Link-amarinka dinky dink

OK, I haven't tested them, but they are for mostly my benefit so that I can keep up with everyone. I'm a little slow in remembering. I must have over 200 bookmarks so there's no way I'll stick 'em there because I'll just forget about it then. I look at my blog daily, so I'll look at all those daily now too. This way the only way it would work out, sad to say. If anyone has a problem being up there, tell me and I'll do something about it...like remove you or something. Just lemme know if it bothers you.

Quiz I liked

I hope I only post this one. Mehsha's blog so far is just these and H'n'B has been posting a few. I wonder what the choices were? This one I'd like to agree with because I like the way it sounds. My favorite color is purple though.

You Are Navy Blue

You're a true adventurer. You constantly find yourself drawn to new experiences, people, and places. Sometimes you feel quite scattered and bored. If something exciting isn't going on, you feel a bit lost.

What Color Blue Are You?

Bottle Caps and Peppermint Wrappers

I was so tired after riding with Deborah Clasky this afternoon in service. String-bean Andy was about to tell her to pull over so that he could drive. It was all I could do to keep from throwing up after the first 30 minutes. Fought with the left van door today. Andy was saying jokingly that I spend too much time with his mother (Deborah Clasky) because she seems to be rubbing off on me. It did make for quite the relaxing and reinvigorating 2 hour nap though.

Funny story from afternoon service. I met back at 12 and went out in the afternoon with Biscuit, Andy, Deborah, and another sister and her mom. Biscuit, Andy, and I tend to carry on our own separate conversation from the other three van riders. Andy went to a Bible study with a brother in our hall earlier that morning. He said that in a slightly randomN way, the brother brings up Jammies, who is Andy's older brother. With little segway, he says, "When Affie moved in, I had it all worked out in my mind. She was going to fall in love with Jammies, they were going to date and get married. I had it all worked out. She was perfect." HAHA! OK, there's a lot that most of my readers don't know about this situation, but the moment I moved in, he was moving in on me. Freakiest part about it, he's 9 years my senior, and I'm a minor. That wasn't stopping him at all. It's a sticky situation and now that he has a girlfriend (Feather), people have been coming up to me telling me I'm off the hook. One of the younger married sisters in my hall came up to me when Feather was visiting a few months back and says, "When you moved in, it was like the fresh meat radar went up and he was ready for the kill. You're off the hook now!" Mind you, I spent a lot of time in service with him, but that was never my doing. We did one social activity a piece with each other, and that was too much. Andy and Biscuit actually started forming a wall around me at the meetings back in April or May. He's still a little creepy around me though...NEXT SUBJECT!

The Cheat is about to get fixed the old fashioned way. I'm cutting it ALL OFF. He's peed on my bed 4 times this month. When in a frenzy to get to service on time, you don't have a spare 10 minutes to take off a feather comforter, 2 sheets, and a mattress cover, which is why I was late this morning, not counting the cop on Loop 10 with his radar gun out. I was doing the speed limit. Was anyone else? NO! It's 55 and you can legally go 60 without getting pulled over since it's an urban interstate. Everyone else was doing 70 and drastically slowed down to 45. That left me with no choice but to slow down or rear end someone. It was mom's SUV and I was already late for service. There was no question. That whole bunch of crap just frustrates me that they have to slow down SO much. Anyway, on to what I promised.

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you lovable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

