My little buddy Ivan made me a card. Technically I guess it's not a Valentine, 'cause he made it for me weeks ago, but he just gave it to me today when we came to his birthday party. He's 6 now.

Video Explanation:


The Card

In case you couldn't make out from the video, the characters are (from left to right): Bumblebee, Bulkhead (but Ivan calls him Wreck-Gar. ^_^; ), Optimus, Prowl (Ivan calls him "the motorcycle guy"), in the upper right-hand corner is the Autobot symbol, and the red thing at the bottom is "A heart for Amy." It was soooo sweet and adorable, I could just puke. Completely made my day.

Jack is feeling a little better, but he still has problems. Apparently there is something wrong with the pulley system on his engine that makes the belt not fit right. Jess's step-dad is gonna' come tomorrow and see what he can do for him. Poor Jack. I hope he'll be okay.

Ivan and his baby brother Jackson came to visit today! I let Ivan pick out some of my toys to play with. However, when I turned my back on the li'l buggar he got out one of my little un-sharpened knives and tried to use it to open something, and he ended up getting a little cut on the side of his hand. I took him in the bathroom to patch him up, and did my best to keep him calm. He was flipping out and claiming that he was running out of blood and stuff. Goof-ball. He felt better once I got him all disinfected and bandaged, though. Then he told me that I shouldn't be a ninja anymore because the swords and stuff are dangerous. I just told him that yes those things are dangerous, and that's why you have to be careful, because you will get hurt! He bounced back pretty quickly, though, and was back to playing. We brought some of my Transformers downstairs and let li'l Jack play with them. He likes cars and trucks, so he had fun with my reissue Optimus in his alt mode and Roller. I love having kids over to the house. There aren't many other people around here who enjoy playing with action figures as much as I do. ^_^;;; That reminds me I have to put my Revoltech figures back together. Ivan was taking their heads and limbs off and switching them around. ^_^;

I got to visit Ivan at his school today! He was so excited that he couldn't keep still, and I was afraid he was going to get in trouble in his excitement. He dragged us all around the school and introduced us to his teacher and his friends. It was fun to see him so excited. They made us wear name tags while we were there. Mine said "Amy the Ninja..." I was so amused that I wore it all day through work as well.

I didn't have to be at work today until 1:00, so I only had a 6-hour shift. That was kind-of nice, except that I didn't get a break. So I had toast for breakfast at about 8:30, and then I didn't get to eat again until about 8:45 pm. Bet it would piss my doctor off to hear that. I'm supposed to eat about every 4 hours. My stomach was killing me by the time I got home. It's still hurting, but at least I've eaten something now. We went out to eat at The Laughing Planet and had organic burritos. They were good, but it took almost a half an hour for us to get our food. I tried to drink a couple glasses of water while we were waiting to dilute the stomach acid a bit, but about 1/3 of the way through my first glass I noticed that there were MYSTERY BITS floating in my water! So I just stopped drinking and hoped that I wouldn't get sick. I haven't puked yet, so I guess I'm okay.

Work was short but intense. Especially at the end. We close at 7:00, but I didn't even get to clock out until 7:32. Some guy came in to cash his check, but the teller he went to looked up his account (which we're supposed to do every time we cash a check) and discovered that he was over $700 in the negative. So, he started cursing. I have to say my manager is very good at his job, and I'm glad he was there. The moment the words "How the FUCK is that even possible!?" left the customer's mouth, my manager was right there saying "Can I help you, sir? ...I am going to have to ask you not to use that kind of language here..." Having that kind of back-up makes my job a whole lot easier. When people start cursing at me like that, I become useless. I either get so pissed off I can't even think, or I get so nervous or scared that I can hardly form coherent sentences. However, as soon as my manager even catches a hint that a customer is getting pissed off, he's almost always right there to head them off so that we don't have to deal with abusive customers. He backed me up like that just the other day when a customer was getting pissed at me because I had the audacity to ask him for his ID again before I cashed his check, and he comes in every week to cash his check and I always ask him for his ID and I'd better start remembering him! Then Ryan was right there over my shoulder saying "You don't have an account with us, do you sir? ...Well, until you have an account with us, we're going to ask you for your ID every single time." THANK YOU! >_O

Anyway, work may have been stupid today, but it doesn't matter because NOW I'M ON VACATION!! I'm off for an entire week! AND Jess, mom, and I are leaving for Ohio tomorrow. We're going to stay for two nights and come back on Monday, and we're going to a comic book and toy convention on Sunday!! I'm so excited! It's gonna' be awesome! I'll have to remember to bring my camera! X3

In car news, I still don't have my mustang yet. I can't have him until Grandma gets the title so she can sign him over to me. I hope she gets the title soon, because Scuffers has been acting up. His warning lights keep coming on, and his engine shudders and almost stalls out every now and then. Poor Scuffers. I feel bad for him. I'll have to try to clean him up really well one last time before I send him away.

