huh? car? what?

I FREAKING LOVE MY BIKE.

So it's all-bike, all-the-time for me these days while the Solara's in the shop getting some plastic surgery, and I have to say... I LOVE it. It's almost even FASTER for me to ride my bike to school than to drive (if I'm running late... which is often... waaaayyy easier than dealing with traffic/parking), and I really don't mind the laughter and/or weird looks I get from the students. I usually just pull up next to them at a stoplight/crosswalk, make eye contact and jerk my head upward, and say "hey" or "yo". I like to keep up-to-date with the kiddies.

And, the PROS to riding a bike vs. driving a car are ENDLESS....

1. I look really hot in a helmet. That's an unarguable fact.

2. It's fun to go grocery shopping and to Target on a bike, esp. when it's slightly raining outside. You feel super-cool --y'know, helping the environment and all-- and you get to go to the front of any left-turn lane in traffic and everyone has to wait for you. Then you get home and think, "huh, I feel a little wet..." and turn around and see that your white capris and turquoise t-shirt have a big, wide, wet, water-asphalt stripe from your rear on up. And you realize, that, HOPEFULLY, you just gave the fellow shoppers at Target a little extra joy in their day.

3. I can get around my classroom faster.

4. It's downhill TO work, and uphill home. Easy-peasy.

5. You see more of what's around you when you're going slow (relative to driving--of course I am Super Speedy) on a bike; and if you want to stop and take a picture of an awesome billboard, it wouldn't come out blurry-- unlike this one in Fort Lauderdale where I had to do five passes in my rental car while driving on the freeway and taking shots with my camera pointing in the general direction, until I got it in the frame.

6. Can you even IMAGINE how skinny I'm getting with all this exercise?? It's a good thing I ate all that cheese and chocolate fondue over the weekend, or I might soon wither away to nothing.

Of course, biking is nothing new for me, it's just new in the non-bike-centered Los Angeles County. When I taught school in Austria, I rode the bus in winter and a bike in fall/spring... LOVED it.... what could be better than riding through meadow trails in an Alpen valley?

When I explore Pacific Islands, I like to do so on a bike... best way to see everything and have the locals yell appreciatively at you. And you can make your way all the up a steep windy road to a lookout point on the island of Moorea, almost barfing from the effort, but not wanting to stop out of pure pride.

It's also the best way to explore the valley floor of Yosemite Valley

and, of course, the absolute BEST way to be a missionary in Austria.

I just might not give it up...

best women's conference EVER!

LOVE Conference Weekend. Love watching/listening to Conference, and (secularly) love it when the men go off to Priesthood Session and the women eat fondue!

Saturday evening we had a Girls Just Wanna Have Fundue night-- dipped bread and vegetables into three different kinds of cheese fondue (I have a new cheese baby in my stomach) for the first course, and then dipped waaaayyy too many things into the chocolate fondue for the dessert course as we watched the CLASSIC 80's dance movie, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Actually, I take that back-- we had to STOP the movie to eat the chocolate fondue, it was a madhouse. No shame, here. That's why I love my girl friends :)

It's just amazing that we were unable to finish all the dessert dip options...

Even with the second-to-youngest Girl in attendance helping us out...

...and others resorting to dipping into spilled fondue because the chocolate was in such high demand.

The BEST part of the evening, though, was the second exhibit of No Shame by my fantastic friends, as they took part in our annual Midnight Naked Swim (to commemorate the end of summer)... Hilarious! Special props to you first-timers who had no fear of throwing off your towel and jumping into a dark, cold pool. I think we laughed enough to work off at least one ounce of the Gruyere, and burned off two dips of chocolate just trying to stay warm.

I FULLY recommend!

