Until the Stars Are All Alight

Canada pics, if anyone's interested: MY GODDAUGHTER IS SO ADORABLE!


So I texted April to let her know about my Mary Kay party (which is next Tuesday at my house, should you care to join us, call me and we'll talk details), and when she texted me back she asked how old I am--an odd question, I thought. (Note that the following refers to text messages, so sometimes the same person goes twice in a row.)

S (me): 21. Why?
April: My friend was wondering.
S: Oh...are we talking a cute, straight, single guy friend?
A: He wants to meet you. He asked about you when you sent me that message.
S: What's his name and how old is he?
A: He raised his hand and said "that's me!"
A: His name is Brandon and he's 24.
S: Okay...I can't come over tonight but give him my number, I'm free the rest of the evenings this week.
A: Okay.

*a few moments of squeeing and such later*

S: Is he in your MySpace friends?
A: No.
S: Aw, darn, I thought I would get to snoop a little.
A: Can you send us a picture? Our internet's down.
A: *sends a pic while I'm typing my reply*
S: Sure, if he goes first.
A: I sent you a pic of him.
S: *pic of self* Sorry, I got that right after I sent my message.
A: He says he'll call you Wednesday and you can go out Thursday.


"Wednesday" is TOMORROW.

And folks, the man is CUTE. OMFG. This is promising.

I have to leave in the morning. ;_;

I'll be home...Sunday sometime? I guess? Jennifer's picking me up at the airport and I'm staying with her overnight before I drive home. 4.5 hours on plane + 2.5 hour layover + 5 hour drive = TOO MUCH.

So if Jennifer is cool with it my plan is to sleep in Sunday and leave at or before 2. That gets me in MH around 6 or 7. Ish. When I drive alone I don't stop a lot, lol.

Must pack. *sigh*

Though I'm coming home with a new DreamCast (since my old one...died...), some new clothes and jewelry, (finally) wallet-sized pics of Esme so I can show her off with the other kids, and lots of digital pics of Esme. LAWL.

I might be getting Photoshop. Hopefully. Because now I WANTS IT. *pokes Katchan* I'm going to finish my picture after I finish packing/Justin gets off the desktop, and I shall post it on DA. ^_^

And a tablet. I NEEEEEEEEEED A TABLET ZOMGWTFBBQ!!

Apparently my bank has freaked out. I used my debit card today and suddenly I can't log in to balance my checkbook. FTW? Not sure if I mis-typed my password too many times or if they're thinking my card got stolen since I used it in Canada. (Nico, am I right in thinking that the same thing happened to you the first time you went to Chicago with this bank?) So grr. Will have to handle that once I land in Minneapolis and can use my phone again. Grr. Grr. Grr.

Aside to Shelly: I was going to work on chapter on the plane up but due to unforeseen circumstances (the seats were angled in such a way that I couldn't open my laptop to where I could SEE THE SCREEN O_O) I couldn't. *cries* But I might tomorrow night at Jen's if she's all wanting to go to bed early. Or maybe Sunday if I get back at such a time that I can't hang with Nico.

We have to leave @ like 5:30. AM. *headdesk*

BTW, folks, I'm in Canada. Nothing exciting has happened yet.

Sat with a hot black med student on the plane but unfortunately his sister was sitting between us. And I think I might have caught her cold. Maybe. The sniffles are fading but I'm not sure if that's the cold going away or me getting used to the cat. (FERAL! Who happens to look like the I Can Has Cheezburger cat. You know, this one.)

I <3 flying. I hate security. I probably would have taken Kat's advice about comfortable shoes if I had remembered that I was going to have to TAKE THEM OFF. I ended up flashing my unshaven legs to the people going through security with me (which, as Katchan pointed out, means I flashed them internationally. Gee thanks.).

I think we're going out today. I need to switch my $$$ to...$$$. Ha. And in case you're wondering, we needed cash at the airport and I switched a $20 for Canadian dollars and got like $18.75. (There you go Nico, your bit of financial news for the day.)

Esme=still adorable. Imagine that. ^_^

Two weekends in a row. This could be habit-forming.

Thursday evening: no salsa lesson, but the girls are getting together to practice.
Thursday night: late dinner with Nico, once he rolls back into town
Friday night: Firehouse with Kristy and her roommates, details TBA
Saturday night: CAS Christmas party (that Nico is not attending, the bitch)
Saturday late night: "powershopping" with Nico once he gets off work
Sunday: driving to St. Louis, probably lateish, I want to sleep in
Monday: Christmas Eve = PRESENTS
Tuesday: I dunno, playing with Chrismas presents or something...it's not like the WHOLE family is getting together anymore...
Wednesday afternoon: FLYING to CANADA ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

???: Downtime! (I think I shall be sleeping on the plane...)

