Bourgeois Buffoon

I made a little snow sculpture today. Nothing as elaborate as the one I made last year, but here it is. (Link to the Calvin and Hobbes strip that it's from.)

Here's a bonus picture from a balloon shenanigan we had today.

The second semester

I've discovered that this semester is entailing a lot of work, but I don't hate it. My main gripe isn't that it's torturous, but rather that it takes up so much time that I don't get to sleep. I spent three hours yesterday doing my music homework - and that was just my music homework. Altogether, I basically spent the entie day working. (Today, though, the music professor asked ow long it had taken, and everyone said three hours, so he said he'd scale back.) I think it'nn get easier from here. I do really like my schedule; every day but Tuesday, I'm done at lunchtime. I start my CERA work next Wednesday, so I'll let you know how that goes.
-Jay and Jeremy recently got a TV. They use it to play video games. They invite people from all over campus to play with them. This means that, as I try to study in my room, I literally have gunfights blaring right outside my door. I hate you, Jay and Jeremy.
-There's snow here; plenty of it, in fact. I like how in Iowa snow isn't a special treat that you have to hold out for and that you might not get until January. We had snow starting in November, and it hasn't gone away. This last week, we've had snow more days than we haven't. Today a quaint and pretty storm left us with an added inch or so. I've filed the paperwork to get the Grinnell Krokay Front established, and this weekend I plan to hold an exhibition match somewhere around South Campus, to draw interest. I'll have posters up. I've already mostly designed them:
(Click for full size.)
The waterfall is a picture I found online of Dettifoss, Europe's most powerful waterfall, located in Iceland. The krokaying person is me; once again my new camera proves invaluable. Once I work out when we can play this weekend, I'll add that too.

Back

I'm typing this hunt-and-peck on the Dvorak keyboard layout, so I'm going to be brief. Handily, I have a camera that I can now use to tell most of the story.

-I'm back in Grinnell; Mom and I drove here yesterday and stayed at a motel last night. I recently closed out an old bank account. Check out how loaded I am.Other stuff:
The ugly dog. My favorite cat. My night-blooming cereus: it's growing a new, sturdy branch (bright green in center)! And another new one is sprouting (not visible here because it's so tiny)!

That's it for now.

Got me a new camera

I stepped forth into the information age today. Okay, well, I bought a digital camera.

Just a few useless pictures from a typical exciting day in the house. My watch says 21:02. (The orange hand indicates the charge, not the time.)

I still have my analog camera, but it's gone through some rough times; I tended to drop it a lot, and I don't know why. It's held together with duct tape and wishful thinking. It still works, and I'll probably use it from time to time. It's certainly served me well enough for these last three years. But this new camera (a Canon PowerShot A560, for those of you following along at home) will be my primary.

