It's All About...The Road Trip

First things First: GO PACKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4-0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Favre is my hero.

I had been planning to go camping this weekend, but my plans fell through. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, my friend Elizabeth was sick of being cooped up with a bum wrist, and her VW bug (Doc) was beckoning. Fast forward two days and we both arrived in Louisville, Kentucky. It started out as a quest to stay in a Wigwam Motel, but that was booked. Then we looked for other weird things to do and settled on "Ham Days" in Lebanon, KY. (Who could turn down the chance to watch the "Lil'Miss Ham" pageant, or the PIGasus Parade?) Unfortunately, there wasn't a hotel to be had for 25 miles -- who knew that Ham Days would prove to be so popular? Undaunted, we turned our sights on Louisville. Easy Peasy.

We both pulled into town around noon, and after hauling stuff up to the room, we headed across the street to the Expo Center for some "Liquidation Sale" I'd read about. We had no idea what was being liquidated, but didn't much care. We didn't mean to, but we ended up sneaking in a side door instead of paying the $6 fee to get into the sale. Oops. Good thing we didn't pay -- what a collection of CRAP!! Elizabeth did get some lovely, stylin' sunglasses (although these aren't the ones she bought):

We found us some mighty tempting "Moving" wall art, but somehow resisted:

After I took the sunglasses photo, the Liquidation Security Guy came up to me and politely asked me to put my camera away, as it was against their contract with the fairgrounds to have pictures taken on the premises. Weird, but I was pleased to comply. Depending on your point of view, he either rewarded me for my acquiescence or punished me for my earlier photo taking by telling an awfully long story about a friend of his (he name dropped some country music star of yesteryear, but I'd never heard of him...Johnny Russell, I think?) that ended up having very little point. But the guy was pleasant enough, and was sincerely nice about my camera.

After extricating ourselves from the serial storyteller, we found we'd built up an appetite, so we headed downtown to a pub called...The Pub. British fare, mainly, but a few Americanized things. We both had Guinness and fish and chips. Mmm. Foamy goodness mixed with deep fried yumminess. It was a lovely hour or so. Elizabeth posed, and then I got a shot of the whole place (though the http://www.smartusa.com/ truck was in the way, giving test drives and such):

Full to the brim, we wandered the area for a while. Could I resist the Borders store? No, I could not. (I don't think Elizabeth could either...but she was content to make it my fault that we entered.) We got books and magazines and magnetized dolls and sticky frogs and Walter the Farting Dog. We found it especially amusing that this "Great Lawyers" book was placed with other fantasies, like Marvel comics and Thomas the Train:

We headed out looking for...um...I have no idea what we were looking for, but we ended up over the river in Jeffersonville, Indiana, at "Perkfection," a nice little coffee shop with an incredibly slow baristo. The little Pumpkin was cute, but IT ISN'T EVEN OCTOBER YET!!!!!!!!!!

We had a lot of discussion about what to do next, and we'd settled on buying yarn and then going to play poker across the border in Indiana, but after buying yarn, we decided against the casino. We came back to the room, dug out the blender Elizabeth brought, the booze I'd brought, and we made Bailey's smoothies. (Yes, that is a knitting needle she's stirring with -- don't ask.) YUM, they were awesome. And then I tought her how to crochet. Or rather, I re-taught her, as she'd been proficient several years ago. She had nearly a foot of scarf completed by the time we went to sleep.

This morning, we woke up WAY too early, watched a kids' baseball movie for some silly reason, and packed up. After loading up our respective cars, we went into the complimentary breakfast room and ate. Spontaneous trips are great, but dang, they end so SOON.

Since I was going to Mammoth Cave National Park, Elizabeth and I both headed out in the same direction for about 90 minutes.

