we're hip. we're with it.

Yes, I totally used that title today simply so I could photoshop a picture like this. I'm awesome. Anyway, the "we" I'm refering to in the title is really the museum in general. We've apparently become the cool hangout for a bunch of the kids who live in the neighborhood. Somehow they never saw us before we moved across the street. Now they come hang out a lot. There's a couple in particular that come and talk to us a bunch, but there's a whole little gang that apparently comes around once in awhile at night too. They're probably in middle school if I had to guess. A bunch of them came in today just before I closed and wandered around for awhile. One of them tried to get me to let her volunteer for 15 minutes so she could go inside by herself. Yeah, it totally worked. Another one harasses me for free candy. It makes me feel kind of bad for being so annoying like that when I was that age. In other words, I do not enjoy the museum being a hangout.

Speaking of the museum, we had a little boy there today whose name was Cullen. For those of you who have been living in a cave, or are over the age of 17, that's the last name of the vampire family in the Twilight books. The kid was about 5, so it's possible his parents (mom) liked the books, but probably more likely that they now hate the books for making their kid's name so popular among teeny bopper vampire loving weirdos. And speaking of vampires, I'm totally into this new show in the CW, The Vampire Diaries. I read the books when I was in high school or so and really liked them, so when I saw they were making them into a show (since vampires are sort of hip right now, in case you haven't noticed) I recorded the first one to see how it was. It started out kind of cheesy but has actually gotten really good. I'm hooked. I have one still on the DVR and can't wait to watch it when I exercise tomorrow. Part of the appeal, I must admit, is the super hot vampires. Like Ian Somerhalder (on the right in this picture). The other one's not bad either (neither is the lead actress, actually). Maybe women wouldn't be so into vampires if they didn't cast such freaking hot guys in those roles. (disclaimer: I do not find the twilight guy attractive. I'm not that much of a loser.)

packing

Holy cow, do we have a lot of stuff. We have to fit a tent, a tarp, a sleeping bag, pillows, a sheet and blanket, a sleeping pad, a camping grill, and our bags into my little Hyundai Elantra. And not only does it need to fit, but we need to have space left over to pick up Doug in Washington DC (that's the plan, anyway). Uh, sure. Luckily we're starting on it today so we have a couple of days to get it all to work. I pack the bags, Alfred packs the car. We stick with what we're good at.


In other news, I finished the last of the Twilight series today. Thank God, now I can get on with my life.

Oh, and the fourth of July! We were supposed to be hosting a party with Phil and Lucy at our house, but it ended up getting moved to their neighbors' house, so we spent the day there instead. We met some new people, got to know other people better, ate some good food, drank a bunch, played some flip cup. It was a lot of fun. Waking up the next morning to go to work was not as fun, but that's ok. Here's Alfred in the midst of a round of flip cup. His team won that round. I played a little, my team won 2 of the 3 rounds I played. And we ate watermelon spiked with vodka. Awesome.

I'm a big dork

Like anyone had any doubt. But still. Here's more proof.

So I've been resisting reading the Twilight series. I did the same thing with Harry Potter. They're not adult books, I'll be bored by them, not worth my time, things like that. With Harry Potter, I even saw one of the movies before I read any of the books. I fell asleep in the movie, which only made me less inclined to read the series. But I did. And loved them all. Totally want to own them so I can read them again. I read them before the last book had come out, and was too embarrassed to get it out of the library. Luckily I was able to borrow it, I think from Robyn, and probably read it in like 2 days. Cause I just got so involved in the story.

Mercedes owns all 4 of the Twilight books. And we've been cat/house sitting for them while they're in Spain. And so, the other night while Alfred was busy on his laptop and I was bored, I started reading the first book. And have been sucked into the story ever since. I finished the third book a couple of hours ago (oh yeah, and I took today off of work since I had to work Sunday). I told Alfred it was a good thing I hadn't brought the fourth book home with me, because I'd totally still be curled up on the couch reading it. Luckily I'm going back up there tomorrow and can start on it.

So why the big dork revelation? Well, I'm getting to it. See, I've been reading a bit about the author and how she got the idea for the books. Apparently it all started from a dream she had. And that is something I would totally do, have a dream and get all obsessed by it and come up with some elaborate back story and imagine all sorts of ridiculous things based on that one dream. I was thinking that I should do that, come up with a crazy popular book and get rich off of my dreams. And then I realized that I sort of already do that (the overactive imagination part, not the rich author part). I do it with my characters from the Sims. (This is the very embarrassing, dorky part). I totally come up with back stories for each character, imagine how they respond in situations, imagine conversations between different characters... anyway, you get the point. See? Told you I was a dork. I just need to write a book (or books) and become rich and famous, then it won't seem so pathetic.