Long Time, No Blog July 3, 2008

I have realized that I have been siriusly neglecting this blog.  Yes, that was a Sirius pun.  Anyway, I haven’t posted anything in over a week, which is rare.  This time it is not due to any Plurking.  I have not Plurked in over a week either.  Life has just been utterly chaotic.

My twin cousins’ graduation from high school was last Saturday.  Graduations at their school are quite different than at mine.  Theirs are quiet and the students are respectful.  At my graduation, we were loud and obnoxious and did not shut up even during the speeches.  Beach balls, silly string, and bubbles were all over the place, despite the principal’s long lecture about not bringing them.  Then there were the loud shouts of ‘06!’ and the loud horns that people had stationed outside the building to sound when their friends names were called.

My cousins’ graduation was quite different.  The students were all quiet during the speeches and I did not see a single beach ball.  There were some bubbles, but they were being used by someone in the audience.  I was impressed that someone brought some horns and sounded them a bit, which was something that didn’t happen at my other cousins’ graduations years ago.

The party was fun and the food was good.  The biggest difference between their party and parties where I live was the lack of gnats.  At outdoor graduation parties where I live, pretty much everyone has their hand in the air waving away the gnats the whole time.  There was a noticeable lack of hand waving at my cousins’ graduation.  My family found this kind of funny.  Of course, there was also a lack of little black ’sprinkles’ in the cake.

We arrived home on Saturday night and I went to a friend’s graduation on Sunday.  That one was fun, although it did rain and we had to go inside.  Then, yesterday started my five days of work without a day off.  I worked yesterday, today, and have to work tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday.

Then, a week from today, we are getting our carpet redone upstairs.  This was brought on by my brother’s fish tank leak a couple weeks ago.  So I have to spend Monday and Tuesday moving all my stuff to the basement.  That will be a tedious job.

Other than that, not much new has been going on.  Benny is fine and he helped my mom clean out the refrigerator today.  He cleaned the vegetable drawers.  Sadly there are no pics since I was at work at the time.  Weasley and Moony are good as well.  Weasley will have to spend a couple days in a fish bowl during the carpet project since his tank is in my room.

Oh, and I am pet sitting my neighbors two tortoises for a couple days.  They’re pretty interesting.  I’ll get some pics sometime.  It was pouring rain when I went over today so I didn’t get any pics today.  They live outside.  Their names are Zander and Rocko.

Why Must You Do That, Saab? June 16, 2008

My car stalled on the way to work on Saturday, although I didn’t know that’s what it was doing.  I was driving down a hill and all of a sudden the steering wouldn’t work and neither would the brakes.  It was scary.  There was a curve coming up and I managed to steer it around the curve, but then the check engine light, the warning light, and the change oil lights all came on the dashboard.  The steering was getting worse so I decided to try and pull onto a side street.

I managed to get it onto the side street and pull over, but the brakes weren’t working at all.  I actually remembered that in Driver’s Ed my teacher told us to pull the emergency brake if that happened.  So I tried it and it worked and I stopped the car without crashing into anything.  I was freaking out at that point, but very happy I didn’t crash.

I called my dad and told him what happened and he came to check out the car.  I called work and told them I’d be late.  That was the second time I was late this week.  I thought I didn’t have to work Tuesday, but turns out I did, so I was 45 minutes late that day.  I hadn’t ever really been late before Tuesday and now I’ve been late twice in one week.  I didn’t get in trouble or anything, though.

My dad came and he restarted the car and none of the lights came on.  Of course it worked then.  Nothing appeared to be wrong with it, but I didn’t really want to drive it.  I took my dad’s car to work and he took mine home.  He drove it around a few times and nothing happened.

Turns out, it just stalled and I didn’t know it since it has never happened to me before.  I’m just glad it’s nothing that needs to be repaired.  I took it to work today and it was fine.  It was just scary because nothing like that has ever happened to me before.  I just hope it doesn’t happen again.  Come on, Saab, behave nicely.

