Merry Chrimstas!


I'm home for the holidays!
(This is not my home, this is a catalog - but there are catalogs IN my home!)
I plan to use my vacation to catch up on my webpage!
(I have never been this far behind before! I blame the schools)
(And the jobs)

Coming Attractions:

Coming Attractions: Coming soon to a theatre near you!
(since it's finals, in outline form)

Politics:
Voting
Political Protests
My Pictures in the News
Green Living:
New Efforts
Electricity - Results
Carbon Feetprint Shocker
A New Resolution (or two) - the next chapter in Green
Literature:
Reading
Not-reading
Romance Novel Titles that Amuse Me
Brian:
Doing Amazing Things at Work
Bar Results
Actual or Apparent Resistance to "Green Living" Movement
Things that are Evil
Maxim
TV
Holidays About Which I am Excited:
Thanksgiving
Chrimstas
Helping People Who Are Confused
Wearing Argyle
Twilight Movie
Finals
HP Tech Undermining
"Flying" Home - the carbon footprint flight
Chrimstas in Suburbia
God Bless Jane MY Park
USPnon-S
Chrimstas with a Cat

Pole Workers

Brian and I worked the election - we were poll workers - election officials! We spent 15 hours running a polling station, helping voters, packing up the equipment and counting ballots! We have great stories! Moving stories, funny stories (I tried to help somebody vote and somehow wound up in their house - in their living room - during the election - playing charades in Russian) and 'Can you believe her?!' stories. I also have a shift at the bookstore, though, so I can't write yet :-(

Voting Green

I just pledged to make clean, just energy a top priority in my vote this election.

Help me tell our leaders to make solving the climate crisis a priority and move quickly to enact policies that will Repower America.

Add your voice: http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/s/powervotepledge

Gainfully Employed

I am still working at the Public Defender's Office a day and a half a week. They can't afford to pay me anything, but it is a very good learning experience. I have learned a lot in the past year and change. Usually, I feel good about my job there. I was sad, though, when I realized that somebody had taken down and thrown away a list I was keeping in my cubicle of people I had helped and motions I'd written. Interns share cubicles at work and I guess somebody else thought it wasn't important. That made me sad and angry. I was also pissed off when somebody went rooting through MY pile of papers, dug out reference materials I had printed out and bound (at school, paying for supplies), TOOK it, put HER name on it, and now keeps it in HER pile. I was really pissed by that. It wasn't even on top of my pile, either, it was under some other things (now missing). WHAT. THE. HELL. Before now, I hated that chick because she was gorgeous and she was working on projects with Brian all the time when I wasn't there, and when I WAS there she was stealing my chair, sitting next to him, and working at my desk (and evidently, looting my stuff). Now I have a real reason to hate her.

Since they can't pay me at the Public Defender's Office I also took a job at the Campus Bookstore - where they can pay me, and it doesn't come out of my student loans (so I have more money after working). I work there one day a week, for half a day, and make $50. I had planned to make that my eating-out money but now I need it for normal bills.

It's a good job. I like it. At first it was backbreaking labour and after six hours of folding clothes on an appallingly un-ergonomic low table while standing on concrete I could hardly walk when I got home, but after we had squared away all the new supplies and inventory, the job got easy. Now I spend two hours a day shelving books, cleaning the store, and folding the clothes, and the rest of the time I spend reading. (And, you know, selling things.) I love reading. I read Newsweek (I've missed reading Newsweek). I read the supplements and hornbooks that are for sale for all the classes I'm taking. I read the first-year supplements to find the best ones to recommend to nervous customers. I read the Torts supplements from every brand or line of supplements so I know how good and of what type the products are. I even bring a Terry Pratchett book from home and read it at work. (I have a stack of them from my birthday - a year and a month ago - that I never had time to read.) When I'm not reading, I'm talking to people about books. Unlike the people I talk to at the Public Defender's office, these people are not inordinately angry with me. And if they ever got that way, I could call security and throw them out.

Talking to people about books is what Brian says makes me the worst Campus Bookstore employee in the world. Brian takes a much dimmer view of customer service than I do. Brian thinks customer service means a short line at the check-out and, occasionally, helping somebody find something on the shelves. I take a very different view of Customer Service. I practice a person-centered kind of customer service. I step into the customer's shoes, and say, Is this what's best for my customer? I advocate for the customer.

A lot of the time this means I go back with the (nervous, first-year) customer and give them a tour: "On your left you see a series written like lectures. They're very helpful, but you won't have time to read them all if you're just starting now. On your right you see a series used for hypos, the summaries of the subjects are shallow, but when you do the problems, preferably with a study group, you learn a lot and the answers are very detailed. If you're just looking to outline, I recommend this series coming up in front of us...." etc.

The real schism between Brian's customer service and my customer service is over what happens after that tour. When I have a customer who wants a book we don't have in stock, I don't tell them to come back next week to see if maybe we have it yet, because I know that we might not. That's not what's best for the customer. Besides, the poor girl is in a rush. She wanted it last week. So I tell her: "We won't have those in until next week, so if you don't want to wait until then you can order it off Amazon dot com and get overnight shipping. Or you could check the Campus Bookstore for the other law school in the city - it's downtown, on 15th Street. I went there once and they had this series. I don't remember the address but if you go to the website for the other law school I'm sure they'll have directions to that book store."

Or when people try to buy Gilbert's AND Emmanual's, I tell them to take a moment and flip through the chapter on Duty. "I think you'll see that they have the same information, pretty much page for page, the only thing that's different is that Gilbert's uses bullet point and numbers, and Emmanual's uses sentences. Do you really want to spent that much money to buy the same book twice? Just pick one."

When a lady spent half an hour picking out a sweatshirt for her mom (I was running all over the store looking for different colours, finding sizes in the back, etc.) and she finally settled on one, I asked her if she was sure an 80-year-old lady would want a sweatshirt with a hood. "You know, a lot of older people don't like the hooded style." "OH!" she exclaimed, "It has a hood? I guess I got so confused with all the sweatshirts that I didn't realize this one had a hood. You're right, she wouldn't want a hood. She wouldn't like that at all." When we went back to her second choice and found that it was also hooded, she decided there wasn't anything in the store that looked quite right, and left without buying anything.

Whenever anyone buys one of the "Understanding" series I give them the refund-slip and tell them to check it out for free from the Academic Support office, which is located in that building, over there. Or try the library. Last week I brought brochures from Ac Support to the bookstore. And I tell everyone, everyone, to look on Amazon.com, buy the book used for half the price (some of them don't even have marks on them) and return the brand new book for a full refund. Here's the refund slip, so you don't forget. I'll just staple your receipt to that so you don't lose it. (I think it's very strange how many law students never think to look on Amazon for their law-type books. They are all shocked when I say Amazon carries them. Really? (they ask me) Amazon has law books? Come on, guys, Amazon sells BOOKS! If they also sell lawn furniture and vibrators and saris and novelty salt shakers, don't you think they'd also have branched out into LAW BOOKS?) In the past seven shifts I've probably stymied $300 worth of sales - and lord only knows how many returns are made when I'm not there by the people who've found it cheaper online.

Think of all the people I'm helping!
I think I'm the best Campus Bookstore employee ever.

Pride Before a Fall

I was proud. I fell. Just a few hours after bragging about my amazing organized meal plan salad, I opened the fridge to make an unplanned snack-salad and found the the spinach had other ideas. I bought too much. I didn't eat enough. I planned badly. It was noisome. Noisome spinach. I am a meal plan failure.

Organized Life Salad

A weekly meal plan is helpful in balancing nutrition, takes advantage of special sales, saves money, wastes less food, streamlines shopping to one trip a week, gives Brian invaluable guidance when I am in class at 5:30pm, and is a sign of an Organized Life. So I've been making them for us for some time now. I'm getting good at them. I include the recipes, print everything out, and put it on the fridge.

Behold, Mortals!
It is the Teriyaki-Chicken-Spinach-Caesar Salad
(with feta, eggs, and nutritious red peppers) of your dreams!

Avacados on super-reduced 50% sale. Feta cheese bought with coupon. Eggs bought two-for-one, hard boiled two days ago - some were deviled for Brian, some were saved for future salads. Chicken is the extra teriyaki chicken breast I marinaded two days before, and broiled the night before, keeping one aside for tonight's salads. Caesar dressing bought on super-reduced 50% sale. I have no excuses for the red peppers and baby spinach - they're good for you.

As you look at this salad, tomorrow night's steak is defrosting in the fridge (so I won't need to microwave it tomorrow at 5pm - avoids wasting electricity AND offgassing toxins from the styrofoam and plastic wrap into the food) - leftover steak for salads the night after. Isn't it beautiful?

It's the Organized Life Salad!

Green Deeds

Partly because I'm totally broke (after mandatory bills my budget for the semester - including food and Chrimstas - is $200) and partly because I'm trying to Live Green, I've done these Green Deeds in the past month or so:

• traded for / given away things on Swaptree and Freecycle instead of buying new / throwing away
  
• switched from hair conditioner to diluted apple cider vinegar (I bet you wouldn't believe how effective this is, how shiny my hair is, how much cheaper this is, or that it doesn't smell at all).
  
• showered with my t-shirts and socks (with the plug in the tub) agitating with my feet in ankle deep water and then letting them soak overnight instead of running the machine with new water (and paying for a machine)
• used a t-shirt instead of a loofah, thereby cleaning us both (meaning me and the shirt)
  
• hung laundry in the apartment instead of using (paying for) an electric dryer
• bought sneakers at a thrift store (supporting a women's shelter) instead of buying new ones
• started a recycling program in my friend's apartment (I showed up with a green crate, the list of things that can be recycled, and tape to put the list on the wall. This is a picture of the first thing she recycled.)
  
• written to Schick razors to complain that the big plastic razor package doesn't have a recycling number on it
• written to Safeway (this was Brian) to complain that their drink powder container was unnecessarily made of (unrecyclable) #5 plastic when it really could have been made of #1 or #2 plastic
  
• sent my used Brita filter to the "Take Back the Filter" campaign to get them recycled here like they are in Europe
  
• written to Potlatch, who makes my 100% recycled paper bathroom tissue and paper towels, to complain that their stupid plastic packaging is unrecyclable plastic #4 and why aren't they using paper, anyway?
• Recycled (Brian drove) electronics at a special collection place. (The broken humidifier's fan, and a "Spark-sparky POOF!" microwave.) He picked a place where the proceeds from the scrap metal will benefit a charity.
  
• Recycled batteries at IKEA (some of which I had brought back from NH in my luggage because I couldn't find a place to recycle them there).
• TRIUMPED OVER ELECTRICITY USAGE - Brian and I cut our August electricity bill in half - meaning this August's usage was HALF what last August's usage was. Brian was a good sport about turning the AC up to 76*F and putting a small fan by his desk. I also think it's because we only use CFL's, in every light, and we put everything (tv, computers, chargers) on surge protectors and turn the surge protectors off when we're not using the appliances. I hear the tv makes a big difference.

Good Deeds

In the past few weeks I've done - or attempted to do - a number of good deeds

...some of which went awry:

• A woman came into the bookstore and asked if we were keeping the graduation gowns out back somewhere. (No.) Her daughter had gotten sick, missed graduation, and never gotten pictures. I know someone, personally, who didn't return a law school graduation gown. I think I could get it, you could borrow it, and take your pictures! She was so happy. On her way to campus she got in a car accident. She called me in tears. I haven't heard from her since.
• I joined Freecycle - a living green / living broke forum for giving away things you don't need - the idea being that it's better for the planet to re-use stuff instead of everybody buying everything new and throwing it away slightly used. I posted the leftover orchid bark (Yay for student-loan funded ($3) trips to the plant nursery!) (the smallest bag they had was 5 lbs and I only needed a few cups). Eight people responded, so I felt bad when I had to tell seven of them they couldn't have it. I put the orchid bark outside in a plastic bag with the guy's name on it, and somebody stole it before he could pick it up. Honestly, who steals a $3 bag of bark chips? I had to e-mail the guy and tell him his bark was stolen.
  
• I ordered prints of pictures we took in NYC to send to my grandmother. The prints arrived at my building, addressed to me at my old apartment down the hall. No problem, right, my friend lives there. She'll pass it on. No. The mailman wouldn't deliver them to that apartment because my name isn't on the box anymore. But neither would he deliver them to the box with my name on it, because that is not the apartment number on the envelope. The prints were returned to sender, and I got an e-mail from ShnapperFlyingFish. No pictures.

Some of which were successful:

• I boxed up a bunch of my extra office supplies (who needs TWO three-hole-punches? And honestly, we had about 200 pens) and mailed them to a local women's shelter that was asking for office supplies on their donations wish-list. (In the same sweep I returned about 20 office-pens to the office.)
  
• I signed up to mentor two first-year students. Unlike many other mentors, Brian and I met with our mentees as promised and answered questions about law school for 10 of their friends (it was like we were holding class out there, people were sneaking up behind us, I turned around and realized we had an audience, it was weird).
• I spent 12 hours writing a step-by-step "How to Outline" instruction booklet with sample Torts Outline for the first-years I mentor and my first-year neighbors across the hall, after answering 15 questions about outlining.
  
• I passed a note to a girl in class to let her know her thong was showing (by like three inches) whenever she leaned forward.
• I gave a handful of business cards to the international students' panel on Living At Law School, volunteering to help stranded international students who needed a local guide/ride.
• Brian and I took an international student to two grocery stores because she doesn't have a car and can't get out to go shopping (we plan to take her out every week).
  
• I've been making milk-free bread for my friend down the hall once a week because she's terribly allergic to milk and it's really hard to find bread without trace amounts of milk in it. Credit for this good deed should also go to me Mum, who got me the bread machine.
  

Our Dinner Party

The first-years here do dinner parties. They host in someone's apartment, they cook a whole lot of food, they serve drinks while we chat, we sit around the table and tell stories. It's very grown up. Everybody else had hosted a Friday-night dinner party. Not us. Circumstances conspire against us. For one thing, we don't cook. Also, we work all day on Friday, our apartment is under construction (new living room), and it's never clean at the end of the week. We can't have guests over! Even if we did, there's no place to put them. We don't have tables, or chairs. Nevertheless, I've felt myself to be under a duty to provide a dinner party and I've been wanted to do one for a long time. It's my turn! It was kindof a suprize, though, when it finally happened to me.

