Is this normal?

I've got a not-so-rare genetic disease.  I got it from my mom.  My sisters have it, too, but theirs isn't as severe.

When I was home in March, we couldn't park Maxwell (my dad's car) in the garage because there were new windows there.  They couldn't put the new windows in until the wood floor on the first floor was refinished.  They couldn't refinish the floor until they (a) decided on a color (b) sanded down all of the footboards in the entire house and refinished those with three coats of varnish.  Yes, my mother on her hands and knees sanding the upstairs bathroom (with linoleum floor and no windows) is getting us one step closer to a refinished wood floor and replaced windows.  Two months later, the windows are still in the garage.  This is our disease: the inability to complete one project before moving on to the next.

My arrival home spurred a big episode...
My task: unpack the cars and fit everything into my bedroom or under the ping pong table downstairs.  The living room make be borrowed but only until Laura's graduation party in late June.

Step One: clean the bedroom
This means all of the papers previously heaped neatly in the corner under the window are now sorted in piles and scattered across the room.  Before finding homes for all of these "important documents" I moved on to step two.

Step Two: Operation Bookshelf
My family's notorious for trying to fit too much furniture in a single room.  Right now, that room is my bedroom.  It's already full with a matching bedroom set, I've added two white CD cases, and now a Dad-made bookshelf.  Problem: there is no wall space for the bookshelf.  I began sorting and piling next to the door to find a space for said bookshelf, thus adding to the mountains of paper sorted neatly all over the room.  I also entertian the idea of rearranging every piece of furniture in my bedroom in order to accomodate said bookshelf.  However, I then remember Mom and I have no upper body strength and Dad's not allowed to lift anything heavy.  He's never been one for the rules, so I don't dare tempt him.  Time to move on to step three.

Step Three: You have a window seat?
Well, a windowseat for the cats.  It's so full of stuff animals that sometimes I'm working in my room for a solid five minutes before I realize one of my stuff animals is moving... hello, Cow (our holstein kitty whose name is really Sparkle).  All of the stuff animals have been sorted into two piles: keep, donate.  Donate pile moves to Mom and Dad's bedroom.  Keep pile stays on my bed.  Long-term they go into a plastic tub I have in the basement, but, go figure, it's on the bottom of the stack of tubs.  Dad's still not allowed to lift anything heavy.

Step Four: Put photos in picture frames
You've had those picture frames for years; maybe it's time you put something in them.  Go downstairs to the computer with a printer and search for the perfect photos.  While you're waiting for the page to load, waste no time and blog a little bit.  Make sure to read Kevin's hilarious blog about the humbling experience that was dislocating his shoulder.  (Yes, Mr. "Katie, you update too much" forgot about his blog for a month... at least I'm loyal to my readers)

Step Five: Dad wants his car back
Translation: get your dorm room out of Maxwell.  Freshman year, my dorm room lived in the living room all summer.  Last year, it was almost a month before I unpacked my car (named Andy).  We'll see what happens this year.

Step Six: Bedtime.
Oh, snap.  I have a bed?  And a safe fire escape for the middle of the night?  Let's put these papers into a nice pile under the window, the stuff animals can live on the windowseat, and the bookshelf can chill in the middle of the room.  What a successful day!  :-)

Do you have this disease too?  To my knowledge there is no known cure.  However, books have be written about this horrible condition.  They are entitled: If You Give a Moose a Muffin and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  Check them out at your local library, don't forget to put gas in your car and pick up cheese at the grocery store on the way there.

<>< Katie

Jenny the Cow

First off, Hannah hates me because I didn't blog yesterday AND I cut in front of her in the snacks line last night. Sorry, girl, I just needed some chocolate. Will you forgive me? Can I be un-voted off of the island and back into Amber's car?

Anyway.
I've been cranky, irritable, and frustrated this week. I'm sore from ice skating on Saturday; it baffles me the number of people that have never skated on a natural body of water. Irony is that the first time all winter when my hands have actually been warm was while I was ice skating. I'm sick of being freezing cold; maintenance can't fix my air conditioner but the room temperature has peaked at 63, so they gave me a space heater. Oh, and if you are one of those brave souls who gave up chocolate for Lent and suddenly have this overwhelming desire to remove this temptation from your life, I am willing to take one for the team and will not object your sending it to me. :-)

For these reasons, I feel the need to write a blog that will make me smile. We all have those stories that have influenced our life. Perhaps we aren't even characters in the story but it still merits regular retellings. This is one of those for me because it was a classic bedtime story while my sisters and I were growing up. Of course, some creative liberties have been taken through the years but the basis of the story is true. Without further ado, and I'm pretty good at ado-ing, this is "Jenny the Cow" as told to me by my father.

<>< Katie

I was in class just like any other day. The teacher was talking about something, but I don’t remember what since I wasn’t listening anyway. All of the sudden there was a strong rap on the door. The teacher answered to a police officer who asked if I was in that class. Now, I’m not a perfect little angel; I get into my share of trouble but nothing bad enough for the cops to be involved. Plus, I had no idea what I’d done. Silently I followed the officer towards the front door of the school.

Am I being arrested? What the heck? I wondered to myself.

As we crossed over the threshold and into the parking lot, I realized the cause of the commotion. Standing in the middle of the school yard stood my cow, Jenny. Yes, I think Jenny wanted to try out for the soccer team. How did she get here? What was she doing here? Why was she here? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, but I didn't have time to figure them out either.

Standing a few feet from my beloved Jenny was a police office poised to shoot. I panicked. How do you prevent an officer from shooting your cow without getting shot yourself? I had no idea.

"Don't shoot!" I heard a distant wailing. I looked up towards my house and saw my mother running down the hill flailing her arms. "Momma's here, Jenny, come to Momma."

I was mortified. Surely the entire school was watching from the window. I think a stray cow in the middle of the soccer field warrants a break from useless math. In case having my cow visit school wasn't bad enough, my over-weight screaming mother was not helping the situation. The officer's arms were still extended, finger on the trigger.

"Don't shoot! I'll get her to move! Don't shoot! Jenny, come to Momma, Jenny. Momma's here. Come to Momma, Jenny," my mother's cries continued. I don't understand why she can't sound a bit more grown up, even if she is just talking to the cow. For a brief moment, I almost wished I was back in class, bored to death.

Mom drew nearer to us, the police officer failed to lower his gun, and Jenny refused to move. He wouldn't really shoot Jenny, would he? He can't shoot her, can he?

I didn't know. All I really knew was that my mother was running out of ideas and the cop was growing impatient. In the distance, I could see a yellow truck approaching our brouhaha. Instantly, I recognized it as my dad's. How many people do you know with a big yellow trucks? On second thought, how many people do you know with cows at school? Pa pulled over to the side of the road and barely shifted the truck into park before he hopped out of the cab. The focus shifted from Jenny to Dad.

"Jenny, there's Dada, go to Dada," Mom whined.

Much to our surprise, Jenny did run to Pa. The officer lowered his gun, my mom stopped screaming, and I breathed a sigh of relief. On to our next problem: how are we going to get Jenny home? Luckily, Pa already had that all figured out. He opened the tailgate and Jenny hopped into the truck bed. He drove Mom and Jenny home. Sadly, I was sent back to class.

Cowstipation

Laugh if you want. Mock my upbringing. Tell me I'm easily amused. Be jealous. I don't really care. I promise, I'm not making this up and have taken no creative liberties. This made my day. The only thing that would have been better is if it'd taken away this headache.

After a wonderful lunch with some friends, I went to the post office and picked up a package. All of the sudden I heard this "MOOOOO."

Years ago in the grocery store, the milk aisle used to "moo" when you opened the door, but I don't remember requesting this feature be added to my mailbox.

