Lauren's First Christmas

I promise, my New Year's resolution will be to update more and be even more hilarious. Sorry, end of the quarter means I actually do work in the office, or I get bored and watch movies....

In other news, I will be starting a new job on Monday! YAY!! I'm going to start working at Uneeda Burger in Fremont, which is a burger restaurant that uses organic, grass-fed, local, kobe-beef and fancy ass cheeses. It should be fun, and I feel kind of fancy, even though I'm working at a burger place.

Anyway, here is my Christmas poem to everyone, punctuated with pictures from my first Christmas.

Gather your family 'round the fire,
And spread some Christmas cheer!
Let's all sing songs and celebrate,
The best time of the year!We're all darning our Christmas best,
In matching dresses and bows.
And mother calms the oldest child,
Whose fierce fists, are getting thrown.Santa Claus, like grandpapa,
will spread the Christmas cheer.
And Lauren laughs and laughs too hard,
She wet the sofa, it appears.The dog has run, and jumped and sprung,
Through every shrub and tree.
And her hard work and a Remington,
Will provide us all with Christmas feast.Soon to bed, but first, a drink!
We raise our glasses high.
The baby had too much, again,
Her hangover comes nigh.And to our soft, warm beds, we go!
To lay our weary heads!
Thinking of what St. Nick will bring,
Dear God, I hope we'll get new threads!And in the morn, we spring awake,
To the tree, we dash!
Good Santa brought us hunting gear!
To match our full, red stache!What luck did bring us sweaters again!
Knit at home, in a yarn torrent.
And mother and daughter, both alike,
Can appreciate this design so abhorrent.And little baby Lauren,
Got what she wanted too.
A bauble for Bauble, a Christmas delight!
A lamb on a string, from Santa, to you!Merry Christmas everyone!

Life Lessons

For those of you that haven't heard the news, I am a new aunt! My sister gave birth to little Enoch last Friday, December 3rd, at 2:22am PST. Guess what, unto us, a child is born.I seriously cannot express the extent of my excitement over this little squishy bundle of joy. I am going to spoil the hell out of this kid. The first gift I am giving to little Enoch is an illustrated set of life lessons.

Lesson #1: Always be careful of waves.

If you are on a rock and a giant wave breaks on it, it does not look like this:It looks more like this:If you do get owned by a wave, you will have to walk around in your wet Mickey Mouse sweatshirt all day and be coughing up sand for the next week. This lesson brought to you by 4 year-old Lauren.

Lesson #2: Cats are sharp.

I seem to learn this lesson every year, thinking "Oh, this cat won't be so bad! Maybe he'll even like me! That's totally why he crawled on my chest and is putting his butthole right next to my face!" No. The cat is trying to lull you into a false sense of security.Learn this lesson once and once only: cats are assholes. They will let you pet them, but they will demand a blood sacrifice from your face (for more reference, click here).

Lesson #3: Get out of the car feet first, not head first.

Knowing every person in my family ever, you are going to be extremely brilliant only to be marred by your extreme stubbornness. I'm just going to tell you right now, your parents will need to help you with things for the rest of your life, and you're just going to suck it up and let your mom and dad help you out.

I first learned this lesson when I was 2. This is actually my first memory. We had an old 1988 Toyota Land Cruiser, and it was awesome. The car is about 2 ft. off the ground, and, well, for a 2 year old, that's a long way to fall.And that's how I got my first visit to the ER.

Lesson #4: Be careful who you hit.

When you finally learn how to stop jumping out of cars and how to drive them, be sure to be careful on the roads. But, if you have to hit somebody with your car, make sure it's not one of your classmates, otherwise, high school is going to be hell for you.Lesson #5: High school sucks.

My Two Greatest Fears

So, I haven't updated in a while. Here are my excuses in order of how legit they are:

1. I was at my parent's house for Thanksgiving and they don't have MS paint on their computers, so I can't do pictures. Let's face it, no one reads this blog for the writing, they read it for the pictures.

2. Work is somewhat busy again. I had to manage the grade sheets, and managing grade sheets at a school like this one is kind of like being the body guard of not necessarily the president, but at least Nancy Pelosi. My desk kind of looks like this:I guess some student a few years ago decided to steal a grade sheet and fill in their own grade, so the sheets are closely guarded. I would love to meet the idiot that stole the math sheets and thought "Oh yeah! I'm totally going to get away with this!" I thought math majors were supposed to be smart.

Anyway, on with the entry!When I was little, I wasn't afraid of much, but there were two really stupid things that scared me:

1. There was this terrifying commercial about skin cancer when I was a kid. It featured a woman in a tanning bed in a bikini with goggles on. First of all, I hate the way tanning goggles look. They look weird. Anyway, then the woman would slowly turn into a turkey, who was also wearing the goggles and bikini. It was terrifying, and I remember crying and burying my face in my mom's shoulder when it came on TV.2. The buzzing noise from the game "Operation". I don't know why, but this noise would terrify me. Unfortunately, I didn't know the sound was so scary until I owned the game. Let me tell you how the game "Operation" came into my possession.

I think everyone has a really dumb year. I started my 4th year by eating dog vomit which kind of set the mood for the rest of the year. I've had a lot of dumb years, but my 4th year takes the cake.