(faces of participants
have been blacked out for anonymity... they can tell you
themselves who they are. :) And there are no existing
photos of us IN the pool, duh--)

goodbye, summer (part one)

I love love love having a pool at my disposal (read: backyard), and especially one both long enough to do my future-Olympics-swimming training* and secluded enough to swim naked when I so desire (very freeing). It's old, it's cold, the pool light fell out of its place and I fear electrocution, and the ancient bolt holding the ladder to the side busted this year, but-- it also has an old-school diving board and slide setup of the type that have since been banned by law, it's deep enough for extreme diving contests, AND it's a great place to float/photograph my Halliburton. So, it's AWESOME. It is a pain in the butt, behind, arse, whatever you want to say, though, to keep up.

Lately I've had to do a lot of algae diving (scrubbing the black algae spots off the bottom by hand, with a steel scrubber--it's harder to get proper leverage with a pole from the surface), acorn scooping (again, using myself on the end of the mesh bag instead of a pole--), and snorkel scrubbing (using the pole this time, but inside the pool and using my scuba mask and snorkel, treading water. Better exercise). While I appreciate the training this is giving me in case I ever become a Rescue Diver (treading water to move closer to the side of the pool while holding acorns above my head, and then hurling them as far as I can is much like Ashton Kutcher treading water for an hour while holding something heavy over his head and Kev Costner looks on and laughs, in The Guardian) or in case my cruise ship capsizes and I need the lung capacity to dive down and turn off the propellers to escape, I am also glad that all this work is about to end.

Because summer's over. :(

It's time to cover the pool. It's going to go from this:

To this:


Soooooo sad!!
________________________________________________________

*For those of you wondering whether my Olympic Swimming aspirations will conflict with my Olympic Figure Skating destiny, put those worries to rest: I am a two-season girl.  Look closely...

what I learned at disneyland yesterday. I mean over the weekend.

Oh.... so THAT's how it's done.

Thanks, Brawny!!!

I'm sooo ready for you, Daniel Craig

I am the proud new owner of a Halliburton, and therefore one step closer to my lifelong dream of owning a briefcase full of money.

This dream began at my first viewing of Casino Royale (the 21st-century one; best James Bond flick EVER, btw, and not just because of Daniel Craig's "... perfectly formed a--") when, in the first chapters of the movie, some dude pulls out a briefcase of money as a bribe or to tantalize towards future payment, as is de rigueur in these kinds of stories. Anyway, I'm not sure what was happening exactly, and I seem to have blocked out the events leading up to the opening of that blessed case, because all I remember is: at that moment, time (or the movie) stopped for me-- all I could think was, "How can I get a brief/suitcase full of money??"  I was completely distracted for the next 10-15 minutes, working out in my head if my monthly allowance/paycheck would produce enough stacks of ones to create a convincingly full case. And then Daniel Craig came back on and I abandoned those musings, he is pretty. Totally didn't care that I was now lost in the storyline and had to ask eva what happened.

But now, I'm well on my way towards realizing my dream! We art teachers recently scavenged the now-abandoned photo lab in anticipation of its impending demolition (next-door neighbor of my previous classroom, the legendary Woodshop, also soon-to-be demolished), and I came out WINNER. That aluminum beauty was just sitting there, ripe for the taking, and not one of the other art teachers--scrambling for a chair or papercutter or maybe a plastic measuring cup--had any idea what they were overlooking until I screamed "HALLIBURTON!!!" and grabbed it up. I'm not going to lie, it pumped my adrenaline a little bit.  Then my adrenaline slowed as I realized it was locked.... Then it pepped back up a little when we also realized that the number combination, handily, had been marked/etched right above the lock.

(Which I photoshopped out of this image... like I'm going to put it out there for all to see! As if.)

If I ever do get it filled with money, I think that'll put me right in line to be the next Bond Girl, at maybe #37 or so.  I would also deign to play the Supporting Role Bond Girl, she usually gets a few admiring glances from 007; acceptable consolation prize.

I don't quite have the money yet, though, so I've got to figure out what to put in my case in the meantime. Eva says it doesn't really matter, since 'Halliburton' screams "valuable goods inside!", so people will steal it from me no matter what. Maybe I'll just dress like a federal agent and walk through the airport with it handcuffed to my wrist, so I can be mistaken for an Air Marshall and get first-class perks.  (LOST has taught me well.)

