Kinda like a funny kid story

I realize that my blog was much more entertaining when I was teaching, and the funny kid stories were abundant. Tonight, I have something I'm calling a funny kid story, though I'm making no promises.

I've been working with an applicant who is, well, different. When I met with him he told me he listened to a Prairie Home Companion, and collected stamps, not postage. Of course, I listed to a Prairie Home Companion, but I'm years older than he is...at least a few.

So today he sent me some questions about life in the program I recruit for. 5 pages of questions. Seriously. They were organized into categories, and a few made me laugh. As background, the program is a residential program. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Can I bring my fanny pack to wear?
• How hot does the water get?
• Can I keep a garden/plants?
  
• Will I be able to see/hear wild animals (birds, squirrels, odd dear?)
• Can I bring/order my own crafts?

These are only a few select questions...the entire five pages would be a bit too much.

Signs of....spring?

There are things I am good at, and things I am decidedly not good at. You could put all things mechanical and numerical on the "not good at" side, and this weekend consisted mostly of those items, and my attempts to overcome or bypass them.

One thing I feel pretty good at is computer stuff. I can tackle most everyday tasks, and an occasional challenge, but there is one nemesis. Formulas in Excel. For a few months I've been doing a written budget, and I have never been satisfied with a method of writing out my goals, and then having a good way of keeping track of how much is spent, and how much then left in each category. Of course I don't want to have to add it up myself, so I've wanted a program or spreadsheet, but one customized to how I do my budget. The only answer seemed to be to customize a spreadsheet myself.

I am ashamed to say it, but it took me almost 3 hours Saturday morning to get it all figured out, and probably 45 minutes of that was finding errors in the formulas...ick.

Slightly (slightly...) more exciting was figuring out how to take care of my lawn this year. Last year my parents had hired someone to mow before I moved, and so when I moved we kept that up. This year, I've been thinking that I really don't want to spend the money on that. However, I have never used a lawnmower before, and it falls under the "mechanical" category. I'm pretty sure I would mix up the gas and the oil, or break part of it off, or cut off my foot or something equally gruesome. So instead, I have decided to buy a push reel mower. The picture's of the little German model I ordered. Somehow I trust the Germans to know how to do something as orderly as mow a lawn.

Thinking about buying a mower had me thinking about spring. Today was kind of warm, at least warm enough that I shed my coat in between stores while running errands. Considering the day's warmth, it seemed like it would be a nice evening for a walk. I went out to walk the neighborhood, hoping to peek in the neighbor's illuminated windows, but it was ridiculously cold. Now that I look down at the weather in my browser, I see that it's 36 degrees and cloudy. I had no idea it was that cold....36 is definitely not walking weather.

The pre-30 Birthday

This past weekend I turned 29. I don't much care for odd numbers, but 29 seems to have some dignity to it. In honor of the birthday, I posted a new profile pic, actually taken on the day itself.

The birthday day was low key, but I realized it was all about why I moved here. In the morning/afternoon I babysat my nephew while his parents were at a funeral. It wasn't a great reason to be babysitting, but it was a great time. I'd love to go on and on about the cute kid things, but I'm sure that would be boring. So just one--we were playing basketball in his room, and I pretended to fall over. He has a strange penchant for pretending to snore, so I decided to lay down on his floor and pretend snore. As I did this he walked over to his crib, pulled his blankie out from between the slats, and put it on me. Then he shut off the light, said "go nigh nigh" and closed the door. Hilarious!

After babysitting, I went out to dinner and ate amazing food with my parents. I did miss birthday calls from some dear friends while we were out, but I was super thankful to have heard from them.

It was a different birthday than the last few years, but good. For the big 30 I'm thinking maybe a Mexican vacation is in order.

Easter Church

(Rant) I hate Easter church. There, I've said it. It may be sacrilegious, or blasphemous, or whatever, but I do not like church on Easter. Give me a Good Friday or a Maundy Thursday service any day.

Easter church makes me benout for a few reasons. First, it's a bunch of new people, mostly strangers, and it makes me very self-conscious. I have just been getting comfortable at my new church, recognizing faces, and suddenly this past Sunday I was surrounded by people I've never seen before, and it made me very nervous.

Second, the pastors have to over-explain everything. Instead of just pronouncing the benediction, the pastor explains how he is going to pronounce the benediction. Instead of just greeting one another and passing the peace, we have to go through how to do it.

