how my botw could be considered inspiring

i've always wanted to dance, really dance, and 'dancing with the stars' just makes me want to all the more. every week i see these people who have no dancing experience dance beautifully and it makes me think there's hope for me yet. but all that would be true even if my botw was not around.

how maks inspires me, then, is not by making me want to dance by being all sexy when he dances, rather, he inspires me to work out. or at least he makes me think i would be inspired to work out if i had the video. or at least he makes me think i would be inspired to watch the video if i had it.

we'll see if any of those things are true, though, i guess. i'm now #53 on the waiting list at the library, so, with there being 5 copies, that means i should get it in about 4 months. then we'll see if he's inspiring.

sports injuries

my dad got hit in the kneecap with a softball the other day. i, on the other hand, have a sore wrist from reading too much.

i'm so grown up

i washed windows today

Concerning Tolkien (and the Fact That I'm Not a Geek)

According to T.A. Shippey (who wrote J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century), Tolkien believed "that a taste for philology, for history of language in all its forms, names and place-names included, is much more widespread in the population at large than educators and arbiters of taste like to think...what he felt, Tolkien said, was:

'grievance that certain professional persons should suppose their dullness and ignorance to be a human norm; and anger when they have sought to impose the limitation of their minds upon younger minds, disuading those with philological curiosity from their bent, encouraging those without this interest to believe that their lack marked them as minds of a superior order.'"

So basically, what Tolkien said was that I'm normal. Yet another reason for me to love him: he said I'm not a geek.

one of the most annoying things about dial-up (aside from the fact that it's slow)

is that i can't get videos. if i ever want to watch anything, i have to go to the library. how am i supposed to youtube maksim's mambo if i can't get videos?

my good news of last sat. that i keep forgetting to mention

i got books in the mail! that means i got books, and i got mail (a package no less!)! plus also, it was 6 books. plus also they were only $20 (including shipping). plus also, they're on tolkien. plus also they're mostly on tolkien and religion. it was such a happy day.

feeling good (i think)

yesterday morning i asked one of the residents how she was doing (actually it was the one who told me i could greet her on easter morning). she got a big grin on her face and said, 'woofy-woofy!' i said, 'you're doing woofy-woofy?' she said, 'yep! woofy-woofy!'

sad spring news

i just discovered that i'm allergic to daffodils

My Dancing BOTW

Well, Naveen has said that he wishes he was more like Sayid. That implies that he's not enough like Sayid. That implies that it's time to move on.

So, after seeing him in his WWII uniform last night, I simply had to choose

Maksim Chmerkovskiy

Actually, I very could've chosen him after his rumba, too. Wow. That was so way sexy. I'd go on, but yeah, this is a family friendly site. We'll just leave it at saying it was sexy.

Maks is a Latin Ballroom champion. He was born on January 17, 1980 in the Ukraine. He started dancing at age 4, but when he was 13 he was in a skiing accident that almost cost him his leg. But then he had all sorts of surgeries and therapy and a metal rod inserted in his leg and more therapy and then he was up walking and running and dancing again! Go him!

Shortly after that his family moved to Brooklyn to give him and his brother (who's also a dancer) a better life. They had some trouble adjusting, especially with the whole language thing, but they made it. And he still has that whole accent thing going on, which is cute. (I think that's the right word. I think that in his case it's more cute than sexy.)

Then Maks grew up to be one of the top dancers in the world. Then he started the Rising Stars Dance Academy, which is one of the best dance schools in the US. He also is a board member for the non-profit organization DanceTeamUSA, which promotes DanceSport for young people. Maks also has a production company, "Maksim Chmerkovskiy Productions," which organizes performances all over the world. Plus there's Dancing With the Stars. So basically, he's a very busy boy. But he'll find time for me. ;)

Let's see, what else is there about Maks...He seems fun. He works hard, but knows how to laugh, and obviously he's patient enough to teach. (So he can teach me!) He's 6'2" which is happy, and he has great body lines. When he dances he has great extension, and is super graceful, and all that.

