"That's my favorite name. If I ever catch me that chipmunk, that's what he's gonna be--Buddy the chipmunk."

I'm in such a pleasant mood tonight. There's just a lot to be pleased about. That's why I chose a goofy picture for this blog. Check this out: Tonight I finished writing 2 songs that have just been sorting sitting around in the realms of my creativity. I finished making another CD for Beckah, which I'm really excited about...I'm listening to it right now and what joy it is bringing me. Growing ever closer is the family trip to Utah and seeing my family. There's no truck tomorrow, which is especially nice because we worked our bums off today on the TWO trucks we had. AND while at work today, who should I run into but JD Taylor! He and Roger were in town grabbing some supplies for a camping trip, so I got to chat with them a little. I was on the clock, so I couldn't talk long, but though the visit was short, it totally made my day and even gave me enough cheerfulness to work with Marc for at least twenty minutes without getting irritated with him.
Poor Marc. I have so little patience for him. He's one of the only reasons I don't like work. I realized something about work today. Our boss, Vince, is a really goofy guy, and he has nicknames for everyone. Check this out, I, "This One" or "Ma'am" or "Muscles," work with:

That One/Amy
Yahoo
Locust/The Ox
Carlile Jo
ColorOx/PeePee
Zachari
My Favorite Employee
Terradactyl Tim/TimMEE
and
Dougy-Poo

Actual names are, respectively:

Annie
Nate
Luke
Carlie
Marc
Zach
Robin
Tim
and
Doug

What a weird boss. I think he's an alcoholic actually. He also has very child-like mannerisms, which are hilarious to me. As much as it's the hardest physical work, unloading truck is one of my favorite parts of the day. It's the only time when the whole team is altogether, we don't have to worry about customers, ICS just all got back from lunch, and 4-to-1 just got there. It's a recipe for chaos. Usually, any combination of the following ensues: Yelling, singing, insult wars, quoting movies and/or comedians, and what has come to be known as "Male Affection."
As there are 12 guys on the team and 3 girls, the insults invariably include accusations of homosexuality. Our boss Vince, retorts these with comments like "That's right, Zach. You just keep wearing them tight shirts to work, and I won't complain!" or "The girls on the team bug you, don't they, Buck? Before, you had me all to yourself." Days when words like these fly are now called "Male Affection Days."
It occurs to me occasionally that more than half of what is said in that backroom could legally be considered harrassment. I'm never uncomfortable, though, and if I was I know I could tell Vince and he'd shut someone up. Or shut up himself. He's made a good effort and came up to each of us individually on separate occasions and asked us if we've ever been offended. He told us that if we ever are, to tell him. Good guy.
The other new game at work is "The Terradactyl." Listen to this; my respect for Tim Williams quadrupled when I heard this. One day while doing truck, Tim yelled some insult in this really weird voice and Annie said "What the terradactyl?" and laughed. Then Tim turned around and did one of the best dinosaur impressions I've ever seen/heard in my life. It turns out he's had lots of practice...in high school, he and his best friend would go to public places like Wal*mart and jump out like dinosaurs at people! Those of you who know me know about what I call "The Raptor." Just imagine my joy when I heard that someone else has an inner dinosaur! It's too bad my soulmate is a non-member, has several earrings, smokes Marlboros, is happily married, and has one of the coolest kids ever. His new favorite game is to sneak up on me and/or Annie while we're stocking shelves and do "The Terradactyl." Which always results in us jumping about 4 feet in the air, and then falling on the floor laughing. What fun.
In closing, I would like to announce that I've come to realize my great love of dinosaurs. They're so cool. I think I've always been interested in them, I just never really knew it for the first 2 decades of my life.

PS: Wow, I talked a lot about work in this blog. It's a happenin' place, that Wally-mart. I can't decide which is sadder, the fact that I'll have to leave eventually, or the fact that I'm sad about leaving.

"There's someting on your chin, John." "It is only love for you that sits on the manly chin of Don Juan de Marco, Miss No-Name Actress."

