Blurbs

Hooters.  Ok, you guys know I don’t talk politics here, except in jest.  Which I need to do more of, because the government does HILARIOUS stuff on a regular basis and nobody ever finds out about it.  Which is both a shame and a blessing, I guess.  Occasionally, though, I have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge something cool that tax dollars paid for.  Usually all I can come up with is the library.  But yesterday– oh, sweet yesterday– the Pennsylvania legislators won my heart by declaring April 30 Hooters Appreciation Day.

No, not that Hooters or those Hooters, although appreciation days for both would be awesome as well, but rather The Hooters, an immensely talented group of rockers from Philadelphia, who you probably know for All You Zombies and And We Danced.  Pennsylvania does a lot of things well, but producing quality musicians is not one of them.  Behind the Hooters our next claims to fame I guess would be Fuel, Train, and Taylor Swift.  BLECH.

Now the exciting thing was that the Hooters themselves played a FREE CONCERT in honor of this.  Did I take my 3.5 month old infant to this?

(I was very disappointed to find this image had not yet been created, so I would like the record to state that I created this myself for the good of the internet, and it’s scary how much pride I have in this fact.)

Guys, it was so awesome.  Frogson rode along in his little wrap (I needed my hands to make rock fingers, duh) and he loved it.  We sang and bounced to the beat and I wasn’t kidding, rock fingers were involved. I loved it.  I love live music so so much.  I mean I know that’s a dumb remark, because duh, we all do, but yea.  I’m afraid to say I am in fact That Girl from your section who is dancing and high pitch wooing and screaming lyrics and generally UNABLE to contain herself.  I cannot help it, I get so freaking excited.  So that was that.

Speaking of Pennsylvania.  I cannot believe we are almost a year into our move up here! Things move a little slower up here, and it’s kind of refreshing.  Today I’d like to tell you about the Dunkin Donuts drive thru. God, I’m sorry, this is absolutely the crappiest boringest most rambling post ever, I’m sorry.  Just save yourself and go do something else and let me just sit here and work through this.

I’ve never really been conditioned to utilize drive thrus.  In DC, they just didn’t really exist.  In DC you get really, really excited if a place just has parking spots.  Then you get REALLY excited if there’s actually enough spots that you can find one without getting into a freaking MMA throw down with another motorist.  Here in PA, you can get what you want and you don’t even have to get out of your car.  SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT!

I now go to the Dunkin drive thru for most of my mocha needs.  Sorry Starbucks, you require walking (THE HORROR) and a whole extra dollar for the same product.  The one thing I hate about Dunkin is they ask you “Will that be all?” after you order.  I guess this is exactly why business experts require customers to be asked this, because the question DOES leave this big open door for you to ask for what you really want.  Because they did ask.   Yes three dozen munchkins you can meet me at the second window and shove them straight down my gullet  yes that will be all.

Not Speaking of Acronyms But Let’s Go Ahead and Do That.  I’ve had acronyms on the brain lately.  Actually I’ve been investing a lot of mental anguish over acronyms.  Why, as a human species, can we not GET THE HANG OF acronyms already?! I get that you want to come up with a cool acronym for your business or organization or whatever, but sometimes you just have to admit a difficult truth to yourself.  I can’t make this acronym work.  I need to walk away.  WALK AWAY, PEOPLE.

If you’re just mashing nouns and adjectives together in a grammatical hot mess that actually makes no sense at all, YOU NEED TO STOP RIGHT NOW.  Do you know how many DUMB acronyms were shoved down my throat in middle school because some idiot PhD somewhere said they were a helpful tool to help middle schoolers think critically? They aren’t.  There is nothing easy or helpful about all the times I was told to “Kids, it’s easy, just think SOLVE! Strategize Organize Leverage Venn diagram Estimate!” Here, I am going to make my own acronym for this phenomenon.  It’s called your acronym is a STRETCH.  Stop Tacking Random Expressions Together Cause it’s Heinous.

Related: I drove by a place called Inspire Female Athletic Training.  Do the acronym math on that one.

Please Hug Your Pets in Honor of my Stray Cat Friend.  OK, I am like 400 kinds of worked up over this.  Guys, my stray cat got hit by a car.  In our neighborhood, which is ridiculous because there’s no reason to go over 20 in our neighborhood, and in 9 out of 10 cases that is plenty slow enough to hit the brakes for a cat.  I don’t know why I am depressing all of you with this, I think I just need to type through it or whatever.  I was oddly attached to this cat, and Jeff is lucky it didn’t love me back because that thing would have been in our house right now.
And when his little pile of food remained uneaten on our stoop (shattering my heart every time I saw it), I realized that the second stray cat must be gone too.  My heart breaks thinking that these cats lived their lives without ever snuggling on a warm bed or receiving a purr-worthy throat scratch.  I can only hope they have gone to somewhere happy, to the Great Cardboard Box in the Sky, where they will know warmth and love and endless supplies of tuna.  Please give your pets a snuggle in their honor, and forgive me one holier than thou PSA as I encourage everyone to please rescue your next furry friend.

