Charity Cut Short by Shortness

“I felt so bad; I had some cookies in my car that I was going to give to a homeless man but I couldn’t because I couldn’t reach them.” ~Megs

“Oh because you’re short?” ~Maren

“Yes.” ~Megs

Master Larrie the Graduate

Last week, I was absent from the blog world. I have no commitment with you people, apparently. How terrible.

Instead, I spent much of my time with my precious laptop giving myself a headache writing my LAST PAPER EVER for my master’s degree. Can you believe it? Two and a half long years of going to school in the evening (summer’s included), I can finally say that I’m done done done done done done done done AND done!

I finished the last sentence on Thursday night.

And then I celebrated by dancing around my home.

And then I celebrated by making a gingerbread house at Maren’s. Isn’t that how YOU would celebrate?

And then I celebrated some more by going hot tubbing with Megs. It was perfect because it was well below freezing, we were surrounded by snow and Megs put in the new John Mayer CD to listen to.

And then I celebrated some more by going with this hot guy that I know for some midnight Mexican. Well, it was kind of midnight.

And then I celebrated some more by getting up early on Friday to iron my gown and hood, meeting up with my parents at Alberto’s, driving to Logan, walking across Utah State in the 4 degree temperature and participating in graduation. Please begin referring to me as Master Larrie the Graduate now. Thank you very much!

And then I celebrated some more with a party that Megs threw for me where we had a smorgasbord of goodness to eat, we played some mean games of Twister, and I did a terrible job of trying to sound like a wicked witch while playing Curses.

And then I celebrated some more with a baby shower for Ali, and then a headache that sent me to bed for a bit, and then off to the Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concert, and then Wal-Mart and then watch a movie by myself because, despite the lack of sleep all week, I couldn’t fall asleep.

And then I celebrated by going to the Tab Choir’s Sunday morning concert with this hot guy I know and then to church and then to my parents’ for dinner and then to a musical fireside for the Stake where I promptly fell asleep.

And that, my internet friends, is how you celebrate finally finishing graduate school.

HIP HIP POORAY!

Episode 56: How to Survive Lunch With Your Coworkers

Every day at work, I think about how I really ought to bring in a lunch to save money and to eat food that I actually like (because I really don’t like the food they make at our grill here onsite).

And then I go home from work that day.

And guess what I do?

I don’t put anything together for a lunch the next day.

Sometimes I briefly think, oh, I’ll just get something together in the morning before work.

COME ON, LARRIE. You NEVER give yourself more than 10 minutes to get ready.

Like you’ll get up early enough to make lunch, too.

It never happens.

Today, I brought my lunch to work because I had leftovers from the AMAZING dinner I had at Porcupine Grill with Maren last night. Their Chicken Noodle Soup = HEAVEN (or at LEAST terrestrial glory).

I ate lunch at my desk today, but there are many days when I’d prefer the break and to talk about things not related to work. Because of that, I’ve come up with a list to help you, internet, with how to eat lunch with your coworkers.

1. Round Up Coworkers. The first step, of course, is to have people you can actually go with. This may actually be hard for some of you because you either are not the type of person that others particularly want to eat lunch with* or you sit at your desk mumbling and grumbling about how people don’t ask you to go to lunch with them. Guess what? You can ask THEM. (Gasp.) So get out of your seat, walk down your row and ask somebody (probably somebody that you like) if they’d like to go to lunch. Round up multiple people if you’d like. Now, go to lunch.
2. Avoid Hot Topics. The store and the conversations. They don’t have lunch options at the store. It’s probably better in mixed company to avoid deep discussions on politics, religion, or relationships at lunch. You never know who you might offend if you start talking about your major crush on some certain cute boy and the other person would rather talk about her crush on a girl. Just a thought.
3. Don’t Bring Egg Salad. Well, to be honest, I LOVE egg salad. And I don’t usually smell it when people eat that at the table. What you REALLY shouldn’t bring is FISH. And DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVEN IF IT WOULD SOMEHOW SAVE THE WORLD FROM NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST, HEAT IT UP IN THE MICROWAVE. You deserve severe punishment in the life after this if you do that. SEVERE.
4. Remember Your Manners. It really shouldn’t be that hard, but some people maybe just never learned that looking like cookie monster while you consume your food is NOT appropriate. There were TWO reasons why you could see all of cookie monster’s food while he ate it. One: he had no lips. Two: he’s a puppet. This means he had no throat for the food to go down. Chew with your lips closed and don’t talk with your mouth full. Do I sound like your mother yet?
5. Don’t Belch. Do I really need to expound on this? I can’t believe I even had to type this, but I do. And I bet Janet can think of who I work with that does this repeatedly throughout the day. Yes, he is a grown man.
6. Be Interesting. Don’t talk about work. It’s a break. Share interesting stories instead. If you don’t have a good story to share, then ask other people questions. There are some really interesting people sitting around you that do lots of things outside of the office. Do you know what they are?**

Great work people. Now go forth and eat with your cube mates.

