Monday, August 18, 2008

The Adventures of Lightning Legs and Tiny Lung Girl!

Yesterday Diane and I went to the Jack Johnson concert at Red Rocks.

I love Red Rocks, because no matter where you're sitting, or how cold you are, or if the girl next to you spills water on your ass, you will usually see a great show.

Jack did not let down.

But let's start at the beginning. We got to the venue just before 7, when the first of two openers went on. We had to park on the street. Not bad in itself, but we parked at the bottom of this huge, fairly muddy, hill.

Me: Are you sure you can climb up there in your flip-flops?
Diane: Sure (as she sprints up the first few feet).
Me: Well, you are a mountain woman.
Diane: I haven't been anywhere in almost 2 months.
Me: Well, that's much better than my 22 years of not doing anything.

Secret conversation in my head:
PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME GO UP THAT EFFIN HILL!!!!

But Diane just ran right up the hill. I, on the other hand, tried to keep up, and failed miserably.

Diane: I'm kinda winded.
Me: Yeah, me too.

Secret conversation in my head:
Yep, this is how I'm going to die.

When I started seeing dots and my foot started to cramp, I turned around like I was casually checking out the view. A bunch of people were behind me, so I thought it best to let them pass, lest I fall on top of them (I like to fall by myself). These two guys started chanting "go, go, go!" when they walked ahead of me.

Secret conversation in my head that I would have said out loud if I could catch my breath:
Unless you want to carry me the rest of the way... get outta my face.

So I made it.

But it did not end there.

After a lot of VERY fast walking, we came to the stairs. Those god damn stairs. Why they don't put in escalators is beyond me. Or at least Oxygen tanks every few feet.

So I could see the ticket takers (scanners? They stopped actually ripping and taking them a long time ago); and then the ticket takers/scanners went blurry.

Me: Diane, I am so sorry, but I have to sit down.

Secret conversation in my oxygen deprived head:
AMBULANCE PLEASE!!!

So I sat down on the steps behind a kid with really bad asthma from New Orleans... yes, he had a much better excuse than me. (Actually, Mom and I talked, and we are pretty sure that we have what I have dubbed "Tiny Lung Syndrome". Symptom: no lung capacity. We blame: my father... just because. A.J. is immune because: his torso is freakishly long, so he was able to grow abnormally long lungs. That is why I cannot breath... and my excuse for having to pass out on the stairs.)

After a few minutes I finally peeled myself off of the step and we entered Red Rocks. We cut through the first row and went to the t-shirt stand. While Diane stood in the line, I decided I needed some calories before I actually blacked out.

Well, the closest stands that did not have me hiking up the stairs was cash only. All I had was $5. All I could get was nachos with only "cheese" (notice that this is not real cheese... I'm pretty sure it's molten plastic from old playground equipment). I couldn't even get water, as that was three full dollars over my budget.

But I could feel my blood sugar reaching dangerously low levels, so I settled for the stale chips and carcinogenic dip.

When I returned, Diane was still 3 feet behind the t-shirt counter, so I went and found seats.

Yeah, there were NO seats. This place was packed, which I was not expecting so early before Jack went on. So I'm wandering through the rows, dodging one guy who was asking questions about my nachos ("How are those?" and "Bet you'd like a beer with those. *wink*"), holding my neon colored food, when someone said my name.

It was none other than Miss Day 7.

I casually said, "Yeah, I'm looking for a seat for me and my friend".

Secret conversation in my head:
PLEASE LET ME SIT WITH YOU!!! :)

And she must be very intuitive because she allowed us to squeeze in with her and her friends. (I was introduced to one of her friends... as A.J.'s sister... and she has been to The Big House before... and made eggs there. My life in the shadow of my baby brother is nothing if not consistent).

The seats weren't amazing, but it's tough to find a bad seat in that place, so all was good.

The concert was great, and here are a few highlights:

- My favorite part was when Jack inserted a verse from "Just What I Needed" by The Cars into one of his songs. That song is, perhaps, one of my favorite songs of all time. So that blinded me with awesomeness.

- I love how people shout the artist's name... from the 54th row. Like, sure, he wasn't going to come out on stage, but because you yelled "JACK" in my ear, he'll hurry on out. And yeah, he's totally playing one more song because you yelled, "Jack Johnson, play one more song!" Thanks for the help.

- Who goes to a JACK JOHNSON CONCERT and thinks, "Yeah! Let's get wasted!" Apparently, most of the audience.

- People who close their eyes and move around like their in the womb when a song comes on freak me out. Good for them for being all into the music... but I feel like I'm watching them naked in the shower or something... and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

- But I also don't like people who just stand there are don't get into it at all. I participated in the obligatory soft-pop-rock-shuffle: bounce up and down at the knees, bob the head, tap the toes, and mouth along the words. But people who just stand there also make me uncomfortable... I'm very hard to please, I guess.

When the concert was over, we began our hike down. I made Diane promise that we would be doing no off-roading with our feet, but we ended up on a very dark trail. I'm pretty sure that there was poop on that trail and snakes and rabid coyotes... and Diane is SO FREAKING FAST. I mean, I was hauling, and we could have carried A.J. on a gurney between us (meaning we were about 6 feet apart... but that is what I kept picturing: us caring A.J. between us like the queen of sheba/New Zealand on this trail...).

Conversation with Mike when I got home and told him about how fast she is:
Mike: But she's got short little legs.
Me: But they're quick as lightning.
Mike: But you have longer legs.
Me: But I take teeny-tiny steps.
Mike: Oh.

Anyway, I practically rolled my ankle about 30 times, but we finally made it to the car, and then home.

