We Don't Eat Lint Here

Update!

2011-12-27T14:54:00.005-09:00

Last Christmas, we were in the process of moving from Alabama to Washington (state), and I was very sick on Christmas Eve. Consequently, I'm counting this Christmas as my first official Christmas married to Jack.

We got a real tree! A seven-foot Douglas fir. Jack has a buddy from work named Sean, and the day after we bought the tree, Jack and Sean went out to do Christmas shopping, and Sean's wife Samantha and I bought ornaments and lights and stuff and decorated the tree.

On Christmas, after going to church and singing/playing piano for the Christmas presentation thingummybobdoohickeywhatsit, we got down to opening presents. Akela immediately homed in on which one was hers.

We let the dogs open their gift from Grandma Dubby first. Blitzkrieg didn't seem nearly as excited about opening the gifts as Akela, so we let her do it.

We probably shouldn't have, though, because after she opened hers, she started wanting to help us open every other present too.

Especially the chocolate Jack got me.

I got him a Boy Scouts campaign hat, which I know he's been wanting. I don't think I got the size quite right, but they said he could take it in and exchange it if it didn't fit, so it's all good.

After that, Sean and Samantha came over. We ate salmon and shrimp scampi and happle pie and brownies, and then we played Farkle and Funglish and MarioKart Wii and Poker and then more Farkle. It was really fun.

Thanks, everyone who sent gifts! I don't want to list them all on here because I don't want to forget anything and then feel like a jerk, but thankyou thankyou thankyou!

Hallelujah!

2011-12-20T09:32:00.002-09:00

Last night we went to a "Handel's 'Messiah' sing-a-long," which is something I had never heard of before. A buddy of ours who went to Wood Badge with us and goes to our church also (Got all that? That's the subject of the rest of this sentence) told me about it. At first I was a little noncommittal--"well, maybe I'll go, maybe I won't, I dunno, I'll talk to Jack..."--but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. After all, I do like classical music, and I like concerts. A sing-a-long, though?

Turns out that while the choir was professional, or at least semi-professional (at least I assume so because they were adults and they were excellent), the orchestra was a youth orchestra. The concert, which they put on every year, apparently, is free, but to buy a score (which is optional), it's ten bucks. So we bought one, and it was the actual full and complete score. All 252 pages of it.

Once we got there, we started looking for our friend, Merrill. We didn't find him, so we went up to one of the four balconies to look there. While we were looking, the usher lady saw the awe-struck look on my face and explained to me that the lowest balcony was called the "loge," then there was the lower mezzanine, the upper mezzanine, and... oh nuts, I forgot what the other one was called. It was at the top, and there were actually two, one on the left and one on the right. Then the people sitting on the ground-floor level were divided into sections: sopranos on the right, altos on the left, tenors mid-right, basses mid-left. They said wherever you sit, though, you can sing along, but the higher up you go, the fewer other people are likely to sing. The people who come just to watch tend to sit on the higher balconies. We wanted to sing, but we also wanted to sit together--plus we only had the one score--so we sat on the loge. Even though we were half an hour early, there were still only two seats left on the loge level. They happened to be together, halfway down a row right in the very front, so that I could stick my feet through the bars and let them dangle over the heads of the people walking below.

They only did an hour and a half of the four and a half hours the whole thing would take. Apparently tonight they're doing all four and a half, but I don't think I could actually sit still that long!

They swapped out conductors every few movements, and the conductors were really funny. My favorite was the guy who was balding on top and let his remaining white hair grow down to his shoulders to make up for it.

Every time the choir stood up to sing, the audience was asked to stand and sing as well. I'm not terribly ashamed to admit that while I did passably well, in several parts of the music, I haven't been so lost in any music since I was a freshman in high school. But it was super fun anyway! Definitely worth the ten bucks we paid. Plus the five it cost us to park in downtown Olympia. The only thing that could have been improved was the French Horn section. Only because there wasn't one. But the trumpet solos were outstanding.

Traffic light

2011-11-30T10:03:00.002-09:00

On the way to my horse-feeding job, there's a traffic light that I'm convinced is controlled by a gremlin. If there's only one person stopped at the traffic light, it will turn green and stay green for a more or less standard amount of time. If, on the other hand, there's a line of four or five cars stopped at the light, it turns green just barely long enough for the first person to start moving, and then it turns red again. I'm not joking about this. The light is yellow for longer than it is green sometimes. I once pulled up behind two cars that were stopped at the light, and I watched the light go red-green-yellow-red so fast that the guy second in line had to rush through the yellow, and I had to stop and wait for the light to change again.

I bet the gremlin that works the light thinks that's just the funniest thing in the whole world. I sure do.

I made a song!

2011-11-18T00:23:00.003-09:00

To the tune of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee":

I have a puppy dog.
Her picture's on my blog.
She's really neat.

She knows to sit and stay
When food is on its way.
She does this twice a day;
She loves to eat.

Lord of the Rings

2011-11-15T09:15:00.017-09:00

Jack and I have been watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy over the course of the last several days. I figured this would be a good place to post my opinions regarding the cast of the movie. We'll start with what I like the least and work our way up from there.

I can't decide which I like less, Arwen or Frodo. The actor who played Frodo seems to have been chosen primarily for his ability to make that grimace of extreme pain.

Seriously, he makes this face or one very similar to it for practically the entire movie. When he's not making that face, he's making this one:

This is the one I call the I-love-you-Sam face. In addition, the actor can't seem to figure out whether he wants his character to be timid or authoritative, and I don't think that has to do with the ring. I can't blame the actor too terribly much, though, since the character himself is pretty lame. I think just about the only useful thing he does in any of the movies is solve the "Speak, friend, and enter" riddle to open the door into Moria. Other than that, the character is pretty wimpy. I mean, in the first few movies, he offers the magic ring of power and utmost evil to pretty much anyone taller than he is. Sam is constantly saving his sorry butt, and all Frodo really does is make one bad decision after another. The character doesn't seem to have any particularly redeeming qualities. But he's got a pretty face and brilliant blue eyes, so I guess he's always got that going for him.

The other character/actor I really don't like is Arwen. Seriously, I don't know what Aragorn sees in that chick. The character is completely useless in the movies. The only thing she does that is remotely cool is that little bit of fancy riding to get to Rivendell with Frodo, when she outrides the ringwraiths and then summons the water to wash them down the river. Okay, that was awesome. But in the books, that wasn't even Arwen; it was Glorfindel. After that, all she does is cry a lot and be seductive when she has the chance.

The actress made the wimpy character so much worse. Firstly, I never thought she was quite pretty/graceful enough to be an elf. I always imagined elves with more delicate, slightly pointy facial features, and her face is much too round. That aside, it's really annoying how she never raises her voice above a whisper. And unlike Frodo, who could at least make two different facial expressions, she only has the one. I mean, this is the most intense her face gets:

That's supposed to be the face of someone who is riding a horse at full gallop with nine ringwraiths in hot pursuit, almost on top of her. She's trying to balance a wounded, delirious hobbit (Frodo, of course) on the saddle, and she has to outrun the ringwraiths and get Frodo to Rivendell because if she doesn't keep the ring away from the ringwraiths, the entire world will be destroyed. Pretty intense, right? Maybe I'm crazy, but I just really don't see that reflected in her face.

Also, this is her angry face:

That's also her sad face, her neutral face, and her seductive face. And PS, that dress is horrendously ugly.

One more thing: Galadriel was super creepy.

Okay, now on to the characters and actors I really liked.

They picked a perfect actor for Gimli. He was phenomenal. Also, I can't, in good conscience, finish this post without mentioning how much I liked Faramir. Even though you felt bad for the guy because of the way his father treated him, he was still incredibly lovable. His eyes, like Frodo's, were a brilliant blue, but unlike Frodo's, Faramir's eyes were very expressive. They had a twinkle in them that could turn to sorrow so intense it made viewers sad too. Or maybe the sorrow came from seeing the twinkle leave those eyes, which was almost symbolic of watching darkness cover the land, as it would if the quest to destroy the ring failed.

I'm glad he ended up with Eowyn, who, by the way, was also totally awesome. The actress looked perfect for the role, if slightly older than she was in the books. According to the book, she was supposed to be like 18 or 20. So her crush on Aragorn was perfectly understandable. The hopeful look on her face as she fed him soup, hoping he would like it, although she was apparently an atrocious cook, was great. (About as great as the look on his face when he tasted it.) As she prepared Meri for war, she seemed just like a mother dressing up her young son for his first day of school.

There are several stories about women her age (-ish) dressing as men to go to battle and then doing something totally awesome to basically make their side win. This story was one of the best. She fought as well as any man, well enough to stay alive, which, in that kind of war, was feat enough. Then, to finish it up, she stabbed the Witch King, Sauron's most powerful pawn, right in the face. Frankly, I think she's easily the coolest chick in Middle Earth.

Finally, the guy who played Sam was fantastic. In the books, I didn't really like Sam much. Loyal as he was, he struck me as kind of clingy and a little annoying. In the movies, though, the actor breathed new life into Sam. You saw him playful, you saw him angry, you saw him crying, destitute because he had followed Frodo all the way to Mordor only to have Frodo tell Sam to go home as Frodo journeyed on with Gollum, who Sam knew wanted Frodo dead. (Did you follow that sentence?) If I were to pick one actor in the Lord of the Rings for the Best Acting Award, it would be the actor who played Sam.

Sam's character kicks ass. Without him, Frodo would never have gotten anywhere near Mordor. Sam saved Frodo's life so many times, and in the end, he carried Frodo up to Mount Doom, even though he had been journeying just as long and far as Frodo. He put up with more crap than anyone else in the trilogy, and struggled longer and harder, was more patient and focused, more loyal and devoted. Who wouldn't want a friend like Sam? In my opinion, Sam, not Frodo, should have been the celebrated hero at the end. I know he is in my head.

Electrocution

2011-11-09T09:11:00.005-09:00

The horses I feed have this enormous watering trough. Lately, the water has been getting filthy as the horses drop grass and crud in it, and algae grows in the water. So for the last several days, I've been letting the water get low so that I can empty it out and scrub the trough. Today, I just used a bucket to bail out enough of the rest of the water that I could dump it and scrub it. Naturally, during the process, I got, if not soaked, then at least pretty wet.

Being the genius that I am, I thought I wouldn't have to turn off the electric fence for this process, nor would I have to duck under the fence to get into the right paddock to turn the water back off. Instead, I leaned across the fence to turn off the water pump, which ended up being slightly stuck in the "on" position. My knee got a little too close to the bottom part of the fence, and the next thing I knew, there was a flash of light and this big flash of pain in my chest and face as my heart and eyeballs tried to pop out of their respective places, and I was flat on my back about four feet away from where I was before. Lesson learned: Turn off the stupid fence next time. (It doesn't really hurt when it zaps me and I'm dry and not touching any metal, so I figured it wasn't a big deal. Silly me.)

Anyway, when I managed to stop twitching and get my heart rate under control, I went home and decided to look up whether there's anything you should do after you get zapped like that. I don't know why I bothered. I've been electrocuted before, worse than this, and I'm well aware that it's one of those things where if it doesn't kill you, then you're fine. But I tried anyway. Here's what came up:

If you have to, click on the image so you can see it full size, because it's worth reading.

Young Grasshopper

2011-11-02T15:47:00.002-08:00

It's about fifty and drizzly outside, which is my idea of perfect weather. Blitzkrieg is on the back patio, and he just found a grasshopper. He went over to sniff it and it jumped away. He scrambled after it, picked it up gently in his mouth, and brought it back to where he first saw it. He set it down, and I thought it was dead until he poked at it with his paw and it hopped again. He's been bringing it back and poking it till it hops away for about five minutes now. It's the cutest thing, although I doubt the grasshopper agrees.

Update: The grasshopper didn't make it, and Blitzkrieg got a small afternoon snack.

Work work

2011-10-27T10:18:00.003-08:00

Jack's been bugging me to update again, so I guess I will.

I still don't have what I consider a "job," although I do some freelance editing, I have an interview next week, and I also found someone to pay me enough for gas in return for feeding her horses. I also shovel poop, brush them, and pick their hooves because I want to. Jack says she got a pretty good deal "hiring" me.

Of the three horses, the oldest one is my favorite. He's 35, and he's a black quarter horse. His winter coat is already growing in, and he's super fuzzy, and he loooves to be petted. The other two horses will do what I ask them to (mostly), but they don't seem to like being petted and scratched, and they'll escape to their pasture as soon as I'm done with them (and sometimes before I'm done with them). The older one, though, will beg me to scratch him--it doesn't matter where--and once I do, he'll tilt his head, his eyes will half close, and his upper lip will start to twitch. After a minute or two, he'll turn around and try to return the favor by "scratching" me with his nose. And just like Akela and Blitzkrieg, as soon as I stop scratching him to do something else, he'll get right in my way and try to make me scratch him some more.

War Zone

2011-07-08T15:48:00.004-08:00

I was so sure my cold would be gone by now. I've had it since Sunday. Well, the symptoms were starting to sneak up Saturday. If I were a defending fort, you could say my watchmen saw the symptoms sneaking up Saturday night, but were unable to prepare for the assault quickly enough. The enemy sent in the Sore Throat Infantry first, and they did their work well for the first couple of days before the Congestion Musketmen came in to reinforce them. Of course, the commander was the Headache Officer, and he led the charge. Two days ago, they began launching Sneeze Grenades and sending in units armed with Coughing Machine Guns. Last night, it felt like my forces were finally starting to get their defenses together and fight back, but apparently a good night's sleep had the opposite intended effect, since when I woke up today, I felt worse than I did when I went to bed.

I tried to enlist the aid of Sudafed, but those forces appeared to be virtually useless, so after the second wave of Sudafed troops got wiped out with little effect, I didn't take any more.

I'm told these sieges usually last seven days, so with any luck, tomorrow they'll send in the last of their troops to be gunned down, and then they'll leave and won't come back.

UPDATE: Now it's Saturday and it's sad to say that the Coughing Machine Guns have been joined by troops wielding Phlegm-16s. :(

Puppy fall down, go boom

2011-07-04T14:09:00.003-08:00

Akela's getting another break from running. Yesterday, when I was rollerblading with her, we were approaching a place in the road where we could go left or straight. I wanted to go left. Suddenly, a cat walked into the road about thirty feet past the intersection (straight ahead). Akela, having not seen a cat in years (if she's ever seen one at all), spotted the cat and suddenly started running as if someone had put rocket boosters on her back paws. I held on, and then, just as the intersection came up, I pulled on the leash, slowing her down and pulling myself in front of her. I cut her off and turned left.

Well, Akela was having none of that. She'd seen the cat and she wanted it. So she tried to keep running straight. Unfortunately for her, we were going really darn fast, and I weigh three times what she does. I felt the leash jerk and I kept going, dragging her behind me, knowing she would be fighting to get to the cat and knowing that since I was on rollerblades, if I stopped, getting going again while she was struggling to do something else would be much harder. When I turned to look at her, she was running with her front legs, but she had apparently fallen over, and her back was on its side. The poor dog was trying as hard as she could to get back up while running, but at the speed we were going thanks to her mad dash for the cat, she couldn't quite get it.

It was hilarious to see, mainly because she wasn't hurt. Never even whimpered, and she's a big baby, so that's saying something. I slowed down, she righted herself, and we kept going another lap or two with no trouble. When we got back to the house, I checked her rump where she had fallen. There's a small patch of fur that's slightly roadburned. (I thought it was just messy, but I brushed it and it was still frizzy-looking, and when I looked closer, I noticed it was actually burned.) Good thing she's so fuzzy. Without her fur, she would have been skinned up. Also, an hour or two later, after we had all had some water and cooled down a bit, I noticed her limping, just a little. My guess is she probably bruised her bum. Her limp is already gone, but I'm going to give her a few days break from running at high speeds around the neighborhood anyway. Maybe it's time for a good old-fashioned walk.

Maybe that'll teach her not to chase cats. Especially when we're rollerblading, which is when she's supposed to be paying attention to me and the road and nothing else.

My dog can count

2011-06-28T23:29:00.002-08:00

I'll update this blog more often when there's more to say. I'm sure you're sick of hearing about my dogs by now, but tough, because if you read the rest of this post, you'll be reading about them again.

Several weeks ago, I started taking my dogs out to run around the block, which is roughly a quarter mile around. I can't keep up with them when they run, especially not Akela, so I put on roller blades or ride my bicycle. Normally I prefer the roller blades because Akela has pulled me over on the bicycle twice (although neither of us got hurt either time).

Jack doesn't like roller blades, so when he was here, he would often ride his bike with Blitzkrieg while I had Akela pull me on the roller blades. This worked well, because we were able to switch off dogs as necessary. Neither of the dogs bother stopping to poop while running anymore, and a few times, it has been necessary for Jack to pass me both dogs so he could stop and scoop the poop (it's easier to stop a bike than to try and scoop poop on roller blades).

But Jack's been on a business trip for the last week and a half. Taking both dogs running at the same time doesn't work too terribly well on the bicycle, and if I use the roller blades, I have to try and scoop poop--usually about eight little poop balls spaced ten feet apart all the way down the street--while holding two dogs AND roller blading. I've done it, but it isn't easy. Especially if the poop happens to be in front of one of the houses with yippy dogs. (Oh, how I'm growing to loathe those annoying little squeaky nuisances!)

So I've worked out a routine. I take both dogs outside on the leash, then I tie Blitzkrieg up in the yard and let Akela run three laps around the block. She usually starts off so fast I can barely keep up with her, but by the third lap, she's gotten out most of her explosive energy, and I have to coax her to keep running. So after the third lap, I tie her up so she can have a rest, and I run Blitzkrieg for two laps. He goes much slower, and he has this habit of holding the leash in his teeth as he runs. I know he could go faster than he does if he wants to, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I usually continue to switch off the dogs--Akela for three laps, then Blitzy for two--until they seem to be getting tired out.

Well, today, when we got to Akela's third lap, she seemed to be doing well. She was still running strong and looked like she wasn't ready for her break yet. So I decided to take her for a fourth lap before taking Blitzkrieg. Blitzy, who had been sitting by the truck, calmly waiting his turn, saw us coming, then watched us pass him to go on a fourth lap. Just after we passed, I heard him let out a confused, high-pitched yip, which he's never done before. At least, not when I passed him while we were biking.

I swear, my dog can count, and he was able to tell that I was taking Akela for an extra lap. Apparently, he thought that was unfair. That or he thought I had forgotten about him.

Weird dog.

Weeds and Baseball

2011-06-04T10:57:00.003-08:00

Yesterday was the busiest I've been since moving here, I think.

When I woke up, the first thing I did was let the dogs out into the yard, like I do every morning. Unfortunately, I didn't think to check if my backyard-neighbor had her floormop in the yard first, so I was startled from half-awake to full-wakefulness by the dogs charging the fence, the yip-yapping of her dog, and the sight of my dog smashing into one board of the fence so hard she knocked it askew and got her head through. The hole was small enough that she wasn't able to get through any more than that, but judging from what the neighbor was saying, the appearance of my dog's head where a board of the fence used to be just about gave her a heart attack. I dragged Akela away, tried to reassure the lady that Akela just wanted to play and wouldn't actually hurt her dog, for whatever that was worth (she didn't believe me), and took the dogs inside.

My next task was to finish weeding the flowerbed. Our landlord came by about two days ago and told us the Homeowners' Association would be doing a walk-around this Saturday (ie - today) and we would be fined if we didn't remove our trailer from our driveway and weed the garden. No, not the garden, he amended. The whole yard. Then he proceeded to walk me around the garden/yard, saying this is a weed, that is a weed, that's a--no, that's going to be a daisy when it blooms, scratch that. But that's a weed, and there's one, and maybe I could leave that one if I wanted. But every single dandelion in the grass had to completely uprooted, because apparently people get real snitty about dandelions. Which is a shame, because I really like dandelions. I think it's nice having a splash of color in the grass.

Our flowerbed--not the one in the backyard I've been working on--is almost as big as the whole rest of the yard. We have a strip going all the way down either side of the house, which has to be completely weeded, and then another one wrapping around and edging the porch. That one extends out about four feet. Then there's yet another one that's a big maybe-eight-foot-diameter circle near the sidewalk. I guess we share that particular flowerbed with our neighbor and we're only responsible for our half of it. That's a lot of flowerbed for someone that's never had a flowerbed before and is scared of bees and consequently doesn't really want one that close to the house.

Anyway, I began weeding the day before and finished up yesterday. Altogether it took me six hours or so, and I stabbed my hand in three different places in the process because I wasn't wearing any kind of gloves. Also, now there aren't weeds in the garden, but the garden looks a little bit empty. So here's hoping the HOA doesn't decide to ding us for not having a pretty enough flowerbed. Also, uprooting the dandelions in the grass left a couple of small bare patches of grass. I read the contract and apparently they can ding us for that too if they want to be poofaces.

While I was weeding, one of my Cub Scouts' parents came over to drop off her son's uniform and some patches. Being generally un-busy and often bored, I had offered to sew patches on any kid's uniform if the parents couldn't sew, didn't like sewing, didn't have time to sew, or just didn't know exactly where the patches were supposed to go. Jack had talked to her about it on Tuesday and when she said she felt like she should pay or something (apparently to take it to a professional tailor or seamstress, they charge $5.00 per patch), Jack had said, "Lint Monkey likes cookies. You can pay her in those." So they brought chocolate chip cookies! :D

We talked with them for a while, then I finished weeding the yard. After I finished with that, I swept the porch and driveway, then took up a hammer and nails and headed over to my backyard-neighbor's house to face the music. I apologized for my dog and fixed her fence and took my first step in the right direction for getting along with her. She appreciated my fixing the fence (I had to fix it from her side because of the way the fence was built) and was fairly friendly. I suggested we get the dogs together at a dog park or something and let them meet each other to see if that helped them freak out less, but she didn't like the idea. She's fully convinced that my dog wants nothing more in the world than to snap her dogs up in two bites.

After that, Jack took me on a short motorcycle ride and then we went to the Tacoma Rainiers' baseball game against the Reno Aces. They're AAA teams, and the Aces are the top of the Pacific North Division and the Rainiers are at the bottom. It was my second baseball game ever (the first was two weeks ago--Rainiers against the Memphis Redbirds and we lost 3-4). The game was phenomenal. Luis Jimenez broke another bat, my favorite pitcher (Chris Seddon) started the game and showed a lot of improvement from the last game I saw him pitch, and the baseball players continued to pat each other on the butt, which always cracks me up, even though, as Jack says, "It's not gay; it's sports." We won the game 18-4. In the fifth inning, we scored nine runs. It was really embarrassing for the other team's second pitcher, because after the first pitcher loaded the bases, they replaced him, and the replacement pitcher walked the next two batters, which meant he walked in two runs and kept the bases loaded. Later in the same inning, he hit a batter on the arm with his pitch. Ouch!

