I Dream of Panda

So for the past month, I've been having loads of dreams about my best friend, Amanda - or better known as Panda. For those of you who don't know this lovely lady, she's been my best friend since preschool... Literally.

It may be blurry, but there we are: In preschool standing near to one another. I'm third from the right in the back, and she's right in front of me. Oh, and Eric's next to me, the handsome devil.

I'm not entirely certain what brought on the obsessive dreaming of my bestie, probably the fact that I miss her or something pathetic like that. Anywho, I've been keeping her posted of my insane dreams of her, and she seems to enjoy them, and I promised her a blog post dedicated to these nighttime wanderings. So, here it is.

Panda Dream #1: The Razor Incident
    The dream began with me arriving at Panda's mom's house to swim one sunny, summer afternoon. I went into the basement bathroom to change into my suit as always when I suddenly realized I had completely forgotten to shave. Ugh.
   Fortunately, there is a shower in said bathroom which I opened to find a pile of razors just sitting, waiting to be utilized. I wasted no time in snatching one up, and getting started hacking away at the caveman-ish hairiness. Midway through - or really when I was almost done - I realized that what I was doing was not only mildly disgusting, but it was also pretty darn rude to use someone else's razor without asking; even if that person has been your best friend your entire life. So, I opened the door to see Panda waiting for me on the couch that used to sit right outside the bathroom door. I peeked out and said, "Hey Panda? I totally forgot to shave. Could I borrow a razor?".
  She immediately jumped up and responded with, "Sure! I'll go grab you a new one!" and darted off upstairs while I hung my head in shame. I expected her to tell me to use one of the many in the shower, but as per typical of Panda, she wanted me to have a new, clean razor to shave with.

  Feeling highly ashamed of myself, I waited for Panda to come back downstairs. When she did, I burst out in embarrassment, "Panda, I'm so sorry but I kind of already used one of the razors in the shower before I asked and realized how rude it was! I'm so so so sorry!"
  She just chuckled at me and said, "Em, it's ok! See? You can pop off the head and put a new one right on... No big deal!"
  I continued on with my apologies until she would hear no more of it and left the bathroom. I finished shaving and we went swimming with a whole bunch of people that I didn't know were even there.

I woke up from this extremely disconcerted that I had used someone else's razor without asking, thoroughly grossed out.

Panda Dream #2: The Trampoline

Very similar to the Razor Incident, I arrived at Amanda's house to hang out. Only I was in a hideous red swimming suit and everyone else was in normal clothes... except Panda. She had on a bathing suit top and jeans. Still a lot more normal looking than me. Anyway, when I got there, I went through the basement - like the last dream - but didn't stop at the bathroom this time. I went out into the backyard to find a trampoline where the pool actually is. The entire karaoke crew was there (See "Finally Facin' my Waterloo" post) as well as Nick, and some blonde guy I didn't know. They were all laying on the trampoline. I talked to blonde guy for awhile. He had good teeth and was nice enough, so I determined that he was good enough to date Panda. Why? I do not know.
Then panda came out of the house and we decided it was time to bounce. Which she and I did while everyone else continued to lay there. It was like a really big, really lame game of pop-corn.

When I talked to Panda about this, it turns out I may have been dreaming about a cute blonde guy who had been showing interest in her... even though I've never met the guy. Weird.

Panda Dream #3: Little Bo Panda and Her Cheese Problem
This one was the best by far. I was in no way involved and was just an observer to the scene. Picture this:
There is a giant, open, green pasture, very hilly: think "Sound of Music".

In said hilly, green pasture, is a herd of goats. That's right, goats.
In the middle of the herd of goats stands a very disgruntled looking Panda in a sky blue, Bo Peep dress with matching bonnet - as well as her very stylish black glasses.
She is doing her very best to milk the goats and is doing a pretty good job, considering she's never milked a goat as far as I know. However, she gets increasingly frustrated with the fact that the goats are producing milk instead of cheese.
                    Side Note: For those of you who read this blog and don't know Panda personally, you must know that she has a weird affection for cheese - she wrote an entire blog entry about it.
The more she tries, the more angry she gets at the goats for their lack of cheese making. She keeps tugging at the teats and shouting "WHY WON'T YOU MAKE CHEESE?!". She continues moving from goat to goat, milking and yelling.
It was absolutely hysterical. Here is an artistic adaptation of the dream:

Just imagine that they're goats instead of sheep and she's milking them and shouting at them instead of searching for them.

