Okay, so it’s not really the black lung, but my sister had this epically horrible cough before/throughout their entire road trip and now my mom is coughing something awful. We call it the black lung though that is false. But still, I feel bad that my mom isn’t feeling well. Well, she says she feels fine, but we keep telling her to take it easy before she goes gung-ho into doing house chores and whatnot. My mom can’t sit still… I love her, but she needs to get better before she takes on a full work load.
Since my mom was ailing today, it was basically a day full of Yahtzee and Netflix.
After watching a few woodworking shows on PBS, I finished an episode of Dexter that I started last night. Then we began Yahtzee … over the course of the day, I’m sure my mom and I played probably 20 rounds. Not all at once, mind you, but throughout the day…
During this first chunk of Yahtzee time, I tried to explain to my mom about the upcoming Avengers movie. See, I was wearing my Marvel comic t-shirt again… the one that has a bunch of characters on it. And I was pointing out the people who I knew were going to be in the Avengers movie and what their backstories are. Now, I don’t read comic books, but I have seen enough comic book movies and read up a bit about the characters in theAvengers movie to know a bit about them or at least who was playing them. Then, unrelated to the Avengers movie, I was telling her about the Green Hornet andGreen Lantern movies. A fan of Seth Rogen and Ryan Reynolds, I will see both movies…
I was never into comic books, but somehow comic book characters and super heroes have always been a part of my life. There are plenty of pictures of me wearing Batman, Robin, or Super Man pajamas when I was a little girl. I totally have Batman, The Incredible Hulk, Super Man, and my Marvel characters shirts. Even now as I’m typing this, I have my Batman Buddy next to me (Iron Man Buddy has been temporarily retired to the chair across the room – I just found that a thread on his foot came unraveled and I don’t want the stuffing to come out. He’ll be fine… he’s chillaxin’ with Yoda Buddy…). I guess I just like a little bit of the fantastic every now and again.
Anyway…
Besides Yahtzee this morning, I brought the rest of my stuff that my parents brought with them from Kansas in from the garage. My room is a hot mess, but I will work on rearranging some more stuff soon. I did unpack my faux roses which make me smile. I’m not awesome at keeping real plants alive (though I haven’t killed any of my mom and dad’s plants yet!), but I do love having flowers around. So, my blue and pink roses are pretty perfect in my situation… plus who doesn’t love roses?
During lunch, we watched the SNL Best of Dana Carvey. I hadn’t seen some of the sketches, so I really enjoyed seeing Massive Head Wound Harry 🙂 After lunch, I went to my room to watch last night’s episode of Jimmy Fallon since Paul Rudd was on. I love Paul Rudd and his ridiculous shorts suit. After that, I did some banking and car insurance stuff and then decided to start a social experiment on Facebook.
This is also a social experiment to see how few of my hundreds of Facebook friends would join the group and spread the word… I know it’s not an awesome cause or anything, but it really shows who is willing to click “join” and who is not. Not to say that this will show me who my real friends are or anything, but I know I’m not important in the grand scheme of things. But I sincerely would like that video on the website, so this isn’t all in vain. If we can’t watch it on youtube, then please provide us a copyrighted way to watch it legally.
After my feeble attempts to start a movement, I went back upstairs to play some more Yahtzee with my mom. Part way through the match, I asked her when she was free to go see Rock of Ages with me… and then I bought our tickets! It’s amazing… there was over $30 in fees for two tickets that were only $25.50 apiece. WTF, Ticketmaster?!
Anyway, my mom and I are seeing Rock of Ages – I can’t wait to see Constantine Maroulis on stage!!!!!! I’m already giggling like a school girl – this is going to be epic 🙂
I got a phone call from my brother, then my mom got a call from my sister… ah, siblings.
I let the dogs out and then cleaned up the front yard a bit so my parents wouldn’t have to. My mom and I played some more Yahtzee throughout dinner (we use two sets of dice so I don’t have to touch her germy ones… and we have Purell in the kitchen and living room. No black lung for me… yet). We added a sixth dice apiece and took the best five out of six after the final roll. It didn’t change the game much, so I don’t think we’ll be doing that again.
We called it quits and watched some Bones(Season 3 Episode 1) and then a couple episodes of Dexter. I think my mom is hooked now! She keeps saying that Dexter (the character) is creepy and weird. I completely dig that – Michael C. Hall, you are brilliant. (And did you know he was on Broadway? … Love it!)
I have no idea what’s going on tomorrow. I should probably work on school work as it’s August and that means there is about a month and change before OU’s fall quarter starts! I still need to contact my advisor to see if I need to be registered for the quarter in which I plan on defending my thesis proposal (which I haven’t written yet…). Oy vay
So, I’m trying a little social experiment to see if I can use Facebook to get the SNL Cobras vs. Panthers video clip onto the NBC website. The clip used to be available on youtube but was taken down for copyright reasons. If we can’t watch the clip on youtube, then surely NBC can put it up on their website, right?
Please join my new Facebook group to help my entertainment-based cause 🙂
Edit 6/8/11 – So, the original post for this was AGES ago… and by now, you can actually see this clip on Netflix instants stream during the episode that this is from. I’m gonna delete I deleted that facebook group I started (if I can figure out how to do that), because, like, no one joined anyway (well, 39 people did… so thank you to those people who supported my cause). Experiment = failure (and success) at the same time.
Simon is gone. Ellen is leaving. I don’t trust Randy or Kara to carry the show. And I don’t even care if the rumored hiring of any or all of the following: J-Lo, Jessica Simpson, Justin Timberlake, Elton John, and/or Steven Tyler are really going to help. The show has jumped the shark. (For those of you not familiar with the origin of this phrase, see the clip from Happy Days below…)
Oh my…
Anyway, I love American Idol. LOVE IT. But the show won’t work without Simon and all this rearranging of the judge’s panel is not a good idea… so, FOX, please just cancel the show. This season wasn’t that great… don’t make things any worse than they already are.
Besides Idol stuff, what else happened today?
I finished reading all my articles for my thesis proposal!! I’m sure there are other great articles out there, but I’ve read 45 scholarly articles and took 27 pages of notes… I’m calling it quits. I know there are a few books I would like to track down, and I need to look at a bunch of guild websites, but I’m saying that I am temporarily done with reading scholarly articles!! Even though I hate writing, I kinda am looking forward to making some sense of my notes and (slowly/methodically) cranking out this thesis proposal.
I also managed to watch another movie in its entirety… I watched Blindness. Not my favorite movie by far, but I am a huge fan of Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore and Gael Garcia Bernal, so I felt I needed to watch it. I heart Mark Ruffalo. A few years ago, my sister and I saw him on Broadway in Awake and Sing. It was a great play – I just felt horrible because there were hardly any people in the audience. At the end of the show, those of us who were in attendance stood up and gave the ensemble a standing ovation – but it must be hard for such hardworking and talented actors to look out into the audience and see mostly empty seats. After the show, my sister and I were lucky to get our pictures taken with Ruffalo, as well as meet Pablo Schrieber (Liev’s brother!). Also in the cast was a distant relative of ours (at least that’s what I was told by my late grandfather) – Ben Gazzara.
Me and Mark Ruffalo 🙂
What else, what else?
Really the only other stuff I did today was some chores around the house (laundry, water plants, do the dishes, play with the dogs, etc…) and watch a half an episode of Dexter. I love Michael C. Hall more and more with each episode I watch. He has a great voice for voice over. Love it!
My parents opted to drive back from Kansas today instead of tomorrow. I felt bad, though, because they got stuck in heavy traffic about an hour outside of our city – blah traffic. So, I offered to drive and pick up some pizzas for when they returned. I assumed that the streets were done being paved, but I was totally wrong… I (and later my parents) got the evil eye from construction workers as I (and later my parents) maneuvered our vehicles around the blinking orange signs and onto our street. Whoops!
In Rock of Ages news – my sister cannot come up to MN to see the show with me 😦 That sucks that I have to see Constantine without her, but my mom is totally going to come! I think I will turn her into a musical theater junkie by time I move out of here… plus, she’ll know most of the songs for Rock of Ages! We’re buying our tickets tomorrow – I can’t wait!!
Because of my epic need to read these days, I was up till probably 1:00 this morning (I’ll finish Sarah Silverman’s book tonight, at the pace I’m going…). So, I was not super happy to be up at 5:00 this morning when I heard my mom leave. (Those who know me best know that I like to at least attempt getting 8 hours of sleep a night.) I tossed and turned in bed, trying to will myself back to sleep. When that didn’t work, I turned on my computer, rearranged some movies in the Netflix queue so I would have easier access to them, then read a really great interview with people who work on How I Met Your Mother. It was a reassuring read – looks like Season Six will be more like the earlier seasons of the show than last season. I didn’t hate Season Five, but it was not my favorite season either.
After going on Facebook to publicly wish my father a Happy Birthday, I shut down the computer and slowly trekked to the main floor of the house. I was greeted by Yukon but had to let Moose out of her coup to get my good morning from her. Mom doesn’t trust Moose to roam free like a good girl (she’s only two and a half) because sometimes she’ll bark at random stuff, so I freed her and then gave both dogs breakfast. (As I’m typing this, Moose is laying at my feet and licking them… ew.)
We went outside and I saw that the construction people were back. Once the dogs were done with their respective business, we went inside where I made a banana strawberry smoothie because there were 4 dodgy looking bananas on the counter (I’ll have another smoothie tomorrow morning to finish them off). With my smoothie in hand, I sat down to start watching Synecdoche, New York (2008), as there are only a few more days where it is an instant-stream movie on Netflix and I was in the mood for some Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Though I only watched an hour of it before I turned off the TV to get a shower, do laundry and read some articles for thesis stuff, I saw enough to understand why it was so critically acclaimed. Great cast + interesting/unique/original script from Charlie Kaufman = a solid film.
After some shores, I must admit that I caught up on some Comic-Con news and watched some Late Night with Jimmy Fallon clips that I missed this week. *Then* I read two and a half articles for my thesis proposal. I had a few false-starts, as I had accidentally had duplicate articles in my list of stuff to read. Lucky for me I have a freakishly good memory, so a sentence or two into the duplicates, I realized I had already read some of those articles before… over a month ago. Awesome.
When my head felt like it was starting to explode, I shut down my Mac (I should have a name for my computer by now, but I don’t… I must think on that. My car’s name is Blue Car and my iPod is named The Pie Maker, so surely I should think up a name for my computer…) and took the dogs outside. Excellent timing on my behalf – I managed to get both dogs out and in before they starting paving the street with the giant machines that make the loud noises. (Gotta do my best to make sure Yukon doesn’t have to get more high-strung then she already is.)
I fixed myself a chicken salad sandwich, grabbed an orange and my water bottle, and settled back onto the couch to finish watching Synecdoche, New York. With the whole play-within a play-within the movie going on, I began to rationalize it out like when I was watching Inception. Synecdoche, New York was a good movie, but it made me sad as much as it made me think, so I don’t think I’ll be watching it again any time soon.
My mom called before the movie was done and told me that she was in Kansas, but my dad and sister were not. She sounded a bit weird on the phone and was all like “I’m here. I’ll call you later, okay. Talk to you later.” (That doesn’t read as dodgy, I know, but her tone of voice made it seem like she knew something -perhaps something bad – but was avoiding telling me flat-out what was going on.) Of course I was worried, but she said she’d call back.
When my movie was over, I had good intentions to read more thesis stuff, but I ended up tagging prior blog posts (yeah… I should have just done it while I was posting the first time around. Whoops.) Somehow, my post yesterday about my love for Constantine Maroulis gave my site a bit of a boost 🙂 I’m glad there are other people out there who appreciate the previous American Idol contestant as I do. Thanks for reading my post!!
When it got to be 2:30, my mom hadn’t called back yet and I got extra worried. So, I called her and left a voicemail on her phone. Since she didn’t pick up, I was assuming the worst had happened and my dad and/or sister was hurt (or worse). After a few more minutes, I called my dad. Thankfully, he picked up. I asked if everything was okay and then I burst into tears because I was worried that mom didn’t call back or pick up when I called. He assured me everything was okay and I tearfully wished him a Happy Birthday.
We hung up and I had no desire to work on school work so I opted to fold laundry. I popped in my You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown soundtrack and belted it out along with Anthony Rapp, Kristin Chenoweth, Roger Bart and the rest of the gang.
When that chore was done, I returned to my computer, determined to work on more school work. I got 1/2 a page of notes done when I found myself watching youtube videos of Glee stuff – I can’t help it. I love Glee.
Five o’clock rolled around and I fed the dogs and let them outside. One of the across the street neighbors came out while the dogs were poking about the front yard. Usually no one on the block acknowledges my presence, but this guy decided to yell, “Welcome back, Sue!” at me and the dogs went berserk. They started barking, so I thought the guy would stop waving, but instead he kept talking and Yukon bolted across the street and Moose started dragging me toward her as I tried to command Yukon back to our yard and communicate to the neighbor guy that I am Sue’s daughter. I corralled my dogs back to the yard while the neighbor guy commented that I look so much like my mom letting the dogs out. If by “you look like your mom from a distance” means “you and your mom are both girls,” then he would be correct. My mom and I look a bit alike, but not from a distance – I have long dark brown hair, she has shorter light brown hair. I am pasty white while my mom is very tan. I was wearing an “I ❤ NY" t-shirt and cargo shorts while my mother would never wear that… Come on, neighbor guy. Please do not yell across the street when I am trying to shepherd two large dogs about the yard.
(Commercial for Charlie St. Cloud… totally going to go see that even though it looks beyond cheesy. Go ahead and judge – I like Zac Efron. I totally have all 3 HSM movies and saw Hairspray, HSM3 and 17 Again in theaters…)
When I got back inside with the dogs, I scolded them for running across the street like they did. They understand more people words than one would think (breakfast, biscuit, treat, coup, food, dinner, hungry, deck, outside, leash, ball, duck, rope, bone, banana, animal cracker, etc…), so I’m assuming they got the gist of it because Yukon went in her coup without me saying so.
I had picked some tomatoes from the backyard and had those along with my burger for dinner. Instead of watching another movie or the next episode of Dexter, I opted to rewatch the pilot of Pushing Daisies. It was nice to see it now being familiar with all of the characters. Love. This. Show. Maybe I’ll watch some more later…
(Charlie St. Cloud trailer again… twice on NBC in less than 15 minutes. Must be distributed by Universal. *checks movie’s website* Yep. It is.)
After Pushing Daisies, I did some more house chores and then turned ye olde computer back on to type up this blog post while watching Community/30 Rock/Glee. And then I’ll watch something else… though I’m not sure what. Either Blindness, Dexter, Pushing Daisies or something musical. Hmmm…
Regardless, thesis proposal articles can wait until tomorrow.
First of all, let me say that typing a blog post when I’m tired is the equivalent of grocery shopping when I’m hungry… the end result is never what I intended it to be. But what can you do? Press on…
I woke up this morning to find a note on the kitchen counter from my mom saying that she’d be back soon. Curiouser and curiouser.
I let Moose out of her coup and grabbed my water bottle and a peach from the fridge. As there weren’t any dishes in the sink, I knew my mom hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, so I wanted to wait for my mom to eat with her (I’m getting used to meals with one or both parents – it’s kinda comforting). I cuddled up with Moose on the couch and put on my next episode of Dexter. Once I fast forwarded through the credits, I heard the front door opening – my mom!
She went to the grocery store to get more tea bags (my mom has been coughing a lot since she got back from her trip… I blame my sister) and some pecan rolls for us. She sat down at the table to work on a crossword puzzle while I continued on with my episode of Dexter. Mom ended up paying more attention to Dexter than her puzzle… I think she’s hooked. My mom LOVES murder mysteries and forensics, so obviously this show is right up her alley 🙂
After the show, we played a couple rounds of Yahtzee then both got ready for our string of errands that needed to go down. We dropped off some postcards at a mailbox then ran to Target for some groceries. Yep, one of our many Targets has better groceries than our regular grocery store. Crazy times. We then stopped at a gas station so Mom could top off her car’s tank before she heads out to Kansas tomorrow.
Home again, home again – we played some more Yahtzee before getting on with today’s chores. While mom got stuff ready for her trip, I wrapped my mom’s birthday present to my dad. (I friggin’ love wrapping presents. When I worked at Elder Beerman, wrapping wedding presents was seriously one of the best parts of my job.)
We let the dogs out then I helped her chop up stuff for chicken salad while we rocked out to some Neil Diamond. Woot. After lunch, there was some more Yahtzee and then more chores. While Mom worked outside, I went to my room to straighten up some stuff and do a bit of unpacking. While most of my stuff is staying in their boxes, I did stack some clothes on the bookshelf so I don’t have to wear the same 7 t-shirts over and over again.
While unpacking, I got a bit sidetracked looking at on of my stashes of Playbills. My mom gave me her Little Night Music Playbill and some fliers for other shows, so I was incorporating my new material into the stack of Playbills for shows I’ve seen over the past few years. While looking at the flier for Jersey Boys, I realized the guy playing the lead is the same guy that my sister and I saw in the Chicago cast of the show *and* another one of the guys (Sebastian Arcelus) played Fieryo in the production of Wicked we saw up in Cleveland! (I met him and got my picture taken with him – see below!)
SKF, Sebastian Arcelus and me after seeing Wicked up in Cleveland 🙂
And then, I saw in the back of the Little Night Music Playbill that Rock of Ages is going on its National Tour soon and that Constantine Maroulis is reprising his role as Drew. Of course I Googled that news to see if it was true – and it is (even though it seems there is some Baby Daddy drama going on with him… though it still seems he is going to do the tour. What I *really* want is for him to be in the movie version too… but that casting hasn’t been released yet. Sigh).
So, guess who is going to be buying tickets to see Rock of Ages in MN in October – oh wait, that’s me!! I was so excited about learning all of this today that I probably could have peed my pants and/or had a panic attack.
I called my sister to tell her the good news and to see if she can come up to MN to see it with me. She needs to check her calendar… I hope to buy the tickets tomorrow, so she best know by then!
After this fan-freakin’-tastic news, I helped mom water plants outside then fed the dogs and put dinner in the oven. During dinner we watched I Hate Valentine’s Day. This actually had potential to be a decent rom-com, but I had a huge problem with Nia Vardalos. I like her inMy Big Fat Greek Wedding and Connie & Carla, but even though she wrote and directed this film, I don’t think she was the best choice to star in it. But, why I was okay to watch this movie is that it co-starred John Corbett. And as every woman knows, John Corbett is friggin’ adorable. I have loved him in Northern Exposure, Sex and the City, and even Raising Helen. He’s a beautiful man who doesn’t seem to make the best movies. But he’s just so likable, I’ll watch whatever he’s in 🙂
The movie was okay, and then I watched Modern Family which made me laugh out loud, of course. Mom and I played a few more rounds of Yahtzee. During one of our games, I heard a phone make the “you have a text!” sound. I assumed it was my phone, but it wasn’t – it was my mom’s. (For a fraction of a second, I was actually jealous. I remember a time when my phone would make that noise multiple times a day… and then about 6 weeks ago it just kinda stopped. Perhaps the movies were right? Or maybe the amendment holds true? Or maybe men and women can be friends regardless… Yes?)
My dad texted my mom to tell her to have a safe trip tomorrow and that he loves her. Awwww. But what is really “Awwww” is that I watched my mom write out my dad’s birthday card – “All my love, forever and ever”. Say it with me – AWWWWWWWWWW. My parents are too cute. They aren’t all swoony or overtly emotional out in public, but the two of them are the most adorable people ever. They’ll be married 29 years next month and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside that they are so friggin’ cute together. I love my parents 🙂
So now it’s time to read some more of Sarah Silverman’s book and then get some rest. Got a big day of reading articles and buying theater tickets tomorrow!
Before I crawled into bed to type up this blog (as seems to be my nightly ritual), I was brushing my teeth and inspecting the t-shirt I had on – it’s a Marvel shirt with dozens of characters on it. And I noticed that there are not one, but two Iron Man’s. The red/gold Iron Man that we’re all used is kinda tiny and seems to be in mid-flight. But then the Iron Man that Tony Stark first crafts up is friggin’ ginormous and featured prominently toward the front of the pack (next to equally large Incredible Hulk and Thor). My questions are, “Why are there 2 Iron Mans on my Marvel shirt?” and “Why is the red/gold Iron Man so small?”
These questions will never get answered, but I’m okay with that.
So, I woke up this morning in a better mood than the past few days. I felt rested (always a plus), but more importantly, I had a dream that at the time kinda sucked, but after some thought, decided it was surely a sign of sorts. I will not delve into specific details, but let’s just say that at the location where the dream took place, I had a hand-drawn schematic to share and the other person had a fully-loaded (pictures included) scrapbook/photo album. I took the dream to mean that the other’s person’s photos were a physical representation of his/her situation, while my hand-drawn schematic was just an idea of how I thought things should be. I know that is uber cryptic, but it makes sense to me, and that’s really all that matters for this specific scenario.
I walked upstairs to find my mom back from dropping my dad off at the airport. She was halfway through a chocolate chip muffin and told me there was one for me waiting on the kitchen counter – aww, moms. I grabbed a peach and glass of juice and my mom and I played some Yahtzee as we planned our day – errands and chores.
It was a hot one in MN and the weather people were predicting some storms for later in the day. I was told I needed to be ready to leave for errands at 10:15. I brought all my mail and magazines to my room and got ready. I also checked my email and saw my friend Michael Match WON Cincinnati Opera Idol!!! I was soooooo happy for him 🙂 He’s a great performer and totally deserves this amazing honor!
By time I walked upstairs at 10:15, my mom was on the phone with my sister. We switched on and off talking to her (she told me about seeing Inception a second time and fully understanding the movie while I shared Glee news from Comic-Con) for 30 minutes, so my mom and I ended up leaving around 10:45.
We drove somewhere so I could pick up my dad’s birthday present (his b-day is tomorrow). Then we drove to a couple stores to pick up what my mom wanted to get him (success!). We stopped at Panera for lunch and I got the low-down on family stuff. Remember, my great-grandmother passed away a few weeks ago, so eventually we’re getting a truckload of furniture from Florida. There’s a bajillion family stories floating around, but seeing how this is my blog and stranger people don’t need to know all my family’s business, those stories are staying with me 🙂
After Panera, my mom and I went to the library so we both could get some books and stuff. My mom reads more than anyone I have ever met in my entire life – which I think is an awesome thing. Everyone in my family is big on reading. I’m just thankful I finally have some time to enjoy some books. I read 4 books in the past few weeks (not including me being in the middle of HP7 again). I got 3 Broadway CDs (Aida, Ragtime and The Producers) and 6 books… I love biographies and autobiographies (non-fiction interests me – I like learning about people’s lives, which is probably why I am more drawn to writing non-fiction than fiction). Having just finished that biography on Gilda Radner, I got her autobiography, “It’s Always Something”. I also got autobiographies from Julie Andrews and Sarah Silverman. I picked up Denis Leary’s “Why We Suck,” a book from the guy who wrote “Little Children” as well as the book that the movie “The Prestige” was based on. Ah, books… love them 🙂
We got home and played a quick round of Yahtzee while we plotted the rest of the day. It was hot as balls outside, but the grass needed mowing. So, mom mowed the front lawn while I vacuumed the main floor of the house (w/o breaking anything this time!). We reconvened for cold drinks and Yahtzee upon completion of our respective chores. Then mom went through all of the brochures and stuff from her and Sarah’s trip while I sat in my dad’s chair to read the latest issue of Rolling Stone (hello, Leonardo DiCaprio… day-ummmmm). Then somehow I fell asleep again… only for an hour this time. But still – I have never napped this much in my entire life.
Upon waking, I played with the dogs for awhile. Then my phone rang – it was Robin!
I sojourned downstairs to my room and we chatted for almost an hour and a half… always nice to catch up on what is/is not going on in Ohio as well as thesis stuff 😉 I am super thankful for coming out of this ridiculous year of grad school with her as a friend!
After we said good-bye, I helped my mom get dinner ready. She grilled chicken while I chopped up some vegetables for chicken nachos. (Delicious.) We turned on the TV during dinner to see if the storm was on its way – it was. There was a giant string of storms working its way toward the Twin Cities. It hit our house around 8 and lasted an hour. Some big flashes of lightning and a few loud crashes of thunder accompanied the rain that fell kinda hard. Our power stayed on and Yukon didn’t flip out too bad, so we knew the storm wasn’t going to be horrible. I watched an episode ofDexter while my mom updated her lists of books she wants to read.
When the storm let up, we let the dogs outside and then called it a night. Which brings me to now… I’m typing this up while listening to an epic Glee-mix on my iTunes.
Oh – I almost forgot – I had a minor epiphany today with regards to my Literature Review for my thesis proposal! I had an idea of how I can frame my literature review so that my overall thesis topic comes across as more academic and relevant than people might assume it is. See, because my topic is not super popular or well-researched, I’m having to piece together other kinds of studies to be like “see, all these other ones combined kinda equals my study”. But, I thought of how I can link the other studies together to legitimize my topic! This too sounds cryptic, but it makes sense to me.
I didn’t actually work on any thesis stuff today, but our street is going to be paved in the next couple days, so I won’t be able to leave the house… which means I will totally get some more work done this week. Just not tonight. Tonight I’m going to keep reading Sarah Silverman’s book…
Yes, I watched The Bachelorette Men Tell All episode.
Why?
Because I like to follow through with seasons of shows that I have started. Need I remind you that my sister is the one who sucked me into the world of reality shows, more specifically The Bachelor/ette (among others…). So I watched tonight’s Men Tell All. And I come away with this – Kasey was a bit much (see title of post, and then add some awkward songs) and I felt bad for Kirk. The end.
But let us start at the beginning…
Today started off with my kidney getting stepped on.
True story
My dad had an early doctor’s appointment (to get the staples removed from his head from last week’s accident), and afterward he and my mom were going to go to breakfast and run some errands. They asked me if I wanted to come along, and I said yes. So, my mom woke me up around 7, as we had to be out of the house well before 8. So, I woke up on my own accord when my clock said 7:02, but I shut my eyes to wait for the official wake up from my mom. Moments later I heard my mom open my door and I opened my eyes in time to see both of my dogs running into the room and up to my bed. Yukon knows enough to just stand by my face and breath on me while she wags her tail. Moose, however, leapt up onto my bed and stepped all over me while she licked my hands and face. I love my dogs 🙂
My mom, dad and I piled into the car and went to the doctor’s office. What should have taken 15 minutes ended up taking an hour and a half. The hospital never gave my dad any sort of papers, they just told him to get his staples removed after 5 days. Well, it had been 7 days, so we thought he was good to go. However, without the paper work, a nurse couldn’t take out the staples, a doctor had to. We were sent upstairs, then back downstairs and he had to wait to get squeezed in to see his doctor. My mom and I were prepared with our respective books (she was finishing up a book she borrowed from my sister, I am rereading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – woot). We read and read and read some more, freezing in the waiting room surrounded by a bunch of coughing and sneezing people who weren’t doing anything to cover their mouths. Gross.
I hate doctors offices and waiting rooms. I still remember sitting in the waiting room at the ER at Akron General with my sister when she thought she had some sort of skin disease on her arm. We sat for 3 or 4 hours in the tiniest waiting room ever. The guy sitting across from up was spitting/throwing up into a plastic bag for the entire time. That grossed me out like whoa (I’m not good around people who are vomiting), but I knew I had to keep it together for my sister because she thought she was going to die. (She didn’t – it turned out to be nothing serious… just some sort of oil had gotten onto her skin and looked like it had killed her skin and was spreading all over her arm. Nothing a little rubbing alcohol couldn’t fix…)
After awhile, my dad walked out sans staples and we headed to Panera. (Carbs!) It was here that I found out that I owe my parents around $2000 from me taking classes last summer. Whoops… Lucky for me they are not expecting me to pay it back right away/any time soon. They know I’m good for it 🙂
After that, we went to Half-Priced books. I wanted a bunch of DVDs, but I didn’t get any. (I was in search of Pushing Daisies – of course they did not have it. Although they had Wonderfalls – another Lee Pace series – but I’m not gonna buy DVDs until I get a job. Duh.)
While in the bookstore, we got a call from my younger brother. Turns out he got a GA position for next school year that will seriously help him/my parents out financially. We were super happy for him and very proud – so much so that both my parents teared up. Awwwwww…
From there we went to Target because we needed a sympathy card (one of my dad’s friend’s dad’s passed away) and some tea for my mom. My foot was hurting again so I pushed the cart. (A couple days ago, both dogs mashed my foot while they were barking/jumping while I was answering the door because someone had rung our doorbell. My foot has a few bruises on it, though I’m not sure if all of them are from the dogs… more than likely yes.) I stopped to look at the Woody and Buzz Buddys and my parents walked ahead. Pushing the cart behind them, I got to see the two of them share a little moment… it was adorable. I have the cutest parents known to mankind – fror serious 🙂
Upon arriving home from errands, mom and I played some Yahtzee and then made some pancakes for lunch. We thought we were being all creative – we had an apple cinnamon pancake mix, so we added toasted pecans and mini chocolate chips. but the mix must have been old, because they were the densest pancakes ever. They weren’t horrible, but they weren’t awesome either. As we choked them down, we kept saying “Man vs. Food” because you just can’t let food beat you.
I think we played some more Yahtzee… then I know I was reading my Gilda Radner biography when I fell asleep. Usually I can’t nap, but it was another one of those days where I pretty much just passed out on the couch and slept for 2 hours. I don’t know what was up with that… but I woke up and it was 4. Whoops… so much for working on any school work today.
I got up and played with Moose for awhile while mom paid bills and dad was on his computer. At 5:00 I fed the dogs. Then I helped my parents get dinner together. Dad grilled burgers while Mom and I set out everything else. She started feeling super tired and achy – I know it’s still from that huge trip she took w/my sister. But she doesn’t have time to recuperate.
See, my dad is leaving for Ohio tomorrow to help Sarah pack up our apartment. They’ll start driving to Kansas on Wednesday (my sister is going to KU for a doctoral program). My mom is going to meet them there later this week to help unpack (my brother is too). We (my sister and I) have moved around a lot in the past ten years, so the whole family is used to this by now, but it’s still a pain in the ass. Moving sucks.
After dinner we all went about our own business until The Bachelorette came on… and that pretty much brings us up to par on how uneventful today really was.
Tomorrow my mom is bringing my dad to the airport really early in the morning, then I know she and I will run some errands later in the day. Will I get more school work done? Maybe… I know I need to organize my room and continue the job hunt too…
I need to make an epic list of what I need to get done and by when. Thesis stuff and job hunt are definitely going to be on the top of said list. Then we can fill out the rest of it with stuff that would be nice to accomplish… like figure out what I want to be when I grow up, or where I might like to apply for doctoral programs upon completion of my thesis sometime this year. Soooooo much to do!
Yeah, I was totally just watching the SNL Best of John Belushi. That guy was brilliant – it’s a shame what happened to him.
Sunday, Sunday…
So, as per the past few days, I woke up and had breakfast with the family. It’s still super weird, but at the same time it’s kinda nice too. I love my parents, and to be able to spend time with them while I’m an adult is actually kind of nice. I’m trying to think of it as nice because I know I’m not going to be here living with them for all eternity. So while I am here, I am going to appreciate that I get to hang out with my parents who are two pretty awesome people.
After breakfast we all went our separate ways while still remaining on the property. Mom went out front to garden, Dad went to the garage to make sinkers and I went to my room to read some more articles and take notes for my thesis proposal. (Now, I keep saying “my room.” This is actually erroneous. I don’t have a room in this house, as this is not where I grew up… however, there are two bedrooms on the bottom floor where I am staying and almost all of my boxed/bagged stuff is being held in one particular room, so I say that it’s “my room” but really it’s just a holding area until I get my personal life together and am able to move up and out.)
I find it rather odd that some of the shorter articles I’ve been reading have provided me with the most notes/information about stuff relating to my thesis topic. A ten page article yielded over an entire page of single-spaced typed notes. Oh well – I need all the information I can get!
Though I did read stuff for school, I totally caught up on Comic-Con stuff from yesterday… I can’t help it. I love popular culture.
Also, I got an email from my aforementioned best friend of 15 years (shout out to you, Molly J!). She said I had a typo on a previous post and that we did not have a falling out. So, I am retracting said statement here. Hopefully this means what I think it means… 🙂
After I couldn’t stare at my computer anymore, I went outside to see how my parents were doing. Our landline rang, so my mom went in to answer it (it was her mom). I went and looked at what my dad was working on, then decided it was a good enough time to repaint my toenails (still blue… they just needed touching up). Then my dad and I played some ping-pong until we decided it was time for lunch.
I helped my parents set the table and get stuff together. We sat down and planned out the rest of the day – more gardening for mom, more garage work for dad, and more articles for me. We would reconvene at pie-o’clock (which today happened to be 2:30) for pie and Yahtzee.
Mom kicked my ass in Yahtzee (as opposed to yesterday when I was the overall champion). I decided I couldn’t do school work anymore today, so I offered to water all the plants on the deck. I grabbed my iPod, put on my Broadway mix, let the dogs out on the deck with me and spent the next hour watering flowers and singing along to some of my favorite songs from the Great White Way. After than I hung out with my mom on the wooden chairs out front, then opted for a cold shower before dinner instead of more homework. (Sorry to all you Ohio people and others in areas where it is hot as balls outside… it’s actually been super nice in MN. Low 80s and breezy… woot)
Mom fed the dogs and I let them outside before the people in the household sat down to pizza and a movie. I had Netflixed The Invention of Lying(2009). My dad made sure I was aware throughout the movie how much he was not enjoying it. I didn’t mind it, but I also expected more from Ricky Gervais. Alas. We’ll send it back tomorrow. I did appreciate all the cameos, though.
After that, I decided it was high time I started watching Dexter. I finished the pilot episode and have a feeling I am going to get hooked on this show rather quickly. I like Michael C. Hall just fine, and even though I am fully aware of what happens in subsequent seasons, I’m still intrigued. I like bloody murder mystery shows, so this is right up my alley.
Upon the episode’s conclusion, my dad announced that it was time for some Best Of. I opted for Belushi because I’m in the middle of reading a biography of Gilda Radner, and I knew she was friends with Belushi, so it seemed fitting for me. I love watching Belushi – especially when he spins himself out of frame or off stage.
I checked my email before I started typing this out and saw that I had a message from the guy from the dating website. I logged on and scanned it – he seemed to understand that I have a lot going on right now, which was nice. (My head feels like it is going to explode on a daily basis…) I know he wasn’t super happy about what I said, and he mentioned that he would rather have this kind of discussion over the phone. Well – sorry, Charlie Bucket. What’s done is done.
Well, today was another small step for Katie-kind back into the realm of working on my thesis proposal. I got another 2 articles read and another solid pages of notes down… over 11,200 words of notes. Yikes Stripes. I have another 10 articles or so saved in my “Thesis Proposal” folder and then a bunch of guild websites and a few books to peruse, but the note-taking end is in sight. Then just organizing and writing to go – Yikes Stripes again.
I woke up this morning to the sound of dogs barking. My parents already left for their canoeing obligation (they were riding on the Park’s boat to make sure the paddlers were staying safe, etc…), so only the dogs were home with me. I ate my yogurt and granola while watching the first 40 minutes ofSerenity (you know, the movie that followed the short-lived but epically brilliant series Firefly…). So far, so good… love me some Nathan Fillion and Sean Maher.
I then brushed my teeth and got dressed – ready to face a day of thesis stuff. I turned on my computer and somehow ended up watching youtube clips, parts of various episodes of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon that I had missed, and reading up on Comic-Con. When it got to be 12:30 and I hadn’t done any homework, I knew I needed to turn off the computer, let out the dogs, eat lunch, watch the rest of Serenity and *then* get to work.
Which is exactly what I did…
Oh, Serenity. I thought you were a fitting end for Firefly. Although I was aware of the characters that died (I won’t spoil which ones), I was shocked when one of the deaths went down all of a sudden. Sadness! I immediately grabbed my phone and texted Matt because he watched it a few months ago and was the only person I knew who watched the entire series and movie (and this was his favorite character). I watched the remainder of the film with my mouth hanging slightly open, talking at the television every now and again in genuine reaction to what I was seeing before me.
The movie ended and I had to get to work. I rebooted my computer and nestled down into the recliner. While my dogs slept, I typed away at my keyboard, digitally jotting down notes from the lengthy articles I managed to make it through today.
Upon completion of the second article, my parents arrived back home. My mom and I had a slice of pie while she told me about their morning adventures (my dad was fast asleep in the recliner I just vacated). Mom and I played some Yahtzee, each winning two rounds, though I was the overall champion (842 to 791 – woot). I playfully chided “Go f**k yourself!” in a high voice as my mother had done over Christmas break, mimicking a phrase my brother had introduced to us over the course of the holiday season. Both she and my father looked at me like I had said this out of nowhere. I stopped to remind them of what went down over Christmas and they both were like “What the what?!” So, I texted my brother for verification that I was not making this up. He texted back that I remembered correctly. His girlfriend seconded it. I also texted my sister and she called back to verify that my mother had indeed been chanting “Go f**k yourself” at us over the holidays (not maliciously, mind you). I love my family.
My parents left again around 6. I made dinner and watched two of my favorite episodes of Pushing Daisies (I didn’t watch them in their entirety, but fast forwarded to my favorite parts… basically it was 40 minutes of Ned instead of 80 minutes of everyone…). I was then going to work on school work, but when I checked my email, I saw that I had a message from a nice guy that I have been chatting with online as of late.
Now, I have been thinking about this long and hard, but I don’t think it is wise of me to even be thinking about being in a relationship right now. Chalk it up to horrible timing… I just got out of grad school, I moved to a new state hundreds of miles away from all my friends, I have no job, I have no idea what i want to be when I grow up, I am trying to work on my thesis proposal so I can defend it and then do my thesis, I recently had a (temporary) falling out with my best friend of 15 years, and I just went through the emotional wringer regarding unrequited feelings (among other things…). So, really this is not the best timing to be launching myself into a relationship that is anything more than friends right now. And as much as that really sucks, it’s the most sensible thing to do. I need to figure my shit out before I can be in a relationship with someone else, as it’s not fair to him.
So, I did what I thought was best and messaged the nice guy back and told him what was on my mind. I felt like I was breaking up with someone, but we weren’t even dating. But I still felt super crumby about it 😦
And now I’m watching the rest of Bandits with my parents… and soon we’ll watch the Jon HammSNL. I have no idea what is in store for tomorrow… only time will tell.
I was watching Bandits with my dad, but was too tired to make it through the whole movie… but that’s totally my favorite line 🙂 (But, of course this scene can’t be found on youtube… at least not in English)
So, today was Friday, but my days of the week are epically thrown off.
Woke up this morning and breakfast with my parents (this will be weird for awhile, I’m sure…). I then went back to my room and read an article for my thesis proposal (first time I had done that in weeks… yikes). Since one was more than enough right then and there, when I finished, I went up to the deck to see if my mom needed any help with gardening stuff. I brushed out the dogs, then went back downstairs to find four hummingbird feeders. Upon fetching them, I was sent back downstairs to try and locate two big “S” hooks to hang a couple of the feeders – no dice.
However, around that time, my phone rang and it was Robin! (And you don’t get the most shout outs just because I know you’re the only one who probably reads this… you get them because you are a rock star for being such an awesome friend 🙂 ) Catching up on awkward sauce stories and thesis woes is always good times!
Back on the deck, I played with the dogs while Mom gardened and we all took a lunch break to regroup. I then headed back down to my room to do more thesis stuff (another article or two read… that’s 39 or 40 articles down, and 22 pages of notes – woot). I will do more tomorrow while my parents are out on the boat for part of the 2-day canoe race that’s going on.
I would have done more today, but I was physically falling asleep with my computer in my lap (much like I’m doing right now… blah). So, I went upstairs, grabbed the mail (magazines!), took my water bottle out of the fridge and headed back to the deck. My mom took a drink break with me, then I read while she finished up some planting stuff.
I helped my parents put together dinner – mom and I made pasta salad with vegetables we picked from the garden while my dad grilled on the deck. Afterwards, I let the dogs outside – they dragged me over to the neighbor’s yard where, after 6 weeks, the neighbor finally said Hi to me and introduced herself. (People in our neighborhood have hardly acknowledged my presence, even though I am a stranger who has been here for almost 2 months now… what the what?!)
My mom and I then took a page out of Pushing Daisies and baked an apple pie, as we had a bunch of apples that we needed to get rid of before they got all mushy. The pie was so cute (and way yummy) – although it made the house smell like Thanksgiving. Oh well!
Dad ordered me to bring up some DVDs so we could pick on to watch… I think I brought up around 20. My mom said that I have too many DVDs (I have 300+…) and that I could probably have a wall of them. I told her that is exactly what is on my Bucket List – to one day have an entire wall full of DVDs. Arranged by year of release, of course.
So, from the 20 or so movies I picked out, we opted for Bandits. It’s a pretty good movie – I had only seen it once a long, long time ago, but I totally say “Beavers and ducks” at least once a week since that initial viewing.
And now it’s time to shut down the computer, read some HP7 (can’t wait for the movie!!) and go to sleep.
Have a good one!
P.S. Totally watched an interview of David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel from Comic-Con about next season of Bones. I friggin’ love that show (even though I am mad at David Boreanaz for cheating on his wife… what the heck, yo?!)… and was reminded how much I loved the 100th episode 🙂
Two Degrees and Separation 