Unfortunately, he's a professional dancer, which (until he teaches me) means that he'd be dancing with some other woman, which I wouldn't like. And it means he wears leotards on occasion. And it means that he's waxed more than I ever have. (But thankfully it doesn't mean he's gay - he's not.) And (not related to the dancing thing) his name is impossible to spell. Although that might not be so bad - it's better than having a boring last name.

Fortunately, though, he's a professional dancer, which means he can dance. That makes me happy. After all, he's my BOTW. That means I can rumba with him. ;)

what men should wear

last night on dancing with the stars, they did a group swing dance. everyone was dressed up all 40's-like, the guys in army uniforms, the girls in cute little navy-looking outfits. it was so fun! (check it out on youtube - 'dancing with the stars group.')

anyway... i would just like to take this opportunity to state that at some point in their lives, all men should be required to wear WWII army uniforms. they look so dreamy! woo-woo! :D

my boyfriend at the home

he said i was the reason he was smiling this morning :)

if you haven't read the comments on 'side note,' you should (although this post probably just pushed it back cuz it was toward the bottom - so you have to go to april and get it there)

sorry i've been gone so long. i didn't realize it had been so long! but i babysat thursday afternoon, friday night, and saturday night, so i had no time and then was wiped out by yesterday, so yeah - that's my excuse.

loaded questions

last tuesday (the night of the wii) i played loaded questions with some family people. one of the questions was 'if you were in a plane crash, who would you like to have sitting next to you?'

i said sayid. he would be a good one to have there if you survived. he knows a little of everything, and more than a little of some things. so yeah, he would be my choice. (plus he's sexy.)

melilot

according to the hobbit name generator, my name is melilot brandybuck, of buckland. i didn't realize until i was reading the book about tolkien and words that melilot is a plant. it makes perfect sense, seeing as most female hobbit names are flowers, but i had never heard of it before. so then i had to go to dictionary.com to find out about me. so...

melilot

n. Any of several Old World plants of the genus Melilotus in the pea family, having compound leaves with three leaflets and narrow racemes of small white or yellow flowers. Also called sweet clover.

so now i know. (oh, and i am so cool. while a lot of the hobbit names in the generator are not in either the hobbit or lotr, melilot brandybuck is. she dances on a table at bilbo's party in fotr. go me!)

having to do laundry

we had a pipe kinda burst today at my house. thankfully it burst all over the basement, nowhere else, but sadly that meant that it all landed on my large pile of clean clothes that i had sitting next to the dryer. the stack that i was gonna sort through tomorrow to decide what i want to keep and what i want to give to arc. so now, not only do i have to do the big project of sorting, i have to wash it all again. grr...

oh, and btw, whose stupid idea was it to make bottom sheets? what a stupid idea. then you have to fold them. they are obviously not essential to existence, cuz the people on lost don't have them, and they're more or less surviving (and if they're not surviving it has nothing to do with a lack of bottom sheets). i think i need to get stranded on a deserted jungle island with polar bears and monsters so i don't have to fold bottom sheets.

that last post was dedicated to chelleybutton :D

oh, but again i must say, the workout i would really like to do is thriller. they need to come out with that.

wii

i such want one. (well maybe not, but i want to hang out with someone who has one. if i had it it would just sit there all lonely cuz i would have no one to play it with me.)

last night my family got together at my aunt's house and my cousin brought his wii with him. i had never seen one in person, so when the guys went to play it i decided i should check it out. i knew it had bowling and tennis and stuff, but i didn't know it had boxing. coolest thing ever!!! i mean, how often do you hear a mom say all happy-like to her daughter, 'come here. we're gonna watch daddy beat up grandpa.'

finally the guys let us girls try it. first i got beat up by my uncle, but then i knocked out my cousin and my aunt. i wanted to beat up my other cousin, but when she came into the room she said it smelled like a men's locker room and she left. and of course, the one i really wanted to beat up was didder, but she had already gone home.

it was so stinkin' fun (literally aparently)! and quite a workout - i would be so in shape if i played more (my arms are still sore). i need to play again. the only thing missing was max commentating. that so woulda made me rush out and buy it.

i am the coolest babysitter ever

i let the kids get into the tub with their clothes on

i enjoy reading. i wish i wasn't so tired all the time cuz then i could do more of it. granted with being so tired my movie knowledge is skyrocketing, but i'd really rather be reading. books are my friends. (which, the cook would say, explains a lot.)

i am so the queen of not remembering what i was gonna say

Lost BOTW

Well, it's time my BOTW got Lost. Which, of course means that my new BOTW is...

