The story behind the name:

One evening, at the Old Broadway Grill in Fargo, North Dakota, my brother caught the end of a Mountain Dew commercial. In the commercial, a Mountain Dew drinker was riding a shark in the ocean. My brother exclaimed in surprise, not realizing that it was a commercial. When I told him he declared "All I saw was a guy coming out of the shower with a shark." Of course, he meant water, but the idea of showering with sharks has been with me ever since.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Finals Week Begins

Even though it was only about 35 degrees as I walked from my car this morning (yes, it is that cold here) I had to remind myself that it is the first day of finals week. There are many reasons this feels unreal to me, one being the chilly weather. But I refuse to dwell on the fact that it snowed on Saturday. I'm tired of complaining about the weather. Really, I'm from North Dakota. It's not like I've never seen cold springs before. After all, it snowed on the day I graduated from high school.

I had to stop at Byerly's this morning before heading to school for my first final (8:00 a.m., Monday morning, sheesh). I promised delicious treats to my students to encourage an atmosphere of fun for the impromptu speeches. However, I neglected to purchase said delicious treats over the weekend, and so had to stop and get them this morning. I also managed to carve out five minutes to get a mocha at Caribou. Many times I feel that our culture is drowning in coffee. Coffee shops are everywhere... even in grocery stores. I'm always amazed when I drive down a give street and see three coffee places in a three block stretch. And somehow they manage to stay open! It's amazing, really. But I'm not complaining. I like coffee. Maybe it's sick and wrong, but I like knowing that I'll be able to find coffee pretty much anywhere I go.

I neglected to purchase treats earlier because my weekend was packed chock-full of fun!! It started Friday night when Jared and Nate got into town. We met downtown at Brit's where I had my usual - the aubergine tart. Basically, it's a bunch of yummy veggies (eggplant, tomato, yellow pepper, spinach, herbs) in a pastry with melting mozzarella cheese on top. Even Jon and Nate, who are not vegetarians, had to admit that it was ridiculously delicious. We hung out there until almost 10 p.m. Afterwards, Mark and I headed home and went to bed. I was SO tired after a week of not-so-great sleep.

Saturday morning started with sleeping in, which was wonderful. Then Mark and I decided to go to Panera for breakfast and then to Target to get a few folding chairs. On our way home, Mark dropped me off at the library so I could return an audio book and pick up some new reading material. I discovered the new Kate Mosse book. I listened to Labyrinth on cd and enjoyed it, so decided to pick up the new one: Sepulchre (which I cannot and will not attempt to pronounce). So far it is very good. I am enjoying it even more than Labyrinth. After that Mark and I just hung out until Jared, Nate and Jon finally showed up for lunch. We went to McCoy's for a late lunch and I had fish and chips, which were really good. Jared, Nate, and Jon all had macaroni and cheese, which was also really good. Next time I go there I am going to try it. After lunch there was napping, guitar hero, and reading for a few hours. Then we got down to the real business of the Nerding 2008 - playing Hero Quest.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Hero Quest is a fantasy board game. There are five possible characters: Barbarian, Elf, Wizard, Dwarf, and Evil Wizard Zargon. Zargon gets to know what lurks on the board and runs most of the game play (trying to win by deploying a variety of tricks, traps and enemies) while the heroes attempt to make it through dungeons on their way to beating the evil wizard. Jared and I had this game as children, but it somehow vanished between high school and college. When we discovered it was gone, we were heart-broken. Several years later, our friend Dusty found it for sale online and bought it for Jared for his birthday. Hurray!!!

Anyway, long story short, we were up playing Hero Quest (I was Zargon) until 1:30 in the morning. Jon kept wanting to search the rooms for traps, secret doors and treasure even when there were enemies in it (something clearly prohibited by the game rules). It probably doesn't sound too funny just reading about it here in my blog - but in actuality it was HILARIOUS. Poor Jon. He was very tired.

Sunday morning we hit Good Day for breakfast and then Jared, Jon and Nate hit the road. Mark and I took an AWESOME two hour nap, then bought Mario Kart and played that for a few hours with Dave and Barb. It is an awesome game and I will write more about it later. Now, my fingers are tired and lunch is calling me.

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