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