birthday present

i got my mommy some flowers for her birthday.  one of them fell off when i was putting them in the vase, and so i just shoved it in a glass with some geranium leaves i already had.
it ended up looking really pretty, so i took some photos.
ps.  the shiny purple nectar stuff does not taste good.

anniversary!

i just found out that today is my auntie carol and uncle dan's anniversary!!!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! 

love you guys!

jealous.

i'm a little jealous of katie bug.  she lives in san diego and is so close to the beach that she can walk there with her doggie, and she works so close to the beach that she can have lunch there whenever she wants.

she sent me a little present the other night and i love it.  but now i am extra jealous.  because i know it's going to snow by next week, or the week after, if i'm lucky.  and she will still be soaking up the sunshine on the beach.

cake rex

this is cake, the t-rex.

ok, not really. 

he happens to be a turtle, who is also a ninja. 

i was at coffee the other day, not drinking coffee at all, because we just got done riding bikes and it was really hot out.  i drank an orange slide, which is orange juice and cream and lots of whipped cream, and it tastes like a dreamsicle.  YUM.

anyways.  i was at coffee and we decided to grab a sandwich as well.  i went over to the little display case and this is what popped out and caught my eye.  and i laughed so hard.  maybe if i email it to cake wrecks: the real one it would get published, then i would be famous for a second...

or not. but it's still a funny cupcake.

funny words

i was just rereading my last posts, because i almost always leave mistakes, because i never edit.  i don't know why.
but i was reading about allergies and i laughed out loud when i read the word 'barf'. hah.  so then i had to say it a few times.  you should try it.  it's fun.
just say it.  out loud. 
barf. barf. barf barf barf barf.  hahahahahahahahaha
another word that always makes me laugh is earlobe.  you have to really enunciate and drag it out for the full effect.
eeaaarrrrrrrlooooobbbe. 

fun, right?

the people teaching your kids...

thursday was my first physics lab.
i walk in and the first thing i notice about the ta is that he has giant, horrible 80's hair.  the second thing i notice is that he looks like he's about 12, playing dress up in his dad's business clothes.
i figured i was just being mean and feeling bitter that ta's are now younger than me.
then he starts writing on the chalkboard. yes, chalkboard, because physics is retro. (that's the only explanation i could come up with...)
this is what he wrote:

pleas rite down my contact info.   [ARE YOU KIDDING ME???]
blah blah blah i'm 12 years old and can't spell and i'm not actually a real ta, so don't take anything i say seriously because i have no idea what i'm talking about and also i can't spell. 
did i mention that it is very possible that i am a grad student and Cannot Spell?  i am soon going to be in charge of the generation that is supposed to be saving the world and I CANNOT EVEN SPELL 'PLEASE' OR 'WRITE'. 
ps my office is ps 119 or something, i can't actually remember because i'm worried about not being able to spell.  come to my office hours k?

i had to sit on my hands so i wouldn't grab my phone and start taking pictures of the board.  i didn't think that would make a very good impression, and even if he really did write "pleas rite down my contact info", he is the one in charge of my grades...

ps. did you know that physics is ALL math??  i took it my junior year of high school, which was approximately 5 years ago? and i remember NOTHING.  this is gonna be Hard!  because, contrary to my smart sassy sissy's beliefs, math is not even close to being like riding a bike - how you always rememeber.  i barely even remember how to do fractions, and we just had a POP QUIZ on VECTORS?!  what the heck's a vector?! 

family portrait

a while ago, when mikah was in town, we had a little photo shoot, because my mamacita has a frame that only mi hermana y yo look acceptable in.  or something.  anyways.  the photos that are in it now are from like five years ago!  we look like completely different people now!  ok, maybe not, but this frame is in serious need of an update. 
anyways.  that's not the story. 
this is:

we took a family portrait, and i think it captures us Perfectly.

the kind of phone conversations we have

random phone conversation on tuesday:

