Amy Lu's View

This is my Amy Klobochar campaign t-shirt that recently came in the mail.

This shirt may strike you as a little sad. It is, as Amy’s campaign is now over (I knew it was very likely to end by the time I recieved it so I’m a little bummed but not surprised).

This shirt may strike you as a little creepy. It is, even though or perhaps because, it’s from one (several? I didn’t follow that closely) of Amy’s speeches. (I’m going to just acknowledge the obvious jokes about “knowing” in the Biblical sense and move on).

But I really wanted this shirt, because, well my name is Amy. And how often am I going to see my name on a presidential campaign shirt?

I tend not to use blogging or social media to share my political opinions, not because I don’t have them, but I realize I don’t have anything too insightful to add to the conversation. I certainly would have been happy to vote for Amy Klobuchar, and I thought she might hang in the campaign until Super Tuesday so that people could vote for her in her home state, but I didn’t think it was very likely she would win the democratic nomination.

For the record, as Amy dropped out before Super Tuesday and Minnesotat’s Primary (and my birthday!) I happily voted for Elizabeth Warren. I’m not thrilled with Joe or Bernie but would choose Joe over Bernie, but I’ll vote for whoever gets the Democratic nomination over Trump. I would vote for Marianne Williamson or a lampshade (just to name a few people/things) over Trump.

I don’t want to think too much about the presidential election or predict how that will go, but whatever happens, I have an “Amy Knows Me” shirt. I did agonize over if I should get a shirt with that slogan or the more straightforward “Amy for America” shirt, but I suspect “Amy Knows Me” will be even stranger and funnier years from now when everyone has forgotten about Amy Klobuchar’s presidential campaign. Either shirt suggests that I weirdly refer to myself in the third person ala Bob Dole.

And it reminds me of how my mom used to say “I don’t know about you” when she really meant “You are clearly acting in a crazy-ass fashion right now and I can’t begin to predict what stupid-ass thing you might do.”

I don’t know about you, America.

I am now the proud owner of a bona fide Snyder Family heirloom: My father-in-law Dan’s “50 years of Magnificence” mug.

This mug has been part of my life for over 30 years as I’ve used it during visits to my in-laws. I’m not sure who gave it to Dan–I don’t know if he remembers–but I’ve been appreciating it more and more as I’ve been approaching 50.

And now it’s mine. My thoughtful in-laws noticed my admiration for it and sent it to me for my birthday.

I’m not sure what Marie Kondo would say about me adding another mug to my extensive collection, but it definitely brings me joy. (I adore coffee–strong and black–and am now getting into tea, so mugs never sit idle).

I even will let Chad use it, as he’s also 50. But don’t forget the mug was given to me, not him. Clearly the Snyders love me best…or just think I’m the most magnificent!

In honor of International Women’s Day, I signed up for the Women Run The Cities 10K on May 17. Running is one of the most reliable ways that I can feel strong and competent.

This is the first race of 2020 that I’ve signed up for, and this very moment, it feels like a leap of faith to think that I’ll be able to run a race (even a relatively short one) in just over two months. Yes, after being able to (slowly) run for about two weeks, I am once again experiencing a mysterious running-related injury that is making just walking a trick. Yes, just in time for the really nice early spring weather.

But running is all about being perserverent and optimistic. And even if I do fail to successfully run the Women Run the Twin Cities 10K, the process of preparing for it will be valuable and teach me some important life lessons (and give me blog post fodder).

I also celebrated International Women’s Day by wearing my “feMNist” t-shirt and my new She-Ra flannel shirt (courtesy of Loot Crate). I won’t lie, I don’t know much about She-Ra and have only vague memories of her from my childhood, so I don’t know if there is a connection between She-Ra and flannel.

But my shirt is super soft, and in awesome colors (including my birthday month teal) that match my feMNist shirt, and “Warrior” is emblazoned on the back.

Theme dressing: another means to feeling mighty. Even if the She-Ra graphic does look a bit like smooshed woodtick.

I wasn’t a Women’s Studies minor from UW-Eau Claire for nothing.