What A Mess… June 2, 2008

The other day the air pump in my brother’s fish tank started leaking and completely soaked the carpet surrounding the whole set-up with water.  He tried to dry it out with fans, but it was a lost cause.  After a few days of frantically trying to dry the carpet, he gave up.  My dad told him that they would have to rip up the affected carpet and put tile down instead, in case this ever happened again.  It reminds me of the time our basement flooded and we wound up having to rip out all the wall-to-wall carpeting down there.  It was then replaced with cheap institutional tiling in case it happened again, which of course it hasn’t.

So, yesterday after church, my brother and my dad begun the long task of ripping up the carpet.  First my bro had to transfer his fish to a smaller tank that he set up temporarily in the basement.  This took a couple hours because the fish were not happy about being removed from their home.

My parents were not happy about this incident and my mom said she should have made him keep the fish tank in the basement from the beginning.  Sometime while I was at work she decided that he was going to have to keep the tank down there from now on.  It was also decided that instead of putting tile down where the carpet was ripped up, we would just replace all the carpeting upstairs.  My parents have been talking about doing this for ages, they just haven’t done it yet.  Our upstairs carpet is in horrible shape with numerous stains on it.  There are also a few burn marks on it from when my bro decided to press a hair dryer into my bedroom floor.

New carpeting means my sister will have to clean her room, which hasn’t been done in years.  It has got to be the messiest room I’ve ever seen.  My brother’s is pretty bad too, but not nearly as bad as my sister’s.  I am currently in the process of cleaning the room I share with my youngest sister, so we won’t have a whole lot of cleaning up to do.  We’ll actually have less since I have decided it is unnecessary to vacuum carpet that is just going to be ripped up within a couple weeks.

I am very interested in seeing what the carpet people do with all our stuff.  We have a ton of furniture up there and no place to put it temporarily while the new carpet is going in.  I’m probably going to have to pack up a lot of my stuff or else it will probably get broken.  Weasley is going to have to spend the day or two this takes in a  fish bowl in the basement.  I am really wondering what they are going to do with mine and my sister’s bunk bed, which has never moved from its place in our room.  I’m honestly not sure how it even fit through the door in the first place.

Within the next few years I think our whole house will wind up being replaced.  The people who built it did not do a very good job and as the house is 18 years old, plenty of things need replacing.  Almost 2 years ago, the bathroom in my parents’ room was redone.  A year ago the roof was replaced for the second time since we moved in.  My mom wants the kitchen redone since the cabinets are falling apart, and she wants the carpet in the family room replaced as well.  I personally would like another bedroom so I wouldn’t have to share anymore, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Who Would’ve Thought? May 29, 2008

Yesterday after I dropped my sister and her friend off at dance class my brother and I went to this one shopping plaza that I really don’t like to go to that often because it’s 20 minutes away from my house.  But it’s only 5 or 10 minutes away from my sister’s dance studio, so I thought it would be a good time to go.  I had to get some knitting needles and yarn for the Gryffindor purse I’m knitting and I also wanted to use this coupon I had for PetSmart.  It was a birthday thing for Benny and got him a free toy.

First, we went to A.C. Moore so I could get my needles.  They didn’t have the right color yarn, so we had to go to Wal-Mart.  I really don’t like Wal-Mart.  One because it’s so big, two because the ‘express’ lanes are 20 items or less.  How does 20 items constitute ‘express’?  Where I work, express is 7 items or less.  Third, because they only have 5 or 6 lanes open when there are 32 lanes total.  What’s the point in having that many if they’re never open?  Third, the whole issue about their ethics.  But, whatever, I had to buy yarn and Wal-Mart is the only place around me that sells cheap yarn in Gryffindor colors.  My bro wasn’t too happy since he hates Wally World even more than I do.  We walk in and I bypass the greeter without getting a sticker for my A.C. Moore bag, hehe.  I find my yarn and head over to the registers, where I have to wait an insane amount of time in the ‘express’ lane to buy 2 items.  Then, we hightail it out of there.

