My 2012 Year-in-Review

Another year has come and gone. Though many years can dissolve together, some years are distinctive. The year of the wedding (2008). The year of the pregnancy (2011) and this, the first full year of parenthood. 2012 took us from 3 months to 15 months, from a baby just learning to keep her head up to a toddler running around the house, from consistent middle-of-the-night feedings to the occasional middle-of-the-night diaper change. Though to me it felt like kind of a sleepy year – there was little in the way of work, no vacations were taken – my daughter was workin’ hard and accomplished many things. Granted I’ve waxed philosophical about most of those things on the blog already, that’s what the blog is for. But for yuks and material, here’s a quick recap.

January

The storm of the century of the year. Sonja is four months old when a snow & ice storm takes out our (and thousands of others) power for nearly three days. The first night all three of us hunker down in the den near the fire, Shaun and I on the futon, Sonja in her rocker. Each time she awakens, I feed her and Shaun feeds the fire. The next day Shaun returns to work and I attempt, unsuccessfully, to keep the fire burning. Getting colder by the minute, I decide to take the baby to the mall to warm up, but fail to get the car out of the driveway. Shaun comes home early and we head to his parents’ powered house to ride out the rest of the storm. Bonus: Grandma handles the late-night feedings.

Sonja’s 1st Snowpocalypse

February

Hmm… Not a very memorable month.

March

The six-month-aversary. The first six-months dragged on and on, the longest of my life. The next six flew by, probably because we were sleeping a lot more.

Tell me again why 6 months is significant?

April

We finally get some decent bedroom furniture.

Sleigh Bed

May

I spend my first mother’s day with The Seattle Rock Orchestra, performing the Beatles’ albums Rubber Soul and Revolver. Shaun buys me a tablet computer for my herculean efforts raising the baby, and in about two weeks I decide I hate it. He’s using it now and I stole the free Microsoft Surface Tablet employees received. (Still not sold on the necessary-ness of the tablet.)

I’d like to thank you all on behalf of the group, and I hope I passed the audition.

June

I spend the entire month watching Breaking Bad (on Netflix), starting with the pilot and ending with season 4, just in time to start watching season 5 as it airs. I start out rather blasé about the whole series and end up inhaling as much as I can every time the baby naps. I try in vain to keep my exclamations of ‘holy shit’ to a minimum.

July

I go back to work, full-time but temporarily. I’m a freelancer and the call comes at the right time. It took me much longer than I expected to get to the point where I felt that I was ready to go back. I might not have attempted it at all, had my sister-in-law not been available to babysit. Fortunately I had just the right environment to see what being a working parent felt like. I give it a mixed review.

Also at the end of July… Finally, after 170,000 miles, I get a new car. The car buying experience is enough to last me another 10 years, I hope the car does too.

Fresh as a daisy from its first wash

August

My birthday month, upgraded from the non-traditional birthday week and the more traditional birth-day. I was very happy not to be nine months pregnant this year, and celebrated with a massive laundry room flood. Also, spaghetti.

Like Momma, like daughter

Also this month I finally finish painting the cabinet doors we had repaired two years ago. It looks brilliant if you look just at that section and not at the six other unfinished sections in the kitchen.

September

Oh words cannot express the long-anticipated 1st birthday party. I planned and prepped only to have things not go as I wanted. A good lesson for next year, for sure.

So close to walking!

It’s All Mine!

Mo-om, that’s MY cake!

October

I spend the entire month agonizing over whether I should bother with a Halloween costume for Sonja, finally decide it’s not necessary because she won’t be trick-or-treating or eating candy, then feel like a bad parent. Instead of trick-or-treating we go to the Children’s Museum in Everett for a Halloween extravaganza.

“Wa-wa.”
Water table at the Children’s Museum in Everett

November

NaNoWriMo. The challenge is to write 50,000 words in a month and because I must know what the winner’s certificate looks like, I do it. Quantity over quality is the motto here. Or perhaps quantity first, quality later. This consumes much of my waking, child-free moments.

