Arachnophobia

A couple of days ago, I woke up, got ready for work, looked down at my leg and thought--"Huh. I must have had an ant bite." (One of the glories of the desert is the fact that we don't have mosquitoes. That's right. NONE.)

Later that day, I thought, "Huh. That ant bite is really itching!" Then it turned into, "That hurts!" By the time I got home, tore off my suit and looked down at my calf, it was swollen, had a bright red patch about 6 inches by 3 inches, and did NOT feel good. DJ slathered on the cortisone cream and a huge piece of gauze.

Let me introduce our major predator in the desert. Her name is Latrodectus mactans--and she is a tricky little devil. She's a lady of the night (in the best possible sense) but has a zillion kids.

It's a black widow. She must have thought I was tasty. By the time I discovered what had happened, it was too late for anything besides cortisone and Advil (also Benadryl with the added benefit of sleeping soundly through the night!). It's much better now, but I think I'll take the mosquitoes from now on.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

We had family movie night last night. Because we are frugal (whoops--CHEAP), we wait for the movies to hit the dollar theater; then because we are REALLY CHEAP we wait for Monday nights when its 75 cent night.

Recently we've sat through Clash of the Titans (it wasn't any better than the 1982 version), numerous kids flicks, and Reagan and I wanted to see "Letters to Juliet." Tre' nixed it at every opportunity, but he's at Scout Camp this week. Monday night--movie night--let's go to see "Letters to Juliet."

Reagan and Madi were on one side, DJ and I were in the middle, and Josh was on my other side. Every so often I'd look over and Reagan and Madi were munching on popcorn, making gooey eyes at the screen, and loving every moment of it. At one point, the Taylor Swift "Love Story" song came on, and they were mouthing the words, smiling.

Josh. Wow. What a difference. About two minutes into the movie, her started complaining about his stomach. Then he started ROLLING around on his seat. Then he grabbed the popcorn bucket and ate non-stop. Then he complained some more. Then he put his head between his knees. THEN I sent him over a couple of seats to do some more. By the time we were at the climax of the movie, he was lying upside down on his seat, legs in the air, throttling his neck with his own hands. I've never laughed so hard.

As A Lowly Aggie--Take THAT--BYU.

Utah moves to the Pac-10! from Semper Ute on Vimeo.

We were in Utah when the PAC-10 announced that Utah would be invited to join, but BYU wouldn't. Two days previously, we visited BYU's campus in an attempt to excite (brainwash) the kids about going to BYU when they were in college.

Every ounce of my Aggie body was screaming that there was another school too. We go to space! We do research! We have Aggie Ice Cream (most important!). However, I just saw this, and died laughing.