yay! i'm so excited. everyone i approached about being on my advisory board (and eventually, regular board) said yes, as of today. i'm really surprised about this, and happy and grateful. i feel like things are coming together. i've been working on a grant for MY project and it's humming along pretty well. it's due next tuesday but i want to finish it tomorrow, if possible, b/c we have the circuit assembly this weekend and i don't want to have to deal with it during that time.
in other news...
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye." -Miss Piggy
i don't have to work at the OG (i'll decode this finally, a little bit: the restaurant where i work part-time) until monday. this is gratifying. it was getting really depressing to me today, for some reason. the tips have been pretty abysmal. (i was about to write "haven't been that good," but nahhhh...abysmal.) i don't understand how other people can work there and afford to pay their bills AND buy stupid employee meals and even DRINK there all the time. and i hate waiting on tables of young guys. a lot. cute, thinner waitresses seem to get tipped decently by tables of guys. cute, heftier ones like myself don't seem to. grrrrr. remember how miss piggy used to go, "hiiiii YAH!!!" and karate chop people when she was angry? i kind of want to do that in this context.
what i think might be better for me right now is something like a p/t temp job or something, where there's not always a lot to do, i can sit in front of a computer and the internet, and be able to work on mah own bizness during down time. i don't know. i will explore this option more next week.
in the meantime, i also called up two of the kids i worked with on a previous mural/garden project and they both a) seemed really happy to hear from me, which made me feel awesome (i think i overuse this word), and b) agreed to be youth interns. one, a boy named c., just started high school, and kept saying, "wow! thank you for calling me! i'm so glad to hear from you!" and the other one, a girl named s., yelled "i'm talking to miss denise!" to her mom while we were talking and said she was already going to an afterschool program, but that she "could skip a couple of days."
yay, yay, yay. it feels good to finally be making progress.
i don't know what's wrong with me, but p. was right when he said i was obsessed with this stupid commercial. i've been looking for some little smudge of info online about this recent BK ad for their new 99 cent menu. the official title of the spot is "blingo," featuring john leguizamo (who also directed it) lookin like he's rapping (it's actually miami rapper pitbull's voice and music). all i could find till now was some photos of the shoot on drastic auto club's website (it looks like they provided the cars in the ad) and an article on adweek.com that you have to be a paid subscriber to look at. and nothing else. it just seemed kind of mysterious or something.
ALL i wanted was to maybe hear someone else weigh in on it, and also a still from the ad-- just to provide whoever i haven't lost yet with this unjustifiable preoccupation with this thing--a visual point of reference for the puzzling (for me) combination of fast food, leguizamo yumminess, miami references, corporate latino hip hop/pop culture appropriation, and that crazy big 99 medallion thingy.
-take the dogs out for a good walk -at least one load of laundry -get a good chunk of the support materials for the YC MDCAC grant put together -make some phone calls re: -getting letters of support (SH, OT, WP) -call S, Sh, C (find sheet w/ tel #s) -work on my errant, depressingly late final project for MN class -make chicken soup -lesson/project planning at CG -NOT READ BLOGS
whAAAA! (that was me realizing i have a lot to do and running off in a cloud of smoke and dust to get started.)
this is an archive of a lot of the links i gobble up. i'll try to sort them by topic eventually, but for now this is just a simple way to share my furl archive of links.
minha suddenly peed on the little blanket i put down for her to lie on instead of getting dog hair and stinkiness all over our furniture. i think she's trying to mark it as territory or something. or do only male dogs do that? i don't know. i'm a very territorial girl, in some ways. i'd probably pee on stuff if i was a dog.
i feel good, sort of, because i'm almost finished with another grantwriting project i owed someone. i had a really bad, flaky, messy year or so (yuck, it sounds like i'm describing a scalp, not a period of time) between 2003-2004, due to bad health and bad meds, and i'm still kind of dealing with the aftermath. finishing up unfinished projects, getting organized, trying to recover my trashed self-esteem. you know, all those fun things. i am being silly. but serious. it's embarassing, but i'm dealing with it, little by little.
