(yes, I read Oprah. I love Oprah magazine. It always makes me want to get up and out and run a 10k with a whole bunch of cheering women. Girl power!)

Switzerland will be but only a memory in a week and I hope to catch ya’ll up on the summer before I head to the Czech Republic…

But for now, just know that I’m still alive and cruisin’ the Alps, Pied Piper-style.

follow little chickadees, follow

Like this guy. Although he appears to be giving 99% effort to whatever's on TV.

In the past few weeks, though, I think I’ve proven myself wrong. It IS possible to give 110%! And without really trying! That sounds like it should be the title of a musical.

I have mono. Which makes me 100% useless.

On top of that, I have strep throat. Which is the extra 10%.

Sheeeeeeeeeeesh.

For four days I really didn’t eat or drink anything because my throat burned like the fires of hell. On day five, I was determined to eat some real food. And I found two slices of bread plus a hunk of cheddar cheese in my fridge. You know what this means!

Grilled Cheese Sammie!

Unfortunately, I wore myself out making the sandwich and had to lie down and rest for ten minutes before I could eat it. By then, the sammie was cold.

My boyfriend found this utterly hilarious. I did not.

Feel free to stop by with fruit popsicles, frozen yogurt, or fettuccine alfredo. Mmm. Fettuccine. I’ll be here. On the couch.

Temperature – mid-70s

Sunshine – full

Wind – light

Mountains – glorious

Sorry for the lack of recent posts. Motivation for some things has been hard to come by lately….but! God is so good!

The end.

More soon. I promise.

After lunch and choir on Fridays the kids have California history. We were talking about ranchos and vaqueros – I found it so interesting! There was a drawing of a rancho on one of the pages and I asked the kids, What do you see?

A vaquero strangling a cow! shouted Peter*.

A dog with a bandanna! exclaimed Jasmine.

A romantic couple! giggled Sarah, pointing out the man and woman strolling down the lane, holding hands.

Sex! blurted Danny.

SEX?

Danny, what did you say? I asked carefully.

I see sex!

Um. I frantically glanced over the page. Was this a weird California porno history book? Where the author craftily spelled out the word sex like they supposedly do in Disney movies? Were there people fornicating amidst the cattle and horses and outdoor ovens?

I was about to say, Danny, that’s TOTALLY inappropriate language when he bounded up to me at the podium. Look! he smiled, pointing at the three burlap sacks at the side of the river. Sacks!

Oh. SACKS.

This is why it’s important to enunciate. And to have good hearing.

*names have been changed to protect the innocent

shovel shovel shovel shovel

hahahahahahaha

However, one thing is overshadowing even the 6-foot snowdrifts…Packers. Superbowl.

I will readily admit that I’m a fair-weather fan. Yes, one of my life goals is to see a game at Lambeau, I cheer for the Pack, and if you ask me what my favorite team is – the Packers, hands down. It’s something that’s indoctrinated in your soul when you grow up in Wisconsin. But if I miss a game one week (which I did – a LOT – this season, being in Europe and all) it’s not the end of the world.

With four days to go till the Big Game, I’m feeling the excitement even over here on the other side of the country – so it must be even MORE incredible in the Dairyland. Like a second Christmas. My aunt just sent me an email saying you can buy green and gold cheese curds. CHEESE CURDS. Mom says that she sent a green and gold cheese football to our relatives in Atlanta. I saw green and gold cupcakes at the grocery store here in Los Angeles, but nothing beats team cheesiness.

My friend Angie posted a link to this article recently, and I think it’s an appropriate time to share.

How can you hate on the Green Bay Packers? Their fans, despite being cheeseheads, are loyal.

You root for the Green Bay Packers in this Super Bowl because Steelers fans want their team to win but Packers fans need their team to win. They need it like air.

The football stadium can fit 72 percent of the town inside of it. One in every 54,000 Chicagoans is a Bears’ fan, but one in 1,900 Green Bay residents is a Packers’ fan. It says “Titletown” on the city seal. The Packers are Green Bay and vice versa. Their very souls are dimpled pigskin.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because most of the hotels in Green Bay are sold out for the game. Yes, hotels in Green Bay are sold out for a game in Dallas. “I got people from all over the country coming to watch the game at my bar,” says Jerry Watson, who owns Stadium View, the biggest tavern in town. “Packers fans just have to watch with other Packers fans. … Last time we were in a Super Bowl, I came to open up in the morning and I had 1,000 people waiting to get in. At 8 a.m. I turned the lock and ran for it.”

