Things that get me out of bed on a cold Tuesday morning in April

1. Homemade granola: So granola has become my newest culinary obsession because it combines three of my favorite things -- saving money, bulk foods, honey-covered baked goods. Last night I was feeling DOWN, raided the bulk foods at Madison Market, headed home and immediately set to work furiously toasting honey-glazed oats and almonds and sunflower seeds. Does my apartment smell delicious? Yes. Is my tummy full of goodness at 9 a.m. this morning? Yes. Do I now possess enough granola to feed a small country for a year? Fo sho. Wins all around.

2. The threat of sunshine: Hey sunny, I saw you peeking out from under my blinds this morning. It's okay, baby; I don't bite. Come gimme summat sweet Vitamin D.

3. An inflamed right tonsil: HO. LY. WOW. It hurts. It hurts! What is it about sore throats that makes everything feel icksville? My teeth hurt, my ear hurts, my sinuses hurt. And as to where this came from, well, I'm pleading the fifth.

4. Major endowments: Of the college persuasion, dirtymind. Columbia just gave me 12 credits free next year ... that's about $12k I don't have to stress about. And/or a year's worth of rent in Brooklyn. And so the benefits of a well-endowed Ivy League university begin to reveal themselves. I'll take 'em.

5. http://www.theonion.com/content/news/son_of_a_bitch_mouse_solves_maze Aww, son of a bitch mouse!

6. NOT TALKING ABOUT Pennsylvania. I'm already overwrought.

growth!

you know, out of all of the million things i have to talk about today, including but not limited to us attorneys, uk work visas and brown rice, all i really want to talk about are my tomato plants. look how big they're getting! compare picture one (behind the dahlia) to picture two: and that's only been two weeks! i was so pessimistic, but it looks like they're going to make it afterall! boys are going to be big. yay for sunshine and the promise of cherry tomatoes. i'm also pretty in love with amy winehouse's 'i'm no good.' it's my running song tonight.

thursdayfriday roundup

best thing about working for a jesuit university? paid catholic holidays! tgigf, or something. some tidbits: - if you live in seattle and haven't looked outside yet, do so. can you believe it? it's 75 degrees. i ran to volunteer park and back today at lunch, and my lungs didn't freeze. hallelujah! - you can't believe how difficult it is to give away free labor. i've been trying to pawn myself off to a local museum for the past month, to no avail. w-t-f. i'm a decent, cupcake-baking human trying to give you 30 hours of my time. W-T-F. - one of my colleagues gave me free tickets to a pnb dress rehearsal last night and i had the chance to see mark morris' 'pacific' from one of the best seats in the house...for free! when sharon cumberland ("blah i went to private school in italy blah blah antonio banderas fan club blah") made us watch a documentary on mark morris in sophomore brit lit class, i wrote him off, assuming that anything she recommended was full of pretense and assholishness. i was wrong. wrong wrong wrong. this dance was incredible. the staging was brilliant. the costumes were brilliant. the indian influenced dancing was brilliant. go see it: http://www.pnb.org tickets are cheap. - so i guess minis are back? i went shopping last weekend and bought what i thought were "tunics"/long shirts but was told by the fashion consultants on the today show this morning that short dresses are the cat's meow. and i mean SHORT. this is one of those timeless signs of getting older: the inability to wear anything in public that may accidentally show off my ass. i just can't do it anymore. - we are headed to pdx tomorrow afternoon and i couldn't be more excited to spend some time in my 2nd favorite city. speaking of pretentious assholes, there's an itsy damien hirst exhibit at pam which will be a top priority this weekend. if you don't know damien hirst, you should, even if he just makes you angry. he's an asshole. a brilliant, art-factory owning, i-copyrighted-and-then-sued-british-airways-for-using-colored-polka-dots asshole. love him!