Friday, December 15th, 2017
Well, finals week is almost over. Now there is only one class left, with an oral final and a paper due. Thursday night, which turned into Friday morning, was spent hurriedly writing that paper from scratch and pretending to study for the oral final. At least I wasn't alone, for there was at least a dozen people in our apartment writing papers too. At any rate, as the hours before the deadline grew shorter and shorter, more and more people left to go back to their homes and sleep. By and by at four in the morning, Luke and I went to bed, leaving John to stay up by himself writing away. Ughh, it was way too late. But I had a plan: I'd sleep for three hours, go clean the Stormcellar, and then have about an hour and a half to study before my oral final. Great plan! And with that, I went to bed.
I woke up, not to my alarm, and did my first sit-up of the day. I looked at my phone, which told me it was 10:12am. "What!? Shootnam, I slept in, I gotta get going!" I thought to myself. I burst into action. Oh boy was this bad. I hurriedly got ready in record time, and ran down to the school as fast as I could, arriving with five minutes to spare before my final was supposed to begin. Gulp. I'd studied probably a total of twenty minutes for this. It wasn't going to be pretty. I met Brooke on my way to my professor's office, and she was glad to see me, and said, "Oh there you are Leaf. It's just about you're turn to go in, and I didn't see you around the school at all. I was about to call you to make sure you were up!" Breathless, I nodded in reply and said a few words, then sat down and tried to recollect things I had seen on the study guide. Ain't nuthin. Oh well. The time came, I walked in and sat down, and did so poorly on the final; it was astonishing how pathetic it was: just barely passing. Well, that's what happens when you overextend yourself, don't study, and sleep through your alarm and what sliver of study time you actually did plan for. Oh well, guess I deserve what I got. Good prodding to do better next time though!
After that I finished up my paper and turned it in, and as I was walking down the twisty staircase back to the library, I looked out the windows and saw... SNNOOOWWWW!!! IT WAS SNOWING! My heart skipped a beat then leapt a thousand feet. What glorious timing; just as I was finally done with all my papers and exams! The library was down to just a few remaining stragglers, and there weren't many around to share my joy with, except Charli, who was putting the last touches on her paper. I got her attention then exclaimed, "Nix cadens est!!!" [The snow is falling.] Her eyes lit up, "Really!?" she whisper shouted, because we were still in a library. We walked fast to the door and then out into the beautiful scene of freshly falling snow, which you could tell was going strong and gaining pace. Just then, Christy walked up. "Hi guys!" she said, "It just started falling as I was walking over here, isn't it nice?" We all admired the snowflakes. We also reformed our plans that we'd made earlier, since everybody except Christy and Caleb had forgotten about them, (heh, funny story) and then we each went our separate ways.
The walk back to 6th street was something else. Sure, I'd probably flunked my Anselm class since the paper I'd just turned in was garbage and the oral was a mess to say the least, and sure, Latin kicked my tail too, as well as that three thousand word paper for that other class probably wasn't very good, and sure, I was slightly sleep deprived and my apartment was a disheveled heap of ashy dishes and empty pizza boxes ( to be fair, the pizza was not my idea, though I may have participated in the enjoyment of it...), but at least it was snowing. And it was beautiful. And I was done with finals. And I had friends, and it was almost Christmas break, and I'd see my family soon, and... I could go on and on. I'm blessed to have all the wonderful things I do. It's great. It really is. For all yall students out there, don't let grades get you down. Yes, they are important. But they're not everything; there is so much more to life. I'm not saying don't try to get good grades, by all means do so, but at the same time don't let your academic aspirations dominate everything else. Strive for the best, work your hardest, and be grateful and content with the outcome.
These were the things I thought about on my walk back home, along with the conviction to be more diligent next quarter in my classes. Heh, for starters, I should try actually studying for my exams! I then decided to not worry myself about my classes, and determined to not think about them one bit for at least a week, and to enjoy my remaining days in Idaho before Christmas break proper as thoroughly as I possibly could. So that's what I did.
Upon arriving home, I found Caleb sitting on the couch amidst so many dirty plates and aforementioned empty pizza boxes, quietly reading a book waiting for me to show up. He'd been there since noon, and it was now about one thirty or so. Yeeaaah... this is what happens when you forget about the plans you make folks! The previous plan was this: several people were going to arrive at my place at noon, we'd eat pancakes, then I'd get a haircut. (Evidently this haircut was quite the deal, and several people had expressed interest in observing the deed being done. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe because it'd been long and curly and Bob Ross ish for quite some time and they were intrigued as to whether more eggs or hatched chicks would fall out when my hair got cut off. I'm not sure, the evidence is inconclusive. (full disclaimer, it was a tie: an equal number of chicks and eggs fell out.) At any rate, I decided to make an occasion out of it and invite all those who wanted to see it over for pancakes after finals. Not all could make it, but some did. Caleb was one.) Well, I had said there would be pancakes at noon, and Caleb had planned accordingly, and I'd forgotten and now it was past one thirty. This meant Caleb was hungry. So we cooked up a smaller batch with the intention of making more once everybody else got there at two thirty or so. We ate voraciously, and then we ran out into the now snowy parking lot to frolic in the joys of winter-actualized. We slid on the slickness of the asphalt, pelted each other with snowballs, and generally goofed off, before I at last acknowledged that my feet were in fact cold and it would behoove me to go inside and warm them up whilst there was yet a certain degree of feeling left in them. When we got back inside, I started cleaning. Caleb offered to wash dishes, of which there was a ton, and together we began a house-wide purge, bagpipe music blaring all the while. After what seemed a good bit, it was looking pretty good: Caleb had washed all the dishes, the counters were clean, the floor swept, the bathroom sanitized, the trash put out, and I was just then vacuuming the livingroom. The house was clean again! Caleb is a star, it'd've taken me twice as long to do it all myself! Just as I finished vacuuming, I noticed Christy and Charli walking up, so I opened the door to let them in.
We fried up pancakes and talked excitedly about everything, and then Luke came and joined in too. By and by, the time drew near for the cutting of the hair. Luke ran over to Laura's apartment to borrow a tall mirror, Charli grabbed her scissors, and I pulled a chair out and sat down. The last haircut I'd received at the hands of Froh, and it was a long, painful ordeal. My hair was far too thick and curly for his dull clippers, and the only way to get the hair off was to yank and pull so much I thought I knew what it felt like for Zeus to have Athena jump out of his split head, as the myth goes. That haircut was by all means to avoid repetition. After much looking around and fall-throughs, I finally asked Charli to cut it and she agreed. So here we are. The first thing she did was to cut off this one little particular bunch of hair on the far back left of my head that I constantly twirl around in circles. It's sort of a habit I've developed I guess. At any rate, it was gone. Charli kept cutting away at it, making slow but sure progress. Eventually it got to the point where both she and Caleb were discussing whether the sides were even, if perhaps a tad more should be taken from one side, or some other such question. At least twice we finished, and I ran my head under the faucet to get all the stray hairs out. Upon my re-arrival, both Caleb and Charli would say, "Oh no, that will never do, sit back down, we've got to fix that!" And so they did. But at long last, it was finally all the way done, and I was pleased. It turned out better than I'd expected! Charli had never cut curly hair so short as mine, (not that it was short at all, just short in comparison to girls' hair lengths) and it had been a while since she'd cut hair anyways. But it turned out pretty good, so we were both glad about that. Then they both headed home, and I was left alone with my pile of shorn hair.
After about an hour or so, Mariah, Priscilla, and Caleb came by, and together we drove through the still-falling snow to Darcey's house where a big class party was to take place. We got there right on time, so consequently we were obnoxiously early, but made ourselves useful by helping decorate the place before all the people arrived. Soon enough though they did, and we had a grand ole time. Pizza magically appeared borne on the wings of some guardian angel, and then we all prayed and sat down to eat. After the first two slices I ate, I realized there was, in fact, pineapple pizza there. Heh heh. I love pineapple pizza. Mandy does not. We have an ongoing feud over whether pineapple is acceptable or not on pizza, and it gets pretty involved sometimes, but that's a story for another day. Anyways, I changed seats and sat right next to her, being sure to let her know how delicious the pizza was. After that we all did various and divers things, some singing songs around the baby grand, some cutting paper snowflakes, others just talking or whatnot. Later on, we all went downstairs and watched White Christmas, which I'd never seen before. There's definitely more than one good one-liner in there.
By and by the time came to discedere, (I hardly ever say 'leave' anymore, 'discedere' sounds better and is funner to use too) and we all put our boots and jackets and scarves on. We all went outside, and the snow was too perfect not to, heh heh, throw around a bit. So I did. Next thing you know there are snowballs flying everywhere, and I'm scrambling around to make sure everybody gets just as much snow as the next guy. (I try to be as fair as possible in how I distribute snow to everybody, preferably in their face or the back of the collar.) Keziah was giving me trouble though, hiding behind his car and standing up only when he had a good shot at me, and being sure not to let me get in a snowball edgewise. If I went to one side of the car, he went to the other. The choice was clear, there was no alternative; if I was going to deal with this problem, it had to be now. So I ran straight for the car with a snowball in each hand, jumped and slid across the roof and threw the snow as fast as I could. Unfortunately I forgot to close my mouth during this whole ordeal, and as I slid across the roof of his car, powdery snow rushed inside, along with a well-aimed snowball from Keziah. I inhaled a bunch through my glottis down my trachea, and my lungs couldn't get any air. I crashed on the other side of the car and rolled over into a heap, at which point Keziah kicked yet more snow into my mouth as I was gasping for breath. I pulled myself up to all fours coughing violently, and finally managed to clear my airways and breathe properly. Then I was fine, and continued to run around throwing snow, but by this time I was covered head to foot in snow. It was great. I need more snow in my life. Just not in my lungs. ahhahahae
Around midnight thirty I made it back to my apartment where I found Luke, and we were both on the hunt for food, as young buckaroos like ourselves our wont to do at such a time of night, especially after running around a bunch. For a time we simply forgot that we were looking for food, and stood in the kitchen talking, but by and by the growling was too much, so we continued the prowl. We discovered leftover pizza and pancakes, and these we enjoyed while watching the very first episode of Stranger Things, since Luke had not yet seen it. It was now about two thirty in the morning. Ugghh. But it was fun. We both traipsed off to the stairs to go get some sleep, but then a howling monster of a memory rushed up out of nowhere and destroyed all such high pretensions of going to bed at a decent hour. Earlier today, I'd slept in and hadn't cleaned the Stormcellar. Now it must be done, there was no getting around it any longer. I hardened my resolve to get it knocked out, and began dressing for the weather and packing my music and speakers in my backpack. I walked outside, got about fifty feet down the way and then... turned tail and ran back for the door. I had seen something.
I rushed inside, closed the door behind me quick as I could, rushed to the other side of the livingroom, and dove behind the couch. Thankfully, I was the only one that made any sound, and the stillness of the night was pleasing to my ear. I then grabbed the reason of my sudden rush back to the apartment from behind the couch where I keep it, and with the sled went back outside. Now I was all buckets of joy. The snow had been falling for several hours now, and the plows had yet to go down the 6th street hill, the sight of which had made me run back to get my sled. Heh heh. Now was my chance. I hopped on my sled and slid all the way to the bottom. It was great. Then I went and cleaned the Stormcellar. By the time I was done with that, it was about four thirty in the morning, and my sleep schedule was now definitely getting a little crazy. I walked on my way back home, enjoying the quiet solitude of the empty streets, interrupted only by a snowplow driving by. It was calm and serene. Perfect. I reached the top of 6th street, then gave in and sledded down the sidewalk this time. I then walked back to the top, and ended up sledding down several different roads and alleyways. By the time I got back to the house, it was five thirty in the morning. "Oh boy," I thought to myself, "At least I ain't got nuthin goin on tomorra, so I can sleep ever so long as I want!"
