How to Care for Introverts

E sent me this picture, which I think I've traced back to its original source:



Granted, I was already having a bad day when I read these, but I cried.  I cried.  The reason I'm having a bad day can be traced to violations of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 12.

10 and 11 are constant problems.

I wish I were an extrovert.  I wouldn't have to fight this fight every day.

UPDATED 11:03PM:

I was at work tonight and one of my first customers asked for books on careers.  I helped him find the books and picked up a copy of Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Your Personality Type, Revised and Updated, by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron.  I flipped through it and found this:

"Essentially you can use your functions [extroversion or introversion] in either of two ways: in the outer world or in the inner world.  Extraverts [sic] use their dominant function in the outer world, with other people.  They use their auxiliary function in their inner world, when they are alone, or when the situation relates more personally to them.

For introverts, the opposite is true.  Introverts use their dominant function in their inner world (which is why you have to get to know Introverts before you can appreciate their greatest strengths).  They use their auxiliary function in the outer world (which places them at somewhat of a disadvantage, since what others see most is not their strongest function)."

Perhaps this partially explains why rules 10 and 11 can be so troubling.

Goal #31

Goal #31: get it together.

Guys, I'm feeling a little (okay, a lot) overwhelmed.  My single-day to-do list in my planner now takes up three days.  My house is a disaster area.  My pile of dirty laundry is as big as me.  My dog has been on one walk in the last three days.  Things are not good.  What's more, I'm not likely to get much of these things taken care of this week - I'll be very busy with work stuff.  I'm going to take a little break and just try to get things as organized as possible, so I can feel a little more sane next week.

Recap of Goal #30: I barely squeaked by with this one. At 10:14 tonight, I finished my filing!  (See what I mean?)

Random Links

Baby elephant vs. mud pit.

Call a spade a spade (or the bigger picture).

Great photos.

I'm not sure how well this plan was thought through.

It's about time, big box stores.

You choose when and where to see the movie.

I love this ad.  Couldn't have said it better myself.  Nice work, ad agency.

Conservatives are neat freaks; liberals are slobs.

What I Watched -- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

I've been having so much fun lately that I'm way behind on posting!  I don't even know when it was that I watched The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest - sometime before I left for vacation.  Anyway, it's the last movie in the Swedish trilogy (others: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Who Played with Fire).  Only the first one is out so far as an American remake.

Speaking of, I know I watched the American version of Dragon Tattoo fairly recently, but I guess I forgot to blog about it.  Also, this stupid search feature really stinks, so maybe I'll blame it even though I'm pretty sure I really did forget to blog.

Anywho, Hornets' Nest was fairly loyal to the book, and the parts that were cut out for length didn't hurt the flow a bit.  If you haven't read the book, you won't have any idea that you're missing anything.

Bottom line: same as the other two - very entertaining and punky, no best actors/actresses.

So . . . Chicago happened.

I went to Chicago!  It was a while ago (early July - same as last year, and the year before), but I was so busy with running around the city that I didn't have time to post.  Here are the highlights:

- I saw J&T, C&A!  Due to a minor e-mail miscommunication, we thought we were going to miss each other, so imagine my surprise when I opened the door of their house and there they were!  And imagine their surprise when someone was opening the door to their house!

- I took my bike, which was the best idea EVER.  The weather was warm but great, and I rode it all over the place.  Saturday I left my car at J&Ts and scooted around using some combination of bike, el, and my own two feet.  Sunday, I drove part of the way into the city so I would be able to jump on 55 in the evening, but just found a place I could park my car for the day and rode away.

- I had two tasty dinners!  Friday night I met up with M&M at Ombra in Andersonville.  It's Italian tapas, was good, and [highlight!] I had an oyster!  I haven't had oysters since I lived in Bethesda, and I didn't really like them the one and only time I tried them, so I had held off.  But M had one and said it wasn't too briny, which was my big issue with the first ones I had.  It came with a sauce that tasted like vinegar, onions, and lime juice, and it was actually not bad.

Saturday a bunch of the rowing peeps went to The Counter in Lincoln Park, a design-your-own-burger place. I basically used toppings I would normally put on a salad - baby spinach, craisins, herbed goat cheese, apricot glaze - all slathered on a 2/3-pound burger.  With onion straws and sweet potato fries.  Mmm mmm good.

