Schoolwork

It's been awhile since I've updated. Mainly that's because I've actually been a good student and focused on homework instead of blogging.

Now, I don't want to do homework, so I'm updating my blog.

Sorry, no pictures this blog. Just words. I have a writing class this semester, and I've really enjoyed some of my own work. So I'm posting it in my blog.

This is a satire I had to write for class. If this one offends you, then good, you need to be offended. The people being mocked in this are horrible parents. Sorry.

Happy reading. (I have a much more controversial one, but I'm only going to post one at a time. In case people get angry with me.)

College the Second Time Around

Ronald J. Daniels, President

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore Maryland

Mr. Daniels,

I am writing to ask for an extension of the recently passed deadline for application to your medical school. Unfortunately many things have happened of late, and my son was unable to complete the application process in time. Dudley has been very busy with all of the things that college students are expected to do, and I never received a letter from your school warning me that the deadline was near.

College is so much more difficult now than it was back when we were kids. Back in my day, I spent so much time worrying about grades and schedules that I never had time for any fun. Fortunately, my boy, Dudley, is a much better student than I ever was. Somehow he always finds a way to be responsible and have fun, too. He seems to know exactly how to get things taken care of.

In fact, I just recently returned from campus because a teacher tried to give my dear sweet Dudley a bad grade. Can you believe that? The nerve of his teacher. Naturally I did the only thing any responsible parent would do. I went directly to the college president. He tried to convince me that the teacher and Dudley should decide what how to resolve the situation. What kind of school is this anyway? How do they expect my sweet little boy to do all that homework when he has a job and everything? They didn’t even send a note home to me. I can’t believe they expect Dudley to do well when they don’t even keep me up to date on his assignments. To make matters worse, he got a parking ticket that very same week.

How can they expect Dudley to read all those silly signs posted all over the parking lot? He knows he needs to concentrate on his driving, especially since the police tried to blame him for that accident just because he was texting. Of course, this meant another trip to campus for me. Dudley ’s not going to pay 20 dollars for something that couldn’t possibly be his fault. Besides, he doesn’t have the money, not since all those friends came to his dorm and asked him to spend the money I gave him for food on that silly party. Luckily, the Dean of Students and I have gotten to be such close friends, he convinced those awful ladies at the cashiers office that Dudley shouldn’t have to pay for the ticket now that he was going to buy a parking pass. Do you know how expensive those things are?

College isn’t cheap. That’s why I told Dudley it was time for him to get a job. I can’t do everything for him, you know? I went with him to every interview. It took some time for us to find the right place for Dudley, but after getting to know the store director, Dudley was hired at a local grocery store. Imagine my surprise when I went to have a visit with the store director about Dudley’s promotion and he told me Dudley was to be fired. He had only missed work once, and that was because he was going to the homecoming dance and they didn’t give him the night off. If they wanted him to work, they should have asked him if he had plans.

Apparently Dudley was outside gathering the shopping carts when he spotted some friends at the convenience store next door. Of course he has to go say hello, after all he’s very popular, and besides he was getting quite hungry. Well, his manager must have been spying on him, because he showed up out of nowhere and got mad at Dudley for taking a small little break. He tried to fire him on the spot. Luckily I was already on my way to the store.

Don’t worry the store director and I just finished talking to Dudley ’s manager. He understands Dudley a little better now, so we shouldn’t have any more of these problems. I was also able to get that unreasonable teacher to find a way for Dudley to get the grade he deserves. As you can see, I’ve been really busy lately. It seems a little silly for me to have to do all this work, but, as you know, they expect college students to work really hard these days. So if you could please accept Dudley ’s application, I’m sure you will find that we are the perfect fit for your program.

Thank you,

Mrs. Bumpkins

P.S. Since it is obvious that we will be seeing a lot of each other, could you please send me a letter when houses become available for purchase in your area? Of course, Dudley will be living on campus, but I just couldn’t handle being so far away, where he wouldn’t be able to help take care of me.

The White Trash Derby!

Disclaimer: I may make fun of white trash, but I wouldn't do it if I didn't speak from the voice of experience. I do not mean to offend anyone with this post. I have actually lived in a trailer people, I know what I'm talking about. Although, I'm not from the South, so I guess I'm not an expert.

As a part of my birthday, Elisha and I embraced our inner white trash and went to the demolition derby at the county fair. It's a lot harder embracing this hidden aspect of our personalities now that we have a child. Although, I guess if we really wanted to, we could have taken our 3 month old with us. He wouldn't have been the youngest member of the audience.

Don't get me wrong, I love the derby. There aren't too many things better than watching a whole bunch of guys intentionally wreck cars just to win a couple hundred dollars.

