Ken Jennings

My mom was flipping through channels and couldn't find anything exciting, so we just put it back on to Jeopardy. A woman won after a 7 day winning streak, and it reminded me of Ken Jennings. My mom is a big fan of Ken Jennings and his majestic brain.

If you don't know anything about Ken Jennings, he was the first multi-day winning champion after Jeopardy changed their rules about how long a champion can come back for from serial wins. Originally, champions would only be able to stay for about 5 rounds. So here comes Ken Jennings with his mind mastery and recall abilities and wins over $2.5 million for 74 straight games. Like, whaaaaaaaaaat??

I'm only bringing this up because I made my mom laugh hysterically for several minutes, and I didn't think it was quite that funny. All I said was, Ken Jennings defragments his mind every weekend. She must not think I'm very clever either, because she asked if I heard that somewhere before. But after I thought about it, I realized I don't really tell a whole lot of jokes to her, and I don't very often make her laugh like that, as it had taken me aback. Maybe because she just doesn't really laugh much anymore in general. I'm just happy she is feeling a little less strung out after a dramatic weekend for her. Introducing her to Clumsy Ninja may have helped out too; that little dude always seems to brighten my mood.

And in case you didn't know:

Kill Me Now

Everyone's got an embarrassing story, and I don't usually go out of my way to tell them myself, but my family certainly would. Whenever we have a get-together and someone starts bringing up childhood, voila: the same stories about me and all the embarrassing things that have happened to me. Thanks mom, you can kill me now.

Countdown of the Top Most Retold Embarrassing Childhood Stories About Me By My Family That I Don't Even Remember Happening

#4: When I was a baby, I would play with my mom's hair as she held me. For some reason, I made a pointing gesture right as my mom was turning her face back towards me and I caught her in the eye. She had to make a visit to the emergency room, and there is now a picture of her with an unattractive eye patch on in my family photo album.

#3: My dad would come to pick up my brother and me on Saturday mornings to hang out for the weekend. When I was old enough to sit in the front seat as my brother already could, being two years older than me, we would take turns sitting in the front. For some reason, I hated sitting in the back seat, so whenever it was my turn, I would have a severe breakdown in the middle of the front lawn, throwing my head back and screaming at the clouds for justice. At some point, after many days of public tantrums on the front lawn, my mom gathered me up and whispered to me that throwing my head back and screaming like that made me look like an idiot. I supposedly never did it again.

#2: My mom had always complained about me being a slow dresser in the mornings. Sometimes it would take me 10 minutes to put on a sock. So one day when it was time to go to school and I wasn't really dressed quite yet, she told me to suck it up, we're getting in the car now. Excuse me, mom! I cannot go to school in my pajamas! She threw me into the backseat of her car. How could you do this to me! (Hysterical, desperate sobbing.) Pulling up to my elementary school, she turned towards my tear-stained face and handed me a bag of clothes. "You'll never do that again, now, will you?" I changed in the car in less than five minutes.

For the record, I have an entirely different memory of the events that took place in this next scenario.

#1: When we were kids, my brother and I shared a room and a bunk bed. I always had the bottom bunk, which was fine by me because it was queen sized and I could spread out my arms and legs everywhere. My brother obviously had the top bunk, which was just twin sized. One night, while I was asleep, my brother became sick and threw his head over the side of his bed to vomit, which landed on my blanket and my self.

MY STORY: I woke up totally grossed out and ran to the bathroom to wash the gunk off of me.
MY MOM'S/BROTHER'S STORY: I rolled over and fell back asleep, but was then awoken by my mom who told me I was sleeping in vomit before I became totally grossed out and ran to the bathroom to wash the gunk off of me.

I refuse to believe this. I refuse. I have been punked.

Balloons, Whaaaat!

My hot air balloon ride is coming up in a couple of weeks! WHAAAT!

Can't wait to check that off of my bucket list.

If you don't recall, this hot air balloon trip was meant to be a birthday present from me to both my mom and brother. My mom is rearing to go, but my brother has verbally rejected the idea with insistence because of his fear of heights he failed to share with me in all of both our lifetimes together. Since my reservations are nonrefundable and I can't sell tickets because they don't exist, I had to invite someone who would either be willing to pay me their share or someone who I'd be willing to cover for. No one's about to be up and ready to pay an expensive ticket for a random balloon ride, so I ended up inviting my dad whom is totally stoked to come and join my mother and me. Don't worry, even though they're divorced, they tolerate each other while I'm around. We can only tolerate my dad's aggressive personality so much, though. We are certainly weary.

