That's Right

...it's The End.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

I've...never seen the Patty Duke Show

your first glimpse into the absurd side of the New Orleans trip, for your viewing pleasure...we turned every moment of downtime into a game

my embarrassing "chocolate! chocolate!" comment
I did attempt to distribute chocolate to everyone in the terminal, but they declined.

The Newlywed Game: NOS!
For all you stalkers out there who have never met me...you get to hear my manly voice. And yes, I know the theme to the Newlywed Game. And yes, the actual married couple did win.

Friday, January 27, 2006

it's all in the delivery

Have I told you how much I love the painter (slash plant waterer) here at the Chapel?

him: My son go to UMBC. They start on Monday, so we just take him back.
me: Oh, really? Does he live on campus?
him: Yes. He actually go to two school. He take classes at UMBC, then on weekends, he study anatomy here.
me: Really, on weekends?
him: Yes, his girlfriend go here.

I see his jokes coming a mile away, but I still fall for them every time.

Monday, January 23, 2006

so who's joining my commune??

Today I found out that one of my friends has an internship with a wedding planner. I could totally do that! I have the experience...why have I not taken the initiative to get a wedding planning internship!? Then I found out that another friend of mine basically has a job becoming a spy...or something like that. What? How are my friends doing such interesting things with their lives?!

I don't know where to begin; I have such big goals. I want to own my own drive-in movie theater. I want to be a tour guide on Globetrekker. I want to plan weddings, live in a commune, and maybe go on staff with Habitat or something. I want to live in New Orleans and Africa and also Maryland, cause that's where the drive-in will be.

Why have I committed my life to teaching??? It's not that I don't want to teach; I do have a passion for development and kids. But...I also like lots of things! I'm getting terrified of the commitment. I've never been able to handle the idea of doing one thing indefinitely. When I was 8, I got a job walking my neighbor's dog, Buster, with my friend Mandy. Every day (or was it every week?), we'd go up to their house, and we'd each hold the leash for 15 minutes, as we strolled along the Columbia footpaths and I kept time on my Beauty and the Beast watch. We each got 75 cents at the end of each walk. It was fine for awhile. Then one day, my neighbor asked us, "How long are you planning on doing this?" I didn't know. We had never set an ending date. Were we supposed to continue like that forever? Was I stuck in a lifetime of dog-walking!? Quick Anna, bail out now while you still have the chance! The next day, I didn't show up. I let Mandy go by herself. My days as a dog-walker were officially over. To this day, I still feel a little guilty about it.

One day, I'll be sitting in my classroom, and I'll snap at a kid, and suddenly I'll envision myself in my 50's, hunched over a desk, yelling at kids to be quiet and wearing mom jeans, although I have no children or family of my own. I'll panic. The next year, I won't come back to school. Okay, so I'm being melodramatic...but seriously, what if I just decided that I'm done teaching after a few years? I'm afraid that will make me one of those girls who only teaches until she can get married and have kids - one of those girls who just chose teaching cause she really had no clue what she was good at and wasn't creative enough to come up with anything else. I'm NOT one of those girls!!! I do want to teach. I just...don't want to sign my life away to one thing!


I was discussing this with Elizabeth, who said she has an aunt (I think) who is a professional morpher. She does something, then every couple of years...morph....she's the CEO of a company...morph...she's a dolphin trainer...morph...

That sounds pretty good to me.

I've decided what I want to be when I grow up: EVERYTHING!

Sunday, January 22, 2006

back

I have a lot to say about New Orleans. I started to write a post detailing my reactions, and the things I noticed about the city, and the sadness of meeting so many good people who just miss home, and the injustices that people are working to change.

I had some deep thoughts. And I had a list of lighter memories.

But it turns out I don't feel like trying to shove it all into some sort of an update that could never really convey everything we experienced.

So maybe you can ask me about it sometime, and inevitably I'll bring it up in conversation, because New Orleans is now a part of me. Eventually I'll post some stolen pictures, and maybe then you can get a better glimpse of what it was like.

A part of my heart will always be there. Going back won't be difficult, because in a city that has lost so many houses, there are still so many people that have opened their homes to me and invited me to claim their city as my own. Kind of ironic, but that's the kingdom of God.

Friday, January 06, 2006

20

ps, it's my birthday

oooh CP!!!

