WTF?

Story #1

I'm riding my bike along the country road leading to my house after a couple hour ride, anxious for a shower and starving for some food, when I notice a guy pointing a rifle in my direction. I slammed on my brakes, almost catapulting myself over the handlebars. I don't recall exactly what I yelled (and it probably couldn't be printed here anyhow), but it really doesn't matter. Isn't there some sort of law about guns that makes this whole situation illegal???

Story #2

I was on my way out of a store after purchasing dog food when I saw a sight that is still disturbing me. I had turned around towards the cashier that was behind me as that was the way towards my car. The cashier was talking to this overweight guy and gal. The girl was dressed in a denim miniskirt, a tank top, and flip flops. As soon as I turned around, this girl propped her leg up onto the counter, showing my forever sorry eyes and the whole world her crotch. Classy...

Who Needs Sleep?

Ah, brings fond memories of the Barenaked Ladies and the song by the same title. It seems appropriate for me in the past couple of days. Not because I couldn't sleep but because there was just way too much to do.

It all started on Friday. After a normal day of work, and a normal Friday evening, we went to the Harry Potter release party. Definitely a phenomenon all it's own. People were dressed up as the characters, there were raffles, contests, and games, they gave away Gryffindor keychains, and we even had a countdown to 12:01 when the books were sold. I was number 541 in line and got my book just before 1 am. Back home to read the book until 7am when the book had to be put down for my return to work, a busy day of all evaluations.

I struggled to stay awake at the end of the day while documenting and got home in one piece with the idea that I would eat and go to bed. I made some food, sat down to eat it, and promptly opened up the book, which I couldn't put down. After 42 hours of being up, I finally went to bed out of utter exhaustion and with the realization that I had a bike race the next day.

Up to early again in the morning, we were off to bike race to find there were only 5 girls. It was a very low key race, with the more experienced girls teaching the beginners cornering and drafting before it broke apart about halfway through the race. The spectators were cool, cheering us around the course, and flashing us as well. (One of the racers yelled "What are we going to see next?" as the guys had raised their shirts.) I was tired, stayed with the girls until it broke apart, and never caught up with them again. Made it home after a while, and slept hard, only to wake up and continue reading Harry Potter until 1 or 2 am before succumbing to sheer exhaustion again.

Thank goodness I had today off. I finished Harry Potter around 11 this morning. I think she ended things perfectly, and that's all I'm saying in case others haven't finished yet. Slept, ate, spun out my legs a bit, and finally made it to the truck pull! I'm posting pictures for your viewing pleasure.

My friend driving his truck, Force Fed, vibrating every cell in my body as he powered past me.


A cool shot of one of my friend's favorite trucks called the Corn Burner.

Thanks for reading.

In Review

Wedding Crashers
- Went to a wedding with a friend. Only remotely knew the people and felt like I was crashing the wedding. Memorable quotes from the evening... "Falling in love is like peeing your pants. Everyone sees you do it, but only you can feel it." "Welcome to the Midwest, the only place corn is considered a vegetable. Everywhere else it's a grain."

Ballet
- The local theater/auditorium is celebrating their anniversary in conjunction with the Joffrey Ballet. Together, they put together an absolutely fabulous performance, highlighting works from "The Nutcracker" (of course), "Billboards" (fantastic, I want to see the whole performance now), "Untitled" (a comedy), "Light Rain" (exotic), and "Allegro con Sabor" (hot, seductive performance). It was wonderful to see highlights from these different, full-length performances, and to see them outside on Hancher's front lawn. It was a fantastic production.

Harry Potter
- Went to the movie this past weekend. Liked it better than I have the last two, probably because it followed the book better. Looking forward to the 7th book, coming out this weekend. I'm almost done with reading all the prior books, so that I can be completely up to speed on all the details when I read the latest, and final, installment. I know, I know, I'm a fanatic...

Biking
- Been biking a bunch, which takes up a lot more time than I remember it doing. Get up in the morning to take Finn running, go to work, come home and ride, eat dinner, and go to bed. Makes me tired just thinking about it. Been on some interesting rides, including our 4th of July ride, where we came upon a tiny town's parade, complete with everyone and their lawn mowing tractor. There was even a kid hopping along on a pogo stick. And, the marshal offered to stop the parade to let us through. We just stayed and watched. It was fun. Welcome to small town Iowa. But, the first trial race is coming up this weekend in Davenport. Wish me luck.