So the new semester has started, which means that all the rental houses surrounding my hose have new student occupants. I usually don’t notice when people move in and out, since it happens like 2-3 times a year and I don’t ever really meet most of the people who take up residence in the surrounding rental houses before they end up leaving and someone else moved in. I noticed this time, though. Last week I was pulling into the driveway when something in the driveway of the house across the street caught my eye.



I saw that and I was like “*point* *gasp* (drunken Prime voice*)BUMBLEBEE!” I couldn’t believe that. A completely junked-out YELLOW classic Volkswagen Beatle. I want that car. If I were a less moral person, I’d totally steal it. Park it across the street in MY driveway. And when the owner knocked on the door and said “Hey, what’s my car doing in your driveway?” I’d be like “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about. That’s my car. Has been for years. >_>” and they’d be like “Okay, so show me the title and prove it.” And I’d be like “Uh, I can’t...it’s...at the cleaners...” That poor car is such a piece of junk, though. I can hear them trying to start is in the mornings, and sometimes it dies in the road after they get it out onto the street. ^_^;; But it runs, so it’s better than my car. I’d almost go over and introduce myself to the new occupants of the house across the street just so I could offer to trade my piece-of-crap car for theirs.

In other news, I didn’t go to Tae Kwon Do this week. Jess and I have decided to train independently until we get back to the shape we were in before. If we’re really diligent, we might be going back by next month.

And one more interesting tidbit: Jess and I interviewed Ivan about his plans for the future. We asked him if he wanted to be a Rockstar when he grew up and he said no, he wants to be a Police Man. But upon further speculation, he decided what he REALLY wants to be when he grows up is a Half-Robot. I told him to give me a call once he figures out how to do that.

–End Transmission–

*See College University Episode #5: Par-Tay for the reference.

Before I get started, let me just say that I’m not trying to copy Ellen-sama with the ninja thing. ^_^;; It’s actually a completely unrelated story. (It’s amazing though how Ellen’s and my interests seem to go through so many parallels even when we fall out of contact for long periods of time. X3 )

So there is this little boy I babysit sometimes. His parents are long time family friends of ours, so we’ve known him all of his short life. (He’s 4 now. He’ll be 5 in February) He’s very smart. You could carry on intelligent conversations with him when he was as young as 2. Also, he is fully convinced that I am a real ninja. He apparently talks about me at school and refers to me as “my friend Amy the Ninja.” (or “Inja” as he sometimes pronounces it) It started back when his parents jokingly told him that Jess and I were junior ninjas, because we’ve both been studying martial arts for the past 5 years or so. Then, on Halloween ‘06 I dressed as a ninja (I have a picture somewhere. I’ll scan it and post it whenever I find it.) and he came over to trick-or-treat us. So there I was in full costume, completely covered except for my eyes and armed to the teeth with shuriken and a real sword, and he just walks up to me and wraps his arms around my knees and says “Amy...are you a inja?”

I am weak from his cuteness.

I’m not even sure how he recognized me, but he did with no trouble. Since then he’s been completely convinced that I’m a real ninja. We were babysitting him a few days after Christmas, and I let him go in my room and pick out some of my action figures to play with, and we were up there for like an hour. ^_^; Here is a snippet of our conversation:

Ivan: *hands me an unopened Transformer box* “Do you have a knife?”
Me: “Of course. What self-respecting ninja wouldn’t carry a knife?” *Pulls out pocket knife & starts opening the box.*
Ivan: “Cool! Um...Amy? What would you do if another BAD ninja attacked?”
Me: “Well...I guess I’d just have to beat ‘em.”
Ivan: “Beat ‘em up?”
Me: *shrug* “If that’s what it takes”
Ivan: “‘Cause that’s what it takes to be a ninja!”
Me: *chuckle*
Ivan: “You’re the coolest, Amy the Ninja.”
Me: “Thank you Ivan.”
Ivan: “I like your room. It’s the coolest! I’m never going downstairs again!”

And so on and so fourth. There’s nothing that simultaneously melts your heart and boosts your self-esteem quite like an insanely adorable little boy who thinks that you’re the height of cool. His mom has some pics of him up on her myspace page. If I ever have a kid, I hope it turns our like Ivan. X3 ~ <3 <3