Nostalgia Fail

I recently had ACL surgery on my right knee, so for the last several weeks I’ve been regularly going to physical therapy a few miles from my house. Since I couldn’t drive myself, my mom or boyfriend Steve had been taking me. Just caddy-corner from the PT office is a Ponderosa.

For those of you unfamiliar with this franchise, it’s a steakhouse/all-you-can-eat buffet. I have the fondest childhood memories of this restaurant: when I was a little girl, my grandfather would take me there for any occasion he could think up. Birthday? Let’s go to Ponderosa! A long day of fishing? Ponderosa! I loved it there. It was a very family-friendly place – no alcoholic beverages, lots of different kinds of food that all kids enjoyed (like tacos, chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese…you get the idea); they even had a “Kids Korner” where children could sit and play after eating, complete with a chalkboard, coloring books, and Etch-a-Sketches. Heck, you even got a free Mr. Swirly cup if you were 12 or younger PLUS pick from the Swirly hat to win fun stuff like stick-on tattoos or crazy straws. Let me reiterate: I LOVED that place. And yes, the food was probably cheap, the potatoes were probably instant, but even as a 12 year-old I still thought it tasted pretty darn good. The best part? The ice cream machines. Picture what you see behind a Dairy Queen counter, only it’s right before your child’s eager, pudgy little fingers. They had chocolate, vanilla, or twist, and you could top it with a variety of toppings like syrup, sprinkles, or nuts. Ponderosa was the bomb.

So a couple weeks ago, my mom and I are pulling out of my physical therapy’s parking lot discussing what we’re going to fix for dinner. And – as we so often do – we both suggest at the same time, “We should totally go to Ponderosa.” Then a warning I heard not too long ago broke through to the front of my mind, and I answered us with, “…actually, I heard they kinda suck now.” So there we sat at the stop sign that separated us from the legendary restaurant of our past. Finally, we decided to throw caution to the wind and go – I mean, how bad could it really be?

We pull into the parking lot – Rule #1, kids: if the parking lot looks like they poured some cement over a mountain top then painted some lines on it, then they obviously care little about what you think of their restaurant externally; and if they don’t give a crap about what you think before you go in for a meal, they really don’t care about what you think once you're inside about to eat their food – finding a legit place to park was almost as hard as the ridiculous leg lifts I had to do in PT.

As we’re entering through the first set of double doors, there’s an old man in suspenders sitting on a bench just outside the building who eerily resembles Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction, and he’s glaring at us. We walk through the second door and up to the counter. The girl at the register rings us up for two buffet meals, a water, and a tea. It’s just over $20. I look at my mom and mouth “What the???” Buffets used to be like, five bucks for crying out loud. At this point we’re feeling pretty bummed, but at least we get as much food as we want – we can make it worth nearly ten dollars a pop, right? Wrong. We round the corner and walk into the large seating area which also includes the buffet. My stomach drops as a waitress walking by wafts a wretched smell towards my nose – whether it was her lack of hygiene or the grease-logged food, I can’t be sure. We sit down and are brought our drinks. As I pray for the meal, I close it with, “…and Lord, please don’t let this be as much of a letdown as it has been thus far.” We walk to the buffet, grab a plate, and begin inspecting. Peeking into the covered soup caldron to check out the chicken soup, I pulled the spoon out and let it run over…it was like pouring yellow mud – consider it dodged. Instead, I started with a simple tossed salad with ranch dressing – the salad was limp and borderline SOGGY and the ranch tasted sour. So after two bites of that, I decided it would be best to move on. So I grabbed a new plate and walked back up. Now remember what I said about all that great food Ponderosa had when I was a wee one? None of it was there. And I’m not saying they were out: I’m saying they had all of about 10 dishes on their “buffet.” So I ended up standing at the buffet for a good three minutes waiting for these two cowboy hat-donning old farts to pick out a slice of this Mexican-looking casserole, followed by a scoop of corn. One bite of the casserole disaster and I was done with that dish. The corn, while still hard, was at least edible. Although I so desperately wanted to, I decided I wouldn’t give up just yet – I had noticed that they had soft taco shells up there. So I limped back up to the smorgasbord of epic failure and grabbed myself a soft taco. I cautiously added something that looked a little like ground beef to it and some cheese, but that was it – there was no lettuce or salsa or sour cream to be found. I dragged myself back to the table and tried it. I choked back a gag. I was so beside myself. Ponderosa was a complete and absolute letdown. My mom looked like someone had just shot Max. I suggested we call it quits on the buffet and just get some dessert. So we walked up to the dessert bar and poked around a bit, hoping to have at least one success story we could bring home. My mom took a bite of one of the cookies up there and immediately began looking for somewhere to spit it out. I continued my search until I found the familiar ice cream machine around a corner. I felt the smile creep across my face. Surely they couldn’t mess up ice cream. I got a bowl, pulled down the chocolate lever, and made it swirl at the top as it circled the bowl the third time. I hobbled back to the table, grinning. And just as quickly as that smile had come, it disappeared. Fact: ice cream CAN get freezer burn. We sat silently in utter disbelief for several minutes, Mom sipping her water and I my watered down, incorrectly-refilled as lemonade “tea.” I watched with horror as a family with young children hollered at their rude little boys and how no one in the restaurant seemed to think this was out of the ordinary for the place. The two old John Wayne wannabees were as covered in sloppy food as the floor was. As a pregnant woman walked to the buffet, I leaned across the table to my mother and asked her if I should warn the lady that eating this crap may harm the development of her unborn child.

We finished our drinks and were heading for the door – the door that no one held for us, the door that no one stood at just to tell us “thank you for coming” – and I noticed a “Comments and Suggestions Welcome” box. My eyes lit up. I quickly yanked a scrap of paper from my purse and dug for a pen. Quickly I scrolled my “comments” and “suggestion” – “If you have even a shred of integrity left, you’ll step up this menu and the condition of your restaurant. The food was awful. YOUR STEAKS CAN’T REDEEM YOU.” With glee, I popped that thing into the box, making a point to make eye contact with the young female employee leaning against the wall nearby who looked bored out of her mind. That was the best part of the whole experience. We walked out together, a tad queasy, vowing never to tell the rest of the family of this encounter but to warn anyone who we can ever catch darkening the doorstep of this hell hole.

