Of one incredibly lazy summer

In anticipation of my upcoming move, I have been ridiculously lazy this summer. Since I have been in grad school before, I have had a glimpse of what is about to occur (For those of you just tuning in, I got into a Ph.D. program- Task 20!). As is my way, I have sorely neglected this here blog, yet I have completed some tasks and am working on others. But before I begin recapping my task-completing, I have a little story for y'all about something that just happened. Ahem.
I was writing this entry when I noticed something moving on my bedroom floor. It was near my laundry, so I was immediately concerned. My backyard is a mountain, so I am used to all kinds of bugs, including scorpions and spiders. I quickly realized it was a frog. We have never had a frog get in the house. After I finally caught it in a shoebox, I took it downstairs to my mother, who was intently watching a movie.
Me: "I have a very important question. Why is there a frog in my room?"
Mom: "What?"
Me: "A frog. Why is there one in my room?"
Mom: "IT's A PRINCE! KISS IT!"
Me: "Seriously, how did a frog get into my room?"
Mom: "KISS IT! It's a prince!!"
My mother is such an optimist.
Anyway, I took the little guy outside and released it outside in the yard. Don't worry mom. One day, my prince will come.

Aaaand moving on. Let's start with some newly completed tasks, shall we?
Task 13- Try caviar.
A few months ago, I went to San Francisco and Yosemite with my mother and one of her friends. While in San Fran, we ate at this fancy-schmancy restaurant (whose name escapes me). Halfway through my meal, I practically shouted, "Hey! I just completed a task on my list!" And then I realized I had actually done this task a lot, already. I love sushi. And for those of you who don't, I'll provide you a little sushi education. Roe (aka fish eggs, aka caviar) is often an ingredient in sushi rolls. Actually, the dish I got a Chez Superfancy was something like wasabi-encrusted shrimp with fish roe and some kind of cool rice-cake thing. The "caviar" was virtually the same stuff you'd find on a sushi roll, but, hey, fish eggs are fish eggs, right? Oh, and yes, it was delicious.

Task 35- Do something unexpected.
For those of you who know me well, you know I am not one for heat, working outdoors, or intense manual labor. Keep that in mind as I describe the following situation. I used to live with my aunt and uncle, who have semi-recently begun gardening on a piece of land a little ways out of town. One day this summer (keep in mind, I lived in a place known for its ridiculously hot summers), my uncle said he was going to pick vegetables. Before I knew it, I had volunteered to go help him. I can hear some of you now: "Eh, big deal." Go reread the first sentence of this paragraph. Thanks.
So, we drove out to the garden and he taught me how to pick snap beans and crook-neck squash.

It was in the mid-to-upper 90's. If you look closely at the photo above, you will notice that I am wearing a jacket. While I have been to know to walk around outside in the summer wearing a jacket or cardigan due to my tendency to always be cold, it was far too hot for a jacket. But my aunt had advised me to bring one because of the squash. Squash stings when you pick it. Who knew, right? Squash-pickers, I guess (whom I now have a deep respect for). After beans and squash, my uncle taught me how to scratch for potatoes. That's right, y'all. I went potato scratchin'. See, the difference between potato diggin' and potato scratching lies mainly on how many potatoes you need to get. If you need a whole bunch of them, then you go diggin'. If you only need a few, say five or six to cook with your snap beans, then you go scratchin' for taters.

How about one more? This spring, I choreographed and ended up performing in a children's theatre version of Seussical (called "Seussical Jr.), which was basically a shortened version of the full show. I played one of four Wickersham Brothers. The WB's are monkeys that bully Horton the Elephant. For our show, we had a gang-like theme to our costumes. We were also decked out in color. My hair was streaked with purple and teased to the high heavens, my eye makeup was insanely bright (turquoise and orange and blue, oh my), and my costume came complete with a tail.

After the show, the cast and crew often went out to eat. Well, you've now seen the makeup. It took a lot of elbow grease to scrub off, and it took a long time to untease my hair and wash out the purple. So, I ended up going to the restaurant (more than once) in full stage hair and makeup (minus lipstick). I've gone to restaurants in heavy stage makeup before, but not in anything as heavy or crazy as this. I once ran into some acquaintances from my church and they did not recognize me. The first time I went to the restaurant after the show, I was really nervous and embarrassed, because I looked pretty bizarre. I eventually shrugged it off and moved on with my life and my chicken wonton tacos. So, I therefore can mark Task 45, "Complete some sort of shame-attacking exercise," off my list.

Okay, this entry is getting long. So, basically I've completed about 9 or 10 tasks out of 52. Gotta keep keeping on. Lata' peeps.