Awesome.

So today was an awesome day in Nashville!

First it was the last 1/2 of my conference. The conference was interesting, but I was glad it was done. After our last sessions, we had our keynote speaker. Are you ready for our keynote speaker... Barbara Bush. She was really funny and rather self-effacing. I took a bunch of photos of her on the stage. Hopefully one will turn out. Even cooler, though, at the end we got to take our picture with her in groups of 4. The official photographers for my conference took the shots so my contact will email me the photo in like 2 - 3 weeks. We also received her book from Fidelity which is autographed. However, her Republicanness did not rub off on me. :)

Then I went downtown and wandered around downtown. I took some photos and then caught a bus up to the Parthenon. The Parthenon was AWESOME. I got there about 1/2 hour before it closed (unrelated, every tourist thing in Nashville closes between 4:30 and 5:00 what's that about??) So I went up to the 2nd floor where you could take pictures and there was Pallas Athena. She was amazing. There are no words. She's like 46 or 42' tall. She is all gilded or gilt or whatever the word is for gold plating. I said a little prayer to her... we'll see if she helps a gal out. ;)

I changed my mind about renting a car and am catching a Grayline tour. Upon consideration of the costs it is actually cheaper for me to take the tour to two of the sites I want to do instead of renting a car and trying to fit in 3 sites. (Did I mention how weird it is that all tourist destinations close between 4:30 and 5?) (Yes, Michelle, I totally don't drive anymore. I know.)

35

Did y'all know I turn 35 next year? I'm not panicking yet. :) I'm not anticipating doing so. But I have decided to postpone my Ireland trip until next year so I can go over my birthday. I think that'll be fun! I also think I'm going to get tattoo #3 while in Dublin. Maybe instead of bringing back refrigerator magnets, I'll start bringing back body art. ;) Kidding. ish. :)

This also means I have to start figuring out a budget and saving money. So far I'm like whatever % of Americans with no savings and debt. Sigh. Starting July 1 (and the reason for July 1 is because Girl Scout camping is going to suck up money in June) I'm going to figure out a budget and stick to it. Crap. I won't make my plan to start the process of adopting kids at 36 if I don't start saving now. Saving for a bigger apartment or a home if I can do that. Also, like most Americans, I don't want to face my budgetary issues so this'll be fun. I'll need to figure out a carrot to make me do this. :)

Also, I just spent 35 minutes swimming laps in the pool. Yay! I'm totally wiped out right now and they weren't the best laps ever. There was a lot of pausing between laps while I breathed, but I did a good 15 laps or so. Although in full disclosure mode, I must say it wasn't that long a pool. Now I'm all clean and lotioned and sleepy. :)

I have a plan!

First of all, totally unrelated, I find it slightly weird that there's a commercial on the TV here about a place I've been to in Indiana. It's only 3 hours away. I'm so used to living in giant states where everything is really far far away that this is weird to me.

So I think I've mentioned before how I am a planner when it comes to vacations. In my own life, who knows what the hell is going on, but when I have a couple of days off and a destination I plan the whole thing down to the minute. I may not do every thing on the list, but I like to have a plan. Most of that comes from the fact that usually when I visit a place that's the only time I'm going and so I want to see everything I can see and not waste any time.

So, here's my plan. I'm not changing hotels because I'm lazy and independently wealthy. (Oh, well not independently wealthy but I am lazy and I like this hotel.) On Friday afternoon after the conference I'm going to catch the hotel shuttle downtown and tour the downtown area. There are a lot of bars that are totally where new acts are discovered and all that. Plus the Parthenon is a short walk from downtown. Saturday I'm going to rent a car just for the day and go to the Hermitage and Belle Meade Plantation and hopefully Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. Yay! Sunday I'm going to tour around the hotel and go over to the Grand Ole Opry before I have to go catch my flight. Yay, a plan! :)

The conference is fine. Sometimes I sit and listen to folks talk and wonder if I'm at all qualified to do my job since sometimes I have no idea what they're talking about. Other times I surprise myself by what I actually do know. :)

I dropped a bit of chocolate on my white shirt earlier today. Thanks to the miraculous restorative powers of Tennessee water, it disappeared. Isn't that crazy?

I have arrived! :)

I'm in Nashville. The flight was actually eventful. While on the flight some guy in a forward row took seriously ill and they actually called for someone with medical experience. The lady in the seat next to me was apparently a nurse and she went up there. The guy was vomiting up blood. Ew. He seemed to stop vomiting and so we continued the flight to Nashville instead of stopping somewhere else. That was nice.

The hotel is MASSIVE. I cannot stress enough how big this place seems to me. And I seem to be as far away from my convention as I could be. Sigh. It is really pretty here though. I went outside and the air was warm and heavy. I think southerners refer to it as "sultry." Also, although I'm not really willing to pay extra for it, I bet a balcony room would be nice. Most of the hotel is enclosed under glass and there are all sorts of plants and water running through it. However it wasn't TOO hard to get around. I found my dinner restaurant pretty quickly.

