Let Me Tell You About My Life | The Plaid Pladd Blog

Archive for the ‘Let Me Tell You About My Life’ Category

It’s my birthday!!!!

May 21st, 2013 by pladd

Our main birthday shenanigans happened last weekend when I finally fulfilled one of my 2013 Goals! I’ll write a whole post on that later, with photographic evidence in case you don’t believe me.

But right now let’s talk about my birthday! So far it has been awesome! I did some work, started a new jigsaw puzzle (this is the kind of thing I get legitimately excited about), and went to the library! I also got to talk to Bova, and my Mom’s 5th period pre-calc class!! Then Steven finally let me open my present, which he craftily smuggled back from West Virginia without my noticing:

Another instrument for me to be mediocre at!

It’s a dulcimer!!!

It’s more of a leap than that time I went from guitar to ukulele, but luckily the dulcimer is so pretty that you don’t really have to know what you’re doing to sound okay. I’m excited to be annoying Steven by playing the same three chords for hours on end!

Later I’m going out with Rob to get some serious banana pudding! And also dinner, I guess. Go Team Gemini!!!

Tagged: BIRTHDAY, dulcimer, music

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |

Spotted: Town of Cary Star Spot

May 2nd, 2013 by pladd

During one of my frequent civic field trips in Cary, I discovered this amazing addition to the town hall parking garage!!!

Why don’t I have this at my apartment?

I don’t know who gets to park here–maybe visiting celebrities?? I hope one day I can become famous enough to earn a Town of Cary Star Spot.

Tagged: cary

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |

April Fool’s 2013

April 2nd, 2013 by pladd

Steven and I spent an hour or two on Saturday at his office, preparing an April Fool’s surprise for one of his coworkers!

Exciting!!!

The dollar store only had Happy Birthday wrapping paper, so maybe not as seasonally appropriate as it could have been.

Also they had blow up dinosaurs

I was careful to put his reading glasses right back on the clipboard I found them on after wrapping it.

Chair we saved for last! So random pieces of different papers

I wanted to do the entire desk, but we ran out of paper (and patience). I was able to also do both giant printers, the framed picture on the wall, and a bunch of stuff on shelves against the wall too. Also, both door knobs.

Some April Fool’s jokes are so mean (like running into your dark bedroom in the middle of the night screaming coughROBcough), but hopefully this one was a colorful surprise! And, yeah, it’s just your work equipment and office supplies and stuff, but who doesn’t like unwrapping things? Some of them even have bows!! Happy April!

Tagged: april fools, jokes, Steven

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |

Happy 400th Post!!!

March 12th, 2013 by pladd

This is my 400th post on this blog! And next Monday it’ll be the Plaid Pladd’s 4-year anniversary!! I know lately I haven’t been as faithful about updating as in the early days, but at least I’ve stuck it out fairly consistently, even when I don’t have that much to say. I haven’t decided how to celebrate 4 years yet; possibly some kind of blog clip show where we reminisce about the posts that changed our lives? I’m thinking of that time Thomas made me drink Sun Drop mixed with Espresso Chocovine, obviously, since my tastebuds still have not recovered. What are your favorite Plaid Pladd Blog memories? Share them and I will compile a glowing tribute for Monday!! Get excited!!

In other awesome milestone news, I finally finished the first draft of the book I’ve been writing for the past 2 years, and working on for the past 12. It’s a little over 600 pages long right now, and I think I’ll be dividing it up into 4 parts. There’s still one more (hopefully quicker) rewrite to go before it will be fit to be read by some awesome beta readers (could this be YOU? Let’s talk later–I can’t make promises about how long a manuscript you’ll have to read, but I can guarantee that it comes with baked goods). Then I don’t know WHAT will happen!!! Probably nothing, but it’s exciting to imagine.

But for now, have to start preparing for Pi Day! Which, as you know, is serious business in the Ladd family.

