HAPPY NEW YEAR, FOLKS!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM OVER THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY!!! (From the future!) 2011 is shaping up to be a good year. I hope you and yours will be happy, healthy and surrounded by peace in the coming year(s).

Here's a song I've been listening to and loving:

Go Outside by Cults

2011!! What!?! Have a GREAT one!!

All About Eve

Although Bette Davis was brilliant - as always - and Marilyn Monroe was as beautiful as ever, this post has nothing to do with Joseph L. Mankiewicz's classic 1950 film.

I'm talking about the 6-10pm waterpark shift, otherwise known as 'Eve.' It's a dreaded shift; as great as it is to pick up the hours, the pools are usually dead, and with the pool music cut due to the water park's proximity to the Island Dinner Show, boredom quickly begins to nag like a child begging for that latest Tickle Me iPad craze; eyes glaze over, mouth hangs open with drool pooling at your feet as you stare hazily into the shimmering yellow orb-lit aqua abyss. Alphabet lists have played a huge role in keeping the insanity of the Eve shift at bay. Though I still can't come up with an instrument for "I", "N" or "Q" - I was going to use "ice pick," "needles" and "quills," but I thought that was pushing it. Turns out I'm pretty awful with flowers, trees and birds, too - at least in alphabetical order, but yeah, still pretty bad; need to study up! (Countries, authors, books, movies, musicians, song and album titles, and I'm your lady - some other ones too, but I don't want to brag. -- super sidenote: I wish I could insert something that when you hovered your mouse over certain parts of my text you'd see the faces I was making as I wrote. That'd be way more interactive and awesome, right? Sadly my lack of technological skills prevents you from enjoying yourself further. My bad!) There have been many a night - after spending all day in the hot sun, possibly with some or even all of it at the water park - where I've found myself putting my whistle completely in my mouth, wondering if I swallowed it would I sound like that silly gopher on Winnie the Pooh with it lodged in my esophagus, or would it just be my throat, is there a more doctoral term for it, is it even connected to the voice, it must be because when you're choking you can't speak, or breathe. Windpipe? I apparently really need to study up on my anatomy, too. Then I decide I have too much to live for and spit the whistle out.

"This is what happens when you swallow a whistle, kids. They cut out your voice box."
"Well, then how can we hear you, mister?"
"You can't; you're reading my mind. You've all been watching too much 'True Blood'!"

Some nights I practice the water walk, and while I made it to the end about two weeks ago I still haven't mastered the turning around part. Most nights I find myself doing anything and everything to avoid getting in the water - that's good to hear from a lifeguard, right? - but then there's the night where the lure of the pool is too strong to deny and I end up soaked and shivering on chair for the rest of my shift.

Tonight me and my big mouth got me sent to the Racquet Center (solo shift; no rotations) which is a small 16 x 9.5 (of my feet) room with two large stainless steel counters in the front and on the side, where reservations for courts and equipment is dealt out, and the locker keys are handed over, respectively. It's pretty awesome in that there's no one to boss you and I spent the first hour - between six and seven is always slow because of dinnertime yum-yum - practicing my hand/eye coordination by bouncing a ping pong ball on its paddle (I stopped counting after 147*) and talking to co-workers. Then I had to pee. Then some people wanted to rent stuff, more co-workers came by, then more renters, I started the first draft of this, and on and on the night went. (That was actually how I got "in trouble" and sent there, after calling the Main 2 chair, the "soup" - that's short for supervisor - asked who wanted to get stuck at the RC and I said, "Darnit! I meant to bring my Korean to stud- I mean, what? I wouldn't do that... you watch the counter... at the Racquet Center..." but it was too late to retract my outburst and so to the Racquet Center I went, head hung low. All in all it was a pretty good night - aside from probably giving myself bladder control issues when I'm 45 for waiting until the last possible moment to call the WP for someone to watch counter.

So, that's the Eve shift, the wet and dry of it. Awesome, right? It actually isn't so bad, but sometimes I just get so sleepy when the sun goes down. And now it's getting late in the night, and Benjamin Franklin said, "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." and I want to swim or run or something before the restaurant gets mobbed with guests. DAY OFF TOMORROW!! Hiking Mt. Lam Lam with my friend, Bobby and then hopefully talking some people into going to the White Lady place, but I might wet myself before we even get there, especially with all the waiting I did tonight.

Enjoy your Sunday, America! It was lovely here.
*that's a lie, 999.

Mr. Lennon

A radio scan from the night of December 8, 1980.
Happy Christmas (War is Over) is quite possibly my favorite Christmas tune. Man, I love all those Beatles.

Rolling Stone also released his last interview (given days before his death) in their latest issue which hits newsstands tomorrow for you Statesiders. (Cough, cough, cough. I don't have a subscription anymore and I don't like reading magazines online. Cough, cough, cough. Wink. - What?)

