My brothers and my mom and I all went out to work on a farm today. It was actually sort of fun. First we weeded the Lettuces and Cabbages and Broccolis, then we cleand and sorted enough eggs to feed the American army for several years, and then we planted some mixed greens and Onions, and would you beleive it, that took all day. Apart from sorting eggs until I swore that I would never eat another (but of course, I'll break my life long vow tomorrow) and getting a little bit of a sun burn (I NEED MORE COCONUT OIL!!), it was really nice.
It was so nice and warm outside, and sunny, and there was a nice breeze... But enough about the quintisential Spring/Summer day. I'm sure we will have many, many more perfect days, and I hope that they are all on Wednesdays because that's when we'll be working.
Oh, Lady Spring, thou temptress, bestow upon us poor mortals many, many perfect Wednesdays!

Well, this is just my luck. I don't know if I was born under a nasty little star, or if I am just careless.
I have choir on Monday night. Every Monday night. From 6:00 to 8:00 in the evening. I am VERY commited to this choir.
I love scouts. Scouts rock. Both of my little brothers are in scouts, their friends are like second cousins to me, and the fathers and leaders are like the uncles that I never get to see.
Even if this weren't the case, I would love BSA, because it's not girl scouts (I had a bad experince, okay? Leave me in peace.).
The Venture Crew that I just joined meets (and here's where it gets good) on MONDAY NIGHTS. See? Every other Monday night. From 7:00 to 8:00. On the other side of town.
Incidentally, THE SAME NIGHT I HAVE CHOIR.

I have been looking forward to tonight for weeks. It's maybe the only night that I have off from choir, so I will finally be going to a meeting, right?
WRONG!! Evil stars and their alignments! It's a conspiracy, I tell you!
Venture Crew is every other night. Get it? Tonight wasn't an every night or an other night.
Tonight is Black Monday. Tonight, the fates have it in for me. That is why tonight, I am going with my dad to my little little brother's Cub Scout meeting, and not to my nonexistant Venture Crew meeting.
I love my little little brother's pack. They are adorable, noisy, funny, cute, eager to please, and completely loony.
But they aren't my guys. I've never been as close to them as my little brother's friends. They're just not the same.

I got on and realized that mom had just popped a Nora Jones CD into the computer, so I can't blow my eardrums listening to heavy metal (forget for a second that I swore off it the first time I was in a car with a newly licenced teenager, darn it!! But that's another looooong story...) but instead maybe do some actual WRITING because Fresno and Green Day and all the rest are more condusive to head-banging and wrist-slitting (not that I do that, mind you, my wrists are perfectly lotus-blossom white and unblemished, thankyouverymuch) than to any creative writing. It's kind of ironic, for some reason...

Boredome today reached an all-time high. Seriously, I think I might have broken my previous record for boredome. You can tell that you're really, really bored when you start misspelling words just so you can hear the little ding! of the spell-checker. Yeah. That is hardcore boredome at it's best. That and randomly flipping through the pages of novels you haven't read in FOREVER and peicing together your own frankinstein-esque tale by melding different lines from different books...
But on the up side, I get to have a six-hour rehearsal for Oliver tomorow. From noon to...Well, six. PM. I can totally do that. I've done that kind of all-day-er in choir bunches of times. There's a rehearsal coming up that is from ten to nine (AM to PM). I am showing up for that one in my PJ's, just you see if I don't.
But yeah. Boredome...

Okay, Oliver is back on! Finally. We had a little meeting last night at a coffee shop, and we were to ld by the director that 1) We have lost Fagin, 2) We have lost a bunch of our orphans and some of Fagin's gang, 3) we are gonna kick this bad boy by rehearsing in an 18,000 sq. ft. warehouse three or four times a week.
Oh yeah! We rock! Sorta...
The really bad thing is that the performances are the first two weekends in May, so crunch time is now upon us, more's the pity.
I can hardly wait! I get to bat my eyelashes and sigh, "Oh, Noah," a lot, and then suffer from a servere split-personality disorder (I go from, "You little wretch, work'us!" to "Noah, come sit by me," in less than a minute. If that's not clinically insane, I don't know what is).
But YAY! It's my first-ever production, so I might be just a tad overexcited...

WHERE IS EVERYBODY?????
I swear, I never hear from my friends anymore! Are you ill? Are you on vacation? Are you DEAD??? Have you been captured by anti-American terrorists?
That last one really wasn't likely, as most of my friends are either Democrat or very mild-mannered, but hey. I just thought I'd covor all the bases.
Where, oh where has ev'ry one gone?
Where oh where can they be?
I have searched high and low,
But where can they go?
Oh, where, oh where can they be?

