X-TREME Tea Time

Happy Mother's Day

For Mothers Day I thought I'd share an ever-so rare picture of my mom SMILING in a picture, rather than making the infamous "oh no you are taking my picture! spontaneous awkward" face. Plus she's there with the dog, who basically acts as a permanent infant daughter. Oh so maternal!

Happy mothers day and go do something nice for yo mama! I for one am going to help Dear Boyfriend cajole his younger brother into cleaning up the house before their mom gets back in town so she doesn't have to wreck a weekend's relaxation with a flurry of cleaning.

I've been waiting and waiting for a Friday morning when I had enough time to post these gorgeous blue-tailed Utah birds. I have no idea what they are called, but they were all over the Weber State campus. They were pretty big too. I have decided to pretend they were a magical cross between a blue jay and a crow bred by Mormons for some interesting purpose.

See all the other magically enhanced creatures over on the Friday Ark!

(And there are two more shots of these beautiful birds after the jump)

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Sweet Bus Stop Surprise

I've been riding the bus this week since the weather is nice and I don't have to get up so early. I like the bus for meeting interesting characters and having little adventures and actually interacting with my city. Usually my anecdotes, I'm sure you know since I've shared a few, involve me getting hit on a lot or something of that ilk. But today I have a really wonderful bus stop anecdote.

I just barely missed the bus I was hoping to show up in time for, and had to sit and wait a while. Just as I sat to hang out under the bus sign, it began to rain. I tried to arrange my things so they'd stay as dry as possible and settled in for a damp wait. There was a large group of folks at a picnic table several yards away that provided interesting people watching. They were drinking from a bottle in a paper bag and shouting at one another and kept "crossing the street," read: flinging themselves into the road and almost getting hit by cars. I was relieved when they decided to stay put under their umbrella. I was so wrapped up in nervously watching their attempts to help a very slow Yoda-like old woman crossing the street I didn't notice an older gentleman crossing the street in my peripheral vision.

He came up and held a very large blue and white striped umbrella over my head, and explained that he had seen my sitting in the rain and since he didn't have anywhere to be for a while thought he'd keep me dry until my bus came. He sat down with me and held the umbrella over both of us and we chatted as much as his tendency to mumble would allow. He used to live in Florida apparently, and was having some medical trouble, and had taken the day off of work because his arm was bothering him a great deal. When my bus rolled up, he introduced himself and shook my hand and wished me well before ambling on down to wherever he was originally headed. A real class act.

The past few older fellows I've interacted with have included the belligerent fool in the Chicago airport and a fellow who decided to lurk outside my dressing room at Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro and kept asking how whatever I tried on looked, because he had wanted to see for himself. Therefore this sweet old gentleman with the umbrella is a real blessing, restoring my faith in older gents and people in general. I hope he gets back to Florida soon like he wanted to, so he can soak up the sun and good vibes. Wherever he ends up, I wish him the best.

Wordless Sushi

Wordless Wednesday.

Hillary Provides Would-Be Voters With Alarm Clock

Long, long ago, I foolishly went to college for one semester in the snowy, desolate mountains of Boone, North Carolina. While there, I responsibly registered to vote so that I might participate in local elections. Despite having lived in Tennessee for 2 years since then and voted many a time here, I am apparently still on the books in North Carolina. Cue Hilary Clinton desperately calling me via an automated call center once or twice every day for the past week. It begins as exactly 9:40 every morning, when she sweetly combines both campaigning and a wake-up call service. I don't even need my alarm clock anymore! For the record, Obama has called me only twice-- and one of those was an actual human being.

I wish Tennessee hadn't foolishly decided to hold its primaries before North Carolina, because even if I weren't already an Obama girl and if I were the most die-hard Hilary supporter ever, this would have totally had me running to Obama's camp as fast as my ire and dislike of the phone could carry me. Let me vote again! Please! Anything to express how off put I am by Hilary calling me more often than that desperate guy who wouldn't believe me when I said "No, I don't want to go out with you!" a dozen times when I was 15.

