Go to Bed, Syd.

Sydney is a junior.  Syd is a laurel.

Syd has AP and honors classes that are kicking her butt.  She has seminary.   She is teaching herself piano and Korean.  She has 2 art classes.  She has an obsession with Asian boys that, to do it right (and she does), takes quite a bit of time.

Sydney also journals.  This was her journal entry.. late at night, after finishing homework and as she was falling asleep...

She apparently got the date wrong.  and (not pictured) right below the drawing it says

"And stuff." 

go to bed, syd.

Unusual Travel Suggestions You Should Say "No" To

I've been working a lot this week. It gets pretty slow at night, so I spend a lot of time at the computer in the little doctor's room, just hanging out. Every night at about 4am a really old guy named Norman rolls past my office on one of those motorized shopping carts, carrying a rolled up newspaper. He usually waves hello and I wave back. I figure he is probably in charge of delivering the newspapers to the hospital wards and I don't think much about it.


Last night, in addition to my usual polite wave, I said, "I always know the night's almost over when I see you go by." Then I turned back to my book.


About 15 minutes later, he passed by again, which never happens. "I could make your night go faster and give you a kiss," he said, as he rolled past my open door. I looked up, startled, trying to come up with a response that wasn't too friendly but wasn't too grouchy either.


"Well," I said, "that would be...(my brain raced, trying to pick just the right adjective)...memorable."


Memorable? All the adjectives in the world, and I settle on memorable? I mean, I was trying hard not to be insulting, but come on.


Just out of sight, the scooter screeched to a halt. Motor whirring, he backed up and stopped in the doorway. "Really?" he said. "Seriously, come on, lets go," and he made a vague head gesture towards the parking lot.


At this point I'm really flustered. I can't believe this 80 yr old man thinks there's a chance I'm going to hop on the back of the Elder-Scoot and motor on out to the parking lot with him for some snogging. I picture us rolling slowly past the nurses station at 3 miles/hr, their blank stares as they watch us go.


I shook my head to clear it and managed, "Sorry, I have a no kissing at work policy." He had the nerve to look genuinely disappointed. I think he said something else, but at that point I was slooowly closing the office door. I'm going to set an alarm to remind myself to close it tonight as well. Frankly, Norman makes me a little nervous. But I think I can outrun him.

Like Manna

Ever since moving into my new place I've wanted to get some big artwork for the walls. But I couldn't find anything that I loved, or that didn't seem overpriced...so I thought about painting my own but even buying a big canvas and framing it seemed expensive and hard. Months went by. Dad came to visit and asked what projects I still had for the apartment, so I told him about this among other things. Well, we were out in downtown SLC shopping for furniture and keeping our eyes out for big artwork...when suddenly out of the heavens came crashing down a large, framed, canvas painting. It bounced and rolled, stopping only feet away from me completely unharmed. I just looked at Dad, stunned; but he (realizing that we had best not dilly dally when accepting a gift from the gods) swooped over, snatched it up, and started booking it to the car. "Do we need to ask if this is ok??" I squeaked, hoping he'd say no. "Just get in the car!!" he yelled back. Right then a disembodied head popped out of the fourth floor window from the apartment building above. "Did you throw this out? Can we have it?" I asked, waving vaguely toward Dad absconding with the canvas. "Have fun with it!" the being yelled down, neither confirming nor denying from whence the canvas came, just giving us his beatific blessing.

So off we drove, giggling the whole way home. We bought paints, and I painted myself some art. Once I put it on my wall I hope that people will ask me about it so I can evangelize the story of how my wish violently landed at my feet from the magic dumpster of the sky. 

The One in Which Rachel Kisses a Moose

OK, Rachel didn't kiss a real moose, but not because we didn't try hard to find one. We went to the Moose Visitors Center in Walden, the "Moose Spotting Capitol" of Colorado. Then we went on two different "Moosey Wildlife Nature Walks." Then we drove and drove to the Moose Viewing Overlook. Finally we did an auto tour through the Arapahoe Wildlife Preserve, but nary a moose did we see. We did have some other fun though:

- we made up Wild West alter egos. Doc Gregory (the town's perpetually drunk MD), Tessie B. Jackson (the scoundrel), Miss Maybelle (the saloon-owning, pistol-packing firecracker), Georgie Moon (the drifter), and the Sheriff (a lawman so mysterious no one knows his name), all met for a game of cards one evening which went well until Tessie got shot for cheating.

-we found a place to car camp and spent a while constructing a bathroom privacy wall out of sticks and leaves.
- Theo, on seeing the moon through the trees: "Now THAT'S a nice waxing gibbous!"

- we played 'operator charades' in which Barbie on a submarine became robot Queen Elizabeth in an ostrich slaughterhouse.

- Theo asked for a pinecone war, but no one wanted in except him, so the rest of us collected ammunition and made Theo run a gauntlet under pinecone fire.

- Carrie wanted elk horns (long story) but was too shy to ask about them, so she paid Theo $20 to approach a pair of hunters unloading their wares at a big game processing place. They didn't have any, and didn't seem inclined to discuss it much either.

- Rachel wished she'd brought a warm hat for camping so she wrapped her church dress around her head and slept like a baby. "Any night that ends with your dress wrapped around your head is probably a pretty good night." -Christopher Gregory

- We thought about getting haircuts at the 'Crosshairz Salon,' with an awesome logo of gunsights, antlers coming out of a rose, and a frog, but didn't.

- Lastly, we ate a lot of cheese.