52 New Things -- Week 15 -- Macbeth

You would think that as an English major, I would have seen a production of Macbeth at some point in my life, right? Nope. I had the opportunity this week. I won't go into detail since I'm really behind in my blogging, but here's the one thing stuck out most to me that night. Since the audience was made up primarily of high school students, the cast came out at the end of the play to sit on the edge of the stage and answer questions. One student asked how many of the actors had been in a Shakespearean play before, and almost everyone raised their hand except THE GUY WHO PLAYED MACBETH.

For real. He'd never even been in a play before, and what did he take on as his first-ever stage performance? The lead role in a Shakespeare production. Lots of soliloquies. Pretty much the entire show being on his shoulders.

So was I inspired to try out for the lead in the La Crosse Community Theater's next Shakespeare production? Heck no. Who's got time for memorizing all that? But I was impressed with the guy and reminded that trying new things is awesome . . . I just prefer my new things on a smaller scale. ;)

52 New Things -- Week 14 -- Wisconsin Trivia Championship

Nerd alert!

It all started out so innocently.  We met this other young, childless couple -- the ones who introduced me to Settlers of Catan -- and they invited us to play trivia sometime. Scott is the host/announcer, so Amanda was often left to sit alone listening to him read off the questions. We said we'd stop by sometime to play . . .

 . . . and we won a gift card -- they give $30 bar credit to the first place winners, $20 to the second place winners, and $10 to the third place winners . . .

. . . so then we had to go back another night to spend our winnings . . .

. . . and when Scott started hosting at a different bar, we invited a whole bunch of people so he'd have a big crowd on his first night there . . .

. . . and Amanda, Kevin, and I sat next to and started playing with A.J. and Nick . . .

. . . and then we won, so we had to come back and play again the next week and spend our winnings . . .

. . . and lo and behold if we didn't win again the next time . . .

. . . and pretty soon we were winning pretty much every week and everyone else in the bar was hating on the Roaring Cheetahs. Geesh. We can't help it that we're awesome.

So anyway, long story short, these trivia scores got added up every week and the top fifteen teams in La Crosse got invited to play in the state championship game. Madison and Milwaukee each got thirty teams. La Crosse and Eau Claire's top fifteen teams got to play. There are some other cities who had teams, too, but because I'm not from around here, I can't name them. (Obviously Wisconsin geography questions don't come up much or we'd be out of luck.)

All in all, 120 were playing at the bar on Saturday. Scott had told us in advance that the questions were really hard and someone from Madison or Milwaukee always won. In other words, come on out, have some fun, but don't have too high of expectations.

I should mention that Amanda had to bow out at this point. First place wins $2000, so people take it seriously. Scott was afraid if by some wild chance we did win, people might not find it fair that his wife was on the team. He said we should recruit a couple more players since every team can have six players, so we invited Jon and Christina, another couple that plays most Monday nights, to join us.

So there we were, sitting in our booth, expecting awful, unanswerable questions, when the first question was asked. It was something along the lines of, "On Seinfeld, what Latvian word is used to describe Kramer's "lure of the animal," meaning women can't stay away from him?"

A.J., Jon, Christina, Kevin, and I stared blankly at each other. Nick grabbed the answer pad and wrote down "kavorka." I have no idea how on earth he knew that, but whatever. We were off.

(Nick turned out to be the master of strange knowledge. He also came through in the clutch with "Trixie" when asked the name of Speed Racer's girlfriend. Who knows this stuff?)

The Roaring Cheetahs doing our super-intimidating roar!!

So yeah, we rocked. It was shocking, really. At halftime when Scott read the scores, we were SECOND IN THE ENTIRE STATE OF WISCONSIN. We couldn't believe it.

Unfortunately it was all downhill from there. We stunk it up, answering question after question with wrong answers. Presidents, dogs, clothing, religions, geography . . . we were equal opportunity stinker-uppers. Our score in the second half was less than half our score in the first half. It was sad.