When I recently made a comment about turning 50, a good friend kindly told me, “Age is just a number.”

I appreciate the sentiment–I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be 50. As the song “Smile More” by Deap Valley goes, “I am not ashamed of my age.” In fact, as most of you are probably well aware of, I am making an officially BIG TO-DO about my 50th Birthday because it’s a socially acceptable way to get attention.

But I do think that numbers are significant, and while being 50 isn’t a “problem,” it definitely means something. It’s a substantial number (at least in this context). Turning 50 is weird and wild and worthy of reflection (via blogging and Facebook, of course).

While I didn’t wake up on my birthday as a radically different person than I was just the day before, it is an relevant marker of the passage of time. I am clearly (at least by my definition) no longer “young.” I do NOT want to be in denial about being older because I do NOT think that old has to automatically mean out-of-touch or unattractive or infirm (or running for President). Actually, I think to try and pretend I’m NOT 50 just feeds into all that craziness.

But yes, of course, it is all relative. “I’m older than I’ll be, and younger than I was, that’s not unusual.” (Simon and Garfunkel, “The Boxer”).

I think context is key when it comes to numbers: you rarely get the full meaning of a number without some background or knowledge of extenuating circumstances. (That’s why we have a windchill index, right?) Knowing that I am 50 in a world where I have had access to the health care I need with the added bonus of not actually needing much health care sets the stage for understanding what 50 means for me.

I want to embrace getting older without using it as an excuse for not be able to do things or not being able to do things as well as I used to (unless using it as an excuse in this way gets me attention when I forget the lyrics to a song during a show, etc.). Maybe I can say this because I didn’t do many of the things I do now when I was younger so I can’t make make ready comparisons. Maybe I would have learned lines more easily in my 20’s, and I certainly would have been able to run faster–but those past glories aren’t nagging at me.

Of course, aging does has it’s effects, and I know I will start noticing them more and more. I’m also am all for the practice of “age grading” in running and I would be happy to apply this to the rest of my life.

I DO notice that hangovers hit me much harder now than they did when I was younger…or is that mostly a matter of expectations? When I was young I didn’t hope to or think that I needed to get nearly as much done in a day, so it was easier for me to ride out a hangover by just lazing around.

Maybe in some ways I was wiser when I was younger!

Wednesday morning I got my Real ID. #AchievementUnlocked.

This triumph was especially sweet as it came on the heels of a crushing defeat: On Tuesday, I completely failed to get my Real ID.

Yes, I spent almost two hours on my 50th birthday waiting at the DMV and left empty handed. (I tried to get a regular ID as a Plan B but the wait was just as long). I didn’t fail due to lack of proper documentation (I did at least do enough of my homework to come with all the necessary paperwork) but I simply did not take into account current DMV wait times.

I was almost in tears as I left the DMV. Not only was I disappointed and frustrated, but I started to panic. Since my license was soon to be expired, was I going to have to take the written test? Or horror of horrors, the behind the wheel test?

And no, the librarian couldn’t find the answer… but luckily my husband could. I did NOT have to retake any test as long as my license wasn’t more that a year expired. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to wait in line that long.

But when and where would I achieve success? I did not want to try the Minnetonka location again, so what location should I gamble on? (Hennepin County allows you to make appointments online but there weren’t any available for at least two weeks).

I looked obsessively at the Minnesota Driver and Vehicle Services website to consider which location would be the best, and finally decided to try Roseville.

Overall, my trip to the Roseville license station was highly successful (once I figured out where to get a number so I knew where I was in line) and I only had to wait about half an hour. Other customers did make comments about how long the wait was but I just smiled knowingly.

I don’t actually have my Real ID yet, as they will send it to me, so I just have a piece of paper that is my temporary license. I don’t know if it’s super snazzy or holographic or what. I do know my photo is awful and I look frightened and harried but that is an authentic representation of the whole Real ID experience.

