Alien Spouse

Mmmm...Macaroons...

We've had quite a busy day, and I decided to have a nap before dinner.

I woke myself up when I had a dream about eating a coconut macaroon, and started drooling down my chin.

Voter Registration Day.

This afternoon we went to the local mall to help register voters, with our friends Randy and Jasmin.  We were there for an hour.  The Doc and I both got two voters each in that time.

I wore my Union Jack T-Shirt to help prepare people for my accent, and we all had Obama stickers on too.

We had clipboards with registration forms and just had to say "Hi! Are you registered to vote in this county?" with a big cheesy smile.  For the most part people said they were registered, or that they didn't live in this county which was fine.  I did find it odd that several people said "No, Thank you!" in answer to that question.

"No, Thank you" to what?  Your right to vote?  Most of the people who said this were women, which is perhaps not surprising, but have they seriously not heard of the Suffragettes?  Those women fought hard, and some even died, to get us this right, we should exercise it at every opportunity! 

Of course I currently cannot vote because I am a resident alien and therefore not a citizen of the United States, but if I could I so would.

The Midsomer Accent.

Now I've been living in North Carolina for nearly six months, and I'm not so worried about my accent eroding.  I think it's pretty sturdy, however I now have the creeping fear that my sentence structure and vocabulary is doing some odd things.

I think it's simply that when every person you meet uses the same phrases, after a surprisingly short space of time, those phrases begin to feel familiar and eventually you can't really remember what seemed odd about them when you first heard them.  Before we moved to America I was already used to automatically translating or re-phrasing for The Doc (Not that he needed me to, it was just something my brain did), and now I sometimes have to really think to remember how I would have said something previously.

Obviously my Britishness needed some back up, so I automatically turned to the medium of television drama and I added a suitable title to our NetFlix list.  It was "The Midsomer Murders:  Who Killed Cock Robin?". I picked an episode entirely at random, but the series was specifically chosen to satisfy my craving for a nice polite British murder mystery, with all of the characters portrayed by RADA graduates trying out their best and/or most ludicrous yokel accents on a fairly wordy old-fashioned script suitable for Sunday teatime viewing.  Also I love the creepy theme tune. 

It was hugely enjoyable, and I have now decided to re-watch every single Midsomer Murder in chronological order.  I am so damned cool, don't you think?  Anyway, so as not to torture Doc too much (he really doesn't get this), I'm spreading them out over our Netflix list so they'll be every fifth disc we receive. 

I look forward to watching John Nettles growing ever more crinkly, and going through his side-kick sergeants like they're going out of style.

Hey, Did I mention We're Moving Soon?

I don't think I've ever posted a picture of the front drive way of our apartment complex. 

Probably because it's, err, ugly.  Yep, that's the word. Ugly!

Wait, what's that hanging out of the door of the red car?  This being student housing, it's probably text book cover.  Right?

Alien Spouse Supports Barack Obama.

After work yesterday we went with Randy and Jasmin to attend a meeting of Obama supporters, and sign up to help with voter registration this weekend. 

We thought there would only be a few people.  Evidently the organisers thought there would only be a few people.

There were many people in quite a small space.

Then there were speeches, which were interesting and inspiring (Our Mayor seems nice, by the way), but by half way through the third one I was thinking "Keep it together Jen!  You can breathe!  The table you're jammed up against looks sturdy, you won't break it if you faint, so that's fine! Also it's fine if these nice people want to stand right on top of you, and you have no space to move! Yes, it's getting very warm in here, but you can see the door still!  Well. Ok, you could see the door, but you know it's just behind those people. Eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yeah, I'm not great with crowds.

So when some other people left I told the Doc I'd wait outside, and stood in the rain (under my ugly kitten umbrella), until the crowd had thinned out.

Then I went back in, and signed up to help with voter registration for an hour on Saturday.

Obama '08.  Yes We Can!

Our Adoption Streak Continues!

I just checked the Humane Society's website, and Zero has been adopted!

This means we are maintaining an almost perfect score.  We walk a dog, then they get adopted before we next visit. 

The only dog this hasn't worked for so far is Charlie, so obviously we are really rooting for him now.

Enigmatic F'Real!

