Kate the Great's Merry Adventures In Iowa!
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Kate the Great" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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01:31 pm
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More treats from garfieldminusgarfield.net
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01:26 pm
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08:11 am
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Garfield Minus Garfield
http://www.garfieldminusgarfield.net -- Garfield comics with Garfield erased. :-D
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02:32 pm
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Haha.
Ben's dad's gf: I think I'll surprise you [with the paint color]. You said I could do whatever I want.
Ben's dad: I need to stop drinking.
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06:30 pm
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4th of July
FYI everyone -- DON'T try to sign up for an LJ "plus" account. I've gotten at least FIVE telemarketing calls in the last two days, and I keep my phone off most of the time! Definitely downgraded again.
Saturday afternoon Ben came and took me to his mom's house. We ran a little later than he'd planned (though to be fair he didn't announce his arrival until he was just a couple towns over) because my mom wanted to finish a BEAUTIFUL red dress. Literally everyone who's seen it has complimented it -- Ben, his sister, his mom, his dad, Joy, a flight attendant (she had me twirl to model it for her, even), the cashier at Costco....
That afternoon we went to the Chicago Botanic Gardens, which was lovely, of course! (I saw a bride there. :)) In the evening we had this amazing dinner, and angel food cake from scratch with chocolate ganacsh(?) and raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries galore! WOWZA. Those types of berries at my house are very rare indeed. Very rare indeed. But I love them so much!
His mom, sister, and I went to the fireworks that night in Buffalo Grove -- for the lose, Buffalo Grove! The fireworks were 58 minutes late without any explanation. People actually applauded when a neighboring unseen grand finale was heard going off. We just sat and watched golf carts wandering over the field, apparently looking for something. Rachel wanted to leave, I quietly wanted to as well, but Ben's mom has this intense fixation about watching fireworks on the 4th of July -- never the 3rd.
There were some cool fireworks when they finally got around to it -- like gold rings with smiley faces or hearts inside them. But the show was only 20 minutes, which I know is pretty normal, but my parents have always put up a major fuss if they bothered to take the kids to the fireworks and it was only twenty minutes. I expect 45 minutes to an hour. Carol Stream, Illinois, represent!
After going to bed late and not sleeping much then, we got up at 5am(!) so Ben's mum couuld drive us to Midway airport (the farther one from their house). We took a Southwest flight from there to Portland -- 4 hours in the air, 4.5 hours altogether. They gave us all the airplane peanuts and Nabisco snack foods we could want! And I learned how to do Sudoku effectively. Teehee. :)
Then Ben's dad picked us up -- noting that I was wearing my gorgeous dress and Ben was wearing dress pants and all, and Ben's dad was wearing like camoflage shorts and no shoes. Heehee. Then he drove us three hours east to Bend, Oregon, where Joy (Ben's dad's (permanent) girlfriend) just moved! That's where I am now and more exciting updates will surely follow. :)
Love y'all,
Kate the Great
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05:18 pm
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A deaf musical? Really?
12:45am Thursday night, I was still up playing cards with my mom when we heard the outside door open.
...Creepy...
And then a gentle but incessant knocking on the door.
I got up and let my brother inside.
His car's alternator had died. He had friends nearby to jump-start his car, at which point he gunned it until his battery died again, and they repeated the process until he got to our house.
Hahahahaha.
So he slept on an air mattress on our living room floor. He almost got to meet Ben on Friday, then, but he and my dad had gone to an auto parts store when Ben came to pick me up at noon to go see a play that night. (He came at noon to avoid rush hour... I forgot that rush hour (i.e., Park On The Highways Time) arrives at like 1pm on Fridays in the Chicago area.)
When Ben came in for a glass of water, he asked me:
-Want to go out for Chinese?
-Sure! (I said)
-With my mom?
-Haha, sure. :)
So we met his mom at a Chinese restaurant (where they were known by name) up nearer to his house.
Then we just chilled at their house for the afternoon. He practiced piano; I took a lot of notes from one of the textbooks I'll be using for student teaching. His sister and her boyfriend came in from his house in eastern Michigan as well.
And I met Ben's mom's boyfriend's seven-year-old son Evan. He was a lot of fun. Really hyper. His dad and Ben told me to discipline him as needed, but honestly I preferred to play with him and egg the kid on. I chased him upstairs and tickled him, and I told him to sneak up behind Ben while he was practicing piano and give him a noogie -- that led to about ten minutes of him sneaking toward him off the couch, then turning and running back and making "I'm so dead!!" motions and laughing.
