All posts by laurahinnj

I like to make lists, Whatever

ABC meme

6 Comments

Stolen from Lynne on Facebook. Play along if you like!

A – Age: 39
B – Bed size: Queen
C – Chore you hate: Balancing the checkbook
D – Dog’s name: Luka (also rabbits named Boomer, Sunshine, Peeper, and Freckles)
E – Essential start your day item: Coffee.
F- Favorite color(s): Green
G – Gold or Silver: Platinum!
H – Height: 5’10”
I – Instruments you play(ed): Clarinet, Piano, Pennywhistle
J – Job title: Housing Coordinator/Social Worker Bilingual
K – Kitchen wish list: Lessons, maybe. 😉
L – Living arrangements: Close to the beach!
M – Mom’s name: Claire
N – Nicknames: BLT (coworkers), Lauralie (family), Legs (high school)
O – Overnight hospital stay: None
P – Pet Peeve(s): That fuzz under the bed (where does it come from?), bossy people, product packaging that’s impossible to remove
Q – Quote from a movie: I don’t do movies
R – Right or left handed: Depends on the task at hand
S – Siblings: Two (I’m the youngest and the only girl = spoiled)
T – Time you wake up: 6:30 ish
U – Underwear: Usually, yes. 😉
V – Vegetable you dislike: Cauliflower
W – Workout style: Weight training and yoga
X – X-rays you’ve had: Lots of my teeth
Y – Yesterday’s best moment: Finally getting iTunes to cooperate after 4+ hours of fighting with it!
Z – Zoo favorite(s): I’ve never been to a proper zoo

From the field, Snapshots

First steps

8 Comments

We have a student interning with us for the summer… a sweet girl from my alma matter who I got to drag along on field visits with me today.

I have to give her credit… so far she seems unfazed by anything she’s seen. What she’s heard about during downtime late on Friday afternoons hasn’t scared her off, either.

I admit to being careful in the selection of clients we saw today; I don’t suppose I needed to do that. But some things and some clients just make me too uncomfortable to have to deal with, without a student watching every bumbling move I make.

🙂

So rather than treating her to the guy who routinely answers the door in his underwear (!) or the lady in the house without a single place to sit or any of the really shady parts of town, we met with mostly regular clients and one who likes to talk. Alot. About everything imaginable. Inappropriate things, even.

It was fun. She barely raised an eyebrow.

In the new neighborhood, Seasons, Snapshots

Late spring weather report

11 Comments

Is this the coldest, dreariest June ever? Or does it just feel that way here at the Jersey Shore? I feel like I live in London, or somewhere out on the coast of Oregon with all this fog and dampness and rain.

It’s kind of depressing.

There have been moments of light and magic… the rain clicking and tapping its song on the roof… the porch and its electric, marshy yellow-gray smell of storms before they get here… the big flag up the street snapping in the wind and the curtains blowing like ghosts in the night…

There was an hour or so on the beach at Spring Lake yesterday at sunset, after crab cakes for dinner at the inlet with the fishing boats going by with their escort of laughing gulls…

A bit of magic despite the gray, but I’m tired of wearing sweaters and long pants.

Is it summer yet in your part of the world?

Whatever

Nice is just nice!

13 Comments

Susan would say this type of thing happens to me cause I’m tall or cause I’m cute, but I’d rather like to think that sometimes, occasionally, once in a while, people are just nice.

Three teenage boys made my day today!

I’d had a photograph and this little Northern Pintail painting that I’d been carting around with me while I looked for suitable frames. Both were matted to odd sizes which would ordinarily require custom framing.

If you’ve ever paid for custom framing, you know that’s not anything to be undertaken lightly.

I’d gone to a couple arts-and-crafts type stores but couldn’t find any frames to fit, nor could I dream up a cheap solution. Tonight, almost desperate, I went to the custom framing desk at AC Moore and presented my problem and asked the young kid if he had any ideas for what I might do without spending a fortune.

His pimples and the smirk on his face as he approached left me pretty doubtful.

Before I knew what was happening, he’d amassed the rest of his team: Louis came along and began searching the aisles for the perfect color frame to complement my prints, Kevin joined us for the math and measurements to cut each mat down to fit standard-size frames, while Mike did the actual cutting and framing up.

Those boys spent better than an hour with me. All the while I kept saying, “This feels an awful lot like a custom frame job, boys!”

I’d started to worry that they’d misunderstood me. I’d started to worry what all this attention was going to cost me.

Turns out, frames are 40% off this week and my nearly *custom* framing was free, on these adorable boys who, apparently, needed something to do tonight, or needed practice, or just felt like being nice.

Imagine that.

The total cost for both was less than $25. I’m thrilled. I’m wondering at my good fortune. I’m wondering what one does to repay the kindness of strangers, especially considering the unlikely source of that kindness.

Whatever

My brother just scares me

9 Comments

This from his Facebook profile.

😉

He called me today, while he sat in traffic on his iPhone, to wish me a Happy Birthday. Said he felt bad that there hadn’t been cake; felt bad that he hadn’t called.

Anyway… he mentioned that he finally got himself on Facebook and that I should look for him.

I had to ask if there was a picture and if I’d recognize him.

“A bearded one,” he said.

“Your Osama Bin Laden pic?” I asked, referring to his profile pic here on Blogger.

“Not quite,” he said.

Of course not. This time it’s My Brother the Christian Crusader.

I’m wondering how many more uses he can dream up for that silly fake beard.

Snapshots, Wanderings

Another look

5 Comments

A toad’s facial expression doesn’t seem to change much from moment to moment.

😉

Easy for me to say, right? I’m not about to become its next meal.

This pic shows a bit more detail… the three or more warts on the largest dark spots that help to differentiate between the Fowler’s and a plain old American Toad.

There’s also some rubbish in books about the shape of cranial crests and their nearness to the parotoid glands that helps distinguish one toad from another. I know Fowler’s by their call, first. It’s a long, “Waaaaaaaaa” that sounds almost like a baby crying. Not as sweet a sound as the first Peepers of spring, but a welcome sound in the Barrens nonetheless.

Whatever

Happy Lucky Idiot

15 Comments

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself yesterday… it was my birthday and it poured rain all day and there was no cake and I had to work…

Can you hear that tiny little violin playing there in the background?

The day after, a couple hours in the sunshine, a walk on the beach, the neighborhood kingbird, and this little poem and all is right with the world again.






If you have time to chatter
Read books
If you have time to read
Walk into mountain, desert and ocean
If you have time to walk
sing songs and dance
If you have time to dance
Sit quietly, you Happy Lucky Idiot

–Nanao Sakaki