That Night I Did Not Sleep

Okay, so clearly, from my username/URL thingie you all know by now that I am not very good at sleeping. I can do it. It's just hard to GET there.

A few weeks ago, the town in which I live had it's annual Christmas party on the Square. My town tries really hard to be artsy and awesome, and we have all kinds of artsy booths, and parades, and Bethlehem, and dancing, and music, and weird people giving you free cookies and their church's business card, which I didn't entirely know churches had.

It's an event that you would like to be well rested for.
No such luck.
I could tell I wasn't really sleepy, so I took a Tylenol PM a little after I took my regular nightly antihistamine. It didn't really help. I took another an hour later. Don't freak, I'm not overdosing. Full dose is two pills.
By around 3:30 am I was really tired, and not sure why I was still awake.
Okay, one reason was that one of my cats, Bambi Sue, was jumping on me repeatedly and scratching my arm up.
But other than THAT, I should be asleep, right?
I started to go a little crazy around 4:00. I started counting sheep. I don't know why I tried it. That never works for me, because sheep counting always goes like this: One sheep over the fence....you go, sheep. Two sheep. Three. Four. Fivesix. Seven, eight. Two Siamese twin sheep. Pregnant sheep. Farmer Dan. Farmer Dan's wife, Hildegard, churning butter and flying over the fence. Old Blue. Bessie the cow. Twelve sheep. Thirteen sheep. Three geese. Sheriff Gomez. Old Man Jenkins. A potted plant. Fourteen sheep. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Rick Moranis. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
I was sleepier before I started, wasn't I? Thanks a lot, Rick Moranis. 

At 4:30 I realized that no matter what, I was going to be sleep deprived the next day. I thought I was crazy before. Now this, this was true insanity. I started thinking up all sorts of things to keep myself entertained. I eventually came up with an imaginary sock puppet whom I christened Tim. I put Tim into all kinds of scenes and occupations.

I will attempt to demonstrate one using MS Paint. Which I will open as soon as Internet Explorer stops being retarded in the corner. I haven't used you in like, a year, Internet Explorer. Why did you choose now to spontaneously open?
That is why I do not use you, Internet Explorer.
There. Okay, so here is Tim the Sock Puppet in all his 100% cotton glory:

No, there is no arm inside Tim. Tim is his own man. I thought about drawing an arm though.
And here is my favorite of Tim's various adventures.

I think the saloon babes are checking him out.
He was a bunch of other stuff too. Like a plumber, and a banker, and a chef, and a ninja.

This is why I will never do drugs. I get like this on ANTIHISTAMINE (And a little Tylenol PM). Lord preserve us all if I ever tried actual illegal drugs.
I think the universe would implode.

Anyway.
By about 5:30, I decided I was not going to get up the next morning. I was going to get some sleep, damn it.
I grabbed the notepad on my nightstand, grabbed the nearest writing implement, and staggered to the bathroom to write my family a note. This had to be done in the bathroom because I share a bedroom with my sister, and can't just turn on the lights, or she would probably kill me. Scratch that. She'd try to ask what I was doing, but it would be all mumbly and slurry, and I'd tell her, and she'd roll over and go back to sleep (Which is less frightening than what I would do in the same situation. I'd kill you violently on the spot, then roll over and go back to sleep) . But she might kill me later. I think she might kill me now. She's trying to sleep. It's 1:19 am. I'll finish in the morning. o.o

So it's morning now. Last night, I went to sleep. I dreamed that me and Evan kept sneaking off in the night so we could be together ALL THE TIME. :D And there certainly wasn't any dirty stuff going on, my dreams like to keep a PG rating. We watched movies, and played cards, and then we went to sleep. XD
And Evan's brother appeared to be living in the pantry, which was kind of weird.

Anyway, where I was I? Oh yeah, I was writing a note. The note read, "HEY ALL YOU PEOPLE- Guess what time it is? 5:45am. Guess what I haven't been doing ALL NIGHT? Sleeping. I've tried everything from counting sheep to making stories about a sock puppet named Tim {Clearly this whole Tim thing was a big deal that night} and nothing works. If I'm actually sleeping tomorrow, please don't wake me up. Just go to the parade without me. I'll live."

And they did not wake me up. I finally fell asleep a little after six, and slept until about eleven. The parade was at noon, and I'm so glad I didn't go. Some of the "floats" they had were just trucks. How terribly exciting. Like most parades.  I will watch part of the Rose Parade on TV, and that's enough parade for the year.

Due to the lack of sleep, and the weirdness of the night before, the day of festivities was a strange day indeed. I'd have skipped it altogether if I hadn't been dancing in it. I was strange and mildly loopy most of the day, but started feeling better in the late afternoon. For performance time, adrenaline took over, which was a very nice thing for it to do. That woke me up. Of course, Evan got dragged along to this performance. Okay, not really dragging. He likes it. He probably even likes carrying some of my stuff for me. He's an agreeable sort of dude.
Evan and I wandered around the booths and admired the shiny things. I hadn't bothered to bring regular clothes, so I wandered around in my fluffy red and white tap costume, thus when wiggling through crowds I could say, "Excuse me, excuse mee. I'm little, and cute, and fluffy, excuse me.".  We wandered into Bethlehem, where my little sister's friend, Chloe, was "working". Chloe told us she had gold coins and started digging all up under her robe to find them. She was wearing jeans under her robe, but it was still a little disturbing.

It actually ended up being a really good day. In fact, by the end of the day, I wasn't that tired.
I DID get to fall asleep earlier than usual. Before 2. :O   And I slept all the way through the night. And I woke up a little after 11.
And there appeared to be nobody home, which weirded me out until I found my mom, who told me everyone had gone birthday shopping for my grandma, and they were afraid to wake me up in case I'd had two bad nights in a row. It was fine by me. I'll take all the extra sleep I can get.
And I needed it, after the Night of No Sleep.

That's not even the first time this has happened. But because of Tim, it is the most interesting.

My December...So Far

So I haven't blogged in a while. Shame on me. This is not because I have nothing to blog about. I have all sorts of things to blog about. But nothing that actually takes enough words to equal a legitimate post.
Okay, I do have stuff that could be that long. But I'd have to tyyype iiittt. Which I like to do. I just haven't had the time.

It's that time-consuming time of year. Chriiiiiistmaaaaas!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Christmas began. My employer recruited a fellow dance assistant of mine to decorate the dance studio while she was out of town. The fellow assistant, Jen, didn't sound too thrilled about it, so I offered to help. We picked up some Mickey D's and had a picnic at the studio. Heeheehee. We blasted Christmas music of various kinds, both good and bad. We hung garlands a million different ways, and went on an epic nail hunt. We found the nails in a band-aid box. Yes. a band-aid box. They're safe there.
Evan was there too, so we had him hammer all the nails. We supervised.
I arranged a tribe of nutcrackers and tied sparkly ribbons around fake presents, getting pink glitter EVERYWHERE. I probably still have some in my hair.

The next day, my family decorated our Christmas tree. Dad tried to play various weird Christmas music that was not smiled upon by the rest of the family, so Mom brought in Celtic Christmas, which no one can argue with.
And guess what? I TAKED PEEKTURES!

WE NEED MORE COWBELL!

Hey. There it is. Sweet.

 Here, I found that Snoopy had lost the upper half of his body at some point during the year. It was disturbing, to say the least.

But he got better.

Blitzen vibrating with Christmas joy!!

This is what Christmas Wonder looks like.

Ooh lala. I hope Mrs. Claus wasn't looking.

So yeah. That's all the festivity that's gone on so far. I'm sure there will be more.

Today, something totally unrelated to Christmas yet still related to this blog post, because this post is about December and not just Christmas and this is a run-on sentence, happened.

I had my first driving lesson. My dad took me out to a little loop of road where there was supposed to be a housing development, but isn't and let me get a feel for the truck. The loop is three sides random narrow pavement, and one side actual road that no one ever actually drives on. The truck is an F150 with weird brakes. They squeak.
So I drove around the circle. A lot.
Our driving conversations often went like this:
Dad: "Brake. BRAKE. Are you braking?"
Me:"Yeah. A  little. Calm down."
Dad: "You're going to hit that pole."
Me: "We did not hit the pole. We went over the curb a little, but everyone does that from time to time, so I'm not worried."

Me: "Stupid brakes. This is why I never use brakes in the racing games I play."
Dad: "Never?"
Me: "Never. I let go of the gas periodically. It worked. I'd always win the free game. Until I stopped playing the game and got bad at it."
Dad: "How'd you get bad at it?"
Me: "We stopped eating at Fuddrucker's, where the game was."

Driving is so weird.