I didn't get to see a grand slam, but I saw four home runs. The first one was the coolest because it almost hit the fence and stayed in the park, but the outfielder jumped for it, and it bounced off the top of his glove to go out of the park. We scored two runs from that. I felt a little bad for the visiting team because when our team hit home runs, the stands erupted in cheers, but when their team did the same, the crowd went, "Awwwww." That has to be demoralizing.

There was also a foul ball that fell into the stands. That happens a lot, and when it does, all the audience crowds together and tries to get the ball because apparently you're allowed to keep foul balls as souvenirs. One guy jumped for it and fell over a seat and landed on his butt across a couple seats in the next row down. Another guy picked up the ball. Awww, embarrassing! Then the guy who got the ball gave it to the one who fell over trying to get it and everyone applauded.

Because we won the game, there was a really nice fireworks display after the game. I like fireworks. They're sparkly. :D

Brutes

2011-05-23T23:21:00.005-08:00

My dogs have been so well-behaved lately that if they were kids, I would swear they wanted something. Like a Mercedes.

We live in a neighborhood where every yard is fully fenced with vertical six-to-seven-foot wooden planks. The lady who lives directly behind us has an annoying little floor-mop that yips its head off at every shadow. (From the little I can see through the slats of the fence, I'd guess it's a white-ish shih tzu.)

We discovered shortly after moving here that our dogs and her dog cannot be outside at the same time because apparently, when our dogs talk to each other through the fence, our neighbor thinks my dogs are terrorizing hers. I didn't even realize she had a problem with it until I overhead her one night telling someone over the phone about how my dogs are "brutes" and "monsters" who "terrorize" her poor baby, and she wants to kill them both. Since then, I've made an effort to keep my dogs indoors when hers is in the yard and to bring mine in when she lets hers out. (Honestly, I wanted to do the opposite out of spite, but I can be a mature adult sometimes, when I try really hard.)

Today, Akela and Blitzkrieg were in the yard when all of a sudden I heard the "YIPYIPYIPYIPYIP!!!!" and the accompanying "jingle-jingle" of the collar that meant the neighbor had let her floormop outside. Of course, Akela and Blitzkrieg got excited and started running back and forth and pawing at the fence. (They're not nearly as talkative as Floormop.) I immediately stepped outside and, without a word, patted my leg. Both of my dogs came directly over to me, and a gentle touch on the back ensured that they stayed quietly at my side while the lady did who-knows-what with her yappy little eagle bait, which continued running up and down the fence barking for another minute or two until the lady got it inside, where it continued to yap, but with the sound somewhat muffled by the closed door.

And MY dogs are the brutes.

A Bunch of Brief and Somewhat Unconnected Updates

2011-05-19T11:54:00.003-08:00

There are wasps building a nest just outside my back door. I'm absolutely terrified of wasps, so consequently, I avoid going outside or even opening the back door anymore. (I'm not terrified enough to get up the motivation to go to the store and get wasp spray, though.)

My dogs are asleep in the sunlight filtering in through the back door (it's sliding glass). The patch gets a little smaller every day as the sun gets more directly overhead. I bet if they knew what it was, they'd be looking forward to the summer equinox.

I've officially reached the point in my jogging where my lungs are proving weaker than my legs. Curse coming from a family with genetically bad lungs. But at least I don't have asthma like almost everyone else in my family.

Jack is going to be gone for half the summer. On the one hand, I'm bummed, but on the other hand, this is much better than a deployment.

We have a Harley-Davidson motorcycle now. It's purple. I'm not allowed to drive it yet because I don't have the motorcycle endorsement on my license, but I'm going to take the class soon. Ish.

Sarah left. Long story. Not going into it.

Jack and I went on the Boy Scout Camporee last week. We were asked two days before if we would go supervise. We showed up and they shoved a camp manual at us and said, "See the bit in there about box oven cooking? Yeah, you're in charge of that station tomorrow." If I've ever used a box oven before, I definitely don't remember it. Jack was in the same boat. So yeah, that went well.

No, actually, it did go well. It took about a half hour or so for things to start working kind of smoothly, but after that, we actually had fun. The district boss-guy told us afterwards that our station had the most laughter and fun of any station. (Apparently Dutch Oven cooking is srs bsns!) Plus the kids did a fantastic job, and the awards (best meal, best dessert, best camp song, best clean-up job, etc) were distributed more or less evenly among the kids even though we didn't weight our decisions.

Hey, if anyone knows where I could find a good tutorial for writing computer code, let me know. I want to review java and maybe learn a few more programming languages, but my old textbook is outdated (so outdated that the program won't work anymore).

The Shrimp Story

2011-05-03T11:12:00.004-08:00

First of all, in case anyone's been wondering, I've identified the birds at the bottom of the last post as a dark-eyed junco and a song sparrow.

Several days ago, Jack brought me to one of those fancy military dinners. Apparently they were celebrating successfully completing some kind of training event or other, and they all went out to eat at this really nice restaurant. It was a bring-your-wives event. So I dressed up all pretty and went with Jack.

I was as nervous as a mouse put into a nest of snakes. I feel awkward when I'm dressed up anyway (even though I was at least wearing slacks instead of a dress), and it's been a long time since I've had to use any kind of actual etiquette or table manners. Plus I had to remember all the extra military rules that I've never really had occasion to use before, since I don't go to many military events. I was trying to remember all the names and ranks of the people Jack introduced me to, how to properly hold and angle the silverware, trying to keep my elbows off the table, trying to keep from fiddling nervously with my hair or my necklace or my fork, trying to remember not to belch loudly, that sort of thing. I'm sure I came off as somewhat distant and preoccupied.

Halfway through the dinner, I was trying to figure out how to politely eat my salmon, which kept breaking into smaller pieces when I tried to cut it, when suddenly I heard a "splat!" I looked toward the sound and saw a shrimp tail sitting on my spoon. Shrimp tail. On my spoon. It took me about three full seconds before my brain even registered that something about that wasn't quite right.

As it turns out, the captain who was sitting across from me (not Jack) was eating shrimp pasta in some kind of mushroom sauce. Somehow, as he bit the tail off the shrimp (or, more accurately, bit the shrimp off its tail), it had tried to make one last desperate bid for freedom. The tail squirted out of his fingers, bounced off his forehead--splattering his face with mushroom sauce in the process--hit the window, and landed on my spoon, splattering more mushroom sauce on me.

Suddenly, I wasn't so nervous anymore. Everyone at the table ragged on the poor guy mercilessly for the rest of the dinner. It was awesome. And he gave me his hot fudge sundae to make up for it.

Also, I met the colonel. He gave me a rose. D'awwww.

Operation: Bird Feeder, Part II

2011-04-27T13:48:00.004-08:00

That was quicker than I thought it would be. Here's our second visitor, but I don't know what kind of bird this is. I spent five minutes or so on Google trying to identify it without success, and concluded that it would be more fun to put the picture up on here and see if any of my readers know what it is. Also, I'm lazy. :P I think it might be a dark-eyed junco. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Visitor number three is another one I'm not sure of. I'll update if I figure it out, or if you know, leave a comment, and I'll give you a virtual hug.

Operation: Bird Feeder

2011-04-27T12:08:00.002-08:00

I put up a bird feeder sometime around last Friday. It took the birds a surprisingly long time to find it, but today we got our first visitor (that I've seen): a chickadee.

He flew back and forth between the feeder and... somewhere that's not the feeder about six or seven times.

Now that we've had one visitor, maybe he'll go tell all his friends and soon we'll get some more.

Drama Queen

2011-04-18T15:05:00.004-08:00

My beagle is currently sulking under my bed.

You see, I've started an endurance training regime, which involves alternating between jogging and walking for between twenty and thirty minutes every other day. (I found the routine here, if you're interested.) Partly because it rains so often here and partly because I'm embarrassed to let everyone in the neighborhood see that I can only jog for one minute at a time, I usually do my jogging inside the house, since my kitchen/living room is enormous.

My dogs, of course, love it when I jog around in circles (actually figure eights). They jog along behind me and wrestle with each other as they do. That's fine with me, even though sometimes they get in my way, so I have to vault over them or dodge around them. Blitzkrieg, however, is not always a terribly well-behaved dog. Despite my efforts to teach him otherwise, he still thinks it's okay to jump up on people and playfully nip at them. This is exacerbated by the fact that sometimes, when he gets excited, he doesn't realize that his bites get hard enough to really hurt. (Incidentally, this is a sharp contrast to Akela, who absolutely never bites humans, even lightly or playfully.)

Two days ago, Blitzkrieg nipped my leg hard enough to leave a bruise while I was jogging. In response, I told him "NO!" and used the top of my foot to swat him in the shoulder. (Before you freak out about my kicking a puppy, please be aware that I don't think it's okay to hurt children or pets and that I very deliberately made the swat sharp enough to let him know I was serious, but gentle enough that it wouldn't hurt him, okay?) The swat knocked him a step to the side, and he stood perfectly still where he was, staring at me with a look of utter betrayal on his puppy face. With his ears twitching between lying back and pricking forward, he took a step backward, then a tentative step forward. Then he turned and trotted away, down the hall and into my bedroom, his head low and his tail drooping.

I felt like an absolute monster. Five minutes later, during one of the walking periods, I walked back into the bedroom. He was hiding under the bed, and when I called him, he army-crawled halfway out and stared up at me with his huge brown eyes, looking so sad you would think I had beaten him up and stolen his candy. I picked him up, and he wrapped his front paws around my neck and buried his head in my neck, exactly like a little kid who had been picked on at school might do when his mother hugged him to make it better.

Freaking dog.

After I hugged him and brought him back into the living room and started to jog again, he started running around and playing with Akela again, acting like nothing had ever happened.

Apparently, swatting him like I had didn't teach him his lesson, though, because today when I was jogging, he jumped up and bit me right in the butt about thirty seconds after I started. I didn't touch him this time, I just snapped "NO!" and kept going. When I rounded the couch and started back toward the kitchen, I saw him backing toward the hallway, and when I rounded the island in the kitchen and began heading back to the living room, he was gone, hiding under the bed again.

I'm not apologizing this time. He started it. Furry little melodramatic drama queen. I swear, he abuses the power those big brown eyes grant him.

UPDATE: I walked into my room to get a book, and when I walked out again, he followed me and is now curled up beside my chair.

Onoez the fud wil biet me!

2011-04-08T11:13:00.002-08:00

This morning, I fed the dogs with my normal feeding ritual. "Sit. Wait. Look here. ....Good dogs. Okay, go ahead!" Blitzy, who was sitting and waiting in his favorite patch of sunlight, nevertheless didn't hesitate to run forward and start nomming his food. Akela likewise stepped forward, and I left the room to go acquire a book.

Hearing pawsteps behind me, I turned around and saw that faithful Akela had shadowed my steps, apparently to keep me safe from the monsters that hide under the bed and in the closet. I picked up my book and headed back to the kitchen quickly, because if given the chance, Blitzkrieg will eat all of his food, then all of Akela's food, and then will turn around and throw it right back up because he ate too much.

I sat down and began reading. I hadn't gotten more than a page into it when I heard a weird sound. I looked up. Akela was pushing at her food-dish with her nose. Then she pawed at it and almost tipped it over. She stared at it for a few seconds, howled, then turned and walked away. She got about three steps, then turned, walked back, and did the same thing again, acting like she fully expected the food to jump out and bite her. She did that about eight times, with Blitzkrieg watching her, obviously hoping she would decide not to eat it so he could grab a few bites. Then she stepped up to the food dish, took out on kibble of food, and dropped it on the carpet. She sniffed it, pawed at it, and ate it.

Then, as she finally began to eat her food like a normal dog, Blitzkrieg tip-toed up beside her and sat down with his nose about three inches from her food dish, as if to say, "Hey, if you're not gonna eat that, I will!"

Nick Pitera

2011-03-26T22:21:00.002-08:00

Apparently, this guy, Nick Pitera, is a Pixar animator who is also a fantastic singer. Seriously, WATCH THIS! It's AWESOME.

Mealtime for the dogs

2011-03-14T13:25:00.004-08:00

We store our dog food in the garage. The dogs don't really have a set meal time. They eat in the morning and in the evening, whenever we get around to feeding them.

As soon as I make a move to pick up their food bowls, Akela shadows my footsteps, knowing I'll soon be holding food that should, by right, be hers. (Of course, in her opinion, any and all food should, by right, be hers.) Blitzkrieg, on the other hand, goes directly to the spot I always bring the food back to and sits and waits for his meal to be brought to him.

Akela isn't allowed in the garage with me, so she waits just outside the garage door, hoping to ambush me as soon as I come in and take the food. Blitzkrieg remains sitting in the kitchen.

When I bring the food back, I head to where Blitzkrieg is waiting, then tell Akela to sit. She does immediately because I'm holding food. As long as I'm holding food, I could tell her to jump into the Grand Canyon and she'd do it if she thought it meant I would give her my food. Then I set down both food bowls and tell the dogs, "Look here." They have to look at me, not the food, and aren't allowed to eat until I tell them, "Okay."

Training Akela to wait was more difficult than training Blitzkrieg, because Blitzkrieg won't touch his food until it's put directly in front of him. I usually set the bowls about three feet away from the dogs. Even when I say okay, Blitzkrieg will usually just sit and stare at the bowl, probably distraught because it's not within his reach, so he can't figure out how to eat it. He doesn't budge until I push his bowl directly in front of him, at which point you can almost see him looking relieved that using his mind powers to move the bowl closer worked, since there was no alternative.

Sometimes, like today, if I remember that the dogs need food when I'm in the middle of something, I just set the bowls down in front of the dogs and go back to what I was doing. When I do that, Blitzkrieg will start wolfing the food down immediately, but Akela sniffs the bowl and then turns and looks at me with an expression of utter confusion on her face. It's like she's saying, 'I'm looking at you. See? Can I eat now? Am I allowed? What did I do wrong? Why are you walking away from me?' She won't touch her food until I come back and tell her to sit and look at me. Because I feel bad for neglecting to make her earn her food, I sometimes make her do one or two more tricks as well, by which time she starts edging toward the food, like, "Okay, I'm done with this game. Food time."

By that time, Blitzy's almost done snarfing down his food, and when he's finished, he usually circles Akela until she finishes, hoping that she'll leave him a few bites. I guess the food we give him isn't worth getting up for, but the food we give Akela is, even though it's the same food.

When Akela finishes, Blitzkrieg rushes in and licks the bottom of her bowl a few times, just in case there are any invisible pieces hiding from him. Then he'll waddle over to his favorite patch of sunlight (or the air vent if the heat is on, or the bed), plop down, and go to sleep.

Lazy dog.

Planning in advance

2011-03-13T17:43:00.002-08:00

I've decided I don't like events that are planned more than a few days in advance. By the time they come up, I've forgotten about them.

I mention this because I was supposed to go help out at a blood drive yesterday. Someone told me about it three or four weeks ago. I'm terrified of needles, so I offered to help hand out cookies and stuff instead. Then nobody said anything else about it between that time and the time of the blood drive. Naturally, I completely forgot about it until there was only about an hour left of the blood drive.

Of course, I wrote it on my calendar. But guess how often I actually look at the calendar. Actually, don't guess. I'll tell you. Probably like twice a month. And one of those times is usually around the fifth or sixth, and it's when I realize, "Oh shoot, I should change the calendar so it's on the right month." The second time per month is usually when someone schedules a time for something way in advance and I don't want to forget about it, so I look at the calendar to write down the thing I need to not forget to do.

So much for that idea.

Darn helpful people

2011-03-12T14:37:00.003-09:00

So I guess the red panda was too easy. Oh well, I'm already bored of this game anyway. Also I forgot what I was going to do next, although I remember it was awesome.

So I still can't find anyone willing to hire me, though at this point it's probably because I no longer have any confidence that anyone would want to. It's not that I'm useless, it's just that nobody really needs me. I feel like a hammer might if it were brought to a new construction area where there were already more than enough hammers that were already being used. The hammer would still be useful, if anyone wanted to use it, but everyone already has their hammers.

I thought about being a volunteer firefighter. And by "thought about," what I mean is I tried. Turns out this fire station doesn't take volunteers. They only take paid employees. So I was going to apply, but there are TWO THOUSAND applications already on file. I'm not kidding. There are TWO THOUSAND people lining up to run into burning buildings. So much for that.

So then I decided to volunteer at the wildlife refuge just outside of town. I perused the website. As it turns out, they apparently take volunteers, but the application process is as bad as applying for a job. You fill out the application and send it in with your resume, and they put it in a file and if they need someone and like your resume/application, then they'll call you and set up an interview. And then you have to buy your own uniform. I mean, Boy Scouts makes you buy your own uniform, but at least they don't make you suffer through a stinking interview first.

The problem is that the people in this city are too darn helpful. I'm not kidding. I was driving to Safeway the other day, and I saw flames beside the road and traffic was stopped. It was a bad car accident, and I got there probably less than a minute after it happened. The car was on its side, engulfed in flames about twelve feet tall. By the time I got out of my car and ran up to see if I could help in some way, people had already pulled the girl away from the burning car, there were three or four people tending to her and another person on a cell phone, presumably calling 911. Figuring the best thing to do was get out of the way, I got in my car and turned around and saw two or three other people who had gotten out of their cars and were directing traffic.

It's awesome that people here are so helpful and willing to take the initiative. But it means there's nothing left for me to do. Those jerks.

The duet of the cats

2011-02-26T22:56:00.001-09:00

This is the best ever!

Bird composers

2011-02-25T23:36:00.002-09:00

Someone saw a flock of birds sitting on telephone wires and saw musical notes.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Awesome!

Common genet

2011-02-25T11:05:00.003-09:00

Kudos to the Old Man--the kitty two posts down is a genet.

Genets are relatives of the cat family, found in Europe, Africa, and some places of the Middle East. They're about a foot and a half long, with another foot and a half of tail, and they weigh around five pounds. They're solitary and nocturnal, and live to be about ten to fifteen. They eat pretty much anything smaller than themselves, from smaller mammals to birds and insects to eggs and fruits. Common genets are also known as small-spotted genets or European genets.

This one should be a little bit easier. Anyone know what this animal is? (I think Dubby does.) He's also unbearably cute. Don't worry, they won't all be cute. My next animal lined up is downright silly-looking.

How to motivate people to take the stairs instead of the escalator

2011-02-21T10:23:00.001-09:00

This is brilliant!

Fuzzy!

2011-02-20T19:01:00.003-09:00

Since my dad likes guessing games so much, let's see who's the first person who can post a comment telling what kind of animal this is. I would give you a hint, but if I did, that would make it too easy to search Google.

Valentine's Day last week was the best V-Day I've ever had. I went to PT with Jack to play racquetball and as we got back to the truck afterward, Jack said, "Shhh, you hear that? What's that? Stay here!" He ran ahead to the truck, opened the door, and a second later called me to come join him. I was completely oblivious, so I came up and there was a little Valentine's basket on the front seat with candy and a little stuffed puppy that Jack decided to name Boogers. D'awww! When we got home, turns out Boogers had left little Ferrero-Rocher chocolate poops all around. And for dinner, Jack got a heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's.

I've never really liked Valentine's Day, but this is the first time someone's ever actually made me feel special for it before. It was cool! :D

Work work

2011-02-15T11:12:00.002-09:00

I got a car a few days ago. It's a green Subaru Legacy. I love Subarus. :) Now I'm happy because I can go places. Consequently, I've finally started seriously applying for jobs. (I was only kind-of looking before.)

I found a couple of freelance editing jobs (yeah, I know, I should have been applying to them while I didn't have a car, but the thought never occurred to me), but I'm really leery about working for someone I've never seen and probably never will see. I especially don't want to send them my personal information, like credit card number and bank information, which they say they require to pay me and to report for tax purposes. I don't like it. Maybe I should apply to McDonald's.

They gave me a church calling last week. Now I'm the new Wolf Den Leader in the Cub Scouts. I wasn't happy about it at first because I kind of wanted to teach the young women stuff, but then I realized that teenage girls are silly wenches that don't want to learn how to be independent anyway. Also, if I told the leaders in the Young Women my ideas and they said, "Oh no, we need to teach these girls to be more spiritual, so we can only ever discuss eternal marriage," then I'd probably get really pissed off and hate everyone even more than I already do.

Besides, little boys like juggling. I can juggle.

The other day, I was talking with a friend of mine who I taught to juggle. Apparently he's been getting so many gigs as a clown at birthday parties that he's starting his own business now. I'm so proud!

Sorry

2011-02-03T23:55:00.003-09:00

My mom always taught me that it's really important to say you're sorry. I'm starting to learn what that means.

Whenever I do something that hurts or offends someone, they get upset with me. I say I'm sorry, they accept my apology, and life goes on.

Whenever someone else does something that hurts or offends me, I get upset. They get defensive and angry. I end up saying I'm sorry, they accept my apology, and life goes on.

Does anything here seem wrong to you?

The alternative, I guess, would be people like that deciding not to hang around me anymore. I'm starting to wonder whether that would really be such a bad thing.

Note: This post was not brought on by any argument with my husband. For the record.

Neutered!

2011-02-02T16:12:00.003-09:00

We finally got Blitzkrieg neutered today. So far, I can't tell which he's more indignant about, the neutering or the "buster collar," which I always called a cone, but I guess I was wrong.

He didn't have the collar on when the vet brought him out to us, and when we slid it on over his head (we had to finagle his big ears a little bit), he glared at us with eyes that said, "I may be little and drugged, but someday I will kill you and everything you hold dear." When he's not awkwardly tiptoeing his way around trying to find his balance without his little puppy ballsack and trying to figure out why his field of vision is suddenly much narrower and why he can't fit under the computer desk or walk close to walls and corners anymore, he's alternately glaring at us and standing with his head as close to the floor as he can droop it before the collar stops him.

Poor puppy!

PS: I found a new record today. I'm still looking for cars, especially Subarus because I love them, and I keep finding ones with sick amounts of miles on them, often in excess of 200,000. Today I found one with somewhere around 350,000 miles on it. Still running. Yeah. Subarus are awesome.

Dogs are gross. I am lazy.

2011-01-28T10:11:00.001-09:00

I didn't sleep well last night, so after Jack left for work, I decided to go back to sleep. I'm not sure how much later it was when I was woken up by that weird gulping noise that means a dog is getting ready to vomit. Reflex kicked in (this happens kind of a lot) and I immediately grabbed my little dog, Blitzkrieg, and tossed him off the bed. He tried to crawl under the bed, so I held him in place by his collar, because the only thing worse than cleaning up dog puke is having to crawl under the bed to clean up dog puke.

Blitzkrieg deposited an enormous pile of chunky, apparently-undigested dog food on the floor right beside the bed. Still-half-asleep, I stared at the big pile of vomit, which I could hardly see because my glasses weren't on, and I thought, "Man, I really don't feel like cleaning this up right now." As I sat there staring at the pile in dislike, Blitzkrieg and my other dog, Akela, both started chowing down on it.

