Submerge!!!

For the longest time I have not been allowed to swim due to my surgical scar. It hasn't really affected my life but it can get to be a bummer after awhile. I had a long running joke with my family where I'd whine "I want to submerge!!!" It came about when I was down in Sioux Falls for the family reunion and had to watch all my cousins play in the pool.

On Wednesday, I had my last check-up on the scar. I got the green light and celebrated by immediately leaving town with Tyler, Darren and Rob and driving to Red Lake Falls. Just us and a cooler of beer. Our plan was to float down the river in style. It was the perfect way to celebrate the return of "Submerge!" The day was sunny and hot and the boys gave me lots of laughs but I learned something very important. Even though you may be thirsty in the hot sun, it's a bad idea to keep throwing beers back. Sure you feel fine on your tube, but when it comes time to get out of the tube, you may end up doing the watermelon crawl up the river bank and making a fool out of yourself. I'm just saying...

Last night Tyler and I watched the movie "Everything is Illuminated" it's an indie flick with Elijah Wood. Really different and I loved it. I recommend it. If you're in the mood for a different movie read this.

I just read that Mariska Hargity (from Law & Order SVU) had her baby. A boy weighing almost 11 pounds! I was about to feel really bad for her but she, like every other women in Hollywood these days, delivered by C-section. Weird. Apparently that's the thing to do if you're a celebrity. But I love Mariska-- she's in one of my favorite shows and she's such a cool lady.

Okay, must stop reading MSN gossip and get to work.

I heart penguins

This is the still from the movie "Happy feet." Seriously, click the link and watch a preview of this guy going to town. Everytime I see this preview, I seriously nearly giggle to death or cry becaue it's so cute!!! I LOVE penguins. They're cuteness gets to me. And I'm not one of these people that suddenly loves them now that they starred in that Oscar-winning movie "March of the Penguins"--- no way man. I am a fan from way back. Like forever.

I have a keychain that says "I heart penguins" and a shirt that says this as well. My icecream scoop has a penguin on it and I have 4 stuffed penguins. I love them all.

When Tyler saw this picture he said to me, "Oh my gosh... let's have a baby!" (pause for me to look at him like "What are you nuts?") then he says... "A tenny, tiny penguin baby. You can do that right?" Um, yeah, I'll just start laying eggs. On the other hand my body does like to create weird stuff in my tummy! :)

Anyway this movie comes out in November and I cannot wait to go. Just wanted to post the picture and bring some joy to your lives! If you want to really brighten your day watch the trailer or "Baby Mumble"

Intoxicated Ants

The title of this post is inspired by a random event at my mother's house.

Last weekend was a family reunion and while I returned home on Sunday my mother didn't get back until a week later. I hopped over to chat with her and get all the family gossip after she returned home (I know they talk about people after they leave) -- so I had to find out how ridiculed I was :) Mom and I popped open a bottle of red wine and sat outside. As we both took a sip, our faces just seized up. Yeah, the wine had most definitely gone bad. I poured it out onto the patio and looked down to see that I had totally dumped it all on this tiny little ant.

The next several minutes I watched this ant stumble, literally stumble around in circles. It was spazzing out like it was having a seizure. I laughed so hard that I snorted. I feel kind of bad in hindsight. What if the ant was underage and it got back to the ant hill and the parent ants got all pissed at him? And the ant was all, "Mom I swear, someone just poured it on me! It's not my fault!"

Oh. Sad.

Job searching is no fun. I think my problem is I'm a job snob. I checked the online listing and Burger King is hiring but I'm all, "ehhhhhh" about working for the King. Or the "BK Lounge" as Dane Cook would call it. I've been on several interviews where I'm told, "You're great. We'll be hiring when school starts." Fabulous and until then I can starve? Worse is that I'm getting super used to not working. I sleep late, read all day, goof around with friends, play outside and am a big fat waste of space.

Now for instance, I'm super thirsty but don't want to get off my bum and go get water. I'm am squatting at Tyler's this afternoon since his power is actually going to stay on. I sincerely hope that after tomorrow this power outage madness will be over.

Good Lord. I just saw an Orbit gum commercial with Snoop Dogg where he ends up in hell with old ladies and that creepy smiley woman shoes up with a goat... seriously. I could go into the advertising world and do better than this crap.

Am I sad and pathetic because I'm super stoked for two movies to come out this summer? This Friday "The Devil Wears Prada" comes out (I'm almost done with my book on CD-- one disc left) and in July "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequel -- I liked the first one so I'm all about this one. Doesn't hurt that it stars Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. And Kierra Knightly is one of the few young actresses in Hollywood that I respect. She's up there with Reese Witherspoon, Ashley Judd, Selma Hayeck and on occasion (when she's not kissing her brother, or wearing Billy Bob's blood around her neck) Angelina Jolie.