I should be checking my work email and looking at the questions for the new head of HR we're interviewing on Monday when I get back. Clearly I'm not. :)

Rigby knows how to torment me!

I spent 40 minutes looking for Rigby this afternoon. The vet tech at my vet's office is taking care of the girls for me while I'm gone and she swung by to pick up the girls. Tess was no problem. She was awake and I managed to snag her and dump her in the carrier right away. Rigby was another story. I searched. I tore my bedroom apart. I shoved a stick under the bed trying to wake her if she was there. I threw stuff all around to look under things. I couldn't find her. I begged. I pleaded. I shook treat containers. I shook the leash which has the bell on it. I called her name in the way I always do. I shook my house keys (which now I'm wondering what I did with those). I couldn't find her. So eventually the vet tech left and I have to take the girls to the vet's office tomorrow to drop them off there. Sigh. So then I started worrying. Rigby isn't usually such a sound sleeper. She's usually rather alert and doesn't sleep so soundly. Could she bed dead? And holy fuck if she is I'll never find her in my bedroom by tomorrow before I have to leave. Four hours later she wanders out into the living room as though there was absolutely nothing wrong. I could almost kill her.

Folklife

I got to go home early from my volunteer shift today. There wasn't really anything to do. I hate it when that happens. I understand that they need to schedule a certain amount of excess to be sure they have enough in case someone doesn't show up, but I spent 3 hours wandering around trying to find stuff to do. Ugh. I hate being a "roamer" or "floater."

This is my 5th year volunteering with them, but I may not do it again next year. Between the having less fun every year and the fact that Folklife incorporates so many things I hate I don't know why I do it anymore. It used to be that almost all the activities in the kids area were free. That encouraged a lot of kids to come and do them. Slowly, more of the activities have become not free. I kind of feel like if a vendor is sponsoring a booth, they're donating and writing off the materials used in the booth. I don't know... maybe I'm unrealistic in my views on that. And while a $3.00 "donation" to cover materials isn't a lot, it kind of is. Especially if you've got multiple children.

I also don't like crowds. It isn't that I panic or anything in them, but they irritate me. Between the random stoppers and the random standers it is difficult to get from one place to the next.

Paralyzed by lazyness

So I'm going to Nashville next week. For Friday & Saturday nights, I'm paying for my own hotel since that is on my time. The hotel I'm staying at for the conference is wicked expensive and not near anything interesting. I know I know I know I should change hotels Friday/Sat but I feel so blah about the thought of actually doing it, I'm tempted to not. But really... really... $189/night is a lot of cash. Ridiculous amount actually. I think the other part is that I really really don't want to rent a car and deal with all that. Stupid Nashville Metro that doesn't run to the tourist places I want to go to on the weekends. It would make my life so much easier if they did.

Tolt MacDonald Park

On Sunday Lyday and I went to Tolt MacDonald Park. This is where I'm taking both sets of girls camping and I'd never been there. The park is relatively close to Seattle so that's nice. It's actually a pretty little park. I wasn't really sure what to expect, especially considering you're still kind of in a town.

Nothing really to say about tall trees, but they're cool.

I don't know what this little yellow flower is, but I really like it. I was playing a lot with my camera's ability to take really close up shots. (There's a word for it, I can't remember it.) (EDIT: It's Macro and Super-Macro mode)

Tolt MacDonald park is on the confluence of two rivers, the Tolt and the Snoqualmie. Since we had just started getting crazy warm weather, the river was running much faster than I think it usually does and it was much more swollen than I expected. This poor little tree looks like it is not usually this much underwater.

This is the bridge across the Snoqualmie River. It is a suspension bridge and very... hmm what's the word. Well I don't know if there's a proper word but it moves a lot. We had to cross on foot. That will be a bit of a trial for the girls because they are going to have to cart their gear across it to get to the yurts. There are wagons at the camp host's station that we can hopefully use.

Three dandelions! Yay! Lyday and I both blew the dandelion fluff off several in the hopes that our wishes would come true. :)

Snail. Obviously. He was cruising across the path like he owned the whole world.

Bumble bee! Yay! There were a whole lot of them buzzing around the flowers next to the trail. They seemed a tolerant bunch and let Lyday and I get up pretty close to take their pictures. It did make me realize that I don't know if any of my little girls are allergic to bees. I kind of want to email all the moms and say "Go get your kid stung by a bee. I don't want any surprises." That's probably not the best way to go though.

I liked the green in this photo and the way the moss hangs off the tree branches. They almost look like zombie arms.

