What Transpired This Morning, Aka Double Fail.

So I wake up this morning to Eric leaning over me. He tells me he's about to leave for work. This is extremely confusing to me as Eric and I always get ready at around the same time... and my alarm had never gone off.

You see, I do that whole thing where you set the alarm for an hour earlier than you actually need to wake up, thus tricking yourself into thinking that you are getting to sleep in... while actually reducing the amount of sleep you get. It's ingenious really. Much like the story I will be telling you later.

So anyway, I'm mad because my alarm never went off and it feels way to early to be getting up. Eric is standing by the door, fully dressed for work with backpack in hand. He says he's leaving and I say bye... then I look at my cell phone to see how late I will be to work at this point... And its 1:50 a.m.

Uh... Eric... Is my cellphone broken or something? It says it's 1:50 a.m. Eric looks at his cell phone and falls into a heap on the floor. I think he was half laughing and half crying. It was definitely 1:50 am and Eric had definitely eaten breakfast at 1:00 in the morning. The boy must have dreamed that his alarm went off. We go back to bed very happy that we do not actually have to wake up three hours after we went to bed.

Fast forward to 6:30 am. I am late for work, as per usual, and frantically searching for my keys. I'm looking everywhere and yelling expletives at this point. At best I will now be twenty minutes late to work. Leo is very confused. I call Eric. Eric, do you know where my keys are???

Madolyn. They're in the fridge.

Oh. Yeah. Click.

Yep. Remember when I alluded to an ingenious plan earlier? I decided that the best way for me to not forget my lunch in the morning was to put my keys in my lunchbox in the fridge. Clever right? Turns out, in order for that plan to work you have to actually remember that you had an ingenious plan to begin with. Moral of the story? Eric and I are not morning people and need to find jobs that don't have us waking up at 5 am. And we might be just silly enough to deserve each other.

I Smell Fall

I take great satisfaction in an event that occurs once every year. I begin anticipating this event in July, but it usually does not occur until the middle of September. This year, however, it occured suprisingly early. Let's call the day... August 22nd (as I am fuzzy on the actual date). I woke up, went outside to get in my car for work like any other morning, and something magical happened. I smelled Fall. And it was beautiful.

I have a nose for Fall, and I always have. I can't describe the smell, but I know it when I smell it and Fall is here... though the weather would suggest otherwise.

Now, the first real event of fall is having the first taste of a pumpkin spice latte. I usually start asking Starbucks employees if they have it in yet after the initial smell occurs, and they all give the same standard date. September 6th. I know very well that they are capable of making the latte any time that they chose, so I figure it can't hurt to ask. I am preparing myself for the best Fall of my life because this year I got my first pumpkin spice latte on August 31st. For free. The guy initially gave the standard response, that they couldn't give me one yet, so I ordered a java chip for Eric and we started to drive away... until a hand came out the window followed by a whisper. "Don't tell anyone".

But I did.

The Waiting Game

So... clearly Eric and I are a little too excited for our honeymoon trip to Disneyland. I came home last night after a crappy day at work, and we decided to have one of those hermit type of nights that involves eating Hungry Howie's and Netflixing it up. My taste in movies is kind of like the cravings of a pregnant woman. Most people can watch any movie on any day... but not me... ohhh no. With me I am very very picky about what movie I am in the mood for. It's a little OCD and I think it drives Eric crazy. For some reason, when the right movie is suggested I just know right away. Until then, however, it sounds a little like this; Eric: How bout this one? Madolyn: Nope. Eric: But you said you wanted to see it! Madolyn: I do but just not right now. Eric: AGGGGG!!!!

On that particular night, we had exhausted all options until we went into the documentary section of netflix. I convinced Eric to let me watch River Monsters for about ten minutes until I got my fill of cool dinosaur creatures. After that, I knew Eric was getting restless as he doesn't find prehistoric river creatures nearly as exciting as I do (go figure). We went into the documentary section again and that was when we found it. "The Secrets of Disneyland"...

And that was how we spend our Friday night watching a documentary on Disneyland and getting way too excited for our trip. We will be honeymooning there over Halloween and when the Halloween section of the documentary came up I might have freaked out a little. Okay. A lot. We found our tickets (given to us last year by my wonderful future Mother and Father In Law) and sat with them there on our laps while we watched. October just get here already. Please!!!!

Hats

Fellow theatre students will understand my reference to hats in this post. Let's just say a certain faculty member enjoys using the metaphor to express their tendency to need to fulfill many different roles at any given moment. As you switch roles, let's say from director to actor, you're wearing another "hat" At the moment, I feel like I'm wearing so many hats that it is going to permanently disfigure my head.

Here's my running list:

Playwright (5 hours a day)
Actor (5 hours a day)
Teacher (8 hours a day)
Fiance
Friend
Roommate
Daughter
Daughter-In-Law
Sister
Puppy owner
Zombie enthusiast
Interior decorator
Wedding planner
Blogger

As a direct result of the first three, there is extremely little time for the others that follow it. This is why I very rarely have any contact with the outside world anymore. This also may or may not be why I'm currently writing this post while supervising children in the computer lab. Don't worry, I can multi-task. I've learned that the key to my success is a white chocolate mocha. And sleeping in my car on my lunch break.

Speaking of Impulse Buys....

This is Leo, a.k.a Leonardo Dipuppio or Leonardo Dipuppi when he is feeling like a man of the renaissance, a.k.a the cutest dog in existence. Now accepting applications for potential dog sitters while Eric and I go on vacation in July. I'm sure he'll be in high demand.

