my alias:

vicki, aka our favorite hippo, was kind enough to find me this:

yay for otters!

reasons otters are great:
they are playful
they eat off of their stomachs

lame, but true

i secretly love patriotic music, like "america, the beautiful" and "my name is richard henry lee, virginia is my home."

you know what i mean.

survival techniques

i leave for indonesia in less than a week now and i'm a bit apprehensive. definitely excited, mind you, but nervous that i'll contract some horrible disease or stomach virus because my weak american body has been conditioned only to survive in a completely sterile environment, i.e., america.

i even had some stomach complaints in france when i first arrived there, and that was france. oh well. there will be so many amazing things happening, i hope, that i won't even notice if i'm rushed to the emergency room to be treated with five different medications to bring down the swelling.

bon voyage!

good forecast comin' right up

well, my aunt's wedding is this weekend. it's an outdoor wedding. and it's supposed to rain. and there is no tent. and no chairs. so we'll be standing. in the rain.

i stole a gettysburg admissions umbrella from the office today.

bbbedrunkennn

fabulous book club meeting tonight ladies. well done.

almost-adventures

well, i've been proven wrong that you can, indeed, have adventures after 6:30pm. no, not that kind.

i was walking to the college so that i could play the piano in schmucker, but it was locked. disappointed, i pondered who i knew who had a piano. i called courtney, then darryl, but neither picked up the phone. being closer to courtney's house at this point, i decide to just wander over and see if she was home.

but when i got there, her car was gone, so i turned around and headed back towards the college. i paused by mcknight to rest for a minute on a bench, and noticed a girl in a blue shirt walking by me towards schmucker. i continued to watch her hopefully to see if she could get into the building, but she presently came back from the entrance, equally rejected.

i watched her round the side of the building and disappear from view. after a couple moments, i became bored and got up to walk home again. my path took me back around schmucker the same way this girl had headed down, and oddly enough as i passed by the building again, there she was, trying to pry a semi-open window fully open.

i couldn't help pausing. she looked up at me and laughed apologetically. "yeah i usually get in this way, but the window's stuck."

i blinked in surprise. "that's actually pretty clever." she nodded. "do you want help?" for some reason, this made her surprised.

"oh! sure, yeah, thanks." said she, so i dropped my music on the ground and walked up to the window. together we gave a push and ha! it went right up without sticking.

i watched as she proceeded to get a footing on a drainage grate next to the window, and hoist herself up and over so that her her legs dangled outside. apparently this was not as things usually go. "there used to be a chair here," she said, and finished by tumbling into the room.

i cried out "don't hurt yourself!" but she had already jumped up. now it was my turn. i had some apprehension, i admit; my window-clambering days had long been a thing of the past. before i could make the attempt, however, she called out to me, "oh don't bother. i'll go and let you in around the side."

thus ended my almost-adventure, but at least i did end up getting into schmucker and practicing. even if i did sort of feel old in comparison to this limber person. note to self: go to gym more often.

first step: identifying the objective

goals for summer:
•gain mastery over underarm flab cruelly found only in women b/c of connection to breast tissue by regular toning and lifting exercises

•redecorate house. had dream last night that i found a beautiful bamboo coffee table that looked perfect in living room. will reality prove possible?

•pay off credit card and develop more economic lifestyle of eating and drinking (aka, not drinking b/c alcohol is costly)

•learn key indonesian phrases and basic understanding of language structure before leaving for indonesia so as not to look like stupid, arrogant american who expects everyone to speak english, even though they do, sadly

•train cat to stop breaking vases/flower pots/irreplaceable items out of plea for attention. will encourage him to seek attention in positive ways, e.g., cuddling in lap

•create photo albums and fill currently empty collection of picture frames that i have been meaning to do since last october