Family pets and crosses

So the other day (well, like two weeks ago) me and Diana were sitting in the living room, talking. The lights were off in the kitchen. As she was talking, I noticed a movement on the floor in front of the fridge and my initial thought was, “Oh, that’s nice.” I then recalled that things shouldn’t move on their own, and just as I pointed out, “Oh, there’s a mouse!” he scurried back behind the fridge.

Personally, I think mice are cute, and the idea of killing him appalls me. Alas, I have not seen him since; I suspect he is being much more careful since he knows he’s been spotted.

Regardless, we’ve named him King Xerxes. This was selected via the Bible we’ve got on our mantel. I suppose I should explain that this is because the guys in my room left a crucifix nailed to my wall. I took it down, but then Diana put it back up, and its currently still over my guitar until I find time to take it to a Catholic church or something. It it was just a wooden cross, I would keep it, especially if it was all natural looking and made of sticks. But it’s not, and I’m sorry if it makes me a bad Christian, but crucifixes make me uncomfortable in a home setting. But one can’t simply throw a crucifix away.

Anyway, in response to this, Diana had put her Bible on the mantel in the living room, because she was possibly bringing a date back and the plan was to also put the crucifix out there. Unfortunately, a few days ago, I walked into the apartment, began complaining about my day, the Bible fell FOR NO REASON off the mantel, and it kind of freaked us all out, so all Bibles are now safely on bookcases.

But when we were needing to name our mouse, Diana suggested it be the first name we found in the Bible when she opened it randomly. I told her to go Old Testament because those are the best names. First she saw Jacob which is too normal, and then two other odd names we didn’t like, so the FOURTH name we found was King Xerxes, and I knew this was the one.

Coincidentally, that is now also the name of our wireless internet.

-Oh, and I suppose I should also mention that Diana and Fidan are my roommates, so that’s while you’ll see their names popping up.

Hurray!

So a few months ago, me and Frank had a conversation that went something like this.

Me: I wish you could register for new apartments, instead of getting married. I don’t want to wait until I’m getting married to get all of the stuff that I need now.
Frank: *playing video games probably; said nothing*
Me: Like a toaster. I need a toaster now, but I don’t want to BUY one if someone will GIVE me one when I’m getting married.
Frank: *continues playing video games*
Me: But what if I never get married, and I die without a toaster?
Frank: Why don’t you just buy one?
Me: No, someone else is supposed to give me one!
Frank: Well if it’s that big a deal, I’ll get you one for Christmas.
Me: Is this your way of telling me you’re never going to marry me?
Frank: . . .

Then yesterday we are in CVS and Frank comes wandering over with a toaster.
Me: What is that?
Frank: A toaster. I’m buying it for you.
Me: Why?
Frank: So you can eat bagels at home.
Me: Oh. Thank you. You’re still going to have to marry me someday, though.

And now I present to you, MY TOASTER:

Okay, the bagels are a bit crunchy. I guess it’s a super-powered toaster and putting it on a level 2 is a bit much. Imagine what a 9 would do! But there’s even a special bagel BUTTON, so that my pieces-of-bread-I-use-as-hot-dog-buns are their own thing apart from my bagels.

what an idiot

Flew back to Texas today.  That in and of itself was uneventful, however this evening, as my stepdad was driving home from work, he was rearended.  Twice.  By a middle-aged man who decided approaching a stoplight was an excellent time to open and begin perusing the contents of a manilla folder.  So he rearended my stepdad twice, then dashed off — a clear hit and run.

Jerry wound up going to the hospital (he’s mostly okay) and filed a police report, of course. 

Here’s the real kicker, though.  The other man, guilty of a hit-and-run, left his license plate embedded in the bumper of my stepdad’s car.  Seriously.  Darwin award, anyone?

In other news, I need a job.

earthfest and misc.

Saturday took Frank and Curtis with me to meet up with some friends (Stef, Jessye, and Sarah, plus a few) at Earthfest, a big free concert put on by Whole Foods and some radio station by the Charles River.  We got there pretty late but still got to enjoy some overpriced crummy carnival food (fried dough? ew) and dance to some cool tunes, haha.  I’ve actually always wanted to go to the summer concerts that Boston frequently has there, and hopefully I’ll go to a few more during my trips back here within the next two months, or once I’m back in August.

In other news, I’m headed back to Texas on Monday.  I’m actually quite excited about being home and seeing my Texas friends and not having to deal with public transportation EXCEPT that I’ll miss the few friends that I still have here in Boston quite terribly.    I hate having two homes and only being able to be in one at a time.

I know I haven’t caught up with my Ireland entries yet.  This week I will, alongside job hunting, as well as scanning in my polaroid shots.  I’ve taken some super cute photos.

