We Should Have Been Working...

An actual emailed conversation that took place between Corinne and me today…

I had just gotten back from a doctor’s visit. I’m a new patient there, so I just basically reviewed all of my medical history with them, including this weird heart thing that I have (it isn’t serious or anything, just annoying, and there are a few different methods of getting it to stop spazzing).

Okay, so here it is.

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From: Jensen, Jessica
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:56 PM
To: Monson, Corinne (Exchange)
Subject: RE:

They took my blood today as a precursor to my physical (I’m going back on Monday to get all that fun stuff done). She’s going to run a minimal ekg on my heart just so that they can have record of my heart issue..I came up with the best nickname EVER for that condition, by the way, and I can’t believe I haven’t been calling it that all along. Its long name is supraventricular tachycardia, but I’m calling it “Super-Tacky” from now on. When my heart starts fluttering and I start pushing on my eyeball (that’s supposed to make it stop), I’ll say “nothing to worry about, just my super-tacky acting up again….”. I’m so excited about it I can’t even stand it.

From: Monson, Corinne (Exchange)
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 12:41 PM
To: Jensen, Jessica
Subject: RE:

So that’s an actual thing? Push on your eyeball?

From: Jensen, Jessica
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 2:46 PM
To: Monson, Corinne (Exchange)
Subject: RE:

Yeah, it’s either that or strain like I’m pushing out a “BM”…I’m not even halfway kidding about this, and as of today these options have now been explained to me TWICE, by two different doctors, and it’s still just as awkward each time.

From: Monson, Corinne (Exchange)
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 12:52 PM
To: Jensen, Jessica
Subject: RE:

I don’t even know what to say to that. Weird that that would fix your heart. Is it a specific artery or something?

From: Jensen, Jessica
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:06 PM
To: Monson, Corinne (Exchange)
Subject: RE:

Yeah, she gave me the name of the artery but I can’t remember what it’s called. I just remembered the exact wording she used…. “bear down like you’re straining to push a BM”. I wish I could have laughed right out loud..but it would have been inappropriate. I hate how technical they have to be in their wording. Seriously, just tell me “act like you’re taking a huge dump”, it’s less weird. Thank goodness there are other options. Why would you even mention that one to me, if there are other things that work just as well?? Is there anyone on Earth that would rather do THAT than put pressure on their eyelid?? It does the same thing!!

From: Monson, Corinne (Exchange)
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:07 PM
To: Jensen, Jessica
Subject: RE:

I guess it would depend on who’s around.

From: Jensen, Jessica
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:12 PM
To: Monson, Corinne (Exchange)
Subject: RE:

And whether or not I feel like risking accidentally crapping my pants at that specific moment.

From: Monson, Corinne (Exchange)
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:16 PM
To: Jensen, Jessica
Subject: RE:

Again, it depends on who’s around.

Millions of Fishes, Fishes for Free

So, I’ve always been a fan of fishing. It’s one of the few outdoorsy activities I enjoy. My dad used to take us as kids and my sister Annie and I would fight over who got to bonk the fish on the head with the club to kill it. Kind of gruesome now that I think about it, but fishing days are always happy memories to me. Like when we went ice fishing in Alaska and a stray dog wandered over and peed on The General’s leg. He was too busy hollering at us girls to stop scaring the fish to notice. That same trip, I caught a monster of a trout that snapped my line, and less than a second after I thought the fish I had wrestled was gone forever, but before I could even so much as stick my bottom lip out, my dad risked life and limb by plunging his arm into the hole and scooping the fish onto the ice. The thing was enormous. And it sat in our freezer for about 6 months before my mom pawned it off onto some missionaries.

Anyway, Jon loves fishing too, but when we were living in Idaho while he finished his degree, we were too poor to afford licenses. So we had to wait each year for one glorious day in July…FREE FISHING DAY. The one day a year we could legally catch-and-release as many fish as we wanted. Okay so that area in Idaho is supposed to be like, world renowned for the great fishing. Well maybe I made that up, but really, you’ve got the Henry’s Fork, and the Warm River, and it’s Outdoorsman’s paradise out there. So TWO YEARS in a row, after dutifully waiting for Free Fishing Day to roll around, then packing up our gear, and lunches, and inviting our friends along, and driving 30 minutes…we didn’t catch a single thing. Nothing. In the stupid Snake River (or some form of tributary). So the second year, we were really kind of mad about it, and we took a drive up to Idaho Falls to feed the ducks and blow off some steam from the totally wrecked fishing trip.

