Brianne Blogs?

Let’s flashback to 1998, when Zak and I were sophomore’s in high school. Zak had driven to our house in his dad’s super cool orange/tan van. Maren and I were walking Zak out to his car when we noticed the strangest bug on the antenna on the front of the van. Rather than comment on how odd it was and moving on with our life, we decided to trap it in a jar, transfer it to a ziploc bag, and freeze it for further examination the next day.

So, the next day, we looked at it in depth the next day and decided to take it with us to the University of Oklahoma library to look it up in some insect identification books. What we found was rather upsetting. What we had captured and frozen was the Assassin bug. The assassin bug has a long projection on the front of it’s face that it uses to inject lethal saliva that liquefies the insides of the prey, which are then sucked out.  The South American variety, often called the kissing bug, bites humans on the lips and can cause a fatal heart disease. All of this we learned on our scientific investigation that day 11 years ago. Needless to say, we have long been more afraid of the assassin bug than most normal humans. Luckily, we don’t see them very often.

So, we haven’t done much thinking about this long-ago researched bug, until I was reading my book The Know It All and discovered that the assassin bug can also shoot it’s saliva up to 12 inches. That means that it doesn’t even have to be on you to hit you. This I found alarming and immediately called Zak to report this new assassin bug detail.

This is what I love about reading. Random information in a book that might have been glossed over by any other reader, brought back a memory of an adventure that Everyone had 11 years ago. I love that for each reader of any book, different things have different meanings. So for me, this book brought back many great memories of funny things, but for someone else, it might have reminded them of bad things, or happy things, or something completely different. Reading rocks!

I just finished reading a really fantastic book that Meghan picked out for me in the Portland, Oregon airport. And she did a great job! This is a book written by a man who read the Encyclopedia Brittanica cover to cover in a year. It’s the true story of what he was reading at the time and what happened in his life. It’s written in a great way with each chapter being a letter of the alphabet and it’s not written in paragraph/narrative form, it’s written like an encyclopedia with entries for each letter. There were some really great ones, allow me to list them for you:

Bell: The world’s largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four thousand pounds. It never rang-it was broken by fire before it could be struck. What a sad little story. All that work, all that planning, all those expectations-then nothing. Now it just sits there in Russia, a big metallic symbol of failure. I have a moment of silence for the silent bell.

Casanova: The famous 18th century lothario ended his life as a librarian. Librarians could use that to suck up their image.

Berserkers: Savage Norse soldiers from teh middle ages who, it is said, went into the battle naked. Hence “going berserk:. So to truly go berserk, you should take off your pants. Noted.

Climate and weather: Lightning goes up. It shoots right up from the ground and into the cloud. This is what the encyclopedia says in the section on climate and weather. I reread this passage a couple of times to make sure I hadn’t gone batty-but no, lightning goes up. To be technical, it does first go down-there’s an initial bolt called the “leader” that zips from the cloud to the ground. But the bright part, the part that flashes, is the “return stroke”, which goes from the ground back to the cloud. This is profoundly unnerving. When I didn’t know the history of canned laughter or the existences of a sexy Confederate spy, that was mildly vexing. But this is unnerving. This is a while new level of ignorance. I’ve been looking at lightning all my life, and it’s sky-to-ground direction seemed about as certain as the slightly asymmetrical nose on my face. To be confronted with this totally counterintuitive information-it makes me paranoid. What other incorrect ideas do I have? Is the sun actually cold? Is the sky orange? Is Keanu Reeves a brilliant actor?

Death: A Russian nobleman patented a coffin that allowed the corpse-if he regained consciousness after burial-to summon help by ringing a bell. Another good idea. Because that could really screw up your week-to wake up and find yourself in an airless coffin. I guess nowadays they could put cell phones in there.

Divorce: The easiest divorce around: Pueblo Indian women leave their husband’s moccasins on the doorstep and-that’s it-they’re divorced. Simple as that. No lawyers, no fault, no socks, just shoes.

Garrick, David: Famed 18th century Shakespearean actor who also managed the Drury Lane Theatre. He fought to “reform” the audience, discontinuing the practice of reduced entry fees for those who left early. I don’t like this guy. His reform in terrible. We need to go back to the old system: You stay an hour at a movie, you pay half price. You stay a half an hour, quarter price. Leave after ten minutes, the theatre has to pay you for your trouble.