The majority of my childhood was spent in the craft room with my mom. She would make us clothes and sew quilts and knit stockings a do bead-work because she's a badass. While she was crafting, Kelly and I got the scraps of fabric and Pearler beads to play with. Pearler beads look like this:And you use them to make things that look like this:The only problem with giving 4 year-olds Pearler beads is that they will try to stick them in their mouths or noses as soon as your back is turned. Don't believe the "Ages 3 and Up!" sticker. Your 4 year-old is just as stupid as a 2 year-old.Thankfully, my dad was on call at the hospital. I had lodged the bead so far into my nasal cavity that she had to drive me in to get my dad to grab some really long tweezers and get the bead. Mom had our neighbor watch Kelly while she drove my dumb ass to the hospital.

I already had one parent really mad at me, so I sat really still and was good for my dad while he shoved the jaws of life up my nose.After that, my mom took me to the store to get a present for sitting so still. I don't know why I got a present. I should shove things up my nose more often I guess.Mom bought me Operation, and there was still time to play a game before she put Kelly and I to bed. We started playing it when disaster struck:I ran behind a chair and started crying. It didn't hurt, and it wasn't that loud, but it scared the hell out of me. Mom thought maybe it shocked me, but then she figured out I was just being a psycho.

It's kind of funny because my family never liked cats because they're stupid and scared of random stuff. Who knew that having a second child would be like owning a psychotic feline.

After that day, my mom kept the Pearler beads away from me and made sure that I was out of the room when she and Kelly played Operation. Kelly was not so nice. She would sneak up behind the couch when I was watching TV and make the buzzing noise. What a jerk.

I found out later the reason my mom wasn't that mad about the whole bead thing was because when she was little she shoved a Hi-Ho Cherry-O up her nose when she was little and got it stuck. Then in college, she shoved a popcorn kernel up her nose and got it stuck. Apparently I'm genetically predisposed to getting crap stuck in my nose.

Stitches and Stale Bread

Sorry I didn't update on Friday. It was the last day of Freshman registration, which meant we were busy all day long. According to my tally, I helped 135 students, took 60 phone calls, dealt with 2 angry parents and was called a racist once.

Today, however, it is snowing, which means nothing can dampen my mood. Despite crashing twice on my bicycle commute to work, the promise of watching a movie with hot cocoa and my hot boyfriend later means I will be in the best of moods all day. Snow also means that very few students are going to brave the weather and come into the office, so as a special snow day treat, I am going to tell you another story of my childhood.I have had two surgeries in my life, and both occurred within a month of each other.

1st Surgery:

Growing up, I would choke on just about everything: salad, pasta, meat, bread, crackers, cheese, and yes, even dog vomit. My parents always insisted that I slow down and chew my food. While they were completely correct, I was eating too fast, there was another reason behind my constant choking:I never noticed my tonsils were anything out of the ordinary, I just assumed I was as inept at eating as I was with every other normal, human activity. One day though, I got an extremely sore throat, and after a few days of whining and refusing to take Dimetapp, my mom took me to the ear nose and throat doctor. He looked at my throat and told my mom I needed my tonsils out right away.

A few weeks later, I not only got my tonsils removed, but my adenoids as well. I spent about a week strung out on coedine, then got back to school. I don't remember much about that week, but I remember having to watch the movie "Josie and the Pussycats" 6 or 7 times to pick up on the subtleties of the plot.

As far as my tonsils went, I wanted to keep them, but I guess they don't let you do that anymore. My mom said the doctor was gagging throughout the surgery because of how disgusting my cystic, enlarged tonsils were. Not only am I bad at being a human being, but my tonsils were bad at being tonsils.

2nd Surgery:

I was a pretty stupid kid (if you are incredulous, click here). Unfortunately, even after puberty, I still had a knack to injure or partially maim myself. This is one such instance.

I was 13 and a half, and my sister was 15 and a half. When you're 15 and a half in Washington, you get your driver's permit, which is just another way of saying you get a license to kill. Anyway, on a lazy Sunday morning, mom and dad decided Kelly should get some more driving practice, so they were going to go to Costco. Mom asked me if I wanted to go, but I just wanted to stay home and read Harry Potter in bed because I'm awesome.

Pretty soon after they left, I decided it was a good idea to eat a little something. We had stale bread sitting around, and that's as good as anything for a sandwich. Especially because I was excited to eat bread again after my tonsil surgery. I hated Popsicles at this point, and I still do today.I suppose I should say before the action begins that my sister's friend Stevie was trying to make some money, so he started selling Cutco knives during the summer. My parents bought some, so we had many new, sharp knives around the house (you can probably see where this is going). I was using the nice, new serrated knife to get through the stale crust of the bread when disaster struck.I cut most of the way through my thumb, directly at the joint. After a bunch of running around the kitchen, I calmed down and ran my finger under water and called my parents. I don't think my dad understood anything I was saying, but he knew he needed to come home.

Recall that my sister was driving. My sister is an excellent driver, but anyone would have a hard time driving with your father yelling out new driving directions at you. I imagine the car ride went something like this:Meanwhile, at home, I had passed out on the floor, giving myself a black eye:
My parents soon came home to what looked like a scene out of "Freddy vs. Jason". Fingers don't look like it, but they bleed a lot.

They took me to the ER and I got taken care of. I cut the tendon cleanly in half, so I had to get surgery so I could bend my thumb again. Afterward, they put a pin down my thumb to keep me from bending it for the next 3 months, and that's how I got to get out of playing piano for the winter of my 8th grade year.

If this story wasn't entertaining enough, here's a picture of my mom with a 12 lb. steelhead she caught because she's a badass: