Coupons and Mer-people and Bigfoot, Oh My!

Friday was an interesting day at the museum. We definitely have our fair share of crazies, but it seems they tend to travel in flocks and all come in to visit us on the same day. Maybe I should be paying attention to the moon calendar and I might find some correlations. Anyways, the first story for the day was more of a difficult customer than a crazy. She came into the museum with her husband and 2 kids (one of which was younger than 4 years old which made her free) and she had a buy one admission get one free (of equal or lesser value) coupon from the Entertainment Book. As I always have in any coupon situation, I made the cheapest admission the free one. In my mind this is standard practice pretty much anywhere you go. Well the lady pitched a tissy fit saying that whenever there is a coupon that says 'equal or lesser value' that the most expensive option is ALWAYS the free one and that what I was doing was WRONG. Oh I very much hate being told I'm wrong, especially when I know I'm right. Clearly this lady has never shopped with a coupon before either at a restaurant with an entre, or to the Payless BOGO (buy one get one) shoe sale. I was being a good employee that day and I bit my lip and just let her have her way as there were people coming in the door behind her. Her husband was standing a good distance back pretending not to pay attention to what she was doing. Poor guy.

Then of course she had a large bag. It is the museum's policy to hold large bags behind the counter unless they contain emergency medications. I told her that we needed to hold her bag behind the counter (and I wasn't being snotty about it or anything!) and she must have presumed that I was retaliating for letting her have her way with the coupon fiasco. She aggressively pulled out her wallet and almost everything out of the bag and tucked them under her arms to take with her, muttering how she didn't trust me with her stuff. Then she pushed the bag toward me and said "Well you've made this so pleasant I'll be sure to never come back here again." Haha. I hope she never does. I wish I could have gotten that in writing. At least when she turned around she instantly switched moods and was nice to her family. That was one of the first visitors for the day.

A little while later I was helping a couple of visitors that came in with their home school children. On the other side of the counter an older lady approached, interrupting asking me where my office was. I told her that my office was the desk that she was currently leaning against, but if she was looking for the 'office' for the business side of the museum that it was on the opposite side of the building (then I gave her directions). She started talking to me as I continued to help the visitors in front of me. I was only half listening to her, but I kept hearing her talk about her drawings throwing around phrases like "mer-people" and "bigfoot" and I would turn my head to her each time, hoping I was hearing her wrong. Then she was mentioning ammonites which was much more normal for our natural history museum, and that made me feel better. Before I was done helping the visitors she had disappeared from my desk and had traveled to the back 'office' of the museum. Now on the weekdays there is an awesome back desk receptionist that is a friend of mine and we both always have our gmail open and are constantly linked via gchat (instant messenger) which comes in handy in situations such as these. The following is just a copy and paste of our conversation:

Receptionist: can you call {our boss} and tell him i have a strange lady down here trying to sell people her drawing
she's not pushy, but needs to be gently told to go away
or tell him
me: he's on his way
Receptionist: thanks
Receptionist: crazy lady went in the cafe
me: ah
good to know
can't watch her there, though
or save the poor patrons that get stuck talking to her
Receptionist: i know
shes gentle about telling everyone that we should live in peace with the mer people at least...
me: haha yeah actually she was up here and I sent her downstairs... my bad... I was busy with people and she asked me where the office was... I was hoping I misheard her about 'mer' people
then she started talking about ammonites or something so I thought...maybe relevant?
Receptionist: she thinks she found an ammonite walking across the street in marysville and says she told us about it and she has a drawing of us living in harmony with the mer people and other animal spirits she's trying to sell
me: lol
I really do love people
Receptionist: yeah
me: I think I heard her mention bigfoot too
Receptionist: yeah, he was illustrated in the picture
me: should have made a photocopy of it on the copier
she probably would've charged, though
we could have hung it on the fridge in the hallway there

It was nice to have instant messenger for her to be able to contact me (silently) as speaking code over the phone to try to tell someone there was a strange person in front of her doesn't always work. Other things the drawing lady mentioned were that she had met a mer-person in her youth and had decided to be friends with all of the mer-people after that. She also mentioned that she had always had this uncanny ability to solve people's problems. She was very nice, just definitely not in the same reality as the rest of us.

