A Letter From Captain Morgan

This was posted on the wall of one of the buildings I walk by on my way from the bus stop to the business building. (Please make sure you zoom in so you can read it. I could only make it so large on here.)

I have so many questions about this. I want to call the number and find out.

The Crazy Bread Lady

This is the picture of multi-grain artisan bread that the crazy bread lady gave me yesterday. I also have a loaf of some sort of raisin bread in my freezer. Yesterday I was on my way home from the bus stop (my bus stop is like two blocks from my apartment complex.) There was a hippy-ish looking 40 year old woman pulling a wagon behind her. All of the sudden she says "You want bread?" I'm like "what?" She's like "It's really good artisan bread! I was just heading back to my car to load my wagon back up." I think I was so confused by these comments that I just started following her back into the alley behind her house. Then suddenly it hit me, was this woman luring me with free artisan bread so that she could brutally murder me? At this point another woman came out of her house, and the hippy bread lady said "Hey, Julie, I got bread for you." And "Julie" answered "great, just bring it by." So apparently this whole bread thing was legit and somewhat normal. The bread lady who introduced herself as Katie (I really have too many Kat's, Katie's, Kate's, Kathleen's, and other Kat... people in my life. I may be forced to let some of you go) opened up the back of her SUV to reveal heaping mounds of various types of artisan bread. I took the round of multi-grain pictured, and she forced the raisin on me. As I walked away, she let me know that I could find her delivering bread around the neighborhood every Tuesday afternoon if I wanted some. She also offered me lettuce before I walked away, which I did not take. I made myself a fantastic grilled cheese sandwich and didn't find any needles in the bread, so I may have to hit her up on another Tuesday. I'm also slightly concerned that it never occurred to me to ask her why the hell she had so much bread in her car.

Lab Time

I'm taking some time out from immense amounts of studying to blog...since I haven't done that in a while. So I finally get to run experiments on people! YEAH!! Nothing really exciting though...no electric shocks or injections or anything like that. I love reading about old experiments where they could do pretty much whatever they wanted to people. Now it's just basically surveys and watching some videos. When we let the group of people into the lab, they sit at a computer and wait for a lab person (usually me or my fellow first year Chiraag*) to put in an ID number and "condition" so they can start their survey. When they sit down this is on the screen:
Sorry I couldn't find a better picture. It's clearer in the lab. That's some rats on a computer. So basically you're telling these people almost explicitly that they are just glorified lab rats. Nice.

*Andy thinks Chiraag's name sounds like a wine and keeps saying things like "what do you recommend with the trout? oh, we have an excellent '08 Chiraag that would pair nicely" and "This Chiraag seems a little too nutty for me, but has a very smooth finish." I can't look at Chiraag without thinking about wine.

The Box of Triscuits

Have you ever looked at a box of triscuits? I mean like REALLY looked at it. I was just collapsing my empty box of Rosemary & Olive Oil Triscuits for recycling and started reading the things on it. A few things to note:

• Under where it says "Rosemary and Olive Oil" it says "Natural Flavor With Other Natural Flavor." What? I'm not sure what they're trying to say. Is that supposed to be good?


• On the bottom of the box it says "This package is sold by weight, not by volume. Packed as full as practicable by modern automatic equipment, it contains net weight indicated. If it does not appear full when opened, it is because contents have settled during shipping and handling." Ok, I understand they put this on there so that people don't bitch when they open up their Triscuits and they're not brimming to the top. BUT...a) I had to google to see if practicable was even a word. You couldn't have said this better? and b) Don't give me that bullshit about he practicability of modern machinery. You're honestly trying to tell me that a machine can't shake the bag a little, make all the crackers settle, and then add more crackers until it's full?


• Under the ingredients where there's normally things about it containing tree nuts or whatever it says "Contains: wheat, celery." I get the wheat thing. But is there rampant celery allergies that I don't know about?


• My favorite part. On the side panel: "Triscuit. Weave Some wonder. At Triscuit, we believe less is more. That's why we bake our crackers with quality ingredients like Soft White Winter Wheat. Soft White Winter Wheat is grown in places like the Great Lakes region of North America by farmers who are skilled in harvesting this crop. We like to think of Soft White Winter Wheat as a kind of cashmere of wheat because of its soft texture and delicious taste. It's what gives Triscuit its golden color, distinctive crunch and 22 grams of delicious whole grain goodness per serving." Are you freaking kidding me? The cashmere of wheat? bahahahahahaha "Soft White Winter Wheat" must've tested really well with consumers since they mention it three times! It's even listed in the ingredients as "Whole Grain Soft White Winter Wheat." Must be the alliteration that people like. (Mrs. Christ, I'll take my extra credit please!)

