Blue Marker: the saga continues

Tonight I went to dinner at Zemam’s Ethiopian Restaurant in downtown Tucson with my friends Crystal, Gary, Jon, and Emi. It was delicious, community style food that you eat with your hands off of a big tray in the middle of the table. No plates. No silverware. It was great.

The tale of the blue marker dates back to my junior year in high school, which is now 7 years past. Jon and I were in Mr. Madden’s chemistry class together in the afternoons that year. Mr. Madden was a terrific teacher, and every Friday he BLASTED ( to the enormous displeasure of all other teachers in his building) “I Feel Good” by James Brown, and he danced on top of the lab tables giving a stunning lip singing performance. He also always wore short hiking shorts that got him in trouble with the board because it was against the school dress code to wear shorts that short.

It was in Mr. Madden’s class one afternoon that several of our classmates returned from taking the ASVAB military aptitude test earlier that morning. They received a free blue marker with stars on it that looked like this:

More or less, Jon asked if I wanted one, because no one wanted them, and I said no thanks. When I got home from school that day, I found that he had slipped one into my bag nonetheless….and there the war began!

Since then, the marker has been passed back and forth several times (we wait patiently for the right moment), and the methods have gotten progressively more methodical and complex. One year it was a mystery Christmas present that showed up on my doorstep disguised in a LARGE box of bricks. In another plot, I performed precise surgery and resealing on a bag of betty crocker cake mix for a birthday surprise at Jon’s house in Iowa. It showed up inside my bean and cheese burrito one morning at Nico’s Taco Shop in Marana! It was a secret admirer’s valentine sent to me at NAU, along with the SECOND blue marker ( the original's long lost sister )delivered by Aaron Steele, an accomplice brought in by Jon himself from that same chemistry class.

The markers have been through a lot, and actually, they have been used for a lot of good! I have written many friendly notes to people with them, filled out paperwork, to do lists, Bible verses for the wall, and much more! Who knows which of YOU have been touched by the blue markers.

And now, they have been passed once again, after years of waiting, plotting, and saving the forgotten SECOND marker….they are together again and have double whammied Jon in blindsided fashion. I snuck them into a bath set gift basket which I gave as a wedding gift to Jon and his new fiancée at dinner. It snuck right by them until Emi found the markers inside the toothbrush tubes as they drove away from the restaurant and I got a call from Jon, who said “I should have known. I should have been much more suspicious.” But he WASN’T. And now I wait. And watch. Train myself to site anything out of the ordinary, sketchy, or BLUE. I gotta be ready this time.


It was such an enjoyable evening with those friends. Sometimes it is sad to come back to Tucson and realize how much other people I once knew have changed, but I love seeing Jon and Crystal, being thankful every time that such a strange trio has remained friends after high school. It makes me feel rightfully small to know that God has such good, weird plans.

Pig Sty, AZ

I made it home safely to my parents' house in Tucson, well actually Marana. They moved out of the official realm of Tucson and to a suburb called Marana (which means tangled place in spanish, although I have heard than without the tilde mark it means pig sty) a few years ago. When I was in high school, we made fun of the hicks from Marana and laughed at the fact that they had cow and pig pens on the sidelines of their soccer fields. Now, I love it out here, and I love visiting! The drive was nice and calm, here is a picture of my favorite part of the drive, when you pass between two small groves of walnut trees and first see the dusty mountains of Tucson! Yes, I took this picture while I was driving, but I was safe, didn't even look through the lens, just snapped it so you all could see!


The night I arrived home (Sunday), my parents had a little backyard party with lots of yummy Thai food and good friends. Their backyard is great for setting up a LOOONG picnic table and chowing down! The weather was PERFECT, the crickets were chirping, the garden was green, and there was homemade ice cream! Can't get any better than that.


Today, my parents and I saw the new Indiana Jones flick, which was a good old fashioned fun movie. All three of us enjoyed it, and I hope you all do too.


Another experience I got to thoroughly enjoy today was going to the doctor, where I got stuck with needles and pieces of me were cut off. Ok, that is HUGE exaggeration. I went to the dermatologist and needed a biopsy on a mole that no longer resides on my shoulder, but in a test tube. It was disgusting, and of course I want to share that with everyone.

This is the real picture of the hole that it left after the cutting.




This one has been altered to look grosser than it really is. Cool, huh?

