Le Sigh

I easily worked over 60 hours this week. Easily, not as in it was easy for me to do, but as in I have no doubt that it was over 60 hours except I didn't keep track exactly. Hm. If I'm doing that, shouldn't I be making three times what I am now? And have a J.D. after my name? Alack, alas. But the end is in sight! Thank goodness, because I can't take another day of working until 2 a.m. like last night, er, this morning. Must. Sleep.

Dream

Last night I had a dream that one of my college professors started playing in the NFL, which apparently had been a life-long dream of his (in my dream, not in real life...well, as far as I know anyway). Who knew?! I must have been living or working in California or something, and his NFL team was in Colorado, but it wasn't the Broncos because their jerseys were black and silver. Well, in one game he ruptured something huge on/in his leg (yes, I'm being very scientific here), and the injury was life-threatening. For some reason Brian's boss flew him out to Colorado to go check on former professor. Brian emailed his boss about his condition, and when I tried to read it, the boss said I couldn't because if it were intended for me, Brian would have said so. So of course at this point I was incredibly worried about former professor. Then there was this mass pilgrimage of BC grads to Colorado to show support for former professor...in the form of a parade. It was all very touching. The last thing I remember before waking up was that I was attending some huge concert at the football stadium with lots of Hip Hop/Rap artists that Brian was loath to attend with me, so I don't know what ever happened to former professor. Apparently I had more important things to do.

First date

Fifteen years ago, I went on my first date. I don't remember exactly which day of the month it was, but it was for Valentine's Day, so it was sometime around now. I had just started "going out" with the guy about a week before Valentine's, so of course we wanted to do something for the special day. We decided we were either going to go to a movie or go roller skating with another couple. I preferred the movie option, and that's what we ended up deciding on. I remember being so nervous to ask my parents whether I could go, and I kept putting it off. Our desks were in the same module of four in fifth grade, so he would ask me every day if I'd found out yet if I could go, and for several days I had to report that I'd "forgotten to ask." After a few days of that response, he finally wrote me a little reminder on a scrap of notebook paper that read: "Ask About Movie." I'm pretty sure I still have that note tucked away in an old diary somewhere...and I think that old diary includes doodles of his name with hearts around it and such...yeah, it's a real piece of work. I finally did get up the courage to ask my parents, and by their response it seemed like no big deal, so I guess I shouldn't have been so worried. The next big worry was a Valentine's gift. I don't know why, but I ended up buying one of those large Hershey's bars. Another excerpt from my diary I think reads something like, "I hope he doesn't think I'm cheap!" Haha. On the big night, they dropped me off at the theater, and I met my boyfriend there, and he brought a friend! Too funny! We exchanged our gifts in the back of the theater before the movie. He'd gotten me little heart-shaped, gold-colored earrings. And I'm not sure he was too impressed with his large candy bar. (Oh well, I made up for it by the time his birthday came around with a KU t-shirt. His birthday was about two weeks before mine, and sometime in those two weeks, he broke up with me, so overall, he came out much better on the gifts—sort of a recurring theme with a couple of boyfriends I've had...) Then it was time for the movie—Hook—and we sat in one of the side sections, and his friend (who I will always remember as the boy who had the coolest sparkly silver retainer) sat right behind us. And I can honestly say that I had the yawn move used on me during that movie. I love that.

They wanted us to get the scarlet fever!

This is a sentence spoken to me by my grandma yesterday when I visited my grandparents to deliver some Valentine's candy and flowers. Grandma has a lot of stories, and one of the ones she told me yesterday went something like this:

When we [she and her sisters] were younger, we always made our own valentines. Norma, she could draw real well. We made these valentines where we cut out a little door and put tin foil behind there, so it would look like there was light in the windows. One year, our neighbors all had the scarlet fever. And if you had the scarlet fever, you weren't supposed to send mail, and you had to have your house fumigated. Well, I guess those boys were mad at us that we didn't have the scarlet fever and we got to celebrate Valentine's, and they sent us Valentines in the mail! Now why would they do that?! They wanted us to get the scarlet fever! Well, we put those Valentines real quick in the oven and burned them up. We didn't want to get the scarlet fever!

I know "the scarlet fever" is no laughing matter, but I was trying so hard not to let a huge smile overtake my face. "They wanted us to get the scarlet fever!"

Paragraphs beginning with "This"

This is pretty cool-lookin'.

This weekend I saw and excellent movie: Flags of Our Fathers. Like a review I read, you can't help but make the mental connection between the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and the now infamous "Mission Accomplished." I had no idea of the story surrounding that famous flag-raising picture. Incredibly interesting and a great movie. Now I really want to see Letters from Iwo Jima.

This past Saturday I tried my first sushi with actual raw fish. We tried the salmon. I thought it was really quite tasty and didn't feel at all grossed out about it. I'm anxious to go back to this place and try more kinds. Plus, they have plum wine, which I think goes really well with sushi.

This was Super Bowl weekend. I didn't know who won until I got to work this morning and looked at CNN. In lieu of watching "the big game," I watched various tv shows I had taped last week and read from Rethinking Christ and Culture, which is a text for my class and which I found myself mostly agreeing with. Also yesterday we had another successful young adult potluck; I made barbecued pulled pork sandwiches.

This was not a good weekend for my uncle in terms of college basketball. He's a WSU fan and a KU fan. On Saturday he went to the WSU game in the afternoon, and they lost, and then he drove to Lawrence to watch the KU game in the evening, and they lost too. That reminds me I failed to mention a few weeks ago that he gave us his tickets for a WSU game he couldn't make it to, and my dad and I went; that was a lot of fun. And they won that game.

This is feeling really boring to begin every paragraph with "This," (though I'm not so naive as to think that's what's making this post boring...) so I think I will call it quits.

I guess somebody's gotta do it

Well, last night I got to see BC MBB break a losing streak...a 45-game losing streak...of the other team. Oops. That team hadn't won a game since the first game of last season.

Nervous as a little schoolgirl

So I'm taking (auditing) a class. It begins today, and I'm really scared about it. I think mostly because I'm afraid it will feel really awkward and also because I'm not entirely (at all) sure about what expectations are / how much I should participate and such. Well, wish me luck. T-15 minutes!

Congratulations, universe, you win

The title is really no reflection of life at the moment, but it was my favorite Office quote from the last new episode.

What this post is really about: all of the weird weird movies I've seen recently.

1. Stay Tuned was quite the gem with John Ritter and David Tom. The day I watched it, I thought to myself, "This is the weirdest movie I've ever seen." Luckily, the week wasn't over yet. The best part of this movie was when Three's Company made an appearance. At that point, I laughed out loud. Plus, Salt-N-Pepa is in it.







2. Copper Mountain is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The plot was basically non-existent, and the bulk of the movie were concert scenes of Rockin' Ronnie Hawkins.











3. 
Like I said, the week wasn't over yet. Which brings me to Super Sucker. I can't think of a weirder movie I've seen. So weird. I don't even want to explain it. If you want to know of its weirdness, you'll just have to see it for yourself. One user on imdb remarks, "Its [sic] like 'Leave it to Beaver' meets a soft porn movie."

Conclusion? Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in these movies by themselves, terrible. But put them together in Dumb and Dumber? Pure awesome.

Currently, I'm in the middle of Wise Guys. Now this is a classy movie. It really is pretty entertaining though. Can you really go wrong with Joe Piscopo? No way. The answer is, No Way.

How very Brecht-ian/Verfremdungseffekt-ian

The use of the flute, that is.

2 eProps to Maine

Maine rejects Real ID Act

The coolest snow thing ever. Ever.

Hold out until the end of my post to see the best snow thing ever.

So it snowed this weekend. No, really, as in snow on the ground. For days even. Not just the, "I think those might be snow flurries, but I don't know, it's hard to tell, it might just be rain." I was pretty sure we wouldn't really get a good snow this year, and I was ok with that, but I was wrong, and it turns out that I'm glad I was; I've really enjoyed having the snow.

Except for not getting to go to an out of town showing of An Inconvenient Truth. Oh well, better to have been safe and not venture out on the roads. Church was canceled on Sunday, but Nate and Esther had some neighborhood people over in the morning, so we went over there for some hymn singing and what not. Later in the day we went out in search of wabbits. To our surprise, only one was spotted. Mmm, also B made up some snow ice cream that was tasty-tasty.