Not wanting to completely disregard my brother, we're going to try to spend the day prior to the flight with him. We have yet to come up with something to do, because there's hardly anything my brother can do due to his bad back. Maybe we will see a movie or something. Like TRANSCENDENCE. However, for some reason, my brother refuses to respond to any of my efforts at contacting him and I wouldn't know if he was alive were it not for his switching online/offline status on Skype. What a biiiiiitsgch.

Almost Freedom

Well, I finally came out to my mom about wanting to move eventually, and I have to say, I was very smooth about it. I was asking her what "solar heating" means, because I was reading it on Trulia home descriptions, and she says, "Why, are you going to move?" And I say, "Eventually. If I accumulate money the way I have been, I think I'll be able to put down 20% for something around 2017," which implies that I don't want to live with her without actually saying it. After some time passes, she comes back to me and says she's glad I told her my plans because now she won't be able to go on any more vacations, so she can save up for the three years I have left here. That makes me sad, because she's my main vacation buddy, but I think that'll be fair for both of us. I don't feel like I'll be abandoning her this way, staying for 3 years (ugh, so long), and she has plenty of time to prepare herself financially. But not being able to go on vacations and knowing that I don't want to live with her for the rest of my days is going to make her sad, and therefore me sad.

As an unforeseen consequence, I will need a new travel buddy for the coming years. I WANT TO GO PLACES. Then there's this nagging in the back of my head to look for a new boyfriend. However, I'm still at the point where I don't trust men, that they're all sleezy scumbags. ALL OF THEM. Look at the media. None of them are trustworthy. Cheating is commonplace. Monogamy is a myth. I have absolutely no optimism regarding future relationships. When I was in my last one, I thought I felt happy when I was with him, but if he wasn't around, all of this doubt and distrust swept over me (with good reason) and lead to a lot of stress. That's not happiness at all. I feel very happy by myself; I don't even feel lonely. But I worry that I might have been ruined trust-wise for all future men, though I hope that's not the case. Either way, when I feel my baby clock go off I'm going to have a baby whether I have someone else or not. Sperm donation! Why not?

Seattle

April 2014

Day One - Saturday

We arrived in Seattle on a showery afternoon, but had already made plans to visit the Seattle Waterfront and Aquarium immediately after our departure from the airport in our rental car. I made the mistake of parking too soon in fear of not finding a parking garage later on (I'm used to hard-to-find parking downtown in my hometown), because there were garages and lots pretty much everywhere. Downtown Seattle is super hilly and reminiscent of what you might find in San Francisco, but it is still very walkable because everything worth seeing downtown is very close together.

The aquarium seems really small until you notice that it leads outside the pier enclosure for some bird, otter, and seal exhibits. I'm not sure the aquarium was really worth $22 a head, it needs some updating and is still fairly small, but the river and sea otters are worth visiting. There are a lot of deals to take advantage of that we didn't this time, like combination tickets with a harbor cruise tour or the great wheel, so the opportunity to save some money is there and make the trip more budget friendly.

Afterwards, we made our way to our hotel to wait for another friend to join us so we could eat out for dinner. We ended up walking to Black Bottle, a hip and trendy restaurant that serves food in a family style manner so that it's shared with your friends. They warned us about the "large plates" and people are often surprised by how "large" they are when they come out, but they really aren't. I guess I'm just used to Cheesecake Factory portions as "large". But I'd probably recommend ordering about 2 plates per person for sharing to feel full. Next, we made our way to Bathtub Gin & Co. for a drink before resting our eyes back at the hotel.

Day Two - Sunday

We woke up groggily to eat some breakfast at the hotel and drive to the Volunteer Park Conservatory. The park itself was very pretty, but the conservatory was cute and quaint with a glass enclosure over five different climate zones including tropical, moderate, and dry. There were a lot of cool plants with interesting colors and foliage, and the room with tulips made for great backdrops for portraits. The gift shop was adorable, too, and I ended up buying a necklace with a hand painted pendant of two koy fish.

