ode to a mixed tape.

today i was headed out the door for lunch when mary reached inside the tango pango mail box and pulled out a little birthday package from my friend dena (a little late, in typical dena-style, but uber fantastic and thoughtful, also typical dena-style.) anyway, among a wonderful cookbook, wonderful underwear (the wonderful part is that it's not korean and therefore is made for people who actually have existant thighs, hips, and bums), and...brace yourself...a MIXED TAPE!!!! well, a cd actually, but for some reason it's just so fun to say a MIXED TAPE!!!! doesn't it just take you back to freshman year in high school when the boy you really like gave you a cool mixed tape with songs like "glycerine" by bush and "i'll be your crying shoulder" by...whoever wrote that song. and all your friends were like "oooohhhhh, that's soooooo cute. you're so lucky! you guys are totally going to get married!" and in that single mixed tape, all of your romantic dreams and fantasies came true.

so dena's mixed tape did just that for me. well, not exactly, but i've forgotten how great a mixed tape can be! (i'm going to keep calling it mixed tape. i just can't stop.) this is the second mixed tape i've gotten in the past month (the other from my friend ali who i met in beijing--also a ridiculously fabulous mix that i can't stop listening to) and i am LOVING them!!! i know that when you listen to an entire album you get the whole story and the emotional flow and all that, but how great is it to go from simon and garfunkel (a dena classic) to outkast to radiohead to that awesome hit from once (baaaa! i hate to jump on the once soundtrack wagon, but that song nearly makes me cry every time) to under the sea (random, i know, but come on people, that song is SO FUN to belt out on a road trip...) to over the rhine. it makes me happy.

today at school, i had my kids paint a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up. as i was going around the table, saying things like "oooo, jae-won, what's this? a police man? wow, you would make a great police man. and what's this rocket (yes her english name is rocket)? you want to be a big rocket ship? (now you understand why her english name is rocket.) i can definetely see that as a possibility." and then i got to lindsey and kristen, who just had big blobs of different colors all over their page. "and what is this? hmmmm, let's see, you must want to be a...um...uh..." and they screamed out "teacher carolyn!" in exasperation as if it was sooo obvious and how could i not get that out of their blobs of color. there was not a trace of a human body to be found on that page. so. atleast now i know what i look like to a korean 5 year old.