I've recently had the opportunity to make a few more cards for some very dear, dear friends.
Miss Catie reminds me of summer, and when I think of summer I think of watermelons:
I miss my idol Alia who is currently in the PRC so I sent her this along with some other goodies:
aaaaaaaaaaaand speaking of le PRC, Miss Anne came over the river, through the woods, over mountains, continents, etc., and is now in DC! So I made her this card to remind her to always remember her roots (WI):
I made a card for my dad, too, but it's so bad it's embarrassing. I'll just have to fulfill his dream of having a multi millionaire daughter instead.
The holidays are coming around so I've switched from making cards to baking cookies. A much more delicious switch in hobbies, although I may buy a glue gun soon and expand my crafty sensibilities to 3D objects.
While sitting in a leadership development seminar the other day (yeah, quite the exciting beginning to a blog post), I found out that one of the key components to good leadership, fundraising, community organizing and professional ladder-climbing is people memory. People love it when you remember something about them, however small/insignificant the detail. For example, if you remember that they have a voracious appetite for grapefruit gummy candy or that their kid got their head stuck in a chair, or what have you.
Too bad I suck at memory. I forget what people have said seconds after they say it. I also forget to inform important people in my life about important things.
Example from a couple years ago (BF stands for Best Friend, read: inseparable since preschool):
BF: So, what're you doing for New Year's?
Me: Oh, well, I'll be in India so, I don't know, family time, probably won't be clubbing or anything. I'd be lucky if I got to wear a party hat.
BF (highly offended): India? Since when were you going to India? I thought you said you were going to be around???
Me: Yeah, that was back in August. I thought I told you, I'm going to India right before I study abroad in Bolivia.
BF: You're going to BOLIVIA????
Me: uhhhhhh.....
So yeah. I do that too often.
I'm also terrible with names. And faces, and dates. and everything. Speaking of names, while I was working an event for work, handing out name tags and registering guests as they entered, a man approached me and said, "Suma! How are you? Decided not to stay in Minnesota, huh?"
I had no idea how this man knew me. I was noticeably surprised and tried to buy time by pretending to be distracted by the light reflected off of the plastic covering of his name tag.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough time for me to figure out how I knew this man.
Here's was I said:
"uhhh ooo um, bladiggity blah, oooh yess, Minnesota....ha ha what a night ha ha heresyourdrinkticket why don't i just give you two ha ha old friends and all ha ha??"
All of this was said while I stared at his name tag trying dig through the black holes in my brain to place his face and name with memory.
It was embarrassingly obvious I had totally forgotten him and how I knew him. If he didn't have a name tag, I definitely wouldn't have remembered his name. It was only a couple of hours later when the aperture in my brain clicked into the right setting and the world came into focus and I remembered that HE WAS MY OLD BOSS from a campaign I worked on in Minnesota. AHHHHHH. Talk about terrible relationship building.
In unrelated news, my grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on Monday. Congrats, Avva and Thatha!
Below is my Avva with the card I made them for the special day.
While hunting for snowpants (don't you miss those??), hats, mittens, post-apocalyptic gas masks, and other cold-weather related seasonal contraband, we stumbled upon a most educational toy.
But my dearest sister, why are you so sad? "Meat in Basket" is one of the most amazing discoveries I've made in recent weeks. What's next? "Meat in Bucket", "Meat on Rollercoaster", "Meat in Meat", or "Meat in Well with accompanying pulley system"?? There is so much potential to capitalize on making toys imitating plastic meat-shaped oblongs in various nooks and crannies in everyday life.
I've got to start perusing the dollar bins at Target more carefully.
All of them have been featured on my handmade-homemade cards! Delicious enough to eat? Definitely not. I don't believe cardstock has any nutritional value, but I'm sure we could work it out if that's your thing.
I have amazing friends. That's for sure. They're so amazing I have the urge to make sushi-themed cards for them like the one pictured below:
Sure, the sushi rolls are 4 times the size of the chopsticks, but that's because of my clever use of perspective.
Check out my sunflower for Miss Kim/Best Roomie ever!
This wasn't really for Kim's birthday, it was just because Kim was visiting and I felt like making her a card.
The following card was for my mom's birthday: But before you judge....