"How nice," I thought. "Now I don't have to clean it up." Then I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Dogs are gross.

Productivity

2011-01-27T18:31:00.002-09:00

A little productivity is a bad thing. Every so often I get into a good hard-working mood and I run through and start checking things off my to-do list. In and of itself, that's not a terrible thing, but the problem is that once I check off a few things, I start getting all proud of myself for being so productive and I take what I consider to be a hard-earned break. And I often never really get around to getting back to work from the break, so after I get done the tiny little bit, suddenly I don't even feel like doing even my normal amount of work anymore.

Hence why I should never try to be productive.

And now, for your listening pleasure, here is a pretty song that I would put as the background music for my blog if a) I could figure out how and b) it didn't annoy me a little when other people put music on their blogs that distracts me while I'm trying to read.

If I were YW president...

2011-01-26T22:31:00.003-09:00

I FINALLY got my guitar fixed, yaaaay! Still no luck job-hunting, but I've been fairly busy with some freelance editing I'm doing as well as studying for my ham radio license and looking for a car (which I kind of want to get before I get a job).

Jack really wants me to be a boy scout unit commissioner with him, which I wouldn't mind doing, but it's not something I'm completely gung ho (sp?) about. I kind of want to get a position with the young women (12-18) at the church because most of the YW programs I've seen have been hyper-focused on getting ready for weddings and interior decoration for your house and other frivolous stuff. I kind of want to make sure the young women are taught things they'll actually need to know, like first aid, personal management, and home repair. If I were YW president, we would be learning and reviewing first aid at least twice a year. I would also have some lessons about emergency preparedness. I think I'd even spend a little money to get a couple of the little fire extinguishers and teach everyone how to use one properly, because realistically, how many young people are confident using one in an emergency situation? Also a lesson on car repair would be useful--how to change a tire, change your oil, jump a battery, change a headlight, put on new windshield wiper blades. How about how to pick a basic indoor lock in case you have a toddler who locks himself into a room and you out of it? How to manage your own finances just in case (gasp!) you DON'T get yourself married off the day after you graduate high school. A lesson on cleaning couldn't hurt either--which chemicals to use when, what chemicals not to ever mix, how to properly use and care for vacuum cleaners, laundry machines, ovens/stoves, dishwashers, etc. How to cut your own kid's hair so you don't have to pay someone else to do it. These are things that don't get taught in school but that almost everyone needs to know. The Boy Scouts learn most of this stuff while the Young Women are writing lists of qualities their future husband will have, drawing little hearts around temples they want to get married in, and designing what they want their wedding dresses to look like. Not that I think people shouldn't get married (obviously), I just think other things are important too.

Meow

2011-01-21T11:32:00.002-09:00

Blitzy has officially grown up. He's been trying to mount Akela. I'm so proud!

It's actually really funny, because every time he tries, she turns and snarls at him and chases him off, so he tries to sneak up behind her and rape her without her noticing. Every time she starts to turn in his direction, he scampers away. Sorry, puppy, but it just doesn't work that way!

Still no luck with the job-hunting, but I also don't have my own car yet, so it's probably a good thing anyway. I may end up being a unit commissioner with the Boy Scouts, though. Apparently I have enough experience now, and apparently they're desperate for unit commissioners, which isn't surprising. Most councils are. I just don't think I could do a very good job just because I don't like telling people they're doing something wrong, and that's 95% of a unit commissioner's job. Then again, that's 95% of what editors do too, and I also do that. Huh. I hadn't thought of that until now.

Jack's pop gave us this awesome recipe he made for linguini with shrimp and peas. The first time we tried making it, it didn't come out right, and we added way too many peas. This time, though, it was amazing! I'll definitely have to call him up and let him know his recipe was a smashing success. Also, hey, I cooked something yummy!!! :D

That's all for now.

Yaaaaaaay...

2011-01-17T22:19:00.003-09:00

Still no luck job hunting. It depresses me that even with a college degree, I still don't even qualify to shovel horse manure. (Seriously, I was told not to even waste their time by applying for the position.) I found some really weird job titles too, such as "Kitchen Table Coordinator." Seriously? I didn't know kitchen tables needed to be coordinated. I can only assume that Kitchen Table is the name of some business or other. I've sent in a few applications, but it feels like I only qualify for one out of every 250 jobs, and I only know of so many places to search. I did find a linguistics job, but I would have to enlist in the army for it and go through boot camp, and then anytime my husband and I are both in uniform, I would have to salute him and call him Sir, and I don't think that's going to happen.

So bottom line, wish me luck.

Starting up again

2011-01-15T13:47:00.002-09:00

I guess it's about time to start writing in my blog again.

Jack and I are living in a really nice house in Washington state. It's in a neighborhood with a playground in it and a wildlife preserve next to it. The house has a fenced yard--albeit a small one--for the puppy dogs, and the kitchen and living room of the house open onto each other and have a big vaulted ceiling, which makes the house feel even bigger than it already is. Jack's adopted sister Sarah is living with us, and she has her own bedroom and bathroom with a skylight.

We just moved in Monday, so a lot of our stuff is still boxed up, and we're in the process of acquiring furniture. For me, finding a job is more important than unpacking, but I can't find anything that I qualify for and that will interest me for three years (that's how long we'll be here). Even a lot of entry-level jobs seem to require experience working with customers, which janitorial work never really covered. I've considered just taking on a bunch of piano/trumpet/french horn students and advertising for freelance editing work, but I don't think that work alone will keep me busy enough.

Speaking of music students, my parents gave me my (are you ready for this?) dad's sister's husband's father's old trombone, which was given to my grandfather and put into storage in his shed out back for a few decades. The case is falling apart and covered in mildew, and the trombone was tarnished almost completely black. When grandpa died, apparently the trombone was going to get either thrown away or sold on eBay for twenty-five bucks, so I rescued it and polished it up last week. Turns out that except for some tiny age spots, the trombone cleaned up really really really nice. I didn't even realize until I'd spent almost half an hour with silver polish that the bell is a different color from the rest of the trombone. The outside is silver, and inside the bell is a pale brass color. Really nice for an instrument that looked like it was made out of patchy hematite last week. I greased up the slide and played it, and the sound is beautiful too. It has one tiny dent in it, but is otherwise in near-perfect condition. And they were going to just throw it away. Sheesh.

So now I'm going to learn how to play the trombone.

Also, I got that new flavor of Altoids, Creme de Menthe. They're addictive. Yummyyyyy. Maybe I'm just guzzling those because I've been cutting back on chocolate and I need SOMETHING to be addicted to. Mmmmm, Altoids. Plus they last forever because they pretty much have to be eaten one at a time. Om nom nom.

I never blogged about the other puppy we have, Blitzkrieg. He's mostly beagle, and he's really cute. So when I make reference to Blitzy, if you didn't already know, he's our other puppy that isn't Akela the husky. He turns one in April.

That's all for now.

Report

2010-04-05T22:15:00.004-08:00

I didn't even know when Easter was until two days ago. Needless to say, I did nothing in the way of celebrating it. Didn't even see any celebrations. Interestingly enough, I don't really care. I just bothered mentioning it to make my sister feel better about the fact that she didn't do anything elaborate.

On the other hand, I've spent a fair amount of the last two weekends with the branch president of the church here, learning how to make a knife. Jack's making one out of elk antler. Mine's being made out of ziricote wood. In fact, the knife itself is pretty much finished--all I need to do now is make the sheath for it. When I finish, I'll put pictures up. I'm so excited about it! It's a really nice-looking knife. The handle's nice and thick. It's not very rounded, but I like it that way because it gives me more to grip. The blade's a little small because it's a skinning knife kind of designed for precision work. I may make another, slightly bigger hunting knife after I'm done. And an ulu. I really like it. President Olsen's enjoying it too--he's almost more excited about this than I am!

The snow's melting fairly quickly as the weather warms up. It's nice being able to go outside without a jacket, finally. I was going to go outside and shoot my bow a bit today, but just as I set up the target, I got a call from Jack asking for a ride home because he was sick. Awww, poor Jack! I would say I nursed him back to health, but he'd pretty much gotten it all out of his system by the time I got there. I made him some chicken noodle soup and then made him help me with the dishes because I'm so mean. Now he's upstairs sleeping with the dog while I'm "finishing my homework."

Actually, I really am finishing it. I finished my entire political science course last week, and I'm finishing my Linguistics 101 course when I take the final, which I plan to take tomorrow. With about six weeks left in the semester, after tomorrow, my workload will have dropped from 18 credit hours to 12 (because of finishing the two independent study courses). And yes, believe it or not, I'm EXCITED! I can't believe I'm FINALLY graduating! Speaking of which, I guess I ought to look into getting a cap and gown and sending in that form saying I'll be at graduation. Blah, formal ceremonies. Part of me doesn't even really want to bother going to the ceremony. The other part says that if I don't, I'll regret it. After all, I never graduated from high school, so I've never been in a graduation ceremony. Well, I've played Pomp and Circumstance with the band before....

The aurora for the last few nights has been unbelievable. Tonight in particular, I stood outside and watched for a while and nearly freaked out. I've never seen it like this--normally the aurora slowly waltzes across the sky. Tonight the aurora only had one color, but it was like it had been force-fed excessive amounts of caffeine or something. It was practically dancing the tarantella, not just swooping, swirling and streaking, but EXPLODING! Seriously, when the sky grew dark, I thought for a disappointed moment that the light show was over. Then a spot in the middle of the sky started to light up, streaks shot out of it, and moments later, half the sky was glowing nearly bright enough to read by!

I LOVE Alaska!!!

Good song

2010-03-24T11:37:00.002-08:00

I have a new favorite song for the week. I think my mom especially will like this one (assuming she can forgive the fact that it's country).

Exercise

2010-03-23T12:35:00.002-08:00

The weather's getting nice enough to actually go outside and do stuff now. So today I decided to take my dog for a run around the block. I don't really go for that kind of jogging that's slower than walking, so it's basically just walking while bouncing up and down a little more. When I run, I actually RUN. When I jog, it's halfway between walking speed and running speed.

Akela, of course, loved the run, which is good, because I didn't even make it a quarter of the way around the block before I had to partly rely on her pulling me along. We didn't make it all the way around the block before I had to turn back. I hate that. I know I could run several times as far as I do except that whenever I run, the back of my throat starts burning, my saliva gets really thick--too thick to swallow well--and I have so much mucus in my throat that I can hardly breathe (not that I'm out of breath like I used to be when I was younger, but like I can't breathe because the airway's obstructed).

I googled my problem, which is apparently pretty normal and only goes away over time. Something to do with your throat not liking cold air (but it's above freezing today!). Silly. That's silly. I want to work my muscles, which are antsy from being stuck inside all winter, but I can't because my throat's a sissy. Silly sissy throat.

I miss playing tennis and basketball. It was easier to exercise then. I get bored when I'm just running for the sake of stretching muscles. It's easier when there's something like a ball to focus on.

Mid-night announcement

2010-03-01T02:28:00.003-09:00

Okay, by popular request, here's news on the pending hitching.

Um... I'm getting married. To the greatest person on the planet. And I don't want to write much more because I'm not really the type to gush.

Details are we're getting married on May 15, which is the day before my graduation. So we get married in the temple in Anchorage, then drive the six hours back to Fairbanks that evening so we can go to graduation on the 16th. Then in June, we're leaving for a 30-day trip across the country because Jack's getting sent to Georgia. Ew, Georgia. That's not Alaska at all! Puppy isn't going to like it. Fortunately, we're only there for six months, and then we get to move again. Heh, yay.

That said, it's 2:30 in the morning. I'm going back to sleep. I don't know why I even got up to type this, but maybe I'll be able to sleep better now.

Follow-up

2010-02-22T14:08:00.005-09:00

It warmed up to above 40 a day or two ago, but now it's down to about 15, and it's snowing again. The roads are atrocious. Times like this, I almost wish I still lived on campus.

Last week, Monday was a nice "normal" day, but Tuesday, I was on campus for thirteen hours. Wednesday, I was on campus for ten hours. Thursday, I got lucky and was only there for six, and Friday, I went to campus for morning classes, and then Jack, Josi, Fingers, and I left to go to Anchorage for a temple trip.

Part of the reason I was so busy last week was because the juggling club got kicked out of its normal practice area. I'd like to blame the guy who decided to bring a gigantic pogo stick and use it inside even after he was asked to stop, but it's not ENTIRELY his fault. I had missed every practice for over a week, largely because of my wreck, and then got a frantic phone call from my vice president saying we'd been kicked out of the Wood Center and he didn't know what to do. So now I'm trying to find us another practice location, but so far, it's not going well. In the meantime, juggling practice is becoming somewhat spontaneous.

I managed to acquire a new car within 24 hours of wrecking my old one. There's a guy in town who owns seven acres, entirely covered in wrecked Subarus. I traded in my old car plus two thousand bucks, and he gave me a working car of the exact same make and model, but four years older. Also, it runs. That's all I really need for now. I've named the new car Serenity after the spaceship in the TV show Firefly. Good show. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it in ages. My friends love to quote it, and half the time, I don't remember what they're talking about.

Ah, crap

2010-02-09T01:19:00.004-09:00

Today, I was driving downtown to pay some bills. It was five in the evening, and I was running later than I had wanted to (the places closed at six). It was warm today--right around zero--and I was enjoying the radio, the fact that the sun had set, et cetera. I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have, because I noticed way too late that there was a car in front of me stopped in the lane (left lane) waiting to turn left. I hit the brakes, skidded, began fishtailing, and rear-ended the car in front of me going about 40 mph, then spun into the car to our right (thank goodness I didn't spin left into oncoming traffic).

I saw it coming and didn't honk like I guess I should've to let the lady know I was about to rear-end her. Oops. Funny enough, instead of thinking, "Oh no, this is going to hurt," I was thinking, "Oh no, this is going to mess up my car." Or maybe just, "I don't want to deal with the repercussions of this."

I've never seen air bags deploy before. Is that the right word? Deploy? Well, I definitely got a close-up view this time. I didn't even realize that was what happened at first. I guess I just thought the soft thing my face smashed into was what it felt like when you were in shock. Or dead. And I inhaled a lot of dust. Why is there so much dust in with the airbags? Blech.

You know, the Check Airbag light has been on ever since I bought that car. I'm kind of glad now that it was a faulty light instead of faulty airbags. I never got them checked because I never thought I'd need them.

So there I was, sitting in my crumpled car. I don't know how long it took me to recover from the shock of the wreck enough to open my eyes. By the time I did, there were a couple of cars--including the ones I had hit, of course--pulled into the parking lot there on the right and people were standing around talking. Genius that I am, I tried to drive my car over there. It wasn't budging. I tried restarting it. Oh yeah. Duh. Should I be able to see my front license plate from the driver's seat? Probably not. Maybe that was why my car wasn't starting.

Then I realized I was having trouble breathing because the car was so filled with the dust from the airbags. So I rolled down my window. Then it occurred to me that since my car wasn't moving, it might, maybe, be more effective to just get out of the car and walk over there. I don't think I even looked both ways before getting out and staggering over to the parking lot to where people were standing around talking on phones and exchanging information. I took one look at them, said shakily, "I'm really really really sorry..." and then darn near passed out. I was shaking so bad I could hardly stand up.

Since I know you're all wondering: no, nobody got hurt. Well, the lady I rear-ended said she "thought" she was okay, and that she didn't want to be the one to complain. She didn't seem to be in any pain or to have trouble moving around, so I expect she's probably about as shaken and generally sore as I am, but with no real injuries. As for me, well, I got a bruise on the knuckle of my left hand. No idea where that came from. The lady I side-swiped said that although I had knocked off her back bumper, she was fine--her car just got pushed to the side a bit, so nothing too bad there. She was very nice, and let me sit in her car to keep warm (it had gotten down to -10. Go figure).

It took me several minutes to stop shaking enough to call someone. Since one of the ladies had already called the police, I opted to call Jack, who was at work. He had to work a 24-hour shift today, and I had promised to bring him dinner that evening. So I called him to tell him that I wouldn't be able to make it... you know, what with no longer having a working car and all. He went straight to his commander, told him about the situation, and left work to come help me. We also called up Kitty, Fingers, and Josi, since Jack had to go back to work as soon as he made sure I was okay and got me home.

The lady I rear-ended was really frustrated. Apparently, she got rear-ended by someone just four days ago (presumably in another car).

Both the other cars will need the bumpers and lights fixed. Not too terrible, though. The rear of my car was a bit dented and battered from swiping the second lady, and the engine had folded like an accordion. I guess you could say that now the engine is "Fun Size!" The windshield cracked (looked like a bullethole right... well, right where my head would have hit it if I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt and hadn't had airbags), and there was some kind of liquid all over the road. No idea if it was coolant or oil or what. Basically, though, my car is dead. Almost the entire thing would have to be rebuilt if I wanted to put the money into it to fix it. Well, at least I don't have to fix the CV joints anymore.

Naturally, I got cited, but the officer was really nice, and gave me as few points as possible (two) since I've never had a moving violation before. He also said if I go in to court and say I want to take a defensive driving class, the two points will be taken off. Of course, there are still the problems I have to throw money and paperwork at--calling the insurance companies, getting the other two cars fixed, and of course, my ticket. Not to mention I need a vehicle for the next three months. Blah.

Oh yeah, so I was telling the officer my phone number, and he recognized 540 as a Virginia number. I was surprised, and he said, "Yeah, I'm from Lynchburg." Heh. Cool.

After an hour of standing around outside in -10 degree weather, we finally finished all the paperwork and everything, and the officer let Jack and me go. Jack took me to his apartment, where Kitty, Fingers, and Josi were waiting. Josi and Kitty pounced on me and hugged me. They pulled away, and I wordlessly held up the broken rear-view mirror, which Jack had apparently picked up from the seat of my car when he jumped in to grab whatever he thought I might need.

"Is that all that's left?" Josi asked. It doesn't seem as funny now that I'm writing it, but at the time, it was pretty much the funniest thing in the world.

So here I am, sitting at home, wishing I hadn't ever gone downtown to pay those stupid bills. I hate bills. And now I have more reason than you do to hate them.

Running late

2010-02-05T10:40:00.003-09:00

This morning, I ignored my alarm for an hour and a half. At 9:30, I suddenly snapped awake with the sudden horrible realization, "Oh crap, I'm going to be late for my 10:00 class!" I rocketed out of bed (to Stormy's chagrin) and flew around in a whirlwind, shoving everything into my backpack before flying into my car and speeding down the road. I skidded into the parking lot, gliding perfectly into a conveniently empty parking space, and sprinted up the icy hill to class while my lungs protested, "I don't like breathing -30 degree air this fast! Make it stop!" So I stopped breathing as I ran. I practically flew up six flights of stairs and ran down the hall, reaching the classroom door with thirty seconds left before 10:00. I flung the door open so I could scramble over a couple desks to get to my seat... and a bunch of Asian kids turned and stared at me like I was insane. I froze. They kept staring. I looked at the teacher. He was a short little Asian guy. He might have been 20 or 60. I can never tell with Asians. But he was definitely giving me a "look." It said, "Who are you and what are you doing in my classroom?" His hand was still holding a marker, frozen in the act of writing an unfinished equation on the whiteboard. I crawled into my jacket to try and hide, then wormed my way out of the room, quietly pulling the door closed behind me. I heard another two seconds of awkward silence in the room before class started right back up where it had left off, as if I had never been there.

But it was now past time for class to start. What were a bunch of Asian geniuses doing in my English classroom? What on Earth? Where was the teacher? Where was Natay, the girl who covers for me when I have to miss class to save the world? Had I done my homework for nothing?

And then realization dawned.

It's Friday. Class doesn't start until ten thirty.

...Dangit.

Awww, puppy!

2010-01-28T04:10:00.003-09:00

Some idiot let my dog off her run a few days ago while I was gone. I came back to find my dog missing and five bags of garbage strewn all over the yard. In cleaning it up, I came to realize that she had eaten about two cups of old Halloween candy, which had been individually wrapped in tin foil kind of like Hershey's kisses.

Yes, I know chocolate's bad for dogs. I don't try to give it to her. But she's had enough so far that hasn't affected her that I don't worry too much if she gets a hold of it. The tin foil, on the other hand, I worry about.

Stormy showed up on the doorstep about half an hour after I got home. Her leash was gone, so I ended up having to get her a new one. The following night, around three in the morning, she vomited on my bed. As I cleaned it up, I noticed there was tin foil in it. "Good," I thought, "that's done with, then." I went back to bed. I think I fell asleep in about ten seconds, because according to the clock, it was only two minutes later that I was woken up to the sound of Stormy throwing up again. I got up, went downstairs to get the paper towels and cleaner and trash can, came back up to find her vomiting a third time, so I took her outside and put her on the run so she could throw up all she needed while I cleaned up.

When I went upstairs and turned on the light, I noticed that the vomit on the floor was a funny color. Red. Red? I cleaned it up and went outside to check on Stormy. She was vomiting again. Within ten minutes of the first time she vomited, she threw up six times. Two of the vomit piles had tin foil and were about the size of a dinner plate. The others were smaller--about the size of a softball. All but the first were pretty bloody.

Needless to say, I kind of freaked out. Especially as she was throwing up the sixth time, because I wasn't sure how long she would keep going. Did I have to rush her to an animal hospital? Could it wait till morning? Was she dying? In a bit of a panic, I called my mom (fortunately, with the time difference, she was already awake) and asked for her advice. She called her farmer friends to ask for advice and went to some website called JustAnswer, I think? By the time she called back (only minutes later), Stormy was happy and perky and alert and looking at me like I was crazy for standing outside with her if we weren't playing.

I ended up going to the store to get a few loaves of bread and feeding her just bread and water for the next two or three days. Bread is soft on the stomach, and also, theoretically, it would wrap around any remaining pieces of tin foil that she was having trouble getting through her system and would get it through easier. She seemed to like the bread. I would rip it up in pieces and hand-feed it to her a piece at a time. She liked the game of jumping up and catching it.

The following day, we hung out with David, Joslyn, and the two kids Josy's babysitting, Syrus (who's five) and Anisha (who's six). The kids loved the game of feeding bread to the dog. I told them only one piece each every few hours, but by the end of the evening, without my noticing, they had fed the dog an entire loaf and a half of bread.

Stormy's doing fine now. She just made it through one of the rawhide chews Mom sent her, and is now asleep with her head on my lap. Awwww!

She really is a pretty dog.

Here ya go

2010-01-20T08:15:00.004-09:00

Know what's fun? Driving down the river. I mean that literally, driving down the river. To get to my friend David's house, the quickest (and most fun) way to get there is to literally drive your car onto the frozen river and go down the river. It's so cool! We took Joslyn and the two kids she was babysitting that way. The kids probably wouldn't have even noticed we were driving on the river if we hadn't told them. I tried to make it exciting, but when I told them we were on the river, they were terrified! Oh well. Not like the river's all that deep. It's probably more ice than water right now.

