My favorite past time: yelling at children

I've often wondered why my family thinks I hate children. I love spending time with my nieces, once worked as an English tutor for second graders, and I studied to be a children's librarian. I know stories, songs, craft projects, and all of the major AND minor plot-lines from the Harry Potter books. Kids generally like me.  Maybe it's because I'm sort of child-like myself. I love a good jump on the trampoline or run through the sprinklers, and own several pairs of brightly-colored sneakers.

Then, I had a stunning revelation. I yell at children who misbehave in public.

Allow me to share two stories. The first story takes place last summer, when my family came up for the Chalk Art Festival. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it. Artists spend hours drawing on the pavement in Gateway Mall, and people pay to vote on the best drawings as a fundraiser for the local foster care system. Here is one of the drawings:

At the event last year, a couple of unruly children kept running around playing grab-ass, stepping all over the drawings. I promptly scolded them, saying "You need to stop stepping on these drawings. People worked really hard on them." My family thought it was ridiculous that I said anything, but I would do it again in a second.

The most recent encounter was last weekend. Matt and I were playing tennis in one of the local parks, and a group of about eight children kept skate boarding, scooting (or another appropriate verb for riding on a scooter), and running ON THE FREAKING TENNIS COURT. My first instinct was to hit balls straight at their heads to make them go away, but I opted for the more tactful approach of nicely asking them to leave. I sweetly said, "Can you please skate somewhere else? We are trying to use this court to play tennis."

Problem solved? NO. Those little bastards kept skating around the edge of the court, and when they thought I wasn't looking, on the court. A man and his father (or a random kind old gentleman) were on the adjacent court teaching a young boy (son/grandson) to serve, and they were clearly bothered by the juvenile delinquents also. The man said, "Please don't skate here," but they still did not leave. In the meantime, I was getting more and more angry.

It was at that moment when I decided to go with my first plan of hitting them with balls. Before you judge me, please consider the impact of a tennis ball furiously lightly hit at a child. It wouldn't hurt very much, and likely wouldn't cause a concussion or the need for stitches, and it would look like an accident. Plus, they deserved it.

However, I underestimated Matt's ability to return my hits. The kids were right behind him, and when I sent some balls in their direction, he reached out his racket and returned the hits. This only added to my rage. After a couple more semi-polite comments to the kids (during which my voice got progressively louder and louder), I stopped in my tracks and looked the ringleader of the group straight in the eye and shouted said loudly, "You are being very rude right now. We are trying to play tennis. This is a tennis court, not a place to skate. You need to find somewhere else to go. NOW." Then I just stared at him with crazy eyes. I am taking some creative liberties here, because I can't remember exactly what I said. It's possible I was in a rage blackout.

Luckily, someone got video footage of my angry outburst.

It worked! The little demons went to the next court (separated by a fence) to terrorize four women playing a game of doubles...who also happened to be their mothers...who were right there the whole time, and did nothing.

Matt told me later that he was scared I would start a fight with the parents and he'd get his ass beat by the extremely large dads, who were grilling meats nearby. Maybe that is why he was playing so well, desperately running and diving for the balls I was aiming at the kids.

Moral of the story: I can use the tactic of fear to get Matt to improve his tennis game.

My new job: more than you probably want to know

Three weeks ago my life was easy. I had a job I understood and was good at, a little group of friends to go to lunch with, and a ten minute commute. Then, I decided to throw a wrench in things and take a new job in an industry I know nothing about --natural gas pipelines.

If you think a librarian has no business working with a bunch of engineers, you are wrong. Every business has data, and it is a librarian's job to organize it and make it accessible. Without revealing too many details, here is the scope of my project: the company has boxes of documents that are somewhat organized but not digitized. Currently, if you want a document, you go to the archives group and they can locate the box your document is in (hopefully), then you have to sort through files of papers to find it. Eventually, the goal is to scan these documents and put them into some sort of content management system, so users can use search criteria to find a digital version of the document.

So far, the hardest part of this transition (other than waking up an hour earlier) is the cultural change. On my first day, I tried to open my Gmail account to read a work-related article I had emailed myself, only to find the site is blocked. It is also interesting to be one of the youngest employees, as I couldn't contribute much to a conversation about colonoscopies (Me: Yeah, it's important to get those things...").

I am an independent contractor, not a permanent employee, so I often feel like the red-headed step child. The thing I'm most jealous about is the on-site gym the permanent employees are allowed to use. I have to keep telling myself that it isn't personal, and have to remind myself of the benefits of my situation.

Though today is only my 4th day of work, I do think this is the most challenging thing I've ever embarked on, including graduate school. The majority of the people on my team have a PhD, so I'm hoping I can learn from them. It's sort of like playing tennis; the best way to get better is to play against someone who is better than you....right?

