"Olivia! At least wait until I die!"

I'll give you $20 if you can guess what I said to elicit that response.
(This excludes you, Sara Myers, because we just discussed this.)

Okay. I'm just going to tell you.

1. This is a photograph of an apple. This particular apple has been put through my mom's apple corer that simultaneously cores the apple and slices the fruit in a spiral. This core got stuck so my mom stopped partway through and cut off the part that was already sliced.

When I walked into the kitchen and saw this on the counter, I burst out laughing. "What?" my mom asked. I picked up the apple, nearly doubled over. "Do you see this thing?" Her smile was quickly replaced by that look she gets when she's trying to be scornful but is actually secretly amused. "Yes I see it," she said. "And I know what you see, but I don't see what you see." You couldn't pay her for better quips than this.

So at this point I was basically on the floor (I know, it's really not that funny). "I'm putting this on my blog!" I gasped. "I already posted that you did the hula!"

And that's when it came: The Gold Nugget of my month. "Oh God, Olivia! At least wait until I die!"

I most certainly will not, Mother.

So That Happened

This has been quite the week. Buckle your seatbelts.

1) I'm currently taking a break from filling out my ballot, which I have not actually begun to fill out yet. The first thing I did when I reached for the voter's pamphlet was accidentally drool on myself. Nothing says "I'm a mature and capable citizen of these here United States" quite like expelling a huge wad of spit onto my own chest.

2) The other morning I was halfway to Seattle on the bus when I realized I'd forgotten to put on deodorant.

3) Two days in a row when I arrived at work, my keyboard was missing. Rather than search for it around the office, I sat down at another computer. Several hours later, one of my editors walked by. "Hey Olivia," she said. "Just felt like moving today?" All of a sudden it seemed very very childish to respond, "Someone stole my keyboard!" I just nodded.

4) I just found a typo on my ballot: "This proposition would authorize King County to fix and impose an additional sales and use tax of 0.2% spilt between the county (60%) and cities (40%)." I am glad, though, that they've done their math correctly. Those two percentages do indeed add up to 100. So at least Washington state has that going for it. Update: I found the same error in the voter's pamphlet. In a way, it doesn't matter now if Dino Rossi becomes our new senator. We can't even spell "split."

5) I spent all day Thursday transcribing an interview the senior editor had recorded using a dinky ghetto tape recorder. A tape recorder. Remember those...from back before the Big Bang? So I plugged in my earphones but the sound was only coming out of one ear. Off to a great start. The interview took place in a coffee shop, so if I had the volume up too loud there was too much background noise, and if I had it down too low I couldn't hear the woman's responses. I swear the barista was trying to sabotage the interview, because every time the woman started to say something that sounded like it might be important, the milk steamer would start or someone would shout out an order. From the constant stopping and rewinding--often upwards of 30 times to decipher a single word--I doubt I got more than ten minutes into the tape. At one point, after listening to one line approximately 25 times, I was convinced the woman said "seat in Vermont." Of course this made absolutely zero sense in the context of the question. I had another intern listen to it, and on the first time she was able to tell me that the correct phrase was "meet with her mom." Why am I the worst transcriber ever?

6) I was filling out the crossword this morning (and by "filling out," I mean reading a clue, deciding I have no idea what it even means, and moving on to the next one). The clue for 1 Across was something along the lines of "These two letters spell confection." In my head I was trying to envision the logo for pure cane sugar. I knew it was pink and blue and started with a C. I wasn't positive, but I was fairly certain the second letter was W. I asked my mom, and rather than tell me the answer straight out she launched into the jingle from the Hawaiian cane sugar commercial that used to run when she was a kid, complete with hula moves. (In case you were curious, and as slow as me, it's C&H.)

I Googled "Hawaiian cane sugar commercial" to see if I could find any images from the commercial my mom used to watch. This was what I got. A small Asian mongoose.

7) My magazine sent me to a production of Hamlet last night at the Seattle Center so I could review it in a blog post--not this blog (obviously). In an email I'd received from the guy in charge of press passes, he said he'd have my "tickets and press packet" next to Will Call. I should have registered that "tickets" is plural--meaning MORE than one--and invited someone to go with me (although I didn't really have anyone to invite). But no, I went alone. And boy did I feel like a tool when on opening night the only empty seat in the entire theater was right next to me. (Regardless of that embarrassment, it was still hands-down the best performance of Hamlet I've ever seen. I encourage you all to go at once. It runs through December 5th at the Center House Theatre.)

