A Story

Here's the story of a girl trying to get to work in the midst of a severe winter storm in California last Friday ("severe" was the term used by weather.com to describe this storm, so don't think I'm exaggerating). This story starts at 6:30 am because that's when this girl (who shall remain nameless, but will be referred to as "Penny" for the rest of the story [yes, that's for you Kristen]) leaves her house to go to work. It was already raining heavily when Penny walked outside and got in her car. As the storm was "severe" and the traffic was certain to be messy, Penny opted to take the train so she wouldn't have to drive the 50 miles to work in the rain and traffic. Good choice or bad choice? Let's look at what happened. Arriving at the train station in plenty of time (on a normal day) to pay for parking and validate her train ticket before the train arrived, Penny noticed that the train station was a little busier than normal and believed that others also must have wanted to avoid driving in a severe storm. She parked and walked to the pay-for-parking machines, but realized that she forgot to check her parking space number (which is necessary to pay for parking). So, she walked back to the space to check the number. Meanwhile, she's managing to stay fairly dry on top as she has a waterproof, hooded jacket on, but her shoes and pants aren't doing an awesome job of repelling the rain. She walks back to the machines to pay and encounters a crowd of people near the machines irritated because the machines aren't accepting dollar bills. One guy asked Penny if she has any change, but she replies that she doesn't have enough for herself and him (does this remind you of the ten virgins?). She checks to see if she even has enough change for herself, decides she does, and starts feeding quarters into the machine. Meanwhile the rain hasn't stopped and she is getting wetter by the minute. As she's looking for more change, the lights near the machines go out and she can't see the change in her wallet. As she juggles her lunch, the newspaper, and her wallet while trying to find the right coins by sight, water continues to pour down and the machines stop taking any money. Penny gives up on paying for parking (because the machines won't take her money and because she's getting soaked) and decides she'll risk getting a ticket. Just then the railroad crossing bars start going down, signalling the approach of the train. At this point, Penny has been standing in the rain for over five minutes trying to pay for parking. Now she has to run across the tracks to catch the train. She barely makes it as the train doors are closing, but she didn't have time to validate her train ticket. So, she gets on the train and asks the conductor to validate it for her. She is wet and irritated and the conductor tells Penny that she can just jump off at the next station and validate it and then jump back on. So, Penny walks to a door and jumps off at the next stop. It's still raining, of course, and there is no cover at this train station. No ticket validators are in sight, however, so Penny jumps back on and goes looking for the conductor. After walking the length of the train twice, Penny finally finds the conductor and asks him to validate her ticket. He tells her to take care of it when she gets to her destination. She sits down, very wet, cold, and with her hands full of stuff, trying to dry out a little. Upon arriving at her destination, Penny gets off the train and heads to the shuttle stop where she'll catch a shuttle to work. She opts not to validate her train ticket, deciding that if the conductor is too lazy to do it, she's taking her free train ride. Fortunately Penny has dried out a little and is able to wait for the shuttle under an overhang. After a short wait, the shuttle comes and she gets on. At the next shuttle stop, Penny has to switch shuttles, so she hops off and waits under the shuttle stop roof for the next shuttle. The rain was still coming down, but she has been lucky to be under cover for the most part. By the time Penny's suttle comes, she has dried out quite a bit and is thinking that maybe things aren't so bad. But, as the shuttle arrives at it's destination, Penny will have to walk about 50 yards to her building with no cover but an umbrella. By this time, the rain is coming down harder and the wind has picked up, making the weather pretty ugly. Penny gets off her shuttle and starts walking to her building with her umbrella. The umbrella does no good since the rain is coming at her from the side and the wind blows her umbrella inside out anyway. Penny finally gets into her building and looks down to see that she is drenched after having almost dried out before getting off the shuttle. Penny sits down at her desk, soaked. She takes off her shoes so they can dry out and gets to work. She dries out after a couple hours, but she leaves her shoes off all day so they can dry. When it's time to go home, she puts her now dry shoes on and heads out. Fortunately the rain has lightened up a little and when she gets back to the car, she doesn't have a ticket! So, Penny had a miserable time riding the train in the morning, but ends up riding the train for free and getting to work all day with no shoes on. So, was taking the train a good choice or a bad choice? Good choice. If Penny had driven, she might have gotten in a car accident and been killed.

My first white Christmas!

This year, I spent Christmas in Rexburg, Idaho with Jared and his family. I told Jared that if we were going to Rexburg, then we better have a white Christmas. We arrived in Rexburg on Saturday and there was already snow all over, so I was pretty excited. Sunday passed with little change in the conditions. But Monday, we had an awesome snowstorm. Imagine my excitement at getting so much snow on Christmas Eve! It snowed and snowed and snowed and I loved it! We enjoyed the winter weather on Christmas Eve by going for a horse-drawn sleigh ride. What better way to enjoy a first white Christmas?

