Most Important Meal

I woke up. I went to the kitchen to eat breakfast as always. I pulled out some oatmeal and cooked it up. As it was plain oatmeal I threw in a spoon full of extra crunchy peanut butter and coconut. Protein, flavoring, good. Then I thought: I should put some chocolate chips in there. So I did. They melted and made a gooey, delicious, brown substance which I promptly began scooping into my mouth. This is really good, I thought. This is really familiar, I thought next. And it was then that I realized that I was essentially eating no-bake oatmeal cookies in a bowl for breakfast.

Flighty

I went on a lovely one day vacation on Monday. Well ok, it wasn't lovely, but it was a lot more lovely than the 48 hour drive endured by my parents and little brother. So here's how things went down:

I got up early Monday morning and headed to the airport to catch a one connection flight to Minneapolis where I was to meet my immediate family, to join my extended family who live there for a lovely week at the cabin. I made it through security--after a slightly creepy incident involving the security guard hitting on me--and rolled my little carry-on happily to my gate. I boarded the plane, was seated next to a very young, very lovey couple, and before I knew it I was ready for take off. A mere hour and five minutes later we landed in Denver where I was to have a two and a half hour layover before jetting off to Minneapolis, the land of the mosquitoe.

To my surprise, Colorado greeted me with an alarming message on my voicemail; it was my mother telling me that due to some unforeseen circumstances the vacation had been cancelled. This seemed especially odd since my mom, dad, and brother had just driven 24 hours to the lake-y state less than a day before. After talking to my mom it was determined that unless I could get my flight changed back to Salt Lake (I was flying on a one-way ticket) I would have to fly to Minneapolis where they would meet me and then drive the 24 hours back to Salt Lake. This did NOT sound like a good option.

Still confused about the cancellation and desperate for another option I approached the airline's help desk. I walked up to the woman behind the counter and clumsily attempted to describe my situation--explaining that someone in my family was sick and that our vacation was cancelled and that I had to get back home. Conveniently enough I was on the verge of tears the entire time, something I was not fabricating but that I'm sure only added to my case. I think maybe it was the prospect of driving 24 hours with my coughing brother in a small car that made me a little misty. In any case, the woman clearly felt sorry for me and managed to get me on a flight back to Salt Lake in a half an hour and waived all of the fees.

Relieved, I headed over to McDonalds to be reminded of the horrors of airport fast food, and before I knew it was back on the plane with the same grumpy flight attendant who had manned my earlier flight. Two crosswords and a sudoku puzzle later I was back home enjoying the rosy memories of my one hour Denver vacation.

Still, all your sympathy should go to the ones who drove to Minnesota and back. I'll take the two one hour plane rides any day.

(By the way, can anyone tell me who told Frontier Airlines that it was a good idea to paint creepy animals on the wings of their planes? Really, and Delta's going under?)

7 Day Itch

For the last week or so I have had a mad itch to clean something, to organize something, to glue something to another something in a sorry attempt at an art project. I feel this compelling need to do or create something that will somehow dramatically increase the organizational and aesthetic quality of a space. A need. Unfortunately, everything I can think of dramatically reorganizing is in my apartment where I will only be for another two months. Thus it seems useless to take on a project there--to lose all of the benefit in two months?! I can't even deep clean anything because I am going out of town for a week and can't stand the thought of scrubbing on my knees only to leave it for my roommates to enjoy and soil. So you can see that I have a problem here.

Now I have tried to fix this. I have reorganized all of the drawers at work, I bought a little tiny adorable day planner to micro-organize my day in, I've been making my bed every morning, I even bought a new dress today--which usually solves everything. But to no avail, I itch on. Raar.

Angels Among Us

(Disclaimer: This post is in no way intended to be sacrilegious and should be read with the knowledge that its author intends no measure of seriousness, only a little light-hearted humor)

Remember that talk by Elder Holland from October Conference about angels surrounding us? (If you're not a member of the LDS church, don't be offended, just play along--the majority of the people that read this--at least those who comment, are). Well, he talks about the people around us being angels, and let me just tell you, I just met one.

