i feel lucky, oh so lucky...

so remember that time i was running around trying to finish all of my errands (of which there were many) and ended up stepping on a nail that went into my foot and then had to drive myself to the emergency room?  i remember that.  good times.  by which i mean "ow."

photos: bruce and fred's excellent adventure (part 1)

bruce and fred's excellent adventure! (part 1)


i've broken these up to make them a little more easily digestible.  so here is part 1: roses, old thinggies and rubble (oh my)!


and i still can't figure out how to arrange these photos with text the way i want them (even using the caption thinggie) so you are just going to have to go captionless.  also, if i try and arrange them in an appealing way, they go all "i jump to the beginning now, okay!  lol!!"  booooo, pictures.  boooooo blogger.

anyway, if a picture is a mystery to you, you can make something up for it.  it's like a game!

update: adventure report!

goodness, i have got to stop doing this to you nice people!  i know i hate it when people don't update their blogs for forever, and here i am doing it myself.  shame on me.

 my last (very brief) post said that i was out having adventures.  and adventures i have had! are you ready for the Exclusively Exclusive Adventure Report?

Exclusively Exclusive Adventure Report

It's Exclusive!

independence day
independence day was celebrated by eating grilled hot dogs and watching toy story 3 with my delightful parents.  i was hoping to be able to see fireworks from my balcony, but no such luck.  the trees were just baaaarely too tall.  that weekend, i also celebrated my friend callie's birthday by eating delicious curry and engaging in general frolicsomeness.

bruce and fred's excellent adventure

after an insanely busy week at work, i escaped with the above-mentioned callie on a weekend road trip!  our first stop on the trip was the topaz internment camp located outside of delta.  i'd never been there and neither had callie, so we didn't really know what to expect, really.  it was wonderful in very unexpected ways.  on the way there, we drove past a memorial rose garden.  so naturally, we stopped to smell the roses and contemplate life. 
 
continuing down the road toward delta, we drove past some very interesting old buildings.  i'm a desperate sucker for old, decrepit buildings, so i stopped to take pictures and callie was very patient with me. finally, we found our way to the Great Basin Museum, which was curated by a very friendly and excitable older gentleman who told us all sorts of interesting facts.  part of the museum was devoted to mining and geology, and another part was devoted to the history of delta, including clothes, books, household appliances, and the like.  guess which part i spazzed out about like a kid in willy wonka's chocolate factory. (hint: OMG OLD THINGS!!)

we did find a section of the museum devoted to topaz, but there wasn't much in it.  there was a recreation of one of the barracks, but we still wanted to see more.  we found out from the curator that the site of the camp is actually several miles outside of delta.  he gave us a map and we drove out into the middle of nowhere to the site.  we were looking for buildings or ruins or something, but couldn't see anything.  we wandered a bit more in the car before i realized that we were driving through the camp.  there was just nothing that was still standing.  we got out of the car and wandered about for a bit.  there was a lot of rubble-- broken stoves with chimneys still standing, broken dishes and jars, discarded piles of wood.  there were also whole patches of ground just covered with rusted nails.  it was eerie.  it looked like the buildings that had held those nails had just dissolved.  i know that's unlikely-- they were probably just discarded there as people disassembled the buildings.  but still.  eerie. 

after wandering around for a bit more, we headed back into the car and continued on our way to the ultimate destination-- zion national park.  we arrived at our hotel after quite a bit of flailing. the room smelled like something had died horribly in it, but it had a bed.  that's all that mattered, really.  we got a good night's rest and then headed into the park the next morning.  we took the shuttle up the canyon and got out at the temple of sinawava to go exploring.  it was early in the morning, so there weren't many people there.  it was so deliciously quiet.  we could hear the river and the birds winging and the squirrels and lizards rustling through the bushes.  we went on the river walk, where we took lots of pictures and callie was assaulted by a very cheeky squirrel who wanted to steal our granola bars.  we also went down to the river, but i didn't go in for fear of river krakens. 

that evening, we went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants-- parallel eighty-eight.  words cannot describe the deliciousness of our food, so i will encourage you to look at the photos coming in the next post so i can let pictures speak for us.  also, the view from the table is stupid-awesome.  

the next day, we both had a hard time getting out of bed.  eventually we made our way back into the park.  it was ridiculously hot that day, so we decided not to bother with hiking and ate ice cream instead.  it started raining, but we defied the rain and refused to hide.  after we finished our ice cream, we sat on rocking chairs on the porch of the lodge and just stared at the stupidly beautiful view until we finally admitted that it was time to pack up and go home. it was such an awesome trip.  i'm so glad we got to go. 
 