The good news? If you have a worst enemy, suggest they eat there. Or, better – go get some of their food to go: I’m betting it would work well for pest control since it nearly turned an adult’s stomach inside-out.

Cookin' up a Storm

So I was supposed to go to Kennywood today with some friends, but since it was a 70% chance of thunderstorms, we decided we'd rather wait for a day that was forecasted to be sunny so our $40 tickets would be worth while. I was so pumped to go though, so I'm kind of frustrated that it isn't POURING outside right now. (If Sammi ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.)

On a brighter note, my mom and I are assembling something of a cook-book gone cook-three-ring-binder. We're tired of the pages of all our cookbooks getting wet and wrinkled or splattered with food and such; plus, so many of the recipes we use have been altered over time that they're not even the recipe we use anymore. So we're typing them all up the way we actually cook/bake them then and keeping them in clear plastic sleeves so they stay nice.

So. If anyone is interested in leaving some favorite recipes in the Comments section of this post, feel free! Maybe I'll share some of my favorites.

Mommy, guess what I learned in class today!

So today went as any other Thursday does: work for two hours in the mornings, then head to a long day of classes. My third class of the day is Advanced Shakespeare, and for the most part, it's pretty interesting. The professor is definitely young at heart - he has us addressing him on a first name basis, jokes around the entire class time, swears incessantly, and loves to show random films as long as they make even the smallest reference to Shakespeare. We all know he's a goof-off, but something was just not right today.

He made his grand entrance five minutes late, pushing his way through the desks rather than walking around them. He then proceeded to wrench the contents from the torn jeans he was wearing and throw them across the room, completely missing the table onto which he was (I'm assuming) trying to toss them. After fumbling with his manbag, he ripped a DVD from it and threw open the entertainment cabinet. The door kept falling shut, and this must have ticked him off because he kept slamming it back against the wall with his hand (and then eventually with his foot). Although the air conditioner was blasting, he decided to open all the windows to let in the forty degree air. The hair at the nape of his neck was wet with sweat, as was the back of the stained white tshirt he chose to wear to class. And even though his eyes were darting about wildly, he would suddenly begin nodding off (sometimes right in the middle of speaking).

He turned on the film (which was, by the way, Vincent Price's "Theatre of Blood"), stayed long enough to mutter a few incoherent phrases having to do with amphetamines and morphine, then left the room for the rest of the hour and fifteen minutes of class.

And this is the education I'm getting for thousands of dollars a semester.

Everything I Touch Gets Ruined (So Why Should My Blog Be Any Different?)

Sorry that the formatting on the previous post is so whack. I copied and pasted it from a document then couldn't seem to get it to look right in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. After toying with it for a good 10 minutes, it looks crappy in both. My work here is done, I guess.

Slight Update:

So I'm taking the bus home this afternoon. We'll see how that goes. Knowing my luck, the bus driver will probably be hung over and will hit a fire hydrant or something, leaving me stuck at the scene for three hours or so...

I hate Fridays.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round...

...until they hit someone. Then they stop. For a very long time.

Fridays now are always my least favorite days of the week. "Why?" you may ask - "it's the last day of the work and school week! You should be happy!" Well, maybe I could be if it weren't for my statistics recitation. Any joy and happiness that could possibly come from knowing that it's the last day of work and school for the next two whole days literally gets sucked from my soul by my Dementor-like recitation TA. Don't be fooled by her seemingly meek exterior: this chick is cruel. When I first came to her to get help with catching up (from previous posts, you'll remember that I missed a class and recitation and, as a result, fell majorly behind with homework), she wanted me to turn in three (3) weeks worth of homework plus the homework due the coming recitation all in one day! I'm thinking, "Lady, there are ~20 problems per homework assignment. You do NOT expect me to get these all done in 18 hours." But she did. And when I didn't turn them in because I was so busy with the homework actually due for that week, I asked if they could be turned in late and she wasn't even going to accept them(!!!) until I pleaded with her! She has the grumpiest attitude and makes you feel stupid if you even dare raise your hand to attempt to answer a question but get it wrong. The Hungarian accent only further exacerbates the problem since half the time I can't understand her and am having to ask, "Come again?" or "Can you repeat that?" She gets angry at me because I can't understand her broken English.

Well Expecto Patronum to you, TA. Expecto Patronum to you.

Okay, now that I'm way off topic...

So last-last Friday (two Fridays ago) I had to take the bus home. I literally chased the bus as it was pulling out, but those [expletive] Port Authority drivers wouldn't stop for a little old lady if she were waving them down. So I had to wait an extra half hour for a bus I could have taken immediately if she would have stopped for me.

To make matters so much worse, I board the second bus, it rounds the bend, and he "hits" a lady getting onto the bus. Seriously, we didn't even make the turn fully and this happens. I didn't see the entire thing because I'm so freaking short, but by the talk of the riders who did see, some woman (who they recognized from her daily riding that bus as well) was getting onto the bus, but she claims it was still moving and knocked her down as she was stepping up. One of the passengers thought aloud that she was probably doing it for some good lawsuit money.

Seriously. Of all the buses in downtown Pittsburgh to do this to, it had to be mine.

So the bus driver is trying to figure out if she's okay - "Ma'am? Are you hurt? Can you stand up?" - and, naturally, this lady is milking it for all it's worth and is groaning and mumbling that "[her] back and neck hurt." Well everyone knows that when someone says their back/neck hurts, then you shouldn't move them. Nice move, homie. Twenty-five minutes later, the Port Authority police and the Pittsburgh police arrive at the scene and are asking the lady, the driver, and the other passengers what happened. People are getting frustrated by this point (I already was 20 seconds after her act), and they're checking their schedules to see when the next bus comes. I hear the girl next to me say that one should be coming in about 10 minutes. Ten minutes, huh? Well I gather up my stuff, walk to the front of the bus, leap gracefully over the faking pile of flesh - aka, the homeless-looking woman - and walk all 15 steps back to my bus stop. Within five minutes, I hear the sirens of the ambulance. (It's about time - good thing the woman wasn't REALLY hurt.) Traffic is all backed up now since the bus is straddling two intersections and the ambulance and police cars are hogging up the rest of the road. I see them carry her off on a stretcher and figure the bus is going to get moving after all. But I'm sure you've already guessed it: I walked over, as did two other riders, and waved what the driver must have taken as "bon voyage" to the bus.

