quinnkdotme

Well, tonight I am in Norfolk, VA!  And, I’m super tired… so pardon the typos!

I have heard so much about Norfolk – from a variety of opinions, so it was interesting to see it for myself.  From many descriptions, it seemed like it would be all ugly shipyards and navy men on every street corner.  Well, it isn’t that.

However, there are shipyards and I did pass a very good looking navy guy… so there’s that.

The water ways are everywhere and it’s fun to walk along the harbor and drive around the area.  I don’t really like the tunnels but I am a slave to the Garmin today which refused to give me any route but the tunnel.  So like a mole I came to Norfolk, then to Portsmouth, and then back to Norfolk.

Enjoying the English names all over the place – but occasionally my brain switches over to Jane Austen and my ability to navigate geographically gets confused… am I headed to Lyme, to Bath, or to Smithfield?

Downtown Norfolk was dominated by a big mall.  Now I didn’t make it to the fashionable Ghent district… so I really can’t make a judgement.  But downtown was a ghost town at 515 on a Tuesday night. The mall, however was packed.  Go figure.

Went to dinner to stretch my legs and sight see briefly, and then like a good girl came back to my hotel room to prep for interviews tomorrow.  Lots of interviews and then the drive back to PA.

Some random observations…I know you love them….

> The door to my bathroom A) doesn’t look like it came with the room B) has been sanded and cut down to fit the door frame and C) has been chipped away at the bottom as if a beaver has been living in the bathroom or someone was trapped and needed oxygen.  Oh, and D) the toilet is about 6 inches away from the wall… the back of it – that is… is this in case of flooding?  I can almost walk a perfect circle around it, if I wanted to – which I don’t, but I could.

> I was told my room would have a view of the harbor…. OK by me, I didn’t request it.  Sadly, the only body of water my room views is the pool… right outside my room.  And, then behind the wiki-wiki cane fencing is the harbor.  Unfortunately,  the part of the harbor I would be seeing if it weren’t for the pool and fence is the part where the bridge crosses the harbor.. so I have cane fencing and concrete pilings as my view.

>If I move here – I might be able to take a ferry to work… how cool would that be?

>Norfolk Meetup.com is pretty interesting… I would really have to vet these groups.

Alright, I’m tired and must get my beauty sleep.

As ever,

K. Quinn

We all do it…try to trick our brain or make excuses for things that we don’t like.  For instance, by tomorrow morning, according to the diet and workout regime I am attempting… I should have lost 2 pounds.  So I weighed myself this morning… and here is how I am choosing to interpret my results.

Technically the scale said that I was at the weight I was at last week, but… we need to take 1 lb. off for clothing and I just had a giant cup of coffee – so that could account for 1/3 of a pound… and I am retaining water from yesterday’s salt intake.. which wasn’t really on the diet, but that could be a half pound which means that if I stick to fluids today and really drink a lot of water… I could be at the lost 2 pounds mark by tomorrow.  Right?  Plus I just ran so I sweated at least another 2 oz. off.

Ironically, my horoscope today is…”Don’t get angry.  Be realistic and look at the statistics.  Once you are fully aware of the consequences involved, you can make a move that will position you positively.” 

By statistics, we’re talking data… so hmmmm making a move would be working out like a dog and drinking only fluids today?  Hmmmmm.

Another game…. things are moving slowly…so let’s book a trip because then everything will speed up.  Actually, they did.  I have several interviews piling up before leaving town.  And, I am trying to calculate when different organizations will call me in for another interview so that I don’t schedule out one for the other.  Where were you all a month ago when things were so slow?

And of course the “trying to block things out of my mind game.”  Like when you were little and couldn’t wait for Christmas, that is how my count down until my trip is.  A week from tomorrow I head to the airport.  A week from Wednesday I will be in beautiful France and seeing my friends.  OK stop thinking of it… and focus on the task at hand.

So all summed up….I may or may not have lost 2 pounds; I may or may not have a new job very shortly; and I will be in France but not for a little while.

I’ll take that!

As ever,

K. Quinn

OK, first apology it’s been a long time since a posting.  I promise to be more vigilant in postings.

Second, yet another fascinating photo on panda research… it’s not like I have a think for pandas… but these photos are just awesome.