*See note at bottom about this picture

I have a feeling that this entry will be a sort of mental purge. I've got all sorts of ideas swimming around in my head at the moment, but no particular direction in which they all seem to be flowing. And so, I purge. Here goes.
I am startled to admit that I think I'm being taken in by a man who has so far gathered girls by the thousands. I was an active resistance force against the "Johnny Depp is an Attractive Man Movement," but I'm slowly starting to relinquish my position. I apologize to those whom I swore I'd be loyal, but let me explain my position.
I did not and last I checked still do not find "captain Jack Sparrow" attractive at all. However, I started to find Mr. Depp slightly attractive in (creepy enough) "Secret Window." Having watched several of his movies in the last year or so, I am discovering that my feeling for Mr. Depp are thus: If I were to just see him walking down the street, or just glance at a picture of him somewhere, my heart-rate would remain completely normal and I would not be attracted at all. HOWEVER, my being such a lover of theatre and acting, the simple fact that I've never once been unimpressed with a performance of his makes me respect him a great deal. I've always held that he's a fabulous actor, and I'd love to work with him one day. But now, I wonder if I'd like to kiss him one day.
I think "Don Juan de Marco" has something to do with all this. I watched that particular movie last night, starring Mr. Johnny Depp himself, and loved it. There were several instances of fornication (as is unavoidable with "Don Juan"), but they weren't all that explicit, and the whole movie makes fun of quintessential romance movies and novels. Very dry, satirical humor...just my type. The only confusing part is that I've always found the quintessential romantic man somewhat repulsive. I despise the long hair, the open shirt, the white horse. Perhaps it's because all of it was done in parody, but for some reason, "Don Juan" seems to be the turning point for me. In short, I suppose I feel like the movie's Donna Julia..."I never will consent"......"I never will consent"....."I never will consent".....But somehow she managed to consent.
On a similar topic, have you ever been channel-flipping and found yourself watching the shopping channel for like, 15 minutes, before realizing it? That's when you sort of shake your head and say "What am I doing?" and then try to find the history channel to make up for your moment of weakness. For some reason, that happens to me all the time. At least once every time I decide to watch TV. I've developed a theory to explain this phenomenon...listen and tell me if you think it'll hold water.
Scientists have proven that on average, while watching TV, your brain is closer to being dead than it is when you sleep. The exceptions are of course, in some shows that can be found on the discovery channel, the history channel, etc. So here's what I think. While flipping channels, your brain is still somewhat engaged. But as soon as it is exposed to something like to home-shopping network, it is immediately thrown into a comatose state. During the few minutes that follow, your brain is so disengaged, that you temporarily lose your ability to make sound judgement and act accordingly. Then, as your brain can't handle being inactive for that long, you sort of come to and realize what you're watching and are able once again to make rational decisions. It makes sense to me.
In closing, kudos to Isha for getting the riddle right! Have you heard it before? I hadn't, and it took me about half an hour to figure it out, but it's a rather good one.

*Note about picture: I decided to add my own captions to the photo--make it more meaningful. But I'd like you all to know that the site that I got this photo from was RIDICULOUS. It actually made me laugh out loud to see how many freakin' photos of Johnny Depp there were on that freakin' site! There were 11 pages of thumbnails of him from this movie alone. If you printed them all out and stapled them together, you could practically watch the whole movie in flip-book format. It would lose a lot of its glory that way, but that must have been the ultimate goal of the person who created the site. I may have crossed over to the Depp Side but I will never be that entrenched! I pity the fool who is.

Well, which one am I, a pansy-chicken or a chicken-pansy?

Hello all! A little casual rule-breaking for the purposes of photographic um, -ness. In this picture. So you know what I'm talking about.
Anyway. Today's been an awesome day. I got to go to church this morning, and work went well, and the weather's currently exactly what it should be for a mid-summer evening. Sacrament meeting was especially great...there were some really good thoughts in the talks and stuff. Plus, I watched and listened from an unusual standpoint. Check this out. After the sacrament was passed I got my journal out to write a little and take notes and stuff, but I got really fidgety, as I almost invariably do in sacrament meeting. I really wanted to keep listening, but I didn't want to be distracting. We have church in the Snow drama theatre, which is really cool. So finally, I got up to find someplace where I didn't have to sit so still but where I could also be uplifted by sacrament meeting. In my exploring, I found that by some small miracle, the door to one of the tech booths was OPEN. Journal in hand, I prepared to listen. Unfortuntely I could barely hear. Then, in my glancing around the room, I noticed the thin rickety ladder to the catwalks. Luck had been with me thus far, and as I held my breath and looked up to see if the trap-door was unlocked, I was delighted to find that not only was it unlocked, it was OPEN! It's really hard to climb a ladder like that and crawl through a trap door while holding a journal AND wearing church clothes. But it was totally worth it! I watched and listened to sacrament meeting from the catwalks! Singing hymns from up there was the coolest...with everyone else's voices coming from below. I also felt kind of phantom-ish...I didn't want anyone to see me, and the bishopric and high council were sitting on the stage facing me directly, so I had to be sort of sneaky. I didn't want to get in trouble or be distracting. It was so awesome though! I think I want to do that more often.
Fortunately, although I had a better view, I failed to notice the speaker on the stand who apparently spent the entire meeting after his talk picking his nose. And eating his discoveries. That just blows my mind. This is an RM. A college student. Sitting on the stand and facing the entire ward. With a member of the high council sitting next to him. That is absolutely repulsive, if you ask me. And apparently it happens more often than I thought. It recently drew the attention of one BYU-I student, who went so far as to write in to the Scroll about it.
Today while unloading the truck, we spent the time answering riddles...which was fun, forced us to use our brains and our bodies at the same time, made work go faster, and gave me the opportunity to whisper in Zach's ear, which suits me fine, as Zach looks somewhat like Brad Pitt and James Dean combined, except shorter and Mormon and with really nice pecs. But I digress...

