Things I like about ice cream cake (by Carvel)

Today was a special day at work. Why you ask? Because we got ice cream cake. What kind of ice cream cake? CARVEL ICE CREAM CAKE!

(I don't know who Matt is but I'm sure he enjoyed this delightful treat)

I know! I know! I had to stop myself from jumping up and down in excitement when I saw it, gleaming, on the conference room table at the staff birthday party! People here, I guess I could call them my "colleagues", already think I'm weird. I spend my time drawing butterflies over and over again on pieces of paper and making inappropriate jokes in G-Chat. I figured that jumping up and down like a 5 year old school girl at recess wasn't the best idea.


But I digress...
As I sat eating this delicious treat I couldn't help but wonder 'what is it that makes this cake so great? I mean, I would practically KILL A GUY for this cake...but why?'

Things that I like about ice cream cake (by Carvel):

1) Chocolate. Chocolate is awesome. I think so. A lot of other people think so. Some people, like Erin and Debbie, think chocolate is SO great that they will only eat desserts that have chocolate in them/only consider something a TRUE dessert if it has chocolate in it.

2) Vanilla. Each yin (chocolate) must have its yang (vanilla).


3) Cookie crumbs. Possibly the best part of an ice cream cake (by Carvel) are the cookie crumbs. They add texture and depth to something that's already...like...deep. You know?

4) Frosting. Anything with frosting, in my book, is commedable. And no I don't really have a 'book'. It's a figure of speech, ok? I mean, I have part of a book if you count the novel I started writing last November. No I haven't worked on it since then. Shutup!

5) Cake. Do I need to explain?


6) Melts. Now, this might seem like a bad thing. Melting is messy and annoying, but not when it comes to ice cream cake (by Carvel). Melting makes ice cream cake even MORE enjoyable because it gives you an excuse to shove the cake down your throat without feeling embarassed. "No I'm not a pig! My cake was melting!".

Forward Roll...

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, distinguished guests, members of the faculty and you. Today we're going to be discussing a new phenomenon in the outskirts of society. What is this phenomenon you ask?

The forward roll.

Figure 1: As a social scientist and trend setter I have jumped on the forward roll bandwagon without hesitation. And what a wild ride it has been!


Figure 2:

Before the forward roll was discovered or even "invented", I have much difficulty thinking about how I expressed myself during times of extreme embarrassment. Did I simply blush and turn away? Did I run out of the room? I truly can't remember.

But I digress. So what is the forward roll you might be asking yourselves? The forward roll is something that friends of mine in Washington, the District of Columbia, do when they are extremely frustrated, embarrassed or shamed.

To quote an amiable acquaintance of mine, Michelle "Let me introduce you to the forward roll. Basically you use it when everything in life has failed.... like calling your ex boyfriend by a new boy's name or not having executive clothes for a business meeting or when you ask a lady when she is due...and it turns out she is not pregnant...that kinda situation."

Figure 3:
In my personal experience, I've found that the forward roll is a good external enactment of the internal feelings of embarassment/shame. I also find that humming the tune to 'Christmas Time Is Here' is especially satisfying when positioning yourself for the forward roll. If you're going to be embarassed, I ask myself, why not enhance your embarassment to the nth degree?

*TO CLARIFY-a forward roll is not a SOMERSAULT. A forward roll is a movement that involves throwing your upper body down and letting your arms hang limp. It is an act of surrender.*

Here are some examples or forward roll moments as shared with me by my colleague Melissa:
"The Forward Roll is extremely useful in daily situations when you put your foot in your mouth. [It is especially useful if you have a habit of embarrassing yourself ] 18 times a day like I do."

She continued, "when you tell girl number one that another girl looks like a stripper (in a disapproving voice) only to have girl number one say, "I'm a stripper too. [that is an example for a forward roll]"

Incase you're confused I will clarify further. A stripper is someone who takes off their clothing for money.

Figure 4: Don't be ridiculous.