also, i hate the topics on tblog (humor, entertainment, sports, technology, art, hobbies, business, technology, games, politics, religion, news, philosophy, and science). practically none of them are relevant to anything i post. i wish we could create our own categories on here. HINT.
i'm so proud of myself - yesterday i successfully installed OpenOffice, an open source, multiple-platform office suite (think Microsoft Office but free, with more features, and a little less user-friendly) on my mac. it was a little unwieldy, because i had to install a couple of other applications to get it to work properly, and like i said--it's not the most user-friendly program to install--but it's here, and it works! i'm so sick of trying to use my old MSOffice 2001 in the Classic environment and having it crash on me all the time. so i hope this is better.
i have to go! don't have to go to the OG or teach afterschool today and i have a lot of other stuff to catch up on.
i'm jewban. (my father is cuban, and my mother's family is eastern-european jewish.)
anyway, i decided to do a search for the word "jewban," and the vast majority of what google threw back to me referred to the same story.
i remember when this happened, down here in south florida. who knew that it would go on to forever (or at least for awhile) dominate internet search results on jewban info.
wow.
if i find anything more interesting, i'll post it.
i recently stopped doing mystery shopping, which i'd been doing as a teeny little side job to get a little extra $$ and the occasional free lunch. it paid only about 5 to 10 bucks a shop, and it wasn't worth the hassle of driving to wherever (even if it was close by), feigning interest in their product, taking detailed mental notes, and then typing up the evaluation. i dunno.
anyway, it basically consisted of getting assignments via email to go order food or "shop" at their client chain stores/fast food places and then filling out an online evaluation form afterwards. then they require you to write a short, ultra-detailed summary of the whole visit afterwards based on a sample format they provide.
i found the fact that i was writing these bizarro bits of text sort of hilarious and thought their banal weirdness might be somewhat blogworthy.
here's an evaluation from one of my first visits. Corporate Brand Names have been replaced for everyone's protection. Here goes:
< start mystery shopper exerpt >
I was the only customer in the drive-thru line as I drove up to place my order. I waited about thirty seconds in front of the menu board, which was in good condition and had all the appropriate signage. I finally said, "Hello?," and as I spoke, a pre-recorded greeting (in a female voice) said, "Welcome to Miami Suckage, would you like to try our new grilled wings platter today?" Then a male voice came out of the speaker, saying, "Can I take your order?"
I ordered the grilled chicken breast platter and asked if I could substitute anything for the fries. The cashier said I could order double salad, so I requested that. He asked me what type of drink I wanted with my order, and I asked for a Diet Coke. Then he told me that my order would come out to $6.95 and to drive up to the order window.
I drove up to the first window, where the cashier, a small-framed man with short, strawberry blond hair greeted me and repeated the amount of my order. He was wearing the proper Miami Suckage uniform, and no name tag. I paid with a credit card. When he was done processing my payment, he began to move away from the cash register, and I asked whether I should proceed to the second window. He nodded yes and waved his hand in the direction of the second window.
I drove up to the second window and waited a few minutes. I observed that there was trash on the ground outside in the drive-thru area. The second drive-thru window's frame appeared to be broken or damaged; there was a piece of metal sticking out and hanging over the window ledge. The tile on the outside of the window ledge was also tagged with black marker (graffiti). Through the window, I couldn't see any other staff members in the kitchen or behind the counter. I saw my cashier putting the order together--putting the food into the packaging, etc.
When he was done, the same cashier that took my order and assembled it brought my food and drink over. I thanked him and drove away. My order was accurate and correctly packaged in a black three-compartment plate with a plastic lid. Everything was tasty and the appropriate temperature, although the little plastic container of Tatziki seemed to be slightly open and greasy on top.