Long story short, I boarded the third bus which made it all of 10 stops before declaring that we were going to take some of the second bus's passengers since it's schedule was backed up; and that anyone going straight to Tarentum could go get on the other bus since it was going to go straight there, no stops. Yeah, well that wasn't the most even exchange. We gave two, we got thirty-two. So I rode home next to a man reeking of whiskey. How did I know it was whiskey? Because the guy, with one eye half shut and breath smelling of booze, looked over at me and slurred out, "What a day. When I get home, I'm drinkin' a whole bottle of whiskey."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Fast-forward to this past Saturday.

As you'll see in a soon-to-come post, I took my sister Ali with me to Pitt's annual Fall Fest since I was going to be covering an event there for a journalism project. We had to take the bus. If it wasn't bad enough that our local creepy cross-dresser was on the bus (talking to himself and playing with his hair, as usual) on the way out and back, the bus heading home was driven by the Abominable Snow Monster. We could see our breath on the bus, it was that cold. And he completely ignored the hollers from the back of the bus as two girls called out to him to turn on the heat. But the best part had to be the adventure of Clumsy, the little-known eighth dwarf in Snow White's posse (the guy had the height, the roly-poly belly, the long white beard, and even the funny little hat). The poor guy pulled the "Stop Requested" line and started walking to the front of the bus, but the driver slammed on the brakes and poor little Clumsy was projected forward. Luckily, he was able to grab on to one of the poles and hold on for dear life. But just as he steadied himself and started walking forward, AGAIN, the bus driver slams on the brakes; this time however, Clumsy wasn't so lucky. He went sailing towards the front of the bus, BACKWARDS. He tried to catch himself on anything, but failed and instead landed on his butt then slipped effortlessly into a backwards tumble, knocking his head on something next to the driver. If it weren't so sad, I'd have laughed, and if he weren't so old, I'd have given him a 9 (he didn't stick the landing well enough for a 10). He stood up, and it was at that point with him holding his wrist and rubbing his head that I thought we were going to go through this all over again. I called my mom and made her aware of the situation and that we may be awhile. Ali was mortified. Thankfully, the man didn't ask to be checked out and got off the bus at his stop.

Twitter says it best:

Killing me softly...

...with homework.

Here's how my life has been this week:

Sunday: working until 2 a.m. on an article discussing a book reading for my journalism class.

Monday: class all day, then coming home and working on a critical reading essay and anthropology essay until 1:30 a.m. then studying statistics until 2 a.m.

Keep in mind I leave for work every morning at 6 a.m.

Tuesday: class all day, then working on an article discussing a family selling their farm for my journalism class, then working some more on that anthropology essay until 1:30 a.m. then studying statistics until 2:30 a.m.

Wednesday: class all day, church, finishing that anthropology essay, then being too whooped to even look at my statistics book.

Today: work until 10 a.m. then studying statistics for the EXAM I have today. Yeah. Then anthropology lecture at 11, anthropology recitation at 12, stats exam at 1 (!!!), and critical reading at 2. Then I've got to make a trip to the campus bookstore to pick up the newest book for my critical reading class. Then I have to catch a bloody city bus into downtown Pittsburgh THEN catch ANOTHER one into my town since my dad has a gig tonight (I usually ride home with him). Then I have to work on some homework for stats before going out to the gym to play volleyball until God knows how late to work out all my frustrations. Of course I'll probably just bring my homework to the gym and work in the lobby. It will be more peaceful there than at home anyway.

Lord, help me harness my emotions long enough today to keep from killing someone.

...like a chicken with its head cut off.

Life went from busy to nearly-out-of-control-losing-my-mind busy (wow, that WORD was busy).

Since the last time I updated (read "really updated"), school has started back up for me here at Pitt. I really love it here: there's such an atmosphere about it. Everything from the buildings like the Cathedral of Learning to the faculty and staff - all is wonderful. Well, actually, I can't say that. But we'll come back to that in a bit.


Anyway, school has also started up for my siblings. In fact, we all started the same day (the 25th). To be honest, this fact alone has made my life a living hell - even trumping my college homework - over the past two weeks. Between my brother needing help with geometry and the twins needing help figuring out how to work the PA Cyber school online program PLUS all of their homework, I barely have enough time to do my own. It's actually resulting in a lot of last-minute (what I like to call) "puke-up" homework where I pretty much BS my way through the assignment to get enough length on it even though I probably didn't do the reading needed to write the essay/paper/short answer well. Alas. But I am apparently good at it though, because I haven't had any poor gradings on them yet.

On the other hand...

I don't think one needs to be a Hindu to believe in the idea of Karma, which is (as one definition reads) "the effects of all deeds actively create past, present, and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain and joy it brings to him/her and others." I usually see this mostly in the teams I end up on when playing volleyball on Thursday nights: I get on the elite team at the beginning of the night and we dominate every other team, laughing in their faces and making them kiss our big toes (okay, I embellish); then Karma kicks in and I get stuck with the clumsy, uncoordinated people of the group, and we lose every game.

Anyway, back to how this relates to school.

I'm taking a Statistics course and my teacher is positively off the wall. On top of being down-right scary looking, she's flighty, absent-minded, and clueless to the fact that all the students know it and are making fun of her. I missed my very first recitation for this class due to circumstances outside of my control. I told her this and asked if there were a way to make it up. She told me to just wait a week and go to the next one. I did this (already a week behind in homework, mind you) and lo and behold! No one was there! Apparently, they moved recitation and didn't tell me. So that's two weeks of homework in the hole. Finally, I am able to make it to the third week. The TA is Hungarian and very soft spoken, so I had a difficult time making out what she was saying over the two air conditioners in the room. The period seemed short: she spent the first 15 minutes milling about jotting things on the board and the remainder of the class was spent showing us how to take a survey on the Stats website and assigning a quiz to us (which I ended up taking and definitely bombing). I met with her afterwards to schedule a meeting to get me caught up. The guy next to me was nice enough to give me the website with the homework syllabus on it. I was ready to pull all of my hair out.

