Pork n Beer

When I bring people home to Central PA, they generally don't get to visit the "real" Central PA.  Fortunately, this weekend I went to visit part of my "extended-family".  We're not actually related, but we might as well be.

After driving for about 30 minutes, passing through to a different county, passing a few buggies, and driving on a dirt road, we get to our destination.  It was a birthday party for one of the girls!  We drank a little and I was going to leave, but then Matt asked me to play washers.  I love washers.

Imagine being in an old butcher house, throwing washers and drinking and laughing.  Then Matt says "you've never seen a rooster get drunk? Really?! They LOVE beer.  You can pour about two down it's throat at a time.  And pigs, they ABSOLUTELY love beer!"

And it just so happens, there were roosters and pigs in the barn.

And there was also beer in the barn.

And the piggies LOVE beer.

And they do get drunk!!  The roosters were watching and squawking while the dog was trying to get in on the action.  A few minutes later, we left the pigs staggering in the barn and went out to the bonfire which was keeping us warm in the glow of the super-moon.

And these are a few of my favorite nights with some of my favorite people.  I love Philly, but sometimes home is just where you need to be.

I mean, come on, where can you see pigs drinking beer in Philly?!?!  Oh right, the corner bar.....

Graphic Novella Time

Because I could not possibly relate to you in words what I am feeling right now...PICTURES!

I took a week off of work because I was too burnt out to continue without punching a lot of customers in the face, screaming "EFF YOU, I'M HUMAN TOO, AND I QUIT" and walking out.  After ordering a bunch of unwanted food for every single table in the restaurant.

Enuff said.

So I drowned my sorrows in shopping.  In the process I watched my lovely roommie Liz wrestle with a size 2 mannequin.

And then hosted a weekend of debauchery with my good friend David.  We had shots.  Lots and lots of shots. 

(HAPPY BIRTHDAY POGSTER!)

The next day, I got a call about an old car who had a flat.  Ah, Ford Probes.  What a lovely heap of junk.  It was my first car and I loved it dearly.  Got in lots of accidents.  However, my car looked much better than this one...probably because I got rid of it 4 years ago.

We stripped the nuts.  Just jack it up!  SO MANY EUPHEMISMS, SO LITTLE TIME.

So we made it a drinking game.  Another reason why I love West Phill-ay.

Later in the week, I soberly travelled home to witness my brother's graduation.  We were at the dinner table celebrating our family's 3 birthdays, 2 graduations, and Fathers' Day all at once.  Lots of opening of gifts.  My mother yelled at my little brother about leaving the price stickers on my older bro's present.  Then proceeded to hand out these gifts to her three children.

Note the present price sticker.  She frantically started ripping the gifts out of our hands to peel the stickers off, only for my smartass lil brother to point out the price was in Australian dollars, not USD.  (The reason the picture was so blurry was because I was fighting my 62 year-old mother off of me, after she knew the sticker was not in USD.  That's how opposed she is to price tags on gifts.)

Needless to say, it was one of those bust-a-gut times when you're not supposed to laugh, but you just have too.

Being in Central PA is kind of relaxing.  I forgot how much I missed having a car and blasting music.  And how much I love buying fresh food from the Amish.

Oh, and how much I love the cheap drugs stuff.

I hope you looked carefully at that picture.
If you didn't laugh, you didn't look carefully enough.

My time in Central PA comes to a premature end as we are all traveling back to Philly for my graduation Saturday.  So, until then, here is the token photograph of Nelly.  Playing/eating a piece of paper.  Not just once, she was going at it ALL WEEK LONG (twss?)!

I think it's safe to say she will never graduate from school.  But here is photographic evidence that the cat can eat my homework.

FIN.