I kind of turned around confused. If there had been a cow at the post office, I would not have been completely surprised. One of my family's favorite bedtime stories was the time Jenny the Cow visited Dad at school. However, there was no cow at the post office. I figured someone had to be playing a joke because that was a really good moo but no one was laughing.

Just smile and keep moooving before Melia thinks you're hallucinating and starts going nurse-crazy on you, I told myself, gently shaking my package to see if that was the source of the moo. Nope.

I tried not to think about it was we walked back to my apartment. When I put down the package, I heard it again.

MOOOOOO!

Ripping open the package, I began searching for the source of this delightful noise. Every time I put my hand in the box, it sounded again, but my hand always came out with chocolate. I'm not complaining but chocolate is kind of a disappointment when you're looking for a cow.

Finally, there he was: my beautiful, red and white Holstein mooing Valentines cow. Awesome! Actually, what makes it better is that it is a POOPING, MOOING cow! Estatic, I ran out to show Becca, who was not nearly as excited about this moo cow as I am. Becca doesn't really enjoy poop quite as much as I do, apparently. A pooping, mooing cow? How much better does this piece of plastic get?!

A lot, actually because my cow... well... has a problem. Ladies and gentlemen, I am now the proud owner of a red and pink, CONSTIPATED, mooing cow! Name suggestions welcome!

<>< Katie

PS: It's been a long day... After an hour and a half meeting with Dr. T, he looked at me and said, "Hang in there, Katie, and go take a nap." Normally he doesn't have to tell me that until Midterms and we're hardly three weeks into the semester. Oh snap!

Two Fish Named Earwax

This definitely was a "You had to be there" story and no one remembers exactly what "there" was, but I'm going to do my best to explain why my sister has two fish named Earwax.

Several years ago, my mom had a student we'll call Eric for one reason and one reason only: that is not his name. Eric had this fascination with earwax. One day, we were sitting at the kitchen table eating our after school snack while Mom was doing dishes and telling us about Eric's earwax obsession. She started a sentence, "He has these two fish..."

"Named Earwax?" I asked, finishing the sentence for her in the only logical manner possible. No one knows what the real end of her sentence because we were all ridiculing Eric's supposed two fish named Earwax.

Eric never had two fish named Earwax but the joke stuck. Even when our other pets earned themselves obscure names based on bodily discharges, "earwax" was reserved for the two fish we didn't have. Oscar became "Booger," Christina became "Rash," Cassie became "Turd," and our male cat named Misty became "Puke" ("Puke did his thing"). Our family was Rash, Booger, Turd, Puke, and two fish named Earwax.

The only problem is that we still didn't have any fish much less two of them with the same unique name. For years, this is where the joke stayed (well, except for my aunt and uncle naming their dog Fish and our new cat being nicknamed Cow... our poor animals!).

This Christmas, Christina received a fish tank. Of course, now we could finally have our two fish named Earwax! Even though she calls her three fish Mo, Curly, and Larry they will forever be Earwax, Earwax, and Fishy to me. Frankly, my names are better because it took Christina a week before she realized she'd named her fish after the Three Stooges.

When she got a fresh-water shark, she named him Bruce after the shark in Finding Nemo. Creative? I think not. I renamed him "Juice." I then learned he's a red-tailed shark, but he looks more like an orange-tailed shark, so he became "Orange Juice."

Today's new fish was a catfish cleverly named "Kitty." Growing up, my mom had a catfish named Flat Bush. She said for awhile she even forgot he was catfish; he was a flat bush in her eyes. Therefore every catfish will forever be named Flat Bush.

"Man, Katie, your family is weird," you say.
"If you only knew," I respond.
"UPGRADE!" Laura screams.

Be sure to check in every week to hear about the newest additions to our family. Christina can have up to 11 inches worth of fish but not all in one fish and they have to be added one a week.

<>< Katie