...............

.......What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, pecs. I mean riddles.
Anyway, in closing, see if you can figure this one out:

"The man who made me doesn't need me,
The man who bought me doesn't want me,
and the man who used me didn't know he did.
What am I?"

"Elder Bingham Takes a Tumble"

Here it is, straight from the mouth of that crrrazy missionary of ours, Elder Jason "Space-Station" Cramer, the diverting anecdote of Elder B! The following is an exerpt from his last letter. Annie collapsed in laughter when she read it, and the rest of us weren't very far from doing the same.

"My companion is named Elder B. Elder B. wears full body pajamas to bed...we are in Brazil, mind you...he is a pretty goofy kid from a farming town in Idaho, pop. 213 (approx.) I have come to find out that Elder B. is an extremely deep sleeper. The following story is one of many instances. One night I waited for Elder B. to fall asleep and then crawled under his bed. I took a sandal and hit him with it and then rolled back under his bed. He came out of dreamworld--sort of--and for some reason noticed that the shoes so neatly placed at the side of the bed had been moved. So he reached down and to his surprise he found a body--mine! "Who is down there?" he exclaimed. I rolled to the other side and he reached down that way too. After playing "tag" I slipped out from under his bed. Well, he put his hand/arm under the bed and could not feel anything. By this time I was already back in my own bed. Elder Bingham reached under his bed...his arm went further and further and further. Then Elder B. fell forth from from his bed to the ground and finally woke up a little more--but not all the way. Elder B. then put his head under his bed and soon half of his whole body--his legs were poking out and flopping around. Next thing I noticed--his legs stopped moving--Elder Bingham fell asleep again.
By the way, Elder Bingham remembers nothing."

Super guy, that Elder Cramer. =)

Something important I'd like to say

No picture for this entry, everyone...the subject matter is more serious and I couldn't find a picture that reflected that.
I just wanted to tell you all how much I love and appreciate you. It's sounds cheesy, I know, but I am constantly astounded by the wonderful people in my life.
With this in mind, I feel like I've been a jerk lately. I don't really know how to describe why...it's just sort of this feeling I've had for the last while. I feel like I could be a better friend, like I could be more considerate of others, and like I could work harder at keeping in touch with people and making sure they know I love to be around them and miss them when they're not with me.
I feel like I've sort of lost touch with myself. Now, I'm not sure how this works, but I know there's a scripture that says something about it, that you find yourself when you lose yourself in the service of others. That's never made logical sense to me, but I'm realizing it's very true. It follows that therefore the opposite is also true. When you find you're not serving others, you lose yourself.
Liz Whittaker--the true Liz Whittaker--has been somewhat dormant of late. It's been a rough summer, with work and financial trouble and all the other stuff going on. Those are the times when its hardest to be considerate of others and to serve them, but I find that it's when you need it the most.
I apologize to anyone who's felt that they've only been hanging near the edge of a friendship with me lately. I love you and I'm truly sorry. This would be a lot more meaningful if I knew how to spell the word "apologize," but I ask you to overlook this small detail and take my apology at its full value. It's times like these when I wish I could be more articulate with words alone.
The point is this...I care deeply for each and every one of you, and I feel I've acted in such a way that might have caused some of you to forget that or feel like it's not true. Well, it is true. I do love you, and value your friendship, and wish there was some way in the world I could have all of the people I've known in one place at the same time and spend the rest of my life in all of their company!
I'm giving each of you a nice big genuine hug over this blog (an "e-hug," not as satisfying as a real one, but it's the best I can manage at the moment) and I'm thinking of each of you and resolving here and now to be a better friend and person in general!

I'm not allowed to go bowling unless I take my medication.

Hi all! It feels like I haven't blogged in awhile, so let me give you a "turbo-update."

