Short Short Story

Yes, it's true. I have been a horrible horrible blogger. It has been months since my last post, and I'm sorry. I will do a longer post sometime during spring break (next next week!). To tide you over, here's a short story (not fictional) of two interconnected events that occurred the week following Christmas.

Life Imitates Art

After coming home from seeing True Grit we had a Churchman jam session. David played show tunes on the piano while Emily, Mom and I sang along. One of the songs was "America" from west side story. For those heathens who do not know, this is a song sung by women from Puerto Rico talking about how life in America is "better". For example, the women sing "Everything's free in America...for a small fee in America." The next day I was getting a hair cut at the ever reliable Hair Cuttery and overheard a conversation between two of the stylists who didn't have costumers to appease. Both women were not from America and were literally acting out the line: "There are many free things in America. You just have to pay for them. It only costs five dollars to get something free". I half expected them to start dancing and snapping.

The End.

It Was that Wonderful Time of the Year

These are the days of sitting... These are the days of socializing... These are some of the days of my break so far... I decided to continue my journaling style, basically so I have something to post when/if Jessica laments my lack of posting. This here's a long one. Without further ado, let's start where I left off...

December 18th.

Flying home day. The only real problem was an hour delay in Tennessee. I almost prefer for things to go terribly wrong because it makes for a good story. An hour delay is just annoying. I was driven straight from the airport to the church for a dinner honoring our British guests. A British choir (of <30>

December 19th

Bestie Liz Burman was coming to stay at our house the next day, but for a little preview Liz spent part of this afternoon helping me Xmas shop for my family. I found presents for Ma, Pa, and Sis, but David's was proving to be super elusive. Therefore, Liz "helpfully" point out every single item that he would never want or need. Thus creating a fun game to be continued later. But at the time I did think of the perfect gag gift. David is currently a teacher at a school with a focus on discipline, so I wanted to get him one of those wooden spanking paddles. Pretty sure I wasn't going to find it a store I looked online. A tip for all of you. Never look up wooden paddle on google. One brilliant site I found was literally called spanking-paddles.com. You could even get them engraved! Unfortunately, they were 40 bucks and over. Looking up spanking paddles on amazon.com also directs you to some pretty salacious items. After using my Mom's computer to search (Liz was using mine) I discovered I had not logged her out of her amazon account, leaving her with some pretty interesting recommendations. OOps. After Liz left for the night, Mom Dad and I brought the two Brits to their first ever Mexican restaurant. It was like going to dinner with walking sociological perspectives. First, they spotted football on one of the restaurant TVs and made very amusing (and true) comments on the ridiculousness of the game. 'Look at their outfits. Their so shiny and tight.' Next we had to explain all the different dishes to them, making it painfully clear that all Mexican dishes are exactly the same: 'Oh you know, it comes with a tortilla, beans, cheese, and some kind of meat. Yeah that one too.' One girl even had her first margarita. Very interesting.

December 20th

In the morning I had breakfast with the Brits-my Mom had made delicious waffles and berry sauce. Afterwards, the two girls left for the church with their suitcase (the idea being that they would jump on whatever flight became available). They did eventually get a flight, but unfortunately, it was flying out on Xmas Eve (bummer). Instead of staying separately at US home-stays, the whole group decided they would stay at a hotel for the rest of their (unintentionally prolonged) stay. A few days later, their tragic story was picked up by news stations in the US and the UK and they got an earlier flight. What really clinched it for them though was one little choir boy saying something like "I'm afraid Santa won't be able to find me." Aw.

For the evening, Liz and I went to Galaxy Hut to meet our friend Harry (you may remember him from me getting stuck in the airport before Christmas take two). Proving it certainly is a small world we also ran into three other past HB-ers: Nick, Sophia Trick, and Stacey Weinstock. But wait...there was more! Liz also ran into TWO of her brothers who apparently knew a member of the band playing in the pub that night. Yeesh.

December 21st

Liz and I went into the district to meet her friend/fellow camp counselor/guy I met once before Caleb for lunch and stuff. We ate at a lovely food court, with deliciously unhealthy give-you-an-early-death food. Our two topics of conversation, naturally, were E-readers and camp experiences. We followed it up with some more shopping and more "helpful" hints about what to buy David from Liz. I took her straight to the airport afterwards. For the second phase of my day I went to see Esyle (her name has been changed to protect her from the embarrassment to come in a moment) in her new apartment (which was lovely by the way). Had a tiny bit of trouble getting there...yeah a 15 minute drive turned into an 1.5 hour drive. Stupid S. Glebe was blocked off by the po-lice for blocks and blocks, making it impossible to reach W. Glebe. The first half of the trip was stupid Glebe's fault, but the second was my own. After coming ten feet away from W. Glebe I took a deadly wrong turn and ended up exactly where I started. GRR! Lovely Esyle, looked up an alternate route on Google that ended up taking about ten minutes. You couldn't given that as the first option Google!?! Esyle gave me food as soon as I arrived to appease the beast within me. In the perfect way to end the evening Esyle walked me to the elevator and said "I have to pee so I won't go down in the elevator with you"... and then noticed the two other people standing in the elevator. She ran away in shame while I continued to burst out laughing in front of my elevator mates saying through partial tears "I'll never let her live this down". And now she never will.

December 22nd

Today I continued my Christmas shopping quest. I thought I was so smart not leaving my shopping to the last minute and so did everyone else. I started with a little Target to finish off one present and I went to Pentagon City Mall next mainly because there was a store there I wanted to go to for myself. Finding parking was miserable as the only way to actually get a space was to stalk some poor fellow shopper who was getting in their car to leave. I eventually found my stalkee and bravely entered the fray. I went to my store first. I had the exact jeans I wanted in mind, I went up to said item, and picked it up. I then got distracted by so many other things that I simply had to try on. About 45 minutes later (only a slight exaggeration) I walked out of the store with...the jeans I had come in for. Nothing else had worked and I cursed the heavens. There was some more bad as I wandered around for the rest of the time failing to find David's present. Fun day.

This evening I went to a "wine and cheese" party held at Stephanie's house. I drove Ashleigh (taking the designated driver role upon myself) and got to see her for the first time since fall break. Apparently, she is temporarily stuck in the US, so I might be seeing more of her. Yay for me, sucks for her though. I was happy to find that most of the whole old HB gang was there. It was good times. Somehow we ended up watching a movie. Sorry, not a movie. THE BEST MOVIE EVER. "Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs". A movie I definitely wouldn't have seen had it not been put in front of me (Steph has an amazing home theatre room), but I am so glad I got to. On a serious note the animation and concept art was amazing. The rest of the movie can literally not be taken on a serious note. It was funny, it was random, it was obviously targeted to kids with ADHD, and it just had some great lines and sight gags. Sight gag example: A 'ratbird' (one of the main character's inventions and exactly what it sounds like) flies away with a little child. But, my favorite bit were the lines. The comedy was not tired or predictable like so many animated movies these days and it was surprisingly direct. Some lines for example. Main girl says to main guy: "Can you keep a secret?", he answers: "Nah." Line 2: A bystander eats food that has just fallen from the sky and says "This tastes significantly better than sardines!". Oh and a monkey with a thought translator! voiced by Neil Patrick Harris! "And!... really you have to see the movie to understand the amazing hilarious visually stunning amazingness. And I need to see it 10 more times to remember everything. Be prepared Perri.

December 23rd

Despite my best efforts, I had to finish my Christmas shopping on this day before Christmas Eve. I expected terror and bloodshed, but it was actually pretty mild compared to the other day: and I found David's present (thus ending the saga)! At 3:30pm I was to meet with the choir director at St. George's to practice my duet with my moms. At 2:40pm Ashleigh invited me over to her house because I might have told her the previous day that I would be available around that time. I thought the church thing was later, honest! Leading me to say to her "I didn't lie, I just didn't know the extent of the truth at the time." Then, Megan brought up a good point, Ashleigh has never ever at any time lied to me about when she would be available (she remarks sarcastically). Oh yeah, Megan from HB times was at Ashleigh's house too and so was Frenchman Gabriel (Ten billion points if you noticed that this was the same cast from this summer's adventure to the Arlington County fair where a ride tried to amputate my thigh). We had some egg nog and listened to some mellow tunes. Luckily I got to leave before Ashleigh played my newly burned mix (I fear it was not one of my bests). After the church thing Mom waited awhile so she could bring EMILY home! Later that night DAVID came home. And with that, all the Churchmans were in place for CHRISTMAS TIME!

December 24th & December 25th

Of course many things happened these two days, but I've always thought of these days as personal family time...and I'm tired of typing...so I'll only give you a description of my favorite Xmas tradition, which I'll call "The Saga of the Golden Monkey". There is an ornament. It is painted gold. And it is a monkey. My Mom hates it with all her heart and thinks it's gaudy. I love it with all my heart. I'm truly not trying to be difficult, I really like it and frankly I think we have uglier ornaments. Regardless, every Christmas brings another silent battle between me and my Mom (with my sister on my side). Em and I make sure the monkey stays on the tree at all costs, while my Mom quietly and sneakily tries to remove it. Of course my favorite moment is when my Mom discovers the ornament back on the tree and let's out a little groan of frustration (so sue me I'm a sadist). Well this year Emily found the ornament among the others and we put it on the tree. On Christmas Eve Em noticed the monkey was missing. We decided to put up stockings and as I retrieved them from the back room I saw in one of the Xmas boxes...the monkey. In retaliation I literally wired the monkey into the tree. I waited for the rest of the holidays for my Mom to discover my deed. Alas, today (the day of posting this post) was the day to take down the tree and the event had not yet taken place. I had to resort to more obvious tactics. I stripped the tree of all ornaments except the monkey and told my mom there was one ornament left she could remove herself. She did let out a little giggle when she found it was stuck to the tree, which appeased me, but it wasn't as satisfying as a real surprise would have been. Next year Mother...next year...