By the way, know what's funny? Watching two men who are really trying to win the new Super Mario Brothers for the Wii play with two five-year-old kids who run around trying to get everyone killed and throwing tantrums when something goes wrong or they die or they don't get the pink Yoshi. It was going to be me, Jack, David, and Joslyn playing, but Josy gave her controller to Syrus, and if I hadn't let Nisha play with my controller, she would have had a tantrum. After dinner, Josy and I played on the kids' controllers, and the kids ran around causing trouble and fighting and making messes. Go figure. Don't get me wrong, I love kids, but trying to do anything for yourself when they're around is freaking impossible!

I spent all day yesterday cleaning my cabin because school starts soon, and I find I can focus better if I'm in a clean place. I haven't cleaned it in kind of a long time because I spent almost my entire break with Jack. As in, I would wake up to a phone call from him, hang out with him all day long until like three in the morning, then sleep for a few hours before waking up to another phone call from him. But he's finally back at work full time, and school starts tomorrow for me, so now we're going back to a more normal schedule, meaning I'll see him maybe four hours a day... and in a few weeks, I'll probably be doing homework for those four hours.

Speaking of which, I spent like a hundred dollars on textbooks for my four classes excluding the independent study ones. Yesterday, I bought the textbooks for the independent study classes (which have to be bought at the independent study bookstore because UAF makes no sense), and just for the last two classes, the books cost $315. Stupid political science class.

Know what? My dog has no respect for my face. When I'm lying down, she's all over it. Paws, tongue, whatever. "You're not paying enough attention to me, so I will fix this problem by sitting on your face!" she says.

Okay, well, I'm going to go because I have some studying I want to do. Look at this: school hasn't even STARTED yet and I'm already studying. Sheesh! What's this world coming to?

Fun times

2010-01-06T08:52:00.004-09:00

I guess I ought to update more often. I used to write here every day, maybe every other, and now I'm lucky to write once a week.

This last Sunday was a ton of fun. Normally, I go out to visit my adopted family in North Pole for dinner on Sunday evenings, but this Sunday, I kind of skipped out on that. Instead, I invited over a couple of friends from church to my cabin to play Apples to Apples and eat frozen pizza. Well, not frozen. I mean, we cooked it before we ate it.

Anyway, since no one but Jack knew how to get there, we decided I would drive David, and Jack would ride with Joslyn and Chris and direct them to the cabin. First, though, everyone wanted to drop by their houses to change. Joslyn and Jack live in the same apartment building, so we stopped at Jack's first. Thus began the promotion of David.

See, Jack's roommate, Dave, collects swords, which he stores right by the front door of the apartment. David started toying with the swords while Jack and I changed (Jack in his bedroom and I in the bathroom, because I had left a change of clothes there because I had taken a shower there that morning because I don't have running water at my cabin). Partway through, I heard David call something about needing a Band-aid because he had cut his finger on one of the swords. I snickered a little to myself, but didn't really think much of it. I finished changing and brought my shower bag out to the living room, where I saw David scrubbing ineffectively at the wall with a dry paper towel while two of his fingers practically spurted blood, which was dripping down past his wrist. The top quarter inch of skin on those two fingers were darn near sliced off. Holy crap!

"How did you do this?"

"I was just trying to open it!"

"You don't OPEN a sword! That's your problem!"

"It was sharper than I thought."

"You don't test a sword by drawing it with your fingers on the blade!"

Jack led him to the bathroom while I cleaned the blood off the wall... and counter... and floor... and sword... and more of the floor... and then Joslyn and Chris showed up. After I finished cleaning, I looked down the hall to the bathroom and saw David practically passed out on the floor while Chris and Jack made fun of him for nearly killing himself trying to "open" a sword. Joslyn was bandaging his fingers and calling for scissors. In the end, I went in and helped her bandage and clean him up (he was woozy from the sight of blood, not from lack of it, don't worry) while the other guys stood out of the way and laughed.

To me, the funniest part was that the guy who cut himself was an Eagle scout, the other two guys were also Eagle scouts, and the girls, who, obviously, were NOT scouts, ended up being the ones to administer the first aid. (Actually, I just did what Josi directed, but I still helped!) Scouts are so useful. ;)

David seemed okay after drinking some orange juice, and after that, we headed over to the cabin and had a blast playing Apples to Apples and eating pizza. When we finished, Chris drove Joslyn home, and I took Jack and David out to Fox so they could help me haul some more water to my cabin. I've never had help hauling water before. It went WAY faster that way! Also, the well was really darn cold, almost completely iced over, and the ceiling had something that looked like fluffy icicles hanging about six inches down. It turned out to be snowcicles. I wish I'd had my camera, because it was AWESOME! I've never seen anything like it.

My mom sent my dog two squeaky toys for Christmas. They lasted her about ten minutes before she ripped them apart. I'm a little glad, really. I was a little worried that I would never get any sleep ever again. It was so funny watching it, though.

Fortunately, I got a video of her enjoying them. Later, I was playing one of the videos on my computer, and Stormy went nuts because she knew the sound, but she couldn't figure out where it was coming from! Silly puppy.

Merry Christmas and stuff

2009-12-26T01:51:00.003-09:00

I was a little depressed thinking this would be a lame Christmas, but it actually wasn't. Jack had to work a 24-hour shift, but he managed to get six hours off for lunch and dinner as long as he was on half-hour recall (if they called him, he had to be there within half an hour). So I brought Jack and Stormy to Cindy's house for dinner. We had a great time. Cindy taught me how to make homemade eggnog (non-alcoholic), and Jack and Mike and Dave struck up a conversation that sounded like it was mostly about military stuff. (Mike and Dave are Vietnam vets.) Stormy got along great with Cindy's dog, Jeter. We didn't introduce Stormy to the horses, but Cindy did let Jack and I help feed them. Well, follow along, really. Cindy even gave us presents! It was really nice and actually felt very Christmasy, with the great meal and the decorations and the Charlie Brown-ish Christmas tree and a bunch of people and dogs having a grand old time.

Then Jack had to go back to work, but I was allowed to keep him company for a while. Unfortunately, when Jack's in uniform, it turns I'm not allowed to show any kind of physical affection. And since Jack had to stay in uniform even when he was gone, it made for a very interesting day.

Tomorrow, the Clan is opening Christmas presents. I feel like a dork, because I got something for everyone except Jack. Well, not true. I got Jack something, but it was a cheap little thing, and I kind of wanted to get him something nice too.

I'd ramble on, but it's two in the morning, and I have to get up early, so I'm going to sleep. Toodles!

Checking in

2009-12-24T04:05:00.002-09:00

I'm enjoying the break from school, but I feel a little down right now for no real reason. I've had a lot of fun lately, hanging out with friends and all. Today, Jack and I went out to dinner with Dave and Mandy. Dave insisted I get the Azteca Grande, since it's apparently mandatory "initiation" for the Mexican restaurant where we ate. The burrito was almost as big as my torso. I ALMOST managed to eat the whole thing. Left a bit slightly smaller than my wallet--only about six bites left. That was ten hours ago. I still feel like I never want to look at food again.

Jack finished making a dog run for Stormy, so now I can let her outside without having to be with her all the time. I don't like letting out to roam free because the neighbors don't like her in their yard, and besides, sometimes she eats stuff that makes her throw up, like the night when she kept me up allll night long by vomiting on my floor eight times throughout the night. Every time, I had to get up, go downstairs, get the trash can and paper towels and water bottle, clean it up, and put everything back. Actually, after the fourth or so, I got smart and just kept the stuff upstairs, but still...

Hmm...

Nothing really to report, I guess. Just figured I'd check in, since it's been a week or so.

Yeah...

Neglect

2009-12-15T03:25:00.002-09:00

Wow, I've been seriously neglecting my blog lately.

This last Sunday, I dragged Jack out to meet my North Pole family. It was a little funny, actually--most people worry that their family won't like their significant other, but I worried that my significant other wouldn't like my family. But Jack seemed to have a great time. The kids adored him, and I think he fell asleep on the couch with his head resting on the dog, one kid curled up in front of him, and one behind him. (The "I think" there refers to the fact that I think he was asleep, not I think he was in that position. I was washing the dishes at the time and not paying too much attention.) We played Farkle, and I lost badly every time. Jack won the first game, Michelle won the second (by rolling SIX ones at the same time and shooting her score from 6000 to 14000 in one amazing roll), and I think Tony won the last game. No, Tony was the first to 10000, but in the last roll, I think Jack caught up to him and won again. Anyway, it was awesome.

Classes are over, and after this Saturday, I'm free from school for a month! YAY! Can't wait can't wait! Maybe once I'm done with school, I'll go out to North Pole and help Tony shovel snow off the lake so we can play croquet on ice. That'd be awesome!

I've been toying with the idea of getting a bow if, by some miracle, I happen to have about 500 extra dollars. Okay, so that might not happen, but I can dream, can't I? Jack and I went to Sportsman's Warehouse the other day and they let me take a bow to the little shooting range they have in the back and try it out. Considering how long it's been since I've shot a bow, I did pretty darn well, I thought. Of the first five shots, the first two were one circle outside the bullseye, and the next three were all dead-center bullseye. Granted it was only ten yards, but I was pretty proud of myself just the same.

I'm toying with this idea for a skirt I'd kind of like to sew for church if I can get my hands on a sewing machine. I think it would be the coolest thing in the world if I shot some rabbits and then trimmed the hem of the skirt in rabbit fur. I can just imagine the conversation in the women's meeting at church. "That's a very nice skirt. Is that real fur?" "Yeah, it is. Rabbit fur." "How can you tell it's rabbit fur?" "I shot the rabbits myself." "You... WHAT????" Yeah, that's right. Wearing the remains of my victims on the hem of my skirt. How cool would that be? Am I morbid? Maybe I'm morbid. But hey, how many women can claim something like that? I mean honestly claim it, not claim it falsely.

My friend Becca gave me some fancy foreign dark chocolate a day or two ago. I had it in my backpack, and then left the house for a few hours. When I came back, my dog had gotten into my backpack and eaten all of the chocolate. DOG! You ate all my chocolate! Now I don't have my Lindt dark chocolate anymore! Oh yeah, and chocolate is bad for dogs, so you might die. But you ate all my chocolate! Stupid dog! (Priorities, ya know?)

Wheeee!

2009-12-08T02:27:00.004-09:00

At FHE this evening, we played Zombie Tag, which meant you start out with one zombie, and the zombie tags other people by biting them. Instead of having a new zombie, they're now both zombies, and the game continues till everyone's a zombie. I actually did pretty well--I was one of the last standing (not counting the pansies who were hiding), and had a lovely dramatic death in which I screamed and fell to my knees and did the whole "It's getting dark..." spiel, and then I convulsed several times before rising back up again and lunging for the throat of some poor person who had decided that just because I was on the floor, I wasn't a threat. Unfortunately, of the 25-ish people at the activity, only about six or eight of them actually played. The rest were grossed out by the idea that we had to bite each other. So instead, the guy in charge decided we could play Freeze Tag (also called Stuck in the Mud). When people get tagged, they stand still with their legs spread, and you can unfreeze someone by crawling between their legs. Well, one guy got tagged, a second tried to crawl between his legs and got tagged as well, so they were standing one in front of the other, and I sprinted across the room and did a dive and slid underneath both of them at once in a heroic save! It was epic! Only I got a nasty rug burn by doing so. It kind of stings. It will not be fun when it is infected. But it was such a cool move that it was worth it. Also, I took a little satisfaction in the fact that I was the only girl who was not too sissy to play.

Afterward, I sat down at the piano for a little while and started playing one of the Mario theme songs. Remy stuck his head in the door of the room where I was playing the piano and said, "Oh my gosh, I love you!" and blew me a kiss. Jack (who I started dating roughly two weeks ago) went after him. It was this awesome epic battle with leet ninja skills and throwing stars and bazookas. They ended up calling a truce--Jack says Remy can have me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's so nice that they can share. :P

I also got to talk with the stake president this evening, and the meeting went on for about forty-five minutes. It was pretty cool. He's such a nerd. He kept straying from the subject to talk about Star Trek and Lord of the Rings and stuff. Awesome! I love this guy!

School's been busy, but not actually completely overwhelming. The really frustrating part is the fact that it's starting to look like the school has found yet another way to keep me here and leech money from me for another semester or two. Jerks. And yes, I will be fighting this. I'm done. Since when is school more about fulfilling petty little requirements than actual learning, anyway?

Oh yeah, also, my dog is a jerk. She stole almost half of my pizza today, then pooped on my kitchen floor. Rude! She's lucky she's so cute and cuddly, I tell ya. Seriously, though, one of the first things on my to-do list after I finish with finals is to set up a dog-run for her, so I can let her outside without having to worry about a) her running into traffic (not that there's a lot of that around here) or b) her running into my other yards, getting into trash, and being dragged home by my irate neighbors demanding I keep my "blankety blank" dog under control. I'll still have to worry about wolves, but meh, minor detail.

Oh oh oh oh oh! Guess what guess what guess what!!! I got approved for the Alaska PFD! Know what that means? It means I can probably afford tuition next semester! WOOOOT!!!!!!!

Oh yeah, and I have a friend moving to Oregon because he thinks Oregon is a less depressing place than Fairbanks. That amuses me. I should get this friend in touch with Terrace. :P

That said, I'm going to go finish preparing tomorrow's presentation now. I can't wait for finals to end so I can take a break!

News!

2009-12-01T19:05:00.002-09:00

Puppy's ears are recovering sufficiently for her to be causing trouble again. Puppies do NOT belong on keyboards, of piano OR computer variety! Stupid dog. She's incorrigible. She sheds a ton of fur and it gets all over my clothing, so when I go anywhere, I shed her dog fur for her a second time. It's funny eating with a friend and pulling my dog's hair out of food made and prepared in a place my dog has never been.

I wrote a research paper for the wrong class. I thought I had one due in my Shakespeare class today, but it turns out my British Literature paper was due today, and the Shakespeare one isn't due till Thursday. Fortunately, I have the same teacher for both classes. I explained the situation and he said it was fine. Took my Hamlet paper early in place of the British Literature one. Phew!

After having my car for over two years, I've finally figured out how to turn on the bass. It's awesome listening to bass lines in my music that I never knew even existed! And it's been so long since I've played music that I can hardly remember whether it's spelled 'bass' or 'base.' It's 'bass' in music, right? I'm really losing it. Darn schoolwork is killing my brain!

The student president approached me today and asked me if I had ever considered being on the student senate. No, not really. Ever. For a reason. Why? "Well, I want the entire student body represented, not just the politicians. I also want people on the senate who are humble and more interested in bettering the school and not their own careers. And I know you're active and well-connected and honest, so I was wondering if you would consider it. Normally you have to run and get elected, but elections are pretty much over, so if you agree, I can just appoint you to the senate next semester."

Wow! That's quite an honor, especially since there are apparently only twenty people on the senate. But I don't like politics. On the other hand, Adrian's right that it would be helpful to have people that aren't rising politicians speaking up. I guess it can't hurt too bad to give it a try and do my best. What's the worst that can happen?

Thanksgiving fun!

2009-11-26T23:31:00.001-09:00

Yesterday, my dog slipped out the door as I was trying to go somewhere. I tracked her down and eventually found her at my next-door neighbors' cabin (their cabin isn't visible from mine, so quit making fun of how difficult it was to find her :P). She was playing catch with my neighbors and their two dogs. I was worried at first, thinking Stormy was terrorizing their dogs or something, but no, they were all having fun. The neighbors offered to play with her for a little longer and let her get out some energy, then take her home afterward. I started to say that was a good idea, but before I had finished my sentence, Stormy and their bigger dog, Ernie, apparently got into a spat over the tennis ball, and they started going for each others' throats, teeth bared and snarling.

Needless to say, Stormy didn't end up staying. I drove her home and started to leave... and then I realized that her ears were bleeding. First thing I checked was whether it was bites or head injury (I was pretty sure it was bites, but I wanted to be sure). The ears weren't torn all the way through, fortunately, but Stormy didn't like it when I cleaned the blood off at all. So my poor puppy has ouchies on her ears. I wonder if I should go visit the neighbors and see how Ernie is holding up.

I had a pretty good Thanksgiving. It was my job to make the pumpkin pie and creamed spinach, and to my surprise and delight, they actually both turned out really well, despite the fact that I couldn't get hold of any ginger for the pie. (Both Safeway and Fred Meyer were completely sold out, and I didn't feel like bothering to go all the way across town to check Wal-mart when I don't like ginger that much anymore anyway.) My friends Trevor, Blake, and Rob and I all put together the dinner, and two girls, Steph and Lydia, both of whom I'm not very familiar with, stopped by for a short amount of time too. After eating, we watched V for Vendetta (which I thought was a kind of disturbing movie, to be honest, though I can't say I regret watching it) and then played a board game that had something to do with being a dork. It was a really fun game. I kind of wish I remembered the name.

Someone mentioned that it was virtually impossible to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon. And of course, being the Lint Monkey that I am, I had to try it. They warned me that it sucks the moisture out of your mouth really fast. Being the genius I am, I thought if I swallowed it really fast, it wouldn't be too bad. ...Yeah, BAD plan! It got stuck in my throat. I had to vomit, but nothing was going anywhere. I couldn't inhale, I could hardly cough, I couldn't talk, and I could barely exhale. I seriously thought for a moment I was going to die or something. I darn near threw up in the trash can (which they had placed right at my feet before getting out the cinnamon), only I couldn't because my throat refused to work. I think I still have cinnamon stuck in my nose. It was probably the most physically painful experience of the last... several weeks, at least. Quite a bit worse than that concussion I gave myself. Holy cow! Moral of the story, if you try to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon all at once, DON'T try to swallow it really fast. In fact, maybe don't even try it. I used to love cinnamon. Now, I think I'm never going to eat anything with cinnamon in it ever again. I couldn't even say, "OW IT HURTS!" for several minutes. Sheesh!

...Yep. I'm my siblings' sister.

Talented

2009-11-24T16:58:00.002-09:00

Last night was my first solo juggling performance. It was a kind of spontaneous decision. I went to the church talent show and decided to bring some juggling stuff and ask whoever was in charge if they had a few minutes for a juggling act. I was so nervous that I dropped stuff way more often than I usually do, but I got a ton of applause anyway. They clapped when I first started juggling, and then again when I started doing different patterns, then again when I dropped a ball and it rolled offstage and I caught it in midair as it fell off the stage (strut strut... it was pure dumb luck). They clapped again when I brought out the clubs, and both clapped and laughed when I started juggling plungers. When I brought out the machetes, they applauded AGAIN, and there were some gasps and cries of, "Are those freaking REAL?" They even clapped when I dropped the machetes and cut my arm! I was so nervous that I forgot to do half my tricks, and I finished with too much time left in the song (I'd had it timed so I could show off my tricks and finish just as my song was ending), so I had to improvise. I grabbed a club, a plunger, and a ball, and started juggling one of each. After my five-minute show was over, I sat down and shook from nerves for about fifteen minutes.

The other acts were good. Many of them were playing-guitar-and-singing acts. There were some really good hula dancers and a few comedy acts (improv, story-telling, stand-up comedy). One guy got into a swimsuit and had two guys hold him up in the air so he could show some swimming techniques. Another guy had a drummer, turned on only the red stage lights and sang a love song in a deep studly voice. It was pretty hot. Someone else did card tricks. A few girls turned off all the lights and danced with flashlights. One girl read some poetry she had written herself. Another guy showed us his spray paint art, which he normally sells for about thirty bucks apiece. I'm sure there were other acts I can't remember now.

Oh yeah! There was also food! Lots of food! Including pumpkin pie! I LOVE pumpkin pie! It's pretty much the manna of all life. I don't know how the world could go on without pumpkin pie. It's the most scrumdiddlyumptiously delectable delight in the solar system. Probably the universe, too. Incidentally, I'm making one tomorrow for Thanksgiving on Thursday, and I've never made one before, so if you happen to know a really good recipe for one, let me know. Otherwise, I'm just googling a recipe.

Cookies!!

2009-11-21T12:04:00.003-09:00

Sometimes I just randomly get the urge to bake. So yesterday I decided to bake something. But not just anything. Normally I can throw box mix brownies together and satisfy the urge, but yesterday, I wanted to experiment. So I made chocolate pumpkin chocolate chip brownies. A double-batch of them. Then I brought them to my creative outlet in the evening, and the entire double-batch was gone in two hours. Maybe three. Apparently, my experiment turned out pretty darn well! :D Yay! I was surprised, because I couldn't actually find a recipe for chocolate pumpkin, so I had to find a recipe for normal pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and then alter it by replacing some of the flour with cocoa. Except then it needed more sugar. And then... well, anyway, I was pleasantly surprised with how they turned out.

Also, I managed to jump up and smack my head hard on the garage door track. Afterwards, I was tired and dizzy, which makes me wonder if I got a very very minor concussion. Not that it matters, since it did no damage other than a little bump. I hit it pretty hard. Good thing I have such a thick skull. :P

happy slurpy noises

2009-11-18T00:59:00.003-09:00

My friends Jack and Kitty came to visit yesterday. It was the first time I've had a visitor besides Peter in my cabin. I still don't have any shelves or a desk or table or even a decent bedframe, but I had just barely finished finally installing a clothes rod so I could hang up shirts when they showed up. The first thing they did when they arrived was start cleaning. My house isn't THAT big of a disaster; it looks much worse than it is because of the boxes everywhere. I can't wait to finish getting furniture so I can finish unpacking and make my living environment more comfortable. It's going to look pretty awesome when I finish moving in, I think. Just having a place to hang my clothes has made my loft look twice as good.

I'm still coughing and hacking everywhere, although I feel a little less feverish, finally. I'm sick to death of chicken noodle soup. I hate coughing and hacking all through a class. I feel like it interrupts the teacher and grosses out the people sitting near me. I'm not going to lie--I skipped a few classes mainly because of that. Well, also I don't want to get other people sick.

My dog is grossing me out by making these happy slurpy noises as she licks her butt. Ewwww! Peter makes fun of me because I'm too easy on her. It's true, I kind of spoil her rotten. I want my dog to be my friend, not my slave.

I had to give a report today on an article about the origin of the Navajo language. The author of the article sounded like a pompous snob who was hiding a weak argument behind his admittedly extensive vocabulary. The first line said, "Internal linguistic evidence for inferences as to cultural antecedents..." and it all went downhill from there. My favorite sentence from the article said, "If we could find internal linguistic evidence in Navaho, of cultural implications, tending, as it were, to free Navaho and Navaho culture from their present Southwestern environment, the initial probability of a northern provenience would be strengthened." In English, what that says is, "If we found proof that the Navajo aren't from the southwest, then it would be more likely that they were from the north." Clever, isn't he?

