Bridal Veil Falls and me being an old fart

Recently we had some of the first sunny weather since I do not remember when, so I made the executive decision that we would go experience some outdoors. We drove to Provo Canyon to see Bridal Veil falls and met much of the Utah Valley population there. I dipped my big toe in the water at the bottom of the falls and it promptly turned white and fell off. So don't ask me what kind of bionic toddlers they've got here who were splashing around like it was nothing.

Two good-lookin' guys.

The Provo River, looking very rapids-y.

Bridal Veil falls. Told you they're obsessed with marriage here!

Just the cutest baby ever, that's all.

When it started to look like rain, we went to the very cool Blickenstaff's toy store and looked around. They have a phone booth filled with imported British candy and I got myself a Cadbury Whole Nut bar. (The REAL kind of Cadbury, mind you, not the Hershey-created imposter. I shake my fist at you and your ways, Hershey.)

We also grabbed a Clark Bar and an O Henry bar, because we'd never tried either. My verdict? Enh. The Clark Bar was a lot like a Butterfinger. Neither were as good as a Dairy Milk. Because the bathroom at The Shops at Riverwoods didn't have any kind of changing facilities, (really, The Shops at Riverwoods?) I changed the Tiny Dark Lord's diaper on the grass in the middle of the pedestrian area. Grass on his nekkid bum was a new experience for him, but he bore it nobly. It wasn't very crowded so I don't think anyone even noticed what I was doing. Which is too bad, because I was all prepared in case anyone decided to have a go at me.

I had a Groupon for Sammy's Cafe in Provo, so we went there for dinner and sat outside. Now . . . this is the part where I betray myself. I realize this place is cool. It's this little hip hole-in-the-wall spot just off Center Street. They play the loud music and have the cool art and sponsor bands and have Polaroids covering the walls and name their burgers after local personalities and the people who work there have feathers in their hairs. I get it.

Only . . . it was really dirty. Does it have to be dirty to be cool? There were no other customers when we went showed up, and yet the counters and tables had not been wiped down. The floor didn't appear to have been mopped in days, if not longer. GH saw an employee lick their hand after giving a customer a melty shake. (And yes, I'm going to assume this person washed said hand before doing anything else, but dang. . . )

The people who worked there were very friendly, but it took a while to get all of our food ready--it seemed like the cook could only work on one thing at a time. So first we got our fries, and then a few minutes later we got GH's burger, and then a few minutes after that I got mine. And the food? I really wasn't that impressed. It could be that we didn't order the best things (we both just did the "Make Your Own" burgers). But our burgers were tough, and when GH realized that he was eating bread & butter pickles instead of dill this look of bewildered hurt came into his eyes. The fries were good, and the pie shake (we got the Mint Oreo Pie) was tasty but nothing to write home about. I think the ones at JCW's are much better. (Note: the ones at JCW's are also huge. Get a small and share it. I'm not kidding.)

So yeah. Maybe people go more for the atmosphere than for the food. Or maybe they know what food to order. Or maybe they just love hearing Chris Brown at higher-than-healthy volume levels. Or they like to boost their immune system by sitting in other people's crumbs. As for me, I think I'll just find some kind of old-person cafeteria and start going there for dinner around 3:30 pm, thank you.

How He Proposed

So last weekend was what I suppose is the "Official" proposal, or "How Nem Got Her Ring." The unofficial proposal was equally sweet and binding and kind of involved Gentleman Friend being just a tiny bit bossy and high-handed. It was hot, believe me.

And even though we were engaged from that point, GF still wanted to be able to do something special. And like I'm going to turn down special. I figured it was coming when he called and told me that my ring wasn't going to be ready for the weekend. Because that's the lie boys always tell. I didn't spend all those years listening to "How He Proposed" stories without learning a little something about subterfuge.

So the following Friday after The Lie Men Tell went like this:

7:45am Left my house and found a Toblerone bar on the hood of my car.

10:00am The library opened. Two adorable moppets walked up to my desk carrying a small basket containing double-cream French brie, Wensleydale, and crackers.

11:00am A woman walked up to the front desk and handed me a vase of flowers.

12:00pm A man walked up to my desk and handed me Cadbury drinking chocolate and sticky toffee pudding. I started to think that maybe a pattern was forming here.

