a couple of miscalculations

1. we went to the roller derby game on friday night expecting to sit in some high school bleachers with 50 other people to cheer on a bunch of girls on roller skates beating the snot out of each other. what we actually got were thousands of people (who knew roller derby had such a following?) and a bunch of referees dressed up in really bizarre outfits, like gold leotards and crocodile-hunter-meets-chip-n-dale type attire. we didn’t even once suspect that there were actually rules to the game. lots of rules. and lots of refs to shout out all the rules all the time. it was a mad house. for the first five minutes, meghan and i just stared blankly at the rink trying to figure out what in the world was going on and what ref should we listen to. it was like the blank stare you get when someone asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to so you try to think up an answer really quickly but it just comes out a blank stare. in our defense, who knew there was anything to read up on? i just assumed any article about roller derby would say “game where girls on roller skates beat the snot out of each other”

2. when you’re planning a trip out to your friend’s wedding, don’t assume that it’s taking place in the same town he’s from. we booked our plane, hotel and car for boise. only to later pull out the invite and notice that the wedding celebration was actually happening in twin falls. luckily we had good, “positive” music for our two-hour-each-way drive

3. of course, the first thing you do when you get into any rental car is scour the radio for good stations. we found one that rocked! we were so impressed with idaho for being so hip with their music. we hadn’t heard any of these songs before and they were all so catchy. a day later, we both started listening to the words and suddenly realized that we had been listening to christian rock for the entire weekend. no wonder we were feeling so uplifted! i guess we should have gotten the hint when the station’s tagline is “positive alternative music”

4. i always assumed boise was a pretty conservative place. until we saw this yard setup. still having nightmares about that one

5. i also always assumed that i would never see such an excited library in my entire life

6. meghan and i went to a high school play while in boise because…. well why wouldn’t we? the point is – i never thought i’d hear this line in a high school play: “one day I’ll be so famous, school buses full of japanese children will all be wearing my style”

this is my new favorite picture

we had big birthday shoes to fill:

left foot

right foot

here’s how we set out to accomplish such a lofty goal:

1. rockies tickets right behind home plate thanks to bill. they had up a “no autographs” sign on the dugout, but i’m guessing after we were there, they’ll start putting up a “no screaming, ‘hey domagata, can we have a ball? it’s her birthday!’ over and over again so that other people in the crowd are even begging the ball boy to give the screamers a ball just so they’ll shut up.” they’ll also probably implement the rule “no ball boys will have their names printed on their jerseys from here on out.” the good part is, domagata gave meghan a ball. the bad part is, saxon immediately dropped it down the bleachers. the other good part is, the people in front of us gave it back because, as they were well aware, it was meghan’s birthday.

2. a birthday scavenger hunt which took meghan around the apartment complex finding lots of goodies like this charm of a t-shirt (it says - i listen to bands that don't even exist yet). it's perfect for meghan because she gets so mad when "her" bands get radio time. plus one time we were playing balderdash and her defintion of a word was "a monkey that hasn't been discovered yet" ha ha - brilliant. we had to explain to her that maybe something that wasn't discovered wouldn't have a name...but you never know with scientists these days.

and, even though they can’t be used till later, roller derby tickets for friday and death cab for cutie tickets for may (what’s a good birthday if it doesn’t extend into the next month?)

3. breakfast at sams no. 3. meghan’s addicted to green chili. and breakfast burritos. and this place boasted both. and man did it deliver.

4. birthday gift from bill and reese. reese (noun): an 8-year-old kid sitting out in a park near the boulder farmers market selling his artwork for $5… it’s always depressing when 8-year olds paint better dragons than you can. then again, i’ve never tried painting a dragon – so neener neener - you haven’t won yet, reese!

5. dinner at watercourse. shameless plug: a tasty tasty veggie restaurant. once, bill and i came here and convinced a good part of the restaurant patrons to text message meghan just for fun. and they did it – that’s what kind of people you find at watercourse. you also find a completely vegan bakery (sounds gross, but isn’t). this came in handy because meghan is allergic to dairy. so she got to choose from an entire case of desserts – with no limitations. she almost started crying. and who doesn’t want to cry such tears of joy on their birthday of all days? so it was a good thing

6. then we came home and picked up the five pounds of confetti i threw all over the house

welcome to 24, meghan

utlizing resources

when you’re dating a guy with a 105 pound golden retriever and you have a 10 pound morkie, you have to sometimes get creative with standard chores. here are some tips

walks

attach the leash of the smaller dog to the leash of the bigger dog. that way, you're only actually walking one dog and the big dog walks the small dog. the only time this might not work is if your small dog is spastic (mine is) and runs around like a mad man (mine does), tangling up the larger, gentler dog to a point where if the big dog takes another step, he’ll for sure face dive – which i bet the little dog is secretly going for because the big dog has been bullying him around by taking his bone from him all weekend, so take that big dog. otherwise, i’m sure this works like a gem

baths
small dogs get bathed in a bathtub. big dogs don’t fit. we stopped first at a dog wash where you scrub your own dog down, but something about it just wasn’t random enough for us. so we grabbed milo’s shampoo and took teddy to the local manual carwash (don’t worry – we kept it at low pressure). i’d even go so far as to say that teddy loved it. like a massage! (just look at him standing so proudly like he owns the world because he gets a carwash) then, of course, we had to polish up the mini because it was a little bit dusty (you know how week old cars get). windows down, doors open, radio blaring to Oklahoma's “oh what a beautiful morning.” we’re hardcore like that.