I used the turn signals whenever I was about to turn onto the actual road, in case any actual cars came along. Once one did. I pulled over and let it pass.
I kinda went over the curbs sometimes. The turns in the loop were fairly tight. Dad kept freaking out and thinking I was going to hit a random pole, but I never did. I came pretty close once. Eeeheheheheheheheee.
So yeah, I survived. I think the rest of Dad's hair fell out, but he survived too.
And now he doesn't need a haircut ever again. WIN/WIN.

Stuff At My Grandparents House: Zombie Big Bird

My family has established the routine of driving the whole eight blocks to my grandparents house every Friday night for dinner.
When we teens/ young adults were little kids, our grandparents had to have toys around to keep us entertained.
Most of those toys are still there. You never know when they will come in handy.
One of these toys was recently unearthed by my youngest sister, who was bored. Clearly those old toys are still needed to entertain us.

This toy was an old and scary-looking Big Bird.

See how scary he is? When my sister first brought him back out, he had masking tape over his eyes and around his beak. Some horrible catastrophe must have occurred many years ago, that required us to restrain him and bury him deep within the bowels of the back room. Something so awful none of us remember it.
I DO remember parents and grandparents chasing us around with this thing. Back then, we were young and innocent, and did not see him for the horrible monster he truly is.

How we could have been so blind, I will never know. We passed him around, and were told the history of how we came to own such a monstrosity. Many many years ago, when we, the youngest generation, were babies, a friend of my mom's picked it up at a yard sale. I really, really hope that ol' Big Bird was better looking in his younger days, for who would willingly purchase such a freakish thing, bargain or not? I do not question the taste of my mom's friend, as she got me a lovely card for graduation. If Big Bird was this horrible looking back when she brought him to us, I imagine he just followed her away from the sale, and back to our home. (Oh, jeez. Clearly I've been hanging around Evan {of Tales of Harumph } too much. His style is starting to creep into my blog. I think he's trying to assimilate me or something... I'll try to say "freakin'" more often. Sorry.)
I don't know.
It's freakin' scary to think about. (There.)

We passed the Big Ugly Bird around the room, laughing at him and hanging him by his broken pull string (Lord only knows what hellish sounds he made before that thing broke). If we had known what would happen next, we totally would have chucked that Big Bird out into the street and hoped he had been distracted by some tasty-looking neighbor kids, and would never be seen or heard from again.

After enough rude comments and a lot of laughter (Maybe even a few hysterical tears) Big Bird snapped.

My Grandpa's nose will never be the same.

Of course, as soon as we all realized Grandpa was in fact being attacked, and not just goofing around with random objects as he is known to do (a lot) we all leaped up to rescue him and his nose.
My brother restrained Big Bird for a short time.But as you can see from the next picture, my brother isn't the most reliable-looking psychotic bird restrainer ever....

Clearly my mom and my sister (Not the one who unearthed Big Bird in the first place though. This is my younger sister who looks older than me. My youngest sister is the one who brought this all upon us) are still very distraught over the whole situation.

After a while of talking about other things, we realize my brother is no longer holding Big Bird.

WHERE DID HE GO???
Oh. My. Freaking. GOSH.

.....I think I found him. This giant freakish cross between a canary and emu ain't gettin' the best of ME. HELL NO.

Never mind. He got away. I'm sort of thinking maybe his escape and probable ensuing zombie rampage had something to do with this sticker  we came across downtown...

....Ya think?

(Stuff At My Grandparents House may become a somewhat regular installment, mostly of weird pictures in magazines and catalogs. You never know. I already have another one, of a fairly disturbing advertisement. But if it doesn't...well, you all lived without it BEFORE. You'll get over it.)

iSew

Companies that make ballet shoes generally do not sew the straps on.
You get to do it. All by your lonesome.
I will attempt to sew the straps onto my ballet shoes. Two straps per shoe, criss-crossed like an X.

I will also give you people the play-by-play (Or stitch-by-stitch).

First I lock the cats out, because cats think needles and thread are delicious. Blitzen (Previously know as Baby/Itteh Bitteh Kitteh) hates this. He neeeds meee. He neeeeds his roooom. It's safe in there.

I have located a sewing needle. It his hiding in a pincushion, amongst the pins.
I think the eye needs to be much, much bigger.
I have successfully threaded the needle. Third time's the charm. The thread does not match the shoe. It is hot pink. This way, I can tell it's my shoe. :D

Ow. Sorta stabbed myself. Am I the only one here who can stab themselves the the supposedly "not-sharp" end of the sewing needle?? Fortunately, I did not break the skin. Otherwise, I would probably faint. I did last time I sewed stuff. Stabbed myself and promptly fainted.
This would be so, so much easier if sewing didn't scare me. My hands get all scared and sweaty. And they get the shivers. Nope, I don't have a fear of needles. I have sheer terror of needles.

Small stitches? All close together? Who does THAT?  No. Not me. I don't even TRY to go in a straight line. The stitches are everywhere.
It's artistic.

Oops. Sewed the strap a little too far back. But you know what? I DON'T CARE THAT MUCH.
Symmetry is overrated.

There's leather. IN THE BINDING. THERE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LEATHER THERE, DAMMIT.
AHA. I have found the magical very very narrow place between the leather and the elastic. YAY ME, I WIN.

Can I get maybe...ten thimbles? kthx.
One hour. One strap sewed on. OUT. OF. FOUR. The rest should go faster though. Took me FOREVER to figure out where to sew it.
I will probably do the other shoe tomorrow...

Stabbed myself again. Not on the needle. Not on a pin. On the basket all the sewing stuff is kept in.

I finally got the straps sewed on to one shoe. YAY ME. Then it was time for class, So I went to class with one strapless shoe.
Ooh. Strapless. How sexy of me.

LOOKIT. I haz skillz. Okay, not quite. But close enough. Yes, I am white. As a sheet. But not MY sheets. My sheets are purple. See them purple?

 LOOK, NEAT LITTLE STITCHES! Oh, wait....nope. Those are ARTISTIC stitches.

Tomorrow...I attempt shoe number two.
 Which will hopefully be easier, since I have already done one, and did not die. Now I know sort of where and kind of how to sew it.
I will probably not be any more coordinated though. I am actually unnaturally uncoordinated (For me) for about half an hour after I finish.
Yes, I know. I'm weird.

Itteh Bitteh Kitteh Does Not Believe in Sleep

We have a lot of cats. When I get married and move out, I am taking my kitty, Bunny, with me. Bunny has a bestest friend named Lucy. Lucy is my sister's cat, so she will not be coming with me. Thus, Bunny would be terribly bored and lonely. Living with a bored lonely Bunny is HELL. HELL I TELL YOU. So as a "wedding gift" my Gramma adopted a kitten for us and Bunny.

He has no name yet. For now we've been calling him Baby, or Itteh Bitteh Kitteh.
He ran and played for hours without resting. Most of the other cats hate him. They think he is terribly creepy. Bunny LOVES him. Bunny thinks he's awesome. This is probably because Baby looks like a Mini-Bunny.
For the whole day, Baby would run away if anyone tried to pick him up. If someone picked him, he lost The Game. A few times we succeeded in grabbing him. He didn't mind once he was caught, and we could hold him a few seconds before he'd start to climb over our shoulder and try to sneak out the back way.

As is the custom on Friday night, my family went over to my grandparents for a few hours. Itteh Bitteh Kitteh took a nap while we were gone, so when we came back, he was all rested and ready to start zooming around the house, leaping higher than a kitty of his size should, and smashing into things.

By night, I wondered if he would decide to sleep in the closet as he had previously, tear around the house and be a general holy terror as he did during the day, or he'd settle in someone's bed.
Of course, he decided on my bed.
I felt something leap up onto my pillow. For a moment, it didn't move.
Then I heard it.
*purr...purr...*
It began to come closer.
*PURR....PURR...PURR*
It grew louder, and faster.
*PURRPURRPURRPURRPURR*
And then it was on my face.
No kitteh, you may not sleep on my face.
Holy terror by day....Purrmonster that LOVES YOUR FACE by night.
But so, so, adorable. He's got a little white face, and absolutely ENORMOUS green eyes. No one can resist the Enormous Green Eyes.

After a while of purring and rubbing, I finally got him asleep. On my arm. Then I had to go to the bathroom.
Dammit.
He had fallen into the Deep Sleep of Much Twitching within a couple of minutes, so I hoped he just wouldn't wake up.
No such luck.
When I came back from the bathroom, he was purring his loudest, and trying to love all over my sister's face.

And so the cycle began again. He'd toddle back and forth from one face to the other.
*PURRPURRPURRPURRPURRPURR*
FINALLY, around 3:30, he settled wayyy up on top of my pillow. Finally, sleep was had by all.