So one bogus class out of five isn't bad, right?

...right? :-(

How I'm feeling right now...

So help me, I will update this over the weekend.

Today's Rant: the USPS's Approach to Returning Mail

I work for a research study. One of my jobs is to send out a professional mailing to different area doctors to promote the various studies for which we are currently recruiting in the hopes that some of the DRs/RAs/MAs/nurses will refer some of their suite's patients to us. Technically, it's a "monthly mailing" but in reality - because a life and a million other tasks that are much more important - it's between a bi-annual and a tri-annual mailing. As of the last time I did the mailing, I was still working part time as a full time student and the addresses (of which there were well over 300) were having to be hand-written. You can imagine how long this took me since I was only working four-hour days PLUS juggling the other tasks they would throw my way AND what I was already doing (recruiting, data inputting, scheduling, etc). Now, we have over 500 names on our mailing list, but at least we've come up with mailing labels to save me time. No matter what though, it's always a pain to assemble these. It's perfunctory and very time-consuming stuff.

What really gets my goat - glazes my donuts - harshes my mellow - however you wish to put it - is when the USPS returns our packets to us looking as though they had to tether-sticker it down from breaking free and fleeing. They do this to not only the packets, but also to any boxy item I try to send. If I've been given a faulty address or the person is no longer at that practice, the mail gets sent back to be COVERED in "RETURN TO SENDER," "INVALID ADDRESS," and my favorite "UNDELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED" stickers. As you can see, it must be like art class when someone gets the chance to return our stuff. They get really creative in where they can put the stickers and stamps and sometimes even draw all over the front of it, crossing out the address, drawing a line through the auto-presorted stamp, whatever they can think up. Anything goes. And this picture isn't even the worst I've seen, really. It just happened to come in today. Usually they've written all over it with a "HE'S NO LONGER HERE" or some such thing in big red letters; the top is often half-ripped as well as if they wanted to take a quick look inside! Which really makes me mad, because I'm all about not wasting; and when they give me one of those giant mailing envelopes back in this condition, it makes me want to slap somebody because there is no way I'm going to be able to salvage it for a second attempt.

*FUMES* But I digress.

In other news, I squashed a cockroach this morning that was the size of a small child. Okay, more like a cell phone (no kidding on this one). I was standing in front of my building's lobby's elevators waiting for one to come down (which is absurd since there's no one in the freaking building that early, but today there must have been because...) when a girl standing next to me nudged my shoulder and muttered, "You know you godda giant bug on yo shoe, miss." Reflex caused me to kick my right foot out violently at this new-found knowledge and I jumped back into almost a crouch. I looked down to see the thing crawling towards me again (Lord, those things are fast!). I've never liked squashing bugs. I don't like the sound, and I REALLY don't like the guts that go everywhere when you do it. But this thing was going to eat me if I didn't act fast, so I took the front cover of my Pitt newspaper, threw it over top of the little nasty, and stomped down as hard as I could (the thing looked practically armour-plated, so I gave it some "oomph"). I pulled the newspaper back to find a splatter of green slime the size of a coffee mug on the marble floor. Where did it GO??? I flashed over to the underside of the paper where I found the little monster. Dead soldier.

Now I'm walking around our suite with extra caution, quickly scanning the room and its corners for critters then slowly proceeding, eyes ever roaming. I'm sitting on my desk chair Indian-style to keep my feet up off the ground. All was going well until about 30 minutes ago when I reached for my jacket and realized it was not on the back of my chair, but on the floor. I grabbed it and immediately started shaking it like a red-headed step child. Then, not wanting to have my hand bitten off, I peeked inside the pockets to see if any little monsters had hidden inside. Fortunately I was safe. Still though, I can't relax. Bugs are so disgusting. Any and all bugs. I hate them all. And I will judge you, by the way, if you've got them. If lice was good enough to be one of the seven plagues in the Bible, then roaches should've been in there, too. And I will avoid you like the plague if you've got either (and especially both). Lice and roaches = filthiness. I'm sorry, it's just the way I am.

Okay, now that that's out of my system, I think I'll go take these data sheets to the back...and I'll be watching the ground the whoooole time...

More catch up...

First, let's start off with the pictures: I've uploaded a bunch to my Flickr, which you can view here (and there are still more to upload?!).

Okay, now for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the trip - the final three days.


FRIDAY:

A pretty laid-back day, Friday. It was fairly overcast and, therefore much cooler. Rob and I went down to the beach and did a little boogie boarding then came back in time to get showers since we were going to be eating out that night with the whole group. It was going to be at the Down Under again, which we didn't mind. We liked the atmosphere there, the Australian theme and decorations.

When we got there, everyone ordered his food. Sitting next to me, my uncle and I heard my grandma order "sautéed shrimp" which wasn't actually on the menu by that name; rather, it was "shrimp - sautéed or deep fried." So when the food arrived and my grandma started arguing with the waiter about her shrimp being sautéed instead of deep fried, my uncle and I were just as gobsmacked as the poor, blushing waiter. My uncle finally spoke up to reassure the waiter that yes, she did in fact order the sautéed shrimp, and that it wasn't his fault that our grandma is going senile. He walked back to the kitchen, and we reminded Grandma of exactly what she said when she ordered. She denied it and pouted instead. My uncle offered to order her another plate(!) but she refused. Instead, she allowed my brother to eat all of her shrimp.


That night, Rob and I watched a few movies then finished packing our bags so that we would be ready for the next day.



SATURDAY:


Since the realty peeps needed us out of the house by 11:00 so that they could begin cleaning it up for the next group, we decided we'd plan to leave at 10:00 when, in reality, we knew it'd be more like 10:30 or later. Which did end up being the case.