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*Perhaps you are incredibly left- or right-winged and refuse to let people share their own opinions, but you want everyone to hear about yours every lunch. Perhaps you are self-centered and eventually people want to go to lunch with somebody who is interested in how their weekend went, not just every intricate detail of yours. Or perhaps you’re a dud who just sits there and doesn’t participate. A good lunch group is a give-give relationship. You give me your Hi-C, I’ll give you my Capri Sun. Yum.

**You might NOT want to ask, though, if the outside hobbies they have are things like playing Magic or having all-night Dungeons and Dragons parties. Remember this pointer used the word, “interesting”? That’s a KEY component, people.

Thursdays are for Lovers

“What? This is what we do on Thursdays.” ~Maren

“It’s Thursday night cuddles.” ~Megs

“You’re petting my head.” ~Maren (to Steph)

…

“Let’s practice hand holding.” ~Steph

“Oh I’m the worst at hand holding. I get bored.” ~Maren

Episode 55: Birthdays and Work

I’ve heard a rumor around these halls at work that the time clock wishes you happy birthday. What a nice time clock.

I have NO IDEA if it’s true, though.

I don’t work on my birthday.

The very first year I celebrated my birthday while employed here, October 14^th fell on a Friday. Several things happened that day: I took the day off, Daniel Craig was announced as the sixth official James Bond actor and I slept in. Later that day, I met up with Janet to make a trip down to Las Vegas because who doesn’t want to spend their birthday weekend on their feet all day moving from one store to the next, purchasing makeup you hardly use from Sephora and clothes you still wear from Urban Outfitters? Good birthday.

The next year, my birthday was on a Saturday. For some reason, though, I don’t really remember what happened that year. I probably didn’t sleep in because I had a soccer game. But again, I did not work. Oh and also, Chelsea FC’s goalkeepers both suffered serious injuries that day against Reading FC—Cech fractured his skull and Cudicini had a concussion. Defender John Terry had to finish the game as keeper.

Moving on now to 2007: My birthday fell on a Sunday. I slept in! Church didn’t start until 1:00pm. I believe at the time, I probably sat in really uncomfortable pews so I was utilizing a blow-up “back pillO.” Yep. Getting older is superb.

Bring on 2008. I planned a last minute trip with James and Maren to visit Peter and Genny! So I woke up (probably late enough to consider it sleeping in) in Portland, Oregon after spending time in Seattle and hitting up Cannon Beach the previous days. Pete had to work so the rest of us made our way to Multnomah Falls where we raced a train took a lot of pictures and hiked all the way to the top. Mighty cool birthday.

And now we’ve arrived at this year. My birthday fell on a Wednesday. Right in the middle of the week. Kind of awkward. So I just took the one day off. I woke up at 7:30 am, read a text on my phone and then remembered, I could sleep in. So I dropped my head back down on that pillow and went right back to sleeping. Once I finally did get up, I ate breakfast, did laundry, returned texts and went to the gym. Then it was back home to make soup, burn my tongue eating it, finish laundry, clean up and go over to Tracy’s to see the demolition of their kitchen and have my four-year old niece perform several happy birthday dances for me.

Jane’s happy birthday dances were incredible.

Eventually, Jane and Abe came with me to play at my house for a bit, drew all over dozens of post-it notes and stuck them on my fridge.

Dinner was at my parents’ with my siblings. Besides the great gifts, they all went around the circle and told me nice things about myself. We may tease my dad for being cheesy in his “old age,” but I sure do appreciate this new cheesy tradition we do.

After all the eating, gift opening, complimenting Larrie, and sweeping up peanut shells that were all over the kitchen floor, I went over to Kasey’s for delicious cake and celebrations with my friends.

See how great my birthday was? No working! (I briefly checked email around 3:00pm and sent one response because I was worried about anything going wrong on a project when I’m gone for ONE day.) It felt like a holiday. Larrie Day.

Birthdays at work don’t feel like holidays.

The Gainer that Never Was

I tried.

