Saturday, May 24, 2014

Dear Utah






























I thought it would be different this time . . . and it was.  I thought that would be a good thing . . . not so much.  I've made some (hopefully) lasting friendships and had some great experiences and I have only a few regrets.  But the judgement was still there, and now I am not only willing but eager to leave.  Pretty sure I'm not going to miss you this time.

Disillunsioned-ly yours,
(and also totally going to miss those lasting friendship people)

Lacey

P. ost  S. cript

Top of the to-do list (although not necessarily first)? Finally swimming with these guys.


Friday, May 23, 2014

Lesson Number the Last

First graders hug regularly and without any particular reason.

Fourth graders don't hug without reason . . . but when they have one, they come back for four more and try to tie you to a chair with a jump rope and swear up and down that you can't go because they said so.

Those kids were in kindergarten when I started working there . . . gonna be feeling that all the way to Orlando . . .


P. ost  S. cript
My go-to for these sort of moments.


Monday, May 19, 2014

Modern Marvels

Imagine this: you're driving down the freeway in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska (which has been scientifically proven to be flatter than a pancake) and you pass a sign that says "Monument ahead DO NOT STOP."

Little odd, no?  I mean, don't they usually want you to stop and take a look at monuments that someone took the time to create?  But then you drive a couple more miles and then you see this.

And you kinda get why the sign says not to stop.

That was the story at the end of my family's Mormon pilgrimage summer vacation (I'm oddly conflicted about which phrase to strike out there . . . ) back in 2001.  *insert obligatory moment to note just how freaking long ago that was here*  So naturally we had to stop and see just what the crap this was, even though it wasn't in the plan and it was the end of the trip so we were all pretty exhausted and more than a little sick of each other.

Turns out it's a museumAnd a pretty cool one too.

We didn't spend as much time there as I would have liked, seeing as it was an unscheduled stop and my parents are all about schedules, but we weren't rushed through it either.  The part I remember most was at the end.  While you're inside you can totally forget you're actually on a bridge over a freeway and there are cars speeding under you at seventy-something miles an hour (is the fear of being on a bridge when it collapses a phobia that exists?  I'm pretty sure this place could create it).  But at the end there are a couple of windows and you can see those cars whiz past while right behind you is a display talking about people traveling this same route on covered wagons and how the change from one to the other happened in only just over a  hundred years (1840s to 195-Eisen-whatever).  For some reason that's really stuck with me in the thirteen (oy!) years since.  The speed of advancement once the ball got rolling, you know?  Foot to animal took forever, then animal to wheeled stuff took less of a forever, then motorizing the wheel only took, like, a blink of a forever and then before you know it Montana has no speed limit and then BAM! it does before I get a chance to Autobahn it up to Glacier.

On another note, other technology has, naturally, kept up . . . or at least kept on advancing just as (or more) quickly (thank you Phonecians!).  In the 1840s you pretty much weren't going to see the people you left behind again, and you probably wouldn't be hearing much from them either - depending on where you ended up, anyway.  It might even be a year before they knew whether you made it without dying of dysentery or something. (side note: need that shirt!!)

Fast forward to the 80s when my parents (and I) moved from Washington to Idaho.  Not quite as far, but still far enough to have blown some 1840s minds if we'd told them we could make the trip in a day.  A very long day . . . but a day.  But still there was no way for my grandparents to know we hadn't all died of dysentery car crash or vanished into some sort of black hole until we got there, got moved in, got a phone line set up, and called everyone they knew (because as I understand it, they couldn't just text everyone their new phone number way back then) to let them know they were here and how to contact them.  But still, only a couple of days to get there and let everyone left behind know we were there.

Fast forward a bit more . . . I'm planning on instagramming our entire trip.  And updating my facebook status every time we stop for gas.  Not only will everyone we know know when we arrive (and pretty much the moment we do), the people we're crashing with will know almost exactly when to expect us the day we're heading to their place.  And if we do get sucked into one of those black holes?  There will be literally at least a hundred people who know roughly what area to start the search and exactly how long it's been since we were accounted for.

How amazing is that?!?!

It must have been nice to be able to let your kids just run all sorts of amok until it got dark, and it certainly must have been tons cheaper to grow your own non-chemically-infested food . . . but I'll take living in the here and now over pretty much any other time.  Because here and now is pretty freaking cool.


P. ost  S. cript
I wanted to post the cheese episode because it's eriously my favorite, but I'm having some trouble finding it.  I suppose this one will have to do instead.  :-)





Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Ode to Thirty

Also known as my second twenty-ninth birthday.  Because





Yeah, that sounds about right.  Anyway.



Starin' out into the wild blue yonder
So many thoughts to sit and ponder
'Bout life and love and wonderment of
And this craziness in my heart

Too old to be wild and free still
Too young to be over the hill
Should I try to grow up
But who knows where to start

So I just sit right here and have myself another snowcone
Do my best to waste another day
Sit right here and have another homemade snowcone
Let the packed boxes melt any blues away

Sun comes up and sun sinks down
And I seen 'em both in this two-horse town
Up for days wishin' for a raise
 Or just a job that is full time

From the answers and the reasons why
I'm at these crossroads in my life
And I think I mostly know
 Which way to fly

So I just sit right here and take another trip to the library
Do my best to waste another day
Sit right here and stack the books two feet high
Let the crappy novels (these days) melt any blues away

Maybe I'll settle down, have babies
Or stay kid-less and stay free
Which road I travel
Is still (slightly) a mystery to me

So I just sit right here and cross another square off the calendar
Do my best not to waste another day
Sit right here and grasp at straws for one more line
Let the passage of time melt any blues away


P. ost.  S. cript
 Apparently Kenny Chesney employs time traveling songwriters that steal from blogs.  Because that's a much more interesting explanation than saying I heard the song a couple weeks ago for the first time in ages and totally identified with it.