"Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid."-Heinrich Heine

Woot Woot. I got off early today! That was exciting, but you know what just elated me? Seeing a 1994-Dodge Grand Caravan with nice rims. Don't get me wrong, this old grocery getter was no clunker, but really? this kid-carting-mom-mobile is good enough to have better rims than my car? And these were not the snap on ones you get for like $20 at the local Wal-mart, these were after-market rims. I don't get it. This is the actual MAV with the dubs.

Pretty retarded right?

I want to give everyone a guided tour in my shoes for a couple interesting things that have conspired within the last year or so. And without further ado, I give you my top weirdest/randomest/stupidest/oddest things I've ever witnessed/done/or had happen to-in no particular order:

• One day Michelle, Severin and I were in Safeway buying contraband to take into an already expensive movie, when we came across a GIANT box of Goldfish crackers. I looked and was utterly taken aback by how big this thing was. I mean I know kids love them some Goldfish, but seriously! I'd hate to be the cow that gave her milk so the billion crackers they stuffed in the box could say they had "real cheese" in them. So we go about our business and what not, and I go to work sometime in the next couple days and lo and behold the asinine-ly huge box of Goldfish crackers is there next to the seemingly weenie toaster compared to the Goldfish box winking me in the face.

• On my way down to Utah from Rexburg one weekend, my friend Cassara were driving on I-15 and after stopping and a pretty shady gas station are on our merry way, I look over to see an old school Honda Accord with no drivers side door that had been patched up with duct tape and a clear garbage bag!!! I wish I had gotten a picture, but they were going too slow perhaps to ensure the drivers' safety which I don't know-one would think they threw out the window when they began driving this hazard on wheels to Utah.



• Continuing on my affair with plastic garbage bags, I was getting my hair done at a hair school-which will remain un-named bc I think they do a pretty dandy job on my hair-but the girl took me to the hair dryer thing, and went off to fetch me a plastic wrap thing that is supposed to help with the highlighting-heating process. She comes back with a garbage sack in hand, and an apologetic look on her face. Apparently they had run out of the bag things, but a friend of mine who was with me sat in the dryer seat next to mine said that she got the normal plastic wrap thing just fine, so there I sat with a freakin garbage bag on my head for like 25 minutes for no reason. Lazy hair-dresser girl.



• I am just on a roll today because as I was leaving baby's house, the neighbor-who is quite the old geezer if I do say so myself, was walking around his garage with I kid you not Red Marlboro sweat pants on. They were hot let me tell ya.




• So LauriAnn and I went to the Japanese Gardens this last weekend and decided to take a few snapshots of ourselves-those I will post later. when we were leaving I had to use the bathroom, so I went into the facilities and you cannot tell me that when a handicapped stall is open that you don't take it! So I headed for that stall which was conveniently dead ahead, lock the door-because heaven forbid someone walk in on me at this deserted garden oasis, and proceed to go about my business, but before I got too far, I look in the corner of the stall and there is an eight-eyed hairy little bugger of a spider lookin' like he could eat a mid-sized baby hippo...which would about equal the size of yours truly. Since I figured nobody was around to hear my wail, or see my fear tears, I continued about my business not one second diverting my attention from that eight legged beastie. Needless to say I didn't kill it-though I should have-but I was wearing my nice flip flops and A. didn't want to get nasty spider goobers on them and B. didn't EVEN want to get close enough for the fanged thing to get a nibble in. Contrary to popular belief I am not a snack. This is the spider, the grey bit is the bottom corner of the stall.
  



• Heres a fun one. I, Gwendolyn B. Stoker, officially have monopolized-cornered the market if you will-the Moses Lake Singles Ward.(If you don't know what I'm talking about, then don't worry about it.)
  
  


• And last but not least, to wrap up this session of my 9 lives, I will share my latest adventurous escapade. About three months ago, Elder Beck and I decided to concoct a list of awesome activites for future reference for the saturday activities or whoever was in need. After asking around and putting our heads together, Glow in the Dark Soccer was born. Aweomse? Yes. Exciting? Of course it was. Stupid? Probably. Dangerous? Pardon my french, but not just yes, thats a HELL yes. The first time we played, it was pretty good, we had a relatively decent turn out which was enough for each team to have about 4-5 players at any one time. The second time, there was a RIDICILOUS amount of people. Apparently people heard about our little slice of awesome that we had served up a mere 2 weeks before. Goes to show all you non-beleivers out there how rad Saturday activities really are. So we were running around, kicking the ball in peace our hearts filled with happiness and glee, until someone mistook what was once my shin for the GLOW IN THE DARK ball. Um....last time I checked I was not even close to resembling a glow worm! They don't even have legs! Anyway, Round 1 of Gwen vs. The Steel Toed Boot ended with a little bit of pain, a freckle of blood, but a rather oblivious to the pain me. Maybe it was the adrenaline pumping or the thrill of the hotties that were either chasing me or the ball, we will never know. Then comes Round 2 of Gwen vs. Girl in the Corner, which ended in agony, misery, and a little misty eye action for me. Some girl in the corner tried to weasel her way in and steal the ball from me, I was having none of it, until the toe of her tattered converse all star, had a meet and greet with my tender and vulerable achilles heel...or shin, what have you. I just collapsed onto the ball-hah she still didn't get it!-got up a few seconds later, thought I was ok, but then the actual pain and realization of what had just conspired hit me. I was a gonner. I walked myself out into the foyer sat on the couch, and looked and the mincemeat they had made of me. It was a geyser of pain, swelling by the milisecond. I had hopes people. I was gonna go pro at indoor soccer, but to have that all ripped away from you in one mere second with one swift kick of an ignoramous' un-skilled hoof of a foot, is just devastating. I will say I cried. I kept it in, until I saw the damage, but even then I tried to take it like a man-never let them see you cry, but despite my efforts I think a few people saw. It was bad. real bad. Here are some day by day pictures of the rest of the story.

T-2 hours since the incident

2 Days later

4 days after that...

1 week after the incident

And this my friends is my leg today, not quite healed...still a little pink, but hey it's progress!

Cheers Big Ears!