currently I am boooooooored

In fact, I am so bored that I will do May Currents! It’s very strange to be bored at work. We have been working like mad, hardly taking a breath, all semester long, then suddenly…..WHAP. We’ve hit the Wall of Nothing To Do.  Finals run this week and grades don’t post till next Monday. I had a ton of work to do with the graduating students (or NOT graduating students) up until, oh, today.  When grades post we’ll have plenty to do again, but until that happens we are just sitting around. Well, I’ve got things I can do that are not urgent. I’ll do those things later. This is much more fun that updating the substitution memo book. 

Current anticipation: I am taking off Friday. Baker B and I are going to drive over to Abingdon. I never did post any more about the last trip over, when I took a bunch of pictures of old signs. Which reminds me that I’ve never posted a link to my, ummmmm, latest blog. YES I have started ANOTHER ONE. How many blogs is it possible to start and then abandon? Lots and lots! This one may last because it’s kind of a cooperative effort with Baker B. Not the blog itself, but the subject matter, which is kind of old signs but also kind of just plain weird stuff. He also has a WordPress blog with even more weird stuff. But we were doing some parallel postings on the signs. I did three posts and haven’t posted more yet. But I need to because it was a very interesting trip. Two very interesting trips, actually. Anyhow, I’m excited about taking off since I have to work graduation Saturday. Which is not a big deal — it’s only about an hour and a half –  but our ceremony is at nine in the morning so we have to be there at eight. On Saturday. It seems very cruel to me, as I HATE getting up early on the weekend. But at least I will have lots of day left when we’re done.  

Current surprise: I got my hair cut today, and my hairstylist has a new person working in her salon. This new person was sure she knew me from somewhere. We finally determined that it must be because she’d worked at this same shop when I first started going there, an astonishing 12 years ago, but had left about the same time I started going there. Then another new hairstylist came in, who ALSO recognized me. I actually did recognize this one too, because she has worked at the Regis in the mall for YEARS. She even cut my hair once or twice but that has been long LONG ago. I said she must remember me from Regis ages ago, and she said, "That’s probably where you know Laura from too!" 

And then Laura and I realized that SHE used to cut my hair back in the EIGHTIES. Laura was my favorite FAVORITE hairstylist EVER. I could go in, tell her I had no idea what I wanted, and she’d give me the most amazing perfect haircuts. I went to her for quite awhile – a couple of years, I think. Then we moved to Asheville and then we moved to Durham, and by the time we came back up here five years later, Laura was gone.

Oddly she and my current hairstylist worked together at Regis (I’d forgotten F worked there too- I don’t remember her at all from there) and then they went to another place together, and THEN F opened the shop she’s in now, and Laura had worked for her for awhile. And then moved to Wyoming and has just returned.   

I just found this totally bizarre. I’d tried to find Laura when I moved back up here, but wasn’t successful. And I’d never have recognized her – I’m so bad at recognizing people that I barely recognize the ones I see every day, but she’s also gained quite a bit of weight and is, oh, 25 years older. I was shocked she recognized me, actually. What a small world! I’m not sure what all these people from Regis are suddenly doing at F’s shop. And I won’t abandon F for Laura now — for one thing it would be VERY awkward, but I also really like F’s haircuts. Although I have always wished she could just look at my hair and give me the perfect cut when I don’t know what I want, like Laura could.

Current worry: Kim’s dad is in the hospital, in intensive care. They admitted him last week for pneumonia, then he suddenly developed congestive heart failure. They actually thought he was dying a couple of days ago, but he improved a little and has a somewhat better chance. He’s 84. I went down there Sunday and visited him, and then took Kim out to dinner, where we each drank two Margaritas. She REALLY needed that. It was an odd trip, since I didn’t even tell my dad I was coming down, let alone go see him- I didn’t have much time and couldn’t spend the night. Kim’s dad is in the VA, which is like half a mile from Daddy’s house. It was also very weird visiting someone besides Daddy in the VA.  I haven’t heard anything from her today, so hopefully he’s still improving, or at least not getting worse. 

