Monday, March 31, 2008

Mehr Bildern

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046781&l=6252d&id=41302325

More pictures...this was Easter with Rachel in Spearfish.

Calligraphy

Is it odd that the achievement I am proudest of since coming to Wyoming is learning to write with a calligraphy pen? We use them to write the catalog number on artifacts. It took awhile, but I finally developed a knack for it. It's a rather strange point of pride for an archaeologist...but not so much for a writer.
I may need to acquire a set of pens and ink. :)

25 Reasons I Owe My Mother

I always thought this was cute...because I remember hearing most of this from my mom. :D

1. My mother taught me: TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE ."If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finishedcleaning."
2. My mother taught me: RELIGION."You better pray that will come out of the carpet."
3. My mother taught me: TIME TRAVEL ."If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle ofnext week!"
4. My mother taught me: LOGIC." Because I said so, that's why."
5. My mother taught me: MORE LOGIC ."If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going tothe store with me."
6. My mother taught me: FORESIGHT."Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."
7. My mother taught me: IRONY"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."
8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS "Shut your mouth and eat your supper."
9. My mother taught me:CONTORTIONISM."Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"
10. My mother taught me about STAMINA."You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."
11. My mother taught me: WEATHER ."This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."
12. My mother taught me:HYPOCRISY."If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!"
13. My mother taught me: THE CIRCLE OF LIFE."I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."
14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION."Stop acting like your father!"
15. My mother taught me: ENVY."There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do."
16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION."Just wait until we get home."
17. My mother taught me: RECEIVING ."You are going to get it when you get home!"
18. My mother taught me: MEDICAL SCIENCE."If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze thatway."
19. My mother taught me: ESP."Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"
20. My mother taught me: HUMOR."When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."
21. My mother taught me: HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT ."If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."
22.My Mother taught me: Genetics"I swear you're just like you father."
23. My Mother taught me about my Roots."Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"
24. My Mother taught me: Wisdom"When you get to be my age, you'll understand."
25. And my favorite: My mother taught me about Justice"One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you

Friday, March 28, 2008

Angry

Does anyone know a cuss-word vile enough for the disgustingly corpulent, money-grabbing Texan who thinks he's going to put an oil refinery in MY state? Because quite frankly, I'm pissed off, and the normal words just don't quite cut it.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Ug

I don't want to go to work tomorrow. I just had a very nice few days off, and I'm expecting to go back to having absolutely nothing to do. I wouldn't mind, if only I knew I would be able to keep busy, but I'll probably be staring out the window again, unless the college has sent us more cataloging.
Anyway, so that's the complaint section. I went to Rachel's for Easter, and had tons of fun. I got to go to her knitting/crocheting group and meet peoples, and we went to supper with Andrew, and visited with Rita for awhile, ate more good food than I usually have in an entire week, went walking in Spearfish Canyon AND went to Flanagans, the uber-cool Irish pub downtown. Went to Mass 3 times, it being Holy Week, and the Lutheran Easter service as well. Ooh, and I got my head put back on straight by the chiropractor, which is a good thing, and got my car fixed, and a tour of the tortilla factory. Watched movies, swapped CD's, and made book recommendations. And came home with another writing project. :P
Oh! And I nearly forgot, silly me. On the drive up there, I stopped at Independence Rock. It's the halfway point on the Oregon Trail between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean. The wagon trains usually ended up there in early July, hence it's name, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of names carved on it. You can climb up to the top as well, which was really, really cool. You can just look and look and LOOK in all directions from up there, and everywhere you step is someone's name in the rock. It's incredible. Some of the modern ones are just as interesting as those from 150 years or so ago. Like the one I found with a man's name carved in the rock, the year 1969, and the peace symbol carved below it. I've got loads of pictures, and if I don't get them uploaded here, they will be on my facebook page. If you're not on facebook and want to see pictures, lemme know, and I'll send ya the link to my photos. Maybe I just need to start a flikr account.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Cheating at Tag

I don't know if I was technically supposed to post this on myspace, since that's where I was tagged at, but I'm going to cheat just a little and send the game into a new dimension. (Is that okay, C?)

So once you get tagged you have to post a blog with 10 weird/unknown/interesting/really true facts about yourself. Give us the good stuff nothing like "my hair is brown".Once you have posted the blog you have to tag new people by posting a comment that says "tag you’re it" and to go read your blog.

1. I like anime. It's hard to admit. I've been sucked in. It's Sarah's fault!

2. I was very disappointed when crocheting and knitting somehow became the new thing for young folks as well as old, because I really liked being one of few people my age that did something so "old-lady-ish."

3. My hair is brown...and I will never ever ever dye it or cut it.

4. I don't want to be a plains archaeologist, but that seems to be what I am.

5. I believe in fairies.

6. I have held conversations in my head, probably with each and every one of you who will read this, when you were nowhere to be seen or heard. Does that make you nervous at all? :)

7. I just bought a book last night, about Dracula, one that I read recently and couldn't put down. The weird part? I'm a little nervous about having it in the house. My skin crawls when I walk past the table it sits on.

8. I really like people. Sometimes.

9. I have a slightly irrational, paranoid fear about something happening to my eyesight.

10. I want to be a pirate when I grow up...scratch that, I can't, since I've decided never to grow up. Dash it all, I'll just have to start now, won't I?

I tag everyone who reads this that has a blog to post it on. :D

Haiku

The National Geographic did a short article on 17th century Japanese poet, Matsuo Basho. I am entranced.

Listen! a frog
Jumping into the stillness
Of an ancient pond!



A mound of summer grass:
Are warriors' heroic deeds
Only dreams that pass?