One of the guys had a birthday, so everyone decided to throw him a party. Dani was leading the charge, there - planning it, cooking dinner, hosting the party in her apartment, and making reservations at a comedy club afterwards. Brian and I bowed out of the comedy club because we were having a horrible week and really just couldn't get enthusiastic about starting something at 10pm on Friday, but we'd be there for the dinner party. Turns out everybody else was having a horrible week as well. As problems developed I kept volunteering Brian and I to help with more things, until finally, the day of, Dani suffered a disastrous tragic tragedy and couldn't host at all. Only by heroic efforts was she able to get to a store and buy princess-themed paper flatware. Everything else was up in the air. She was missing for a long time when she should have opened her apartment for us. For a few minutes there I thought we were going to have to host in our apartment (which was a mess from the horrible week). I had to wake up a sleeping Brian to tell him that. Sunny he was not. Dani rushed through to let us into her apartment, though, and saved him. After that, she had to leave again - some faculty dinner thing she had to attend, meant she couldn't do the party.

So Dani lets me into her apartment. It's messy, there's no food, it's not decorated, and we don't have a cake. I can handle this (I bring my own tape). I clean her apartment (read: hide her stuff). Two of us decorate with balloons and pink streamers. I wake up Brian again and send him out to get take-out from two restaurants. Dinner, solved. I try to follow Dani's instructions for the novelty birthday-cake-in-ice- cream-cones recipe she has picked out. Dani shouts directions to me while she is in the shower (running late) because the recipe is in Hebrew and I, as you will be shocked to hear, cannot read Hebrew cookbooks. I can't cook, either, so we aren't playing to my strengths here. I spill the batter out of the ice cream cones, drop them on the floor, catch them on fire, and undercook them. Dani is gone by this time so I call Brian and say "On your way back from the Indian restaurant, can you buy a birthday cake?" Brian says he's stuck in traffic at the grocery store, and will be very late. We call the guy at the mall to delay the birthday boy for as long as possible. They buy an iPhone.

We've forgotten a birthday card, and one of the girls is calling the guy's friends (we forgot) to invite them to his party. We're out of soda and doan want to serve beer with sushi. $200 later Brian pulls into the parking lot with a spread in the back seat of his car: five kinds of Indian food, tons of sushi, and a really pretty cake from the Safeway bakery. He's just in time, arriving at the same time as the rest of the party. Everybody loves dinner. We eat for an hour. Dani arrives and the party rolls out to the comedy club. Brian and I stay behind to clean up the dishes. We look at each other and realize we've just hosted our first dinner party.

Apartment Improvements

While I was ridiculously busy and unhappy, Brian tried to make the apartment nice to cheer me up. He helped me clean the hell out of it, and then, while I was away at work and in class, he made us a living room.

It used to be that Brian's bed was right there when you opened the door. In our apartment there is a front room (Brian's) and two back rooms (mine) and his bed was in the front room. Right by the door. This was ideal last year, because Brian wanted to study next to his desk, while sitting in his bed, while watching TV. There was only one way to make that work out. Now he's not studying, and we have friends who live on our hallway, so it was something less than ideal. Having the bed right there when you opened the door meant we had no living room - just a big bedroom and a little bedroom. This made having guests over (or even sometimes, just answering the door) awkward. And for some reason everybody seemed to think the worst of me for having his bed right there by the door (why ME?)

So Brian made me living room.

He went above and beyond to make me a living room. He took all the drawers out of his dressers and moved them across the room, disassembled his whole bed, drug the boards around the corner, in pieces, and reassembled it, from scratch, took all the books off a 6' x 6' bookshelf and moved it, and drug around inconvenient things like tv stands, lounge chairs, an elliptical machine, and a 100 lb five-foot beanbag bed. Then he put it all back together, and made it look nice. Now the front room is divided by the 6' x 6' bookshelf (packed solid like a wall) into a living room (the space by the door, a little bigger than a queen-sized bed) and a bedroom (behind the bookshelf). People can come into the living room and NOT invade my personal space. It's great! Once my student loans came in we went to Bed, Bath, & Linen's & Things and got some great big floorpillows. Floorpillows! Now I have a living room, and people can come in and say hello! (In fact, it's already happened a few times.) I'm really happy about this. We have a living room!

In other apartment-improving news, I asked the maintenance department to fix some things in our apartment that were looking really broken and embarrassing me when we had people over. They did a nice job and I was happy - until I realized they must have been standing on the bed to fix the drapes! They invaded my space! I had to make it my own again by changing the sheets and re-arranging all the blankets.

Buying Food!

Brian fed me throughout the Cycle of Sadness, but (aside from going out for Indian food too often) I tried not to make too many demands on him that way. So I was dying to go grocery shopping once I had money of my own. At the same time, Brian was getting more and more busy with those writs and appeals, so it was getting harder and harder for him to make dinner on weeknights (and sometimes I come home at 10pm). When my student loans came in, I read cookbooks, consulted Brian, make a list, went shopping, and cooked everything for the week in one marathon session (from scratch!):

• Deviled Eggs
• Apple Cake
• Chilied/Curried Pot Roast with Vegetables (I accidentally followed half of each recipe - took me four hours)
• Brownies
• Teriyaki Marinaded Broiled Chicken Breasts
• Bread
  
• Lasagna
  
• Blacmange that tasted exactly like burnt marshmallow. Brian pointed out that people pay money for that flavour (when it's in jelly belly's) but I threw it away.

Plus Milk-free Bread for my friend down the hall.

I spent most of the weekend either standing in the kitchen or cleaning up the kitchen. I collapsed, slept, and went back to classes, triumphant and sore.

I'm Just Exercising

I sprained my middle finger while rough-housing with Brian. It hurt for a whole week. I had to do stretching exercises in class.

We're in the Money! (Briefly)

October Third - my student loan refund is in my bank account! (sings) We're in the money! After a month of sadness, anger, depression, and above all, extreme stress, things started to turn around. I celebrated by spending Saturday at home, paying my bills and making a budget for the semester. Whereupon, I found I was broke.

It took me about two weeks, but eventually, having money repaired several broken elements of the adventure:

• pay rent
• pay for health insurance
• fill prescriptions
• pay credit card bills
• get credit cards turned back on
  
• stop aggressive 6am phone calls from grumpy credit card company employees
  
• pay back Brian for the emergency loan
• pay when we go out to eat
• regain some measure of dignity
  
• order prints of pictures in NYC to send to my grandmother AND a NYC souvenir frame
  
• re-pot my orchid (in a special orchid pot) with new orchid bark
  
• buy a new humidifier (the old one broke during the cycle of sadness and I, too broke to buy a new one, was waking up every morning with chapped lips and a bloody nose).
  
• get a living room with which to entertain our new friends
  
• buy food

Still in the works - fixing my car. Took another three weeks to jump it and get it to the dealership because Brian and I were never free at the same time, during regular business hours.

Mommy!

After three weeks of despair, etc, me Mum asked me why I STILL needed to get a ride to the social security office from Brian. Wasn't my car fixed yet? (No, Mom.) Usually I try not to bother me Mum with things like this because she is so busy, so overworked, so stressed out, and so broke that when I call her (while filling out a form to request a copy of my social security card) and ask her something minor (what HER social security number is) she flips out. It's like the last straw. She just can't handle one more demand: Why do you need that?! Where are you?! What are you doing?! No I don't know your father's number! It's in my wallet! This is such a pain! You should have taken care of this ages ago! You should have planned better! I have a lot going on right now! - It's like her whole life is spent the way I just spent the past six weeks. So I'd been holding off on sharing my woes with her. But she was having an unusually relaxed day, and I was having an unusually horrible month, so I told her the whole story. Mom did a search-and-rescue on my sorry lost-hiker ass. She went to our Social Security office back home (with the ashes of my birth certificate in a zip lock bag) and said "My daughter is in school, so she can't come here, but she needs a copy of her card." (They must have thought I was like 10 years old.) "I am her official guardian." (They must have thought I was 26 and retarded.) She got me a card, and mailed it to me with a cheery note and check to pay for getting my car fixed. It's probably next week's grocery money. She really cares about me. I'ma get her something extra-good for Chrimstas.

A Wedding!

'Arry and Gelby's Wedding Invitation arrived! (Now it's MY wedding invitation.) It looks wicked cool! And it confused me! I think they're getting married twice! And not to each other!

('Arry sorted me out when I asked him these questions in person.)

Also, why didn't it mention the Ren-Faire masquerade, costume contest, and bollywood dance troupe? You ought to tell people it's a Ren-Faire masquerade early, so they have time to find good costumes.

Getting Medieval On Your Beef

I practiced being poor by buying cheap, tough beef on sale and boiling it for hours, with spices and root vegetables, until it was palatable (getting in touch with my oppressed Irish roots). It turned into quite a nice dinner. (I must not be oppressed enough.) I was cleaning up dinner and I was about to pour out the 'water' that had been boiling beef for three hours and scrape the plates. The great big black pots made me feel like a scullery maid. Only she wouldn't throw out all these odds and ends, would she. She's too poor to waste salt and fat like this. What would she do? I figured: poor... medieval... it's about the same thing. I'm going to get Ye Olde Beefe Tavern on your dinner!

I threw all the scraps into the
cooking pot - the fat we wouldn't
eat and the leftover bits I saved from Brian (No! You can't eat that! We need it for tomorrow! Eat a potato!) and boiled it in the beef-boiling water for another four hours, adding spices and root vegetables, cooking it down thicker and thicker. By the next night, I had an amazing, yummy beef stew! (I must not be poor enough) served in a homemade bread-bowl. Free Dinner!

Brian's Making Waves

Brian has written writs and appealed cases to the intermediate level AND the Supreme Court in the past few weeks. Practically unheard of, especially in multiples, and I've lost track of how many cases are where. All I know is that everyone in the office is talking about how amazing he is, and I can't get a ride anywhere (even to work) because he has to be downtown wrangling miracles with higher courts. Need to get my car fixed.

Getting Political

I watched the Presidential / Vice-Presidential debates with Brian (when I wasn't in my nighttime classes). First time ever. I've also been watching the news, SNL, and Jay Leno. I never really watched TV before, but now I get my TV by osmosis: Brian has it on because he loves politics, and I... live here. I sit next to the TV, doing something else, while old men yell at each other about the Direction of American Conservatism Today. And Brian is always telling me things he's been reading online. And that's a lot because politics is pretty much his only hobby. Consequently, I am more aware of this presidential election than I have been of any other. For the first time, I'm a well-educated voter. For the first time, I think I can make important political decisions based on a deep understanding of the candidates and the issues. For the first time, I've heard entire speeches, in context, rather than 30-second sound bites taken out of context.

My deep and profound conclusions about this election are as follows:

First: It is truly creepy how similar Tina Fey is to Sarah Palin. Truly creepy. But also, somewhat vindicating. Because there are all those episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess where she arrives in (some city) and gets mistaken for (somebody else) or somebody else is pretending to be Xena, because even tho' they are unrelated, she and (the princess / the priestess / the prostitute) look exactly alike and nobody can tell which is which. And Brian always scoffs at those because there is no way that could happen in real life. Or the movie Dave - where the president-impersonator steps in and acts as the President. Like that could ever happen. Well, Sarah Palin is here to prove you wrong, Brian. It could totally happen in real life.

For your amusement - Tina Fey / Couric Interview HERE

Second: It disturbs me that Palin:
1) doesn't answer direct questions
2) doesn't speak English (I suspect that's why she can't answer direct questions).
I think I'm pretty tolerant about people who doan speak English visiting the US, living in the US, becoming citizens of the US, or even living in the US without speaking English and without becoming citizens... but really, shouldn't the Vice President be able to speak English? More disturbing, Palin has been unable to demonstrate fluency in ANY language. It's not like ambassadors could switch to French when speaking to the VP... they'll have to switch to pictographs. (How do you say 'tariff' in stick-figure?) Golly gee whiz, there's gonna be some higher prices at the Wal-Mart, you betcha!

Third: I wish Palin would stop killing wild animals. Holding up bloody carcasses in triumph - like slaughtering some inoffensive segment of the ecosystem is a service to humanity - is in frightfully bad taste, and machine-gunning them from planes isn't folksy, it's just criminal. More criminal than stealing money from the state for 'traveling expenses' for living in your house, using your authority to fire people you doan like, charging taxpayers for your felonious, secessionist husband and kids (Soccer, Liverpool, Flutist, Twig, and Calculus) to travel with you on business trips, and banning books, even. And what's with the nearly constant recreational snowmobiling?! Haven't you people heard of sustainable living?! Put on a sweater, go snowshoeing, save the oil!

Yep, I think it's pretty clear that being a better-educated voter hasn't made me think deeper thoughts.

The Cycle of Sadness

My Life - from Sept 8th to October 3rd

My life got so bad so quickly I was all confused and had to make a flowchart to sort it all out.


I went into the Financial Aid Office near tears after the first week (three weeks after loans were supposed to disburse) and talked to Wendy's boss. He's a nice guy. He told me Wendy was lying about not being able to look up my individual information, looked up my individual information, got the right forms to the right places, and then called my lender to check on my paperwork and find out when I could expect loans to be disbursed. Nice guy. On Friday, they said. We got the paperwork today, we're going to disburse loans tomorrow. Good news, he said. Of course that means you won't get them until next Wednesday, because the school has to process the loans, take out for tuition, and write you a check for the refund, but still. Good news. Ok, I say, Wednesday. I can wait one more week. So I didn't apply for the school's emergency loan (which would also have arrived on Wednesday) or borrow money from my parents or Brian. I want to take care of myself, and I can wait one more week.

