My Brilliant Idea
I think they should have walking vendors at the airports bringing around drinks and snacks...you know, the type they have at baseball games. There's a couple of reasons for this.
a) Some times the gate is so crowded that you don't want to give up your seat because you know when you come back there will be no seats so you'll have to uncomfortably lean up against a wall.
b) You have too much junk/kids to haul around. Let's say, I'm a single mom. I'm not but lets pretend. I'm at the airport waiting for my flight. I'm reading a book and my five year old son, Ramen (inside joke) is playing with his GI Joe. I decide I'm thirsty, but am i really going to pack up my book and disturb Ramen from a semi-contented state. Probably not.
c) you never really know when they are going to start boarding your flight. Some times its a half hour before scheduled departure. Sometimes its a half hour after your scheduled departure.
Anyways, if one or all of these situations is occurring and you decide you are hungry/thirsty, you are most likely to just decide to wait for the free plastic cup of gingerale and bag of peanuts on the plane. However, if there was a not too frightening looking person wandering around selling bottled water and snack mix, I'm willing to shell out the extra bucks for the convenience of the whole thing.

By The Way, I Did Really Quit My Job

The Funeral

I never did write about the experience at my grandmother's funeral. So I'm going to now. First of all, let me say that my grandmother was a strict Catholic and her children...well...aren't. The last time my dad was at mass was when I graduated from ND, his next most recent mass was when he was married and prior to that when he was in Catholic school in the 8th grade.

So let's start off with the viewing. My grandmother didn't want a viewing, so it really pissed me off when they had one, but then it turned out not to be so bad. The priest came to lead saying the rosary and my dad, uncle and aunt basically just moved their lips and mumbled. There was this lady sitting by us who wasn't saying the words in the same rhythm as everyone else and was really loud. She kept throwing me off and at one point almost led to a spontaneous outburst of laughter.

The next day was the funeral. It was also Ash Wednesday. I got chosen to be a paul bearer or as I like to say paul bearette. And that wasn't to bad except when the guy from the mortuary kept yelling at us because we weren't facing the right direction. I was also the reader and basically had no idea what I was doing. We also got into an argument about how to pronounce Ecclesiastes and of course I was right. My dad, aunt and uncle were chosen to carry the gifts for communion and my uncle was like "Gifts? What gifts?". After they explained what they were talking about he responded "Oh, I was going to bring pie."

Then was little reception afterward and my dad asked "why there wasn't any meat." I explained that it's cause it is Ash Wednesday (keep in mind that I am not Catholic). They did however have salmon loaf and salmon mousse. Then when one lady was going around table to table offering everyone tuna noodle casserole my friend wanted to know why she was "trying to pimp out her casserole." My mom informed my friend that she would be going to hell.

For Lent I've Decided to Give Up My Job

Two things that piss me off (financially speaking)
1) Having your doctor's office refer you some other place and they tell you "we already checked with your insurance and they will cover everything." Then a month later you receive a bill for $350 because your insurance rejected the claim.
2) Writing a check for $16.95 to a coworker in April 2005 for your part of a birthday present. In Feb 2006, the check has still not been cashed so you become sick of remembering to add it back into your checking account everytime you receive a statement. Then you receive your March 2006 statement only to see the check went through, but not for $16.95 like you had written it for $16.25. That annoys me more than I can even say

One good thing about being back in PA
Is that I was there for Fasnacht Day. For those of you who did not grow up or ever live in Pennsylvania Dutch land, Fasnacht Day is known as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. But on Fasnacht Day local churches, bakeries, and grocery stores mass produce holeless donuts known as Fasnachts, and they are the BEST!! They kinda look like jelly filled donuts except without the jelly and are covered with granulated sugar. This picture is not of fasnachts, but just regular donuts. My grandmother that we were staying with bought us a dozen and when my family finished those off rapidly, bought another dozen. I think I had 4 of them. For those of you who thought I was going to say, being back in Pennsylvania was great because of all the friends and family that I got to see, I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken.