I guess earlier in the week we had a gentleman come in claiming he had a fossilized dinosaur eyeball (among other things). You know, because we all know that it's the soft parts that fossilize. Then he went on a contradicting rant...something about how he didn't believe in dinosaurs. Then he went on to say that he did believe in dinosaurs and that they were hunted to extinction by humans. Oh goodness sometimes my soul just dies a little bit. I was not working when this gentleman was in, though, so this is just a third person story.

And if you are still reading at this point, that is your little glimpse into why it is so much fun to work at a museum. At least that is my opinion. :)

McDonalds Put a Job Application in My Food Bag

I don't feel like being coherent right now so I'm just going to go ahead and throw it all out there.

Last week Reid and I went and stayed at Dad's house as Chrissy, Chris, Ben and Tiffany came up to visit. It was a lot of fun. Ben is huge and more like a toddler than a baby. He sounds like a cute little girl when he chatters to himself saying 'mamamamama' and 'dadadada'. He also learned to clap while we were there. He always yells when he's clapping and looks angry, but we all just think that it is due to everyone always clapping and saying 'yayyyy' to get him to imitate us. It's his anger clapping. Chrissy informed me that at the Denver airport he was practicing his clapping at strangers.

The last couple days of the trip I got a cold. I still have it. I really hate being sick. Reid has been taking good care of me! He even bought me 2 varieties of juice last night. V8 Splash and grape juice. I suspect the grape juice was actually for him, but I'll let it slide ;) Also I learned that blowing my nose causes my glasses to fog up.

On our birthday we went out and played putt putt golf and then the day after we had a dinosaur birthday cake with our names on it! It was so cute..and tasty too of course. I like being a big kid. For my birthday Reid bought me a Motorola Droid. It is very exciting. Reid got one for himself too of course, which is a good thing so now he can tell me how to work it. He went to the store at 6am on the release date for the phone planning on buying 2 of them. I guess they told him I didn't qualify for an upgrade on the phone since I'm not the primary person on the account and it would cost $600 for me to have the phone. He came home to wake me up to tell me that he didn't get me a phone...which he didn't. He wasn't tricking me. He bought himself a phone, though. He said he was sorry and I told him to go away as at that time I needed to mope. Anyways, while I was in the shower he had gone back to the Verizon store and found a way to change the account so that we wouldn't have to pay the ridiculous $600 for the phone. Five or six trips to Verizon stores later we now both have working Droids with cute little cases. Sorry Reid. MANLY cases.

My newest obsession has been the Pioneer Woman's blog (thanks Liz! I just REALLY needed something else to keep me online for long periods of time). Basically there is this woman who was a city girl that randomly fell in love with a cowboy. She'd never even met a cowboy before in her life. It's the true story of her life and it is addicting (and funny...overall very entertaining)! I highly recommend it. I almost wish it wasn't all true because I kind of feel like a stalker. So here is the link to her love story and here is the link to the other random blogs she posts that aren't necessarily related to the love story, but are related to her life on the farm. Barbie I really think you'd like this!!

The dogs have been really clingy since we got home. I definitely think they have developed abandonment issues. It's cute but also kind of annoying. Oh well. At least Kona only ate the one thing (poor little Zoey's bed). I don't think Zoey's noticed yet.

Oh and since Reid went to Office Depot tonight I was reliant on McDonalds for nourishment. They put a job application in my food bag. I thought that was funny.

Not much.

So I've started working full time at the Burke Museum. I really do love it. Me saying that is probably getting old, but I can't help it. We are in an interesting transition right now as our store buyer just retired unexpectedly and the museum doesn't plan on rehiring for her position (which means that her duties will probably just be spread out amongst current employees). We have also been losing employees as they are finding new jobs (full time jobs that will actually allow for them to pay bills). It will be interesting to see how we delegate things in the coming months.

Lately I've just been reading a lot. I've been addicted to the Sookie Stackhouse novels (there are 9 thus far in the series). They are fast reads and are very creative and actually keep my attention. These are the novels that inspired HBO's True Blood series. The books are a lot different from the series as they are actually funny. The show is very serious. Reid hates it. No surprise there ;) Also I've gotten Reid addicted to the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, which is hilarious and I recommend to anyone that appreciates science.

