Val Bromann
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Posts from January, 2008



the game of life – january



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Wow, it was actually semi-productive this month! I am way ahead of where I was this time last year with my list…and it was probably one of the most list-worthy months I’ve had yet! Let’s hope this trend continues!

 

1. Super Secret Mission #1 (let’s just say this involves getting a certain someone I have a huge crush on to fall in love with me…you probably know who it is…) ;-) (5)
He’s not mine…yet…but if sources are correct I think I was kind of near his apartment the other day…shut up…I’m not a stalker…I swear!

4. Get a chocolate manicure (4)
Mmmmm, looks, smells, and tastes yummy!

10. Get my hair cut more than once (1)
I tend to have this habit of never getting a hair cut. I got it cut once already though this week!

36. Retag and categorize all old blog entries (2)
I went through round one, but didn’t get done with round 2 yet to clean it up…I’ll finish that soon

42. See David Sedaris (2)
I saw him speak. He was awesome until he asked me if I was in high school.

54. Go to a coffee shop at least twice a month to write (5)
So, since I didn’t want to lose an easy 5 points in the first month I brazed the near-blizzrd weather tonight to write for a bit. Two times this month!

55. Find the naughty lion book (3)
I found it!!!!

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57. Get a new point and shoot (1)
Because Val doesn’t have enough cameras in her life…

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65. watch the final season of the OC (1)
I watched all 16 episodes in 2 sittings. And cried the entire time.

106. Go to 10 pin (1)
I finally made it there!

117. Get flowers from a boy (1 point if I get flowers from a boy who is not Josh)
Does a virtual flower count? I think it does! At least kind of. One virtual flower from a extra special someone=half a point!!!

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139. Learn to snowboard (2)
Not crossing it off because I don’t think I can say I learned. But I went. And I plan to go again. Soon.

147. Try three different wine bars (0.5)
Went to Volo, there’s one!!!

148. Coffee shops that Time Out recommended in their coffee issue (half point each)
v. Kristoffer’s CafĂ© and Bakery
They had yummy coffee. And a urinal in the bathroom.

 

January total: 13
Total Points: 13

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ouch, you naughty lion



It’s funny when three people all have the same memory and it turns out to be wrong.

For probably twenty now I’ve been searching for a book. It was one of those things that was published well before I was born and was read to my two sisters and finally to me. I had a vague idea that it was a Golden Book (because, really, what children’s book wasn’t a Golden Book?) I had a vague recollection of what the child in the book looked like. I remembered one line “Ouch, you naughty lion. You mustn’t bite.”

I don’t know why this line stuck with me my whole life. But I for some reason always wanted to find this book again. I’d flip through children’s books at used book stores and search online for the line but could never ever find it.

About a month or so ago I searched online again for the phrase and this time came up with two websites. One was mine because I had mentioned this once before. The other was an answer man website where he helps people find books. Someone else was looking for this exact same phrase. The suggestion he gave was, of course, wrong. The book was too new and too many pages. I could tell just by looking at the cover. A few days later I found out who it was who was searching for the phrase: my sister Jen.

Turns out that all three of us, at one point or another, had been searching for this book. So I made it my mission to find it. Selfishly I think I just wanted to be the hero, the smart one, the one who could finally figure out this mystery.

While searching through titles and pictures of Golden Books, I started thinking that it could be one of these prayer books I kept seeing. The girl on the cover looked awfully familiar. But it couldn’t be a prayer book because a) I was never in any way religious and b) why would a prayer book contain a girl with a stuffed lion in her crib? But it got me thinking that maybe that was the clue, maybe whoever drew those prayers also drew my stuffed lion.

So I found the illustrators name and started looking up her books and then started googling her name with descriptive phrases and parts on my line until I found one mention of the line, slightly different then the way I remembered it, with a book title.

I went to Alibris and ordered it (which, by the way, is the most awesome site ever for any book you can ever remember having). I chose to order the $15 copy that was torn up a bit over the $40 one in better condition.

A few days later it arrived and I paged through it until I came to the page. And there was my line, only slightly different than I remembered it. And there was that little girl with a little lion in her little crib.

“Ouch! Naughty Lion, you mustn’t bite!

What caught me the most about it was that all three of us had been placing an extra “you” between “ouch” and “naughty” that apparently never appeared in that book.

Strange.

But now I can at least stop searching.

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heather is the best little whoreho



Story of the night.