Winner’s Badge

December

A 15-month weight-check for my petite cutie. She’s still gaining, but slowly, so we’re scheduled for a more in-depth follow up in January.

Sonja gets to open Christmas presents on Christmas Eve at Grandma’s and Christmas day at home. We so wear her out on Christmas day that she falls asleep in my arms and I have to put her to bed over an hour early. Wait ’til she finds out about this Santa Claus guy.

2012 Tree. Not unlike the 2011 tree. And 2010 tree…

This goes here, right?

Loot!

My Best of 2012

This is the time of year I’d normally be compiling my top ten list for the year in movies  But I haven’t seen ten movies I liked this year, I probably haven’t even seen ten movies. Movies and I aren’t on speaking terms these days, and I won’t be in a forgiving mood until somebody makes something good. So, since I can’t do a countdown of movies but had an itch to make a list, I’ve decided to do a plain ‘best of 2012.’ This is just stuff I liked in 2012. It may not even be stuff that came out in 2012, just stuff I experienced in 2012. In no particular order…

Mad Men Season 5

Mad Men is always the highlight of entertainment for the year and season 5 was no exception. Season 4 still stands as my favorite but 5 packed a wallop. Viewers were asked to cope with a lot of changes, like Megan as Mrs. Draper #3, not to mention the exits of Peggy and Lane (though in very different manners.) I don’t think any viewer wants to imagine a Mad Men without Peggy Olson, but I think in life people find new jobs and they move on, and it’s a lot more realistic than manufacturing ways to keep people stagnant.

Breaking Bad Seasons 1-5

This was the year of Breaking Bad, for me anyway. I hadn’t watched it before and spent time catching up on Netflix Watch Instantly earlier this spring, inhaling all I could while Sonja napped. Breaking Bad turns you upside down and shakes you ’til you want to puke, then you find yourself saying, “do it again!” Since I’m living in purgatory waiting for the conclusion of season 5, I’ve decided I’m glad I came to it later and didn’t have to wait all that time between previous seasons. I also think the episodes are better when watched closely together, because it’s easier to remember the details. It’s a plot-heavy show so details are important. If you’ve yet to see it, wait until season 5 part 2 comes out, then watch it all at once. Seriously. Do it or I’ll send Walter White after you. Actually, it’s kind of weird now to see Bryan Cranston pop up in pre-BB comedic roles. You expect he’s just pretending to be goofy and any minute he’s going to let loose and murder all the people around him. I think that’s the price actors pay for legendary roles.

Everyone’s Reading Bastard 

A short story by Nick Hornby. I love everything Nick Hornby does, so any time he writes something new I run to read it. This was in the form of a handy kindle single so if you have a kindle pony up the dough (the best $1.99 you’ll ever spend) and get reading. The only thing that bothered me about this story is I was not ready for it to end. I thought it had all the makings of an excellent novel.

The Mindy Project / Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Mindy Kaling is probably best known as Kelly from The Office. Back when I watched that show I thought she was great in it, and upon hearing that, as a staff writer, she was responsible for most of the Jim & Pam story lines, I realized what a talent she must be. She has proven herself to me in her hilarious book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? which I read earlier this year. I laughed at least as much at this book as I did at Tina Fey’s, and possibly – dare I say it – more. Mindy’s new TV show on Fox, The Mindy Project, is also superb and displays her signature wit.  I don’t think anyone in their right mind would hire Mindy (the character) as an OB/GYN, though mine was definitely wacky so who knows what she was up to in her spare time.

2012 Subaru Impreza

And this was finally the year of the new car. I still wonder/suspect they’ll fix a few of the minor complaints I have (takes ridiculously long for the car to shift between reverse and drive) in the 2013 version, but I’m quite happy to have a new vehicle. What’s that you say? There’s snow in the forecast? Bring it on!