Dang this is why I don't update, I don't have anything interesting to say! I think there is something fundamentally wrong with me in working only one job and by that I mean that even though I should be done with all my temp shifts at the University Bookstore this quarter I keep picking up more shifts. I am working tomorrow night after I get off work at the museum until around 10pm. Makes for a 9am to 10pm-ish day. Yes. Something is wrong with me. The event that I'm going to be selling books for seems interesting. It is a speaker named Richard Dawkins who is going to be talking about his new book about evolution. His last book I believe is called "The God Dillusion" and this one is called "The Greatest Show on Earth: Evidence for Evolution." When I first signed up for the shift the people at the bookstore told me it was a sports guy talking haha. This is just a slightly different sort of topic. It'll definitely be more interesting to me than sports, though. Oh but the sad thing is that I will miss Jim and Pam's wedding on The Office. This is of greater concern to me than necessary. Reid will save the day and record it for me.

Reid and my 3rd year wedding anniversary is coming up on October 14th. We are going to go to a lecture at the Burke Museum on the 15th about solving the mystery of King Tut's death. That will hopefully be interesting. On November 12th we're planning on going to another lecture at the Burke (meaning I'm dragging Reid to this one) about dinosaur fossils in Antarctica.

The most exciting part of my near future is that Chrissy and Chris and Ben and Tiffany are going to come up for the first week of November!! Reid and I will take a week off and go over to Spokane to be with them. Dad and Barbie are going to have a full house! Chrissy and I will be able to celebrate our birthday together which we haven't done for years. Oh and we're going to have an early Thanksgiving. I have already mentally prepared myself for coming back to Seattle with several extra pounds of winter weight added to me. It'll be worth it, trust me. If you've ever been priviledged enough to have Barbie cook for you then you can only imagine the happiness that a Thanksgiving type meal will bring.

Better than Miley

For anyone that's heard the Miley Cyrus ('Hannah Montana' from the Disney channel) song that made it on to normal radio play "The Climb", this version is better! Same song, just Kelly Clarkson and her backup singers playing around doing their version.

I Got the Job!!

As most people that would be reading this already know, I will be starting full time at the museum on September 30th. I am ridiculously excited about it! I've been wanting this since I first started working there over two and a half years ago and it finally happened. It didn't happen before this because a full time position didn't exist. Creating a position on the University of Washington campus is not a one step process as one might imagine. Anyways, it came to existence and I got it! I will be working Wednesday through Sundays (as they need someone to be working the weekend) and hours will be something like 8:30am or 9am to 5:30pm. The job I will be doing is pretty much the same I do now, but possibly more integrated with PR and membership. The only unfortunate thing about taking this job is knowing that I am taking most of the other hourly employee's hours for the week :-/ Basically they were cutting back all the hours so that it was taken by just the one position and they'll have hourly people on my days off and on weekends and busy days (first Thursdays). Obviously I'm happy that I got the job or it wouldn't have looked good for me! I really do love the museum and I know I will be great at the position.

This also means that I get to quit Office Depot! I only need one job now. ONE JOB. What am I going to do with myself?? I gave my notice already at Office Depot and I've already begun to train a new person in the cash office. It's a bit tricky as I am not the most easily replaced person in the building, but really it won't be my problem. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true! I am training the best I can and the person I am training is competent, but it still won't be the easiest transition for the store. There are a lot of things that I do that ONLY I do. I have people that cover me for my days off, but they don't get a chance to do everything. Not that they're missing out on fun or anything. It's strange to be leaving Office Depot as I just hit my 5 year anniversary a couple of months ago, but I also got gyped on my raise so the store could save money so my sadness is not at its full potential. Under appreciated? Yeah, pretty much. Could have been worse, though as it has been in the past with the first Office Depot store manager I had to work with.

I'm still toying with the idea of remaining on the temp employee list for the University Book Store for some extra money around the holidays (gift wrapping) and things like that. But it's nice knowing that I don't HAVE to.

Other things that have been going on: Not much. Well actually I had to get permanent glasses instead of the part time glasses with an upped prescription. I got different frames as my old purple ones were heavy and the nose pads hurt my nose. Now I have navy blue plastic framed ones with no nose pad that just carve a nice line into my nose, but it's still less painful than the nose pads. I like the way my old ones look a little more than the ones I have now, but being in less pain and being able to see better is nice and not overrated.

