i'm a professional professional

In a recent conversation, i was asked how many jobs i've had in my life. i began to count. i determined that i've held about 20 jobs in my 26+ years on this planet. Honestly, i didn't think that was all that weird, but apparently it is not at all normal. Nevertheless, here they are, as best in order as i can remember. These were all legitimate jobs, with paychecks and everything.

1 Official: Palo Cedro Youth Soccer
2 Official for junior high volleyball
3 Lettuce ripper and general grunt: Cypress Ave Deli
4 'Shredder': Ray's Ortho
5 Scanner: PLNU dining center
6 Barista: Point Break Cafe'
7 Labbie: PLNU ITS
8 Guest Service Rep / slave: PLNU Conference Services
9 TA: Doug Harrison
10 Staff Writer: Viewpoint Magazine
11 Adminsitrative Assistant: Alarmingly Moral-free Realtor
12 Barista: Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
13 Barista: Nordstrom Cafe'
14 Bookseller: Borders
15 Communications Director: CA ProLife Council
16 Mystery Shopper: Regal Entertainment Group
17 ESL Tutor: Shasta College
18 Secretary: Simpson University Facilities Dept.
19 Marketing Coordinator

i really feel like i'm forgetting one or two. i know my granddad once paid Bonnie and i to turn a bajillion tiny hose valves on a bajillion acres of walnut trees, but i don't think that really counts.

Can anyone beat me? or even come close? i'm very curious.
i know the comment feature on this blog doesn't really work for most browsers, but i'm hoping JOSHUA will fix that for me as a present for my rapidly approaching birthday since i really don't ask for that much JOSHUA and i will make good on that threat to post something embarrassing about you every day until it's fixed JOSHUA.

can't... type...too......excited.........

New....Harry Potter..... movie trailer..........

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=CFK2lPiT_xU


(Many apologies for the inability to embed the video. HOPEFULLY I'LL GET A NEW AND IMPROVED WEBSITE FOR MY RAPIDLY APPROACHING BIRTHDAY JOSHUA.)

it's really out of arrogance

We have carefully coordinated our social circles so that everywhere we go and everything we do becomes a photo shoot. The latest being PP08: 'The Camping Trip Where Everyone Got Punched In The Face in kallie's imagination'. Here are Jesse and Lyn's photos. Here are Jeremy's. Here are Betsy's. (uh-oh Bets, better hurry and post 'em!!)

Sometimes we just love each other so much that we have no other way of expressing it than to wear matching sweatshirts.

dinks on parade

Josh and i recently determined we're super square. We're also d.i.n.k.s, which means Dual Income No Kids. Even though we've never had kids, i've only just now had a job that offers what can legitimately be called an income. We're square because we have a house and sensible cars and full time desk-monkey jobs and a boy cat and a girl dog and we go to church on Sundays and watch The Mole on Monday nights (Go Craig!!). To counter this frightening phenomenon in our lives, we've apparently decided we can only stay in town for one weekend at a time, or else fill it with activity. Observe our 2008 summer:

June 7th: HOME

14th: Elk Grove

21th: Acampo

28th: HOME

July 5th: Portland

12th: HOME

19th: camping

26th: HOME- throwing a baby shower

August 2nd: HOME

9th: Walnut Creek

16th: San Francisco

23rd: Acampo

30th: HOME- giant birthday party

September 5th: HOME- faking a wedding (?)

12th: Roseville

19th: Bremerton

26th: HOME

So that's a big 8 out of 17 weekends spent at home. i'm starting to figure out why nothing ever gets done or cleaned at our house. Our poor pets are starting to think my parents have shared custody of them. But you know what? It works, and we can't really think of a good reason to slow down. And someday if we have kids we can show this post to them and say 'Look how carefree and fun mommy and daddy were before you and your crippling, innumerable needs came along.' HA HA! i can't type that with a straight face. Just kidding. We wouldn't say 'crippling.'