Food blog!

Caitlin and I now have a blog dedicated to our cooking adventures. Check it out, friends!

Julie and Julia and me

Since now is the time for resolutions, it's time I share mine. The majority of resolutions probably have to do something with exercising or losing weight, but I'm going to go another direction. While I do have the desire to be healthier and will make an effort to exercise more, Caitlin and I have decided to each make 100 recipes in 2011, and blog about them. I'm already a step ahead of Caitlin, since I have a blog. Maybe we'll start a new one together--depends on how motivated I feel.

This goal will help me in three ways:
1. I will eat at home more often instead of going out to eat.
2. I will hone my cooking skills to an Iron Chef-like ability.
3. It will encourage me to blog more often, instead of having month-long gaps.
4. I will fatten-up Matt so the hot girls in his office won't flirt with him. (Kidding! Sort of.)

In order to make this easy on myself, I'm not really setting any rules. Caitlin made the executive decision that drink recipes should also be allowed (she's a boozer). Let's see how long it is before the inevitable happens and I, like the rest of the nation, forget about my resolution.

Craft Inspiration

I hope everyone out there in blog land had a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah/Festivus/whatever. I know I did, partially because Matt gave me the awesome gift of a new sewing machine that also does embroidery! I am very excited to start some new crafts. First up are some new throw pillows for our couch. I re-covered the pillows that came with the couch, but no longer like that fabric. So, here are some pillows that I like and can hopefully replicate somehow (but in other colors). If you can't tell, my style is very granny.

Stupid baby names

Disclaimer: I am positive this post will offend someone, mostly because some of the offenders I refer to are my family members.

I've had a lot of friends get knocked up conceive lately, and would like to take the time to offer up some unsolicited advice about baby names. Don't pick something stupid. In Utah it is common to take a normal spelling of a name, and mess it up until it is barely recognizable. Ex: Dystini (pronounced Destiny), Naive (pronounced Navy). It's nice to be creative, but let's take it down a notch.

An acquaintance of mine gave her baby the middle name "Draco," after Draco Malfoy, a character in the Harry Potter novels. While I'm all for promoting literacy through baby names, it was a bit weird to me.

Another person I know (who I'm sure doesn't read this blog, but if she does maybe she'll benefit from this post) recently asked her Facebook friends for name suggestions for her growing fetus. Her friends suggested the following names, and they were NOT joking: Stone, Blaze, Blaize, Stetson, Tink (for a girl), Kode (Cody). I shared this with a friend, and she said I should suggest "Turd," to see the response.

Instead, I came up with this list of names: Calypso, Coolio, Scooby, Hagrid, Cletus, Rasputin, Wrangler, Adolph, Cougar, Apostrophe, Jägermeister, Chastitee, Matrix, Areola, Rambo.

Feel free to use these names for your future children! I am also very skilled at coming up with pet names. My future cat will be named "Noodles" or "Newton" (Noodles if it's a girl, Newton if it's a boy).

Here's my last bit of advice. Take your potential baby name and insert it into the following sentences to see which one works better. Don't pick a name unless it works with Sentence A, unless you are absolutely sure your baby will be an NFL player. In that case, any name goes. Ex: Plaxico, Champ, JaMarcus, D’Brickashaw, etc.

Sentence A:
"All arise! The honorable Judge **insert name** presiding."

Sentence B:
"Get your dollars ready, men! Now taking the main stage, our newest dancer, **insert name**."

I think "Tink" and "Blaize" both sound better in sentence B.

SBUX Frustration

Yesterday, a couple coworkers and I went to Starbucks. I've recently discovered the salty-sweet combo of salted caramels, and wanted it in latte form. Easy enough, I thought. Starbucks always has those ingredients on hand, right? Little did I know I would be stepping into a modern day version of an Abbott and Costello skit, where everyone would be confused and no one would understand what I am talking about.

Me: Can I get a grande salted caramel latte?
Starbucks employee: What?
Me: A grande salted caramel latte? Do you have that here?
Starbucks employee. No. We have a salted caramel hot chocolate and a salted caramel mocha.
Me: Okay, but you do have the ingredients for a salted caramel latte, right?
Employee: (asks manager) Can we do a salted caramel latte? We don't have that on the menu.
Manager: (to me) We have a salted caramel hot chocolate and a salted caramel mocha.
Me: Okay. Can you just put salt and caramel in a latte?
(Employee and Manager look at each other in confusion)
Manager: Do you want coffee in it?
Me: Yes. Espresso, steamed milk, caramel, salt.
Manager: Salted caramel mocha?
Me: I don't want chocolate in it.
(Awkward pause)
Me: Okay, can I get a salted caramel mocha WITHOUT the mocha?
Employee: Sure!