Friday, March 14, 2008

Another Explanation

I've just realized that I owe another explanation or two. Three actually. We'll see how many I get through before I feel like I'm being terribly dull. Actually, no, scratch that. Nobody says you have to read this, so I'm going to be as dull as I want to be!
The Willie Nelson nickname comes from...actually, I'm not sure; it's a little tangled. I've always liked his music, and naturally I got picked on for that by my siblings. Any fuel for the fire, right? Evidently they thought I looked just like the picture on the cover of the record...he was wearing a tanktop--I wear tanktops. He had his hair in braids--I often display the same hairstyle. Naturally that makes me look like Willy Nelson. So...my cousin Kyle began greeting me with "You look like Johnny Carson!" Why, I will never know. Well, I turned it around, and directed it back at him, so he changed it to "You look like Willy Nelson." And it stuck. One of my strangest nicknames ever. On explaining that story once to a friend of mine, he thought for a moment and then said, "Well...if you had a beard..."

Cupcake is another nickname I never would have expected. Sam's idiot ex started calling me that before he was her ex, because he knew it would make me mad. Sam liked it, and started calling me that. Super Dave heard it from Sam and thought it was funny. And it only spread. The Twins were calling me Cupcake before they ever knew my real name. Bron came up with the variation of "Tasty Pastry." I used to hate it, and getting mad when I got called Cupcake naturally made it funnier for everyone else. I have to admit, I am rather fond of it now, in a grudging sort of way. I mean, it's a horrible nickname, but used by friends, so that makes it a little less icky.

And, lastly, The Favorite Aunt. One of my numerous aunts has always said that she is the favorite aunt. So naturally when my oldest sister had a darling baby girl, my other two sisters and I began to constantly argue over who was the favorite aunt. It was undoubtedly Heidi, at first, or at least, that was the easiest name to say. BUT! I might be moving up in the ranks! I called to talk to her twice last week. Then Heidi called the next day, and Mom asked Katelyn if she wanted to talk to Heidi . She said "Yes!" (it's always a fully-articulated yes, never "yeah"), took the phone, and said "Hi Jessie!" Heidi said, "No, it's Heidi, Katelyn." "Hi Jessie!" she repeated. The same thing when she said bye later on..."Katelyn, do you want to say bye to Heidi?" "Yes!" "Bye Jessie!" "No, this is Heidi!" "Bye Jessie!" She knows it's Heidi, she's just being a little scheisster. But it's so adorably, naughtily cute!

There. Explanations of the profile completed. Any questions? :) How did I do, Christina?

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Your Life is An Occasion...Rise to it.

I'm going to write a book. Several, actually. I'll let you know when I've finished one.

And I'm going to be happy. I'm sick of moping.

And I'm not going to grow up. I've seen what it does to people.

I will stop and pick up rocks. I will lie on my stomach in the dirt and watch ants run in and out of their hills. I'm going to enjoy what's left of the snow. I'm going to read books for pure enjoyment, as opposed to self-education. I will ignore rude comments, or I will make sickeningly pleasant ones back. And having freshly shined shoes will always make me smile. Babies will always come first on the list.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

On second thought...

I wonder if anyone took Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters seriously when they wrote their romances. Probably not too many. "It's a silly story," they would have said, "things like that don't really happen." They still do say it, and people don't really change much with the times, after all. But then, why is it that those books are now some of the most famous, most often read? Because we all want to believe in a beautiful story? And if so many of us want to believe it, and a scant few of us really do believe it, than surely it must be allowed to happen every once in awhile?

Pride and Prejudice

I recently saw the movie, and have finally, after meaning to for years, picked up the book. Jane Austen wrote wonderfully. Anyway, I really like this video; it's really good. Watch it. :)


http://youtube.com/watch?v=WsknGORDKKI

Monday, March 3, 2008

15 more days till I see my Rachel!

I had so much fun this weekend. We helped a co-worker and his German wife move into their new house. I think I was just glad that it was nice out, I wasn't at work, I was outside, and actually doing something. It makes a big difference. The night before we were all at Wade's having a Leap Year party (any excuse will work). Everyone else was down in the basement playing cards, but he and I and my roomie were upstairs discussing trade beads. I love beads. It was a good conversation. I am envious of that collection he's got.

Today, on the other hand, was one of the most humdrum yet. It's very frustrating, because we have been cataloging artifacts all winter, and the Head Honcho has been talking about doing a winter excavation for some time now...but we are running out of cataloging, the only thing that keeps us busy in the winter, he hasn't even begun doing the paperwork for said excavation, which can take about a month to get cleared by the BLM, and we are all dragging our feet, trying to make the work last as long as we can. I do believe that only one person out of all of us actually has real work left to do that's not just busy work. It makes it really, really, REALLY hard to want to get up and go to work in the morning.

Juicy

Now, as to why Joleen calls me "Juice." That actually started my first summer of doing archaeology ever. I was still new to the whole surveying thing, when Wade sent Jo, Maggie and I out on our own to do an artifact inventory of the site we'd found a few days ago. And so off we trekked. Well, I had already learned that the best way to clean off lithics--or anyway, the flakes of stone taken off in the tool-making process--is to stick them in your mouth and lick the dirt off. That way you can identify by various traits whether they are actually artifacts, or just rocks, or you can tell what kind of rock they are. Let me tell you, it's rather disappointing to put a particularly dirty one in your mouth, only to find out when you take it out that it's just a rock, and you now have a mouthful of mud for nothing. Which is why, when I picked one up that was rather large, and had quite a bit of dirt still on it, I put it in the palm of my hand, and spit on it instead. A much preferable method, in this case, I was thinking, when Joleen commented that "Eew, that was a juicy one!" It stuck. I was Juice for the rest of the day, and have been ever since. A couple of my professors and various other students know me as Juice as well. Thanks Jo. :)