The Adventures of Tea Snob and friends

(My apologies to those have already read this on facebook. With the summer busyness and lack of creativity, I've been hardpressed to come up with original material for this blog as well as facebook. Please don't hold it against me!)


The set up:
Housesitting/dogsitting in Albany, expecting friends for dinner in about an hour, hopping between doing laundry, drying my hair, starting dinner prep, talking on the phone with Joni, and getting ready to start the bbq.

The fun begins:
As I'm giving Joni driving directions, I head out to the garage to look for the grilling tools and start up the grill. The second the door closed behind me, I realized that in my efficiency to keep any door that I wasn't using locked, I'd locked the door behind me. Oops. Just to be sure, I try the door... locked. Hmmm, I try the other garage door... locked.
It took about two seconds for the severity of the situation to hit me: I know for a fact that all the other doors are securely locked, my keys are sitting nicely on the entry table INSIDE, the homeowners cell phone number is written down on some notes INSIDE, the dog is INSIDE (and the beast can't open any door for me), any friends or family that could pick locks are in Corvallis and busy, I have no idea who the local locksmiths are, and my friends are due in about half an hour for dinner.

It gets better:
After giving Joni a frantic narrative of my prediciment (and her trying to console me but to no avail), we end the call with the hope and expectation that I'll find a way in shortly and our dinner plans can continue as planned.
I head over to the neighbors house hoping they'll have a spare.
After introducing myself and explaining my predicament, the gentleman that answered the door informs me that he too is housesitting and is going to be no help whatsoever. Oookay. Next neighbor: the teenage daughter answers the door and tells me that people in this neighborhood rarely entrust spares to their neighbors. He probably has one hidden somewhere around the exterior of the house though! Dandy... (for the record: she was sweet and offered to help me look).
I take assessment of the situation again: no way to get ahold of the owner (I only have his home phone in my cell, so helpful).. can't find a spare anywhere around the house.. keys, phonebook, and dog all inside.. absolutely nothing that would be of help in my car.. no way to break in (and I tried).. time to call a locksmith.....
My cell phone beeps. It's dying.
Not wanting to spend the money on 411, I call Diana - the "co-host" for the dinner who also lives in Albany. She graciously went through the phone book looking up local locksmiths, gave me one number (without a pen and paper, that was all I could remember), and said she'd be over asap with a phone book and the food. As soon as I got off the phone, I tried the number to the AM PM Locksmith only to get a recording saying "Our hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, and we do not take after hours calls." ???? Umm, what happened to the AM PM thing.... At this point I decide that the best option is to keep hunting for a spare until Diana shows up with a phone book and fully charged phone. Oh, and I started the grill. Might as well have that ready.

People are supposed to start arriving at 6:30 pm. It's now about 6:26 pm.
Jeff, one of the guests that is unaware of the hiccup, is the first to show up. After bringing him up to speed, he uses his phone to demonstrate the handy little trick of texting to Google. Now with a list of locksmiths at the tip of our fingers, I try another another number. Meanwhile, Jeff tries his luck at finding a key around the house. This locksmith sounds promising saying that he can get me in only if I'm able to prove that I do reside there. With my keys and ID inside, that shouldn't be a problem. Now, here's the other big question: how much will this cost? $105. *ouch* I didn't exactly hide my shock from the guy on the phone. He says he'll cut me a deal: if I pay by cash or check, he'll just charge me $75. Figuring this was my last option, I agree. He gets the address and says he'll be there in half an hour. Great.... now, to wait.
Jeff comes around the corner saying he found a key. Thrilled, I jump to my feet only to find he's holding a rock and was offering to throw it through a window. Not helpful. Diana shows up with the chicken and her phone. We entertained ourselves by searching once more for key. Fortunetly it was a pleasant summer evening and after awhile we took advantage of the comfortable back porch furniture. Jeff broke out the chips and salsa he'd brought. We discussed the current options for dinner: raw chicken, powdered strawberry-lemonade mix, chips and salsa, corn on the cob. Not terrible options considering we had a hot grill and hose handy. The dog started at us, confused and hungry, and barked for his dinner.
Joni arrives. She gets a good laugh out of the fact that the situation hasn't really improved since I got off the phone with her... almost an hour ago. The whole dinner party is now here and we've no dinner. Potatoes, hummus, artichokes, and brownies are all sitting in the kitchen waiting to be cooked or eaten.
Finally, at 7:10 pm (slightly over half an hour) the locksmith arrives. I ask how much proof he'll require that I am who I say I am, and reassures me that if my red purse is by the door with my ID, like I say it is, there's pretty much the best proof I can give him. The front dead bolt proves uncooperative so he tries door in the garage. After the longest eighty seconds ever, he twists the handle and the door pops open.
HALLELUJAH!!!!!
My purse and keys are laying right there like I left them. I write out the check and send the locksmith on his merry way. I try to console the dog as I make my way to the back door to let my friends in... finally.

