Hulk angry, popsicles no melt!

It's 3:30 in the afternoon on a saturday. I have spent the majority of my day weed eating the back of my yard. My yard is not really a yard. It is a jungle. The grass is three feet high and there are hidden boulders under it. There might be lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) but have yet to find them. There was a robin following me around and eating all of the now exposed caterpillars. If I were a robin, or a bird of any sort, I would not follow a human carrying a weed whacking, loud, plastic string thwacking machine around. I would be up in the trees peeping, "shut up human I'm trying to sing here! " As it is right now I am taking a break. I'm half way done with the back yard. Whew. I look pretty comical. There are bits of grass in my hair, on my shins, and in my clothes. My face is probably the best of all with green smears across it from grass guts hitting me in the face and bright, red puffy eyes to complete the look. I have allergies and apparently allergies protest and flare up when you spend all day rubbing pollen producing things in their faces. Who knew? I was prepared for this being a possibility this morning and I took a ton of little pink allergy pills and used some flonaze to battle off the sneezing, itchy eye syndrome. It failed miserably. This is how they should test those products before selling them to the masses. No need to test them on fuzzy little animals. Oh no, no need at all. Just get a person with really bad allergies, give them a ton of your product and then drive them over to my house and drop them off. I will promptly hand them my 3 pound weed eater, which dies from over load every 20 minutes, and then get my glass of ice tea and go sit at the picnic table. From this prime viewing location I will be happy to "observe" the test subject at work. I promise that I will write down every sneeze and eye rub on a lovely little white clipboard. You will only have to pay me a minimal fee for this service.

Other than that I have eaten 4 Popsicles and 1 fudgesicle in order to combat the heat of hard labor in the sun. Here is something curious and disturbing all at the same time, they have now made Popsicles that do not melt! I bought them on accident the other night and when I read the box this morning (at 9 am when I was eating my first Popsicle of the day) I noticed this strange claim. I rolled my eyes, said yeah right and tore the wonderful icey treat out of it's white protective wrapper and began to test their durability. It was surprisingly true. They didn't melt. In fact they did the opposite of melting. They took revenge on my mouth for having consumed hundreds of Popsicles over the years. Meaning of course that it was so damn cold, and unwilling to melt that my lips stuck to the stupid thing. I, while being impressed, am also pissed. Who wants a Popsicle that doesn't melt??? That is the whole point of the frozen goodness! You suck on it, it melts, you grin and have a bright blue tongue to stick out at your friends. Not the case with this new treat. Nope. This one involves a fight for the survival of the skin inside your mouth. Just think all that fun comes in three exciting flavors: cherry, lemon and strawberry-kiwi. Mmm... please ignore the taste of blood as it rips the skin off. By now you are wondering why in the world I ate more than 1 of these things. Well, silly, I had to try all the flavors. Besides I have to eat 20 of these little monsters before I can go back to the store and get my wimpier version of Popsicles which are so old fashioned that they actually melt when you eat them. 16 to go baby! I have to kind of wonder what exactly I am putting in my body by eating these things... it's probably some watered down version of formaldehyde. Yummy! Meh, maybe this will make my stomach last a really long time, it can keep Walt Disney company in deep-freeze.

The only other exciting discovery I have had today is that of Contact Juggling and Unicycling girl meets icescapades. The first just looks amazing and the second one puts my days of unicycle riding in elementary school to shame. Both are very cool, you should check them out. As for me, I am off to shower. I smell like butchered grass and I'm making myself sneeze. I'm gonna go with a hunch here and assume that looking like a stoned version of the Incredible Hulk is not the best look for me. I have an hour to transform back into a 5' 5" blond girl. Wish me luck!