That was the entire dream. I could not tell you why on earth she was there, or why she was so desperate for cheese, but the story remains.

Panda Dream #4: Stylist Panda
This one happened last night.

So I heard that Panda got this great new job at a salon called Eclipse. They had pretty pale pink business cards that she had given me, so I went by to surprise her at work, and to try and get a job as a receptionist - knowing how I adore reception work, this is not all that surprising. As it turns out, she was not a receptionist as I had guessed, but rather a stylist! She came out and was all excited to see me and to show me her new job. She took me back to her work station which was gorgeous - pale pink and stainless steel with a nice leather chair for clients as well as a bench that opened up to reveal a stock of makeup and other various doo-dads. While I was looking at her amazing new work space, she came running over with hair extensions and exclaimed that she was going to do my hair for the receptionist interview that she just got for me. She stuck some extensions in my bangs and straightened/curled them so that they looked really pretty. I was really hoping to see the final product of me with long pretty hair as done by my bestie, but I woke up as soon as she was finished straightening my bangs.

She hasn't heard this one yet either, but it was a really fun dream. I was pretty bummed that it wasn't real.

Love you Panda!

Foot Guy

Ok so the weirdest thing pretty much ever happened to me the other day.

I hadn't seen Sam in an outrageously long time, so we got together when I got off work and after my hair appointment on Friday. I had run myself completely out of food because I didn't go grocery shopping for weeks... seriously, I even ran out of Ramen noodles - and that's just sad.

So first we went to Walgreens to pick up pictures and nail polish and then headed across the street to Aldi's. I was still in my work clothes, and I had to admit, I'd managed a pretty cute outfit that day: Black lace jacket over a black tank, crop length shorts with a black belt and some cute black NY&C wedges. I love walking around in heels, as anyone who knows me understands - even when I'm at work and have to stand on a ladder for hours in them (which is mildly frightening for those of you who've never tried).

These are the fabulous shoes in question.

Since I'd forgotten my list, Sam was going through the things I could possibly need as we passed them. When we got to milk, cheese, hot dogs, I heard someone behind me say, "Ma'am, your shoes are really cute!". I turned to see this middle aged, large, bald black man coming toward me. Sam and I had both looked so he goes, "I meant her" (pointing at me). "Can I see them?", confused I said "Sure!" and kicked up my foot so he could better see my shoes. 

He walked closer to me - meaning uncomfortably close and within my personal bubble - and said "You should really go barefoot"... uhmm Seriously?!

Completely baffled, I responded to that with, "Yeah, uhm, I don't really do that in public" to which he replied, "I'll go barefoot with you".

This is about the time Sam snapped out of her totally confused moment and said loudly, "Yeah, she doesn't believe in feet. We both hate feet." And with that, she toted me away.

Whispering nervously about the odd scene that had just taken place, we made our way through the canned goods and sodas. We arrived to the frozen stuff cooler just as Foot Guy was approaching on the other side. Trying to keep our cool, we continued our conversation with our heads down - completely engrossed in the frozen chicken and pizza before us.

"I'm sorry if I offended you earlier"

Seriously!? This guy was STILL talking to us?!

"Oh, it's ok" - which evidently was an invitation for him to return to his way-too-close proximity. He walked completely around the cooler, leaving his poor cart of groceries abandoned and stood within three feet of me again. Sam, meanwhile, is continuing her staring into the cooler.

"So we're still friends?"

"Uhm.. I guess so..."

"What's your name?"

Ugh. You have got to be kidding me. I knew Sam would bust out laughing if I gave him a fake name, so I just said, "Emily."

"Nice to meet you, Emily. I'm John" he held out his hand for me to shake.

"Uhh, nice to meet you too" I briefly shook his hand and then swiftly reached behind me to clamp down on Sam's arm and drag her back to me "and this is my best friend, Sam."

"Hi" disgruntled Sam said.