It's now 7:30. The house is unlocked. The dog has stopped barking. Diana is getting her delicious chicken on the grill. Joni's chucking corn. Jeff's mixing up strawberry lemonade. I'm trying to locate proper pans, platters, and tools in the kitchen. Potatoes are boiling. Music's playing and my cell phone is charging. Everyone gets a tour of the house.
Brad and Andrea show up before dinner's ready (they were originally going to miss dinner as they were coming late). They get to hear the whole story. They also get a tour (it really is a beautiful house). Brad can't get over the size of the dog (it's a Siberian Mastiff).
Dinner finishes cooking. We finally get to eat. Everything's delicious. Conversation is hilarious.
The rest of the evening goes over without a hitch.
All's well with the world.

Everyone got home safely - even Joni, who was afraid her car might break down.
I'm very careful about where the housekey is and what doors are locked.
Excepting hungry stomachs and $75 out the window, no harm was done.
We all got a good laugh out of it.

End of story.
:-)

100 Books

This is an interesting list that's been going around on facebook. I haven't read nearly as many as I'd like (that bucket list just got a little longer :-D) but it's still fun to check out.
- Carrie: I'd be shocked if you'd read less than 40 on this list. They're classics.
- Caryn: So sorry to ruin your fun, but I thought it was high time to get some new material on here. :-)

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Total: 4

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

Total: 2

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X

Total: 3

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma-Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X

Total: 5

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

Total: 1

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquezx

Total: 2

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas C
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X

Total: 1

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

Total: 2

80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

total: 3

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute X
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

total: 4

Grand total: 27

Sad... so many of these I just haven't gotten around to reading.

Problem solved

After recently declaring this a very uninteresting blog, I was informed by an observant, humble, and sacrificial friend that the cause of this flaw was simply that my blog was lacking one crucial thing: the mention of him.

My mistake.

Obviously everyone wants their blog to be interesting, so I would like to remedy this situation and have an uninteresting blog no more.

*ahem*

John Admire - a terribly interesting fellow - resides in Philomath, OR with his wife and two children, attends Suburban Christian Church where he works with the high school youth group, manager of All Family Vision Care.
Or, in other words, he's youth staff, like myself, and my boss. So I have to work with him on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And the occasional Saturday. ...yay...


There.
Boredom averted.

Chic, euro, eco friendly wheels

But mostly just CUTE!

I've been wanting a scooter for quite awhile, but because there's always something better to spend my money on, I've never seriously considered it. Recently however, I've decided that because of my current stage in life (single, good income, lots of local activities, low living expenses, etc.) this really was the ideal time to go take those ski trips, get that scooter, and take those electric bass lessons while still being able to save and be responsible with my finances.
Mom and I had been on a scooter kick a few summers ago and she'd actually gone to a few stores and gotten information on them, helping me realize (probably not to my benefit) that having one for my own wasn't such an unattainable goal. Recently a friend of mine purchased a Vespa (so incredibly cute and totally fits her!) once again "reviving the fire" to get one for meself. Just about a month ago, I (totally on a whim) decided to stop into the third street motorcycle store (I can't remember the name) and look at current pricing, styles, etc. Because I'd looked into them a bit in the past and I've had friends with scooters and motorcycles, I had a pretty good idea of what I would be getting into and was able to ask (and get answers) to practically every question possibly related to scooter ownership. After about 45 minutes of looking at the machine specs, helmets, jackets, licensing requirements, recommended servicing calender, price sheets, etc, etc, etc... I walked out of the store with the very exciting and scary idea that I'd have a scooter by the end of the summer.
Dad, of course, wasn't entirely thrilled when I came home and started talking about my latest idea. He isn't exactly keen on any of us riding around on public streets amongst cars on fast, small, totally open bikes. He also, being the good dad that he is, didn't want to see his daughter go out and drop several thousand on a new "toy" just because it was cute. He was never completely against it though, so when he gave me the "Okay, I'm gonna ask the dad questions: ....how much does it cost?" and I was able to give him everything he would've wanted to know and more, he seemed quite satisfied and I got the silent "I'm still not a fan of the idea, but you're good to go."
Sooooo - skip ahead a few weeks - I'm signed up for Basic Rider Training to get my license next month. I'm looking into jackets, helmets, and gloves. A friend has offered to store the scooter in her barn during the winter months. I've been collecting tips from my other scooter owning friend. And I've pretty much got my scooter budget totally ironed out.
It's terribly exciting.
I've been seeing scooters all over the place. It's fun to see how other people gear up for them and where they ride them. It's also been nice to have a visual on what other drivers will be seeing when I'm riding around.
I'll be getting the Honda Metropolitan. It's about $2,300 at the place here in town. All the servicing and repairs can be done right at the store, so close by and convenient for me. It's gets about 100 miles to the gallon. It requires virtually no maintenance compared to my car. It can only carry one passenger and has a lockable seat trunk large enough to hold a full face helmet.