I am at work right now, on my usual Wednesday night shift (otherwise known as the longest shift of all time). Twenty minutes ago, about five hours in to the shift of death, feeling very bored of my book and otherwise quite restless, an angel arrived. I looked up from the desk to see a twelve pack of Diet Coke floating by in front of me. Ok, there was a girl carrying it but I didn't really see her. Turning to my coworker I said something like "Oh man, now I want Diet Coke". Apparently the girl heard me and she turned excitedly (anyone with that much caffeine does everything excitedly) and asked if I wanted one. I laughed a little and shrugged it off but she insisted and before I knew it there was a beautiful, shiny can of Diet Coke in my bored, restless hand. It was. . . a miracle.

In other news, on my way home from work I ran into a raccoon. Not a joke. It arched it's back and ran away. Coincidence?

An Ode

To Interlibrary Loan:

Because you give me any book
My heart could dare desire
Because you don't ask why my life
Would one such book require

Because my every whim you grant
And always very quick
I needn't even leave my chair
It's processed with one click

Because you give me access free
To every subject matter
I write to you this ode of praise
To thank and dote and flatter

I want the world to know the joy
You've brought into my life
That maybe they will seek your aid
Whilst in literary strife

Best Week Ever 5/4 - 5/9

You may or may not have had a VH1 obsession at some point in your life. You may have even watched it when it still had something to do with music, or you may be one of those who are now shamefully remembering the entire day you wasted watching a marathon of America's Next Top Model. You may be proudly relating to yourself the fact that you have never watched VH1 or maybe that you don't even know what VH1 is. For all of those may-nots, the last I checked (which might have been 11th grade), they played a show every week called Best Week Ever where comedians and other famous-for-no-reason-personalities commentated on the week's events, counting down the best things about it. Anyway, I have decided to do this on my blog (except of course, I am not a comedian, nor am I famous, nor do I intend to comment on anything significant to anyone else). This is a good idea for several reasons: first, it will give me an excuse to blog about nothing and post ridiculous pictures; second, it will help me to appreciate things (this idea must have originated in a relief society lesson somewhere); and third, I will update my bloggedy blog more frequently. So, without further adieu and unsolicited advertising:

10. I got into both of the classes that I want to take Fall semester which were previously full. This means there will be no need to endlessly harass the professors of said classes until they let me in--although I had some solid strategic planning underway. Unfortunately, I failed to realize that one of them conflicted with a class I was already registered for. . . woops. I am now considering staying in both classes and running between them everyday pretending that I have some sort of bladder problem (which some would argue is true).

9. I discovered a phenomenal antique store in Salt Lake where I bought some phenomenal jewelry and had exciting conversation with a phenomenal old woman who was buying phenomenal old barbies from a phenomenally shady looking man.

8. I chopped my hair off. Chopped it right off.

7. While chopping my hair off I finally found the perfect hair stylist. For years I have been fantasizing about having a stylist that always gave me a good cut and was somehow not ridiculously over priced and was also probably gay. Instead I always ended up at great clips or getting my hair butchered by a strange Hispanic man who kept cutting presumably because he so enjoyed chatting in Spanish resulting in the loss of much more hair than I had intended. But I have found her, and she is wonderful. But not gay (that I know of).

6. Sunshine

5. I experienced the joy that is Banana Cream Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, courtesy of my little brother Sam.

4. Cinco de Mayo party = huge success. Viva La Mexico!

3. I finally decided on a topic for my thesis and it is officially underway! I'm writing on Derek Walcott's epic poem Omeros and will probably be in St. Lucia for a week in July doing research.

2. I got to hang out with Ms. Alysha Bruce (see photo) for the first time in a long time and it was wonderful.

1. Christian made me breakfast and dinner yesterday for "Future Mother's Day" and it was delicious. And he wore my ruffle-y apron.

da DUM da DUM

As a prerequisite to this post it is necessary to review the previous posting entitled "Urban Jungle."

Today I walked out of my new apartment and sitting on my doormat was a raccoon. Granted it was a dog toy with a bell inside, about the size of my forearm and probably belongs to the therapy dog that just moved in next door, but still. They are following me. WHOA.