Sunrise... Sunset...

(Marissa)

It's been a long time since I wrote. It's been a long week.

Full of heartbreak and happiness.

Triumph and tragedy.

Conflict and compromise.

You know, pretty much like any other week. Existentialism is depressing and makes my mind hurt, and Flickr likes Katie better than me, but these are things I'm trying to learn to live with. At the moment, they are unimportant.

Andrea is starting college tomorrow.

I think that I'm freaking out way more than she is. I met her a week ago, I swear! It hasn't been that long! It hasn't been years!

My childhood is flashing before my eyes.

Last Sunday we were horsies. Evil men wanted to lock us up in dark, scary cages, when all we wanted out of life was to be able to run freely on the prairy hills and comb our long, beautiful "tickle-me-pink" manes.

That's me.

Monday Andrea was arguing with Kelsey about who got to be the youngest when we played House. And they finally decided that they would be twins, that was fair, but then came the all important question: Which twin was born first?

Tuesday we had a water fight with that-boy-across-the-street-who's-name-no-one-can-remember and his cousin, who's name was Alonzo (maybe), but Andrea called him Lasagna, either because she couldn't pronounce his name or because she liked teasing him. And Mei hit one of them across the back side with an umbrella, which was peculiarly violent for her, but which we felt meant a definitive victory for us.

Wednesday we played mermaids in her pool. Well, Kevin and I were mer-people. Andrea was a dolphin.

Thursday morning was middle school. Around twelve high school made it's appearance.

Friday she graduated and gave her valedictorian speech with the Dr. Sues quote. Katie and I missed it because we were so sure that graduation would last four hours (like it had for the last thirty years) that we walked in an hour late, armed with note passing materials, just in time for the alma mater, closing remarks, and lei giving.

Saturday Katie, Andrea, and I threw a going away party, without once acknowledging it was such. I signed her yearbook and looked over the clothes that she wasn't taking with her in the amazing tent we'd made.

(This picture doesn't even come close to showing how fantastic this tent was. We strung the sheets from the ceiling fan, which made my mom a little nervous because it was tipping significantly to the left. "I hope it doesn't kill you in your sleep," she said. Optimism, Mom. We covered the floor with pillows and quilts and blocked out the night with cloth and clothes pins, just like we used to when we were six. It was genius. Almost cream puff level.)

Yesterday we made crepes together and played Apples to Apples and laughed and told stories about that kid in Utah who smuggled a penguin out of the zoo in his backpack and who's parents found out when he was playing with it in the bath. We turned off the lights at two.

And tomorrow Andrea is going to college.

Can someone get me a wheelchair please?

I feel old.

Over.

Op JOY

(Marissa)

So, I think I've pretty much decided that I'll be posting about once a week. That sounds pretty good, right? Yes? I'm just going to assume that you agreed, because I can. So I'll post once a week and maybe Katie will, and then you'll get two blog posts a week. That's right, even after two months of ignoring the left side of my brain, I still have my basic math skills. One plus one equals two. Got it.

This is the last week of summer.

The sentence just above should have read a lot like this Youtube video plays: http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=WwlNPhn64TA&feature=related

Katie and I go back to school on August 3rd. I call this blasphemy. School shouldn't exist until September. In September I would deal with my return with grace and poise. In Spetember I would reflect on how school was really good for me. How summer, like all good things, does and should come to an end and how really, in my heart of hearts, I was ready and waiting to go back. In September I might actually believe it.

But it is not September. And in a week I will once again be in a classroom. In August. August is summer. August screams summer. It also screams ice cream, but so do you, me and all the other seasons, so that doesn't matter too much.

Now I really want ice cream.

Really.

Anyway, while I am finishing my Ap Government homework, which really whould have been done a month ago, and preparing for the psychological side effects of waking up before 8:30, I am also planning to enjoy what little of summer remains.

There are various aspects to this plan (which I am now officially titling Operation JOY), including learning how to ride a skateboard (something that I've been avoiding because I dislike scraped knees and I know I'm a klutz), learning how to juggle (because that would seriously up my level of cool--in my own mind), getting rid of the shadows under my eyes (there are impossible things you should never stop trying to do), and using as many parenthesis as I can before I go back to my grammatically sound English class (me and grammar... not so much).