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because karma owes Brett Favre a very terrible Sunday for what he did to Packers fans; for what he did to the front office; for all the fake retirement press conferences and fake tears and fake posturing; for dragging Aaron Rodgers’ career around through his own muddy whims. Rodgers deserved better and now he deserves this.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because Green Bay is the last little town to keep its team. You want it for Decatur, Ill., which lost its team to Chicago, and Portsmouth, Ohio, which lost its to Detroit, and Pottsville. Pa., which lost its to Boston. You root for the Packers for the same reason you root for Roberto Benigni to win the Oscar or Buster Douglas to win the fight. It’s right.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because it’s more than just Green Bay’s football team. It’s the blood in their veins and the asphalt under their tires. They drive down Lombardi Avenue. They speed down Holmgren Way. They park on Reggie White Way. They learn at Vince Lombardi Elementary and daydream of starring at Lambeau Field. And if they lose Sunday, there will be a line to jump off Ray Nitschke Bridge.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl for guys like the one on PackerForum.com writing about hearing his mom shriek downstairs and thinking she’s in trouble and running down to find her in her robe and slippers shrieking in delight at the man standing in the doorway, Packers god Bart Starr, who had stopped by to drop off some gifts as thanks for the guy cutting Starr’s lawn and shoveling his sidewalk this year.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because being a Steelers fan is a sickness but being a Packers fan is incurable. In Green Bay, Packers gas up where you gas up, pray where you pray, eat where you eat. The players are like family, which means they get yelled at a lot. “That’s the thing that’s a little different here,” says All-Pro Packers linebacker Clay Matthews. “If you mess up here, the lady at the grocery store will let you know.”

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because, at the end of it, they’re not giving out the Noll Trophy, they’re giving out the Lombardi Trophy. Nobody on Broadway is rushing to see the hit play Cowher, but they are rushing to see the hit play Lombardi. (Over the years, though, many have gone to the one about Troy Polamalu: Hair.)

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because Packers fans took a taunt — “You cheesehead!” — and turned it into a gouda thing. In 1987, Ralph Bruno, while upholstering his mother’s couch in Milwaukee, burned holes into one of the cushions, carved a hole for his head and painted it yellow. Thus, the Cheesehead product line was born. In Green Bay, you can also buy cheese top hats, cheese sombreros, cheese ties, cheese earrings, cheese footballs, cheese bricks, cheese beer cozies, cheese sunglasses, cheese flying discs and, naturally, cheese fezzes.

Do they wear steel beams in Pittsburgh?

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because if the Steelers left Pittsburgh there would still be the Penguins, who won the Stanley Cup in 2009, and the Pirates. True, they stink, but Albert Pujols visits all the time. If the Packers left, Green Bay’s major attraction would be the L.H. Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve. But some people would still take Packerland Drive to get there.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because every now and then the game needs to have on top the little team nobody can seem to hate.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because of Ouida Wright and her boyfriend, who never dreamed being homeless in Green Bay would be lucky. They were on the street when the Dallas Convention and Visitor’s Bureau sent a “mystery” man out, waiting for someone to address him with the secret phrase: “Have you been to Dallas lately?” Wright heard about it, said it to the right guy and now she’s going to the Big Bowl with her boyfriend. Hotel, tickets, flights–everything paid.

Yes, when they come back to Green Bay from watching the Packers play in the Super Bowl, they still won’t have anywhere to live.

What’s your point?

He had to pick something up at Kinko’s FedEx down in Westwood. Due to the fact that people who work at the Westwood branch are complete morons, our evening ended up centering around a trek to the Miracle Mile where we caught up over take-out Coffee Bean, sitting atop a rolling cabinet in the back corner of a far more productive print shop.

If I look tired, it's because I am.

A great evening. Plus our shoes matched.

Yesterday was also my friend Kristen’s 40th birthday. Yeeeeeeehawwwww!

Lately I’ve been doing some hiking Wednesday mornings with a friend who has twin girls in Kristen’s class. Actually, it’s more like personal training, Jillian Michaels-style. Except I don’t swear at her. That’s not nice, Jillian. Last week we were chatting and she mentioned that Kristen was planning to dress all in black for her big day, complete with gloves, veil, and black lace umbrella.

I had a brilliant idea: You should have the kids dress in black! Heh, heh heh heh…

And she pulled it off. Picture nine fourth-graders, walking somberly, heads down, in a straight line to the classroom where their ebony-clad teacher was waiting. I love it when great ideas become reality.

