Opening a Can…

Tonight my dad and I went to Keegan’s, had some fun and sucked at trivia, along with Uncle Ben and a newby who called himself Randy. There was much drinking, socializing, and yelling at Marty for daring to tell us our short-bus answers were wrong. Something was missing, though…what was it?

Oh, yeah!

Kevin! Afraid to show your face, were you? After all the: “this is what happens when you skip Keegan’s” crap that you tried to pull? I’m there more often than you are! Uncle Ben felt some wrath, but of course he blamed it on you.

“Kevin started it!”

Well, in the famous words of Manny the Wooly Mammoth,:

“I don’t care who started it, I’m gonna finish it!”

‘Nuff said.

New Year’s started fine … and went downhill

So. My New Year’s Eve was rather uneventful. Just out to eat with my family and my friend Casii, coming home to Dance-Dance ‘til we dropped, watch Uptown Girls and the Ball drop (at eleven), and making my dad nervous with talk of going out to find someone to kiss at midnight. Oh, and several games of Spit (if you don’t know what this is, you are really missing out).

It was New Year’s Day that got me, and now I am oh-so-sore!

I am starting to get more interested in snow/ice related sports, so Sunday my mother, sister and I went cross-country skiing for the first time. ooOOoo, big whoop, right? WRONG! The first thing is actually getting the skis on, which I did really without incident. Actually, I am quite proud to say I didn’t fall down at all… until we somehow wandered off the beginner trail onto what I’m sure was, like, Devil’s Canyon or something. I seriously had no idea how to turn while going downhill, resulting in some amazing acrobatics (and, dare I say, contortionism?) that would have been great footage for some sick show like America’s Funniest Home Videos, but there was nobody taping me. In fact, there was nobody around at all. I had left my sister, who was being helped along by my mother, far behind.

I wasn’t scared. Mostly I was just annoyed with the layout of the trail. Seriously, why would anyone plant a thorn bush there? Get that stupid tree out of my way! I am relieved to say that I made it back to the visitors center alive and in one piece.

Anyway, I had a blast, it was beautiful outside, and I did really well until we started sky-diving off snowy cliffs into sharp thorn-infested forests…

Yeah, so I’m pretty sure that I’m going again next weekend, but this time I’m bringing Casii so as to have some emotional support. Hopefully I’ll be able to walk normally by then, too.

Peace out, homeys.

My first Meme ever!

I saw this on the EckerNet (who got it from Kathy the Cake Eater) and couldn’t resist.

The Average American?
The Average American meets a number of criteria. Let’s see how I measure up.

Eats peanut butter at least once a week.
Heck no! Peanut butter is nasty!

Prefers smooth peanut butter over chunky.
Ok, if I have to eat peanut butter, it has to be chunky. I’m serious.

Can name all Three Stooges
Moe, Curly, and … that other one.

Lives within a 20-minute drive of a Wal-Mart.
Question: Does anyone not live within twenty minutes of a Walmart?

Eats at McDonald’s at least once a year.
Only if the alternative is starvation. Have you seen “Supersize Me”?

Takes a shower for approximately 10.4 minutes a day.
No comment.

Never sings in the shower.
I think that this question is wrong. It should be:
Never admits to singing in the shower.

Lives in a house, not an apartment or condominium. Has a home valued between $100,000 and $300,000
Yes, and no, respectively.

Has fired a gun.
Ooooohh, yeah.

Is between 5 feet and 6 feet tall.
Duh

Weighs 135 to 205.
Not even soaking wet, with my gun, in my boot.

Is between the ages of 18 and 53.
Haha!! Just shy.

Believes gambling is an acceptable entertainment option.
Actually, I think it’s really lame, though I do play poker with Starburst wrappers.

Grew up within 50 miles of current home.
Not grown up yet, but more mature than many!

So, I guess I am the very un-average American.
That’s fine with me. I’ve always known I was different.

Some game

Note: The following blog is a teensy bit late, due to the author being unavoidably detained by her various endeavors. If you are reading this, please pretend that it is Friday. Thank You!

I just learned something new about myself Wednesday. I like hockey. A lot.

Wednesday night I went to my very first Wild game. It was so exciting! You can just feel all the adrenaline pulsing in that ginormous place. It is sooo much more interesting than golf. You get to scream for your team when they score a goal, and you get to scream at the other team no matter what they do! And if that wasn’t enough to scream about, Bertuzzi was playing on the opposing team which got everyone even more riled up!

It was an awesome game. 6-zip? Oh, yeah, we beat their butts into the ice. And Bouchard’s penalty shot? Cloutier didn’t even see it coming. Sieve! Sieve! Sieve! What a way to kill their confidence! I wish that it could’ve lasted.

Let’s see… Wednesday’s game, I was there, and they won. Tonight, I wasn’t there, and they lost.

Am I the only one who sees a pattern here?

Anyway, I can’t wait to be able to go again. Screaming is way fun!

Shock and awful

I go to school in Hastings, where there has recently been much talk about the murders of a couple: Peter and Patricia Niedere. Initially, I was a little curious; I mean, c’mon. It’s Hastings for crying out loud!

So, I knew that a couple was murdered by their son and one of his friends.

This morning when I came downstairs for breakfast, my dad slides the Strib over to me and asks me if I know that they arrested another kid involved with the murder; which in itself was strange because he didn’t know that I knew anything about it.

So I looked. The headline said “3rd teen is held in Hastings slayings”; and there were the pictures of three teenage boys.

The third face was familiar.

Oh, yeah, I recognized it. It was a face of a boy I had gone to kindergarten and 1st grade with. I checked the name to be sure. Jamie Patton? Yup. I practically had a fit on my dad, who was still a little skeptical. *sigh*. Okay. Turn the page. Skim through it a little ways. Here we go, the proof I was looking for: “…attended Calvin Christian School…” The school I went to in said grades. Oh. My. God.

How would it feel to wake up one morning to find that a little boy that you had ridden to school with, played games with, went to Dairy Queen with, that you haven’t heard from ever since you switched schools — is involved in a murder conspiracy? It would feel like a little piece of your world had just crumbled and hit the ground. Sheol! The year our school had Noah and the Ark as the school play, he and I were the two zebras together!! We were pretty close, especially considering that boys have cooties!

I know I’m not very closely connected at all, but at one time, he was a part of my life. I kinda wish I could’ve talked to him before this whole situation ever took place, if only just to find out what he’d been doing with his life before he basically chucked it out the window. I guess I’m a little confused but no one’s going to give me an explanation. Not that I really need one, money was involved, after all. Would he even remember me?

Today I dug out my sheet of kindergarten pictures, and there’s his picture, right next to mine.

Murderer? You wouldn’t think so.

Did you have a good Labor Day weekend?

So, how was your Labor Day weekend? You might say, “Oh it was a blast, we got together with family and ate some food.” Or, as I have heard since the holiday, “We stayed in and let everyone else get drunk.”

Oh! Ummm…ok. I’m glad you had a good time.

Anyway, I’m betting that most of your weekends weren’t nearly as interesting as mine. It started off as a normal enough trip to Oklahoma, and ended in a fight for survival!

Ok, ok. It was more of a “hunker down and pray that we don’t get hit by any stray bullets for survival” kind of thing.

Yeah, I said bullets!

Stray ones!

You see, my dear grandmumsy lives in one of the most … interesting … neighborhoods in Tulsa and sometimes the good folks down there just get their dander up. Here’s the dilly-o:

Sunday night, about 11:30, I heard gunshots. First there were five or six, then there was a lull, and then there were three more. Well, the third one hit something. I was up off the floor (actually, I was on an air mattress) and looking out the window just as fast as you can say “Sweet Onion Chutney!” I couldn’t really see anything, so I went to the room where my mother and sister were sleeping. They informed me that the bullet had come through their window. Yeah. We turned on the light and looked around, and found that the bullet had not only gone through the window, but had also gone through a wall on the other side of which was the bathroom. The bullet then ricocheted off the opposite wall in the bathroom and finally came to rest beside the toilet.

We called the police (obviously), and they sent someone over. The policeman asked us several questions, one of which was, “So, are you ready to pack up and move down here?” You’ve got to be kidding me. Anyway, a detective was on the way, but he was taking so long that I told the officer to call him and have him pick up some donuts for us, as by this time it was morning, and we might as well have some breakfast. He laughed at me. Hey, no harm in trying. While we were waiting for the detective, I did my nails. He was taking forever! Once, he got there, though, the rest went pretty fast, he took some pictures, bagged the bullet, and left.

On his way out, the officer told us what had happened:

Two girls were trying to break into a car at the apartment kind of across the way from us. One of them sliced her hand on the broken window, and the other went over to a man who always sits on a chair outside his apartment, and she started “chippin’ her teeth at him,” as the officer said. Well, he just ups and pulls out his pistol and starts shooting at nothing in particular. I guess he just wanted to scare them; hence the window-busting bullet. What makes me really mad is his total disregard to one of the most important commandments of gun safety:

Always know your target and what lies beyond it – especially if it’s me!

So, yeah! My Labor Day weekend was a blast, too!

Update:

The Mall Diva is my teen-aged daughter, making her blogging debut. She knows the rules of gun safety, having earned her DNR Firearm Safety Certificate five years ago.
– Night Writer