Overall, the general drive-through experience was fine, the food was decent, and I wouldn't mind recommending that particular Miami Suckage to a friend.
< /end >
oh, let's get that last entry pushed farther down the page...
feeling much better. a good weekend. saw my new-ish nephew for the first time--my sister lives in colorado, and they came for a visit. he's the cutest, smartest baby ever.
and just because, the link of the day is to some info about The Laundromat Project on the Echoing Green website--a really awesome sounding arts/community development project coming out of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. they're setting up laundromats that will also function as mini community arts centers, offering arts and literacy programs to neighborhood residents. revenue from the laundromat will help fund the programs.
aside from that, i wrote 300 words, it wasn't that hard. also was pretty productive work-wise.
maybe i don't need to feel like this. i'll try thinking about it differently.
i hate blogging right now. yet am compelled to do it. i should be writing this in a notebook, like i did for the first 16 years or so of my journalling life. at the same time though, i feel like i've achieved some sort of balance in figuring out what to put here. some stuff stays in the notebook, although more often than not that stuff just doesn't go anywhere.
i don't know why, though, once i thought to write this particular stuff, my first impulse was to come here.
but whatever - if i had a disable comments feature, i'd use it on this post. just saying.
yay! i'm out of grant hell. i've been helping a theater company write two grants through this program they have at our county cultural affairs department. they pay bilingual grantwriters to help primarily spanish-speaking organizations who need assistance putting together grant applications in english. i've really enjoyed meeting and learning about the work of this theater company, but the grantwriting itself is not so much fun. natch. it's also been difficult trying to translate contemporary experiemental theater/theory lingo into english from spanish. i know what most of the terms mean, but can't always think of the corresponding jargon in english. anyway, i'm done with the last of the revisions and the hellish budget balancing process, and the theater people seem happy, so i'm glad.
anna nicole smith is scary and gross, but i'm disappointed she got skinny. well, whatever. it's not like she was a famous fat chick we could be proud of or anything.
as for using a hammer to fix my computer: a few months ago, i accidentally dropped my laptop on the floor. i know, i know. anyway, it bent up the metal/casing around the little outlet plug thingy for the charger. to get the charger to light up, which means it's charging/connected properly, i had to jiggle the wire and try moving the computer around and push the plug in farther and all kinds of annoying things. finally, today i used a small hammer to gently hammer the warped metal casing and flatten it out a little. the charger works A LOT better now. hammering my computer could have been disastrous. but it worked!
anne lamott, who i continue to read very appreciatively but with a healthy critical eye (but OK, i find myself agreeing with/liking a lot of things she says) recommends making a commitment to writing 300 words/day no matter what. i want to try this.
today i missed doing my personal study. i've done it every day this week but today was really busy and rushed in the morning. i have to remember to make time for it tomorrow AM. i like it.
TTFN. does anyone remember that from like, middle school note writing? it stands for Ta Ta For Now.
i'm so happy. i just fixed my computer--with a hammer! for really! more on that later, although i doubt anyone out there will be moping around the rest of the afternoon like, "oh, NO - now i'm going to be drooling in suspense all day, wondering HOW in the world that crazy SQ managed to fix her computer with a HAMMER!?"
i'm under a grant deadline right now, gotta go.
i'm so glad to be feeling more like myself again, at least for now. somehow the week after my period, i'm in my best form, whatever that is--emotionally, intellectually, physically, whatever. then it's all downhill from there. i'll enjoy it while it lasts!
our littlest dog, katta, has started this bad sneaky habit of going into the bathroom, climbing up onto the sink, and gnawing on my tube of tom's of maine natural toothpaste (the most expensive one, of course, which i can now no longer use since it's been tainted by Dog Mouth). i first realized this when i discovered a set of tooth marks in the tube. we try to keep the door closed, but she still gets in there sometimes. i can tell when she's been in there, because she strolls into the living room with this nonchalant, yet guilty look on her face, and, upon closer inspection, she has minty fresh breath.
