Alyssa’s Blog…a modern day diary of the random thoughts of Alyssa Amsbaugh

Mark Futterman, a pal from college (and a fellow Trekkie), is going to be in the audience of “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno on Thursday, December 21. Too cool! He and his family will be in LA for the holidays. It’s Mark first trip to California. A friend of his wife’s got them tickets to the show. He’ll be in the audience with his son and will try to get on camera. I promised him I’d TiVo it and try to find them in the crowd. Mark was two years ahead of me in college and lived across the hall from me my freshman year. He moved the next year–to the Switlik dorm?–but he still managed to look out for me from there. I hope they have a safe, fun trip and I hope I can spot them in the crowd! Live long and prosper, Mark!

Yes, she who dreams wacky dreams came up with good one last night where I saved my friend Helena from a crocodile. Or maybe it was an alligator — I didn’t get a good look at the shape of its snout! Anyway, the general storyline was that one night we were in a boat on our way to some mission. (Don’t ask me what we were up to; it must have been monkeyshines since we’re so full of mischief! And I didn’t particularly like this boat. It sat deep in the water and I was afraid I was going to end up in the drink!) We had tied off the boat, apparently completed whatever our “Mission: Impossible” mission was, and were on our way back to the boat under cover of night when I spotted the croc. I screamed to let Helena know that the croc was there but she walked into the water anyway. I found some heavy rocks and threw them at the croc to save her. (She’s OK. You’re welcome, Hel!) Not sure where all this comes from, but as I do have a tendency to dream some long, complicated dreams over and over, maybe this one will pop up again and I’ll remember some more details the next time.

I got together with my college buddies Helena and Kathy a few weekends ago. We went back to our alma mater (that’s Latin for “nourishing mother”), Rider University, in Lawrenceville, NJ. Was there an alumni event? Heck no. THE STUDENT STORE IS NOW OPEN ON SATURDAYS! Yes, we thought we’d stop by, do a little shopping, check out the campus, have lunch, and reminisce. It was a blast! Oh, and did I say that we did a little shopping?!? OMG, we ended up at the student store THREE TIMES that day! LOL. We actually snuck in while they were closing for the day and Kathy was their last customer of the day. Any one of us alone is trouble. Put two of us together and there’ll be mischief. But when the three of us get together, watch out! We had so much fun and we laughed so much we were hoarse. So what were my take-aways for the day? A pink Rider T-shirt, a pink and white “Rider Girls” decal for my car window, a gorgeous pink Nalgene water bottle (Rider logo on the front, measurement grid on the back) to use with my sugar-free drink mixes, and the blue version of that bottle for J.R. Honestly that’s the best $15 I ever spent. I use that bottle every single day. And those sugar-free drink mixes have helped me lose 20+ lbs so far. Plus I surfed Nalgene’s website and, if I ever trash the lid to my bottle, I can buy a replacement from them. That’s just too cool.

Well, I’ve wiped the dust from my keyboard, so blog away! Cute title, huh? That’s my tribute to the holidays. Just got an e-mail response from Thomasville (the furniture company). They identified the bedroom suite that I inherited from my Aunt Jo and Uncle John. It’s called Ecole Francais (“ecole” means school, and “francais” means French). It was introduced in 1963 and discontinued in 1965. The finish is Parisienne cherry. I was SOOO excited the weekend I got this suite and I am now SOOO excited to find out some information about it. This furniture is gorgeous and it’s in beautiful shape. Aunt Jo always only bought the best and she took care of what she had. My Aunt Jo and Uncle John have both passed on, so using this furniture (and oh yes, as anyone who knows me well knows, if you give me something I will use it until it’s worn out…no saving for a rainy day here!) is a very special way for me to remember them. J.R. said that Aunt Jo would be especially happy to know that I ended up with her set. I am just SOOO thankful for it and SOOO excited about it every day! I absolutely love it. I took a gazillion pictures of it and will post them to share with you.