And, finally, incongruous…

I had downloaded a recording of poems on the theme of nature… don’t ask, long story.  In any case, it is a beautiful spring evening.  So, I grabbed my iPod and decided to listen to nature poetry as I walked along the fields and parkland by my parent’s house.  Think rolling meadows lined with woods and you might have the picture.  I kept the volume low so that while listening to Shelley’s To a Skylark, the stanzas were mixed with the live sound of evening birdsong.  I strolled through the park enjoying the warmth of the setting sun, the cool of evening drifting out of the woods, and the magic hour that casts a golden glow on the fields.  The birds were wheeling around the sky, the clouds were scattered and sparse, and rabbits and ground hogs were scurrying along the paths.  In the distance, I noticed a young woman peacefully reading a book in the evening light.  As I ambled along the path, enjoying the “…sound of vernal showers on the twinkling grass…” I noticed that her book was entitled, “Why Men Like Bitches: From Doormat to Dream Girl.”  Insert sound effect here as my head does an internal double take and shakes the glorious words of Shelley out and tries to process Sherry… Argov that is, the author of this evidently top-selling book.

How does one go from the joyous song of the skylark to the bitterness of a woman scorned?  As Shelley says, “Thou lovest, but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.”  Contrast that to the sad reality given by Sherry, “Look don’t be a doormat.”  Oh dear.  Frankly I prefer the skylark.

As ever,

K. Quinn

Most recently, I wrote about the need for positive change in my life.  Today it seems that perhaps change is occurring and in the right direction.

A serious financial challenge has been successfully overcome…actually still waiting on final confirmation, but all signs suggest the end is near.

Several good interviews. And more to come.

My feet appear to have healed… although my sock knitting disaster remains in a deadlock.

Best of all it appears that on some level I am connected with a group of lovely individuals from Southern California who were discussing, at the same time I was writing my last blog, change.  I take this as a sign that change was imminent and now flowing forward in a direction much more to my liking.

Now if we can just wrap up this change with success in my gaining a new job, a new city, a new home, and well heck throw in a certain actor from across the pond… and I could not want for anything more!

Alright, pacing myself… first things first – prepare for interviews.  Get job… then take on new city and new home.

Universe can you hear me?

As ever,

K. Quinn

That is the official word… I am insisting on a paradigm shift for my life because right now the downward spiral of stupid human tricks is just…. depressing.

Good news – went to New York yesterday to meet with a woman who has wonderful network contacts.  She let me pick her brain and I left with a number of ideas, leads, and information to follow up on – so all in all a very valuable meeting.

Bad news – in effort to travel light and look professional – wore the wrong shoes… and walked til my feet bled.  Literally.

Also, entered wrong side of subway – so had to buy new ticket to get in the right side of the subway… rush hour so I couldn’t really hang in ticket line to try and get refund.

Moving along on stupid and insane….

Pulled my back trying to open the sunroof in the car.

Lost my notes that I had written for the blog.

Asked a friend to mail my post office key to another friend – it got lost in the mail because it wasn’t properly sealed in the envelope.

And I knitted sock wrong to the point of no return… bummer.

Do I really need to continue?

As I was saying, paradigm shift needed.

So, enough of the bad, the stupid and insane…. changing things for the better.

I am off to make a salad…marching down the healthy track… actually limping because my feet are too sore.

As ever,

K. Quinn

I have a long history with my mother’s wrought iron planters.  Yes, I can truly limit it to planters.  And, the history isn’t kind.

It all began the week prior to my senior prom (high school), I had been out with friends and was rushing home to make curfew.  I was dropped off at the back of my house and had to run through the back yard.  It was late, and I either didn’t know or forgot that my mother had just treated a wrought iron antique planter earlier that day which she had left on the sidewalk to dry.

Being black and near the back, think darker, part of the yard, I didn’t see it.  I hit the planter full force with my foot and ankle, but my shin took the brunt of the action.  My momentum carried me superman like through the air, over the planter,  and I landed arms and chin first onto the sidewalk.  I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, so my road rash was significant.

Flash forward to the end of the week, wearing a strapless dress and fabulous arm length abrasions along with scrape to chin.  What a scrapper I was.

