St. Louis, 10:30 p.m. - Well we here at Maghanoy.com are taking this show on the road, and when I say "we", I am of course talking about just me, although Fangloriosa might posit that I am describing myself and my gigantic ego. Anyways something very exciting happened to me today, on my way here, I got caught in a gigantic line and almost missed my flight..... Oh wait no, that is just normal par for the course airport drama which happens to me all the time. Remember the trip to Ontario airport my dear GAD?

Nope what happened to me was HISTORIC! I got bumped to first class. FIRST CLASS!!! I could barely contain my excitement, the euphoria was overwhelming, I had a gigantic seat! It was comfy, there was awesome service, and COOKIES! OH MY GOSH, I'M USING TOO MANY CAPS, BUT IT WAS THAT EXCITING! I was traveling like an exorbitantly wealthy exec! It was soooooooooo awesome. And now I am in St. Louis(also a first), just a little bit away from the arch, typing on my computer like Carrie Bradshaw, except for the stupid puns and the insane outfits.

Back to Blogging

As I learned when I left the chocolate factory... there are a few stages to dealing with a difficult situation.... grief, denial, bargaining and acceptance, or something like that. One of my co-workers explained that they were going through the stages in mourning my departure. For example one of the IT managers went through a period of denial about my departure, I think he's moved on to acceptance now...? Anyways, this whole topic is totally a sidebar, but thanks to everybody who said they would miss me there... OKay back to my point.

Last week I was in the stage that I would like to call "Cake based pity party". During this stage, one tries to get back into groove of things, adjusting to your new reality. One accomplishes this by sucking it up, getting back to work, and eating copious amounts of cake. Now, if you know me, you know that I am really more of a french-fries and steak sort of girl rather than a cake girl, and truth be told I really do trend more towards healthy foods, working in nutrition for four years will do that to you.... but last week I ate cake, cake and MORE CAKE. I had pineapple-coconut cake, strawberry white-chocolate mousse cake, strawberry short cake, cheesecake and hazlenutchocolate ganache cake. It was like heaven was magically providing from the sky the magical substance to help me deal with the stress. Seriously I ate sooo much cake, and not one piece did I buy myself, it all just came to me magically through other sources. And now to thank Jesus in all his awesome provision I offer this little song that we used to sing at Frontier Ranch when I was a kid....

GOD IS GREAT! HE CREATED CHOCOLATE CAKE!

For reals yo, it helped out. Now... it's back to the gym for me.

I haven't been blogging regularly, because, well... everytime I think about it I see Nabil's obituary and the whole blogging thing seems sort of, well... silly. But the whole point of the blog is to be silly right?... and Nabil really liked to laugh and joke, so today I am getting back to the very serious business of writing ludicrous blog entries for the entertainment of others.

I got a phone call from a high school friend today, she left a message just to say "Remember after Senior Ball when we tried to all crash at a hotel except they gave our room away and then called the police on us... and then we had to go to the Ramada inn and all 14 of us slept in one room?"

Seriously, it's the little details that make my day. Thanks Justy, I know I didn't call back, but I really appreciated that story.

Also I would add that another good memory was how a "certain" cousin (ahem, Robert) forget to bring shoes and was kicked out of Lyon's under the whole "No shoes, no service rule" and thus ended up wearing shorts, no socks and shiny patent leather tuxedo shoes into said Lyon's.

Good times my friends, good times.

Also Ryan Boyer practically fell asleep in his peanutbuter pie.

Sometimes I miss the angsty days of high school, but I don't miss calc.

I'm saddened to announce the passing of Nabil Garas last night at 11 p.m. The Garas family have always been good family friends and I was lucky enough to be a regular guest at the Garas house during my childhood years. Trip to Tahoe in the snow. Check! Junior prom pictures taken in their amazing garden. Check! Traveling to the exciting cities of Fresno and San Bernardino. Check! And through all those Odyssey years Nabil was our fearless leader, fascinating me by his insane amount of scientific knowledge. Nabil did not just have a PhD in plant pathology, he also would make yogurt! In their fridge! But I think what everyone will remember most about Nabil is not his intelligence, not his awesome Eygptian accent, not the yogurt in the fridge, but his humor, his warm smile (always slightly bemused by his daughter's "effusive" friend) and most of all his kindness. May God keep you in heaven Nabil, we will miss you here.

You can see a link to his official obituary here as well as information for how to make donations in his honor here.

Vespa for Sale

Well, the sad moment has finally come. Today we posted the Vespa for sale on Craigslist in our first tentative step towards finding it a good home. It's a good little Vespa if you know someone who needs one, let us know. :) Awww... just looking at it's shiny little face melts my cold heart. :(

"The impossible dream"

In the spirit of continuing my New Years resolution to have more fun Arnold and I went to the UC Davis theater last night to see Man of la Mancha. I felt a little silly going to see what was billed as the "puppet version" but it was totally amazing. Man of la Mancha is a metacuento - a story within a story. In the play Cervantes, while waiting his turn to face the Spanish inquisition entertains his fellow prisoners by telling them the story of Don Quixote of la Mancha, a "knight" who values virtue, justice and truth, believing they will prevail above evil. During the play Cervantes gets his fellow prisoners to act out the different roles of Don Quixote inspiring them to continue to dream for a better world and to uphold all that is good.

So how do the puppets fit in? Well, first of all, they are not regular Muppets puppets, they are human-size puppets, that require two to three puppeteers each. One of the puppeteers is also the prisoner who is representing a character in the story within the story, so even as you are watching the Don Quixote story you never remember that behind the fantasy, is the reality of the prisoners, many of them awaiting death from the inquisition. Did I mention that this is also a musical? The end result was extremely impressive, I was surprised at the high quality of this student production and wouldn't be surprised if this puppet idea ends up touring. If you are in the Sacramento area I highly suggest going to see it, it will be playing next weekend as well, you can buy tickets at the Mondavi center box office.