This is Darragh Kennan, the grieving and sardonic Prince Hamlet in Seattle Shakespeare's production. I am so totally in love with him...even though he kind of looks like a creepy hybrid of David Spade and a young Mr. Rogers. Hamlet has never been this sexy. (Sorry, Kenneth Branagh. I still love you too.)

I'm pretty sure that's all the awkwardness for this week. Well, it's definitely not, but it's all I can remember. I'll try to do better next time.

Poetry Corner Monday (and Grape Crush Pics)

Look. I'm actually posting this on Monday.

Old Men
by Ken Hada
(taken from The Writer's Almanac for Oct. 25th)

I make it a point now
to wave to old men I pass
old men standing in shade
of a yard, maybe
a daughter's place
where now he's just a tenant
trying to understand role reversal.

I raise my forefinger
As I steer country roads or pass
Through tired neighborhoods.
Most return a wave or nod Howdy.
Driving gives you some perspective,
shows you how you might end up.

We allow something
now, especially those of us sitting
on porch swings, those
who never got around to going
somewhere, those
who still feel like something
somehow is missing.


In other news, here are some shots from Michael's recent grape crushes, including the enchilada party:

So That Happened

This post will be dedicated to a single event that took place tonight.

Necessary background information:
1) My brother Michael and his best friend/business partner Pasha left this afternoon for Eastern Washington where they will camp overnight and return tomorrow with two tons (literally) of grapes for their wine.
2) The phrase "punch-down" refers to a process during which the grapes in Michael's macrobins are punched down using a flat metal puncher-downer (technical term).

Circumstances of this evening:
At 9:30 my mom and I were the only ones home. My mom was downstairs in the study checking her email and I was in my room working on my article for Seattle Met Magazine. My mom heard a faint noise coming from the basement (where the winery is located) and became vaguely concerned. She looked out the window but didn't see a car. Then she thought maybe it was just me watching television. When she dissuaded herself of that conclusion, she came up with a game plan: Come upstairs, get me, grab a baseball bat, and head down to the basement. As she was entering the dining room on her way to the stairs, her phone rang. It was Michael. "Did I tell you Nate would be coming by to do the punch-down?" he asked.

My mom laughed and told him what she had been on her way to do. "I'm going to get you a shotgun for Christmas" was my brother's response.

This is my family.

Things I Have Recently Learned

1. Office Mitch is actually named Ben. I will continue to call him Office Mitch.
2. Putting a steaming tea bag over your eye to help soothe your stye is only a good idea as long as it is not lemon ginger tea. To be safe, if I were you I'd make a mental note to always do the opposite of what I do.
3. It's okay to stare at the sun as long as it's shrouded in fog.
4. I do not like it when someone runs up alongside the bus and bangs the window to get the driver to stop. I particularly do not like this when the window he bangs is inches from my face.
5. You know you listen to NPR way too much when the majority of quotes on your Facebook profile were taken from either the Wait Wait blog or the Wait Wait podcast.

To be continued...

Oh, Rumi

Evidently Poetry Corner Monday should be renamed Poetry Corner Whenever I Feel Like It.

This evening I was reorganizing my poetry books (what, is that weird?) and through some cosmic act of fate my Rumi book fell open to this poem. I'm stunned by how applicable it is to my life right now (starting with how I forgot to post this yesterday):

Sometimes I Forget Completely

Sometimes I forget completely
what companionship is.
Unconscious and insane, I spill sad
energy everywhere. My story
gets told in various ways: a romance,
a dirty joke, a war, a vacancy.

Divide up my forgetfulness to any number,
it will go around.
These dark suggestions that I follow,
are they part of some plan?
Friends, be careful. Don't come near me
out of curiosity, or sympathy.

The Cube Personality Game

My wonderful cousin, who is here this weekend because she has an interview in Seattle tomorrow, taught me an exciting activity called the Cube Personality Game. Unfortunately you can only "play" it once, but you can mediate it for the rest of your life, if you'd like.

