While working the last Saturday of my internship yesterday (cue the “Hallelujah” chorus– Saturdays are full of little kid events and coordinating rooms full of parents and giving tours of our facility trying to answer off-the-wall questions… it’s exhausting) my former neighbor called to see if I had gone back to college yet. Luckily for her, her husband, and the fun evening on the town they had planned, I don’t until next Thursday, thus was available to baby-sit their two sons on very short notice. Now, I would not have done this for just anyone, not to mention I thought my baby-sitting days were mostly behind me. These two boys however were literally born and raised right next door for 8 and 11 years, so to say I have a soft spot for these two rambunctious blondes is a bit of an understatement. I’m able to tell them stories “I remember before your brother was born…” “That one time we couldn’t tell if it was Oreos in your teeth or dirt…” that mostly just make me feel old, but also nostalgic for the days when they hadn’t figured out their brother served nicely as a human punching bag. I hadn’t seen them in about a year, and now they’ve moved out from next door and are currently living in the next town over. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they’re at extremely easy ages in which they’re more or less doing their own thing, can do most things for themselves, and best of all– know that 9:30 is bedtime and don’t put up a fight when the clock’s hands land on it. They picked Subway for dinner, and the oldest one opted to stay home for ten minutes while the little one came with me to supervise my sandwich ordering skills (and “Doriiiiiiitos!!!!”) I asked if he was too short to sit up front in my car and he said yes, thanks for the honesty little guy, so we pulled out of the driveway with me essentially Driving Miss Daisy. Now while he was in no way phased by this, I thought the whole situation was rather amusing: me, the 21-year-old college student who has no desire in the world to pass on her genes to another life, suddenly concerned about what’s on the radio because there’s an adorable eight-year-old in the back asking her why there’s kitchen supplies in the backseat (“I moved into a new apartment last week. Don’t worry, I’ll get to them.” I taught him the word “chauffeur”, and he was quite helpful in carrying the bag of sandwiches to the car. My favorite part was when we got stuck behind a van going about 10 mph through an intersection and I vocalized some of my frustration (no, this does not end in me cursing out other drivers and scarring my little passenger for life.) From the backseat I hear, “My dad yells at other cars when they don’t do good, too.” Melt. Afterward, the three of us went for ice cream, and I learned that little kids are perhaps the slowest ice cream eaters in the history of the world. I had to keep vigilance with a napkin to wipe up the multiple drips and spills, and the older one proclaimed he didn’t like the taste of the chocolate chips in his chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, so would eat away the ice cream and dough then spit out the chocolate chips. More power to you, buddy. On the ride home I found out they’ve been to a Taylor Swift concert, know some Lady Gaga songs, and have already been playing tackle football for three years (when I went to school, tackling wasn’t introduced until 7th grade.) So basically, now I feel beyond ancient, and realize that unfortunately my little guys are getting all grown up. When they were asleep and the parents came home, the mom thanked me again for being able to come at a moment’s notice, though I really should have thanked her for one of the more relaxing and entertaining nights I’ve had in a while. Who knows when they next time I see them will be– perhaps one of them will be tall enough to sit in the front seat by then.

Sorry, Monday– I discounted you from the start this morning.  After a night of poor sleep thanks to weird dreams (starring Gisele, Tom Brady, and a former high school lust) I woke up demanding caffeine and cursing my scheduled eight hours of desk work.  Somewhere along the way, Monday quietly surprised me with an uncannily productive work ethic AND energy to go for a run a little after 5:00.  –Note to self, the sun is still far from setting at this time.  Humidity is still rocking well about 50%, recent thunderstorms make gravel more like sand to run on, and you will end up getting rocks into your shoe only a mile in.  While I commend you on lacing up them sneaks and getting out there, next time perhaps some pre-planning will go into it.  Baby steps.

A note on my job: IT IS AWESOME.  Some of the events involved in my internship are, wait for it… weddings. !!!!  I get to help plan weddings, attend weddings, research weddings, market our weddings, le sigh.  Before you get your panties in a wad, let me be perfectly clear that I under no circumstance, perfect proposal, threat, insanity, or death bed-side wish am anywhere near getting married AT ALL.  Gross.  Barf.  Throat tightening at the mere thought of lifetime commitment.  I’m still quite a young’in and I have quite a prepared speech about how STUPID it is to get married before you have established your own life.  But that’s for another time.  Luckily NPH realizes that my wedding-centered brain is part of my job, an outlet to entertain my inner girly-girl while my practical side knows that many years from now I’ll be celebrating my nuptials at the Hofbrauhaus in Vegas (honeymoon in Munich to follow.) Speaking of my fabulous place of employment, I have this Saturday off and GUESS who’s coming to town?  The nowhere-near-fiance-so-please-stop-asking-even-if-it-is-a-joke boyfriend.  While I’m sure we’d have an uproariously entertaining time just hanging out with the folks, we’re going someplace even better: ADVENTURELAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Famous Dave’s at some point, but I’m not sure you can handle all of this exciting news in one post. The weekend after that is the Fourth of July (whaaaaat?!) and I hope upon hope my schedule will allow a trip to Chicago/ Milwaukee for Summerfest because apparently people wanna meet me.  NPH’s people.  I’m such a gem, I suppose I really can’t blame them.

