Ten Things Tuesday
Mamacita says:
1. Today was the first day of summer session. So far, so good; my students seem very nice.
2. I might be falling in love with “my” treadmill at the gym.
3. The tractor is fixed, and the grass has been cut.
However,
4. I looked out the window and couldn’t see the roses. Might be time to break out the weed-eater.
5. The people next door have tiny kittens. I watched them frolicking in their front yard today – I could feel the uncontrollable “awwwwwwws” swelling up so fast, I almost choked.
6. Schwan’s has some caramel pecan praline ice cream that’s pretty good. You just watch: now that I’ve said that publically, they’ll discontinue it. Story of my life. (still mourning Bruester’s chocolate pecan, and still haven’t been back since whatever blundering idiot decided to mark it off the menu.)
7. Still haven’t unpacked my suitcase. I’m not sick or anything, just lazy.
8. I learned so much at WordCamp! It was simply amazingly great. One thing I learned: on Ten Things Tuesday, I don’t really HAVE to have ten things.
9. I am so hungry, even the raisins are starting to look good. And, I loathe raisins. They look like 
dead bugs; they feel like those big Halloween wax buck teeth we used to chew up after they’d served their purpose, and they taste like spongy ear wax.
WordCamp Chicago: So Far, So GREAT
Mamacita says: Wordcamp Chicago is FANTASTIC! I truly enjoyed -and learned a ton of stuff from – all of the presentations today. Well, except for one, but I’m not mentioning anybody by name unless I have good things to say. Yeah, I’m just nice like that. Shut up. I’m NICE, dammit dear me, yes.
The meet-ups began, for me, last night, as several of us got together for dinner at the Carnivale restaurant – thank you, Micah, for making the reservation for us! You need proof? I got your proof right here:
From left to right, we are: Micah Baldwin, Jeremy Wright, Melissa Feeney, Aidan Nulman, Jim Turner, and me. That’s a sweater fold, by the way, not my gut. I swear, it’s a sweater fold!
These people are all a lot cooler than I am, so my coolness factor surely rose a couple of degrees by dint of hanging out with them? Didn’t it?
Maybe from zero to, say, 2? Out of a hundred?
My only whine – but ite were memorable – was that there was no way to handily charge up my laptop’s battery, and by the time I was able to get online at the conference, I only had a few minutes left on it! They’re working overtime to fix the connection problem, so tomorrow will no doubt be fine. If it’s not, y’all will hear about it again. Brace yourselves.
Conference grade for today: 9.8
I had to deduct a small percentage for the connection problem. I’m far too classy to deduct for the speaker who made me laugh internally, and not because it was intentional.
Fun rocks. I love fun.
Things I Haven't Done Yet
Mamacita says: I’m really not a very cool or adventurous person, and many of the things I’ve never done are done every day by most people. I get that “raised eyebrow oh really” face from others, a lot. Sigh.
1. I’ve never used an ATM machine. That’s always good for some “oh really” expressions.
2. I have never watched a survivor reality show, and have no desire to. Maybe if there was a real reality show, where people had to SURVIVE with only the skills they already knew, I’d be interested, but most of the survivor-type reality shows are more like frat inductions and freshman hazings than anything to do with actual survival. If people honestly wanted a true survivor saga, drop some businesspeople down in a public middle school for a few weeks. THAT’S survival, my friends.
3. I still haven’t ever watched Oprah. Still not interested, either.
4. Still haven’t lost that last fifty pounds. My penchant for popsicles on these muggy days isn’t helping.
5. Summer session starts Monday, and I still haven’t gathered all my syllabi and tests together.
6. After years of searching, I finally found the Wonderworks version of A Little Princess in DVD format, but I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. It’s the only version of A Little Princess that’s faithful to the book, and when a movie is NOT faithful to the book, I have no use for it. But the Wonderworks version is absolutely wonderful in every way. Besides, Professor Sprout is in it, so you KNOW it’s going to be good. I love this book so much, I named my daughter after the main character. And that’s why there is no “h” at the end of her name. Don’t waste your time or money on any of the more recent remakes of this book, or on the equally bad really old versions. The Wonderworks version is the best one. In fact, Wonderworks versions of everything are the best ones.
7. I’m going to WordCamp in Chicago this weekend, and I haven’t done any laundry since getting home from Idaho the other day. Conclusion: Unless I intend to be either naked or smelly in Chicago, I’d better throw a few loads in before I go to bed tonight.
8. I priced a commuter flight from Indianapolis to Chicago and it was over two hundred dollars. In fact, it cost more than my ticket to San Francisco last summer! Ridiculous. So, I looked up Amtrak prices, and for less than fifty bucks, I’m taking the train, round-trip, to Chicago on Friday! I’ve never taken a real train anywhere. I can’t wait!
9. I am covered from head to toe and everywhere in between with mosquito bites. I have never itched so badly in my life. Plus, I look like I’ve been in a paintball fight.
10. Speaking of reality shows, I am so not interested in Jon and Kate or any of their 8. The intensity of my non-interest is so great that when people invariably try to talk to me about that sad dysfunctional family, I have to turn and walk away lest I say something dreadful, such as the fact that I consider them a sad, dysfunctional family. What they say or do is none of my business, nor is it any of yours, and perhaps my distaste would be made clearer in the words of my idol, Dr. Perry Cox, who would perhaps put my feelings about Jon and Kate and all of their 8 in words something like these:
Except, of course, that I think Hugh Jackman is hot beyond all existing words.