And now...for the best snow thing ever! This was the start to my work day. How cool!

After months of reluctance,

I finally made the switch to new Blogger. My resistance to change shows. :)

Already the 17th day of the month?

So New Year's came and went. The par-tay we were going to go to got canceled the morning of due to hostess illness, so we all hung out as a family, which was fun, and learned the "wildly popular" catch phrase "at loggerheads."

Not a whole lot interesting has been going on. Work is very busy with a huge project that needs to be finished by the end of February. Scratch that, make it two huge projects to finish by the end of Feb.

Last weekend the fam went to a new restaurant in town. After dinner we checked out the lounge—who could pass up dollar draws and 25 cent pool? So dad bought us all a round of cold ones, and we played a few games. Not what I might have guessed my Friday night would be like, but sometimes those are the best ones.

It's been really cold here. The office is finally starting to be warm. On Monday I almost brought my coveralls to work to wear for the afternoon, but I decided to stick it out in a fleece jacket and gloves. Brrr. I think it will start warming tomorrow though.

I miss my brother b/c he had to go back to school. In his honor I used a Christmas gift from him last night and made a Dr. Pepper chicken. Pert tasty.

No 'mas, no more

As in, no Christmas, no more. 'Tis over. Oh wait, I have one more gathering this weekend, so I guess it's not quite over. Christmas weekend was very good. Incredibly busy and I'm incredibly tired still from late nights (ranging from 1:30-4 a.m.) basically every night for six nights with only one sleep-in morning. This old gal just can't take it anymore. It was a good time for seeing friends I don't get to see very often and lots of family too. Santa was generous too, and I am now well supplied with (among other things) The Office, Animaniacs (vol. 2), a chicken cooker thing that is both a good companion to my new meat thermometer and a beautiful stoneware, a dove bucket, and some new Palm games, written for me.

This week at the office has been fairly boring because I see almost no one all day; it's so empty here. Mostly I'm just trying to stay unfrozen enough for my fingers to work. Tuesday and yesterday it was so cold in here, so today I just gave up and wore a hooded sweatshirt. I figure it's not like anyone's going to see me anyway...

Happy New Year!

//edit
This is the state in which I've been spending most of my day—the face/neck warmer sweatshirt and the space heater at my back combo. I tell you, it is cold in here. B's trying to get me to instate a "Bring Your Cat to Work" day. It would be sort of nice to have a little warm cat body on my lap, but there are too many plants and nooks and crannies and probably other things that could go wrong, so I think I'll leave little Nibbert out of it.

Overheard in the North Newton post office

The conversation of two elderly women behind me:

#1: Let’s see, I need to choose my stamps, but which ones do they have?
#2: It looks like they have snowflakes and virgins.

Ah, yes, the old popular series of stamps: virgins!

Some funny signs around town

This one was actually just taken down. Now it says, "If your not first your last. Ricky Bobby." Love the grammar on that one.















Ok, even despite the missing "B," this is just weird. Is this something parents actually want their kids to get excited about? Think about it: If the sign read "Come swim with a half-naked old dude," would you really want to take your 5-year-old?

The recent sign I'm most disappointed about not documenting was a genuine winner from Long John Silver's. It was at the time that McDonald's (how do you make an already-possessive name possessive??) advertising was centered around the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and had signs up like, "Arrrrr, Pirates be ye here" and such. LJS is located across the street from McDonald's here and totally won the advertising war by putting up a marquee advertising simply, "Real Pirates Eat Here." Hilarious.

I bought a meat thermometer!

I cooked my first whole bird last night (well, once I crockpotted a pheasant; I didn't use a meat thermometer, but I probably should have). Is it strange to view this as some sort of life milestone? I made one of those beer butt chicken things, and it was tasty. I should perhaps get one of those stand things for the future. The little guy stood up for quite a while, but I guess he got a little tired after an hour and 45 minutes. I'm just glad not enough of him was hanging over the edge of the dish to start a grease fire or something. Especially since I left it unattended for a while to go do some Amnesty International holiday card action.

Life in the recent past has been sweet. This past extended weekend was spent in Colorado visiting Tine and skiing at Loveland. It was much fun. An interesting and yummy highlight was eating at Abyssinia, an Ethiopian restaurant (my first time to eat Ethiopian). Even though we were told that some of the things "you cannot eat!" I'd say we still had very delicious fitfit.

This weekend begins family Christmas get-togethers for me, and I am indeed looking forward to that.

Brrrrrrr

Yesterday when it was snowing, snow came into my office on either side of my window air conditioner. I noticed it at about 10:30 a.m. The picture below was taken at 4 p.m. One would think that snow inside should melt, but it didn't all day. Also please notice the proximity of the snow to the heat register, which was definitely operational. So much cold air was coming in around the air conditioner that it kept the snow despite the heat rising from the register. After 2 1/2 years, I finally got tired enough of this cold air on my back that I rotated my desk away from the windows.

Bob Saget overload!

You wouldn't think it would be possible in 2006 to have so much Bob Saget, but the other night I sure did: He first popped up on Law & Order: SVU and then was on Jay Leno right after I finished watching my tape of L & O (at least he didn't get arrested after the Tonight Show!

Thanksgiving was wonderful, just too short. I had been looking forward to Thanksgiving since August because it's the first break from work after Independence Day. And now it's all done. At least it's not too long until Christmas. And actually, we're planning to head to Colorado for a couple of days next week, so that will be another nice break.

I had an annual check-up at the optometrist earlier this week and told him of some increased problems I've been having with my vision. The solution? TWO different sets of glasses. Woo-hoo! I've just been waiting for the chance to drop $300 on eyewear. And the strange thing about it is that my vision tests in at 20/20... I think my brother had the best idea of all though: Get one of the devices the optometrist uses to determine your prescription and wear it around—then the possibilities are endless. I still have to chuckle when I think of that one. I like to imagine asking my optometrist about that possibility with a straight face.

This weekend will be a quiet one with not much going on. It will probably be a lazy one for me (since that's so much different from every other weekend...) because it's cold and snowy, and I like to hunker down under my covers when it's cold and snowy. But maybe I'll venture out for some Christmas shopping and to a Christmas vespers thing. Perhaps tomorrow evening I should continue my Bob Saget theme and watch 1 vs. 100, which I've never watched before. I recommend looking up Bob Saget on YouTube and watching the video of him rapping and also the video of him singing, "Danny Tanner is not gay." And always remember, "Bob Saget is a Dirty Bird."

Yum, Thanksgiving!

So this book almost made me cry in Border's on Saturday. It's a winner. Plus, local author and illustrator!

Well, it's starting to feel like "the holiday season," if you will. And I am very excited. We got things kicked off yesterday with a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt's house. I will continue on Wednesday and Thursday evenings with two more Thanksgiving dinners. Wonderful.

And in the true spirit of Christmas, I wish I could afford the Nintendo Wii...for myself. **cough, cough** Well? It sounds like so much fun. Maybe later.

Bethel VB and FB did not end up winning in their post-season play. However, if you haven't, you should check out the new athletics website, launched back in September, I believe. Love the drop-down menus.

One of my favorite uncles is down from Alaska, yay! He's coming to have supper and hang out tonight with us, and I am oh-so-excited. I'm really liking this yearly visit thing, although this second annual visit might be the last in the annual visit series since he's been coming for my cousin's hockey tournaments, and my cousin is a senior now. Hm. I don't want to go another ten or so years again until I see him.

I just wrapped up a huge project at work, so that feels great.

Well, in the words of a student-announce from Emily Kerbs today: Happy Tofurky day

Just an update

Afternoon, fair readers.

The last few weeks have been fun and busy. Work is really busy, and I feel like I'm not getting things done as quickly as I should be. It's also the busiest time of year for the church committee I'm on, so we've been having pretty regular meetings for that, lasting 2.5 hours each, which more or less eats up a whole evening.

Earlier this week, Brian and I met Emily (the friend I recently reconnected with) for supper, dessert, and a performance by Trevor Stewart. That was fun; although Emily and I have been hanging out about once a week, this was the first time she and Brian spent time together.

