Auntie Val

I'm in the process of collecting names and addresses to send out save the date cards for my wedding. The list is mostly friends and close family, but there are some family members I've decided not to send an announcement to. One of those is my elderly "Auntie Val."

When I graduated high school I sent announcements to many of my family, including Auntie Val. She responded with a very depressing letter. She told me how glad she was that I was pursuing my education, because she didn't have a chance to go to college and her dreams were crushed. Her life was terrible and her marriage was a failure, and she thought about committing suicide on her wedding day. (Did I mention Auntie Val is a bit odd?)

After my mom read her letter she said, "Don't send her a college announcement. Who knows what she'll write next time." I think if I send Auntie Val a save the date card she may respond with, "Congratulations. I'm glad you have a chance to have a good life with a man. If you're lucky he won't be a cheating lying bastard and you won't name your son after a reviled man in history and you won't become estranged from your children and siblings and move to another state and be labeled crazy."

During high school, Auntie Val also sent me a photo of herself. It arrived framed, as if she was sure I wouldn't put it on the mantle unless it was ready to display. (My family digs out that photo whenever she comes to visit from out of state).

During one of her visits she decided to bring me an eclectic collection of gifts. These included printer labels and two boxes of tampons. When my mother tried to politely dissuade her from giving me more tampons in the future by saying it wasn't necessary for her to give me such things, Auntie Val misunderstood. She exclaimed, "She's a big girl now! She's pretty late if she doesn't need tampons!"

The last time I saw Auntie Val was at my grandmother's funeral, which was a traditional Asian ceremony where we burned incense and paper money. Auntie Val, the only Catholic in the family, was apparently offended by our "pagan" practices. She was rude during the ceremony, and behaved coldly towards the family. She didn't seem to realize that what Grandma would have wanted was the most important thing.

If Auntie Val shows up to my wedding and starts throwing a fit because it's a secular outdoor ceremony without a full Mass, I think my family is prepared to ninja her away.

Barfight Sarah

My co-worker, who enjoys regaling us with tales of her "redneck" family, has a cousin whose nickname is "Barfight Sarah."

Her nose was broken during a tavern brawl, but she was too drunk to go to the hospital and have it set. Her nose healed in a crooked shape, and she had to get plastic surgery to fix it.

Barfight Sarah is currently pregnant with her second child during her first year of marriage to a much younger man that the family suspects is a drug dealer.

Kids, this is why you shouldn't drink.

Overheard

Parent to Child: " No, you can't have that. It has chocolate in it, which has sugar in it, which makes you crazy, which makes Daddy crazy."

Whistle While You Work

I've been very busy the past two weeks working at my new job! I'm starting at a very interesting time.

Next week the lab is being audited. The managers and supervisors are running around, making sure everyone has their paperwork up-to-date. Some of the training manuals and miscellaneous documentation that new employees take weeks or months to do, I need to do immediately.

One of the supervisors calls me the "miracle child." Due to budget problems, lots of positions got cut - right after I got hired. The student workers got laid off 5 days after I started working.

It's a scary, but exciting time.

Psych Experiment

A friend of mine has a very odd younger brother. At her birthday party he proudly told us about the psychological experiments he was conducting in public restrooms. Mainly, Pee Boy wanted to make people uncomfortable.

Experiment 1: The Wide Stance
Pee Boy spread his legs far enough to brush against the man in the next stall. Each time, the man would move away. PB would spread his legs further and further until the subject was urinating with his own feet together, to avoid touching him.

Experiment 2: Satisfaction
PB stood at a urinal, sighing like a person who was very relieved to finally use the bathroom. His sighs of content would get louder and louder, until any men who entered the bathroom was unnerved enough by his behavior that they not only refused to use the urinal next to him, but any urinal at all. PB said a small herd of men eventually gathered in the far corner of the bathroom, waiting for their turn, despite the many urinals available.

Experiment 3: Personal Interaction
Men have an unspoken rule about urinal use. Unless there is no choice, one must not select the urinal next to one already in use. Pee Boy broke this rule. In addition, he broke the second unspoken rule about keeping his eyes straight ahead, and the third unspoken rule about not starting conversations. PB stood at a urinal next to a man, turned to him and said "Nice."

The man freaked out, stopped urinating mid-stream, and fled into a stall.

I'm surprised no one beat up Pee Boy.

Smurfy

A peek into the type of weird conversations I have with my fiance:

Fiance: "I wonder what color a Smurf would turn if you strangled it."
Me: "Before or after it starts to rot?"
Fiance: "Before of course."
Me: "Are we assuming that it has a hemoglobin-based circulatory system?"
Fiance: "I hypothesize that Smurfs have an open circulatory system. Their round, ill-defined appendages suggest the pooling of a fluid I call 'smurfolymph' within."
Me: "In that case I don't think they'd change color until the smurfolymph began to oxidize."

Freedom

A couple days ago I turned in my thesis, with all the signatures from my committee.

I visited my program director and gave him a copy.

I went to the Registrar and paid to have my diploma mailed.

I turned in my keys and got my deposit back. (The key lady was ecstatic that I brought back the receipts. She said I was the first person to ever do that, and it made her job easier).

I cleaned up my lab space, and threw away unneeded items. I passed things to people who could use them.

I had lunch with my old lab-mates.

I got to ring the special bell in Graduate Studies.

I went home and slept for 11 hours, because for the first time in a long time I did not have a lot of responsibilities the next day.

I am done with my Master's degree. Woohoo!