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Monday, December 25, 2017
Christmas Chakra
Monday, December 25th, 2017
Well folks, it's Christmas. And nothing quite gets the day set off right like a good breakfast of cheesy grits with eggs and orange juice. Ohh yeeaah. And the best part? It all just magically showed up there on the table, ready to eat. Mothers are great, just sayin. Just as we were beginning breakfast, Grandma showed up; she'd already eaten but joined us at the table anyways. After that we all gathered round in the livingroom and dished out stockings, which contained, among a few other items, a couple things we were all expecting but quite excited for: each had it's own thing of eggnog in addition to crackers, salami, or cheese. We skipped along to the kitchen and sliced it all up and put it on a big platter. Meanwhile, empty glasses and bottles of various delectable liquids were brought and adorned the erstwhile empty table. Soon they were joined by the platter of cheese and meat and crackers, and it was these that we munched on for the next several hours as the day progressed. Jacob arrived a little after getting the crackers out. We exchanged several gifts, and then Jubal and Savannah and I added the new lincoln logs the boys had got to the old ones and all built our own forts. Then we set up our men and had a big battle, each taking turns and getting one shot each time. After several rounds, I eventually emerged victorious. Jubal was dumbfounded, "But I remember the last two times we played this, I won!"
"Well," I replied, "I guess you can't win 'em all, can you?"
After that we all did various and divers things, and eventually I found myself in the kitchen with mamma. I'd already thrown my bread in the oven, and now we both finished the sweet potatoes, and then we cleaned up after the breakfast dishes and got everything set to rights again. It's nice to have such things dealt with, and nicer not to deal with them by oneself or late at night, or, worse yet, both. At any rate, it went swimmingly.
Then dinner was ready and we had a great ham, buttered green beans, heaven-sent sweet potatoes done the perfect way, Grandma's fancy pear halves with cheese and mayonnaise, fresh bread out of the oven, and perhaps one more thing I've forgotten. It was great. After that we had a brief respite before dessert, and I read Grandma several of my blogposts, which she greatly enjoyed. Apparently I was unaware of the fact that dessert had in fact commenced, and that cherry and apple pie with vanilla icecream was a thing. I am still undecided as to whether I should go see a therapist and check if my cognitive and mental faculties are still working properly, since my not noticing the eating of dessert had given me sufficient cause for doubt... or if I should rather just go ahead, admit defeat, and live out the remainder of my days as a naturalized Chinese monk laboring in solitude on a desolate mountaintop to unlock the seventh gate of my inner chakra in order to regain balance in the universe. I finally decided to simply go get some pie and move on with my life.
After that harrowing experience, we went on to do a variety of things, but it was all pretty chill (which was nice!). By and by we read the story of Saint Nicolas along with the final portion of our Advent storybook, with the culmination of the birth of Jesus. Then Jubal and Titus went off to bed, and mamma, dad, Savannah and I played Splendor while Lydia and Jacob sat on the couch and watched and played games on their phone, and Grandma sat in the rocking chair reading a book. It was a good evening, but eventually we all went to bed; except, however, Savannah and I, who stayed up cleaning bedrooms and writing, respectively. Or at least, that's what we said we were doing, we actually ended up just talking a bunch. But it was great.
And that's bout it! It was a great Christmas, and I couldn't've asked for a better. (Except, perhaps, it would've been nice to write about it all in a bit more detail, but it's getting late and I'm tired and want to get to bed. Besides, I was too busy enjoying the day as it went to worry too much about writing it. I might come back later and add more though, just to make it better. (post script: Wait, I just added the title. I always do that last. Not sure if it actually fits or not, now I'll definitely need to come back and edit this. (Also, you may be wondering what 'post script' means; that's long for 'p.s.' (I could add something else here, but the last time I started doing parenthetical phrases inside of parenthetical phrases, it kinda got a little out of hand. (Ok, that's it. When I come back and edit this I'm going to axe this whole paragraph and pretend like none of this ever happened.))))) Coolio, merry Christmas yall! Peace out!
Well folks, it's Christmas. And nothing quite gets the day set off right like a good breakfast of cheesy grits with eggs and orange juice. Ohh yeeaah. And the best part? It all just magically showed up there on the table, ready to eat. Mothers are great, just sayin. Just as we were beginning breakfast, Grandma showed up; she'd already eaten but joined us at the table anyways. After that we all gathered round in the livingroom and dished out stockings, which contained, among a few other items, a couple things we were all expecting but quite excited for: each had it's own thing of eggnog in addition to crackers, salami, or cheese. We skipped along to the kitchen and sliced it all up and put it on a big platter. Meanwhile, empty glasses and bottles of various delectable liquids were brought and adorned the erstwhile empty table. Soon they were joined by the platter of cheese and meat and crackers, and it was these that we munched on for the next several hours as the day progressed. Jacob arrived a little after getting the crackers out. We exchanged several gifts, and then Jubal and Savannah and I added the new lincoln logs the boys had got to the old ones and all built our own forts. Then we set up our men and had a big battle, each taking turns and getting one shot each time. After several rounds, I eventually emerged victorious. Jubal was dumbfounded, "But I remember the last two times we played this, I won!"
"Well," I replied, "I guess you can't win 'em all, can you?"
After that we all did various and divers things, and eventually I found myself in the kitchen with mamma. I'd already thrown my bread in the oven, and now we both finished the sweet potatoes, and then we cleaned up after the breakfast dishes and got everything set to rights again. It's nice to have such things dealt with, and nicer not to deal with them by oneself or late at night, or, worse yet, both. At any rate, it went swimmingly.
Then dinner was ready and we had a great ham, buttered green beans, heaven-sent sweet potatoes done the perfect way, Grandma's fancy pear halves with cheese and mayonnaise, fresh bread out of the oven, and perhaps one more thing I've forgotten. It was great. After that we had a brief respite before dessert, and I read Grandma several of my blogposts, which she greatly enjoyed. Apparently I was unaware of the fact that dessert had in fact commenced, and that cherry and apple pie with vanilla icecream was a thing. I am still undecided as to whether I should go see a therapist and check if my cognitive and mental faculties are still working properly, since my not noticing the eating of dessert had given me sufficient cause for doubt... or if I should rather just go ahead, admit defeat, and live out the remainder of my days as a naturalized Chinese monk laboring in solitude on a desolate mountaintop to unlock the seventh gate of my inner chakra in order to regain balance in the universe. I finally decided to simply go get some pie and move on with my life.
After that harrowing experience, we went on to do a variety of things, but it was all pretty chill (which was nice!). By and by we read the story of Saint Nicolas along with the final portion of our Advent storybook, with the culmination of the birth of Jesus. Then Jubal and Titus went off to bed, and mamma, dad, Savannah and I played Splendor while Lydia and Jacob sat on the couch and watched and played games on their phone, and Grandma sat in the rocking chair reading a book. It was a good evening, but eventually we all went to bed; except, however, Savannah and I, who stayed up cleaning bedrooms and writing, respectively. Or at least, that's what we said we were doing, we actually ended up just talking a bunch. But it was great.
And that's bout it! It was a great Christmas, and I couldn't've asked for a better. (Except, perhaps, it would've been nice to write about it all in a bit more detail, but it's getting late and I'm tired and want to get to bed. Besides, I was too busy enjoying the day as it went to worry too much about writing it. I might come back later and add more though, just to make it better. (post script: Wait, I just added the title. I always do that last. Not sure if it actually fits or not, now I'll definitely need to come back and edit this. (Also, you may be wondering what 'post script' means; that's long for 'p.s.' (I could add something else here, but the last time I started doing parenthetical phrases inside of parenthetical phrases, it kinda got a little out of hand. (Ok, that's it. When I come back and edit this I'm going to axe this whole paragraph and pretend like none of this ever happened.))))) Coolio, merry Christmas yall! Peace out!
MUFFINS!
Saturday, December 16th, 2017
I may have gotten to bed at five thirty in the morning, but boy did I make up for it by sleeping in till one thirty in the afternoon. There was caroling down in the square at two, so I figured I still had time to go. I did my morning routine, then headed off to pick up Jex. From there we took it at a brisk run and made it to the square about twenty minutes or so late. Before I went round the corner, I put Jex's scarf on, and then we joined the people in singing. It was pretty great! Jex managed to distract many of those around us in petting her. Once the singing was through, everybody lined up to get cookies and hot chocolate. I found some people and talked, and Jex got even more pets. Then some kid spilled his hot chocolate in the snow, and Jex ran over and began munching on the chocolate snow. I laughed. Then I joined a circle where Bobby and his sister Abigail were. Abigail noticed mine and Jex's matching red scarves that Savannah had made for us in the fall, and she thought it was so cute.
I smiled. "My sister made these for us. It's pretty cool!"
"I feel like if I did something like that for Bobby he wouldn't think it was cool and wouldn't wear it." Here Abigail looked at Bobby with her half imploring eyes, to which Bobby half squinted in reply. I internally chuckled at their nonverbal communication. After that I walked back with Keziah and Wesley, and we talked about divers things before I came to my street and we parted ways. I dropped Jex off back at the house, then walked back to my apartment on 6th. By this time it was around three thirtyish I want to say. I don't remember where I was going, but a little while later I went outside to leave and... what in the world was this!? There was a bag of something that was left on my front doorstep. Excitement coursed through my blood: what could it be? Who had put it there? I jumped back inside and opened it up and... MUFFFFFINNSSS!!! It was a whole bag filled up with muffins! This was amazing!! I didn't see any note saying where it had come from, so I unwrapped one (they were all individually wrapped, somebody went through a lot of trouble to do that!) and ate it up. And then I suspected Rachel had a hand in this, for it tasted like her muffins. I dumped all the muffins out of the bag looking for some clue to verify my suspicions, and then I found a little note tied to the handle of the bag. O. hahahahae. It read, "To 6th Street, from The Superior Hill Apartment" I broke into laughter. Ah, it was Rachel and Mandy and the Hannahs then, for their apartment was above the apartment below them with the other girls. It was doubly funny because 'Superior Apartment' referred to both its location and quality in relation to the other (rival?) apartment. At any rate, I was deeply grateful for the muffins, which were amazing. I love muffins.
At six o'clock Patrick picked Luke and I up to go down to TRC to help set up for the dance that was going to begin at seven. We hung lights and moved tables and hooked up sounds systems and so forth. At the appointed hour, a couple people arrived, and about half an hour later the bulk of the people showed up and we began. It was a lot of fun, and I was thankful for the cold that came with the snow, for it got quite hot in there and I went outside regularly to cool off. Not much super out of the ordinary happened until the very end, when somebody put on a different sort of music song and declared a free style dance time. I hadn't expected this at all, but I was down for it. A ring instantaneously formed, and one or two people at a time would jump in the middle and do some fancy trick stuff, it was amazing! Patrick did some awesome breakdancing, Isaac (not the Mexican) did some fancy fast footwork dance thingy, and Thomas (not my roommate) did some cool flip sequences and even a straight-up backflip from a standing position! As each person performed their bit of expertise, the crowd would cheer and yell, "Ooaaaahhh!!" It was great, and we all had a ton of fun.
Afterwards, I caught a ride back home with Brooke and the others she was taking to their homes, and upon my arrival Bobby and I began a game of chess. (Here it is necessary to take a brief detour and explain the nature of Bobby's arrival. He biked here, through the winter snow, on his bike, the instrument most bicyclists use when they bike somewhere. For some reason Bobby thinks it's the best thing in the world, and it gives him immense satisfaction to bike in the snow. Why is that? He likes the fact that you can't really go that fast, and he even more enjoys all the drifting you can do on the slick roadways. He loves this so much that he will go out of his way to refuse car rides so that he gets the opportunity to bike halfway across town, just because he loves it. It may be negative seventeen degrees outside with a ninety-eight percent chance of a blizzard and thirty-five mile an hour winds, and he'd still be out there biking through the snow. I have a roadbike with those skinny little tires, so biking in the snow and ice is out of the question for me, but I imagine I'd at least like to give it a shot. If Bobby's passion for it is anything to go off of, it's quite fun. Ok, back to the chess game.) We started right around ten, and it was a very beautiful game indeed, being won purely by positional advantages, as evidenced by the fact that our material was equal the entire game. By the time we finished around eleven, we realized that we should already be at the Superior Apartment to watch Stranger Things with our peeps. So we quickly made all haste to hark over there, and a few minutes later we pulled up. Bobby and I ran up the stairs and into the apartment and... nobody was home. Empty. Oh, awkward. For a brief second I knew not what to do, then an idea flew into my funnel. "Perhaps they're downstairs." So we both went to the Inferior Apartment (not sure if that's its actual name, but that's what I'll call it until someone corrects me) and I listened for a brief millisecond before realizing there was a substantial party going on in there. Now I knew what was going on, so I figured I was invited too, so I burst through the door as suddenly as I could and surveyed the crowd with a loud "A-O!!!" of greeting. Everybody cheered and somebody put a cup of rootbeer float in my hands and I sat down and joined the party. It was great! Most everybody from the dance was there, and we had a good time talking and laughing about all the things.
