Once Upon a Time and Some Nasty Watercress

This is my apology for being gone so long. I have brought you a hedgehog.

So I realize its been a few days since I've blogged. Er, a few weeks actually. But thats not important! The important part is realizing that i'm back now and that putting down the pitchforks and disbanding the angry rioters is the wisest course of action. Please?

Good then. So now that you've settled down I feel I owe you something big to make up for my blog silence. And, just to let you know, I have been quite busy these past few weeks. Here are some of the things that I have been doing instead of writing:

- Went to McDonalds for some late-night taters with a group of friends dressed in full, swashbuckling pirate regalia.

- Ate a bell pepper for the first time in about 7 years.

- Spent a Chemestry class taking a equation word problem about a balloon and made it into a tragic drama full of sweeping human emotion evolving a little boy and his blue balloon that ultimately ended in its popping. (The balloon, not the boy.) Thank goodness my teacher has a good sense of humor.

- Ran about 54 or so miles. Not all at once of course.

- Opened blank blog posts, lost interest, and closed them again.

- Went to choose my 17th birthday cake, as usual couldn't decide which one to get, and thus got two birthday cakes. Sometimes it really pays to sit on the fence. And to be the Birthday Commander.

Since i'm getting back to this whole writing groove and I owe you for all those miserable hours of having no new Hannah Hoo to read, I shall tell you a brief impromptu story. Right here. No forethought. Here goes.

Once Upon a Time...

There lived a little girl who loved to explore and hated the taste of watercress. Naturally when her parents loaded their herd of wild children into the dusty pick-up truck for their weekly Sunday Brunch at Grandma's house, Quincy dreaded the inevitable egg salad sandwhich that would be served. Sure enough, the moment the children peeled themselves off the cracked vinyl an army's worth of crunchy egg salad on soggy bread was shoved towards them.

Shuddering, Quincy mulled over a chunk of bread and discreetly deposited the egg salad sandwhich into the closest hiding place; her sister Alice's decorative umbrella folded under the table. Amidst the layers of voices and fluttering of children it was a simple matter for Quincy to escape. She felt like a spy creeping down the moany hardwood halls on the toes of her mary janes. Holding her breath easily in the too-small floral church dress, Quincy slithered around decorative doilies and up stairs until no one could hear her running through the halls and undiscovered rooms.

Sure to check for trapdoors under throw rugs and rooms behind bookcases, Quincy ascended from one level of the house to the next. Mostly all she found was boringly legal and ordinary; a splintery pencil, a wayward roller. But she finally found a taste of adventure in the attic.

Obviously the attic hadn't been visited by humans for several years. Quincy felt like a snowman in a snowglobe of dust. Every move she made resurrected a ghostly wave of white particles that puffed her chocolate hair white and paused on her eyelashes. Like most little girls, however, Quincy cared not. All she wanted was to find an adventure. And that she did.

In the attic, behind the file boxes, under the spare curtains, inside an antique dress form, Quincy discovered a clam shell. When she plucked it from the starchy cotton of the dress form's innards it overflowed in her small hands. There was something about it that made Quincy sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had found something special. Maybe the way the marbled surface of the shell had the faintest glimmer at the edges, like the essence on a butterfly's wings. Or how it smelled not of mothballs or baby powder like everything else but like raw, crumbly sea salt.

Quincy set the shell on a trunk and tucked her skirts under her knees. Her stomach shivered in anticipation and she ceremoniously gripped the edges of the shell and opened it. The room was filled with silence and even the dust held it's collective breath.

The shell slid open like praying hands unfolding.

Quincy gasped and stared into the sky.

Not the sky outside the attic window, but inside, framed within the shell. Not a painting either but a real piece of sky, sun rise on one end of the expanse and stars on the other. It seemed as if someone had trapped the entire sky in one sea shell, every last bit spread out and alive. A kite moved, airplanes drew their trails, stars went  about their destined courses and occasionally fell. Quincy was in complete awe. She sat their turning the shell this way and that and finding new details at first hidden. The only thing that could draw her from her trance was a muffled scream from the front yard and Alice's voice, apparently after opening her umbrella surprise, screaming, "QUINCY JANE! GET YOUR SORRY PANTALOONS HERE THIS VERY INSTANT!"

Quincy reluctantly shut the shell and tucked it back into the dress form. Maybe Sunday Brunch wouldn't be so bad next week after all. Even with the watercress.

Right-o...so that wasn't much of a real story but it was all I could think of at the moment. And its getting super late and I feel ill. So farewell, sorry for the wait, and read you next time! Oh, and sorry it took so long to get the pictures. I DO have a life. Sometimes.

Goldfish Balloons,

-Hannah Hoo

Angels, Tutus, and-Ouch!