Here's how it goes:

1. Imagine that you're on a deserted island. There is a cube on the island. Describe the cube. Where is it on the island?
2. Now imagine a ladder. What does it look like? Where is it in relation to the cube?
3. What is the vegetation like on the island?
4. There is a horse on the island. Where is it? What is it doing? What are your feelings about it?
5. Imagine an interaction between you and the horse. What are you doing? How does the horse respond?
6. There is a storm. Describe it. What do you do when it comes?

Okay. That's the game. Now here's the analysis (with my results and Naomi's):

1. The cube represents yourself. Naomi's was the size of a basketball, shiny solid metal, and had washed up onshore. Mine was the size of a small room and made out of clear glass.
2. The ladder is your career. Mine was wooden, leaning against the cube. Naomi's was wooden too, but old and held together by bits of rope.
3. The vegetation is your friends. Naomi had one coconut tree with a jungle in the background. I had three palm trees (one in the middle of the island, and two near my cube).
4. The horse is your mate. Naomi's was a "wild palomino," its hair wet with saltwater, whinnying. I tied mine to the tree.
5. Your interaction with the horse is how you imagine an interaction with whatever divine presence you believe in. Naomi managed to coax the horse to her and it breathed warm air into her hand. I fed mine carrots.
6. The storm, as you can probably guess, represents your problems and how you deal with them. Naomi stood in the rain next to her horse and waited for the weather to pass, making no attempt to hide. I hid in my cube.

Fascinating, isn't it? Naomi must have taught the game to at least six people last night, and it was really cool to hear their responses to the questions, and to see how they reacted when she told them what everything meant. When one of my brother's friend got to the vegetation question, he closed his eyes and talked about how all the plants on the island were going down in flame because someone had set fire to the underground rum cache. When Naomi told him that he had burned his friends, he felt genuinely awful. "Oh man," he said, "I thought it was all a joke so I just imaged a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean." Oh this is no joke, my friend. No joke at all.

So That Happened

Yes, it's once again time to recap the week's absurdities--by which I mean, of course, let's all point and laugh at my life.

1. When I got into work on Thursday, the lights were all off. Some cubicles come equipped with lamps, but mine is not among them. For about 45 minutes I was sitting in complete darkness. I wrote "Why are we living in a cave?" on a pink Post-It and held it up to the glass window separating my cubicle from my friend Clancey's. She smiled and shook her head. Soon after that my editor flipped the light switch. It was like sunrise in super fast motion. It was glorious.

2. I was video chatting with my friend Meaghin on Skype last night and she was sending me some gorgeous photos she's taken. One of them was a picture of a bee in mid-air, taken with her film camera. Because she'd scanned it onto the computer, the photo was titled "beescan." Me being me, I thought it read as "bees can" rather than the painfully obvious "bee scan."

3. There's a guy at work who looks exactly like Mitch from Modern Family. Here's a picture, in case you're unfamiliar with Jesse Tyler Ferguson:


Office Mitch (as I've taken to calling him in my head) has the exact same color hair, same beard, same style, same glasses (I realize JTF is not wearing glasses in this photo, but when he does they're identical to Office Mitch's glasses), and nearly identical body type. It's totally eerie.

4. My mom's birthday was this past week. I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, and she said almond poppy seed. She wanted it made from a specific recipe--one that called for Solo Almond Paste--for two reasons: 1) "I love the recipe," and 2) "The recipe is on the backside of the label. I just really want you to peel the wrapper off the can in the middle of the grocery store, just to see if you will." I should mention that over the years I've grown to resent my "good girl" image. Not so much, however, that I'm willing to do anything drastic to change it, but enough that I took my mother's cake request as a personal challenge. This would be the perfect opportunity to prove that a life of crime was something I chose not to pursue, rather than something I couldn't have pursued if my existence depended on it.

Fast forward to the grocery store. It was 9:30pm and the aisles were basically deserted. I found the can of Solo Almond Paste and, feeling very self-conscious about removing the label, hid in the organic section of the produce aisle and set to work tearing up the wrapper--millimeter by millimeter, checking over my shoulder with each rip--with the edge of my car key.

