K-Dawg's ODE to Schrag

Schrag is my hero. She is quite possibly the funniest person I know. Some of the things she says and does are frickin hilarious. Yesterday she said to me, "Kellie, I love the things that come out of your mouth." In all reality, I love the things that come out of Schrag's mouth. I'm not really sure what I said yesterday to inspire Schrag's comment, but she must have thought it was funny. Schrag loves the things that come out of my mouth because sometimes I don't speak very well. I mix up words and I say the wrong words sometimes – I dedicate this problem to my Bulgarian friends. (Yeah Hristo and Yavor and Teddy – I love you guys!!) For example, most normal people would say "and things like that." I say "and things like this." Crazy. I know. Does anybody really care? Probably not. But I know Schrag will laugh about it and I dedicate this entire blog entry to her.

Just a little side note: I started this dedication today at work. Not a good idea. Another little side note: if your name isn't Amber Schrag, you may not find any of the following stories funny. In fact you may think we are weird. We are. That's what makes us so fun. If you do find these stories funny, I hope you pee your pants. I've almost done that – more than once.

Yesterday we went to the mall. That was funny. We ate at the food court. Schrag went to get some custard. They have a flavor of the day (yesterday's was payday) and a feature of the day (cappuccino caramel). She got to the counter and said to the guy, "I'd like a scoop of the cappuccino, you know, the flavor of the day." I didn't see this event unfold, but I guess the guy was rather perplexed. He looked at her with a weird look until she finally told him a scoop of the flavor of the day. She got back to our table and said it wasn't really what she wanted, that she got confused because she really wanted the cappuccino flavor, but she said the flavor of the day…….. After taking a good long look at it, she decided that it looked good and tasted good anyway. Actually after she was ¾ the way done with it, she looked at her spoon full of ice cream and said, “this looks really good.” I was confused. Had she JUST figured out that it tasted good or what? A few minutes after she finished her flavor of the day, she blurted out, "sometimes I go through life" and then she started laughing. Uncontrollably. And then she started crying because she was laughing so hard. After a long pause and three tears out of each eye, she said, "Sometimes I go through life and I don’t realize what a dork I am until I think about it later." I damn near peed myself because I don’t think I’ve ever heard something so random, and that was probably the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. The mall excursion ended with Schrag beautifully decked out in the hottest pink of hot pink blush. It was actually a nice look. I think she should consider buying some and wearing it every day. She’d be sure to pick up the men that way! Good times. Schrag, I frickin love you!!!!

I went to the Schmeckfest musical to hear Amber play her clarinet but mainly to check out this Jesse kid she had been talking about. He sounded really hot and I wanted to see if he was a prospect. She told me once he was wearing mesh shorts, a button-down shirt and tennis shoes. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that turned me on. Schrag did a very nice job in the orchestra. I only heard her once. Oh this is a funny story and I never told her this. It was in between scenes and the orchestra was playing to fill up the time between the change of sets and the cast coming out on the stage. Well, the cast was coming back out and Lloyd, the director, had stopped directing and everyone had stopped playing. Except Schrag. There she was, clarinet solo, baby!!! She must not have been paying attention…I was actually quite proud of her. She sounded good!

Speaking of not paying attention, we all know that Schrag was in a little fender-bender. I went out to see her car the night it happened and I had all I could do to keep from laughing. She was so pissed off, her front end was quite damaged, and I just found the whole situation to be quite amusing. Well, Schrag, I haven’t ever told you this, but here’s another ALMOST fender-bender story that might not be so funny to you, but is quite hilarious to me. Remember when I took your Taurus for a little “ride?” Oh, how could you forget?! On the way to the park that night, Dargatz and I almost hit a deer. Now this was BEFORE the “B”, so I wasn’t frantic or excited or anything, I was calm and collected, and I was able to stop in time. Maybe you should take lessons from me. Oh wait, not a good idea as was not a good idea the situation I was in. (Bulgarian language!) A little inside scoop: Schrag’s car was not in the best working condition, but I stole it anyway. We were at the bar and Dargatz and I decided we wanted to go have a little “fun.” Schrag realized we stole her car and started RUNNING after us. Imagine Schrag, drunk, a little pissed off, running frantically to catch her precious Taurus. Comical, huh?!? Yep, she’s hilarious.

