backlogged update

(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.

zoo

So the zoo was fun. I won't bore you with all the details, I'm sure everyone's been to a zoo at some time in their life.

I got to see zebras, so I was happy. Also got Dippin' Dots for the second time ever, and they were yummy.

Skipped the monkey exhibit--I really don't like monkeys, never have even as a child. I was going to go in because Alicia was going to let the boys out of the stroller so they could run around (and I'm sure they were tres adorable), but the minute we walked into the building, the smell was--arrrgh. I mean, all the buildings smelled to some degree, but that one I couldn't tolerate.

Got slightly sunburnt, didn't even know it until I remarked about the kids' sunburns and Mom was all, "Oh, you're red too," and I looked in the mirror. THEN my nose felt a wee bit sore. Thanks, Mom.

Saw a Dory fish and a Nemo fish in the same room, so that was amusing.

Stood at the Burmese python cage for a few minutes, thinking maybe the glass would randomly disappear. It didn't, despite the fact that there was a bratty kid around at the time. ^_-

What else? ...New word of the day: herpetarium. Definition: a place where herps are housed and displayed (think of it like aquarium). And the definition of a herp: a collective word for amphibians and reptiles--any creature that cannot control its own body temperature. So the building that housed frogs, snakes, and lizards was labeled "herpetarium."