Get Confident, Stupid! (RELOAD)

It’s 2:59 in the morning and I have a barrel of giggle-inducing title ideas… and no idea what to write after them. Not sure how I even thought of this Troy McClure-introduces-Brad-Goodman quote…before which, I considered – Bethany’s Guide To Prosperity. Step One. Quit. …Yes, all of that. Mostly because I’ve been putting off writing the Montreal/Disneyland/Sister Visit blog as though when I finish experiencing all of this pre-move whirlwind, I will actually consider writing about each phase in some sort of detail. HAH. “He fool he self!” That’s. Not going to happen. And not just because I don’t remember anything before this afternoon.

And now it’s 11:58pm. I am magic. At procrastination. So I need to get my head in the game. AWESOME UNINTENTIONAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL REFERENCE. I was totally meaning I need to buckle down and write this dang vacay-summary blog but that I can’t right this minute because I’m thinking about Zac Efron because I just watched HSM 3 finally and in trying to express that it came out as “getcha head in the game”! FTW! I’m … sorrymovingon. *shuffles papers*

OKAY! So the only possible way I can do this in a timely fashion is to choose one memory from each segment (and hopefully go off on tangents, bien sur) to summarize. With pictures, you know so people can have an unwarranted peek into my life and not let time do its diminish-relevancy job. Okay, belated disclaimer: I am totally going stream of consciousness here, y’all. Strap in.

Montreal

So, it seemed like a good idea to take a weekend trollup to Montreal. Of course, I live on the west coast. So. Doing that whole stand-by cuz my cousin’s a pilot thing kinda wasn’t everything I hoped for. It’s kinda like committing suicide off the Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, it’s EXACTLY like that. Two-thirds of the way into the transit (attempts), I wished I’d never started. Now, I eventually got there. After praying more than I ever have on a plane, excluding that time we were in an electrical storm, and admittedly enjoying having on-demand entertainment if I had to be flying with one of those pilots who is totally bored with his constant SFO-JFK route and has ceased to be concerned with my personal perceptions of safety. I 100% felt like that airline’s tagline should have been changed to: “Calm down, baby, I got us there.”  And in the picture, the pilot’s leaning to the side with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Plus his hat’s all tilted. And his shirt is unbuttoned and there’s liquor stains on his undershirt. And he’s not wearing pants, but is wearing dress shoes. That’s pretty much how I can guarantee you he looked. If he was even there and wasn’t instead replaced with an autistic monkey. THE FLIGHT WAS BAD. And then, once @ JFK, I had to be reminded that the city of New York uniformly finds something confusing about my face. I know this because the staring is less like people watching and more like I’m a freakin’ zoo animal. WTF, New York. Anyway, so we didn’t make it onto the first Montreal flight and had to wait for like half a day to get on the next one. Aaaaand shame is gone and I’m laying on the ground with my head covered trying to sleep. There are pictures but they’re on Auntie-Mom’s phone. (And now, here.)

SO! Okay, notes to myself: When we first get to Montreal this time…don’t go straight to Chinatown at dusk and wander around until we find a restaurant that turns out to be a galdarn TROUGH feeding a round-up of about three hundred tourist-immigrants. It’s a little much for the sense, my friend. I am not joking. Secondly, dispel all knowledge of personal space and elbow-courtesy. It is gone. It will not return for the duration. Even small children will throw ‘bows and getting in fights is inevitable unless you relinquish rights to your person ahead of time. Thirdly, do not yell “VRAIMENT?!” when confounded in a francophone country. It does not have the same effect. Fourthly, accept that even if you still had a grasp of French, it would do you no good here. They’re…speaking something else. And none of the immigrants have altered their native pentameter or accent. You will not understand them. Ever. I’m not a pessimist. But never. Fifthly, remember that time you lived outside of California and people smoked everywhere and your clothes itched and your eyes swelled? We’re doing that again. Sixthly, jump up and down on busy streets because you’re in Montreal!!!!!! Oh and the icing on that cake is that not thirty minutes in, you actually overheard someone use “hein?” in conversation! #epicwin

Aaaand we’ll talk about Disneyland later. OMG, after I tell you about the coolest commercial I saw while there. African woman. Driving convertible through what resembles southwest USA. Wearing cowboy hat. Singing in French. AWESOMESAUCE. Might have been some animal in the car with her. It was for some casino? Right.