Christmas Day brought no new snow, but all of the snow from the day before made for some great sledding! We took inner tubing to the extreme, Evel Kneivel style. When all was said and done, I would have to say it was a highly successful white Christmas experience!

For full photographic documentation, check out my smugmug page:

http://Jenzel.smugmug.com/gallery/4100202#239011221

After Rexburg, we went to Utah to visit with my family there. They had also gotten a ton of snow on Christmas Eve, so the winter fun continued. We went sledding with the Sabins, had a great time visiting with Matt & Ella who I haven't seen in over a year, met little Jane, and got to hang out with Julie & Terrell. Good times and good Christmas fun!

Early Morning Battle

I did not expect to do battle this morning. But battle I did. This morning I got up and got ready for work as I usually do. But, in the midst of getting ready for work, I walked into my room and saw this little intruder on my bedroom ceiling.



Actually, for the sake of accuracy, let me strike the word "little" from the record. The spider on my ceiling was absolutely enormous and dee-sgusting! There I am, eating my toaster strudel, trying to figure out what to wear to work, and all of a sudden I see the spider and have to go into battle mode. Now, before you think I'm just a sissy who can't handle a little spider, let me give you some background on my history with spiders and also try to convey to you accurately just how huge and disgusting this particular spider was. When I was growing up, I shared a room with my sister who was terrified of spiders. Whenever she saw one, she could only scream and yell for someone to get it. Since I was her little roommate who was not afraid of spiders, any spider killing done in our room was executed by me. I was also taught by my mom that Daddy Long Legs are good spiders because they eat the aphids on the rose bushes. So, whenever I see a Daddy Long Legs, I pick it up by one of its very long legs and carry it outside and put it on the bushes. I'm really not afraid of spiders.

Now for the intruding spider of this morning. This spider was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life besides tarantulas. This leads me to believe that this spider was almost certainly a baby tarantula. How it came to be in my room, I have no idea. But, the spider was GINORMOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least a couple inches including the legs. And a spider that big and ugly must be disposed of at once. Battle stations everyone! Upon seeing the spider, my mind immediately went to work with the scenario and my different options. Option 1: Leave the spider alone, finish getting ready, and go to work. Out of the question. A spider that big could not be left running loose in my bedroom, where, fast asleep, I am vulnerable to a savage spider attack. Option 2: Squash it. This is a fairly decent option, but given the size and ugly factor of the spider, I realize that I am not up to the challenge. I can see very clearly what will happen if I try to kill it with my bare hands (and some kleenex). I will get poised in the attack position, kleenex in hand. I will hesitate for a few moments, working up the courage to pounce. As sweat begins to bead up on my forehead and I become nervous of failure, I will quickly stab at the spider, but being intimidated by its ginormity, the stab will be too weak, the spider will fall and scamper into some dark corner before I can get it. Again, failure is not an option, so I need a different solution. As all of this goes through my mind, I remember the bug zapper. Blessed bug zapper! The bug zapper looks like a tennis racket with very small metal rods. When you push the two side buttons, it conducts electricity through the rods, effectively shocking anything that touches it. My niece knows from first hand experience. It's a strong shock for a human, so basically bugs stand no chance. I've never used the bug zapper on a spider before, but it's effective on flying bugs and seems my best option at this point. So, with a quick glance at the baby tarantula, I dash into the kitchen to retrieve the bug zapper. I quickly run back and check the spider. It hasn't moved. I climb up on my bed with the bug zapper in hand. Getting into position just below the spider, I hit the side buttons and touch the bug zapper to the spider. Not surprisingly, sparks fly from the spider and its legs bend into a little ball. With the spider now twitching on top of the bug zapper, I gingerly walk to the front door, open it and toss the contorted spider outside. After washing my hands (I didn't ever touch the spider, but it was so disgusting that I had to wash my hands for psychological reasons), I then finished getting ready for work and headed out the door having won a very important battle. And, I wasn't even late!

Leah

My mom (Leah) is awesome. There is no denying that she is the best mom ever. My mom has been busy decorating the house for Christmas, trying to get it done before she left yesterday to go to my sister's house in Washington for a couple weeks. I told her that she definitely had to make sure the advent calendars were up before she left. I left before she and my dad were up yesterday and they were long gone for Washington before I got home from work, so I didn't see them. When I walked in the house, though, I saw the candy advent calendar and was glad my mom had remembered to put it up. It has three types of chocolate on it. Milk chocolate for me, white chocolate for my dad, and dark chocolate for my mom. It's very convenient that the candies match our preferences. Each year, my mom rotates them so that our preferred chocolate falls on our turn for the calendar. However, this year I noticed she set the calendar up a little differently.