...silence...
me:  are you still there??
sissy:  ya, i'm just writing a blog.
me: wellll, want to call me back when you're done?
sissy:  nah, that's ok.  i'm almost done anyways.
me:  wellll, i'm about to leave so i'll call you back when i get home.  also i'm about to pee my pants.
sissy:  wow, you really want me to hang up, don't you (or something along those lines...)
me:  welllll, i thought about just peeing while i was on the phone to you, but i didn't want to be rude.
sissy: thanks
me:  i figured i would save that for when you're here
and then we said some other stuff, i think...
note:  for clarification.  i wasn't saving peeing while on the phone to her, i was saving being rude for when she gets here.  which is on friday!!!!!

milk controversy.

everyone always makes fun of me for calling it 'vitamin d milk'.  but I'M RIGHT!  i know how to read!  ever since i was little (like 5 or something...) i knew how to read - and i read the label and that's why i call it that!

and this time i have evidence.  from two different brands. 

on no part of the label - ANYWHERE - does it say "whole milk".  therefore, it is NOT whole milk, it is VITAMIN D MILK!!!

wahahahahaha i win!!!! i am RIGHT! yet again!!!

not for the weak-stomached

no showers on a type 3 fire.  even if there are showers, a lot of people don't even use them, sort of like 'what's the point?'  i feel like i would not be one of those people.  i feel like i would definitely be showering.  if only to be clean for an hour a day.

anyways.  i was very dirty after working for six days.  i had a dirt and ash bikini tan line.  it's pretty gross when you get in your sleeping bag and your legs are so dirty that they stick together.  i had long johns though, so didn't even have to worry about that one!  hah.  the one thing i didn't have to worry about for camping...

this is the one where you can see the grossness really well.  the line is from where my boots were.

my hair was pretty gnarly, as well.  try not to imagine how gross it feels when it's covered in dirt and ash and whatever else you could probably run into in the wilderness.  i'm pretty sure it was about to grow dreads on its own, maybe give it one or two more days?

and AFTER my hour-long shower! 

it was like a 4 in 1 shower.  4 showers in a row without ever turning off the water!

the spots on my legs are bruises not dirt.

i was going to show a picture of my shower and how dirty it was from me being fire-dirty, but it was pretty obscene. i'm pretty sure i would of been reported and i would of had to remove it for unacceptable content...

it's official.

it's official. 

i am allergic to school.

my first class was this morning (organic chemistry - barf) and now i can't stop sneezing, and i think i've been through 3/4 of a box of kleenex.

this is getting ridiculous. 
there's still time to drop out and get my money back and go work for fire til november!
kidding.
but i really am feeling very unprepared for fall.

montana in june, i believe?  this is when we were up for gramps's birthday...

i think it looks really autumn-ish as a polaroid though.

i turned on my oven because i am having a craving for chicken nuggets and it smells like my apartment smelled all winter - because i heated my little flat with my oven because gas is free and electricity is SEHR expensive.

note: sehr = very in german.

and now not only do i have to worry about being allergic to school, but i have to worry about winter coming too.  which will very likely be somewhere around next week.  maybe the week after, if we're lucky.

and the daffodils look lovely today-ay-ay. look lovely today.

that's the cranberries.  youtube it.

spring flower.  not autumn. 

if i just look at enough spring and summer stuff, then maybe it won't be fall yet...

more about fire.

back to my fire experience.

everyone says you either love it or you hate it.  well.  i am apparantly the exception.  there are some things i loved and some things i hated.

loved:

• meeting the new kids on our crew
• working hard but at something completely different than we have been working on all summer
• the weirdo games that everyone made up to pass the time

hated:

• camping
• when the fire was burning pretty good and the smoke would blow in my face and i would kind of panic because i couldn't breathe
• all the burritos
• pooping in the woods

but they sort of end up evening out.  i can deal with camping and nature pooping i guess.

a PRESENT!!