Okay, one more thing before I go. What the deuce is up with women in reality shows lately? Seems like every time I turn on TV I see ads for "Bridezilla" shows or "Girls Gone Wild" commercials. Yesterday (I'm embarassed to admit) I watched a few minutes of "Hogan knows Best" and "P.Diddy's Making the Band." Both shows featured people harping on young aspiring female singers to “lose weight” and all of these girls were perfect. Are woman not allowed curves people, sheesh?

Sorry to end on that note but I must go out and keep looking for jobs. Then tonight when my power comes back on (God willing) I’m gonna try and hang some art. I HATE white walls. Wish me luck and pray that I don’t end up at the BK Lounge!

Random people are dying!

So I woke up today and checked CNN online and Aaron Spelling and Patsy Ramsey's (Jon Benet's mother) died. Two random people from my pop culture knowledge just *poof* gone. Overnight. I honestly have mortality issues. I hate thinking about death, or acknowledging it. Even when it happens to people I don't know, like Aaron Spelling --because then it reminds me that it comes out of no where and death will happen to every one of us. Ugh. I HATE thinking about death. New topic...

So I haven't even lived in my on-campus apartment for a whole month yet and I have complaints. A few days ago, I came home to a note on my door that there would be a power outage from 10 am to 2 pm. Annoying but okay. They are doing some major construction jobs on campus so I figured it was necessary and I also figured I could keep my fridge and freezer closed and everything would be okay. Well the power was still not on at 3 pm when I called and asked the woman, "So who's paying for all our spoiled food?" I said it a bit nicer but that's the gist. Anyway, I left for awhile, getting sick of no electricity and when I got home around 6, it was back on.

I was glad to put this all behind me until I opened my email yesterday. TWO more scheduled outages. Monday from 10 am to 3:30! And Tuesday night 4-9:30. LAME. ABSOLUTELY LAME. Then they had the audacity to write in our email: "We understand this is an inconvenience, especially when it comes to food preparation so dinner is on us. Come to the apartment center and we'll have cold chicken and some corn."

Excuse me? Cold chicken? This is horse hooey. Imagine if these people hired contractors to fix something on their home and the (lazy-ass) company said, "Well we'll need you to lose your power for about 15 hours over the course of 3 days but it's okay... have a bucket of cold chicken." Yeah, you bet your ass our housing officials would get another company. But no, they just screw us over. I'm sorry but 15 hours is excessive. Get in, hook up the damn power and get out. Then turn my power on and leave me alone! My milk went bad for crying out loud-- it was sad, I had just dumped it all over my cheerios when I realized-- ah, the milk did not survive. Made me mad, I had a third of a gallon left.

Okay, so that's a rant...positive news.

Thursday night I attended a bachelorette party for Jenny. Mucho fun. I wish I could add a photo here but blogger hates me. I don't know why, I've always been nice to it. Anyway, every girl (and there were a lot of us) had a white shirt which by the end of the night was sporting all sorts of embarrassing slogans. I had managed to escape any doodles of penises. My shirts sported slogans such as:

"I'm a slave for you"
"I've got the urge to merge"
and
"More Cushin' for the Pushin' "

To be fair, I told someone to write that last one on my stomach-- I mean, why not? :)

On Friday, Tyler and I attended an evening wedding of a mutual friend of ours. So pretty but no air conditioning in the church. At the dance the ring bearer was the star of the evening... easily. I've never seen a child jam out so much. It was lovely. Tyler and I weren't quite feeling the electric slide action so when we left we danced in the parking lot to some Michael Buble-- I *heart* Michael Buble.

Well, I really should get up and continue my job search for the day.

I just told a telemarketer off --- that was fun. How can those ho-bags keep calling me when I put myself on the Do Not Call List? Cause they are ho-bags! Ugh. Lame.

What the deuce?

So, blogging kind of got a way from me. That happens when you go without internet for a significant period of time. But it has finally been connected, allowing me many wasted hours, browsing my fave sites (Roger Ebert reviews, msn gossip columns, facebook etc). I didn't immediately jump back into blogging because, it's honestly rather terrifying trying to imagine summing up the past few weeks.

