Day 202: Larousse's French-English dictionary

The problem with writing every day about things in my past is I can't always remember what I've already written about. Hopefully this won't be a story I've already told.

I've studied three languages in my life and the first was French in middle school. In eighth grade I took a trip to France with some class mates. We toured the Loire valley in a bus and did a home stay in Paris. Of the family I stayed with, only the daughter Emilie knew any English. The level of French I had acquired at this point was minimal.

One of my more vivid memories was sitting down for family dinners. Every night they served some kind of flavorless puffy potatoes in various shapes. I had a strong distaste for those. One night we cooked our own meat on a portable grill. They removed their meat from the grill almost immediately after placing it while I let mine cook longer. They were completely baffled by this behavior.

Another memory was our discovery that the French accent does wonderful things to the word squirrel. For the entire trip, kids were asking random people to say squirrel for us and then we would break in to giggles.

Status: Donated

Day 201: Milk Tea

Milk tea packets consist of pre-mixed powder containing sugar, non-dairy creamer, cappuccino creamer, and instant tea. My grandmother always stocks milk tea and I used to enjoy it so I bought some from Uwajimaya. When I tried them I realized that they are way too sweet for my tastes. My tolerance for sweets has been steadily declining over the past few years and milk tea is yet another casualty.

Status: Trashed

Day 200: Chell costume from Portal

This was my Halloween costume a few years ago. Tragically, I do not have a single photograph from that evening. Even worse, the Portal gun I was wielding wasn't sturdy enough to survive the evening. I could have had a video of myself, wielding my Portal gun, singing "Still Alive" on Rock Band but I blew it.

It's not as flattering as the version in the game but I think I made a decent go at it. I picked up the jumpsuit at the Army and Navy Surplus store. I took it in a bit and spray painted the Aperture logo on the back. I thought about saving it for the Portal 2 release but I always feel strange wearing the same costume twice.

Status: Dibbed

Day 199: Vintage Dress

This dress has long been a favorite of mine but alas, it does not fit me well. I bought it for fifteen dollars at Red Light. I was seventeen and it was to be worn at a Wizards of the Coast company holiday party.

I wanted to make sure this dress went to a good home so I brought it along to a friend's birthday party last night. It didn't work out for the first woman who tried it on but the second try was a perfect fit. The contrast of the classic elegance of the dress and pearls with her tattooed sleeve was absolutely stunning. I've been attached to this dress for a long time so it was wonderful to it being worn so well. Without this blog, I would never have let go of the dress. I could not possibly have donated it with an unforeseeable future at a thrift store.

A photo of me, at seventeen, wearing the dress! I'm hoping I can get a photo from last night to go with this.

Status: Gifted

Day 198: Paula Dorf eyelash curler

Every makeup artist I've ever spoken with about the subject has recommended curling my lashes and using mascara. I've tried getting in the habit but it's just maddening because not only am I terrible at applying mascara but my eyelashes are ridiculously short. When I'm good about using eye drops I also have a tendency to accidentally pull them out. The eyedrops goos or dries up on my lashes and when I try to remove it my lashes come off as well. I finally gave up on my lashes and stick to lining my eyes.

Status: Dibbed

Day 197: Board Game Top Shop

Board Game Top Shop is kind of a Monopoly clone. You run around the board buying properties (storefronts) and the unfortunate souls who land on your shop have to pay up. It's completely brainless and yet I love it. I used to be able to time my pencil rolls (the Top Shop version of dice) for optimal rollage. I always played the character shaped like a cactus and named her Chloe.

Status: Dibbed

Day 196: Grave Mistake by Ngaio Marsh

So my mistake last night wasn't grave, but I did party too hard on a Thursday and forget to post. I went to the Kindle for Android launch party at Garage. We had a grand time - food, drinks, bowling. I do not work for Amazon but when my best friend got a job there I ended up becoming friends with almost everyone on the Kindle Cross-Platform team. A year later their team has grown to almost double the size so I only know about half the team. There are some fantastic people in KCP and I feel fortunate to have been brought in to their group.

If you're curious which posts were late, I almost always date stamp them at 11:55pm.

Status: Dibbed