phantom scorp

About two weeks ago, I was stung by a scorpion. Unfortunately, this could have been avoided (if I had a sassy gay friend). I was late for work for some reason, so I rushed into my room and threw my feet in my shoes without looking at them (keep in mind these were flip flops, so I really should have noticed this). Some little scorpion decided that my sandal was a better home for him than my foot, and had taken up a residence there. I stuck my foot in the shoe and he promptly stung my toe. I then flipped out, kicked the shoe off my foot, and in turn sent the scorp skyrocketing through my room. When all was said and done, I never actually saw the scorpion. But one does not mistake a scorpion sting for something else, so I knew what had happened.

This would have been a super dramatic event had I not been stung before. This was just a tiny little sting on my foot, the last time I got stung the scorp crawled into my bed (!) and stung me twice on the leg while I was sleeping. It literally felt like someone was trying to rip my leg off while simultaneously burning it and cutting it into a million pieces. The best part was that I couldn't miss anymore of my classes, so I had to trudge around school the whole next day feeling like I was walking on a bed of nails every time I took a step. Needless to say, this whole flip flop incident was not as bad as the scorp in bed debacle.

However, I never did find the scorp. I scoured the carpet in my room and looked all over the hallway, it just wasn't there. I began to question if I had actually gotten stung. The pain in my foot and the fact that my entire leg was numb made it pretty obvious that I was, but where was this scorpion?! We all looked for the stupid thing and no one could find it. It was a phantom scorp. Eventually we all forgot about it, mainly because I don't think my family believed me.

Yesterday, I had just come in from the pool and needed to start getting ready to go out. I grabbed my clothes and headed into the bathroom to shower. I turned around to turn my ipod on & this is what I saw on my iHome.

THE SCORP

It was humongous! I was sure it was the one had stung me in my shoe, and the worst thing was that it had been living in my bathroom for two weeks. I gasped, and my first reaction was to look away. I looked back .0000000001 seconds later and the thing was GONE. The phantom scorp strikes again. Madelyn & I threw numerous shoes at the iHome but it was nowhere to be found. Naturally, I had to take a shower upstairs. Eventually, my mom came home & found it underneath the iHome. It was then squished with a shoe & flushed down the toilet.

Take that scorp!

cheers,

lauren

Livin' Like Larry

Last weekend our family decided to take a trip to San Diego. Since I'm moving to Boston and Cayla is going to Europe, it was our only chance to take a family vacation this summer. While in San Diego, we went to the beach and of course Hodad's in Ocean Beach. We all ate way too much, but it's hard not to.

that makes me feel sick. but it is necessary to engulf your entire cheeseburger, onion rings, and fries because they're so fricken delicious. Anyways, the next day, after we recovered from our food comas we decided to head over to SeaWorld. We hadn't been there in like 7 years, and to be honest, not much had changed.

We went to the Shamu show, which was pretty cool. I was unaware that there are like 5 shamus. The show was good, but not as great as we remember. They had to stop doing all the really cool tricks after Shamu "played" with one of the trainers for too long at the bottom of the tank. 

elegant

One of the worst things that happened to us while we were there was the dolphin show. Right now, Cirque de Soleil is doing a show at SeaWorld with this really cool stage in the marina. Unfortunately, there was a Latin music festival going on, so they were using that stage. Cirque de Soleil was displaced to the dolphin show. Basically, we watched a lady dressed as a macaw swing around the stage and two very unhappy men disguised as vultures bounce around on trapezes and plunge into the freezing cold water. It was hard for us to decipher who were the acrobats and who were the actual trainers. It was quite obvious that the dolphins were about as into it as we were.

Overall, there was about 30 seconds of dolphin action. We think that SeaWorld should consider changing the name and description about their show.

After the horrendous experience at the "dolphin" show, we decided to try the aquariums at the other side of the park. While on our way over there, we ran into Larry Fitzgerald from the Arizona Cardinals.

Yes, we took that at SeaWorld. We actually didn't get a picture with him because we didn't want to be "annoying fans". But, that didn't stop us from getting a pic with the next celebrity we ran into.

that's right, d-trix from america's best dance crew and formerly of quest crew, who won season 3. I'm pretty sure he was more excited about getting recognized & getting his picture with us than we were. Cayla was more excited about that giant seal he was holding for his girlfriend while she was in the bathroom. Cayla was also too sunburnt to be photographed.

