Sunday Night Football

Where on earth has all the time gone?  How has it been 2 weeks since I updated this blog?  This is ridiculous!

I am currently sitting at my desk, watching the Patriots - Jets game out of one eye and keeping another eye on my fantasy football games while keeping two eyes on the screen while I write up this blog.  Yes, I am that awesome.

I've just been so ridiculously tired and busy lately.  I always have tests the same week in both of my classes it seems; and studying for both at the same time is exhausting, and it totally derails my graduate school applications and my thesis.  Although, I got a 96 on my Remote Sensing test (yesssss!) and when I asked Dr. Lee about a point I missed (because the page just said -1, there was no red line or red writing anywhere) he said, "Well with tests as excellent as yours I just get a little bit nitpicky!"  He did explain what I missed, but I was concentrating on being rather swelled up with my test being described as "excellent" because that class is HARD!

My thesis is not going well...I get more stressed whenever I think about it.  Last night I was lying in bed (utterly exhausted after having spent a long and stressful shift organizing the setup for the gala/charity auction at Bowers in addition to my regular duties) and I started thinking about my thesis and I got so stressed I nearly threw up.  I didn't sleep at all well either; kept waking up and tossing and turning and getting some water or going to the bathroom or stretching and turning over...I felt like an underdone loaf of bread at work today, and was so relieved that it was a slow day and I didn't have to dash about constantly.

Yesterday I had to throw out THREE weddings!  The thing about Bowers is that we have a really beautiful courtyard and if you fill out ONE sheet of paper and put down a $30 deposit then you have an official reservation to take pictures there - and it's really popular.  The problem is, there are a lot of cheapskate, idiotic photographers who think they can photograph in our courtyard any time they want without paying.  So we have to kick them out and it really upsets the brides.  (Which is very understandable.)  But that's why you shouldn't go with the cheapest photographer, in my humble opinion.

Well, the first wedding decided to fill out the paperwork and pay the deposit - although they seemed a little annoyed they didn't get a copy, which I found ludicrous considering the circumstances. 

The second wedding I had to kick out twice.  The bride and some of her attendants came in to use the bathroom (which is allowed; anyone can use our bathrooms as long as they don't wander around and look at the exhibits, or trash the bathrooms) as I was walking past, so I went out to the courtyard and tried to explain they'd need to be outside the walls to take photographs, but unfortunately all the people left out there only spoke Spanish, and my Spanish is limited to, "No hablo Espanol" and "Buenos dias"
So I warily went back inside, but I got a call on my radio three minutes later saying, "Carla, go kick that wedding out!"
I stormed back to the courtyard (and it was starting to rain too and they were still taking pictures!) and go up to the photographer (who spoke English, thank goodness) and said, "Excuse me, but I've already told your group that you  must leave the courtyard if you're going to take pictures."
And he said, "Oh yes, we're just leaving." and I think "Yeah, and I'm Courtney Cox," right as he says, "I can take this last picture, right?"
And I am SO pissed at this point (wet, tired, and thinking of all the work I had to leave undone inside to go kick this party out) I just say sweetly and poisonously, "No, I'm sorry, if you haven't paid I simply can't allow that."
 And I stood there in the rain, arms folded, scowling portentously until every last one of them vacated the premises. 

I kid you not, not even an hour later there was ANOTHER party -  not quite sure if this was a wedding, because the center of attention was in a pink dress, but you never know - and I stormed out again and politely asked them to vacate the property immediately.  Which they did, but clearly they lacked common sense as a party, because all the women walked across the soaking wet grass in their pale satin stiletto heels, totally ignoring the wide, dirt-free pathways!  I just stood and stared; I would never treat satin shoes in that manner.

I left a little after 4:30, when the gala was entirely set up except for small things like glasses on the tables, and the models wearing all the gorgeous jewelry Christie's had donated for the auction were still in the dressing room.  That bit stings; I desperately wanted to see that jewelry!  If I'm ever a rich person, you can bet just about anything that if there's a gala where I can go bid on jewelry to benefit some charity, I will do it!

Today was simpler, the gala was over, and the night shift and the early shift cleaned it up between them, and it was a nice, slow day so I wasn't rushed off my feet.  I had hoped to get on the roster for the National Geographic filming at the museum tomorrow (when it's closed to the public, as it is on all Mondays) but the shifts are 6 am - 3:30 pm and 3:30 pm - 9 pm, and I have class at 3:30 pm so I couldn't take either.  Oh well...I'll just have to get onto a NatGeo special some other way!

When I was in the Spirits and Headhunters gallery I ran into one of our docents: she's being interviewed by NatGeo tomorrow and had to choose 15 pieces to talk about, so she wanted to know which pieces I liked most, so we spent nearly an hour in the exhibit looking at everything and talking about Papua New Guinea and the Pacific rim cultures and all that sort of thing.  We also started talking to this one gentleman and it turns out he's a conservator (for a living!!) who mostly works with metals and he's had an absolutely fascinating lifetime.

I know my life is nothing to sneeze at; born in South Africa, live in the United States, have traveled to England, France, Portugal, Canada and Ethiopia as well as returning to South Africa several times...I've been on safari, ridden an ostrich, and taken an elephant for a walk; I've eaten lunch in a Parisian patisserie, drunk Madeira wine in Madeira and witnessed an Ethiopian coffee ceremony; I've seen fantastic paintings by Monet, Hopper, O'Keefe, and so many others in real life; I've been to ballets and plays and concerts, I've dug up an archeological site in a volcano perched on the Afar rift; I can flintknap stone tools, cook almost anything you'd care to mention, spent 7 years learning to sing from a maestro, and I know the basics of silversmithing.
But the man we met - we didn't get his name - spent 9 months traveling from Saudi Arabia to Nepal in the 1960s by bus, train, and the occasional small airplane ride.  He made silver-plated miniatures for mosques in Mecca and Medina, and met a sheik and stayed in his palace.

In some ways it's frustrating that there are so many things I haven't yet experienced...in some ways it's challenging...and very, very exciting!  There are so many interesting and wonderful things out there in the world.  One gentleman I met at the museum (he and his wife had questions about the scrimshaw exhibit that I was only partially able to answer) told me sternly that I should make the most of my young life, and when I replied that I had a very long bucket list he said I was too young for one of those.  I said I just wanted to be sure I did everything in plenty of time - because I'm sure I'll think of new things to do by the time I'm old.

Some of the things on my bucket list are very silly - like wear an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini and eat a Philly cheese steak in Philadelphia - and some of them are very awesome - like float in a gondola in Venice and see Much Ado About Nothing in either the Royal Shakespeare Theatre OR the Globe Theatre.

But then, it wouldn't really be my bucket list if it didn't have silly and serious hand-in-hand, would it?