Winky, winky

Merry Christmas to all, and to me a good night...it's 16 minutes to Christmas and i can't make myself go to bed. i'm working at the sph tonight and all is quiet. i couldn't again find the photo that made my life complete, so this took a close second. i actually have these cups, but unfortunately the hats are painted boring old red. i prefer the pink, as with much in my life. well, i've just been spending my days at the hospital, (and evenings with some new friends who moved up from california...i have been having a great time with them and rael and all the silliness she brings.) cramming in the time so i can head to louisville this wednesday. i was excited to learn that we will be spending a night in st.louis. maybe i can laugh at some saxophones there. but it beats the heck out of some no-name sodak town we're staying in the first night. blah blah. anyhoo, i really must try and slumber, since i work at the hospital at 6. hope all of your holidays are bright.

Lynn's Paradise

of all the flickered (flickred?:) photos of louisville, this is the one that stuck out to me the most. i think i might make it a destination point, in fact, when we go there. if the rest of the entourage is game, that is. i am really excited to go. it'll be a first for me, going to "the south", albeit not the DEEP south, and al-not-be-it the southwest, which i don't think counts as "the south." nevertheless it's the southest, and the southernest i'll have been thus far, notwithstanding the aforementioned southwest. that might be a record usage of, what do you call them? compound words? (fishing for lance:)
cheers!

tryna and allehe

just happened upon this pic while browsing and i have to say...this might be the nicest picture i've ever seen of tryna. well, the surroundings don't hurt. but it is really nice. i got to spend a lovely evening with her last night, along with faith, her brother john, her dad, chris, rael, tina and suzie, for the first time in a long time. it was just a good, old-fashioned evening of togetherness thanks to faith and her family. what a blessing.

soooo autentico

well the funny part is, i think they thought they were being tongue-in-cheek by putting "pusho" on their garbage door, but something tells me the misplaced en-yay (sic) was unintentional. oh boy. i guess that's what we get for trying to be cultured in montana.

bare necessities

here's to titanium sporks! the greatest invention according to dave. speaking of dave, where has he gone? i think maybe he fell into some vat back in the kitchen of the m.c. and never got out. i don't think i've seen him since...dare i say? summer bible study? my gosh, boy. get outta the ceramics lab. but i know a few people who would agree with him about this utensil.

beer, deer and sneer

oh man, it took me a good 5 minutes to settle on a title for this blog entry. i had forgotten about this pic (and that i meant to blog it promptly) until i saw rael's pics last night from this trip. for the record, this was not mr. b's truck, beer, or deer. but it WAS his sneer. rachael's picture is funny because, as she says, "he looks all pastoral," posing, smiling by the kill. but there's something amusing about this one too.

butte-iful

well i guess this pic is in celebration of the last bible study of the year? fail to see the connection? well, a few weeks ago a gaggle of us made a road trip to great falls and butte with "the director" (ala krysty kay) to speak in some churches. as it turned out, mine and rachael's bible study (save for faith) ended up riding home together and, upon going to visit my friend bryan, happened upon these signs. they were found in butte, nay, walkerville, aka the top of the hill in butte. i just couldn't let the opportunity pass by despite the cold and wind and fear of the impending danger of the ghetto. it really is the tijuana of montana, i must say. surpassed in stray dogs only, perhaps, by browning.

fahven

this blog is dedicated to my friend fawn. she has lovingly been nicknamed "fahven" after a polish border guard mispronounced her name this summer on our missions trip, where we met. this girl has a penchant for getting herself into embarrassing situations. they would be funny if they happened to anyone else, but because she is so shy, it makes them ten times funnier. her latest episode happened in a long-distance communications class where the teacher asked a few people how often they go to the dentist. the first girl answered "twice a year," but fahven hadn't been in 5 years so when he asked her, without thinking, she answered "once every 5 years." she said the whole class and the teacher just stared at her for 5 seconds, silently. then the teacher said, "yeah, you should probably look into that." i don't know how she'll feel about me blogging this to the whole cyber world, but it sure made me smile.

let it snow, let it snow...until i have to drive

yes i got to drive to work at 5:45 this morning, possibly the first time that i was thankful for this hour. i got a good parking space at work and when i slipped on the road, there was no danger of hitting anyone else. i seem to have missed the heavy snowfall based on all the people walking in with white heads this morning. i hate the cold, but i love the snow...until it gets dirty and serves no purpose except to come between me and my summer.