And here’s where this video comes in. First, a list of why this video makes me laugh.

1. Jon tries to count the ducks. You can’t see it very well… despite the thousands of dollars we spent on our amazing Canon Powershot A520..but there are literally hundreds and hundreds of geese in the canal alongside the falls. Mostly ugly babies, the kind that aren’t cute anymore, but all patchy and tufty and awkwardly large. There were some cute little babies too, but for the majority, we’re talking about the gangly ones.

2. Jon keeps telling me to throw the bread closer, to coax the babies over to us. But I’ve seen enough “Goose-On-A-Rampage” clips on America’s Funniest Home Videos to maintain a safe distance.

3. Jon gets worried each time I go a little too long without throwing them bread. He’s convinced that they will get “pissed off” if I keep them waiting.

4. I had NO IDEA he was taking a video, this entire time. Which explains why, near the end, he asks me to smile for the camera, and I turn for an awkward amount of time, showing my teeth and waiting for the flash.

Okay, so maybe it’s not that funny, but it’s one of only a few videos we have, so I’m posting it anyway.





So after we feed the ducks, we take a walk along the falls and notice a few families fishing along the banks. And then it HITS me – It’s STILL FREE FISHING DAY, and we have a fishing pole in the back of the Mazda! So we get all excited and pick out a spot directly across from the temple. By this point, the sun is beginning to go down so we’ve only got about an hour, and we only had a few scraps of bread to use for bait, but would you believe it…..



…we caught about 6 of the smallest little fish you’ve ever seen!



So Jon was pulling the hook out of this little friend when all of a sudden, BLOOD is smeared all over his hand. So I’m a little worried and asking him if he’s okay…..and he finally wrestled the hook out, put the fish back in the water, and swished his hand in it to clear off the blood. And he’s not saying anything, so I’m worried that he hooked himself good and doesn’t want to let me know just yet. But then when I pulled his hand to me to inspect it, he let me know that it was the fish’s blood, not his. And I’m the worst wife in the world, because THAT set me off …something to the effect of “ohhhhhh nnnnnnnooo, it was the FISH’S BLOOD??? POOR LITTLE FISH!!! It’s going to die!” Jon just had to give me one look that shut me up for good.

By this point the sun has set and we ended the adventure with this picture... one of my favorites I've taken so far with the Powershot (Which, by the way, was the cheapest digital camera we could find...... I was definitely joking about it costing thousands of dollars...)


PS- That's the camera case he's carrying....not a purse.....because my husband doesn't wear purses.....

Bellatrix: 2007-2008

I take back all the bad things I ever said about Bellatrix. I called her an idiot and said that she doesn't even recognize food even when it climbs on her. I was mean and insensitive and I take it all back, because little Bella died today. She was fine this morning (well..not fine I guess, since she hasn't had a single meal since she hatched, but she was slithering around and drinking water..) but when Jon went to take her out of her cage, her little body was barely moving.



This is Jon trying to revive her. I think she was dead at this point, though, and it was just nerves that were making her body slightly move. Ew.



Yep. Definitely dead. So, I was a little mad at her for dying without even giving food a chance (just GIVE FOOD A CHANCE!), until Jon saw dirt hanging out of her mouth. When he went to inspect exactly WHY she was eating dirt, he made a grisly discovery - poor little Bella's mouth was deformed from birth. The majority of it was completely sealed over. It was physically impossible for her to eat mice, and we just starved her to death over 4 long months. Worst. Snape owners. EVER.

On a happier note, I received my passport today. I sent out my application last week, paid all the extra money to have it expedited, then stressed for about 9 days and had bad dreams about it not arriving in time for my trip to Paris..when all of a sudden, there it was in my mailbox. And it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life.