Last night Bethel's volleyball team dominated in the post-season tournament semifinal match; they looked awesome. We're going to the final match at Tabor tomorrow night. If we win, it will be BC's third win out of three matches against Tabor, who was the regular season conference champ and only lost three conference matches all season. I love watching volleyball, so I'm looking forward to that. Too bad it will be over after that. BC football has a possibility of becoming conference champ tomorrow too. It depends not only on them winning, but on another team losing, so we'll see. Either way, they've had a great season with only one conference loss so far.

Tonight we're going out for supper and to Borat, which will be the second viewing for me since I went with my brother on opening night. Ooo, but first, I'm going to a jewelry party (or par-tay, as I wrote it to her in an email today) with my mom, so I should start to think about shutting things down around here.

Hugs. And don't forget to watch Teaching Mrs. Tingle tomorrow! :)

Middle school fun

Nibbert's Halloween costume

Well, I got a collar sort of like this one for Nibbs, but she didn't wear it yesterday. This is due partly to the fact that I was meat canning for the whole evening and mostly to the fact that Nibbert is still really freaked out because of all the roofing commotion. She did wear her collar the day I got it for her, and she looks sufficiently ridiculous in it, especially when she's flying through the air chasing one of her mouse toys.

What my morning was like

I'm sleeping during my first "snooze" of the morning, so it's about 7 a.m. I hear "nyeaaaaa hee hee hee hee heeeeeee" (think something like a laugh you might hear on one of those Halloween sound effects CDs) and then a lot of other chatter and then some banging around. I think there must be a large group of kids/teens walking past my house, and I also for some reason wonder if they're trick-or-treating, but that's just an aside. Then Nibbert starts freaking out, running around the room, from window to window. This of course gets my attention a little more and I am fully awake and look out the window where Nibbert is at and, whoa, there are legs. I realize what is going on and I go get Nibbert and force her back onto the bed and try to pet and calm her, but the whole time she is struggling to get free and also struck with bouts of trembling. In conclusion, I think I speak for everyone in the house when I say, "It would have been REALLY nice to know that our house is getting re-roofed today!"

things and more things

One thing I like about xanga is its "currently" feature, so I'll just rip it right out of there and post it in here.


The birthday celebration mentioned in the last post was a blast. It’s funny (and fun) how sometimes you can feel like you’ve just been transported back to a different time in your life. A couple of times—especially when we were laughing at her dad’s jokes—it felt just like we were back in middle school, giggling like crazy. I had to think of one of our P.E. teachers and her nickname for us, which she always signed to us whenever she saw us: giggleboxes.

We did the homeless shelter again Monday night. It was crazy busy. There were 27 residents (one of those a 5-year-old and one a baby, but still—SO full!), and I felt like I was running around the whole time. Other times I’ve had more of a chance to sit and relax and talk to people, but it didn’t feel that way this time. I did color with the 5-year-old for a while. I do say, my seahorse picture turned out quite nicely. But that was fun; some interaction time with the kid and her mom. Real sweeties. Having that many people there (and, in my opinion, so many young females) brought about more drama, and there were several interpersonal conflicts, and I had to tell a couple of women’s rooms to be quiet and go to sleep several times. The place is maxed out, and they can’t accept any more people.

Ok, this fork cracks me up. It came with some “just add water and microwave” “Thai” dish that advertised “fork included!” It’s seriously so small and frail. Yeah, I think I’ll eat a bunch of spaghetti noodles with a fork that will most likely break under the weight of them...



Its size does, however, provide for some nifty magic tricks:

What a difference a day makes

Ah. **sighs with relief

No, life's problems weren't magically solved, but I'm feeling so much better today. Despite my best efforts to be down and out, yesterday just kept getting better and better. The goodness of the day was not limited to the two following things, but they definitely played a big role. I had a voicemail from the aforementioned middle school best friend asking me if I want to go out for her birthday tonight. Sweet. And when we talked later yesterday evening, it was for an hour. How fun. While I was talking to her I was outside of Barnes & Noble, and who would happen to come out but a friend from high school who I hadn't seen since high school. She ended up going back into B&N and coming back out later, so I got to talk to her too. This is like the month of random reconnection (I also saw someone I went to elementary school with in Victoria's Secret on Saturday). Anyway, here's to possibly rekindled friendships...at least I'm successful sometimes at that...

Totally depressing

Wow, I've really dumbed down since college. I've recently been reading through some of my papers and wondered how I came up with some of that stuff. Not to say they're really great or anything, but I wrote things I wouldn't think now. I used words in high school papers that I don't even know the definitions of today. Like I said, totally depressing. I really need to do more to keep my mind active, thinking more substantial thoughts. Maybe I should go back to school. Of course, I need to work to make my car payments, insurance payments, etc., etc. Eh, it's one of those days.

Wow, this is one of the saddest

things I've read in a while:
Lynx and Lamb: thirteen-year-old twins...and white nationalist singers

Chance encounter

I happened to run into my middle school best friend over the weekend—at a restaurant she will soon be doing the interior design for, no less. I hadn't seen her in seven and one half years, and before that had only seen her once in the three years previous (she moved out of town after our freshman year). Needless to say, people's appearance can change a lot in ten years' time, especially the ten years between freshman in high school and whatever it is we'd be classified as now. We were across the restaurant from each other, and I could only see her side profile, so after we'd sat down, I thought that it could be her, but I couldn't be sure. I kept looking at her, several times making awkward eye contact with the guy at her table, and after a while I was convinced. Or I was at least convinced that the gal looked similar and had the exact same mannerisms. Memory and recognition are so intriguing; I wasn't sure based on her side profile, but the way she gestured with her hands and the way she held and drank from her straw was just as I remembered. Isn't it odd what your mind holds onto? Well, she eventually turned my way and looked at me and pointed, and we exchanged waves. And then she came over and we chatted for a bit. What a bright, unexpected spot in the evening.

mm hm

I thought this was a great concluding two paragraphs to the article Dobbs: Are you a casualty of the class war? By Lou Dobbs, posted on cnn.com:

Perhaps one of our nation's leading business magazines would like to create something called a Forbes or Fortune 250 Million list, which would reveal the dire financial pressures that our public policies have produced for working men and women and their families. It's time for all of us to focus on that deep chasm we have allowed to open between the wealthiest Americans and the middle class and those who aspire to it.

Otherwise, there will be 250 million casualties in what has become nothing less than class warfare.

[In case it expires, find the full text here: Dobbs: Are you a casualty of the class war?]

Where did the weekend go...

Monday again. Where the weekend went: Saturday from 11am-7pm (with maybe a 45-minute break in there to watch an episode of *cough* onetreehill) I was cleaning. Glad that's finally done. I really wanted to go on a bike ride because the weather was great, but by the time I was done with my cleaning I was hungry and tired and feeling dirty...in a dirt/germ sort of way, you sickos. I felt more tired than I do after a 10-mile bike ride. And I still had to make my food for the potluck the next day. And Sunday was completely full too, mostly with a birthday party for my aunt, which took a good seven hours of my day.

Something to look forward to: Possibly going to Dallas at Thanksgiving. Mark (no idea if you read this), did you know that Dougs are going to be in Dallas over Thanksgiving? McDougles.

Most recent favorite discovery

Well, I actually discovered it a few months ago but at the time was too lazy to do anything with it. Glad I finally did.

pandora

Great for listening to music at work—especially since I've recently been mildly bored with my iTunes Library on Shuffle.

How's that?

Ok, you know the recently declassified docs that say that terrorism is a threat more now than ever? I wouldn't have thought those could be used to support what the U.S. has been up to in Iraq. But no, they found a way:

For Republicans, the excerpts of the document -- declassified under orders from President Bush on Tuesday -- are more evidence that Iraq is central to the war on terrorism and can't be abandoned without giving jihadists a crucial victory. (from cnn.com)

Eh? How is it not obvious that what we've been doing for the last five-ish years is the cause of an increased terror threat?

S&B GOLDEN CURRY SAUCE with VEGETABLES

I was just cleaning out a box in my office that has various food items in it. For whatever reason, there was a bag with a can of tuna and a box of curry (full name above); probably possible lunch items. I got to reading the back of the box of curry and wanted to share a few fun parts with you. P.S. It is a product of Japan; I got it at the Asian Market.

