred fifty-eight dollars and sixteen cents is the total amount of the settlement on offer from the insurance company. This is more than I had expected, since the value for my car that we found online was $17,975. So this is nice. I have to sign a bunch of forms, and then they will pay off the rest of my car loan and send me a check for the remainder of the settlement amount.

$12,474.16

Twelve thousand, four hundred seventy-four dollars and sixteen cents. That's the repair estimate on my car. (Now relocated, apparently, by the insurance agency.) To be considered totaled, the repair cost needs to be 70% of the value of the car. According to what I've found online, my car has a retail value of $17,900 give or take, which means it's close. Very close. The insurance company should be letting me know tomorrow what they think the value of the car is, but it looks like it's totaled.

Daylight Saving

I'm in a bit of a mood today, and I blame the weather. It's raining and cold, which is to be expected for November. I even like rain. So the weather in and of itself is not so bad, but it's so dark all the time! Daylight Saving time ends in October, which usually elicits no complaints from me because it means that day I can sleep in for an hour. However, this year it's really thrown me for a loop. It's dark when I get up, it gets dark at about 4:00 . . . I've been leaving work pretty early all week (though still not technically early - just not horribly late like I normally do) because I look out the window at 4:30 and think it's 6:00 so I pack up to go home.

It's just hard to be cheery when it's dark all the time! And it's overcast all week . . . sigh. I guess it's time to adjust to winter.

OK Go

Listen to the OK Go album "Oh No." Buy it on iTunes (It's only $6.99 for the whole album!). I like the songs "Invincible" and "Here it Goes Again" the best.

Even better, go to YouTube and watch the video for "Here it Goes Again." I'm sure you have already, but it's worth watching twice. It's "on demand" on Comcast right now, too.

Vegetables

My brother Clark recently posted on his blog about the finicky eating habits of Shannon and myself in regard to vegetables. I have been known to be a picky eater. I am still a picky eater, though slowly I am growing out of some of my food phobias.

One help in this regard has been peer pressure. I never would have eaten fried coconut grouper with pepper jelly, (MMM!) were it not for peer pressure. Another reason I have tried more foods in the last few years is my vacation rule: you do things on vacation that you would not normally do at home. I'm not talking about things on the level of "Spring break! Woo!" or, you know, skydiving in Namibia, but little things. Ordering something off the menu that you wouldn't normally order. Trying something you wouldn't normally try. This policy had led to my eating the following items:

• the aforementioned grouper
• Maryland! crab cakes
• crocodile (a definite must-not for your next tasting menu)
• veal sausage
• sukuma wiki
• okra
• calamari
• pickled mushroom
• camel
• the schmutz you dip the calamari in (I think they would call it aioli in a restaurant)
• eggplant
• goat
• a sip of red wine (tastes like burning)

Most of the items on that list are very tasty. Crocodile, the mushroom, goat, wine and eggplant are not. To me. Please, sample them yourself! (Except the crocodile. Trust me.)

Anyway, the main reason I have for disliking foods is the texture. I have mouth texture issues. I know I'm not alone in this. My mouth doesn't like squishy things very much. No slimy things. The list of things I will not eat because of texture includes:

• squashes (except pureed in soup form)
• tomatoes* (all right in sauce and salsa form)
• avocado (except in smashed-up guacamole form)
• clams or clam chowder
• canned peas
• sukuma wiki
• pickled mushrooms
• mushrooms or fungus of any kind, really
• things that look like they may be smooshy or slimy (i.e. oysters, which I have never tried)

*Tomatoes, I have developed a laissez-faire attitude toward. I will pick around them in salads, but I will eat them in sandwiches. However, if a tomato falls out of a sandwich, I will not retrieve it. Anyone I cook for should not expect to find tomato in the salad. Or sandwich.

Foods I will not eat just because I don't like them:

• blue cheese
• Brussels sprouts
• green Jell-o
• cauliflower

This is not a comprehensive list.