Horses, Puppies, the Amish, and Such

I decided not to spend the entire weekend grading papers and being stressed out about my homework for the first time since school started. Here are the things I have done so far (in order):

1) Graded papers

2) Attended a Tchaikovsky concert by the Lexingon Philharmonic

3) Went grocery shopping in super dressy clothes at midnight

4) Sat around a bar completely sober

5) Went horseback riding in my hometown

6) Ate at a Mexican restaurant, also in my hometown

7) Homework

Not so bad, eh? Even though I was unable to escape the grading and homework, I still did other things.

So let's talk about the Philharmonic concert. The guest musician was an 18-year-old pianist from Korea, and he was crazy good. I gave the concert two thumbs up, five stars, and an A+.

Now let's talk about the horseback riding. My horse was squirrely, and by that I mean it was very bad. It had some serious attitude going on. The owners of the stable had just changed its parking spot, and for that reason the horse was slightly (extremely) agitated. As soon as I was on top of it, and the stable worker had untied us from the horse's parking spot, we took off flying to the back of the barn where it promptly started eating feed at its old spot. The remainder of the horse ride was equally ...high velocity. The whole time we were on the trail, Sheba (my horse) kept running up to the horse in front of us and biting it on the ass. Sometimes it would do a 180 to bite the horse behind us on the face.

My horse wasn't as bad as another guy's horse, though. When we walked through the creek, this other guy's horse decided to splash everyone else by jumping around like it was in a rodeo. Then it layed down in the water with the guy still on its back. I laughed, because this is the flaming gay guy I talked about earlier who "looks like a salesman" according to a funny girl from China.

Let's talk about foreigners now. On this horse ride were two people from China, a girl from Colombia, a girl from Kenya, and a girl from California, among other people in the statistics department. Surprisingly, the girl from California is the one who seems least acclimated to the culture here in Kentucky.

Now let's talk about something else cultural. Wednesday night Josh and I ate at Miyako, a local Japanese hibatchi grill. We had the most depressed, unmotivated hibatchi chef I have ever seen in my life, but that is not the point of this story. I will get to the point of this story in just a second. Remember how back in May I picked strawberries with the Amish? Of course you do. You read this amazing website like a housewife watches General Hospital. Anyway, sharing this activity of "crop harvesting" with the Amish was not all that crazy because that is the kind of thing that Amish people do. What is crazy, though, is eating at a hibatchi grill beside a table that is surrounded entirely by Amish people in straw hats and bonnets. Watching the hibatchi chef perform tricks for them while they oohed and aahed through their beards was something my brain had a very hard time comprehending.

So finally let's talk about the weiner dog I played with today. It was a miniature weiner dog, and it was also a feisty puppy, so I decided to stuff it down my shirt and take it home even though I hate dogs. Then I realized everyone was watching me, including the puppy's owners, so I removed it from my shirt thinking it would probably be better to steal it another day.

Conversations I Eavesdropped on Yesterday

Conversation 1
Yesterday I went to Home Depot to buy a can of spray paint for one of my flower pots. While I stared at a vast array of colors that did not include any colors in which I was interested, I overheard this conversation between a female customer and a female sales associate:

Customer: Excuse me, ma'am. What is this?

Friendly Sales Associate: Why that's ragging.

Customer: Ragging?

Friendly Sales Associate: Yes, ragging. Come over here and let me show how to rag.

My antennae had perked up, so I discretely wandered closer to get a look at what was about to go down between these two ladies.

Wouldn't you know that the friendly sales associate was showing the customer how to "rag" with red paint? My inner middle school Audrey could not believe her eyes, but more importantly she could not believe her ears. How is it that neither of the two parties involved in this transaction were sputtering out giggles? The only giggling in the whole store was being emitted by a creepy girl who was watching these two ladies through a shelf of spray paint.


Conversation 2
I was walking to campus behind a professional-looking man who was carrying a hot, delicious bag of Qdoba Mexican food. His phone rang. I listened in.

Businessman: Hello, how are ya?

(Pause)
Businessman: Good good. Listen, I'll have to call you back. I'm in a meeting.

(Pause, interrupted by a sudden outburst by two sorrority girls walking by)
Businessman: Oh that? We've got the door to the hallway open. Pauly! Could you shut that door! ...Thanks! Sorry about that.

(Pause, interrupted by a loud fire truck siren)
Businessman: What? That siren? We've, uh, got the windows open too. Can't close them on a day like today unless we want to burn up, you know what I mean? Ha. Ha.

(Pause)
Businessman: (Sounding depressed by now) Oh right. No, I'm uh, not having the meeting in my office today. We're having the meeting in one of the busy buildings on ...campus. Across from ...the fire station. Yeah. Listen I'll have to call you back bye.

America The Melting Pot

Guess what yesterday was? The two-year anniversary of Deeyanherland. Oops I guess I missed it, what with all the grading I have to do that eats every free minute of my time. So here is a story about two of my statistics classmates:

One of the classmates in this story is a very well-dressed, effeminate man who does not seem to know that he is flaming gay. The other classmate in this story is a girl from China/Korea/Vietnam/Japan who is not very familiar with our cultural subtleties yet. Since exactly half of my classmates are foreign, this sample space is a good representation of the whole population.

Here is the story. We were sitting down for our first class of the day, doing the usual backpack shuffle and back-and-forth banter about which homework problems we did or didn't do last night. During all this the gay guy says, "Oh my god it is like so cold in here are you guys like so cold?"

To this I reply, "Yes, I always freeze my nuts off in this class. Why don't you bring a hoodie like the rest of us?"

With a look of disbelief, he brings it to my attention that "hoodies" (ugly face) do not go with (insert famous expensive brand) button-up shirts. My bad, dawg, my bad. I guess it's been a few weeks since I last read a men's fashion magazine.

Here is where a foreigner swoops in to unknowingly save the day with her lack of cultural understanding. The girl from some country in Asia that I do not instantly recognize from her accent asks the gay guy, "Ex-coos me. Have you... ever... been... the salesman?"

Mr. Gay-But-Doesn't-Know-It replies, "Uh, no. Why?"

And then here is why I love this girl from the Orient. She says, "Because you dress and act like salesman." HA! She called him sleazy when she thought she was giving him a compliment. HA!

She went on to explain that salespeople are usually well-dressed and polite, but since the guy she insulted is obsessed with his image, he now has a new Do-I-look-like-a-salesman? complex to fuss over, and that makes me happy. The end.

Mobile Moustaches

You may be thinking to yourself, "Why Audrey, why is there a mop in your bedroom?"

Well let me tell you, my friend, that is no mop. That, in fact, is a high tech, long distance centipede killer. The reason I need one is that a medium to large sized centipede has taken up residence in one of the four following locations in my bedroom:

1) The vent
2) Behind the picture on the wall
3) Under the dresser
4) My bed

So as you can see, having read the fourth possible location, I am pretty much required to have my high tech, long distance centipede killer in hand any time I cross the threshold into my bedroom.

If anyone has advice on how to exterminate such nuissances (and I mean kill... dead), then please let me know. I will pay you ten million dollars. Thank-you.

Pet Peeve #1

My office at school is full of LOUD CHEWERS. This makes me irate.