"So you guys are best friends? Can I be a part of that?"

WHAT?!?!?

"Uhm... You have to earn that BAHAHAHH!" and cackling madly, because when I'm nervous I don't know what else to do, we departed, leaving Foot Guy looking lost in our wake.

Sam and I didn't linger after the second encounter with Foot Guy, and we got out of there faster than my daddy at a shoe sale. Now Sam relentlessly calls me "Pretty Feet". What a great nickname... Sheesh!

On a completely different subject, last night was GREAT! I mean, my house still reeks of bleach from my cleaning binge yesterday, but I feel as cleansed as my house - which is a good thing to feel before the  start of another stressful semester. But post-cleaning, my favorite Tante and my mommy came down to visit/ for a Straight No Chaser concert that was happening at the River Campus. If you're somehow unfamiliar with Straight No Chaser, they're an A Capella group from Indiana University that's crazy famous. We got to hear the latest version (meaning the ones that are actually still in college) perform, and they were FANTASTIC. If you don't know them, here's a link to a really fun youtube video:

Straight No Chaser

So we went to dinner at Broussard's and filled up on wonderful Cajun food, and enjoyed a fun concert. Today, I went to get my books because classes start tomorrow. What garbage. I've barely had a break from classes. What's it been, ten days?! Dumb. Anywho, I'm starting Block II this semester which basically means I'm going to be in a school for an entire school day once a week. Oh and it also means that I have one, yes one, professor in one classroom for every class. Now, fortunately (depending on how you look at it), I'm also taking Earth Science this semester which is outside of Block II, so there's a whole different room with a different, however sciency, professor for two hours every Monday. But that's it.

Loads of fun, if you ask me - especially judging by the ridiculous volume of textbooks now sitting on my kitchen table. Even though I have one prof and one classroom, I have an amazing number of texts... and none of them are joking around, they're pretty encyclopedia-sized. Huzzah.

Wish me luck and sanity!

Love you all!

I love Guinea Pigs

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!
I actually had a guinea pig for six years. His name was Butterscotch/ The Rat. He was awesome - he played hide and seek and slid down our slide. It was great until he died. :S

Anyway, I saw this and thought it was HILARIOUS

Finally Facin' my Waterloo

So I went home this past weekend to see the fam and what not. I totally expected it to be the mostly boring venture it usually is (no offense momma and pop) - but seriously. Typically, I got home for a couple days and it just happens to be the days that EVERYONE is busy. Including my fam which is the primary reason I go home to begin with. 

This time, I knew for certain that I had a barbecue on Sunday with my entire family to look forward to, and dinner with my friend Jen on Saturday, but that was about it. So I brought home my laptop and a book, thinking I would have to occupy a lot of my time alone.

I could not have been more wrong.

It was probably the craziest three days EVER.

I understand that this is not the most exciting/interesting blog post ever, so I'll understand if you don't want to read on. However, there will be about a million people mentioned, so if you spent any time at all with me last weekend, you may want to continue so I can make you feel famous (or at least appreciated).

Also, it was rather hilarious - my Papa Bear told me he wanted me to add him as a follower on my blog. I told him he'd have to join the blog thing and he said oh.. never mind. I just wanted you to know I follow it. hahaha!

(I should probably mention the title: every time I come home, when I'm about a mile or so from my house, I play "Waterloo" by ABBA and cry a little. I'm kinda weird that way. It's also pretty appropriate considering I haven't gone there in a good long while.)

So on Friday, I woke up at a blisteringly early 10:30am so that I could get ready for work at 12:30... It seems a little ridiculous to get ready for two hours, but I really have to start leaving at noon - it takes at least 10 minutes for me to get out the door and 20 to navigate through Cape. I worked until 3, and then came home and took (or rather BSed my way through) my Islamic Civilizations Exam. After that, I headed home to try to make it back for free dinner - expecting that to be the only thing I did that evening.

How wrong indeed.

After dinner, I texted my dearest Panda to see what she was up to, or if she was even still in town as I had heard earlier that she was going camping. Fortunately for me, she decided not to camp for girly reasons and instead invited me to go karaoke-ing with her and "some people". Of course, being me, I couldn't turn down karaoke so I went. We ended up meeting  Alycia Jones (hereafter referred to as "Lisha", a name she earned from me for being awesome), her friend Rian and Rian's Mississippian man-friend, Adam. It was a great time of singing, dancing, watching drunk people fall all over themselves, trying not to let them fall all over us, and getting creeped on. Lisha was accidentally nice to the guy that kept buying them drinks and somehow ended up getting roped into slow dancing with him. Twice. The first time was all normal and she came back to the table proclaiming the creepy guy's normalcy. HA! Now we know what a good judge of character Lisha is. During their second dance, as she tried to make her escape, creepy guy went in for a smooch - knowing full well that she has a boyfriend. She dodged and he ended up slurping her neck and telling her that he would give her his phone number so that they could meet up at the fair later this week and that he would pay for her to get into the demo derby... How classic Monroe County is THAT?! Hot date idea #1: Demo Derby Night - Way to get in Girl's Pants: buy her way in. HAHA!

So at any rate, she came back over to our table saying "We need to leave", proceeded to tell us the story - in the middle of which creepy guy Dean came over and gave Lisha his number - and then an old, drunk, fat guy tried to touch me, so we were out of there. 

I got home around 2:30am - the absolute latest I have EVER been out. Yes, I'm lame, I understand. But even when I'm here (my apartment) I don't stay out. I think the latest was the night I was at Sam's until midnight.

Saturday I woke myself up around 11:00 and decided mom and I needed to go see HP7.5. I knew there was a showing at Ronnie's around 1:30, so we got ready, got lunch and headed over. Turns out I was wrong, but there was a 3D showing at 1:45, so we went ahead and did that. It was pretty hilarious to listen to me and Mutter being totally freaked out by things flying very realistically at our faces.

I took mom home and then headed back to South County to meet Jen, her boyfriend Nick and her sister Krissy for dinner at TGIFriday's. We got to catch up and all went extremely well. Her boyfriend (who I've been hearing about for 2 years) is totally approved by me - he's hilariously ADD - and her sister's a total sweetheart. It's funny, but Jen and I rarely get to see each other but still somehow stay extremely close. It seems like the time between visits is nothing when we finally get back together... that's how it should be with friends :) OH! Here's a picture of me and Jen:

It seems like I'd gone awhile with no pictures... and who wants to read that, really?

Anyway, after I left Jen, I got a call from the Panda saying that the karaoke crew was going to get together again. So, I met Panda at my house, changed clothes and left - leaving my phone at home like a genius.

We met up with the crew + Rian's boyfriend and then called Lisha and Panda's friend Will. We started out in Burkesville, got hungry, went to Red Bud Pizza Hut and then to a bar called "the Office" in Red Bud, from whence came the following great pictures:

Yes, tis was a great night. I actually managed to stay out even later than Friday night, arriving home at 3:30am. Good gravy. But I woke my sleepy pants up at 11:00 again the next day, to lay around and watch Ugly Betty until 1:00. Then it was lunch time and time to get ready for the family Barbecue celebrating Jenny's homecoming.

I always look forward to these events. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but I have the BEST family in the entire world. I'm really sorry if you thought yours was so great, but nothing compares to the Buettner clan. We are as tightly knit as it's possible to be. There was some surprised excitement over my blonde-ness... the words being "We never know what to expect from you!!!" shouted at me by my Gramma as I approached. Then the star (Nolan) arrived and I gave him his Gymboree box of goodies and it was time to cuddle!! 

Then came the heated game of croquet. Every time my family gets together, we have to compete in some fashion - usually it involves pictionary or charades or some Cranium game, but we've been known to croquet before. The players consisted of myself, Gram, Tante, Jenny, Dan and Eric. When we started, and Gram stepped up to take her first shot her words were "Oh, I haven't played this game in years!". 

Oh BS Gram. She ended up taking an immediate lead that she held on to for an atrociously long time. Dan finally took the initiative of being in last place to head on over to thwart Gram's lead. After a few rounds of that, and Jenny and I getting past the first hoop, he decided to make a come-back and headed over to us. 