welcome home!

krysty kay

this is just a shout-out to my good friend krysty. thank you for being there to listen to me and so many others. you are always willing to lend an ear and that's not common. so for what it's worth, thank you for listening, encouraging, laughing and being a totally ridiculous person. love you!

are we in chinatown?

just wondering if anyone else thinks this is funny? i found this at our local gas station before pulling out of town last sunday morning and i thought for a second it must have been imported from asia since they always have signs like "funny cry happy" or any of a number of other engrish mess-ups. low carb attitude? that is one i'll personally never choose to take.

hey there big eyes

yeah i might have to make an apology to rael for this one but i think this pic is fantastic and we had some of the best laughs of our friendship career taking them. isn't it creepy? we were having fun at the planet playing around with the new toys she got at a craft fair for $10. (manual camera w two lenses!) so i kept taking her picture while she held the lenses up to her eyes, which may have caused irreparable damage, but boy did we laugh hard. simultaneously we were trying to decide if the girl behind her was cute or annoying. she spoke with a whispery, sugary sweet voice to this guy with her and at first i thought she was cute but before long we both concluded that she was annoying. i'll take a wacky brunette any day over a breathy blonde. i'm talking friendship here...but i don't wanna date one either. blond guys are totally eighties. is anyone with me on this? it doesn't matter how they dress or do their hair, they will always be johnny from the karate kid:)

creepy crawly

yep. looks like he mighta lost a leg.

fro-sting?

this one's dedicated to krysty kay. i was whipping up some frosting for our pumpkin cookies when, out of nowhere, a spider dropped into the bowl. before i could do anything about it the little guy went right through the beaters and ended up looking like this. we rinsed him off into cody's sink, but judging from this picture i think he was a little worse for the wear...maybe lost a leg. but i'm sure that doesn't bother YOU too much:)

(non) dairy queens

well i called sara in slovakia yesterday and daniela from slovakia in michigan yesterday and it looks like things are really progressing for me to spend the summer in sk. until now it has been all excitement, and it still is, but i'm just realizing that i will be away from this all summer. my friends. i know the trade off is great but i am not looking forward to not having easy access to the best friends in the world. and i mean the world. i know, i've been there. well i guess i have 6 1/2 months to get the most out of them before possibly exiting this country for a season. i love you guys.

tough cookie

this is my version of zachajawea. isn't it sweet??? get it? see, it's funny 'cause it's a cookie and cookies are sweet. cody was really grossed out at his blue-green eyes and by the girly ponytail holder. hey, i didn't exactly have a black rubber band available, ok?

saweet

just a quick little bloglette about the "all-you-can-eat-buffet" at the airport bar last night. we went to see ed off to zimbabwe and as rockabella and i headed to the restaurant he called back to rael that she should come because there was an all-you-can-eat-buffet. little did he know that there really was...in a big orange bowl.

autumn, nate-urally

i had an incredible weekend with too many good things to speak of. but one of them was celebrating the life memories of my friends bryan and nate. God blessed me on the 30th in so many ways. i got to make a little package with ed for his parents, bring flowers and tears (and mini pumpkins:) to the cemetery and reminisce with glenna, and hike the m in his memory. but i didn't realize til that night that glenna had invited me to bernice's (the last place i saw him) and rocky invited me to finnegan's (a place with many fond memories with him) on that day. it was just like a little wink from God, saying "i'm smiling down on you." and the leaves? when nato was in new orleans i laminated some autumn leaves and sent them to him because he "liked it cold in november."

get on the bus

this picture has absolutely nothing to do with this blog other than that it was taken by my new camera. i'm so excited about it, despite my anti-digital attitude (for which i got plenty enough crap from dan-o and riley last night). anyhoo, we had a ball with our cameraphone scavenger hunt last night. cuchillo brilliantly pulled off the technical end of things and we all had a lot of fun in "the war room." and now i'm looking forward to this weekend when hopefully i'll get to make pumpkin cookies with james, cody and erin and hopefully come up with a good costume idea for saturday night. blah. this blog is kind of blah. but i love it.

