25 things about me

Yes, I've been tagged to do this about a bjillion times on facebook. So I wimped out and will post it here, too, for my nightly post.

1. In the championships of freshman regionals in basketball, I hit a 3-pointer at the first quarter buzzer, I lost a contact (a woman in the top row of the stands saw it and came running onto the floor to pick it up for me), and I fouled out. We lost, but after that craziness, I was impressed with my showing.

2. The first time I had shrimp scampi was in Lake Lure, N.C., in a fancy restaurant where my sister fell asleep at the table. I was nine.

3. I sometimes wonder if I would have had a better experience playing volleyball rather than soccer in high school. But then I wonder if my knees would have gone out earlier than they did because of the additional jumping.

4. Hal generally cooks and I generally do the dishes. It’s better for everyone that way.

5. When I was a kid, we would sometimes scatter nails and screws in the street to see if we could make someone’s tire explode. We never did see one.

6. I met my sophomore roommate in French class first semester of freshman year. We bonded because our teacher seemed terrifying. Then we realized how awesome she was and stuck with her for several semesters. When we moved in, Heather wouldn’t say a cuss word. Halfway through the year, she called someone the b-word, and I knew I had ruined her.

7. I wrote a feature story involving an interview with an adult film actress. A website picked it up and changed the title to “Life as a porn star.” Which, with my byline directly underneath it, made ME look like the porn star.

8. When I was little, I thought my uncle Walt sold anvils door to door. He obviously did not, I don’t know why I thought that, but I always worried about his back.

9. I always wanted to be a camp counselor. For the past five summers, I have kind of been one, although we call it a “summer program” and it’s at UK, not at a camp. And my fellow counselors and I have a great time together, and we’ve only found one dead body (truth).

10. I was observed 18 times during my first year of teaching. 17 of those were by Mrs. Meyerrose, who taught me English for 3 years while I was in high school.

11. When my siblings are together, we speak with a different cadence. I also catch myself making the same faces as my siblings, especially my brother Donnie, even when we’re not together.

12. I am lucky to still have so many friends who I’ve known for most of my life.

13. My freshman year of high school, one of the junior boys, a friend of mine being a dork, asked my mom (a teacher at the school) what size bra I wore. She told him we were going bra shopping for Homecoming after school (we were) and she could tell him tomorrow (she didn’t).

14. My friend Joanna and I pushed my brother Donnie down our front yard hill while playing King of the Mountain. He took a wrong turn and cracked his head open on the concrete stairs. Any hopes I had of being a vet left then, as I couldn’t handle the blood.

15. I used to shoot basketball for hours. Most of the time, I would be making up and talking through fictional stories while I shot around. My neighbors probably thought I was crazy, but I have loved writing/storytelling for as long as I can remember.

16. Speaking of storytelling, I come from a great bunch of good storytellers. I regret that my grandpa Meihaus got rid of his writings, because I would have loved to read them. But we do have all my great-grandfather Tipton’s (my Pa-Pa’s) sermons (he was a minister).

17. My favorite and most used soccer move was an outside Maradona. Diego Maradona, whom the move is named after, was addicted to cocaine. That is not why it’s my favorite move.

18. When my sister’s volleyball team, which was supposed to be in a rebuilding year, walked into the gym for the state finals, I burst into tears.

19.Growing up, we cleaned the kitchen to “Inna Gadda Da Vida,” we blasted “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Taking Care of Business.” My father sang the paratrooper theme “Blood on the Risers” to us, and he always sang “That’s Amore” to me. I remember watching The Beatles Anthology with my dad when I was in the 8th grade and it was on TV for the first time.

20. I interviewed my mom for a column about how Stacie’s mom has got it going on.

21. I call my brother Stephen “Steve-o,” I call my brother Donnie “D.” Stephen and I look alike. He is one good-looking kid.

22. If you haven’t guessed by now, my family is the coolest.

23. I’m so much happier in grad school than I was in law school.

24. I loved working for the Kernel and I love my friends I met there. So many silly memories! I do wish we would have claimed just one Pacemaker while I was there, though (we were finalists three times).

25. Hal and I have lots of traveling to do this year. I can’t wait.

Beeps and bells and whistles and annoying songs

Tomorrow Hal and I are going to the first birthday party of one of my classmates' daughters.

Tonight, we headed out to Target to look for Arin's birthday present. We were so clueless. I called my mother to ask what you get a 1 year old. She laughed and told us to look in the education baby aisle and find something.

So we did. The first thing we found was this cube-shaped thing that was about 8 kinds of awesome. It had wires with beads on it. It had cut out shapes and blocks to put in the shapes. It had numbers and a phone and a piano and a clock. It was sweet. So we picked it up.

It started blinking and playing a song.

Oh, that's cute! we thought, as we looked down the rest of the aisle.

I turned.

It started blinking and played the same song.

Interactive! How great for a one year old.

I leaned over to look at another toy.

It started blinking and played the same song.

What am I doing to make this blink?!

I turned to Hal.

It started blinking and playing the same song.

"Why does this keep making noise?!" I asked him.

He pulled on one of the wires that held the bead things.

It started blinking and playing the same song.

"That must be it!" he announced triumphantly. "You have to pull the wire thing."

I handed the cube to him.

It started blinking and played the same song.

"I didn't touch the wire!" I told him.

"You must have touched the wire," he responded. To illustrate, he pulled on the wire.

Nothing.

"Wait -- what?" he asked the cube. He brought it eye-level, peering at the words on the wrapping.

It started blinking and played the same song.

