This is How You Run

Last weekend, at Bumbershoot (an annual music festival in Seattle), Lucas acquired a fake tattoo.  On Tuesday morning, he ended up being late to school because of how difficult it was to remove the tattoo.  When I asked him about the event, he said, “This was NOT a good life decision, Tiffany.”  

At least 7 hours of last week was dedicated to watching the West Wing and… wait for it… exercise.  I know.  I can hardly believe it myself.  Maybe there was even more time dedicated to West Wing – but I deserved it.  I have also been trying to play Halo at least an hour every day for the last month or more.  I don’t *think* I shared this story yet….

I was playing multi-player (my co-workers and I were trying to shoot each other) when I saw that someone had a jetpack. 

Me: Um… why does Nick have a Jetpack?  That seems like cheating.

Jeremy: Actually, we’re all cheating.  We just didn’t tell you.

Me: Excuse me?

Jeremy: Also, this is how you run. 

Me: You let me play for weeks with better weapons AND you didn’t tell me how to RUN!?

Like me and my pink armor needed a handicap.

As I have mentioned, it’s very common for my co-workers to come up behind me, break my neck, stab me, and then dance on my poor, dead, pink carcass.  The other day, we were playing and a co-worker instant messaged me with, “Watch out.” I started to look around, and suddenly, I was ambushed from behind.  Cute. As we get the game ready for launch, we have to put new builds every day.  Some folks were having trouble loading the latest build.  This was on a group email thread:

Me: Not to gloat, but mine seems to be working just fine. 

B: At last, you’ve won a round of Halo.

K: You’re a monster, B. MOOOOONSTEERRRRRRR

Me: I haven’t been this proud since I got two assists when I walked away from my desk for 5 minutes.  #betterwithoutcontroller

I tried to get people together to play Kickball, or Dodgeball or SPUD or Ring-around-the-rosie last week, but when I didn’t get more than one person to respond I sent this email:

Canceling because no one wants to play with me.  L

Or they have work to do. 

Probably the first on though.

I had breakfast with Becky on Friday, which is when I learned about “Pop Tart Cat” or as Lucas informed me, the “Nyan Cat”.

We decided that we were going to go back to Pallets and Pairings for a charity event in which we would paint a picture of our pet.  Becky was sure in her path to paint a version of her cat as the Pop Tart Cat – she just needed help choosing which photo to work from.  When she asked if she should use the majestic photo, or the playful photo, or the thoughtful photo etc of each cat, her husband Jared replied, “You don’t seriously think I care, do you?” (I might be paraphrasing here – I wasn’t present for the actual conversation.)

Diana stopped by on Saturday for some fun in the sun.  The weather surprised us with a beautiful day for boating and pool time.  On Saturday evening, Dawne, Jordan, Beck and I arrived at Pallet’s and Pairings ready to consume adult beverages and create master pieces. 

Becky:  I’m not sure if I should paint the whiskers first or last. 

Jordan: Actually, real artists first paint the skeleton, then over that the muscles, followed by exodermises, THEN the fur, then the whiskers.  

Stranger: What kind of dog is that?

Jordan: An Australian shepherd

Stranger: Really?  I didn’t think they were that big!

Jordan: Oh! They aren’t that big.  I didn’t actually paint the mountains to scale – that’s probably where the confusion is. 

However, here IS a life size comparison.  (Yes, I know she’s filthy – Dawne gave her a bath last night. )

On Sunday, I spent the early morning catching up on phone calls and what not (Read: FaceTime’d with Janette for an hour and half.  I watched her make juice out of vegetables, she watched me sweat on the elliptical.)  Then, Zach and I went down to IKEA and had lunch all within an hour and half – > 15 minutes of which was actually in IKEA.  I’m not sure, but that might be a world record.  Dawne and Jordan took Casper and Nala to a Dog Carnival where they didn’t get their fortunes told, but they DID get glue on earrings.  I finished up the day putting furniture together and organizing my room.  I know, totally glamorous.  Lucas spent some of that time entertaining me with a history paper he was writing.  It started off with a guy on a plantation with cows and ended with his hand being cut off.  I wonder if he read this: http://people.howstuffworks.com/duel2.htm

Either way, by the end of the story telling I had to ask, “What subject did you say this was for?”