Scratching the itch

Tasha, the other tall English teacher at Cedar High, and I are on a mission - we have the writing bug and want to (at least attempt) to get published someday. Tasha and I attended a creative writing conference at SUU about a month ago. The itch began. About two weeks after that, Tasha invited a high school friend who is now a published novelist (Allison Condie) to speak with her class. The itch got itchier. We've both enjoyed writing for a while now, but for some reason it has evolved into something serious and focused. While Tasha is a fiction writer and I am on the poetry end, we have agreed to share our stuff with each other and to submit it to contests. I have thought about doing this before but made all sorts of excuses why I shouldln't until last week when Tasha walked into my classroom and handed me submission guidelines to a contest and TOLD me she expected me to get ready because I only had two months left. That is the best thing she could have done because I am pretty darn good at self-doubt, if I do say so myself, and would have talked myself out of anything I would have found on my own. There is a goal now, and it is so much easier to do it when you do it with someone else! (Like working out, or so I hear...). I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for the push, Tasha!!!

Oh, and there is a strange phenomena in the English department - we dress the same all the time!!! Kid you not, at least two times a week there are at least two of us with the same outfit on, as demonstrated by Tasha and I in this picture...great minds - and the English department has the greatest minds at the school - think alike!

The bear that wasn't there...

On our way back from Jackson, Lisa, Shaye, Rob and I drove through a state park in Logan, UT to look for moose. I thought I was so clever to spot a black bear. We backed up the car. We parked. We all saw it - maybe even two of them! We stalked it through the forest. We had our cameras ready. We took pictures...
We saw a tree stump. If you look at the dead center of the photo, you'll see what we saw. What would you say this is if you saw it from a distance?

Those Sure Are Some Grand Tetons!

I got to take a trip with some friends to the Jackson, WY area. The fall colors were splendid, the nights chilly, the days surprisingly pleasant, the company great, and the wildlife spectacular. Here are some pictures of some of the fun things we saw and did!

The largest periodic spring (around Afton, WY I think)

and largest man-made guyser (Soda Springs, Idaho)

Taking a pizza break in Jackson Hole after a day of hiking

Phelps Lake, part of the Death Canyon trail at Teton National Park


Views of the Teton mountain range in Teton National Park

(the one on the left is from the Death Canyon Trail)

Moose, elk (which we later went tracking, using bull elk calls)

mule deer, a marten or fisher (I'm not really sure which

because they are so similar)

one of a pair of bald eagles. I also saw a marmot (I think) and coyote!

The cabin door and the view from it (in Alpine, ID).

Dem Amercan's Ain't Got No Learnin' or "Amer-I-Can!"

**If you hate soap boxes and those who teeter at the top of them, do not read this blog**

This clip from the Howard Stern show came in an email the other day and I wanted to share it, but for a different reason than the senders and creators of the email probably intended. This stems from a debate that I have heard many times over the course of the last few months: that blacks are voting for Obama purely because of his skin color. I would like to say that I am writing this not to share or force my political views on the two of you who read this - which I will not state - but to throw out my social views by asking how many of ALL of us vote for a candidate for ill-thought-out reasons. Do we vote for a candidate purely on political party? How many of us out there overlook a qualified candidate because of what we think or assume about him/her? How many of us don't consider voting differently than we have in the past without actually considering the better choice? How often do we say that we won't vote or don't care because we don't like either candidate? The country is going downhill anyway and neither candidate is ideal, so why bother? Slogans, nicknames and wardrobe become the focus and deal maker rather than the actual issue? Why do so many feel that by not participating - and this includes being an informed voter- that their ownership in a mess is nulled? Patriotism to so many means that they love their country, yet how many don't love it enough to get involved or even informed? I would argue that true patriotism is a belief that all of us will get through the good and especially the bad together, and that even if the "wrong" person gets elected we still have the obligation to our fellow citizens to care. I am FAR from being a political or social activist, but I am frustrated with the throwing-my-hands-up, washing-my-hands-of-you, he-won't-be-my-president attitude that so many have. There are many reasons why so many around the world despise Americans - why should this be one of them?

http://www.bpmdeejays.com/upload/hs_sal_in_Harlem_100108.mp3

"Would you like fried rice with that?" or "Why I suck as a salesman"

I called in the rights and privileges of being an adult this weekend as I ate my fortune cookies first before the meal at a Chinese restaurant. I was warned that fortunes cancel each other out if you are greedy like me and take a handful from the help-yourself bowl. I can testify to the truthfulness of this statement. Here is the literal progression of fortunes as I ate their sweet little wrappers and read their little sayings...it's a little creepy, but I think Lisa was right on and I am still waiting for a Freaky-Friday-esque earthquake to activate the prophecies uncovered in those crunchy taste sensations we all know and love:
#1 "Wealth awaits you soon" - Woo hoo!
#2 "You will soon meet someone who shares in your persuits" - Even better! Now I get the money and the guy, all wrapped up into one delicious individually wrapped package!
#3 "An admirer is too shy to greet you" - Dammit! I got too greedy. Ugh! He is wealthy and wants a wife who wants to be wealthy, but he doesn't have the guts to do anything about it and since I am disabled from eating all of those damm cookies that I can't catch him, I guess it's just another case of Pooh getting his - or her - head caught in the honey pot.
This would happen to me...

Thirty, Flirty and Thriving

I have mixed feelings about turning the big 3-0. There are moments where I feel a sense of my own power as a woman - I feel like I have come into my adulthood. There are other times, though, where I mourn the end of a relatively pleasant decade - I have long since lost the chance to be a teenage mother. I have reached an age where I can no longer sell my eggs for cash (why didn't I DO that? You can make, like, $3000 a shot!) as they are apparently too old of specimens. I can no longer play dumb, using the excuse that "I am the new kid on the block so don't put any responsibility on me because I only moved out of my parents house a few years ago." Ah, the good old days when if you wanted to get rid of someone you were dating you could take the chicken poo way out and just stop talking to them...ok, so this statement doesn't apply to me, per se, but you get it (especially those of you who know the story)...where does the time go?

My time this weekend was spent with a few friends who are dear to me and made it an extra special birthday. Laura put together a party for me and it was exactly what I wanted. Tiaras, jewels, pink feather boas, nail polish, the movie "13 Going On 30", cheesecake, and a sleepover were all involved. I couldn't ask for a better group of friends who made it special and just what I asked for.