Love Letter to Trinidad

(the tiny city in NorCal, not the Caribbean island (though i'm sure it's fantastic.))

Dear Trinidad,

You've done it, you've made me an adulteress. i thought i was loyal to Portland and all it offered me, but you made my eyes wander. Yes, my heart too. You and your neighbors have beaches and tall trees. Sunshine and fog. Crazy hippies and Restoration Hardware. Breweries. You have clean, smoke-free air and lots and lots of ferns. You have raccoons that appreciate hot chocolate powder. You have groves with eerie birds and prehistoric plants and rampaging elk. You have populations of locals who look like tourists who've been camping for 2 weeks. i would never have to shower if i lived with you, Trinidad, and you know how very much that appeals to me. i'm a very confused person. Part of me wants to be a hipster mctrendypants career girl in an urban culture center, and an equal part of me wants to be a meandering driftwood collector with 5 dogs and dirty hair. If this were a Lifetime movie it would be called "She Wanted Designer Jeans And Dirty Hair: The Kallie Rene Baker Markle Story". Was any house ever so divided?? i need time, North Coast lover. i need to clear my head, and while a smokey, 112 degree city like Redding is no place to do that, it's my only option. Say you'll wait for me? if i promise to get a bicycle will you wait for me? i want to be able to commit, but i can't right now. i have too many things to figure out, and i need to sit down with Portland and reassess my feelings. i love you Trindidad, you complete me. We'll always have Luffenholtz Beach.

Kallie

Air Force Boring

The Commander in Chief came to Redding today, maybe you heard. If you did, it's because you live here and that's all anyone has been talking about all week (besides the price of oil, the mortgage crisis, and various other subjects that have just as much to do with Georgie as his whereabouts). If you didn't know that, it's because you live anywhere but here and it therefore was not news in the slightest. He came to survey damage done by the wildfires. He arrived in Air Force One, got in a helicopter, and left again to go tour the devastation. This being prime GOP territory, and this being the first time a sitting president has visited the area since John F. Kennedy attended the dedication of the Shasta Dam in 1963, the masses turned out....en masse, i guess. i know, because i had a front row seat from my office window, which is across the street from the Redding airport. (Yes, Redding has an airport. Don't make that face.) Despite the heat, cars, trucks, and even RVs and schoolbusses poured in, filled up the surrounding fields and camped out for hours before expected touchdown time. The plane (big, blue and white...that's all i saw) approached from the north, so it snuck in quietly and slipped behind the buildings and trees. Now all that's visible is the blue and white tip of a tail. Unfortunately, the best view of that is from MY office window, which is behind my desk.
This has inconvenienced me, Mr. President, because i keep getting interrupted by people who need to squeeze in behind my desk and squint into the trees. Please make the appropriate reparations in the form of me not having to pay taxes anymore and you bringing all the troops home from this awful war.

from the kiddos

Korean artist Yeondoo Jung decided to bring children’s drawings to life in a series of photographs called “Wonderland“. After collecting more than 1,000 drawings from South Korean children between the ages of 5 and 7 he narrowed the drawings down to a small selection of favorites and staged full-scale photoshoots designed to bring each drawing to life. See the rest here.