Yesterday, destiny again set me on a collision course with a wrought iron planter.  In my parents house, on the landing of the stairs is a planter with legs that curve up and out.  The iron is rather thin looking like half-size rebar.  I was headed up the stairs, and I stopped part way up the stairs to pick up some dried leaves that had fallen onto the floor.  Some of the leaves were farther away, and so I went to kneel on the landing so that I could reach the other leaves.

Genius that I am, I managed to kneel onto the planter leg, impaling my shin on the planter leg.

Speaking of impaling, I realize that my battle with wrought iron goes beyond my mother’s antique planters.  When moving out of an ill-chosen and ill-fated apartment in Los Angeles’ Korea town neighborhood, I went to throw out the trash.  The dumpster was surrounded by wrought iron fencing – the kind with the points on each bar.  In my rush to escape, I didn’t go through the back of the building and around to the dumpster to throw out the trash.  Instead, I went along the front of the building – I planned to dump the trash bag and then head to my car.

As I swung the bag up over the fence, I realized too late that 1) the bag was heavier than I had realized and would come crashing down quite quickly and hard, and worse still, 2) that my watch had hooked onto the bag.  The garbage bag, true to form, fell heavily and my arm went down with it, onto one of the fence posts.  Slight impalement.  A tetanus shot and massive bruise later, my collision course with wrought iron was beginning to form a pattern which has now followed me into middle age.  How sad.

As ever,

K. Quinn

It was an expo – not my state of mind.

Yesterday, I went to volunteer for a beagle group that was showing some of their dogs for adoptions at the Wild About Animals Expo.

Held in the Agricultural Arena at Penn State – it was wall to wall children and wall to wall dirt.  And, yes, there were some animals mixed in.  A hawk, a falcon or two, a camel, a llama, goats, sheep, ponies, and the beagles.  I spent the better part of the afternoon looking after a beagle who barked, and barked, and barked.

There were two other beagles – very sweet:  one was the Jabba the Hutt of beagles and named Tinkerbell.  No way was this amorphous dog going to be flitting about like a fairy.  And Huck – her physical opposite – was a lean, little guy with bright blue eyes.

I also learned what a  Mountain Feist is… a dog.  A popular dog in Pennsylvania most often bred for squirrel hunting.  I didn’t realize that people were still hunting squirrels… is it the economy?  I do remember when I was little, my grandmother had a fur stole which she referred to as her squirrels.  The stole did have two little heads with beady eyes at the end, but they weren’t squirrels.  Why are people hunting squirrels?  Does it really require a special breed of dog?

Also, witnessed stupid human tricks performed by a guy from the K-9 division.  Not really a trick, but truly stupid, he wanders around looking at the exhibits while eating a hot dog.  So, he comes over to look at the beagles, and he is leaning over the rescue dogs with a hot dog in his mouth.  Ya think the dogs might have an issue with this?  I’m have to hold 30 pounds of hot dog induced fury and desperation back from decapitating this guy who appears to be oblivious that 1) a beagle is in a frothing frenzy and ready to kill him for a hot dog and 2) that he has a hot dog that he seems to be inhaling … look, ma, no hands!

To cap off my afternoon of mis and un adventure…. my father picked me up because I didn’t want to deal with parking and the event was five minutes’ drive from home.  We hit Snappy’s on the way home because the gas was 5 cents a gallon cheaper.  It was at Snappy’s that I was hit with one of probably many contradictions that occur at Snappy’s.  (I have to keep writing Snappy’s because it’s not that often the word comes across my vocabulary.)  Snappy’s offers fresh snuff.  The freshest in fact.  What exactly does fresh snuff mean?

While researching what qualifies as fresh snuff, I learned that snuff varies in texture, taste, and moistness.   Did you know there is fruit flavored snuff?  Would you want a fruit flavored tobacco cigarette?  And, yet we have fruit flavored snuff.  Evidently, if snuff dries out it loses its flavor, so that I assume would be the fresh reference.  Do you think Snappy’s has special convenient store humidors just for snuff?  Do you think I will return to Snappy’s to proceed with further research?

The answer, my friends, is an unequivocal NO.

But stay tuned, tomorrow I will tell you about a future research project that is on the horizon…. a little behind the holidays, but still… the world of Peeps!  Bethlehem, PA here I come!