Unwaxed Poetic

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted in desire

I hold with those that favor fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

-Robert Frost

Mondays and Wednesdays kill me. Every. Single. Week. I'm exhausted. And this morning I got called out by a professor. So far, we've turned in one assignment that I failed horribly because I just forgot to do it and we've taken exactly one test. After he was done handing back the assignment and test together, he pulled me aside and told me he expected better from the way I participate in class and carry myself. The girl sitting next to me (we're those "oh hey how ya doing let's sit by each other so we can wake each other up all the time" friends, not too close but very handy) got a worse grade than I did on each paper and all she got was a little "eh, do a little better". Why? How could my professor tell?

My work friend told me today "you're just not good at hiding your intelligence." Which I suppose is fair, but I'm not sure why. What is it that makes my intelligence come out? Especially at work? Slinging burritos and margaritas isn't exactly rocket science. In fact, most of the staff is inebriated (in one way or another) most of the time. The other half are just plain lunatics.

And the way I talk? I don't pronounce many words right and I also have a slightly limited vocabulary. (Listen, I grew up with a Southern dad, a Pennsylvania Dutch mother, the first three years of my life I heard Long Islanders speak, and then I spent most of my education in Central Bumfuck PA - talk about a myriad of accents). And I have annoying habits like saying "anyway" ALL OF THE TIME as a conversation ender/segue. Or "so" or "well" or "uhhhhhhhhh, so yea".

Plus, I picture most really intelligence people as well dressed, on time, studious expression, eye contact, normal social skills, and sort of conservative looking. I am always wearing a restaurant T-shirt and cut offs with ugly black sneakers. I am perpetually 15 minutes late. Mouth open, eyes unblinking does NOT count as a studious expression last time I checked. Eye contact? What's that? Normal social skills? I was awkward at so many tables to day. The awkward was palpable. As for sort of conservative looking? I have 4 to many piercings and the attire on that I mentioned above.

But I do have this going for me: people do invite me along places because they wanna hang out and make decent conversation. Intelligent people are required for decent conversations. Therefore, I must either make decent conversation or be intelligent. Right?

Oh, logic.

Toy with me not!

I believe you,

I just don't know.

- Andrea

String Theory

I have long prescribed to the theory that life is a string of decisions. Surely, your life will go one way or another, be mostly bad or mostly good, but a lot of it depends on decisions. Decisions you make, your parents make, your grandparents make, you neighbor, government, phone company, friends, and random stranger make.

Lately I have been making bad decisions.

However, I did finish the term with a 3.72 GPA. The only class I got a B in was Economic Development. I got a B because I made a decision. I decided not to study - ever. Besides the 10 billion hour research paper that I wanted to stab my eyes out over, it worked out well for me.

But it was still a "bad" decision.

It was a bad decision that worked out well. Now, you tell me why I've been so confused about life lately? Looking at my life as an outsider things are gooooood. But I will be the first to tell you - my life right now is in shambles and I'm having a quarter-life crisis and day-by-day all I want to do is get up and disappear, go live in Greece or somewhere warm and sunny and be a day laborer.

So bad decisions that return good results may be bad decisions still. I mean, what makes a decision bad? The reason for making it or the outcome?

For instance: I'm in Central PA currently and this morning I had the newspaper with my Kashi cereal. The front page headlines are as follows: Buy Cooking Tickets for Some Class, Biden Swears on National Television, Three of My Classmates from Public School went to Jail, oh and yea, They Passed the Healthcare Bill.

Some of those are funny for obvious reasons (come on, who thought local cooking classes were more important than the Health bill which was passed awhile ago?) but three of my former classmates got arrested.

Mostly for burglary, assault, and drugs. Not the smartest people, not the smartest decisions.

I also found out two of my former co-workers (who were my age, one has a kid) got arrested and landed in jail - for drugs.

So, maybe the most important decision of my life was leaving this small town and getting out into the big city. And the next most important decision of my life may be moving out of Pennsylvania into the great unknown (read: West Coast/Europe/South America).

Or maybe the next big decision will be picking a career that won't suck. Who knows.

So what do you think? What makes a decision bad - the reason for making it or the outcome?