The teaching of church ritual itself wouldn't bother me, if it weren't for the next part. At least this past Easter church, the people who were there didn't want to participate in the liturgy. After the pastor explained that we would greet each other saying "He is risen" and replying with "He is risen indeed," some very nervous people around me muttered a quick good morning and tried to sit down as quickly as possible. Okay, I get it, I hate the greeting too, but play along at least.

The same thing happens with the Lord's prayer...People start out strong with "Our Father, who are in heaven..." and then it's just mutter, mutter, mutter....

So okay, if you only come to church a few times a year you're not used to the conventions, you don't know the creeds and confessions and prayers, fine. All of that I can understand. But, at the very end of the service last Sunday the choir sang the Hallelujah Chorus. And many of the people around me were talking out loud. Talking? During the Hallelujah Chorus? It took all my willpower not to hush them.

I know, if I were a good evangelical I'd be happy to see so many new people at church. But honestly, I think the best church services are the lesser attended...any small service, a night service, Super Bowl Sunday service, whatever.

In case there's someone I haven't offended yet with my idea that Easter church is only for churchgoers, let me offer another Easter gem--a David Sedaris story about Easter. Basically, David Sedaris is awesome. And thanks to a friend of a friend for the link.

Shakespeare in South Dakota

It's been a strange week. Things have felt just unexpected and out of place. On Sunday my sister-in-law's grandmother had an aneurism, and it happened while her whole family was at the grandma's house for coffee. My brother came to join our family for dinner, and when he walked in he told us they had just airlifted her grandmother to the hospital. He'd taken my nephew's coat off, gone in to say hello, and by then the grandmother's face had all drooped on one side. On Tuesday, she died.

My parents and I went to the hospital Tuesday night to see my sister-in-law's family, but we didn't know that her grandma had passed on. We made our way to the ICU, and found another family from the small town we're from in the waiting room. There's a guy, younger than me, who has a rare blood disease and has been battling near death for days now.

I've never had anyone close to me die, I still have all four of my grandparents. I remember in grade school when my neighbor died in a car accident, but I didn't know her well enough to grieve. I just have gruesome memories of seeing some blond hair hanging on a shard of windshield when we saw her car. It's strange that I saw the car, as I was probably only four or so, but in a small town the grotesque can be normal.

So I don't really have anything to say about death, or what it feels like. I'm not really sure what I do want to say. It's something like I'm in awe of the profound connection the living find with one another in the midst of death, but that seems too detached. Saying something about beauty in pain is too cliche. So I don't know. It's been a strange week that way.

Somewhat unrelated, but perhaps a good sermon metaphor if I were a pastor, would be that I traveled for work today to a few tiny little towns in central South Dakota. One of them, population 1,100, had a Shakespeare Garden and an Anne Hathaway house with a thatched roof. I drove to it after visiting the high school, where when I left the kids were all dismissed to walk home for lunch since they don't have a hot lunch program.

Not surprisingly, the Anne Hathaway house is the only thatched roof dwelling in South Dakota. I don't know anything about thatch, but I would imagine it's hard to maintain in the winters here. I couldn't go inside, as it's staff by volunteers and only in the summer from 1-5pm, but I was invited by a sign to walk through the "Shakespeare Garden."

For those of you not familiar with gardens in SD in the winter, it was a winding path of brick, bordered on each side by frozen black soil, with some twigs scattered around. Today was also a very grey day, in anticipation of the (Lord willing) last snow of the season, so the Shakespeare Garden was none too compelling.

It's a great idea, but I cannot imagine why it still exists in this town. According to the website, it's main function is to serve as a site for English tea, a rarity in South Dakota to say the least.
So as odd as it was, it made an otherwise average day much more intriguing.

Congratulations

to Sara and Jeff on their little baby!!!

Um......

There are so many things wrong with this photo. My dad forwarded it to me today, and it's from 1988, in case you couldn't figure that out from the sweet mullet I'm sporting. What was my mom thinking?

I was also at a Boston Red Sox game. I can't say I remember it at all, but I was obviously enjoying a darn good Coke that I couldn't put down even for the picture. I was also not so concerned about skin cancer, as it appears.

This was a blast from the past I just couldn't resist posting. Anyone want to guess who the stranger is in the picture? (The guy behind me is my dad).

Okay, if you ever go and see Ang and Ryan, you HAVE to see/hear their little girl growl. I can't really describe it, but it might be called something like absolutely adorable, hilarious, gremlin. Seriously, it's awesome.

