Nacho cheese. Or not your cheese.

So remember when my nacho cheese got stolen? Maybe not because I'm pretty sure that I never actually mentioned it here. In writing. Anyway.

A couple of months ago I begged mom to buy me one of those huge cans of nacho cheese at Costco. You know the ones.

So she finally bought me one.

Anyway, AJ and I ate the cheese once on chips and then went home for the weekend. And then my roommates ate my cheese, all of it, whilst I was away. Apparently they thought it was left over from a party they had had the previous weekend.

Not left over.

So I get back, hungry for cheese and it is nowhere to be found. I search everywhere, frantically.

Eventually it comes out that my cheese was consumed by accident. New can of cheese was promised.

Promised can was never given to me.

Anyway. Tanner bought me a can of cheese for Christmas. Bahaha.

You're looking skinny like a model.

Recently someone asked my mother if I have an eating disorder.

Frankly, I'm flattered.

Although, if I were to indulge in a disorder I would most definitely be anorexic. Bulimia ruins the enamel on your teeth. And throwing up too much can rupture your throat.

On the other hand, anorexia strips all the fat from your cells and causes you to grow a slight fur to keep your body warm.

And as my darling sister once told me "I'd rather be chubby than cold."

Chubby, warm, and incredibly happy.

Double takes.

Sarah became a teenager. Pretty much over night. One afternoon I come home and find her taking a nap. In her room. With the lights off and the blinds drawn. During the day.

Unthinkable. Absurd.

But that isn't even the half of it.

She hangs out in the bathroom and brushes her hair.

She tried to shave her legs. And cut herself. Which is sort of a rite of passage, I think. Taking a hunk out of one's leg.

She pouts and whines "that's not fair."

She sleeps in. (This is somewhat relative, when I say "sleeps in" I mean "gets up at seven thirty instead of six.)

It's hilarious.

Also, she hid her dirty socks under the sheets on my bed. I still don't really know how to take that.

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Let it be known that I have no qualms about sharing gum. And when I say "sharing gum" I don't mean opening a pack and giving everyone a piece (although, I have no qualms about doing this either). I mean sharing the same piece. Already chewed on.

I'm also okay with chewing a piece gum that is approximately four years old.

Nor does it bother me that I found said gum on the floor a car. Covered in dirt, dust bunnies, and a piece of hair.

I mean, it was still wrapped.

However, this kid I know, also the driver of the car and possible owner of the old-ish gum, does have a problem with chewing ancient gum.

A problem and an incredibly sensitive gag reflex.

So I'm trying not eat weird stuff while he's driving. You know, so we don't die when he up-chucks all over the steering wheel.

For those of you who are wondering how I can manage to share gum and chew weirdly hard and tasteless gum that I found, but cannot go for more than twenty minutes without washing my hands: I never said I was consistent.

I'm aware that this is possibly gross. I also have no qualms about that.

I don't like to eat dirt anymore.

Me: My name is Kimberlyn and I like to eat dirt.

Kimberlyn: My name is Emily and I like to eat dirt.

Sarah: My name is Sarah and I like to eat pumpkin pie.

Duly noted.

When Kimberlyn was a wee lass, say two or three (because now she is at the ripe old age of four), she would say "No, my name is Kimberlyn! And I don't like to eat dirt." Now she actually gets that it is a joke. Sarah, on the other hand, still takes what she likes to eat very seriously. Joking about it would be inappropriate.

Also Kimberlyn can say her "Ks" and "Cs" now. No more "titty tats." Sigh.

I can probably die now.

So my chief dream has been fulfilled. I went to Bear World.

It was the best thing. Seriously. I love bears. I think AJ was a little frightened with how much I love bears. Which is understandable. Or at least it would be if you had been there with me.

Imagine me jumping up and down in my seat, pointing, and screaming "Bear! It's a bear! I love him!" (Um, duh, not surprising, this is Bear World) every time we saw a bear.

Which was a lot. Again, not surprising considering the place is called "Bear World."