Saw Up last night, the new Pixar movie.  I definitely recommend it.  I cried probably four times, haha; it’s an adorable and endearing movie.

Also made another blueberry pie for the boys, per Frank’s request.  Unfortunately, I had an hour in which to construct and cook it, and my blueberries were frozen.  Instead of being a normal intelligent person and defrosting them with like a microwave or something, I used the heat from the oven, which means they were still quite chilled when I put the pie in.  I forgot about the fact that while frozen, they have a LOT of juice which I drained last time, to keep the pie from being too runny.  So, go figure, the pie is really more of . . . a blueberry soup with some crust.  Frank and Richard have both very kindly insisted it’s perfectly fine and that they love blueberry soup as muh as they love blueberry pie, and both ate heaping plates (should have been in bowls . . . ) in front of me.  Boyfriend and boyfriend’sbrother win, haha.  I didn’t cry because my first pie for them was darn near perfect, but it still was a baking failure, and those are never fun.

Really wish I had a scanner and already could post my polaroids, but since I don’t, I’ll settle for these two photos Jessye took of me at earthfest with a D80.  A D80!  She checked it out from our school for her summer digital imaging class, which means I’ll have access to it when I take digital imaging in the fall.  Hurray!!

That’s me and Stef listening to the music.

And that’s me and Frank.

Have I mentioned my friend Jessye is an awesome photographer?  You may have seen the portraits she did of me for her photo project about a year and a half ago, as well as a couple portraits she took of me while we were in Europe.  She definitely knows how to make me look good in a photo.

DEATH

accidentally went on a six-hour hike today.  Granted, it was along the Howth coast and absolutely BEAUTIFUL (for roughly half of it, then there was some forest, then some windy fields, then some random scrubby areas, and then across a GOLF COURSE where I got scolded by two haggish old women), but once the beautiful part was over, I still had a 2.5 hour hike back inland, and I seriously, truly, honestly, with everything in me thought I was going to lay down and die.  I started verbalizing my will and was going to make a video of it (I didn’t have the energy to write) so that when my dead body was found, so would it.  Did I mention that all I ate prior to my hike was two pieces of toast with butter?  BAD.  It was BAD.  If I had known how much worse it would get while still hiking up and down and up and down and up along the cliffs along the sea, I probably would have thrown myself off to be dashed against the rocks.  That’s much more romantic than collapsing in an overgrown field and my decaying corpse getting eaten by bumblebees the size of my FACE.

And btw, whoever Fingal County (trust me, Final County, I also rehearsed a charming letter for YOU about your “follow the white stone path” sign which was actually NOT referring to the path made of white stones directly in front of the sign [which led me into the pathway of golf balls, and thus resulted in the rude lecture from old ladies] but rather a helter-skelter line DIRECTLY across the golf course marked by occasional spray-painted bricks, pieces of wood, of patches of concrete that you can’t see until you are on top of them) hired to figure out their trail times is functioning on a different minute than the rest of their world.  Because from the point where it said “1 hour and 45 minutes to trailhead” TO the actual trailhead, it definitely took me almost three hours.  And I am a big time hiker/walker with legs of steal.  The two little girls hiking behind me fell behind.  And I won’t be surprised if they are never heard from again. 

Alas, I did survive, and am now back at the hostel, resting my weary feet.  I SHOULD go out and do something else tonight with my last few hours in Dublin . . . but my body hurts and Dublin’s really not very impressive of a city anyway. 

In other news, off to Belfast tomorrow, and on Friday I booked a tour (oh my gosh, yes, *I* am taking a tour, I who hate tours with all that is in me; but I have to do it if I want to see Carrickfergus Castle, the Rope Bridge, and the Giant’s Causeway, which are all 1.5 hours outside of Belfast). 

But seriously, aside from fearing death and contemplating death and wishing for death so the pain/hike would end, the Irish coast really is beautiful.  Very romantic.  Definitely preferred the little fishing town of Howth to big city Dublin, but that really isn’t surprising; I tend to prefer smaller towns while traveling to big globalizing cities. 

On another note, because I”m on a roll and doing a pretty long blog entry right now, there are TONS of redheads here.  Like, tons.  I thought it was a stereotype.  All this time I’ve been all smarty-pants, telling people “Actually, Irish tend to be dark-haired; there are more redheads in Scotland.”  Maybe there are, maybe there aren’t, but there are definitely many, many natural redheads here.  Especially children.  Judging by families, it looks like lots of kids are born redheads and then their hair turns darker when puberty hits.  But still, my hair plus the fact that I’m carrying a purse instead of a backpack means a lot of people keep thinking I’m a local and then are severely disappointed when I start speaking. 