Then my brother came up with the crazy idea of looking for fish in the stupid pet store that sells puppies.  I wasn’t too happy about this, but I dragged him to Wal-Mart, so I agree to go.  I hadn’t been in there since PetSmart went in which was a year and a half ago.  I immediately start feeling bad for all the puppies and the other animals they sell since they’re all housed in horrible conditions.  I wander around a bit and come upon the dog food section.  My jaw drops as I see Canidae, Eagle Pack, California Natural, Innova, and a few other high quality foods.  I never thought those were sold at this horrible place!  I would never consider buying them there, but still.

My brother then finds something even more amazing.  He had been looking for a kind of fish called Endler’s Livebearers, which are a variety of guppy.  They’re extremely rare and he looked at every other pet store in the area without success.  It seemed like the only place he would find them was the Internet, but for obvious reasons he really didn’t want to buy fish online.  But in one of the dirty fish tanks at this store, were Endler’s Livebearers, labeled ‘feeder guppies’.  They were tiny, only babies.  And they were only twenty cents.  So he decided to buy five of them and see how they would do.  His guppies keep on dying and there is only one left, a leopard print one named Lucius.  I immediately dubbed these tiny Endlers, Lucius’s Minions.

New Way to Report Power Outages May 26, 2008

We got a postcard in the mail the other day informing us of a new way to report power outages.  You know what it said?  Go to www.nyseg.com to report outages.  Right.  Next time the power’s out at my house, I’ll power up my computer and let them know…

On the same subject, my dad told me that if you go to the NY state website, there’s a button to click that says ‘Request a copy of your Birth or Death Certificate’.  I am not sure if they’ve fixed that yet.

He’ll Take the Chemistry May 23, 2008

My brother wants to take both AP Chemistry and AP Biology next year.  I personally think he’s out of his mind, but he’s good at science so he can probably do it.  However, the classes might take place at the same time.  Since he does not own a Time-Turner, he’ll have to choose.  Up until now he had been very undecided.  On the way home from graduation he told us that he wants to take Chemistry.  Here’s how the conversation went.

Bro-  The AP Bio kids are dissecting a fetal pig tomorrow.

Me-  Ew, that’s disgusting.

Bro-  Yeah, so I think I’ll do the Chemistry.

Ode To Calculus May 22, 2008

Calculus, oh calculus

How clearly I remember the torture you put me through

Over the last semester or two

But now it’s done

I can’t say that it was very much fun

I will not miss you, can’t you see

That I am very happy with my B

Oh, calculus, oh calculus

I am very surprised,

That my final grade was a B minus

Grades are in, and I got a B- in calc.  That’s officially my lowest grade in a college course, lower than chemistry.  But I am perfectly happy with it.  I got an A in history, fitness walking, and human development.  I got an A- in English.  The only grade that isn’t in yet is social problems.

Jail Walk April 10, 2008

I’m taking this class called Fitness Walking to fulfill my gym requirement.  Yesterday she gave us a choice as to where we could walk.  The choices were either walk in one of the neighborhoods near the college or walk up to the jail that’s nearby and back again, lol.  Everyone voted for walking to the jail. LOL.  I had never seen it up close before.  We saw all the cops driving around and they waved at us.

Poisson D’Avril April 1, 2008

Happy April Fool’s Day, everyone! Did you know that in France today is known as Poisson D’Avril? It means April Fish. In France, on April 1st, everyone makes fish out of paper and writes ‘Poisson D’Avril’ on them and then stick them to people’s backs. We did that in French class when I was in high school.

So happy Poisson D’Avril from me, Weasley, and Moony! And stick a fish on someone’s back….

I will get pics of Moony at some point.

For $250,000… March 28, 2008

You can buy the domain name www.clientnine.com  in honor of Eliot Sptizer who was Client Number 9 in his prostitution thing.  It was in the paper this morning.  Someone is selling that domain name for $250,000.  You can also buy the email address clientnine@nyc.com

The crazy thing is, I bet someone will buy it.  Anyone want it?