Sometimes I'm just not sure what the message is that someone is trying to get across to me. This photo is an excellent example, because whilst I get the official meaning of this sign, the additional graffiti note throws me.

What are they trying to say?

What does "F'REAL!" mean in this context?  I'm assuming it is a contraction of the popular phrase "For Real", but that still doesn't help me decipher the message.  Does this note mean that they, the scrawler, personally support the zero tolerance policy and will enforce it vigilante style? Or did they speed on this road, felt the long hand of the law on their collar and are attesting to it's lack of tolerance? It could be either, but then the crossing out of the "ing" of speeding adds a whole other possible layer of meaning.

Ultimately it is somewhat tragic. Another human being has made an effort to communicate, and yet I do not understand their message.

6 Things to Start a better Day.

This morning is already SO much better than yesterday.

1. My hair has graciously decided to behave itself.
2. The clothes I chose this morning, which I had never worn in this configuration before, actually looked the same on as they had in my head.
3. I got round to paying my Barclay card bill via a Skype call, and the fruit of this fiscal responsibility was that Mum saw I was signed in and we had a quick chat.  Everything is so much better when you can talk to your Mum.
4. I bought some vintage plates and cups from Etsy.  Jason now has to visit me.
5. I bumped into the lady who was ill yesterday (well, actually she saw me as I walked past her office and ran after me), and she asked if we could re-schedule coffee for next week.  Yes, yes we can!
6. On my walk in I listened to disposable pop nonsense, and it was all very perky.

It's so weird.  Just having those few things go right for me has made me feel so much happier than I was yesterday.

Once We Were Beautiful.

I do feel slightly guilty for de-glittering the clips at the bottom.  They must feel so naked.  I hope the other clips aren't teasing them.

On the other hand I will probably wear them more often now.  They weren't previously put into the clip rotation very often, as lime green goes with nothing in my wardrobe Darling.

These clips are great by the way.  It says on the packaging "no-slip grip" and that is actually true.  I have very fine hair, and usually I'd have to re-clip two or three times a day.  These babies do not budge through out the entire day.

Also that glitter was really tricky to remove, leading me to think the other ones should stay glittery for a long time.

I can't find the exact product on the Scunci website, but these are fairly similar, except for being boring colours.

And yes I do keep them clipped onto the original packaging, because otherwise I will simply lose them one or two at a time.  Self-knowledge is a wonderful thing.

sigh.

This morning I had to leave the house early to go for a coffee with a couple of people on campus.  It wasn't exactly a job interview, but it was to introduce me to a department head who is about to begin a job search.  Is that the networking thing everyone keeps telling me about?

Anyway, so I got up and as I was carefully choosing my clothes and accessories for the day I came to realise that my hair looked appalling.  Specifically the fringe was out of control and had no interest in doing anything I asked of it.  I haven't had a truly bad hair day in years, thanks to Jason, so this was extremely traumatic for me. 

I very nearly cried.

None of my coloured hair clips went with what I was wearing, so I had to use nail clippers to remove the glitter from a pair.  Removing glitter from anything goes against the very core of my being, so this was not done lightly. Fortunately the set of clips I own came with a pair which were rather yucky shade of pale lime green, so the choice of sacrifice was not difficult.  The purple, hot pink and electric blue clips are still glittering away.

Once the horror of my fringe was safely contained I left the house.

I got to the office of the two women I was meeting with, and I asked for the one I actually knew and who had arranged that we all meet for coffee.  She wasn't there.

Oh.  Um.  I was supposed to be meeting her, and her boss for coffee?  She phoned in sick.  Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, I hope she feels better soon. Um, ok, well thanks...

Today has not got off to the best of starts.

Googlicious.

Someone actually got to Alien Spouse by googling "if i'm under sofa can I get an alien registration card".

Well, my guess would be that if you are under the sofa you are either a) trapped b) agoraphobic or c) a cat, but I do know that you will definitely need to come out from under the sofa to get anything done in life, particularly emigrating to a new country.

(You may not be able to read the screen grab here, but if you click on it you will get a bigger image.  Promise.  I haven't looked at the two other websites listed here, so I can't comment on their content, sofa related or otherwise.)

