If the house is rockin’, I will come knockin’.

Last summer, new neighbors moved in across the street.  They are a young couple and seem nice, although I haven’t talked to them much since bringing them cookies when they first moved in.  We generally just do the typical  neighbor thing: wave if we make eye contact, pretend we don’t see each other if we don’t make eye contact.  (Reading that over, I feel like a jerk. Is that the typical neighbor thing?  Or am I a big brat for not waving every time?)

Well, last night I get home around 11:30.  As I get out of my car, I hear music blasting out of their house.  Not just any music, but some serious heavy metal.  (Note: this is not typical for the neighborhood.  I think the average age of my other neighbors is 72. No joke.)  After about fifteen minutes, it changes to ska and I just can’t take it any longer.

I walk across the street and knock on the door.  Of course, they can’t hear me so I start lurking around the side of their house, trying to decide if I should knock on their back door.  (Thank goodness no one drove by…I would have looked like a total creeper.)  Then, the song ends so I run back to the front porch and knock again.

Matt answers the door, beer mug in hand.

“HI,” I shout, “I HEARD YOUR MUSIC AT MY HOUSE, AND…”

He interrupts, “OH, SORRY, IS IT TOO LOUD?”

“NO, I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT I LIKE IT.  SO I THOUGHT I’D COME OVER…”

“OH, AWESOME, WANT A BEER?”

And with that, I made some new friends.  As it turns out, whatever the other neighbors said made the new neighbors think I was lame (Matt’s words, not mine) so they were never sure what to say to me.    In all, it turned out to be a super fun night.  The cops showed up, though, around 3.  Apparently the music WAS too loud.

Nothing like a sex joke at church…

Believe it or not, this post is going to be a celebration of my mom.

It started with a sex joke at church…someone told her happy mother’s day, and she said thanks.  Then, “But we really have her father to blame for that…”  We proceeded to laugh so hard that we were shushed by the people behind us.  I’m not sure if the humor really carries through if you weren’t there, but it’s still making me laugh out loud.  🙂

Since I’m spending the day at my parents’ house, I started making the angel food cake for dessert.  After pouring the batter in the pan, I brought the bowl to my mom so we could share it (we’re both connoisseurs of raw dough/batter).  After finishing it, she hands me a mug of tea saying, “Here.  It’s the perfect complement.” Some people talk about wine complimenting a meal or about coffee complementing dessert.  My mom points out a tea that complements raw batter.

And now, she’s sitting behind me practicing the guitar.  She started taking lessons a year ago and practices just about every day for roughly an hour!  I think it’s amazing when people decide that it’s never to late to learn a new skill.

My mom is awesome and I love her!

Karaoke, meditation, and strangers

Be prepared: this will be the first of many posts about my students.  They regularly make me happy (what will I do when school’s out!?)  My rambunctious fifth hour today suggested I teach two new classes: a karaoke class and a meditation class.  Now, I’m probably not “highly qualified” to teach either of those things, but do you know how much I’d love it?  Can you imagine a karaoke class?  I’m not sure what the different units of study would be: stage presence, musicality, targeting your audience?  Hm.  Is it that crazy that I think it could almost work?  I mean, I already teach Acting–maybe I could add a unit on musical theatre.  Ok, I think I need to take a step back…

In other news, I had a great random encounter with a kid today.  I stopped at the library on my way home from work to get a book and request others.  When I was walking to the circulation desk, a boy of about 9 says to me, “I can’t find my dad.”  He wasn’t panicky or scared and said it in the most matter-of-fact way. Why he said this to me, I have no idea.  After walking around and looking for the missing dad, we went to the help desk where the boy said the same thing to the employees, adding, “But at least there’s a good sign…our car’s still here.”  It turns out his dad was outside for some reason, so I checked out my books and left.  It was weird, though, how self-possessed this kid was.  Kinda freaked me out, to be honest.  🙂

Have a lovely day!

Long time no see…

Yes, it’s been a long long time.  I’m really going to try to stick with it this time.  I had a good run last April,  but then May happened.  Apparently May kicked my but so I forgot about the blog.  Until now.  Hooray!  Still going to try to focus on the happy things. Sooo…

Today’s happy thing:  Ginger!  I tweaked my knee a week or so ago.  It’s gotten worse, so I’m trying the natural anti-inflammatory.  I had a random container of chopped ginger in the fridge (which isn’t even CLOSE to the real deal, by the way), so I added about a teaspoon or so to some hot water, squeezed in some lemon juice, and bingo bango.  Yum yum.  (You do have to keep stirring it or else the particles all rest on the bottom.)

Know of any other yummy ginger drinks?