We had a Savor Seattle food tour scheduled later that afternoon in Pike Place Market, so we decided to head that way early to explore on our own first. I shared a panini special at Sister's European Snacks to tie us over until the tour, bought some chocolate covered cherries from Chukar Cherries, waited for one of my friends to order a frappuccino from the "Original" Starbucks, and tried my very first European drinking chocolate from The Confectional, an amazing experience for chocolate lovers. Speaking of the "Original" Starbucks, it was explained to us that this was not in fact the very first Starbucks. The first Starbucks no longer exists. This Starbucks is the FOURTH Starbucks to exist, but is considered the second location of the first. I feel cheated.

Soon it was time to meet up at the Gum Wall for the start of our food tour. The gum wall was pretty gross! Apparently it started out a bit more sightly where people would use gum to stick coins up, like for wishes? But someone came by and grabbed all the coins so all that was left was gum and even with efforts to clean the wall, people kept putting gum there and so the city turned it into a gross tourist attraction and an accumulation of 30 years of used gum. Do you see our smiles? They are delicate smiles of disgust.

Our food tour was lead by a very informative, hilariously pun-filled, and charismatic guide named Santino whom we decided to call instead Sassy Santino after he alliterated all of our own names as well. Here we visited a number of locations for small bites that some might consider adding up to a meal, but over the course of two hours you don't really feel full.

- Daily Dozen Doughnuts for freshly made cinnamon sugar doughnut holes.
- Market Spice for its Market Spice tea, orange & cinnamon flavor that is surprisingly sweet on its own.
- Pike Place Fish for three types of smoked salmon and a fun fish toss in which one of our own got to participate.
- Pike Place Chowder for lobster bisque and award-winning clam chowder.
- Choice Produce for fresh, sweet grapes and apples.
- BB Ranch for charcuterie and stories inside their walk-in refridgerator.
- Beecher's Handmade Cheese for aged white cheddar on a cracker as well as mac & cheese famously praised by Oprah Winfrey.
- Pear Delicatessen & Shoppe for a small deli sandwich and time to purchase anything else from the store.
- Etta's for delicious crabcakes.

Feeling oh so satisfied, we walked over to the Seattle Great Wheel and enjoyed three rotations around the ferris wheel in enclosed capsules. The views offered up were picturesque and granted us decent backgrounds for selfies.

It was about time I needed to charge my phone, so we tried to find a Starbucks in order to do so. We found one right next to Showbox, the venue featuring Young the Giant later that night. Unfortunately, the Starbucks here in Seattle apparently cover their outlets because they're either stingily rude or environmentally friendly. Meanwhile there was a huge line wrapping around the block to get in to Showbox before doors opening, but knowing that my friend is a seasoned concert goer who knows how to get close to the stage, we saved our feet by hanging out in the Starbucks for an extra hour until the opening band would show.

I haven't been to very many concerts, but I have to say that Young the Giant was the best I've ever been to. I had the foresight this time to learn most/all of their songs so I could sing along, they were incredibly energetic and the crowd was loud and enthusiastic. I give a lot of props to the lead singer Sameer Gadhia. By the end of the night, my throat was weirdly shrilling involuntarily when I yelled up at the stage. I hurt my vocal cords but kept singing, anyway. Seattle turned out to be the last city in their Mind Over Matter tour, so I felt very lucky to have been there. Even without my phone charged, it lasted the night with 1% energy left, so I still managed to get all the photos I wanted to take of the show. I went ahead and bought a Young the Giant sweatshirt, which I needed. I just did. We left the venue pumped and slightly deaf on our way back to the car and hotel for some much deserved sleeps.

Day Three - Monday

I woke up slowly and groggily from the sleep aid I used (I didn't sleep well without it the night before), as well as sore as shit from all the walking we've done. One of our friends was leaving town this day, so we had to sneak in a trip up the Space Needle before he went. There were hardly any lines, probably because it was a Monday morning, and we were blessed with good fortune in the form of sunshine and a clear view of Mount Rainier to the south and the Olympic Mountains to the northwest.

We had originally intended to eat at the restaurant within the Space Needle, as I have heard that it is supposedly superb, but at our entry before 11am the restaurant was not yet open. We settled on the cafe there instead and I consumed the only hot dog we ever managed to get our hands on before leaving the city. On the way to the airport, our friend leaving us wanted to take an emergency detour to a souvenir shop. While we were trying to guide him back to the car over the phone, he asked us to describe our surroundings. This is when we saw an old man running shirtless down the street with a Jamaican flag cape tied around his neck, and it was legit, the funniest thing that had ever happened on the entire trip.