{MICROWAVE OVEN DIRECTIONS}
1. Remove pouch from box. Cut pouch open and pour contents into a microwave-safe casserole.
2. Cover and cook on High 1 MINUTE or until hot, and LET STAND 30 SECONDS. Carefully remove casserole from microwave and serve over food ( steamed rice or noodles etc. ) .

So...first I have to have a casserole? And then I put the whole casserole plus the curry sauce on top of rice or noodles?

{SUGGESTIONS}
Excellent when served over grilled or sauteed cubed beef and rice. Also good with roasted chicken or boiled shrimp. If you prefer, simply add any of the following ingredients:
*Noodles, mashed potatoes, tacos, hot dog...

Hm, just add tacos...never heard that one before. If it works on this box of curry, why not try selling “Tacos In A Box—Instant Tacos*” *just add: tacos

recent things (a numbered post)

1. Like I told my brother, I'm now lusting after a Sea•Doo. Words can't do justice to how much fun that thing was. Of course I've had to have my bubble burst more than once by people reminding me that not only would I have to buy the Sea•Doo, but I'd also need a trailer to pull it on and a vehicle with which to pull the trailer. Well, I guess I'll just keep hoping that my cousin continues to provide me with opportunities to ride hers...much like I keep hoping that my uncle (her dad) continues providing me with opportunities to stay at his time-share condos during ski season...
   
   ah, bliss
   


2. My cousin's kids are adorable. She and her husband rock pretty hardcore too.


3. Confession: I love to drink coffee out of paper cups that have "Java Jackets" and lids. So even though I bought a mug that would give me 10% off of each coffee purchase at the local coffee shop, not to mention be better for the environment and not wasteful, I will almost always get it in a to-go cup.


4. Saturday is the MCC Flat Lander, so I'm trying to get ready for it. I'm going to end up only doing the 35 mile route because I haven't been able to get as much training in as I would have liked. Before yesterday, I hadn't ridden in for sure over a week because of being sick. I still had to stop for nose blowing like every two miles yesterday which sucked, but I was able to do 17 miles, which is pretty good, considering the lack of training.

nd, cool treat, b&b

Last weekend, Brian and I met up with the Kaufmanns in Wichita for some good eats at Bella Luna Cafe and then a sweet, sweet deal that Grayce had found out about—free admittance to Joyland. Woo hoo! Joyland holds a special place in my (and my brother's) heart since our family used to go there about once a year when we were younger. I informed my bro of this awesomeness, and he and his friend Sarah partook as well. Now, it's been many years since Joyland really seemed to be a happening place, but it seemed very much in disrepair now. At least the last time I was there (about seven years ago maybe), the roller coaster was still operational. When we got to the parking lot, the only letters of the sign that were lit up were "ND." Sad. Poor Joyland. Not to say I didn't have a great time though. Mark and I have fond memories of the Wacky Shack, although it hasn't been awesome or scary for many years. When we were there on Saturday, it had to shut down because the cars kept getting stuck inside. But at least we got to go on it before that. Sadly, the other sweet ride Log Jam wasn't running either, but it might not have been too much fun to go on that night since you do get sort of wet. I thought it was pretty cool that the Sky Coaster thing was included in the free admission, even though I'd never have the guts to go on it; watching Mark and Sarah go on it was enough of a rush for me.

Recommendation: chocolate malt crunch from DQ. Mmm, deliciousness. And I don't even really like malts all that much. The "crunch" are those little cookie crumbles from the orgasmic center of DQ ice cream cakes.

Except for the fact that I'm sick, I'm really looking forward to tonight/tomorrow. My uncle rented out a bed & breakfast, and he and my aunt, my parents, Brian and I, and my cousin's family are going there this evening. And then tomorrow we're going to my uncle's lake. I hope it's warm enough to do some Sea•Doo-ing. I'm excited to see my cousin's kid, who was born last December, maybe? I haven't even seen him yet, but in his pictures, he's adorable.

Just watched this again last night

and was reminded how funny I find this part.

Pretty schweet

I saw this on Inside Edition yesterday; it was all filmed in one take.

Pork and Beans?

The other night at our kick-off picnic, I walked past a group of boys (young kids). A father of one of the kids was kneeling down in front of him trying to help him with his shorts zipper, which looked to be about halfway down. I don't know if he was trying to help him get it up or down, though, because I heard one of the other kids exclaim, "That sounds like it would HURT!" Couldn't help but wonder if there was a little Something About Mary moment going on there.

At D'Angelo's over lunch

[I approach the buffet from one room as a man approaches from another room; the restaurant is quite empty]

Man: You guys got that song in my head!
Me: Huh? [thoroughly puzzled]
Man: Are you with that guy singing "The Hustle"?
Me: Uh...I don't know, I'll have to check...
Man: Now I'm singing that song. He was singing the dang "Hustle"! That song's from the disco days...

[When I return to my seat, I find out that, yes, apparently I was "with that guy singing 'The Hustle.'"]

Remember the "Mansiere" or the "Bro"?

The other day I saw the oddest thing walking down Spencer. And by that I mean the oddest thing was walking, not I was walking and saw the oddest thing. There was this man walking wearing a white...tube top, I guess. It reminded me of the Mansiere/Bro, except it wasn't covering his nipples, so it wasn't really functioning as such.

Tourism-drawing rooster killed by dog

[[ok, what happened isn't really funny, but this reads pretty funny...]]

SCIO, Ore. (AP) — Big Red, a rooster who drew tourists with his daily stroll down Main Street, died this week after getting mauled by a dog.

The Rhode Island Red was attacked Tuesday while walking to his home at the Scio Feed and Country Store in this town of about 700 people. The dog leaped through the open window of a parked car and pounced on the rooster, said Marian Heikkila, who had cared for the bird.

Heikkila said Big Red staggered for several steps before collapsing at the front door of a veterinarian’s office. The cause of death was broken ribs and internal bleeding, the Albany Democrat-Herald reported.

“I just said ‘Oh Red,’ and he took a couple of breaths and died, and then everyone started crying,” Heikkila said.

So it's been a while

In the past month or so, I've...spent a week at Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp and turned 25. In fact, I turned 25 at RMMC. Gosh, I guess I haven't done a whole heck of a lot... Yeah, took the youth group on a service trip to RMMC a couple of weeks ago. We did a lot of painting (the main lodge, if you're familiar with the camp), split and stacked wood, and dug a trench for a propane line. It was good times. The group was good and without drama (yay!). It was good to be away from work and home for a while but also good to get back. On our day off from working, we went rafting on the Ark. It was fun but not quite as exciting as I expected. The trip also marked my last official duty as youth leader! A highlight of the summer occurred soon after returning from Colo.—the party at the Waltners'. It was great to see everyone there. On the 4th, we went on a historic tour of Newton, which was quite interesting. I was not aware of the Chisholm Trail stagecoach ruts that are very near to my house. I didn't blow anything up for the 4th, but my brother had some unique items to explode, so that made for good times. Also saw the Newton show, which did not disappoint. This last weekend had a couple of belated birthday celebrations—took off Friday afternoon for shopping and then ate at P.F. Chang's, and on Saturday had a family celebration at Passage to India. And Cold Stone twice. Mmmmmmm. Ok, well, looking forward to the wedding at the end of the month, heading out to Colo. another time, and probably counseling at camp.

sweet flicks

{{EDIT: In a [self-created] lull at work, I decided to just go ahead and make a blog listing of movies I'm watching. If you're interested, find it here (movie list).}}

Ok, now that I feel some level of closure with that other situation, I'm ready to talk about two kick a$$ movies I saw last weekend.

• Lords of Dogtown — It might have something to do with this longtime fascination with skateboarding that I have, but I LOVED this movie. I thought it was so awesome. Now I want to take skateboarding lessons and see the related documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys.
• Cars — Packed with celebrity voices, one of the story lines this movie contains (pertaining to the Insterstate system) I found particularly interesting and, I thought, was unexpected. Plus, it includes a sweet one-line commentary on SUVs at the end. What does this movie leave me wanting to do, you ask? Take a trip (or two) covering all of Route 66.

Check 'em out!

