Ramblings on Sarah

It's sort of cold today. The fall weather reminds me of a different time in Wisconsin; a simple time, when the men chopped wood and the fair maidens cooked stews. Autumn leaves fell on the ground and the children played hoop and stick, with not a care in the world.

Oh my god, I'm kidding. I think I mixed up a few different time periods there. And I don't care about historic Wisconny. In fact, I can't even handle historic Wisconny, or historic anything, for that. I saw a commercial this morning for Old World Wisconsin. I remember learning that an ex-boyfriend's friend worked there as a cook and not thinking anything of it. But really...this is one of those historic recreation places! Who can even take that seriously?

Let's have a look at their website...

Discover teams of oxen and horses working in the fields, the farm folk preparing hearty meals over wood-burning stoves, and the heirloom plants in well-tended gardens. Stroll through the Crossroads Village and chat with the town blacksmith or the keeper of the general store. Discover the true spirit of early Wisconsin.

Yuck. I absolutely will not chat with the town blacksmith. I just can't deal with stuff like this. On my awesomely sexy Summer Vacation 2008, Sarah and I had the bright idea to go to the Plimouth Plantation. That's their stupid spelling, not mine. The first part was actually really really cool. There was a movie about the Wampanoag tribe who lived in "Plimouth" before the stupid settlers. We visited the Wampanoag village, where native people worked and spoke about their lives from a present day perspective. That was effing awesome.

Then. THEN we went to the settlers village, where the "historic reenactment" was taking place. Men in stupid hats walked around saying "Good morrow, fair ladies" and women in aprons "went about their work" while Sarah and I did our best not to giggle. Although there was the moment of "okay, okay, stop laughing. We have to try and take this seriously," we didn't last more than 3 minutes. Mostly, we snuck into the houses and took pictures with the various historical props...

Here is Sarah, sleeping in ye old bed, made of straw:

Here I am, peeking my head through ye olde curtains:

Henceworth was Sarah, who drinketh from thou mug, full of ale aplenty:

This is me, preparing ye olde stew. To quote my genius friend Mark, "delciouse, twoulde be a blessinge in mine mouthe if ye spareth a crumbe"

Sarah churneth ye olde buttere:


Anyhow, you get the point. We kept "getting caught" as we posed for these genius pictures though; mostly it was little kids and their families, barging into the houses, but once it was one of ye olde ladies. Whoops a daisy. We had to get out of there, and fast.

Experiences like this remind me of how much trouble Sarah and I have doing anything serious. Fortunately for us, we were both music majors in college, which meant that we shared many music classes together. I think I also convinced her to take a Political Science class with me, which she ruled (and I drooled) over. Oh, and Human Biology! We were lab partners in our freshman year class, dissecting a mink that we named Carnie (1. after Carnie from Wilson Phillips, 2. after the Spanish word for "meat," since our mink was the meatiest/fattest in the entire class). We also did a project on the urinary system and named our poster presentation "Urinary, I'm a Nary." Sarah took many for the team - when we had a class about testing urine for some reason, she was the one to pee in the cup because I was grossed out and embarrassed. And on the horrific day that we were to dissect a cow eye (probably one of the most nightmare-ish experiences for me, ever), I cowered in the corner while Sarah completed the entire project. What a hero.

The music classes were a different story. Sarah and I sat through music theory classes and music history classes, barely making it through each day. We had a beautiful, wonderful teacher named Max Yount...

I stole the picture from Lynn...Thanks Lynn!

Max caught on pretty quickly that Sarah and I couldn't really keep it together, ever. He'd purposely interject little hilarious tidbits into his lectures, just to get us going. I will never forget the day he taught us the term for the original Baroque trombone...Sackbut. He'd mention it once or twice in lectures for the next three weeks or so, pausing before and after he said it, letting his eyes travel around the classroom until they settled on Sarah and I. "Some people like to call it....the Sackbut..." He'd look sort of amused, and sort of triumphant, waiting for our reaction. We'd giggle and tip back in our chairs, like two effing five year olds.

So in conclusion, Sarah and I can never go to or learn about anything historical or scientific, ever. That's that. But when it comes to playing Misfits and GNR and NOFX covers on the cello and piano, I'd highly recommend us.