- I got my Potbelly's!  I went on a Sunday bike ride with C and we stopped in for lunch - my usual: a wreck and an Oreo shake.

- I won a gold medal!  Against high schoolers, but whatever!

Brothers of the Sun

So much goodness!

Let's back ourselves up to Day 2 in Denver.  T came out for a short weekend, and we went to see Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney!  We spent a little bit of time walking around the city, so we missed both of the opening acts: Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and Jake Owen.  (C'mon, the concert started at 4:30!)  I actually did want to see Jake Owen (who looks a lot like Luke Wilson); I like a lot of his songs.  I don't know much (okay, any) Grace Potter aside from the duet of "You and Tequila" she does with Kenny, which I got to see her do, so...no love lost there I guess.  Jake Owen didn't come back out until the last song of the encore though.  A little bummed about that.

But everything else was fantastic!  I mean, really.  It's two of country music's biggest superstars performing together.  So...yeah.  Words don't really do.  The set list is here.  Pictures will tell you the rest:

Tim spent a lot of time out amongst the fans.

T is my photographer.  He even got a butt shot!

Well hello!

"...the things I've done for foolish pride,

The me that's never satisfied,

The face that's in the mirror,

When I don't like what I see,

I guess that's just the cowboy in me."

He practically kicked us in the head.

It was hard to get a good shot of Kenny because he just didn't stop moving!

Super high-energy show.

Kenny seemed to prefer the main stage.

Kenny with Grace Potter

Yes, that's him!

The whole crew: Tim, Grace, Kenny, and Jake Owen.

 Signing autographs after the show

Oh, what a night!

Goal #30

Goal #30: file, file, file.

Everyone has those papers which are allegedly important and you know you should keep, but even if you do, you rarely look at and aren't totally sure why you have them: receipts for major purchases, financial statements of various types, payroll info, vehicle maintenance records, etc.

My super-duper filing system works like this: I pile all those papers up in a big pile until it's about ready to fall over or I can't fit any more into my container of choice, then I actually sort through them and decide what I need to keep, what I can shred, and what to file where.  It's gettin' to be that time.

Recap of Goal #29: I started reading!  Yay, I'm finally reading a book!  I'm about halfway through and it's actually a pretty quick read, although I think I will go back and read some of the more nitty gritty sections (training schedules, nutrition) again once I have the full picture in my head.

Denver, Day 2

Big deal of the day and the reason I'm in Denver: Brothers of the Sun!!  I will write about this in a separate post, because it deserves it.  T got some seriously awesome pictures, and it was phenomenal!

Prior to the big show, I spent the morning much as I did yesterday: coffee, breakfast, reading.  Dad and D headed off to a wedding just shortly before T got into town, so we did a little bit of wandering around and shopping, and had hamburgers at The Cherry Cricket.  Then off to the show.

A couple more thoughts on Denver.  First: a reprise - bathrooms.  Not as impressed with the public-ish restrooms I experienced in Denver as I was in North Carolina.  Twice I had to literally straddle the toilet in order to get the door closed (see Mom's comment posted today in response to my recent props to NC bathrooms).  When they (probably men) are designing those bathrooms, does it ever occur to them that someone has to actually fit inside a stall?  And be able to close the door?  It does not appear so.

Second, flowers. The flowers in Denver (and in Breck, for that matter) are AMAZING.  Like the flowers in Santa Fe last year.  They're everywhere, they're vibrant.  Heck, as far as I'm concerned, they're alive, which is more than I can say for anything at home.  I want to be good at keeping plants alive!  Alas, I am not.

Denver, Day 1

Welcome to Denver, please don't mind the mass shootings.

Normally, I live under a rock, but even I heard first thing in the morning about the gunman who opened fire on a theater full of people in Aurora, Colorado.  And, as is so often the case, he "seemed like a totally normal, nice, smart guy, maybe a little quiet but I never thought he'd do anything like this."  But he did.

In other and significantly less tragic news, it was super hot in Denver for yet another day, so we did our best to stay in the A/C as much as possible.  After sort of a slow start to the day, we stopped by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to check out their exhibit on gems and minerals, which is a stunner.  They have some amazing pieces, and many of them were found right here in Colorado!  What was especially interesting was that many of them, in their pre-polished or pre-extracted form, didn't look any different than any of the thousands of rocks you've walked past a hundred times and never given a second thought to.  Some of the huge local gems were found in the last couple of decades even!  So keep your eyes peeled!

