mattress II

Oh restful sleep! I don't know if I''ve finally recovered from all the exercise i've put my body through since January, or if that new mattress really did make a difference, but for the first time in a while i've woken up without soreness in my muscles! I've always suspected that a lot of the hype around good mattresses helping you sleep better, being better for your back, etc. was pure marketing, but I might now be a believer!

mattress

So, this was my bed. Yes, those are springs on the bottom. I used to sleep on this bed when i visited my Grandma as a kid, which means it's at least as old as i am! it is no longer a nice bed. so for months i've been trying to talk myself into buying a new one. and do you know what the clencher was? I thought, "You know, Cinnamon and Chad bought a nice bed when they were dirt poor in college. Jared and Marie have a nice bed. heck, even Kara and Mike have a mattress they deemed nice enough to put in storage, and they live at an old rack quarry without electricity. Just because i'm single doesn't mean i have to sleep on a crappy bed!" so i bought one. It was delivered today. and now i'm looking around at the room i rent at all the temporary, college-like (cheap college-like) furniture. Until last week I had a folding table as a desk, a desk chair i inherited, my bed, and a futon. So I got rid of the futon. I borrowed Mike's real desk that doesn't fit in his studio apartment. The next thing to go, I think, will be the plastic nightstand (you can kind of see it in the photo). Maybe some decorations for the walls? With the mattress purchase, i can definitely no longer move with just my car, so i may as well go crazy. I don't know that i'm any more stable yet. I don't think I plan on being in South Bend for more than another year, but maybe if i make my bedroom a little less spartan i won't have to start from scratch when i do move. it's funny that marriage and children are kind of the stepping stones into adulthood, but if you don't hit those steps, or hit them later, adulthood still creeps up on you and eventually you have to do things like buy furniture, find a "real" job, etc. this is my new mattress. maybe a bed skirt should be added to my list... I'm going to enjoy sleeping tonight!!

I think I'm getting old. The "circle of life," if i can use a phrase that seems so trite, has never before seemed so real to me. Last week we found out that both Mike's sister and an exchange student who lived with my family a few years ago just got engaged. It seems like everyone we know is either getting married or having children. A lot of our classmates are getting married this summer, and i can name at least 3 people who have had their first child in the last month. And then last week my grandpa found out he has a brain tumor, and will likely die in the next couple months. Wow. What a surprise, and how helpless we all feel. And as hard as it is for us, I can only imagine what my poor grandma must be going through.

easy mac

In college I went through food phases, where i would eat the same thing at least 3 nights a week. There was the bean burrito phase, the fried rice phase, the ramulettes... I've recently restarted that tradition and my new food is Easy Macs. They're so easy, I don't know why everyone doesn't eat them! Like, every night! I even had to get a pan out for the bean burritos, but no more. Welcome to the life of a liberated woman of the 21st century!

Wal-Mart

These are the last two books i've completed. It amazes me, first of all, how huge Wal-Mart has become. Whether you shop there or not, a strong argument can be made that they have a huge affect on the world around you. Did you know that 100 million people in the US shop at Wal-Mart every week? That is over 1/3 of the US population!

The other thing that is incredible to me is how far the company has migrated from Mr. Sam's original vision. There is a part in the biography where Sam is talking about other retailers that have gone out of business since he started. he says, "It all boils down to not taking care of their customers, not minding their stores, not having folks in their stores with good attitudes, and that was because they never really even tried to take care of their own people."

Does this look like someone with a good attitude?

Seriously, i think the company today is completely different from the ideals Sam Walton imagined when he started. But I imagine he got caught up in the growth, and the obsessive dollar-saving and laid the foundation for what it is today. I've learned more about Wal-Mart in the last two months than i ever thought i would know.

And with that said, I've pretty much decided to stop shopping there. It doesn't have anything to do with the outsourcing of American jobs, or the treatment of its employees, or the detriment to the environment caused by a lot of their offshore suppliers. I'm a strong proponent of the free market, and i don't think there's any way to guarantee that the retailer you exchange them for is any better. I think it's strictly a matter of size. I don't think any one organization should be that powerful. And that's the egalitarian coming out...

Lonely

What do Akon, the little yellow cell phone bird and i all have in common?

Lonely.... I'm so lonely.....

I negotiated with my job to be able to work "remotely" one day a week. That's actually pretty typical for a consultant, so it didn't take much negotiating. Unfortunately, we end up with meetings every Friday, so i end up staying in South Bend anyway. The meeting got planned for tomorrow at about 4:00 today, so I'm a bit disappointed that i don't get to go west tonight :( If it the meeting weren't for my big project that's due next friday i might have said no!

Lonely....

By the way, Mike and I went to a Cake concert at ND this past fall and Akon was the opening act. We were standing by the aisle, and Akon touched my hand as he walked past. Pretty exciting. Just imagine how much more exciting it would have been if i had known who Akon was before the concert!

Tragedy

Those of you who know me well know that I love modern dance. As a spectator, it's probably my favorite art form. So imagine my excitement when I learned that the Martha Graham Dance Company was coming to little old South Bend! Martha Graham is one of the founders of the modern dance style, and her company is supposed to be one of the premiere groups in the country! She's also ranked by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most important people of the century! I convinced Mike to go with me (he's such a good sport), and bought the tickets weeks in advance - we were close to center in the eigth row! We were shopping that afternoon, and then went for dinner before the show. When we showed up at the Morris Center the first thing we noticed was the long line of girls at the concession stand. An amazing number of young girls - probably all aspiring dancers!
We went in, and found it a little odd that no one seemed too interested in taking our tickets, but remembering the popularity of the last modern dance concert that came to town didn't think anything of it. The show started about ten minutes late, so we had time to read the program and I was so excited that they were starting the show with some of Martha's famous solos, including Lamentation, which is pictured above. But when the curtain went up, it quickly became apparent that they were starting with the second half of the show. Weird.
Oh, agony! When they finished their dance, they did their bow, and it was obviously an end-of-performance bow, not a pre-intermission bow. It was only at this point that we realized...

Indiana and Chicago are not in the same time zone. Not this time of year, and now forevermore. Drat the time change!! We missed the first half of the performance :-( I was devastated - I think I could have done my own rendition of Lamentation! Maybe I did. . . Only Mike will ever know!!