This is the Snoqualmie River from the bridge. Although the bridge is designed to span the entire width, I'm pretty sure this is unnatural. Lyday wants to go tubing down the river. I am not partial to tubing. I don't like feeling like I can't control where the tube goes.

There were several grassy areas that were just so simple and pretty. This one was full of those teeny little daisy like flowers. I like those flowers. I remember when we were kids, we used to do this thing where we'd hold the flower in our fingers and say "Momma had a baby and her head popped off" and then we'd flick the blossom off the stem. I don't know why we'd do that. Kids are weird. They are also effective for making diasy chains.

Two little purple flowers. THey were so cute and little. Lyday decided to do a whole set of pictures of pairs of flowers.

There were these ferns that grow kind of in a circle like this. I don't know why they do or what kind of ferns they are but it is so cool the way they do that. Mishka, you know about the area, do you know what type of ferns they are?

I liked these little star type flowers too. They were cool. Another flower I can't identify but I thought it was very pretty.

This is the confluence of the Tolt River and the MacDonald River. You can't tell in the picture but in real life, there is a distinct line where the two rivers are not quite the same water. It's pretty cool.

New Shoes!

Yay for me! I bought new shoes! I went in with the intention of getting new tennis shoes and new work shoes in black because I can't wear little brown Mary Janes forever, but that went out the window because of how HOT it was here the last few days. I needed a more summery type shoe. I went to Shoes N Feet because apparently I'm an old lady who needs old lady shoes and the Walking Store guy just chastized me for not having full orthotics and why don't I buy theirs. Whatever! I'll have more pictures tonight after I post the ones from yesterday when I went to Tolt-McDonald park to check it out before camping. It's a cute little park.

So these are my new tennis shoes. They have a removable innersole. I wear my orthotic with just the bottom of the shoe, although I think I might invest in some of those cheap thin soles that just like make your feet not stink.

This is my new pair of "summer" shoes. Except in black. And they have a Croc innersole (also removable) with an orthotic built in. I'm not sure if I'm going to just wear the Croc innersole or remove it and wear mine. If I do that I'll have to get some type of covering for my orthotic because I really really hate how they feel against my bare feet.

Reviews

I went to two shows this weekend. Of course I went as an usher so they were both free. :) (Seriously, if you've got time on your hands look to your local theater and see if they have volunteer positions for ushers. It is fun and a free way to see shows!) :)

Margaret Cho - Margaret Cho is funny. I really enjoy her shows. The last time I saw her was at Benaroya Hall and that was a much more politically charged show. This show was much more a pen1s and vajayjay show. In fact, her last bit was a song that she sings about something she enjoys people doing and one thing she said before she started singing was that the song would get stuck in your head. You would think of it at inappropriate times. That totally happened this morning while I was getting ready for work. Damn earworm.

Cake -I like the band Cake. I think some of their songs are really funny. You've got to love a song where the chorus is about b00bs that bounce on an Italian leather sofa. (really you have to hear it sung it is hysterical and not at all secksual). It was a good show, but there were a couple things marring it for me. One - The guitar player was smoking during the show. I was really really distracted by that. First trying to figure out if that's really what he was doing. Then I kept thinking, that's against the rules, right? Then I was distracted about how he was going to deal with the ash and putting it out. I don't even remember what song he was smoking through, just that he was. Plus they did an encore which I hate. I just peeved about it, you can read about it there. :)

Lucky Shopping

Yesterday after picking up my rebuilt orthotic I figured I'd stop by the mall and look for shoes and maybe some springy clothes. There were no shoes to be found. Nothing in Nordstroms. Nothing in Macys. Nothing in the "walking shoe" shoe store. Sigh. I'm going to try a store called Shoes N Feet which caters to comfy shoes as well as those for people with feet issues. BUT the lucky part is that I went to the fatchick store. They were having a sale. I picked up two pairs of capri pants and three short sleeved shirts. Everything was on sale (which surprised me because there was no tag indicating the shirts were on sale). AND the woman in front of me had a coupon that she didn't use that she gave to me which was for $50 off a $150 or more purchase. I hit $150 and ultimately only spent half of what I was supposed to pay. Yay.

I've added more to the summer of busyness...

July 11 - 13 is the 4th Annual (fourth?) Girls Camping trip. (Now with boys!)

August 8 - 10 is LA for baby Kenna's 1st birthday

And sometime in August Mandy is coming to visit.

I think Lyday may want to go camping this summer while it is warm (as opposed to camping in February) and quite possibly a Stephen & Ben trip in the works.

