The Year of the Samurai

Quite frankly, 2014 was a crap year, and I'm glad to be putting it behind me.

To start 2015 on the right foot, I skipped over to my local Target this morning to indulge my LEGO habit and picked up a few mystery bags of the newly released Series 13 Collectible Minifigures.  Upon my return home, I took off my hat (a seasonal "life is good" baseball cap that a dear friend gave to me 5+ years ago), when I noticed some text printed inside that I somehow had never noticed before:

Oh, how cute.  I noticed an inspirational tagline on the first day of the year.

 Then, the very first mystery minifigure bag I opened was this fierce female samurai:

I'm pretty sure the universe is telling me to become a samurai.  It's time to embrace my inner warrior and have fun kicking some ass in 2015.


Here's to a new year.  BE A SAMURAI.

Learning from life's missteps

If someone falls down the stairs and no one is there to see it, is it still funny?

My answer is yes, but also terrifying.

Yesterday evening while Will & Kate were out, I attempted to walk downstairs when I stumbled on a dog toy and then moments later found myself in a pile at the bottom of the stairs. 

Fortunately, nothing's broken; I'm just banged up & bruised with a swollen knee.  As I was flying down the stairs, I had the wherewithal to put my arm up which kept me from crashing face first into the table/wall.  This gesture, though, sent a picture crashing to the floor with me.  Once my momentum stopped, I pulled myself forward - like a soldier pulling herself out of wreckage - to get my awkwardly bent leg off the stairs.  As I began looking at the fallen picture and my forearm to check for glass breakage and/or bleeding, our 5 month old puppy (Lofn) thought me being in the floor could only mean one thing:  puppy play time!  As I tried to hold her at bay to keep her from stepping on broken glass, one of our cats (Rue the Ruiner) barreled down the stairs to investigate by sitting on my chest.   The scene looked something like this:

I learned two very important lessons as a result of my fall.

1)  You're never too young to get a LifeAlert system. 

Sure, I'm only 36, I live with two other people, and I am rarely home alone.  But, as the LifeAlert website clearly states:  "In most catastrophic emergencies, the victims are not within reach of a phone, and become totally helpless." 

Amen, LifeAlert, amen.  Helpless and covered in pets.  Which brings me to my second lesson...

2)  Pets are great emotional support, but they're total jerks in a physical crisis.

Rue just sat on my chest, and Lofn didn't even bark to alert neighbors or passersby that something was amiss inside.  Our other cat, Poe, didn't even show up to investigate the scene.  Had I been immobilized, I am certain that Lofn would have eaten my fingers and/or face and gotten herself a nice taste of Tami-meat before anyone found me. 

It's all fun and games...

....until your brick falls off.

Observations from jury duty

I reported to district court for possible jury duty this morning.  Unfortunately, I wasn't selected to sit on the jury.  [Yes, I'm the sort of person who thinks jury duty is exciting.] 

However, I did walk away with a few notable observations.

1. As I walked through the metal detector to enter the building, the security guard called me sir multiple times.  If you're unable to discern my gender during an ocular pat down, I have no faith in your ability to maintain safety.
   
2. There appeared to be a disproportionate number of individuals with neck tattoos in and around the courthouse.  This begs the question:  Does criminal activity lead to neck tattoos, or do neck tattoos lead to criminal behavior?
   
3. The defense attorney for today's trial appeared to be or have been some type of fighter.  He was a short, sinewy little guy with a missing incisor and a cauliflower ear.  I could not stop staring at his ear, so it may be a good thing that I wasn't selected to sit on the jury.
   

Wrap Your Brick: A LEGO PSA

Bricking Bad

This is what happens when I combine 2 seasons of Breaking Bad, a new shipment of LEGO, and benadryl.

Halfothermia: A Childhood of Inadequate Heat

It's currently 2 degrees Fahrenheit outside.  Despite this, I sit inside my own home, all toasty and warm.

Central heat in my home is still a luxury I do not take for granted.  Growing up, I spent every winter in a state of halfothermia.  What is halfothermia, you ask?  Well, it's what happens to you when you have inadequate heating sources, leaving half your body covered in sweat and the other half icy cold. 

If you've experienced the glorious, searing heat of a pot belly stove, a Stokermatic/Combustioneer, or the always indoor safe kerosene heater, you know exactly what I'm talking about.  If not, let me illustrate for you.

Old pot belly stove - a contraption like this heated my grandfather's home

Above is a rough floor plan of my grandfather's house.  The orangish-red circle is where his pot belly stove was located.  The only warm place to sit in the house was in one of the chairs adjacent to the pot belly stove.  However, if you sat there, you would always end up with halfothermia (and stuck to the nearly melted faux leather chair).  You'd also have to set an alarm throughout the night to add more coal to the fire to make sure it didn't go out.  After all, inadequate heat is better than no heat at all.

Stokermatic - an abominable machine similar to the Combustioneer that my parents used to heat their home; the vents in the front blow hot, dry air into the room

   

Here you have a rough diagram of my parents' home.  The red circle shows where their Combustioneer was located.  Given it's large coal hopper and fan to blow heat, this is definitely an improvement over a pot belly stove.  Still, the range was limited.  During really cold times, my parents would sit a kerosene heater in the middle of the kitchen floor and fire it up to warm the back bedrooms while we slept.  This, of course, always lead to halfothermia with a side of carbon monoxide poisoning, as I have no recollection of anyone ever cracking a window while using that kerosene heater indoors.

Come to think of it, I'm just grateful to have survived childhood.  Central heat is a just a pleasant bonus in adulthood.