Wednesday comes, Wednesday goes, nothing happens. No money! I ask questions. They send me to the Business Office, where I meet another women whom, I swear, is named Wendy - if not on this Earth then on the Astral Plane. She didn't have time to process the loans, Wendy II tells me. There is a stack of them, you know, and she's a very busy person. When might she get to them? She gets defensive. Friday. On Friday she'll process the loans. She's a very busy person. And then I'll get my money? No, she says. What she's doing on Friday is taking out for tuition etc. here at the law school. Then she has to send the loans, the bills, and her math to the main campus (in another city) and THEY will do math and write me a check for the refund, which will then be sent BACK here, where the law school will deposit it in my bank account. My eyes fill with tears but she is too evil to notice.

One more week.

Wendy was too busy on Friday. She didn't process the loans. She's a very busy person, you know. And she only does loan processing on Wednesdays and Fridays, so when she missed it on Friday, she couldn't possibly get to it until Wednesday. She tells me this, bitterly, like HER life is going down the tubes and it's MY fault.

She was too busy on Wednesday. I asked. She didn't process the loans. She got testy.

She was also too busy on Friday. I asked. She didn't process the loans. She got hostile. No loans. I went home, cried away my dignity (answered bill collector's calls at 6am, 8am, 9am, 10am, and at noon turned off my cell phone) and borrowed money from my parents and Brian.

It only took three days to borrow $30,000, but it took three and a half weeks to get the check processed by the school.

I was pissed off the whole time.

My Birthday

After the super-exhausted grumpy week - just got back from NYC - wherein I had the unfortunate encounter with said Wendy - Brian helped me clean the whole apartment really well. I was tired and anxious and out of sorts. And somewhat enraged. Tripping over drinking classes wrapped in dirty laundry is especially annoying when I'm tired and anxious and out of sorts. And somewhat enraged. Brian wanted to help. (And, probably, wanted to live.) He made superhuman efforts to make things nice - so superhuman that I noted it in my day-planner afterwards. Having a nice clean apartment made my whole weekend better. Then I went back to classes and work.

The day before my birthday Brian cleaned the whole kitchen really well (it looked like we'd been robbed!) and brought home takeout Indian food. It was so nice to come home from class and find that waiting for me. Super nice! On my actual birthday I went to court and to all my classes. My client got a really good deal (and I didn't even have to tell the judge it was my birthday!) and I didn't get called on in class, so I got a nice break. I opened packages of love (and presents) and Brian made me Indian food. Happy Birthday!

On the weekend afterwards, the people I have been getting to know here (the dinner-party first-years, Dani the graduate grad student, and company) threw me a surprize birthday party. (Unlike Oleave, they didn't kidnap the guests :-) The real surprize was that they would do that. I didn't think we were that... involved. It was a really nice party. They made a special effort to do something I would like, so we didn't go clubbing (like they probably wanted to), instead they made dinner together, got me a Godiva chocolate truffle cheesecake, and (Brian helped pick) rented Underworld - one of my favorite movies that I do not own! We spent the evening hanging out in Dani's room (which is my old apartment) eating pasta, chocolate, chocolate cheesecake, and ice cream cake, telling stories, and watching Underworld with the subtitles on so we could talk at the same time. It reminded me of home! (sniffle)

I came home at the end of the evening (with leftover Godiva chocolate truffle cheesecake) thinking "Wow, we're really friends!" I was touched by the effort they went to - planning, cooking, driving around, shopping, decorating with balloons and streamers, and, in one case, walking a mile and a half thru a bad neighborhood in the dark to attend. (Brian drove him home afterwards, so his death wouldn't plague my conscience forever afterwards.) When Brian said we should watch Underworld at the party one of the girls thought he was saying Waterworld, and was dreading the event. She was going to come anyway, though, and suffer through it. I was really touched by that. And, unbeknownst to me until much later, Dani spent the evening threatening her (grumpy) date with grievous bodily injury to keep him from "spoiling my party" by throwing us out and/by going to sleep in the next room.

I'm not having a seizure, I'm telling a story

They're painting his toenails sparkle-princess pink.

Dani and I

bumpy ride

I haven't posted since my birthday! That has got to be my longest break from self-publishing YET. I only did it because everything was so awful I couldn't ever write. Being 26 has been really rough! (And it's all Wendy's fault! :-) But I'm going to post this weekend, I swear. About everything to which I have been up. I even have pictures!

Wendy = Evil

I hate women named Wendy. Automatically. Knee-jerk reaction. I hate all Wendies. Indiscriminately. (After I discriminate against Wendies, I mean.) It's an irrational hatred stemming from childhood trauma. (Aren't those the most real of all hatreds?) Wendy was my monster in the closet. I never saw her, but I knew she was there. I don't know where she is now, though. She could be anywhere. She could be anyone. Any Wendy that is. Every Wendy is suspect, and every Wendy shares, unwittingly, in my animosity towards The Wendy.

I met a Wendy last week that reaffirmed my deep and abiding hatred for all things Wendy-ish. In fact, if she had been my first Wendy she might have given me a deep and abiding hatred for all Wendies, all by herself. This particular instance of the class: Wendy works at the financial aid office (all the better to work her dark powers to my detriment). I went in there for help, in a panic, because my loans hadn't arrived. They were two weeks late but I thought I had done everything correctly and the financial aid office hadn't sent me a letter or anything, so I figured everybody's loans were late. These things happen. I shouldn't get bitchy with the financial aid staff. They must be busy this time of year. Maybe I counted wrong. But with bills two weeks overdue and no word from financial aid I figured I should just pop in and ask if loans were supposed to have gone thru by now.

Pop! And there she was. A Wendy. I flinched when I saw her name-plate but carried on, bravely, with a smile.

"I was wondering if my student loans should have disbursed by now? Because I never got mine, and I wondered if anything was wrong?"
"Oh, something must be wrong, because you should have gotten them by now. You should be panicking."
"Ahhh! I'm panicking!"
"Ok Let me look this up. Hmm. What's your name? ...And your ID number? ...I'm going to type for a while now. I'm kindof confused about how this computer works so... no I guess I can't help you. I've worked here for at least three years but I don't really know how this all works. And even if I did, I'm not big on customer service."
"Wait, so, what's wrong with my loans?"
"I dunno. You probably forgot to fill out a form, or you filled it out but forgot to sign something. Or you failed the credit check. Or maybe you maxed out your loans. All kinds of things could have gone wrong. Some you can fix fairly easily, some you can't. You might have to drop out."
"But if something's wrong you should have known about it when loans disbursed, two weeks ago. Wait, I did all this the financial aid paperwork in March. That was six months ago! Something's been missing for six months?! And you were just waiting until I dropped in to ask about it? Weren't you going to write me a letter, or something?"
"Like I said: Not real big on the customer service thing."
"And you can't tell me exactly what went wrong?"
"Yeah, even though I work here, and despite my typing in your ID number, I don't have access to individualized student information. Actually, I'm lying to you. I do have access to that information. My boss will tell you that, next week, when the bill collectors start calling you at 6am, and you come back to financial aid and cry in his office, but right now I'm going to pretend I can't possibly look up your file on my computer. And my boss is on vacation for the rest of this week. So, ah, I really can't tell you what's wrong with your student loans."
"Really? That's all you can do for me?"
"Hey, um, try filling out that form on the counter. A lot of students mess it up the first time, so I'm just going to assume that you did too. No real reason, could be anything, I'm just playing the numbers. If you fill it out we should be able to process it in two weeks, and then we'll find out if that fixes your problem or not."
"...Thanks."
"No problem! Anytime! After all, I didn't actually do anything for you."
"Oh! That reminds me. There was something else I wanted to ask you about. Remember how last week I asked you for those forms for working on campus? And you said they were on the financial aid office website? I can't find them there. Could you pull up the webpage and show me where they are?"
"Ah, well, you see, they're not there. I just told you that because I didn't want to get up and walk all the way around the counter to show you which ones you needed. I was just trying to get rid of you. The truth is, they are sitting in those unlabeled paper organizers by the door. I guess now that my ruse has failed I'll have to walk all the way over there and tell you which ones you need. I knew you would be coming back for them, but I was hoping you'd come back during somebody else's shift. Jeez you are such a pain."
"... ... ...Ok! I've filled out all these forms you gave me to work at the campus bookstore. I'll just turn those in now, and head off to work my first shift! Good thing, too, cause I need the money. Bye!"
"Wait, my wendy-sense is tingling. There must be something I should be doing... something else I can ruin for you! I suddenly have the energy and determination to go above-and-beyond the call of duty! When you worked last year did you turn in your social security card?"
"Um, I can't remember, but I'm sure I filled out all the forms. I mean, I worked and got paid, all last year, so, I'm sure everything's fine."
"Well just to be sure, I'm going to go look that up. When it would help you, I can't possibly find your individual loan information, or distribute I-9's, but I'm willing to go the extra mile if it will help me find a debilitating problem in your paperwork. My wendy-sense is telling me that it's really important that I double-check your old work forms from last year. I'll have to look this up in your individual student file. How do you spell your last name?"
"Seriously? You can look that up?"
"Oh yes, I have access to individualized student work information. Here at the financial aid office. Just not your financial aid information. Well, I do, but I'm pretending not to. And... yes I see here that we have your social security number, and a photocopy of your card. Mmm I'm afraid that's insufficient social security identification. We never saw your original card. I'm afraid we can't let you get a job on campus."
"I don't have my original social security card!"
"Ah-ha! I knew my wendy-sense was tingling for a reason."
"But you already have my social security number, you don't need the card!"
"Nope, your number's not enough. We have to sign this line that says we saw your original social security card, and then make a copy of it, before you're allowed to work."
"You're going to photocopy my card to prove you saw the original card?"
"Yes."
"And you're going to staple the photocopy to the form, just like the photocopy you have now."
"Yes - I mean no! No. This will be a photocopy of the original card."
"So is this one."
"But you didn't show me the original card."
"I can't save you a step, and just show you a photocopy?"
"No. We have to see the original card."
"Where does it say that?"
"On this form I'm waving vaguely in the air."
"Show me where it says you have to sign the line that you photocopied my original card."
"I don't have to show you that, it's for ME to sign."
"Are you sure about this? Because you seemed pretty confused about how the computer worked. You could be confused about this, too."
"I'm absolutely sure that I have to see the original card. It's a new rule. A brand new rule. It's... it's... um... it's because of the Patriot Act!"
"Really."
"Yep!"
"Get many terrorists working in the campus bookstore, do you?"
"None so far. But in this Post-Nine-Eleven world, we can't be too careful. By the way, what have you checked out of the library recently?"
"But social security cards are like blue blotting paper that's been thru a typewriter! They're not laminated or watermarked or anything. Anybody could make one! Anybody who still used a typewriter, that is. They're about as technologically advanced as a library card. Terrorists could totally have fake social security cards. Hell, half of them are legitimate citizens with their OWN social security cards. How is showing you my social security card going to make our country more secure? Wouldn't you rather see my passport? I have a passport."
"No."
"Isn't social security going to be broken by the time I turn 30 anyway? Why do you need my social security information at all? It's not like I'm ever going to collect on the oodles of benefits I'm amassing here by working six hours a week. In fact, I'm doing the government a favour by not wracking up the social security credits. They'll thank you for this later, when they don't owe me anything."
"I understand your distress (in fact, I feed on your sweet, sweet distress) but I'm delighted - I mean sorry! - to say that we'll need to see your original card."
"I don't have my original card. It was destroyed in a fire. I have a photocopy. Do you really need me to show you the original ashes in a zip-lock? I have them. They're at home in New Hampshire. It'll take two weeks to get here, if my Mom will even mail something that fragile and that valuable on the black market."
"You can go to your nearest social security field office and get a copy of your card. It should take about 10 business days."
"Wait, a copy?"
"Yes they will issue you a copy of your social security card, which you can bring to us."
"I thought you just said it couldn't be a copy, it had to be the original card."
"These copies are OK. They're original copies."
"This is an original photocopy."
"It needs to be on blue blotting paper."
"I have blue blotting paper"
"And typed with a typewriter!"
(sigh)
"So you can't give me my student loans?"
"Nope."
"And you don't know why?"
"Nope."
"And when I come back next week I'm going to find out you really could have looked up what was wrong, you just decided not to?"
"Yep."
"But one thing you are very clear about, is that I'm not allowed to get a job?"
"Yes."
"Are you just dead-set on keeping me broke?"
"Yes. I hate lawyers. And law students. Irrationally. Due to childhood trauma. Was there anything else you needed?"
"No, thank you. I think you've done enough. I'm broken. And I'm due at work in 20 minutes."
"You can work all you want but we will never pay you. Muhahahah!!"

Wendy's Final Insult:
Two days later I got a letter from the financial aid office. A bill. I owe them money. For tuition, rent, health insurance, etc. Because my student loans have not come in. I owe them twenty-three thousand, five hundred sixty three dollars and eighty-eight cents. Please pay the full amount immediately upon receipt of this letter. (I would if I could, Wendy, but you won't give me loans and you won't let me work. What do you suggest? Lottery tickets?) When reading the $23,563.88, it was the eighty-eight cents that got me. Who delivers a bill for the average yearly income of the average American, and adds on the 88 cents?

Further Wendy-Induced Tribulations:

I need a new copy, a special copy, of my original social security card. For Wendy. On the first day I was free during normal business hours (which was seven days after I visited her lair - because I am only free one morning a week) Brian drove me to the local Social Security Field Office, so that ten days later I could get a new copy of my social security card, so I could work for two weeks, so could turn in a timecard, so two weeks after that I could get paid $100. Forty-five days. I have long-term goals. Small long-term goals.

(Brian had to drive me because my car wouldn't start. And still won't start. It too is waiting for student loans to come in.)

We found the office using the Official Social Security Office Webpage's Local Field Office Locater By Zip Code. You would think that would be a trustworthy source. It's not. It gave us directions. We went there. The office isn't built yet. The only guy there is the contractor, on scaffolding, putting up Sheetrock in what will someday be a Social Security Field Office and Card Center. He stared at us, curious as to why we were trespassing on a construction site, while we slowly circled the building like so many hopes and dreams and credit scores circling the drain.

It will be another seven days until I am free during business hours and can visit a social security office, making it 52 days from Wendy's triumph to my first paycheck. Meawhile, I'm showing up at work for six hours every week so the job will still be there when I can get paid.