Any ideas? What do you people put in your Halliburtons?

'96 Jetta vs. '00 Solara. Jetta wins.

I got into my first car accident on Saturday. My first-- EVER--collision. Sure, people have hit me before... as in backed into me in a parking lot as I was driving, or hit-and-ran (is there a past tense of that?) as I was parked (allegedly, obviously I wasn't there to see it; but I don't know how else to explain the huge fender dents that have mysteriously appeared over the years).

But never in a moving accident. My record is (was) squeaky-clean: Not one insurance claim, not one moving violation (not that I haven't been at fault; or is it my fault the officer(s) have chosen not to cite me? :)

And so that is why, after slamming on my brakes and ramming into the car in front of me 1. which had suddenly stopped after the car in front of her braked, barely hitting him, and 2. whose brake lights I couldn't see illuminated due to the setting sun behind us, the victim and I got out of our cars and I said, "uh, what do we do now?" (after apologizing profusely, of course). My new BCF (Best Collision Friend) and I were both car-crash-virgins and both on our way to Second Jobs in the Mall, next door to each other even, so we called our places of employ and then spent the next few minutes pretending to know what info we were supposed to be writing down as we took cell phone pictures of the damage and other cars whizzed by yelling at us for being stopped in the left lane (because four lanes each way on a city street just aren't enough).

Then the real excitement happened.

I hear sirens, and see an ambulence and fire truck going down the other side of the street, and think, "wow, there must be a real accident somewhere..." and then they make a u-turn at the end of the grassy median and head towards us! And then, from the opposite direction, a man comes jay-jogging across the traffic and tells us that the Victim hit HIM, albeit without damage, and that he didn't want us to think he had just driven off so we would blame him from afar. He also said that he had called 911, and hung up because he'd been put on hold for a while (nice). No WONDER they sent the cavalry out to inspect (the cops and a tow truck surfaced later). I know it was all just-in-case, and I felt bad that so many civil servants had put in all that effort unnecessarily, but it also struck me at that moment as dramatically funny... and I would have been laughing, except that I was too upset at my mistake, the ensuing cost of my insurance deductible, and of course the demise of my perfect driving record.

On the bright side, there were no bodily injuries (except my pride) and all that insurance I've paid over the years will buy me a nice new hard-water-stain-free and insect-fossil-free hood, bumper, grate and headlights. Yeah! And in the meantime, it's super-fun to be driving along to work and hear a *clunk* and realize that my headlight has fallen out, yet again.

(I did finally tape it in place today, but have not yet as-requested-by-mi-Padre duct-taped the hood down. He's convinced it could fly up as I drive. I'm convinced I can't even open it by yanking, it's jammed shut at the latch, and I am freakishly strong.)

Soo... anyone want to lend me their car while mine is in the shop? I have an almost-perfect-driving record, I swear :)

p.s. the Jetta involved only suffered surface scratches, not even a dent. 21st-Century Japan does NOT want to get into a fight with 20th-Century Germany, I am TELLING you.

DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES!

INSULT of the DAY! 

A New Feature here in DOEZIELAND

Let me start by acknowledging two things:

1) Because I grew up with two older brothers who teased me incessantly from a young age (- on), I'm pretty thick-skinned. It takes a lot to really, personally offend me (aside from foul language, ignorance, 

poor spelling and sacrilege-- the obvious offenses-- and a couple personal-to-me things that only a few people would know bothered me anyway)... I usually just think it's funny that a person would actually SAY something rude or insulting, esp. as they usually don't mean it. (And if they DO mean it-- how idiotic are they?! You really have to laugh at people like that...)

and

2) I know that I do bear some resemblance to Tori Spelling. 

So here's what happened today... I usually come home almost daily with some hilarious remark made by a student who wasn't trying to be insulting but whose comment came out that way anyway ("Ohhh, Miss Doezie-

- you always tried, with your hair...  I know if it wasn't so hot, you'd have been more adventurous") ("Maybe you don't look different in this photo, because you look so old--?") ("HAHAHA, MISS DOEZIE, YOU'RE LIKE A WHITE QUEEN LATIFAH"), but TODAY, the gem of the week came from a fellow teacher.

