Why I LOVE Washington

I have to face the fact that I can't get on the computer as much as I'd like. I can scrape together an hour here and forty minutes there, but it just isn't enough for what I'd like to do: I'd like to write more. But Jake is napless, the house is still a huge time-drain, and the church people caught up with me and gave me a new job to do. (Sigh. I thought I was done with Enrichment when we moved. No, I'm not Enrichment Leader again. It's actually worse, and it proves the desperation of this ward...can you guess?)

So if I'm not coming by your blog very often—heck, if I rarely come by my own blog—now you know why. Oh well.

And now, some random pictures of things I have seen while out in the yard. Or close enough, anyway.

There is Jasper pretending that he isn't a declawed housecat (we didn't do that to him, he came that way). Poor thing. I've never seen anything sadder than him trying to climb a tree (leaps up on it, holds on for a second, then falls off and walks away, embarrassed, pretending nothing happened). Also, whenever he finds something to hunt, he announces himself to his prey by meowing at it. Somehow, this technique isn't working out very well for him.

Jasper's been ordering things out of mail catalogs again, it seems.

My newest friend. Think I'll call him Waldo.

I so wasn't kidding about the spiders trying to take over this house. When you step outside in the morning, the lawn (ahem—the dandelion jungle) is draped from one end to the other with dew-filled spiderwebs. The spiders don't seem to care about anyone else's lawn on our street; just ours.

I have my own private stock of bumblebees that hang out in my backyard. This one is trying to impress me by doing the splits.

What a pretty weed! So many things grow here—things that in other places you would actually have to plant—it's incredible. So here, blackberry bushes, ivy, ferns, pine trees, sweet peas, daisies—they're all considered weeds. How crazy is that?

Capitol building in Olympia, taken from the car window.
I swear, you can't get a bad picture in this place.

Tag, You're It! (huh?)

Melissa tagged me (two months ago, but whatever). Apparently, this is a "meme" (which is similar to a "mimi," yet not so French). Okay. And there are rules...

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.
1) CuriosityKiller
2) Doggy Mama
3) Eve
4) Melissa
5) wynne

Okay, done.

NEXT select five people to tag:

No.

If someone wants to do this, then, by all means, have at it. But I'm not going to tag anyone. I hope I never get tagged again. If I am, I just may pretend not to see it.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

What?!? I have to answer questions? What the crap is this? An interrogation? what if I can't remember where I was ten years ago, huh? (Let's see...that would be 1997, right?) Umm, college. And ten years ago in May I think I had just moved down to Provo from Ricks...and...yeah? Ten years ago July...

I remember! It was a dark and stormy night, and my roommate decided that I was ready to be inducted into the twisted and darkly pink world of Mary Kay...

Can you believe I had never even heard of Mary Kay? Why, what is a Mary Kay party? Cosmetics, my friend told me. It seemed innocent enough. I am not afraid of a little lipstick or a free facial.

How very wrong I was.

The Mary Kay Consultant who was throwing this...er, party, was a Mary Kay Nazi. She lived in a pink house, drove a pink car, and had a pink kiss stamp with which she stamped anything she possibly could. She wore her makeup like armor (I imagine she needed a jackhammer to get it off each night), and flew her sexism like a flourescent pink banner: hard to miss.

Some of the things she told us that night as she tried to sell us her makeup:

"If you don't wear your makeup, you'll lose your man!" (She was divorced, a single mom, and was supporting her family by selling cosmetics. I wanted to ask her if she "lost her man" before or after she started selling makeup, but I refrained.)

"My son says that he doesn't like girls who don't wear makeup. He told me, 'Mom, they just don't attract me.' See? Wear your makeup!" (Her son was thirteen at the time, I believe.)

She said many other things, but I can't remember what they were because it was, you know, ten years ago. She probably did say things along these lines, however:

"The only thing that will attract a man is beauty, and you girls could sure use some work! Look at you—barely any makeup on you at all! Wow, you're all hideous!"