I hate to end on a sad note so here is our own resident rescue beagle, surveying Turnpike vistas like the stately little fur-gentleman he is…

Wednesday LOL

Is it terrible that I find this really, really hilarious?

Pennsylvania… Still Awesome

So beautiful….

Yet so redneck!

(A few images from being out and about last week.)

Umm, on Friday night we also went to the high school football game.  Do you know what we did afterwards? HALF PRICE LATE NIGHT APPS AT APPLEBEES, BABY! High school football was the talk of the Applebee’s bar.  It was possibly the most glorious suburban night ever.  All you h8rs better stop laughing and ask yourselves if there’s anywhere in your cool urban area where you can get 2 beers and spicy chili cheese nachos for $9.86.  You can’t.  If you think you can, I must ask you if your nachos appear on the menu with a little apple and a star, denoting they are a Applebee’s Neighborhood Favorite.  I DIDN’T THINK SO, SMARTYPANTS.

I didn’t have 2 beers though.  Obviously.  I sat at the bar with a milkshake.  In my elastic jeans.  WINNING! Sorry baby that you are trying to accomplish really difficult biological processes fueled by a milkshake and spinach and artichoke dip.  So sorry.

Thursday-Sunday Stuff

On Thursday my chick-buddy emailed me at, like, 4:00pm saying that due to a flake-out she had an extra ticket to OAR at 7:00, did I want to go.  Boring Debbie Downer Sarah was all “AHEM you know our policy on weeknight concerts” but Your-Days-to-be-Spontaneous-Are-Numbered Sarah was all “WOOOOO OAR!!!!!”.  Guess who won!

OAR.  What a fun 2005 throw back!

Sunset as seen from the Metro tracks…

This weekend we were back to PA again… Jeff’s side this time. We went to the Preview Party for the Philadelphia Flower Show and it was really cool.  I mean, it was no Farm Show, but pretty cool.

And only one giant curling iron burn was required to make me black tie appropriate… Yay!

OK, I was lol-ing at the judges’ criticisms of the arrangements.  What jerks!

And pretti-tude from the drive home…

The end…

 

A Proud Day to be a Pennsylvanian

Even though we are now transplanted, I will never, ever relinquish my Pennsylvanian title. Groundhog day is reasons #1-46 for this.  PA has a lot of proud accomplishments that intelligent people like to call “historically significant,” things like, you know, Constitutional Conventions and Declarations of Independence and Ben Franklin and the fact that we were the *second* state admitted to the Union, which is not that bad out of 50.  (Boo you whore, Delaware).

Let’s get one thing straight.  Those are all meaningless pieces of dung compared to the fact that we have Groundhog Day and Punxatawney Phil.  The only normal reaction for residents of the rest of the United States on February 2nd is to be wholly and completely consumed with jealousy. 

To properly celebrate, here are some Punxatawney Phil fun facts courtesy of Wiki!

• Punxsutawney Phil is a groundhog resident of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
• He is considered to be the world’s most famous prognosticating rodent.
• During the rest of the year, Phil lives in the town library with his “wife” Phyllis.
• A select group, called the Inner Circle, takes care of Phil year-round and also plans the annual ceremony.
• Zoological data suggest that groundhogs have an average lifespan of ten years in captivity and six years in the wild, with a maximum lifespan of 14 years in captivity documented.Punxsutawney Phil fans say that there is only one Phil (all the other groundhog weathermen are impostors), and that he has made weather prognostications for over 122 years as of 2012. They say that every summer, Phil is given a sip of the mysterious Groundhog Elixir, which magically lengthens his life for seven years.
• According to the Groundhog Club, Phil, after making the prediction, speaks to the Club President in “Groundhogese”, which only the current president can understand, and then his prediction is translated for the entire world.
• Of the 115 predictions on record so far, Punxsutawney Phil has predicted an “early spring” 15 times (13%). As to his accuracy, according to the StormFax Weather Almanac and records kept since 1887, Phil’s predictions have been correct 39% of the time

 You are welcome!

Peace love and rodents,

Becker Out…

Photo Dump: Farm Show Edition (Moo)

I finally made it home this year for the PA Farm Show… which is kind of a big deal for our state, and also happens to be the largest indoor agricultural event in the country.  Be impressed.  So big, that we have an entire 24 acre building dedicated to it, aptly named The Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex.  Our state’s crown jewel exposition venue=The Farm Show Complex.  You get invited to the Governor’s Inaugural Ball? It’s at the Farm Show Complex.  It smells like livestock year-round.