NOTE: If no one hears from me in the next three days, I am lost in the jungle that is the rest of my back yard. Please send help and cold beverages. :)

Another egg story

7. The I.Q of Farm Animal

I have another story from childhood involving eggs. This is a few years later, I was in fifth grade and a lot had happened since I was the five year old egg bomber. We had moved but we once again had a small farm and we once again had more ducks. These ducks started out as pets that lived in our bath tub. A lot of animals have spent time in this bath tub and very few children. It was a horrible green tub, and it still lives at my mother’s house. When our ducklings were old enough they were moved into our pond. It was a large pond full of chocolate milk water that smelled like reeds and rain. There were frogs and gold fish in this pond and more often than not a kid or two. We didn’t really “swim” in this pond. But we would float around on inflatable toys, and these big blue barrels. If we weren’t feeling lazy we would break out the big silver canoe and paddle back and forth across it, trailing our toes in the cold water. Sometimes we would chase the ducks with the canoe but not too frequently, I was trying awfully hard to make up for the egg incident by being extra nice to anything that had webbed feet. Our ducks were not too bright though. This was a discovery a friend and I made one summer day when we were out swimming around in the pond. Although sensitive about the whole egg issue it had come to my attention that these ducks didn’t lay as many eggs as the old ones did. That was strange. My friend and I were hunting for the one or two eggs we generally found around the pond edge when she noticed something in the water. It was an egg. Interesting. It must have slipped down the bank from a higher nest, but when we looked for the nest there was none to be found. So we returned to the water, wait a second, there was another egg! This just doesn’t make sense at all. The whole nest must have fallen into the water, or the water must have risen to cover the nest. We figured we would find 5 to 10 eggs at most in the water. So we got our floating toys and very, very slowly we floated around the edge of the pond picking up eggs. Four hours later we had a total of not 5, or 10 but 76 eggs. We loaded up my little blue wagon and took it up to the house to show my parents. The eggs were in various states of decay, some were green others were bright white as if they had just been laid. That settled it, our ducks were DUMB. They were laying their eggs in the water. We found 76 eggs by just looking around the shore. Imagine how many other eggs were still in the bottom of the pond. I had been swimming in this water all summer… ewwww….I lost some of my love for ducks. We took the eggs out to the compost heap far behind our house. We threw a few, carefully, but the smell got to be so horrible that the game quickly lost its fun. However when I look back on the picture of the two smiling, soaking wet kids with the wagon completely full of rotten eggs I have to smile. It helps that the memory does not come equipped with the smell.

Bombs away!!!! It was a good time being a kid out in the middle of no where. :)

Ironhorse/exposing Joey to my home town.

A sudden trip to Dgo was made last weekend, and resulted in a very good time. I got a call Thursday afternoon from my mom saying that she had found a car I would like and that I should come down and check it out. It was a 2005 Toy Corolla... which is a very good car, and the price was do-able so meh... why not? Check out a car, visit the parents, have a good time with my monday off. Woot. So off I go to my home town! Joey came with me because this was also the weekend for the Iron Horse. He was going to do the Crit since he is not a big fan of going up, and TT's are also not a big favorite. Which actually worked out pretty well, since the real race was canceled. This is only the second time in 37 years that has happened. The last time was in 1997 which was also the last time Joey tried to go. This leads me to think that maybe Joey is bad luck for the good ol' Iron horse. Hmmm..... :) (I'm just kidding handsome, I know that even as wonderful as you are you still do not have power over the weather. )

The drive down was awesome. Lots of time to talk, joke and sing to bad music. I had to play a little bit of country to get Joey in the mood... he loved it.. really... that grimace was filled with happiness. Ha ha. The drive wasn't bad, by the time we hit Wolf Creek the snow was mostly gone and there were only a few low clouds hanging on. We got into Pagosa and up to my mom's house about 6 pm. I gave him the grand tour of where I grew up and then we headed a whole 4 acres down to where my sister and her family live. We didn't stay long because we were planning on heading to Dgo that night so that Joey could make the early morning registration time. Once at my dad's house we enjoyed the classic Goulash dinner and watched some Fred Astaire. Then it was off to bed, we must have been tired cause we both passed out fully dressed and with the lights on. There is nothing as strange as sleeping in the room you had when you were 15 after you have been grown up and gone for several years. Lol, my little gothic teenager self even had charcoal painted walls with black trim. I felt a little silly showing that to Joe. Se la vie.

Sunday was the day of the crit. My mom was absolutely thrilled to get to see Joey ride. Ha ha.. she probably cheered louder than I did. I think Joey developed a fan base down in the southwest corner. He ended up getting fifth place, with 4 pros being the ones ahead of him. I was very proud of him. And it was a great finish for my mom's first time viewing a crit/a race of any sort involving two wheels. Mom's only complaint was that they were going too fast for her to take the pictures she wanted. :) There are still a few good shots though.





Sunday night we went to Pagosa again and had dinner at my sister's house and then started the long drive home Monday morning. Mom was nice enough to give us a bunch of bakery goodies for the drive...mmmmm mom's baking. Genes I did not get that I really wish I would have. All and all Joey survived seeing where this little country girl grew up and he still likes me. I think this bodes well for the future. That or I am going to have to be a lot more creative in coming up with ways to scare him off.

The Most-Amazing-Weekend-of-All

Lol... oh this was an FANTASTIC weekend. Lots of playing and not a lot of work. The Most-Amazing-Weekend-of-All started with a night out at the roller derby thanks to the one and only Hutch. It was a blast and probably had the best people watching I have ever been lucky enough to be exposed to. The roller dolls were fiesty, fast and ferocious. I was behind the Green Barrettes simply because Joey was for the Bad Apples and by being on opposing sides the option for betting was available. I lost, sadly, but it was a good match. If you have never been, you should go. Get a cold beer, bring a camera and pick a team. The guy in the picture with me is Dumptruck. He was cool. Great voice too, lol and you've got to give him credit for his fashion sense. That picture was part of the initiation process into the land of roller dolls Hutchison style. So if you go with him as your guide beware. :)





This is a close up shot of the action, which I stole because I am lame and of course forgot my camera... check out the running man (well, woman) in the back. Intense, grrrr roller dolls grrrr!!!!


The next day we went out to breakfast at Luciles which is always good. Then headed to the bike race around one where I got to hang out with Dirk's daughter and play tag with a bunch of kids under 5. I love the sound a kid makes when they are really happy but pretending to be scared at the same time.. That shriek of pure joy that makes your ears bleed but also makes you smile. I miss making that sound. We kind of made up for it later that day though. Joey and I met up with Kendall for dinner at Hop's and then headed off to Boondocks for a little go-karts and putt putt. The golf was entertaining to say the least. None of us were very good, however Kendall mopped the floor with us being a whole 5 points ahead. It was a close game, both Kendall and I managed to get hole-in-ones which is probably the only reason joey didn't manage to beat the pants off us. I think when it comes to the three of us our golf game is almost as bad as our lack of bowling skills. But we have fun being terrible. After golf it was on to the go-karts! We waited in line FOREVER but that gave us ample time to see which karts were the bum ones. Joey was much better at paying attention to that than I was. Or rather we both picked the same kart but since I am such a nice girley friend (and he is a lot bigger than me which means he would win the knock down, drag out fight) I let him have good old number 39. He lapped me twice. Ouch. I still had a blast though.

Last night concluded the fantastic weekend. We messed around at home for most of the day and then headed off to the race that evening. Joey rode hard, I sat on the grass and chatted with Ann and Bob. It makes me feel slightly like a slacker when he comes riding up to me nice and dead from a good race and I haven't done anything physical all day. Oh well, it happens. After the race ended we headed over to Kendall's place for some kick ass burgers and some beer. Followed by the search for the holy DQ on the way home. It took us awhile to find one but at last we got lucky and Joey's craving for a blizzard was satisfied. I fell alseep curled up in Joey's arms in the middle of watching Blues Brothers. Awwwww... aren't little Blackman's cute when they get all tuckered out? Great weekend. I put in a formal request for more of the same.

