Another random anecdote . . .
Last night I stepped outside to return a phone call because my cell coverage was being fickle in the house. As I talked with my sister, I felt something alive brush against my leg. It was big, fluffy and gray – one of my landlady’s two beloved house cats.
“Joey! How’d you get out here?”
He rolled over on his back and I stroked his stomach, hoping to keep him close until I got off the phone so that I could get him back into the house.
I slipped the phone into my back pocket and stooped to pick up the furball. He liked being petted – but started to hiss as soon as his four paws left the ground. I tried to hold onto him as I fumbled with the screen door. He hissed more – his mouth open wide – and started to twist around, so I put him down/dropped him. Luckily, he didn’t run off. I made several more attempts to pick him up and get him through the front door, but to no avail. His hissing was really starting to freak me out. I contemplated going inside to find my landlady, but I was afraid the cat would disappear if I took my eyes off of him. I stood on the front porch, trying to decide what to do next.
At that point, a car drove up in front of the house. My roommate’s friend was dropping her off. She later told me the conversation inside the car. It went something like this:
Friend: Is that your new roommate?
Roomie: Yes. But I’m not sure why she’s standing out there.
(I bend down to pet the cat)
Roomie: And I’m really not sure what she’s doing in the rose bushes. Weird. She must have some reason.
My roommate got out of the car and approached me.
“Hey” I greeted her sheepishly. I knew I probably looked a bit odd, so I was quick to explain myself.
“I was outside talking on the phone and I felt this cat brush against my leg. I had no idea he got out! Do you know any tricks to get him to come back inside? He keeps hissing when I try to pick him up.”
Roomie: “Umm . . . you do know that’s not our cat, right?”
With that, we both burst out laughing. I had mistaken a stray cat (no wonder he was such a vicious hisser!) for Joey. I guess I’m lucky he was playing hard to get. I don’t think my landlady’s cats would have taken too kindly to me inviting in the hissing imposter -- although it would have made for a more exciting story . . .

Back from the weekend with a few new "skills"

So . . . I finally took the 2 minutes needed to figure out how to upload pictures on this thing. Here's a few shots from my weekend.
Photos:
Top - me taking my first shot (under the coaching of Sarah's brother). Check out that form!
2nd: on the dock
3rd: on the train tracks down the bank from Sarah's house
Last: Sarah's parent's cool almost-100-years-old house (with Jill in the foreground)


I drove up to Spokane on Saturday to see friends (Jody, my former roommate, was visiting from Colorado, so I wanted to see her). We had a blast hanging out at Sarah's apartment (which I called home during April and May) catching up with each other's lives, watching "Fun w/Dick & Jane," eating tacos, etc. Later we went for a walk and learned how to smoke cigars - I don't really know the story behind it, but Jill and Jody had some promise involving smoking cigars together - so we fulfilled it. You know, kind of like a "peace pipe." Anyhow, I don't think it's a habit any of us will be picking up. Even if it did taste good (I'd much rather have a Slurpee, thanks) - the mouth cancer and reeking of cigar smoke would far outweight the positives.

We returned to Sarah's apartment and couldn't figure out why we kept finding crickets jumping around on the carpet. (Sarah just got a pet lizard, "Duh Dragon," but it had been several days since she had fed him crickets). The next morning (at church), we were informed that the crickets were actually placed by humans - repercussions from a saran-wrapped car prank the girls had performed the night before I came. Maturity was running rampant this weekend, as you can see.

After church, we (me, Jody, Jill, Sarah & 3 of her siblings) all packed into Jody's borrowed "soccer mom" van and took the two hour drive to Sarah's parent's house out in the boonies (they were beautiful boonies, though, as the pictures above prove). We spent the rest of the day eating a wonderful steak lunch, getting to know Sarah's fun family (she has 6 siblings), wading in the lake and learning to shoot (from Sarah's brothers). We got back into Spokane around 8:30 and I said my goodbyes and hopped in the car for my three hour drive "home." I wasn't super rested when my alarm went off this morning, but it was worth it. Good times.

P.S.

Hey Jody - if you're reading this: Spell check wants me to change "Jody's" to "god's." Hmmm.

I wrote this last week, but then never got online to post it. (I don't have Internet at my house - yet.)