Walking back to my car from work tonight after the people at the rehearsal fiiinally left, I saw a whole bunch of cop cars and police talking to some guys on Knox. This can't be good, I thought, but I figured, hey as long as there's all these police out, I'm safe.

So I continued to walk across the street to my car, when this cop pulled in front of me and stopped me. He got out of his car while his dog in the back seat was getting all angry at me.

serious cop: Someone just got robbed down there, so you can't go down there.
me: Oh, wow. Well...my car's right there.
in my head: It's seriously like 10 yards away.
serious cop: Well, you're just gonna have to stand here and wait for 10 minutes.
me: You want me to stand here and wait?
in my head: Wouldn't escorting me those 5 steps to my car be safer than making me stand here?
serious cop: Actually, you should probably wait up there. The dog gets a little fired up. Someone just got robbed here.
me: Oh no, I understand. Thank you.
in my head:
Sooo...because someone got robbed on that street, you are going to block off that street to look for the suspect, assuming that he is hiding out on that street and has not run away yet and is going to rob me 5 steps away from you and your devil dog while 12 cop cars are surrounding him? That makes sense.

So I walked away and stood there. Where was I supposed to go? I suppose I could have hung out in my apartment and come back to my car...later at night...when all the cops were gone and no one was out. Oooh PG County police. You just don't make any sense. They had their cars facing each other in some sort of football huddle. How is that going to help you find a criminal? How is that going to help you protect innocent civilians trying to stay safe? I bet they were standing in their football huddle, writing the upcoming crime report. They were there for a long time, so it should probably be a good one. Check your inboxes in the morning.

Anyways, I realized, hey...instead of whining about how ridiculous the police are, maybe I should just be thankful that it wasn't me who was robbed. I would have left work earlier if the wedding people hadn't stayed late...so that would have been me walking by and getting robbed.

Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if I got robbed in College Park...
robber (pointing gun at me): Give me your money!
me (calmly): Dude, I don't have any cash. You can have my Bank of America card, but it won't do you any good, cause I'm just gonna go home and cancel it.
robber: Dang, you're right. This isn't worth it. You can go.
me: Thanks. Think about what you're doing with your life. Do you really want to live like this?
robber: No, I don't. I don't wanna be just another crime report.
me: It's okay...you don't have to be.
robber: Hey...thanks.

So clearly, I am much more prepared than the police. Yeah, I know if I was actually mugged I'd probably just stand there and give him everything I had and then call the cops if I hadn't already been shot. I really am thankful that I got there when I did. But as thankful as I was standing there in the semi-cold, I still didn't want to be there all night.

So...I walked up to a new cop who was driving up and explained how I needed to get to my car and did not want to stand there and wait all night. After telling me that there was a robbery (yes, I understand), he said to hop in. He drove me up to my car and all was well. Actually, I'm pretty bad at recognizing my own car in the dark, so I made him read me the license plate.
him: LZR?
me: No, the one behind it.
him: Oh, s---. MRA?
me: Yeah, that's it. Thanks!
And then, just to add a little awkward Anna flair to the situation, I dropped a bunch of quarters on the seat and had to pick them up before I got out.

The End.

Is it weird that I'm so nonchalant about this? I probably won't be deterred from parking there again, as dangerous as I know this place is. I mean, que sera sera, you know?

Oh, and not that this was on my list before, but...ride in the back of a cop car: check.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

so deep right now

conversation I overheard in the lobby while waiting for the elevator:

guy: I heard this really great quote once that I absolutely love. "Ignorance of the trivial is bliss. Ignorance the supreme...is agony."
girl: (silence)
guy, in a whisper: ...yeaaah

I stared at the elevator and tried not to laugh. Also, the guy talked like Hansel from Zoolander.

I wasn't like every other kid, you know, who dreams about being an astronaut. I was always more interested in what bark was made out of on a tree. Richard Gere's a real hero of mine. Sting. Sting would be another person who's a hero. The music he's created over the years...I don't really listen to it, but the fact that he's making it, I respect that. I care desperately about what I do. Do I know what product I'm selling? No. Do I know what I'm doing today? No. But I'm here, and I'm gonna give it my best shot.

People are funny. Or maybe I'm just easily amused.