MOBA

In an article I was reading for school (SN: if you haven't heard yet, I had my first official "everyone thinks I'm an idiot" PhD freak out yesterday), they had pulled examples of "bad art" off of the MOBA (Museum of Bad Art) website. I had to see for myself just how bad ARE these piece of art? Here are some of my favorites.

It's a dog juggling rainbow bones. How can you call that bad?

So the runner is not only out, but is getting eaten...that's a rough inning. Not sure what the guy with the bag is doing.

I want that...errrr....chipmunk? And the dog with the sparkly band aid mouth!

That dog make me laugh and is simultaneously disturbing. It takes a heck of a dog to draw attention away from the two naked people in the picture.

The more I look. The more horrified I become. (I normally keep this a PG blog, but art doesn't count, right?).

Is this cat actually eating that guy or just an unfortunate perspective that the artist chose?

Because I've always dreamt of riding naked on something with GIANT CLAWS!

This is legitimately my favorite picture. I want this one. How can you not love that dog's ears?

Letter From Prison

You may have noticed that there haven't been any letters from prison posts lately. It's not because I haven't been getting letters. It's because none of them have really been interesting. No shanks, no getting thrown in the hole, no fights with her celly. And while all of her letters are somewhat entertaining, well, I'm lazy, and talking about prison tattoos and stuff are just easier to blog about than everyday mundane letters from prison. But I thought all of you were probably super curious about what is going on in her life right now, so...here it is.

"Hey. How are you doing? (I'm pretty sure every letter I receive from her starts this way.) I'm ok. I like the card that you sent me. It's really cool looking that would be a cool painting to hang in your house (I have no idea what card I sent her. Probably something with ballerinas or music notes on it. I have a lot of stationary like that that I send to her because I don't really want to send it to anyone legit. since she said it would be a nice painting, I'm betting it's my Degas note cards, so yes, that would be a nice painting to hang in my house.)

Ok, the way the program works is theres like 86 woman and we do everything as a community so theres like 7 crews (she was talking about being a crew leader last time and I asked what the hell she was talking about) that have specific jobs and they run a certain part of the community and its there duty and we have a crew meeting everyday to get thing strightend (or straightened) out for the next day. (there were 4 "and"'s in that sentence. that's like a run-on on a run-on on a run-on sentence.) theres communication crew, education crew, motivation crew-i ran that crew--our job was to motivate the people during morning meetings (motivate how? I'm picturing like cheerleaders--except in orange prison issue jumpsuits--with pompoms and such) and read daily meditations...environmental crew, (I love how she throws a random sentence in the middle of another sentence and then just continues on her way.) time keepers, safety crew (I'm sorry...there's a safety crew in jail? that seems a little ironic, doesn't it?) I think thats it. I don't feel like explaining all the dutys for each one. (um...you're too lazy to write about different crews when you have nothing else to do but sit in jail? yeah, this bodes real well for a job when you get out.) then theres a panel of 6 people that really run the community which the seniors like the pres and the assiant (that's supposed to be assistant) --me-- (yes, she's the assiant) is the vice basically I did all the scrunt work (I'm sorry? all the what? scrunt work? hahahahaha) I ran the morning meetings and I got all the stuff that needed to be passed up and approved. (oh, how taxing all the scrunt work is. hahahaha)

Andys dog is so cute (yep, that's it. No transition. Just scrunt work directly into Andy's dog. I sent her a picture of Andy with his new dog Appa, who is the freaking cutest dog ever. I mean, it's cuter than a lot of babies.--SN: Danielle, you totally know whose baby I'm talking about) Andy looks alil (alil?) like my BF Ryan ( a: I'm sure Andy will be flattered that he can get such a catch as you and b: how are you meeting all these guys in jail? is this like those women that fall in love with serial killers?) Ryans 32 (she's 24, if you're wondering) and hes REALLY (not only was really in all caps, it was also double underlined) cute if everything works out you'll meet him one day. (oh, I can only hope). Well I guess Im gonna go hopefully I'll be able to talk to you soon! Goodluck at school!!"

How Not to Spend a Sunday Morning

After the fantastic experience of Saturday night, I set my alarm for 6am in order to make my 8am flight. I wake up at around 5:40am and decide it's not worth trying to go back to sleep, so I get up and head out of my aunt's house (sidenote: I choose not to shower because I'm not really sure where the shower is in her house let alone towels, etc...so I am DISGUSTING). I go to fill up my rental car with gas and am shocked when my credit card gets declined. After paying cash to the sketchtacular gentleman working the gas station at 6am, I call my credit card company. And guess what, they are doing routine maintenance and won't be able to access my account until 11am...FANTASTIC.