Things that make me happy nowadays:
1) "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the accompanying soundtrack. It was bound for greatness. Take a book by Roald Dahl, make it into a movie directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp, with music by Danny Elfman, and I don't see how you could go wrong.
2) "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." (Also see "Things that make me unhappy nowadays" below...) I finished it on Sunday night--technically Monday morning--at about 1am.
3) The fact that I just figured out tonight what makes my friend's roomate's appearance so odd. Jesse is blessed with some of the bizarrest roomates in the world. I stopped over there tonight and "Jon-Michelle Danielle Knickerbocker" (that's his whole name and he insists that everyone use it...it's pronounced as if you were french, even though the kid's from Idaho) answered the door. In his garments, which is really awkward. But that's what he gets answering the door and not looking who it is first. Anyway, he's always had this sort of strange look, and I've been trying to figure out why this whole summer. Tonight I finally realized...it's his EYEBROWS. They're a really weird shape. Kind of like a badly drawn-on drag-queen shape. And they never seem to move, which is even weirder to me. They also have this creepy "clean" look to them. Not clean as in "free of dirt" but clean as in "my name is Jon-Michelle and I wax my eyebrows" clean. What a strange person. I'm sure his eyebrows don't reflect much on his personality. I don't think.
4) Root beer floats.
5) Mail! We got another letter from Elder Jason Hal Cramer last night, and it was full of funny quotes and wonderful stories and in short, it was full of Jason. Please look forward to the story of "Elder B, the Heavy Sleeper" which I will include in my next blog. (Jesse has the letter right now and I want you to hear it in Jason's words, so it will have to wait.)
6) The crazy fun we had at work today. I didn't have to work with stupid annoying Marc for longer than an hour the whole day, and although we had 2 trucks today, it induced this sort of...insanity. Everyone relaxed around eachother, and any guards anyone had because they were unsure of finding their footing with other people just tumbled to the ground. The title of today's blog is one statement made today, along with "Hey, who's in the truck?" "You mommy's in the truck...NAKED!" A little crude, I know, but the girls are outnumbered 4 to 1 at work, so what can you do? Duff and Zach spent at least half an hour quoting "Remember the Titans" in exagerrated voices. It was...magical.
7) Looking forward to the upcoming family trip in August.
8) The picture for this blog.

Things that make me unhappy nowadays:
1) "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." I cried for the last hundred pages, and then after I was done, I curled up and bawled for another half an hour. That is the only non-scriptural book that has ever made me cry that much. Only those who have read all the books and finished this one may understand. I didn't want to say more, since the book is still new and unfinished to many.
2) Clothing. It's too hot.
3) Bugs. There are too many. And for the first time in years, they're biting me and my skin is not liking it!
4) Working the next two days without Annie.
5) The fact that I'm not married and having children. I'm addicted to them lately. Children, that is.

There you are! Please await the diverting tale of Jason and his companion in the Brazil MTC in the next entry!

The advantages of being a Wal*Mart Inventory Control Specialist

I would just like to announce that I, Liz Whittaker, on this day at approximately 11:04 am, held in my hands the book "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." I expected it to be really long, since each book in the series has gotten successively thicker, but it's actually only a little longer than book 3. All the better. I think I can finish it in a number of hours.
I don't think its quite the "Harry Potter" aspect that had me so excited. I think its more the novelty of handling something before the rest of the public gets to.
The books are locked up in the security room at Wal*mart, but this afternoon I found another box sitting in the warehouse, un-locked up. I couldn't help it. I got caught and yelled at by Bob, the somewhat creepy warehouse guy, but what would you have done?
It was worth it. The book begins "It was nearing midnight, and the Prime Minister was sitting in his office..."

Do you realize that you look like a MUPPET when you sing?

I would like all of you to notice the startling resemblence between this potato and the manatee in the picture behind it. Uncanny, isn't it? Although, I never noticed this today, but I think one of the funniest parts of this picture is the little phrase below the picture of the manatee...
Bizarre thing of the day: I've been on this crazy rap kick lately. Which is pretty weird; I don't normally like rap much. But I'm talking the good stuff...the classics and those that don't take themselves seriously. MC Hammer, Will Smith, and The Black-Eyed Peas. (Who are really funny, by the way.) I've also recently discovered this HILARIOUS "rap" group from London called "The Streets." They sort of try to rap, but they've all got these funny cockney accents, and they're lyrics are things like

"Oy, just as you started to make your big advance
With the milkshake and that little doughnut in hand
I was like nah, I can't, even though you look grand
But you look sharp there smilin hard suggesting and
Gleaming away with your hearty hearty lookin tan
But i admit the next bit was spanner to my plan
You walked towards my path but just brushed right past
And into the arms of that white shirted man"

Read that aloud in a cockney accent...it's fabulous. The only thing about them is they're really clean almost all the time--they even say "my gosh"--but every now and then, they drop the F-bomb, which is one swear word I really don't like. Lame-o.
Yesterday, I had a day off, as I do today also (yippee!), so my friends Sarah and Mike and I went on a D.I. run! It was kind of unsuccessful...partly because we spent a lot of time dodging Mike's CRAZY roomate who works there, but I did have some good luck in the books department. All it takes is the patience to look at every single title, then you can come away with "Out of the Ashes," "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "Peter Pan" (unabridged), "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," "Wuthering Heights,"
and "The Call of the Wild," all for $3 total. Glorious. I like books.
I think this blog will be short. I think I'm going to go think about the 6 pallets of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" that are sitting in the security room in the warehouse of the Rexburg Wal*mart. Whoppee!