We were at SeaWorld for TEN HOURS. We finally decided it was time to grow up and go home. Of course we had to stop at the gift shop first. That's when Cayla found this:

This isn't SeaWorld, this is as real as it gets?

cheers,

lauren & cayla

I took Chemistry because I wanted to set stuff on fire

I may try to tell you other reasons, but, in truth, I just wanted to watch stuff explode. I had a vision of multi-colored liquids boiling over bunsen burners in glass beakers and making stuff blow up. Little did I know that my year in chemistry would mostly entail math equations and labs with the excitment level of watching ice melt (one of my labs was actually watching ice melt, which is even more boring when your hot plate is not on.) The year is coming to an end and my chem final is on Friday, so we are mostly reviewing now. One thing we are reviewing is limiting reactants, which I can tell you absolutely nothing about because I do not remember it in the least. Although, I did find my notes on that subject today while digging through a giant pile of history notes looking for my Spanish vocabulary, which I also found. Anyway, we didn't do the lab for limiting reactants because my teacher's wife was "having a baby" or some other nonsense like that. So, today my teacher was like "we are finally going to do the lab today because it is the only fun one ever!!" (He may not have said that last part). The lab is called The Methane Bubble Lab (ooooooh it already sounds exciting).

It is basically just mixing up soapy water in a petri dish, sticking a tube connected to the main gas line into the water, making bubbles and setting it on fire. It is so simple, yet the best thing in the entire world. The best part about the whole thing is that we didn't have to do any work attached to it, we just got to set stuff on fire!

Okay, I lied, there is an even better part to this whole thing. You can put the soapy water in you hands and set that on fire. That is definitely the best part.

some noob other than myself doing the lab

I stole this from some random photography site and it saved on my computer as "copyrighted picture" so I will probably get sued for posting this. Here is the link to the site if you feel so inclined to view this picture "legally." It also has instructions to do the lab, so if you would like to do some super awesome chemistry, you totally can. Just let me know if you can find a source of methane gas, I will bring the soap.

Cheers,
Cayla

poetry.

If you haven't noticed, Cayla's been neglecting the blog a little bit. She claims this is due to the fact that she's "studying" for "finals", but who actually knows. I'm sure she'll get annoyed when she reads this and then create some post that will put all my little entries to shame. until then,

I had a few ideas for what to write but I'm not really interested in any of them anymore. Basically, my horoscope in Cosmopolitan told me to move across the country and prepare for a wild summer. like omg that's so my lyfe. and also tonight the moon is almost full, which means I won't get much sleep. I can never sleep when there's a full moon. This one website says that happens to a lot of people, but no one knows why. That site also quotes Wikipedia & an European study where 8% of 400 people couldn't sleep during full moons as sources. The internet is always reliable.

The school semester is officially over and all of my grades are almost in. I have to say so far I feel completely neutral about them- I got an A in my law class, but a C in Art History 101. Don't ask me how that happens. I guess it's just a sign that I should reconsider minoring in Art History. Obviously it's not going to do me any good unless I plan on becoming the next Queen of England (William & Kate are both Art History majors for those of you that don't live vicariously through them like I do). This semester has left me questioning if I really want to concentrate on literature with my major. There are a few of my textbooks that I wanted to burn after reading millions and millions of pages from them. What I do know, however, is that I do not want to be a creative writing major because I hate being criticized on things I write. The only person that should be able to hate and criticize something is the person that wrote it, unless it's thousands of years later & a girl is staying home on the weekends reading your terrible piece of writing and she wants to burn the textbook by the end of the semester.

Last fall, I took a poetry class. The professor was a pretty established poet and the teaching assistant was great. It was set up with a lecture once a week, and a small group discussion later in the week. Overall it was a really good class, and I hated it. I read over the poems I wrote for that class now, and I still get the pain in my head and the sick feeling in my stomach that one acquires when encountering something really really terrible. How I managed an A- in that class is completely mind-boggling. Sure, I can fill up a page with a lot of descriptive words and unnecessary commas, but when it comes to "stanzas" and "rhythm", I'm at a total loss. I don't even think a thesaurus could create words horrendous enough to describe my poetry.

