07.31.08
Blah blah blah CAMBRIDGE!
When not contemplating dogs, new notebooks, or cheeseburgers, my mind launches into frenzied dreams about next summer, when I (at last!) cross the Atlantic again to spend a solid month in England (and hopefully a week in Ireland!).
I’ll take Art and Humanities at Cambridge University. I think that merits the use of an emoticon.
=]
I’m going to completely clean out my life savings and return absolutely penniless, probably in a good bit of debt, but hopefully it’ll all be worth it.
I really don’t shut up about this trip. It’s a study abroad thing… Since I first found out I’m going (all the Teaching Fellows at UNC Asheville do it), I’ve harbored a big, giddy colony of monarch butterflies in my tummy.
Seriously.
Whenever my life runs amok, I stop, inhale deeply, and in a dramatic internal stage whisper utter:
“CAMBRIDGE!!!”
and immediately my spirits soar.
Ah, it just soothes me to know I’ll be on the wrong side of the road again with a bellyful of little McDonald’s cheeseburgers!
07.28.08
Back to School Shopping, part II
I’m doing a story on back to school shopping in Sanford. Anybody have a creative way to save money as you buy your kids all the new shoes and jeans and crayons?
Coming from a family of four, we always wait for the big sales at Walmart and then buy an entire years worth of paper and notebooks (that’s an incredible amount, as, in addition to being in school, we’re all writers and artists of sorts).
The tax-free holiday is this weekend. I, for one, am avoiding the chaotic shopping event. I might, just maybe, buy my computer this weekend… But I think it might be worth 100 dollars to avoid the drive to the Apple Store in Raleigh.
Anyone else’s thoughts?
07.25.08
Meet Spike.
My little brother woke me up from my late afternoon nap.
“Cass, we gotta surprise for you!”
“You got a dog, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I mean, no, um… We just ate at the best Hardee’s, ever.”
“Right.”
“But… It’s like hundreds of pounds bigger than Snowflakey [our cocker spaniel]!”
More pictures to follow… But this is the one on Craiglist that inspired my family to rush to the Hoke County Animal Control to rescue him from euthanization, scheduled for this morning.
Spike, the boxer (dalmation?) mix
And it starts…
In preparation for my friend Adeline Moritz’s debutante party in Savannah this weekend.
All ladies know primping for any remotely formal event begins, at the very least, forty-eight hours in advance.
Try saying that with a straight face.
Despite the cynicism, I’m embarking on a grooming odyssey of sorts.
Seven o’clock Friday night will find me adequately tweezed, shaved, moisturized, spritzed, glossed, shined, scrubbed, polished and otherwise spruced up fantastically.
I will look, at best, marginally different than I do on the average Saturday morning. But I will, however, feel famished, exhausted and thus ultimately satisfied with my image.
It’s really exactly like sleeping in an hour late on a manic Monday morning, but skipping breakfast to shower. Honestly. Heh. What a morbid realization.
Ah well, it’s for my health. I will certainly benefit from a few days without burgers, fries, pizza and half-and-half in my coffee (these, by the way, comprise the building blocks of my diet). I’m fairly certain I’ve layered fresh nail polish over the old chippy stuff for at least three months. My fingernails might benefit from the oxygen exposure.
07.22.08
Back to School Shopping
Brand new pocket folders, unsullied by penciled doodles and those “I’ve been shoved in a backpack too many times” wrinkles. A plastic box full of factory-sharpened colored pencils — they’ve not suffered cranking through a classroom pencil sharpener yet, they’re perfect. Maybe a few fancy-schmancy mechanical pencils, with glitter or unicorns or Batman or monster trucks whatever else you find particulary riveting. Big, fat, perfectly-shaped erasers, itching to hide your mistakes. A harsh, new backpack, the plastic still accustomed to Walmart’s flourescent lights. It’ll start to move a bit more fluidly in a few weeks, but for now it’ll retain just about any shape you want it to retain. Socks without sweat stains and sneakers that you can’t flex your toes in.
This is all very nice and all. But the best part’s not here, yet.
New notebooks. Brand new spiral-bound notebooks. And brand new pens, all full of ink.
I can’t think of anything more satisfactory than this. Don’t tell me I need to get out more. I will always love that sensation.