Gravity

I don’t really embarrass easily – I’m pretty good at laughing most things off – probably because I have lots of experience at it. I fall lots more than most people do, I think. And I’m not talking about tripping or stumbling, I mean actually hitting the ground. You’d think I would have a little grace, and I have gotten better, but I was pretty awkward there for about 20 years. Classic example: Picture me, a freshman at UNLV, carrying my books up the stairs that lead out of the library. Entire room full of students below, and the glass doors above. I’m almost to the top when all of a sudden, my cell phone rings. As I reach into my purse to silence it, I totally miss the last step. My books made a HUGE thud as they hit the floor…then slid several feet in front of me. (I HAD to drop them in order to create a hand-barrier between my body and the ground!) So I pause for about two seconds, then pick myself up, gather my books, (a security guard was kind enough to hand me the notebook that had slid into his foot) and answer my cell phone on my way out of the double glass doors. It was my roommate, Kellie, and I screamed into her ear “I JUST FELL DOWN IN THE LIBRARY!!!” I guess I should have been traumatized, but like I said, I fall a lot.


The first time I fell in front of my boyfriend-to-later-become-my-husband, he was a little shocked, but I told him to get used to it. We were on our way out of my parent’s den, where he was sleeping while he visited me for a few days. His huge duffel bag was sitting near the door, and as I walked past it, somehow the strap became entwined around my legs and that was it. There was no chance to even try to catch myself, I was coming down so fast.


Since that first time, he has become an expert at catching me when I start to go over. I could have sued the Edmonton Mall when I slipped on some invisible spilled water, except that Jon swooped in and yanked me up at the last possible second. I was coming down so fast, I would have broken something for sure. When we honeymooned in Disneyland, it rained the whole time and my tread-less flip flops became lethal. I should have been a goner about fifty times, but after the first couple of close calls, Jon let me just hang onto his arm for the remainder of the day. Oh, and there was this one time in middle school that I totally ate it while showing like ten people this cool new swing step I had just learned. It was this cute little hop skip number, and I fell face first. Literally, my face hit the band room floor.


It’s funny though because if you were to ask me my most embarrassing moment, I’m pretty sure none of those would qualify. I have a tendency to stick my foot in my mouth all the time, and that’s more embarrassing to me than falling in front of a room full of people. Anyway, I’ve got to wrap this up so I can spend about fifteen minutes before I leave work contemplating where I want to eat tonight for dinner.

Don't Judge Me

I swear I'm not one of those people that's all weird about their dog, so I really regret posting twice in a row about Penny... but Jon took this video last night when I was on the phone, and when I watched it I couldn't stop laughing. Not the best quality...Jon's a real amateur with the Canon Powershot A520. (We are in serious need of an upgrade)





How mean! Yet, funny. And another funny thing. Penny came to join us on the couch last night after having a drink of water...



Yes, that is wet fur ABOVE her nose. From the side, you might be able to see that the tips of her ears are wet, too...



And here was the aftermath...



That's the towel I used to wipe her face off. It was so weird because she's not really a water-loving dog. I mean, she tolerates her bath...

(ew, my hands look deformed-from-birth!)

But afterwards she really goes insane. This is where I WAS going to post a video I took of her scooting all over the apartment on her face, but it was too dark to really see anything. Just imagine her rubbing her face along the carpet and snorting for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and you'll get the idea.

And I'm so sorry, I won't post about Penny for a while, I swear, I really mean it when I say I'm not that "weird dog lady"....I've just been running low on creativity so there you go. Please don't think less of me...

The Dog Park

So Tucson has really stupid laws about dogs. No dog can EVER be off it's leash anywhere in the entire city unless it's in your own, fenced yard, or in one of five City of Tucson regulated dog parks. I remember how misled I felt the first time we pulled up to the dog park. I was imagining a wonderful place with lots of grass and trees plenty of room to run. Instead it was about a half an acre of dirt surrounded by chain link. A "paddock" for dogs, so to speak. Disgusting. The dumbest part of the whole situation is that there are hundreds of washes that stretch for miles and miles throughout the city. But if you're caught with your dog off it's leash in one of them, you have a mandatory fine. So stupid. So the City acts like they're being all giving by setting up these dirty patches of land. And we don't have a yard, and Penny needs to run and be socialized with other dogs while NOT on a leash (so says Caesar Milan), so I have no choice but to take her to this dog park when she starts getting weird and unbalanced. I should probably take her more often than I do, but I really can't stand it. Well today was one of those weird days where she just sits and whines at me, so I loaded her up in the car, grabbed a book in case I needed to appear busy to any weirdos, and off we went.

