Tag: love

Badassery

“Chuck Norris can eat just one Lay’s potato chip.”

Since I finished reading Jaws, I picked a new book from my ‘to-read’ shelf to become my bedtime book.

I wasn’t seeing anything I particularly felt like having right before bed, and I grabbed a small-ish one whose title I couldn’t see… holding it in the light, I read the title of a book I pulled from my brother’s donation pile when he moved to Japan: The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World’s Greatest Human – The Unauthorized Parody, by Ian Spector.

And, somehow, it felt right, so I brought it to my reading spot on my bed and began with the preface.

I was bummed to discover that Chuck Norris, though he originally approved of the idea, ended up disapproving further down the road… however, I think I’ll be able to let that go well enough, and soon enough.

The book is filled with little ‘fun facts’ regarding Chuck Norris, none of which are actual, genuine facts about him, and all of which are made up by likely fans of Chuck Norris and his general awesomeness…

Yes, I love Chuck Norris and his awesomeness, thus the reason for my keeping the book for myself when my brother was having to give it (and most of his possessions) away.

I wasn’t sure how the book would do as my bedtime book, and I wondered about its getting boring, just being single line comments, and not an actual story…, but I figured the single lines would help me to get to sleep sooner on nights when I’m really exhausted, and I just need to get to sleep, so I want something short to read.

And so, I gave it a shot.

After the preface, I read just the first page, so I could have a taste.

The first two facts were okay, but the third and final fact on the first page, the one listed at the top here, – “Chuck Norris can eat just one Lay’s potato chip.” – just sent me into increasing levels of giggles – just what I need in my life right now, good giggles.

And so, this turns out to be exactly the perfect book for me to read right now, especially just before bed each night – I can make sure I get a laugh in every day, doing it this way. 🙂

Yay, Chuck Norris(!) and yay, this book!

Thank you, Chuck and Ian.

Post-a-day 2019

That Hunk

Okay, can I just have a Scott Eastwood, please?

I don’t need to describe any tall, dark, and handsome details – simply saying ‘a Scott Eastwood’ will do the trick.

Golly, he’s just darn gorgeous.

And just the right age, too.

So, the real Scott Eastwood can continue his film star life – although I should have truly loved to meet his parents, his dad in particular – and I’ll take someone who’s just like him but meant for me, okay?

Okay, thanks, World.

Sounds good.

😛

Dear me… Dirty Harry, you done well with that one, at least… and the world is grateful… whoo(!).

I know I am being silly here (and I hope you can tell, too), but I truly am grateful for Scott Eastwood… he is a quite good actor (in the role I’ve seen so far, anyway), and he just lights up the world around him… even if I never see him in person, I am forever grateful that his beauty is present in this world…

I don’t mean to objectify or demean him, here…. for the sake of a comparison: it is like how flowers are for more than being seen and smelled, but they sure do help to make the world a more beautiful place…, and Scott Eastwood is a fabulous flower in the garden of our world.

P.S. Just watched “The Longest Ride”, again.

Post-a-day 2019

Bachelor??

My friend has gotten me stuck on watching the shows “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette”.

It isn’t that we actually are all that into them… – I don’t even watch television or television shows or anything anymore (including all of the streamed shows and whatnot [which I have to say, because people tell me all the time how they don’t watch tv anymore either, because they just do Netflix and Hulu and such…]) – more so that it is fun to have a weekly date night in place, during which we get to see beautiful places, see others’ opinions, and consider our own opinions on various topics we perhaps hadn’t considered or, at least, discussed with one another (or, even, others).

The last I had seen the show before this year, they all just spent the whole time in one location.

Nowadays, however, they travel the world.

Upon discovering that, I commented that I wanted to go on the show.

It was a sort of joke at first, more interested in the travel than anything else.

Tonight, however, months later, we got to talking about it in a rather serious way: Do I perhaps actually want to go on the show?

If so, now is the time to apply, we both agreed.

And so, I looked at the application online, and am genuinely considering whether I want to apply for it… it seems simultaneously absurd and a wonderful adventure for me to make… and both sound rather intriguing, to say the least.

“Why do you want to go on ‘The Bachelor’?”

That is my question to consider and to answer in the coming days… if the answer is worth it, I’ll fill it in on the application and submit… if it isn’t to me, then I will close the application… either way, I will feel and be satisfied with my determined path, and I will be delighted for what life has to offer next. 🙂

😛

Post-a-day 2019

Brushin’ my teeth…

I think it’s a bit funny that we never much talk about brushing our teeth.

