this is classic....this email arrived in my inbox today:

I am a stranger, so don’t get too worried about who wrote this email.

So, I was just playing a game in where my friend (who happens to be in the navy near the sea of japan) and I (sweet home Ohio) try to pick two random (well, people-made-random) words (that must be in the scrabble dictionary) and enter them into google. The person with the least number or returned results wins.

I have just won.

The reason is, if I search for the words inchworm and hummus. Your site is the only result I get.

So anyway,

That’s all.

fred

so of course, ever curious me heads over to google. in the search bar i type 'inchworm hummus' wondering when i talked about inchworms. inchworms? with hummus? inchworm hummus? hope that is not going to be a delicacy on my trip...and sure enough, here was the result. the only result:

she talks. she walks. she rambles.
... finally! two steps forward...inch inch inch...inchworm (sorry, now i am singingthat ... with creamy saffron and white bean hummus, roasted garlic and a tuft of ... taking.blogspot.com/2001_12_30_taking_archive.html -23k

though, now this post will likely show up soon, too. how amazing/crazy/wacky is that? if you figure how many words are in the english language what are the chances of this guy's two totally random words being in my blog - and that blog enty being the ONLY google site that appreared with those words. maybe i should go buy a lottery ticket...

happy easter/bunny day/spring celebration. :)

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pack cover. bug goop. (deet free). last trip to REI, i think. it's kinda strange, knowing that this is going to be a life changing experience, but not really knowing how. which makes it exciting, of course...'hi, i'm going to leave the real world for 30 days. hoping to find myself. not quite sure where to look, but i hope it's where i am going'

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting. - ee cummings

jelly belly donuts? something just doesn't seem quite right about that...hmm...cotton candy donuts? aren't they sweet enough? i'd prefer buttered toast for my breakfast. :)

i wonder how long it'll take me to remember how to type again when i get back...

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tomorrow it'll be single digits. i am absorbing the fact that in less than two weeks, i will be carrying my life on my back.

started reading one of my 'waiting to be read books' (i wish i had the willpower to wait to buy new books until i finished the ones i still need to read)...just bought it the other day - 'hope's edge'. it's a 'sequel' to fances moore lappe's 'diet for a small planet', which was a groundbreaking book examining how our food choices affect not only our health, but the planet's health. it was published 30 years ago, and this one picks up where it left off, co-authored by her daughter, anna.

at the car wash yesterday (after being asked by three different people what the fat book i was carrying was about. i was amazed at how many people seemed interested in what i was reading) i opened to the first page and started reading. three minutes later i was fighting tears. the words i read touched something inside of me - the piece of me that is seeking...'is what i am doing consonant with my own deep need to feel that my life counts, to know that i am using each day toward ends that really matter and acting on the care for others i feel?' bingo. it is a daunting wish in today's world, it seems.

i didn't make it too far into the book...i found myself rereading passages, skimming the chapters, the table of contents. some things that i found interesting...

do we continue burying out sense the something is profoundly wrong in the world we are creating, and therefore stay in denial of our truer selves; denial that produces fear so familiar that we hardly recognize it? or do we make another choice; do we choose to move into a cycle of hope?

we can choose to meet people and encounter events so powerful that they jar us out of our ordinary way of seeing the world, and open us to new, uplifting, and empowering possiblities. they call us to travel to hope's edge.

for us to heal our planet and to find joy in this challenging time, each of us must take an interior journey, on probing not only our unspoken fears but also our deepest beliefs about our nature as human beings.

there is so much more...i'm sure i'll have much more to say...maybe this will help my find where i am going. and i hope no one at the car wash noticed me brushing away tears under my sunglasses.

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wow. fingers and one toe.

somebody tell me what to do with my life, please? pretty please? i miss the days when i thought everything would be perfect. and work out just as i imagined it to. i know, then it wouldn't be life. but, at least then i didn't feel so lost and alone.

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countdown...picked up some lash straps, stuff sacks and other various doo dads (gear! woo!) at rei last night. just about done. i think. :)

i have been a quoter lately, but this is a favortie of mine. indigo girls, 'language or the kiss'

I said to you the one gift which I'd adore
The package of the next 10 years unfolding
But you told me if I had my way I'd be bored

there's a part of me that really would love to know where i am going. someone to tell me what it's going to be like. but then again, that takes the fun out of it all, doesn't it?

calvin! :)

You are Spaceman Spiff! Zounds! You are the intrepid Spaceman Spiff, the engaging explorer ensconsed in an unending universe of exotic and evil extraterrestrials! You're brave, but you should give that dictionary a rest. Take the What Calvin are You? Quiz by contessina_2000@yahoo.com!

