unanswered prayers

"Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers"

laptop

Almost nothing beats sitting on a 70s style couch in a funky coffee shop drinking an almond steamer, watching a great movie on a friend's laptop, and having free wireless connection,... what? I said almost nothing.

cannonball

I have just discovered a wonderful artist... Damien Rice. You should check him out. His voice, His guitar, and the cello. Wow. Amazing.

naked

Today I arrived on campus without my cellphone in tow. I didn't realize it until I got to the CBA and needed to make a phone call. I felt so naked. I never wanted to be this attached to a device that I would feel such a missing without it, but here I am. And I do, I feel so lost, so naked without my phone.

(note to reader: there is a difference between feeling naked and being naked).

i want to buy cheeken blests

I have moved into a two bedroom apartment with two non-native English speaking girls. One is from Taiwan, is 30-something, recently engaged, and speaks near-'goodier' English. *wink* Her name is Molly. The second, her roommate Ruth, is from Korea. A very cute 23 yr-old church kid who is here to study English and introduces herself as "Hi, my name is Luth," has quite a bit of trouble comprehending her new-fastpaced-English-speaking-housemate (Me).

I took Ruth to the grocery store last night and discovered that she wanted to purchase chicken breasts. . . between giggles she pats her chest beneath her jacket and says, "I want to buy, uhm, cheeken (pointing to her chest) *giggle*, uhm. . . blests." *giggle, giggle, shy nod* "Chicken breasts?" I inquired to which she replied, *giggle* "Uhm, yes. Cheeken blests." I nearly died laughing in the store. She's so cute. I can already tell that this is going to be an interesting semester.

is there any way to turn this off?

I just spent the past two days with perhaps the most annoying person that walks the face of this planet. The Mouth as I will refer to her stayed with me and shadowed my day on Monday. She road with me in cars and in buses, sat with me through appointments and even attended a dinner gathering with me at the end of the day. To cap off the night was the ride home. Blah! Blah! Blah! (And I thought I talked a lot). As if The Mouth's incessant banter was not enough to torment you, her voice, or should I say her squeak was perhaps exactly what you might expect to come out of her tall wirery frame and tight lips. The Mouth had not been graced with much of a figure. Sure, she had her height to speak of, but The Mouth was not short of things to speak of. She didn't look like she had birthed her two children, thin as she was. I quickly learned that they were both girls, ages 7 and 9. I wasn't surprised when she told me(because she had no lack of telling) that she was bed-ridden through those pregnancies. I could go on and on concerning what else I had learned about The Mouth and everything else leaving her mouth in these past two days, but I will leave it at this. . . spare you the exhaustion of having a further ear-full (or in this case an eye-full) of endless bantering.

ripe

There is an eating experience that one should never be without when they come to Portland. It is with Ripe. My sister arranged for my family to attend a 'family dinner' there for our mother's birthday and my last day in Portland before my move. It was truly a delectible experience for your whole being. All the food was utterly divine and prepared by famous chefs onsight. The atmosphere is so relaxing (no pushy waiters) even though you are at three long tables in a large open modern-urban kitchen. Honestly I can't do an adequate job of decribing it right now. Let's just say that I want to go back and if I could I would take you. There is only one menu on a given night. . . so one doesn't have to deal with making a decision while they are there. . . unless that decision is for another glass of wine. *wink* Be open. The food they cook is often something that you wouldn't know to choose off a menu, but is ALWAYS delicious (even the lentils!).

Menu

arugula with shaved fennel, valencia oranges and pecorino

celery root and oregon white and black truffle risotto

seared tombo tuna with olive caper salsa

swiss chard and green lentils with mint


tiamisu

100 Ways to say I love you

A little something to help us all interpret what's being said. . .