Here are some of my past musings on the forward roll:
"Another example of a forward roll that's related to pregnancy is: wearing the same shirt as a pregnant lady (when it's not a maternity top that you're wearing...) or drunk texting someone that they're stupid when it's their birthday (but you didn't know it was their birthday) or having your flip flop break when you're walking in downtown manhattan (this happened to my sister) and going into urban outfitters barefoot to buy NEW shoes but being told by the people working there that you can't be barefoot in the store."

Figure 5:
If you have any questions, feel free to re-read this lecture or to contact me via comment on this web page. As always, it has been a pleasure teaching you all something new and I look forward to your feedback on this very, very, VERY important matter.

Sincerely,
Becky E. ____ III (like I'd put my last name on here. PSH!)

Things I'm thinking

Now that I redesigned my blog (nice right?! RIGHT?! WOOOOOOO) I'm in the mood to post again. I guess all it takes to get the 'ol creative juices flowing is an hour playing around with fonts/wasting time/I will never get those 6 minutes back.

It's Friday, and kind of cold and gray outside. Luckily I don't have any afternoon plans that involve outside (read: as soon as I get off of work I'm running home and taking a NAP) so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. And I don't have a window where I'm currently sitting...

(Wouldn't my orthodontist be proud of those pearly whites and straight smile?)


Anyway, things could be better but they could definitely be worse so let's get this show on the road!

1) Rene Fris is HOT. Anyone else been watching 'Shear Genius'? If you have then you know that I'm talking about. The way he stands with his arms crossed or one of his hands awkwardly in one pant packet is to DIE for. Also, he doesn't know how to make things plural or singular in English which is pretty funny.

Take for example: "Stylist! (referring to the 5 or 6 stylists left in the competition) You have 10 minute left!...Now you only have one minutes!"

2) My stomach is annoying me. I don't know why or how...but there it is. STUPID STOMACH!
is the new STUPID BABY!.


3) I want to take a nap. Since I just got my new duvet cover and HAVEN'T gotten much sleep..it seems logical that I would want to take a nap and enjoy my new purchase. The problem with napping is that I can't do other things whilst I'm doing it. Like, I can't hang out with friends while I'm napping and I can't catch up on The Olympics while I'm napping. I can't go grocery shopping if I'm asleep...


I think you get the picture.

4) NSYNC. I went upstairs to show Jason a funny picture and before I knew it I was back in high school watching NSYNC music videos ('Bye Bye Bye' and 'Gone' in case you're curious) and singing along. Except in high school I didn't know Jason and there was no such thing as youtube and I wasn't at work on Friday around 10 am.

I mean not that I liked them but...ah fudge it. YES I DID! I LOVED THEM OK?!

(I have these dolls in the closet of my room at home. I never even opened the packages...they could be worth something one day right? I mean, I'm not holding on to them just because I still secretly love them or anything. I mean, I DEFINITELY don't. I only keep them in my closet and sleep with them every night and talk to them because it could pay off financially for me one day. OK?!)

5) I can't take it anymore! We didn't start the fireee, doo doo, it was always burning since the world's been turning. How do people learn all the lyrics to that song?

BYE!

Things I got at IKEA

Tuesday was the BIG day.
Not the D-DAY Invasion.
Or the day that the Polio vaccine was invented.
Or the day that Columbus discovered "America".
Or the day that women were given the right to vote in the United States.
Or the day that Israel was declared an official state.

No, Tuesday was much more important than all of those things. Tuesday, was the day that Kate, Erin and I ventured off the NEW IKEA in Brooklyn!!!

I knew that it would be GREAT because it was a NEW IKEA in BROOKLYN but as Erin and I pulled into the parking lot, with a peaceful song playing on the radio, and the sun shining in the sky, and the IKEA flags waving at the entrance of the store...I didn't know just how great it would be.



Things I got at IKEA:
1) Bag clips. How great are bag clips? I actually bought some before and enjoyed how they kept my chips fresh and bugs from getting into my food. I mean, not that I ever had a bug problem in any apartment I've ever lived in...but. Anyway, I enjoyed the bag clips SO much that I told my sister and mom about them and then they were...GONE. For a while I didn't know what to do. BUY MORE just so they could be taken?! Or let all my pretzels get stale? But then I decided that at only $2.99 for a bag, clips are a luxury I think I can afford.


