I have the coolest grandparents in the world. Here's why:
My maternal grandmother is embarking on a new relationship at age 75. In my lifetime, she has traveled to New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Micronesia, and countless other places. She tutored children in English in a rural Italian village. She is a liberal activist and supporter of public radio and the arts scene in Spokane.
My paternal grandmother writes outstanding free verse poetry, and wins awards for it every year. She's currently revising a poem about my dad climbing mountains. The first line is, "You don't become a mountaineer all at once." She gets 1000 long-distance phone minutes per month and lets me use as many of them as I want.
Her husband, my only living grandfather, once had a heart attack while riding a camel in the desert in the Middle East. He didn't tell anyone about it until days later, when he was back where he knew the doctors would be dependable, and he lived through it.
Here's my grievance: girls who wear tight, low-rise pants with their thong panties sticking out the top.
I have no issue with thongs in general--I'm a fan, actually. And I certainly have no problem with girls in tight pants--nothing like tight pants to show off a nice ass. And I'm not bitching about mere incidental glimpses of panty.
My complaint is when the pants are so low there are three or four inches of thong exposed. Particularly grievous infractions involve pants that are so tight that there are fat bubbles bulging out between the waistband of the pants and the bottom of the thong. That's just icky.
Sitting in the Bistro today, we observed the aforementioned display of butt fat between thong and pants. Definitely not sexy. The guy I was sitting with was weighing the pros and cons of going after the girl's exposed inches of ass with ice. He eventually decided against it, due in part to Sarah and Katie's horrified looks. Secretly, though, I think she deserved it. It was a heinous thong infraction.
Friday's big accomplishment was finishing the entire Whiskey River BBQ burger at Red Robin in one sitting.
Saturday's big accomplishment was saying goodbye to Chris without crying.
Yesterday's big accomplishment was a feast to end all feasts.
Appetizers: Pink lady apples with peanut butter
Orange juice
Main course: Salmon with dill cream sauce
Mashed potatoes
Zucchini and squash with dill and cilantro
Cabernet savignon and Riesling wine
Second course: Basil french bread with spiced olive oil
Brie
More wine
Dessert: Kahlua cake
Chai tea
And we made everything ourselves, from scratch. We kneaded the dough for the basil french bread on our kitchen table. I improvised the dill cream sauce from what we had in our fridge. Everything was phenomenally delicious. It was our first real dinner party here, and it was perfect.
"Are we cool or lame?" Katharine muttered. "I can't tell."
"Difficult to say," I replied, sidestepping a flock of flirty young girls. "Let's decide we're so cool that these kids don't understand us."
"I like that. Not sure I buy it, but I like it."
We walked up to the doors of our old high school and went in. We'd hoped to visit with our favorite teachers, but when we arrived, they were all in a meeting in the library. Nosy as I am, we skulked over to the library and surreptitiously peeked in the windows. The principal, hated by students and teachers alike, was at the front of the room presenting to several dozen teachers with expressions ranging from bored to exasperated. The overhead projector read, "Every Student Can Be Successful." I nearly fell over laughing.
"Wow," I chortled. "I'm sure glad I don't have to be in THAT meeting."
We waited in the hallway for the meeting to let out, and when our favorite history teacher emerged, having walked out in the middle of the meeting, we all had a good laugh together about it.
"Remember," he said, as we walked out of the building, "every student can be successful, but not every administrator can."
Why I haven't posted in a while, and probably won't again for a while:
Two words:
Spring break.
Chris is here, and life is good. That's about all there is to report.
That, and you should go see Starsky and Hutch. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson are awesome together, as always, and Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and the original Starsky and Hutch actors make humorous cameos. Hot chicks, too. Heh. Seriously, though, you should go see it.
"How can you not like onions? They're a staple food."
"Onions aren't stapled to ME!"
[after Sarah began picking the leeks out of her shepherd's pie]
Me: But you were the one who jumped up and down in the produce aisle and begged me to buy leeks. Now you don't like them?
Sarah: I like them, they're just a little too leeky, that's all.
Points to whoever can name the origin of the following, some of our favorite sayings lately.
1. In English yesterday, a girl sitting by the window was freaked out by a large bee-wasp, to the degree that we couldn't start class before it flew outside. It didn't want to fly outside. So the guy sitting next to me stood up abruptly, tore a page out of his notebook and strode confidently towards the insect on the sill. By that time the squeamish girl had bolted from her chair and was huddling near the blackboard. Her hero valiantly squashed the bug in the piece of paper and deposited it in the trash. I would have been more impressed with him if there hadn't been five inches of his underwear sticking out above the waistline of his pants.
2. This Thursday, my dad and I are going to ride the commuter train together. It seems so urban chic--I just love it!
3. The newest addition to our home, Patty the shamrock plant, has been living on our kitchen table since Friday and has not been eaten by Bill nor died of thirst. I'm psyched. We're not so good with plants around here. Rachel's aloe plant lived in the entryway for two days before Sarah and I maimed it by knocking it to the ground, which caused Rachel to reposess it into her bedroom. Couldn't blame her.
Recently stumbled across this new blogger, Kerry (to clarify--not new, just new to me), and this post of hers about name spelling and identity really struck a chord with me, as it probably did with anyone with a name more creative than "katie". So check her out.
Despite honestly wanting to love them, I can't stand the following:
Green tea
Asparagus
Loud parties
Scrambled eggs
A 65 degree room
Pointless last-day class sessions
Obscure hipster pop culture references
I realize we're college students. And I realize my recent bedtimes of approximately 11:45 are spectacularly lame within this group. But when did it become acceptable to just drop by for a visit at midnight-thirty on a school night?
These were cool guys, and if they'd come over at 8 or 9 I'd have been thrilled to see them. But I have only been lucky enough to get eight consecutive hours of sleep once in the past two weeks, so I'm worn down and grumpy about my sleep. I don't think it's too much to ask to be able to sleep in my own home between the hours of midnight and eight AM.
What my cat Bill and Bilbo Baggins the hobbit have in common: 1. Short
2. A little round in the belly
3. Fond of smallish dark hiding places
4. Hairy feet
But only Bill the cat slept at the foot of my bed last night. Bilbo stayed in his book.
This truck was my independence before I knew I could have it, before I began to need it. This truck was a symbol of having attained an age and maturity and my parents' respect. Mostly, though, it was cool. My friends drove minivans and station wagons, if they drove anything at all. I had a truck, a rough old truck with a full-length bed, good for hauling things. Of course, it was two years before I really put that truck to use, as a truck rather than a general-purpose vehicle. Last summer at camp, I trucked rowboats and picnic tables between the two camps. I filled the back with wooden signs and sections of chain-link fence. I backed into a concrete post and drove through some thick tree limbs. I scraped a lot of paint off the top of the cap with the rowboats, which my dad mistakenly blamed my brother for. No, although it was technically family property, the truck was really mine.
A first truck is like a first love. Of course it wasn't perfect, but I was sure it was. And it was mine, which made it infinitely superior to any car I might see. It did have a few quirks--the cup holders would pop out any time I hit a bump, or closed the glove compartment, or stopped too quickly. The truck was less than dependable; it seemed we were always repairing or replacing something on it: the brakes, the transmission, the alternator. But I knew how it handled; I knew how fast I could drive it on a straight road and how much I needed to slow down to make tight corners on mountain roads. It was in that truck that I learned to love country music, because a truck needs music with a twang. I will always have a soft spot for that truck.
Today was the most gorgeous, sunshiny day we've had yet this year. It was perfect. The weather report said it was 65 degrees outside at the peak of the afternoon, but it felt even warmer in the sun. It was tank top and bare feet weather. I sat in the Quad for close to three hours, drinking a strawberry-peach-lemonade smoothie from Jamba Juice and reluctantly working on my political science take-home final. I drew a daisy on the second toe of my left foot and sang the accompanying song. This afternoon I was more unabashedly upbeat than I can remember being in a long time. I was cheerful and really genuinely happy. Nothing could shake that mood.
And then I had to go inside to type my paper. And the sun, like all good things must, faded away and set. And I remembered the list of things I have to get done tonight, which includes going to bed way early to be rested for my speaking engagement tomorrow morning at the butt-crack of dawn. Tomorrow I'll let you know how that went.
Today hasn't been a total loss, though. While I haven't yet finished the essay, I did manage to sunburn the hell out of my right shoulder. And we haven't had to turn the heat on yet today, and it's been very warm in here.
What I Did This Weekend: 1) Discovered the Seattle bus tunnel
2) Took a new bus route through pretty neighborhoods
3) Reconciled with a good friend from whom I had been estranged for some months now
4) Helped build and maintain three massive bonfires at camp
5) Melted a dozen new holes in my polypro shirt in the process
6) Was named the radio contact for the area and granted a CB radio to wear on my hip authoritatively
7) Built four 8x8x3-ft units of scaffolding out of 2x4s, with much trial and error and bent nails
8) Went to Red Robin and out-sang the Happy Birthday waiters
9) Slept a total of seven hours over a span of two nights
10) Dug a post hole faster than any of the guys dug theirs
11) Finally accepted an unpleasant truth I'd been reluctant to see
12) Sang country songs out loud and was exceedingly goofy with the friend who drove me home
What I love the most about my new roommate, Rachel: I came home from two hours of working on a stressful final project to find our living room truly full of life. Rachel was picking imaginary bugs out of Sarah's hair, like a good chimpanzee mama, which was pretty humorous to begin with. They went back to their homework and reading, and five minutes later they suddenly were involved in a detailed role-play where Sarah was the waitress and Rachel was the outraged waitress complaining that her snake was served cold. They broke from that ubruptly to pick bugs out of Saralita's hair, which elicited a new round of shrieking and laughter.
Their favorite bit is one where Rachel is the baby bird, and Sarah is the mama bird regurgitating dinner, which I find completely revolting. Fortunately they're always coming up with new hilarious improvisations, voices and situations.
What if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?
-Jane Wagner
Reminds me of Jack Nicholson looking around the psychiatrist's waiting room and musing out loud, "What if this is as good as it gets?" I've often wondered that myself.
Okay, while I know a fair number of chicks will disagree with this, my roommate and I agree that it's a fundamentally accurate depiction of male-female relations. Intellectual Whores and the Ladder Theory
I'm proud to announce that I am now a BSA certified Climbing Instructor. And I'm operating on two hours of sleep and two liters of Mountain Dew. Will report back when I'm out of my school-induced coma.
