Congress passed a bill that we shall have spring three weeks sooner.

Regardless of the equinoxes and solstices, spring begins with daylight savings.

I cannot say that I was pleased to hear that congress had changed the daylight savings time. Daylight savings has some inherent annoyances.

But now that it’s here, I’m glad.

My flowers are blooming. The yellow climbing roses, the irises, and even my star jasmine have begun to open andfragrate.

Mmmm….

And now, instead of waiting for the weekend to enjoy the fruits of my garden, I can see them in daylight on weekdays.

So, happy spring everyone. Take time to stop and smell the flowers.

A few months ago, someone told me I was very resilient. His compliment rolled off my back, because I was concentrating on communicating something else altogether.

But it came back to me last week, as I was reading a book by Dr. Ruby Payne. I wanted to read A Framework for Understanding Poverty, but the only book my library had was a relationship book Crossing the Tracks for Love.

I roll my eyes. It is apparently much more important to read a relationship self-help book than to read a societal self-help book. Gawd, we’re so ego-centric!

But the book had many of the basic ideas. And that word came up again: Resilience. It means:
Rubber
bouncy
Bounce-back
get-back-on-that-horse-and-ride
Not taking no for an answer
stick-to-it-iveness
STUBBORN

I guess not everyone is like that. It seems like it would come in handy though. What good is it to lay down your tools and give up? Whoever got anywhere by sitting in their mud puddle and crying?

Of course, maybe some people don’t want to get anywhere. I do have respect for the quality of ‘enough’.

Enough stuff. Enough money. Enough food. Enough education.

It’s a balance though. Isn’t the world big enough to allow boundless pursuit of new things to have ‘enough’ of?

Lots and lots of thoughts are happening. I would like to stop and post, but before I do I zing off on another Japanese high-speed train of thought.

whew.

I get tired from all the thoughts quite often.

I’m gonna try, later today, to compose a post.

Thanks to the WSJ again, I get to be amused.

It turns out that China has become embarrased about their bad translations. There are all sorts of signs and things with English translations that are…well…pretty funny.

Some are kind of incomprehensible, but some are nice. Their English for “Don’t Walk On the Grass” is “Show Mercy to the Slender Grass.”

They are not alone. I still giggle when I remember the sign the cleaning people put up after they’d shampood the carpets and they were still wet:
BE CAREFUL OF SLIP AND FALL

what first language resulted in that ESL sign? The cleaning people spoke spanish, but the sign was a printed form, so maybe they bought a bunch of them from asia at a discount. Hard to say.

We live in a complex world.

But China will be hosting the Olympics and have decided to clean up their language. There are language police going around and giving fix-it tickets to cities and restaurants, etc. for their bad english.

Of course there are fans of this sort of thing. Check this out:
www.chinglish.de

Why is the history channel playing “Planet of the Apes”?

They had these in Jr. High. I used to get them also when email was newer.
Because I am not feeling like plumbing profundity for a post, I will share it with you all:

1. What time did you get up this morning? 4:45–I like to start driving to the gym at 5:30, and that USED to mean I got up at 5, and quickly got dressed & brushed my teeth, fed and injected to cat, grabbed my gym bag and drove away.

Now, with Lucy-Puppy in my life, the morning takes longer. I must still do all the above, but first I must let Missy Puppy out to pee, pet her, run her around, take her in, feed her (which currently requires continuous petting all the while so she will get proper nutrition and grow big and not stunted), take her out again, this time to poo (if she hadn’t done so earlier–and sometimes again even if she has), scoop said poo up into plastic gocery bag, take bag-o-poo to the trash, run Lucy around some more, then lock her into her crate.

That meant I had to get up earlier.

I’m glad tomorrow is saturday.

2. Diamonds or pearls? What are you kidding? Both

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Happy Feet

4. What is your favorite TV show? Right now? House

5. What do you usually have for breakfast? i cup GO LEAN kashi high protein and fiber cereal with 1 cup skim milk
..but I just finished a donut that my sabatuer co-worker brought in

7. What is your middle name? May, which is a derivative of my grandmother’s middle name. My grandmother, I, and my oldest cousin on my mom’s side all have the same middle name, but spelled different. I am not sure how the others spell their name. I think Mae and Maye. But I don’t know for certain.

8. What food do you dislike? bland food…and kinda don’t like beef, but maybe because it is often bland

9. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Royksopp and Andy Bell…yes, that is two.

10. What kind of car do you drive? 1997 Audi A4. Stick-shift. Looked hard to find a stick shift

11. Favorite sandwich? peanut butter is good, but I am trying not to eat sandwiches

12. What characteristic do you despise? dishonesty

13. Favorite item of clothing? I really like the mechanic-style coveralls that I got for doing my work.

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? I would like to take the Queen Elizabeth 2 transatlantic cruise

15. What color is your bathroom? blue and grey.

16. Favorite brand of clothing? not a brand whore. I like thrift store clothes
17. Where would you retire to? I have a feeling I will never retire. And I never want to move again. I’ll be staying in Claremont with Marshmallow man.

