Protecting Justice 525,000 Minutes A Year

I'm Still Mad At My Mother

Sorry. I may have built it up to be better than it is, but here you go...
I was a stupid pilgrim. A pilgrim! Let it be known that I'm not the one that picked my Halloween costume each year. I was forced to wear whatever my mom chose to sew if I wanted free candy, most of what "magically" disappeared once it reached my parents hands. I swear it was extortion.

I hated my 1985 costume. My older brother was a wizard, complete with long white beard. One of my younger brothers was a cool leopard, and the youngest was an adorable little pumpkin. Why did I have to be a pilgrim, you ask? Well, mom thought it would be so cute for me to use the costume a second time that year and serve Thanksgiving dinner in it. Oh man. Please take a minute to picture the look on my face as I brought out a turkey and mashed potatoes to the rest of the family in the hated pilgrim outfit. It wasn't pretty.

I clearly remember having to pose for this picture. Mom was behind the photographer threatening me with every possible punishment if I didn't smile. So I mustered this "Fine I'm going to half-heartedly smile, but I'm only doing this so bars don't go on my bedroom windows and food doesn't come in through a little cutout hole in the bottom of the door" grimace. I just wanted to be a Jedi Knight every Halloween. Still do.

A Giggle For Your Day

You know what I don't like about this picture? It's that I look exactly the same as I did 30 years ago. You can't argue that it isn't absolutely Vanessa.
If you beg real hard, tomorrow I'll post an Olan Mills picture of me in 1985 wearing my least favorite Halloween costume of all time.

And On To A Better Day

I woke up this morning, got ready for church, walked out to my car and nearly barfed from an overwhelming skunk smell. It must have recently unloaded. Holy massive reekage, Batman! I then realized that I left my car windows down last night and I wouldn't have been surprised if you told me that you saw him climb into my car and then lift his tail. It was beyond awful.

I then went to church and was asked to substitute for the CTR class. I hardly make it to Young Women's anymore because Primary is constantly asking me to fill in. The lesson was on being obedient. I don't think the lesson hit home for these 8 year olds. I'd venture to say that it had the opposite effect. I felt like I was teaching circus animals. Oh, and did I mention that there were 9 of them? No? Yes, NINE. How in the hell are you supposed to teach nine 8 year olds? You don't. You feed them fruit snacks and order them to hop on one foot until they keel over from exhaustion. And the best part of the class was when one of them suddenly got a bloody nose from hopping on one foot for so long. His nose became a faucet of blood. I've never seen so much blood gush from a nose before. Ack! It was all over his shirt and all over his scriptures and his hands and the chair. I was going to hurl. That horrible metallic smell was making me so nauseous. I don't ever remember reacting that way to blood. I was dry-heaving just looking at him. So I took him to the bathroom and asked the other kids to sit tight for a sec. When I came back a couple of the boys were "finger-painting" with the blood on the chair. Whaaaaat! I started dry heaving again and took the other boys to the bathroom while explaining to them what blood-borne pathogens were. They were pretty interested in that discussion. Fakeout. They weren't interested at all. What they were interested in was trying to touch me with the bloody hands and laughing hysterically when I freaked out everytime a chubby little bloody finger came near me. I'm starting to heave a little just thinking about the whole situation.

I managed to make it through sacrament meeting without any incident. I then went out to my car and was again overwhelmed with residual skunk smell. I got home and as I was putting my key in the door, I got a whiff of some raw chicken trimmings that have been incubating in the garbage can outside the back door for a couple of days. That was the last straw. I hurled right there near the back door. Lovely Sunday story, no?

What I've Always Wanted to Know But Never Knew That I Wanted to Know It

Thank you Brenna, for doing Super's family history work. He was recently complaining that he felt like he was going to go to hell because of his lack of effort to research his ancestry. It's just that he didn't even know where to begin. This article that you dug up gave him the jumping off platform that he needed to really get down to work and redeem his soul.

Brenna! Thanks for helping me fulfil an important duty here on this earth.

I never would've thought that he was Asian. His coloring just wouldn't suggest that.

Anyway Brenna, if he dies because he has completed his earthly mission I will not be happy with you. I'm just not ready to let go. But it might be a bit easier knowing that he descended from carp. I expected a more noble blood line...such as mine. But whatever.

Ok, so that article was hilarious. I'm a big fan of informative AND funny. And I take a sample of Super's water to work every week and test the pH with the perfectly calibrated pH meter. That must be a factor to his longevity. Super owes me.