So, here it is!!!
(Ain't it cute!)
You can use the link to get a 360 of it. I'll be getting the Ghost color (as shown below) :-)



http://powersports.honda.com/2009/metropolitan.aspx

Random photos of Valerie

These are just a few photos that are a bit old, but were finally downloaded off my phone or from discs. All were taken by Sarah. All are of me (yeah, seems a bit vain, but it looked like a funny collection).

A few of the many faces of Tea Snob:

Change you can count on

High School Musical meets the real world

Green eggs and ham

Excerpt from a story time I had with a three year old on Tuesday:

I am Sam. Sam I am.
"Why is he upset?" "He's upset because he's trying to read, but Sam keeps bothering him." "Why is Sam bothering him?" "Because Sam is trying to get him to try green eggs and ham." "Why?" "Well, because Sam thinks they taste good and wants other people to enjoy them too." "Why?" "I'm not sure. Let's read and see if we can find out."

(skipping ahead)

In a house? With a mouse? Would you, could you with a mouse?
"Why is the roof red?" "Umm, the chimney is red. Probably because the bricks are red." "Why?" "Because they wanted it to be that color." (Was not going to explain the brick making process at the moment.) "Oh...... what is that?" "That's the roof." "Why do they have a roof?" "Because roofs keep the rain out." "But the rain would go through the roof." "No, the roof is very thick and keeps the rain out and keeps the warmth in." "How does it keep the rain out?" "Well, it's thick, and it has shingles that the rain slips off of, and the roof is crooked so the rain falls off better." "Why does the rain fall off?" "Because it doesn't stick to the shingles and the gravity just keeps pulling it down until it gets to the ground and the dirt soakes it up." "Oh..... why?" "Well..... because that's how gravity works." "Oh." "Shall we keep reading?" "Yes."

We did actually finish the book. I just hope her mom didn't hear the whole thing in the other room. I'm sure it sounded terribly intelligent. :-p

I CAN SEE!!! (and I'm a likin' what I see in the mirror ;-D)

A very handy benefit of working at this eye clinic is that I get eye exams and hardware at discount! (Esp. handy as I'm becoming more and more near-sighted over the years.) So, yesterday, the doc let me have a bit of a reprieve from the front desk and gave me an all inclusive eye exam (I got to look at the inside of my eye!!! Really trippy! And, btw, it wasn't blue.) It was actually very enjoyable. Yes, I got a slight headache that lasted for about an hour and a half, but considering everything he did (he wanted me to do EVERYTHING so I would know what the patients experience) it really wasn't bad! Anyways, the exam went well, I got my prescription, and during a lull in the day I tried on a few frames to try and get an idea of what I wanted. One of the opticians offered to help and she began to pull out frame after frame until I had at least fifty pairs in front of me! :-) To condense: I tried every new and cool frame on, got to take three frames home and get the family's opinion, took them back the next day to find that they'd let me just buy the frame from the stock instead of waiting for a new pair to get shipped in, they also had my rx of lenses in stock, the manager made a special trip back to the store (after leaving early) to cut them to shape, aaaaaand I got my complete new pair of glasses that afternoon! Exam to glasses in 28 hours. Very exciting. I'm liking it very much. :-)
(and thanks to Sarah for taking this photo!)

Name fun

Another facebook timewaster. I wasn't going to do this one (and I actually didn't on facebook) but after reading through it with my own name, some of the answers were so dorky and laughable, I had to put them up.


1. YOUR REAL NAME:
Valerie Frances Hazleton

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle names)
Celeste Earl

3. NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
Lloyd Robert (Then switch that around and you've got my younger brother's name)


4. STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Hazva

5. DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)
Maroon Dog

6. SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born)
Frances Corvallis

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The White Breve (That sounds yummy)

8. FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Vaon

9. STREET NAME:(fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)
Mint chocolate chip chocolate chip (Hahaha. So uncool.)

10. WAITRESS NAME: (1st pet's name, street you grew up on)
Tinkerbell Goodnight

11. GANGSTA NAME:(first 3 letters of last name plus 'izzle')
Hazizzle

13. YOUR IRAQI NAME:(2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, first two letters of your middle name, last two letters of your first name then last three letters of your last name)
Azfrieton

14. YOUR GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Frisky (that was the most un-goth combo, other options are Black Zeba, Black Tinkerbell, or Black Dove)

15. DANCER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy)
Happy To Be M&M :-) (also could be Dark Vanilla Thin Mint or Herve Leger Paris Smarties)