My Top 5s (or so) of 2011

My favorite part of December (besides Christmas cookies, Christmas songs, Christmas lights, Christmas presents...) is reading thousands of "Top 10 Blah Blahs of the Year" lists. I'll scour the internet for the best movies, CDs, books, songs, celebrity break-ups...you name it, I'm reading it.

(In 2005, my college was featured in a "Worst of" list because someone created a Hot Girls ranking system and a bunch of ugly girls complained about it, so we made the national news. I digress.)

Because my opinion is so highly valued, I have created my own Top 5(ish) lists.

Top 7 TV Shows I Found on Netflix Instant
7. Survivors
6. Lie to Me
5. Parks and Recreation
4. Mad Men
3. The Tudors
2. Friday Night Lights
1. Battlestar Galactica

Let me tell you, it was really hard to pick a #1. I really struggled, because I never thought anything could be as good as Battlestar Galactica, but Friday Night Lights surprised me. I'm only in the middle of Season 1, and it's a good thing, or it could have overtaken my beloved BSG. Frak. 


Top 3 Reasons I Love Spotify
3. Music I would never buy, but will listen to for $10 a month (The Muppets soundtrack, Justin's Bieber's Christmas album (he is single-handedly ruining Christmas), and Kanye West)
2. Cheesy Christmas music I don't have to buy (but I DID buy Michael Buble's Christmas album...and you should too)
1. Every Glee song ever

Top 5 Books (but not for the Kindle, the jury's still out if I like that thing)
5. Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares/The Help - Kathryn Stockett
4. One Day - David Nicholls (Trust me on this.)
3. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
2. Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
1. THE HUNGER GAMES (All three of them) - Suzanne Collins

My top anything from 2012 will be The Hunger Games movie.

Top 6 Visits to the Hospital in October and November
6 - 4. All the times I got an IV filled with toradol, my favorite thing in the world.
3. The time when they couldn't put the IV in...and then they infiltrated my vein...and then I had a bruise for a month.
2. The time I kept telling my dad I couldn't breathe and he kept shouting, "YES YOU CAN! If you're talking, you're breathing!!" and getting angry that I wouldn't get up and walk to the car while my kidneys tried to squeeze themselves into my ureters. I'm pretty sure that's what was causing all the pain.
1. The time I went in the aid car at 3am and my dad rode up front so he could talk about firefighter things with the firefighters. No no, I'm fine here in the back by myself.

Top 5 Celtic Thunder Moments
5. The moment I learned they were coming back to celebrate my birthday with me for the second year in a row.
4. Emmett's arms.
3. Storm, the delightfully tacky Celtic Thunder MUSICAL.
2. Their Greatest Hits CD. Which has 102 songs because ALL of their songs are great.
1. The second annual Catlyn's Birthday Concert. Props to Laura, my only friend who shares my love for the lads.


Top 3 Celebrity Crushes
3. Josh Groban
2. Zac Efron
1. Zach Gilford

I can't believe Zefron was overtaken, but seriously people. It's as if they took my dream man and turned him into a TV character named Matt Saracen. 


There you have it folks. Happy 2011. I'm going to go watch Friday Night Lights.

(Mis)Adventures in Babysitting

Remember last summer, when I told the wonderful story about babysitting two little monsters children that locked themselves in their bedroom and I had to take the doorknob off? I'm here with them again this week. Right now we are finishing up High School Musical 3...we've already watched HSM1 and half of HSM2 (because, let's face it, that one was terrible). 

I love children. My career revolves around children. I am passionate about children. I cannot wait to have children (or child, still up for debate). But there are so many things that I really dislike about children.

1. Getting up early in the summer with children. Early for me is 8:30am in the summertime. I set my alarm for 8am, hit snooze three times, and then climb out of bed and sit on the couch for an hour. Then I'm awake. These children come INTO my bedroom at 3am, get in bed with me, make weird sleeping noises, and then are awake for the day at 6am. Not fun.

