I ended up deciding to try out being a dog owner by fostering a dog for a rescue organization until it is adopted.

Meet my first charge: Neko (after Neko Case, duhhh)

She's a really sweet dog, about a year old. We think she's been abused, because she is TERRIFIED of men and seems to have some pretty bad separation anxiety problems. (She ate the entire bottom tray of her crate while I was out running on Wednesday) Regardless, she appears to be housetrained (bonus), knows how to sit, and mostly just wants to sit on the couch next to me and nap.

Problems that I don't know how to handle:

1) She doesn't know how to play. I keep giving her a dog toy, and she's like 'what?'

2) She walks SO BADLY on a leash that it is kind of hard to deal with.

Suggestions?

I am in-between leases and that means in between kitchens.

I have a potluck to go to on Sunday.

I need something easy THAT THE COMMUNITY GARDEN/CO-OP people will like.

HELP.

omg omg omg omg omg.

i want asdlfajs;dflaskdjf;asldkfj;asldkfja; sklfdj;asldkfja;sldkfj;asldfkjasknzxlckjnvaroe;gijaroe;jgasldkjfa;sldkfj;aslkdjf asd asjdf;aslkdjf ;asldkfja;wlkdjf a;das;ldkfjas;lfdkj;alisjdfa;lsjkdfa;lskjd asdlfkj aslkdjr;oijsdf;ljkzxdvlkjasre;jasf;ljkfdsj;awreas;df;alisjfd.ljk a.iksedr;jh ;nlaskrje;jf;liaser;jasre;oisfdjlkaserl;kjfj n ;oihasdf;lkasdf nj;asedkjf hfi;osae

and also as;ldkjfa;sldkfj asdjhf;awlerj 'dvjasdfj.arewn;kawe because al;sdfjka;sfdlkj asdfa;jklsejr;awek as.dkjas;dlfikjta; ewzsdfl.jkasdr;l asdf.ljkasdcj#*p9 0OI8U7Y6T5R4E36532%^OLUIH:OUG POo2p3jr;pEW TIASDFSDTwer;gaslkdjfn S;EKJR A;SLDKJF .

BUT MOSTLY as;ldfkjas;dflkjawe;orijasd U&(OPYRPWELRH:PQOUWEHUOP:QF woierjpOIWER prj[apwef np,.asdr

There. I feel better now.

Move to foreign country by myself.

Successfully navigate the bread, cheese and wine store.

(in the language, of course)

Only managing to order 'cash register' instead of cheese, once.

Umlauts, hindsight, and wine are all a fickle bitch.

Our way of life is toxic.

I can't believe we've let things go this far.

Here are a few of my favorite photos:

Armenian Coffee (third place in the photo contest - 2006) - I drank about 8 cups of this stuff a day, to the point that I began ordering 'two cups in ONE BIG CUP' any time I was at a cafe:

More

Running into a presidential candidate in front of the Sphynx: Egypt 2007

Trying to stay warm and do my laundry in the winter: 2007

Yum - Ijevan Shuka, Spring 2007

The 26-mile hike in Kapan, Spring 2008

Part of our hike to Tatev, Summer 2007

A springtime feast! I miss the dolma...

Gregor Lusavorich Church in Yerevan, 2008

Athens Marathon, November 2007

The Village Darbas Community Learning Center!!!

Sooooo...we lost, but the MVP was from MSU! And the Canadian coach is for the Red Wings!

Woooo.

~~~~~

Also, I made the greatest sandwich ever with some Zingerman's bread, an avocado, chicken, muenster, and an onion. Take that ANGELO'S!

Time to make some more granola bars...this time I have dates, coconut and choco chips on the horizon.

~~~~~

Finally, THIS (the first 5 seconds):

Someone on TV just Windex'd a cupcake so that he wouldn't eat the rest of it.

Where did we go wrong America? Where? Whyyyyyy?

So, I have the forgetful gene, and I can never find anything once I set it down. Stuff isn't disorganized or anything, I just lose things that are right in front of my face. I'll set down my hairbrush, hunt for it for 20 minutes, then find it lying on top of my pillow.

At work I do this too. But I always think someone has STOLEN whatever it is I've misplaced. Then I find it like an hour later.

So this morning I woke up and I was really cold. I guess I turned the heat down too much before I went to bed. And I was half asleep, so I thought that my comforter had fallen off. I looked to the left on the ground, couldn't find it. Scooted over, looked on the ground at the right. Didn't see it. Sat up and looked on the ground at the foot of the bed. No comforter.

INSTANTLY CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT SOMEONE HAD STOLEN MY COMFORTER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

Keep in mind that my roommate is house sitting so she hasn't been around, and I put the chain on the door, and seriously, why would someone steal a comforter?

Then, I realized I was still underneath the damn thing. I was just cold.

Durrrrr.

Would it be fun for a 12 year-old to tour the Jiffy factory?

I see it is free and was thinking it might be fun for Gwen and I to do.

Target is selling THIS throw pillow that matches my duvet cover for $25.

I made this:

$2.60 - Discounted fleece

$3.00 - blue thread

$2.00 - brown cording

Don't own a sewing machine, so I did it by hand. Took all day, but worth it. Put my old throw from my last bedding set in it. Way to reuse, self!

:oD

From the night the cousins put makeup on me and we took glamor shots...

a) I smell like mice from prolonged updating of the database in the basement.

b) I bought a bag of FRESH Brussels Sprouts last night...ideas? Me + shopping with no list and late at night = teh awesome.

How is it that a flight to Paris costs 1/2 as much as a flight to Seattle?

I need to go buy some food.

Menu for the week:

Roasted onions, carrots, sweet and Idaho potatoes

Turmeric chicken

Lentils and Rice

Pear salad

Orzo w/tomatoes, gorg, toasted walnuts and lemon juice

Breakfasts as usual. I'm an egg eater. But I won't say no to biscuits and white sauce.

I need to write my admissions essay for Johns Hopkins in such a manner as to convince them to let me in to their sweet BMB in Public Health PhD program. I'm thinking the Armenush Slaps the Chicken story will do it.

WTF is with my post-marathon non-hunger??? I haven't eaten any more than I would on a normal day, and I actually think it is LESS. Frown.

Success!!!

Fact:

With Jodi on Crystal Lake:

With nephews on Lake MI:

Sisters:

Four-ish miles out of 12 on a humid morning with thunderstorms after 3 hours of sleep.

Somewhat of a fail. I guess I will do the other 8 tonight? Then try harder next week? I couldn't breathe. And my shirt was soaked after about 10 minutes.

Hopefully that doesn't mess up my schedule, but that was just not going to happen. It's GROSS out.

I - the fail.

Shower - baptism - back to Ann Arbor - Host Book Club - Run again? - Watch ridiculous amounts of MASH. Sounds like a plan.

Things might be progressing after all.

To bed I say!

Demand that I figure out how to keep a houseplant alive for a full year.

You know who was awesome beyond belief?

Right Said Fred

Chuckle.

This is still my favorite Armenian song:

And out.

I just opened up my drawer at work, pulled out a potato, and said to Steph 'Did you know that I keep this potato in my drawer in case I get hungry?'

'Jamie, that's like...the weirdest thing YET'.

Woo. I ended up raising $140 for Big Brothers Big Sisters. In something like three days. I am the fund-raising champ!

Today is awesome because I'm leaving early to go to East Lansing. The most happening place in MI. Peace Corps reception tonight at MSU. I'm excited about that. Maybe all of MSU PC Armenia will be there...Probably not. But I will see a bunch of people I know, and this time I'm an RPCV. Go team.

I found my blog listed on the PC Armenia Wiki page...no wonder last year I got a phone call about needing to censor my post about the hookah. Whatever, it's Armenian hookah. From Shah Pizza! But there was no hookah - only free dates and tea! My life over there was not unlike an episode of Seinfeld.

Haircut in T-# of days until Saturday...I want it OFF. Good lord. Let me get a good stylist who will make it good for wearing it straight or curly.