"Fun" in Cincinnati

Since the folks got back to the normal routines of life (work and school), it's gotten a bit dull around here. Most days I find myself waking up after noon, and browsing the internet. My own corner of the internet is the forums for the webcomic xkcd; that's where I hang out most of the time. There are some fun people around there, and interesting topics of conversation, and amusing games. It's an all right place. But I found myself wishing I were talking to people I know. That was a problem, because my excellently long break came with a disadvantage: it started much later than most people's, and didn't coincide with them very much. Last week, I mainly stayed in and hung around xkcd and read books. I finished Professor Savarese's book Reasonable People, which I highly recommend, incidentally. I only finished it yesterday, which will give you a sense of my distractability as regards reading in my free time. Micah comes home at 15:30 or so from school, and Mom and Dad usually come home pretty late. So it gets a bit monotonous around here. I decided I was going to do something more interesting. So on Monday, I did. I walked the dog briefly, and then got on my bike to ride to Finneytown.
-The first thing I discovered was that I've gotten a bit out of shape, not riding my bike in the last few weeks. I didn't bring my bike back, and I only inflated the tires on Dad's bike just last week. So mostly I haven't been biking. Enter the Galbraith hill. It seemed endless. As I pedaled up, the hill stopped me in my tracks. I had to pull into an entrance and just let my heart rate come back down from the ionosphere. As I kept going, I had to do that twice more. By the time I got to level ground, my chest was burning and each pedal stroke was a victory. But through persistence, I made it to my ultimate oasis: Chipotle.
-When I got there, I sat down in my booth and just figured out how to breathe normally, which took me five or ten minutes. Then I ordered a root beer and a fajita, and ate. I couldn't eat the entire fajita, so I carried it around with me in a bag, and biked to Warder. Warder was pretty much as I remembered it. There was a little bit of ice trying to form at Near Bank, and someone had cut through the tree that fell across the trail at Far Bank, so that the trail was passable without climbing once again. It was pleasantly quiet. I checked out the area by the Ivory Tower (a tall pine I think I've mentioned). The clubhouse had been torn down. I know the guy who built this thing (though I think he prefers to remain anonymous). It was a cabin, built sturdily and painted black. It had a lockable door and a mattress inside and everything. Even a walkway paved with stones from the nearby creek. There was an awesome fire pit outside. This thing was professional quality. Lined with not just a few rocks but an entire wall of them, to dissipate the heat, it also had a small wooden floor around it and a very high-class large grate for cooking. There were solid benches around it. Any professional outdoor chef would have been proud to own this fire pit. But the house had been destroyed; the walls were scattered willy-nilly, and the furniture from inside was all gone. They even dismantled the fire pit and flung it all everywhere. I figure it was some really spiteful vandals. I haven't gotten any word back from the architect yet, but I offered him my condolences. Really, a shame.
-From there, I killed some time biking aimlessly, and then at 15:00 finally sucked it up and went to the Finneytown Secondary Compound. I was not there for the nostalgia - in fact, the place actively repulsed me - but rather for the academic team game. Unfortunately, the team had decided nt to wait outside for the bus, but rather in Mr Lorenz's room, so I had to go inside. A bit depressing, but I tried to pay very little attention to the place. We eventually left (on, as it happens, a short bus), and arrived at Cincinnati State for the match. The team was playing Cincinnati Country Day, who were a little late, but did get there. While they played, Mr Lorenz asked about how things have been going since I got myself the hell out of Finneytown. I said they've been going pretty darn well. He told me about stuff he's been doing. He completed his first longbow recently; it's seven feet high and has a range of 125 yards or so. He hopes to get it up to 150 with better string. This is the man who also built a working trebuchet. I only really got to talk to the team on the bus, because they were occupied the whole game. I watched with regret. They were afraid of the buzzer! That, and they just didn't have as many answers as the other team did. All told, the varsity lost painfully at twenty-something to forty-something, and the reserve lost 14 to 36. It hurt to watch. They don't normally do so badly, but Tim and Christian were both out sick, and Christian is their answer man, so they had limited resources. As it was, they had to bring in a non-member just to sub. Well, anyhow, we left. I got to talk to Joe Rebman, and a few of the other players whom I never knew that well last year, like David Whitehead. There was only one new player, Brian Lee. They need to recruit harder next year. Joe told me he enjoyed playing vibraphone in pit this year, and he's going to do it next year. He gave me a little update on what's been going on around Finneytown's neck of the woods. Apparently Keith came back to the school for a visit one day, and got kicked out for "nut-checking" a kid (nut-checking involves inflicting a certain pain). You know, I haven't heard from Keith since we graduated.
-We got back, and I biked home, but not before enjoying a cone of Graeter's. The bike back was downhill and significantly less taxing. I came in the door and relaxed.
-I'm going to go to the gym next semester. Of the two gyms in Grinnell, I've been in one of them just a few times and the other not once since enrolling. (I only visited it during my tour last April.) That'll need to change; I'm becoming domesticated. Now, I think the strenuousness of Monday's ride is partly because Dad's bike needs some serious TLC - the back derailleur is stuck fast, and the brakes are seriously misaligned - but I still do need to avoid ignoring my fitness. I like being in good shape. I hate being in bad shape. It makes me feel impotent and even a bit ill. The gym is among the many fun things I'll be participating in next semester. Last semester, I didn't do much because I was new to the whole Grinnell thing, but now I've got lots of fun opportunities that I either didn't know of before or that are only now open to me. I'll be working at CERA, that place that I visited and wrote about on 16SEP. I don't know what exactly I'll be doing, but I've already been accepted for work there. With my new krokay set, I'll be starting up the Grinnell Krokay Contingent. I'll also be in the newly formed Parkour club, which will give me considerable exercise. I'll also have a linguistics class (fun!), a fiction writing class (fun! - hopefully, but people have been telling me the professor is a bad professor, so I'll have to find out), a Russian class (slightly fun!) and a music class (fun!). And I won't have to start from scratch with friends, which is always good. I'm going to be busy - busy having fun.

