This entry is strictly for the men: Guys, let's talk football.
Actually ladies, I wanted to talk about this new type of underwear I found. I was at Wal-Mart late last week when I found Fruit of the loom boyshort undies. They fit well, don’t ride up or down, and are tag-less. I had no idea how much I would enjoy tagless undies and t-shirts.
Ladies, these undies make it convenient to attach, erm, luggage to them when your Aunt Flo is visiting. These undies are also low enough that when you bend at the waist in Jeans you don’t make everyone aware of your, erm, luggage rack.
Ladies, the wedding planning carries on apace. I have the Save the Date cards ready to go. Kat and my mom have graciously offered to help assemble them and send them out. I’m so grateful that I have people like that near me. (Especially people who lend me their cars for the week – thanks, Kat!)
I shocked the bus driver by saying good morning to him. He must not be used to people talking to him.
I sat behind a large lady. She was easily 6'5", 400 lbs. She wasn't scared that I said hi and smiled. As I looked at her face from the seat behind, I noticed that she had stubble. Odd, but hey, she's 6'5". Maybe she had a glandular problem, who was I to judge?
She dialed her cell phone, and in the bosso profundo voice of Barry White, she said "Hey Carl, I'm almost there. Did you remember to go to the store"
Riding in the bus with transvestites. Just one more perk of living in Vegas.
Saturday was reserved for training new teachers on the NSAT. Productive, but ho-hum.
Sunday was very busy. Mom invited me to attend church with her. I have never been to a Baptist church. She swore that I would not have to handle snakes (on my first visit) nor would the welcome committee assault me with a mum-infested visitor corsage.
To sum up my limited experience with the Baptist Church: they love Power Point.
During the sermon (at least, I think it was the sermon. It was the only part that didn’t involve a guitar or back-up singers) the pastor punctuated his homily with power point slides on the Jumbotrons (yes, there was a plurality of jumbotronicity). The choir used the Jumbotron to flash power point slides that showed the lyrics to the songs (all were a variation on this theme: “I love Jesus. Jesus loves me; we’re a happy family”)
The seats were comfortable, and the choir was good. They were certainly better with their rock-band backup than my church choir is with good old Myrna on the organ.
I see why the church is so popular with people. It didn't strike a chord with me, but to each his own. The most important part of the experience was that I got to spend time with my mom, something that I haven’t been doing of late.
After church, we went to Coco’s for lunch. Big mistake. That place really sucks.
Mom dropped me off at the office, and I taught from 1:00 to 8:30, and waited until 10:15 for Dim to pick me up. He was busy with a client. I passed the time finishing my book, The Rule of Four.
The book was so-so. I believe that it was overhyped to me by the internet fairies at Amazon.com. Since I liked The Da Vinci code Amazon recommended this book to me.
I can’t say that it’s bad, it’s a nice coming of age tale peppered with intrigue and half-hearted suspense. It’s set at Princeton University. The best part of reading the book is hearing the names of places that Terrence and Jenny describe in their blogs (the authors have the same cultic adoration of Hoagie Haven that Terrence does.) Terrence, you’ll have to explain the concept of dining clubs and the bicker process. Were you a student when the Nude Olympics was still legal? Jenny – what’s the WaWa?
Yesterday was spent teaching, and poor Dim has been up all night prepping something for a client today. I’m off to brew him some coffee…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6122552/
Cruel, cruel world! O Laundry Dryer, please be generous!
I don't often discuss politics on my blog, but this article pissed me off big time:
This ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6099899/site/newsweek/ ) article from Newsweek questions why Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam, Phyllis, whatever) was re-routed to Bangor on his DC flight. Here's the thing that gets my blood boiling:
Records show that since 1999, he has visited the United States at least 19 times, most recently last May, when he traveled to Washington and met with top Bush administration officials, including U.S. foreign-aid chief Andrew Natsios; Jim Towey, chief of the White House office for "faith based" programs, and a Treasury official hunting terrorist financiers."
WTF is soft intelligence?
I hope Kerry will be better at this than W. Next, they'll be arresting nuns and cute babies.
Because my teaching schedule has been so busy lately, I have had to resort to making appointments in Outlook to spend evenings with Dimitri. The last date night kinda fizzled. I think we ate El Pollo Loco and sat in front of the television.
Tonight's date night will be a lot of fun. I have been the only one who knows about the plans for the evening.
Until now.
If Dim reads this entry, he will know that we will be going to dinner at the MGM and seeing Annie Lennox in concert with Sting. Woo hoo! Three cheers for date night!
p.s.- mom, I'd love to go to church with you this sunday, but I don't have your phone number. Can you email it to me?
Mr. Stingy, there’s a new sheriff in town.
Nelson the Bug Man has visited the house, and today marks the beginning of his monthly visits to Dodge City.
Your days are numbered, El Stingo.
Oh, and you nasty little earwigs that show up in the downstairs shower, you had better hightail it outta here too.
The bus isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Actually, I didn't think it would be that bad, but I was pleasantly surprised at how clean and efficient the whole process was. (Mmmmm...clean...not smelling like wet sheep.....) My only complaint is the man in front of me smelled like fried chicken.