My First New Car

Last Sunday my 14-year-old Toyota Corolla, aka the World’s Greatest Car, aka WGC, was stripped of its duties hauling Sonja and me around town and reassigned the new task of ferrying my husband back and forth to work every day, 100 miles round-trip.

Apparently WGC wasn’t too happy with the change of scenery because when I tried to move it to its new parking spot in the great outdoors, it refused to start. I think WGC might have been jealous of this:

Fresh as a daisy from its first wash

Yes finally, after all these years, it is with great personal emotional payoff, that I announce  I bought a new car. The thought process went something like this: My husband, whose WGC is a 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi, has been wanting a cheap commuter car that gets good gas mileage to save us money and to save his beloved some miles. I have been eyeing the 2012 Subaru Imprezas for their nice new look, good gas mileage and all-wheel drive. Wouldn’t it be nice, we thought, if he could drive the Corolla, and I could buy that car?

It all seemed like a pipe dream until a little bit of bonus money came our way. It was the right time to buy a car, and after having test driven the new Impreza, I knew it to be the right car for me.

I contemplated dedicating an entire post to the process of purchasing the car, but most people have probably gone through that dreadful song and dance before, so I will spare the details. I will recount only this one tale. We were promised a full tank of gas, and when the salesman was showing me the mystical, magical details of my new car, like where the turn signal was and how to use the index in the owner’s manual, I pointed out that the tank was reading half full. “Oh no” he said. “We just filled it up. That line will go up slowly as you drive away.”

“Really?” I asked, and added, “because the gas indicator on my other car goes up slowly, but that car is 14 years old.”

“That’s because it’s a different system” he said. He either hadn’t heard me correctly or pretended he didn’t hear me. We drove off and as soon as the gas line went down, we turned around and insisted they fill it up. While we were insisting, another couple was about to drive off in their new car, and that car pulled into the gas station right behind us. Shysters.

Blown out shot of the interior.

I’m happy to report that despite a dearth of selection in the 2012 model year, I was able to get the interior and exterior colors I wanted (blue and dark grey, respectively), though I did have to wait for the car to be delivered from Portland. I bought the base model car because I didn’t want most of the bells and whistles. I actively dislike heated seats and don’t understand them, but give them the benefit of the doubt that they are more useful in colder climes. Give me a seat that could cool itself down, and that I might use a couple weeks of the year. I’ve used cruise control on long trips but don’t love it either. It’s supposed to give your foot a rest, but what happens if you need to use that foot quickly? I wind up hovering my foot over the pedal when it’s on, which is more difficult than simply driving.

I could go on and on about the features I did and didn’t get, but I won’t. The important thing – the thing I wanted more than anything – was remote keyless entry, which of course I got.

The Toyota is still part of the family and doing fine after we reassured it we still loved it and bought it a new battery. There are exactly two things I miss about it. First, automatic headlights that turn on when it starts to get dark. I have turned on the lights in that car exactly once, to the automatic position, and literally never touched them ever again. Thus I am apt to forget this needs to be done, but after a few gentle reminders from Shaun, I’m starting to get the hang of it. The other thing I’ll miss is the Toyota’s turning radius. That car pirouettes, and it’s unbeatable for maneuvering in and out of tight parking spots.

Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle means the car has zero evaporative emissions from its fuel system. It is also a required “option” (in WA state, among others) that costs about $400.

What I won’t miss about the WGC is driving it. It is a reliable workhorse, no doubt, but it always felt a bit squirrely to me. If I had to punch the gas it would pull to one side, and many rainy, windy nights left me feeling like I was being pushed around. I can’t yet attest to how the new car will do in inclement weather (I’m guessing exceedingly well), but I will say that so far it feels rock solid. It doesn’t matter how fast I accelerate, whether it’s from a stop or if I’m already on the highway, this car accelerates smoothly and always in a straight line. I already have a favorite word to describe driving this car,  and the word is “effortless.”

