23 going on 83

Guess what I am going to be doing this lovely (and really nippy) Friday afternoon in Moscow, Idaho?

Napping on my couch with two cats? No...but good guess.

Hanging out with hot men that think I am the greatest thing since sliced bread? Getting warmer...

Interviewing a 90 year old man at a nursing home about his memories of the Kennedy's? *DING DING DING* We have a WINNER!!! 

Gerry (who I have NEVER met) and I will be having an intimate conversation in his apartment in the middle of the nursing home about John, Bobby and Teddy. 

Jealous? Should be. 

You should also be jealous of my mad craft skills. When craft time happens at my house, it is a very exciting time. It might not always be good exciting, but it is some kind of exciting. I get these ideas in my mind where I think that I need/am able to make something to add to the décor of my life.

Time Out. The décor in my life right now screams “GRANDMA LIVES HERE.” (I imagine that when I interview Gerry it will feel like I am in my own bedroom, when in fact I am in a nursing home.) I live in a wood paneled bedroom with jell-o molds on the wall above my desk. Pictures below. Time in.

Well the most recent “craft” project was to make one of those boards that is padded and covered in fabric and has ribbon and buttons. After buying a million buttons, spools of ribbon, and a giant piece of insulation. This is the result...

Looks ok, right? I think that it was a success. I am not going to be going into business making these things. 

And if I ever decide to make something again, someone PLEASE remind me to try to match my new craft project to the current decor of my room. So many floral prints. 

Don't worry... I moved my bed so that it was centered.

But I got that little craft project out of my system, and I can now focus all of my time on transcribing my Kennedy interview with Gerry. Living the d-r-e-a-m. And living like I am 83. 

If I was to ever get a guy into my room, this would for sure scare him away... 

Back in the day... but if this doesn't sum up my life, what does?

I write all these blogs (great, great blogs) in a Word document titled "blogtastic" that is saved on my desktop so that I can access it easily. In this document I write down a lot of things that should never ever make it to the internet. But today I found something from Summer 2010 that should have been posted long ago. It explains a) why I am currently in grad school and living in my parents basement, as opposed to having a "real" job and "real" home, b) why I spent VD(ay) 11 watching Jesus Camp and trying to find old science videos that I watched in high school biology and c) why I have this little blog. Here it is... purple is what I have added today, mainly for clarification. 

Well for the last few days I have been exploring The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And I saw so much and it was soooo much fun! (Whenever someone refers to Pennsylvania by it's official name you know they are cool.)

Doll Outlet: This is basically what you think that it would be… a place that sells lots of dolls, but it is also soooo much more. For starters all the staff members wear scrubs (like nurses) and upstairs there is a “nursery” with lots of baby dolls. These dolls are newborns and come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, colors and with lots of different facial expressions. Warning: If you go here (and you should for a great laugh!) you might be asked if you want to hold the babies/dolls and if you say yes then you are going to have to hold it like a real baby. And there are lots of creepy pics of older men holding these dolls all around the store. It was so creepy and so funny at the same time. (As I look back on this moment it gets more and more creepy...which makes me think that I have seen the most creepy thing to be found in America. And I have seen Black Swan.)

Minor League Baseball: HARRISBURG SENATORS!!! Need I say more. (I got a t-shirt at the game and I wear it proudly. In public. Often.)

Amish Country: Bird in Hand. Intercourse. Buggies. Pretzel making. Jam making. Antiquing. Everything you could ever want but with less technology. (Whenever people mention anything Amish (which does happen on occasion) I have to literally hold myself back from describing every detail from this trip to whoever is near me.) 

Titanic Exhibit: There was stuff from the bottom of the ocean from the real ship. It was so cool and so old. And I got to touch an iceberg. And then I felt hurricane force winds. No BFD. (It was hurricane wind simulator. They now have one in the Palouse Empire Mall. So this has lost a little bit of the cool factor. But that Titanic stuff was still legit.)

Gettysburg Wax Museums: G-burg is home to not one, BUT two wax museums! Who would have thought?! One of them is just about the Civil War and the other one has all the presidents. They were amazing. I love me some wax museums and these did not disappoint!

***Confession of a Real Life Nerd: When I was in 8^th grade I went on this Girl Scout trip to Pennsylvania to learn about women in the civil war for ten days. It was called “Bonnets and Battlefields” (and they don’t offer it anymore and that is one of the reasons that I don’t approve of the direction that Girl Scouts is heading… but that is the topic for another post.) and it was super duper fun. But anyway, because of this nerdy experience I am kind of a G-Burg expert  and loved being able to go back.*** (Yep.  Civil War Battlefields. And strong feelings about the future directions of Girl Scouts. Who am I?)

Mourned the Loss of Former Alaska Senator Theodore “Ted” Stevens: Picture it. Fall of 2008. Me, a 20-something student studying in Washington DC for the semester. Ted, an 80-something senator from Alaska being tried for…. Our paths crossed when I went to watch his lawyers fight for a mistrial because the prosecution had withheld boxes of evidence and then blacked parts of it out. I know that he saw me because a) I was the youngest one in the room b) I had the most confused look on my face and c) I was the only one wearing glittery flip flops. (and I think that he should have been granted a mistrial, but again a post for another day). RIP Ted. RIP. (The fact that this was a major component of my trip makes me proud. The fact that I have mentioned my involvement in his trial since this time makes me prouder.)

Well, Real World, we may meet one day in the future. But neither of us should hold our breathe for that day to come. Clearly, it is a long ways down the road. 

The things you “learn” in grad school.

* One day during my “office hours” (Basically I sit in an office/old dorm room with four desks, lots of old reports on different National Forests, and a beautiful portrait of birds.) I had some gummy bears and I wanted to know how many calories were in the pack. (You know, because Spring Break is getting close and this is what you do… I guess.) You might think that this would be easy given policies about nutritional labeling in our country.  Well, I don’t eat the green or yellow or orange ones. So I lined up all the gummy bears by color and then added them up and then did some simple math and concluded that there are 5.6 calories per gummy bear. From the packet of bears that I purchased, I ate 21 gummies (or 117.6 calories).  Now would be a really good time for some one to come and be my friend and help me learn to be a real person.

Oh. You didn't believe me... 

 So much useless information. So much wasted shelf space. 

* In my human evolution class we have spent the last week talking about mammalian lactation. I am now oddly prepared to have some suckle me. (Too far.) But the areola is intentionally a darker color so that little babies can find it. (Wayyyy too far.)

* I tried bubble tea the other day. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea) Basically an Orange Julius with tapioca in it. It was oddly good. Except that my mom got me the mango flavored one. I do not like mango flavored things. Everyone take note. 

Who knew that there was black tapioca?!

* Valentine’s Day is more about me giving cards, than me getting cards. [Real convo that happened between my brother and I. Me: Here is your Valentine’s Day card brother. Brother: Thanks. Do I have to get you one now?] But there is nothing in this world that I love more than a good old fashioned holiday card with funny cat pictures on it. They are purrrr-fect!

* I am taking a class on family relationships and I think that I might be the only person in that class who is not engaged/married/committed into a serious relationship. But, (and if you know anything about my family this will be shocking) I am doing really well in it. Slightly unstable families can produce smart people. There is hope for all. 

* And the most important thing that I have learned this semester is that if you find a powdery white substance on your office desk, don’t automatically assume that it is anthrax. No one wants to kill you to steal the office bird painting and your secret knowledge of how many calories exist in one gummy bear.

Art. Real Art.