I’m No Pioneer

Did you ever see the PBS show Frontier House? It’s a reality show for which families try to live realistically as they would were they a pioneer family on the frontier.  Okay, turns out, I could never have made it on the frontier.

How do I know?  Because I was going mildly crazy yesterday during our 18-hour power outage, courtesy of Tropical Storm Fay.

After already dealing with 27 straight hours of substantial rain, our power went out around noon yesterday.  At first it was no big deal.  It was even a good excuse to get Dave to play board games with me because, if you didn’t know, protocol for power outages is to play board games, specifically Monopoly, by candlelight.  See:

In case you’re wondering, I decidedly dominated our Monopoly match.  Oh, I also owned the Settlers of Catan game we played later.

However, board games and reading only stays interesting for so long, especially as our apartment darkened as the day went on and heated up since we had no air conditioning and we couldn’t turn open the windows because the rain continued outside. Finally around 8:30, sick of the still air and close to going stir crazy, Dave and I headed out to eat to find some warm food, air conditioning, and lights. Both of us were silently hoping that, like a watched pot refusing to boil, our power would come on while we weren’t looking.

But we weren’t that lucky. So we played one more board game and then tried to go to bed, but the stifling heat and noise (which is usually drowned out by fans) kept both of us up.  I finally gave up around 2am, when I headed to the living room to read.  After falling asleep around 3, I was woken up three hours later when the power finally came back on.

Life quickly got back to normal, but I feel almost jet lagged from the continual waiting and sleeplessness of the past day. Not exactly the way I hoped for my last weekend before classes resume to go. But I keep trying to feel focused and treat the torrential rains as a rejuvenating wash, splashing me in the face and waking me up before I start teaching again on Tuesday.

But who am I kidding?  I’m tired, and I’m not looking forward to starting the semester. But my faith lies in the hope that, once again, my students will encourage me and excite me.  At this point, though, I’m really just hoping they’re not obnoxious brats.

Someone Like You Can’t Touch This

Were you at my wedding?  If so, you saw Dave and I perform our first dance as a married couple to Van Morrison’s “Someone Like You.”  Now, we are by no means skilled dancers.  We relied on the rock-from-side-to-side method of dancing.  And we were cool with that.  The only downside was that somehow our DJ found a version of the song that was something like 7 minutes long.  It went on forever and ever and ever.  And people were staring at us (well and why not?  I looked hot!).  And our hips started hurting from all of the rocking.  So we ended up pulling in guests to dance so we could quietly bow out and continue with the rest of our party.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I loved our wedding; it was truly perfect.  But daggumit, if this show had existed three years ago, we would’ve done everything possible to get on it.  How cool!  They teach the couple how to do some funky dance rather than the traditional first dance and the only people that know about it are the Maid of Honor and the Best Man.  One of the brides on tonight’s show was sick, so she wanted to do this to keep the guests’ minds off of her illness, so she and her groom came out after an emotional ceremony and began a sweet, slow dance.  All of a sudden the groom’s hands ventured down, securely resting on her rump.  Her head cocks to the side, the music changes to M.C. Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This,” and they break into their routine.  It was hilarious!

Of course, even choreographers couldn’t give Dave and I rhythm for a wedding gift, but it sure would’ve been fun to try.  Maybe we can break out some “Ice, Ice Baby” when we renew our vows? Stop, collaborate and listen.  Yeah, we can rock to that.

Our Last Wedding

Finally, here are some pictures from the wedding we went to last weekend. I don’t know if disposable camera quality has gone downhill or if I’m just used to better pictures, but the pictures from our throw away Kodak aren’t best quality, so the “good” pictures here were stolen from my friend Beth’s facebook page. So thank Beth and enjoy:

The WKU dorm girls. From left to right: me, Katie, Beth, Leslie, Tara, and Tina. Leslie is the last of our group to get married so now we’re going to going to have to find new reasons to get together!

Me and Katie. She lives in Abilene, Texas now so it was good to have this rare opportunity to see her!

Me and Bethel…I miss this girl like crazy!

Dave and I lookin’ fancy!

Dave and Ben are so serious!

I love this picture! Check out Beth (on the left) and Katie (in the middle). Their expressions are priceless:)

This is only one of many pictures of Dave posing. He’s such a ham!

Big and Little

Off Topic Side Note: After I typed today’s blog title, my mind wandered. In 3rd grade, our class’ Christmas pageant was circus-themed (I don’t know how this worked; you’re about the find out all I can remember). Most of the class was cast as clowns in the pageant and two of the parts were Big and Little who were, you guessed it, a tall clown and a short clown. I REALLY wanted to be Little. Not because I was overly short; I was fairly average in height. But if I remember correctly, Little had a lot of lines. Unfortunately, there was a very short girl in our class who wanted the role because she was, well, short. We had a bitter rivalry. I ended up getting the part (my talent was obvious at that young age…NOT!), and the other girl hated me for quite a while after that. Random memory.

The real reason for the title comes courtesy of today’s pictures. One of the biggest surprises of our trip home last weekend was seeing Sandy, the miniature dachshund we got when I was in 5th grade. She was TINY! And I’m sure she was no smaller than she used to be, but now that I’m used to Potter, she looked so little to me. And pointy. But still lovable.

Today Dave and I went to a wedding reception for some church friends. They actually got married a couple of months ago, but they were married in Washington state (where she’s from) so they had a reception for people from Florida (he’s from Jacksonville). It was nice and fun to see them but awkward because we only knew a handful of people beside the bride and groom. But I was glad we went.

