Christmas part 2.5

one time last year i was at washington square mall's nordstrom and i saw a pair of shoes i thought were cute. not cute enough to buy...but at the time, definitely caught my eye...

one time about a month ago i was at the post office by my work and was mailing a package...i went during lunch time so the line was 47 people deep and swilry around those velvet ropes held up by poles...you know so lines swivle back and forth...the woman behind me was dressed like she was born in rei lives on granola and drinks only water from a dark grey nalgine connected to her tiva sandles by one of those metal carabiners...the man in front of me lives somewhere between hawthorne and belmont, listens to music from music millennium, drinks his coffee at places where he can listen to poetry being read and apparently buys his shoes from brass plum.

the woman behind me - "those are great shoes, where did you find them?"
guy in front of me - "well i should say europe, but to be honest they are women's shoes from nordstroms."
me - (in my head) "haha those are those shoes that i once almost bought."

one time last weekend i was at nordstroms doing christmas shopping and i saw the shoes...so apparently it was time to blog about it.

christmas part 2

the singing christmas tree...when my grandma asked me if i would like to be her chaperon for the nursing home outing to the singing christmas tree...i mean my initial reaction was "eeek...really? a stuff tree with voices coming from it? with a bunch of old people?---SURE grandma i would LOVE to go!" haha...no really...nasty right? but of course i said yes and to be honest i was looking forward to it, mostly cause i knew it would be a hilarious adventure...oh and it was nothing short of just that.

i got to the nursing home at 5:15 on the night of the show (we were all riding together in a "short" bus -- my mom went as well...) we got all the old ladies and gentleman loaded into the bus and buckled up and shortly after the laughs began and didn't cease till unloading the bus a full 6 hours later.

story 1:
my grandma was sitting next to another cute little old lady right behind me...
grandma - "wow these lights are gorgeous!"
(referring to the lights on the grounds of her nursing home...she must not get outside to see them much)
old lady next to her - "oh yes they are beautiful...much better than last year's"
grandma - "oh have you been here long?"
old lady next to her - "here at this facility?"
grandma - "yes"
old lady next to her - "i have no idea."

story 2:
we had just parked in front of the keller and started to unload the troops...the old man sitting across the isle from me apparently missed the memo on the activity we were doing as he proceeded to inquire to stephanie (the nursing home activities coordinator) about what he was doing parked in front of a building...
old man - "what are we doing?"
stephanie - "we are going to see the singing christmas tree."
old man - "yeah but where are we?"
stephanie - "at the keller auditorium down town."
old man - "i thought this was a trip to see lights?"
stephanie - "no, remember this is a show about the singing christmas tree. remember? we have been talking about it for a few weeks."
old man - "i don't want to see no show about a singing tree..."
stephanie - "well i'm sorry but that is what we are doing, if you would like we can take you back."
old man - "i'm only going to look at lights. not see a show."
stephanie - "ok well stay on the bus then and we will take you back if that's what you want."

my mom - (whispering) "you would think he would know what he was spending $40 bucks on..."

story 3:
after situating all the wheel chairs in the handicap section of the theatre my mom and i set off for some snacks...and by snacks i mean...
mom - "wanna go get a cocktail now?"
me - "duh"

to the lady behind the counter
mom - "do you have alcohol?"
lady - "no"
mom - "oh...well hmmm...i guess i will take a large diet coke"
me - "and i will have some skittles and a cookie (for my grandma)"
lady - "ok that will be 7.75"
lady - "im going to not put ice in here so you can chug it. cause you can't chug pop with ice."
mom - "um well i would like ice, why do i have to chug it?"
lady - "well the show starts in three minutes and you can't take open container drinks in there, only ones with lids"
mom - "oh well ...um...ok?"
we exchanged 'wtf' looks...and then decided to sneak our snacks in anyway...the nazi usher girl saw and said we needed to finish our drink and snacks out in the hall...
mom - "oh hell no we are giving that cooking to your grandma...put it in your shirt."
me - "mom..."
mom - "DO IT"
me - "ok"

walked into the theatre
me - "here grandma be stealth about this..."
grandma - "oh DELICIOUS! for me!?"
me - "SHHHHHH!"
grandma - "oh ok..."
me - opened up my skittles and spilled them everywhere...

nazi usher glared as i picked each of them up.

me and grandma.


it was an adventure...but needless to say the actual performance was totally better than i had anticipated...apparently the singing christmas tree is the largest choir in oregon and they were fantastic. it was a total blast believe it or not.