About forty-five minutes later or so, Bobby, Rachel, Ruth, Benjamin, Mandy, Handerson, (our name for one of the Hannahs to help distinguish between the two) and John and I were upstairs about to start watching the last three episodes of Stranger Things 2. For our last hurrah, Bobby and Ruth(?) (I think it was Ruth, it might've been Rachel) made two pies for us all to enjoy, and other people brought other delectables. While we all waited for I know not what, I took it upon myself to amuse myself with one of my favorite parlor games, namely, sitting Indian-style and rolling in a circle on the floor. With only a small amount of effort, one can go around and around almost indefinitely, well, at least until one gets too dizzy to carry on. I then showed Hannah how to do it, and we both went around in the same circle, but on opposite halves of it. After a bit she decided she'd had enough and stopped. Then a marvelous idea flew into my mind and, and so I called to John and Bobby and Benjamin. I taught them all how to roll in a circle, and then we all sat down in a circle with our backs to each other sitting Indian style. Then, the word was given, and we all started rolling at the same time. It was hilarious! It was like... I don't know, but it must've looked hilarious. Some of the girls took pictures and videos, so at some point we were probably on snapchat or something. As we kept going, one person was inevitably slower and caused pile-ups, and eventually we all crashed into each other and ended up in a confused and tangled heap on the floor. Everybody all busted into laughter as we began to extricate ourselves from the conglomeration. After that, I had another marvelous idea.
"Let's make a pyramid!"
And so we did. Benjamin, John and I formed the bottom, Bobby and Hannah the middle, and Ruth managed to clamber up to the top without knocking any of us over or fall off herself. It was quite impressive if I will say so myself. Somebody got a picture of it too; if I ever figure out how to put pictures on here, I may come back and put it in so yall can see.
Anyways, after that we got down to business and ate pie and watched the last three episodes. They were pretty good, and even more enjoyable with the wild yells and screams from the audience that accompanied every intense scene. We finished pretty late in the night, and by the time we were done talking afterwards, it was like three in the morning. Another late night, but totally worth it!
I may have gotten to bed at five thirty in the morning, but boy did I make up for it by sleeping in till one thirty in the afternoon. There was caroling down in the square at two, so I figured I still had time to go. I did my morning routine, then headed off to pick up Jex. From there we took it at a brisk run and made it to the square about twenty minutes or so late. Before I went round the corner, I put Jex's scarf on, and then we joined the people in singing. It was pretty great! Jex managed to distract many of those around us in petting her. Once the singing was through, everybody lined up to get cookies and hot chocolate. I found some people and talked, and Jex got even more pets. Then some kid spilled his hot chocolate in the snow, and Jex ran over and began munching on the chocolate snow. I laughed. Then I joined a circle where Bobby and his sister Abigail were. Abigail noticed mine and Jex's matching red scarves that Savannah had made for us in the fall, and she thought it was so cute.
I smiled. "My sister made these for us. It's pretty cool!"
"I feel like if I did something like that for Bobby he wouldn't think it was cool and wouldn't wear it." Here Abigail looked at Bobby with her half imploring eyes, to which Bobby half squinted in reply. I internally chuckled at their nonverbal communication. After that I walked back with Keziah and Wesley, and we talked about divers things before I came to my street and we parted ways. I dropped Jex off back at the house, then walked back to my apartment on 6th. By this time it was around three thirtyish I want to say. I don't remember where I was going, but a little while later I went outside to leave and... what in the world was this!? There was a bag of something that was left on my front doorstep. Excitement coursed through my blood: what could it be? Who had put it there? I jumped back inside and opened it up and... MUFFFFFINNSSS!!! It was a whole bag filled up with muffins! This was amazing!! I didn't see any note saying where it had come from, so I unwrapped one (they were all individually wrapped, somebody went through a lot of trouble to do that!) and ate it up. And then I suspected Rachel had a hand in this, for it tasted like her muffins. I dumped all the muffins out of the bag looking for some clue to verify my suspicions, and then I found a little note tied to the handle of the bag. O. hahahahae. It read, "To 6th Street, from The Superior Hill Apartment" I broke into laughter. Ah, it was Rachel and Mandy and the Hannahs then, for their apartment was above the apartment below them with the other girls. It was doubly funny because 'Superior Apartment' referred to both its location and quality in relation to the other (rival?) apartment. At any rate, I was deeply grateful for the muffins, which were amazing. I love muffins.
At six o'clock Patrick picked Luke and I up to go down to TRC to help set up for the dance that was going to begin at seven. We hung lights and moved tables and hooked up sounds systems and so forth. At the appointed hour, a couple people arrived, and about half an hour later the bulk of the people showed up and we began. It was a lot of fun, and I was thankful for the cold that came with the snow, for it got quite hot in there and I went outside regularly to cool off. Not much super out of the ordinary happened until the very end, when somebody put on a different sort of music song and declared a free style dance time. I hadn't expected this at all, but I was down for it. A ring instantaneously formed, and one or two people at a time would jump in the middle and do some fancy trick stuff, it was amazing! Patrick did some awesome breakdancing, Isaac (not the Mexican) did some fancy fast footwork dance thingy, and Thomas (not my roommate) did some cool flip sequences and even a straight-up backflip from a standing position! As each person performed their bit of expertise, the crowd would cheer and yell, "Ooaaaahhh!!" It was great, and we all had a ton of fun.
Afterwards, I caught a ride back home with Brooke and the others she was taking to their homes, and upon my arrival Bobby and I began a game of chess. (Here it is necessary to take a brief detour and explain the nature of Bobby's arrival. He biked here, through the winter snow, on his bike, the instrument most bicyclists use when they bike somewhere. For some reason Bobby thinks it's the best thing in the world, and it gives him immense satisfaction to bike in the snow. Why is that? He likes the fact that you can't really go that fast, and he even more enjoys all the drifting you can do on the slick roadways. He loves this so much that he will go out of his way to refuse car rides so that he gets the opportunity to bike halfway across town, just because he loves it. It may be negative seventeen degrees outside with a ninety-eight percent chance of a blizzard and thirty-five mile an hour winds, and he'd still be out there biking through the snow. I have a roadbike with those skinny little tires, so biking in the snow and ice is out of the question for me, but I imagine I'd at least like to give it a shot. If Bobby's passion for it is anything to go off of, it's quite fun. Ok, back to the chess game.) We started right around ten, and it was a very beautiful game indeed, being won purely by positional advantages, as evidenced by the fact that our material was equal the entire game. By the time we finished around eleven, we realized that we should already be at the Superior Apartment to watch Stranger Things with our peeps. So we quickly made all haste to hark over there, and a few minutes later we pulled up. Bobby and I ran up the stairs and into the apartment and... nobody was home. Empty. Oh, awkward. For a brief second I knew not what to do, then an idea flew into my funnel. "Perhaps they're downstairs." So we both went to the Inferior Apartment (not sure if that's its actual name, but that's what I'll call it until someone corrects me) and I listened for a brief millisecond before realizing there was a substantial party going on in there. Now I knew what was going on, so I figured I was invited too, so I burst through the door as suddenly as I could and surveyed the crowd with a loud "A-O!!!" of greeting. Everybody cheered and somebody put a cup of rootbeer float in my hands and I sat down and joined the party. It was great! Most everybody from the dance was there, and we had a good time talking and laughing about all the things.
About forty-five minutes later or so, Bobby, Rachel, Ruth, Benjamin, Mandy, Handerson, (our name for one of the Hannahs to help distinguish between the two) and John and I were upstairs about to start watching the last three episodes of Stranger Things 2. For our last hurrah, Bobby and Ruth(?) (I think it was Ruth, it might've been Rachel) made two pies for us all to enjoy, and other people brought other delectables. While we all waited for I know not what, I took it upon myself to amuse myself with one of my favorite parlor games, namely, sitting Indian-style and rolling in a circle on the floor. With only a small amount of effort, one can go around and around almost indefinitely, well, at least until one gets too dizzy to carry on. I then showed Hannah how to do it, and we both went around in the same circle, but on opposite halves of it. After a bit she decided she'd had enough and stopped. Then a marvelous idea flew into my mind and, and so I called to John and Bobby and Benjamin. I taught them all how to roll in a circle, and then we all sat down in a circle with our backs to each other sitting Indian style. Then, the word was given, and we all started rolling at the same time. It was hilarious! It was like... I don't know, but it must've looked hilarious. Some of the girls took pictures and videos, so at some point we were probably on snapchat or something. As we kept going, one person was inevitably slower and caused pile-ups, and eventually we all crashed into each other and ended up in a confused and tangled heap on the floor. Everybody all busted into laughter as we began to extricate ourselves from the conglomeration. After that, I had another marvelous idea.
"Let's make a pyramid!"
And so we did. Benjamin, John and I formed the bottom, Bobby and Hannah the middle, and Ruth managed to clamber up to the top without knocking any of us over or fall off herself. It was quite impressive if I will say so myself. Somebody got a picture of it too; if I ever figure out how to put pictures on here, I may come back and put it in so yall can see.
Anyways, after that we got down to business and ate pie and watched the last three episodes. They were pretty good, and even more enjoyable with the wild yells and screams from the audience that accompanied every intense scene. We finished pretty late in the night, and by the time we were done talking afterwards, it was like three in the morning. Another late night, but totally worth it!
Penguin Sledding and a Devious Plot
Sunday, December 17th, 2017
Oh boy, it's morning again. Why do I always stay up so late? Oh well. But the snow was finally here, so I got dressed and gave myself thirty minutes to walk down to the church. This proved far too much time, so when I reached the big stoplight I stopped walking at my usual pace and slowed to a low bumble, taking time to look at each little thing that caught my eye. Eventually I got there, right on time. There was only one service at church today, so it was pretty well packed. I managed to get a seat, so that was good. Afterwards I talked with Levi and somebody else who I've forgotten, and then Levi gave me a ride back to 6th street. I threw a pot of rice on the stove, and then proceeded to do... something. I forgot. I probably just wasted time. At any rate, The rice finished and I took it off the burner, and then I got ready to go to Keziah's place to watch the movie Ladyhawke with some friends. I bundled up (because there's finally snow!) and went to grab my rice... but it was still settling and I didn't want to take it out of the pot. Neither did I want to carry it all the way there, so I decided to put it in my backpack. But then I realized it would be too hot, so I threw some hotpads and other cushioning things in there. And then I realized that the lid would come off the pot, so I tied it down with some string. And then I realized that this might actually work, so I set off. I grabbed my sled on the way, thinking you never know when you'll need a sled in the winter time. I was not wrong. Immediately I made use of it to quicken my pace and conserve my energy, and I sledded down the back alley behind 6th street, across the road, and down the next alley before I reached the bottom of the hill. I couldn't help but swell with pride at the thought of how well I must've looked, I was like a penguin totally rockin it down the slope on my belly. I stood up when I arrived at the bottom and then broke into a run. I was living it up for real. In all actuality it probably didn't look that cool, but boy did it feel epic. Anyways, I smiled inside and out as I loped off on the way to Keziah's apartment, arriving there just a couple minutes later.
Next thing I knew Keziah, Patrick, Christy, Mandy, Wesley, George, and Ruth and I were all there, talking a bunch as we waited to start the movie, and laughing uproariously at all the one-liners that proliferated the film. Then we paused it real quick to make sandwiches, and it was then I set my rice out along with the other toppings. (Several people expressed their doubts as to how good rice would go with sandwiches, but by the time we'd finished at least both Mandy and Christy had been converted.) After that we finished the movie, then talked and sat around and goofed off for a bit, until at long last only Keziah and I remained.Then I said goodbye, for he was leaving early next morning to drive home for Christmas break, and I too headed off back to my house.