I was awakened around 7:45 by my dad, who feeds the cats breakfast every morning. Apparently he couldn't find Baby. I was about to check the top of pillow, when I realized there was an itteh bitteh kitteh paw on my ear.
Baby had migrated, and was now sleeping in my hair.
I picked him up and put him down next to my bed, where Dad had placed the food dish. Baby snuck up on the dish, and peered in, to make sure the food was dead. It appeared to be, and I fell back asleep while he was eating.

When I woke up, he was back on the top of pillow.
Looking as though he had never moved.

*EDIT* A discussion of names was had, and eventually it was narrowed down to Blitzen and Skippy. Itteh Bitteh Kitteh was christened Blitzen. So now the pair is Bunny and Blitzen. I like to call them the Pretty White Boys.

Mah Hooooood.

A little while ago, I said I would blog about my neighbors.
Because they're funny.
So guess what?
I'm blogging about my neighbors! (And sort of hoping none of them will find this and run me out of the neighborhood with pitchforks, torches, and creepy statues of children.)

First off, here is this very intricate and detailed map I have drawn up for you (People in my family have a knack for Cartography. I am not one of them...)

First off, the yellow thing in my yard is my dog. She's poofy.

So next door to us is a retired couple.
They are very nice.
They love luaus and block parties.
They also magically know when we get a new cat, or I get engaged. I'm not entirely sure how they know these things, BUT THEY KNOW.

People in the blue house have a broken window and a bread truck in their driveway. The kid who lives there used to have a spherical friend who'd visit him a lot. Yes. The kid was SPHERICAL. I was always expecting him to just tip over and roll down the driveway one day. The Spherical Kid liked to squawk like a parrot, make very loud "prank phone calls" (Which were pathetic. And he'd do them in the street.) and show passing cars his boxers.
I have not seen Spherical Kid in months. He probably got arrested or something for the boxers thing.

Behind that row of houses on the left is the nightclub. They have karaoke.
We hear sirens a lot at night. I think the loud rock music is probably coming from there.
My little sister's best friend's house is back-to-back with the nightclub. Sometimes she loses a frisbee or something over her fence, and has to go out into the alley to get it.
Along with her frisbee, she found a whole bunch of bagels strewn all over the ground. Each bagel had one bite taken out of it. I believe someone was probably searching for "The Deadly Bagels".
To learn more about Deadly Bagels, please see this video by LoadingReadyRun, a crazy bunch of Canadians.
http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/327/Bagel-Time


The people in the pink house love to exercise. My brother used to take martial arts from one of these fitness-obsessed people. My sister and I would watch from our window, and make up commentary for them. Martial Arts Dude is a morning person. He would bang on our door at 8am. FOR TEN MINUTES. Seriously. I timed him once. I should have been sleeping, but he kept banging, and I wasn't about to encourage this early morning knocking by answering the door. So I timed him, and my sister and I came up with all sorts of booby traps and security devices and evil plots to get rid of him. Best ones were the "Ejection 'Welcome' Mat" the "Giant Boxing Glove That Pops Out When He Come a'Knockin' and Knocks HIM into next Tuesday" and the "Guy We Hire to Sit in Our Tree and Throw Rocks". Martial Arts Dude's dad like fitness too. He runs down the street fairly regularly. Backwards. Then he runs back up the street forwards. Then down backwards. The he takes a break to clean his driveway. He hates dirt in his driveway, and sweeps it thoroughly. Sometimes he gets a rag, and gets down there and really scrubs.  Then it is clean, and perfect, and fit to park his cars on.

Lastly, we have the weirdest neighbor of all.
We call him Creepy Neighbor. He has bushes growing over his front door, and a basketball hoop hanging over his driveway at about a forty five degree angle (I am waiting for the day it finally collapses. I'm sure the neighbors are making bets). Sometimes, he hangs a black sheet over the inside of his door, so it looks all dark and like there's nobody home (This is an unfortunate fail. You can see the sheet sticking out at the top of the door). He used to take his fence apart, and pt it back together again. WITH STRING.
Creepy Neighbor is EVERYWHERE. Walk the dog? There he is, in his yard, or out walking with his giant 80's headphones. Go shopping? There he is. Wal*Mart, Target, Kohl's...Everywhere. Happen to look out the window? There's creepy neighbor, driving by in his car.
Watching.
Always watching.
One time, I was walking through Target with Evan, when I noticed this weird loud breathing behind me. The breathing came around to the side and passed us. IT WAS CREEPY NEIGHBOR. HE HAD BEEN WALKING BEHIND ME. IN HIS BAD 80'S SHORTS.
He goes to Kohl's. I see him there. Always wearing bad 80's clothing. Whyyyy, Crepy Neighbor, whyyy? Why don't you buy anything?
And why do you leave your wallet in your car, and have to walk all the way out of the store to get it?
AT least he got a new fence.
And he doesn't keep that barbecue in front of his front door, and thus partially hidden in the bushes anymore.

And then there's us.
We're the  people who turn off our lights so we can spy on our neighbors without being seen.
I wonder how many of our neighbors think WE'RE creepy?

Radical Equations Are Totally Radical, Dude (OR NOT)

Dear Precalculus,

Sometimes, you are okay. Sometimes I understand you.

But then you ask me to cube things. If you TOLD ME how to cube things, then I would not have to Google it, and things would be fine. But you don't. And then, you change the little bitty 3 on the cube symbol thing to a 5. I barely know what to do with a 3, and now you give me a 5? I don't even know what to call that. How can a I Google that IF YOU DO NOT TELL ME WHAT IT IS?

You have issues. Serious issues.

You are either someone who obsessively keeps secrets as it inflates your ego and gives you the feeling of knowing things nobody else knows (I'm sure this has name, I just don't know what it is), or you are a pathological liar. Please seek psychiatric help.

 Sincerely, Some Who Hates You Now More Than Ever Before

 P.S. I am now in your answer key, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with you. (Yes I am in your base. All your answers are belong to me.)

  Dear PreCalculus,

Seriously? All I had to do was bring the other side of the equation to the power indicated by the little number on the squarey symbol thing? 

SERIOUSLY??

THAT'S FREAKING EASY!

What ever happened to that weird equation thing with the random numbers in it that you showed me in the example? Remember Example 1?? I don't see that being used anywhere in your answer key.

All you did was multiply things. You brought them up to a certain power. 

That's it. 

I learned how to do that MANY MANY YEARS AGO. (Note: I am aware I haven't been alive for very long, and you may scoff at my usage of "many" to mean "maybe five years ago". But may I remind you that five years is really a significant portion of my life so far. Five years ago, I WAS THIRTEEN *shudders*. So to me, five is "MANY MANY YEARS AGO.)

You could have just told me this PreCalculus, yooouuuuu bastard, you.

I still think you need psychiatric help.

Or be fined, or have to do community service, or SOMETHING.

You won't get away with this nonsense forever Precalculus.

I'LL SUE.

Sincerely, I Know People Who Own a Paper Shredder. And I Love to Shred Paper. LOVE IT.

Writer's Block

You know how I haven't blogged in two weeks? Writer's block. Writer's block is a strange thing. Some days, you can write about anything. ANYTHING. You could write about your brother's old holey hobo socks. You could write about your creepy neighbor (Ohhhh, I should write about him). You could write about the silverware in it's silverware drawer.

But if there's writer's block, you can't write about anything, even if hilarious things happen to you. Like you had a hilarious day at the zoo with your fiance. Or if, in your ballet class, all the ballerinas made a train and ran around the room in a "perky" fashion. Or if you and your fiance started talking about scientific theories and various sorts of dinosaurs for half an hour, instead of kissing like you're supposed to on Monday nights.

So then you just sit and stare at your keyboard, hoping it will give you words. But then you just start playing Word Find on your keyboard, and start laughing because, while you can find very few real words, "Derf" is really funny looking, and the word is organized in a neat little cube on your keyboard. Then you think that maybe derf is a possibly offensive word and you just haven't heard it yet, so you look it up on UrbanDictionary. They can find a sexual reference in ANYTHING, so if there is one, you will know. Turns out, there were some, but surprisingly few for UrbanDictionary. It has a ridiculously large amount of totally unrelated meanings. It can mean a stupid person, or an awesome person. A person of unusual agility and skill. A word to use in place of the F-word. Fred spelled backwards. A person of extremely high and incomprehensible intelligence.

Then I looked it up in a real dictionary: Derf\, a. [Icel. djafr.] Strong; powerful; fierce. 
So there you go.You learned something new. Maybe. You may have known it already. In which case, sorry you had to hear about it again.