Just as gross as I'd remembered, though there were less dogs this time than last time. One was a Brussels Griffon named Daisy that looked JUST like it's owner - a larger, elderly lady with a squashy face. Anyway, these two ladies joined me at the picnic table and before I could pull out my book, one of them starts laughing and pointing - "LOOK! That dog looks just like its owner!!" If I had at least had my nose in my book, it would have been more obvious that I had NOTHING to do with those ladies, but as it was, all I could do was pray that dog's owner didn't hear. A Brussels Griffon isn't exactly the type of dog you'd be flattered to be compared to. I mean, I guess you wouldn't be flattered to be compared to ANY dog...but really now. Who does that??




"Excuse me, has anyone told you lately that you look like this? ...Well, you do."

Anyway, so sure, Penny's little compared to big dogs, but she's definitely not tiny. And some people bring TINY dogs to this dog park, and I always get nervous because Penny is so clumsy, I worry that she'll trip and inadvertently crush a teacup chihuahua to death. She's constantly falling and running into things, so much so that I'm really starting to worry about it a bit. I think I'm going to take her to the vet to see if there's something else other than clumsiness going on. Like, the other day, she leapt down the entire set of concrete steps in front of our apartment and skidded on her face for at least four feet before finding her footing. Her poor little lip was bleeding...then once it had scabbed over, she busted it open again. I'm not sure if it was her running into the metal chair that did it, or her knocking her mouth on a ceramic mug in Jon's hand (those two events happened within 30 seconds of each other)...it was probably a combination of both...anyway, afterwards her lip was bleeding again. It was funny when she'd be walking on the couch and all of a sudden fall off...or when she'd take a running start to jump into your lap and totally miss, but when she started actually hurting herself, it became less funny.

So anyway, there's this tiny little teacup at the dog park today, and I'm worrying a little about Penny crushing it, when all of a sudden this little thing came at her with a passion. She rolled over and took the humping with a worried little look on her face until the owner intervened. I thought it was hilarious and was preparing my phone for a picture, but the guy seemed really weird and embarrassed when he grabbed his dog away so I decided against underhandedly encouraging it so I could get a snapshot ("hey...little dog...come here again....). Hello - 3 pound chihuahua overpowering a 20 pound cockapoo? One of the funniest things ever.

We stayed there for about an hour and a half, until she was thoroughly filthy. Then instead of going to Petco afterwards (as was the plan) I had to take her home first for a bath. Her original owners opted against clipping her tail, so the grotesque long hair was completely matted with sticks and leaves and mud. And since she's got such curly fur all over her body, she became this gross grundgeball. I'm not kidding you, I carried her inside so she couldn't set foot on my floor, threw her in the bath, and had to fill up the tub three times since the water got so dirty. Then after her bath, she went crazy in the house, like usual, scooting around, rubbing her face along the carpet, and barking her head off.

And then.....she fell asleep. And she's been sleeping ever since. Thank goodness. All that just so she'd leave me alone. She always gets a little weird when Jon leaves. The other morning I couldn't find her, and when I went into the bedroom, there she was, curled up on his pillow. Awww. Too bad she's not allowed on the bed, ew. But he'll be back from Florida on Monday, then she'll mostly be back to normal.

Barn Stories: Episode I

My mom has been a horse lover all her life. She was that little girl that bugged her parents every year for a pony, and she just never grew out of it. She got her first horse when I was about 2 or 3; a very green mare named Fancy, and she’s had at least one at any given time ever since. With my dad in the military, my parents were never in the place to own their own land and barn (until recently), so as kids my sisters and I spent three days a week at different boarding facilities, where we would clean stalls as a way to subsidize what we owed in order to keep our horses at that location. And even then the cost was unbelievable. My sisters were always more content to muck stalls and carry buckets of water in exchange for lessons than I was, but we all have tons of great memories from those days nonetheless. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved riding. I just wished I could have been one of those rich snobs that we all pretended that we hated – the ones that didn’t have to do manual labor in order to afford their hobby. The ones that got all the expensive, professionally trained horses while we were stuck leasing horrible ponies with names like “Blackie” and “King”. Really terrible, over-worked ponies with short-man complexes that you’d have to kick to death all the way to the far side of the riding arena, only to have them spin on the spot and sprint back to the gate nearest to the barn. Kick kick kick kick a begrudging pony, then hang on for dear life, and repeat.