Tagged: meta, writing

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |

Pink Hair Adventures

February 26th, 2013 by pladd

I’ve had pink hair for a little more than two weeks now, and it is pretty great.

The only bright thing on a gray day

I smile every time I look in the mirror. It’s hard to be sad or annoyed or worried when you look one wardrobe change away from being a cartoon superhero or really punk. Unfortunately, I don’t own any clothes like that, so I just end up looking like me with hot pink hair. Which is still awesome. I knew it would be awesome. I also knew people would generally stare at me, but there were some other things I didn’t expect. Clothes is one of them. I’ve been dressing myself with blondish hair my whole life, so I wasn’t really prepared for a change. Pretty much every color looked okay with my old hair. I guess except yellow or orange, so I don’t own anything like that. With hot pink, there’s more things to consider. Anything pink is probably out, since shades of pink clash, and red generally looks weird too. Even certain purples can look strange, which is unfortunate, since you know my closet is a purple-based ecosystem. It’s also just so bright. So even though my favorite turquoise jacket might look okay next to it, color-wise, I’m then wearing two incredibly bright things at once. It turns out, I own a lot of brightly colored things too, so getting dressed is suddenly a lot more complicated than before. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

My dad pointed out that since my hair is already over the top, why do I care about the rest?

Maybe that’s true. At a certain point, I just reach a critical mass of colors and it probably doesn’t matter after that. Unfortunately, Cary is no Carrboro, so people don’t randomly compliment how cool my hair is in the street as much, but children make up for this. There were no children in Carrboro, but here they are everywhere, and they freaking love my hair. One girl in the frozen food section of Food Lion just screamed “PINK!” at me at the top of her lungs. One boy followed me around the library, refusing to speak to me, but silently grinning. The only child I’ve encountered who’s not ALL ABOUT this was my cousin Caleb. He’s only 8 months old, and spent a lot of time staring at me warily. Steven wondered if an 8-month-old girl would have done the same, or been more inured to pink being everywhere. I’ll report back when I find some more children to freak out.

BFFs!!!

I’ve also gotten to know a lot of people since dyeing my hair, which I love! It’s definitely a conversation starter, but it also makes me instantly memorable, so two trips anywhere makes me a regular. Even running errands is fun when you have pink hair!! Pretty much everything is fun when you have pink hair. Probably my favorite reaction has been from the senior class that meets at the same time as my aerobics class at the community center. You would think older people would be the most disapproving, but a lot of them seem to like seeing me. “What are you doing today, Flamingo Girl?” They remind me of my grandpa and how he was always friendly with everyone he met. Like him, they just seem to be enjoying life and all of its variety, which includes me and my electric flamingo hair.

Tagged: hair, snow, trixie

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |

Go Big or Go Home

February 8th, 2013 by pladd

I may have mentioned in my post about my plans for 2013 that my motto for this year is “Go big, or go home”. I may be behind on all my other 2013 goals, but at least I’m living up to that.

I have wanted pink hair for pretty much the last ten years, and finally that dream is a reality!!! And so much more pink and amazing than anything I had imagined!!! Probably because I didn’t try to do it myself. First, bleached a little of the color out, which wasn’t bad because it was already pretty light. Though nothing like this:

Yeah, I look like a long lost Malfoy.

Or possibly a Khaleesi. I waited a day in between this step and the dyeing. My workout class was impressed, but commented that it was “a little bright”. GET PSYCHED FOR MONDAY, GUYS, because this is coming at you:

I checked, but sadly I don’t glow in the dark

The dye they used is called Elumen, and the hairstylist told me “it works magnetically”. Which sounded kind of sketchy, but then I searched for it online and totally found a brochure with diagrams of ions, so I guess that is accurate, even if I still don’t understand it. Unlike every other hair dye I’ve ever heard of, it is oxidation-, peroxide-, and ammonia-free, so my hair still feels as soft as ever. TAKE THAT, ROB. He thought encouraging me in my dream would be his path to victory in the Soft Hair Wars (stalemated since 2008), but I am still killing it. Your move, Robert the RoughScalp.