Dream V. Reality: Advantage Dream!

I had this great dream last night in which I was a circus performer who did motor-cycle tricks, and I think I may have been Italian.  I have no idea where that came from, but it was really fun and the best bit was I had my own lovely pet elephant.

In real life today I will be attending a class on how to use the University's internal computer system.  You know the one everyone rolls their eyes at the mention of, even the IT guy.

sigh.  Maybe I can draw a picture of an Elephant later.

The Gospel According to The King.

Lost in YouTube Translation

We have two students assistants in our department, who help out with the day-to-day admin.  I think one of them would very much like to be a stand up comedian, or perhaps write for a comedy show. 

They were discussing comedy shows, and one of them said "There was this thing I watched on YouTube, but it was British humour so it just wasn't funny..." Naturally at that point I pricked my ears up, because hello the British are famously hilarious, but I didn't want to jump into the defence until I knew what she was talking about.

It was like that classic 80's quiz show "Child's Play" in which small children describe something, and the contestants have to guess what on earth the subject of the rambling is.

So apparently the clip featured a puppet, who was an old man and was talking about how much he loves babies.  I was thinking maybe "Bo' Selecta", which personally I never found funny, so I decided to let it lie.  However a few minutes later she remembered that the character's name was Old Greg.

Ah! "The Mighty Boosh"! 

Well, taken totally out of context, I suppose that would be a bit strange.

Zero

We visited the cats and dogs at the local animal shelter again today. The three cats on my provisional adoption short list were all asleep, and so we met a few of the new arrivals. There was a particularly friendly tortoiseshell who could easily stage a coup and oust one of the top three if they're not careful.  The best bit was when we both sat down on the sofa, and within about five minutes we had three cats on laps. The last little black cat was particularly determined but there wasn't much space left for her, so she put her hind quarters on my lap and rested her front paws and head on the Doc. It was very sweet.

It was a bit late in the day by the time we got there, so we only had time to walk one dog. So far we've been good luck for the dogs we have walked and, with only one exception, they've been adopted by the time we next visited. Lets hope that works for Zero too, because he really needs an owner who understands about sticks.

Kinetic Week Eleven: Complete

This week my overall score was an A, which breaks down as follows:

1. A+ - Yay!  Lovely start to the week!  Two Cardio, One Combat, Two Mind/Body and some upper body toning.  For some reason the difficulty levels have been moved down, so the Cardio and Mind/Body are on Easy and the Combat is on medium.  I have no idea why, particularly seeing as last week I did really well, but I'm sure Anna has her reasons.  Plus this did mean I got almost a perfect score on the first game.
2. A - One Cardio, Two Combat, One Mind/Body and some Abs toning.  I didn't beat any high scores, but it was quite a long routine so I'm glad I maintained a good score through out.
3. A - One Cardio, One Combat and One Mind/Body.  I beat my personal best on the Combat by quite a satisfying margin.  Skipped the toning routine, due to time constraints caused by not getting out of bed on time.
4. A+ - Three Cardio and One Mind/Body.  I beat two of my personal bests, but skipped toning because we were going out for brunch and I really wanted french toast with fromage frais and fruit.  Hmm, perhaps that's not the best reason to skip toning...
5. A - Two Combat, One Mind/Body and some leg toning.  I beat one personal best, but even better I wasn't happy with one of the games so I played it again (an option I only noticed last week) and got a much better score.  Very satisfying, and more cardio is always good!

And the measurements for this week are:

• Bust - 40.00 Inches (Down by 0.25 Inches from last week)
• Bicep - 12 Inches (No change from last week)
• Waist - 36.00 Inches (Down by 0.25 Inches from last week)
• Hips - 43.00 Inches (Down by 0.5 Inches from last week)
• Thigh - 23.5 Inches (Down by 0.25 Inches from last week)

I am really pleased the quarter-inches are still coming off; to be honest, because we've been out for a couple of meals this week, I was expecting to record no changes.  I don't know what happened to the hips maybe they're compensating for the biceps?

I think I'm right in saying this is the first week I've got an A for every single work out, and there are now five of them so I am really pleased with that!  It's definitely a boost before next week's final push to complete the whole twelve week programme.