Chicken Poop

Another Kansas-ism for the books. This one seems off-putting when you first hear about it. i know it did to me. But as it becomes more familiar, it also becomes more endearing.

Back story: there's something about the Midwestern winter that does not agree with my lips. i've lived in cold climates for a good portion of my life and have never had the problems i have here. Every winter, like clockwork, January rolls around and my lips start cracking and peeling. Maybe it's not that it's so much colder in Kansas but so much drier. i don't know, but it drives me batty, and it hurts like crazy!

So i went on a mission to heal my poor lips. i tried Chapstick, i tried Blistex. i even tried straight up petroleum jelly as per a suggestion from a friend and found that not only ineffective but largely unpleasant as well.

Along came Chicken Poop.


Yes, that's right. Chicken Poop. The whole label reads like this...

100% pure
free range
Chicken Poop
lip junk
put put it on your lips
contains no poop
a product of Kansas
ilovechickenpoop.com

Now, Chicken Poop doesn't actually work any better than Chapstick, and yet i put it on daily. All it really does is make the little skin flakes on my lips wetter. But hey, i can't help it. i'm a Kansan, and this is what we use. Everybody uses it. i don't exaggerate. EVERYBODY.

You can get it anywhere. Wal-Mart, Sears, grocery stores, gas stations, and of course, Walgreens...



It's quirky.

All Hail the Hairy Beast

Scott is an utter genius! Thank you, thank you! The song is Vaughn Williams, English Folk Song Suite, Movement I: Seventeen Come Sunday. The second and third movements are good too, but this is by far the best. Almost worth embedding in my blog... hm.... ;)

i used to have this on a CD. What the heck happened to it? Ah, i probably lost it in a move somewhere (the perpetual excuse of military families and transients).


On a more poetic note, now that my desperation is momentarily slaked...

This song has recalled a simpler time in my life when love was thrilling but uncomplicated by adult responsibilities, when i didn't spend January impatiently waiting for my W2s, when i let school happen to me as opposed to having to think through and plan every day in excruciating detail. It was a time when the best hour of the day came at the end: band. When i sat in the first clarinet chair and was generally considered to be "the best" at what i did. When the greatest joy in the world was to sit behind a stand of music, like this Folk Song Suite, and take part in the sound that unfolded from that room. It was magic. i remember the feeling - like flying. It actually felt like flying in a formation with everyone else in the room. That's why i loved band, and music. That's why i went on and performed at Clemson and that's why i was a member of the fraternity with you guys. i don't think i've ever felt that free, before or since. Here's to music.

Help, Band Folk!!

Ok, i have had an excellent few days, what with the STEELERS going to the Super Bowl and Obama being inaugurated.

But now i am going crazy and i need some serious help. During the presentation of former presidents, the Marine Band played a song that i know and love. But i can't find the name of it anywhere! It's driving me mad and i feel that i have to have this song.

We played it in one of the bands i was in... don't know if it was Clemson or high school, but if it was Clemson i figured some of you might recognize it.

It occurs in this video, about 4:30 seconds in and lasts about a minute. Help?!?!?!




P.s. - i've looked at a lot of blogs about the inauguration in my quest to find the name of this song, and i just have to thank all of my blogging friends for not embedding music into your sites. What a pain in the---

This Summer's Adventure

So, i've started thinking about where to go this summer. i've applied for a program at Columbia University in NYC, but won't know if i got in until March sometime. Still, it's only three weeks in June so i'll have plenty of time for another little 10-day solo jaunt after it is over in late July and early August.

I was thinking Las Vagas, Death Valley, Ash Meadows, and hiking in Utah. i will have my new camera by then and will take an exorbitant number of photos. i will probably rent a car again because the truck grows increasingly less reliable every day and if i'm going to be driving alone around the Nevada desert, i'm going to want a car i don't have to worry about.

Here's the tentative route...



View Larger Map

This will also take me, interestingly (or not, if you're not curious about this kind of thing) through Colorado City/Hildale which is that famous FLDS town. Fear not, i will bring you further curious tales from the American West!!

Neptune and the Nereids

i've not wanted to write about her until after our trial period was over, so now that the shelter has finalized our paperwork and we are all settled... meet my cat.



i went and got her about two months ago i guess; i've lost track. For the first week we just got to know each other, and then i finally gave her a name: Sao (SAY-oh). Sao is the 11th moon of Neptune, a prograde irregular. And of course, she had to have a geeky name. As with most of the moons of Neptune, it was named for one of the Nereids: water nymphs in Greek mythology. Sao was the rescuer; legend has her leading lost ships to port.