I guess it wouldn't be fair to say that all my poetry is completely horrific. Once, while Cayla and I were on a writing kick, she wrote a poem about how we got famous for writing a book and went on Oprah. Jake Gyllenhaal was a surprise guest during our interview, but I was too sick to make it so Cayla just got to hang out with him. What a sister, right? So I wrote a poem to her about how I would kill her if that happened and she's just jealous that I saw him first. Unfortunately, both of those poems have been tragically misplaced.

On that same night, Cayla wrote a poem called "Ode to A Little Fish" or something of that nature. It's on her bulletin board upstairs, but I'm sure if she feels the need she'll post it. While she was doing that, I whipped up a few haikus that are bound to be instant classics.

this one is about sloane:

fat rat

fuzzy bug-eyed freak

the rat is gelatinous

she inhales her treats

I also wrote about the fish:

fish

floating in the tank

they never do anything

but float in the tank

So yeah, those are only mildly vile instead of completely heinous like my poetry for school. I really just want to go through and delete them all from my computer and memory in general, but I'm too afraid of becoming extremely ill at just glancing at them again. Maybe I'll keep them around in some hidden folder so I can look at them someday in the future when I need a laugh. Maybe I'll wait until I'm on my deathbed and publish them. Then, they can keep some kid in on the weekends reading his life away and wanting to burn the textbook by the end of the semester. the vicious cycle of literature.

yes, I only said that so I could post that picture.  I found it on stumbleupon, which has taken over a good part of my time. I also found this:

I guess a blog isn't the appropriate place to post that, but I found it on a blog so someone else made the mistake first. So, now that you've read this entirely pointless entry, go read a book to make yourself feel smarter. Just not a poetry book.

cheers,

lauren

summer nights

Right now I'm sitting on the couch watching mindless television & the only tabs open on my computer are this, facebook, and stumbleupon. I'm eating a resee's peanut butter egg from my easter basket and Pebble is harassing me. the best part about all of this is that I have NOTHING else to do except put aloe on the sunburn that I acquired while laying out by the pool today. basically, this can only mean one thing.

It's summertime

that is the only summertime-looking picture that I could find. I obviously need to go to the beach more. Speaking of, we're going to San Diego next weekend. Weather.com say it's like 66 degrees there, but I'm still going to the beach. I need to be as tan as possible before I go to Boston so people will actually believe that I'm from Arizona. Am I the only one that thought of that scene from Twilight? (probably)

anyways, a few months or so ago there was a big storm and Cayla and I sat outside for most of it. We got a ton of blankets and set up a little nest on the chairs on our porch. of course we were quickly joined by our two dogs, who acted as little heaters for our cold feet. basically we just sat outside drinking apple cider, watching the rain, and petting our dogs. 

I thought of that day because it was such a great day when we had nothing, and hopefully the next few weeks of summer will be like that too! Then Cayla will be off to Europe & I'll be on my way to Boston!

Alright, I'm ending this post because I keep getting distracted by shiny objects.

cheers to the best summer ever,

lauren

I'm moving to Boston.

If you haven't noticed, Cayla & I are kind of obsessed with Boston. I mean, it's hard not to be, but our last few entries have been based on the city. but anyways, on with the best news ever

I'M MOVING THERE

surprise, I'm only moving for two months, but it still counts. Having a new place to come home to for more than three weeks equates moving. Besides, I might fall in love even more with the city and not be able to leave (just kidding, I already signed a lease for next semester). I'm so excited to be city living and listen to Ladies of Cambridge by vampy weeks on repeat. I'm going to be working at Boston University in the chemistry department, which is perfect for me considering I've failed chemistry twice. Fortunately I'll just be answering phones and such, so hopefully they won't be relying on me to do chemistry things. I'm staying with my aunt & uncle that I stayed with last summer, and so far they've planned some pretty awesome weekend trips. I'm getting my passport tomorrow so I can go to Montreal. 

I'm pretty sure this is going to add up to the best summer ever. You know when influential people write magazine articles about themselves and how they grew up to be so inspiring they always start the story like "When I was 20 I moved to New York City on a whim". Hopefully this will be my spontaneous little movement, and the two months spent in Boston will deliver me a new person to Tempe in the fall. Last summer my Boston trip was fantastic, and I was only there for four days. Who knows what kind of trouble I can get into in two whole months? 

I'm off to pick up my passport pictures. Wooo Canada!

cheers,

lauren