Scott Bon-nett

ok, so that joke could have gone either way. i intended it to be a play on words, relating our fearless (xa)leader with the megastar he, em, admires?...bono from u2, not to be confused with sonny and cher. but given that he's wearing cuchillo's hat (it was, right?) you rightly could have taken the "joke" as bonnett. nevertheless, it's been 9 days without our rockstar and we all breathe a collective "welcome home!"

things that don't suck

so i'm toying with the idea of starting a segment at xa with this title. i don't know though, hmm. well, nevertheless, here are a few things that don't:
coffee with a friend...or a pathetically watered-down raspberry "italian soda" begrudgingly made for you by an unfriendly "bear-ista" with a friend, pie a la mode at ruby's with mom, a fun new toy (the tiniest camera whose earned a big place in my heart), getting to see my handsome guy walk by my office (and i use the word "my" loosely), seeing jd morton with a smile on her face and a dead animal in her hands, jitterbugging with zach? well, i'm not sure i can classify that as not sucking, at least on my end, hmm. last night's heart to heart w rachael. yeah, that didn't suck. anyone got any more???

joy

this pirated pic is dedicated to cuchillo, and the joy he shared with me about at tds last night:) looking forward to winter hmmm?

babes and noble

i just can't stop marvelling at how cute this girl is. em, i just realized if you look at my last couple entries you might deduce that my biological clock is not only ticking, but pounding to beat the proverbial band. well, yes it would be nice to have a baby but while that's not in God's sites for me i will settle for playing "grandma" to all these dollies (grandmas get to spoil them and send them home when they get crabby:) i'm hoping to have another surrogate child after my operation christmas child box this year. just rambling. gotta go eat.

Lera

this is kazakh child cutie #2. well, actually #1. no matter, what a great picture too, eh?

boy on train with father

i searched through flickr under the tag "kazakhstan" and found two of the most adorable kids i have ever seen. this is one of them and i'll post the other too. why the search? well, on monday i was at our montana state chi alpha meeting and while we were worshiping, God laid it on my heart to see about going to Kazakhnstan. then i began to talk to curtis and he really encouraged me to go this summer. so my heart is being drawn...

Red hot

well this is not a sight you see too often, but i'd also say it's a sight you don't see enough...campfire in the living room. in celebration of janine's birthday, jill and some others set up her birthday present (which was a fancy schmancy little tent) in the living room and we made s'mores and ate little smokies, sitting around the lampfire. this is megan the red enjoying one such creation. zach was another poor soul who tried, and indeed failed, to convince me that s'mores are better slow-roasted. brown shmrown i say. black is where it's at.

with persona-latte

i was impressed when rw made a personalized drink for rs, but nothing could have surpassed the impression, impressed-ness with which i retrieved my drink, made by pb (with caramel, to boot). too bad the goodness was so short-lived. it seems as soon as my name was gone, rs and i got treated like a couple of no-name, good-for-nothings by an anxious patron, internet code in hand, vulturing around our booth. good thing we got friends in high places...and that rs had little room left for crap that day.

avalanche lake

here i am with my friend clay at one of the most beautiful places in the country, save, perhaps, for alaska (we all know for whose benefit that was added). anyhoo i like it because it will always remind me of what God taught me up in glacier. treasure the current blessing God's given you because when you long for another, the first is diminished.

wuh-uh harrr

code and i had lunch plans on saturday afternoon and since we are both short on cash we scrolled through our CHEsAPeake options. he suggested the golden arches, commenting "i watched Super-size Me last night and seriously that movie made me hungry." i agreed bc i wanted to try their new chicken san (not recommended) and as we waited in line he pointed out to me the so-called mcdonald's pirate. so we stood there and tried to think of what a mcdonald's pirate would say? (pirate cowboy=yeeharrr, french cowboy=ouiharr etc.) but nothing came to mind. so we sat down by the king himself and cody decided a pirate elvis would say wuh-uh harrr. any thoughts?