I managed to catch a ride back with Patrick, who I found just backing out when I entered the parking lot, and soon after arriving back home decided to see if Bobby and them were still sledding. Perchance, Taylor boy just happened to drop by, and finding Froh asleep, was heading out again. I caught a ride with him to Bobby's place, where I found that Bobby, Daniel, and Hannah had in fact just recently gotten back from sledding and were now drinking hot chocolate and about to start a game of cards. Since I was still there, we decided to play Spades, so Bobby and I taught Daniel and Hannah how to play. It was great fun! After that game ended around five o'clock ish, we called it quits and went our respective ways. Bobby and Daniel lived there, so they just stayed and started preparing to leave the next morning, while Hannah and I walked off down the street. Walked, that is, until I got to the top of Cherry street. The beautiful thing about Cherry street is how steep it is, and just how perfect it for sledding. Since it was winter and the snow had already fallen, I of course still had my sled with me. Heh heh. So I jumped on and raced off to the bottom. Some have expressed concern about the traffic that is often found busily humming on A street at the bottom of the hill where Cherry meets, but I assure you the situation was totally under control. Just then a lady and her child were unloading their car of groceries, so I called out to them as I rushed towards them down the sidewalk. They didn't hear me and just barely avoided getting hit. I stopped at the bottom and turned to see Hannah had been trotting along behind me, so I waited for a bit for her to catch up, but then found she was turning right while I was going left, so we said goodbye and parted ways.
I trundled on through the snowy sidewalks, crossed the busy main road that bifurcates the town into east and west halves, and continued up a street that I normally don't walk on. And then, I stopped dead in my tracks. There. It. Was. The opportunity to do what I had only ever dreamed of doing; there, right in front of my very own two eyes, was an outdoor concrete staircase that emptied out onto the corner where I was standing. It was covered with snow. I gleefully raced to the top with my sled, virtually bursting with excitement. This was the day I'd been waiting for. I set my sled down at the top, got on stomach down head first, with arms outstretched to propel me along, and there I perched at the top of the snow-covered staircase. Here it goes! I pushed myself over the edge and started my decent. It was more bumpy than I had at first expected, and by the time I reached the bottom I was convinced that I must've done something wrong. So I ran up and went again. Same result. One would almost get the feeling like perhaps this was a poor idea, since each test produced the same unwanted effect of having one's stomach pounded repeatedly on each step as the descent was made. I had thought the snow would be a little more cushy, but oh well. It wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but I'd totally do it again if I had some friends to join in on it with me.
After that I ran up one more time and sledded down the hill on the other side, then continued walking back to my place. I turned on Van Buren and walked up the gently rising hill, then sledded gently down the other side penguin style. When I made it to the bottom at third street, there was traffic. Cars kept coming and coming, but at last the car on the other side of the street put his turn signal on to turn left and was waiting for the approaching car to pass. I knew I could make it across fast enough, so I made a dash for it, even making it with plenty of time to spare. I continued on the way for a bit and made it back to 6th. After that I played some music in the kitchen as I threw some bread dough together, then washed a couple dishes and cooked up some porkchops for dinner and for travelling tomorrow. Two hours or so after that Luke and I left to meet up with all the peoples to go sledding at The Sledding Hill. This hill is amazing. It is super steep, very tall, and takes a couple minutes of climbing to reach the top. The rush on the way down is superb. I went several times by myself, then as more more people came we went down in pairs. Besides the fact that Laura messed up her ankle and had to go to the emergency room, it was a perfect night of sledding. (Bout 8:30ish when we started.) As the night went on more and more people arrived, and there was a good number of us there. We threw many snowballs and had a blast racing down the hill and playing in the snow. Isaac (not the Mexican Isaac) and I rolled down the hill Princess Bride style twice, it was pretty great. Then everybody finally had their fill of sledding, and we all headed for the bottom, where most of us left to meet up again at Rachel's apartment for hot chocolate. I, however, stayed behind with the freshmen and continued our snowball fight for quite some time. At one point Andy and I got into some close-quarter fighting and ended up wrestling it out on the ground. This gave me great joy because I don't usually get the chance to wrestle people, and it's even more rare that somebody tries to throw me to the ground without my explicit provocation. Andy, though, challenged me nonetheless, and it was great fun. In the same vein, not once but twice Noel ran up and knocked me to the ground. Most girls don't pursue such tactics, so I wasn't expecting it in the slightest when I found myself looking up at the night-sky. Saying the freshman class has a little spunk would be a slight understatement. At any rate, we all had a great snowball fight. Eventually I said goodbye and headed off to my truck, in which I promptly got stuck when trying to turn around. *sigh But a bunch of the guys pushed me back out, so it worked out. From there the only way to not get stuck again was to back up all the way down the street, so back out is what I did.
By and by I arrived at the Hill apartments. I knew everyone was crowded into Rachel's apartment, so I made my way there after taking off my soaking wet coveralls. I also noticed a strange bulge in the hood of my jacket.. it was a stray snowball that had managed to find its way there. A sly smile crept across my face just like the idea did into my mind. A plot, yes, a devious plot was forming in the dark abyss of my mind, and I liked it. I silently, ever so silently, walked up to the door to the apartment and listened. Yes, I hadn't made a basic mistake, this was the right one. I slowly twisted the doorknob till it was fully opened, then gently pushed the door open past the latch, and then let the knob twist back to its resting position. The door was now cracked open. Next, I slid in front of Keziah's door, hiding my body there while with one hand slowly but surely pushing the door into a more and more open position. Now it was open about a foot and a half or so. And then it happened. I heard the sound of someone approaching the door. Here it comes, who will it be? As soon as she opened her mouth, I knew who it was. Charli. This was the perfect person for my scheme. As she approached the door she asked aloud, "Hey, did you guys want the door open?" And as she reached to close it, I made my move. I burst through the half open door with a roar and scored several screams and the look of alarm on Charli's face gave me utter satisfaction. She squinched up her mouth in a humph of being caught off guard, and her eyes burrowed into me like a soldering iron. Charli had few words to say to me about the audacious plot I'd just executed, but she hardly needed them. She sat back down where she'd been earlier and stared at me like I'd just committed treason or something. I laughed heartily. And then I laughed again, for I knew something that she did not: there was still something in my hood. To add insult to injury, I casually grabbed it out and tossed the snowball in her face, which then burst into a thousand pieces and scattered upon the floor. The look of utter shock and astonishment that swept across her face was even better than the last time. "You...!" I laughed again as several of us began picking up the snow off the carpet. Needless to say she ended up stuffing some down my shirt, but I didn't care and laughed all the more. Then we settled down and began talking; me trying to restore her goodwill towards me, and she doing her best to maintain the moral high ground and maybe stir up some notion of guilt or penitence in my soul. Neither of us were very successful, but I suppose we at least made progress, as evidenced by the smiles on our faces as she accused me of wrongdoing and I contested the matter. Then she went downstairs to her apartment to grab something, moving a couple pairs of shoes to the outside porch as she went. I kept on talking with other people, but then a realization of horror washed across my face: Charli was taking a good bit of time, perhaps she was getting some revenge. "My boots!" I yelled to myself. "She took my boots! She's probably going to stuff them full of snow or something!" I jumped up and then out the door; but my boots were safe and sound. Just then Charli came up carrying an overflowing armful of blankets, and I thanked her for grabbing them for me.
"These are not for you!" she declared matter-of-factly as she plopped them on the floor by the couch. Being who I am, I took this as a challenge, so I promptly grabbed up half of them.
"Oh no you don't!" she countered. Charli then ripped one blanket out of my hands, and by the end of such an onslaught I ended up with just one Indian blanket, but it was great. After that we settled down once more and began talking again. At one point she remembered something and said,
"Oh yeah! Guess what Leaf?" in one of her now-you-dun-it tone of voice. "So I was dropping some people off today, and I was driving down third street when this random guy jumps out in front of me and I almost hit him. He was carrying a blue circular sled and had a black jacket on, and I was like, "Wait, that's Leaf!" What were you up to?"
I laughed first, then led with, "Woah woah woah, for starters I did not jump out in front of you. There was plenty of time for me to get across before you got there. And besides, the other car was waiting for you anyways, so I may as well have gone across. And that was you?" I laughed once more.
We continued haggling over it for a bit, as two people who are wont to argue smilingly will do.
After that I went to the kitchen and talked with the blokes over there, and then by and by some people left and we began a game of freeze improv. This is a fun improv variation that you can ask me about later if you want to know more about it, but suffice it to say that a lot of weird and awkward things come out of your mouth when improving. This, of course, keeps things funny, though sometimes it's just painful. Oh well. Maybe I should work on improving my improving. By the time this was finished it was getting rather late, so we all departed to our various and sundry abodes to sleep. Tomorrow I'll be catching a plane down to Florida!
Oh boy, it's morning again. Why do I always stay up so late? Oh well. But the snow was finally here, so I got dressed and gave myself thirty minutes to walk down to the church. This proved far too much time, so when I reached the big stoplight I stopped walking at my usual pace and slowed to a low bumble, taking time to look at each little thing that caught my eye. Eventually I got there, right on time. There was only one service at church today, so it was pretty well packed. I managed to get a seat, so that was good. Afterwards I talked with Levi and somebody else who I've forgotten, and then Levi gave me a ride back to 6th street. I threw a pot of rice on the stove, and then proceeded to do... something. I forgot. I probably just wasted time. At any rate, The rice finished and I took it off the burner, and then I got ready to go to Keziah's place to watch the movie Ladyhawke with some friends. I bundled up (because there's finally snow!) and went to grab my rice... but it was still settling and I didn't want to take it out of the pot. Neither did I want to carry it all the way there, so I decided to put it in my backpack. But then I realized it would be too hot, so I threw some hotpads and other cushioning things in there. And then I realized that the lid would come off the pot, so I tied it down with some string. And then I realized that this might actually work, so I set off. I grabbed my sled on the way, thinking you never know when you'll need a sled in the winter time. I was not wrong. Immediately I made use of it to quicken my pace and conserve my energy, and I sledded down the back alley behind 6th street, across the road, and down the next alley before I reached the bottom of the hill. I couldn't help but swell with pride at the thought of how well I must've looked, I was like a penguin totally rockin it down the slope on my belly. I stood up when I arrived at the bottom and then broke into a run. I was living it up for real. In all actuality it probably didn't look that cool, but boy did it feel epic. Anyways, I smiled inside and out as I loped off on the way to Keziah's apartment, arriving there just a couple minutes later.
Next thing I knew Keziah, Patrick, Christy, Mandy, Wesley, George, and Ruth and I were all there, talking a bunch as we waited to start the movie, and laughing uproariously at all the one-liners that proliferated the film. Then we paused it real quick to make sandwiches, and it was then I set my rice out along with the other toppings. (Several people expressed their doubts as to how good rice would go with sandwiches, but by the time we'd finished at least both Mandy and Christy had been converted.) After that we finished the movie, then talked and sat around and goofed off for a bit, until at long last only Keziah and I remained.Then I said goodbye, for he was leaving early next morning to drive home for Christmas break, and I too headed off back to my house.
I managed to catch a ride back with Patrick, who I found just backing out when I entered the parking lot, and soon after arriving back home decided to see if Bobby and them were still sledding. Perchance, Taylor boy just happened to drop by, and finding Froh asleep, was heading out again. I caught a ride with him to Bobby's place, where I found that Bobby, Daniel, and Hannah had in fact just recently gotten back from sledding and were now drinking hot chocolate and about to start a game of cards. Since I was still there, we decided to play Spades, so Bobby and I taught Daniel and Hannah how to play. It was great fun! After that game ended around five o'clock ish, we called it quits and went our respective ways. Bobby and Daniel lived there, so they just stayed and started preparing to leave the next morning, while Hannah and I walked off down the street. Walked, that is, until I got to the top of Cherry street. The beautiful thing about Cherry street is how steep it is, and just how perfect it for sledding. Since it was winter and the snow had already fallen, I of course still had my sled with me. Heh heh. So I jumped on and raced off to the bottom. Some have expressed concern about the traffic that is often found busily humming on A street at the bottom of the hill where Cherry meets, but I assure you the situation was totally under control. Just then a lady and her child were unloading their car of groceries, so I called out to them as I rushed towards them down the sidewalk. They didn't hear me and just barely avoided getting hit. I stopped at the bottom and turned to see Hannah had been trotting along behind me, so I waited for a bit for her to catch up, but then found she was turning right while I was going left, so we said goodbye and parted ways.