Naveen Andrews

When Lost first started, Didder and I had two comments on it - hers being 'I like Sawyer,' and mine being 'Sayid is sexy.' While Lost has tons of hotties on it, Sayid was mine. He's strong and sensitive and smart and brave and skilled (and good guys with guns are sexy). Then all of a sudden there was hardly any Sayid on the show and I was all sad. :( Now he's back and that makes me happy. :)

But anyway...about Naveen. Naveen was born in London on January 17, 1969 (which makes him the glorious age of 38!) . He studied at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and when he was 16 created quite the scandal by moving in with his math teacher (with whom he had a son when he was 23). (That would be an unfortunately.)

In his 20s he was bad into drugs and alcohol and had to come to the States for rehab, but that's when he was finally able to get his foot in the door with acting. He did some movies (many of which I've never heard of), but then he got the role of Sayid on Lost, so now I know him! Also, last year I got to see him in Bride and Prejudice ('member that movie chelleybutton?:D ), in which he sang and danced and ohmigoodness if that's not one of the cheesiest movies ever. (But it's cute.) It was so fun/funny to see him in it.

In addition to singing and dancing, Naveen also plays the guitar, so he can serenade me with the guitar and then ask me to dance. And of course, he's from London, so he can do that with an accent. (Although hearing his real accent throws me off, cuz he's Iraqi on Lost. But accents are sexy.)

Unfortuantelies: he smokes, he's 5'8", he keeps living with these (much) older women (um...hello? what's wrong with us young'ens?), and he has a kid.

There's really not much info on this man. At least not that I can find. So if you girls (or boy apparently [hi Josh!]) want to look, you're more than welcome to contribute to my post! ;) And if you don't, that's ok. He's still my BOTW, cuz Sayid is sexy!

like right now - i have my next botw in mind, but they'll be here any minute so i don't have time for all the research that goes into botwing. so you'll have to wait in suspense.

rellies

my aunt and uncle from washington are staying with us for a week, so i don't know how much i'll be able to be online. hopefully enough, but in case i don't post anything for awhile again, that's why.

screens 2

but then there are the good kind of screens, like those japanese ones that stand in the corner of a room so you can have privacy when you change. i've always wanted one of those.

screens

i'm have today off and i'm spending it in front of the computer. then tonight i'll be spending it in front of the tv. hours in front of screens. that's so bad for me. oops.

the symphony

i was just looking at old posts and i saw my post from the lotr symphony and i couldn't help but wonder why i didn't talk to the guy next to me who was all alone and all nice-seeming. what's with that?

my class!

I got into my Tolkien class for this spring!

"Exploring Tolkien: There and Back Again
(Level 1) An online course which examines Tolkien's awareness of northern European mythologies and languages (as well as other aspects of his scholarly background, such as anthropology and archaeology) and how he used these creatively in his fiction, mainly in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.
Explore Tolkien's Middle-earth from your home, in your own time. Find out about the vast mythology behind The Lord of the Rings, gain a thorough knowledge of Tolkien's fiction and its creation, explore the northern European mythologies that inspired Tolkien's Middle-earth, learn about Tolkien's 'invented languages', their origins and sources, find out about the 'Races' and the Cultures of Middle-earth."

