good day sunshine

i just know today is going to be a good day and here's why:

1) last night there was an earthquake at my house!  i'd never felt an earthquake before and when i was in elementary school all the kids would come to school the day after an earthquake and say "did you feel it?!?!" and i didn't because i always slept like a rock. so of course, i always felt left out.

but this time, i felt it!  it was so weird.  it was a split second shake and i thought that someone on a floor below me had just slammed a door. (they do that a lot.) but then i used my sherlock holmes-like deductive reasoning skills and realized that i didn't actually hear a slam, i just felt the shake so it couldn't be a door.  i used this same reasoning to eliminate the possibility of a truck driving into the building.  when i finally decided it was an earthquake i was just so excited i couldn't possibly go to bed so i finished watching sister wives.

2) today is the inaugural burrito wednesday.  i know it's actually thursday, but no one could actually go on wednesday this time so we moved it.  just down the street from where i work there are three taco carts that sell $3 burritos.  THREE DOLLAR BURRITOS.  and those things are as big as your forearm and so delicious.  i cannot think of one thing i love more than cheap food. (unless, of course, it's free food) so a few co-workers and i decided that burritos for lunch should be a weekly thing and it is something i now look forward to with my whole heart.  i have even planned my wardrobe around it.

3) on my way to my car this morning, i stopped to check the mail and received something that i have been hoping to receive since i became a registered voter 16 years ago.

A JURY DUTY SUMMONS!!!

i am "on-call" for federal jury duty for the next three months unless i have a good excuse not to, which i don't, THANK GOODNESS.  i will get to not go to work and i won't have to use vacation time for it!  finally, finally, i will get to see an actual courtroom drama!!  i know all about subpoenas and allocution and burden of proof, thanks to countless hours of law and order marathons, so i feel well-prepared for this job.  plus, i hear they give you lunch, which i am ecstatic about.  (see above)

good day, indeed.

are we there yet?

in march, b and i took a quick road trip to the armpit of america: las vegas.  i normally detest vegas, but CAKE.  i thought it would be a great road trip eating red vines and quoting friends and the office with my middle brother, but he slept the ENTIRE TIME, thus making him the worst road trip partner ever.  as we neared the nevada border i jokingly asked him if he had remembered his passport since we were about to cross state lines.  he laughed and said, "i actually did consider bringing it but then thought 'why would i need i.d.?'"

i slammed on the brakes.  "please tell me you have some form of i.d.  this is a 21 and over show."

my cute, irresponsible, and lazy brother has been driving around for 3 years with an expired temporary drivers license.  it was a faded and torn scrap of paper in his wallet.  oh great.  so i was going to cake alone and b drove all the way to vegas with me, just to sit outside brooklyn bowl and wait for the show to be over.  i felt so sad for him and tried to think of things i could offer the bouncer to let b in.

we arrived a few hours early, so we walked around the strip, averting our eyes and laughing at the t-shirts that advertised "orgasims."  we also ate at "the haute doggery" and argued over the pronunciation of "haute."  i asked the girl at the counter what she thought, but she was even younger than b, so when she agreed with him i disregarded them both.  i even tried to explain to them that it was a french word and those things are never pronounced how they are spelled, but she looked like she was ready to shove my haute dog down my throat so i dropped the matter.

while we were at the haute doggery, we spotted an attractive, nicely dressed young man sitting all alone eating a hot dog.  i like to make up stories about the people i spy on, so b and i started discussing why this man was eating alone on the las vegas strip on a saturday night.  possible suggestions were that he was stood up and was drowning his sorrows in a mug root beer and an overpriced gourmet hot dog.  maybe he was an undercover security guard at a casino.  maybe he was an average-priced male hooker taking a quick lunch break.  of course, there was only one way to find out for sure: follow him.

so we did.  he walked briskly out of the haute doggery and we stayed right on his tail.  we disguised ourselves by putting our hair in ponytails and donning sunglasses.  we followed him as he weaved in and out of the foot traffic and through two casinos.  we saw him go through a secret, unmarked door in the second casino but we still didn't get our answer.  what choice did i have, but to follow him through the door while b distracted the security guard?  I HAD NO CHOICE.  so i followed him, but i lost him.  i was disappointed that i'd never really know what brought him to the haute doggery alone that night, which is a totally weird thing to be disappointed about, i know.

and that is the story of how b and i were creepsters and followed an innocent guy around the las vegas strip.

then we saw cake and they were awesome.  of course.