I trundled on through the snowy sidewalks, crossed the busy main road that bifurcates the town into east and west halves, and continued up a street that I normally don't walk on. And then, I stopped dead in my tracks. There. It. Was. The opportunity to do what I had only ever dreamed of doing; there, right in front of my very own two eyes, was an outdoor concrete staircase that emptied out onto the corner where I was standing. It was covered with snow. I gleefully raced to the top with my sled, virtually bursting with excitement. This was the day I'd been waiting for. I set my sled down at the top, got on stomach down head first, with arms outstretched to propel me along, and there I perched at the top of the snow-covered staircase. Here it goes! I pushed myself over the edge and started my decent. It was more bumpy than I had at first expected, and by the time I reached the bottom I was convinced that I must've done something wrong. So I ran up and went again. Same result. One would almost get the feeling like perhaps this was a poor idea, since each test produced the same unwanted effect of having one's stomach pounded repeatedly on each step as the descent was made. I had thought the snow would be a little more cushy, but oh well. It wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but I'd totally do it again if I had some friends to join in on it with me.
After that I ran up one more time and sledded down the hill on the other side, then continued walking back to my place. I turned on Van Buren and walked up the gently rising hill, then sledded gently down the other side penguin style. When I made it to the bottom at third street, there was traffic. Cars kept coming and coming, but at last the car on the other side of the street put his turn signal on to turn left and was waiting for the approaching car to pass. I knew I could make it across fast enough, so I made a dash for it, even making it with plenty of time to spare. I continued on the way for a bit and made it back to 6th. After that I played some music in the kitchen as I threw some bread dough together, then washed a couple dishes and cooked up some porkchops for dinner and for travelling tomorrow. Two hours or so after that Luke and I left to meet up with all the peoples to go sledding at The Sledding Hill. This hill is amazing. It is super steep, very tall, and takes a couple minutes of climbing to reach the top. The rush on the way down is superb. I went several times by myself, then as more more people came we went down in pairs. Besides the fact that Laura messed up her ankle and had to go to the emergency room, it was a perfect night of sledding. (Bout 8:30ish when we started.) As the night went on more and more people arrived, and there was a good number of us there. We threw many snowballs and had a blast racing down the hill and playing in the snow. Isaac (not the Mexican Isaac) and I rolled down the hill Princess Bride style twice, it was pretty great. Then everybody finally had their fill of sledding, and we all headed for the bottom, where most of us left to meet up again at Rachel's apartment for hot chocolate. I, however, stayed behind with the freshmen and continued our snowball fight for quite some time. At one point Andy and I got into some close-quarter fighting and ended up wrestling it out on the ground. This gave me great joy because I don't usually get the chance to wrestle people, and it's even more rare that somebody tries to throw me to the ground without my explicit provocation. Andy, though, challenged me nonetheless, and it was great fun. In the same vein, not once but twice Noel ran up and knocked me to the ground. Most girls don't pursue such tactics, so I wasn't expecting it in the slightest when I found myself looking up at the night-sky. Saying the freshman class has a little spunk would be a slight understatement. At any rate, we all had a great snowball fight. Eventually I said goodbye and headed off to my truck, in which I promptly got stuck when trying to turn around. *sigh But a bunch of the guys pushed me back out, so it worked out. From there the only way to not get stuck again was to back up all the way down the street, so back out is what I did.
By and by I arrived at the Hill apartments. I knew everyone was crowded into Rachel's apartment, so I made my way there after taking off my soaking wet coveralls. I also noticed a strange bulge in the hood of my jacket.. it was a stray snowball that had managed to find its way there. A sly smile crept across my face just like the idea did into my mind. A plot, yes, a devious plot was forming in the dark abyss of my mind, and I liked it. I silently, ever so silently, walked up to the door to the apartment and listened. Yes, I hadn't made a basic mistake, this was the right one. I slowly twisted the doorknob till it was fully opened, then gently pushed the door open past the latch, and then let the knob twist back to its resting position. The door was now cracked open. Next, I slid in front of Keziah's door, hiding my body there while with one hand slowly but surely pushing the door into a more and more open position. Now it was open about a foot and a half or so. And then it happened. I heard the sound of someone approaching the door. Here it comes, who will it be? As soon as she opened her mouth, I knew who it was. Charli. This was the perfect person for my scheme. As she approached the door she asked aloud, "Hey, did you guys want the door open?" And as she reached to close it, I made my move. I burst through the half open door with a roar and scored several screams and the look of alarm on Charli's face gave me utter satisfaction. She squinched up her mouth in a humph of being caught off guard, and her eyes burrowed into me like a soldering iron. Charli had few words to say to me about the audacious plot I'd just executed, but she hardly needed them. She sat back down where she'd been earlier and stared at me like I'd just committed treason or something. I laughed heartily. And then I laughed again, for I knew something that she did not: there was still something in my hood. To add insult to injury, I casually grabbed it out and tossed the snowball in her face, which then burst into a thousand pieces and scattered upon the floor. The look of utter shock and astonishment that swept across her face was even better than the last time. "You...!" I laughed again as several of us began picking up the snow off the carpet. Needless to say she ended up stuffing some down my shirt, but I didn't care and laughed all the more. Then we settled down and began talking; me trying to restore her goodwill towards me, and she doing her best to maintain the moral high ground and maybe stir up some notion of guilt or penitence in my soul. Neither of us were very successful, but I suppose we at least made progress, as evidenced by the smiles on our faces as she accused me of wrongdoing and I contested the matter. Then she went downstairs to her apartment to grab something, moving a couple pairs of shoes to the outside porch as she went. I kept on talking with other people, but then a realization of horror washed across my face: Charli was taking a good bit of time, perhaps she was getting some revenge. "My boots!" I yelled to myself. "She took my boots! She's probably going to stuff them full of snow or something!" I jumped up and then out the door; but my boots were safe and sound. Just then Charli came up carrying an overflowing armful of blankets, and I thanked her for grabbing them for me.
"These are not for you!" she declared matter-of-factly as she plopped them on the floor by the couch. Being who I am, I took this as a challenge, so I promptly grabbed up half of them.
"Oh no you don't!" she countered. Charli then ripped one blanket out of my hands, and by the end of such an onslaught I ended up with just one Indian blanket, but it was great. After that we settled down once more and began talking again. At one point she remembered something and said,
"Oh yeah! Guess what Leaf?" in one of her now-you-dun-it tone of voice. "So I was dropping some people off today, and I was driving down third street when this random guy jumps out in front of me and I almost hit him. He was carrying a blue circular sled and had a black jacket on, and I was like, "Wait, that's Leaf!" What were you up to?"
I laughed first, then led with, "Woah woah woah, for starters I did not jump out in front of you. There was plenty of time for me to get across before you got there. And besides, the other car was waiting for you anyways, so I may as well have gone across. And that was you?" I laughed once more.
We continued haggling over it for a bit, as two people who are wont to argue smilingly will do.
After that I went to the kitchen and talked with the blokes over there, and then by and by some people left and we began a game of freeze improv. This is a fun improv variation that you can ask me about later if you want to know more about it, but suffice it to say that a lot of weird and awkward things come out of your mouth when improving. This, of course, keeps things funny, though sometimes it's just painful. Oh well. Maybe I should work on improving my improving. By the time this was finished it was getting rather late, so we all departed to our various and sundry abodes to sleep. Tomorrow I'll be catching a plane down to Florida!
Friday, December 22, 2017
The Girl on the Plane
Monday, December 18th, 2017
I always wanted to meet a girl on an airplane. Wouldn't that be cool? It'd be like, "Oh how did yall meet?" "Oh, you know, we sat next to each other on a plane and really hit it off, got each other's numbers, and here we are today!" But no. It's always some bozo looking at his phone the whole time, that person who just sleeps the whole flight, or that one guy who doesn't know what a shower is. Always. *facepalm But this time it was different. On the one side was your typical deadbeat doorknob, but on the other... Well, you'll see. Let's start from the beginning though, just as I was about to awaken from slumber.
"Huh, that's funny. Why am I hearing Froh's alarm way off in the distance? I set mine earlier than his. Oh shootnam, I gotta get up!" And thus began my Monday morning. Somehow I'd managed to scoot my phone underneath myself during the night and turn it off, and amazingly enough I woke up to Froh's which I normally sleep through, despite the fact that it sounds about as loud as a fog horn going off during Sunday morning prayers. (I am quite blessed that I normally sleep through his alarm, I don't know how I'd survive without that peculiar ability. This particular morning though, it was a boon that I heard it. But I digress.) It was the seventh hour, and I needed to be down at the Abbey at nine to rendezvous with my ride to the airport, so you could say I was in a wee bit of a time crunch, especially since I had yet to pack my bags and the kitchen needed cleaning. Naturally, I started my day by doing neither of these things. First off I preheated the oven, then hopped in the shower, brushed my teeth, cleaned up my face a bit, and clipped my fingernails. Then I threw a couple loaves of bread in the oven and cooked up some oatmeal real quick and poured myself a glass of milk. "Ah, I'll miss the good milk while I'm gone." I thought to myself. I dropped some in my oatmeal bowl along with a dusting of brown sugar, and as I ate my breakfast I watched some blitz chess online to keep things interesting. That done, I turned to my list of things to do, and finally began cleaning the kitchen. I chopped it down a good ways, but it was still a fair way from perfect when I had to stop cleaning so I'd have enough time to pack. This I did pretty quickly, throwing a few odd things in my bag and calling it good, but being sure to grab all my food for the trip. Never ever walk into an airport without at least a two-day supply of food on hand at the ready, else you're asking for trouble. Either you'll have to break down and buy an eight dollar tennisball sized cinnamon roll, or you'll end up practically starving yourself waiting at the gate for twelve hours on standby because they cancelled your flight. Always bring food. At any rate, I was well prepared.
By this time it was twenty till nine, so I threw my backpack across my shoulders, threw my other bag over my left side, and hiked up the dogfood bag with my remaining arm and headed off to Jex's house. (aka Brooke and Anna's house) There was some business there I had to attend to, namely, drop off some more dogfood, and do a quick photoshoot with Jex in our matching red scarves that my sister Savannah made for us in the fall. Oh, and also pay Honor for the next four weeks of taking care of Jex. I got there soon enough, plopped the dogfood down in the right spot and wrote out a quick check, then called Brooke to see if she was awake so I could say goodbye and have her take a picture of me and Jex. (For you grammar nazis out there, I chose to say it that way because I wanted to. Deal with it. hahahae) Despite me calling her multiple times, Brooke slept on; she must've had a late night and was tired; I ended up getting Jessica to take it, and it actually turned out pretty well. By this time it was about two till(ish), so I grabbed up my bags and loped off to the abbey, sadly arriving late at nine o one. Thankfully it didn't matter though, because nobody else was out there yet. I knocked on the door, and Benjamin answered, saying he'd be out in just a minute. Then Lydia walked up and we threw her bags in the back; it was then that I was very thankful indeed that Ruth and Sam had found a different ride there, for the eight seats and limited baggage space would've had a hard go of it for ten persons. Then Benjamin and Caleb came out, and off we went to pick up Hannah and Mandy. Next was Abigail, and finally Bobby, with his Cheetos. And we were off!
The ride passed quietly at first, but then I remembered I had bread. Oh what joy! Oh what delight! It was still warm and beaming bright! But it was in my bag. Since there was so little room, things had gotten bustled around a bit, and I was holding somebody's suitcase in my lap with my bag on top; this made it difficult to maneuver my arms in a position where I could access the contents, but at last I did so. I opened my bag to grab some bread and... "MY PORKCHOPS!!!" The cheap plastic container had broken with all the moving about, and rice and porkchops were all over the inside of my bag! I literally just washed those socks too. People broke into laughter as I regathered my food and tried to contain the mess as best I could. I got it eventually, and decided it'd be best to just wait on the bread and butter till we got to the airport. It was kinda sad. I later found a stray porkchop I'd missed still hanging around in my bag, it was sad. At least it smelled good.