Afrikaans- Ek het jou lief
Albanian- Te dua
Arabic - Ana behibak (to male)
Arabic- Ana behibek (to female)
Armenian- Yes kez sirumen
Bambara- M\'bi fe
Bangla- Aamee tuma ke bhalo aashi
Belarusian - Ya tabe kahayu
Bisaya - Nahigugma ako kanimo
Bulgarian- Obicham te
Cambodian- Soro lahn nhee ah
Cantonese Chinese - Ngo oiy ney a
Catalan- T\'estimo
Cheyenne - Ne mohotatse
Chichewa - Ndimakukonda
Corsican - Ti tengu caru (to male)
Creol - Mi aime jou
Croatian - Volim te
Czech - Miluji te
Danish- Jeg Elsker Dig
Dutch- Ik hou van jou
Esperanto- Mi amas vin
Estonian- Ma armastan sind
Ethiopian - Afgreki\'
Faroese- Eg elski teg
Farsi- Doset daram
Filipino- Mahal kita
Finnish- Mina rakastan sinua
French- Je t\'aime
Gaelic- Ta gra agam ort
Georgian - Mikvarhar
German - Ich liebe dich
Greek- S\'agapo
Gujarati - Hoo thunay prem karoo choo
Hiligaynon - Palangga ko ikaw
Hawaiian- Aloha wau ia oi
Hebrew - Ani ohev otah (to female)
Hebrew - Ani ohev et otha (to male)
Hiligaynon - Guina higugma ko ikaw
Hindi - Hum Tumhe Pyar Karte hae
Hmong - Kuv hlub koj
Hopi - Nu\' umi unangwa\'ta
Hungarian- Szeretlek
Icelandic- Eg elska tig
Ilonggo - Palangga ko ikaw
Indonesian- Saya cinta padamu
Inuit- Negligevapse
Irish - Taim i\' ngra leat
Italian- Ti amo
Japanese- Aishiteru
Kannada- Naanu ninna preetisuttene
Kapampangan - Kaluguran daka
Kiswahili - Nakupenda
Konkani - Tu magel moga cho
Korean - Sarang Heyo
Latin - Te amo
Latvian - Es tevi miilu
Lebanese- Bahibak
Lithuanian - Tave myliu
Malay - Saya cintakan mu / Aku cinta padamu
Malayalam - Njan Ninne Premikunnu
Mandarin Chinese- Wo ai ni
Marathi- Me tula prem karto
Mohawk- Kanbhik
Moroccan - Ana moajaba bik
Nahuatl - Ni mits neki
Navaho - Ayor anosh\'ni
Norwegian- Jeg Elsker Deg
Pandacan - Syota na kita!!
Pangasinan - Inaru Taka
Papiamento - Mi ta stimabo
Persian- Doo-set daaram
Pig Latin - Iay ovlay ouyay
Polish - Kocham Ciebie
Portuguese - Eu te amo
Romanian - Te ubesk
Russian - Ya tebya liubliu
Scot Gaelic - Tha gradh agam ort
Serbian - Volim te
Setswana - Ke a go rata
Sindhi - Maa tokhe pyar kendo ahyan
Sioux- Techihhila
Slovak - Lu`bim ta
Slovenian - Ljubim te
Spanish - Te quiero / Te amo
Swahili - Ninapenda wewe
Swedish - Jag alskar dig
Swiss-German- Ich lieb Di
Tagalog - Mahal kita
Tahitian- Ua Here Vau Ia Oe
Tamil - Nan unnai kathalikaraen
Telugu - Nenu ninnu premistunnanu
Thai - Chan rak khun (to male)
Thai- Phom rak khun (to female)
Turkish - Seni Seviyorum
Ukrainian - Ya tebe kahayu
Urdu - mai aap say pyaar karta hoo
Vietnamese- Anh ye^u em (to female)
Vietnamese- Em ye^u anh (to male)
Welsh- \'Rwy\'n dy garu
Yiddish - Ikh hob dikh
Yoruba - Mo ni fe

Thank you Wendy for this fun post.

a 180 plus 360 - and angels

I believe in guardian angels. I must have a whole lot of them, because I am still alive today. Lord knows how much I get paranoid about riding in cars with people whom I don't trust their driving. . .and rightfully so, seeing that I have been in numerous car accidents while being a passenger. The fear all began when I was riding with a girl I hardly knew and she cut off a huge truck while 'merging' and it messed us up pretty bad. I had a small thought before the drive that I wasn't sure if I should go with someone who's driving I had yet to observe. With cronic back pain still to this day, I can tell you, I don't easily place myself in such a situation. I'll stay home gladly over driving with a driver who's skill or lack thereof scares the crud out of me. Once that same girl tried to make me get into a car with a new-foreign driver who was completely a wreck herself and super scared to be driving anyways. . . and all I could say to that was, "Hell, no! Nuh-uh! Sorry. That's so not going to happen." She had the nerver to tell me that maybe if I prayed about it I would feel better and just get into the car. Uhm, yah, right. No way! I mean, she (the foreign-driver) had already been in two accidents on her own and has panic attacks as she is driving where she lets go completely of the steering wheel and covers her eyes and screams (this was what she told me, I, of course, wasn't there to witness that). There is no amount of praying that will get me into a car with a driver like that! Lately it's gotten to the point where I don't even get into the car with others when I have a bad vibe. I mean, God gives us those kind of senses for the purpose of keeping us safe. No use ignoring them and pushing them aside. Take heed to that inner voice. It may very well save your life.

The other day while riding on the access road for I-35 (in the hard texas rain, no less) the driver of the car I was riding in breaked so hard that we took off into a spin over the three lanes and stopped facing the oncoming traffic. She screamed and I had to bring her to her senses and coach her to turn the car back around as the traffic was heading straight for us. Praise God the cars were able to stop in time and we didn't hit anything nor did anything hit us. Needless to say, she is a very apprehensive driver and had no experience of driving in the rain. . . luckily for me she happily/shakily pulled over and handed the car over to a native-rain driver.