...let me explain. Yes, it is shaped like a house, but what can I do? I associate my mother with home and of course, my dog, whose favorite person is my mother (honestly though, whose favorite person ISN'T my mother)?? That doesn't mean I think of her as confined to the house only. It simply means that I associate her with home and comfort and feeling relieved and reassured (sometimes). She's a powerful woman who can hold her own in and out of the household. Also, I'm homesick. Previously cards I've made have featured otters, kangaroos, laptops that bake cakes, penguins, naked mole rats, elephants, and a cloud. The cloud was for my dad, who's a total dreamer.
I'm in the process of making more cards, but I couldn't post the pictures because I have not given them to people yet. I don't want to ruin the surprise.
I'm totally cheating and I've decided to do a blog post on blogs that I've written for other blogs.
At least you know that I'm not totally slacking, even if this blog's getting stale.
Read about my lame update on life in the 'real world' at the Minnesota Women's Consortium's blog here.
and
pictures and a few words about my experience riding the Skullmobile around DC here.
Lame I know, but I've had the swine and that's the best excuse for not doing shit.
I generally like spiders anyway because they eat flies. But this one is JUST LIKE ME. YAY.
2) There is a book called My Mom Eats Tofu.
I've decided to collect progressive children's books about alternative lifestyles and befriend vegetarian animals. I already own My Daddy's a Nurse which I found while shopping for ugly Christmas sweaters last December at a hospital thrift store where my grandpa used to work. I bought and met the author of My Mom Eats Tofu this weekend. She was vivacious, ultra-conscious of her community and her carbon footprint.
BUT...
...here's the thing. There is this part:
and this part:
This made me a little uncomfortable. While I <3 vegan cookies, the last couple of lines had me raising my eyebrows.
Like, as if knowing the dress or food or dance of a culture makes you well versed in and tolerant of this particular culture. While the book as a whole is incredibly cool because it makes little vegetarian kids feel like they're not freaks (which was something I felt often), it reminds me of when people I have just met and with whom I have had no discussion about my background or identity tell me that they LOVE Indian food. That's great, asshole, what do you want me to say? A few possibilities:
1) "OMG what a coincidence! You should come over so I can cook you 5 million delicious curries that I memorized at age 5 like a nice Indian girl should."
2) "Indian food? Indians eat....food??!? First I've heard of that."
3) " I can shit out a pretty good curry sauce when I concentrate real hard. You should try it sometime."
Honestly, I can't say I know any 'culture' well at all. Perhaps a culture of a very specific experience, based upon heritage, class, family structure, race, gender, etc, etc., the list goes on and on. But still.
I don't fucking care that you LOVE naan.
As a whole, though, I really enjoyed this book. Not only did it take me all of one minute to read, I also think it has a lot of potential to make an alternative lifestyle (or diet, in this case) more acceptable to children, and to everyone. I have more of an issue with essentializing cultures and people than with the book.
Back to befriending vegetarian animals. I am so on top of this. The tortoise on my profile picture is actually Leo Tolstoy, my vegetarian Russian tortoise who loves to cuddle. He lives with my family now and bff with my dog, who doesn't really like him. I miss them. I need to repost my desperate craigslist ad begging people to let me walk their dogs.
Enjoy a few out-of-focus photos from my phone. I like to think the poor quality of these makes me seem more endearing. But really, I have shaky hands.
I went to a place called "So's Your Mom" in Adams Morgan, and I found this delightful cookie which looked like it had fallen out of Willy Wonka's wet dream. It didn't taste as good as it looked.
This dog is sweet. Check it out, chillin' on the windowsill. This dog's a mad playa.
This was some sort of soup and edemame at a cozy little place called Teaism near Dupont Circle. The soup has "Teaism" written on it in something. Clever.
Evidence of my first (and thus far, only,) venture into DC's very own gated community: Georgetown. The above is what the tourists are allowed to see. Needless to say, I live far, far away from here. Kabs told Oriel that this was a monument to the American Phallus. Not too far off.
Kabir's roommate likes to collect Michael Jordan figurines and surround them with tiny plastic adoring Smurf fans. This is too much.
I have other photos. But I'll leave the photos of the real things for facebook. Where people actually look at them.