It is something that, supposedly, anyway, we all do every day, multiple times a day…, it has a huge role in our life, when you consider that it is 1)here throughout almost our entire life, and 2)extremely beneficial to our oral health and, therefore, ability to eat and smile and feel good on the daily… it’s kind of a necessity that provides amazing benefits.

One might think that we would want to do it the best we possibly can…, right?

And yet, when was the last time you conferred with your family or friends (or anybody) about best teeth-brushing practices?… How often do you ask opinions on flossing versus brushing first?… When do you share back and forth about preferred tooth brushes and toothpastes (or tooth powders) with others?

The answer to all of these questions, though they might be “Once or twice ever,” are most likely to be “Never, really.”

Sure, I’ve talked about it all with a dental hygienist or the dentist when I’m having a cleaning, and they compliment how well I take care of my teeth…, but that isn’t exactly the same thing – it happens to be their job to talk to me about my oral health habits and practices.

I think it would be valuable for us to discuss all of this… different perspectives are part of how we can develop things to perfection.

I mean, most of us established our teeth-brushing habits and patterns as little kids… were we really that smart that we as adults are doing best to follow what that six-year-old determined was the best way to brush teeth?

Yeah… let’s not.

So, I’ll share a few basics here, and consider how to strike up regular discussions about all of this with friends in the near future:

I have a preferred dental floss for its thinness and the fact that its container is paper that can be easily recycled… I have a preferred toothbrush that is made out of recycled yogurt cups (my razor is, too) and is bent in a way that almost no toothbrushes are, and which makes it loads easier to reach all of my teeth from all sides… I dislike minty or fruity toothpastes… frankly, I like the Indian ones that tend to taste like they must have dirt in them, if not just a handful of herbs and spices… I don’t even like the candy peppermints, and I don’t want my toothpaste to be like them… minty fresh is not my fav… I switch around my toothpastes, somewhat based on which one or ones are on sale, usually at Whole Foods – I like the natural, hippy-like ones… especially clove and neem ones, but sometimes certain tea tree or cinnamon (natural and pure, not some fake flavouring) ones…, but I also like the tooth powders… I first discovered them at a health foods shop in France, and I stocked up, because I didn’t know that we had any in the US… since then, I’ve found ones I love so much better(!) (the dirt-like ones)… I change my toothbrush at the end of every tube or container of toothpaste or tooth powder…, and I usually switch to a new color of toothbrush, which I sometimes select at random from the store… I have a long and practiced and well thought-out method of brushing my teeth, and I end up brushing parts multiple times, just to be safe, if I somehow go out of order… I wet my toothbrush before brushing, and I turn the water off while brushing… If I can hear my toothbrush with my ears (instead of from inside my head), I apply less pressure – a dental somebody once told me that someone else in the room should not be able to hear me brushing my teeth, because that would mean that I am brushing too hard… In the US, we supposedly have so much fluoride added to our water that we don’t exactly need fluoride toothpaste… I haven’t used fluoride toothpaste since I was, maybe, seven, and the dentist still isn’t concerned for me (so, yay!)…, though I wonder sometimes about looking into this, I haven’t done it yet – that Erin Brockovich interview by Jonathan Van Ness (yes, from Queer Eye!!) shows almost exactly why I haven’t looked into this yet… I don’t use mouthwash, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem…, does it?

Anyway, those are a small glimpse of things I want to discuss and share with people regarding teeth brushing and oral hygiene in my life… Also, I occasionally imagine (especially recently, with my current bedtime book being Jaws) how it might be to have to brush the teeth of a beloved pet shark who totally would not bite me or anything… I’d be brushing for hours, let alone figuring out flossing – could we use leather strips as floss, so it wouldn’t shred instantly???… Or some other material we could rinse and re-use?… (On that note, when are we getting reusable floss, hmmmm???) So many thoughts… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Blister mouth and Morgengrauen

Well, my teeth certainly hurt a lot less.

My upper gums and inner lips, as well as my tongue, hurt something terrible(!) – the edges of the aligners just keep rubbing on everything and making new raw spots appear and new bumps of rawness pop up and out inside my mouth.

So, today was simultaneously better and worse.

… On that note, that last sentence reminds me of a particular line in a German audiobook… she’s just transferred schools, and is describing her second day at school…

Here’s a rough translation of what I seem to recall was in that little section – only three bits I recall for certain, and the rest is just knowledgeable conjecture, but you’ll get the idea well enough… and the book:

‘The next day was better and worse… It was better because the sun shone, I knew where I was going, and I had people to sit with at lunch… It was worse because I fell on the way to my truck in the morning, Mr. Something called on me in math class and my answer was wrong, and, most of all, it was worse because Edward Cullen was not at school.’