Somewhere in there I have to plan and pack, and make eggnog. I'm thinking I'll make eggnog on Thursday evening so Nico can try it if he wants, and pack Saturday during the afternoon (I am SO sleeping in).

Did laundry at Kristy's last night. Played DDR and Rock Band. AWESOMESAUCE.

After today, five more days of work before vacation.

From today, it's seven days until payday. Eight days until the Christmas party. Nine days until I leave for St. Louis. Twelve days until I leave for CANADA.

AAAAND...

Three months from today (or 13 weeks to the day, as well, since my birthday's on a Friday) I'll be 22. (OMG, how OLD does that sound??)

My birthday IS on a Friday. Can we say "three-day weekend," anyone?

I just balanced my checkbook (I do that on my lunch hour 2-3 times a week; it keeps it from interfering with computer time at home that I'd rather be spending RPing or whatnot), and my credit card payment hadn't shown up yet, even though it had cleared on my credit card's website.

This made me slightly nervous as I DID just put a $460 plane ticket on there, and that plus the previous balance would have been over my limit. Called Nico and he was all, "Um, duh, it's a bank holiday." *facepalm* I even knew that, I'd commented to Mom and Dad on how today was probably going to be a slow day for me since some schools would probably be out.

I also found out that my credit limit has been raised to $1,000 (which is double what it was)!! SWEET. ^_^

Just got my first check with all my deductions. Insurance $41 and change as planned, 401(k) deductions not quite $20 (they took 3% of my bonus money, too! >_<).

Frightening. 3% of my income for two weeks won't even buy dinner for two at the Steak House.

Paid off my credit card balance, yay! Will be able to put plane ticket on there tonight. ^_^

My savings account has managed to earn an entire SIXTY-EIGHT CENTS. WEWT WEWT. (I was looking at it wrong, they won't PAY it until the end of the month, the main account page shows only the penny I earned last month. XD)

The other awesome thing is that I can check all this, and balance my checkbook, online. During my lunch hour if I so desire. XD

Oh, and even after I pay my two bills that come out of this check ('net and electric) I'm still going to have a decently-sized chunk of change to mess with and STILL have my "float" in the bank. YAY. If I don't go crazy and spend out of my norm, I should be doing fine for Christmas presents and spending money for Canada (is it sad that I'm excited that the American dollar now sucks compared to the Canadian dollar? ...or wait, is it the other way around? Is that to my disadvantage? I don't remember!). Working that extra half-hour every day is really paying off.

In other news, when I got home yesterday, Nico's lease at Creekside was laying on the counter. ^_^ It won't be ready until at least Monday, so we're kind of not saying anything to the landlady and hoping we can make 14 days into 17ish without getting caught. Nico's kind of always hanging out at my place anyway, so the presence of his car is nothing to go by. XD

He just called me a few minutes ago from his brand new cell phone. ^_^ Yay yay yay.

I think Nico is right; this is the season of moving up and bettering ourselves all the way around.


ETA: Just realized that this means I will have enough money to get my hair dyed. YAY.

And I still need to post Halloween pics. >_<

Emoticon dictionary. Most complete one I've ever seen.

Katchan! Nico's a skyscraper nut and we found this on one of his sources--they might be adding pretties to the Halifax skyline! Shiny!

I read the first of these years ago...back when I actually went to the library, lol...I nearly bought it once and passed it over for new Saddle Club books. In retrospect, I wish I would have bought it. But whatever. It was really good, and I thought by now there'd be about ten of them, so even though he's all going about this "long-awaited" third book, I'm glad he's only gotten that far. Less to catch up on, lol. (I assure you, the book is way better than his website, lol...)

Work is same-ol', same-ol'. EVERYTHING is the same-ol', same-ol'. Which may or may not be a good thing, lol.

LOST. OMG. I don't want to give away spoilers, but I will say: Jate is still fate, and it's just plain cruel for them to not have Charlie in the first episode. We've waited ALL SUMMER!

(This was written last Tuesday night at home after work.)

Amazing the stuff I forget, sometimes.