2. Preparing food for children. I eat most things out of a box or a can. Occasionally I will open a bag of pasta and a jar of sauce. I buy most of my groceries in the frozen aisle of Trader Joe's. When I want actual food, I go to my parents' house. These children want actual food all the time. It's not even difficult food, but I haaaate cooking. We've had pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, tacos, and lots of mac and cheese. I'm sick of washing dishes. I'm sick of picking up plates. I'm sick of the fact that neither of them like the same foods. My kids are eating fast food...or my husband better be a gourmet chef. There will be NO romantically cooked dinners when we're dating.

3. Bathing children. I should not have to get into the bathtub with you and pour buckets of water over your body because you refuse to rinse off soap. And I do not think it's funny when you fart in the bathtub because my feet are in there with you!

4. Blowing up a backyard pool for children. No no, it only took me an hour to blow up and you don't want to go in because the water from the hose is too cold? Not a problem. I wanted to crouch awkwardly in the grass holding an electric pump two inches from my ear because the extension cord isn't long enough. Would you like me to pick up the 37 towels you left on the lawn? And why aren't you wearing your bathing suit anymore? Private parts stay in the backyard.

5. Going places with children. I love the zoo. It is one of my favorite things to do in the summer. I love spending time at my favorite exhibits: the bears, the penguins, and the gorillas. These children like those exhibits too. For three minutes. Bears are boring. Why aren't they growling? These penguins smell like fish. These gorillas are just sitting. Can we go on the carousel? My favorite part of the zoo was the fountain I could put my hand in. Next time I will leave them at home.

At least we didn't lock ourselves in our bedroom this time. But we did wear only underwear for the entire day yesterday. 

These are a Few of My Favorite Things...

1. GoodReads (dot com)
Love love love. Big, big thanks to my dear friend Abby, who introduced me to this website. Read a book, rate it, write a review. All your books are stored in lists, all your "friends" (simliar to Facebook) can see your books/ratings/reviews and comment. Before GoodReads, I had to ask people for book recommendations. Now I can stalk all my GoodReads friends and put random books on my library hold list. Except for Abby's weird gynecology books, so far I've been impressed with everyone's picks!

2. Almonds
They may seem a bit out of place, but my parents and I are currently on a new eating program (The Game On Diet). On this plan, I have to eat five times a day and balance my meals with proteins, carbs, and healthy fats. Apparently I can't eat peanut butter all day long, so I had to find an alternate healthy fat. Enter: salted almonds! How have I lived 27 years without these delicious little morsels of goodness?

Mmmmmm.

3. Mumford & Sons
Love. Love love love. Love every song. Love "Little Lion Man" the most. I dare you not to love their album. (And those British boys are darling!)

4. Cleaning
I'm not kidding. It's cathartic. It's beneficial. It wastes a lot of time and is better for me than watching hours and hours of television.

...which brings me to...

5. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
That show deserves an Emmy.

Christmas is Coming...

All families have Christmas traditions. Some families open a present on Christmas Eve. Some decorate the house the day after Thanksgiving. Some have advent calendars, some have Countdown-to-Christmas paper chains, and some trek into the snowy woods to cut down an authentic Christmas tree.

My family does none of this. My father, ever the cautious fire fighter, insists we wait until the week before Christmas to get our tree, so it won't burn our house down if it gets too dry. We do not open gifts on Christmas Eve (mostly because we're at church for 17 hours, but that's besides the point). No paper chains, no advent calendars, no snowy walks through the forest.

We have Mr. Lazy, the Donald Duck head, and the Cory Band.

Mr. Lazy is the star that tops our Christmas tree. My parents got him at an ornament exchange almost twenty years ago. The idea of the exchange was to bring a beautiful, lovely Christmas ornament. My father opened his present and saw this, in ornament form:

Shockingly, no one stole Mr. Lazy and my father ended up bringing him home. He is the first ornament to go on the tree and the last to come off. No ornament can be higher than Mr. Lazy. No ornament is as sacred as Mr. Lazy.

