Things I Want to Do This Summer

Since I’m used to being busy constantly, I have a slight amount of fear that I’ll be horribly bored when I am out of school for a little more than a week. Don’t get me wrong, I really need the time off, but I’m also going to need things to do to keep myself from just being lazy, and I go stir crazy when I don’t have much to do for a lot of the time. So, here’s my personal to-do list:

Finish reading books I’ve started

I started reading this one a couple of weeks ago and started getting really sucked in, so I had to put it down and walk away or else I wouldn’t get any homework done, and that’s not good.

I started reading this one on vacation and then never got to finish it because I was busy going out and doing things every day that we were on vacation, and then I got home and started school immediately, so I need to finish it.

Read The Books on my Book List
I have SO MANY books on my list of things I want to read, so I figure I should probably knock some of those out while I can.

This is one that was given to me at work as a “you must read this” young adult novel. Come to think of it, a lot of the stuff on this list is young adult literature, because I never read any as a young adult and I’m told I should know the stuff my students like reading.

I’m hoping to finish this whole series, because I’ve heard really good things about them, and they’re quick reads, so hopefully they’ll just be silly and fun.

I don’t read a lot of graphic novels, but the buying team for this one told me I HAD to read it because it was freaking amazing. They also said I’d hate them later because there are 11 volumes to it. Way to suck me in guys!

I haven’t read a Rushdie novel in a while, and I’ve heard great things about this one, so I’d like to break up the onslaught of teen angst with this one.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this book lately for some reason, so I think I might need to read it again

Paint the Kitchen Cabinets

This is an old picture of our kitchen from right after we painted it green (a color I’m told should NEVER be in a kitchen, but I don’t care because I like it) but if you will notice, those cabinets are ugly. The house isn’t even mine, but I have to think that eventually when Jason’s mom wants to sell it, people are going to look at those cabinets and go “Yeah…those are hideous”. You can’t see it in the picture, but the finish is wearing off of them, and they are actually more orange in color than they look in the picture. They matched the railing that used to be in the living room and on the banister, but we switched that out for a really nice black finish instead, so I think we need to change the cabinets. I want to paint them white, because in my head white means clean and bright, and well…..that kitchen is anything but bright and the cabinets make it look anything but clean. Seriously, the room grosses me out, so if dropping $40 on a few cans of paint is what it takes to give myself some peace of mind and make it so that I don’t HATE walking in there, so be it. Now, if only we could do something about the cracking and hideous laminate countertop…

Go to the Harry Potter Exhibit in Chicago

Chicago’s museum of Science and Industry is hosting an exhibit of Harry Potter movie props, costumes, and set pieces which is open until November. MUST GO!

So that’s about it, so far. I’m sure I’ll add things to the list, but that looks like a decent amount for the time being. Wish me luck on accomplishing all of it!

People in the South are Nuts!

So, now that I have a quick minute to make a real update, I should mention some interesting things that happened on our vacation back at the end of APRIL!  I know!! I am soooo behind.  But, these are so classic that they have to be entered into the blogosphere.  We went down to Disney World during the height of the Swine Flu scare, so that means that we were apparently destined to catch Swine Flu because we were at a tourist attraction where swine flu was running rampant I guess.  The Asian tourists wearing the friggin' surgical masks sure seemed to think so.