"If you find that you start a number of stories or pieces that you don't ever bother finishing, that you lose interest or faith in them along the way, it may be that there is nothing at their center about which you care passionately. You need to put yourself at their center, you and what you believe to be true or right. The core, ethical concepts in which you most passionately believe are the language in which you are writing.
...Telling these truths is your job. You have nothing else to tell us...Your whole piece is the truth, not just one shining epigrammatic moment in it. There will need to be some kind of unfolding in order to contain it, and there will need to be layers...
....The word moral has such bad associations: with fundamentalism, stiff-necked preachers, priggishness. We have to get past that. If your deepest beliefs drive your writing, they will not only keep your work from being contrived [bold mine] but will help you discover what drives your characters...We like certain characters because they are good or decent--they internalize some decency in the world that makes them able to take a risk or make a sacrifice for someone else."
i don't know what to say right now. i need to go to sleep. there is so much i want to write about in general, but i feel like i have a cork stopper in there. i'm a lot more bubbly on this blog than i generally feel. also, part of me is continually surprised that so many people's first impression of me is consistently "really sweet and nice."
a little of it is feeling guilty that i am not--on a real, everyday basis---all that sweet and nice. or at least not consistently. and a little of it is that i'd rather give off other vibes, like "smart and interesting." or, "brilliant and simmering." i'm being silly now, but seriously--it's like when i was 14 and an older woman in my congregation said i was "just so wholesome!" when you are 14, you do NOT, no matter how well you behave in real life, wish to be considered wholesome.
however, my friend raina from a long time ago once pointed out (in so many words) that other adjectives like sexy wear off or dead end eventually, and that sweet can get you a lot farther, sometimes. especially if you are not doing it on purpose.
so...if you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, can you catch even more with peanut butter?
i just returned from a batch of errands. this morning i also went to my new gym for the first time. i tend to be overly swayed/moved by first impressions, but i was so thrilled with this little gym that i wanted to cry a little bit. however, i also kind of felt that way when i started with lady of america, and look how bad they turned out to suck (at least from a financial/ethical standpoint).
i was thrilled today because it was almost totally empty when i was there, and i felt really comfortable. as attendants during the day, there were not meatheaded pretty boys (i'm sorry, i know that sounds mean) or 18-year old thin girls working there, as i have come to expect from miami gyms, but two friendly middle-aged women with plenty of hips, belly, and butt. i dunno, this is comforting to me. one of them was wearing this weird corset thing over her clothes, and got up on one of the treadmills from time to time to get some mild cardio in.
another thing i noticed was that they have several motivational flyers in spanish displayed in the storefront window. i don't know why after nearly six years in miami, spanglish in the public sphere still continues to be amusing to me. my favorite was:
HAGA EJERCICIO, Y COMBATE EL OVERWEIGHT! (exercise, and fight overweight!)
nothing else for now.
why, john leguizamo, pitbull, and burger king--WHY?
ok, so it appears that now burger king is now trying to reach the young, burger-eating latino market with a new ad for its new 99-cent menu. i just saw it on TV for the first time, and it makes me really disturbed and disconcerted and stuff. this is because it conflates two latino artists that i really like and would not have associated with, um, BK-- john leguizamo and miami's own pitbull-- with fast-food themed pimpy appropriated pseudo hip-hop posturing. john leguizamo, who i love (especially his one-man shows) and have (had?) respect for, is the "main character" in the commercial, lip-synching a pitbull song while hoochie girls hang on him, dance in front of burker king counters, and eat french fries. he's wearing a big old gold necklace with a big round pendant on it that says 99. it's totally confusing. i'm sure both artists made a ton of money off of it, and i guess maybe in a way there's something positive? (if i hold my breath and squint) in the way that this reflects that this segment of the latino population is being recognized as consumers? but...ugh. i have Mixed Feelings.