2) A pillow. The pillow's not THAT great but it's good enough.

3) Batteries. Now that I have a digital camera that takes batteries (why did I do that to myself?! CURSE YOU CANON POWERSHOT!) um...it's good that I can get large quantities of batteries for cheap so that I can use it. ?


4) FROG WALL ORGANIZER. This thing is amazing! Basically it looks like a frog (with a crown! I guess a 'frog prince' is what we could call it) and it has little pockets on its belly and you can hang it from the wall and put shiz in it! I a) love the color green b) have lots of random small stuff lying around my room and c) think frogs are cool. This was a good investment (Thanks Kate!)

5) Plastic hangers. Kind of funny looking but only $.49 for 5!

6) Swedish meatball dinner. I love their swedish meat balls (that's what she said-tee hee! why doesn't this joke ever get old for me?)...mmm. The gravy is delicious, the little cranberry sauce is tangy yet fresh, and let's not forget just HOW MANY MEATBALLS you get on one little plate (around 15 I think!)! It's the best deal ever! If you get it with a side of cooked veggies (like I did) you can even eat the wholeeeeeee thing without feeling too guilty (701 calories for the plate according to IKEA).



and finally, the piece de resistance:

7) A DUVET SET!!!!!!!!!!!! So, I had eyed my duvet cover from many-a-showroom on my IKEA journey. I noticed it right away...its bright colors...its STRIPES (you know I love stripes and polka dots!)...its matching-ness with the curtains and sheets that I already own...it was just PERFECT! I waited with baited breath, through room after room, through my delicious dinner until Erin, Kate and I entered the linens area. I saw the comforters hanging on a wall and darted towards them. And then...there it was. I was a little concerned (read: SHOCKED!) at how much a duvet set could cost and shared my thoughts.

Erin: "NO NO! Becky! GET IT! YOU SHOULD GET IT!"
Becky: "But it's expensive!"
Kate: "Yeah, get it! Get it! You'll regret it if you don't"
Satan: "Yeah Becky. Do it. And while you're at it, see that baby over there? kill it!"

So I got it. And Erin, Kate and Satan were all right: I LOVE IT!


Thanks to Ikea everyone wins!!

Things that have blown my mind in the past few days...

Hi Everyone!

I'm starting a second entry for today! Though to be realistic, I probably won't get to publish it until tomorrow. I guess you'll just have to wait...

Or not since this will be saved as a draft and no one will know it's being written until it's already published. Oh the wonders of blogger.com!

Anyway, it's been a pretty good couple of days. I went home to S-Town for the weekend and had some family/friend quality time. I went to a Mets game (great seats!) and had panera afterwards. Their broccoli cheddar soup is to DIE for! And let's not forget about that ferret documentary...what the shiz?!



But I think I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you being with A, B, C when you blog you begin with...a title.


Things that have blown my mind in the past few days:

1) Driving home on Friday I saw 7 rainbows. I love rainbows and I pretty much always have. The mystery, the arch-i-ness of them, the ROY G. BV color order...what's not to love? Well, when I was driving home to S-Town on Friday it was sun showering and before I knew it: BAM! I was driving under a huge rainbow. I smiled to myself and thought about how I was the luckiest girl in the world!

A few minutes passed and then...DAMN GIRL! Another rainbow...this one was slightly smaller but a presence nevertheless. A few minutes later and...ANOTHER RAINBOW! I think you get the point. In a almost 2 hour drive I saw 7 rainbows...(and one of them was really close to the ground so I drove through it!)


My mom says I'm going to be very lucky soon! This was confirmed when I had chinese food with Josh and my fortune cookie told me that I would 'pleasantly surprised very soon'. HMMMM.

