Event the 1st: I started to notice that my apartment was gradually turning into an icebox. I checked the thermostat, which was set at 69. It was a curious thing, since my apartment was feeling more like 50 something. So I checked the vents, and they were ice cold. After a day or so of blind hope, and continual attempts to generate heat by cranking up the thermostat until it was set at 85 (the highest possible setting) I gave up and called my landlord to beg for help.Worst possible place to be without heat, except maybe Antarctica: Montana, in the end of November. So they fixed it, but not before I resorted to wearing mittens indoors.

Event the 2nd: I took refuge from the cold by reading ‘The Thirteenth Tale’, by Diane Setterfield. Anyone who loves to read should get this book. It was so involving I neglected to eat. Her use of language was positively enchanting. The plot was surprising but believable, and still left me wondering after I’d turned the last page. If Setterfield publishes another book, I’ll be first in line.

Event the 3rd: My sister’s bridal shower was a success. They got an entire car full of excellent gifts – everything from a palm peeler to a gorgeous crystal bowl. (I don’t understand gorgeous crystal bowls. What do you do with them? Fruit punch? Keep them in your uppermost cupboard until fancy pants guests arrive, expecting the royal treatment? I mean, I don’t know anyone who would cause me to break out a pricey looking crystal bowl. Am I just too much of a small-town girl?)

Event the 4th: After the maintenance guy unclogged the air vent for my dryer, I noticed the cycle knob was off-kilter. Imagine my annoyance, which was pretty extreme. I mean, I just bought that dryer to replace the ancient one I had which probably only died because the vent was stuffed full of lint and the new one cost $400 and now the stupid maintenance guy somehow carelessly broke the knob which I obviously cannot afford to pay for since I’m considering HOOKING to pay for the upcoming trip to Missoula? Er. Yes. So I called my landlord, who I’m sure is thinking of printing up a copy of my photo to throw darts at, and explained the situation, adding that I was certain it was accidental and that if the same individual could come fix it, that would be lovely. And then I also added that if the knob couldn’t be fixed, I expected monetary compensation. Ahem.

What makes that all so bad is that I called K to bitch about the broken knob, and later she came over and said, ‘Oh’ and fixed it in about two seconds, explaining that those things just pop on and off. Color me stupid.

Event the 5th: I’ve been getting together with the maid of honor off and on all week, putting the finishing touches on our plans to get the hell out of dodge and go to Missoula. I am so ready to be gone. Except I’m not packed yet (laundry). But otherwise, consider me gone.

I lied! I managed to persuade my Grams to move our family dinner to a later time, so I could eat with them after I got off work yesterday. I just have two words, people: homemade stuffing! Ah, overly-full Thanksgiving bliss, how I love thee – let me count the ways.

I walked into the living room I grew up in late yesterday afternoon, and was warmed down to my toes by a familiar sight: my brothers, sprawled in front of the television, deeply entrenched in the football tournament they’d set up on the Xbox 360 and pretty much oblivious to everything else. My newborn niece, L, had faint traces of red glitter on her mostly bald head, thanks to her mother’s artistic tendencies. She looked beautiful, like a Christmas ornament, and all night she was smiling and I just wanted to steal kisses. The scents from the kitchen were hanging in the air, and everyone was laughing and arguing. I was ridiculously happy to be there – so much so, in fact, that my sister H suspected some kind of foulplay on my part. Evidently my mile-wide smile was cause for alarm.

We ate, and drank hot buttered rum (so good), and then played cards. It was simple and perfect, and I was so grateful for my family it was insane, because 89% of the time I want to strangle them. Yes, that’s an exact scientific number. (Actually, that’s another lie, I would rather shave my face and grow a manly beard than do any sort of mathematical calculation).

I’m so happy to be close to the people I love, because it hasn’t always been that way. I’m thankful that I’ve grown and changed and stretched on the inside, until it was painful, because it’s been worth it.