<3 the family

In spite of everything (or maybe because of everything) this past week, I've had some really good times. I'm mostly talking about some really good family times. A death in the family creates this situation where all of a sudden you're spending a lot of time with relatives, some of whom you rarely see and when you do, it's during a several-hour reunion where there's a lot going on. Our time together during the last week was very precious, including tears and laughter. With some of them, I feel like I have this whole new bond. I certainly don't wish it would have happened this way, but nevertheless, I'm glad that part of this past week happened.

sad news

On Friday afternoon (June 9), my aunt died. She was my dad's younger sister and was diagnosed with breast cancer about three years ago. Hospice had been called in a couple of weeks ago when it was determined that she could no longer receive treatment. At the beginning of last week, doctors could tell that she didn't have much longer; her lungs were beginning to fill with fluid. Thursday afternoon, she took a turn for the worse and stopped really responding (at least with words). I and my parents spent Thursday evening at her house with her, my uncle, several other family members, and some of her friends; I feel so grateful for this time that I could be with all of them. Early Friday morning, she became very quiet and her breathing became very shallow; they discontinued giving her morphine. By Friday afternoon, she was gone. A lot of us have shed a lot of tears already, and it's difficult to yet imagine when all the tears might be cried out. She was one of the sweetest people ever and we'll all miss her greatly.

farewell today
travel on now
be on your way

go safely there
never worry
never care
beyond this day

farewell tonight
to all joy and to all delight
go well and go peacefully
we can't keep your majesty
be on your way

make ready for the last King of May
make a cardboard crown for him
make your voices one
praise a crazy mother's son
who loved his life
who loved his life

farewell today
travel on now
be on your way
can't bear the very thought
that we could keep your majesty
be on your way

make ready for the last King of May
make a hole in the crowd for him
raise your voices up
lift your loving cups
to his long life
to his long life

make ready for the last King of May
make a hole in the sky for him
raise your voices up
drink your loving cups
to his long life
to his long life

—King of May, Natalie Merchant

highlights

Ok, now that I've embarrassed myself with the last post (as if you guys didn't already know I'm lame like that...), here's a post of my highlights from the last few weeks:

• several diet coke/mentos fountains a couple of weeks ago


• a dry ice explosion in a front yard...obliterating grass and inverting the blown off top of a pop bottle


• the guess who concert last weekend


• a rockin' good time at newell's with a fun group of people when tine, lisa, and nick were in town


• discovering tequiza


• finally seeing an anvil shoot...it was awesome


• and probably the biggest highlight...my new bike! (pictured below)

lame tv post

1. I rented the first disc of the first season of laguna beach over the weekend. No matter what anyone else says, it doesn't hold a candle to the o.c.


2. I can't believe the series finale of everwood is on tonight. That's my favorite show. CW made a grave mistake canceling it. And I can't believe they're bringing back 7th heaven. wtf? Why did they have this 2-month long "Good-bye to the Camdens" ridiculousness and then bring it back? The only mention of everwood's series finale was at the end of last week's episode. That's it! I already hate CW. Except for one tree hill...

p.s. I love that spellcheck suggests "overdose" for "everwood."

I'm so excited!

Perfect for a consumer like me

I am definitely a consumer who likes to try new things. That's probably a reason candy sells so well to me...ok, I really just like it also. But they do a good job coming up with inventive NEW! variations on a theme. Come on, who can resist the inside out Reese's Cup? Seriously. Anyway, though I've been this type of consumer for the product I am about to tell you for a long time, but I just realized last night that it is the perfect product for a consumer like me: toothpaste. Think about it: there's always some new flavor or claim it makes, but it's not bad for you (like candy)—it's actually good for you, and you're never going to stop using it, so you don't have to feel bad buying new boxes of it when your other tubes aren't even used up yet. Like last night—I didn't need new toothpaste, but I started looking at it and ended up buying two boxes. Doesn't this flava flav sound good: Crest Lemon Ice? And doesn't this sound intriguing: Colgate Oxygen? Yeah, I thought so too.

Break food doubling as Brian's birthday cake

(Leah, if you still read this, does this look semi-familiar? Though, this time it is supposed to be a cat. I realized this is my 3rd animal-shaped cake.)

Observe a moment of silence

This weekend I lost my rearview mirror in a tragic high five accident.

Random commentary my boss found

Radical Hollywood Star Inspires College Play

(College = Bethel.)
It's one of those things that hilarious...in a sad, sad sort of way.

[In case it expires, find the full text here: Radical Hollywood Star Inspires College Play]

just plain irksome

I've realized that it's not when someone disagrees with me that gets me, it's when that person has a completely illogical way of arriving at his/her opinion. It drives me nuts. Mostly because I can't even begin to think about how to talk about it with that person. I would have much easier time with someone simply telling me, "What you're doing offends me morally," than that person saying s/he doesn't like it for some other reason that makes no logical sense and also for some reason does not apply to another person engaging in the same behavior.

There. There's my vague rant/vent. ... vagrant vent...

Bethel has a new president!

Barry C. Bartel

Restaurant commentaries

I was racking my brain (oops, accidentally typed "brian," which would have had a completely different meaning all together...) for something semi-interesting to post since it's been a while now, and I realized, "Wow, I ate at a lot of restaurants this weekend." Here's a review:

The Breadbasket (Newton): I'm sad to say that I think the tastiness factor of the BB has gone down. My verenike and gravy were not as flavorful as I remembered. :( They have added bohne berrogi, which is cool, but the sauce is more like sweetened condensed milk than what I think of as true bohne berrogi sauce. [ :( #2 ] They still have the most kick-ass horseradish sauce though.

Great Wall (Hutchinson): We chose it for its Mongolian BBQ, and it was tasty. And also well-priced. You can eat from the full Chinese hot buffet and/or the Mongolian BBQ (an all-you-can-eat Mongolian BBQ) for supper for $7.99. Lunch is $6.25. I did only one plate of Mongolian BBQ and, while the selection is not quite that of the Mong. BBQ I've been to in KC, I thought the taste was just as good.

Italian Garden (Wichita): I've eaten at this restaurant a number of times, and I continue to think it's an excellent value. A meal of lasagna (of which I took half home and had for supper the next night) that comes with cooked carrots and snap peas, salad, and breadsticks costs $6.25, I think. They make their own pasta, and the breadsticks are my favorite breadsticks. There are at least two locations, and I prefer the atmosphere of the one on 21st Street.

Which of your teachers are always with you?

My first grade teacher speaks to me nearly every day—in my mind. Almost any time I am walking down stairs, I hear her say, "Never walk down stairs with your hands in your pockets." Because, obviously, if you tripped, you'd be screwed and you'd probably smash your face all up at the bottom. It's a common sense thing, but her face speaking those words always pops into my mind when I'm on the staircase, especially when I have my hands in my pockets (which I then promptly remove). Funny, because she wasn't even particularly one of my favorite teachers.

Naked Sunday!

From: Faith Church
Subject: No Air Conditioning on Sunday

We just learned that the installation of the new air conditioners will not be finished by this Sunday. Dress accordingly.

[I guess this goes along right nicely with Good Friday...it's as if the celebration has been extended by divine intervention.]

.

Students:

Sometime last night, significant vandalism occurred in Haury. A fire extinguisher was released in the stairwell near faculty offices (the north side). Needless to say, it is everywhere! In addition to that, some of the new plastic convo and chapel sign holders were broken. Lastly, these vandals threw a bicycle into Patty Shelly's window and broke it.

Impressions of Mennonite Disaster Service

See also Impressions of New Orleans

As mentioned below, I spent a week with Mennonite Disaster Service working on hurricane/flood cleanup in New Orleans. One of the reasons it ranks up there as one of the best experiences of my life is due to MDS. MDS is really quite a unique organization since it involves/is supported by so many different varieties of Mennonites/Anabaptists. Our group was made up of 15 college students and three staff members. The other groups in our unit for that week were a group made up mostly of middle-aged couples from Eden Mennonite Church and a group of seven new order Amish young men, as well as their sponsor/driver, a 43-year-old former Amish man. Our leaders were Mennonites from Canada and Colorado, and also a Weaverland Conference couple from Pennsylvania. What a great mix of people! It was so fun to watch all of the groups come together as one, and we had a blast together. A couple of nights, the Amish guys and the college kids went down to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, and I heard lots of memories shared from the college students in our room at night and on the van ride home about the great time they had with the Amish guys. The best new friendships I made were with Dan (of the Weaverland Conference couple) and Lister (the sponsor/driver for the Amish group).