1:00pm A woman handed me a massive basket filled with English chocolates and biscuits, including a Cadbury Whole Nut bar the size of a laptop. I passed out and had to be revived. The rest of the library staff started watching the clock with me.

2:00pm I was at a friend's house eating lunch when the doorbell rang. His sister's boyfriend handed me a bag of Lion House rolls and a jar of jam. I started worrying that maybe I'd been implanted with a transmitter.

3:00pm Cute little cousin handed me a carton of Ben & Jerry's peanut butter & chocolate ice cream, which is what GF left on my desk one day last fall when I was having a horrible, awful, no good, very bad day. Which prompted Cicada to curse my name for being a blind, blind idiot.

4:00pm GF's sister brought me my secret white-trash pleasure, even bags of Cheetos and Fritos.

5:00om GF's sweet little nephew and cousin turn up with a bag from London Market containing a bottle of Schloer and a 4-pack of IZZE Clementine sparkling juice.

6:00pm GF himself turned up to take me to dinner. Said we needed to stop by his parent's house and grab something.

Turned up at house to find rose petals scattered on the front porch. Opened the door to find trail of petals leading to his bedroom--wait, sorry, wrong story--to the back patio, where a table was set up with red roses and candles and all my favorite songs playing on his iPod. So that's where we had dinner. The salad course was a Cafe Rio salad, the main course was sushi (brought over by one of the neighbors). During the main course he lied again about the ring not being ready. The desserts were puffed pastries in the shape of swans, filled with custard, cream, and strawberries, from the amazing Sweetly Divine bakery (also delivered by the neighbors).

My ring was in the dessert box. Which I think is infinitely preferable to being in the dessert, because once I hit custard I don't stop. And that could have been awkward.



And of course I was so impressed by the ring (and the box, oh my gosh a box with a light in it!!!) that I started chattering away about that before realizing that GF was still kneeling in front of me with the patient, eyebrows-raised, whenever-you're-finished look he has. So I shut up. And he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. And then I tore into my puff pastry swans.


Here's how it looks on my finger. Go ahead and make cracks about my stubby pinky. Go ahead, because I don't even care.

Wow, I feel so loved!

Two people (Streets & my Dad) have emailed to see if I've been run over by a lorry, on account of I haven't posted in two whole days. Let me just say that even though I haven't been posting, I've been thinking about posting pretty much nonstop. This becomes a problem during times when I'm supposed to be thinking about other things, like Information Retrieval Services.

For instance, I debated about telling you this story, and it looks like I'm going to.

Ahem.

Yesterday I got up from a very long lecture and started walking to my next class. As I walked, I noticed that my jeans felt odd, like they weren't fitting right or were bunched up in some weird way. I kept walking, figuring that I was just imagining things. But then I got cold, so I tugged at my scarf to re-tie it around my neck, and one of the ends didn't move. So I tugged harder, and pulled about a foot of pink scarf out from between the legs of my jeans. When I'd been sitting in the lecture I must have sat on the end and it just stayed there, so I was walking down the sidewalk like that. I don't even want to think about what that would have looked like, so I won't.

A good thing that has happened is that I'm liking my classes so far! I was kind of terrified that I would get there and go, "Wow. This is the most boring thing I've ever heard. When can I leave?" So I'm relieved about that. What we're learning about so far is how to look for information (other than just Googling it) and the ways to organize stuff so people can find what they're looking for. And hey, I'm all about being able to find what I'm looking for.

My sad experience of today happened when I had to spend a lot of money. This usually causes me pain, but today it was especially bad. It took me about 30 seconds to blow out the electrical outlet with my flat-iron, and then after the outlet was fixed it took me 6 seconds with my rechargable batteries to blow out the outlet and the voltage adapter. And all this was after I'd prepared so well!! So my life is pretty much a perfect graveyard of buried hopes, as Anne of Green Gables would say. I had to buy a curling iron, a flat-iron, a hair-dryer w/diffuser, a pack of rechargable batteries w/charger, and a hole-punch, on account of the hole punching & binder system here is freaky weird--don't get me started. Anyway, having to rebuy all this stuff depressed me greatly. Ladies, if you ever come here, just give in and accept defeat now. So then I had to spend my bus money on Cadbury's Whole Nut chocolate bars, which were 4 for a pound. I did this because at the moment I needed chocolate more than I needed a ride home. And if I've already eaten three of them, well, that's none of your business. I needed them.