VOILA. Writer's block gone. :D If I had known it would be this easy, I'd have come on and typed whatever popped into my head a week ago. And yes, I realize there is very little connective thread in this post. But I don't care. My brain certainly doesn't have any, so why should anything I type need one? I get along okay without them. Wait...the female brain is supposed to be all connected and running together, like spaghetti. I know I don't have the male waffle brain, full of little individual syrup-traps of thought. Mah brains iz like a box of chocolates. Ya never know whatcha gonna get...Yes, sometimes there is a little piece of paper telling you what all the chocolates are so you don't get a nasty surprise. But I tend to lose things. Especially little bits of paper. And sometimes important discs and the occasional school book.


Now I have a new topic for a blog post. I can blog about my neighbors. Some of them are hilarious, and some of them are downright creepy. 

Peace outtttt.

The Department of Public Safety

Getting a learner's permit in Texas is great fun.

Okay, so if you're under 18, you need a driver's ed course, and then you get to take the permit test down at the DPS.
If you're over 18, no driver's ed course was required, you just had to take the test.
But by the time I turned 18, nope, that wasn't cool anymore.
You don't need to take the test anymore. You get to take a six hour driver's ed course, either online or in a classroom.
Being the internet addict that I am, I opted for the internet course. Before I joined Blogspot, I had a blog on Xanga. Just to give you an idea of this 6-Hour State-Mandated Online Driver's Ed course, here are a few excerpts from my two blog posts about driver's ed:
"This course does not understand speed readers. Mostly I just listen to the guy talk, but often there's extra time on the timer for the poor simple-minded folk. And because they're trying desperately to streeeeeetch the smaller-than-you-might-think amount of information into six hours.  I use this time to get snacks, take Facebook breaks, or as time went on, just stare blankly at the computer screen.
They like to show me pictures. Many of these are computer generated. Because they couldn't just take a photograph of someone passing a semi-truck, oh no. They have to MAKE one. It resulted in a picture of a road, with a  lil' bitty red car trying to pass a ginormous dangerous chemicals truck, on what appeared to be Tatooine. My favorite computer-generated picture was the one of a wine glass full of wine, a shot glass full of some...thing, a beer bottle, and marijuana plant. All these items were tastefully arranged on a wooden table. Dd I mention the animation quality was the same as it is on those creepy Wiisport games? Yeah. O.o"
"Now, there are nine chapters to this course. At the end of each one, I get to take a quiz. Before I can take the quiz, a robot has to call me and ask for voice verification to make sure I'm still a real person and didn't replace myself with a robot made out of an old vacuum cleaner while they weren't looking. So I have them call, I repeat a series of random numbers, and start my quiz. Ten multiple-choice questions, and I get three chances to take the quiz, in case I'm a complete idiot and get less than 70% correct. I get 9 or ten correct, they congratulate me for being a good noodle, and send me on my way to the next section. And the creepy mind-numbing cycle continues."
"Yessss, I have successfully conquered Driver's Ed, and got 93% on my final exam (2 wrong out of 30. I don't care)."

Yeah, I defeated it. The course and the quizzes were not hard. I just have problems with being forced to sit still for THAT LONG. It was sort of okay because I had barely gotte any sleep the night before, and had slammed my head into a brick wall that morning, so I didn't feel like jumping around too much (See my URL? Absent Minded Insomniac? I am also accident-prone.But  Accident Prone Absent Minded Insomniac is ridiculously long and doesn't have that lovely ring to it).

Anyway, today I had to go down to the DPS to show them my certificate of smartness (If I was charge, it would totally say, "Certifacte of Driving Smartness. This person had to sit and take an online/classroom course of driving-related information. This course was six hours, but since we don't actually have enough material to fill six hours, we have to draw it out, talk slowly, and repeat ourselves a lot. This person really deserves more than a certificate of smartness, but since this is government, we ain't givin' them a DAMN THANG. In fact, they had better love this certificate while they got it, because DPS is going to take it away, and not give it back.") and they had to do stuff.

First was the vision test.
I am aware that I can see. I can read road signs. Sometimes I have to squint my left eye a little, so I end up reading them like this: O.o. BUT I CAN READ THEM.
Texas allergies really suck. They make my slightly nearsighted (Farsighted? Does anyone actually remember which is which?) left eye worse. The actually vision testing box was stupid too. People who have ridiculously good vision have trouble with it. I had to move my head around until I could actually see all the numbers, and when I COULD see the left line, my left eye couldn't read it well until I got at the Magic Angle at Which Left Eye Can See Just Fine (In the process I clunked my head on the box, but I don't think anybody noticed).
So I eventually passed that.

They took my thumbprints.
I think my thumbprints must be ridiculously awesome because their computer crashed after I did that. So they had to restart, and retake my thumbprints (The computer, having gotten over the initial shock of freaking awesome thumbprints, did not crash this time).
Then they took my picture.
The first time, they took too long, so by the time the camera went off my eyes had tired of waiting, and blinked.
So we got to do it again. The final product has me looking like a crazy hyper squirrel-person.

 KILL IT. KILL IT WITH FIRE.
Ugh. Bad hair day. I hate them. The hair, not the people at the DPS.
I don't know which is worse... My learner's permit picture, or my ID picture...Here, what do you think?

Crazy squirrel person or evil elf thing?
I honestly don't know.

This has been my DPS experience. It could have been worse. Most of the people who work at the DPS (Or the DMV, for those states who refer to it as such) are slow moving government zombies. They slowly and quietly give you only information they think you need to know. But you only learn that information if you ask the right questions. But you don't know what questions to ask because you've never actually done this before, and last time you were at the DPS you realized it reminds you of a doctor's office, and doctor's offices make you dizzy, thus DPS did too. Yeah.
The lady who was helping me out was actually generally helpful and had a sense of humor. We actually managed to have fun. So that was nice.

But overall, the DPS always is, and always will be....strange.

That Dream I Had Last Night

So, in my dream last night, me and Evan, my fiance, were staying at a fancy hotel. I have yet to figure out WHY.
My dreams like to keep themselves at least rated PG, thus we had rooms way down the hall from each other.
Evan seemed to be a very well-paid elevator repairdude. All the elevators in the hotel seemed to broken, which was kinda weird because we had just been going up and down in them.
So he fixed them. The people rejoiced. And then all of them crammed into the elevators.
Maybe THAT'S why they were broken.
Also, remember that magic measuring watch from The Santa Claus 2? EVAN HAD IT.
I think he killed Santa or something and stole the Christmas magic.
But kids kept mysteriously ending up with free ice cream, so I guess nobody minded.
(Note: There was no evidence that Evan was actually giving anyone magic free ice cream. The ice cream thing was just weird, and he had the watch, so that's what Dream Me was suspecting.)

Back at home, my dad had decided that having a pet bear would be awesome.
 So he built a giant bear-fort in the backyard so that it couldn't get out and maul the neighbors or whatever.  The bear had furniture in his bear fort. It was mostly plaid. It matched the bear's golf hat that the bear wore at all times.

My house is just a plain ol' one-story house. But not in my dream. It appeared that after my dad finishes his bear fort, he added another floor to the house as well.
Me and a couple of my dancer friends were working on choreography, when one of them, Leah, decided that if she didn't have pizza, she would probably die.
We ordered her a pizza.
Okay, we ordered several pizzas.

The pizza dude came to the front door (Which looked nothing like our actual front door as my dad, who appeared to be on some crazy remodeling spree, had replaced it) and handed us one of our pizzas. Leah grabbed it and ran off to devour it messily.
The pizza dude looked thoughtful.
Haley (The other dancer friend who, every time I looked at her, was wearing something different. Fortunately, none of it was ever plaid) asked, "Where the rest of our damn pizzas were" and the pizza guy responded that delivering pizzas at the front door every single time was dreadfully boring and if he had to do it one more time he would probably have to jump off a bridge, and could he please deliver the rest of the pizzas at various windows, and maybe one in the alley behind the nightclub so he could pretend he was partaking in a secret drug deal?
Not wanting a pizza dude's life on our hands, we agreed.
He delivered one at the back door. He delivered one at my brother's bedroom window.
He delivered one at the upstairs bathroom window.
He delivered one behind the nightclub (It was a small cheese pizza. He wore a trench coat. I'm hoping he was wearing something under that trench coat. He had been wearing pants previously. I'm hoping he had shorts or something. We could see his plaid socks.)

So that was it.
This is what my mind does while I sleep.

Thursday Is Clearly the Most Bloggable Day

I like that word. Bloggable. I don't care is spell check hates it. Spell check hates donut too. But DONUTS, that's fine. Clearly, spell check is not happy with only one donut, and thus prefers the plural.