This morning, or rather, early this afternoon, as I was leaving the house, I found mail for me. Credit card offer, meaningless CAAP scores (and even if they weren't meaningless it wouldn't matter, I scored higher than 98% of my fellow test-takers, and 99% of people nationwide on just about all but math--and even there I did better than half by just guessing...and I am in drama queen mode today, it seems), which I didn't even bother opening until tonight. But I DID open the Priority Mail package from the U.S. Department of Official Mail in New Orleans. (WTF? I thought that there was, like, nothing in New Orleans, much less a functioning Post Office. But whatever.)

It was...MY PASSPORT!

Time to buy tickets and start packing!! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!

*does the passport dance*

 

(And this on Thrusday night)

Lost has ben fan-flippin'-tastic the last two weeks--Hobbity, you REALLY picked the wrong time to quit watching. First Michael goes nuts, they find another hatch, and then this week THERE WERE TWO CC MOMENTS. Oh, and the flashbacks of what happened while Micheal was gone. XD

I've now seen all four HP movies; I think Prisoner of Azkaban may be my favorite thus far, but I really need to watch it and Goblet of Fire a few more times before I say definitively--I've seen PoA twice and GoF once.

Azkaban is a word that's fun to say.

The TV gods have smiled on me. Last week, there was a special called "Keith Barry: Extraordinary"--a magic show. He did the new trend of performing tricks for celebrities, and one of said celebs was Elijah Wood (thankfully, pre-shaved-head!). He did this trick kind of like the cups and balls, only instead of a ball under the cup, it was a metal spike, and Elijah had to guess which cup it was under, and he tested Elijah's guess by slamming their hands down on the cup (ie, if Elijah had been wrong, he would have gotten spiked!!). Of course no bloodiness ensued even though they mixed the cups three different times, but the looks on Elijah's face--OMG. Shelly, Hobbity--DOWNLOAD.

Then later that same evening, Dominic and JJ were on Jimmy Kimmel. (JJ "guest-directed" and kept popping up from backstage, wearing a headset.) If I was going to start addictively watching a late-night TV talk show, Kimmel would be it. He cracks me up. At any rate, there was much joking about M:I:3 (ridiculous to have two colons in an abbreviation, but whatever) and how JJ was ignoring Dom to hang with his new pal Tom, (Dom had pics of what he was doing in his free time that included having a tea party with stuffed animals XD) and "Gordon Fisherman" was in the audience, and--well, a LOT of stuff that you just plain wouldn't laugh at unless you were an addicted Lost fan. Again--Shelly, Hobbity, this one is a MUST-have.

Graduation was boring. Really. Jacqui showed up, though, and came to my party. Yay! My "party" was my family sitting around eating ice-cream cake, nothing really happened.

The student speaker at graduation mentioned that there's a sign as you're leaving the campus buildings that says "you can go anywhere from here." She'd been blathering about what a nice community Mountain Home is, and she was all, "Why would anyone want to leave?" Later that evening, Jacqui was all, "Why would anyone want to STAY?" XD Highlight of that day.

The worst bit is that someone gave the camera to Dad, who managed to take an ENTIRE ROLL OF FILM and yet did not get so much as ONE picture of me that DOES NOT LOOK LIKE CRAP. I mean, I know I'm not photogenic by ANY stretch of the imagination, but really, out of an ENTIRE ROLL OF FILM I thought I'd get one pic of myself in my cap and gown that was at least PRESENTABLE. So, sorry guys, but I'm NOT sharing any of the pics. I plan to get professional pics taken anyway (ooh, possibly in St. Louis, since I think my sister gets a family discount), so you can see THOSE. And I might post a pic of my cake, since it was all purple and sparkly. XD

I GOT BALLOONS FOR GRADUATION! YAY! The two mylars are still floating!

Anyway.

This morning as I was getting ready to leave, I sat down with my breakfast (if it still counts as such when it's closing in on noon) and turned on the TV, thinking I'd watch something like Full House or Family Matters, whatever happened to be on, and stumbled across an episode of Mister Roger's Neighborhood. And...I watched it.

I have to confess, I watched it as a kid since before I can remember up until I was way too old *coughtwelvecough*. I couldn't really pin it down then, but I think I figured it out today--he reminds me of my two grandfathers. And, really, what would you rather spend your time with--your grandpa, who adores you and loves to be around you, or a loud, annoying barrage of random facts? (Which, if you think about it, is what most kids' shows are now.) Would you rather feel special, or pressured to learn?

