My Waking Eyes

You know that part on Lord of the Rings when Sam and Frodo are laying, exhausted, near the top of Mount Doom?  And they've given everything they have and are to make it to that point, they've come so far and yet seem to have nothing left to take them the final steps to the top?


And that's when Sam says to Frodo, remember the Shire?  Remember the orchards and the birds and the barley, remember the taste of strawberries?


And Frodo says, "No, Sam.  I can't recall the taste of food.  Nor the sound of water.  Or the touch of grass.  I'm naked in the dark.  There's nothing...no veil between me and the wheel of fire.  I can see him with my waking eyes!"


Well, I finally understand what Frodo means.  As I lay here, exhausted, near the top of Mount Homework Doom, I've come so far and yet seem to have nothing left to take me through the final assignments that are due by Wednesday. I can't recall the peace of sleep. Nor what outside this apartment feels like.  I'm naked in the dark.  There's nothing...no veil between me and the wheel of deadlines.  I can see homework with my waking eyes!


Erg.  Thursday is going to be the happiest day of my life.

Pizza Tacos

I've been doing a lot of weird things lately.  It could because I'm starting to crack under the homework pressure, it could be because I've stayed up until 4 or 5 in the morning every day for the last week, or it could be because I'm just weird.

The other day I decided to put corn tortillas in the toaster.  The toaster?!  Yah, the toaster.  Isn't that weird?

Then I put some leftover velveeta cheese and pepperoni on them, which was weird.

Then I put them in the microwave for 20 seconds to get the cheese all melty and gooey, which was not weird, but rather brilliant.

Then I had two things in front of me that resembled pizza tacos.  Weird.

Then I rolled one into a pizza taquito, just to be weird.

Do you know what's weird?  I took approximately 7 photos of the pizza taco from this exact angle.  Why? I don't know, I was kind of feeling weird at the time.

Sometimes it's nice to not have anything to eat for days except weird combinations of leftovers in your fridge, because you get surprisingly delicious treats like this.

Would you say that being weird could also at times be surprisingly delicious?  It would be a weird thing to say, though...so I wouldn't if I were you.

Nerd Alert

Maybe this past week I have been doing 8 - 10 hour days of homework (trying to do six months of work in one month) and then staying up until 4 in the morning rereading the Harry Potter series.

Maybe once, or twice, I have wished I had Hermione Granger to copy notes from.

Maybe I have had a secret crush on Snape since the very first time I ever read the first Harry Potter book.

Maybe while plowing through the third book, every time they mentioned dementors I imagined my unfinished homework and I immediately felt cold, lifeless, depressed - as if I'd never be happy again.

Maybe after everyone has gone to bed at night and I've just brushed my teeth, I point my toothbrush wand to the bathroom mirror and whisper "Expecto Patronum!" (It's a giraffe, btw)

Maybe yesterday while eating a piece of bread, a crown came off my tooth and exposed a horribly rotten tooth underneath and my first thought was about going to see Madame Pomfrey.

Maybe I just finished the fifth book and cried when Dumbledore told Harry he loved him.

Maybe you could call me a nerd.  But do you really want to after all the hexes and jinxes I've been reading up on?

A Love Letter

Dear Kitchen Family Tacos,


It took me 45 minutes to find velveeta cheese at the store.  


It took me (and Kelly) two hours to make you when I should have been doing homework.  


It's going to take me two weeks to work off the extra five pounds you gave me.


You were worth it.  Every bit.


Love always,

Ashley

Beautiful Words

Kelly once wanted to name a child Silhouette.  Call her Silly for short.  She just thought the word silhouette was so pretty, she wanted a reason to say it every day.

I'm in the middle of collecting beautiful words.

My collection so far:

silhouette (for Kelly)          strum                      shore 
river                                   colloquial                hue
dazzle                                 hum                         muzzle
lullaby                                evoke                      illuminate
shush                                  honeycomb              ineffable
parallelogram                    murmurous              autumn
tremble                              wherewithal             candle
shepherd                            edelweiss                 the


I think Kelly was onto the right idea, any of these words would work as a child's name.


Will you help add to my collection?  What are your beautiful words?

Page 56, 5th Sentence

I'm always up for a silly game, especially one that has an air of destiny about it.

I tried this game out the other day: grab the nearest book to you, turn to page 56, read the 5th sentence down.

"a steady hand, a heart open to nature and a head devoted to the advancement of man."

Cool.  But then I looked at the instructions again - what was the point of the game?  It told me to go there and then...what?  The fifth sentence is...a description of my soulmate?  advice on how to live in the jungle?  what my day will be like tomorrow?  what?

This game needs to take a lesson from my favorite game that I've been playing with roommates and family for years: the dictionary game.  It's like the magic eight ball game but with more possibilities for answers.

Hold a dictionary in your hands and ask it a question then open up to a random page and point down without looking and whatever word your finger lands on is the answer.  It's amazing how accurate it is.  Here, I'll play it with you right now.

