cold movie theatre popcorn is really good

i guess its time for one of these things. I have been meaning to update in quite a while, but when you're a globetrotter like me, its hard to keep up with small beans like this. Of course that's sarcasm, because every place I've gone I've wanted to check this to see how all of you all are doing.

I'm going to try to make this interesting, but that might be challenging seeing that I have pretty much taken on the habits of a 70-year old lady. At least since I've been home. I've been going going going for so long that for the past three nights I've been home, all I want to do is hang out at home, read, and go to bed early. And check my email. AND go to pick-your-own blueberries with my family and sit and talk to the old man who planted them all and then come home and make blueberry buckle like a TRUE grandma. A new and improved Kathleen, I would say. Guys, I am so relaxed, I make Pat Girouard on a Friday night look like Road Runner. I blame it all on Thailand, as I blame it also for my hankerings for a good game of Spades come 10 pm at night.

Denver was pretty sweet. Nice transition back to reality, and as normal as a family reunion with THIRTY FIVE (all first!) cousins and 18 aunts and uncles can be. Since the reunion was for my mom's immediate family, it was a study in dealing with 387872 Indian Chiefs and 0 Indians. So at least everything ran pretty smoothly, and because Seviers make a point to not be slackers or weenies, they also endangered many children's lives by allowing us to hike over a snow-encrusted ice field literally one footstep wide with a drop that would send us sliding down a cliff-thing to impalement on rather large boulders. If the view wasn't 100% worth it I might have their heads checked. I sometimes think that I wouldn't have to leave the United States to see some of the most gorgeous sites in the world. Seriously. Me and about 30 other family members hiked to this glacier lake at the bottom of one of the tallest mountains in Rocky Mtn. Nat'l park, and holy shit, holy cow. I really can't tell you how gorgeous it was. I was plumb tuckered out by the end of it, with the altitude making the cliff climbing slightly difficult and my nose spew blood like it just finished a case race on Paul Jacobs. At least there was the darndest good dinner at the end of it, waiting in the huge lodge with the glass windows looking out to peaks after peaks of mountains. Speaking of the altitude, it also had the beneficial effect of getting me definitely tipsy after one beer for the first few days there, a la Christa and Melissa the second semester of Freshman year. I also got to bond with all the older cousins, some of whom I love more than ever (esp my cousin Lincoln who is a film student and the pioneer of the nickname "Kath") and some I find interesting especially after hearing their story entitled "dropping the doobie" that took place last family reunion. I think the pot genes must run through the family or something.

My trip back to knoxville was highlighted by a Sebastian Lara-graced rendezvous in the Memphis airport, definitely made my day. We had approximately 25 minutes in which to exchange highlight stories and talk to the big ole black lady at the counter to see if I could just ditch my ticket for one the next morning and spend the rest of the night Walking in memphis and showing up at the home of the Father who happened to receive a rather insolent voicemail last semester after the UT game.

I was in Knoxville a Grand total of 14 hours before I went right back to the airport to fly to Philadelphia to see my Pop Pop, who's sick and in the hospital. There's much I really want to say about that trip. I said good-bye to him, I think. Seems so unnatural to just have to walk away. And although I'm usually Ms. I-dont-show-emotion that rule was broken. Around those times were some nice bonding times with my Grandma and Aunts and Uncles, i got to shoot the shit with Uncle Andrew and see his four little cretins who happen to be the cutuest kids ever, and just enjoy those three days of family time. ooooh time. i wish you could hold still for a little bit.

So now I'm back to my good old cockfighting, backwardsass, and beautifully quaint East Tennessee. Lord its beautiful, in a hazy, misty, green, rolling hills, back porch, humming crickets and slow-talking kind of way. OK, so its not ranked number 8 on the best places to live, but NUMERO UNO for ME! I think Thailand made me want to live in either the South or in the country when I grow up. I don't really know why I realized that, and I don't really know why I cry every single time I listen to the country song "If Something Should Happen" when it comes on the radio. And I'm interning! Started monday, and I'm loving it already. Its for the NBC affiliate here in Knoxville, has the biggest market share here (which I guess isn't saying THAT much), and the program I'm working for is an hourly show every day from 4-5 that is sort of a combination of a news program, a TLC show, and cooking/fashion/gardening show. The people at the station are so very obliging to me--I thought I would be an inern for busy work purposes, but no. They want me to learn as much as possible, so I pretty much get to do/watch/learn anything I want. I am going out on a shoot tomorrow, a "Trading Spaces"-ish segment, and I am trying to learn the editing program, and I'm just a big fat nuisance to everyone, I'm sure. AND by the end of the six weeks here, the executive producer told me that he wants me to conceive, shoot, edit, and broadcast my very own package. HOLLA! So any suggestions are welcome, thank you. oh and P.S. YES, I have already managed to walk across a camera. GOOD JOB kathleen. All I really did was walk in front of the ask-a-vets in the 2.3 seconds they were showing them answering calls on the side of the studio, but still. I hate myself.

All righty ladies and gents. I'm sure you didn't read it all, but if you did, good job. That was about 10 days worth of updating. I wish I could hear everyone's voice, (even if its a la Thomas McCall making a cracked-out beaver dance voice message from inside a closet at 2 am). I can't wait to see everyone.

xxoo
Kathleen