Since the Californian members of the group had to leave about 5:30 that morning to drive up to Norfolk (to catch a plane), it was up to us Pennsylvanians (not to be confused with "Transylvanians") to do the kitchen clean up. There was so much leftover food; it was shameful. Luckily, there's a food bank that takes all unopened food not used by tenants, so we were able to take advantage of that for some items. Others though, like bread, were fed to the seagulls...which was SO MUCH FUN. I stood out on the balcony and tossed some out to the two or three that were on the ground below. Within seconds though, there was a FLOCK of about twenty circling the sky above me, looping 'round and 'round to snatch some out of my hands or catch it as I flung it up in the air.

Then it was time to load our things into the vehicles. Rob was having trouble with his mp3 player, so I was trying to help him figure it out. My grandparents - who drove with us this trip - had been a little...out of sorts this week. My grandpa had been in discomfort the whole trip due to his hip, but he was for the most part content with just getting out and rarely complained. My grandma, on the other hand, was suffering from symptoms of gout and was therefore in a very grouchy state for most of the week. She waddled around, badgering us to get our stuff out to the minivan and not to forget anything.

"Saaaaammiiiii, don't forget your suitcase" - my only piece of luggage - "that's still in the bathroom here," she'd moan out to me as I tried some futile repairs on Rob's music player. I finally got frustrated after awhile and probably, to her, got a little out of character when I hollered back after the third or fourth whine, "I know, Grandma, it's just that I'm busy doing something for someone else right now!" (This hit home for her because she's one of those grandparents who are like the kid with a new toy that needs assembled: you need to do it now - they think - or it's never going to get done.) So finally I had to give up hope on Rob's silent mp3 player and hauled both our luggage out while he spruced up our sleeping area. I finished loading up the van and walked around to the front of it to see my grandma sitting on a lawn chair pouting. Ugh. That made me feel bad and angry, both at the same time.

Everyone finally piled into his respective vehicle and pulled out around ten 'til eleven. As we neared the end of our street and turned onto the main road, Highway 12, I realized that I was glad to be on my way home. Unfortunately, going home was just going to have to wait for awhile...

[CUT: remember that post a few entries back? The one about that phrase "Someone had better be dying"? That statement was used in the context of what is about to follow.]

It suddenly seemed as though there was tons of traffic. Not uncommon - it was a Saturday, it was the afternoon, and it was a typical day for checkout for a lot of realties. But then we sat...and sat...and sat some more. Soon we realized it wasn't ordinary traffic. Something was wrong. As I was poking my head out the window to get a glance at the traffic up ahead of our van, a man came over to the driver's window to report that there had been an accident about 30 miles ahead and that they'd be closing down the road for about three hours from the time of the incident just to manage the problem. The accident was at 9:00. It was only just 11:00.


"So we're going to be stuck here for another hour?" Rob asked. I involuntarily reached back and thwapped him on the side of the face for whining, even though I was subconciously asking the same thing. Luckily, the traffic inched along slowly until we made it to an intersection that had a souvenior shop we liked. So instead of sitting in traffic, we popped into the shop. I was able to pick up a beautiful cedar box for my friend and a nice "beachy" picture frame for my mom (to put a picture of Rob and I from the trip in it). Rob got a really sharp brown hoodie and had a decal slapped on it of "OBX" in rusty orange and sage colors (okay, so I picked it out, but where else would he be getting such good taste? *wink*).


We finally were on our way home in more like 40 minutes, which was a relief. We and the other group met up in Nagshead around 1:00 at the Slammin' Sammy's sports bar (where my uncle had bought me a cool t-shirt since 1: it was purple and 2: it had my name on it). Nagshead is famous for its horses that it has scattered across the island, posing in front of businesses, brightly decorated. There was one at the Slammin' Sammy's with a racer theme painted read and bearing a "motor" on its back and the number "3" which I'm guessing was significant (I don't know a thing about racing).


Seven hours later, we were in Philadelphia. I'm sure my sigh of relief was more than audible when we pulled into the driveway. The trip back to eastern PA had been so difficult - Rob's mp3 player had broken, so he was bored - I'd given him mine, so I was then bored. Soon though, Rob figured out a way to pass the time: he pulled his sleeping bag from its case in the back, laid it out on the long back-back seat of the van, and curled up in it across the seats. He remained in the same spot for the rest of the 5 hour trip...boy, that kid can sleep.


SUNDAY:

That day was one of the worst days of my existence. My grandfather asked me to drive the rest of the way back home from Philly (since his hip was hurting and my grandma's feet were hurting). So he sat in the front while my grandma and Rob sat in the back. OH MYYY GOSH. My grandmother probably has a kink in her neck from straining the ENTIRE trip to be able to keep an eye on the spedometer. And when she wasn't chastising me for going over the speed limit, it was something else. Something dumb that I already knew. I was really getting ticked with her. After the first two hours of driving, I honestly felt like pulling over on the side of the three-lane highway and getting out of the front, ordering her, "FINE! YOU DRIVE!" but I held myself back. We were almost to Breezewood when my grandfather woke up and realized we needed to make a pit stop and he couldn't wait until "the midpoint" (Breezewood). So we stopped at a service station that was right off the road because Grandma saw a Roy Rogers (curse you, Roy Rogers, I hate your filthy cowboy guts). Poor Rob, who had been feeling ill since the evening before, very sweetly said, "Grandma, do you think we could maybe stop at Wendy's for lunch? It'd be cheaper..." But she cut him off with "Roy Rogers is a FINE restaurant, and we'll eat there. You can't just stop at a different place for each person, Robbie." My blood started boiling. My poor little brother wanted Wendy's - I found out later that he'd wanted to get something light like a salad because he was still sick - and she was making him eat at a bloody Roy Rogers! I've always hated that place, mainly because anytime I travel anywhere with them, my grandma loves to stop there. I really don't see the draw. I mean, really: their food is over-priced, looks so disgustingly greasy (and small, as far as portions), and from what Rob said, it still tastes bad too. He got a Philly steak sub and threw most of it out. It was only about six inches, but he paid about $7 for it. Ridiculous.

So after Rob and I called my mom and vented to her for a few stolen minutes while the grandparents ordered their food, we all piled back into the little car and finished the last 2.5 hours of the trip. After taking a few more annoying jabs from grandma, my brother tried standing up for me. First, he took the defensive stance by attempting to assure her that I was an excellent driver and that I knew what I was doing.