But here's the thing: everyone else in the state seemed to stink it up in the second round, too! We still had a shot at this! You could risk 0 to 20 points on the final question, and if we went up 20 while the top team went down 20, we could still win. We bet it all on the final question, eying the $2000, $500, and $100 prizes for first, second, and third.

We lost. Dang that Carly Rae Jepson and Call Me, Maybe. We thought for sure she had to be one of the top five downloaded ringtones in 2012, but she wasn't. Sigh.

So anyway, we ended up twenty-something-eth in the state of Wisconsin. Scott said if we would have bet 0, we would have been fifth in the whole state. Alas. We wanted the money, baby.

We still got a $50 gift card for getting third place in all of La Crosse, so that was nice. Also, we declared ourselves the third smartest people in all of La Crosse, Wisconsin, which is pretty much awesome and may or may not be true.

And then we resumed our regular Monday night game at our regular bar two days later . . .

. . . and won . . .

. . . so guess where we'll be, spending our winnings, this Monday?

ROAR!!

52 New Things -- Week 13 -- Running

Before you ask, no, I do not have a head injury. I'm sure you're going to wonder that when you find out that I, the woman who has always said, "Only run if you're being chased!" ran today. Nope.

I blame Colorado. It was just so gosh darn beautiful last week with the blue skies and the sunshine that I couldn't help but dream of being active outside. Plus I did a fair amount of huffing and puffing every time I walked up a slight incline. I blamed the high altitude, but let's be honest: it's been a long Minnesota winter. Being a fair-weather walker, I spent many, many more nights on the couch than getting exercise of any form. A couple of weeks ago, while I was getting undressed, Kevin looked at me and said, "We need to start working out again." I threw my pants at him and stomped out of the room.

"I said 'we,'" he called after me.

(The next day, when I'd calmed down, we had a long talk about our needs . . . like his need for me to communicate instead of stomp away, and my need for him to not imply that I'm fat if he ever wants to have sex with me ever again.)

So yeah, getting in shape wouldn't kill me . . . or would it? I hate running. Too much jiggling. Too many cramps. But I read a magazine article about Jamie Lee Curtis doing a 5K after downloading this C25K app, so I thought, heck, if a 54-year-old woman can do this, I can, too, right?

Free download = no risk. If it stunk, I'd be out nothing. The premise? By starting out slowly, alternating walking and running, you'll build up your stamina and be running a 5K at the end of eight weeks. Color me skeptical.

Today was day one. Here's how it went down:

3:45 Get home from school. Promptly sit on couch. Fiddle with iPhone to figure out how to make a playlist. Wonder why only twenty songs show up on my phone when I've got a bazillion on iTunes. Realize what a waste it is for someone like me to have a smartphone.

3:50 Playlist done on phone, try to figure out what one wears to run. Completely unaware. Put on two sports bras in an effort to reduce jiggling. Wear two layers of everything else since running sounded a lot better in sunny Colorado than 35-degree Minnesota.

3:55 Search three junk drawers for the ear buds that came with the iPhone. After finally finding them, spend several seconds flipping the iPhone around before figuring out where to insert the jack.

4:00 Leave apartment. Go right back in to get hat and gloves.

4:01 Begin five-minute "brisk warm-up." Heavy D and the Boys begin singing "Now That We Found Love" in the background. Try to remember what it was that Heavy D died from and figure probably a heart attack. Walk faster in an effort to not die the same way or garner a similar nickname.

4:06 A Tinkerbell-ish ding sounds and a soothing voice says to begin running. Take a deep breath and take off . . . at a sloth-like pace. Wonder why I didn't drive out to a deserted country road so that no one would see me. Also, wonder how one is supposed to run -- on the balls of your feet? Rolling from heel to ball? Flat-footed landings? No idea what proper form is, other than staying upright, which is taking a great amount of concentration.