p.s. that IMDB photo of john l. is horrible and so does not do him justice, btw
i started to feel sort of down on myself just now, for stupid reasons that maybe i'll elucidate one day (but not now), so to counteract that i'm going to write about my afternoon. which was nothing terribly special, but actually sort of fabulous in a quiet, everyday sort of way.
come to think of it, it wasn't just the afternoon--the rest of the day wasn't bad either.
i got a good night's sleep last night, and came really close to just getting right on the computer after i woke up (which totally kills any routines and productivity for the day right away), but didn't. we have two dogs who usually need to be taken out to walk/poop separately cuz they are hard to handle, so i took them out one at a time, and took the most energetic one for a really nice long walk. i'm sort of trying to build up to be able to go full-fledged running eventually, but i'm a big girl, so i'm, um, not quite there yet. so i mostly walk, and then i pick a spot to start from, like a tree next to the sidewalk, and run from there to another tree about 100 yards away. for now, i'm doing that twice a walk, and i'll work up to running for longer periods little by little. or else i'll shred my poor chubby knees. i know running is not, like, the ideal exercise for heavy people, but sometimes i just have the ganas to run, you know?
when i came back inside, i did my little weight training routine. my goal is to do this three times a week, for now. now that i've broken my exercise hiatus and am starting to re-adapt, it felt really good, like my bones and muscles were all loose and relaxed, but buzzing with energy.
i read the DT, which i wasn't inclined to do at first, but made myself, and i was glad. then i had coffee and got overly absorbed in the online world and was unproductive for a couple of hours. finally, for a couple of hours in the early afternoon, i got some good work in and crossed some stuff off my to-do list.
then i went to meet my grandma around 5pm for coffee. i might write more about her here one day. she's a tough, outstanding, 85-year-old who i might never be able to do justice in writing. after we got our coffee, i showed her where our table was, and she said in her being-silly voice, "oh! we're sitting by my friend." her friend, who was sitting a couple tables over, was this guy who waits tables at a restaurant she and my aunt and uncle go to a lot. she introduced us, and after we sat down she cupped her hand to her mouth and said in a raspy whisper that was supposed to be quiet, "he's studying pre-med. i always encourage him to go to medical school. he has a WIFE, and he's very LOYAL." later, after she left, i went over and had a nice little conversation with him about my grandma, and then college, and medical school, and miami, and art. that's the really cool thing about my grandma--she makes friends with people she meets working at restaurants and stores, or standing on the sidewalk somewhere where she happens to be smoking a cigarette.
after that, at the to-be-unnamed coffee place, i got in another really good chunk of time working on my story. this is important.
then i went to my assembly line salsa class. (all these Things to Write About are popping up here. i guess that's one good reason for blogging.) it's at a very popular "dance complex" (that's what they actually call themselves!) that offers casino/rueda salsa dance classes. it's really fun, but i say assembly line salsa because it feels a lot more impersonal than any other dance class i've taken, despite the fact that classes are given in small groups. they break down the moves into about four per proficiency level, which they teach in separate class sections--i.e. beginner 1, A and B, beginner 2, A and B, intermediate 1, A and B, and so on. you move up section by section, and when you appear to have mastered the moves for a specific proficiency level, the instructor gives you a little slip of paper or "pass" that lets you go on to the next level. i've been burnin up the ranks! i've gone twice, and have gotten a pass each time. *modestly polishes fingernails on shirt* so it's sort of impersonal, because you're with a different instructor and group of people just about every time. this is at least my impression so far.