Monday, January 02, 2006

bye bye birdie

Like many families, we hang a wreath on our door at Christmastime. A few years ago, I opened the door, and a bird that had been attempting to make a nest in the wreath flew in. It hopped around in the Christmas tree, then I shooed it out of the house. I told my mom when she got home. The next day, it happened again, and I told my mom when she got home. This time, however, she didn't believe me. Sure, birds keep flying in the house every time I leave. I was intent on capturing the bird the next time, to prove to my mother that it really did happen. However, the bird didn't come back.

Tonight, Dana and I came home from a little thrifting, and when I opened the door, in flew a bird from the wreath! It was a pretty little Carolina Wren, like in the picture (My dad likes to birdwatch; I've picked up a few names.) At first, I wanted to keep it in the house to show my mom. However, she was probably gonna be gone all day. I started thinking of the havoc a little bird could wreak on a house in a few short hours. What if it flew into the basement and hid in some boxes and we never found it? It would die and rot, and we'd have a dead bird on the basement. What if it got crazy and started pecking at people? At the very least, it could poop on things. So, we decided to let the bird out.

plan A:
Open the door. Shoo the bird out the front door, since birds naturally like to be outside.
Plan A failed miserably. The bird flew into the kitchen and would not leave.

plan B:
Shoo the bird out the back door, using (for lack of a broom) a strainer and a frying pan.
The bird swirled around on the ceiling fan a bit and went into attack mode, with its beak open. We managed to get it into the family room.

plan C:
Clearly, a simple chase would not work. We would need a more complex strategy. Since the bird kept flying frantically into the bookshelf, we decided to block the bookshelf off with a sheet. We tried to hook it up to a nail and ended up plastering the wall with Scotch tape. Dana blocked off the kitchen door by holding up her coat. Anna chased the bird into the hallway with her coat. (I felt like a matador.) We figured once the bird saw the open front door, she would naturally go out.
The bird flew right up above the door, then up the stairs.

plan D:
Chase the bird out of all the bedrooms and close all the upstairs doors very quickly. Block off more downstairs doors with sheets and Scotch tape, and eventually the bird will have to fly downstairs. With all the rooms blocked off, she will be stuck, and when we are finished eating our pizza, we will let her out the front door. In the meantime, she can fly out the garage door if she wants to.
While eating our pizza, we hear a noise in the kitchen. How did she get in there?? The kitchen was a sheeted area! That little bugger must have walked down the stairs and crept underneath the sheet to the living room! Dana: "This is war."

plan E:
Fortify the bottom of the sheets with coats, briefcases, and chairs. Move sheets so that the bird is now blocked into the living room and dining room and can exit through the back door.
Bird was content to chill in the Christmas tree. Anna and Dana called a temporary truce to finish their pizza.

plan F:
Anna and Dana each hold up one end of a sheet. Approach the Christmas tree, surrounding the bird. Corner bird into the doorway, forcing her into the dining room.

After an hour and a half of long and grueling battle, planning tactics, Scotch tape usage, and a little bit of prancing around holding a large, flowered sheet, plan F proved successful! The bird retreated into the dining room, and out the open back door! The house was a wreck. There was a little bird poop on the wall, some stale bread crumbs and tortilla chips that I had attempted to use as bird food on the floor, and poly-cotton blended barricades billowing in each doorway. We were exhausted, but victorious. I only wish I had taken pictures.

After tonight, I think Lola would be a good name for the bird, if Dana says yes.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

oh hey 2006

Well, my memory is not good enough to make a Best of 2005...so I'll just make a Best of New Year's Eve 2005. Enjoy.

best quote (so what if you already heard it):
"You gonna fake it tonight? Ain't nothing wrong with that."
~the checkout guy at Safeway, as he scanned my sparkling cider

huh of the day:
deer crossing the street on campus...and they were using the crosswalk, promise

RNOTM of the night:
the rolling-down-Federal-Hill races of 2004

best basketball player moment:
Will Bowers requested that we bring back the whiteboard Would You Rather's. He really liked answering them. John also claims that Bowers was inviting me over when he said, "we're in 2313." That was kind of an odd statement. I think I responded with something clever like, "well...we're in 2301."

best date:
Lindsey

best ride home on the light rail:
hands down









oh, and shoutout to all my stalkers in the Department of Homeland Security, now that I know you exist