Reid's parents came to visit this week which was nice. It was nice to see them and also Reid cleaned his room (the spare room that serves as his giant laundry pile).

Also Chrissy, Chris, Ben and Tiffany will be visiting in Spokane in November and Reid and I plan on being there!!!!! Something to look forward to.

I put this link on my facebook, but here it is again! The super cute song about being a paleontologist that will be stuck in your head all day as it is mine. Enjoy!!

Moving Rocks!

And not 'rocks' as in another word for awesome. Basically the Burke Museum geology dept. has a huge moving project going on so they can get new and earthquake safe storage. The Burke Museum blog posted a video that they made starring Ron Eng (the collections manager for geology...he's awesome!). He can explain it better than I can. The rooms they show are rooms that I don't get to go into too often (as it is not part of my job to be in there), but I love to get in there and play whenever I can! There is also an older woman shown wearing a green shirt pulling out a specimen drawer. That's Ruth! She's a grad student and is also awesome. These are two of my favorite people at the museum! Ruth was also a TA with me when I TA'd the Dinosaurs class at the UW a couple of years ago. We have also done little excursions (one in which I obtained my mammoth tusk). She can climb a cliff wall better than me! It's ridiculous... Anyways, you should watch the video! Only 2 minutes and this one is much less likely to be removed from YouTube for copyright issues as all of my So You Think You Can Dance videos are.

Yay!!

Yeah, not feeling creative with the title today. So the other day this magical new job listing at the museum showed up. It is basically the exact job that I already do, BUT full time!!!!! Of course I applied! I'm so excited and obviously really hope that I get it. I LOVE the Burke Museum. Maybe I would only have to work 1 or 2 jobs instead of 3 in the near future! The job starts September 28th and goes Wed through Sun. The job seems too good to be true, so I'm trying (unsuccessfully) not to get excited about it. The wonderful thing that the museum did when setting up this job was to only allow applicants that currently work at the Burke Museum and have been there for at least one year. This way me and the few other people that will apply don't have to compete with hundreds of applicants. Very exciting potential here. The really sucky thing would be if I DIDN'T get the job because basically come September when this new job starts, there will be pretty much no hours for anyone. They created this new job to cut down on hourly positions and money so most of the hours goes to this new position. There will be a couple of other shifts available here and there, but barely anything. Very scary. I'm trying not to think about that particular 'what if'.

On So You Think You Can Dance this week was one of my favorite dances ever! It was so hot! Even Reid agreed with me with my use of the word 'hot' and he never uses that word unless he is describing the weather (like today at almost 92 degrees) or me of course haha. See it below!! 1 minute and 58 seconds of your life. :)

Pennies!

This morning when I was counting cash I came across a penny that I had never seen before. It was a 2009 penny with a picture of Abraham Lincoln on the back of it sitting on a log reading a book. It really threw me off as I had never seen a penny that was different on the back except for pennies that were made before the 1950's in which it just says 'one cent' instead of having the Capital Building. I looked it up and found that they released 4 different penny back designs for the celebration of the bicentennial of Lincoln's birthday and the 100 year existence of the one cent. This is really going to ruin my ability to quickly spot and separate out Canadian coins...

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things!

My new water bottle! It has a nautilus on it. It's so cute it tricks me into drinking water, which is a good thing because normally I'm not a fan of drinking water.



My favorite dance of the week on So You Think You Can Dance. It's the butt dance! All about the booty, but in a classy way. And with my favorite dancers of course.



My new favorite song of the moment! "I'm not a robot" by Marina and the Diamonds.

It's that time again!

My favorite summer show, So You Think You Can Dance, is airing! Yay! There have only been a couple of real episodes that have aired so far (not including the audition shows). I have jumped to early favoritism of dancers with dancer Evan. My favorite! He's a dancer with a Broadway background. He's also vertically challenged compared to the other dancers, so they had to stick him with one of the shorty girls. The following clip is my favorite performance of the first episode.



And the next clip is my favorite from the second episode.



These are both contemporary/jazz routines and are kind of sappy, but I love it! The second clip is much better quality, but you can only do so much with YouTube.

