Achilles Under the Knife

Well, my man-cat is being de-manned today. My mom called me this morning to report that he is ok, and checked in for his surgery. During the conversation she mentioned that I could follow the tweet updates of his surgery on their website. So, I'm not going to lie, I may have payed a little more attention in this mornings class to Achilles' surgery updates than to Adam Smith...

Later, I was relieved to receive the tweet: Ahilles is recovering well from surgery & able to go home anytime after 2:00 pm." But the relief was momentary for just after that tweet was another saying: "Hector is recovering comfortably from surgery & able to go home anytime after 12:30pm."

There are a couple issues here. First, HECTOR?! Are they kidding me? I hope those vets payed attention in their GE Humanities classes to know that those animals can NOT be allowed in the same room as eachother sedated or otherwise. Second, what's this 'comfortably' nonsense? I'm sure my cat deserves the same amount of comfort due to Hector, Driver of Horses! MY cat's part god, for heaven's sake! And, Third, uh, why is Hector being released sooner?! I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that Hector's manhood was, well, smaller and, um, more easily removed than Achilles'.

Because it's BYU football time I'll begin this photographic trip down memory lane with this shot of Achilles getting to "know" our poor BYU cheerleader bear.







Jackson: "You will learn submission."
Achilles: "Like hell..."








Whitney, as you all know, tried to resist Achilles, but gave in eventually.









And here he is wondering why we are using his bathroom as our voting booth...








Or maybe he just wanted a vote too... Votes for cats!









And here is Achilles with his mommy.

BYU offs Oklahoma and Provo goes BERSERK!!!

Some videos of me and Whit driving home from watching the game and enjoying all the craziness.

Just Lying Around...

Whitney got home from work today and welcomed me and the weekend by tackling me to the ground! For those of you that know us both and are, naturally, confused, allow me to explain: I was in the final climax of Harry Potter 7. Basically my mind was elsewhere. Oh yeah, and I was completely entangled in this huge feather blanket. (I love keeping our apartment cold just to glory in the central air... Whitney will most likely put a stop to it once we receive our first utilities bill so I've got to enjoy it while it lasts!)

It was a cheap shot and I can assure you all that I shall be revenged. Luckily my laptop lay on the ground near where my head ended up and I was able to get hard evidence with my photo booth app.!!!

Daily Doings

Whitney, Chris, Jared, and I just got home from seeing Okkervil River at the free concert series they have every summer. It was great but concerts always take a lot out of me... Combine that with Radiohead and a TON of apparently sourceless I-15 traffic on the way home and you get one suuuuuper tired Paige.

The crown was necessary to give me the happy energy I needed to finish folding laundry before going night-night.

I call this Whitney's dead fish face. He just gets sexier and sexier with each passing day.

Life in Lyon Update

Went to see Harry Potter yesterday. Can't believe I made it in to the first showing at 11am--there was a bit of a line. But it was about 3€ cheaper so that was good. 

So, being in Lyon (a bigger city) I got to see it VOST which means it's the original version with French subtitles. After sitting through all the ads previews finally started. These were all in French and literally lasted 30 minutes! Previews didn't even start until 11:30! The only good one was for Nissan and featured a dance off between two brands of cars... It's how I thought driving a car should go... maybe I should get a Nissan. Hmmm. I could only find the English version--it was a little different in French. O-well, it's still awesome--it's like Step-up with your car! I really didn't think Step-up could EVER be topped. Wow.

And then there was this preview for "Totally Spies"... Apparently it has had some playing time in the US recently as well, but it is EVERYWHERE here. I just found myself thinking as I watched this preview "Is this really how they (the French) see us (the Americans)?" It is an originally French cartoon (I believe, from the little research I could stand doing) but takes place in Hollywood. Yeah. Anyway, it's very popular here. 