[CUT: from this post, I'm sure you're probably all thinking I'm a horrible driver when - in reality - I'm not. My grandma would call me a "better driver" if I went 45 mph on the turnpike, but I'm sure you can all imagine what that would be like, so instead I get called a "risky driver" because I go 70 in a 65 zone to stay with the pack. *sigh* I can't win with her.]

Next, he tried distracting her by asking her questions (to which I knew he didn't care about the answer) or pointing to different things on the side of the road. Finally, he gave up and started making fun of her. Rob's way of poking fun is different though: he did it so subtly that she didn't even realize he was doing it. He'd mimic things she said as if he felt the same way; i.e., bursted into a state of panic and exclaimed, "SAM! You NEED to SLOW DOWN! You're going 67 in a 65 zone!" Finally, after casting a couple mean glares at him (which he didn't process as "the evil eye" meaning "stifle yourself"), I glanced back at him and said something to the effect of "Rob. Shut your piehole."

We finally made it home around 6:00, but not without having to sit through Grandma discussing everything from politics to racism to gay rights. And strangely, none of it was brought up by us. We try to steer those kind of conversations away from Gram. Anyway, it just made it all that more "good to be home."

Oh, and PS: we realized once we got in the house that we'd somehow swapped bags with my grandma: her dirty laundry *ahem* and our souvenirs(?!?!?!). I didn't like the thought another visit so soon after this, so I drove down and made the swap while they were moving their luggage into their house.

Playing Catch Up on the Updating

Okay, folks, this is going to have to be done practically bullet style to fit it all in before I leave, but I’ll try my best to put it into sentence form before then. Here it goes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday was definitely a lazy day. Almost everyone else had day trips planned for other islands (some went as far as Nagshead, others went to Kitty Hawk to see the Wright Brothers’ museum). With nothing to do but play pool, gin, and black jack all day, Rob decided we should go in the pool (as I mentioned in a previous post, we had an in-ground pool just outside our room). As it turned out, the pool was a good diversion – someone had left some pool-friendly sports equipment outside by the water’s edge, which we grabbed and used for lacrosse (didn’t stay with that very long) and also badminton. Well, the lacrosse game wasn’t working well with only two people, but when we switched to badminton, we couldn’t smack the little ball far enough across the pool. Therefore, we decided to combine the games: use the badminton’s sponge rackets but the lacrosse’s wiffel ball. This seemed to work for us, and we got some really good volleys going. We decided to call it quits after awhile, but not before I took a wiffel ball to the head – I had just reached around to pick up the first wiffel ball that had been floating in the water behind me when I turned around just in time to take Rob’s spare wiffel ball serve right between the eyes. I had happy little wiffel ball holes imprinted on my forehead for the next several minutes.

Rob thought it would be fun to switch it up a bit and rent some bikes to cycle over to Avon and see The Dark Knight at the Avon theatre. Good idea, except that when I Googled the directions, it would be an 18 mile bike. Up hill. Eh…

Luckily, my grandfather and uncle were heading that way to go watch the ships come in (as mentioned in the previous post) so we hopped a ride with them. That night, we went and watched it AGAIN with our cousin Dan. It was just as awesome.

Wednesday, we finally got the bikes. The rental place was about two blocks distance from our – it feels like I should be saying “penthouse” for some reason? – beach house (yeah, beach house), so Rob and I walked over. We were figuring on getting gear bikes this time since they’re a little lower to the ground for me and have handlebar brakes for Rob. Win win, right?

Wrong.

We got there and all of the midget gear bikes were taken. BLAST! So we spent ten minutes looking for a bike I could manage to get up on. Finally I decided to suck it up and take a cruiser bike, which ended up being just as difficult, but I didn’t want to put the poor woman through any more trouble to find a different one. It ended up that for the rest of the day, I had to get a running start with the bike and then hop on while the peddles were turning (yes, it’s as hard as it sounds). About a mile later, Rob hollers up to me to stop and that his bike is “gay.” I reassured him that no, it was just in unisex color and that no one would question is orientation for riding a light blue bike. He didn’t think that was funny. Here, his gears on his bike were stuck. On the toughest gear to ride. Dang it. So what else would we do – we rode all the way back down and swapped his bike out for a cruiser. (I couldn’t believe how many times that morning I felt like screaming expletives at the top of my lungs, and all over these stupid bikes). So we started back out, and what do you know, it’s black as night up (x) miles ahead. I had seen on the forecast that it was going to rain, but it had said that the day before and didn’t so I hadn’t really taken it seriously. We made the decision to just turn around and head for the Salvo-Waves area instead of going towards Avon. Surprisingly, we must have just missed the rain that was following us, because as we road back through our town and into the next, the roads were nothing but puddles. Deep puddles. Puddles that, as we road through them, splashed up onto our clothes and faces. Gross. And to top it off, Rob was hungry (no surprise there). We stopped at the famous (to our family) Down Under restaurant, looking a mess. I grabbed an old stretchy book cover from my backpack and used it to wipe off our faces, which were covered in sand and mud. Rob ended up getting this burger called “the Great Australian Bite,” which was a giant ½ pound burger with everything on it and topped with a sunny-side-up egg. We stopped at some other shops up the road from that, searching for souvenirs, and ended up popping in to the Seaside Treasures shop again to torment the boy at the register get some ice cream. We ate the ice cream outside; when we were finished, I ran down to unlock the bikes while Rob made one last attempt to screw with the poor shop boy’s head, asking him, “You look just like Jesse McCartney! Has anyone ever told you that???” to which he replied, “I hope not?!”

After that, we crossed the street to another shop, "Reef," and got Rob a sweet henna tattoo across his shoulder blades. We then pix-messaged a picture of it to our mom who then called us back, freaking out that I had been his consent to get a real tat. Rob proceeded to lead her on for another few minutes until I finally put her out of her misery and reassured her that it was only temporary. That was so much fun. :-)

When we got back to the house, Rob went down to the beach to do some boogie boarding while I chilled in the hot tub. Rob came back to report that he had successfully swum out to the anchor and had touched it; and also that he had ridden a monster wave that broke his boogie board in half. Go Rob!