War of the WINDOWS!

A little scripture chase in honor of the Sabbath tonight!
First of all, I totally got to go to church today! My sunday schedule has changed from 1 to 9, which is AWESOME. It also means I'm on the go ALL DAY. Church from 9 to noon, then work from 1 to 9...long day. But I digress.
So the apartments we currently live in have sort of a really stupid set-up. Our bedroom windows face boy's apartments kitchens. Which means if we forget to close the curtains, or want to leave them open to let the cool night air into our freakin' hot apartments, they can see right in. After several occasions of them seeing us in the underwear-ness and NOT AVERTING THEIR EYES, but instead grabbing their roomates to come look, we got fed up! Instead of yelling at them like we origonally were planning to, we decided on a more diplomatic, humorous, and more, well, MORMON approach. We found an appropraite scripture and put it up in our window to read. They replied with more scriptures, and thus began the war of the windows!
But I'd hate to ruin your fun, so you have to go look up these scriptures for yourself.
*If you are not LDS or do not have access to these scriptures, and also would like to know what these said, let me know and I'll tell you.*

The first scripture we put up was
D&C 42:23

The boys replied with
1 Tim. 2:11
and
Matt. 7:3

Which we, with our razor sharp wit and vicious rhetoric and seminary saavy-ness, replied to with
Prov. 31:20
followed by
Isa. 14:15

Have fun!

Today, on the Lizacommunicator, it's

RYAN and BRANT VS. !!!!!!!

That whole intro thing would probably be a lot more effective if I could have figured out how to get it horizontal. As it is, you all will have to pretend that it's just as dramatic vertical.
Furthermore, if you ever get the chance to hear Ryan and Brant themselves tag-team telling these stories, it's totally better. I'll try hard to do them justice.
Ryan's family owns Yellowstone's "Bear World," which is one of those places that's basically a wild North American petting zoo. They've got wolves, bears, elk, buffalo, etc. During high school and part of college, Brant and Ryan picked up a few extra dollars helping out with the various maintenance tasks necessary to keep the park up and running. These are their adventures.

BRANT AND THE BUFFALO
This isn't exactly a story, but those of you who know Brant know that he's a cat person. Which for some reason, I find really funny. But that's not the point. The point is that he's not a dog person. Nor is he a buffalo person.
It was one of Brant's responsibilities to feed the one buffalo that Bear World exhibits. Ryan and his family all showed somewhat Hagrid-esque affection for this particular buffalo, insisting that he wouldn't hurt a fly. It's true that when anyone else would drive the truck into the pen to feed it, he would hardly look up. But for some reason, that buffalo just had it in for Brant. Every single time, Brant would go to feed it, he'd end up trapped on top of his truck, the buffalo circling and starting to literally charge every time Brant showed signs of getting down. He'd invariably end up with his cell phone, sitting as still as possible on top of the truck, calling the house and telling them to get down there and rescue him. The first few times, they laughed at him and insisted that the buffalo was harmless, but after awhile they started believing him enough to send out a rescue party.

RYAN AND THE ELK
One afternoon, Brant and Ryan were told to go out into the park and "tag" the elk. That means they had to find each elk they had, attatch an ID tag to its ear, and get the heck out of there as fast as possible. The two of them climbed into to the truck and began what you can imagine was a long afternoon. Toward evening, they were completely exhausted and had had several close calls. Not to mention the fact that it was dead in the middle of a Rexburg summer, and they were in a truck with no A.C. Needless to say, both were a little impatient and somewhat short-tempered. They were down to the last few elusive elk, they found one of them in a clearing by itself. It was a baby, making a huge racket, most likely because its parental figure was nowhere to be seen. Ryan, his short temper making him somewhat reckless, jumped out of the car, grabbed the baby elk and roughly tagged it's ear. It soon made even more noise, as would any seemingly parentless baby elk who just had an ID tag stuck through its ear.
Let's pause and examine the situation. Anyone else probably would have just stormed back over to the truck and kept going. Not Ryan. He lost his temper. He firmly grasped the elk's mouth and nose, clamping them shut. Shaking the elk's head with his hands, he looked that baby elk in the eye, and said "Shutup, you stupid elk!"
Brant, watching from the truck, starts laughing hysterically. Until they hear a noise. The baby elk is no longer parentless. There at the end of the clearing, stands Mama Elk. Ryan let go of the baby elk's face and started sprinting toward the car, Mama Elk close on his heels. He just barely makes it, jumping into the truck and yelling "Let's go let's go let's go!" Meanwhile, Brant is trying desperately to both start the car and help Ryan roll up his window. (Which is not automatic, we're talking elbow grease.) Unfortunately, Brant forgot that his window was still down. Until an enormous elk head thrust itself into it and nearly bit Ryan's beautiful curly head off, reaching ACROSS Brant to do so. It pulled its head back out for a moment, and it was that moment and that moment alone that saved their lives. They managed to speed off and Ryan never again told an elk to shutup.