Tonight, we are watching a Dbacks game (I'll soon be watching from Chase field live later this week!) and having a BBQ meal outside. God bless summer!

Unrelated Notes

Flagstaff continues its seasonal confusion as it has been snowing/hailing/raining for the past three days. The first day when I woke up and saw the huge, fluffy, January-esque flakes drifting below my window to settle on the path below, it made me remember how much I LOVE snow, winter, a white Christmas, the coziness and sentiment of it. I even made Britni listen to "Let it snow" by Frank Sinatra as we drove to Target at lunchtime. How sad it was to think that in a year's time and even THIS year, I will be spending Christmas back in a hot climate where no one even THINKS to dream of a white Christmas, and the seasonal cheer is somewhat hard to come by because it is a challenge to convince yourself it is really Christmastime when you are still slapping on the SPF 80 and your biggest bill is the AC in your house.

Well, that feeling lingered for a day, but I was quickly cured of it the next morning when I walked 40 yards to the apartment complex gym and arrived with squishy wet socks and was too cold to take my down jacket off to run on the treadmill. Hot weather, I love you. I don't know why I ever doubt you or turn my back on you. Take me back and never leave again.

On a totally different note, here is an artist that I have been digging for the past few days and hope to hear more from soon. Her name is Marie Digby, and she has a very popular song on the radio which I recently looked up, but found that her entire album is worth a listen. She's folky and poppy, a pianist/guitar player/singer, and has vulnerable and truth filled lyrics...which puts her right up one of my larger musical alleys. At this point, my top three song suggestions would be "Paint Me in Your Sunshine", "Miss Invisible", and "Say it Again"; but ask me again in a couple weeks, because usually the songs I first hate become the ones I love because I finally hear the lyrics, and I tire of the obvious songs to which I am first drawn.

Lastly, and on ANOTHER completely unrelated note, God is doing some cool things in my friends' lives, and I felt like highlighting two of them. They both happen to be engagements, but I expect to have the oppurtunity to give Him credit for many other different types of happenings in lives around me as I go. Hopefully, then I am not always talking about myself here, because, let's face it, how long can I really do that!?

So here are my two friends, both named Jon, and both anticipating marriage to their beautiful fiancees in the next year! They also have both been on missions, both washed their girlfriend's feet upon proposing, and can both quote at least half of the movie Waynes World. They have never met and live in different states. I know one from high school, the other I traveled to Thailand with twice. They are excellent men, and praise God for the new blessing of engagement in each of their lives! If you know Jon S. and are interested in his proposal story, this is a link to his blog page: http://www.xanga.com/tz_jonschmidt_Desertrat

Sorry, I don't have a link for Jon U! Anyway, both great stories and I wanted to share them!

Have a great weekend all, let's hope I wake up tomorrow and it's summer again!

SLOW

For anyone who was able to escape the ENORMOUS amounts of publicity, commercials, newscastings, and the morning paper, the new American Idol is....(drum roll please)....DAVID COOK (audience roars)! He is on the left half of this picture. Here is a link to a group performance by the top twelve finalists, in case you are unfamiliar with the show and are actually interested:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=h8Ue04yd1sU



Wow, so, I watched that show last night with my roommate, Britni (ok, ok, I have actually watched most of the season), and I kind of couldn't believe the amount of attention that was given to these two finalists by millions of fans! Thousands of people gathered in their hometowns and other various locations with signs and chants and all sorts of support for them. It's cool and everything, I was just thinking that it would also be super neat if that kind of attention was given to other noble people, like overseas soldiers or social workers. Maybe we can work on that.


Things have slowed down significantly here! Rusty left last night for San Fransisco to attend his brother's and sister's college graduation ceremonies, other friends are busy working summer jobs, and me? I am up to my eyeballs in the 'S' word.....studying! I am still busy preparing for the big move of all my stuff down to Tucson this weekend. I will be spending the next week there, hopefully catching up with some good friends and having fun with my parents.



After that trip, Britni and I will be "camp counselors", for lack of a better term, at a youth leadership seminar in Phoenix, AZ. We sort of got roped into it by my sister, who was desperate for volunteers, but it has been fun already planning it with Britni, and it will be a good experience. I will be head over 16-18 high schoolers (God help me), stay in the co-ed dorms with them (God help me more), and take them to different seminars on ASU campus throughout the week. My team is the yellow team, and our team name is the Lemonheads.