Cell Phone Use Seen as 'Positive' Addiction

hahahaha. *wipes eyes* positive addiction? so, crashing your car going 65 mph with a phone glued to your ear represents a positive addiction? maybe i should start actually talking on mine (from my dad, on a messge 'you need to get another cell phone. that you actually keep with you. so i can get a hold of you. you never answer yours' well, dad, that's because i rarely carry it. i hate the damn thing) so i can develop this positive addiction.

The responses showed that cell phone users are perceived as fun, friendly, confident, "cool" and successful, among other socially desirable images, Cassidy told Reuters Health.

ooo. ooo. i wanna be fun friendly and cool, too! all i need is a cell phone to appear that way? why didn't anyone fill me in on this important information sooner? ;) i think dan has a cell phone addiction. do they have 12 step programs for this yet? 'hello, my name is dan, and i am a cell phone addict' (yeah, i know. he'll probably leave me a not nice comment. he denies the problem. first sign of an addiction) they already claim talking and driving is more dangerous than drinking and driving. now it's an addiction. wait til they release the health studies of holding that thing so close to your head for so long...

new ice cream! new ice cream!!!! i was at the co-op yesterday - went for two staple alissa foods - annie's goddess salad dressing, and silk vanilla soy creamer for my coffee. they always have a killer ben and jerry's selection. picked up another pint of osw. i figure i'm not going to have ice cream for 30 days on my trip - i only have 13 more days to enjoy the sweet, slurpy, cold treat.

then i saw that there were some new flavors. 'core concoctions'. i bought 'karamel sutra (nice name, eh? ice cream. sex. ice cream. sex. two perfect things in one. ahem. anyways...) 'a core of soft caramel encircles by chocolate and fudge ice creams with fudge chips.' they had other 'core' flavors - peanut butter, chocolate chocolate, but i am a sucker for caramel. did i ever tell y'all that i love ice cream?

well, damn, this sounds like a sweet show. blues traveller? the samples? but, it's june 22. in vermont. (i've never been to vermont. i'd love to one day) during the bonnarroo-fest. well, now we know two more acts who *won't* be in tennessee. :P

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days til i leave. a blend of excitement, nervousness, all kinds of feelings. sometimes i think 'why exactly did i want to do this?' other times, 'this is what i have dreamed of doing for so long.' whew. boots are broken in. i think i have everything i need, save a compression stuff sack for my sleeping bag and i leash for my sunglasses. wow. 14 more days.

hope cannot be said to exist,
nor can it be said not to exist.
it is just like the roads across the earth.
for actually there were no roads to begin with,
but when many people pass one way a road is made. - lu hsun, 1921

can someone tell me why all cd players with multiple cds and a 'shuffle' setting never seem to shuffle all of the songs? my old car had a cd player with 10 discs, yest when you put it on 'shuffle' it played the same, oh, 25 songs - and never my favorites, it seemed. the 5 disc changer i have at my house does the same thing. so does my windows media player. how do these songs get into the elite shuffle catagory?

'the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...' - jack kerouac

john mayer's 'neon' was playing on my computer. (working on satuday. bah. but! i did get the 'me' and 'pictures' pages reformatted and moved, too)...anyways, all of a sudden i was singing 'do the hokey pokey' in my head. where did that come from? neon hokey pokey? what? hmm. sometimes i wonder...

mobile phone users worse than drunk drivers

i can't seem to understand how it took them that long to figure this out. seems these days anyone driving like an idiot on the road seems to have a cell phone glued to their ear. dan does it all the time. drives me crazy. i think if they offered to permenantly connect his phone to his hand he'd be all for it....

Tests conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory in Berkshire, England showed that drivers' reaction times were on average 30% slower when talking on a hand-held mobile compared to when they had been drinking alcohol.

are they going to have traffic stops where they check your car for mobile phones accessible to the driver? will they only be allowed to be carried in the trunk? will they have an 'on phone' law like the 'open container' one?