Here they were growing corn right in the exhibit hall…

Me and Mama testing the tractors!!!

Umm, did you know tractors cost $126,835?!

This exhibit was supposed to be state of the art animal housing but it kind of made me want to be a vegetarian

PEEGIES! Squee! They were born on Christmas.  (Don’t they look huge?!). The farmers assured us they were happy little pigs in there…. hrmmph…..

Chickies! Umm, ditto on the hugeness here.  The nice farmer man said “Yea, they’ll be five pounds in 30 days” and when my eyes got huge added “Yea it’s, like, just genetic”.  Gack….. genetically freaking modified maybe…. Gahh!!

Om nom nom I almost justified getting these… for the Dairymen’s Association! Support local ag! A good cause!

The milking demo was very conveniently broadcast for us while we waited in the milkshake line…

YUM… and I appreciated that I was allowed a half-and-half one! (Choosing between vanilla and chocolate=not possible).

Loved this guy with his sheep hat… Too funny!

Going on the last day always has its advantages…

Livestock Association… Respect…

Alpacas, suckahs!

Baby alpacas! These guys are a year… (the brunette in the preceding pic is Mom)

What is the difference between alpacas and llamas?!

“Inquire of me…. Now. Thanks”

The PA Cattlemen’s Assoc will judge you…

Yeeeeaaaa……

Hee

Emblazoned on the floor!

Butter sculpture! (We also heard someone get paged to report to the butter sculpture)

These sheepies had just been sheared and were rocking some sweaters! Too cute!

Well hi there!

Bah…

This guy killed me.  So funny…

Umm, dairy cows are huge…

I wanna be a farm kid.  This girl was like 11 and escorting this thousand pound cow around.  Jealous…

The end… smell ya later!

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Potter County, Pennsylvania (Don’t You Dare Mark as Read)

Jeff and I saw this bumper sticker on a car in a grocery store parking lot here in Virginia and had a fit. 

POCO! Y’all have no idea the odds of running into someone from Potter County, PA here or anywhere in the world, really.  “But Sarah,” you ask, “Pennsylvania must be chock-full of awesome counties, why is this one so special that people are rocking Poco pride bumper stickers across state lines?”

I’M GLAD YOU ASKED.  Allow me to share with you the 2 things I know about Potter County.  

1. My uncle at one point co-owned a hunting cabin there, and one time all our families hatched an ill-conceived plan to have a fun bonding weekend there.  There, the following things happened:

• We left on a Friday night, meaning it was dark by the time we got up there.  We were lost, it was rural beyond our ruralest expectations, my parents fought over directions, the minivan was switched into D1 and D2, I thought we were going to die and get eaten by grizzlies and/or caribou.  Do not ever try to drive to this place in the dark. 
• Since I was an angsty 14 year old, and since there was literally nothing to do, I laid on the couch all weekend reading Truman Capote.  The couch smelled really bad.  It was discovered at the end of the weekend that a deceased mouse embedded in the couch was to blame for the stench.
• Toilets clogged.  People had target practice with coke cans.  Et cetera.

2.  Poco has a population density of 17 people per square mile. 

For perspective, the deer population of Pennsylvania is estimated at 51 per square mile.  (and since Poco is the 63rd least populated county out of 67, the deer density is probably 40 times that.  Awesome!)

And that is all I know.  But you can bet my little heart beat with Commonwealth pride when I saw a long lost PA pal all the way down here! 

To wrap things up this evening, here are a few images I pulled from the first 5 pages of google image results for Potter County, Pennsylvania.  So you can try it yourself if you don’t believe me

Obligatory Penn State Weigh In

Is this as big of a deal everywhere as it is here in the Midatlantic? Or is it just because every fourth person I know (and approximately 99.4% of the people on my facebook) are Penn Staters?

I hate to get controversial, and I’m sure I’m not saying anything groundbreaking, but whatever.  I feel like chatting about it.  It’s my blog and I’ll-repeat-what-plenty-of-people-are-already-saying-but-in-different-words if I want to.

First can I just say most days I kick myself for not having gone to Penn State.  My mom worked for the PSU University Hospital for upwards of 10 years, and as such I was entitled to some sweet, sweet tuition discounts.  On top of in-state rates.  Why I chose to instead borrow Eleventy McBillion dollars and go to GW, I will never know.  Actually, wait, I know… because at 17 I wasn’t capable of making adult decisions (isn’t it crazy that we expect 17 year olds to?!), and I made a second un-adult decision by ignoring the warnings of actual adults.    But this week I’m all Don’t Blame Me I Went Out of State!