When it was off, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Look at me, I thought. I'm such a rebel. I could just walk right out this door with my can of almond paste and no one would know! Unfortunately, as luck would have it--or maybe just as my luck would have it--neither of the two recipes on the back of the label were for almond poppy seed cake. And, because I'm never really going to be badass no matter how hard I try, I felt obligated to buy the almond paste just because I'd removed the wrapper. (Maybe next time I'll just leave the can on the shelf! Okay, so I won't. But baby steps, right?)

Whoopsie

Looks like I was a day late with Poetry Corner Monday. I'm terribly sorry if I caused anyone any pain because of my error. I know your Monday would have been a lot better had I not been working/making dinner/baking a cake/cleaning the kitchen/watching House and half of Lie to Me/writing an actual work-related blog post (which just got published today--check it out HERE). I promise it won't happen again. Until the next time it happens.

Well, friends, the suspense is over. Here it is, this week's poem:

Theories of Time and Space
by Natasha Trethewey

You can get there from here, though
there's no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you've never been. Try this:

head south on Mississippi 49, one-
by-one mile markers ticking off

another minute of your life. Follow this
to its natural conclusion – dead end

at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where
riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches

in a sky threatening rain. Cross over
the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand

dumped on the mangrove swamp – buried
terrain of the past. Bring only

what you must carry – tome of memory,
its random blank pages. On the dock

where you board the boat for Ship Island,
someone will take your picture:

the photograph – who you were—
will be waiting when you return.

So That Happened

This week on So That Happened:

"I'm just trying to be copacetic with my digestive system." -My mother

Michael: I'm just sayin'. Maybe the apostrophe is only 73 years old.
Me: Michael, Shakespeare and the Puritans used apostrophes.
Stuart: Man, I don't think you're going to win this argument.

Michael: This is cooked perfectly, Mom. The seasoning is delicious.
Mom: It came seasoned.
Michael: Oh, well then the seasoning isn't delicious.

The other day I was riding the bus, minding my own business, listening to Wait Wait in the midst of a random group of high schoolers. This last detail may seem needless, but believe me--it contributed a great deal to my imminent shame. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. So I was on the bus, Wait Wait buzzing happily in my ear, and host Peter Sagal mentioned that in California it is no longer legal to trademark new names for marijuana. The following conversation took place between him and Adam Felber, a panelist:

Peter: The patent office was just overrun with confused potheads submitting patents not for their pot but for ideas they'd had while using it. For example, patent for method of just, like, thinking of a food, and then you can taste the food and all you had to do was think of the food.
Adam: TM.
Peter: And then there was this idea that just came in, it was in a patent form: Did anyone ever patent getting a patent, 'cause then anytime somebody gets a patent you get money? But then when I get the patent for patenting patents, do I just have to give the money to myself? Whoa.
Adam: I'm here to patent toes.
Peter: Look at them.
Adam: Look at those. Everybody has 'em. I own 'em.

When Adam Felber interjected, "I'm here to patent toes," I LOST it. On the bus, in the middle of a group of judgmental teens. As Wait Wait is my designated bus soundtrack, I'm used to handling my laughter by converting it into deep exhales and what I call "severe smiles." Not this time. No, this time I straight-out cackled. I'm sure it didn't help that right after the "incident" I immediately turned my head toward the window, as if to accuse the shrubbery of an inappropriate outburst. At this point I should just own it. But seriously: "I'm here to patent toes." Where do these people come up with this stuff?

My brother and his best friend/business partner Pasha have been spending a lot of time at night downstairs in their winery, prepping the new room. They installed one door, are in the process of installing another, and have put in a handful of new light fixtures which requires them to...let's just say finesse the electric cords. I always have a hard time waking up on Mondays to face the day, so I as I was falling asleep last Sunday I made a mental list of all the great things I would accomplish the next day. At the top of my list, where it is every week, was House (8pm on Fox). I woke up on Monday, took a shower, had a long day at work, came home, ate dinner, and sat down on the couch to watch my favorite show. About halfway through, in the middle of an intense scene, the power went out. Downstairs in the kitchen I heard Pasha yell to Michael in the basement, "You blew the kitchen!" I sat in the dark for a moment, hoping that if I was really really still the lights and TV would come back on. They didn't. I got up and went downstairs. Pasha took one look at my face (which I'm sure was NOT pretty) and shouted, "You blew the upstairs too!"