*** *** ***
woo. for once the warehouse didn't fail me. :)

deer creek one: lawn
deer creek two: sec f row z seat 5

gorge one: sec c row 26 seats 15&16
gorge two: sec b row 27 seats 15&16
gorge three: sec b row 49 seats 44&45

gloria (dad's new wife) found this napkin at my dad's house, and gave it to me. pretty sweet - almost 32 years old. wow. my mom and dad. :)

Seat Allocation Confirmations for Series 3-2002, Series 4-2002 and Series 5-2002 Issued: By or on March 22, 2002

ok, warehouse, you have til midnight. but could you please get the confirmations up a little earlier? by or on? why tease us? why not 'don't even think we will get this up any time before 5pm on the 22nd.'? hmph.

i went to tower yesterday in search of the indigo girls 'swamp ophelia'. i had a copy. dan had a copy. just like with the counting crows, they both seem to be missing. picked it up, along with a rack for my cds (i only have a rack for about a quarter of them, the rest are (neatly stacked) in piles. took it to the front register where i was greeted with a scowl. she looks at me, looks at the rack, which was, oh, 4 feet tall or so - 140 cds, looks at me. i set it down on the ground in front of the register so that i can rearrange the stuff i am carrying. i had been holding it with one hand, i could't lift it onto the counter.

'i can't scan it when it's sitting there.' she says to me. well, no shit. could you give me a second? she was young and one of those 'life sucks and i have to live it so i'll be mopey and listen to lots of weird music' kids. and i was obviously interferring with her life. how dare i try to buy something at the store. i lift the rack onto the counter, she scans it, scans the cd. takes my money, and gives me my change with the coins on top of the bills.

aside: this is a pet peeve (pet peeve. he. i remember when i was a kid, and i didn't know what a pet peeve was. and since i didn't have pets, i assumed that it was something to do with them. could never figure out why it meant it was something you didn't like. because you're supposed to like your pets, aren't you?) you are handed stack of bills with 87 cents on top - have 6 coins. when you try to put it in your wallet you have a mess. the coins go sliding off the bills. you try to catch them. invaribly one falls to the floor. the quarter, of course, not the penny. eyeing the quarter as it rolls along on the floor, you shove the other coins and bills into your wallet. end up crawling on your hands and knees looking for the damn quarter. all while the person at the register looks at you like you are totally discombobulated. hey, you're the one who caused this mess, ok? you can wait to help your next customer until i get myself out of the mess that could've been easily avoided if only you'd give me my change first, then the bills. then i can put my change in the change part of my wallet, the bills in the bill part, quickly. and everyone's happy. why, oh, why can't they do this?

where was i? oh. i felt like i was in a movie with the stereotypical record store cashier. on the way to the car i realized on of the little wooden balls (they were on the tips of the wire rack) was missing. damnit. now i have to deal with her again. walk back in. 'um, it's missing the little wood things here,' i said, pointing. 'can i just switch it?' with a glare and a 'damn, what is with you?' glare, she said 'i guess so.' took that as a yes. now i have to get my cds in the rack. possibly alphabetized. an exciting way to spend a saturday, eh? ha. maybe it'll rain, then at least i won't be wasting sun. anyways...

this indigo girls cd reminds me of a very happy, content time in my life. summer after my freshman year in college. knew where i was going. what i wanted. how my life was going to be. or so i thought. i wasn't old enough to worry about boring jobs, mortgage payments, or to have the realization that life is never what you think it's going to be. it makes me happy to listen to it. now i have no clue what i want, or where my life is going. but that's ok. in some ways it's more fun this way. for a long long time, in my pre dmb days, this was my favorite song. and it's still one i love. the hardest to learn really is the least complicated.

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though
The kids are walking home from school

Some long ago when we were taught
That for whatever kind of puzzle you got
You just stick the right formula in
A solution for every fool

Well I remember the time when I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool

What makes me think I can start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

So I just sit up in the house and resist
And not be seen until I cease to exist
A kind of conscientious objection
A kind of dodging the draft

The boy and girl are holding hands on the street
And I don't want to but I think you just wait
It's more than just eye to eye
Learn the things I could never apply

But I remember the time when I came so close with you
I let everything go, it seemed the only truth
And I bought you that ring, it seemed the thing to do.

What makes me think I can start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

when i first moved to sacramento, we rented a one bedroom 'townhouse' in the neighborhood we currently live in, curtis park. it was tiny - there were basically four 'mini houses' on one lot, built almost 70 years ago. it consisted of a living room, dining room, tiny kitchen and upstairs a bedroom and a bath. the living/dining rooms were about 15 feet wide, maybe 20 feet long at most. the kitchen held one person. and only one person, the refridgerator being in the dining room. the staircase was so narrow my dad had to dismantle the queen size bed boxspring in order to get it up the narrow, curving passageway. when it was in the bedroom, there was scarcely room for anything else. like all old houses, closet space was virtually non existant - only one.

dan was working out of town at the time, so it was perfectly functional for me and affordable - $525 a month. we stumbled upon the house 4 months later, so we weren't there too long. (much to the dismay of my father, who had to disassemble the boxspring once again) every so often one of the townhouses is for rent. in the paper today, i saw that the one i lived in was available. 2136 4th ave. 1BR 1BA twnhme. patio. washer/dryer. $875.