DAAAAAHG

Ever since Virgi visited the other day and brought her "shih tzu poo" (that has to be the worst possible name for a dog breed) along, Mom's been getting dog envy. I don't know why; she's never really hinted at wanting a dog for herself before. She's suggested we should maybe get one for Micah, but that's always remained in the realm of distant possibilities. We were more or less of the viewpoint that before Micah was allowed a dog, he would have to show a lot more responsibility in, well, everything. But for the last few days, she's been going around saying, "I want a do-o-o-o-og." On Sunday, she was a bit late in coming home. That's correct, she brought home a dog.
-Not just any dog. It's a puppy, but it's not cute. I think she said he's half terrier and half beagle, but from what I can tell he's just all ugly. He's got short nappy brown fur, his tail is bobbed, and his head is almost comically too large for his body. Moreover, he's pretty pungent. Well, I'll give him a chance anyhow, I figured. Even though we've already got two cats, one ferret, and (not to forget) four humans, and quite enough trouble balancing all of them. Now we get to double the load: because a dog is at least as much hassle as all of those put together. With the dog she bought a black metal cage and a leash and some house training stuff. (This, it should be noted, was not free, nor was the dog.)
-So what about the dog? Well, he's got a lot of energy, which is all well and good, but he uses it in being really enthusiastic and easily distracted. It's like he's on speed. I took him out for a walk, and he couldn't keep on task; kept getting wrapped around his leash and stopping and starting for no good reason. Occasionally he would start running until he forced me to pick up speed too, and then he'd run in front of me and stop suddenly. I think he did that at least twice in the course of a very short walk today. He's also the yippy type. This is why I prefer cats. They only occasionally get in your way, and they're almost always silent. I can add to that: they don't need to be walked, there are no leash laws for them, they can retract their claws, and, importantly, they bury their own poop. I'm going to abandon the pretense of giving this dog a fair trial now, because you've already figured out that I'm not overly fond of him. What does he have going for him? I can't think of anything. He's not cuddly, he's not very friendly, and he's needy.
-But, because I'm the one who doesn't have any work or school until later on this month, it of course falls to me to take care of the dog during these integral first few weeks. That means I have to walk him once or twice before Micah comes back. Now, on the face of it, that doesn't seem too tall an order. But, I also have to tolerate him for the whole time. That's not so easy. Here's what happens after Micah and Mom leave for school and work, putting the dog in his cage. Silence for a minute or two. Then the dog starts getting lonely. "Yeep. ...Yeepyeepyeep." Nothing doing, pal, I'm not getting out of bed at 0800. "Yeepyeepyeep. Yeep! Eef! eef! eef! Wrrrhooooyeeyeeyeeeeeee. Wrrrhoooooyeep! yeep! yeep!" Then he calms down a moment, but that's to give me a false sense of security. "Yeeyeeyeeyeeyeeyeeyeeyee! Weef! Weef! Eeeerooooooooeeeep. Eeeerooooooooeeeep. Eeeeroooooyif! yif! Eeyoooooooooooowoowoowooo!" Then he calms down again, but briefly. "EEEEOOO! WEEWEEWEE! weeWERFoowoowoo. WERFoowoowoo. WERFYEEPYEEPYEEPYEEP!! EE YEE YEE YEE YEE YEE YEE YEE!! WEEF WEEF WEEF!! AUROOOOOOOOWEEEEEOOEEEEEEEEEEEEE" BLOODY HELL MAKE IT STOP. So then it's either resign to waking up, and let the dog carry on like that until I take him out, or I can let him sleep on my bed so I can get back to sleep. In the latter case, don't forget that he's still pretty pungent. And I get to roll in his essence until I get up. Hooray for smelling like dog.
-Meanwhile, the cats are feeling shunted, and from what I can tell, no one's paid any attention at all to the ferret since the dog came. Make no mistake. The dog is the beginning of a new era, fifteen years of nuisance. This thing is going to grow up to be huge. Karl appraised it yesterday and predicted 60 pounds, if not 80. It won't get any more cute or cuddly either, so the best to hope is that it'll start acting with a little more common sense and quit arguing by volume. That is, if we don't do what I would do, and take it back and say, "We made a mistake. It turns out we weren't actually ready to have a dog." Just because we've bought some accessories, doesn't mean it's too late and we've irretrievably taken him on for the rest of his life. It's still quite possible, I'm sure, to realize that it's just not going to work, and tell the dog-selling people such, so they can find owners more prepared and less overworked with other animals.
-The other other option is Dad's. He got the ferret in retaliation for Mom's most recent cat; he says a dog results in a raccoon.

Let's get back on track, here.