once upon a smarty pants

You know how you stumble upon old pictures of yourself that you didn't know existed? and you're amazed at how young and thin you looked? It's very much like finding old Advanced Composition homework assignments. You can't believe how sharp your wit once was and how arrogant you were. Please to enjoy: my response to a tea hosted by the PLNU literature department, featuring special guest Mary Crow and held in Culbertson Hall, which had pretty much the best views on campus. My apologies to Ms. Crow, who i hope does not make a habit of Googling her name. It should be noted that i presently have no memories of any field trip to the paper factory, nor do i know if there is one in Shasta County, and i only have snatches of memory involving fish food in a gumball machine.
_______________
I never thought an overcast ocean could be so interesting, but behind Mary Crow, the poet laureate of Colorado, the gray-on-blue expanse beyond the soccer field held my rapt attention from the second I looked up from my equally fascinating plate of cheese cubes. So flat and dull was the sky that I imagined I could bounce a rubber ball off of it like so many hours spend playing Wally Ball in fourth grade. Fourth grade… what an enthralling subject of thought; I could spend forever thinking about fourth grade. Mary Crow stopped murmuring long enough to take a sip of water and the break in sound pulled me out of my reverie to remind me that there was a famous poet speaking. By her tedious presentation it appeared that poetry, to her, was equivalent to using a Q-tip: you should try to do it once a day, everyone has a different technique, Q-tips are nice. In looking around at other members of the audience, I observed flowers, guitars and waves being detailed on notebook pages and the backs of binders and even a few decorated cheese cubes. One student was endeavoring to pick all the seeds off a strawberry using the cap of her pen.
My interest piqued when Mary Crow read some of her poems, most of which were styled similarly to her charisma-less method of public rhetoric, but well written. However, lapsing back onto the subject of translation, she sent out me on the ocean again to further contemplate fourth grade. In fourth grade Mr. Avila took my class to the fish hatchery and the paper factory, and I began to wonder if Mary Crow has ever been to a fish hatchery. Surely, in all her worldwide travels and experiences, she had come across a hatchery. At our fish hatchery you could buy fish food out of a gumball machine for a quarter and throw it in the makeshift ponds. All the fish freak out and thrash around in competition for a tiny handful of pellets. Maybe if Mary Crow read a poem about thrashing, greedy salmon the girl in front of me would have stayed awake. Perhaps if she had presented her good tips and well written poems with at least some of the passion of a fourth grade Wally Ball champion I wouldn’t have watched the ice melt in my tea. If the poet laureate of Colorado and accomplished translator had shown a fraction of vigor in regards to her life’s work, maybe the problem she addressed – poetry being underappreciated – would vanish into the gray-on-blue Pacific horizon.

contextless text messages

This round, we're incorporating a new game with a few of my favorites. See if you can match the text with its correct sender or context.

texts:
1. i - love -iron - man. duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh NUHNUHNUHNUH
2. Evil prayer kitty?
3. Kick his leg just to be sure
4. This may be 4am talking, but that Temple would ROCK.
5. Wait - motormouth and lil nra are different people?

senders/contexts:
a. to verify a possible Captain Ahab sighting
b. Winter
c. requesting assurance that a wedding won't be rained out
d. i actually have no idea what this text message is referring to and i didn't at the time i received it either
e. Travis

on to the fun:::
>i luuuuurve dave the laugh.
>No kitty for me today. Sorry.
>Lunch at tecate grill...er, maybe its casa ramos now...whatev. fish tacos!!
>jason got a job!!! and sold his car!!!! i'm sick in bed!!! but its raining!! happy monday winter, love baby jesus.
>Is your vets name presliegh?
>I'm going to need you to promise me you will never paint on anything other than your easel ever again.
>There Will Be Blood...and cookies!
>Bumper sticker of the day: satan sucks. tell everyone.
>Give me dyour drivers license kumber and expiration.
>Haven't seen the movie yet so i can only assume you are trying to tell me you guys are pregnant. Congratulations. hope this doesn't interfere with beer night.
>No on lunch, but wii are up for whatever.
>Everybody dies in the end.
>Are you with me wiff?
>i think the kitties benadryl just wore off. This should be fun.
>I had this realization today that if i didn't text you soon i was not going to make it on your next Text Messaging Blog Entry - and that would make me sad.
>What're tanks? and want me to bring the salad?
>Toe pick
>I'd be Sitting front row tonight trying desperately to correctly do a British lateral lisp while making fun of your husband and his AWESOME jacket.
>Hell is not the lake of fire we once thought. It is a giant, gray raincloud that never goes away.
>Unfair kallie. Unfair! I LOVE skanks. You know that. Unfair!
>Oh no, this just is not your week for being intenionally modest!
>this is the gayest club ive ever been in.
>Crazy like a fox - with schizophrenia!
>We used to go there so hing over.
>Wave to the camera
>She might help, or she might make it totally awkward so we'd better get some drinks in her.
>You need to learn to accept my lovin'!
>When discussing the norcal goldern hills andy made this comment, "they still look soft, like a freshly shaven cosmo."
>oh hi sally, i dont think i knew your Lexus is a convertible! / Oh it wasn't, i just got that one yesterday.
>Omg why am i at the stirring? I feel crazy out of place here
>i know Kung Fu
>i know Kenneth Forgoes Underpants.
>p.o.s.? Path Of salvation?
>id just pick W each time
>my phone sux monkey balls
>How many Branch Davidian spawns are there? bonus points if you can anme them.
>Help us Jeebus! I was way off. I got up to four.
>finally someone you can out-drink! A 90 yr. old asian man.
>Shantany lace.
>There are four ducks outside, and they all want Sunchips!
>Just found 5 unopened bottles of good beer in an empty apartment. Everything's turning up Millhouse!