We played a bunch of word games, and memory games, and ended with Hannah's favorite gamestyle of all, a 'quick answer jeopardy style game'. By and by we finally made it to the airport, and we all unloaded, said goodbye to our amazing driver Benjamin, (this was only his third trip for dropping people off at the airport in two weeks) and walked into the gateway to America. Not that there was an arch in sight, but you can get pretty much anywhere from here. We immediately separated to get our boarding passes, but mine and Lydia's were on the other side, so we went off walking thataways. Surprisingly enough, Luke and Laura and Ariah and Christy were there as well. My, what a small world. Ariah and Christy were headed off to catch their flight, so we said goodbye a second time and off they went. Then Luke and Laura's ride pulled up, so they headed off to load up as well. We said goodbye for what was now the third time; funny how these things go, you think it's the real deal and then you bump into them again and have to say goodbye again! Oh well. Then Lydia and I walked back to the other side of the airport and met up with the rest of the peeps, plus Ruth and Sam, who also appeared almost out of nowhere, and together we all dominated this one group of chairs. Ruth gave people grapefruit (it was so good!) and I sliced up bread and butter for everyone and we all talked merrily. But alas! all good things come to an end. Pair by pair, Noah style, they left for their flights; Bobby and Abigail, Ruth and Sam, and even Mandy and Caleb left too. Then it was just Lydia and Hannah and I. We talked more about what we wanted to do over break, and then even made a solemn oath to keep ourselves accountable to it. Then we played hearts just about until my flight started boarding, and then I, too, left.
A few minutes later I found myself seated in the plane, in a middle seat; my least favorite. On the window side I had an untalkative fellow, and on the aisle side there was a little girl travelling with her mother and siblings who were just across the aisle from her. She was the oldest. She had a petite build, as most young girls do, straight dirty blond hair and bangs that came down to her eyes which sparkled with all the gleam of childhood merriment, and she had the most charming smile you ever did see. But straight off she couldn't get her seatbelt to click, so I asked if she wanted me to help. She responded sweetly in the affirmative, and after I got it she said 'thank you' very nicely. Most young children I've met on planes are never so well mannered, and most just whine, complain, and watch screens the whole time. (Not that that's bad in and of itself, riding an airplane is a perfect place for that sort of thing. But the point is that most children her age would be totally consumed with it and pay other people no mind, and definitely not be ready or willing to engage in any sort of meaningful conversation.) I was already impressed by how well her parents must be raising her. And so I asked a question to see if she wanted to talk at all.
"So is this the first time you've flown before?"
"Oh no! I've been three times before, so this is my fourth time flying."
"Wow, that's pretty cool!" I said. "You're pretty young to have flown so much. Where are you going?"
"We're going to Memphis Tennessee to see my grandparents. We haven't seen them in at least a year, so we're pretty excited. What about you? Where are you going?"
"I'm on my way to Pensacola Florida," I replied, "to see my family for Christmas."
"Oh, that's cool."
"Do you live in Couer d'alene?" I asked.
"Yup! We moved there about a year ago I think. I live where there's four roads, and they go like this and this and this and this. (here she motioned with her hands) And the school is right here, oh, and wait, there's another road that goes like this, and we live right here between these roads."
I didn't understand what was what, but I nodded in agreement as she went. "Oh cool! Some friends and I went hiking around a lake there, it was a lot of fun! I think they call it Tubb's Hill."
Now she really lit up, "Oh yes! I've been there before, I like that place! I think I saw you there too."
This wasn't true at all, but she managed to convince herself it was.
"Hmm, the time we went it was rainy, not super rainy, but just a little bit, and there wasn't anybody else there, so I don't think you saw me."
"Oh but I did, I remember seeing you!"
I chuckled to myself.
"Hmm, ok then. So how old are you?"
There was a slight pause, then we spoke at the same time; Me: "Seven?" Her: "Six."
She smiled, because I guessed older than her actual age.
And she asked, "And how old are you?"
"I'm twenty."
"Oh, then you should be in college!"
"Hahae, I am! That's why I live in Idaho, to go to college."
"Where in Idaho?"
"In Moscow, it's about an hour and a half south of Couer d'alene."
"Do you like it there?" she asked.
"Oh yes. When I first moved there I didn't have any friends, but now I know a bunch of people and have lots of friends, and we go off and do fun stuff together. It's great!"
"Huh?" she gasped, "Me too! When I first got to Idaho, I didn't know anybody, I had no friends. I was at school at recess one day and I was by myself, sad. There were other people who all had friends and were playing together, but I was alone. Then I saw a girl sitting on the swings and she was alone too, so I walked up and asked if she would be my friend. She said yes, and now we're friends and it's great and we talk to each other every day and play games. Then one day I was outside biking in the street, and the neighbor kids came out on their bikes too, and then I knew everybody! Now I have like twenty, thirty, no forty, fifty friends!"
"Fifty friends!" I said. "That's a lot! I don't know if even I have that many friends."
"Oh well I do, and I know every single one."
Then the flight attendants came with their drinks, and we both got orange juice and pretzels.
Now I finally got around to asking, "So what's your name?"
"Juliette. And what's yours?"
"Leaf. Nice to meet you Juliette!"
Then Juliette's mother handed her a tablet thingy, and she started watching some show I'd never seen before. I tried my best to doze off, but it didn't work that great. Whenever I opened my eyes Juliette always seemed to notice and would look up at me and smile. Once she finished all her pretzels, her mother reached across the aisle and handed her a pack of gummy things, and asked if I'd like one too, to which I thanked her but said I was fine. A little later though Juliette handed me a gummy, so I ate it, and then she handed me another, which I also ate. Boy, Juliette's mother was really putting her off to a great start for the rest of her life. If I wasn't impressed earlier, I definitely was now. After that I managed to doze off for a bit, and by and by they said over the intercom to put away your large handheld electronics as we start our decent, arriving in about twenty minutes. Juliette promptly put away her tablet, and then we started talking again.
She was curious. "So where did you park your car?"
"My car?" I replied. "I left it in Idaho. I'm going to catch another flight and then go to Florida."
"Oh, I see." She leaned halfway across the aisle, "Mamma, where did we park our car?"
"We didn't, grandma and grandpa are going to pick us up when we get to Memphis."
A look of understanding washed over Juliette's face, "Oh, so this isn't Memphis? Where are we?"
"Dallas, dear."
She sat back in her seat now. "We have to catch another flight too. What hotel are you going to stay in?"
"Hotel?" I said. "I'm not going to stay in a hotel."
"Then where will you sleep when you're waiting for your flight?"
"Well my flight leaves soon after this one arrives, so I don't need a hotel. But if it was several hours later, I'd just sleep in the airport."
"In the airport!?" she gasped in amazement. "Sleep in the airport?!"
"hahahae, yes, that's what I'd do." I changed the topic. "Have you been to Nashville before?"
"Nashville? Where is that?"
"It's right in the middle of Tennessee."
Juliette's mother leaned over again, "Juliette, you've been to Nashville dozens of times, remember?"
"Oh yeah, I guess I forgot."
I continued on, "I've got some friends who live over there and have a farm, and sometimes I help them. They grow lots of food, and they have sheep and cows too."
"Oh, do they sell food to the stores?"
"Yes, they do. They also sell the cows, and they taste really good."
"Wait, they kill the cows and eat them? That's not very nice."
"Yes, they kill them, but they're happy cows who live a good life. They have plenty of space to run around in and do fun cow stuff, and there's tons of green grass to eat. Other places with cows have a small fenced in area that they shove as many cows in as they can, and there's no grass and no room to play. It's very sad. But my friends' cows have plenty of space and lots of grass."
She seemed satisfied with this explanation, and so asked, "What do they do when the cows get sick? Do they take it to the doctor or does the farmer fix it himself?"
"Most of the time the farmer gets the cows better by himself, but sometimes they need the vet."
"And then they take it to the vet?" she asked.
"No, the vet usually comes to them. It's a lot of work to move a cow all the way to town, and it's a lot easier to just have the vet come to the cow. Plus, cows can weigh as much as eighteen hundred pounds, and that's really heavy. So it's better if the vet comes to the cow."
"Eighteen hundred pounds!? That's a lot! What if there were ten of me, would it weigh more than that?
"Oh yes, assuredly."
"What if there were a hundred of me?"
"Well, I think you'd weigh more at that point." I chuckled.
"And then they kill them?"
"After the cows are all better and there'll all grown up and fat, then yes, then they kill them."
"Oh. How long do they live?"
"Just a couple years, until they're full grown."
"Haha, well I'll live longer than them then!"
"Hahae, yes you will."
Then she asked again, "How old are you?"
"Twenty."
"Well I'm six so that means I'll live longer than you since older people die first and younger people live longer."
"Yup, most likely so."
"Well I want to live till I'm two hundred eighty-seven years old! That would be cool." she said with a smile on her face.
I replied, internally laughing, "Wow that's really old. I don't think you'll live that long. It's been a long time since people have lived that long. Maybe try to live for a hundred years."
"Yeah, maybe that's better. I want to live for a hundred years!"
Then there was a pause.
"Have you ever played this game?" I asked her, holding out my hands to play the stick game. She hadn't, so I taught her how. I won the first game, and she won the second. Then we started descending, and then we landed. Soon everybody grabbed their bags from the overhead compartments, and then we waited for everybody to get out. Juliette's mother then said,
"Thank you for talking with her, I'm sure she really enjoyed it."
"Oh yes, sure thing! It was great."
Then the line cleared, I said goodbye to Juliette and her mother, and off I went to catch my flight. I would never see Juliette again. But it was good while it lasted. And who knows? Perhaps she'll remember that one guy she talked to on the airplane that one time, and she'll tell people about me. At the very least though, I'll remember her, the best mannered, most polite, cutest, sweetest little six-year-old I'll ever meet on an airplane.
My next flight was more uneventful, but I had just enough time to eat a bread and rice and porkchop sandwich before we boarded, so that was nice. And then I arrived. I was the sixth person off the plane, and off I went to the place where Mamma and Savannah were waiting with the car. I made all haste, not even waiting for the escalator but rather sliding down the railings of the steps and getting to the bottom faster that those on the escalator. There was a half dozen people at the bottom watching me, and this old guy not so quietly commented to his wife, "Wow, did you see that? That was cool!" I bout laughed, but by then I was out the automatic doors and there was Savannah running at me from down the way. We hugged and smiled and laughed, and did the same with Mamma when we got to the car. Then we talked all the way back home, and I told bunches of the best, funniest stories that had recently happened. It was great. By the time we got back to the house it was almost eleven at night, but we talked more and more. Eventually Jubal woke up and he was ever so happy to see me. Shortly after we all went to bed, and that was that. Christmas break begins!
I always wanted to meet a girl on an airplane. Wouldn't that be cool? It'd be like, "Oh how did yall meet?" "Oh, you know, we sat next to each other on a plane and really hit it off, got each other's numbers, and here we are today!" But no. It's always some bozo looking at his phone the whole time, that person who just sleeps the whole flight, or that one guy who doesn't know what a shower is. Always. *facepalm But this time it was different. On the one side was your typical deadbeat doorknob, but on the other... Well, you'll see. Let's start from the beginning though, just as I was about to awaken from slumber.