THE END

And finally because I have recently been told my Facebook statuses are amusing, here are a couple:

Semester over? No that doesn't sound right. Really? How many semesters left? One, you say? Surely not.

and...

Merry Christmas to all those celebrating Christmas today. To all the other heathens, have a nice day. I kid, I kid.

My Second to Last Finals Week

This post will be a little different from the others. I'm aiming for sort of a journal entry style, so I don't have to sit down and try to remember everything that happened to me retrospectively. At the end of each day of finals week I will write a little something about it. Hopefully, by being as honest as possible about what I actually did (procrastination and all), I'll actually guilt myself into getting something done. Now that that's out of the way.

Saturday December 11

I didn't get any work done today, but it was OK because...I say it is. I wanted to use this day to relax and not think about work-recharge myself for the week ahead. This past week had been pretty stressful thanks to an Abnormal Psychology comic book project (which can be viewed here; http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=584275&id=775895149). But it had been especially deadly for Perri who had much to do. Basically we didn't see each other outside of class for most of the week. So, on Saturday morning Perri came to make up for all the television we had missed. Next, I decided to tag along with Perri and her friend (now my friend?) Laura to go grocery shopping for cookie materials. We returned to Perri's apartment where we gained an addition in the form of Alex (for long time readers the Alex I hung out with in Montana two summers ago). I cleaned Perri's dishes (be proud of me parents!), then helped Laura with her first cookie making attempt (meaning I back-seat baked). Somehow (b/c of me) wine became part of the deal and we adulted it up. Alex and Perri eventually left to do other things and so I was left alone with Laura. Both of us are pretty shy, so we confined our talk to cookie making, but there was something comfortable about the silences that dominated our time together...I'd say we're friends now (b/c she friended me on Facebook-which I believe is significant for her). She left and I napped on Perri's bed. Perri returned to my room with me and eventually we watched anime w/ Brett. Good day-unexpected socializing!

Sunday Dec 12

At 3pm was a Sing-a-long Messiah in Herrick Chapel. On Friday there was an informal get together at Bucksbaum where anyone who wanted to could sing the Hallelujah chorus from Messiah. It was pretty cathartic, it being the last day of classes and all. Anywho, this sing a long had a few more selections from Messiah. The singers sat in pews at Herrick Chapel, while the orchestra, director and soloists were on 'stage'. The bass soloist was my choir conductor, the tenor soloist was my brother's old voice teacher, and the soprano was my old voice teacher. It actually made me kind of self conscious b/c my teacher could look straight at me, and I wanted to look like I was doing a good job. It was still fun though. At night, everything that could go wrong during our work shift did go wrong. The zamboni ran out of battery so we had to mop everything while I temporarily broke a mop. It provided enough laughs though and turned into a good time. Now before bed, an episode of Merlin w/ Perri and studying.

Monday Dec 13

Absolutely nothing happened today. That is all. Move along, nothing to see here.

Tuesday Dec 14

Last night I had a dream. I was in the bathroom on my dorm room floor (not doing that!) using the sinks. Both were very full and I had to make sure too much water didn't get into one of the sinks. I feel like this was an omen of some kind, but don't ask me what kind. We'll see. I woke up early to fit in some last minute studying and then went to take my Major Western Religions final. Done with that class! Two left. My grand plan for the day was to finish a paper that is due Thursday, so I could take my Abnormal Psych final in the morning and then be done. Yeah. That didn't work out so well. After waking up early I was knackered, so I decided to take a nap before working on said paper. So, that took longer than expected. Then at five pm I sat down ready to tackle and finish it and then...Bring! My phone rang and it was Perri. Apparently our friend Brett's car battery was dead (preventing her from leaving). Perri offered to help her only to find out her own car's battery was dead. So that left me. Long story short I ended up being no help at all because Brett was helped by security and Perri's car batter was unreachable with her short cable. I did get to dig my car out of ice and run around in the freezing cold for no reason for 30 minutes. So that was fun. Also long story short my paper didn't finish either. Oh well I tried. I really need to find a more efficient paper writing technique.

Wednesday Dec 15

Tomorrow morning is my Abnormal Psychology final. Tomorrow @ 4pm I must turn in my last final/paper for Sociology of Health and Illness. So what did I prepare for this day? Both! I started the day with a little bit of paper writing and realizing the way I write papers is horribly time consuming. Must work on that next semester, but genius takes time. For most of the day I studied for Abnormal Psychology and wow I just realized how boring this all must be for anyone reading right now and I will stop... Except also Perri studied with me so solidarity! except I also helped her procrastinate and... Ok stopping now.

Thursday Dec 16

I once again woke up two hours early to get in some last minute studying. I was actually feeling pretty confident, I just wanted it to be done with. Therefore, I was a bucket full of jitters when Perri and I arrived in class way too early (a running joke with me and Perri-because Perri likes to be early and I--often am not early). By the end my hand felt like it would fall off and I was developing a writing blister on my finger (again exciting stuff) because I wrote soooo much. I was actually the last one to finish leaving me alone to have an awkward conversation with my Professor. "So do you think you did well?" "Depends on how generous you're feeling". I finished by 11:30 and had a paper due by 4pm, so I went straight from writing to typing. I took a lunch break to stuff my face (it was the most satisfying meal for some reason: brain food?) but pretty much wrote continuously till 3:50pm. By that time I had turned 12 pages of quotes and random thoughts into exactly 6 pages of brilliantly coherent Brilliance (too redundant?) which was good because it could be no longer than 6 pages. And with that last final in I went ah. I watched all that YouTube stuff I had so responsibly left 'til after my finals and melted into my bed and then went with Perri to play with Kitties at the Shelter...and scoop litter and stuff.

Friday Dec 17

I'm sorry. What? My what is over? My second to last semester? Surely you must be mistaken I'm not graduating any tiME SOON I CAN'T BE LEAVING YOU CAN'T MAKE ME LEAVE! Actually the day was pretty stress free. I graciously agreed to work lunch with Perri only to be abandoned for the first ten minutes. Someone had lost track of time at the barn and skipped our lunch date...I'm joking Perri, don't get upset. For dinner, Perri, Laura, Alex and I went out for Mexican. We were joined later by a nice lad named Jing. It was a great end to our semester...you know...the semester that isn't over, that didn't just happen.

Update: Got a 99/100 on my Abnormal Psychology Final. Bringing my class grade up to an A-. Hells yes.

Gigantor Gets Stuck in an Airport...Again.

There are some people who should simply not be allowed to travel…or maybe it’s just me. The point is: me + airport = disaster.

First, Grinnell decided that the first real day of winter weather for the season should be on the day everyone flies home for Thanksgiving...or maybe it was targeting me specifically (I’m not paranoid, I’m just seeing the pattern). I wasn’t even planning to go home for Thanksgiving, but then during fall bread I found out David would be coming home. I didn’t want to be the one family member left out, but also, we haven’t had Thanksgiving as a whole family for approximately 10 years. Anywho, it was raining ice, so I decided to leave for the airport super early (and even skip my last class) to drive before the roads became truly treacherous. Well, I had no trouble driving…so that’s good…

When I arrived at the Des Moines Airport I decided to treat myself to a massage, since I had so long to wait (longer than I thought). A calm massage to start off my calm uneventful travels…no Universe? Ok then.

Long story—and severe depression—short, my flight was delayed for 1.5 hours. We ended up taking off after 8pm, which didn’t really fit with my 9pm connection time at Chicago O’Hare. As the aircraft was jostled by the choppy air, I hoped against hope that the same things that delayed my flight to Chicago would delay my connection flight. My flights are always late anyway, why couldn’t this time be any different? The one time I actively wished for one of my flights to be late the universe could not frickin oblige me. My connection was right on time and left promptly at 9pm. As soon as my plane landed, and before I knew the truth, I listened to my voice mail and heard my lovely mother telling me something about getting an automatic message about me being rebooked on another flight—yay!—leaving at 6:55 am—%$$%$!!! ####@@!!! *((@*#@!!!!

As soon as I deplaned I ran to the departure screens and sure enough my flight had left right on time. So logically I went to the United customer service center where I could be comforted and reassured by a nice, warm airline worker whose mission in life is to please the customer. Instead I found a cold, hard, self-help touch-screen computer monitor that spit me out a new boarding pass and sent me on my way, presumably to sleep on a cold, hard airport floor, desperately clutching my belongings to prevent a tragic theft of the only belongings I currently had. For some crazy reason, I decided instead I wanted to stay at a hotel. However since I had no United person to talk to, I called David.

Mom (who was monitoring the call along with Emily—the family all together, comfortably at home) gave me a customer support number for United Airlines, which turned out to be a great help, in that it made relieving sardonic laughter protrude from my mouth. The four options first presented to me by a computerized voice from the 1-800 number mentioned nothing of a hotel, so I said rather rudely into the telephone ‘more options’. These options were equally useless, so I decided I would try as many as possible in an attempt to TALK TO A REAL LIFE PERSON FOR $#%^$ SAKE. I thought the best option was to say clearly “Customer Relations”. That has got to get you to a real person right? You can’t complain to a computer. I was greeted by this message:

“If you would like to make a complaint or give a compliment about our service you can email United Airlines @blahblah. If you prefer to write a letter, you can reach us at…” Perfect! I’ll write a letter—so useful!