Found on the Sidewalk

i was going to make a comment, a question actually, but when i found this picture it reminded me of another...i was going to ask if anyone, when finding themselves walking in front of someone down a hallway, ever suddenly felt so awkward that it almost seemed one leg was longer than the other? secondly, i heard on the radio this morning that heather mccartney, paul's wife, lost her prosthetic leg at a j-lo concert when an animal rights activist came in to protest j-lo's use of fur. i guess the beatle's missus decided she needed to intervene.

daniela #2

and THIS is the friend named daniela who will be coming to glacier park next week!!! (i might recommend reading my most recent three blogs backward in order since they'll post most recent first, but i wrote them sequentially, with comments on the previous blog in the next blog...embrace unclarity). oh gosh all of this is to say that she is coming to see meeeeeee! and i'm so excited. she is too, but she doesn't yet know just how small my bathtub is:)

daniela #1

this is my first slovak friend named daniela to come to glacier park...i AM going somewhere with all of this. this is actually daniela #2 because i met her after #1, who is coming in a future blog, but she got renamed "daniela MGR" because that's her title and daniela #2, that it, #1 got renamed "daniela ING" because that's her title. got it. this picture, too, is taken in slovakia, not glacier, because in glacier the sign would read "entry forbidden."

katka

here's my first slovak friend to come to glacier national park, nevermind that she was here before i met her. she's even wearing her glacier t shirt here. this picture, however, was taken on the train in slovakia. surprising, i know, since there are so many trains running through glacier...or montana, for that matter.

look out L.A.

last sunday i went to see cuchillo off to california and when i walked in to perkins at 4 am, i promise you, the place was not packed. i saw the shannonmobile parked outside, yes even checked the rearview mirror for powerpuff girl collection, but when i walked in all i saw was a woman and a man in a suit. let's just say he cleans up real nice.

Baby

i was holding off blogging this pic since i want to do something arty with it, but it's just too good to wait. i can do something arty too. i just think it captures all that is good and pure and innocent and pudgy and cute and sweet in life. smooth and round and sparkly. what an angel. yeah, i guess that's it.

singles table

welcome to what i would like to call the singles table. it comes equipped with its own tv. how sad. you can sit and eat your lunch and have a companion. a flat-faced companion. what a deal.

a little modeling on the side

ok so katie will probably die laughing. i can just hear her protesting now, and mayyybe it doesn't look thaaaat much like her dad but i almost fell out of my carseat when i saw the norco van drive by. i thought for sure he had a little side gig when he worked at the nursing home of modeling. oh she's gonna die. to anyone who knows katie's dad, help me out here. hello?

shane

this is a picture of shane macgowan, the lead singer of the irish band, and one of my favorites, the pogues. the purpose of this blog is to expose the devil for what he is; a thief. alcohol, too, is a thief, masquerading as a means to a good time. but it never lasts for long. God made this man to be a poet, i believe one of the best of our time, but his drinking has robbed him and us of what was once so beautiful. here's a taste of his poetry:
"ah london, you're a lady
laid out before my eyes
your golden heart is pulsing
between your scarred-up thighs
your eyes are full of sadness
red buses skirt your hem
your head-dress is a ring of lights
but i would not follow them
your architects were madmen
and your builders sane but drunk
and amidst your fading jewels
shine acid-house and punk
you are a scarlet lady
your streets run red with blood
my darling they have used you
and covered you with mud
it was deep down in your womb, my love
i drank my quart of sin
where chinamen played cards and draughts and knocked back mickey finns
your piss is like a river
its scent is beer and gin
your hell is in the summer
and you blossom in the spring
september is your purgatory
christmas is your heaven
when the stinking streets of summer
are washed away by rain
at the dark end of a lonely street
that's where you lose your pain
'tis then your eyes light up my love
and sparkle once again"

lance,lance revolution

yeah, you can call us uncultured if you like. just because we preferred: hoagie cheese fries, orange julii, van halen hats and ddr to the taming of the shrew doesn't mean a thing. i'll bet ol' william would have traded his best plume to see cuchillo bust out these moves to the tune of o lay o lay o lay.

do you see helen?

i'm not entirely sure if this is the san francisco symphony or if this is just a symphony, but nevertheless, my friend helen plays cello for them about twice a month. she gets symphony gigs in san fran and other places in CA, which is kind of funny because i just know her as the silly girl who makes stuff from cutouts of old books and has toyed with the idea of making dioramas with stuffed mice in shoeboxes. "i'm interested in taxidermy," she has said which, if you knew her, would really make you laugh. speaking of making you laugh, we are set to try and run today, which would be sure to make you laugh, too...i can only imagine what that's gonna look like. i found out that she met planeteer pete when she and a friend stopped in for a lemonade. he reportedly thought they were crazy when they went off about how cheap it was. but for someone who (jointly) pays $1,600 a month for an apartment, a $3 lemonade is a pretty sweet treat.

the scarved avengers

last night these two boys and i ran our tails off in the heat. they pushed me hard and it was wonderful. i partook in the waterfall, er, watertrickle on the way, the result of which was a very sweaty-looking shirt...on the right side only. i hoped people would know that that was biologically impossible, or at least biologically unlikely, but if not, who cares? i've seen stranger things than that...like scarves in august. we three stopped at tds briefly before opting for empanadas in the park, but had to resort to large beer dogs, which turned out not to be resorting at all. and with the lolo mustard topping them off, we had a delicious meal. (followed by donuts, sodapop and a fruit tart-long live health!)