"Huh, that's funny. Why am I hearing Froh's alarm way off in the distance? I set mine earlier than his. Oh shootnam, I gotta get up!" And thus began my Monday morning. Somehow I'd managed to scoot my phone underneath myself during the night and turn it off, and amazingly enough I woke up to Froh's which I normally sleep through, despite the fact that it sounds about as loud as a fog horn going off during Sunday morning prayers. (I am quite blessed that I normally sleep through his alarm, I don't know how I'd survive without that peculiar ability. This particular morning though, it was a boon that I heard it. But I digress.) It was the seventh hour, and I needed to be down at the Abbey at nine to rendezvous with my ride to the airport, so you could say I was in a wee bit of a time crunch, especially since I had yet to pack my bags and the kitchen needed cleaning. Naturally, I started my day by doing neither of these things. First off I preheated the oven, then hopped in the shower, brushed my teeth, cleaned up my face a bit, and clipped my fingernails. Then I threw a couple loaves of bread in the oven and cooked up some oatmeal real quick and poured myself a glass of milk. "Ah, I'll miss the good milk while I'm gone." I thought to myself. I dropped some in my oatmeal bowl along with a dusting of brown sugar, and as I ate my breakfast I watched some blitz chess online to keep things interesting. That done, I turned to my list of things to do, and finally began cleaning the kitchen. I chopped it down a good ways, but it was still a fair way from perfect when I had to stop cleaning so I'd have enough time to pack. This I did pretty quickly, throwing a few odd things in my bag and calling it good, but being sure to grab all my food for the trip. Never ever walk into an airport without at least a two-day supply of food on hand at the ready, else you're asking for trouble. Either you'll have to break down and buy an eight dollar tennisball sized cinnamon roll, or you'll end up practically starving yourself waiting at the gate for twelve hours on standby because they cancelled your flight. Always bring food. At any rate, I was well prepared.
By this time it was twenty till nine, so I threw my backpack across my shoulders, threw my other bag over my left side, and hiked up the dogfood bag with my remaining arm and headed off to Jex's house. (aka Brooke and Anna's house) There was some business there I had to attend to, namely, drop off some more dogfood, and do a quick photoshoot with Jex in our matching red scarves that my sister Savannah made for us in the fall. Oh, and also pay Honor for the next four weeks of taking care of Jex. I got there soon enough, plopped the dogfood down in the right spot and wrote out a quick check, then called Brooke to see if she was awake so I could say goodbye and have her take a picture of me and Jex. (For you grammar nazis out there, I chose to say it that way because I wanted to. Deal with it. hahahae) Despite me calling her multiple times, Brooke slept on; she must've had a late night and was tired; I ended up getting Jessica to take it, and it actually turned out pretty well. By this time it was about two till(ish), so I grabbed up my bags and loped off to the abbey, sadly arriving late at nine o one. Thankfully it didn't matter though, because nobody else was out there yet. I knocked on the door, and Benjamin answered, saying he'd be out in just a minute. Then Lydia walked up and we threw her bags in the back; it was then that I was very thankful indeed that Ruth and Sam had found a different ride there, for the eight seats and limited baggage space would've had a hard go of it for ten persons. Then Benjamin and Caleb came out, and off we went to pick up Hannah and Mandy. Next was Abigail, and finally Bobby, with his Cheetos. And we were off!
The ride passed quietly at first, but then I remembered I had bread. Oh what joy! Oh what delight! It was still warm and beaming bright! But it was in my bag. Since there was so little room, things had gotten bustled around a bit, and I was holding somebody's suitcase in my lap with my bag on top; this made it difficult to maneuver my arms in a position where I could access the contents, but at last I did so. I opened my bag to grab some bread and... "MY PORKCHOPS!!!" The cheap plastic container had broken with all the moving about, and rice and porkchops were all over the inside of my bag! I literally just washed those socks too. People broke into laughter as I regathered my food and tried to contain the mess as best I could. I got it eventually, and decided it'd be best to just wait on the bread and butter till we got to the airport. It was kinda sad. I later found a stray porkchop I'd missed still hanging around in my bag, it was sad. At least it smelled good.
We played a bunch of word games, and memory games, and ended with Hannah's favorite gamestyle of all, a 'quick answer jeopardy style game'. By and by we finally made it to the airport, and we all unloaded, said goodbye to our amazing driver Benjamin, (this was only his third trip for dropping people off at the airport in two weeks) and walked into the gateway to America. Not that there was an arch in sight, but you can get pretty much anywhere from here. We immediately separated to get our boarding passes, but mine and Lydia's were on the other side, so we went off walking thataways. Surprisingly enough, Luke and Laura and Ariah and Christy were there as well. My, what a small world. Ariah and Christy were headed off to catch their flight, so we said goodbye a second time and off they went. Then Luke and Laura's ride pulled up, so they headed off to load up as well. We said goodbye for what was now the third time; funny how these things go, you think it's the real deal and then you bump into them again and have to say goodbye again! Oh well. Then Lydia and I walked back to the other side of the airport and met up with the rest of the peeps, plus Ruth and Sam, who also appeared almost out of nowhere, and together we all dominated this one group of chairs. Ruth gave people grapefruit (it was so good!) and I sliced up bread and butter for everyone and we all talked merrily. But alas! all good things come to an end. Pair by pair, Noah style, they left for their flights; Bobby and Abigail, Ruth and Sam, and even Mandy and Caleb left too. Then it was just Lydia and Hannah and I. We talked more about what we wanted to do over break, and then even made a solemn oath to keep ourselves accountable to it. Then we played hearts just about until my flight started boarding, and then I, too, left.
A few minutes later I found myself seated in the plane, in a middle seat; my least favorite. On the window side I had an untalkative fellow, and on the aisle side there was a little girl travelling with her mother and siblings who were just across the aisle from her. She was the oldest. She had a petite build, as most young girls do, straight dirty blond hair and bangs that came down to her eyes which sparkled with all the gleam of childhood merriment, and she had the most charming smile you ever did see. But straight off she couldn't get her seatbelt to click, so I asked if she wanted me to help. She responded sweetly in the affirmative, and after I got it she said 'thank you' very nicely. Most young children I've met on planes are never so well mannered, and most just whine, complain, and watch screens the whole time. (Not that that's bad in and of itself, riding an airplane is a perfect place for that sort of thing. But the point is that most children her age would be totally consumed with it and pay other people no mind, and definitely not be ready or willing to engage in any sort of meaningful conversation.) I was already impressed by how well her parents must be raising her. And so I asked a question to see if she wanted to talk at all.
"So is this the first time you've flown before?"
"Oh no! I've been three times before, so this is my fourth time flying."
"Wow, that's pretty cool!" I said. "You're pretty young to have flown so much. Where are you going?"
"We're going to Memphis Tennessee to see my grandparents. We haven't seen them in at least a year, so we're pretty excited. What about you? Where are you going?"
"I'm on my way to Pensacola Florida," I replied, "to see my family for Christmas."
"Oh, that's cool."
"Do you live in Couer d'alene?" I asked.
"Yup! We moved there about a year ago I think. I live where there's four roads, and they go like this and this and this and this. (here she motioned with her hands) And the school is right here, oh, and wait, there's another road that goes like this, and we live right here between these roads."
I didn't understand what was what, but I nodded in agreement as she went. "Oh cool! Some friends and I went hiking around a lake there, it was a lot of fun! I think they call it Tubb's Hill."
Now she really lit up, "Oh yes! I've been there before, I like that place! I think I saw you there too."
This wasn't true at all, but she managed to convince herself it was.
"Hmm, the time we went it was rainy, not super rainy, but just a little bit, and there wasn't anybody else there, so I don't think you saw me."
"Oh but I did, I remember seeing you!"
I chuckled to myself.
"Hmm, ok then. So how old are you?"
There was a slight pause, then we spoke at the same time; Me: "Seven?" Her: "Six."
She smiled, because I guessed older than her actual age.
And she asked, "And how old are you?"
"I'm twenty."
"Oh, then you should be in college!"
"Hahae, I am! That's why I live in Idaho, to go to college."
"Where in Idaho?"
"In Moscow, it's about an hour and a half south of Couer d'alene."
"Do you like it there?" she asked.
"Oh yes. When I first moved there I didn't have any friends, but now I know a bunch of people and have lots of friends, and we go off and do fun stuff together. It's great!"
"Huh?" she gasped, "Me too! When I first got to Idaho, I didn't know anybody, I had no friends. I was at school at recess one day and I was by myself, sad. There were other people who all had friends and were playing together, but I was alone. Then I saw a girl sitting on the swings and she was alone too, so I walked up and asked if she would be my friend. She said yes, and now we're friends and it's great and we talk to each other every day and play games. Then one day I was outside biking in the street, and the neighbor kids came out on their bikes too, and then I knew everybody! Now I have like twenty, thirty, no forty, fifty friends!"
"Fifty friends!" I said. "That's a lot! I don't know if even I have that many friends."
"Oh well I do, and I know every single one."
Then the flight attendants came with their drinks, and we both got orange juice and pretzels.
Now I finally got around to asking, "So what's your name?"
"Juliette. And what's yours?"
"Leaf. Nice to meet you Juliette!"
Then Juliette's mother handed her a tablet thingy, and she started watching some show I'd never seen before. I tried my best to doze off, but it didn't work that great. Whenever I opened my eyes Juliette always seemed to notice and would look up at me and smile. Once she finished all her pretzels, her mother reached across the aisle and handed her a pack of gummy things, and asked if I'd like one too, to which I thanked her but said I was fine. A little later though Juliette handed me a gummy, so I ate it, and then she handed me another, which I also ate. Boy, Juliette's mother was really putting her off to a great start for the rest of her life. If I wasn't impressed earlier, I definitely was now. After that I managed to doze off for a bit, and by and by they said over the intercom to put away your large handheld electronics as we start our decent, arriving in about twenty minutes. Juliette promptly put away her tablet, and then we started talking again.
She was curious. "So where did you park your car?"
"My car?" I replied. "I left it in Idaho. I'm going to catch another flight and then go to Florida."
"Oh, I see." She leaned halfway across the aisle, "Mamma, where did we park our car?"
"We didn't, grandma and grandpa are going to pick us up when we get to Memphis."
A look of understanding washed over Juliette's face, "Oh, so this isn't Memphis? Where are we?"
"Dallas, dear."
She sat back in her seat now. "We have to catch another flight too. What hotel are you going to stay in?"
"Hotel?" I said. "I'm not going to stay in a hotel."
"Then where will you sleep when you're waiting for your flight?"
"Well my flight leaves soon after this one arrives, so I don't need a hotel. But if it was several hours later, I'd just sleep in the airport."
"In the airport!?" she gasped in amazement. "Sleep in the airport?!"
"hahahae, yes, that's what I'd do." I changed the topic. "Have you been to Nashville before?"
"Nashville? Where is that?"
"It's right in the middle of Tennessee."
Juliette's mother leaned over again, "Juliette, you've been to Nashville dozens of times, remember?"
"Oh yeah, I guess I forgot."
I continued on, "I've got some friends who live over there and have a farm, and sometimes I help them. They grow lots of food, and they have sheep and cows too."
"Oh, do they sell food to the stores?"
"Yes, they do. They also sell the cows, and they taste really good."
"Wait, they kill the cows and eat them? That's not very nice."
"Yes, they kill them, but they're happy cows who live a good life. They have plenty of space to run around in and do fun cow stuff, and there's tons of green grass to eat. Other places with cows have a small fenced in area that they shove as many cows in as they can, and there's no grass and no room to play. It's very sad. But my friends' cows have plenty of space and lots of grass."
She seemed satisfied with this explanation, and so asked, "What do they do when the cows get sick? Do they take it to the doctor or does the farmer fix it himself?"
"Most of the time the farmer gets the cows better by himself, but sometimes they need the vet."
"And then they take it to the vet?" she asked.
"No, the vet usually comes to them. It's a lot of work to move a cow all the way to town, and it's a lot easier to just have the vet come to the cow. Plus, cows can weigh as much as eighteen hundred pounds, and that's really heavy. So it's better if the vet comes to the cow."
"Eighteen hundred pounds!? That's a lot! What if there were ten of me, would it weigh more than that?
"Oh yes, assuredly."
"What if there were a hundred of me?"
"Well, I think you'd weigh more at that point." I chuckled.
"And then they kill them?"
"After the cows are all better and there'll all grown up and fat, then yes, then they kill them."
"Oh. How long do they live?"
"Just a couple years, until they're full grown."
"Haha, well I'll live longer than them then!"
"Hahae, yes you will."
Then she asked again, "How old are you?"
"Twenty."
"Well I'm six so that means I'll live longer than you since older people die first and younger people live longer."
"Yup, most likely so."
"Well I want to live till I'm two hundred eighty-seven years old! That would be cool." she said with a smile on her face.
I replied, internally laughing, "Wow that's really old. I don't think you'll live that long. It's been a long time since people have lived that long. Maybe try to live for a hundred years."