At Exit 53, we parted ways. Elizabeth is just not a cave kind of woman...at all. She kept heading south, I turned off to immediately see this:

But no time this trip for Dinosaur World. (We've already decided we're coming back for this one, and the Wax Museum.) It was on to Mammoth Cave, which I have been dying to see since taking a "Geology of National Parks" class a couple of summers back. I was so proud to see the textbook (which I had brought and perused in anticipation) was also being sold in the Park Store!! I bought a ticket for the "New Entrance Tour" and put my purse back in the car -- ABSOLUTELY NO BAGS ALLOWED ON CAVE TOURS, INCLUDING CAMERA BAGS, FANNY PACKS, PURSES, BACKPACKS, OR ANYTHING SIMILAR. Sorry for the all-caps, but they repeated it so many times, it was funny. And yet we still had 2 people on the tour who said, when trying to take purses on the buses, "You mean, I can't even take my PURSE?"

I can't even tell you what a thrill being in that cave was. The entire experience was breathtaking, stunning, awe-inspiring. When I am more awake, I will be writing more about what I've learned about the caves. Come next May or June, I just have to take a 4-day weekend so I can go down there and take several other tours. (Since I'll have been building up endurance for around 7 or 8 months at that point, my plan is to take the Historic Tour, Grand Avenue Tour, and hopefully, the Wild Cave Tour. That is along with one or two surface hikes.) That should be a small warmup for Yellowstone & the Grand Tetons next summer!! Without further comment, here are my Mammoth Cave pictures, Entrance to Exit. I got home tonight, tired, but so, so happy. Road Trips Rock.

It's All About...The List

I have had so much going on in the last week that I needed to make a list just to try and remember what I had to write about. Now, by the time I’m actually getting around to writing it, I have had to edit my list just to make it relevant. (I suppose that means that I either need to be less detailed with what I want to post, or I need to be a bit more timely in posting!)

School – Yes, I said I was going to skip this next class. No, I couldn’t stick with that decision. I need to keep going, even if I want to be lazy, lazy, lazy. So I started my HTML Programming class last Thursday, which everyone is quick to point out is NOT a programming class. Nice to do to those of us who haven’t a clue, eh? Title a class “HTML Programming” and wait until the class starts to provide the disclaimer about it not being a programming class. Talk about confusing. So far, I am a touch behind due to…well, I’ll get to that in a minute…but suffice to say that I have quite a bit of homework tonight. (I ordered the book late, so cross your fingers that it actually arrives today!)

Theater Stuff – Still haven’t heard back from the appliance place, so I need to call them again to be sure they can get their appliances from the last show. I was asked by the local paper to write a brief article for the fall “community activities” supplement and got that done on Friday…and then it didn’t send from my e-mailbox. Poor woman must’ve thought I’d backed out on her!! I’m planning to go ask at this week’s board meeting to direct “On Golden Pond” in February. Yes, yes, glutton for punishment, yada, yada, yada. I just can’t stand to not be doing a show.

Soccer – My niece is a soccer prodigy. (Gee, prejudiced much?) I have always found it quite incredible that my Texas-based niece is a great soccer player, and I loved going to every single one of my stepson's soccer games. It tickled me no end to watch my 4-year-old niece this weekend get 6 break-aways and score 4 times. See? Very cool.

Weekend Party – Sis and I had a party over the weekend for our coworkers. We called it our first annual “We’ve Lived Together a Year and Not Killed Each Other” party. Preparation was stressful, the party itself was easy as pie. We didn’t have the turnout we’d expected, but it was a great blend of people and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. The big frustration? The beer tap. We got way too big a keg, had to hunt for a tap, and the tap not only leaked, but is now locked up tight. So I have about 12 gallons of beer in my backyard that I can’t touch. Dagnabbit.

Cheesehead Alert – My beloved Packers are actually 3-0 and I was doing a happy dance around the living room (sorry to provide THAT particular visual, but it’s true…) when Favre tied Marino’s Passing TD record at 420 yesterday. Luckily, it was a good enough game that I didn’t need a beer to watch it!!!