But sometimes the better parts of the show are the other members of the crowd. Elisha and I were treated to a little extra this year as some faithful fans were escorted away from the stadium. You see, they started a wristband system this year, and apparently, it doesn't work to slice your wristband down the middle to make two.


To add to the event this year, I had the opportunity to try my very first deep-fried Twinkie. Awesome! I loved it. Although, it was so rich, I almost fell into a sugar coma on the spot. Next time I'm going for the deep-fried P, B & J.

I'm Old Enough to Drive...Twice!

Thanks to everyone for my birthday wishes. I had a wonderful birthday, and as has become tradition with me, I've managed to spread it across multiple days.

The fun things we've done for my birthday:

• Going out to dinner with friends.
• A movie date, just us.
• Going to another friends for dinner and games.
• A baseball game.
• The demolition derby!

The bad part about my birthday was the realization of my age. I really don't feel old, and I'm cool with my age. In fact, I feel younger than I am because everybody I know that is my age has kids in school, and the people we know who are just starting their families are in their early twenties, so I feel like I'm closer in age to the second group.

Back to feeling bad: Two days before my birthday the nice girl at the bank reminded me that my license was about to expire. I could have just renewed by mail, but I wanted a new picture because I'm 75 lbs. lighter and generally in a better mood. (Refer to the before and afters.)

When I get to the driver's license place, I'm doing the paper work, and I realize that I'm twice as old as I was the first time I did this! I am actually old enough that I could have been born when I got my license and I would be able to get it again.

Other than this, not a bad birthday.

Some gifts:

• The Bourne trilogy.
• A gorilla pod. (From Harrison.)
• The board game Curses.
  
• Very nice photo collages of me and my baby.
• A wonderful scrapbook that Elisha put together after finding old high school photos. It's beautiful, and I know she worked so hard on it.

Again, thanks to everyone.

I'm a Birthday Beggar

It's true! I absolutely love my birthday. I don't care how old I get, as long as I get more birthdays. Because I love my birthday so much, I make sure everybody knows that my birthday is coming. However, once the big day hits, I always like to see who actually remembers, so I don't say anything on the actual day.

Guess what? My birthday is coming up. This Saturday, August 8th. I'm so excited. We haven't made any real plans yet, but they're coming soon.

Since my birthday hasn't happened yet this year, and I want something to blog about, I will blog about my last birthday.

I don't know if you've noticed, but my birthday happens to be on the best day of the year. Well, I think so, but that's because my favorite number is 8. So last year, not only was my birthday on the 8th day of the 8th month, it was also in the 8th year. Awesome!


So in honor of the number, we let 8's rule the day. First, we decided to go out to eat, so to choose the restaurant, I looked in the phone book for the restaurant with the most 8's in the phone number. (No fast food or delivery, otherwise it would have been Domino's.) There was a 5 way tie, but Winger's beat them out because they also had two 8's in the address.


Before dinner I went to Target and bought a Magic 8 Ball. I had to choose between a High School Musical one, or a Hannah Montana one. Apparently, Disney has a monopoly on the Magic 8 Ball industry. You probably guessed that I chose High School Musical, but I went with Hannah instead.


The rest of the day the 8 ball made all my decisions for me. We didn't have a lot of friends available to get together with us, but my 9 year-old cousin, John, was spending the weekend with us, so that influenced our decisions. First I asked the 8 ball if we should go play mini-golf. It said:

I've got nerve & I say no
(You may need to click on the pictures to read them better.)

So mini-golf was out. Next I asked if we should do the bumper boats. Same answer. John was getting pretty sad. Finally when I asked about laser tag, we got the answer we were looking for:

As I see it, Yes

After we were done, John convinced me to ask it again about the boats. The 8 ball said yes to everything else we asked that day. So I guess we really didn't leave things to chance, we just let it decide the order of events.

I guess I'm one of "Those" people

I can't believe, less than two months have passed, and I've already become one of "those" people.

What people, you ask?

The kind of person who takes a baby to a movie!

There's no need to curse me, I've already done that myself.

Seriously, who takes an infant to a movie?

Okay, I apologize if you have done such a thing. Don't be offended, because now I'm one of you.

Let me explain:

When Elisha and I moved to St. George, we assumed that there were no babysitters in the whole community. We saw babies everywhere, and as newlyweds, of course the first thing that came to mind was: "Why don't these people get a babysitter?"

We saw babies at movies, no matter the time of day. We saw babies at live productions, even though the program said no children under 7. We even saw a baby and a toddler at a live production of Sweeney Todd. I had nightmares after that one, I can only imagine the poor children!

Don't get me wrong. Elisha loves babies, and I love, well, Harrison. So, we don't mind seeing them. There are just certain times that babies should be left home, and watching a play wherein people have their throats cut every five minutes is one of those times.

