Mood Music

I was walking to the store and got a little entertainment from an accordion player sitting outside a music shop.  

And I thought to myself, "Man, I wish my cousins hadn't quit accordion school."

Do you have something to prove?

People make me nervous when they walk around chewing gum like they're gonna put you in their armpit and make you say, "Uncle!"

20 bites. Count 'em and weep.

A word of advice: don't go to sleep with a really angry bug
trapped in your sleeve.

It will bite its way to freedom.



Mother Confessions

After her car light was on all night, she confided in me:

"I had a really bad reason for the light being on; I had to steal some pepperonis off the pizza."





And now I tell the Internet.

Will yourself not to eat?!

"I always thought bulemia was anorexia... and I didn't even know there was such a thing as anorexia."

How can you not love an innocent little idiot who says this adorable crap?

Impossible.

Sprinkle sammich?

Ah, hell yes!

Not trying to be moles.

It was just over a year ago that the Chilean Mine Disaster struck, and close to 2 months ago when I finally understood that those sunglasses weren't just to look cool afterwards.

This guy was one fast creepy crawler!

Taking the picture was scary.

Speaking of creepy crawlers, today while shopping at junk thrift stores we saw one of the old oven sets. Once upon a time, I made so many of those bugs. And then they came out with the girly unicorn molds! And then I just had bags and bags of two-dimensional rubber things that I never played with. Those things will most likely someday test positive for being the main cause of most types of cancer, and none of us will be all that surprised.

Accept or Deny

My mom theorizes that if she's out of half and half, she could just put a small pallet of butter in her coffee.

Goat in a car.

Gettin' towed.

yeah, there was some unsafe highway driving in order to get this picture.

I just realized why Carmel Delight Trail Mix costs an arm and a leg.

There's not a peanut in it, just cashews and almonds as far as nuts go.
    I think the name of the mix tells you why I'm willing to pay the steep price.

    one of those delicious carmel delights

Thanks, Rodney Harrison Sheets.

For non-funny reasons which I don't want to jump into right neh, I've decided I hate teaching. I kind of knew it the first time in college when I had to sit down and plan a semester's worth of lessons. It became very clear when I was in the vortex of student teaching. And, I made peace with it after a (very successful) semester of (paid!) teaching this past spring. A semester of good kids and good lessons and grand moral support from everyone, allowing me to rest after riding out an initial sea of panic - to stop and say, "Whoa! Man, this job sucks." Sorry, world! The thing is that I'm good at teaching - I'm natural at it and the youth of this world generally like me. I like being funny in front of them. But it's not my gig. It does not make me happy. Not that kind of teaching, anyways. So, I quit. And what was a horrible realization after 4.5 years of money, time, and effort, has now become a peaceful, important decision. I look at my future, happy that it no longer is doomed to be filled with crooked writing on the chalkboard, or giving presentations for 6 hours every day, or alcoholism and early onset wrinkles.

In the mean time as I'm making a new path, I'm subbing! It has been good so far. Except for the hour we were all held hostage because there was a shootout in a nearby neighborhood and my job (supposed to be over at 2:30p) was to guard the door and tell 25 Seniors to cool their shit and sit the cuss down, only to get to release them an hour later. I'm still exhausted by the end of the day but my soul isn't drained! I don't have to come home, cry while I jog, try to choke down my anxiety so I can choke down some dinner, cry in the shower, then spend 4 hours planning for the next day! It's glorious. I get to go have some fun and then leave it all in that building.

Anyways, the point of this is that I wasn't meant to be a teacher. My grandma was. When I got to see her last weekend, I found this letter in her school scrapbook. She taught at a Catholic grade school, back in the day when you were allowed to slap the kids a little. Who wouldn't want to teach back then? Especially when the students write letters for you, such as this:

Video Log Day 7. When we finally had to wash our long underwear.

Gawdy

"She's such a pain to work with. She always acts all Goddy."
"Goddy? As in The Lord?"
"Yeah."

The Peanuts Gang.

Guess who gets to see their bffl today in her natural habitat?

Yipee!!!!!!!!! I'm gonna hug her and pat her and mark her with a B.

Flyball

It's a race where 2 teams of dogs race side-by-side on a 51ft long course. Each dog must run in relay fashion down the jumps, trigger a flyball box, releasing the ball, retrieve the ball and return over the jumps.


We saw it at the Broncos' half-time and I refused to cheer.  But the last dog in the relay is tiny and can barely make it over the jumps, and one team had this little superstar that would always make the race incredibly close.  And I'll be damned if I wasn't cheering at the end.


Curse you adorable Frasier dog!

Kiss me, I'm Polish.

While visiting my grammie this weekend, I looked at hundreds of my favorite old photographs. Ones from way before my time; pictures that have become a part of my memory. They're awesome, I love them. So, I thought I'd do you a favor and share a few good ones every now and then.

These are my great-grandparents. They escaped the Russian army to come over to America. They're 100% Polish and never spoke a word of English. Pretty amazing stories come from their experiences, but the best part? His name was Stanislas Zarzeski. And everytime I hear "Stanislas" I automatically think "Coleslaw." Great grandpa Coleslaw.

"No shit, Miss Daisy?"

Happy Labor day!

Good luck pushing out all those babies, everybody.

Just hangin' with my grandma in Ohio

She and I, we go way back.