It's weird being sick

2009-11-16T03:32:00.002-09:00

For some reason, when I'm sick, it makes me feel better to take my temperature and see a number over 100. I guess it solidifies my sickness or something. It's like mathematical evidence. "See, you are justified in feeling sick." I've been nasty-sick for a few days, and yesterday got some cheapo thermometer just to justify feeling sick, and it won't even give me a reading as high as 98 yet. Just 96s and 97s. Apparently I'm undersick? What?

The fact that I'm coughing so hard that my gag reflex is kicking in, and I can't sleep because I can't lie down because the fluid goes to my lungs or something and makes me cough more seems to make up for the failed thermometer test. Maybe I'm just putting the thermometer in the wrong orifice.

I'll try my nose next time. Yes.

So yeah. I've been trying to sleep since like eight. It's now 3:30 in the morning. I just got up (again) because I'm coughing too hard to cough lying down. The horizontal position does not allow for enough recoil. So I had to take more Sudafed. And Theraflu. And chicken noodle soup, while I was at it. Then I let the dog out, so I can't go back to bed till she decides to come back. I really need to get a zipline for her or something. Especially given her tendency to chase cars. Stupid animal. I know, I know, I'm a horrible person for not putting her on a leash and taking her for a walk to pee when it's twenty below outside and I'm in my pajamas. It's bad enough having to go outside myself to pee when it's twenty below outside and I'm in my pajamas. No, seriously, have you tried using toilet paper when your fingers are numb with cold? It's weird!

Oh hark! The sound of claws scratching up my front door! Either Stormy's back, or the bears have come out of hibernation due to the sudden epiphany that they'll have to break into my cabin to get to the peanut butter.

Nope, just Stormy. Glad she's back, but I'm a little disappointed, too. The bears would have made a much more interesting story. ;)

late night pictures,,, because why not.

2009-11-11T01:21:00.004-09:00

I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever and sore throat and can't get back to sleep. But I have internet now, so that means you can have a few pictures.

Me, Rob, Blake, Will, and Becca at the contra dance. Did I mention that was a blast?

Blake has really cool biking goggles. So I stole them.

I got these pictures off Facebook... my camera battery is dead and I can't remember where I put my charger. Really wish I had a break from school so I could unpack. Rawr.

Oh hey...

2009-11-10T11:16:00.002-09:00

I have internet finally! :O Neat!

I had a bunch of things I wanted to write about yesterday, but now I can't remember any of them. That's probably a good thing, since I ought to get more homework done. I haven't been sleeping well. Or working well. Or doing anything else well. It was like my brain just decided to give up sometime last week. It was doing so well all semester, and now suddenly BAM! It's dead. Or gone. Or maybe just severely crippled. I don't even know. Either way, it's rather detrimental to... well, everything.

I can haz dance?

2009-11-07T14:22:00.003-09:00

I went contra-dancing with some friends last night. It was a ton of fun and probably even worth missing Earthdawn for! I knew about half a dozen people there and now know the names of about as many more. It was way better than the church dances I attended as a teenager because a) we weren't all just jumping around randomly like mexican jumping beans on crack, and b) people asked me to dance every single time because everyone actually went there to dance and not because they were obligated to go. (Okay, well, I was obligated, sort of, but I wanted to dance anyway, because I'll try anything once as long as it won't kill anyone, get me arrested, or cause serious damage.) Twice, I actually got asked by two different people and had to ask the second to save the next dance for me.

I felt like I was pretty terrible because I kept forgetting steps, and rushing up late, and I still can't figure out what the "balance" move is all about, partly because everyone seems to do it differently. But nobody really seemed to care, and they laughed right along with me as they made similar mistakes. I was glad most of the people remembered the moves and could steer me in the right direction when I forgot a step. If there's one thing I'm pretty good at, it's following. (But not so much when I was waltzing with Will, because I was trying to step in time to the music and, well, he wasn't.)

I don't think I stopped grinning all night. It was way fun, and I was actually pretty sad when it ended, partly because it meant the fun was over, partly because I had to part with all the cute guys (except the ones that came to Denny's with us afterward), and partly because it meant it was time to start thinking about schoolwork again.

Schoolwork. Sigh. Oh well. The break was nice while it lasted.

Of coffee, knives, and Card

2009-11-04T22:51:00.003-09:00

Interesting how human cravings work. I've heard it said that one of the healthiest ways to eat is to eat whatever you feel like eating because your body knows what it needs better than your brain. You might think, "Well, if I did that, I would eat nothing but chocolate all the time," but it's actually not true. Your body will tell you, "I crave asparagus, I crave oranges, I crave cheesy cauliflower." At least, mine does. And there are times when my brain says, "Ooo, candy bar!" and my body says, "Ugh, not now."

Well, for the last two days, for some weird reason, I've had a craving for those cold Starbucks mocha drink thingies in the little glass bottles. You know, the ones that taste awful because they're coffee and the ones that are horrendously overpriced. But a two-day craving can't be ignored (and no, it's not an addiction, since I never drink coffee and actually can't stand the stuff), so I went ahead and bought some. And yeah, it tastes just as bad as I remembered. Well, it's not BAD, I guess. I think I mentioned the one time I tasted it before that if it weren't for the distinct coffee flavor, it would actually make a pretty good hot chocolate.

In fact, there was a dark chocolate mocha there too that I thought might be worth trying, and that one was actually pretty tasty. I could hardly taste the coffee at all. So now it's eleven at night and I'm all coffeed up and theoretically won't have much trouble staying awake long enough to do my homework assignment that's due tomorrow. Provided I eventually get around to doing it instead of writing in my blog, that is. But I haven't REALLY written for a while, I think, so I might as well.

Juggling club is going great. We've still got several active members, almost all of whom are enthusiastic, eager to learn, and excited to teach.

I'm at Peter's right now, leeching his internet. He's nice to me. He makes me food and lets me use his shower, since I don't have one. Also, he gave me a knife. It's one of those flippy ones where you push a button and it flips open, and then you can slide up a thingy to lock it. Oh yes. Fear my technical terminology. It's a pretty sweet knife, actually. It has this cool angle that makes it ideal for self defense, should I ever need to use it for that. Also, the blade is black. It's a nice addition to my collection. I love knives. :D

My cabin is nice and comfortable. I still need to acquire a computer desk and a few chairs, and I need to put up a rod to hang my clothes from and some bookshelves. Several bookshelves. I have a lot of books. I love books. I'm hopefully getting internet out there this weekend too. Yay!

Stormy likes the place. She's finally starting to get used to the idea that I'll come back when I leave, although she's still clingy enough to make some of us (me and my friends) worry about her. For example, yesterday I left her for twelve hours, and I didn't give her much food before I left because Peter said she would be less likely to poop in the house while I was gone if I didn't give her much food. By the time I got back, I figured she would be starving. She was really excited when I got back, and when I gave her food, she took a few bites, but when I walked away to put the food bag away, she clung to my side like a tick and refused to eat unless I was there beside her the whole time. It's no wonder she's so skinny! She refuses to leave my side when I'm at home, and she hates it when I leave. I guess being alone in that cold, dark, tiny cabin can't be too exciting. Maybe I should get her a friend. Like a cat.

Hmm, what else? I got an A on my Morphology midterm, which is good news. My workload has shrunk to a manageable size for the next week or so, which is also good news, since I'll need the next week or so to finish the moving process. My friend Blake brought me a new book to read. It's called The Memory of Earth, by Orson Scott Card. I like it so far, but then, I'm on page seven, so I can't really judge it very well yet. I read a short story by Orson Scott Card once, and I absolutely loved it. The only other thing I've read by him was Ender's Game, which I wasn't impressed with at all. It took me three tries to get through the book, and when I finally waded my way through it, I put it down thinking, "Okay... now I can understand what people are talking about when they rave about it... but I still can't understand why they do." Maybe I just dislike protagonists with zero personality or something. Maybe I thought the entire thing where his twelveish-year-old siblings take over the world by pretending to be philosophers was retarded. Maybe I thought the book was too violent. Maybe I thought the author did a really lousy job trying to portray a six-year-old super-genius. Actually, it was probably all of the above plus maybe a dozen other reasons. Either way, I wasn't impressed with Ender's Game. I guess we'll see how Memory of Earth is.

Okay. Well, it's way past the time I should have gotten on my homework, so I guess I'll have to wrap this up and not get started on telling you about the boy situation. Pity about that, huh? ;)

Toodles!

Announcement

2009-11-03T17:15:00.000-09:00

Ahem...

I FINALLY GOT A PERFECT SCORE ON A RESEARCH PAPER!!!!!!

That is all.

Shinies

2009-11-02T11:25:00.003-09:00

I almost killed a kid yesterday. Two-year-old Brayden wanted me to toss him up in the air. He climbed up on the couch and begged me to throw him up, so I looked up and made sure there weren't any rafters in the way, then tossed him up as high as I could. Well... I looked up, but I didn't look up and back, and his head smashed into a chandelier. He screamed, and when I looked at the chandelier, I noticed the one he smashed his head into no longer had a bulb, and for one horrifying second, I thought I had smashed the bulb into his face and I would look down and see bits of broken glass sticking out of the new holes I had punctured in his skin. But no, he wasn't bleeding at all, and it turns out I didn't break the chandelier. (There hadn't been a bulb in that one to begin with.) Once his parents realized he had nothing worse than a potential bump on the head and the chandelier was okay, they had a good laugh about it. Man, I felt horrible!

Well, the place I was living felt crowded, and I didn't really have a place to plug in my car. In fact, I didn't have room to finish moving in my stuff, so my cold weather gear was/is still in storage. So I moved out and now I have my own cabin (with my puppy). It has no running water, but at least the outhouse has a heat lamp and blue foam, so it's not too miserable. At least, not at -10. It's a little annoying, though, that once I have my pajamas on, I have to get fully dressed in warm clothing if I have to use the bathroom.

Oh yeah, also, I haven't showered in three days. I was going to use the showers on campus, but I didn't realize till I got to campus today that I'd need my student ID card. I don't actually know where mine is, and I'm too cheap to spend $15 buying a replacement when it's probably packed away in one of the boxes I'll be unpacking here soon anyway. So then I was going to shower at Peter's house, but I think he's mad at me, so maybe I should find an alternative.

Stormy apparently has separation anxiety. She gets really mad when I leave without her. She doesn't tear stuff up while I'm gone, but she will crap on the floor right in front of the door, even if I'm only gone for two hours. She knows better. Bad puppy! (Now I'm really glad I made a point to get a place with hardwood floors.)

On Halloween, I went bowling with some friends. First of all, watching Sith lords and jedis bowl and "use the force" to make the ball spin over and knock the pins down is really awesome. Second of all, I'm terrible at bowling. In the first game, by the fifth set, my total score was 5. Then I went to the snack food stand and found a really shiny ball that I decided to use, and then my score started improving. My final scores were 40, 76, and 98. This is proof that shinies really are better.

That said, I have to go to class. I'll update more when I have internet at my cabin... which I don't have right now.

Puppy!

2009-10-30T09:45:00.004-08:00

I suddenly find a dog in my care. She's a Siberian husky named Stormy, and she's basically the best animal I could imagine taking care of. She's a year and a half old, housebroken, doesn't chew, never barks, and has been impeccably well trained, although she was a lost dog (I only found her a few days ago), and she seems to have forgotten some of her training. She's picking it up again so fast that she has to have known it before, even though she is really smart. I've only had her for a few days, and she already sits down right away when I snap my fingers. She also knows "stay," "up," "down," and "shake." We're working on "heel" still.

She's very skinny, and I'm a little worried about her, because she doesn't eat very much. I occasionally give her table scraps as long as she's not begging for them. I'm not sure if I'm successfully making sure she gets food in her belly or just perpetuating the problem by teaching her that if she neglects her doggy food then she'll get some people food.

I have yet to hear her bark. I know she has vocal chords because when I first saw her, I heard her howl a little bit. Since then, the only time I heard her make a sound was last night when we were running and got attacked by the neighbor's dog. (This dog attacks me all the time whether I have a dog with me or not.) The other dog charged us, barking and growling like mad with his fur all on end, and Stormy growled and body-slammed him. The smaller dog ran away and we went home. Good dog!

Her only "flaws" are a) she's not very playful for a year-old puppy (although she always loves to run), and b) she thinks she's a lap dog. It's funny, because I'll be trying to study, and a 50-pound husky will crawl into my lap, lie down on top of my textbook, and insist I'm not paying enough attention to her. (I'm just guessing the weight, by the way. I may be way off.)

Oh yeah, also, she seems to like playing video games with my roommates.

New!

2009-10-24T03:12:00.002-08:00

When I get my own place, I'm going to actually learn to cook. And I'm going to actually cook almost every day. I have decided this. Also, I'm getting a dog and a gun, just because it seems like a wise idea... My friend from juggling club, Becca, says if I get a dog, she wants to move in with me. Also, she wants to drag me out on a shopping trip to make me start dressing like a girl. Rawr! Nothing wrong with dressing like a Lint Monkey!

So anyway, Becca and I drove down to North Pole today to look at dogs. It figures the one day a week the place is closed happens to be Fridays. Oh well--we'll just have to go again! :D

Speaking of puppies, Tony's dog is having puppies this weekend. Pitbull/chocolate lab mix. I expect they're going to look really funny.

I've been looking for a cabin to move into for weeks. I'm not really too concerned about running water, but I want something with a loft (pretty common for dry cabins), within 5 miles of the university, and a place that allows dogs. Oh yeah, also 600 a month or less. The only ones I've found have been taken before I could even call to see them.

Theoretically, my new glasses are coming in tomorrow!!! Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!!!!!

"Pretty good"

2009-10-21T07:46:00.002-08:00

So one of the midterms I was stressing over this week apparently isn't actually for two weeks. The research paper I killed myself all day writing Monday wasn't actually due till Thursday. But the research proposal I thought was due Thursday was actually due yesterday. At least I was right about the dates of the other midterm and the oral presentation I have to give this week. Since I have time, I'm going to redo part of the research paper anyway. Not too much of it, though, since I still have a lot to do before tomorrow. And then I can relax for reals. For a few hours. Before getting a jump on next week's work.

It's obnoxious. It seems like no matter how much I break my neck, I'm never going to be better than an A- stupid at the absolute best. All of the research papers I've written so far have come back with a low A- and the comment "pretty good." On the paper I brought into the Writing Center, the only mechanics he marked me down on were ones that the lady at the Writing Center changed. I was a little amused. I wasn't sure if I should share my amusement with the professor, because I didn't want him to think I was nagging him to give me a higher grade. I mean, I'd normally be glad for an A- on a paper, since in the past, I've put them off till the very last minute, hardly do any research, and make the paper one big joke. In fact, most of the teachers I've had before usually give me A's for crap like that, since I would get the information in there, just joke around about it.

It seems unfair that now that I'm really trying hard, citing twice as many sources as the teacher requires, and writing papers that I read through afterwards and go, "Man, this is a great paper! I'm so getting an A on this!" that the best I can ever pull off is a "pretty good." I don't want to be "pretty good." I want to be freaking AMAZING! This is unacceptable!

It's also lame that research papers, at least for the professor that teaches both the classes I have to write research papers for, aren't allowed to have anything funny in them. At all. You would think wit would earn you extra points in a research paper about a Shakespeare play... I guess I'm doin' it wrong.

....Also, my nosepiece-less glasses are starting to hurt my nose. I hope they finish my new glasses soon. :(

And if you want pictures of me in that slinky dress they made me wear, you'll have to look on Facebook, because I don't want to post the pictures here.

Glasses

2009-10-17T04:09:00.003-08:00

I broke my glasses today. I was buying a broom and a bunch of other stuff and started to drop the eggs I was holding, tried to catch the carton, and the handle of the broom swung around and nailed my glasses, knocking the nosepiece askew. So I tried to straighten the nosepiece, but the glasses are five years old and I'm not exactly gentle with them... in fact, I have to straighten that nosepiece usually five or six times a week, which is why the metal was so weak.

So I don't know whether I should go see if I can get the nosepiece welded back on or if I should just get new glasses. I mean, five years is a pretty good old age for glasses. Maybe I should get a pair that's a little sturdier. Maybe even the kind where the nosepiece is built into the glasses so it can't really break off.

Hmmm, what to do... guess I'll go see how much fixing the glasses would cost first and then compare. Heck, if they're both relatively cheap, maybe I'll do both and actually have a backup pair! :O

Excommunicated

2009-10-14T23:48:00.003-08:00

Today, I was having a conversation with Peter and we got to talking about excommunication. What happens when you get excommunicated? he wondered. Frankly, I don't know, since I've never been excommunicated and don't really know anyone who has been. (I think when I was really little, I had a friend whose mom was, but she and I didn't exactly poor our hearts out to each other on a regular basis.) Well, when in doubt, what does one do? "MOOOOMMMMMMYYYYYYY!!!!" So I picked up my phone and called my mom. She picked up, and I said, "Okay, um... Mom... you're not going to be very happy when I ask you this... but um... what exactly happens when you get excommunicated?" Dead silence. And then my dad picked up the phone, chased Mom off, and proceeded to talk for about twenty minutes about something completely unrelated. I can only imagine what my poor mother was thinking. Hahahaha! That couldn't have gone better if I'd planned it!

I did eventually get the answer. And no, I don't plan on getting excommunicated anytime soon. But I did finally get a new power supply for my piano, so I can play again!!! WOOT!!!

We had a big argument at juggling practice today over whether or not I would look good in a slinky dress. And by "big argument," I mean everyone insisted I would look good in one, and I said, "No, I absolutely would not." They decided that after our next practice, we're all going to pile in the car and go to Value Village and try some on. I ONLY agreed to go because Rob and Blake said that if I put on a slinky dress, they would too.

We had probably eight people at practice, which is actually about average now. Rob says he's actually proud of me for picking the club back up. YAY!!! :D We're manning a booth to show off to high school kids this Friday, then have a performance on Halloween. The Multi-Cultural Office said they're having an event in November that they would like us to perform for as well. I also want to go to the lady who's in charge of the Pub (yes, this university has a pub on campus) and see if she'll let us--or at least those of us over 21--perform there one evening. I wasn't going to charge--it just seemed like a good way to recruit.

After my chiropractor appointment today, I went in the Subway downtown to grab some food. After I pulled up, I realized it seemed like a kind of sketchy place. The Subway was in an outlet mall, and the entrance was shared with the place next door, which was a smoker's gift shop. I decided it couldn't hurt to at least go in and check it. I figured if the place looked as sketchy on the inside as the outside, I could always just turn around and leave. So in I went....

And the people working on the Subway staff were the friendliest Subway staff I have ever met. They were super smily and bouncy, and I gave the one making my sandwich a hard time because it was her second day on the job, teased the one at the cash register for getting paid to watch the other two girls work. He gave me an extra cookie. :D So I tipped them. I'm definitely going back there next time I'm in the area and hungry.

Woot!

2009-10-14T02:01:00.001-08:00

I hate it when I slow down to turn and people tear around me on the shoulder of the road. It irritates me. I'm not really sure why. I guess because I feel like I'm being snubbed as a nuisance. "How dare you get in my way and make me drive on the shoulder of the road like this!" I feel like they're saying. "I hope you know your sluggishness made me break a law!"

I also hate it when people act like jerks and then strut around because they're proud of themselves because they think they're funny. And then they turn to me and expect me to praise them, and I would kind of rather slap them and say, "Seriously, where did you learn to treat people?"

Despite my whining, I'm actually in a pretty fantastic mood. I managed to finish all my papers this weekend. I was working pretty much every minute I had starting last Tuesday, but I'm finally caught up. I had a terrifying moment in class when I thought my teacher wouldn't accept one of the papers I spent all weekend working on, but it turned out all right. I'm pretty confident that if I didn't totally ace the papers, I at least did my best. It's really weird, though. All my teachers are actually requiring I start using a formal register for my papers. This is probably the first time my teachers haven't let me get away with being a little snot in writing. I'm discovering I'm actually reasonably good at writing formal research papers. "Reasonably good."

I finished writing my two research papers around eight last night, and the Writing Center was still open. I thought the conclusion of one was a little choppy, and I didn't feel like the papers were quite focused enough, so I thought, "Meh, I have a little time, and some of the tutors in the Writing Center are pretty good. It can't really hurt to bring it in." I went to the Writing Center a few times last year because I was required to for a class. Both times, I got the same tutor, and he was absolutely fantastic. He actually explained to me for the first time in a way I could understand why your conclusion is just a repeat of your introduction, gave me outstanding substantive advice, and didn't nitpick my grammar because I occasionally intentionally go against the "rule" for emphasis. (For example, I occasionally start a sentence with a conjunction, but I do it on purpose to draw attention to the sentence.)

This time, I have to say, I was not impressed. At all. I told the girl I was a senior in linguistics and that all I was concerned about was whether it was focused enough and whether the conclusion was too choppy. First she spent about ten minutes nitpicking my header. Then she proceeded to go through my paper line by line, reading (about as smoothly as a third-grader) each sentence and changing things that did not want or need changing. She tried to put in two spaces after periods (which you only do if you're using a typewriter), she changed the word "that" to "which," ignored the comma that needed to be inserted, and then rolled her eyes when the computer, predictably, pointed out the grammatical error and told it to ignore it. She made fun of my "weak word choice" and said that I need to "grow out of that," and never got around to telling me how my focus was. Then she pointed to a quote that was just under three lines long.

"Why is that not in block quote format?" she asked.

"Because it's not a block quote."

"You DO know the rules for block quotes, don't you? A block quote is--"

"Yes, a block quote is a quote that's four lines or longer. I know."

"Then why isn't this a block quote?"

"Because it's not four lines long."

"Yes, it is. See, one, two, three, four."

The block quote started as the last word on one lined, filled the next two lines, and then finished as the first word on the fourth line. I tried to explain it to her. "Look, you start here. Go down one line at a time. One line. Two lines. And there we're in the middle of the next sentence. It's not even three lines."

"No, that doesn't matter. It's four lines," she said stubbornly.

I rolled my eyes. "That's right. English majors can't count."

"EXCUSE ME??? It's not that I'm too STUPID to realize that YOU don't think it's four lines, but YOUR argument doesn't MATTER in this case!"

Okay, in retrospect, I shouldn't have been rude. I almost felt bad for her, since if she got that defensive that quick, she's obviously either got an inferiority complex or she's been made fun of before. But my gosh, she was being obnoxious. I am definitely convinced that I know more than she, and I don't say that very often.

On a completely different note, I got a phone call from the girl who's in charge of the church choir. Apparently, their pianist is out of town, the back-up pianist can't play the song they're singing, and the choir is supposed to be performing this Sunday, so can't I please please please help because they're desperate? Yay. I get to don a dress and go to church this Sunday. Oh well, at least I get to play the piano. That makes up for it, I suppose.

Kitty really likes taking showers. He sits under the spray and drinks a bit, and then closes his eyes and falls asleep. It's kind of cute.