I hate wasting time, so I’m trying to focus on what I learned during my whole quest to get a Real ID to make the whole experience useful:

• Don’t wait until the last minute to do things
• Don’t fall victim to the Sunk Cost Fallacy: Just because you’ve waited over an hour at the DMV, it’s not worth it to keep waiting if you’re obviously not going to get helped before they close
• Don’t jump to freak out mode as soon as things don’t go as you go hoped or planned

Hmmm, none of those takeaways are groundbreaking, but sometimes we have to keep learning the most obvious things over and over until we really learn them.

I’m sure I have learned this before, but once again, I am surprised that Karen Carpenter’s birthday is so close to mine (just one day before.) Thank you Crooners. The song that Dan Chouinard and Dane Stauffer performed was actually “Yesterday Once More,” which is awesome, but “Rainy Days” is a personal hard-to-beat favorite.

Here are the based-on-texts I sent myself thoughts during the Crooner’s Birthday Club tonight:

• Shout-out to the Key of D (I agree…only 2 sharps)
• Singer Dane Stauffer played the 60 Card (as in I don’t know the lyrics to this song because I’m 60)…I basically did this at our last Pigeons gig (for 50)
• “Playground battlescars”–don’t remember what that references anymore but it sounds awesome
• The Old Fashioned at Crooner’s sucks but the Manhattans are good
• “That’s the Night That Lights Went Out in Georgia”…whoa…what was up with the 70’s?…a pop song about the injustice of the criminal justice system?
• It’s really cool that the bassist has a foot tambourine
• I also have no idea what the lyrics to “Benny and the Jets” are or what they mean…

And a tangent about the menu…Crooner’s, why oh why did you get rid of the vegetarian mushrooom ravioli? I’ve been planning on having that all week! AND the vegetarian sandwich? I was so impressed by your range of vegetarian options and now they are gone. The risotto is fine but not as good as the ravioli…why did you choose that?

 

 

 

I missed my second day of 50 Days of Amy because I had a case of vertigo last night. No blogging for me, as I had to go to bed ASAP–even (slightly) before 10:00!

For me, vertigo isn’t related to heights or Hitchcock, but is basically really bad, ongoing bed spins that seem to hit out of nowhere, without the fun of earning them through drinking. Vertigo makes it hard for me to walk without falling and makes me slightly nauseous. My case is similar to  Louise 2’s from “Arrested Development” (and much less severe).

Let me assure everyone that my vertigo is NOTHING SERIOUS and not related to any other problematic medical condition. I know this because I did see a doctor when it first hit almost three years ago, when I did panic and think I had a brain tumor or something. It’s an inner ear thing.

Luckily, after the first few original “attacks” (so dramatic!) my vertigo went away. I think it’s back now because I’ve had a low-level cold/allergies/sinus gnomes? for the past couple of weeks that are messing with my sinuses. I’ve had three instances in the last week or so, and hope it will once again miracuously disappear. But I do have  (expired) medication (which I barely needed and can hopefully get refilled) and Physical Therapy exercises (which I’ve lost the instructions for but can hopefully find) if needed.

But the main takeaway is that my blogging streak is already thrown off! However, I’m not going to count this as a failure, due to extenuating circumstances. I will not be deterred or discouraged.

AND I have learned that I can backdate posts! I will try not to abuse this power, but it makes me feel more like I’m adhering to the rules of my blogging streak if I can have posts with the “correct” date.

Onward with 50 Days of Amy, and hoping that from here on out, the only things that make my head spin are alcohol or love!

I’ve been thinking about and preparing for my 50th birthday for a long time. I want to make the most of it. I want to do something special. 

I present to you: 50 Days of Blogging. 

Hmmm, that may not sound so special, but one thing I have learned from running is the love of “streaking”—challenging yourself to do something (running at least a mile) for X number of days. (There has also been and will continue to be drinking and socializing to celebrate my birthday, and hopefully a cruise).

While I do hope to do a 50 Day Running Streak for my birthday, I also wanted to do something different. Something that I love doing, but that would be a challenge. So I decided to challenge myself to blog for 50 days in a row, starting on my 50th birthday (today).

It’s like the Twelve Days of Christmas, but it’s 50 Days of Amy. The count starts on my Birthday  (today, March 3) and ends April 21. 