(despite all our worries the bouncers didn't even ask to see i.d.  and b whined the whole time about having to stand up and how the show started 30 minutes late and how it was almost his bedtime and how the music was so loud.  i swear, he is like a 70 year old woman sometimes.)

those wailers sure know how to wail.

last year the wailers (as in bob marley and the wailers minus bob marley because he's dead) came to visit.  and i was very excited because this was the closest i'd ever get to seeing bob marley in concert.  i guess the same logic would apply to going to a paul mccartney show, but i don't think i could ever see paul mccartney in concert because:



so my friend, miss owl, came with me to the show which started at 9:00 pm on a school night and she got real tired and wanted to go home at 11:00, which is the exact time the wailers came out to play.  and i was so sad i didn't get to see them (and also pretty angry, if we're being honest here.)

BUT THEN!

they came again this year!  and i asked my bestie, shelley, to go this time and i gave her plenty of warning that it was a late show on a school night and that she should drive herself if she planned to leave at 11:00 because there was nothing that would keep me from the wailers this time around.  she was all in.  and then, a few days before the show, she canceled...and was surprised when i said of COURSE i'm still going.  (she was also surprised that they were the wailers, not the whalers, which i think is just so funny.)

but look, if i'll sleep on the streets of milan in order to see cake, i think i can handle driving up to park city by myself to see the wailers.  i waited in line for over an hour, despite already having a ticket, but i wasn't really bothered too much because the guy right in front of me looked just like john of cake in his beard and trucker hat. so i talked to him, pretending he was john.  don't worry though, my misplaced giddiness was only on the inside.

the concert was so amazing. nothing beats hearing live the songs that speak to my soul.  sometimes i took my glasses off so i could fool myself into thinking the singer was bob himself.  then i got a headache so i put them back on.  the wailers played the entire legends album and i danced my heart out to every song (and by danced, i mean swayed, of course, because it's reggae).  i hung out at the bar so i would have a nice place to lean, because i'm lazy like that.  i must have been looking longingly at all the drinks people ordered because after a while the bartender gave me an overpriced bottle of water for free because she could tell i was "trying to be good."  ha ha!

and do you know what's the best part of going to a concert by yourself?  you don't have to worry if the others in your party are ready to go home or having a good time or if they are convinced you are a pot-smoking weirdo because you listen to reggae.  you just go and enjoy watching all the other pot-smoking weirdos to whom you feel strong kinship because bob marley's music is love.

shine

oh my gosh.  i came home to a package the other day after work.  A PACKAGE.  do you know what’s better than getting a package you ordered?  getting a package from a kind stranger full of fun things that you DIDN’T order, THAT’S WHAT!!!! my most loyal reader (and the only one i don’t actually know in real life) sent the nicest package ever.  

there was a lovely note and all kinds of BRIGHT YELLOW things.  

she said my blog brightens her day.  this made me feel really good until i remembered that, at the time, the last post i had published was about a dead pigeon, which isn't exactly day brightening material.  

and look!  real art!  signed by the artist! who is the exact person that sent the package!

under the first layer of yellow items was ANOTHER LAYER!!

and that layer included the best pen i've ever seen in my life:

i don't even want to use it because once i start using it, i know it will run out of ink very quickly and then i'll be sad.  however, i really want to be seen using this pen!  imagine the inevitable increase in my popularity!  it's a dilemma.

all the paper products came from this website:

house of shine

which is a place where you go to make other people happy, which, of course, will make you happier, too.  and i can tell you that it works because this cheery little package sure made my day.  thanks, cheryl!

easier than "running"

these days i work close to home: 5.4 miles away.  i was really happy to find this out because now i could finally get a bike to ride to and from work because i am an earth lover.  i have my very own bike mentor, jack, who i think is a hippy.  he gives me all sorts of tips about bikes and riding and he also gave me some seizure-inducing lights to attach to my bike, which i just now realized i haven't named yet.  maybe i'll call him alabama.  inspired by the movie on tv i'm watching right now: the help.  which takes place in mississippi but that doesn't sound as nice as alabama.  also, jack gave me kombucha once. and face cream.

anyway, i bought a used frankenstein bike named alabama. 

i was so excited to ride alabama to work every day.  i had visions of saving  the earth all by myself and enjoying the ducks along the trail and getting fit just by commuting and never having to set foot in golds gym again and being able to eat pizza every day.  i briefly considered getting rid of atticus, but that's stupid.  alabama isn't decked out enough to carry my giant jars of pepperoncini from costco.  and i am NOT riding him on the freeway to get to my parents' house.  i don't even dare turn left yet.

the first day was chilly so i wore a jacket.  but i discovered that the temperature on your hands when riding is about 20 degrees colder than the rest of the air.  my hands hurt so badly, i was near tears before i even got to the trail.  and i had to pedal really fast so i wasn't late which made me sweat like crazy which is really unpleasant anytime, but just so terrible when you're also freezing.  i showed up at work a mess (and 15 minutes late).  my shirt was wet.  my hair was matted down.  my nose was running.  i was red from cold.  it was miserable.  plus also i had to get up earlier to get to work on time.