That's what I got whatever day it was that I took the Sesame Street Personality Quiz. H'n'B proceeds to make a comment to see more posts about pigeons and my bottle cap collection. I'm allergic to pigeons (and there aren't that many out here, surprisingly), though we did have a quail for a little while back at the old house...among other odd birds (i.e.- Hawk, Crow- aka Edgar Allan Crowe, etc.). The hawk is actually a funny story for another time, and if you know my father, you KNOW it's a funny story. Now that I think about it, the crow is funny too. Dad was dead serious about training him to be a house pet when he brought him home, but back to what I was saying. Bottle caps are actually something I was collecting for a while. Of course I collect some normal things like books, CDs, clothes, purses, shoes, old magazines, photographs but I also have eclectic collections of other items like PENS OF ALL KIND!!!! This passion was recognized in the 7th grade when I realized I had about 20 more writing utensils in my backpack than everyone else, and there were lots of pretty colors. If you come in my room, I have them in another one of my collections. Plastic restaurant cups. I have one that has a chain of restaurants on it in Myrtle Beach, a few Relay for Life ones, one from Brookgreen Gardens, etc. Another obsession from when I was little: Hello Kitty. That probably has to do somewhat with my Peter Pan complex that I never grew out collecting Sanrio stuff. My current favorite is Charmmy Kitty , but she's in close running with Deery Lou (trust me, he's very cute and is much cuter on the front of my meeting notebook). So I collect some off the wall things, oh and T.G.I.Friday's peppermint wrappers. Ya know, the ones that you get on the way out of the door because you know your breath smells so bad from eating those onions on your Jack Daniels burger. They have the funniest saying on the back of the wrappers. 2 of my personal favs are, "Your friends will thank you for this," and "Remember, you're not alone." I've got 7 or 8 of them. As Mehsha said, I wouldn't be able to find most of my collection. She's right because she took it. After all, isn't that her job as a little sister? *smiles deviously while plotting revenge on her Russian dictionary* I was able to find "2." It's actually 3, but 2 are the same. The 2 that are the same are my "Smirnoff ICE" blinky bottle caps. They are actually pins that I got from Taco Mac when that was the beer of the night. There are batteries on the back and it powers a blinky red light on the front with the "Smirnoff ICE" label. OK, those two are close to my favs. My favorite one, I don't have any more. I bought a Mexican "Coke" in a glass bottle in Camden, SC and it didn't look different, but the Coke tasted GREAT, so I kept the bottle cap. That one was probably the first, since I remember getting that one a looong time ago. The other one I found was a "Cutolo Rionero" water one. It's Italian bottled water and there's a very ornate water fountain on it in green. There were more, but I assume they have been scattered. Precal is menacingly calling my name and I'm over due for finishing the first lesson, so I'm out.

Job Perks

It may not be The Office, but it pays well enough for as little as I work and how little expenses I incur monthly (except for those texting charges). It's babysitting, so it's no big deal. All I do is pick her up from school and sit with her for about six hours a week, it's just solid days now with a flat pay. Since I've never tried out the list button on my blog window, I'm gonna click it and see where we go from there.

PROS:

• Free food. There's never a lack for junk food at their house. What more could you want besides...
• Free cable. Contessa has more channels than I do, and that's a lot of channels.
• That's where my most recent cat lives now, and she still loves me. Doesn't everyone remember Kitty? AKA- Tiger-Lilly fandango-smeller samurai "kitty." Just rolls off the tounge, don't it?
• I get along with Contessa, who may become the Burger Queen or Chicken Nuget and she's so easy to watch. She fits in well with the family.
• In two months (including this one), I'll have enough money for my very own MP3 player.

CONS:

• The deal is for Mondays and Fridays. Mondays are fine. That's not my service day and I don't have a massive school subject scheduled for that day. Fridays though...that puts a cramp in any chance of Mehsha and I getting to GSAM once a month and Friday is my well established service day.
• Contessa knows it well, and expressed it outward today. She can't sit still for longer than 5 minutes. That'll put a cramp in my studying while I'm watching her.

I get paid well for as little as I do, but if this interferes with getting to GSAM once a month, something might have to change. Gas prices are now a clincher in getting up there as well. GSAM is enjoyable and I don't get to go often in the first place. We'll see how this works out. The steady income is an attractive lure, but Good Soup is an enriching experience.

Digital (Cable) Get Down

I'm so lonely! Both my best friends leave me on the exact same week! I haven't gotten a txt in...a little over 24 hours. Thing about that is, it's perfect since I'm already about 150 texts over my prepaid limit. Translation: They better stay outta town or my bill is going to be a heckuva lot more than last month. My bill last month was somewhere around $20 over what it should have been. Plus, I'm having to pay for the "over" charges this time. Texting is just so convenient! I can carry on a conversation that I really don't have time to sit and have over the phone. Dad asked me if I could learn to live without texting. Umm...NO! I'd rather pay for the ones I go over with. It's also perfect for them to be gone as well because I've got to get things done! Last Monday and Tuesday, although I got a French lesson done, (All of French is done now. YAY!) I didn't retain as much of that lesson because I was on and off the phone and texting with Easel. I've got Precal to do and a "real job" that starts today. I love texting though. End of story.

Friday morning service was hilarious. Slushie cup symphonies with Biscuit Hayes and String-bean Andy. I think we just about drove my service mom (whom I'll call Deborah Clasky) crazy, but it was her fault that she didn't have enough gas to do the driving territory. It was TOO HOT to do anything but on Friday though. There were fights with the car door and getting "shot at" for looking in the pit. It's crazy to think I didn't place anything! There's been talk around here of moving back close to Poly's side of town, (Ick. Poly's not ick; his side of town is.) but it's the backwoods, redneck moments like these that make me never want to leave again. Who knows what the other O.C. will be like in 10 years though? This post was supposed to be about our digital cable, but look what happened there. Honest though, I'm getting to it. In fact, lets do that now.