The girls that we pretended to hate also had other hobbies. Not just riding, but dance, and soccer, and an array of other fun things to do. We had horses. And cable TV. (Thank goodness…kids that grow up without it are just weird).Whenever I would complain to my mom in an annoying whine, “…but Iiii want to do ballet…!” she would respond with finality, “We have horses”. My sisters were always okay with that, though. In fact, Annie trains horses for a living now. It’s the only thing she’s ever done to earn an income.





Some people just have that horse bug, you know? Like my mom, she’s got three horses now, on her own land, and she’s happier than a clam going out in sub-zero temperatures to make sure her babies aren’t too cold. And cleaning poo out from around the run-in when it’s 100 degrees outside. I love riding every once in a while, but I’m not into that “by the sweat of my brow” thing. It’s a blast to visit my parent’s house and have horses in the 20-acre backyard, and to pick the one I want to ride. And then ride it. And then put it away. Do I sound like a snob? At least I’m being honest.

I think my disconnection to it all may have stemmed from two very specific, unfortunate events that occurred early on in my riding history. The first happened on my very first trail ride. Trail riding is always lots of fun, although we’ve never really owned any horses that wouldn’t purposefully throw you through a tree in order to save themselves from a scary skittering leaf. Anyway, I was on this great little pony (the only good one we ever leased) named Sandy. My riding instructor decided that it was time for me to hit the trail when I was about six. She tied my steed to hers and away we went. I was gripping the reins tightly in my excitement, and forgot to give a little slack when Sandy decided it was time to try and grab a mouthful of grass off the side of the trail. I was hauled out of the saddle, and I somersaulted down her neck and landed on my butt in front of her nose. Through the sheer power of my own grip. Reminds me of this past summer when we were at the annual Saint Anthony Pioneer Day rodeo. During the break-away roping event, this woman forgot to let go of the lasso once it was around the steer’s neck, and she was dragged out of the saddle… out of her boot… then face-first through the dirt before loosening her grip. That may have been the hardest I’ve ever laughed. The best part was she didn’t even put her boot back on, she just dumped the dirt out and carried it all the way across the arena.

Anyway, the second traumatic event that may have to do with why I’ve become somewhat disconnected with horses also has to deal with Sandy. Short story short, she diarrhea’d on me. I was cleaning out her left-rear hoof when my sisters started screaming frantic, incoherent instructions at me. By the time I’d realized what they were trying to say, it was all over. I was covered in the stuff, hair to jodhpurs. I actually shouldn’t have mentioned that in episode one, because no other barn story could ever, EVER top it.

To be continued….

Miss Douglas County Arizona

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wffwg7pA0t8

This video clip will change your life. It's imperative that you watch the entire thing... It's only 3 excruciating minutes, and well worth the pain.

How Steve Became Cool

This will be a fairly short, uninvolved post, but I've got a couple of great stories that I've been dying to stick on here somewhere. So. My brother-in-law, Steve, married my sister Annie...

...and he’s been entertaining us with stories about his schoolboy days ever since. Apparently, Steve was born Brett Steven, but he took it upon himself in second grade to change things up a bit. When the teacher finished taking role on the first day of class, she asked if anyone preferred to be called something different than what she had on her list. Steve’s little mind ignites (“You can DO that???”) and next thing he knew, he’d told his teacher that actually, he goes by Steve, not Brett. His parents didn’t even know about the change for a couple of months, until they were trying to have a conversation about little Brett with his teacher.

Anyway, Steve spent a couple of years in a German school (…in Germany…) when his family moved temporarily overseas, and he related to us the two events that made him a legend at his elementary school.

IT STARTED WITH… a bully. When he started picking on Steve in the hallway one day, Steve sort of blacked out in his rage and the next thing he knew, he was standing over the bully, who was laid out flat on his back. I like to imagine the kids that witnessed it reacting kind of like in the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy kills the witch.