If I could scream and cry as loud as the infant I currently feel like, I would.  My sinuses are full of God-knows-what and under horrible pressure, causing the teeth on the right side of my mouth to HURT like nothing’s hurt before.  I imagine this is what growing teeth as a baby felt like– I’m in so much pain. Now that the unnecessary medical updates are out of the way…

I LOVE MY NEW JOB/INTERNSHIP.  ’Tis only my second day, but this stuff is the big leagues, baby.  It’s a little bit of everything– event planning, marketing, public relations. Apparently I became an adult at some point and have full-on events, responsibilities, projects, and deadlines without someone holding my hand the entire time.  Yesterday (after an annoyingly long commute in which I decided the only thing I hate more than traffic lights is morning radio shows) I rolled up and was not nervous.  You know I’d tell you if I was, but the feeling simply wasn’t there.  I kept waiting to get all anxiety-ridden and piss myself halfway through meeting the staff, but it never happened.  I suppose I’ll thank the whole Germany experience for this new addition of personal confidence.  Living at home is… getting better.  Someone wasn’t being very optimistic about it in the beginning, but it’s not too bad of a gig.  Knowing he’s only two hours down the road, I miss NPH possibly more than I did when we were separated by an ocean, but let’s not get into that crying jag via Skype on the public blog, mmmkay?

Yes, I realize this post was a mundane update on my less-than-blogworthy life, es tut mir leid (how many languages can YOU say “I’m sorry” in?)  Get excited for a MOVIE REVIEW tomorrow (Robert Downey, Jr. and kettle corn?  Um, yes please) and Vegas preparations because there are officially only two weeks until my 21st birthday and 16 days until my favorite, favorite, favorite (American) city.  And more importantly, In-n-Out Burger.

I just  kneed myself in the eye.  Let’s not ask how this happened.

So today was my last day at the hospital.  Just a typical morning of waking up too goddamn early to ride a bus full of far better looking, higher achieving students than I… UNTIL I went into the child psych clinic to get the papers from our mailbox and BAM “This will be the last time I ever do this.”  <–Sadness.  Weirdness.  Not sure how to feel-ness.  You see, I’ve held the same job for longer than I’ve been a student in college.  That’s a long time.  We’re talking winter breaks, summer breaks, snow days, in between classes for over two years.  While part of my perfect work world was shifted this summer when our department got merged with another and my lovely boss abandoned us, for the most part, it’s been a pretty smooth, fun ride.

I am (was?  SAD) ferociously good at my job.  If there’s one thing no one can fault me, it’s that I’m extremely loyal and extremely good at whatever work I do (we’re not talking schoolwork here, people– just go with it.)  I know that hospital like the back of my hand, am oddly protective of our psych patients, have clocked more hours there in the past two and half years of my life than I have in class.  My job was not a bed of roses– often it was mundane, boring, tedious, pain-in-the-ass busy work– but it was my job and I was damn good at it.

Enter my two co-workers, K & D, full-timers, moms just a few years younger than my own.  We weren’t super close when I first started, I was just another student who would scan charts for a couple months then find something better.  But then they realized I wasn’t going anywhere.  And together we weathered break-ups, divorces, their sick kids, my hangovers, perhaps their hangovers, deaths in the family, shared inside jokes to make the horrid time at the hospital just a little more bearable.  They were the surrogate moms who would Tsk Tsk when I came in with bar stamps on my hand on weekdays but then give me Tylenol, ask “Where are your gloves?!” when I showed up half-frozen, and made THE BEST peanut butter Cap’n Crunch cereal bars and cream cheese salsa dip for office parties or just because. Today, when I walked in and saw them, I was like “Holyfuck this is gonna suck.”

And it did.  Everyone brought in a bunch of food (the sugar coma definitely eased the pain of the good-bye) and I got some cards and I made K & D cards and my boss cried and gave me some presents.  But then 4:00 came (okay, 3:52– I always skip out a bit early to catch the bus) and I was like Well, catch you on the flip side and IDIDNTCRY but almost did.  On the inside, folks.  Brittney cried on the inside.

So technically, I am currently unemployed.  Way to be even more of a bum than I already am… AND, save for one final next week, my semester is O-V-E-R.  It went supercalifragilistically fast.  Let’s not talk about what comes after this one.  If it was this hard to say Peace Out to two ladies I see a couple hours a day, I don’t even wanna think about when I have to do it to NPH or my pops.  (Ooooh, Brittney’s being all serious– weird.  Usually this is supposed to be funny.  Now I’m just uncomfortable.)

In other news, Miley Cyrus got her Grammy nominations revoked today.  I am beyond pissed.  “Party in the USA” is an goddamn lyrical masterpiece and YOU KNOW IT.

Who called classes being cancelled today?  THIS GUY.  You can hire me out as a psychic if you want.  Even though the rest of campus got to sleep in til their hearts content, I woke up before the sun and went to work.  Sigh the shameless things I do for money.  About halfway through the day though I said Eff This and blazed my way through the BLIZZARD to 713 because NPH and I have papers due as well as co-dependency issues.  Needless to say, not much headway has been done on my article due tomorrow.

The antibiotics have kicked in and BOY HOWDY do I feel 100% better.  After work yesterday I went holiday baking cr-AZ-y and whipped up some peanut butter balls, frosted sugar cookies, and chocolate covered pretzels to give to some of my favorite locals/ those I owed favors to (for those of you getting all pissed because you were given the shaft: cool your jets– T-Bone’s shipped over a box of brownie mix, sprinkles, etc. and you will be recipients of Holiday Baking Extravaganza Round II.)

Apparently there is a university-wide snowball fight happening at the Pentacrest right now.  Over 3,000 people have RSVPed on Facebook (even though they just sent an update that the snow is terrible for packing.)  Lo siento, but this kind of shit really does not trip my trigger.  First of all: IT’S COLD AS BALLS OUTSIDE.  Secondly, I don’t like my peers near enough to meet them en mass and talk about “Ohemgeebestsnowdayever!!!”  We had two our freshman year, I’m over it.  If anything, I really wish we had school today because the ONE PRESENTATION we were being graded on the ENTIRE SEMESTER in one of my classes was supposed to be today.  So… not really sure where we’re going from here.  I do know that exactly 24 hours from now, my semester is over save one final next Wednesday morning.

Melanie my language buddy responded to some of my questions I had about Luneburg.  To my GREAT PLEASURE she informed that it rains most nearly every day there.  Awesome.  At least I’ll save room in my suitcase not bringing any hair products/appliances.  She also thankfully told me that every student at Leuphana University speaks English– they’re not allowed admission if they don’t.  So while I plan on being quite fluent in German when I leave, at least there won’t be a complete language barrier when I arrive.

Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is on in half an hour– a greater gift from God than any snow day could ever be.

Sports Illustrated cover + parents’ weekend + Ashton Kutcher in attendance + Northwestern = inevitable loss.  All season people kept saying “When we lose it will be to someone like  Northwestern” and then their friends around them would explode into a fit of giggles because the 9-0, 4th ranked Hawkeyes are just so much better than that.  Except everyone, including us, knew we weren’t.  As someone from my immediate family who was not my mother or brother texted me after “Thank God that’s over.”   I’d have to agree– we had a nice run, but OMFGSHUTUPPPPPPPP.  And now they will.

Last night was my final shift at my beloved job, at least til I return from abroad.  My boss and I decided I’m the Stanzi of the store, with me being out for the season and all.  I also was complaining that my leg was broken hurt  a lot because my back was hella messed up from some awkward couch-sleeping followed by miles of trekking to tailgating before 7 am.  In flip-flops.  All night I was having quite the mental struggle over what my final free sandwich for a while would be.  In the end, I got my favoritest favorite– I can make a ham sandwich at home anyday, but the world does not get any better than  black bean patty with avacado, BBQ sauce, some hummus, some other stuff that’s SUPERDELICIOUSINMYMOUTH.

If it rains this month, I will fah-REAK out because it will be November Rain.

Today I have to like, vacuum my living room and dust the TV and get things all ready for our PRSSA social.  I may even put out a plate of cheese and crackers.  Step aside, people– domestic goddess coming through.

Bestie’s parents came yesterday and his mother brought the best pumpkin bread in the history of the world.  You think I’m exaggerating here, but nay. It had raisins and walnuts in it (don’t barf, it was sophisticated quick bread).  Unfortunately the pan was set between college boys wielding a knife– I fear that one slice will be my only experience with that magical, magical treat.

This was my last weekend in Iowa City until the last weekend in November, and I am beyond ok with that.