Digital Cable. A blessing from the technology industry. I was the only one that knew how to work the whole shebang, and I wasn't even here for the briefing of how to use the set up. Leave it to my dad, the king of spontaneity, to get digital cable and not tell the family. This is the man that gets up one Saturday morning in February and decides that the family needs to go to the beach and loads up the car for the weekend and goes to Panama City. He's also the one that whenever we are in Florida, he says he knows some short cut and we drive for 3 hours looking for something and then the highway just ends. I've seen lots of Florida being with my dad. Anyway, Mehsha and I went to a get together after service Saturday. Mom went to run errands. We all didn't get back til around 5 PM, and Mehsha immediately starts screaming. There was much excitement. There are a zillion channels now. Dad stayed home because the cable guy was coming. This morning I spent like an hour watching VH1 classic. All they were playing were videos from the 80s. Cindy Lauper, The Motels, The Clash...it was glorious. I was surprising myself when I knew most of the words to the majority of the videos. Then there's MTV Hits. All videos. All the time. The way MTV used to be. Digital cable is wonderful, except there are now FIVE clickers to keep up with. Two are currently M.I.A. And of course there's Nicktoons 1 and 2. Guess what they show on Nicktoons? Just guess. REN AND STIMPY! Seriously, at three years old, this was my favorite TV show. I would watch Sesame Street and Mister Rogers in the morning. Then when dad got home at night, we would watch Ren and Stimpy together. I can't wait for it to come on again. That's why I loved the Angry Beavers. It reminded me so much of Ren and Stimpy. I'm such a cartoon junkie, but that's P. June's brother's fault. Digital cable's going to be the death of my imagination. Kiss it good-bye now.

Chocolate covered commercial

Two days in a row! I hope this pleases one specific reader that says that once a week isn't enough to fufill the needs of my blog. I did forget how much I loved this thing. It's quite the affair we have going on here. I was thinking about posting something deep, but since both H'n'B and Poly beat me to posting and they both did deep stuff, I'm going for the other angle. Brain sludge...scrumptious brain sludge.

Now, I don't know if everyone knows, but I'm allergic to chocolate (among 30,000 other things- but not air [AirSupply either] or TooL). I was craving some of Edy's Double Fudge Brownie ice cream. This is THE best chocolate ice cream that has ever graced this earth. It puts Haagen-Dazs to shame, and believe me, I'm not picky when it comes to ice cream. (I am allergic to just plain 'ol ice cream though- milk products, but not lactose intolerant. That's different.) This ice cream though, I crave it occasionally, usually just every two months, but I only get it about every four since I'm SO VERY allergic to this ice cream. Last night, I had my first helping of the fresh carton (and I'm not one for small helpings, especially now that I've got my appetite back). Of course, I started having an allerigc reaction almost immediately because I haven't had chocolate in a few months. A chocolate ice cream reaction is a little interesting since I start sneezing from the chocolate, have an asthma attack if the ice cream is too cold and I eat it too fast, plus itchy arms. It irritates my excema, but that may be oversharing-I'll take my chances. What would really be oversharing is if I told you exactly what's in chocolate that I'm allergic to. It's not always an immediate reaction, but it was this time because there wasn't already some previous reaction to chocolate in my system. It usually takes about a week to get an allergen like chocolate (others like chocolate: cheese, milk, ice cream in general, etc.) out of my system, but it has been well over a week like I said. Here's the coincidence part. I'm sitting down to watch shark week with my mishpocha (but heavens no! not on the white couch), and a commercial comes on while I'm eating my very chocolatey ice cream and it's a confusing one. Confusing as in you have no clue what might be about when it starts and you're left kinda stunned at the end and all you can say is, "Ooookaaayyyy..." afterwards. A lot like the feeling after you see one of Sprite's new ad campaign commercials and if you haven't seen one, well, you're missing out on a very weird experience. This wasn't a Sprite one. This was for the new LG "Chocolate" phone. It was talking about how it's a V-cast phone and it's got a picture/video camera. Then it says, "It's sweet," or something to the "sweet" extent. Not quite sure why they called it "chocolate," but I bet someone thought of the ad campaign first. In an article I read, it said that they are already available in Korea and are being marketed as a Valentine's Day gift. I can see that. (Boyfriend goes up to girlfriend, "I got you some chocolate for Valentine's." Girlfriend: "Oh..." since she got chocolate the year before, but it soon changes to surprise to see her new phone.) They're going to make a fortune with that since most of us are slaves to advertising. I know there are a few commercials that have made me go out and buy the product, i.e.- Barbie in Swan Lake or Flinstone Gummie vitamins. There was one phrase that the commercial used and it was, "Carry chocolate in your pocket." Perfect, they've created a "chocolate" that won't melt from body heat. In a weird way, that appeals to me. I would never switch to Verizon since I'm far too happy with Cingular. I only need two more people to switch to Cingular and I don't think I'd use any minutes at all, just tons of text messages. (I used close to 500 last month and I'm already too close to that this month. Thank goodness two of my txters are going out of town.) But being able to say, "Hey I've got unmelted chocolate in my pocket," really sounds like something I'd like to tell people. Everyone hates the M&Ms (which I haven't been able to eat for years because they are manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts and on the same equipment...I don't know how I survive at Poly's house, but I have less allergies there than at my house *cough*the Cheat*cough*) after they have melted in the bag and then you have all that dye on your hands and you have to eat them fast. That makes them unenjoyable. Unmelted "chocolate" cell phone. Yummy. Today, Contessa and Mehsha watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Of course, I joined in while I should have been doing French. More delicious chocolate. Augustus Gloop. That would be me if I was a German boy. Eating all of that chocolate and mistaking a golden ticket for nuget, but I'm allergic to nuget too. Oh well.

