How to visit the Great Salt Lake, or that time some random bikers stopped to cheer me on

See all that skooshy mud?  Cross it and you will lose a flip flop.

Last summer I decided that I'd lived in Utah too long not to start doing the things on my Unique Utah Adventures list.  First up? "Jump in the Great Salt Lake."  I think I'm far enough past the shock and trauma of it now to share some bits of wisdom from my experience:

• When your friend assures you that it "won't be that gross," you should probably factor in the difference between Eastern Idaho gross and real gross.  Change your mind accordingly.
• Do not, I repeat, do not go in late August when the water level is low and do not go near Saltair as this is apparently the grosser side of the lake.
• As you are climbing down the rocks past the giant spider colonies that exist to fuel Ron Weasley's nightmares (and eat the gigantic swarm of tiny flies now attacking you), you should probably start screaming a la The Parent Trap.
• When you remember the gigantic swarm of tiny flies now attacking you, you should probably switch from an open mouthed activity like screaming to a closed mouth activity like emitting high pitched squeaks. 
• Halfway through the gelatinous abyss between the rocks and the water you should change your mental phrasing from "jump in the Great Salt Lake" to "get to the Great Salt Lake" as it's pretty hard to jump anywhere when the only thing between you and filthy soul sucking swamp mud is your left flip flop. ProTip: Make ridiculously loud sounds of disgust every time your now bare right foot squelches into the muck.  It distracts you from questioning your own sanity.
• When you finally make it to the water, you should probably not hesitate to get right in, but if you do hesitate, now would be a good time to notice the gang of middle aged bikers cheering you on from the scenic overlook. Take it as a compliment when said bikers tell you that they pulled off of I-80 because they thought they heard someone drowning.
• Once you're in the water floating on your invisible inner tube (bum down, calves and arms on the surface), try not to remember that you're sitting in a giant vat of  sea monkies and enjoy the surreal experience of suppressing your gag reflex for a crowd of cheering strangers. 

Now complete that entire process in reverse and you're home free!  Maybe someday I'll get up the courage to move on to the second item on my list....

R.O.U.S.

So Brittany and I were sitting around watching the finale of Dancing With the Stars when we both started to hear this rustling sound, an unusually loud rustling kind of sound.  Thinking that we're both ninja hunters, Brittany paused the TV so we could use our sweet bat like hearing and triangulate the location of our trespassing rodent.  There have been mice in the kitchen before, and we thought it might be louder than a usual mouse if it was in the trash can or something...but then we got to the kitchen, and realized the sound was clearly coming from upstairs.  And then our courage failed us.  I took the first stab at it, but I only made it up to the landing before I got too freaked out and stopped.  Brittany was braver and climbed the outside of the upper stairs, and the intermittent rustling rustled again.  "It's totally coming from your room!" is the worst phrase in this situation, but it totally was, so we did the logical thing and ran screaming down the stairs.  At some point we may have even gone out the front door, but it's my story and I don't have to tell you that part if I don't want to. 

Lets just summarize the next bit by saying my bedroom emitted flailing sounds off an on through three shrieking phone calls with my papa (because that's what we empowered modern women do) and a few more investigation attempts, until we convinced Brittany's new boy to come be a man and kill it for us.  We were both kind of uselessly freaked out at this point by the realization that it was waaaaay too loud for a mouse, but not chirpy enough for a bird, which really only left raccoon or ROUS as our choices. 

Of course once the hunter showed up, the prey disappeared, and you know what thought is worse than "I have to catch a creature in my room!"?  Spoiler: it's "the creature in my room evaded us and is STILL LURKING!!!"  Luckily, we did finally find the culprit, and we took a picture of him with this random lady to put on my blog.  Okay that part was a lie.  Our culprit was none other than... a super scary Mylar balloon that had detached itself from my surgery*flowers and gotten stuck in the ceiling fan. 

You'd think I'd feel foolish admitting we spent an hour hunting a helium balloon, but I'm so relieved not to have a creature that I'm happy to tell you all about my real life episode of "I Love Lucy!"  If only our Ricky had a swarthy Latin accent...

*I may have neglected to mention that I had my appendix out four weeks ago.  That was another adventure for a different day.

So, This Happened Today

I got a text from a guy that I will be saving for a long, long time (the text, not the guy). I'm saving it because he's finally given me the perfect response for tactless people who ask if I'm "still" single because I'm too picky.

It's a picture of giant sheep testicles captioned "wish you were here!"

And that, folks, is what meeting people in the 21st century has come to. I rest my case.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Because it just might turn out to be a 4 foot long gopher snake.

