What happens when it's hard to make friends

You spend your Saturday night with about 30 adults 60 years and older. There was one lady who was younger; she was in her mid-40s/early 50s...much closer to our age.

Ben and I decided to help with and participate in a progressive dinner through our church. Neither of us have ever done this before, so we thought it would be fun times. It was quite fun, I will admit. As fun as it gets when the two of us at 25 years old drastically lowered the approximate average age of the group from 69 to 60. Appetizers, a little awkward. Dinner, fun. Dessert, nostalgic.

How many people can honestly say that they've "hung with the homies" from church drinking boxed wine out of plastic wine glasses with your name on it that you took with you so as not to use more than one glass per person? It's even better when you factor in trying to juggle the aforementioned plastic wine glass with a paper plate of food while trying to speak loudly and clearly enough (I swear that every time I see some of these elderly church goers that I have to re-introduce myself...personally, I just don't remember most of their names and don't ask and re-ask but pretend like I remember) to speak above the dull noise of everyone so that my conversation partner's hearing aid can pick up what I say.

May I be as funny when I am that age. We do have some humorous old people at our church.

"Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place." -Abigail Van Buren

(Ben and I were definitely the young grapes of that bunch. Can I just refer to older people as having fermented longer???)

Election Day

Is anyone else annoyed by the drama that news stations make out of elections...BREAKING NEWS...DECISION 2008!!!

So I just voted in person for the first time ever. The good part about it--it was super easy and I didn't have to wait. The bad parts about it--the signs telling me where to go were absolutely scarce and I used a marker. Where were the chads that are beckoning to hang?!?!

I guess I assumed that it would be super easy to figure out where to go inside of the elementary school that is my voting site. Oh no. And Miss Embarrassed that I am, I just walked super slowly so that a lady who looked like she knew what was doing behind me would overtake me and lead me to the promised land. Luckily, she wasn't some teacher's aide leading me to a first grade classroom but performed as I needed her to. No one told me that there would be multiple precincts within the same room, so then I did look like a voting moron and fumbled around with my little card to figure out what precinct I even live in. But I figured it out; luckily, it's not meant to be too challenging. But then again...maybe it should be--weed out the morons who shouldn't be voting anyway. You know, voting survivor style!

My novice voting ideals led me to believe that I would be punching buttons or poking at a screen or something when I voted. Alas, I played connect the arrows with a marker. On a wobbly privacy table thing nonetheless. Can you just imagine the little old ladies sitting at the registration table thinking, "Wow, that Amy Cox...she's just going crazy over there with her ballot! Look at her table shaking!"

My guidance counselor got a sticker that said "I voted!" I want a sticker.

My miraculous weight loss!

Finally, I figured out how to loose weight. Not only that...I lost about 10-15 pounds just within the last couple of days. You can seriously tell just by looking at me too. It's stupendous!!! The secret to my miraculous weight loss?!? The end of the semester & finishing my beast of a paper (which was still quite interesting, I think, regardless of how mind numbing it was at times) and the impossible final. All of that weight...literally lifted off of my shoulders. :-)

However, have no fear. I am actively trying to replace the figurative pounds with literal ones. Suddenly, not sadly, there is a plethora of blondies, brownies and cookies just flying into my hands. Sugar is just too accessible. If it was $3.75/gallon, I might not eat it so much. Can we use sugar in lieu of gas??

"Worries go down better with soup than without." Jewish proverb
(I should convert to Judaism if it involves delicious sounding proverbs like this one.)

Happy Earth Day!

It's not that easy...being green

It's not that easy being green;Having to spend each day the color of the leaves.When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold...or something much more colorful like that.It's not easy being green.It seems you blend in with so many other ord'nary things.And people tend to pass you over 'cause you'renot standing out like flashy sparkles in the water or stars in the sky.But green's the color of Spring.And green can be cool and friendly-like.And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain,or tall like a tree.When green is all there is to beIt could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful!And I think it's what I want to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco

Love the earth; give it a hug. :-)

"The goal of life is living in agreement with nature." Zeno

wierd week...

What a wierd week.

Wednesday was the "big boom;" Friday was the earthquake.

Who would have thought that going an enormous boom would jolt me out of bed on a random Wednesday night??? It was quite the wierd situation to congregate with the neighbors all in our jammies outside at 10:30 p.m. By the time we got up in the morning, it was supposedly an effect from a falling meteor. Yeah, right. My brother is *convinced* that it's a not-s0-incognito UFO surveillance mission. The newspeople have now determined that it was a fighter jet from Ft. Wayne...breaking the sound barrier. To me this is about as sci-fi as it will ever come. Seriously...breaking the sound barrier just sounds so out there, like it would never possibly occur anywhere where I would ever be. Ben isn't as astounded by this as I am; I persist in reveling in my awe, albeit somewhat scared awe.

The earthquake...let it be known, I have always kind of wanted to experience what a real, honest-to-goodness earthquake is like. Alas, I don't live in California or southern Indiana. Apparantly, I SLEPT through an earthquake Friday morning. My various roommates and family can attest that I'm a fairly light sleeper, and I was especially restless for some reason. Maybe I have a little bit of cockroach in me and can sense an oncoming earthquake. How did I sleep through it when it was apparantly easily felt in Kokomo too? I feel like I'm always writing on here about getting jipped!

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." Aristotle

Social Capital

I had a "I must blog this" moment tonight during class. We're discussing a Marxist theorist about different forms of capital...social, economic, cultural mainly. The discussion started as well with my professor contemplating why he never talked with acquaintances/friends from previous places where he lived & worked. Ultimately, he came to the conclusion that he no longer talks to these people because he doesn't need them. They don't enhance his social capital (like currency). Methinks I have an excuse for not keeping in touch with people? It's a bit harsh...but I guess it is what it is. Fair is fair; lots of people don't keep in touch with me either! :-)

Confucius say: "Have no friends not equal to yourself."

What's that bird with the green head?

You may or may not know that Ben is a typical male at times. He's not really all that with it about flowers, for example. He knows what a rose is and he now knows what a daisy is (thanks to me), but other than that, he's a little on the lost side. And that's okay with me; I'm not big on getting gorgeous bouquets of expensive flowers that are only fodder for cat eating and subsequent cat puking.

Ben also sometimes has this same issue with birds. Personally, I thought that some birds are by default easier to identify than others. For example...the blackbird. I mean, how many black birds are there that sit in your yard and eat sunflower seeds? Not many. Granted, some blackbirds do have iridescent feathers around their head/back, but they are still BLACKbirds. Silly Ben. I'm supposed to add the disclaimer that this particular blackbird had a green (iridescent) head, so that made it confusing.

"I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs."
Joseph Addison