Update:
Because I am notorious for writing down everything I hear, my mother wants to buy me a shirt that says either "Watch your mouth," "That's going on my blog," or my personal favorite, "I heard that!"

Walla Squared (Part 2)

So when I left off, my mom, cousin, grandma and I had just finished a riveting conversation about tetanus.

And now a word about the elevator in the West Wing of the Marcus Whitman Hotel. (That's right. The West Wing. I was so close to the White House I could practically hear Josh Lyman screaming for Donna in the next room. What, they're not real? Preposterous.) Okay, so. It was nearing dinner time and we we made our way down the corridor to the elevator. As we were on the third floor, we had to pass the second on our descent. We stopped there and a man joined us. "Going down?" he asked? "Yes," we answered, "are you?" He smiled and let out a brief exhalation, as if attempting to stifle a cackle. "Oh I'm going down," he said, "in more ways than one." Now, I consider myself a fairly appropriate person. I'm polite when I need to be, and despite my awkwardness, for the most part I know when to act mature. I am well-versed in the Code of the Elevator: walk in, push button, face the door, and shut up (although one of my favorite pastimes is walking in and never turning around. It makes people really uncomfortable. It's very fun.) So because I'm so well-versed in the Code of the Elevator, I knew that it would be socially inappropriate to react to this man's comment, particularly because my reaction would not be to the comment itself but to the fact that he had just admitted something deeply personal to three strangers in an elevator in the middle of what we referred to as "the chicest of the podunk eastern Washington towns." However, I felt trouble brewing in the form of uncontrollable laughter squeezing its way up my throat. I bit my tongue. I bit my lip. I told myself, "Think about death. Death is sad" which is my longtime trusty laugh-stopper. We were almost to the bottom floor when to my horror my jaw unclenched and I let out a single unmistakable wail of laughter. It was short, and it's possible the man's hearing was so bad that he didn't catch it, but I certainly did, and I'm still mortified. Elevator Confession #1: Fail.

That leads me to our second encounter. This time we were heading up. We climbed inside and were followed almost immediately by a cheery young bellhop who asked us how we were doing. "We're great," we told him, "how has your day been?" "Oh, you know." He looked down, then at the door. "I've got a lot of things going through my head right now. Mostly good..." Can I just take a moment to ask exactly what about being in an elevator inspires such heartfelt confessions, particularly when the Code of the Elevator explicitly states that nothing is ever to be spoken while inside.

Encounter #3 was only a confession if you extend the definition of "confession" to mean any utterance of truth. We were on the third floor and pressed the down button. Several moments later the door opened and we walked in. But instead of going down, the elevator took us up to the fourth floor where we were joined by a delightful Indian family who said their hellos. (I'll tell you one thing: That was the friendliest elevator I've ever had the privilege of riding.) On our way down, we stopped at the third floor. The doors opened but no one came in and no one went out. The father expressed confusion as to why we had stopped when no one had chosen to do so. In her attempts to explain, my mother offered up the simple concise answer: "That was where we were." This quote became an endless source of entertainment for me and Naomi for the rest of the afternoon. In all fairness, though, my mom was trying to explain that the doors had opened because we had wanted to go down but climbed aboard the elevator on its way up, so I shouldn't give her too much crap. Notice the use of "shouldn't" rather than "can't." Because I definitely can. And have. But still. "This is where we were." As if it were not an explanation but a simple statement of truth that she merely decided to share with the occupants of the elevator. (Mama, if you're reading this, I love you! And don't worry--I'll put this blog post in the potatoes.)

Wow. That turned into a way longer story than I meant it to be. It's amazing how I can manage to blabber about one topic so much that reading its description takes approximately 4,000 times longer than the length of the actual encounter. That's just how I roll. Stay tuned for Part 3...if I decide to write one.

Poetry Corner Monday

This one breaks my heart, as do all poems by this man. But he is so incredible.

Abandoned Farmhouse
by Ted Kooser

He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house,
a tall man too, says the length of his bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.

Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm--a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.