Some might say that MDS is not as organized as it could be. However, I enjoyed this more relaxed style. Not to say that our days were relaxing though! We put in full 8- to 9-hour days of manual labor. The “relaxed style” I was referring to is that in the mornings, everyone would sort of be in charge of assigning him/herself to a work group, you might not know what tools are going to which work site, etc. So the feel was both relaxed and hardworking at the same time. We also had a lot of fun at our work sites. The work may have been hard and sometimes gross and always dirty, but we all enjoyed each other. Some of the Amish guys had volunteered with another Christian organization and commented that they strongly preferred working with MDS. Apparently with this other organization, you are treated more like an employee—hours are incredibly strict and you are expected to get a certain amount of work done each day. You might get to socialize for a bit after supper, but people are expected to be in bed early, and there is a “lights out.” Not so with MDS! :) I mean, we were respectful of a 10:30 quiet time, but that was not really much of a problem since we were all pretty tuckered out after a day’s work, and the next day would begin again in just a few hours.

Anyway, I loved working with MDS and hope to do it again when I can. I would also love to “retire” into MDS.

See also Impressions of New Orleans

Impressions of New Orleans

See also Impressions of Mennonite Disaster Service

[I typed this up last week and am finally getting around to posting it.] Late Saturday (March 25) I returned from a week long trip to New Orleans, doing hurricane/flood clean-up with Mennonite Disaster Service. It was one of those things that makes my “best things I’ve done in my life” list. Here are some of my impressions of the city as of March 2006.

It’s difficult to believe that the hurricane was seven months ago. One month ago would maybe be believable. Can you believe that much of the city still does not have electricity? Many intersections without stoplights; many streets without streetlights. Neighborhoods are pitch black at night. If you can still call them neighborhoods. Much of the city is pretty much a ghost town. The neighborhoods in which we stayed and worked were mostly devoid of people; sort of eerie, really. You can understand why many people are afraid to stay in their paper-thin FEMA trailers...on streets with no one else around and that remain unlit after the sun goes down. Would you believe that many of the houses have not even been entered except for by search and rescue teams? Most of the apartments and houses our group entered were just as they had been left seven months prior...tables set for family meals, laundry in the washing machine, dogs (now no longer living, of course) shut into a garage where I’m sure the owners believed they would be safe. Those particular owners hadn’t even been inside to find out if their dogs had made it out or not; students in our group had to inform the husband. His response was, “Don’t tell my wife.” We would go into an apartment or a house, and belongings would look fairly normal but nothing was. Couches and carpets are still seven months later wet from flood waters. Houses have been shut up this long and the air there is so humid that nothing has had the chance to dry out. Suddenly, people’s entire possessions become trash. An entire city’s possessions out on the curb. Where will it even all be dumped? Virtually nothing can be kept because it is all covered in mold. Mold climbs the walls from floor to ceiling in many cases. It all has to go. So we would enter these houses, discard of all of their belongings, tear out their floors/ceilings/walls, and eight hours to two and a half days later, all that is left is a shell of a house. Will people even be able to come back and rebuild? Will the mold removal chemicals work well enough on the studs that houses will be safe to live in once rebuilt?

A whole other factor all together is the lower 9th ward. This area lies right below one of the main levee breaks and is also a poorer section of the city. This was the first time I’d heard the rumor that the government blew up the levee here in order to divert the water away from the French Quarter and the Garden District. I don’t subscribe to this belief, but some people definitely do. This area is more or less flattened. Others observed that it looks like tornado damage, except that many trees are still standing and the area of damage is larger. Houses were washed clean off of their foundations. You can see the foundations but can’t spot the houses. The image that comes immediately to mind when I think of my tour through the lower 9th ward is of a house that was picked up off of its foundation and some time later set back down on it. But between the house and its foundation is an upside down pickup truck. The afternoon we were there, we saw search and rescue teams and dogs. As we came back by that location later, there were many flashing lights. That evening at a restaurant, the tv news reported that the body of a child had been found that afternoon in the lower 9th.

See also Impressions of Mennonite Disaster Service

Fun Amish factoid

When learning about the differences between new order and old order Amish at one point last week, a new order Amish guy told us that it is not uncommon for the woman in an old order couple to be pregnant before the couple got married. I found that interesting because it is not what I would have guessed.

Buh-bye

Well, I'm off to New Orleans for a week of service with MDS / accompanying the spring break service trip. See you, my faithful readers, upon my return.

Moment today I most felt like a dumbass

So around my place of employment you notice if someone's wearing a suit because, aside from one or two key people, no one really does—unless it's board meeting time. Then suits come out of the woodwork. Or wherever it is they've been hiding...along with the "good" cafeteria food. And it is board meeting time right now. I was just coming back from lunch, and a guy who works here was coming in my direction from across campus...wearing a suit. As I pass him I say/laugh in that voice that is both talking and knowingly laughing, "I take it you must have an interaction with the board today." Response: "Nope. Funeral." So that puts the ol' kibosh on the talk/laugh pretty quickly.

{Sidenote: I ran spellcheck on this post and for "dumbass" it suggested "Dempsey" ... Dale Dempsey, anyone?}

The underlying thing I want to underscore is don't underestimate this product for your underarms, though it seems underpublicized

I've always been an antiperspirant kind of gal (as opposed to a deodorant kind of gal). I know all of the "health risks" of the aluminum in antiperspirant are still disputed and that we're all exposed to aluminum in other forms probably daily, but it can't hurt to cut it out where you can, right? So the other day I was at Alco (!!) browsing the deodorant/antiperspirant section, though I was in no need of buying more, and I saw this: Adidas Absorbent-Deo Wetness Control. It's a deodorant that is aluminum free, seems to claim it uses some sort of cotton technology, and contends that it works as well as antiperspirant. Always one to be drawn in by advertising, I thought I might as well give it a try. It's only day four of using the product, but I would like to give it my two thumbs up. So far, it does seem to work as well as the antiperspirant I had been using. I recommend it. And if you're the type who likes to have all of your brands match, while I'm at it, I'll also recommend the Adidas Rev II windpants. They are the best windpants ever. I have two pairs.

**SPECIAL BONUS**
Other fun words beginning with "under"

• underbred
• underbrim
• undercard
• undercoat
• undercool
• underdrawers
• underling
• undersexed
• underskirt
• understrapper
• underthrust

Sobering thought

So here's something fun: A marquee of a video rental store in town advertises, "Now Hiring Managers $30-35K First Year." Hm, maybe I should double my salary and work as a video store manager...

Naming sex offenders

[This is about the same person I mentioned in this previous post. By the way, the Xanga mentioned has since been shut down by its owner.]

The local paper ran a front page story about this kid, naming him and his mother, who sits on the school board. There were definitely mixed responses, from ardent applause to fervid reproach. I can't decide whether I think this was appropriate; I'm curious to hear the opinion of someone who has worked with victims. The information is already out there in the public sphere—you can easily do an online search of sex offenders in your city or county or by name, so it's not like the paper exposed something that couldn't already be known. I read two signed responses from later in the week: one from the editorial board and one from a rape-crisis counselor, both supporting the decision. The editorial board cited the relevancy of the mother's school board position, keeping its readers safe, and reporting public record. The rape-crisis counselor corroborated the "keeping other people safe" opinion.

I don't think the paper did anything illegal, but I question at least its consistency. A search on KBI's website results in 47 matches for the city, 58 for the county. Why is this one offender picked out and not the others? The only other time I remember a sex offender being named in the paper (other than in the Daily Record) was when there was one whom the state had failed to register. Or he had failed to register or whatever the proper steps are. I might be completely wrong, but my feeling is that this high school student is perhaps less of an immediate threat to others because he is 16. No, teenagers' parents do not know where they are all the time, what they are doing all of the time, but at least they have more accountability to someone than adults. I don't know. Opinions?

Verification of a legend

Everyone remember the story of one of the most famous Bethel pranks ever—where some guys attached a chain and cable to a cop's rear axle and also to a tree and then sped by honking and the cop took off after them and dropped his rear axle? Well, last night, someone I know admitted to being one of those guys. Interesting.