Anyway. Bears are hilarious. Especially bears that sit like people.




Also, bear jokes never get old. For example: I can bear-ly see that bear. That bear cub is bear-y cute. And so on.

(Baby Seal becomes Baby Bear, the hilarity never ends.)

On that note it was bear-y hot. Sweltering really. No air conditioning and the windows were supposed to stay up. "Supposed to" being the key phrase. Every time the park rangers were out of sight AJ would frantically say "Crack your window, crack your window!" Still hot. The bears were totally worth it though.

Oh, and I fawned over a fawn. And AJ is afraid of chickens...bahaha.

It was so great. I almost couldn't bear to leave.

I think you're pretty.

I made some postcards this week.

I sat on the floor and made these while Tori sat at our desk and worked on her math. For seven hours. And we had the best time. So much laughter. Me at her doing her math. Her at my crazy sick behavior. And how seriously I take postcards.

When I grow up to be a man.

I've held a lot of old stuff this week.

1. A page from a Gutenberg bible.

2. A handwritten bible. Older than the Gutenberg.

3. Some rocks supposedly around 3.9 billion years old.

Whoa.

We were sparkling.

The park, the park. There is, perhaps, nothing I like more than a park. Any park. Seriously.

I love the swings.

I love the grass.

I love the people I meet at the park.

I love the purple dinosaurs that reside in the best parks.

I love that I recently discovered a carousel at the park down the street from my apartment. A carousel.

Anyway. Tori and I frequent said park and sometimes we like to take pictures. (Also I got my hair cut but you can't actually tell from these pictures.)

I also enjoy the movie Barefoot in the Park. Robert Redford is such a babe.

Sometimes I can't believe it, I'm moving past the feeling.

Arcade Fire has a new album coming out on the third of August. The Suburbs.

I have been waiting years for this. I thought my heart was going to stop.

My life has reached near perfection. All that is left is Bear World.

2010 really is the year of the miracle.

Ima tell you one time.

I think it is time to discuss my love for Justin Bieber. I love Justin Bieber.

I love his silky little mop of hair.

I love that I thought that he was thirteen for a while. (Turns out no, not thirteen. Sixteen, as of March 1st.)

I love his ridiculous pop songs. Every one. Seriously. I know them all. Word for word.

I love his baby face.

I love that all the girls in his music videos are taller than him. He's just a little guy.

I love that I learned what the word "shawty" means from him.

I love him. I am unashamed.

Which is why I was so excited when AJ showed me this drawing of himself:

Alex James DeCato

Justin Bieber

Insane, right?

I mean, I almost don't even know who's who.

Come on Barbie, let's go party.

Day at the lake: A photo Essay.

We are models.

We are mermaids. Merman!

We play chicken.

We play pigs stuck in the mud.

We throw sticks.

And rocks.

I pull off grandma glasses.

I painted my toenails pink.

We play frisbee.

Best of all, Mike and Nial sing Barbie World on the ride home.

Lift those heavy eyelids.

NyQuil is a miracle drug. Seriously. Last night I fell asleep at ten and woke up at eight. And, get this, I didn't wake up at all during those ten blissful hours. That has never happened to me before.

This is why I've decided to give NyQuil all of my love.

Every dog has his day.

We found a dog. She spent the night.

She wasn't allowed inside so we nearly froze to death cuddling with her outside. Which is bound to be really good for my cold.

Poor little girl, a collar but no tags. And Cami fed her nine hot dogs.

Fingers pressed against your lips.

Everyone is shushing me today.

Seriously. Like three different people, three different occasions.

The sheets still smell like your skin.

Someone told me that I smell like rich people today.

I'm still not really sure what that is supposed to mean to me.

Expect the unexpected.

A couple unexpected things happened this week.

1) I found this girl duct taped to a tree. Apparently it was her birthday. And her birthday wish was to be duct taped to something. So, um, take that as you will.

2) I discovered one of Devin's mission companions in my family home evening group.

