Wordless Wednesday: Why would someone leave an entire case of Samoas out for public consumption in the kitchen at work??

When life gives you lemons, don't rub them on that paper cut you gave yourself yesterday.

So I'm in a really sticky situation that has been going on for several weeks now and that I admit is at least partially of my own making. I don't really want to post any details here.

And it hurts. I'm struggling with how to act and how to feel, and it IS a struggle. I am trying to stand up for myself (which I'm not very good at), but also not be a total jerk to the other people involved, and I'm not sure that I'm doing a very good job at either.

AND I'm trying to have faith that this will work out, and I'm trying to be ok with the fact that I don't get to define what that means, but that Heavenly Father does, and that that is better than me defining it.

Really, it's better. Really.

Argh.

Pray for me, please?

Now give three cheers, I'll lead the way!

So last night I went to see Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore at Wolf Trap. YAY!! It was such a fun show! I mean, it IS a fun show, and it was so fun to see it in that setting! I've been wanting to go to Wolf Trap for a while, and when I heard about the show on Thursday I was thrilled at the chance to see that show there!

This may be news to some of you, but I love ridiculous songs (I know - shocker!), and the songs in this show fit in that category. In fact, it is perhaps because of Gilbert and Sullivan that I do love silly songs. I grew up listening to, and memorizing, The Pirates of Penzance, Pinafore, and The Mikado. Once on a road trip I sang all of Act I of Pirates with my friend Lisa's brother. We were alone in the cab of his truck, so we didn't inflict our singing on the whole group. :) And my dad sings "I am the Captain of the Pinafore" and "When I was a Lad," with my sisters and me as his back-up, er, I mean, his crew. So you might say that these songs are deeply important to me, as much as anything can be deeply important that is "full of sound and fury and signif[ies] nothing." You might say, if you were being sentimental, which I frequently am, that they are part of the soundtrack of my childhood.

I was on the lawn for the show last night, too far back to see things like, oh, facial expressions, but I could hear well, so I sat under the stars and chortled over love-sick sailors, pompous nobles, and ridiculous songs and situations. I did manage to refrain from singing along to any of the songs, but it was difficult. :)

(Image from Wikipedia)

I may have to cancel my move.

I JUST found out that one of my very favorite bands, Great Big Sea, is playing at Wolf Trap on 22 August.

That's the week AFTER I'm moving out of the state. why WHY WHY?!?!

AND they are playing with Eddie from Ohio, who I would also LOVE to see in concert.

ARGH!!!!!!!!

I really don't know how to convey how heartbroken I am about this. GBS has kept me sane on MANY a 40-minute commute, and several of their songs have consoled me to the point of tears of relief and release when I have been stressing out and worried about things. (That sounds a little weird, even to me, and I'm the one who lived it and wrote it...) Even my very hip brother-in-law enjoyed their music on my mp3 player, and for a geek like me, that's a BIG DEAL! ;) And you would think that listening to the same songs day after day for weeks at a time would get old, but it hasn't happened yet! I sometimes vary the soundtrack on my commute for fear that I'll get sick of GBS, but I usually last only one or two commutes on a different group before I'm back. They have been the soundtrack of my life since about October of last year, and now I'm going to miss their concert. :( :( :(

I think I'll go see this in Chicago with her and her and Elise to console myself.

And maybe I'll go see this at Wolf Trap tonight so that at least I can be in the same place where Great Big Sea will be on 22 August...

The thing about big crazy thunderstorms...

...is that they allow for really cool ones of these:


And do I think that this principle applies to more facets of life than just weather?

Perhaps. ;)

Some people can't just TELL you their big news.

No, they have to IM you as follows:

Jeremy: have you seen my new blog theme?

me:

um, not since last week.

10:00 AM did you get it back up and working again?

Jeremy: i haven't restored the old stuff

but I create a new summer-time look

me: ok, i'm checking right now

Jeremy: what do you think?

10:01 AM Brooke doesn't like it

10:03 AM me: um, is this a subtle way to make me find out that BROOKE IS PREGNANT WITH TWINS?!??!?!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

:) :) :)

Jeremy: what do you think about the theme?

Nice, Jer, nice.

And he pulled the same stunt on Alan, but Alan isn't obsessive about being up-to-date on everyone's posts, so after he responded that he didn't like the theme, Jeremy actually had to prod him...