Effortless is a fantastic feeling when I’m dealing with the bitter and unpredictable traffic. Just today when I got stuck behind a car doing 40 miles per hour on the highway (with no flashers on), and the cars in the other lane went zooming by, I knew that I needed less of an opening to get into the next lane and I knew that it would take me almost no time to get my car back up to 60. That gives me confidence and makes me feel safe, and that’s what you want when you’re driving.

Of course, you don’t want to be arrogant when you’re driving. And I’m not. But this zippy little car makes me want to put my foot down, and if ever I had the chance to take it to a track and see what it could do, I would.

So that’s the story so far. I thought there might be more hoopla surrounding the acquisition of a new car, maybe some fireworks and a small parade. Other than the fact that I actually look forward to driving now (that’ll wear off, I’m sure), everything else feels pretty standard. Maybe that’s because all the pieces aren’t in place yet. I am still waiting for my license plates, and when I get them, I’m going to be putting them in expensive frames that I’ve been waiting to get for years because I wanted to save them for my new car. I found and my husband subsequently bought the perfect (I hope) new stereo, and we are still waiting for that to arrive. Oh and one other thing we’re still waiting for – the first car payment. I bet that’ll bring some emotion to the foreground. All in all it was an investment we needed to make, and I look forward to chronicling the adventures of the yet-to-be-named, effortless-to-drive car right here on this blog.

Yes, I’m officially that person.

Not My Car…Yet

I started this blog six or seven years ago to chronicle our exhaustive and seemingly never-ending search for a house. After a few posts about house hunting, I decided on a secondary theme, a B-story if you will. I would also chronicle the maintenance and repairs of my 1998 Toyota Corolla, better known to my dedicated flock of readers* as the World’s Greatest Car (WGC). Sadly and at the same time definitely not sad, the WGC has provided me with precious little writing material.

The WGC is just days away from 170,00 miles and was given a clean bill of health at its recent checkup. Even the dealer was surprised at its great condition. Toyota is a reliable brand, but I feel that once you pass 100,000 miles in any car, it’s kind of a crap shoot. Each flawless mile comes as a bigger and bigger surprise. I’ve long been preparing for the day when something expensive goes awry and the tough but practical decision is made to trade it in for a new car.

But what would make an acceptable follow up to the WGC? I had previously made the decision to buy a Subaru when the time came, since my husband is a loyalist and I want him to want to take care of the maintenance on the car. But for several years Subarus had been downright ugly. Then came the new and newly styled 2012 Impreza. Subaru was back to being a good-looking car, plus it was boasting an impressive 36 miles per gallon. Since all Subarus have all-wheel drive standard, the mileage had always been lower than similarly sized vehicles. They solved that problem by adding a CV transmission.

So I finally found a vehicle that was good-looking, had all wheel drive and got good gas mileage. On paper, everything was perfect. There was only one question left, and that was whether I would actually like the car. It was a question for the ages, or at least until this past weekend when my husband brought home a new Impreza as a loaner vehicle while his was in the shop. The moment of truth was upon me.

My First Car Story

A few months ago, Toyota was running an ad campaign that featured families that passed down their Toyota through the generations. First the parents drove it, then big sister, then little brother and it’s still going strong. I loved those commercials. Matter of fact, though I was never featured in any of them, I am pretty much a walking ad campaign for the Corolla.

As fans of this blog (ha! hahahaha!) already know, I refer to my car – a ruby-red 1998 Toyota Corolla LE – as the World’s Best Car (WBC.) My parents sold it to me used in 2002 or 2003 for $5000 and I’ve had nary a problem with it since. The only expenditures have been traditional maintenance items, and I have driven the hell out of this thing. Over 165,000 miles and counting. If you’d told me 10 years ago that I’d be bringing my baby home from the hospital in it, I’d have assumed you were using a pet name to refer to my significant other.

