Saturday Morning Nostalgia

I am not a good little kid shopper. Last night I went to Walmart for the sole purpose of buying a present for my friend Sveta's kid's birthday party tonight at Chuck E. Cheese. Masha is turning six and well, if she were 6-teen or 6-ty I probably could have found something with no problem, but 6 is just not good. I wandered aimlessly through the toy section amidst Tonka trucks and Barbie castles and came to the conclusion that there is just way too much crap in the toy section. Let's face it; it's all a rip off. I mean, how many toys did you actually play with when you were little for more than a week? More than a day? When it comes down to it, there are really only 3 things the basic kid needs to keep him or her happy:

1. Quilts
2. Legos
3. A Refrigerator Box

Let me explain because Lori is probably the only person who is with me at this point. Saturday mornings were very structured in my house when I was little. Dad always worked on Saturdays and Mom took the opportunity to sleep in, so we were on our own. When we didn't have soccer practice, at 6:30, on the dot, my brothers and I got up and fixed ourselves some cereal and watched Beast Wars on Fox 49 with Mrs. Jan. (Can I get a shout out for Mrs. Jan? Any native Tallahassean remembers her. We didn't have cable so the privilege of watching Stick Stickly on Nickelodeon was lost to us.) Then we moved on to Power Rangers, then to X-men, then to Spiderman and sometimes to Bill Nye the Science Guy if we were feeling in the educational mood. Chances are we weren't- so the T.V. was left behind at about 10 a.m.

Now sometimes we read books or watched more TV or played games, but the all time favorite thing to do on Saturday mornings before Mom got up was to get all the quilts and blankets out of the bathroom closet and make a giant tent out of our whole living room. The key to this fantastic event was to get it started before Mom got up, otherwise she wouldn't let us because she knew she would be the one folding up all the blankets and quilts afterwards. But as long as we got it started before 10:30 we were good to go. We always began by stuffing the pink and white quilt into the top of our upright piano (another thing Mom disapproved of) and draped it over the bench. From there on out we threw blankets over couches and love seats and even the fireplace mantle. We had our own country under there, each of us with a separate little piece of the kingdom. I, of course, always ruled the lands surrounding the Piano Castle. This was undisputed. I think that Chris usually ended up ruling the dark, hilly lands of KofeeTabel and Cameron got stuck with the heavily industrial Entertainment Centre Field. Sometimes Mom would even let us keep it up all the way through Sunday. Somehow, even though the blankets were really the equivalent to an indoor shanty town, they managed to keep us entertained for a good part of the whole weekend.

If by some chance Mom got up early on Saturday morning or Dad happened to be off, they would generally look down upon our destroying the whole house for the sake of creating our little indoor kingdom, so we just had to make one that was much smaller. Causing nearly as much mess was our collection of legos, a collection that had been built up for years by small purchases ever so often at garage sales. Cities rose, battles were fought, planets were explored, skyscrapers were constructed- all in the foyer of our house. It was the kingdom of primary colors- red, yellow and blue. We built to our hearts' content, hours on end.

And then there was #3. Every once in a while on the way home from somewhere, Mom would stop by the Maytag store and throw an old refrigerator box into the back of our van. Sometimes she'd get three so that we'd each have one. There is nothing greater than a refrigerator box. They are for both indoor and outdoor use. You can live in it, sleep in it, decorate it, cut holes in it, eat in it, watch movies in it, color in it. Anything exciting you can do as a kid can be made even more exciting by doing it in a refrigerator box. All other toys pale by comparison.

Naturally, I had to bypass getting Masha #1 or #3 for her birthday. And the Lego selection at Walmart seemed to be limited to incredibly complicated, instructions-required legos. A plethora of colors and sizes, translucent and opaque- Lego has gone tragically far from its simple primary color beginnings. I left the toy section feeling quite uninspired. Fortunately, at that very moment Ruth called and gave me some good advice, so I traipsed over to the jewelry section and bought Mashenka some princess jewelry. I hope she likes it. Otherwise I might stop by the Maytag store and get her a slightly unconventional but much more exciting refrigerator box.

What Happens in Rovetta Stays in Rovetta

I've always thought I was much too frugal for gambling. Throwing money away in mass quantities never appealed to me much. I never thought that buying lottery tickets was being a good steward of my money.

(However, as a side note I would like to say that Melissa can play the lottery all she wants because when she wins, she and Jenn are going to open up an orphanage in Ukraine and I will get to come play in it. Play on, Melissa; play on.)

I think that although I may have strong convictions in that regard, I am still going to have to stay far away from slot machines.

This is how I came to that conclusion.

I am a big fan of Coke Zero Cherry. And once I get fixated on a drink, well, that is just what I want. Sally Albright wanted her dressing on the side and I want cherry in my coke. Is that really too much to ask? Until FSU starts putting Pepsi in the coke machines, I will just keep finding Coke Zero Cherries. I really don't like anything else that is in them. Well, I was getting ready to go to Russian lit, my most favorite class, and I knew that I was really going to need some caffeine to keep me awake. So, I walked over to the Rovetta building to coke machine row, where seven beautiful coke machines are available for service. I placed my five quarters in and hit "Coke Zero Cherry." Sold out. So I went to the next one. Sold out. #3...4...5, they were all sold out. After #6 I started to get worried. I put in my five quarters in lucky number seven and pushed "Coke Zero Cherry." The dismal red button lit up. No luck. So, I hit "coin return" for the seveth pathetic time. Then, to my surprise, six, not five quarters slid of the machine.