Also, Howth is a fishing village, and I got to walk around the pier and along this seawall thing, where the wind almost blew me into the water.  And seafoam kept flying up and drifting and then landing, all congealed, on the sidewalk.  I didn’t realize seafoam congealed like that.  But then it just makes me think of the Little Mermaid (the REAL one, by Hans Christian Anderson, not the happy Disney movie), and so I was afraid to touch it. 

ALSO, interesting observation: not many dogs here.  There are some; I saw some in Howth.  But as for Dublin, hardly any at all.  Very unlike England and mainland Europe where there are dogs EVERYWHERE.  Possibly because there aren’t many parks in Dublin; I suppose if I chilled by St. Stephen’s Green longer I’d probably see more.

Okay, naptime.  Geez, 7pm already?!

what do you do

with 6×150 napkins?  That is 900 napkins.  That are in my apartment right now.  Next to 36 bags of popcorn, 48 bags of peanut M&M’s, and 24 small bottls of cranberry juice.

Diana has another 900 napkins, 10 16.5 oz. bottles of oil, 24 bottles of water, and 48 bags of regular M&M’s.

We will never have to buy napkins for our new apartment.

 

In other news, just had my last class.  I have one more paper to write and one final exam to take, and then I am homefree.  HURRAY.  It has been a stressful end of the semester, to say the least.  My plays went fabulously on Tuesday, and it wasn’t painful at all to watch other people interpret my work.  Mom flew up for the occasion, and it was wonderful to have her here, even if I was either in class, writing papers all night, or napping while she was here.  That was kind of lame.  But we still had fun because that’s what we do together.  And it meant a lot to me that both her, the boy, and a few of my other friedns came out to support my plays.  And mom got to meet the boy when we went to Korean BBQ Monday night — my third time in a month.  Yummy stuff. 

Now . . . now I almost don’t know what to do with myself.  I guess I’ll get started studying for my final exam so I’m not doing it all last minute.  Another beautiful day outside so I’ll probably go running later.  And I need to take my coat to the dry cleaner’s.  Maybe that’s what’s making my apartment smell so bad?  uh oh . . .

the good news!

People!  It is ENTIRELY possible to make scrambled eggs in the microwave!  Why have I been wasting my time and dirtying my spatulas and frying pan all this time?

I feel like society must have felt when television stopped ending at night and started playing shows 24/7.

thought y’all might care

I splashed drain cleaner onto my face today and it burned me.  It’s not going to scar or anything, but enough that it hurt like hell and I was scolded into standing with my face under the faucet for ten minutes, snorting water. 

In further news, suggestions on best way for me to bleach my skirt without a washing machine?  I was going to do it in the sink but a.) my bathroom is VERY poorly ventilated and b.) same scolder lectured me about how then I would have to scrub down my sink because I wash my dishes there.  Bath tub? 

I am droooooooooowning in finals but eh, what’s new.  Next week is the last week of classes and then a week of finals and then dunzo, thank GOODNESS.

Avoided the Boston marathon this past weekend by chilling in Cambridge the entire time.  Even had a slumber party with Diana.  I just . . . Newbury St. on a normal weekend with tourists is bad enough but there were like a thousand extra people.  The city was crawling with them.  Tourist infestation.  That you aren’t allowed to step on.  Though I did vocally growl at two.  If you roar like a lion “RAWR” at idiots on the sidewalk, they aren’t offended, they are just severely confused and get out of your way.  True story, it works.

I am a cranky old lady at 21.  I’m just going to go back to my crumpets and knitting and hair rollers and rose perfume. 

. . . . actually I have to go read about Darfur and write a paper.  And it’s 1:12 AM.  And I also meant to get my American Drama paper written tonight and did NOT, but I can’t write it tomorrow because I will be in the dark room all day and then have some homework for Thursday’s classes. 

Mom is coming to visit Sunday.  I hope you do not expect a spic-and-span clean apartment.  I will tidy.  That is all I have the spirit for.

EDIT: The scolder has yelled at me for the bathtub suggestion.  He wants to know if I want to kill myself.  No, I just want my skirt and my tank tops that I spilled coffee all over to be white again.

hiss

Text message I received at 5:47pm: Hello this is brian from modern just wanted to let u know I maybe showing your apt between 6 and 7:30 tomorrow.  Thank u

My reply: My apartment has already been leased and texting is unprofessional

If you can’t guess, this is a stressful week.

nooooooooooo

noooooooo

snoooooooooooooooow

Stop it.  Stop it right now.

Just when it was FINALLY safe for me to walk outside without this occurring every five minutes:

The only good news is that it’s been too warm for me to get to use my ice skates.  But I am suddenly so busy with school that I don’t have time to go ice skate anyways . . . Sad times.