What strikes me, though, is the kindness of people in my life. People say Vegas is a horrible town full of naked drunken reprobates. While that may be true of a few people, (Tom, I’m looking in your direction) when I think about it, there has never been a time when I’ve been stranded on the side of the road that some nice stranger hasn’t pulled over to offer help. I’ve had flat tires, dead batteries, stalled cars, and a host of other problems, and every single time someone (or a few someones) has pulled over to help a total stranger.
As soon as my students find out that I’m carless, they all offer me rides and give me their work schedules so I know when they are available to drive me around. Additionally, Kat IMs me last night letting me know I can borrow her car while she’s out of town.
Wow. That’s really impressive. Vegas is full of good people.
…and one fewer operable VW.
Ah, me.
When it rains, it pours.
I haven't been blogging because I have been way too busy. It's fall hell again, and I'm teaching quite a bit. My blogging will probably be spotty for another two weeks or so. Send complaints to: thisisfreewhatdoyouexpect@levedy.com
My days go from bad to worse. This morning was my first chance in weeks to clean anything in the house. I mopped, I thought about vacuuming, I scrubbed, I thought about vacuuming some more, and I washed every last scrap of clothing in the house. I have (well, had, but I'll get there) this great woolly duster thing. It came from Target and didn't cost me much, so I figured the fibers were some genetically modified vinyl (now made with Sheepitol - for that woolly fresh texture!) and not the real sheepy thing. How wrong I was.
I went to the sink to rinse off said duster. Baaaaaaad idea. Bad on the scale of letting an egg rot in your house. Bad on the scale of working in a Limburger factory. Bad on the scale of the Augean stables. Wet dog smell has nothing on wet remains-of-sheep smell.
The house still reeks, twelve hours later. It's never going to leave my nostrils.
Why did I have so much time to stink up the house you ask? Easy! My car died this weekend. My car Shuffled Off To Buffalo on Saturday in the middle of Sahara Boulevard (one of the biggest streets in Vegas.) I was able to pull over to the right, hitch a ride from a Good Samaritan to a shopping center to a pay phone (what a day to forget my cell phone at home!), and walk to my mother-in-law's house to call a tow truck (Speaking of Herculean labors, try getting a tow truck at 5:45 on a Saturday evening. I'd rather muck out stables).
A nice AAA guy towed the car to the VW Dealership, where it will continue to sit while I decide if I can/want to spend $3000 to fix a $4000 car. Apparently, snapping a timing belt is akin to stabbing someone in the jugular. It's remotely possible that the person will survive, but highly unlikely. You'd have better odds of winning the lottery...
...which brings me to the next disappointment. As part of the Greek Festival fundraiser, the church sold raffle tickets to win a new car (a Mercedes, woo hoo). The VW busts on Saturday, and the drawing for the Mercedes was Sunday. If fate liked me, I could have won the car and all would be fixed. So did I win the car? Noooooo. The planets have aligned in a "let's really mess with Jennifer's life" position. (I believe that the stars take on the form of a human fist, with only the middle finger raised.)
The only bright spot in the past few days was the $9.00 I found in the dryer. Okay, so the $9 was from my own jeans pocket, but hey! It's $9.00. Now I can start saving for a new car.
Until then, it looks like I'll be depending on a combination of Dimitri and CAT buses for a while. Hey, maybe my days will get a little better: maybe I'll slip on something and end up in traction.
Banana anyone?
Last night I went to the first meeting of a faux finishing class that the Community College offered as part of its continuing education catalog (also known as: classes for people who have nothing better to do in the evenings).
I had a blast. I’m so excited to go to the next class. I’m going to learn how to so colorwashes, striping, marbling, plastering (including Venetian plastering) trompe l’oil bricking and tiling, and rag rolling. I’m so excited. I can’t wait to go to Lowe’s and get all of my stuff.
I warned Dimitri that I would want to do another room once the class is done. (Remember how much fun I had redoing my guest room?) I’m thinking that I might call on Kat and Lindsey to help me with another room, maybe the guest bathroom or my book room (or the loft, or the upstairs bathrooms… hell, maybe I’ll want to do all of it)
Today was spent house hunting with my mother-in-law-to-be (found nothing we were looking for – poo.) and tutoring two children, one of whom was 30 minutes late and didn’t apologize for it-grrrrr.
You probably have something better to do with your time, but I doubt it.
Yeti Pentathalon - Click English, Then Pentathalon
The Latin class was fun. The professor is funny. Ther's something amusing about a Latin professor who teaches in Birkenstocks and Hawaiian shirts.
Unfortunately, I managed to appear as the know-it-all in class. I didn't mean to do it! Really! As a full-time student, I HATED the know-it-all in class, the one who had to answer all questions.
It really wasn't intentional. He was asking questions about English Grammar that were followed by long painful silenced. (They weren't difficult grammar questions! Stuff like "What's a demonstrative pronoun, and can it be used as an adkective as well as a pronoun?")(This/These/That/Those; yes, as in these books) No one else was answering, or even trying, so I ended up answering all of the grammar questions. Drat! Now no one in class will like me (and that's so important to me at this stage in the game.
Tutored twice yesterday, and will tutor twice today, not counting the student that wanted a last-minute session and then no-showed. I better finish my homework, Latin class meets tomorrow too!