Day Off

So I had today off, this happens once in a blue moon! Because normally my days off are during the week, and then I have to go up to the U. And I didn't even ask for this one off! It's very exciting. Although what I did wasn't very exciting. I went to Kari's swimmeet, which, while it was fun to watch her swim, three events in about ten hours was a little too long in my opinion. I did, however, get a lot of reading done. And I'm thoroughly enjoying the Earth's Children series for the second time. It's fabulous. Hopefully the fifth one that I haven't read yet is just as good as the first four!
*minor rant* Boys are confusing! Especially boys who dance. I think they just have special ways of thinking that just don't make any sense whatsoever.
Poll: What do you think would be the best career for a double major in english and philosophy? The thing that makes the most sense to me is lawyer, because you need to be able to communicate your thoughts well and convincingly, and you need to know philosophy because that's what law is based on. But, what do you think? Mommy thought working in a museum or writing museum catalogs would be best, because you'd need to be able to write, and you'd be able to bring to bear a different take on the pieces than is normally written. But, what do the rest of you think? I'm curious.

Small but Strong

So apparently my size belies my strength. Everyone at work seems to be very impressed with how much I can carry/move, etc. It's kind of funny I think. Especially the way they express it. Jason watches me carrying a six foot table, and laughingly comments how much bigger the table is than I am. Hugh watches me lift a heavy tray and comments that I'm awesome, Jen watches me put up a table by myself, and says to remind her not ever to make me mad. It's amusing. I didn't think I was that strong, especially because most of my strength is still in my legs. But apparently I can do a lot of things that the other girls can't. Which makes me feel good. I'm stronger than I thought I was, which is cool. It's just so funny how it impresses everyone. I don't feel like it should be that impressive.
The other amusing thing about work is that I have gained a new nickname. Brat. Dustin decided that he needs to call me this, and it has evolved from him calling me that every once in a while, to that being what he calls me most often now. The even more amusing thing is that after just a week of it, I'm responding to it. Everyone else still calls me Katie, but to Dustin, I'm Brat. This evolved from a conversation in which Hugh commented on how happy I always was, and how refreshing that was around the restaurant because people are usually so crabby, and went from there somehow into how I'm a member's kid, and therefore I should be a stuck up bratty person instead of nice and helpful. So Dustin's decided that I need to be told how I should be, thus the nickname. He's just teasing, and I find it funny too. Although I'm trying to come up with a name that I can call him. What I realized though, is that throughout the years I have had so many nicknames! I'm just prone to getting them apparently. I won't count Katie, even though it is truly a nickname, but I've been called Katie Killer, Crimelord Keller, K^2, Stellar, and now Brat. Every once in a while other ones are added to the list, but these ones have only lasted a day or two: Katie Bug, and Glitters are the two that I remember. Ahh nicknames, we'll see what they come up with next.
We had two weddings and two birthday parties this last weekend. One of the weddings was pink. That was the only color, and they had a lot of it. And it was just too much. It looked like a Mary Kay convention, except that it wasn't the soft kind of Mary Kay pink, it was pepto-bismal pink. It was rather horrid actually. The second wedding was better, it was all ivory and white with maroon accents, very nice. The weird thing about that wedding though was that they had no music. None, whatsoever. It was the weirdest thing ever, so we turned on our own music during the reception because it was so boring! The birthday party Friday night was awesome, they had a live band, and the people were really really nice. They had way too much champagne for them to ever drink, and too much cake too. The funny part was that the party the next day didn't have enough of anything. It was kind of sad. They also used live goldfish again in the decorations. I don't understand, and I feel bad for the fish. Someone said that goldfish are supposed to mean something, but they couldn't remember what. I still think goldfish should not be used as decorations. They're alive! Anyway, I'll leave that to the animal rights people. ;)
I got my lindy pants today! I'm so excited! They're the same as the ones we wore in Concert, which I know most of you haven't seen because I still don't have my DVD, and it's really annoying me! But, that aside, they're really really cool! And all I have to do is hem them and then I'll wear them to the exchange next weekend! So exciting! I might actually get to go this year! At least, I hope I do, because I asked for one of the days off. I hope I can go to more, but we'll see. So, for those of you who don't know, an exchange is where people from all over the country come to one city, and every day and night there's dance events, live music, and it's supposed to be a ton of fun. I didn't get to go last year because I was working, but I'm so excited to go this year. Plus, I'm so much better, that it will be more fun anyway. So, we'll see what happens! But the lindyhoppers inundate Seattle on the 6, 7, and 8th of August, so watch out! Dancers will run the city for the weekend!