AND IT ENDED WITH… when Steve climbed onto the roof of the school to throw hundreds of frisbees and balls of every sport into the cheering crowd of children. Really, it’s impossible for me to think of Steve, the hero of the playground, tossing goodies off of the roof (while teachers scold him from below), without laughing out loud. Impossible. I'd draw a little sketch, but I'm sure I couldn't even do it justice.

HOWEVER – if I WERE to draw a sketch, it would be a shot from behind Steve, with him arms raised victoriously in the air. That way you'd be able to see the looks of open-mouthed adoration on every child's face, staring up at him.

The Most. Ridiculous. Cake. Ever!

My dad turned 45 when we were living in Gardnerville, Nevada. My mom would always take special orders for cakes and meals for birthdays, so my dad requested a chocolate cake with EXTRA frosting. He and my sister are nuts about frosting. Annie refused to leave for college before learning how to make homemade icing, and now she routinely makes up an entire batch JUST to sit and eat it plain, with a spoon, over the course of a couple of days. And my dad is almost as crazy. So my mom makes up the two cakes and loads a thick layer of icing in between before coating the outsides with it, too. Then she leaves it to set for a while and when she came back, she discovered that the entire top cake had slid about two inches to the side, thanks to the copious amounts of icing. And by that time, the frosting had set, so there was nothing she could do about it.

Well, my sister Annie and I thought it would be cool, since it was his 45th, to make a “45” on the cake out of 45 candles. So we counted them out and placed them meticulously into this lopsided cake, and we thought we were so clever and such good artists, and we were so proud of ourselves.

So here’s this cake sitting on the table just waiting for my dad to come home from work. Everything is in place for his special-order dinner and we’re watching TV when my mom starts screaming. By the time my sisters and I made it to the kitchen, there was our (literally) retarded cat, Boo, in the process of cleaning her whiskers after being chased away from a delicious meal of chocolate cake.

So by now this poor cake was completely ridiculous, but it was way too late to make a new one, so my mom scraped off the section that had been eaten and smeared more frosting over the hole (ew).

This time we’re smarter, so we cover the whole thing with a large overturned glass bowl until The General returns from work. When it’s finally the moment to bring out the glorious cake, I head into the kitchen to reveal our work of art. Well, in the process of removing the glass bowl from the ridiculous cake, I lost my grip and dropped the thing hard, so the edge of the bowl made a HUGE half-circle dent across the surface of the cake (the part unaffected by the retarded cat, mind you).

I can't quite remember my dad's reaction when he finally saw the stupid thing, but I'm sure he wasn't as amused as us...not mad or anything.. he was probably a little disappointed. I would have been. This cake was pathetic. Regardless, my mom and sisters and I are all totally cracking up as we relate to my dad the stories of why his poor cake ended up being so ugly when my mom starts lighting the candles. 45 candles, to be exact. All in close proximity to each other. Each of the individual flames melded into one BIG flame, and the candles started melting so rapidly that he barely had the chance to even make a wish before we brought out the fire hose. Okay, not really, that was definitely an exaggeration. But it was a pretty good bonfire we had going on.

And THAT is the story of the most ridiculous birthday cake in the world. I dare you to come up with a story about a more accident-prone dessert.

Ew, Zombies

43%
Pretty funny test. Too bad the graphic is all messed up...

Grocery Extravaganza

We spent over a hundred dollars at the grocery store last night, and we didn't even buy anything. Seriously, stupid stuff like milk and bread and eggs and saline solution. Nothing you could construct a meal around, like meat. We're so lame. The longer I'm married (3 years now!) the more I appreciate my mom. I swear, she was a professional meal planner and chef. She she a rotating schedule so that we all got our favorites every once in a while, but she'd throw new stuff into the mix, too. She'd plan out every single meal for the entire week in advance, then do inventory to see what she needed to buy. Her grocery lists were in order - not alphabetical, but based off of the layout of the aisles. And dinner was always on the table between 5:30 and 6:30..depending on when my dad was getting home from work. I feel like a failure in comparison. I can't even plan a single meal when I'm standing in the grocery store. Case in point - last night we bought a roasted chicken for dinner. The ones that you can't help but wonder if they we roasted in the morning, and they've been sweating inside of their plastic containers under the hot lamps ever since. Ew. I mean, it was delicious, but I swear the thing was green.