White & Nerdy – Even alone, I had a RIOT going to the Weird Al Yankovic concert. I was probably the oldest person there who didn’t have kids with her, but I screamed and hollered and sang. He even did “Yoda” (a parody of the Kinks’ “Lola,” for the uninitiated), which I didn’t expect and thoroughly enjoyed. The only thing that surprised me at all, and it didn’t turn out to be horrible or anything, was that he didn’t really do a ton of audience interaction. I’d sort of expected it, and I was just surprised, is all. (He did climb into the audience for one song, and sort of talked to a guy to try and get him to sing “Y-O-D-A, Yoda”…just expected him to be chatty and he really wasn’t.) I left there feeling WONDERFUL. I have my White & Nerdy t-shirt on today, and wore my “Weird Al is my Homeboy” t-shirt yesterday. I’m such a dork.

Beer – At work yesterday, I offered to provide free beer to anyone who could fix my tap. Had a couple of guys from work come over and Sis and I fed them supper and beer. It was very fun, and the tap just needed lube. Hm. Make your own joke about that.

Heroes – And Chuck. Don’t forget Chuck. I watched both of these NBC shows last night and loved them. Actually, The Journeyman comes on right afterward, and I’d already watched the preview on Amazon.com…liked that one too. I love Fall Premiere Week. Anyway, Heroes was incredible, and I can’t wait to find out more about Maya, and figure out why the smarmy ratboy from ‘Alias’ is now playing a smarmy ratboy Samurai on Heroes, and find out what happened to Peter Petrelli! (I rarely watch TV…cut me some slack. I know I’m a dork.)

And in Today’s News – Sis is going to a Tigers game with friends, so I am babysitting and trying to finish my first major assignment of my new class. Should be an adventure to combine the two. It's a good thing I jogged on my treadmill this morning. Also have more of Premiere Week to tape (Reaper, Bones, and have to figure out how to get House in there too…).

It's All About...My Golden Arches

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Originally uploaded by klutz67

*sigh* I bought these babies today. I just got back from 3 miles that were so much better than previous walks. I remember coming back from the shoe store when I was little -- getting shoes was a HUGE deal and rarely done -- and having new sneakers. "They run really fast!" I would shout, and zip across the lawn, around the room, over and under toys and furniture. "These are the BEST shoes!"

So today, I took out of work early (which has to be the last day for quite some time, as my vacation time had 15 hours eaten up with play stuff last week) and went to the closest running store to talk with someone more knowledgeable than ye olde FootLocker employee. What I found was a lovely little shop called StepOneSoccerTwo and a very friendly and knowledgeable salesguy. "You have great arches," he said. "I bet you say that to all the girls," said I. He had the decency to blush.

Turns out I pronate quite severely (who knew?!) and that my lovely arches are "not quite a freak of nature, but pretty unusual" in that they act sort of like flat feet when I walk on them. So I couldn't get the shoes he'd regularly recommend, because my pseudo-flat-footedness doesn't react well to the firmer arch of shoes meant to correct severe pronating. Instead I got these Asics GT-2120's, which he said are probably his most popular shoe. I can deal.

I wasn't going to go out tonight, but I just couldn't stand having $100 shoes and nowhere to wear them. I walked down to the path at dusk, heavily coated in bug spray, and set out to the lake. Bliss. The only pain was leftover stiffness/soreness from yesterday. My feet and shins feel great. Kudos to my cheerleader and also to my "trainer" for both pushing the "get good shoes" line. One of the actors from my last show was running and I think he did a bit of a doubletake at the sight of me. (It was probably just the glare of the shoes.) Guess what? These shoes run FAST! :)

Other than that, my next class starts tomorrow. I'd thought about backing out of that one, but decided that just like the walking/running, I need to plod forward and make progress where ever I can. So HTML, here I come.