Has anyone else tried that new mouthwash by Listerine, the supposedly less intense version that works just as well as the regular stuff? The reason I’m asking is because I can’t decide whether I’m a big crybaby or some kind of superhuman. I got the vanilla mint kind, thinking that it sounded nice (as far as mouthwashes go, and I’m not a big fan to begin with). Now tell me, doesn’t ‘vanilla mint’ sound sort of mild to you? Because it did to me. And then yesterday I opened my new bottle of less intense Listerine, not suspecting any danger, and I nearly burned the roof of my mouth off. I rinsed with water, frantically, and then inspected the bottle for weapons – like razor blades, maybe? If you’re thinking to yourself that I’m grossly exaggerating, I challenge you to buy a bottle and see for yourself. Though I’d keep a cup of water on hand to gargle with afterward, and maybe a few kleenexes in case your eyes start watering. And now I’m thinking, whoa! If this stuff is less intense than the regular kind, how does that stuff feel? Like a nuclear bomb exploding in your mouth? I think after I bravely and heroically finish this bottle, damning my curiosity the whole while, I’ll go back to my standby, the Crest Pro-Health mouthwash. And holy crap, could I spend any more time gabbing about mouthwash? Shut me up already.

Ha, like it was going to be that easy. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and instead of elbowing my way up to a table heaping with delicious food, like everyone else I know, I’ll be here. At work. Watching the holiday-related television specials and damning myself to hell for choosing a job that keeps me away from turkey and stuffing and sweet rolls. Anyway, hopefully someone that loves me will take pity on me and bring me a plate, but it’s just not the same, you know? Gosh I’m whining a lot today.

I hope you all have a great holiday, filled with annoying family members and diet-killing desserts! Happy Thanksgiving.

I was tagged for the following meme by Knit Witch. Coffee (doctored with delicious peppermint mocha cream) and memes, that’s the way to go on a slooow Saturday morning workday.

Crazy 8′s

8 Things I’m Passionate About
1. Story-telling
2. Literacy
3. Art
4. Education
5. Ending the abuse of women, children, the elderly…everyone, actually
6. Rape Prevention Programs
7. Travel
8. Poetry

8 Things I Say Often
1. “What?” while trying very hard to look innocent
2. “Luna, GET OFF THE TABLE!” (Luna is my cat)
3. “Ouch!” usually followed by a creative expletive because I have a habit of accidentally hurting myself
4. ”Sheriff’s Office, this is Amber” (I answer phones all day long at work)
5. “I’m hungry”
6. “You know what?” followed by whatever I think is interesting
7. ”I want that!” during frequent trips to amazon.com, also sephora.com
8. “No, but goodluck with that” whenever K asks me if I want to accompany her to collect chicken eggs or have anything else to do with the creepy birds she keeps

8 Books I’ve Read Recently
1. ‘Something Blue’ by Emily Griffin
2. ‘Something Borrowed’ by Emily Griffin (chick lit, I know, but they were pretty good!)
3. ‘Good in Bed’ by Jennifer Weiner (it was OK)
4. ‘Pride & Prejudice’ by Jane Austen (one of my all-time favorites – I’m not getting married until I find my own Mr. Darcy)
5. ’Love Songs’ is a collection of poems by Sara Teasdale
6. ‘The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook’ by Ina Garten
7. ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte (I can read this book over and over, I love it & I love Heathcliff – I’m a sucker for a tortured soul)
8. ‘The Thirteenth Tale’ by Diane Setterfield (i’m actually in the middle of this one now, and so far it’s excellent)

8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die
1. Travel to Greece, Italy, England, Ireland…everywhere!
2. Fall into crazy, passionate love – that lasts
3. Write a novel, or maybe sixteen of them
4. Learn to cook
5. Go skydiving and scuba diving (I’m afraid of heights and moderately claustrophobic)
6. Buy my own home, preferably one I can fix up and alter to my ideal specifications
7. Get involved in charity work
8. Go back to college & get my degree