Ex-companion: I went on a mission in Mexico.
Me: Hey, my brother is on a mission in Mexico.
Ex-c: Oh yeah? What mission?
Me: Cuernavaca.
Ex-c: That's where I served! What's his name?
Me: Devin Roberts.
Ex-c: Seriously!? He was my companion!
...And it builds. Awesome.

3) My friend, Kim, got hit by a car. Way unexpected. I mean, she's okay and all, but still. She was riding her bike home and this crazy mowed her down. Destroyed her phone and her bike. And then left her lying in the street. This one's for you Melissa...

She was hit by an old lady with a handicap tag!

Riddle me this, Batman:

Why am I so meticulously neat whist at school and so horrendously messy whist at home?

Meticulous and horrendous being relative to me, of course.

The broncs and the blood.

So the rodeo.

It was the absolute greatest thing.

Even better than last time because now I have boots.

On a random to note, I think the rodeo was the first time my boots touched actual dirt.

I know, I know. I am such a poser.

Anyway. Bareback riding. Kind of makes my body hurt just thinking about it. There was much snap, snap, snapping of the cowboys' necks and backs.

There was also much losing of hats.

Which apparently only I was concerned about.

I was also concerned for the cowboys' eyes during the steer wrestling. There was a lot of horns near the eyes business.

Apparently this was not a valid worry either. Whatever.

The saddle bronc riding was a lot prettier than bareback riding. Not so much snapping, and more fluid motions. So whiplash was less of a concern. Relatively.

But all of this was next to nothing compared to bull riding. At least the horses didn't seem all that interested in trampling their rider after he had been thrown.

The bulls did not allow the same courtesy. There was a lot of running and jumping onto the fence.

And bulls are huge.

Also, I noticed that the bull riders all wore these helmets, while everyone in the other events just wore their cowboy hats.

Special helmets spells danger.

And of course I played my favorite game of "how-many-consecutive-questions-can-I-ask-in-one-breath" throughout. Surprisingly, no one really seemed to mind all that much. So all of my questions were answered.

So I'm basically a rodeo expert now.

Seriously. Ask me anything.

If I were a cowboy.

"Make a happy cowboy face" I say.
"Now an angry cowboy face."

"Now do sad cowboy."

Note that "happy cowboy" and "angry cowboy" look nearly identical.

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.

It has been a year to the day since I traveled cross country to New York, New York.

Which brings me to this travesty: The DKNY wall, the unofficial entrance to Soho, sold to Hollister.


Gross.

Anyway. Saint Patrick's day in New York was spectacular. People wearing kilts!

Which I always thought was actually more of a Scottish thing than an Irish thing. Regardless, any day where I see kilt-wearing fiends roaming is a good day.

And I appreciated the enthusiasm, as St. Patrick's day is my favorite of holidays. What's not to love about Saint Patrick chasing all the snakes out of Ireland?

Besides the part where I like snakes now, as we saw from my last posting.

Although, I did read this really creepy thing about a pet python in the Reader's Digest. And I quote, "Our stupid snake got out in the middle of the night and strangled the baby".

So sad...and disturbing. So I was right to stick with cats.

And even though some people find loving cats and having a cat blanket creepy (ahem), at least my pretty kitty never hurt a baby. Unless, of course, you count Kimberlyn. And that was more amazing than scary.

I mean, Moose hasn't got any front claws, so how he managed to scratch her face is still somewhat of a mystery. As far as I can figure she must have been holding him upside down.

So his reaction is rather understandable.

Anyway. Have a good St. Patrick's Day, snake and cat lovers or haters alike.

Sleep tight little man-cub, rest in peace.

This week I had a momentary moment of madness.

I imagined that I would like to have a pet snake.

I would wear him around my neck like a scarf. I would snuggle him at night. He would fetch things for me. He would interpretive dance with me. He would be incredibly clever. I would call him King Vipera.

We would be two peas in a pod. Sharing an uncommon animal-person bond. We would have the best fun, King Vipera and I.

I had all of these imaginations while watching "The Princess and the Frog". Mama Odie and her darling serpent seemed to be having an absolutely smashing time.

