Post hibernation nap

Remember how I said I was ready to get out and do things now that I finished my summer hibernation? Well, can that thing be a nap?  You're all welcome to come over in your jim jams and join in. There's plenty of couch space. But it's naps for me this weekend. Because teaching seminary is exhausting! I mean, I knew this already, but my lazy summer kind of did a memory swipe. I'm so very sleepy. For the past 3 days I've gotten into work and immediately starting thinking about how comfortable the couch in my office looks. This is a bad sign because that couch is nasty. Who knows the last time it was cleaned. I mean, the floor would possibly be a better option because I know that gets vacuumed. I could pull a George Costanza and sleep under my desk.

But, I already love my new class. I only really know 3 of the 12, the rest are from other wards and stakes, but they all seem to be really great kids. When I broke the news on Wednesday that we sing all the verses of the opening hymn, and that we sing them loudly, and one of them was going to have to come up and lead it, they did it cheerfully. They're eager and happy and they seem to be up for adventure. This has the potential of being a lovely year.

Happy Friday, by the way. The up side of getting back into seminary is that Fridays have meaning again. This is how I'm feel about the upcoming three-day weekend:

Summer of the Lone Wolf

And so another summer comes to an end. The Institute kids came back yesterday and seminary starts tomorrow  and I have to start going to bed at 3 pm because that's just what 80 year old women do. But I'm ready for it. Mostly because this summer has just been so relaxing. Truly, I feel very rested, like I've spent a month in a sanitarium taking the waters.

Last summer was a blur of crazy activities. This summer was a lot of taking naps after work or watching movies. And generally when I get to the end of a summer like this, a quiet summer, I feel out of sorts, like I should have done more. In fact, in the middle of this summer I thought about how it's been so low-key and that maybe I should ramp things up because I didn't want to feel like I had frittered away all this leisure time. But then I realized that I was having the summer that I wanted. I wanted to be in my stretchy pants 100% of the time. I wanted to spend a whole evening reading. I didn't really want to go anywhere. I mean, I did do things, but not a lot. And many of those activities were solo ones. This was the Summer of the Lone Wolf.

And now I find myself wanting to plan activities with friends. September is historically a packed month for me and this one is no different. I have several trips to the Hollywood Bowl planned and the fair is coming up in a few weeks. I'm ending my book club's summer hiatus. I got a haircut that actually has to be done, meaning, it can barely be put back in a pony tale. This morning I needed to be up by 6:15 and I actually got out of bed at 5:45 because I felt like it. This, literally, never happens. I am the worst at getting out of bed. But I spent the summer hibernating and now I'm waking up. Who wants to do something fun? As long as we're done by 3 pm, I'm game.

Trained at Space Camp

I decided I was going to celebrate my birthday by going to the CA Science Center and seeing the space shuttle Endeavor and convincing them to let me take it for a spin. I was successful on two counts. Look, I've seen Space Camp, which means that I know that an average person like me can fly a space shuttle. It wasn't that hard for Joaquin Phoenix to do and I'm obviously smarter than him. But they were unmoved so I just took pictures instead.

First of all, it's massive.

I mean, of course it's massive. It had to carry large things into space like satellites and whole sections of the ISS.

And it's covered in scorch marks and dents from space debris hitting it, which is terrifying and awesome.

It's a pretty good exhibit. There's lots of information on all its missions and a time-lapse video of the trek it made across town from LAX to Exposition Park (here's an abbreviated version). I spent about an hour in the hangar just checking everything out (I think I may be better alone at museums because I could spend days in them when the rest of my party has died of dehydration waiting for me to finish up.) But here's where it could improve. They could let me fly it. Or at the very least, they could let me inside of it. Is it too much to ask to sit in the captain's chair and fiddle with the instruments? While wearing space suit? And a head set so I could talk to Mission Control? I don't think it is. I would pay extra for it. Certainly more than the nothing I paid to get in. 

Later I went over to the IMAX theater and watched the 3D movie on the Hubble telescope. And Sweet Land of Liberty! You have to see this movie! It is so awesome!!! I have a wacky astigmatism that makes 3D movies hard to watch but after a while I was just so mesmerized by what I was seeing that I hardly noticed my eyes wigging out. 

And finally, I saw a lot of really cool things that day but these early astronaut boots were among the coolest. Double laces, zipper, and silver. Sign me up!

In my pursuit to bring joy to you and to make this world a little better, I feel it's my duty to share the newest Pracercise video.




It is majestic. I could watch her and her Gentleman Friend Victor prance through the fields with the horses for hours. I think she may be wearing one of those tops that you find at truck stops along the I-15. The kind that are just a ball of squished up fabric that magically stretches to fit any size. And you know that Victor woke up that morning and thought, "Yep. Today's the day! These pants are going to kill it!"

I really hope she only speaks in rhyme all the time. Like she calls up her girlfriend Sheila (I am absolutely certain she has a friend named Sheila who supplies her with all her chunky jewelry) and says, "I just went to Target to pick up some Clorox and walked out with Titanic, toothbrushes, and pink socks."

Naturally, I have come up with an elaborate tale of how Joanna met Victor. It starts with them sitting across the aisle from each other on the senior citizen bus to a local casino and ends with Joanna calling up Victor to see if he'd like to go line dancing with her since Sheila's lumbago was acting up. "Hey, Victor, how are you? Do you know Slappin' Leather? Sheila's back has gone south on account of the weather." The rest is history.

Have a great weekend!  Remember to get yourself a Slurpee (or a slushy equivalent) and let me know about it.  Let's make this the best Get Yourself a Slurpee Day ever!

Spicy

1.  Spice World is now streaming on Netflix. Which means that you now don't have to wait for me to invite you over to watch it. Which is great for you because that would not happen anyway. I've done it before and am always really disappointed when people don't appreciate it the way I do. How can I be friends with people who don't love Spice World?

2.  Amanda was in town last week and in between eating a lot of food we ended up at Cost Plus World Market and sat on one of their display couches for 3 hours and had a nice long chat. It felt very much like we were hosting our own TV show. You guys, Amanda and I should TOTALLY have our own TV show. We would say something funny and then pause for laughter from the ladies shopping around us. Then we went to Bert & Rocky's so Amanda could reconnect with her true love, chocolate orange ice cream. Those were really happy times when she and I were roommates and we would already be in our jim jams and one of us would say, "So, ice cream?" and we'd get up and put our bras back on and drive over to Bert & Rocky's.

3.  Guess what's coming up! GET YOURSELF A SLURPEE DAY!!!!! Technically it's on Sunday but I'm not going to ask you to break the Sabbath, even for a Slurpee. So we'll celebrate on Saturday AND Monday. That's right folks, we have a two-fer! As usual, please send me pictures of you and your loved ones enjoying a slushie beverage. Text (you have my number, right?), or post it on Facebook or Instagram (@rachelsaysso). There are just so many options for sharing the love. And, as an added bonus, if you share a picture you will be entered to win a $15 gift card to 7-11 or Sonic (Everyone has a Sev or a Sonic by them, right?) I am all about the giving.

4.  After paying for my groceries today I went to put my wallet back and my purse flipped over and the entire contents of it spilled all over the floor, thus exposing my collection of broken hair clips. There were at least 4. 

A Night of Nachos and Neil Diamond

Here it is folks, the 1000th post on my blog. If you're interested, I've compiled a list of things you're going to need to celebrate:

a pinata
nachos
Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits
your fanciest muu muu
a slushy beverage of your choice

Or maybe that's just my list.  Look, I'm not going to tell you how to celebrate. You have your agency. I just think that nachos and Neil Diamond would be appropriate.

I don't like placing any kind of importance on stuff like this because later this week I will write the 1001st post, which is more than 1000 (math!), so big whoop. But it does make me reflect. And while this blog means next to nothing on the grand scheme of things, it means the world to me. It means the world to me that people read it, and that friends will comment on it, and that ladies in my parents' ward will come up to me at wedding receptions and say how much they laughed at such and such. That's a big deal to me. I like making people laugh.

In that vein: have you seen Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda?  It's about a shark/octopus hybrid fighting against a pterodactyl/barracuda hybrid with lots of carnage on the beach and on jet skis. (First lesson of ocean safety: don't go out on a jet ski when a sharktopus is on the loose.) It's Jaws meets Jurassic Park meets Randy, your stoner neighbor who leaves Taco Bell wrappers on your lawn in the middle of the night.  My family caught about 5 minutes of it last night and in that we saw a woman run out of the water and shout, "SHARKTOPUS!!!!" and a man say in a gravelly voice, "From now on, we're doing it MY way," and that was all I needed. Instant classic!

Anyway, thanks for reading. I think you're great. Enjoy your nachos. And I'll help you get the Neil portion of the evening started. Sing out like you mean it!