Dear United Airlines,

Please give me a voucher for a hotel. I’m ever so tired.

Ever yours,

Abigail.

“We’ll try to get back to you within 5 business days”, computer voice concluded and I resisted the urge to throw my cell phone against the wall.

I decided to wander further in hopes of human contact, and somehow found a customer service station with real people…and a real long line of weary, frustrated travelers. While in line I received a call from David. He had managed to talk to a real person at the customer service phone number. How, I wondered? Was I merely being thick headed when I couldn’t reach a real person? Apparently not. David had discovered (I assume through trial and error) that the way to talk to a person was to yell ‘operator, operator, help’ into the phone with desperation. However, the person had said he couldn’t do anything about a hotel.

The line for customer service was located right next to a McDonalds. So I thought to myself, after I get this hotel funny business figured out, I can drown my sorrows in saturated fat and sugar water. I looked at the service station for a second, and when I looked back at the McDonalds there was a metal grate blocking me from comfort. It was at this point that my spirit died. By the time I was finally called up for my turn, I discovered I could no longer speak coherently. Somehow I asked for a voucher for a hotel and she said “well that depends on why you missed your flight”. After some typing on her evil technology she decided weather was not United’s fault. Well it certainly wasn’t mine. She gave me a tiny discount they give everyone, and I decided to take my Mom up on her offer to put me up in the Airport’s Hilton for the night…so I could be stranded in style!

I eventually got to the hotel, slept for a couple of hours, staggered to security, boarded my right-on-time 6:55am flight, arrived at National and was picked up by David who took me home. I didn’t break my 31-hour record for time it takes to return home, but whatevs.

THE END

Oh, and Thanksgiving was nice.

Midsemester Examination

Yes, dear blog readers, it is true that I have not blogged since the beginning of the first semester of my senior year. To make up for this horrible crime to humanity I will go over the highlights of my school year thus far, as well as the horrible lows like this past week of midsems. In other words, I will be examining and critiquing the first half of the semester, including my exams (see what I did with the title there. Clever right?

Near the beginning of the semester I got a very unexpected call from my friend Gwen, who I do not see nearly enough, inviting me to accompany her and Annie, to Grinnell’s water park. Did you know Grinnell has a water park? Because I didn’t. Now, when I say the tiny town of Grinnell has a water park you—with your possibly skewed view of Iowa—might imagine a slip-in-slide and a kiddy pool. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the reality I found. It was no Universal or Disney water park, but it was quite decent. Two water slides, a relaxation pool (w/ a mild propellant so you could laze around on an inner tube), and a fairly large pool. One slide, which I was somehow tricked into going on, was almost completely vertical. Gwen went on it first, saying that it wasn’t as scary as it looked. I love Gwen, but LIES! It was terrifying. The other slide was more twisty, required an inner tube, and was much fun! Two people could go on it at once, so Gwen, Annie and I did every possible combination of sharing an inner tube or going solo. Apparently, I was the best partner. I guess Gigantor’s size propels trajectories in the best way possible. The day was full of sun, fun, stories, good friends and good times.

As long time readers know, I lamented the loss of my senior friends last year. Well, fortunately, not all of them are that far away. Friends Janna and Zach, in fact, live in Iowa City. Zach is in the process of getting his teaching certificate, and as part of that he must come to Grinnell almost every Wednesday. So, Janna suggested she could come along and spend time with me. Unfortunately, I work on Wednesday nights, but one night I played hooky so I could spend a couple hours with Janna! I must have been excited because, apparently, I sprinted down to greet her and let her into my dorm. We did our catching up and went out for Chinese food. Much better than working!

The other time I saw Janna and Zach was Oktoberfest 2010 in the Amana Colonies. Perri and I met up w/ Jach (Zanna?) in the afternoon, got ourselves some delicious potato pancakes (or as I like to call them, hash browns shaped like a pancake), and slowly made our way down to the Amana barn. At the barn, we listened to polka music, I somehow made my way through a 35oz mug of beer, and we ate German-type food. To top it off we observed the log sawing competition—though this time none of us sawed wood—and then got as much food to take home as possible with our budgets. By the end of the day I was exhausted, but satisfied.

As you must have noticed, this year 10-10-10 happened (October 10, 2010), however if you don’t go to Grinnell then you don’t comprehend how significant this was for our school. Every year there is the campus wide, highly coveted, traveling party: 10-10. For many this party means drinking till you have to go to the hospital, or until you get arrested. However, this year 10-10-10 meant having loads of fun and in moderation (the drinking, not the fun—oh you know what I mean)! The best part was 10-10-10 temporarily took my mind off the week of hell that would shortly follow it. To start the evening, Perri and I went out with a group of her friends for dinner at Lonnski’s Pub: a local bar with really good burgers. Second, Perri and I watched anime with Brett like we do almost every Saturday. Then, we headed out to the major event of the evening, the traditional campus wide shot. The only other time I made it to the shot was my first year with Emily, so needless to say it had heavy significance this year. Not that I’m mentioning the G word that must not be spoken. An unexpected treat was meeting up with our friend Ginny and coming back to her place after. We chatted and ate way too many animal crackers (not that there is such a thing), before I returned to my dorm and mentally prepared for...

Midsems were terrible this year (those who do not want to listen to complaining—well, you shouldn’t read this blog, but you certainly shouldn’t read this next part). The main source of stress was a very large presentation for Sociology of Health and Illness about HIV/AIDS. Everyone in the class has to present at some point during the semester, instead of a final term paper, however my presentation happened to fall on the same week as my mid-semester examinations. My talking partner, Hiba, is funnily enough one of the only other students at Grinnell who originated from Arlington, VA. So that was nice. I was also pretty happy about the topic, it just was not a good time for an hour-long class teaching session. Anyway, after weeks of diligent work and stress/anxiety it was over and it could have gone worse. There was little time for celebration though as I had two 5 page papers due Thursday (for the same class), two sit down tests for Friday on Religious Terms and Russian story characters (respectively), and a 5-10 page term paper for Abnormal psychology (that easily might be the worst piece of crap I have ever written). Not a week, or marathon of sleep deprivation, I want to relive.

Fortunately, Saturday marked freedom! Fall Break! No School! Grinnell, however, decided to give me one last gift before my plane ride…

My travels went fine timing-wise, however I was seated next to the most unfortunate travel partner for the 5am shuttle ride to the airport. My first mental title for him was Sir-has-no-concept-of-personal-space, until he did something even more pleasant. I noticed him bending over every so often and I assumed he was getting something from his backpack. Then, as I tried to drift off into sleep I smelled the exact smell you don’t want to have coming from someone sitting right next to you. ‘No’, I thought to myself, ‘he couldn’t have’. Sure enough, when we arrived at Des Moines International and the shuttle lights came on, I saw in the aisle…a puddle of vomit.

And with that pleasant note—goodbye for now…

I HAD MY GOLDEN BIRTHDAY AND ALL I GOT WAS TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL

On August 21^st 2010, Abigail Churchman took her final step across the barrier that separates the girls from the women. Abigail “Gigantor” Churchman turned 21 on August 21. Scabbers experienced a golden landmark birthday. But first Cabbage decided to hurt herself! What’s a 21^st birthday without a little bit of pain?

The day before my birthday, Ashleigh took me out for an afternoon of fun at the Arlington County fair. Accompanying us was Ashleigh’s friend Megan from our high school days and Ashleigh’s other friend visiting from France. Upon arriving at the fair I discovered two things. First, fried Oreos exist. How did I not know? And second, the fair is a lot more expensive than I remembered. As a result, we only bought enough tickets for three of us to go on one ride. I reluctantly agreed to go on a ride that didn’t look too bad. WRONG. The ride consisted of space-ship looking seats fit for two that swung up, down and around a spinning center. For some reason I begged Ashleigh to let me sit on the outside. It did not occur to me that the person on the inside would push against the person on the outside due to the spinning of the ride. As a result, during the ride, my left thigh was pressed really hard against a metal protrusion-bulbous-thing meant to keep us from flying out of our seats. Mission accomplished. Never, since the big bouncy slide at Grinnell, has a ride meant for fun caused me so much pain. Ashleigh said “sorry” the entire time we were spinning. When I finally got off the awful ride, I examined the welt in my thigh that looked purple and pain-like. I limped my way back to the main exhibition area and managed to get ice, though no official first-aid place was present. Later that night the indent had turned into a lump, but didn’t bruise for many days, making me feel totally unjustified in my whining about it. At least I got to try the fried Oreos on my way back. And all things considered I did enjoy my pre-birthday outing.

Five minutes to midnight my sister stood outside my lair (so called by Emily), staring at me and waiting. When the digital clock struck 12 she wished me a happy birthday and asked if I felt any different. I didn’t really—well—except for the leg pain.

The next day, to celebrate my birth, I decided to go to a…funeral! But of course! It was a nice service though and it was celebrating the life of someone who got to live for a full, long life. I especially enjoyed the remembrances friends and family made about Cynthia during the reception.