Hal, frustrated, went and put the cube down on the shelf. I followed. "But it's interactive! It's got shapes and letters and numbers!"

"It keeps playing the same song!" he replied.

"We need a Mom," I whined, looking around for an expert on this baby thing.

I leaned over and scooted the cube.

Nothing.

"It's off," said Hal.

"Is it?" I asked. I tried to push a number button.

Nothing.

I grabbed the sides and started to lift.

It blinked and started playing the same song.

We looked at each other.

We bought a different present.

One that doesn't blink or play songs.

Annabelle Lee: A story of love and plagairism

For those of you who don't know me very well, I can be a huge procrastinator or slacker. Especially in high school, I was very lax about reading my homework. Why this is, I don't know, because I love to read. Teaching high school was sometimes problematic because I had to read all of the stories and books I never read when I was a freshman.

There was one time when this really came to bite me in the butt. Since it's such a silly story, I will recount it here.

When I was a freshman in high school, I dated a junior boy. He is a very nice guy and we are friends to this day.

But when we were dating, he was a hopeless romantic and often gave me notes and poetry and other things. Half the time, he would jot down song lyrics and present me with them.

The song lyrics I usually could pick out because they were often ripped off of well-known sappy love songs or popular songs.

The poetry, however, was not always that easy to pick out.

Case in point: One day he presented me with a very long poem.

It started:
"It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Stacie"

And went on (and on) from there.

So I'm reading this poem. And I'm getting more and more confused because, not only is it a little dark, but it also is off a beat or two. I mean, I guess it was good, but that rhythm problem was kind of annoying. Being a student of junior high angsty poems, the darkness wasn't nearly as problematic (even though I appeared to die at the end). I soon forgot about the rhythmically-challenged poem.

Fast forward two years. I am now a junior. I walk into my Acc. English class and sit at my desk. I flip open the tome of American literature that we used for junior year and began to quickly scan the poems we were assigned the night before.

Why does this seem so familiar? I thought to myself as I read this incredibly depressing Edgar Allen Poe piece. "I was a child and she was a child,/In this kingdom by the sea." Where have I heard this before?

Oh. My. God.

"OH MY GOD!" I exclaimed out loud to everyone in my English class. My teacher, startled but non-plussed, looked at me as I buried my head in my book and started cracking up. The class paused. My face burned red. Tears of laughter were swimming in my eyes.

"Jarrod said he wrote this," I gasped, laughing. "Changed Annabelle Lee to Stacie. That's why the rhythm was off. Oh my God!"

The class, especially since everyone including my teacher knew Jarrod, started cracking up, and my English teacher even threw back her head and had a hearty chuckle.

As seniors a year later, we recounted for our English teacher (the same one) our favorite memories from English class over the last three years (she taught us sophomore through senior year).

The plagiarism of "Annabelle Lee" came up quite a few times.

Snow Day

Today, we woke up to this:



School was delayed until noon and then canceled. Although Hal works at the university, he is not "essential" and therefore, since he is not a maintenance person or a dorm cafeteria worker, he was able to stay home. We spent a lot of the day being lazy and we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and Mrs. Grass soup for lunch (yum!).

Not all of us were lazy, however. Poor Layla...





Layla did an excellent job in the "backyard," running around in snow that was up to her chest!

Actually...she also spent plenty of time being lazy. Here she is UNDER the covers on the bed:



(We need to trim her nails!)

After lounging around for most of the day, Hal decided he had had enough of indoor stuff. We knew we couldn't get the car out (people were spinning their wheels in the parking lot all day), but we live relatively close to some restaurants and stores. So he decided we should walk to dinner.

Here he is, in all his walking to dinner glory (looking like the Unabomber):



And walk we did.

We set off for Chili's, which is the closest restaurant (besides McDonald's and Pizza Hut) to our townhouse. We walked the 15 minutes, our glasses fogging up, my nose getting colder and colder. After a couple of minutes, I said, "Are you sure this place is open?" Hal, indeed, was not sure, and I told him that I was going to be very angry (I said pissed) if we walked all the way there and it was closed. So he called the place and they were indeed open.

We had a delightful dinner of chicken tacos and walked home. At times I took off my glasses becuase they were so foggy. Then I came to a large dark spot in the sidewalk (this particular stretch was pretty clear). I gingerly stuck my foot out and tested it.

"Is this a large gaping hole?" I asked.

Hal laughed. "That is a manhole cover."

I put my glasses back on.

Tomorrow we go back to the grind, but it's always nice to have a SNOW DAY!

CLOSED

We are CLOSED.

(Hopefully this won't impede the signing off of the thesis. Sigh.)

Snow Delay

We are waiting patiently to see if our snow closing extends beyond noon. (My prof, good for her!, has already sent an email saying she'll have class if school is open. I don't mind going to class at all.)

If not, I do not look forward to walking to the bus.

The White Death is Upon Us

It's hereeeeeee.

The White Death.

SNOW.

You would think the world is ending. The Cincinnati Enquirer proclaims that the ice storm may be THE. WORST. EVER. Bloomington's paper has released some sort of statement from the police about traveling on certain roads (but we can't read it because their website is subscription only -- we can only see that the police have released some statement tantamount to our safety). The high school is off for TWO days in a row (unbelievable!) and apparently my county is closed tomorrow.

There is always a good snowfall every year. But it creates mass chaos from people who have, year after year, no idea how to deal with the snow. Luckily, Bloomington is small enough that Hal doesn't have to drive far for work. There are few hills in town and no expressways. So that's good.

Mrs. Kyle, the Latin teacher at my high school, must have overdone herself with her snow dance.