8 Songs I Can Listen to Over & Over
1. ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ by Fergie
2. ‘Flat Top’ by Goo Goo Dolls
3. ‘Stay With You’ by Goo Goo Dolls
4. ‘Let Love In’ by Goo Goo Dolls
5. ‘If Everyone Cared’ by Nickelback
6. ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ by Def Leppard
7. ’3AM’ by Matchbox 20
8. ‘Let Her Cry’ by Hootie & The Blowfish (so lame, I know)

8 Things That Attract Me to My Friends
1. A sense of humor
2. An adventurous spirit
3. A strong will
4. Intelligence
5. Something unique about them
6. Independence
7. Similar interests
8. Being unafraid to speak their minds, ever

8 Things I’ve Learned in the Past Year
1. I can’t fix everything
2. Sometimes it’s better to let things go, and move on
3. More about gardening
4. About chickens (unwillingly)
5. Saying nothing is just as significant as saying something (the same rule applies for doing)
6. Casual sex sucks
7. There seems to be no line our government won’t cross
8. And, Bush is even more vile than I originally thought he was

Remember when I said I wanted to bake K’s mom a belated coffee cake for her birthday? Well, let’s just take a moment and bid that cake farewell, and NOT in the sense that it was eaten or enjoyed or anything. I would tell you what happened, but I think K (my accomplice) does a fine job, and she beat me to it, anyway. Behold, the cake that never was:

http://katia.wild-refuge.net/2007/11/13/overflow/

I was raised a Christian, of various denominations. When I was really little – about 8 or 9, my mother took my sister and I to The Assembly of God chuch every Sunday. I think she chose it because they really celebrated God there – it wasn’t quiet and solemn, but everyone sang and danced, and the preaching was kept to a minimum. My mother was a strong believer in God, but not so strong a believer in being preached at.

When my mom died, my sister and I decided for ourselves to go to the Methodist church – although I didn’t always go, because I was angry with God, figuring anyone who would take my mom away didn’t deserve my time and attention. Later, the Methodist church ended up with a minister that no one really liked or respected, and I started going to the Lutheran church with my grandma.

Now, because I usually work on Sundays, I rarely go to church. I sometimes go on holidays. I still believe in God, but I’m not a big advocate of organized religion.

Today, my grandma and I were discussing my sister’s wedding. The church where she’s marrying was between ministers for a while, and they had a stand-in who wasn’t ordained, and H prefers to be married by an ordained minister. Luckily, they now have a new minister. When I asked my Grams about who it was, she said it was ‘a woman’ in a slightly displeased voice.

And I, being who I am, got annoyed and demanded to know why she would have a problem with a woman minister – churches around here have had them before, we aren’t THAT far out of the way. And of course, THE BIBLE says women should not be ministers. Admittedly, I am not an avid reader of the Bible, and so I looked it up.

 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35 (American Standard Version)
34  Let the women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but let them be in subjection, as also saith the law.
35  And if they would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home: for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church.

Alllllll righty then. I guess that nixes any chance of a woman in the pulpit, yes? I am annoyed. It’s my own fault, really. I’ve never read the Bible all the way through. I’ve gone to church, and Sunday school, and looked up passages now and again. But like I said, for all of my reading, I haven’t plunked myself down with the book that dictates the religion of which I claim to be a part.

And why can’t women speak in church? Theoretically, that is, since I’ve never not heard a woman open her mouth there. If we’re expected to be Christian, shouldn’t we also be allowed to celebrate, and be a part of our faith? Call me a crazy feminist, but I don’t think a woman’s place is to be quiet and obedient and docile in the house of the Lord. And I’m certainly in favor of women preaching, because hey, why not?

So, I’m going to read the Bible the entire way through, to sort things out for myself. I mean, kind of hypocritical for me NOT to read it, and call myself a Christian. Though honestly, I don’t know what I believe anymore. I can’t be part of a religion that calls for me to be something I’m not, and the older I get the more it seems I disagree with the things I’ve read.