Obviously nothing very interesting is going on in my life right now. Reid and I painted the dog's room. It's kind of a shade of tannish yellow. The room had come with brown trim and when we painted the room from it's previous lilac color (it was gross...hopefully it was a little kid's room at some time in the past) I realized that we had just created a very 1970's colored room. My new goal is to paint the trim white, which makes it look much cleaner and much less like I should be adding lime green shag carpet. I spent quite a while at Home Depot staring at different color swatches for different shades of white. That was a headache that most people have to endure at some point in their lives. I eventually settled for marshmallow white. I've painted a small section, but it's difficult as the trim is very thin and not very straight, so using painter's tape isn't helping me keep a straight line as well as I'd like. I am currently on the computer procrastinating getting any further painting trim. Hence the new post.

Artsy Craftsy

The other day I was having an ambitious moment and decided to upload pictures of some of my artwork that I've done over the years. I put them up on a folder on my flickr account called Artsy Craftsy. I also posted a couple of pictures of my new hair cut. Reid doesn't like it, but it's not like he has to do it. I like it! Anyways, that's it for now.

Memorial Day

Reid and I decided to go to Spokane for Memorial Day. Nothing beyond that was planned really, except that Alicia was going to cut our doggies' nails. She's now a dog groomer at Pet Smart and it is convenient for me to just make her work without pay to my benefit. The doggies always have a lot of fun with Dad's 2 mastiffs. Zoey just kind of hangs back while Kona has the most fun being ADD with Sasha. Dad probably wouldn't mind if we gave her a tranquilizer, but then who else would make Callie bite their face in anger?

The traffic was terrible on the way there and the way back. On the way there Snoqualmie Pass had a 20 mile backup. My friend Danielle was also making the trek from Seattle to Spokane and was going the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass route. She left at 5:30pm and I was texting her for information as Reid and I had to work a bit later. At one point she told me it took them 1 hour to go 9 miles. Reid and I decided to go north and go over Steven's Pass and through Leavenworth. We hit a bit of a backup for a while, but it was mostly due to there only being one lane and a constantly changing speed limit. Danielle left at 5:30pm and arrived at 12:30am, Reid and I left after 8pm and arrived at 1:30am.

The traffic on the way back also had a 20 mile backup over Snoqualmie Pass. We went I-90 anyways. We left Spokane at 4:30pm and arrived a couple minutes before 10pm. Which was MUCH better time than we anticipated, especially once we first hit the backup. We literally put the jeep in park in a 70mph zone. Below is a photo I took where you have a good view of the lineup ahead of us around a curve. Reid opened the sunroof and I just stuck the camera out there.



Kona wasn't that bad. I think it had a lot to do with her being exhausted from playing with Dad's dogs. Right after we got home she promptly plopped herself down on the rug in the living room and we had to step over her as we unpacked.



Oh yeah! And my identical twin Chrissy started a blog!!! Now we don't really have a reason to talk on the phone except for her to have me listen to the noises that Ben is making.

Twitter!

I'm not sure if I fully understand what's going on yet...but I'm all signed up! Ok, so I'm positive I don't fully understand. The basic idea is that I can write little updates about what I'm doing or thinking all the time without having to post an entire blog. I can also do it from my cell phone!

The top right hand side of my blog is where my twitter updates will show up. I'm still working on the formatting, but it seems to be limited because I have a preset format to my blog, but it's probably just me limiting myself with my lack of programming skills. It should show up with the 3 most recent posts. I think the only way to see my previous posts will be to go to my twitter page http://twitter.com/paleomelissa.

It's just something new and something fun (I think). Everyone else should get twitter too so that I can stalk you all as well! And so that you guys can figure out how to work it better than me and then you can explain it to me. :)

My museum has a twitter too! There are some 'celebrities' that have twitter as well that everyone can read. Some of the celebrities I'm reading are David Hewlett and his sister Kate, Michael Ian Black, and Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office). There are a lot of other celebrities that have it to, but their's weren't as interesting to me (meaning not that funny).

Anyways, that's it for now!

Port Angeles Adventure

On Sunday my friend Allison and I went on a day trip to Port Angeles. Our motivation was to visit a rock shop Allison had previously visited and thought was awesome and worth going to again. I was up for it. It's not like I don't enjoy myself a good rock shop ;). We left at around 10:45am to catch the 11:30 Edmonds-Kingston ferry.