Oh and seriously, this pain on my gum better not be a mouth abscess. Because that would be TOO AWESOME.

~~~~~

HOOKAH HOOKAH HOOKAH. Yeah, I get to say it now without locking the post.

HOOKAH.

This makes me happy because it is from the exact concert we were at.

I still <3 Sam Beam

1. My favorite character on Get Fuzzy (aside from Satchel) is Chubby Hugs.

2. The University of Washington is looking A++ appealing to me.

3. I made art for my bedroom wall by gluing some fabric to cheapo canvasses, then used super foam tape to keep them up.

4. Last year I only figured out that it was St. Pat's because Dagen and Tony drunk dialed me. At the time I was trying to sleep but could only focus on the mice running around overhead.

5. The plant bulb I put in Ollie's water bowl is starting to grow.

Seriously...how did this person miss the child-proof TOP of the container?

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29675664/

Like, that ALONE should tell you 'not a flavored beverage'.

dumbass.

I was running on the inside track at the gym yesterday, from like 9:05 - 10:00pm.

Around 9:35, this guy laps me and says 'You're the only person I haven't outlasted'.

So I told him I was probably going to outlast him. Which I totally did. I pretty much wanted to say 'Dude, I trained for a marathon in a mountain range while Peace Corps malnourished, I'm pretty sure I can run on this track until 10'.

Which I did. And which he failed to do.

Bwahahahaha.

Fasting is a bitch when the first thing you do in the morning after opening your eyes is eat breakfast.

I = the huuuuuungry.

Heading off to UHS to get blood work done, then grabbing some eats.

PS: FFFFFFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIDAAAAYYYYY.

Oh and if you have access to my facebook, you should check out the awesome video of us talking to Dukakis in front of the pyramids.

On a scale of one to it was a decent weekend, 25.

Friday I had my 'health assessment' at work so that I can get an extra $100 in my next paycheck. The woman who went over my results with me was 'kind of' telling me I needed to exercise and eat more fiber, to the point where I was like "Lady, I work out almost an hour and a half 6 days a week, and I consumed 36 pounds of grapefruit this month, I'm not sure how much more exercise and fiber I can get here..."

Went to the library and picked up my requested titles, so I watched 'Awakenings' over the course of the weekend. Oliver Sacks is my hero. Robin Williams pretending to be Oliver Sacks under a different name is not. I love requesting titles from the Public Library website and getting them sent to the branch near my apartment, it is like shopping, but for free.

Saturday mom came out and we went to the Broken Egg for breakfast. Hillary Swank was not there. But we both got delicious pancakes, then wandered around downtown for a while. Tried to find some attractive fleece to make my sister a fleece blanket, but nothing is really that nice. I can make you a really cute one of kiddie/baby fleece though, if you want Jod.

That evening I went out and bought my new Betta fish. He is maroon. His name is Oliver. He has a much bigger bowl than my original Betta, Algemon, had when I was in 6th grade. Consequently, he swims around a lot in it and looks pretty. He won't eat his food though. Maybe he's full?

Ang and I went to a brewpub in Plymouth on Saturday night. The Blonde beer was good, but she got a cherry porter that tasted like thick bad coffee. Afterward we got Rolos. Who doesn't love a Rolo, riddle me this.

Yesterday I spent the day picking out good pictures to print and put in frames to make my place look more homey. I printed up a really nice one of Grandma as a 5x7, got it a nice frame, and added a dried flower my mom gave me from the funeral. It looks really nice. Now she is sitting on my desk and I can always see her. My grandma was awesome^30.

This week I re-commence my memoirs. Story #2: "100% maybe, or 'how I learned to stop asking for a new outhouse hole and learned to start pooping in a box'".

Hope you caught that Lauren.

When I came home for Xmas last year I made THREE CDs of all of my first and 1/2 of second year of Armenia photos. Then I deleted everything off of my POS Dell and went back for another 8 months.

Today I'm printing up a bunch of good pics to put on my walls, when I discover that I CAN'T open the disks. I about had a heart attack. TWO years of my life, my host families, my villages, I pretty much cried.

Turns out I can open them here at work.

PHEW.

We just went to lunch at Angelo's.

Hillary Swank came in.

We dined together. - ish.

'It's a date, it's a scam, whatever.'

~Say Anything.

FYI the 'bowl' of clam chowder at the actual Angelo's and not from On the Side is approximately a vat. I pretty much had to bring all of it back to work with me.

I love my sisters.

Just want to throw that out there.

Oh I dance like an ad for the Gap, dammit!

Oooooh man....

The hat I just knit is like, TOOOOOOOO big again. Why? Why must the hat come out HUGE? No one wears a huge hat anymore, unless Blossom is still around clinging to her one year of fame.

I knit it on size 7 needles! 7! And the pattern called for size 10! What kind of head was THAT HAT planning on fitting? My friend has a small head so he was like, make sure it is small...but no, I end up hunting down the mammoth head hat online. Great. Now must start again. With a little less fail.

Yes uzum em panizh...

(yeah, I'm calling it a zh and not a r, because that's how Pambak rolls)

