Brought to you by the letters C, R, and T

So I have a couple of new letters to add after my name.

I took my CRT exam today, which is the entry-level certification for respiratory therapists.  I was supposed to have done this several weeks ago, but the snow happened, and I had to reschedule.  I was afraid I was going to be the last person in my class to take the stupid thing, but I was actually testing today with two of my classmates.  Not that it made any difference, because we were expressly forbidden from speaking to each other.

Anyway, I got a little apprehensive about the whole ordeal when reviewing my confirmation email this morning.  Not because of the test - I mean, it's a big deal and everything, but we've been taking practice CRT exams at the end of each semester since I started school, and I passed them all - but because of the instructions on how to locate the testing center.

The first thing that stuck out to me was the instruction to park in a parking deck across from the bus station.  Now, I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but there are a lot of very sketchy people that hang out at this bus station.  It's a very lovely building, but it's kinda hard to see the beauty of it when there are vagrants vomiting in the bushes around the clock.  Also, it has been heavily graffitied.  However, the graffiti-ists were not the most creative of people.  So the entire building is covered in rather non-descript messages in black spray paint.  As I have never tagged anything myself, I don't know if this is actually the current style of graffiti.  I suspect we just have really bad graffitiers.

(I really wish I had a picture to show of this, but I sure as hell wasn't going to hang around long enough to take one.  My apologies.)

Anyway, the directions went on to instruct me to walk up several blocks and look for a building with a green awning.  Not a problem.  Green awning.  Got it.  Then, they instructed me to walk passed the door of the building and down an alley.

An alley.

I didn't really know what to make of that.  I mean, I try to avoid alleys at all costs.  Mostly because I tend to be a tiny bit on the nervous side, and I've watched entirely too many cop dramas on television over the years to ever consider hanging out in one for any reason.  But I reasoned that the testing center people surely wouldn't send me down an alley for no reason.

The next step was to look for an unmarked door behind a Dumpster.

At this point, I started to suspect that the testing center was actually a speakeasy in the 1920's.  An unmarked door.  Behind a Dumpster.  Seriously.

The door was, of course, locked.  So I knocked.  And waited.  Alone.  In an alley.  Behind a Dumpster.  I really expected someone to jump out of it and knock me in the head and steal my purse or something.  So I waited for someone to let me in.  In reality,  I probably waited about 30 seconds.  But they were the longest seconds OF MY LIFE.

Once inside the testing facility, I got to go about proving I am who I say I am.  I used my passport, because in most cases, a passport counts as two forms of identification.  But not here.  I'm lucky I had my driver's license on me, because I was not about to walk back through the scary alley and passed the bus station to get it.

I then had to remove all of my jewelry and prove that my eyeglasses were eyeglasses and not some kind of crazy cheating device.  I couldn't even bring my own pencil into the testing room.  We were provided with a golf pencil and one piece of lime green scratch paper.  All of my other belongings were placed inside a canvas bag, which was then locked and attached to the back of my chair.  I had to argue with the woman for ten minutes to get her to let me keep my inhaler out.  She really didn't want to let me, but when I pointed out that in the event of an unexpected problem I could be dead by the time she unlocked my bag, she relented.  But I had to sit it on the table behind me.  In case I had crib notes written on the canister or something.

I can't really say much about the test itself, because apparently the first rule of CRT testing is you do not talk about CRT testing.  But 86 minutes later, I walked out of that place with my scores in my hands, and I didn't even notice the alley or the bus station.  Because it was over.  And I passed.

Typed up while wearing super-cute fingerless gloves

I'm feeling particularly Slytherin-like today (and if you don't understand what that means, I don't think we can be friends anymore).  And it's not just because of these:

Although that *is* part of it.  I mean, maybe a true Slytherin wouldn't have the little flowers, but I like to think that at least one would appreciate the dichotomy of liking ambition AND pretty flowers.  And you can't really tell from the picture, but my toenails are painted green, too.  I should be wearing a green shirt, too.  But I ordered this baby from ThinkGeek and it came in the mail today:

It's only the most amazingly epic shirt EVER.  I was so tempted to also purchase the Tim the Enchanter hat and evil bunny slippers, but I refrained - for now.  No promises that they won't be winging their way toward me at some point in the future.

It's been a lazy couple of days at Chez Erin because we got some snow, and as I mentioned before, snow means staying at home if at all possible.  It was very pretty snow, though:

I hesitate to complain about our paltry four inches when I know that New England is getting hammered by feet upon feet of the stuff.  But other parts of the country are far better prepared for it than we are.  Hell, we don't even have snow plows.  We have a couple of Bubbas that slap makeshift plows onto the fronts of their pickups.

So it's not the best of situations.  But it usually grants us at least a couple of days off of work or school, which is always appreciated.  Particularly those of us in college who are not required to physically make up snow days.  Sure, we're responsible for the work missed, but at least they can't add days to the end of the semester.

I have a confession to make.

Socks are not my only love.

Let me give you a minute to process that shocking information.




Yes, it's true.  While socks have a very, very special place in my heart, I also have a weakness for hats.  The bigger, the better.  The crazier, the better.  It is my dream to one day attend the Kentucky Derby for the hats alone.  Give me something huge and gaudy with tulle and sequins and feathers, and I am in heaven, y'all.

So naturally, today is one of my favorite days of the year.  It is National Hat Day.  The day to celebrate all things millinery.  Now, as I mentioned before, I live in a tiny, tiny room.  Which means that my biggest and best hats are currently stored away for safe keeping.  But rest assured - my cramped quarters have not stifled my love of hats.  Just steered me toward slightly smaller versions of my lovelies.

