We found out today that Brandon is going to be an uncle again! That's right, and I'll be an auntie again. Not that we ever stopped. Brandon's sister is having another baby. :)

I just love stories about dogs who lived too long. So here's mine:

My grandma had a dachshund (weiner dog) that lived to be around 19. His name was Butch. Butch was ornery even as a young pup, and I remember times as a child when my sister and I had to run and jump on our grandma's bed to flee his bite. When he got old, things got a little easier. He lost most of his teeth, which in the past made him the most formidable. His tail began to go crooked, and soon his back began to arch like an angry cat. Of course, he was much slower at that point, so when anyone heard the "click click click" sound of his claws, the old fear was calmed by the knowledge that Butch had been reduced to such a sight.

Near the end of his life, his eyes took on a blue hue, so he probably didn't have the best vision. Needless to say, no one was too shocked when we learned that he'd gone to doggy heaven - or in more practical terms, the backyard. He was replaced by a poodle soon after. He would have really hated that poodle.

We've gotten home later than 10 pm every night this week. Except last night that is, when Brandon watched the Laker's game and I shopped for groceries all alone. I never realized how much harder shopping is without him. I had to figure out how to open the fruit/veggie plastic bag, put the food on the conveyor thing all quickly, lift the 12-pack of diet cherry coke. Guess I am spoiled. I haven't even pumped gas in a while because Brandon always does it.

I do my part, too, of course. But I'm not looking forward to the inevitable time when we don't do everything together. Not because I'm lazy and want him to do everything, but because simple everyday things are funner w/ him than alone. I figure the time when we start doing nearly everything separate will be when we have kids, if not earlier. Right now we work at the same place so it's easy. Ah well, guess I'll just enjoy it while it lasts.

Our little break from school is over. Just when we were getting over the stress of finishing up Spring semester, our first Summer class starts tonight. Brandon and I are taking this class together, which should be interesting. Brandon thought that in the spirit of friendly competition, we should agree that whoever makes the highest grade in the class can spend $50 on whatever he/she wants at the end, but I told him I wouldn't agree to it until I'd sat in the class at least once. After all, he chose the class. I can use the class credit, but I wouldn't have necessarily gone for it if he weren't taking it. Ha, I sound like such a sheep. I'm also taking an intro to photography class during the second half of Summer semester. K, I'm out.

Living in Orange County has generally been great. There's more to do, nice scenery, lots of restaurants and fair weather. That's why it's crowded. It's why it costs way too much to live here.

Anyway, I grew up in the country. For most of my childhood, my closest neighbors were generally hundreds of acres away. So I'm used to lots of privacy and best of all, lots of silence. But that's a luxury where I live now. Living in an apartment, I understand that people make noise. But the people above us sound like they're tossing sandbags around. Big sandbags. Um, human-sized ones. And they're so loud, we could even hear their voices last night, laughing and well, not yelling but I guess just trying to wake the dead. The worst part is that we haven't had this problem until two days ago. I think they must not have been there until then. But now we have all of our shelves put up, our cable installed - basically, we're moved in, and we're comfortable. Brandon's still comfortable. Noise is no thing for him. And it might stay that way, except that I keep waking him up to say, "There! Did you hear that? That was loud! (Boom!) See?" Then he'll groggily agree that it's bad and try to sleep again.

I tried turning on the fan to have noise to drown it out, and then added the bathroom fan, both of which did nothing. Come to think of it, I had a problem with loud neighbors when I lived in the girls' dorm in college as well. So anyway, I'm thinking maybe I should get one of those nerdy noisemakers. That way I can fall asleep to the sounds of the rainforest or the sound of the ocean. Or maybe just crickets. As long as it will lull me to sleep and allow me to stay asleep. I'm sure Brandon would like that as well.