Speaking of grandma's, TJ and I might be moving into our own place within the next two weeks! It'll be great to officially be living in sin again.

He uses antlers in all of his decorating.

After a long work day (5 hours to the San Luis Valley, 5 Hours of Migrant work, 5 hours home),  I made my work friend, Gaston,

 stop at Johnson's corner for a giant cinnamon roll.

Turns out he doesn't like frosting.  Our stomachs hurt.  I went home and pooped, I'm sure he did the same.

 I'm good on cinnamon rolls for at least 2 years.

Sittin' on a gold mine

I just thought of a really great idea for a book. I won't give you all the details, but mainly it's about you walking through the woods and you hear voice and they're your indian spirits.


Maybe I'll tell you the end because it's too good. You turn out to be the indian spirit and you've been dead for 300 years but you never killed a buffalo so you're trapped in time until you can guide your memory self to spiritual freedom!

Did we ever tell you about the time we wanted to go as siamese twins for Halloween and that we'd be connected by the forehead and everyone would be grossed out by us?

The words of Julie: "I'd probably hate my twin."

The words of an actual twin: "It's not that great.  You get your own life when you go to college."

I'd like to buy the world a boyfriend

Who stops you when you're worrying about the day when all the white hairs you already have will cover your entire head. A dude who says, "You need to quit worrying about stuff like that. You're with me, now."

Because it just, you know, makes you calmer than you've ever felt.

SHARKTOOTH!

One scary mofo.

In my mind, it never was or will be Sharptooth.

TREASON!

What? You're not serious are you? You guys, did you know that Obama - our "president" - is on some crazy anti-negro bus tour. Oh yeah, it gets worse. Those buses he's traveling in? HE BOUGHT THEM FROM CANADA. Canada.

 

Thanks again, boyfriend's grandma. If it wasn't for your constant vigilance of Fox news, we'd have never ever known to be so obtusely outraged.  

Tomorrow's Goal,

        Have a more peaceful day.

Phoenix, AZ: Are you effing kidding me?

And on Tuesday, we incinerate. All you can say during the summer time in Phoenix is "It's haauuuggghhht." I kept saying it over and over because it was true. I felt like I was in an oven trying to cool off with a blowdryer. Or like in those movies when people jump into the pool because something just exploded and there are flames shooting above you - but instead of temporary harmful flames, it's just hot air and you need that air to breathe so you have to come up at some point, and it pounds your face and lungs. And it never got not hot. Hot forever. And the way I said it, you'd think I was always surprised and I WAS. How could it be this effing hot? Day and night? And then one day I woke from a nap and the sky was red and the sun was blocked and it finally made sense that we weren't on earth, but on the surface of Venus.

pool time

"Get off of me!"
"But I love you!"
"You're drowning me!"
"No I just love you!"
"They're one and the same!"

I'm offended

According to our new friend Mike,  "No offense but that's a late rising full moon.  You won't see any shooting stars until , let's be honest, right before the sun rises."

But everyone DID see a shooting star, yours truly saw 4.

It's like a castle or some sort of flag party.

Sports Authority Field at Mile High?! Come on, people. Why even pretend to debate?

We all know exactly what the stadium's name should be.

Secret: John lives inside the bronco.

See that little bird on the guy's hand? It's REAL!

Templeton at the Fair

I ate a foot long corn dog, curly fries, turtle funnel cake and a lemonade.

Know what's not humorously ironic?

Having your bike lights stolen while you're volunteering at the bike coop.

We've always loved ya, HOFer Shanon.

Thanks for making a girl's name sound so tough.
They should have carved your head out of cheese.

Extra sharpe. 

Oh, Time Machine,

take me back to the moment before I decided a very frozen fruit pop on this hot summer day would be a good idea. Back to a time when my lips were still attached to their outer layer of skin.

No urine sample required.

Thinking to myself: It's a bummer I chugged all that water in the parking lot.



This is an old picture. The "robe" I had to wear today wasn't so much a robe as it was a cape. Unbecoming.

Avatar: Oh THAT Movie

"Why am I sitting here for 3 hours with these crazy glasses on my head?"

       "I was told there'd be a sex scene."

"I'll take less Jake Sully avatar and more Jake Sully human."

      "I was rooting for the United States!"

I'm sorry, Casey Anthony,

for saying that mean thing about you. You know, that you're "not as hot as everyone keeps saying you are." Apparently it was not very ladylike. But let's be honest - if we're talking about good looking possible murderers, you're no Scott Peterson.

Follow the big guy's stick weapon

 There's about a million reasons why I love my bffl.  Presents like this are high on the list.

 She says I'd be the reader and she's the big guy (but that's only because of what he's doing with his weapon).

I thought she looked like the soda drinker, but to each his own.

  I LOVE this thing.

Flo is back!

I found my talk-like-an-old-smoker-lady-who-lives-in-Florida glasses!

 Finally, I can make my dad laugh again.

Poor little idiot

Bab,

I thought you should know that it's not "debt seal" that everyone's talking about. It's the "Debt Ceiling" (as in the highest it can go).

With as much love as a girl can have for another girl without being a lez,

Jan

Moo.

If you're ever driving to Crested Butte and you see a huge flashing sign that says "Watch for Cows,"

you'd better watch for cows. It's for reals.