With great readership comes great power. I've discovered I hav the power to make everyone worry about stuff. But my life isn't composed of worry. What else is up?
-I left that "nervous breakdown" notice up too long. Mom got back from the hospital that same night, feeling much better. She's now back to normal - or, well, as normal as you can get with Mom - and is eating food like normal people do. So, that's good. For my part, I had a krokay game on he 2nd. I invited a whole bunch of people: Aaron, Bryce, Matt, Rosie, Henry, Kristen, Tara, and BJ. To break in a set as good as this one, I had to have almost a gala. So, I caught a ride with Aaron, and we all met up at the old Winton Woods course. Only, this time we had a covering of snow, which we've never had before. That, and it was So Cold. Kristen and Tara couldn't come, but everyone else arrived at various times around noon. While Rosie, Henry, and BJ waited for Matt and Bryce, Aaron and I stuck around at the hillside and I set up the course. Then we waited for everyone else to come, but they didn't. After a few minutes, we trekked back to the turnout and found out that Matt and Bryce had gotten there, but no one was brave enough to cross the creek. Pansies! They had all given up and started leaving. I asked if they were sure they didn't want to brave it, but they said they were, and they drove to Rosie's house for hot chocolate; those remaining for krokay would join them later. The only ones who stayed were Aaron, Bryce, and me. We got across with minimal casualties - Bryce got his shoe wet - and hiked back to the hillside and got the game on. The first thing we discovered was that snow really slows stuff down. This was only Bryce's second krokay game (I don't know how many times he may have played croquet), so he had to compete with a pretty steep learning curve because of the snow. I took an early but slight lead, Aaron trailed me closely, and Bryce stayed hot on our heels. As we knocked our respective krokay balls under the various logs, through the snow, we became cold. I had left my gloves, so I probably had the worst of it, but it wasn't that bad. I kept my hands in my pockets a lot. We got used to the snow, and the mallets, for their part, incredibly didn't break. If we'd attempted this with the old set, I guarantee you at least two mallets would have snapped. This new one is tough. The game was full of victory and regret. ("Ahhhh! I should have had that wicket!") We traded banter, more about the cold than about the game, I think. Aaron sang, "My toes feel / My toes feel / My toes feel like they're made of ice!" Bryce said, "Hey, my soul feels like that!" We never did get too far apart; I dropped into second for a while, and eventually regained the lead, but they kept right on me. Finally I made it unpursued to the poison wickets, and became poison. Aaron got through one, but I made it to him before he could get the other. Bryce, back a wicket or two, tried to lead me off down the hill to catch him, but the snow kept me from sliding all the way down, and I eventually caught him with a triumphant long shot. Then, we pretty much packed up as quickly as we could and shuffled in a hurry off to the cars. I experienced the exquisite pain of blood rushing back into frozen extremities.
-With relatively few sidetrackings, we arrived at Rosie's house. They were playing football, on the street. So, instead of having hot chocolate, we three joined other teams. I was with Abie, Rosie, Bryce, and a guy I didn't know named Kenny. The other team consisted of Cooker, Henry, BJ, Aaron, and Matt. Bryce played in a T-shirt, for reasons known only to him. I'd only ever played football unenthusiastically in gym class, so I had to acclimate a bit. But once I caught on, I was really going. I made all sorts of catches for us. Bryce had magnet hands, too. It was pretty special to see this kinda portly guy in a T-shirt playing as the MVP for the team. Unfortunately, when Aaron and Matt had to leave, Bryce defected to the other side to make the teams even. Despite the loss, our team went on to clinch a commanding victory. All the more impressive because Rosie left to warm up inside toward the end. When the game finished, we went inside. Rosie made hot chocolate for all the cold people. Funnily enough, I hadn't had hot chocolate made with milk for years. Just water-type stuff. It was pretty great. Rosie, Henry, and Abie built a fire, and then afew of us played a slightly mean-spirited game of Uno. Cooker wins the award for best sinister laugh. Then we all basically collapsed in various chairs and sofas, and relaxed. Talked and stuff. Rosie says I'm really good at football. Some (crazy) people went back out for another game. The rest of us sat by the fire on comfortable furniture. Eventually Bryce took me home at about 7. I should hang around with friends more often. Super Great Day!

P.S.! I forgot to mention that I've made two new snapping videos.
Snapping "In the Hall of the Mountain King" (2'21")
Snapping to Tally Hall's "Banana Man" (4'11")

It wasn't supposed to be like this

Mom's going through a nervous breakdown. She revealed to me this morning that she hadn't eaten for three days. I made her one of her microwave Jenny Craig things, and she ate about half of it. She's been crying all day long. She's really at a low spot; I've never seen her like this before. This wasn't supposed to happen. If I'd known - if I'd even suspected - I would never have done it like this. Pray for her, if you will. Dad's taking her to Christ Hospital to get an IV, so she'll have some nutrients in her. She says she'll probably call off work tomorrow. I really hope she gets better, and in a hurry. I can't stand to see her like this. Especially knowing that I started it all.

What have I done.