Did you know that sometimes Schrag gags? She has what Dawn likes to call post-nasal drip. SICK!! And sometimes she gets water logged. One day when we lived in Keystone she drank I think a whole gallon of water, laid down on the living room floor and didn’t move. She almost threw up. She does this quite often. And another time she threw up…in the bathroom sink…because she was drunk…I was going to the bathroom and she was trying to brush her teeth. Before I knew it she was digging puke out of the sink because it wouldn’t go down the drain. SICK! We got it all taken care of and went back to the bar for more alcohol. Yeah, buddy, those were the days!!!!!!!! KEYSTONE ROCKS!!!!!!

Schrag and Dawn and I are going camping this weekend…..in a friend’s back yard. It will be good times. I bought a big ass tent with two rooms. We’re going to try it out. Maybe it will “get too cold” and we’ll have to go “sleep inside.”

So maybe sometime again Schrag will let me write in her blog. I bet it’s kind of exciting seeing a post from someone else! Actually maybe not because she might learn of more things that I didn’t tell her about our days in Keystone. Just don’t leave me alone with anybody named Dargatz. That is dangerous.

K-DAWG….OUT.

ps1
i'm sorry for my english because i forgot it

ps2
HOW CAN I FORGOT IT WHEN I DIDN'T KNOW ENGLISH

My Neighbor

I met my next door neighbor recently. Very interesting. He held the door open for me so I thought I would be friendly and engage in some small talk. He's probably in his 50s and has a short stature. The first things I noticed when looking at him were his large thick glasses and the huge rocks in his ears. Crazy neighbor has bling.

Earlier this year Dawn and I noticed he had about 20 birdhouses nailed to his deck so I thought I would ask him about that. I mean, the guy's got so many birdhouses out there I'm surprised he can walk around on his deck. He said he really enjoys feeding and watching the birds. Then he said he was amazed at how the birds have become "spurled" and just pick through the food he gives them. He didn't know birds could get "spurled." I didn't know what "spurled" meant. I must have been giving him a confused look because he continued to say "spurled, you know, spurled." Yeah, I did not know, but I feigned understanding and we concluded our conversation. After thinking about it for a while I figured he must have meant "spoiled" and it just sounded like "spurled" because of his east coast accent. The birds were spoiled becuase they were picking out all the good food and leaving the rest on his deck. Maybe? Well, either way, I hope he likes me because his apartment is adjacent to the laundry room and I'm the one always doing my laundry after 10 pm when I am not supposed to.

Schmeckfest and the Accident

For all of you out there just wondering, Schmeckfest went fine. I think the musical got a little bit better every night. Jesse, my music partner, continued to amaze me with his constant level of anxiety. I played in a lot more songs than he did so he probably just got bored. Jesse would often think I had missed an entrance and then freak out. Occasionally I did (considering my moderate clarinet playing skill level), but most of the time I was counting okay and ended up getting annoyed and distracted by him jumping up and down in his seat and slapping his knees. Another Jesse quirk happened before songs. About five minutes before a song he would suddenly jump up into tenor sax playing position and get ready to play. I would say something like, "Jesse, I don't think you play in this song." He would then relax ... until the next song he did not play in.

Last Saturday Rob and I were recruited by Reed to help with the Schmeckfest sausage making. Rob ground the meat, mixed up the sausage and put it through the press. I packaged, weighed and priced the sausage. I got tired of standing on my feet all afternoon, but it was a lot of fun, shooting the shit with Larry Hofer, Bruce Hofer, Les Rensink and some other guy I did not know. Everybody was giving everyone else such a hard time. It was fun and humbling all at the same time.

After a rousing weekend in Freeman I headed to Brookings on Sunday night to see Jeremy. On my way there I had a car accident. I saw the car in front of me hit the brakes so I did the same. Then I realized that they were slowing down really quickly so I looked at the road to figure out what was going on and I saw about 15 deer cross the interstate. In the final split second when I knew I was not going to stop in time I looked for other options. I was in the left lane, there was a car in the right lane and some of the deer were still in the ditch to my left so I decided to just stay in my lane and try to stop before hitting the car in front of me. My plan did not work and I did hit the car in front of me.

Since I am the one who rammed into the car in front of me it is my fault. I was going pretty slow by that time so no one was injured and it's not like the Malibu is totaled or anything, but now I have all this insurance shit to deal with. Grrrrr.... I was pretty frustrated Sunday and Monday, but I'm better now and if I need to take out a loan or get a second job or something to pay for all this I guess that is what I will have to do. I have seriously had been in too many accidents involving deer. I think this is going to be a lifelong curse for me. If you are ever in a car I am driving or riding in, BEWARE!

Bags O' Blood

Last Thursday I had a most interesting and comical blood donation experience. If your name is Nick Schrag you might want to stop reading right about now.