4:07 Tinkerbell-ish ding and instruction to "begin walking." Not bad. Not good, but I made it a whole minute. Yay me!

4:09 Tinkerbell ding lady says to start running again. So soon??

4:09:30 Leg cramp . . . run through the pain.

4:10 Ding and walk. Thank God. I thought I might puke up those Special K bars I ate at school. Someone brought those yummy treats into the teachers' lounge today and I ate not one, not two -- I'll skip right over three and tell you -- I ate FOUR of those darn things over the course of the afternoon. They are now churning in there.

4:12 Ding and run. Seriously? Already? You're killing me, ding lady. I listen to Metro Station sing "Shake It" and remember happy times with youth group kids. Yay for ribbon dancing. Disassociation or something, right? Isn't that what hostages do? Go to a happy place when being tortured?

4:13 Ding and walk. Try to do some mental math, which is never easy for an English major. A twenty minute program, and with five minutes of warm up, that's only fifteen minutes . . . plus maybe a five minute cool-down at the end, so that's only ten, and over half of it is walking, so I won't be running all that much . . . I mean, I'm probably almost done already, right?

4:15 Ding and run. That seriously cannot have been the whole rest period.

4:16 Ding and walk. Oh, Special K Bars with your chewy, gooey goodness and your delicious chocolate frosting . . . please stay down. Almost done.

4:16:30 Think I'm having a heart attack but then realize the pain is on the wrong side of my chest. And it's more external than internal. Make mental note to wear three sports bras tomorrow.

4:18 Ding and run. The ding is followed by a chipper announcement that I am halfway there! Halfway? I think hateful thoughts toward the disembodied voice as I realize the twenty minutes do not include the warm up or cool down.

4:19 Ding and walk. Oh. Oh. I'm dying. I'm pretty sure.

4:21 Ding and run. I plod along with the grace of a wounded gazelle, wondering how many people are looking out their windows and judging me.

4:22 Ding and walk. Thank you, Jesus.

4:24 Ding and run. Wish someone had taught me how to run at some point in my life since it obviously does not come naturally. Think back to high school P.E. and the curriculum that could easily have been called "Ten Variations on Dodge Ball." Awesome at the time, but not so useful lifeskill-wise . . .

4:25 Ding and walk. Notice that my walk has gotten considerably slower since I started.

4:27 Ding and run. Decide I am probably doing irreparable damage to my spine and stuff. Wonder why no one has invented a workout called "Gentle Stretches on a Queen-Sized Bed." I could jump on that train whole-heartedly.

4:28 Ding and walk. One minute to go, the trainer lady says. Hallellujah. I was about to start repeating what I'd heard in church on Friday re: forsaking, but I didn't want to get all melodramatic up in here.

4:29. Ding and instruction to "begin cool down." Oh honey, I started that a minute ago without you telling me to.

4:31 Arrive back at apartment and do some stretches on the front step. High school girls track team runs by . . . effortlessly. Sigh.

4:34 Ding and a message that my cool down walk is now over. Lady, I am already on my couch. You don't have to tell me to stop.

So yeah . . . I mean, I didn't die, so I've got that going for me, but I have to tell you that I am definitely not looking forward to repeating this tomorrow. Now excuse me while I go ice my hip . . .

52 New Things -- Week 12 -- Spring Break!!

Sometimes I look at college kids and think, Did I have an insanely different college experience or what? I mean, call me dull, but the thought of a Spring Break trip that I pay thousands of dollars for but don't remember a thing about? Not appealing.

(Oh, and while watching something on Hulu the other night, we saw the same trailer for a new Spring Break-themed movie about ten times, during which a bunch of former Disney girls are obviously desperately trying to break out of their Disney mold. Yikes.)

But last week I went on my first ever Spring Break trip! Whoo-hoooooo!

(Don't get too concerned. There was very little alcohol involved and absolutely no bikinis.)

