I Have a Winning Streak!

Boyfriend and I ordered calzones from D.P. Dough, mostly because they deliver for free. I told them I would pay in cash, and they said they would be at my house within the hour. "Okay," I said, and hung up. "Within the hour?" I thought to myself. "Maybe it takes them a long time to make calzones? And they have a lot of business on the first day of school?"

I walked into the computer room and told Boyfriend, "They said they'll be here within the hour." Boyfriend huffed, as if to say, "I'm hungry now! But okay...." I said, "Maybe it takes a long time to make calzones?" Boyfriend grunted, as if to say, "Whatever...."

I sat down at my desk and piddled around on the internet for a while, eventually looking out into the living room at my purse. I thought, "I'll get up in a minute when I'm done here (with whatever website I was looking at at the time) and get my twenty out."

Thirty minutes later I heard a knock on the door. I jumped up from the desk in a flurry: "Where's Belle? Grab Belle! Where's my twenty? It's in my wallet still?! Dang it! I need my twenty!" I ran to my purse and pulled out my wallet and ran to open the door so the delivery person wouldn't have to knock twice and so I didn't have to shout through the door that I would just be a second, I opened the door, and Belle ran out to sniff. "Grab Belle! Belle! Inside! Belle! I have a twenty!" The delivery guy gave me my food and five dollars while Boyfriend grabbed Belle. "Here's four dollars! Have a good night!" Delivery guy left and I closed the door. Boyfriend scoffed, as if to say, "Four dollars?" I like to tip four dollars for almost any price, because four dollars seems like a good starting point for tips. If I were receiving a one or two dollar tip, to me, it almost wouldn't seem worth it. Also, people in the food service industry used to get paid below minimum wage, which was why there were tips. But people usually get paid minimum wage at least now, unless their employed by their family or foreign people. So if people get paid above minimum wage now, why do people even tip at all? Is that an outdated custom now? Should I stop tipping? It's not illegal to not tip, is it?

Anyway, I was devouring my yummy calzone with vigor, and I spilled marinara sauce on my shirt twice! I was a sad panda. And just yesterday, I spilled soy sauce down my front as well! That's why I'm on a winning streak, but with sarcasm because staining two of your favorite shirts in a row is not a win, it's a fail, so technically I'm on a failing streak. I'm like a horrible baseball player. They have foul streaks, right? The horrible ones? Do baseball teams even have horrible players anymore? Does baseball even exist anymore? I never hear about it.

Biology

I had my first day of classes for this semester today! They started at eleven so I could have slept in, but I have work at eight, so I was already almost tired when my first class started, and had to persevere through four hours of classes after nearly three hours of early morning work. My first class was your basic run-o'-the-mill college biology, and the professor said something interesting that I didn't quite understand.

"Biology is kind of.... You know that Supreme Court decision on porn, and they were like, 'You know porn when you see it?' Well, biology is like that, you know life when you see it." As is any college lecture hall, there was a certain amount of background chatter going, but as soon as she said "porn" the whole class went absolutely silent, and across the room there was a general vibe of confusion and a little bit of "What the hell?" After the few precious seconds of silence in the audience, during which the professor kept talking about the kingdoms in biology, there was a subtle eruption of whispering. The atmosphere during those moments was filled with disbelief, more confusion, and a little bit of "What the hell?!" Did the professor just want to show off her knowledge of old Supreme Court decisions? Was she trying to make a connection between biology and the rest of the world, as if to say "Biology fits into the social world, too?" It might have been that one because teachers always want you to believe that what you're learning is potentially useful in the real world and that you might actually need it someday! Even so, her point was badly made, even disruptive. Perhaps she just wanted to get our attention. But this calamity of a sentence caused me to think about times when maybe I don't know life when I see it. Rocks aren't alive, yet they are part of biomes. If they're not made of cells, then are they just mish-mashed atoms? Minerals are basically sloppy chunks of....stuff!

After a few minutes of brain rambling, I turned my attention back to the introductory lecture. Maybe the motive of her porn sentence was to make us think about science, as I had just done? I doubt anyone else had gone the direction with that phrase that I did. And if that was what she wanted, I was thinking more about chemistry than biology. Or was it molecular biology?!

So now I am confused about what even went on for that hour, wondering if she will always make weird references to biology, and worried that I won't do so well in that class if she does.

Healthy, Clean, and Organized!

***Prologue: Today's post is about a rare occurrence in my life. Never before have these three words come together in one day all at once.

This morning, I woke up and (after looking at the internet for a while) went for a walk with Belle. It was just in the neighborhood, and it was just short of a mile, but I did it without any complaining or procrastinating. Hopefully, this phenomenon will continue throughout the school year.

So far today, I have not overloaded myself with sweet things, either! Yay! I am experiencing a random burst of motivation! Maybe I can be healthy this year! I gained a lot of wait my freshman year of college because of the "All you care to eat" dining halls on campus. I care to eat everything, thank you. I also didn't exercise as much. But the thing is, I didn't notice until it was too late! In high school I did marching band and then winter guard, which didn't feel like exercise because it was outrageously fun and rewarding, even excluding the healthiness. So, without those activities I went on normally with my habits, and I ballooned! Only slightly, I am not HUGE, I don't want you to have a distorted image of me.

After my walk, I decided to take a shower. Actually, I didn't decide, I had to take a shower; I was all sweaty from my walk in the morning sun. Normally, our shower is absolutely freezing cold or holy hell hot. But on today's rarest of special mornings, it was a nice warm temperature, and thus I actually was able to put in an effort to clean myself without crying! I even shaved my legs! Both of them! And it has been a long time, so I really needed the opportunity. I would have shaved them sooner, but the drain in the tub won't plug either, so it wouldn't fill with water and I couldn't shave them that way. I would have had to freeze or melt.



After my glorious shower I put real clothes on! Something other than my one of two denim shorts and a tee shirt. And I blow-dried my hair, too. That picture at the top is me all clean and shiny! Yes, it does curl on that side by itself.

Erm, so yeah, feel pretty good today. Please don't think I'm self-absorbed and stop reading my blog. This probably won't happen again.

Mice

I went to visit my parents this week to get the remainder of my belongings. As you may recall from my post about cows mooing, my parents live in a semi-rural area, definitely remote. The cows across the road moo, the foxes have babies under the deck, the rabbits monchmonch the birdseed that the birds drop off the porch, and the field mice find ways into the house. The mice usually try their tricks to get in and around at night, as they are nocturnal. And of course this is when the house is most quiet, so our two German shorthair pointers can hear them, and being pointers, want to hunt them. Lucy is a purebread, and also an idiot, so she was going the most nuts over the mice. She would not give up the search for that furry rodent, even after its last appearance over an hour ago.



After I had already gone to bed, I could still hear the pitter patter of Lucy's little claws on the hardwood floor as she paced between the window and the buffet table that the mouse had disappeared under. This made me a little apprehensive... Where did the mouse go if not out of the table and into Lucy's mouth and claws? Might it have had a hole somewhere under there where it could roam to any other part of the house? I was wrought with terror as I lay awake in the hardly-ever-used-and-thus-dusty guest bed.


Could mice climb walls? What if there was one on the bed right now? What if one fell from the ceiling and onto my face? Should I open my eyes and brave what horrors I might find? Or should I keep them shut and put the tiny claws to every itch and scratch I felt on myself? I was afraid of both sides.


There is no resolution to this story. Who knows if mice were actually crawling on my face? All I know is that I'm just happy to have my own bed back.

Internet People Suck! (Moving, Part II)

After packing what clothes, jewelry, and hygienic accessories I had at Boyfriend's apartment, I went home to my parents' house to get the remainder of my knick-knacks, movie posters (including a stand-up of Legolas), and self put-together furniture from Target. I somehow expected that I wouldn't have that many things left there since I lived just fine without them in my dorm all year, and yet I was mistaken. Most of it was books though, so I suppose that's not too bad.

I don't want to bore you with boring details, but Boyfriend, Boyfriend's mom, Boyfriend's brother, Mom, and myself spent all day last Tuesday moving in. It really wasn't all that eventful. It took four people to move the near-40" TV. That's about it.

Boyfriend's parents were scheduled to go on a motorcycle trip to Taos later that week, so Boyfriend's mom left Boyfriend's brother, Tanner, at our place for about a week. Because of this we set up the futon (that will function as our couch) in front of the TV for him to sleep on, and had the DISH Network people come the next day to set up our satellite for channel viewing and enjoyment. The internet was also supposed to be turned on on Wednesday, but after calling Qwest's help line three times, we were eventually told that we would have to wait until Monday for someone to come out and check out the phone line manually. ARGH.

Also, maybe I should have had a better story about the internet people if they are the main subject of the title of this post. But don't you worry, it was traumatizing. Boyfriend and I didn't know anything about our work schedules, none of us could play online games, check Facebook or Twitter, or, most importantly, blog about moving! Ack!

Long story short, school's coming up fast and most of our boxes have yet to be unpacked. Bummer.