We ended up buying him off of Craigslist after a failed and misguided attempt at getting Ziggy. Eric and I drove all the way up to New River, AZ only to find that the woman who was selling him would not answer her phone or come to the door. We offered to drive out again the next day and were then informed that he had already been adopted. We were kind of devastated/ eager to exact our revenge on her by flagging all of her craigslist posts. We didn't. Instead, we went out at 8:30 at night and purchased Leo from a man in a Safeway parking lot. It was all very street, which was good because Eric and I have ample street cred. Turns out Leo is a New Year's puppy and the man who bought him was having trouble raising two puppies at the same time. He's the cutest thing and so sweet. I've already decided he's going to be a lion for Halloween... No I won't be one of those people who dresses up their dog... except on Halloween. Obviously.

Speaking of Halloween, already found my zombie bride costume at the Mesa Thrift Store. Eagerly anticipating our Halloween party rehearsal dinner where Eric and I will dress up as a zombie bride and groom and eat Chipotle. Hope everyone is already planning their costumes because it is going to be eppppiiccc. BTdubbs the Mesa Thrift Store is probably the best thrift store ever, for future reference. We found a few wedding decoration items, a Paul Mccartney biography for Eric and , a penguin coffee mug for me (can you ever have enough penguin coffee mugs?). No. It's not possible. P.S., I want our wedding to look like everything on this website.

www.greenwedddingshoes.com

P.S.S. our wedding venue, which is also a coffee shop/yoga studio (I promise we aren't really pretentious jerks in real life) has leash and latte nights. Bring your dog and get 20% off. This may be we bought Leo. And picked that venue.

The other night we had a pretty awesome parrrtttayyy (does anyone still say it like that? It's really the only way it should be said) with the roomies, our new engaged friends Zac and Dom, this cool guy whose name I can't remember but he was really cool, Michael and Amber, and Carl's significant other (who by the way is my new favorite person). We played Tony Hawk pro-skater, which is a game that I am good at because all you have to do is press buttons in no particular order or sequence. The night ended with us at Denny's, which is really the only time anyone should eat at Denny's, coincidentally. Also, just don't eat at Denny's. You will always feel sick afterward. Even though double hashbrowns sounds like a good idea, it just isn't.

Ikea=Poverty

I made a mistake... I have discovered that it is virtually impossible to go into Ikea without making an average of four impulse buys. I went into Ikea looking for a bed frame and came out with:

1 office chair
1 decorative "mood lamp"
2 ice trays that make your ice come out in shapes like hearts and flowers
1 tool kit for Eric(who suddenly likes tools but only if they come in kits)
1 shelving unit to put the afore mentioned "mood lamp"
1 coffee table
1 picture frame
1 tray to put your silverware on and...
1 bed frame

Epic fail.

But in my defense....


Yeah. Like I'm not gonna buy this chair. Come on.

It should be noted that while this picture was being taken I was convincing Eric that Obama must want me to have this chair, since he just gave me such an awesome tax return. It was not one of my best moments. And that was how I spent most of my tax return at Ikea. Oh well. We needed at least 70% of the items we purchased anyway. Okay. Maybe 65. But our new apartment is gonna be soooo awesome.

So this is the newest object of my affection.


I consult the VJ Ranch website daily (a rescue shelter) for no other reason than the fact that I really, really love looking at cute little dogs. This little guy's name is Ziggy and Eric and I have become way too attached. We've already decided that should we become his owners, we will refer to him as Ziggy Starpup. This is why I need to stop looking at dog websites.

Also, the quest for the perfect latte is complete. I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for this.



This picture is actually Eric's hot chocolate, but the point is that Echo Coffee is our new hangout spot. We found it by accident, after deciding that we were just gonna drive around until we found somewhere cool to hang out. The coffee is great, its just down the street for the apartment and... they draw pictures in your drink... How can you beat that? You can't, really. We were thoroughly entertained by Eric's hot chocolate for quite sometime and sat in big comfy chairs while listening to some slightly pretentious, but all and all pretty decent, "hipster" music.

On this same outing, we went to our favorite park again, mostly to look at ducks... and harass this guy



This bird just seems like a pretty rude guy, and we've made it a point to follow him around the park and bother him until he flys away. He always has this super annoyed look on his face when we come near him, so we decided that the best use of our time would be running up next to him and laughing at the disgruntled look on his face. He's become smarter now, and flys away anytime we are within a thirty foot radius. We still find enjoyment in it.

On Why I Love Working With Kids

I was pretty stoked to start a new job this week. Being out of school is not all it's cracked up to be and I was bored out of my mind... to the point of obsessively cleaning my apartment (just to have something to do) and watching HGTV. Needless to say, it was a rather low point in my life. I applied for a couple of jobs, but the one I really wanted was a job at the Boys and Girl's club as an instructor and low and behold... I got it. Awww yeah. As a result, I basically get to spend the entire day playing with kids for money.

When I first got there, I was a little freaked out because all of the staff has basically grown up together (having gone to the club as kids themselves) and everyone else has the advantage of already knowing all the kids. I was beginning to question whether or not I was going to be the creepy loner guy standing in the corner forever, when all of the sudden a cute little girl skips up to me and says "Hey, are you new? Will you come play jump rope with me?" And there you go. Why I love kids. If only us adults still had the same social skills the world might be a much better place, in my humble opinion.

In other news, it's zombie time! Our piece (The Zombie Play: Or What To Do When the Dead Live) was officially accepted into the Fringe, and I'm working with a great ensemble. Rehearsals have been beyond fun so far (how could they not be, really?) and things are looking bomb. I think next on my list of writing endeavors will be finally tackling the novel I've been talking about forever. It's gonna happen. Still waiting for inspiration to strike, though Stephen King would argue there's no such thing as writer's block. Just lazy people. Duly noted Steve, I'm working on it.