Black Tuesday

I believe she used eye black to create fake tears. I love it.

Last night, Wayne said to me, You look happy. That made me think for a moment and send up a quick prayer to the Lord above for all the countless blessings that give me such joy: friends. fun. church. good weather. a steady job. family. packers in the superbowl. netflix. fellowship. the fact that there are only five days left till I am going to consume a gigantic bowl of cookie dough, and loaf about on the couch for a few hours feeling extremely ill.

A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but a heartache crushes the spirit. (Proverbs 15:13)

It’s been at least…let’s see…19 days since a mop has danced its way across the concrete. This I know for a fact, because the day Anne moved to Houston I took out the trash. A hefty bag it was, and I was lifting it He-Man tricep dip-style behind my shoulders when I felt something dripping down my leg.

Ack. It was red. Disgusting scarlet garbage juice. All over my jeans. All over the ground.

I deposited the giant black sack in the trash dumpster and retraced my steps like breadcrumbs all the way back to my apartment. Tiny smatterings of bright red dotted the sidewalks, and the phantom liquid had also dripped a nice trail all the way up the stairs, stopping at my apartment door.

It’s okay, I thought to myself, they’re sure to come by with their heavy-duty mops soon and clean the stairwell.

Wishful thinking. After a week had passed and I felt the need to explain to every single apartment-guest about the mess, it became a game: When Will They Mop? Two weeks passed. I almost chuckled every time I left or came home, except that it was really kind of gross.

Well. Today, they mopped. Perhaps we’re on a bi-monthly mopping schedule?

6:17 pm. I sit at the piano in front of church as Pastor begins the first reading. Scanning ahead in the bulletin, I note that the Song of Mary starts immediately after the sermon. I glance down to check the Gospel reading, which is followed by Hymn #453. WAIT. SINCE WHEN DID I HAVE TO PLAY HYMN #453? Oops. Muck through, muck through, piece together the harmonies.

7:11 pm. My friend Joe arrives with this plumber snake thing, because my kitchen sink decided to stop working this afternoon. Joe plumbs away. Black junk comes pouring out of the drain. Black junk drips onto the palm tree mat next to the sink. Black junk is all over the place.

7:47 pm. The blockage appears to be alleviated somewhat. I clean the black junk out of the right side of the sink, and turn on the garbage disposal to check water flow. More black junk explodes out of the right side pipes.

7:48 pm. Joe removes the pipe again, and murky water comes gushing out. All over the floor. All over the palm trees.

7:49 pm. I use five towels and washcloths to sop up the mess.

7:52 pm. Joe accidentally knocks a picture off the wall. Glass shatters in picture frame.

8:02 pm. I begin doing massive load of dishes. In bathtub. Notice that bathtub drain is also clogged.

8:08 pm. Palm tree mat is dripping black water onto the bathroom floor. I throw disgusting towels underneath to sop up mess. Have no quarters handy at moment to do laundry.

8:15 pm. One of my two ceramic cereal bowls (my only cereal bowls) accidentally slips from my fingers and drops, hard, onto the counter. It breaks in two pieces. I now have one bowl.

8:32 pm. I pull on my sweatpants and suddenly yelp in pain. Did I mention that one of my toenails fell off this morning? Well, it only came off partway. The remaining section catches on my sweats. I yank it off with toenail clippers. Toe bleeds profusely.

I think it’s time for bed.

Although there are plenty of non-movie-star types in Los Angeles, the places I go to always seem to be populated by the Juicy Couture-wearing, weekly manicured, immaculately made up Botoxed set. My daily uniform of jeans, t-shirt or sweater and Chuck Taylors is foreign to most.

A couple months ago there was a LivingSocial deal for an eyelash perm in Studio City. AN EYELASH PERM. People perm their eyelashes? For real? Of course I was intrigued, and because the deal was for a fraction of the actual price plus an eyebrow waxing and glycolic peel, I clicked “buy”. Thus, yesterday morning found me lying in a reclining chair just off Ventura Boulevard, as a petite tattooed lady from Rhode Island permed my lashes.

I’m a total diva. Spotlight on me, please.

Maybe I should also replace the mascara that I’ve had for two years…I hear that stuff goes bad.

Even more so because the television is one that my friend lent me after her family got a flat-screen. So the TV is circa 1884, blu-ray circa 2011, and Beth circa 1982 makes the circle complete.

(the picture is kind of pixelated though….if anyone has advice on that, I’ll take it. Another cable?)