Alan: Then he said, well did you read the first post.

me: ah HA!

Alan: and I said, sure...started reading.. got bored, said I'll finish it later.

me: lol

Alan: He said no, keep reading.

Alan: So I skimmed to the bottom.

me: no shame.

Alan: Sure enough ultrasounds, and I thought it was a joke.

You know, Jeremy.

Congrats, guys! Just think - in 7 months you'll have twice as many kids as you do now!! Hee hee! :)

P.S. OOooh, he didn't like this post. :P Next time - just tell me your news!!

I should stop reading badly-written novels right before going to bed.

My between-hitting-the-snooze-button-every- nine-minutes-for-I-refuse-to-admit-how-long dream this morning involved me being given temporary responsibility for NoSurf and Merrily Karolys children. Apparently both couples were going out of town and I was babysitting.

And training for a marathon.

And apparently we (there was a group that was training for the marathon) were at the beginning of our training, because on this particular day, that training involved running a fairly short distance, but we only had a small "track" so we were running lots of laps. I think 24 laps. Or maybe 28. And the track was in maybe a warehouse or something, because there were rolls of carpet and boxes that we were running around and between.

And in my dream NoSurf only had 2 kids, and one was a baby, so her baby and Jr Karoly were in car seats, and apparently I felt it was sufficient supervision that I would be passing by these 2 babies 24 (or 28) times during my run.

Huh.

Do you feel dumber after reading this? That was how I felt after reading that book last night.

So, um, weather.

So in case you missed it, I live on the east coast now. And I used to live in a desert-y area in the west. And believe it or not, the weather is different here than it was there. I know - shocker.

When we lost power the other day it was because a tree got blown right over on the main street near our house and pulled the wires down with it. I saw the tornado warning on TV that afternoon, and not 10 minutes later the power was out. (P.S. It was back on when we got home from work the next day, so it was out less than 24 hrs. And our water heater still worked, so that was nice for showers the next morning. But funny thing about washing your hair when you have no power - no hair dryer. Yeah, that was awesome. And a whole nother topic.) The rain and winds came roaring in - there was a quickly moving stream along the side of the road; I was really amazed at how quickly there was a TON of water around. I think I lived in the desert too long. :) And apparently the winds were 50-60 miles an hour - the top of my neighbor's tree blew right off - 20 feet of tree, lying in her yard!

And tonight - it started to look like rain, and then the thunder and lightning started. I stood on my porch and watched for a while - it really was beautiful. The rain doesn't always break the humidity, but sometimes it helps. Tonight it was a heavy hot wet feeling, and the sky was lit up again and again by lightning. Sometimes you could see the strike of lightning itself - a jagged line down the sky - and sometimes it just lit up the sky without the distinct stripe. I was amazed by how it continued - I stood on my porch for a little while, watching it. The memories that I have of lightning from when I was a kid were just brief, violent storms - a few flashes and then gone. This was more than that - I watched the location of the lightning move across the sky - the flashes came one right after another - again and again and again. And the thunder - a constant background noise behind the lights in the sky. Since the sky was dark, the clouds were light against it, but then when the lightning would flash the clouds would appear darker in contrast to the lit-up sky.

It was fun to watch, and new to me, even though I grew up on the east coast - I don't remember the lightning and thunder continuing like that.

And it was peaceful, in a wondrous-dangerous-weather kind of way. I like where I live. :)

To the powers that be...

PLEASE let the electricity in my house be back on when I get home! We just hit the 24.5 hr anniversary of it going out because of the storm, and I would REALLY like to arrive home from work to a well-lit, well-air-conditioned, well-refrigerated home!

After all, last night I had to eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream so that it wouldn't melt in my freezer, and I'd really like to avoid that in the future.

(never mind that I bought the ice cream after the power went out)

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Memorial Day

See more "Wordless Wednesdays" at http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/

Apparently I have a price attached...

Yeah, so I bought some new pants on Saturday, and while I was talking to someone at work today I went to put my hands into the back pockets, and couldn't, because they were still sewn shut. So why did it feel like there was a rectangular piece of paper INSIDE the sewn-shut pocket??

Oh wait - it's not inside the POCKET, it's inside the PANTS...Yup.

Next time remove ALL tags before wearing...