christmas part 1

really?! it is already december 14th? what?! ok i'm pretty sure last time i checked it was thanksgiving...and now christmas eve is in 10 days? ha. i haven't even gotten christmas presents yet...wow and normally i am like christmas queen of celebration...apparently this year i just can't quite get it together...i will. i am going to start getting it together...

i mean here is the thing, christmas really shouldn't be catching me off guard i have seen snow, decorated gingerbread houses, seen the singing christmas tree, baked christmas goodies, worn an ugly sweater, bought a santa hat, helped my dad put up lights, decorated a chirstmas tree, and listened to non-stop christmas music on 103.1 since the day it started playing on the radio...no really it shouldn't be catching me off guard ha...but i guess it is...

and now i guess i will finally update the world on my adventures of christmas thus far...

we will start with snow...
i have seen snow flakes three different times already! yeah that is exciting i think! one time was for reals exciting...

this is joseph (one of the four from the family i nanny...in case you don't know...he is my curious/experimental/adventurous boy...the one that watches myth busters and decides to try all the activities like sponge bob dvds in the microwave, using a butter knife and meat ponder to pry open 2a batteries - mind you he wears oven mits to protect his hands...but yes he is busy...always) he is making an over sized snowball on the deck.

anyway it was a good way to kick off the festivities of christmas...the festivities i have managed to be caught off gear by...but it definitely set the mood for the activity we were doing inside...gingerbread house decorating! every year i bring a house for meggie and i do decorate but always it ends up being her brothers who decide the activity is actually fun to do despite the initial comments of 'decorating is for girls not boys...' (the boys always end up taking over and decorating the house. cause surprise surprise its actually a fun activity regardless of being a boy or girl) here is our finished product..


it's official i guess...it's christmas time!

a.m.a.z.i.n.g.

amazing.

that is the only way to describe so you think you can dance tour. seriously, the best of my life! so so so good! i went last night. i went with jill, sister, morgan, and katie mitchel. it was incredible.

every single dance i had hoped to see was danced in front of me, live! humming bird/flower, sweetdreams table dance, lacey and dannys samba (or whatever...that was pretty much awesome fabulous), and holy crap my very most favorite mia's "dancing" routine with kameron and lacey, gosh everything i could name every single dance and say that i loved it cause everything was just that fantastic! it was as awesome if not more awesome than i had anticipated. the only thing that would have made it more awesome was if the sweatshirts were not more dollars than my ticket...but i'll live. mostly i just kept thinking it sucks that i can't re watch the dances today on you tube...i decided that next year they should give dvds of the show out to every ticket holder so you can rewatch it everyday, because i am currently having with drawls.

with drawls to the point of as soon as i hit "publish post" button i will probably go look up where their next city is...calculate mileage and ticket pricing and see if it is doable to follow them and watch it again tonight.

too many things to be thankful for this thanksgiving...

normally my blogs are somewhat light hearted and humorous....

today's blog is not a normal blog....mostly because my saturday morning was not a normal morning....

....i'm at a lack of words because it seems like every word i think about writing doesn't quite do justice to my experience....thankful....shocked....surreal....lucky....blessed....terrifying....scared...nervous...and the phrase i continually go back to..."oh my god...oh my god? oh my god...did that really just happen? oh...my...god..."

saturday morning i got in a car accident....

i have never been in a car accident before...not even a fender bender....never...nothing...

i have seen car accidents before...i have seen a really bad one...about 3 years ago, on I-5 near seattle...i saw a little black car come across three lanes of traffic, clip the front end of a suburban and watched the suburban flip in mid air and land upside down...it was the scariest thing i had ever seen....

saturday morning at 5:30 am on my way to pick up 6 of my lake oswego dancers to take them to a competition (thank god it happened before they were in my car...oh the list of thankful things....its infinite..). saturday morning i was someone's scariest thing they had ever seen.

this was me...



i know right??...can you believe it? i flipped my parents tahoe....on I-205 south. it was as horrible as it looks...in fact at this point (taken with my camera phone...my camera...i don't know what happened to it, somewhere lost....) , at this point the car had already been drug by the tow truck out of the middle of the fast lane....so it actually looked worse believe it or not from its original view...that or the shock of "holy shit i just flipped this tahoe...." and looking at it for the first time seemed worse...i'm not sure...