 

When It Don’t Come Easy

(I figured since so many of my hits come from my culture references – lines from movies, song lyrics, etc – I’d keep that alive. If you haven’t heard this Patty Griffin song. Clearly I don’t know you. Cuz it plays on my computer constantly. Speaking of search terms, people looking for WoW Draenei p*rn… please leave your mom’s basement and get a life.) Time is running out. This weekend, I’m making an unexpected but super awesome preliminary trip to Montreal with (who else) the God-Mama-Auntie! If I can get my lovely car sold (which makes me sad), I’ll be able to open a bank account while I’m there testing out the subway and hopefully signing on a dotted line for an apartment. If I get back home on the scheduled day, I have a matter of hours before the family piles into the car for our pilgrimage to the promised land. Disneyland. Whatever. And then I’ve got like four days to work before my sister, JenJen, arrives! And then she’s gone and – assuming we’ve received our CAQ in the mail, which we need to get the study permit at the Canadian border – we’ll spend one day saying goodbye before piling into a u-haul and driving across the country, stopping in Wisconsin to see family (yes, you heard me right – I suppose after seven years of marriage, we’ve made them wait long enough… I only hope that Black mailman I heard so much about is still around!!).

This all makes me rather happy that two of my three big projects are off and mailed. What I love about these endeavors (literary, of course) is that I found them in the order of impending deadline, each more exciting (and daunting) than the last. So, as I began work on the next one, the feasibility of coming out victorious in the now-complete one increased. Of course, I’m referring only to my mental processing of said feasibility. And, with the magazine contest and the California Writers Exchange Contest being submitted, I have only the major, kindred-spirit Bellwether which requires me to do in less than two months what I have previously done at my leisure. And I mean those last three words in the most literal and indulgent sense possible. Aside from which, there are eligibility concerns so that simultaneous to working on a tall order in terms of the manuscript to be submitted, I also have other little (big) worms burrowing around in my brain to which I must attend.

And at the tail end of last month – which ZOMIGOD is actually over – I went to San Fran for the day to have an on-camera interview with my mentor, Marco. Which of course was tons of fun and not just because I’m sitting in front of a camera being interviewed for like three hours. But yes, that. I’m hoping to send him some still pictures and …

For the last twenty minutes, I’ve been creating a folder of pictures to send him. So. I’ll. Be back. Prolly not though.

 

Back To Life, Back To Reality…

Which will have to reveal itself. One of us has been in school for six of our seven years (next month) of marriage. (Reflecting.)

So, graduation weekend was … a lot. I doubt I’ll even attempt to capture it all herein, but at least let me give a shout-out to Daddy. Because. He really went above and beyond that weekend. So, Auntie-God-Mom was in-house the day before we were all scheduled to head back to Santa Cruz for Joshie’s graduation – Ez and I having been up here for hair-did-ed-ness. So, the plan was to be ready to leave by 7am when she’d be leaving the hospital. Now, granted, though we were all on schedule, the leaving of the house and dropping the doggies off at their weekend getaway took until about 8am. I was already thinking to myself, “Man, I told Dad to be ready by 7:30 and now I’m half an hour late and he’s gonna be like, why’d I have to be ready so early!” And lo, when we reached his house, the front door was in fact open and he and Thanos were playing on the computer, waiting and ready.

That is, until I asked where their bag was. And Dad went, “Bag? For what?” (Me with eyes half-mast, staring at him.) “Aren’t we coming back tonight?” (Me, blinking.) “I’m not prepared to spend the night! I was going to the family grad today and then coming home for choir practice and then driving back tomorrow for the official ceremony.” (Me, exploding.) So, he decides he’ll just drive separately so he can come home that night. Which is cool with me and Auntie because we were raring to go. Get on the road. Let’s do this. There’s packing and stacking to be done before graduation! Well. A few minutes in, Daddy decides he’s not going to drive separately. Auntie and I spring into action getting the carseat resituated and Daddy goes inside to pack an overnight bag for he and Thanos.