My house seems very empty today. No guests? Whaaa??? Strange. But in a way it is nice to have my life a little bit more in order again. Nothing too exciting will be going on today. Mainly just me going to work then coming home to do statistics homework and then off to Dr. T for my spinal traction stuff. Oh joy. (Can you tell I am not really too much of a fan of the traction work?) I did however get to laugh a little bit this morning. It is the 13th of May and it was snowing this morning. Good times. Yawn... I need a nap but I feel a little bit guilty about that since it is only 1:30 in the afternoon and I have not gotten nearly enough done yet. This month has a lot of due dates in it and stuff to figure out in order to be able to carry on the rest of the summer as planned and for some strange reason I feel like I am just getting started on all of it now. Oh procrastination/distraction you are a cruel mistress. Would it be considered a mistress if I am a girl? Is there a male version? Oh wait.. google...nope.. There is no specific word in English for a "male mistress" according to wikipedia. That is your pointless factoid for the day boys and girls. I've got nothing else of interest to blab about today. This is pathetic blogger attempt but meh... at least I posted something I guess.

No longer just a Buff girl

It's official, I'm all gradu-magated now. There is pictorial proof. I had a wonderful time with my family, hectic parts and all. My nephews were cute as could be, and both of my sisters were beautiful. Lol, Joey and Jeff (my brother in-law) had a great time hanging out. They are freakishly alike at times... I get the heebeegeebees because of it. My dad was his normal, charming daddy like self. That man will forever be my hero because of the sheer coolness level he has. Such a daddy's girl. My mom is the only one still in town. Right now she is taking a much needed nap. Poor lady has done a lot of running around the last week which she is not used to.

I am doing great. This is the first time I have been alone in a week so I am enjoying that like nothing else. Ahhh... getting to play bad music and dance around without anyone mocking me... awesome. I also splurged and bought myself a graduation present that I probably shouldn't have. I have been needing new camping gear for a couple of years now so I went to REI and bought a fantastic sleeping bag. It weighs less than two lbs and is a sub-zero bag. I'm pretty happy. Joey doesn't realize that I am probably going to haul his city butt to the big outdoors sometime soon, so shhhh... Maybe I'll just pack up the car and then tell him we are going for ice cream or something. Would that be mean? :)

The fam out for dinner at Fusion. Amazing Miso Tuna dinner...drool....

Awww.... everyone in my backyard. We are missing some of the recent additions to the family (at least the taller ones). Cute family though.

The ceremonial graduation Can-Can.... cause:
"I can Can Can, you can Can Can, he can Can Can, she can Can Can. Mon ami, in Gay Paree, it's tres chic chic, oui oui, we Can Can."

I like to think I can can do anything I put my mind to. Thus far evidence has been supportive. Now I'm off to nap nap and eat eat.

Myofascial trigger points: translation = I'm knotty.

I have an alien baby in my neck. Apparently I am stressed, a lot. I woke up yesterday morning with a weird little tweek in my neck... my thoughts on the matter: Ouch that hurts, maybe I should try and pop my neck. Hmm nope, didn't fix it. Interesting, oh well.. I have to go see Dr. T for spinal traction stuff anyways so I'll just let him have a go at it. I go and have the snap, crackle, pop treatment done as usual. I leave feeling great. By the time I get to Denver that night my neck is stiff. Joey, being the sweet man he is, agrees to give me a neck rub. He is impressed by the lump, I am not impressed by the lump. My meh this is no big deal approach has evolved into holy cow, what is wrong with my neck?!? Why can't I turn my head??? And damn it! I'm going to look like Quasimodo tomorrow for graduation. At that point I was going through the stage where I am convinced that my body is just falling apart lately and I don't get it. Joey tries to comfort me, and says "ha ha, you're getting old." My rebuttal was something along the lines "Must be contagious" with a look that says I've got more ammo than you, I win. :) I enjoy sparring with Joey. He can keep up with me and it is very refreshing. Don't worry friends and family O' Pinkerton. I'll let him win every now and then. I'm a giver like that.