Yesterday I was at the gym and running on a treadmill (I know, suck, but it was like minus one million degrees out) and when I do that I get all sweaty because it gets way to hot for me in the gym, so I was like dripping all over my Hard Lessons shirt and this really thin athletic looking woman that was running next to me told me that she was impressed with how fast I was going.

I forgot to tell her that is how I roll.

It's a big day for Mars I guess.

And for United Airlines. Whose plane hit a FLOCK OF BIRDS (according to the last news update I read) and went down. Good thing everyone is okay.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is being put on by the theater company here, and I really, really want to go. Because this is one of my favorite bits ever:

I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box. One keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never *know* you were in a box, would you? It would be just like you were asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you. Not without any air. You'd wake up dead for a start, and then where would you be? In a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it. Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that. I mean, you'd be in there forever, even taking into account the fact that you're dead. It isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off, "I'm going to stuff you in this box. Now, would you rather be alive or dead?" naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well, at least I'm not dead. In a minute somebody is going to bang on the lid, and tell me to come out."

Well..I told myself I could do it, so I went ahead and did it. Probably it isn't perfect and won't actually fit a baby, but I tried my best...

The wee little vest bit:

With the arms on:

And all sewn up:

Hm. I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking this morning when I got an 18-pound bag of grapefruit. Granted, it was on sale, but um, as ONE person I may not be able to consume all 18 pounds before a certain level of spoilage sets in.

Maybe I should invest in a juicer.

I'm having one of those lazy Sundays where I contemplate all of the things I might do during the day, then manage to accomplish approximately one or two. I was going to go check out the Whole Foods, but decided that as I don't have any more money until I get paid again, I should just wait. I can probably still attain my goal of taking down my Xmas stuff, since there wasn't much to begin with. And I went running outside and now can't decide if I should bother going to the gym or not. Probably not. Probably I should sit here and make some food for the week so that I don't have to cook it when I get home and am HONGRY.

I bought stuff to make a mushroom-spinach lasagna! Mmmmmm. I wanted whole-wheat noodles but they were out at the store. Can I make that tonight and cook it up tomorrow? Or will the noodles go bad from not being cooked? Jod? Anybody? Heeeelp.

Yesterday my mom and sister and nephews came over and I got to show them the lab and we went to a coffee shop and it was fun. At the end Tyler came up to me and said 'I had a GREAT time Aunt Jamie' and I was like 'awwww little guy, I had a great time TOO'. And of course it was super hilarious when Will mowed down a NutraGrain bar and then threw up on the table at the coffee shop. Lol.

Oh and I am now the proud owner of a set of kid's John Deer keys, which I have been playing with all day. If only I had a mini-Tractor to go along with them. I'll try to get those back to you soon Jod...

Oh and seriously...ditto on the Snuggie. I want one too. What a ridiculous commercial. But come one now, how is this a great product for kids if it is one size fits all? Because your kid is going to get all tangled up in it and fall of the couch or something when they jump up to do whatever it is kids are doing when they are in a hurry!

I plan to buy one and be the person at the football game. Who wants my free one and the reading lights?

"So much of your life passes in a comfortable blur. Living on the senses requires an easily triggered sense of marvel, a little extra energy, and most people are lazy about life. Life is something that happens to them while they wait for death."

This is so huge.

I can't even fathom it yet.

I believe in America again.

Out doing what everyone else is doing.

(eating breakfast and drinking coffee)

Damn you Halloween...

what am I supposed to be?

I have a fabulous red dress...can I just put on a face mask and carry around a black rose or something?

Here you go Jod...

Ingredients:

Kaiser rolls

Ricotta cheese

Parm

Mozz

chopped spinach

onions

olives

sliced tomato

italian spice grinder or fresh basil or something

Mix together ricotta, parm, and your pizza topping stuff (really whatever you choose, I did spinach, onions and olives)

Cut rolls so that there is a thin top and a thick bottom, then hollow out the bottoms (make like a cute soup bowl)

Pack the ricotta mixture into the bowl

Layer tomato, mozz and italian spices

Put the top on

Bake until crispy

Yuuuuuummmm-o.

The monkeys stand for honesty,

Giraffes are insincere,

And the elephants are kindly but

They're dumb.

Orangutans are skeptical

Of changes in their cages,

And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

Zebras are reactionaries,

Antelopes are missionaries,

Pigeons plot in secrecy,

And hamsters turn on frequently.

What a gas! You gotta come and see

At the zoo.