Overconfident

Just when you thought it was safe to wear a wrap dress on a warm, spring day ... along comes a good ol' gust of Wyoming wind to unwrap it. On the corner of Fourth and Grand.

At least I shaved my legs today.

Gee, sign me up ...

"Low pay and weird hours await our winning candidate ..."

Where can I apply?

Random on a Wednesday

Sorry, Sev

So ... I finished the final Harry Potter book last night. Oh my freakin' goodness! I had to set the danged book down for stretches at a time just to cry. Sob like a little girl. And what I said earlier about Snape needing a girlfriend ... poor guy. Fantastic book - fantastic series - but I feel emotionally drained as a result. A friend said they almost needed counseling after finishing them.

One bank, so many inept tellers

I went to deposit my cell phone payment in my brother's account ... why he still banks at First Interstate is beyond me. I've encountered so much blatant stupidity there to convince me that my money and sanity would be much safer under my mattress. I write on the checks that they're "For Deposit Only." The checks are written to my brother (a man). I'm a girl (these points are rather important, I think) whose name is clearly very different. I never send ID with them because (drum roll, please) I'm depositing them. I don't fill out deposit slips because a) I don't have to and b) I don't know his account number -- just his SSN, and that's what I write underneath "For Deposit Only" on the back of the checks. It's up to the teller to take it from there. That's their job.

Idiotic Encounter #1 (sometime last year): I (a girl without ID) send a deposit-only check in through the drive-thru. Five minutes later, I get $55 in cash sent back to me. The dingbat had cashed it for someone who's not listed on the account, clearly isn't the owner of the account and didn't have any ID. Don't you feel secure about the safety of your money?

Idiotic Encounter #2 (sometime last year): I sent the deposit-only check in via the drive-thru. The teller calls back, wanting to know how I want the bills. Refer to Idiotic Encounter #1.

Idiotic Encounter #3 (today) -- I send the check, marked for deposit only with my brother's SSN, via the drive-thru (this seems to be my downfall). Thirty seconds later, she sends it back, telling me that I have to fill out a deposit slip. I'm running late as it is, and I wind up having to do this twit's job for her.

Snow. More snow.

Enough, already!! It's beginning to look (and feel) a lot like Christmas, when it should be feeling a lot more like, oh, I dunno -- SUMMER!

Netless

My Internet connection moved out over the weekend (I was, ahem, "borrowing" his signal for a while ...). Crap. Now what?

Random on a Monday

High-tech dining
Laramie has gone high-tech -- more so than I could have imagined: The Cavalryman Super Club is advertising on Facebook. Whoda thunk that they knew what a Facebook was? It was a bit surreal, actually, to see the box there ...

Pricier postage
Postage stamps have gone up in price - again - for those of you who still rely on a group of grouchy people who deliver your neighbor's and/or your mother's mail to your mailbox (while delivering your mail to the guy who lives three floors down), along with fifty pre-approved applications for credit cards that you neither need nor want, while refusing to climb the set of stairs to deliver the Amazon box to your door and instead just leaning it against the wall underneath the bank of mailboxes so anyone can take it ... well, it's going to cost you more to deal with your oh-so-friendly and reliable mailman. Why aren't you all celebrating?

Hello, Texas!
Mom and I head out Saturday for Texas, Liz, Jeff, Linda, and a few others, I'm sure. Should be good!

Oil, water and The Promised Land

Things that just don't mix:

- May 10 and a freakish, one-hour snowstorm worthy of a trip to Oz.
- Flirty, frilly summer sundresses and heavy, woollen winter coats
- Strappy high-heeled sandals and flat-out running across a gravel parking lot, a paved parking lot and a few sidewalks while wearing said frilly, flirty summer sundress and heavy, woollen winter coat during said freakish, one-hour, Oz-worthy snowstorm on May 10 ... It just doesn't go together. Oy -- my cold, aching feet ...

In the meantime ... after graduation, we headed to Fort Collins for a celebratory lunch, since we'd have had to wait an hour anyway (at least) to eat anywhere in Laramie ...

It's amazing -- as soon as you cross the border from Wyoming into Colorado, it's like entering the Promised Land.

Clouds disappear, and the sun shines bright on the lush, green, leafy world. The wind dies down to a light, ruffling breeze. Animals sing by the roadside, swaying kumbaya-style. Little songbirds dress people (just like in the Disney fairytales), coffee baristas are friendly and the cockels of your heart feel a warm, fuzzy glow.

All is right with the world.

Until you head back into Wyoming.

A steely gray curtain hangs menacingly at the border. Snow flies at your windshield in a not-so-welcoming embrace as you climb ever upward in elevation. Squirrels and other wildlife flip you the bird. The wind threatens to fling your car off the highway like a piece of litter. The truck behind you tailgates you for the last 20 miles into town. The shoulder strap on your dress breaks. And your coffee gets burned.

A chance to help

Though governments are unable to get into Myanmar to deliver aid and relief, there are agencies that have people already within the country and are able to mobilize with whatever people are able and willing to give them.

One that I trust is World Vision, which has over 500 people inside the country right now and is able to give relief right now, while the rest of the world is beating its head against a wall trying to deliver such basics as food and clean water ...

Whatever and however you choose to give, this is going to turn into a humanitarian situation similar to what we saw after the 2004 tsunami -- whatever you can give will, I'm sure, be more than welcome.

What an ass

Some moron hits and kills a dog ... then sues the owners for the damage done to his car. Why don't you go steal candy from kids and then sue for hearing damage when the scream about it?

My summer film list

Well, film studios at least try during the summer (Christmas is almost the only other time that offers hope ...)

My want-tos this summer:

"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"
"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2"
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"
"Wall*E"
"Batman: The Dark Knight"
"The X-Files: I Want to Believe"
"The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor"
(though I'm ticked Rachel Weis won't be rejoining the cast)

This fall:
"Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" (~November)
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (~November)

(I've just realized that, with the exception of "Wall*E," all of these are sequels of one kind or another ... so much for my rants against sequels ...)

dream

So ... my dream last night

I was ... somewhere. I'm not sure -- it kind of alternated between a get-together, a conference and a show of some sort. And I think I might have been backstage for a while, too. Or maybe at a school. And I had to send a text message to the priest that this group of people was going to be late. But the only way to send the text message was by tracing metallic, cookie-cutter letters with my finger, which then appeared magically on my face, and the the priest would know, by looking at my face, that this group of people was going to be late. But my mom kept wanting to play with the cookie-cutter letters, and they turned really hot after they had been traced, so I didn't want her to get burned. And every time I looked at my phone, the message still hadn't been sent.

And my friend Janelle was there, and we were getting ready to fly back to California (she's from Virginia ...) to meet her dad, and she was nervous that he wouldn't like her shoes, and I was nervous, because that meant that he wouldn't like me being her friend. And we were at a dance recital, but it had to end early -- like, in the middle of the afternoon -- because there was a group of people coming in for a different event -- the group of people that I was supposed to tell the priest was going to be late. But I'd given up trying to send the text message, so the priest didn't know. But we left anyway. And there were horses. I don't know what they were supposed to be doing.

And the Colorado Avalanche were playing some team in one of the pavillions at CAM-PLEX, and it was supposed to be some big benefit thing, and I could only imagine how the screaming was going to echo in that big, metal building, but there were tickets still available, and I really wanted to go. But I hadn't bought my tickets yet to go see Janelle's dad, and we were supposed to leave that night, and I didn't know how to tell her that I'd really rather watch the hockey game, but it had already started, and we were watching it on TV in a bar.

I think I woke up then ...

Oh, it's Monday

Around town

The "do not walk" hand signal at Fourth and Grand is on its way out, so insted of flashing a warning, it's flipping the bird (all the other fingers have burned out).

I took a much-needed walk about town yesterday - there are (finally) buds on trees (some are leafing!), green lawns and many, many bicycles (sadly, on sidewalks).

Neighborly

My neighbor has abandoned the enjoyment of merely listening to the only CD he owns (Journey) at a wall-thumping volume. He has now taken up the pursuit of howling along with the music and has begun slapping his hands on the counter (wall? floor? who knows ...) in a counter-beat to the music. The end result is that I like the guy even less than I did when he passed out in the hallway, clutching my butter knife after attempting to pick his own lock after he'd locked himself out; even less than I did after his girlfried spent an entire night (she finished around 6 in the morning) screaming at him at the top of her lungs.

Sadly, until this weekend, I actually liked "Faithfully." A lot. He might have ruined it for me.

Pretty toes

For an early birthday present, Kristie met me in Casper this weekend and treated me to a pedicure before we met up with her aunt, uncle and cousin for lunch at an adorable restaurant called Eggington's. (The Florentine benedict is de-LISH).

So now I have pretty, pretty pink toes; soft, smooth feet; and even more excuse to wear sandals. Hurray for sandals!

Snape needs a girlfriend

I haven't finished all the Harry Potter books yet, but I can't help but think that so much of this nastiness could have been avoided had Professor Snape merely had a girlfriend. Someone to buy flowers for, someone to daydream about a bit ... someone to bring some pretty into his life ...