Two Years Later

It has been two years since that fateful April day at Virginia Tech. I wrote this then and will re-post it now. It is still unbelievable and still makes me want to cry.

"While 32 of our friends and classmates are in heaven trying to explain what a Hokie is, I stand here sure in the fact that I wouldn't want to be anything else."
So, yesterday I got a message from Kevin telling me something bad had happened at our beloved Virginia Tech. When I checked the news one was dead and one was injured- some kind of "domestic disturbance". By the end of the school day, that number had jumped to 33 dead, 20 more injured. We both sat on the couch in disbelief as we watched the events unfold on the TV and the internet.

It wasn't that long ago that I was there- walking under the arch in Norris to make it over to Hokie Grill and back (usually with Macel) before the next class started. It wasn't that long ago that we were stumbling the mile or more from the commuter lot to make it to a football game before kickoff after 8 hours of tailgating, walking right by that building. It wasn't that long ago that we had some random sorority event in the crossover lounge at AJ. And it wasn't that long ago that many of my friends sat in the very classrooms where this all went down.

Today in school was weird. Trying to pull myself together so that I could answer the questions my students had. Many of them knew I graduated from Tech, many still did not. Hearing them say they were scared to go to college now and that they didn't understand why this had happened was hard because, at 8:30 this morning, I did not understand why this had happened- part of me still does not understand why this happened. And some of them were still jerks.

I guess it is easy to try to place blame because that is what we try to do when tragedy strikes. But this person was intent on finding and killing who he was looking for. If it had not been Norris Hall, it would have been a dining hall, or a dorm lounge, or the Drillfield. The one person to blame for this is dead along with 32 innocent individuals. It is terrible and just....sad. The human stories are starting to emerge from all this...the ones that tear your heart out of your chest and make you go back to that place that you once thought was so safe.

And here we are now...both of us still staring at the TV in disbelief. Talking to our friends who maybe finally understand that once you become a Hokie you never stop- orange and maroon always match- and you still think Blacksburg is one of the best places in the world. My best friend- a diehard Hokie Hater- is dressing her son in orange and maroon on Friday My sister- a Wahoo- has put a VT logo on her Myspace. And thousands of people throughout the world have seen our tiny little Blue Ridge Mountain town pull together to get through something that no one should ever have to experience.

As cheers of "Let's Go Hokies" rise above the sea of people on the VT drillfield, I just want to cry.

The Funniest Thing I Heard Today

Today was Sunday. I tend to sleep in on Sundays even now that I am, as my friend Mona says, A real live grownup. I usually don't sleep past ten but today I didn't feel the need to roll out of bed until noon- I think it is my brain retaliating for making it get up so early to go snowboarding the last few weekends. I also have a penchant for waking up, looking at the clock, and rolling over for "10 more minutes." During these "10 minutes" I usually have really whacked out dreams- yesterday, I was eating cake on the top a a giant, snow covered mountain with Jenn from work while discussing the secret underground in Park City. Today, I was arguing with a manager of a train terminal in Washington, DC that I really needed a bed if he was going to stop running trains to South Carolina.

So anyway, I wake up this morning afternoon for the third or forth time and decide that maybe I should actually get out of bed and try to do something productive since it was too warm to go snowboarding. Bleery eyed, I stumble out into the living room to find Dr. HokieKev engrossed in something scholarly a poker game on his computer. This was our conversation:

Me: Do you want breakfast?
Dr. HokieKev: I was just thinking about making pancakes.
Me: What? You were going to do what...
Dr. HokieKev: Well, I was thinking I would make some pancakes.
Me: You... were going to make pancakes? When have you ever made pancakes? Or breakfast, for that matter? Do you even know how to make pancakes?
Dr. HokieKev: Well, I was thinking about it.
Me: ::laughing:: So, I take it you want pancakes?
Dr. HokieKev: With chocolate chips...
Me: How old are you?
Dr. HokieKev: ::laughing:: Six

I found the whole conversation amusing. Dr. HokieKev can grill- in fact, he does it often. He can also make tacos- although, he does that WAY less frequently. I think I have also seen him make a grilled cheese or two and heat up various frozen, boxed foods. However,I have never seen him even attempt to cook breakfast. Well, maybe that isn't true. I have seen him try- once- to make eggs. Here is how that went:

::Flashback to Massachusetts in or around 2004::

Dr. HokieKev: I am going to go make some eggs.
Me: Do you know how to make eggs?
Dr. HokieKev: Yeah, I mean how hard could it be.
Me: Okay.
Dr. HokieKev: What pan do I use?
Me: The small one.
Dr. HokieKev: Do I melt the butter or scramble it in with the eggs?
Me: Melt it first.
Dr. HokieKev: Where is that pan?
Me: Ugh, let me just do it.