That's the description from the Tolkien Society website. The class syllabus is even more interesting. http://www.cf.ac.uk/learn/english/exploring_tolkien_units.php

I'm so excited! I start in 2 weeks, so then I can babble about it some more. But I got in! Now I get to study all about Tolkienness! He's my hero! I'm so excited!

side note

i'm so glad that all my little friends are becoming little friends. it's fun to see you girls talking with each other on my blog and visiting each other's blogs. yay for friends! :D

points to max!

on max's show, 'i, max,' he used to give himself points. if he thought he did a good job arguing a point against claymation guy, he would get a point. then at the end of the show, his producer, scary eyebrow guy, would decide if max won or not and would then read either his love mail or his hate mail accordingly. if it was love mail, max would be all happy, and if it was hate mail, max would say that either the writer person or scary eyebrow guy was wrong, and so he would win anyway. and then he would bounce all happy in his chair.

i've decided that i'm going to do the same thing. i like getting points. what a great way to make yourself feel good!

father/daughter bonding time

so my father and i went to a wild hockey game last week (wild is the team's name - it wasn't wild and crazy). of course, i picked the hottest player to be my boyfriend, cuz that's what i do. well, apparently a girl about my age a couple rows ahead of us, had the same boyfriend cuz she was wearing a shirt with his name on it. she was there with her dad (i'm guessing - he was my dad's age, anyway). now, my father enjoys poking me or teasing me somehow whenever my sports boyfriends make a good play or are on the ice or court or field, cuz that's what he does. well, about halfway through the game i noticed that her dad was doing the same thing to her. i laughed.

apparently this is how fathers and daughters bond.

hot cross buns

if you can get two for a penny, why would you buy one for a penny?

Easter greetings

on sunday morning, one of the ladies came downstairs, and saw me and said, 'oh good! you can greet me!' i said, 'i can greet you?' and she said, 'yes, you can greet me.' so i said, 'good morning!' and she said, 'good morning!' and i said, 'happy Easter!' and she said, 'happy Easter to you, too!'

and then she went into the dining room.

last night

i went to a playground with joaquin (in his red hoodie)

and then i went to an amusement park/festival thing with army elvis!

sorry all - but happy Easter!

i'm too tired to post anything right now. and it will probably be a few days before i get back online. but i just wanted to say:

Have a happy Resurrection Sunday!!!

oh! and it's so good of me to have a jewish botw right now cuz it's passover! (he may not be at all religious, but he's a jew, so it counts.)

Announcing My New BOTW!

I feel like this post needs to be full of exclamation points! My new BOTW is always so stinkin' excited! I also feel the need to be bouncing in my chair as I write this, cuz he's always so stinkin' bouncy! (But don't worry, I can't keep up with him. I have to cut back on the exclamation points.) Anyway, so my new BOTW is...

Max Kellerman!

(which I'm sure at least Didder and Chelleybutton woulda been able to guess)

For those of you who read hobbitsister's blog, some of this may sound repetitive, but what can I say - we both love him!

Born August 6th, 1973 in NYC, Max grew up active in Jewish cultural activities and is fluent in Yiddish. (Hey, imagine that; I have a Jewish BOTW.) He and his brothers (there were 3) were way into boxing, but his mom was too scared of them getting hurt to actually let them do it. So he just read about it and studied it, and when he was 16, had a public access tv show about boxing (that ended up lasting 8 years). He loves boxing.

Max likes other sports, too, thankfully, cuz that's how Didder and I first found out about him. I shall quote her: "Max Kellerman is our favorite sportscaster (which might not be saying much, because we don't have a next-favorite). A couple of years ago, when we were in Iowa, we were flipping channels - I think to keep the girls from watching an icky scene in "Smallville" - and we met Max. He was hosting some sports show. Max is a guy with boundless enthusiasm. Literally. He bounced in his chair the entire show. He was so excited to tell us the football scores, and who ran for the most yards, and who should quarterback next week. And he's so convinced that he's right, but in a charming way, not in an annoying way. Watching Max is addicting, and we two who hate sports [for the record, i melilot, do not hate sports] found ourselves strangely drawn to his show. We didn't watch it regularly, but occasionally, just for our Max fix.A few months later, we turned on his show, but he wasn't there. It was some other guy (and Max's regular friends, Claymation Guy and [Scary Eyebrow Guy]). Where, oh where, was Max? We turned to the Internet to find out, and we learned that Max's brother had died. Don't ask me why, but we felt really, really sad about it. And a few weeks later, when Max came back, he didn't bounce in his chair. That made us sadder still. Max's exuberance was gone. Thankfully, a few weeks later he started bouncing again. We still feel bad for him, though. And now his show isn't on any more, and we miss him."