St. Patricks Day, the day that all men are Irish and all beer is served warm, is now officially over. Unless you happen to be a barhopper, in which case it is still going strong, with kegs tapped and glasses in hand.
I don't even get this full on Thanksgiving day, but here it is St. Patricks day and I am stuffed to my nonexsistant gills. This is my favorite meal of the year. I look forward to this all year long, waiting to behold rye bread and Corned Beef. Yum.
But I have to get off the computor now, because tomorow happens to be the day of the Pinewood Derby for a certian Pack 500, and my dad is officiating. GO TEAM or whoever you root for in one of these things, Lord knows I've only seen four or five, I don't know what goes on...

I just finished re-Hennaing my hair. Again. It's still wetwetwet, but it's going to be redredred when it dries! It's in honor of St. Patrick's Day (at least, that's my current excuse!), so while I'm on, Happy St. Patricks Day! My mom is throwing a shindig tomorrow night, so I will probably not be able not get on the lovely beige box that I like to call a computor, but instead spend the day cleaning the house with her and setting out decorations and cleaning my room because it is a Mess with a capital 'M'.

Two of my godsister's friends died this month in a car crash. She's feeling awful, I assume, because I haven't spoken with her since last Summer when we went to New York, and she's 10- hours away at college right now, so...Yeah.
Life really sucks sometimes.

On Raw Baby Swiss

Religeous experiences are overrated. As a general rule, I don't have time for them outside music. Food=religeous experience is not an equasion that I frequently use.
Four words: Raw. Milk. Baby. Swiss.
Even though it is considered illegal for humans to drink raw milk or to buy it for anything other than pet consumption, raw cheese is considered perfectly acceptable. This is a good thing, because without raw cheese, I would not be dancing for joy every time I opened up the refrigerator.
My mom is really into the whole raw thing, so I guess I shouldn't have been suprised when I walked downstairs to find ten to sixteen pounds of raw cheese on our dining room table. But I admit, I was suprised. I screamed. I wondered if my personal Mater Dei was going to be carted off to the Happy Valley Nut House.
When I tasted that cheese, I forgave her for startling me. I think I would have forgiven anybody anything just then. I had a religeous experience. The stuff is so creamy, so melt-in-your-mouth, so rich and velvety and lucious, that for a split second after you taste it, you think it cannot possible be cheese. It's got to be something other-worldly. Human hands and cows cannot possibly make any food so glorious.
Amazing, beautiful food.

How males of any age, shape, form, or nature have survived this long is a complete and utter mystery to me. Take my brothers and their friend, for example. Let's call my oldest brother Larry, and my younger brother Moe, and Moe's friend, let's call him Curly. Just for the purpouses of this descussion.
Here it is, a beautiful spring day. Larry and I are going outside to spend a productful day washing the van--Let's call the van Moby Dick--when suddenly, out of nowhere, Moe and Curly come with water guns and the hose, and commence to KILL Larry. Well, Curly started by KILLING Moe, and then Moe and Curly started KILLING Larry, but whatever. So there we all are, the Three Sooges KILLING each other and ol' Moby and me washing up.
Once the washing of Moby (who hasn't seen the ocean in a while, poor fellow) is complete, Larry attempts to roll up the hose while I get the bucket and sponges. As you might have guessed, he encounters some dificulties. Curly, it seems, does not wish to relinquish the hose. He seems quite *ahem* attatched to the hose. In fact, he seems not to be able to let go, leaving Larry to drag him and the hose across the yard, leaving a trail of upturned scruff that my dad likes to call 'grass'.
But this is not the end. Oh, no. For after Larry gets the hose back in place (after shouting a great deal about the 'hooligans' and 'aqua terrorists' that are--well, terrorizing him), he runs into the house, while Moe and Curly position themselves conveniently outside the front door armed with fully loaded water cannons, a damp football, and the hose. "Come out and play!" they shout, waiving their destructive impliments around (I tell you, how they ever survived).
Dad goes to the open window, and very seriously says, "I don't suppose you two know that Larry is in in here crying, do you?" Larry comes around behind him. "We'll see about that!" he yells, and then goes into a tirade about fearing the ultimate wetness weapon, the all-powerful water baloon. Weirdo.
And there he stands inside the door. "I am armed," he yells triumphantly, "with FOUR water baloons, while you have only--a GARDEN HOSE!! I shall prevail!!" and instead of saying, "oh yes, that seems very reasonable, we'll just go bug someone else, then," like someone with half a brain and some sense would do, they hit him with a good, long spray from the hose. Not that he wasn't asking for it, but you know how parents are picky about how the house looks and feels, they don't want the stairway damp--and combine that with mad-as-a-wet-dog Larry, well, let's just say it wasn't the brightest thing to do. Larry dissapears to get more water baloons, while Moe and Curly yell out, "Come out, you scruffy self-made water baloon boy!"
While Larry is getting more water baloons, Moe and Curly spray the upstairs window screen, knocking it off the window and down onto the bushes below. Larry retreived it and put it back up in a huff, and now that the water fight is over, I have nothing to write about.
Well, except for the fact that NOSILAISGOINGTOCOLLEGEYAY but you know...
But there it is, how do males survive in the wild? the dangers of Wild Suburbia seem strange enough, I don't know what they would do without us.
"Without women, men would be mighty scarce,"

Congatulations to Nosila, who is THE COOLEST GIRL IN THE WORLD, for being accepted to college! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, my little baby's growing up sooo fast.
You will have to write to me very often. Promiso?

It is said that the Sweet Sound of Spring is that of birds chirping, rabitts rustling through the underbrush, or perhaps even the soft patter of fat, warm, pre-Summer raindrops.
Nay, I say. The Sweet Sound of Spring is none of these shallow items.
It is, rather, the chirping of mall-goers getting a jump-start on the latest fashions, the rustle of unspoiled flip-flops being broken in for the long season ahead, and the soft pattering of premature divers jumping into 30-degree water.
I challenge you this year; listen for the true Sweet Sound of Spring, and soon thy warm-weather fantasies will be fulfilled.

Confessions of a Band-Wagon-er

The band Green Day has a special place in my heart. From the first time I swiched on my radio and heard Boulevard of Broken Dreams to the day I learned that it was they who played it, I knew that this was one heck of a band.
When I heard Jesus of Suburbia, I thought that this was merely one more fabulous result of a late-night law-breaking smoke.
Then I heard the unedited version.
I immedeately commenced to have a religeous experince.
I love this song because it requires persistence. Nine minutes and eight seconds of music is a commitment, especially for a pop-culture that enjoys instant gratification and waits too long for it.The song is a saga, the movements as clearly defined as any Mozart or Rutter. It is as much an epic ballad as Bohemian Rhapsody, and has as much of an impact as American Pie did. It is longer than Alice's Restaraunt, and it has just as much of a cult following.
There's at least one "great" every decade.
Green Day might not be it, but this song is something else.
Parental descresion adviseable, dad.

IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP????? Wha??
SO not. It's America, pimps are flourishing, flaunting their ostentacious vehicles and sparkly bow ties. Darn them!
But seriously, that's all. All the controversy and excitement of the Oscars, and that was the most interesting thing that happened. Minimal politics. Minimal speeches. Not one Swan on the premesis (although many Vegans are probably still recovering from that abominable shock in 2001, thanks, Bjork).
What's the point??
I could have been wasting my time with something entertaining like...The Capitol Steps! (www.capsteps.com, for anybody that's interested).
Aaaarrgh, and now I'm going to be humming "it's hard out here for a pimp" all day!!

Our former pastor's oldest son Tim was killed in a car crash at 11:00 last night on the beltline.
How much bad news can a person handle before they go insane?
Loosing a kid (I say kid, he was 19 or 20) would probably put you over the edge.
Tim was with three other people. They were all killed, too. The car was going roughly 100 miles an hour, and it crashed and burned.

There are never easy answers, but why can't there be easy questions?

One of my friends (She's in college) just got the news that two friends of hers were injured in a car crash, and a third died.
So for what it's worth, I'm hoping her friends get better, and that life is good for them.

I now officially HATE the weather. It's just teasing me. (And it stood me up this morning, but I won't go in to all of that).
Is it even the least bit fair that yesterday was a gorgeous 80 degrees, and breezy, and I could FINALLY wear a tank top without freezing within an inch of my life, and today it's supposed to be all of 50. Dang. The weather sucks, plain and simple. It's only calling is to keep us from being bored, but it really doesn't do that good a job...
ARRRRGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay. Deep breath. Rant over. Thank you for listening, come again next time. Hope you enjoyed the show.

Yesterday, my dad and some of his coworkers were teasing a newlywed with stories of my brothers *ahem* questionable exploits.
"Stop!" she said to my dad, "You always tell me about the weird things your sons do. Tell me about your daughter." (I would like to interject at this time that the reason my dad never brings horror stories to work about my exploits is because I am a perfect little angel who adores everyone she meets. I'm modest about it, too.)
So my dad directed her to my blog.
This is to you, Newlywed-whom-my-dad-horrified: we're not ALL like that. Some of us young kids, impressionable teenagers, and screwy post-adolecents are loveable and cute.
At least, that's the impression we like to cultivate.