Archive for July, 2009

Closed-Toed Shoes

In the midst of putting things away, I discovered half a sheet of paper from sophomore year with the lyrics to a song I wrote called “Closed-Toed Shoes” in response to Katherine McPhee’s “Open Toes”, which, to be fair has incredibly vapid lyrics which Rob wouldn’t stop singing at the time. Here is what I apparently decided to write as a “revenge song”. I don’t remember anything particular about the night in question, or if I also made up a melody, but I can guarantee you that it all went down in the OC Lounge.

Closed-Toed Shoes
By Patricia Holla! Ladd

I’m goin’ out
It’s a Friday night
Gonna shake my sweet
Ass just right

But then–what’s that?
Oh no!
My feet
They really smell

Close-toed Shoes! Close-toed shoes!
Hide the odor and athlete’s foot!
Hide those unsightly deformities
Deformities because my parents are related!
Close-toed shoes!

They say I’m mad hot
I say “Whadyou expect?”
And as long as I keep on my shoes (close toed)
They won’t know any different

Close-toed shoes! Close-toed shoes!
Just keep them on to conceal
The fact that you have 7 toes

I think I should give up finding a job and just wait for the royalties to roll on in. I’ll give Rob a cut, since his annoying taste in music was my inspiration.

DMVentures Continue!

I got up earlier than necessary today to write the post below so that I would have fulfilled all other obligations before heading to the DMV to get my car registered here, believing, based on my previous DMVodyssey, that it would take all day.

NOT SO! Here is the evidence, barely half an hour after I originally left:

I like how you can see Steven's reflection in Trixie, the fact that he is not wearing shoes forever preserved

I like how you can see Steven's reflection in Trixie, the fact that he is not wearing shoes forever preserved

Trixie, naturally, is devastated, and pouted almost the entire way home. Luckily, an SUV winked at her at a stoplight, which I think lifted her spirits a little. Or, at least, proved that she can still be flirty as a North Carolina resident. She says it’ll be okay, as long as she never goes back to Florida. She doesn’t think she could hold her hood up now, amongst all those flashy convertibles with their tramp stamp spoilers.

I’ve anthropomorphized Trixie so much now that, if anything should happen to her, I will probably be inconsolable for days and demand that funerary rights be held.

Confession Time

As well as telling the Internet my greatest triumphs like appearing on NASCAR News or being Hannah Montana, it seems only fair that I also write my greatest embarrassments so that no one gets jealous of how awesome I am.

Confession: I recently bought Twilight.
I know, I know, I feel awful about it. Especially since I’ve already managed to read the first three books through extreme patience and library-fu. Buying a Twilight book is shameful. Buying a Twilight book you’ve already read is definitely more shameful. To be fair, it is on my reading list for my Young Adult Literature Class next semester, and I did buy it at a used book store for $3. I don’t think any of that went to Stephanie Meyer, so I still feel pretty okay about the practical facts, but my reputation may never recover. I knew this would be necessary since the tens or hundreds of people on the waiting list for it back at my library at home would make it impossible to guarantee my having it a specific week for class, but, oddly, this morning when I went online to request the fourth book, Breaking Dawn, to write a wildly popular review of it, I found that I was number FOUR on the list. And there are EIGHT copies. I’ll probably have it tomorrow. I’m shocked by Twilight’s apparent lack of popularity here, until I realized that a typo in the description of the book calls the vapid main character “Ellen Swan” instead of “Bella Swan”, thus confusing legions of preteen girls. Suckers.

In Penance for this: I vow to be as sarcastic and withering as possible to the inevitable one or two people in our class discussion who will gush endlessly about how much they love Twilight.

Confession: I am incurring library fines AS WE SPEAK
As a librarian, this is incredibly shameful. It gets worse: the source of these fines is none other than the book-on-CD version of I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You. To be fair, I didn’t steal it so that it could be mine forever, but simply forgot to give it to Mom Ladd before her return to Florida and have since been unable to find it to mail it back myself. Trixie probably hid it. Which means that, years from now, someone will pull it from some secret compartment in the back seat, stare at it with raised eyebrows, and then say “Patricia R. Ladd, why do you own this?” in a disgusted tone.

In penance for this: I vow to NOT punch them in the face.

Confession: I stole a full set of cutlery from the Servery
Which I am using EVEN NOW, hundreds of miles away. Just like my embarrassing library fines, I didn’t do this on purpose either. I just sort of found various spoons and forks and knives in various purses and book bags while attempting to pack. On the plus side, it can be very useful to have a fork in your purse, in case someone offers you free but messy food while out and about. On the minus side, they tend to look at you a little funny, and I may be the sole reason why the Servery is losing money.

In Penance for this: I vow to only eat with said cutlery things worthy of the Servery. Meaning anything I cook while really tired or am having one of those haphazard “well, I’m sure applesauce is a fine substitution for flour” kind of days.

There. Now my conscience is clear.

DMVentures! Also, some pictures!

This morning I celebrated my mom’s birthday by spending three hours at the DMV to get a North Carolina Driver’s License. This DMVodyssey actually began two days ago, when I realized that we would have to retake the tests before getting a license. I spent the day feverishly reading the handbook and trying to remember the exact distance you should be from the curb when parallel parking. Then yesterday when we started off on this intrepid task, we realized quickly that we had no idea where we were going, having forgotten to look up the address. We decided that we’d definitely seen signs for it around, so got comfortably lost for about an hour, when we finally realized that the signs we’d seen were for “License Plate Agency” not “Driver’s License Agency”. Apparently to increase productivity and frustration, North Carolina splits up their DMV services amongst several smaller offices, all in strip malls of varying sketchiness. At that point, we gave up and bought baked potatoes instead.