BRANT, RYAN, AND THE AFTERNOON OF THE SWANS
This story is interesting. If Brant isn't there, Ryan will tell the story in all of its drama and humor. If Ryan isn't there, Brant will tell the same story, but mention the fact that Ryan came along but did absolutely nothing to help.
They came home to Ryan's house one afternoon to find Ryan's mom in a right state. She explained that the two swans they kept in a secured pond had escaped and couldn't they please go out and get them and bring them safely back? Ryan and Brant of course agreed. They set out thinking it would be an easy task...that they could just sneak up on the swans, grab them by the neck and carry them back.
Apparently swans are extremely vicious.
Within the first hour or so of chasing, Ryan and Brant learned that swans can, in fact, punch people. The only way Brant could describe it is that they run at you with their little backwards elbow wing things sticking out and then whack you with them. Brant sustained several swan-wing injuries this way. After being chased around dry land for an hour or two, the swans decided to shake things up a bit by crossing the river behind the house. But Brant and Ryan were still somewhat undaunted; they hauled out two canoes and continued the chase! Apparently, Brant is neither a buffalo person nor a swan person, because his canoe was soon capsized by those chased-after swans. Don't ask me how. They somehow managed to actually tip Brant's canoe over. Keep in mind that Brant was a quarterback in high school and college football. Not one to give up easily, Brant wades through the river and attempts to corner the swans near land. He almost had them cornered, when they swam away and waddled up the bank on the other side...the side they had origonally come from in the first place. Brant, seething mad, covered in bruises, feathers, and swan poop, turns around to watch them. He also sees Ryan, sitting placidly in his unharmed canoe, perfectly clean and dry, watching him with an expression of mild amusement. Standing waist-deep in the river, Brant glares at Ryan, whose smile quickly fades. Through gritted teeth, Brant half-growls, half-whispers "GET YOUR HAT WET." Ryan timidly takes off his hat, swishes it around in the river a little bit, and puts it back on his head, his eyes never leaving Brant's livid face. Satisfied that Ryan is now somewhat wet, Brant looks back at the swans. He manages to look up just in time to see the gardener on the other side calmly pick both swans up by the neck in one smooth gesture; the very same gesture that Brant and Ryan had imagined they could use. After having a minor temper tantrum, Brant storms out of the water and grabs the swans from the gardener, and then stomps toward the house to return them to Ryan's mother. She sees him coming and rushes over, yelling "Omigosh! My swans! Oh, my babies are you okay?"
The worst part is that they were late for a rehearsal that night because of all that, and when they arrived and explained why they were late, everyone laughed. "You were attacked by SWANS?!" "That's awesome!" "I can't believe you guys were attacked by SWANS!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Brant said he and Ryan just glared at everyone and said "No. It's not funny."
But we all still laugh anyway.

Incomplete Top Ten Lists

My roomates and I have been working on several projects this summer. We currently have about 3 lists going...now the time has come for all of you to add to them! The first list is things that we've seen or heard that we want to put into a movie one day. The second list is of come-backs/comments that can be added to anything said. The third list is band names. Check it out, in reverse order:

BAND NAMES: (All of these were inspired by something in Wal*mart)
Cardboard Shark
Abrasive Angel
Muppet Dictionary
Impromptu Kibbles
Pastel Accordian
Eternal Rolodex
Erratic Snowcone
Plastic-Wire Predator

THINGS TO ADD TO ANY COMMENT/WHAT TO SAY AS A COMEBACK:
"Yeah, well, you were in his arms."
"Nude."
"My therapist said as much to my parents."
and my favorite thus far..."Rather like your last boyfriend."
(The last one was origonally inspired by the comment "This box of paper just exploded in my arms!" Now we find that's its a hilarious reply to almost any statement. "This snowcone tastes funny." "Rather like your last boyfriend." Try it!)