Too funny

Good reason to check out what you agree to do: Illinois governor didn't know "Daily Show" was a comedy spoof of the news

Don't understand

This may seem related to the last post—which it is—but the last post isn't what got me thinking about it. What got me thinking about it is there's a student at the high school who recently became a registered sex offender and someone, tastelessly, made a Xanga about it, which is how it came to my attention (I did check the registered list, and that was accurate). That, and the local news seemingly every night. People often wonder, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" That's a tough question to deal with, but what I really can't understand is, "Why do bad things happen to children?" And at the hands of adults? Not just how can an adult do such things to a child, but why can that happen? No human deserves to have another harm him, but with children it's even worse. Children are supposed to be protected, supposed to be taken care of. Why is it that some children have to have scalding water poured on them? Why is it that some children die at the hands of the adults in their lives? I wonder how many fewer problems the world would have if no child were ever mistreated.

Horrible world news

This was brought to my attention today. I had not before heard of this situation or this man. Actually, I think I've heard of the Lord's Resistance Army before but perhaps had not heard stories??

Old Horrors, Young Victims

I find myself surprised that the children can even stay safe on their daily commutes.

Saturday night snippet

Saturday night Brian and I went out to eat. It was one of those places where they mix stuff with oil on a plate and you get bread to dip into it. Here is the conversation that went along with that.

Waitress: [puts stuff onto plate for mixing with oil]
Brian: What are those granules?
Waitress: [makes high squeaky noise] Everyone must be reading their dictionaries today! Everyone's saying words I've never heard of before like that.
Brian: Granules?
Waitress: Yeah, that. And someone else asked for his invoice.

So I wasn't too sure about her at first, but she was really a very good waitress.

Strrrrrrrrrretch

My place of employment recently began offering (FREE!) Yoga once a week over the lunch hour. Yoga has been one of those things that I've been curious about but—let's face it—too cheap to actually sign up for. This is a sweet way to try it out. I've found that I like it and feel nicely relaxed afterward. Ahh. Yay, Bethel!

February 14

One thing that's always constant for me for Valentine's Days is chocolate. Being a lover of chocolate, I love <3 Day, and I love those chocolate hearts that Dove puts out. They have little messages on the inside, and one of those messages affirms my first sentence: "Chocolate. Always your valentine." So true, so true.

Here are some other Dove messages for you to daydream about:
"Think with your heart, not with your head."
"Remember your first crush."

Feeling accomplished

So...I can't believe someone from my college graduating class is a bank president. Seriously. Makes me feel good about where I am in life. Good job, self. Usually I'm content with where I am, but there are those times when I'm not. Not that it's not within my power to change some of those things.

Is this possibly for real??

According to aides, in his State of the Union address tonight, W "will propose long-term plans to promote alternative energy sources and take on an issue his critics say he has largely ignored for five years: the rising cost of health care."

Dare I hope??

Bush to aim speech at 'kitchen table' issues

Effective advertising?

Unfortunately, I won't remember the commercial exactly as it is, but here's my shot at it...

Last night I saw a McDonald's commercial that was, I think, for the Big Mac. There's a guy sitting down to eat a Big Mac, and he has a lot of sauces on the table with him, but then he takes a bite of the Big Mac and makes a pleased sound. Then the narrator's voice says, "Big Macs are so tasty, you won't need any of your _________." (When I first heard it, I thought maybe he said "sauces," but I think he actually said, "salsas.") Then it goes to a logo screen that includes two phrases in Spanish (none in English). I found myself sort of offended by the commercial. It seems obvious that it was aimed at Hispanics/Latinos (not sure here what the correct categorization should be), which isn't what I have a problem with, but it seemed to really be stereotyping in not a good way. Like people of that culture have to have salsa on everything or something. Maybe I shouldn't be offended, I don't know.

Here are two articles about advertising aimed at Hispanic consumers:
Latinos Taste the U.S. Market - Advertising Seeks Hispanic Consumers
Marketing Latin Style You can use the login minnie@mouse.com for this one or try porky@pig.com or bugmenot if you want.

Journalist deaths in Iraq

No surprise that this morning Good Morning America was all about wounded ABC journalists Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt, who were victims of a roadside bomb in Iraq Monday morning. An interesting statistic they also showed was the number of journalist deaths during the current Iraq war (since March 2003) compared to the number of journalist deaths over the entire course of the Vietnam war (1955-1975).

• Iraq War: 79
• Vietnam War: 63

Is it as simple as numerical statistics? Probably not. Perhaps many more journalists are covering the Iraq war. Perhaps they're doing increasingly dangerous reporting. Perhaps not many journalists even went to cover the Vietnam war until the later years. I really don't know. But the numbers are still very striking. Divided out, that's about 26.3 journalist deaths per year for Iraq, compared to 3.1 journalist deaths per year for Vietnam.

This article from September 2005 had slightly different figures: Iraq: more journalists killed "than during Vietnam war".

If links have expired, please see full texts at wounded ABC journalists and journalist deaths: Iraq vs. Vietnam

Ah, Committees

If you grew up Mennonite (or perhaps other denominations also; I just can't speak to those), you grew up hearing jokes about church committees. How many committees does it take to...? Why can't [insert task here] ever get done at church? And the like. So I am now one of these committee members and have been for a year or so. I experienced some of this "committee ridiculousness" earlier this week. My committee met because we had two tasks to complete. After an hour and a lot of discussing and reading of the bylaws, we determined that in reality, we had no tasks to complete. Apparently one of our supposed tasks is really the duty of another committee, so we punted it to them. Remind me again, why are there jokes about committees making everything take longer?

Drive-thru...literally

So I was in Bluffton, Ohio, around new year's for a wedding, and I saw one of the most comical things I've seen in a while. Now, I'm a bit confused about Ohio's liquor laws (e.g., what's a state liquor store? and why can only a state liquor store sell jack daniel's?), but as I understand it, only 3.2% can be sold in Bluffton, but harder stuff can be sold elsewhere in the state. Which is why there are two liquor stores right outside city limits, I suppose. I've seen drive-thru liquor stores before, but the ones I've seen are more like a McDonald's drive-thru, you know, with a window and all. One in Bluffton, on the other hand, is a true drive-thru, like the one in the picture below. By the way, as far as I can figure out, the one pictured is in Dayton, Ohio. Only in Ohio, I guess (I mean, probably not; I just haven't had the fortune to see them elsewhere).

Poverty2: hitting closer to home

So our church got on board with staffing the homeless shelter in town for a week—or is it half of a week?—every quarter (refer to Poverty post). Yay, church! My first overnight stay is next Monday, so I went to a training session a couple of days ago. My world was shaken a bit there: one of the guys staying there was a camper at Camp Mennoscah. And I mean a camper when I was a counselor or staff member, not a fellow camper of mine. I tried to place his age, remembering other campers who attended with him, and I came up with that he's at least two grades younger than my brother. That puts his maximum age at about 18 or 19. It really hit me, perhaps one of the saddest realizations I've experienced. And it's not that his family's staying there; he's all by himself. This is a "kid" I have had several longer conversations with in my past. For some reason, the two of us sort of hit it off at least one summer, if not more (let's face it—I was rarely the popular counselor or staff member, so I tend to remember those few kids I made connections with). When I talked to him the other night, it appeared that he may not even remember Camp Mennoscah, and he went there when he was somewhere in the age range of 7th-10th grades, for more than one year. I can't even imagine what's gone on in his life between then and now; he seemed so incoherent and scattered. That night, I felt the saddest I've felt in a while.

An unintended byproduct of controversy

What's interesting about the recent controversy surrounding James Frey and his book A Million Little Pieces is that it's getting such widespread publicity that even more people will now want to read it, if for no other reason than out of curiosity. I know I'm curious.

Some people should just quit airing their opinions

From Hugo Chavez to Ariel Sharon, no one escapes the criticism of Pat Robertson.

If links have expired, please see full texts at Robertson vs. Chavez and Robertson vs. Sharon

'Tis the season

A little something irreverent for Christmastime: Vintage21 Jesus videos. Turn up your speakers.

In keeping with the theme of the last post, who came first: naked women or the Grinch?