Oh! The other sad experience of today was to do with the bathroom. You may remember that my landlord is in the middle of tiling the bathroom, and that there is no shower at the moment. Getting a bath around here is not an easy thing. Now there are houseguests added to the mix, repairs are still underway, and I never know when it's safe to use the thing. Plus, hello, it's a bathtub. Who the heck even takes baths? I mean, by the end of it you're pretty much sitting in your own dirt and soap and shampoo and shaving residue (if you actually shave your legs, which I certainly haven't done lately) and conditioner. If you're me, and it's only like the 2nd bath you've had all week, that's a lot of filth. Also, you're sitting where other people sit. With a shower, you're only putting your feet where other people's feet have been. I would much rather do that than be putting other parts of me where other people's parts have been. I mean, I barely even know these people!

So last night I gave my landlord the heads up, "Hi [Landlord], just wanted to let you know that I'll be using the bath in the morning, and I wanted to know if there was a time when you or [The Houseguests] were planning to use it." Because the day before everyone else decided that they needed a bath just as I woke up, so I didn't get one. Anyway, she got this stricken look and said that she was sorry, but she'd just put up more tiling and it needs 24 hours to set before anyone uses the bath, and could I possibly wait till the afternoon? Okay, see, by this point my curly hair looks, at best, like someone who's been at Girl's Camp too long. At worst, I look like a Rastafarian with blond matted dredlocks. It's really quite horrible, so I've been pinning it up for days now and I look like some freakish character from Gone with the Wind or something, all school marmish.

So tonight I told her again, "Okay then. I'm taking a bath in the morning."
Her: "Yes, that should be just fine."
Me: "At like 7:30. Or maybe even 7:00, if I feel like it."
Her: "Great."
Me: "And noooobody else will need to be doing anything whatsoever related to the bathroom at that time?"
Her: "No."
Me: "Alright then. 7:30. It's on."

Have I mentioned that she's not charging me rent until the shower's installed? I think that's very decent of her. It doesn't make me smell any better, but it will help negate the pain I felt at my recent purchases. That and the chocolate. Ooooh . . . one bar left . . .

Blogging CiL 2007, Day 2

I've been wondering what I should say about the shootings in Virginia, and all the memorials and moments of silence being held today. And maybe it's inappropriate of me to talk about my sightseeing and my conference in light of what else is going on. But the thing is, I did have a really good day today, even if I did spend part of it being sad about what happened and praying for the families of the students who were killed. So I'm going to talk about some of the good things that happened.

This conference is great and I want to keep coming back every year. Not sure how likely that is, but I'll push for it. Today I learned more about Web 2.0 and how to create a library website specifically for teens and how to successfully implement change & help people transition into a new way of doing things in the workplace. I went to one session planning to learn about how to bring about innovation in libraries and instead learned about falling asleep in my chair. Which was really too bad. But at least I stayed in my seat rather than walking out like a bunch of other people did. Only maybe they had a point, because they probably slipped into a more interesting session and enjoyed the next 40 minutes rather than hallucinating through them.

Then I went shopping.

The Crystal City Metro station

I took the Metro to Foggy Bottom and then walked over to Georgetown. I didn't have a lot of time, which is not even fair because I could have spent hours in Georgetown. I loved all the beautiful red brick buildings and the parks and the Old Stone House. I loved that they have all my favorite stores there even if I only had time to go into H&M. (I found a very cute skirt there that makes me think of Cicada. Maybe this means she will try to steal it from me. Must be on my guard.) I also loved that it was Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's. I got the peanut butter swirl one, on account of peanut butter & chocolate are hands-down the best flavor combination on Earth.

Foggy Bottom Homes

More Foggy Bottom homes

Park at the beginning of Georgetown--I guess I lied about all the blossoms being blown off. Just most of them have been.

Sorry there aren't any real Georgetown pics, but I had to book it to get back in time. Part of me wanted to just forget the rest of the day and stay there, but I figured I'd better be Responsible. And it's a good thing I did go back, because not only did I learn cool things but after the sessions there was this exhibitor reception where people walked around with even more trays of goodies, like artichoke aioli and real crab cakes and mushroom dumplings. Heaven, I tell you.