I really did.

I tried as best as I could, but you know how there is that phrase about teaching an old dog new tricks?

First, let’s clarify: I don’t consider myself an old dog.

I just think that perhaps I would have been a bit more fearless when I was younger.

But I tried really hard to learn a new trick on Saturday.

I tried to learn how to do a gainer.

It all started at the second annual Campbell-DeLaMare swimming party at the DeLaMare mansion. They wouldn’t call it a mansion. They just call it home, but I never had my own bathroom connected to my bedroom and a walk-in closet growing up. I never had a swimming pool in the backyard with a diving board and slide. I never had an upstairs and downstairs kitchen. I never had an indoor swimming pool either. I did, however, have a pool table and a ping pong table.*

We became friends with the DeLaMares when they moved in to the average-size house next door over a decade ago. Before long, Maren and I were babysitting their youngest kids, Mom was scheduling her daily walks with their mom, Lisa, and we built a new fence with a door in it so we could easily walk from one backyard to the other. It was neighborhood bliss. And then the DeLaMares decided to upgrade. They moved to a bigger home and left our little neighborhood behind. But don’t worry; we stayed friends.

Isn’t it great that even though they live in their fancy new home they still want to see the Campbells? And they want to see ALL of us? GOOD friends.

This last Saturday afternoon was the swimming party.

Maren, Thane, Laina, Hobbes and I drove up together. Before long, we were all outside swimming and the diving board was just asking for my brothers to fling themselves off of it. I hesitated.

But they made it look so easy to do a gainer: Jarv, Mick and Thane.

“You just arch your back,” Thane instructed me.

Mick said something about jumping higher.

Jarv said something about tucking.

I tried the first time and landed on my head. Not too bad. I was more than halfway around.

I tried again. Back flop. Lost my courage.

Try again.

Went in shins first.

Try again.

Head first.

Try again, jump higher.

Back flop.

I’m done.

So much for learning how to do a gainer.

Guess the remainder of the lessons will have to wait for the Campbell-DeLaMare swimming party next year. I’ll let you know how that goes.

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*You’d think because of this I would be a decent pool player or have some amount of ping pong skills. Your thoughts would be wrong, though. I can, however, play both sports better than I can bowl.

My First Journal Entry Ever

I have a journal that I started when I was 7-years old. Sadly, it only had one entry from that year: one, laconic entry.

June 14th, 1988

Mom, Maren and I went to the camp-out.

Tales of 4th Grade Softball

Okay. My blogging hiatus is over and I’m back with a winner of a blog entry from WAY back in elementary school. It’s one of the last times I had played softball. I know this because the last mitt I owned would only fit the hand of a fourth grader’s. It’s still at my parents’ with my name written on the side in permanent marker.

This entire entry is written in cursive, in pencil.

March 22, 1991

Today is the last school day of March. Next week is Spring Vacation. I had an easy day at school today. First when we got to school Mrs. Floyd, my fourth grade teacher, did the usual morning stuff. Then we had our final spelling test. There were only a few 100’s in the whole class. Then we played softball for Fabulous Friday. I hit two “groundy” homeruns. Still my team lost. Afterwards it was recess. I spent that drawing a map. When recess was over we went to see a play called, “Hurricane Smith.” It was a good play. Than school was over.

Maren invited Laura and Megan to play. Maren, Megan, and I had a fight. When it was settled I went out to play with Krista, and Rachel. In the game Krista wanted to play that we were enemies. Then she started to truly be unkind. We managed to sort of settle that one over the phone. It was a pretty wild day. I’m glad it’s almost all over. Signing off.

What Not To Say On A Date

“You shouldn’t ever say ‘erupt’ on a date.” ~Maren

(Thank you to the Bachelorette season finale for prompting this gem of a quote.)

There’s A Whole Lotta Blue Here

Enter the CAPTION CONTEST now!

The Sciolist Cell Phone Pic of the Week^not-™ is published each week with the intent to entice readers to comment. This is accomplished with a CONTEST! The winner will receive a blog nod in the following week’s post-what a TREMENDOUS prize. Entering is easy. Just click on Comment below, fill in the identification information requested and enter your caption for the above picture as your comment. You have until Larrie posts the following Wednesday’s pic to enter.

Ready… GO!*

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Last Week’s Winner: Clancy Pants pulls off the win with a narrow victory. Way to go girlfriend. It’s all about who makes me laugh the most. It was a good week for submissions.

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And by GO, I mean COMMENT.