It's All About...Planning Ahead

I woke up at 8:30. EIGHT THIRTY. Amazing. It was way later than I usually sleep on weekends, or during the week for that matter, and it feels completely decadent. This is good. An incredibly late night on Thursday – which involved traveling to another county to find an open bar, much laughter, and a friend’s near-miss with an ex-wrestler’s temper – led to a bit of exhaustion yesterday. I would like to tell you that I was crabby yesterday. It’s not exactly true. I was a bitch. I don’t like being a bitch. On my honor, today I will do my best to NOT be a bitch. *I think I can I think I can I think I can*

This morning, I awakened to hear my sister telling my mom that I wouldn’t be at my niece’s soccer game this morning because I wasn’t out of bed yet. *sigh* Now I have the guilt. Yes, I can go next week, and yes, it’s probably not a big deal, and no, it’s not going to scar anyone for life or increase abandonment issues. But yeah. I’m missing a soccer game. I got out of bed and helped with pigtails and shin guards to assuage the guilt. It got me a good hug, and a cuddle, but didn’t touch the guilt. Much.

Then I found out that, although I bought creamer at the store last night as I was supposed to, we have no coffee. I don’t feel guilt about that. I feel…like I need my caffeine and hope that my stashed bag of really good coffee beans is still hidden in the freezer. I hope you cannot see my gleeful hand-wringing and cackling from where you are reading this.

Instead of joining the soccer parents on this chilly September morning, I plan to walk the trail by the lake (this self-improvement campaign at least gives my iPod and my ass a workout), come back and mow the lawn (which will thrill Sis, who can hardly stand the lawn the day after it’s mowed, let alone a week and a half), finish the last load of laundry while finally watching Last King of Scotland, get tidied up to have folks over here tonight after the show, and go feed the cats at the farm. Oh. I should probably pay bills too. Having nearly the entire day with no theater commitments until 5:30 or 6 seems wacky. There are things I could do there too. But I won’t. I could go to work too, but I’ll put that off until tomorrow. Because I can.

I am very, very aware that I keep my days so full to keep my brain occupied and my body tired out enough to crash at the end of the day. I’m worrying a bit about what I’ll do when this show is over. (Not that I’ve ever had a problem filling the time…I amaze myself with how much I get done some days, especially with as out of shape as I obviously am and the energy I miss out on because of it.) I’m postponing my next class because I haven’t gotten approval yet to have work pay for it, and I can’t afford a thousand bucks out-of-pocket this month. Or pretty much any month. Heh.

I am going to go see Weird Al Yankovic next Sunday and could not be more excited. Not only is he one of my very, very favorite performers (and I know that’s weird, but I have adored him since the late ‘80’s…), but I get to go with a friend I haven’t seen in…holy crap, I think it’s been over 12 years. He took me to Barbra Streisand, I’m taking him to Weird Al. I think I got the better of this deal, I have to say! I’ll be heading to Rose City in a couple of weeks to camp with my Aunt Jane and Uncle Skip at their property near Rose City – in a tent for the first time in a decade!! The big comfy camper went the way of my marriage!! I’m also going alone to see Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God” monologue in Chicago in October and am just heart-full at the thought of seeing her perform it in person. I’ve owned the CD of the performance since last fall. Her stories (also including God Said Ha – about her brother’s cancer treatment and death, and her own cancer diagnosis and treatment – and The Family Way) resonate very strongly in my life; her strong sense of morality and values coupled with her logic, diligent topical research and reading, and atheism completely rings true in my life as well. There is just so much recognition every time I hear her speak. Anyway. I’m a total fan girl. And Chicago rocks as well…I’ll probably hit the Aquarium and my beloved Science & Industry Museum too. Because if there is an upside to doing it alone, it’s that I can look at whatever I want for as long as I want without annoying anyone. Big upside for my friends and family!! Finally, I’m travelling to Ocean City at the end of October to scrapbook my little heart out with my Juuuuuuuuulia. (OK, I might have to hug her husband and son once too during the trip, but after that, we are down to serious scrapping.) And I might stop to see Bre on my way home if I can swing that.