The Fourth

Alright, so although this is a bit late, I'm going to write about my weekend over the Fourth of July. It was the first time I'd had days off in about four weeks, and not only did I have one day off, I had three! It was so so exciting! So I got to go up to Whidbey with my family and my grandparents. And we had a wonderful time. The weather was good, cloudy in the mornings, but sunny and warming up nicely in the afternoons, especially on the Fourth, it was a very nice day. Which was surprising because the joke is always that the sun never comes out up here until the fifth of July. The best part about the weekend though were the tides. My grandparent's cabin sits on Cultis Bay, which is at the very South end of Whidbey Island. But because it's a bay, the tide goes out pretty far there normally, but when it's a minus four foot tide, there is sand for miles and miles! No one had ever seen tides that low before, it was absolutely incredible. On a minus three foot tide, we can walk out to the big rock, with the minus four, we were able to see rocks out beyond the big rock we'd never seen before! It was amazing. So we spent most of our time on the beach, since it was amazing. We saw a lot of critters, and ended up saving many that had been stranded. I won the "crab-saving contest," Kari won the "sea star-saving contest" Mommy won the "fish-saving contest." The cod was the most interesting adventure. My mom saw the seaweed a little ways away lift up, and then settle again, so she went to go see what it was that was under there. There was a rock cod, and not a small one either! He was over a foot long. So she picked him up, and we put him in the channel, because that's where the nearest water was, and he was kind of floating along. We weren't sure he was going to revive, because we didn't know how long he'd been out of water. But he was still alive. The bad part was that the channel was so shallow at this point because the tide was out so low, that he got stuck! So we dug a little channel just for our cod. It was an adventure. He was slowly reviving, so he wouldn't let us pick him up anymore, but he kept getting stuck. So we just kept digging a little trench, and eventually he made it out to the ocean. That was very exciting. We also saw many seagulls, herons, crabs of various varieties, and a sea pen, which I haven't seen in years. We found this very purple four-legged starfish. And squirted lots of clams, which was very fun, although I was not appreciative when they squirted up the leg of the shorts I was wearing. Better than Kari though, Mommy squirted a clam and it gave Kari a shower. That was highly amusing. We had a fabulous time on the beach, but we also had fun back at the cabin, with our annual croquet challenge, which we realized that whoever set up the course seemed to win. And our card games which are always a blast. It was so much fun! And so relaxing too. Although I had to leave really early Monday morning to get back to the Club to work, it was worth it. I love weekends that I have off!

A Novel Idea

*chuckle* Did you know that you can now get personalized boddice-rippers? Oh yes, it's true. I was reading about it in Newsweek. And that, struck me as odd too, but hey, when there's no other interesting books to report on, why not? You certainly couldn't find anything more personal for your readership. (Oh bad puns. *shakes head in shame*) Apparently there's bookbyyou.com and you can go there, and choose a plot, and answer questions about your appearance and things, pay $30, and your name, as well as that of your love, or favorite movie star, neighbor across the street, down the hall, random person you'd never for the life of you marry but it would be funny to put them in there, and then you are the center of a bad romance novel. How amusing is that?!
 
In other news, there was an article in the NY Times that Ballroom Dancing will be under review by the Olympic Committee for the 2008 Olympics! How amazingly cool would that be? It would be the first time in my life that I've competed in a sport that is competed in the Olympics too! And it would be a huge step for dance, because it has not before been considered a sport, in any of its forms, even though it really is. But to be a part of the Olympics would bring recognition, acceptance, and respect for the athleticism that is necessary to do what we do. And that would be very nice.  Very nice indeed.
 
OK, I promise that next time, I will post the pictures of my Fourth of July weekend. I promise! You can hold me to it. ;)

Wow

OK, so the bride on Sunday, she was 20. She was THE SAME AGE AS ME! That's absolutely insane! I still can't believe it. Apparently Dustin talked to the bride's mom after I left. So we guessed correctly, the reason there was no alcohol was because somebody was under 21! And I know 20's not that young, I mean, I don't feal that young, but today, it's awfully young to get married it would seem to me. If she's going to college, she's got to have at least three years left. Unless she's a genius! But, who knows! Hopefully it works well for her.
In terms of the comments, so my first post about that, I hadn't changed a lot of the things I changed later yet, so it's a little different. But you all should read the comments, because I explained it later. :) Anyway, just so you all know, if you want to post a comment, you don't have to have an account and password, you can send a comment as Anonymous, and just type your or some kind of signature in the comment so that I know who was talking. It should be pretty simple, but hopefully that helps. :)
Oh, and I am a dork. I realized the other day that Row Row Row your Boat, is a Viennese waltz. You have to sing it slightly slower than you normally would, but with the merrily part... it's a Viennese. Dork. I know. :)

New and Improved Blog Posting!

