Saturday, January 9, 2010

My dog has fleas

Well, everyone, I am very pleased to announce that I am currently the proud owner of a Lanikai soprano ukulele! HOORAY! I can't even express to you in words how excited this makes me! It was delivered on Wednesday and I've already learned to play Ode to Joy and Love Me Tender and I am now moving on to chords (there are 15 of them to learn!) and strum patterns (it's usually two upward strums for every downward strum). I found several free ukulele music sites on line (one called Uke Hunt...go ahead, say the website name out loud, but not in mixed company...I made the mistake of telling Hans the name while we were talking on the phone without realizing what it sounded like and had a moment of "oh geez!") that have just tons and tons of songs that you would never think you could play on the ukulele, so I printed off You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC, I'm a Believer by Neil Diamond and I Wanna Be Like You from the Jungle Book and once I get the hang of strumming and chords (again, 15!) I'm taking myself on the road to a coffee house near you!

I bought the textbook for my Drug Dosage & Calculations class and realized it's been a very long time since I've dealt with fractions and decimal points and percentages! But I'm determined to do well and be a Heparin calculating ninja when the class ends in March. I'm also going to be working on my Human Physiology class concurrently, so I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in isotonic solutions and mitochondria!

The weird dreams continue. Last night featured Chrizzie and Richie. We were all road tripping to some location in the Pacific Northwest and Chrizzie's father warned us that the weather was very bad and that it wasn't safe to drive the highways at night because of the weather and bandits....yes, bandits....but we left anyway and on the way we stopped at a cookie making plant where Chrizzie and Richie were friends of the owners and I ended up starting the cookie-making machine (think the machine from Edward Scissorhands, only not as creepy)and all this dough started flying everywhere and there was a huge mess and everybody was like "Oh, that Amanda, bless her heart." and I felt really stupid so I decided that I didn't want to continue on the road trip and started to drive home, in the dark, and I was really scared of the bandits....and then I woke up. A few nights before that I dreamt I was in Grey's Anatomy and I had to protect George's blood from this crazy lady that was trying to get it....the crazy lady turned out to be the mom from Home Alone and I remember thinking in my dream, "Why is the mom from Home Alone and Midnight at the Oasis from Waiting for Guffman trying to steal George's blood?" All very strange.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Sweet dreams?!?

Huzzah! The Holidays are over and things can go back to being only 80% stressful instead of 99% stressful. Huzzah!

I got bullied into celebrating New Years by Hans and Brother. I went to Salt Lake, drank entirely too many Bellinis (but, by God, they are good), ate too many quesadillas from the Sam's Club and ended up getting sleepy (booze and food coma I'm afraid) and Designated Driver dad drove us home (Midvale home) and we didn't even countdown or anything. I did however, in my tipsy mindframe manage to rock the New Year's Eve tiara Hans had purchased from the Target. I rocked it. I rocked it hard.

I must admit the one good thing about the holiday was having the entire week off from work. I just spent the entire time reading and crocheting and sleeping in and watching marathon upon marathon of awesome television. I finished Kathy Griffin's autobiography (still love her, even if her writing style leaves a little to be desired), Julia Child's memoir (want to be her when I grow up!) and the Canada Reads suggestion of Nikolski....Kevin & Ann-ette, this too is an excellent book and I HIGHLY recommend it...its made its way onto the rotation of books I will continue to read for the rest of my life....the characters are charming, the story is charming and the writing style is charming....an all-around pretty fantastic book. Now. Where's my damn Jade Peony, Ann-ette?!!

According to the tracking, my ukulele is currently in Commerce City, Colorado, after spending the holiday in Salina, Kansas. I have no idea where either of these places are located, but the important thing is that the ukulele is slowly, but surely making its way to me and then, Bon Jovi uke-style!

I've been having the oddest dreams lately. The other night I dreamt about The Grasshopper and the Ant, before that I dreamt that Ann-ette was married to Ryan Pence and madly in love with him. I'm trying to find a cause for the weirdness, but it's elusive at this moment. I know they say that dreams are the subconscious' way of working things out, but I'd like to know what Ryan Pence is doing in my subconscious, because frankly, it gives me the heebs!

Kevin, I was sorry to hear about Carolyn's mom. It's never an easy thing to lose someone, especially a mom, and just because she had dementia doesn't make that loss any easier....I hope Carolyn is giving herself time to grieve and cry...sometimes the best thing to do is just to cry it out....I'm a firm believer in crying things out and I encourage a healthy cry...I also encourage you to make her french toast and serve it to her while wearing a bow-tie and little else....everybody likes french toast....everybody likes bow-ties!

Lillith, I hope you're hanging in there and feeling as good as a 9 month pregnant lady centimeters from delivery can feel! Just remember, it will all be over soon and then the fun starts!

And just to make sure I don't incur the wrath of Briskey for not mentioning him....I love you and miss you and you DO look good in black & white!!