That evening, my family indulged my request to go to a Mexican restaurant. Why? Because I wanted my first legal American margarita. As we sat down, Emily handed me the drink menu, leading father to say “Don’t corrupt your sister.” But it’s my 21^st birthday! I have to have a drink…or several…but that came later. The waiter asked me for my ID which I happily supplied. He wished me a happy birthday and then mumbled something about talking to management. Ruh Roh! Regardless, I was still surprised when, during the middle of our meal, restaurant workers surrounded me and a deceptively heavy and ill-fitting sombrero was placed on my head. Fiesta!

I much enjoyed dinner, but happily returned home for presents…and cupcakes. I discovered, to my delight, that dad had fulfilled my request for my favorite chocolate-peanut butter cupcakes from a place near DuPont circle. After my wonderful presents I waited around for an hour for the next phase of my birthday.

My friends Violet and Cody graciously accepted to take me out for a night on the town, to explore all the alcoholic wonders Arlington has to offer. They ended up taking me to three bars in Clarendon and paying for all my drinks. The first bar was the smallest and a little crowded, but provided a good starting off atmosphere. The bouncer also wished me a happy birthday when he checked my ID! Next, we went to the bar section of Hard Times that I didn’t know existed. In the bar we found two more friends from high school: Aileen and Alexis. Promptly upon hearing it was my birthday, Alexis ordered me a Yeager-bomb, insisting it tastes just like a milkshake. Sort of. For our third and final destination we went to Spider Kelly’s, the largest bar of the night. Once again, the bouncer wished me a happy birthday. Inside, I met Violets potential boyfriend bartender who made me my last drink of the night. Thankfully. The whole night was super fun and I really enjoyed spending time with both Violet and Cody.

The next morning, Emily took me out for a brunch in the District. I had the most delicious steak and eggs dish I have ever had the pleasure to consume. Regardless if that’s actually true, it was great hang over food. The day was also beautiful and of course I had excellent company. Our only mistake was getting ice cream after brunch. We went to a local place that interpreted a scoop of ice cream to be a huge blob of ice cream. It did no good for my stomach. Despite the tummy ache, I enjoyed my last day in Arlington.

The next day I got to drive with my Mother to Iowa. The first day went perfectly fine. We visited Uncle Michael and traveled a considerable distance. The next day provided a fun dilemma. Near Champagne Illinois Mom and I heard what sounded like a helicopter flying right above us. Mom asked me if I could see anything, but I could not. I didn’t even notice that the car was vibrating. Mom did though and as I said the fateful words “I don’t think the noise is coming from our car” we heard the sound of metal scraping pavement. Our tire had been shredded off completely. Mom called AAA and they were actually useful for probably the first time in their history. They offered to send the police to help us, but then told us that the tow truck would probably arrive before the cops could get there. This led mom to remark “well I guess we know where to speed”. The very nice tow truck driver took us to a car repair place where they could replace the tire. Luckily there was a great Mexican restaurant nearby. For the rest of our wait, we watched half of “Big Fish”. The service place was prompt, though and we were sent on our way.

Since we were already too late to try to get my stuff from storage, we decided to stop at the Tanger Outlets. For once I didn’t buy too much. For dinner, Mom took me to the Voodoo Lounge in Grinnell. Horribly overpriced, but ok food and good wine. Then, in the dark of the night Mom and Perri (who I lured with cheesecake) helped me take everything out of the car and into my room. Though that night I slept at the Comfort Inn with Mom.

For lunch the next day, before mom had to leave, we went to A&M for my Mom’s annual (sometimes biannual) pie. Then I bid goodbye to Mom, who a friend thankfully accepted to take to the airport (I still had much to do). Thus ended the road trip and thus endeth this post cause I have to run to Community Chorus…oh sorry… the Grinnell Oratorio society.

That's Mighty Nice of You Mother.

This summer, as you readers know, has been chockfull of travel, from adventures in the most northern depths of the US to the beautiful and historical countries of Austria and Germany. Of course, I decided I needed even more. About a month ago I overheard my mom invite my father on a business trip with her to Seattle, Washington. He was showing no interest, so I whispered out into the stratosphere that I would be interested in going if dad turned her down. Lucky for me, he did. Consequently, from August 3^rd to 6^th I got to wander around Seattle while my mom did transportation-like-things with other transit people.

However, before leaving I made a major life decision. As you may know I am about to enter my senior year of college. Afterwards I will be foisted into the real world with no inkling of how to handle myself. This is no doubt an uncertain, stressful time for me. A person in my position needs something solid to fall back on, to cushion her fall, when things get too tough for one person. Therefore, I decided to give myself an imaginary sidekick. I cannot stress enough how much my new friend, Agamemnon, helped me during my travels and will continue to help me as I navigate my last months at Grinnell.

On to my trip!

Both of our flights were early and some passengers had the gull to complain when they had to wait ten minutes to get to a gate. If that’s the worst of their travel problems, I envy and hate them. I don’t think the journey could have gone more smoothly; I even slept!

A quick ride from the airport took us to our nice fancy shmancy hotel—complements of the federal government. Though I wanted nothing more than to pass out, we went to venture around a little bit outside b/c my mom would be stuck inside conference rooms for most of the trip. On our way to the monorail (monorail, monorail, monorail—for you Simpsons fans out there), my Mom took quite a tumble. Luckily she was majorly unharmed, though not without a few scrapes and scratches. We also stopped for a snack at a café that served five kinds of hot chocolate! and ate a delicious peach and mango scone. We eventually made it to the monorail and journeyed onward to the space needle. Where we got to wait in line for an hour. Fun! The view was great once we got up though and 360 degrees. Woot. Our stomach’s brought us down the tower though to eat at a place called Grill cause I was craving steak. Mine was mediocre, but the restaurant had a nice atmosphere and the craving was squashed.

The next day Mom began her conference and I began my “solitary” wanderings around town (with Agamemnon I am never truly alone). It started with lunch because I was too late to get breakfast. Then, came my first comic book store of the trip. Previously, my Mom had asked a coworker what there was for a young gal to do in Seattle. He asked her what I was into and she replied comics. He refered her/me to Zanadu comics. Agamemnon is not a fan of comics, so she went for a swim near the pier while I browsed the store. I ecstatically found exactly what I was looking for—my personal holy grail—the first four issues of “The Return of Bruce Wayne.” Yes, people who probably don’t care, Bruce Wayne is coming back to the DC universe after his supposed death. This series see’s him traveling forward through time trying to reach the present. All the while is arrival apparently will mark the end of the world. What to do!?!!?!?! Anyway, it was a nice comic book shop, but of course it wasn’t enough. The search for my next scheduled comic book stop brought me to a market that I ended up visiting everyday of the trip. It was really great. Plenty of fish, fruit, flowers and more comics. I bought the first few issues of a new series that I had been hunting for. The market and comic buying must have taken longer than I thought (or I can’t remember what I really did next), but afterward I think I returned with Agam to my hotel room to chill and read.

For that evening’s activities I accompanied my mother and a gaggle of her transportation buddies from all over the country on a boat ride to another part of Seattle. The ferry ride gave me great views of the city on the way there (and later on the way back). Once we arrived on land, the large group split into smaller groups to find places to eat. First, my small group tried to eat at a nice looking pub, but it was not meant to be for two reasons. Firstly, no one under 21 is even aloud to eat inside (and I’m only 9 days away!). I learned that Seattle establishments do their food and drink licensing in a really weird way. If the establishment licenses itself as a pub, instead of a restaurant, then no youngins allowed. Secondly, there was an hour wait. Instead, we ate at a very small café that did quite nicely. After dinner we went back to the ferry and the ride back gave me great views like this one:

The next day (our last full day) I did some more wanderings about town. For lunch I returned to the public market and ate at a small Chinese food establishment. Afterward, I fought the urge to return to the comic store downstairs (my wallet thanked me) and instead headed to the Seattle Art Museum, also known as SAM. It had quite an interesting mix of different kinds of art. It included modern art, Asian and African cultural art, and more traditional paintings. Memnon was not a huge fan of the modern art, which included cars hanging from the ceiling, but I didn’t hate all of it. My favorite was a sculpture of a giant mouse sitting on a man in bed. I also quite enjoyed an exhibit (mostly of photos and music) called Kurt—all about Kurt Cobain and his profound affect on a rebellious generation. Including, his trouble reconciling all that his grunge stood for with his own commercial success. To top it all off, the museum was free on Thursdays so I had nothing to lose at least going in and looking around. I’m glad I did. Next, I walked many blocks away to the Olympic sculpture garden. The garden provided several interesting sculptures and more views of the city and water. It was quite sunny though, so I returned to my hotel once more.

For dinner, I attended a small restaurant with a group solely made out of people connected to FTA. I was very frightened that I wouldn’t understand anything they had to say. As I lamented at dinner one night before the trip “they’ll probably just speak in letters and numbers.” Fortunately, there was always at least one conversation going on at a time that had nothing to do with transportation. Everyone also made an effort to make me feel welcome and they were very nice and in some cases funny. Also, I got a delicious burger out of the deal!