I find yet somehow hilarious that I read the German versions of those books, and also that I totally love the German audiobook of the first one… I don’t even bother with the English ones, but I still pull up the German audiobook and have a bit of a listen from time to time… and I always love it… though, the beginning has a few lines and bits missing in the audiobook version, which I rather dislike… not sure why they were edited out in the first place… bleh(!).

Anyway… good chat…. have a great night and day, everyone, whoever you are, you lovely, God-blessed soul, you. 😉

P.S. We were totally supposed to go on a fabulous hike tomorrow morning, however, the torrential downpour that has just begun outside is expected to last through later tomorrow morning…. soooo, that’s kind of been canceled, and we’ll just head back to Houston (from Austin) shortly after we get up naturally and have some breakfast/brunch…

Post-a-day 2019

Grandparenting

We’re staying at my aunt and uncle’s house tonight (though they are out of town), and I found myself noticing how baby-oriented everything here seems to be now.

No daughters living in their individual rooms, no young nieces and nephews and adult siblings and parents coming to visit all the time anymore… just their daughters visiting occasionally with their babies and tiny children.

And then I realized that a lot of their traveling is either to visit the out-of-town grandchildren or to go on vacation with the daughters and grandchildren.

And so, essentially, their lives focus greatly around their grandchildren (they’re retired, you see…. my aunt and uncle…, so they don’t do other work.)… they do house edits on their various (three) houses, and rotate between them all reasonably regularly, and then they vacation (aka grandchildren).

How interesting that must be.

How wonderful that must be… to be able to focus as much time and effort as you want on the grandchildren, and to help your children with them all you want…

Perhaps that is one of the goals people have in life – live well enough and work well enough to be free and available for your children and their children, once the grandchildren come around.

And they do it while living quite well, too… not bad at all…

Yes… perhaps this can be a sort of goal for me, too… work hard, so the kids can have everything beneficial and lovely in their lives, and so they end up pursuing the same for their children, and then be super active and available in the lives of their children while they do the hard work like you did…

It somehow seems unbalanced or unfair or, at least, like it could be done way better… but I haven’t a better solution at the moment, so I’ll keep it in mind and think on it a while in the coming day and weeks and, possibly, years…

Hmm…

Post-a-day 2019

Clean seats

When I arrived at the hotel this morning (the hotel in which we stayed two nights ago, but not last night), I headed first for the bathroom – 1)I was there early for the event I was photographing, and 2)I have to pee just about every hour, anyway, and sometimes even more often.

I walked into the first stall, and discovered that I was the first person to be using that stall and toilet for the day – the seat was up.

It filled me with a bit of nostalgic excitement, as I recalled my elementary school days of being the first to use a freshly cleaned toilet at school (you know, the little ones with stalls that only go a few feet high, so the teachers can help out if needed).

I always loved it, and I found myself wanting to give someone else the joy of discovering that she was the first to use the toilet since it was cleaned, so I started actually putting the toilet seat back up after I used it (and yes, I was always very careful to be clean when using the toilet, so it was practically still perfectly clean anyway [and yes, I know it is totally absurd at the same time as sweet]).

That way, whoever came in next could be as delighted as I had been upon discovering a freshly cleaned toilet.

I never allowed that someone might do the same thing I was doing, because, well, I frankly knew it was a little crazy… I didn’t mind, though – I just wanted people to be pleased, and this was one little way in which I could offer that.

I briefly considered that it wasn’t actually still perfectly clean anymore, since I had used it, but that also wasn’t the point… I hadn’t actually dirtied the toilet, and so I found no reason not to allow someone to be delighted at a fresh toilet nonetheless.

Also, I think I secretly thought no one consciously cared about the toilet being freshly cleaned, but more that they cared in a fun away about being the first to do something, even if that something were using a toilet on a given day… so the cleanliness wasn’t exactly relevant in the first place with what I was doing.

You know what I mean?

Anyway, this morning, I had a sudden curiosity as to whether someone had done what I had done in elementary school, but I quickly – immediately, actually – dismissed it as just about impossible, because, again, frankly, people aren’t really weird like that… that’s a Hannah thing, mostly.

Also, I don’t even do it anymore, as an adult, so I really don’t see any other adults being that weird in their behaviors…. you know?