That being said, I’m not just going to read the Bible – I’m going to research every religion I can get my hands on, and see where I actually stand. Because having faith is important to me, and I don’t want it to be an empty declaration when I say what I believe in.

I went to Havre on Halloween to see a scary movie (note: 30 Days of Night, while involving vampires and Josh Hartnett with too many clothes on, is not that scary) and then dance the night away at the Spike. I opted out of the costume competition and most of the drinking, because I caught a nasty cold that’s been kicking my ass for the last week and a half, and I decided not to tempt the sniffles by getting drunk and rubbing up against disease-ridden strangers.

The next morning, we hit the McDonald’s drive-thru on the way out of town. I ordered a sausage biscuit and one of those odd little hashbrowns they make, and we went on our merry way. I ate the hashbrown first, so we were a good distance away from the lying cheating thieving drive-thru when I unwrapped my sausage biscuit and found…

 A penny. Except not a shiny new penny that maybe somehow mysteriously fell out of someone’s pocket and onto the assembly line, fated to be packaged with my breakfast, but a penny covered in a layer of grayish grime! A penny that looked like maybe it had been laying somewhere on the floor for about a year, under a grill or something. Gross, right?

The thing is, I worked at McDonald’s in high school for a short, regrettable time. I know how those assembly lines work. There is no feasable way that penny just landed at the edge of the wrapping before it got tucked around my biscuit. Or if it did, there’s no way the sandwich-maker didn’t SEE it. I’m sensing some bad karma here, how about you?

Gross. And did I eat the biscuit? No, I did not. I was hungry, and I wanted to, but I ended up pulling it apart, inspecting it for other change, the way you sometimes eye your couch cushions wondering about their potential.

At the risk of sounding like a trollop, I’ve done lots of kissing. Mostly, kissing is something I consider to be a pleasurable experience. Of course, there’s always that person (or small number of unnamed individuals) who ruin a good thing for everybody else. Or just me. Whatever. My point is, I’m going to write all about the different kinds of bad kissers I’ve locked lips with to amuse myself (and maybe the people brave enough to continue reading this).

Bad Kisser the 1st: Once upon a time in high school, in the midst of my senior year, I kissed a boy who had artistic talent, ambition, sarcastic wit – and an excessive amount of saliva. Whenever he kissed me – which wasn’t very often since I tried like hell to avoid the meeting of our mouths, despite the fact that we were dating – he drooled ALL over me. I’m not exaggerating. He opened his mouth, and small but steady lakes flowed out all over my horrified face. And clearly he wasn’t so good at reading body language, because I could shove frantically at his shoulder, struggling to breathe underwater, and he would continue to bathe me with his tongue, full of teenaged passion and oblivious to my panicked struggles.

Now, I could have tried to tactfully explain that I prefer less moisture when being kissed, but I was awkward and nervous and basically blurted out that I HATED being kissed by him, because he sucked at it really and truly, and thus ended our month-long courtship. THANK GOD.

Bad Kisser the 2nd: I also kissed a guy who had no technique whatsoever. The entire experience consisted of him thrusting his tongue directly in and out of my mouth in a straight line, like it was some kind of retractable spring device. Let me just say, I lost interest pretty damn fast. Also without tact. Am I charming or what?

Bad Kisser the 3rd: Too. Much. Tongue. He wasn’t sloppy, or robotic, but my god did he ever try to taste my breakfast with his lizard-like tongue. I mean, if I was going to be bulimic, I could have asked for his help, is what I’m saying.

Bad Kisser the 4th: Not all that long ago I was sucking face with this guy, and holy god, it was literally like sucking face. I mean, if his mouth had been open any wider he would have unhinged his jaw and just swallowed my head whole, anaconda style. At first I thought he was just using too much tongue, but no, his mouth was open THAT wide. And let me just say, a slight or even moderate parting of the lips is all that is necessary, if you want to avoid the black hole suck-face effect.

What? I haven’t kissed THAT many people.