a vaCAtion.

ladies and germs,

since the last time I wrote an entry:
-a dear Ashley Burton sent me a package for my birthday complete with Jordan almonds (is that how you spell that?) and a DVD video of pictures of our freshman year, and a post card from Philadelphia
-megan and chad came down for the weekend and we went bowling (I bowled a 137!), ate pizza, ate cake, and opened presents.
-I got my new vera bradley bag and some pretty sweet scrapbooking paper and a very cute dalmatian beany baby from megan(and chad), robin hood from kyle(and jess) (the disney vault release of the year- the movie, not jess), and a collection of annie dillard books from erin (and bryce) including an alleged first edition of "An American Childhood", and the grand daddies of them all: the series collection of West Wing episodes from my parents, and signatures from Annie Dillard to whom Erin wrote and requested them. [Commentary to follow:] Ok. I've had some pretty great birthday presents over the years. An old laptop when I was in high school, tickets to Lion King in middle school, a trip to Chicago, trips to New York City, goodies for a trip to London, but um... the West Wing and Annie Dillard signatures might take the cake here. I seriously contemplated never leaving my apartment again until all my books were read and all my episodes were watched. 154 episodes of West Wingee euphoria. And the signature of my favorite author, accompanied with the knowledge that she at least thought about me (or Mollie Ott as the card unfortunately said...) for a split second of her life. Oh. My. Gosh.
-Megan insists the West Wing collection was her idea, so here's my shout-out to her for knowing me too well.
-It took all my will-power to only watch one season of the West Wing while I should have been preparing for finals.
Note: I think my favorite part of these two gifts was that neither was asked for, so both were complete surprises. Fabulous surprises. Good job family.
-I studied for finals- and am fairly happy with the results, so now we play the waiting game for my grades.
-I am done with school for the semester, meaning I have four months to do nothing but slave away at Freshman Academy 8 hours a day. YAY!!!! Also, this means I am officially a senior in college. I have been a senior by credits since December, but now I am a senior by year :)
-I cleaned my room and it is wonderful.

Tomorrow I embark on an exciting adventure, and probably the most spontaneous thing I've done in a year or more. (I'm not very spontaneous. Or adventurous.) A coworker of mine and her friends are driving to California to enjoy some sun and good company for 5 days or so. We're leaving tomorrow (well, today I guess) at 4:30 am (I cannot remember the last time I woke up that early) and driving through Las Vegas to CA and then making our way back to UT on Tuesday. I really don't have too many more details than that, except that, mom, you'll be pleased to know: there are 4 girls going, and 3 boys. One of the boys' parents will be there, and the boys will be staying in the suite with them, while the girls will have a room across the hall.

That's really about all I know. And that there may be a trip to the temple involved, and a camp-out on the beach the last night. I really should probably know more about the itinerary, but I'm just going to show up when told and let someone else take it from there.

In preparation for this excursion, I went to Walgreens, since it's open 24 hours and usually relatively empty, which I like. I bought myself an over-priced pair of sunglasses (ok, they were $10) since the last time my old pair's existence was documented was in pictures of Stonehenge from London last summer, so I'm pretty sure I left them on the bus. Our first outing and I left my sunglasses on the bus, never to be seen again. I am smooth that way. So here's hoping this pair will last beyond the car trip.

I also purchased too many granola bars because they were on sale, along with cheap sunblock because I couldn't bring myself to spend $10 on the fancy sporty water-resistant spray-on 85 SPF. Don't get me wrong, my almost translucent complexion necessitates the 85 SPF, but this fancy stuff was the only 85 SPF they had available. So I settled for 50 SPF for about $7 less. I also purchased nail polish so I could paint my toenails because I hate them. I hate my toes. Ick. But I figured they'd be seen quite a bit in the next 6 days, and they might as well look as presentable and least offensive as possible. I also purchased a bag of Starburst, hoping to be "the cool one" on this trip when I have to meet new people and can whip out candy in the middle of the looonnnggg car ride. Candy wins friends, right? Maybe I can show them how to make hot dogs and a variety of other things with them like we used to do on our road trips to Utah. That should definitely win friends. Or dork points. I can see it three months from now, "Oh yeah, hi. You're that girl that made hot dogs out of her Starburst. Er, how are you?"

Anyway. That's all I've got for now. Today I convinced Erin to go to Tucanos with me for my free birthday lunch since I won't be back in town until next week which is the end of April, and I'll be working, so I won't be able to go to lunch. It was a nice celebration of the end of the semester. And it was the least busy I've seen. I like the mango codfish or whatever it is, so when I saw a waiter with what looked like mango codfish, I turned our little thingy back to green (telling them we wanted more meat). He came over and told me they were something-or-other. I can't remember exactly but I know he used the phrases "firey chicken wings" and "death" in the same sentence. I looked back at him, I think a little stunned, because the next thing I knew Erin was telling him I wanted the fish. Which he dutifully brought. And plopped about half the bowl on my plate. It was good though.

I determined today that Tucanos is a man restaurant. When we went, the waitress asked if we were waiting for someone else when she came to take our drink orders. Nope, just us. Then, when Will ran off when we were leaving, I went to go track him down and found myself in the midst of tables with a) couples or b) groups of men seated at them. I guess it's not exactly a girly place to go to eat, but man, I enjoy some good Tucanos now and then. Mmmm.

Anyway. Really. Now I'm just rambling about nothing. I will go to bed now. I have to be awake in 2.5 hours to shower and get dressed.

California here we come! I'll be sure to let you know if there really are two girls for every boy there, and I'll try to wear some flowers in my hair. Even though I'm not actually going to San Francisco.

I'm really tired. Can you tell? Sorry for the boring entry.

-mollie