Greenland: A mystery solved. I’ve always wondered why Greenland-which is basically a massive sheet of white ice-is called Greenland. Turns out the country’s name was coined by and Erik the Red, who had been banished from Iceland in 982 A.D. for manslaughter. He called his new home Greenland in order to entice more people to join him there. In other words, it was all a shady PR ploy by a felon. Shady, but smart. No doubt he got more takers than if he’d gone with something more accurate, like Bleakland or Depressingland or Youllstarveland.

Hollywood: This was founded by a man named Horace Wilcox, “a prohibitionist who envisioned it a community based on his sober religious principles”. Well, I know that a lot of Hollywood types are in AA. But other than that Mr. Wilcox would probably not be overjoyed.

James, Jesse: The greatest robber of the Wild West died in 1882. He was shot in the back by a gang member while he was at home “adjusting a picture”. That doesn’t seem right. Being shot in the back is bad enough, but while adjusting a picture? A notorious bandit shouldn’t end his life engaging in interior design. Well, at least he wsn’t crocheting throw pillows.

Urine: Dalmation dogs and humans have strangely similar urine (they’re the yonly two mammals to produce uric acid). This could be useful if I ever smoke pot, apply for a government job, and have access to Dalmations. REgardless, the unexpected connections continue to amaze.

So, there you have it. Some of the many things I learned while reading this book. Next up, the most recent Pulitzer winner.

Friday night, Maren and I met Zak for dinner. And where did we meet Zak for dinner? At the Times Square Red Lobster. That’s right, we decided to be tourists and eat at a tourist restaurant, hang out in Times Square and then go see a Broadway show.

Friday was Bye Bye Birdie night. It was in a brand-new theatre that was just built. This made it an odd experience as most Broadway theatres are extremely old. The curtain was so new that it was almost blindingly red. Another odd thing was that as we were walking down the stairs to our seats before the show, there was an old lady who had fallen down on the stairs and was bleeding from her shin. She was bleeding pretty badly but just kept saying, “it’s no big deal, it’ll stop”.

Anyway, the show was great. It was cute and funny and John Stamos rocked. Zak had a friend who also saw the musical on the same night who told Zak it was “the death of American theatre”. Let’s take a moment to calm ourselves down. Was it the greatest show ever to hit the Broadway stage? No. Was it life changing? No. Will it win more Tony’s than any other show ever? No. But will it be the death of American theatre? No. Who says that? What was she expecting? It’s Bye Bye Birdie. It’s a revival of a 60’s musical that Dick Van Dyke starred in. What did you think you were getting into? I tell you what, some of these New York City actors and theatre goers are such theatre snobs and can’t seem to enjoy a show that is light and funny and cute and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Enough of that rant.

Hello friends and family,

 Remember earlier in the week when I complained about my Statistics class? Well, get ready for some more of that as I have gone from bad to worse at math. I never have problems with school. I have always made excellent grades, graduated with honors, gotten the scholarships and the awards and done all of this with very little work on my part. I’m that annoying person who doesn’t have to study or do their assigned reading and still walks away with the A. Except in math. You see, I’ve just never mastered this art. I was good at math in elementary school but, like a lot of females, lost my abilities around adolescence. (Interesting sidebar-there have been a great deal of studies about this phenomenon. In elementary school girls outperform boys in math and then there is a drastic shift in the opposite direction with boys outperforming girls in math from adolescence on. Isn’t that strange and interesting? At least I’m normal in my post-adolescence math crappiness).

Point being that math classes have been getting the best of me since the 8th grade. Yes, I’ve made some A’s in these math classes, but it always took a lot more work than I like to put into things and I’ve still never really gotten it. Sure, I could master something for the test, but it was never lifelong learning. I can’t tell you the quadratic equation or how to do long division even though I mastered those at various times in high school. I just don’t get math. Just do not get it. Can’t look at a problem and know how to solve it and then do it and know it’s right.

Math makes me doubt myself in major ways. I never doubt myself, even when I’m wrong. But math. Evil math makes me feel stupid. Really, really stupid. Like people who say “supposebly” or “fixin’ to” or confuse the verb “teach” with “learn”. Yes, I feel like an idiot. Let me tell you why:

This week, after my not so stellar score of 70% (eek!) on my last quiz, I decided to calm down and focus a little more and do some more practice problems and write everything out and take my time. Okay, so I read the lessons about the mean, mode, median, range and standard deviation and did the sample problems and felt pretty good. Felt like I could take the quiz (which is open book, by the by) and do well. And then I got my grade. Prepare yourselves for something awful. Brianne, formerly smart person got a 50% on an open book quiz that she thought she aced! Oh, for shame! This is what math does to me! Every stinking (I wanted to use another word here that starts with F but thought I’d keep things G rated, you know, for the kids) time!! I cannot master this and it’s only the 3rd week of class. There are 9 weeks to go and I’ve already sucked it up. Why do I suck so badly at math? Why can’t my brain process this information? This is like the humiliation of the ACT test all over again. My scores:

English: 30, Reading: 35, Science Reasoning: 30, Math: 25. That’s right, 25! Infants could score a 25 for the love of Pete!

