Almonds and string cheese

It’s Monday night.  Post-work in a rare spurt of energy, I’ve gone to yoga, done my laundry, hit the grocery store and made a beer-cheese bread (with manchego and jalapenos).  As the title of the post suggests, dinner was almonds and string cheese (with some Zinfandel).  I did have some hummus and pita earlier, so the dinner was my dynamic than you think!

Sometime between laundry runs and bread-making, I caught the cat (Yota) staring longingly at her catnip worm (see below).  I was overwhelmed because the sight of her summed up how I feel lately: longing.  A longing for…many things (not catnip or worms).  Longing creates a void that is not easily filled.

 

I’ve recently come across these two quotes about longing that stuck:

• If some longing goes unmet, don't be astonished. We call that Life. (Anna Freud)
• People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something - always, in a word, seeking. (Bodhidharma)

I can buy this, that I am seeking, deluded, and just experiencing life.  Don’t we all long for something?  For some it’s birthday cake or a new computer or a car stereo, for others it’s a child.  Big and small, the sense of longing pervades life.  Doesn’t it?

I long to know the wisdom of the Druid hamster…

9

 

Not much happening

I have this cough.  I’m struggling a bit at work.  I’ve been working on this survey results document for my leadership program for a solid week.  Our cat is healthy.  I have to pee.   That is the level of excitement going on in the blah life.  All this to explain why there have been no blog posts lately! 

So, um, I can offer a baby hamster eating broccoli:

I also have this bizarre banana wiener dog photo:

Until something happens or until I post more silly crap….

Flexibility

I am a yoga-doer but not the super spiritual kind. I am also not a yoga-as-strictly-workout person either.  I walk the line between the two.  I don’t want to chant om-shanti but I do want to be reminded to be in the now and breathe and focus on what I’m doing in yoga and not on what I did before arriving or what I need to do after. 

So, I am flexible.  I’m not amazingly flexible though.  I’m not double jointed and I can’t even do the splits but I hold my own in the flexibility category, physically that is.  Lately I’ve been thinking about how I can create mental flexibility.  This is a real challenge. 

According to the great and powerful Googles, mental flexibility involves “approaching situations that allows you to adapt your behavior so you can achieve the best outcomes. Increasing your mental flexibility allows you to become a better listener, a keener observer, a more skilled thinker and a more effective problem solver.”

I might have to put this in the life-long goal category…

Now I’d like to offset this serious post with something Sandy saw on a car the other day.  I liked it so much I asked the great and powerful Googles if there was an image and voila!

SATC2

I saw Sex on the City 2 last night.  I was joined by my friend Hillary, it was also my goodbye to her before her voyage to Salt Lake City and her new life very soon.

 

The movie was over-the-top opulent and it was not a “good” movie by many standards. BUT as a long-time Sex and the City fan, it was a lot of fun to watch.  It was a bit long at 2 hours but I guess if we only get our Sex and the City fix every few years, then it’s got to be a bit longer. The movie did contain lots of cheesy parts.  For example, the four women sang “I am woman” at a karaoke bar in Abu Dhabi but even that had some energy.

 

 

I did have a little nagging thought in the back of my brain about how spoiled these women characters are.  I know I’m not supposed to think about this during this type of movie.  I suppose I was hoping for a bit of dialogue on how lucky they are to live such affluent lives of freedom when confronted with women wearing veils and hemmed in by morality police in the Middle East. There was not much comment from the women on this, which I found a little disappointing but I guess that would take away from the fantasy and decadence that makes Sex and the City what it is – fun, witty and amusing.

 

I do have to say that the movie, from a very privileged perspective, did hit on the issues of motherhood, modern marriage, not having children, and respect for women in the professional world.  But, thinking about the women I know who have kids and work, a woman who doesn’t work and who has a nanny and is freaked out by motherhood (and then goes on to obsess about her nanny’s sexuality)is a bit pretentious.  Of course, this is coming from someone who has no children, so, admittedly, what do I know?

 

Oh but guess what!  There was a new hamster commercial.  Yes, I know this is consumerism (and cars…) but it’s also hamsters!

 

H - this is for you.

Look closely at the photo below (taken in September 2000) - "Quinn's Pet Hamsters" are awesome. This was hanging in the basement of the church where Sandy's sister got married.


I am a real sunshine (ha).

Good day!

hamstah this!

It's a bit late for me but I'm surfing my cute animal sites in search of uplift and found this awesome bit of genius, which is the perfect response to the original hamstah.

hamstah

I lied.

Teddy bear hamsters

The other day Sandy was browsing the online animals at the local animal shelter and saw something new to him - a teddy bear hamster!

These are really Syrian hamsters - who knew they had hamsters in Syria? Anyway, I had a teddy bear hamster between the ages of 4 and 6. I know they are rodents but I have a soft spot in my heart for them.

You can tell that the blah life persists since I'm blogging about hamsters.

While searching for an adequate picture I found all kinds of other hamster-related stuff. For example, the hamster-powered night light (with custom low-RPM alternator). If I'd had one of these as a kid all that hamster wheel noise would have been for something useful and not just annoying.

I also found a darkly funny blog post about a deceased hamster entitled "R.I.P." It is complete with an obituary and a shot of his final resting place. Here's an excerpt from the obituary of Freddy Hamster Lewis, "Hamster spent his days sleeping, pooping, chewing, and grooming himself. One of his favorite hobby's was running and throwing his poop."

Anyway there's a lot of good information out there about hamsters if you're in the market. With the economy down like it is, I bet you could get a couple for a good price...

Exercise

Ok, so I've discovered some depression relievers: exercise, good beer, healthy food. I've just gotten some honest to goodness exercise for the first time in about 3 weeks and it has done wonders for my outlook. I followed it up with a quasi-healthy dinner of a salad, garlicky hummus and low fat wheat thins, and 10 oz of a tasty "rather serious English double ale" called Seriously Bad Elf. It was on sale at Marczyk's, you know post-holiday holiday beer sale.

In other news the weekend was long in a dreary sort of way. I did finally get the bathroom cleaned and the laundry done. I also saw a movie. Per the excellent advice of H, I saw a movie to sort of escape from the mental state I had at the time. We saw Duplicity. Definitely not a great movie but it was somewhat fun and served its purpose. Also, Clive Owen is always worth watching.

Before the movie there was a bit of advertising that appealed to me because of it's inclusion of hamsters. Now, before you watch it you have to understand that I'm not a car person but enjoyed the ad because of the hamsters. I had many hamster pets while growing up and loved them all dearly. Anyway, see below.

I knew if I stayed online long enough...

So, I was just checking out my iGoogle pages and somehow got onto a Google sponsored Life Magazine search site. I've been listening to an old episode of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and browsing the old streetcar, bicycle and subway pictures. I wasn't finding that much that caught my eye after the cool, old, international streetcar photos. I decide to search for something silly: hamster. I really didn't think I'd find anything worthwhile but au contraire! I found a photo of this hamster just leaving his/her trapeze platform! I can't imagine what's really going on here. I mean what happened after the picture was taken? Did the hamster just plop to the ground? Did the hamster complete his/her routine by grasping on to the little legs and feet of his/her counterpart trapezeing hamster?!