The thing about the Buettners and croquet - we don't really play to get through the hoops, we play for the rule that when you hit someone else's ball, you get to knock them across the field however you please. So Dan decided that I needed to take his place in the attempt to thwart Gram, obviously forgetting that I'm terrible at croquet and miss anything I aim at.

Well, it ended up with just about everyone focusing on stopping Gram from winning using siege tactics and totally not seeing Eric coming up from behind for the win. After that, we all just kind of gave up. 

Then we had dinner, which was obviously wonderful ending in what I now know as "Marry Me Trifle" and Gram's Peach Pie and Hilary Clinton's birthday cake. 

When I was getting ready to leave, the Black Eyed Peas song "I Gotta Feelin'" came on. Jenny was holding Nolan and Tante and I were sitting together on the wall when she looked at me and whispered, "We should dance... you know, at the fast part". So we did. When they started singing, or rather shouting "Tonight's the night! Let's live it up!", we jumped up and danced around Nolan which resulted in the picture to the left. He found us pretty entertaining until Tante started walking around him with spirit fingers.

After that, I took my leave. 

Not much interesting happened until this morning at 6am when I was woken up by a blaring, horrible noise blasting through my apartment. Apparently there was a fire somewhere in the building - at least that's what I've gathered from the noise/flashing light that appeared in my apartment. When I went out to see what the hell that was all about and find out if I had to leave the building - which I learned in Kindergarten is what you should do when fire alarms go off - no one was around. So I resisted my instinct to leave and listened more to my desire to go back to bed. Considering I'm not a smoldering pile of ash right now, I think I made the right decision.

Also, I made my own homemade meatballs today. All the recipes I've read included three different kinds of meat and a whole lot of work, so I just made up my own using just ground beef and they turned out amazing and were incredibly easy! So I will share my recipe with you, especially since spaghetti and meatballs is pretty much the best dish ever:

1 lb ground beef

1 packet of onion soup mix

1 egg

some italian seasoning

a little milk

crackers... I think you're supposed to use breadcrumbs, but seriously, who keeps those around!? I just beat up come crackers until they BECAME breadcrumbs.

Mix it all together and bake at 350 for half an hour. They're really good, I promise or I swear I would never share them with you.

Holy garbage this post is long....

I understand that this is a really weird post - just a commemoration of my weekend, really. So let's say that the meatball recipe is your reward for getting to the end. Along with my love for reading my silly blog :)

Much Love!

Harry Potter, Harry Potter. Oooh!

First of all, if you don't know what the title of this blog is from, watch this:

Mysterious Ticking Noise

Secondly, if you haven't seen "A Very Potter Musical", you REALLY need to. Darren Criss - Blaine on Glee - formed his own production company, and wrote this wonderous addition to the musical world, long before appearing on Glee. Also, he plays Harry Potter. Which makes it all the more fabulous. It's pretty long, because it's a legitimate play so it's in installments, but I'll try and post the link to a playlist so if you have two hours and  nothing to fill them with, I promise, you won't regret wasting them here:

A Very Potter Musical

It combines all seven books into one fabulously funny, two hour musical production. It's amazing to say the VERY least. I may actually watch it in its entirety after this post.

In completely unrelated news, for the few of you who actually read my blog regularly, you'll recall my bird friend that nested and had a baby on my windowsill. Obviously, said baby has departed (a few weeks ago actually). 

Yesterday, to my extreme surprise, I looked out my window to see my dove standing over a brand new egg!! This was ridiculously exciting and I proceeded to call my papa bear immediately. I had no idea that doves only had one egg at a time - but apparently they do!

Back to HP:

I've already seen the final installment to this extraordinary series twice since its premier on Thursday. And I must say, this is the best one ever. Evidently J.K. Rowling acted as a producer for this last movie, which probably had a lot to do with its much more accurate than normal story-line.

I will go ahead and give my thoughts - but beware, it'll probably ruin the movie if you haven't seen it yet... So don't read on. I guess in the internet world, I must post "SPOILER ALERT".

Let's not pretend I was not emotional going into this. That's why I had to see it twice before posting anything about it. I actually cracked up a bit because yesterday, I received an email from my Aunt Sheryl asking me when I was going to post my thoughts. So I went and saw it again so I could control myself and focus.