We played a hilarious game of Taboo that night - I say hilarious because anytime my grandma plays with us, we're going to have some hilarious clues given. Some of my favorites from that night were:

• "It rhymes with...'balloon'!" (answer: babboon. and technically, you're not allowed to say "sounds like" or "rhymes with" but grandma heeds no laws)
• "Well, first of all, he's black." ("black" said as though it were "he's a serial killer." I don't even remember what the answer was for this clue because I laughed during the entire duration of the clue)

Some other funny answers thrown out by the group were:

• jockette n. a girl version of a jock (according to my aunt and uncle who yelled that out simultaneously...the answer was actually "cheerleader")
• fulcrum n. a point of rest, on which a lever turns (but guessed by Rob when all my grandma could say was "it kinda does this thing wherrrrre...")

That was a great night; I laughed so hard that evening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The higher-ups decided that Thursday would be a good day to take a trip over to Ocracoke (or as Rob first thought it was pronounced, "Oprah-copes") and spend a day shopping and playing on the beach. To get over to Ocracoke, one must take the ferry which is conveniently stationed next to tons of great shops where one can blow all his money. My uncles found some really cool stunt kites that they picked up, assembled, and flew while waiting for the ferry. Since it was "kite festival" day there, they had little stations set up for little kids to "build their own kite" by coloring a piece of paper than tying it to some other sheets of paper and a ribboned tail. It was actually a pretty good kite - Katrina, my little buddy of 6 years - made one and really had it soaring. We got over to Ocracoke and stopped in at Captain Ben's restaurant where Rob finished his meal in less than five minutes and helped everyone else eat their meals too (they would pass down anything left over and dump it on his plate, which he loved).

From there, we went to the beach. Everyone flew their kites while I read my book and my aunts built sand castles. Rob even got chased down and pecked to death by a killer stunt kite (seriously, he get hijacked from behind). On our way back, it was just my grandma, my uncle, and I. We were making light conversation when my grandma asked, "Jim, do they have any deer out here?" (The way she asked made it sound as though she was asking whether or not they were in stock...) Just as she got the last word out of her mouth, my uncle slammed on the brakes and swerved.

"What was THAT?" she asked.

"That," he replied coolly, "was a fawn. Any more questions?" I stifled a guffaw.

We stopped at a Food Lion so my uncle could run in for some groceries. My grandma and I waited in the van and saw a nice couple walking to their car. "What a shame. She's such a pretty girl, too," my grandma mumbled. I wasn't sure what she was referencing, so I just sat there. Moments later, she asked out loud, "Why can't they just find boys in their own color?!" I realized what she was talking about.

"Grandma, there's nothing wrong with a white girl being with a black guy." Her head turned to me as far as it could as she whispered, "Yeah, well it just ain't natural!" Again, I held back the giggles.

Dark Knight and Nights

Today is Tuesday.

Saturday night, as stated in my previous post, we went down to the beach.

Sunday we went to the beach early the next morning. It was nice to get down there before the sun came up and before the masses came to sun-bathe. We spent about two hours there then.

By Monday morning, my legs were nothing but bumpy white flesh. The sand fleas had massacred them while down at the beach those two single instances. I'm practically bathing in Caladryl now.

Today, they've dried up significantly, though I can't say that for my cousin. He's scratched them so badly, it's a miracle he has any skin left. Who'd've thought you'd have to worry about sand fleas?! Now I know how horses feel about regular fleas. Poor things.

Yesterday, Rob and I borrowed the bikes my aunt and uncle had rented and went souvenir hunting. As soon as I get home, I'll post pictures (wouldn't want to give it away for anyone from my family who's reading this).

This morning, we thought we'd rent the bikes again and do a looooong trip. We figured we'd go see The Dark Knight since I found out there was a theatre in Avon (the next town over). Instead, we bummed a ride off of my uncle who was taking my grandpa to the docks to watch them bring in the fish. Anyway, the movie was AMAZING. I highly recommend it. In fact, I think we might go again tomorrow with my cousin; it was that good.

Perhaps we'll go bike tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a link to my Flickr where you can check out some of my pictures from the week so far.

Undercover Restroom Police

So today was the big day to travel down to Salvo. We loaded up and pulled out just before 11:00. Of course, not without complications.

We'd decided it would be more cost-efficient to rent a mini-van than to take two cars, but what we didn't foresee was the level of difficulty our grandma would have when trying to enter and exit the vehicle. She's about 4'10" (you can see where I get my height) and has horrible knees. 1 + 1 = can't get into the van. So we ended up finding some paint cans in the house that we could use to boost her into the van. We later figured out that we could pull up alongside the curb to help her in, too.

Sooner or later, we had to take a break. The first place we stopped was an Arby's. We got inside and placed our orders and, naturally, made sure everyone had emptied their bladders before piling back into the car. When Grandma came out, she told me all about how horrible the restroom accommodations were and how she would have asked to see the manager if we weren't trying to budget our time.

Next time we stopped, it was a Hardee's (I didn't pick these places). Again, Grandma had to use the facilities before we left. We waited and waited and waited... Finally I decided to go have a look. She was just coming out, muttering under her breath something about paper towels. I think that if someone offered my grandma the position of "undercover restroom police," she'd take it in a heartbeat.

We got to the house around 8:00 and unloaded our stuff. We've got the gameroom. It's got its own refrigerator, sink, microwave, television, bar, pool table, couch, easy chair, and coffee table. And bathroom. Boo-ya. It also has a door that gives us direct access to the in-ground pool and hot tub.

Double boo-ya.

So then later tonight, Rob, my cousin Dan, and I all went up to the beach. I saw something out there that looked huge but it didn't move, so I've got no clue what it could be. I guess we'll find out tomorrow if it's still there. Watch it be a pirate ship. Arrrrr....

"Someone Had Better Be Dying..."