On the way to Florida, we stopped in the suburbs of Atlanta for a few days to visit Sara and Jef-f, and while we were there we decided to go to the zoo.  I have no idea why that sounded like a good idea, because it was about 9 million degrees outside and the heat mixing with wonderful aroma of large zoo animals does not make for the most amazing day imaginable, but we went anyway.  One thing we learned very quickly is that 9 million degree weather doesn't just make the animals stink.  Noooo sir, it makes the people stink too, particularly the VERY large man who unwisely decided to wear all black to the zoo on a 9 million degree day.  Seriously, homeboy was pungent.  To the point where school children walked past him and were gagging and holding their noses.  What's worse, when we left the area and moved on to another exhibit and we could smell him approaching before we actually saw him.  It was enough to make you choke, so we ran as far away as possible.  AND, when we ended up at the Lemur exhibit, I got to hear a classic piece of Southern People Crazy.  There were two lemurs cuddled together on a tree facing each other in a hug position as they slept.  This crazy ass woman looks at them and gasps as if it's her job to suck all of the air out of the world and says "I can't believe they're letting those animals live in sin like that!  There are children looking at this and they're just letting them live in sin!  Someone should file a complaint!"  No, I'm not joking.  Crazy bible thumping bitch couldn't handle seeing some lemurs cuddling while they slept.  Personally, I think that if she's worried about them living in sin, she should lobby for lemur marriage rights.  Also, she should be pushed out of a moving car.

So those were some fun stories.  I think that's all I have for right now.  There are other things to blog about, but I should save them for their own blog.  Hopefully, now that I'm almost done with school for the summer, I'll have more time to update.  Keep your fingers crossed, I know you missed me.  

Today is my Birthday

I will be spending (or have already spent) my birthday doing the following

• Getting up at o'dark-thirty
• Going to the high school to observe classes
• Going to work and staying there until 5
• Going straight from work to my 5:30 class
• Staying in class until at least 8:00, but likely later
• Going home and grabbing things that need to be dropped off at the drama department
• Going to the high school to drop things off for the show tomorrow, and probably being stuck there until the end of rehearsal trying to make sure everything is in order
• Going home (likely around 10:00) and trying to find something to eat since dinner is just not going to happen
• Eating crappy cereal because we have nothing in the house that's quick to make
• Going to bed

Amended:  We didn't have enough cereal for an actual bowl of cereal, so I had no dinner.  Even better.  I hate birthdays.

Birthdays suck when you're an adult.

Call me Ted Kaczynski

I had to write a manifesto for my avant garde lit class, so this is what I wrote. There's something lost in the whole blogging process, because there are tons of different fonts and sizes and the layout is all crazy in the one I actually put together to hand in, but you'll get the general idea.

We do not reform
We replicate
$7,000 a year to educate a person
$30,000 a year to punish them when the $7,000 education wasn’t adequate
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
How backwards is that?
?haht si sdrawkcab woH
Cut the arts
Cut yourself
Resign to a drab gray concrete existence
Without imagination there is no discovery
Without art there is no imagination
Silence the music
Hack off your arm
The play is the thing
until
Its legs are chopped off
And there is no longer a reason to break them
Create a world with no hope
Then be surprised when we are left with indifference
We create prisoners and feign shock when the prisons overflow
Spend $1 to teach and $100 to punish
The system is down
Kill the system
Fall so far behind that you think you’re ahead
No child is left behind
[When they all are]
Lock them up to begin with
It saves time
Time is money
The rich become immortal
The poor wink out in an instant
Turn a blind eye
It doesn’t see beauty anymore anyway
That was cut out with the last budget
Fuck your budget
[From now on, all books will be written in mathematical equations. Shakespeare will now be known as 2x+y=17. Please solve for the meaning of Shakespeare.]
Only scientific discovery will merit praise
We will no longer hear America singing.
Sorry Walt Whitman
The vocal chords are frozen now.
Move to the future [forget the past]
Make the painter a physicist.
Make the actor an architect.
Make the cellist a chemist.
SACRIFICE YOURSELF
Break a leg.

A New Reason To Avoid Florida

Jason and I find ourselves in an ever-constant quest lately to figure out where we would be willing to live if we were to have to move out of state for jobs. We've nixed most of the South because we're crazy liberals and don't really want to hang around the Bible Belt too much. We've also decided against Arizona and New Mexico because neither of us speaks Spanish, neither of us thinks 106 degree weather sounds appealing, and neither of us are really in love with the idea of having to shake our shoes out every morning to make sure there are no scorpions inside. No thanks. We also said no to Florida. When I tell people this, I often get "WHY? It's so nice down there!". Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Florida as much as the next person, but for visiting, not for living there. It's fine for a vacation spot, and it houses Disney World which everyone knows I love, but it's not somewhere I want to live. Again, people always say "But WHY?". Ok, here's why:
1. Hurricanes
2. No winter, so bugs grow to be the size of Buicks.
3. Hurricanes
4. 'Gators

And now we can add a new item to that list. #5 is now BURMESE PYTHONS!! ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?!

Apparently, during the last hurricane season, a pet shop was blown over and some of the reptiles escaped. Well now they have been breeding at an alarming rate and Florida is now overrun with 30,000 Burmese Pythons. I would post a picture, but I'm HORRIBLY afraid of snakes. No joke. To the point where I can't look at the most recent Buns Eye View post because it's all about how Buns had an encounter with a snake, complete with Buns Eye Pictures. *Side note: Amy, if you're reading this, I'd have FREAKED OUT if Jason brought a snake into the house for the cats to play with. You are a stronger woman than I.* I have an irrational fear of snakes, and in case you were wondering, Burmese Pythons aren't the small Garter Snake variety. They're the giant squeeze you to death and can eat an entire full sized deer variety. WHAT?! HOLY F*CKING ASS CRACKERS! It's making my skin crawl just thinking about it. I can't even handle pictures of snakes, or snakes in the pet store behind glass (they can break out, they're just lulling you into a false sense of security, I know it) let alone walking out of my hotel room to see an 18 foot (yes, they grow to 18 feet long) 200 lb snake slithering across the lawn to scarf the poor bunny who is just minding his own business. *shudder* And these bitches travel like a mile and a half a day sometimes, which means they're going to get bored with munching on all of the Poodles in the retirement communities and start moving North. They like warm weather, which means pretty much anywhere up to Tennessee is their happy playground, and all the way up the coast into Southern Virginia. Yet another reason to rule out the South thankyouverymuch.

And I want to know how the state of Florida plans to round up 30,000 pythons, which they're trying to do, and what the hell they plan to do with them when they do catch some. I guess they've been picking up pythons found in people's yards etc. for a few weeks now, but 30,000? What the hell are they going to do with 30,000 snakes? Make an Indiana Jones movie?

Ugh..pythons.

Going Green

I'm a big fan of the "Green Movement" that is sweeping the country. I really like that people are being more environmentally conscious and thinking about the impact they personally have on the Earth. I love that there are companies out there like Seventh Generation who are making concious effort to create products that are safe for both people and for the planet. That being said, I've never used anything these guys make, primarily because I bought cleaning supplies in bulk at Sam's Club 3 years ago and still haven't managed to go through all of them, and while I love being environmentally conscious, I also don't want to waste stuff by tossing it in the trash when it's still perfectly good. So, I'll probably look into buying some Seventh Generation stuff when my supplies run out because I like their philosophy (and if anyone has used any of their stuff, please tell me how well it works!). Jason and I aren't exactly hippies about our environmental activism.  We aren't the "shower once a week, eat only what you can grow" type, but we do what we can.  We use energy efficient light bulbs, we recycle, we have energy star appliances, we carpool to work and school whenever possible.  We would compost our waste, but we're not really in a situation where we can do that at the moment.  We would also grow veggies in the back yard over the summer if we had the ability to do that.  Those are goals for when we live in our own house...some day.  But, my point is that we try.  No, neither of us has gone to buying all organic and earth friendly products, because some don't work as well as the ones that ruin the earth and that's sad but true.  We also haven't gone to mowing the lawn with one of those motorless push mowers.  

My point in all of this, is that I get so annoyed by the people who have suddenly started using their "going green" as a status symbol.  Like, "I'm so much greener than you!" as if we're in some sort of competition.  I thought we were all in this for the greater good, to help clean up the messes we've made in the past, not to compete for who can be "greener" than their friends.  I think that's really just missing the point.  Ok, so I don't use recycled toilet paper, because it's one-ply which means you're just going to use more of it in the long run anyway, so that's not helping much, but you do so that makes you somehow more elevated in conservation status?  Why do people even care about this?  Isn't it enough to just do your part and improve what you can in whatever ways possible?  Maybe everyone isn't able to afford eco-friendly household products or organic produce, because unfortunately those things are still at a premium price, but they change out all of their light bulbs and carpool.  Isn't that something to be commended?  I think it's about helping where you can.

Oh, and someone recently pointed out that they order most of their eco-friendly products from Amazon.com, and that left me scratching my head.  These products are shipped to grocery stores and drug stores all over the country in large quantities, which means that by shipping in bulk, he carbon footprint of the shipping is reduced.  Then you can take your small, hopefully, fuel efficient car to the store and pick up the eco-friendly products.  But, instead, for the sake of convenience, fleets of these guys...

...are going out to your house, each one using up a ton of fuel to bring your small packages to you and leave them on your doorstep so you don't have to be bothered to go out anywhere?  That seems more damaging than not using the recycled toilet paper the truck is bringing to your house. 

That makes no sense.

But hey, what do I know?  You're probably greener than me.

Meet Grover

This is Grover. Ok, not really, it's a picture of someone else's car that I found online that happens to look exactly like my car, so for the sake of this blog, that is Grover. Grover is my car. I got him about 2 months after Jason and I got married, after the two of us got fed up with my other car breaking all of the time. Grover is my first NEW car, as in new and never owned before. I've had several new to me cars, and none of those worked out so well. My green Dodge Neon was horrible and broke every 10 minutes. The head gasket blew 3 days after I got it, the radio completely died in it, the gas gauge didn't work, the gas tank had a hole in the top so that, while it was not leaking gas, it was taking in mud that was constantly clogging the fuel filters. The calipers locked up on it a million times and the brakes went out every 2 or 3 months because the calipers kept locking up. I did not love that car. Then I spent a while driving around in the Intrepid that my parents bought for my sister but she decided she didn't want, so they bought her a Cavalier and when the Neon crapped out for the millionth time, they let me drive the Intrepid. That one was nice, because it smelled like smoke from the previous owner being a smoker, and then my mom driving it around and smoking in it. It was the size of a bus, it didn't manuver very well, it was dirty inside beyond the point of being able to clean it, in the winter you had to start it and let it run for about 15 minutes before you could drive it if you wanted to avoid it stalling on you the minute you made it to the end of the street, the repairs it needed were actually going to cost more than the car was worth at one point, and it was kind of a hoopdie. So, needless to say, when Jason told me he had crunched some numbers and we were able to afford a new car, I did the most enthusiastic happy dance EVER.

I got Grover because I like the way the Vibe looks, I love having a hatch back and the seats lay down so that you can haul stuff (which has come in handy like you wouldn't believe), it gets awesome gas mileage, and it's super roomy. I am going to drive this car until the wheels fall off. I'm in love with it. I have never been so happy with a car in my life! And, now Grover is completely and totally mine. That's right, no more loan on it. Through some pretty crafty saving, Jason and I have managed to put together enough money to pay off the car loan 16 months early. Heck yeah! I'm sure GM is going to be VERY sad to lose my interest payments for the next 16 months, but life is full of disappointments and I'm sure they'll get over it. So now, Grover belongs entirely to me. I think that as a reward for paying him off early, I'm going to have the car detailed when the weather breaks and I don't have to worry about dragging salt into it anymore. Then he will be pretty and shiney and smell all fresh and clean. HOORAY!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I named the car Grover because he's blue and also because he takes me Neeeeeeaaaarrrrr and Faaaaaaaaarrrrr. Yes, I know I'm lame.