Movie Clip Monday--Food makes all the difference

Whenever I get home from grocery shopping (which is almost daily), I think to myself, Happiness is a full fridge. Food is on the bottom level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. You can't do much of anything without it.

I've been working with a great charity for the past month and wanted to share it. Food For Children is a branch of my local food bank. And every dollar they get provides five meals for children. And not just canned pantry items. Half of that is fresh produce. The stuff that smells and tastes oh! So good!

This video has some great interviews with families who benefit from the program. There are also some kids claiming that their favorite foods are broccoli and carrots. How fantastic is that?

I encourage everyone to donate time or money if they're able. If you're not from the area, you can find your local food bank here. Kids are out of school, so now is a great opportunity to help keep their refrigerators (and stomachs) full.

My blog is moving! Check is out at www.sunnysanguinity.com. Thanks for reading!

Happy birthday to me!

It's my birthday week. Hell, it's my birthday month! I've always been a big fan of birthdays--it's like your own little holiday.

I'm not huge on gifts. That's not to say I won't accept them. I guess I just prefer the gift of someone's company to anything that can be purchased from a store. And I won't turn down a beer either.

But since it's my birthday week, I feel like I can get away with going down my wish list. I already have a few people committed to helping me with this; I hope you're in too.

I want:

• Success in whatever we all strive to do. Let's meet our goals. Let's be as awesome as possible.
• More friendly moments. Let's be nicer to store clerks, bank tellers, wait staff, people you pass on the street, census agents, and fellow drivers (even the morons).
• Honesty. If you can't make it, don't say you can. If you want to know if that outfit makes you look fat, be prepared to hear yes. Let's be real.
• Nuclear disarmament. Hey! It's my birthday wish list.
• More green moments. Let's walk to the store. Hold your nose, empty, wash and recycle that old plastic dish in the fridge.
• A few more questions. Remember when conventional wisdom said the earth was flat? There's gotta be more of that out there. Let's find it!
• Love. Embrace the love you have. Extend the love you give.

The more we want for everyone, the more we will all have. I know this is my birthday wish list, but I'd like to think it benefits many. If you're in, thanks for playing! If not, I hope to see you the next time the game comes around.

God loves the Easter Bunny

I love Easter. Spring is here. Baseball season is starting. My birthday is always around that time. And lilacs smell amazing...

But really, let's not forget the most important part: Cadbury Eggs!! While I can say that I've grown up in a few ways, these will forever remind me of being a kid and eating them with my dad.

Delicious. And Sante bought me a 4 pack even though he can't eat any (damn that lactose)! Now that's a good man.

Life Goal No. 14

It's a life goal of mine to see the Olympics. I'm not picky. Any Olympic event will do. Any place in the world will do. Every few years I revisit this goal when the games come on TV.

The Olympics are some of the coolest events in the world because originally they were created to honor the Greek gods, all sorts of amazing athletes show up and it's one of the few times the world comes together to celebrate something positive.

My best girlfriend from Norway will watch her friends compete in downhill skiing events in Vancouver today. How insanely awesome is that?!? She asked me to go, but I told her I just couldn't swing it.

What she doesn't know is that her friend is picking me up at the airport on their way out of Seattle (she thinks her friend is picking up some clients) before they drive to Vancouver. Today. At 3pm.

Oh. My. God. I can't tell you how impossible of a secret this was to keep. Fulfilling a life goal, traveling to a new city AND surprising my best friend I haven't seen in three months? AHHHH!!! I am so excited and I just want to share it with everyone! Life is good!

Life's a roadtrip: Pay attention to the signs.

Finding out a musician I just started getting into wrote a lot of the trashy pop songs I love

A week of sunshine when every forecaster saw rain


Blogging to pay the bills


Meeting a man who loves cookies as much as I do

May everyone be as blessed with happy accidents as I have been.

A letter to my 18-year-old self

I was inspired by this blog post to write a letter to my younger self. Here's a picture of who I am writing to:

That's me on the right.

Dear Rebecca,

You don’t know me, but I am you. I am writing to you from about 12 years in the future. I know you have an active imagination, but you still may have trouble grasping that. Just know that rolling your jeans is coming back into style, the planet is still in one piece (barely), and thankfully people are still listening to The Cure.

I have thought about a lot of different things to say to you. I like to write, as you know, and this letter could be miles long. I wonder if you would devour it or toss it aside to read when you had “time.” I’d like to think your rabid curiosity could sustain your interest, but you’re in high school right now, so let’s be realistic. You have other things to do.