To The Ends of The World And Back

Hello readership! It's nice to know that I was missed. Your pleading texts, emails, and comments made me feel like I was really making a difference in your lives with this blog. I knew it would come to that. I just needed to persist.

So no, the neck fungus did not spread over my whole body until I became one massive, walking fungal infection and the inspiration for the nemesis in the next Spiderman movie. In fact, there is no trace of the nasty fungus whatsoever. The soon-to-be Dr. Dayton recommended some Vagisil. I, uh, didn't take his advice. I went with Lamisil instead.

What did happen is that I had a galactic encounter with some Storm Troopers (see evidence below) and they held me in detention block #2187 until Han and Luke came and rescued me. Man, it was intense. Especially the part where Han had to lie his can off about the "weapons malfunction" and the "reactor leak." I knew that those Imperial Guards wouldn't buy it, but he went ahead with it anyway. That's so Han. You can't reason with him.

Fine, so the Storm Trooper story wasn't real, even though I have lived it out in my fantasy so many times that it does seem pretty legit. What really happened is that I went and saw Tropic Thunder on Friday night and imagine my excitement when I walked up to the theater and saw an array of Storm Troopers, Anakin, and even Darth Vader just hanging out! I felt like a little kid that found out that they won the Toys 'R Us Sweepstakes. (Remember that contest where you would have 5 minutes to run around the store and get anything that you want? My brothers and I had our routes mapped out for optimal loot grabbing efficiency in case we ever won. We didn't.) I really, REALLY wanted to have my picture taken with Darth but I was with some people from work that I never have hung out with before (the popular crowd) and didn't want them to think that I was the biggest dork in all of Salt Lake County. But I regret it now because I'm sure that they are going to figure that out eventually so why not get it out of the way immediately. Man, I'm totally mad at myself about that. Talk about leaving something on the table! ARGH.

No, I didn't go into horrible depression after the whole awful birthday fiasco (as some have wondered because of my blogging hiatus). My sanity was recovered with a wicked awesome BBQ at Blake's house the week after. The view from Blake's new house is unreal! Too bad he didn't have this place we were hanging out everyday back in college. It's pretty much the sweetest bachelor pad in the whole bachelor kingdom.

So all you single lady lurkers out there...Blake is an attractive, smart, successful 34 year old with an incredible house that includes an incredible view. And he has a puppy! Do you like what you see here...

He's a winner. Bit of a smart-ass, but a winner.

You're welcome for the plug, Blake.

Jessi, Shanna, and Katie...I love this picture because you look like little celestial angels in white and then there is a looming devil in the center, wearing her telestial shirt. You all shine with the glory of the sun. Very nice. I do take comfort in the knowing that I do not look like I should be holding a cake with the number 30 on it. No way, man.

Hmm, there should be a few more blondes in that picture though.

Anyway, thanks Blake and Shanna for putting together that fantastic BBQ! It was nice to have a bunch of us together again. That doesn't happen frequently enough.

So the real reason for the lack of blogging is that I just wanted to take a break from the internet for a while. That's all. But I'm back...in black.

Oh yeah, and I totally rocked the side ponytail today! Who doesn't wanna be me?!

Therapy

Does waiting 3 hours in line at the DMV-Driver's License Division make you want to punch through a wall? Me too. What about having to do that three days in a row because no one there can give you a clear answer on what exactly you need to do to get a Utah driver's license because your Massachusetts one was stolen on your birthday and you thought that typically a passport and a birth certificate would be valid enough evidence that you are actually you but instead you're sent to the social security office to stand in that line for an hour so that they can spend thirty seconds typing up a little letter saying that you have a social security number and then bring it back to the DMV and wait again in line for them to tell you to come back another day so that they can run a driving check through Massachusetts first? I was a fraction of a second away from grabbing the employee that was "helping" me by the shirt and dragging him across the counter while screaming that I was going to smash his face into a jelly! Did a mention that I'm severely menstrual? I am.

One of my running partners is a 15 year old boy. We talk about everything. Coolest kid. A bit of a punk too. He had a solution to my woes.
Nothing beats hiding in the bushes along the side of the road and hurling water balloons at passing cars to clear your head. Nothing! The guy is a genius.

The World Is Just Awesome

I was going to blog today but then decided against it because I'm super angry and just might get a little belligerent which really wouldn't fare well for anyone. So I went with this little tidbit which put a huge smile on my face. Next goal: get my own show on the Discovery Channel. Lofty, yet AWESOME!