Q: What word best describes my attitude towards homework today?
A: escapist - n., one given to escapism

Q: If you could describe Cowboys and Aliens in one word, what would it be?
A: herdsman - n., a herder

Q: When I start my band, what should I call it?  (two part answer)
A: Elite - n., a socially superior group
A: Pupfish - n., a small freshwater fish
(...I love this song!  Who's it by?...Elite Pupfish)

A: My nieces and nephews like to call me this.
Q: What is... butty - n., a fellow workman

Q: How do you feel about this blog post right now?
A: flatter - v., to praise excessively

Oh really, I had no idea, thank you.  See?  This game is so accurate it's scary.

Cherry Blossoms with Water

The Love that Let Us Share Our Name

Four years ago, I was about to go on a perilous backpacking trip to Havasupai Falls.  I felt eerily anxious about it, so the night before I left, I told Kelly everything she needed to do if I died on the trip.  Since then, we have often had that same conversation before one of us leaves on a trip.

The years have changed, but the conversation mainly stays the same.

***Tell Mom and Dad I loved them and my only goal was to be just like them.  And give them all my money.

***Tell my siblings they were my heroes and in all the world I never once found anyone more beautiful or as good as them.  And tell them once again I'm sorry for the hairy macaroni dinner.

***Tell my nieces and nephews I would have stolen them for my own, but tell them in a way that doesn't sound so creepy.

***Tell that cute boy I've had a crush on for months that I thought he was the living end.

***You can have that cute shirt you always borrow.

***When you read my journals, remember that I always had a dramatic flare when it came to ink and paper.

***Don't let anyone have any fun while I'm gone.

The other day, I heard this song.  And it twisted my heart and wrung out a few tears and reminded me of all those conversations and of all the hopes and efforts of love I try to share even and especially before I die.




What would you say before you died?

30 Days to Thirty

It's Kelly's birthday today (Happy Birthday, Kelly!).  More precisely, it is her 30th birthday today. 

Since she refused to have a big party for such a monumental year mark, we decided to force her to have 30 small parties.  More precisely, we gave her a present/surprise every day for 30 days leading up to her 30th birthday.

It began with a bang when I kidnapped her and took her to Alabama and Mississippi (2 of the states she had left to cross off on her "Visit every state before I'm 30" list). 

(Genuine surprise face when I told her we weren't really going to Charlottesville for the night, haha!)

Since then the surprises have only gotten bigger: Vegan breakfast sandwiches, a DI childrens' book rewritten in her honor, The Guardian, ukulele music, dress patterns and material, a Vegan bakery run, a special song/dance performance accompanied by its own trailer, a BBQ and four-wheeler rides through the Utah mountainside, a fancy jumprope, an "I Heart the Brothers K" t-shirt, a dainty scarf, to-die-for chocolate chip cookies, a puzzle of a covered bridge, Win Lose or Draw, a beautiful dish from Jordan, a gelato trip, a Cafe Rio run, 4 of the most awesome music mixes ever created, and tons of people popping up throughout the month just to tell her they loved her...she really scored this year on presents.

Some of my favorite surprises from the whole month:  

A Night at the Drum Circle

The Goo-Goo Dolls Concert (with Parachute AND Michelle Branch, what what!)

 

A Weekend Getaway to Amish Country (where we toured three (3!) pretzel factories, a canning factory, and a chocolate factory all in one day)

(I took this picture from the moving car window, and I am therefore proud of it)

Graffiti Night

(We took some night shots to look extra rebellious)

English (my joy apparently has a skin disease, don't worry it's not contagious)

Spanish

French

Swahili

(Don't look into my eyes for too long in this picture, I think I was possessed by the guy in the painting from Ghostbusters II)

The Korean Drama Family Birthday Party (by far the best thing we did for her)

We had apples (sliced Korean style) as appetizers.

And stir fry and Mi goreng for dinner (I'm never going back to Ramon after trying Mi goreng)

(Please pardon the way we are eating dinner, we were trying to stay true to the Korean drama and not have manners.  Where is Jeon Jin Ho to teach us how to be a lady?)

And Korean cookies for dessert.

Then we played Korean games, where Maria was unbeatable (is she secretly half Korean?).

(Grandpa playing "Guess the Korean Animal")

Kelly used her Korean mind powers to levitate things in the air.

After dinner and games, we all cried in Korean.

And sat according to our Korean color coordination groups.

Overall, we had some sweet Korean moments.

And some difficult Korean moments.

(Don't look too long into the boy in the green shirt's eyes, I think you know why)

And do you know after all that hard work, after all the planning, all the logistics, all the organizing, all the secrets and all the surprises from the whole month of birthday surprises, do you know what Kelly's favorite day was?

The day I gave her a bag of cherries.

Now we know, if you want to make Kelly happy, keep it simple.