Faintly trembling hands opening the cover of that perfect notebook — none of the pages are crumply, the cover’s not wrinkled, you haven’t doodled something stupid on the back, it’s just perfect. And you pop the top off the pen, and you press it on the clean, white paper… And you usually don’t have anything to say, so you write your name or scribble a heart or something. And then it’s over, that notebook’s pretty average now, but good grief, that was fun.
FRIEND: I LOVE THE BRAND NEW NOTEBOOK/BRAND NEW PEN FEELING.
ME: ISN’T IT THE BEST?!
FRIEND: i just got a new notebook and pens last niiiiight!
ME: have you indulged, yet? or are you waiting for a bad day?
FRIEND: waiting…
ME: good plan. you’ve gotta be ready. you’ve got to really want it.
FRIEND: i know.
FRIEND: it makes me pace.
FRIEND: lol
ME: i bet your heart is fluttering right now. you’re thinking about those innocent, unspoiled pages. your hands, they’re practically twitching, right? you are just dying to press that brand new pen into the soft yet firm paper for the first time.
FRIEND: GOD YESSSS!
I am not alone on this. Haha.
07.21.08
Hello, WordPress.
It’s been a while. Note: If you don’t update your blog, nobody reads your blog.
I returned from a family vacation to the Outer Banks Saturday. I’d never ventured to that part of the state before… Gosh, I’ve been missing out on a lot. I’m in love with it. Unfortunately, I’m not gonna launch into anything particularly articulate or descriptive. Somewhere along the road I picked up a bug, and I really feel rather gross right now.
…Something I totally do not have time for. Friday night, it’s back on I-95 — this time headed south to a friend’s debutante party in Savannah. I’ve yet to purchase a dress for this shin-dig… I’m pretty unsure about the whole thing. What does one really wear to a debutante party??? I’ve never been to a debutante party of any description… the most formal event I’ve attended was senior prom… Yeah. I’ve never ventured farther south than Charleston… (if you ignore several frenzied layovers at ATL) Oh, and I’m definitely not a shopper. I despise trying stuff on. Aaaaaaaah.
But for now, I’m gonna pop several Tums, head home from work, crawl in bed with some crackers and Gatorade, and try my best not to projectile vomit on anybody today.
Wish me luck!
07.14.08
Seventy-four degrees? In July? In the middle of the day? In Piedmont North Carolina?
According to my handy dashboard widget, it’s true. The little time I spent outside today supports these findings. I could walk outside the door without any discernable change in temperature. The rain alerted me I was in fact outside… But the temperature had me stumped for a moment. I’m at a loss for words. Rainy, mild days are my very favorite.
07.13.08
Westboro Baptists to protest in front of Ft. Bragg Wednesday
The Westboro Baptists, the church famous for their anti-gay and anti-military protests, will be marching at the intersection of Bragg Blvd and Knox Street Wednesday at 11 a.m.
Westboro Baptists (website: godhatesfags.com and godhatesamerica.com) frequently picket the funerals of soldiers and homosexuals. This is what they say in their schedule about the upcoming Ft. Bragg protest:
Fort Bragg Bragg Blvd. & Knox St We are here to remind you all of the fact that you KILLED u.s. army dental specialist Megan Lynn Touma. The army and other military arms are full of filthy perverts – including Cpl. Cesar Laurean (think BBQ pit; Steven Green, who raped a 14-year-old girl in Iraq and then killed her and her family, and then burned their bodies to get rid of the evidence; and Johnathan Plaisance, who was arrested just recently, stationed from CAMP LEJEUNE, for kidnapping a 13-year-old girl. They don’t do things from which heroes are made of. They are sissified, perverted, brute beasts, who will beat you bloody. We have had numerous incidences with them; they are all foul-mouthed and violent, with very few exceptions, if any. They are a microcosm of Doomed America, and they are all irreversibly headed for Hell for fighting for a nation that has gone the way of Sodom and Gomorrah: Isaiaah 3:25 Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. Jeremiah 19:7 And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. 8 And I will make this city [AMERICA] desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. 9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness [You're going to eat your babies!], wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. The siege is HERE! America is Doomed! Amen!
