The Biggest Surprise of My Day (29 March 2009)

Idris Elba, who played Stringer Bell in The Wire, is really British. Can you believe it? You might also know him as the new regional manager/boss/whatever from The Office. But it is more surprising if you first knew him from The Wire and American Gangster.

Stringer Bell with a British accent. Strange.

I'm back. Are you tired of checking my blog and seeing that same old March 4 post?

I have been very busy lately. A lot of it revolves around this wedding planning thing. I won't bore you with details, but we secured a date of August 22. I am done shopping around for reception venues and now I am in the midst of finding a wedding dress. I have had a good time dress shopping with my friends Tiffany and Trisha Thrasher, but I don't think I am enough of a romantic to really get swept away by it all.

Work has been very busy too. We are trying to be more efficient and speedy in our archaeological site evaluation process, which includes field work, lab work, and report generation. For the last two weeks, I have felt very exhausted by the time I get home from work.

My 28th birthday was last Friday (20 Mar). I am still excited about getting older. Actually, I would like to be retirement age. My birthday was a fun day. We finished up field work on a site, which felt good. After we got back from the site at 1:30, everyone in the office patiently waited to eat a delicious diner lunch out. Then one of my coworkers suggested we go out again for supper so she and I had some Italian and good conversation before I headed back to Kechi for the weekend. The next day was a fun, but exhausting day of wedding dress shopping around Wichita, happy hour drinks with chums Ingrid and Lindsay from my WSU days, and finally a long drawn out supper out with my lover. Ah, good times.

Javers started football. The first game was a tragic five-point loss to the Omaha Beef. It was an away game so I didn't see it and have no comments. I am looking foward to going to his first home game next weekend and waving my poster. If any of you KS people want to come, let me know and maybe I can score you some tickets in the new Hartman Arena. I hear there are chandeliers in the bathrooms. Sounds too classy for a football team and Alan Jackson concert venue.

Schmeckfest is this weekend. It is also my 10 year class reunion. I am pretty pumped. That said, I think most of my classmates who will be there are people I see fairly regularly anyway. Oh well. Polly is in the musical so I'm super pumped to see it.

More on Reading Because I'm Kind of Excited About it Right Now

Ah, now that I am done with One Hundred Years of Solitude I am totally into some page turner quick reads. I just finished the Kansas Humanities Council One Book Kansas. It is a mystery called Virgin of Small Plains. It was a good one. I am in the middle of The Road, which I believe won some award. It's a post-apocalyptic tale. My confusion about what's going on is what keeps me turning the pages. I think Mike D. read this for a book club. Am I right? Finally, I just bought, an Elizabeth Berg novel at the library sale - Open House. One of her other novels was a South Dakota Humanities Council One Book South Dakota a couple years ago. I think she is a good writer and a hoot in person (I saw her speak at the SoDak Book Festival). Even when I get a little bored with the book I think about how I liked enjoyed her lighthearted speech at the book festival and I decide to keep reading until it gets interesting again. The book is largely about a recent divorcee so I can't always relate to her.

Any way, I just wanted everyone to know that for some reason, I am really excited about books right now! That sounds corny, but it's true.