Coconut cake, three pies, and cookies.

I love being a doctor's kid.

Lalalalaaaaa. The mere fact that I'm posting post midnight should enlighten most of you as to my mental state.

...so I think I'll just hit the stack without spewing a random list of comments that I'll doubtless regret tomorrow. :P

Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.


I waitressed a family today. That alone would not be unusual, but this happened to be the same family whose order I REALLY botched two weeks ago. To the cook, who was looking at my ticket very very very carefully, I said it was a chance for redemption. Yep, he was there two weeks ago, too.




...yes, I messed it up again. One of the hamburgers had mayonnaise on it and wasn't supposed to. And, uh, two were supposed to be kid burgers and weren't. Buuuuut, it was not nearly as bad as last time. About which I will not provide any further details.

Is any one absolutely sick of hearing about the diner yet? XD

On Wednesday, October 15th, 2008, the horror commonly known as the PSAT was demolished in a mighty battle from 8:00 to 11:00 central in Louisiana. Approximately two hours later, its demonic twin suffered the same fate in California. (Feel free to add more siblings.)

Everyone else was wearing a school uniform. Boy, did I feel like the elephant in the room. But it's over and it's done and I don't have to worry about scores for several months. wheeee!!!

I hate the PSAT, and yes, also with a passion unbecoming in young ladies.

That is all.

I got smoked by a six year old in a simplified form of basketball today (6-1). No, I'm not kidding.

But he traveled a ton, AND I had one eye on the other kids.



...yeah, right. I think I'm going to go get supper now and ice my ego.

Okay, I'm exhausted. And I have come to the conclusion that Some People are just Obnoxious.

Let the Person in Question go unnamed. Actually, I don't know her name, but that's irrelevant. Shall it suffice to say that she sent the "burnt" french fries back once and her hamburger back three times (of course she ate about half a free burger in the process). At this point both the cook and the manager were uttering utterly unprintable words under their breaths. I just...smiled and carried the stuff back and forth.

On the bright side, I didn't severely mess up any orders today. Because I actually know where *most* of the stuff is on the tab, and I don't put x's where checks belong anymore. :P

To close out this most uplifting post, I present you with a photograph of the lovely Aspen herself.

Annnnnnd now everyone knows what Sky looks like. No, Jenny, you may not comment on my hands. And yes, that is "The Box", although you can't see it very well.

Some delightful lady brought six or seven pies last week. I had just finished polishing off the last one today, and now we miraculously have five more pies. Lemon chess, pecan, and chocolate. Mmmm.

Okay. I finally understand why waitresses can mess up your order. It's HARD. Especially when you have 5 or 6 people, who all want either hamburgers or cheeseburgers, but some want it on wheat, others want to hold the pickle and tomato, and don't forget the honey mustard on the side...and you have to remember which goes with which...

Yeah, I really botched a few orders. Like, the other waitress had to go out and retake it because the tab I had marked (WHICH little box is for grilled onions??) was positively indecipherable. But luckily everyone was very tolerant of me. Although one gentlemen was a bit displeased that I didn't get his extra mayonnaise to him fast enough. Oh, and I forgot to bring a few people their drinks. Sorry, they ordered two!

On the bright side, I get as much rootbeer as I want and the tips are awesome. Providing I do everything right, of course. The cook and the waitress were both amazing--they dug me out of the pit of confusion on multiple occasions.

Oh, and did I mention that Sky jumped 4 ft yesterday??? :D

*coughs* I completely forgot to mention my beautiful new orthodontic appliance. I got it this morning. It's cemented to my teeth and I'm still learning how to talk with it. Whine whine whinnnnnnne.

Barn=bright light at the end of the tunnel today. Aspen was a pill. But she was a sound pill! So if she can kick up her heels like that and not hurt herself, well, time to bump the exercise regime up. And Sky has finally resigned himself to me. Poor guy.

I spent the last hour and a half working on a Prokofiev piece that I HAVE to play Monday (begged my way out of it this week). About 5 measures out of the whole thing make sense to me musically. It's a fairly simple piece...but I don't get it. It's 10:30 at night and I still have to read 2 Greek plays and write up a few good, thoughtful questions about them before tomorrow morning.

I think I'm going to go get some icecream and put coffee over it. Sugar AND caffeine.

How DARE the PSAT have ALGEBRA.