Then they played other previews. I'm not sure if you have seen the preview for 2012 with John Cusack but it's another Independence Day/Day After Tomorrow/Cloverfield kind of epic destruction kind of movie. So of course it contains the typical, iconic shots of important buildings and landmarks being 

destroyed. For example, in the 2012 preview there is a shot of an aircraft carrier rolling over and flattening the White House. I kid you not--there were titters and smatterings of applause throughout the packed theatre... I slide self-consciously lower in my seat.

So, yeah. That was fun/funny/awkward/disappointing. The movie was good. But now it's back to work. Hurray for doing an in depth inventory of my local grocery store! 

My Crazy Dreams

I had a dream last night, woke up (still in the dream) and tried to tell Emily Earl and Brianne Emry (who I was hanging out with) about the dream I had just woken up from. So, for those just tuning in or for the rest of us that are still completely confused... I had a dream within a dream and then continued in another dream where I was trying to tell those around me about the dream dream I had just had... 

It's kind of like the single quotation marks within double quotation marks thing. 

Maybe I shouldn't have tried that weird gree

n drink with the fairy on the bottle last night at a local French cafe... No, not really...

Life in Lyon Update

While I do hope to continue with my daily tales from my Euro-Tour with Brianne, I thought I might as well do a little post about the present. 

Lyon is beautiful and treating me well.

I am quite pleased with my apartment's location--I really had no idea where to live and just kind of happened upon this location and it's been perfect for me. There's a large farmer's market right outside my door on the banks of the river. 

I was a little sad for these bunnies, though.

After doing some yoga in my apartment I thought I'd whip something up...

Here's something I just threw together... ok, not really.

That's a dinner I had the other night with a new friend named Elisa while eating on Rue Merciere (Restaurant Row, kind of a tourist trap place, but worth experiencing). Mom--this is where that bistro is located.

 
A few weeks ago I met Djima. He's a student from Togo and has been very helpful with my research accompanying me to farmer's markets and cafes and helping me out as an interpreter.

Fun times. These are just a few excerpts from my recent doings here in Lyon. I'll talk to you all again soon.

Day 3... Brest: Not the worst place in the world to be stranded

May 7 finds us on a plane from London, England to Brest, France (I'm not sure why I'm doing a sad face... we were basically thrilled expecting to be in Paris by that night!!).

But first we (as in me) have to do some serious rearranging of poundage in luggage. Yes, there are some airlines in Europe that offer CRAZY cheap flights. These cheap prices come at a price, however... haha... There are a lot of extra fees, checked baggage can't weigh nearly as much as it can on US flights, and if your checked baggage is over it's something like 15€/kg over... this adds up pretty quickly. 

I manage to work it out somehow with much blood, sweat, tears, and throwing away of toiletries... We are glad we arrived at the airport so early.

[Ok, this next story has no accompanying photos because we were both freaking out so much that the last thing either of us wanted to do while it was happening was pull out a camera.]

So, we go through customs (very surprised at how little they care after the absolute GRILLING we received at UK customs in Heathrow), find the shuttle to the train station (excitedly nervous to be dealing all in French suddenly), and arrive at the train station with time to spare before our train to Paris departs. We are pretty happy--I'm absolutely euphoric. Brianne is trying to force me to handle as many of the transactions as she can to prepare me for when I'm here alone. I hate her for a few seconds but soon feel pretty good! On the drive from the airport through downtown Brest towards the train station I am overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity and belonging that I hadn't felt since landing in Heathrow. France is familiar. France is welcoming. I kind of feel like I can understand French better than I understood British English... 

[Here's where things go down hill.] We are told at the Espace de Vente (place of sales) by the very unhelpful "English speaking" clerk that there is no way are getting to Paris tonight. Ok. Not much we can do about that. Long story short, after waiting in line several more times with more questions, working with many different clerks of varying levels of friendliness, we set out for a hotel which is hopefully nearby and hopefully cheap... We find it. We check-in. 

The official/very unofficial use of our amazing French count is at about 5! (For those keeping track...)

Now that we're resigned to not be in Paris by tonight--we have our tickets for the train tomorrow afternoon in hand--we decide that seeing a little of Brittany might be kind of fun and cool. We are not wrong.

First bit of fun: this is the elevator in our hotel! We have to use it because we're up several floors of a spiral staircase and I have my huge suitcase. So Brianne and I decide we may as well shove everything in!

Hahahaha!!! It was quite a squeeze... We had to remove our backpacks and stack things vertically once the door closed. We were more than a little concerned that we wouldn't make it up the four floors...

As we are spending unexpected monies on a hotel and other such delays, we decide to find something a little less spendy for our first dinner... so, not this place. But the display is too gorgeous to not snap a quick photo with.

We really enjoy ourselves wandering around Brest that evening. Being right on the northwestern point of the country the air is salty, moist, and cool. It is lovely. We eat and head back to our hotel, check in with family and loved ones, and get to bed later than was perhaps wise... 

London

Ok, I really am sorry. Here, finally, are my pictures from London. Enjoy.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Day 2... London Calling

I've been going back and forth from having the Clash's "London Calling" and "I'm So Bored With the USA" in my head the past two days. 

Brianne and I slept not so soundly but landed safely in London yesterday morning around 9am. Due to some underground delays, however, we didn't get from Heathrow to our Hostel until about 2pm. We then decided that since we only had less than half a day in London (we needed to get up and head off to the airport for France in the morning) that we would buy passes for the Hop on/Hop off Double-decker bus tour around London. We went for a long walk to Piccadilly Circus to catch a bus and headed off on a three hour tour. A three hour tour. Because it was so late, though, we just got as many pictures as we could and didn't really get off anywhere... also because my stupid ticket blew away off the bus so if we did get off somewhere I would have had to pay another 22£ again!

So to deal with jet-lag I just decided to truck on through the day without taking any kind of nap (although, anytime we stopped for more than 2 minutes, Brianne was out). So we kept ourselves busy until bed time. After disembarking a few blocks from our hostel we found a cool looking British pub and had dinner. 

We both decided that we ought to get Fish 'n Chips (yes, mom, I thought of you and dad). When ordering, after a slight hesitation, I decided to go ahead and ask for something non-alcoholic to drink... After a pause she mentioned some unknown names of juices. We each tried one... but midway through the HUGE meal Brianne went back to the barmaid (hee hee) and requested some tap water with ice. She got kind of a weird look, but she also got some water. That was the last tap water we drank. We sat in the little pub watching the Simpsons on a huge TV (with British subtitles--"tyres" vs "tires" etc.) watched the Londoners around us get smashed, and stared at the large green piles of "food?" on our plates suspiciously... For one crazy moment, as the waitress brought our plates out I got excited thinking it might be guacamole... I know. It had been a long day. Anyway, it turned out to be peas. "Smushed peas." Yep. Brianne was digging in and between bites said, "Hmm, what is this?" Remembering what it said on the menu I told her. "Ah. Yep, that's it." And she was off again. She's a much braver eater than I am. I did taste them though. Euhghhugeshugh.

So, there was one moment in the pub when I experienced my first real wave of homesickness/culture shock. Thinking back on that moment I have realized that the thing it came down to, that the central cause of that moment of depression was centered around food. More specifically Dr Pepper. WHERE IS ALL THE DR PEPPER?!?! Is it illegal here or what? Ugh! I'm sooooo thirsty! 

Well, then we went home and crashed in our cute little bunk beds and woke up 10 hours later to discover 4 Asian girls in the other beds. It was like "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" except it was more like "Four Asian Girls and the Two Americans"... wait a second... did I just make us the bears? 

Moving on... Uh... the end. 

I'll put this leg of pictures up next.

Day 1... Beginnings: Seattle to JFK

It’s interesting the silly mistakes you make while traveling. Today has been no exception. In all fairness to me, handling logistics for this trip has been a little more involved than my typical hopper flight from Salt Lake City to Portland every Christmas. So, it’s no big surprise that there have already been situations that could’ve been avoided or handled better. What is interesting, however, is that the mishandled situations are really basic things and I really should’ve known better.