Lastly, I want to say that I really appreciate that friends and family have actually been stopping by this website from time to time and reading it! I love all your comments, emails, and participation! Thanks, you guys are the greatest! Have a great Thursday, everyone!

Chronicles of Narnia

My friends and I went to the midnight showing of Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian last week, and it was excellent! The writers did take a significantly larger amount of artistic license with this film as opposed to the first as far as following the book, but I still liked it and actually felt that even the new parts that were added stayed true to C.S. Lewis's style and theology. I think my favorite part was the summoning of the White Witch and the scene thereafter, which is a big turning point for Peter.

Another scene that caught my attention days later was one in which Lucy ventures away from the group in the early morning to find Aslan waiting for her in the woods.

A remarkable little known fact about me is that I like to keep a hymnal in my bathroom, and I flip open to a page from time to time while I am drying my hair, brushing my teeth, etc.

Yesterday, early in the morning, I flipped it open to the song called "In the Garden", which I have hated since childhood. It sounds annoying, and its very old fashioned and cheesy. However, yesterday, I decided to love it, because it reminds me of the aforementioned scene where Lucy runs to meet Aslan with SO much joy, and they stroll together and he tells her incredible truths, and she listens. And I guess that's how it should be. Here are the lyrics.

To some of you, this will be a familiar memory..others probably have never heard it and will never hear it and that's ok! Read it if you want, if not, stay tuned for something else another day:


I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the voice I hear,
falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,And He tells me I am His own,And the joy we share as we tarry there,None other has ever known

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me,
Within my heart is ringing.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,And He tells me I am His own,And the joy we share as we tarry there,None other has ever known.

I'd stay in the garden with Him,
Tho' the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go, thro' the voice of woe,
His voice to me is calling.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,And He tells me I am His own,And the joy we share as we tarry there,None other has ever known.

Fatman's Loop

My old roomie, Sarah, came into town today! I lived with Sarah for two years during undergrad, and she is great. I remember laughing a lot those two years.







Today, she and her boyfriend came to Flag and invited Rusty and I to hike Fatman's Loop, a trail passing up part of Mt. Elden in east Flagstaff. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, sunny and warm with NO wind for once! This is a picture of us enjoying the shade of a large tree that grows in the middle of the trail. I am so glad to finally be taking advantage of Flagstaff's numerous "outdoor playgrounds" this summer. Before I leave for internships, I hope to enjoy many more, and I look forward to moving somewhere else with just as many oppurtunities to enjoy God's creation outside!


Not much else to tell right now! I relaxed for the first week of summer, now it's back to business! Studying everyday in anticipation of internships and boards, getting myself in shape, moving, and completing paperwork for school are the bulk of my days. I can't complain, though. It's SUMMER, my favorite time of year, and there is much to look forward to.

Wednesdays

Wednesdays are great days, and particularly this Wednesday. Since the beginning of last school year, Rusty has taken me out to breakfast every Wednesday morning to enjoy each other and to talk about our spiritual lives, about how God is apparent in our weeks and how we are serving and responding to Him in our days! It has become one of my favorite traditions and something I look forward to each week. He is a fantastic boyfriend, and I love that he takes the initiative to do that for us. This morning, we went to the IHOP down the street, and I had the chocolate chip pancakes because I was dreaming about chocolate cake as I woke up. It was literally a dream come true.

I also had a dentist appointment today, and it went great! I love the dentist and think he is your best friend. I heart my mouth, and like to take good care of it. I almost had an identity crisis and personal breakdown last semester when my dentist, Dr. Green, told me that I had my very first cavity and needed a filling! I have since recovered and am now dealing with the fact that every visit he tells me to get BRACES (AGAIN mind you, since I had them in jr. high) or else my teeth which meet exactly will wear down into short stubs by the time I am 40. So, everyone can look forward to that in the next couple of years. Just don't make fun of me, or I'll bite you with my razor-sharp metal mouth.



We had our second victory in a row at softball last night! We won 18-14 in a really exciting game. Our defense was diving all over the place, sometimes because we were really good and dove for the ball, sometimes because we made so many mistakes that we had to dive after baserunners to try and tag them at the last minute! Fun time, though. I got two hits and made one play on defense at third base. Rusty had a great game, making about 8 outs and hitting several LONG hits. He was definitely the dirtiest after the game.