The lack of posting lately can be attributed to, well, a mystery. Whatever has been plaguing my GI system is unidentifiable, except for its symptoms. The doctor is baffled by the CT results and a high white blood cell count, and I am immensely thankful for feeling well the last few days. After a few rounds of highly disorienting and nauseating drugs, I'm glad to be free of them, despite the understanding that I'm not really sure what's wrong with me.

So, a trip to a specialist, with the possibility of a highly undignified colonoscopy, awaits. It's not glamorous, but it does make me extremely grateful for health insurance. When I was without for a few months this summer I worried a little, but thinking about the costs of all the tests I've had recently, and may need soon, I can't imagine having to deal with the financial burden without insurance. Which makes me even more thankful that there may be healthcare reform on the horizon...I hope.

I find the political situation rather now really annoying, seeing as how I am very impatient, and am still waiting for the Obama shirt I ordered a while ago to arrive. I resolved the 5 shirts instead of 1 issue with my bank, sorry if that disappointed any of you.

Local politicians are once again raising the abortion ban flag, and I'm really struggling with it. I'm wondering if you can want something to be legal that you think is morally wrong and that you disagree with. Debates like this seem to foster so much hate, while it seems like more attention on sex education and prevention of unwanted pregnancies would be less divisive and more compassionate. I don't know...I'm still thinking about this one.

On a more random note, the medications I was on gave me very vivid dreams, which was also listed as a side effect along with suicidal thoughts, and something about murder... Anyway, I had one dream where my friends bought a condo. in a mall (awesome), and another where I went back to teaching and felt totally and completely fulfilled. That was weird.

So I'm back. Just in time for sun, which is good because I have been missing CA and my friends there intensely. At least some sun here gives me the hope of spring. Today I rediscovered my lawn, and all the snow melted off of my roof. O happy day.

I.........simply...........refuse......to......scoop
.......the..........driveway...........anymore.

IT'S MARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pray that it stops soon, or I may be snowed in...

Sometimes, you just want your mom

When you're sick, there's nothing more comforting than your mom. And my mom is awesome, especially when I'm sick. This weekend the infection, or whatever it is that I had a few weeks ago, came back. And it was fierce. Fiercer than Christian on Project Runway. :)

I spent pretty much all day Sat. and Sun. on the couch in pain, and Sun. with a fever. Once again, bless PBS and their "House" series, with Regency House Party and Colonial House keeping me in good company. Sun. I also had a fever, which was lovely. Mon. I finally went in, and apparently I was more messed up than I thought. The doctor did a white blood cell count, and mine was almost double what it should be. I got nervous when he said "Well, I don't think it's quite high enough to put you in the hospital yet." I didn't quite know that was an option....

But he did send me to the hospital, for a CAT scan. I waited three hours, lost between the day and evening shift, and watched people being wheeled through the radiology center. The hardest to see was a little girl, maybe 3 or 4, wheeled through in a red plastic wagon. There were also orderlies, one who seemed to push the same empty bed by about ever 15 minutes. After the first hour there was also a TV to call my own, and episodes of COPS and Flavor of Love to occupy the time. Not that I wasn't enjoying it....who doesn't want to sit in a hospital waiting room for three hours when they feel awful? Also, I think you all should know that Flave LOVES reindeers.

Finally I did get my CAT scan, which was wild. It felt a lot like I imagine Mike TV felt in the Willy Wonka movie. Only I wore my normal clothes, no white suit, and I had a contrast solution in my veins. That was probably the weirdest part, because it makes you feel like you're going to pee your pants, but you don't. That, and realizing the liquid in the crease of my elbow was actually blood escaping from the IV. Gross.

CAT scan done, I came home and tried to sleep, though there wasn't much sleep to be had, as insomnia came with the stronger antibiotics. Another trip to the doctor, and no real results, other than "infection." One of my cats is also curiously ill at the same time, and my mom put two and two together and realized that me and the cat might be passing a bacteria between us.

Now I think that being sick simultaneously with my cat may be the ultimate predictor that I am destined to become a crazy cat lady. Or chalk it up to those crazy cephalosporins that kill off all the good little creatures in your body who fight for you. Who knows. Anyway, the point is that my mom rocks, and she brought me Gatorade yesterday, and crackers, and cleaned my house. There is nothing better than your mom when you're sick.