ANYWAY.
This Thursday I got to substitute teach. The first class I taught was 6-7 year old ballet. I have never actually assisted with this age group, but know that they are pretty much THE most talkative age group.
At first some of 'em were kinda like, "Hehehehe, sub knows nothing. We can get away with stuff."
They probably DID get away with more stuff. I'm not particularly stern. But not much. Because sub is not stupid. If class is not good, sub will mention that classes who don't pay attention and keep talking get less done. If less gets done....There's no time to watch part of a movie. :O
They were very good children after that.
I really had fun. They were sweet little girls, and they try hard. They just talk a lot, which is totally expected of that age group. They gleefully received Princess stickers afterward.

After that (yes, RIGHT after that) was Kidzhop. I was not worried about running out of stuff to do in Kidzhop. Because I am not so good at Hip-Hop I focused more on jazz. We did our regular warm-up. We did the Cha-Cha Slide, because we could practice our jazz squares that way. I did teach them a combination from a dance they're doing in the Christmas Stroll. But they don't know it's from that dance. I was going to do it with the actual Christmasy music, but I forgooot. Oops. Oh well. At least they sorta know it.
I had Laura there with me, which was very nice, I could ask her what she thought needed breaking down or going over again. And again.
In Kidzhop, we tend to use the same sort of hip-hop music for a lot of exercises. I decided to mix it up a bit by using some of my own music. :D Yes, I went through my library several times to ensure it was all kid-friendly. I ended up using some High School Musical 2 remixes, "Walkin' on Sunshine" (I assume it's kid-friendly. I don't know any of the lyrics except "I'm walking on sunshiiiiiine, WHOAH-OH! And don't it feel GOOD? HEY!!" But seriously, NO ONE can be offended by such a happy song.) , and even a little Relient K. Ms.Sue had given me a TON of music, so of course I used some of that, too. Who DOESN'T like "I Like To Move It"? Answer: Nobody. It's just that awesome.

I also taught them chasses (Sha-SAYZ for you non-dancin' types). In teaching them to do the chasses, I told them the ol' cat n' mouse story. "This foot is the mouse! This foot is the cat! The cat is going to chase the mouse, and he's going to catch it and kiss it!" Jonathan didn't look like he approved of this kissing thing. So I changed it a bit.
"The cat is going to catch the mouse and they are going to knuckle-touch."
Much cooler. :D
I managed to wear out the Kidzhop class. And here I thought that was scientifically impossible.
Yeah, it was fun. :)
Oh, and a little girl told me I looked hot. I don't think she meant hot. She meant hott. I thanked her.

After Kidzhop I managed to coordinate schedules with Evan, so I actually got to see him during the week. I see him Saturday, Sunday, and between classes on Monday. I start going through Evan Withdrawal by Wednesday. We went to Subway, because I only had an hour break and Subway was close. And delicious. It was nice, we got to tell each other all about work. I get to wear out children, he gets to...Google things. YES, he does other stuff. I'm sure it's important stuff.  It's just all technical, so when he tries to explain it to me, I go all, "Whaa? You do what? I'm sorry, it flew over my head. Did you hear it whistle when it flew over my head? You have very nice eyes by the way, did you know that?"
Yeah. I get some of it.  I just don't feel like explaining it to you.
I have decided that it is more fun to believe that he smuggles squid to Italians.
You'll just have to be satisfied with that.

I made it back in time for advanced jazz, which is great fun, and I did not die.
Laura and I tidied stuff up (Which is really more fun than it sounds) and leeeeaveded.
My mom picked me up, and guess what? We goin' straight to the market! No going home for yoooouuu!
Dammit.
So I put all my purse stuff in the laptop bag which contained my netbook (And no Ms.Sue I could not connect to your studio internetz. I also didn't try that hard.  I will bring my netbook on Monday, and we can MAKE EET HAVE INTERNETZ.) and got to carry that around HEB.
HEB is actually kinda fun. I didn't mind it (Except the netbook thing. The bag with all my electronics in it {Literally, ALL} is heavier than it seems like it should be. It probably weighs more than me. Which really doesn't take much I suppose....).
HEB is much more fun when you pretend you are Napoleon Dynamite. It is even more fun if your mom is the one who started it. So we Napoleon'd around HEB, which fortunately, was not crowded.
Though I doubt that would have stopped us.

And now, here I am, with my dear little netbook who has seen HEB.
My feet hurt.
I thought you'd like to know.
So now you have been educated. You know the ways of another Thursday.
YAY YOU! *clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap*

Now I have the Cha Cha Slide in mah haid.
"How low can ya go? Can ya go down low? All the way to the floor?"
LIMBO EVERYBODY!!

Thursday: The Day That Never Ends (EVER)

First order of business on Thursday was to actually get out of bed. Which I did. It wasn't actually morning anymore, but I did indeed get up. I showered. I ate food. I made food to pack with me because I wasn't going to be getting home until after 8:30.

My little sister Kimberly had a playdate with her friends. RIGHT after the playdate she had Kidzhop, a class I assist in. So guess what? Spooky teenager all dressed in black (Albeit with neon Peanuts characters on my t-shirt) gets to tag along.
Once there, I am introduced to Computer. Computer has internet. Dial-up. I didn't know ANYBODY still had dial-up. It also has some freaky virus that attacks you ferociously whenever you try the internet. I offered to scan for the virus and try to get rid of it, but then I discovered they are actually paying for Norton. Norton clearly isn't doing his job. So I stayed offline and rooted through their game stash. The only mildly violent, rated-T, game I could find was a Robin Hood game from 2002.
The intro was hilariousssss.

If you are my Facebook friend, it is on my page. If you don't actually know me, and you're some random stranger..Sorry. You're outta luck. I have tried and tried to uplaod it to my blog, but it refuses to work, and if I link you to my Facebook page....YOO KIN STALK MEH. Because...you might not have anything better to do.

Yeahhhh. So I played that for a bit until I freed my Merry Men, who were about to be hanged for unspecified reasons. I freed my Merry Men and then realized they were essentially useless. The big dude kept standing around the corner WHISTLING. When he whistled, the soldier dues would be all like, "???" and come to investigate. Then they'd see a big crown of alleged criminals who were SUPPOSED to be being hanged right now, but weren't. So now there's a big crowd of soldiers beating up on my mostly DEFENSELESS Merry Men, and I'm off being Robin, wayyy on the other side of the map, trying to figure what the hell I'm supposed to be doing since I've already freed the bunch of gibbering idiots, which I THOUGHT was the point, but apparently it wasn't. So I have to ruuuunnnn over there to save them, and get caught by the sheriff, who is a big bald dude who just sort of wanders aimlessly about the town.

After this happened about three times, I gave up and just wrote in my journal.

Classes went well. Bunch of kids in Kidzhop, and one of them lost her tooth. I had noticed she had a weird look on her face, but I was afraid to ask in case that face she was making was actually NORMAL. I hadn't actually met her before, and you'd be surprised at what is actually "normal" sometimes.

After Kidzhop I got a dinner break. :D I waited a bit for my peanut butter and jelly to settle a bit, then decided to join Intermediate Jazz, which is the class that goes on during my dinner break. After that was tap, which was kinda special. My feet have only done an hour of hard tappin' this summer, so now they're all out of practice. After that was advanced jazz. Fortunately, Laura (Ze jazzz teacher) wasn't hard on us, it being the first lesson, and Leah (My fellow crazy person who is in a million classes) and I had already had over three hours of ballet this week.
After classes we cleaned up, locked up, and went home. Laura is so cute. She's always so full of joy and enthusiasm about EVERYTHING. Even dust mopping. Even vacuuming.

So I got home. You may think this is the end. Nope. It NEVER ends. Okay it DOES, but not here.

I spent about five minutes at home, then it was time to go to Wal*Mart for grocery shopping. I felt that, after such a long day, and it being the first week of classes and everything, I deserved french fries. I only had about four dollars, so why bother saving it? Iz jus' four dollarz. So I bought myself an Icee and asked for "whichever size is the dollar one. I can never remember."
The lady says I would have to wait for the fries. I was happy to wait, because that meant I would get fresh hot fries. YAY FRESHNESS! So I got myself an Icee (Mostly Coke flavor, but I mix a little cherry in, too). I loooooove Icees. Lovelovelove. When I finally got my fries, the lady told me she'd given me a medium fry for waiting. Seriously? I was happy to be waiting for hot fries. Now I get HOT FRIES WITH EXTRA FRIES. YAYYYYYYY! I walked off happily (It may have been that fun jazz walk with the half-skip). I wandered through the Halloween section. I love the Halloween section. All the stripey tights, and the candy bowls that try to grab your arm, and the feathery witch hats.

Eventually I rejoin Mom, and after a while Chris joins us.  He and I agree that looking at groceries isn't that fun, so we head off to electronics for a bit. When we rejoin Mom, I suddenly turn into Hammy the Squirrel. This randomly happens sometimes. The hyperness descends upon me, and I suddenly feel the need to skip around and sing, "Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom, nom nom nom nom nom nom nom...."

