My superpower is AAA

It's true. Just the other day I got to rescue Cowboy Sam from missing his bus out to see Elaina by calling AAA to get him into his truck, inside which he had locked both his keys and his suitcase. We only realized the full potency of these powers a few weeks ago, when I had to summon AAA to break into my own car in the Old Market of Omaha, where I had locked the keys inside. I think the power to summon friendly, competent people who acknowledge your foolishness without thinking badly of you is quite amazing. Still, I'd rather I could fly.

-Kim

Grr!

Apparently the offices at Simmons College have decided that they should be closed today as well as tomorrow for the holiday. That means I have to wait until Monday to ask someone why I still haven't received my financial aid letter. Aggravation ensues.

Time for a change

You may have noticed the change in the appearance of this blog. I decided that, after more than three years, it was time to change things up and try a different template. After all, everything else in my life is changing.

I was looking online today to see about plane tickets to Boston. Scary thought. My departure is becoming more and more real, and I'm finally beginning to feel the long-expected resistance to change ingrained inside me working its way out to try and make me regret my decision to leave South Dakota so far behind me. Don't take that the wrong way. I'm thrilled to be going to Simmons, and excited to be living in Boston, it's just that it's starting to scare me, and I wish it wasn't quite so far from the safety of South Dakota. Katie, the thought of you meeting me at the airport on August 29 is the only thing right now that makes this trip seem doable. Thanks again.

So what else is happening besides the realization of inevitable change? Work is pretty good, even though yesterday was far too hot a day to spend working outside. My boss is due any day now so by next week I expect her to be on maternity leave. Although, the fact that she's still working as hard as ever while she's ready to pop would indicate she'll be back on the job sooner than any new mother probably ought to be. Oh, and yesterday we had an unusual blessing. While Emily and I were driving the gator back from a piece of work we had to do outside the park, we found little pieces of paper strewn across the road halfway up the hill. Picking them up, we discovered them to be coupons to Taco John's. There were 114 of them. (Yes, I counted them.) So now I can get one dollar off a purchase of at least five dollars as many times as I want for the rest of the summer. Sweet deal.

During this, my last summer in Sioux Falls, I've decided to try to get to all the places that I've never been. The length of the list is rather shocking. Although, in the past few weeks, I've accomplished quite a few of them, all of them being eating establishments, of course. I finally got to Red Rosa, the shiny diner downtown, Buffalo Wild Wings, Nick's Gyros and HuHot. I know, it's a travesty that I've been in town for four years without making it to those places, but there are certain things that don't fit well in a college student's budget, such as eating out at a place that doesn't have a 99 cent value menu.

And Monday was Sherwin's birthday. It was a great day, because I got to spend most of it with him. It's great that he has a job now, but the hours don't match up with mine very well. Well, that and the fact that he is helping to destroy America and modern civilization as we know it by working at Wal-Mart, but I let that part slide. ;) Anyway, we took advantage of the fact that we both had the day off and saw a matinee of WALL-E before heading out to Lennox to grill out with his family and friends. WALL-E was great. Hooray for robots in love! And now I have songs from Hello Dolly running through my head. A spoiler is probably necessary to explain that statement. While WALL-E is alone on Earth, compacting trash and developing a personality, he watches the musical Hello Dolly every night, and a few of the songs are played throughout the movie. I felt like such a nerd for being able to identify the opening music. But, a nerd I am and ever more shall be. You can hardly be anything else and work in a library.

Well, I'm off to another day of weeding and sweating. I'll try to not wait so long before the next post.

-Kim

June? Already?

I started writing a different post, but it was getting rather melodramatic, so I tried again.

How is it that I could go an entire month without posting? I feel lame. I suppose it's because all I seem to do is work and sleep. And the few hours I have between those two activities are spent seeing my friends as much as possible. Also, I've just been lazy. And last weekend I was unable to do anything because I was laid up with strep throat. Not the best way to spend a weekend, let me tell you. And I was supposed to work that weekend, so I missed three days of getting paid for doing almost no real work.