Truck Pulls
- I've made two attempts to go to a friend's truck pulling competitions. I find them oddly captivating. Haven't made it to either one because of the weather. Last night, there was even a tornado in the town where the truck pull was supposed to be. We stopped before we got there, but the damage is just unreal. Will try again this coming week and see if the third time really is a charm.

The Sky

After opening the day with a beautiful run with Finn and the rising sun amongst the clouds, vibrant pinks and purples against the lightening blue sky, I closed the day with another walk with Finn during the sunset. This time, the sunset was illuminating massive thunderheads, turning their undersides brilliant hues of red, against the dramatic backdrop of the threatening, black clouds.

I was lost in thought, walking along the sidewalk, thinking this was something I'd missed while out West. They didn't have these dramatic skies, clouds, sunsets, and sunrises out there. Maybe the mountains obscured them. Maybe they just didn't get the right cloud formations. Whatever. Something was missing. I certainly hadn't seen the sky comparable to what I'd seen tonight while out West.

As I was walking along, with my dog, a cattle dog ran up to us, one that reminded me very much of one I had met while out West. A Bisbee dog. A guy's voice called over my shoulder, "It's alright, she's friendly." The two dogs played for a minute, and I stared at the sky. The guy said, "I just moved from California, and they don't have sunsets like this out there." I laughed. "I just moved back from Oregon, and I agree." "Maybe it's the mountains blocking it or something," he said.

Who knows? There's something special about the skies here, though.

Sleep

Sleep is such an odd requirement. Luckily, it's a requirement I'm typically very good at, but that doesn't mean it hasn't had its share of odd happenings.

Last night, I was exhausted. I've been working far more than I thought I would be as well as doing a lot outside of work. I told myself I was just going to have a relaxing evening on my lonesome, read, and hang out with my animals. I snuggled up with a book, and before I knew it, I must have been passed out cold. I slowly woke up, ever so groggily, with my dog sitting on my chest, pawing my face, and shaking.

I tried to push him off of me. No easy feat, as the dog weighs half of what I do, I'm still mostly asleep, struggling to breath with him on top of me, and it's slowly dawning on me that he's scared. He's not moving. What's going on? I'm slowly coming out of the fog, and trying to figure out why my dog is so scared.

Boom! Crack! Crack! Boom!

Ah, I got it. The windows were open, and someone was setting off firecrackers right outside of them. I don't think I would have woken up if I hadn't had a 60 lbs dog on my chest making my breathing a challenge.

I can't believe the firecrackers hadn't woken me up on their own. But, then, I guess I have a history of sleeping through some pretty bizarre happenings. The story I'm sharing today happened during the summer when I was taking 6 hours of summer school and working full-time second shift in the OR. It was a hectic summer, to put it mildly, and I didn't get much sleep.

This particular night I remember was stormy, and I do remember lightening forking across the sky when I got home to our tiny efficiency apartment and poured myself onto the air mattress that was my bed for the summer. I don't remember much after that until my roommate, a nursing student, walked into our place that morning sometime after 7am. She walked into the kitchen and said, "What the hell happened?"

Sometime during the night, the storms had crashed half of the tree outside through our kitchen window.

I slept right through it.

Name Calling and Props

So, one of my patients called me rude, disrespectful, and forceful...

Nice, eh? Since I consider myself to be none of these, I was highly ticked. He tried to pull a power trip on me. "I was a government employee for 20+ years. You wouldn't talk to me that way if you knew the information that I knew," he said.

First, there's no way I was speaking to him in any manner that justified what he said. Second of all, what do I care if he was a government employee for 20+ years? After being raised as a military brat, someone trying to pull rank because he was a government employee is just laughable. Enough said.

Moving on to the props...

Most of you know I just moved to an apartment with not much character. I've been struggling trying to embrace it and make it my own. It's been a challenge. A friend of mine helped me move in initially and saw the place when it was bare. She hasn't seen it since and just came over the other day. Her first words after she walked in..."It feels so homey!" She couldn't have given me a better compliment, as that's what I've been trying to do.

Props to me!