Met up with Abby for dinner at the Lebanese Taverna in Pentagon City. We had:

• Fatayer B'sbanigh (fried pastries filled with spinach, onions, pine nuts and sumac)
• Kibbeh Yoghurtlieh (kibbeh balls topped with toasted pita and warm yogurt sauce and pine nuts)
• Lamb Kabob (marinated lamb grilled and served w/rice and grilled veggies)

Turns out I love me some Lebanese food--everything was great. I got to use my per diem money on that because it was food. Afterwards we went to World Market next door and guess what else is food?

• 1 container Ghirardelli Premium Hot Cocoa--chocolate hazelnut flavor
• 2 100g bars Cadbury Whole Nut chocolate
• 3 packs McVitie's digestives in milk chocolate, plain chocolate, and chocolate caramel
• 2 160g jars Double Devon Cream for putting on scones

Yep. Totally counts. Per diem is my favorite.

After World Market we drove around Old Town Alexandria & some of the nearby neighborhoods. Could not stop gawking at the beautiful old buildings and multi-million dollar homes. I really should be living somewhere with old buildings because clearly it's in my blood. And no, disintegrating barns do not count, Logan.

Valentine's Reading List

This post is mostly for my sweet friend Tonya, whom I met when I worked at the library in L****. She would come in and ask for book recommendations, and then it turned out that we had pretty much the exact same taste in books. Soon I was smuggling her all the best stuff and we were having lunch and braiding each other's hair on a regular basis. (Note: this is why you make friends with your librarian. She might be an excellent hair braider.)

But now I'm not in L**** anymore and she's mad at me for leaving her recommendation-less. Also I keep refusing to sign up for Goodreads. Because yeah, I need to be spending more time on the Internet. Tonya says she'll let me off the hook for at least the next couple of weeks if I do a post about what books to read for the Valentine's season, much like I did at the start of Christmas.

Not all (read: any) of these are about Valentine's Day, but they are some of my favorite books about romance and/or love.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. As if that wouldn't be on here. Best when followed immediately by Colin Firth. Also brie and Cadbury Whole Nut Bars.

Bridget Jones' Diary, even the mother of all Brit Chick Lit. Please don't blame me for the swearing. Or if you fall off your couch laughing and hurt yourself.

Confessions of a Shopaholic. Yes, by the end of the 2nd one in the series I wanted to strangle Becky for having learned absolutely nothing. But this first one is frothy fun, I tell you. Also, the movie looks like it's going to be beyond stupid. She liked to shop in the book, she wasn't a clown in training.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I just read this a couple of weeks ago and really loved it. There's a bit of romance in it, but mostly it's about this amazing community and the people in it and by the end you just love them all and want to go live there.

The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel. Sweet, cozy story about finding love in unexpected circumstances (like, when you're an unwed pregnant girl in 1940s Colorado and your minister dad ships you off into an arranged marriage with a stranger).

I Like You by Sandol Stoddard and Jacqueline Chwast. Yes, this was one of those books your RA read to your entire floor your freshman year at BYU during bonding time. And???

Hug Time by Patrick McDonnell. I just read this picture book for the first time and possibly ovulated at how cute an' sweet it was.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos. Not romantic at all, but great if you're in the mood for something snarky.

The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot. You may think (rightly) that this series has gone on about 8 books too long, but nobody does hilarious & clueless teen romantic angst like Mia Thermopolis. Plus she gets it about Ioan Gruffudd. Enough said.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Because Jane is awesome and stands by her principles and totally gets everything in the end. Then go watch the movie and sob your face off during that part where she and Mr. Rochester are on the bed (!!!!!!) and he's begging her not to leave him. Sob, puppets, Sob!!

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orczy. I'm sure if I were to read this for the first time today I would have issues with it. After all, there are lines in it that read, "she was weak; she was a woman." Issues. But I saw the movie version with Jane Seymour when I was 7 years old, I read the book when I was 12, I've seen the musical like 4 times, so yeah. There's really nothing to be done for it. It's totally swoony. I am weak, I am a woman.

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim. Four depressed women leave rainy 1920s London to share a castle in Italy for a month. While there, they have hijinks with pasta and rediscover their capacity for love and happiness. The movie is great too.

