Potpourri and Rihanna

I couldn't decide on one thing, so it's potpourri week!

Hot beverages – It’s that time of year again. Actually, it’s always that time of year in Alaska, but it seems so much more appropriate when it’s not summer. If you walk into my kitchen and head towards the microwave you’ll find a cabinet I like to call the “hot beverage cabinet.” Now that I write that, I see how hopelessly unclever it is. Maybe Elation station? Or Lionel Richie (Hello, is it tea you’re looking for)? I’ll work on it. Regardless of the cleverness of the name, the cabinet is great. It smells like coffee and mint, you’ll find a mug featuring rabbits wearing jogging suits in it, and in the wee hours of the morning it’s nice to have all the coffee accoutrements in one place. Excellent kitchen planning, if I do say so myself.

My desk looks like this everyday. Coffee mug, tea mug, water bottle. I have to pee every 3 minutes.

Using my ID badge – Certain areas of the museum require keys to access (like my office,) other areas require waving one’s ID badge in front of a sensor. I LOVE doing that. It makes me feel like I work at the White House or some top secret government building. Mondays are so much less lame if you are pretending to be in a heist and/or spy film, amirite?

This is how I walk around the museum. In my mind.

Season Premiers – Fall season premiers have been happening for the last couple weeks, and I couldn’t be happier. A girl can only watch so many Magnum P.I. episodes on Netflix. I always like watching the new shows, figuring out if they are going to be any good. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Matthew Perry’s new show Go On.  This week he kept getting mistaken for Rachel Maddow. They really do look oddly similar.

Dreamland – It’s been awhile since I’ve done a book review, so I guess I’m due. I just finished Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall and I highly recommend it. David is not a neurologist or a sleep scientist; he’s a writer who woke up in the middle of the night after he ran into a wall in his apartment. One his quest to understand his sleepwalking, he started investigating sleep science as a whole, and somewhere along the way decided to write a book about what he found. I spent 2 nights staying up too late reading it. Even my sleep deprived state, the irony was not lost on me.

Full disclosure – this week’s hot jam was inspired by TheVoice. Don’t judge.  It’s Only Girl (in the World) by Rihanna. As much as I appreciate classic rock and jazz and weird hipster music, I have a giant soft spot for pop. (No surprise there.) I love that Rhianna unapologetically sings dirty pop songs to fist-pumping beats. She knows her audience. Also, this video is awesomely bad.