Tomorrow

We're going to Amish Country!

I can't wait!

Another bus story

This morning I got ready fast. Really fast. I was ready with enough time to catch the early bus. I decided I didn't want to catch the early bus because I didn't want to be early to work. So, I read my scriptures instead and swiped a coat of red nail polish on my nails.

I walked leisurely to the bus stop and put my hands in my pocket. I didn't have my bus card. So I checked in my purse (carefully, didn't want to mess up my nail polish).

No bus card.

It didn't even take me a second thought to turn around and run full speed back home, my small heels clip cloping the whole way. As I ran, I rummaged around in my bag for my keys. (Thank goodness I bought fast drying nail color.) I couldn't remember putting the keys back in my bag after I opened the door yesterday.

Yep, no keys.

I bang on our front door using our brass knocker. No one comes. No one's up.

I run to the back door past the ladies chatting while their dogs sniff around in our foliage, hoping the backdoor is somehow open. Maybe Steph left through the backdoor for work?

Not open.

I call my sleeping roommates. No answers.

I run back to the front door. Back past the ladies and their sniffing dogs, and bang on the door some more and this time less gingerly, with more venem.

Holly opens the door just as I'm lamenting to the ladies and their dogs about having forgotten my bus pass and my keys to boot.

I sprint up the stairs two at a time, my skirt hiked up to my thighs, to my room, grab the coat I wore yesterday, and tucked inside the front right pocket is my bus pass and my keys.

I take off running to the bus stop debating weather or not to try and catch the express or the other bus. But my question is answered for me because as I get there as the bus is pulling up.

It sounds like a Monday morning.

But it's Tuesday.

Scarab Power

At Karnak Temple in Luxor Egypt there's a giant scarab that apparently brings marriage if you walk around it enough times, fertility if you walk around it an extra. (Unfortunately I can't remember the exact numbers.)

So, of course we walked around it! Here's Mandi, me and Tricia showing off that we'll soon be engaged.

Before going to Egypt we were given strict instructions to always have a male present in our group. When we went to the market they wanted each small group to have two males. One in the lead and one in the rear. This was to help us be protected from gropers. One night we went to Pizza Hut. Yep, Pizza Hut. There's something about Pizza Hut in a foriegn country that is just so goooood. So, we take a taxi to the Pizza Hut. Oh yeah, and if we were going to take a taxi the male was supposed to be the last one out of the taxi. So, we pull up to the restaurant. I'm sliding across the back seat of the car and the guy in the front seat starts to get out. I'm a rule follower so I start getting nervous and in the 15 seconds it takes me to keep sliding across my seat and keep my skirt down modestly I have a million senarios of the taxi pulling away with me still in the car, the door flapping wildly as we drive down the road. My underwear on display as I'm thrown wildly about the backseat. That's about as far as my imagination got before I was at the door and getting out of the car.

Here's where the story gets good.

As I'm getting out of the car, a man runs up to me asking for money. I feel something touch my boob. (Yep I just wrote boob.) I look down and just see the guy's stump of an arm near my chest before two friends wisk me away and into the restaurant. I don't really know what happened. It all happened too fast for me to have felt truely violated. But as we get up to the Pizza Hut there are people from our group already there and it is announced that I was "nubbed".

Nubbed?

Yep, nubbed.

Everybody wants to know how I'm feeling. They want to know if I'm feeling violated or embarassed etc. Honestly, it happened so fast I didn't hardly notice. I doubted that the nubbing was an intentional act, but witnesses swear that the nubbing was on purpose.

What does this story have to do with Scarab Power you want to know? Well. A month or so ago Tricia, Mandi and I had the following Facebook conversation about the Scarab:

Tricia: "How is it that we are all still unmarried... So much for the Scarab"

Lauren: "Maybe it only works if you're going to marry an Egyptian. I got TONS of proposals while there. I guess it does work...

Mandi: "Well here's the thing...I don't know if you remember but we got really sweaty while we were gone, maybe we sweat out all the wedding luck. Just a theory."

Tricia: "Scarab power---->nubbing"

Mandi: "Hahaha NUBBING! Wow. Sorry you wasted that power on the nub."

Lauren: "I could have used some of that scarab power now that I'm in the big bad world. Why me? All ruined on some stupid nub. And it wasn't even a real good nub, just a sort of nub..."

Maybe you don't think that's funny. I do. I was nubbed. I wasted all my husband getting luck on a stupid nubbing from a guys nub of an arm. So tragic really! But, good to know that the scarab power does work right??

(On a side note, I have pictures to post from Halloween. My roommates and I went as characters from the Wizard of Oz. We looked great!)

** Picture curtesy of Tricia's Facebook Album

Mmm Haaalloweeeen!

My favorite part of Halloween is the abundance of these puppies:

And I just ate a million of them!

Oops!

Long-winded

I talk a lot. I've always talked a lot. Home videos show me talking a lot. Kindergarten Native American teaching units gave me my "Indian name" of Little-Babbling Brook (evidence of me talking a lot). I had my name on the board frequently for talking during class in Elementary school. (And once, I got a check next to my name and had to stay in during recess because my name was already on the board for talking and then I stuck my tongue out at Aaron Beach--next door neighbor and fastest boy in the class-- while he was passing out worksheets.) Two years in a row I was voted "Most Talkative" in my 4th/5th grade combined classes. Report cards frequently had the comment, "Fun to have in class" followed with, "Has a talking problem". Middle school found me frequently being called on because I was talking. By high school I had learned to keep my comments under my breath so I wouldn't get called on or so no attention came my way.

I never caused real disruption to the whole class. Actually, the teacher calling me out during the lesson was probably more disruption than the actual whispering I was doing caused. I wasn't a bad kid. I was a good kid. I loved all my elementary school teachers. (Mrs. Henry, Mrs. Stark, Ms. Nissel, Mrs. Good, Mr. Asmos, Ms. Ficke)

I just had a lot to say!

If you know me well, you know I frequently talk. I talk during church, during meetings, during meals, during commutes to and from work. I talk all day long in typing form. I just talk a lot.

It's a problem. I will often realize I'm talking a lot and try to reel it in. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

There's a guy in my office who talks a lot. He give waaaaay too much information in our meetings. It's annoying. I find myself day dreaming and then realizing that he's still talking when I come to. I have to edit some information that he sent out. It should be one page or so, he gave me four. I'm annoyed.

Now I know how people feel when they read long blog posts. Or long emails. Or have to sit in a conversation with me when I feel like I'm talking and talking and talking. I really have to learn how to reel it in otherwise I'm going to be like this guy from work! (Well, perhaps not since I'm not quite so monotone and don't ever talk about agriculture and trade...)

Note to self

Look in the mirror more.

I got home from work today (yep I went to work. I'm not feeling sick anymore. Hallelujah!) and found that I had a piece of black something in between my right front tooth and the one next to me. I'm smiley. I smile a lot. I smiled all afternoon. No one told me.

No. One.

So, I will have to up the vanity and look in the mirror more.

I'm sick

and I'm worried I won't be better for work tomorrow. I have body aches, a headache, a sore throat, and a cough. I fear I might have other symptoms too by the way my stomach feels right now. Work is still a necessity since I already have planned days to take off at Christmas and I haven't exactly accrued enough days to take off. Not fun. My roommate just told me I have Swine Flu. I'm nervous.

Worst part about the whole being sick thing? I was going to make Banana Pudding and give it away. I can't now.