So, anyway, I got to use a fresh and clean toilet this morning, even though it was way late morning (close to noon!) and I thoroughly enjoyed the fun of it.

I also enjoyed how, upon leaving my stall, I saw that the first stall on the other side of the row was also unused so far for the day.

Fun, fun, fun, I mentally thought.

And then, of course, Dork…haha…

A good morning, I dare say. 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Oink, oink!

I did lots of things today, but I dare say that the best part of today was meeting Mr. Snorty, a rockstar pet to someone I know.

He welcomed me into his home quite happily and easily, and proceeded to snort at me jollily, while sniffing and rubbing against me constantly…

I’ve never met anyone like Mr. Snorty before, but he certainly reminds me of a cross between a cat, a dog, and a barrel. 😛

I know. 😂

Mr. Snorty:

Post-a-day 2019

Today’s Gloss

What to say, what to say…..

What did you do today?

I worked out super earlier, then slept in late, then walked around this fancy posh place.

I hung here with my mom, and then my aunt and grandma, too.

And we had fancy dinner, and we laughed so hard over our food.

Then we lounged in our connected rooms, and gabbed and chatted some more.

And now we’re all to bed*, and I’m grateful no one snores.

Such a good day.

Oh, and I had a reunion chat with the kid who tried flirting with me on my first day as his French teacher (and my first official day as a full-time teacher), because he thought I was just a new student… he works here… he’s gorgeous and all grown up now… and it was still hilarious. 😛

*We each have our own queen sized bed tonight… super posh and fancy, are we not?

P.S. We are here because I am a professional photographer, and because I am making wonderful connections and am doing photos that make the right people happy and delighted and grateful… how lovely it is to treat my family to such posh-ness as we never have together… truly lovely… Thank you, God

Post-a-day 2019

Cultural Villainy

This afternoon/evening, I found myself discussing various voice and talking style stereotypes in American English and in Japanese (from Japan, of course*).

It all started with seeing the film “Aladdin” in the cinema this afternoon, and then, over ice cream afterward, we veered onto Disney music and its composers a lyricists (and how amazing some of the greats are[!!!]).

Then we branched into the Japanese versions of this music, as the friend with me is Japanese, and she grew up only hearing the Japanese language versions of the songs.

We discussed differences I had found in the music, and why I thought each one was so… now that she has been living in the US for about a year, she saw exactly what I meant and genuinely understood.

“Colors of the Wind” sounds somewhat stressed and so compounded and busy in Japanese, yet the English sounds so open and contemplative, filled with deep breaths and space through the notes and the words… there are just too many syllables in the Japanese, and too many consonants in between all the vowels…

An American likely would be appalled at hearing the Japanese version of Scar’s voice, because the voice doesn’t match the type of villain that he is… it is not entitled and brooding and, almost like serial killer style, the voice of someone who is biding his time until his plot can unfurl perfectly to his advantage – until, at last, he is granted his dues, as Scar says.

To American ears, the Japanese Scar in pathetic and angry and holds no weight behind his short-man angry yelling of a voice, desperately hoping someone will listen to him and do what he wants others to do.

And yet, to Japanese ears, the Japanese Scar is exactly right: He is the stereotypical ‘bad guy’ voice and has that same ‘bad guy’ and ‘villain’ manner of speaking… the English version would sound just ‘American’, and have nothing special tied to it for Japanese ears.

And my friend was able to see and hear just these things, and mainly because she has become accustomed to hearing so many different ways of speaking that people have here in English (unlike Japanese English in Japan, which is pretty much always the same).

And, somehow, I found the whole situation to be fascinating and utterly fulfilling… I had never really thought quite so much and quite so pointedly about the translations and the voices of actors until today, though it certainly was not my first or, even, tenth time considering it all.

It had me feel an almost silly passion for Disney and, in particular, “The Lion King”, and yet I couldn’t find a reason not to care so much about it all – I love languages and music and seeing things in new ways, and these Disney movies had huge impacts on my childhood and, therefore, my life as a whole… they are a part of me… and I care about and love myself.

So, I guess I get to love those Disney films, too, silly little perfect details and all. 🙂

By the way, I went into “Aladdin” with an attitude of its being a different film and perspective of the same story as the animated version…, and I thoroughly enjoyed the film – it was wonderful(!).

And it was filmed in Jordan(!)… how cool is that?!

I don’t often go to cinemas these days (in the US, anyway), but I am glad I went today – it was a lovely experience. 🙂

*Does Japanese have a culture of native speakers anywhere else in the world?

Post-a-day 2019