So if you've read my little side blurp about myself, you know that I started this blog as part of a contest with my friend about who is a better writer. The winner should be my little sister Carlie. This is a link to the college newspaper where she writes the viewpoint column. I linked this article because of its pertinence to the time of year, but you'll probably want to read more!
http://eagle.ceu.edu/article/society-loosening-its-grip-halloween
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
The Devil and the Angel Hair
Last night my room mate Brittany died her hair with the help of her friend Tess and our next door neighbor Aubrey. I asked Aubrey if I could make angel hair pasta in her apartment so it wouldn't taste like hair dye. She agreed, so I filled a small pan with water, set it to boil on their stove, and went back next door to chat while I waited for the water to boil. After a few minutes of entertaining conversation I stepped onto our connecting balcony to check if the water had boiled and saw smoke billowing from around the pot. "Great," I thought, "Something's burning under the burner. Better go check it out." Five steps later I arrive in front of the stove just in time to watch the burner erupt into flames. I quickly moved the pan off the burner, which freed up more space and the flames grew.
Now, Aub's apartment had just done their dishes so the counter next to the stove was covered in nice, now dry, flammable cotton towels. In a split second I had discarded the idea of going for the fire extinguisher, or scouring the cupboards looking for baking soda, the pan of water next to me was no good since I remembered from 4-H that you never put water on a stove fire, so I did the only other thing I could think of. After reaching through the flames to turn off the burner (yeah, smart, I know)...I blew. It only took two or three tries, and the flames were gone. I've never been so glad to be full of hot air :)
Now, Aub's apartment had just done their dishes so the counter next to the stove was covered in nice, now dry, flammable cotton towels. In a split second I had discarded the idea of going for the fire extinguisher, or scouring the cupboards looking for baking soda, the pan of water next to me was no good since I remembered from 4-H that you never put water on a stove fire, so I did the only other thing I could think of. After reaching through the flames to turn off the burner (yeah, smart, I know)...I blew. It only took two or three tries, and the flames were gone. I've never been so glad to be full of hot air :)
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Couch Splunking
A little bit of background for this post:
I was really looking forward to this summer. About 75% of my close friends were going to be living in my apartment complex, almost all of us on the same floor and just a few doors away from each other. Then two of the apartments, housing most of our guy friends, caught fire just a week or two into summer vacation.The boys were moved to a house three blocks away called The Cube while their apartments were repaired/rebuilt. The management for The Cube, who are obviously out of touch with normal student housing schedules in the area, asked the boys to be out of the apartment by this morning. Yesterday I walked into my apartment after work to find out that we (my apartment and the neighboring girls apartment) were going to The Cube to help clean, and in return Jon Thompson would make us dinner on Sunday. Hey, I'm up for free food anytime, but cleaning a guys apartment? Oh well.
It only took us a few minutes to spread out once we arrived. Jen took on one of the bathrooms solo (brave soul!), Britt and Pan tackled the kitchen (and fought over who would have to clean the microwave), Aubrey and Jon swept through the downstairs cleaning like Speedy Gonzales with Scrubbing Bubbles, Braden was still packing up his own room, and Jason was finishing upstairs. That left me with the Common Room, consisting of one large floor, 3 couches, and 2 armchairs to vacuum.
Now, I'm a bit finicky about my vacuum. I spent good money on the thing after an errant nail went through the motor of our old one. I've already saved it from near death when a careless room mate nearly ripped a hole in the hose by vacuuming up a million hair pins. Needless to say, I was not going to just stick the hose down the couches without some idea of what would be coming out. Hence I found myself up (or down) to my wrists in the corners, back, and sides of the furniture. What I pulled back out was...well, take a look:
Assorted candy wrappers
Pretzels, candy, and cereal bits
$7.57 in spare change
Enough hair pins for 3 French Twists
1 very large hair pin, about 3 inches long and an inch wide
1 howl bracelet
1 acrylic finger nail (probably a pinkie nail and painted sparkly pink with a purple french tip)
2 yellow topaz studs (like from the pockets of fancy jeans)
1 broken ball chain anklet
1 small magnet
6 pens, blue, black and pink ink
4 paint balls with pink paint
2 sticks of gum still in wrappers
3 toothpicks
1 golf tee
1 red neck tie belonging to Jason
2 kool-aid packets - orange and fruit punch
1 food freshener packet like in food storage containers
1 small metal ball like a ball bearing
2 miscellaneous snap-like things, one says Victorinox, a fancy brand selling Swiss Army stuff
1 small black pocket comb
3 playing cards
1 tampon, still in wrapper but opened on one side
I admit that the thing which puzzled me most was the tampon. The boy's excuse for this object was "This must have been a girls apartment once," but since neither I, nor any of the girls I know, are in the habit of storing feminine products in our couches, that explanation doesn't fly with me. I came away from the experience $7.57 richer, much more amused, and slightly confused.
As a side note, once we were done cleaning we sat around the newly vacuumed common room talking. Braden snuck in with a frying pan full of firecrackers and set them off on one of my spic and span couches. I obviously told him he would have to re-vacuum all of it, and as a punishment I made him use their apartment's vacuum, which doesn't have any attachments or hose. In the awkward process of using the vacuum along the back of the couch, the bag for this ancient device EXPLODED. At this point I took pity on Braden and used my vacuum to help him clean up.
I was really looking forward to this summer. About 75% of my close friends were going to be living in my apartment complex, almost all of us on the same floor and just a few doors away from each other. Then two of the apartments, housing most of our guy friends, caught fire just a week or two into summer vacation.The boys were moved to a house three blocks away called The Cube while their apartments were repaired/rebuilt. The management for The Cube, who are obviously out of touch with normal student housing schedules in the area, asked the boys to be out of the apartment by this morning. Yesterday I walked into my apartment after work to find out that we (my apartment and the neighboring girls apartment) were going to The Cube to help clean, and in return Jon Thompson would make us dinner on Sunday. Hey, I'm up for free food anytime, but cleaning a guys apartment? Oh well.
It only took us a few minutes to spread out once we arrived. Jen took on one of the bathrooms solo (brave soul!), Britt and Pan tackled the kitchen (and fought over who would have to clean the microwave), Aubrey and Jon swept through the downstairs cleaning like Speedy Gonzales with Scrubbing Bubbles, Braden was still packing up his own room, and Jason was finishing upstairs. That left me with the Common Room, consisting of one large floor, 3 couches, and 2 armchairs to vacuum.
Now, I'm a bit finicky about my vacuum. I spent good money on the thing after an errant nail went through the motor of our old one. I've already saved it from near death when a careless room mate nearly ripped a hole in the hose by vacuuming up a million hair pins. Needless to say, I was not going to just stick the hose down the couches without some idea of what would be coming out. Hence I found myself up (or down) to my wrists in the corners, back, and sides of the furniture. What I pulled back out was...well, take a look:
Assorted candy wrappers
Pretzels, candy, and cereal bits
$7.57 in spare change
Enough hair pins for 3 French Twists
1 very large hair pin, about 3 inches long and an inch wide
1 howl bracelet
1 acrylic finger nail (probably a pinkie nail and painted sparkly pink with a purple french tip)
2 yellow topaz studs (like from the pockets of fancy jeans)
1 broken ball chain anklet
1 small magnet
6 pens, blue, black and pink ink
4 paint balls with pink paint
2 sticks of gum still in wrappers
3 toothpicks
1 golf tee
1 red neck tie belonging to Jason
2 kool-aid packets - orange and fruit punch
1 food freshener packet like in food storage containers
1 small metal ball like a ball bearing
2 miscellaneous snap-like things, one says Victorinox, a fancy brand selling Swiss Army stuff
1 small black pocket comb
3 playing cards
1 tampon, still in wrapper but opened on one side
I admit that the thing which puzzled me most was the tampon. The boy's excuse for this object was "This must have been a girls apartment once," but since neither I, nor any of the girls I know, are in the habit of storing feminine products in our couches, that explanation doesn't fly with me. I came away from the experience $7.57 richer, much more amused, and slightly confused.
As a side note, once we were done cleaning we sat around the newly vacuumed common room talking. Braden snuck in with a frying pan full of firecrackers and set them off on one of my spic and span couches. I obviously told him he would have to re-vacuum all of it, and as a punishment I made him use their apartment's vacuum, which doesn't have any attachments or hose. In the awkward process of using the vacuum along the back of the couch, the bag for this ancient device EXPLODED. At this point I took pity on Braden and used my vacuum to help him clean up.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
My Accidental Almost Summer Romance
I hate airplanes. Sure, they are wonderful for getting you places fairly quickly, but I do not sleep well, if at all, on them. Thus, the flight to Egypt was 18 hours of getting up, climbing over my neighbors (I was in the middle seat), walking around, popping aspirin, trying to keep my ankles from swelling up (futile), and my DVT from flaring up. So when I got off the plane, I was a wrinkled, sweaty (from the immediate Egyptian heat), messy-haired ball of exhaustion with elephant ankles.
As we waited for the members of our tour to gather in the lobby of the Cairo airport, I was enjoying the novel sights of men in white, blue, or gray galabeyas and women covered head to toe in black, carrying Gucci purses and chasing around toddlers dressed in sundresses and shorts. Then, while looking around our group, my eyes met those of an Egyptian guy about my age. He wasn't too shabby looking: shaved head, beautiful brown Egyptian skin, large dark eyes, nice shoulders (I'm a shoulders girl), and about my height. Now, we've all been there before, you meet the eyes of a stranger and you have two options, you keep looking or you look away quickly, hoping he didn't see you. Well, I made it a goal a few years ago to stop being the silly girl who looks away. So I did what any mature, reasonable person would do, I smiled.
The guy got this really strange look on his face. Surprise? Astonishment? Disgust? Fear? I have no idea, but then, in the blink of an eye it was gone and he smiled back just before I looked away.
I turned to Annie and whispered, "I'll have to tell you later about the moment I just had."
"What kind of moment? Was it 'a moment in the woods?'" (Anyone outside of my family who gets that movie reference gets brownie points with me.)
I answered "Yes, but with eyes."
This is where she informs me that it is considered EXTREMELY flirtatious behaviour in Egypt to meet a guy eye to eye. Heck! I didn't know!! While Annie was reading up on Egyptian culture on her iPod Touch on the flight, I was doing laps around the coach area.
So I started trying to avoid making eye contact with males. It's so hard! And it makes me feel weird, like a slave in the presence of her master. Yuk.
Anyway, we load onto the bus and guess who else gets on. Yep. Eye-contact-surprised-smile man is on our bus. He's "taking care of us" while we're in Cairo. His name, by the way, is Mohammad. Of course.
Well, despite my best efforts to the contrary, Mohammad managed to catch my eyes again and smiled. When Annie told Mom what was going on, she leaned over and said "No Egyptian son-in-laws (Carlie thought she said "No Egyptian lip gloss" ha ha!) because then my grand babies would live too far away." Then she paused and thought for a moment before changing her mind: "Oh, but this could be a good thing because we could come over once a year to visit!"
Thankfully, at this point, everyone became too busy looking at Cairo to say anything more.
As we got off the bus, I kept my eyes modestly averted as I passed Mohammad...until he stomp-stepped in front of me, which scared me half to death and surprised me into looking at him. He smiled at me, so I smiled back and walked away, bringing this story to a romantic, graceful end.
Right?
Wrong.
I only took two steps before the pocket of my capris somehow caught on a random part of a parked car and I had to stop to de-tangle them! Graceful, indeed.
As we waited for the members of our tour to gather in the lobby of the Cairo airport, I was enjoying the novel sights of men in white, blue, or gray galabeyas and women covered head to toe in black, carrying Gucci purses and chasing around toddlers dressed in sundresses and shorts. Then, while looking around our group, my eyes met those of an Egyptian guy about my age. He wasn't too shabby looking: shaved head, beautiful brown Egyptian skin, large dark eyes, nice shoulders (I'm a shoulders girl), and about my height. Now, we've all been there before, you meet the eyes of a stranger and you have two options, you keep looking or you look away quickly, hoping he didn't see you. Well, I made it a goal a few years ago to stop being the silly girl who looks away. So I did what any mature, reasonable person would do, I smiled.
The guy got this really strange look on his face. Surprise? Astonishment? Disgust? Fear? I have no idea, but then, in the blink of an eye it was gone and he smiled back just before I looked away.
I turned to Annie and whispered, "I'll have to tell you later about the moment I just had."
"What kind of moment? Was it 'a moment in the woods?'" (Anyone outside of my family who gets that movie reference gets brownie points with me.)
I answered "Yes, but with eyes."
This is where she informs me that it is considered EXTREMELY flirtatious behaviour in Egypt to meet a guy eye to eye. Heck! I didn't know!! While Annie was reading up on Egyptian culture on her iPod Touch on the flight, I was doing laps around the coach area.
So I started trying to avoid making eye contact with males. It's so hard! And it makes me feel weird, like a slave in the presence of her master. Yuk.
Anyway, we load onto the bus and guess who else gets on. Yep. Eye-contact-surprised-smile man is on our bus. He's "taking care of us" while we're in Cairo. His name, by the way, is Mohammad. Of course.
Well, despite my best efforts to the contrary, Mohammad managed to catch my eyes again and smiled. When Annie told Mom what was going on, she leaned over and said "No Egyptian son-in-laws (Carlie thought she said "No Egyptian lip gloss" ha ha!) because then my grand babies would live too far away." Then she paused and thought for a moment before changing her mind: "Oh, but this could be a good thing because we could come over once a year to visit!"
Thankfully, at this point, everyone became too busy looking at Cairo to say anything more.
As we got off the bus, I kept my eyes modestly averted as I passed Mohammad...until he stomp-stepped in front of me, which scared me half to death and surprised me into looking at him. He smiled at me, so I smiled back and walked away, bringing this story to a romantic, graceful end.
Right?
Wrong.
I only took two steps before the pocket of my capris somehow caught on a random part of a parked car and I had to stop to de-tangle them! Graceful, indeed.
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