Nothing in Life Runs Unmixed

And a great big thanks to Robert Frost for the title of this post. He's from my hometown you know, well, at least conceived there!

There's an administrator at Drexel, Mark Greenberg, whom I've never met, but I love him anyway. I've been a creeper and have definitely seen him around, but he has no idea who I am. Understandable since I slouch around in sweatpants and a sweatshirt most of the time, and he's a busy man who wears a power suit everyday.

Why do I love him so much? Well I first started loving him for his emails. Normally I abhor getting extra emails that fill my already overstuffed inbox, but his, I always take an extra ten minutes to read. Since I was in the honors college, I've gotten the Greenberg emails since freshman year. They are always about life, always inspirational. And he always knows just what to say! A year-ish ago, he was moved from being the Provost of the Honors College, to some other position in the University. He still writes those emails, but now everyone gets them. And thank goodness about that.

Greenberg cares about his students, the university, and the well-being of everyone within this small community. Like genuinely cares. Like, if the University ever stuck me with a shaft bigger than my body, I could go stalk him, corner him, and he'd help me. In a University this big, that is a big, big deal. Especially when most people are more concerned with making your life as difficult as possible.

Also, the last email he sent out totally made my life. It was all about how he was born in New York and a diehard Yankees fan, but then moved to Philly and loves it here and raised his kids here, etc. Basically, my life, only delete like 20 years off of living in each place. Okay, not really, but I was at least born in New York (my hometown was totally mentioned in an episode of Law & Order: SVU in season 2 OMG LOLZ). Anyway, the point is...who do you root for when both the Phillies and the Yankees are in the World Series.

Here is my (and his answer). Root for the Phillies. Because how can you deny a team like that. And we live here and I like not getting beat up. But if the Yankees somehow win, I can still be relatively happy series. However, Mark Greenberg said it much better, and of course included Robert Frost's "nothing in life runs unmixed." What a wise, wise man.

GO PHILLIES!

Goose Day!

So, I grew up in the small town called Lewistown, Pennsylvania, where the population is displayed in people and livestock. The way this works is that there is a borough with about 5 villages, the biggest being Lewistown. The population is actually for the 5 villages and as of 2000 was almost 9,000 people. Yes, I realize some of the people I know and love went to high school with just as many people.

In a town so small, you expect it would be off the map for most Google searches that don't include the words "Lewistown", "Pennsylvania", "PA", or "tremendous amounts of rednecks and cattle". However, guess who just made the map? Look at the third search result!

Oh yea, just by typing in "Goose Day", I found my town. However, I also found no information on Goose Day. Hence, I will just try to describe this in my own terms and from my own memory.

Overall, the holiday involves eating geese as a meal on September 29th of every year so that good luck will follow you all year long. Why? I have no idea. Did I learn about it in school? Yes, I did, but they were just copied pages from a textbook that was so old it was hand-illustrated and typed (so there's like 1 copy ever).

My first memory of Goose Day is back in 1993 at Strodes Mills Elementary School in kindergarten with Mrs. Fields (an old grouchy lady with big poofy white/grey hair). We were making Goose Day hats - yes they were lame, even for five year olds. I really had to go to the restroom and Mrs. Fields told me to wait. But I really had to go. Like bad. Of course the memory is a little hazy, but I got in trouble a lot in kindergarten, so I assume I kept asking or something, and she got annoyed. "Sit in that chair and don't move until it is time to leave" I was told. Well, I sat in that chair. I also peed in that chair.

My second distinct memory of Goose Day took place at the church in my town that my neighbor attended. Basically, Goose Day is celebrated by churches and firehalls hosting huge dinner buffet style. There is essentially a Thanksgiving meal, with goose as the meat instead of turkey. I got all my food and my family sat down to eat. I had a weird piece of meat that my dad said must be the goose liver. I tried it. And immediately threw up. At least I made it to the bathroom this time. Honestly, I have not eaten liver since. I have eaten goose, because it's pretty good. Think duckchicken.