The next day Mom and I had a flight scheduled for 1pm. This gave us a little bit of time in the mid-morning to wander a few blocks around the city. I felt a little bit like a native showing mom the places I had found during my own time in the hard streets of Seattle. First, I took her to a place I had lunch before, so I could eat a breakfast-burrito! A wonder I have not tasted since San Antonio (last summer!) Afterward, Mom especially loved seeing the market, where we bought cherries of the fresh and covered in chocolate variety. She also marveled at the many stands of flowers I had somehow missed. The rest of the morning was spent on mom’s own personal quest to find some of Dale Chihuly’s works of glass that could be found in various places around town. The first one we saw was pretty weird. It hung from a ceiling in a performance hall and had many tangled tentacles/snake things protruding from it. Certainly strange. The others were found in a Sheraton hotel and the Seattle community center. They were a little more normal, though still non-functional, but at the very least, interesting to look at. Unfortunately, we were running a little late and Agememnon was tired of looking at glass, so we had to return to the hotel and say goodbye to Seattle. We took a “train” to the airport and then cut it very close getting to our flight. Very very close. Because airports are counterintuitive and nonChurchmans are unreliable. No other reason.

In summary: I’ve always wanted to go to Seattle, for no reason in particular. Probably because I’ve heard about it many times, but I didn’t know what it was really like. It turned out to be quite an awesome city. There was plenty of stuff to do around our hotel, including eating and shopping places, and interesting architecture. Also everything was close enough to walk to, but far away enough to make you not feel like a total bum. I am mighty happy that I begged mom to let me accompany her. I also, as a bonus, got great pictures of the city that I can use for my slowly-in-progress graphic novel which should be done at this rate by, say, 2015. So, to some it up: great trip, loved spending time with my mother and thanks mom for taking me along!

P.S. Only one element of this post was fiction. You who knows who you are, knows why.

Austria, Germany and AIDS 2010

I am the worst blogger ever. I wouldn’t say my posts are bad, but I got back from Austria like three weeks ago. By the time I post about my Seattle trip, school will have started. However, when you see how long this is you’ll be begging me to stop posting…

This blog post is dedicated to Jessica Bralley. Thank you Jessica.

This summer has turned out to be pretty exciting. First it was Alaska. Then it was my accidental involvement in a sting operation. Then it was time for Austria and Germany! Several months ago I agreed to volunteer for SisterEmily’s organization at the 2010 International AIDS Conference, selling bags to benefit families living with HIV.

Just as I was beginning to prepare myself for the trip, Henrietta (my snake) decided to scare the bejezus out of me. I woke up the night before our flight (scheduled for 8pm the next day) to the loud sound of a snake in its death-throws. I will spare you the details, but she was having trouble breathing and kept holding her head up (which I later read lines up her esophagus). I thought for sure she wouldn’t make it past the night, but when I woke up she was still living, though wheezing audibly. My Mom graciously agreed to take her to a snake vet on Monday since Emily and I were leaving in about five hours. Great timing Henrietta! This whole deal unfortunately put a cloud on my first day of traveling and sight seeing.

Since I only got 20 minutes of sleep on our two plane rides my mind had plenty time to wander on our very sweaty journey to our hotel in Vienna, Austria. After setting our stuff down, we walked around the city to stay off our much-awaited chance for sleep. First we had lunch/dinner at a nice restaurant, except Em and I failed at ordering the right things. Not b/c of any language barrier. Just because we failed. Next, we jet-lagged our way to the Hofburg Palace (home of the infamous Silverwear museum). It was strange, one side of the palace did not look familiar at all, but a quick walk through one passage way and I found the Vienna I remembered. We also saw Stephans Gothic Cathedral, ate some ice cream, and went to our first H&M of the trip. Then I could go no longer. I had no trouble falling asleep.

At our 5am on Tuesday, I read a text message from my Mom telling me Henrietta did not make it. Apparently, a tumor was making it almost impossible for her to breath, so they euthanized her. Needless to say I was very sad. I had owned her for about eight years and I wish I could have been with her at the end. However, I decided not to let the news ruin my vacation and I soldiered on.

Around 7am Em and I took the train to Salzburg. We sat across from a nice American couple—oldish, but recently married. The woman’s son was marrying a Slovakian girl who was fluent in five languages. As we talked to them on the stuffy nonairconditioned train, it made a stop and a firm voice told us to get the hell off the train b/c of technical difficulties. Eventually another train came but the announcer on the platform only spoke German. We very hesitantly got on the train everyone else got on, though it said it was going in the opposite direction. We found a nice man on the train who seemed to speak German, Spanish and English very well assured us our half of the train was going to Salzburg. Our second train ended up having actual air flow and fewer people, while only arriving a little late. It ended up quite nicely and that’s why you should always go with the flow.

We found our hotel and were happy to be greeted in English. When my sister had called the hotel from the US she had asked the Austrian “Sprechen sie Englisch?” Her reply was “nein”. Kind of ends the conversation right there. We think she had called the wrong number, so I imagine a random Austrian being pissed some jerky American expected her to speak English in her own home. Sister and I ate at a kabob place for lunch and then tried to kill time before our “Sound of Music” Tour!!! The tour was much fun. There were some negatives though. They started out with really obscure songs not even Emily (who has seen the movie dozens of times) knew all the words to. We imagined that people not well versed in the movie would have trouble understanding our guide’s complicated explanations for certain scenes. But not Emily, when the guide imparted a fact to us and everyone else’s face went blank, Emily would smile wide and nod in recognition. My favorite part was learning how dangerous the filming was. The beginning scene with Maria singing on the hills was filmed by many helicopters that flew mere feet from her head. They filmed that scene for over a week, while Andrews got knocked down and bruised countless times. The youngest little girl also almost got pneumonia in one water scene and Liesl, during the famous gazebo scene, cut her leg and had to dance to “I am Sixteen” in heavy bandages. I also learned that the director got an award for special effects because of clever film cutting (before the days of computers) and for making buildings transcend time and space. After the tour, we got a traditional Austrian dinner full of meat meat and more meat.

Wednesday, we took a nice day trip to Werfen that ended up requiring a lot more walking uphill than we were expecting. In the Salzburg train station we had a little confusion about which platform our train would be arriving at. We asked a German lady who told us to go to the other side. Arriving on the other platform we were immediately told to go back where we just were. Leading Em and I to conclude that the woman was a goblin trying to ruin our trip. She didn’t know how hard that is to do. I hypothesize that after several horrible plane experiences I have worked up loads of travel karma that really helped with this trip. Even when we had trouble we always ended up getting where we needed to go. You’ll see what I mean. First, in Werfen we went to a fortress. We walked from the train, following signs to our destination. At one point we came across a pivotal sign that was hidden behind (I kid you not) a dumpster full of manure. Regardless we found our way uphill to the cable car that took us all the way up to the fortress. Before our scheduled Falconry demonstration (woot!) we tried to see the weapons (Waffe) exhibit. I say tried because we accidentally got swept up with a tour of about 100 people who went all the way to the bell tower. The guide kept blocking the exits as we went along! We did get to see an awesome bell and learned not to take the tour later. Then was the main event. Giant birds catching swinging prey. I had seen a falconry demonstration at the Greenbrier in WV, but this one had many more species including a bald eagle and huge vulture. At the end of the show the vulture made my favorite begging for food noise that came out as a half growl, half hiss. After our own delicious none-raw-meet lunch we headed for the second part of our day trip. The Ice Caves!

Our first minichallenge was finding how to actually get to the caves. We went into the town of Werfen and found an information center that is only closed one hour every day—the one hour we got there. Luckily we found a helpful machine that sent us to a shuttle service. Also luckily (karma) a bus was ready to go at the exact moment we arrived. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of our journey to the caves. No, after the bus we had to walk 20 minutes uphill, in bright sunlight to a gondola that took us up a steep mountain. Then another 20 minute walk up to the actual caves. It was bloody hot and humid, by the time we got to the top I was literally burning and exhausted. Fortunately, the cave was really really cold. It is an ice cave after all. An ice cave with 700 stairs you have to climb. My thighs hated me. I can’t accurately describe the awesomeness inside the cave. Mucho ice sculptures. Just take my word for it. After climbing all the way back down to our bus stop we got a little nervous when our bus was 10 minutes late. But it showed up. As Emily said at the time, “Everything’s coming up churchies!” Back in Salzburg we had delicious (vegetarian!) Indian food for dinner. I went to sleep with sore legs and a huge sunburn—or so I thought.

Thursday, was our last day in Salzburg. We decided to find a breakfast place on our way to the Salzburg fortress. The place turned out to be less than a minute walk from our hostel. We bought sandwiches there for lunch also, though the lady at the counter thought we wanted to eat them right away. Doesn’t she know we like to wait at least an hour before our next meal? On the way to the fortress we found an excellent antiques tent at an outdoor market. The fortress had beautiful views of the city and was quite pleasant. After, we ambled back to the hostel, stopping at a church or two along the way. Finally we lugged our bags to the train station and we were just in time for our train to MUNICH!!

In Munich we met up with Emily’s friend Steve who was letting us stay at his place. Within ten minutes of arriving I was almost run over by a bicyclist, putting the fear of God into me for the rest of the trip. Steve let us drop our bags at his place and then we went to my first beer garden for dinner. You would never find anything like it in America. A Bier Garten is basically a huge picnic area where the young and single can eat alongside families with children. Meanwhile beer is flowing freely though for pay. The food portions were ridiculous also. After dinner, Steve gave us a quick tour of the city showing us places we could go the next day. It was a great intro to Munich.

The next day, while Steve worked Emily and I went into the heart of downtown. I couldn’t name everything we saw cause I don’t remember. But the highlight for me was thus 1)St. Michael’s Church cause it was filled w/ angel sculptures. 2) was the third H&M of our trip and the first where I finally bought something. At noon was the glockenspiel; a huge clock in the center of town complete with horribly out of tune music and super fun animatronics figures that danced and jousted. Then, we had lunch in a garden/grassy area. Next was the Residence. I have never seen so many royal rooms in my life and there was absolutely no airflow inside any of them, which reminds me of the other fun part of the day. My good friend heat rash decided to make an appearance. The last and only time I had it was during middle school at a horrible YMCA camp where it was 100 degrees every day. Well the horribly itchy red bumps were back and, before lunch, I insisted on a quest to find Aloe Vera. It ended up helping…not at all, but the placebo affect was kind of nice. Anyway, after the semi-palace I was very tired and itchy (irritated from the stuffiness). We returned to Steve’s to await his return and do laundry. Dinner was spent at another bier garten, I think the largest in Germany. Steve has a group of English speakers who meet every Friday at a beer garden. Everyone was at least ten years older than me, but it was an interesting mix including a real “doofus” who bragged about how is wedding ring attracted prostitutes—I mean women, a youngish man trying to start his own meat pie business and the most laid back father every. It was fun, but I was happy to sleep that night.

Our last full day in Munich Emily decided we had had too much nondepressing fun, so we went to a concentration camp: Dachau. We had a little trouble getting there. It’s possible when we were waiting for a train we faced the wrong direction for ten minutes before figuring it out. Then, after we got there and another bus ride, we may have followed some tourists going the opposite direction, away from the camp, that happened to be right next to the bus station. Anyway, we got there eventually. It was all set up really well. There was a great museum that gave a comprehensive overview of the camp’s history and an audio guide that included recollections from camp survivors and liberators. The camp also, of course, raised many questions like “how could it happen?” and “What would you have done?” I’m glad we went there, but there’s no better way to make you question humanity. Afterwards, we had an ice cream lunch and, then returned to Steve’s house, watched an ep of Last comic Standing before dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant. Sadly, we got soaked on the way there from the only rain during the whole trip. Regardless it was a fun and good end to our time in Munich. Thanks for letting us stay at your place Steve.

Sunday we returned by train to Vienna for the next phase of our trip: The Conference. AIDS 2010!!!

Instead of talking about each and everyday I’ll give you an overview. Firstly, throughout the week we had a “fun” time figuring out where we were going to sleep each night. The original plan was to share the room the conference booked for Emily and her roommate. However, the room turned out to have a bed with only about a foot of space surrounding it. Also a Russian woman had apparently exploded inside. No not literally, but her crap was everywhere. Mos def not enough room for three people. That Russian woman must have been really confused when her roommate never showed up, because we were in and out before she returned to the room. We found a youth hostel sort of close by. However, we could only book it for one night. The next night we stayed at one of Emily’s public health friend’s room. And for the rest of the week we managed to stay in the hostel, but not always in the same room and not always together. Regardless we made it work, though it added more stress than necessary.

Monday through Friday was the conference itself. Most of the time I manned the booth for Emily’s org Support for International Change, selling bags to raise profits for the organization and the HIV positive people who produce them. A great cause right? Who wouldn’t buy that? Unfortunately everything being sold was for a great cause, so we didn’t sell as many bags as we wanted. I blame—the bead booth right next to us. A booth that slowly killed my spirit and had me ranting on my Facebook status for most of the week. Their beads are made in Uganda and all the proceeds go to the women who make them. There is no doubt that it is a great cause, but their customers wore on me. You see the beads are made of paper. Paper you say? Well that’s pretty interesting. However, the sheer excitement people exuded when they heard the beads were made of paper was infuriating. “Made of paper? That’s amazing.” “OMG, paper?” “That’s so awesome. The awesome thing in the world.” They reminded me of the crazy double rainbow guy (if you don’t know, look it up). Get over it people. The reason I sound crazy when I talk about it is because it was very traumatizing for me. Sitting around all day, everyday, while we sold only a few bags and they sold billions of beads. Meanwhile I got to hear “Did you know that these beads are made of paper” every five minutes. I’m lucky I didn’t scream.

The rest of the conference was very educational. Every so often I got to attend panels, where experts in different fields all talked about HIV/AIDS and the global health crisis in general. There was definitely some sociology mixed in too that caught my interest, including plenty of stuff on stigma and “intersecting oppressions”!!! I hope to use some of the stuff I learned at the conference in my future classes. And that’s all I can tell because I’ve already written too much and my fingers are about to fall off.

BUT IT WAS A GREAT EXPERIENCE AND I’M GLAD I GOT TO GO AND, ESEPECIALLY, TO SPEND TIME WITH MY DEAR, AWESOME SISTER. HERE’S TO AIDS 2012 IN WASHINGTON DC!

A few pictures, with my super random commentary, can be found at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473892&id=775895149&ref=mf

What Time is it Anyway?

Yes I know this is late, but I’ve been in Austria and working on that blog post. This is my longest post yet…Until the next one anyway…

After our extra long day of endless sunlight in Anchorage, we spent a morning going to the Anchorage Museum (where the ticket guy told me there’s someone from Alaska who goes to Grinnell-who knew?) and an afternoon eating at a seafood café where I ate a Reindeer burger just so I could say I ate a reindeer. Emily got an elk burger that tasted suspiciously like my reindeer burger, which probably tastes like the bison burger. I’ll keep my delusions though. After lunch we took a shuttle with 50-80 of our future friends to the boat we would be taking for our four-day Alaskan cruise.

This was not your typical humongous cruise ship filled with thousands of people. No casinos, or onboard pools. I think the only thing our ship really had in common with those huge cruises was an abundance of food. For some meals I would have to say “food again? Didn’t we just have lunch…and 3pm cookies…and cocktail hour.” Our cruise was on a small boat with less than 100 people, which means we could get much closer to glaciers (we could be ½ mile away, they had to be 5miles away) and wildlife. It was also a much more personal experience and we, as a family, were able to meet and know a lot of great people with very interesting back-stories.

Anyway, to get to the boat we had to drive to the most depressing town (if you can call it that) in the United States. The only way to get to the town is through a multi-mile tunnel that only goes one way (it switches directions every 30 minutes). The town itself (Whittier) is a seaport town where almost every town’s person lives in one building. Because Whittier gets 25 ft of snow during the winter (or something crazy like that) there is an underground tunnel that attaches the one apartment building to the one school. They said the school has 20 students and is K-12. Scary.

We boarded the boat and Emily and I were shown our room. Our beds formed an L, so one of us (Emily) didn’t have much legroom. But the most hilarious part of the room was the “bathroom”. Otherwise known as the Tower, Shoilet, or shower-toilet. The toilet and shower faced each other in a tiny room with a curtain that could be pushed between them. I laughed embarrassingly loud at the room. That night we had our first delicious dinner and saw our first two majestic glaciers. Beforehand I don’t think I knew what a glacier looked like and I must admit after seeing two (amazing and beautiful as they were) I thought they all kind of looked the same, though I eventually learned to notice differences. They were majestic though (Majesty Majesty Majesty). And it was awesome to see the big chunks of ice fall off and make waves. As I sat in bed being rocked to sleep by the waves…Oh sorry I just passed out.

The first half of the next day was filled with more majestic glaciers, adorable sea otters, and our first whale. The whale was really far away, we think it was an orca, but it definitely breached-lifting its entire body out of the water. After our first delicious lunch of many on the cruise, I passed out again for a nice nap. I was awoken by Oyster Dave, a man giving a talk on his oyster business. He was a funny fellow (intentionally) with great stories, but truthfully we didn’t think his heart was really in the oysters anymore. Oyster Dave, the most dejected Oyster Man in the world. Then it was time for dinner (already?) where we met a very interesting couple. The woman was originally from Germany and fell in love with America after going on many hikes. Luckily she also fell in love with a man who could get her a visa. They met, several weeks later they married, and twenty one years later they have never regretted it. Aw. For dessert was the most delicious, rich, chocolate lava cake I have ever…OMG “If you come to the front of the boat there are two HUMPBACK WHALES! I had never felt more conflicted in my entire life. Dessert? Whales? Dessert? We quickly scarfed our desserts and ran to the deck. The whales gave quite a show and ended with a fluke (it lifted its tail from the water and dived down). Post whales we were taken to a sea lion colony. They make the most awesome moo, bah, fog horn noise. Post sea lions we listened to a talk by the naturalist/animal person on board about the Exxon Valdez spill and learned about the worst navigator in all of history. Kagan. Some idiot apparently gave Kagan the wheel to the boat. Kagan: the guy who in later court appearances couldn’t tell his right from his left. “Don’t they know you never give Kagan the wheel?! The night ended with more ice. When I went to sleep at 10pm it was blindingly bright out side. What time is it? What season is it? The time? Day? Oh well.