And he's a good kid. Hyper, but very good. I could stop playing on a whim and he accepted it without making any sort of fuss.
We went to a youth deaf performing arts company's production of the musical Grease.
A deaf musical? Really??
As we were about to leave, Ben's sister's bf laughed at me and joined me in standing in front of the mirror and pointing at ourselves like "Aww yeah I am hot stuff." Heehee. :) (What else would I do while I'm waiting?)
When we sat down at the place, in a very small theatre space (with only five rows), I first teased Ben for sitting next to a picture of Marilyn Monroe and then he asked me if I know who Marlee Matlin is. "No," I said. "Don't tell anyone here about that." Hee, she's their big exciting alum. It was a lot of fun waiting for the show to start. A lot of fun.
What they did to make a deaf musical was they had the actors do their lines with sign language, with speaking people reading their lines offstage for the benefit of the random people like me who aren't fluent in ASL. For the musical numbers, they played songs from the movie and had the actors lip sync (approximately) and sign their lines while doing really great dancing. For one track, the music even skipped a lot, but they managed to find their place! It was really cool.
In the middle, they had a long intermission with a lot of treats. :) It was very nice.
At the end we all crowded into Ben's mom's car while Rachel stayed behind reuiniting with her friends (she was in that program before college) with her bf. I threatened to tickle Evan, all strapped in to his booster seat. Then we played secret agents back at the house, until he asked, "What are you doing?" and I said "Getting ready for bed," and he said, "Oh, okay," and went off quietly. Great kid.
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07:48 pm
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Irish gangstas.
Ben (or someone in his household) got this hat in Ireland. I couldn't think of any way to react except to put it on and take pictures of myself when nobody was looking. I'm wearing it sideways so I can be an Irish gangsta.
( Kate is hott! )
Hmm I also like that my hair looks reddish in this picture. I've always wanted to be a redhead.
Look also at my t-shirt -- the Beatles playing with alligators. *nods with approval*
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11:00 pm
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Today's Twittering
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11:00 pm
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Today's Twittering
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03:18 pm
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Weekend.
I don't think I ever mentioned what Ben got me from Ireland:
1) He got me a really soft, lovely, deep blue scarf, with "Dingle, Kerry, Ireland" right on the tag. His reasoning: 1) I love dark blue, 2) I hate being cold, 3) I love soft things. This gift was all three. He even took it out and wrapped around me and admired us. ("Us" being me and the scarf.)
2) He got me a one-cent Euro coin that had been soaked (or something) in holy water blessed by the Pope. Heeheehee. :D
( Beautiful weekend in Michigan. )
One night, also, we watched a really really good DVD called The Gods Aren't Angry. I recommend that. (Ben and his dad watched it later because they were up past their bedtime, haha. I prodded Ben just enough to deter his snoring... couldn't wake him up, even after it was over.)
Monday morning we relaxed with some Starbucks coffee on Joy's balcony, overlooking the river.
Everyone there that weekend said how much they'll miss that house... except Joy. Haha. :) I guess it's her opinion that matters most?
Oh, and guess what -- surprise! They paid me $100 cash for my "help"!
One more note -- I decided to learn cued speech. Rachel's boyfriend was talking to me and tried to cue to me as he talked, apparently under the mistaken assumption that I know how to read those signs.
I've been thinking about learning it ever since I learned about it, and then recently I learned it only takes like 10 hours to get down. It's like... why don't more people who know Ben's sister just learn it? Joy hasn't even learned it.
Am I just an overly learning-oriented person? I suspect so but whatever it's a good way to be!
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12:00 am
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Today's Twittering
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06:50 pm
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Fairly irrelevant blabbering.
It's actually pretty nice that I can be offline for four days and have no new personal emails.
Ooh, the commencement addresses from my graduation ceremony now have transcripts online.
I spent a couple hours this morning reading through my old Quoteslists. It was a riot. (If you want to find them, go back to my calendar starting in around August 1, 2004 -- near the start of almost every month for a couple years you'll see the new list announced in the subject line listings. Some are longer or funnier than others, but in general they're all pretty funny overall, actually.)
In my read-throughs, I found this exchange with my 2nd youth group leader (from June '06). It sums up her lovable personality as a youth group leader pretty well:
Allison: Are you still going out with Brandon?
Me: ...It's complicated.
Allison: So you're not going out?
Me: Yes.
Allison: But you still like him?
Me: Yes.
Allison: And he still likes you?
Me: Yes.
Allison: You just still make out?
Me: What!... He's in Iowa...
Allison: I know. Do you still make out?
Um... anyway. I don't remember what other irrelevant rambles I was going to ramble.
Oh, here's a fun tidbit: my gorgeous (yah!!) boyfriend Ben said this weekend that he thinks there's a Ronald Reagan living inside me, just waiting to come out. Considering ol' Ronnie is like the Republican Moses or something (or maybe they'll claim Abraham Lincoln? so would Ronnie be King David I suppose?)... I take that as a tremendous compliment.
I'm at a point politically now where I probably consider myself an Independent, because I'm a skeptic. (But, as always, enamoured with political power!) But I do like Obama!! And I was raised with a dad who's pretty hardcore probably a socialist.
To conclude: Reagan II a.k.a. Kate Mendenhall of Presidential Brilliance and Glory (ha!) is still waiting.
Lucky for him (her?), I don't turn 35 until 2021.
Hmm, not too far off.
Though I think I might prefer to be Secretary of Education, frankly. I am a whore for school. Fo' shizzle.
Um... So, love y'all. ;-)
-Kate the Great, the Greatest of All Kates, Future President of the United States (just 'cause it rhymes so well)
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12:00 am
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Today's Twittering
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07:02 am
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Whee!
I'm at Ben's (dad's) place in downtown Chicago, waiting for his sister and her bf to get ready to go to Michigan! Hoorah! We're all helping Ben's dad's girlfriend move. I'm really excited about it. I guess that's what happens when your family NEVER went on vacation when you were growing up. Leaving the state is like the GREATEST THING EVARRR!!!1!!!11ONE
And we'll be there for a few days! :-D
It looked really creepy outside this morning. (They got me up at five!!) A storm front was rolling in, but it wasn't over the lake yet. (This place is right on Lake Michigan, along the Chicago River.) So there were storm clouds just a few stories up on some of the buildings, big wind, dark clouds rolling out over the lake... it was so dark and so creepy. So beautiful.
On Tuesday Ben came to my house (after getting back from Ireland early Monday afternoon and spending the rest of that day with his mother), which was good. We did not go mini golfing because 1) my favorite Old West themed indoor mini golf place from days of olde (that is, high school) is "permently closed" :(!!!, 2) I found another one but it was outdoors and it was a rainy day.
So we chilled, watched The Empire Strikes Back (all through college I hung around with guys from Cornell's Star Wars Society but only now is someone successfully managing to present these long-awaited movies to me), chilled some more, went to a wonderful place called Pita Paradise for dinner -- which was really outstanding and cheap. (I got baba ganouj and it was so pretty and so pretty tasting too!) To tell you about the atmosphere in Pita Paradise: it's tiny, they play middle eastern music, have a shelf filled with dusty hookahs, and in the corner they have a fake palm tree with christmas lights draped on it. Dinner for the two of us cost together $9.95 and it was sooooo good, and made right when we ordered it. It's on Schmale & North Ave. in Carol Stream, Illinois if anyone's in the neighborhood -- which I know perfectly well to be a minority of my readers, but whatevs, I'm enthused about this place, very enthused.
Okay, lovelies, I'm skeedattling now, love y'all. :)
-KtG
Current Music: Ben practicing piano
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08:35 am
[Link] | I've set up a quick-access username name for myself on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/greatest.of.kates
Hahahahahahaha. :-D
How professional. ;-)
In other news... Ben is back from Ireland!!! He landed stateside at 12:15. (It would have been 12:00 but Air Force One had parked on his runway.) (I think it's cool but they're kind of more right-wing so they're like "Grr Obama's messing up my life already!" lol)
(I didn't even know Obama was in town. Yeah I speak of it casually 'cause he's our boyeee around here. Chicago what what! lol I've met him don'tcha know. He has silky soft hands. Silky soft.)
[I'm noticing a distinct "goofy" streak making its presence more felt in me lately...]
Anyway -- yeah Ben's back Stateside! He called me twice yesterday to chat. Hooray hooray!
Today he's coming here! We plan to chill, play mini golf, and go to a great little Middle Eastern dive called Pita Paradise (rated 5 stars on Google). My mom took me there once and thinks it's filthy just 'cause they don't have individually wrapped plastic cutlery. But their food is really great and pretty cheap if I remember correctly. Hooray hooray! (It's on Schmale near North Ave. for any lurking locals reading this -- right behind the Vietnam Bistro which is another really great (and much more snazzy) restaurant.)
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10:04 am
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Jobbing
( More thoughts on my victory lap. )
The other day I was walking down the street and this old man drove by me reeeeaaaallly slowly and pointed at me and stared.