Since then, I have only celebrated Goose Day a handful of times, although my family and friends go every year. I guess living in a place that doesn't believe in holidays that no one else anywhere celebrates, dictates that I have no time in my schedule for Goose Day. However, depending on how the year goes, I might have to eat goose in about 362 days.

OMG - Stickers!!!

Revertigo: (n.) psychological term referring to when one reverts back to childhood when in certain situations or around certain people

I get revertigo SO bad when it comes to stickers. Looovvvvvveeeeeeee stickers. A lot. So when 2b1b writer, Meghan McBlogger, offered stickers and a handwritten note for voting for her as best blog/most funniest ever blog, I totally voted, and was really excited for the stickers. [Her blog actually deserves these awards also in my humble opinion, which laughs out loud in class quite frequently.]

So the other night after yet another 10 1/2 hour shift at the ghetto-fab bar, dealing with obnoxious people groping, yelling, spilling, and puking, I come home to find a small envelope addressed to me! [Revertigo also hits me a little when I get a piece of mail from someone. I still have every single birthday/Christmas card ever sent to me. Don't believe me? Look in a drawer in Hickville and on my bookshelf in Philly.]

In the envelope were stickers and a note!!! FIVE stickers and a note. This is like getting something from a celebrity, only one with a brain and no paparazzi (yet). So, into revertigo I go, and start giggling as I read the note three times.

And here is what my celebrity wrote:

Dear Andrea:

Thank you so much for reading & voting for my blog! You're from Philly! Lucky! I'm newly entranced by Philadelphia. I went to visit ex co-blogger Eddie for the first time this year & it turns out it isn't as scary as Will Smith had me believe. I want to go on a ghost tour of Philly next 4th of July...so there's that. Welp! Thanks again for your support!

Love,
Meg

OMG! Squealing with delight, I quickly whipped out a blank sheet of paper and a pen to write to Srav and wrote her a letter that was dripping with little girlishness. I even wrote the letter in pink.

If I could respond to Meg, this is what I would write back.

Dear Meg,

Philly is filthy, but I love it here. Will Smith actually portrays West Philly pretty accurately as people get shot about 1 time every six months outside my house. But most of the time, people are just crazy. [I love that you used the word 'welp' cuz I use that word all the time too! OMG, we're like twins LOL.] I've heard the ghost tours are okay, but way better if you are drunk, and speaking German. And then you get kicked out. Yes, this really happened. Visit the State Penitentary thing, that's scarier. And I know someone who got married there. Now that you are convinced I'm crazy, I'd like to thank you for the stickers and revertigo that seems to affect my writing skill.

Love,
Andrea

P.S. You have great handwriting. I judge people on handwriting.

So, anyway Meg, I'm not really crazy, just really into stickers. Right now, there is a letter for Srav sitting on my desk from 2b1b, waiting to be mailed. I had no idea that she was also getting stickers, so now she'll have seven instead of five. I really wanna open the letter. But I'm resisting. But I really really want to.

Don't use the word revertigo ever in real life. Someone who writes "How I Met Your Mother" made it up and you'll look like a fool.

Hickville Area Code

I've spent a lot of time researching this. This being what kind of people live in my town. Some are rednecks for sure. Others may be hicks. Some are just people who like living slow. However, I cannot figure out what category "Mom" belongs in. I can however paint a pretty accurate picture of "Mom's" situation.

Who is "Mom"? Good question, one that I have no answer for.

To me, "Mom" is this woman with a crackling "I've been smoking since I was in the womb, and drinking for even longer" voice who has left me two voicemails. The first one I checked at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. I was laying in my bed, hazy from just being woken up by my rambunctious roommates, after a horrible night working at a ridiculously ghetto-fab bar.

SceneIt!

Me: "Oh Gosh, I have 7 texts and 1 voicemail, I should listen."

Roommates: "And blah that blah this blah..."

Voicemail: "This is your mother. You're brother's in jail and I'm just calling you to let you know. Can you call me back. But my cell phone is almost outta minutes so call the house. CALL THE HOUSE."