A very nice, amiable, friendly man, married, teacher of history, and a member of our Wednesday Wild Lunch Bunch (yessss.... teachers... eating dessert together, living on the edge), Mr. So-and-So (I actually can't remember his name) likes to make comments about my striking resemblance to one Tori Spelling. I laugh along, ha ha ha, yes, I've heard it before, but not so much in recent years as when we had the same cowlick-y hairstyle while I was attending P-- High School and she was almost-not-graduating from West Beverly High, 90210...

...and apparently, summer vacation didn't cause him to forget about this astounding separated-at-birth miracle/tragedy. Today, walking out of the room at the end of lunch, he asks me, "So, how's DEAN?" (guffaw, guffaw) ...  It took me a split second to realize he was playing that I was Tori and he was inquiring about my real-life husband, but as soon as I did, I har-har'd right back and then shot even further back with a playful, "Yeah.... see, I consider that an insult...!" 

Mr. History hurried to reassure me by stating, "Oh, no, you're WAY smarter than her," but... I never thought he was comparing our intelligences. (Hello--- OBVIOUS that that's not what was implying all along, since his first "hey, you're like Tori Spelling"-- I mean, come on, she is vapid compared to my impressive Mensa genius); so I clarified my "offense" by adding, "Um--no, I meant she is UG-LY!!"

And...

He stopped in his tracks, turned around to face me in the midst of kids streaming by as they rushed to 5th period, startled face like a deer in headlights, and said... nothing. 

Pause.

"oh.. uh, well... hmm."

Hands hanging to his sides, desperately clutching a thermo-lunchbox, he turned away-- turned back-- glanced fleetingly at my face once more, mouth opening and closing, and then... hurried off in the opposite direction.

GENIUS. 

That was the hardest I laughed, all day...

RISE, ALL LOYAL COUGARS

So, 7 days before BYU completely crushed UCLA, I watched my very first football game! I've been to many, I was True Blue in my B-Y-Utah days and I currently annually attend one token football game at AHS (the Homecoming one... fireworks! Naming of the Queen and King! 400-member marching band and a 100-member Color Guard that's actually cool!), but... watch them? Really?

Uh, no. I watch the crowd, the people around me, the cheerleaders (those mini girls-- so cute, so amazing in their high-flying feats!), whatever game-appropriate food I'm eating... but NOT the game.

Maybe here and there, and I sure have fun singing the fight song when we score (or is it goal?) (just kidding) (although it's not far off that I would think that), trying to get on the JumboTron (as taught by my bro) and cheering when everyone else cheers... but... I usually am distracted by everything else but the plays, and have no idea what is going on. In fact, in high school when I was a cheerleader-- a CHEERLEADER-- I had no idea what "Offense" or "Defense" was. (In terms of football, that is-- I'm not a complete idiot). I would just listen to the Varsity cheerleaders and whatever they called (Offense! Defense!), my squad would cheer accordingly! It was AWESOME. Very influential and educating time in my life.

But, ever since my Daddy be-gifted me with a sweet pair of high-powered Nikon 'nocs (the salesman at the hunting-based sporting goods store was frankly appalled when I said my primary use for them would be "...y'know, to watch Broadway shows, look at stars, n'stuff..."), everything is bigger, better, and zoomed-in crystal clear.

So THIS game-- BYU Cougars vs. U of Washington Huskies-- was a whole new world! And man am I glad I watched the whole game, almost every play, and almost all of those through my 'nockers-- because it was AMAZING.

(still watched the cheerleaders, though... but even they were better through binoculars. Orange face makeup!)

My dad and my little sister Kate both live in Washington, and my dad spent some of his retirement/our inheritance (good use of either!) to fly my bro Chad and I out for the game... we'd done the same two years earlier, except we all met in Colorado, and it was such a great family time that we decided to do it again! The fourth child, my oldest brother, Shall Not Be Named in this post because he couldn't come this year, boooooo.