adventures in wyoming 
 my sister jennifer is home visiting this month.  her visit happened to coincide with the wedding of a mutual friend whom she met at field school and i met at jen's wedding.  her name is carrie, and she's the sparkliest, most wonderful person ever, pretty much.  i adore her.  the wedding was in cheyenne, wyoming.  the week before the wedding was another insanely busy one in which i had zero (0) time to pack and prepare, so we were a bit later getting on the road than we would have liked.  it was a looooong driiiiive.  but it was rather beautiful in parts, and the stars were ridiculously beautiful when the sun went down.  sooo many stars when you're out in the middle of nowhere. we got to our hotel in cheyenne around one o'clock.  we'd made a reservation, but they'd given our room away because they thought we weren't coming, so we got an upgrade to a king suite.  that bed was quite literally the best bed i have ever encountered.  it was like heaven.  heaven.  words cannot describe this bed.  oh my goodness. 

after a good night's sleep (and early-morning nap), we got dressed and went to carrie's wedding.  it was held at the cheyenne botanical gardens, which were in full bloom for the occasion. carrie looked beautiful. at the end of the ceremony, the officiant told a native american story about the origin of the butterfly.  he said that if we tell our wishes to a butterfly, they would carry it up to the great spirit for us.  carrie and chris opened a box full of butterflies and let them loose.  i wish i would have gotten better pictures of it (so many butterflies!) but i was busy crying my face off. 

after that was the reception at the plains hotel.  i really wanted a cowboy to come in with spurs a-janglin' but no such luck.  the whole town just has such an interesting old-west feel.  i bet wyoming as a whole slew of decrepit old buildings just waiting to be explored!  (OMG, old things!)  anyway, back on topic.  stop distracting me.  the reception was lovely and carrie was all sorts of wonderful.  i love that girl, and the ridiculous drive was completely worth it. and we were treated to a beautiful sunset on our way home. pictures in the next post!  (because i cannot figure out how to make the pictures and text fit well in this one post, because i'm a technological genius like that.)

brb!

brb!  having adventures!

retro movie flashback: the man in the iron mask (1998)

title: the man in the iron mask
year: 1998
rating: ★1/2




summary: fresh off the success of titanic, leonardo dicaprio decides to see exactly how fast he can make alexandre dumas turn in his grave. he lures jeremy irons, john malkovich, and gabriel byrne onto the set with a promise of an intensely dramatic interpretation of a newly-discovered shakesperean play. gerard depardieu, he lures with a pork chop. once he has his new toys in his dastardly playhouse, he forces them to act out a hideous farce, performing one horror after another.

also, something about the three musketeers and a man in an iron mask and twins or something.

books and biscuits: anne of green gables review

go peek at my review of anne of green gables over at books and biscuits!

wild card: Dr. Brenda and Miss Angryface McHungry

i don't like to use medical diagnoses as excuses for things.  this wasn't always the case; i have leaned a bit too heavily on the crutch of diagnoses in the past, either consciously or subconsciously. however, a little over a year ago i made the conscious decision to not let said diagnoses rule my life.  i am in control.  i am the big boss in brendaland.  the key to not letting things get the better of me is keeping them under control and bringing them to a point where i'm not consciously dealing with them every day.  but there is one condition that i really do have to deal with every day, no matter how much i want to pretend i don't.  it reared its ugly head yesterday (twice actually) and i fear that some innocent bystanders were injured during the outbreak.

i'm hypoglycemic.  and this means that if i get too hungry, i will unhinge my snake jaw and bite your face off.  (only metaphorically so far, thank goodness.) one friend who i used to work with picked up on this and would ask me if i forgot to eat lunch whenever he'd find me hunched at my desk like a fire-eyed gargoyle, hissing at anything that passed by me.




(yeah, kind of like that. only instead of the prom, it's somebody breathing too loudly.  and instead of teenage hormones, it's because i'm eating lunch five seconds after i should have.)

i'm finding that hypoglycemia is my absolute enemy in my current quest to have a healthy relationship with food.  if i go too long before eating, bad things happen.  bad food happens.  let me illustrate with a brief piece from the off-broadway play "Miss Angryface McHungry." (the role of the stomach was originally played by mark wahlburg.)

stomach: i'm hungry.

me: just a second, we're almost home.  traffic is just a little heavier than usual.

stomach: no, seriously, i'm hungry.

me: wait.  you're fine.  you're not going to starve to death in the next two minutes.

stomach: hungryhungryhungryhungryHUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRY!!

me: SHUT UP YOU'RE FINE OH MY GOSH WHY IS THIS PERSON IN FRONT OF US TAKING SO LONG I HATE HIM I HATE HIS CAR I HATE HIS MOTHER I HATE EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD I HATE BREATHING OH MY GOSH AIR WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID.

stomach: (holding a shaking gun to my head like a desperate junkie) GIVE ME A TACO SERIOUSLY PULL THE CAR OVER RIGHT THIS SECOND AND BUY A TACO AND ALSO FIVE OF EVERYTHING ELSE ON THE MENU OR I WILL KILL YOU IN THE FACE.

me: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR HULK SMASH!!

aaaand scene.

so what can we learn from this seemingly pointless post? 