But after these trips come to fruition, you, my dear friends and readers unknown, may benefit from my lack of tangible projects. I think I might like to work on the writing thing for a while. Not just my normal journal-keeping, which I’ve done since I was about 9, but actual writing. We’ll see. I’d also like to learn judo, continue my Spanish and German lessons, clean my garage, and hike across Austria, but one step at a time, right?

A final note: Big, big thanks to Susan who came out from Jackson to see our little show last night...what a treat to see you!!! I wish I would have gone backstage and nabbed my camera. Susan and I went to school together in Concord about a hundred years ago (or was it yesterday?). A couple of pictures to round us out here: The silly version of the cast photo, the cast & crew photo, and a couple pictures of the visitor that scared me silly the other night when I was leaving the theater!!

It’s all about…Perception

So the show opens tonight. It’s going to be a good show. A really good show. I’m really proud of this cast and crew. If I sound less than thrilled, it’s only because I just got a phone call saying we’d tracked paint all through the theater, up the aisle, into the light booth, and all over the light booth’s brand new carpeting. People are not happy. I do not blame them for being unhappy—I’m not happy about it, I just can’t fix it right now. Since the call, I’ve researched removing latex paint from carpet and think I can at least get the “public” areas cleaned up by the end of the weekend using hairspray and rubbing alcohol. (Can a get a hallelujah? Oh, and another 36 hours in a day would be nice too…)

In other news:

Can I admit something to you? I don’t like The Simpsons. I want to like the show. I’ve watched. I’ve found episodes vaguely amusing sometimes. I’ve read raving reviews. I’ve had people (whose opinions I revere!) recommend I watch it. I’ve had people quote things at me. “D’oh” is even part of my vocabulary now. But I can’t sit down and watch an episode and find it entertaining enough to keep my attention. So I feel like using the Groening-like avatar of myself in my profile (which I’ve been using in my private blog, on MySpace, and on FaceBook for a month or two now) is a bit misleading, and more than a little disingenuous. I’m just fine kicking Bart and his kin to the curb. Sacrilege to some, but there it is. I feel like I’ve come out of the non-animated closet.

Having made the decision to rid myself of the cartoon avatar, I know I need to represent myself in some way. (I refuse to be a big question mark on Facebook.) It feels very strange, this worrying about what my “web presence” looks like. For one, I don’t like pictures of myself. I like myself fine, thank you very much, but I don’t particularly enjoy seeing myself in photographs. I would like to think I am much more than my appearance. Then again, to most people (and especially those who do not know me, or who don’t know me well), I am not a lot more than my appearance. And even to those who have had a glimpse of the dork within, what I look like is part of me. Therein lies the rub.

So as I attempted to relax on my day off yesterday (and did not succeed especially well, but managed a long sleep, which helped), I dyed my hair. It was not meant to be burgundy. It was supposed to be Intense Auburn. It is, in fact, pretty much burgundy. What can ya do? And then I took pictures. I made faces at the camera, which was perched in the ubiquitous end-of-the-arm-self-photography pose. I smiled, I made fish lips, I appeared shocked and amused, pretended to be full of hilarity and overwhelmed with seriousness. In the end, they all looked the same to me. It’s just me. And now I have a new profile picture. It looks like me. It is not the entirety of me. And I’m okay with this. But I wish my hair wasn’t quite so…burgundy.

So…enough for a lunchtime ramble. If you’re in the area and would like to see the show, call the theater at 517-849-9100 and make a reservation, would you? Tickets are cheap and you’d be supporting a great cause (and getting some fine Hillsdale County entertainment too!). If you do come, let me know you’re there, and please stay in the lobby after the show so I can come and say howdy.

And wherever you are, leave me a comment or something. My comment section is getting lonely. I like to hear from you. And you. And you (you know who you are).

Photo Call???

Never heard of a photo call before yesterday, but I spent 2 hours taking pictures!! I now provide you with way too many pictures of our "Barefoot in the Park" production: