Wednesday, May 25, 2005

At the library

I've moved internet locations -- this time to the library in the Grand Canyon. Work has begun -- worked MTW 7:30 (a.m.) to 4pm, RF, 12:00 to 8:30. ACMNP's services begin on Saturday... mine and Emilie's rim services are 7:15pm on Saturday and some random time Sunday morning. Emilie, by the way, is my roommate, who arrived today from Pennsylvania.

The American Idol finale is tonight -- Go Bo and Carrie!!! Seriously, either one of them would be great. I'd buy both of their CD's and before everyone starts groaning -- just stop. They're awesome... got my boy from Alabama (Bo) and my country girl (Carrie). :) I'm going to beg the guy at the Holiday Inn Express (where I watched last night's show) again to see if he'll let me watch it in the lobby again.

I don't really have much else to say -- except that I'm tired, mostly because I had to be at work this morning at 7:30 and I was on my feet for 8 hours. Tomorrow I get to sleep in because I don't have to work until 12pm. YAY!

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

I stumbled upon an Internet cafe in Tusceon (sp?)... I've been holed up in a hotel room since Sunday night and tonight, Pastor Ed and his wife, Karen, have been kind enough to offer me their spare bedroom in the park. No more lonely hotel room for me. Tomorrow's orientation starts at 8am (yech!) and then hopefully I'll be headed back up to Desert View with my groceries and get set up. Maybe my furniture will have arrived. One can only hope.

I was able to catch last night's American Idol. Too bad I can't see the results show tonight (always my LEAST favorite night)... I'm going to call Mom in about 20 minutes and see how it went. I only have this computer for like 15 minutes so this is going to be the shortest update on record.

Am getting a new PO Box so if you have the old address, it still works, but I'll be in touch about my own personal one. Have a great week everyone!

Monday, May 16, 2005

Where's the furniture?

Well we made it. Obviously, since Margaret and Wendy are already back in Columbus. I dropped them off at the airport this morning and continued the 1 1/2 hour trip to the Grand Canyon, where I proceeded to be stuck in human resources for like 3 hours, one while they were at lunch and two filling out paper work, being tested for drugs and alchohol, and then finally making my way the rest of the 45 minutes to Desert View, my "home" for the next 90 days. I'm ashamed to admit that my first thought about the canyon was that it was a giant hole. :) I'm sure it was the stress of the day and the anticipation that had me thinking that... I finally made it to the watchtower and located my manager (Russ) and the assistant manager (Nancy) who gave me my key to my apartment and off I went.

They're brand new, one bedroom, full living/kitchen/dining area, one full bath, and laundry room... but minus some very important things... like FURNITURE!!! Russ assures me that it will be delivered soon. Until then, my "bed" is a mattress on the floor -- I can be Cinderella. Except there's no Prince Charming coming to rescue me... for another 90 days at least. :) So I'm back in Flagstaff, at least for the night. Went to Target earlier for cleaning essentials, and came back to the Residence Inn where we stayed last night.

I technically don't start work until after I've taken a "cash handling" class... and that doesn't happen until Friday. General orientation is 8am on Thursday AND we get paid for it! I never got paid orientation when I worked for Bowden... hmm... I guess that's cause I've been working there since I could answer the phone "good morning, Bowden Realty".

And, by the way, Arizona (or is it just the Grand Canyon/Flagstaff?) doesn't participate in Daylight savings time... so it's like 3 hours behind everyone else here. And my body was soooo protesting at 6pm tonight when it's like 9 Columbus time and I had gotten up at 5:45 because, by the way, it's broad daylight at 5:30 a.m. what's up with that???

Don't know when I'll get to update again -- hopefully soon. Probably not.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Amarillo... by morning

We made it to Amarillo... thank God. It only took 8 1/2 hours. After yesterday's driving adventure (Shreveport, LA), today was not any more fun. Marge drove this morning, until we got out of Dallas and we stopped and ate at Raymond's BBQ. If ever in Decatur, Texas... beware... Raymond's looks like it's merely the last place on earth before Amarillo, but trust me. You absolutely don't want to eat there. I was missin some Mike & Ed's BBQ somethin fierce.

The drive through Dallas was fun... until the two random guys from Conneticuit flicked us off as they flew around us. After catching up, Marge threw up her hands as if to say "why did you flick us off" and zoomed around them. Well, then the guy in the passenger seat mooned us. It was a big hairy butt too -- so Wendy made a sign that said "Shave Your Crack!" and the response was "Want 2 Help". We just figured that they were Yanks and didn't know how to flirt with Alabamian hot girls. So, yeah. Then we got lost in Dallas. And ended up at the toll booth at DFW (Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport). U-turn. Stop, ask for directions. Get back on highway... end up at Raymond's BBQ... a hole in the wall dump that should have stayed in the wall.

Texas, by the way, is the flattest, greenest, most non-changing place I've ever driven through. We experienced much of the North-Northwest part of it this afternoon, and while, I have to say, seeing oil rigs for the first time (except for in The Rookie) was slightly more exciting than the cows... they got old after the 500th one. So did the Medicine Mounds, the flat roads, and the Texas Troopers (or are they called Rangers?) that liked to hang out on the small-town roads in between Dallas and Amarillo.

Amarillo, in case you were wondering, is not exactly as glamourous as George Strait proclaims it to be. It's much more like a hole. Everyone who we've seen has asked us why we are hear, accusingly... as if to say why would you spend time in this dump. The only shining light in this entire city was dinner. I'm not a big hamburger fan... my dad makes pretty good ones, but those are homemade. Anyway, this place, called Blue Sky Texas, had phenomenal hamburgers.