Anyway...so basically, he is very endearing, very energetic, and he makes me smile. However, while his bounciness is part of his charm, it is also an unfortunately. I don't think I could last very long with someone with that much energy. He would drive me insane. He also is in love with boxing, which I find to be a completely barbaric sport. And then there's the fact that he's married. And more than that - he says he's an athiest. That's a very unfortunately.

But Max is great and I wish I could see him more often! Having a Max fix makes a girl happy!

my real boyfriend

one of the old men at the home (we'll call him cornelius cuz didder loves that name) is one of my absolute favorite residents. his has a speech disorder, which automatically endears him to me, and he has the greatest smile - his whole face lights up and his eyes twinkle. i told him a few weeks ago when he was being put on the elevator not to flirt with any of the ladies on there with him cuz i tell people he's my boyfriend.

i don't know how much he remembers things, so i thought he had forgotten that i said that, but then today when he was being put on the elevator i said, 'see you later, cornelius!' to which he replied, 'see you later, girlfriend!' :D

questions of the day

didder's: if 'magician's nephew' takes place around 1900, and 'the last battle' takes place 45ish years later, why are polly and diggory super old in 'the last battle?' they should only be 60-65ish.

mine (which actually i've wondered for awhile but keep forgetting to ask): why when it's dark and you can see people's tvs on in their houses, does the light from the tv look blue?

i such want to

be pam

yay for april!

it's a new month. that means a new calendar page. that means yay! it's jim halpert month on my 'the office' calendar!!! finally!!!

it's gonna take me so long to walk down the hall now, cuz i'll have to stop and check him out every time i pass by.

scavenger hunt

on friday didder and erma and scout and i did a scavenger hunt at the mall. it was easy (we were finding things a-z), but scout and i deserve so many extra points cuz we were the bravest team ever. for the letters x and y, we went into the dead animal section of sheel's. (we got a fox and a yak.) then we got to the end and realized we hadn't found a q, so we went back to the dead animal section for a quail! dead animals! twice! we rock.

Movie Review: Rocky Balboa

Didder and I finally got to see 'Rocky Balboa!' I was so excited. I didn't think I could ever be excited about seeing a Rocky movie, but I was. I've never seen any of the others, but I wasn't too worried about being confused. It's Rocky. Like there's really a plot.

It wasn't too bad. Rocky wanted to fight again, so he got his license and fought this young undefeated punk. (I won't tell you how it turned out cuz then you'd know how it turned out.) That's the whole movie. Like I said, pretty much what I expected. (Although Sylvester Stalone has a pretty darn good body for a geezer!)

But we all know why Didder and I saw it. It had nothing to do with Rocky. It was all about Max! Max Kellerman, our favorite sportscaster (you can read more about that on hobbitsister's blog under 'Yo Adrian'), was one of the commentators for the fight! It was so exciting! He's naturally a super excited person anyway, but I think he was genuinely excited to be in this movie. Max got his start as a boxing commentator, and he's in his early 30s so I'm sure he grew up watching Rocky (Didder said that, and then his character said that, so it must be true), so you could tell he thought it a huge honor to be there. My favorite part was when Rocky asked him how he was doing and Max's character got all excited at the other commentators (who didn't really care all that much). Oh yeah, and I was so happy for him cuz in his first line he got to say 'debacle,' which is a very Max word.

(My poor nieces, though - we made them watch the movie, then made them be absolutely silent during the Max parts, with the threat that if they weren't we were gonna make them watch the whole movie again.)

Overall, the movie was good. Not enough Max and when he was there, not enough of him bouncing in excitement, but overall, 'Rocky Balboa' is alright.