When we got home I tried to look up the next-closest social security field office, but the website was down for maintenance.

I blame Wendy.

Sept 8th - 12th

The week after our surprize whirlwind weekend trip to New York City, I tried very hard not to let my schooling suffer. I didn't want to be the girl who spent the weekend partying in NYC and was an underachieving mess for the whole week afterwards. So I tried hard. I went to all my classes, had all my homework done beforehand, went to work for the public defender twice, and started my new job at the campus bookstore in a clean dress shirt (right after meeting Wendy in the Financial Aid office). I was very proud of myself for being so good all week. I was also exhausted and grumpy.

Our Last Morning in NYC

NY Cheesecake!

I was eating Cheescake in a diner at 1am! What a New-York experience!

New York Art!

Brian helps me demonstrate that Mummies are really short.

Happy to see us

Soup-Fail

The cafeteria at the Met

Korean Art:

This is the famous gray-green pottery for which the Koreans were famous way back when everybody else was making pinch-pots out of air-dried clay. (It's all gray-green because they only knew how to make one colour.) I read 100 pages about Korean pottery in that history book, so I was excited to see some examples.

South-Asian Art

NYC

Our Bertie-Wooster-style hotel


The view from our room
I stayed up at night to watch the city lights

Dim Sum in Chinatown with Becca, Janice, and JP!
I hadn't seen Becca since she graduated!

We all walked through Chinatown together

Museum of Natural History

A really happy turtle - so cute!
I couldn't resist

Happy Dioramas

We saw some nice Siberians playing in the snow... going sledding... with their friend the whale. Brian ushered me along before I could ask questions.

Museum of Natural History

My photos of our first day in NYC

Another view of Central Park

Our first morning in NYC:

Photographic Evidence

On our first morning in NYC I visited Central Park for the first time! I was excited to be someplace so famously crime-ridden AND featured in so many episodes of Gargoyles. In the first ten minutes I saw a dead body! Brian didn't believe me, so here, to rebut his skeptical editorial, is the proof!


Brian says she was a jogger, but you see how she's barefoot? I think somebody killed her for her sneakers. I hear that happens in New York City all the time.

NYC - Guest Column

This is the first guest column ever for Manky Goes to Law School. This week, Brian tells the story of our weekend in New York City.

Manky has been rather busy lately so I've taken over the blogging duties, the cooking and the dishwashing (though I've been the primary cook for awhile now).

I decided to take Manky to NYC for her birthday. I surprised her with the tickets a week beforehand. It would have been more romantic to surprise her with the ticket while driving her to the airport while using the prospect of Indian food as a cover story, but I thought she might get grumpy owing to the lack of a change of clothing.

So we flew out Thursday night and landed Friday morning. It was a midnight flight. There's something romantic about midnight flights. Well, in theory there's something romantic about them. In practice, it's really difficult to try to sleep when you're packed in coach, with 220 strangers, without a blanket of pillow because you think it's kinda stupid to spend seven bucks for the "sleep package," in a chair that reclines back three degrees for "comfort." Though we were on JetBlue so at least we got to watch TV and it was nonstop.

We landed at JFK at 8:30 on Friday morning. After a brief stop at the Dunkin Dounuts, where Manky failed to communicate effectively with the donut barrista, we were in a taxi and off to the Museum of Natural History.

We got to the museum thirty minutes before opening, so we took a short walk through Central Park. Manky asserts that she saw human excrement, stolen property, and a dead body. But I saw an unfortunate smelling puddle, a ugly purse someone had thrown away, and a biker who was taking a nap in the sun. Manky was really excited to be in NYC.

The Museum of Natural History was kinda creepy. Dimly lit dioramas and stuffed animals (taxidermy not plush) were everywhere. And the Hall of Monkeys smelled like...well... monkeys, which was odd because all of the monkeys were behind glass and have been there for like 100 years.

After a couple of hours in the Museum and after touching a couple of dinosaur fossils and seeing a life-size model of a blue whale, it was off to the hotel, to take a quick nap before going to see Harry Potter naked...um...I mean a great theatrical work.


We had tickets to go see Equus. It was opening night. The tickets were second row, center. We were going to be less than seven feet from Harry Potter's magic wand... I mean a great theatrical work. Now I had seen Equus before. Manky had not. She was more than a little concerned about the famous horse blinding scene.

Playing opposite of Mr. Potter was Uncle Vernon. At first seeing both actors on stage was a little surreal, I was have expecting Dobby the House Elf to pop up and smash a cake. Also, Harry's mother was played by the shrink from Law and Order. So now I'm expecting two detectives will find Dobby beaten to death in an alley.

The play itself was rather good. It was well-acted, funny in parts, and overall one of my most enjoyable theater-going experiences. Harry Potter was naked on stage for roughly fifteen minutes. Not just naked, running around, jumping up and down, up and down, seven feet away. I'll never watch the Harry Potter movies the same way again and neither will you having seen the picture posted above of Mr. Potter.

After the play, we trudged back to the hotel. I carried the souvenir Equus t-shirt that Manky purchased for me. And fell asleep.

The next day, it was off to Dim Sum in Chinatown. Actually, we slept in. But thanks to a well-timed phone call from one of Manky's friends and a taxi driver who was able to traverse thirty blocks in remarkable time, we weren't late for breakfast or brunch or whatever Dim Sum at 10 am is.

Joining us for Dim Sum were Janice, Becca Yee, Becca's boy (Jeff), JP, and JP's sister. I thought the Dim Sum was wonderful, however, Manky was frustrated by the lack of one particular steamed dumpling which cast a pall over the experience for her. Getting to see some of Manky's friends from college, however, was fun.

After Dim Sum we all walked through Chinatown and I tried to convince Manky that the geese and rabbits on hooks in the window weren't dead, they were just sleeping, naked, inside out, preparing for their long journey to the farm in Upstate New York where they will play with all of the other inside out animals. She wasn't buying it.

Janice then took us to the Met. Manky has had a thing for the Met since seeing the Sesame Street movie "Don't Eat the Pictures." We walked around and saw the Roman and Greek statues, the Temple of Dendur, a traveling exhibit including a ink stand used by the Pope, and dozens of examples of 17th century Japanese pottery. Only after reaching the Gift Shop five hours later did we notice that we had missed 19th and 20th century European art, so instead of seeing Van Gogh's Sunflowers, we stared at Japanese pottery that all looked the same. It, however, was too late. We were tired and returned to the hotel. Sunflowers will just have to wait till next time.

The next day, true to form, we overslept again. Then I took Manky on a forced march through Midtown Manhattan. We saw Times Square, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, and various other sites while walking to the cupcake bakery Manky had chosen to have breakfast at. Upon our arrival at the cupcakery, we were joined by Janice who took valuable time out of her day to show us around NYC. We went to SoHo, NoHo, the Village, and even over to Brooklyn and Queens. If not for Janice our trip to NYC wouldn't have been half as enjoyable. Thanks Janice! We will be sending you either a porcelain statue of a green rooster or the purple hippo in a tutu, we haven't decided, as a sign of our gratitude.

Breaking Down

I read my present from Brian - the last Twilight book - Breaking Dawn. I was shocked and appalled. It ruined the series. Things went bad pretty quickly. Just a few pages into it I was thinking 'What the hell is she thinking?' I kept waiting for things to correct themselves, but they never did. I read the whole book in one night, thinking 'No! No!' and then ran out of pages before things got better. I started screaming, then, and Brian came to ask what was wrong.

My problem (without spoilers) is that after the first few chapters, Bella went... well pretty much went insane (and stopped talking - somebody else narrated, strangely) and did this crazy shit I totally can't sympathize with, and don't believe an 18-year-old would think, should think, or could be thinking. Everything is a little too dramatic, a little too martyr-ific, and way too Bella-centric. Everybody in the whole world revolves around her, 24-7.

People from other continents arrive to worship at her feet like she's Mary or something. Only she hasn't done anything to deserve it! The men are in love with her, the women are waiting on her hand and foot, and everybody risks their lives for her every single day, or goes insane because she might be in danger. It's every romantic goth-teenager's dream come true. I find it really annoying. I had an easier time believing in vampires than I did believing in these otherwise strong characters (who should have hobbies or something) falling for her in droves. They just stand around, falling for her all day. The characterization is off, people do things they're not supposed to do, entire scenes bring up conflicts or events that are immediately ruled out and closed off again (why didn't Meyer just edit out that conversation? or that other one?) and everything is just so - so - it's so damn MORMON. Bella is abruptly silenced and suddenly middle-aged.

No chance of another book coming it to fix this up, either. The author says everything is all wrapped up, now, no more adventures for Bella and no more books for us. (I guess once you... turn 18, move into your own house, and establish your own little household, your life is over? Bella spends the rest of her life making dinners and doing laundry for her family?) Totally tragic.

Monday

Labor Day! We went to the State Fair. We saw chickens, and horses, and baby bunnies. We ate cotton candy on the midway. We saw Taiko drummers. (I love Taiko drummers - LINK and LINK and LINK to cool videos of pros around the world.) We saw deep fried Oreos, Twinkies, frogs' legs, and snickers bars, but had Thai food for lunch instead. We toured the Green Living and Forestry exhibits. A guy was peeing in the 20' x 20' patch of "woods." We walked through 'sets' from Star Wars, SpongeBob, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I kicked myself - hard - for not bringing a camera. We saw goats milked. We admired thousand dollar Russian nesting dolls. I cooed over just-hatched chicks and quails. I want one! We rode the ferris wheel at sunset and kissed at the top. Brian was a good sport for doing that cause he's really afraid of heights and the Ferris Wheel had him all stressed out. He had a death-grip on the railing and wouldn't let go, even when we weren't moving. Brian saw his first-ever demolition derby (how did he get this far in life without seeing a demolition derby?) We bought popcorn and yelled from the bleachers. I thought about bungee-jumping from a crane but it was $55 and I'd rather go skydiving anyway.

Brian did an extremely brave thing, at the state fair. He went on his first 'scary' ride EVER - the Tango. This was a real ride. LINK and LINK to videos of the ride. You're spinning horizontally, vertically, hanging upside down, and rushing towards the ground all at once. I was on the end of the row, and I kept thinking my head was going to smack into the crane. See how close it comes? I mean yeah, it's four feet away, but when you're falling forward, upside down, that fast, you're not really sure about that last four feet! Here's a video of it getting stuck upside down. Oops, sorry Brian. He says if that had happened to us, he would have shot me when we got off.

I knew Brian was really afraid of heights, and he was reluctant to go on the ride, but I didn't realize it was his first scary ride ever. If I had known that, I might have started him off with something easier! They had flying chairs that would have been scary for heights but at least you weren't spinning sideways while you were upside down. Our ride was pretty extreme, for a guy who's afraid of heights, and falling. And doesn't like spinning. And gets motion sickness if he looks over his left shoulder twice in a row. Hee hee :-) Just look at it! Can you imagine being scared of a Ferris Wheel, and going on that ride?! Brian was really brave. We found out later this ride was billed as this year's state fair's 'Most Extreme Spinning Ride.' I got a dangerous look when he found out about that.

Brian even opened his eyes for some parts of the ride. Sometimes they were ripped open by the wind, he says, but sometimes he opened them willingly. He never screamed, just muttered about dire consequences and bad feelings, blindly, when we spun upside down towards the ground. "I hope you appreciate the effort I'm making" he was grousing, while falling. I caught my breath and giggled. I love flying around like that.

Sadly, we did sufer minor injuries. Brian closed his harness too tightly and his collarbone is all scraped and bruised from being pinched when we whirled upside down. He's not used to those kinds of harnesses. But he will be, soon :-)

Sunday

Like Saturday, Sunday was painful. Everything hurt. I was grumpy. I slept almost all day. We had a vampire-themed movie weekend here - I netflixed (and made Brian watch) Underworld and Blood And Chocolate.

I was so excited to be watching Underworld again. Rae and I loved this movie and used to watch it all the time at college. I sent my copy of the book to John in Iraq and I sold my copy of the DVD my first year here, because I was totally broke, so I haven't seen it in a while. Since this was my party, I made sure we did it right. I made Brian watch the trailers for the movie to warm up before we watched the actual movie. I turned the volume way up and turned out the lights and sat on the floor right in front of the TV. I rewound certain parts to show him the cool stuff he hadn't noticed because he was playing Starcraft while watching the movie. I told him how we added the Agent Provocateur - Red Tape song (which is on the soundtrack but only plays in the preview and during the credits) to the fight scenes where we thought it belonged, by playing it on our computers during the movie. I played the song for him a few times. During the movie I added in all the director's commentary and gossip I had read online about the actors and stuff. "Raze is naked in this scene! Look! Back there! You see him? He has a PhD in molecular biology. No, not the werewolf character, the real actor! He has the sexiest voice." I went crazy and reached for the screen, wailing, when Micheal turns blue in the end. I cheered when Viktor's head falls off. In other words I was totally fanning it up and screaming the whole time and Brian was a saint to put up with my crap.

He was even more of a St. for putting up with Blood and Chocolate, which had about as much depth of characterization and cinematic innovation as an episode of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." Though at least, during this one, I wasn't cheering and reaching for the screen. I only found it because people on MeTube who fabricate Twilight movie previews from scenes from other movies (not that I would be caught dead watching those... ahem) credited Blood and Chocolate with the falling red ribbon sequence used in (so-called) Eclipse previews. So I was like 'Oh, another supernatural romance that appeals to the same fanbase! Let's rent it!' I knew Blood and Chocolate was going to be crappy, but I wanted to see it because the guy who plays Grigg in Jane Austen Book Club is in it. He pretty much plays the same character, too. Only in this one he draws the comic books.

In the middle of the night I again subjected Brian to a movie not well-rooted in real life - this time, when I found Sesame Street's Don't Eat the Pictures on MeTube (the one where they all get locked in the Met overnight) and watched it to psyche myself up for our upcoming trip to the Met. This was the movie that had me all excited the first time I went to the Met, too. Brian had never seen it before! I made him watch it with me.

We love the part where Cookie Monster sings:
Statue for viewing, not for chewing!

My favorite scene is Grover's song to the suits of armor. "Shiny chum, don't be glum! Don't be shy! Come say 'Hi!'" I love Grover. I was so excited when I found that room in the Met - where the suits of armor are mounted on horses' suits of armor, and everything is huge and intimidating over your head. Way cool. I bought souvenir postcards.

Saturday

I was really bad, on Saturday. I think my bad behavior was triggered by illness (I was wicked sick on Saturday and Sunday and spent about 50 hours asleep). In my weakened state, I went to the bookstore and had a total breakdown. We've been there like three times in the 4 weeks I've been back. I had been doing OK but I guess our previous visits had worn down my resistance, because this time I just went nuts. Even tho Brian had already bought me the next TWO Twilight books, which should have been judicially rationed out and taken me a month to read, I bought $80 worth of brand new books. Clearly, I was unbalanced. But made me feel better. My best find (meaning my most meritorious find) was probably A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. I think it must be respectable because it made the 1001 Great Works of Literature You Should Read Before You Die list. It's supposed to be like the Indian War And Peace. It's certainly about as long as War And Peace, anyway. It's another brick in my self-education reading curriculum. The last book I read about India was Midnight's Children, in college.

After the bookstore, we went to Coldstone Creamery. I also suspect that we went to Rick's Dessert Diner at some point this weekend. Or slightly before the weekend. Thursday night! Now I remember! We went on Thursday night. Mmmmm.

Unbelievable

Brian bought me theatre tickets for my birthday! He surprized me with them early, because the show we're going to see is in... ... New York City! (Holy Crap!) What a fantastic birthday present! So next week we're flying out to NYC (Hi Janice!) to see a show! We're going to see Harry Potter in Equus! (Third Row!) We're also going to see the Met, the Museum of Natural History, the Bronx Zoo, Chinatown, Times Square, and desserts! (And who knows what else!) Janice is going to show us around! I'm totally excited!

I've only been to NYC once before, First Year when Rae's parents took me for the weekend. They took me to all the tourists spots and we spent like eight hours in the Met. I ran around looking for scenes from the Don't Eat the Pictures movie. Rae was embarrassed. It was like 15*F at the Statue of Liberty. We have cold pictures - somewhere. I think Rae has them all. I was so sick I passed out in the Guggenheim. Rae and I were staring at this exhibition bay with some florescent tubes on the wall, trying to figure out if it was the art, or an empty bay waiting for art. Then everything started tilting left and right and I leaned over a handrail while everything dissolved. It was a fantastic trip, though. We went to a huge toy store! We walked through Times Square at night! I can't wait to go back! (I can't believe we're doing this!)

Superbot

I was like the amazing automated executive assistant this morning.

I woke up on time even though I had stayed up until 6am the night before. I put on a starched white shirt and went to the courtroom to do my little mock trial thingy (I dropped the class but since I had already been assigned a part, I showed up anyway). I went first and I did well. Then I returned books to the campus bookstore for a refund (since I'm not taking the class), returned a library book, turned in a Mentor form (going to adopt a first year), turned in my major declaration, and submitted a transcript request for Brian. I also checked job postings at the financial aid office, interviewed with the manager, and got a job at the campus bookstore. (I think the starched white shirt helped.) I'll work one day a week and they'll pay me $50 - which is either going to be eaten up at the Indian restaurant or saved for Chrimstas. I filled out a form in triplicate over the internet, brought it to the student center with a check, and was fingerprinted by the State Bar Association (they'll run the prints to make sure I'm not a felon under another name). I waited in line for this for 45 min while some guy told me everything I never wanted to know about some stuff I wasn't really listening to. He gets credit for trying to help, but really, I was tired! While I was doing that, Brian went out to the parking lot and wrote down our license plate numbers so I could go to the business office and fill out three forms for three parking permits. Then I ventured out into the blazing sun and put them in our vehicles. I only set off one car alarum. I checked the mail. And in the middle of that, I opened up a UPS package and found my new book (1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die) and Brian and I had a half-hour chat about literature we've read. He's read all the Russian literature and I've read everything but Russian literature. Damn!

Now I'm doing the reading for the two international law classes I have tonight.

Dim Sum Disappointment

This was a hard week. One thing I did enjoy was a dinner party. I made Brian go. Same kids as last time. I'm like a Sim. When people move into the neighborhood I go say Hello and I have to work them over to make Family Friends. We saw Juno while we waited for the Jell-o to set. I liked it. There were some aspects that were kindof lacking, though. We made jello because the kids from Germany and Austria had never seen it, heard of it, or had it before. It's hard to describe jello. It was funny to see them shaking the box and puzzling over the ingredient panel and stuff. They had mixed reactions to the finished product.

Anyway, it was a long, difficult, draining week. And I got sick. To celebrate surviving until Saturday, we went out to Dim Sum. Dim Sum was tragic. None of my sweet cream buns or fried sesame seed balls or red bean buns or anything was there. Cart after cart rolled by, without any sign of them. I got chicken-filled fried pastry balls by accident. Maybe we were there at the wrong time. I drooped over a potsticker and sighed heavily. Brian took me to the Barnes & Borders to cheer me up. Eclipse isn't out in paperback (in English) yet. I have no money and no free time. I grew despondent. Brian brought me home and we cleaned the apartment and did laundry. I lent books to the First Year struggling across the hall. I took care of the mouse. I thought being responsible would make me feel better but it didn't. I locked the doors and played Sims until I was too tired to feel sad anymore.

Other News

We've worked hard this past week. Harder because it was over 100*F. We've cleaned up and moved into our apartment. It was tricky. I didn't have a computer on a functional desk until Monday! We've gone shopping about five times, trying to make this place livable. I ordered two cookbooks on living green and eating cheap. We bought lentils and had a cheap date / green meal. Kudos to Brian for figuring out how to cook them. I taught Brian what Reubens are, and made them for us. He was doubtful at first, but it turns out he likes them! We went to a dinner party hosted by our new neighbors and met lots of new interesting people who live on our floor. We're trying to make friends with the First Years. We entertained (accidentally by surprize) our first guests in this apartment ever, when two of the LLM students (think graduate grad students) we've met came by to ask about classes and professors. They had to stay standing because we have no living room and no sitting furniture. I had to stop watching the Olympics on the Sunday before classes started. I doan get home until 9:30pm and still have homework after that, so, I doan have time. That was sad. Brian tells me that the second night I wasn't there, they did show fencing and equestrian, briefly. And I missed it! I have the worst luck. Brian has been playing our Sim-versions. I am jealous - I want to play! My boxes from home arrived today, full of books and games I will never have time to enjoy. I haven't given up on my summer project though, of embroidering pillowcases. Hold on, I'm hungry.

Class's Back

First day of class - slept half an hour the night before. Did I mention I can't take a class required for my certificate? Four years here and I can't fit all the classes into my schedule!! I have an appointment with the Dean to get permission to take an extra credit-hour over the limit. Anyway, four classes (eight hours) on the first day. Remedies (we're learning about injunctions). Federal Securities Regulations (stock market / SEC stuff). International business transactions (Prof told the best Ananzi story - he's great). Trial Advocacy (basically a mock trial class. Painful but I thought it would be good for my education.) Brian was a sweetheart and made breakfast for me. When I got home I collapsed for 14 hours.

American Politics

Olympics

Flag-Waving

Our Porch

(overlooking campus and sharing pride since 2005)

Politics

My IKEA Room

The Sims (I taught Brian how to play today when he found my four-years neglected box while I was cleaning and moving into my office for the school year and said "What's this like?") have released an IKEA furniture expansion pack. (Target-mart is a bad place to go on a budget. We only resisted by telling ourselves we would buy it later.) I found this picture online - it's my room! (Or rather, it is the furniture I dream of buying. It's my bed, plus the dresser and mirror I drooled over and rubbed with longing for twenty minutes before settling for a cheaper line.)

Savy Shoppers

Last semester (totally broke) I started couponing. As a hobby. As a recreational sport. (My best score ever: $58 out of $350). Today, to celebrate having some control over the household, I gathered up my coupon collection and stepped out with Brian. Brian was very patient while I ran around the store shuffling coupons, looking for certain brands, and then doing the math in my head to see if [the name brand with the coupon] was cheaper than [the store brand on sale].

At the grocery store we saved $11.49 with my coupons (and $16 with the in-store card). Best item: a bottle of shampoo ($3 off) now only $0.59! We also bought lentils because I am reading about Green cooking and apparently, lentils are the bee's knees when it comes to sustainable agriculture and vegetarian protein.

Having seen something in the paper, we drove to a drugstore that had advertised really good prices on shampoo and bubble-mailers and Gatorade and other stuff I need. We saved $34.80.

Then got back to the car and found a $30 parking ticket.

Politics

Politics

Olympics

Brian and I watched the Olympics on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. We also ran errands to the bank and grocery store (I think we've made three trips now, and have to go again today). And we've eaten at the Indian place two more times. Heaven! I like the Olympics in general, but the actual show I'm watching right now on TV is driving me up the wall.

We're getting really freaking tired of two things:
1) Beach Volleyball
2) Bitchy commentators

Honestly, there are like 47 Olympic sports and all we ever see on NBC is beach volleyball. (Unless Micheal Phelps is doing something. Or we can interview his Mom.) Beach volleyball is not even playing for medals, this is just the semi-semi-qualifying pool of 16 round! Why the hell are they airing it, beginning to end, for hours and hours and hours? Why can't they spend an hour on beach volleyball, and then show us some fencing, equestrian, badminton, handball, judo, weightlifting, or something! The Olympics is not ESPN. We are not here to see every single minute of the volleyball game. We were here to see people from countries we've never heard of play obscure sports against France, and jump up and down when they win the gold medal. That's the Olympic spirit. It's supposed to be the whole world, all the games, all the countries! There are medals being awarded in another building, and I am hearing the story about how Dalhausser shaved his head... for the third time! Just shoot me.

The bitchy commentators - especially the squeaky little guy who does gymnastics - really piss me off. The reedy-voiced gymnastics guy is an asshole. I think he's jealous that's he's not out there, or something, because he is downright HOSTILE to the athletes. He's appalled that the Chinese team and the American teams are mingling on the sidelines. He's disappointed that the Romanians are using their cell phones because it shows they're not intense, and thinks it's unprofessional of the Japanese to be taking videos of one another between rotations. He "hates to see" the Japanese guy smiling it off when he made a bad landing ("I guess that's just how some people cope with it, but I really hate to see that, at a competition like that. I really hate to see that.") My god! These are 16 year olds (12 year olds in the case of the Chinese girl) at the Olympics for the first time - of course they're taking pictures! Isn't the Spirit of the Olympics all about mingling with other athletes? And every time anyone puts a toe out of line he shouts" Oooooo HUGE MISTAKE!" and then the judges score it an 8.5 anyway. I think the guy has serious emotional baggage, and is a total wanker in real life.

I also have the urge to punch the great big hulking stupid cameramen who hang over the gymnasts, two feet away, when something has gone wrong and they are trying not to cry. The gymnasts move away from the cameras, turn their backs, or go into a huddle, and the stupid asshole cameramen follow them! You can see sometimes, when they get in one another's shots, just how close they are to the athletes. Poor girl just wants to cry and some asshole has a camera in her face. They're on the sidelines, for godssake, stop staring at the poor kid and go cover the pommel horse. Show us athletes from more than three teams!

Second Day Home

I woke up when Brian delivered breakfast in bed - the perfect breakfast made just the way I like it. Could my life get any better?

When I went to the campus bookstore to buy my textbooks it was quiet. Too quiet. Even the First Years weren't here yet. Suspicious, I checked the academic calendar again and realized I'd misunderstood it over the summer. Classes doan start on the 12th, they start on the 18th! Crap! I was paralyzed with guilt for at least half an hour. I could have stayed in NH and helped my parents for a few more days! Brian, ever sympathetic, looked up plane tickets and greyhound prices for a trip back to NH. It won't work. Since I suddenly had six extra days dropped on my guilty head, Brian and I planned a road-trip. We always want to go on road-trips and we never have time. Brian has been planning road-trips all summer, while he was languishing here by himself. We decided to go to Mount Shasta - someplace really pretty we've wanted to visit for a while. (I am trying to see all the California tourist spots before I leave the West Coast.)


We decided it should be a spontaneous exploration road trip so we didn't check the weather forecast or reserve hotel rooms beforehand We were just going to go adventuring, atlas in hand. This is why some time passed before we considered (when we saw a headline by accident) checking up on what was on fire this week in California. The answer: Mount Shasta.

In fact, they had ordered the evacuation of one of the towns we were planning on driving thru.

No road trip.

After much conversation ("But I'm broke!") we decided to take a staycation instead, and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing (complete with computer-animated fireworks to supplement the 'inadequate' real ones, and a 'cuter' little girl lip syncing to another (less cute) little girl's song).

First Day Out

After sleeping forever, Brian and I spent the day out!

We got all-you-can-eat sushi! (What a great way to wake up in California.) We hit the Barnes & Borders - my first big bookstore all summer! Seeing everything I want but can't have (and don't have time for even if I did get) was painful. But I liked it, in a sick kind of way. It's the bad touch. Eclipse isn't out in paperback (in English)! I have to learn Spanish - stat! I saw a day planner and realized I had to have one. But not that one, I didn't like that one. We went to two office superstores (Brian is a prince) and I found one I love. (Hey, I'll be staring at it every single day for the next year - it has to be nice!)

On our way past the movie theatre we stopped and saw Dark Knight (after I nearly choked to death on popcorn). I'd seen the first one, and heard that Dark Knight was some kind of craze, or something, but we didn't set out to see it, it was just the only thing playing at 3pm. In fact, if I had seen the movie posters advertising Dark Knight I would never have gone. That shit is scary!

As it turned out, I liked Dark Knight - in that it was a very satisfying movie. Convincing characters, well filmed, interesting visual effects. Heath Ledger was scary, fascinating, well performed, creepy, and seemed about 45 years old.