I head back over to the magazines and pick up a bridal magazine to look at, and a bag of Ruffles. Mom instructs her children to check out the donuts. If you tell a squirrel to go check out the donuts, said squirrel will probably get distracted shrimp, ugly cookies, and boxes of donuts that are sort of shaped like a tank. By the time mom comes back, I'm driving a tank-like box of cookies around the shelf. Don't judge me.

So donuts finally get picked out, and we head to checkout, where Chris and Mom unload the cart, and I stand off to the side reading Seventeen. I was doing them a favor. If I help, I get in the way. Especially if I am weirdly hyper and keep singing the nom song. I did actually put down the magazine and help when Chris realized he had forgotten to get his weekly stash of Starbucks mocha-y goodness, which is apparently the only thing that keeps him semi-sane, what with his weird 7am-4pm shift at Liquis (Side note- I believe this to be my fiance's fault. Okay, not really. Evan has to drive his dad to work, and since he and Chris work the same days, Chris had to get hours to match Evan's so they could carpool. I still think NOBODY should have to be at work by 7am. What has this world come to?).

So anyway, we get home, unload groceries, and then just chillax and surf the interwebz, and then I go to sleep.

I accidentally slept until noon. But considering my week, and especially my Thursday, I decided this was perfectly understandable, and definitely okay.

And then I blogged it. So the world could know. Because they really really need to.

A Battle of Epic Proportions (Maybe)

So, I'm just innocently sitting on my bed, netbook in my laptop, chatting with my BFF and my fiance on Gmail. (I like Gmail. My theme is High Score. Gmail's awesome. It kinda sucks on iGoogle though. It just...looks....weird.)
Anyway, I am just innocently chatting and watching Red vs. Blue on Youtube, when I hear a freaking loud buzzing sound on the other side of my room.

So I look over, and I see a junebug flying around.

Umm, yeah. GROSS.
And what the hell is it doing here?? It's September. NOT JUNE. GO AWAY UNTIL NEXT JUNE, BASTARD.
I am fully aware that junebugs do not bite, sting, or physically hurt you in any way. But they are freaking gross. They're huge, round, have creepy little BUG FEET, and you can't squish them.
Okay, technically you CAN, but it's pretty much the most disturbing thing ever. It's more disturbing than thisisphotobomb.com

 Seriously.

So, every time I see a junebug pretty much, I will scream. In a very shrill and girly manner. If one is just sitting on the ground, on a wall, or on my fiance's shoulder, I can keep the scream down to a strangled squeal. But if it flies....Hell no, dude. I am going to scream BLOODY MURDER.
And I did.
We have eight cats. They love when bugs get in the house. One of MY cats, Bambi Sue, will usually relentlessly hunt bugs until they are dead. This is one reason I love her. So I wake her up from a very sound sleep and try to show her the bug.

Nope. Too sleepy. Bambi Sue stares blankly at Junebug, then goes RIGHT BACK TO SLEEP.
Leaving me with THIS MONSTER STILL ON THE LOOSE.

Fantastic.

So Junebug flies behind the curtains and is silent for a while. I nervously resume chatting until I absolutely cannot take it anymore.
Junebug is just lying in wait...he probably would have stayed there until I turned out the lights and went to bed, then he'd creeep out and come crawling across my foot like his sick, twisted brothers before him.

So I tell my chatbuddies to excuse me for a moment and go out in search of my protector, friend, and stalker-buddy...Bunny.

Fearsome, isn't he?
So I fetch him, and show him Junebug. Bunny is ecstatic. He just KNOWS that if he kills this horrible monster for me, he will win my favor, and I will leave Fiance and come back to him.
Bunny delightedly picks Junebug up, and gives Junebug a stern lecture. When Bunny talks, he seriously sounds like Beaker from the Muppets. He's all like, "Meep! Meemeemeep! MEEP!"

I'm sure it got the point across to Junebug that molesting Bunny's lover was NOT COOL.
After much horrific torture from which I will spare you the details, (Though I WILL tell you that basically anytime Junebug was flying or in Bunny's mouth- I SCREAMED.) Junebug was no more.

Dear God, Thank you for cats. They're awesome. Now really, what good are Junebugs? Please reconsider them. Amen.

After bringing in the groceries, the cats discovered ANOTHER junebug. This one didn't last as long as the first, as this time, Bunny gathered all his kitty comrades to aid him in his conquest.
They were successful. :D

I'm still wondering though...where did these junebugs come from?
Why are they here?
And most importantly....are there MORE??

I don't think I'll sleep much tonight.
But that's normal, so it's okay.

Note to Bunny: I love that you kill bug for me and all that, but I quite frankly, I think that chest hair is weird, so I think I'll be sticking with Evan. Plus, you get excited when I take a shower and try to jump all over me and sometimes rip little holes in the shower curtain. That's weird, too. As far as I know, Evan probably will never do this. I hope we can still be friends.
~Mary

Things Named Fred

Over the years, there have been a lot of things named Fred. For lack of a better subject, I will tell you all about Fred.

Fred the Parakeet

Fred is my godmother's parakeet. He refuses to bathe. So my godmother has to dampen a bunch of parsley leaves, and he runs around in the parsley leaves. I think Fred is bored with suburban life, and longs to be an adventurer in the rainforest. So when he bathes in his awesome jungle of damp parsley leaves, he can pretend to be an incredibly cool explorer, like Indiana Jones, or Alex Rover, or Dora.
I suppose he could also imagine he were an environmentalist, frolicking amidst all the trees he had saved from  being turned into coffee tables, or toothpicks, or toilet paper, or somebody's front door.

Fred the Goldfish

Back when me and my sister were into fish, we bought a cool little 1 gallon aquarium and some cute little goldfish. We loved to watch the goldfish swim around and play with each, and try to eat their own crap, as fish are prone to do.
As is the way with goldfish, they died fairly quickly. Shaggy and Daphne I were flushed away to that great big fishbowl in the sky. But not Fred. Poor Fred was alone for a few days, until we could get to the store and buy him some new little goldfish buddies. He was a little depressed for those few days, trying to keep himself entertained by chillin' with the shark picture on the back wall of the tank, but he cheered right up when we introduced him to his new friends, Daphne II and Velma. Daphne II lived a while, but Velma croaked and was replaced with Scooby-Doo. Fred wasn't too upset by that, as he didn't go friendless.
But after cycling through two full sets of friends, Fred started to go a little cuckoo.

Whenever he was alone, he'd just swim back and forth rapidly, occasionally jumping out of the water and smacking his head against the roof of his tank. We would hear his little fishy head repeatedly going- *THUNK-THUNK-THUNK* -all night. As soon as we got him new friends, Fred would settle down and act like a normal goldfish. But when  one friend died, he'd start the nervous swimming, and when the other died, the repeated suicidal headbanging would commence.
After another set of friends passed on, it didn't matter if Fred had friends. The frantic swimming and headbanging continued nearly all the time, except when he took the occasional break to eat.
Needless to say, Fred freaked us out, and I no longer believe goldfish have a memory of only three seconds. If they can't remember anything for more than three seconds, they can't go insane when their friends repeatedly die.
Fred did finally go belly-up, and was sent down the Great Big Porcelain Portal to Fishy Heaven to be reunited with all his fishy friends.
After that, we just bought guppies.

Fred the Smiley

Fred the Smiley is the ridiculously happy smiley that never stops smiling. 
:D
Fred loves life. He loves to party. He also loves pie. Fred tends to just be happy about everything. 
:D
However, Fred disapproves of the state America is in today. Not enough pie, not enough parties. So Fred is running for president.
=|:D
I think he will be excellent at this. He'll give everybody free pie. He'll invite you to his parties. He'll do away with Thursday entirely, and then everybody can go straight to Friday.  Is it Thursday? Thanks to Fred, it will never be Thursday AGAIN!
Vote for Fred. TGIF! Plus, he has an awesome top hat.
=|:D

Vicious Sardines, Lost Shoes, and Criminal Football-Haters

Sports are bad. Sports are evil. Sports hurt you. I had to endure various forms of indoor and outdoor sports as part of my homeschool group's Phys. Ed.

Soccer: Usually played in some cloudy damp season. In professional soccer, the people generally have their own roles in the team and all work together to kick a cute little black-and-white ball into a great big net guarded by whoever wants to run around the least yet doesn't mind getting hit in the face repeatedly.

In little-kid soccer, all of the kids just cram around the ball in some weird huddle-thing. They're like pack of vicious sardines. They're all just...kicking the ball. It does not go anywhere. It doesn't have anywhere TO go. It makes it about two feet and then gets kicked by a sardine right back to where it came from. Eventually some lucky sardine will kick it out of the mob. The ball then rolls off slowly towards one of the goals (Not necessarily the correct one, but a goal nonetheless.) the sardines chase after it, shouting unintelligibly at each other. The ball gets kicked off into one of the goals right over the goalies' head and the goalie doesn't notice because the goalie saw a bug and is on the ground studying it.