Then it occurred to me that my forays with a snake might turn out somewhat differently, perhaps snakes in real life are not as hilarious as snakes in Disney movies. Also I remembered that I am somewhat frightened of snakes. And we all remember how close Mowgli came to resting in peace while resting amongst Kaa's coils.

Speaking of Mowgli, I drew a stunning likeness of him a couple weeks ago.

Everyone pretended that they had no idea that it was him, but I knew that they knew and that they were just pretending that they didn't know because they were painfully jealous of my artful skills.

Anyway. I decided that I should probably just get a cat.

My life is a black abyss.

I need to be entertained.

In other news I have recently discovered that Melissa has a Lord of the Rings box. That she decoupaged herself. As in she cut out Lord of the Rings pictures and glued them to a box. Even better? The box contains more Lord of the Rings pictures. A only Lord of the Rings pictures. Our family is sort of awesome like that. I mean, I laughed for hours about it, but I was never surprised.

Melissa has been rather amusing as of late. More so than usual, anyway.

A couple nights ago I mentioned to her that I was going to shower before going to bed, so as to be clean for work in the morning. She then offhandedly uttered the most ridiculous thing that has ever been uttered:

"I'm going to get up at six tomorrow and shower."

My laughter was immediate. Hysterical, wheezing laughter. Nearly silent, because that is what I do when I find something particularly hilarious. Along with ceasing to breathe.

This small statement contradicted her entire being.

Sadly, when I related the hilarity of it all to my parentals they found themselves somewhat less amused. Puzzled, even.

Also, when I heard the shower go on the next morning I checked the time. 6:42.

The prodigal kitty returns.

Or, more accurately, is forced to return.

A couple months ago my cat Stormy (of eleven years) disappeared. We assumed that he went off alone to die. Everyone dies alone. We mourned his loss, and, with great difficulty, moved on. We still had another cat to live for. Moose needed us.

Anyway. Recently my mother has been claiming to have seen Stormy wandering about. Naturally I thought this was complete and utter nonsense. "Stormy is dead" I tell her. "You are merely hallucinating him because you miss him so much" I say. It was the only logical explanation.

Until today.

Mom: You know how Stormy is dead to you?

Me: Yes.

Mom: Well, I saw him or a look-alike cat today and I brought him home.

Cat-napped.

So it appears to really be him. Moose would never cuddle with anyone else. (Mom was saying that it had to be Stormy because Moose didn't do anything mean to him when they were reunited. I said that Moose doesn't have the right to be mean to anyone as he doesn't have any front claws.)

This is not a democracy, this is a happy dictatorship.

I got this precious gem from my father, thanks dad.

Anyway, the Brown Couch votes have been tallied. Alas and alack it appears that the general (limited) public believes that Devin will be the first to marry and therefore claim the brown couch. Whatever. Clearly, the public is flawed. Obviously, I will win. With my charm and good looks how could I not?

But there is just one question that was on my mind throughout this Brown Couch poll extravaganza: Who in the world is voting for Devin?

Seriously.

Not that I don't love Devin. I do. He is a cool-cat like unto myself. But, seriously?

So Devin-voters it is time to come clean. Please enlighten me on why you voted for Devin. Doing so will help decrease your shame, though it can never be entirely erased.

Turn and Draw.

The winner of my 100th post drawing is

Miss Lindsay

A most lovely girl with whom I love to drink juice.

Lindsay, your package will be winding its way to you very soon. And to everyone else, thank you for reading. I love you.

Gamble everything for love.

Today I made a bet with Kimberlyn. She wanted hot chocolate. My mother had already told her that breakfast was over and that she wasn't going to make anything else. So I told her "I will make you a bet. If you can get mom to make you hot chocolate I will buy you a cookie when we go to Great Harvest today, if she doesn't make you hot chocolate then you have to scratch my back". I lost.

Also, today I ate (half) a grapefruit for breakfast. Which I have never actually done before. And I even sort of liked it. Which is weird because 1) I am an extremely picky eater and 2) I only ever eat toast or cheerios without milk for breakfast. As a rule.

