No, I'm NOT packed yet!

Like Christmas, or cooking dinner....my packing expands to fill all the available time.  Here I am online when I still haven't ironed out my products nor my purse.  Getting ready ahead of time is just a foreign concept to me.  But the lack of being ready colors all of my time with a vague feeling of unease and dread.  People say, "Have a great time!" and I just feel inadequate and worried.  Sigh.....  Here I am spending a LOT of money to go somewhere where it is colder and wetter.

Feel like I am going back into the dark ages.  Having a non-technology vacation.  Just a pencil, pen, yellow marker, black marker and a notebook. 

Saw a great play yesterday called Bootycandy.  About growing up gay and African American.  Most of it was hilarious and inventive, with of course some serious, unpleasant stuff thrown in and the required naked man.  There is always something to shock you at these plays I attend at the Wilma theater in Philadelphia.

Distracted driver

Yup, that's me.  Here are some of the things I do in the car...
- Rummage for hand wipes
- Apply lip gloss
- Remove and replace audio books on CD
- Answer the phone or listen to my voice mail
- Look for napkins or kleenex buried somewhere near the passenger seat
- Get out paper and pen and write a list
- Try to get poorly functioning pen to function

Had to stop for a strawberry shortcake today.  Totally wicked, but by the time I get back in town, strawberries may be DONE!?

Book review: Fodor's Paris 2011.  OK, I KNOW it is 2013, but this is the most up-to-date one in the local libraries.  I borrowed this one from the Vineland Public Library (914.4 Fod). I DID learn quite a bit from it and took five pages of notes.  I think my mother told me to never take a library book on vacation in case you should lose it.  I skipped over a lot of stuff on restaurants and shopping.  I can't afford to shop HERE, so why should I do it in France?  And how much effort do I want to go to to get to a restaurant I can't afford?  I think I am more into the if-I-happen-to-run-into-it sort of voyager.  Many helpful things in this book, like the best days to do this or that and that French people are going to be giving me the once over and that they don't like LOUD Americans. Neither do I!  And info on telephone and the necessity of a lot of polite banter when coming and going.  Book includes a large map.  I am going to miss it, but I might buy a more up-to-date book or perhaps even a DIFFERENT book.

What the hell version is this?

I swear these songs change on Playlist.com.  Now I seem to be listening to a version of Halo on which Beyonce cannot even be heard!  I am deleting it right now.



Didn't really understand the name of my new nail polish for this week, My boyfriend scales walls.  So I couldn't even explain it to my Vietnamese nail technician. I looked it up and it is from the Spiderman collection.  This wasn't really what I had in mind for Paris.  The Guidebook recommended just clear polish but that is too extremely plain for me.  They said that French women don't get French manicures.  Neither do I!  I was really looking for a very pale barely white. 

Just registered for the Cancer prevention study 3.  While I was filling out all of the forms was feeling bad cause my memory is so bad and I had to confess that I actually eat very few fruits and vegetables and that I spend an inordinate amound of time SITTING...reading, at the computer and driving my car.  It was all so depressing that I had to come over to use the Internet and listen to music.  Was not really in the mood for exercising.  Especially because it is so HOT and humid today.

Am all stressed out due to upcoming trip(s).  So many undone things.  I haven't finished even ONE of the four books I was supposed to read before hand.  And I realize I am RUNNING OUT OF TIME, to find things, buy things, prepare things,etc.

Audiobook review: Pimsleur basic French.  Finished listening to these 5 CDs in the car.  It was instructional and amusing.  The conversations were silly and dumb with a great emphasis on eating, drinking and shopping.  I did find them helpful for getting the feel for the language, and even though I am fluent in French, I couldn't always get it right.  The pronunciation is the hardest part.  There was a lot of repetition (sometimes TOO much).  I borrowed these from the Vineland Public Library (448.342 Bas) because it was all CDs and no books, easier for me in the car.  Had a great time laughing about the conversations with a friend on a long drive.

I want to eat something right now

An apt phrase for me....learning in the car with Pimsleur.  It is a good thing I already KNOW French.  Don't know how I could do this audio lesson if I DIDN'T know French!  I have noticed that proper pronunciation gives your face and neck a workout.  The conversations are sort of stupid...stopping someone on the street and then asking her how she is.  I am trying to get ready for all of that helloing and goodbyeing and politeness that the French go in for.  It is hard to be on a diet when you are constantly having to say in French....Do you want to eat something?  Yes.  What do you want to eat?  I don't know.  Very good. (see what I mean about stupid conversations?)  WHEN do you want to eat something?  Je voudrai manger quelque chose maintenant! (I want to eat something RIGHT NOW).

Hearing loud drunk people on the streets of Bridgeton.  Maybe every downtown has loud drunk people?  There were some hanging outside of the Millville Public Library the other day.

Heard an oldies station on the radio today.  WIBG?  I thought that was defunct...or maybe it was just on AM and moved to FM?  So, I looked it up.  It seems to be broadcasting out of Ocean City now..... I guess they weren't OLDIES the first time.  WIBG is pronounced WIBBAGE.

About

Wibbage 99 was Philadelphia's original rock and roll radio station, introducing millions of Delaware Valley teenagers to the sounds of Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Motown and much more.

Wibbage FM 94.3 is our tribute to the great Philly station of our youth.  You'll hear retro commercials, jingles and airchecks, but you'll also hear local news, weather and events.  Plus, that great music you know and love!

Your favorite songs from...
The Beatles, Beach Boys, Four Tops, Billy Joel, Herman's Hermits, The Association, Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Elton John, Van Morrison, Roy Orbison, Rolling Stones, America, Buckinghams, Martha & the Vandellas, Doobie Brothers and so many more!!!

Feeling rushed

Computer time running out.  Don't want to do anything which will take up any amount of TIME.  However, I must write up this audiobook because it is due today!

Book review: A week in winter, by Maeve Binchy, read by Rosalyn Landor.  Seemed a bit too long, but I enjoyed it.  Similar to a recent book I reviewed, this author introduces characters one by one.  By the end you are thinking,, "Stop already!" The end was satisfying and focussed on the first week of customers in a hotel in a mansion on a cliff in a small town in the west of Ireland.  The first characters we get to know are the people who own the hotel and work there.  Later we are introduced to some of the guests who end up there, all for pretty different reasons.  Sometimes we get all the way to that last week and then we go back and meet ANOTHER character and proceed again to the last week, each time learning a few new details.
I think some of the people have dinner at a restaurant called Quentins, which I think was the main subject of one of her other books.  I borrowed this audiobook from the Millville Public Library (AUDK F BIN)

Ugh...what else do I have to say today.  Am at the library, with a few irritating patrons.  A woman talking to herself who was trying to print out an entire conversation between herself and a girl's father, but it was going to cost $16.30, which she didn't have.  Then she had problems emailing or saving it.  So much drama on Facebook.  I can't imagine having much of a conversation at all on it.  Guess I just don't GET IT.

It's a gorgeous Mother's day

Except for the crowds and the large lady covered with tatoos.  Made the mistake of going to Bob Evans and Starbucks on Mother's day.  God...the crowds!  The health club was relatively quiet but I was forced to watch CNN, which is really getting on my nerves.  They announce all of this stuff that you heard about two days ago like it is this fabulous new discovery.  They also give wrong info and pronounce things badly.  It is almost more than I can take to listen to the "news" these days.  After you listen to the latest hostage crises and murders, you wonder how there can be any Americans left living.

Yahoo is acting up, yet I am fearful of "upgrading" to the new Yahoo.  Upgrades usually get rid of several features that I liked before.  Upgrades are one of my many fears.  Here are some more:
- fear of getting a new phone
- fear of getting a new camera
- fear of plans going awry
- fear of being awakened in the night
- fear of going on a trip without a phone or computer

Felt better AFTER my workout than I did before.  Went to work out right after eating too much at Bob Evans.  Now I sit at Starbucks being sorely tempted to get a large mocha cookie crumble drink with chocolate whipped cream on top.  I can only imagine the amount of calories in that one.  Was driven inexorably last night to eat stuff I shouldn't and of course, gained a pound this AM.  Feel kind of hopeless about getting my weight down.  Really hard being here in Starbucks constantly confronted with beverages that our populace consumes with narry a thought about it.

An entire afternoon without a snack

Can I do it?  Ate my lunch early cause it was here.  Nothing to eat all afternoon.  I brought no snacks to work because I am trying to be careful and my coworker apparently is in the same boat.

Practicing French in the car.  Pronouncing things properly gives your face and neck quite a workout.  I need to be doing those exercises anyway to combat the double chin affect.  Then went to get my nails done and the only magazines I could find were Essence, something in Vietnamese and People en espanol.  So I read People in Spanish.  

Working today but hardly working.  Classes are over and exams are starting and there is just not much activity around the library today.