When you get done shopping at 10:20 pm, there aren't a lot of options for supper if you're not in the mood for McDonald's or Taco Tico or a nicer sit-down place. So we ended up at Hooters. This is not a common default choice; the last and only other time I was there was my sophomore year of high school. The food was ok, the music was too loud, but my real complaint is the waitresses were wearing practically nothing! No, just kidding, my real complaint is that we got crappy service. As in, no asking if I wanted my water refilled, no checking how our meals were, no smile. It's true that I'm not going to give you a better tip if you flirt with my boyfriend like I saw you and other waitresses doing at tables of all males, but it's not true that I'm not going to give you a good tip just because I'm a female and it's Hooters. I'm going to give you a decent tip if you provide decent service.

New twist on the ol' chicken/egg question

Which came first: Santa Claus or naked women?

According to Ron Raffonelli, 65, of Cranston, R.I., Santa Claus did (see story about a Paris Hilton Christmas display on cnn.com).

Any other opinions out there?

Quotation: from Middlesex

I found this quotation from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides interesting:

"Everyone struggles against dispair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It's the thing that lets us say good-bye" (524).

The thing that lets us say good-bye. In my mind, it usually takes two parties to say good-bye. Is dispair winning in both parties, just the one leaving (the context of this quotation involved a dying person), or just the one who has to let the leaving one go?

Thoughts? Agree or disagree with the quotation? I'm not sure if I fully understand it, but I found it interesting to think about.

Copy editor's day off

I'd just like to say that in the four CNN.com articles I've read this morning, I've found three errors. For whatever reason, errors in the media make me giggle (not to say that I never make my own errors; those don't make me giggle.).

"...added Alex McLeod, 16, who lives three houses down on the opposite side of the three-lined street..."

"The 'Image' mosaic with a flowered peace symbol in Central Park."
It's actually the "Imagine" mosaic. This error is even funnier because it's a caption to a picture of the "Imagine" mosaic, which very centrally has the word "Imagine."

"Many fans will remember Lennon at the 'Imagine' mosaic—named after one of his most famous songs—that is the centerpiece of 'Strawberry Fields' (named in honor of another of his songs), a section of Central Park across the apartment where Lennon lived with his wife, Yoko Ono."
Wow, that must be a pretty large apartment in order to contain Central Park, or at the very least, a section of it.

It really IS Christmas

Gosh I hope my modmates read this because I think it's very important for them to know that A Very Brady Christmas will be airing on FOX this Saturday at 1pm CST. Will Bobby reveal to his family that he dropped out of school to race cars? Will Carol EVER see Cindy as a grown woman and not her little girl? And perhaps most important of all, will Mike survive the building collapse?? Oh, the suspense.

My work day = a baker's dozen hours

I've been at work for the last 13 hours. Well, I did leave for lunch, but does that really count? On the plus side of things (aside from finally (mostly) finishing a huge project—you BC alums better appreciate when you're reading your new Context magazine), I did discover that two Eminem CDs + one extra song from a third CD will pretty much exactly get me through three hours of work. It's good music to work to...just not so much during regular business hours, so it must be reserved for post-5 o'clock.

Good-bye

I've had to say good-bye to too many people recently. Not as in the death sense, just the see you later sense. But still, the see you A LOT later sense. One person, will I ever see her again? Another, when will be the next time? I feel lucky to have seen you four times in the last ten years. That's sad. I think we will never live near each other. I wish we would. Instead, we live $600 away from each other.

Today was not one of the best days of my life

Today was not one of the best days of my life. And neither will tomorrow be. I hate good-byes.

The church and the trial OR privacy and the media

Last night, I felt sort of down. So my church has been affected by a recent criminal trial. Two people who were recently tried and convicted of approximately 30 counts each. These two people are members of my church. I think the fact that several of the charges had to do with abuse of people affects the church more than if they were only charges of things like tax evasion or insurance fraud. Our church had a processing meeting last night. People could talk about their feelings, and we tried to come up with the answers to, "What do we do now?" All of that is not what got me down last night. Oddly, perhaps, what did make me feel sort of hopeless about humanity is an announcement our pastor gave at the beginning of the meeting. He said that an area tv station had received an anonymous tip from someone letting them know about the meeting. The camera crew and an anchor were outside the door right then. Obviously, I cannot know that it was a congregation person who called the tv station...but it's not like the meeting was advertised in the newspaper or something. It definitely could have a case where such-and-such church member told such-and-such non-church member and that's how it ended up getting to the media. If it came from a church member, that would make me sad.

This was an interesting situation to come up for me at this time. A couple of Sundays ago, I was on a panel of professionals from our church to talk to a Mennonite History class about how being Mennonite affects the work we do. [Side note: I was the communications professional from the church—whoa, weird...am I old enough to be that?] One thing I mentioned was that at the time I was looking for a job, it came down to a decision between my current job and a job as a newspaper reporter. The reason I was aware of at the time for not taking the reporter job was that it didn't fit my personality as well as what I do do. Ok, yes, I was somewhat afraid to step out and do those things that I'm not all that comfortable doing, but I love my job now, so that's worth quite a bit too. Anyway, I mentioned at the panel presentation that I didn't know exactly why being a newspaper reporter didn't fit in all that well for me with being Mennonite, but that I thought it related somehow. And I don't know that it doesn't fit in with the theology of Mennonitism—it's probably more of a cultural thing...not being intrusive or something. So it was interesting to me that my experience last night at my church reinforced my occupational decision.

Now for an admission: Just because I don't want to be the one being intrusive and finding out about those things that perhaps should be allowed to be private doesn't mean that I'm not one of the people reading those "juicy" stories. I'm just as curious as the next guy. Ah, hypocrisy.

In addition to the somber feelings, I also felt very proud of our church for having the meeting. I'm not a fan of things being swept under the rug or conveniently ignored. I'm proud that the response wasn't just "pray for them that God will show them their evil ways." I'm proud that some people want to confront them, want to talk to them about what is seen as guilt. I'm proud that people are struggling with this—what to feel, what to do. I'm proud that people admit they don't have the answers.

Poverty

So I've been attending our church's Wednesday night study of poverty. The text we've used is What Every Church Member Should Know About Poverty by Bill Ehlig and Ruby K. Payne. My thoughts about the text are lukewarm, but the discussion has been interesting. Things that have caught my attention the most from the study:

• Nearly 50% of students in the Newton schools receive free or reduced school lunches (I think the actual figure is 48%, with one school coming in at 60%). I know some of those instances might reflect situational poverty rather than generational poverty, but half of the students. Wow. I'm not sure what the stipulations are for receiving free/reduced lunches. I know I received reduced for a while in 5th grade after my dad was laid off.


• There are currently 50 kids in Newton? Harvey County? waiting for a match with Big Brothers/Big Sisters.


• Publicity hasn't even gone out yet that Habitat for Humanity in Harvey County will soon be accepting applications again. However, Habitat has recently received 20 inquiries for applications.

What to do? Where to start? How to get involved? Last night at the study, I got to thinking about how I'm so immersed in my little Bethel world—work, lectures, leisure time with other Bethel/former Bethel folk. Yeah, I do the little things from the list of suggested actions of how to get involved with people in poverty. And I mean, the little things. Things like talking with my cashiers at discount stores or talking with/trying to always be pleasant with waitstaff at restaurants. Like I said, little things. Our church (as well as a dozen other area churches, I believe) has been approached by the local homeless shelter to commit to staffing the shelter for one week every quarter. Part of me thinks, how can we not agree to this? Part of me knows that every time a notice in the newspaper appears about training for staffing the shelter, I seriously consider it and then always chicken out out of fear. Do I really want to stay at the shelter overnight?

Today was one of the best days of my life

Today was one of the best days of my life. I feel great about life right now. I finally did something that's been two and a half years overdue. I feel strangely liberated.

Relations2

So last Thursday over lunch, I observed Dr. Nibbert lying next to, holding, and licking Button. And then Button promptly bit her head. Progress, progress.

US black sites

Hello?! How/why do we do things like this? Is anyone else concerned??

Some key lines from Report: CIA holds terror suspects in secret prisons:

"Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long."

"Those concerns [from lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system] escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody."

Relations

On this day, I declare that Dr. Nibbert does not like Button. These are our two cats that my housemate and I are trying to introduce to each other. I'll await the days that I can declare "Dr. Nibbert no longer hisses and growls (as much as a small cat can growl...although, she doesn't really purr, so maybe she's a large cat at heart) at Button" and "Dr. Nibbert tolerates Button" and "Dr. Nibbert loves Button."

No Schmidt!

NRG crisis2: sentiments at the pumps