Overall, Dark Knight was absorbing. I paid attention the whole time (I doan always do that). I liked Morgan Freeman. I always like Morgan Freeman. Even in that campy asteroid movie, he was great. I wouldn't buy this one on DVD, but it was a nice experience. I didn't like that at the end of the movie, just as the detective is giving the dramatic voiceover and Batman is running thru the night, the climactic music is so loud we couldn't hear what the hell the guy was saying. " DUM DUM! ... Hero we- DUM DUM city- DUM DUM always alone- DUM DUM we need him- DUM DUM!" And I really didn't like another development that I will not spoil for you - I'll just say that I doan think I'll go see the next one. Batman is too dark.

After stepping out, blinking in the bright sun of the parking lot, we cruised back to our neighborhood and hit our favorite little independent Thai food place. Ooooo baby. We ordered everything I like and amazed the waitstaff by eating it all. Then we crawled home and slept for hours and hours. Delicious!

I Arrive

I landed here in CA at about 9pm. Brian met me at the airport with flowers and Indian food. Heavenly. He drove me home, turned on Pride and Prejudice (Kira Knightly version), and unpacked an heavenly picnic. I adore Indian food, and missed it all summer. Two months, and I only had it once! Brian is a genius.

Two Natalie Portmans

I saw two Natalie Portman movies in one weekend (before I left NH): The Other Boleyn Girl (the one where she marries Henry VIII) and Where the Heart Is (the one where she's a pregnant teenage hick who lives in a Wal-Mart). Very different roles, I must say. She handled them both very well. She's always serious, but I guess that was called for. Seducing a king is serious business. So is being a single mother.

The Other Boleyn Girl was not as good as the book (they never are) because the story was too rushed and took out too much. (I knew I was doing myself a disservice by reading the book right before seeing the movie.) One of the omissions is genuinely confusing - her sister marries a guy, and then later marries a different guy. You never find out what happened to the first husband! (He died in an epidemic.) And since it was historical fiction, they played with other facts, leading two generations of movie-goers into error. Portman was convincingly evil (and a lot like Senator Amidala) but they took out the part where she's going crazy, trying for five years to keep Henry interested. That made her more sympathetic. And they added a rape scene I found gratuitous and uncomfortable to watch.

Where the Heart Is was surprizingly good. She's sweet, she grows up, she works hard, she builds a life for herself (not in the Wal-Mart) and finds true love. I expected the movie to be stupid but was drawn in, against my will, and ended up sitting down and watching the whole thing. My only real problem was the tornado scene - anybody who was sucked up by a tornado, with legs in the air and everything, would be cut to ribbons by the crap blowing around IN the tornado. But really, it was a nice movie. I liked how she became a photographer. Lots of girls dream of taking great black & white pictures instead of going to college, so I thought it was funny she actually did it. Her own success. And the moppy-haired hero was adorable.

Day 73

Wherein I fly back to CA, reading Twilight.
(I woan spoiler anything - I only say things you see in the movie trailer or read on the back of the book)

I had my doubts about Twilight. I found out about it because somebody I know posted something on FaceSpace which ended up on my 'home' screen and I figured 'Vampire movie, cool' and watched the trailer. It's iffy. The dialogue is iffy, the technical skills are iffy, the premise is iffy. Star-crossed 16-year-olds? Come on. But interesting. That's pretty much par for the course in vampire movies, right? Iffy but interesting? (You're talking to a Blade fan here. I own all three dvd's.)

I only bought the book because I was trapped in a bookstore anyway, I was contemplating a cross-county plane trip, and was feeling sorry for myself. Big displays were set up everywhere to celebrate the release of the fourth book in the series, Breaking Dawn. Tempting me. I made an impulse buy. I asked the guy at the store if it was any good. "Oh it's very popular," he assured me, "Everybody's reading it."
"Yes," I said, "But is it a good book?"
"....They're just flying off the shelves."
Yeah, thanks.

I bought it anyway. Paid brand-new price, too, which I never, do. (I felt really sorry for myself.)

Well, since I had it, I packed it in my carry-on and, sitting at the gate in NH, I cracked open the shiny, brand-new pseudo-gothic cover and started reading Twilight. I read for an hour and a half at the gate, 45 min on the runway while we waited for thunderstorms to pass by, and an hour and a half in the air.

I landed in Philadelphia to change planes, and bought the sequel. Brand-new. Airport prices.

I am totally addicted to the Twilight series. Can't put it down. Have watched the slightly-cheesy movie trailers 10 times each, badgered a Barnes & Border's employee for the paperback release date for Eclipse (in English), read the excerpts available on Stephanie Meyer's website, have searched the Public Library's catalog for copies of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, and even (I hang my head in shame as I admit it) read some Twilight fanfic online. (The only good one wasn't finished yet. Gee whiz. I hate it when they do that.)

I am painfully aware that this is not great literature. For one thing, there was not one single word in this 500-page book that I had to look up in the dictionary (or at least puzzle out from context), and that's a red flag right there. Small words. Easy to understand. Plot-driven. No deep dark symbolism here. "I knew he was hiding something from me. I could see he wouldn't tell me what it was, tonight, so I resolved to wait." Simplicity at once painful and reassuring. Fifteen year olds reading at grade-level would enjoy this book. That's a warning sign. On the other hand, I doan have to work too hard. Leaving Mr. Mackenzie this is not.

Ok here's a good scene that illustrates what I mean - and by the way it's not hard to find these scenes. It took me ten seconds to open the book and find this:

"I didn't like it. Not seeing you. It makes me anxious, too." I blushed to be saying this out loud.
He was quiet. I glanced up, apprehensive, and saw that his expression was pained.
"Ah," he groaned quietly. "This is wrong."
I couldn't understand his response. "What did I say?"
"Don't you see, Bella? It's one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved." He turned his anguished eyes to the road, his words flowing almost too fast for me to understand. "I don't want you to feel that way." His voice was low but urgent. His words cut me. "It's wrong. It's not safe. I'm dangerous Bella - please, grasp that."
"No." I tried very hard not to look like a sulky child.
"I'm serious," he growled.

So as you can see - Meyer is no Henry James / James Joyce. The only thing the intended audience is thinking right here is "Does he like her? How much does he like her?" Or maybe, later on, "Kiss her! KISS HER!"

And the heroine finds herself in mortal peril in about every other chapter. That is hard to swallow, if you think about it. Try not to think too hard while you're reading these. Stick to: "Kiss her!"

(On the other hand, Harry Potter wasn't that... deep, either. Simple but beautiful and satisfying. And we all fell in love with Platform 9 3/4 and packed movie theaters, pockets full of chocolate frogs, to see what happens next.)

I am ashamed to say that I find these books utterly addictive. I can't put it down! What happens next!?! Part of the attraction is that Bella, the heroine, is a convincing normal teenager. But she's not all consumed by rage, hatred and angst the way Harry Potter is after book four. But she's believable. She stares at hot guys, and gets mad when somebody brushes her off and hurts her feelings. But she doesn't think the whole world is out to get her. And she's polite. She does homework! And washes dinner dishes! (So many literary teenagers doan do that stuff.) Bella is normal but NICE. I like hanging out with her.

Edward is a big part of my attraction to this series, too. Edward is hot. The actor from the trailer (I saw him first so that's the 'face' in the book) (he is Cedric from Harry Potter, by the way) is not that hot. And the campy white make-up looks a little... fake. That's not what I'm talking about. I mean the tension is hot. He thrums with tension, and that's hot. And he's brilliant, which is always hot. And he's strong and mysterious and he wants her, but if he gets near her he might kill her.... Yes! Ok! So it's a tween romance novel! There! I've said it! I can't help it! It's hot!

Day 68, 69, 70

The party comes to visit! Oleave, Janice, and Jiayang drove in for the weekend! (I am a lucky Manky!) Janice made heroic efforts to drive all the way up here (NYC - Boston - NH), despite her injuries (Janice is injured). Thank you Janice! And this was the first time I'd seen Jiayang in a loooong time, because she's been in China. (She brought me chopsticks from China with wild designs on them! Thank you Jiayang!)

When the girls arrived - around 11pm, Friday night - I was still getting things set up for Saturday's kids' event here at camp. "Here are your rooms. Unpack your stuff, relax... I have to go get your bathmat out of the dryer!" I had spent the day shopping for the event, watching the office, and cleaning up the little house (my cousins had left at 5am, which is when I got up). I was sorting out oranges (every year I have to buy 150 oranges, in public) to throw into the swimming area so the kids could race out and collect them. The Delinquents' Delegation helped me fill water balloons for the water balloon toss event (half of them were deformed and phallic and the other half burst as we were filling them, soaking us). When the helium tank died, they blew up party balloons by mouth to decorate the venue. At one point I looked over and both Janice and Oleave were laying on the floor, dizzy from the effort. We stayed up until 4am. I was so happy to be hanging out with Delinquents! Yay!

Saturday morning dawned cloudy and cold. The kids' event was way smaller than we had anticipated. Nobody wants to go swimming when it's 68*F and breezy. Janice, Oleave and Jiayang had to endure the air-compressor running on their front porch during breakfast, while I blew up air mattresses for kids to use in the race. I couldn't find ribbons so they helped me use tree-tape to tie up the balloons. I mixed 5 gallons of lemonade and 5 gallons of Punch-Aid, irreparably staining my crisp white polo shirt in the process. We threw oranges into the swimming area and raided the dessert tent. While I tried to persuade small children that really, it was perfectly warm outside, don't you want to go swimming? the three of them huddled in patio chairs wrapped in blankets. Bad for business! We rushed the water balloon toss because rain was imminent.

With the events petering out (people running for cover) the four of us drove to Wolfeboro to enjoy the quaint shops. We hit a kitchen store (where I found an egg seperator! I've been looking for one for months!) the bookstore, the bakery, a walk along the water, and the ice cream place (I like how Janice travels). I was sitting on the dock savoring the best peanut sauce in the world when it started to rain. We jumped back into the SUV and headed back to camp to find dinner. Between driving and talking with my hands I managed to dump 5 oz. of melted ice cream all over my arm. Janice had to mop me up while I drove.

After dinner with my parents (my mom came home! (She'd been gone for a week)) we lit a fire on the patio, in the dark and the mist, in a copper dish full of water, because Janice wanted a campfire and S'mores. Anything for the ladies. I have mad fire-building skills. (And wood that was kept dry inside - hee hee :-) We managed to make about four S'mores before we got rained out again. Huddled in the house, we played Skippo (giving Oleave a mojito beforehand turned out to be good for my team) and stayed up all night again. It was lovely! I am kicking myself for not taking pictures - why didn't I take pictures?! I guess I was just so exhausted and brain dead I didn't have the energy to think of it. I have failed.

I have dim memories of the next morning. I think I saw Janice standing at the foot of my bed... then everything went dark again. If wind up pregnant, I'm holding her responsible!

Janice had to leave early, but Jiayang and Oleave had time to go kayaking (and pose for pictures!) before I drove them to the Greyhound station. By Greyhound station I mean 'gas station parking lot.' I was sad to see them go. Goodbye Delinquents!

Thank you for coming to visit!

Brian & The Bar: A Comedy of Errors

The Bar Exam - the licensing exam for lawyers - is three days long, eight hours a day. After three years in law school you get three days to prove you can enter the practice. And California, sadly, has the hardest bar exam in the country - only 48% of the people who take it, will pass. That's 48% of the people who have been to law school, and think they should be lawyers tomorrow. Pressure much?

Brian spent the summer here on campus in a special review course - 14 hours a day studying everything he was supposed to have learned (some of which we've never seen before) during law school. Class for four to six hours, six days a week. Poor guy. He had to memorize a stack of books two feet tall. It's a tall order but he's a bright kid and he studies hard so we have high hopes for him. So at the end of July - he goes to take the Bar Exam.

Day One - Brian discovers he has the flu. He hasn't been feeling well for a few days, but today it hits him hard. Feverish, sweating, shaking, shivering, pale as a sheet, in terrible pain, and throwing up all over the place, he's sitting for 8 hours of tests. He takes DayQuil. It doesn't work. He takes more. Now his heart is racing, and he still has flu symptoms. He tries to stand up and gets dizzy. A friend tells him he looks like shit. Even compared to the other people taking the Bar - which are a pretty rough bunch by this time. He has to leave the room about ten times (during a timed exam) to throw up. The proctor moves Brian's seat closer to the restroom, to make the trips shorter. He can't eat anything. He's weak and lightheaded. The kid next to him offers to call the nurse. He loses track of the facts in the two-page essay question. When he calls me that night he can't remember whether or not he finished the exams before time was called. He throws up all night.

That night Brian staggers into a pharmacy and begs the guy for something to stop the nausea. "You've got to help me" he rasps, "I'm taking the Bar Exam!" The guy, all sympathy, gives him something. And it stops the nausea!

Day Two - The drugs are working! Brian's not throwing up! But he feels all dreamy. That's strange. It's then that Brian sees the warnings on the drugs. "May cause drowsiness, confusion, light-headedness. Do not operate a motor vehicle until you know how this drug will affect you." Great. Brian is now so sleepy and disoriented that he's gripping the table to stay standing, he's so confused he forgets the facts in the essay question as soon as he reads them, he gets to the end of the 200-question multiple-choice scantron bubble sheet, and realizes he has been one number off for god-only-knows how long, and he's so sleepy that he lost about 20 minutes out of one exam when he passed out on the desk. Passed out! Strangers once again offer to procure medical assistance. They're going to have good stories to tell, about the guy who sat next to them during the Bar Exam.

There are 16 possible subjects on the bar exam. The Bar picks eight to test. The review course told him there was no way (these three subjects) would be on the exam, right? They study old exams, chart out patterns, and predict with confidence that these three subjects will not be on the exam. Haven't tested it in 18 years. Be smart. Concentrate your studying time on other subjects. Like on these six or seven subjects that really will be tested.

Guess which subjects they do pick to test on the Bar Exam? Guess which subjects they don't test?

Brian is now sure that he has failed the bar exam (you can't 'miss' that many questions and pass, even if everything you did write was perfect) but decides to go to the third day just for practice. He spent $3000 on a review course so he could look at old bar exams and take practice tests, and spent $500 on this test, so he might as as well practice on these questions and get his money's worth, right?