When I'm finished sulking, I'll brag on Sky. He was amazing today. No refusals, even with Mr. Richard's new torture device. And we have some AWESOME video of him jumping about 4'6 over the poor little 3'0 box. At least I hear it's awesome. I haven't gotten to watch it yet. :P

*coughs*

And did I mention that I'm done with Algebra foreverandeverandeverandever? XD

I'm not even going to bother summarizing today. There were so many ups and downs that I'd wear out the keyboard. But I'll provide a couple of the funnier vignettes.

On Wheatley in Amlit:

LauraR: I think this hawks back to Shaw and the "My Fair Lady" controversy. At some point, when you hand a piece to the public, they can make of it what they will.
Dr McM: Hawks, Laura?
Dr McM: "Harks", perhaps? Or "hearkens"?

At the Diner:

"Um...you asked for a knife?" (To people who hadn't been served yet.)

On the bright side, I can now make a malt, a shake, a float, and a phosphate. In theory. I mean, the guy showed me how. I'll doubtless scare away the first few customers I serve with grotesque renditions of the desired drink, though. Oh, and don't ask what a phosphate is if you don't know. It's disgusting.

I'll start not this Saturday but the next. Eeeeee.

I survived yesterday. There must be 20-30 3-k kids in the choir.

According to teh Dad, this is "good for me." :P

On the BRIGHT side, looks like I might get a part time job (i.e., a Saturday afternoon here and there) at a diner near here. As long as I don't spill food on someone Wednesday. Wish me luck.

Geaux Tigers.

That is all. ^.^

I'm having one of those mid-highschool crises. You know, the "AHHH I CAN'T TAKE SIX MORE YEARS OF THIS!"

Don't worry, I'll get over it. My classes all rock, except for math, of course. :P

Maybe this is just because I'm up late and my icecream is all gone, but Ike sure doesn't look like it's going where it's supposed to go. What hurricane turns that sharp?

http://wunder.com/tropical/tracking/at200809_windprob64.html#a_topad

And I have to admit, those are some awesome looking images. Especially the satellite one (make sure you click "animate" if you look at it). It's really pretty creepy, to just be sitting here watching it snake up through the Gulf. >.>

Annnnnd I just discovered that I printed out half that paper on...stickers. You know, the white labels you stick on containers before they go in the freezer. No wonder it was so thick.

If anyone wants an accurate count, there were 75 pages of paper, and 31 were stickers. With 30 stickers per page. Which means I've got, um, 930 of them.

So now I'm reading about the colonization of Plymouth on stickers. How quaint.

Air conditioning feels really nice.

I'm currently sitting in my dad's office at work--I used their internet to attend class. Plus I printed out everything I need for school next week, since we probably won't get electricity for another 7-9 days. Yeah, I got some weird looks, carrying about 80 pages of paper. They'll probably put the printer under lock and key the next time I come.

I'll be leaving soon. Back to my 85 degree room. Which actually isn't nearly as bad as it sounds.

Quote of the day for yesterday: "Laura, close your curtains. They'll shield you from the flying glass."

Yes, yes, yes, I'm still alive and kicking on this glorious morning. And enjoying the internet. So far Mr. Gustav is looking pretty pitiful...some wind and drizzling rain. But the real storm probably won't hit until early afternoon. At least it never made a cat. 4.

I have the camera close at hand, and I'm hoping to get some awesome pictures during--if I can get near a window--and after. I already went around the yard (after we spent hours getting everything up) and took the "before" pictures. :P

Gustav. C'mon, who names a hurricane Gustav?! If it knocks out the internet and I miss my class Tuesday, I'll be upset.

But seriously, I'm worried. Governor Jindal is doing a great job in storm prep. But he can't control the hurricane. We're pretty safe--probably the worst that will happen is a power outage--but if it blossoms into a monster over the Gulf and smacks New Orleans again, I don't think the levees will hold. Hang onto your hats, ladies and gents.

Sky hasn't figured out how Jen has shrunk several inches yet. Which means he eyeballed me like I was going to eat him for the first twenty minutes. If I dropped something by accident, he'd probably have had a heart attack.

"Omigosh what's THAT?!!! Will it HURT?121!?!!?1?" (repeat as necessary for most grooming articles and tack, with appropriate quivering)

Aspen was quietly amused. And possibly jealous, but with her you can never tell until you're seeing stars.