THINGS TO PUT INTO A MOVIE:
Your co-worker and his wife offer you a ride home from work. The wife says "Let me just clean out the back seat for you," and as she gathers an armful of stuff to put into the trunk, a bra falls out of the back seat and onto the pavement. (What does that say about YOUR love-life, eh, Tim? AWKWARD!)

A bunch of girls sitting in an apartment lamenting the fact that boys are both wonderful and evil and the following conversation takes place:
GIRL 1: They're like sweet and sour pork!
GIRL 2: Don't say THAT!
GIRL 3: Especially with the other connotations of the word "pork"!
GIRL 1: OK, maybe they're not.
GIRL 3: Besides, sweet and sour pork is all good. They're more like a delicious lasagna laced with poop.
The simile would be continued throughout the movie.

2 high school aged guys helping one of their parents re-capture their runaway swans...a simple task...oh no...(please await the full account of the adventures of Ryan Wood and Brant Wadsworth helping at Bear World)

A guy on a roadtrip hitting as many animals as is humanly possible against his will. The final climax is when he hits a duck. His friend in the front seat next to him is perfectly calm, yet firm, when they're about to get into a car accident, but when the car hits an animal, she screams and cries.

Kids playing with their hamster. And by playing, I mean waiting until their older brother or sister has friends over, then sneaking in with a big rubber yoga ball and dropping the hamster on it, thus launching it into unsuspecting laps and faces.

Contribute your own experiences and suggestions! If we could fit all of the movie ideas into one movie, it would be one of the funniest movies in the world to me.

Pardon me, one more thing...

Edited the links list...check it out. You all rock. I believe some Marshmallow Mateys would be in order for me now.

Marriage is the part of life that has more blessings, it's just noisier.

Congratulations to Jen and Jason, who were recently married for time and all eternity! Mazel tov to the happy couple--aren't they adorable?

JUST KIDDING! Sorry, Jen, I probably shouldn't have announced your marriage to the whole world wide web, especially since it didn't happen in reality AT ALL. However, a real sincere not-kidding-this-time congrats to Andy Donkin and Shilo don't-know-her-last-name-but-now-its-Donkin-anyway! They really were sealed for time and all eternity in the Portland Oregon Temple on July 3rd. "Comic Frenzy" is slowly shrinking in size. Unfortunately, there's no one to blame for this sad phenomenon because the reason people are leaving is because of marriage or graduation, neither of which are bad things. I shall miss the Andy element of "CF" though. Here, a short tribute to the Donkin-meister!

"Toothpaste--not just a paste for your teeth!"

"Don't talk to me that way! Cause my pelvis is a machine gun!"

"182 sporks walk into a bar. Bartender looks at them and says 'Forkin' spoons'!"

And one of my all-time favorite memories of Andy..."I have here Broulim's finest non-alcoholic wine..."

Pop-up Storybook will never be the same. But let's not play "Taps" about it or anything, the guy's MARRIED! Mazel tov!
I predict that there will be approximately 3 engagements within the theatre dept. of BYU-Idaho within this next school year. Between the few that seem pretty likely and the few that seem possible, I think 3 is a good number to guess. Let's see how accurate I am, eh?

Okay, now that the happiness has been blogged about, I've got to dash it all a little bit with this bit of tragic news. Sunday afternoon, my friend and roomate Ella tripped on the steps in church (some doofus turned the lights off--talk about a freak accident!) and severely broke her ankle. She was rushed to the E.R., had x-rays taken, and found out that surgery was needed to repair the damage they found and to find out if any more damage was caused that they couldn't detect. At about 4pm, she was wheeled in, and 3 hours later, came out with a steel plate and 8 screws in her foot. She was pretty drugged and her blood pressure had been pretty high during the surgery, so they kept her overnight, with a morphine drip and oxygen and hourly blood pressure tests and the whole works. We girls stayed with her almost the whole time. I got off of work at 6pm and went straight to the hospital, where we stayed pretty much until 7 the next morning. So yeah, I got about 3 hours of sleep on a hospital room floor that night. And then worked 8 hours the next day. If you are ever given the opportunity to do that, totally take it. (What?! Who said that?)
Anyway, there's that scoop, and though she REALLY doesn't want to, she's probably going to fly home to California for a week or two for the follow-up appointments and everything. Shmer. (That's the new word for...uhm...a whining noise. You say "shmer" instead of actually groaning or making a similar unhappy noise.)
Well, I should probably shower. If I want to get married myself someday, I've heard that good personal hygiene is usually a plus. Some days showering just seems like a waste of time, though, you know? Shmer on cleanliness.