See, breakfast and Dr. HokieKev really don't go together. Although, he did admit that he did this on purpose because he did not want to make the eggs. This story ended with me cooking up some chocolate chip pancakes on the skillet I once hated but have now decided is much more efficient than a pan when making breakfast foods. Dr. HokieKev got down the skillet. He also started dinner tonight- Lasagna, from a box.

Some Things Never Change

Picture for a moment my 15 year old self tumbling her way across the floor at gymnastics practice. Roundoff, backhandspring, backhandspring, back tuck. Lather, rinse, repeat. Now imagine my 15 year old self landing one of those back tucks where her right ankle decides it doesn't want to play anymore and, instead of standing strong for the landing, rolls flat while the leg stays straight. Apparently, it popped. Apparently, it was loud enough for everyone in the gym to stop what they were doing and ask if I was okay. After hopping around for a moment, my 15 year old self decided the ankle was fine and kept on tumbling. Yeah, probably not the best decision but 15 year old selves don't think of that. Twelve years later, the right ankle is still a problem. Thankfully, it doesn't tend to get humid and rainy in Utah and needless to say, the ankle did not like Florida humidity.

Fast forward to last Sunday. My 27 year old self decides to leave the safety of the baby mountain while snowboarding and show off my newly acquired snowboarding skills on the real mountain. After a couple successful practice runs down the baby mountain, I head up to the top with Dr. HokieKev and some friends who, compared to me, are ready for the Olympics. I do okay especially since I have left the safety of the green circles for the slightly harder blue squares. I have to stop a few times- the altitude is an ass kicker- but otherwise felt pretty good about the big mountain. I fall once, pretty epically sliding down the mountain (note to self, back flip will not stop the siding. It will continue, but now hurt more since your face is in the snow), but manage to stop myself before hitting a tree. I am sure my expert skier friends were laughing. But remember, they are ready for the Olympics, they can laugh and ski at the same time- so maybe I deserve it. Anyway, I make it down the mountain to a nice, flat, "easy" part. I lose my momentum and fall straight on my head. I guess I put my hands behind me to stop my head from ricocheting on the ice- it didn't work. My head went crack. Dr. HokieKev asked if my head was all right and told me to get up. I put my hands down to push myself up and...nothing...my wrist was having none of it.

I somehow manage to pull myself together and get back to the lift. As I am holding my wrist trying to convince Dr. HokieKev that I can still feel my fingers so it must be okay, Ski Patrol Man comes over to offer me a splint and a bag of snow. A BAG OF SNOW?!? Um...no thanks dude, I am fine...yeah, fine. I can still move my fingers, nothing is swollen, I may be on the verge of tears but I am not bleeding, time to go back up the mountain. Thanks though! And back up the mountain we all went- my Olympic-ready skier friends and I!

All was fine. It was cold so my wrist was frozen. I went down a black diamond and only fell once- a little fall. Weird that I can't do the "easy," flat stuff but I managed to get down the black diamond alive and unharmed. I also managed to get off the lift without falling more times than not and my tailbone escaped without being bruised. So anyway, we got home and thawed out and- HOLY WHOA THAT HURTS!- I guess my wrist wasn't that okay. In theory, one would go to the emergency room. In practice, I felt that unnecessary. I have a pretty high tolerance for injury pain but an incredibly low one for ANYTHING involving medical personnel. Besides, emergency rooms take forever and cost alot of money. All they would do is give me a brace and some x-rays and tell me to go to a doctor on Monday. I can do that myself- well, not the x-ray part but the rest. Three stores and 11 bucks later, I had a wrist brace. My 15 year old self would be proud.

Some things never change.

P.S.- Two days later, it still hurts. Yesterday, I could barely brush my hair. Dr. HokieKev had to hook my bra- something I am sure he never thought he would have to do. I spent most of the day using my left hand for anything that involved a turning motion. It is really hard to do things with the left hand. Today was a bit better. I did have to suck it up and take off the brace to write. I can't write with my left hand. Hopefully, this trend of getting better continues.