i HATE being sweaty all day at work.  even after it dries i'm kind of clammy cold...and stinky.  and my hair is like a mop (even more moppier than usual).  but i really feel strongly about the earth so i'm going to continue.  right now i can only talk myself into riding about once a week because i have to mentally prepare myself to sit in my own filth all day. 

this saturday shelley and i are riding our bikes from one end of the trail to the other-45 miles.  we are naively enthusiastic about this because we don't have any real idea what 45 miles is like on a tiny bike seat.  we're both real excited about the picnic we have planned, but probably the whole thing is going to be awful.  so if you see us along the road, holding our behinds, we'd love a ride home.  at the very least, please don't hit us.

psa: pigeons won't fly away

on friday, i ran over a pigeon on the way to work. ran over.  i was driving along, obeying most traffic laws and i saw two pigeons just walking around in my lane.  i didn't swerve to avoid them, because in my 18 years of driving (wait, 18? that can't be right...IT IS.  oh brother.) i've never NOT seen a bird fly away quickly when there is a 2-ton vehicle barreling toward them.  as i got closer, one of the pigeons flew away, like he's SUPPOSED TO, but the other pigeon just kept walking around, enjoying the view.  i figured he was involved in some sort of dare or game of chicken and at last minute he'd fly away.  i kept thinking this right up until thu-thump.

NO.

sure enough, i looked in the rearview mirror to see feathers flying all over the place. enough to fill a pillow.  i felt terrible.

then my co-workers, kade and andrea, and i walked outside to look at it and its skull was crushed and some guts were out.  and i felt even more terrible than i did before.  i've never taken a life before, unless you count all the bugs smeared on my windshield.  kade kept trying to tell me that pigeons are rat-birds and that i was doing the world a great favor by eliminating one.  that didn't help.  it did, however, help when andrea said it probably didn't fly away because it had a broken wing and i probably just put it out of its misery.  this made me feel a lot better.  and then, for lunch, we ordered jimmy john's sandwiches and played friends scene it? (which i dominated because i'm a loser)  so i forgot all about the pigeon.  until kade texted me later that night with these words: bird killer.

the point is this: don't assume too much from pigeons.  they won't fly away and you will hit them with your death machine.

russia on my mind

i use google earth a lot for my job and i was bored the other day, so i decided to check out russia on google earth.  this actually had nothing to do with the olympics and everything to do with me wanting to see if i could find my apartment in ufa and spy on its current tenants.  it took me a few minutes, but OH MY GOSH!! THERE IT IS!!!  i got so happy!!! and nostalgic!!! and...emotional.  which was really embarrassing because i forgot that i was sitting at my desk at work and not walking down the tree-lined sidewalk of prospekt oktyabrya.  and then i worked real hard to find my houses in chelyabinsk and perm, too.  it took a few days, but i did it.  there was a great sense of accomplishment afterwards, which is kind of sad, don't you think? 

and then the olympics started up and i was glad about that because it's nice to break up the law and order once in a while.  i love the opening ceremonies most of all when all the athletes (i think some of these events really stretch the meaning of the word "athlete"...curling?  really?) walk around waving.  my favorites are the countries that have sent only one or two delegates.  and then russia comes out with their 200+ delegates and my heart swells with pride.  why?  i do not have one drop of russian blood and i do not like cabbage; there is nothing russian about me. 

i watched the interview with the russian hockey coach and his interpreter with tears in my eyes.  and of course, i had to laugh because that guy did not crack a smile even once, no matter how cheerful and jocular the interviewer was.

and then that evgeni plushenko performed his flawless routine and spoke very highly of himself afterward.  not bragging, not boasting, just stating the facts-in typical russian manner.

when pictures of conditions in sochi made their way around the internets, a flood of memories washed over me.  more than once i had to dodge an open manhole.  rust colored water was a familiar sight.  we always threw our used toilet paper in the trash.  

also, i do not love when the united states and russia verse each other in any event, because although i always cheer for my homeland, it feels like i'm picking favorites between my two beloved and wildly different children.  

i love the olympics...and not really because i care about the sports or the competition so much.  i haven't been in russia for nearly 12 years and i will probably never return, so the olympics give me a chance to catch a little glimpse of russia again.  i love seeing those russian delegates out there representing the land they love even more than i do.  i love watching and listening, hoping to hear a snippet of the language that, despite sounding so severe and guttural, is like music to my ears.  i love being reminded how much the russian people, with their seemingly cold exterior, wormed their way into my heart forever.  after living among and with them for a year and a half, these people are my people.  i am not like them, but i understand them.  and i love them.

life in russia is so very different than life in the united states and for this average american, it was far more difficult, both physically and emotionally. but strength was found through trials and beauty and joy were found in the most unlikely of places and, to me, russia will always be a sacred place.

god bless america, but also god, please bless russia.

                                                                                             photo by jessica wood