"Must have been chance," I thought. "Someone left their quarter in there."

But in the back of my mind I knew I had heard six quarters hit the bottom of the coin return. There was only one way to find out if I was predestined to get another extra quarter. I picked up my five original quarters (with lucky number six safe in my pocket), and stuck them in again.

"Alright," I thought. "Big money, big money!"

My eyes grew twice their normal size as I watched six quarters fall into my hand. My head started screaming, "I won! I won!" Something momentarily took over my body. I had to do it again. Somehow my logical brain was replaced by this greedy monster who wanted nothing more except to get another extra quarter. "Win the jackpot, Calyn." I would have played all day. (Well, I'm sure at some point I would have realized that to keep doing it would be stealing from the Coca Cola company, but we hadn't gotten to that point yet.) But as I placed my quarters in for the third time and hit "coin return" nothing happened. Only my five original quarters came out. Something clicked in my head. My normal, logical self returned. I slapped myself. "Get a hold of yourself, Calyn."

It was at that point that I realized I would never be visiting the state of Nevada. The first and most obvious reason of course being the aliens, but I think that the Danny Ocean in me would not be able to control myself in the Mirage. I think I'll just keep playing Texas Hold 'Em with M&M's.

Jenna drew some graffiti on my facebook wall. It is pretty much amazing.

This just in: Archers are trading in their Jim Bows for Tee Bows

It would be a blatant lie if I told you that I enjoy my 8 o'clock class on Monday mornings, but I do enjoy getting to FSU before the myriad others arrive and take all the good parking spots. There is something very rewarding about getting one of the first spots in the little student lot on College Street. It puts you above the rest. Maybe you are more committed, more parking savvy, more talented at navigating through morning traffic. Or maybe you just value sleep less. It's most likely the latter, but nonetheless, my little Saturn looks quite content in that first row.

It's official- 9 out of 10 Tallahasseans believe that if FSU played a game against Lincoln's highschool football team tomorrow, Lincoln would win.

Well...maybe I made that statistic up, but I think there's some truth to it. (I really do believe that everyone would agree that Lincoln could beat Notre Dame. Heck, maybe even Leon could beat Notre Dame.) But, a win is a win and even a pathetic excuse for a victory is better than a loss. 2-1 looks much better than 1-1.

And what do you know? Miami actually managed to keep its players from having a full-scale riot this weekend. Most colleges would consider this a no-brainer, but not the poor UM students whose exorbitant tuition fees have been financing anger management therapy sessions for their football playing classmates. Now, if they can just beat a good team...

Enough of my pathetic excuse for football commentary. It boils down to this- 2 Florida teams are playing very well and 2, well, aren't. And if I hear the name "Tebow" one more time this week I will throw something. So steer clear.

6 Years Later

It's been 6 years since 9/11, but it feels more like yesterday. So many tributes and memorials were raised to honor the fallen, but I remember this video the best.

To all the Swiss out there...

You should never go grocery shopping when you are hungry. It is a bad plan. Combine hunger with Publix, where shopping is a pleasure, and you have a recipe for disaster. Perhaps not disaster, but an extra-large grocery bill. Jenna and I went to buy grapes. Green grapes were 99 cents a pound and this is a good deal, especially if you enjoy grapes. Grapes were the only thing we needed. But, you see, Publix had all of these buy one/get one deals yesterday. And I mean, if you buy one, you get one free. Who can pass this up? Jenshka and I filled our buggy with sweet tea, bagels, yogurt, green beans, healthy choice microwave meals, and some "lightly cinnamon" wheat thins. I have a bone to pick with the Wheat Thins company. "Lightly cinnamon" doesn't make any sense. It should be "light cinnamon" or "lightly cinnamoned" or "lightly flavored with cinnamon." "Lightly cinnamon" is both confusing and grammatically incorrect. I mean, how can cinnamon be "lightly?" Cinnamon can be old, it can be delicious, it can be aromatic, but it cannot be lightly. Unfortunately, there seems to be a hole in the English requirement of the marketing major.

Is it bad that I'm already anticipating the end of the semester? It's only day 4 of class, but yesterday in Russian Lit I doodled pictures of stars and kept count of how many times my professor said the word "how-eeeeeever." 14. In my defense, she spent much of the lecture telling the story of how Prince Vladimir chose Christianity as the religion for the kingdom of Russia. I tell this same story every year at Radooga Orientation. I know it backwards and forwards. And when I tell it, it is much more interesting. My prefered storytelling medium is the flannelgraph, but when this is unavailable, a white board will do. She used nothing but her mouth. How am I supposed to keep interested?

Last night Kenley, Jenna, Joe, Janelle, David, Dean and I ate fish at Dean's house and then we watched the Sound of Music. To clear up for everyone, Edelweiss is neither the anthem of Austria nor even an Austrian song. It was simply written by Rogers and Hammerstein for the musical. The edelweiss is actually the national flower of Switzerland. Who knew? (Probably the Swiss.)


(Edelweiss)

Monday is Labor Day and as such, we will be taking a break from our labors. This means that there will be a kickball game at 5:30 on the hill. Everyone should be there. :0) Arrivederci!