Possession by A.S. Byatt. For when you like your lovers star-crossed and poetic.

Last but not least, the epic tome that brought Desmama and I together, her absolute favorite, Apache Lover.

What are some of your favorites? And if you don't care for my list, The Independent published its 50 Best Romantic Reads in 2002 with the tagline, "Alone again?"

Nice one, Independent.

I'm gonna party like I like to party

And it's called I've got a loaf of bread, a slab of brie straight from la France, a Granny Smith apple, and the last Cadbury Whole Nut chocolate bar. Hit it.

I needed this party, because I trudged about 3.5 miles today, carrying all kinds of bags in the gloomy mizzling weather. And for those of you who ran 3.5 or more miles today uphill in the snow or whatever and are wont to congratulate yourselves, just shut up. I don't have to hear it from you.

Good thing that happened today: I got to shush someone. In the library. Much like a librarian would do.

It was awesome.

The library has 4 floors. The top floor is my department, the 3rd floor is kind of the free-for-all floor w/the periodicals and the computers and copiers, and it's where people can talk and use cell phones and mill about and stuff. The 1st and 2nd floor are designated as being quiet floors. In fact, Floor 2 is quiet and Floor 1 is silent, which is a funny idea. Do people have to hold up signs when they want to ask for stuff?

Anyway, I was doing some of my first bits of research on Floor 2 (the quiet floor), when I realized that I'd been hearing the same girl's voice for quite a while, and that hers was the only one I was hearing. My first thought was, "Oh, no she is not." I peered over my little carrel and saw that she was jabbering away on a cell phone. And it wasn't one of those, "Sorry, can't talk, in the library, call you back" conversations. It was some long drawn-out affair about how some friend of theirs isn't being very nice right now, punctuated by nods and "Yeah, oi knoyw" and "Riiigh', that's no' on." I gave her 8 seconds, then went on over, smiling very nicely, and asked her to please keep it down.

Lucky for me, she smiled shamefacedly and apologized, then ended the call quickly. It could have gone much worse for me if she'd turned out to be some huge beefy rugby player (we have them) who took exception to my remarks. I doubt the skinny little engineering boys in the surrounding carrels would've been much help to me then. And if we were on the silent floor I probably wouldn't even be allowed to scream for help.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's exciting stories:

1. The dead sexy dress that cost me 4 pounds!
2. Why I'm not going to bother exercising this year!
3. Report on tomorrow's Gender and Information Studies class, where I will learn to be a full-fledged Feminist Goddess of Doom! Others may join me. We will have a full health plan.

Every day should be relaxation day

Spitfire and I had Monday (Veteran's Day) off, so we decided to commemorate the sacrifices of veterans everywhere by treating ourselves to a day of debauchery. We grabbed Jenny and drove up to Park City in order to temporarily escape from our lives. Not that our lives are bad, because they're not, but we're pretty much all going through crazy stressful times and we figured a bit of a Hen Night was preferable to one day snapping and buying some kind of high-powered rifle and climbing the nearest building with it. I'm sure you agree.

At the hotel we sat in the hot tub, did pedicures and manicures, gave each other back rubs, and ate dangerous amounts of Brie, focaccia bread, apples, hot chocolate, and no-bake cookies. I told Jen before the trip that even though I love her nobakes, I always get a gastrointestinal complaint when I eat them. Her response: That's because you're not supposed to eat seven at a time.

She's a jerk.

Her solution was for me to only eat two and see how my gastrointestinal system dealt with it. Only this did not seem a good plan to me because it would mean I only got two cookies. So I tried to cut back but apparently I failed. And it turns out that the windows in our hotel room don't open. Which is too bad.

During the pedicures the three of us wedged ourselves onto the side of the bathtub so we could keep our feet in the tub for the rinsing. It was kind of precarious, and I'm sure from the back we resembled three hippos at the watering hole.

The next morning (after the alarm on my cell phone went off, which Jenny says is one of the worst things she's ever heard and which I claim is the reason why I'm in a bad mood every day--if anyone knows of any precious, gentle, kind alarms do let me know) we hit the Outlet Mall, World Market, and downtown Park City. The weather was sunny and beautiful and everything was just relaxed and perfect.




