Furry Visitor

I recently threw out some freezer-burned chicken. I put it in the outside trashcan because I knew it would start to smell. I figured it would attract some animals, but I didn't figure that one of them would end up spending the night in my trashcan. While I thought it was cute that this little guy decided to curl up and take a snooze, now I'm wondering if he wasn't able to get out by himself. I need to go home at lunch and make sure the little opossum got out. Isn't he cute, though??!! No wonder my cats were looking out the window inquisitively.

Wedding Crashers!

I attended the beautiful renewal of vows of my friends, Andy and Yuko, this past Saturday. In addition to the ceremony was a lovely reception with good food and spirits. It was a great time. Up top is Andy and Yuko right before cutting the cake.

AND then came the ridiculousness of the evening. Ater much free beer and (in my case) wine, four of us were not ready to retire after the evening's festivities. So, we started dancing in the hallway to the music of another wedding reception. We were eventually invited in to dance with the other wedding guests, although we had no idea who any of these people were. See the picture below of Angie and myself dancing at stranger #1's wedding.


We then decided to go to another area of the building. After deciding the live band playing in the bar-area was lame, we passed by another wedding reception. Having been experienced at this point in the evening in crashing weddings (and having had way too much drink) we decided that this wedding reception looked too fun to pass up. So, we entered and danced at stranger #2's wedding. See picture below of the bride and groom....I think the names the DJ yelled out at one point were Tommy and Elizabeth.

See below for the obligatory self-photo of all of us at the end of the night whilst waiting for our ride home.

Podcast Anyone?

Working in the slightly techie field, I have the opportunity to play with a lot of neat, "cutting edge" technology. But honestly, I'm not sure how cutting edge my University really is, so I'm using that term quite loosely.

Anyway, I am working on a project right now in which I am interviewing a bunch of the faculty, editing the clips in iMovie and creating podcasts out of them (I would be using video as well as audio for my podcast). Right now I'm in the iMovie/editing stage of my first interview. If it goes well, I'm considering doing podcasts and posting them on my blog. How cool would that be??! What should my topic be? "News with Mona?" Or perhaps something more specific and random, like "Food Critiques by Mona." Uhmmmm......or "Mona's Buff Workouts." Any other ideas?

Jen and Bret's Wedding...

I went to a wedding Saturday of some friends, Jen and Bret. It was a good time with lots of dancing, singing, good food and an OPEN bar. How awesome is that??! I love open bars. They rock. Unfortunately, I was driving, so I couldn't partake too much. I had two really crappy Long Islands (too much sweet n' sour mix) and something else that had rum in it. That's it. It was still an awesome time and I was able to wear my new fancy dress! I even bought high heels, which made me tower over most people, but I had sexy shoes on whilst towering. The picture up top is of the bride, Jen, and myself (I took my shoes off for this shot because she is a bit on the shorter side). The other picture is of me later in the evening after having a few drinks. I was trying to be alluring in that picture. :)

Bon Voyage to Megan!

As those of you regularly reading my blog know, my friend, Megan, was sleeping on my couch for the last few weeks as she transitioned from grad school to the work-force. She had an interview and accepted a job offer! She left day before yesterday and will be living near Denver working for environmental non-profit organization as their fundraiser. I'm sad to see her go, as she is like family to me, but I'm glad to have my house to myself again. Love you, Megan!! In the picture starting from left, Megan, Mona and Beth (Megan's cool friend).

Aaaaa! Wipe Out!

Ah, the perils of biking. It just shows how hard core I am, right?? :)

Commenting on my Blog

I recently switched to the new Blogger. I decided to switch because they said that they are going to make everyone switch over in the next few months, so I decided to go ahead and get it overwith. Well, apparently there are still some bugs they are working out. The most annoying bug is people are having problems commenting between blogs on the old version and blogs on the new version. So, if you can't comment on my blog, that may be why. Here's a list of known issues per commenting:

http://knownissues.blogspot.com/search/label/comments

Unfortunately, I can't go back to the old version. But it wouldn't really help for me to go back anyway since they are making everyone switch soon anyway. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Eric.

THE FIX -
If you would still like to comment on my blog posts and aren't able to because you are on the old blogger, choose the "other" or "anonymous" option underneath the commenting text box.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MOM!

Happy Birthday to my mom! I love you!

Love,
Mona

PS Mom is the one in the basket.

Everything Artsy

I was recently invited to go to a play. I accepted despite my history of finding plays not as appealing as other activities. This play was.....really different. I'm sure as far as plays go, it was fairly normal, but I was expected a story-line with a beginning and an end to a plot of some sort. And while it had all of this, it was overshadowed by sights, sounds, and drama. The play was really more like a painting....or at least you needed to think of it more as art than a "traditional play."

And it was really difficult for me. For the beginning of the play, I just sat there thinking "What the hell is this?" And so I had to conciously stop my practical voice and just rely on my senses and feelings to get me through the rest of it without being critical. And I think it was a really good experience for me.

SO....due to this experience I have decided that I'm going to re-establish the artsy side of my personality. Growing up, I loved art classes. I loved band (OK, so I sucked at playing the bassoon even though I played for seven years, but there were still times when we would be playing a piece and I could feel myself get lost in the beauty of the experience. It was awesome). I naturally gravitated toward these right-brained activites and once college started, I abandoned it all. NO MORE! And working in a University environment is perfect for further exploration in this arena.

Being hit on by Devlin...

My girls and I went out to a club up North called LuLu's. I spent a lot of the night dodging guys, which isn't that fun, but proves to be interesting. First there was the large, sweaty white dude who's name I never got. Then there was the balding Pakistani guy, who was quite the gentlemen and I think a bit weirded out that I had a background with Islam. And there were a few others that tried to get my number, but the funniest experience by far was being hit on by a large African-American man named Devlin. First of all, the name is classic. I mean, how many Devlin's do you know? And secondly, his approach was HEE-LARIOUS. He said he wanted to dance with me because he liked girls with a little girth. He then proceeded to tell me that he liked his women "thick." I think he also said something about "good birthing hips" at one point. Now, I know I'm not a skinny girl. Never was and never will be. But I wouldn't really describe myself with the same terminology as Devlin. And for the man to say all of this in a conversation that he hopes is going to impress me enough to want to give him my phone number is pretty crazy. I thanked Devlin for his time and waddled my girth out on the dance floor with Megan to shake my good birthing hips in peace.

Get back on that Bike...

After much trepidation, I've ridden the mountain bike trail twice this summer. This is the same trail that I took a corner too close and ended up falling back-first into the White River. The first time was super scary initially...but then I got the hang of things. I went my second time this past Saturday and it wasn't that scary at all. Although, I did end up falling (not in the river, though). I was trying to let this guy behind me pass and BAM - my handle-bar hit a tree. I fell scquare on my butt, which is a good place to land, really. only minor scrapes and bruises to report. I'm going to try to go back out to the trail a few more times before it gets cold. It's a lot of fun.