$875???? i lived there, oh, 2 and a half years ago. a $350 rent increase. 40%??? what? unbelieveable. even with the end of the dot com boom, san fransisco is still moving here...wow. i just hope that translates into a big profit on the house.

one thing, all things:
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
to live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about nonperfection.
- sengstan, third zen patriarch

happy spring equinox! go outside. bask in the sunshine. smell the flowers. walk with bare feet in the grass...what? it's raining? you can look at these pictures i stumbled upon searching for spring pics. :) play pretend. c'mon, it was fun when you were a kid. put on some soothing music. buy flowers on the way home from work. eat a dinner of fresh fruits and vegetables...well, whatever you decide to do, have a wonderful day.

** ** **
shep beat me to this, but from rich, who sometimes comments here sent me this...it'd be awesome to support him.

On Saturday, May 4th, Michelle and I will be participating in the 5th Annual Revlon Run/Walk For Women. This will be Michelle's second year and my third year participating in the event. Last year we raised nearly $1,500. Our goal for this year is $4,000. You can join us in the fight against women's cancers by making a pledge or donation on our behalf. Your pledge will help fund important research into the cause and cure of women's cancers, prevention, education and support service programs. Every pledge will help bring us one step closer to a cure. Please give anything you can.

You can make your donation through our secure website. You can also sign your name on our site and write any comments you want. Your donation amount will be kept private. Any amount you give is also 100% tax deductible.
https://secure.revlonrunwalk.com/ny/MyWebPage.cfm?pID=7336

Have a Great Day - and thanks in advance for the donation - Rich and Michelle

finally, a very fitting quiz. and i must say, this is the album i would *want* to be...

My Dave Matthews album is...

Take it here!

happy st. patrick's day. as someone who is now named delaney, i guess i better not forget to mention this holiday. saw people drinking guiness at breakfast this morning. some guiness with your pancakes, sir? ew.

skiing yesterday. wonderful, glorious, snowy ski day. i love skiing in the snow. as long as it's not too windy. which it wasn't, mostly. tahoe snow is nice and dry, fluffy and soft. i never understood that concept of wet snow/dry snow. then i skiied in oregon in very very wet snow. and at the end of the day i looked like i skiied in a monsoon, not a snowstorm. skiing in fresh powder is like skiing on seven-minute icing - the kind with egg whites that has almost a meringue-like texture, but a little thicker. you float over some of it, plow through some of it, and sometimes it eats your skis so that you are knee deep in it. when you are floating over it, an eerie whiteness around you, flakes flying at your goggles, it is quite a surreal experience. you lose some of your concepts of time and space...the tress are whooshing by, but you still feel like you are not really moving. such a wonderful feeling.

on the lifts, i took my goggles off at one point to clean them...thought i saw a star shaped crack on them - which was odd, considering i haden't taken any strange falls, ran into trees, or been hit with someone's flying skis. looking more closely, i discovered it was a snowflake. a perfect snowflake, the kind you cut out of triangles of white paper and tape to the windows in grade school. i couldn't stop looking at it. i don't remember seeing anything like that before. i understood that those white dots in the sky were really snowflakes, and that snowflakes had these symmetrical patterns and all of them were different. but to see one, so tiny, so detailed, so perfect, so amazing. nature is quite a miraculous thing. speaking of flakes, my current favorite flake. (y'all knew this was coming, didn't you?)

* * * * * * *
sometimes, really, i wonder if i am really related to my family. they are wonderful, really, and i know my dad wants nothing else then to see his kids happy. but two things happened that made me wonder. mind you, i know better than to open my mouth and question my dad or sister. they make their choices, i make mine. and they are generally respectful of my decisions. however, my dad answered his cell phone during dinner and proceeded to have a conversation on it. while we were eating. i bit my lip. and my sister wants to sell both of her cars to buy a ford expidition. what? hello? i hate cell phones to start out with, but during dinner? damn. and, what, 14 mpg? crazy. i know my mother would've looked distainfully on one answering the phone during dinner....but, i suppose, everything will change. my family has changed. i am very fortunate to have one that cares so much about me. and loves me no matter what. contrary to what i have said here, i love them no matter what.

i do wish dad would leave the phone off during meals and my sister would want and EV-1 instead...'tis life...

it's here! finished! (well, pretty much. just a few more tweaky kinds of things)...and the old stuff is still there, too. :) enjoy.

oh, how i would LOVE to go to this. just need to figure out how to find more concert ticket money and a plane ticket to tennessee. should be a piece of cake, right? ;) jack johnson is going to be there, too. *happy excited dance* don't know how i'll pull off going, though. hmm.

