It's Off to Work I Go!

I've been bugging Katie to let me go to work with her for ages and ages now, but she always says no.  I guess she really must have missed me while I was gone, because last Thursday night she finally said I could go with her! 

So on Friday morning I got up early and dressed up nice and we drove into the office.  Katie had to fill in for someone at the downtown branch, so we got to be right smack dab in the middle of the busy city, with cars and people going right by our windows all day.  It was neat.  I learned a lot about working in offices!!

The first thing I learned is that you have to drink a lot of coffee.  Even if you do not like coffee very much (or if you are not allowed to drink it, like me), you should still find something hot to drink like tea or hot chocolate because it's also usually very cold in offices.  It may be 85 degrees outside, but you'll be lucky if it's 65 degrees inside.

Once you have your nice hot beverage, it's time to buckle down and get to work on the computer!  I pretended I was doing some very difficult and complicated office-ey tasks, such as analyzing the Weekly Estimated Net Usage Statistics of...well, something.

That got boring after awhile, so I looked out the windows and watched all the cars and people going by.  You can see some interesting things in the middle of a downtown city, like a bike race, even though they rode by much too fast for a picture!

Then I played with the toy I brought along - my new Calico Critter!!  I got him with Hodel.  He is a baby squirrel and his name is William.  He is so cute and I love him so much.

Apparently offices tend to have lots of plants and decorative books sitting around that are not really meant to be read, but are just artfully arranged here and there for show.  William is very mischievous and likes to climb up on lots of things, so he had lots of good spots to play.

I had a good time on my first day in the working world!  But I think I'd rather keep going to school with my friends right now, so I'm glad I'm not grown up and ready to go out looking for jobs just yet. 

Plus, all the little clips holding up my mature twist hairdo gave me a headache. :)

Home Sweet Home!!

I am finally home from my big summer trip with Hodel!  And what a trip it was...I went to Disney World (I met Princess Merida from the new movie "Brave" and she said I had pretty hair!), went to a Shakespeare acting camp and played Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," went to the zoo (they expanded the penguin section since my last visit!!  Eee!!), and a Cincinnati Reds baseball game, and celebrated Hodel's birthday!!  Phew.  One of my best summer vacations ever, for sure. :)

Here are some of my favorite photos from my trip!

Hello, Hodel!  Together again at last:

 

Going swimming to beat the heat!

 

At the Magic Kingdom, about to go meet some beautiful Disney princesses while dressed as beautiful princesses ourselves (doesn't Hodel make a perfect Jasmine?)  

 

The princesses with our Minnie souvenirs (of course I wanted the Minnie dressed as a princess)!

 

Best friends in turquoise:

 

  Classic summer fun - BUBBLES!!

And finally, Hodel the birthday girl and me having fun at her party!

 Hodel posted all these photos and more on her Facebook page!  You can see all of Hodel's pictures and posts about her own travels (she left for New York right after I came home!) right here:

https://www.facebook.com/TravelingHodel

Even though I miss Hodel already, I am so happy to be home!  I'm ready to catch up on all my blog reading and spend lots of time with Ginger Rogers, my guinea pig.  If only I didn't have to go back to school in two weeks! :(

 

My Favorite Disney Girl

Do you have a favorite Disney movie or character?  My answer to those questions is very easy.  It's Mulan for both - no comparison!  She is tough and brave and smart, and the scene in the movie where she decides to go to war in her father's place to save his life is really awesome...watching it kind of makes me want to give myself an epic haircut with a sword just like Mulan does. :)  Here is a clip of the haircut scene, complete with the synthesizer soundtrack that just makes the whole scene perfect:

I have seen almost all the Disney cartoon movies, I think.  I like most of them, but I'll confess that I don't like the character of Cinderella very much at all (sorry if she's your favorite). :(  I just think Cinderella is one of the wimpiest girls ever, because all she does is cry and cry and give up when things don't go her way.  If it weren't for her mouse friends making her a ballgown and getting her the key to unlock her room so she can see her prince at the end, and of course her fairy godmother fixing things so she can go to the ball, all she'd do is sit alone in her room and weep piteously.  She'd never go anywhere or do anything.  I think she would drive me a little nuts if she was my friend, to tell you the truth.  But not Mulan - she's the kind of person you could have an adventure with.

I've been a little fixated on Disney stuff lately, because...I'm going to Disney World!!  I've always, always wanted to go there, and now I finally will get to.  I almost got to go to Disneyland in California, but Katie LEFT ME AT HER SISTER'S HOUSE because she said I was too short to go on any of the rides.  I thought that was very mean of her.  I may not be a Cinderella fan, but I still wanted to see her famous castle!  But now my best friend Hodel has invited me to go to Disney World with her, so at last I will get to see what it's like.  I CAN'T WAIT!!!

The Visiting Patient

Guess what.  A girl named Samantha has come to stay at my house for a little while.  She belongs to the sister of a good friend of Katie's.  Poor Samantha was in a flood recently and now she has to have surgery, and she is staying here to get her procedures done.  She does not look too bad, except for her hair being messy, but she is very shaken up.  We put her in my bed to nap after her extremely traumatizing journey to my house in a trash bag, and I brought her some tea in my favorite penguin mug.