And it was so pretty.

And it reminded me of pink lemonade. Which brings me to the question: Do pink lemons actually exist? Or is pink lemonade just a lie?

What she's doing now

My boots came. Early. Excitement abounds. This prima donna is ready for another rodeo.

Eveything's gonna get lighter, even if it never gets better.

Today was, quite simply, awesome. And, I mean, it's not even six yet. Let's discuss the reasons:

1) I got my Barnes and Noble package today. That alone guarantees an excellent day.

2) I ate pretty much half a loaf of jalapeno cheddar bread. With cream cheese. It was delicious. I do not regret it in the slightest.

3) A Down East miracle. Just for me. There's this shirt I really love at Down East. Except for the part where it is this awful yellow-green-puke color. That I cannot abide. So today while I am hard at work organizing clearance I come upon the shirt in a soft dusky grey. Just one. In my size. Apparently it very randomly arrived in our shipment yesterday. So of course I bought it. (Along with a new super cute purse. Which I actually needed because my old one was falling apart.)

4) I got a postcard and a letter in the mail today. And both were a complete surprise.

5) I didn't shower today and yet my hair still looks fairly decent.

6) This is my 100th blog posting.

So in order to reward you, my loyal readers (all three of you), and to spread the love, happiness, and good days around I have decided to have a give-away. All you have to do is comment. Tell me something that made you happy today. A week from today I will have a drawing containing the names of everyone who commented. The winner will receive a small surprise package from me.

I love you.

Lying on the floor.

Clive has taken to chasing me. As a method of torture, I think, because he knows that I prefer to love him from a distance.

On Saturday night I had to scramble up onto our dining room table in order to evade him. He then proceeded to circle me like a shark, leaving me with no means to escape.

I cannot suppress a little scream every time he sneaks up on me.

Today was absolute insanity. He was pursuing me like never before. Running. Sliding. Jumping. Things would end badly. I could feel it. I felt it as I leapt over his wriggling body crouched before me. I felt it as I dashed to the kitchen with him on my tail (no, the irony is not lost on me). I felt it as I reached for a stool so as to fend him off.

Unfortunately, I tripped on said stool and somehow managed to ram it into our refrigerator with an ear-splitting crack, while also managing to do a half-somersault in the air, hit both of my knees on goodness knows what, and land on my back.

Things ended badly.

The good news is that the stool, in a twisted sort of way, achieved the desired effect. Clive was frightened by the sound and ran away. So I could lay on the floor in peace. Also, I wasn't seriously hurt. So I guess that's good news, as well.

And Melissa got a good laugh. After she was certain I was alright, anyway. Which was really nice of her, I thought.
Melissa: Are you okay?
Me: (between ragged laughter that could have be mistaken as sobbing) Yes, I'm fine.
Melissa: Are you sure? I thought that your face hit the fridge and made that sound.
Me: (more laughter) No, that was the stool. I'm okay.
Melissa: Are you sure? Because if you're not really hurt I'm going to start laughing now.

So my body is slightly more bruised, especially my knees, but that is nothing new, really. And I have learned a valuable lesson: clumsy people should not try to outrun dogs that are faster than them. Things will end badly no matter what. At least if you hold your ground and get taken out by the dog you look like slightly less of an idiot. You may even look a little bit brave. But by running and taking yourself out there is no red badge of courage, only the red of shame in your cheeks.

Lesson learned.

Home is where the heart is.

Literally. The heart is over Pocatello.

I love Idaho. Which is common knowledge at this point, really. So this lovely piece has been my heart's desire for a long, long time. My darling sister, Melissa, who quite possibly loves Idaho as much as I do, gave it to me for my birthday. (It was ordered specially on Etsy, so it didn't actually arrive until today, blessed of all days.) This an unimaginable act of love. I do not know that I would have been able to part with such a gem had I been in her position.

I love Idaho. I think I'll die if I ever have to leave.