A Secret Confession

I have a confession to make.

I love being alone.

This is very surprising to me. I've spent most of my life trying to avoid being alone. As the odd ball in elementary school, cliques and best friends forever were a sore point. In high school I unconsciously sabotaged the friendships I had built up because I had a bad case of the dark-and-mysterious-loner syndrome. Whatever the reason for not being a social butterfly, I have often felt the effects as acutely as a dangling hangnail. This of course led to several years of the all-I-want-is-a-boyfriend blues and a whole bunch of contradictory feelings about wanting to be popular and well-liked, but not really knowing how to or wanting to play the field.

But something has overcome me this week. I suddenly, for the first time in my 21 some-odd years of life, love me some autonomy. I relish riding the bus, talking long solitary walks, eating in restaurants all by my not-so-lonesome self and sitting outside with only a book for company. This has no doubt perplexed friends, family, and Dear Boyfriend. Whatever has overtaken me has clearly been creeping up for some time. My roommates no doubt noticed my frequent escapes from the apartment, as welcoming and jovial as it was, for somewhere offering a less intense social experience than a small apartment shared by four boisterous girls. My father wondered why I was moping when I sequestered myself in my bedroom with my computer and a good book the other evening. And poor Dear Boyfriend has been mystified all week about why his usually affectionate and enthusiastic girlfriend has gone into hibernation.

Perhaps I'm detoxing from an unusually social semester. Living with your best friends leads to a lot of hanging out, as does having your boyfriend actually live in the same city as you. Perhaps I actually made friends with myself last summer trekking across the United Kingdom with only a notebook and peanut butter sandwiches to offer conversation and affection. Perhaps some mental tendon snapped and the days of an almost canine-like desire for constant contact with and reassurance from others have come to an end.

Whatever happened or why, I love being by myself..

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday.

Overheard in Chattanooga

One of my on-campus jobs involves great quantities of scanning books, mostly books about ancient Hebrews who did this or that. To get this accomplished, I have to go to a building that houses, amongst other things, the interior design department, as they have the best scanners.

As I was coming up the stairs with my giant bag of books-about-Hebrews this morning, I encountered two girls coming down. One was laden with a bag almost the size of my own duffle-like bag, although hers was decorated with a chicken pox of Chanel logos. The two girls were discussing the impending return to their parents houses after finals, while tossing their overly-highlighted hair.

Girl With Highlights: So, like, they were telling me how it's only 90 degrees there, BUT, it feels like, like 100!

Chanel Girl: Oh I know! Like, my parents live in Nashville and the weather has been really great there too, and, like, they said MY POOL IS READY!!!

Both Girls: [Mutual squeeling about the readiness of this pool.]

I feel strangely transported to a movie version of my life, where all stereotypes are joyfully fulfilled. What next, am I going to go to the Philosophy department and find packs of hipsters bemoaning how they have no direction in life and believe in nothing? Will I go to the Art department and find everyone cheerfully downing Absinthe and using erotic body paint on one another as some form of performance art/pushing the boundaries of the Avant Gard?

I'm guessing not in Chattanooga.

Not In Utah!

I got back from a lovely weekend in Ogden, Utah around 3 in the morning last night. The mountains were gorgeous (and should be appearing in a Wordless Wednesday this week) and all the people were amazingly nice. When I first arrived, I made friends right away on the shuttle between the Salt Lake airport and Weber State. Then one of the conference facilitators offered to drive me into town when I asked him what the easiest way to check out Ogden proper would be. On Friday night I decided to take myself out for a nice dinner, to celebrate the conference paper I delivered going swimmingly. I ran across Tona sushi restaurant while exploring the touristy drag on 25th street, and couldn't resist the tuna-stuffed jalapenos they were advertising. I am a pretty independent gal, as evidenced by my adventures across England and the United States free of entourage, and had no problem enjoying a nice dinner by myself. But some sweet Ogden natives at the table next to me decided I must be lonely, and took it upon themselves to show a girl from Tennessee a good time. They bought me a glass of wine, and eventually my whole dinner, and invited me to sit with them. We spent the evening laughing and drinking sake and having a fabulous time before they drove me back to Weber State. I'm sad I'll probably never see them again, as they were honestly some of the nicest people I've met in my entire life.