Walla Squared (Part 1)

This weekend my mother, grandmother and I piled into our well-used Toyota Sienna and embarked on a five-hour drive to see my cousin Naomi in Walla Walla where she goes to school.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the drive. Wait! That's a total lie. My mom had her window open as we were going down the highway and at one point a huge, obscenely bony insect flew inside and smacked me right below my eye. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I received no sympathy from my mom and grandma, however (and it wouldn't be the last time on the trip when an injury of mine would fail to elicit concern), and I was ceaselessly mocked with statements like, "Well I don't see any blood" and "Oh, you know, I think you're right. I do see a large dent in your cheekbone." Thanks, Fam. Y'all are peaches.

Aside from the insect fiasco, the drive was peaceful. I listened to several episodes of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and Too Beautiful to Live (with Luke Burbank). No matter how many times I plug both of these programs, no one will ever believe me about how insanely hilarious they are. Seriously, guys. Everyone's a geek at heart. Embrace it and tune in.

We barreled down the freeway at quite an impressive speed, and despite the long journey we only stopped once, at a rest stop near Selah Creek, to stretch our legs. It was ungodly hot--around 90 degrees, which is about 15 degrees too hot for me--and the creek had dried up completely. The canyon was gorgeous, though, and I took pictures like a crazy person while my mom attempted to scare me with her newly acquired knowledge that western rattlesnakes inhabited the area. A little tip for you: If you ever need to shut me up or drive me away, mention snakes. It doesn't matter what kind, or in what context they are mentioned. Just say the word and I'm out of there.

As we had parked slightly uphill of the lookout, we hiked back to the summit of what I called Mt. Rest Stop and got back on the road. We arrived in Walla Walla around 2pm. After we picked up Naomi from her house and my mom and grandma got settled in their hotel (I was spending that night at Naomi's house so I did not share their room), we drove about five minutes to a lovely walking trail. Two young boys were cavorting around in the water--as they were each holding large stones I imagine they were playing a rousing round of Flatten That Fish--and I successfully scared away a white heron approximately 13 times.

Down the trail a bit was a bridge, and on the other side of the bridge was this old deteriorating barn that I was dying to photograph. While my mom and grandma found a seat in the shade, Naomi and I ventured down a gravel path to explore the sagging structure. I'll abbreviate this story by explaining that on the way back to the trail I was in the midst of explaining something profound and intriguing inane and I absentmindedly walked right into the strip of barbed wire under which Naomi is ducking in this picture. I hit it so hard that it knocked me backward into the grass. I looked up and noticed that four or five of my hairs (with the follicles attached!) were hanging from the accosting barb. I was convinced that the wire had hit me on my forehead right at my hairline. I felt the area to check for blood but there was none. Gathering myself, I explained the situation to Naomi who rolled her eyes and mentioned something about the insect through the window (at this point she'd been told extensively of the highway mishap), and kept walking.

I relayed the story to my mom and grandma who, upon noting the lack of physical evidence of my injury, chimed in with some bug jokes of their own which they found endlessly hilarious. "Laugh it up," I told them, and then, as if the real issue at hand were not my current pain but their lack of belief in my insect-through-the-window tale, I added, "It was a huge bug. And sharp. And it almost hit me in the eye."

We left the trail, stopped by Safeway to pick up some snacks and cold drinks, and headed to the hotel where we chatted for quite some time about Naomi's classes, why she'd chosen Whitman, and how recently I'd had a tetanus shot. (I am still unsure of the latter, and this alarms me.)

I think this is a good place to stop for now. Tune in next time to hear all about the Elevator Confessionals, the world's largest air mattress, an expert tour of the Whitman campus, and the nail-biting conclusion of my barbed wire injury.

Oh, and go listen to TBTL.
Also. Before I forget: Our "well-used" van has now been coined my by dear cousin as the "Little Miss Sunshine Van." Not only does the incessant rattling in the side panels and the dash sound like a severe form of mechanical arthritis (yes yes, I know you can't hear arthritis, but just go with me on this one), but both sliding doors decided to act up as soon as we reached Naomi's house. The button you have to push to open them from the inside kept sticking on one door, so my mom would have to open it for us. When we tried to close it, it would bounce back open. Not to be outdone, the other door followed suit (but with a different problem that I still can't quite pinpoint). At one point we were literally trapped in the backseat of the van. It was awesome.

Okay. I'm done now. For reals.