Well, I had never donated donated blood before so I figured it was about time I did my civic duty. Human Resources at work sent out this email encouraging everyone to sign up for some time in the Bloodmobile. I was highly impressed by Janelle's (the HR assistant) red email graphics and signed right up.

When I first got to the Bloodmobile a phlebotomist took me into a room and asked me a bunch of questions about my health. After asking me about four times whether or not I had AIDS or hepatitis and concluding that I didn't (I think someone acutally tests the blood later) she finally let me donate my blood. The first part of the whole experience was fine. I don't have a problem with needles so that was okay. I was just laying there taking it easy, squezzing the spongy ball, reading about how I needed to drink lots of water and eat a good lunch and that if I think I have AIDS I should not donate blood. It took a little less than ten minutes for a pint to drain.

When I was done the phlebotomist came over and started cleaning everything up. It was at that point that I started to feel a little dizzy. I mentioned this to the phlebotomist and she told me to cough. I coughed a few times, but it was just getting worse. This is where it got crazy. I think all three of the phlebotomists were hovering over me. They put a few ice packs around my neck and one on my heart. While this is happening I was supposed to be holding a cotton ball over my puncture wound, holding a cookie and water, coughing and answering questions. One lady asked me how I got a bruise on my leg. I have no idea what my response was, but it must have been strange because she gave me a weird look. It was seriously too much to handle in a semi-conscious state.

After all the commotion died down I was just laying there with all these ice packs on sipping on some water. I tried to eat a cookie, but the ice packs were making me so cold I was shivering. My arm kept shaking so every time I tried to stick the cookie in my mouth I got crumbs all over my shirt. I told the phlebotomist I was cold and she just looked at me and smiled. Someone from the public defenders office tired to talk to me, but my teeth kept chattering. It was at this point that I realized I was probably very entertaining for the other people in the bus. They made me stay there with those stupid ice packs on shivering with cookie crumbs all over me for 50 minutes before I could leave. Okay, everyone else only had to stay for 10 or 15 minutes. Crazy.

When I got back to the museum, in addition to feeling very tired I noticed my eye sight was a bit abnormal. I had three different levels of depth perception in my left eye and it made it very difficult for me to walk up the steps. This got better after about two hours, but I felt lathargic for six hours after I donated blood. I don't know if I will donate blood again, at least not during work. I was pretty useless for the rest of the day.

Does anyone else have crazy blood donation stories? Or maybe just any crazy story? Or maybe even a boring story? I think I got the whole anonymous posting thing activated so post away blog readers.


"She's axorenic."
-Kellie Ortman in reference to an underweight Miss North Carolina USA in tonight's pageant.

Death and Orchestra

So the pope died. Terri Schiavo died. I had a near death experience on my evening stroll today. I was approaching a cross walk. I checked the lights and the white walking guy was all lit up so I decided it would be okay to cross the intersection. As I was walking, however, someone making a left turn almost hit me. I tried to run away from it, but the car kept swerving wherever I ran. Seriously, this car was only a few inches away from me when it finally stopped. A guy on a motorcycle was sitting in another lane and watched the whole thing happen. After the car moved on he said, "Wow that was scary." I said, "Yeah, maybe I should wear reflectors."

Speaking of near death experiences, I think I'm going to have one this week. For those of you out there who do not already know this, I'm playing my rusty clarinet in the orchestra for the Schmeckfest musical. The show is Guys and Dolls so at least sounds fun. Well, it would sound fun if I could actually play it. At the last rehearsal I skipped this measure that had too many notes with too many sharp signs in it. Lloyd, the director, asked if anyone was playing in that measure. I had to sheepishly raise my hand and admit that I am supposed to play, but I couldn't really make my fingers do that at the moment. Lloyd asked if I would be able to get my fingers to play it by April 8 which is the first night of the show. I promised him I would so I have a week to get it down.

Another "highlight" of orchestra practice is my neighbor and music partner Jesse. Jesse is a 9th grader who plays the tenor sax. When he's not playing he is jamming out in his seat and trying to tell me when I'm supposed to come in. We are really developing quite the dependent relationship. He uses my pencil and tells me what key I'm supposed to be in. I help him count and tell him when he's supposed to play. This next week we have orchestra practice every night except Monday so I'm probably going to be very tired and crabby. Hopefully we can pull this thing off by next Friday. I will let you all know how it goes.

Mike Dargatz quote of the day:

"Dude, she doesn't know my fucking DVDs!!"
-In response to Kellie's and my proposition to go to Mike's house and ask his mom for his Jackass DVD.