I thought about telling you to pick your writing teacher’s brain, to not start smoking, and to skip the math major bullshit, but I know you hate being told what to do, so I’ll skip that. I would like you to know that someday you’ll laugh about being called a slut when you were a virgin and pity those who teased you for god-knows-what, but I know all of that hurts now. And plus, it makes you a stronger woman. (Just keep your chin up, girl!)

This is all I have: Every decision you are about to make is the right one. Not necessarily at that moment. Or even for the moment after that. You will experience setbacks that you think you’ll never recover from. You will wonder why the hell you were put on this planet.

But know this: The life you have is amazing. And 12 years from where you are now, you are going to look back and not have a single regret. What you do now makes you what you are later. Be confident. You will get what you want, even if it takes a few tries.

I love you. I'm proud of you. Keep up the optimistic attitude. It suits you.

Your friend,

Rebecca

An ode to Joanne, or My mom rules

It's that time of year again, and I'm not talking about Christmas. It's Sagittarius birthday time. I tend to attract them. One of the centaurs that has been in my life the longest is my mother. In fact, it's her birthday tomorrow.

Now we've had our ups and downs, but the fact is that she agreed to give birth to me, raise me as best she could and then unleash me onto the world.

Here (in no particular order) are five things that remind me of my mom, Joanne.

My mom read this book to me when I was very young. In fact, she instilled in me a great love of reading. Because of this, her attempts to get me to go to sleep at a decent hour were no match for the flashlight and good book I had under my bed. I was accused of not being a morning person--how much of a morning person could I be when I was up until 4am reading? Thanks Mom, for giving me the gift of reading. (I wouldn't be a writer without it.)

OK I know it's cheesy, but my mom would sing this song to me at night before I went to bed. And it's one of my favorite memories of being young. And it reminds me of how (as my mom told it) when I was born it was a record breaking heat wave, and she and I would open the windows in the hospital and reach for the sun.

Love it or hate it, it reminds me of my mom. "I'll have a small french fry and a medium diet coke." I can't count the number of times I have been on the phone with her and she says, "Hold on, I'm just in the drive through... *speaks above order* ...so anyway, I was playing this beautiful song on the piano..." If my mom wasn't in such good shape, I would say something to her about it. But hey, she laid off me and my smoking, so I can't say much. And since there is a McDonalds in every country around the world, this assures that I will think of her no matter where I go.

Lefse. My mom helped me achieve a life-long goal last year when she came to my apartment and showed me how to make lefse, a Norwegian treat. It was something that had long mystified and intimidated me. And it was delicious.

Mom went out, took a class and voila! She became a lefse extraordinaire! And when I was asked to make lefse the night before Thanksgiving this year, I didn't bat an eye. You want five pounds? Oh yah, sure! You betcha!

These words:

You can do anything.

You can be anything.

You could run a small county.

My mom said these to me over and over and over. When I was younger I saw this as pressure on me to do everything. What took me a while to realize is that she was just telling me she believed in me. And there is nothing more important a mom can do.

I wouldn't be the woman I am today without Joanne. I wouldn't have moved across a continent with the hope that I could get paid as a writer and then actually get a job as a writer if it wasn't for her belief in me. And that is the coolest thing ever.

Mom, I love you. Thanks for putting your energy, love and devotion toward me. Thanks for never giving up on me. And thanks for being you. I hope you have a great birthday!

Gangsta For Life (G4L)!

I've been listening to a lot of hip hop and Top 40 bullshit lately. Some people have reality TV, others trashy romance novels -- my guilty pleasure is terribly bad music. Or at least it is terribly bad to the music fascists out there. It makes me happy. So really, what's wrong with that?

My roommate and I were listening to the radio in the car last night and Rihanna's new song Hard was playing. I commented that she was on Def Jam now and had to get some street cred. Read: Pop/Rap song with Young Jeezy. Oh dear lord. Can you believe how ridiculous it is that I know this? (BTW: Check out the song. I really like it.)

hard - rihanna ft young jeezy

I started thinking about how silly real life would be if we all acted like hip hop artists:

I stayed up partying past midnight last weekend. We were drinking Sierra Nevada and sauteing shrimp for dinner. Watching Curb Your Enthusiasm we rented from NetFlix: Larry David is a genius. I'm not scared to laugh.

I caught the 71 from Aptos to Watsonville. It runs once an hour. Some of the drivers know me. I look so fly walking to the bus stop that cars driving by honk and people wave. I wave back. Yeah, I know I rule.