Day Three dawns and the flu is abating. Brian is just taking normal cold medicine now and can both stand unassisted and remember what he just read. He drives into the Bar Exam again. There are fewer people in the exam room, today. Empty chairs make him sad. He's feeling better and attacks the exam with spirit. The exam is going pretty well. He's clacking along on his keyboard, writing an essay, he's really got a handle on it, and - - his computer crashes. He restarts. It won't open the exam software. He raises his hand to get a little book for handwriting his answer - and the proctor who responds is about 110 years old. She shuffles over. "I need an exam book! I have to handwrite!" he hisses. "Oh... ok..." she processes this at the speed of an AppleIIe. She shuffles off to find a book. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. They are in a room the size of a stadium, 3000 people are taking this exam, and she has to cross all the way to the other side of the room. Brain is dying at this point. It's so bad that another proctor, seeing this happening, sprints over with a book. By this point, Brian can't remember what he was saying, and there is only 1/3 time left. They won't grade what he had written on his computer (if they can even recover the last saved version) because it's in fragmentary outline-note form, not sentences. The only thing they'll grade is that handwritten last-minute half-answer he wrote when he couldn't remember what he'd decided to write in his outline.

He called me, laughing. Studying starts tomorrow for the February Bar Exam.

Day 66 & 67

...a blur of cooking, driving, and family commitments. We love you, Pop.

Day 65

Beautiful weather today, in the conventional sense of the term. Clear blue skies, 78*F, a breeze off the lake. Not my cup of tea but I guess 'To each his own,' etc. It takes all kinds.

My family from KY is hanging around the house, quietly. I'm playing hostess. I made lunch, and I've got "Korean BBQ Chicken" marinading in the fridge - lookit me being domestic. I caught the marinade on fire, this morning. The recipie said to bring it to a "boil" and they didn't warn you that as soon as it boiled it would boil OVER. Ten seconds, max. I turned my back for ten seconds! It hit the burner and exploded. Now I have burnt caramelized sugar bonded to the ceramic stove-top and I can't get it off. The whole house stank of burnt sugar. When I gave a tour to potential customers this afternoon I kept them on the porch as much as possible. "Stay here, I'll bring you the brochures!" I also spilled marinade all over the new tablecloth I put out for the guests. It was a beautiful light blue linen. I say 'was' because they tell me that soy sauce does not wash out. Well, here's my chance to test the new stain remover I bought at the store yesterday. While I was up there I vacuumed the laundry, fixed the change machine, and picked up military fiction books to send to the kid I know who's deploying to Afghanistan soon. I'm good.

Dad and my uncle are out on the lake rescuing some boaters. These poor guys were waving a distress flag for half an hour and nobody knew what it meant until they popped up the engine cover. Now THAT is an international signal of distress.

Did you know that daddy-long-legs are not venomous? That whole thing about them being deadly but their mouths being too little to bite us is an urban legend. They can bite us, some of them, and they're not poisonous. I cite to Wikipedia.

Brian is sick and taking the bar exam. He's miserable.

Day 64

Things have been rough around here. Busy and tedious at the same time. Mom's been in Maine for a while now, so Dad and I are on our own. I've been running the office and the house. On Saturday we visited Pop in the hospital at 7/8am because it was the only time we could leave. I brought him black-eyed-susan's and daisies from my garden.

So I spent the weekend in the office. I'm working hard but not accomplishing anything. The dishes are just going to get dirty again - why bother washing them? When I work in the office I spend all day with the phone and customers and doan get to do any painting or landscaping. I did finally cave and went out for a short sail with this really nice camper who has been asking me to go sailing with him once a week all summer. He pointed out that this was pretty much my last week here, and it was hard to say 'No.' It was a nice break.

Today was especially hectic. I closed the office at 8am and stole the great big oil-burning SUV. Every time I take it anywhere, I have trouble parking. Yes, I am the chick in the big SUV who can't drive. (I wanted to tell everybody in the parking lot that I usually drive a Jetta, it's just that the SUV was the only car here! Mine is in CA, Mom's is in Maine, and Dad's using the truck!) Since no one else is here, I ran all the errands. I overfilled the gas tank, brought the wrong key to the post office, locked myself out of the house in Wolfeboro after realizing that what I was looking for there was already here, and drove downtown to park illegally and buy a dress and shoes. The dress turned out to be kindof Amish, but it was all they had. The saleslady said "Oh that looks nice!" and I said "And Amish" and she said "Well, yes, I guess it does." I drove an hour to get to a Wal-Mart and buy shoes that doan quite match my dress. By noon I was coming out of the grocery store with a cart and a half of supplies when they called to tell me family is arriving tonight. And will be staying with us all this week. I left the ice cream in the car and went back to the grocery store to get more supplies. I got back in the afternoon and I'm still working at 10pm. I've got the houses clean and the provisions stacked up.

We're also running an event (a series of events) this weekend - entertaining about 100 kids. I bought supplies for that too. A big part of this week will be setting everything up so on Saturday I can do everything easily. The best part about this weekend is that I'll see Delinquents - Jiayang and Oleave (and maybe Janice?). I bought junk food and soda so we can stay up all night making a ruckus.

I wish today hadn't been 80*F.

Tomorrow Brian starts taking the Bar Exam! Good Luck Brian!

Day 62

...and God bless Pop.

Day 60 - IN PROGRESS

News Items: IN PROGRESS

• Alice is in the news! http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=69726&catid=2

• Tornadoes touched down in NH! (Just north and just south of my town - roads out of town are shut.)
  

• Brian Witkin-ed a class! (That means he had the highest grade in the class, and gets a $ prize.) I came in second, sadly. The kicker is, I MADE him take that class. It's in my area of study, not his, but he decided to be nice and take the class with me so we could learn together. Figures.
  

Day 59

Woke up early to get work done but found we were expecting a real big rain, so, no painting. I gardened in the rain. I have the hardest time growing Lupines. For sentimental reasons I've been trying to grow them for the past... 10 years or so. They always, always, always die. Every year. In the best years one or two might throw up a sickly looking flower before keeling over (ensuring that next year I will be tempted to try again when I find cute little wild seedlings all over the flowerbed), and in the worst years I have nothing but crabgrass. They tease me first, of course. They're cruel like that. The seeds sprout and grow merrily until they're about four inches tall. Then they vanish. I don't even find the dead plants, I have nothing to mourn, they are just GONE. The larger potted plants take well for the first two weeks, then they turn black and die overnight. One, I know, a deer sat on (I had forensic evidence to prove it) but the others wilt without cause. It's gotten so bad that my mother, feeling sorry for me, will go out and buy big lupine plants with blooms already on them so I can plant them and pretend to be growing lupines, until they die. My soil is acidic, all my other flowers are thriving (hundreds of flowers are thriving) what more do they want?! Hopeless and sad in the rain, I planted more yesterday. As a gesture, more than anything else. I saw Texas Bluebonnet seeds and thought of Rae. She brought Texas Bluebonnet towels for my mom when she came to visit. They're pretty. Blue Lupines.

I finished reading Pages for You. Amazing use of language. The story, first love, is commonplace. But the way she tells it - on the level of individual sentences - makes me ache. The things she pays attention to, the things she mentions, the way she describes something - is amazing. (I'll have to post some parts to share, later, can't have a cover like that in the living room :-)

Difficult Word of the Day: acarpous adj. (Botany) not yielding fruit.

Day 58

I am determined to make-over the front porch before I leave. The screens, the half-walls, and the floor are all bad. And, I am nearly positive, toxic. I sanded my heart out when Dad wasn't around to say me Nay. It keeps raining, though, so no painting. I gardened in the rain. I also finished reading Wild Swans. I guess the next thing I tackle (reading-wise) will be books for school. It's creeping up on me.

Difficult Word of the Day: acropolis n. fortified elevated part of ancient Greek city. Acropolis the ancient citadel of Athens. (I didn't know that every city had an acropolis. I thought there was just THE Acropolis.)

Day 57

Mom and I spent the entire day out. I had an awful doctor's appointment (I seem to be skin-cancer-free), we ran errands, and most of all, I went to see my grandfather. He hasn't allowed me to visit yet this summer because he's been so sick he doesn't want me to see him like that. He kept saying: 'Let me get a little bit better first.' But he's been in and out of the ICU a number of times and I think he feels like it's not going to get any better. So he let me visit. He was happy to see me, and made an effort to talk. He's too weak to talk. I love him. He's truly a hero. For a long time now, I've wanted to name a child after him so he would know that we looked up to him. I wish he could see it happen, so he would know.

Day 56

It's been raining on and off and I love that. Good for the plants, not much sun, and not too hot. The rain drumming on the tin roof sounds heavenly. Makes it hard to paint, though, which was my next project. I cleaned the Loft, made a run to the hardware store (320 pounds of manure), watched the office, and READ in the middle of the day. Heavenly! I'm reading Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China and loving it. And learning so much! I never learned Asian history in school. Now I'm getting an education. This book clearly describes what's happening in China (esp. Manchuria) from around 1900 to 1978. (I had no idea that living in China had sucked for so long.) Pearl Harbour didn't really come out of nowhere like they tell you in high school, it had been building up since about 1932! Chiang Kai-shek wasn't really that good of a leader! Mao actually waged war on the Communist Party! And, unlike the Everlasting Flower: History of Korea book (my last foray into Asian history, two years ago) Wild Swans starts with square one. She assumes her readers are ignorant and white - what a godsend! She describes everything. (I am going to give her book to the architect when I construct my summer house.) If a guy's wearing a 'traditional mandarin jacket' and 'formal hat' she describes what it actually looks like - wide sleeves, what colour, what buttons, the hat has a point in the front and feathers in the back. If somebody's invading she tells you who, and where from. It's great! I don't have to hunt around on Wikipedia trying to figure out what the heck is going on! (Even Wikipedia and Dictionary.com were stumped by some of the stuff Everlasting Flower threw at me.)

Day 55

I slept in! (Delicious) I was sad that it was a hot day, though. Mom and I went to every single site on the property to hand-deliver an announcement about an upcoming event. This proved tortuous. Not only was it ridiculously hot and humid, but the power was still out and everyone we saw had a comment about it. This was NOT the day to hand-deliver notices. Afterwards I drove into town to recycle crappy books and rescue books from being recycled.

It's a pretty cool institution they've got down there. The guys at the dump, the guys who are sorting cans from bottles and charging you $5 to get rid of old carpet, think it's just wrong to throw away books. Books are special, they tell me. You're amazing, I think to myself. So they got one of those 8x10 garden sheds and lined it with bookshelves that people were going to throw into the scrap-wood pile. The guys tell everybody not to throw books into the paper recycling bin, take them across the parking lot and put them in the shack instead. They really care. Then people rescue the books out of the shack. Once a month or so the shack gets too full and they have to throw everything in the pulper with the newspaper and cardboard, but at least the books got one last chance at life. Especially with me around. I love going through there - it's like a yardsale that only has books. What more could you want? I found an out-of-print Douglas Adams book in there that made my week. One summer I made $300 selling books I had rescued from the shack. (I only pick up the good ones, and I only sell the ones I can bear to part with.) And I've built up my own collection. A lot of really great books show up in there when people's kids clean out the family's old summer home. Textbooks great-aunt Greta saved from her Depression-era college days, which are worth nothing on eBay, get taken to the book shack in a big cardboard box when she dies and cousin Charlie sells her house.

I think old books are beautiful and I love them. I can't imagine how people can just toss them. I don't understand why they're worthless on eBay. But oh well, more for me! I have a kickass collection of old hardbacks with gold-leafed titles from the turn of the century that I've rescued from the recycling shack or bought at library-discard sales, yardsales, and church bazaars. They're all stacked in the corner of the Loft right now, but someday I'm going to decorate my whole house with books. When I have a house. Every room is going to be lined with books. I'll never need wallpaper. When people visit my house, twenty years from now, they are going to be bowled over by my huge collection of beautiful old books. And they're going to laugh when they read the titles: "Electrical Circuits" (1932), "Chemistry" (1902), "The Lily" (1912), "Dictionary of American English Volume One: A-Ma" (1919), "The Danger of Communism" (1950). But they're beautiful! I even rescue old encyclopedias. Sometimes they're not a complete set, but I doan mind. I'm used to running a few short of a full deck :-)

Difficult Word of the Day: bibliopegy n. art of book-binding. bibliopegic, a. bibliopegist, n. book- binder.

Day 54

After Rae left I dried my eyes and started working again (it's been a SWEET vacation). I spent most of the day up at the laundry lugging washing machines around. They're heavy! We have six washers and some of them leak - but which ones? I closed the laundry for the day so I could check things out and was immediately surrounded by retirees demanding to know what was going on. You would think the place had burned down. There's a sign, you have to understand, on the door. The sign says "Laundry will be Closed for the day." And yet I had to stand there saying things like: 'Yes, the Laundry is closed,' and 'It will be closed for the day,' over and over. When I closed the door so I could roll up the rug, people were banging on the door with questions. 'Why is it closed?' 'Are you cleaning the rug?' 'Oh, I thought you were cleaning the rug.' 'How long will it be closed?' 'Will it be open tomorrow?'

I vacuumed everything, pulled the machines out of line (one inch at a time), mopped up inch-deep puddles, threw away the grossest sock I've ever seen, surrounded each machine with dry paper towels, and ran them one at a time to see where the problem was coming from. Genius that I am, I realized that one of the leaks wasn't coming from the machines at all, it was coming from a loose hose in the wall behind the machine! Nobody had taken the time to watch. But since I was hanging over the back of the machine scouting for leaks, I caught it! I tightened three hoses and solved one problem. I'm a genius! (I say it like Sid in Ice Age.) I also alphabetized the free-library we have in the laundry, pulled out crappy books to recycle, and pulled out books to send to a guy I know who's deploying to Afghanistan pretty soon. Then the professional I had called came to look at two other washing machines that are really truly broken. Dad keeps saying He'll Do It and We Don't Need To Call A Professional, but they've been broken for quite a while now, he doesn't have the time to fix them, and frankly he doesn't know how to fix washing machines. Last time he was in there working on them he threw one of them into another one and caused them both to leak anew. I warned the repairman that 'My Dad is doing that guy thing' and he knew just what I was talking about. That amused me. I paid the repairman out of my wages. I am quite pleased with myself.

