Bit of Ivory

But I can’t not say it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Ravensnape!!!!!!!

You are an amazing woman and a wonderful friend. I’ll always consider my life to be blessed because you are a part of it. I love you, Lou. *hugs*

In other news, saw Pride and Prejudice with Jen and Kate today. Still a good movie. Orlando Seale is still HOT. I want to run my fingers through his very curly hair, yesss, my preciousssss.

Also just got back from The Scarlet Pimpernel at the Hale Centre Theatre. I love theatre-in-the-round. Tonight’s cast was especially good. Percy and Marguerite were both the best I’ve ever seen. Chauvelin was played by Craig Bowen, our favorite. He was amazing, as always. The nicest surprise of the night was the guy who played Armand. Rather than putting just any old person in the role, they actually picked someone who could both *sing* and *act*. Amazing! They rented the Broadway costumes again, which I love–looking at those costumes and knowing they were worn by Douglas Sills and Terrence Mann. Although, you can tell that Douglas and Terrence were taller than our actors, and that Christine Andreas was a bit– umm– fuller than tonight’s actress. Heh.

Number of:

Minutes late : 5 (had trouble finding the place I was supposed to park my car)
Times I signed my name filling out new-hire paperwork: 5
Times I heard the “square peg in a round hole” analogy: 87
Times I heard the Impressing Texas With Our Amazing Database story: 3
Coworkers who have HP calendars: at least 2 (Kate, and McKenzie in my section)
Times I’ve been asked if I’m related to John Bytheway: 87
Friends I had lunch with : 3
Friends who I had lunch with who I’ve never met before: 2
Filing cabinets falling over and making a loud “BANG”: 1
Times I checked my e-mail: 2 (on break!)
Times I checked my flist: 2 (on break!)
Times my supervisor’s Trillian pinged that he was getting a message: 87 million
Games I spied being played on my coworker’s computers: 3
Games *I* played: 0
Coworkers who left before me: All of them
Minutes left early: 2

So, all in all a good day. I think I’ll like it. Next week I’m going to start exercising with Kate.

but this is a FREAKIN’ long entry, and really needs the LJ cut. So. . .

Thoughts on the JKR chat, as mused upon in Live Journal.

Judging by the general dearth of comments on here lately, I doubt many of you care.

I have a job! I have a job!

*does happy employment dance*

$8 an hour, full time, with the possibility of continuing part time once school starts. And I’ll be working with Kate! And WGU employees get a free membership at Apple Fitness, so I can lose that weight! Whoot!

Off to celebrate. . .

I’m sure it’s just exhaustion from the past few days, and a bit of depression over the whole thing. Even Wimsey can’t interest me. Am trying to read The Five Red Herrings, but am having trouble. Do any of you people who are much smarter than me know what the object was that Wimsey found missing at the scene of the crime? Am clueless.

I have another interview at WGU tomorrow, which means I made it to the second round. So that’s good. If I get this job, I won’t feel guilty about trying to get a teaching position at the Y next year, because it’s only temporary. The BYU job would be one that I would feel obligated to continue in once I start school, if it’s possible for me to do so. If these jobs don’t work out, I’m going to go to a temp agency. All I need is something to get me through till school starts, then I’ll have more options.

I’m going to spend the night up at my grandma’s tomorrow night. We don’t want her to be alone yet. I’m going to take the BBC P&P with me. Hopefully 5 hours of Colin Firth will help keep her mind off things for a while.

And me too.

*sigh*

Am much pleased with the Oscar outcome. Wish Johnny could have gotten it, of course, but he looked awfully pretty not getting it. And go RotK!

Grandpa’s funeral was today. It was a wonderful funeral– very inspiring. Sad, of course, but that’s to be expected. Since my grandpa was a veteran, he got all of the military honors, including a gun salute. It was very touching.

After the funeral we had the usual luncheon– ham, jello salads, and funeral potatoes. My 5-year-old cousin Ashley came up to me as we were sitting down. “I want to sit by you,” she said. “You know, I didn’t used to like you very much, but now you’re my favorite.” Umm. Thanks, Ashley. Heh.

Now, life can go back to normal. As normal as it ever is, that is. *sigh*

There is a bit of happy news in all this grief. I just opened my mail, and I have been accepted to BYU Graduate School!

Wahoo!

is here.

I think it turned out wonderfully. A fitting tribute.

My mother was much too tired to cook last night, so we went out. Our waiter was very cool. We were reminiscing about our high school choir teacher, and my sister Laura mentioned a comment he’d made once about Britney Spears: “Not much upstairs, but man, what a staircase.” The waiter was replenishing our strawberry lemonades at the time, and he absolutely cracked up. When he brought out boxes for our leftovers, he’d drawn little things on all our boxes, and Laura’s had Britney on it. It was highly amusing. He also got us strawberry lemonades to go and extra rolls to take home. Heh.

I need to get my hair cut today. Sigh.

My grandfather died at approximately 11 o’clock this morning, just as I was being interviewed at BYU. It’s almost a relief. He’s past the pain now, and the anxious waiting is over. Now we just have to learn to adjust to life without him.

My grandfather was a great man. As a child I was slightly frightened by him–he was a bit on the gruff side, at least to us noisy children. But underneath that slightly rigid exterior he was a big bowl of mush. He loved his wife and his family–nothing delighted him more than spending time with us. He was devoted to his church–he left his wife of six months to serve a mission for the Church in the days when our single young men were still being drafted. When we would go to visit him, his scriptures would always be open on the table, with his reading glasses nearby. He had a wonderful sense of humor that he has passed on to all of us. I can remember many times when we’d be sitting there, chatting about something entirely mundane and he’d suddenly start to giggle, remembering something amusing from years before I was born. We’d watch funny movies and he’d start laughing before the jokes even came. I’m one of the older grandchildren, so I knew him better than many of my cousins. I learned to love and respect him before the disease took over his life. I will miss him terribly, but I am so, so glad that I was blessed enough to be born into his family, and that I can remember him and his example for the rest of my life.

I’ll miss you, Grandpa By. The world is a better place because you lived in it. I’ll see you on the other side.

Grandpa is still hanging in there, which amazes all of the hospice people. My parents are both up there, so I’m home alone again with my thoughts. Except this time Wedgewood’s in the corner, which makes such a difference. She’s been acting strangely– very clingy, which is extremely odd. She usually doesn’t like me very much. But today I haven’t been able to get her to go back in her cage, and she’ll even let me nuzzle her feathers with my nose, which never, ever happens. She usually despises being touched. I don’t know if it’s because she’s sick, or if she’s just delighted to be with people she knows again after the vet. But she is eating, quite a bit actually. So I don’t know what to think about it all.

My interview went well, I think, although it’s tough to tell for sure. I didn’t have all the experience they wanted in some areas, but I impressed them in others. They’re going to call back the best candidates for a second interview.

And in the meantime, I have an interview with BYU tomorrow at 11. So, we shall see how that goes.

I’m watching the directors/writers commentary of FotR to pass the time. I’ve been having “In Dreams” and “Into the West” running through my head for days, anyway. Tolkien seems to lend itself very well to my state of mind right now. Oddly enough, so does Dorothy L. Sayers. I don’t know what it says about me, that I’m enjoying a murder mystery at a moment like this, but there it is.

As Lord Peter would say, cheer-frightfully-ho, and all that.

Thank you so much to all of you for your thoughts and prayers. They are felt, I promise you. Can’t tell you how much it means.