We are almost all moved in here at our new apartment now. The books are on the shelves, in no particular order I'll have you, and most every box is unpacked. Though the new place is a little smaller than our last one, it's surely better. The last apartment was hades! I'm just excited to have received our entire $600 deposit back. Getting the whole deposit wasn't easy. I cleaned the place for hours, making it spotless. Then the management wanted to charge me for a cleaning cost! That was the last straw as they had screwed us over one too many times. I went above them and contacted their supervisors and pleaded my case and I found favor with them.

Among other things, I officially indoctrinated Wendy with nerdyhood. I brought her to a party at my Greek prof's house. She was in a house surrounded by students and teachers of the classics. They even conducted a strange meeting by inducting a few students into the Eta Sigma Phi society. Also, we finally found a home for Lord Byron that doesn't include keeping him. We love the hamster, but just don't have the room for him right now. Sean, my brother, agreed to take over the responsibility if we would clean out his cage one last time. All I need to do is hand over the pinkslip.

After my alarm went off this morning, I hit snooze. As usual. Thought I'd sneak a few more minutes of sleep in. However, not long afterward a crow began cawing in the very same frequency as my alarm clock chimes. I began taking inventory in my mind of the objects we owned that were heavy enough to hurt the bird, light enough to be thrown, and useless enough to never see again. This method was a success not because I pelted the bird with some small bottles of lotion that smelled sort of bad that were given to me for Christmas, but because I fell asleep thinking of ways to get back to sleep. Whatever works.

Why is it that if someone hates me, I just can't leave it alone? It's like picking at a scab. It ends up worse than it was. And probably causes more scars. (That's right, kiddies, relish that mental picture.) It's just that deep down I keep thinking, "well I'm a nice person. If I just keep trying to be friendly, that person will see that I'm not so bad." Nope. I just have to realize that when it comes down to it, some people just don't like you.

Nuts to them.

We just got back from the bocce ball tournament at our work. Brandon and I won against the first team we played, but totally lost against the second team and even went on to lose in the loser's bracket. Well, that goes to show that you need a little more practice than playing three times a year. Besides, that game is mostly luck. Ah well.

My speech class is over! Woohoo. In my last speech, I talked about how America is an overworked nation and the solution is to be like France and take five weeks of vacation a year. Well, it was a little more complicated than that. So all I have left to do for this semester is finish up my PE hours. Bleh, exercise. ;)

I was standing in front of the sink this morning getting ready when I came to the part where I put on my lovely wedding ring (er, well there are two, the engagement ring and the wedding ring, but I'll just call it "the wedding ring"). The thought crossed my mind that the odds are pretty high that my poor wedding ring will probably go down the sink at least once in the next fifty plus years. But you always hear that people rescued their ring somehow. Still, the thought made me grip my ring a little tighter as I slipped it on.

Whether I like it or not, I've seen a lot of advertising for that new Olsen twins movie, New York Minute. All I can think is that one of them seriously looks like she has to pee every time it shows her in a preview. Guess the movie actually has a plot.

So I have one last speech and then I won't be begging ideas so shamelessly off of what readers I have. It's a persuasive speech. It has to be in problem, cause, solution form. I was thinking of doing the speech on something like abuse in nursing homes or something, but I sort of want to do something I'm more passionate about. All of my trips to the nursing homes in the past I found to be more of an adventure, but maybe that was because I was in seventh grade and took things less seriously. I also think I may have been more oblivious about bad things that were going on. However, I do know that if I were old I would be horrified at the idea of being put into a home. Hmm, so if I don't have kids, there will be no one to stick me in a home, right? Or would I just get assigned to a home somehow anyway? I'll just be a hermit so no one will bother me.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Er, arriba and whatnot...

So we moved. We're so happy to be in our new apartment. Brandon's dad, Seth and Russ helped us on Saturday, and Brandon's mom and her boyfriend helped us on Sunday. Our living room is a storage room right now and nothing is organized, but we at least have our computer and tv's (complete with cable connections) set up. Did I mention it takes around five minutes to get to work? I don't think I've ever lived this close to my job before. Life is good.