Oddest Job

For the sake of completeness only, I'll post the oddest job I've had as it was submitted to the Scottish dance group:

Working in a Mediterranean restaurant run by a couple of Middle Eastern men who would sit out front smoking their hookah. One night I even had to wear a fez.

Brow wrinkler

The lead in line for the health segment of the morning news went "Research shows the sun's dangers outweigh its benefits." Okay, hold up. When I hear that something's risks or dangers outweigh the benefits, I normally assume that the people who have determined such are proposing that the item in question no longer be used. So are these people proposing we send a nuclear warhead into the sun so we don't have to worry about it any more? Okay, okay, so I listened to the story and the researchers were actually saying that people shouldn't sit out in the sun to soak up rays to get Vitamin D. These researchers say that all the health benefits from the sun can be found much more safely by popping pills. I suppose these people want us to build a bunch of sci-fi domes equipped with happy lights (for SAD). I'll avoid going into the subject of sunlight and plants because that would be taking the issue out of context. I could go on a bit longer to fill out my arguments, but it's about time for me to step out and get what little sun I can on a work day in February.

Super Bowl Thoughts

~I don't see how you can play football with hair like Troy Polamalu's. It's as long as mine and thicker. That just seems to be asking for trouble.

~John Madden kept insisting Seattle needed to "up the tempo like they started the game." After about the 10th time I was plenty ready to get some duct tape to silence his useless advice. It wasn't like him saying it anymore was going to solve Seattle's problem. Although it would have been amusing to see him go down to their bench and lead the Seahawks in a little cheer. "T-E-M-P-O! Up, up the tempo!"

~It's easier to watch a golf tournament and appreciate good golf no matter who it is. It's a little harder in a two-team event like football where you cheer a good play for what it is then think, Wait, no, I didn't like that. That's the wrong team.

~He may not have put on the greatest performance, but at least now I can think of Ben Roethlisberger as the quarterback of a Super Bowl Championship team instead of Natalie Gulbis' ex.

~Is ABC just throwing in the towel on broadcast sports altogether? They've exiled Monday Night Football to their ESPN partners. They're dropping golf next year. What's next?

~And a final thought on the Super Bowl... Spending so much time watching golf, I do have to appreciate the teamwork involved in football.

Ladybugs

I can't post my weirdest job yet because we didn't have dance last night. (Beth has been ill.) Nonetheless, I don't want this poor blog to start suffering from abandonment issues.

I seem to be running a ladybug retirement home. I would call it an inn or a farm, but they keep showing up and then dying. It's not a hospital because I'm certainly no insect nurse. Today, one of these adorable beetles plopped down on my desk. I'm easily entertained, so it's been rather distracting. The poor thing doesn't seem to know what to do. It's crawled around a little, but millimeter for millimeter I think a turtle would have gotten farther. He managed to flip upside down, so I had to go to his rescue then. I don't know why I've decided it's a "he" instead of a "lady"bug "she."

Next week, I'll share my oddest job and some of the weird things I like to drink.

Who me? Weird?

The Scottish dancers are doing a fun game to learn stuff about each other, so I figure I'll post my answers on here each week after they've been revealed. This week's question was, "What is the weirdest thing you have ever done?" After scouring my college yearbooks I recalled the following:

I have taken a bite of a Cheeto being held between someone's toes. At an APA retreat, we were divided into teams and competed in various ways. The winning team got to mete out "punishments" to the losing teams. Not only did we have the fewest points we were the most annoying team because one of the contests was to come up with a cheer, and we kept doing our cheer at random times. If the points had been awarded based on which team had the most fun, we would most certainly have won. Here's the annoying cheer we made up to go with our team name, "Dirty Dozen":

Bang! Bang! Choo choo train!

Come on Dozen, do your thing!

Dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty!

Dozen, dozen, dozen, dozen!

Huh! And let it roll!

(repeat until other teams tackle to silence you)

Happy Birthday, Robert Burns!

Here's a lovely poem Burns wrote on his 34th birthday:

Sonnet Written On The Author's Birthday

On hearing a Thrush sing in his Morning Walk

Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough;
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain,
See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blythe carol, clears his furrowed brow.

So in lone Poverty's dominion drear,
Sits meek Content with light, unanxious heart;
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
Nor asks if they bring ought to hope or fear.