I started crying halfway through the movie at the premier, I did better the second time though, so don't worry.

I was really impressed by how incredibly quickly the trio reached Hogwarts in this half of the film. In the book, the Battle of Hogwarts isn't until the very last couple of chapters - so I assumed that it would take proportionally long to get there in the movie, but they managed to arrive at Hogwarts less than halfway through the movie.

Even though they reached the battle WAY faster than expected, they did a remarkably good job of including absolutely everything up until that point. They included the conversations at Shell Cottage, the break in at Gringotts, the escape, Voldemort's fury, the whole darn thing! It was just ridiculously fast, but the details were spot on - which is what really matters to me.

The Battle of Hogwarts was, for lack of a better word, astounding. There was a lot more detail than was in the book, but all of it would have happened behind the scenes of the book - nothing was outside of the imaginable based on J.K. Rowling's description of the battle - the Acromantulas, the giants (however, I was disappointed that Grawp didn't make an appearance), the protectors and the duels.

I get chills just thinking about Professor McGonnagal calling the castle's statues to arms. And the Professors and Molly Weasley putting up the great protection around the castle.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that they included a scene about Hermione destroying Hufflepuff's cup Horcrux. In the book, we follow Harry through his whole journey, but in film, we have the liberty of following other characters more closely, and I was really impressed by Hermione and Ron's journey to the Chamber of Secrets and, most of all, the STELLAR, and long awaited kiss!

King's Cross was a major scene that everyone looked forward to seeing how it was interpreted. I think Rowling's involvement solidified the scene into what most people (myself included) would have seen it as. It was exactly how I pictured it. What was more, Dumbledore was given a line in the film, that was not in the book, but definitely would have fit in perfectly. It contained much truth and played a major part in the whole series. It was something to the effect of: "Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic - capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it". Brilliant.

Molly Weasley obviously kicked Bellatrix's ass in a major way - which was exciting and honestly, kinda gross. Same goes for when Voldemort dies. In the book, he just dies and they place his body in a chamber/closet off the hall so that he lies away from everyone who died fighting him. In the movie, he disintegrates - both disgusting and disturbing... I would not want bits of him flying around in my air. No sir. And that's what Molly does to Bellatrix too - explodes her. 

Neville really shines in this movie as well, his part with the bridge - which is absolutely brilliant - really gives a scope of how he's grown into himself and his name.

I wept like a crazy person when Harry used the Resurrection Stone to call back his parents, Sirius and Lupin. Like an absolute FOOL both times. Cried like a nutter through Snape's memories and seeing Tonks and Lupin and so on.

I really only had two specific problems with the film:

1) The Boathouse: What the hell. There has never been a boathouse in the entire HP series - but that's where Voldemort kills Snape. How dumb. It was supposed to happen in the Shrieking Shack - people actually know what that is.

2) The disposal of the Elder Wand: In the book, the ending was very elegant - The trio return to the headmaster's office to thunderous applause from the previous headmasters/mistresses and to speak to Dumbledore one last time. Harry fixes his Holly and Phoenix wand with the Elder Wand and explains that he will be the last true master of the wand and its power will die with him. Dumbledore notes his approval and all ends well, all making sense. Instead he breaks it in half and throws it in the gorge. WHAT?! not even close.

The epilogue was, actually, really good. I had no idea how they were going to pull it off, but it ended up being pretty perfect. Fortunately, the composer (somehow not John Williams) thought to use Williams's pieces to close out the series - genius, in my opinion.

Now that I think about it, I would have been quite happy to see the House Elves of Hogwarts, led by Kreacher, take out some Death Eaters  like it happens in the book, but you can't have everything, I suppose.

Fun Fact: Crabbe wasn't in this movie because the actor was in jail!! Since Crabbe was supposed to have died in the Room of Requirement, they replaced him with Blaise Zabini and had Goyle cast the FiendFyre and die. Turned out fine either way.

Overall, a great end to an EPIC series. Seriously people, if you haven't read the books yet, you REALLY need to. They're all great reads, with good side stories and values, namely: friendship, loyalty, and above all, love.

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love."

-Albus Dumbledore