You can imagine my shock then, coming off this weekend of pleasantries and kindness when I got into an altercation with a man in the boarding line at the Chicago airport. He and his wife were very insistent that they physically claim their spot six numbers ahead of me in the 20-30 section of the B boarding line. After six hours trying to get home from Salt Lake, the couple being so snooty about something so trivial compelled me to roll my eyes, leading the husband in this couple to repeatedly ask me "can you read? can you even count?" Apparently my inability to telepathically know what number boarding pass everyone else in the terminal has makes me a cross-eyed illiterate. I personally feel the inspired string of profanities that spilled from my lips in response to his condescending, unnecessarily rude sexist badgering proved my technical skills with our native tongue. Having heard this demonstration of my verbal proficiency, he then proceeded to pull out the incredibly sexist "daddy" card, attempting to shame me by inquiring what my "daddy" would think of all this and if my "daddy" knew what kind of daughter he has. As it turns out, my "daddy" taught me not to take shit from jerks and to stand up for myself, so that line of shame completely failed. He also failed at the whole verbal combat thing when he cancelled out his chosen line of insults about my ability to read and my intelligence when I dropped my choicest profanity and he responded "Pardon me, what did you say?" feigning to either not have heard me or not to have understood.

Fortunately, Southern hospitality won the day when a nice girl from Alabama stood up for me against the wanton asshole. She comforted me and told him to "act his age." I'm very grateful to her for sticking up for me. Also saving the evening from despair, after I got seated on this flight (far behind in line from the anxious couple) I happened to unknowingly sit next to one Jeff Clark, of political consulting and Obama-senatorial-campaign organizing fame. I had no idea who he was, but noticed he was reading a book about Obama, and leaned over to inquire if he was an Obama fan. He replied that he knew Obama and had worked with him. Ironically, after the over-defensive husband had gone to such great lengths to prove my unintelligence, Dr. Clark and I got into a fabulous conversation about Charles Dickens, grad school, and other intelligent matters.

It's a crazy world out there, and it's a lot crazier when you are traveling by yourself.

Friday Creature

I have a fairly wide brick window sill on either size of the window in my bedroom. Sadly the window is crusted over with years of the kind of filth that can only accumulate on/from cinderblock dorm rooms, but when some love birds came to run laps along it, I think it really evoked all those episodes of Friends were Ross and Rachel and Joey and Chandler would have broken up, or in the case of the last pairing "broken up" in a roommates kinda way and were staring sadly through the rainy, rainy windows of their sadness. I think the dove here just needs a little Eric Carmen's "All By Myself" to really complete the mood.

There are some (hopefully less angsty, less contemplative) creatures on the Friday Ark!

Cats and Dogs

I was just watching a cat food commercial and it occurred to me advertisers assume that cat people are cat people because the appeal of cats is that they are adorably pathetic as a species. So many cat commercials base the cuteness of cats on how the cat wants to be a lion or a tiger or some other big cat, but isn't. This makes the cat inherently pathetic for not being a bigger, more awesome version of its species, and delusional to boot.

Now, I hear people say that dogs are inferior to cats because the dog freely degrades itself whereas cats maintain a certain level of sophistication and poise. Cats own their people, not the other way around, etc. etc. But I say, hey, at least the dogs are honest. Or at least the advertisers are in acknowledging that these once-noble post-wolves are charmingly, and sometimes embarrassingly, dependent on us, their food-givers and head-scratchers.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday.

Friday Creature.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday.

At Long Last...Friday Creature

I saw this little frog at the Aquarium when I took my roommate's parents on a tour of our city's finest attraction. Check out the other creatures on this Friday's ark ~~as soon as its up~~!