Tea

...oh how I love thee!

Tea Time is back baby, and I for one am super excited. I grew up reading Georgette Heyer and "hearing" about clotted cream and cucumber sandwiches...now I get to taste them. I can't wait to crook my pinky and crunch into delicate pastries.

It's a dream come true : )

Oh, Canada!

A few months ago, I went to a seminar in Detroit with a couple co-workers. Using my awesome persuasion skills (Hey, d'ya wanna....?), I convinced them that they in fact did want to cross the border and go gambling in Canada.

It was my first casino venture, which was super-fun -- we were there for an hour and I came out on top. Except that it cost like $16 to drive in and out of the country. So in the end, maybe not that cost-effective. Especially considering there are casinos in Detroit.

But you don't get to take these pictures in Detroit! (Well, the first one you do. But just as you're leaving.)

Destinations

I'm seriously contemplating driving more than an hour (albeit slightly) for Brusters ice cream. That led me to Google maps, where I started scrolling across the state. And learned that we have some gems of place names.

Among them: Delightful, Phalanx, Ira (my HS crush), River Styx, Charm, Welcome, Widowville, Funk, Jelloway, Climax, Waldo, Magnetic Springs, Jumbo and Jump.

I'd love to hear more, here or elsewhere. I've always meant to venture to Hell, Michigan and really should've made it to Between, Georgia while I could (though somewhere I have a list of great names from there, as well, and that's just the start of it).

Still in my PJs

On this lovely Friday afternoon.

Why?

I no longer have to work on holidays :)

No Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Labor Day, Fourth of July... and I could go on!

Believe me -- I'm grinning from ear to ear at the vacationary prospects (though now, I'm simply enjoying a four-day weekend at home).

I love this rabbit

If you don’t know about Bernie, you must.

Quoth the raven

I'm cleaning off my desk at the moment (a gargantuan task) and have been thumbing through some of the publications that get left in my mailbox in the process.

And I had to share this article, about how a dearth of ravens may spell England's downfall (and that of the Tower of London).

My favorite part:

“It'll be raven crazy,” Ms. Steventon said.

The birds' lifting feathers are trimmed to ensure a prolonged stay (although, with a daily diet of six ounces of raw meat and bird biscuits soaked in blood, what sane raven would ever leave?).

My knight in shining armor!

Webster, my loyal steed, is apparently unsuited for unplowed driveways following lake-effect accumulations. He got very stuck -- half in the driveway and half in the street -- when my tires just kept spinning and spinning in a lovely pile of snow. I had so hoped we could make it through.

Lucky for me, my dad was willing to come shovel me out (and make paths with his heavier car, which doesn't balk at piles of snow), so once out, I could get my car off the street. Yay for dads (and yes, SUVs)!

In my refrigerator

(It means I get to tell people Greek myths as I offer them a snack!)

We go together, like...

The radio station I was listening to on the way home played, in succession, songs by Afternoon Naps and The Dreadful Yawns.

This makes me smile (almost) every day.

Today's strip of xkcd.
And even better? Friday's xkcd strip (all of you in the sciences should roll).

Flattery!

I wasn't going to post this, but Rel told me to (And since she posted something similar, I guess I'm entitled to brag a little bit too, right?)
So the other day, I emailed the program coordinator at U. Akron about the application requirements. One of them is that applicants must have a 3.25 GPA, which I don't have; hence my concern. Her response after I told her this plus my other qualifications:
"Please apply….your scores are exceptional…and yes, we do overlook lower GPA’s when all the other requirements are as strong as yours."

:)
Now to find a faculty member with whom to work....

We are destructive sorts

This, courtesy of Bek.

[And I got it three times. But all of them were from you :)]

It finally stopped snowing

Which means there are snowmen about, wearing scarves and with gnarled stick-arms.

There are also icicles and snow-covered wishing wells.

And the sound that the piles of snow make when I sweep them off the roof of my car is like pillows fluffing.

Unrelatedly, the nice man at the truck-rental place knocked a chunk of change off of the rental for my troubles (which are not too troubling at all, but which belong elsewhere, since this is the blog of happiness). So I saved $10.

Blast from the past

My lab partner from high school chemistry (who is a pretty cool dude -- like, way more of a cool dude than I am a cool dudette) e-mailed me today, having seen one of my stories, and wants to get together and catch up.

First of all, that alone made me grin. Second of all, I've discovered that it's much easier to make new friends when you don't really have to at all.

Potty humor

I got to quote a politician saying "That's crap."

And that makes me happy.

I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...

Kansas is for another day. Or more likely, in person. That story shouldn't be in print on the Internet.

But Maryland... that's another story.

Came across a Web site today that had a "Save Cleveland" theme. Only problem?
The skyline under "Cleveland, Ohio" was in fact Baltimore.


(It was changed later in the day, which disappoints me greatly.)

Bonus points to you if you know which is which.

Water, water

This is a little old, but it takes me forever to get pictures off my camera. Tanya keeps denigrating my beach. The lake is big! And on Halloween, I got let out of work early and headed to the water. It was beautiful.