If you look closely at this picture, you'll notice there is only one kind of candy for the first ten days on the advent calendar. That's because my parents will be gone until the 11th, so my mom only put my preferred candy on those first ten days. This is a small thing and probably wasn't any more work than putting all different candies on the calendar, but when I got home from work and saw that my mom had cared enough and even thought to just put my favorite candies on those days on the calendar, I was touched. And, of course, I was reminded that my mom is the best!



The funny thing about moms is that, yes, they're constantly doing the big stuff for us. You know, the stuff we notice and even, sadly, take for granted - cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. But, moms are also constantly doing the little stuff. They take care of the little details that we don't even notice or appreciate just because they know it will make us a little happier or our lives a little easier. My mom does it all the time. And while I don't always notice and I don't always appreciate everything, sometimes I do. And when I do, I know that my mom loves me and that she is the best mom ever. And even though I'm not aware of everything my mom does for me, I'm aware that she is doing things for me and I appreciate that.

Basically, my mom rocks! And I hope that, someday, my kids will say the same thing about me.

Travis

Last night I went to a great concert. It was Travis. If you aren't familiar with Travis, I highly recommend that you get to know them. They released a new album this year that is fantastic. Back to the concert. Travis came on last night with probably the greatest entrance I have ever seen a band make. When the lights went down, they started playing the theme from "Rocky". The lights were moving all around, but the stage was dark as everyone waited for the band to come on. All of a sudden, my friend Aaron pointed to the rear of the theater. I looked over and there was the band making it's way to the front of the room. They were all wearing boxer's robes and were escorted by a big security entourage. They shook people's hands as they moved through the crowd and finally made it to the stage. It was AWESOME!!!!!! Of course, they then proceeded to play a fantastic show. The lead singer even played a song completely unplugged - he unplugged his guitar and didn't use the mic. Amazingly, the crowd even quieted down enough so that we could even hear it. Great show, great band - good times!

Where is my camera when I need it?

Sometimes you see something or experience something and you totally wish you had a camera or video camera to document it. That happened to me twice today. This morning I decided to go running. It was a gorgeous day outside (somewhere around 70 degrees), so I set out in my usual shorts and a t-shirt. As I ran through my neighborhood, I contemplated how warm it was and how beautiful the weather has been this fall here in California. As I ran by one house, I looked over and saw a little girl playing in the front yard. She was probably about 4 or 5 and she was playing with some buckets of water and the garden hose. The best part of the scene and the reason I wanted my camera was that she was totally in her swim suit! No big deal - it's November 17th and this girl is playing with water outside in her swimsuit like it's July!!!! It would've been a fantastic picture.

Experience number two: Jared and I went to dinner with Aaron and Dana tonight. Aaron wanted to go to this great little Italian restaurant in Carmel (It's called Little Napoli and it's really good - the Meatball Lollipop appetizer is amazing!). I ordered the Gnocchi in a Gorgonzola Sage sauce. Our entrees came and I took a few bites and then decided to add a little bit of fresh Parmesan cheese which was in a little bowl on our table. So, I picked up the bowl and started scooping some Parmesan onto my pasta. I said, "I just need to add a little more cheesy goodness to my food." As the words left my mouth, the bowl started slipping out of my hand. I felt it slipping, but my other hand had the scooping spoon in it and I couldn't catch it in time. As I was holding the bowl directly over my plate when the bowl slipped out of my hand, it landed upside down directly on top of my pasta. "Whoa!!!!", I said. I picked up the bowl off my plate, leaving a huge mound of fresh, grated Parmesan cheese. Naturally, we all started laughing because it was a very comical situation. I had not intended to add that much cheesy goodness, but there it was. I started scooping what cheese I could off my pasta, then mixed the rest in. No harm done, really, since the pasta was still very good. But, had I caught it all on video (or at least a picture of the cheese mound on top of my pasta), it really would have added to this blog.

A picture is worth a thousand words. . .

Hello Maggie my old friend. . .

. . . I've come to drive with you again! Today I picked Maggie up from the hospital and I'm so happy to have her back. Yesterday I took her in for her regular maintenance service. She was having a slight malfunction with her hill assist feature, however, so they had to check her in and keep her for the night while they fixed it. In the meantime, they gave me a rental car (because MINIs are so in demand that they didn't have enough to give me a MINI loaner). It was a 2007 Ford Escape. That's really not a bad rental car. But, it's not a MINI. A MINI is no ordinary car. The Escape didn't treat me poorly. I have nothing bad to say about it. But, in the end, nothing compares to Maggie. I was so happy to pick her up tonight. And they bathed her, so she was nice and shiny. She's doing just fine now and is very happy to be home. The one problem I've discovered with MINIs is this: Once you have a MINI, everything else is a disappointment!

Welcome home, Maggie!