The sacred moment of hanging Mr. Lazy on the tree.

Mr. Lazy in all his glory.

The second ornament to be hung on the tree is the Donald Duck head. My dad found Donald Duck in a toilet at Disneyland in 1999. He thought Donald would be a great addition to our Christmas tree, so he brought him home, much to my mother's chagrin. She ran him through the dishwasher several times before he was allowed to go on the tree. Strangely, Donald seems to disappear every year as we undecorate, and it's very difficult to find him the next year. One year he was hiding in the Singing Kittens toy. One year he was in the garbage can, but my father and I rescued him.

You can see Mr. Lazy's bottom at the top of the picture. No one can go higher than Mr. Lazy.

The Cory Band is our favorite tradition...and perhaps the most sacred. This tradition has been in our family as long as I can remember. In the early 1980s, my parents heard a song on the infamous Northwest radio station KEZX. They were very intrigued by this fascinating song. Nearly a decade later, in the early 1990s, KMTT began playing the song at Christmas time, and my parents declared it as the song of Christmas. 

It has become our Christmas tradition. We cannot begin to celebrate Christmas until we all hear the song on the radio, at the same time, in the same place. It did not count when I was in a parking garage in Seattle and almost caused a major accident when the song came on and I called my parents screaming. It did not count when my dad called from work to let us know he had heard it. It apparently did not count when I called the radio station, asked when it would next be played, and had the station cued up on the radio. 

If you are not familiar with the best Christmas song of all time, please enjoy "Stop the Cavalry" by the Cory Band. And have a very merry Christmas.

(The history of this amazing song.)

The Scariest Day of my Life

Most people have one big fear in life. Some people are afraid of drowning. Some people are afraid of heights. Some are afraid of the dark and others are afraid of flying.

My biggest fear in life is "bee or spider in my car."

On Tuesday, my biggest fear came true. Often, when I tell a story, I exaggerate a bit. I assure you, there are absolutely no exaggerations in this story.

I left for work at my regular time, 8:10am. This gives me plenty of time to get to work by 8:35.I plugged in my iPod and selected the "Celtic Thunder" playlist, to reminisce about the concert I had attended on Saturday evening. I was driving along, cranking up the heat and defogging my back windows, when I noticed a flying insect in my rear-view mirror. It's probably outside, I reassured myself. I drove another block before I realized the "insect" was in fact, a bee, and it was, in fact, inside my car.

The word panic does not even begin to describe how I reacted. My heart lurched into my throat. My stomach began to hurt. My hands started shaking and I could barely see straight. The bee made one loop around my head before I decided -- in order to save the innocent lives of many, many people -- that I needed to pull over. I quickly turned into a cul-de-sac about a half a mile from my condo.

8:13am: I jump out of the car and slam all the doors. Now I am protected from the bee. I am safe. Crap, I have to go to work. I cautiously open all the doors and wait. The bee lands on my backseat. I grab a magazine from my trunk and try to shoo the bee out an open door. (Keep in mind that this entire time, I am trying not to cry.)

8:15am: The bee lands on my back window, so I start slamming the magazine on the outside of the window, hoping to scare the bee into leaving my car. The bee, probably now with a minor concussion, starts flying around crazily and lands back on the window. I repeat this several times until I realize the bee is now too brain-damaged to fly away. I am going to be late for work.

8:20am: Several people have driven past me, asking if I need help. "No, there is just a bee in my car. I'm fine." I walk around the car several times, pleading with the bee to leave. He does not. In fact, he hides. I search the car. No bee. I know he didn't leave because my eyes have been frantically watching the exits. The bee did not fly away. He is hiding in my car.

8:25am: I call the school and tell them I will be late. I neglect to tell them why.

8:26am: I call my mother. After LAUGHING at me (and suggesting things like "Open the doors," right, I hadn't even thought of that, and "Shoo it out," another great idea, thank you), she agrees to come help.

*Before you make fun of me for calling my mom, I remind you that this is my biggest fear in LIFE and I am about to pass out.