We get out of the cab at whatever o’clock in the morning and walk into the lobby of Emily’s apartment. “Wait…” she says…”where’s my phone???” She checks her pockets. Not there. She checks her purse. Not there. She dumps the contents of her purse on the floor to riffle through them and it is nowhere to be found. At this point she’s really frantic about losing it in the cab.

Heather decides that maybe we should try calling the phone and maybe the cab driver will hear it and answer. She’s already holding her phone so she goes to dial. “Wait…” Heather says…”this isn’t my phone!”

Yeah, so Heather was holding Emily’s phone the whole time…And then we all died laughing because it was just too awesomely funny.

***

Before this hilarity was obviously a night of good times. We (Heather, Josh, and I) met up at Emily’s, sat around watching the beginning of 10 Things I Hate About You (ahhh, Heath Ledger…) and then finally got off our asses and headed to dinner at Wakamono. I got the soft shell crab maki and a salmon nigiri. Yum. I went to the bathroom there, which apparently is the unmarked door next to the kitchen. I looked around forever for the soap which, apparently, is in the cast iron tea pot.

After dinner we again got kind of lazy again and ended up chilling with a bottle of wine and Heather and I made everyone watch Once Bitten. I love the movie and Heather loved it, and it was her birthday (kind of) so she had the power. Of course, no one else liked it. And Josh fell asleep :-( Once he woke up he insisted that it was the worst movie ever, so he went to IMDB to look up its rating and find which sucky movies had higher ratings. You will be happy to hear that The Gruesome Twosome has a higher rating :-)

After the movie we finally decided to get off our asses and head to the bars. We first hit up Moxie for their $5 martinis. Josh objected to any bar that turned Nirvana into a techno song. I objected to the fact that my melon martini did not come in a martini glass.

Later we headed across the street to the Ivy where they had much better music. Any bar that plays Like a Prayer AND Living on a Prayer (2 of the best songs ever written) is AOK in my book.

After a couple more drinks and me thinking my purse was stolen…twice (it kept falling off the damn chair and blending in with the floor), and Heather calling everyone (or making me call everyone else) to try to get them to come out (even though you couldn’t hear a damn thing on the other end) we eventually called it a night…which then resulted in the missing cell phone hilarity. And then resulting in Heather thinking she lost her phone only to realize that she left it in Emily’s boot. Then we all went to sleep.

Em had to leave super early, so she was gone when the rest of us woke up.We took over her apartment, got some Starbucks, watched the end of Ten Things I Hate About You (ahhh, Heath Ledger…) and then said our goodbyes. (of course, not before JOSH thinks he lost HIS cell phone…)

Happy Birthday Heather! Hope 25 treats you well :-)

PICTURES HERE!

p.s. did I mention that all these pics were taken with my shiny new baby?

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five out of five



1. MK threw a little wine tasting shindig tonight. I totally rocked the blind tasting.

Matt didn’t do so well because he mistook the white riesling for the red pinot noir…I swear no one changed his answers while he wasn’t watching…

It was fun because I don’t think I’ve been to wine styles in over a year. The last time I can remember was the champagne tasting two new years ago. :-( I need to be invited back more…

 

2. I woke up the other day covered in bruises and scrapes. It was totally out of the blue and I have no idea where any of them came from.

 

3. This amused me on the train today way more than it should have:

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even



1. Yesterday was apparently national pie day. Josh and I headed to Bakers Square to celebrate. They were giving away free slices of pie, but they ran out of basically any cream pie. I got blueberry. Mmmmm. There was a guy there returning a pie. He bought a week ago and he said that it tasted rancid. He had kept it in his car for a week and then ate it…

2. I bought a milk this morning but it turned out to be frozen.

3. Every time I order from J Crew the next day I get an email announcing free shipping. Either I always should hold off just one more day, or they do it on purpose.

4. You really shouldn’t take a shower and than 10 minutes later go out into negative degree weather. Your hair just turns into a bunch of icicles.

5. When did it become a trend to wear giant furry Russian hats?

6. I am going to scream. Or cry. Or both :’(

7. It’s a real Coke day.

8. I bought some shoes yesterday because the store was having a promotion where overnight shipping (which usually costs a LOT) cost negative $5. Yes, negative. They paid me $5 to ship the package overnight.

9. When someone starts a game of scrabble with an 80 point word using all of their tiles, you know you are in trouble. Until a few moves later when they haven’t had any vowels and you land a triple word score with a z on a double letter :-)

10. I have nother else to say, but I thought ten was a nice, even number.

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