My next big project was: Operation Thunderstorm! Around dinnertime Mom (visiting her parents an hour south) called to tell us that a huge storm (with nickel-sized hail) was coming right for us! We closed all the windows, unplugged all the computers, faxes, modems and routers, and brought in all the cushions off the porch furniture. The sky got dark, like sinister forces Tomb-Raider dark, the wind whipped up and carried off the patio furniture, lightening struck the lake three times in one minute, and rain started falling so hard the flowers were battered flat. The trees were waving from side to side in a quite alaruming manner, creaking and crunching in the wind. I was worried about the hail and covered Dad's truck with quilts. Then I ran around in the rain rescuing our potted flowers from the onslaught. By the time I was done I looked like I had gone swimming with my clothes on. I was totally indecent. By then the rain was easing up and there had been no hail. All the towns around us got hail and 80 mph winds and twister warnings. We didn't. I have some quilts to wash.

A tree fell and hit the wires, shorting out 1/3 of the property (but not our house). The scene at the laundry was replayed on a much grander scale, and for much longer. "Is the power out?" "Have you called the power company?" "Did you know the power was out?" "How much longer will the power be out?" "Do you want me to call the power company?" I think people were passively complaining, myself, because the same person asked me about the power and then ten minutes later asked my Mom the exact same questions. I doan think she meant "When will the power come back on" I think she meant "I am pissed off that the power is out."

Difficult Word of the Day: demophil(e) n. friend of people; person fond of crowds or the masses. demophobe, n. person disliking the masses or crowds.

Days 47 - 54: A Royal Visit

A Royal Visit!
Rae and I are having a great visit. I'm so happy she's here! (And so sad that she's leaving, ever. I told her the room was free until October but she's leaving on Friday.)

Rae's feeling much better, in general, and it's great! She felt good enough to jump in her car and drove 2,000 miles to visit me, on a whim! (I'm a lucky Manky!) The first few days she was here were less like a vacation and more like summer camp because we also had the three screaming kids here. (The four-year-old took the truck picture.) Rae and I helped contain the chaos. We went on boat-rides, supervised arts-and-crafts, coloured, made pipe-cleaner crowns, made lunches, washed dishes, admired makeshift chipmunk traps, distributed band-aids, wore band-aids, made twice-daily runs to the grocery store, and saved imperiled wildlife.
This is the Princess in her crown -->

We had fires on the patio at night. We cut sticks for the kids to roast marshmallows. We had a lot of fun with a loon-call toy I found for Rae before she got here. Last time she was here she stood out on the dock and imitated the loon calls by whistling through her hands. She was pretty good! So when I saw this toy that makes the noise, I thought of her and put it in her room when I was setting it up for her. It turned out to be difficult to get the hang of. The six or seven 'adults' had a rough time getting it started, around the fire at night. The instructions said 'wind it up by rolling it down your tummy' yeah right. The nanny tried to do it and ended up doing a dance that inspired dollar bills. Rae was the one who finally figured it out. We think a loon was answering us, but it might just have been another guy on the other side of the lake with the same toy. And he's thinking "Wow, a loon is answering me!"

We also looked up everybody's birthdays in a star-chart / numerology birthday book. Rae refers to it as 'the star chart by which she lives her life.' She mapped out her family-relationships and I guess they're pretty accurate.

As you can see, Rae has a radical new hair cut - - no hair! Fluffy hair! It's so soft and I rub it the wrong way. It looks slick during the day but she wakes up in the morning with wicked cute bedhead. First thing in the morning she does work on her laptop. She's editing articles for a professional business journal. Her name's getting published in the next issue! This is Rae's wicked cute bedhead. This is before her shower, when she's still in PJ's.

We even stole quiet moments (we were quiet, anyway) to read books on the patio. I read a Dragonlance anthology (hey, it was free) that totally ruined my day. Thirteen stories about dragons (only some of them weren't really) and only ONE turned out ok! All the other ones were sick and sad and twisted. One of the long ones was about RABIES! WTF?

Anyway, Rae showed up here wanting to go hiking. There is one place around here that can make that happen - but on the day we wanted to go the weather was terrible! (On that mountain, anyway.) Thunderstorms and everything! Dark green! I might have hiked, dark green notwithstanding, but my parents Just Said No and I didn't want to fight about it. Besides, Rae might not want to squish the whole way up the mountain. This is the doppler of the menacing herd of wild thunderstorms sweeping across the plains, headed right for us!

We went kyaking instead. We went two miles! Rae got a blister. Now we know she's been at summer camp. She made pipe-cleaner crowns, got a cut, got neon green band-aids and got a blister. All she needs is a sunburn!

We also went raspberry picking with the family and the three kids. I ate too many raspberries and got a stomach ache.

Once the kids left we had more free time.... to watch Xena! Rae brought it all with her so we could fangirl and subtext. We've had two nights of Xena upstairs in the loft - so excited! We even chose Xena over hiking ("How about we just stay up all night watching Xena and skip hiking?" / "Ok") So far we've watched the best of Seasons 1 and 2. I'm sad that we won't make it all the way through. Next summer!

(Somehow we never got a picture of the two of us. Damn.)

This is Rae colouring. Once the kids left everything was peaceful and Rae took their toys :-)

Wednesday was a wicked good day! We had ice cream for breakfast AND made s'mores AND watched Xena! Rae finished two of her projects for work, too. I spent most of the day hanging out with her , sitting further down the table on the other computer. It was like undergrad all over again. Warm, fuzzy, computer-related feelings.

Thursday was another Xena-day! I had to work harder because Mom was gone but I still hung out with Rae and the computers in the house - a nice vacation! When nobody was around we watched Xena in the living room and as soon as dinner was washed up we snuck upstairs and subtexted our hearts out. Such fun!

Friday was tragic. Rae left. Photographic evidence of heartbreak.

Notice the Princess Wave

Goodbye Princess! Thanks for coming to see me!
The good news is that Rae called me the next day to say that she was home safe!

Rae's Here!

Rae's here! Yay! I'm so excited!

Day 45, 46

Lots of family has crash-landed upon us with screaming kids and angry adults. After a difficult afternoon alone, grumpy and aderall-free, I made a mid-level comment about the screaming that caused A LOT of trouble. Bad Manky! I apologized. I'll have to try harder.

I'm not making any progress on outside work, because I'm cooking and cleaning and watching the kids. And I've fixed the wireless network like five times. So much work, and nothing to show for it. It's nice that a front rolled through (big thunderstorm) and it is no longer hellishly hot. I can't wait for Rae to get here!!

Difficult Word of the Day: strepor (n) noise.
strepent, strepitant, strepitous, (adj)

Day 43, 44

Rae is coming! (I'm so excited!) Rae is coming to visit! (A royal visit!) Rae is coming! Rae is coming! So are a lot of other people - so we're cleaning like crazy. And it's hot! I'm miserable. But Rae is coming! Yay!

40, 41, 42, The Fourth!

Fourth of July weekend had me remembering great Fourths: a zipcarful from Boston visiting here, and two weekends in Boston with fireworks and the Boston Pops. Boston on the Fourth is fantastic. If I could, I'd do that every year. We picnicked and read all afternoon in the park and watched fireworks with music when the sun went down. I could skip, however, the part where Alice collapsed on the T. I couldn't handle that every year :-)

We had company and ran a barbecue for 120 people. It went smoothly. I learned how to make tortellini salad. I also learned that there is an alternative theory about the beginning of the universe. It's not the Big Bang. It's like membranes rubbing together - and something about raisins in pudding. Have to put that on my reading list.

Difficult Word of the Day: aconite (n) the monk's-hood or wolf's-bane plant.

Days 37, 38, 39

Hot and humid. Hate that weather. Thunderstorms an all too brief respite from hellishly oppresive atmosphere. Weather probably contributed to my downright alpine level of fustration. There are so many things going on here that it's impossible to do anything. The daily cleaning and daily emergencies prevent progress on my projects.

There were a lot of daily emergencies this week. Fourth of July Weekend is a mess for us - tons of people coming in, needing things, making demands, tons of guests running all over the place getting into trouble, WE have company coming so the whole house has to be spotless at the same time the whole campground is making demands, we have to buy groceries and bake cakes AND on Saturday we are putting on a chicken barbeque for 120 people. So yeah, this week was a mess.

And if the weather is cooperating and there are no customers who need help, my Dad has a problem with what I'm doing. And if he's out of the way, Mom has a problem. I say "I'm going to (fix this thing)" and they say 'Ok fine.' I spend half an hour finding the right screws and drill bit, get halfway through the job, and somebody stops me. "Don't fix that, Dad is going to tear it down and build it new, this fall." You said that last year. I have wasted an hour and accomplished nothing.

Yesterday we had a boat mooring emergency (in my opinion the emergency is still going on). I was victorious, though, over the immediate problem. The Frogman triumphs! We have all these moorings in the water for customers to use, right. Well it's Fourth of July weekend, everybody wants their boat in the water cause they have company coming. But nobody knows if the moorings actually survived the winter. Nobody's gone underwater and checked them. They could be hanging by a thread, or just dangling in the water for all we know. Half the buoys are missing from the ropes, so half the ropes are on the bottom of the lake where nobody can use them. Dad doesn't have the time to fix this cause he's fixing other things. But boats can tie up to the dock, too, so it doesn't matter so much.

Well yesterday somebody needed one of these moorings that we have way out, away from the dock. So, it matters now. I'm working on other stuff but Dad's freaking out because Mom rented a mooring (weeks ago) that nobody's checked, so I get drafted. Dad and I are going to go out there, check on them, and move a boat off the dock and onto a mooring. I was playing frogman, Dad was in the rowboat. I change into my super-flattering $60 Land's End bathing suit that I bought for the wedding on Amelia Island. Dad can't find oarlocks. I wait on the end of the dock with my snorkel. Actually, it's somebody else's snorkel. I can tell he's ranting and raving from the way he's waving his arms around, but it's silent from that distance. Oddly peaceful. Twenty minutes. He finds oarlocks. He launches the boat. It's very windy and wavy, because a storm is blowing in, so he pulls hard on the oars. They break. The wood was rotten. Mom brings him new oars. He pulls on the oars, and the oarlock socket breaks off. Now he's pissed. This would be funny, if it were anybody else. He says "It's OK, you can do this by yourself!" and I'm not sure if that's a statement of fact, or rhetorical, or sarcastic, or what. In retrospect I think he meant moving the boat, which I could not possibly have done, so it was sarcasm. But at the time I thought I was supposed to be checking damage, so I did go out by myself. I can look by myself.

I swim out and snorkel around the moorings. Two have sunk, but I find the lines. I assess the damage. The moorings are complicated, have several lines and chains, and some of them are buried in muck or rusted over. One of them was tied in a big knot of rope and chain which I had to untie, underwater, in stages. It's so windy I am being buffeted around by the waves, even though this is just a lake. Little waves are breaking into my snorkel! I do my best, battling my learning disability, to memorize the arrangement of objects and note which parts are bad. I have one near-drowning incident when the snorkel breaks just as I am inhaling. I look up to find nobody is watching me! I have been abandoned! I tread water and choke until I'm dizzy. Then, back to work.

By the time I get out of the water (requesting paper to draw a schematic and tag parts to replace) Dad's throwing things from one end of the boatshop to the other, looking for screws to fix the oarlock socket. He plans to move the boat out to the moorings from whence I have just come. Nobody's listening to my actual description of actual damage. He's yelling about how difficult it is that he has to move the boat, and he has 100 things to do today, and I have to break in and say "Um... there's a problem with the moorings." Man, he was NOT ready to hear that. He tossed a rope to me, told me it wouldn't work, told me I would drown, and stormed out.

Passing forward another hour, gentle reader, you find me and my Land's End bathing suit back in the lake. I am fearless and inventive. I've got an adjustable wrench in one hand, and a new mooring and shackle in the other. I pieced it together from extra parts. I'm on the bottom of the lake, wrestling with rusty chains and frayed ropes. My whole body is scraped with streaks of rust from the chains, which I am holding with both hands and feet. The Land's End bathing suit may never be the same. I'm trying to unscrew shackles which have rusted shut, while holding my breath and fighting buoyancy. My hands are cut open and bleeding. I can't get the old lines off the setup, but I find a way to attach the new mooring and rope to the old chain and weight.

Dad and I move the boat to the mooring, a sloshy rowboat adventure in of itself. The important part is that at one point I had the top half of the mooring pulled up into the rowboat, and Dad looks over at the chain (new rope, old chain) and says "Wow, that's all corroded. That's not good. Attach that shackle to something else, over there." And I am thinking "Wait, that's not good enough? I thought that was good enough. Um... it ALL looks like that. All the chains. All the weights. Everything looks like that." (This is the ongoing mooring emergency that Dad won't confront or solve because he's too stressed out to listen to me.)

After moving this boat I get back in the water to check other moorings, because having seen the chains that Dad thinks aren't good enough, I'm nervous. While I'm in the water I help a first-timer tie up to our moorings. I'm swimming alongside the boat, fighting the waves, one hand on the propeller so it doesn't sneak up on me, and I have to hand up the ropes one at a time and tell him what part of the boat he should tie it to. He's so new he doesn't even know how to use a cleat. I have to reach up and do it for him. But it wasn't his fault that two of the lines were missing buoys and the ropes were laying on the ground under six feet of water. I tied buoys on for him. Then lightening rolled in and I got out of the lake.

My work was truly tested today: the wind came howling across the lake at 3o mph. The waves were a foot high, and the little wee boaties were jumping against their lines like rodeo horses. And everything held. Mooring boat is still there. First-timer boat didn't hit the dock. Frogman triumphs.

Difficult Word of the Day: aquanaut (n.) an underwater explorer, especially one remaining for extended periods in undersea diving chamber.

Reading Outside of Class: Fairy Tales