The American Dream

In Memory of My Grandma: B. Sto

For those of you who don't know, my grandmother passed away last night. After a week of waiting for her imminent demise, it came as a relief to my family. I thought what better way to honor her memory than to devote a blog to her: my biggest fan. So excuse this sappy post, while I tell you about the feisty woman that was my grandma.

My grandmother was born in 1923 in the coal mining town of Port Carbon, PA. She was a Notre Dame fan from the very start, and would listen to the football games on the radio so that she could tell her dad every detail when he came home from the mines. When she was growing up, her aunt Catherine would take her by train to Washington DC, where she witnessed 4 Presidential Inaugurations (a fact that was just recently discovered).

In 1944, she married my grandfather and when he went off to war, she worked in a factory that made bombs. She had three kids, a daughter and 2 sons. When my father was born, she cried for two weeks because he was so ugly. "He was all scalely like a fish." She loved to tell that to anyone who would listen much to my father's embarrassment. She once wrote a letter to the president complaining about my grandpa's air force base being closed and the CIA showed up at her door to investigate her. That's the type of feisty person she is. (She's also written letters of complaint to coaches of various Philadelphia pro sports teams.) When my dad was growing up, they took a family trip to Yellowstone park. They saw a bear there, which my grandfather decided to throw a cookie to, but didn't throw very far and the cookie landed on the hood of the car. The bear of course jumped on the car after the cookie and my grandma screamed at both the bear and my grandfather the whole time.

I am the only granddaughter, so of course I'm special. When I was little, my grandparents would take me on a drive through the woods in order to look for bears. Only a few years ago did I discover that where we were was actually the road behind the Hotel Hershey and there were absolutely no bears. We would then go to Friendly's for ice cream. My grandma would always order the Peanutiest Sundae and my grandfather would say it was because she was the Peanutiest person. She always would keep gummy candies in her cupboard because they were my favorite.

When I wanted to go to Notre Dame, I think she wanted me to get in more than I did. She said I was accepted because she "is a very good pray-er." While I was in college, she started to get weaker and said her one wish was for the Good Lord to let her be alive when I graduated and then she could die happy. Well, she made it almost three years past that.

I think the memory that most sums up how my grandmother was was one time when we discovered that my grandfather's parents were born in Hungary. My dad asked her if she knew his parents were born in Hungary and she replied "What the hell would I care? I didn't marry his parents."

Weird Flight

A recent flight of my was pretty bizarre. First of all, there was a three year old behind me who as soon as the door closed decided she wanted off the flight. As it was taxi-ing she started crying hysterically because she didn't like the bumps, and midway through the flight when the flight attendant asked her mom to put her seat belt back on she started yelling "It hurts! It hurts!" Weird.

But even weirder was the guy beside me. We were chatting a little while waiting for everyone else to get on the plane and about 5 minutes into the conversation says "I'm going to Dallas for experimental treatment because I'm dying of leukemia" in a very matter of fact way. In the same way, that someone would have said "I'm going to Dallas to purchase cattle." I, of course, have no idea how to respond and just kind of nod in an "oh, that's interesting" manner. Other than that he was completely normal. But what was I supposed to say in that situation? "Man, that really has gotta suck"?

Black Uniforms?
Notre Dame's new men's basketball uniforms. Chic or thugalicious? We already have white, blue, gold and green to pick from, do we need black as well?

Timothy Goebel (revisited)

What do you think Timothy Goebel was doing last night during the men's figure skating short program? I picture him sitting at home in his lazy boy drinking gin straight from the bottle and mumbling bitterly to himself (like I was).

Did anyone watch pairs skating last night and see the replay from a year ago when the Russian guy completely dropped that girl on her head? I would be pissed!

