A Family Reunion (And Poison Ivy)

Saturday marked only the second time I've been to my mom's mom's mom's side family reunion. This was the Clements reunion, the side where we're all related distantly to Samuel Clemens (i.e. Mark Twain). I can't help bragging about this, no matter how distant the relationship may be.

There I got to see 3 of my 4 cousins on my mom's side of the family. The oldest, Jacob, I hadn't seen in years. He's 15 now and taller than me, which totally weirded me out. I was so excited to see him and his little brothers.

He and I hung out most of the day talking, catching up, and making fun of each other for being old. I also forced him to eat a plum, took pics of him smashing a pinata, and generally attempted to irritate him in any way possible. Isn't family great? At the end, we escaped the reunion and took a walk by the road. He wanted to show me a creek nearby.

Had I known that his plans involved sliding down two vertical, overgrown banks, tramping through jungles of poison ivy, slipping on frog egg covered river rocks, and eventually ending up barefoot (the reason my foot now has a large, possibly infected, stick-induced hole in it), I may have chosen not to wear Birkenstocks and short shorts.

But besides the foot injury and the constellation of pink, itchy, poison ivy bumps covering my legs and arms, and some other random parts of my body that I can't figure out how they got there, we had a fantastic time. It made me feel like a kid again, playing in the creek with my cousin, just like when we were little. I love family reunions.

Now I have to go apply the itch cream. Stupid poison ivy.

My Babies

Meet Ziva.

And Lola.

These are my babies. I've been wanting to get a kitten to live inside with me for so long now. I can't believe it's finally happened. And I didn't just get one. I have two beautiful, energetic, and lovable kittens. They are so perfect!

I adopted them a few days ago from the Franklin County Humane Society. It was so hard to pick out of the twenty adorable kittens running around in there, but in the end they really picked me.

Ziva was all over me from the minute I walked in. She purred and rubbed and followed me everywhere. I had come in with the intention of getting one, but my dad had come along and couldn't bear the idea of leaving her behind. So Ziva was ours.

I found Lola sleeping by herself on the highest point in the room. And she was solid gray, exactly what I was looking for. I picked her up and she started purring so loud. So adorable!

Ziva came home with us that day and quickly became very comfortable hogging my bed. To the annoyance of Ziva, Lola came home two days later after her surgery. Lola spent the next few days locked up whenever I wasn't around to supervise thanks to an unfortunate case of worms. But she's all better now.

Now they love each other. There is occasional wrestling, which Lola always starts and always loses, but I often see them licking each other's heads and purring non stop.

I'm so happy to have them. They give me something to look forward to in my free time and they definitely help with the loneliness that can come from living so far out in the country away from friends.

Thanks to them, I am well on my way to becoming the crazy cat lady that I've always dreamed of being :)

Where the names came from:

Ziva Rhys Aigner- Ziva: girl from the show NCIS; Rhys: looks like a Reese's cup

Lola Quin Aigner- Lola: I like the name; Quin: Tegan and Sara's last name

A Job!

I have a job!!! Finally!

You are now looking at (or reading, or whatever) the newest employee of the Roanoke Tanglewood Barnes and Noble.

My first day of work was Tuesday. Basically I had time to drive home from Tennessee, take a shower, get ready, and drive the 50 minutes to work.

It was a great first day, although I was just stuck in the back filling out paperwork and reading the manual with the other new employee and the assistant manager. We did this for four hours!

I had expected about an hour of paperwork so I wasn't too concerned about the fact that I was hungry before I went in. About two hours in, my sugar had dropped so low that I basically had tunnel vision and I was having trouble focusing on what I was being told. That made things a bit complicated, especially when everyone was in the breakroom eating wonderful-smelling grilled sandwiches from the cafe, but I got through it.

I'm so excited about this job (and the employee discount)! I have always loved Barnes and Noble and it's so cool finding out how it all works. My next day is Friday, when I'm going to learn how to work their search program and go on a scavenger hunt for books in the store. Should be fun!

Tegan and Sara at The Orange Peel

Two days later and my vocal chords are still recovering. During the Tegan and Sara concert at The Orange Peel in Asheville, NC, we screamed and sang at the top of our lungs for over two hours. It was the best concert I have ever been to in my life!

It was a mad scramble to try to get there in time after Valerie and I picked Cristin up after class in JC. We managed to arrive in Asheville only minutes before the concert was set to start. But then we drove around for the next 15 minutes looking for parking.

When we finally found a spot (on a creepy dark street next to a man standing on the sidewalk talking to himself), we hiked back up the road to the venue, hoping not to miss too much.

Then we saw the line of people that was out the door. We sighed in resignation and added ourselves to the line. But happily, the line moved quickly. Tickets were scanned, hands were stamped, and we were through.

We didn't hear music yet so we made a pit stop at the bathroom. That's when the screaming started. I freaked out. "We're missing it!!" I jumped up, ran out of the stall, washed my hands, and started jumping up and down yelling, "Come on, come on, we're missing it!!!" To tell the truth, I'm not even sure if I was done. Valerie will probably never let me forget that, haha.

When we rushed out to the room and saw the stage, we realized that people had just been screaming to try to get them to come out. Hadn't missed anything after all. Shortly after, Tegan and Sara came onstage with their guitars and the whole place went nuts. They first did an acoustic set and the whole audience was singing along from the very first line of Call It Off.

Throughout the first set, they had 2 or 3 Q+A sessions in the intervals where they answered audience questions such as, "What impact do you think Lady Gaga has on people's perception of women musicians?" and my favorite, "In case of a zombie takeover, what would be your survival plan?" to which Sara answered, "I would be dead."

After a 20 minute break, during which Val, Cristin, and I sat on the floor and got stepped on and spilled on while we made comments about people's footwear, they came back out with the full band do to a total rock show. We danced, clapped, sang, and screamed for the next hour and had the best time ever.

If I had one request, it would be that they stand on stools or something, because even though they were on a stage, I still had to stand on my tiptoes the whole time to be able to see their short little selves. But even the fact that my middle toe fell asleep and my arches were breaking, it was so worth it. They were magnificent and funny and being in a room full of people who loved them as much as I do was such a great experience.

It seems we made an impression on them as well. Once they were finished and had left the stage, we couldn't stop cheering. Finally they came back out, surprised to be doing an encore, and played two more songs. That seems normal, but they really don't usually do encores. They loved us, and told us so, and we loved them back.

Later on Twitter (yes, I follow them on Twitter), Tegan posted "Thank you Asheville. I have a serious crush on you. That show rocked my world. #wow"

Something To Do

You may have noticed that my posts have been few and far between over the course of this last month. This is not, as it was in France, a result of being exceptionally busy seeing and doing fantastically wonderful things. On the contrary, my lack of postage is directly correlated to the fact that I have nothing much to write about.

I am bored. At first it was a great feeling. I had nothing to do, nowhere to be, no worries whatsoever. After a month, feeling relaxed has led to feeling pointless.

So, I have become obsessed with hobbies. I jump rope to attempt to stay in shape (Europe has a way of making you fit that nothing in America can compare to), I bake (thus defeating the whole point of jumping rope), I've started playing guitar, I watch movies and read books, I look for jobs, and I scrapbook my year in France (this has become my obsession, although it makes me miss France even more.)

Besides my hobbies, there have been a few fun activities over the last month. Some of these I've already blogged about, but besides those I've gotten to hang out with my family and watch countless episodes of our newest fav NCIS, played putt putt with Valerie and Gwen, played violin in church every week, visited Hannah in Lynchburg after she got home from France, skyped with Camilla, and had a wonderful visit with my college buddies in Tennessee.

So really, looking back over this post, I feel like maybe my month home hasn't been a complete waste of time. It really is so nice to be back with my friends and family. The hard part is being so far away from everyone and attempting to fill my days while seriously missing France and the friends and life I've left behind.

The Zoo

"Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo. I do believe it, I do believe it's true."

I love Simon and Garfunkel. And I love the zoo.

I love sweating under the bamboo canopies, looking at elephants and pretending I'm really in Africa.

I love saying, Hey Mom, look at this! and seeing her cringe when she sees that I'm deviously pointing at a snake.

I love that I can get on my brother's nerves and boss him around all day and in the end he still loves me back.

I love that my dad only takes pictures of animals and flowers unless I do something stupid like get stuck on the back of a huge slippery bronze rhino. Then he takes a picture of me.

I love drifting from air vent to air vent in the aviary in an attempt to cool off while also blocking everyone's path.

And, did I mention I love the zoo?

Tegan and Sara

Friday night was one of the best nights of my life! Valerie, Amy, Cristin, and I got to take a road trip to Raleigh, NC to see Tegan & Sara and Paramore in concert!! I'd been looking forward to this night for months and it absolutely did not disappoint.

It was fantastic to get to see my friends again after all this time of being away. We talked, laughed, ate gyros, sweated in the 105 degree heat, danced, and sang our lungs out. It was magnificent.

And of course the music was fantastic. This was the first night of the Honda Civic Tour and a Swedish band called Kadawatha was up first. Next was New Found Glory.

Then came Tegan & Sara, the reason I wanted to go to this concert. They were so great and I've never enjoyed a concert more than I enjoyed that. They're amazing musicians and so funny when they chat with the audience in between songs. I would've liked to hear more of their banter but they didn't get a really long time onstage. And they're incredibly tiny, which makes them sort of disappear up there if you don't stand on your tiptoes to see them. Haha.

Up last was Paramore. I know a few of their songs and I liked them but I've never been a huge fan. Now I kinda am. They are awesome performers and really energetic. Haley's voice is powerful for such a little person and two of the band did a backflip over each other. Craziness!

So, we had so much fun, we're going to go to another Tegan and Sara concert in August! This will be a smaller venue and it'll be just them so hopefully there will be tons of hilarious stories and sibling pestering (they're twins, by the way). I cannot wait! So be aware, in about a month, there will be another post full to the brim of excitement and exclamation points!!!