Happy Birthday To Me

For the big 2-4 I decided to take a trip back home to Chattanooga to hang out with my family. Doesn't sound that exciting to some I suppose, but I was thrilled. I'm a very blessed person in that while things aren't always perfect, my family has always been close and we get along well together - we have the same sense of humor, we make each other laugh, and genuinely enjoy each other's company. Not too many families can say that, I don' t think.

The trip up last Friday afternoon was rainy but uneventful - but I don't think I've ever been so excited to be home. I got home around 4 and my mother was still asleep - when she woke up, she was so happy to see me that she didn't even have her Disgruntled-Hour-of-Just-Woke Up-So-Don't-Talk-To-Me-Get-Me-A-Soda-Now-Angsty-ness. Trust me, that's love.

My actual birthday was three days later, that Monday, and I scored from the parents: two Cubs shirts, pajamas, some new books, Heroes DVDs (thanks Dad!), cash, some pretty green nail polish from Ellie, and gas money for my trip to TN from Aunt Celia and Billy (thanks again!). It was a wonderfully quiet day spent in my pajamas doing mostly nothing - we ordered Chinese, had sinfully delicious cheesecake, watched movies and, yes, snarked at TV shows. It's what we do best. Some families have "athletic talent" or "artistic ability" - my family makes hilarious sarcastic jokes at the television (probably more amusing to us than others, but still). It's a rare and under-appreciated gift.

My five days went by all-too-quickly, I already miss home again terribly. Four hours is so far! I definitely need to be on the other side of Atlanta, at least. That umbilical cord only stretches so far. And only a few months until school systems start hiring for the next year! A few...four or five...whatever.The trip back was really nice though, beautiful weather, little traffic, and a gorgeous sunset that followed me back to Warner Robins. It's finally starting to feel like Fall here!

There's not much else to update on - besides everyone failing my "how well do you know me" facebook quiz, there was a misguided 2 hours spent in the truck with Faith and Ellie, wandering around Central Georgia the other night, including a foray into the rather seeder parts of Macon, but that's another story for another blog entry. I'll just tell you that the phrases "Corn! Why is there corn?" and "Gas THIS" were said, and let your imagination chew on that for a while.

Let's see, what else. Today at church we had a guest speaker who was a white South African, you know, with a British accent, and everyone knows how British accents make me happy. In other news, trying to find substituting work is going paaaaaaaaaaaaaainfully slow, but it's a good lesson in patience if nothing else. Also, don't see the movie Quarantine (unless you're Nick, but I don't think he reads this, sooo) unless you really like shaky camera work and gory horror movies where every single character dies. It would probably be fine on TV but not on the big screen, as poor Aunt Celia can attest to.

So. . . is it Thanksgiving yet?

Phrase of the Moment: "YAT-TA!" - Because Heroes, and Hiro, are awesome. Yes, Rachel, Sylar is awesome too.

Quote of the Moment: "We're being split up, you know, plugs in one car and outlets in the other." - Aunt Celia. Ha!

Video of the Moment: - New Harry Potter 6 Trailer! Yes, I'm excited. Hush up with your "But it's still 8 months away".

Snarking, parking, and overturned garbage cans (There's no place like home)

Picture of the Moment: (for Dad)
Phrase of the Moment: “Mullet Fantasia”
Song of the Moment: “I’m not coming to your party girl” by 3Oh!3 - best sung while staggering home after a long movie and an even longer adventure trying to GET to the movie.
Quote of the Moment: "Clearly, piracy is our only option"

(I'll normally put this ^^^ at the bottom, but for today... it's here.)

Wee my first blog entry. Yay for shamelessly copying Rachel! I even stole her layout theme. The Dots are awesome. Someday I'll HTML this mofo and put up my own banner and layout and junk.

I've actually wanted to start a blog for a long time, but felt my boring life wasn't really worth relaying. Since I have recently relocated to “Middle-Middle Central Georgia” (actual quote from the pastor at my new church) and into a busy house full of many bloggable adventures, I feel that the time has finally come for me to join the blogger nation.

To get started, here is the first conclusion that I’ve reached about life in Warner-Robbins : Snarking everything and anything on TV is apparently an acquired taste, much like freeform jazz and coffee.

Can you imagine living in a place where people simply sit and watch the TV while NOT having the urge to shameless mock say, the badly dressed local news broadcasters, or scream obscenities that would make a grown man cry at the baseball game? Merely observing the evening’s news with nary a sarcastic comment, eye roll, or a “It‘s a GIVER” shout-out every time a morbidly obese woman appears on screen? How does one watch Jeopardy and not yell out the right answer, purposefully wrong answer, a sarcastic answer, an obscene answer in Spanish, or a "!#$%* you and your mother, Trebek!"?

Mystery Science Theater 3000-esque mocking is not appreciated everywhere, sad to say. I mean I watched (against my will, I need to add) Secret Life of the American Teenager - its like 7th Heaven, only worse - a show ripe with mocking opportunity, only to have my “witty observations” (“OMG Skanky McSlut’s has Daddy issues - News at 11!”) go unnoticed and un-replied to. How can a sane person get through 10 minutes of anything on ABCFamily or the Disney Channel without commenting on the clothes, the dialogue, the plot, the scenery, the writing, the directing, the commercials, and the characters?

It’s been a difficult adjustment.

My second conclusion: parking “between the lines” is for losers. When you drive a truck the size of a small tank, making your own parking spots is the way to go

What led me to my conclusion was my experience picking up my cousins from school. The school they go to is small, but large enough to have long outgrown it’s little parking lot. Most schools have a sane, organized picking-up and dropping off arrangement - or at the very least some kind of loosely formed line. At this school, "picking up the kids" more closely resembles a battle-to-the-death Thunderdome competition for the best spot to flag down little Kayleeighey or Greyer and herd them into the air-conditioned safety of Momma's SUV. It begins about 20 minutes before school lets out when the SUV's and MiniVans being to descend, ready to stake their claim on the prime parking spots - and woe to you if you get there a mere 10 minutes before the bell rings, it's the back row of doom (and an extra 5-10 minutes waiting for the 'line' to move) for you!

Okay it's not THAT bad, just awfully crowded and confusing for me to navigate. I'm sure within a week I'll be mowing down other drivers and cutting off people with the authority driving a large truck entails me to. Most parents just park and wait, some take matters into their own hands and brave the line going up to the school sidewalk. I definitely take the park-and-wait approach.

Anyway, my first time picking up the kids I first weaved in and out of the parking lot in the opposite direction of those painted arrows (much to the annoyance of the impatientally waiting moms) only to end up somehow back out on the main road. I cost myself a precious 10 minutes in that adventure, something I quickly learned from. I managed to get turned around and back in the lot in the right direction and felt a small victory - there was still an open spot left! Surely, God must be on my side. I had, after all, even managed to find the school without incident ( i.e. getting horribly lost, but don’t worry, that part comes later). In my excitement to claim the spot, I misgauged the angle needed to wedge the tank in-between a mini-van and a SUV (in a spot barely big enough for my Sunfire), resulting in 10 more wasted minutes backing in and out of the spot at 1 inch increments, causing a traffic back-up that turned the parking lot into this

Okay I exaggerate, but only slightly.

The uber-quaffed mom in the SUV to my left gave me a very nice, mom-patented God-Bless-Her-She’s-Trying smile and wave for my trouble. But still, lesson learned. I now only park when there is at least one open spot in any direction around me. The lot still makes me nervous though, the students take their precious time meandering in and out and around all the moving cars with a level of that-car-will-totally-stop-in-time-so-I'm-free-to-walk-in-front-of-it-ness I’ve only ever seen on college campuses. Why aren’t middle schoolers taller than a truck bed? Gah.

My third and final conclusion: Living in this house with four teenagers is turning into the college dorm experience I never had. (True, Ellie is technically only 11 but I don’t have to tell anyone who knows her that she’s been going on 16 for about five years now. ).

Fighting with the roommate for a limited amount of space? Check. Mounds of unwashed clothes growing by the day? Check. One bathroom for 7 people? Check. Going to bed whenever you feel like it? Check. Writing sad, rambling emails to parents complaining of homesickness and lack of funds? Check. Copious amounts of junk food and raman noodles? Check. Wasting precious hours of your youth on video games? Major check. All that’s missing are kegs of beer and guys my own age (you know, for the keg-tapping and men-using).

The classes that would be offered here would be like, Rockband 101, Advanced Shotgun Calling, Intro to Houston Lake Rd, and The Theory and Practice of The Art of Walking Right Past A Garbage Can Overturned By The Dogs While Pretending To Have Suddenly Been Stricken Blind So that Liz Has To Pick Up The Entire Mess Herself. There are a couple of students working on their thesis in that subject.

Things I also miss (in no particular order): Computers with mouses, a living room with a TV, being able to shower whenever I want (and have it not be a complicated, five-step procedure of timers, nozzles, and squigee-ing though I do enjoy the large stall and all the options, it's all fancy), not hearing dogs bark everytime a door opens, my family, and Diet Pepsi.

So basically all of this makes me feel that although I like it here just fine, there really is no place like home.

*clicks shoes together three times*

:)

PS. Sorry this is so long - I've had all this in my system for days and wanted to get it out. Trust me, I don't have the attention span for entries this long either.