my favorite auntie in the world gave me this gorgeous little thing! 

it's so perfect - so european, so audrey.

i'm still deciding where to hang it up...i'll let you know as soon as i do!

viewer's discretion is advised... aka. pooping in the woods

i pooped in the woods for the first time EVER on this fire. 
i didn't want to. 
but ryan told me it was "majestical" and i needed to experience it. 
wellllll...i'm all for trying things once, so i felt sort of obligated to try it out...

everyone was coaching me, telling me the best...techniques:  sitting against a rock, sitting against a tree - aspens are best, sitting on a log, the list was endless.

i was so dreading it. 

i hiked probably close to 16 miles so i could be sure that no one was going to walk up on me while i was in the middle of things.  then i started looking for...anything, really.  i came to a big rock, so i told myself, ok.  deep breath.  you can do this.
so i pull down my pants and sit against the giant rock like a wall sit. 
no way.  i'm gonna like poop on my shoe or something. 
on to the next location.
aspen tree was next.  same issue as the rock.  plus my legs were tired by then from wall sitting.
guess it's going to be a log. 
i tried to think of when my sissy was little and her and our cousin learned how to poop on a log and they thought it was really fun and exciting.
this can be fun and exciting.  pooping on a log.
suffice it to say, it was not fun and exciting.  or majestical.  mostly it was very cold and i felt like all the animals were judging me because i wasn't good at pooping in the woods.  i was also scared the whole time that someone was going to walk in (?) on me.
but i did it. 
i forgot to tell you about etiquette. apparantly you're supposed to dig a hole and then cover it up when you're done. so after doing that like a billion times - digging holes, that is, i was definitely not impressed with the whole experience.
but what can i say?  one step closer to becoming a real firefighter. 

the end.

AFIREAFIREAFIIIRREE!!!!!!! A REAL OONNNEEE!!!

i just got back from 5 1/2 days on a FFIIIIIIRRRREEEEEE!!!!  it was just a few miles into colorado and laramie was the first crew there!  it started out as 10 acres (one acre is almost the exact size of one football field, that's what they told me because i can never visualize the size...) and then the second day it was pretty windy and there were a lot of spots that started burning, so with all the spots and the main fire, it ended up about 50 acres, i believe. 
anyways.
so much line to dig (like making a trail so the fire can't get out...)
so much gridding around the line - climbing through giant sage brush and juniper and spider webs looking for spots
so much mopping up - with and without hose.  (also.  i carried 300 feet of hose up a cliff.  had my man muscles on for sure.  ok it wasn't actually a cliff, but it was pretty dang steep.)
a few naps
a few crazy games
a lot of snacks
waaaaaaay too many burritos...

this is thursday morning.  we are in a "safety stand-down" and so we can't cut down trees with our saws, so we have to let the machines cut down the trees and then we pick up after them. 

so we were waiting for the machines to finish so we could do some work...

brian, johnny, booker, ME

i was booker's model for his "rule of thirds".  he says he's a photographer.  jay is in the background.  we were having the hopefully one time annual fuels crew woodchopper's jamboree.  we were having races cutting down trees with axes since we couldn't use our saws.

i cut the smallest tree and it took me 8 minutes.  i lost.

duh duhduh daaaa!....THE FIRE!!  we are all gearing up to go down the mountain to the fire to start digging line

johnny, ME, jay, logan booker, kotula

(left to right - not closest to furthest...)

unfortunately for you (ok, ok, me too), i didn't have my camera with me - i don't take it to work because i tend to break those kinds of things - so no action pictures.  there were so many photography moments too.  i'll be honest, i'm a little sad.  but next time.  i'll have it next time.

chronic lying.

can you see what it is??

it's a WHALE!! 

i found it while i was sweeping the shop the other morning!  one of our trucks has lost its transmission or something, so it is in the shop, and we don't all fit in the fuels truck, so jay, who seems to support segregation - of claire from the rest of the crew, that is - was true to form and told me "uh, claire? why don't you, uh, hang out and, uh, come up with weston?"  he pretends it's a question, but i totally see through him!