As ever,

K. Quinn

Yep, for those of you who thought I was too cruel yesterday, calling the robins fat… let me just say that I have confirmation from another non-native of State College.  My French teacher who hails from… France… agrees with me that the robins here are much larger… in fact fatter… than their brethren from other locales.

And speaking of animals, I will be volunteering at the Wild About Animals expo this weekend.  I have been given the task of handling 1 beagle.  Yup, one, single, uno beagle.  I received an email saying that there were going to be two and only one handler so could I help with the other.  Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled to help.  But it’s just sort of amusing to me that I will be handling 1 beagle.  Which, truth be told, will be much nicer than handling an assortment of crazy mutts – which was my last rescue assignment.  And, I loved them all, but one beagle sounds so serene.

Watch me get the Tasmanian Devil of beagles for that last comment.

Well, on that note… no blog tomorrow – but I will report on my Wild About Animals experience.

As ever,

K. Quinn

Spring is here in Happy Valley, and the robins are out in full force.  Having spent the last 20 or so springs in southern California, it is a definite change to see robins, cardinals, and blue jays flitting about.  The leaves have only just begun to burgeon forth, so it is still quite easy to see the birds in the trees.

In the morning, as Verbal and I walk – he stops to sniff and I look above me to try to identify bird calls.  Today’s cardinal had a long whistle with a series of chirps after it.  His bright red coat standing out among the blossoms of the pear tree.  While the leaves may be just beginning, the blossoms in the tree are at their height of flourish.

Which brings me to the robins.  Admittedly, it’s been a long time since I have regularly seen robins, but the robins of my youth were slim, red-breasted fellows who would eye you with a beady eye as they searched for worms.  The robins here are fat, beastly boys who also seem to be incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.  I haven’t quite made up my mind on this one.

Either incredibly smart because when I approach them on the path, they don’t fly off.  They seemingly ignore me as if to say, “Yeah, you humans are the least of our worries.  You’re on two legs and don’t really bother us.”  Conversely, they could just be unbelievably dumb to ignore the threat, of me, and are just blithely oblivious to impending doom.

Fat – I think this comes from the wormage factor here in State College.  (Wormage – while not appearing in Merriam Webster, it proudly boasts recognition from the Urban Dictionary – just too fun not to use!)  Not sure if I mentioned in a previous post that when it rains here, the worms surface in abundance.  In fact, the side walks, bike paths, and driveways are littered with worms during the rain.  This wriggling mass  from the phylum Annelida turns to a carnage-strewn avian smorgasbord by late afternoon.  Thus resulting in portly robins who I daresay will continue to enjoy April showers.

By the by, and wholly unrelated to the above, in my quest for a string of alliteration for the letter ‘p’, I came across three heretofore unknown words that I am baffled exist:

paneity – The state of being bread.   (Really, need I say more?)

pardine  – Of or pertaining to leopards. (I guess if you are in the pardine business this is a useful word)

perdricide – Killer of partridges.  (Perhaps, more common in the early 20th and 19th centuries, when killing partridges was de rigueur.)

Well, suffice it to say, robins in State College are in no fear of starvation.

As ever,

K. Quinn

Soldiering on a bit in the unadventurous… yesterday I worked on letters, set up an interview, and reached out to several contacts to see about some introductions.  So that was not particularly exciting.

We are on a salad regime this week, so last night was the first salad – a nod to the French.  A warm goat cheese salad which turned out to be light and delicious.  Walnut vinaigrette, blueberry sauce (not like a pie filling – and just a smear to compliment the cheese), prosciutto, and pear slices.  Tonight will be pecan crusted chicken on a bed of greens with a Dijon vinaigrette.  Join us for a bite.

I managed to keep up my running – put in 4.5 miles – but now I can’t get map my run to correctly calculate the run – it keeps saying I did a 20 minute mile… which although it sort of felt like that I know to be impossible because it took less than an hour to do.  hmmmm.  At least I am moving forward.

And, my great knitting escapade continues.  I have finished the cuff and half the leg of one sock.  Reading ahead… which I am known to do… I am a bit concerned with the next section – the heel.  None of the instructions are making sense, and the helpful tips books I picked up at the library aren’t providing any guidance either.  Does this mean I am knitting a leg warmer?  Must get through heel.

So sums up my Monday.  Hope your mundane is as riveting.

As ever,

K. Quinn