And he was alone, so he wasn't pointing me out to anyone.
He pointed at me! Like, "I'm watching you, young lady! STAY OFF MY LAWN!"
To be fair... he lives about three houses down from me and whenever he's in his yard and I walk by he yells at me that I don't have to be afraid of him.
Which, for any normal person, admittedly might make you more afraid of him.
All I'm doing is minding my own business, being a proper aloof American as is my cultural heritage ;-). "Stranger danger" don't ya know?
Though it is wonderful when neighbors actually break tradition and are friendly.
Though I can't help but wonder if my outgoing greetings to people who probably know me as That Chick Who Always Walks Past Our House For No Apparent Reason would disconcert some people.
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04:55 pm
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Blech.
I'm looking to apply for more student loans to pay for my student teaching "victory lap"...
I admit, the prospect of taking on (so much) more debt kinda makes me want to just quit and go work at Dollar Tree. For serious.
But then I remember that when I'm a teacher I'll make hella lotta money (argue against that and face my wrath) and even with paying back my oomphed-up loans I'll have enough to live on, and more than if I worked anywhere else, judging by the luck of my friends who've graduated in the past couple years.
And I have a very strong suspicion that if I tried to transfer into some other, cheaper program I would face a lot of, shall we say, emotional trauma, not to mention risk not being done when I want to be. (That is, asap.)
So... victory lap here I come!
Edit: Oh, and pursuing a career that's perfect for me will save me a lot of the Existential Crisis Angst that so many other people seem to deal with... incessently. For da win!
Edit #2: For the win!. :)
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12:49 pm
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Squee!
Yesterday I was just about to dash out the door to go fabric shopping for a new dress I've requested my mom make for me (my mom has mad skills!) when I heard a pretty tinkling sound coming from my pocket and I froze.
...'cause it was Ben's ringtone. So I pulled the phone out of my pocket and stared at it and it said his name on there. It was real. !!! He was calling me... from Ireland! I am definitely in the United States. That is a freaking expensive phone call.
I hastily told my mom why I'd be delayed and she told me to take all the time I need.
I was kind of a little flustered but that's okay. ("Aren't you in Ireland??")
Five minutes and fifty-five seconds! Holy cow. Fabulous.
Oh, and all I learned about his trip was that it was a great day even though they drove a lot. 'Cause he kept asking about me. And then he moved on to, "Hey, we should get together sometime." And then we figured out when "sometime" will be. (Lookin' like Tuesday, hoo-rah.)
So for the rest of the day I kept randomly saying to my very patient mother, "Ben called me!!" It got to the point where she started randomly saying to me, "Hey guess what? Ben called you!" Lol. Ohhhh, mockery. You are fun sometimes. :-D
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12:25 pm
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Spockalicious.
Today's agenda:
1) Fill out apartment application. [Postponed until I can stop failing at refilling the printer paper.]
2) Find a student loan paid directly to me for the purpose of paying my rent.
3) Shake off the I-should-have-a-JOB-to-pay-my-rent-not-more-loans! angst.
4) Browse online for a good restaurant for my family graduation dinner. :)
5) Go to the fabric store with my mom to find fabric for a new "everyday" dress she's going to make me!
Last week, me & Beth & Amy had a graduation/going-back-to-school party for ourselves over at Beth's house. Beth & I just graduated, and Amy's going back to college, I'm going back for a victory lap, and Beth's going to grad school.
We drank amaretto... mixed with, um, Ovaltine and soymilk. It sounds disgusting but somehow it walked the fence of being kind of delicious. I was surprised 'cause I'm not a big fan of most cherries.
We also ordered a stuffed crust cheese pizza (yum!) and baked a chocolate cake (yum yum!).
And Beth called me a cheap date because I pretty quickly got kind of drunky and fell asleep in her living room.
Though I've spent half my life falling asleep in her living room. Drunky or not.
Monday night Amy took me & Beth out to a free private showing of the new Star Trek movie! (Free for me, at least, 'cause she's a manager at the movie theater, and it was a private showing 'cause it was 10:10 on a Monday night and so no one else went to it!) It was great, though... I'm a huge fan of Spock! AND THERE'S SO MUCH SPOCK!!!!!!!!!!!
SPOCK SPOCK SPOCK!!!
And whenever Iowa was mentioned I was free to throw my arms in the air and let out a loud cheer. ;-) Yay private showings, bwahahahahaha!
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11:49 am
[Link] | New picture! It's Meggan, Clint, and me at the end of graduation, degrees in hand, taking our literal victory lap. :)
( For the win!! )
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