Secret compliments

E-mail from a co-worker:

(The boss) told me he thinks you're doing an awesome job -- and i couldn't agree more! (now ssshhhh, if he didn't tell you that, don't let him know that i did!)

i just thought it would be a good thing for you to hear!

Happy day!

Snow in the South and a new job!

(AKA, when my friends are happy, it makes me smile, too.)

Cutlery

During a conversation with my boss this morning, he pulled a spoon out of his pocket.

Airport humor

I was so engrossed in this, that I didn't realize my ride from the airport had arrived -- even after she honked the horn.

But there were two guys trying to fit a carry-on suitcase into the trunk of a Pontiac Solstice, a car that looks like this:

and has a trunk like this:

It was really great. They pushed and shoved. And in the end, they left with the suitcase on the passenger's lap.

In a few short hours

Heh

One of the PR-ish guys I harass all the time found me on Facebook. I am amused.

Yum

Today was birthday day at work. Birthday day at work is good. It comes with cake.

It used to be cookie cake, which was fun. But now.... ice cream cake! Even tastier.

My family is an ice cream cake family -- Dairy Queen for every birthday I remember, going back decades. Because it's a bird-killer -- why get cake and ice cream when you could get both at once?

Seems like it may be a while before I have normal birthday cake again :)

Rarity

I took a good driver's license photo!

Today is

Veterans Day.

But Armistice Day sounds so much better. And makes me smile when my boss uses it.

11/11 is aesthetically pleasing, too.

Happiness is

Paper, warm off the printer, on the first truly cold day of the year.

Grapefruit

Halved and sectioned. Yum.

It's total West Wing

First, there's all the who-will-be-the-chief-of-staff fun. Now, can't you just see Josh or Toby doing this? (From the first Obama news conference)

Here’s a lively segment. He calls on Lynn Sweet, the campaign reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, who’s arm is in a cast. What happened, he asks. She says she had an accident while running to his election night speech in Grant Park. She goes on to ask about the big issue of what kind of dog the Obamas intend to get and where his daughters might go to school in Washington. And what former presidents is he consulting?
He said he is "obviously" consulting former President Clinton and that he has spoken to "all of them that are living" adding, "I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances."
...As for the dog, he recognizes it’s a major issue, saying it has generated more interest on our Web site than anything. He says he has two criteria that may not be reconcilable: His older daughter, Malia, is allergic to dogs, so the dog has to be hypoallergenic; at the same time, "our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but obviously a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me." That brought a laugh…

But wait, there's more!

Wikipedia says Josh Lyman's character is based on Rahm Emanuel, the new chief of staff. And several articles have said Matt Santos, the Democratic candidate, was based on Obama. Republican Arnold Vinick was based on McCain.

I love it when fiction comes to life. It's just so entertaining!

Clever!

Cuz it's W, see!

Mr. Bush has said he is determined to conduct an orderly transition. The White House wants to avoid a repeat of the kind of news reports that plagued President Bill Clinton when he left office amid questions about whether members of his staff, irked at having to turn their offices over to Republicans, removed the letter W from some computer keyboards.

Me & Bobby McGee

One of the most interesting -- and most noticeable -- pieces of public art in Cleveland is the Free Stamp. It makes me smile every time I walk past it, as it did today.

Print has a future!

At least when there's national triumph or tragedy.

But seriously, check this out!

I'm not going to write about the election

But when I voted this morning, I got mistaken for my 17-year-old sister by a former neighbor. And I find that amusing. See, I totally could've still gone trick-or-treating! I look like a high school student!

And even more awesome: it was a gorgeous day today. Like, I-ate-lunch-outside-in-the-sun gorgeous. In November in Ohio, you cherish that :)

And there was free Ben & Jerry's and Starbucks. Yummmm.

OK, a wee little bit about the election. It's exciting that Ohio is not keeping us up for a week. And regardless of your politics, it's nice to know who the president is on election day (well, we don't yet -- but it looks like we'll find out tonight).

No, I'm yours!

I listen to the radio on scan in the mornings, stopping when I hear a good song. This morning, I heard "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz four times.

And that song makes me smile. As does this cover of it. (Thanks, Bek!)

Edit: The day's total was six times. Good thing it's a happy song!

Tourists

Or poll monitors and get-out-the-vote operatives.

We're in a battleground state! Who knew?

So there was an Obama rally downtown today. Christy and I were going downtown for other reasons -- but we took the rapid, hearing that traffic would be terrible and there would be no parking anywhere. (There wasn't any parking at the rapid station, either. It was packed!)

There, a nice woman from Rochester wanted to know where we had come from to drum up votes. And on the way back, this dude started talking to us... and decided we were his new friends. So when we walked by the rally (Bruce Springsteen was playing!), he hung with us. When we left, we decided to go get a cup of coffee -- and he came along. We invited him to dinner, too, but I think he felt like he was intruding at that point (and it was nice that he didn't come).

But he took our e-mail addresses. And I just think it's cool that he had the guts to start chatting with a couple of gals in a strange city and make them his friends. Or at least his temporary acquaintances.

Go go Gadget wheels!

I saw a guy pedaling through downtown Cleveland on a very tall bicycle -- much like this one. It was a little bit supreme.

But there was no snow -- it was in the 70s yesterday instead :)