Thursday, June 14, 2007

We have a piper down. I repeat, a piper down.

We have a bag pipe playing neighbor. I love it! He/She lives in the apartments behind us, and we're separated by a little wood, so it was a funny experience opening my bedroom window and hearing bag pipes that I couldn't see. I sat down by my window and listened to the music and the birds calling to each other, and smiled. I was sitting at my loom (I love that my loom is now by a window with a great view), and I started thinking about old, dying-out art forms. Something about the setting and the music made me very contemplative and relaxed. It was nice.

Jessica and I are all moved into our apartment now. We're getting settled--last night we finally found enough shelf space for all our books (at least, I hope it was all of them!), and slowly the apartment is becoming home. I hope our bag piper friend plays again tonight.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Adventures in Snorkeling

My aunt and uncle have been living in Costa Rica with two of their daughters for the last little while, but since they only have two months before they return to the States, they decided to go adventuring in the surrounding countries -- because apparently, Costa Rica wasn't enough of an adventure. ;) Below is an excerpt from an update my uncle posted on our family website; it was just too hilarious not to share it, so I hope he doesn't mind. They have been spending the last few days in Belize, and one of their adventures was a snorkeling trip that included this run in with some manatees.

"We swam around for another half hour. People started getting tired and climbing into the boat. I came up to the boat trying to decide if I was done or not. Just then, the guide pointed out and said he thought he saw four more manatees surfacing in the distance. I was the only one close by, so I swam out by myself to see. Sure enough, there were four of them playing together. After a bit, one of them pealed off and swam up to me. She was about 5 feet down and 10 feet away. She just sat there staring at me. I wondered if she was waiting for me to give the secret password. I tried to mimic her behavior, but obviously I did it wrong because she spun around and went back to frolic with the others. I was not included. Soon, I noticed a very large male looking piece starting to appear near the rear quarters of one. So manatees are just like horses, donkees and fifteen year old boys. I thought. They have no control over when the self test runs. How embarassing. Then I thought, I sure hope this isn't mating season. As if to confirm my suspicion, just then another one came swimming up from behind and stopped right under neath stud man. Oh gees, I didn't want to watch this. But the female took off as if to say "just kidding". Good for you girl, I thought. Then in a completely unexpected turn of events, this guy's huge male thing suddenly detached and started floating away. "Dude, you might want to get that checked. I don't think that is supposed to happen" I thought.

But suddenly it dawned on me: 1) it was not a huge male thing, it was a huge manatee turd and 2) it was heading right for me. I don't know if you have ever tried to swim away from something in water. It creates a back suction and pulls the thing right at you. At this point, the jaws theme started playing in my head. I was swimming frantically backwards and this huge green thing kept coming closer and closer, filling up the entire view screen of my snorkel mask. "Scotty I need more power!". At the last second, I did a kind of rolling vertical move and threw off the heat seaking sensor on this thing and it floated by harmlessly. About then 3 other snorklers showed up and the manatees headed out. That was fine with me. I had had all the up close and personal I needed with these fellows."

Hilarious!! He had me laughing so hard -- well, on the inside at least, because I was at work when I read his post.

On other matters, I know I promised pictures from our Les Mis night, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I spent the weekend at my cousin's graduation and moving into the apartment, but I will post them! As for the apartment, it's going, but slowly. We still have to figure out how to move all our furniture, but we have been taking car-loads of boxes, and I have high hopes for getting everything done this week. Then, I will also post pictures of the apartment.

Until then,

MAD

p.s. I apologize to any of my family members who already read the manatee post on the family website -- on second, thought I don't apologize. It was funny enough for a second read! Hehehe!

Friday, June 1, 2007

Quick Update

Well, Jessica and I signed our lease today--so it's official! We'll probably start moving in tomorrow afternoon, so yeah!

Tonight we go with the whole family to see Les Mis, and I'm really excited about it. I didn't find a dress, but I did find some stuff to spruce up an old dress I have, so I'll look awesome! ;) hehehe. I'll post pictures here tonight or tomorrow. You're gonna want to see the shoes I got!

And on that little cliff hanger, I'll leave you now and get back to work!