here is the story.
i was driving at 5:30am on I-205 south to lake oswego. i was in the fast lane...it was raining...and dark...a pick-up sped past me in the middle lane and when they did they hit a huge lake size body of water and splashed water up into my windshield...i couldn't see anything...i got really scared because i knew the free way was turning up ahead and i was afraid i was going to hit the medium and flip or something crazy...so i looked in my review mirror (mind you this is all in about 2 seconds...that felt like an hour -when you can't see anything going 60 down the freeway its a little nerve racking...) no cars coming so i switched the center lane thinking if i just hold on the water will go away and i can see again....unfortunately i didn't think fast enough to anticipate hitting the lake myself...so that's exactly what i did i hit the water and started to hydroplane...the back end of my truck started spinning...out of control....and then my whole truck started to spin and i was then facing backwards on the freeway...as i continued to spin the back end of the truck came around and hit the medium and caused my truck to flip. landing on the roof...i don't exactly remember how i got out of my seat belt the next thing i remembered was crawling out of the broken windows onto the road, i stood up, it was dark and pouring rain...i was in the middle of the freeway...i remember looking at the truck looking down at my legs and looking back at the truck, i put my hands on my head and thought "holy shit...oh my god"

there were a couple cars pulled over and a guy in a pickup truck (maybe the age of my dad) yelled over and asked if i was ok, and said "yeah i'm ok i think..." he asked again if i was sure, and i said "i think so..." and he asked if i needed help, and i said, "yeah i think i need some help..." and he got out of his truck and came over...i felt in my pockets for my phone and couldn't find it (i know right? my phone, ha please...didn't seem important....but the only thing i could thing about was i need to talk to my mom) so i reached my hand back in the upside down car...dug around a little and saw my phone! grabbed it and the guy led me across the street. i called my parents, he called the cops for me and the rest was kind of a big blur....

soooo many things...soo many could have happened...and i walked away...i walked away with nothing but a sore neck and bruised up shins...that's it! sooo many things...i could drive myself crazy with "what-ifs" but mostly im too scared to even think about them...it feels like a dream...like it didn't even happen. though when i look into the garage and notice no tahoe i know it did....i try not to think about it because honestly, it was the most horrifying thing i have ever done...the noises and visions...when they replay in my head its like a movie...its like when you are watch a part of a movie when it flashes on a person...to a truck...the headlights...back to the person...those scary flashes are what it is like in my head....and it makes the hairs on the back of neck stand up and my gut twist up....nauseating....

thankful....thanksgiving...couldn't come at a better time...

in the future, i think i'll do two things, one) not driving on the freeway in pouring rain anytime soon... two) leave crazy car flipping to the nascar racers....

nasty

ok. i don't get it. cars that are skank driving down the road...seriously? because number one, unsafe, number two gross, and number three...well i dont know but there should be a rule about driving a black smoke making, bullet hole filled, ceiling fabric dangling, side mirror hanging, bumper missing, hub cab jiggling, orange spray painted mercedes on the freeway.. it is not safe. also its not safe to be driving with science goggles on your face...if your gonna drive that shit...at least dont block your eyes so you can see what's going on...probably it would be best to be alert to all things around you when driving such crap.

mostly heather and i were driving back from a lunch meeting yesterday and were afraid for our lives if we were to pass this dump in case the hub cap were to come flying off and hit the side of the car...the back bumper were to come soaring into the windshield...that or the driver whipping out his riffle and shoot us...like he accidentally shot his car 47 times...

GROSS.

take a look...cause probably its not the best picture, but you will get the idea...

today is monday

to kick off the start of a week that i am anticipating to be busy busy at work today's first project of the day was to pick up the bread from franz bakery we would be using in our media mailers to boise, id.

me-"oh sure picking up the bread monday morning is no big deal at all!"
reality...47 crates of bread in my yellow groovy bug was kind of a big deal. see these are the breads...



there were lots! even if it doesn't look like lots...cramming all of the the awkwardly, over sized crates into my car...took some serious organizational power...needless to say they all made it in...and though it was a little weird feeling to be driving down the street with a crate of donuts on my dashboard, it was better than buying 28 crunchy peanut butter and 15 strawberry jellies from the hollywood fred meyer like friday's adventure...that was a little questionable, and i'm sure the checker-outer girl thought the same thing.

however i did find this book hanging on the fence while unloading the bread outside my office...

the difference a week can make...

last tuesday=death.

today's tuesday=dream.

