My tum tum hurts

That’s what I say aloud to myself whenever I have a stomach ache. I have a stomach ache. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the doctor and at work lately, so my time at home is spent sleeping. I have several stories written, but I want to include pictures because I have had pictures in my head for these stories since before I wrote them. Because I’ve been preoccupied with other stuff over the past few weeks, I haven’t gotten around to drawing the pictures. And I don’t want to put up some stories with half-assed pictures, just for the sake of getting some stories posted. So, instead of wasting those stories…I drew a crappy picture of how my stomach feels.

I promise there’s good stuff coming. I just need some downtime. New stories will be here soon!

Shins

My enthusiasm for my legs is at a pretty low level. They seem to have decided on their own that they don’t want to function. It turns out, I don’t really have a say in the matter. I had bad shin splints in high school, which required me to ice my legs in class after my morning runs. The shin splints magically disappeared after years and years of grief, and I spent my time in college with functioning shin areas. My legs didn’t fully function during that period of time though either - I had to go to the doctor and hospital for a number of leg/foot related injuries. The shins were golden though.

Things were good until I had knee surgery last summer. Since then, my legs have gone on strike. My shins hurt enough to make me run with a limp and occasionally they go a little numb. I know what you’re thinking: why don’t you stop running? That’s just crazy. And the problem isn’t just limited to my time out running. My legs now hurt to the touch even when I’m sitting at work. It’s pretty awesome.

When I have a problem like the one outlined above, I like to brainstorm possible solutions. Unfortunately my mind works in weird ways, and the only possible solutions that I’ve managed to come up with all involve me amputating my own legs.

The Snail End of Days

Growing up, my brothers and I were trend setters. We’d take up a weird habit or behavior and shortly after the entire neighborhood would follow. It’s funny how quickly things can change. Eric and I have noticed that we pretty much kill any trend that happens these days (most of our research is limited to restaurant attendance before and after we enter an establishment).

When I was around 5, we took on the lofty goal of collecting all the snails. There was a house around the corner that had an absurd number of snails in its yard. I think it had something to do with the combination of abundant water, excessive tree cover, and lack of snail concerns from the property owners. It should be clear by now that we didn’t adhere to property lines (see here). This had everything to do with the fact that my neighborhood was filled with children and we all roamed each other’s yards, and nothing to do with my parents’ attempts at teaching us the meaning of property lines.

My mom knew of our strange snail obsession, and decided to head off a repeat of the flower incident. My parents wanted us to understand the importance of obeying rules such as 1) Do not trespass on people’s property, 2) Do not take things from people’s property even if those things are only snails.

After much excited conversation with Brent, Eric, and me, my mom knew that we were quite adamant about the collection of shelled creatures. She took the three of us, along with some of the neighborhood kids, to talk to the owner of the snail sanctuary. Not that surprisingly, he was thrilled about the concept of some free child labor to help alleviate his snail problem. He told us that we were welcome to gather snails from his yard any time of the day, as long as were quiet about it and did not dig holes/tear up plants.

We were ecstatic.

Everyone in the neighborhood soon heard the news. We rushed home to amass our snail collecting supplies. The 1980s snail rush had commenced.

Every single child on the block rushed to the unsuspecting man’s yard, arms full of Tupperware containers. We picked through his yard until we were confident that we had all of the specimens in our possession. Unlike most of the children that quickly grew weary of this activity, my brothers and I kept at it like it was our job. Day after day we traveled to the snail mines to fill our quota (quota = we filled all the containers that our parents allowed us to use that day).

There was one other boy who tried to keep up. He became our arch nemesis. One day while we were out collecting, this sneaky sneak decided to take the easy way out. He wasn’t going to put in the time to earn his reward. He was going to take what was rightfully ours. He crept into our garage, where we stored our snail collection, and he made off with a few of the margarine containers that were holding our snails. Unfortunately for him, we were quite organized and knew immediately upon our return that something was awry.

We peered across the street and saw him sorting through his snail collection. And sure enough we identified a number of our snail containers in his garage. This was infuriating. Collecting snails had become our way of life, and he was taking them. He was stealing our way of life. Eric and I stormed across the street and took ALL the snails. We were going to beat him at his own game. He stood in horror as we made sure we had successfully wrangled up every last container and then returned to our yard.

This pretty much ended the era of the snail. We had crushed the snail dreams of our arch nemesis and the other children had long since given up on their snail dreams. We would have continued scrounging for snails for the remainder of our lives, but our dad put a stop to that. It turns out that snails can’t survive long in margarine containers – without food or water. My dad walked into the garage one morning to a horrible, overpowering stench and immediately knew that our snail harvesting was to blame. He opened a few of the containers to investigate.

That was the day that we all learned that snails bleed when they die.

My dad washed all of our treasure down the storm drains as we stood by and schemed about the next untapped resource to target.

Coincidence?