Chad and my dad are True Blue, and I had a rockin' shirt (self-made-- it was one of the demos for when I teach the kiddies how to screen print on t-shirts) with the best portion of the Fight Song on it,

but KATE... ohhhhh, Kate-- actually attended U-Dub, so she was sporting the Blue purely out of peer pressure, the fear of being pummeled since she was sitting in the visitor's section, and-- well, because Chad gave her the shirt as a birthday gift--, BUT-- was also wearing purple underneath!!! She is dead to us. I don't care if it was a precaution just in case UW won.

Shouldn't have feared, though, because.... WE WON! BIG-time. Take that, Huskies!

The game was great, the day was beautiful, and Washington is my dream state-- I love being there in late summer especially, because there are wild blackberries everywhere! Including along the path we took to get back to our car, post-football-victory ...

YUM

And, the final gift of the day-- the classic, beloved Half of the Face sunburn... that brought back memories! You could always tell by the placement of the sunburn, where someone had been sitting at the game that day. Not-so-cute when you were trying to accomplish Cute Sunday at your university ward the next day, but... no less a badge of honor. And a pretty bold statement that you, YOU, are a COUGAR.

An exceptional weekend all together, and Washington chose to bid me a fond farewell with some SPECTACULAR views of its mid-state icon, Mount Rainier, through my airplane window as I flew home Sunday night. Thanks, Washington!

(views as we passed over and by Mount Rainier, out the left side of the plane... I had my little point-and-shoot camera on its widest lens position, to just TRY to fit what I was seeing in the frame-- amazing! ENJOY! ) (copyright jdoezie2008, by the way. Steal, and die.)

If she's 23 already, that means I'm .... oh no.

(... that old? really?) -But, this isn't about me. It's about my little sister, who celebrated her 23rd birthday this week and I just can't believe it! So this post is for her... Look how gorgeous she is! (here with me and our niece at a doezie family reunion a few weeks ago). And blue eyes not to be believed... I keep thinking she's wearing contacts, because who has eyes that naturally electric blue?? I sure didn't get them, thanks a lot Mom, for having stronger genes than Dad... oh, not about me, not about me. Back to her eyes-- yeah, they're real. (I checked). And photos don't do them justice.





But even better than her eyes... my little sister is smart, ambitious, lovely on the inside as well as the outside, graceful, a sweetheart, a lover of animals (well, her kitten, at least; I have no idea if she tortures rodents/insects/rat dogs/amphibians on the side), virtually without guile (how boring, if she were TOTALLY without guile), and has matured into just a fantastic young woman. Adult. Woman of Today. Lady of Tomorrow. Whatever.

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

AAAAAAAHHHGCK.. AAahhgk... guhh.. gek. gh.

Slowly... dying...  Not only can't believe school's back in session, REALLY can't believe it's only been back in session for TWO DAYS. Feels like four, AT LEAST (but really more like a couple of weeks).  So... tired... how do you people work all year long??

2 school days down, 178 to go until next summer...

             kayaking in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, summer (July/August) 2004... I heart summer. I heart it so so much. 

Seriously, So Funny!

Well, there's no point in MY blogging anymore. I have been turned on to the entertaining and absolutely FUNNIEST blog out there, Seriously, So Blessed! (see the button link on my sidebar) and well, if I can't mock an entire young-mormon-married blogging phenomenon in a genius-ly-written-and-constructed fake blog, why blog at all? Gratuitous exclamation points, misspellings, fetus/baby counter-timer, and a Young Married Enthusiasm for marriage, crafts, blogging, and the Plan... etc. etc. etc..! Everything I could write seems so dull in comparison. 

She is  SPOT - ON. Hi-larious. Or, I should say, tonz of super-duper FUN!!!!! LOVE. HER. 

tAgs to you, TAMN!

Dam that Havasupai. Dam it right back up.