I'd like to say that I love my job. My coworker Emily hates it, but that's because she was under the impression that it was a real job. It's totally not, and that's why I love it. There's never enough work to keep us busy all eight hours we're at the park, and in the downtime I get a lot of books read. Last summer I finished editing my book while at work. And when there is work to do, it's never that hard, and I tend to make a game out of every task. Even picking up litter is fun when you turn it into polo by using the grabber to pick up the trash without stopping the gator. So really, I get paid to play outside. How cool is that? I have a new boss this summer, though. Her name is Abby and she's very pregnant. She's due next month. It's crazy how many girls work in our park. Overall, there seem to be more guys working in the parks, just not in mine.

So on Monday I'll be missing another day of work. Dianna and I will be driving Jason down to Omaha to catch a flight to Afghanistan, where he will be flying humanitarian missions for the next six weeks. Crazy, huh? We're gonna make a day of it and do some shopping before we come back. Then, next weekend we'll be off to Gregory to visit Clay. Good times. This means my work week will be only three days long, but I think I can live with that.

Last night after work Sherwin and I went to The Incredible Hulk. It was pretty good. I'm still annoyed that they chose Liv Tyler to play the girlfriend (that's all she ever plays), but here character did redeem herself by the end and almost made up for her pathetic first few scenes. The part in South America was especially good, and I think it set the tone for the rest of the movie as a pretty straightforward action flick. Although, the best part may have been Tony Stark showing up at the end. Apparently they remade the Hulk movie so that they could have a viable character for some crossover plots, in the grand tradition of the superhero comic books. We'll see how long it takes for the crossover movie to be made, but it will be interesting to see what they do. It is the sort of prospect that has the potential to be either very good, or absolutely terrible. We pray they do it well.

The writing of this post has been cut off unexpectedly by an invitation to wander downtown with my roommate. More to follow later.

I'm a nerd

So yesterday was rather eventful. Sherwin and I have been dating for an entire month now, so we went out for Coldstone ice cream and ate it at the falls, which was where we ended up on our first date, so I suppose that's rather appropriate. I had honestly lost track of the exact date, which made it extra sweet that he didn't want the day to pass by without us doing something special. (Sorry if this is too cheesy for some of my readers. I'll try not to ramble on too much about how amazing my boyfriend is.) Then as we were leaving the park, he gave me another surprise, not quite so welcome. He decided that I should learn how to drive a stick shift, and that he was going to teach me right there and then. Probably not the best location, since there were stoplights and a few other cars around, and I definitly killed the car in an intersection more times than I would like to admit. So we gave up on that and drove out to the country so I could practice on empty roads. I actually got the hang of it pretty quickly out there, where there were no other cars to freak me out. I think I may have even forgiven him for asking me to drive in town. We'll see.

Yesterday afternoon I hung out with Dianna. We ended up at B&N, where I further embraced my nerdiness by drooling over books that I would love to read but probably shouldn't spend money on right now. So that you can understand just how nerdy I was being, here are some titles I wrote down as a "wish list":

The Library at Night - Alberto Manguel

The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus - Joshua Kendall

Writers [on Writing]: Collected Essays from the New York Times

Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales

Poetry Collections:
-John Donne
-T.S. Eliot
-Emily Dickinson

As you can see, most of this list was compiled at a single shelf in the back of the store located by the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section. I would have also included a Pratchett, but, alas, his most recent installment, Making Money, is not yet available in paperback.

Not that I have time to read at the moment anyway, but graduation is less than two weeks away. And considering how many books I got read at my park job last year, I should be able to make substantial progress on whatever reading list I manage to put together for myself.

Oh yeah, I finally got my graduation party invitations in the mail today. That was a weird feeling. Lately I've been either ignoring or living in outright denial of the passing of time. But I can't do that anymore, can I? The future is coming, and I had best get myself ready for it. Soon I will have to become--horror!--an independant adult.

-Kim