Bad Haiku Friday: Visiting Friends and Visiting Haiku-er

Visiting old friends
Promises of fun and laughs
And probably wine

Special Guest Star Haiku: Hal's Haiku Friday
(Hal busted this out as I was sitting here.)

Hal took the day off
But he has errands to do
May as well have worked

HUGE Saturday night

Today, my college friend Emily is coming to visit me!

Hal is in Lexington for Palm Sunday because he likes to sing with the choir for this holiday. I was telling Embo about it and suggested that she come and hang out with me. And she said YES! :)

Embo and I are a grade apart but only about a month apart in birthdays. When I was a junior in college and she was a sophomore, most of our other friends were 21 (or had IDs that said they were) and we were only 20. So most weekends, we would find ourselves watching movies and eating ice cream while everyone else was out and about in establishments that were 21 and up.

And there weren't many chick flicks in our movie watching. We watched Requiem for a Dream, Strictly Ballroom (as part of our Baz Luhrman night, ha!), State and Main, Lolita, etc. etc. etc. We watched all sorts of things that most young women don't normally watch. We would pick up Cold Stone and head back to my house and watch away. Oftentimes she would spend the night.

If you need to find us tonight, we will be in sugar comas, watching some movies. Just like college.

Kyle is a hater

Even though dtjunkie apparently doubts my ability to make a post a day for November, here is Sunday's post.

The weekend was a dizzying array of travel and friends. Today we went to breakfast with my friend Emily, who has recently returned to Louisville after a couple of years being a reporter out in California. She is now at the Courier Journal, which means among other things, that she and I have to get used to being on the same time zone. It was great when she was three hours behind me and I was not sleeping -- these days she goes to bed at a reasonable hour, which is to say, before me.

After breakfast Hal and I drove to NKy where I went to the baby shower for a very old friend. Kristen has been one of my greatest friends since grade school and I was so happy to be able to attend the baby shower for Ava. Kristen looks so fabulous and the baby is going to be one of the best-dressed kids around. I can't wait to meet Ava when she makes an appearance! It was also fun to spend some time with some old friends that I don't get to see very often.

We ate dinner with my grandparents and drove back to Bloomington in the dark and cold. I returned to several emails from my students with questions about their last assignment, due Wednesday, or the test they have tomorrow.

After a crazy and fun weekend, I'm exhausted and ready to go to bed! I leave you with a photo from Saturday night. My college roommates and I smile while sharing many moments of silliness and laughter -- which is pretty much the way it always was. From L-R, Amanda, Sarah, me, and Anne.

Note

This might say Sunday, but I'm still living Saturday night, so I'm counting it for the Saturday post.

Hal and I just got finished with a fun-filled night with my old roommates from college and their husbands. We are in Louisville and just listened to an hour of REALLY BAD karaoke.

We all ate dinner together and then went to a pub to watch the UK football game and remember the good times of college. At some point in time I will recount some of the stories of living in Fort Conn, as we called our house. Now, though, I'm in my old roommate's house and sleepy. So there will be more later!

In!

I received a wonderful phone call this morning from a higher up in my department letting me know that I was accepted to the PhD program! She said she knew I was nervous about it and she wanted me to know the decision. I was so happy she called and so happy that the news was good news!

So thanks for all of your thoughts and well-wishes! I haven't gotten the official letter yet, but I'm assuming the call from the higher up is official enough.

Now, my circle of Kernel friends often send out fake news stories when something cool happens to one of us. I was lucky to get my own story today. From my friend Derek, my fake news story is as follows (note: I took out my last name b/c I'm worried about googlers):

INDIANA --- The artist formerly known as Stacie M. is about to become way smarter than you.

M., 26, referred to in some circles as Stacie J., was accepted this week into Indiana University's doctorate of mass communication program, said spokeswoman Emily Hagedorn.

"This means she will be in school for four more years, I think," said Hagedorn, who isn't too fond of specifics. M., a University of Kentucky graduate and veteran reporter/editor at the Kentucky Kernel, will use her newfound education to teach journalism at a university.

Friends of M. rejoiced.