Half an hour passes.

I go inside to find him daintily packing delicate sandwiches into aluminum foil and then into a baggy. I try not to roll my eyes out of my head, asking if I can get his bag and put in the car while he  finishes gingerly packing five or so snap peas (from his garden) into a snack baggy. He answers that he has not had time to pack it yet. He has been too busy packing snacks for the road. (Me, stabbing the air.)

So, I go outside and tell Auntie we’re going to get breakfast at McDonald’s so I don’t kill anyone. This will give Daddy time to pick out (!) an outfit for graduation. We go, we come back, we eat. Finally, a bag is ready to be packed. We’re all getting situated. Every time Daddy comes out of the house, he has a new snack prepared. Query. Why…is the door still open. Wait. Wait for it. He doesn’t know where his keys are. Auntie and I – in turn – check his luggage and all else he’s brought out of the house. He goes into the house. I check his car. You get the idea.

We did leave. One day. Which is to say, if we’d left when he told us he wanted to drive himself, we in the punctual car would have been to Santa Cruz by the time we finally left his house. O_O You heard me.

We love you, Daddy.

Listening to the Family Graduation Speaker

Josh and Ezra Morrow graduate together!

Before the Family Ceremony

Official UCSC Graduation

What is NOT pictured: Homicide-inducing fatigue after 48 hours of packing and transporting! Njoy!

 

And Here’s Your Host: Ezra!

So the rest of Friday that I never got around to talking about because I was too shaken by my brush with death. Let’s leave the ugliness behind us and return to the beginning of the day. So, last quarter Josh was a teacher’s assistant at a Live Oak elementary school in a second grade class. He ended up completing double the hours and – quel surprise – having a host of little fans. So, despite not having time to assist this quarter as he prepares to graduate, he asked the teacher if he could come back for a day and bring his family to meet the kids. So, after dropping him off before nine and then running errands, Ezzie and I returned to the elementary school.

Okay, by this point, we should all know that Ezra loves to chat and also loves to perform. For a crowd of like three. He also has had very limited experience with large groups of children, having been to “preschool” (read: playschool) for a few months. So FOR SERIOUS I was a little surprised when we got into the classroom. The kids were sitting in the reading area on the carpet and the teacher set out three chairs for us. As soon as we sat down, everyone was most interested in Ezra. Josh introduced us and Ezra. Reintroduced himself. Told his age. Told how he goes to homeschool and his mom is his teacher. I mentioned that these kids are in second grade and older than him? Okay, because it turned into a presentation. O_O. No. Joke.

The teacher figured out what was obviously going to happen and told the kids to raise their hands and Ezra would answer them in turn. O_O. Favorite color? Green and Red. Next question. Favorite tv show? Playhouse Disney and Nick Jr and Mommy really likes “Charlie and Lola”. Next question, please. Yes, you in the back. Favorite song? Rock out music! What’s rock out music? Why, let me show you. My son…dove into a rendition of “Whatcha Got!”, his famous off-the-cuff what-ever-comes-to-mind jam. The kids? Go crazy. O_O. He counts to ten in French, listens to them count to ten in Spanish. Teaches them his Rock Out Dance, watches one of their cultural dances. Is asked to encore all of the above, which he happily does. The teacher can’t contain herself from repeatedly saying things like, “He should be on Sesame Street”. It was pretty shocking. I had no idea he could work a crowd of older kids like that. For serial. Everybody thinks articulate kids can perform until you find out they have stage fright. Not this kid. He even held an afterclass session with a pair of twin girls and a little boy who had to literally be shoved out the door at the end. (Did I mention that first he wrote his name for them on the whiteboard, which they’ll get to keep up until Monday?)

Well, he did such a good job that we took him to his favorite park. Oh, scratch that – there was a huge party going on there. We took him to our back-up park.

That’s him still wearing his visitor sticker. He opened a corndog/smoothie shop, I forgot to mention! Here’s pics from the grand opening!