Next thing on our list of things to do was take a harbor cruise with Argosy Harbor Cruise Tours. By the time we arrived at the counter, we were an hour late for the one we had initially planned on attending, so we settled for one two hours later and walked around downtown a bit more. Feeling in the mood for something cold and sweet, we worked our way up four blocks of steep sidewalks to Gelatiamo. I ordered four flavors: lemon sorbet, blackberry sorbet, peanut butter cup gelato, and chocolate hazelnut gelato. The gelato is the most delicious gelato I've ever had. Other "gelato" I've tried have been reminiscent of ice cream, but this here, THIS, was unquestionably gelato. I was in heaven.

After failing to find a hot dog stand anywhere, we begrudgingly made our way back to the Seattle Waterfront. Upon discovering a small arcade, I whooped some ass playing air hockey. A ten year old boy boasting lightening reflexes challenged me to a duel, and I felt bad about beating him so I gave him all of the tickets I won. All 36 of them.

Lining up for our Locks Tour Harbor Cruise, my friend started making a fuss pointing at someone she claimed to be SAMEER GADHIA departing his own cruise tour. Remember that guy? The guy we saw belting on stage the night before? Yeah, I wasn't sure it was him for a while, because he was tying his shoe and all I could see was his butt. Which was fine. He was wearing sunglasses when he stood up, but his look and style lead me to agree that she was right and it was indeed the lead singer of Young the Giant before my eyes, walking off down the street away from us. And I had just taken off my Young the Giant sweatshirt. And we could have been on the same boat as him. I almost died inside.

As for our harbor cruise tour, it was really fun and relaxing. I'm glad we took the longer tour because our feet were killing us. The trip was commentated over the intercom with history and facts about Seattle and Puget Sound. We got some pretty great views of the skyline and that made me and my iPhone camera very happy.

This particular tour took us up and over Seattle through a locks canal and Lake Union. It was really neat seeing the locks in action. They're meant to separate the higher freshwater levels from the lower seawater levels. There were a lot of cool ships and houseboats along the way. Supposedly, we passed the houseboat used in the movie Sleepless In Seattle, as well as the ship used in the show The Deadliest Catch, but none of us saw what the commentator saw. He may have been lying.

Once we docked in Lake Union, a bus took us back to our original location and it was about time we headed towards Kerry Park for some iconic sunset shots of the Seattle skyline.

Our last day in Seattle happened to be the start of Restaurant Week, when even upscale restaurants have affordable 3 course menus. We took the chance to fine dine at Dahlia Lounge where we enjoyed the most delicious bites of food yet. Can't you tell by our empty plates?

It was then declared as a toast that we would continue to discover new cities together every year! ...And hopefully during Restuarant Weeks.

Français

Je veux apprendre le français, mais la programme que j'utilise est ... I haven't even learned how to say negatives yet, but to finish my sentence in English, the program I'm using isn't very logical in its flow of knowledge. There are things I want to learn before my trip to Paris this summer, but Duolingo has you learn everything in a very specific and illogical order. I haven't even learned numbers yet. Or directions. Or useful things. Instead, I learn things like "Tu manges comme un cochon!" and "Elle veut être nue."

I'm stuck having to learn an exorbitant amount of verbs first, which is very difficult to accomplish. BUT. It's still pretty decent for a free and online language learning program. I started using it last fall, so I don't think my progress is entirely terrible. There are a lot of quirks, but each question allows a discussion to follow if there is a concern or error that can help you better understand weird sentence structures. Meanwhile, you aren't allowed to progress further until you have learned what you're meant to. The Duolingo program utilises written translations, listening and dictating, and oral pronunciations, so it's pretty well rounded.

My issue with learning languages has always been the verbal part. I cannot speak languages for crap, but I can certainly read and write them. I know there are a lot of English speakers in France, so it's not entirely necessary to learn a lot of the language, but it's at least more respectful to try.

Trolling

This year's April Fool's Day was the first day I had ever pulled a prank on anyone. Of course, it was a completely harmless office prank, but once they realized what was happening, my coworkers thought it was a good one. I saw the idea on Pinterest.

Pretty simple and self explanatory. 1/4 coworkers found the problem right away. 2/4 coworkers restarted their computers twice. The last coworker I heard was flailing and banging their mouse around in frustration. I honestly didn't expect it to take them all so long; my first instinct would be to check the underside of the mouse for obstruction. Anyway, once they found their troll faces, they laughed and all was well.

One of my coworkers told her children that it was snowing (it never snows here) and they jumped out of bed to check outside the window. Hilarious.