This Is What I Have Time For

I know I have abandoned you, dear readers, these many weeks but I have been very, very busy. I do have a new car, which I should get a picture of, and my citation got deferred. If I can keep my driving record clean for the next year, I will be in the clear. Yay! Since I should really be reading a book I have to discuss tomorrow in a history class, I'm just going to post a few pictures to give you a look at what I have been up to lately. I promise I will be back soon, but this term, despite fewer credits, takes up way more time!

The Experience Music Project in Seattle

The Bug, getting ready to crawl

A poster in the women's restroom at The Science Fiction Museum in Seattle

The ward 50s/60s Sock Hop

The view from Larrabee State Park

One of the bright purple starfish you can find in the tide pools at Larrabee State Park

Flower Child and I enjoying the sun at Larrabee State Park one Friday afternoon

Another view from the park

Did I Really Sign Up For This?

Sometimes I wonder. After a crazy term filled with stress from school and church callings and family drama, I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing break. Thursday was to be the big kick-off to Spring Break. I drove down Thursday morning to spend the day with Mime, Mrs. Mime, and Bug. We went to the Woodland Park Zoo, which was fun. Sadly both Mrs. Mime and I forgot our cameras, which meant we couldn't get pictures of the adorable baby gorilla who was impatiently waiting for her mom to wake up from a nap and play. Then Mime and I went to the opening game of the MLS season, in which the new expansion team the Seattle Sounders took on the New York Red Bulls (any guesses on their main sponsor?). Seattle won 3-0, which was awesome and exciting. Just look at our faces:

Being the sensible person I am, I decided to stay the night at Mime's rather than drive home late at night with possibly a lot of traffic. So Friday at 9 I hit the road. Friday at 9:15 I collided with another car. Not good. Thankfully, no one was injured. BUT my dear little car was damaged beyond repair (at least, beyond being worth repairing). So I am now a bus rider for the foreseeable future. Mime and Mrs. Mime were wonderful and insisted I stay until Saturday, as they didn't think it would be good for me to be left alone in Bellingham after such an event. So we went to the zoo again (in between calls with insurance companies, of course) and this time Mrs. Mime remembered her camera. Yay!

The giraffes were hiding out in their barn, but we caught one on film anyway! Bug was not in a good mood Friday AND the baby gorilla did not make a repeat appearance, which made Mrs. Mime and I doubly sad we forgot our cameras on Thursday! The only pic we could get was of the daddy gorilla's rear end. He was unimpressed with the zoo patrons.

We overheard two zoo employees talking while we were at the hippo pond. Apparently that is the 2nd most dangerous section of the zoo AND they once found some dad dangling his child in a stroller (!) over the guardrail. Why are people like that allowed to procreate? Here we fit all 4 of our hands in a cast of a hippo foot. Crazy!

Finally, we saw the orangutans, who were happily munching away, completely unaffected by the rows of curious faces. Bug was intrigued by the orangutan statues.

All-in-all it was an eventful weekend and even though there were some really un-fun moments, how could I not be okay when I got to snuggle with this cutie. When she would let me, that is. 

Because My Life Revolves Around Homework

I should be doing the mountain of assignments that need to be done at various points between this Monday and next Monday. And if not doing that, I should be taking care of the hill of Church stuff that always needs to be done. But I'm not because just thinking about it makes me want to take a nap. So I am going to give you adorable pictures to look at. 

Bug (formerly known as The Gummi Bear)

My brother began calling his daughter Bug, and it has stuck, so I thought I would make the change too. I don't really know where 'Bug' came from, but she is as cute as one (cuter, actually) so it works. She is doing all sorts of adorable things these days and is on the brink of crawling. Which means I really should start baby-proofing my apartment. I'm trying to convince Mime and Mrs. Mime to let me take her for a night at the end of April so they can have some time away to celebrate their anniversary. Also, her hair makes the most adorable curly faux-hawk you have ever seen!

The Peanut

The Peanut is growing by leaps and bounds. He likes to chatter loudly in the background when his mom and I are on the phone, just to make sure we both know he is there. He also enjoys grabbing their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Clarence, whenever he gets close. Thankfully, Clarence is very patient! I might be biased, but I think the Peanut is very handsome. I am planning on going down in September to nanny for a week while his mom goes on a trip to Scotland - how awesome is that? I say very!

NOT. A. FAN.

I attended a wedding reception this evening for two lovely and wonderful people who really love each other and are adorable and I wish them all the best because of all of the above. They really have nothing to do with this post other than their wedding reception was the setting for the subsequent stuff that sucks massively. So, I sat at a table with several friends, most of whom are single. One poor gentleman happens to be over 25 so everyone is on RED ALERT to get him married ASAP because obviously his singleton status is untenable to people only tangentially involved in his life. Pretty much every single person who stopped at our table to chat brought up the fact that a) he wasn't married and b) he needed to get on that STAT. Because apparently he wasn't aware of that fact already. It drives me insane when people cannot mind their own business and let people live their own lives. It finally annoyed me so that I politely (and loudly) thanked him for taking all the crap I usually get at weddings. It didn't help with the annoying people passing our table, but it did shut a few of the people up who were sitting at our table. Which was something.

Besides the fact that it is just rude to be so intrusive into an individual's personal life, is there any other situation in which people say such obnoxious things? I know people ask recently and not-so-recently married folks when they are planning to have children or if they are trying to have children (which is awful in and of itself) but the behavior I witnessed tonight was akin to people accosting a couple who are unable to have children and telling them that they needed to get themselves a child right away and implying that they should just walk down the street and pick-up the first one they see. THIS IS NOT OKAY! It isn't appropriate to say to a childless couple and it isn't okay to say to a single person. How have we become a society or culture that allows such intrusive, rude, and hurtful behavior? Why are extremely personal aspects of individual lives the fodder of public speculation and even mockery. And why, oh why, is it considered rude for said individual to do anything but sit there and take it or joke about it themselves? HAVE WE NO DECENCY?

So, Yeah II

Remember this post from last year? About how I realized my dad would probably get remarried before I get a date? Well, I apparently have excellent intuition. My dad got engaged this weekend to a lovely woman who shall be known, until I can come up with a better alias, as Future StepMother or FSM for short. I'm sure this is coming as a shock to a few of you, as I haven't mentioned anything about it because I wasn't sure how much my dad wanted people to know, but as they have announced it on Facebook, I figure I can mention it here. It happened quickly and the wedding will be sometime this summer. 

In other news I was sick this weekend and spent lots of time watching movies on Netflix. If you are a fan of Cary Grant I would suggest checking out The Bachelor and The Bobby-Soxer. I also watched Bella and have a new fantasy boyfriend, because the lead actor's eyes were simply hypnotic. Also, the movie is fantastic and I highly recommend it. To say much about it would kind of ruin it. So go experience it yourself and get back to me.