Sometimes the ball would just get kicked out into the center of the field, where me, and a few other kids  who really didn't want to be there would be hanging out, talking. Would we kick the ball towards the nearest goal? HELL NO. If WE have the ball, it means that the vicious sardines are going to rush over and maul us. So we'd just kick the ball back to the sardines, and they'd continue doing whatever it is they do. Occasionally, just to pretend I was actually almost-involved in the game, I'd sort of run after the sardines. But then- whoops!- I'd "lose my shoe" and have to go back and get it.  Once I ran a little without my shoe, looking so into the game that I simply hadn't noticed it was gone.

"Oh, wow, this game is so exciting! Wait..something doesn't feel right. Oh. My shoe's gone. Gee, where could it be? Ahaa, right there, where I purposefully lost it, riiiight. Guess I'd better go back...and get it....Golly this velcro is hard to fasten. Gotta be perfect. If it's not perfect, I might not be able to lose it again later. There, all better. Now where are the sardines? Hey! Water break! Sweet."

And that was soccer.

Basketball was different, but not much better. Most of it wasn't even actual gameplay. The coaches were trying to get us to understand the rules (Most of us never did. To this day, I have no idea how basketball is played. And I don't care.) and making us suffer through endless drills. Passing drills were terrible. You always got paired up with some kid who was either A) Three feet taller than you, B) Threw the ball really really really hard, or C) Was as apathetic as you, and thus neither of you benefited.
When a ball is thrown at you, people seem to think that instinct is to catch it. This is not true. Instinct is to duck and squeal. I was never actually hit with a basketball. I was too busy ducking and screaming, especially after my brother was hit in the stomach, and my sister sprained her finger during these drills.

If ever we go to play an actual game, I could never remember who my teammates were. I wasn't sure which hoop was okay to toss the ball in. I was too freaking short for that ANYWAY. I am currently 5'0". I have not grown since I was fifteen. When I was in basketball, I was like, nine. So yeah, I was really really short. A lot of the kids in my homeschool group are really, really tall. Now, several of them are well over 6 feet.
I handled basketball very much like I handled soccer, only more running around. Ball bounces near me, I PASS IT. Quickly. I don't think I even bothered to dribble, I just tossed that thing like a can of soda with a bee in it.

Volleyball was almost okay. It was reasonably civilized, for a sport. The ball didn't usually almost kill you, and I could actually hit it over the net occasionally.
Then some kid walked under the net, cut his scalp on something, bled profusely all over the gym floor, and got taken away in an ambulance. The game was adjourned, and we got sent out to the playground. I fainted. None of the adults noticed.
Volleyball was less okay, but still better than the other sports because I could participate without fearing Vicious Sardines or Giant Crazy Basketball-Lovers.

Kickball wasn't too bad either. I could handle a little kickball. I had no idea what the rules were, but I'd kick it around and run where they told me. That's all I remember. So I was not well prepared when my Sunday School class decided to go outside and play kickball. I hadn't been there long, so nobody knew me that well.  I knew I'd get picked last, and actually did not care. I was kinda hoping there'd be an odd number or something and I could sneak off and watch. I hung out at the back of the line, hoping the game would end before I got a turn. No such luck. Dammit. I kicked the ball a couple of times. It wasn't awesome enough for me to get to run anywhere, but apparently some other people got to run around or something, and the man said that was a good thing. Whatever, man. I'm just glad I didn't die.

I never experienced baseball or softball. I don't even know the DIFFERENCE between baseball and softball. I assume in softball, the ball is softer. But not actually soft. Who'd wanna play a sport with an actual SOFT BALL? Nobody would get HURT that way, and that's no fun at all. Only pansies would play with a soft ball.

I never played football either. I don't watch football. Apparently, in Texas, this is a criminal act. I have friends and future in-laws who are absolutely rabid football fans. They watch every game. They actually know the names of some of the players. They seem to know what's going on. I watched a leetle teeny bit of a football game once. I didn't know what was going on, but some guy had the ball, and he was running....but then he didn't have the ball, and he was sitting on the ground, pouting like a freaking four-year-old. This made me laugh. Like, hysterically. I think the football fans thought I was a little bit weird. Sorry football fans, but that was the whole entertaining moment of this game. The rest of the time, the players run, tackle, throw, run, tackle, kick, pout, run, tackle, dog-pile, run, tackle, get taken away in an ambulance.
People ask me if I am a Longhorn or an Aggie. I tell them I basically don't give a damn. They look at me as though I have just drop-kicked a puppy. I am sorry, people. I don't mind if YOU watch sports. If that's your thang, go right ahead.
I'll be over here, making shadow puppets. Because that is quality entertainment.

The last sport I tried was bowling. I liked bowling. The ball goes AWAY from you. It does not usually fly up and hit people in the face (But never say never). You can go, throw your big ol' heavy ball at a bunch of cute little white pins who never did anything to deserve this, and if you knock a few down, you get to jump around and clap and dance with your friends. In between turns, there is time for social interaction. Nobody is particularly competitive, and you even get to add a handicap to your scores so you can pretend you're as awesome as Norm Duke, which is the only professional bowler whom I can remember the name of. And the only reason I remember Norm Duke is because it's kind of a weird name, and he's a really really short dude with a big nose.
Sorry, Norm.
I bowled on the Varsity league for five years. I didn't care enough to actually IMPROVE during that time, but I did it, I had a lot of fun with all those crazy bowling people, and I got a letter. It's the letter G. It has shiny pins and stuff on it. I have my own bowling ball with name on it because half the league has the exact same ball style that I have. I have my own shoes that give me foot cramps. I have too many towels, and a cute little chalk bag with chili peppers all over it, even though I don't like chili peppers.

I have various shiny trophies around my room that make me look cool, like I won stuff or something.
Several of them are just because everybody got trophies, so that nobody would be all sad. But a couple of them are for actually winning something, or at least coming in second place.

Plus, the big trophy is really handy for hanging my blue wig on.

I love my blue wig.
It needs a name. I just realized my wig is NAMELESS. This is horrible. I'll come up with something, never fear, Blue Wig!

The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself...And a bunch of other stuff, too.

Some people scare more easily than others.
Some people are just afraid of everything, and if they think too much, they'll never ever leave their house again. But then they start thinking about how many horrible things can happen right at home. So then they hide under their bed. But what if the bed collapses? What if there's an earthquake and big chunks of ceiling falls down around my bed and I'M TRAPPED HERE FOREVER? 
 There is no hope for such people.

Some people are not afraid of anything. These "brave souls" march through life, trying to show the world how awesomely brave they are, and prove it by doing stupid things like sword-swallowing or bungee jumping or bison-taming.

What is to be done with such people?

I don't think I fit into either of those categories. I'm not afraid of everything....I like to leave my house occasionally. But I do have a great big fear of sharp things. Particularly needles and knives.

I went sixteen years without ever getting a shot. All those years, I was absolutely terrified of needles. I would start to hyperventilate if I thought too hard about needles. You can imagine my horror when the strap came off of my ballet shoes. Have you ever tried to sew an elastic strap to a leather shoe? Don't. It's bad. I stabbed myself in the thumb. For a while I tried to convince myself it wasn't so bad. Just a little prick. It didn't even bleed that much. Then I decided I'd better disinfect it. I made it to the bathroom, disinfected my thumb, and started feelin' a little dizzy. I sat down, and the next thing I knew I was lying on the floor with a freakin' headache. When I pass out, I tend to think of something really weird as soon as I gain consciousness. This time, it was "Ooh! I wonder what I look like right after I've passed out??" So I immediately get up and look in the mirror. I'm a pretty pale person normally, so right after I've fainted, I'm like literally as white as Snoopy.

But then, when  actually had to go and get the DTaP booster shot, I actually didn't faint. I didn't even hyperventilate. I was very confused the whole time, though. After all that freaking out I had expected a full-on panic attack AT LEAST. It was weird.

Now as for knives, those are just downright scary. They're all sharp, and creepy, and chop stuff up into little bitty pieces. One of my official chores is to do the dishes. I always hate seeing a great big pointy knife lying there in the midst of my dishes. What if I pick up a dish and the knife slides over to my hand and hurts me? What if I pick the knife up to rinse it off and it's all wet and greasy and it slips and I drop it and it lands on something important? Like one of my fingers? I need those.
Thus I always end up getting the knives over with first thing. Very, very carefully.
And so far I haven't actually been impaled during my dish duties. There was the one time I felt something cut my finger and I freaked out when I saw a knife there. But then it turned out I had cut myself on a very sharp cake crumb, so that was okay. I'm not sure what the difference is between hurting yourself with a knife and hurting yourself with a cake crumb, but it's there. Cake crumbs are just not scary, even if they hurt you.
Knives are scary no matter what.