So, with such strong feelings, how did I become one of "those" people?

Well, I have a baby, and I wanted to go see a movie. It's really that simple.

Elisha was planning to go to SLC without me for the weekend, and we decided it would be nice to go out and have fun before she left. So we packed up the baby, went to Shroomies* for an awesome burger, and then we went to see The Proposal. We went to the five o'clock show, on a Wednesday, hoping the audience would be small. Especially since the movie has been out for awhile.

Overall, it was a successful operation. We only had to take him out into the hall once, and it wasn't because he was making too much noise, he just needed to be changed. We fed him, and he didn't even offer his usual protest screams when we burped him. Although, he did burp loud enough for the whole theatre to hear. He wasn't absolutely silent the whole time, but I figured his quick little squeaks weren't any worse than the cell phone that rang-multiple times!

I'm not sure we'll take him back anytime soon. We both decided it would be easier just to plan ahead and find a babysitter, but if we do we have some rules:

• No movies after 6.
• No action or really loud movies.
• No Saturday movies.

That way I still can feel like I'm not exactly one of "those" people.

*Some people feel like restaurants are another place where small children shouldn't be seen. This depends on the restaurant. If you have to dress up, and then get financing to cover the cost, then maybe you should leave the kid at home. Otherwise, I've actually always thought it is really cute when the kid at the next table pokes his head over just to say "Hi."

The Power of Language

This post comes with a potpourri of inspiration. I guess the main flashback idea comes from Jessica. However, the reason and content is a combination of my own recent post on our other blog, and a bit of annoyance for Kathy.

One of Kathy's pet peeves, and one for most English majors, is the misconception that we are all absolutely perfect spellers and grammarians. I am nowhere near perfect. Especially in grammar. I am a very good speller, but, really I'm just picky, so I make sure to spell check everything.

There are all kinds of English majors out there. Unfortunately that includes the really annoying ones that like to fix your grammar all the time. But there are also people like Kathy and I, people who like to read and to write, people who understand the power of language.

So today I would like to share a memory with you from around the time I was 19 or 20. A flashback you could say. One that involves part of Harrison's name (you knew I'd bring it back).

A long time ago, long before I had a desire to be an English teacher or even to attend college, I decided I really liked the name August, and that I wanted to use it for my child some day.

I shared this information with a friend of my mother's who had a newborn son named Joey. (Not Joseph or Joe, but Joey) When she heard that I wanted to name my son August, she scoffed:

"August? What kind of name is that? That's ridiculous."

I was devastated. I thought it was the coolest name ever, and here this woman was mocking me.

So how did I respond? Did I correct her grammar? No. That's not what people who understand the power of language do.

I grabbed a dictionary.

I asked her, "So, you think August is a silly name?"

"The word August means 'marked by majestic dignity or grandeur.' That doesn't seem silly at all."

I continued, "Do you know what Joey means? A joey is a baby kangaroo."


"Who do you think is cooler? One who has been marked by majestic grandeur or a baby kangaroo?"

She didn't talk to me for awhile after that.

Language is power, and that is why I'm an English major.

I was Robbed!

Elisha, Harrison, and I just returned from another trip to Salt Lake. This was the trip that included attending Good Things Utah.

Elisha and I left Harrison with my mom and headed for the studio. We were (I was) pretty excited. (She tolerates my weird obsession.) While we waited we picked up my free DVD copy of Princess Protection Program.

When we were seated the first thing either of us noticed was how small the set is. The big table that they sit at rolls across the stage to allow room for the other set-ups.

Right before the show begins an intern informs us that after the show we will have the opportunity to take photos with the girls. "Oh, wait, I guess it's just Angie today."

What!

Angie?

Angie's nice enough, but no Reagan? No Marti? I already knew Nicea wouldn't be there.

Just Angie?

Reagan (left) and Nicea (right) are the reasons I started watching the show in the first place!

Additionally, Elisha and I both were pretty sad that they didn't share the food from the cooking segment with the audience. There was more than enough food.

It took awhile but I finally got over my disappointment, and once I did we had a really good time.

The audience was really small which guaranteed our appearance on T.V. We were both seen at the first break for commercial when they pan across the audience. I was also featured at the end when they wish a happy birthday to members in the audience. I was sitting in front of one and behind the other.

After the show was over we went to have our picture taken with the hosts. (Barb Smith and some guy who hosts Homes Today were guest hosts.)


Angie is actually very nice. She interacts really well with the audience. I was also pleased when she noted that I was the "token male" in the audience. That means she noticed me!

Even though, I was sad that our favorites weren't there. I'm also kinda happy, because now I have a reason to convince Elisha to go with me again.