Perhaps you have seen Subaru’s ad campaign for the new Impreza. It’s similar to the Toyota campaign, and I think it’s brilliant. “Tell us the story of your first car,” they say.  Who doesn’t think back fondly on for their first vehicle, even if it was a junkyard heap? We listen to people describe all the faults that car had and then they tell us how they loved it anyway. But the moral of the story? It’s time to move on to a new car, something better. Something that will be with you through scores and scores of new memories. Any one of these commercials, say this one, or this one, hammers home the point that cars are a significant part of our lives, shaping not only our memories but even our personalities.

I can relate only slightly to the first car stories featured in Subaru’s ad campaign. As I said, my car runs like a champ. But, 14 years down the line, it does have some quirks, and like any relationship that has lasted that long, the quirks can get annoying. The cupholder that you can close, but only if you want to have to open it again with a knife. The long extinguished light in the shift console, so that at night one must shift by feel alone (automatic car, this one.) The broken back door lock.

None of these things has been much of a hinderance…That is, until the kid came along. Broken back door lock pre-kid? No big deal. Post-kid? Big hassle. Also, perhaps you’ve noticed, 14-year-old cars are real low riders, (well mine is, anyway) so wrestling with the car seat is a real pain in the rump. And dear God, I need a key fob. Before I had a child, I wanted one. Now, I NEED one. Seriously. SOMEBODY GIVE ME A CAR WITH A KEY FOB.

I’ve toyed with the idea of a new car before, mostly when I am driving down the highway on a dark and stormy night being bullied about by the wind, but I have never thought quite so seriously about it as I have the past few months. The safety features that have become standard in the last 14 years would make it worth it. I’ve also been coveting something with all-wheel drive, for when we get our annual dusting of snow and I call in to work too scared to drive in. Of course, mileage has always been an issue, since I usually drive long distances and want the most bang for my buck.

Then along comes this little Subaru Impreza, an all-wheel drive vehicle boasting 36 miles to the gallon, only 2 less than my current vehicle. To let you in on a little secret, I’ve been coveting the 2012 Impreza long before I ever saw one of these ads. I read about it in one of Shaun’s magazines. It has a CRT transmission, allowing for the high mileage. And unlike the previous several years of Imprezas, it’s a sharp-looking car. It’s everything I want in a vehicle, providing it is in fact big enough to fit that car seat.

Oh but how sad would it be to put the world’s greatest car out to pasture? Actually, it would be downright stupid. It’s worth more than its blue book value, I’m sure. So should we decide to get a new car, we’ll keep it and Shaun will drive it to work to help us save on gas. (His ’04 Impreza STi is a real guzzler.) Still, I can’t think about driving something else without tearing up a little bit. I mean, that’s the car I brought my baby home in! I don’t know that next ten years will compare in milestones to the last ten and getting rid of that car will be like burning a scrapbook full of memories. Still, it would be really nice to have a key fob.

Me and the WBC, in our younger and more vulnerable years.

Another WGC Milestone

Another “World’s Greatest Car” Milestone…

Over the weekend, the world’s best car hit 150,000 miles. Lately we’ve taken to calling the car the “Raspberry,” an homage to the blue Toyota Echo on Psych named the “Blueberry,” but the car’s given name is Ms. Jho Nesbitt. The names were pneumonic devices to help me remember the license plate numbers. In fact, this 12-year-old car has gone through three license plates. The first was stolen and I recently had to replace the second due to the law in Washington State that requires new plates every seven years. I don’t have a pneumonic for the third plate, because really, how many names can a car have?

And that’s about the most trouble I’ve had with this car. Most of the other problems are chronicled on this blog, but they don’t account for many posts. I’ve had the tires changed twice, the brakes twice, the battery once and the sparks plugs a few times before realizing the coil pack also needed to be replaced. The windshield has been replaced once and is currently cracked. The console lights have burnt out, one of the automatic locks is broken and the floor mat has been worn down to nothing underneath my driving foot.