8:30am: Mom arrives, in slippers. She searches for the bee but can't find him. She actually gets IN the car to look for the bee. I am still five feet from the car.

8:35am: Mom decides that the bee is gone. (He is not. I am sure of it.) She shoves my coat against the back window, where I have decided the bee is hiding. She assures me that the bee will not be able to fly out from underneath my wool coat. I plead with Mom to trade cars with me for the day. She says no and drives home.

8:36 - 8:45am: I learn that I can safely drive all the way to school while ONLY looking in my rear-view mirror.

8:46am: One mile from school, the bee reappears. Apparently he has clawed his way out from underneath my coat. I open all the windows and concentrate on not driving my car off the road. I begin reciting out-loud, "The bee will not get you. He is in the back of your car. He will stay back there. You are fine. You are okay. You can drive to school."

8:50am: I make it to school, alive. I jump out of the car and run into the building, away from the bee. I'm only fifteen minutes late. My heart is pounding. I will not be driving home. I will live at the school until the bee is dead.

My mom came in to check on me halfway through the day. I gave her my keys and told her she had to go get the bee out of the car. (Side note: I have the best mom in the ENTIRE world.) She comes back and assures me the bee is gone. She looked in every corner of my car. No bee. He must have flown out when I opened all the windows. I must have been too busy talking to my crazy self to notice.

Thanks Mom.

Wash Your Hands Please

I hardly ever get sick anymore. My first couple years of teaching, I was sick nearly every day. I once had a cold for eight months (which was actually a really bad sinus infection, but because I refused to go to the doctor - for fear of getting a shot - I had no clue). I used almost all my sick days my second year of teaching. I was sick during the summer.

But now I'm relatively healthy. I can't even remember the last time I was truly sick. I think spending four years around children finally boosted my immune system.

However, despite my (new) overall healthiness, I still end up with the most random illnesses.

When I was 18, I got thrush. Thrush is a yeast infection in the throat. BABIES get thrush. Old people get thrush. Eighteen-year-olds do not get thrush. Especially not when they're at a Mariner's game with their boyfriend and can't swallow and start crying in the 7th inning.

Age 20: Ringworm on my neck. I went to Hawaii with my mom for a wedding and we went snorkeling every day. What I thought was an itchy bug bite on my neck turned into a round, red rash a few days later. It's very fun to have a red circular rash on one's neck...which most people thought was a hickey. My friend Tim diagnosed me by noticing that my rash looked very similar to the ringworm he saw on his COWS.

Twenty-two was a fun year. I had kidney stones. During a trip to Disneyland. During my first month of student-teaching. After suffering for five extremely excruciating months, my doctor finally decided to schedule surgery to yank the little bugger out. (Look up "lithotripsy" and cringe.) While I was under, the doctor searched and searched for the non-existent stone, which I had unknowingly passed that morning. His overzealous prodding led to a nicked ureter, which led to the passing of quarter-sized blood clots. Bring it on, childbirth.

I'll skip the fun-filled incident last year where I spent a few hours in the hospital with four bewildered doctors trying to diagnose a strange growth that eventually disappeared without any explanation (or diagnosis).

The point of all this is to bring up the fact that I have ringworm YET AGAIN, this time on my thigh. My parents adopted a baby kitten who, along with an adorable meow and a penchant for biting our hands, brought ringworm into their house.

"I've already had it. I won't get it. I'll wash my hands. It's not that bad anyway."

The culprit.

I want to cut off my leg. I can't even describe the itching. The non-stop itching. The painful itching. Who gets ringworm twice?! I'm not a wrestler!

Did I mention that the at-home remedy for ringworm is to put VAGISIL all over it? At Bartell's, I felt the urge to explain why I had to purchase Vagisil.

"I have ringworm...not a problem down there...my parents got this cat...no, I didn't put the cat on my thigh...I swear...it's for my ringworm."

I'm not sure the cashier was impressed with my story. Either way, gross.