First: As Corinne drove us to the Seattle Airport from Portland, I sat in my seat debating whether or not I should sleep and 

feel better throughout the day or not sleep and maybe get a little jump on the inevitable jetlag when I realize with an incredulous laugh that Brianne and I didn’t check-in to our flights and print off our boarding passes! “I thought that’s what you were doing last night!” Corinne says. Well, kind of. We checked-in to our flight from London to France (you can check in with that airline about a month ahead of time if you wish) but didn’t even pause to think about our Seattle-JFK and JFK-Heathrow flights the following day! “Well, I guess we’ll just do it old school, right?” Right.

Second: Once we had been dropped off and said our goodbyes, Brianne were checking in old school feeling pretty good about things—despite traffic and inclement weather we were doing just fine on time—until I hefted my suitcase onto the scale. The very nice airline employee was pretty straightforward: “You’ve gotta shave off 11lbs or pay 50 bucks.” Sure, shave off 11lbs. That’s nothing. 

Only… where is it gonna go? Do I throw away the two French text books, my triple combination from seminary, and my yoga mat in some airport trash can?! Enter the cell phone. Seriously—what DID we do before these things were around? After some quick calls to mom trying to get a hold of Corinne, we had her turned around and headed back my way.  So Brianne and I proceed to ruthlessly trim things down as I think to myself “you idiot—why didn’t you weigh this before you left and repacked last night?!” I wait in line to check on the weight, praying we’re somewhat close. The little red digits shift around uncannily similar to a Biggest Loser weigh-in. Lost: 11lbs. For a total weight loss of 11lbs!!! Congratulations Paige’s suitcase, you have lost 18% of your original weight. This keeps you above the blue line, saving you from elimination and allowing you to continue on in your quest to become an internationally traveled suitcase.

And third: To pee or not to pee? After a bit of a drawn out passage through security due to an excess of liquids in Brianne’s backpack combined with the delay at check-in due to an excess of weight in Paige’s suitcase, we suddenly found ourselves cutting things a little closer than we had planned. Heading towards our distant gate Brianne declares that she needs to use the restroom. That’s fine. I’ve caused too much trouble to grudge Brianne her basic human rights but all I can think about is this last weeks’ episode of the Amazing Race. (Yes, I watched a lot of reality TV at my parents house this past week!) If there is any lesson I learned from that episode it is: WAIT TO USE THE BATHROOM UNTIL ALL DEADLINES ARE MET!!

Not to leave you on a cliffhanger—we made our flight just fine. Which then landed safely at JFK despite a lot of turbulence and nausea.

We were lucky enough to fly over Scranton, PA.

I'm Leaving On a Jet Plane...

Well folks, 

French-Brianne and I are winging our way to Europe in just a few days here. I plan to take advantage of free internet spots we have in our planned path to share updates on here as well as to Skype with Whitney and whoever is online at the time (so keep your eyes open!). 

Just for the purpose of making you all jealous and annoyed, here is a rough outline of our itinerary:

On monday we're driving to Oregon to stay for a week or so with my fam-damn-ily.

Then on May 5th we fly from the Seattle airport, through JFK, to London where we'll stay for one night before flying into Brittany (northwestern France), to a little town called Brest.

We will immediately take the train along the Normandy beaches into Paris and spend the evening wandering around the streets around our Hostel. Our first day in Paris we'll take the little inner-city transportation out to Versailles in the morning. Then we'll return and wander around the Louvre that evening (people under 25 get in for free on Fridays evenings!!!) The next two days we'll wander around the city reenacting as many scenes from French Kiss as possible.

Then we'll train down to Provence stopping somewhere along the way. Then on through Nice and into Italy. Briefly stopping in Pisa for a cute little picture we'll continue down to Rome and for just one night before moving on to Florence for two nights then on to Venice for another two nights. 

Then, with a little stop in Milan, we'll head back into Nice to hang out for three days getting some color on our skin (red for me and a beautiful freaking California bronze for Brianne... ugh) and to see Andrew Bird when he stops in Nice on his European Tour!!! (Yummy in any language.)

Then Brianne is going to stick around for another week with me to help me get settled in my research site near Nice before flying back home. 

Then the real fun begins. I will do my research until flying home mid-July.

I'll keep you posted, and see you mid-July.

Bon Voyage... to me.

All Mice Go to Heaven

I TA for a few classes at BYU. One of the classes is the Anthropology of Food. Well, in class today, a group presented on Food and Magic.

They set up the table complete with lit candles and a cauldron. Then they pulled out the ingredients: a dehydrated lizard, liver of a blaspheming Jew, eyeballs, and a mouse. Now, the mouse was living. They had the poor thing in a jar no bigger than he was. As a lid on the jar they had a cork and cloth. Somebody pointed out to them that he probably didn't have enough oxygen which was why he was freaking out. Minutes later, when it was time to add the mouse to the potion, we noticed that it had stopped flipping out...

Noser was pulled by his tail from his tiny grave and dropped him with a plunk into the cauldron.

"Guys that really wasn't supposed to happen... But it did.." This was the only eulogy Noser would receive.

Poor Noser. But he's in heaven now.

Is there a moral to this story? Yes, there is. But I feel that if I need to explain it to you, I'm interfering with Natural Selection.

Open After Dark in Provo...

Not many local businesses fall in this category. Even fewer of them are mildly enjoyable or interesting. Another rarity in Provo? Anything worthwhile to be found in the Daily Universe--our campus link to the outside world. Yikes.

Well, last Tuesday was a day to change all days. On the front cover of the afore mentioned rag that I wouldn't use as a toilet-seat cover was this picture accompanied by a story about the Pennyroyal Cafe.

I have since dined here a few times and spent a lot of time taking advantage of an uncensored internet, comfortable seating, great food, and good music. I'm too busy to do a full-on restaurant review, but just wanted to encourage anyone in the area to check it out. But keep in mind that it's new and still getting things sorted out. 

Biggest plus (other than the internet and bottomless Dr Pepper)? It's open until 2am but if you want to enjoy it sans the local teenage crowd, come by for lunch and have a table all to your self.

Audrey in My Bathroom Part II-The Football Game

So, my bad, apparently this was Whitney's favorite part of the dream. I had deemed it one of those weird, nutso parts, however, and left it out of my original version. I guess I'll let you decide. 

Later during our visit with Ms Hepburn we attended a Football game. Yes, now this dream is officially AMAZING! Football and Audrey Hepburn? Can life get any better? I submit that... well anyway. So we had awesome seats because life is just awesome when you're friends with Audrey Hepburn. Someone was throwing something into the stands...(this part's a little foggy so I'll ad lib for those of you that need details)...T-shirts are boring, let's say Chihuahuas. So, uh, the Cheerleaders and Cosmo are throwing free little Taco Bell dogs (Cosmo shoots a couple out of his potato cannon). 

Just a little Back Story on this: this is a bit of a touchy issue for me. I've been at BYU for "several" years and I have NEVER. NOT ONCE. EVER caught an item thrown to the crowd. I mean, it's gotten a little weird. I've freaking gone to Women's Basketball games and been one of 12 people in the Marriott Center and STILL never caught a thing. 

So, of course, we get a little dog heading our way and Audrey snatches it right out of the air in front of me. Luckily, before losing my cool, I remember that it's Audrey Freaking Hepburn (I'm pretty sure that's her middle name) and that I just can't be mad at her. Of COURSE she should have that Chihuahua.

Well, that's the end. There were other parts of the football game that I really don't remember because I waited too long to post about this dream, but in the long tradition of my dreams about football games, I ended up on the field, involved in the game winning play. 

Once again--great dream.

 

I ♥ Andrew Bird

Never before has my marriage been so threatened by one of my many pseudo-celebrity crushes. Andrew Bird, a.k.a "Stone-cold Fox", is too damn sexy, talented, and sexy for his own (not to mention, MINE) health. Brian Kehl? Jonathan Tevernari? So childish and immature.

There's a new Sheriff in town, boys. 

Don't worry, Whitney knows. He's probably a little "gay for Andrew" now anyway.

Audrey in My Bathroom

A while ago I had one of those dreams that just won't go away with the opening of your eyes. While truly a wonderful dream, it was, of course, full of weird, nonsensical parts that I will try to skip when possible. 

So, living in our current 1 bedroom , 1 bathroom apartment, Whitney and I were asked to accommodate an extra guest that had brought her children to play with the family next door (sorry, Bob and Michelle--the people upstairs): Audrey Hepburn. Audrey. HEPBURN. Sleeping arrangements weren't really discussed but the big issue was the bathroom mirror. One morning of her visit she and I were crowded in between the washer/dryer and shower sharing the cracked mirror on the bathroom window when I just couldn't take it anymore--Audrey Hepburn simply deserved better for her morning beauty routine. We had our landlord come over to help scour the garage for lights and a mirror and set it all up as a nice vanity in our living room in between our fireplace and TV. Much better. 

You should be happy to know that she was a delightful, undemanding guest and gave me makeup tips which I don't remember at all. It will be my lifelong sorry.

So, here's to you, Audrey. Come again soon.

Be your own valentine.

Well, it seems that Dove has jumped on the "anti-Valentine's Bandwagon" that my husband parades for.

Upon eating a Dove chocolate heart he received the message "Be your own valentine" on the inside wrapper. I'm not going to go into all the many different meanings this could have, but I thought it was, at the most obvious level, kind of sad.

Happy Freaking Valentine's Day.

Shameless.

Yes, it's been an alarmingly long time since I've posted on here. Yes, I tend to avoid it. Yes, I might even fear my blog(s)--the other one is an alternate which Whitney has been encouraging me to drop... But this morning, as my MANY medications kicked in, I began to feel empowered and optimistic and promised myself that I would post today... or at least get a draft started.

My main purpose here today is to confess one of my greatest, darkest secrets. I often hide in closets. Well, not physically. I hide my support of many things in closet. You will often hear me confess, while talking about some book, movie, or political movement that "I'm a closet fan". Some of these things are legitimately in that closet. We all have guilty pleasures, and a few of my closet items gather dust in the darkness because in light, natural or artificial, they are truly shameful and embarrassing to me. Others really don't deserve this sentence and are merely there in due to my pathetic attempt to maintain neutrality and mystery.

Now, don't get too excited--I'm not sharing all of my closet loves. I'm simply bringing to light something that you already all know about me anyway and that I'm done trying to be neutral about. This doesn't mean I can't be bipartisan. I am registered as an Independent but I am so sick of hearing senseless, ignorant judgments from the extremes in general. At this moment it's the right that's really pissing me off. Now, this may very well be due to the demographics I most interact with right now.

Hold on, now. I DON'T want this post to be an attack on the stupids... even though I actually kind of DO want that...

I just want to say to everyone--left, right, and center: I support Barack Obama. Not blindly. Not ignorantly. Not by default. And not grudgingly saying "well, It's historic". No. He's just a man. And having considered all the choices, I can't imagine how so many people around here can still think he wasn't the best choice. (That doesn't mean I think he was the lesser of two evils.)

Today, waking up to the knowledge that we would soon have a new president--an intelligent, good person who will be making important decisions in the coming years with deliberation and consideration of all sides--made today one of the sunniest days I've had in a while. It's pretty thrilling to have a president that you're not ashamed of--someone that doesn't make me cringe when I consider the world audience.

Say what you want. I'm just so sick of all the nonsense for and against our new president. Things are looking up, and for the first time in a LONG time, I'm excited for the direction our country is headed (which is saying something considering our present state). For the first time in a LONG time, I am proud to be an American.