Yet, when a car is this reliable, age is nothing but your friend. I do a lot of driving. 80 miles a day minimum. The car is dirty, dinged and bruised and well, who cares? It’s old. It’s allowed to be. I’ve been told nothing, especially cars, lasts forever, so it seems a new car will be an inevitably at some point. I’ll admit I have the occasional daydream about getting a new car. The advancements in cup holder technology alone over the past 12 years are staggering. But if I got a new car I’d have to worry about every new ding and bruise. I might feel the need to wash it more than once every six months and honestly, who has that kind of time?

 And have I mentioned I get 38 miles to the gallon highway? It takes a hybrid to get that kind of mileage out of more modern cars.

Now that I have hit this milestone, it has crossed my mind that I might want to get the car checked out. A well-car appointment. But the few times I have gone to a mechanic, they have found nothing wrong with the car. Frankly, it’s getting embarrassing. They just can’t fix something that’s already running.

You may have heard some news about Toyota over the past six months or so. They were having some issues. Looks like those faulty brakes may have been driver error though. In any event, I would not hesitate to buy another Toyota, but for the present, my motto is, “if it ain’t broke, don’t spend a lot of money replacing it with something that probably won’t last as long.”  

Long live the Raspberry.

99

*Editor’s note: I wrote this piece a few weeks ago and then opted not to post it. The same thing happened to me three weeks in a row, so I’m posting it now.

99 minutes. That’s what the sign said. At this point, I’d already been in the car for 20, maybe 30 minutes, but according to the sign, it would be another 99 minutes to my destination. My destination was work, where I go every single day. I wish I could call the sign a big, fat liar, but I can’t. It was being honest with me.

Yes, this is going to be an angry diatribe against commuting. I hope you stay to commiserate, but I won’t blame you if you want to get out now.

There’s a story I heard on Car Talk several years ago that stuck with me. Tom, in his younger and more vulnerable years, had a  job he liked at a company he liked, but it just wasn’t right. Here he  explains what finally pushed him over the edge and caused him to quit.

“…The schlep was getting to me— an hour each way. I couldn’t move to Foxboro, because it was nowheres-ville. I HAD to live in Cambridge (my Fair City). BUT, what finally did it was a tractor-trailer truck that almost did me in on Route 128 on my way to work one day. Shaking in my little MGA after that experience, I asked myself a simple question. “If I had bought the farm out there on Route 128 today, wouldn’t I be bent at all the LIFE that I had missed?” I drove to work, walked into my boss’s office, and quit.

My boss was convinced that I had taken a job with a competitor. He just couldn’t understand the actual truth. Life was the issue.”1

I’m with Tom on this one. LIFE is the issue. I’ve always been a commuter. Even when I was staying in London, I had to take the tube for nearly an hour each day to get to class. And whether I live down south or on the east side, there’s just never been an easy way to get where I’m going. It’s exhausting. 

In my recent games class, another commuter, one who has to go from the east side to the west – a far shorter distance than I travel in length but not necessarily in time – designed two games based on commuting. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my frustrations, but then, if I were alone, it would make it so much easier to get back and forth to work. I read somewhere that as costs of living in the city go up, more people opt to live in the suburbs and commute, pushing more cars on the road and increasing travel times.

I’m sorry that I am contributing to the gridlock but living in the city no longer suits me. I’d be bitching about that far more than I do commuting. Really the best, and as I see it only, option here is for me to get out of the rat race entirely. Now if only I had a brother with a thick accent and cackling laugh who wanted to open a mechanic shop and share auto advice on the radio.