Me: "Guys, this is NOT my mom."

Roommates: "Whaddya mean?"

**Commence re-listening of voicemail on speaker**

Roommates: "You're mom sounds like a crack-whore from Brooklyn!"

Me: "But it's NOT my MOM!"

What is the protocol for mis-left voicemails? It's not like snail-mail that you either "return to sender" or drop in another person's door-slat. So I did what fit my schedule and phone-shy demeanor best. I ignored it.

Tuesday, I get a missed call in class. And a voicemail. From my hometown area code. After class, I happened to be walking with a roommate to the library and checking my voicemail.

Voicemail: "This is your mom again. Your brother's still in jail will you PLEASE call me back."

Me: "Wtf. What now?"

Roommate: "Call her back."

So I called, explained to the woman I wasn't her daughter. "Well this is the number she gave my mother!" WHOA, STOP! To the normal person (i.e. not from Hickville) this means nothing. To me, this gives the me exact situation going on in some little-teeney-weeney-town somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania.

There's a Grandma (probably Gram or Mimi or Mama), a mother, a daughter, and a son. The son is in jail and the daughter is estranged (probably because of pregnancy). The daughter still talks to the Grandma, who gave the Mom a number to call, but gave her a FAKE number on request of the daughter. The son has been chillin' in jail for 3 days and the only one with enough money to bail him out is the estranged daughter who needs the money to feed her new baby and couldn't really give a flying rat's ass about her dumbass brother who got caught selling drugs again.

Well, I told the Mom good luck and to stop calling. All in a tone that clearly relayed that I knew exactly what was going on without even knowing the family name. Honestly, had she told me her last name, I probably could've given her a phone number.

Gotta love Central PA!

I finally found...

...Christmas in July! Happy 4th everyone, from Syracuse, NY, where I almost needed a winter jacket to go outside this morning.

Sadly, I am not in Philly, stalking the 2birds1blog writer Meghan who is around the Art Museum, not so far from my house. It would be even better if Srav and I were BOTH there, holding an obnoxious sign and scaring little kids trying to find the person who makes us laugh on a regular basis. She's kinda like a celebrity, I don't even know what I'd be able to say to her if I did meet her. (Srav - we will have to work on that.) If you don't know who I'm talking about (lame) look to the right and click on the 2birds1blog link. I promise at least snickers, if not downright laughter, will come from your unsuspecting mouth.

Today, I was driving back to my brother's house from a farm where my father, mother, and I all picked strawberries and raspberries. The GPS, (which my dad has dubbed Gerty, and my mom calls Mable) was guiding us home. The following happened:

Mom: "Andrea, TURN HERE!"

Andrea: *Slams on brakes and SCREEECHHHH*

Andrea: "I don't think this is it."
Dad: "No Jane, it's the next one. See, I can read the GPS."

Mom (to Dad): "Well, why don't I just let you drive!"

Dad: "Why don't you just let Gerty drive!"

Andrea: "I'm pretty sure I'm driving here."

And, that is my family. Anecdote after anecdote.

Thanks to Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and a few others for the rights to right this blog post. Happy 4th of July!!!

Why Goodwill is Good for Mankind

Today I worked at Burger King, figuring I'd write the post after something ridiculous happened. Much to my surprise, I found out a tidbit before I got to work that I figured was blog worthy. I went to Goodwill to get my dad a $20 gift certificate. (Okay, it turned out to be a shitty gift, but I only had $20 and he loves the Goodwill so I figured it would work out).

I met my friend's mom (Patti) in there, who gave me a hug and was like "sorry you saw me in my underwear the other day" and then asked what I was doing there. I told her I wanted a gift certificate and she disappeared into the back to get me one. This left me unoccupied for about 5 minutes. The first two minutes, I was people watching. Then I got caught. So I started to look around instead.