Plus the stuff like the videos of factories ("How Harmonicas Are Made") were cool, and the make-believe stuff was how I played as a kid. I would build houses out of blocks, and then take all the little figurines and action figures I had (McDonald's toys and cereal box prizes, mostly) and make up stories about them. ^_^ Ahh, childhood.

I wonder where the actors from that show are now. I mean, I know Mister Rogers did, like, almost all the puppets, but, like, Mr. McFeely and Lady Aberlin and everyone. Hmm.

Yeah. I'm always going to have a soft spot for Mister Rogers. I got more teary when he died than when Mother Theresa died. Why can't kids' shows be more like that anymore? Poor children today, once they get too old for their shows they're ashamed to admit they watched them. (Really, what 6-year-old is going to admit five years later that they enjoyed Dora? Or Caillou? Or *shudder* Bear in the Big Blue House? Or any of them?)

Anyway. I need sleep. I have to get up at 9:30 to be at work. And if in the next few days you read about the manager of Mtn. Home Taco Bell being found shot dead in his bed, IT WASN'T ME.

ARGH! THE INTERNET ATE MY ENTRY! I shall have to retype it. What's with this "saved draft" thing???

Anyway.

Wednesday was a Lostless Wednesday (as is the coming one! Oh well, the next new ep will be my reward for surviving finals, I guess), so I met Nico for dinner (mmm, Chili's), and we went back to his place (he's back living with his old roommates). From there we walked down to the lake where we sat throwing rocks into the water skipping stones and talking. I made a lot of cracks about his enthusiasm for "exploring unspoiled nature" whilst leaving cigarette butts behind him. XD

Anyway. We were too lazy to walk all the way back (uphill all the way, thanks) so his roommate drove down and got us. Yay cellphones!

Then Thursday was the cast part for Great Gatsby. (If I didn't journal about that, it's because I didn't have a part, just ran the lights.) That was fun. I ended up sitting and talking with Megan, Deidre, and Dustin. Luke came and sat part of the time (he works at the place we had it, but he sat with us on his break) and when the crowd at his end of the table thinned out, Robert moved down. Deidre fixated on Dustin and he let her ask him a zillion random questions.

The thing that annoyed me, though...Dustin and I had Bio together last semester and Acting all this semester, and I've always thought he was cute, and now, now that all that's over, now that I'm likely to only see him once or twice again...NOW I find out how much we really have in common. *sigh*

Anyway. No point in dwelling on THAT. The other important thing that happened at the party was--and you are all sworn to secrecy--I had my first sip of alcohol.

It was a Schmirnoff's Twisted IV, watermelon-flavored. (Granted, it was a .5% alcohol wine cooler, which is less alcohol than NyQuil, so it probably doesn't really count, but I still feel really devious for having done it.) It was Megan's--she drank one, then half of another, and when she moved it away from her so she wouldn't keep sipping on it and make herself sick, it ended up in front of me, and when she noticed me looking at it, she encouraged me to try it. She told me it tasted like a watermelon Jolly Rancher, and given my love for those (and the fact that it WAS such a small amount of alcohol, and that I was with friends, and that I fully intended to be one of the last to leave and therefore had WAY more than enough time for it to disappear from my system before I was driving), I took one sip. One, mind you.

And the part that makes me feel really devious...I liked it.

It really did taste like a liquefied, carbonated watermelon Jolly Rancher, and it felt warm going down. Not entirely unpleasant.

Kat's been bugging me about trying alcohol when I'm in Canada (the legal age up there is only 19) and now I think I will. I mean, I've made it clear that I never, ever, ever want to experience a hangover, and I'm not going to drink just for the sake of drinking (if something tastes nasty, I will not feel the need to drink it anyway to prove anything or what-not), but I definitely think I would like to have one of those coolers all to myself.

At any rate...what else? Went over to Grandpa's on Saturday, ended up staying three hours. He got started telling me stories from his childhood and when he was dating Grandma. He met her when he was eight and never looked at another girl. AWW! Lucky.

Talked with Nickie, and I'll probably be going to her baby shower in June. Yay. Camp is this weekend and she's thinking of coming by and saying hi. I hope she does.

Why is it SO dark outside at four PM? That seems weird--it feels like seven or eight already!

OH! Nico's mom is wanting him to go back and visit Chicago for his sister's graduation, and he wants to take me and Wigz (another girl from work) and roadtrip up to Chicago in Laurien and show us both around. ^_^ I'm so for it. Now I just have to figure out what to tell Mom and Dad, and when to tell them...