2) The Olympic Opening Ceremony. Or is it ceremonies? Anyway, it was amazing. One of the coolest things I've ever seen. Awesome. Some other generic thing. But really, it was. The drum countdown at the beginning-who thinks of that?! The giant LED screen that unfolded on the ground-how did they make that? The ink pads that athletes walked over to paint in that BIG mural-y thing. You know what I'm talking about right? THE BIG mural?! I mean, there was only one! The lighting up the torch on top of the stadium...WOW! And let's not forget all the fireworks too!



3) Crazy Ferret documentary. After Josh and I went to the Mets game we had some down time before we went to Panera (mmmm). We decided to go back to my apartment and chillax as some might say. I was nervous that I might be tempted to watch some of the episodes of 'Project Runway' and 'Shear Genius' that Jamie had recorded for us...luckily I wasn't when Josh and I flipped to 'The Pursuit of Excellence' on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/previews/pursuitofexcellence/

Where to even begin?


A documentary about people who LOVE ferrets. Kind of like 'Best in Show' but for realzies. You just can't write this stuff! There was a lady who wrote a song to her ferret ("ferret oh ferret, gatherer of stuffffff. ferret oh ferret, when will you get enough?"), another woman who buried her ferret in a shoe box that said "Thank you for your purchase!" in her backyard, another man with a black shirt that said "Got ferrets?" on it, another person who dressed her ferret up as a hula dancer. I mean...wow. WOW.

Anyway, I recomend it to EVERYONE. It changed my life (not sure if in a good way or bad way...) and Jamie and Shane, who joined us halfway through, loved it too!

I've been saying that pins are back in...would you wear this?


I would!

Things I don't like about hangovers and wouldn't like about being pregnant

Wednesday was my coworker/friend Jason's birthday celebration. We started off the night by playing kickball in Central Park (I contributed a great deal to my team by standing in the field and talking to my coworkers Frank and Shosh...and then by kind of running/kicking the ball when it was my turn to do so) and ended it by playing a drinking game called Shoulders. It's a really fun game...but maybe more fun if you play it on a weekend night so that when you get drunk and then it takes you forever to get home and you don't sleep well you won't have to go to work the next day and pretend like you're NOT hungover.

Also on Wednesday, I saw a woman on the subway wearing a shirt that I own (a REGULAR shirt from h&m) as a maternity top. It made me feel really good about myself and not at all crabby or FAT or...other bad things.

In honor of those moments, which are now almost a week old (I know I know) I bring you TWO LISTS (that I probably won't elaborate on because I'm busy at work):

Things I don't like about hangovers:
1) Headache. Headaches suck, don't they? It usually takes me 10 minutes to open my eyes and process light in the mornings. That's a long time. When I'm hungover and have a headache?! Forget about it. I'm practically blind all day.


2) Nausea. I normally have one or two or three breakfasts. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. Eggs? MMM. Cereal? MMM. Fruit? MMM MMM MMM! Well, when I wake up hungover and nauseous I usually can't get myself to eat until lunchtime thereby skipping over the best meal of the whole day. What a waste!


3) Shame. I once said "Tomorrow I'm going to wake up smelling like rum and shame" after I was a) drunk and b) spilled a rum & coke all over myself. Well, it was true. I did wake up feeling shameful the next day...I blushed steadily for 15 hours. I couldn't talk to anyone. I hid in my room and did rosaries to make the Lord forgive me (awkward...). But I still felt shameful and I always do when I'm hungover.



4) Fatigue. Isn't being tired horrible? I would write more but...zzzZZZZZzZ

and Things I wouldn't like about being pregnant:

1) You have to sleep on your back. I like sleeping in a variety of positions (that's what she said! BAM!) so if I was pregnant and FORCED to sleep on my back for the sake of my "baby" it would be [synonym of lame that I can't think of right now. maybe I should go back to READING my word-of-the-day e-mails instead of just deleting them?]

2) New clothes. Buying clothes is fun for me and something that I do on a whim. But if I were to be pregnant and get REALLY big and then have to buy new clothes to cover my HUGE stomach...I don't think it'd be fun anymore. Plus, my closet's not THAT big. !


3) Swollen feet. Just sounds horrible, doesn't it?