I’m totally conflicted over all of this.  I have serious issues with misplaced sympathy, devil’s advocacy, excuse making, etc.  It’s a problem. I just can’t help that my heart breaks a tiny bit thinking of this person- with a wife and children- likely going to jail for the rest of his life.  And seeing Joe Paterno’s fifty year career end on such a terrible, devastating note. 

But then I say to myself GET A FRIGGIN HOLD OF YO SELF WOMAN… Look at what was going on here! I mean… the extent to which crimes of this magnitude were pushed under the rug and not taken seriously is astounding and un-freaking-acceptable.  And the fact that they KNEW and had eyewitnesses to the worst offense (that we know of) and tried to self-police it with THE silliest fake “punishment” in the history of mankind?!?! In case you don’t know what I’m referencing, they caught this guy sodomizing/raping a 10 year old and decided that, well, they would just make a rule that he couldn’t be alone in the locker room with boys anymore.  I mean, I’d say it’s a “slap on the wrist” but no, it’s not anything to anything, a wrist or otherwise.  To me it’s the equivalent of pulling the Uni-bomber aside and being like “Now TED….. What did we talk about? I’m going to need you to back off those letter bombs, mmkay buddy? Last warning this time, alright?”

So, it is a shame, and unfortunate, but there needs to be a clear precedent set that more is expected of leaders.  I love that saying about the right thing to do and the hardest thing to do being the same.  Leaders choose the hard thing.  Always. 

And obviously the MOST important precedent is that children’s welfare trumps SPORTS. 

SORRY.

Don’t get me started on sports.  I was an athlete and I know they are awesome on many levels which I could blab on for hours about, but they are not the be-all-end-all of life and human existence.  And I want to SLAP some of these idiot college kids who at 20 have not faced .04% of the adversity that these victims had experienced at 10 (don’t forget this sickwad found his targets from a football camp for disadvantaged kids).  This is not directed at all Penn Staters, just the immature entitled ones who are all OMG BOO HOO MAH FOOTBALL PROGRAM and are writing statements like “My prayers go out to the victims BUT…”.  No.  Shut your pie hole.  Back away from the keyboard.  There is no but.  Priorities.  GET SOME.

Uhh… The end.  Don’t hate me.

Everybody Hurts

Bad day to be a Phillies fan, y’all. We got all excited tonight for the “all or nothing” fifth game, only to have dreams crushed by that stupid smirking Cardinals pitcher…

My poor hubbycakes is devastated   Though he “texted it out” on the way home so I’m hopeful the path to healing can begin.  Boys and their sports, I’ll never understand!

Next year right!

Weekend Photo Dump

Ahh! We are back from a four day weekend of wedding/beach/assorted family fun… Summer don’t end yet! NOT! READY!

My westies-in-law!

Pouty puppy eyes perfected…

And if Chooch ever writes a self-help book this would make a great cover.  With his chin propped on his paw, of course!

I love a good open collar! Meow…

The church was gorgeous… and I’m loving the light the crappy old Droid captured here! Who knew!

Sangria on an August Friday evening?! I think so!

Ahh! Check out this sushi display at the cocktail hour! Adorbs!

Since the groomie is a fraternity friend of Jeff’s, we were wisely placed at the kids table…

This gave me a giggle… loving the scare tactics at the bottom there… and the caps lock action!

Can you spot the dolphin?! They were all over the place… it was freaking awesome!

And…

Unforch, we just got home a bit ago from a wretched, rainy 5 hour drive home Does not make for a smooth transition from beach to work week.  Candidates for most awesome thing about the journey…

A) Hail Mary-ing my way over the Delaware Memorial Bridge in a monsoon when the car is due for 4 new tires…
B) Waiting in line for 10 minutes to potty at the Maryland House, alongside approximately 80% of the Delmarva female population, only to find an entire bank of potties (requiring a trip around the corner) un-utilized, lending further evidence to my theory that people in groups are equally as intelligent as wildebeest in groups…
C) 5 hours confined in a car smelling like soggy beagle, despite, inexplicably, the fact that we took great care to keep the beagle out of the rain.  Some sort of miracle of nature, apparently…
D) A but not C
E) Both B and C
F) All of the above
G) None of the above

How much did you despise those out of control multiple choice questions in school?! I need to remind myself every day how lucky I am that academics are no longer a part of my life.  Barf.  Those always confused the crap out of me AND killed any shot you had of beating the odds and getting a blind guess right.  So uncool. 

ANYWAY… how’d I get on that? Whatevs.  Happy Monday, yinz!