i must be in marketing

so i bought this pomegranate white tea that was pretty tasty. but then i noticed this little claim on the back of the label:

1/8 the caffeine of a cup of coffee. it blew me away. not because i don’t believe it (or really care), but because the picture just looked inaccurate. i assume it’s a picture of the little pomegranate white tea sitting inside a coffee, at an eighth of the size. it sort of ruined my drinking experience. of course, i wanted to give it a fair chance and maybe it’s just an optical illusion so i wanted to get down to the bottom of this.

so i called on the help of my good friend photoshop. sure enough, 13 – count them 13 – mugs of white pomegranate tea fit inside one mug of coffee. they’re trying to fool us all.

sometimes snow just doesn't belong

ask me how excited i am that it’s april 9 and there’s a forecast for seven freakin’ inches of snow tomorrow. seven freakin’ inches. seven. no amount of therapy can make me less depressed about this. but this helps a little bit

i decided to finally give in to winter though (after it was already technically spring) and go skiing for the first time this season. (let’s be honest – if it wasn’t for my skiing freak boyfriend, i would still be standing strong against winter.) two weekends in a row even! we went up to beaver creek one weekend and steamboat the next weekend. and i didn’t even fall off the chairlift like bill suspected (and, for the sake of the story, secretly hoped) i would.

both weekends were great – full of things like skiing (for those readers who just tuned in), snowshoeing, sledding down hills with showshoes on, slaughtering everyone at (and quickly becoming obsessed with) guitar hero, riding up mountains on sleighs, eating dinner on mountains, riding down mountains on sleighs, buying $30 worth of candy from the local confectionary (or candery as i like to call them)… you know, stuff like that.

i'm not sure why these pictures turned out like this, but they look kind-of blair witch-esque, don't you think?

my two bits of advice:

1. just because a swiss sandwich shop sounds like a good idea, you probably still shouldn’t eat there. you might end up with ¾ of dry uneaten zopf and a stomach full of candy from the candery as a substitute lunch.

2. if you’re ever driving in the colorado mountains, be sure to stop at kremmling. i always figured i liked kremmling because it kind-of sounds like gremlin and who didn’t like that movie? but kremmling, colorado quickly became my favorite place because of this little gem of a billboard.

road legal gokarts

i would like to take the opportunity to thank frank stephenson for inventing the mini. and bmw for creating the new mini. and my boy for getting one to satisfy his racecar (does anyone else think it’s funny that the word “palindrome” is not actually a palindrome) need. this person, group and situation has made my week.


bill’s new car is hotttt! and you can’t not go fast in it. it’s just not possible. maybe that’s why he got pulled over for speeding already…right when the speedometer hit 100 miles. (it was like a little celebration of the hundred mile mark. only a bad celebration). only he didn't even get a ticket. what the?? i never get out of tickets and i'm a freakin girl - what gives


you know it's a good car when you're cooking dinner and everytime you're waiting for water to start boiling or something to cool down, you take a 5 minute drive.


i like driving it (a lot). i feel like a british racer mixed with uma thurman. i need some goggles and a scarf


it needs a name. any suggestions??

dream the night away

i had a dream last night that i put milo on a tahini-only diet. i don't know why and i don't remember anything else, except i do remember that i kept feeling for him on my bed (in real life) to make sure the tahini wasn't upsetting his stomach.

meghan had a dream that she was frasier in an episode of frasier. she doesn't remember the script, but she woke up laughing out loud it was so funny. all she remembers is "daphne was there."

must have been the banana bread we ate at midnight last night.

an ode to hot water

so maybe you live in an apartment complex where i’m pretty sure there’s some sort of rule about not drilling holes into your cabinets or cutting pipes under your sink or installing foreign objects into your kitchen (i don’t really know this…i’ve never actually looked at our contract…i can only assume).

and maybe you have a neighbor below you who hates you and bangs on her ceiling anytime you’re hanging a picture, practicing your flute, watching a movie or breathing. and maybe she bangs on the ceiling even if it’s 4 in the afternoon. and maybe you shouldn’t push your luck by drilling holes in your cabinets at 11 at night.

and maybe your parents are in town and they’ve just met your boyfriend over a nice dinner and they’re impressed with how accomplished and classy he is.

but then you remember that you want hot water. instant hot water. and your boyfriend brought his tools.

an hour later, a couple bangs on the floor from the neighbor, a lot of broken contract clauses, some clipped sink pipes and a few shots of some nice plumber’s crack for the parents, we enjoyed the best insta tea party ever!

deposit schmeposit – we have instant hot water.