a peanut farmer

our time in atlanta was good. jes and i totally surprised her parents. she waited in the car while i went in. then i pretended like i "forgot" my mother's day present in the car so i went out and go jes and she snuck in the house with me and stood in the kitchen. her mom walked into the kitchen and started hooping and hollering. so her dad walked into the house and saw jes and smiled. we spent a great day with them, making penne with vodka sauce and garlic bread. we also picked up four small little delicious desserts from alon's bakery. we all ate and drank so much, i fell asleep from food coma at like 10pm. we had breakfast there the next morning and headed out around noon.

the rest of the day we ran errands and then went to my work and spent HOURS making up the binders for MTP. i dropped jes off at the airport on tuesday and got on the MTP treadmill. overall, the event went well, but every day there was something: room locked, caterer late, and so on. it was completely exhausting. like end of the day i can't make a sentence tired. but what was great is that after i was done at work i was able to have dinner with dawn and sarah and kim and hang out even if i was a blithering idiot. and as is true of every year, i made a few new faculty/grad student friends and i really enjoyed seeing some of them get all excited about learning about the scholarship of teaching and learning. its really cool to see teachers become students.

things finished up a little early on friday so i got to the airport a little early and was able to get on an earlier flight. i was waiting at the gate writing a letter to my friend janet and i saw some sort of important delta suits hanging out around my gate and looking out the windows at the tarmac. since on the way to atlanta we had a backstreet boy (brian littrell) and his family on our plane, my mind went directly to britney spears or some bubble gum pop culture person. when i got on the plane i started looking around in first class to see who was on the plane. as usual it was all white business looking people- mostly men. as i scanned the group and i saw this older man who was 1. reading a book and 2. taking notes in the book with a pen. i found this curious, b/c more often than not, first class folks (mostly men) are reading magazines: money, golf, whatevs. and here is the older man reading a book critically enough that he needed a pen in his hand. then i looked closer and i realized it was PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER. i looked next to him and saw his wife rosalyn. then i kept walking and saw all the secret service dudes. as i got to my seat, i texted jes that he was on my plane. about ten minutes later, the rest of the plane started to catch on. once we were all seated, president carter walked through the WHOLE PLANE and SHOOK EVERYONE'S HAND (mine included). i was so nervous b/c i didn't know if i should call him "mr. president" or "mr. carter" i opted for the latter. it was cool.

jes picked me up from the airport and we went and ate at this delicious new vegan restaurant in park slope called "the v spot", i had a chicken parmigana sandwich. it was really good. we went back there last night with higgins and jes and i shared the nachos. also very good.

ok i am getting caught up on my starting over right now. i also have to report i am THRILLED that marissa died on the oc. i really didn't like her character.

thursday the 26th is my ro-ro's 4th birthday. happy birthday monkey!