I thank thee, Author of this opening day!
Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys --
What wealth could never give nor take away!

Yet come, thou child of poverty and care,
The mite high heav'n bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share.

Never

Never drink caffeinated soda on the same day you're running low on your regular prescription medication and a stressful work deadline is going to make you tense and give you adrenaline since you've got to rush to not be horribly late for an already nerve-wracking first date.

Never.

It's the little things...

I encountered the following tidbits in my ordinary course of work today:

~ 34567 was an actual end figure I wound up with in a regular monthly worksheet.

~ There is a road in Oklahoma called Flowery Mound Road.

Happy 2006!

This year my main New Year's resolution is to learn to embroider. I like to make my resolutions fun. Of course, that doesn't always work. I sure didn't learn to knit last year. For bettering myself in more boring ways, my resolutions include taking better care of my teeth and skin before bed and tracking my budget more carefully. People seem to think fitness is a mandatory resolution, but my fitness plans aren't really a resolution because they're mainly just to do water aerobics and I started that in November.

Cheery Christmas!

I was thinking about various holiday greetings recently and found myself comparing the phrases "Happy Hanukkah" and "Merry Christmas." "Happy Hanukkah" has such nice alliteration to it as opposed to "Merry Christmas." I did find an explanation of "Merry Christmas" and other Christmas phrases here, but I'm going to start using "Cheery Christmas" anyways. It still isn't alliterative, but I think it has a much nicer ring to it than "Merry Christmas." What do you think?

Christmas party roundup

I had the last of my Christmas parties today, so it's time for a summary of the good times.

First off, Friday night was the dancers' Christmas party out in BA. The nice thing about this party is you get to people who don't come to dance whether by choice or by health. The guys' and girls' gift exchanges are done separately so the men don't have to put up with our stealing fun. I gave a crystal swan I had bought in Scotland, but I made it a bit too difficult to open. I wound up with shortbread, a glass mug, and some specialty coffees, but the person who bought that gift knows I don't drink coffee, so she offered to take the coffee for herself and get me some tea. The most popular gifts of the evening were a pair of singing Scottie dogs.

The Previous Christmas party was on Sunday afternoon, but the cook was sick so the festivities were scaled down to a trip to Cafe China without a gift exchange. At the previous Previous meeting, they made a big deal about dressing in festive attire but nobody was festive but me. I didn't feel awkward. I was just just disappointed for everybody else that they didn't have so much fun with the holiday spirit. As for me, I was quite happy wearing my red kilt and a poinsettia in my braid.

One more party to go - the office party. We have a super-sized version of our monthly birthday lunch. After stuffing ourselves full of great food, we have a stealing-style gift exchange. The stuffed puppy and cocoa I gave went through a couple of steals. I was all set to steal a red fleece blanket for its last steal when the round of stealing right before my number went one steal to long and someone else beat me to the last available steal on the blanket. Nothing else seemed stealworthy for me personally, so to the tree I went where I unwrapped a jam server that I hung onto until the end of the game. It is decorated in clover - pink and green - so it matches my other ceramic kitchen decor, but not the overall theme I'm trying to give my kitchen. I've got a kitchen with a split personality half dark green and dark red, half light green and pink.

"Stupid Survey"

I got this forwarded from Chris and thought, Hey, why not? (I'm not too good at one-word answers, though.)

01. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES? one set is clear glass, t'other multi colored
02. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? I don't remember the name of the current one, but I'm getting ready to re-read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
03. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? My mouse isn't on a pad, but I have a really cool one from Scotland that has Edinburgh Castle, a Westie, Castle Urquhart, Wallace Memorial, a Scottish piper, the Forth Bridge, highland cattle, Balmoral Castle, Greyfriars Bobby, and St. Andrews.
04. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Shetland Yard, maybe
05. LEAST FAVORITE SMELLS? sour milk
06. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKEUP IN THE MORNING? what I need to do that day
07. FAVORITE COLOR? green or brown - brown just seems rather underappreciated, but it has such a wonderful variety of beautiful shades
08. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? pink
09. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? however many it takes to find the phone
10. WHAT WOULD BE YOUR NEXT CHILD'S NAME? Janna Kathryn
11. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? that depends on too many outside factors
12. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? when the speed limit is fast
13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? on occasion, Sammy Sad Sack
14. DO YOU LIKE THUNDERSTORMS? of course
15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? '93 blue Ford Escort, the same one I've got now
16. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN? Taurus - maybe that should be my next car
17. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? umm, yeah
18. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE? a board game tester
19. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? light strawberry brown
20. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? half full
21. FAVORITE MOVIE? Singin' In the Rain
22. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? usually, but lately stuff's been coming out garbled
23. WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED? a table
24. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD? both
25. HAMBURGER OR HOT DOG? hot dog
26. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON? Fall
27. BEST PLACE YOU HAVE EVER BEEN? Scotland
28. WHAT WALLPAPER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? some inland view of St. Croix
29. FAVORITE FAST FOOD? Long John Silver's or any taco joint
30. SPICY OR MILD? mild