So, I spent some time working on this thing today after posting, and here are the new and exciting changes that have been made:
Notice the shiny new titles that will be appearing on the posts.
If you click on the timestamp at the bottom of the posts, it will take you to a page for that post. There you can click "leave a comment" or something to that effect, so instead of writing me e-mails about my posts, you can now just leave me comments here! Please use it! It can be lots of fun, and I can reply too. :) Just remember that everyone else will be able to see what you commented. ;) Hopefully they work correctly.
Also, I shortened it up so that you don't have an increibly long scroll bar, so just the last three posts will be up on the blog. Hopefully that's better for you.
So, it's all shiny, updated, and hopefully user-friendly now! Write me a comment and let me know what you think! And yes, feel free to Oooo and Ahhh over my masterful blog-editing skills. (Because all I had to do was click a few buttons. ;)). Have a wonderful evening!

So yeah, I've been lazy too and haven't written in a while. Although
I should have. And kept thinking about it, but oh well.
Anyway, to fill you in, we had four weddings at the Club this
weekend, two were gorgeous, and the other two, well, weren't. It was
kind of sad. The two that were, I set up one and worked one. I only
worked one of the ones that was not gorgeous, which was fine with
me! But I helped set that one up too. Anyway, the one last night was
beautiful, they had peach and coral colored roses and juniper sprays
everywhere, and the linens were all white. It was very very pretty.
And the bridesmaids were all in coral. This one woman came up to me
and said that I should use this color scheme for my wedding because
it would match my coloring. Which I thought a very odd comment to
make, although truthful. But still odd. Especially since I don't
plan on getting married anytime soon. Kind of have to have a boy
first. But even besides that small matter. ;) Anyway, the bride and
groom looked incredibly young! And when we were back in the back
waiting for them to make the toast and stuff everyone was commenting
on how young they looked. Not that they were That young. They were a
bit older than us, but not by much. Our final estimate was around
24, they can't have been more than 25. And it's not like people that
young don't get married everyday. It was just very strange to see
people who Looked like they were our age getting married, and to
realize how far all of us were from that. Kind of crazy. The other
wedding that was beautiful used kind of a burgandy color, it's hard
to explain, maybe cranberry is a better word. And gold. Very pretty.
It would have suited Becca well. But yes, very nice set-up. The only
problem with it was that they bought this really tacky confetti
stuff, and it was so elegant without the confetti that I asked Misti
if we absolutely had to put it on there. Because it would ruin it.
But she said since they had bought it and given it to us, we had to.
It was so disappointing. So, note to all of us, don't buy tacky
confetti. Also note: don't make your bridesmaids wear black! Please
for all that is good! Black and white are very elegant together,
especially when mixed with silver. It's very pretty. But it's NOT
wedding! Especially summer wedding. Sorry, it bothered me. The other
TWO weddings were black and white. And for the life of me I can't
figure out why! It's very nice, but it smacks too much of winter or
a funeral or anniversary to be a wedding. And the bridesmaids in
black was just too much. It didn't look good. Even Dustin didn't
like it! Not that Dustin has bad taste or anything like that, but
just because he's a boy and therefore doesn't care much about color,
and therefore I feel vindicated in not liking the black and white
scheme for a wedding. :) I've started keeping a little notebook of
all the good ideas and bad ideas I've seen in the weddings this
season, and what I can remember of last. I feel like maybe I should
become a wedding planner or something. Or at least decorate for all
of them. I know how to do everything! *sigh* You can all use my
skills when you get married. :)
Anyway, research has been interesting still. We got another batch
of brains to work on, and these ones are a little more exciting. So
far I've found two that are such poor scan quality that I can't find
my structures, let alone paint them, and we found one brain without
a corpus callosum! Which is very cool. Now, we're supposed to be
blind, but this is most likely a true FAS kid, because that's one of
the symptoms if you have FAS really bad, is that your brain develops
without a CC, which means that your hemispheres can't communicate
with each other. Can you imagine? I've seen the videos of the split-
brain patients and stuff, and it still boggles my mind how they can
function when the brain can't communicate with both halves. It's so
fascinating. This same person also had huge ventricles in the back
part of the brain, HUGE ones. Like, when the image was on the
computer screen, the ventricals were as big as my fist, when
normally they're like the size of my little finger, if that. It was
absolutely insane. And I'm dying to see the cognitive functioning on
this kid, because we know the brain is pretty plastic, but how well
is he really functioning when he's missing large chunks of his brain
and the hemispheres can't communicate with each other. It would be
absolutely incredible if he functioned somewhat normally. I'd love
to be able to know. But I don't know if I can. I'll keep you
posted. :)
That's about it, had an absolutely fabulous Fourth, which I can't remember if I talked about, but it was great! I'll have to post the pictures. :) And I hope you all are having fun!