Hooray for Donkeys!!

The test is done. Well, no actually, I have to go in and do a computer part today. But the worst of it is over. At least until I fail it and have to retake it in January.

So! As a special treat for being done Jared gave me a surprise. He'd been telling me all week that he had a surprise for me and wouldn't give me any hints at all. We got in the car and started driving. After awhile, he made me close my eyes. He helped me get out of the car with my eyes shut. As we walked, I started to smell dust and hay and then manure.

HE TOOK ME TO THE PETTING ZOO!!!! It was spectacular! I didn't even know there was one...its this cute little place at the KOA campground. There are a ton of goats (baby goats even, with baby goat horns). Also ponies and a donkey. The ponies weren't very sociable but the donkey was great. Her head was so soft compared to the bristly goats. She kept eating sticks...is that weird?

I've been begging for a goat and a donkey. Realistically, I know I can't really have a goat rignt now since i'm in school and living in someone else's basement. But I'm trying to butter him up for the future. I could definitely have a little pygmy goat in the yard someday. Then I woudln't have to mow.

Everyone he told about the petting zoo just laughed but he knew that I would love it. He'd been telling me that I would love love love my surprise and that made it even harder to guess because he's not confident when it comes to gifts and such. But wow. He hit the nail on the head with this one. Now i'll be begging to go there all the time.

Ahhh Bulgaria

Last night, Jared and I were out with our friend Alex, who is from Bulgaria. We always talk about how he got out of the draft... He failed his senior year of high school because he went to audition at a guitar conservatory and missed too many days of school. So he had to repeat his senior year, in the same year that the Leader's grandson was a senior. The Leader passed a law that you could defer for a year, and if you got into college, you could defer for 4 years. By that time, Alex had come here.

So this got us started talking about everybody's favorite club, the communists. We asked if he was ever part of a Communist Youth Brigade, like boy scouts or something. He said no, but that they did have to go work in the fields for a month in the summer. They loved it! The boys and the girls were all together in one camp and they paid local kids to bring them stuff.....like an unrinsed gasoline can filled with beer, which they drank anyway. At one point, they decided that they were hungry. They paid a local kid 2 dollars (or units or whatever) to get them a goose. He caught the goose and tied its neck in a knot and brought it too them. (At this point, Jared and I are incredulous and a little grossed out. It gets worse). All they have to cook the goose in is an electric water boiler. So the put the goose in, feathers and all, and cook it all night long. Then, they devoured it! By the end of this story, Alex is 2 long islands gone, and getting precise and logical explanations is difficult. There is a lot of shrugging.

Maria! If you're reading this, you have to post some communist summer camp stories if you have any.

The comp countdown is T minus 4 days. I've stopped dreading it; now I just want it to be over.

Oh! So, for those of you who live in someplace with a CVS, they sell disposable dvd cameras. But jared found a hack online that lets you get the video off yourself and reuse the camera. It involved lots of wire cutting a soldering, but it works! Prepare for lots of kitty videos.

Naming Day

Today we gave our kitties middle names. We're shocked it took us this long to think about doing it. Mostly we want them to have middle names so that we can say the whole thing when they're in trouble.

I present to you: Ramen Wessix and Irma Chrysanthemum!




pictures copyrighted by Jared Rapp, Pet Photography.

In other news, our house is filled with so much good food I can hardly stand it. Each meal choice is an agonizing decision weighing in attributes like shelf life, probability it will not get eaten by Jared in the next 3 hours, desirability, and portability.

Should I have raisin bran? (my new favorite), or peanut buttercup cereal? (because jared will inhale it), or strawberry shortcake? (since it might go stale soon), or delicious chicken green bean pasta? (because it is about to go bad), or ice cream and raspberries? (because its amazing), or a turkey sandwich? (because the turkey might go bad and the bread will get hard). ACK!!

My school schedule this semester is conducive to sleeping way too much. I began today at a startling 11 hours. Some of these hours were interupted by ramen wacking me in the face with his paw, demanding to be pet. Luckily I just clipped his nails.

Time to hit the books! In one week, I will be free! well, free to start school and hit the books again. But at least this time they will be different books.

I am the worst blogger in history

So...I checked the dates. I have not updated my blog since May, as many of my friends pointed out last week. ok, so i'm going to try harder now. it might suck and everyone will stop checking it not because it doesn't change, but because it is so fricking mundane.

I just got back from my epic east coast trip...I will now attempt to chronologically commemorate the experience:

Flew to Laguardia on Tuesday the 2nd....Josh told me to get off on a subway stop that doesn't not exist. I was smart enough to get off the subway before I went over the brooklyn bridge (or under the east river, i'm not sure) but I did have to go up and down 9 trillion steps with a large suitcase in 99% humidity. Eventually I made it to Josh's trendy little lower east side neighborhood resplendent with boob sweat. Boob sweat continued to haunt me for the rest of my time in NYC.

You think, oh, brilliant a built in bra tank. I'l be so much cooler because I won't be wearing a bra in addition to a shirt. HAh! The error in that thought process is that you think of the bra merely as boob support instead of 3 gallon synthetic wicking receptical.

I at pizza at Grimaldi's, an apparently really famous pizza place in Brooklyn. I was unaware how famous until I saw it featured on law and order tonight and saw the place where I had ice cream after the pizza. And yes, it was hands down, the best pizza I have ever had. Unparalleled.





p.s. this photo is copyrighted...i'm not really sure where my responsibility lies...

So, also that week I spent a few hours and several hundred dollars at H&M. Can you blame me? I later returned a lot of it. The best thing was a pair of peacock feather earrings for $3.







I fell in love with sushi fast food at Teriyaki Boy...most lunch combos involve the word "boy." Tuna boy, sushi boy, salmon and tuna boy....I spent a considerable amount of time mopping sweat of my self with disappearing napkins. I think my sweat has some kind of radioactive power to dissolve napkins.

Josh and I rekindled our malai kofta/scrabble relationship, although he did get rather grumpy and competitive in scrabble. I think it was because his friend matt was there too. I always lose and I don't really mind. Then we drank and went to "The Cock," the gayest gay bar I have ever been to. We headed toward a dark corner and a guy stopped me and told me to go someplace else, that I was going to see things I didn't want to see. I told him I was fine with it and proceeded to giggle hysterically at the man swinging his cock around. At least I think thats what he was doing. There was one other girl in there and we screamed and pointed when we saw each other.

whoa! in an effort to post a picture of The Cock, I stupidly googled: "the cock" gay. Was that a feast for the eyes or what?

Ok, so I also hung out with Jamie and Brehan in New York and went to an amazing store called Evolution filled with fossils and shells and skeletons. I was tempted to buy everything that was sold in a small glass vial: killer bees, pearls, sea horses, etc...



I was going to have to take an awful route to block island that involved sitting in a small coastal town at 4am waiting for a 9am ferry but Brehan and Jamie (friends from montana, for those who don't know) offered to drive me back to connecticut with them and take me to a different ferry....so nice. They were like, its so close, we'll just drive you. I'm thinking close like 30 minutes. They're thinking close, like, 2 hours. I felt bad but....I was still really glad I wasn't sitting in Montauk at 4am. Especially after I went there.

Hmmm...so then I arrived on block island. I might should wait till I get some digi photoes before I write about this further....so thats the plan.