1. http://www.cartalk.com/content/about/bios/tom-bio.html

Gender Bender

When I was in high school and college, I spent a lot of time in the flute section of bands and orchestras, and immediately after college I spent a year or so working in the public library. These are the domains of women. I worked at three different branches of the Public Library and of the dozens of people I worked with, only two were men. Two very creepy men. And in any situation where one gender far outnumbers the other, there’s a certain dynamic in the room that you can feel, particularly if you are in the minority.

Television production work tends to be fairly balanced overall, but there are more women producers than men, and far, far more male editors than female. So for the past few years I have found myself in the minority. Oh there have been a few women editors that have come and gone. There was the crazy German woman. Then there was the crazy French woman. And occasionally there’s Cecilia, who’s half-French and very nice. But most of the time, it’s just me and the guys. And most of the time, it doesn’t bother me. I realized in college I got along better with men than women. And one of the reasons I am always happy to return to this particular job when there is work available is because I like all of the people, the men and the women. However,  because I work in the office where all the men work, I mostly hang out with the men. (Actually, if you ever read Dave Barry, you’ll know what I mean when I say they’re not really men, they’re actually guys.)

The latest joke amongst the guys comes courtesy of the local gas station. Every afternoon at least two of the editors make the trek down the street for an A.D.S. (All Day Soda – one of the giant 44-oz fountain drinks.) Well about a week ago they found a piece of sausage called a “Lil Chub” and they haven’t stopped talking about it since. This doesn’t actually bother me. Crude humor can be funny, though I’m more of a “That’s what she said” kinda gal. (“That’s what she said!”)

But every once in a while the gender dynamics creep back in the room. Last week I took a hard hit to the ego concerning my voiceover (VO.) As an editor, it’s part of my job to read a “scratch track.” It’s the dialogue or voiceover that will eventually be provided by the talent, but not until the show is almost finished and any revisions to the writing have been made. I have found reading VO to be kind of a humbling experience in general. First of all, until you get used to the sound of  your own voice, listening to your own scratch track is excruciating. Second, when I was reading VOs for my first show,  Gardening By the Yard, I realized early on I was talking WAY too fast. This is a problem because when you finally get the voiceover track from the professional, you want them to match as closely as possible so as not to screw up your timing. So I had to start reading much slower, and to keep myself in check, I wound up taking all the emotion out of my voice. If I didn’t get excited or try to act, I could concentrate more closely on leaving enough time and pronouncing all the words correctly. (Something else I realized very quickly was just how many words I gloss over in everyday speech. All that time I thought I was so eloquent. Try it someday, you might find the same thing.) However, an emotionless VO is a boring VO and can affect the energy of the show. So I’ve have spent some time up-ing my game so that I can read slower but still with emotion. I’ve gotten better, and one thing that helps is my current show (Sell This House) has a female voiceover anyway, so it’s much easier for me to imitate her cadence.

Last week one of the online editors was teasing me about my VO. How it sounded just like the professional’s, and how he would only talk to me if I used my voiceover voice. I protested that the VO voice was just my normal voice, but he called me on it saying “no it’s not, it’s different.” Well he’s right. It is different. How could it not be? Another male coworker from my days on Gardening came down and joined the fun, hassling me about the VO from the emotionless days.

I am not a great voiceover artist. If I were, believe me I’d be looking for work because it pays very well. But I’m not and my point here is that no one else is either. We have one editor who has done actual paid VO work and he’s pretty good, but the rest of them are just like me. Not great but acceptable for what it is. And no one makes fun of them. I don’t mind being made fun of, it’s par for the course and actually I rather like it because then I’m allowed to give as good as I get. But sometimes that dynamic just kicks in. It feels different when they pick on me for my voice. It feels like they’re picking on me because I’m a woman. Also, the two people who were picking on me for my VOs never have to read VOs themselves.   

People also pick on my car (you know, the world’s best car) which is fine because I choose to drive that car and I like it, but two other people there – men – drive Corollas and no one ever makes fun of them. I’m just saying.

I wish I had more of a moral to this story, but I guess this is where I have to realize I’m just sharing part of my day. How about you, wide world of readership? Can you shed any light? Do you ever feel the dynamic? Do you, like me, watch film credits to see the names of editors? The latest Star Trek film was edited by two women!

Wally World Adventure

While I’m still a few days away from my Disney vacation, Shaun and I did decide to venture out to the Wal-Mart on Thursday afternoon. What a mistake! Nobody but nobody knows how to drive in snow around here, and boy did we get an up close look at that on our way home.

Normally Wal-Mart is not our destination of choice, but I was on a desperate quest for a tree-topper. Why is everybody making tree toppers with that wide, spiral spring at the bottom? That just doesn’t work. So I thought I’d see what Wal-Mart had to offer, which was, of course, the same as everybody else.

So we left the store at about 4:30 and driving from Wal-Mart to home would ordinarily take about 5 minutes. Well we sat and sat and sat at the light as the intersection was backed up for miles. We decided instead of turning onto the busy road, we would go straight and cut across the mall parking lot. At which point we sat and sat and sat and waited for another light, finally turning onto another blocked road. We had the option of taking the freeway or sitting through another light and taking the back way. Figuring the freeway would be a mess, we went the back way. Another mistake!

We sat, sat, sat at another light before turning onto another crowded street. We figured it was blocked all the way up to the four-way stop, a half a mile, maybe a mile ahead. What we found was that it was only blocked until the bottom of the hill, where cars were stopped waiting for the person in front to make it all the way up the steep hill. People were not doing well, and a whole host of people from the nearby housing complex were out on the side of the road, trying to guide drivers and helping push when necessary. Well finally, it was our turn, and of course we made it straight up the hill.

We thought we were free and we’d be able to drive all the way home, but we thought wrong. Another line had formed at the next all-way stop, a repeat of the stop completely, then try and make it up the hill scenario. (Though this was much less of a hill.) We were about three cars behind a school bus which, upon its attempt to make it up the hill, got stuck. It was now sticking out of our lane and into the oncoming traffic lane. The bus, trying to get out of the way, backed right into the ditch and nearly tipped over. SIGH.

So the cars in front of us decide to try and go around the bus up the hill, and every one of them gets stuck. By this time, the occupants of the nearest house had come out and were trying to help people, but basically they just told us to turn around, and they were letting the cars use their driveway. Well, once the traffic cleared, Shaun and I start driving up the hill, and one woman yelled at us, “If you don’t have four-wheel drive, you’ll never make it!” I yelled back, “It’s a Subaru!” and we zipped up the hill and on home. It only took us 90 minutes to do that five minute drive.

I guess they probably thought, looking at us in our little sports car, that no way would we make it up the hill, so it’s kind of funny that all those SUVs had to turn around and go back and we had no problems whatsoever. But that’s what’s great about Subarus, they all have all-wheel drive. In fact, my parents had one of the last Subarus, a legacy, that they ever made WITHOUT all-wheel drive, and at the time, that was even hard to get.

So I guess the moral of this story is…don’t bother with Wal-Mart.

World’s Best Car gets the hiccups

Well if you’ve noticed the abundant posts today it’s because I’m sitting at home, stranded, the ’98 Corolla with 115,000 miles unwilling to start. The first blog post was homework. I’d been working on a lengthier, more profound post when I hit a wall, realizing I didn’t have anything particularly profound to say. So Zits cartoon it is. I think that counts?

I’m not sure why my car isn’t starting. It is turning over but not starting. Shaun had already left for work, and my dad isn’t sure what’s wrong. My dad of course thinks 115k miles is a lot, I disagree. Not for a Toyota, anyway. The possible diagnoses so far are: spark plugs, starter motor, or fuel pump. But I have to wait for Shaun to get home to take a look. Because of the odd location of my work, I can’t take a bus and I’m too far to call upon someone for a ride. So I’m trying to make the best of my time. I really don’t think I’m succeeding though!