Yeah, Bluebird Ranch!!

Nothing like putting your entire life on a sub-zero semi and watching it head north...

So as Mike, the awesome truck driver, his wife and I were loading all my stuff on to the back of the trailer, two guys pulled up in an 8 foot uhaul and started unloading. They looked at each other, looked at their truck, looked at MY truck, and you could just see them puffing up and trying to compensate. After a couple trips, one of them said to me in awe, "is that ALL your stuff?"

"Yes," I said solemnly, "I have a LOT of clothes."

I have a lot of STUFF.

So my shit is all in boxes, awaiting the frozen juice truck, which should be here tomorrow. I packed from 10 am till 10 pm. I stirred up so much dust I just started sneezing constantly. The little dog was afraid of all the packing, and every time I sneezed, he ran away and hid. It was pretty funny.

Packing SUCKS. I'm not doing it ever again.

It's time for small treasures

This was the quote on my gingerbread latte cup yesterday. It made me smile. That's what I love about the holiday season - everything is a small treasure.


So I have to move all my stuff (well, my bed and all my books, really) back up to my parent's house until I get accepted into one grad program or another. So, how to do this? Better yet, how to do this in a way I can actually afford? Well, as I am a good, resourceful New Englander, not in the traditional UHaul way.

It turns out, in a bizarre twist on Bob Marley's "You need help? I'll get my brother's truck" bit, it so happens that my dad knows someone who knows someone who has a truck coming down to Jacksonville to pick up juice to haul to Canada. For a few bucks extra, he will come on down to Orlando, pick up my books, and drop them off at the end of the East Side road on his way by.

My dad, while letting me in on the good news, "You don't have anything that can't be frozen, do you?"

Let's just go over this one more time. Next week, I am putting all my worldly possessions on a truck full of orange juice concentrate, driven by a guy from Jonesboro, Maine, and sending them on their merry way north. Excellent.

fun with board games

I'm procrastinating again...I think I have hit the end-of-the-semester wall. I just DON'T want to do the work. Ugh. So I was thinking, and I remembered this time my cousins and I were playing Cranium at camp. We were all in teams of two, and my partner Ashlee and I were in the lead. Then we landed on an 'art' space where she had to sculpt the answer out of clay, and I had to guess what it was. So she makes this little round head with eyes, mouth, and a really long nose. I think about it REALLY hard for a few seconds, and then I shout out, "TINTIN!"

All my cousins start laughing uproariously, and only my brother manages to stop guffawing long enough to say, "Dude, it's Pinocchio, but you ROCK for guessing Tintin!"

Long live Captain Haddock.

Go Blue!

Last night, I discovered a wonderful thing. I can listen to UMaine hockey on the internet! Live from the Alfond! And the best part? The Hammond Lumber ads in between periods. Yes-ah, deah.

Handsome, bread-eater.


So we go out to pick up some essentials - the midweek grocery shopping. Bread, milk, oj, etc. We leave the little dog in the truck while popping into another store on our way home. Unloading groceries, we notice there is no bread. "Dammit, I bet I paid for it and left it at the grocery store." says Dan. "But I'll go check the truck just in case."

Five minutes later, he come back, a mangled bread bag in hand. "Found this in the back seat..."

The dog ate the ENTIRE loaf of bread while we were in the second store. It was a good truck ride for the little dog.

He is currently sleeping it off behind the couch.

Christmas in November

"By the way, did I miss Thanksgiving?"

-Alli, after hearing the fifth Christmas song in a row at the mall today. Word.

Purple people eaters

Ok, this map may postpone my emigration to Canada. I actually went to the immigration website last week and took a quiz. It turns out I am a highly skilled worker. Which is nice, but the terminology sounds straight out of the gulag.

It's Johnny Damon Day!

And not only in my head, either! The City of Orlando has proclaimed November 11, 2004 as Johnny Damon Day - and had a ceremony at City Hall to celebrate! So, I put on my Red Sox hat and slogged through the rain to be there, and let me tell ya, it was worth it! *Sigh, Johnny! The mayor, who appeared very...ummm...disneyfied... introduced him, and then Johnny rambled a few minutes about how great the fans are and how he's proud to be from Orlando, and yeah, go Sox! He was really very cute in that gee, uhhh, I'm a baseball player, not a public speaker kind of way. Unfortunately, there were too many pushy people there for me to get my hat signed, but as I was waiting, Johnny made eye contact with me and smiled. So, hey! My day is complete!

Also, I am happy to report that the holiday season is upon us I got a Gingerbread Latte today from Starbucks. One forgets this far south that it is NOVEMBER!

And finally, I changed the formatting on this thing - I was getting really sick of the pink. Blue is better. :)

I miss hockey

It's not fair - I get ESPN for the first time in three years, and the NHL is in a lockout. I can't even watch college hockey because...well, I'm in Florida. As far as I can tell, nobody has a solution. Goodbye hockey season.

Or, we could always listen to Guy Lafleur, eh?

What if...

So I opened a bottle of blueberry wine instead of the Guinness, and started thinking about Angela's thought of grad school in Ireland. And I went on the Behavior Analysis website. Just, you know...to see about accredited international programs. Oh, look, they have two in Ireland.

Oh, LOOK, one is a Trinity, and one at UCC. I may be drunk, but I think this just became a viable option.

The day after

I woke up this morning with the most terrible feeling. It wasn't the suspicion that Bush had won the election - I pretty much figured that last night when I went to bed - no, it was this momentary flash of "wouldn't it be nice?"

"Wouldn't it be nice if the leader of our country were not a joke in most parts of the world? Wouldn't it be nice if he spoke a language other than hick? Wouldn't it be nice if he spoke with any sort of eloquence at all? Wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to spend the next four years worried about what was happening domestically while we continue our wars overseas? Wouldn't it be nice if I had even a little bit of faith in him? Wouldn't it be nice if Kerry were president?"

And the whole time I was thinking this, I KNEW that it was only wishful thinking. That it couldn't happen. I'm not angry today, just really, really sad. I'm glad that my vote counted in Florida, but sad that it didn't count enough. I'm also ashamed and a little frightened of some of the referendums this state just passed. I mean, who ARE these people that vote for this stuff? And they have the majority! The sooner my liberal ass gets back to New England the better.

So now what? Dana says that all was not complete crap in the last four years - he gained a niece and nephew. That made my day, because it is true. Life will go on - I'm allowing myself this one day of moping and sadness and then I'm getting on with it. Besides, I have developed some great coping skills over the past four years. For instance, I have found it advantageous to watch the BBC world news for my information, so as to cut my Bush sightings to the bare minimum. As a bonus, I am surprisingly well informed about what is actually happening beyond the US bubble.

On the other hand, Angela has a great idea about fleeing to Ireland for grad school. As I have been sitting here for the past half our, listening to Altan and craving a Guinness so bad I am actually considering going out and getting a shoddy pint from - wait for it - Paddy O'Brien's (gag), this sounds like a very worthwhile option.

Most of all, I guess I have come to the conclusion that it is time to put on my big girl panties and deal. I mean, didn't I know all along that the Red Sox and a democrat couldn't win in the same year?