The second full day of our cruise, we got to go ashore. First we were given the longest art store pitch I have ever experienced. Where they told us twenty times how to get there from the boat. So that was a right, left, right? Oh there’s a sign. Great. Then we watched a performance by Native Alaskan children/teens. It was cute, but super awkward. When we finally got to shore—ten minutes in—we got to witness dozens of crows mobbing a frickin Bald Eagle. The eagle fell onto a truck mere yards away from us. Twas awesome. For our shore day we opted to go on the rainforest hike, which was supposedly moderate-my ass. But it was beautiful and Emily spotted a small black dot/bear miles away. At the end of the hike. I got to feed an adorable three year old gold fish. Dinner was on the boat. We sat with some youngish people we had gotten to know during the cruise. One girl gave us (me and Emily) recommendations on what to do on our very imminent trip to Vienna Austria. She suggested the Sound of Music Tour (didn’t need to pull our arm) and…no no she couldn’t possibly suggest it, it couldn’t be nooooooooooo…the silver wear museum. Several years previous on a choir trip to Vienna I had been forced to go view infinite rooms of silver cutlery and dinnerware. I quickly shut down that suggestion. Never again. The loud speaker told us to go upstairs to look for bears. Instead we saw the most fun and cool animals in Alaska—Dall’s porpoises. They are small, black and white whale like creatures though they technically belong to the dolphin family. They playfully jumped and weaved at the front of the boat. To end the night was a whale talk that put the parents and many other adults straight to sleep. Emily and I however joined the young folk upstairs for another hour looking for whales that never came. We slowly walked back to our room, pretending we weren’t looking with the hope of luring the magnificent whales out, but no luck. “We’ll just go to bed now. No Now! I’ll just go…ha!.” Nope.

I seem to have lost my notes on the last full day of our cruise, but I know we saw more humpback whales, more glaciers, and more Dall’s porpoises. Boring. I kid, I kid. And at night we watched a documentary about the most handy man in the world. He went into the wild, built his own cabin and built his own everything. He made it sound so easy. “Forty five minutes later I had built a washer and drier set and started carving a real life replica of a grizzly. The weather here can be fickle, like a woman.” Fun stuff.

The next morning was the end of the cruise. We returned to the town that shouldn’t be…Whittier…where we saw what we could have spent our vacation on…a ginormous Princess cruise ship that was as big as the one apartment in town. It made me nervous b/c it was so big, but it also made me laugh because it was called the Diamond Princess-the performance name of the rapper Trina. We took a shuttle to the Anchorage Airport to pick up our rental car and head off to Denali. The second and last phase of our trip. I know this post has been long long long, so I’ll try to stick with the highlights of Denali.

We stayed at the Princess Lodge, so it was teeming with people who take the huge cruises. Our first evening there (that would be a Saturday), to shake of the long car ride, we decided to go on a short walk near the lodge. At one point we came across a sign that recommended living wildly within the park. Going off the marked trails and coming close to wildlife. Um, that did not sound like a good idea. “Go ahead and wonder off the trails that tell you where you are. Get lost in the woods. Kick a bear in the face. This is your vacation.” In various other brochures it heavily discouraged straying from the trail, seeing how it’s dangerous and all. However, we did eventually found they were a little more relaxed with people doing their own thing…to some extent.

Sunday was a day of wacky weather. We went for a hike in Denali National Park, where we encountered a very weird park ranger who assured us this wasn’t the kind of park where they actually enforced the requirement of paying for the park. They have an “integrity system” which means you can just not pay. We also asked him for a good three hour hike and he recommended a nice river trail that ended up taking less than an hour. Thanks guy. The hike was nice though, except the weather was absolutely insane. One moment it would be sunny and pleasant and the next it was pouring rain. Back and forth back and forth. Driving away from the park we saw a bazillion cars stopped by the side of the rode. Thanks to them we found wildlife cause Lord knows none of us in the car would have spotted them without help. Karibu! In the evening we attended a corny, but admittedly, enjoyable dinner theatre. The actors were good, though we had no idea how these poor folks could do this show everyday because the play itself was pretty horrible. My Dad put it best; it was like they had to find some way to incorporate women into the show about the first men who reached the highest point of Denali (Mount McKinley). So they had a nonsensical romantic plot and made the silly women interrupt the men’s story.

Speaking of Mount McKinley, on Monday we had an amazing experience. We took a small plane ride (about ten people) literally to the peak of Denali. We came about half a mile from the tallest peak in North America. I can’t describe how beautiful it was, so I’ll include a picture:

Late aternoon we took a nice, moderate hike to a sled dogs demonstration. I actually learned quite a bit, mostly that the dogs they usually show pulling sleds in movies and TV (huge huskies) are pretty far from the truth. The real dogs are pretty small and scrappy, but they love to run. They barked like mad when they were getting the sled ready.

Our last full day in Denali, we took a three hour bus ride to a nice hiking area. Along the way we saw much wildlife, including a lynx! I had always thought of them as shy, elusive creatures, but this one walked right behind the bus and sat there staring. There were people on a bridge about ten feet away from it. At our final stop, we took a short, but strenuous hike basically straight up hill. Emily and Dad went up really fast, but Mom and I dragged behind because of the altitude change, in addition to being “mildly” out of shape. The view at the top was great though. It started getting stormy on our way down, so we hurried down to the bus. On the ride back we finally saw moose up-close. A mother and her baby, grazing right there.

The next day, Wednesday, we drove from Denali back to Anchorage. We stopped at another Denali park, however, to take a short, ultimately very wet, hike. My jeans were soaked through by the end b/c of our unintentional bush whacking. Back in Anchorage we stayed at the Captain Cook Hotel, which was very nice. That evening we saw another sled dog demonstration, that was much more comprehensive and much fun.

Our last day we stopped at a nice little town viewing various sights. Mid-afternoon we went to a musk ox farm. Musk ox is actually a complete misnomer cause they aren’t part of the ox family and they don’t have musk glands, but really who cares. They were cool. Then, because some crazy person scheduled our flight for the middle of the night we had to kill a little more time. We went to “Ginger” for dinner. Then, before we left for our 1:45am flight we played a rousing game of hearts. Well in the first three rounds I was being slaughtered, really through no fault of my own (for reals) just because of bad bad luck. Then the unthinkable happened and I ‘shot the moon’ for the first time ever. Meaning I got all the points available in that hand. That gave everyone else 26 points and by the end of the game I was firmly in second place only a few points before my mother. After the game we played the giggliest game of old maid ever in history. You would think kids would have worse poker faces than us mature folks, but nope. The highlight of the airport was actually the security video. It was brilliant, because it actually made us pay attention. They had various animals (people in costumes) teaching us lessons about going through security, including a moose, a bear, a possessed beaver, and the best one-an eagle. When the eagle showed its passport, the name inside was Liberty Justice America. “Nough said.

Are you Talking to me Officer? Me?

I interrupt my regularly scheduled blogging about my Alaskan vacation (which is coming along slowly) for a story that needed its own blog post. Today, my taken for granted white privilege was challenged. Today, I lived through an experience I never thought I would. Today, I was racially profiled.

Last night, Mother had suggested that Emily and I should drive to the Nationals game today because it would be nicer than riding the hot crowded metro. The drive would be no problem-oh so easy. To be fair, mom did warn us about some of the ways we could be led astray. However, the combination of GoogleMaps confusing directions, Emily’s direction reading, and my inability to follow Emily’s directions caused us to accidentally cross the bridge past Nationals Ball Park and into Berry Farms. Very soon after making this mistake I learned that Berry Farms has the highest homicide rate out of all the Washington DC neighborhoods. Don’t worry, no one was shot while we were there. That wouldn’t have been as funny…

After crossing the bridge I failed at making a quick U-Turn and had to drive through Berry Farms to get back to the main road. As I was pulling onto the main road, mere feet away from making our left turn back to our intended destination I noticed a car behind me that had police lights in the front though it was a civilian vehicle. This car also kept making short police-car noises. I couldn’t think of any reason they would be stopping me (I certainly wasn’t speeding), but I pulled over into a dirt/gravel “parking lot”. Two cops got out of the car that had been following me, while about four other police officers popped out of a nearby parked police car. These officers were not messing around. They were wearing bulletproof vests and my sister noticed that they had their hands on their guns while they approached our car. They asked for my license, registration and proof of insurance. Of course I gave it to them, but I had no idea what they possibly wanted until they started talking.

I don’t remember the exact order of the questions—I was a little flustered—but they were all entertaining. What are you doing in this neighborhood? (We got lost trying to get to the Nationals Stadium). Are you two drunk? (No!) Were you here to buy drugs? (No.) Do you smoke weed? Do you smoke cigarettes? Cigars? (No no no). Are you aware this neighborhood has the highest homicide rate in DC? (I do now). What’s your relation? (We’re sisters). Who’s older? (She is. By eight years.) Why were you driving in this neighborhood? (We just want to get to the stadium. We have the directions in our hand. We can show you the tickets.) You shouldn’t be in this neighborhood (well no duh. I’m not finding this situation particularly enjoyable.) Don’t come back here again. It has the highest murder rate etc. Now turn left at the next light (Oh. You mean the left at the light that I was going to take two seconds before you stopped me. Thanks officers.) *Of course I didn’t say all these things, but I was thinking them.

Also, in the middle of this lovely exchange the police asked if one of us was hurt. We were really confused (we even checked ourselves for wounds) until the officer commented, “is that blood all over the inside of your car,” referring to some stains on the car door on the passenger side of the car. We informed him it wasn’t blood, but we couldn’t tell them what it was. The reason was we didn’t know what the hell it is. While the Corolla was in San Antonio it had gotten a mysterious, splattered stain on the inside door. David probably told me what it was, but I don’t remember.