Pondering

I've been working on an application to a position doing what I do but at a college on the east coast. It is in an area I've visited before and really enjoyed. I really struggle with one piece of my resume... the 6ish months I worked for a casino. I feel like I want to be honest, that I did hold this real job and left after 6 months. Under reason for leaving I just put that it wasn't a good fit for me. I suppose that's better than the truth... the job made me so miserable I was about 2 steps away from becoming a full blown alcoholic and drank daily the entire time I held that job. (I'd like to say I took time off from drinking on the weekends when I didn't have to go to that hell hole, but I didn't. Also in my defense, it is easy to become an alcoholic when your only (and best friend at the time) friend in the city is an alcoholic. Well and ultimately it was his alcoholism and your stopping drinking like that that drove a wedge between the two of you.) I hate this. I really really hate this. If I had any hope that we might get a new decent person in the position I wouldn't be looking already, but I just know how things are going there right now... and they are not going in a direction I like.

For 4 years, my troop has been meeting at my employer's. My boss knew it and the head of legal knew it and all was fine. Now my boss is gone and that head of legal is gone and suddenly it is a concern. Fuck off. Are you kidding me? They told me to call the head of our events group who do all the room scheduling and all that to ask if she had liability concerns. Rumour has it she's retiring so I'm hoping she'll just never answer the question and I'll have permission under the "silence means consent" doctrine. :) If I end up getting a new position somewhere outside Seattle, I'll have to give up my girls. That's hard to think about.

Totally unrelated, I have just started a book called The Abortionist's Daughter. It is really good. I'm really enjoying it and the complicated aspects of the book. Basically, a physician who is a prominent abortion doctor is murdered. She's left behind a husband and college aged daughter. I like the complex characters I've read so far. There was something else less downer to talk about, but I've already forgotten it. :)

Rigby's Lucky Star

This morning Rigby was doing that ferret thing where she walks around my body until I go nuts and wake up. I opened one eye and looked at her nose, just inches from mine, and said that if it was before 6:30 I would kill her. I then looked at the clock. 6:34. She's got mad psychic skillz that one does.

Sleepy

I just got done with my two beer pouring shifts. Actually, I had one from 12:30 - 4:30 and then my second one was 8:00 - 11:30 pm. I really enjoy doing it but I am so wiped out by the time I'm done. My foot is killing me (more on that later). I spent the first shift talking to a distributor. We chatted about beer. During my 2nd shift I flirted with the guy next to me. He totally flirted with me too. And about 3/4ths of the way through the shift he had checked his phone and was texting someone... his girlfriend. Guys with girlfriends shouldn't flirt with other girls. It should be a rule. It was still fun, though. It seemed less crowded than in years past and I don't like it when I end up at a brewery that isn't that popular. My 2nd shift brewery WAS popular but less than an hour into the shift, the beer that everyone wanted was tapped out and there was no more to be had. So sad.

In between my two shifts, I bought my mom a Mother's Day present, had dinner, paid my library fines and played Nintendo. :) I got more accomplished than I would've had I went home between shifts. :)

Friday night I went to a party. I got a bit tipsy. (A bit more than a bit tipsy). I felt a little lonely Friday night. It passed. I'm sure the alcohol was a contributing factor to that. BUT it was a pretty good party.

I went to the doctor on Thursday. My orthotic is being adjusted and I have to go to physical therapy. That's going to suck because it is freaking $15 per visit and I have to do 3 visits per week for 4 weeks. Also, no more elliptical trainer for me for awhile. I may start lap swimming. Sucks, all of it.

Headache

I have a headache this am.

My stupidass outlet in my bathroom (the one in the light that only works when the damn light is on and thanks to gravity, frequently the plug falls out of the socket because of the location of the socket) is set such a way that I can't plug my new hair drying apparatus into it. The hair drying apparatus has polarized plugs and one of those big ass boxes around the plug (you know what I mean, right?). The way the outlet is set, when I tried to plug in the hair drying apparatus (it isn't a hair dryer... it is one of those hair drying styling brush things. I think I like it. I used it this morning.) I couldn't because the box was too big and it banged into the wall. Then when I replugged in my air freshener I didn't get it in quite hard enough and gravity did its job and it fell hitting a bunch of things and knocking a cup into the sink. Stupidass outlet. Some day I will live in a normal apartment with a normal bathroom and a normal plug. This I vow.

Choking

I just totally choked on my tacos. Like the deep coughing almost throwing up choking. So dumb.

This weekend begins a very busy volunteer time for me. Crazy busy life time too actually.

This weekend: Beer pouring on Saturday - 2 shifts.

Next weekend: Letter Carrier's Food Drive (don't forget to put out your cans of food), Ushering at Margaret Cho and a Cake concert.

The weekend of May 17th: So far nothing... hopefully cleaning my apartment so I can get the maintenance guy to fix something.

May 24th - 26th: Northwest Folklife Festival. Two shifts each day.

May 27 - June 1: Nashville TN for work

June 7: Brownie Camping (just Sat night)

June 14 & 21: Studying, taking and hopefully passing my last test.

June 27 - 29: Older girl camping.

July 4th weekend: Collapse in exhaustion. :)

What are your summer plans?