This is just an observation I made while watching TV. You probably won’t find it entertaining at all. But I do. So I’m going to share. I apologize in advance.

In ‘Sex and the City’ Carrie cheats on her boyfriend, Aidan (John Corbett), with Big. Big was cheating on his wife, Natasha (Bridget Moynahan), with Carrie.

In the movie, ‘Serendipity,’ Sara leaves her fiancé, Lars (John Corbett), for Jonathan. Jonathan leaves his fiancé, Halley (Bridget Moynahan) for Sara.

I just think that it’s odd that John Corbett and Bridget Moynahan have become so specifically typecast as characters that will jointly be abandoned. Not only are they being dumped in multiple TV shows/movies, they are both being jointly dumped in said shows.

I find this odd. Maybe it’s just me though.

Happy Dave and Creepy Steve

My freshman year of college I got my first job. I had previously submitted an application to Wal-Mart, but never heard back from them. I think the lady that took my application left it on the counter and now a creepy guy has it and has been using it to stalk me for the past 10 years. Either that or some birds got hold of it they and used it to make a nest for their babies. And then the piece of paper that contained my name and address fell from the nest to the sidewalk and a creepy guy found it and has been using it to stalk me for the past 10 years.

I went a different route in college; I applied to work at a dining hall. It was a short lived job. I worked 1 day a week for a 5 hour shift. On Wednesdays after I finished class I would walk over to the worst possible dining hall on campus. It was known to be the most undesirable place to eat, since it typically had indistinguishable foods (unlike most of our dining halls which actually had pretty decent food). I made it 3 weeks – this means I spent 15 hours in the place where dreams go to die.

Unlike most of the dining areas in campus, this one was run entirely by non-students. So when I started the other employees didn’t know how to approach me. Like if a penguin got on the other side of the fence at the zoo – you’d obviously want to approach it, but you’d be afraid it had rabies. And the penguin would be terrified and want to hide in a corner. I guess I’m the rabid penguin in this scenario.

Each of the dining halls had a door man – an entity that would swipe your badge and allow entrance. My dining hall had Happy Dave. He was always smiling, always singing, and always hitting on the guys. Appearance-wise he looked like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. I didn’t interact with him that much.

I did however, have to work with Creepy Steve (I don’t remember his name, so we’ll call him Creepy Steve). Creepy Steve was a lingerer. He didn’t know how to sense when a conversation was over and he should walk away and he definitely stared a little too long for my liking. I spent a lot of time with Creepy Steve over my 3 day stint as a dining hall employee.

Day 1:

The first day involved a very brief training session…and a lot of standing around. I was the salad bar expert. My job was to stand behind the salad bar and to make sure the levels never changed in any of the bins. Someone took some lettuce? Put some more lettuce in the bin. Someone took some cheese? Put more cheese in the bin. Someone took some egg salad? No one ever took egg salad. It’s funny that when watched, people don’t take things that are supposed to be gross or smelly (even though they’re not…honestly egg salad, tuna, and onions are delicious).

I did that. For 5 hours.

I guess I made a good impression, because the next day I was there I had even more responsibilities.

Day 2:

The follow week I was asked to man the salad bar AND the desert table. I know what you’re thinking: “How could one person possibly handle both the salad bar and the desert table?” It was like when you’re in the shower and you hear your alarm clock going off and it’s the 3^rd time it’s happened this week. And you know your neighbor can hear it because you live in an apartment with thin walls, but he’s too polite to say something. So you decide to run from the shower with shampoo on your head, in your eyes, and running down your back all the way to your room with a towel half wrapped around you which is now also covered in soap. You get the alarm off, but the damage is done – your neighbor hates you. And your shower time is ruined. And you need a new towel because if you finish your shower and then dry off with the alarm clock towel you’ll be all soapy again and then be itchy all day. The point is neither task is done quite right, but they both get done.

Creepy Steve was in awe of my talents and wanted to be my special friend. He made awkward conversation as I cleaned up the salad bar. He then asked where I lived. I don’t like to make other people feel awkward or upset or out of line, so I will make a fool of myself or offer up too much information to prevent this. I gave him a very roundabout answer. All freshmen live on North Campus, so saying I lived on North Campus wasn’t really giving up anything that he couldn’t figure out himself. By allowing the conversation to go on as long as I had, I had allowed his confidence to reach dangerous levels. He asked me if I wanted a ride home. I may do stupid things now and then, but I certainly will not get into a car with a strange man (creepy or not). I quickly stored the bins and made an excuse to leave immediately.

Day 3:

My third week of work was my final week. In 2 short days I had shown so much initiative and drive in salad bar bin filling and desert table prep that I had been upgraded to running EVERY station (except for the wok station).

Either that, or I was the only person to show up to work and they had no option other than promoting me. This promotion came with great responsibility, but no raise in salary. That’s the best kind of promotion.

