Choose wisely, my friend

At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I have to tell you a story. The other night RL and I went over to our friends-that-are-now-our-neighbors' house on a Friday night for a little campfire action. We had a few beers (I had my wine) and started a cornhole tournament. Well, RL and I were doing pretty well, and managed to make it to the final round against the formidable duo (the party hosts who we always lose to by just a smidge).

For some reason, someone decided that before the final round could begin we should do a little shot of tequila. There were a good number of us there, so the kitchen's entire shot glass collection all came out for the event. There were tall ones and short ones, shiny ones and dull ones.

As we gathered round the ole tequila to choose our shots, it dawned on me that this choice was like finding the Holy Grail. You know, like in Indiana Jones when he only has one chance to find Jesus' cup or his face would melt off? Sometimes I make these connections in my head and I'm not sure if anyone else if going to be on the same page as me. But I risked it.

Me: Choose wisely everyone. Think about what Jesus would drink out of.
Partygoer: You mean WWJDOO?

Hilarity ensues. Yes, WWJDOO. It's just funny thinking about Jesus standing around at a party drinking tequila out of a carefully chosen shot glass.

In other alcohol-related funnies, I flew Southwest to Chicago last weekend. The feisty flight attendant was taking our drink orders and the woman two seats down from me asked me what kind of red wine they had.
"Red," he said.
"Is it like a Cabernet?" she said.
"Um, it's red," he said.
"But is it--"
"It's red!" he snaps.
"Okay," says the passenger, resigning herself to drinking whatever the heck this guy was going to put in front of her.

This is Southwest people. Don't expect any frills.

Join me, on my high horse

It's Thursday, let's talk about what's wrong with the world.

Rant #1: the people at wendy's in laramie don't care that i'm a vegetarian

It's true, they don't. Maybe I went a little overboard with my reaction to the poor cashier, but seriously? The fact that Wendy's has all of these nice salads, but they are all prepackaged with MEAT in them, is what's wrong with America. Did you notice that we're all fat (except for Britney, see below)? Did you notice that we treat animals horribly? Did you notice that there is absolutely nowhere in Laramie to go on a Sunday night to get a quick bite to eat that's not going to make you feel disgusting?

Sometimes I'm ok with agreeing to the fact that you're just not going to find a lot of vegetarian-friendly places in a small town in Wyoming. Sometimes I feel like saying, why the hell not? Evidence is coming out that our meat-consumption habits are doing more to harm the environment than driving our SUVs. I know people get nervous when we talk about something so close to home, but it's time to start really thinking about this.

Rant #2: people think Britney is fat

She may be kind of dumb, and sad, because capitalism/the promise of love and attention lured her into being nothing but an object. But please, folks, she is not fat. I know this conversation has been happening all over the place--"give her a break, she just had two kids" is the one I've been hearing a lot. I appreciate that people are pointing this out, but even if she didn't just have kids, SHE WOULD STILL NOT BE FAT. She's a perfectly normal sized person who just hasn't been able to keep up with her totally-unfeasible-in-the-real-world four-hour-a-day workouts.

The problem is that up until this point, Britney has existed only for our consumption, and we are angry at her that she is no longer the perfect little hot schoolgirl we wanted her to stay forever. What's even sadder is that the teenage girls who are carefully observing our behavior as a nation are internalizing our treatment of a woman like Britney.

This means that at 16 most girls are way over-sexualized*, that they will do a lot more to get the attention of boys, that ultimately they will place more importance on being attractive than being smart. What happened to the women's movement? Our rampant comsumerism is eclipsing our desire for equal rights. At some point, this is going to come back to haunt us.

Maybe I'm just speaking from my naive standpoint, since my teenage years were pretty well sheltered. If any girl in my high school came to school dressed like the girls are now, we would immediately think she was "troubled". Of course, that was almost 15 years ago, and I guess times do change. And I, apparently, get older.

What do you think?

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*A side anecdote: I was in JC Penney in Amarillo, TX a few years ago when I overheard a few 50s-ish women browsing the junior's section. "Look at how short this skirt is!" I heard one of them say. "It's no wonder they all get pregnant--they just bend over and oops! there you go."

It's like we were in National Geographic or something

Yeah, yeah, it's been awhile, but I've been busy. Last weekend I was busy attending wedding #3 of the summer (only one more to go!) in beautiful Jackson, Wyoming.

The highlights of the trip:

1) Staying in a fantabulous condo at Snow King resort (discounted courtesy of the bride and groom's connections). The master bathroom suite was bigger than our whole upstairs. And filled with Wyoming cowboy goodness.

2) RL's debut as "reverend" for the new couple. (He's already booked for several next year. What's the deal?)

3) Last but not least, an amazing float trip down the Snake River, at the foot of the Tetons. I was promised wildlife, but nothing like this. Within the first hour of the trip we looked over to the forest on the side of the river to see a herd of at least 100 bison tromping through the woods. We were all in shock, until, 10 minutes later, we see the bison actually crossing the water in front of us! We all got a little nervous when it looked like we were on a collision course for the guys just heading into the water. Everyone in my boat paddled quickly to make sure we didn't accidentally run into one of their horns (and end up in the water with them), and made it within 10 feet of them. A woman on our boat got these amazing pictures as we were passing them.








I have never before seen bison in the wild, and to come this close felt pretty surreal. We followed it up by an incredible bald eagle siting, and then a peek at a moose just hanging out in the woods (doubtless trying to not be seen).

Thank you, Wyoming!

Tuesday: Tripping to School

My friend gave me some feedback on my blog and told me she liked the self-deprecating nature of it. In the spirit of that, here's a little more self-deprecation. It's amazing how easy it comes when you're kind of a klutz.

So today I was feeling sort of rushed as I left the house to get to my 9:30am class (so early). I managed to get on the right bus to get to class on time, but didn't manage to get there very gracefully. I got off the bus and was happily walking down the street, coffee in hand, when all of the sudden the sidewalk jumped in front of me and I nearly went down (to be fair, the sidewalks on that part of campus are notoriously frost-heaved*. Everyone knows it).

I don't know what I was looking at, but one of my classmates was about three feet in front of me, so when I almost went down, I nearly took her out. She's all walking down the street, totally not tripping, when all of the sudden she hears "Ack!" from behind her and turns to see me nearly crashing into her.

Some nice older ladies who were just passing stopped to make sure I was ok, and I of course tried to play it cool, but there was just no going back with the classmate. I tried to start a normal conversation as we walked to class, but I think she thought I was a little weird. To make matters worse, I totally cut my toe up on the stupid sidewalk. By the time I got to class it was bleeding and gross.

Ah yes, tripping during my second week of grad school. Reminds me of the time I tripped down the stairs on my first day of high school (true story! In a brand new school and everything). Here's to me learning how to walk better.


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*Meaning buckled, sticking up, whatever you want to call it. Thanks to RL for the whole "frost-heaved" descriptor though. He's very technical when it comes to cold weather problems.