"If I ever was crazy enough to go and get my doctorate I'd have her as my professor," said UK classmate and Kernelite Sara Cunningham. "She was probably better than any of my master's degree teachers." Except Mike Farrell, she later added.

M. phoned Hagedorn and another Kernelite, Andrea Uhde, to share the news. M. will only be friends with you if you worked at the Kernel.

There was a time when M. was hellbent on becoming a lawyer. She even spent a year at Chase Law School at Northern Kentucky University. Now she's hellbent on becoming a doctor of journalism, just like Hunter S. Thompson. (Although his was honorary.)

"I remember her studying and going crazy about the LSAT --- I think that was her," said Kernelite Derek Poore. "She was stressed something fierce. But she was never much for laws and rules and stuff."

M. lives in Bloomington with husband Hal and dog Layla. She attended St. Henry High School "somewhere in Northern Kentucky," the concise Hagedorn said.

John F. Kennedy, president of the United States in the 1960s, said M.'s path was an honorable one. In a written statement, Kennedy began: " 'There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,' wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities. And his words are equally true today. He did not refer to towers or to campuses. He admired the splendid beauty of a university, because it was, he said, 'a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.' "

Vegetable

Daily Newsie talked about a moment of hilarity that she witnessed today when a woman declared, while standing at a monkey exhibit, "This monkey's boring. We're going to McDonald's." This brought back a memory.

In the summer of 2003, I lived in southwest Florida while interning at a newspaper.

While in Florida, I met many wonderful people. One of the places we congregated at was a restaurant called Buffalo Chips. It had good wings and cheap drinks, and it was all-ages for those of us who weren't yet 21 and therefore couldn't go to a traditional bar.

One of the first nights we were there, several of us were sitting at a table directly in front of a family of four, parents and two young kids. This family appeared to be eating dinner. It was 11 p.m.

I did think it was a little weird that they had their very young children out eating dinner at 11 p.m., but Bonita has a lot of tourists, and it's possible they were on some weird vacation schedule.

While sitting there, my friend Arron and I overheard the mother loudly scold her child.

"Put down that celery and eat your dinner!"

Arron and I looked at each other and cracked up.

Heaven forbid the child have a vegetable.

The goat

This weekend, I was unceremoniously attacked by a goat.

Hal and I traveled to St. Louis for a wedding this weekend. While there, we spent some time at Grant's Farm with several of our friends (Hal's college friends). Grant's Farm is a really cool place, and I highly recommend it if you happen to be in the area. We were impressed with the park and the staff and really left with the sense that the animals were very well-taken care of.

We got to run around and see the animals and they also had opportunities to feed several of the animals. We fed the camels and the alpaca.

And the goat.

I have a vague memory that once when I was very young I went to the Cincinnati Zoo and was much loved by a goat in the petting zoo who smelled some sort of yumminess on a napkin or tissue in my pants pocket. The goat followed me around trying to get in my pockets, which was possibly a traumatizing incident -- if I didn't make it up.

At Grant's Farm, you could pay $1 to buy a small bottle of milk to feed the goats. Then you could wade into a pen of goats who were conditioned to know that they could get FOOD from these people.



I was enjoying feeding my white goat, who was being very polite, when a little gray goat (you can see him here at the bottom of the picture), decided I wasn't sharing enough and took his horned little head and rammed it right into my shin! Hal took this shot, which is as close to an action shot as you can get of the little goat ramming me. I even LOOK startled in this picture.

Little gray goat (perhaps I have a different name for him in my head) did this to me several times. "I. Want. Food!" *BUMP* "Give. Me. Food." *BUMP*

When I see an animal using its forehead to attack me when there are numerous children much smaller than me running around, I think of my grandmother consoling me after Hal and I accidentally road-killed a groundhog. Very kindly, she patted my hand and said, "It's okay. It wasn't very smart." So, there, little gray goat, you are NOT VERY SMART. Stop hitting me with the part of your body that houses your BRAIN. Do goats have brains? If the little gray goat did have a brain, he could have seen that there were many little children running around with bottles of milk to share. Perhaps he just wanted to share that moment with me.