Also, it's been about fifteen years since I even had the opportunity to go on a spring break trip, being out of the education world for a long time, so it's not like this is earth shattering, but . . .

Whoo-hoooooo!!! Spring Break trip!

We had the best week! Sunshine, skiing for a day (well, part of a day . . . our legs gave out fairly early . . . ), getting to know some of Kevin's family members, and not having to work = AWESOME!!! (Grown up Spring Break must seem totally lame to college kids, huh?) We ate more than I thought our stomachs could hold, but we did some hiking so that totally offsets the gluttony, right?

Best of all, though, was that I got to see LOTS of my old friends, and Kevin endured being introduced to almost everyone for the first time. I think he was exhausted by the end of three days of constantly being "on," but he was a trooper and knew it was important for me.

I left feeling very loved . . . and very thankful. Those ten years in Colorado played a huge part in making me who I am today. If I could have one superpower, it would be teleportation so I could just blink my eyes and be anywhere I wanted to be, with anyone I wanted to see.

Miss you, friends! Thanks for the best Spring Break trip EVER! (And just because this is the only one I've ever taken, don't feel slighted. I'm sure it's waaaay better than anything those college kids did this year . . . )

52 New Things -- Week 11 -- Exploring my German Roots in New Ulm, MN

Okay, I admit it: I didn't really go to New Ulm just to see all the German stuff. My college friend Amanda lives there, and along with our friend Erin, we had a mini Augustana reunion weekend. But I did think all the German stuff was pretty cool. I mean, where else have you seen a giant statue of Herman the German?

Sidenote One: There are only two of these in all of America, so if you name a place other than those two spots where you've seen Herman the German, you're a big fat liar.
Sidenote Two: Under the shadow of Big Herman, I proved myself not coordinated enough to walk backwards and talk at the same time as I fell off the sidewalk and into the snow while trying to tell Erin and Amanda something that I'm sure was incredibly important.

Other German highlights from New Ulm:

I can read that! And here I thought the only German I remembered from my childhood was O Tanenbaum . . .

Plenty of cuckoo clocks and beer steins!

Buttons and t-shirts are not enough. We should get a holiday. We're as good as the Irish, darn it.

I brought along my old college photo album and we had a few laughs over it, particularly looking at how much flannel we wore and how every shirt was an XL. What were we thinking? Here's our gang as sophomores . . . count the flannels:

We got better with age. A couple of years later? Down to one flannel. (And those boots! Remember how popular they were?)

And by our senior banquet, just before graduation . . . no flannel in sight!!

And holy cow! We had shapely bodies that were hidden under XL flannels for four years!?! What were we thinking?

Anyway, it was really fun to catch up with Erin and Amanda . . . and even Kristen via FaceTime! We're hoping to do a summer reunion in New Ulm, too. Next time we've got to get the boys to join us . . . and wear flannel to make the reunion more authentic.

52 New Things -- Week 10 -- The Po-po

My new thing of the week was going to be skiing at Mt. La Crosse, the local ski hill we have yet to try. I was all prepared to write about how tiny it was compared to Colorado, but how much I love skiing so it doesn't matter . . . but instead I ended up filling out a police report. Stinkin' thieving bastards.

When I went down to our basement storage area to get my skis, they weren't where I'd left them. I stared stupidly at the spot where they were supposed to be, then started moving boxes, wondering if Kevin had set them somewhere else. I called him to ask, hopeful that for some odd reason he'd stuck two pairs of skis and four boots behind several boxes. Nope. He hadn't touched them.

Here's the thing: you need a key to get into the basement. Here's the other thing: we have a padlock on the storage area door. But here's the crappy thing: the storage units are just wood frames encircled with chicken wire. Someone pushed the chicken wire in on the unit next to my skis, then pulled the chicken wire off between the two and snagged my stuff.