Sitting there on the shelf before me was none other than about 6 pregnancy tests. My brain said to me "Andrea, who on EARTH would buy a pregnancy test from the Goodwill, in essence a second hand store?" Then my eyes spied about 10 more on the eye-level shelf. As I was chuckling to myself, 3 trailer trash girls walked by, 2 obviously pregnant. As the 2 obviously pregnant ones walked in front of me, the third walked slightly behind and slyly grabbed a test off the shelf and headed towards the bathroom...I guess no one buys them...

In my utter disbelief of this town that I've been stuck in, my eyes traveled downwards towards a cardboard box occupying the bottom shelf. Inside I spied Maxim ribbed condoms. Right, like anyone in this town needs Maxim.

Now, my advice to the Goodwill is this. Put the condoms on the eye-level shelf, and leave the pregnancy tests on the bottom. In this town, its like 1 out of 3 girls is pregnant, and 1 out of 2 of those are unwed, uneducated, and poor. Condoms first, then the tests will be unnecessary, as long as the condoms aren't second hand.

Garfield and my logic

So I journeyed home to Central Pennsylvania, which could be an entire blog post in-and-of itself. Central PA and Philadelphia are like apples and potatoes - the only thing they have in common is the state in which they reside (that would be the round state).

It was a Sunday night, and since I will not be around next week for church, I decided to accompany my mother to the evening service - officiated by my father.

I have ADHD (read "short attention span") and consequently cannot sit through even movies anymore. I usually watch them in shifts. This is also one of the reasons I skip class fairly often (can't pay attention anyway so what's the point). ADHD combined with my lovely hobby of watching people is great for church.

Pondering the elderly people that I have gone to church with forever, I wondered if I was just sitting around people who had always had big ears, or whether your ears grow like saggy or something when you get older.

Well, Garfield gave me my answer this morning:

I just want to say I LOVE old people, big ears and all! This was honestly just an intelligent theory, not a "LETS MAKE FUN OF ALL OLD PEOPLE" cuz I beat up the people that are all like "LETS MAKE FUN OF ALL OLD PEOPLE"!

the things that happen in central pa

So, today I'm home. A couple of things happen at my house that probably don't happen anywhere else with any regularity. First, I came home late last night and the door was unlocked. But, no biggie, because no one's gonna break in, and if anyone did try to break in, they wouldn't be smart enough to check the front door!
Second, I'm making pancakes today and the phone rings about 6 times (no lie). Three of the phone calls has to do with this lady in our church who will probably die today. (Take a moment of silence.) Anyway, this is pretty funny because it happens all the time. I think we get more phone calls about people leaving this world than some morticians do! And my dad doesn't have a cell phone, so he can't be reached. I'm pretty sure (actually positive) that this is by design so he can't be reached unless he's at the church or here at home. My daddy's smart!
Third, I was reading the newspaper from yesterday (because who knows where today's went). We have this section called "The Open Line" where people can call in and have their opinions posted. It is by far the biggest attraction for stupid people that I know of. I laugh at a lot of them, but sometimes I lose my faith in human intelligence. For example: this guy called in about how its not fair that most gas stations in the area are putting ethanol in with the gas - OMG UP TO 10%!!!!! And how since they're using corn, it's making food prices higher.
Excuse me moron, listen up. First of all, they grow special corn for ethanol, and they pay farmers to do it, and its not corn that is supposed to be eaten by the general public. Second, food prices are going up because food has to be shipped to the grocery store. Hmmm, how do they ship it? Well, they sure as hell don't have a pneumatic tube system under all the grocery stores from all the factories, farms, and OTHER COUNTRIES. I guess they must use gas and trucks and planes and oil to ship it. Maybe that's why the prices are going up! Not to mention the overpopulation and stuff going on.

Okay, enough of a rant. I'm sure I could come up with about 930820347 other unique things that happen, and maybe I will tomorrow. But for now, get back to doing important things with your time!

P.S. My brothers on this webpage in the picture!
http://lewistownsentinel.com/