megfowler.com

Hello peaches!

(Do you mind being referred to as a fuzzy fruit that bruises easily? No? Harvey Fierstein jokes notwithstanding…)

It’s Monday already, and despite the fact that it’s sunny and fresh and cool outside in Vancouver, I’m feeling a little… oh, I don’t know… sluggish? Snailish? Decorative rock gardenish? Something likewise still?

Everyone goes on and on about how hard it is to get motivated at the beginning of the week, unless they happen to be one of those people who says things like I SLEEP THREE HOURS A NIGHT IN FIFTEEN MINUTE SHIFTS and I’M JUST THANKFUL FOR ANOTHER WEEK TO FOLLOW MY PASSIONS and LIVE EVERY DAY LIKE IT MIGHT BE YOUR LAST and MY NAME IS DAVID AND I’M A SPEED ADDICT.

I’m generally fine with week-ginnings. I’m just bloody tired TODAY for some reason.

So how about we make it easy? This blog post, that is.

Tell me…

1. What’s the weather like where you are?
2. Do you have pants on?
3. What’s the last thing you ate?
4. If you could get anything at all for Christmas — $1,000 limit — what would it be?
5. Do you like your middle name?
6. Any questions?

And really, once we were on the boat, the lighting was nearly nada.

During the course of the night, I managed to do all of the following:

Take a couple cabs with super-chatty cabbies, one of whom said, “Well, hello, party girl!”
Get approximately 1,563 compliments on my earrings
Lose a blinking snowman in my dress
Choose from a buffet on a very, very rocky boat (watch out for tumbling prime rib!)
Dance in red, red shoes (that’s in the store)
Ride on a school bus
Get my ass grabbed
Buy pizza for a homeless guy

As far as I’m concerned, a complete evening.

Look tomorrow for a Saturday love list!

I’m busy finishing up some work at home, and then getting ready for my work Christmas party… which should be very fun.

I even have new red shoes and some sparkly earrings!

I’ll post some cell pictures tomorrow, since my camera doesn’t fit in my tiny purse.

Love to all!

Sleep on the floor, or sleep on the couch?

Sunglasses or squint?

Contracts or handshakes?

Slippers or socks?

Shop indie, or shop chain stores?

Dance at the Christmas party, or sit it out?

Drive, or be car DJ?

Get your teeth fixed, or stop fussing about it?

Ticklish or no?

Ice cream out of the carton, or in a bowl?

Cram for ten hours, or study for ten days?

Laugh out loud, or laugh quietly to yourself?

Movies in the theatre, or movies at home?

Fall in love with a friend, or fall in love and THEN make friends?

Know the lyrics, or hum along?

Duvet or blankets?

Butter or margarine?

Ringtone or vibrate?

Ah, yes. It’s that time of year again.

Remember?

The water is growing in turbidity rather quickly. NTUs of less than 1 are the goal, at least.

Our reservoir has 37 NTU. Ack.

That’s not so much okay.

As soon as we noticed the brown water coming out of the tap, we made sure to stop by the market and pick up a couple of cases of water tonight. We didn’t want to be left without drinking water — or with nasty brown boiled water outside of campsite livin’ — if we could help it.

After all, the last time Vancouver went into a tizzy like this, we saw more than a few dust-ups over the Precious Bottles of Health as stores ran out of stock.

(I’ve got a mean right hook… but you know, the manicure.)

We also went to Whole Foods, because the market didn’t sell my favourite bottled water, Fiji.

(I know… I’m embarassed by that sentence, too.)

While I was buying Fiji, I decided to buy a few other kinds, too, to see if there wasn’t a flavour (WHAT? THEY HAVE FLAVOUR) I liked better. And that’s when we decided to have a taste test.

I know.

I know.

Total geeks.

But we did a blind taste test. And that’s scientific.

The cases of water we got were Dasani, so that was the first on the list.

The kinds I bought were Ty Nant, Penta, Volvic, and Fiji.

Here are our notes and our taste guesses:

Turns out:

Dasani sucks.

Volvic sucks.

Fiji is my favourite, Penta is Cat’s favourite.

But anything is better than brown water.

A haiku to finish:

turbidity is
a quick trip to tummy pain
light a match, okay?

This morning, I was on Battle of the Sexes on 95Crave (95.3 FM) in Vancouver. Before I’D EVEN HAD MY COFFEE.

