anne's chit chat

Arriving early to Ames I decide to surprise Jake on campus after his class. Walking over from his apartment I asked the first person I saw for directions.

She had red hair like Anne Shirley (from Anne of Green Gables) and it looked like she might have just started a jog but was not out of breath yet…I go ahead and ask her:

“Do you know where Howe Hall is…?”

Oh, no I don’t (total devastation). But I have a map in my shoe!!

She quickly bends down, takes off her shoe and pulls out her Iowa State University campus map, which was folded neatly to fit into her shoe.

“Oh great (smile on my face)! So are you new?”

Yeah. Are you?

She asked this with such desperation in her voice.

I wanted so badly to say yes, that I was…because in reality I am. My move to Ames is new for me just like her, I am nervous and excited just like her…but instead I say, “No, sorry, I’m not. But, hey how is your first week going?”

Oh, it is going okay. It is a little overwhelming. I have this Human Development class and there are so many statistics and sometimes it just gets to be too much…

“Yeah, I know how that goes.”

As we both study the map I notice her orange highlighted routes.

She points ahead and says, You should run into if you go that way.

“Great! Thanks so much! And have a great year!”

She smiles and bends over with her map folded ready to stuff back into her shoe.

Okay, here is the bear! I know that it looks small…but sometimes photos do not do reality justice. At the time it felt close, scary, but also beautiful. To be honest, I just wanted to watch it and not scare it away.

Jakes foot (size 13) compared to the foot of the bear.

Isn’t our world beautiful? This view is from the top of a mountain in Alaska, taken last summer.

Ben and I are making dinner; we had hiked up the mountain all day and were starving. I insisted we bring cheese and summer sausage and mix it together with some hot noodles. Because I knew it would taste so good; and it was delicious.

We saw a bear an hour later. Jake and Ben yelled for it to go away but not before I took a picture.

This is my table in my apartment. It used to be in my parents house and I grew up eating breakfast at it with my brother every morning before school. He usually ate Frosted Flakes. That is my iBook that I use everyday to check E-mail, blog and upload pictures. That black cord hooks up to my camera and computer and transfers the photos into iPhoto for me. Nice and easy. The flowers in the bowls are from Amanda, she brought them for me Tuesday when I had knitting club at my place. They are from the organic farm that I visited. Those are my keys. That little silver pocket knife is from Jakes friend Brain, it has Jakes initials on it. The red leash is only there because my dog slept over. My cell phone has a camera on it. I just brought that note pad from Mankato…it has my to-do lists in it right now. Those three jars on the window sill are filled with sand from Red Rock in Nevada. Jake and Ben climbed there this spring. I have tea light candles in the jars also. The rocking chair is from a woman in my apartment building whose name is Honey. She is a sweet sweet friend and one day she asked me if I wanted it, she told me it was the first piece of furniture she ever bought for herself. And now I have it. My friends love to sit there when they visit. The rug is from IKEA. The plants are from Amanda, she really has a gift for growing and somehow I have been able to keep them alive for over a year. I bought that little TV to fit in my little apartment. For some reason it takes eleven seconds to turn on. The CD that is laying on top of my “CD case” is Romantica, Luke is the bass player and is Paige’s husband. They play music wonderfully. The picture frame on the shelf has a little print that I bought on the Saint Charles Bridge in Prague. There is a hand blown pitcher right below that I found at an estate sale. From the window at left I get five bars of Internet for free. At the other window my neighbor caught me stealing his Internet!

I had three visitors today. One is sleeping over.

We walked to W.A. Frost for dinner just a few blocks away. We sat outside. My Dad was really hungry and thought his food was delicious (and my Mom’s soup). Deciding against dessert at the restaurant we headed back to my apartment. I cut up the peach my Mom brought and scooped the vanilla ice cream. I took them up to the roof and I snapped a few photos. We admired my herbs and decided my basil looks amazing. My Dad then watched The Andy Griffith Show while my Mom and I rested on the bed. Then they said good-bye and it was just me and my dog, Patches.

I can only imagine what she is thinking. Where am I? Why do I not recognize anything? Why is there no room in here to walk around and sniff? I want to go home now.

Random thought….Dogs and babies can be so mesmerizing. Have you ever noticed this before—you are with a group of people and no eyes can avert the constant entertainment of these foreign creatures(?)

For the past half hour I watched her in my apartment. She walks from my rug to my kitchen…it only takes her a second to sniff the refridgerator, the stove, and then the wall…then she goes to her water dish, her food dish, then back to the rug…Oh, look there she goes into my tiny bathroom…then to my closet…then back to my rug…around to the VCR, then she licks my foot…then back to the kitchen. REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT

Even though she is probably going to wake me up at 2 am to go outside, I don’t even care. I love her so much that I just watched her eat.