 
Samantha told me all about the flood while she drank her tea.  She was being stored in a box in the basement, she said, when all the water started to come in and get her.  She was terrified and could not get out of the box; all she could do was try to keep her head above all that water, and thankfully she did and did not drown.  I got shivers down my spine listening to her!  Her story also made me remember my own past, from before I came to live with Katie. 

Before I got adopted through Ebay, I had to live in a box for a very long time.  Years, I think, but I was so sleepy and sad from being in the box all the time that I lost track.  Then when I finally got to Katie's house, her little brother got me from the delivery man and decided to play a trick by taking me hostage in his closet and leaving a ransom note for Katie to find.  He even took me out of the box and tied my wrists together, like I really was a hostage, and laughed his head off the whole time!  I thought I had come to live with crazy people, and actually wished I was back at my old house in the box!  But then Katie found me and untied me, and she was nice.  Even her hostage-taking little brother is actually nice, I discovered - he taught me and Hodel how to play Frisbee golf one summer when she was visiting.

So I know what it's like to be locked in a box and not be able to get out, though I was very lucky to never be in a flood.  I told Samantha not to be scared - she will get all fixed up and feel better than ever.  But I can't promise she won't have to go back in a box, because she probably will.  She is being saved for a little girl who might come along sometime in the future, so I think she will have to wait for that girl to someday be born and get big enough to play before she can come out and have adventures again.  Poor Samantha. :-(

She is so pretty, though, and very nice...she will make a wonderful friend for that little girl someday!

Hodel is Going Home :-(

You know what the best thing in the world is?  Having your best friend come to stay with you for a nice long time.  You know what the worst thing is?  When she has to go back home. :-(  I think saying goodbye is always worse when it's the other person leaving and you staying.  When it's you going back home, there's excitement about it since you miss your family and pets and your own bed, and it's nice to see those things again.  But when it's you staying, everything's the same except that your friend isn't there anymore...and it seems very lonely for awhile. :-(

I helped Hodel gather up her things, even though I did not want to.

But Hodel had a surprise for me.  She took out a special gift box with a big bow and said it was for me.  "This is my thank you present for hosting me for the holidays this year," she said.  "I hope you like it."

I was so surprised.  "But you already gave me my holiday presents!" I insisted.

"Yes, but I knew you'd probably feel sad and lonely when I had to leave," Hodel said, "so I wanted to save something to give you now, so you can have a nice surprise to make you feel better."

You see, that's one of the reasons why Hodel is my very good friend, because she really cares about her friends' feelings and always wants them to be happy.  I opened up the box and found a beautiful Hanukkah sweater, two white hairbows, and a little blue teddy bear!!

 

I was very excited, so of course I pulled off my hoodie and pink hairbows to try on the awesome sweater and bows right away.  "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I squealed to Hodel.  "I love it all!"

 

Then Hodel gave me the biggest hug.  "I'm going to miss you, Anna Lee," she said.  "I've had the best time with you, just like always.  Thank you so much for having me."

 "I'm going to miss you, too," I said, and tried very hard not to cry.  "Thank YOU so much for coming."

"Don't worry - we'll see each other again!" Hodel said.

And I'm sure we will...but the house will seem so quiet and empty without her here!!  Maybe I need to plan a big slumber party or something to lift my spirits.

Happy New Year!

Well, we had an awesome New Year's Eve watching the ball drop in Times Square in New York City and eating lots of snacks!  Katie told us she once spent New Year's Eve in Times Square.  She said it was terrible - tons of people all packed together in the street in the freezing cold for hours, and there were no bathrooms anywhere.  There also wasn't any entertainment - all the music and performances you see on T.V. were nowhere to be found.  It was silent except for lots of the people complaining about how boring and freezing the whole thing was, and the only excitement was when a helicopter flew overhead to record shots of the crowd; then everybody screamed and waved like crazy in case they were on T.V.  So I guess it is much better to watch it from the comfort of your own living room!

We got excited when 11:59 hit and the ball began to drop!!

 

Wahoo!!  It's 2012!!

Nothing's better than ringing in the New Year with your best friend!  I can't wait to see what is awaiting me in 2012.  I hope it's something good. :-)

The End of Hanukkah...

Hanukkah ended on December 28th, after eight days of fun presents and dreidel games and lots of chocolate.  Here are Hodel and me with our last few Hanukkah presents: a paddleball game, a yo-yo, and treasure boxes with penguins on them to keep some of our presents in!

 

We finally got to light all eight candles on the menorah, which I was really excited about!  I couldn't wait to see them all lit up.  Hodel put the lit menorah in the window, and it looked so, so beautiful.  We even got a little bit of snow that night, so it was even more perfect!

I loved celebrating Hanukkah this year.  I want to have a Hanukkah party next year and teach all my friends how to play dreidel!