Yeah, I ordered two corn dogs and a strawberry smoothie. Pretty tasty. And those pictures just. happened. Now, let me leave you with this.

Yeah.

 

Saturday In The Park

That’s not really accurate, obviously, but I didn’t wanna call it: Saturday (not really) in the park, I think it was the fourth of July (but it’s April). Because, I don’t wanna call Chicago a liar. Are they just one entity if they’re called by the band name? Hmm.

So, he played with three dogs, three kids and about a dozen adults today. My son. The dogs names we know, though! Tiger, Zion and Luca. People, you ask? Right. Anywho, he had a very obviously great day and it was nice to be at the park so long today, getting some video of how far he’s come. He used to be so afraid of heights and also used to not understand how to use one’s upper body to hoist one’s self up. Now, he’s climbing like a madman. Crazy. Video to come.

 

Last Spring In Santa Cruz

So being that we are happily in the last leg of our Santa Cruz residence, we decided to make the most of it. No, no, not by talking to people or going into the actual town. Pfft. By going on our favorite walk in this ridiculously beautiful weather and documenting it! Now, you can ruin everyone’s fun by asking, “Why’d you slouch forward like that and ruin an otherwise great picture with your husband taken by a four year old where it looks like your pouch is going to continue its pursuit of world domination?” But let’s take the high road and just enjoy the scenery, mkay?

First there’s Fish Lips, taken on the staircase coming down from Media Theater towards the street – followed by Ezra demonstrating how the Porter coy fish will immediately flock to any shadow above them…trusting little bottom feeders, they are – next is Ezra and I tip-toeing across the bridge(s) leading to Thimann/Earth and Marine (otherwise known as the Tiger Forest) – then comes Daddy and Mommy as taken by Ezra, on the Media Theater staircase – and finally, King Ezra atop his mighty stead in the Dragon Forest (the forest between Media Theater and College 8/Oakes).

Did I mention, Ezra now wonders aloud (daily) when we’re going to get to Montreal? A child after my own heart. Let’s get this show on the road. Iiiiiin three months….plus the summer……and go.

 

A Letter From Serrana

I don’t think she needs any help with this, but just to give background: this is an email I recently got from my bf since fifth grade. We’ve done the road trip, the mixed CDs, the home movies (commercials, talk shows, movie trailers, you name it), the graduations, the child birth, the maid of honor, the black book, the not-so-much-fake-as-our-sisters’-IDs at the nightclub. You name it. We’ve done it. She’s now on to the next great adventure in her military career – and this one I’m ubertastically envious of – and while we don’t see each other often, we don’t really notice because we talk, it’s all the same. (We haven’t gone to the same school since sixth grade or lived on the same side of town, for that matter.) It’s still all about Third Eye Blind’s debut album, Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie, $20 worth of candy from Texaco and, as evidenced below: “Ace Ventura”. (“The Five Heartbeats”, not forgotten.)

Soooo….  I was shopping in the commissary today and I had a flashback.  Let me paint a picture:  We are walking in the store in the late evening, I think then it was called “Lucky”, we enter the bread aisle and then it happens… (dum dum duuummm) After watching “Ace Ventura” for the millionth and one time, we decide to reenact the HDS guy scene.  You remember now, don’t you?  You grab the loaf of bread and say the unforgettable phrase,  “We’re going downtown…”  You then kick the loaf of bread engulfed in the thin plastic wrapping as if you were kicking a football for a fieldgoal, bread goes EVERYWHERE!  Hilarity as we sprint from the aisle and leave a huge mess for some poor store clerk to clean up.

Good times.

Good.

Times.

 

All The Crazy Fit To Print

I have absolutely no preface for this. Makes you wonder where they’ll put it in Borders, no?