finally, this lovely series from Ashley:::
>F%&K THIS. I hate change.
>>Don't in there. SEE. how do i change in to go using T9
>>>Sad and kind of cool that this is all i have to be stressed about right now.
>>>>Suck it.
>>>>>I just locked myself out of the house.

(answers: 1-b, 2-c, 3-a, 4-d, 5-e)

Suede

i don't want to be immature or anything, but i was just informed that every person has between 2,000 and 5,000 taste buds and females usually have more than males, so science would prove that women have better taste and i'm right about the couch. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Love Letter to Portland

Dear Portland,

i miss you. i ACHE for you... although the aching might be the result of improper Wii playing at Katie and Bobby's followed by hazardous bowling with a too-heavy ball. (Portland, why don't your bowling alleys want women and children and muscle-challenged men to have a good time? i thought you were a more accepting place, but i'll not fault you. i'll just kindly suggest you find new managers for your alleys. The current ones don't deserve you. i deserve you.) i loved all your roses in the rose garden and planted along the freeway. i think more cities should have roses on the freeways and then more people would move to them and the country would become empty and free again, and maybe the buffalo would repopulate, but i digress. i'm glad you had so many roses in your rose garden because last time i was there you didn't and that was awkward, so i see that you're committed to our relationship and i recognize your efforts. You know what else i appreciate about you, Portland? Your city streets were very clean. i don't want to use this blog to speak negatively about my past relationships, but i'll just say that Rome and New York City had a different techniques and yours is better suited to my tastes. We did so much together this past weekend! It was a whirlwind courtship. You repeatedly fed me exciting and delicious foods, quenched my thirst with fine beverages including the best mocha i've ever had in my life, and delighted me with cool breezes, misty rains and dappled sunlight. Everywhere i looked there were bicycles and dogs and lesbians and people dressed curiously or snazzily. And wowie, do you ever know how to put on a fireworks display! Well, i didn't see your official one on the water, but the Sherwood suburbs had some impressive suff! i also love that you never once charged me sales tax and that friendly people pumped my gas for me. Portland, thank you for giving Erin a spiffy craftsman-style house to live in with a nice art teacher and his dog. She really needed a proper home and you went above and beyond the call of duty. i love that you love my friends because that's important in a relationship. What else? oh my goodness, the Beavers. How adorable were they? You made up for your lack of professional sports teams with your funny li'l minor league baseball team. And it was Bark in the Park day!! More baseball-loving dogs than i ever knew existed. You truly are a dog-friendly city and i so get that. We really are in sync, Portland. i could count the ways i love thee until the internet breaks down, so i'll just close with this: wait for me, Portland. Do not give your heart to another. i'll come for you someday. Wait for me.

Yours truly ...and a little madly,

Kallie

PS- don't let Katie and Bobby leave.