We'll just throw it out there in spurts:

Christy got married! Yeah. Craziness. I can't imagine how busy she was because I was exhausted. on Thursday I picked up David and then drove to Fargo to pick up Jim. Friday I spent 9-3 pm in a conference about human trafficking-- very much a downer. And then after that there were many preparations. Rehearsal etc. Every day was a hustle and bustle of busy activity. Saturday the big day was a morning to night event and lots of fun. I had a wonderful time quasi-D.J.ing/Emceeing the wedding. It was such a special day!

Sunday, right after the wedding, I moved all of my belongings from my parent's house to my apartment. A place all to myself. I *heart* it very much. In fact, when I feel like it's fully ready to be shown off, I may take some pics and post them. I have a lot done so far but nothing on the walls yet. And I hate blank walls. I think they frown on putting in many nail holes so I may have to get creative. Some day I'm going to have a townhome... I look forward to that. A place all my own with no rent (just mortgage payments).

Monday was a bit more moving and unpacking. We also hit the bars to celebrate David's birthday (which wasn't until the following Friday). We paid for it the next day but it did rock my socks off. I dropped Davey at the airport Tuesday morning and after he left I had to cry for awhile. I love my davey but we had a great trip and I can't complain because I had him all to myself a few times. And David is a precious commodity around here :) As you can see... he is fun to do shots with...


After that, I've been running mostly errands. Buying parking permits, trying to get internet set up, stocking my fridge, putting away clothes (I have too many) so I gave a lot of those away to the thrift store. If you haven't worn an outfit in over a year, pitch it! Cause you're not gonna wear it.

Did some fun shopping in Fargo for a friend looking at bridal stuff. I heart being along on those trips. I guess I'm a girly girl but being in a store full of bridal gowns really excites me. For some, it's a torture sentence but I love it. I also wrote a bagillion cards (most thank-yous) for the nice cards etc after surgery. I hope they knew how much it meant!

This past weekend I was in Sioux Falls for a family reunion of sorts. It rained the whole time but we managed to have fun anyway. Mom and I were forced to drive separately so we took dad's old walkie-talkies. We had way too much fun. Our code names were mama llama and baby llama. I'm pretty sure any truckers who picked up our signal thought we'd been toking up. The drive home was lonely without my "Ten-4" buddy and music could not keep my powerful urge to doze off away. I stopped in Barnes and Noble and bough a book on tape: "The Devil Wears Prada." I've heard people love the book and it's gonna be a movie plus it was $15 cheaper than other stuff. I heard the whole first disk by the time i got home. It was a lifesaver and so far I like it.

Today I gotta call maintenance to fix some random problems I've found around here. I really need to buy curtains. A garden level apartment is nice and all but I'm creeped out that if someone got close enough to my bedroom window they could look down and watch me sleep. Ewww!

I need to do laundry so I need quarters, detergent and dryer sheets... why does everything cost money?

Oh yeah. That reminds me. I need to get a job.

So those are my not-so fun goals. I also want to see the Lake House. It looks good. May have to drug Tyler. I think he'd rather watch "The Hills have Eyes" creepy horror movie. Our tastes need to match up more.

Summer's in full swing

The past few days have been sunny and HOT. Hot by my standards anyway. I'm an odd bird. I'd prefer grayer skies, a chillier wind and a temp of about 68. Don't know why. I think it's because a lot of my youth, I spent super sunny days inside trying to avoid pollen, or outside with a nerdy dust-mask on -- usually miserable because my nose was running and my eyes burned. I know, I shouldn't bitch about nice weather but it's hard to enjoy it when you can't breathe.

Today I tried to get out and enjoy the sunny skies, pollen be damned. Tyler (the sweetie) bought me a kite! I told him I'd never had a really significant kite flying experience and I wouldn't mind trying it. He bought a nice kite with dinosaurs on it. I love that he gets how weird I am. A kite with dinosaurs on it... it's a beautiful thing. I did have fun flying it too. We didn't have quite enough wind. We had to run to keep it in the air (and I dislike running a lot) but it was lovely. Of course now I'm paying for it with sneezes every few seconds.

Tyler and I watched March of the Penguins-- which I love. It's just unbelievable what those animals can do to make babies. Really inspirational, actually. Plus it just makes me happy. According to the movie, somewhere in Antartica right now there is a huddled mass of adult male penguins, holding an egg under a flap of stomach fat. Sweet!



See how can you not love that?

Tomorrow is going to rock my socks off. My friend David is flying in, as is my friend Jim. Other than that my only other goal is to get a manicure and possibly a pedicure. I've been meaning to "treat myself" since the surgery and now I feel healthy enough to enjoy it and Christy's wedding is this weekend. Might as well hop to it!

I am so excited.

Time for sleepy sleep.