Set to take place just outside Manchester, TN on June 21st, 22nd and 23rd, 2002 , the BONNAROO Music Festival will be a three-day camping-and-music extravaganza offering a rich and varied celebration of the live music experience. Just 60 miles southeast of Nashville on a peaceful 500-acre farm surrounded by lush Tennessee woodlands, the event will bring together some of the biggest acts in the industry, including Widespread Panic, Trey Anastasio, String Cheese Incident, Ben Harper, and many others.

hi everyone! welcome to the new humble abode. have a seat. that sky chair is really comfy. i'll be right back with coffee and refreshments. :)

ahem. and i will sing in honor of the occasion. you're really lucky, though. you can't hear me. you don't want to. trust me. ask my dogs.

picture yourself in a boat on a river,
with tangerine trees and marmalade skies
somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
a girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
towering over your head.
look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
and she's gone.
lucy in the sky with diamonds.

follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
where rocking horse people eat marshmellow pies,
everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
that grow so incredibly high.
newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
waiting to take you away.
climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
and you're gone.
lucy in the sky with diamonds,

picture yourself on a train in a station,
with plasticine porters with looking glass ties,
suddenly someone is there at the turnstyle,
the girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.

why do i feel like i am just waiting for someone to tell me what to do next?

It's so easy to let yourself freeze in an intersection because you don't know which direction to go in. We've all done it -- just stood there, staring at the signs and arrows, worrying that if we pick the wrong road, it'll turn out a big old waste of time and leave us right where we started, so we'd better stand there a while longer until someone gives us a guarantee or tells us where to turn. But it doesn't work like that. Nothing is guaranteed. You have to pick a direction and go in it, and if it's the wrong way, you have to trust yourself to get back to the intersection and choose another way and not worry about falling behind or whether it looks to other people like you don't know where you're going, blah blah blah.

That grief racking your soul is actually paralysis. It's not that you don't know what to do; it's that you're afraid to do anything, in case the thing you pick to do doesn't come out right, and I can sympathize, but it's time to pick a direction and go in it. At the very least, it'll allow you to eliminate one road if it doesn't work out. As my dad once said, it's better to regret doing something than to regret doing nothing.

Nobody knows what they're supposed to do. God knows I don't. Concentrate on the doing, not on the not knowing. -tomato nation

Senate Rejects Auto Fuel Standards

*sigh* how did i know it would turn out this way? we haven't raised fuel economy standards in 15 years. look at how much technology has changed since 1987. how far we have advanced. if someone told you that you would be talking to your friends in a little box on your computer screen in 'real time' or that there would be cell phones the size of a deck of cards back then, what would you have thought? yet, as far as automobile fuel efficency, we have not made the strides we could. automakers use scare tactics, saying that we would all be driving 'unsafe' subcompacts and 'whole towns' would shut down because automakers would close plants. huh? they're not recommending that people stop driving. people will still need cars. automakers will still need to manufacture cars. just more efficiant ones.

furthermore, in case you don't get a chance to read the article:

Separately, the Senate by a 56-44 vote, directed that pickup trucks be exempted from future mileage increases, keeping the requirement at 20.7 mpg. The amendment does not affect minivans or SUVS, which technically are in the "light truck" category.

what? considering the percentage of suvs on the road has increased exponentially in the past five years, why do they still lump them together with 'light trucks? they're not light trucks. they're behemoth kid haulers. that suck up a rediculous amount of gas. maybe that's why they all have american flag stickers on the back window. to show their support of the elected officials that keep them on the road, keep them filling their tank every three days, keep them driving 50 in the fast lane with the driver on a phone. some days i think the us just may get it together. then i realize that those thoughts are just wishful thinking.

Maturity involves being honest and true to oneself, making decisions based on a conscious internal process, assuming responsibility for one’s decisions, having healthy relationships with others and developing one’s own true gifts. It involves thinking about one’s environment and deciding what one will and won’t accept. - Mary Pipher

started getting this on the new site. almost there. hopefully by tomorrow. *crosses fingers* *and toes* *and arms* *and eyes* :)

getting there...getting there...still in progress...still at http://www.taking.blogspot.com. :)

testing one two three...six...thirteen...fifty four...six hundred eighty two...