This Halloween, i cut up cotton batting, pinned it to my shirt, and used the new spray bottle i had bought to keep her from clawing the couch and went as "partly cloudy with a chance of showers." i got to spinkle people with water all day, it was fantatic. Sao loved the batting, and has since shredded all that was left.



She's extraordinarily affectionate, and stalks around all evening waiting for me or anyone who's visiting to sit down on the couch, at which point she promptly jumps up, snuggles into my neck, and starts purring. It's so sweet. Of course, i am allergic to her. I had a couple of rough days when she first came home and then again when i got back from my trip to Pittsburgh, but it does fade.

i don't think i'll be serving bread at my home anytime soon...

The Joyous Noise of Family

i haven't written anything in a while because i have been home in Pittsburgh, enjoying what might be the last Christmas holiday as i have known them, despite divorce and several moves, since my birth. Next year my father will be married and my brother will be working both days sandwiching the holiday. And though everything will be different next year, i know two things. One, thirty family Christmases is probably more than most people get. And two, no matter how we spend next year's holiday season, it will still be filled, however briefly or disjointedly, with the joyous noise of family.

This year i spent more days at home than i otherwise would have, simply due to the cheapness of plane fare. Only one day after i arrived, my brother joined me at my mother's house and we put up the tree, watched some West Wing together, and commiserated about not having an election to follow anymore. Each day we would get up, eat English muffins, go our separate ways to work out, and come back together at the end of the day for supper. my brother brought Stella Rue, his dog, and one of my favorite animals on the planet. Here's Stella:



i spoiled her to death with homemade milk bones and hour-long walks around Aspinwall. She entertained me with her tricks and her quietly enthusiastic company. She makes me want a dog in the worst way. But i know i don't have time to devote to one. Hmmph.

Dad and Dave and i went out for dinner a few times over the break as well. And since i've never posted a picture of either one of them, here are my dad and brother:


And of course we all had an evening with Chris, Shelly, Emily, and Elizabeth. i brought Emily a Creepy Crawler Bug Maker (sort of like an Easy Bake Oven, only it makes squishy spiders and worms instead of baked goods) for Christmas. i got Elizabeth a singing purse because Shelly said she liked to take things out of her real bag and hopefully this will be a distraction! They got us all copies of the yearly "Emily and Elizabeth" calender, and Shelly sighed over how predictable it was and thought maybe she should do something else for next year. To that we all replied, simultaneously, "NO!!!"

We also played a new game over there called Blokus, and i have to highly recommend it. It's a nifty game.

On Wednesday afternoon it started snowing, and hard. my mom was worried about the weather so i told her to just take me to the airport then so she sould get home while it was still light. This left me with about five hours to kill at the Pittsburgh airport. After wiling away that time, i got on a plane and flew to Minneapolis, my connection. (Minneapolis, at night, by the way, is a thing to see. It sparkles. It literally sparkles in the middle of the cold dark prairie around it.)

When i arrived, i realized that it was not only the same airport into which i had flown on my way to see Jeff for the first time since college, but also at the same gate. i was sitting at gate A6 at the Minneapolis airport, waiting to board what might have been the same flight number to Wichita, almost exactly two years later to the day. i could see the print on the window where i had leaned up and rested my forehead trying to decide whether to get on the plane and fly into the ice storm that awaited me in Kansas. i could see the wear in the carpet beside the moving walkway where i had paced back and forth on the phone, his warm and encouraging voice in my ear. i could see myself, two years younger and a little more optimistic, in the bathroom mirror, fixing my hair and making sure my makeup was... just right.

And i missed him. Big time. In the months since our breakup (i don't think mentioning it here violates my policy to not discuss it on the internet), whatever time i spent thinking about him i have only spent angry over the last correspondence we had. But that night i just had an empty suck in my chest, and for a few frightening moments i couldn't catch my breath. It was good, to not be angry for a change, to remember the spark that used to ignite whenever i thought of him, and the magic that we seemed to create around us when we were together and well. But it was also deeply sorrowful, and after a while i wanted to get out of that airport so badly i could have hijacked the nearest Cessna and piloted it myself.

When i finally got back to Wichita, i was, as predicted, waiting at Baggage Claim Carousel 1 (there are only two at Mid-Continent) as the clock struck midnight on 2009.

The midnight arrival had also been a convenience of plane fare, but i have regretted it and regretted it even more in the moment. How i greet a new year has always been very important to me. Some years i have sat at home sipping Cold Duck with my mom. Some years i have been with my best friend, Beth. Other years i have been out on the town with a big crowd, or curled up under a blanket on a couch with someone i love. i have no specific ritual, but it always has to have meaning. my mother says that i should think of it as a portend for a year of travel and excitement. i hope that's the case.

Happy New Year, everyone... now back to the grind!