I co-hosted with radio ninja Buzz Bishop (also available at Cyberbuzz.) Buzz lets me jabber on the radio now and then — partly because he’s a nice guy, and partly because he enjoys listening to me sound like a complete ass “in front” of thousands of listeners.

(You can hear more of our antics by clicking on the “radio radio” category down there to your right.)

The point of the game is for both hosts — a male and a female (usually Nat and Drew, the usual morning drive folks) — to choose three questions to stump the opposite sex.

In fact, on Nat and Drew’s page, it says something about Battle of the Sexes deciding which gender is “smartest.”

But I definitely don’t think that’s what Battle of the Sexes is all about. Doing well at trivia contests is much more about exposure to culture (and memory) and a certain kind of upbringing/nurture than actual intelligence.

I mean, I know a lot of trivia, but that doesn’t make me brighter than anyone else… I just tend to fixate on random details, rather than large, useful concepts.

(Just ask my PoliSci profs.)

I asked the following questions this morning of my “stumpee” (poor guy probably wouldn’t like THAT title too much…) Chris:

1. When a woman gets “threaded”, does that involve:

a) Getting something sewn for her wardrobe
b) A sort of hairstyle
c) Getting hair removed

Chris, to his credit, got it right (c). I was impressed! And that’s all he needed to do, apparently, because his female counterpart, Janelle, batted .000 on Buzz’s questions. The only other question I got to ask was about Mr Big’s real name on Sex and the City (he didn’t know: John.)

(I knew all of Buzz’s answers, by the way.)

We had an ongoing competition like this at camp, and I used to be called in as a ringer to help the junior girl staffers, since the boys couldn’t knock me out with their questions.

I think I was successful in part I have a brain for randomology… but I was also raised by parents with diverse interests.

My dad loves sports — which is apparently “guy knowledge” — but he also loves fashion (A topic that eludes a lot of men. A LOT OF MEN. GET LONGER PANTS NOW.)

My mom can knit or sew circles around most people (do you need a knitted circle? let me know), but she can also wield a power tool with extreme proficiency (back off, boys… she’s taken.)

I don’t think either of them fits any kind of gender stereotype very well, even if my dad DOES love his car to be obsessively clean and my mom DOES bake a mean pie.

Ew… even TYPING those stereotypical roles made me cringe.

That’s why this whole thing has me thinking: Is there really such a thing as “gender-specific” knowledge? Or does it just have to do with how you grew up? How “cross-gender literate” is any of us, overall?

So here are my questions for you:

1. Do you think your knowledge base is gender-specific?

2. Do you ever refer to certain information as “girl stuff” or “guy stuff”?

3. What is the most stereotypical “gender topic” you know well?

4. What subject area do you know a lot about that might surprise people, given your gender?

4. Were you raised with ironclad gender roles? Or were the people in your life “generalists” of a sort?

5. Got a “boy question” to stump me? I promise not to Google.

(And try to make it something that most guys would know, not just something you happen to know at the same time as you happen to be a guy… like the serial number on a small part in a Nissan RB engine, or your middle name. Yeesh. Unless you’re like… Richard Dean Anderson.)

We made all the snow disappear!

Overnight!

With nary a wave of our hand or a twinkling wand, we’re back to being a sodden, gray, moldy paradise.

This morning, my walk to work felt like whitewater rafting.

Without the raft.

Now I’m sitting at my desk with bare feet and rolled-up pants, wishing that I was shivering but NO, IT’S ALREADY TOO WARM FOR THAT.

Honestly, I know that everyone who comes to Vancouver is like AAAAH! VANCOUVER! I LOVE IT! IT’S PERFECT! LOOK AT YOUR MOUNTAINS! OMG, TREES! OCEEEEAAAAANNNN!

I know we’re popular for our natural beauty. Every time Eric comes from San Diego, he takes 14,000 pictures, gasps at Douglas Firs, and claps his hands like a little girl on the drive to Whistler. I have seen firsthand what our environs do for you people who are Not From Here.

And I know that the rain is the reason we look so lush all the time.

I also know that there’s a decent possibility I will step on my lawn one of these days and just SINK INTO THE SODDEN EARTH NEVER TO BE FOUND AGAIN.

Come back, Mr. Sun.

We redecorated the tree for the beginning of a new month!

It was hard to capture on film with our few items of photographic equipment, but we’ve put on a transparent burgundy and gold ribbon wraparound, with gold and burgundy balls in a zillion shapes and textures.

Huzzah!

from my dad, an hour and change away…