Then, this morning, I knew success was at our fingertips! We got there at 9am, with all appropriate paperwork, armed with library books (yeah, library card before driver’s license, that’s how I roll). Unfortunately, fifty-three other people had arrived before it even opened and only two people were working. Since there was no room to wait inside, Steven and I spent the majority of the three hours sitting on the concrete curb outside. Luckily, lots of people gave up! And, finally, our perseverance was rewarded:

Yay!!!! It's like a Biblical fable, really. If you just wait long enough in the smell of cigarettes and desperation, you too can have a piece of plastic with your picture and organ donor status.

Yay!!!! It's like a Biblical fable, really. If you just wait long enough in the smell of cigarettes and desperation, you too can have a piece of plastic with your picture and organ donor status.

Read the rest of this entry »

Moving

Today as we were driving to the grocery store (Harris Teeter–I feel like I should be wearing a waistcoat and ordering mint juleps instead of buying apple juice and crispix) my Mom said, “The first thing I did this morning was check your blog. There was nothing…” in this disappointed voice, as if she thought I had somehow managed to update my blog while simultaneously moving furniture and unpacking boxes with her over the past few days. Luckily, our apartment now has the Internet! Unluckily, the wireless router is still MIA so the only place to get it is in the corner of the one room that has no furniture. So, that’s where I am, skillfully avoiding figuring out how to hang up my bike in a closet with the use of a stud finder, which, believe me, is not what it sounds like.

Here are the deets of the past few days. Sorry I don’t have pictures yet:
Read the rest of this entry »

NASCAR News Guest Appearance: The Power of Cousins

I am honored to be the first non-household pet and non-cardboard special guest!!!!

Follow more NASCAR News at Will’s blog.

PS, I am totally dominating at the Roadtrip: Lightning Round right now.

Roadtrip: Lightning Round! Winning Strategies

At the beginning of the final leg of this great race, I seem to have developed a much different strategy for success than my two esteemed competitors. Trixie has been enjoying the last day of living in the comfort of a garage by giving herself a full spa treatment, which includes doing meditative ignition exercises and only listening to the smooth jazz radio station. She even asked me to cut up round slices of melon to put on her windshield “for moisturizing” but I reminded her that her coat of wax would probably make that difficult. She accused me of attempted sabotage and I grudgingly bought her a full tank of gas. This partnership is already fraught with difficult.

Steven, in his usual inability to judge how long things will take, has apparently spent the last three days in non-stop packing activity, taking short breaks to steal shipping materials from behind businesses and, inexplicably, to engage in a little light woodworking. Since he’s been too busy to even talk to me, I can only assume that this is all part of a strategy to psych us out and make us overly confident. TOO BAD, Steven Wiggins, because I’ve totally read The Tortoise and the Hare, as well as its many variations “The Tortoise and the Hare Race to the Moon” or “M.C. Turtle and the Hip Hope Hare: A Nursery Rap”, (seriously). I’M A LIBRARIAN, YOU CAN’T FOOL ME WITH YOUR AESOP’S FABLE TRICKS! Naturally, Trixie and I will be upping our game to deal with this fake out.

Trixie suggested–in a strange fit of mature cooperation–that we get a book on CD from the library to avoid at least a few hours of fighting over the stereo (if she had her way it would be Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” for the full 12 hours). Unfortunately, there was only one checked in:

Its like Gossip Girl but with SPIES, apparently

It's like Gossip Girl but with SPIES, apparently


I was disappointed that we couldn’t listen to Harry Potter to get psyched for the movie on Wednesday, but Trixie called me a nerd and said that she could tell from the cover that this would be A-MAZING! I can only hope she is not leading me astray. She also pointed out that, since her hood extends a few feet from the driver’s seat, she will technically cross any finish line before me. I explained that I planed to park, get out, and run screaming across before coming back for her. She explained that she would use that opportunity to crush my legs.

I bet there’s a psychological disorder where you anthropomorphize all inanimate objects around you with real pills and self-help books and everything.

Anyway, since I will be leaving around 6am to avoid Tampa rush hour, I imagine this is the last you’ll be hearing from me for awhile. Hopefully I will have the Internet working in the apartment before Friday, when I can update you on the glories of North Carolina and, most importantly, who won this exciting competition, although the Twitter box on the right should have a blow by blow account as I can update from my phone.

See you on the other side.

Twilight for People Who Don’t Want to Read Twilight

Last summer at the library everyone was ALL ABOUT Twilight. Every teen girl in Seminole would come in every week to ask if Twilight was in yet, since our six copies had a 300 strong waiting list. Naturally, I got a little curious, but had to wait until the craze died down slightly (or until I was in one place for longer than three months–you aren’t even going to hit the 100s on the waiting list in three months) before investigating. Luckily the teen girls are mostly sated, and it’s now mostly third graders and the morbidly curious continuing the obsession. So if you too are morbidly curious, you have four options:

1. Wait six months on the waiting list at the library, enjoy the indignity when it finally comes in and the librarian has to pull Twilight from behind the desk and check it out for you, know that she is SO JUDGING YOU right now
2. Ask a teen girl about it, listen to two hours of “OH MY GOD EDWARD SO HOT!”, commit suicide
3. Actually pay money for it, hate yourself forever
4. Listen to my review, since I have successfully completed #1 on this list with my librarian-fu for the first three books. It is as follows:
Read the rest of this entry »

Site and contents are © 2009-2024 Patricia Ladd, all rights reserved. | Admin Login | Design by Steven Wiggins.