Pencils, Potatoes, and LauraK

I know...I KNOW! I'm a blog slacker. Totally.

Rest assured I haven't forgotten this here site and I continue to think of this lack of posting as a temporary condition. Also note that I regularly feel guilty (read: all the time) since I consider myself completely responsible for wasting 1.25 minutes of your day on at least a semi-regular basis.

I'm popping in today to award a long overdue Bizzyville super-snap to LauraK who, as if being Paducah PR maven, fashionista, Chamber events promoter/orchestrater, graphic designer, founding Get Together Gals partner, and now a movie star in her spare time isn't enough, actually managed to find the time to design the super-cool graphic you see above. I. Love. It.

Otherwise, work and school continue to combine to kick my ass. And, well, a girl's gotta have a social life, right? I keep having to take history classes and constantly find myself, like it or not, fighting the War of 1812. Let's just say I look forward to the day that that particular war can, once again, exist in the time-space continuum without me.

A far more interesting factoid in that vein: my history professor tells me that there were no potatoes in the eastern hemisphere before Columbus discovered (or invaded depending on your vantage point) America.

Think about it.

Russians? Potatoes? Vodka? Didn't happen until AFTER Columbus. Ireland? Potatoes? Not happening until Columbus.

I don't know about you, but this one shook me. If I'm honest, I'd have to say my preconceived notion would be that a recently evolved cavemen one day randomly wandered out of his cave and plucked a potato from the Siberian earth and let it ferment. Then maybe his mate having snatched a few moments from her "Quest for Fire" duties offered up a handful of fish roe and...ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing...Absolut, caviar and Russia. Sort of all in that order. And then, inspired by the vodka, they all broke into that Russian dance, you know, where they cross their arms over their chests and squat down and stand up and kick their legs out? Yah. Russia! Hey!

WRONG.

And Ireland without potatoes? Don't get me started.

And then there's...Algebra. Wa, wa, waaaaaa.

I got an email from a friend the other day kindly asking me how I was progressing with Algebra. My response: I bought a pencil. Yes, friends, I HAVE A PENCIL. So, at any moment, any old moment at all, I could start actually doing Algebra. With my pencil. And stuff. Could start. Doing. Algebra. With my pencil.

Recently, I learned that my Grandma on my Dad's side, otherwise known as Micro-Minnie the Pocket Grandma (she's tiny but mighty and could kick your ass, I assure you) will be celebrating her 90th birthday at a family get-together in southern Illinois. And at this get-together will be several ALGEBRA TEACHERS to whom I am related. Like, in one case, blood related. To a person with mad, serious algebra skillz.

So, maybe I'll bring my pencil and they can pray over me? Something.

Hey. It's a mechanical pencil. I'm not a complete loser.