The Plaid Pladd

Unfortunately, like Alexander Crompton, I find that lately my life is not the constant barrage of ballad-worthy adventures I enjoyed in a past life as part of THE 434’s core creative team. Or maybe it’s that there is no longer anyone to corroborate my lies (like that time we totally met Beyonace). Anyway, this leads to either rather cynical blog posts about how my current course of study (luckily) bears little to no resemblance to my future career, or a boring list of mundanities (“OMG you guys! Today I was the only one in class who knew what the Dvorak keyboard is!”). Because the former made my mom sad, I’m going to try the latter. Here are five cool things that have happened to me recently:

1. I went to a silent auction
I’d never been to any kind of auction before, but I always picture the kind you see in movies, where priceless artifacts are sold for thousands of dollars, and then maybe a mythical prince shows up and everyone gets eaten alive by tooth fairies:

However, I have since discovered that Hollywood has LIED to me! The silent auction I went to with Rachel for her work had NONE of those things. However, Steven did win a farm basket full of fresh spinach, onions, sweet potatoes, and many different kinds of jam. So, still good, if different.

2. I had inconclusive talks about tutoring the visiting Korean scholar in ESL
I think I mentioned being a reading tutor in my seminar, because I’m not sure if she can possibly have chosen me for my correct and intelligible use of language (I definitely used the words graspin’, ridic, and probs in the same sentence during discussion last week). However, despite my dubious qualifications this seems to be actually happening. Naturally I will attempt to spread Bovaisms throughout the far East.

3. I had dinner with Steven’s work
Two guys just talked about sports the whole time, one about how much he hates whiskey, and the boss told TWO stories about really having to pee in quick succession. TWO. Classy. Oh, and then the boss’ wife and whiskey guy talked about how they couldn’t understand people who never wanted to have kids. It’s possible that’s because they haven’t worked with them on a daily basis from a young age. Whereas older adults may shrug off those frequent times you get thrown up on, at fifteen they make an indelible mark that looks like this: “CHILDREN ARE DISGUSTING, UNGRATEFUL BRATS WHO WILL STEAL YOUR LIFE” written in all caps all by itself on a page in your journal. Fifteen-Year-Old Patricia knew what was up.

4. I bought new pillows for our kitchen table
Little known fact: Steven and I have a large coffee table rather than a kitchen table. We sit on the floor on these big pillows Caroline brought to Wiess three years ago, and then abandon in the WAR room when she got new furniture. THE 434 stole them, and then I smuggled them into Trixie at the advent of the road trip somehow KNOWING that I would one day need gigantic pillows to sit on to eat and do my homework. Unfortunately, if there’s anyone around other than Steven and I they are out of luck, so I used a coupon to buy more. One is giraffe print and the other is furry and zebra patterned. It’s like I went on a safari at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

I know I promised five, but I literally can’t think of anything else remotely out of the ordinary I’ve done this week. Besides my monthly discussion with Steven about if I should take his last name when we get married. The conclusion is always: “lol Mrs. Patricia Wiggins wtf? no way”