Soooo... the fam-dam-ly is on it's way here. AHH!!!!!!! (that was terror, not excitement). I've got a LOT of stuff to do before they get here. Like clean my room, go grocery shopping so I can make them dinner, learn how to cook in the next 5 hours so I can make them dinner, and fix my neck because I am going to be tackled by a raging 3 year old who has been stuck in a car all day. I'm well liked because I play tag with him and I am the only one dumb enough to actually climb all over the play ground equipment with him for hours. Slides are fun, what can I say. The first thing he'll do when he gets here is run out of car and give me a hug which will end up with me on my butt in the drive way. Then he'll grab my hand and start dragging me towards the park behind my house. Cute kid... Lol, he made me a care package. From what I have heard it has Cheetos, fruit snacks, beef jerky and matchbox cars in it. Two of the three of those are currently already in my cupboard, and I have a couple cars left over from the last time he came to visit. The jerky is going home with joey since he uses that to re-fuel on his rides. But all in all Everest knows me pretty well, that or I have the same taste as a three year old boy... hmmm, I have mixed feelings on that one. Alright, I'm off to get things done in a very slow, non-neck moving way.

I like mustaches how bout you?

Today is beautiful. The sun is shining, it is warm and I am happy. So at some point I'm gonna throw on something sun fun-ish and go sit outside to study for my Mircobio final on Tuesday. In other news, I am car hunting. It is a lot of work, and my knowledge base is pretty much a zero on this. I bought my car when I was 16, and thanks to my dad being a mechanic and being willing to teach me stuff and junk about fixing cars all my life I have been able to keep that little girl running. But I do believe the time has come to say good-bye. I really would like to get another Toy because I stand a better chance of being able to work on them myself but the problem there is that Toyota's just last longer so there aren't as many of those on the used market. Nuts! So now I am looking at Nissans and Hyundais in a addition to hoping I get lucky with a Toyota. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me.

What else??? Ah yes, the handsome man comes home tomorrow. I am excited to see what facial hair Cinco de Mustache brings. The fun part about that is that he gets to meet my parents on Thursday, this could be mildly entertaining. :) You have to go to the American Mustache Institute and turn on your speakers.. HA! Good times!!!! Now I have it stuck in my head.. Fantastic. "I like mustaches how bout you? I would like to grow one too, if we all had mustaches it would be, oh it would be a beautiful world". On the topic of hair, only this time not of the facial region. While I have enjoyed my year as a blond, the red hair is back. Some day I might bust out the blond again when I get bored. We'll see. :)

Oh yeah, I've decided I need to have a couple of movie marathons in the next month or so. These include but are not limited to: Star wars, Indian Jones, Star trek and Firefly (I have done the Firefly one at least 3 times in the last year, some days I feel like a sci-fi nerd's wet dream) I've got to watch all the old Jones before the new one comes out. For now it is off to the store to buy the supplies needed to turn bananas in to chocolate chip nanner bread.

Fambly

I'm on a roll with this keeping on top of the blog business. Lol, although I have only had the thing for two months so I am sure that I will lose interest eventually. :) Ummm... I mean that keeping my family updated on my life is really important and therefore I will faithfully blog as promised. Speaking of my family I get to see most of them in a week. I am really excited! I love my family dearly and I hardly ever get to see them even though I try to make it down to Durango and up to CA a couple times a year. This year I have not been able to travel as much as I would have liked. The last time I saw the Durango crew was at Christmas, when Terran was only 3 months old. That little boy is 8 months old now with a set of teeth and new found mobility.

Terran, Everest and I at Christmas

I can hardly wait to see him again and as always my Ev monster. I am a sucker for my nephews, luckily they haven't figured that out yet because I'm screwed when they do. "Tia, and I have a BMX bike???" Sure thing kiddo! I'll get one too and we can race!!!! I don't think my sister fully grasps all of the bad things I am planning on teaching them. Bad things but fun things..... Exhibit A:

Everest at a little over a year... Oh yeah, very cool little kid!