There was a woman named Willie Oates who was a state legislator and major philanthropist in Arkansas who died a few years ago, and she was officially (as in decreed by the governor) dubbed "The Hat Lady of Arkansas."  I had the pleasure of meeting her on a few occasions before her death in 2008, and fell instantly in love with her, and not just for her outrageous headgear.  But that was definitely part of it.

I may never do the things that Willie did in her life, but she will always be an inspiration to me.  And MAN, I want that hat.

So from the cloche:

To the cap:

The porkpie:

To the bucket:

The fur-lined with ear flaps:

To the beanie with a propeller on top:

Happy National Hat Day, y'all!!

It's a red-striped kinda day.

In honor of the snow that effectively shut down my entire state:

I know it's kinda misshapen, but I promise it's a penguin.  With snowflakes.  I just didn't think to take the picture *before* I put the sock on.  And it's like 19 degrees outside, so I'm not about to take it off.

I have to go out and do real people stuff today and tomorrow, which will probably end in tears and/or tragedy.  But at least I'll be able to get a blog post or two out of my adventure.

Pretty sure I'm now made of noodles

So I did some yoga today.  That is, I TRIED doing some yoga today.  In the spirit of being bored and needing something to do that didn't a) require a lot of floor space and b) make a mess.  I've dabbled in yoga before, but I can control it.

Well, no, I can't.  When you aren't exactly a yoga expert, it is not a good idea to attempt a workout from a video on the computer, especially when your computer is placed on the opposite side of the room from where you have enough space to try the asanas.  And you have terrible eyesight.  And no idea what you're doing.

The lady on the video was so excited about teaching yoga.  Holy crap.  Within five minutes I started thinking that maybe she and yoga needed a moment alone or something.  She would give a perfectly reasonable explanation of the pose, and then contort herself into a position.  I tried to imitate her, but inevitably I would end up in some bizarre bastardization of a pose that looked nothing like what she was doing.

Yoga Lady:

Me:

Yoga Lady:

Me:

Yoga Lady:

Me:

Eventually, I just gave it up as a bad job and decided instead to drink hot chocolate and watch SNL reruns.  Unfortunately, I did just enough yoga to make my arms and legs feel like spaghetti.  So I ended up spilling my hot chocolate all over my shirt.  See, this is what happens when I try to do anything remotely productive on my vacation.

We're at SnowCon One, Folks

I live in a town that is nestled high in the 'mountains' of Arkansas.  While this means that driving in and out of here is generally about as easy as directing water buffalo ballet, it does not translate to an increase in wintery precipitation.  So when Dashing Young Weatherman predicts snow, it's pretty much the same kind of general chaos as in the rest of the south, only a tiny bit scarier for two main reasons:

1.  As we live up in 'mountainous' terrain, there are lots and lots of hills that turn cars into self-propelling automotive death sleds.

2.  When the power lines were run into the county, some genius decided that we only needed one set of main transmission lines, which come in over a river and are anchored on the side of a cliff, making it only accessible by helicopter.

The particular cliff is heavily wooded, which makes the chances of power disruption by falling snowy branch abnormally high.  And when that line is damaged, the entire county loses power for however long it takes for the power people to scrounge up a helicopter and dangle someone off the cliff over the river to fix it.  This usually takes about a week, which I'm sure you can imagine is an incredibly long time when you're freezing your tootsies off.

My only consolation in all of this is that the house I live in has wood heat, so while I might die from Internet withdrawal, I won't actually freeze to death.  Me and the dogs are going to hole up with a stack of blankets, a stack of books, and a stack of dog biscuits.  See you on the flip side.

My life is so fascinating

This is what I generally look like on a normal day:

And this is me on vacation:

I would definitely consider myself one of those people who literally shuts down when I don't have responsibilities.  I mean, I pretty much live in one room, so it's not like it really matters that I smell funny or am not fit for human companionship.  My dogs don't seem to mind, anyway.

I did muster up the gumption to leave the house today in search of sustenance.  Not easy to come by in  a teeny tiny place like this in the middle of the off season.  Anyway, I ended up at a local 'fine dining' establishment, by which I mean all the food comes on plates and you can't actively spit peanut shells onto the floor.  I ordered a chef salad that, according to the menu, was  supposed to consist of "thinly-sliced turkey and country ham over a bed of fresh lettuce with tomatoes, onions, cheese, carrots, and boiled egg."  What I got was a plate piled high with lettuce, three sad little tomato wedges, four pieces of shredded carrot, some ham that I'm pretty sure was just lunch meat that was pulled into shreds by someone's fingers, and about a gallon of cheddar cheese.  I didn't mind the onions being missing because I don't really care for onions to being with, but no egg?  Are you kidding me?  The little pieces of boiled egg are why I EAT salads in the first place.  I basically had a ham and cheese sandwich minus the bread on my plate.

The restaurant itself was fairly empty except for the round table.  I'm sure at any local restaurant in any small town in the world there's something like this round table, unless you're in some place that doesn't have restaurants.  Or tables.  It's just this one table right by the door that is being manned by a group of men who apparently have nothing more pressing to do in their lives than sitting at this table and drinking coffee all day.  It's always men - I think they've taken a page from the Little Rascals and formed their own He-Man Woman Haters Club, only instead of a clubhouse, they have the round table.  The cast of characters is always something like this:

Theoretically, they talk about current events.  But in reality, it's just a gossipy group of old men.  They are almost always angry about some fool thing, usually involving the city sanitation department.  Today, they were talking about southern California.  This is especially hilarious when you consider the fact that most of them have probably never left our county, let alone the state.  How they think they know what's going on in Southern California is completely beyond me.