My Olympic Opening Ceremonies Wish List

Here are a few random things from the Opening Ceremonies that I want:
1) a furry hat like the people from Mongolia were wearing
2) a black and white dress like the ladies carrying the country signs were wearing that has a skirt that looks like the Alps
3) the soundtrack from the parade of nations which included such international hits as "Jump," "Video Killed the Radio Star," and "YMCA"
4) a rolling cow
5) Jeremy Bloom...if you don't know who this is, google him

Things You Should Know But Probably Don't

I got this originally as an e-mail and sent it around to all my friends. Though the heading of it is misleading because I'm not really sure why you should know this stuff. But I had a friend request that I post it with some witty comments. So that's what I'm doing. My comments are in parenthesis.

1) Money isn't made out of paper; it's made out of cotton. (so that when you leave a $10 bill in your jeans pocket, it doesn't disintegrate in the wash, but stays there for a nice surprise two weeks later.)
2) The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper. (Let's face it. We all knew Tommy J. Was the first hippy.)
3) The dot over the letter I is called a "tittle." (Insert your own comment here. Feel free to be as dirty/perverse as you wish)
4) A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top. (Hours of educational fun)
5) Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller (Though nobody knows that because Susan Lucci doesn't admit it and her dad is the "time to make the doughnuts" guy!)
6) 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals (just think of how much more money they started making when they started making really cheap toys...Remember the toys we used to get!! I have the entire set of McDonald's food that turns into robots)
7) 315 entries in Webster 1996 Dictionary were misspelled. (who exactly went through and counted?)
8) The 'spot' on 7up comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was an albino. (I'm not going to be able to drink 7up again because I'm going to always think of this creepy albino guy.)
9) On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily. (I'm really glad I'm not pregnant and reading this.)
10) Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister (Don't care)
11) Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system, a few ounces will kill a small dog. (Danielle, stop feeding Sadie Reese's)
12) Orcas kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode. (I would love to see this. Does that make me a bad person? Why haven't I ever seen this advertised on Animal Planet. Who wouldn't want to watch this cocky ass shark swimming around and then all of a sudden...POW!)
13) Most lipstick contains fish scales. (Knew this...Would rather not think about it)
14) Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants. (As he should be)
15) Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as medicine. (I still use it as medicine)
16) Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller 'lower case' letters. (If this is true, there are two things that are stupid with them being stored that way. A) you have the heavier case on top, so that everytime you want to get to the lower case ones you have to lift the heavier case. b) lower case is used more, so again, you have to lift up the upper case to get at it more often.)
17) Leonardo DaVinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time. (I can drink with one hand and write with the other!)
18) Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood. (How pissed would you be if you got a wooden Oscar?)
19)There are no clock in Las Vegas gambling casinos. ( I know this is so people don't know how long their gambling, but are you telling me that if I go to every casino in Vegas, I won't find 1 clock. I find that hard to believe.)
20) The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before. (Just think. Without Peter Pan, we could be eating square hamburgers at a place called Rhonda's)
21) A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death. (That's a heck of a party trick! I got the liquor. You bring the scorpion.)
22) Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips. (Doesn't the also imply that these two random Da Vinci facts are somehow connected? If you figure it out, let me know.)
23) There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple and silver! (What about murple? Are you saying that's not a word? It's a type of tree...Like a maple, but a murple.)
24) The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk's mask painted white. (They had to paint it white to make it less scary.)
25) If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in cions without being able to make change for a dollar. (Being the dork that I am, I actually tried to disprove this. You can't. It's right.)
26)By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand. (Hopefully I'll never get the chance to try to disprove this.)
27) The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. (And the term "numb skull" came from when the wife took the before mentioned stick and cracked her husband in the head with it until he had a "numb skull")
28)The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola. (How clever they are!)
29) Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it. It's the same with apples. (Especially if you chew a lot!)
30) Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. (Very important not to reverse these two items...though I have to say, not peeling onions works even better.)
31) The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified Kosher. (What about on envelopes?)
32) Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries. (Way to go, Guinness! You must be so proud!)
33) Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it. (That would be a lot of pressure to be under!)

Some Delayed SuperBowl Thoughts

1). I'm glad that the Steelers won
2). I love Jerome Bettis. I want to bring him home and have him do yardwork for me.
3) I can't decide whether Joe Montana is a money grubbing bastard or not. Experience tells me that he probably is, but I just can't bring myself to accept it.
4) The commercials were adequate. During Pepsi's new "Brown and Bubbly" campaign, my dad shouted out "It's just like Queen Latifah...brown and bubbly." Which I thought was clever.