This day was actually challenging. I had so many things to watch, and clean, and refill, and heat. It was tough to stay on top of everything, but I did it and was happy when I reached the end of the night. The cleanup was also significantly tougher. The hot food was kept hot, by resting the bins of food in large vats of hot water. I had to pour the hot water into the large bin where I also dumped uneaten food. The hot water vats were large and heavy. This resulted in burning hot water running down my arms and body. I was then asked to mop up the floor to clean up the mess I’d created.

The last step was for me to bring all the bins and utensils to the kitchen to be cleaned. When working with water, it’s tough to keep it all where it’s supposed to be (see the previous paragraph). The kitchen fell victim to a number of unintended water accidents. This meant the tile floor was wet. When tiles get wet, they get slippery. I have trouble staying upright on level friction-y ground, so this didn’t bode well for me. When I was carrying my last pile of pots, pans, and utensils into the kitchen, I didn’t stand much of a chance. I had one of the most amazing to watch (I have to imagine) falls of all time. I slipped and fell backwards, landing on my butt. I must have been flailing wildly because the pans flew up into the air and landed everywhere. Some fell left, some fell right, some fell down, some fell up (and then down and slightly to the right). It would have been amazing if I could have jumped up and caught all the pans one by one in a stack like they do in cartoons. But everyone knows you have to be a wizard to have talents of that magnitude. And sadly, I am not a wizard.

I wished no one saw, but of course everyone did. They asked if I was ok and I had to give the obligatory “I’m fine. It wasn’t as bad as it looked.” story as I hobbled away.

Before I could make it to my 4^th day, I received a call from Creepy Steve. He asked me if I could come in on another day because they needed help. Unfortunately I had a prelim that day, and oddly enough I valued my grades more than my dining hall job. He somewhat jokingly asked me to skip my prelim to fill the shift, and I declined, and he refused to drop it, and I continued to decline, and the awkward conversation went on too long.

I made a judgment call and decided that creepy guys + increased responsibility and non-increased pay + scalding water on my skin + epic fall + unreasonable requests = Cristy no longer working at dining hall. So my first job lasted 3 weeks, but really only 3 days.

Motion Sick Ball

When I’m just sitting around, I usually am thinking about something ridiculous like: What would it be like to follow a duck around for an entire day? Where would it lead me? What adventures would we go on? How would I keep up if it decided to fly a long distance? Would I bring a plane? That’s probably not fair, because the duck isn’t using technology.

Just now I started thinking about bouncy balls. Kids love to play with them. And I’d like to think that the balls like to roll around. But, what if there was a ball that was prone to motion sickness?

The ball would have no control over the rolling being forced upon him, but he would be so sick!

Cristy – The Bird Dog

My family is a very outdoorsy family. My childhood vacations usually involved camping, hiking, or fishing – which was amazing. My dad and brothers would regularly go hunting too. I have since gone through hunter safety and ventured into the world of hunting, but in my younger years I sat it out. I did, however, begin going on hunting trips as more of a sidekick/observer before I started hunting.

I started accompanying my dad and brothers on hunting trips in my early teens. My mom joined us on a trip shortly after I started going, but ended up having to beat a dingo off her leg with a coke can. That was not a fun trip.

Each weekend we’d make the arduous journey to eastern Washington and spend the day in the sun looking for doves passing through the sky. My dad would sit with Brent and I would sit with Eric. Because I wasn’t actually hunting, I wanted a task of my own. Eric told me that could fetch the doves from the field. I now had a sense of purpose. I was the bird girl. I would retrieve the doves better than any other bird retriever. My competition was the bird dog.

I would proudly collect the fallen doves and felt a sense of accomplishment sitting there next to my pile of dead birds. And when Eric called me his bird dog, I didn’t mind. I was Cristy the bird dog.

However, on one particular bird retrieval things went awry in the field and Eric had to be called in for backup. The dove fell from the sky, but it did not die. Not only did it survive the gun shot and the fall, but it survived being skewered through the eye by a dried out stem in the crop field. It was flapping around on the ground as I looked on in horror with no tool to finish the job.

I yelled for Eric and he hurried over to bring the retrieval process to completion.

An apology to those who end up on my blog seeking treatment for rope burn

I’m able to see what Google searches send people to my blog. There’s never any normal searches. I tried a few and learned that I’m the top internet authority on Dino Bombs and the Island of Robotica. I just took a peak at my Google searches section, and the most recent search to land on my blog was “rope burn on hands.” Some poor individual managed to move his mangled hands in a controlled enough manner to search for the cure to his problems and was sorely disappointed to find a nonsensical story about a child destroying her hands in gym class.  This didn't help him at all.

So fellow rope burn sufferer, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me for ranking so high in a “rope burn” related search, and you choose to return to my blog on a later date…here’s a band-aid:

Band-aids make everything better. Trust me.

Amrita likes to give me band-aids when I hurt myself (which is often). I hit my hand and she gave me this fancy looking band-aid.