Life Lesson #3974- The Peanut Butter Will Not Kill You

I like Peter Pan peanut butter- it is pretty much the only peanut butter that I like. Skippy is gross and JIF will not do. But once again, my peanut butter has been yanked from the shelves due to a supposed poisoning. Some of us remember this unfortunate incident:
___________________________________________________________________
October 7, 2007
I really miss Peter Pan peanut butter :-( For those of you that do not remember, it was recalled in February after an unfortunate incident with a leaky sprinkler and an outbreak of salmonella. Shortly thereafter, they pulled the creamy goodness that was Peter Pan peanut butter from grocery store shelves all over the country. I, like many others, rushed to my pantry to determine whether or not I had any potentially deadly peanut butter and, much to my dismay, discovered that I did. Well, the entire process to claim my three dollar refund seemed way too time consuming at the time and, since I was only losing out on about three bucks, I decided I would just throw it away.....eventually. Well, eventually never came. And then one day.......the rice cakes came calling.....”top me with peanut buttery goodness.” So, now I had a decision to make- eat the diseased peanut butter and risk a horrible stomach ache from salmonella or let my butter popcorn rice cakes go naked. I guess I could have gone to the store and bought some new, non diseased peanut butter but that would mean potentially getting dressed and venturing into the night (this could have been an afternoon episode but it was months ago and I do not remember). Salmonella/Instant Gratification....hmmmm......Instant Gratification!!! So, I ate the peanut butter....in fact, I ate two whole jars of the peanut butter! (Not at the same time, but eventually) I half expected to be making a midnight run to the emergency room to have my stomach pumped, but that didn't happen. In fact, I was fine but little did I know that would be the last Peter Pan peanut butter I would eat, possibly forever :-( For the last seven months I have had to live with second rate peanut butter on my rice cakes. All I have to say is....choosy moms should never choose JIF. It is HORRIBLE!!! I would rather take my chances with salmonella! So, I did the only thing I could think of, I wikipediaed Peter Pan....because we all know that if it is on wikipedia then it MUST be true....and was very happy to see it would be returning in August to a grocery store near me. Well....its October and still no sign of the stuff.

Dear whoever makes Peter Pan peanut butter,
Please give me back my peanut butter with the androgynous little sprite on the front. I miss it and Skippy and JIF are just not the same. I promise I will not sue you if I get salmonella.

Thanks!

Now before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I would never feed diseased peanut butter to my children. Had I had any, I would have bought them fresh, new, choosy moms peanut butter free of salmonella, e. coli, mad cow, smallpox, scurvy, cholera, and dysentery. But I was pretty confident my immune system could handle it.
___________________________________________________________________

My distress ended when my friend Mona overnighted me some delicious Peter Pan peanut butter thus preventing me from having to stomach the nonsense that is JIF. And then we moved to Utah and apparently they hadn't yet gotten the memo that peanut butter was off the FDA's "Foods That Will Kill You" list and I once again had trouble finding my brand. After about a month of living here, I finally found some at Target of all places. Eventually, it filtered back to the grocery stores and my rice cakes had a cromulent (Wikipedia=true, remember?) companion, until now- damn salmonella. I guess I will have to make another trip to the closest Target- 30 minutes away- and hope they have not yet gotten the memo that Reduced Fat Creamy Peter Pan Peanut Butter is once again deadly!

Just what kind of girl do you think I am...

When I was a senior in high school, my best friend Ramona and I took a trip to North Carolina to visit another friend at his college. Said friend is in a fraternity- we knew we would be going to a couple of parties. We also knew we would be spending our nights in a male dorm with pretty strict rules about overnight visitors of the opposite sex (we ignored these rules and blew up our air mattress right on the floor of his dorm room).

Anyway, after a six hour drive including being pulled over in Emporia, VA for doing 5 miles over the speed limit, seeing renegade horses galloping on a median, and getting lost in Fayetteville, NC- we finally made it to Wingate with our 6 foot tall Gumby doll no worse for the wear. As we were getting ready for the weekend's first party and the boys were off doing something faternity related (and very loud) upstairs, Ramona threw a box of condoms on the bed. Not strange- remember, boys, fraternity parties, no adult supervision. She had a pretty serious boyfriend at the time, I did not. She said she wanted to make sure that I was "safe" should I be put in a situation to need said condoms. Still, not strange. Upon further review, however, I noticed that the box she threw on the bed contained not 3, not 5, not 20, but 100 condoms. ONE HUNDRED!!! We were only there for three days...who needs 100 condoms for three days...that is over one an hour. I promptly asked her what she thought I was planning to do that weekend. She replied with something along the lines of- well, you never know. We both laughed.

This story came to mind yesterday as I was strolling through the aisles at Sam's Club- I thought of it and wondered if these econo packs were sold in Utah. They aren't. You can get your 100 pounds of sugar but not your 100 pack of condoms. Just in case you needed to know...

PS- For the multiple parental units that read this- all 100 condoms were filled with water and used as balloons.