Saturday, May 16, 2009

This is Not a Normal Squirrel

Every Monday and Wednesday I always see our local squirrel. When I first started seeing squirrels in Idaho I was strangely excited. I guess it reminded me of home, even though at home I only tolerated the squirrels. I am no longer excited to see this particular squirrel. I am frightened.

This squirrel is not a normal squirrel. It is fat, and has no fear of humans. When ever I pass it, I get about a foot away from him, and then he leisurely moves around the tree. I'm sure he doesn't care if I come close to him or not. He has just decided to keep up the squirrel human pretence to keep us happy.

This squirrel is mean. He is really really mean. Once I saw a bird picking at something on the ground, and this squirrel came charging at the bird. He was ready to attack the bird for what I assume was a wrapper. After the bird flew off the squirrel started yelling at the bird. He stood on his two hind legs and screamed at the sky. I'm sure he was insulting the birds mother, and warning him never to come back to Kerr Hall again.

Ordinarily I would name an animal that is so distinct in character, but not this one. I'm afraid that if he doesn't like the name, he'll come in at night and kill me. I wouldn't put it passed him. He knows where I live.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Eat, Drink, and go Crazy

I love my new FHE brothers. They are so sweet and very funny. Our first Sunday here they came to our apartment and introduced themselves. They were even so kind as to do some manly chores, like taking bikes off of cars, and moving a heavy TV. About five minutes after they left, we had a knock on our front door. There were two brothers, "Ummm can we get something to eat."


Apparently these poor boys had no food in their house, and were hoping for handouts. I realized that night that Mormon girls with marriage on their minds love nothing more than displaying their domestic capabilities to a bunch of cute single guys. We fluttered around the kitchen as they watched in amazement. They said they just expected a peanut butter sandwich.


All of last week we gushed over the thought of our brothers. No we aren't in love with them, but we have assigned each guy out to a specific girl. It didn't take long for us to decide that we need to invite them over again, and with that thought in mind a lot of chicken was bought.


Last Sunday my roommates and I sat in Sacrament discussing the meal and at what time they should come. Mashed potatoes won out over rice, before the fireside instead of after, and fried chicken instead of... well we realized we didn't know any other way of making chicken. That's about the time we realized that the chicken was still in the freezer. Vicky ran home to defrost it, and since she didn't come back we assumed she started on the rest of the meal.


Our brothers seemed pretty excited to come for dinner, which made us excited to make it. So the rest of my roommates ran home the start on dinner. We only had an hour to prepare.


Once we just home, that's when the problems really started. The chicken was still very frozen. Time ticked by as we tried every trick we could think of to defrost chicken. 30 minutes till their arrival, panic started. I said, "We need a back up plan." We had some beef Vicky was planning on making, and so we started cooking that. "But wait some of the chicken is ready." So we started cooking that. It wasn't cooking fast enough, and plan C was a box of frozen corn dogs. "Do you need to defrost corn dogs?"


I even made a futile attempt to call and stall until after the fireside, but no luck. These popular boys had plans. Our brothers even came five minutes late, and we had nothing ready. I looked around and realized that three frantic girls in the kitchen was enough, and I left to be hostess. I wasn't easy trying to distract three hunger boys from a partially separated kitchen with crashing and thud sounds coming from it.


Really in the end it was Nelva's superhero poster that got their attention. Finally, ten minutes later we put food on the table. For dinner we had: lumpy mashed potatoes, wonderful salad, tiny chunks of beef, tortillas, and of course corn dogs.


When we finally sat down to eat, it was really great. The boys were so excited to have "real food," and we were so grateful to serve anything! During the first few bites I was terrified that something would taste awful, and in reality we could have done a lot better. Our brothers didn't seem to notice. I think it was because they're boys.