kapachino

Author: Kathleen

  • Washington, D.C.

    I’m visiting my good friend Ellen in Washington, D.C. this weekend. I’m a little jet setter lately! I’m ready to be settled in at home again, but it won’t happen next week. But anyway, we’ll get to that at a later date.

    Day one of my visit, Friday, was spent with Ellen at work, and then lounging at her apartment eating cookies, talking, and watching Scrubs.

    Day two involved sleeping in, watching more Scrubs, going to a wedding, and hauling out to Annapolis to see Over the Rhine in concert, which was, by the way, amazing.

    Day three (today) we went to church and then walked the heck out of DC. What we saw: Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, National History Treasures, Archives (Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights), Washington Monument, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Ford’s Theatre, the house where Lincoln died, and went to the top of the Old Post Office to see a view of the city.

    I think we walked about 10 miles, and my foot hurts! Here are the pictures from my trip so far. Tomorrow I’m taking the Capitol tour and visiting the Library of Congress, so more pictures will be added after that.

  • tidbits

    Seriously, everyone should get a dog like Cleo. She usually sleeps on my bed at my feet, which I love. But last night in the middle of the night she came up to my head and worked her way under the covers with me and cuddled right up next to me. It was the sweetest thing in the world, and I only wish I had been more awake to appreciate it.

    In other news, I am trying to figure out how to make extra money. I decided not to get one of the $10,000 loans that I got last year since school ends in May. I think I can make it, but I will be cutting it close. Besides my part-time job, I am pet-sitting and looking for more clinical trials to participate in. My newest endeavor is signing up with an online company that refers me to other companies that pay me to take surveys, do interviews, and focus groups. I’m going to give it a good try and then report back to say whether or not it really works.

  • Weekend Update

    I went to Kansas for my college’s homecoming this past weekend. For those of you who didn’t go to a small school, homecoming is more like a reunion than anything because I pretty much know everyone who comes. I still have 4-5 really good friends who live in Kansas, so I’ve made it a tradition to go to homecoming every year to see them.

    I stayed with my best friend Becca and her husband Micah while I was there. I had signed up to run the homecoming 5K by myself, but when I was packing I couldn’t find my iPod. That was annoying because running by myself without music isn’t that great. So on Saturday morning I asked Becca, “You wouldn’t happen to have an iPod, would you?” Knowing Becca’s technology deficiency I figured there was no chance. But she said, “Yes! That is one thing we do have!”

    Then Micah dug an iPod shuffle out of a box and handed it to me. He said, “I think there’s only one Josh Groban song on it, though, and maybe a sermon.” I figured it was better than nothing.

    Becca asked him, “Did you win the iPod or something?”

    “No, my parents gave it to me for Christmas.”

    “Last Christmas?” I asked, not believing that he had it a whole year without putting songs on it.

    “No, a few Christmases ago,” he replied. “There’s a reason Becca and I got married!”

    ***

    Driving to Hillsboro from Wichita is a lot of highway with farmland surrounding it. I slept in the car, and woke up when Becca realized that we had missed our turn. So we turned around and as we were backtracking our friend Julie said, “I think the turn’s coming up, there’s a silo that looks familiar.” That’s a phrase I don’t hear in Houston!

    The 5K went alright, except that there weren’t that many runners and the cross country team ran and left me in the dust. It was kind of embarrassing. I was probably one of the last ones to finish, and I still ran it in a faster-than-normal time for me. Afterwards I showered and we spent a lot of time wandering around campus. We ate lunch at the “young alumni tailgate party” and then drove to a neighboring town to visit our friend Erica who couldn’t make it to the festivities. All of us fell asleep while there. After a couple of hours we returned to Hillsboro, watched the second half of the football game (we lost), and then ate dinner at Pizza Hut. Hillsboro has exactly 5 places to eat: Pizza Hut, Subway, Sonic, Olde Towne Restaurant, and a new Mexican restaurant. The McDonald’s in town actually went out of business.

    During the evening I hung out with one of my college roommates, her husband, and their new baby. We didn’t get back to Wichita until about midnight, and I was so exhausted. We went straight to bed, and then I woke up in the morning and flew home.