Scottish Word of the Week

So I was just reading about Ernie Els return to golf after his knee injury earlier in the year, and I came across the following description of it: "Ernie Els' timeous recovery from his knee injury will enable him to play in his 14th Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City." What? Wait a minute. Is "timeous" a word? Yep, it sure is, and it turns out it's chiefly Scottish at that even though it was used in a South African news posting.

Per Encarta World Dictionary.
timeous
time·ous
adjective
Definitions:
Scotland timely: happening or done in good time
time·ous·ly adv

Kelpies!

Last Thursday didn't get any more normal by going to dance. We actually only danced two dances - and super easy ones at that - Circassian Circle and Petronella. The majority of the evening was spent walking through a 7-couple dance called "The Kelpie of Loch Coruisk." Yes, a 14 person dance. Beth's patience with us was admirable as she did an incredible job conducting us through the dance.

What a day!

Today has actually been interesting enough to seem a little blogworthy.

My morning sleep was restless, so I gave myself an extra 15 minutes to sleep in. Then it took me three tries to find an outfit even with my system (which I'll blog about later). Sleeping in requires breakfast on the go so I popped a couple of waffles in the toaster and ate them in the car. Upon arriving at work, I decided I needed some grapefruit juice to rejuvenate me. When I went to get the juice, the vending machine ate my quarter.

The rest of my morning was uneventful except for the surprising news that David Duval is leading the Dunlop Phoenix golf tournament in Japan. For all you non-golf fans who think that name slightly rings a bell, I should explain that DD was the number one golfer in the world for a while back around the beginning of 2000. Since then he has gone into a slump of monumental proportions. This year on the PGA Tour (where he still has an exemption to play being a major champion) he only made one cut. That is why much of the golf world was stunned to awake this morning to the news that Mr. Duval is at the top of the leaderboard, a stroke ahead of Tiger Woods.

Back to my day... When I got back from lunch, a button fell off of my sweater vest so I exchanged it for the spare navy cardigan from highschool that I keep hanging in my office. Much to my amusement, I actually got a comment on my "pretty blue sweater." Walking down the hall later in the afternoon, I was surprised to find a puzzle piece in the pocket of the sweater until I remembered it was something the assistant APA coordinator gave all the APAs my junior year of college. One of those odd memories that springs up from time to time.

My task lately at work has been what I call "The Taming of the Muckle Muck." It's a reconciliation that got passed to me this summer, and now that I have a good grasp of it, I thought I'd go back and clean up the report because the prior accountant working on this reconciliation passed it to me with pages of items that they hadn't cleared against other months reconciliations. Anyways, at one point I became so flabbergasted that I couldn't stop laughing.

My day at work was capped off with a nice messy piece of chocolate cake, and now I get to go Scottish dancing.

New apartment

First off, I want to mention that I edited the arrangement of my Scotland trip to give it its own page in my links.

On to the subject at hand, I moved into a smaller apartment in my same building last week. I loved where I was but it just seemed silly to me to pay rent for a 2-bedroom just for me. Now, I'm in a loft style apartment with the bedroom upstairs and the living area downstairs. Sneaking a few extra trips up and down stairs into my life should be good for me.

The move over went well. With the help of Mom and Dad, 2 Scottish dancers, 1 church friend, and 1 random guy from ORU that recruited we got the task done in an hour and a half.

Well, that's about it. Nothing too exciting about it other than the mere fact that moving is an event in and of itself.