Anyway, so we're off tomorrow to Flagstaff, Arizona, driving through New Mexico to get there. Hopefully we'll make it in time for Marge and Wendy to actually see the Grand Canyon. Maybe tomorrow I'll get to update again.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Kenny & Renee???

Okay okay okay... Kenny Chesney and Renee Zellweger? Where did THAT come from? I haven't moved to BFE yet boys and girls -- were they even dating? How did I miss that one?!

On the other hand, after a conversation (that lasted 5 hours) Saturday night, Sean informed me that I had "fallen from favor" by not having seen the Lord of the Rings movies. We won't even mention what he said when I told him that the reason I hadn't seen the movies (just the 2nd and 3rd one) was because I had never read the books. So, after that marathon conversation, Brooke went out and bought the Fellowship of the Ring. I must say that I find it educationally rephrenensible that for someone who has supposedly been educated in english studies, read probably thousands of books, and has an english degree from Auburn University, that she never has read JRR Tolkien. Yes I realize that I'm talking in 3rd person.

I've read from the most obscure of writers to the most obvoious... including William Trevor, Willa Cather, Seamus Heaney, Basho, Niall Williams, Yeats, Kafka, Harper Lee, Thoreau, Emerson... I could, theoretically, go on forever. Four years of high school required reading, five years of english studies in American Romanticism, British Literature, Irish literature, the Fireside poets, Walden... all add up to the fact that as much as I've read -- as many books as I've been required to read in my 9 years of high school, undergraduate and graduate education, that I've never been asked to read JRR Tolkien. I probably never would have considered reading Tolkien had it not been for the expression on Sean's face when he spoke of his work -- Tolkien's and his own. I figured... if this man's books made Sean that excited -- well, I had to see what all the fuss was about. Not because they adapted three full length feature films from the three volumes. I haven't even gotten into the actual book yet -- merely on the foreword -- and already I'm enthralled with the novel and with what lies before me.

Current countdown: 2 days until I leave

Tuesday, May 3, 2005

Stupid me, stupid lard, stupid people

So Thursday last I go bebopping up into the gym at school, about 4pm to do my Thursday legs workout. I go over to just one of the torture machines, and begin to take the 100 lb weight plates off so I can put my measly 45's on. I go to roll the plate out of the doorway and get *almost* there when BAM! the stupid thing FALLS ON MY FOOT! My big toe is now purple. It was green. So this mornng, when I go to put my tennis shoes on, I almost fall over from the contact of shoe hitting big toe bone. It's a good thing that I'm going see Dr. Jacobson at the Hughston tomorrow. Stupid me.

Then, again Thursday, after I dropped the weight, I had to drive to Auburn for my softball games. I'm in the parking lot when Brock gets there and tells me that Kent, our "coach" (and I use that term loosely), has pulled the "team" (again used loosely) out of the league for the season. FOR THE SEASON!!! What kind of coach gets tired of losing and decides to quit?!!

To add insult to injury.... last night my other softball team played (this one is the Columbus team with Bo, Noah and Wes)... well, as usual, we didn't have enough girls. Something about finals and some other crap. For me, I was there with a busted toe, a final on Thursday, and I'm moving across the country in a week and a half. It was an hour out of my day that I committed to. So there we were, our last two girls in the parking lot, and the fat lard of a "coach" on the other team said that we had to forfeit. Dude. It's not like we've actually won a game or anything. Your chances of winning increase by the thousands when you play us. Not two minutes after the head umpire declares a forfeit, our girls come running. The funny (well, funny as in stick a knife in your gut) thing about all of that is that we beat 'em in runs. The fat lard -- well lets just say that his fat head was the target for several throws by a few of our outfielders (well only one really), the pitcher, and if I had ever gotten the chance to throw a double play ball... mine too. Stupid lard.

I used to be obsessed with The Facebook. I know... the first step is admitting when you have a problem. I've gotten over mine. But these girls & guys whose pictures are of them and their boyfriend/girlfriend... ugh, it makes me want to puke. Geez, do they think that EVERYONE wants to see their cutesy little outfit with their boyfriend's arms wrapped snuggly around them? Like I need to be reminded that I'm alone. Gee thanks. If they've got a picture of them and their significant other... surely there's one of just them alone. Like Leslie -- her and her boyfriend Nick were at a wedding like two weekends ago. Both of their facebook pictures are just them... ONE PERSON. I'm sure that there's pictures of the two of them together and you don't see Leslie putting her's and Nick's picture on her facebook profile do you now? No, I didn't think so.

I have to be off -- shower, then have to go down to the office, then to class... my last one -- YAY!!

Sunday, May 1, 2005

Leaving Alabama

Days of work left: ZERO!!
Days left until I drive 27 hours to live for 3 months: 16!!!!!

So it's really happening... it's like a surreal universe. I've never lived more than 30 miles away from Phenix City, Alabama and in 16 days I'll pack my suitcase(s) and trunk into my Envoy and head across the states of Alabama, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. For a small town girl in East Alabama it's slightly overwhelming. But God it's about time that I did something with my life besides sitting here on my duff every night.... My time at Auburn was wonderful -- I loved most every minute... but Auburn's still 30 miles from my hometown, making it easy to go home. Now, from May 16 - August 21 I'll be 1500 miles away... not exactly a hop, skip and a jump away. I'll be "on my own" for the first time in my life. AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

At least I'll be back in August.