Actually wrote this on Sunday and have been to preoccupied to do anything with it until now:

I have spent far too much time today trying to come up with something to post. Everything has either been too personal, too impersonal, too lackluster, too wild, too toodles to simply post. Something that has been difficult about writing about me for other people to see being honest but not brutally so. It can be, depending on what i'm wanting to talk about, like trying to drive a steam-roller through a Wall-Mart aisle and not run over any fingers and toes. As in I could very well end up banned from Wall-Mart, revoked of my imaginary steam-roller licence, and be sued by all my friends. The real question is, if I were as tactful as possible, what in the cupcake would there be left to write about? Nothing. Well, nothing and mathematics. (And that would be offensive to me.)

On to today, which is (was) a glorious Sunday. This means we get up at the crack of 9:00, pile into the van, and zoom off to church for a morning of worship, fellowship, and maybe even a real ship. I wonder if God ever gets a kick out of how we hold our hands up when we are praying or singing. I mean, really. From his point of view it looks like we're all holding our hands out for sweets or waiting for a heavenly high-five. Maybe, unawares, angels are high-fiving us during worship. I don't know how i'm going to keep a straight face next Sunday.

I really, really need to go do other things right now (Surprise! Schoolwork!) but I will leave you with this lingering question;

Question of the Day: Why do some guys think wearing their pants on the ground is attractive? For the love of all things covered in rainbow sprinkles, WHY?

Look'in Like A Fool,
-Hannah

So that was Sunday. And today is Wednesday. And every muscle in my body hurts like chewed bubblegum.

This would be due to me starting a lyrical dance class. Or, rather, re-starting since I took dance for the majority of my midget years. It was great to get back into a dance studio and join the ranks of fools in tights leaping, twirling, and twisting myself into pretzels. I just didn't anticipate waking up the next morning and falling out of bed and having to roll up the stairs I was so sore. (Does not help that my bed is 5 feet tall.)

Alas, math will mot finish itself so I must fly like the wind! Er, hobble like a wheezy breeze.

Cheshire Clocks,
-Hannah

My Father is Dead, but it's Ok, We Have Nan Bread!

One of the universal truths of life: Kids say the darnedest things. So do adults.

A perfect example of this would be going to lunch with my family (sans Jonmark, he's blowing things up). It was after church and the girls were groaning for food, Food, FOOD! Communion wine, biscuits, and the food of fellowship just don't cut it sometimes.

So we headed to perhaps my favorite eatery of all time (brace yourself, Steph): The House of India! Oooooh, its so good. Red Tandoori chicken, chole, NAN!!!!!, Kheer, jalebi, the list goes on and on. I'm literally drooling right now just thinking about it. Best part it the food is quality and quantity, they have a buffet.

As a middle-class American family, we follow the buffet principle: Eat Until Your Stuffed. And we did. And it was delicious. And we wobbled out the door later and took long, lazy, satisfied naps of well-fed people. But i've skipped the story, so lets go back to the savory bits.

Recently we've been watching "Bizzare Foods", a tv show with a host who eats anything and lies about liking half of it. Most of the foods are from countries where the blood and guts are still used in pop cuisine, so we've seen some pretty gross stuff go into this guy's mouth. Anyway, I was asking my mom and dad if there was a kind of food that we should try next. We've tried Japanese, Indian, Mexican, American, and Junk Food. Whats next?

Dad, quoting one of the more...akward...Bizarre Foods episodes yelled out: "WE HAVEN'T TRIED BULL TESTICLES!" then calmly went to go get some more nan. Oh, my father. My father.

Just for a change of pace, we decided this morning to visit another church that alot of old friends went to (Thats another story onto itself) and I got to see Monica's boyfriend, his lovely daughter, and his beard (Wink, wink, hint, hint ;)

Anywho, the girls were telling us about their Sunday School classes over lunch. That Lazarus guy got raised from the deads again, we got christmas cookies, the usual. What was UnUsual, however, was Emma's comment:

Mom: So, how were your teachers?

Glory: Ok.

Mom: What were their names?

Glory and Emma: I dunno. They gave us cookies.They were old cookies.

Glory: Emma told the teacher about Dad.

Me: What about Dad?

Emma: My first Dad was dead in the war.

Everyone: WHAT?

Dad: I'm not dead!

Emma: (patronizingly) No, no, no. My FIRST Dad. You second Dad. Your not dead. (Pats Dad's hand).

Mom and I: (Snort, giggle, uncontrollable laughter)

Mom: (realization!) Oh no!

Us: What?

Mom: When we went to go pick the girls up I told them Dad had gotten lost on the way over to pick them up!No wonder the teacher looked so shocked!

Everyone: (Laughing to the point of tears)

So thats what you can expect from a lunch with my family: Incorrect facts and the loud announcements that may be slightly embarrassing to everyone but my father. If you never want to come to my house again, i understand. You'll most likely end up embarrassed or rumored dead. Eat at your own risk!

Gill-Stuffed Goodness,

-Hannah