Flapjacks

I've searched far and wide for a good recipe for flapjacks, those wonderful oat bars I discovered while vacationing in Scotland. After several tries, I've finally adapted a recipe that works for me and was met with hearty approval by my fellow dancers.

Scottish Flapjacks

5 ounces butter
2 heaping tablespoons light brown sugar
4 tablespoons honey
2 heaping cups steel-cut oats
1 medium banana, mashed
2 heaping tablespoons chopped dates

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a small baking tin (8"x8", 7"x11", or 9"x9") with cooking spray. Melt the butter, sugar, and honey. Add the rest of the ingredients mixing everything well. Pour the mix into the baking tin and bake for 25 minutes. Cut into fingers(bars) whilst still warm and allow to cool completely before removing from the pan.

Enjoy!

(Edit 11/11: I just noticed that I used the word "whilst" above. I don't think I did it intentionally just to use an uncommon form of the word "while." I believe it was simply a typo, but since it's a typo that actually works in a way I can't bring myself to correct it.)

Oktoberfest 2005

Oktoberfest was as wonderful as always. It was nice to have new costumes again and dance in our kilted skirts. (Come to think of it I never mentioned my new skirt here. How did that happen? I got a beautiful Royal Stewart kilted skirt made by Edinburgh Woolen Mills on E-Bay for less than $20 including shipping. It was all I could talk about for the week after I got it.) So, anyways, back to Oktoberfest... The performance went great. Laurabelle was actually able to do all the dances she was going to do before breaking her wrist except for the one she broke her wrist in.

A little on our program...

O! My America! - Originally written by Scots immigrating to America. We learned this dance after Hurricane Katrina in honor of the way Americans came together to help each other. This dance features Schiehallion's Reel - a figure like a Grand Chain without touching. My partner: Lara.

Lost in Edinburgh - We danced this in honor of the adventure I mentioned in the last post when Beth broke her wrist. My partner: Brian.

Belle of Bon Accord - Beth and I learned this Strathspey at the dance class we visited in Strathaven, Scotland. My partner: Lance.

Quarrie's Jig - A complicated dance several "learned" after I left Scotland, but no one really learned it until Beth sat down and made sense of it for herself and taught it to us back in Tulsa. I didn't dance this one.

Preston Mill - A very new 5-couple dance Beth introduced after several travelers visited this National Trust of Scotland site. I was the alternate, but Laurabelle was up for dancing.

Hebridean Weaving Lilt - A unique dance performed to mouth, or waulking, music and danced as a running step rather than the usual skipping or strathspey step. This dance features an intricate weaving/unweaving figure that the audience really liked (judging by their applause). My partner: Sara.

Of broken wrists and resulting adventures

Several of my fellow travelers to Scotland stayed there an additional three weeks after I had left. In this time, Beth, the group leader, managed to fall and break her wrist during a visit to Edinburgh. According to the recounts I heard upon their return to Oklahoma, this led to quite an adventure trying to find a hospital in the unfamiliar streets of Edinburgh followed by the experience of a Scottish hospital complete with "hat bowls" and purple gloves.

Beth's wrist has since healed, and we've been busy preparing for one of our biggest performances of the year: Oktoberfest. All was going well - we could do the program several times in an evening with time to spare when it happened - Laurabelle broke her wrist in the middle of our dress rehearsal 10 days before the big event. She was laughing so hard during the dance that at the point where she's supposed to kneel then rise she lost her balance when rising and heard/felt a snap after she reached down to break her fall. So everyone hopped in their cars and caravaned over to the hospital where we managed to get lost in the parking lot even though it wasn't Edinburgh. The ER secretary was a bit shocked when a whole crew of kilted folk appeared at her desk at once. She was glad to find out that we were all just there for moral support for Laurabelle (and of course not to miss a second hospital adventure).

Stay tuned to find out how Oktoberfest went.

T.G.I. Friday's: Mild or Wild

You've probably seen the T.G.I. Friday's commercial for their Mild or Wild 3-course meal. Well, they've got a little Mild or Wild Challenge to help you decide which menu you should go with. The reason I like this particular quiz is that they are willing to admit they can't peg me and in doing so pegged me quite accurately as Mildly Wild. Try the challenge yourself here.