1)  if i turn into a seven-headed bearmonster around mealtime and insult you, your mother, or some other loved one, it's probably nothing personal. however, you should probably just avoid me around mealtime if at all possible.

2)  i should have a siren on top of my car as a warning when i'm driving hungry.

3) i really need to remember my between-meal snacks. (snacky the snack says "only you can stop hanger (hunger+anger) crimes.")

top fiveish: top five (possibly) irrational fears

the other day, i was talking with some of my friends about neurosis. one of my friends is afraid of horses.  another is afraid of mice.  and another is afraid that something's going to happen to her when she's away from home and people are going to find out how messy her house is.  (this isn't actually as silly as i first thought, because when my mother came to tend to me while i had the stomach flu, i was intensely relieved that my house was clean and i wasn't caught lying about in squalor.)

so in the spirit of this, i present to you my top five (possibly) irrational fears.





5.  leaf bugs and stick bugs

i don't know what it is about stick bugs and leaf bugs that bothers me so much.  (i honestly just got the heeby-jeebies writing those words. ugh.)  i would actually rather wake up to a spider crawling across my pillow than a stick bug.  whenever we go to the zoo together, my sister turns my face away from the insect display with a giant stick bug in it, because i never remember where it is and she probably doesn't want me to lose my mind in the middle of the zoo.  and believe me, i would lose my mind.  once upon a time, i was trapped in my apartment by a leaf bug.  this is a true story.  i was living with my sister at the time, and our apartment complex was surrounded by trees.  i was home alone and opened the door to go do something-- run an errand, take out the trash, i don't know.  and there, outside my door, on the rail of the stairs, was a leaf bug.  a big, huge, green, red-eyed thing.  i immediately slammed the door and hid, periodically checking outside to see if it was still there.  eventually, i determined that i really must leave, so i armed myself with a broom and ventured forth.  when i nudged the bug with a broom, it flew at me.  at me.  and i am not ashamed to admit that i screamed.  full-on screamed, like i was being attacked by a rabid wolf.




4. birds getting caught in my hair

this has never happened to me before in my life, so i really don't know where this fear comes from.  i don't mind looking at birds through windows.  far from it-- i think they're absolutely lovely.  but i'm afraid to get near birds because i am terrified that one is going to somehow get caught in this nest of hair i have.  i don't know why.  (did you know fabio once got hit in the face by a seagull?  true story.)



3.  earthquakes (but not for the reason you think)

i think earthquakes are a perfectly legitimate fear, what with the mess of them we've been having lately.  but the fear that i'm referencing here is not a fear that an earthquake is going to come and destroy my happy city.  no.  what i'm afraid of is that it's going to come in the middle of the night and i'm going to have to go running outside in my underwear.  yep.  (now that i think about it, i have a similar fear of falling and knocking myself unconscious while taking a shower.  hmm.)



2.  clockwork robots

not regular, digital-age robots so much, but i have a mortal fear of clockwork robots. this fear was discovered when i was playing a computer game called City of Heroes.  i was perfectly okay fighting the squishy, fly-ridden zombies.  no problem.  but when a clockwork robot popped up, i freaked out and got out of there as fast as i could, with a serious case of the heeby jeebies.  bleh.  i don't know what about them freaks me out so much, but oh, i do not like them.  no no no.  unfortunately, this means i have to avoid most steampunk-related things and have been strictly forbidden from watching Hellboy II.




1.   krakens/sea monsters/forgotten dinosaurs

i'm afraid of water.  one reason that i'm afraid of water is because i have nearly drowned on multiple occasions.  another reason that i'm afraid of water is because i'm afraid there is a monster in there.  let's be honest.  there's a lot of freaky stuff living in the ocean.  how, exactly, do we know that there are not krakens, sea monsters, or long-forgotten toothy sea-dinosaurs living down there?  hmm?  and how do we know that said krakens, sea monsters, or long-forgotten toothy sea-dinosaurs don't have smaller cousins living in the depths of particularly murky lakes?  we don't know.  and you can't convince me that we do.  i will be staying safely on the shore, thank you very much.  fully-dressed, in case there's a natural disaster, and wearing a large hat with which to frighten away seagulls.