The whole situation was hilarious to Emily and me. We had just wanted to get to the stadium and had taken one very wrong turn. In the moment, I could not comprehend why the cops were interrogating us. The cops, on the other hand, were completely serious and actually thought we were trying to buy drugs in the neighborhood. When we told them how we had gotten to Berry Farms (we were lost, honest) they did not believe us. Despite the Ball Park being less than a mile away, they thought it was a really flimsy and implausible explanation for why we were there. We had the directions (from home to stadium) in our hands and we still seemed suspicious to them.

However, in hindsight it sort of made sense that the cops stopped us. Why would two white women be driving into a predominantly black neighborhood known for drugs and death? The police could probably also see we choking back laughs the entire time. They thought we might be drunk or high, but we were only smiling b/c I don’t think either of us could believe the questions they were asking us. As Emily said, they got the completely wrong people. I certainly never thought that anything like this would ever EVER happen to me. Who would stop a privileged white woman? They would never suspect me of anything. But I learned that anyone can be racially profiled. Anyone. It all depends on circumstance, context, and horrible twisted bad luck. I don’t begrudge the police their jobs—which is all they were trying to do. Going after buyers instead of sellers is a good idea. But in this situation they profiled the wrong people. My mom brought up a good point relating to the Arizona law. After being targeted because of our race, we could imagine (though we’ll never experience it b/c of the many white privileges we still have) how scary it would have been for someone in the same situation—the cops wrongly stopped them for doing drugs—who didn’t have the papers needed to show the cops because they weren’t a legal citizen. Let’s just say, this experience was great for my sociological education. So much to analyze.

However, I’d like to end this post on a lighter note. I don’t know how accurately I conveyed how hilarious I found/find my very unexpected interaction with some very serious cops, but it still makes me giggle. I also still can’t believe it happened to me. Anyway, after we told my mom and our friend Anne (also at the game) what had happened we all started to joke around about the experience. Since my sister and I were taking such a long time to get to the game, my mom had been tempted to call us to see where we were. She was glad she didn’t, b/c a phone call while being questioned by the cops probably wouldn’t be good. I then informed her it would have been absolutely terrible. My ring tone is a rap song that is exactly the kind of rap song a super white person who might buy drugs would listen to. I can only imagine:

 

“Were you here to buy drugs?”

“No.”

“So you’re really in this neighborhood by accident?”

“Yes of course officer we would never…”

Cream on the inside. Clean on the outside. Cream on the inside. Clean on the outside. Ice, ice cream, Ice cream paint job.

The Gangs All Here

Well I was going to write a longer post about my summer so far, but I haven’t really done much so I’ll mention a few things and then set up the next phase of my summer.

So far this summer, I have been watchingTVdrawingeatingsleepingreadingplayingWiimusiclistening etc. One weekend I went out to dinner with a few friends (the few that are not in Europe at the moment). Tis the summer for Europe apparently, me included, but that comes much later. I so did not want to drive cause I always get lost going to Nora’s house. Cody read my mind and actually offered me a ride before I could ask for one. It was good to see (a fraction) of the old HB group again. We laughed, we walked, we ate, and the only person who was 21 drank. It’s been entertaining to-one by one-see all my friends have their first legal drinks. And did I mention the envy. This year is my golden birthday. 21 on August 21. But it ain’t here yet. I also got to see my good friend Liz again (the migrant from Arlington to Syracuse) as she stayed at our house for a couple of days. Just like me she managed to arrive in Arlington during rushhour traffic on 495. Fail! Her visit was short, but sweet. Yeah we hanged and she went back to NY.

Stuff really took off though on June 13^th. Why is that you ask? It was a day of reunions, which all started with church on Sunday morning. By some freak accident every young person/friend from my church golden years, even the ever-elusive Andrew, was at the St. George’s service. Also Liz had come down to celebrate Jeanne’s (another church friend) birthday. I swear I see Liz more now that she has moved. We “celebrated” after the service at Starbucks, reminiscing, gossiping, and updating each other on our lives. Besides the ghastly, humid, hot day it was a pleasant surprise.

Directly after that I accompanied my mom to pick up Emily. That would be my sister Emily, the (former) inhabitant of Africa. June 13^th was the day Emily returned from her latest several year stint working in Tanzania. Home for now, to work the Washington DC side of global health. Next, Emily’s BFF Mike came to the house for a little while b/c he had to leave for New York the next day. This meant going out for ice cream at the ice cream shop Toby’s formerly known as Scoops Beauregard. Mmm cinnamon ice cream. Mike said goodbye and Emily managed to stay up till 8:30pm despite horrible jet lag. Next to join the reunion, that evening, was brother David. And with his arrival the Churchman were reunited for the first non-Christmas time since 2004. It only lasted for a week, as David had to leave the 19^th to be the director at Shrine Mont’s Music and Drama Camp. Bow Down! Sorry, just channeling my MAD year.

The next day Mom and I attended the Grinnell in Washington picnic. I awkwardly (but not as awkwardly as I could have!) made small chat with unfamiliar current Grinnellians until I spotted ELYSE! She bounded over from the people she came with and we spent the rest of the picnic together catching up and talking. And did I mention the eating. The hosts backed out of providing cooked food, so I was FORCED to eat only desserts. I was just ecstatic to see someone I knew from Grinnell, and not only that, but a friend. Woot!

But that’s enough about friends and family. Lets get to the really important part…baseball. If you’ve been paying any attention to DC sports recently, or baseball in general, you have no doubt heard of the potential-laden new pitcher for the Nationals. Stephen Strasburg. The man with the 100mph fastball. I was mucho lucky to get to attend the much-hyped Nats game for Strasburg’s major league debut. I went with both parents, as well as a woman, even taller than me, who had never seen a game before. It’s been said before by all who were there that his first game was amazing (and Strasburg is well worth the hype) Not just because of his arm and skill, but because of the excited atmosphere that filled the stadium that fateful night. The night they ran out of room on the strikeout counter. As one Twitter user (though I read this in the newspaper as I refuse to become a real Tweeter) so accurately and hilariously stated- “Strasburg’s curveball just punched physics in the eye and stole its girlfriend.” I’ve never felt any real loyalty to the Nats before and I don’t know if I would call myself a reformed Nationals fan now, but I am definitely a Stephen Strasburg fan. Now, if the rest of the Nationals would give him some offense to work with. Where is the law that says all Washington DC teams have to suck? I also went to another Strasburg Nationals home game with the entire family on Friday the 18^th. It was the first Nationals game we all saw together and although the Nats lost AGAIN, Strasburg rocked it AGAIN, and we all (The Churchmans!) were there having a good time. The night ended with fireworks. Literally.

So that stuff happened and then it was time for my family vacation to Alaska (sans David). I woke up around 4am on because our flight was scheduled for 7am. Fun. We made it to the airport in good time. We went to the air Alaska booth, but they sent us to American Airlines for our first flight to O’hare because I simply cannot escape flying on American although it always sucks in some way. This day it sucked by only letting us print out some of our necessary boarding passes. We did not panic or yell however like the woman/jerk in front of us. I will never understand why people think yelling at service people will make the travel process go faster. I know not everyone can laugh it off like I can at this point, but come on, basic human decency. Anywho, our problem was resolved and we headed to security. While we were in line the security people kept telling the other travelers that this was not the security line for Delta flights. Sister Emily and I started joking around saying things like “Wait, but what about Delta flights?” or “Yes, but I’m going on a Delta flight.” Ha ha ha. Then the woman directly in front of us, sort of murmured she was in the wrong line and walked away. Oops. Yay foot in mouth! Before we knew it we were in Chicago.

The Chicago to Alaska plane ride was good. I actually had Internet for a good hour in-air, which I treasured b/c I knew that I would not be getting any type of internet on our upcoming cruise. I also actually helped “solve” a crossword with my sister and mom because of a crazy random fact I learned from The Question in the Justice League Unlimited cartoons. “The plastic at the end of shoe laces are called ringlets. Their true purpose is sinister.” !!! When we arrived at Anchorage I got the strangest sense of déjà vu because the airport was very similar to the one I arrived in last summer in Montana. Also, for the whole car ride to our hotel all the scenery looked exactly like Montana. Even the city around our hotel reminded me of a city in Montana. Therefore, I have discovered they are the same place. Your secret is out Alaska!

We decided we should wonder around the town of Anchorage instead of falling asleep immediately, which my body was screaming to do for reasons mentioned soon. We first stopped for a snack in a little square. Emily stumbled upon a little, amazing ice cream cart. There was local ice cream bars, hand dipped in hard chocolate shell. A very nice surprise. The weather was beautiful too and all the locals were outside in their tee shirts and shorts, despite it being Alaska. Next, we walked to an overlook where you could see salmon swimming upstream. In one section of the water dozens of people were fishing. Ten feet away from the fishers swam almost all the salmon, beyond where the fishers were legally allowed to roam. Next was dinner, probably my eighth meal of the day because of the time changes and jet lag. We went to a nice pub, though we discovered far nicer restaurants mere feet away after we had already eaten.

I should mention, because it was so important for the rest of our trip, the Alaskan sun. So, we had woken up at 4am in Arlington Virginia. It was now late afternoon in Alaska and there was a four-hour time difference. Therefore, we had been awake for a very long time and were much jetlagged. To make that experience ten times more “enjoyable” and confusing we were traveling on the summer solstice! The longest day of the year. Did I mention that during the solstice in Alaska, the sun is up for more than 21 hours. When we walked out of dinner the sun was almost in the middle of the sky. It was truly the longest day of the year. Oof. When I finally went to bed at 10pm to rest up for our upcoming cruise, the sun was still shining.

To be continued…