Laundry fresh off the line

18. With just a little more effort, you can put clothes on the line and get that crunchy feeling and yummy smell.  Slight risk of insects in clothes, but that’s a small price to pay.  And if you shake the clothes well, nothing sticks around.

19.  My backyard neighbor, Lorene, has a friend named Bill. I think they are both 87 years old.  Anyway, sometimes, when he’s done visiting her, he drives the long way out of the neighborhood to drive by my house.  I think he just likes to check up on me to make sure nothing looks drastically out of order.  Whatever the reason, I like it.

20. Bill also brought me two newspaper clippings about starting seedlings inside before the official garden season has started.  This is after I commented that I was thinking about doing that this year.  Truthfully, I probably wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t brought me those clippings.

another day in the life

16. I love it when Lori calls on her way into town to see if I want to hang out.  She stopped and got Subway and then we went to see How to Train Your Dragon.  It was super cute!  We saw it in imax 3d, so while 14 dollars is more than I’d like to pay for a movie, it was worth it.  And when you take into account the fact that we snuck our candy in, it wasn’t too bad at all.

17.  Baking bread.  I’m trying to bake some Portugese sweet bread right now.  Well, I’m actually letting it rise…I was in the process of making it when Lori called, so I just let it sit.  We’ll see how it turns out, I guess. It has to rise again and then I can bake it.

Food!

In what will be a common theme, I’m sure, today’s happy things deal with food.

12.  Jello Poke Cake.  Have you ever had it?  It’s so easy but so delicious.  Make a white or yellow cake. When you put the cake in the oven, prepare a small box of jello with just the hot water.  When the cake is done, let it sit for 5 minutes.  Poke the top with the tines of a fork or something.  Pour the liquidy jello over the top.  Cool.  Top with cool whip.  A coworker made it today and it made me happy.

13.  Muesli with fruit and yogurt.  When I was in Berlin last summer, Babsi and I had this for breakfast just about every day.  I’ve been having it a lot lately and it’s so good.  I especially like half a banana, some kiwi, and some apple. I sometimes have it for two meals a day. A piece of me feels like grownups don’t do that, but I don’t care, darn it!

14.  Eating out at Cafe Zola.  Hope we get crepes with nutella and banana!

15.  Peanut butter and fluff sandwhiches.  My mom makes them the best.  Take white mushy bread, spread with peanut butter (smooth), add marshmallow fluff, sprinkle with mini chocolate chips.  Yes, this is breakfast.  And yes, my mom will still make them for me for lunch after I spend the night. (That’s not weird for a 26 year old to admit, is it?)

So, I don’t know how to count…

But I’ve caught up now. I’m sure there will be more numbering mistakes in the future.

9.  Grandpa joking with Uncle John on my parents’ phone. They were talking about playing phone tag and Uncle John said something like, “and so I called Judy.” and Grandpa says, “That’s funny, cause I’m here!”

10.  Playing the Easter Egg game.  Everyone has a dyed, hardboiled egg. You whunk your egg with the person next to you: whose ever doesn’t crack, wins.  The eleven of us played and it was super fun.  Especially when Grandpa was moving his egg backward so I wouldn’t hit it, and when Geoff and I were in our special kung-fu egg whunking poses. (Incidentally, Dad won. He was happy.)

11.  Aunt Anne’s cheesecake, made by Gevevieve. (A.nne’s mom’s recipe, I think. Calls for more egg white and whipped cream.)

Hoppy Easter!

6. ? Am I on number six?  Well, puns make me happy, even if they’re really bad.

I said, “Top o’the mornin’ to ya!”

Student rolls eyes.

“What? Is my Irish accent not good enough for you?”

Student shrugs.

You know, I think I have a beef with you now.  A CORNED BEEF!

7.  The Macpodz.  They had a really fun show last night at the Blind Pig, super fun to dance to.  And I liked the people that played before, but I forget their name.  Papa something.

The grump has been defeated!

And all it took was a walk, which is my number three on the list of things that make me happy.

3.  Walks outside when it’s not too hot, not too cold, and breezy.  It helps that I got to accomplish stuff, too: went to the bank, returned books at the library, looked at a piece of jewelry, went to Kroger.

4.  Having a comfy backpack.  It held my purse, jacket, three books, DVD, carton of milk, peanut butter, and dozen eggs.

5.  Getting honked at.  I know, I know…it shouldn’t make me happy.  But it does. I guess I need to just accept the fact that I like a little bit of attention every now and again.

6.  Eating a banana with a scoop of peanut butter.  Is it ok to have two bananas a day? Cause I really like them.  yummm.