Hope that's enough of an update, because I'm definitely tired now. Toodles!

Bad Kitty

2009-10-12T00:35:00.003-08:00

Kitty and I are no longer on speaking terms.

I was holding him on my shoulder today while I wrote one of my research papers. He cuddled up against my neck and seemed pretty content for a good twenty or thirty minutes. And then he started biting and clawing me. I tried just brushing him away a little, but the more I tried to get him to be gentle, the harder he attacked me. When I tried to pick him up to put him back in his cage, he refused to let go of my shirt. Kitty was not happy, and I don't even know what I did. I didn't make any sudden moves and didn't hear (or make, obviously) any sudden noises.

Bad Kitty. :(

Kitty!

2009-10-10T12:26:00.002-08:00

One of my roommates got a green cheek conure. I'm not a fan of birds, but this one is kind of pretty and so far has been fairly quiet and well-behaved (and hasn't attacked anyone, unlike a certain rooster I know). Casey's thinking of naming him Chaucer, but it's been three days and he hasn't decisively chosen a name yet, so I continue to call his bird Kitty. Kitty seems fairly smart and cuddly, although today he's kind of in a mood. Normally when I move slowly and talk quietly, he seems to like me reaching in and petting him and picking him up, but today he'll have none of it. He climbed all over the cage, then flew across the room, so I retrieved him and put him on Casey's shoulder, since he didn't seem to want to be around me. Kitty promptly crapped all over Casey. Silly Kitty.

senioritis

2009-10-09T02:38:00.003-08:00

When most people get senioritis, they feel blah. They see the end in sight and go, "I don't even care anymore," and just kind of slack through to graduation. For some reason, I seem to have it the opposite way around. I think this is the hardest I've ever worked in my life. Yesterday I spent six hours writing a research paper, and the sad part was, I actually enjoyed doing it. That's probably good, since I have five more papers due in the next week.

I got in a big argument with a girl in my language and gender class over whether the word "pen" should be phonetically spelled with a schwa or an epsilon. She ended up asking the teacher, who said, "Um... schwa maybe?" But the teacher's an anthropologist, not a linguist. Sorry, but a schwa is an unstressed "uh" kind of sound, like in the last syllable of "melon" or "open" or the first syllable in words like "above" or "confront." It's the sound that really throws people off in spelling because it can be spelled with pretty much any vowel, because it's unstressed and has no specific form. But "pen" is one syllable, so the vowel is stressed, so it's pronounced in a different part of your mouth, so you would use an epsilon, which makes an "eh" sound, like in "met" or "bed" or... "pen." I don't even see how she can argue with me on this. Especially since she tries to spell the word "bird" with a schwa. There's no schwa in "bird" unless you're trying to pronounce it "buhrd"! You know what the vowel sound is in the word "bird"? The R! Seriously, the letters R, N, and L can all function as vowels. Cool, huh?

It's kind of weird that I'm now at the point that when I talk to my friends outside of class, we talk about academic stuff. I ran into my friend Jeremy and he started telling me about the verb themes in the Athabaskan languages. And I already knew about it from a class independent of his.

Geez I'm such a nerd!

zomg

2009-10-08T14:55:00.003-08:00

Obama has just gained ten coolness points.

The Juggler Diet

2009-10-05T22:46:00.002-08:00

It takes a very strict diet to be a good juggler. Here's a snapshot of UAF's juggling club having their after-performance meal at Starvation Gulch.

Blech

2009-10-02T21:00:00.003-08:00

I slept until past noon today. I felt like a bit of a loser for sleeping through class, but considering I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a truck and then had my throat skewered by a blue-ring octopus wielding a tuning fork, I decided to forgive myself. I've been coughing and hacking all day, which really isn't making my throat feel any better. But at least my stomach stopped hurting. And I don't have a headache. Anymore.

Since I'm sure you're all waiting with bated breath to hear about this: At my last chiropractor appointment, he jerked my neck loose, and suddenly, mobility in my arms just about doubled. It was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, he had broken apart old scar tissue, and it started hurting in less than two hours. Maybe six hours later, it felt stiff again. Baby steps, I guess.

Dang, my throat hurts.

I wish I had lucky dice. I have four sets, and they all hate me, I swear. They especially hate my human swordmaster. She could potentially be a really freaking b.a. character, except my average roll is like... four? In the last battle in our most recent campaign, for example, our group barged into the boss's room. He was behind a desk with a hostage, and he had his dagger across her throat. I tried to launch myself across the room at him. I rolled badly and barely made it halfway there. Next turn, I jumped onto the desk and swung my sword at him. I critically failed, overbalanced, and fell off the desk onto my face. The next round, I tried to crawl around the desk and come up behind the boss so I could attack from behind. I failed and he saw me. The next round, I attacked him anyway, but I missed and hit the hostage--and THEN I rolled a good number--for 13 points of damage. Fortunately, she was an illusion, and as soon as I hit her, she disappeared. He surrendered the next turn. So the only useful thing I did was by accident.

The only other useful thing I did in the whole campaign was also an accident that was the result of a failure: we were in a big melee fight (our six people against a mob of 15 thieves). The cat-man had attacked the guy who had been kicking my butt, knocked him down, and jumped off to help someone else. Two other guys closed in on me, one swung, and I tried to dodge, tripped, fell over, and accidentally impaled the guy the cat had knocked down.

The saddest part is that this is the character that's supposed to be a graceful swordsman with a Great Broadsword +1. The kind of great swordsman who could slice the buttons off your shirt and trim your whiskers for you before you have time to blink. She's NOT supposed to be a klutzy buffoon. My dice simply demand it. And of course, this whole time, the cat guy was launching himself around the room, one-shotting a thief every... freaking... round! Except for the time I tripped, I don't think I caused any damage all game. It was frustrating. Being useless sucks.

I have homework to catch up on tomorrow... and I don't wanna. I want to sleep and get better. :( I hate being sick. Especially when it's just sick enough to be miserable, but not so sick that you can really justify canceling obligations or even sleeping for more than maybe nine hours.

Back doctor

2009-09-28T16:22:00.002-08:00

Today I went to the chiropractor for the first time in many years. He said that my lower back is more or less fine (a little surprisingly), although it needed a few minor adjustments. Normal wear and tear. One vertebra wasn't rotating properly or something, so he jerked it loose. My neck and shoulders, on the other hand, freaked him out. He said he hasn't seen anyone with muscles as tense as mine in anyone under the age of maybe 50 unless they'd been in a traffic accident or some other traumatic incident. Try as I might, I can't think of any specific trauma I've been through. I've just had really tense shoulders for very many years. Either I'm just naturally tense (and maybe a little paranoid), or I've completely blocked it from my memory. I'm inclined to believe I'm just tense. Or maybe it's from when I electrocuted myself. (Actually, probably not, because when I was 14 or so--years before I electrocuted myself--I remember a guy I used to dance with who told me I was so tense he felt like he was dancing with a wall.) Who knows. Either way, he says he can fix my headaches and help me loosen up my shoulders, so I'm pretty excited. I don't even know what it feels like to be able to relax those muscles.

Starvation Gulch

2009-09-28T01:49:00.002-08:00

Starvation Gulch was a lot of fun. The bonfires didn't seem as hot as last year. I'm not sure if it was due to the snow, or if they were set a little further back, or if the wind happened to be blowing in a better direction or something, but either way, I was grateful not to be dying of heat stroke.

Afterward, the juggling club went out to Denny's. A fun time was had by all. We had a lot of non-jugglers tag along with us, and ended up with a party of probably ten or so, all of whom got up and moved around a lot. I left our poor waitresses a few bucks extra for a tip.

Most of us got a few minor battle scars from the Gulch. I got a few nicks because
I spent most of the show with the machetes (we had enough jugglers there that almost all the fire stuff was in use almost all the time), and I caught the blades a few times. Okay, maybe several times. Becca singed some hair off her arms, Christian singed some hair off his head, and poor Hannah burnt her mouth from eating fire. (She closed her mouth all the way around the metal rod. The rods get hot.) Nobody got anything serious. Except maybe a little traumatized when two dorks thought it would be funny to take off their clothes and go streaking in front of the bonfires. The ran and danced around for a bit and then took off into the woods. I happened to be standing next to one of the people in charge, who smirked and informed me that they had run straight toward a cop on a four-wheeler.

Life is funny.

Update

2009-09-26T11:27:00.002-08:00

I'm sitting by the heater in the cabin. The heater says it's set to 80 and the room is 86. Consequently, it's blowing hot air on me. Isn't there something wrong with that?

Oh well. I don't mind for now. There's snow on the ground. Not much--maybe a half inch or so. But there's still snow.

It's been an interesting last few days. Two of my roommates came down with swine flu. I think I started to get it a few days ago, but I definitely don't seem to be sick now. Hopefully I fought it off without even hardly feeling the effects of it.

A friend of mine asked me to come fix his computer. It used to run Oregon Trail (the original 16-color version, with the black background and the typed commands), but after he reformatted, now it doesn't. I worked on it for a while, even went home to redownload the Applewin program for him, to no avail. When it didn't work, he shot me with his BB gun. At point blank range. In the neck. Jerk.

At juggling practice, I was practicing with a fire poi that had too short of a string and burned my hand pretty nice. It's a little infected and won't heal for a while, but it doesn't hurt too bad, and it looks kind of cool.

I got my six-page research paper about Shakespeare's history play Richard III done on time. Of course, I wrote it in the wee hours of the morning (I'm a college student--that's how I'm supposed to do it), so it came out a little weird. But so do most of my papers. I guess we'll see how much a sense of humor my professor has. I suspect he won't mark off too much for being silly, but he may mark off because I didn't use enough sources.

Yesterday, I had the most horrible nightmare! I dreamed I went back to the Resort because they were having a donut party. There were hundreds and hundreds of donuts of all kinds... except they didn't have my favorite kind with the whipped cream-ish filling. I went through all of them, and finally thought I had found one, except it ended up only having like a half a teaspoon of the filling in the entire inside of the donut, and I couldn't even taste it. Also, the donut itself tasted like sand. It was awful!!!

I bet that dream was sparked by the fact that I haven't had my favorite kind of donut in years, since Safeway stopped MAKING them!!! In fact, their selection's been crap lately. And by "lately," I mean for a really long time. It's depressing. I wish there were a Krispy Kreme in Fairbanks. Or even a Dunkin Donuts. But nooooo!

Last night, I dreamed I was at the Resort again, and Mom and Dad were working there and I was living in the barracks with them, only I wasn't allowed to work there. I drove down to the docks every day and worked there instead, driving people around in a little speedboat. So one day, I went in to see the housekeepers, and it was just Mom and Maggy cleaning a room, and then Housekeeper Mike walked in, and I started seeing red, I got so angry, just from his presence. I think I have residue anger issues over that. Then Dad gave me a big long angry lecture and sent me downtown and demanded I stay off Resort property until I could control my actions because I was behaving like a child. I was glad to wake up.

I need to go see a chiropractor. My back doesn't hurt, but I messed it up really bad several years ago and never got it fixed. I don't know if it's going to complicate things in the future or not. Basically, I was at a church activity where they were teaching self-defense. We were practicing throws, and the girl I was partnered up with was throwing me, so I decided to be obstinate and resist. She threw all her weight into it and finally flung me to the ground. Really hard. Only, she had her foot on the ground with her heel down and her toe pointing pretty far up because her muscles were all tensed. My spine went right over her toe. I couldn't even move for what felt like several minutes. It definitely took a while to get up. Now if you run your fingers down my spine, when you get a third of the way down, the disks get alarmingly close together, then a few start touching, and then suddenly, they get so far apart it almost feels like I'm missing one. And yet, it doesn't hurt. Weird.

So bottom line is, I don't even really have extra money, but I think I'm going to go see a chiropractor anyway. But first, I want to ask around and see if anyone knows a particularly good one, or even a particularly bad one to stay away from.

Hmm, what else? Oh yes, I also applied to get my editing job back. We have a new boss this year. I don't really know him that well. He seems much more stolid than Kortnie (last year's boss).

Juggling club is doing well. We have several regulars now. I'm a little frustrated that Casey's decided that since I commented once that I didn't really know what I was doing being president and he would probably be better at it than me, this means I was trying to say, "I want you to be president." So he said, "Okay, I'll be president," and now I'm having trouble making him let go of this idea. I want to be president because I need the experience of having a leadership role, and because when I first started coming here, I took it upon myself to rebuild this club. I'm finally starting to get somewhere, and I really don't want someone to say, "Well, I'm better at this than you, so I'll just take over now." I guess it's a pride thing. Also, the more I get to know him, the more I think maybe he wouldn't be all that good. Sure, he's charismatic. I want him to emcee at shows, definitely. But he's also a little self-centered--as in, he keeps claiming club stuff and saying, "this is mine; I'm keeping it," or "this should be for officer use only because it's nice." I need to learn to get up the guts to say, "No! Bad boy! Put it down!"

So there's my update. We're juggling fire at Starvation Gulch tonight. Wish us luck!

Back to the lovely cold north :)

2009-09-23T14:18:00.002-08:00

After a 21-hour trip, I'm really glad to be back in Fairbanks. My eight-hour layover in Seattle was all kinds of miserable. I did a little homework, finished reading one of the books I brought along, started the other book I brought, finished the other book I brought, juggled a little, did a little more homework, and ended up just falling asleep on one of the benches. A lady woke me up about an hour and a half later. "Excuse me, but are you on the flight to Fairbanks? It's boarding right now." I jumped to my feet faster than if someone were to stand in my bedroom doorway and shake a glass of ice water. I tried to thank her profusely, but she had disappeared and I didn't see her again. I don't know if she worked for the airline or was just another passenger, but she had disappeared completely. I guess I'll just tell myself she was a guardian angel.

I was welcomed back to Fairbanks by the first snow of the year. I'm thoroughly enjoying the cool weather up here, as opposed to the 90-degree, 100% humidity weather in Florida, where every time I stepped outside, my glasses would fog up. One of my Australian friends was complaining that it's not winter yet, so it's not allowed to be this cold. I refrained from telling her that it's probably going to get 80 degrees colder than this before it's really winter. She'll figure it out.

Family Pictures

2009-09-20T21:37:00.003-08:00

Florida is an even hotter, buggier, humider place than I remembered it. No, seriously, breathing feels strangely like drowning. Every time I step outside, my glasses fog up. And the weather? Haha! This morning, my brother bought donuts and brought them to the parents' hotel room, which is in the next building over from the room the kids are all staying in. Maybe thirty seconds later, I showed up, soaked head to toe because it had been dumping rain. Nobody believed me because when Allen walked in, it was totally dry. We opened the curtain so I could prove it was pouring, and the sun was shining! At least the ground was as wet as I was, or they would REALLY think I'm crazy!

It's fun having all my siblings here. We spent hours this morning telling "Hey remember that time when..." stories (except ours were cool because they usually involved either something getting broken, someone getting hurt, someone getting away with something stupid, or someone making Dianna take the blame for something we did). We were all laughing so hard that Dad told us to stop being so loud many times.

We don't really get to spend all that much time with the grandparents because they apparently tire out easily, and it seems like it takes only two or three hours before we've "overstayed our welcome." It's nice to see them anyway, though, especially now that we're old enough to join in the conversations they have. It's a little alarming, though, to see Grandpa take four steps and start wheezing like he's just run a marathon. It makes me feel bad, because I want to help, but I don't think there's anything I can do.

Today was the only full day that we had the whole family together, so of course, Dad insisted on pictures (although everyone else did too, so for once we didn't mind). But the parents decided my ripped Carhartt's and t-shirt weren't appropriate for the occasion, and I pretty much refused to wear a skirt (sorry, family), so Mom dragged me to Old Navy and insisted I get some "decent" clothing, which meant basically something I didn't get to pick out. For the record, almost every article of clothing in Old Navy (at least in the women's section) was made of material so ridiculously thin that it seemed like it would fall apart if you washed it. The shirt I ended up getting was so thin you could literally see through it, so it was mandatory to wear another shirt underneath it. Now what's the point of wearing a shirt if you just have to wear another underneath? There is none!

I guess it looked pretty good, though, even if the sleeves were a little poofier than I would like, and the only shirt I could find thick enough to wear underneath it was so ridiculously tight that I had to keep the outer shirt buttoned or show off my boobs or lack thereof. I really like the way the pants look, though. Wish the pockets were a little bigger, but hey, I'm not perfect either.

I was really good, though, and didn't complain about having to dress up all day. We took many nice pictures with various arrangements of kids and grandparents, kids and parents, kids and kids, and... well, you get the idea.

We were really good and did what we were told and smiled pretty.

And then we took a few pictures that showed what we're all REALLY like.

Rawr?

2009-09-16T18:23:00.002-08:00

It almost looked like this was going to be a perfect semester, but of course, the gods refuse to allow me to have a simple life. Family drama in almost all directions, the largest of which is going to have me take three days off of classes to go to Florida. Missing so much class isn't ideal, but at least I'll get to see family and learn more about my grandpa's astronomy ideas. He's a genius, and he has these amazing ideas and a fascinating way of looking at the world. I only ever saw him really light up and come to life one time, and that was when I got him talking about science.

This will be the first time in three and a half years, I think, that my whole family (mom, dad, brothers, and sister) will be in one place at the same time. At least, I'm hoping so. Apparently, my second brother may not be able to make it. We'll see. Knock on wood. It's really fun having all four of us kids together--it's more awesome than you would know what to do with.

The last two nights have been beautiful. We can see a zillion stars from our cabin, and the aurora has come out and danced across the sky. It was only green, no red or orange or anything, but beautiful nonetheless. I thought at first that it was a cloud, lit up by the moon or something, but while I watched, it swooped slowly across the sky, curling and flaring and dancing and fading and then lighting back up again in another part of the sky, blocking out a few twinkling stars that cheerfully slipped out of sight behind it, knowing their turn to shine would come back after the star of the show had finished its dance.

Hmmm, it feels weird trying to be poetic. I don't think I did a very good job. Oh well. Anyway, it was pretty. I've heard that if the aurora is intense enough and get well away from city sounds, you can hear the aurora sing. The natives used to say it was the spirits playing games or trying to talk to the living.

Dr Seuss

2009-09-14T11:03:00.003-08:00

Casey has this book called "The Art of Living." Any time someone's annoyed or stressed or frustrated or sad, he pulls it out and makes them flip to a random page and read it. The funny thing is, most of the time, the page you flip to is immediately relevant to what you're upset about.

I was looking through some Dr. Seuss quotes. I love Dr. Seuss. Someday when I'm rich, I'm going to collect everything he's ever written. For now, I'm going to settle with compiling a few of his better quotes here.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."

"From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere."

Slacking off, just like you said...

2009-09-13T02:41:00.004-08:00

Playing Magic: the Gathering, I got my butt kicked twice in a row--and by "butt kicked," I mean I seriously got it handed to me. The first time, I couldn't do anything. I was playing an aggro deck against two control decks, and they prevented me from doing anything at all. The second time, I was playing the dragons deck, but I got one land in my first hand and then didn't get another within five turns, by which time the other two players realized I had the dragons deck, which is massively powerful... if you have land. So one of the players one-shotted me for 28 points (you start with 20). The third game was a Chaos game, where something random happens every turn. The decks were fairly evenly matched, and I was playing a deck that had a lot of cards that would give me life. I started out doing terribly, but by the end, I was totally whooping up. If Tony hadn't conceded, I probably would have had over a thousand health within four turns, and then stomped on him with forty or so 1/1 elves, all with a +2/+8 modifier.

I have high hopes for juggling club. My goal is to have ten active members by the end of the year and enough money for a pizza party. When I signed us up to juggle fire at Starvation Gulch, the lady in charge said they'll buy us some new fire gear. I'm pretty stoked!

Got a new shelf installed by my bed today. Now I have a place to put my glasses or the book I'm reading when I go to sleep without having to climb down from my bunk.

I'm getting to know every pothole in the road I live on. They're really deep potholes, and there are like eleventy billion of them. One reason I look forward to winter: the snow and ice will kind of fill them in.

Oh yeah, playing my "fantasyland make-believe game" Friday night was awesome too. The story was awesome, the characters were fun, except I didn't like mine as much. They wouldn't let me play my hyper pixie character. I tried playing one that was a little loose, but unfortunately, I couldn't pull it off. The first time I tried hitting on someone, I ended up hiding my face and saying, "Never mind, I can't do this!" She was a human swordmaster, and she was a kind of lame character. I couldn't figure out a good personality for her, for one thing, but for another, the dice hated me. It seemed like I didn't roll higher than five all night. Chad, on the other hand, managed to deal 42 damage in one blow with a crossbow bolt--at level one! He shot it straight through a river drake's neck, felling it in one blow! Tony's cat-character rolled a 33 dexterity check to dive-bomb 150 feet onto an air-ship to trigger an air grenade. My character, in contrast, jumped onto the ship later, when they were like twenty feet apart, fell on her face, got up, swung her broadsword, missed, took twelve points of damage, fell, got up, tried to stab with her sword, missed... well, slight exaggeration. She did take one guy down, somehow. But yeah. Anyway, it was cool. The best part was when she went in the bar to get drunk, and the male human in the group said he would come supervise, and the cat-man who she had befriended said he would come to protect her honor and to make sure the male didn't take advantage of her drunkenness. They chilled by the bar while my character got drunk. It cost three silver, and she had a hangover the next day, which meant a negative one step to my dice rolls until noon.

Squirrel!

2009-09-08T23:11:00.004-08:00

I'm sore all over from canoeing/kayaking for like six hours yesterday. It was unquestionably the awesomest Labor Day ever! We had a barbecue, played Epic Frisbee (the Ultimate Frisbee in canoes game) for hours, played Badminton, played more Epic Frisbee, and then, when everyone was too tired to even paddle calmly across the lake anymore, we went inside and role-played until eleven. It was way fun!

Today, my arms and legs and butt all ached, and sitting in class for nine hours was pretty close to torture. I successfully failed my first quiz of the semester, too. Yay. (By "failed," I'm talking like 20%. Stupid ADHD... I did the readings, twice! I just didn't assimilate them as well as I should have.) Didn't have time to eat during my lunch hour because I was doing club stuff. Turns out not only have I been given command of a club with only two members, but the club also has a few hundred dollars in debt. But I WILL get this club back on its feet!

I started falling asleep in my third class. After class ended, I approached the teacher and asked if he would mind if I got up halfway through the class period to stretch for a minute, and he said, "Actually, that's a wonderful idea! I'm going to start doing that in all my classes, having everyone get up and stretch! That's great!" So that should help. I was falling asleep for most of my Shakespeare class too, until I finally got up for a drink of water. But the water fountain was broken, so I went to the soda machine and got a Coke instead, which helped a lot.

