october? what october?

I just looked up the date of what I am planning to post about, and it was at the end of September. Exactly one month ago. How is it possibly the end of October?! I mostly don't even remember October. October has been horrible. Those probably sound like contradicting statements. October has been mostly horrible due to all of the work required in this month. Because of all of this work, I barely even remember the month passing me by. Sadly, the work is not yet finished, but at least 3 of 4 tests are. Phew.

On to what I had planned to post about.

At the end of September we had some visitors from Germany stay with us. Brian's mom was an exchange student in Germany in college, and the following year one of her German friends did the exchange to the US. Her son and daughter-in-law are the ones who stayed with us. They got married in July (I think) and are biking across the US for their honeymoon. We had a very nice visit with them -- cooking a meal for them, walking around on campus, and staying up way too late chatting. Then they decided to stay another day! I had class all day until 8pm, but Brian was able to go to Celestial Seasonings with them and then we went out to the Dark Horse for supper when I was finally done with my long day. It was so nice to meet them. Brian had met the son, but it had been 14 years since they had seen each other.

the day i was trapped upstairs

One week ago today, I was trapped upstairs for two hours. Trapped by my own squeamishness. I happened to wake up quite a while before Brian did. I was on my way downstairs to make coffee and sit down with my laptop for a bit. I turned on the light above the stairs, and I saw it -- the mousetraps in disarray. Mousetraps, yes, plural. This little guy was crafty. The first night we had one trap at each of the places we'd seen him going in and out of our living room area. He just ate the peanut butter right off of those. Then we put two traps together at one location -- the one he was likely using to go between adjacent apartments and ours. Still with the peanut butter eating and no trapping. Then we were going to be gone overnight. This was the perfect opportunity to get him comfortable with our three trap set-up since we would leave them not set (who wants to trap a mouse and leave him sitting for a full day? yuck.). So Friday night was the first night of the three traps, the middle one had peanut butter, and the two on the sides had none, so he would have to walk over them to get to his PB. But no danger for him on Friday night. We were finally able to outsmart him on Saturday night when we were back. But it left me trapped upstairs for the morning. I caught a glimpse, and that was enough. Glad we got him and super glad I have someone willing to deal with the gory aspects of it.

on your porch

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Just lyrics...

I was on your porch,
The smoke sank into my skin,
So I came inside to be with you,
We talked all night,
About everything you could imagine,
'Cause come the morning, I'll be gone,
And as our eyes start to close,
I turn to you and I let you know,
That I love you.

Well, my dad was sick,
My mom she cared for him,
Her loving nursed him back to life,
And me, I ran, I couldn't even look at him,
For fear I'd have to say goodbye,
And as I start to leave,
He grabs me by the shoulder and he tells me,
"Whats left to lose? You've done enough,
And if you fail then you fail but not to us,
'Cause these last three years,
I know they have been hard,
But now it's time to get out of the desert and into the sun,
Even if its alone."

So now here I sit,
In a hotel off of Sunset
My thoughts bounce off Sam's guitar,
And thats the way its been,
Ever since we were kids, but now,
Now, we've got something to prove,
And I, I can see their eyes,
Then tell me something, can they see mine?
'Cause whats left to lose?
I've done enough,
And if I fail then I fail but I gave it a shot,
'Cause these last three years I know they have been hard,
But now it's time to get out of the desert and into the sun,
Even if it's alone,
(Even if it's alone)
Even if it's alone.

I was on your porch last night,
The smoke, it sank into my skin.

i always wondered why...

The other day I was doing my time in the Dx room (MA students have to man the standardized test/protocol room for 2 hours per week) when a 2nd-year walked in and asked me, "What does that symbol mean?" I was wearing my MCC shirt. I showed her how it was half of a cross and half of a dove put together. She said she was so glad to finally know that because, "My mom had a Mennonite cookbook and I always wondered why it had the state of Texas on it!"

Too funny! The other reason I am posting this at this time is as a precursor to telling you all that I am super excited to experience the Rocky Mountain MCC Relief Sale this weekend! I am SO curious about how it will compare to the Kansas Sale, what foods we will discover there (crossing my fingers for verenike but don't actually think there will be any...I wonder if there will be New Year's cookies...?), etc. It's kind of a terrible time of the semester to go, but I really want to experience it, and some wonderful friends of ours invited us to go with them, so how could we pass it up?

ohhhhhhh, mouse

You are NOT welcome in this house!! If you get close to me, I will demonstrate the stereotype of a girl with a mouse around: a scream (though probably only one short one) and getting up on furniture. You give me the heebie-jeebies. I can barely stand to walk near the path that I saw you scurry hours ago. Two things I cannot stand in my house (at least not contained): rodents and reptiles. Spiders, other insects, eh. Usually I just leave them alone or I will transport them outside. Confession: we currently have probably five insect pets. They're kind of cute. But, mouse, ew, ug, squirm, stay OUT of my house! And please, please, please don't let me be the one to find you in your trap.

Writing this post has made me thoroughly heebie-jeebied, squirmed out.

the picture says it all

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Benefit to society -- ow, ow! [Link to the article]



*** BUT APPARENTLY MICHAEL SCOTT'S JOB IS BETTER! ***
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the night we didn't win $5 at trivia

A team of eight from my department (and some +1s) got together for trivia Friday night. It was put on at a local brewery by the grad student government, so most teams represented a department on campus. The trivia guy was one who does a lot of trivia nights around the area and who we've had before; he puts together pretty good questions. Threadless sponsored the prizes, so we all thought the prizes would be some sweet t-shirts. Partway through the night, it was announced that 1st place would be $10 for each team member, 2nd would be $7 for each, and 3rd would be $5 for each. At that point, our team was in 2nd place, and the thought of cold hard cash sounded pretty good. We continued to do well, save for an awful "complete the movie line" round, where we may or may not have picked up a few points, depending on how strict his scoring was. We ended up 3rd, which we felt good about, given that our competition was pretty much all grad students in a town named one of the brainiest in the country (there was some discussion about what towns within driving distance would be lower on the braininess ranking that we could go clean up in). So we got our prize envelopes and opened them, eager for our $5. Oh, but what was really inside was a $5-off coupon to Threadless. Funny, because everyone in attendance received a $7-off coupon to Threadless -- more than one of the prizes. I hope we can combine those two on one order...

P.S. Sorry I am not much of a picture taker!