During the week I kick it at Smith Micro Software. I'm always writing the coolest shit so people will want to buy our software. Other software companies are wishing they had our products. Their marketers would kill for my skills.

After work I'm hitting up Target for some Clear Care contact solution and Crest Whitening Toothpaste. You don't wanna question my hygiene. I'll shower once, maybe twice, a day. But I'm not washing my hair that often. Don't get it twisted.

I don't always ride the bus. Sometimes I walk. I can walk for miles. I walk 3 miles every day. Up hills and shit. That's how tough I am. Once in a while I ride in my roommate's Ford Focus. Or my boyfriend's Toyota Tundra. I don't know if it has sweet rims or anything, but I would bet it does. He doesn't play.

And that was just this past week! I gotta say, I feel pretty hard. And awesome. Don't hate. Give it a try. You just might find out you're extraordinary.

P.S. Rihanna's new look is really hot. And I am going to shamelessly promote her and her new album, which kicks ass and is being released November 23.

According to my friends, I've been Californiaized

It's been a few days since I arrived home and (I think) the jet lag has passed. My clothes are clean and my luggage is back in its place in the closet.

Although I miss my sweet sweet friend dearly, there is something so nice about coming home. So in the spirit of my last post, here are some things (in no particular order) I love about California:

• I can call it home! I've lived here for four months, and when I was missing home on my trip, I was missing California. I feel settled in and that I belong here--more than any place in a long while.


• My kitchen! I had a great time cooking in Norway. I learned how to prepare different fish, make mushroom sauce (mmm...mushrooms) and that there are loads of things you can put on bread. But there is something so nice about coming home and baking bread in my own oven. My first loaves: oatmeal cinnamon raisin breakfast bread. Oh yeah. It's amazing.

• My friends and roommate. The few friends I've made here are great ones. And as they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. My roommate and I get along famously regardless, but I will say that installing a washer and dryer while I was gone made me even more happy to see him.
  
  Here's a pic of him and me in San Francisco a few months back. We went to visit friends and family. It's so nice to have people that care about me in California. It's pretty awesome considering how little time I have been here.




• The food! I know, I know! But food provides energy for life. We have to eat it, so I have decided to enjoy it. And damn! I missed the taquerias. I love spicy food -- peppers and hot sauce of any kind. I am using the word "love" about hot sauce and I am not ashamed. A good friend of mine and I made these huevos rancheros for breakfast a few weeks ago. I guess I eat like a queen in Cali too.



Oh California! Thanks for such a warm homecoming. I feel so blessed to be living in this beautiful state. It's full of possibilities and wonder. I've only begun exploring.

(You will notice the weather is not on this list. Although I love it, it is chili here. It's a humid coolness, and that chills to the bone. I realize that coming from Minnesota I shouldn't complain, and I'm trying not to. It's for this reason that my friends make fun of me for being Californiaized. I dare say I would not make it through a Minneapolis winter now.)

Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday

My flight to Oslo was on Swiss Air. I'm a fan. The flight attendants were friendly, I only waited for the bathroom once, wine was free, and the food was decent. Although it was airline food, it was served with real silverware. For some reason, that made it for me. Serve me tasteless pasta and I'll be disappointed, but give it to me with a silver fork and I can't stop raving about it!

My friend and I were talking last night about how  it's the little things that make life so great. I brought up the silverware. She talked about the stranger on the street who complimented her hat. She said that if we paid more attention to the small stuff, the big stuff would hardly matter.

I agree. I have a white board in my room that I see every morning when I wake up. It lists all the things I can think of to be thankful for. Inevitably it has the big things like my room and food -- things on the bottom of the hierarchy of needs. However, most of what is on there are things like wine, friends, pilates, trees, stars, and (of course) my blog.

I have had all sorts of experiences in the past week or so that I am thankful for. And since I don't have my white board, I figured my blog would do just fine.

My friend and her family have had me in their home for the past week; there has been fresh fruit, homemade bread, more cheese (or ost in Norsk) than you can shake a stick at, and all the coffee, water and wine I could want. I truly thank them for their hospitality. I feel like part of the family.

My dear friend in Oslo picked me up at the airport, booked a train for himself and me to Trondheim, and will take a day off from work to show me around the city next week. I am so blessed to have met him through a church celebration of Norway's independence in Minneapolis. Yeah, I know. That's the Universe having a sense of humor right there.