Our friends Scott and Mary Olson, a really wise and awesome couple from our church, were kind enough to come watch Rusty and I play softball, and they even took us out to dinner afterwards! We ate at Beaver Street Brewery, a local favorite. Their best menu item by far is the Beaver Street Burger (a huge and meaty tomato/basil pesto burger with harvatti cheese), and I highly suggest the restaurant overall.

Rusty and I finished the evening by watching the movie "Blast from the Past", which is a mid nineties classic with Brendan Frasier and Alicia Silverstone where Brendan Frasier was born and grew up since 1962 in a fall out shelter and must now negotiate present day L.A., where he meets Alicia Silverstone and falls in love with her. For those of you who don't know Rusty, watch Brendan Frasier in that movie, and you will know him. For those who DO know Rusty, watch it anyway and get a laugh. Rusty sure did.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Welcome back to Flagstaff, I guess. Yesterday, it was tank tops, flip flops, and blasting A/C's. Today I woke up in Flagstaff to this! I mean, I love Christmas-time and all, but seriously? Mid MAY? Come on, Flagstaff, get with it! I guess I can be thankful and look forward to a quiet day of reading and tea. Knowing this town, it will be 80 and sunny by noon. Maybe I'll get to christen my brand new running shoes outside today after all...

The birds: "Huddle together for warmth, guys. MAN this sucks, which of you geniuses said it was ok to come back north?"

Monkeyballs on Mother's Day

My Mom. She is a fantastic mom and a fantastic lady. I hope all of you know her. She taught me how to bake bread and how to follow Jesus. She stuck with me when I was in my "I'm the biggest brat in the world" phase. She cares about lots of other people, is very talented, and she makes our family fun. She is always learning to receive well deserved compliments more graciously. Maybe she needs more of them so she can practice, so if you see her, give her one. There are many to choose from. I am thankful for her.




Alright, strange title, I know. Let me explain. I drove down to Phoenix for Mother's Day yesterday, and it was great! VERY fortunately for them, my sister and Jeff's families both live within an hour of their house, so everyone gets to come together and celebrate holidays! Jeff's family is a lot of fun, and I have grown to appreciate celebrating special times with them!

The newest activity my family has adopted for these special occasions is called Monkeyball. This game has MANY names. It is modeled after horseshoes, except you throw golf balls on string around a post system, as pictured below. It's a great BBQ or outdoor party game, and you can make it yourself with PVC pipe and a good drill. Pictured below are my sister, my dad, and Jeff's mom slingin the monkeyballs. My parents usually CRUSH us, but yesterday, youth prevailed over wisdom with my sister/Jeff and Rusty/Scott (Jeff's little bro) taking the victories.














Later in the day, we had a delicious dinner together, gave presents, and had a family rock session on the Rock Band video game. Even Jeff's GRANDMA got into the mix and brought down the house with her stellar bass playing. Good day, hope there are more family times like that.

Summer Continues

As legendary rocker Alice Cooper

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQauQ6f72Zk)

so strikingly sang it:


"School's out for summer
School's out forever

No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher's dirty looks

Out for summer
Out till fall
We might not go back at all

School's out forever
School's out for summer
School's out with fever
School's out completely"

It is actually starting to feel like summer today. I slept in late, have nothing to do, nowhere to go! In about two more days, the OCD will kick in and I will have to start making to do lists like

1. wake up
2. eat breakfast
3. watch Dbacks game
4. go to the bathroom

just so I can cross them off and feel productive and purposeful, but today, I am enjoying the freedom! Rusty and I are going to have a little tennis match (although that is a serious misnomer because I bare no resemblance of a match for him at all) and I will continue packing in anticipation of moving all my junk back to Tucson later this month for safekeeping during my nomadic internships.



Ginger and I saw "What Happens in Vegas" last night. It was a decently funny movie, and it JUST beat the quota for "Was this worth $6.50?" (yeah baby, student discount for one more year!). The funniest part was during the credits, so if you go see it, make sure to hang around for a minute to check it out. I now set my sights for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian next week, which my roommates and I have been looking forward to for months!

Sedona Date

Today Rusty took me on a day date to Sedona for hiking and downtowning. We set out in the morning and hiked a beautiful trail called Devil's Bridge, which is a hike into a small canyon and up a set of natural sandstone steps to a rock arch that you can walk across and explore. With all that beauty surrounding me, my favorite moment should have been when a twittering blue jay landed in a nearby tree or when the silence and grandeur of the red rocks overtook me... but truth be told, my favorite moment of the hike was buying the parking permit!