"Makeup is the sole reason why women were placed on this planet! We are meant to wear it and sell it and worship it with all our hearts!"

"I know that Mary Kay is true, and that her cosmetics are the only true cosmetics on the face of the earth today!"

"Would anyone like to see the Mary-Kay-signature tattoo on my bum?"I was offended. Completely. I was so mad I could have shoved lipstick up her nose.

Unfortunately for this fine specimen of Mary-Kay saleslady, I was a rabid feminist at the time, with some major issues I had still not dealt with. (Picture me at this time, if you can: hair was about an inch long all over my head, wearing boys' clothing, itching for a fight.) That poor woman.

Too bad I can't remember how it all ended. Did I blow up her pink house? Punch her in the nose? Douse her with makeup remover and laugh as she dissolved into a chemical puddle, screaming, "I'm melting, I'm melting! AAAaaaaaaaa..."

However it ended, I'm sure it wasn't pretty, even if it did have makeup all over it.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

Drat. Ran out of time. I'll have to finish this another day...

Happy Birthday to Me

That's right. Today (okay, tomorrow, but I probably won't get a chance to get on here tomorrow) is the day that I hit a new decade. I am now

Yip-a-freakin-yee.

Really, thirty isn't that bad. Mathematically*, it's a smaller number than 29. Watch:

[3 + 0 = 3] < [2 + 9 = 11]

[3 x 0 = 0] < [2 x 9 = 18]

[(3)⁰ =0] < [ (2)⁹ = 512]

And here, 30 manages to stay positive when 29 folds in to the pressure and goes all negative on you:

[3 - 0 = 3] vs. [2 - 9 = -7]

See? 30 wins every time!
I feel younger already.

What I normally would do on a day like today is make a big batch of something chocolate and make friends eat it with me, but since that’s not working out this year (I tried shoving the chocolate muffins into the computer, and though I have chocolate smears all over the screen, I still can’t get the darned things to upload—and now Jeff just walked in and is wondering why I’m licking the computer screen. I also tried to stuff them into envelopes and mail them, but they just wouldn’t FIT, and the mailman threatened to call Homeland Security if I tried to make him deliver them), I had to think of something else.

So, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite ways to waste time on the Internet.

• The first site, speaking of muffins, is an old favorite of mine, and now Jake loves it, too.
• Or if muffins aren't your thing—perhaps you prefer chickens—you may enjoy reading about Mike the Headless Chicken.
  
• I go here anytime I need to laugh. You don't have to know who homestarrunner is, or what strongbad is—it just doesn't matter. Just click and enjoy.
  
• If you are a Simpsons fan, this is a huge waste of time and mostly stupid, but I put it on anyway because of the telephone in the living room.
  
• Have you ever wanted to play God? I mean, have you ever wanted to create a creature and then screw up gravity and see what it does to your created creature? Then this site is for you. (Click "soda constructor.")
  
• Do you use Chapstick? How 'bout Carmex? Natural Ice? Any kind of lip balm at all? There’s something you need to know…
• Or play a round of "guess that dictator…or sitcom character" with a computer. Huge waste of time, and yet, I always play more than once.
  
• If you are a Harry Potter fan, and just can't stop squealing for joy anytime someone says "Deathly Hallows," perhaps you'd enjoy this little movie.
• If you are a Monty Python fan and you enjoyed the Silly Walks sketch, do waste about fifteen minutes here and send me what you create (muskadillo at hotmail yadayadayada).
  
• If you are interested in freshening up your insult skills, visit this site.
• And if you just want to stare at weird and freaky interactive eye candy, try this site. Weirds me out every time.
  

There. That's more than enough ways to waste your time. Really wish you could be here to enjoy these muffins, though...

*I may never have mentioned this, but math wasn't exactly...er, my best subject. I hate that there was only one right answer. Life isn't like that, so what gives math the right to be so priggish? One right answer, indeed!