We all have little inside jokes and catch phrases with friends and family that we use quite often either to make a joke or a point. For example of a point, I offer you the phrase "Don't drop the baby," made popular by my mother. She'd use it in response to her mother when she would make no-brainer statements to my mom, one particular instance being when she actually told my mother not to drop the baby she was holding. So now, "Don't drop the baby" has become a household idiom for "duh" and everybody knows it and uses it. Another funny (though borderline morbid) phrase we use a lot is "Someone had better be dying," which was first used by my father on the ride into work one morning with my mother when they both worked in Pittsburgh. There had been some kind of hold-up in traffic that was going to make them both late, and in frustration, my dad blurted out (not meaning to be insensitive), "Someone had better be dying - there must have been an accident for a traffic jam this bad," insinuating that "there's no excuse for such an irritating situation, with the exception of a fatality." So now, "Someone had better by dying" has been added to the list and is used anytime one of us is severely put out. It has evolved over the years to various other phrases, including "There had better be blood!" in response to someone screaming bloody murder for no (real pressing) reason.

Lately, our house (which is very old) has been experiencing some issues with what we believe to be plumbing. We have a bad leak somewhere in our upstairs bathroom (which houses the shower) and, consequently, we have a bad drip which will get you wet if you are coming in or out of the house while someone is showering (our bathroom is right above the entryway). We've had a few plumbers come in and "fix it" already, but it continues to drip...even drizzle on occasion. The younger members of the family have come up with a "solution" - throw a bath towel on the floor to sop up the water. A nice thought; but not only does it not work, they don't pick the towel up afterwards.



Okay, pop quiz, everyone! What happens when a towel gets wet and then doesn't get hung up to dry? Anyone want to take a stab at the answer?



...no? Alright, well I'll tell you. Only because I can't show you. The towel mildews. And it stinks to high Heaven.



I tried to make sure I picked up the towel on the floor when I saw it, but I couldn't be there every time. I wanted to install a hidden camera to find out who kept putting it there.



Then someone had a better idea: why use a whole bath towel when you can just grab the hand towel off the rack and throw that on the floor?



Fact #1: I rule.


Fact #2: I use the hand towel to dry my face off after washing it in the morning.



Guess how gross it is to blindly grab the towel off the rack and wipe your face on it, only to find it stinks like vomit AND has made your clean face stink like vomit? Answer: WAY GROSS.

My mom had been continuously reprimanding them as these problems continued to arise, but it was never stopped. So this morning, I went upstairs to wash my face and found this:



Go, Mum, go. :-)

Upcoming Holiday

BIG NEWS: In exactly eight days, my brother and I will be leaving for our week-long trip to Outer Banks (OBX), NC. Half of me truly is excited for the chance to get away, but the other half…well, I’ll just try to keep myself from keeping me from having a good time, if that makes any sense.
Our house this year is located in Salvo, just below the towns Waves and Rodanthe for any of you who have ever visited the OBX before. The name of our house is “Casa Verde,” which is Spanish for “Green House.” (Thank you, Mrs. Brockett, my ever patient Spanish teacher.)

For a view of the house and a few other views of the inside of it, visit my Flickr site here.

Or, you can visit the Sun Reality website here, scroll to the bottom of the screen, and type “S-100” in the Unit ID# box (visiting my Flickr sounds easier if you ask me).

Because we’re leaving next weekend, foresight tells me I should actually pack this weekend because every night but Monday of next week is going to be busy. If I’m lucky, my brother and I will go on a little “date” to the local Wal-Mart to pick up a buttload of travel/trial-sized items to toss in our luggage then come home and do loads of wash so that we’ll have clothes to wear in the meantime (since all the rest will be packed away).

Next Friday, we’ll leave in the evening (tentatively) for Philadelphia to pick up my uncle then drive down together to our beach house where (hopefully) everyone will have already checked in and moved in their stuff. Good and bad: good in that I won’t have to deal with the mayhem of suitcases, totes, cranky children, and grumpy adults who’ve been driving for the past ~11 hours. Bad in that I’ll probably have last pick on a room and will (as Fate will have it) probably get stuck with an impossibly annoying child or my brother (oh wait, that may be the same person?). All kidding aside, my brother rocks, and I’m glad it’s he that came out of the three. We’ll have loads of fun together.

Anyway, DO check out the house – it’s breathtaking.

Hi again...

I brought my books from last semester with me to work today, fully intending to take them to either the Pitt Book Store or other neighboring book shops to see which would give me the best deal (and then end up going back to the first I visited because that's just how it usually plays out). My co-worker, however, informed me that not only does the Pitt Book Store RIP YOU OFF when you buy the books, but it also jips you when you're trying to sell them back. So I checked that stop off my list, which meant that the other three I could think of were probably just as bad. Then I saw the light bulb come on in her head. A second later, she was excitedly filling me in on Amazon.com and all of its wonder. So as of now, I'm kind of sold on the idea of selling my books online. Of course, who really wants to buy a book called "The Foundations of Early Modern Europe"? I think I'll put them out there for awhile, but if they're not sold by the school year, I'll probably just take them down and sell them back to the store for pennies anyway.

In other news, the song "Wave of Anguish" by Lacuna Coil just flashed across my Pandora radio which reminded me of Guitar Hero (since, in fact, Lacuna Coil is one of the artists featured in the bonus tracks in Guitar Hero III....yeah, I'm a fan). And Guitar Hero reminded me of the fact that Guitar Hero - Aerosmith just came out on the 29th. MUST HAVE! I'm a huge fan of both Guitar Hero and Aerosmith. Put them together, and the consequences could be amazing. So I definitely want to look into getting that for PS2.

And now for a little rant. I do a lot of data input at my job, so I'm frequently working with addresses: I'm SICK of reused city and street names. It really grinds my gears. C'mon, people, there are millions - gajillions! - of words out there, and the best you can do is "Greenville"? I mean really, how green is that town? Since I know someone in almost every Greenville along the East Coast, it can get confusing. Likewise but more so with street names. Using numbers in the street names (i.e., "Fifth Avenue") is so lame. Still, I could handle it if there was only one out there like it. But no, there's a Fifth Avenue in practically every town! I can't tell if people are talking about the block above my office or the area about ten blocks from my house (about a 25 mile difference). Either way, I think I'd rather live on Sillypants Lane than drive myself mad researching directions to my friend's house who lives at 1234 Main Street.