Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Cat Cake

Erin and I, as psychology department foster children, held a birthday celebration for Dr. Julie Osland's birthday. New SSAC work study student Lindsey helped us to make the cake...which was nothing short of spectacular.


Lucifer Cake:

The Final Display:

Post consumption!
PS. Playing Catchphrase with Wheeling Jesuit's psychology department is amazingly ridiculous.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

High School Reunion vs Fantasy Football

Last weekend, Labor Day Weekend, after a ridiculously busy work week I ventured home for a few reasons:
1. My 5 year Canon McMillan high school reunion
2. Cookout at Dad's


The Reunion
I am unsure how or when it happened, but I often take the responsibility of "getting everyone together" within my hometown group o' chums. Now, I love this responsibility but this time was a bit more difficult than usual. I am very intrigued by reactions when a "high school reunion" comes up. Most people appear to groan in some fashion. Of the top of my head, I assume this could be for a couple reasons: 1: Wow. Time flies. A high school reunion reminds us of how long ago we were 18: Before college. Before a lot of things. 2: Especially for earlier reunions (like my 5 year), chances are, if you really have wanted to see fellow alums, you would have. Who really wants to see everyone else besides that? Then again, I guess a small part of all of us might enjoy seeing if the horrendously mean and elitist popular girl became similar in mass as the Goodyear blimp...
Anyways, for those of us that wanted to go, we could stick together - just as we did back in the day.

In my brain, the idea was simple:
Get old friends together.
Go to reunion as a group.
If lame, depart.
Travel to local watering hole.
Additional good times commence without odd social awkwardness and social classes (you know, the kind most people say they've "grown out of," but everyone knows -or soon realizes - they haven't).

In reality - many people were out of town to begin with. Some had parties of their own or just had no intention on going but asked if I would "let them know what's going on".

While fiddling with NFL.com, I checked facebook messages and made some phone calls only to realize that there weren't that many of my old friends going besides a couple.
By 6 pm, I wondered if it was even worth going since it was over at 8. It cost $20 bucks...I cared only about two people there (who I could see if I wanted to without forking over the double tens). I most frequently embrace any and all social activities, but such a busy week I just wanted to relax and do absolutely nothing. Besides, I had another event that evening...

IT WAS FANTASY FOOTBALL DRAFT DAY!!!
During the early afternoon that day, I had finished setting up my fantasy football draft list. If you are to know anything about Fantasy Football, know that "draft day" happens at a specific preset time in which you are able to choose who your players are along with the others in your league (for me, my league consists of mostly Justin's family). After the draft is over, you can only pick up players by picking up free agents or trading. While you are able to set up preferences and let it draft on its own, it is difficult to get your top choices - especially if fellow players snag all the good ones.

So. High school reunion. 20 bucks. Making sure I get Jason Witten as my Tight End. Seeing a couple friends I haven't seen in years. Just being lazy. Possible fun scoop on anyone from high school. 20 bucks. Decisions. Meh.

Fantasy Football Draft: 1 High School Reunion: 0

I stayed home and did my fantasy football draft and skipped the entire reunion. Loser? Maybe. Apathetic? Definitely. I talked myself into planning an alternative reunion of sorts in the coming months so home folks stay tuned.

Cookout at Dads
The original plan was to bounce between both my Dad's and Mom's cookout ventures. After I realized that Mom was attending a cookout over and hour away with people I don't know in the middle of nowhere, I stuck around my Dad's and visited with Lou's (my stepmom) family. It's nice to see them. After I got tired of talking to all the adults, I spent the rest of the time playing with Ryan and Christopher (my little step cousins) and enjoying a couple Coronas.

After some cookout action, my good friend Tina and I went out in search for a garter belt and thigh highs. Yes. That's right. Anyways, after that we had no destination in mind (as with most every other of our outings) so we moseyed around Walmart for at LEAST an hour until we got tired of browsing mass sweatshop-produced merchandise and getting incessantly "sized up" by random old dudes. Eh. I hate Walmart. We stopped at a Starbucks (sadly, we are fresh out of little independent coffee shops in Washington PA) and decided to go to a bar. The only problem is, we really just don't know any good bars in that area - besides the typical chain resaurant places (Applebees, Max & Ermas, etc). We ended up in the Race Car Cafe which we had frequented in our "youth" for food, but this time we could actually go to the bar. It ended up being one of those places that as soon as you walk in, the few people actually there stop talking, look, and neglect to resume talking. Whatever. I had to use the restroom..that starbucks didn't sit well. After being confined to the stall for a good 5 to 10 minutes, Tina amused herself by throwing wet papertowelballs over the door at me. After my bathroom needs were fulfilled, we bolted after taking a couple pictures with a dune-buggy type thing outside. As par to most of our so called "nights out" we ended up at Kings laughing over "chicken bites" (aka scraps at the bottom of a bag of frozen chicken fingers) and three fried mozarella wedges.

All in all, it was a splendid weekend not overwhelmed with too much activity which was just what I needed! Thanks Dad for providing the Corona!
Well, back to the grind!

Peace,
Crin