4) Nausea. (See above)


5) Shame. (See above)

6) Saving money. I tried having a budget once...for like a day. It didn't really work. I'm not homeless and I have money saved so I guess it's not a big deal. But if I was pregnant I'd probably have to save money to pay for "baby things". I wouldn't like that at all. I'm not a numbers person.


In short, probably hangovers but no babies in my near future.

Over and OUT!

Memories Pt. 3

I don't think I'm a very original person. I tend to get ideas from other people and I normally ask people their opinions on EVERYTHING before I do it. Actually, maybe I don't do that. What do you think? Should I delete this sentence? Because if you think I should I totally will. I can edit the entry later or something and this will all be between us.

On the other hand, I don't think I'm completely unoriginal either. Judging from the looks I get after I say pretty much ANYTHING, I think I might be kind of weird. Kind of weird = Completely unoriginal? I don't think so. Unless everyone's kind of weird...


Point is, I'm just a person.

Keeping that in mind, Kate is writing a memoir of her Jewish experience for a memoir writing class that she's taking. She's been sending me excerpts and they're really good!

Well now, all of a sudden, or because I'm kind of unoriginal and tend to copy people without meaning to, I am getting drawn to my memories. I want to write my memoirs too!

So, let me continue a series I started a while ago called 'memories'.


Memories, Pt. 3: Stamford High School.

I have a lot of memories of Stamford High School. It was right down the street from my house. A walk up the HUGE and down the STEEP hill led you to the football field. A walk across the field, through some creaky/never open all the way gates and you were there. Or at least partially there...

Surprisingly enough, I wasn't a big fan of 'walking to school' so I got a ride in the mornings. Thinking back, since I work for an "environmental organization" now, I feel a little embarrassed that I had an adult drive me the .01 miles...

But I was a kid and kids make mistakes. OK?! OK?! Get off my back! No seriously, what are you doing up there?


The school itself was pretty diverse. You had the Jews (what up yo?!), the WASPS (popped collars anyone?), the Haitians (David Desrosiers, for example), the girls who would sit and talk about being pregnant in the bathroom (um, make better choices?), the pale kids who ran tech crew (and had sex on this ONE particular mattress back stage), the jocks, the Polish girls (one of whom apparently looked like my friend Liz), the Asian crew with the COOLEST hello kitty stuff (I was in Asian club! holla at ya girl!), the Bible pushers (bible club bake sale...$.50 gets you a brownie and a copy of the new testament! what a deal!), the baby pushers (so many pregant girls! for serioussssss), the drug users (I have my suspicions...), the poop pushers (that kid who took a @#$% in the hallway freshman year, for example), and ME.



Looking back on it, I don't know how I made it through high school. It was really hard. Like, I had to wake up super early (5:30 am senior year...why does it take me so long to get ready?), and sometimes I didn't have anything to wear (my mom used to buy my clothes for me and well...despite the kind things Erin had to say on her blog today www.erinelan.blogspot.com...she wasn't the best fashion stylist for me as a teenager), and it was really hot in there (no air conditioning in 95 degrees! I MEAN, COME ON!), and kids were mean (where to even begin...?) and teachers were demanding ( "Oh class, remember how we've been randomly watching, out of order, two different film versions of 'Hamlet' and how we HAVEN'T been reading the book? Well tomorrow you're having a quotes test on the play!", "In four days you'll need to have a 6 page rough draft, with 10 sources ready and on my desk", "Tonight I want you to solve all the problems on pages 401, 402 and 403 and write your own new math textbook while you're at it!", "I would give you the answers to the problems but your text book is called "Discovering Geometry" and I think that discovering is something you should do on your own")...

But somehow, I pulled through. I mean, it wasn't all bad. There were sleepovers, and chorus field trips (on the short bus...what's up with that?), and inside jokes (spag h. etti, anyone?, is he wearing a thong? skittles and dupont together!), and trips (to the Cape and to the MALL and to...the city!), and movies, and crushes and making fun of people. It was fun...making fun of people I mean. The other stuff was just 'alright'.

That is all.