18. What was your most recent memorable birthday? I have had a very good string of birthdays lately. This last one kinda sucked though, cause Chris was sick

19. Favorite sport to watch? Basketball! Go Lakers!

20. Furthest place you are sending this? the end of the universe. It’s the internet!

21. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? whatever

22. Person you expect to send it back first? No one

23. Favorite saying? This is a good one.

A Long while back, I was talking to super-cool-friend Char-Lez about the annoyingness of saying “Thank You!” as a prequel to goodbye.

The conversation (often on the phone) goes:

…and so that’s settled.”

“Thank you!”

“thank you!”

Click. EOM

Okay, who’s thanking who for what? Why should I say “Thank you!” when I am the one who should be the recipeint of gratitude? It renders the thanks meaningless, and also trivialized whatever effort was expended on behalf of whoever.

Not to mention the annoying sing-song way the phrase takes on through repetition.

So, I talked about wanting another sign-off phrase, and he suggested “Take Care!”

As he put it, “That is under the radar, because it can mean two things.”

Hmm…very good…because if the person is someone I like, and I want them to take care of themselve with tenderness, it works.

But if the person is someone who should learn a few manners, it could mean “Take care not to piss me off again!”

So, I use it all the time now. It is the Murphy Standard.

Take Care, everybody!

24. When is your birthday? 1-1-73

25. Are you a morning person or a night person? If I could ever leave sleep deprivation behind, I might like nights better. But mostly I’m too tired, and morning is when I get things done.

26. What is your shoe size? 8.5

27. Pets? Skellig the cat and Lucy the puppy

28. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with us? I’m getting married this year!

29. What did you want to be when you were little? A ballerina and everything. I wrote a song about it

30. How are you today? Wondering how guilty I should feel for eating the donut

31. What is your favorite candy? wow…so many. Butterfingers…Skor…Reese’s peanut butter cups..Twix…See’s!

32. What is your favorite flower? hmm…I am really into plants. I like a variety, nicely arranged (usually by self)

33. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Today, actually. My brother is coming to visit!

34. What church do you attend? St. Anne’s Orthodox Church in Pomona
St. Anne is Mary’s mother. She’s on the far right, but you can’t see her.

The kid’s table during coffer hour. Note redbeard Kevin and black-suited AJ sitting there. They know they are too mature to sit with the kids, but the adults are too boring.

33. What is your full name? Elizabeth May Horner…Soon to be Elizabeth May Daley…but really, Murphy Daley…That’s a lot of y’s…Apropos…

34. What are you listening to right now? Bangles

35. What was the last thing you ate? dang…that donut will not leave me alone.

36. Do you wish on stars? Yes, but only with the verse..
Star light
Star Bright
First star I see tonight
Wish I may
Wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight

Unless, it’s a falling star. Then the trick is to think of a wish before the star is done falling.

37. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Black

38. How is the weather right now? Blue Sky, and its supposed to get warmer

39. Last person you spoke to on the phone? my brother

40. Do you like the person who sent this to you?Nicole is fabulous…And I love her blog

41. Favorite soft drink? diet grapefruit

42. Favorite restaurant? locally? Espiau’s

43. Hair color? reddish brown…maybe totally red now. I’m trying to cover the alarming profusion of gray

44. Sibling? 3 older brothers

45. Favorite day of the year? hmm…I like Easter.
46. What was your favorite toy as a child? Roller skates…and I liked audio equipment

47. Summer or winter? Fall

48. Hugs or kisses? Hugs

49. Coffee or tea? Tea

50. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate

51. Do you want your friends to email you back? Yes

52. When was the last time you cried? I cry all the time. But I don’t think I’ve cried this week.

53. What is under your bed? Chris keeps finding socks under there. And probably some folded blankets

54. Who is the friend you have had the longest? Telissa…Kindergarten was a long time ago

55. What did you do last night?
Ran around like a crazy person, trying to keep up with Lucy, and then when she went to sleep, trying to get clothes and gym bag ready for the morning

56. Favorite smell? Love smells…I love the smell of Chris, but he is almost always incredibly clean and therefore not very pungent. I have to get up close…But maybe that’s part of why I like it!

57. What are you afraid of? Not making the most of every second

58. Plain, buttered, or salted Popcorn? Buttered and salted..

59. How many keys on your key ring? 6

60. How many years at your current job? a year and a half

61. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

62. How many towns have you lived in? 15, with three repeats ( lived in Sunnyvale twice (three addresses), Wasilla twice, and Anchorage twice(8 addresses)). I’m never moving again.

63. Do you make friends easily? no..but I start intimate conversations very easily…You’d think I could land the friend deal, but no

64. How many people will you be sending this to? the world

65. How many will respond? I have no idea

66. Did you notice that 33 and 34 were repeated? No

Andthe sky is blue.

It’s winter in LA and we are in a cold snap. So cold, in fact, that it got below freezing.

Which means that many many plants are having a lot of trouble. It just doesn’t freeze here. It hasn’t been this cold since the 30s.

So, beware. Citrus fruits are going to be expensive soon. Stock up on marmalade.

As for me, I hope my hibiscus make it.