There is much to talk about

I know, I know, the ropes course. You're dying to know.

And I've been entirely absent from my blog for far too long. The problem with school starting is that it seems to consume my entire life--as though I have no recollection whatsoever of how to have both a job AND a life.

The fact that I really have no life came proof positive to me about five minutes ago, when my iPod shuffled randomly to "I'm a Lonely Jew" from South Park and I called KC in the room next door, held the phone up to the speaker, and laughed while she listened to that dumb song over the phone.

School starts in three short days, I barely have my syllabi and lesson plans done for day 1 (let alone 2 or 3 or 4 or 5), I have lists and lists of things left to do, I have boxes of unopened (and unbound, by the way) public speaking textbooks on my counter, and what am I doing? Calling KC to have her listen to my iPod with me over the phone.

For the love of God, people. I'm marking it as a new low.

Voting on the Sixth Horse

Do you think it's at all possible that if I don't mention on my blog going back to work tomorrow and another school year starting that it may just not happen at all and summer will blissfully continue on forever and ever and ever?

Yeah. Me neither.

p.s. The ropes course is on Friday. There will be blogging. If there is a God, there will be photos.

Cue the Hallelujah Chorus (I mean it)

One complete draft of The Damn Thesis is complete.

Call Me Maria Sharapova

I've decided to take up tennis.

That's about all I have to say about it at this point.

The Last Time

At some point during high school--probably when I was feeling literary and angst ridden--I read Sylvia Plath's journals. I copied down every great quote I could find, and while there were many, this one has really stuck with me:

"Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all that I have taken for granted. When you feel that this may be the goodbye, the last time, it hits you harder."

Those words haunt me at every painful goodbye I've ever had. Over the last few years, every time we go down to Hays to visit Grandma and Grandpa, it occurs to me that it may be the last. It's hard to walk away, to be so far away, and to wonder about how easy it is to take people, their lives, and their permanence in our lives, for granted.

God willing, this morning was not the last time I'll see Grandma. But it felt like it, more than any other.

Visiting

Today, Cyndy, Michael and I spent a couple of hours visiting old relatives with Mom. It's fair to say that we all pretty much hate The Visiting. The three of us line up on whatever old, floral couch is in the living room and probably look like spectators at a tennis match--all of our heads turning in unison following the conversation and catching up between Mom and the Great Aunt of the moment. Often we end up sitting in age order, which makes things all the more classic. We do our best to be pleasant, smile when we're supposed to, add something--anything--to the conversation when there's an opening, and generally make the best out of an awkward, painful situation. It's not that we don't like seeing these people. It's more that at 28, 25, and 22, we feel like we should be past that same feeling sitting on that couch. We might as well be 13, 10, and 7 all over again.

I suppose the best information I got out of the visiting today is that my Great Aunt Cilla (short for Cecilia and pronounced with a thick German accent as Szilla, emphasis on the Z) who never married said that the only way she'd get married is if she could have Joe DiMaggio.

So, this one's for you Cilla:

Hays has it!

I've been driving to Hays, Kansas for as long as I can remember. Literally, some of my earliest memories are of the long drive from Minnesota down to the All Star City and hanging out in the small town where Mom and Dad grew up. The drive was barely tolerable with my older sister, younger brother, and me all crammed into the back of whatever station wagon or minivan Mom was currently driving.

Funny thing about this drive is that twenty years later, it's still barely tolerable with the entire fam in such a small space for such a long amount of time.

It's the little stuff that really starts to get to you. The seat in front of you being just a little bit too far back and a little bit too reclined. The garbage piling around you in the back. The old guy in the huge Ford Expedition who swerved around you a few times, refused to let you pass him, and for twenty miles, tried to engage you in serious road rage after his wife flipped you the bird out the side window. Okay, so that last one was just today. But really, patience runs thin. I believe at one point today I sighed and said with utmost exasperation, "God, Cyndy, I can hear you BREATHING!"

What I love about the drive, though, is that about forty fives miles outside the city, the signs start appearing. There are the regular advertisements and billboards for the goods and services that Hays has to offer, but there's also the more general signs about the all-around greatness of the city. It's like an entire PR campaign to get people to love Hays. I think my favorite are the big ones that just say: "Hays Has It!"

And boy does it ever.

It has:

• The Historic Sternburg Museum, home of the Incredible Shrunken Head
• Fort Hays State University, alma mater of any good Hays kid (Dad included)
• 103 degree heat
• Statues of the Virgin Mary in almost every yard
• penned up buffalo
• Taco Grande, best tacos in the nation
• The Mall. The one and only.
• two movie theaters
• as many bars as there are churches

And the more personal:

• Grandma and Grandpa's house: both sets. Dad's dad is now buried here.
• "The Farm" (once the home of Great Uncle Jake, Great Uncle Harry, and Great Aunt Cilla, two brothers and a sister who lived on the farm together for most of their lives after Harry and Jake returned from World War II, the Battle of the Bulge, and laying railroad track)
• Home of Great Aunt Alice and her husband John Kundred, who scared us as children by asking us how to spell words like "Mississippi" and "Massachusetts" and telling us that we cried purple tears. They also had a yellow canary named Charlie that had a bad habit of flying into the freezer when the door was open, not to be discovered until long after rigor mortis had set in. I think they've had four or five birds by now, all named Charlie.
• A nightly whiskey seven with Grandma and Grandpa.

Yes, Hays most definitely has it. And it's pretty certain that I'll have about all I can take by the time we leave Thursday afternoon.

It undeniably has its charm, though. I never really lived here, but it's funny how you can feel tied to a place--how sometimes despite the fact that the only real connection you have with a place is through the histories, lives and memories of others, it can still feel a little bit like home.

The Noise

My car's been making a terrible squeaking/rubbing/honking noise for a number of months now. I've been avoiding bringing the car in for someone to look at it, because in my estimation, weird noise = lots of money to fix.

But I finally gave in last night since the noise has been getting increasingly worse and more noticeable. Turning up the radio to drown it out isn't really working anymore, and I'm getting tired of pretending not to notice the stares when I pass people.

So here's the scoop. The shock spring (number 11), is COMPLETELY BROKEN and rubbing up against my strut (number 13), making a bad noise every time I go around a curve, go over a bump, or at this point, drive over a flat surface.

Thanks to goodyear for their educational and helpful photo.

Nice Guy who's fixing my car tells me that this is a "pretty damn expensive" spring to replace, particularly if we have to order the part from Audi, who by principle, don't sell anything to their faithful customers for a "cheap" or even "reasonable" price.

So he's going to look around some junkyards for the piece, and then put the junk piece on my car.

Here's to junkyard searching, people.