Current extreme cuteness: Well, this isn’t current exactly – it’s from last weekend when I DID visit my dad and got to see the New and Unbearably Adorable Baby Lilly:

Look at those hands!!! Look at those FEET!!! Ginormous feet do run in our family. Baby Lilly’s mommy had bigger feet that I do by the time she was 11, and I have HUGE feet – and she is much shorter than I am. But Baby Lilly is very very adorable. 

Baby Lilly’s brother is adorable too, and admits that he does kind of  like her. Even thought he REALLY wanted a brother. He is surrounded by girls. 

Sadly I didn’t get to see The Twins, rival adorableness – they were out of town. My SIL sent me this picture recently, though:

And while I’m posting pictures, here’s one I took of my dad. I took it with my phone, so that he did not realize I was taking his picture. Then I doctored it up with text and posted it on Facebook as #1 Thing in The List of Things I Never Expected to See In This Lifetime:

My father. Decorated with cats. He has officially come to the Dark Side. He was always the one lone holdout in our family of Cat People. These two were my mom’s cats. There are three more Outside Cats that he feeds and talks to and actually pets. This has been going on for years now, but it never fails to amuse / astonish me.

Current TV: We are in an odd TV Dead Zone right now — we’re always watching SOMETHING on DVD, via Netflix, but suddenly we are in a weird lull. We just finished Reaper, which aired several years ago. I’d wanted to see it when it first came on because it starred Ray Wise, aka Leland Palmer on Twin Peaks, as the Devil, but we never did watch it and I kind of forgot about it. But I am SO GLAD we finally watched it, and everyone needs to go rush out RIGHT NOW and get Reaper!!! It’s about a guy who finds out on his 21st birthday that his parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born. And now that he’s 21, he has to work for the devil. By catching souls who have escaped from Hell. He has two buddies who help him. It is absolutely hysterical. And if you ever watched Twin Peaks (which you also need to go do RIGHT NOW if you did not), you will totally believe that Leland Palmer is now The Devil. 

So we’re kind of sad that Reaper is over. Before that we watched the most recent Torchwood, FINALLY – Miracle Day. Which took forEVER to come out on DVD, but was well worth it. Instead of just being BBC, it was co-produced by Starz and set mostly in America, so we were afraid it would be completely ruined, but I am happy to report it was not ruined at all. My main complaint was it was a little overly SERIOUS. And full of incessant annoying loud music, which was very American. But I liked it a lot and was sorry to have to bid Captain Jack and Gwynn goodbye again when it was over.

For some reason Baker B wanted to watch Northern Exposure. Several years ago — well, maybe TEN years ago, actually – we saw most of it on FX. And I really liked Northern Exposure, but wasn’t all that excited about watching six or seven seasons, comprising TWENTY SEVEN discs. Fortunately he decided he wasn’t that excited about it either. But it’s too early for True Blood and although we actually do plan to watch Lost over, it doesn’t seem quite the right time. So I’ve been nudging him to watch Downton Abbey. Which he would LOVE. But silly Baker B is being resistant to it. (This is a pattern. I’ll watch something myself, decide he would LOVE it, he will resist being sucked in … and then he’ll finally give in and of course he loves it too. This happened with Ballykissangel and with Deadwood and with…. ummmm, other things. That escape me now. Baker B likes to be the one who has the bright ideas.)  

We somehow managed to end up with the first Downton Abbey disc, and it really was NOT manipulation on my part. We also ended up with THREE Northern Exposure discs, after deciding not to watch it. So I talked him into watching the first episode of Downton Saturday night. Sunday he brought up some of the plot points while we were walking around Blowing Rock. Sunday night he agreed to watch the second episode. After that he’s all, "oooh, OKAY, I guess you can go ahead and put the REST of it in the queue!!!" 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! It really IS a fantastic show. I watched it via Amazon Prime, and got hooked just as the second season was airing. I loved it so much I’m DYING to watch it all again. And yay, looks like I’ll get to! Although of course there’s a LONG WAIT for the second season showing up right now. 

Well, look at that – I’ve yammered on here till it’s nearly time to go home. Hooray!