I don’t frequent church, but I consider myself a Christian and strive to be a kind, forgiving, and non-judgmental person, as I believe that’s what Jesus’ main idea was. These people have quite a different take on things… Eh. I can’t go there without getting too angry. As the daughter of an retired Army soldier, I’ve spent a lot of time around military folk — none of whom seemed any more likely to eat their children than, say, an optometrist or an Amish farmer.
Oh, wait, Westboro has some beef with the Amish, too.
For a group so set on hating America, they certainly take full advantage of our first-class first amendment rights. And that’s what I love most about this country and the ideals on which it was founded.
07.09.08
Vertical licenses: the answer to underage alcohol sales?
North Carolina’s jumping on the vertical license bandwagon.
Huh, what? Yeah, that’s what I said, too.
Essentially, those under-21 will have vertical driver’s licenses, which will prevent store clerks from accidentally selling alcohol to minors.
While I think the idea has its merits, I’m not sure it will significantly slash underage drinking rates. Remember, I’m 19, a college student — not even old enough to go to the ABC store to interview somebody for this article. I have encountered plenty of underage drinkers, but I’ve never known any of them to waltz into a liquor store, gas station, Walmart, or similar booze outlet and walk out with alcohol. I don’t think I personally know anybody who’s even attempted it.
Furthermore, those minors I’ve heard of who’ve purchased their share of alcohol and cigarettes in public knew the clerks personally and would have gotten away with it even if their license was shaped like Mickey Mouse.
Like many people I spoke with today, I think most teenagers get their alcohol from older family and friends, and don’t bother trying to get away with purchasing it in stores.
I know I get hassled enough when purchasing Powerball tickets, and I think I come off as fairly mature. Granted, I still have my red-bordered “UNDER 18″ license because I avoid the DMV like pickles or frogs or trips to the dentist.
Between the ages of 15 and 21, we’re supposed to make a lot of trips to the DMV to keep up with various beuracratic movements. First we get our permits at 15, then our limited licenses 16, then our full under-18 licenses at 16 and a half, then our under-21 licenses at 18, then finally, we’re 21, and we get a completely normal (and now horizontal) license and are spared these excessive trips. It’s a lot to keep up with.
Hmmm. What do you think? Will this law do anything to quelll underage drinking?
07.08.08
I just had…
one of the best McDonald’s burgers, ever. Sometimes they just taste great, not at all mediocre or cheap, not the embodiment of all America’s flaws. This particular Big ‘n Tasty lived up to its name. Adjectives like “juicy,” “hot,” “fresh,” and “altogether fantastic” also popped into my brain as I shoved this thing down my throat in the parking lot a few minutes ago.
I owe my health and happiness to a variety of international Mickie Dees’. I grew up an Army Brat in Germany, and traveled all around Western Europe in a ‘94 Toyota pickup. Without the cheap and satisfying delights of little cheeseburgers and fries, my family would likely have starved in the process.
I’ve eaten at McDonald’s in: Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Lichtenstein, England, Scotland, possibly Luxembourg, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
Not to say authentic European food invariably stinks — some of it’s quite good, albeit seriously overrated. An eight-year-old’s tastebuds resist fine French dining, which usually involves something unrecognizable swimming in gravy. And you can only eat so much schnitzel and kraut. Italy involved the fewest frenzied runs to McDonald’s… But the bulk of foreign food is weird (and generally quite pricey) to a young Army family with children.
Europeans do have bakeries, however. Fresh bread and pastries just don’t exist in the States the way they do over there. And they have a seemingly limitless supply of fresh Nutella (a German-made hazelnut-chocolate spread, and no, you haven’t had it if you bought the jar west of the Prime Meridian, it’s just not the same, I don’t care what you say) and other decadent sweets.
I plan to spend my next trip across the Atlantic bouncing between McDonald’s and bakeries, regardless of what happens to my waistline. I miss Berliners (jelly-or-Nutella-filled donut-like sweets) and REAL croissants and Jakob’s coffee and oh, I could keep going.
And okay, I miss real bratwursts and Doner Kabobs and gyros and spaetzle. (I’ve tried all these here, and it’s just not the same.)
But I still have McDonald’s — the solitary edible link to my childhood rambles that I can find in North Carolina, and it’s glorious. Unlike many of my contemporaries, I’m never too snobby, health-conscious, or politically disinclined to chow down at McDonald’s. It’s a, er, vital cultural experience, linking us to fellow Big Mac eaters worldwide, yeah.