I was thinking throughout the concert that it would be nice to have someone write love songs about you. Jack kept saying, "This song embarrasses my wife, but I think that she also likes it," or "I dedicate this to my wife".

I came home aching and tired around midnight. And hungry, as stale nachos can only hold off hunger for so long. Mike made me a fresh batch of ramen noodles.

And I thought: I may not have love songs, but I have a man who will fix me noodles at 12:30 AM... and that's perfect.

In yo' face Jack's Wife.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Rain: A Love/Hate Relationship


I love rainy days.

Granted, these sorts of days do have the tendency to make me even more lazy and even less productive than before.

Actually, scratch that. I'm always lazy and rarely productive. Rainy days just give me the feeling that it's OK to be lazy and unproductive because it's so dreary out. Even if it were sunny outside, I'd probably still be sitting here at noon in my pajamas with the doggies watching crappy TV.

But since it's all rainy out, I don't feel guilty about doing it.

Now, yesterday it was all rainy and stuff... but it was Friday. And I have to go out into the world and go into work on Friday. So on days when I have to leave the house... rain sucks.

Also, tomorrow I'm going to a concert at Red Rocks. If it's still raining then, I'll really hate it.

So I guess the rain is a conditional thing. Great for Saturdays when you have nothing you need to do. Crappy when you actually have to be a functioning member of society and/or your life.

I've been scanning a lot. My focus at work is to scan all of the hard copy files that we have in my department so that we can move the 4,000 files off site.

And this week I worked 4 ten hour days... so that's ten straight hours of scanning.

I know what you're thinking:

Ally, how do you get to do such amazing, life altering, fun things?

The answer: god loves me.

So I sit at my desk and scan documents one at a time until I want to kill myself. Sometimes my scanner also wants to kill itself.

At a certain point, it tries to fight back.

I'll stick a document in it, and it will literally choke itself on copies of licenses and insurance policies. It makes this terrible noise that sounds like a dog coughing up a week old rawhide.

And just like a dog, I have to reach in a fish out the offensive piece of rubbish that has caused the near death experience.

How rude am I? I have called my scanner "it" the entire time. It's a she, her name is Samantha, and Samantha is a bitch.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

To Ktel and Back

It's been exactly one month since my last post...

Well, you can all breath again: I'm back from sabbatical.

Anywho, I have not written anything sooner because the whole cloud of GREECE has been hanging over my head and is just too overwhelming. I keep waiting to be struck with a sense of purpose and inspiration. I then thought, screw it. If I'm really a writer, than I should just write.

So this may not actually be about Greece... there's so much to talk about. Maybe I'll just start with some highlights.

- It's hard going to a country where the alphabet is different. I can see than this restaurant has Delta Nu Epsilon Pi for breakfast... but I can't even sound it out, yet alone pretend to know what it is. Thankfully, though, they have most things in English, too. I think that it would be weird living in a country where billboards have a combination of alphabets... but I guess you would get used to it.

- In Crete they give you this alcohol called Raki for free after dinner. It's the kind of booze that hits you in the spine when it goes down and leaves your lips tingling. I decided that it's the STD of the alcohol world: It's free and leaves a burning sensation. (Thanks to all who helped me with that definition... you know who you are.) Write that down.

- Mike told me that he is glad for me that I found him because he is so attractive and my past relationships have been with men who were not nearly as cute as him. He thinks that he adds a lot of credibility to my taste. So, thanks, Kevin.

- I had a fungus under my toenail (I know... too much info), and I got black sand from Santorini stuck in it. It's like a cheap souvenir... and I am a bargain shopper.

- We had to be in a hotel that did not have a shower head holder... so we had to hold the shower head while we bathed. And there was no shower curtain, so I also washed to trashcan, sink, toilet, and floor. We thought that maybe it was a culture thing. Then we walked past an open window to another bathroom... and there was a shower curtain. Damn.

- When Mike washed his clothes in the sink he made washing machine noises.

- I read. A lot. That's what we do. See Recently Finished if you are interested.

- The only television that they have over these that is in English (with Greek subtitles) is Beverly Hills, 90210 and Baywatch. SO, this trip was fun and educational. I learned how ugly Tori Spelling was and how dreamy David Hasslehoff was and why he was obviously responsible for the fall of the Berlin Wall. College schmollege.

- You can only eat so many Greek salads, moussaka, and frappes... but you can never have too much Fanta.

- BUSES/KTELS SUCK!! I don't want to go on another bus ride for a long time. Read Mike's posts for the details, but you heard it here: Ktel=Hell. And they smell. Oh well.

- Regardless of what anyone might expect about two people spending three weeks together non-stop, I still like Mike. In fact, this trip just proved to me that we are meant to be together forever... especially since he's so very attractive.

I'll probably think of other things to write about... but for now, that's all about Greece.

Now, for the important part.

The fourth and final book in the The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn came out the day before we returned. I was talking about it the entire trip; I even used some of our most expensive internet time to check Meyer's website.

So, after customs in Atlanta, we booked it (haha... no pun intended) to a store to buy the book.

After that... it was a lost cause. Mike couldn't talk to me... I wouldn't let him. Not on the plane ride home, not for the next 24 hours. Now I feel kinda bad because he needed some attention on the plane because he didn't feel good... but I was in too deep.

I LOVED it... so that is all I'll say... except that I heart Edward and Bella.

OK, that's it.

Really.

Other than that, nothing has really happened. Oh! We went out to dinner the other night, and as we were getting up Mike said, "Are you going to be OK in the rain, baby?"

I was so touched, and I said in an equally sappy voice, "Oh, I'll be OK, thanks, sweetie."

He wasn't talking to me.

He was talking to his camera bag...

Again, at least he's attractive.

Dork.