So, this Labor Day weekend (starting tonight, actually), I was SUPPOSED to go backpacking down to the Havasupai Indian reservation, south of the Grand Canyon... 10 miles in, three days of playing in the gorgeous Havasu and Navajo Falls (never the Mooney or Beaver Falls, though, for those of you who know them--curse that crippling acrophobia of mine), and then 10 miles back out (sending my pack ahead on a mule, of course-- why suffer? Even if my tent and bag only weigh 8.4 lbs, combined?) to arrive home just in time to catch a few hours' sleep before facing The Kiddies on the First Day of School as I am barely able to walk with the inevitable horrendously stiff muscles-- (a trust-builder, that; kids like to be able to mock their teacher immediately... "Oh, how sad, she's old and single AND walks stupid.")...

But... FOILED, my plans, FOILED by an earthen dam busting. Sad, so sad. Residents and campers had to be BlackHawk airlifted out, and Havasupai is now closed "indefinitely." :( 

Above is a photo of one of the falls, Havasu Falls, in its pristine (unbelievable) state, taken by me one year and 363 days ago. Here are those same falls, comparison shots, with the flooding that resulted... (photo on the right from the web, taken by a camper there during the bust). Click on this baby to really see what's going on...

Dam. 

Oh, and p.s.... so, my NEW Labor Day plans are to blog blog blog. Well, after I raft raft raft (in the pool), that is. COMING SOON--summer recaps (not boring), a Jennie Doezie 10-Year Retrospective in honour of my (seriously??) 35th birthday, and... a BRAND NEW Doezieland title bar, ooooh. It's a Labor Day Miracle. Feliz Labor Day to you and yours.

-jd

Back to School? Seriously?

So, teachers went back to work this week (the kids return after Labor Day), and each night of this week, I have forgotten that I have to go back into work the next day. Well, I don't really forget-- I think it's more of denial. Living the dream.

But so I have frittered away my valuable sleeping time doing frivolous things instead of just going to bed. Like right now... blogging...frivolous... and I'm only doing it because I did the also frivolous act of making a dessert tonight -

But it was a FANTASTIC dessert! It's a hazelnut-cracker-meringue tart with chocolate, whoop and strawberries. YUM, delish. It's from the book "Apples for Jam" by Tessa Kiros or someone like that. I don't know, I haven't bought the book yet (I kind of have enough cookbooks, and no one to cook for), I just happened to flip through it at work Tuesday night (Williams-Sonoma work, NOT high school work) and then found the recipe online on the publisher's website. Win-win.

under pressure... dun dun dun de-de-dun dun...

so, I LUCKILY just checked my blog comments and even more fortunately had already planned to put up a new post (my fourth! whew!) tonight, because I just read that my good friends Sam and Shar have added me to their blogrolls... if that means what I think it means (I am pretty slow on this blogging thing, after all... don't know what sort of lingo The Kids are using these days)... I am potentially going to see a huuuge upswing in the amount of visitors to Doezieland! Torrential, even. I'm thinking enough to start selling ad space on this baby or maybe even go public, you know, help the stock market out a bit. So, I'd better pick up the pace and try to do more than a quarterly entry.

Actually, I have a lot planned. I've just been BUSY... real real busy... and got distracted the last couple of weeks by the Olympics and watching little Fievel Mousekewitz do her amazing feats. That little Shawn is so cute, I just want her to stay the sweet 10-year-old she is forever and ever, none of that doing-her-bangs-and-makeup-for-interviews stuff. Or that trying-to-reach-the-ground with her toes when she's sitting on the couch, it's much cuter when her legs swing. Why can't I have a 4-foot-8 Olympiad daughter to be proud of?

And there's a lot more where that came from.  See next post (not for the "lot more", but for the description of what's to come... )

And seriously?? Oh to be a stay-at-home mom, with the time to really blog... (bring on the comments for THAT comment--! :)

RETRACTION, 24 hours later: Apparently, the mouse above is Bernard from the Rescuers, not Fievel. Stupid Google Image search. Well, little Shawn looks like both then, or really any cartoon mouse save the Mickey (but that's a good thing)