"Yeah, maybe that's better. I want to live for a hundred years!"
Then there was a pause.
"Have you ever played this game?" I asked her, holding out my hands to play the stick game. She hadn't, so I taught her how. I won the first game, and she won the second. Then we started descending, and then we landed. Soon everybody grabbed their bags from the overhead compartments, and then we waited for everybody to get out. Juliette's mother then said,
"Thank you for talking with her, I'm sure she really enjoyed it."
"Oh yes, sure thing! It was great."
Then the line cleared, I said goodbye to Juliette and her mother, and off I went to catch my flight. I would never see Juliette again. But it was good while it lasted. And who knows? Perhaps she'll remember that one guy she talked to on the airplane that one time, and she'll tell people about me. At the very least though, I'll remember her, the best mannered, most polite, cutest, sweetest little six-year-old I'll ever meet on an airplane.
My next flight was more uneventful, but I had just enough time to eat a bread and rice and porkchop sandwich before we boarded, so that was nice. And then I arrived. I was the sixth person off the plane, and off I went to the place where Mamma and Savannah were waiting with the car. I made all haste, not even waiting for the escalator but rather sliding down the railings of the steps and getting to the bottom faster that those on the escalator. There was a half dozen people at the bottom watching me, and this old guy not so quietly commented to his wife, "Wow, did you see that? That was cool!" I bout laughed, but by then I was out the automatic doors and there was Savannah running at me from down the way. We hugged and smiled and laughed, and did the same with Mamma when we got to the car. Then we talked all the way back home, and I told bunches of the best, funniest stories that had recently happened. It was great. By the time we got back to the house it was almost eleven at night, but we talked more and more. Eventually Jubal woke up and he was ever so happy to see me. Shortly after we all went to bed, and that was that. Christmas break begins!
Friday, December 8, 2017
Foreign Countries
One of these days, I'll go to another country. America is great and all, there's forests and mountains, deserts and tundra, beaches and plains, I've seen it all; but I want to get a good idea of how the rest of the world works, looks, and acts. I've come mighty close to getting outside America, but I've never quite gotten there. I've looked across the Rio Grande and beheld the fair deserts of Mexico (though it looked just as barren and bland as West Texas), and I've looked out of an airplane down onto the bonny lands of Canada. I suppose I've technically been in Canadian airspace, but that doesn't really count. Years ago we almost moved to China, and a couple years after that we almost moved to Belize, but both of those plans fell through. And then I almost went on a long bicycle trip through Europe, but that plan got axed when I decided to go to college in Idaho. And then my passport expired, and now I'm not even in a position to be able to renew it. *sigh... One of these days I'll make it. One of these days I'll see Nepal, or Denmark, or Australia. Who knows, we'll see.
But... several weeks ago I noticed that some random person from Albania had been reading some of the stuff I've written here. He pops in every now and then, and there's also a handful of people from Russia and Italy and a couple other places. So, here's a shout-out to all yall who don't live in America: send me your email address and I'll write to you, and we can tell each other about ourselves. (You could comment on this post and I'll see it, or you could find some other way to get a hold of me. (Also, I am unfortunately quite unlearned in other languages. All I know is Latin fairly well, a little bit of ASL (as in I'm slow, but I can converse with deaf people), enough to order a pizza in Spanish, and how to say 'bless you' when a Russian sneezes. That's about it. Hopefully you know English, otherwise I don't think we'll get very far. Sorry guys!) Personally, I'd love to hear about Albania, I don't know anything about it except that it's in northwest Africa. I've never attempted to make friends with random people on the internet before, but I guess there's a first for everything. And that'd be really cool if this plan actually worked! Who knows? It just might!
But... several weeks ago I noticed that some random person from Albania had been reading some of the stuff I've written here. He pops in every now and then, and there's also a handful of people from Russia and Italy and a couple other places. So, here's a shout-out to all yall who don't live in America: send me your email address and I'll write to you, and we can tell each other about ourselves. (You could comment on this post and I'll see it, or you could find some other way to get a hold of me. (Also, I am unfortunately quite unlearned in other languages. All I know is Latin fairly well, a little bit of ASL (as in I'm slow, but I can converse with deaf people), enough to order a pizza in Spanish, and how to say 'bless you' when a Russian sneezes. That's about it. Hopefully you know English, otherwise I don't think we'll get very far. Sorry guys!) Personally, I'd love to hear about Albania, I don't know anything about it except that it's in northwest Africa. I've never attempted to make friends with random people on the internet before, but I guess there's a first for everything. And that'd be really cool if this plan actually worked! Who knows? It just might!
Housework
December 7th, 2017
What is housework? Basically, it's anything that entails the general upkeep of a home: laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, etc. Some people call such tasks 'women's-work', because women are the ones who usually perform such tasks. I don't think 'women's-work' is quite the best use of vocabulary though, for it seems to imply that men don't need to bother themselves about such things. That would be a mistaken assumption though, for men are most definitely not excluded from this sort of work. So how should housework go? Well, I'll tell you my thoughts on the subject, and then you can decide for yourself whether you like them or not. Here goes!
In general, though
there are definitely exceptions, the woman of the house will end up performing
certain tasks more often than her husband. (washing dishes, cleaning, laundry,
etc.) This is not because it is the only work suitable for her, but because her
man will be spending a significant portion of his time outside the home working
to provide money for the household, as he ought, and someone needs to do the
work back home. The moment of contention arrives when the husband comes home
from work. If he just kicks back and lets the house run itself, (ie. his wife
and/or children are doing everything for him) we have a problem. Husbands and
wives are meant to work together, and while the husband has been gone all day
working, the wife has (in this scenario) been working at home keeping up with all the housework while looking
after/educating the kids. (I have yet to fully think through how a double-income family would/should look like, but we can
have that conversation later. As for the wife being the sole money-maker
outside the home, I’d say that situation is less than ideal [though on rare
occasion necessary] because men are meant to be the providers, and don’t have
near the same abilities as women to nurture children in all the ways they need.
This is also something that calls for further discussion, but by now I’ve
gotten far afield from what I was talking about at first, so let's get back to it.) A husband’s job is
not done at the end of his ‘workday’. When he gets home he ought to help his
wife with whatever is at hand or start some other task that needs doing. Only
when all the work is done for the day or the-time-being should either husband or wife
rest. Basically, if one is working the other should be too. Obviously, there
are times when that’s not possible or isn’t going to be the case, but as a
general rule of thumb it works pretty well.
As long as there are dishes to be washed, I cannot see how ANYBODY can go through life without washing them at least somewhat regularly while keeping their heart in proper submission to God. If you've gone a month without washing any dishes, I can say somewhat confidently that you done messed up A-a-ron. On a more positive note, think of doing the dishes as a great opportunity to bless your wife. Nothing says 'I love you' like cleaning the post-dinner kitchen unasked after she's just finished another crazy hectic day keeping track of everything and everybody and keeping everything in order. (Lord knows that's no easy task!) Let me tell you right now: she will greatly appreciate your efforts.
Now, this is also a two-way street. The wife can also bless her husband greatly by having the house set to right before he gets back from a long exhausting day at work. Sometimes it's nice to be all the way done with work at the end of your shift, and the days when they are will, again, be muchly appreciated. All around there's always plenty of room for sanctification and blessing others when it comes to the topic of housework. Some, at this point, may wonder how it is that I can have opinions on how housework should go between husband and wife, seeing as I am in fact unmarried. This though shouldn't be surprising because I have lived much of my life around husbands and wives and have observed their actions. Granted, I still have far to go in determining how these things should go due to my lack of direct experience, but for now I can at least draw a preliminary conclusion. Somewhere along the way I'm sure I'll come to a fuller understanding and may change my initial thoughts on the subject, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. Take it, as with most everything, with a grain of salt. Peace out!
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Slight Miscalculations
Friday, December 1st, 2017
There I was, peacefully vacuuming in the Stormcellar, when all of a sudden I heard a small noise behind me. I whipped my head around to see what it was that had made the sound because I was the only one in the building. Or at least that's what I hoped. The moment I turned around, the fluorescent light flickered off and on, and there was a person standing right there not a dozen feet away from me! My heart leapt a thousand feet up to the tops of my eyeballs and thoughts whirred through my mind faster than leopard on a rainy day in June. Where did she come from?? I had no idea. A second later, my parasympathetic nervous system took over and calmed me down again: it was just a mannequin. Whew! I went back to work with a good chuckle and a twinkle in my eye and wondering why these things always happen to me. There was this one time a broom scared the living daylights out of me. But that's a different story for another time. Maybe ask me about it and I'll tell you.
Anyways, several hours after that morning episode, Anna and I were doing a quick brush up on the respiratory system before our quiz, when we came to something we'd both forgotten about. We were both in the commons, she sitting on one of those armchairs, and I was on a diner-style stool with four legs. Behind me was a little table where Sarah and somebody else were sitting, so I pivoted on only one leg and spun ninety degrees around to ask her if she knew what it was. But alas, she was still talking and was busy. Then Anna said I should ask Ruth, so I did a one hundred eighty degree turn to face her, but I spun too quickly. With an almost slow-motion feeling to it, I felt the chair falling too fast down and backwards, and my leaning forward was not enough to compensate. With an inglominous crash I thudded to the ground, amid a general turning around of heads within the commons to see what had happened, and even those in the classroom noticed. (How could they not, it was a loud sound!) Why does that room have glass doors?? Oh well. At any rate, I let out a good laugh as I fell, and more upon my landing, and reduced it to a simple chuckle once I picked myself up. Amazingly enough, Ruth managed to miss the whole ordeal and only heard the sound. So I started telling her what'd happened, and then decided to demonstrate. Whilst doing so, I almost fell over again! So much for that.
And that's what happened to me, or rather, what I brought upon myself today. Life would be so less interesting without all those little miscalculations we make. Tomorrow, keep an eye out for those little things, and be prepared to laugh at yourself. Sometimes you're the only one to witness the funny things you do, but other times that's not exactly the case. A good dose of laughter is great medicine either way!
There I was, peacefully vacuuming in the Stormcellar, when all of a sudden I heard a small noise behind me. I whipped my head around to see what it was that had made the sound because I was the only one in the building. Or at least that's what I hoped. The moment I turned around, the fluorescent light flickered off and on, and there was a person standing right there not a dozen feet away from me! My heart leapt a thousand feet up to the tops of my eyeballs and thoughts whirred through my mind faster than leopard on a rainy day in June. Where did she come from?? I had no idea. A second later, my parasympathetic nervous system took over and calmed me down again: it was just a mannequin. Whew! I went back to work with a good chuckle and a twinkle in my eye and wondering why these things always happen to me. There was this one time a broom scared the living daylights out of me. But that's a different story for another time. Maybe ask me about it and I'll tell you.
Anyways, several hours after that morning episode, Anna and I were doing a quick brush up on the respiratory system before our quiz, when we came to something we'd both forgotten about. We were both in the commons, she sitting on one of those armchairs, and I was on a diner-style stool with four legs. Behind me was a little table where Sarah and somebody else were sitting, so I pivoted on only one leg and spun ninety degrees around to ask her if she knew what it was. But alas, she was still talking and was busy. Then Anna said I should ask Ruth, so I did a one hundred eighty degree turn to face her, but I spun too quickly. With an almost slow-motion feeling to it, I felt the chair falling too fast down and backwards, and my leaning forward was not enough to compensate. With an inglominous crash I thudded to the ground, amid a general turning around of heads within the commons to see what had happened, and even those in the classroom noticed. (How could they not, it was a loud sound!) Why does that room have glass doors?? Oh well. At any rate, I let out a good laugh as I fell, and more upon my landing, and reduced it to a simple chuckle once I picked myself up. Amazingly enough, Ruth managed to miss the whole ordeal and only heard the sound. So I started telling her what'd happened, and then decided to demonstrate. Whilst doing so, I almost fell over again! So much for that.
And that's what happened to me, or rather, what I brought upon myself today. Life would be so less interesting without all those little miscalculations we make. Tomorrow, keep an eye out for those little things, and be prepared to laugh at yourself. Sometimes you're the only one to witness the funny things you do, but other times that's not exactly the case. A good dose of laughter is great medicine either way!
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