I'm moving my lent blog

http://asylum204.blogspot.com

this is where all of my craziness will happen

This is not a cat blog

I've noticed that ever since we got our adorable white kitten/ devil, every picture on my blog has been of her.  This is not on purpose.  She just does cute things that I have the urge to share with the world.  She's also psychic cause as I was typing that, she jumped on my lap.  She is just that awesome.  I'm not going to post a picture of said cat because, as I mentioned before, there are literally millions.  Okay, that MAY be exaggerating a bit.  So to break this crazy cat picture cycle, here's a picture of...

Crystal looking at the Death Star!  Not only is she looking at it, she's INSIDE of it!  If that doesn't blow your mind, then I am at a complete loss. 

If you're confused because you are looking at the picture and thinking "Where's the death star? She's just standing in a building" it's okay.  The Death Star is a student nickname for this crazy building at U.C. Davis that was built by some famous architect and requires a map to navigate.  Unfortunately that map does not exist. 

My next post will be about Olive.  Just kidding.  I can't see the future.  It could be about anything. 

Stop bugging me uterus!

This is the conversation I have with my uterus every time I see a baby. 

Uterus: BABIES!  Babies, babies, babies!  Angela!  ANGELA!  Look!  There's a baby!  WHERE IS OUR BABIES?!?!! 

Me: We've been over this, Uterus.  It's not time for babies yet. 

Uterus: Time?  TIME?!!  WHAT DO YOU MEAN TIME?!!! NOW IS THE TIME!

Me: We need to wait a few more years. 

Uterus: What are you talking about?  You're 25 years old and you have a boyfriend (a fiance no less).  Now make some damn babies!

Me: We can't support a child right now, Uterus. 

Uterus: But poor people have babies all the time!  Stop your logical thinking and give me a baby right now!

Me: NO UTERUS!  BAD UTERUS!  Leave me alone!  I have spoken! 

Uterus:  hate you....  *bleeds furiously in protest*

Also it doesn't help that every time John sees a cute little girl he says "awww.... I want one."  I think they're in on it together. 

Camouflage

She thinks that because she's white I can't see her.  I CAN TOTALLY SEE YOU OLIVE!  IT'S SUPER OBVIOUS WHERE YOU ARE!  Also, why do you look intoxicated?  Have you been sneaking into my chocolate wine?  DON'T YOU KNOW CHOCOLATE IS BAD FOR CATS?!!! 

Olive sleeping on a bag

You're failing at this, kitten!  I can see where you are.  It's so obvious.  Almost too obvious.  Almost like she's not even there....


I just previewed this post and there's a huge space at the top.  I'm not sure why it's there.  I don't really care to fix it either.  I totally could if I wanted to cause I'm super tech savvy but I'm not gonna. 

UPDATE:  Apparently this is a point of confusion.  There's no actual cat in the second picture.  It's an empty bag.  

Vacation

Winter vacation is quickly coming to an end and I thought (with a nudge from Ms. Riedelsperger) that I should blog about a few recent events before I get swept up in the tumult of Spring semester.  But first, kitten!

No blog, Mommy!  Pets!

How can I say no to that face?  Those big adorable eyes almost make me forget that she's a dirty traitor who loves John more than she loves me even though I'm the cat person in this family.  Almost.  So I pushed her aside and started blogging.  Then I felt bad and gave her a kitten treat.  Then she bit me.  I totally just made all of that up but that's exactly how it would have gone down if she were sitting on my computer. 

So over break I went with my mom and Crystal to a bridal show.  In the beginning they gave me a sticker that said "Bride" so that all the vendors at cal expo could pin point exactly who to harass in the mass of people even  though the sole purpose of going to the bridal show is to look at venders and decide if you want their services.  Although, at the end of the day, it would seem that our sole purpose was free cake samples.  I really have no intention of utilizing a professional cake service because I want to get married, not go into debt for 20 years. 

That's one thing I don't understand about weddings.  I get that it's a special day, but why do people spend so much money on them?  I mean, it seems like the last thing you would want to do is start off a new, fragile marriage with financial strain.  It's hard enough budgeting our money without a looming $10,000 party to pay for.  That would make me more miserable than excited about my wedding.  I wouldn't even enjoy walking down the aisle because the whole time I'd be thinking "I can't believe we wasted so much money on one day". 

If you're offended because you weren't invited, don't fret.  We haven't sent out invitations yet.  The only people who have been invited so far are the bridesmaids. 

-Angela

Prayer

I've been thinking lately about prayer and what makes it worthwhile.  If I think logically about prayer, it doesn't seem to make sense at all.  I mean if God is all knowing, all powerful and has a plan, why would I want to ask for things that could possibly mess up that plan?  At best I could feel neglected with unanswered prayers and at worst, he could actually give me what I wanted and mess up his perfect plan.  But I discovered prayer isn't really about asking for things.  Prayer is more about shaping me and my character than changing the mind of God. 

If I pray alone, it helps me to be grateful for the things I have, it helps me to think about the needs of others and keep them in my thoughts, and it helps me voice my concerns about whatever is going on in my life.  Sometimes it gives me a sense of direction and purpose.  If I pray with another person, it makes me feel less burdened to know that someone else is involved in my concerns.  If I pray in church, it gives me a sense of community and a reminder that we are all in this together. 