so while weston was doing paperwork/computer stuff, i swept the shop and the cache?/cashe?/cash? (HOW DO YOU EVEN SPELL THAT NONSENSE WORD!?!) and took the trash out.  and when i was sweeping the shop i looked down, and there was a little friendly whale in the cement! so i took a little photo with my trusty phone. 

which i had to go hunt down, because i do not normally keep it with me when i am working.  just fyi.

also.  i seemed to have developed a case of chronic lying. 

some kid from the rec crew came in and asked if i was holding down the fort today.

me:  ya, i mean, i'm the only one responsible enough, craig said, and someone had to be here in case of any emergencies, so they chose me.  obviously.

kid:  ......

another kid from the rec crew came in and asked why i got sweeping duty.

me:  i'm just waiting for weston.  he has to fill out some paperwork for a background check that they're doing on him

kid:  really?  why does he need a background check?

me:  oh you didn't know?  he was in jail for a while.  he's a Real criminal.

kid:  wow...he doesn't look like a real criminal...

me:  i know.  those are the ones that always seem to get you!

before the other engine left, i told bones to make weston let me drive.  (it's much funner driving an engine than a normal truck)  so he told me to say that craig said i had to drive.  so i did.  and weston let me drive.

then we got to our project area and everyone was like

CLAIRE WHY ARE YOU DRIVING THE ENGINE?!?!

me:  i had to, craig said.

them:  why? that's stupid.

me:  well, weston's not allowed to drive right now.

them: why?

weston:  ??

me:  he's on probation.

them: what? why??

weston:  ?????

me:  well, he dented the bumper and so craig doesn't want him to drive right now, so he said i have to drive.

them:  ....

weston:  ????????  what? i dented the bumper?  *look of pure confusion*

me: *walk off and let them wonder.  or actually probably just talk trash, but what can you do?*

fun day, what can i say?  and then i had to go to a barbeque with them.... i didn't stay very long.

house painting

i love house painting.  i don't know why.  and so this lady that my mamacita works with has recruited me to paint trim in their house.  so far i've done about 7 hours, and am still on the same room of highlighter blinding green.  i see spots.  i dream in radioactive green. 
but it's kind of fun.
they have 3 little boys and the younger two, devin and rory (3 and 7 i believe? preschool and 2nd grade...) are my newest friends.  yesterday they talked to me a bit, but today they hung out in the room i was painting and told me stories and shared their ice breakers (watermelon flavor) with me and helped me move my paint can and ladder around the room.  they told me all about their grandparents' really fast cars:  mustangs, and t birds and fire birds...
rory, the little guy told me

know how much my first mustang is gonna go?  a hundred billion googa megatron.  plus a zero. it's gonna be so fast.

they are adorable.

IT WORKED!!!

i don't know what i did when i tried it the first time but now it seems to be working!! 
i'm going to seem so responsbile now - one a day for 4 days before the 2 weeks that i go without, instead of 4 in one day and then 2 weeks without.

do you know.  i have a friend that may or may not be (i really like to say "may or may not") slightly obsessive compulsive.  ocd, if you need to see it like that to feel it's a psychological disorder. 
i think mostly obsessive.  because technically, when you are/have ocd, you have these strange obsessions, some common ones are that you're going to die, or your house will burn down, or a family member will die, and so you develop these compulsions to prevent your obsession(s) from actually occurring.  some of those are like locking every window in the house and then checking every window 7 times each, or like flicking the light on and off 13 times to make sure they are off.
anyways.  i'm pretty sure she's just obsessive.  she likes order very much - like if you have a row of pencils on your desk all in a line and one is just barely skewed, it will make her insane.  or if you take your sticks of gum out of the pack nonsymmetrically.  and another one is if you are writing and mix letter numbers with number numbers.  like i just did.  you know "4 in one day"?  well i used to work with her, and it made me laugh, so i would do those on purpose, just to make her suffer. 
hey, i'll either cure her, or...or....or i guess i won't... but no worries - she's a tough girl!!

