Nepal

Safely arrived at Kathleen's in Kathmandu; however, my baggage did not. Trying not to flip out, because it doesn't look promising. I might have to re-buy all my trekking gear here in Kathmandu...

Vancouver

So far so good! Waiting to board our 13 hour flight to China, en route to Kathmandu!

What happens at my house:

An average morning at The Commune

In case you hadn't heard, there's a solar storm going on right now. The sun is throwing stuff the earth. This is only supposed to mess up some communication systems, make it difficult for airplanes to fly near the poles, and make the Northern Lights look siiiiicccckkkk.

In my experience, the solar storm, combined with yesterday's full moon, is causing abnormalities and wackiness in my life. Case(s) in point:

Yesterday, at work at a bank, I was minding my own business in a kitchen, peeling an orange for an afternoon snack. Out of nowhere, a random bank employee asked me "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" For a moment, I thought that I was at the Ballroom (douchey bar in Seattle). Of course, I wasn't, and explained that I was there to Regulate.

This morning, I woke up and was chatting with my roommate. I was looking out the window, and noticed some strange looking guys unloading stuff from a prius in front of our house. I wondered aloud what they were doing. At the same time, my roommate told me that we were going to be having an energy audit this morning at 8. The prius guys headed towards the house with their baggage....

We opened the door and let the energy auditors in. They started asking us a bunch of questions like "why did you order an energy audit?" and "what is the house heated by?" Of course we were giggling uncontrollably and making sarcastic comments. I'm sure that the energy auditors were expecting a nice Queen Anne family. Instead, they got a big dose of crazy. We explained that our sleeping landlord had ordered the audit, and went to wake him up.

The energy auditors started unloading all their equipment, which looked like it could have doubled as ghost-hunting equipment. They looked more like ghostbusters than auditors anyway. The energy auditors used an x-ray device to scan the walls and see if there was any insulation in them (there was not). The auditors also informed us that there used to be a window in one of the walls. Luckily, they didn't find any ghosts, cocaine, or dead bodies.

Next, the energy auditors blocked off the door to test how efficient the house was. This fan sucks air out of the house. It has a regulator on it that tells them how much air is escaping, relative to other houses without drafty leaks all over the place. It looked like we were either being fumigated or harboring E.T.

All of this happened before 9am. Now, it is the afternoon. My roommate and I are drinking tea imported from Tacoma and listening to Slim Shady. Will Smith don't gotta cuss in his raps to sell records....

Welcome to Earth. It's solar stormin' up in here.

Firefighting

One of my (male) friends on why he wants to be a firefighter: "It is just an awesome job. You get to do physical activity during work, or play video games if it is slow. You get 72 hours minimum off at a time. You're portrayed as a hero in America, and you can be in calendars if you want to be. Oh, and you get to bring your dog around with you. What am I missing?"

YouTube

Like Usher, sometimes I just get so caught up. In youtube. Yesterday, I clicked through someone's facebook post to watch a lightshow at The Clink (formerly Qwest field) set to dubstep music. Two hours later, I was still on youtube. And it was technically a new day.

Naturally, I watched a little bit of My Drunk Kitchen.

And, I think this girl's videos are hilarious. I particularly liked this video, because I've been trying for months to get my roommate's dog to like me. After watching this video, I now refer to him as "papooksa."

My sister sent me this video, which she had to watch at work the other day. Like the majority of my wardrobe, if it is good enough for Target, it is good enough for me!

Oh, and if you aren't familiar with Usher, you should be. Really.

And just like that, you've been on youtube longer than you intended.

Things I learned while traveling last week

1. The large volume of earthquakes we had last year may be linked to La Nina. I learned this while watching a special about natural disasters in 2011 on The Weather Channel. I love The Weather Channel. I watched it for the length of a Jet Blue flight to Long Beach last week. I also caught an episode of Coast Guard Alaska, which is just like that Ashton Kutcher movie

2. I love Jet Blue. They aren't stingy about carry on sizes like American and AirFrance. They have TV, leg room, and cans of Diet Coke. I love Diet Coke*, specifically when it comes in a can with extra aspartame.

Here is a nice ancedote about Jet Blue: A bunch of their morning flights were delayed. Rather than just apologizing profusely to their customers, the brought out snacks and refreshments for everyone in the boarding area. My flight wasn't even delayed, but I still had access to as much soda, water, apple juice, blue potato chips, and animal crackers as I wanted.

3. If I go anywhere outside of the Seattle metro area, crazy men will hit on me. Never fails. It might be a biker (not the super fit athletic kind), a lonely professor from the midwest, or a recently divorced German man who doesn't speak English. Never fails. Normal doesn't come near me.

4. It is useless to try to cherry pick a seat while waiting at an airport gate. Today, as I left Long Beach I thought that I was being smart by picking a seat away from the family of five, but next to the quiet old lady reading a Mary Higgins Clark novel. (The only respectable looking man at the gate was picking his nose while reading something on his iPad.) I enjoyed reading in my seat for awhile, until I started to get distracted by the conversation going on in the row directly behind me:

Crazy Man: How was your christmas?

Innocent Airport Person: It was good. I got some good gifts.

CM: My girl called and said she liked the gift I got for her kids. I got them an 11x5 foot painting of spongebob.... I didn't catch your name?

IAP: Oh, I'm (a nice girl trying to be polite to you)
CM: Nice to meet you. I'm (incredibly annoying and can't take a hint). Where are you from?

IAP: Washington State.

CM: Oh wow! haha. Washington. Is it nice there? Y'know, I'd love to just go over to the IRS and moon 'em.

IAP: haha, um, yeah. Where are you from?

CM: I live in connecticut now, but I'm from Italy.** I just moved from the city out to the country. It is nuts out there! The other day I seen a bobcat. I'm tellin ya, a bobcat?! The head is like the size of my skull!! ..... I can't wait to get back home and get that iphone 5.

(silence)

CM: If you're into music, this is my sister's fiance's first CD.

IAP: oh, that's nice

CM: Don't pay attention to what he wrote on there; he was being an asshole.

(silence)

CM: Yeah, I was reading the newspaper down here in Cali. They're talking about a bunch of new laws.

IAP: Oh, what kind?

CM: Just a bunch of bullshit.

Now, crazy man was sitting directly behind me, and I had already felt him look in my direction several times. I figured that it was only a matter of time before he started talking to me (see #3). Or, he was going to look over my shoulder and see me writing all of his quotes in my iPhone so I could remember to blog about them later. Either way, I didn't want to be around for it. I'm (still) trying to cut down on my candy intake, so I got up to go buy some SmartWater.

5. I'm terribly unprepared for the zombie apocalypse. I spent the entire afternoon on New Year's Eve watching The Walking Dead marathon on AMC with my BFF and her husband. Until yesterday, I didn't even know how to kill a zombie. I know a fair amount about vampires from reading the first three Twilight books. Also, as a tween, I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I've seen Jurassic Park enough times to know how to handle a Tyrannosaurus Rex. But, zombies? Totally uneducated.

*Not to be confused with Coca-Cola Light, which is almost as awful as Coke Zero. When I ask for a Diet Coke, that's what I mean. Diet Coke. Not one of those awful knock offs, and certainly not a Diet Pepsi.***

**I found this hard to believe, given that he looked like the next star of Bayou Billionaires.

***Sometimes when I blog, I don't use complete sentences. I'm not an idiot. I know these are fragments. You should have noticed this poor grammar immediately. Hopefully, you found it slightly annoying, yet funny and ironic. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please go sign up for a writing class at community college. Now.