¡pa'el medio! ¡para abajo! ¡exhibela! ¡exhibela doble! ¡dile que no! ¡dame una! ¡guapeala! that's all i know so far. in casino rueda, you have to constantly switch partners. one website compares it to "Cuban square dancing," which is a bizarre image. in my class today there was a guy who had his zipper open the whole time. he didn't seem to be aware of it. he smelled like cigarette smoke, and he had a hard time learning the moves. unfortunate. he seemed really good-natured about it though.
then i went to pick up my tiny check at the OG, where one of the waitresses asked me why i was so dressed up, and after that i decided to go pick up some food at this nearby supermarket, which happens to be at my favorite shoppin (spanglish for shopping center) in the neighborhood. while i was there, i sort of impulsively decided to check out this mom 'n pop storefront gym that i'd been vaguely thinking about looking into. they don't require contracts or down payments, which have caused much financial suckage for me in the past in connection with gyms. i'd been feeling intimidated about going in, since i am presently fatter than i've been, i think, EVER, but i mustered some nerve and went in. i left signed up for one month. the gym is really no-frills, straight up basic, just a couple of treadmills, an elliptical trainer, a stationary bike, and a bunch of old-school weight machines. no aerobics room. but this is ok. i'm psyched to go back to weight machines again. yay!
and now i'm home. P and i entertained ourselves for half an hour by taking digital photos of our dogs in the bathroom and a bunch of other really retarded things i won't mention here, and then erasing them. like the talking heads song says, "and we're having fun / with no money."
this, from an email from my friend S., made me laugh really hard into my computer screen today:
"Oh by the way I had a dream last night where my dog raja was walking with me but he was wearing a Heineken Yarmulke. A knitted one. Not sure what was going on there."
edited to add: it's occurred to me that maybe some folks out there don't know what a yarmulke is. one definition i found is: "A Yiddish word for the skull-cap worn by observant Jewish males."
a) we're totally fine after the hurricane, it barely affected our area, not that anyone around here asked...SPDER :roll: (self-pity-directed eye roll)
b) i'm reading anne lamott's bird by bird and it's giving me a lot of help and insights about writing, especially fiction - something i was starting to really get all self-doubty about. now i'm at least feeling like i have some good tools with which to tackle it again. writing fiction, i mean.
c) i'm thinking of switching from tBLOG to tabulas. does anyone, besides npera2 (from whom i found out about tabulas via her blog) have any experience with that blogware/service? it seems pretty spiffy.
d) we had almost 3x the usual amount of people today at the restaurant where i work 2x a week. we thought it was b/c people were sick of being stuck inside during the hurricane warning and just all showed up to go out to eat in full force, if only to find more excuses to get out of the house. it was busy, which is good $$wise. i'm tired.
we are safe and fine so far, and the hurricane isn't affecting things down here so much. we still have power, fortunately. but everything arounder here is in hurricane warning mode--stores and businesses are mostly closed, and it is blustery and rainy outside. so when you're cooped up at home all day, you tend to eat a lot, just cuz there's not much else to do. well, at least WE tend to eat a lot.
so we've started to dip into our hurricane preparedness stash, because it's kind of fun, for some reason. this blog is brought to you by
vienna sausages: mushy, salty little links of mechanically separated chicken, beef, and pork. very unhealthy, and sort of gross, but intriguing, somehow. there is something about the idea of meat packed in seven tiny, symmetrically arranged, half-finger-sized links, inside a tiny little can with a pull top, that's weirdly appealing to me. i used to hate them and find them really gross, but i don't know...they're starting to grow on me.
that's enough, because this is starting to become too time-consuming and ridiculous. i'm getting more coffee (the next featured hurricane food) and getting back to work on my unabashed project (more on that later, too).
let's see how this here blog-chalkin' thang works...
blogchalking is "collaboratively mapping weblogs for smarter blogsearching." it supposedly allows you to "Tattoo your blog! (tm)" by "Affording you the opportunity to disclose something personal without revealing too much; Blogchalking.com assists you in being indexed by the World Wide Web's search engines." check it out at http://www.blogchalking.com.
posting this is supposed to help with indexing:
This is my new blogchalk: United States, Florida, Miami, English, Spanish, art, writing, music, reading, food, health, film, community-based art, rocking the casbah.
i am getting sooooo antsy and anxious and sick of being cooped up inside. i don't want anyone to be hurt by this hurricane or anything, but i want it to GET HERE already and get it OVER WITH ALREADY!!! it was supposed to be here by now, but it probably won't reach landfall until sometime tomorrow night. all the waiting sucks. grrrr.
oh, geez. reading back over it, it looks like i could have written this same exact block of writing as a petulant 12-year-old, or something.