Blogging feels appropriate because not only do I enjoy it, it gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me take at least a brief pause to stop and notice and contemplate. It makes me feel like I have some control over the crazy fast pace of the passage of time, which I am definitely aware of at 50.

For the purposes of this challenge I will cut myself a lot of slack. It’s not as easy to quantify as “post” as a “mile” so I will say a “paragraph” will count as a blog post. I had aspirations of having a theme for this challenge, but in order to accomplish this, the theme will just need to “Amy”—whatever I’m thinking about that I can manage to wrangle into some type of blog post. 

Including photos or images to accompany my posts will be optional (finding these can be surprisingly time-consuming). I will allow myself to have lame post titles and to chop big topics/rambles/rants up into several posts. I may not attempt to have snappy conclusions. 

And in that spirit, I wrap up with a simple, “Let the Streaking begin!”

Last night I posted one of my more popular Facebook posts:

Chad to me, “I don’t think I have the same relationship to salad that you do.”

Now I am hardly a social media influencer so “popular” is relative, but this post received more “likes” and comments than my posts usually do (Yay for qualified successes!) so I feel I should set the record straight: NO ONE has the same relationship to salad that I do. Or at least no one I know or can imagine knowing.

A paraphrased rendition of our conversation that led up to the famous/infamous Chad salad quote:

• Me: Aren’t you excited I got our most favorite salad dressing?
• Chad: What?
• Me: You know, the ginger sesame dressing. You can only get that at Cub.
• Chad: What?
• Me: Don’t you like that? I thought you liked that…
• Chad: Sure, I like that, but I don’t think I have the same relationship to salad that you do.

It’s not just that I like or love or even need salad. It’s beyond preferences and feelings. As Chad so uniquely and humorously describes (in a way I never would have thought to) I DO have a relationship to salad. And like all relationships it’s time-consuming and filled with emotional nuances.

This was not always the case. Far from it. I didn’t even eat salad as a child and teenager (I barely ate vegetables beyond tomatoes and cucumbers) and disdained it, “cleverly” referring to it as “rabbit food.”

I only begrudgingly started eating salad in desperation as a funds-depeleted college exchange student in England. I often felt so food deprived (especially when going out to eat) I would consume whatever I could, even salad. Living in England planted the seeds of change, but the transformation from despising to needing salad was gradual. I definitely was not on Team Salad when Chamy began.

My love of salad is not motivated or sustained by health concerns or being a vegetarian. It comes down to two simple factors/beliefs:

1. I love eating.
2. Salad gives me the most eating “bang for the buck” as I can consume the most volume for the least amount of calories (as long as I am careful about dressing, cheese, avocado, nuts, grains, fruit, etc. As a result I am super picky about salads prepared at restuarants or by others. A Ceasar “salad” may be tasty but it does not fit my salad criteria.)

So just because Chad doesn’t have the same relationship to salad that I do, it does not mean he is anti-salad. He doesn’t necessarily seek it out, but he will consume it in moderation.

Now Chad not only doesn’t have the same relationship to salad that I have, he doesn’t have the same relationship to food (and we are probably both outliers on opposite ends of the spectrum). Not only do I love eating, I love spending as much time eating as possible.

Chad, on the other hand, resents the time and effort that eating requires on a daily basis (special occassions are an exception). He gets emotionally and even physically exhausted at times by eating.

Surprisingly, our different orientations to food actually works well for couplehood, perhaps even better than if we were more similarly matched. Or perhaps it’s most important we share the bond of weirdness when it comes to food. Our biggest challenge is that Chad has a touch of misophonia (aversion to the sound of eating) and salad-eating is a loud endeavor.  (I’ve learned to always have background noise on and/or not be too close to Chad when salad consumption is in process).

There’s a popular saying/meme “Alcohol–because no good story start with: ‘That one time I ate a salad.’ ” (Of course there are variations for specific types of alcohol). I’m clearly not opposed to alcohol, so I object to two of my loves being placed in a false dichotomy. It’s not alcohol OR salad. Or maybe if alcohol is the start of the story, salad is the prequel.