i may or may not know how to use my very own blog...

it's looking more and more like "may not"
big sissy just told me about "scheduling posts" so if you write 17 at a time you can schedule them to be posted like tomorrow or the next day...
i tried to do it today and it didn't work.
so now i am trying again....
i'm writing it on the 9th at 8 10.  pm that is.
reeeeeaaaaaddy......GO.

funny blogs

you know how most blogs have a little list on the side that shows what blogs they read? 
well pj's has one, and mine sort of has one, but not really, and almost all of them do - you just have to pay attention.
anyways.  while i was drinking water and juice today, and between reading my amazing book - i have not had much of an attention span today - i have been finding new blogs to read. 
my blog list in my favorites is getting huge. 

here are some of my new favorites:
steam me up, kid
the oatmeal
27 b slash 6
whiteboard unicorns
buttersafe

and some old (ish/er) favorites:
pj, of course
nectar and light (good photography)
i am your canadian boyfriend
natalie dee
toothpaste for dinner
married to the sea
hark! a vagrant

anyways...if you are ever in need of something to do...

being sick.

being sick sucks.  to put it bluntly.  not that anyone doesn't know this.  i got to work this morning feeling like my stomach was twisting itself up like a twisty tie and getting ready to rip it's own self out.  needless to say, i dropped johnny off and came home to bed.  but i am all slept out. 
(there is a word in german that means to sleep until you can't sleep anymore - i think it might be ausschlafen, but i'm not sure...but i really like that word.  wish i could remember...)
so i've been trying to read and do some internetting to keep my mind of things...

i'm reading Sunshine, which is probably one of my very favorite books, and i read it every summer.
and i found this little site from hyperbole and a half, and i have been playing the bubble game.  it's pretty fun.

also.  this morning i had a little flashback, i guess you could call it.  i was walking down the stairs and i smelled my strawberry shortcake's muffins.  they were scratch and sniff.  or something.  but they smelled good.  and so i had this little memory of playing underneath the dining room table with strawberry shortcake and her muffins.

more squirrels...sigh

remember the time when i was telling you how there was a squirrel living on my roof? and it would wake me up every morning scratching around? no?  well there was.  a squirrel. 
(there seems to be a lot of squirrel issues lately...)
anyways.  this morning when i woke up, it sounded like a large puppy was running around up there.  i have no idea what it could of been, but it sounded way too huge to be a squirrel!
i just hope that it doesn't grow and then like fall through my roof.  it's really hard to get maintenance to come work on stuff...

my sister: the jerk! hahahaha

sometimes my sister is kind of a meanie.  AND she's really sneaky about it...!  she sent my daddy this really nice father's day card:

but then you look at the inside and it's like whoa.  "my daughter is #1" eh?  well.

and then you look further and you see that she thought that this is something that I would of got for him!!!

so she signed it from me before she signed it from her!!!!

for your information, big sister, this is the card i got my dad for father's day!

you see how sweet i am?  now he knows that i listen to and learn from everything he ever says!!!

squirrels vs. chickmunks vs. me

my sister just said to me:  are the killer chickmunks as entertaining as squirrels that play chase?
and i said:  no not really. just scaredy cats. but they had devil eyes.
and she said:  i was just wondering if they were crazy (and some other stuff)

but that's not the story.

the story is. 

