cap sleeves are always a good idea

today reported today on the increasing popularity of "taser parties". apparently the bulky, police grade devices have been made smaller, sleeker, more trendy (hot pink, leopard print) and are now hitting the market en masse through these parties. optional accouterments include a holster that doubles as a mp3 player. taser international maintains that these are not toys and should be taken seriously. no one is supposed to die and yet last year 23 people died after being tased. this reeks of amnesty international. . .

in other news, i have a new job, er, an addendum job. maybe two.

AND, new to bradley's gastrointestinal repertoire is raw ground turkey. one and a half pounds of it.

love you to pieces

top five things i plan to do with bradley's body after he dies:

5. have his hide made into a rug for my living room
4. stretch out his jowls over my bicycle seat for a little more cushion
3. mail his weiner to my brother
2. use his footpads for coasters
1. have his brisket (the cushy, jiggley meat on their chest) made into a travel pillow

the price is right wing conservative

i'm pretty sure that the biggest loser is the best program on tv. i followed half of last season and watched the biggest loser: couples for the first time last night.

i also finished reading the year of magical thinking last night. joan didion is one of my obsessions right now, first because of her cheekbones, but mostly because of the way she continued to write in the face of persistent criticism and through the death of her husband and only child.

a cracker barrel of monkeys

growing up, i assumed that the cracker barrel (which, you must admit, elicits a very specific visual image) served grits, saltine crackers and peanut brittle. when we would stop to eat there on a road trip, my stomach would drop, in part because i was a little korean kid who ate korean food 90% of the time and found traditional american food messy, salty and uninteresting. . .on a side note, i used a fork+knife for the first time in second grade and was completely embarrassed. . .anyway, the cracker barrel was the epitomy of american dining, i thought - chicken fried steak, gravy, lots of ketchup. it left a fairly meaningless entry into the log of my experience and would only resurface when my dad would come home from a road trip with peanut brittle and random tins of steel cut oats.

i can't remember when i was coerced to go there again (both physically and mentally), it was sometime in 2006, and even before we sat down, i could already taste burned cornbread and whole milk, i imagined the food coming out with sawdust from rocking chairs and having to play that weird peg game that resembles a pentagram. to my utter amazement, it was a delectable meal and a great human experience.

and since then, i have frequented it at least once a month to delight in such dishes as "eggs in a basket" and pancakes with wild blueberries from maine. but there is usually a long wait, which is where the point of this blog comes in.

i do not understand the retail side of cracker barrel. actually, i get the coca cola paraphernalia, the john deere collectibles, the old style candy bins. but i don't understand the clothing (who wants to try on a broom skirt when they're either hungry or really full?), the 24-inch fake chocolate easter bunnies or the purple lame princess outfits. and how do they all fit in there without having any sort of cohesion? this is amazing to me.

this past sunday, chad and i were there waiting for a table and we decided to see how many people actually buy stuff. one lady purchased (in addition to her meal) a tiffany stained glass looking chandelier, a giant fake chocolate bunny, three huge hershey bars and a tin of mints. we sat down before we could watch anyone else, but most everyone in line had SOMETHING, which made me feel weird.

we were waiting for someone to get the pink shirt with the brown inscription that read: "why fall in love when you can fall into chocolate?"

a few words

fashion/style terminology that should face extinction:

1. gaucho. the stretchy, cellulite and butt jiggle showcasing fold over crop pant were not even technically gauchos.

2. luxe. it sounds really pretentious but is actually meaningless.

3. trendy. it is not interchangeable with "fashionable" and people stopped using it in a complimentary way in 2004.

4. muffin top. it was a visually gratuitous way of describing hip fat being indented by low rise jeans. but interestingly, when people use "muffin top" to describe this phenomenon, they say it like no one's ever heard it before and maybe they made it up.

5. vintage - this is actually a great word but its meaning has dissolved almost completely. let's move on, even if anthropologie never does.

you are welcome to start using these words in a passive aggressive manner just to bother me or to do that reverse psychology deal of "i don't care about fashion and that explains my bad outfits". . .but i'll know what you are up to. and i will ignore you.

finding a boy in high school is as useless as trying to find meaning in a pauly shore movie

when i experience stress, as i am now, vaguely, my mind freezes up. the best definition of stress i ever heard was a couple of years ago, from the ceo of renault in france and nissan in japan (yeah, at the same time. and i think he even manages nissan north america). he said that stress builds when you know that there's a problem but you can't see it, and therefore you can't solve it. i guess that's how i feel. and nothing is really a "problem" but all of the things that are like colorful koi swimming around in my mental pond are things that i do not know how to solve. more specifically, that i cannot solve because the answer to them is waiting. and waiting is hard. waiting gives me the runs, it robs my sleep, it creates a space between me and people, me and my job, me and God. i also haven't been much fun to be around. i also don't have a happy ending for this blog.

30 seconds to go.

amy and i have both resolved to improve our attitudes for new year's. i've already busted with a mean comment on january 2. she's still going strong.



ps. bradley kept down some chicken broth last night and some boiled chicken and potato this a.m. we think he's recovering.

reaganomics

"let me tell you the story about the old psychiatrist being admired by a young psychiatrist who asks, 'how come you still look so fresh, so free of anxiety, so little worn by care, when you've spent your entire life sitting as i do every day, getting worn out of listening to the miseries of your patients?' to which the older psychiatrist replies, 'it's very simple, young man. i never listen.'"

a new year, a new you

well, looking back at a year's worth of posts, i have realized that ninety percent of my blogs are about chad, bradley or chad and bradley. the other ten percent include random pictures of my orchid (that chad gave me), poop, pictures of friends and diatribes on social problems that probably don't even exist. so i thought that maybe i should try to diversify my blogging portfolio this year. but then i sat, thinking about what else goes on in my life and the subset of things that go on that i would want to share online. so that's actually about it. so it's probably good that it's very likely that these topics, albeit few, will provide material for more blog posts to come in 2008. but please do not try to kidnap bradley or chad.

this post is about throw up, bile and pooping plastic bags

bradley is sick. he threw up twice at chad's yesterday and once at my house this morning. it's amazing that three fourths of the flooring in my house is hardwood or tile and yet bradley has to throw up on a carpeted or rugged area. chad and i thought it was amazing that bradley "iron stomach" kim could even get sick. after all, he successfully passed a ziplock bag and a bit of foil on sunday.

and even though he's upchucking everything he puts down, he waits patiently by his food bowl. i surmise that he feels the hunger and then either is hoping to get a little more in hopes of satiating his appetite or he feels the hunger and forgets altogether that he ate. he's going to have to starve for the next 24 hours until we can figure out what is going on. poor guy. that means that he will be in ultra-annoying mode until then. . .running to his bowl every time someone leaves the room, sitting by the door, refusing to go outside in case he misses feeding time, spontaneously drooling streams of saliva anytime he can smell food. . .at least it's not bad as amy's dog, kingsley, who will sit on your lap and then leave anal gland juice on your pants.

here is a picture of brad in happier, healthier days. his huge nose is really cute and disgusting.

shoulder pads give me the cold sweats

my cousin, susan, her husband, gene, paul, kristine and me after thanskgiving (from right to left). probably all looking a little bit swollen after the sodium laden feast that was turkey day. after this picture, they took off to eat barbecue.