Then!

The white goat, just like the white stallion Prince Charming would ride, came to my rescue. It turned around to the little gray goat and headbutted it right in the side!

After that, the little gray goat was off to find more willing food dispensers. I was able to exit the pen unscathed. Luckily, the little gray goat was not big and didn't hurt me at all (kudos to Grant's Farm people for only keeping small and small-horned goats in the pen -- they are harmless, although perhaps a little startling).

My army brother responded to this story by telling me that he ate goat for lunch while "working."

I can only hope it was a little gray goat.

Donnie time! Weekend 1

As you all know, my brother Donnie came home for leave from the army from August 14-26. We spent that first Saturday night at one of Donnie's favorite places -- the Cincinnati Reds game! In the picture above, Donnie rides the water taxi from Newport to Cincinnati. We ate dinner at Hofbrauhaus.
Jennie and Pete smile on the Water Taxi.

My cousin Kaysie had knee surgery this summer. When we got off the water taxi, which you can see in the first picture, Kaysie looked horrified at the amount of steps she was going to have to climb. Donnie put her on his back and carried her up these steps as well as the steps into the stadium with what seemed like no effort. He asked her what she weighed, and I won't tell you here, but it was about what he is normally carrying in equipment in the field.

A big group of people came to the game. Here are several of my family members -- Aunt Kim and Aunt Tami and Kaysie are in the front, and Uncle Walt (Kim's husband) and my cousins Kayla, Carlie, and Ryan are in the back row.

My cousin Kayla is my sister's roommate this year at UK. Here the two roomies smile in a Pete sandwich.Family friend Sean and then my cousins Joey and Jacob look at the camera.

Donnie and his friends Brian and Kyle have known each other for a long time.

Cincinnati is pretty from the safety of the stadium -- too bad the team was terrible that night!

The Windy City: a whirlwind trip in pictures

I was going to name this "Chi-Town," but that put in terrible images of the Chi Squares I did last week. All 10 million of them.

So, I renamed this the Windy City, even though that nickname was a misnomer for Chicago this weekend.

The girls and I headed to Chicago for Anne's bachelorette party.

Anne is getting married on May 17 and we were able to head to Chicago because Anne's cousin Megan has a house in a downtown area. I know almost nothing about Chicago because I had only previously been there once but we were excited to get up there. We had shopping on the agenda as well as pizza and various other ideas.

On the way up in the car, Anne decided to tell us that she had a surprise for us. Cousin Megan was able to score Cubs tickets for all of us in the luxury box of the firm her husband works in. So we had that to look forward to on Saturday!

Friday night was spent gorging ourselves on pizza and playing one of the greatest of all games -- American Idol on the XBox. Which basically means Karaoke.

Anne sings and Amanda celebrates her platinum status after she belts out Elton John's "Tiny Dancer." I sang all sorts of things, including "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, which I didn't know had any other words but "I can't get no satisfaction, though I try," etc. However, it does have other lyrics, they're just ridiculous.

Saturday was the Cubs game at Wrigley! LtoRL Dawn (Anne's sister), Anne, Amanda, Megan, Cousin Megan, and me. The Cubs won 9-7 and it was a fun game -- and excitingly different from the Reds' games, where no one really cheers. Those Cubs fans were all pumped up.

That afternoon we shopped and that night we went to dinner at Lux Bar, where we had some mini burgers (one of mine was a mini-fillet mignon) and the above martinis. There we also gave Anne some gifts.



Anne models her assorted bachelorette wear. Notice that she doesn't have on anything scandalous -- she is not that kind of girl. We were low key.


After dinner, we headed out to a local bar where we danced to all sorts of crazy songs (I don't have those pictures on my camera) til the wee hours. Above are two from the club -- the top is Megan, Amanda and I and the bottom is Amanda and I.

It was a very packed weekend, and I'm still exhausted from it! The next thing on the wedding itinerary is Anne's Shower Redux, which was rescheduled after the first shower was terminated by the blizzard of 2008. If it snows on April 19, we are going to discuss the wedding. :)