Expect more pictures/tales of pink hair glory/mournful comments from my mom in the days to come!

Tagged: go big or go home, hair, Rob

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |

The 4 Best Emails I’ve Ever Received from Town of Cary

January 22nd, 2013 by pladd

We all know I can’t get enough municipal government, which is why I signed up for every listserv the Town of Cary puts out when I moved here. There was a long list of them, and I just clicked “Select All” thinking, whatever, I live here so everything they put out will be relevant to me. I rethought this position around the third time I got an email seeking contractors to fix sidewalks, but I’ve stuck it out, and Town of Cary rewards me, pretty much weekly. I don’t know who writes these emails, but I’m pretty sure they’re bored, because they often have subjects like:

1. Who’s Grabbing Cary’s Stormwater Grates?

This one arrived January 4th and the first sentence is:

Weighing several hundred pounds, stormwater grates serve to prevent people, vehicles, bikes and other objects and debris from falling into stormdrains, but in Cary, a heavyweight is stealing them and creating serious safety issues in parking lots.

Apparently 10 storm grates went missing from parking lots in the five day period of 12/31/12–1/4/13, bringing total thefts since last July to over 30. This is a ridiculous crime because why are you doing this and also how???. And I love that the email I got about it was not “Rash of stormwater grate thefts plagues Cary” but “Who is stealing these grates? Answer: a heavyweight”. I’ll keep a look out for really muscley people walking around Food Lion, Town of Cary Listserv, don’t you worry.

2. Rogue “Red Ryder” Strikes Again in Cary: Parked Vehicles Fall Victim to BB Gun

I got this one December 11th (hence the Christmas Story reference, I guess), and, once again, the first sentence really shows that this person is serious about informing the public about safety issues:

Someone has received their BB gun early and is hitting the streets in Cary causing vandalism that’s sure to put them on Santa’s naughty list.

Forty separate reports of BB gun related car vandalism, and the email suggested that I park in my garage to save Trixie. Which I would totally do if I had a garage. Whatever, she’s tough.

Which is good because it’s only a matter of time before they start shooting eyes

3. Town of Cary’s A-Team Ready for Quick Flirt with Winter Weather

It probably goes without saying that the e-mail refers to our public works employees as “Cary’s A-Team” throughout the email. Once “Cary’s Snow Fighters” are also mentioned, and I’m not sure if that’s still the A-Team or some kind of winter superhero group they teamed up with for our bad weather last week. I’m leaning towards the latter because the next email I got the same day had this lead sentence:

The Town of Cary will activate Snow Command at 6:30 p.m. today as forecasts continue to call for minor snow accumulation overnight.

What is Snow Command and how do you activate it, Town of Cary?? Is it with a set of rings worn by the mayor, the director of public works, and a lovable teen boy and his pet monkey?? Do you fight the evil super villain Jack Frost using the powers of friendship and civic pride?? Unfortunately, I never found the answers to these questions because in the wee hours of the morning I received:

Cary Snow Command Closes Due to Winter Storm Fizzler

NEXT TIME, Snow Command! Next time!

And lastly:

4. Tamale Thursday Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest

Did I say best emails? I meant worst. This was a sad day for us all. I mourn you in my heart, Tamale Thursday. And I will remember you always.

Tagged: cary, emails

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life, lists |

That One Time Aragorn and I Fought Orcs

December 20th, 2012 by pladd

As promised, I found some proof of my insane high school LOTR obsession for you:

Turns out Aragorn is shorter than you expect

I don’t really know what the story behind these pictures is. Why do I have a series of them and how did they came to be taken? I can only assume that my house was under siege and Aragorn popped by to help out with that. The look on my face says that now is the time for him to give a stirring motivational speech because we are so outnumbered right now.

I can’t even describe to you how cool I was. This picture pretty much says it all

Tagged: archivery, High School Patricia, lord of the rings, old pictures, the hobbit

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |