That's Right: February 2006

I didn't get the baby

Today was your last day to eat King Cake, y'all. Hope you made the best of it.

Whitetail

Tonight's experience was so traumatic, I felt the need to express it artistically.
I haven't skied in 7 years, so I started on the beginner slope. I had that down pretty quickly, so I moved on to intermediate (blue). All was well until, as you see, I missed a turn and ended up on a black diamond, careening out of control.

Now, I don't like to consider myself a scared person. But I was terrified. I wiped out really badly and then found myself in the middle of the mountain with no way to get down. I had to go back UP the mountain, as you can see, and there was no way to know that I would not end up on the black diamond again, endlessly throwing myself down the slope and going back up the lift until I died. What if I NEVER got down the mountain!?!?! Seriously, I lost my composure.

Someone I didn't know had to guide me safely back to the blue slopes, where I was so freaked out that I fell several times more and invented a move I like to call "Superman." You kind of slide down the slope on your stomach wicked fast for about a solid minute or two, collecting a huge pile of ice on your face. I didn't even try to stop myself. Just enjoyed the trip.

Anyway, it was a blow to my pride. Though I don't claim to be a good skier, I don't like to fall on intermediate slopes. And I DO NOT like to get scared and freak out. But falling is good sometimes. Where else can you completely wipe out, lose articles of clothing, sprawl out all ridiculous and in the way, needing help from strangers...and still be okay? Sometimes it feels good to just hit the ground.

It was wonderfully traumatic, and I was gloriously out of control.

dang, I love FunDip!

Unless you grew up out in the country, you probably had an ice cream man.
Almost every day in the summer, just as I was getting all hot and sweaty playing diaper tag or something, I'd hear that faint sound in the distance. Usually "The Entertainer." Every kid in the street immediately dropped whatever they were doing and made a mad dash to their front doors to beg their moms for some money. How much would she give you...enough for a Ninja Turtle ice cream bar with gumball eyes? Enough for a screwball, or maybe FunDip or a Chipwich?? Or would you just have to settle for a Twinpop this time?

Our ice cream man was named Bob, and he was Jamaican. I'm pretty sure I'm not making this up. We were such frequent customers that he used to give us free Frooties (you know, the different flavored Tootsie Rolls). We actually had a little more time to run inside for money, cause when we heard the bells, we knew he was at the Atholton pool and would be there awhile as all the kids stopped him. We had his route memorized by heart. It was familiar, one of those classic suburban neighborhood features tht everyone knew. He was the Ice Cream Man - a sacred and trustworthy social role.

But I was thinking...is there any sort of accreditation organization for ice cream truck drivers? Is there any way to keep random people from driving around selling poisoned ice cream to young children? We tell kids Never accept any food from strangers! Stay away from strangers' cars! Don't even talk to strangers! Unleessss of course they have a bell and a big freezer in the back of a truck and spend their time soliciting money from small children. Hmmm. I mean, I'm sure you have to have a license to sell ice cream from a truck or something. But is there any way to know for sure if your ice cream man/lady is legit?

In my sister's neighborhood, there's a shady ice cream man who drives around late at night after it's dark. I'm pretty sure it's safe to say he's not only selling ice cream.

There's more drama in this industry than you knew about.

Don't get me wrong, if I'm fortunate enough to have an ice cream truck in my neighborhood, I will definitely let my kids buy from it. I'll even splurge for a TV character with gumball eyes every now and then.

fax me

I'm asking 12 4-year-olds to be my Valentines.

And I'm expecting the same for years to come.

Happy Heart Day, y'all.

I hope it snows again too

So, I feel as if I owe you a post. But nothing crazy has happened...except it snowed. And we lost to Duke. Crazy.

I just want to say that it is crazy the way you forget how things feel...like, you forget what it feels like to fall back into the snow and look up into a white sky late at night and feel perfectly safe and calm. But then when you do it again, you remember it clearly. Or you forget what it feels like to stand in the packed student section of Comcast and feel the excitement when everyone bursts into noise when someone makes a crucial 3 pointer. And you can remember things like that and kind of imagine what it's like, but you can never actually feel it again unless you get the chance to experience it again.

I think that's one reason people like good movies. You can watch a movie over and over again to feel the same thing whenever you want.

And that's why we don't like it when things end or people leave, cause there's no guarantee you will ever get to experience whatever you did with that person again. And you can remember them and remember it, but you'll never really remember what it feels like, and one day you will forget.

Man, I should stop cause this is starting to get depressing. Maybe if we had beat Duke, this would have sounded different?

See, I can remember it perfectly. But I just don't feel it anymore. It is fun to remember though.

and that's where I've left my heart

one final video, if you're interested...

Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?
To miss it each night and day
I know I'm not wrong
This feeling's getting stronger
The longer I stay away

Miss the moss-covered vines
The tall sugar pines
Where mocking birds use to sing
And I'd like to see the lazy Mississippi
A-hurrying into spring

Oh the Mardi Gras, the memories
Of creole tunes that fill the air
I dream of oleanders in June
And soon I'm wishing that I were there

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
When that's where you've left your heart?

update

The hawk (Chappy, as Father Bill named him) was safely removed this morning. He even made it into the newspaper, and I missed my chance to make it in because I never got the message they left me. Oh well, Taylor said it all anyway.

Although, it does bother me that the article says the bird was perched in the rafters overhead. The reporter made that up. There are no rafters in the Main Chapel. The hawk sat in the apse, above the chancel.

Okay, I feel better now that the architectural integrity of the Chapel has been protected.

Memorial Chapel's a little different, but this is your basic chapel/cathedral layout.

just another trapped bird story

Ready for the latest Chapel escapade?

Taylor calls me from working a wedding this morning to inform me that a red-tailed hawk flew through a window pane and is now terrorizing the Chapel during a wedding.

Fortunately, the bride didn't mind. Which is good, because the red-tailed hawk is a federally-protected animal and cannot be caught with a net. Meaning we have to wait until Monday night, when the bird will probably get weak and come down itself. At which time we will scoop it up and rush it off to an animal hospital for some emergency care. By "we," I of course mean someone from pest control who's wearing really thick gloves.

So I came over to the Chapel to see the bird and help Taylor clean up the poop (fact: Hawk poop is unlike little bird poop in the fact that it stinks. However, it beats cleaning up human poop in the Chapel, hands down.)

So everyone having a good laugh at a bird at a wedding is one thing. A hawk flying around at a memorial service is an entirely different thing. People might not feel like laughing. However, when it's the memorial service of a professor in the animal science department...it's almost fitting. When I showed the memorial service people the hawk and apologized, they immediately said, "Oh, it's him!" So...I guess the professor flew in as a hawk and attended his own memorial service, sitting regally above the altar for everyone to see. That's pretty sweet.