We hadn't realised we even NEEDED a parking permit, so neither of us had cash on hand, but we made it work. The permits are bought through a vending machine, and luckily we scrounged five dollars in DIMES AND NICKELS from the bottoms of each of our wallets. I stayed in the car and Rusty took our bag full of coins to the machine. A sweet elderly man already standing at the machine allowed Rusty to go before him because he didn't understand how to work the machine. Rusty warned him " I have coins", but the man said "Oh please, it's only five dollars, go ahead"...probably under the impression that it was $5 in quarters. Rusty then proceeded to deposit nickel after painful nickel for the next SEVERAL minutes, with the man calling him names jokingly like "oh you bugger" and making faces behind his back, laughing with me about the misfortune and our pitiful, scrounged $5...which actually turned out to be only $4.90, so Rusty had to borrow a dime from the old man.

Anyway, the hike was gorgeous and peaceful, a great adventure to start off the first day of SUMMER!!!! After the hike, we strolled downtown, ate lunch and got ice cream. Here are a FEW of the pictures from today. I'll see if I can't put together a photo album to be available if yall want to see more.

A rock. They have a lot of these.

Proof that I didn't exaggerate about Sedona's culture last week





Me on the Devil's arch and Rusty climbing a ginormous cliffhanger rock.

Softball Season!

Last night, the NAU physical therapy class of 09 softball team had our second official game. We put a little team together and entered the adult co-ed summer league here in Flag! Our first outing was a NEAR win (final score 1-16), but you couldn't ask for a better team with more fun people! We had a blast!

This week, in a completely shocking 180 degree flip, we crushed em! We're not really sure where all the talent came from because only two of us have ever played baseball in our lives, but we definitely weren't going to complain! Take what you can get! Everyone got on base, we had 6 home runs, we were rockin!

These are some of the ladies on the team, all gals from my class...and since we spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year, for two straight years together, we're more than just your average classmates.



Here was our MVP of the night rounding third on his SECOND in- the-park home run. Brian participated in the yearly class traditon of drunken kickball (aka "kegball") all day and was slightly, ok highly inebriated during the game. He hit two home runs, was all over the place on defense, threw up in left field, fell down running the bases, and was absolutely the highlight of the dugout. He was a champ. MVP, right there.






The team after our victory

Eurrrrroooppppee!

My cousin, Jamie, asked for the scoop on this Europe trip I am counting down to, so here it is!

My friend Ginger and I have been given the oppurtunity to travel throughout Europe for three weeks this summer. We are leaving on July 22nd and returning in August before my first internship starts back in Sedona, a town near Flagstaff widely visited by richy rich tourists and people who believe in crystal healings and vortex energy field voodoo.

It will be just the two of us, and hopefully we won't kill each other after three weeks and both of us will return! We are visiting the following countries: France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and possibly heading to Ireland as well. The goal is to make it low key, outdoorsy, and not TOO touristy. Our newly adopted motto, which Ginger so eloquently created one day, is "Stay when stay, leave when leave". It means that there is no plan, and we'll do whatever we want in each country without overloading ourselves on attractions, then we'll be free to leave whenever the next country calls our names. My four goals are as follows:

1. Drink a latte at an outdoor cafe that looks toward the Eiffel Tower.

2. Run up a green hill in Switzerland or Austria singing "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music".

3. Go to some super famous art museums and appreciate the history of it.

4. Experience local life in each country where we stay.

I'll let yall know more when I know more. If anyone has been to any of these countries and can tell me cool local things to do, I would REALLY want to hear about it!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! Today was the first day of finals here at NAU, so to celebrate our survival thus far, we had a little fiesta at the apartment. Lots of good food and good people, and also a little joint guitar hero action. Here are a few quick pics from the night. Also, a link to learn more about Cinco de Mayo, which is NOT Mexican Independance Day:

http://www.vivacincodemayo.org/history.htm

Enjoy!




Ginger and Rusty are by far the best at the Guitar Hero game. They bond by rocking out together and executing key rocker moves such as the kick-and-stomp, the couch jump, and the head bang.




My roommate, Adri; and Rusty's roommate, Mike. Two characters...and if they get married or something crazy one day, Rusty and I are taking all the credit.