I hope I'm not turning into the Stinky Girl (feigned worried face)

So many new posts because I was scheduled to work right now, but the training finished early and I didn't plan on doing laps until 5pm and yoga isn't until 6:30p so I have time to write, swim, play in the sea and sun, stretch with friends and then who knows what other kinds of fun the night will hold (ooh! I'm going to read! and play my guitar! and maybe even fall asleep writing letters! but probably end up scratching all that and hanging out with folks and laughing... we'll see.)

I was oh-so happy to read this article ("The Great Unwashed") a few days ago and feel validated in my lack of showering in the past 20+ days (I'm in the water all the time, people! Chlorine and sea, no need to kill a bunch of whales by washing with soap). The article brings up some pretty good points, and even if it was full of "blah blah blah, people in power don't always shower and neither should you, blah blah blah" I probably still would've been like, "Yeah! That's right. That's good. I don't need to shower every day." because it's the New York Times, and I'll blindly believe anything I read from them because of their excellent street cred and super-duper hard crossword puzzles - they have to be smart to make Wednesday+ up. Right?

Today it started getting to the point where I thought, "Wait. I didn't shower yesterday... or the day before... when did I shower?" and that answer is Saturday... morning, maybe... so I probably should today. I should. Seriously. But then I jump in the water again, and it's like, "What day is today?" all over. But tonight, really. I wash my face and brush my teeth on the daily, okay. Deodorant? No. Again, the water. I get away with it here. Granted if I was still in Korea, or Chicago, or wherever else not on Water World I would use deodorant (although this aluminium or whatever that is supposed to be in it is awful and toxic, but what isn't these days, right? All the companies are in cahoots with the doctors and the health insurance people and we're all being shepherded into the apocalypse, I know. Whoa) and take daily showers given my level of activity: running, biking and the like. It's just really cool and fun and reminiscent of childhood to not have to be the cleanest person - hygienically speaking. Don't be grossed out. And no, Mom, I haven't started dreading my hair... yet (kidding, kidding! it took me long enough to grow it out after Locks of Love lopped it all off; I'm not doing that again for a while).

In all seriousness, the article brings up a lot of valid points in what we think of as the holiness of being "clean". I ate dirt as a kid and I'm not allergic to anything; I wear clothes until I spill something on 'em or they twinge the tips of my nostrils; I don't shower as much as I used to. In India, and most of Asia for that matter, they bathe using buckets rather than running the water constantly. Maybe that's too much for you, but you could at least turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth or wash your face (or your dishes), or while you shave your legs - that's all mainly a matter of conservation if you're too icked out by the not washing. Maybe you already do all of those things and more, and you're now saying to yourself, "Thanks for finally joining us, Kate. Took you long enough, you wasteful washer, you!" shaking your fist at your computer screen. I'm just saying, it's something to try as we waste a lot on our world, and we really don't need to. Just think about it, or dismiss it. Do what you will. I put it out there for you, and I won't love you any less for killing the polar bears, but you'll be in a sorry pickle when they feel your fear when you meet them on the melting arctic tundra.

A SNAAAAAAAAKE!!

Dear Gournal,
(and I tried to find a clip where Andy says this in "Wet Hot American Summer" but I couldn't. I did find this instead and it makes me laugh, too.)
Lindsay: What 'cha doing?
Andy: Writing in my gournal. I write my thoughts in it every day.
Lindsay: Oh, you mean a journal?
Andy: Yeah, whatever. I guess I'm not all smart like you. 
There was a GIANT (okay, not really. It was semi-long and pretty skinny) snake in Amanda's room the other night. A SNAKE!! As in a slimy strangler without hands. I was already in bed when I heard a squeal followed by a next door knock and a ruckus going down in the hall. I stirred thinking perhaps Santa Claus came early, but upon my arrival to the light I see a freaked out Amanda running away from my next door neighbor, Alex who had a snake on a string (lasso'ed just below its head) being held up by a broom handle. I was thinking that wasn't a very nice thing for him to do when he lowered it into a big bucket that magically appeared in the middle and Amanda cried with hands clasped, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! EWWWWWW!!" as she peered to see that the snake was secure and lidded in. Bucket! Snake in a bucket! Snake!

It was long and green-brown (a tree snake as you can see below - which are apparently a big problem on Guam, and you can read about that here) and it came in through Amanda's AC vent. She said she heard crinkling of some plastic that was in the vent, but didn't think anything of it as she had looked around for the source a couple of times without any luck, but on the last time she found Mr. Snake half-way outside of the vent and she bolted for the door in hopes it wouldn't slither away while she was searching for a rescue. That's where Alex the Snake Hunter came in and saved the day.

How about that, eh? Pretty wild! Now Sarah and I are nervous about leaving our balcony door open. Fingers crossed no critters come in thinking this is home. (I found out that A has some sort of hole in her wall that she needs patched and some plants on her balcony. This isn't the first time some creepy crawly came in her room - she's had a couple of furry eight-legged guests which vomitrociously I included a picture of one who only has seven legs - strange - with the snake below. Hurl!)

Love,
Kate

(girl's had some bad luck, right? PS - she said the you could hear the spider walk. that's how big it was.)