baking

For a number of reasons, I promised my students I would bake for them on Fridays.

This means Thursdays are usually "Oh-crap!-What-can-I-make-in-two-hours?!" days.

Tonight I made cinnamon rolls that turned out looking less than appealing. So I decided to make banana bread. I went up to check on it, but it was still gooey in the middle... and then I forgot about it and it baked an extra 30 minutes. It's a little dark.

Ok, I give up. I'm just going to have to tell my students tomorrow that I had an evening of baking fails. They'll be disappointed.

just sayin'.

i'm particularly glad i'm only writing papers in the next ten days, and not also trying to recover from wisdom tooth surgery...

by the way, i'm surprised at how much my jaw is still often sore; the teeth must not have been entirely the problem...

Saturday

On Saturday I watched the Red Sox play the Yankees on TV .

I sat around in my room and ate a Fenway Frank and potato chips and an apple, which were all delicious.

The wind from my window blew through my hair.

It was nice. It was especially nice when it got over and I just had to find the remote instead of fight through a herd of cattle people to get to the T.

(By the way, it was a terrible game for the "home team"... they were up by like 6 and lost the lead in the last 2 innings and then lost by like 4 or something.)

(Also, I was avoiding writing a talk.)

Patriots Day For All

So, Patriots Day.

We got up and left at 3:50 am. We got to Lexington at about 4:15 because it turns out there's no one driving around at 4:15 am. We parked at the home of the parents of a girl in our ward and walked down to the green. And then we stood around and waited until 5:30.

The mayor or somebody has a megaphone and tells you what's going to happen. A church bell rings, signaling for the 20 or so rag-tag colonists to assemble. A guy starts calling orders. And then you stand there for another 20 minutes or so until you can hear this faint drumming. The British ARE coming!

Finally, you get a glimpse of the British troops marching along. And they line up on the green across from the colonists, who start to run away in fear. The Colonial captain yells at them to get back in line, and they do. And the British just keep coming; there's probably 75 of them. You really start to feel bad for those poor colonists! You know they're all just standing there waiting to "die".

The stand-off looked pretty much like this (this is someone else's picture)


The troops stand there for a few minutes, and then the British are ordered to raise their bayonets and start marching towards the colonists. Someone fires a shot, and then there's lots of shooting, and what I assume is good old-fashioned warfare. I say "assume" because I didn't see any of the actual fighting. No. After waiting for an hour and a half, I did not see the battle. I saw the troops assemble, heard a bunch of fighting, and then caught a glimpse of this:



And then the megaphone guy comes back and announces that almost all the colonists died; the ones that didn't die retreated. The British troops reassemble for a "Huzzah" victory shout, and then continue marching to Concord. Then the megaphone guy reads the names of all the men who died and one by one, the reenactors "rise from the dead" on the battlefield. I thought this was interesting, but most of the crowd did not, so it was hard to hear or see any of that either. Everyone was chit-chattering and rushing back to their cars.

It was a patriotic, New Englandy thing to do, but it also reminded me of my serious dislike for large crowds. Also, I'm just gonna say that I don't think people should bring their children who are too young to understand what's going on, or what the Revolutionary War is. It's 5 am and most people don't want to listen to your kids whine [and then cry] through the whole thing while you try to convince them to look at "those guys fighting." (I was really really surprised by the number of children age 5 and under that were at this thing...)

So there you have it. Now it's pretty much like you were there too.

the British are coming...

So... tomorrow is Patriot's Day in Massachusetts. It commemorates the beginning of the revolutionary war. Naturally, there are all sorts of reenactments of Paul Revere's midnight ride and the battles at Lexington and Concord.

Anne and I decided it would be fun to go out to Lexington to see the reenactment. It starts at 5.30 am. You have to be there at 4 for a spot.

It's 11 pm and the thought of getting up in 5 hours (then going to proctor ACTs and finish a paper, and then going to class) is making me think maybe this isn't such a great idea...

I better go to bed now.

can't sleep.

I told you I only post when things annoy me, and I tried to suppress it, but I can't.

I have roommates who are friends with a group of people that came over tonight. They proceeded to stand on our front deck, while being obnoxiously loud. I have to be up at 6.30 am tomorrow. It's almost 11. I can't sleep. I went out to go to the bathroom and the house reeks of cigarette smoke. I didn't know they're out there smoking/drinking with the screen door open. I am not ok with this. I am so not ok with it that I went up and asked one of them (as politely as I could) to close the door. They looked at me "Mean Girls"-style when you can tell Regina thinks someone is disgusting, but they did close it. And now the chatter continues on the porch.

I am kind of hoping our neighbors with small children will call the police for noise, because I would if it wouldn't be obvious that I was the one that did it. It annoys me 1) because cigarette smoke and noise are not my thing, which I realize is a personal preference, but also 2) we do not live in a trashy college neighborhood, and it annoys me that our neighbors are all probably also annoyed.

You know our neighbors right now are going "This neighborhood is going to pot with that rental house on the street..." I guess it annoys me because it's so cliche-- "young 20-somethings who think they're so cool" that they shouldn't have to follow standard rules of politeness.

Ok. Rant over. I really need to get to sleep. And I'll probably delete this post in a week when I decide I was being a little too grumpy. But seriously; I almost left to stay at Anne's when I smelled the smoke. And I am serious enough about it that I want to say something to my roommates, but I don't know what I'd say beyond "You guys are being inconsiderate and I don't like cigarette smoke" which would make me look like a jerk. So whatever.

Stomach, don't hate me!

I'm just realizing that tonight's dinner might not have been my best gastrointestinal choice.

I ate dinner left over from my birthday 9 days ago, cake left over from my birthday 8 days ago, and milk with a sell-by date of 3 days ago. First of all, don't judge me.

Second of all, everything tasted perfectly fine, but I guess if I get violently ill tonight, it will be hard to blame my digestive system.

ahappy birthaday

Dear fans, (and by fans I mean immediate family members)

Today was my birthday. I am starting to feel old.

I will now publicly thank you all for the: delicious breakfast, cake, pajamas (thankfully I think I'm set in this category for a while, although sadly some don't fit so there might have to be some trades), nail polish, singing cards, balloon, etc. For the record, I did not appreciate the: mobs at Texas Roadhouse or the rain, but I'm pretty sure none of you had anything to do with that, so it's ok.

Also, Megan informs me I am late to the crackle nail polish party, but I don't care because I think it's pretty cool.

Anyway. I wish you all were in one place so I could have had a big, loud, obnoxious party. Mom and Dad sang happy birthday to me when we had cake and I said, "This must be how only children feel." I am glad I was not an only child; everything would have been so boring.

Anyway- it's late now, so I'm done. But thanks for a happy birthday everyone. And just think Megan-- after the next 24 years pass, we'll be 48 years old!! Ewwww that's weird.