another day, another jarbling

jessica is chatting with her friend and husband online and asking about their trip in china:

jessica: "did you guys ride around on those ricochets?"
her friend's husband: "AHAHAHAHAHA!"
jessica: "what's so funny?"
HFH: "you are! it's not called a ricochet!"
jessica: "then what is it called?"
HFH: "i'm not telling you. wait till i tell jane about this!"

so then jessica asks me what those things are called, where you ride around in a cart and a person is pulling you... i tell her it's called a "rickshaw" and she asks me how it's spelled. then she says, "so then what's a ricochet?" "it's when things bounce off stuff."

rescuer of the geeks: part II and other stories

so a few weeks back, i rescued a stranded jeff. his motorcycle battery died somewhere in santa monica. last week, his car was stolen and then subsequently recovered by LAPD. it was being held for investigation/fingerprinting until yesterday. i was called upon for my access to AAA (from the time that my transmission died after a volleyball game in north seattle and my whole team stayed with me to wait for the tow truck) to help jeff tow the remains of his car back to his apartment. after the impound released his car, this is what we saw:


most of it was gone! they took just about everything they could from the car, including his crockpot that he'd just gotten back from mj! the first thing the tow guy said when he saw us was, "DA-AMN!" it was hilarious. fortunately, he was pretty knowledgeable about cars and his assessment says the car was probably stripped down in a warehouse where they had the time to take car to unplug and strip the car in the nicest way possible. i'm not sure if jeff found that very comforting.






they took the back bumper, which means they also took his "real men love Jesus" license plate holder. they were kind enough to leave the "Jesus" fish though.

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so, i'm 98% done with my thesis. i turned it all in, and i'm just waiting on the second reader to provide tell me if i passed. my primary thesis reader e-mailed me this week with the following comments:


i'm so relieved! it feels wonderful to be *this* close to being done with grad school. it's about 2.5 weeks from graduation and only 22 more school days until i'm done with year 1! summer vacation is SOOOOOOOO close.

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jessica e-mailed me earlier to tell me that there was a problem with her bridesmaid dresses and how she had to look for new ones and here's the excerpt:

"The reason why this email is entitled "boooo" is cuz I finally heard back from the bridesmaid dress shop in downtown and they lady told me that due to a manufacturing problem they are not able to get the dresses I ordered in the sizes I need by my wedding date. Argh, I guess it's back to the sketching board for me."

that part in bold italics is the latest jarbling.

jarbling alert!

instead of packing, jessica wanted to quiz me about some stuff. in the midst of her line of questioning, she said i was making things seem a bigger deal than it was...

jessica: "you're adding flames to the fire."

now, i knew we had another jarbling, but i could not think of the real idiom. i had to wait for susan to get home. we had to tell jessica that it was "adding fuel to the fire."

seriously...where will i get jarblings once she's married?

freedom!

after spending all of today working on my thesis...i am 96% done. the other 4% will be completed after my thesis readers make their final edits/comments and it goes to the binding stage. so after spending almost 10+ hours sitting in my apartment, i had to go and do something fun. i finally got to see hot fuzz. it's been so long since i've seen or read anything british that i almost forgot why i love british humor. from the makers of shaun of the dead comes this fantastically wacky spoof on the whole cop movie/action genre. loved it. love those crazy brits.

must listen to:

• amy winehouse
• the soundtrack to wicked
• jon mclaughlin
• ray lamontagne

must see:

• wicked the musical
• hot fuzz

must read:

• i'll let you know...now that my thesis is basically done, i can read for fun again!

must do:

• open up my sewing machine!
• and go to magic mountain...or some other amusement park equivalent
• graduate in 4 weeks
• finish up my first year of teaching in 6 weeks - so looking forward to this
• go home for a little bit
  

photo update!

it has been awhile since i've posted any photos and updated about what i've been up to... my thesis has taken up a lot of time...otherwise, i'm just too darn tired to update. but, here it is...


april was all about birthdays. minjue celebrated by fulfilling a childhood dream of going to chuck e. cheese. here she is trying her hand at skeeball. i'd like to mention that right before she started playing, she declared that she was super goodat it. she threw balls that flew every which way. you be the judge. :)

in all fairness, it was discovered that she'd only played one time before she made her declaration.


so there were tons of games to play for tickets. here is kay after winning a bunch of tickets... she how happy she is?


and here she is again with a bigger pile of winning tickets...she literally hit the jackpot on a game! i think she ended up trading for lipgloss for her and bekah along with some other stuff, like stickers or something...lucky kids.



so the big mouse came over to take a photo with birthday minjue. i don't think i've ever seen a more awkward birthday photo that this one with minjue and chuck e. cheese. i think she was super creeped out. but she did get one memorable birthday out of it!

i finally got to see wicked a few weeks back. it is my absolute favorite musical. i loved the book, but i have equal love for the musical. i went with tim, jessica, and tim's friend and his date. i want to go and see it again. i've been listening to the soundtrack non-stop ever since.



somewhere along the line, i also became a rescuer of stranded geeks. here is a geek with a motorcycle in need of a jump-start. sadly, even with a jump, the bike only made it as far as the end of the block. it had to be left behind, but the battery got a ride home to be charged.


i had brunch with minjue and her visiting friend dorothy. we made homemade ice cream sandwiches with mj's birthday present from williams-sonoma. the sandwiches were delicious and super fun to make with the brownie like cookie part and mint chocolate chip in the middle!


after brunch, we all carpooled to drop dorothy off at the airport and then make it to san gabriel to see sam in the king and i. on the way to LAX, minjue bought some cherries from a lady on venice. in giving the woman a $20 bill, she was only supposed to get $15 in change. she accidentally got the full $20 in small bills and the bag of cherries. she accidentally "stole" the fruit. we had to turn around and have stacy run back with the $5 so the lady wouldn't think she got ripped off.


and finally, i went to my first sporting event in LA - a dodgers game. one of the teachers at school organized a staff outing and it was super fun. we sat in the section with unlimited food - dodger dogs, nachos, soda, popcorn, peanuts...it was awesome. i could only stomach 2 dodger dogs and 2 orders of nachos, with some popcorn and soda, but one of the other girls ate 4 dodger dogs...plus everything else. during the game, we made enough of a ruckus that andre ethier waved his glove at us. afterwards, it was fireworks night, so they let us all onto the field. so very cool.

and that's the end of the update.

security only comes with chains

jessica bought a wii and she said she was going to leave it in san diego so they don't have to move it around so much while they are in transition before their august wedding...

jessica: "until then, i'm keeping it under lock and chain."

of course, tim told her it was "under lock and key" and she doesn't think it works. a chain is more secure, and if it's lock and key, the key is with it, so anyone could open the lock!

i love the rationale.