Well, sorry for the long rant but I just cannot get over my frustration with this. The fact that a subject in school is getting the best of me is one thing, but the fact that it’s my arch nemesis, Math, is another. I hate this.

I hope you all have a lovely, statistics-free Saturday and, as always, M Go Blue!

Sincerely,

Statistically stymied Brianne

P.S. I must say that having a blog on which to rant is a great thing. For example, I haven’t mentioned to anyone over the phone or in person that I’m so frustrated with my Statistics class. If you asked non-blog readers, they’d have no idea. But, here I am with this great forum for venting my irritation and self-loathing about this subject. Look at this, blog, you’re positively impacting my life. Score!

When Maren and I were little girls, we had a VHS copy of the musical Bye Bye Birdie and used to watch it almost every day. We loved this musical and the characters and the songs. And finally, after living here for several years, Bye Bye Birdie is back on Broadway! So, for Maren’s birthday last week, I got us tickets to go see the show this Friday. We can’t wait. There is nothing better than a favorite musical on the Broadway stage. We’ve decided to dress up for the show and we’re meeting Zak for dinner before hand. I also think we’ll have to work really hard not to sing along. Oh, and to ice this cake, John Stamos is in it! That’s right, Uncle Jesse from Full House is on Broadway and going to be singing for us on Friday. I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Sometimes when I’m blogging, I look back at the archives for last year at this time to see what I was up to and what I was thinking about. Last September at this time, I was blogging about sleep more than once. Aparently one blog about sleep just didn’t cut it. And so, in keeping with last years theme, I will blog again about sleep.

I love to sleep. If I made a list of my favorite activities, sleep might be at the top. It’s just so cozy and snuggly and comforting and wonderful. Even with the children screaming on their playground during my slumber, I still love it the most. I only recently figured out how much I love sleep based on something Maren said. She was talking about how nice it is to not have to set an alarm on the days when she’s not working. And I realized that I set an alarm every single day. And why, you ask? Because if I didn’t, I’d sleep for a really, really long time. When I lived in my studio if I came home from work in the morning but didn’t have to be back at work that night, I would sometimes not set my alarm and not wake up until 7:30 or 8:00 at night. So now, I have to set an alarm always or else I’d be sleep 12 hours every single day and loving it. I think my body is in conservation mode. Ever since nursing school when I averaged 3-4 hours a night, it seems to take advantage of every opportunity to store up sleep hours. I also think this need to sleep a lot has something to do with the messed up Circadian rhythms (sleep/wake cycle) that go along with being a night shift nurse. Even though I’ve been doing it for years, it’s still not the natural way a body is supposed to operate and I think it causes us to need more sleep. I think Meghan would second my conclusion in this area.

I love to sleep. I love to snuggle with my pillows. I love to be just chilly enough that I can bundle myself up in the blanket and not be hot. I love to sleep with my socks off. I love my wonderful bucky face mask that blocks out the noon sun from my sleeping eyes. I love the sleep sounds my iphone makes for me of falling rain and thunder. I love all of it. I also love that my desire to sleep is sometimes so strong that simple pre-bed tasks sometimes seem like too much to do. Washing my face, putting on pajamas, taking off my bra, taking a shower all can seem like too much work when the bed is calling my name.

Sleep, my dear friend, don’t ever abandon me to the harsh realities of insomnia.

Since Maren has been living with me, there has been a lot more cooking of meals. Since Meghan and I don’t really eat the same things, we never cooked together. For dinner before Maren moved in, I was hard core rocking sandwiches and salads. Then suddenly there’s this other person who likes to eat what I eat and we’ve been cooking almost every day. On top of the fact that I love to cook, it’s a lot easier to cook for two instead of one. Especially when those two people only want to eat two things: tacos and pasta.

Yes friends, these two girls who pride themselves on their ability to eat almost anything have become obsessed with tacos and pasta. We have spaghetti at least once a week and tacos at least once a week. Often if we have tacos on Monday we want them again on Tuesday. The same with pasta. Anything we can throw into a pot of angel hair, we have been eating. Anything that can be topped with salsa and lettuce has found it’s way into our mouths. The best part is that when we’ve been ordering take-out, we’ve even been ordering Mexican food. It’s like we just can’t get enough.

This continual eating of the same things reminds me of a similar phase that Amber and I went through in college. Every Monday we’d have spaghetti. Every week we’d also have chicken fried rice one day; taco salads one day; chicken, corn and Idahoan (instant mashed pot) one day. Yep, this was our diet in college. We very rarely strayed from this menu. And it was good. We never tired of our favorite meals. I wonder why this is? I wonder why the taste buds don’t revolt and ask for something different?

Speaking of something different, in the month of September, I have driven a car for 8.5 hours. I know this doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a million times higher than my normal monthly average of no hours. First our trip to Oregon and now our trip to Canada and I’m like a driving pro again. I always worry for a tiny minute before getting behind the wheel of a car for the first time in many months that perhaps I’ll have lost the ability to drive. That I’ll get into the car and drive like Zak. And since Zak doesn’t read the blog I can tell you why that would be so bad:

1. Zak stops at stop signs and lights at the last possible second. He stops so late that I often think to myself, “is he going to stop?” and then when he does, I wish I had brought some sort of neck pillow to prevent neck injury.

2. If there is something to be hit on or near the road, Zak will hit it and then claim to have not seen it. While often annoying, I also find this very funny.

3. During the day, Zak speeds but after the sun sets, he always goes at least 15 miles below the speed limit. This he also claims is unintentional. I believe that he doesn’t do it on purpose since you frequently have to remind him to go the speed limit.

Anyway, my time in the car with Meghan and Maren this month has shown me that bad driving skills do not take over when you infrequently drive a car for which I am extremely thankful. The only time I nearly killed anyone was when Maren was pointing to the right and trying to get me to look at something while we were driving in heavy traffic on a Montreal bridge. Yes, I shouldn’t have looked over, but more importantly, she shouldn’t have told me too, so clearly not my fault.

So, I hope you’ve enjoyed this random blog and that it encourages you to start eating more tacos and pasta and to not drive like Zak. Good life lessons for us all.

This weekend, Maren and I went to Canada for her birthday and to see Jeff play a game. Luckily, Jeff won, so we are allowed to come back for other games.

Sunday after the game, Tasha and Jeff threw a surprise birthday party for Maren at their house. We had some great food, good drinks, fun games and good times with some of the footballers and their wives.

On our way home, Maren and I just arbitrarily picked a town in which we would stop for gas. This was a fun challenge as we rolled into the town of fumes and had to turn off the air conditioning and radio and anything else we weren’t using about 10 miles back. We also had to go exactly the speed limit so as to not use up too much gas. We were so concerned about not making it that we constructed a plan for the best way to push the car to the gas station. Luckily, we made it successfully. Was there a need for this challenge? Nope. Did we do it anyway and have a great time? Yes. Welcome to the world of Brianne and Maren.

Recent Random Info:

1. Spain literally means “the land of rabbits”.

2. One hundred and seven incorrect medical procedures will be performed by the end of the day today.

3. The harmonica is the world’s most popular instrument.

4. The main library on Indiana University sinks more than an inch every year, because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books.

5. The average lead pencil can drawe a line thirty-five miles long or write approximately fifty thousand English words.

6. Halifax, Nova Scotia, has the largest nuber of bars per capita of any place in the world.

7. Australia did not have any members of the cat family, hoofed animals, apes or monkeys until they were imported into the country.

Don’t be concerned, but Maren and I are out of the country-in Canada! If there is some sort of emergency where America might need a Genow sister, we will be sadly unable to help.

What sort of emergency could there be where we might be needed? Well, perhaps some sort of chemical spill that we could soak up with our hair, thus saving the day!

Sorry for you all that you will be in danger from chemical spills until we return to the homeland on Monday.

We are going to Montreal for Jeff’s game on Sunday and for Maren’s birthday today.

Happy Birthday, Maren Stefanie Genow:

(okay, this does appear to be a photo of my birthday, but I couldn’t find one of a young Maren birthday, so this will have to do. On a side note, why did I have an Oscar the Grouch cake? Was this a commentary by Mom on my young attitude? If so, I am officially offended. And how cute is Maren’s little girl dress and my fantastic kiddie mullet? And, as always, we have the best little girl smiles ever!)