Feeling better and the French Manwich

I had not realized that it's been since July 13th that I actually updated, so... hey all! My name is Affable Olive. It's gotten to where I'm usually just Affie and... it's been a while. Hope you're still there.

I knew I was completely recovered today. It wasn't the doctor's visit where they tested me to make sure nothing else was wrong. No. It was the visit to Marshalls/TJ Maxx (I can't remember which one we have out here) where I found some totally awesome deals. When I feel sick, I can't shop. It's depressing, I know. Anyway, I got this cute light-weight jacket originally from Urban Outfitters (my almost favorite store), and it still had the original tags on it. Not only had I seen it in the catalog for $78, I had proof still attached since the tag had not been removed. It said $78 as well. Guess what I paid. Just guess. (Remember in this guess that I am an extreme form of Jewishness when it comes to money, which is why I'm relating all this.) I paid $7. The shirt I thought would look cute with it was only $5. Aren't deals just loverly? There were some KangaROOS (in my opinion, the most colorfulest, cutest, and comfortablest shoes) that were only $19, but I didn't get them. Also, I saw some Pumas and laughed very hard at what must have looked to be nothing at all since I got some awkward looks from the returning UGA students. I didn't care for once. I like being all better.

[Just incase you didn't know, although my goal is to learn Chinese to help out the Chinese group in Atlanta; I'm still learning French for school though. That's not something I'm stopping since I enjoy it. The biggest feat is remembering it. After all, trilingual/multilingual sounds way awesomer than just bilingual.] Now for the French Manwich. I have no clue what they call a sloppy joe in French, especially since Manwich is actually a brand. I suppose I could look it up...wait, I will. "Sloppy Joe" comes out joe trop liquide, but I would assume that's more like saying my friend joe is a messy eater. It's not really a BBQ sandwich so I'm not going to look that up, but onward to my point. My textbook is teaching me conversational French, so I'm not learning grammatical stuff or particulars. I'm learning how to tell people formal and informal ways I like things, don't like things, things I can do with other people, suggest things to do with other people, turn people down for invites (not put downs, which I would enjoy and employ), and of course, words for school subjects and supplies beside the basics like numbers and telling time. Not too much about verbs, etc., which is the stuff I would rather be learning instead of being able to order a glass of orange juice in Quebec in French. At least I won't go hungry (or thirsty) if I ever get somewhere that no one knows English, but everyone knows French. Today was food in my French lesson and it was telling me that a toasted ham and cheese was an un croque-monsieur. That's just about the manliest noun in the French language. Not only does it have a masculine article out front, it is trailed by monsieur, which everyone knows is Mister in French. I was quite intrigued by this. My book is kinda old (for a textbook), so I looked this up. Translated, this means a crunch-Mister, or a crusty-sun burned man. That's not appetizing at all. So I went and did a little translating and of course, you get something different depending on the place you use, but I was fond of this translation: sandwich grillé à jambon et à fromage. Very long, but it has sandwich, cheese, ham, and grilled in it and I feel it's a better choice than the crusty-sun burned man option. If I ever make it to somewhere that French is spoken, and I have this feeling to order a toasted ham and cheese, I'm ordering it the female way because I don't want a man sandwich.

Wow, that sounds like something Poly would have blogged about...Also, Affie's Book/Music Wednesday have both been postponed until the last Wednesday of this month...like you were wondering where it was and didn't know how life would go on without them.