Progresso, Purell, and the Occasional Sea Lion

Since I just arrived n' all that, I thought I'd go ahead and provide you with a blog post I wrote last month, so you'll have something to do until I make an actual first blog post. So there ya go.

Tonight, we had Family Movie Night.
First came the popcorn. I had to go around the house, and find out how much popcorn must be popped. Not much. Okay, one bag, that's easy. If you can find the instructions, which took more time than one might suspect. Popcorn popped, sugary n' butter mixed into it, remote control found, and everybody seated in the dark, armed with popcorn, sodas and tea. The movie? Nim's Island.
The beginning wasn't very clear. From what I could tell, Nim's mother was exploring the inside of a whale (Because THAT'S a good plan). While she was peering into it's mouth (Say, "aaaaahhh!" Mr.Whale!) a ship called The Buccaneer floated by, which freaked out Mr.Whale. Mr.Whale then swallowed Nim's mother (Or whoever that strange, 2-dimensional woman was), because apparently when frightened, whales eat anything in their path.

Jump ahead about 10 years, and here is Nim and her father. Alone on an island. Seriously?? I mean sure, they have some internet access. But what happens if Nim's father becomes horribly ill? Breaks a a leg? Falls off the volcano that Nim is so fond of climbing? She's only 11. What's she supposed to do? Send her sea lion friend for help? It gets even better when Nim's father sails off to see- *DundunDUNNNN!* blue...glowing....plankton. Amazing. So he sets off in his pathetic excuse for a boat. A sailboat. Wise choice during monsoon season. How can we tell it's monsoon season? They have monsoons every other day. He obtains a jar of magic blue plankton, and WHAM! Monsoon knocks holes in his boat, and his satellite dish sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Now he can't just pump water out of his boat. He has to build an elaborate pump system first. Because his boat didn't have one already. Shouldn't it have? And shouldn't this supposedly intelligent scientist be wearing a life jacket? You survive more better that way.

Back at the island, this same monsoon is blowing their cute little "Swiss Family Robinson-esque" treehouse around. Nim gets up, and closes half the windows. But not the other half. Those don't appear to close. She just covers the computer with a tarp. Because that's practical. But it's a good thing she did, because otherwise she never would have received an email from great adventurer and author, Alex Rover....Who turns out to be some crazy paranoid woman who hasn't left her house in sixteen weeks. She lives off of Purell and Progresso soup (Which, by the way, is very tasty). Alex wants to know what volcanoes are like, so of course she contacts a marine biologist type of dude who happens to live right under a supposedly dormant volcano, rather than an actual expert on volcanoes. Never assume a volcano is dormant. They have been known to go KAPLEWIE when you least expect it. Nim assumes it is dormant, and heads on up there. I think she has a death wish or something. Either that, or her dad never taught her basic survival skills. Nim proceeds to pick the steepest spot on the entire volcano to climb up. Sure, she's got a rope and all sorts of climbing equipment. But a rope is rather useless when it's not tied to anything. After a harrowing climb, Nim makes it to the top, and studies the volcano, so she can report back to Alex, her idol. I believe at this point the volcano coughs at her. I don't really remember, as at this point I was also distracted by popcorn. Anyway, she ties her rope to the ONLY TREE growing there on the volcano, and begins her climb back down. Obviously, Nim, being a little 11 year-old-girl, is too heavy for the tree, and it comes crashing down the mountainside. Nim follows shortly after. She is mostly unhurt, aside from a ginormous disgusting gash on her leg. She doesn't seem too concerned about this, and heads back to report her volcanic findings to Alex.

Through quite a bit of emailing, Alex discovers that Nim is all alone. Alex is dreadfully concerned about Nim, being all alone and having a ginormous disgusting gash on her leg. Alex has wonderfully hilarious conversations with her imaginary adventurer friend who has a funny accent. Eventually, her imagination convinces her to get out of the house, brave the scary, wet, unsanitary world, and go save that little girl. She packs up her Purell and Progresso, and off to Nim's island she goes.

Back the island, a straaange ship is pulling in. To Nim's horror, it is called the Buccaneer. Thus, it MUST be the same ship that spooked Mr.Whale into eating her mother all those years ago. It spits out a little boat full of pirate-like men, who walk about 25 yards onto the island, survey the small portion that they can see, and declare it the perfect place to throw a Fat Tourist Party. After about three minutes on shore, they head back to their ship, and Nim begins making plans to defeat the invaders and keep her little slice of heaven Fat-Tourist-Free.

Now, where is her father during all this? He is still on his boat, protectively clutching his beloved jar of radioactive plankton. His pump keeps breaking, he has no sail, no motor, and apparently no oars. Galileo, the kindly pelican, brings him his tool belt, so he can build a pathetic engine, which promptly snaps off in the next monsoon. The rest of his boat falls apart, and Nim's father, still without a life jacket but still clutching his precious jar of amazing glowing plankton, is stranded out in the ocean. Fortunately, the sharks which were previously circling his boat AND repeatedly slamming into it (Because sharks have been known to do that....), have decided that he's too stupid to eat and may give them indegestion, have swum away.

Finally, Nim's worst nightmare becomes reality....The Buccaneers have returned, and brought with them beach chairs, umbrellas, portable bathrooms, and Fat Tourists. The Fat Tourists gleefully party on the beach, completely unaware that sneaky little Nim is about to launch her little lizard friends right into their luau, via Lizard Catapult. Being catapulted hundreds of feet into the air does not hurt the lizards at all. Rather, they seem to enjoy it, and make little noises of delight (Though last time I checked, lizards don't many noise, delighted or otherwise, aside from the occasional angry hiss). The Fat Tourists and Buccaneers panic, and chaos ensues. Drinks and hats fly everywhere, and all their portable bathrooms are tipped over. The Poor stupid people head for the ship. All except one boy, a fat British kid who answers to the name of Edmund. He finds Nim in the jungle, and asks her to come back with them, because due to the flying lizard epidemic and the coughing volcano, the island is no place for a little girl. Nim curiously pokes his pudgy face, and then declines, stating the island is her home. She disappears in a puff of some snow-like substance, and Edmund runs (If you can call whatever it is he does running) back to his worried parents.

Through many hilarious mishaps, new experiences with boat-thieving, and encounters with terribly unsanitary things, Alex makes her way to the island. She  arrives (Of course) during a monsoon. Nim goes outside (Into the monsoon) to see what all the hullabaloo is about, and spots Alex's little boat. She sets out on her sea lion friend to see if she may be of any assistance. As she reaches the little boat it tips over, flinging Alex into the watery depths. The sea lion then abandons Nim to go on a fish break or something, and it is now up to Nim to save the utterly exhausted Alex. She screams underwater, letting all her air out so that she has to go up for more, dives back down, grabs Alex's hand, and tows her back to shore. Once there, Alex tells Nim that she is Alex Rover. THE Alex Rover. Nim is dumbfounded. She had thought Alex would be a fearless adventurer, and help her find her father. Obviously, there is no "About the Author" section at the end of Alex's books. Thus, even though Nim has ASKED Alex to come, she totally blows her off, declaring that Alex is a wimp, and could never be of any help. Alex is devastated that, after coming all this way and braving her worst fears, Nim will not accept her help. Even Alex's own imagination abandons her. So, lost and alone, she goes to Nim for help. The sea lion returns, only to eat Alex's last can of Progresso, forcing her to eat weird island food, cooked by an 11 year old who doesn't know basic survival skills.

Nim's father finally manages to wash up on shore, riding a little chunk of boat he somehow managed to cling to during the storm. Nim excitedly runs to her father and embraces him, and his jar of magnificent glowing plankton. She introduces him to Alex, who has great hair, despite her not leaving her house for sixteen weeks, and having been through a monsoon. Of course, considering Nim's father has not been around any female other than his daughter for many many years, I think he would have been attracted to any woman that should happen to wash up on their shores. A scientist and a writer. That's how their story begins. And the movie ends.

I actually sort of liked the movie. It was cute, even though the plot really didn't make sense. I think I watched it the wrong way. The way it must be watched, is to just not bother trying to make sense of it, and go, "Awww" whenever Fred the lizard makes one of his obnoxious parrot sounds that lizards don't actually make. In fact, the character of Alex was the only thing that truly made this movie watchable. She was great.
So, there's my little movie review/Oh geez I'm bored, hey, I think I'll blog about something! :D If you read the whole thing, congratulations! If you didn't, that's okay. I just needed to blog SOMETHING, and that was the most interesting thing that's happened all day.