so same day of the week only this tuesday my work day has been awesome and amazing. today is officially an awesome day! (actually its been a good week so far...hopefully it will stay great! there is no reason it shouldn't so im pretty sure it will...) i got a full and awesome nights sleep last night (none of that 4am rise and shine greatness that was experienced last week) i got to work did a couple small tasks until heather asked...
h-"what are your plans today?"
k-"um...well...working?"
h-"well how would you feel if we went on a mission?"
k-"i think i love missions..."
h-"well its a secret one, cause i don't want to hear about it from sean...but i think it should be a personal day...how about i treat us to manis/pedis?"
k-"um YEAH! ok! i love that...secret missions are my favorite!"

so heather and i left the office at 11:15 went and got manis/pedis from my new favorite nail place, because it was awesome and they gave awesome messages and i don't know it's name other wise i would share but im going back so when i do i will write about it's name. it was great.

then we went to lunch...also great, and a cute little deli/bistro place right near the office! we sat outside in the 70 degree weather (that has amazingly brightened portland this week)

today = awesome.

and i have cute toes. every tuesday should be secret mission day.

one of my best days ever, part 2.

i'm hella tired! i didn't realize how tired until my mind's near brush with death.

i know that getting up at 4 am means that my brain is sleeping...it will not be firing normal today, and i will not be on the "a-game" team.

and this was proved to me about a half hour ago when this happened:
it began when i got back to the office this morning at 9:30. there was no parking in our spaces so i parked in one of staccatos (the company we share our floor with) then about a half hour ago i got an email that said a towing company was coming. so crap-balls-crap i had to haul my lazy tired ass into the downpour to move my car...i moved it two blocks away in a one hour spot...and though this wasn't really that huge of an issue it felt like one because today is one of those days where i'm just tired, and grumpy and everything is 14 times worse than it should be...
when i came back in from moving my car i had two new emails...the first one from sarah and the subject line read
"emergency plan"
i opened the email and read
"The entire country is under a terrorist attack. Many buildings have been shut down in downtown Portland as part of this exercise. R/West is currently working on its official emergency plan but in the event of a bomb blowing up one of the bridges you should NOT leave the building or you could face radioactive contamination. We would seal the building by preventing anyone from going in and out and shut off the air. We would wait further direction from the city in this type of event. In the event of an earthquake you would need to get under your desk or a doorway and stay there until tremors subside. Do not leave the building as we need to account for you and make sure you are not under a heap of rubble. "

ok so i almost shit pants and thought.
1. FUCK I JUST WAS OUTSIDE!
2. SHIT HOW AM I GOING TO GET HOME!
3. SAD! I DONT WANT TO DIE, HERE, LIKE THIS, TIRED, IN THIS STUPID OFFICE!
4. i'm going to read john's followup email...

i went to my second email from john the subject read
"RE: emergency plan"
the email read,
"I'll go to the roof and have a smoke.... and inhale deeeeeeeply. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Plutonium. It's not just for breakfast anymore."

and then i was like.
1. huh? this isn't funny john...i know you were up at 4 also today, but what? are you kidding? that's not funny! what about your son?
2. is this for reals?
3. i'm going back to re-read that email...

and then i saw the word that my tired ass brain didn't comprehend...
"The entire country is under a SIMULATED terrorist attack."

and i thought
THANK GOD!

obviously, i'm tired...and obviously its a good thing im done in a half hour.

one of my best days ever, part 1.

it is 10:39 currently...in the morning...though my body is feeling more like it is night time...mixed with being hit by a bus..this morning bridgeport brewery was on tv...not just any tv...but good day oregon, on fox. the whole segment...the whole segment that starts at 5:30 a.m. BOMB!!!! word bitches and hoes...that's right! i was kickin it with the kegs at 5:30 this morning. so because i have been up since 4 i am therefore tired.

but here are some things i needed to write about. first, there are ALOT of cars on the road at five am, who knew? and what are people doing out that early anyway!? seriously.. i had to convince myself i wasn't on my way to europe, or mexico, or some other trip because i think the only time i am ever up that early is if i have to catch a plane to some place far...so i kept feeling like i was going to the airport. second, i have developed a new love and passion for coffee...i never used to drink coffee but since i started working, i started drinking it, and now i love it because without it i would have not been in a good way AT ALL! trust me i am having issues enough staying on top of (i will blog about the experience proving my tiredness in a minute), and im already on my second latte. third, this machine

used for measuring oxygen in beer bottles costs $11,000. and i learned that during the segment we did in the test lab.

mostly it was a good experience, because i got to share in some serious bonding over the sunrise with heather, john, and some awesome bridgeport employees.

also i get off in 45 minutes. and that's the best news all day (except i go to the crotch doctor and that means this day definitely qualifies as one of my best days ever.)