R.I.P. Aunt Betty

My grandma's sister-in-law (my dad's Aunt Betty) had been sick for awhile. Last weekend my parents went down for a day to Iowa to visit her, and she wasn't doing so well. Yesterday her kids made the tough decision to take her off life support. So now we're going down to Iowa on Sunday for the wake and the funeral on Monday. The only good part of this story is that now she's with her husband, my great-Uncle Dick, assuming there's an afterlife of some sort.

Tuesday I went bowling with Hannah and Liz from Century tech. It was pretty fun, caught up on a lot of gossip and actually bowled really well. I broke 100 both times - although the first time the computer was cheating for me and kept adding 1 pin to whatever I actually bowled (not every time, but often enough, and once gave me a spare). First game I got 111, second I got 121. We only played two games but ended up spending 2 1/2 hours there just talking and catching up. Hannah is sort of in the same boat as I am. She was an English major and is trying to get a job in the cities. She's going to move there (if all goes well) in September. Liz is going to vet school at Columbia in Missouri, while living in an apartment with her boyfriend. At first (since she has no undergrad debt) I was thinking she had it made. Then she informed me that she took out a $50,000 loan just for the first year. After that I started to feel bad for her, although she at least has a plan.

Wednesday I didn't do much, but later that night I hung out with Jackie again. We went to DQ again and then off to Cinemagic to see The Ugly Truth. It was pretty funny, but I think I was expecting more. It also had a very confusing conclusion. I couldn't figure out what the moral of the story was. Be yourself? Be a slut? All so confusing.

On Thursday I worked from 11-5:30 (was supposed to work until 8:30) and walked home afterwards. Then took Belle to Foster Arends park where mom was having a work picnic and had a swimming lesson. Belle first jumped into the little lake and immediately sunk. And then clawed her way to the surface and figured out how much she loves to swim.

Today I woke up very very early to Belle barking her head off around 5:15 am. Took her around 20 minutes to quiet down and that much again longer for me to get back to sleep. Then she started up again around 7:15 am after mom and Sara left for a tour of the U of M and finally I got so fed up with it I just yelled "BELLE! THAT'S ENOUGH!" And she stopped! It was amazing. I still slept badly this morning because one of the neighbors was getting their house re-roofed and it was soo loud and noisy. Eventually got up, took a shower, started some laundry, and then headed down to the Apache mall to see if I could catch Hannah at work at the pretzel place. No luck there, but I did get a book (one recommended by Joel, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin). Then came home, took Belle to the dog park (where she made friends with a malamute named Balto) and then came home and got ready for work. Worked until 10:30, came home, and started the long stupid application for the job at the VA. Took awhile to finish (all the normal stupid ridiculous application stuff that is all on my resume anyway). Now just working tomorrow 11 - 8:30 and then Sunday 11 - 2 and then down to Iowa.

PS - I can't believe it's already August.