And speaking of time consumption, ‘member that little doozy that is Lulu and my personal book collection….looks like I did it again. The pain. Staking. And the ….two hours?! How does this happen? It’s a good thing it’s out of my control because, seriously? I know before and after I realize I didn’t want to do it but that compulsion doesn’t go away as long as I know I’m unsatisfied with a project. So. Redid that whole ordeal to change the font size. Thank God/ Curse Satan for the ‘blank slate’ syndrome. Seriously. I’m … sort of shocked right now. I honestly didn’t know I was gonna do that, or that I could even maintain sanity even considering it. But last night Jordan showed me her copy and I did agree that the font size was uber tiny-tastic. So. I simply changed it back to the font that had been for a decade (good thing), adjusted all of the “art” – such as chapter icons, scrolls, text boxes (not-too-bad thing), saved as pdf (easy thing), ….realized my trial period for a pdf to jpeg converter was expired (lame thing), downloaded a second one (not-too-bad thing), converted to find that pages had watermark declaring “RESTRICTED VERSION” (bad thing), uninstalled second converter (lame thing), downloaded a third one (getting-stupuid thing), converted document (whatever thing), forgot log in for the ftp upload and had to look around lulu (eyes-burning-’cause-I-was-already-tired thing), went down and double-clicked 156 things to begin ftp-ing (annoying thing), whilst ftp-ing I deleted the 117 project pages that were to be replaced… with 156 (annoying thing), after ftp-ing I transfered all of the jpegs to the actual project (maddening thing), and then it was just a matter of putting 156 jpegs in the correct order (I’ve-officially-gone-numb-to-this-demonic-process thing). So, that was pretty much it. And my high school amour is fin!

Oh, how bout this? Because I’m supposed to care what these people think of me and my fur coats?! Right. I’m also not gonna eat ice cream made with breasts milk in it, no matter what cows milk does to my intestines.

 

While You Were Sleeping

Let me try and explain something. The point of “publishing” my own copy of past work is supposed to be fun. The fun of it. The enjoyment, if you will. And yet, last night, after finally reclosing the pages of a book I started when I was seventeen – after that in itself taking an unexpected turn for the cant-just-type-up-the-hardcopy-I-found – I found myself doing the strangest, longest, frustratingest labor ever.

So, the great thing about this site is that you can just upload your work, spend a few days figuring out how to do the covers to their liking, and bam, you’ve got your own hardback to file away under this-may-never-be-as-important-as-it-is-today-again, right? Oh, lambylamb. Nay. For you see, for whatever reason, they want you to embed the fonts if you upload as a pdf. Fine, I’ll just change the font (from what it’s been for nigh-on ten years) to Calibri since even when I use Times New Roman (which is on the list), you tell me I’d have to embed Times if I wanna use it. Which I’m not! Now (that the font is tiny and shut up because no it is not too small, I refuse to get sucked into a perfectionist battle that will keep me up until four am) I can upload the pdf and relish the joy of completion and wait for the girls to see that it’s done! Yes! No? Not working, huh. Okay.  Fine, I’ll just upload it as a word doc. What’s that? I used clipart for scrolls and chapter numbers (no, I can’t believe I wrote something in loose chapter form, either) and now you show all pages as blank or as wingdings?! Fine! (Please elapse an hour minimum between the past discovery and this one.) Okay. …. Okay. …. I’ll just capture each pdf page as an image, which they won’t try to edit or alter! Awesome, I happen to have a trial of a program that does just such a thing, so we’re golden. Okay, converting. (Please take off your wrist watch. It’s just getting depressing.) Okay! I’ve got a jpg of every page – thank God changing the font made it shorter, no? Now! Gotta…upload these individually? Hmm. That’s not, uh, gonna work for me. There must be another way! Oh, okay, there is! I’ll just download this FTP server thingy and upload them nearly simultaneously! Weird that I have to go through and double click each image from the folder instead of just choose the folder and thereby all its contents but whatever. So, that’s happening, let’s take a break – watch a cartoon – bring ourselves back to neutral. Wow, that went fast. Cool! Let’s go back to the site and get this thing ready for viewing! (Insert jumping on bed, in my mind. Teehee, I can’t wait to have this! And to show Jenny and Ana and Jordan and Serrana and everybody who was there the first time around! TeeheeTeeheeTeehee!) At this point, the tittering is forceably stopped when I realize I now have to go to My Files and import all the images I thought I just imported. Which means they’re here, but not associated with any project. Because that would’ve been too easy. So, what, I guess I have to go somewhere, click select all and then… no, when I change the page to the next group, the previous group gets unselected. Okay. Page…by page, then. What’s that? They’re in less than a particular order and I’ll have to upload them to the project and then arrange them myself? And I’m kinda tired and homicide-y? What’s that? I can’t go to sleep because I can’t put the laptop down because I’m not done? That’s what I thought! So, here we go uploading and arranging. Each page. (Please throw time into a black hole.) So, here we are. All of them are in order. Is the sun coming up?!? Okay, well at least I am 100% done. What? Which page is missing? Lemme now try to count with the pages (which are at least numbered) and make sure (because my mind is fresh as a daisy) that these pages are all there. Nope. Page 36.  Page *wipes tear* 36. Not here. (Mind flashes entire FTP process again.) NO! I can just upload this page individually! Calm down. Calm down. So there, we’ve uploaded it. Dropped it in the right order. Let’s convert this into a print-ready preview and call it a night. Morning. Wish those birds would simmer down. What the heck is taking so long?! Little orange line chugging across the screen. Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga.