But I was in kind of a bleh mood when I came home. I wanted to just go to sleep and not have to think about anything for a while, but Casey wouldn't let me because he said it would throw off my sleep schedule. So he grabbed two of his eight guns and took me out shooting instead. We used a 9mm carbine rifle and .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun. Before we had actually fired off a shot, I heard a rustling in the trees. Seeing my nervous look, Casey said, "It doesn't matter if we get charged by a moose or a bear, Cat. We have big guns."

"Oh yeah!" So I edged over to the trees and looked around for the source of the noise. It didn't take long to spot it. "Oh, it's just a squirrel," I said.

"Where?" Casey asked.

I pointed at it without thinking, and the next thing I knew, Casey had the rifle up, and BLAM!!! The squirrel was skittering all around the ground, and I thought, 'Geez! Glad he missed! Poor squirrel!' Then I realized it wasn't running away... it was flailing around! He'd hit it--sent the bullet right through its middle, and its stomach was protruding from its back! I forgot, Casey's an Alaskan boy. He doesn't miss. I just about cried, but at the same time, I was struck by this morbid fascination.

It was very soft. I made a bunch of bad jokes about chopping off its head and sending it to my sister just to freak her out. In fact, I chopped off its tail so I could cure it and put it on a keychain. I kind of feel like a monster.

Awesome weekend!

2009-09-07T02:34:00.004-08:00

It's already been a freaking awesome weekend! Friday night, I went out to North Pole and played Earthdawn with my geeky role-playing friends. It was freaking awesome! The group is actually really cool, and has more fun coming up with weird ways to solve problems than trying to come up with a dramatic past for their emo half-elf characters. Plus, I play it with six guys, and they're all cute. Not necessarily all single, but so what? I can look!

So we played that until about two in the morning, and then on Saturday, I went out around six in the evening to practice canoeing. We were originally going to play Ultimate Frisbee again, but nobody showed up except, of course, Tony, because he lives there. I didn't mind, though, because it gave me a chance to get the hang of canoeing. So we did that for a few hours, and his wife and kids and dogs came out and paddled around, and then people started showing up to play Magic: the Gathering. It was pretty fun, though not as much as role-playing the night before. Toward the end of the last game (in which I got my butt kicked), my ADD started kicking in, and I started looking at some of the books that filled the room. (Tony has a bigger collection of fantasy and science fiction books than several book stores I've seen!) Tony pointed at one and said it was really good, so I started reading it and ended up with my nose stuck in the book. After the third game ended, Tony and I started talking books, and I ended up helping him alphabetize his books, which took until about five in the morning!

Then today, I woke up at eleven and brought Peter out to Cindy and Mike's to help get some hay for the horses. We were originally going to get 100 bundles, but they were all damp, so we only ended up getting 26. Then Mike grilled some pork and Cindy picked some fresh vegetables from the garden and cooked them up and it tasted AMAZING! Mike put in a movie called Ran, which is a Japanese movie based on King Lear, I guess. I thought it was a little meh, mainly because it's not quite my style movie. I prefer comedies, personally.

Oh yeah, and Peter gave me a really cool knife for the knife collection I'm going to start when I actually have money! :D

Torture

2009-09-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

I hate the sun. But here I am, sitting outside in the bright, hot, miserable sunlight, simply because a) the breeze feels nice, and b) I should probably get at least a little sun this summer before it disappears for months. Be proud. I'm facing my fears. Except it's not really a fear so much as a loathing. A simmering hatred that burns like old Spaghettios, put on the stove to cook and then forgotten until the stench of burnt tomato sauce permeates through the building, bringing pained tears to the eyes of anyone unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity.

Yesterday, I was in my Alaska Native Languages class in the mining and engineering building--I have no idea why theywould schedule a linguistics course in a mining and engineering building, but whatever works--and my stomach started making weird noises. All through the class, it rumbled and whined and squeaked and made pretty much every other noise imaginable, which was rather embarrassing, particularly because the class only had about six students, so it was a small room and everyone kept smirking at me, but then remembering that they were too polite to just laugh it off so I could laugh too. I must remember never to eat at Taco Bell again.

Anyway, as soon as class ended, I wandered down the hall to find a restroom. For some reason, the architect who had designed the building had decided it would be a good idea to have the men's restroom in one corner of the building, and the women's in the other corner. (This was particularly surprising given that it was an engineering building, and I thought engineers were supposed to have a little more foresight than that. Doesn't having the bathrooms next to each other save a pretty good amount on piping and stuff when you build the building?) I eventually found the lady's room, which was blocked by a neat metal fire door which two stripes down the middle, like racing stripes. I'm not sure what purpose the stripes served, but I'm not really one to complain about something like that. I pushed the door open and walked in.

It was quite easily the most hideous and terrifying room I have ever been in. The room was trapezoidal, not quite rectangular. When you opened the door, which was somewhat narrow, you immediately found yourself facing a wall. The tiny passageway to the left narrowed distressingly, to the point where I could see it terrifying someone who was claustrophobic. The room was somewhat dim, but the worst part was the color. The stalls were the most horrendous shade of pink I had ever seen. It was like a pink that thought it might have dreams of being orange, but it couldn't quite figure out how to go about it, and it strained so hard that it vomited all over itself. The floor was a white and gray and pink tile pattern, with tiles maybe a half inch wide. The pink tiles came up just often enough to make it look like the floor was spattered with blood. Seriously, if someone were to design a torture chamber, one designed like this bathroom would be considerably more terrifying than a dark stone dungeon with sharp bloody objects all over the room and one or two ominously flickering torches bracketed to the wall.

I can't decide why someone would intentionally design a bathroom like that. The thought crossed my mind that maybe they just wanted to make sure people wouldn't try to cut class by hiding in the bathroom. But then I remembered that this is a university, not a middle school. If someone wanted to cut class, they would just leave. You don't HAVE to go to class. You just have to accept the consequences, which is usually just a worse grade in a class you paid several hundred dollars to take. The teachers aren't going to track you down, drag you to class, or send you to the principal, so seriously, what would be the point of cutting class by hiding in the bathroom? No, that can't be it. Maybe the room was originally used as a torture chamber by particularly sadistic teachers such as my public speaking teacher from last fall. I banished that idea from my mind too, simply because it wasn't a comforting thought to think while I was using it. I finally settled on the idea that maybe the architect was either a sadist or a masochist and simply wanted to terrify people. Thoughts?

Fun times!!! :D

2009-09-02T23:15:00.003-08:00

School hasn't even started yet and I've got homework! But if I do this homework, then there's a possibility that I have a couple fewer classes to take before I graduate, which means a) easier semesters, and b) time in which I could potentially get another job and earn a little money. Homework worth doing, huh?

So I was sitting in the living room looking stuff up and making charts and comparing classes I took at BYU with classes they offer here and so on and so forth, when Casey walked in and said, "Hey, I'm going to go play ultimate frisbee in canoes. Want to come?"

And would you believe, my first instinct was to say thanks, but no. I was in the middle of something and feeling a little lazy. But then I thought, 'You know what, Lint Monkey? If you don't do this, you're going to kick yourself later. Get off your lazy butt and go do something cool!' So I got off my lazy butt and went over to the house of a guy named Tony to play Ultimate Frisbee... in canoes! Only there were three kayaks too. I stuck with canoes, because those are what I'm familiar with. Actually, that's a lie. I wanted to try a kayak, but everybody loves the kayaks because they're faster and more maneuverable, which is a HUGE advantage, so they got taken really darn quick. I was one of the last ones in the water because Eric had a son and daughter about Kamryn and Noah's ages, and they decided I was their best friend as soon as they figured out I was a girl. Seriously, the little girl's first words were, "Oh, she's a girl!" and then she came up to me, tugged on my fingers, and said, "Hey, um, excuse me... um, do you want to come see my room?"

There were nine people there, and our team had five people, but we lost, partly because I was a hindrance to both sides. It took me a while to remember how to canoe, since I haven't been in one since I was about fifteen years old. I eventually more or less remembered, but was still out of practice. And I'm downright awful at Frisbee to begin with. After the first few points, in which I mostly stayed back and played "defense," which consisted mostly of practicing canoeing in circles, they decided to make sure I got to join in and had me throw the kick-off. My first throw landed maybe ten yards away. My second throw was a little better--closer to fifteen yards. I did have a proud moment, where I blocked a guy's canoe and kept him at bay for the whole round and refused to let him past me. But this guy on my team, Gerrit (Gerritt? Garret? Garrit? Garrote? I don't know how he spells it!), poor guy, every time I turned around, it seemed I accidentally blocked him. He was in a kayak, and one time, I accidentally rammed into him head-on, and the point of my canoe dug straight into his collarbone. I was seriously scared I had killed him for a second! I'm pretty sure it didn't feel any good at all!

The best part was when I was racing Tony, who was by far the fastest, strongest, and best at the game, to get the Frisbee, but he got there just ahead of me, so I reached out with my paddle as far as I could to pull the Frisbee in to me while he was still paddling... but I overbalanced and the canoe toppled over. It was great fun! I got so disoriented, though. When I first surfaced, I had no idea what was happening. I thought for a second I had surfaced under the canoe and wasn't sure if there was air, or if it was safe to breathe, or which direction I was facing, or what. There was water in my eyes, and I couldn't wipe it out because I was wearing glasses and anyway, I needed my hands to swim. But in retrospect, I probably didn't really. I was wearing a life jacket and no shoes to drag me down. But yeah, it was awesome! Out of the nine people there, FOUR of us fell in before we stopped playing at sunset. We lost, but we had so much fun it didn't matter!

So as we headed out, I was thanking them for the game and saying I'd had a lot of fun, congratulating people on some of the smooth moves and such, and I asked how often they play. "Well, this is probably our last game of the year unless the weather's nice next week. But we're always doing stuff here! I don't know why I can't people to show up," Tony said.

"Yeah, it's hard motivating people in Alaska to do stuff, it seems like," I said. "What sort of stuff do you do?"

"Well, every Saturday we play Magic: the Gathering," he said. "Do you play that?"

"I did, a loooong time ago."

"And then on Fridays, we do role-playing, with--"

"OH MY GOSH ROLE-PLAYING CAN I JOIN????"

So we went inside, and dried off and changed into clean clothes (I was SO glad Casey had told me to bring a change of clothes just in case I fell in!), and he showed me his gaming room, which is basically the greatest room I've ever been in!!! Fantasy and role-playing books all over the place, computers, fridges full of soda and junk food for role-playing nights, anime posters and wall hangings... I pointed to a Ranma wall hanging and said, "Oh hey, I love Ranma! One of the best animes ever!" and the guy brought out a silk Ranma outfit and wig and said, "Here's your Halloween costume! We've decided for you!"

It was SO COOL!!!

So yeah, I already have my Halloween costume (I put on the wig and Casey said, "Wow, Cat, you actually look like a REAL girl!"), and I'm going to start role-playing on Friday nights, and this year looks like it's going to be a blast!!!

Casey and Dylan (the two of my roommates that I've met so far) both play WoW, so we all started some troll characters and were totally geeking it up last night. They have a massive surround sound system in the living room, and every gaming system I can name. Dylan hooked his laptop up to the big TV to play, and afterward, we watched a bunch of funny youtube videos.

I dropped by to see my professor, Cindy Hardy, today. She gave me a big hug and told the person she was on the phone with that she had to go because one of her "favorite students" had dropped by. Hehe. I walked with her up to Burns Cooper's office (he's head of the English department), and talked with him for a little while, and as I left, I called him by his first name like Cindy does, then corrected myself, "Sorry, I mean Dr. Cooper," and he shrugged and grinned and said, "Eh, call me Burns." Mwaha! I got away with informality! I like Dr. Cooper. He taught one of my classes last semester. He's really smart, and is one of those professors that will actually admit when he doesn't know something, and then he'll go look it up and tell you the answer in the next class. He went off on tangents a lot, too, and my friend Jeremy and I used to have contests to see who could get him off on the longest tangent.

So yeah. That's that. And I should get to sleep here pretty soon, because I have classes from 9:45 tomorrow morning until 9:00 tomorrow night, except for an hour lunch break and then an hour and a half dinner break. And I'm really tired from canoeing.

Time to go...

2009-09-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

It's been a pretty cool last few days. Mary brought me flowers and a card on my last day of work, which was the day before my birthday. Woody tried to kill me, for reals. I took my birthday off and was very glad I did. The Packs made me homemade enchiladas and a birthday cake, which would mark the first time I've had a birthday cake on my birthday in about six years! Cindy even got me a little present--a few pictures of the family so I won't forget them, as if I ever could. Those pictures are going to be like my flag of Sri Lanka: they'll go with me everywhere I go and hang in every place I ever live. (The only exception to the flag is living here, because I got moved from room to room so often. I've slept in the spare bedroom, on the couch, in the camper, on the floor of the kids' room, and even in Cindy and Rob's room.)

I invited over five friends from the resort for dinner and a game and maybe a movie, but things never go as planned. To be more specific, not one of the people I invited showed up or called. But that's all right. I had fun with the Packs and the neighbor girl, Rebecca, anyway. The kids even helped me load up my car, which was nice, although I had to unpack it and repack it afterwards. (Maybe I'm too particular about where and how things go, but I like to be able to see out my back window if possible, and I like to minimize the chance of things breaking if I hit a bump in the road.)

We went down to visit a friend from church--the Korean girl I gave piano lessons to a few years ago--because she had acquired a second keyboard and wanted to sell it. Cindy wanted to buy it for Kamryn but wanted me to check it out and make sure it was a good deal. It wasn't anything fancy--had six different voices, 88 working keys, and a pedal. As far as I'm concerned, if Kamryn is serious about wanting to learn piano, that would be perfect for her because she'll never have problems with not having enough keys or not having a sustaining pedal. Or is it called a damper pedal? I can never remember the term; I just know I use it almost constantly when I play. I want to say the damper is on the left and the sustaining on the right….

Well, whatever.

Oh yeah, there was also a black bear in the yard, passed close enough to the house for us to see its teeth in the early dawn. (We woke up at six in the morning on the 31st to say good-bye to Rob, who left for a hunting trip, and the bear showed up about two minutes after Rob left.)

So now I'm in Fairbanks, about to eat dinner. The drive was long and uneventful. I passed a few cars. And I saw a reindeer. That's about it. In a 476-mile drive.

Numb Kids

2009-08-29T16:14:00.002-08:00

I hope that worked...

Videos

2009-08-29T15:07:00.003-08:00

Here's one of the videos I made of the Pack kids. I tried uploading my first one, but Youtube blocked it, saying it violated some copyright law, even though I didn't ever claim to have written Linkin Park's song "Numb," and I gave credit where it was due. Well, whatever. Blogger doesn't seem to like me uploading videos the conventional way, either, but I'll try to come up with something, because it was a pretty neat video.

This next one was done at Kamryn and Noah's request. I'm going to go back and redo it later, though, because it gets boring after the first thirty-ish seconds. Actually, it's also somewhat unfinished. I got interrupted partway through and decided, "Meh, good enough for now." I could do better.

Meow :3

2009-08-27T23:37:00.004-08:00

I still think Gohr is a fantastic musician. I wish I could download the full versions of his songs so I could put them on my Zune and listen to them in the car. Or maybe make another music video. Or something.

Life in general has felt better lately. I don't know if I just finally got over being unceremoniously kicked out in the street by--okay, apparently I haven't fully gotten over it. Maybe I've successfully banished thinking about it to the back of my mind. Maybe the medicine I'm taking is finally working regularly. (Apparently, it takes two or three weeks of taking it before it becomes really noticeable. So the bottle says.) Cindy says it's because I started reading scriptures and praying again. I even went to church this last Sunday. Well, the first hour and a half, at least. Then I had to go to work.

And of course, I got annoyed at the talk about tithing where the guy told a cute little anecdote about a lady who was paying tithing she could barely afford and someone told her not to and she rounded on him and put her finger in his face and said, "I FULLY expect blessings from this, and don't you DARE try to take that from me!" Cute, sure. But does paying tithing simply because you expect blessings defeat the purpose of paying it?

Well, at least nobody sobbed for five minutes over how much God loves us. I hate that.

I tried to talk to Rob about some of the questions I have and how annoying it is when we have the same ten lessons over and over at church. He shrugged it off, saying we have to have the same lessons because we haven't learned them yet, and it's wrong to want to demand deep doctrine when we haven't got the basics down. I've heard that before, and it's just as annoying hearing it now as it was then.

Don't get me wrong, though, I love Rob and Cindy. They're awesome. And I don't have any idea where I would be without them.

Unknown laws of physics

2009-08-25T20:02:00.004-08:00

It never fails.

There are certain laws of physics that scientists never bother to explain. Whenever I'm working by myself, if I start to sing, someone WILL walk by. Whenever I'm cleaning a bathroom, if someone walks in, they WILL go into the stall I was planning to clean next. Whenever people see Woody, they WILL say something to the effect of "Wow, he's huge!" Whenever I'm in the room with a baby under a year old, it WILL start to cry.

I'm in the camper again this week because Cindy's mom is coming to visit. So when I came inside this morning, there were two children there that I don't know. One was a little boy named Tison (or maybe Tyson) who looked to be about two years old. He kept calling me "Mommy," but didn't say much else. The other was a baby girl named Chloe, who was, Rob told me, four months old. There was a movie playing called Race to Witch Mountain, but I didn't really get to see much of it because Noah kept talking. Okay, so I saw it, mostly, but I didn't hear it. Then Noah climbed in my lap and started shoving his head into my neck and forcing my chin up till it hurt. He kept doing it, even after I kicked him off my lap. Little bugger.

Rob put Chloe down for a nap, then left for a few minutes to go get tires or something. And of course, while he was gone, I heard Chloe wake up and start crying in the other room. So I went in and picked her up and brought her back into the living room, and she quieted down for a minute or so. She grabbed my thumb in her little hands and I was amazed at how long and thin her fingers were. I told her she had very pretty hands, and then she screwed up her face and started screaming. And then she stopped and farted real good. Then she started screaming again.

When Rob came in less than five minutes later, I was going, "I'm sorry! I broke it! I can't turn it off! Why's it making that noise? How do I make it stop?"

I don't like babies.

In other news, I got to talk to Jack yesterday! He started quoting at me some blog posts I had written about a year ago. It's really weird having old blog posts quoted at you by someone who read them maybe once or twice, six or eight months ago. Anyway, talking to him actually made me feel a lot better, and despite the fact that my stomach's still upset, I feel a ton better about life in general. But then, even with this stupid medicine I'm taking, I feel great one day and then bleh the next, and then great one day and bleh the next. Isn't there supposed to be some kind of happy medium??!?!!

I also had some extra time at work today (imagine that!) and I stumbled upon a Wikipedia article about the Dyatlov Pass incident. Apparently, back in 1959, nine people were hiking in the Ural mountains and something happened. Nobody really knows what. When they found the campsite, the tent had been ripped--it looked like from the inside. The temperature had been sub-zero, but the people had apparently run off without even bothering to put on shoes or clothes. They found some of the hikers in their underwear. Most were shoeless. There were no signs of a struggle, no footprints in the snow besides their own. They found five bodies pretty quickly. Three looked like they had died coming back to the campsite, about 150 yards away from each other. One had a slight fracture on his skull, but the detectives dismissed it, saying it was nothing fatal. Those five had died of hypothermia from being outside in the sub-zero weather without being dressed appropriately. But when the other four bodies were found, one had major skull damage, and two had their chests crushed with the force of a car wreck--injuries that couldn't have been caused by a human due to the force required. The fourth had had her tongue cut out. A few of the bodies had high levels of radiation on their clothing.

Talk about intense!

Even weirder: People who had been camping some fifty kilometers to the south reported seeing strange orange spheres in the sky on the night of the incident. Other people, including the military and the meteorology service, had reported similar spheres during the whole of that month (February) and the next.

Due to the absence of a guilty party, the incident was eventually dismissed, and it was concluded that the hikers had died due to an "unknown compelling force." (insert scary music here)

Picture time!

2009-08-25T03:15:00.005-08:00

It's three in the morning, and I still feel icky, so it's picture time!!! Luckily for you, I brought my camera to work and got some decent pictures. Nothing great, but it's pretty cool stuff that you don't see too terribly often if you don't live on the ocean.

This is a rhinoceros auklet. He's one of the 71 birds we have here. Kind of cool-looking guy. He's called a "rhinoceros" auklet because he has a horn on his beak. Or bill. He's an alcid, which is a class of birds--the diving birds, which includes puffins. Most birds have hollow bones so they can fly better; diving birds have denser bones for diving. It's really cool watching them swim.

This one, of course, is a puffin. A horned puffin, not a tufted puffin. People think these guys are penguins a lot. It amuses me.

Here's Woody. Not the best picture of him. I spent two hours cleaning the newly-remodeled area outside his tank today, and in that time, every single person who saw him said something to the effect of, "Oh my gosh, he's HUGE!" That was pretty funny too.

These are the girls, Sugar and Kiska. They're about a third the size of Woody, but still pretty sizable. I think somewhere between 400 and 600 pounds.

Sugar walking. Watching sea lions walk is hilarious. They flop their front flippers and then kind of hop because they can't really walk with their back flippers. I should seriously get a video of Woody walking. It's hilarious!

These are the two male harbor seals, Snapper and Tongass. Not a great shot of them. Like Sugar and Kiska, they were enjoying the sunshine today.

The jellies. Not a whole lot else to say about them. They're jellyfish. 'Nuff said.

Weird-looking fish called a rat-tail. Apparently it's pretty rare, but a local fisher caught one and sent it in to us. I found it in research hallway and snapped a picture. Not sure what they're planning to do with it.

When I went outside, I watched an eagle catch a fish, eat it, clean its talons, preen itself a bit... and then I remembered, "Oh yeah, I have my camera on me!"

Here's the building where I work. Kind of a cool-looking building.

And here's part of the view from the back of the building. This is such a beautiful area. I can never get over it.

And just in case those pictures didn't cheer you up...

More blah

2009-08-24T16:15:00.003-08:00

I think it's funny when I get comments from "Anonymous," saying s/he agrees with my parents. Gee, I wonder who "Anonymous" might be. Certainly not someone I know who has a very distinctive writing style... especially to a linguist.... And continued snide comments like the one a month ago about foolishly wasting time "mooching off benefactors" will result in my banning anonymous comments so that if you want to make a vindictive remark, you'll have to be man enough to own up to it.

But anyway...

I still feel blah. If anything, I feel more blah than before. In fact, I think I'm coming down with something. My stomach hurts, my head hurts, there's pressure behind my face, and I'm dizzy. But I'm not ENOUGH of any one of these symptoms to be able to actually say that I'm really sick. Just a bit off, I guess. There are doors here that I have to swipe a card to gain entrance through, and for some reason, I'm having difficulty getting the card in the slider today. Also, just looking at food makes my stomach groan and say, "Don't even think about it!" I ate lunch anyway, though. I sure showed it, huh? And yes, Dad, I'm drinking lots of water.

I don't really have much else to say right now. I just thought I'd update while I'm here. And bored.

Kids...