...edited to add - why is this showing up as yesterday's post?? and why is yesterday's post show up as today? for the record, i am writing this as of 12:43 AM saturday morning. so there.
tBLOG, get your act together already!
i'll shut up about frances eventually, but in the meantime
so, today i joined the throngs of miamians getting ready for hurricane frances to smash into town. hopefully it won't literally smash into town--it looks like it's going to land a little bit north of here, in palm beach county--but it's definitely a big ol' hardcore storm.
i thought i'd write a little bit about some stuff we did/are doing to get ready. i know the newspapers and news sites publish all kinds of guides and checklists about hurricane preparedness, but i was looking online today for some Real, Concrete, Personal Advice on last-minute hurricane prep (which is how most people do it anyway), and couldn't find much. so here goes.
WATER: people down here have been cleaning out the supermarkets of bottled water. it was very hard to find any at publix, winn-dixie, etc. so i went to office depot. i remembered that they carry bottled water, but figured it might not occur to many people to look there. and voila! they had a bunch of cases of little 8 oz. bottles. i thought maybe the small size might make it easier to ration out if (god forbid) we don't have water for awhile.
FOOD: so they tell you to get nonperishable items, like canned goods. P (my husband) got a bunch of cans of chef boyardee the other night. but won't this stuff taste heinous cold, if indeed there is no power for awhile or something? we live in an apartment and don't have access to a big barbecue/grill or anything in case the power goes out, and i was trying to think of foods that a) don't need to be cooked or heated, and b) provide a little more nutrition than cans of mushy pasta with dubious meat. so we also stocked up on the following:
bread
peanut butter (jelly needs to be refrigerated, but bananas and honey do not. i love me some peanut butter and banana sandwiches. PB and honey is OK too.)
laughing cow cheese (doesn't need to be refrigerated until you open it, can be spread on bread or crackers)
vienna sausages (not a whole lot less gross than chef boyardee, but intriguing somehow. and they are a protein source. and i can deal with the idea of eating them unheated. spaghetti-os, not so much.)
apples (good with peanut butter!)
bananas
granola (can be eaten with or without milk)
boxed or evaporated milk (they were already out of this at the grocery store by the time i got there, but i think it would have been a good idea)
cans of goya cafe con leche and espresso drinks - i am a coffee fiend, so i realized if the power was out i wouldn't be able to make coffee in the morning. so this seemed like a good substitute.
crackers
ginger snaps
trail mix (nuts are another protein source)
hard-boiled eggs--not exactly non-perishable, but it's a good way to make any eggs you have in your fridge ready for consumption at the beginning of a power outage period.
that's it for now...i'll try to add more later. looks like frances won't hit until saturday, so i should have internet access for awhile.
so, i've been pretty nonchalant about this hurricane coming up (i was out of town during charlie), but it's starting to sink in. according to the national hurricane center, there's still only a 10-19% chance of it hitting our area (miami/south florida), but check it out--it's basically heading straight towards us!
to see a bigger, more detailed image, look at: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/graphics/AT06/ref resh/AL0604W" title="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/graphics/AT06/ref resh/AL0604W" target="_blank"http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/g...+GIF/302053W.gif
so we stocked up on canned goods and batteries at the store yesterday. we have a tiny stockpile of bottled water (the shelves were practically empty in the water section of the grocery store last night). P looked into the cost of hurricane shutters online yesterday, but we have No Possible Way of affording them right now.
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