The weather in Trondheim reminds me of Minneapolis around this time. Cold, windy and just a bit damp. Very fall. Very crisp. Thank you to Trondheim for confirming that I made the right decision by moving to California. Although it could get this cold where I live now, it won't get colder (like it will in my former post) and for that I am truly thankful!

Some people say the devil is in the details. I tend to disagree. Don't sweat the small stuff? I don't know about that, but then I don't sweat much of anything. The little things in life are what we really remember. They stick out in our brain for years. If there isn't toilet paper in a restaurant, I would be willing to bet we remember that longer than what we ordered for dinner. 

In the spirit of the little things, I would like to say thank you to everyone in my life that I know and to those I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet for making it so amazing. I love you all! 

What would you eat for a last meal?

There are certain questions I like to ask that I feel tell a lot about someone:

--How do you like your eggs?
--If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
--Do you have a criminal record?

These questions don't have a right or wrong answer. They're just telling, y'know? And this weekend I was speaking to some people about my adventures of late, and I realized, I basically answered the question "What would you take to a deserted island?" Oh, and here's a picture of my answer.




Watermelon (for hydration, of course!), my bread, wine (man can not live on bread alone), Henry David Thoreau's Walden, and well, a cigarette. (I know, I know. Dammit!)

Most of us really don't need much. In fact, I like to remind myself that I don't need anything. But oxygen is good. And I really do dig sunshine. And I'll begrudgingly admit that gravity has its benefits. Maybe the things we need are what we cannot capture.

Laughter, happiness and love are the oxygen, sunshine and gravity of our lives. They're impossible to capture, and the science behind them is mind-blowing. So, although I really like my cigarettes, booze and literature, I'm certain I could make it on a deserted island as long as I had some good company.

I counted 21 blessings in less than an hour

On Tuesday my girlfriend called me excitedly to tell me about the meteor shower that was happening that evening. She knew I was having a rough day (what's with Tuesday's anyway?) and thought This would definitely make her Tuesday. She was right.

Unfortunately for me, my new locale tends to haze up in the evenings. I looked out at the sky in vain; the clouds had rolled in. I tried to be optimistic: I can still feel the good energy raining down on me from the Universe. But oh how I wished I could see the magnificent display!

Wednesday night my roommate had had enough of looking at a screen, so we opted to sit outside and drink some beer instead of watching a movie. What a great idea. I saw 21 shooting stars. He saw 25. We were comparing: was No. 18 as good as No. 15? It was a beautiful evening.

I saw on the news today that the meteor shower can be witnessed for the entire week. This was after I decided to just be happy with the energy passing my way, not be sad about not seeing it, and got an unexpected surprise.

Life is like that a lot. Many times we give up on something or become negative about life because it's not handed to us exactly the way we thought it should be or expected it. But so many of life's blessings are not given to us wrapped up the pretty paper we want them to be.

There are so many cliches that encourage us to see how beautiful life is. Carpe diem! Live life to the fullest! Live every day like it's your last! Being a journalist, I tend to avoid these. But I think there's a reason they are cliches: They're true, and the people that believe them really believe in them.

Reh Dogg asks: "Why must I cry?" I do not ... I love Friday the 13th!

On Friday the 13th I received the following things before 9 am:

• A carnation
• A Twix candy bar
• A bagel with cream cheese
• A loaf of bread
  

And I wore my Bon Jovi shirt. And one of my favorite bands is playing tonight...and I'm getting in for free. I have a three day weekend.

What I really want to know is what could make this day better? Oh I know! Watching Rey Dogg!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPIiOd3thu0

Park Point reminds me of the ocean in many ways

July 20, 2008 - Sunday

I sat on the beach yesterday and it rained after 30 minutes or so. Today I laid out at the beach for about two hours. I played sand volleyball on a patio downtown. What a lovely weekend. I can't believe I didn't start enjoying them sooner.

I have this book called 50 Things that Really Matter. It has things like bubble baths, a good cup of coffee and afternoon naps.The idea of the book is to find value in what really matters in life instead of looking for meaning in material things. I guess I don't really have a problem with that, but I like the book.

There are so many things that make me sigh with contentment. I think I could fill a book with hundreds of things that really matter. The one that comes to mind today though is going barefoot in the sand. The grittiness in between your toes and how soft it makes your feet feel--it always reminds me of summer. Plus I love how different places have different types of sand and how soft some of it can be. And isn't it crazy how sand can be so hot it can burn you?

Things change and get crazy sometimes but I think these sort of things need to be considered more often than they maybe do. At least that's my take on it today.