That’s about where I blacked out.

 

Me Against The Environmentalists

I wasn’t even gonna stop my head from exploding long enough to actually blog about this – so you have Caitlin to thank for inspiring it. Une caviate. I refuse to format. BLAM.

Bethany: Well, I went from not running errands yesterday to running too many of the SAME errands today

I. contemplated killing.

Over harmless conversations going on behind me at the bank.

caitlin: Haha

Oh god. There’s a girl who rides my bus who I want to stab in the face every time she opens her mouth. So. Inane. So. Grating.

was it like that?

Bethany: So I started out there making a deposit, after which I went to the post office to do an international money order. At which point I couldn’t get a stable enough signal to get the address for the recipient off of my iPod. so we left there and went around the main street trying to pick up a signal before calling it quits and going to the off campus bookstore for Josh

(They were talking about the sweetness of indigenous peoples in Hawaii! And saying “warm” and “gentle” and “corny” and I wanted to sock her in the FACE)

caitlin: LOL

oh. my god!

Bethany: Anywho, I dropped Josh off on campus and tried a second time at the Post Office with address in hand and conversion figured out. And found out after standing in the line that WAS NOT THERE the first time, that I’d forgotten my ATM pin

caitlin: Oh fuck.

Bethany: So I drove BACK to the bank, where I’d caught everyone going to the bank on their lunch break the first time around was replaced by all the people who apparently don’t HAVE jobs…. and waited in the bank for the SECOND time today for over 30 mins…

caitlin: fuck.

hahaha

Bethany: THEN I went back to the Post Office (COUNT ‘EM!) and stood in line AGAIN

caitlin: I hate waiting in line–almost as much as I hate being stuck in traffic

Bethany: Hold on.

caitlin: Congratulations on a day well spent.

Bethany: I’m punching myself.

caitlin:

LOL

…did you at least accomplish your mission?

Bethany: Yeah, then I get up to the front and the woman is the quintessential crotchety middle-aged

(yes, I did at LONG last)

caitlin: : oh noooo

Bethany: She had a sweet little butch hair cut that actually refers to the “low-maintenance” (read: lazy) lifestyle of a spinster who got so bored after her husband left that she had to get a job where she could complain all day and where she couldn’t be fired for it

So the whole time I’m there she’s giving the girl next to her a hard time because the girl has to leave early for a doctor’s appt.

She’s talking to me – then she turns to the girl: Why’d you make your appt for so late in the day? You should make it in the morning like I do – talking to me – turns back to girl: You should really have told everyone earlier because this is a huge hassle for me because I won’t get my break – talking to me – turns back to the girl: I can’t believe you’re doing this to me, you know I never get my break … aaaaand so on

By the way…. she also had acrylics…

which didn’t make the most sense with the rest of her appearance… is that her halfassed attempt at getting a date?!

caitlin: Oh my god

Bethany: DUDE

I felt my pupils dilate

Aaaand, there you have it.