Happy Spring in Oregon Friday

I am in a committed love/hate relationship with Spring in Oregon.  Earlier this week when I woke up and made my LONG journey to work, I drove along a street lined with happy little daffodils.

The morning after our angry slushy snow, those same daffodils just looked droopy and a little defeated.

The hate part of my relationship with Oregon can be summed up pretty easily:

H₂O

The love part of my relationship with Spring in Oregon comes from the fact that you just can’t beat how green it is here.  We certainly are lucky in that way.  For me it does outweigh the yuck parts of winter and spring.  So, in the midst of the gray and the over abundance of precipitation, remember that very soon, we’ll see a whole lot more of this:

Happy Friday all!

Images from here and here and here.

Happy Beware the Ides of March! Friday

During my Sophomore and Junior years of high school, I had the BEST English teacher.  Mr. West was strange and rebellious.  He played Pink Floyd for us on vinyl, had us write insults about each other on slips of paper and seal them in a jar he hung from the ceiling to “loom over” us for an entire semester. 

But the best thing about Mr. West was the fact that he went out of his way to scare the hell out of us.

When we read Moby Dick, he came to class for that entire unit wearing one white shoe, limping, and yelling at us like Captain Ahab.

The insults in a jar event was intended to teach us that we shouldn’t want to spread rumors about each other after we read The Crucible. (That one didn’t work though.  They may have “loomed,” but we were still 15)

Then there was the time that we read Julius Caesar when Mr. West started telling us to “Beware the Ides of March.” 

It wasn’t until we got to the part in the play when the soothsayer warns Caesar of his own impending death courtesy of his BFF, Brutus on March 15^th (a.k.a. the Ides of March) that we really started to get nervous. 

As it turns out, the “bewaring” was just that we spent weeks being afraid of nothing, but it was admittedly pretty effective for the week leading up to the breathless moment when the bell rang and nothing happened on March 15th.

Happy Ides of March were yesterday Friday everyone!  I hope you bewore (? Bewared?) them.

Image from here.

Happy Oreo Friday!

On March 6^th (Tuesday) the Oreo cookie turned 100 years old!  You can use the link below to read the real, “official,” version of the cookie’s history.

But let’s be honest.  The question that matters is: do you dunk or twist?

Personally, I’m a twister.  When I was a kid, my grandpa taught me how to twist Oreos apart and stick the two sides with the most frosting together to make one giant Awesome-eo.  I certainly inherited my sweet tooth from him.

Celebrate Oreo’s birthday with some serious milk-and-cookie indulgence.  Out of respect for such an important institution, I am officially giving you permission to break whatever cleanse/diet/no sugar thing you are currently working on.

Images from here and here.

http://bites.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10587326-chefs-celebrate-the-oreo-on-its-100th-birthday

Happy (fake) Spring Friday

About a week or so ago a couple of my co-workers were convinced that daylight savings time was happening that very weekend.  We had an entire debate about when spring starts and when we were going to “spring forward.  I think once we used The Google and realized that spring doesn’t actually start for several more weeks, there was a moment of blah.

I think we’re all craving some sun lately.  I know I’m ready for spring.  I would even go so far as to say that I’m going a little crazy for a some sun in the morning and some greenery on the trees.

So, instead, here, have a springing lamb (ha!  punny!).  Let’s hang in there for another 18 days.

Image from here.

Happy Pre-Leap Day Friday

It’s a Leap Year everyone.  On Wednesday, we are getting the “gift” of an extra 24 hours this year.  It sounds like something amazing and lovely and… gift-y.  But reeeeeeeeeally, it’s because when they made our calendar and broke it into 24 hour days and 365 of them in a year, it didn’t break down evenly, so every so often we have to make up for it with an extra day in order to avoid having our calendar “drift”.  Questionable math and planning skills I think.

HOWEVER.

It has me thinking about what I would like to do with an extra 24 hours.  I know that I should plan on doing something like this.  But if I’m honest, I’d rather play this videogame for hours with my roommate while we drink Diet Dr. Pepper and eat popcorn or Baked Ruffles.

Image from here.

Happy Presidents' Day Friday

Really it’s Monday, I know, but this year I actually have something to say about Presidents’ Day.  Apparently, the holiday used to be only about George Washington but is now meant in some states to celebrate multiple presidents.  So I’m going with that definition.

I went to the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for college.  I love my university.  I love being a Fighting Illini and I still bleed orange and blue.  U of I was big and noisy and full of Midwestern behaviors that are odd to me now.  Because Illinois is the “Land of Lincoln,” we had a lot of Lincoln-themed locations on campus.

The one that stands out the most though is Lincoln Hall on the Main Quad.  When you would walk in the front doors, there he was, his skinny, beardy face peering at you from in between a split staircase leading up to the main auditorium.

We took a lot of final exams in Lincoln Hall and would rub his nose for luck as we walked up the worn marble staircases into the auditorium.

Whether his nose was really good luck for us, I don’t know.  I must admit I am a bit superstitious, so I probably would have rubbed his nose anyway.

So for Presidents’ Day, I’d like to say: thank you, Mr. Lincoln, for helping me get solid grades on my Women’s Studies 200 and Survey of American Literature Pre World War I finals sophomore year!

Image from here.

Happy (pre) Valentine's Day Friday

Hello Friday-ers!

Do you remember those silly/sad valentines that you would buy in a box to hand out to all of your classmates in grade school?  The ones you’d tape to boxes of chalky conversation hearts or pieces of off brand chocolates?  I remember having to give one to every kid in class, even the weird kid and the boy who threw rocks.  They got the ugliest valentines from the box though.

I don’t know about you all, but I spent one year trying to make my valentines by hand.  And when I say “by hand,” I mean glue-sticking ugly doilies to red and pink paper, then coloring them in.  Don’t ask me why I had doilies.  I’m sure they belonged to my mother.

Sadly, these were not a hit, nor were they worth the time I spent on them, so from that point on, my classmates got valentines that were mostly Disney or Batman themed.

Happy Valentine’s Day my Friday Friends, from the bottom of my secretly 8 year old heart.

Images from here and here.