At the World Market I got holiday crackers for Christmas dinner, real Whole Nut Cadbury bars, a bag of French lavender for cooking, two vanilla beans for $2.99, and two more sets of chopsticks to replace ones which have either been stolen or have simply run away to find a home where they'll actually get used. I love that store. I could wander around in there all day long.

My new favorite Park City bookstore is called Dolly's and is right next to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. This store is cozy and wonderful and so are the people who work there and they keep live cats sleeping in a basket. Jenny discovered this cool new edition of Pippi Longstocking, which I had not even known about but must buy immediately for the library.


We wanted to have lunch at Bistro 412 (turn your speakers off if you don't want your mind polluted with the sweet singings of French men, Dad) in keeping with our weekend of Estrogen and The Finer Things, but it was closed. Jerks. So after roaming the street for forever (lots of places are closed right now) we decided on Bandits' Grill and Bar. The only problem with this place is that it's right next the Hungry Moose Grill, which is awful. Last year when my parents were visiting we accidentally went to this place for dinner because I mistook it for Bandits. Do not make the same mistake.

Spitfire and Jen split a guacamole burger, and I got the Kobe Black & Bleu, which was an American Kobe beef burger with bleu cheese, caramelized onions, lettuce, and tomato. It was amazingly good. We had a tiny bit of room left for dessert, so when our server listed brownie sundae as one of the options we ordered one to split between the three of us. And then she, assisted by a forklift, brought it out to us.


And yes, that is a full-sized skillet underneath it and a full-sized waterglass next to it. Other people in the restaurant stared and asked what unholy thing we'd just done. We did our best but couldn't come close to finishing. Which, okay, I get that for presentation's sake that's a really clever thing. But we didn't need that much dessert. We couldn't eat that much dessert. They don't put the desserts on the menu but instead list them at the table, so that you don't see a price to tip you off about the size. I'm just saying. It was good, but unnecessarily (and somewhat deceptively) huge. I'm just warning you for when you go.

There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more enjoyment in music than myself--or a better taste

This guy in the computer lab just now was listening drinking his Coke and listening to his I-Pod. Not that I can judge him for the Coke--pretty much everyone eats and drinks in here. I just finished a Cadbury Dairy Milk Whole Nut bar. Anyway, and I suddenly recognized the music: it was Must Have Been Love by Roxette.

First off I had to laugh at the sight of this rugby-player-looking guy zoning out to cheeseball early 90s pop love songs. At the same time I was transported back in time to 1991 when I used to listen to the Pretty Woman soundtrack in my Walkman because it was one of the three cassette tapes I owned (the other two being the Footloose soundrack and a Paula Abdul cd). And just typing that for the Internet to see makes me realize yet again how very, completely uncool I was as an 11-yr-old.

Of course, it's not like I have cool taste in music now, either. (There are far too many Broadway musical soundtracks in my I-Tunes for that.) But that's neither here nor there, and I can just go ahead and be a musical loser if I want to.

Only there's something looming on the horizon that might send me plummeting from Musical Geek to Sad Trainwreck Avert-Your-Eyes-Children Freakshow. Someone asked if I could play my flute in the Ward Talent Show this spring if he got a woodwinds quartet or something together. Sure, no problem. I won't sound too bad if there are other people to drown me out. Only last Sunday this guy caught me and asked if I could do a flute piece if he found me a piano-playing accompanist. So we're upgrading from blending into a quartet to just me and the piano. I said that would be fine but that I don't have any music for that sort of thing.

Him: Oh, that's fine. The theme is showtunes, so--

Me:---I'm sorry, did you say showtunes?

Him: Yeah.

Me: And, like, everyone is only doing showtunes stuff?

Him: Uh huh.

Me: Well, um, I definitely don't have any of that kind of music. For the flute.

Him: Oh that's okay, I'll find something.

So now I can just picture it. I'll be up there onstage in some chorus-girl tuxedo outfit with the top hat and the fishnet tights dancing up there next to the piano while I toot"Too Darn Hot" on my flute like that girl in Miss Congeniality. Or maybe they'll stuff me into some 80s Dynasty-style evening dress with the blue sequins and the leg o'mutton sleeves and white tights and I'll have to play "Memory" looking all soulful with my eyes closed.

Oh gosh. Somebody help me.