I survived.

The party, at least. Which was a lot of fun.



But apparently you don't have right of way turning left unless it's a green *arrow*. Thank goodness for the dad who was panicking in the passenger side. Yeah, he was the one who would have gotten broadsided. I don't think he's going to let me drive at night again for a while. Apparently I had the highbeams on, too. Oops?

I did manage to stop inside the white line, for what it's worth. Without injury to life or possessions. It was just uncomfortably close. ^_^

It was a most unusual day...

I had a really great day today.

Marvelous, in fact.

~This morning started out with a job offer sitting in my email inbox. Huh? Well of COURSE I accepted. It's just helping out an hour and a half per week with kids' choir at church, but still!

~Also in my inbox a bit later, there arrived an email from someone else asking if I wanted to play a piano prelude for as many as 3 church services Sunday. Yep, I said I'd do all three. (spazz! I probably would have paid them for permission...)

~I banged around on the piano all morning. In between checking my inbox, of course.

~I had a great piano lesson. To elaborate, someone called me up Monday and asked me if I wanted to play background music for a party Saturday evening, and I accepted gleefully. But it was looking pretty grim a few days ago, since I hadn't played the vast majority of these pieces in four months. But with a lot of mental sweat and the eat-sleep-horse-piano mode, things have mostly ironed out. I played everything straight through in the lesson today, and aside from mentally losing it every now and then, and thus skipping chunks of music, it was a lot of fun. If I can just get the memory to stick, everything will be great. >.>

~We're having pizza for supper.

~I just learned that Vinny (pony) is very tentatively going to have a new home with kids soon, which is great news. Hopefully details and confirmation will be forthcoming soon.



...I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm going to need a bomb shelter or something after all this. XD

Just joking!

So, Jenny gave James a book with about a billion prank jokes in it the day before she left. And it's not your typical prank joke book, either. These are brilliantly ingenious and often disgusting. This morning he went around like a walking whoopee cushion, let's not say how. He also made two chickens out of towels and hung them in the laundry room like it was a butcher shop, with a sign that said "Eat More Chikin" (the latter his own addition). Plus he shoved a pencil up his nose and sneezed his brains out.

Sigh.

On the bright side, Mama granted James complete rights to showcase any of these stunts when Jen brings a BF over. Hurry up and find a cute one, sister dear.

And now Anna is asking me for dental floss for another prank. I don't want to know. I think I'm going to go hibernate or something.

Late night ramble...

Well, Jenny was off to college yesterday, looking all bright and perky. We have the promise of a family friend that the freshman adviser will root her out of the dorm if she tries to closet herself away. But apparently they had an icecream social this afternoon. Even she can't resist that. Yeah, I'm jealous, because someone here ate all the icecream (hmm, I wonder who?) Plus I don't have anyone to bicker with. Anyone who's seen a couple of mares will have a good mental image of us. But there are some silver linings. For example, the bathroom is now MINE. And no more enormous messes on MY side of the sink. Anyone who has an older sister will understand what I mean. (Sorry, Jen, but you know I could have made that a lot worse...;-) )

Life is plugging along here. I can't believe I'm on my last week of complete freedom--and I have a book report to write, so I guess it's not. Although I'm slightly looking forwards to shredding the literary qualities of Uncle Tom's Cabin, while of course paying homage to its historical meaning.

On the media field: watched an AMAZING movie last night. Steel Magnolias. It's so sad, and so hilarious at the same time. There are quite a few characters with foul mouths, and, ahem, some things that were not in good taste, but the acting was just incredible. Don't flinch when you hear Dolly Parton is in it, like I did. She does a wonderful job with her character. Top flight rates for acting and screen writing.

Can't think of a stunning way to wrap this post up. I'm tired. Don't let the bed bugs bite, y'all.

Gasp.

Did Laura actually get a blog?! I guess I must be getting older and more responsible. *attempts to look angelic*

Anyway, greetings to one and all. I can't promise to post here regularly, but I'll try to make them gems when I do. Fat chance. And while I hope anyone reading this blog already knows who I am and where I live, please don't indicate anything on here, or it might disappear into the oblivion. <--Rule #1.

And yes, to any of you bright Latin students who already noticed, the blog is titled after Catullus' poem 70. wh00t.




-L