Okay, duck-whisperer, listen up!

I've been feeling somewhat maternal the last few days, so I decided the picture for today would be of the last time I was a mother. This is me as Myrtle Web in BYU-Idaho's production of "Our Town" last April, with my children Emily (Melissa Wolf) and Wally (Sam somethin). Check out my wicked large wig. Anyway.
Happy Independence Day, everyone! And Happy Late Canada Day to all my pals up in Calgary! To celebrate the birth of the great U.S. of A. last night, a group of us hiked up a mountain butte thing and roasted marshmellows and lit sparklers and watched the fireworks over the whole valley. It was awesome, and since it was clear that night, you could see so many stars it made your head reel. It was also fun because I managed to make Brant laugh, along with everyone else, and I love making people laugh.
AND glory hallelujiah I have today and tomorrow off of work! Which is all the more fabulous 'cause it means the rest of the ICS crew can deal with the ridiculous amount of freight in Walmart. Over the course of 4 days, we usually get an average of 3,200 peices of freight...about 1,500 a day, give and take a few. Over the last 4 days, we have gotten 9,100 peices of freight. I left 10 minutes early yesterday, because by that time, Tim and Annie and I all said "All I know is that I have tomorrow off so I don't CARE what happens to all this crap it can burn to the ground at least then there'd be room to walk in the warehouse." And then we left. Thanks for the ride home, Rosa and Tim.
I was thinking the other day, as I sat on my bed and ate my blueberry and cream crepes, that the word "blueberry" is somewhat of a misnomer. Blueberries aren't BLUE. They're really quite purple. I thought to myself "These things should be called 'purpleberries'!" All at once I was paralyzed by the bizarre idea...what would the world be like if we had all grown up saying "purpleberry"? The word sounds slightly ridiculous, but if that's the only word we knew, we would probably think the word "blueberry" sounded dumb. But think about it! How would the world be different? It totally blew my mind and I sat and thought about for, like, 1/2 hour. When I told my friend Annie about the experience the next day, she just smiled at me and said "I don't think the world would be that different." I DISAGREE! Although, looking back and trying to expain my thought process makes me wonder about the purity of those blueberries.
Speaking of purity, I have recently developed a new love. I finally found a copy of the illusive album "Swagger" by the Irish group Flogging Molly. They are so rocksome! They do punked up covers of cool old Irish jigs and drinking songs. Can bands get much better than this? I submit that they canNOT!
Anyway, I love you all, and I totally forgot all the other stuff I was going to blog about. Jen, totally buy the t-shirt. And thanks for finding out about umbilical cords! Beckah and co. the Bay Area, hello and love you.
OH, I remembered the other thing I was going to blog about! My roomate and dear friend's SURGERY! But at the moment, my writing abilities have transformed into a desire to watch the movie "East of Eden," so that story will have to wait until the next blog.

"That doesn't say much for your love life now, does it?"

The above is a wonderful discovery of one of the coolest shirts ever! (Jen, I would like you to pay particular attention to the t-shirt in the top right-hand corner on that website...)
The above quote is something my friend Tim said to me at work today while we were stocking cleaning supplies. I was attempting to put the cap back on an aerosol can of Lysol, but because I am intelligent but not very coordinated, I was having a little difficulty. Everytime I tried to get the cap back on, it would spray everywhere. At one point, I didn't realize where the can was pointing and managed to spray some disinfectant into my mouth. So I'm coughing and spitting and laughing, and meanwhile my co-worker is just watching with amusement. The following is our conversation:

LIZ: GAH! *pphhttt*ppht* I got it in my MOUTH!

TIM: Well, your tongue is now disinfected.

LIZ: Yeah, it's now free of (reading Lysol can label) bacteria, viruses, mold and mildew.

TIM: Mold on your tongue? That doesn't say much for your love life now, does it?

At that point, I dropped the can of Lysol and just sat on the floor and laughed. At least my tongue has never been bruised.

So, we went and saw War of the Worlds tonight. We decided it should be a girls night out, but when we got there and got into the movie, we thought to ourselves "Why didn't we bring boys to cling to in the suspense?" In spite of the lack of boys, the movie was AWESOME. I loved it. It had its flaws, like any movie does, but given the fact that it was origonally a book, I thought it was adapted very well. I highly recommend it. Only make sure you bring a member of the opposite sex to cling to during suspenseful parts. Unless of course, you want an objective, non-distracted movie-viewing experience.
Anyway, not much to blog about this evening, so I leave you with this fine gem of knowledge and wisdom:

"Service is like peeing your pants...everyone else notices, but you're the only one who gets that warm feeling."