The rest of my weekend will actually be pretty easy with some church stuff, a meeting, and lots of Old English translation. Fun, eh?

My Old Kentucky Home

This weekend’s trip home was very good, but very long. The pictures for today are of Potter’s “get me out of this freaking car” face. He’d lay his head on the center console, nose at one of our arms, and look at us with the puppy-equivalent of “are we there yet?” It was cute and mirrored exactly what both Dave and I were thinking. It seems that almost 24 hours in a car in one weekend is well past the limit for all of us.

And yet it was totally worth it. The drive up was terrible, or at least my part of the driving was. There was torrential rain, at least 4 wrecks, and crazy drivers. It took us twelve and a half hours to get to Lexington, at which point I was going a little more than stir crazy. But Mom and Pete welcomed us with beer and brats, which made it all better. The next morning we got up, enjoyed a pleasant breakfast and conversation, and then headed to Louisville for Leslie’s wedding. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was loads of fun. My friend Katie said in her blog about the weekend that weddings have never been as much fun since her own wedding, and I totally sympathize. My wedding was so perfect for me that I constantly compare other weddings to my own, though I know (or hope anyway) that their weddings are perfect for them. But I kind of miss taking notes through weddings, stealing ideas for my own nuptials. Maybe one day (many years in the future) I’ll get to do it all over again with a vow renewal:)

The best part of the wedding for me was getting to see all of my amazing WKU friends. I miss those girls so much! They’re amazing and wonderful and I love how, after not having seen each other for months, we’re instantly as close as we always were. I could’ve sat and talked with them for hours. But the time we did have will hold me over for a while:)

After the wedding Dave and I drove back to Lexington where we picked up Potter and then headed to Dave’s parents’ in Somerset. Even though we didn’t get there until a little after 10, the whole fam waited up and we got to spend time with them and watch UK stomp UofL, which I was surprisingly happy about. We didn’t last long after the game ended and went straight to bed. We woke up and had a big fabulous breakfast with Dave’s family and spent some time in the wonderful fall weather (high of 72 or so) playing with Potter in the backyard. Then it was back in the car and back to the warmer weather of Tallahassee.

Potter, I should mention, was amazing on the trip. He got a little restless on both parts of the trip, but he would only walk around in the back seat a little more or nose our arms. At mom’s he handled being around 2 miniature dachshunds and 2 cats very well and slept like a log. He certainly enjoyed getting so much love from his extended family!

I’ll post some pictures from the wedding soon, but one of the many mishaps of the weekend was our leaving the digital camera in Lexington when we went to the wedding. So we bought a disposable one, which means we now have to suffer through waiting for development. In the meantime you can just trust me when I say I looked hot:)

Wedding Weekend

This weekend I was in Louisville for my friends Brad and Crystal’s wedding, and it was both a wonderful weekend and a wonderful wedding! The festivities started with the rehearsal followed by the rehearsal dinner on Friday. The dinner was at an Italian restaurant on Bardstown Road that Brad swears is owned by the mob. Whether it is or not, they make darn near the best lasagna I’ve ever had outside of Europe. Yum. Plus I got to sleep in my big comfy hotel bed that night, so it was quite a good day.

Saturday afternoon my mom came up and we had lunch (at The Cheesecake Factory) and did some shopping. I didn’t except to have time to see her with all of the wedding happenings, so I was happy that it worked out. We had a really great time and some excellent food. Unfortunately it was short lived because she had to head back to Lexington and I had to change for the wedding.

And what a wedding it was. I have never been to a wedding that so fits the bride and groom. Our friend Jeff performed the ceremony (thanks to the internet and the Universalist Life Church) and he did great. Brad and Crystal had written their own “script” (titled “The Fodrey/Hensley Wedding: A Play in Three Acts”). Everything about the wedding was great including the readings (particularly my own production of a passage from The Velveteen Rabbit;)) and the view (they got married on the roof of Louisville Glassworks which had a magnificent view of downtown Louisville and the river), but my favorite part by far was their vows. They alternated promises to each other from Crystal’s promise to go to sporting events she cares nothing about to Brad’s promise to sometimes watch movies that don’t contain the words “rings,” “star,” or “Schindler’s,” including more serious/sweet/romantic promises. They were perfectly befitting these two friends of mine and I believe every promise they made. I came quite close to crying at that point. All in all, it was absolutely beautiful and a lot of fun.

But my favorite part of the event was the reception, where I got to hang out with quite a few of my old professors from WKU. As much as I love FSU, Western still feels like home to me and these profs know me so well and so genuinely want me to succeed that it was wonderful to just be able to catch up with them. And any chance to watch your old department head and her husband boogie on the dance floor is well worth it.

Unfortunately I had to leave the reception a bit early since I had a very early flight to catch. But it was very much worth it to be there for the weekend. I had a blast and am very jealous of Brad and Crystal now that they’re on their honeymoon in California wine country. We’ll get there some day!

Some pictures:

The ceremony. I wish I had a better shot of Crystal’s dress; it was beautiful!

The groom’s cake; perfect for Brad. It could’ve only been better if it were a white whale.

The WKU Crew (l-r): Dale Rigby, Rev. Jeff Carr, Karen Schneider (the dancin’ department head), me, groom Brad, bride Crystal, Sandra Hughes, and Elizabeth Weston