The afternoon was more of the same - staying in the A/C and watching the news.  We stopped for a late lunch at a Mexican place after the museum and ran a couple of errands, but then I sat around reading (yes! I started my running book and even picked up a Runner's World magazine that D's daughter left behind) until dinner.

Speaking of dinner, T braved the heat to grill up some tuna steaks, and we had semi-local Olathe sweet corn, which was incredibly good - debate raged over whether it was the corn itself, or the addition of milk to the pot for cooking.  (Plus there were Olathe peaches on the salad!)  And I capped off the day my meeting H, one of the few people I know in Denver, for some fro yo.  (Yes, more fro yo.  Don't judge.)  We ate chocolate and peanut butter deliciousness (which tasted surprisingly of actual peanuts), and then she had to head off to day two of the Underground Music Showcase, at which many very hip bands I've never heard of will play at one of a number of venues.  Looking at the website, it seems that one could easily get overwhelmed by all the musical options.  There are a half dozen (at least, sometimes a dozen) different people or groups playing all the time, so you really have to pick your battles if you're going to make it through the weekend.  God speed, H!

Breckenridge, Day 3

Fishing is so fun!

Dad had planned a guided trip to a little stretch of the middle fork of the South Platte River yesterday.  It's private water and a fishing shop in Breck called The Mountain Angler has exclusive rights to fish it, but they're very careful with it and don't fish it every day so the fish don't get too much pressure.

We started fishing probably around 8:30, and were immediately onto the brown trout, which were everywhere.  After that came the rainbows.  Then T scored a brook trout and I landed a cutthroat, which put us both on track for a grand slam - I needed a brookie and T needed a cutthroat.

M, our guide, was fishing with me since T probably fishes enough to be a guide himself.  He had been on this water last week and found a spot right near the edge of the property where at least two brook trout were living, so off we went.  It was really a group effort: T stood on the bank spotting fish, M kept my line untangled, and I caught brown trout.  And brown trout.  And more brown trout.  Seriously, enough with the brownies.  And then a brook trout!  Grand slam!

At that point we broke for lunch.  M shagged ahead to get it ready. T and I fished our way back down, and arrived to find grilled pheasant stuffed with cream cheese and jalapenos.  Not bad for a river lunch!

The afternoon was a little slower in terms of catching fish every time you put a fly on the water, which is to say, I think I caught four.  Two were teeny little browns, one was a pretty decent brown, and one....  Oh baby.  We were all on a little pool in the river, I was fishing the fast water up above and T was fishing the slow water at the base of it.  We fished and fished, and even using the teeny #20 zebra midge, caught zilch.  Then, at the same time, we were both on.  Dad had a brown

I never saw this fish.  It wasn't in a lot of water, but it was in the shadow of a rock, and it was big.  And it took a long time for him to tire out.  He ran a little bit down river, but luckily there was nothing there he could get hung up on; it was just a big flat pool.  So I reeled him back in, then he saw us and ran again.  Then I reeled him back in.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  When M finally netted him, it turned out he was a steelhead.  And he was big, probably 20 inches long, which I believe makes him (or her) the biggest fish I have ever caught.  What's better than a grand slam?

So, steelhead (I learned yesterday) are the same species as rainbow trout, except that they swim out to the sea, where they eat loads of food and get huge.  Then, just like their more famous running cousins the salmon, they swim back upriver to spawn.  So my question is this: different size, different habitat, different eating habits, different life cycle - at what point to they become a different species?

Anywho, you'll probably notice there are no pictures of these fish.  That's because none of us even had a cell phone.  But I have witnesses.

When fishing was over, we hit the road for Denver, only to get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for six miles because a giant sinkhole had opened up in one of the lanes of the interstate.  Oops.

We arrived much later than expected, but managed to make it to dinner at North in Cherry Creek.  We ordered calamari as an app, and it came basically as a calamari salad on a bed of arugula, which was unexpected but delicious.  My dinner was a spicy chicken sausage pizza with asparagus and peppers, which was a little less spicy than I expected (it didn't quite stand up to the wine), but was otherwise good.  Pretty much anything with asparagus is good.  We stopped at a design-your-own fro yo concoction on the way home whose name I don't know, but my mango fro yo with peaches was a prefect, refreshing end to a great day of fishing!