Those words were ringing a bell yesterday, remembering my days in the D.A.R.E. program. It was Officer McSomething that graced my 3rd grade classroom with his uniform and gun holster, and the fear of law enforcement has even since been implanted in chilren’s brain’s everywhere. Fear of drug use, on the other hand? I’m not sure how far that got in to people’s heads.
Yesterday I had a mission to visit my Nani & Papa’s house. The other day, Papa called me to tell me about an antique mirror he found in his attic. It has been in their house since they moved in, which was more than 40 years ago. According to his approximations, the mirror is about 80 years old and carved from dark walnut wood. I’ve been having visions of redesigning my bedroom to include a wide mirror, runners for the shelves, and a loveseat, so this seemed like perfect timing.
The mirror turns out to be a “vanity” style mirror. It has a center section, which is about 4 feet tall and 1.5 feet wide. The two slat on the end can fold out or in, you know like a 3-way vanity mirror from back in the day. Well, here’s where conflict comes in. Papa and Nani are the King and Queen of giving. When Lizzie and I went over there yesterday, not only did they feed us spaghetti and meatballs, tomato & basil bread, and also this awesome carrot banana cake, but Nani also started fishing around in her stash of gatzies upstairs.
For those of you who don’t understand, a gatzie is a like a somewhat-useless thing, often coming in the form of trinkets, cheap gifts. Basically, a lot of “stuff” can be considered “a bunch of gatzies”, and the word does have the underlying meaning of “small” somewhere in it.
Anyway, Nani came down with socks, lotions, a skort, chapstick, and some keychains. See, she works at Filene’s Basement and is well-known for getting stuff dirt cheap. She loves to talk about the deals that she gets, typically like: “Well it was originally 25.99, but it was on sale for 50% off. I had a coupon for another 10% of, plus my 30% discount.” “I think I got is for $2.”
Really, she is an amazing bargain hunter and she’s well-known for leaving the price tags on gifts, probably for the reason of breaking down the deal. I love it, and she’s taught me a lot about smart-shopping throughout the years. But see, the bottom line is that you can’t say no to Nani & Papa. They have this way of just pouring things in your mouth and arms, and you just can’t say no. And it’s like you don’t even want to say no! But then when you drive away with a 40 pound vanity mirror, a plant stand, a can of espresso, half a cake, and 3 new pairs of socks in your back seat, you say, “What did I do?”
I haven’t seen my housemate, Ari, in something like 5 days. She escaped my grasp this morning while I was hibernating in my room. Then I knocked on her bedroom door with some coffee for us both, and there was no answer! Sometimes she’s so sly! But even though we haven’t seen eachother in a week, we have been having parallel thoughts regarding the MS walk/bike for a cure challenges. I’ve been meaning to summon a household meeting to see if my housemates are interested in taking part in a 50 mile walk in Cape Cod this September.
I like walking, and also really like Cape Cod. I haven’t been there in more than 10 years. Plus, I’d like to contribute even a fraction of myself to an even smaller fraction of the quest for research in to the condition of MS. The research and progressive community surrounding issues related to MS seems like a very active and useful one. The MS Society is the largest organization, and their website is updated very often especially in regards to bans/lifts on drugs, issues regarding healthcare, and advances in therapy.
Also, there is a newsletter/newspaper type thing that comes to Eliot’s house in CT, and I forget what it’s called, but it’s always full of really great information. It’s never on that kind of fake, “find a cure” line. Not to be pessimistic, it’s just that I respond better to the research-and-progress approach as opposed to the miracle cure schtick. Wouldn’t anyone be? I like the idea of the walk or bike fundraiser because it seems to have a more hopeful tone to it. But I keep wondering if there are any fundraisers that are more geared to including MS patients with limited mobility.
And in today’s news:
A US Judge ruled that Google infringed on the copyright laws of Perfect 10 Inc., a rather soft porn site, by posting thumbnails of some pornographic pictures in their search results. I hate it when Google gets in trouble for being awesome.
“US District Judge Howard Matz’s ruling, handed down in Los Angeles, stems from a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the pornography firm Perfect 10 Inc., which accused Google of breaching on its copyrights.”
Table-top games are making a comeback, thanks to HP, who are developing a hybrid coffee table and PC with a touch screen. It looks really pretty. Perhaps the only drawback…
“Misto uses a standard desktop PC as its engine, but comes with some specialized HP software for managing the interface, Obrador said.”
The other day, a Serbian woman had to have a worm removed from her eye socket.
No joke, this has been my worst fear since I saw a program on discovery channel where a miniscule parasite got in to his eye and it started growing and growing. Doctors had no idea what it was until they opened up his eye! I thought I had one in my cheek about a year ago, but it turned out to just be a large pimple.
I played online Scrabble this morning, and it turned out to be the longest and highest-scoring game I’ve every played. Since my opponent was in a higher ranking than me, beating him pushed me up to have a ranker 100 points higher, which moved me in to the next category color of Purple (which is 3rd from the top). The word “ruder”, which my opponent laid on the board is not actually valid but I didn’t want to challenge it because the game was getting too long. Here’s a screenshot of the end result!