Congrats Michelle and Drew!!

Resume Don't's
Just a little background information. I work for a sports related museum that was recently accepting resumes for a part-time cashier manager. If you are applying for the position, here are some things I really don't care about, that should be left off your resume.

• Handwritten on the bottom "I'm an avid die-hard Ohio State Fan" --I don't care. Unless you're Jim Tressel's daughter (which we have had apply for an internship)
  

• Objective: "To achieve a full time position within the medical industry" This is neither full time nor medical. If your not smart enough to change that objective, I'm not hiring you

• "Education: 1984-Certificate in Interior Design. 1997-Culinary Certificate" This isn't really bad, though neither one is relevant. I just thought it was funny. Hmm..You designed rooms for 13 years and finally decided your real calling in life was to be a chef

• "Relevant Job Experience: I got up every morning and picked sweet corn." Sorry, not seeing the relevance.

• "Interests: I've started to get into running a little bit" -well, whoop-dee-doo! That by the way is the exact phrasing used as well

• "Past job experience: Host of my own TV show on Public Access TV" - I just thought this was funny because we all know what kind of people host TV shows on public access.

• This person was a waitress and underneath her responsibilities she had "Refilled salt, pepper, sugar, cream, condiments and napkins" Do we really need to list all those things. Let's be a little more concise, can we?

• "Work Experience: Hooter's -- Hooter's Girl" -Say Waitress!!

• "Training and Skills: Dangerous Goods, 727 Qualified" I don't know what that means let alone caring

• On the cover letter: "In addition, I have successfully provide my resume to go with this cover letter" -do you want a cookie? I hope you provided your resume isn't that the whole point of a cover letter? This same cover letter also said she could provide me with excellent references if needed, though there were references already provide. Are those the non-excellent references?

• "Awards and Honors: Soccer award for best mental attitude towards soccer" --was this when she was seven or what?

• "Objective: To be a good employee as I was before" - back ground this person got fired from the people who own our gift shop for stealing, and wearing inappropriate clothing to work

We found a folder at work today that in our ex-executive director's handwriting was labeled "Hungarian Sausage." What does that have to do with football?

I Don't Like Eggs

I do not like eggs. I do not like them with a mouse. I do not like them in a house. I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere.

My mom makes omelets about once a month for Sunday brunch. Every time she does, I tell her not to make me one because I don't like eggs. Then she starts frying up the onions and ham or whatever and it smells so good that I decide to make myself one. What happens then every month? I take about four bites of it and throw it out because I don't like eggs. Plus I feel nauseated the rest of the day because disgusting eggs are inside me. Why do I do this every month?

On a related item, while I was looking for a picture of an omelet (as you can see I didn't find any very good ones), I came to a Korean website. All of it was in Korean, except the headings on the home page were also in English. Below a heading entitled "Diet Food" there was a picture of a cat. Curious?

In other news, a 50 or so year old woman was wearing Victoria Secret pajama pants in my step aerobics class today. I know because I almost bought them. How awkward would that be? Coming to aerobics class wearing the same pajama pants as someone else? Embarrassing!!

The Christmas Letter

We just received one of those family update Christmas newsletters from a guy that was my dad's boss about 15 years ago. He doesn't really say why it was so late, but it doesn't really matter. We always enjoy reading his family's news every year because he has a different job every year and is really pompous, which allows us to make fun of how everything is written.

This year, however, there was even more enjoyment to be had. There was a certain part about his daughter Alyse and we'll see if you think we're reading it too literally.

"Alyse is in her Sophomore year and is busy with student council, cheerleading, track and a boyfriend--I am searching for the right way to let her boyfriend know that I don't mind going back to prison if he should try anything improper."

Did anyone else catch that? "Go Back to Prison" Wouldn't that imply that he was in prison? Certainly missed that in one of their Christmas letters.