The most valuable format of prayer I experienced was during my time in Greenville.  A person would offer up an issue in their life and the pastor would simply say "For this person, who is dealing with this..." and the congregation would respond with "Lord have Mercy".  We didn't tell God what we prefer he do about the situation, it was simply offering the problem to God. 

What I get out of philosophy (specifically Plato)

So, I'm doing this paper about Plato and trying my best to adequately explain his theory of the Forms to such a degree as to receive an A on my paper and I realized, my cat serves as the perfect example with which to demonstrate said theory.  My kitten, lets call her Olive (cause that's her name), partakes in the Form of cuteness.  Now Olive herself is not Cuteness because she of completely different substance than that of a baby chicken which also partakes in the Form of cuteness.  Also, Olive cannot be the Form of cuteness itself because she also partakes of many other Forms such as whiteness, kittenness, and claw-the-shit-out-of-my-handness.  Some Forms are necessary for other Forms to be present, for example, Olive must necessarily partake in both cuteness and claw-the-shit-out-of-my-handness at the same time.  If she partook in the later without partaking in the former, she would get kicked out of the house because no one would have efficient cause to put up with her shit.  Therefore, when Olive stops partaking in the Form of cuteness (as she grows older), she will also cease to partake in claw-the-shit-out-of-my-handness.

Olive partaking in the Form of Get-in-between-me-and-Jon-Stewartness

Just a thought

Five times a day Muslims stop what they're doing to pray.  That level of devotion amazes me.  I forget to pray for 2 weeks if I happen to miss one day of church. 

The purpose of religion should be to order and structure our lives.  It is sad to me that we have reduced it to merely a set of beliefs.  In the end, what are beliefs?  Practically, they mean nothing because no one knows for sure anything about the mysteries of life. 

I think Religion can be magical but only when we let it go and let it be completely mysterious.  That is why I love it, not because I can grasp it tightly but because I have no idea what it all means.

The Number One Threat to my Blog

BEARS!  The bears are threatening my recreational writing career.  They use their psychic bear power (with a slight mix of their razor sharp death claws) to prevent me from keeping up on my blog.  You can tell by this picture that this bear has malicious stop-Angela-from-writing intentions by the way he causally sniffs a dead tree pretending he has no idea who I am. 

Or it could be that I've gotten lazy.  Or that I had about 500 pages of reading to do for class last week.  I normally don't have THAT much, but classes are keeping me pretty busy.  The messed up part is I only have two of them.  If I only had 2 undergrad classes, I could write a novel in my spare time, but instead I'm trying to fill a couple paragraphs of blog after a month of school. 

John and I did have a fun summer.  We saw a lot of bears as evidenced by this picture of a bear.  One of them came right up to John and introduced himself.  Or he might have been pissed off because he was trying to catch a baby dear and he was distracted by a giant man on the side of the building. 

There was also lots of campfires.  Lots..... of campfires.  But those aren't very exciting to talk about.  Here's more bears. 

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibit D (Exhibit C's twin.... or the same bear)

Exhibit.... oh wait, that's my boyfriend

Tampons Don't Grow on Trees

It's amazing to me how some people can drive 2 hours from civilization to 'get away from it all' and enjoy nature and then be completely distraught when a small middle-of-nowhere market doesn't have something they apparently can't live without.  If something is that essential to someone's well being, it seems like they would have thought to pack it before they headed 2 hours up a mountain.  There is no Wal-Mart in the woods.  We just don't have the resources to knock down some 1,000 year old Sequoia trees to build one yet. 

We've been out of ibuprofen and Tylenol pretty much since I started working a few weeks ago and I feel like I hear about it everyday.  Most of these people only seem minorly inconvenienced and I feel kind of bad for them because I love my Advil.  However, the biggest tragedy lately is that we ran out of tampons.  To some people, this is inexcusable.  One lady was so annoyed and upset, I felt like she was accusing me of withholding them from her on purpose as if I enjoyed seeing her suffer.  She was complaining that all we had was pads and "do you have any idea how hard it is to hike in these?"  I don't think she has any idea how long it takes for delivery trucks to make their way up the hill.  Shit happens.  We run out and it takes like a week or longer to get more. 

Even so, I can forgive a cranky bleeding woman for getting annoyed with me but the most perplexing thing to me is when we run out of large ice.  There were many people who seemed extremely put out and inconvenienced when I told them we were out of 20 pound bags of ice.  As someone was buying three 7-pound bags (which are the SAME price per pound), they asked "when are you getting more 20 pound bags in?"  to which I replied "I'm not sure" but my eyes said "what does it matter?  It's the same fucking ice." 

We also ran out of marshmallows.  Surprisingly, no one seemed quite as upset over that as not having a big ass bag of ice.  Next time someone bitches about ice, I should offer to open three 7-pound bags and dump them into a garbage bag so that the ice is all together in one bag.  Apparently that's very important.  Ice must work better when in the company of more ice.  I had no idea it was such a social creature.  I could've have sworn it was just frozen water. 

We'll probably run out of milk soon.  The only bitching I'll tolerate is from John because we go through it pretty fast. 

-Angela