Last November, my roommate told me that they kept getting mice in the house the previous winter. I definitely spent the next several months crossing my fingers and knocking on wood that I hadn't seen any yet. Today I met my benefactor: a non venomous snake in the yard. I'm one part fascinated, 2 parts grossed out, and about a half a part grateful for his rodent disposal services. I guess all told a snake in the yard is waaaaay better than mice in the pantry, right?

Don't forget about the terrorist!

In my last post, I neglected to mention that the chickens had been living in the basement shower until one very brave pre-adolescent terrorist suited up and Drano-bombed the heck out of that guano-filled-cesspool. A job like that takes a strong stomach.....


...or a strong clothespin. Apparently the latter is more effective.

And in more depressing news, remember the school that never picked up my DVD? Well, I called and emailed them to find out what happened, and apparently signature required is just a little too rigorous for them, but they wanted another copy of the DVD right away. So I FedExed them a new DVD (no signature required) with tracking emails sent both to them and to me so they would, you know, notice if a package showed up for them. I emailed them back today to make sure it all arrived okay and to find out what's next in the process, and I received the following reply: "Thank you for sending the DVD! We have begun the process of reviewing it. Currently we have two positions open and we have made two offers for those positions. If either one of them is turned down, we will review you again as a possible candidate for the position."

This would be a perfectly amiable reply as per my previous rants directed to HR, except that I'm still hurt by the fact that they didn't bother to pick up the first package I sent them, and as a result I missed my chance and they offered the position to someone else. Seriously, what else was I supposed to do?!?!? Somewhere the Tom Hanks in my head (what? your extra personalities aren't famous Hollywood actors? Hmm) is telling me "it's not personal. It's business." This is the general scene that follows, but in my version, Meg Ryan slaps him, because in the end she's still the one sitting at home in a pile of Kleenex and he's still a bagillionaire, and no amount of self-righteous speeches can change that. But a good backhand might...

Animal House: Days 7 and 8

So in addition to housing six lovely children and one very exuberant labradoodle, this place is also home to three baby chickens (named Tortivia, PT Daily, and Indolai), a gosling named Chug, and two as of yet unnamed tadpoles. They are very large and probably toads.

For reference, that tupperware bowl has a ten inch diameter. The two youngest girls love the goose so much they've almost been guilty of multiple counts of fowl-slaughter, and I consider it quite the achievement that he has survived the week.


And last but not least, for any fellow fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society out there.... today the little girls were playing on the tramp and I was playing fetch with said exuberant labradoodle when I turned around to see the two year old laying on the middle of the tramp with her eyes shut and her arms crossed (think Anne of Green Gables), and the four year old jumping circles around her chanting "Dead girl, dead girl, silly little dead girl!" I told her I didn't know how to play that game, for which I received her sassiest glare and a very snarky "Do you even know Grandma Johnson?" Can't wait to ask Grandma what Dead Girl is all about....

My First Parent Teacher Conferences

I had my first parent teacher conferences last night, and I must say, I looked mighty professional in my all black get up with white dots on my black German blazer. I felt kind of awesome. The conferences went great! I met the stake president, I found out that some of my kids really do go home and tell their parents they like my class *insert warm fuzzies here*, I met a dad who claimed to be the grandmaster of a family clan of Japanese Samurai. Other than that he seemed normal.... but somehow that's the weirdest kind of insanity. Naja, at least I got him to squish one of my killer mutant nuclear scorpion wasps for me while he was there - which, by the by, proves just how killer and mutant they are: He is easy 250 pounds, and he stomped on it twice (soooo disgusting.... I heard it pop!) .... and it was still alive 2 hours later. I threw a plastic cup over it and made my TA clean it up this morning. Poor Nathan - what a champ!

Scorpions and Lizards and Killer Mutant Nuclear Scorpion-Wasps, oh my!

Things you never thought you'd blog about ....

Eleventh graders wetting their pants in class.
Ninth graders asking "We're in America. Why can't I write it in American?" in German class.
Eleventh graders catching lizards at lunch and bringing them to class.
Tenth graders sticking duct tape in their friends' hair.
Telling your eleventh graders to please drink Red Bull before class to make them more interesting.
Live scorpions nesting in your bookshelf.
Students complaining that their relatives get a bad rap for being in the KKK.
Learning that people here don't mean rollypollies when they say potato bug. This...


is a potato bug (aka Jerusalem Cricket or, as I affectionately refer to them, Killer Mutant Nuclear Scorpion Wasps!). The one I found was about 2 1/2 inches long. And alive.