Don't get the wrong idea, I am a very loving Tia and I would do anything to protect those boys. Ha ha, besides so far I have given Everest a very healthy love of bikes, motorcycles and mountain at least, which is vital to having a good life. At two years old I had him on my Santa Cruz and we were jumping ditches. It was a good time, I've never heard a kid laugh so much. :) Ahhh memories... sniff, they grow up so fast! Everest turns three this year. Wow! My other family members that are able to make the trip are my sister Nikki and her husband Jeff, and my Mom and Dad. This will be the second trip up since I moved here for my parents and my sister Cora, and the first for Nikki and Jeff. I am looking forward to showing them where I have spent the last five years of my life. "Okay guys, this is Norlin, the campus library... this is where I sit every day and have for the last 5 years. Who wants lunch? There has to be a coffee stand around here some where."

This is most of the family, the last time we were all together which was last summer. I'm next to my mom and dad and then Cora and my brother in-law Eric and on the other side.. Then below is the bride and groom of that day which would be Nikki and Jeff.

I have a rather large family, lots of brother and sisters even though I don't really spend any time with many of the older ones just cause they are so much older. The basic family is my mom, step-dad, real dad, Cora, Nikki and my sweet brother Darin. They of course all have husbands, wives and various kids too. The family gets bigger and bigger every year. :) It's kind of nice.

This is my brother Darin (Woody to everyone that knows him) and his wonderful wife Becca. I only get to see them about once a year, which is hard.

And last but not least, my sister Manda. She and I are the same age and get into all sorts of trouble together...:)

So this was originally supposed to be a post for my family letting them know I was excited to see them next week but it kind of ended up being a photo family tree.. Ha ha.. my family tree is rather bizaar. I'll have to draw a map for it to make any sense at all. :) There are a step brother and sister in addition to the other 8 siblings. It gets a little hairy. But I love them all and all of the craziness that they are. I mean really, where do you think I get it from? Those of you who are reading this that I will not get to see next week, I love you and I'll miss you!!!!

Girls baffle me

It is the first of May and I am staring outside my window, at...snow. Why is there snow? It is May... May means flowers and flip-flops right? And to top it off since yesterday was so hot, I left my window down in my car... and now the seat has half an inch of white fluffy crap on it. I know, I know I live in Colorado so I should get used to it. But I don't wanna... I'm protesting and wearing flip-flops anyways today so there!

So here is a social phenomenon that I just to not understand. Why is it that the nice guy always seems to get walked on and then left in the dirt? I like nice guys, I'm dating one...the reason I am lucky is because he is a NICE guy..that means he will be NICE to me. Why-oh-why is it that girls constantly seem to screw over the people who would actually be good to them and then continue on to complain about how horrible their boyfriend treats them and how he doesn't care yadda, yadda.... it defies logic. I have a great roommate, this is the whirlwind, he a wonderful guy. Very nice, good looking, smart, funny, athletic....so why is it that he just got screwed over by some dumb chick when he was probably one of the best things to ever happen to her? Oh wait, key word there... DUMB chick.. yes..you are dumb. Nice guys are a good thing, there are not enough of them in the world and when you are lucky enough to find one you should not treat them like crap, if anything you should be just as wonderful to them as they will be to you. Then you will be happy and the rest of us will finally get to stop listening to you complain. Ugh... Grrrr... I have ugh-grrr at this girl. She pisses me off. Why can't people just freak'n think once in awhile, does it hurt their tiny little brains too much??? Okay, I might be a tad protective in this situation because it is my roommate and I care about him but this is not the first time that this has crossed my table. I just flat out don't get it. The nice guys should be the ones with all the girls. Ugh...Grrrr again....There have been a fair amount of social psych studies that say the reason nice guys finish last is because women want a man who is aggressive and promiscuous due to primal instincts. I say that is a load of honkey. Nice guys can be just as aggressive, ask the wall Tim hit last night, and promiscuity is a BAD THING.. that means they're more likely to cheat on you sweetheart. With the current standing of our culture you don't really need the guy who will beat down the neighbor and then mate with his wife to promote the success of his gene pool, you need the guy who will give you a hug when your boss says something mean and who will not disown your kids when they crash the SUV into a light pole. Alright, I'm off my soap box. My flip-flops and I have snow to stick it to and places to go. If anyone comes up with a brilliant solution to the nice guy/girls are dumb situation let me know.