Goodbye Kelekar Lab, Part II

Thursday, October 3, 2013                         7:26 PM                              Tucson, AZ

In the spirit of Mindy Kaling (who is my avatar at the moment), I will finish Goodbye Kelekar Lab, Part deux.

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Blimey, my Gryffindor journal entries start out so well! Unfortunately, most are unfinished stories of my adventures and thoughts. No more than three seconds passed upon writing that sentence when Seth grabbed my pointer finger and pulled me away from the comfort of sitting/laying like a sloth on the couch. Being an aunt takes some work. Being an AWESOME aunt takes more work. I am the best aunt in the history of the world, which means my game hovers at superhero level. Naturally, I ditched the writing and transformed from a sloth to a dragon-cat-slash-Voldermort kind of animal. It was really cool. In retrospect, I think I was channeling Benedict Cumberbatch's animation of Smaug. I digress from the point of this post, but I need to repeat that the raspy, growling, Voldermort-hiss sound that I created for my dragon-cat animal was supercool. Seth loved it and tried to replicate it. He choked. But only for a few seconds. He screamed in delight as I began to chase him on all fours. He laughed. I laughed. And that basically sums up my experience with my nephew- we love to laugh together. 

Now to return to the second week of August, 2013... Part 1 set the stage for the conceptual planning of our departure. Ryan and I, being the gems that we are, never had a tiff about the treasures within Party City. We LOVED it. However, we had to be reeled in, lest we purchase the store without any clear idea for a theme. Fortunately, we did have a ranking of things we loved. Ryan, as we all know, could be summed up with the 'Hello Kitty' section. Generally speaking, we would associate everything and anything PINK with Ryan and give him reign over such decorations. 

I, on the other hand, love to celebrate the following holidays: Cinco de mayo, Halloween, Mexico's Day of Independence (September 16th), Chinese New Year, and St. Patrick's Day. Hence, the love of this aisle and the eventual use of the inflatable cactus and the mariachi band (over 5 feet!). 

We chose the fiesta theme with pink decorations. 

Jenna, I REALLY wanted to get this for you (the small Drink Cozy serape). I don't know why. For some reason, I thought the serape screamed your name.

Okay, the scene setter would have been hilarious. I doubt Ryan and I would have been able to put this up... Wait, let me restate that... Ryan would have had to put this up solo because I would have collapsed from delirious laughter. It is GINORMOUS! This little party scene would have had to be hung in the outside hall because there was not adequate space for it in the lab. 

[Additional note: Now the Giant Outdoor Fiesta decorations would have been super fun to use on you lot. But I bought them to use for my brother's family! This may be the reason why I love cinco de mayo... I originally bought party stuff to tease my younger brother because he dislikes "those holidays that are not holidays" and then it grew into a genuine love for 'those holidays that are not holidays' to some people.]

This beautiful serape would have made a decent lab gift for either Jenna or James (or Eric to go with that sombrero) because they go to the mouse room with their lab coats. I doubt this would have passed as a lab coat and so it is relegated to only a picture. :(

A typical conversation between Ryan and myself sometime that week:

Ryan: What is the theme of our decorations? (A legit question that I had not considered)

Me: Ooh! We could have that as a trivia Q!

Ryan: (Perfectly smiles in assent)...YES!... and the answer would be --?

Me: Hmm... I would accept an undiagnosed ADHD person with something against Bay 5-170. (Okay, this refers to the 2013 battle of the bays, which was waged between Downey and Ryan and myself. There were moments of world peace due to the power of ice cream and movies. Details remain hazy as to who instigated this battle, but the victor at the end was of course, Bay 5-168. Wow, that was a tangential point I did not intend to go down. Back to the comment I made at the time, there were few things that Ryan and I knew were a definite part to our decorations. Among them were Fiesta decorations, PINK streamers, something with wrapping paper, and aluminum foil) 

Ryan: So our decorations are Fiesta-themed and Pink... it is like a quinceañera!!!

Me: YES! A 15-year old Latin American girl's celebration into womanhood! It comes together so beautifully.  

Ryan and I merrily proceeded to finish our work and chat about other things. We had a life to organize and we knew that Friday night was going to be a looong night, especially since Thursday night unfolded not according to plan (Part 3 loosely titled "Ryan floods the floor and steals the janitor's mop").

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Ha ha... that is all that I can write for now. Maybe this post will be in four parts. There is The Flood to write about and the night that Ryan and I created a quinceañera.

Good bye Kelekar Lab, Part 1

Okay, I have not updated my blog for more than a year. Pathetic. Nor have I shared the following pictures and texts, except with Yan and Ryan. Now is the time to tell a story. Unfortunately, I'm tired because of extensive traveling to visit friends and family from Rexburg, ID to Tucson, AZ. I promised the lab an account of the past 72 hours prior to leaving Minneapolis, MN. However, the story must begin nearly a week prior. Here goes with the "lazy Xazmin" method of story telling...

Book report style:

Who: Ryan and Xazmin (the custodial staff was always on hand as well)

What: The thoughtful adventures of Ryan and Xazmin

Where: MCB 5^th floor, BAY 5-168, Party City in Roseville or at the Quarry, Target

When: Aug 6^th to the 10^th, 2013, usually between 7pm-12 am and at least once until 4 am

Why am I telling this story with pictures? These texts are priceless. I couldn’t do the story justice with my words... well they are my words and Ryan’s... Oh boy, I miss you Ryan!!!!

CONVERSATION ZERO between Ryan and Xazmin...

X: “I’ve been thinking about the send-off I want to give to the lab.”

R: “Me too.”

X: “I would love to pull a practical joke on them. My friend Sonita, specializes in executing practical jokes.” [X begins looking through Sonita’s facebook pictures...]

R: “....”

X: “...”

R: "..."

X: “Okay, I will head over to the party store soon and I’ll text you what I find.”

R: “Have fun!”

CONVERSATION 2.0 (Our dialogue transitioned to technology)

Picture 1. A Hello Kitty piñata (I think piñatas are the best! And at the time, we were thinking along the lines of a cat theme...)

Picture 2. A 43” JUMBO monkey... What could have been, but I did not purchase immediately because we were in the ‘conceptual’ phase of planning... Also one more point that I must stress, I am not 53"! I stand at a mighty height of 63 inches. 

Picture 3. Aha... the decision making process of Xazmin: top hat or jester hat for Michael? Earlier that day, upon thoughtful staring at the white board, Michael summed up the musings of himself, Eric, and myself with a nod to Alice and the Wonderland by saying, “Just give me a top hat.” I chose the color blue because he is a rare individual who will always have the same school colors, which happens to be blue.

Picture 4. OVER 6 FEET! It would have been lovely on the window between Eric and Jenna.

Okay, I realize I need to give a small backstory to these 'calculations'... Sonita and co-workers had recently pulled off an epic post-it notes prank on her boss who recently had a baby. This is their story--

Now back to the conversation...

*2 hours was a boy's dream and a girl's foolish hope

Michael. Michael. Michael. Ryan and I both love and miss you. We make an excellent threesome.

Hours/Days (?) later... In the lab, Ryan and I discussed our half-baked plans. Our goals that week were to update our lab notebooks, organize data, and perform experiments! (And I suppose *think* of packing... we knew it had to be done at some point and it was the last thing we accomplished before we headed out. Personally, I am choosing a minimalist lifestyle to avoid the stress of packing in the future). We did not want to discuss our plans in front of you all. Luckily, we communicate sort of telepathically and somehow the following picture became part of our theme...

To be continued...