once upon a time when my sister was in college and i was in high school i came to visit her.  and we went for a walk in the park.  and i saw a squirrel by a tree and i was all "i'm gonna chase that squirrel!"  because i thought it would just run away and that would be that.  so i ran up to it and it climbed the tree to eye level - my eye level, that is, which was probably at about 5'2"  then (if i was 5'4.75" - possibly? ((don't worry - now i'm close to 5'6" - that's what they told me the last time i went to the doctor))  anyways.  not important.  the squirrel was by my face.  and i ran around the tree and it just went around the tree too.  and when i would stop it would like peek around like "na na nana naaa naaaa!! can't catch me claire turtle!!!*" and it just never ran away.  it turned into this whole ridiculous "squirrel teasing girl" instead of "girl teasing squirrel", like it should've been, and Would've been for any other person in the world. (i almost said "for any normal person", but then i realized what that would mean for me!!).

this whole ridiculousness was really no big deal and my sister and i laughed about it and i forgot about it.  and then she told allllll her friends, so next time i came to visit everyone was making fun of me about it.  those were the days before i was immune to people making fun of me so i was really barrassed!

*claire turtle used to be one of my nicknames. alicia was my neighborhood best friend when we were smallish and nicole was her older sister and i was always late getting ready and eating slow and never on time and all that so she always called me claire turtle. even in high school. i think she's married now... irrelevent, but what can i say?


the other story is.

when i lived in my first apartment, my sophomore year, the laundry was in a different building, so you had to go outside to get to it.  one day i was going to do laundry and i walked out the door and there was a squirrel in the grass.  straight in my path.  i stopped and looked at it, and i was all "aw it's so cute, look at it's little ears and it's fluffy tail!"  i was feeling a little nervous, i won't lie, because you always hear those squirrel rabies stories.  or ok, maybe you don't, but i sometimes make up squirrel rabies scenarios, just to be on the safe side... so naturally, squirrel rabies was the second thing that popped into my head.  but i wanted to be brave and show mr. nutty-brains-potentially-rabid who was boss.  well, when i started walking towards him, he started running at me!  not away, like any normal squirrel would do.  so then i was all "uh, definitely a case of rabies, better go around" so i went to go around him.  and he started running at me again! so i ran the other way.  he chased me again!  What In The World?!?!  by that time i was like getting Really nervous because something was definitely wrong with mr. nutty-brains-most-definitely-rabid and he was looking less "look at his cute ears and fluffy tail!" and more "look at his red eyes and foaming mouth!!!".  so i decided that i was just going to have to be Really brave and run really fast and try to get by.  so i took a deep breath, screamed as loud as i could, and ran by him.  mr. rabid-nutty-brains didn't move an inch.  i turned around and there was this girl standing on the sidewalk just staring at me...
don't worry.  by that time i was more immune to people's reactions to me so i just smiled and waved and walked off and pretended to not be embarrassed - and wasn't even really that embarrassed. 

this seems to be becoming less a story of squirrels and more a chronology of me forgetting how to get embarrassed when i do really weird/stupid/outrageous things... like the time (this summer) when i went grocery shopping at safeway and i was really happy because ferdinand's radio was working and my favorite song was on so i was sitting in the parking lot singing really loud and car dancing really outrageously until the song was over.  then i got out and realized that the car parked in front of me was full of boys who were just staring at me in confusion? disbelief? something... but did i bat an eye?  not a chance.  just got on with my shopping.  i can't decide whether this is a good or a bad thing...

anyways.  back to the squirrels and chickmunks.  the squirrels were nuts. (haha - like that pun?) the chickmunks were not. 

the end.

i wasn't keeping time

a while ago we went on a picnic/barbeque at veedauwoo (vee-dah-vooo, member?) and i was supposed to go on a bike ride with my dad but instead i slept for a very long time (or maybe only a little while...not really sure, since i was the one sleeping, and probably someone else was the one keeping time) but i slept in the truck.  and then i woke up and we ate some food and drank some wine and then it was getting mosquito-y out, so we went back home.

this was also the time we saw the killer chickmunks.
the end.

i don't really like birds

as you may or may not know...
but.
i do like this bird - probably only because it's from calvin and hobbes.

and probably because he's singing and i like to sing.