<p>FIREFLY – tag, you’re it! I had the Thanksgiving dinner from He-- last year. Mmm-mm, creme brulée a‘ la acetylene blow torch. Tasty! :)</p>
<p>OK, everyone lift a few while I’m gone: TSFH and I are on our way to the airport to head to Indiana, where neither of us has ever been before, to do an admitted students visit at Purdue. I am NOT taking my laptop, and TSFH had better like it there, since there’s no guarantee he’ll be receiving any further admissions this year (especially if the essay fairy doesn’t visit PDQ). We’ll be talking with someone from the water polo team while we’re there: I am having a hard time wrapping my head around my son talking athletics with someone. (!)</p>
<p>Could y’all dispatch some marmots to prance attractively around the campus for the next couple days? Not too many, and not the heavy partiers, just a few for the smile factor, the feel-good vibe. It will be a Very Good Thing for TSFH to feel good about this visit… Thanks, pals, carry on!</p>
<p>What about a few swimming babes, marmots that is. Bon Voyage!</p>
<p>Okay, sending just a couple cute and cuddly marmots to TSFH’s dorm-host room. Ones that will make sure whoever pops their head into the room to say Hi will be <em>his</em> kind of people; who will make the food taste awesome; who will bring Indian summer or stupendous fall weather for the duration. Couple more marmots to tag along with mootie, rendering all classes just the right small-ness; having all profs who talk to parents be quite engaging; and a few testimonial speeches by upperclassmen reminiscing how they <em>used to be</em> high-schoolers FH but now they’ve seen the light.</p>
<p>mootmom - Best of luck. Hope that the stars are aligned for your S’s visit.</p>
<p>Good luck Moot! Purdue sounds like a lotta fun and would be a nice stop-over for those Boston air trips you make to visit your other S.</p>
<p>What the heck is a marmot in your context? It’s a squirrel or groundhog (my grandmother called them ‘whistle pigs’), basically…</p>
<p>Is this a Northern thing?</p>
<p>:confused:</p>
<p>p2n, </p>
<p>Marmots can probably be explained somewhere about page 200 (whatever page would be ~April 2006)… </p>
<p>They are extremely skillfull little buggers who often deliver effective financial aid packages to Alley dwellers… though they have also been enlisted to hurry-up the replies to transfer apps, as well as other various and sundry errands.</p>
<p>When in doubt, send a marmot.</p>
<p>moot~</p>
<p>Fingers crossed for a faboozala Purdue visit!!! Can’t wait to hear all about it! ~ber</p>
<p>p2n, Sit back, take a load off. And let me tell you a story 'bout a man named… … … m&sdad. Who was having a little trouble with the financial aid gods and goddeses. And devised a plan, or should we say a scheme. Which involved marmots.</p>
<p>It worked. So it’s not a Northern thing, no. It’s a Sinners Alley thing. When a SA regular is having a bad day, admissions-wise or any-wise, the marmots are dispatched. You do not want to be on the wrong side of the marmots.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=1988817&postcount=2517[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=1988817&postcount=2517</a></p>
<p>Whew! I thought maybe they started talking to you after drinking <em>properly so, according to jym’s service method</em> too much MD20/20. 
I’d heard about the pink elephants, but not marmots.</p>
<p>Thanks…now I get it :p</p>
<p>Nope- the marmots aren’t hallucinations- they are our team mascot, as it were…</p>
<p>Thanks for the 'splanation. I gathered they were something like that, but couldn’t find the original citation.</p>
<p>Team mascot, household god or patron animal…</p>
<p>I think of the Marmots as hairy fairies, slippery, quick and wily…</p>
<p>"Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!</p>
<p>Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake."
-by W. Allingham</p>
<p>ACK.</p>
<p>I’m in need of a stiff drink and some tremendous (and stealthy) marmot power. Where are the 'mots??? 
</p>
<p>I think I’m going to be spending most of the week in the Alley…Oldest 2 D’s are in dress rehearsal for a play that opens in three days. Only problem is that the play is not FIT to open in three WEEKS! :eek: </p>
<p>WHY, oh WHY, in this area full of amazing theatre talent does our school employ a director and a musical director who could take some lessons from a tone-deaf marmot? </p>
<p>My daughter has her first lead role ever, which would be AMAZING and, of course, the highlight of her entire MT career IF the musical director had not cast my alto II daughter in a soprano role!!! :mad: </p>
<p>The techies are running WILD, which is why I’m in serious need of the marmots…my D is supposed to make her entrance through a trap door in the stage flloor. All well and good IF the techies could ever remember to close it after she emerges!! My middle D was a-dancin’ along when all of a sudden, a gaping hole appeared in the stage floor! Gives new meaning to the theatrical phrase, “break a leg.” :eek:</p>
<p>Techies are running all over the place, crossing the stage in front of the actors, eatin’ peanuts and leavin’ a trail of shells across the stage, perhaps in a feeble attempt to find their way back to the other side??? The SA marmots could do the job MUCH better and more discreetly, imho.</p>
<p>SOMEONE TELL ME THIS WILL BE O.K.!!! I’m a nervous wreck… :(</p>
<p>~ber</p>
<p>Sweet and strong? Sorry, Mrs. P2N took me off the market 26 years ago. ;)</p>
<p>Okay, Berurah, take a nice calming breath . . . . and let it out. Repeat after me: it will all come together, it will all come together. And rest assured that the marmots are standing by to cluster together, shoulder to shoulder, on their tippytoes, to fill that hole in the stage as your daughter comes pirouetting over it.</p>
<p>Seriously, it’s amazing how theatrical productions suddenly jell together.</p>
<p>
THANK YOU!!! 
I have always repeated the above mantra, and I’ve always BELIEVED IT, until now…<em>sigh</em> It’s just that the people in charge of this particular production are <em>so</em> inexperienced–and not very willing to learn, imho…</p>
<p>All three of my D’s have been in enough MT productions that I have seen them “come together” many, many times. That’s what scares me about this one…I <em>KNOW</em> what it takes to bring 'em together, and I’ve seen NO evidence of anything resembling that at our school. :eek:</p>
<p>Loadin’ up on marmot treats, even as I type this. Gotta fatten up the little critters so they’ll be fat enough to cover the trap door… ;</p>
<p>~b.</p>
<p>berurah - DON’T FORGET THE DUCT TAPE! :eek:</p>
<p>…and a wee hip flask for the nerves… ;)</p>
<p>BHappyMom!!!</p>
<p><strong>GREAT</strong> IDEAS!!!</p>
<p>In fact, I am one of those who owns duct tape in EVERY color, including purple and hot pink! :eek:</p>
<p>Maybe if I cover the flask in lime green duct tape, it won’t call attention?? </p>
<p>Edited to add…when my youngest D, then 8, landed the role of the youngest D in “Fiddler on the Roof” three years ago, it was a dinner theatre production. Consequently, I had an entire line of wine glasses on the table for opening night, and yes, it DID help! ;)</p>