Camp Mighty

I am pretty much the opposite of a spontaneous person. I tend to overplan and weigh my options in agonizing detail. It's not that I don't wish I were more spontaneous--one year I even made it my new year's resolution--it just doesn't come naturally.

There is a woman who works in the same building I do. She's my mother's age, but with no kids of her own she's pretty much the super-cool aunt I never had. We met in a creative writing class and grab lunch every few weeks now. Inevitably during our conversations, I find myself talking about something I would love to do, but have talked myself out of, deciding it's too expensive, or I don't have the time, or I should spend the money on something more practical. The last time we talked she stopped me and said, "Go. Life is too damn short." I've heard advice like that before, of course, but for some reason, this time it really resonated with me.

Either that, or I'm on a quest to spend all of my money as fast as I can. Possibly both.

After years of whining about how I wanted a car, I just went for it and bought one. It's used, yes, but it's also the same car I thought was the coolest around when I was sixteen. Coincidence? I think not.

K was leafing through a brochure of jazz concerts the CSO will be performing this upcoming year, but had decided not to subscribe because it was too expensive. Once I stopped thinking about what else I could do with that money, I realized how much he'd enjoy it and just bought the damn tickets. Bam.

And then there's Camp Mighty. I'd heard about Camp Mighty last year when it seemed like all of my favorite bloggers were off on vacation together and thought it looked fantastic. In 11th grade, my friend and I made our own wish lists, which I've been adding to ever since. I"m thrilled that there is a larger group of people who have done the same thing. I had somewhat forgotten about Camp Mighty until last week when I saw that tickets were on sale. I waffled about it a bit--I' not a real blogger; I'm not hip enough for a weekend lounging poolside or a space party; it's expensive and I should save the money. But then my friend's voice starting screaming in the back of my mind. Just do the damn thing. Life's too short.

So off to Camp Mighty I go!

The differences between French and English, or: Why the Bloggess should be bummed she isn't tweeting in French

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece called "I love France." Hokey? Totally, but it was for an assignment, so I went with it. I listed a whole bunch of reasons why I think France is the bee's knees, including, "Because the French language is beautiful in its nuances."

My writing teacher wasn't buying it. She handed the paper back with "Prove it" written on it. So I tried to revise the short piece, and when I came to that sentence, I thought, and then I pondered, and then I finally contemplated, and yet couldn't come up with anything. So I turned to the Internets to see if someone had ever addressed this issue before.

Ah, but they had! Goldmine!

Not so fast. It seems, that actually, the French language is rather unspecific, and not nuanced. Apparently, the English language has half a million words, and French only has 70,000. So, the English language is actually the one that's beautiful in it's nuances.

Take a look at all of the different ways you can translate fil: string, thread, wire, yarn. Think of how many characters The Bloggess could have saved if she'd been asking Nathan Fillion to hold "un fil" instead of "a piece of twine"!

In their defense, the same website has a roundup of all of the different English words that have several meanings in French (the word crue, for example, indicates a river has flooded because of a change in the seasons), but there is far more specificity in English.

Now I know.

**For the record, when I wrote that that completely unspecific (irony!) phrase, I was actually trying to allude to the fact that it's possible to insult people in French in ways that don't even exist in English--such as using the "tu" form when you really should be using the "vous" form, or conjugating your verbs inaccurately (I had one student who seriously offended her host family when she would conjugate "vouloir" as "veux" ("I want") instead of "voudrais" ("I would like").

Best Birthday Ever

What an awesome weekend. Tea at the Drake (delicious!), dinner with LOML, my brother, and his lovely girlfriend at Mindy's Hot Chocolate (really, really yummy), and delicious margaritas at Cesar's with some fantastic friends I hadn't seen for a long time. Oh, and lots, and lots of Downton Abbey.  It was a weekend full of great food and friendship that made me feel so loved.

Adventure

I spoke with two different people today who are going on vacations in the next few weeks and I started to get really jealous. Not because I particularly need a vacation (I don't--due to all of the holidays and being sick, I haven't actually had a full week of work in a while), but because I'd love to see a new place for a long weekend.

I have no idea where I would go though, which I suppose is half of the problem. Obviously it would depend on how much time I was taking to go on some sort of adventure, but if I were to go somewhere with LOML, I'd love to go to Europe for a ten days or so, but if that wouldn't work, I'd love to go somewhere warm. Anywhere warm. Not that it's really cold here (thanks Chicago weather gods!!), but I could use a really warm beach.

Photo Credit

On second thought, this was a terrible thought experiment.

I'm going to go cry now...

No, I'm his sister

Well, I wrote a whole post out this afternoon while sitting on the bus going to writing class, but I seem to have misplaced the scrap of looseleaf, so there goes that....

It is my birthday on Friday, and if I had been a tad bit more organized, I would have planned some sort of big party or something. Instead, I will be going out to dinner with LOML, my brother, and his awesome girlfriend. I called the Drake this afternoon to make reservations for tea (!!), but I nearly fell out of my chair when I spelled out my last name, and they responded with "oh, Pieter?" To recap, I called one of the fanciest hotels in the city to make a reservation for afternoon tea and they asked me if I was my brother,  by name. I mean, my brother is sort of a rock star, but seriously....

Watch out!

Dear Pedestrian Walking Down the Sidewalk in Front of the McDonald's--

Watch out! Stop enjoying that half-caff, part-skim soy latte and pay attention! You nearly just got creamed by a car careening its way into the parking lot. I know, I know, it's McDonald's of all places and the food isn't really worth it, especially their breakfast menu. I've wished for years they would serve french fries this early, but alas, they haven't listened.

That's not the point, anyway. You distracted me with the fries. The point is that the drivers at this corner are insane and they don't look for pedestrians as they cross three lanes of traffic to pull in here. So please watch out!

Love,

That girl who screamed at you so you wouldn't get hit by a car on your way to work

----

Dear Drivers of (Generally-Oversized) Vehicles Pulling into the McDonald's--

Get off the phone.

Seriously, get off the phone.

You're driving a car and you're about to run someone over. Some innocent commuter who is just trying to get to the over-crowded train. Is it really worth it? Your conversation is not that important. If it were, someone else would be driving you.

Love,
Caroline

Found in Town

Oh, my...have you heard about this really interesting Chicago start-up? It's called Found-in-Town. Users register with the site and they receive a set of tags with a code on it. You put the code on your keys or your camera (or your boyfriend?) and if someone else finds it, they can go onto the FiT website, type in the code, and get reunited with your lost object.

Perhaps if my brother had this he would stop losing so many phones....