Radio

Sometimes my brain is like a radio with a five-year-old as the DJ. If it finds a song it likes, repeat indefinitely; if I suddenly switch topics or thought trains, my mental background music switches just as suddenly. Last night as I was trying to sleep, for example, I had a long loop of Taylor Swift’s “Should’ve Said No,” followed by Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” when I tried finding a slightly mellower song (did that work? Not really sure). And then for good measure my DJ randomly tossed in a Chris Brown song whose name I don’t know. When enough was enough, I snuck out to grab the Romgi’s Zune. A few nights ago I made a playlist specifically for times like these.

Unfortunately, most of the songs I selected featured mental commentary by my DJ. They were nostalgic and full of memories, and the DJ even tried narrating a blog entry about the playlist for me. In an effort to sleep, I did my best to ignore the DJ, although for a five-year-old she writes pretty well. So I just have one song to tell you about, instead of the 30 whose significance was nicely laid out for me last night.

I did ballet when I was growing up. (Surprise!) From the time I was 5 until I was about 15, I performed in The Nutcracker every year – usually as a Bon Bon but, as I got a tiny bit taller, sometimes in another role. We had rehearsals for Act II every Saturday, all Saturday from about August until December. Without a doubt my favorite part was watching the Pas de Deux with the Sugar Plum Fairy and her…whatever his title is. The music is maybe the most emotionally-charged EVER. (I really mean that.)

A few years ago, I went with some friends to see The Nutcracker at Christmastime. We didn’t have very good seats (that’s what $10 will get you), so the majority of the ballet was just kind of “Isn’t it fun to be here?” more than “These dancers are amazing!” But when it got to the pas de deux, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see exactly what the dancers were doing. I could feel it in the music. Honestly, you should try to find it online and listen to it. The pose above is how the song ends. Hearing the music makes me feel wistful, like I was born to dance the pas de deux (in another life where I kept doing ballet through my sulky teenage years).

So instead of falling immediately asleep when I turned on the Zune, I was treated to an amazing combination of music and memory – interrupted at times by my DJ, of course, but I drifted off eventually…and dreamed of ballet.

Descriptive Imagery

Take a good look at this photo, because – as I will explain momentarily – it pretty much captures everything important about me.

Ok things, to note about the photo:

1. It’s a picture of a rather interesting natural formation. I like nature. I like interesting things.
2. However, it is taken from inside the car. Most of the time (especially lately) I’d prefer to look at nature and interesting things from the comfort of my car or an air-conditioned building. Actually experiencing them just takes too much energy. (Yes, I am seriously that lazy. And I know it’s pitiful.)
3. For real – that is a Slim Jim reflected in the window back there. My third one for the trip.

Don’t you feel like you know me better now? Yeah. I’m glad we could share this.

Fvvvfp fvvvfp!

The other day, the Romgi and I came home from work and were just about the head down the steps to our new apartment when we noticed that there was a very, very fat female quail sitting at the bottom of the stairs, on the little porch outside our door. She looked really strange – and she kept squawking at us. The Romgi took a step forward; she suddenly flew up to the roof, leaving behind about a dozen tiny baby quail!

They were absolutely adorable, chirping like mad and scurrying around trying to find their mom. Of course, they were too small to fly, but they kept trying to jump up a step. It was obvious that they were all stuck, so we very carefully tiptoed down and picked up the babies one at a time, putting them up on the sidewalk where their parents could see them. I try not to be smarmy on here, but those quail were absolutely adorable. We got pictures on our phone but I don’t know how to transfer them to our computer…instead, here is a random photo that looks almost exactly like what we took. So cute!!

(In case you are curious, the title of this post refers to the sound a quail ought to make when trying to get its plume out of its face. Fvvvfp fvvvfp!)