There are two other aspects of Op JOY, one of which is a secret until Katie finishes her post on it. The other, I am discussing. And yes, it has to do with chocolate. How did you know? Good going, guys, now I want chocolate ice cream.

(Aztec Hot Chocolate Ice cream, muscipb)

I've been going on a baking spree. What do you expect when I have a cookbook that is titled How To Cook Everything? So far I've made a lot of bread and a lot of cookies. You didn't think I was making something productive, like a meal, right? You already know me better than that.

I have made oatmeal cookies, raisin bread, regular bread, chocolate chip cookies and butterscotch cookies, all since my last post. And cereal. But, you know... It's the chocolate chip cookies I want to talk about.

Once again, I did not take pictures. Fortunately I know this great site called flickr (--speaking of which, has anyone noticed our very summery flickr highlight? If summer was food it would be watermelon. If sunlight was food it would be mushrooms or lemonade. If I was food I would be chocolate ice cream. I'm off subject. I've got to stop doing this--), so I found you pictures that look like what I made.

(New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie w/ Chunks, show and tell)

These are my chocolate chip cookies. They're really chocolate chunk cookies. AS far as I'm concerned, the best thing about htem is they come out of the oven melty and come out of the refrigerator chewy. Why is this? Butter, guys. Two sticks. Oh, yeah.

The other cookies were fairly disappointing. The butterscotch cookies were kind of, a little bit, well boring. My mom liked them because they weren't too sweet. To me, this defeats the purpose. The oatmeal cookies weren't bad, there just wasn't anything good about them. Except that I made them with Katie and Jessica and we watch Much Ado About Nothing.

Now that I've made both of us suitably hungry, I'm going to sign out. And find ice cream. And watch Ratatouille. And work on Op JOY.

Over.

Procrastination...

...is something I'm very very good at.  Because I practice.

If you're ever doing National History Day during the summer, and it's not on the Muppets ** you can do any number of things.  It's amazing what you notice when you're trying really hard not to e-mail very smart people about what they know a lot about.  Like, say, the Missing Children's Assistance Act of '84 = there is a pesky amount of dirt in my big toe nail which needs to be removed immediately.


I'd just like to say, right here, that I woke up this morning with the best of intentions.  I was going to get up and do what I was supposed to do.  I was going to e-mail the smart people, and work on my second point and fix up my process paper.  I really was.  So I plopped my self down and started e-mailing smart people.  Then I realized I wanted to look at my paper while I e-mailed my smart people.  So I looked through a collection of drafts, each helpfully and oh-so-organizedly were named things like: Death 101, Whydoinothavealife, alkdjfalkjdf, and DRAFTHELP!! and finally found the most recent version: itstoolatetothink.  Which I, and you may do the same, took 30 seconds to re-name: Nationalssamethesis.


Phew, 30 seconds spent improving NHD.  Time for a break.


You then must start looking around, and notice that the kitchen is unbearably messy. (I don't know about yours but mine is usually messy, but hardly ever unbearably so.)  And that baby brother needs breakfast (he wanted cereal, so I made pancakes from scratch). And that you have abusively ignored Mark Bittman's webpage for a whole day.  (Ice cream maker-less Sorbet requires a food processor).


If your ever in need of something to procrastinate with, take it from a pro, Mark Bittman's videos on how to make food that requires a food processor is the way to go.  


Then, after your bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and baby brother have all been squeaky-cleaned you can write a blog.  This can take a long time, depending on how long the blog is.  Wonderful, right?


Then you can realize that a blog without a flickr pic is hardly a blog at all. So, look through lego storm trooper pics.  Remember quotes like "Do or do not, there is no try" or "Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you" or "That's 'cause droids don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookies are known to do that."  Giggle at yourself and your nerdiness.


Well, I'm done procrastinating for now.


If theres anther blog up in five minutes, you'll know why.


Smile,


Katie


PS- I pinky promise that one day soon we'll explain why we actually made this blog.  But we're procrastinating about that too.  So, soon.  You know, like within the year.


**If you are doing it on the muppets, simply begin at episode one of season one (Called Sex and Violence) and watch until you fall asleep.  This can be called research.  Genius, ne?