A bomb sniffing dog checking out the cars in the ferry line.

We made the ferry just fine and then drove to Port Angeles. The Woolly Mammoth Rock Shop was our destination. We arrived there to find that the gates that lead to the parking lot of the shop were closed and locked. On their business card that Allison had it said that Sunday hours were noon to 5pm and it was around 2pm. So I went ahead and called the phone number on the business card to double check what was going on. A guy answered who sounded a little disgruntled and unprofessional mumbling about a 'retarded owner' and 'bull****'. He then asked if we were the ones parked out in the driveway (he could see us from the shop) and I said yes. He decided to come out to give us his new business card as his rock shop was going to be moving into his house. As he got to the gate I guess he decided we seemed like nice gals and opened the gate and said we could just go ahead and look at the shop anyway, even though it was closing and they were in the process of moving it out. The whole time he keeps rambling about the owner of the property, who also happened to be his business partner. Many choice words muttered as I'm sure anyone can guess.

Allison and I were very grateful that we didn't come all the way to Port Angeles from Seattle for no reason. We start looking around the shop while the gentleman that let us in keeps disappearing taking phone calls from his soon to be ex-business partner in which his voice keeps raising and profanity can be heard. The gentleman's wife eventually comes out and kind of lingers around as we are looking and starts talking to us. She was very nice and kind of stressed out that her husband was having such a bad day and she was also very apologetic to us for having to experience it. She also let us know that we were going to be the last customers ever to the store and that she would give us a deal on anything we wanted to buy. At some point another gentleman enters the store and it turns out that he's the brother of the property owning business partner and according to the gentleman that let us in he was there to possibly 'rough him up' or scare him. The gentleman a little bit later comes back in and is telling his wife that the other business partner called to tell him that he called the police because the gates were open and I guess since he was the land owner he was able to decide that the other guy couldn't have customers on the property? I'm not really sure. His brother probably told him.

After that everyone got more tense and antsy. Allison and I decided to pick up the pace so we could leave just about the same time that the wife told us we may want to leave soon as the police were now there. So we both picked out a pair of earrings that were made from a meteorite that fell into the Gobi Desert in China (cute and nerdy) and she took $6 off the price which was nice of her. We then left and said goodbye and waved to the police officers (who waved back) who were talking to the wife and the property owner (and his brother). The original gentleman that let us in escorted us out to the car and apologized about everything that was going on. He was understandably embarrassed about the whole situation and how he was responding to it. Anyways, so that was the rock shop!

On to lunch! We circled the town I think 3 times? Since the whole town is one giant one way circle...so once you passed something you had to go all the way around until you came to whatever it was again. We had lunch at a cute little restaurant Chestnut something. Chestnut Inn? We ate and then went down to the water front of Port Angeles. There are a bunch of random art sculptures down there.















There was also a nice little pier with a look out tower at the end that we climbed so we could get a little higher and take some pictures.





Semi-lastly, we found the actual Italian restaurant (La Bella Italia) in Port Angeles from the book Twilight. They are definitely milking the publicity, but I would do the same thing if I were them! It's not quite how I pictured it, but it worked. There was also an article in the window where apparently Stephenie Meyer (the author of Twilight) paid the restaurant a surprise visit in June 2008. Oh, and they also offer a special with the mushroom ravioli. You order the mushroom ravioli and you get a free coke. Twilight fans will get the humor in that.







In the end I had Allison stop at the Walmart in Port Angeles so I could see if they had any copies of the Twilight dvd left for sale. They did! I just thought it would be cool if I bought my dvd from Port Angeles. Ok, so not cool, but for me it was more exciting. They were out of the special delux blahty blah version so I had to settle for the normal 1 disc $17 version..which is the one I would've gotten anyway. That Walmart also had a ridiculous quantity of random Twilight merchandise strategically positioned right next to the dvd fixture. In the parking lot Allison's car wouldn't start, but I guess it has that problem on occasion so she just has to wiggle the connections to the battery. Her car did this again as we were trying to start the car when the ferry line was moving to board the ferry, so poor Allison has to rush out to pop the hood and wiggle the connections in the pouring rain so that the people in the cars behind us didn't have to wait. Very dramatic. Then we came home and the adventure was over. The end. More photos of our adventure can be seen in my flickr photostream.

Dino Day 2009!

Here is a picture my friend took of the lucky museum employees that got to work Dinosaur Day 2009. It is our busiest day of the year. This year we had over 3000 visitors smashing our last year's totals of around 2100 which was our previous record for attendance. I'm sure there were fire codes broken for maximum occupancy at some point. Also, we were all given free t-shirts for working the day (the shirt sported by all of us in the photo). One of our dinosaur focuses this year was on Triceratops which also makes its appearance on our shirt. Some people weren't fond of the color of the shirt, but I loved it! But then again I've never really been fashion forward...

Zoo Butts!

So Reid and I went to the zoo today with Reid's friend Don. Don's girlfriend is a zoo keeper there and so we got a behind the scenes tour! It was a lot of fun and very informative. I got to feed tapirs and birds (and of course I got pooped on) and pet snakes and see where all the animal's food comes from and eat at the zoo food court. That last one is something anyone can do, really. We also got to see animal butts! For non butt photos see my flickr photostream.


Hippo butts!


Wallaroo butt!


Zebra butts!


Guinea something butts!


Jaguar butt!


More hippo butts! They couldn't be bothered to get up to do their business...

A Movin' and a Shakin'

Here are the exact texts that Reid and I exchanged early this morning.

5:31am Melissa: Was there maybe just a really small earthquake? The bed was shaking but the washer's not going...the shower door was shaking a little too.

5:32am Reid: washer probably stopped before you started listening...i do that a lot

5:33am Melissa: did you have it running at 5am?

5:34am Reid: sorry...want it to go in the dryer when i get home

5:36am Melissa: you suck...i thought my life was more exciting

6:27am Reid: ha we DID have a 4.6 earthquake...good job you're exciting again

6:29am Melissa: I'm awesome...5:25am...I KNEW I didn't hear the washer...=P

6:30am Reid: ;-)

Back at the Burke

Finally I get to work back at my happy place! After two and a half months of having to cut my hours to work only on Saturdays (and then the last couple of weeks of not working at the museum of all) I am finally able to work at the museum again. Basically my job as an underling only allows me so many hours I can work per year and last year I started out working too many, so by the end of the year I had run out (my year starting with my hire date which happens to be January 11th). I had to pick up a 3rd job at the University Book Store. The job was decent, even if the pay wasn't.

So anyways, when I came in to work the back desk receptionist showed me a hilarious picture. Basically our PR (public relations) person for the museum was doing random searches online for pictures that people have posted that related to the museum. What she found was the following.



Now as you can see, the picture in itself is not that funny, BUT the description the guy gave to the photo is. The person who took this picture has no affiliation to the museum and doesn't know who was in the picture. The gentleman in the photo that the guy so kindly refers to as 'douchebag with no coat' is my boss. So the PR person printed out a copy of the photo and circled my boss and jokingly wrote "Who's this douchebag?" and put it with the bask desk receptionist for all to see. My boss has a good sense of humor and thought it was funny. Actually he was the one who told me to go and look at the photo since I missed it on my way in. A great way to start the day. Oh, and he didn't really get hit with the snow.

Booksies!

Escape. I loved this book! AND significantly to me, it is one of the few non-fiction books I've read. Don't judge me. I like to use reading as an escape from reality, but this book was so far beyond reality as I know it that it didn't seem real. For lack of motivation to write a stylized personal review of the book...this is what the google synopsis says the book is about...

"The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs."

My favorite word to describe this book is 'fascinating.' I couldn't stop reading it. In fact I pretty much read this book straight through The Dark Knight. I really admire her fleeing an abusive/unhealthy relationship based on a religion of which was her whole world and the only thing she ever knew. I can't imagine how difficult that would be. Something that really ticked me off was her oldest daughter Betty who not only made the escape incredibly difficult for everyone, but then when Betty turned 18 (four years after they had left) she decided to return to the FLDS. Yeah, that's a smart lifestyle choice. I'll hold myself back from going into a rant about that.

Other books I have read (somewhat) recently that I enjoyed were The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See and of course the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer because I'm a dweeb.