Life as I know it now

Just in case you were wondering . . . my living situation (I’m renting a room from an older woman) has been pleasant so far. I have a well-furnished bedroom (complete with a microwave and dorm fridge) in the lower part of her split-level home. Another girl (a college student) lives in the room next to me and we share the downstairs bathroom. My landlady is an easy-going, talkative cat-lover (she has 2) who teaches piano lessons and has been renting rooms to college students for the past 15 years. (I also learned tonight that she likes to eat green beans straight from the can.) My downstairs mate is from Minnesota and is studying environmental science. She has a pet ground squirrel in a cage in her room that she found as a baby and raised. Another random interesting fact: she was struck by lightning on a camping trip. Last night she had a couple friends over and I watched the last half of a movie with them. Afterward, they educated me a bit on 7th Day Adventism. For example, have you ever heard of a meal called haystacks? Neither had I, but according to these guys all 7th Day Adventists are familiar with them. Also, I gave away the fact that I’m not 7th Day right off the bat by pronouncing it “AdvenTIST” instead of “ADventist.” Enlightening. (They were nice about it, though.) Oooh - and get this - they go to an Adventist college and the entire cafeteria is vegetarian. You can't buy meat anywhere on campus.

As for the town, I really like it here, aside from the fact that I don’t know anyone (yet). The weather hasn’t gotten too hot yet and the trees and fields are still green, so it’s actually a very pretty setting. The town is fun to walk around with lots of old buildings with interesting architecture. The newsroom staff is a lot of fun – they like to joke around and it’s a pretty relaxed setting (but we do get work done). They’re also very friendly and welcoming to “the intern.” In fact, people in general seem pretty friendly. You can’t go into Starbucks without ending up in a conversation with somebody, whether it’s the barista wanting to know the score of the Mavericks/Heat game (I kept him posted from my laptop) or some random person who is shopping for a computer and asks you questions about yours. In fact, I even got a free frappachino out of the barista.

I have a lot I'd like to post about. . . but Starbucks is closing, so it will have to wait.

Walmart: Because I know where the excitement is at
So my stop at the Walmart Supercenter on Monday night for a toothbrush and a short list of other items turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. First of all, that place is enormous and it takes forever to find things. After about an hour of hunting, I finally had everything I needed and proceeded to the checkout line. I had just piled all of my items onto the checkout belt when lights began flashing and my ears were assaulted with shrieking beeps. “You’re lucky – you’re the last one out of here,” the cashier said to the shopper in front of me who had just finished his transaction and was headed for the door with a cart full of goods.

"Fire alarm! Everyone must evacuate!"

Fortunately, the weather outside was pleasant. It was getting late and I was exhausted and dying for my bed, but I wasn’t about to leave all the items that I’d spent so much time tracking down. So, I decided to wait it out in the parking lot. Soon, the firetrucks arrived and firemen in full gear headed into the store. A young mom in a similar plight as myself struck up a conversation with me and we kept each other company until the firemen cleared the store and allowed us back in.

I found my way back to my checkout line and the cashier (who reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite) began ringing up my purchases. Unfortunately, he was rather new to the job and made a few errors along the way . . . slowing the process. Finally, he totaled my bill and I handed him a gift card to pay. No luck. He had to call a manager over to help him. It was nearly midnight by the time I got out of the store. I'm pretty sure it was the most drawn-out Walmart excursion EVER. Oh well - at least I got to brush my teeth with a real toothbrush that night.

Hats off to whoever invented toothbrushes
So, I started my internship today. I didn't know when I was supposed to show up at the office until the editor returned my call around 11 p.m. last night saying that I should come at 8 a.m. I've avoided 8 a.m. classes like the plague, so this was kind of a rude awakening - welcome to the real world! In fact, I'd have to be going to bed just about now if I were going to get 8 hours of sleep tonight. Instead, I'm sitting in a Starbucks enjoying high-speed wireless Internet and the fact that my evenings are now homework-free. (I walked into the office at 7:55 this morning and was actually wide awake, believe it or not.)
Anyhow, the internship is off to a good start - all the reporters and editors seem nice and fun to work with. Today was kind of a paperwork/training/touring/drug testing day, so I didn't really get to do anything super journalistic - but I did get assigned my own desk, so that was exciting (before I've always had to share with copy editors or sports writers).
Well, I'm going to cut this post short because I really need to get to the store. I realized last night around 10:30 (after I'd already made a trip to the grocery store) that I had forgotten my toothbrush, so I've made do with dental floss, gum, mint lip balm and toothpaste on my finger. It's just not the same. A toothbrush is sounding really good right now.