Silly me, thinking my stuff was safe behind two locks when the frickin' chicken wire makes stealing stuff oh-so-easy for some idiot in my building. When Mr. Cop came to check it out, I suggested a unit-to-unit search of the other five apartments in my building, but he said the chances of finding anything were slim. Most likely my skis had been pawned already.

Pawned.

See, that's the thing with being a non-thieving citizen: I hadn't even considered that option. I went on Craigslist while waiting for the police to arrive, hoping some stupid criminal would have posted my skis and envisioning justice being done when the guy meets me in a parking lot to sell me my skis and suddenly ten cop cars surround us and the thief realizes it's a sting. Because the police have the time and man-power to make my skis a priority . . . in my dreams.

Long story short, the cop said there is little to no chance of ever seeing my stuff again. As far as we can tell, that's all that's missing, but then again, we didn't even know the skis were missing until I wanted to use them and they were gone. There might be other things we just haven't missed yet.

Kevin said he's never seen me so mad. I was even tossing out swear words here and there while yelling about the stupid idiot that took my stuff. I think he had to try hard not to laugh at me, which was smart; it might have been cute and funny to see me so out of character, but I probably would have punched him. After letting me yell for a while, he gave me a big hug, and then I might have started to cry a little. The one pair of skis, though more expensive than the other, were just given to me last year by a teacher friend whose friend didn't want them anymore. The ones I was really upset about where my old Colorado skis. I spent a lot of time on a lot of mountains on those skis; I may be able to replace the skis, but the sentimental connection to Colorado is gone.

So now we're trying to figure out insurance stuff . . . we have renter's insurance that will get us some of our money back, but I want to know first if that will make our premiums go up and make it worse for us financially in the end. I'm also trying to figure out the forgiveness piece, 'cause right now I'm just really bitter and angry that I work hard to pay for things I want while other people steal from hard working people to get what they want. I'm not feeling especially Christian-like quite yet. Instead of turning the other cheek, I'd like to kick someone in the face.

Hopefully next week's new thing will be more fun . . . or at the very least, less costly to my bank account.

52 New Things -- Week 9 -- Threading

"Are we doing your eyebrows today, too, or just the haircut?" the stylist asked as she led me back to the chair. This was about five years ago. I'd like to think I kept my cool, but there's a good chance my expression betrayed me as I thought, "What's wrong with my eyebrows?"

Like most women, I could easily list a number of things I'd like to change about my appearance . . . but my eyebrows? I'd never given them much thought beyond making sure I didn't have a unibrow.

As I've gotten older, I feel like I've gracefully accepted the physical changes that go along with aging. I noticed my first gray hair at 32. No big thing. Wrinkles? I prefer to think of them as laugh lines around my eyes, showing what a happy life I've lived. But yeah, the fact that my eyebrows look more and more bushy -- like my Grandpa Malcom's Scottish eyebrows -- every year? I suppose I had to do something about it sometime.

So when I saw a girl doing "threading" at a mall kiosk last week -- and noticed that it was only $10 -- I thought, why not?

Here's why not, friends: it hurts!! When I asked how much it would hurt, the girl said it's less painful than waxing. I think we've established that I've not maintained my eyebrows via any beauty method before, so that really didn't mean anything to me.

Once I got in the chair? Owwwww!!

Yeah, I suppose I'm not really a good judge of pain. Maybe if I'd have experienced childbirth, this would seem like a walk in the park, but as it was, I nearly told her to stop multiple times. I was afraid, though, that I would look like Joey. (That episode of Friends was all I could think of as I sat there gritting my teeth.)

So anyway, I now have stylish, skinny eyebrows . . . and you know how many people have noticed? Absolutely zero.

Here's the before, during (one done and one not), and after shots . . . huge difference right?

At least it was only ten dollars. :)

(Not sure what threading is? Here's a tutorial: http://video.about.com/hairremoval/See-the-Threading-Technique.htm . . . I'd recommend taking some Tylenol before you try it.)