    It was a quick trip, but definitely worth it. I find that every year I go, there are less people that I really care to see and spend time with. But the ones that I do want to see are very important to me, so the tradition will continue. I like taking little trips like this, but I love coming home. I’m very happy with my life here and the people in it. These are strong ties that I hope I don’t ever have to cut.

  • one of the only reasons i don’t like living in the south

    Last night I stayed at my brother’s house, as I do every Wednesday night because of my early Thursday clinical in the medical center, and as I was lying in the dark, trying to get to sleep, a roach crawled up my arm. I flipped out. I tore the room apart trying to find it because there was no way I was getting back in the bed without having killed it first. When I couldn’t find it for awhile I started to despair of getting any sleep that night at all. But as I was standing in the hallway searching, my brother (who was sleeping on the couch) abruptly jumped up and started dazedly looking around. I knew what that was: the roach had left me and went and crawled on him! It was out to get us. This time, with my brother’s help, we tracked it down and killed it. We stood talking for a little while afterwards when another roach scurried across the floor. This one was quicker and harder to track down, but track it down we did. We destroyed it twice over: first with Raid and then with a shoe. I told my brother, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to stay over here anymore.” He laughed, but I was serious. Maybe I do have a phobia of roaches after all.

  • A Phobia In The Making

    My boyfriend loves to fish. It’s his favorite activity – one that is also therapeutic and calming for him. When we started dating and I found this out I only hesitated for a minute, because I really don’t like the smell, taste, or feel of fish. A few times when I was a camp counselor I had to take some fish off the hook for my campers, and it wasn’t pleasant. But I knew that fishing was an important part of Boyfriend David’s life, and I’m always up for new things, so I told him from the beginning that I wanted him to teach me. When he got a boat and started spending more and more time fishing with his dad, I knew for sure that this was an activity that I wanted to share with him.

    The first time we went was at the lake by his aunt and uncle’s house where we fished for bass and catfish. This was fine with me because the bait we used was artificial lures and cut up raw chicken meat, which I could handle.

    Yesterday we decided to drive down to the pier for the evening and fish for some trout and redfish. Saltwater fishing is what David really loves. It was a perfect day, and we were intent on enjoying ourselves. I was also intent on becoming a real fisherwoman. I knew that we were going to be using live shrimp as bait, and I wanted to face up to that fact. I didn’t want David to have to bait my hook forever. I had my mind set on doing it myself.

    Now let me tell you what I think about shrimp really quick. First of all, I refuse to eat them because I don’t like the idea of putting an entire organism in my mouth. Secondly, they have those EYES. That just BULGE out of the side of their head. And those creepy crawly legs. And they’re TRANSLUCENT. I get the shivers just thinking about it.

    I’ve never been the kind of girl to be really afraid of insects or snakes or anything like that. Granted, I don’t like roaches much, but I can get close enough to kill one which is something a lot of girls won’t do. I pride myself on being able to overcome fear and do what I put my mind to. And I was GOING to bait my own hook.

    I let David show me how on the first one, and then it was a long time before I got a bite, but finally my turn came. I was scared, yet determined. I knew the shrimp couldn’t actually DO anything to me, so I stuck my hand in the water. But the second I felt those shrimp thrashing and their little legs against my fingers, my heart began to pound and I felt an overwhelming, irrational fear. Three times I thrust my hand in the bucket trying to grasp a shrimp, each time more desperate than the last. After the third attempt, feeling like I had been thoroughly beaten, I gave up and with my whole body shaking said to David, “I just can’t.” And then what did I do? I cried.

    Not because of the shrimp per se, but because I felt so out of control and…silly to not be able to overcome a stupid little fear. I didn’t understand why it was so hard for me. For awhile I was kind of depressed and didn’t want to see another shrimp, but I knew that I really needed to try again. So right before we left and after about five minutes of coaxing from David, I crouched down, held tight to his leg, and put my hand back in the bucket. I somehow brought out this tiny, dead shrimplet–then immediately gave it to David. I know it’s not much, but it was a serious victory for me.

    And I thought it was going to be the fish that were the problem.