LiNdA RoNsTaDt

Now here's an artist who has recorded an album in pretty much every genre that's appropriate for a partially-white woman to record an album in... she's timeless, and talented, and if you wanna spend your entire day watching youtube videos on someone, I'd say she's a good choice. I'll tell you some other good choices some other time.

But for now, here's a couple of my favies that came from different phases in her career...I didn't point out the obvious stand-outs aka her Mexican music phase... and the Stone Poneys.... and her country phase....and when she did jazz standards in the 90's....or was it 80's...?

Our generation needs another Linda Ronstadt. Maybe Caitlin Rose has it covered for the "country-ish" Linda Ronstadt, but she's sorta in a category of her own...

This is one of my karaoke-go-to's....

Oh Cher....tries to steal the spotlight with her wild dancing and skanky gyrations--which I think are just fine, because Cher is also a very "respectable" entertainer....But it's pretty clear whose vocal superiority keeps the spotlight in this little duet ;)

Spend some time with the videos featuring the McGarrigle sisters....they wrote some of Linda's songs and they all do harmonies together and it's a really nice thing to listen to...if ya like choral arrangements ;)

I always forget I was in this:

a real "must-see!"

"He loves snails..."

WiLd GoOsE ChAsE

Today I didn't have to go to work because we had a snow day. I called my friend Steven to see what he was up to, and he was so happy to hear from me because his car had just broken down. He said, "Oh thank god you called me! My car just ran outta gas on West End! I'm standin' in front of SunTan City wearin' a bathrobe, and Stella's in the back seat!" (Stella is the overly-affectionate, half American Bulldog, half pitbull that belongs to his roommate. Very rambunctious dog--shouldn't be left alone, much less in a car, for lengthy periods).

I agreed to go pick him up, so I finally got there during the lunch rush hour, scooped him up, and after he revealed to me that he had left his wallet at home, I drove to the gas station, got him a gas can, filled it up with gas, and took it back to his car. He filled it up, and still it didn't start. Because of the awkward street parking spot he had, it wasn't an option to find someone with jumper cables, so I agreed to call AAA for him.

After waiting on AAA for two hours and crossing the street to eat at Qdoba while we waited, AAA finally arrived, checked the car, and said there was no problem with the battery. But still, the car wouldn't start, even after he did the fiddly tests with the battery machine.

Finally, he took a screwdriver and dinged around under the hood for awhile--literally banging on random parts of the engine and whatnot, until he told Steven to turn the ignition again, and magically the car started.

"Whatever you do, DO NOT TURN THE CAR OFF," the AAA man said to Steven. He had a messed up starter or something, the man suspected, and Steven should get it replaced immediately.

At that point, it was time to take Stella back home because she'd been in the car for 3 hours and Steven had taken my leftover nachos from me and fed them to her in the backseat, so he suspected she was going to vomit soon.

I thanked the man, bid Steven adieu, and made my way to my car. Approximately 2 minutes later, I received a phone call from Steven, who was giggling and said, "I've got somethin' to tell yew. It's so bad I almost don't wanna say it. You're just gonna die...."

I'm thinking, "Oh great. He turned the car off and now I'm gonna have to call AAA again to run back and fix it."

Nope.

Apparently, Steven just didn't have the car in park when he tried to start it the first time, which caused the initial problem. It wasn't until the AAA man told him the second time to start the car that Steven realized what had happened, but rather than cause himself any embarrassment, or let me/the AAA man know we'd wasted 3 hours for nothing, he just played along... until 3 pm...when he realized what he'd done...

That was a fun thing to do on my snow day...

New Years Resolutions

1) not waste entire days with naps//only take naps when absolutely vital

2) do not waste money/calories/time by eating numerous meals in between regularly scheduled meals (i.e. don't eat four pieces of pizza at 5 and then eat a full-course dinner at 7pm). This happens semi-regularly...

3) when large amounts of free time are presented, spend that time doing productive things like reading a book or an informative article as opposed to watching intellectually un-stimulating things online

4) lessen my procrastination aka don't put off realistic and necessary plans/responsibilities for until the last damn second.

5) Save money to move far far away, which means stretching small amounts of money like $20 across a week... I wasted some time yesterday watching videos about how to eat cheaply and some grocery shopping tricks... one lady suggested eating a lot of sardines and tuna... no thank you.

NY resolutions already failed

My plan was to be super productive on NYE and lay down the foundation for starting out on the right foot on New Year's Day... nothing particularly harrowing but still just a bunch of stuff that needed to be out of the way so that I could really get a head start on January 1st.

*signifies the consumption of a mini Reese's cup from the freezer

**signifies the consumption of a Reese's cup from the freezer that melted in my pocket first

***signifies the consumption of a piece of pizza

So I wake up on Friday at like 10am, and proceeded to stay in bed until 7pm watching 30 Rock...after like the 3rd episode, I remember saying to myself, "okay. you can lounge around today, only if you promise to really put your nose to the ol' grindstone tomorrow." * I'm really good at justifying all poor decisions I make. That's one of my many talents ;)

*, ***So I went to a friend's place to celebrate on Friday, and surprisingly enough, I actually behaved that evening and was able to wake up at 8:30am, arrived back at my house by 10am, puttered around the house and accomplished a handful of things like emptying the dishwasher, and rewarded myself with a little catnap around 11am.

That catnap turned into a 3 hour siesta, and when I woke up, I felt so tired and groggy that I decided to watch some more tv. *, ** I'm telling you the feeling of exhaustion flowing throughout my weakened body not only was a physical deterrent, but it crippled my psyche and had me convinced that I needed to buoy my spirits by watching 13 episodes of the 1980's cartoon, "Jem and the Holograms," based off of the Hasbro doll line...

**That was an excellent (poor) decision, because it was extremely fulfilling and productive to watch cartoons obviously (not). I truly blasted off into the Land of Gluttony where I lost consciousness because of a (probably) self-induced state of hypochondria and gorging... no bueno :/ **, *** (x4) Around 11pm, my body was so sore and tired from laying in bed for the past 48 hours, I felt like the only thing that would make me feel better would be to go to sleep.

So I set out to do that at 11pm, and by 2am I was ready. Somewhere along the way I fell into the trap of watching the British series, "Skins," which I find to be a much wittier and slightly more alternative and realistic version of "Gossip Girl."

I guess the point of telling you all of that is because my behavior the past 2 days directly contradicts my resolutions and pretty much dashed my hopes to hell of achieving them... Happy New Year.

Pizza total: 4 slices

Reese's total: 6, (2 were in liquid form)