I'm a little worried because my rental car was on that credit card...can't get ahold of the rental car company either. I decide to call my bank just to see if anything suspicious is going on there. Nothing weird except that the credit card payment I had registered online a few days earlier was not withdrawn from my checking account...well, that might be an issue.

I fly to Philly and during my layover I decide to try the credit card company again because even though it's not 11 yet, maybe they got done with maintenance early...they did.

CC lady: How may I help you today?
Me: Well, my card got rejected this morning.
CC: We're certainly sorry about that. Let me take a look at your account. ooo...it looks like you're over your credit limit.
Me: No, I'm not.
CC: well we never received your latest payment, so that put you over your limit.
Me: No, it didn't.
CC: because there was no balance, both your charges from your last statement as well as any more recent charges go towards your account, so you're over your limit.
Me: I understand that but I'm not over my limit.
CC: yes, you are.
Me: I had X charges on my last statement and have made Y charges since. If you add them together, I should still be about $1000 under my credit limit.
CC: Oh, you're right. The bank returned your payment because of an incorrect account number.
Me: Ok, so can I pay for that now.
CC: Of course, I'll just need your routing and account number.
Me: I only have my debit card.
CC: I'm sorry we don't take debit.

So, I call my bank (because I'm in an airport and do not have my check book with me). I'm informed that they can give me the routing number but not the account number even though I offer to provide my PIN number, date of birth, mother's maiden name and social security number.

Luckily I do get a hold of the rental car company, and they tell me that since the charge was preapproved, there's no issue there. After getting home, I finally pay my credit card bill and find out that my credit card will be frozen for 7 days...so that's fun.

How Not To Spend a Saturday Night

After a fantastic time at Amanda 1's wedding reception, I was supposed to head back to her house to spend the night and then make my 8am flight back to the TC (that's Twin Cities). So let me set the scene for you. I am still wearing my strapless bridesmaid dress and flip flops with a light jacket over it. It's raining out and low 40's at approx 11:30pm. I am tired, wet, cold and hence grumpy as hell. I arrive at Amanda's house with the best man (get your mind out of the gutter) who had left clothes and some stuff in their house the night before and his car outside. I insert the key that Amanda had pointed out as her house key into the lock, but could not get it to turn.

After many futile attempts, I hand over the keys to the best man who is sure (as all men are) that my addled woman brain can't handle this simple task...this turns out to be a fatal mistake. Guess what...no dice. After many more attempts (and asking stupid questions like 'are you sure she didn't give you any other keys?' oh, yeah, I forgot she handed me the extra special super secret key, and all these were just red herrings) he says "wow, I just felt the key bend that time." I warn him to be careful that he doesn't break the key off in the lock...cause that would suck (right, Kathleen?) and guess what happens 30 seconds later?? Gee, he breaks the key off in the lock.

After trying to call various people to find out if there is a hidden key at the house and getting no one answering, I finally say "well, I have family in the area. I'm sure i can find somewhere to stay for the night or if not, I'll just get a hotel. why don't you just leave your stuff here and come get it tomorrow? you have your car keys right?" I probably didn't say that as politely as I think I did because...again...grumpy as hell. He says he has his keys but keeps saying things like "but...but...my shoes are in there.." F*** your shoes! I'm cold and tired. Just as I'm contemplating how to break the news that I would be leaving him in the rain and dark on Amanda's porch to fend for himself, Amanda's new hubby calls. Best man tells me he is driving the 25 minutes or so back to the wedding hotel in order to get another set of keys and looks shocked when I say that I will not be joining him on such a jaunt and will be making other arrangement for accommodations for the evening...errr...early morning?

I call my aunt who happens to live on the next street over from Amanda and who, because Notre Dame was playing in an 8pm game, may actually still be awake at midnight. (even though I was cold and tired, I really didn't want to wake anyone up.) I reached her on her cell phone, and while she was not at home, would be there in a half hour. I figure to take that since it would probably take me a half hour to make other arrangements and drive to other lodging. I spend the waiting time removing the 30 bobby pins (I just counted them. It was 30 exactly) from my hair. She finally gets home, and I change into pj's and climb into bed at around 1am. I have trouble falling asleep as I am shivering uncontrollably from standing on Amanda's porch in a strapless dress and flip flops for about a half hour. I am relieved, however, to finally be in a bed and not have to do the ultimate walk of shame by sleeping in my car and arriving at the airport in my bridesmaid dress.

Up next: How Not To Spend a Sunday Morning