M.t.no longer in mt

here's to maxxin, who it doesn't look like will be returning to us this year. we all miss you and wish we could see you as a wealthy 80 year-old chinese woman just one more time

new cousin

here's my latest cousin, mari. adopted daughter to my uncle jon and aunt deanna. i think she's from puerto rico. we recently had a small family reunion picnic in bonner park and i had to laugh because we're all so murray. what does that mean? murray is the family name that tied all present together less mari and what that means is we are all rather quiet so we pretty much sat in a circle and picked at grass and smiled. but mari entertained us by being very chatty and curious and running around in circles and doing somersaults or backward somersaults (winterpeppers). she is adorable and only spoke spanish when john and deanna adopted her (age 3) but was speaking english within 3 weeks. amazing. i was blessed to meet/remeet them all and hear stories of jon playing jazz in a swanky l.a. club frequented by the baldwin bros and nancy reagan.

Dr Bold

man, i have GOT to stop taking award-winning pictures of this guy or he might get an ego. as you can tell by his expression he takes his sodapop pretty seriously! this sodapop, however, he purchased for me. he opted for the much more cowardly cream soda for himself. he had to make a purchase from the evil grocery store that shall remain nameless but is near the fairgrounds because they threatened to tow non-customers at the owner's expense for parking there. so a little twenty-five cent soda purchase was in order. i didn't even get it confiscated upon entering the fair or the concert, much less the petting zoo. but a good time was had by all, except maybe that 4-horned joseph ram who really wanted outta that cage.

Jamey baby

here's the best i could do with my second-rate digital cam on my first-rate phone. (a trip to the verizon store told that my model is still pretty good). i love this pic of james but was hoping for a wider view of the fisher estate in-progress. she's perhaps the cutest little home renovater around...hey that gives new meaning to our forever-in-the-works film project 'vater...'vator...my wheels are turning.

home de-co

co as in co-dy. home decot? see, it's funny 'cause the name of the store is really home depot, but because i was there with my brother i substituted...nnnevermind. i bring you the most up-to-date...well, updates of my life. this pic was only an hour ago and already voila! it's on el blogo. had a good morning/afternoon w cuz and bro. co got the hook-up at joann's from rael and her 40% off coupon on velvet...een. the boy's latest project? a wine rack, thus necessitating (sp?)stops at both ho's and jo's (hee hee). we also paid visits to bo's (the book ex) and, uh, verizo's. hoo that was bad. and there's just no joke to be made in denny's. well, some would argue it's a joke in itself, but the original grand slam was enjoyed by all (three) and there is one more finger karate video in the world.

Honey

i think it was moffisa that taught me this trick-pouring honey into a spoon and sticking it in icewater until it hardens, then eating it. it came from her montana pies days...wait, shoot. was that the name of that restaurant? it was decorated old-west-like, on the corner of brooks and mount and served beverages in jars. anyhoo, this pic is from a ceremony at dawna-alba's sendoff party to kazakhstan at f.e.j. numero uno. ifff you know what i mean, annd i think you do. she says honey gets old real fast, and by that i mean you get sick of it. because honey never goes bad. like "never...ne-e-e-e-evvvvvver."
p.s. my double-timing on these blog entries is makin' some o' ya look bad, ahem.

the rocketeer

well this takes "service with a smile" to a new level, i'd say. here's to my dearest friend, rockabellita. thank you for all you do/have done/will do for me. and i'm not just talking 'bout fixing the free drink drawings in my favor, either. love u and congrats on your new-found sweetheart.

sweet revenge

here i am at my slovak-food-and-drink-tasting-slash-belated-birthday party. this was a present from ed. contrary to popular opinion i still have a year left before i say farewell, thankyouverymuch.