And this is a very random sidenote, but this is about the funniest thing I've seen in a very long time.



And click on the newest link on the right panel - you upload a picture of yourself and it tells you what celebrity you look the most like. At first I thought it would be a joke, right, like it would only say "Danny DeVito" or something like that, but it actually tries to match you based off of your facial features. It entertained me for an hour or so the other night, I plugged in about every picture on my hard drive.

I'm off to figure out what's for lunch...

Shews

I bought new shoes today. I'm in serious need of some comfy work shoes, and when I was searching for them in Dillards, I came across these instead.



Not quite what I was looking for, but pinstriped (!) and only 50 bucks. I've sworn off of shoe shopping in Aldo, by the way. A mixture between how insanely crowded the stores are, and THIS girl that works at the Aldo in our mall.



Really, she's ridiculous. I drew this little sketch the other day when I was trying to describe her to my sister. Sometimes words just don't do it justice, you know? Yes, those are suspenders she's wearing. And she has been wearing those suspenders EACH AND EVERY time of the three times I've encountered her. Wow.

Friday-Dot-Com!

Well, it’s Friday. This week was really uneventful, but Jon has been home since before Christmas, so it’s been great to spend a couple of uninterrupted weeks with him. I can’t believe that it’s January again! I’ve officially been at my job now for a year and two days. Even more unbelievable is not only that it’s January, but it’s January, and still warm outside. I’ve got to admit that it’s nice to go to places like Edmonton and Salt Lake City for Christmas, then come home to 50 and 60 degree temperatures. Although it does cool down quite a bit at night, and we’ve had frost a couple of mornings. The road signs around here are classic…most cities have signs like “Road May Be Icy” or whatever, but in Tucson, the bridges (they don’t go over rivers mind you, just washes) display signs like “Ice Forms First on Bridges”. Not a warning or anything…just a lesson about ice, in general. We do get snow in the mountains, though, and last year it actually snowed in TUCSON, which was a huge event.

People here can’t even drive in the rain, let alone snow. It took me two hours to get to work that day, people were going off the road left and right and I swear, the road wasn’t even icy, just a little wet. Everyone was so excited about it (none of the 4 year olds we teach at church had ever seen snow before) but I’ve got to admit I was pretty mad. Half of the reason why we decided to move to Tucson was to get out of the snow for a while. And I consider myself lucky that I’m not acclimatized to the weather down here. Most people are wearing sweaters as soon as it dips below 75 degrees. And complaining of freezing to death if it ever hits 50 during the day.

SPEAKING OF FREEZING TO DEATH. So my sister has these great cats. Oh, they’re creepy, but totally rad. Before I met them for myself, I was a little scared, since my brother-in-law posted pictures like THIS on their phanfare account…

Anyway once you meet them you get over how weird they look. Anyway, since they live in Manhattan, whenever they leave for a trip, they sublet their apartment and charge people a daily fee to stay there while they’re gone. Such was the case when Corinne and Kyle came to Salt Lake for Christmas. On the third day there, Corinne related the following harrowing story. The night before, at 2 am, the sub letters called in a panic. They had OPENED the screen-less window for some fresh air, and by the time they remembered to close it, one of the cats had gone missing. They’re on the 8th floor of an old apartment building, mind you. They could hear it mewing for a little while, but when it stopped, they really freaked out. They checked the ground floor to see if it had fallen, and when it wasn’t there it became a race against time to find the cat before it froze to death. It’s got barely any fur. After calling to it with no response, they told my sister that the husband sub letter was preparing to SCALE THE LEDGE to find this poor little kitten. Anyway, my sister tells them DON’T YOU DARE go out on that ledge, let’s keep things in perspective here. But they didn’t listen to her and this guy clambers out the window and scales the ledge. And you know what, he found the poor thing curled up in a ball inside of a window enclave, scooped it up, and made his way back to the window. All’s well that ends well, I guess. Ew, I hate that saying, almost as much as I hate the saying “it is what it is”. Totally empty words, it doesn’t even mean anything.

I'm off to watch a movie with my husband now that he's done watching UFC. Tomorrow we're going to go see "Juno" again. You should do the same.