2009-08-21T19:00:00.003-08:00

I felt really blah today. Maybe because the sun was shining. So hot and bright. Blech. I wonder if maybe my eyes don't dilate properly and that's why I hate the sun so much. Or maybe I just don't spend enough time out in it.

Well, I had to go out in it today. Rob insisted that nobody be inside on "a beautiful day like today." Yech. So I went outside and promptly got chased around the house twice by a wasp as big as my thumb. And my hands are huge, so that's a really big bug.

Rob and Cindy don't approve of my housing because I'll have two boy roommates. Rob says I should just save myself the drama, take out an extra couple thousand dollars loan, and get my own place. Mom says I should just get a shared dorm on campus. I just hate dealing with hassles. Sigh. (Even a shared dorm on campus would be over a hundred dollars more than I would be paying at the place I've got now... but it would be more convenient if my car happened to break down.) Frankly, I don't care all that much. I'll make do wherever I go, I just hate dealing with hassles. (And basically everything on campus is a big hassle.)

Kamryn basically begged me to come back to Seward again. She says she wants to come live with me. I can't believe how big she's getting. When I first met her, she was three, and now she's seven, reading by herself, taking care of her brother (which usually includes rubbing in his face that she can do stuff better than he can), playing tee-ball... She's getting so big it's starting to get hard to throw her around like I used to. Even Noah is older now than Kamryn was when I first came here. He's nearly as tall as Kamryn is, too, but Kamryn's getting a little paunch around her belly, so I expect she's going to hit a growth spurt pretty soon. Noah sure does whine a lot, though. He's been a terror this week. If anyone says no to him for any reason, he starts to shriek. I asked the kids to pick out a movie to watch, Kamryn picked Jurassic Park, and Noah threw a fit, and refused to get off the couch to pick a different one. He had a tantrum when Kamryn threw the baseball for him to hit and it was too high. He had a tantrum when he ordered his mom to throw his dirty paper towel away for him and she said no. He had a tantrum when his mom was solving a jigsaw puzzle and he tried to climb into her lap and she said no. Then he started kicking her. (This all happened today, too.) I'm kind of shocked by the way he treats his mom, to be honest. Then Dad came home, Mom talked to him, Dad pulled him back to the bedroom, and I don't know if Noah got a spanking or just a serious talking-to, but Rob came back whistling cheerfully a short time later, and Noah came out crying.

Rob gave me permission to smack his kids if they need it. I seriously think Noah needs it, but I don't think I'll ever be able to bring myself to do it. The other day, though, when Noah took my mag light from the pouch I keep on my belt for the umpteenth time without permission, I grabbed his arm and said, "What did I say about taking my light?" He refused to answer and tried to go to his mom, who was sitting across the room talking on the phone. I took Noah's other arm and told him to look at me and tell me what I'd said about the light. He refused and started shrieking hysterically like I was killing him, so I took him outside, sat down, and held him firmly and wouldn't let him go until he told me what I had said about the light. He shrieked for about ten minutes before he finally realized that he didn't even have to say sorry for taking it, just, "You said don't take it without permission." It feels so weird disciplining other people's kids in front of their parents, but Cindy didn't mind at all.

So... yeah... two child terrors and constant bruises on my arms from Jake chewing on me kind of make me want my own place when I go back to school.

And now there's a kid reading what I'm typing.

I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. I don't like my job. Well, I do. I just don't like having nothing to do. I kind of want to go hop in my car and drive home to my mommy sometimes. Am I homesick for the first time in years? Cindy says I'm homesick. I think I'm just generally frustrated and don't know what else to do because every decision I make seems to blow up in my face.

Now there's two kids reading what I'm typing. Except I don't think one can actually read yet.

Kamryn says hi. She also says, "What are you doing? How are the cat and dogs? Bye-bye."

Noah says, "How are the dogs? How are your dad? How are your mom? How are your cat? How are your swords? How are your horses? How are your dogs? How are your cats? And how are your dogs? There. That's all. And bye-bye."

Kamryn wants to say more. She says, "How are your pictures? How are your shelves? How is your daughter? How is your horses? How is your cat? How are your swords? How are your knives? How is everything that is in the house? Is the house all right? Bye-bye."

Noah demands to say more now: "How are your nights? How are your knights to the swords? How are your heads? How are your necks? How are your hands? How are your hands to hold a sword? How is your head to bang a sword? How are your hammers to bang a sword? And how is your legs to bang a sword? And amen, swordies! And good-bye, swordies! That's all."

And Kamryn says, "What do you want to do while your kids aren't there? Um. How are your plants?" I'm not even typing anymore. You get the idea. Also, Noah is eating my shoulder.

Kids are weird.

Cindy made lasagna tonight. It was fantastic. She says she's not a great cook, but every meal she's made has been fantastic, including the grilled cheese sandwiches.

Yay, kids are gone. Typing with kids climbing on you is hard.

...And now Noah's stealing the loose change I had on the dresser and putting it in his mouth. Gosh darn it. I gotta go.

Can't wait...

2009-08-20T14:37:00.002-08:00

Good news! I do have housing this school year after all! I have to share a room, but that's okay, I guess. It'll work out. And if it doesn't, something else will.

I got so angry the other day that I started taking medicine for anxiety again for the first time in about six years. I've been on it for three days, and I'm not going to lie, I feel a ton better. And the fact that I only have to work at this job for another two weeks helps, too. I like the SeaLife Center, but I hate my actual job. I don't do anything. I spend the first half of the day, every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, sitting around doing nothing. Seriously, I check the bathrooms and glass every hour or so, then beg people to give me something to do, and they just say, "Stay out of sight in the basement." And I say, "What about this? What about that? Can I empty trash? Can I mop this hallway? Can I vacuum that room?" and they say, "No, Mike empties trash, and if you vacuum or mop, you'll get in someone's way. Just sit here in the basement and read your book." Well, I like reading. But I hate getting paid for NOT working.

I try to make up for it by working double-hard as soon as 5:30 comes around and it's time to clean the bathrooms. Once the Center closes, I clean the bathrooms as fast as I can so I can also vacuum the main walking areas and stairwells and wipe the dust off the ledge by the escalator... but it doesn't make up for having to sit around doing nothing for five hours.

Oh well. Less than two weeks till school starts and I can get back to my normal stresses: evil teachers, too much homework, frustrating school administrators, and boring classes where I don't learn anything worthwhile. Not to mention annoying roommates, an empty juggling club that I'm now president of, and intense cold. It'll be great.

Chicken Kickin'

2009-08-17T17:55:00.001-08:00

It was a really bad day. There wasn't any real reason for it to be a bad day, either. I wasn't angry at anyone in particular, except possibly whichever idiot had designed the bathrooms at the ASLC. Nothing big or earth-shaking had happened, and no one had insulted or offended or snubbed me (or at least, not that I had noticed). It simply seemed like every time I turned around, a bathroom stall door would bang on me, or an automatic toilet would flush yet again, or a sink on the other side of the bathroom I was cleaning would turn itself on for no reason. I would open a paper towel dispenser and hundreds of M-fold paper towels would cascade onto the floor. I would bend over to pick them up, and a bathroom stall door would bang into me. I'd turn to get away from the bathroom stall door and crash into the wall. Then I would try to change a roll of toilet paper, the toilet would flush, the dispenser would have too strong a spring and go shooting across the room, the toilet would flush again, I would retrieve the dispenser, making another toilet flush, I would unwrap the new roll of toilet paper, drop the dispenser again, bend over to pick it up, get smacked by the stall door, the toilet would flush, I would bang my head on something, put on the roll of toilet paper, get my fingers pinched in the dispenser, the toilet would flush, the stall door would smack me again, the toilet would flush, and I'd trip on my way out of the stall and crash into the sinks while the toilet flushed once again just to spite me. By the end of my eight-hour shift, I felt that I couldn't possibly be in a grouchier mood even if I'd had an overweight retarded kid sitting on my shoulders all day hitting me in the head with a dead blue-ringed octopus while shrieking profanities in Swahili.

So I finally went home, and Cindy asked me to feed the chickens. I decided to feed the big chickens (the layers) first. But the moment I opened up the chicken coop, they all ran right past me into the yard. Controlling my worn-paper-thin temper rather well, I decided that since there was still a half hour or so until it got dark, I may as well let them peck at bugs or whatever it is they do in the yard for a while and round them up later. I finished feeding the big chickens and gathering eggs and headed over to the smaller chickens' coop. (By this point, the little chickens aren't really little anymore, but the title has stuck. Besides, it feels so much better than calling them "meat chickens" or "future supper.") As I walked over to feed the future supper, I saw Sparky, the rooster, near the little chickens' coop. He had climbed on top of one of the big hens and was, as Cindy puts it, "doing his thing." He finished his business and got off, strutting around and looking very proud of himself.

I finished feeding the little chickens (who decided they had to be obnoxious too and keep trying to run away) and decided it was about time to round up the big ones and get them back inside their coop. I clapped my hands the way Rob does when he rounds up the chickens. "Okay chickens! Time to go in!" I called.

They completely ignored me. Great.

I walked around and started shooing them towards the coop. "Come on, chickens! Get back inside! Go on!" They obediently started running back toward the coop. Except Sparky.

Sparky pecked at the ground. Took a slow step towards the coop. Pecked at the ground. Glared at me. Pecked at the ground again. He made it blatantly clear that I was not telling him what to do. 'If I'm going back in that coop,' he seemed to say, 'it will be because it's MY idea, you worthless overgrown bag of featherless flesh.'

"Sparky!" I snapped at him. I walked swiftly toward him, trying to shoo him towards the coop.

He rounded on me. 'I will NOT be intimidated!' he said in rooster-speak. He puffed up his feathers and glared at me, daring me to take another step toward him.

I did.

He charged at me, hopping up so he could get on my leg and spur me. I kicked him. (Don't freak out. He took a chunk out of my leg once before, and Cindy and Rob told me it's okay to kick him when he does that, because it will humiliate him more than hurt him as long as I'm just kicking him hard enough to keep him off. I didn't give him a full-strength WHONK! like I wanted to.)

Sparky flew back about five feet, landing on his butt. He scrambled to his feet before the hens could see this indignity and charged in again. I kicked him again. This time he scrambled to his feet, stood his ground, ruffled his feathers up, and started clucking threateningly at me. 'I haven't even started yet!' he threatened. 'I'll kill you! Don't even TRY to mess with me!'

"Shut up and get in that coop," I told him, taking another step toward him. He charged, and I kicked again, but this time, he hopped back away from the kick and came in after me as I pulled my foot back. Clever little bugger. I kicked him with my other foot.

He scrambled to his feet, ruffled his feathers up, and did the chicken equivalent of standing there with his hands on his hips. I, in turn, spread my legs out shoulder-width, put my hands on my hips, and then pointed at the coop. "Go!" I ordered him. "Now! Or I'll embarrass you again in front of your harem!"

He turned and started walking back toward the coop (rather faster than before), turning his head to glare at me. 'It was my idea all along,' he seemed to say. Then he walked into the wall of the coop because he wasn't watching where he was going.

As I locked the door to the chicken coop, I heard him crow angrily. I crowed back. Louder. Suddenly, I felt much better. Amazing how therapeutic it can be, kicking a chicken.

What's a Gizzy?

2009-08-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

"Mary?" I said, "There's a Thing."

"A Thing?"

"Yes," I said. "A Thing. And I want to know just what manner of Thing it is."

"Show me this Thing," Mary said.

So I led her into the research office hallway and pointed at the wall. Just inside the door, where a light switch would normally be, there was a small metal plate that looked like a light switch plate. But instead of a switch or even a button, knob, or lever, there was a small round plastic thing that looked like a round grate, about the size of a quarter. It couldn't be pushed or pulled or twisted or finagled or otherwise manipulated, and shining a light through the holes in this Thing showed only something that looked like solid copper.

Mary stared at it. She cocked her head. "Huh." She cocked her head the other way. She knelt down and peered inside it. "Huh!"

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's a gizzy," she said.

"What's a gizzy?"

"I don't have any idea. There aren't any others in the building, and frankly, I've never paid attention to this one."

We began poking at it and circling around to the other side of the wall to see if there was anything there. We shone my flashlight into it, flicked it, tried to pry it, inspected the wall opposite it….

A lady rounded the corner.

"Jill!" called Mary. "What is this gizzy?"

"What's a gizzy?" Jill came over and looked. "Huh." She cocked her head. "I've been here for years, and I've never noticed it before. No idea. Now I'm curious."

So the three of us stared at it and brainstormed. Another lady rounded the corner.

"Kimberly, what's this gizzy?" I asked.

And then four of us were staring at the gizzy, trying to figure out what it was.

"Maybe it's a motion sensor."

"Maybe it's a hidden camera to make sure we're working."

"Maybe it's an alien life form!" (Yeah, that was me.)

Then Mike happened along.

"Mike," Mary asked. "What's a gizzy?"

"A what?"

"A gizzy."

"A gizzy. I don't know of any gizzies. I know about thingummies and whatchamacallits. They're the ones hooked up to the whoosiewhatsits and the doodads. But I don't know of any gizzies."

So we showed him our gizzy. He cocked his head. "Huh. So that's a gizzy." He stroked his bushy beard and cocked his head and checked out the wall above, below, beside, and across from it. "Weird."

"And it's the only one in the building," Mary informed him. "I don't know of any other gizzies anywhere."

"Well, it's a good thing," Mike said. "If there were more than one gizzy, they might decide to have little gizzies, and there would be gizzies everywhere!"

"But since there's only one, I guess gizzies are an endangered species, huh?"

"I wonder if there are different kinds? Do you think the spelling is important?"

"How do you even spell gizzy?"

"G-I-Z-Z-Y, of course."

"Are you sure? What if it's I-E?"

"Maybe there's only one Z."

"What if the first I is really a Y?"

"No, it's definitely an I."

"How about a silent P at the beginning?"

Seeing motion, we all looked up to see red-headed Pam staring at us, eyes wide. Her expression changed from bewilderment to something akin to fear, and she fled into a side room.

"Aw, I guess she doesn't know how to spell gizzy either."

"Maybe it's her gizzy and we weren't supposed to know about it."

"No, there's no way it's her gizzy. It's our gizzy."

The side door opened and Pam tried to sneak away before we could see her.

"What's the matter, Pam? Don't you want to see our gizzy?"

"No!" Pam yelled, and broke into a run.

"Awww, she doesn't like our gizzy."

Then Randy, the security guard, happened by.

"Maybe Randy knows what a gizzy is!"

"Randy! What's a gizzy?"

"A gizzy?"

"Yeah, thingummies and whatchamacallits are easy, because they're hooked up to whoosiewhatsits and doodads, but we don't know what a gizzy is."

"A gizzy…"

"Yeah, see our gizzy?"

"Huh. Never noticed that gizzy before."

Then Darryl, the general manager, came by and found a group of half a dozen employees staring at a small metal gizzy on the wall. "What in the world are you all doing?" he asked.

"Trying to figure out what this thingy is."

"It's not a thingy! It's a gizzy!"

"It's not a button or a switch or a knob or a lever--"

"I've never paid attention to it before--"

"It's a good thing there's only one in the building--"

Darryl came over, glanced at it casually, and said, "It's the buzzer that used to sound if you opened the door without swiping your card, but it's disconnected now."

And he walked away.

"Oh."

"Oh."

"Huh."

"Makes sense."

I stared after him as the crowd of no-longer-curious coworkers dispersed, thinking, "Man… there has GOT to be a better way for that funny situation to have ended."

Stupid animal...

2009-08-11T20:48:00.000-08:00

The Sea Life Center was closed, and had been for over an hour. The lights were off, and I was in the Underwater Viewing area, where the only light in the room was what filtered in through the sea lion, alcid, and harbor seal tanks. I had finished cleaning the bathrooms with half an hour to spare before my shift ended, and so I had decided to wipe down the tanks one last time before heading home for the evening.

I started with Woody's tank. Woody is the Center's male sea lion. If you've never seen a sea lion before, I can describe one for you with one word: big. Woody may be the exception to this description, not because he's much bigger than average, but simply because he can be seen from up close, since he loves to chill out right by the glass, where he can see people passing by. The only adjective I know of that would accurately describe Woody would be the Latin word ingens. The closest English translation to this word, as my Latin teacher so delicately put it so many years ago, was something along the lines of "honkin' HUGE!!!"

Woody weighs 1,500 pounds and is roughly ten feet long. His head is about the size of my entire torso, and his head is dinky compared with the rest of him. I've seriously seen cars smaller than this animal. When people see Woody, they automatically think, "Oh my gosh, that is a big animal!" It doesn't matter if people don't speak English, or even if they have pet elephants at home. It's one of the lesser-known laws of physics. People see Woody and think, "Oh my gosh, that is a big animal!" just like they fall in the opposite direction when they get pushed, just like they close their eyes when a sudden blast of air hits them in the face, and just like they wet themselves when they're scuba-diving and they see an animal the size of Woody charging at them.

So I began wiping down Woody's tank, and Woody, who was bored now that the people were gone and he was no longer the center of attention, came over to watch. He stuck his face right up against the glass where my rag was, then floated up, took a deep breath, and gently sank down in front of my rag again. He blew a few bubbles, went up for more air, and sank down slowly again, staring at me.

With his enormous face only inches from mine, I became uncomfortably aware of the fact that a) my entire head would fit in his mouth, and b) if he decided he didn't like me, he could probably charge at the six-inch-thick acrylic, smash it apart, and squash me flat before I could even blink an eye.

The ingens animal floated back up and sank slowly down again, and I found my hand involuntarily slowing down as I stared up at Woody and thought, "Oh my gosh… that is a BIG animal!" We stared at each other for a few seconds, neither of us moving, and then, abruptly, he bared his teeth and jerked his head, charging at the glass, stopping just before he smashed into it.

I didn't see him stop. I screamed and leaped about four feet diagonally up and back. I looked up to see him float up a little bit higher, something that was unmistakably a pinniped smirk across his enormous face. Then he dropped down to the bottom of the tank and settled down in his favorite corner, with his eye pressed up against the glass.

Once my heart rate had slowed down enough to function again, I got up off the floor to continue wiping down the tank. Woody stared at me, but didn't move any more. Pretty soon, the only spot left to clean was the corner where Woody was resting with his eye up against the glass. Veeerrryyy sssllooowwllyyy, I knelt down by the corner and began wiping, making no sudden movements for fear of startling him. Not, I suppose, that someone like me could really scare an animal the size of Woody. Maybe I was just scared of him deciding I was annoying and that he should charge the glass for real and break me apart.

I wiped the glass, and Woody watched, about six inches away, not moving anything but his eyeball. Right up until I finished the corner and started to take the rag away. And then he jerked abruptly, spinning to face me, and shooting right up towards my face.

I vaulted about six feet back, nearly smashing into the row of chairs placed near the exhibit to allow people a place to rest while they watched this monster, and scrambled on all fours to get far away and around one of the pillars by the fish tank. As I settled down, urging my heart to start going again, I poked my head cautiously around the corner of the pillar. Woody was floating about halfway up, watching me through the glass, with his mouth open. I swear to Torvanos I could hear him laughing at me.

Stupid animal.

Whiiiiine

2009-08-07T21:13:00.003-08:00

I've had the house to myself for the last two days. It's kind of nice. Jake isn't even around. The Packs went camping, and they took the dog, so all I have to worry about is feeding the chickens twice a day. I did dishes and laundry too, just for kicks. I think I may bake cookies tonight before I go to bed, too.

The last few days have been far from relaxing, to be honest, but what do you expect? The last month has been the same way. I went to Mike today to ask him to give me, in writing, the reason I got fired. First he said that I was no longer allowed on resort property at all, and then when I asked him to answer my question, he wouldn't tell me. He kept saying, "You should know. It's obvious. I don't need to tell you. Go ask Scott. I did a full write-up." Finally, I got him to tell me that he fired me for "insubordination" because the last thing I said before I got fired was, "I hate working with all these f@$#ing non-English speakers." I tried to call him on that, because I never said anything like that, but he claimed he had three witnesses and said I just didn't remember because I was too pissed off. Then, as if he didn't think he had been acting immature enough, he said, "You know everyone here hates you. It's like party time now that you're gone. Everyone's much happier, because nobody liked working with you to begin with. We're so much better off without you." Seriously? That's like the sort of thing a middle-school girl would say. And part of me says, "You know he's right and that's why nobody spoke up in your defense when you got fired." But the realistic side of me realizes that every word out of this idiot's mouth is a lie, and he'll say anything to justify firing me because he knows he didn't have a real reason.

So I went to Scott and asked him for the reason I was fired, in writing, and he said he couldn't tell me why, but that I'd had friction with Mike, and he would have Jewel type it up and have it ready for me on Monday. Yeah, right.

I want to just drop it and move on, but the fact that they're lying to potential employers when I apply for other jobs is kind of important. I filed for unemployment, but since I don't really want to work full-time while I'm taking 15 credits at school, I'm pretty sure I won't qualify and therefore they won't even look twice at my application. Beth says I should get the number for some HR person up at Ft Richardson and talk to them or something.

Garth says I should just sue the pants off him for lies, slander, and wrongful dismissal. I have to admit, the idea sounds more tempting every time I think about it. But I can't afford a lawyer, I don't like lawyers or court stuff to begin with, I don't like hassles, and I don't want to be seen as the person who goes crying to authorities as soon as people start picking on me. Then again, it's that or continue having a reputation as someone who punches people's teeth out or cusses out bosses or whatever else Mike can come up with.

Why is this turning into such a big deal? I hate this!

Changing subjects....

I picked up a hitchhiker today. I've never actually picked one up before, but this one looked like a friendly, adventurous girl about my age, and I knew she was going the same way I was because I was going to the far end of Seward, and the road pretty much stops there and goes no further. I never asked for her name, and she never asked for mine. She told me she was leaving Alaska after summer ends because she's moving to Iceland and has already applied for citizenship there. Of course I wanted to know about Iceland, and she happily told me about it. It sounds like an amazing place to live! I just may go there someday. Maybe after I graduate and leave the country, I'll go there instead of Canada. The towns are small, the climate is something like southern Alaska's, and the country uses mostly renewable energy, like geothermic. The main language is Icelandic, but they're taught English in school at a very young age, so everyone speaks English pretty fluently. She says it's a beautiful area, too, very green, but with volcanoes and geysers and other cool stuff.

I'm so going to Iceland.

Hmmm, what else? Oh yeah! I got bored last night and made a music video. It's kind of weird. It's of Kamryn and Noah. I wanted to upload it, but the internet here is so slow it didn't want to do it, so I'll do it at the library tomorrow or something. Actually, I should also probably ask Cindy if it's okay to put her kids on the internet first, too.

I guess the nice thing about having a really lousy summer is that I'll appreciate school more.

I've been so whiny lately. Sorry. Maybe someday I'll stop whining about how much my life sucks and start writing fun stories again. But first, I think I'm going to go make cookies.